RADIO HANNIBAL

Cleveland musicians, today is the deadline to get your music to the mayor

As part of the campaign to have Cleveland city council and the mayor reconsider the burdensome admissions tax and possibly exempt smaller clubs, Brent Kirby has been asking that musicians send their music to Mayor Jackson.  Kirby has asked to have it submitted by today to make an impact.

He imagines a stack of CDs, tapes and records in the corner of the mayor's office and his email filled with MP3s. Help this become a reality. 

Send your physical media to:

Mayor Frank Jackson
Cleveland City Hall 
601 Lakeside Ave. 
Cleveland 44114

And your MP3's to:

mayorsactioncenter@city.cleveland.oh.us

Music Pick Of The Day: Islands - A Sleep & A Forgetting

I don't know why, back in 2005, I thought of the band Islands as something very foreign.  Their debut that year, Return To The Sea was a fave of the indie crowd at a time when the indie scene was in its heyday. 

Personnel changes and a couple of  mediocre albums later left me little reason to be excited for their new album.  I gave a listen to it upon its release last week anyway.  It's a real pleaser. 

The album could've been a bit shorter but the good songs are good enough to forgive the ones that shouldn't have made the cut. 

But what I kept thinking was, how did I consider these guys so out of the mainstream.  This is the kind of music that should be embraced by rock radio today.  It won't be, and it's one of the reasons rock music is in a perceived slump. 

Artist:  Islands

Album:  A Sleep & A Forgetting

Review:  Pitchfork

Islands - A Sleep & A Forgetting on Spotify

Cool Photos Of The Day

Cyndi Lauper

David Bowie

Joan Jett

Madonna

Yoko Ono and Linda McCartney

Cleveland musician's guitars stolen.

Last night Jack Ford's guitarist Bobby Latina had two guitars stolen outside the Beachland Ballroom.
Here's Bobby's plea for help he posted on Facebook. It describes the guitars, a Telecaster and a Les Paul, and asks that you spread the word to pawn shops and fencers throughout the Cleveland area.
Thanks.

The Neil Young discography - Shakey II, part 5

This discography analysis is written by JT of Perth, Australia (follow him at @thesonofnoone on Twitter).

Neil Young
After the Gold Rush (1970)

1) 'Tell Me Why' - A really great start to the album. Some days the whole "is it hard to make arrangements..." breakdown grates on me a bit, but other days I love it to bits. Not really sure I understand what's being said in the song, but I still enjoy going along with the flow nonetheless. As I said, a great start to the album, but feels like the intro to a song that never arrived. 7.0

2) 'After the Gold Rush' - Wow - did I ever love this song when it first heard the album. I played it so much that my mum even learned the words to the song. And for someone who mixes up the names of her two sons with the name of her brother-in-law, that's no mean feat. Nowadays, I still like the song, but I'm not sure I love it any more. Whereas I once thought NY's singing on the track was flawless, it now feels a tad forced. Still a killer track though. 7.5

3) 'Only Love Can Break Your Heart' - Another "do I love it or just really like it?" song. Today I think I really like it. The melody seems a bit forced, and I only bring that up as a bad point because there are so many Neil Young songs where the melodies are so relaxed and brilliant you wonder why they all can't be like that. But it still rises above it all somehow to become a favourite of a lot of people. So, in this instance, who am I to argue? 7.5

4) 'Southern Man' - Not sure how I feel about this song. I think mostly that it tries to out-Crazy Horse the Crazy Horse guys and fails. But it's still a great song. Just not one that I listen to that often (again, that's the fault of the listener, not the song). A bit preachy perhaps? I'll grant Neil Young the indulgence. 7.0

5) 'Till the Morning Comes' - If this was a 'normal length' song it would be close to pushing a 10.0. As it is, it falls short, but it gets most of its score from the "whoah oh" backing vocals which are out-of-this-world good you wish the song went for 10 minutes. 8.0

6) 'Oh, Lonesome Me' - A Don Gibson cover made Young's own. One of the Crazy Horse tracks on the album - Young and Danny Whitten kill it on this track. This is 'Running Dry...' and 'Round and Round' from EKTIN taken to the next level. Fuckin' brilliant. And if it seems like I'm writing less words, it's only because I'm tired and about to pass out (oh, lonesome me indeed). Almost masterpiece. 9.0

7) 'Don't Let it Bring You Down' - Another song I can't help but feel is overrated. What is it that makes so many people love this song? It's not that it's bad, it just feels too forced. A "let's write a great one" kind of song, as opposed to "let's do this one, see how it comes out" kind of song. 6.5

8) 'Birds' - Love this song. I probably shouldn't, but I do. Sue me. I'm a sucker for the Neil Young/Piano combo. 8.0

9) 'When You Dance I Can Really Love' - Love this one too. "When you dance, do your senses tingle?" Well, yes Neil - they surely do. 7.5

10) 'I Believe in You' - Masterpiece #5. Another Crazy Horse track, this song took a while to hit, but fuck... when it hit I had to catch my breath. I can't really describe how good this song is - it's like the ultimate self-doubt song. Or perhaps it's the final kiss-off, I flip between my thoughts. Good thing the song is so great that repeated listens aren't a bad thing. 10.0

11) 'Cripple Creek Ferry' - I actually think 'Till the Morning Comes' would've been the far better album closer, but this song doesn't suck. However the beauty of 'Till the Morning Comes' was that as a short song, it wasn't big on substance, only sugar coated with a great melody - 'Cripple Creek Ferry' seemingly suffers because it tries to be a bigger song than 1:34 allows. Still, it gets a pass score. 5.5

ALBUM RATING: 9.0

VERDICT: This was my first favourite Neil Young album. It's no longer my favourite, but that's only because I've listened to his whole catalogue so many times, that the impact the first listen of this album had on me has dimished more than I thought it would. Songs I loved from the first time I heard them are now songs I skip over, while songs I never clicked with initially are now songs I have on repeat ad nauseum. Great album, but not his best.

NEXT: "All the way to the top, baby!!" (but not until tomorrow. I'm going to bed now)

Spotify Mix - A Night At The Oscars

As the annual Academy Awards show approaches this Sunday evening I thought I'd assemble a Spotify playlist about it. 

It contains songs about actors, music nominated this year and songs about the industry itself.  Enjoy.

Radio Hannibal - A Night At The Oscars (Spotify mix)

Building my own underground garage

Last week I talked about my love of Little Steven's Underground Garage on Sirius/XM.  Alas, the ability to listen to it in my car was just a tease.  Seems that Sirius/XM was running a promotion to try and entice people to join. They still haven't convinced me to shell out for a subscription to the service.

So I've done the next best thing.  I created a Spotify playlist in which I'm gathering songs played on the Underground Garage. 

There's a weekly syndicated show that airs on terrestrial stations around the country.  On the website for it is an archive of every show.  You can listen to any one of the over 500 of them right there. 

There's also a breakdown of the playlist.  So I'm beginning to go through those titles and then search for them on Spotify and add them to my playlist. 

Little Steven's also put out eight volumes of The Coolest Songs In The World which are available on Spotify.  So I added them to the playlist. 

As I continue culling the archives of the show my playlist will grow.  Feel free to subscribe to it.  It makes for one hell of a party mix.

Radio Hannibal's Underground Garage (thx Steve)

Celebrating Mardi Gras Radio Hannibal style

I've yet to actually attend the festivities of Mardi Gras in New Orleans nor Carnivale in Rio De Janeiro.  I do have a Fat Tuesday tradition though.  I share it with my readers every year. Here's how you can have a virtual Fat Tuesday, My Mardi Gras Tradition.

A Presidents Day recommendation for Clevelanders

Ohio is home to a number of United States presidents.  They include William Henry Harrison, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, Howard Taft and Warren Harding.

James A. Garfield could be loosely called a Clevelander.  After all he was born in what is now the eastern suburbs, settled in Mentor and is buried in Cleveland's landmark Lakeview Cemetery. 

Yet I hardly knew a thing about the president who didn't even serve a year in office.  That is until I read the book, Destiny Of The Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medecine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard.  It's a fascinating read.

In fact it should be mandatory reading for all Clevelanders.  As soon as I finished reading it I had to head over to his memorial at the cemetery.  I'd been there in the past but now, with insight into the man, it was much more powerful.

In the spring I plan to visit his Presidential library in Mentor.  It was actually the first Presidential library established.

I won't give away any of the interesting points of the book.  It is well worth your time though.

The Neil Young discography - Shakey II, part 4

This discography analysis is written by JT of Perth, Australia (follow him at @thesonofnoone on Twitter).

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Woodstock (1970)

'Sea of Madness'Spotify - I'm not even sure this song was recorded at Woodstock, so its presence on the Soundtrack is ummm... interesting. The song isn't as interesting, although NY seems to be giving it his all - you can't help but feel the song is more perspiration than inspiration. 5.5 NEXT: A necessary evil.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Deja Vu (1970)

'Helpless' Spotify - Yeah... so he knocked this fucker right out of the ball park. A great song, but I'm not ready to call it a masterpiece. I just get the feeling that Young wanted more out of the song (and I'm intrigued by the knowledge that a Crazy Horse version of the song, all 9 minutes of it, was failed to be captured on tape). But what we've got is really a beautiful song. 8.0

'Country Girl' Spotify - You know, I never liked this song before. But a few weeks back it actually hit me as really good. It sounds like NY thought "I've got all this studio time and I'm not paying for it, so let's see what we can come up with". He hadn't really made anything so 'kitchen sink' since his debut album. Stands up well, I think. Not something I can listen to very often (at all), but when it's on and I let it play itself out, I'm impressed. 7.0

'Everybody I Love You' (unavailable on Spotify) - A Stills co-write and a leftover from the Springfield days. Maybe should've stayed in the vaults? Not an offensive song by any means, but how can something that wasn't good enough for the Springfield be good enough for Neil Young two or three years later when he's grown exponentially as a songwriter? Maybe it's a Stills ego trip (the guitar seems to say it is), or maybe the band needed another group singalong. I don't know. Not a brilliant song by any stretch. 5.5

'Ohio' Spotify - Taken as something released in the aftermath of a tragedy - you can't really expect anything better, and knowing other artists' attempts at doing so, you know that this succeeded where so many others failed. It's a simple tune and Crosby rips the shit out of it towards the end - the kind of song the dude was built for. Perhaps Young's crowning CSNY glory? 8.0

NEXT: CSNY recording phase #1 is over. Neil Young now straps on the rocket boots and leaves his bandmates wondering what the fuck just happened, and although each of them record fantastic albums in the coming year or two, they never reach the same heights again - expcet Young, who is just getting warmed up as he enters the decade in which he'll produce the most consistently brilliant music, almost untouchable in rock and roll.