Aidin Vaziri: June 2010

29 June 2010

Pop Quiz: Femi Kuti

Aidin Vaziri | While Broadway celebrates his father's electric Afrobeat legacy with "Fela!," the Nigerian musician Femi Kuti is out there offering people the real thing. With more than a dozen singers and band members jostling for position onstage - all wild rhythms and swiveling hips - his concerts feel more like parties than performances. Good thing Kuti's decided to take some time off from working on his next studio album, the follow-up to 2008's "Day by Day," to help us kick summer properly into gear. He plays the Fillmore on Saturday. We spoke to him by phone from Lagos last week.

Femi Kuti
Q: Your shows are so energetic. I've always wondered what happens when you walk off the stage: Do you fall down in a heap or keep going?
A: It depends. Sometimes I'm too tired. I know I have to wake up immediately to start practicing again. The problem with relaxing is to pick up the momentum again.
Q: With so many people in your band, it's probably hard to find a quiet spot anyway. Does it make touring difficult?
A: Music has to be with a lot of people, especially when you're on tour. You don't become homesick. African music is about a lot of people and happiness and dance. I don't think I would be as happy with less people.
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Review: Delphic, 'Acolyte'

Review: Delphic, 'Acolyte': Aidin Vaziri | It doesn't take long to figure out that Delphic hails from Manchester, England - the musical hotbed that for more than three decades has produced first-class dance-rock acts like New Order, the Stone Roses and Doves. The music on the British trio's first album, "Acolyte," accordingly evokes all the euphoria of the indie-rave era but with a thoroughly modern shine. Songs like "This Momentary," "Doubt" and "Counterpoint" sound like ready-made arena anthems, surging forward on sleek beats and monumental choruses tailor-made to get people in the bleachers jumping: "Just tell me nothing's wrong!/ Nothing's wrong!/ Nothing's wrong!/ Today!" Their hometown should stand proud.

Backstreet's Back

Backstreet Boys still front and center: Aidin Vaziri | Even as they make their way across the country playing a string of sold-out concert dates, including two shows at the Warfield tonight and Monday, the members of Backstreet Boys seem more baffled by their enduring popularity than anyone else. Or as Nick Carter, 30, checking in from rehearsals just a few days before the launch of the tour, puts it: "We can't believe that we still got it." Read more.

Pop Quiz: Steve Martin

Aidin Vaziri | Steve Martin won over a few thousand new fans when he appeared on the main stage at last year's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival brandishing his five-string banjo. He's a famous actor and comedian, sure, but who knew he had been playing the instrument since he was 17 years old? And that he was such a virtuoso? Martin, who is at work on a follow-up album to last year's "The Crow," is taking some time off his latest movie project for a quick summer tour with his backing band, the Steep Canyon Rangers.

Steve Martin
Q: So you're really serious about this whole music thing?
A: Yes. It turned out I am. I didn't know it at the time. I started playing 45 years ago, and I played it seriously when I started. But I would play one or two songs at the most. The last couple of years, I started playing with the band, and it's been going surprisingly well. Now we have a really good show that I really like to do. I get to use different parts of my brain. So my brain is younger, but my face keeps getting older.
Q: What do you have to offer the bluegrass genre?
A: What I'm bringing are new songs because I write all my own material. Another thing I'm bringing is an auxiliary benefit, which is access to television, which a lot of bluegrass performers don't have. That's been a big benefit for the music in general. I like people to know this isn't hillbilly music.
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28 June 2010

Review: Herbie Hancock, 'The Imagine Project'

Review: Herbie Hancock, 'The Imagine Project': Aidin Vaziri | After decades of breaking the rules, Herbie Hancock finally got a little bit of attention from the music industry with his genial 2007 Joni Mitchell tribute album, "River" - only the second jazz recording to ever win the Album of the Year prize at the Grammys. So who can blame the former Miles Davis sideman for simply expanding on the idea with his latest, "The Imagine Project"? With this one, Hancock takes the Santana approach by basically roping in anyone who happened to be walking by the studio for a collaboration: Dave Matthews, Jeff Beck, Los Lobos, Chaka Khan, The Chieftains, Seal, Susan Tedeschi, the list goes on. Together they take on some well-worn songs promoting world peace because, well, why not? Given the circumstances, it shouldn't really sound as inspired as it does but Hancock's masterful playing lifts even the most familiar tunes, from his lilting passages on the star-studded reading of John Lennon's "Imagine" to the slow-percolating funk of Peter Gabriel's "Don't Give Up," which is powered by the dueling voices of John Legend and Pink. Is there anything here on par with even a millisecond of 1965's classic, "Maiden Voyage"? No, but the album is a testament to Hancock's enduring talent, and if all goes right his home will be lined with a fresh batch of trophies by this time next year.

14 June 2010

Pop Quiz: Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings

Aidin Vaziri | Sharon Jones doesn't really care for the "retro" tag. "I'm not a retro singer," says the former Rikers Island prison guard. "I was born in 1956. I am old school." It's certainly hard to argue with the electrifying R&B she turns out with her longtime backing band, the Dap-Kings, on their new album, "I Learned the Hard Way." The group's profile may have risen in recent years thanks to gigs with Amy Winehouse and Al Green, but the record proves that nothing compares with the music the band members make with the inimitable Jones. The singer spoke with us from the Brooklyn headquarters of the band's label, Daptone Records.

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings
Q: Does your experience as a prison guard at Rikers Island help you keep the band in line?
A: I don't keep them in line. They're grown men. I'm not their wives. I'm not their mothers. I'm not their anything. Only time something really annoys me is lateness. When I say be in the hotel lobby at 10, be in the hotel lobby at 10. Not 10:15. Not 10:30. That happened one day, and we missed a festival. I was so angry at them. That was so hurtful. I said, "See what a difference that 15 minutes made?"
Q: I heard you weren't happy about lending the band to Amy Winehouse for "Back to Black."
A: The guys in the band all did get Rolex watches. I didn't get any dang Rolex. Every time they were putting them on, they would be like, "Ooh!" But everything is good. No one is jealous about anything. It's all benefiting us in the long run.
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Warning: Hazardous Stage Ahead

The rock star casualty list: Aidin Vaziri | This week sucks. It should have marked the arrival of U2's spectacular "360°" tour at the Oakland Coliseum on Wednesday, but the concert was canceled after the group's lead singer, Bono, injured his back last month during rehearsals in Munich, necessitating emergency surgery and an unspecified period of convalescence. "For a performer who lives to be onstage, this is more than a blow," said the band's manager, Paul McGuinness. "He feels robbed of the chance to do what he does best and feels like he has badly let down the band and their audience." At least Bono can take consolation in knowing he's not alone. We look back at some other acts whose careers have been sidelined by onstage injuries. Read more.

Review: Drake, 'Thank Me Later'

Review: Drake, 'Thank Me Later': Aidin Vaziri | Drake is an unlikely rap star. He's from Toronto, hardly a hotbed of hip-hop. He used to be on the square teen show "Degrassi: The Next Generation" (billed as Aubrey Graham). He doesn't even wear a bulletproof vest to the grocery store. But since leaving acting two years ago for the mix-tape circuit, the 23-year-old has become such a major contender that Jay-Z and Lil Wayne have cameos on his first proper album, "Thank Me Later" - and promptly get shuttled to the side by Drake's spitfire verses. The rapper coaxes an "Empire State of Mind"-caliber performance from Alicia Keys on the disc's lush opener, "Fireworks," and Kanye West provides him with the song-of-the-summer candidate "Find Your Love."

Pop Quiz: Karen Elson

Aidin Vaziri | Karen Elson knows what you think. Just because she's a famous model and wife of Jack White of the White Stripes, her new album, "The Ghost Who Walks," must be some kind of vanity project. But calling from the couple's Nashville home, where they live with their two children, the 31-year-old British-born singer says that impression couldn't be further from the truth. And to prove this whole rock-star thing is no whim, Elson is on the road promoting the White-produced record.

Karen Elson
Q: Was there any hesitation on your part about working with Jack, knowing what everyone would say?
A: Initially, there was. I thought, "Wow. First of all, I'm a model. Model-slash-anything is a tough sort of thing to get people over. And then having Jack as my husband, who is such a wonderful force of nature." But his reaction was, "That's so silly. I love you, and I don't want you to feel my influence will be a hindrance. You have a studio in your back garden. Why should you not have these people on your record?"
Q: Is he a difficult boss?
A: Jack didn't cut any corners for me. He left it entirely up to me to come up with the lyrics and the music. I had to come into the studio fully prepared with the songs and be as on it as the rest of the musicians. He said I need to stand up on my own two feet. I had to be ready to put my heart and soul into it. I can understand why people think what they think. But I can't change people's perceptions.
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Review: Christina Aguilera, 'Bionic'

Review: Christina Aguilera, 'Bionic': Aidin Vaziri | What has Christina Aguilera been doing since she released 2006's retro-themed "Back to Basics"? Apart from raising her son, making a cameo in the Rolling Stones documentary "Shine a Light" and letting Lady Gaga steal away all her fans, it appears the 29-year-old has spent most of her time reading Pitchfork.com. Her fourth studio album is stacked with left-field indie collaborators. Shouty feminist punk-funk trio Le Tigre and raunchy rapper Peaches join her on the spastic "My Girls"; M.I.A. brings gritty digital funk oomph to "Elastic Love"; and Sia leads Aguilera on a breezy down-tempo path on a handful of songs, including "I Am" and "All I Need." The odd thing is that Xtina, who if nothing else has always been a forceful vocalist, sounds totally lost in the mix. But she has been away too long to alienate her fans completely, and the rest of the album oddly hedges to familiar terrain, moving from glossy slow jams such as "Sex for Breakfast" (sample lyric: "Taste me/ And I'll taste you") to synth-heavy club bangers such as "Desnudate" (sample lyric: "Get naked/ Oh, oh, oh, oh") to songs that would have sounded dated even if Madonna did them in 1991 ("Glam"). Ms. Gaga can sleep easy.

Live Review: The XX at the Great American Music Hall

Music review: The XX at the Great American: Aidin Vaziri | Brooding, introverted, melancholy. Listening to the music the black-clad members of the XX make together, there's little question they are still dealing with the hangover of their teenage years. But playing the first of two sold-out concerts at the Great American Music Hall on Tuesday, there was another mood in the air that was altogether unexpected: jubilation. Even though they released their superb first album, "XX," nearly a year ago, things have been building steadily ever since for the young south London trio whose minimalist funk draws equally from contemporary R&B and vintage Cure. The record has gone gold in the United Kingdom. Songs like "Intro" and "Islands" have provided soundtracks for everything from Olympic ads to election specials. They've even inspired a Japanese tribute act called the OO. Read more.