Tim Badrick - down to earth, no nonsense guy from Laidley, Queensland. Guided by logic & intuition. E:-badrick.tim@gmail.com
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
BLACK DUB TURNED UP THE BLUES FIREPOWER FOR THIS LIVE PERFORMANCE OF 'NOMAD'
Until a week ago, I had never heard of BLACK DUB, and because of a lack of information on the internet about this multi-racial band, I am feeling my way a little bit writing this article. An old mate of mine from Logan City was the one who suggested I check the band out and see what i thought.
BLACK DUB's website is obviously a good start to find out more about the band and where they're playing future gigs, and there is a healthy amount of well patronised You Tube videos highlighting the unique eccentricities of what i'd class at face value as being an experimental jazz vocal/R&B blues band with a slight alternative rock bent.
BLACK DUB is american (or canadian), that I do know judging by the accents of the group members, and the name of the band's founding member, canadian DANIEL LANOIS, rung a bell with me for an obvious reason because he is a veteran music producer who has tweaked the knobs for a number of big name artists including Neil Young, Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel and U2.
Besides his work with BLACK DUB, his best output as a performer, quoting from Wikipedia, is his intrumental album BELLADONNA from 2005, which was nominated for a Grammy, and his instrumental score for the film LOUDquiteLOUD, a documentary about the seminal alternative rock band THE PIXIES.
The other members of BLACK DUB, which only has one self titled album from 2010 under its belt, is BRIAN BLADE on drums, DARYL JOHNSON on bass and singer/multi-instrumentalist TRIXIE WHITLEY out front on the microphone.
Some of their songs i've sampled on You Tube are a bit mediocre and so-so or lacking a bit of grunt, but this live version of NOMAD in a small club really pumps some blues firepower. I reckon BLACK DUB would be really fantastic to see live.
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Hey Tim, just a heads up, you may have missed or perhaps not thought it relevent to the story either , might e worth a visit to the Wiki site http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Whitley for a heads up on how some older Jazz/fusion/Blues producer/players got together with Young Trixie, since it was Lanois who tried to develop Chris as a US talent, now promoting his daughter's career by providing another outlet for her obviously overflowing talents.
ReplyDeleteFor someone so young she has a long history already in europe amazing really.
For mine the almost single like Lanois composition 'surely' a more traditional type peice despite the alternitive guitar style ( which I love by the way and have been trying to work out exactly which effects he is using, I think a treble boost, buffer, delay, and maybe an overdrive and perhaps a valve booster as well) is the showcase for her vocals as much as it is almost a lesson in rhythm section dynamics, of which Blade is a perfectionist and who uses the typical flat set 4 piece kit of a jazz drummer to create enough percussive diversity that you'd be sure there was at least double that number. I think Lanois will have a hit on his hands with this project.