Ken Wenzel - Beneath Potomac Skies

I frequently become myopic by allowing myself to focus on new music created in East Nashville because (1) it's often great and (2) much of it is available for live listening nearby.

Yet, I believe I do a pretty good job of pulling up and keeping my eyes on the horizon for new music from all over the place. In 2014, one place from which I've gleaned a good bit of new music is our nation's capital: Washington DC.

Ken Wenzel (web | Twitter) is part of that contingent and recently released his first, full-length album ...Beneath Potomac Skies. 

Like many Federal government processes in DC, Wenzel has had a bit of convoluted trek to end up in the District as his current home.

He grew up a Midwestern kid from Illinois playing saxophone from middle through high school. He then went to Las Vegas to major in jazz studies. The next decade took him all over the place as a hired-gun sax player. After being typecast a bit, he broke his own mold so to speak. He took up guitar, expanded his professional music offerings and relo'd to the beltway.

As someone who wanted to break from the stereotype of what a saxophonist is expected to sound like, he accomplished that goal with a lot of diversity in his compositions on the album. A few songs have a pop feel. Others with fiddle and pedal steel guitar fit nicely within the Americana genre. Another one or two could just as easily been recorded on 16th Avenue in Nashville rather than in a DC 'burb. Across the 12 tracks, the album is an impressive debut - a debut by someone who has been performing professionally for about 15 years!


A few highlights from the album include...

Red Letter Days - Wenzel recaps what it's like to attempt a relationship reconciliation after months away playing gigs and tending bar - in this case aboard a cruise ship.

To watch you turn and walk away

It's like watching sunlight fade away

We'll be together one day

After all this ends

We can live the red letter days again

(Let's See) What Happens on the Highway - Road Trip! As recorded, this song has almost a contemporary country feel to it with a nice blend of fiddle, bass, drums and guitar.

Fire it up and drop the top

Point in west and never stop

The whole wide world is waiting girl

Let's see it our way 

No more pressure, no more work

Forget the boss man, he's a jerk

We'll leave all that stuff behind us in the driveway

There's magic in the backwoods and the byways

Let's see what happens on the highway

The Wisdom of Flowers - Perhaps my favorite track of the album. The previous song, Caving In, is a quick-paced one with contrasting references to a picture-perfect sunlit day, some morning regrets of the night before, and an acceptance of the 'new norm' as a DC resident. As it ends, The Wisdom of Flowers then begins with a completely different sound and dark vibe. Wenzel's newer-found guitar picking skills opens the track followed soon by the haunting sounds of pedal steel guitar and rhythmic brushes on a snare.

There's no need to argue now

There's no need to talk about our faults

And there's no need to talk about the vines outside my window choking off

Choking off the daylight

Like I'm slowly choking on my own resolve

Come Read My Heart - This uptempo song opens with some great dobro and banjo work. Wenzel's lyrics are based on the book Ten Sisters: A True Story. The book (and the song) tells the remarkable story of 10 sisters separated as kids in 1942 but who found one another decades later.


The album closes with a song titled Unbroken. Appropriately, Wenzel returns to his roots with an extended saxophone solo - though within a musical arrangement likely different than he played with others over a 10-year span. But that's just a generalization on my part - didn't mean to stereotype anyone there.

TMC

Lauren Calve - Between The Creek and the Tracks

One of my favorite aspects of enjoying music is learning about 'hops' from one artist or band to another - an example of Six Degrees of Separation if you will. Musicians, producers, singers, opening acts, headliners, etc. - anything that might link me from one's music to another.

Another more recent aspect I enjoy about music and mentioned here on multiple occasions is Couch By Couchwest. CXCW has been a great way to learn about new music, and I've formed some new friendships as a result of it.

Both of these aspects have come into play with some new music from songwriter Lauren Calve (Facebook | Twitter). I first learned of Miss Shevaughn & Yuma Wray through CXCW. Through them, I met their drummer Ben Tufts, a current resident of Washington DC. I've since learned Ben joined Calve's band as her drummer.

Credit: Roxplosion Facebook page

 In November, Calve will release her debut album - a 4-song EP titled Between The Creek And The Tracks.

Lauren, a native Virginian, is now like Tufts a resident of  WDC. Though she has dabbled with music and singing for several years, she buckled down to truly begin composing her own songs in early 2013.

Calve, her band, and their producer set-up shop in a barn in Fairfax, VA. A conscious, collective decision was made to embrace and retain the authentic sounds of the recording 'studio' which leads to interesting sounds on this folksy, bluesy album.

With Tufts on drums, the rest of the band includes DC musicians:

• Colin Thompson on guitar
• Bobby Thompson on guitar
• Michael Calve on bass
• Jesse Hooper on keys 

Looking For The Water - The quartet of songs opens strong. Calve's confident vocals are backed by a single 4/4 percussive thump for the first 16 seconds - with an electric slide guitar, organ and bass joining them for the next four minutes. The song's lyrics are simple ... yet complex. They include some repeating couplets. A line may repeat - but the message is deep. As I've learned several times in life, you often have to tell someone 3 or 4 times before they get it.

Been in the desert for forty days

Tried and tempted along the way

Looking for the water to cleanse my soul

My soul, my soul

Heaven help me now 

Lend a ladder to climb on out

Heaven help me now 

Lend a ladder to climb on out

Sweep - The second song is the polar opposite of the opener. Calve's vocals and her guitar open this wonderfully rich song for about the first minute. Then Tuft's subtle drumming, resonator guitar, lap slide, and bass join in ascending order to complete the song. While the video below is a great representation of the song (and filmed in a very cool locale!), it doesn't reveal the fullness of the song as recorded on her EP.


I feel I can hear hints of old school Alanis Morissette in Calve's voice, and the song could fit nicely nestled amongst other songs on a Dixie Chicks album. And listen carefully - you'll hear the nuances of the barn ... err, studio such as subtle vocal echoes and noises of the night including chirping crickets, perhaps a frog or two, and other critters.

Hard - The third song is similar in style to Sweep. Of the four tracks, I think Hard may be my favorite - perhaps because of the recording style. Rather than over-produce the song with micro-edits, Hard has a rough edge to it befitting its title and lyrical content. Guitar squeaks on the steel strings that come naturally with chord changes were left intact. Heavy use of the resonator but subtle use of brushes on a snare provide a neat yet complex element to the song. Calve wrote the song as a nod to a family legacy of working in a Pittsburgh steel mill.

It’s so hard, it’s so hard

It’s so hard, sure is hard

Days gettin’ longer, years wearin’ thin

And that pounding hammer 

Echoes in my bones

Annie - The closer - another one-word title - demonstrates perhaps how Calve chose to invest more time and effort in composing her lyrics vs. frettin' over lengthy titles. Ha. In this case, the one-word title is a tribute to a famous Annie. No, not the Woody Allen movie - Annie Oakley.

Like the opener, it opens with power - a slide on the resonator and joined almost immediately by guitars and Tufts' attacks on his snare and crash cymbals. The song quickly settles into a quick-paced groove.

Wild Bill won’t know me

No one ever will

Blaspheme my name round town

I’ll put a hole through your heart

No man can hold a flame

To this five foot lady frame

No sharper shot have I found

With a six-pound forty-four-caliber round

A lot is packed into Lauren Calve's strong debut. I look forward to hearing more from her in releases to follow... and a future appearance during CXCW (fingers crossed).

TMC

City Songs Saturday - Freedom Edition

July 4, 2011 - The 235th birthday of the most incredible, liberty-filled, freedom-rich nation on the earth. I'm immensely grateful to the founding fathers, the Continental Army, and the military branches of the United States for visioning it, declaring it, earning it, and defending it.

This week's City Songs Saturday focuses on some of the key cities at the flashpoint of the revolution then and at the epicenter of government today. As has been the pattern, I've included 5 songs. But to be honest, it was a bit of stretch to go with five and still cover multiple cities. Songwriters haven't exactly been forthcoming with songs about places like Lexington, Concord, Saratoga, and Valley Forge. Perhaps I could have included one about Quebec, but I've tried to focus this series on U.S. cities. So away we go...

I'm Shipping Up to Boston - Dropkick Murphys - I'll lead with this one because (1) the song is short but fun to scream and (2) I'm giving a nod to fellow blogger - the music diggin', straight shootin' Rockstar_Aimz - who currently claims Boston as home.

I'm a sailor peg / And I lost my leg
Climbing up the top sails / I lost my leg!

I need to create a "to do" to blast this song later this September on Talk Like A Pirate Day.

Brasilia Crossed With Trenton - Bob Mould - I have no idea if Mould's Trenton is meant to be about the New Jersey city. But in this case, I'm going to make it so.

I see buildings / With laundry hanging out of the window
Never in my wildest dreams would I think I'd see
Brasilia crossed with Trenton

Streets of Philadelphia - Bruce Springsteen

Philadelphia Freedom - Elton John

The Ghost of Old D.C. - J.B. Beverly & The Wayward Drifters - This one was a stretch for me. I didn't have what I believed to be a blog-worthy song title about Washington, DC. But in searching around for one, I found this band. From what I've heard of this video and other song samples, I'll be listening to them more ... a lot more.

...well, there is a patch of train tracks outside of Silver Spring
it used to be the freight line right into old DC...

Happy Independence Day folks. Never - ever - take your freedoms for granted.

TMC

Washington DC

A couple of weeks ago, the family vacation was to one of those obligatory destinations - Washington DC. Isn't there a short list of "must visit" places all families must eventually go? Orlando, Grand Canyon, Yosemite, the beach (plenty of latitude granted here - can be any beach), Washington DC?

Our itinerary went something like this...

• Sunday - Shear Madness show at the Kennedy Center
• Monday - International Spy Museum (very interesting), Holocaust Museum (very disturbing), Jefferson Memorial
  
• Tuesday - Tour of the US Capitol, Duck tour of DC and a splash in the Potomac, National Botanical Gardens
  
• Wednesday - Smithsonian Museums of Natural History and American History
• Thursday - Newseum (very cool and most up-to-date of all museums we visited)
• Friday - Air & Space Museum on the Capital Mall
  
• Saturday - National Gallery of Art, Lincoln Memorial

We stayed in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia. In old times, a lot of transportation was by horse and buggy. In contemporary times - especially in big cities - trains are used to move people and freight. And they run...a lot...as in all night...and just outside of our bedroom window. The Metro, CSX freight, Amtrak, some sort of Virginia commuter line, etc. While we were there, I couldn't care less what kind of song Todd Snider's friend wanted to hear. I wanted to sleep at night rather than hear the rumbling of the tracks and blaring of the signal horns.

As always, I took a lot of pictures the first couple of days. But then, I tried a different strategy this trip. My kids are old enough now to know how to handle a camera. So by day three, I turned it over to them to take pictures of whatever they wanted. I took it back just every so often for a particular shot I wanted.

So while I could share all sorts of shots such as how the cherry trees were in bloom...

...or how the Tidal Basin cherry trees framed the Jefferson Memorial...

...I'll instead present some alternate views of DC rather than continuing with pictures and commentary you've likely seen and heard a million times before.

As I mentioned above, the most up-to-date museum we visited was the Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue. It focuses on how the media has covered key news and pop culture events both domestically and abroad.

In particular, three exhibits truly stood out from the rest.

• One was a collection of Pulitzer Prize winning photos. I've seen many of them over the years, but to see them all together was pretty stunning.
• The second was the 9/11 exhibit featuring some unbelievable photos, headlines of the tragedy in dozens of newspapers from across the country, and the remnants of the transmission antenna recovered from the rubble of the collapsed World Trade Center.
• The third was the section of the Berlin Wall on display. The wall facing West Berliners still had all the graffiti. The reverse side of course had nothing much on it at all as East Berliners didn't exactly get to spend their spare time doodling political messages on the wall.
  

When I last toured the Smithsonian Museum of American History two decades ago, I was amazed at all the cool stuff they had archived. Archie Bunker's chair. A full set of the 4077th from M*A*S*H. Richard Petty's STP Pontiac he drove to win #200. Don "Big Daddy" Garlits' Swamp Rat dragster. Linotype typesetting machines similar to what my dad used when he started in the printing business many decades ago. And so on.

We stood in a queue for about an hour to view the pop culture exhibit. When we finally got to the top of the line, two realities hit us right between the eyes:

• One, a sign announced the pop culture area was being re-done and to enjoy the few exhibits they had available. All they had on display was Archie's chair, Dorothy's red slippers from Wizard of Oz, Apollo Ohno's Olympic skates, Brian Boitano's Olympic skates, a Kermit the Frog puppet, and a mask from the Broadway production of The Lion King. That's it.
  
• Two, my kids neither knew who Archie Bunker was or even cared to know. When we told we were disappointed the other stuff wasn't on display, all we got were bored looks and yawns.
  

An hour to see just four or five things - and things the kids didn't give a flip about anyway. Man, I felt like such a dumbo.

In just about any US city I've ever visited, I could swing a dead cat in any direction and hit a convenience store to get a single beer or two - but not in Old Town Alexandria. I asked various staff members at our condo joint about any nearby 7-11 or the like. None were within walking distance. So instead of paying $7-$8 for a six-pack, I ended up buying individuals each night at the neighboring Hilton bar for $7 PER.

The nearest grocery store was Whole Foods. You know the place - the grocery store where guilt-ridden, Birkenstock-wearing, dirt people can buy overpriced, generic, organic Cheerios. Yet even with that stereotype in my head, I was hoping even these folks could enjoy a cold brew. Oh they could alright. For about $11 a sixer, I could enjoy a gluten-free Red Bridge beer. No barley or wheat! What's the matter with these people?

I thought this picture might be a good candidate for Fail Blog.

As my son and I strolled 23rd St. between the Foggy Bottom Metro stop and the Lincoln Memorial, I spotted the Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy window-unit air conditioned building at George Washington University. I don't know about you, but when I think Jackie O. I automatically think "cool". Am I right?

As difficult as it was to score beer at a convenience store, it was comforting to find it in abundant supply at the Austin Grill restaurant on King Street in Alexandria. My eyes also immediately found the Joe Ely Big Combo. Of all the Texas songwriters, it seems Joe would be one of the last ones to have a meal named after him. But he did, and I got it along with a couple of Shiner Bocks to wash it down.

St. Mary's foggy bottom? Hmm, just a suggestion Mary. Maybe you should cut back on the broccoli and bran muffins. I mean I'm just sayin...

This painting in the National Gallery of Art...

...reminded me of the scene in Animal House toga party right before Belushi pulls his best Pete Townsend imitation.


And this painting...

... reminded me of long-time Grand Ol' Opry performer Little Jimmy Dickens.

The Magic Gourd? OK, this one is yours. Be original. Be creative. Take the high road or go to the gutter.

I'll wrap it up by saying the view from the top of the Lincoln Memorial steps never gets old. I could sit there for days. Though I've gotta admit I did have a faint vision of Robin Wright Penn traipsing through the reflecting pool calling out "Forrrresst!" and my yelling back "JENNY!"

All in all, it was a good week. For the first time in about four years, we took our vacation without my in-laws. So in that respect, this trip was a great week. And that's no bull...


TMC