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Dave Good writes about pop music for the San Diego Reader.

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John Platania
Blues, Waltzes, and Badland Borders
Train Wreck 2007

The title says it all. This is a collection of badass guitar styles and hooks and riffs, some on acoustic and some on electric. There’s wonderful Palatania picking and slide guitar and Tex-Mex and sampling, a children’s choir and even story telling on this album that makes this one of the most engaging ‘concept’ albums that is not really a ‘concept’ album at all. It’s just a lot of creativity and superb guitar playing. Palatania should know about that – it’s his guitar on Van Morrison’s “Moondance” and “Domino.” With Lucinda Williams and Alejandro Escovedo on guest vocals and narratives by John Voight and Ruben Ramos. ***1/2 stars

Maria McKee
Late December
Viewfinder Records 2007

Like a very hip Melissa Manchester, only very, very hip. McKee sings into the bad dreams of broken hearts, lame relationships, destiny, and all that with a powerful, almost operatic voice in the pop tradition. Did I say pop? I meant to say Gospel – almost. The title track – “Late December” – is a prize. *** stars

Chris Berardo
Chris Berardo and the DesBerardos
Lamon Records, 2007

I loaned out my copy and never got it back, which furthers my resolve to never lend out my favorite CDs. Ever again. This is the kind of record with what I call “reference” songs - songs that you want to hear over and over again. Should have never taken it out of my CD player. Someday I’ll learn. Berardo’s voice and songwriting is right out of the country rock scene that evolved at LA’s Troubador during the ‘70’s, an era that spawned Jackson Brown, the Eagles, Gram Parsons, and more. Berardo has taken that collective era, and done them all one better on this album of singer/songwriter crafted gems. ****1/2 stars

Michael Tiernan
Spaces
2007 http://www.tiernantunes.com

If the name sounds familiar, perhaps it is. Michael Tiernan is a singer/songwriter local to San Diego. A supple and clear voice, Tiernan’s presence is a throwback to the alt-folk lessons set down by Jessie Winchester or Jessie Colin Young: ruffle no feathers, make great, sonic spaces for a listener – that’s Tiernan. A side note: the singer songwriter tradition in this town is currently getting national attention. It has become a “scene” in every sense of the word “scene” and if you’re missing out, too bad. The epicenter of same is at venues like Twiggs and Lestat’s and of the current local stars (Jason Mraz, Ana Troy, Gregory Page, Carlos Olmeda, Lisa Saunders, Greg Laswell), Tiernan is the pick of the litter. Favorites: “Same Sky,” “I’m Ready.” *** stars

The Bad Plus
Prog
Heads Up 2007

This Brooklyn jazz trio – piano, bass, drums – can be traditional, they can be free jazz, and they can spin off covers of rock classics, hard rock classics at that, like Rush’s Tom Sawyer. They also rework the other side of pop culture too like Tears for Fears and Burt Bacharach, being thorough revisionists in the vein of pop artists who went before them in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s and showed us our own cultural banality. **1/2 stars

Loudon Wainwright III
Strange Weirdos
Concord 2007

Wainwright crafts great moments in song… about street-level concerns and the stuff of daily life that is at everyone’s gut-level. He is very good at it. He is an old friend, welcome any damned time he chooses to stop by with a head full of music and stories. A reaffirming presence as a singer/songwriter of Americana. Strange Weirdos is just plain Loudon, and it’s wonderful. ‘Nuff said. ****1/2 stars

Rick Holmstrom
Late in the Night
MC Records 2007

When he made Hydraulic Groove a few years ago guitarist Rick Holmstrom drew shots from the blues traditionalists even though he says he is still very much at heart a traditional kind of blues man. That said, Late in the Night should cement his relationship with the revisionists, not the traditionalists. But who cares? Late in the Night (as well as H- Groove) is an engaging work by a master bluesman with brio enough to follow his own path. You may recall Holmstrom from his brilliant tenure as guitarist with Rod Piazza’s Mighty Flyers. Even then, he showed that he is an uncompromising artist capable of reaching deep to come up with something new in a genre that was relevant, say, seventy years ago. **** stars

Maystar
Wake Up Now
(self release) 2006

Sergio Leone, the legendary maker of spaghetti westerns would, I believe, have enjoyed the duo Maystar for their juxtapositions of organic folk starkness over vampy burlesque and boho art-pop. Some of Maystar’s songs are pensive, troubled perfection. Catch up with them at venues like the Casbah. A generation too late, perhaps, but there would have been a warm spot for Maystar in the annals of 70’s New York art culture. Andy Warhol smiles down on Maystar from pop heaven. He is happy. ***1/2 stars

Railroad Earth
Railroad Earth
ELKO 2007

The Buffalo Springfield take a lesson from Duane Allman. Don’t ask me how. Back in the day Buffalo Springfield were consummate songwriters but a little rough around the edges on their respective instruments. They utilized any stringed thing that caught their fancy and fed their imaginations. Railroad Earth have captured that sound, only with the rural skills of the bluegrass mechanic coupled with the soaring lyrical qualities of the Allman bros. Go figure. But it sounds like the 60’s, which wasn’t a bad place to be at all. ***1/2 stars

In Theory
This Is It
Adrenaline 2007

You’ve no doubt heard Blink 182? And Sum 42, Hoobastank, Nickelback, etc, etc? Yup. Nothing new here. Nice try, though. 1/2 stars

Holly Hofman/Mike Wofford
Live at the Athenaeum Jazz vol. 2
CAPRI 2007

I’ve practically worn out Wofford’s earlier Live at Athenaeum Jazz, being a huge fan of his sound at jazz piano. Downbeat Magazine has called Mr. Wofford “one of the outstanding pianists of our time.” The venerable jazz legend Benny Golson once said that Wofford is the “essence of a pianist in his purist and most concentrated form.” Both were right - Mike Wofford is a bona fide master at sculpting moods and environments from thin air, and his subtle touch at the keys is masterful and evocative. With the addition of the flautist Holly Hofman, the collection of music herein gains complexion and lyricism from Hofman’s lightning-quick jazz reflexes. Not to be missed - Hofman and Wofford together are a world class traditional jazz duo. ***** stars

New Bonus Music DVD Section!!

Bobby Rush
Live at Ground Zero Blues Club
MVD Visual 2007

Just the other night, we were watching the Martin Scorcese wandering tribute to the blues that he produced a few years back. Disc number four in the series was ostensibly about BB King and Beale Street and Memphis. But the DVD begins with footage of Bobby Rush in the back room of some club getting ready to go on stage for about the millionth time in his career, his band vamping while he massages oil into his Jheri curls. It goes like this for the rest of the program – jumping from filmed snippets of Bobby to BB and back to Bobby, with no apparent connection between the two, other than that they are both legendary blues men in the grand blues review tradition – big songs, big horns, big show.

This year, Rush, 66, made his own DVD in which he is the sole property. The harmonica-playing, dancing, jiving-with the ladies entertainer has never been hotter. Rush has seldom strayed far from the chitlin’ circuit during his long and notable career, meaning that he still plays predominantly black clubs while much of the blues has shifted away to white audiences over the years. “Live at Ground Zero” has been a long time coming. It gets a tad bawdy at times and Rush strains to make a point, but he is the last of a dying breed. And, he can still put it on. **** stars

Tim Buckley
My Fleeting House
MVD Visual 2007

Anybody who wonders where Jeff Buckley got all that talent and that magnificent, soaring voice needs to see this DVD. It chronicles the strange life and times of his famous father. Tim Buckley too died a young and tragic death. But what music! I’d forgotten all about his singer/songwriter – meets-jazz ethic, with the accompaniment of solo horn and a conga player instead of a drummer. And Buckley senior’s voice was one of those kinds of voices that you had to stop everything and listen to – strange, beautiful, consuming. Such music of this caliber and intellect we are not likely to hear again in this lifetime of R&B boy bands, hiphop nastiness, and hoochie mamas pop starlets. ***** stars