{"id":290,"date":"2013-02-01T08:08:00","date_gmt":"2013-02-01T12:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alexsings.ca\/welcome\/the-end-of-month-album-review-1-january-2013\/"},"modified":"2013-02-01T08:08:00","modified_gmt":"2013-02-01T12:08:00","slug":"the-end-of-month-album-review-1-january-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alexsings.ca\/music\/the-end-of-month-album-review-1-january-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"The End of Month Album Review #1: January 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

Preamble<\/span><\/h2>\n

Pretty much the only thing I love more than writing and playing music is listening to music and going to live music shows. Fortunately, I live in a hotbed of house concerts and summer festivals. And I buy as many CDs at those events as I can afford.<\/span>

<\/span>Since I have access to a wealth of music, much of it extremely good but unfortunately relatively obscure Canadiana, I have decided to add reviews to my blog to share some of my live show and CD experiences with more people.\u00a0<\/span>

<\/span>I’m tempted to choose this review each month based on the CD that’s in my car stereo. That is certainly the case this month, but I don’t think I’ll keep that as a hard and fast rule.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

1929 by Sheesham, Lotus & Son (2012)<\/span><\/h2>\n

I’ve seen this Kingston, Ontario-based band several times, both at the Lunenburg Folk Harbour Festival<\/a> and at an intimate barn concert just across the river from my home (where I bought this CD).<\/p>\n

SL&S are tons of fun: quirky, unique and fully-alive in their music. Their stage set-up makes me think of turn-of-the-20th-Century-hawkers mashed-up with Dr. Seuss. With a sousaphone holding down the bass end, this band rollicks out old-time tunes with fiddle, banjo, harmonica, whistling, kazoo, voices and a fascinating contraption that amplifies and distorts and looks like an old ear trumpet. Maybe there’s a name for that thing, but I don’t know what it is.<\/p>\n

This record does a good job at capturing the juice and personality of a live Sheesham, Lotus and Son<\/a> show. Recorded “In pleasing MONO” and “live off the floor with one North of Princess G7 microphone” as the cover notes brag, the recording is sparse and truly old timey.<\/p>\n

The songs are either traditional or covers of songs by jazz and blues songwriters from the early part of the last century. There’s a fabulous version of Frankie and Johnny. And the whistling on Lazy, Lazy River will melt your heart. My favourite song of all has got to be “Drunken Nights” about a man coming home drunk to his lover and having her try to explain away the presence of another man in his bed. The song is delivered in character: the slurred and staggering husband and the prim and patronizing wife. It makes me laugh every time.<\/p>\n

A great record for fans of old time music or for anyone looking for something a little different: raw, direct songs presented with stellar musicianship, showmanship and verve.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Preamble Pretty much the only thing I love more than writing and playing music is listening to music and going to live music shows. Fortunately, I live in a hotbed of house concerts and summer festivals. And I buy as …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,32,33,30,35,31,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-36","category-funny-songs","category-house-concerts","category-lunenburg-folk-harbour-festival","category-old-time-music","category-sheesham-lotus-and-son","category-the-end-of-month-album-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alexsings.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alexsings.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alexsings.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexsings.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexsings.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexsings.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alexsings.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexsings.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alexsings.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}