jg3pma

Number Three: New Mexican cuisine

2009-05-26T14:56:00.000-07:00

When I was a freshman in high school, I had a buddy whose mother's main excuse for calling her son back to roost was that he'd simply had too much fun, crossed into some imaginary world where there were limits to adolescent happiness that had to be squelched, PRONTO! And I always thought that was pretty damn hilarious. Too much fun? Ideally, ain't that the one and only priority for the first 18 years of life?

What I'm driving at is - I had a bunch of fun this extended weekend hanging with friends (I had a lot of Tito's & Lemonade during my bday celebration at Lustre Pearl, for those of you that thought I was incapable of drinking maaaassssssss quantities of what was being referred to as girly beverage for the majority of the evening) and playing gigs, so I haven't gotten around to rambling about something that I love this week.

So, here 'tis. New Mexican food.

I have been playing with Josh for almost two years, and in that time, we've returned to his hometown of Las Cruces for several festival and club gigs. And we've eaten his mom's food, gas station food, and at his favorite joint, La Cocina, and had takeout from Andele's. Even further, my ex-girlfriend is from Albuquerque, and I had the good fortune to visit her neck of the woods and eat at The Frontier near the UNM campus and some other fantastic local joints for several years prior. I am no newbie, ladies and gentlemen. Me been loving on some New Mexican food for years, red and green and fried eggs on top and all.

And yet its got so many flavors wholly individual to the region, at this time, as a respectful Texan, I will not even attempt to describe its deliciousness. Instead, I will simply say - if you're headed out Arizona, California, or Colorado way, do yerself a favor and take the time to eat somewhere in New Mexico. The Mine Shaft in Madrid, an unincorporated town where, at one point, a dog was the damn mayor (I know - what's not to love about the Land of Enchantment?),

you can eat there on your way from 'querque to Santa Fe...and if you're hanging out round that way, you got to stop by and say hello to Keith running the board at The Santa Fe Brewing Co.

Follow your rumbling gut and your nose and your sense of adventure. It's good everywhere you go. And yes - including the gas stations, and JG and ABJB have my back on this.

Albeit very rarely, sometimes I stumble upon brevity.

Thank you, and good night. No pics this 'go round, just links.

-CCGradyTheBull

Numero Dos: "Briefcase Full of Blues" (1978) and "The Blues Brothers" (1980)

2009-05-18T16:00:00.000-07:00

“One Timex digital watch. Broken. One unused prophylactic. One soiled. One black suit jacket, one pair black suit pants. One hat. Black. One pair of sunglasses. $23.07. Sign here.” – what Frank Oz’ corrections officer character returns to Jake Blues upon his release from Joliet State Penitentiary, downstate 55 from Chicago. Scene 1.

While staying thematically near my first post’s expressed adoration of soul music, I take only the slightest of detours during our early Monday evening drive...to the cool comfort of the movie theatre, with this here second stop. Entry Numero Dos is to celebrate Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi’s off-the-cuff musical sketch gone badass (Good Old) Blues (Boys) Brothers Band – in particular, their 1978 debut, “Briefcase Full of Blues”, and the epic musical action comedy brilliance that is the 1980 movie.

The evolution of the group happens when Aykroyd is renting a BAR that’s cheaper than a NEW YORK CITY PARKING SPACE in 1976 for his Harley, and he fills the j-box with blues records, stoking Belushi’s agitated desire that’s looking for some musical meaning beyond disco and punk rock. And all the while, Aykroyd’s writing the first draft script for the characters of Jake and Elwood Blues...

Although they’d done one song before – dressed as yellow and black bumblebees, not in the classic black-and-white suits with matching hats and Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses – the band really premiered in late April as the Saturday Night Live musical guest, and for me, it’s one of the motherscratchin’est all-star rhythm and blues band ever...half of Booker T and the MGs in Cropper (guitar) and Dunn (bass, and one of my many musical idols), with another guitar added in Chicago’s legend Matt ‘Guitar’ Murphy (sideman to Howlin’ Wolf, Ike Turner, James Cotton and plenty of other jawdroppers), a groove none deeper than Steve Jordan’s – of whom most of you know as the drummer on The John Mayer Trio recording and live DVD, whose list of sideman credits also includes Stevie Wonder, Rolling Stones/Keith Richards, and Eric Clapton – and the Saturday Night Live horn section in the World’s Most Dangerous Band.

“Briefcase Full Of Blues” was recorded live when the band was opening for – get this action – Steve Martin @ The Universal Ampitheatre in Los Angeles. Two fearless comedians dressed in suits with a love of rhythm & blues and soul music, possessing a little bit of vocal range and a shitload of rock and roll attitude, with a killing combo killing classic material. 35 minutes of the best party music ever made, plain and simple. Mmm mmm good stuff. And also worth mentioning that it was 3 weeks in between recording the set and releasing it to the general public...THREE WEEKS! These days, we got computers of such staggering artificial intelligence that they can MANUFACTURE talent, but it takes years to release recordings in a market that's moving a million miles a second...CRAZY, absurd business world we live in, I tell you...

Elwood: It’s 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark, and we’re wearing sunglasses.

Jake: Hit it.

Beginning of the third act of the movie.

The 1980 movie is, if anything could be described as such, a flawlessly sprawling brilliant mess of musical numbers, side-splitting vulgar comedy, and wild action that had rarely been seen in such a configuration on the big screen before. But Aykroyd and Belushi were (most likely through a solid combination of drugs and alcohol and the skyrocketing success of a brand new, late-night sketch show in Saturday Night Live) fearless, willing to try anything...which is usually how the best stuff gets created and/or discovered...

I love the movie for the musical numbers – James Brown, John Lee Hooker, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, and Cab Calloway are among the singers, I mean is that even legal? Damn! – its fantastically snappy dialogue and memorable lines, hilarious car chases, stunts and crashes, its celebration of the great city of Chicago (where I lived for 9 years) and all of the cameos – a little known Canadian comic John Candy as a goofy Detective, Henry Gibson as the leader of the Illinois Nazi Party, Las Vegas’ fabulous cheeseball Steve Lawrence, Carrie Fisher, British model Twiggy, Frank Oz (known for on camera work in John Landis movies and as a puppeteer with The Muppet Show), Chaka Khan, Joe Walsh, Paul Reubens (better known as Pee Wee Herman), and even Steven Spielberg as a clerk with the Cook County Tax Assessor’s office.

I won’t spoil any of it for you by describing the plot, other than it includes incarceration, redemption, flamethrowers, police cars in shopping malls, beautiful Maxwell Street and (Upper and Lower) Wacker drive footage, and the best damn rendition of “Rawhide” known to man, among other beautiful things (like Duck rocking his trademark pipe, J).

Enjoy.

Solomon Burke, two times!!!

2009-05-10T19:40:00.001-07:00

Lead-off hitter for the PMA blogaction is veteran soul singer of the City of Brotherly Love, Mr. Solomon Burke, and two recordings he’s made in the last several years that bring me to my knees.

A Few Reasons Why I Love ‘Don’t Give Up On Me’ and ‘Nashville’:

The Late-in-Life-Comeback. Mr. Burke began releasing records in the mid-to-late ‘60s, at a time when vocalists like Ray Charles, Sam Cooke and Otis Redding were -and many like me say rightfully so! - taking the majority of the spotlight due to their extraordinary talents pushed forth by savvy promotions and henceforth record sales. Mr. Burke had some success (you may know his tune, “Cry To Me”, from the ‘80s smash hit, “Dirty Dancing”, that made Patrick Swayze the lip-licking sexual fantasy of many a suburban housewife 22 years ago, or his song “Everybody Needs Somebody To Love”, covered by the Aykroyd/Belushi tagteam of “The Blues Brothers” in 1980), but never the bright light on the national kind of stage that the aforementioned legends enjoyed during their tenures, be they nice and lengthy or, in the cases of Sam and Otis, tragically short. But 45 years after his entry into the business of show, Mr. Burke makes a recording that’s distributed by a young blues label doing business with punks – Fat Possum, out of Oxford, MS, with help from the southern Californians at Epitaph/Anti- - with an established audience that thirsts for authentic blues and soul. And the press heard it, too, and Mr. Burke has enjoyed some success on the festival circuit since. There are other examples of this happening in recent memory with varied degrees of visibility - Sharon Jones, Bettye LaVette, Charlie Louvin, Andre Williams and Cash’s legendary rebirth of cool come to mind first, but there are plenty more. Music is ageless in so many ways, even though popular culture has become geared to a younger and younger audience, very much so in the last 10 years. So I love it when the odds are defied every once in a while, and someone really talented gets recognized for what he or she has always done so beautifully.

The Supporting Casts. The songs on “Don’t Give Up On Me” were written by
Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, Van Morrison, Brian Wilson and Nick Lowe as the luminaries, and producer Joe Henry leads a Los Angelino band that is smoky and buoyant and funky and just right. And as if the Buddy Miller-led band of Music City ringers wasn’t enough to light the 2006 full length afire, there are also a handful of lovely duets on “Nashville”, and they feature Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, Patty Griffin, Gillian Welch and Julie Miller. When legendary talent gathers ‘round the campfire in numbers like these, best trust that the experts in their chosen field are rallying around someone whose talents they truly appreciate. So, it’s probably high time to listen up! ☺

The Beautiful Brew That Is Soul Music. I don’t remember where I first heard it – maybe in a Ray Charles interview years and years ago on television, and again when I went to the STAX Records’ Museum in Memphis a few years back – but somebody wise said soul music is the simple marriage of country and gospel. And considering how much I can listen to Hank Williams, Sr. AND Sister Rosetta Tharpe in equal parts, I love me some hillbilly music and some church music oh-so-much. “Don’t Give Up On Me”, while it has this kind of musty, metropolitan feel to it, is a rootsy r&b record, where the tables are turned in “Nashville”, that recording being soulful, at times funky, country.

Dig ‘em both, people.
‘Til next time. Over. Out.

The Introduction!!!

2009-05-04T12:55:00.000-07:00

So, the higher-ups at JG3HQ (Josh Grider Trio HeadQuarters) came correct to Yours Truly, CCGrady – aka “The Bull”, a nickname that achieves accurate explanation only when spoken from drummer ABJ(eff)B(otta)’s lips, as I was anointed as such by him - and requested a weekly blog post.

Consider me down. We’ll call it “The JG3-P.M.A.” and it’ll act as an important experiment for me, and hopefully, a pleasant reading experience for y’all.

Why “P.M.A.”? And why an important experiment?

I’ll explain both.

Positive Mental Attitude is derived, at least for me, from the Bad Brains song, ‘Attitude’, released on their full-length debut in 1982 on ROIR Records. Arguably the greatest hardcore punk band in the history of the genre (ex-Black Flag lead singer and recent cable TV heartthrob Henry Rollins would have my back here), and undoubtedly one of the strongest live bands to grace stages throughout the world (just ask Beastie Boy Buddhist and macrobiotic enthusiast Adam Yauch next time you see him – he’s one of their most ardent supporters, too, and produced their most recent recording, “Build A Nation”), Bad Brains spoke to me in a way that few bands did, and still do, over 20 years later.

Aside from being the only really visible all African-American combo at the time – a Detroit prog/punk band called Death was their precursor by several years, but never achieved notoriety until recently - Bad Brains distanced themselves from a lot of the early ‘80s hardcore pack by being extremely proficient as a band, with an almost militant attitude toward rehearsal and songwriting (the aforementioned Black Flag was very well known for practice space grind, too). And when a lot of punk was far more about a general expression of rebellion, all the way down to not giving a damn if anyone in the band could play their instruments or sing (a legendary LA punk group, The Germs, never made sense to me for this very reason, and you can see footage of them in Penelope Spheeris’ fantastic 1981 documentary “The Decline of the Western Civilization” or some dramatized stuff in their 2007 biopic , “What We Do Is Secret”, which I haven’t seen), Bad Brains really knew how to play (along with other favorites of mine like The Minutemen, Minor Threat, and Meat Puppets, among others). The other reason why I dug Bad Brains was because their message was about empowerment, community and love, even though it was entrenched in this incredibly aggressive context of hardcore punk. Which is where the aforementioned ‘important experiment’ comes in, now that I’ve explained the PMA part of the equation....

The laboratory element of this here blog is derived from the fact that I – along with too many of us, quite frankly – spend too much damn time being explosively articulate online about things that rattle my cage, burn my biscuit, get my goat, urinate me off, etc., and I don’t want to contribute to an atmosphere that already seems out of control. It’s an extraordinary invention that’s been cheapened in a lot of ways (admittedly, I’m sensitive to this whole bag – I just finished an interesting book called “Against The Machine” by Lee Siegel, a scathing critique of how commerce is diluting the ideal power of the web, which is to create communities of knowledge), y’know?

So, I’m gonna save my vitriolic rants about what I consider to be the most irritating elements of popular culture for hotel room late nights and white van long drives with my band brethren, JG and ABJB. But here, for the PMA blog, it’s gonna be all about the big ups for my favorite recordings, films, books and more.

And most importantly, it’s about dialogue between y’all and me. I hope to turn every one on to great works of all kinds, and in turn, through my writing about particular subjects, you’ll be able to point me in the direction of some of your moonhangers.

Deal?

The only stipulation is that we keep the P.M.A. If you can’t stand something that I think is straight solid gold, wait ‘til we’re in agreement and write me with a suggestion that you think is relative to my blog. Let’s keep the verbal fisticuffs outta this arena, creating an environment where it’s all about the exchange of things that we like as opposed to heated argument about whether or not these things have merit.

JG3 duty calls for the recording of new material.

Until next time, The Bull now rests.