music mini-reviews
Some interesting music has come my way lately.
Iran’s CD Dissolver is great — I can’t get enough of it. I hadn’t heard of this NY-based band until they were booked at a recent KEXP concert.
Speaking of NY bands, I first ran into Gogol Bordello while visiting a friend in Tallahassee last December but didn’t get around to listening to his tunes until now. Very funny, lively and a little crazy!
And for something completely different — 70’s Texas tunesmith Townes Van Zandt died in 1997 but not before writing lots of classic songs made famous by other bands’s covers (e.g. ‘If I Needed You’, ‘Pancho and Lefty’, and ‘Who Do You Love’). Country musician Steve Earle recently released an album of Van Zandt covers, which prompted me to listen to the original again in the form of the double CD Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas recorded in 1973 but not released until 1977. Some mighty fine songs, yup.