Sly Stone in the earlier days

In his heyday, he lived at 783 Bel Air Road, a four-bedroom, 5,432-square-foot Beverly Hills mansion that once belonged to John Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas.

The Tudor-style house was tricked out in his signature funky black, white and red color scheme. Shag carpet. Tiffany lamps in every room. A round water bed in the master bedroom. There were parties where Stevie Wonder, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Miles Davis would drop by, where Etta James would break into "At Last" by the bar.

Just four years ago, he resided in a Napa Valley house so large it could only be described as a "compound," with a vineyard out back and multiple cars in the driveway.

But those days are gone.
Today, Sly Stone -- one of the greatest figures in soul-music history -- is homeless, his fortune stolen by a lethal combination of excess, substance abuse and financial mismanagement. He lays his head inside a white camper van ironically stamped with the words "Pleasure Way" on the side. The van is parked on a residential street in Crenshaw, the rough Los Angeles neighborhood where "Boyz n the Hood" was set. A retired couple makes sure he eats once a day, and Stone showers at their house. The couple's son serves as his assistant and driver.
Inside the van, the former mastermind of Sly & the Family Stone, now 68, continues to record music with the help of a laptop computer. -[NY Post]

Let's hope that this is the bottom of an arc towards a triumphant return for the funk/soul legend.

photos by Rachel Carr, words by Daiana Feuer

Gorillaz Clash

The third and final round of the Coachella Music & Arts Festival was funky, and not just because the port-a-potties reeked. Keeping a loose theme every day (see Friday & Saturday), Sunday focused on relentless rhythm and groovy basslines. The absolute golden moment belonged to Yo La Tengo's blistering final song. Rhythm that revels in repetition + guitar that tries to destroy itself = wee mind blown. Sometimes the moodiest things are the most uplifting.

Thom Yorke brought his dancing shoes, his favorite Flea, and Nigel Godrich. His band Atoms For Peace played almost every song off The Eraser, many of which featured strong world rhythm sections. When Yorke didn't have a guitar in hand, he danced, whirled, and punched the air like he was rehearsing a scene from Fame. We wanted a high kick, but it didn't arrive. King Khan & The Shrines, on the other hand, featured legs flying all over the place, DJ Lance Rock and Yo Gabba Gabba characters, burning money, as well as a visit from the police-who crept on stage to snap pictures. Probably the first time Khan runs into cops and doesn't leave wearing cuffs. Sunny Day Real Estate had the audience offering bids to buy property, and Phoenix had people choking on dinner as they tried to dance and eat at the same time.

King Khan Gabba Gabba

Not every Julian Casablancas song captivated, but his band delightfully binged on rhythms. Each musician had a personal backbeat player supporting each fill. The drummer plus his sidekick especially sounded great. Matt & Kim's ebullient smiles inspired chaos in the audience, as usual. Mayer Hawthorne and the County revived Motown soulful brassiness and covered Biz Markie's "Just a Friend." The Big Pink played some new songs from next year's album, reaching out for Depeche Mode with a drummer in a pink bathing suit. Electro sweet popper Little Boots forgot her pants as well, wearing a sparkly shirt and knickers, and played with the lasers on stage. Charlotte Gainsbourg inaugurated her "first tour, first everything" with a feminine "Candy-O" sensibility, sometimes in French. Florence & the Machine rounds out the great lady performances of the day, and brought on Nathan Willett of Cold War Kids.

All clad in white, France's DJ ego-powers Club 75 demonstrated the ability to cooperate together with just a few elbows thrown. Cassius, Justice, Busy P, and DJ Mehdi still use CD's (so old school), and took turns passing on the headphones between them and finishing each other's remix sentences, trading places at each station. Backstage security bobbed along while staying tough. When it was their turn, Rusko turned the Sahara tent into a mechazoid robot battle and Orbital live-produced virtual reality anthems for Satan wearing Matrix miner lights around their heads. Infected Mushroom instructed on the benefits of "Becoming Insane" flanked by two mushrooms with red eyes.

The Middle East should not be confused with The Soft Pack, formerly The Muslims. The former may be from Australia but it sounds like a back porch band from Woodstock, and the latter offers a "Parasite" infestation that's as pure as sunshine and a neat drum set up that packs a giant tom punch. What appears as regular rock on headphones reveals its brilliance when experienced live. One of the strangest live moments of the festival belongs to Sly Stone, who played four hours late and on the wrong stage. He bitched, he slurred, he cursed, lay down, walked off, stopped songs and good grief, made a total mess of himself. But that's rock and roll.

Sly Stone made history look unable to get past its youthful drug phase, but Jonsi, Pavement, and Spoon come from a music scene that did a little bit less cocaine. Jonsi repped the awesomeness of Sigur Rós and great hats. Steve Patterson of White Rabbits joined Britt Daniels and the rest of Spoon to add percussion on "I Turn My Camera On". Spoon's tour-mate Bradford Cox (who played earlier in the day in Deerhunter) also joined Spoon on stage, like he did on their recent Kimmel appearance. Pavement ran through the hits during one of their first U.S. shows since reuniting. "That's the 90's in a nutshell," said Stephen Malkmus after the angsty "Unfair"...

"...Pavement, the iconic slacker band of the '90s, who took the main stage against what turned out to be one of the fest's chief attractions, the finally wildly popular French dance-rock band Phoenix, who wowed possibly the biggest crowd of the entire fest ... while Pavement played to a field half-full of true believers rather than the massive throngs many expected, and thought the band deserved.

No matter, though. Pavement still delivered a set that vindicated the group of prior crimes -- namely a Coachella performance near the end of their career so notoriously bad, many in attendance point to it as the moment the band decided to break up.

This night, however, they were tight, they were loud, and they sounded large on that vast field -- an odd statement, given the fact that in their heyday they were far more known for being introspectively small rather than arena-ready..." [The OC Register]

Virtual Snoop Dogg introduced the Gorillaz set, but Blur's Damon Albarn appeared in the flesh, with a few special guests including Paul Simonon, Mick Jones, De La Soul-who kicked their own old school jams earlier in the day-and Little Dragon's Yukimi. One unique rhythm transcended the next, showing the mutability of hip hop and dance music. And then that was it, suddenly. The festival ended and tens of thousands of people started wondering where they left their car keys...

Radiohead Peppers For Peace

Daiana's Weekend Top 10:
1. Yo La Tengo's last song
2. Little Dragon's Yukimi
3. Gossip leading a revolution
4. Thom Yorke dancing to African rhythms
5. PiL giving a history lesson
6. Sly Stone wigging out
7. Bouncing penises + fat people in undies (Die Antwoord + Major Lazer)
8. Devo putting on the hats that ushered in modern pop culture for "Whip It"
9. John Waters corrupting many young minds
10. The Gorrilaz lyric: "Super fast jellyfish going super fast. You can't even see him but you wanna eat him."

--

Owen Pallett, Local Natives, Miike Snow, and Yann Tiersen also played the fest Sunday. Gary Numan was among those who couldn't. Reviews & pictures from Day One, HERE and Day Two, HERE. Setlists (Thom Yorke and Pavement), pictures, and videos from Day Three, below...

Continue reading "Coachella 2010 - Day Three in pics, video & review (the Thom Yorke & Pavement setlists included) "

photos by Bryan Bruchman, words by Andrew Frisicano

For others, the concerns are more about day-to-day practicalities. As South by Southwest has grown bigger and more decentralized - this year it has twice as many acts as in 2003 - bands have been adding more and more performances to their itineraries, hoping to register the most impressions on the crowd. Shilpa Ray, an unsigned Brooklyn singer with a powerfully raw voice and a fierce technique on the harmonium, has eight showcases lined up, and for her the big question is simply endurance.

"It's a challenge: how good of a musician are you?" she said. "I wonder if I can do it, if I can sustain my voice for so long and stay consistent."

For her showcase at Club de Ville on Wednesday night, the audience included at least one record executive who said he was competing with another label to sign her. But Ms. Ray, who canceled a tour to make it to Austin, said she knew that even with a record contract success was far from guaranteed. And besides, she added, she is fine with roughing it at South by Southwest.

"Maybe in the past there were your pampered rock stars hanging out," she said. "But then there's the people like us who climb out of clown cars and try to make things work." [NY Times]

The Club de Ville show mentioned above was the Brooklyn Vegan SXSW showcase, where Shilpa performed at along with Bell, Loch Lomond, Those Darlins, Phosphorescent, and Deer Tick. It's also where the pictures in this post were taken.

Shilpa has a short spring tour scheduled for April. That includes two hometown shows: on Wednesday, April 8th, Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers play Death By Audio (tonight) with Coin Under Tongue, My Education and Guisante. Then, they'll perform at a Benefit Concert For The Hearing Impaired at the Bell House on Wednesday, April 22nd with Depreciation Guild, Hooray for Earth, and Kino.

Shilpa also has a May Pianos residency on her schedule. She'll perform Wednesdays at the NYC venue, starting May 13th with Drink Up Buttercup, Wild Yaks & more.

Shilpa Ray is *also* on the bill for a Sly Stone Tribute Concert taking place July 16th at Castle Clinton. Presumably that will be a free show with a large cast of characters performing. Stay tuned for more details. All tour dates and more SXSW photos below...

Continue reading "Shilpa Ray - SXSW pics & 2009 tour dates (tonight @ DBA, a Pianos residency, CASTLE CLINTON & more) "

George Clinton @ Warsaw, Brooklyn, NY - February 2008 (tsmithphoto)

George Clinton is getting by with a little help from his friends on his next album -- a list that includes the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Carlos Santana, Sly Stone, RZA, System Of A Down bassist Shavo Odadjian, El DeBarge and gospel singer Kim Burrell.

They all show up on an assortment of covers on "George Clinton and Some Gangsters of Love," which Clinton will release Sept. 16 on Shanachie.

"It started out with me doing some doo wop songs," Clinton, who grew up singing on street corners in Plainfield, N.J., tells Billboard.com. "As we got going, people started coming through to be on it." Among the first, he says, was Santana, who plays on a version of the Impressions' "Gypsy Woman," and then Stone and DeBarge, who sing on Marvin Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar."

George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic are playing BB King's in NYC tonight (July 8). The show is not affiliated with the Afro-Punk Festival going on over at BAM, although the movie "George Clinton: Tales of Dr. Funkenstein" was an official festival selection (it screened at BAM on July 4th & 6th). All George Clinton tour dates below...

Continue reading "George Clinton & P Funk - new album & tour dates (tonight)"

I heard the early show wasn't that good again (update: maybe I heard wrong!), so I feel lucky to have picked the late show - the fourth of four NYC shows by Sly & The Family Stone at the relatively intimate BB King's in Times Square - the 2nd of two that were last night (Dec 7, 2007).

Doors were supposed to open at 10pm. They didn't. The show was supposed to start at 10:30. It started at midnight. Standing around sucks - missing Bon Iver when I didn't really have to sucks. I was a little grumpy. Then Sly hit the stage, and all grumpiness instantly disappeared - and not only did Sly hit the stage, he stayed on it for most of the 70-or-so minute show (though he never came back for the encore that the rest of the band treated us to). He sounded great, the band sounded great - the whole room seemed to be having a good time. They played hit after hit (setlist anyone?). Sly was in good spirits, danced, and interacted with the crowd. Everyone definitely got their money's worth. Amazing experience. More photos below...

Continue reading "Sly & The Family Stone @ BB King's, NYC (show 4 of 4) - pics"

Sly @ BB King Blues Club, NYC - Nov 20, 2007 (CRED - Dino Perrucci)

As the horns blare with a syncopated rhythm and singers call to the crowd of about 1,000 to dance, a hunched man hidden in the wings of the stage smiles broadly, watching his band like a proud father.

After decades away from the spotlight, Sly Stone has returned to the stage with his band Sly and The Family Stone, performing in Europe this summer and this week making his first New York appearance in 32 years.

Dressed in a white sweatsuit trimmed in silver, sunglasses and Mohawk hairstyle, Stone fills the club with his rich, mellifluous voice as the band spends an hour cycling through their greatest hits, including "Everyday People," "Family Affair" and "Stand." [Reuters]

Some important points:
* Multiple people have said the late show was better
* There were three original members
* You have two more NYC chances to see them