| Description |
ARTIST: Blues Traveler
TITLE: North Hollywood Shootout
LABEL: Verve
GENRE: Rock
BITRATE: 190kbps avg
PLAYTIME: 0h 42m total
RELEASE DATE: 2008-08-26
RIP DATE: 2008-08-06
Track List
----------
1. Forever Owed 4:43
2. You, Me and Everything 4:21
3. Love Does 3:31
4. Borrowed Time 3:38
5. The Beacons 3:14
6. Orange in the Sun 3:53
7. What Remains 4:48
8. How You Remember It 4:06
9. The Queen of Sarajevo 4:00
10. Free Willis, Ruminations from 5:51
Behind Uncle Bob's Machine Shop
Release Notes:
It's not every band that's still staking out new musical territory and embracing
fresh challenges more than 20 years into their career, but that's the case with
Blues Traveler. Having long ago graduated from the jam-band underground to
mainstream stardom, the iconoclastic combo has consistently stuck to its guns
and played by its own rules.
For their new release (and Verve Forecast debut) North Hollywood Shootout, the
quintet ventured out of their creative comfort zone to explore some adventurous
new horizons. The resulting album is a landmark in Blues Traveler's large and
widely loved body of work, demonstrating the enduring strengths of the band's
songwriting while capturing the spontaneous spirit of their legendary live
shows.
The aforementioned body of work encompasses eight studio albums and four live
discs, six of them certified Gold or Platinum, with combined worldwide sales of
more than ten million units. The band's best-known single, "Run-Around," was the
longest-charting radio single in Billboard history. Along the way, the band has
played more than 2000 live shows in front of more than three million people.
"We're still trying to reconcile the different things we do, and cultivate what
we're individually good at into something that's bigger than the sum of its
parts," notes frontman and harmonica-slinger John Popper. "When we're all
playing and it's working, it becomes this separate entity, and that's still the
thing that we're chasing."
North Hollywood Shootout -- produced by Grammy-winner David Bianco, whose
diverse resume includes work with the likes of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers,
Ozzy Osbourne, Mick Jagger and Teenage Fanclub -- makes a strong case for Blues
Traveler's timelessly vital writing and performing abilities. Such memorable
tunes as the uplifting road-trip anthem "You, Me and Everything," the playfully
romantic "Love Does" and the elegant, evocative "Orange in the Sun" boast
infectious melodic hooks while showcasing the interactive instrumental chemistry
that originally endeared the band to its rabidly devoted fan base.
The new material also makes a strong case for the introspective side that's
always been a key element of lyricist Popper's persona. The heart-tugging lyrics
of the opening track "Forever Owed" were inspired by the singer's recent USO
trip to Afghanistan and Iraq, while the poignant "Borrowed Time" is a
bittersweet meditation on mortality and transience, inspired both by the recent
passing of bandmates Chan and Tad Kinchla's father, and by Popper's feelings for
his beloved and aging dog. The album's biggest sonic curveball is its closing
track, "Free Willis, Ruminations from Behind Uncle Bob's Machine Shop." The
six-minute spoken-word sound collage finds the band jamming over an insistent
drumbeat, while actor Bruce Willis, a longtime fan and friend, delivers a
colorful freeform monologue/rant.
"Free Willis" is a particularly aggressive embodiment of the creative risks that
the ever-restless quintet took in writing and recording North Hollywood
Shootout. Rather than fall back on established routines, the musicians
challenged themselves by adopting some new working methods.
As guitarist Chan Kinchla explains, "On the last few records, we concentrated so
much on the craft of the songwriting and arrangements that we started losing
some of the live spontaneity that the five of us created on stage. So on this
album, instead of doing the usual pre-production process, where we really worked
out the songs before taking them into the studio, we decided to go straight into
the studio and do the songwriting there. We recorded all the parts as we were
working them out, and then build the songs from there. We'd find a cool little
pocket and jam on it, or there'd be a drumbeat or a guitar part that was really
happening, and we'd take the best part of that and use it as the foundation of
the song."
"That was a completely new way of working for us," Kinchla asserts, "but it
-------------------------------------
http://www.mp3nova.org
|
!
0 
0 
