The Alternate Routes, shown here in Dallas, are part of a new compilation to raise money for WPKN-FM (89.5) in Bridgeport. (Photo by Trish Badger)
After years of hosting local bands on the air, CT Rocks!, a local music program on WPKN-FM (89.5) in Bridgeport, has compiled a CD of 12 live performances by the likes of the Reducers, Michael Cleary Band, the Peacock Flounders and the Alternate Routes.
The CD, “CT Rocks! Live!,” is available exclusively from WPKN as part of a winter fund-raiser, for a minimum donationof $40.
Bob D’Aprile, the host of CT Rocks!, says he’d like to release more compilations in the future. For more information, e-mail him at connecticutrocks@gmail.com.
Here’s the tracklisting, after the jump:
Although the Zambonis' latest CD is certainly about hockey, it's about more than hockey, too.
It’s true, Bridgeport band the Zambonis sings exclusively about ice hockey, but that’s not nearly as limiting as it first seems.
Tucked within songs about the fastest game on earth are odes to family, friendship, teamwork and perseverance on “Five Minute Major (in D Minor),” the Zambonis’ new album on Blue Line Recordings.
They’re big-hearted tunes, spanning styles and sounds tied together by the common thread of love for the game. Also, though, there’s an undercurrent of romanticism at work here, a sense of all-for-one togetherness as leader Dave Schneider and his crew skate through these 15 songs.
It was a night of somber remembrances and welcome returns Sunday at the 54th Grammy Awards in Los Angeles.
Jennifer Hudson sang a wrenching version of “I Will Always Love You” in tribute to Whitney Houston, who died Saturday at 48; while Adele — the top-selling artist of 2011 — performed in public for the first time since having vocal cord surgery last year.
Country icon Glen Campbell, who announced last year he has Alzheimer’s, did an elegiac “Rhinestone Cowboy”; while the surviving founding members of the Beach Boys sounded ageless on “Good Vibrations,” the first time in decades they had all sung together in public.
Adele was the big winner Sunday, too, taking home six awards, including three of the biggest: album of the year for “21,” and song of the year and record of the year for “Rolling in the Deep.”
“It’s been the most life-changing year,” she said, fighting back tears when she won album of the year.
Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner are shown in a scene from their 1992 film "The Bodyguard." Houston's version of "I Will Always Love You" helped the soundtrack sell 44 million copies worldwide. (Photo: REUTERS/Courtesy of Warner Home Video)
Whitney Houston had a long way to fall, and she did.
From the towering heights of international superstardom in the 1980s and ’90s, Houston, who died Saturday in Beverly Hills at 48, spent her later years drifting through the shell of her career as she struggled with addiction and depression.
We can shake our heads at the result of her senseless entanglement with drugs, or talk sagely about cautionary tales or the corrosive effects of fame in a culture that fetishizes celebrity — there’s no shortage of material. For all her frailties, though, Houston was in many ways a prisoner of her own good fortune, her stunning voice and monumental commercial achievements having locked her in a world of artifice that she simply wasn’t equipped to handle.
No one is, really.
Houston wasn’t the first to lose herself in the cracked reflection of success, but few others have equaled her stature. She was among the biggest stars of her time, releasing seven studio albums and appearing on a pair of soundtracks, all of which have sold more than 200 million copies worldwide. She won scores of awards, including six Grammys, two Emmys and 22 American Music Awards. She starred in movies, leading to the biggest hit of her career with “I Will Always Love You,” from the soundtrack to “The Bodyguard,” her 1992 film with Kevin Costner.
Whitney Houston, one of the biggest pop stars in recent memory, was found dead Saturday at a hotel in Beverly Hills, according to news reports. She was 48. The cause of death was unclear Saturday night.
Her powerful voice, rooted in gospel but with a commanding pop sensibility, helped Houston’s six studio albums and two soundtracks sell more than 200 million copies worldwide. Younger artists including Mary J. Blige, Christina Aguilera, Beyoncé, Pink and Jennifer Hudson have cited Houston as an influence.
Her fall was nearly as precipitous as her rise: drug abuse took its toll on Houston, ravaging her voice and reducing her career to sporadic album releases interspersed with dismaying public appearances, including an interview with Diane Sawyer in 2002 in which Houston admitted using drugs but denied smoking crack because it’s “cheap.”
Spending much of the past year on the road has honed Bronze Radio Return into a tight, lean musical unit, capable of powerful live performances like the one the band gave Friday night in the Great Hall at Union Station in Hartford.
It was a hometown show for a Hartford band busy enough that it doesn’t get as many chances to play at home as it used to, which is bittersweet: the band is all grown up and making its way in the big wide world, but we’ll keep their old room just as they left it.
Er, anyway, the group made the most of the show, which is supposed to be the first of more to come in the grand, high-ceilinged room at Hartford’s train station. Bronze Radio Return played a 90-minute set of songs drawn from its various releases. Big driving bass and a rock-steady beat powered opener “Wonder No More,” and the band breezed through the verses of “Blurry-Eyed Worries,” before turning a sharp corner into the chorus.
Hold Steady singer Craig Finn steps away from the band on his first solo album. (Photo by Jeremy Balderson)
News that Craig Finn was recording a solo album was worrisome to some fans of his band, the Hold Steady. How would Finn manage without guitarist and longtime musical partner Tad Kubler? Was this the end of the Hold Steady?
Those questions formed the foundation of our latest Sound Check podcast delving into Finn’s solo debut, “Clear Heart Full Eyes” (which I also reviewed here). Meghan Maguire Dahn, Stephen Busemeyer and I each found things to like about the album, including Finn’s vivid lyrics and natural ability as a storyteller.
What do you think?
Let us know in the comments, or by e-mail. Suggestions for future podcasts? Let us know that, too. Previous episodes of Sound Check are available here and for free via the iTunes music store.
LISTEN
Podcast — Craig Finn’s “Clear Heart Full Eyes”
Portland native Brian Vibberts has won two Grammys and a Latin Grammy for his work on albums by jazz pianist Chick Corea. Vibberts is up for a third Grammy Sunday.
Brian Vibberts was a teenager in a band when he first saw the inside of a recording studio, and he was quickly hooked — but not by sitting behind a drum kit.
“I was there playing drums, but I was more interested in what was going in the control room,” Vibberts says with a laugh.
That moment when he was in high school in the mid-’80s led soon enough to a career as a producer and audio engineer that has landed Vibberts, 42, a pair of Grammys, a Latin Grammy and a nomination for another statuette at the 54th Grammy Awards tonight in Los Angeles. He’s up for best jazz instrumental album for his work as a mix engineer on “Forever” by Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke and Lenny White.
“My main goal that I had set for myself way back when I started was that someday, I wanted to win a Grammy award,” Vibberts says. “To have it happen multiple times, it’s like a dream come true.”
Crying, vomiting, dancing cowboys — “American Idol” had it all Thursday night, unless your definition of “all” is so narrow as to include anything actually happening.
Nothing much did happen on “group night,” not even a peep from North Haven native Gabi Carrubba, 16. Most of the hour focused on contestants gathering into groups of four or five to battle each other for control, talk trash on camera behind each other’s backs and, occasionally, partake in shaky rehearsals of well-worn songs.
There was good news, though: Symone Black, who caused a scare when she collapsed on stage at the end of Wednesday’s broadcast, was well enough to continue on the show, explaining at the start how she blacked out while answering a question from judge Randy Jackson.
While she appeared to be OK, becoming a fifth member in one of the groups, several other contestants Thursday weren’t: a flu bug swept through the contestants, leading to feverish, vomiting performers and more teases to more contestants who literally “collapse under the pressure.”
“American Idol” resumes Wednesday at 8 p.m. on FoxCT.
Hartford's Bronze Radio Return performs a hometown show Friday with the Alternate Routes at Union Station downtown.
Here are a few shows by Connecticut bands that are worth your time this weekend:
FRIDAY, Feb. 10
Bronze Radio Return with the Alternate Routes and Brian Jarvis Band at Union Station, 1 Union Place, Hartford. 8 p.m. Not only does this show feature two of Connecticut’s highest-profile bands in Bronze Radio Return and the Alternate Routes, they’re said to be the first acts to perform in the Great Hall at Union Station, where there will supposedly be more shows to come. It’s been a busy time for Bronze Radio Return and the Alternate Routes: Bronze Radio Return last year released “Shake! Shake! Shake!” (reviewed here), and the Alternate Routes released “Lately” in 2010 (reviewed here), and both bands have been spending sizable chunks of time on the road. In addition, Bronze Radio Return is one several Connecticut acts performing in March at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. Tickets are $10 for the Union Station show.
The Suicide Dolls with the Field Recordings and Instant Family at the Oasis Pub, 16 Bank St., New London. 9:30 p.m. It’s a big month for the Suicide Dolls, the New London trio that just released its debut LP after a decade of playing together. (Read more here about “Prayers in Parking Lots.”) New Haven’t Field Recordings haven’t been idle, either, what with the release last year of “The Elastic Nostalgia.” Mystic newcomers Instant Family opens the 21-and-over show. There’s a $5 cover.
SATURDAY, Feb. 11
Cobalt Rhythm Kings with Travis Moody at The Outer Space, 295 Treadwell St., Hamden. 9 p.m. The Cobalt Rhythm Kings have spent the past 15 years immersed in the sounds of swing and blues, and though the group hasn’t released an album in a while, the foursome was a finalist in last year’s Connecticut Blues Challenge. Branford bluesman Travis Moody is back to gigging after a dire electrical accident that resulted in temporary partial paralysis and a missing body part, which he address in droll fashion on the song “A Little Less” from his new album, “Resurrection.” Admission is $8.
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