This is an album you can sink your teeth into. Though I’d never heard of Trombone Shorty until I saw him on Letterman’s show last week, I did a little snooping and found some stuff at YouTube and Wikipedia, and well, a lot of other places too. It seems he’s no new kid on the scene. He’s been around for a while, and is highly regarded in the music community.

The songs on Backawall go from bluesy to funky to rockin’ to jazzy, to a little Caribbean type of thing… He’s all over the spectrum in his influences and therefore his styles. He’s versatile. His band is tight and flows from instrumental to instrumental – some of which just happen to have a singer along for the ride. I mean a singer like Lenny Kravitz, Allen Toussaint or Marc Broussard.

The layers of music are complicated and sophisticated to my lightly trained ear. The horns and the drums and grinding guitars all play well with each other, but then they get an attitude and join up with tempo and get into a fight with the percussion, at least until Shorty takes over the whole thing with his trombone and everyone rocks together again.

Ultimately it’s a pretty overwhelming body of work on Backawall. I put the album on and went on reading the news, and well, Wikipedia and stuff. I didn’t really get into the news for more than a few seconds though because Backawall kept forcing me to pay attention to it. It’s been a long time since a band that’s new to me grabbed be by the ears and forced me to look it in the eye…

One highlight is the song “One Night Only (The March),” which happens to be the song the band did on Letterman. It’s afunky jazz sort of thing. Shorty sings with confidence and takes the spotlight with his smooth voice. His trombone though is powerful and strong, the other horns are perfectly complimentary, and it just has a great, funky feel that was perfect for late night tv.

“Quiet As Kept,” “Suburbia” and “Where Y’at?” are also a great instrumentals that capture your attention with their complete awesomeness. Perhaps the best song on the album is track 13, “The Cure.” It starts with a deep, low, grinding guitar and heavy drum beat, only to have a trombone explode from the murk and punch you in the gut with it’s starkness and raw power. It’s alone in front of the metal guitar and sledgehammer drums. It screams a few times, gets a little support from the horn section, then takes over again riding along with some saxophones, and trumpets and eventually fades with complete megattitude.

This is the kind of band that will blow away any audience, no matter the venue or crowd. They’re just that good. The blending of rock, funk, and jazz is so well done, the layering of instruments, times and tempos so awesome, you’ll be chair-dancing before you’re through song number one,  “Hurricane Season.” Is this a tribute to Katrina perhaps? I don’t know, but I’ll keep reading. Still, the song will slap you upside your head and make you tap your toes and get your head rolling around on your shoulders in time with the music. You’ll love this band right from the start.

Highly recommended. I give it five asplosions out of five.

The System Will Eat Itself

I was cleaning out my garage over the weekend because I feel like I’m on the verge of “hoarder of trash and other crap” and get this… I threw away 5 very large trash bags of trash, and took a car-load to Goodwill. I have several more sessions of this before it’s totally finished, but that’s not the point I wanted to make…

I found an old, flat box that held film when it was new, probably x-ray film, but I had stored a hundred or so drawings in it from when I was in art school about 20 years ago. I was good! The scan above is one item from that box. It’s dated January, 1991.

The earliest drawings were from 1986 and the most recent were 1995 or 1996.

I also found a bunch of photos that were tubular! I’ll post a bunch of that stuff over the next few weeks. It’s cool to see all those drawings after all these years because I’m trying to sketch and draw again, and it’s so difficult to focus for more than a few minutes. I totally believe the idea that the internet, email, chat, tweeting, facebooking and all the other stuff is changing how our brains work. I can’t spend more than 10 minutes on a drawing before my mind is wandering… I think Photoshop and all its features and filters and stuff is the “drawing” of the 21st century.

You can disagree if you want but I don’t – SQUIRREL!!!

…just how much I love listening to music. For such a simple pleasure I feel like I don’t listen enough, even though I spend far more time with my music than I do with a TV. Some of my newest loves are the more recent Jeff Beck stuff, more recent ZZ Top stuff that I’m going through a revival with, Toots & The Maytals, the OLD Jethro Tull stuff, King Crimson or anything by Robert Fripp, Hank Williams III, Gogol Bordello and Les Claypool (or Primus, or Oysterhead, or whatever he’s doing…).

That New Wave sound from the 80′s is making a comeback in my collection too. Wall Of Voodoo is playing Mexican Radio right now. I’m loving it.

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I have to admit that I underestimated the Spanish during the World Cup. I’ve seen them underachieve so many times over the years – much like the English – that I gave them no chance to reach the final in this years’ World Cup. They’ve proven me wrong thankfully! I like their style, but I still have a problem supporting them…

See, I think a coach has a very specific job in leading a team and Vicente Del Bosque has done a perfect job with this team. What a coach does is either A) come up with a new and revolutionary way to approach the game and teach the players what that system is, or B) just brings a bunch of individual players together and makes them a team. Some coaches succeed and some don’t. Maradonna succeeded in this World Cup in my opinion, though he didn’t take the team as far as he wanted. Del Bosque has done what so many before him have failed to do in getting the Spaniards to the final. He’s a great coach!

However, what I’ve said about the Dutch in games prior to the final are meaningless because, as much as I hate their system, I think they may be perfectly situated to stifle the Spanish. We’ll see what actually happens…

First, Spain got Germany off their game something fierce and I have to give them credit for that. I’ve never seen another team intimidate Germany so much. The Germans were completely freaked out by the Spanish attack. They played a defensive game that didn’t suit them. They sat back defending until they could make the occasional counter-attack which never worked. The Spanish kept the Germans on their guard until it was too late to change up the system and make a convincing challenge for the win.

The Dutch however play an ugly system of falling down and crying when a player or someone in the first row of seats sneezes… They behave like amateurs and then score incredible goals when the opposing team leasts expects it. I hate their game. It’s cheap, amateurish and they should be ashamed of themselves. Except for the fact they are in the finals… I stand corrected by what they’ve achieved… The goals they’ve scored are of such great skill and surprise when it happens that I’m blown away by it! Jerks!

Perhaps their system of falling down at the slightest touch and earning fouls is the perfect foil for the Spanish attack!

We’ll just have to see.

As for The Blues, I just bought R.L. Burnside’s album “I Wish I Was In Heaven Sitting Down,” and it’s freaking awesome. My introduction to R.L. Burnside was very recently and his later stuff is much more to my personal liking than his earlier stuff. Not that his earlier music is bad or anything, it’s just that my tastes are more along the lines of the freakin’ rock-ass blues with crazy cool screaming guitars and sangin’ and shit. R.L. Burnside fits that bill to a “t” for me. This album though is a bit different and shows so much soul I can’t describe it.

The emotion displayed even in light-hearted tunes like “My Eyes Keep Me In Trouble” is thick and heavy. He ditches the hard guitars in favor of acoustic guitars and harmonization, not that R.L. Burnside has a voice that’s going to make people go, “OH WOW! He’s got a great voice!” He just tries to paint a picture without cussing out the lyrics as on earlier albums…

Just listen to it, and you’ll see what I mean. He’s a great Blues Man, and you’ll appreciate the experience and the album.

Every team has the occasional “dive” or fall after a light challenge during the run of play, but it seems the Netherlands practices! I accept that it happens to every team, and I accept that once in a while a player that’s recently recovered from an injury goes down easily out of tentative fear of re-injuring themselves. In the case of the Netherlands specifically though I’ve never seen so many players on the same team fall down at the blink of an eye during each game they’ve played. They are all experienced and expert in the handling of the ball as indicated by the fact they made it into the World Cup to begin with, but also by the fact they are in the semi-finals. They are also looking for cheap calls from the ref, and I hate to say they get them more often than not, and I think it has helped them reach the semi-finals… They’ve become the team I hate most during the Cup.

After the hand ball in the Ghana versus Uruguay match in this year’s World Cup I’ve developed strong feelings about how they are handled in certain situations… When Gyan was robbed of a goal by Uruguay’s player slapping the ball out of the air right on the line, they were given a penalty kick. Of course Gyan missed the kick and at the end of the game the situation was that Ghana went home after losing on Penalty Kicks to break the tie.

I think they should modify the rule to be similar to a foul committed inside the box – basically, if the foul is committed by a defender, but the player with the ball still has a scoring chance the ref lets play continue and if he scores the foul is disregarded. A penalty kick is not awarded as the player has scored.

I think in the case of a hand ball in the goal mouth in a flagrant attempt to block a certain goal – as in the case mentioned above – the player handling the ball should be red carded and the goal should be awarded because it was a certain goal had the defense not handled the ball. Disregard the penalty kick. Allow the goal.

By awarding only a penalty kick rather than the goal that would have been scored, the attacking team is also penalized in a way, and I don’t like it. I think the penalty for handling the ball in that type of situation should be swift and painful. Especially in cases where the player flagrantly handles the ball.

I don’t own a gun, and I never thought about it, but it means a lot to a lot of people. They want to own guns. The US Supreme Court recently over-ruled state and local governments on this and they said it’s an inalienable right to own a gun. That’s cool with me. I don’t have any problems with people owning guns. I grew up in southern Missouri where my uncles took me fishing and hunting when I was growing up. I mostly remember not shooting anything because we weren’t in the right place at the right time. I guess my brother and I helped skin rabbits and squirrels and stuff, but when we went hunting we mostly saw where the deer slept during the night rather than seeing a deer and shooting it.

My uncles still go hunting, and they regularly get a deer. They always process it and give us some of the meat and it’s way cool and delicious. They own guns to hunt with and nothing more. They register their guns to stay on the right side of the law.

Here’s the bigger point… The people that register to own guns are abiding by the laws of the land and the guns are therefore registered TO someone. They can be tracked. But what’s the point of all this legislation if the guns that are the real problem are the ones that aren’t registered – the illegal guns? Gang bangers are buying guns that are off the radar, not listed anywhere… Those are the ones that are creating the problems. I mean we already have to wait to receive the gun we’re purchasing so the background check can be cleared. No problems will be fixed by more legislation…

If we could just find all the unregistered guns with some sort of illegal gun detector it would sure be a lot easier for everyone. I guess that really means stopping the black market, but there are too many people getting rich by selling guns illegally for that to stop. I guess until we can figure out how to get rid of the illegal guns we just have to take the bad with the good.