tinpanband.com

Hi Again,
These spots are rolling in right now and we’re happy as heck about it. Here’s the next installment from Murphy’s Saloon Blues Podcast. We’re the towards the top of the show and Murphy had some nice things to say about the group:

I really what Tin Pan do and how they do it because their grove draws very strongly from the pre-world-war-two era when blues and jazz and R&B were all part of the same rich musical stew. Tin Pan is a self described street band that often plays in Central Park and the New York Subway system as well as indoor club dates. Having now heard their 2008 CD entitled, “Hound’s Tooth” I have to say I can’t improve on how they describe their sound: As Ray Charles and Tom Waits hanging out on Bourbon Street.

Here’s the link to hear the podcast.

A note of personal satisfaction: this is the first time I’ve ever heard myself play guitar on the radio!!! Murphy decided to put on “Please don’t let me go!” which features me doing my thing on the guitar. Dave Yantorno would be proud. HaHaHAHAHA I feel awesome about it!

Our new friend Holly caught us in the act…

It’s a small device for protecting your fingers in the rain… Also a blues show from england.

“If the Sea Was Whiskey” gets a play after about an hour in.

Enjoy!

Hi folks,

We just got a great review for hound’s tooth and one of our singles from a web site called Gulf Coast Music Review. It seems we made quite an impression. Here’s the review in full:

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As you may know, Blues music is one of the few musical genre which originated solely in the United States. Blues music was born in the late 1800s and early 1900s from the Afro-American spiritual and the “call and response” work songs of the American South. The word Blues comes from the term “blue devils”. One was said to have the blue devils when they were in a sad or melancholy state. Blues told the story of the hardworking, common, everyday man. The blues’ singer’s voice is usually harsh and raspy, yet soulful, voice of an ordinary person telling their story. This is the past from which Tin Pan has evolved.

Between Selengut’s trumpet, especially when he puts the mute on and Zeniuk’s reed playing, you would swear you were in the 20s or 30s, they blend so well together. One of the best examples of the play between and blending of, reed and horn is “My Life Will Be Sweeter”. Don’t get me wrong, now, Hyde and Maness do a fantastic job on guitar and bass as well, just listen to “Gambler’s Blues”, but its still that mournful trumpet playing and the raspiness of the reeds which meshes so well with the raspiness that is the “trademark” of a blues singer’s voice that really make it a blues band. Oh, Hell, Tin Pan is just a great Blues band, period! Tin Pan’s music has such good “hooks”, you just feel compelled to sing along!

Unfortunately I don’t run into many blues bands, fortunately, however, I found Tin Pan! Tin Pan has got to be one of the best modern days blues bands around! All I want to do when I hear Tin Pan’s music is close my eyes and let it transport me to another era. Gangsters, the depression, prohibition, Elliot Ness! All the things that marked the “roaring twenties”! Blues music always gave me time to reflect on my life, too.

To a great blues band which captures the essence of a bygone era, I give 10 stars and a “thumbs up”!

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Here’s a link to buy the album on iTunes or a hard copy from CDbaby.

Tin Pan was on NBC this morning.  Looking good too!  We’re at the very end of this clip!

Lights, Camera, Action! | NBC New York.

Stefan and his amazing Flame-O-Phone. Click on this photo and see it nice and large – it’s pretty great.

It may be lame, but your humble narrator is SUPER EXCITED about the new release of the Rolling Stone’s “Exile on Main Street”…

Alas Dear Reader!!! i have returned from my pilgrimage to the land of Giant Salmon, Bald Eagles, Totem Poles, Sasquatches, & large quantities of beer that shall hither-to be known as “Alaska”…

Now why did your humble narrator journey to this mythical land of the Great White North? it all began with an invitation from the Startled Salmon, an arts organization and recording studio located in Ketchikan, Alaska. It seems that the young locales of this small island (population 6,012) have taken an interest in the musical arts and were looking to explore this new found world of expression. At this point I received a call from Ketchikan fisherman, Batuuta Kasuwe, asking if I would be interested in coming up. The tickets were booked and on March 20th of this year I flew up North…WAY North.

The first noticeable thing of Ketchikan is the hyperactivity of the area’s Nimbus Clouds. Producing a constant rain everyday, these Nimbus Clouds of Ketchikan soon become an accepted, wet part of your day. In order to battle this daily inconvenience your humble narrator was forced to purchase an Alaskan Rain Disbursement And Protective Apparatus. With my head protected from the elements I journeyed around the island to witness the wonders of the mileu…

Upon my first sighting of a Bald Eagle I was truly gassed. A huge, imposing bird of prey flying majestically through the sky, landing upon the branch of an evergreen tree so forcefully that the tree bent in its direction. This diving, solitary predator was a marvel to behold until I realized that there were at least 3 more in the area…as I walked through the town I noticed more & more of these skybound fishermen. “Egad!” I cried as I realized that our national bird is as common as the purple pigeons of New York City…

TO BE CONTINUED…

I’m really really late to the party on this one. Maybe because the only versions of these songs that I’ve heard had so much gaudy, transexual camp on them that it glazed over the cold, hard, vile, scabrous truth to this complex and brutal music.

We did a party at Shanghai Mermaid this weekend and the theme was Weimar Germany. There was one outstanding song that began to point the way for me into this treacherous, macabre and generally thrilling music. The performers name was Lady Rizo and the song that stabbed me was “Pirate Jenny” from “Threepenny Opera.” Basically, the song is a revenge fantasy. A prostitute in a hotel concocts a vision of a pirate ship that will not only save her from her wretched condition and the brutality of how she is treated, but will also ask for her judgement on when to kill each of her persecutors. By the end of the song, no one is spared and she leaves the town on the pirate ship herself. To take the whole thing to the next dramatic level, in most performances the song is sung by a different character to make fun of Jenny for being such a pathetic, powerless looser!!

Lady Rizo gave an epic and drawn out version a la Nina Simone rendition.

Today, I began to study Weill and Brecht a bit and found many different versions of this song. The one I am posting here is probably the closest to the song’s original intent as it is performed by Weill’s wife, Lotte Lenya. It is brisk and cold and mean and ultimately horrible. I love it.

Rizo’s version was much more drawn out and in English. A side note and a tip of the hat to a great performer: Lady Rizo had a recalcitrant crowd whipped into submission from the first seconds of her set and continued to spellbind and amaze. To perform a song as unpleasant and murderous as this, with so much text as well (!!) and hold everyone’s attention is a feat of entertainment that I yearn to achieve. I was impressed.

Last week the mighty Tin Pan was asked to perform a set at a wake. I spoke at length to the person who was helping put together the ceremony. It’s a tough, emotionally charged time for certain. I asked him what it was that the family would want exactly as I was having a hard time discerning the proper tone for what we’d be doing. I explained the traditional use of music in New Orleans funerals: on the way to cemetery the band plays mournful dirges and on the way back the music turns towards joyous spirituals. I learned that the departed loves jazz music and was a saxophone player. He said he wasn’t sure what he wanted but he trusted us to find the right music that would suit the event. On top of this, half of the family was Jewish and the idea of us being part of sitting Shiva was strange. Traditionally no music is allowed. I didn’t want to offend.

We arrived at the appointed hour and there were about 100 people gathered around their dear departed who was laying in state at the front of the room. Speeches continued for nearly an hour – everyone taking their turn describing and reminiscing with much love in their voices. This seemed like an honorable, fun-loving, kind, crafty guy. We set ourselves up in a connecting but adjacent room with about 40 chairs in it. It was like the spill-over room for the main event.

Our first number was “The Old Rugged Cross,” but as an instrumental. Serene, sad, uplifting, and played beautifully by Stefan and I on the horns. We had opened the door for music without reproach and with a good feeling in the room. We proceeded to play, “Bie Mir Bist Du Schoën,” again without lyrics. An old timer from the Jewish side of the family recognized the melody and commented about to his friend. “I know that tune. That’s Bie Mir Bist Du Schoen. L. loved that song.” An educated guess. We proceeded like this for a while playing spirituals in major keys in a slow and stately way and playing the minor songs with a perky lift so they wouldn’t feel to heavy.

The room was getting looser and I called, “Down By The Riverside” and introduced the voice into the mix. From the moment I started singing the majority of people in the room started to clap along on the back beat. Gospel feeling of rejoicing and reverence and smiling ensued. About 30 minutes later we closed with a song I wrote about my own dear departed great-aunt Alice.

It’s not that the vibe in the room was joyous per se. Or even happy. It was mournful but there was definitely the feeling of comfort and solace that we were allowing everyone to experience. It was a beautiful thing.

I am so proud of my band for helping me to create this tone at this event. We didn’t know what to expect going into it. We had no idea what was really required of us as it was impossible for us to articulate it beforehand. That we all discovered it together and were able to be comforting, provide solace, and to manifest reverence for the departed is definitely playing against type for Tin Pan. We are usually the irreverent, bombastic and rough ones. I am really thrilled that we could be open enough to take the right shape for what was required.

Another dear friend, Ann, who has also passed on, once commented about me that she loved the way, like water, I could pour myself into any situation and take on its shape. I am so happy to find myself able to do that with Tin Pan as well when the situation requires it. I suppose this story is as banal as saying that it was a rough room but we figured out how to make it work. It seems more than that to me though, for the those vibes of solace and comfort that we rarely get called on to provide.