HAPPY GNU YEAR!...

Brownies close another painful season, lose to Steelers 24-10...

Should Have Shot Paul (The Strange Boys)...

Yoko Ono Talks Beatles Breakup and How It Was "Getting to Be Like Paul's Band"

(E-Online)- As we all know, the Beatles couldn't work it out unfortunately.  But a two-decade-old interview Yoko Ono did with famed rock journalist Joe Smith that's surfaced for the first time courtesy of The Huffington Post sheds more light on why the Fab Four called it a day.  And if you ask John Lennon's widow, whom fans have long blamed for the split, it was already in the works by the time she began to make her presence felt.

During the sit-down recorded in 1987, Ono explained that the tensions that had come to envelop the Beatles stemmed from her hubby, Ringo Starr and George Harrison's increasing desire to venture out on their own.  "The Beatles were getting very independent," she told Smith, noting that while Lennon was "feeling very good about" what she called a "divorce," the others were feeling very much like they needed to get some distance from Paul McCartney.  "Each one of them [was] getting independent," she added. "John, in fact, was not the first one who wanted to leave the Beatles. [We saw] Ringo one night with Maureen [Starkey Tigrett], and he came to John and me and said he wanted to leave. George was next, and then John."  In fact, two years before the Beatles announced their breakup in 1970, Starr left the group for two weeks during sessions for The White Album. But by the time the mop-tops were recording their swan song, Abbey Road, Ono said, it was Paul who was essentially left with the task of keeping the dream alive. (Read More)

R.I.P. Fontella Bass...

(Per TMZ)- Fontella Bass -- famous for her epic 1965 hit song "Rescue Me" -- died Wednesday in Missouri. She was 72.  According to Fontella's family, the singer passed away in a St. Louis hospital from complications she suffered following a heart attack three weeks ago. Bass also had several strokes since 2005.


(Per Wikipedia)- The song "Rescue Me" shot up the charts in the fall and winter of 1965. After a month-long run at the top of the R&B charts, the song reached #4 at the pop charts and gave Chess its first million-selling single since Chuck Berry a decade earlier. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.
Bass followed with "Recovery," which did moderately well, peaking at #13 (R&B) and #37 (pop) in early 1966. The same year brought two more R&B hits, "I Can't Rest" (backed with "I Surrender)" and "You'll Never Know." Her only album with Chess Records, The New Look, sold reasonably well, but Bass soon became disillusioned with Chess and decided to leave the label after only two years, in 1967. By her own account, she was effectively cheated out of her royalties for "Rescue Me", which she had co-written with pianist Raynard Miner:

"I had the first million seller for Chess since Chuck Berry about 10 years before. Things were riding high for them, but when it came time to collect my first royalty check, I looked at it, saw how little it was, tore it up and threw it back across the desk."

Comedians On Toilets Writing Material...

Created by Garrett Kennedy; directed by "Marty Scorcese"

Contribute to Hurricane Sandy relief by submitting a joke video and donating.

Merry Christmas music...

Some of the music exchanged Christmas Eve:

Sun (Cat Power)
Suit Yourself (Shelby Lynne)
Old Ideas (Leonard Cohen)
Old Gold (Zoe Muth)
Drag (k.d. lang)
Soul Journey (Gillian Welch)
Let It Burn (Ruthie Foster)
Lonerism (Tame Impala)
The Stranger (Billy Joel)
Shadowland (K.D. lang)
Blue Light Til Dawn (Cassandra Wilson)
Belly of the Sun (Cassandra Wilson)
Car Wheels On a Gravel Road (Lucinda Williams)
Negotiations & Love Songs (Paul Simon)
Blunderbuss (Jack White)
Searching For Sugarman (Rodriguez)
Blak and Blu (Gary Clark Jr.)
Eight Classic Albums (Dinah Washington)
The Essential (Steve Earle)

Jack White at 2012 Voodoo Experience in New Orleans...

The Reet, safe at home!...

Shelby Lynne will kick your ass for Xmas...

For all you Shelby Lynne fans (Peter, you can go into the other room), you can view the full episode of LFDH online (livefromdarylshouse.com) starting TODAY.  Here is a clip of SL and Daryl performing Shelby's song, "Xmas."  It is awesome.

Six degrees of separation:
1.Shelby Lynne is Allison Moorer's older sister.
2.Allison Moorer is married to Steve Earle
3.Steve Earle is the father of Justin Townes Earle
4.Justin Townes Earle nodded to Johnny K going downstairs to the bathroom at the Iron Horse Music Hall.
5.Johnny K used to know Johnny Gumbo pretty well until he up and moved to the Great NorthLeft and doesn't communicate anymore.
6.Johnny Gumbo used to hang with (maybe once) Kevin Bacon

Best of Cafe Nine 2012...

Since it's the time of year for Best of Lists..... here's our (Cafe 9 management) best cafe nine shows of 2012 in no particular order.

* Manitoba/ Dead City
*Chuck Prophet/ Paul Collins Beat
*Andre Williams/ Barrence Whitfield & the Savages

*Nona Hendryx
*Quintron & Miss Pussycat
*Kinky Friedman (JK attended this really good show)
*the Sadies
*the Anthrax Club Reunion Show
*Heritage Blues Quartet
*Bob Logg III
*Brownbird
*Big Business
*Low Cut Connie (Freak Snowstorm Show to 4 paid attendees, rocked liked there was a sold out crowd) (JK was snowed out, was going)
*Candye Kane ( Joined by Debbie Davies on her Birthday)
*the Woggles
*Neil Hamburger
*Rosie Flores / Marti Brom
*Murder By Death/ Horsefeathers
*Sierra Hull
*Joe Krown Trio (featuring Walter Wolfman Washington & Russell Batiste Jr.)

Stevie P goes to see The Who(m)?...

A great concert Sunday night. Proved to me you can still be viable at 67 and 68 years of age. Zack Starkey is a better drummer than his old man (sacrilege) . I can't imagine that, when we were 20, we'd go see anybody 65 - 75 years old in concert (saw CSN earlier this year.) Lawrence Welk? I don't think so.......Steve

Blues Brothers: The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin...

Sasha Frere-Jones (The New Yorker)

These two bands matter so much to so many that any summary feels both insulting and pointless. Led Zeppelin has been absorbed by such a wide range of musicians that their scope impoverishes the idea of something like “heavy metal.” They fuelled the language of Beastie Boys and Tori Amos, provided snippets for music for many human beings with samplers, and changed the idea of how bands were supposed to play. Their catalog has, at worst, maybe five weak songs in it before Led Zeppelin stopped short with drummer John Bonham’s death in 1980. The Rolling Stones kicked in seven years earlier, the young British blues fans who helped start a hybrid that helped codify what rock bands did and didn’t do. After several albums worth of American blues covers, the band started writing its own songs. “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” was an early sign that maybe the band had a pretty good idea of how to wield its own language.  Read more

R.I.P. Dave Brubeck...

(LA Times)- Pianist and composer Dave Brubeck won legions of fans over a six-decade career with his complex rhythms and harmonies. His quartet's 'Take Five' was the first million-selling jazz recording. But rebellion was in Brubeck's soul. Schooled in piano by his musically gifted mother, he became a jazz man — outwardly square but quintessentially cool — whose genius at marrying spontaneity and unorthodox rhythms with classical forms became an enduring legacy. Brubeck, the pianist and composer who pushed the boundaries of jazz for six decades and became one of the genre's most popular artists, died Wednesday, a day before his 92nd birthday. (read more)

It's December, do you know where The Sawtelles are?...

hi folks. we've got a few things coming up this month.

tues 4 dec Klekolo World Coffee, court st middletown 7-9p w/Frank Critelli

fri dec 7 Tyhpoon thai restaurant, main st middletown 6p byob.

we are singing backup on two Happy Ending songs, at the happy ending show at best video whitney ave hamden thurs dec 13th.

then P is playing drums for the LGB @ cafe nine, state st new haven 9p after the best video appearance.

fri dec 14th Fairfield U bookstore cafe 7-9p. free.

thurs 27 dec P is playing drums with the brunelli,chillemi and riccio free-jazz outfit @ best video whitney ave hamden 8p.

sat 29th @ javapalooza coffeehouse, main st middletown w/ed ekendu and nancy tatsapaugh (her first live show!!) doing some Zoo Front tunes.

www.thesawtelles.com