A shot of Vitamin L

Someday I'd like to apologize to B.E. Taylor.

When he released his album "Love Won the Fight" in 1983, I was asked to write a review about it for the college newspaper. Since I was a know-it-all who considered anything recorded after 1970 not to be worth my while, I didn't have the greatest things to write about the record.

Hey, that was a quarter-century ago. What did I know?


What I do know is that hearing B.E. perform "Vitamin L" at the recent benefit concert for Tony Janflone Jr. was an experience that certainly transcended writing for the school paper. With a stellar cast, including "Vitamin L" composer Rick Witkowski on guitar, B.E. had the audience members where he wanted them, including yours truly.

A highlight of the performance was a bass solo by Tommy Bellin, who does a jaw-dropping rendition of Vince Guaraldi's "Linus and Lucy" in mid-song. Aspiring bass players might want to study Johnny's technique closely. Tommy, by the way, plays regularly with No Bad Ju Ju, a band that's definitely worth catching.

Here's the full video version of "Vitamin L."

And if you run across a 1983 copy of the IUP Penn with a writeup on B.E. Taylor, please ignore it.

Bill Toms: 'Spirits, Chaos, and a Troubadour Soul'

If you meet Bill Toms, you'll find him to be a very polite guy who speaks in a relatively unassuming, somewhat modest tone of voice.

That's the off-stage Bill. Put him and his guitar in front of an audience, and he's a changed man, infused with the spirit handed down to him by the great rock 'n' rollers.


Bill spent two decades playing with Joe Grushecky's Houserockers, and eventually he formed his own band. Attending a Bill Toms & Hard Rain show is like chugging a Red Bull, without the aftertaste: It's all about energy. Check out the video of "Another Round for the West End Kid" recorded at a benefit Bill and his wife, Joyce organized for victims of the political fallout in Darfur.

Though he can rock with the best of them, Bill has another musical side, exploring the folk tradition of Americana with an introspective pen. He is ready to release "Spirits, Chaos, and a Troubadour Soul," an album that showcases his penchant for capturing real-life situations and distilling them through often bittersweet but always accessible songs.

While "Spirits" features plenty of acoustic guitar, Bill mixes it up with some heavier vibes. The album opens, in fact, with power chords and energized slide guitar leading into the upbeat "Together."

In contrast is the somber, elegaic "There Was a Time," Bill's duet with musical partner Tom Breiding (Peters Twp. resident), who produced the album, most of which was recorded at Tom's AmeriSon Studio. The production, by the way, is impeccable; Tom is a perfectionist in the studio.

"Spirits" features a revolving cast of characters playing with Bill. The full Hard Rain lineup (up through 2007) appears only on the album's sole cover, the Waterboys' "Fisherman's Blues," and the closing track, "Revelation Shuffle." Both those were recorded at Rick Witkowski's Studio L in Weirton. (You may remember Rick's guitar playing from the '70s band Crack the Sky.)

Other performers of note include Megan Palmer, whose violin adds a sense of urgency to the paranoid visions of "No Way Out"; vocalists Jill Simmons and Andrea Pearl; and even Tom's son Jack Breiding, an aspiring percussionist who helps lend to the ambiance of a couple of tunes.

A featured track on the album is shaping up in "It's Saturday Night Somewhere." Check it out on YouTube:



The scheduled release for "Spirits, Chaos, and a Troubadour Soul" is April 15. A local CD release show with Bill Toms & Hard Rain starts at 9 p.m. Saturday, April 5, at Cefalo's in Carnegie. Opening acts are Erin Sax Seymour and Lorenzo Bertocchini.

Have a new release you'd like to see featured? E-mail Harry Funk at hfunk@observer-reporter.com

King Cool

Donnie Iris has been one of Western Pennsylvania's favorite musical sons for nearly four decades. (I'm sure he doesn't want to be reminded of that, but his first national hit, the Jaggerz' "The Rapper," hit the charts in 1970.)

King Cool (hey, that's the title of his second solo album) sang a couple of his favorites last week as part of the benefit for Washington musician Tony Janflone Jr. His performances were definitely highlights for the capacity crowd at the Rhythm House in South Fayette.

So without further ado, here are "Love Is Like a Rock" and "Ah! Leah!""

I recorded the show with my video camera perched on top of a video game machine, with me staring straight up at the viewer to see what I was capturing. It wasn't the most comfortable of arrangements, but it was effective.

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At the Observer-Reporter, we've been experimenting with a video/print series called "What's Up With That?" and we're already up to five episodes. (The work on those helps explain why I haven't been posting on this blog as much as I should.)

This week's installment is titled "Size does matter," which should pique your curiosity right there. Seriously, I'm just starting to learn the art of making videos, but I think this episode turned out well, thanks to the ladies who participated.

So do yourself a favor ... watch "Size does matter."

Song for a gray day

Last month, I caught a performance by a guitarist who really caught my attention: Reza "Ron" Ziai, who plays a variety of instruments and gets some interesting sounds out of them.

Today, I received a note that he's posted a new song on his MySpace page, and it really fits the mood of a day when the cloud cover is here to stay and the rain looks to keep on falling.

Visit Ron's page to hear "Become"

Inspiration Cafe

There's a coffee shop on South Main Street in Washington, the Inspiration Cafe, that is starting to host performers on pretty much of a regular basis. It's not the biggest place but can hold quite a few people to enjoy music and beverages.

Sandee Umbach, who runs the shop - the proceeds benefit WashArts, which has the mission of serving children through free instruction in the arts - sent along a notice about a coming show that merits attention.


I saw Brad Yoder play a couple of years ago, and I can say he's one of the more entertaining performers and talented songwriters in Western Pennsylvania. (I've tried writing even a half-decent song. It's not easy.) He'll be at the Inspiration Cafe this Saturday, Feb. 2, at 7:30 p.m.

Jordan Umbach will open for Brad. I've seen Jordan perform here and there for the past couple of years, and he's developing into quite a singer-songwriter, himself.

Better Time

All right! Decent audio for the reggae-infused "Soon You'll Be Mine" by One Gig at a Time on Saturday. If you checked out the set's opener and weren't impressed with the change in sound quality halfway through, this worked out much better.

Watch "Soon You'll Be Mine"

Kicked again

OK, here's a good song performed by Kicked on Saturday night that's about half as long as "Babylon." It's called "Mary" and features the lead vocals of acoustic guitarist Justin Thompson.


There also is an live audio rendition that plays automatically when you visit Kicked's Web site.

Again, thanks to Josh at the Hard Rock for the soundboard patch. It's an adventure every time I try to set up a good audio feed, so any help I can get is much appreciated!

Click here for "Mary" video

Kicked in the Hard Rock

Last summer, I helped organize the annual Rock Off during Peters Twp. Community Day. In a change of format, we awarded two prizes: one to the best "under-21" band, and the other for the best "over-21."

The winner in the latter category was Kicked, which bowled over the judges with the interplay between lead guitar, acoustic guitar and saxophone. The musicians showed they know how to play together and feed off each other, the sign of a tight band.

A highlight of their repertoire is the epic "Babylon," written by guitarists Chuck Dressler and Justin Thompson. The song culminates with a guitar-saxophone duet in which Chuck and sax man Jarod Wachtel match each other note-for-note.

I filmed the Rock Off version of "Babylon" on a JVC Everio recorder with built-in stereo microphones. It sort of captured the energy of the performance, but I felt I could do a lot better with more advanced equipment. So I was happy to try again on Saturday at the Hard Rock Cafe at Station Square.

Thanks to Hard Rock soundman Josh, who helped me tremendously with patching my audio from the board, I was able to capture a stellar take of "Babylon." Even though it clocks in at more than 11 minutes (I love long jams) and I realize that might stretch the limits of many a computer, I'm posting it here for your enjoyment. I'll mix video of some shorter Kicked tunes when I get a chance.

In the meantime, here's "Babylon"

Audio 'gremlins'

On a positive note, the opening of One Gig at a Time's show Friday night - "our first gig in that configuration," says band leader Steve Cunningham - came through the video camera's sound inputs fairly well, as the players grooved on a major/minor riff reminiscent of Grace Slice's "White Rabbit," or the "Spanish Jam" the Grateful Dead often performed in the '60s.

By the time the jam segued into the original composition "Chasing Sunsets," various clicks and pops had begun to overwhelm one of the input channels. That wasn't good news.


To beat the "gremlins," I ended up switching the audio track from stereo to mono at the start of "Sunsets." The quality takes a dip, but it's preferable to hearing all the interference I was getting through the connection to the soundboard.

Anyway, here's 11-plus minutes of the start of One Gig's performance. Just be prepared for the audio adjustment in the middle:

Click here to play video

First time around

The Patti Spadaro Band made its debut Friday at P.D.'s pub in Squirrel Hill, a pretty good venue with an area off to the side where an audience can gather to enjoy a performance a little bit out of the way of the rest of the patrons.

Patti previously had a band when she was in Los Angeles, simply called Spadaro, which released an album, "Short Stay," featuring her original compositions.

One song that isn't on the album is one I particularly enjoy her play. In fact, we filmed her playing "Tonight" last summer on lower-grade equipment, and I was hoping to capture a better version with her new band.



The debut started with the Grateful Dead's "Franklin's Tower," during which I was trying to get a decent audio feed using one microphone pointed at the stage and a patch from the soundboard. The soundboard connection wasn't working, though, so I had to make some adjustments. By that time, the band was firing up "Tonight."

The raw tape revealed some "clicks" and minor distortion on one of the channels, but I was able to repair that for the most part. For some reason, the tape cut off in the middle of Patti's guitar solo, but the finished product is six-and-a-half minutes of a cooking jam.

Click here to check it out.

Putting some teeth into it

The video camera's tape had just about run out, and after the band One Gig at a Time performed a stellar version of Jimi Hendrix's Little Wing, I figured it was time to put my equipment away.

I'd gathered everything together and was talking with some people when I noticed the decibel level had increased significantly. Up on the stage, One Gig's Steve "pUNK" Cunningham was adding to the band's volume by taking a chainsaw to an old wooden nightstand.


I guess that's somewhere in between Pete Townshend smashing his guitar, Hendrix torching his and Wendy O. Williams sawing through a Cadillac. Whatever the case, I quickly grabbed the camera back out of its case in time to capture a few minutes of the epic display.

The result, with just a bit of tweaking with the sound, is on display at right in our YouTube player.

In the meantime, I'll work on editing some One Gig at a Time footage from earlier in the set. The band's music was even more impressive than pUNK's performance art!

Grateful Dead Night redux

Back in the late '80s, Peter's Pub in Pittsburgh's Oakland section used to have Grateful Dead Night, playing cassette tapes of Jerry Garcia and company.

I hadn't been there since then, but decided to pay another visit recently to see Fungus, a band that draws much of its repertoire from what the Dead used to play.


A couple of years ago, I saw Fungus at an outdoor festival in Nottingham Township, and I really enjoyed the show. So when I received an e-mail from guitarist Dave Gasbarro about the band's performance at Peter's, I decided to take along some video equipment and see what happened.

I recorded the first set with the audio patched straight into the camera from the soundboard. That sounded OK, but fortunately keyboard player Mike Tony informed me that guitarist Terry Callahan's guitar amp wasn't running through the board. So I positioned a microphone directly in front of Terry's Marshall and ended up with a nice sound mix during the second set.

Following the show, I edited three videos, and I've posted three more songs as MP3 files. Take a look to your right, and there they are, for your Sound & Vision enjoyment.

AcoustiCafe

Open stage night provides the opportunity to enjoy a variety of performers in one sitting. Admittedly, you take your chances regarding what you might hear. But often, you'll be impressed by musicians you otherwise wouldn't have known anything about.

An open stage called AcoustiCafe returns for 2008 on Monday nights at Club Cafe on Pittsburgh's South Side. FYI: "AcoustiCafe is a volunteer promotional organization founded in the late '90s by Pittsburgh songwriters Mark Willson, Jerry Baum and Cherylann Hawk. During its heyday, it sponsored as many as five ongoing open stages, numerous concerts and other special events, and served as a hub of information and support for local and touring musicians. For the last several years, AcoustiCafe has been on hiatus, but January's open stage marks the first phase of the organization's re-emergence." (Thanks to Maree Gallagher for the background info.)

Anyway, the '08 opener was hosted by Pittsburgh musicians Paul Tabachneck, Heather Kropf and Joel Lindsey. I arrived in time for Heather's performance and was glad I did. She is a talented singer-songwriter-keyboard player who came to Washington last summer to play at the Main Street Famers' Market, and I had the opportunity to attend the release party for her CD "What Else Is Love."

Unfortunately, footage of her performance was marred by bad audio; apparently, I had the levels of my sound mixer up too high. I eventually fixed the problem, more or less, and was able to document four performances sufficiently.

I had it fixed for Sean McClorey, whose repertoire includes his 'Song for Sudan,' a commentary on how some of the world’s hunger problems are created by the implementation of certain economic systems. An eye-opening piece, to be sure.

I'd met Peace last summer when she was playing the djembe in accompaniment of her sister, the invigorating Joy Ike. It turns out that Peace is quite the singer, too, as she demonstrated with her original composition 'Walk On By.' (Joy played a bit later in the evening, but I had put the video camera away by then.)


Before I ran out of tape, Joel performed with a bass player, Jim Kurasch, whose regular gig is with the Metropolitans. Joel, a native of Britain, displayed a fine songwriting style with tunes like the swingin' 'Could You Love Me.'

AcoustiCafe was such a hit the first time back out that it will run until 10:30 p.m. every Monday. The starting time is 7.