The Best of Q3
A Hodge Podge of Goose, Lettuce, and a Lady
Desperately hoping to kick this academic year off right, I’ve been neck-deep in teaching and learning for the past six weeks. No complaints, the job gives no less than it takes. But to help me grapple with the hopes and fears the come with all new things, even new school years, I’ve devoted the past few editions of The Junction to the promises and perils of my professional pursuits. I hope this didn’t alienate or trigger those of you who, perhaps understandably, suffer some version of PTSD from your school days.
To help quell my stresses and bouy my hopes, I’ve been pumping as much new music into my head as my old ears will allow for. I’ve also been clinging to my comfort albums* to calm me as the world careens from crisis to crisis. But, dear reader, neither comfort albums nor crises are the purview of this post, because we just completed the third quarter of the calendar year, making it time to share the Best Albums Of Q3.
Regular readers may recall my faves from Q1 and Q2 of 2024 (the running playlist is here). Regular readers may also remember my caveat that I’m not particularly interested in writing about music and I certainly don’t want to be a music critic (a dreadful lot, becoming smaller with each passing day). I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want. All I really want is to share new music, hoping, like I really, really hoping, that something I share brings you joy.
So let’s start with the thoroughly joyful sound of Lettuce. Their new Live in Tokyo exudes joy from start to finish**. Fans of funk and fusion will dig the dynamic range as Lettuce slides smoothly from slower, sexier grooves (think Grover Washington Jr. Mr. Magic) to high BPM, four-on-the-floor booty shakers (The JBs). If you dig The Greyboy Allstars, Soulive or Galactic, then this one’s for you. In fact, Lettuce guitarist, Eric Krasno, split his time between Soulive and Lettuce. The drummer has Stanton Moore (of Galactic) sensibilities and is high and hot in the mix. But the horns, sweet lawdy the horns. Hey Chitown! Lettuce will co-headline with STS9 at Radius (just opened this year, near Chinatown) on October 18-19. Go!
Horny for horns but Krasno’s guitar wet your whistle? Well there is a new sheriff in town. Eighteen-year-old guitar phenom Grace Bowers serves up tasty licks à la Derek Trucks. Indeed Bowers and her band The Hodge Podge tap right into the brawny but sensitive Tedeschi Trucks Band sound (she has upcoming dates opening for the Allman Betts Band if you need proof). While Bowers gives a guitar master class on this release, it’s decidedly a band effort. She wrote the songs and crushes the solos. But the band really comes together for and with her. I learned about Bowers from this NPR interview in which she discusses the origins of the band, its name, and the problematics of the “guitar prodigy” label that seems affixed to her. Wine on Venus, the title track, is the ninth and final track of the 37 minute album. Clocking in at over six minutes, it takes quite a journey, showcasing the young gun stretching it out. It’s a great album. But that last track gives the listener an invitation to see the Hodge Podge live.
IMHO, Goose is one of the best live bands out there. They just dropped Live at the Fox Theatre, a 2-CD set that features two full shows from their June 21 and 22, 2024 performances in Atlanta. Each show is about 2 hours, 20 minutes. Both shows/discs feature some long, adventurous, mind-melting jams: Hungersite on Disc 1 rings in at 22:56, Tumble on Disc 2 is 28:10. Both sets also feature a cover song. Goose takes Rock the Casbah by The Clash in new directions on June 21; the next night, they take on The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. Americans generally have little appetite for history, but Georgians know William Tecumseh Sherman’s 1864 March to the Sea from Atlanta to Savannah. Union troops ruthlessly deployed a scorched earth strategy, burning cities, destroying infrastructure, and confiscating resources across Georgia. This brutal campaign broke the Confederacy's will to fight. Sherman left a trail of devastation, civilian hardship, and plenty of hard feelings in his wake. Some argue it was the first modern example of total warfare, paving the way for the atrocities of WWI. This is only the second time Goose has played The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down and I couldn't help but wonder how it hit the locals.
But more so, I wondered how Goose’s new drummer is fitting in with the band. I saw Goose in Berlin last year and was blown away by their drummer, Ben Atkind. A couple months later, Atkind, a founding member of the band, and Goose had parted ways over “creative differences.” I wondered how the new drummer, Cotter Ellis, would fit in and/or change the Goose sound. Dude nails it. Technical. Soulful. What a great listener. Indeed, the joy of listening to Goose is the joy of listening to people listen to one another very, very meticulously.
I might add here that the entire June 22 performance is free on YouTube. I haven’t seen it. But I listened to the whole show twice on long bike rides and heartily recommend it.
I also heartily recommend Lady Blackbird’s Slang Spirituals. It's a full and fearless production. Tasteful strings. The first three tracks are bangers. It is not until track four, Man On A Boat, when the upright bass and acoustic guitars create a gentle, flowing rhythm, with subtle vocal harmonies and piano accents, that the album allows the listener to catch their breath. No One Can Love Me (Like You Do) has a Motown revisited vibe. Slang Spirituals closes with Whatever His Name, an eight-minute, phantasmagoric, psycho-spiritual jam. I imagine her putting on a compelling live show. She’ll be in Berlin on 25 November at the RBB studios. Plenty of seats left for now. We’ll see…
Honorable Mentions for Q3, all of which are decidedly worth exploring:
Rex Orange County, The Alexander Technique
Billy Strings, Highway Prayers
Nikki Costa, Dirty Disco
Dopaped, Phobia
Wayne Graham, Bastion
Again, here’s the full 2024 album playlist. Wishing you all a lovely week of peace, love, and music.
Yours,
D
*Comfort albums these days: mostly Stevie (about whom there is a brand new podcast featuring the Obamas, among many others) and Steely (to whom I plan to write a love letter in these pages before the year is out).
**If you made this far, I trust you will forgive that I was damn near done writing this thing before I realized that the Lettuce album, while new, is a 2024 remaster of a 2004 Tokyo concert. Loath as I am to admit it, the truth is that my vision has deteriorated and I have been derelict in getting to the eye doc for new glasses. So, yeah. 2004, 2024. Same same. Uggh. Whatevs. Still a great live show, now remastered.