Brian artist, concert, links, Music, NJ, Philadelphia, video, YouTube

Midge Ure at World Cafe Live in Philly, 1-10-2013

Midge Ure  – “Vienna” (World Cafe Live, Philly – 1/10/2013

Thanks to my wife for allowing me to get a night to myself, I was able to go down to Philly to see the legendary Midge Ure, backed by Los Angeles-based band Right the Stars (who also served as opening act), perform at World Cafe Live last night.

What an amazing show and it was really special seeing an artist with such a lengthy pop/rock music pedigree performing in such an intimate venue. For those who don’t know, Midge Ure is best known as the lead singer and driving force behind the best-known iteration of 80s synth-pop heroes Ultravox and as the man who was essentially ordered by Bob Geldof to write what became “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”—the charity track recorded by Band Aid and produced by Ure in 1984.

However, Ure also spent time in groups like Visage, The Rich Kids, Thin Lizzy and Slik. He even reportedly turned down an invitation to become lead singer of the Sex Pistols in 1975. In short, the guy has been around for a long time and has done an awful lot with his immense talent.

This was only my second time seeing Ure in concert. The other time was when he opened for Howard Jones at what was then called the Garden State Arts Center in Holmdel, N.J., on June 16, 1989. But, damn…Midge still brings it.

The video above is Midge Ure—with Right the Stars—performing Ultravox’s classic 80s hit, “Vienna,” at World Cafe Live last night. The clip comes from YouTube user vwall10411, who I’ve turned to a lot for videos from Philly-area concerts, and there are a few more videos after the jump.

From Setlist.fm, here is the set list from last night’s show…

I See Hope in the Morning Light (missing on Setlist.fm)
Love’s Great Adventure (Ultravox)
Call of the Wild
Breathe
Fade To Grey (Visage)
Cold Cold Heart
Answers To Nothing
Just For You
No Regrets (Tom Rush cover that was a No. 9 UK hit for Midge Ure in 1982)
Vienna (Ultravox)
Dear God
One Small Day (Ultravox)
Hymn (Ultravox)
Dancing With Tears In My Eyes (Ultravox)
If I Was

Encore:
Do They Know It’s Christmas?* (Band Aid, written by Midge Ure & Bob Geldof; produced by Midge Ure)

* – solo acoustic performance

Continue reading “Midge Ure at World Cafe Live in Philly, 1-10-2013” →

Brian artist, Asbury Park, Brian Kelley, Christian Beach, Music, New Jersey, NJ, TMC

A blast from my musical past

If you search “TMC” or select the “TMC” category on this blog, you’ll find a bunch of posts about a music group I was part of back in 1988-90 called TMC + The New Generation (although, shortly before I left the group, we informally changed our name to Interläken Pröbe to reflect a shift to a more industrial hip-hop sound). The group consisted of me and my friend Christian Beach—who went on to become very talented singer-songwriter/multi-instrumentalist—on keyboards, samplers, sequencers and drum machines…and a rapper from Asbury Park, N.J., named Tariq Mohammed.

Christian’s father, Gorgo, also a musician, put us in touch with Tariq, who was a rapper looking to work with a band rather than using backing tracks or a DJ. Knowing that Christian and I had recently started working on electronic “new age” music together, Gorgo suggested to Tariq that the three of us should get together and see if we could combine rap with electronic music.

The full story of TMC + The New Generation can be read here, but the short story is we obviously didn’t get anywhere as a band.

Looking back, though, you could say that we were very ambitious—actually, TOO ambitious. But what we were trying to do—combine rap with electronic music AND multiple pop/rock genres—wasn’t very common in those days. And here we were, three teenagers along the Jersey Shore (and not one of us drunk or with a stupid nickname) to create this type of music with an array of electronic instruments we didn’t fully understand. As you would expect, we just were not experienced or mature enough to properly turn our musical visions into reality. But there were moments that still exist on old recordings and videos in which a glimpse of brilliance shines through. One such moment was a song that started out as something we nicknamed “Reggae Rap.” Tariq had the idea of rapping over a reggae-style song so we started playing a preset reggae rhythm pattern on Christian’s Roland R-8 drum machine and improvised some keyboard parts over it.

Eventually, we added a three-part harmony to the chorus and the song became known as “You’re That Kind of Girl.”

We performed the song a couple of times, including once at The Green Parrot—the long-gone rock club that used to be on Route 33 in Neptune, N.J. Someone videotaped that show for us so, despite the poor quality of the audio and video, it  provided us with a recording of a lot of our material. Unfortunately, videotape doesn’t last forever and the quality continues to get worse over time. My copy of the tape, which I believe is the only one still around, actually broke near the beginning of “You’re That Kind of Girl” and I had to repair it to salvage a partial version of the song.

Anyway, I’m rambling so here’s the deal…after a few years of being in and out of touch with each other after our TMC days, Christian and I have been reconnected since 2005 and I have even performed and recorded with him a few times over the past few years. More recently, a virtual TMC reunion took place when Christian and I became friends with Tariq on Facebook.

Tariq and I have since exchanged messages via Facebook and an audio excerpt of the live version of “You’re That Kind of Girl” popped up unexpectedly on my iPod while driving a few days ago. It got me thinking that I should record a decent version of the song…so that’s what I did. Of course, since I never knew the lyrics rapped by Tariq in the verses (and the lone surviving recording is mostly unintelligible), I rewrote the verse lyrics while retaining the spirit and melody of the original version (and, yes, I rhymed “me” with itself at one point…I wasn’t spending THAT much time on this). I also tweaked the arrangement a bit.

But, overall, the 2012 version of “You’re That Kind of Girl” is pretty much just an updated version of the 1989/90 version…and I even included a some faux auto-tune as a nod to the song’s rap origins since I was not about to try rapping.

Enjoy…

“You’re That Kind of Girl (2012)”
[audio http://tandemwiththerandom.com/misc/music/You’re%20That%20Kind%20of%20Girl%20(2012).mp3]

Brian artist, Brian Kelley, concert, links, Music, video, YouTube

24 years of Peter Gabriel fandom: “Secret World” (1994)

So here we are…the fifth and final installment of my Peter Gabriel video series this week, marking my 24th anniversary as a fan of PG. This is sort of a wild card for me as I didn’t get to see PG on his recent “New Blood” tour in support of his orchestral covers CD, “Scratch My Back,” and that would have been the next progression in the sequence of live videos. However, I wanted this week to kind of recapture the joy I have experienced during PG’s live shows over the years. Since I didn’t see the “New Blood” tour, I’m basically picking today’s video out of a hat.

Well, that’s not entirely true because I knew right from the start what the last video would be…my favorite Peter Gabriel song of all time, from my favorite PG tour…”Secret World” from its namesake tour!

Strangely, because it’s the last track on Peter Gabriel’s “Us” album and because I had originally purchased that album in cassette format, I never even listened to it until weeks after I bought the tape. And when I did finally listen, I never stopped. It’s an amazing song that is even more spectacular when seen performed live.

I love how the live version of this song builds up to the dramatic, high-energy bridge…only to come back down and build right up again before the very end of the song. As you can probably tell from the ending, this was the number that closed the regular part of the set back on the “Secret World Live” tour. PG and band would re-emerge from the dome a few minutes later for the encore, which usually included “In Your Eyes.”

You may be able to hear how “Secret World” influenced a song I originally wrote and recorded on my old, analog 4-track in 1995 called “The Greatest Love,” which I recorded in digital format on my Mac back in 2004. For comparison, you can listen to the 2004 version of “The Greatest Love” in the audio player below the video.

Peter Gabriel – “Secret World” (Secret World Live, 1994)

Brian Kelley – “The Greatest Love” (1995/2004)

Brian artist, concert, links, Music, Peter Gabriel, video, YouTube

24 years of Peter Gabriel fandom: “Solsbury Hill” (2003)

Well, so far on this journey through my 24 years of Peter Gabriel fandom, I haven’t posted anything really all that mainstream…no “Shock the Monkey”, “Sledgehammer”, “Steam” or “In Your Eyes”.  It’s not that I’m not a fan of those songs…in fact, the live version of “Sledgehammer” is always awesome. But I have wanted to explore some of the deeper tracks from the PG catalog this week. However, after much internal debate about what video from 2003’s “Growing Up Live” tour (during which I saw PG three times…one night at the Meadowlands, the next night in Philly and then the following year at the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, NJ), I decided to go with something a little more well known…”Solsbury Hill.”

Thanks to its use in films like “Vanilla Sky” and others, “Solsbury Hill” — a track from Peter Gabriel’s first self-titled solo album in 1977 — has eventually become somewhat popular. What many people may not realize is that the song is about Gabriel’s departure as lead singer of Genesis in 1975.

And really…how could I not include a PG performance that has him riding a bike on stage…

Peter Gabriel – “Solsbury Hill” (Growing Up Live, 2003)

Brian artist, concert, links, Music, Peter Gabriel, video, YouTube

24 years of Peter Gabriel fandom: “Come Talk to Me” (1994)

Here is part 3 of this week’s 5-part series of Peter Gabriel videos marking my 24th year as a PG fan. One of the great concert events of the 1990s was Peter Gabriel’s “Secret World Live” tour (1993-94) in support of his CD, “Us.” Today’s video is the set-opening “Come Talk to Me” from that tour, featuring a then-unknown Paula Cole, who was still about two years away from success with her album “This Fire” (with “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone” and “I Don’t Want to Wait”). PG gave Cole her big break when he hired her to fill the female vocalist spot for this tour.

Peter Gabriel – “Come Talk to Me” (Secret World Live, 1994)

Brian artist, concert, links, Music, Peter Gabriel, Philadelphia, video, YouTube

24 years of Peter Gabriel fandom: “No Self Control” (7/20/87)

Well, today officially marks my 24th anniversary as a Peter Gabriel fan and I have decided that my PG video posts this week shall be a chronological journey of my fandom. Yesterday’s video was of PG’s performance of “Biko” the first time I ever saw him live, at the Amnesty International concert at Giants Stadium on June 15, 1986. Today’s video is from the first actual Peter Gabriel concert I ever attended — July 20, 1987, at the Spectrum in Philadelphia. The video quality isn’t all that great, but the mere fact that this footage exists — and on YouTube (thanks to YouTube user Magog64) — is amazing. Here is one of my all-time favorite PG songs, “No Self Control”…and if you ever have time to kill, you should check out all the videos from this show…just incredible stuff.

Peter Gabriel – “No Self Control” (Spectrum, Philadelphia, PA, 7/20/87)

Brian artist, Music, Peter Gabriel, YouTube

24 years of Peter Gabriel fandom

So I was driving home from a meeting the other day, listening to XM Radio when Peter Gabriel’s “Biko” came on. I hadn’t really listened to the song in quite some time, but I thought it was an appropriate lesson in recent South African history with the World Cup currently being staged there.

While listening, it reminded me of my greatest, personal musical memory. Back on June 15, 1986, my sister and I were in the sold-out crowd at Giants Stadium for the final show of the Amnesty International Conspiracy of Hope Tour. It was an amazing day and night of music that allowed me the opportunity to see the genius that was Miles Davis perform live. Last night, while watching the Tony Awards and hearing so much about the musical “Fela,” it reminded me that I also saw the late, great Fela Kuti perform that day.

Anyway, back to “Biko” and Peter Gabriel. It was the powerful, chilling performance of “Biko” during that show that turned me into a huge Peter Gabriel fan. It also made me truly understand the power of a great song and a great artist.

So, in honor of my 24 years as a Peter Gabriel fan, I will be posting one PG video per day on the ol’ blog here this week. I’ll start it off tonight with the video of his performance of “Biko” at the Amnesty show on June 15, 1986, and continue adding one each day through this coming Friday.

Enjoy!

Peter Gabriel – “Biko” (Amnesty Int’l Conspiracy of Hope, Giants Stadium, 6/15/86)

Brian artist, Artist to Watch, Music, review, WXPN, YouTube

Artist to Watch: Passion Pit

Passion Pit
Passion Pit

As someone who uses Pandora as a tool for new music discovery and listens to WXPN, the great radio station operating out of Philadelphia’s University of Pennsylvania, and to the emerging artist channels on XM Radio, I sometimes hear a band I like and think to myself, “You know, I wish I blogged about them sooner. Now they’re everywhere.”

But then I realize the artist isn’t everywhere…just everywhere I go for new music. So even though “those in the know” are raving about a certain artist, when I bring that artist up in a conversation about music, I’m always stunned to hear that most of the people I’m talking to have no knowledge of said artist.

So while I may be late to the party among those who pay close attention to the music industry, that shouldn’t stop me from writing about certain artists. After all, if my blog post connects just a few more people to a deserving artist, it’s worth the time to write it.

For instance, in this piece — my first “artist to watch” post in ages, I’m going to take a look at Passion Pit, an electronic group out of Cambridge, Mass., fronted by songwriter Michael Angelakos. Their first full-length CD, “Manners,” was released back in May, but there was buzz about the band after the ecstatic reception to their 2008 EP, “Chunk of Change.”

Passion Pit also has an interesting “from out of nowhere” back-story. “Chunk of Change” actually began as a four-song CD that Angelakos — who was attending Emerson College at the time — made for his then-girlfriend as a Valentine’s Day gift. The CD, however, wound up becoming quite popular on the Emerson campus and soon Angelakos was getting attention from record labels and promoters.

That resulted in the formation of Passion Pit (which currently consists of Angelakos, Ian Hultquist, Ayad Al Adhamy, Jeff Apruzzese and Nate Donmoyer) and the production of the “Chunk of Change” EP, which included the original four songs on the Valentine’s Day CD plus the tracks “Sleepyhead” and “Better Things.” Additional exposure for Passion Pit came from the use of “Sleepyhead” in a Canadian commercial for Sony’s PSP game system and spots for MTV’s “What the Flip?” promotion.

Passion Pit was named one of the top bands at the 2008 CMJ Music Marathon in New York and placed ninth in BBC’s Sound of 2009 list of emerging music acts. The band was also XPN’s Artist to Watch in June 2009.

Built upon electro-pop bass grooves and punchy synth-based hooks, the tracks on “Manners” draw from a number of musical influences. One can clearly hear touches of Brian Wilson/Beach Boys (“Let Your Love Grow Tall” and “Seaweed Song”), early Prince (“Eyes as Candles”) and even U2 (“Moth’s Wings”). For a taste of “Manners,” check out the video for “The Reeling” (my favorite track from the CD) below.

But Angelakos and Co. manage to incorporate those various influences into a cohesive collection of songs on “Manners” that makes for a enjoyable listen throughout. The one issue I have with “Manners” is the sequencing. While the first track, “Make Light” is a decent enough song, it isn’t quite successful as an album opener. If I hadn’t already heard many of the tracks that were to follow, I’m not sure “Make Light” would have drawn me into the rest of the CD on its own.

But if you like intelligent electronic pop music suitable for dancing or just driving around, pick up a copy of “Manners” by Passion Pit.

More information: Passion Pit on MySpace


Passion Pit – The Reeling

Brian artist, Brian Kelley, links, Music, TalentTrove, technology

“Vortex” is up for Best Piano/Keyboard Performance on TalentTrove.com!

Click to visit TalentTrove.com
Click to visit TalentTrove.com

As I posted yesterday, I recently learned of an online talent community called TalentTrove.com, which holds a series of talent contests among its members. The site just finished accepting submissions for Best Piano/Keyboard Performance and I managed to submit a reworked techno song from my past called “Vortex.” It’s not really what I am into these days, but of all the songs I have written and recorded over the years, “Vortex” seemed to best capture the spirit of this particular contest.

Anyway, I am happy to report that “Vortex” is indeed one of four nominees for Best Piano/Keyboard Performance on TalentTrove.com.

TalentTrove.com – Best Piano/Keyboard Performance Voting

I would love for my friends to support me in this endeavor, especially since the prize is $100. However, in order to vote, you need to be a member of TalentTrove.com, so there is a level of commitment involved.

But since so many of my friends are talented artists who could probably benefit from the tools provided by TalentTrove.com, such as media uploads and social networking features, I think you might wind up enjoying the site.

In any case, I really hope you enjoy the song. If you go the extra step to vote for me, I want you to know your efforts will be greatly appreciated.

And thank you to TalentTrove.com for this opportunity!

Oh, if you want to take a listen to “Vortex,” just use the embedded player below or visit the song’s page on my TalentTrove.com profile.

“Vortex (2009)” – Brian Kelley

Source: Tandem with the Random

Brian artist, Asbury Park, Brian Kelley, Christian Beach, concert, links, Music, news

Reminder: Christian Beach CD release party this Friday

Christian Beach CD Release Party - Click for PDF Flyer
Christian Beach CD Release Party - Click for PDF Flyer

As mentioned earlier on this blog, I will be part of the backing band for my good friend, singer-songwriter Christian Beach, when he takes to the stage at The Saint (601 Main St.) in Asbury Park, NJ, this Friday night as he celebrates the recent release of his self-titled, solo CD.

Joining in the festivities will be Arlan Feiles and The Lone Howdys, as well as The Sunday Blues. Doors open at 8 p.m. and tickets are just $10.

Christian’s band this time out includes John Pfeiffer (Well of Souls, In Between Dreams) on electric guitars, Michael Scotto (Agency) on drums and percussion, Gorgo (Private Sector) on mandolin and bass, Keith McCarthy (The Works, The Sunday Blues) on bass, and yours truly on organ, accordion and tambourine.

If you are in the area and are available that night, please feel free to come to the show. If you want to get a taste of Christian’s music, visit his new web site at ChristianBeach.net, or visit him on MySpace at http://www.myspace.com/christianbeach. Plus, he is now on Facebook and Twitter.

The CD can be purchased via CDBaby.com, iTunes or Amazon.com.

Christian Beach
The Saint
601 Main St.
Asbury Park, NJ
(Directions via Google Maps)