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OCTOBER 2018 | Issue #76
PUBLISHERSean McCloskey
SENIOR EDITORTodd McFliker
DISTRIBUTION MANAGERMelissa A. Smith
CONTRIBUTORSRay Anton
Lori Smerilson CarsonTom CraigPaul Evans
Megan GarzoneAaron Gilbert
Peter “Blewzzman” LauroSean McCloskeyTodd McFliker
Angel MelendezJay Skolnick
Melissa A. SmithJason ValhuerdiJoseph Vilane
ADVERTISING [email protected]
COVER PHOTOSean McCloskey
SFL Music Magazine is a community newspaper that is published monthly in Sunrise, Florida. All contents are copy-right The Sweet Music Group, Inc. 2018 and may not be reproduced without writ-ten permission of the publisher.
10 - Fall Out Boy, KD Lang, Niall Horan11 - Night of the Dead12 - Jeff Beck, Paul Rogers & Ann Wilson15 - See It Live!16 - Sting & Shaggy18 - Thompson Square22 - Steve Lukather26 - Scott Sharrard28 - Scorpions 30 - In The Studio w/ Day 435 - Dierks Bentley, Noah Cyrus & Jason Bieler36 - OTR2 Atlanta Rhythm Section
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Bellamy Brothers | Renegades WPBPhoto: Sean McCloskey
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Fall Out Boy | Amway CenterPhotos: Sean McCloskey
Niall Horan | Coral Sky AmphitheaterPhoto: Sean McCloskey
KD Lang | Broward CenterPhoto: Sean McCloskey
Hot off the heels of the Day of the Day celebration in which USA Today called “one of the top 10 Days of the Dead celebrations in the country” is Revolution Live’s Night of the Dead festival featuring Dark Star Orchestra, Galactic and Bobby Lee Rogers Trio! Night of the Dead kicks off at 3PM on November 3rd includes an authentic Dia De Muertos experience of mariachi performers, calavera puppets and art. Darkstar Orchestra will be performing not one but two full sets! This family friendly street party is fun for all ages and celebrates the positive energy of the Grateful Dead music.
Tickets are $34.50, while VIP packages at $85. VIP tickets include access to Stache, private air-condi-tioned bathrooms, light bites bar, early access to the show, private side-stage viewing, commemorative laminate, access to the afterparty at Revolution Live with Crazy Fingers as well as drink specials. There is something for everybody at Night of the Dead.
Tickets available at www.jointherevolution.net
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Iconic rock stars Jeff Beck and Paul Rodg-ers joined forces with Ann Wilson of Heart and the mighty Deborah Bonham for the Stars Align Tour on August 25 at Coral Sky Amphitheatre in West Palm Beach. Not even the thick humidity was enough to slow down the spectacular performances, each filled with undeniable talent. As Paul Rodgers explained in a press release, the night was “a knock out combination of music and musicians. I’ve always been a Jeff Beck fan, who isn’t? He is in a league of his own. Ann Wilson has an amazing voice and is a brilliant songwriter.”
Taking the stage first was Deborah Bon-ham, sister of the mighty Led Zeppe-lin’s legendary drummer, the late John Bonham. Her demanding, yet gorgeous voice complimented her self-described “dirty blues.” Think Janis meets Joni. Meanwhile, Bonzo’s son, Jason Bonham, watched from the side of the stage. Next, Ann Wilson delivered a short, but power-ful set of covers to promote Immortal, her new release of timeless covers. It is her way of honoring many of her favorite art-ists who we’ve lost in the last few years. At the Stars Align Tour, Aretha Franklin was paid respect, along with Chris Cornell’s
Audioslave and Amy Wine-house covers. Referencing Glenn Fry, Wilson said her fa-vorite Eagles number is “Life in the Fast Lane” because “I lived it, so I can identify with this. Se-cretly, I think many of you can too.” South Florida music lovers also experienced The Who sin-gles “The Real Me” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” as well as the high point of Wilson’s set, Heart’s “Barracuda.”
Thousands of concertgoers rec-ognized singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Paul Rod-gers from his bands, Free, Bad Company and The Firm. At Coral Sky, he sounded fantastic. Draped in blues jeans and a yel-low shirt under long-sleeve white button-down and a thin beard, Rodgers had an incredible stage presence, always aware of his surroundings. He is a master of his craft, controlling everything from the stage. The skinny frontman clenched his eyes shut as he delivered a handful of familiar tunes. We experienced Bad Company classics, such as “Can’t Get Enough” and “Feel Like Makin’ Love” with
a bit of harmonica. Flickering white and blue lights danced over Rodgers and his gifted ensemble, who each took a turn with impressive solos. Every one of them was on fire.
When he wasn’t playing a red Coda tam-bourine, the center of attention was con-stantly dancing with his mic stand. Often times, he twirled it above his head, resem-bling Mick Jagger or Steven Tyler. “Ready for Love” was dedicated to Paul’s darling wife Cynthia. The celebrity also discussed the tour and asked us all to sing along to
Jeff BeckPaul Rodgers
Ann WilsonCoral Sky Amphitheater | August 25, 2018
“Shooting Star.” The extended conclusion was quite memorable, as audience mem-bers sang the familiar chorus. “I love this humidity,” Paul expressed before “Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy.” Both Deborah Bonham and Ann Wilson joined Rodgers onstage to as-sist with vocals. Each woman wrapped an arm around Paul’s. “My rock and roll fan-tasy has completely come true,” he stated. Following a brief encore and Free’s radio-friendly “All Right Now,” a gracious Paul Rodgers lined up with his bandmates, bowed and waved goodbye to West Palm.
Last to perform was perhaps the most in-novative 74-year-old guitarist on today’s touring circuit, 8-time Grammy winner Jeff Beck. The man was as good as ever. Con-certgoers could’ve been mesmerized by the Yardbirds’ guitarist’s astonishing fin-gerwork and deep distortion coming from his white axe. Touring with his 17th album, 2016’s Loud Hailer, Beck kept a youthful demeanor, sporting his trademark roost-er-cropped haircut with a sleeveless shirt, loose tie and sunglasses. “And now for something completely different,” he an-nounced before paying homage to Jimi Hendrix with “Little Wing.” Yet, the high-light was an eerie instrumental with bend-ing notes, “Cause We’ve Ended as Lov-ers,” a Stevie Wonder cover. That led into “Brush with the Blues” from Beck’s 1999 album Who Else! The group received a
couple standing ova-tions for those signa-tures songs, followed by Stevie’s “Super-stitious,” the number that Wonder origi-nally wrote for Beck. Again, people went nuts when “Super-stition” went into an enlightening instru-mental of “A Day in the Life.”
Each time Beck plays the Fab favorite, the subtle sound effects are created in a dif-ferent way. Spectators could hear, see and feel why Mr. Beck is ranked #5 on Rolling Stone’s “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time,” not unlike former Yardbirds Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page. And again, rather than simply the name on the bill, every artist onstage was extraordinary, in-cluding longtime drummer Vinnie Colaiu-ta, bassist Rhonda Smith and cello player Vanessa Freebairn-Smith. Vocalist Jimmy Hall of the Seventies Southern rock outfit Wet Willy was superb. At the same time, Beck was in a zone. The delightful mix of songs performed included blues, rock, fu-sion and familiar instrumentals. He was all over the place and has mastered it all. The
way he alternated between instrumentals and selections with vocals was brilliant. Beck is so skilled with a Stratocaster that watching him play had spectators in awe.
The Stars Align Tour was one of the best concerts I’ve seen in years. Following the show in West Palm Beach, the entertain-ing trek concluded the very next night in Tampa. I am confident the final perfor-mance was sensational as well. Jeff Beck, Paul Rodgers, Ann Wilson, Deborah Bon-ham and every musician they played with are masters of their craft. - Todd McFliker • Photos Sean McCloskey
GO SEE IT LIVE!One thing that south Florida does not have is a shortage of music venues and during the month of October they are over flowing with really amazing shows. Here is a list of some of them you should not miss…
October 4th, fresh off their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Dire Straits Legacy comes to the Parker Playhouse to play all of the hits… Phil Collins kicks off his “Not Dead Yet” Tour, his first proper concert in South Flori-da in 14 years at Sunrise’s BB&T Center on October 5th… Blazing Hot British Alt-Rock band Nothing But Thieves will be at Oakland Park’s Culture Room on October 6th… Young Country hit makers Thompson Square will make their way to the beautiful Parker Playhouse on October 7th… Kelsey Theater is bringing the Electric Six on October 10th and The Jeff Jensen Band on October 27th…A trio of shows come to South Florida on October 13th, Kid Rock and Brantley Gilbert are bringing their “Redneck Extrava-ganza” to Coral Sky Amphitheater while Anderson East is headlining his first show at downtown’s Revolution Live, then just up the road many a song will be sung with a pint in your hand at one of the most unique shows of the month, Choir of Man, at Parker Playhouse…Metal guitar
master Yngwie Malmsteen will be onstage at the Parker Playhouse on the 20th...The Fillmore is stacked during the month of October with three notables being The Breed-ers on October 19th, Death Cab For Cutie on October 22nd and Hanson String Theory on October 23rd… meanwhile two shows we don’t want to miss at the Funky Biscuit in Boca are Lauren Mitchell on October 5th and The Devon Allman Project, October 17th…Boynton Beach’s The Venu not only brings first class dining but top notch concerts in-cluding the Fleetwood Max tribute, Crystal Visions on Oct 12 and the Fireside Prophets on Oct 27th…but the place to rock (and laugh) in October is the Hard Rock Event Cen-ter…they are bringing the Off Color Comedy Tour on Oc-tober 6th, Jim Jefferies on the 13th, R&B Superstar Maxwell on the 17th, Iggy Azalea on the 27th and hard rockers Alice in Chains on October 28th and South Florida’s own shock rocker Marilyn Manson on October 30th.
If you are looking for the best in South Florida’s local talent Cheers in Sunrise and Packy’s Sports Pub in Lighthouse Point rock the weekends away while City Place’s Copper Blues brings in the talent each and every night. Be sure to catch them on the way up!
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On Saturday, the Ides of September, Sting and Shaggy put on a marvelously entertaining show at the Fillmore on Mi-ami Beach. The duo’s collaboration of feel-good reggae, 44/876, was released on 4-20 of this year. The title was taken from the country dialing codes of the pair’s homelands, the UK and Jamaica. Onstage in South Florida, the 66-year-old bass player from The Police was all business. Meanwhile, the 49-year-old vocalist from Jamaica danced around and got the crowd moving for more than 90 minutes. Concertgoers were thrilled to experience the boys’ new material, along with modern classics by The Police, pop-ular Sting singles and familiar Shaggy cuts mixed with improvised sounds.
A total of eight skilled musicians took the stage to handle drums, keys, guitars and/or vocals. With no verbal introduction, the performance kicked off with Sting’s 1988 solo cut “Englishman in New York” and a couple off their new album. Dressed like an everyday chap you’d meet at a pub, a gray-haired Sting wore black pants with a tight red and black striped t-shirt. Throughout the evening, there was zero talking from Sting. Shaggy didn’t talk much, besides his random calls for “reg-gae people” to pick up their arms above their heads and make more noise. Under
a kaleidoscope of dancing spotlights, the man never stood still, continually inter-acting with attendees. Occasionally, he asked the audience members to hold up their phone and light up the room. Shag-gy also dressed more like a rock star in black slacks with a flowered black button-down hanging open and a fedora cap.
Noteworthy numbers by The Police on the set-list included “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” and “Message in a Bottle.” During Shaggy’s “Gotta Get Back My Baby,” a fantastic female vocalist stole the spotlight. “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free” was an undeniable highlight from Sting’s solo catalogue. When Shag-gy sang the popular radio single “Angel,” the entire room chanted the chorus.
The first time either celebrity talked to ticketholders was when Shaggy preached over background chorus to “Dreaming in the U.S.A.” He claimed the number was for the dreamers. “Wher-ever you come from, all of us are broth-ers and sisters. Whether you are black, white, Hispanic, Asian. In Jamaica, we have a saying, one people. So whether or not you are a Muslim, Jewish, Rasta-farian, we are all brothers and sisters.”
During 44/876’s “Crooked Tree,” Sting
and Shaggy put on a mock courtroom drama. Sting was declared “Guilty as charged” in a black and white striped prison shirt, while Shaggy dressed as a judge in a robe and a wig of long white hair. The highpoint of the night was hear-ing Sting’s haunting lyrics in “Shape of My Heart,” which led into The Police’s “Walking on the Moon” with Bob Marley’s “Get Up, Stand Up” meshed in.
The lengthy set wound down with “Rox-anne.” Sorry Sting, but being a child of the Eighties, I can’t help but see and hear Eddie Murphy’s introduction to the big screen in 1982’s 48 Hrs. Shaggy sang the funky “Boombastic,” and ev-eryone took a break. The band returned for String’s “Desert Rose” followed by Shaggy’s denial-centric “It Wasn’t Me,” followed by the Police’s immortal ballad, “Every Breath You Take.”
Throughout the concert, Sting stood in place, center stage behind his mic stand, the artist focused on making music. At the same time, Shaggy was the enter-tainer, putting on a spectacle and soak-ing up the spotlight. However you feel about the partnership between Sting and Shaggy, there is no denying that they put on a fascinating show on South Beach. - Todd McFliker
Sting & Shaggy | The Fillmore Miami Beach
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Thompson Square are big beach fans and that’s one of the big reasons they keep coming back to Florida, a state they’ve visited many, many times. “What’s there not to like about it? Been all the way down to the Keys and all that stuff, man,” Keifer Thompson says. “Everything’s great. When you’re not from there, everything’s great when you go down there.”
It’s with that same gusto the husband and wife team of Keifer and Shawna Thompson, two country music sweethearts, re-turn to the southern part of the state on Thursday, October 7th at Parker Playhouse in Fort Lauderdale.
People have been writing love songs for as long as the concept has pushed us to put romantic feelings into verse. Thompson Square have made a career of doing just that, em-barking on what feels like a decade plus honeymoon. When you’ve been married for as long as Keifer and Shawna have, part of keeping that spark going is to find new ways to say “I love you,” which they succeed at once again with their 2018 release, Masterpiece. The record’s title is in fact a nod to what their love has produced, their son Cooper.
The band’s original name was Thompson Squared, as in times two, but got lost in the process. Either way, they still wound up with the nickname T2. With the addition of their son, Keifer says the family sometimes referred to as T3.
With birds chirping in the background, we spoke to Keifer Thompson over the phone ahead of their upcoming show. He told us about the new album and the band’s new start after troubled times with their old label, while still maintaining who they are and who fans have grown fond of.
SFL Music: The new record is called Masterpiece. One your website there’s a quote referring to Masterpiece as “an artist’s life work.” That’s a pretty bold title for a re-cord; is this your best one? Your peak form?
Keifer Thompson: “We had a few people that gave us a little bit of grief for calling the album Masterpiece. They assumed it was out of vanity. The title track is called “Masterpiece.” It’s a song I wrote about my son because he is my life’s work. He’s the best thing I’ll be able to do; I’ll never be able to outdo a human.
“So that’s why it called Masterpiece. It wasn’t because this album was our masterpiece. Who knows what that is? People figure that out once you’re dead and gone.”
SFL Music: Does he go on tour with you?
Thompson: “For the most part, yeah. He travels and we de-cided when we were gonna have a kid, hey, he’s gonna go
THOMPSON SQUARE
with us or we’re not gonna have one. He’s a road dog.
SFL Music: What’s it like traveling with your son?
Thompson: “It’s a lot of stuff, man. You gotta take car seats and strollers and bags. We have a really great nanny who’s instrumental in making this whole ship run. He kinda grew up on planes and on the bus so he’s really well adjusted. He don’t mind being on the plane, ears don’t hurt, and all that stuff. He’s a really great traveler. It’s a blessing to have him with us all the time. The good definitely outweighs the bad.”
SFL Music: You’ve broken away from your original la-bel and your first two records garnered you a bunch of awards and accolades. This seems like a fresh start, five years after Just Feels Good. Would that be a fair assess-ment?
Thompson: “Yeah, you know it does. It was a forced new chapter. It wasn’t like we didn’t want to put new music out, but when you’re stuck with a label that’s suffocating you cre-atively, you don’t really have a choice. By some miracle we got out. It just doesn’t happen unless they let you go.
“We were heartfelt in our request to get out and they re-luctantly let us out. It was good for everybody. Clearly they couldn’t get anything done for us anymore, the desire wasn’t there anymore, and it hadn’t been for a few years.
“From the outside in, it looks like, for our fans, ‘man, they took
a five year break!’ We haven’t taken a break at all.”
SFL Music: What does success look like from here on out?
Thompson: “My best case scenario, and I speak for Shawna on this, is to do this on your own and have the fans support you on your way. Via buying the record or streaming it, to the point that you can survive. Without our fans buying tickets and coming to shows and all that stuff it’s very hard to run your business, and it is a business.
SFL Music: How many of your songs are written for one another or about each other? Does it ever get awkward putting into song what’s on your mind and having your spouse then join you on that journey?
Thompson: “No, it’s not really. I’ve been writing about Shaw-na since I met her. I’m madly in love with this girl and al-ways have been and always will be. That’s the most impor-tant thing. Her and Cooper are the two pieces to my puzzle. It’s never awkward writing a song about how much you love something. The challenge is to say it in a different way every time.” - Angel Melendez
THOMPSON SQUAREOCTOBER 7TH
PARKER PLAYHOUSE
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By Angel Melendez • Photo PerouSTEVE LUKATHERSteve Lukather is probably best known as a founding member of Toto but he has also been a part of over 1,500 other tracks with genres that cross the spectrum. Just before Toto kicks of the second leg of their US tour, SFL Music has the chance to chat with Steve about the band, the tour and his new autobiography, The Gospel According to Luke.
SFL Music: You got to be pretty excited to start this second leg of this US tour.
Steve Lukather: You know what, things are going incredibly well for us right now. I can tell you that and we love being on the road, ya know. Despite David Paige’s unfortunate illness, ya know right now, he is just kinda chillin, he’s getting a little bit better, but we have this great kid Xavier X from Prince’s band, he has just fit like a glove as far as a sub, and all these young kids coming out from this whole Weezer phenomenon it’s been a wild ride this year. In a really positive way, it’s almost
overwhelming, my book just come out, number one on Amazon. I’m just kinda tripping out, here we are at sixty years old getting all this love, young audience and selling out. And things are going smash-ing. In the memories of our brothers that have moved on, Mike and Jeff Porcaro, I hope that they are watching, ya know. Their hard work is being represented even from beyond, ya know.
SFL Music: This Florida swing you’re making the most extensive I could find that you guys have done since 1985.
Lukather: I am excited about getting to places like Florida, first off I love Florida. The opportunities have opened up for us, working with our agency WME who have done an unbelievable job for us. The doors have opened, I mean, all of a sudden this whole “Africa” phenomenon, we laugh, let me first tell ya no one laughs harder than we do at ourselves, we are going to be Family Guy characters this upcoming
season, I get to be drawn by Seth and the guys, it’s my favorite tv show, I get in to it, we laugh at this shit so hard. I mean I don’t care I can take the jokes, I mean it is funny. What’s not funny about it, ya know? But to be a part of pop culture is a great honor man. I haven’t seen it yet, they invited us to a table read, I am such a huge fan. And the fact that our singer Jo-seph, is John Williams son, and you know how much Seth loves John Williams, so it’s sort of a thing there. And Walter Mur-phy, they guy that does their music has come to our shows and likes our stuff so you know when they make fun of us they do it with a little bit of love, it’s not hateful ya know. It’s an honor. It’s totally cool. I gotta thank this 15 year old girl who that made Weezer cut Africa, which gave them a huge hit record and gained us a whole legion of young fans, that are showing up that were curious about “who is this Toto band, I know this song” and bla bla bla, it’s been the cross pollinization that’s helped both camps equally. Really, I mean, we
By Tom Craig
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There is a whole lot more to this story! Read the
entire interview at
www.SFLMusic.com
have 2 million dollars of free promotion out of this whole thing, it’s fantastic. And I’ve never met these guys. And this would have never happened, this was an organ-ic thing, we could never have planned this or written this, who would’ve believed this story if you wrote it down.
SFL Music: So you’ve never met Wee-zer?
Lukather: Never met them. I’ve talked to their manager cause I manage the Toto band, so we went back and forth and we strategized a few things after this thing blew up. The only cross pollinization phys-ically was Steve Porcaro showing up on Kimmel, and just doing the solo and walk-ing off. It was a nudge, nudge, wink, wink moment. I was on the road with Ringo Starr at the time. Which I am on the road with Ringo right now. I’m in Cleveland.
SFL Music: I was so excited when it happened and then you guys did “Hash Pipe.”
Lukather: They never expected us to do a call and response. We put our heads together and their fans are going “come on you gotta do one of theirs, ya know” So I was out in Europe, in July, with Ringo and I said to Steve “dude you produce this one, you run with this one and I’ll put my parts on once I get back, and I said “but let’s make it our style, let’s do something to it that would not just copy the record, ya know” And we had fun with it, we put it out and it was a really great positive thing to do. It was fun for us, we play it live and people flip out, they don’t expect us to play Hash Pipe. Yes I do know what the song is about. I made the crack about it that we were smoking hash before they were born, hahaha. I know songs about the dark side, the runaways and Santa Monica Boulevard and stuff like that, but I try to take the high road there and make a little joke out of it as opposed to digging into the real depth of the lyric.
SFL Music: I guess you might see a change in the audience with the sec-ond leg of the tour because that all kin-da happened when you guys weren’t on the road.
Lukather: We have, on the last leg of the tour, there are all these 15 to 20 year old boys and girls showing up and they were really digging the show, I mean, may-be they showed up out of curiosity and maybe we won a few over because our
streaming went through the roof, 10 to 12 million streams a month, we are over half a billion over all, which is something qui-etly, people don’t know. And since that’s the worlds radio station, that puts is up in the big leagues, ya know. We are the Tor-toise, in the Tortoise and the Hare story, if you think about it. We have been slowly taking our punches, cruising along since 1977 and here we are all these years later all of a sudden there’s, all the people who hated us and tried to rip us apart are ei-ther dead or retired and we are still here. Was there reason to criticize us? Yeah sure, there are lots of things to pick apart but you can do that to anybody. Not ev-erything we did was great but we’ve done enough good work to have this career, an-other generation has gone “wow who the fuck are there guys” without knowing that there were people that are in their ‘70s, when we first started out who absolutely tried to kill us and we wouldn’t die. Ya know when the world blows up there will be cockroaches, scorched earth and us.
SFL Music: That was a hell of a band. You guys put out some great music.
Lukather: Thank you. We did try. It’s like any other thing, it’s not for everybody but what is. I don’t love everything either so I don’t mind if people don’t like the music but we’ve taken a little more of our share of absolutely vicious criticism, to the point they are so bad they are funny. I quote some of them in my book a couple of my favorites. You have to be able to take a punch or man you are in the wrong busi-ness. Who doesn’t get kicked in the nuts when they are sleeping when they are in show business right ya know.
SFL Music: David won’t be out on the leg?
Lukather: David’s not well, it’s not cancer he’s not dying but it’s gonna take some time, so like I said Xavier jumped on, he’s a 26 year old genius kid who sings and plays his ass off, he’s Snarky Puppy camp guys, these young genius group of musicians that are coming up through so honored to know some of these guys, its inspiring to know there’s these 20 some-thing guys who are killing it and they wanta hang out with us, it’s like wow that’s pretty cool. Listen we have taken every punch, we’ve lost two brothers, a few different lineup changes, but I’ve been there from day one, I’m the only guy who has been there from day one to present say, Steve Porcaro came back after 27 years of doing television and film and all this other stuff, Joseph Williams is singing better than he ever did, so we got the right team together as much of us that’s left, we have Lenny Castro back on percussion who was with us from the very beginning, and Shan-non Forest another “A” studio guy from Nashville who is as close to Jeff in terms of where he feels the groove, than any-body that we’ve had. People are showing up more than ever so I’d rather than jinx it and just be grateful for it ya know.
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Scott SharrardSaving Grace
With his connection to The Allman Brothers Band, it’s a given that Scott Sharrard, Gregg Allman’s guitarist and musical director, knows a thing or three about Southern rock, some of which you’ll be hearing on Saving Grace, his fifth solo release. On the other hand, you’ll also be hear-ing some soul, blues and R&B, with the keyword there being soul, and the influence of that Southern sound will be quite evident in them all.
Saving Grace contains eleven tracks with nine being Scott Sharrard originals, another being the last known composi-tion from Gregg Allman and the other being the disc’s only cover. On the project, Scott Sharrard on vocals, electric and acoustic guitars and claps is joined by just under my listing limit of thirty musicians. Instead of just referring to them as a “talented bunch of recognizable names,” it is my pleasure to mention each and every one.
They are Howard Grimes, Bernard “Pretty” Purdie, Steve Potts and Chad Gamble on drums; Leroy Hodges, Brett Bass and David Hood on bass; Charles Hodges, Alan Gamble and Pete Levin on B-3 organ; Eric Finland on Wurlitzer & electric piano and B-3 organ; Spooner Oldham on Wurlitzer piano; Moses Patrou on percussion, backing vocals and claps; Mark Franklin on trumpet; Art Edmaiston on tenor sax; Kirk Smothers on baritone sax; Jesse Mun-son, Yennifer Correia and Wen Yih Yu on violin; Jenni-fer Puckett on viola; Jonathan Kirkscey on cello; Susan Marshall and Pie on backing vocals; Charles A. Martinez,
Jesse Guglielmo and the disc›s co-producer Scott Bomar on claps; and special guest Taj Mahal on vocals.
Saving Grace is one of those albums where I could just go straight down the list of excellent tracks and make positive comments on each and every one but since I just made my point, I’ll keep it to a few. One of the several soft and relaxed tracks is a love song titled “Faith to Arise.” It’s a beautifully sung number about a weary traveler look-ing forward to returning home to his loved ones. With some silky-smooth help from Susan, Scott›s not only nail-ing it on the heartfelt lead vocals, he’s doing it on the slide and acoustic guitars as well.
With deep regrets, Scott emotionally and soulfully la-ments over the loss of the woman who always picked him up when he was down. She knew exactly how to get him through those tough times and bouts with low self-esteem. She was indeed, his “Saving Grace.” This, the title track, is the only one on the album that features just the nucleus of the band and in spite of the lack of add-ed horns, and extra percussion, it’s still a musical pow-erhouse. Chad (drums), David (bass) and Eric (B-3 and piano) have the rhythm at a high level of intensity and Scott’s laying down some of the disc’s most serious blues licks on the guitar.
“Everything A Good Man Needs” is said to be the last song written by the late and great Gregg Allman. Until now, the song had never been recorded and the honor of doing jus-tice to it with the vocal performance it warrants was given to the legendary Taj Mahal. Teaming up for their only ap-pearance on the disc, Bernard Purdie and Brett Bass are putting out the tight rhythm; Also, on his only appearance, Pete Levin, one of the disc’s four B-3 players, and Eric Finland on the piano, are totally killing it on the keys.
An obvious common denominator on so many of these songs is how beautiful they all sound and “Words Can’t Say” is the cream of that crop. The combination of the ma-jestic strings, the heavenly horns, the pulse of the B-3 and Scott’s exquisitely smooth and soulful voice all give this ballad a hymnal feel. Like a flame thrower, “Sweet Com-promise” starts off hot and never lets up. The guitars are smokin’, the rhythm’s rockin’, the horns are howlin’ and on an album that has so many monster organ players, Eric’s pounding out some of the disc’s best B-3 work. If this smoker doesn’t get you moving, you’ve spent way too much time listening to music in an elevator, or worse than that, your pulse may have stopped.
Other tracks on the outstanding release include: “High Cost of Loving You,” “Angeline,” “She Can’t Say,” “Tell The Truth,” “Keep Me in Your Heart” and “Sentimental Fool.”
By Peter “Blewzzman” Lauro - www.Mary4Music.com
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A huge screen covered the entire stage showing only the Scor-pions logo, a robotic type figure with their name on the bottom. Only minutes before this draped set up to prep for the Scorpi-ons in the intimate arena setting of Hollywood’s Hard Rock Even Center, another legend, Queensryche opened this concert with an energetic bang that started the night right on key!
Lead Vocalist Todd La Torre, Guitarists Michael Wilton and Park-er Lundgren, bassist Eddie Jackson and drummer Scott Rocken-field took the stage wearing their signature black leather stage clothes and for almost an hour they played 9 of their hit songs that this audience went wild for. They started with “Best I Can,” then “The Needle Lies,” “Empire,” “Guardian” and when they started playing “Silent Lucidity” the crowds exploded with cheers. They then played “Queen of the Reich” and “Jet City Woman” which kept the high energy flowing throughout. Next they moved into “Screaming in Digital” and when they played their last song “Eyes of A Stranger” they utilized their light effects to have eyes looking at the crowd though the drum floor toms. “Thank you for being such a beautiful audience” La Torre announced as they were getting ready to depart the stage, but not without first thank-ing the Scorpions and letting everyone know they were getting ready to see a great show.
So there we sat looking at the Scorpions screen waiting for next great show, (since we had just seen one) with severe an-ticipation. Finally, the screen abruptly came down, lightning bolts sparked from the logo, a helicopter city scene was on the back screen with lights scanning the stage to reveal the headliners platform that span the width of the room, with a high rise back-stage that housed the drum kit. Speakers created the wall behind the band as Lead Vocalist Klaus Meine, Guitarist Rudolf Schen-
ker, Guitarist Matthias Jabs, bassist Pawel Maciwoda and drum-mer Mikkey Dee took the stage and played “Going Out With A Bang.” They wore their signature black leather, but Meine wore a barret and sunglasses, Schenker had a red leather designed jacket and wore sunglasses, Jabs wore a black leather baseball cap, Maciwoda wore a black sleeveless button down, and Dee wore a black sleeveless tee with shorts.
“How are you all?” Meine asked the audience before the played their next hit “Make It Real” and they continued to command the stage with a slight mellow edge but engaging the audience. Schenker played his black/white Flying V and Jabs jammed out on his white explorer with black stripes. Meine walked the width of the stage playing a tambourine and when the song ended he addressed the audience. “Good to see you Hollywood Florida. So Sorry we couldn’t make it last year. Sorry it took so long to get back. This one we go back tonight to the first album,” “Is There Anybody There?” At this point Schenker’s leather jacket came off and the designed tank he wore had to certainly be cooler under the stage lights. Their back screen showed robotic type images of the entire band playing. Then they rolled right into “The Zoo.” The crowd roared with cheers and the enthusiasm began to rise. Red and yellow lights filled the entire stage as the audience sang along with Meine holding the mic out for all to participate. He played a cowbell and tossed several drumsticks to the people in front of the stage.
Schenker then took center stage to lead their incredible instru-mental hit “Coast To Coast.” As the rest of the band joined in with their guitars (Meine included) the audience rocked out with approval. They held notes as the fans screamed with cheers and clapped. “Thank you so much,” Meine said. “Our songs go
Scorpions & Queensryche | Hard Rock Event Center
back to the 70’s.” He explained that they were looking for a drummer back then and they found one from West Palm Beach. The audience roared with pride. “Joe Wyman, this is for you.” Meine shouted out only to then see Wyman walk up to him and greet him with a hug. Meine then told the story of when they were driving on the Auto Bahn. “He had a serious accident. No one could speak English to tell him ‘hit the brakes.’ So, his beautiful girlfriend at the time said, “Joe, let’s go home.’ We love to visit our friends here in Flor-ida.” Here they played “Top of the Bill/Steamrock Fever/Speedy’s Coming/Catch Your Train.” Some guitar chang-es were made as psychedelics danced on the back screen. Meine said, “it’s so much fun to play for you guys you know why because we built this house on the rocks,” he shouted and all cheered as they moved into “We Built This House” with words streaming the screen. “Deli-cate Dance” was next with a colored, animated guitar neck that ran the wall behind the band. The audience was captivated, but broke out of their trance into loud cheers when they started to play “Send Me An Angel.” Here, Jabs played his acoustic while the audience sang along to every word.
Meine introduced the next song saying “after all these years we are still full of hope.” As the guitars lead into “Wind of Change” Meine whistled into the mic bring fans back to the days when the song was first released. The wall behind them read ‘SAVE OUR EARTH. He held out the mic for the audience to sing on queue in unison, ringing throughout this cozy arena as if the room was filled with a choir. Arms were waving as Meine acknowledged various people. When Schenker played his solo cheers erupted while Meine was banging on the tambourine. The songs ends with everyone singing. “We love you Florida” Meine said as he started clapping his hands to start the next song “Tease Me Please Me.” As he played the Tambourine to rally the audience back into high energy mode, everyone followed.
This energy continued to radiate the room even when Meine took a serious note and dedicated the next song in memory of their good friend Lemmy from Motorhead. “Overkill” kept this house
party rockin as images of Lemmy were shown on the screen. Dee (former Mo-torhead drummer) broke into his solo and had the audience fully engaged. He kept them going with cheers and hollers until he ended it with all Scor-pion album covers showing on screens behind him and the band on the lower stage.
“Blackout” was the next big hit played and heads bopped with approval. “Big City Nights” kept the head banging go-ing as busy city street were shown on the screen. Arms were waving and the entire room sang acapella when Meine held out the mic for the chorus. Schen-ker ran in a circle to jump and end the song while Jabs threw picks to fans. The bands lft the stage.
The crowd continued to cheer and clap until the band returned prompting fans to roar with excitement. “Hollywood Florida there’s no one like you.” Meine announced as the band started to play “No One Like You.” When this song end-ed he led the audience with “say yeah, say yeah. Would you like to rock like a ‘HURIICANE’ (the audience screamed).
“Rock You Like A Hurricane” rang throughout the arena leaving this Scorpions loving crowd with elation and satisfaction of an amazing show by phenomenal legendary musicians reaching the mountain top. - Lori Smerilson Carson • Photos Sean McCloskey
30 | www.SFLMusic.com
Last month SFL Music and PowerStation Recording Studios revealed how a local un-signed band is experiencing the opportunity to record their music as if they were a signed and funded label artist. They completed Phase I and are now in the process of actu-ally recording their music professionally in a most productive manner.
PHASE II – FORMULATE
Stepping into the first day of recording for the final product the energy was massive and uplifting. The band, Lead Vocalist Heather Curi, Guitarist Adam Armaganian, Bassist Harley Mitchell and Drummer Justin Marsch are eager and ready for the foundation to be laid. That is, the drums and then bass. As we sat in the lobby area of PowerStation Re-cording Studios the drums rang out from the recording room next door. Drum Tech/Drum-mer Armando Arce was finalizing the tuning for Day 4’s song “Save Me.”
SFL Music: What have you noticed that is different recording in PowerStation Studios than previous experiences?
Marsch: “This is all over top of the line professional. I’m sitting on the couch while my drums are being tuned up, levels are checked. It’s like I’ve got people catering to me. I’m not used to it. Playing out live you know I’ve got to lug my own stuff, break it all down, pack the car up. I don’t have a roadie or a drum tech ever so I’m not used
to it. It’s really kind of cool.” He chuckled. “I like it a lot!”
SFL Music: Is there anything you changed for the recording today?
Marsch: I’ve got a couple of things in my head that I want to try to work out. Normally, for the sake of convenience I’ve been play-ing on a lot smaller set. A Lot less symbols because it’s too much to bring out. Then practicing, rehearsal, you’re on a time limit. So I’ve been cheating if you will, using half the amount of symbols, half the amount of drums. There are things that I want to do that I haven’t been able to try yet really that I want to try to incorporate today, which I hope doesn’t take too long or take away from a lot because I’ve had it in my head, but I haven’t really worked on it. Things you hear that you want to do, but I’m not going to bring out an 8 piece drum set and ten symbols every show, but I want to get the recording right.” Helping him with his kit of course is Arce whom he praised, “Armando is an excellent drummer, great ear too. Tuned the drums phenom-enal. They sound great!”
PowerStation, co-owner (with Tony Bongio-ni) and Producer Rob Roy added, ”Armando is one of our regular session drummers, amazing drummer, freakin’ little rock star. He plays on all kinds of sessions for us. One of the things I noticed about Armando is he’s very particular about drum tuning. Armando is one of the few drummers that I’ve encoun-
tered that really understands tuning drums is more than just an application, but there’s an art to it. So that’s fundamentally why I chose him for this project because there’s a spe-cific direction that I wanted to achieve with the drum recording here.
What we’re trying to do because it’s a rock project there’s a bit of aspects of metal and some other things, we wanted something tight, punchy and fat. That’s what we’re really going for. We did a little bit different miking technique today to cater specifically for the sound of the band, so that’s why I brought Armando in so the drum tuning ac-centuated what we’re trying to get out of the microphones.”
This is where engineer Brennen Fulton came in. “At this point I am just making sure everything is set up and ready to go as far as all the microphones and all the cable are run. Everything is ready for the band to play.”As for the rest of the technical equipment be-ing used Roy explained,” Well, the console is fully analogue, but we basically hybrid ana-logue and digital. We are recording to pro tools with some of the highest quality digital converters out there and then we’re inter-facing with analogue gear. We have some Nieve 1-84 modules that were of the vintage console, we’ve got Motown EQ’s, Pultec from 1951 as well as Millennia Mic Pre, a very modern piece of gear, LA 2’s, 1176 compressors. So we interface all of this and we have basically a little bit of everything at
In The Studio - Vol. 1with Day 4
By Lori Smerilson Carson
32 | www.SFLMusic.com
any given point and time. That’s one of the experiences we’re showing here today that most bands don’t have a chance. The other is that drums are such a big fundamental foundation to a recording. Additionally, we are known for our drum sound, so we are very particular about what we do.”
These particulars became crystal clear as they prepared for the band to record with Marsch and Mitchell in the recording studio facing Armaganian and Curi in the sound board room to play along with their rhythm section. Just prior to Mitchell entering the studio she seemed relaxed yet eager to play.
SFL Music: So how do you feel about re-cording at PowerStation today? Have you changed anything?
Mitchell: “From the first time I started play-ing shows to now, I’ve been pretty simple with my gear. Just recently, I started using a bass effects pedal to really EQ my sound. So, now that we are at PowerStation and having the opportunity to professionally re-cord and have our songs produced, I feel excited that I can work on my “sound” as a bassist. Before I was just going right to my amp. It didn’t really matter. Now, we’re re-cording, it’s serious, everything matters.”
Roy: “Who said anything about being seri-
ous?”
Mitchell: Well, you know what I mean. Ev-erything matters, you know what you lay down.”
Paul Kronk rolled his chair towards Arma-ganian who was sitting in a chair next to the soundboard warming up his guitar. He looked at the guitarist shoes and sarcastical-ly asked ”who the hell wears Birkenstocks to play metal?” Everyone laughed. This group certainly showed the comradery they had working together.
Mitchell: “We had this conversation the oth-er night!”
Armaganian: “Because when I shred it gets so fuckin’ hot I need to cool down. That’s why I war Birkenstocks to play metal.”
SFL Music: So the motto for today is?
Mitchell: “We are Day 4 ready to crush skulls…in Birkenstocks!” Everyone laughs. “Our Genre is comfort metal.”
At this point she exited the soundboard room and entered the recording studio with Marsch who was already drumming. The Metronome started to click and the band began to play “Save Me.” Roy conducted, emphasizing the down beats for the rhythm section to follow. As soon as it ended Roy instructed, “Alright, lets take it from the top. I’ll flap my wings again. Just keep eye on me and I’ll keep you in the down beats.” They played “Save Me” again and when the song ended….
Roy: “That felt pretty good.”
Kronk: “That bridge section?”
Roy: Yeah, you’re going to have to be my ears because I’m listening to that click.”
Kronk: “Lets take if from the break. Hold it forever. For-e-verrr,” he instructed Mitchell.
She plays and hold her last note. Then Kro-nk asked,” How did that feel for you? It felt a lot better for me.” Mitchell replied, “Yes, it felt a lot better.” Then the song was played back to check a couple of parts.
The next week,
SFL Music: How did you feel about the recording when you finished the last take?
Mitchell: “After I finished the last take, I kind of felt sad at first.” She laughed. Al-though this is only the beginning and I will still have an input on my bass tone and the rest of the instruments, my parts were done. It feels good knowing that when this is all done, I’ll be able to, not only hear my bass, but our songs at a professional level.
There is a whole lot more to this story! Read the
entire interview at
www.SFLMusic.com
Jason Bieler | The Funky BiscuitPhoto: Jay Skolnick
Noah Cyrus | Revolution LivePhoto: Sean McCloskey
Dierks Bentley | Coral Sky AmphitheaterPhoto: Sean McCloskey
OTR2
36 | www.SFLMusic.com
Sitting in the back corner of a football arena, looking at two huge screens, the anticipation was felt all around the stadium, then grew into a deep, loud roar as the lights went out and words be-gan to fill the gigantic white backdrop. THIS IS REAL LIFE. ON THE RUN II… The crowd erupted into an even louder cheer as Beyonce’ and Jay-Z appeared on the screen before them. A short video of the couple ran until they walked out on the stage hold-ing hands with two screen size crosses on either side of them. Jay-Z wore a white suit with a gold medallion chain and Beyonce’ wore a silver and black dress with red and yellow. Black boots to match.
They start this over two hour set with “Holy Grail.” As he raps, she dances and mouths his lyrics. She said, “We love you guys. Welcome to On The Run II.” Then they roll right into “Part II (On The Run).” As they sang facing each other a beach scene is run-ning on the back enormous screens. The crowd cheered even stronger when they walked the two runways which stretched into the audience more than half of a football field. These two amazing performer acknowledged people in the audience, even pointed to a few and Jay-Z seemed prompted to say “that’s right. You get it!”
This Florida crowd did certainly seem to understand the energy and professional set up that Beyonce’ and Jay-Z had before them. This 2018 tour of only two dates in Florida, Orlando’s Camping World August 29th and Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium August 31st. The original ‘On The Run I’ tour was four years prior so fans were definitely ready to see this dynamic duet! Whatever was expected Beyonce’ and Jay-Z far exceeded not just with their massive screen spanning the width of the stadium, two runways to engage the audience and risers that allowed them more per-sonal access to their fans. Not to mention 37 songs and almost as many outfit changes! This couple also showed their grati-tude toward their fans in an extremely big way as they awarded a young man in the community with a $100,000.00 scholarship from the Shawn Carter Foundation, just prior to starting their set.
Trees and a beach scene showing these two dancing and film-ing each other ran on the screen as they started “’03 Bonnie and Clyde” Beyonce’ said, ”you help me sing this next song.” She walks out and down the runway as the crowd cheered and sang with her. She held out the mic for people to join in. Then she did a little spin before stepping into a rising staircase with rails that she leaned on as she sang “Drunk In Love.” Jay-Z appeared in black jeans and a black/white shirt.
The dancers take the stage with Beyonce’. Diva/Click the audi-ence literally links arms and surfs with her and the dancers. Jay-Z is then wearing a tee-shirt with a black jacket and black/white headband. This is where he jumped off of “Clique” and sang “Dirt Off Your Shoulder.” A contortionist type dancer joined him on-stage. Jay-Z addressed the audience, “Everyone ready to have a good time?” He raised his arm and started bouncing it. The audience immediately followed his lead. “On To the Next” was next as the screen rolled with his image behind him. “I think Or-lando is ready to go all night!” This is when he rapped “Fuckwith-meyouknowigotit.” Their dancer was back onstage until Beyonce’ re-appeared wearing a black shorts/body suit with the bra top and the thigh high black boots. She and her dancers controlled the stage for “Flawless/Feeling Myself.” “Do we have any sexy ladies in the house tonight,?” she asked. Naturally there was an explosion of cheers. This is where she moved into “Naughty Girl.”
A stairwell emerged on the stage and Jay-Z stepped out to rap his “Big Pimpin’” hit wearing a blue jacket. No need to worry about the heat as they had electric fans lining the stage so all was well. This didn’t distract from the New York City scene run-ning behind him as he went right into his “Run This Town.” These electric fans also added extra flair as Beyonce’s hair blew in the wind as she returned to the stage in a gold/silver body suite to sing her “Baby Boy.”
The energy held strong and people were jumping when Jay-Z went right into his hit “Public Service Announcement.” He re-peated, “Hands in the air, hands in the air!” Hands were in the air, he bowed to the audience and he nodded with approval then said, “Ok, thank you.” Then went into “The Story of OJ” as he walked a runway. All of the sudden he stopped to chat with a fan. “You want my jacket? My Chain? I’m at work now, I’ll talk to you later,” giving her affirmation as a friend would.
“Are you having a good time?” he questioned and motioned the crowd into hollers of confirmation. “Make some f** noise!” He continued saying “Only love can conquer hate. Everything is love.” Their guitarist and horn section (all female) played as they wore red.
Beyonce’ again emerged to take the stage this time in jean shorts, a white tank style top and red boots. “Déjà vu” started playing and the dancing continued. “To my ladies,” she held her mic out for all of the ladies to yell. “To my guys..” She held her mic out again for the men to out do the women. “Crazy in Love” began and everyone sang along. Jay-Z rapped while Biance’ continued her gift of song and dance with “Freedom.” Jay-Z now wearing a black leather/jean jacket along side of his guitarist played “U Don’t Know.” Fans raised their hands over their heads creating a V with triangle fingers and bounced to the music.
Jay-Z ended this amazing show with “APESHIT which got the crowd jumping with enthusiasm. The floor actually moved with the rhythm. “Thank you for being a beautiful audience,” he said. He introduced Beyonce’ and she introduced Jay-Z as they rolled credits of all in their show on the huge screen behind them. “We appreciate you all,” Beyonce added. “Give it up for yourselves! Good Night. God Bless. Drive Safely.”
The lights came on as the stage went dark after this captivating couple left. We were all in awe! - Lori Smerilson Carson
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