LOVE MINUS ZERO live video

LOVE MINUS ZERO is a band I play in based in the Delaware Valley outside of Wilmington DE/Kennett Square, PA or as Rob likes to say, "bass'd in Centreville, DE in my bass-ment"...

Formed in the spring of 2009 after a Facebook conversation between the popular singer/songwriter, Nik Everett and I, he'd suggested a Dylan cover band was in order. Bassist Rob Grant from the Cameltones saw the post and chimed in. Over the next few months the band formed long distance with planning and song lists and arrangement ideas flowing over 3000 miles of digital space.

The core band consists of Rob Grant (bass/vocals), Vinson Hendrix (drums/lighting director), Marilee Calabrese (keys/vocals/eye candy), Mr. Stevie Hobson (guitar extraordinaire/vocals), and moi (obnoxious frontman/vocals/guitars/harmonica). As often as we can corral her Marilee's daughter the spectabulous Guenevere Finley, joins us on vocals. On the videos from the Tin Angel below you will have the please of hearing the sublime sounds of drummer John DiGiovanni filling in with no rehearsal for Vinnie and nailing the gig.

There are a ton of vids floating out there online so we picked some of our favorites to collect here. Kind of an cornucopia of memories of our first year as a band. Hope you like 'em.

Big thanks to David Saddler for showing up and filming us. You da man, Dave

And real big thanks to His Zimminence, Bob Dylan for being Bob Dylan.

FYI - THERE ARE A BUNCH OF VIDEOS BELOW. Use the > < arrows to scroll thru them. Included is our entire TIN ANGEL set from the 2010 BOB DYLAN BIRTHDAY (EVE) BASH (geaturing special guest Nancy Micciulla) and assorted other goodies.



also check us out and keep in touch for gig info on our Facebook and MySpace pages

EYES ARE BUGGIN' - WEST COAST SUMMER READNG

CURRENT READING LIST:
Again, people ask me why don’t you just finish one book before you start another? Yeah? Why don’t you just eat all that vanilla ice cream in the freezer before you dig into the Moose Tracks or Pistachio you just bought? Variety is the spice of life. Discovery, the meat. I cover every flat surface in my home with something to read. Always something within arms distance. Always nice having another world within reach. Well, here’s my up-to-the-minute West Coast reading list…


JUST FINISHED:
- A MONK SWIMMING by Malachy McCourt

A engaging and raucous memoir of actor, barkeep, gold smuggler, raconteur McCourt who along with brother Frank (Angela’s Ashes, ‘Tis) has become the first family of modern day Irish-American literature. Having published plays, political commentary, two volumes of memoirs, a weekly columnist for NYC magazines, books on Irish history, the legend of the ballad “Danny Boy” and the Claddagh Ring, and recovery from alcoholism, since his arrival in the USA in the 1950s where he began a long career as an actor in Broadway, Off-Broadway, television, and motion pictures. A Monk Swimming tells of these early days in a new land, fresh from a tough, young life of poverty in Limerick, Ireland. Younger brother Alphie also published a memoir, A Long Stone’s Throw.

http://www.malachymccourt.com/

- THE BEAT FACE OF GOD: The Beat Generation Writers as Spirit Guides by Stephen D. Edington with a forward by David Amram

- BIG SKY MIND: Buddhism and the Beat Generation by Carol Tonkinson (editor)

Edington, a Reverend in the Unitarian Church and adjunct faculty member at University of Massachusetts at Lowell, is a contributing writer for Beat Scene Magazine and has previously written a book on Jack Kerouac’s Nashua, New Hampshire roots. He is active in the Kerouac scene around Lowell and here investigates the many facets and shared importance that the search for spirituality held in the lives and writings of the main protagonists of what we know as the central writers of the “Beat Generation” – Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Gary Snyder, Michael McClure, Lawrence Ferlinghetti among them.

Big Sky Mind is a collection of the writing of the above Beats and friends. Background in to the spirituality and Buddhist leanings of works of each writer is given followed by some examples of their work. Other prominent Beat and Beat-influenced writers included here are Gregory Corso, Anne Waldman, Diane DiPrima, Lew Welch, Bob Kauffman and more.

- THE FLASH OF LIGHTNING BEHIND THE MOUNTAINS: NEW POEMS by Charles Bukowski

A wonderful posthumous collection of previously unpublished poems. As with much of Bukowski’s work, I start a new books of his poetry all excited since my first readings of Buk and Allen Ginsberg were part of what really got me inspired to write poetry. The tendency for nostalgia sometimes gets me looking at his milieu and thinking, I’ve heard all of this before. But I pick the book up again and invariably 2/3 of the way through a batch of poems just floors me. Something resonant and timely and profoundly human always rears up and slaps me around. I wind up feeling more unique and individual while simultaneously just more similar to the rest of humanity. While going through a couple of long months watching my father deal with illness and growing old, having the Chinaski hang on circling the big sleep shed new light on this twilight we all must fight our way through.

- THE NAMESAKE by Jhumpa Lahiri

A beautiful rendered tale of cultural assimilation and belonging. I’d passed on the film when it came out and I’m glad I did. The book is a treasure and just unfolds it’s personal family perspectives with a treasured sense of intimacy and sweetly drawn details of a family from Calcutta and their assimilation into American life. Their US born son wrestles with his given name and issues of cultural identity and as he grows he watches the world around him changes as does his emotional connection to his past.


READING:

- PINCHER MARTIN by William Golding

The recent passing of Golding provoked the purchase of this novel at a used bookstore just off the Pasadena City College campus last week. A fascinating tale that takes place almost entirely in the mind of Christopher Martin who finds himself thrust upon a bare rock in the middle of the sea forced not only to survive the elements but the hallucinations, revelations and inner spirit that circulates within his own mind. A fascinating perspective from the famed author of Lord of the Rings.

- WHEN THINGS FALL APART by Pema Chodron

A book I pick up often, to help focus on the realities of daily living. Chodron’s gentle and direct approach always encourages me to pull new meaning from passages on the page and the ever-flowing instances of my own life and find the pertinent and shimmering moments of clarity and discovery that help me through my days. A wonderful aid to my meditation practice and to the tiny changes in perception that help in every fleeting or weighty instance of doubt, despair or fear that pops up in life.

- THE MINDBODY PRESCRIPTION by John E. Sarno, M.D.
Sarno describes in layman’s terms how many of the illnesses we suffer from in modern society how emotions can cause and/or influence one’s ability to prevent and/or overcome these maladies. He presents a good place to start investigating how attention to one’s emotional perspective and needs can help speed the process of recovery from pain as well as circumventing the body’s reaction to stress, worry, and negative feelings. I found this medically based perspective very helpful in illuminating some of the reasons why meditation has been of such help to me.

- THE FRANK ZAPPA COMPANION: Four Decades of Commentary by Richard Kostelanetz

The author collects essays, articles, and reviews of Zappa and his oeuvre and interviews with the artist himself. A fun and enlightening primer for new Zappa converts as well as long time fans looking for an intelligent and diverse exploration of this iconoclastic American musician.

- SELECTED POEMS by William Blake

This pocket-sized 1963 hardback edition from the Oxford University Press collects 324 of the timeless poets greatest writings. I keep Blake and Burns around on the tabletop year-round for quiet moments when I can read out loud and glory in the sublime sound of human spirit made manifest.

- A&R by Bill Flanagan

Long-time MTV/VH1 exec, Flanagan writes his first novel. This one is an insider's tale of the backroom, front room, bathroom, green room, court room, zoom room take behind the curtain of the slimy, sleazy, sultry, sexy, greedy, needy and seedy side of the rock n roll business. Where's dreams go green in more ways than one.

- THE TRUTH: WITH JOKES by Al Franken

Okay, I tend to buy political books when they hit the bargain racks. My tendency is to hate the fact that writing books is part of an election campaign, more propaganda, more spin. But I always liked Al Franken as a comedy writer, as well as in his role as resident lefty provocateur for my generation. And yeah, you go Al. Ride into Washington and stay true to your guns. Of course, there are some funny things in this book. Scary funny, but funny nonetheless.

- THE ZEN OF LISTENING: Mindful Communication in the Age of Distraction by Rebecca Z. Shafir

Shafir is a Speech Therapist who has found lessons in her studies of Zen that greatly enhance the ability to listen, communicate and interact deeply with those in the world around you. Her techniques and observations are explained without any religious overtones and have helped many of the people who come to her workshops on Listening to help them in their relationships, workplaces and in the busy world that surrounds them.

- THE EROTIC MIND by Jack Morin, M.D.

A journey into how the erotic mind works and techniques, observations and tools that can help you interpret and enhance that way you look at your personal sexual profile towards a greater and more enjoyable sexual perspective on life.

- DYLAN’S VISIONS OF SIN by Christopher Ricks

I am completely not attracted to the way in which Ricks writes a sentence, collects his data or set’s up his chapters...just a bit too high-fallootin’ for this old boy. On the other hand, his perceptions, conclusions, circumnavigations of all the myriad levels of Dylan’s genius are fascinating. I like the Sins concept. Viable if a bit stretched at times. Then again, any book taking on the task of interpreting Dylan is sort of like someone trying to interpret the motivations behind the form of a tree’s growth or the inexplicable “from whence” behind quantum physics. Sometime a song is just a song, sometimes it’s architecture and sometimes it’s just receiving from the muse. But this is a book I’ve been picking out for a few years…a chapter here, a half a page there. Fairly draining stuff but ultimately interesting for anyone as over-the-top intrigued by His Zimmenence as I.

- THANK YOU AND OK!: An American Failure In Japan by David Chadwick

Interesting first person story of an American studying Buddhism and living in Japan. Spiritual writer Jack Kornfield says of the book, “Chadwick saves you the trouble of going to Japan by making all the mistakes for you.” This book is a fascinating portrait of a spiritual quest in modern times.


JUST STARTED…MORE ON THESE LATER:

- AMERICAN CREATION by Joseph L. Ellis

- HAPPIER THAN GOD by Neale Donald Walsch

- THE POWER OF KINDNESS by Pierre Ferrucci with a forward by His Holiness The Dalai Lama

- THE UNIVERSE IN A SINGLE ATOM: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality by His Holiness The Dalai Lama

- THE LIVELIEST ART: A Panoramic History of the Movies by Arthur Knight


I'd elaborate but I've got some reading to do...

CD Review: ROBERT PLANT & ALISON KRAUSS - Raising Sand

Produced by T-Bone Burnett

First of all let me preface this by saying that I think T-Bone Burnett is one of the great unsung artists of the past 30 years. Since I first saw his weird stork-like countenance loping around in Bob Dylan's peripheral vision in RENALDO & CLARA. the insanely self-indulgent, wondrously oblique and grandly ambitious film which surreally documented Dylan's ROLLING THUNDER REVUE, I was taken by his sheer musicality and sense of purpose. Whether producing songwriter Peter Case's brilliant self-titled solo debut from, classic records by Elvis Costello (my fave EC record “King of America “ being one), Los Lobos, Roy Orbison, Leo Kottke, The Wallflowers, Counting Crows, or pulling together the surprise hit soundtrack album of 2001, Down From The Mountain: O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU, T-Bone has laid a swatch across the past generation's musicians and fans that has been subtle and surreal in its subversive influence while embracing all that is real, rootsy and left-of-center tasteful.

Wow, I just recalled sitting next to him at lunch before a meet and greet at a record store in Ardmore, PA back in the 1988. I’d been invited by the regional promotions rep for Columbia Records to attend and T-Bone was out promoting his latest record, “Talking Animals.” A fabulous record by the way if you can find a copy. At any rate, all I truly remember is that the dud is incredibly tall and that he and I got into a wonderful conversation about the horrid state of American political leadership (a favorite topic of both of ours) and the importance of a guy like Johnny Cash in bridging the gap between the old world (pre-Dylan) America and the new post-Vietnam era.

OK we won't talk about his incredible but under appreciated solo work. It is often downright impenetrable in it's quirkiness, in nothing but the best sense, mind you. Taking his cues from the most obtuse Dylan moments of dense and just plain odd character studies, tossing edgy political metaphor laced with a very persistent sonic and textural daring, his solo music is an acquired taste. Unfortunately not many record buyers actually acquired them. My favorite is the mostly acoustic self-titled CD from ‘86 and “Proof Through he Night” (1983) is also a keeper.

Which brings us to this new CD by rock icon Robert Plant and new acoustic figurehead Alison Krauss. "What?" was my first reaction. Sounded like a match made in a smoky room at a struggling AAA station trying to find something new to play that didn't alienate either of their audiences of aging boomers or ‘90s fans of female singer-songwriters. Good on paper but I was having a hard time envisioning where these worlds collide.

I recalled Plant and Led Zeppelin III, the album of mostly acoustic, very British folky ditties but it was much rougher hewn than the pristine filigree of Krauss's modernized yet ancient country sensibilities. OK, maybe there were possibilities here. But try as I might hearing a cross between the wailing "Immigrant Song" and the calico earthiness of "Too Late To Cry Now" was still a stretch.

Then I heard T-Bone was in the control room overseeing things and I was sold. Perfect. This MUST be great or at least right up my alley. And I hadn't heard a note when I opened the CD and saw among the players downtown iconoclastic jazz/avant guitarist Marc Ribot aboard (he shares Costello pedigree with T-Bone) as well as folk acoustic legendary string master Norman Blake. I was very intrigued.

Well, if you are looking for Plant’s innovative, improvisatory, verging-on-the-edge-of-disintegrating old-school vocal histrionics that spawned legions of crappy pseudo imitators from under their copy-cat Goldilocks fright wigs, go buy a Zep boxed set. It ain’t here. There are a couple of glimmers of Frodo-meets-Dragonslayer vocal wail but very gracefully appointed.

This is a Plant all about harmony and gentle grace and coming not only directly from the folk music of the British Isles where he got his early lessons but more directly filtered through Krauss’s roots in the American antecedents of those same ballads and reels—the music of Appalachia and Kentucky and West Virginia—the Southern, American roots of what would later leave the farm and head to Nashville and become country music. We also find here the splinters and fingers and streams of the other roots music of the American South—the blues, but not a direct, 12 bar version that inspired Led Zeppelin’s plundering and elongation of the form but the variations that permeated the music of New Orleans and Memphis and Tupelo and Austin. Music that became early R&B and rockabilly and rock and roll. Nothing on the CD really rocks but just seems absolutely well-worn and comfortable.

Krauss, began her recording career as a 14-year old fiddle phenom and who has become in the last ten years one of country music’s most popular purveyors of eclectic stylistic exploration and roots-centric classicism.

All of these links are present here in music that never sounds dusty, antiquated or nostalgic--never anything but fresh and vibrant. This is one gorgeous album of great songs and superlative taste.

Song by song glimpse:

"Rich Woman" opens the album with what may be the bluesiest structure on the disc but more delicate in presentation with Krauss harmonizing to Plant’s soft-pedaled and introspective vocals sung in a smoother, more slippery smoothness than even the crooniest of Plant vehicles we’re used to.

"Killing The Blues" - self-explanatory.

"Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us" - written by T-Bone’s wife and wonderful singer-songwriter Sam Phillips.

“Polly Come Home” - one of two songs here by the great and under appreciated Gene Clark of the Byrds. This is a haunting folk ballad.

“Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On) - T-Bone has long been a huge fan of The Everly Brothers (consider he and Costello’s Cowardly Bros EP from ????). This Phil & Don song is very different from the original with Plant vamping the blues a bit in the spaces between verse and the guitars a bit more distorted than anything thus far.

"Through the Morning, Through The Night" - Gene Clark again. Also from the Dillard & Clark album of the same title, is a forlorn country ballad.

"Please Read The Letter" - oddly enough one of only three or four tunes with Krauss's fiddle, this also features some classic Plant moans and an aching and slow Krauss harmony vocal. What a trademark sound that is. No one can sound like that. The tune is also the only tune on the CD that features a Plant writing credit (along with Jimmy Page and several other folks).

"Trampled Rose" - ah, this hauntingly beautiful Tom Waits/Kathleen Brennan song features an ethereal Krauss vocal and some delicate Waits-ian coloration (though without the ever-present trash can symphony sonic color of Waits’ own work) which makes it sound oddly like a hi-fidelity version of a Zep outtake from III. Some hand drum stuff and National Steel guitar work with some ether haze floating through the mix. Don't hear Plant on this but the swooping vocal swells by Krauss could very well be Plant inspired.

"Fortune Teller" -- the classic early rock of New Orleans (the Stones also covered this early on) written by one "Naomi Neville" which was a pseudonym for either Art Neville or Allen Toussaint depending on who you believe. This is a rockin’ little ditty with Plant in quiet rocker mode.

“Stick With Me baby” -- by 60s Nashville star Mel Tillis finds the production etching more of a 50s street R&B vibe. Music for the front stoop, albeit dusky and shadowy where the melody’s softness pierces through the smoky haze.

“Nothin’” -- A dirge-like, grungy take on a Townes Van Zandt tune full of big guitar layered with subtle and scratchy fiddle riffs. Like a murky tale told under a dirty blanket. The sound of this track is wonderfully crafted mixing banjo, tambourine, Krauss’s wonderfully filthy fiddle and the other-side-of dawn Van Zandt ethos into a non-rocking rocker. Loud and ominously spooky.

“Let Your Loss be Your Lesson” - written by Mike Campbell, I presume the same guy as in Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers. Starts with a 60s Stax/Motown-esque riff and then sliding into a bouncing, rockabilly shuffle this features a tasty Krauss vocal that at times feels a bit little like she’s channeling Dolly Parton with that great little warble in her voice. The nice little edge on the guitar in the refrain is very Buffalo Springfield 60s and the solo kicks the tune out. One of the CD highlights with a compelling Krauss vocal. Not a country girl on this one.

“Your Long Journey” - begins with an autoharp figure from the folk pedigree of Mike Seeger and is the purest old-time song on the album with banjo, light drums, acoustic bass and Blake’s tasteful acoustic guitar. Sweet gospel tying Krauss’s roots to the album full tilt. Dig Plant’s dipping vocal. A man who long ago did his homework on this music. If you heard this on the radio you’d NEVER guess it was Robert Plant. Not in a million years.

Here’s a CD I will listen to for years. Can’t say that very often any more. Funny, while listening early on I felt it was a heavily Kraussian record, later I felt the Plant presence more. In retrospect, it hangs together perfectly. Burnett has been criticized for getting complacent with his productions in the last few years. His early work with his wife Sam Phillips was jarringly original as were his own albums. His work with Los Lobos sounding nothing like the BoDeans records he worked on. I don’t feel that critique has any validity here. This is a wonderfully solid and inspired collaboration between producer, artists and band that is one of the most listenable records to my ears in a long time.

So again, here’s another CD by a 60s iconic musical fave of mine and I will say wholeheartedly that unless you HATE country roots music of any kind (and this is by no means a country CD but her voice and one or two of the songs distinctly sit on that porch) I can recommend this record to everyone. Even my Dad would like this record and to get him to listen to any Led Zeppelin would be harder than me mastering Chinese algebra (is there such a thing?).