Both “Puttin’ On the Ritz” and “Love Is A Battlefield” bring memories of so many different voices trying on their mantles.

There are some songs such as “Careless Whisper”, “Will The Circle Be Unbroken” Pearl Jam’s “Immortality” which, for me, have the base strength to carry any style from any artist who cover them, whether religiously or with a profound sense of attempted blasphemy.

Puttin’ On The Ritz by Antonia Bennett

Love Is A Battlefield by Antonia Bennett

“Ritz” and “Battlefield” fall into that category. Class or clash, their original styles differ radically. Yet, they’re always treats and no less so in the voice of Antonia Bennett, who gives them a light, piano-heavy, jazz interpretation. Both are on her six-song debut jazz EP, Natural released yesterday alongside standards, “Soon” “The Thrill is Gone” “I Wish I Were In Love Again” and “I Fall To Pieces.”

You get a sense of some of Bennett’s connections within the music business knowing that this cover of “…Battlefield” is arranged by Holly Knight, who, along with Mike Chapman, originally wrote the song for Pat Benatar.

And yes, her father is Tony Bennett, who has brought his rich smooth cords to so much of America’s soundtrack -and still hasn’t worn out his welcome.

Both have been and continue to tour this year, with Antonia as the opening act.

There’s a certain minimalist sparsity to the songs on Natural, with a too delicate touch on the piano. Ms. Bennett is new to me, but this lightness is clear when contrasted to other songs you can hear from her forthcoming, self-described, pop CD. She comes alive and so do the new, original tunes.

It helps when one of the songs, “Pill” is downright evil, twisting the knife into the spent charcoal stump of a former relationship or a paramour, multiply spurned:

“f I could grab your hair and know you wouldn’t care. If I could pull that stick from out your derriere. If I could turn this into a love song … you know that I would.”

“We all want music that really grabs us and is meaningful,” says Antonia, in a news release. “I have opened up in a big way. This upcoming album contains an empowering message for for both men and women.”

There’s no date set for that release but if you’re looking for the ole’ Bennett range, as well as more sass and sexiness, it’ll be more satisfying to a broader audience.

Took April 13, 2010 at Grinders Coffee in the Sunnyslope area of Phoenix. So few people have heard of these groups, it’s ridiculous. Violins are involved.

That’s Big.Fast.Easy
Thankful Birds
Mergence
Honey Pistol – one of the players works at Grinders, so, the pink highlight.
Banana Gun
About Freedom

You’re about to love you some snake and tiger noise!

The Phoenix music scene generally stays underground. Sometimes – as a fan, anyway – it’s better that way since intimacy remains.

That, and they stay hungry, bringing the raw and the edge out through voice and instruments. Again better for fans than band members but …

Miniature Tigers got their start in the Sol Valley. Cute as they are the band shows themselves Tuesday, July 27 at the Rhythm Room, ripping through a set to celebrate the release of Fortress (Modern Art Records). It’s their second release as they delve further into the weird.

The Spinto Band, Roar and the perennially overlooked Kinch are all part of the bill. Show starts at 8pm. Tickets available at Stinkweeds, Hoodlums, Zia and Ticketweb.com, or at the door.

And dearly beloved locally, Snake! Snake! Snakes! (a copy editor’s nightmare that) got themselves a self-titled EP out. They’ll hit the Rhythm Room August 11. All ages, and they’re that type of band to appeal to grannies in the old folk’s home and ten-year-old rocking out at home.

Gospel Claws and Sister Cities get some serious set time that night on the RR’s small stage – reach out and touch someone!

(Check a listen to two songs from the EP here, and “The Mountain Fire” via Phoenix New Times)

(SOUNDLUST REVIEW) — So as I was writing this review I fell asleep and dream-pictured Liz Phair, hands over bent-up knees, her face large-lipped, large-headed, floating above a small-bodied cartoon caricature, talking to people on stage with her. Not her band but fans, who’d crowded into this little anonymous, low-ceilinged place to listen to her play. “Normally we’d play packed,” she said, “but this one’s for the musicians and the band.” And then I woke up.

Tempted to say, Funstyle – it’s $5.99, just try the fucking thing. You get high-quality lossless mp3s and music that hasn’t been pasteurized.

Listening to Liz Phair here brings alive so many female music references. Madonna screaming, I have a reservation off of “Act of Contrition” started ringing in my ears, seconds after the bass hit of the amazing “Smoke” started.

Too, Janis Joplin’s rage at the world. Bjork’s loopiness at her most inspired and lucid, Tori’s intensity and obscurity. And Kim Carnes: She’ll turn the music on you / You won’t have to think twice / She’s pure as New York snow /She’s got Bette Davis eyes. / And she’ll tease you / She’ll unease you /All the better just to please you / She’s precocious and she knows / Just what it takes to make a pro blush / She’s got Greta Garbo stand-off sighs / She’s got Bette Davis eyes.

And, well, you know listening to Phair you’ll get her throaty voice. A sound full of resonant scratchy timbre that always pushed her past twee. Distinctive, character-filled. Can carry anything. She delivers malice aforethought with a smiling sneer, can turn on the innocence while gently but firmly, sliding cold steel inside you. Give me sharp wit over all the other shit. Anger in song, raged or quiet — almost pure ecstasy.

I wet my jeans listening to Funstyle.

As I always asks when someone inspires me, where the shit is this coming from? If all this obscure, random yet beautiful sound just flows from her au naturel – I love her more. There’s the ripe ballad-folk of “You Should Know Me” and “Miss September,” delicious hilarity on “Smoke” and “U Hate It”, “Bollywood” and “Beat Is Up”. That fine line between pretentious, self-indulgent and art? Phair always stays on the right side, while simultaneously redefining it.

Read more…

(SOUNDLUST REVIEW) — “Hello, girls and boys. Today we’re going to make music. Happy music and sad music. Funny music and serious music. Music that has many of the feelings we have. So get your instrument and come along with me. Let’s put some of our feelings into music.” — Wake Up Call.

I want to play “The Remedy” over and over again, forever.

I look forward to it. I crave it. It’s disappointing, then, that Stories of Survival, Authority Zero’s bass-spanking new release, doesn’t have more “can’t get enough” tunes.

Expecting to be blown away, this release seems more of a blown opportunity.

With a history of being hard to define – with ska-punk being the most common shorthand – the band seems to have played it safe and gone for an unsound sound formula. I love this band with a passion, so it pains me to write that. But after several listens, I’m not as excited as I should be.

This truth is all the more bitter to swallow because they’ve packed so many memorable, fine moments in such a few albums (4 previous, including a live 2006 release). “Taking On The World” is my all-time favorite A.Z. original recording. I can and still do go to it regularly when I’m unsure how I want to start my listening day. It has musical elements missing from anything on SoS. Like energy. Quirkiness, too, as on on the 50s croon of “Prom Night” or the surfer music, soundtrack crazy vibe of “Chili con Crudo” that compels movement in paralyzed people.
Read more…

Right now, that’s what happening. Funstyle – available at her Web site, lizphair.com without a record deal … I’ve been warned that the rap record may suck. It may be an F U to …. Wait, what? Yeah, you read that right. A Rap record from the poison-barbed indie artist of the mid-90s. Gulp. Whip Smart wasn’t just the name of her second album, it defined her. Let’s she if she can pull off ironic through music.

DEVO, a band that quirked as much as they cranked, have been around. A long time. Lately in the news for protecting their trademark flower pot headpiece energy domes ( no, really) and lead singer Mark Mothersbaugh’s art world exploits, the band has again decided music would be the way to go to get famous. Something for Everybody released last week offers 12 new . The vinyl version will be released July 20.

Or something. This is 20 years after their last album of new music and 30 years (OK, 32 to be exact) after their seminal release, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are DEVO

A three-song EP released in April, Song Study got fans juicy again for the idea of “DEVO” and “new.” Songs, “Fresh,” “What We Do” and “Song Study” (this one not on the new CD) offer the same clinical crunch and strive for soullessness – with a touch of humor, increased primarily by those energy domes to be honest. Listen freely to “Fresh” in its entirety at ClubDevo – and some of the band’s greatest hits, too.

DEVO also continues to tour, with the latest waltz around the country continuing at Hollywood Park** in Inglewood, Calif. They’re even going to hit Arizona’s Fall Frenzy three-day concert in September (along with Blue October, Dirty Heads, Primus, Sublime, Weezer, and others).

The band – archetypes and marketeers of the societal de-volution concept, have always strained the concept of music, eliciting extreme reactions to their music, their facade and their dour approach to the herd mentality of societies.

The big question, of course, Q: Has their music evolved or regressed somehow into better? A: ______?

** A strange – of course – place to play. Hollywood Park is a racetrack and they’ll play immediately following the conclusion of the day’s racing.