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| Philip Battle's Blog |
| posted:
2/27/2010 |
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Once more it's time to dip your big toe into my own personal ocean of world music.
This time: The Moonlighters, New York, USA
I've always thought that music, just like any other art form is best appreciated when stumbled upon….the discovery and embracement of the new and being open-minded enough to let the fresh energy flow though your veins.
It never ceases to amaze me at how small-minded and "set in their ways" some people become about art and music...as if stepping out of their "comfort zone" is akin to doing some kind of bungee jump or other life threatening activity! (lol) That what happens when people get old isn’t it?
NO!! its got nothing to do with age it's to do with attitude and INFLEXIBLE THINKING!
I've seen young people exhibiting the same symptoms...
My attitude is...it's only art (or music), it won't bite! But try telling that to somebody whose staring into the abyss and exhibiting acute signs of cultural vertigo!
The Moonlighters "Dreamland" album was one of those I stumbled upon in the bargain bucket at some long forgotten music store about eight ago...Cost me about £2.99 and I only purchased the CD because I liked the name and the cover...sometimes you've got to take a leap of faith. (a bungee jump of faith perhaps?) ;-)
I'd never heard of them before but this is an obsolete gem of a find. I love this band, a kind of mix between Jazz and Hawaiian swing guitar with some lovely vocals and harmonies. They hail from New York City and I'm pretty certain that their stuff is not on general release here in the UK but you can purchase it through the band's own website and through Amazon.co.uk
The band is headed by the wonderfully named Bliss Blood who plays Ukulele and seems to write most of the material...anyhow its beautiful stuff and if I'm ever in New York I'll make sure of seeking this band out playing live in some downtown bar...wishful thinking on my part ;-)
You can watch videos of The Moonlighters on their excellent website here and listen to samples from Dreamland here
Enjoy! :-) |
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| DELTA DREAMBOX videos from WFMU appearance up now on YouTube! |
| posted:
1/12/2010 |
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Wringing and Twisting Blues by Ma Rainey. |
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| DELTA DREAMBOX videos from WFMU appearance up now on YouTube! |
| posted:
1/12/2010 |
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Yesterday's News, written by Bliss Blood and Marty Bartolomeo. |
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| Interview with Bliss Blood on KPFK with Ali Lexa |
| posted:
11/26/2009 |
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Aloha Ukulele Friends!
Tomorrow, Thursday Nov. 26th starting at 11:00am (PST) it's a double dose of ukulele spotlight!
On KPFK 90.7FM (In Ventura, LA, Orange County & parts of San Diego) , on 98.7 FM in Santa Barbara and online at KPFK.ORG
We'll have an interview and performance with the legendary Bill Tapia who will be celebrating his 102nd birthday next month!
Then we'll talk with Lisa Shipley of Entertaining Angels about their activities and upcoming toy drive (there's a polynesian tie-in).
And if that wasn't enough we'll chat with Bliss Blood of the fabulous Moonlighters about their latest release "Enchanted"
So that will be about an hour of ukulele goodness to start your T-Day off!
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| The Many Shades of Bliss Blood by David Sadof |
| posted:
5/14/2010 |
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The Moonlighters' Bliss Blood (second from left) Photo: moonlighters.com
Bliss Blood has earned a permanent place in the history of the Houston music scene as the lead vocalist of the experimental industrial band Pain Teens along with Scott Ayers, Frank Garymartin and the late Kirk Carr. The band released an extensive catalog of albums and cassette-only releases from 1985 to 1995, all of which are now available on iTunes.
Now living in New York, singer Bliss Blood plays the ukulele and musical saw and performs regularly with a variety of talented collaborators. In stark contrast to the industrial noise-rock of the Pain Teens, her current groups delve into a wide array of music styles from the first half of the 20th century. Here is a brief description of each one:
The Moonlighters - Originally formed in the late 90's with Henry Bogdan of Helmet, the group currently consists of Bliss Blood, Cindy Ball, Rus Wimbish and Raphael McGregor. The Moonlighters play old-timey acoustic swing music featuring ukulele and Hawaiian lap steel guitar with vocals by both Bliss and Cindy. Their songs include elements of ragtime, swing, country, blues, jazz, Hawaiian, and Latin music.
Delta Dreambox - Authentic Delta and southern blues form the 1920's to 1940's with piano, steel guitar and vocals. Delta Dreambox is Bliss Blood, Marty Bartolomeo on piano, John Harms on guitar, Jim Fryer on horns.
The Cantonement Jazz Band - Bliss Blood is the vocalist of this 8-piece ensemble featuring authentic versions of the dance music from the 1920's and early 1930's. The group remains true to the time period, performing in tailored tuxedos and glamorous evening gowns.
Here's How - This jazz group featuring Bliss Blood on vocals and performs the all-but-forgotten jazz music of the late 1950's and early 1960's with a focus on the smokey, sultry and romantic tunes by artists such as June Christy, Chet Baker and Julie London.
Voodoo Suite - Bliss Blood plays musical saw, maracas and sings with this group, featuring Tom Beckham on vibraphone and piano, that performs in the style of 1950's Exotica music, celebrating artists such as Martin Denny and Les Baxter.
If you have an opportunity to see Bliss perform, you can go in style with a vintage accessory from her DeltaDreambox shop at http://www.etsy.com.
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| The Moonlighters on the Popcandy podcast |
| posted:
10/6/2009 |
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The Moonlighters will be featured on the Popcandy podcast on USA Today along with Barlow, Fanfarlo, Rufus Wainwright. Here is the link for the Pop Candy podcast that features the Moonlighters. You can stream it from the blog or it is available at iTunes. Our part starts at 9:02.
Enjoy |
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| posted:
5/14/2010 |
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| Moonlighters Play Wit's End Speakeasy Party, Wed 8/26, NY TIMES |
| posted:
8/21/2009 |
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NEW YORK TIMES: THE SPEAKEASY
Ah, the heady days of Prohibition and bootleggers, gangsters and gold diggers, when "Joe sent me" was whispered up and down Broadway. You couldn't really count all the illegal watering holes that blossomed in New York after the Volstead Act took effect in 1920, but anywhere from 32,000 to 100,000 "speaks" were soon flourishing throughout the city. And unaccompanied ladies were welcome.
To recreate the spirit, and spirits, of that lively time, the Museum of the City of New York fearlessly opened its own establishment this summer, the Speakeasy, with weekly programs devoted to jazz music, dances and cocktails. Wednesday, this year's finale, is titled "Wits End: A Celebration of the Jazz Age."
Wit's End is actually a monthly jazz-themed club, above, produced by Diane Naegel and Don Spiro at Antik on the Bowery (clubwitsend.com). Mr. Spiro said it seemed appropriate to call it Wit's End, a nickname Dorothy Parker gave to Alexander Woollcott's 1920s apartment.
Parker will also be represented by Kevin C. Fitzpatrick, who is to speak on the Prohibition era and read from "The Lost Algonquin Round Table," the recently published book he edited with Nat Benchley, Robert Benchley's grandson.
The book includes a rarely seen poem by Parker, "Reformers: A Hymn of Hate," with an anti-Anti-Saloon League view:
"They have it figured out
That anyone who would give
a gin daisy a friendly look
Is just wasting time out of jail."
The evening begins with free lessons in the Charleston and Balboa, led by Akemi Kinukawa, a Lindy hop specialist.
The Moonlighters, a local band known for their swinging ukuleles and steel guitar, will animate the dancers on the terrace.
Billy Rose, the Broadway impresario, is said to have defined the bootlegger as a guy all dressed up who needs "a place to glow." He probably wasn't thinking about a museum, but it's as good a spot as any to get a glow on, perhaps with a gin daisy.
(Wednesday, 6 to 9 p.m.;
dance instruction, 6:10 to 6:40 p.m.;
Museum of the City of New York,
1220 Fifth Avenue, at 103rd Street;
museum members, $10;
nonmembers, $12;
includes one drink;
tickets sold at the door only;
212-534-1672
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| Review of Bliss Blood solo at Small Beast 8/17/09 |
| posted:
8/20/2009 |
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Bliss Blood of the Moonlighters followed with a rare solo set of razor-sharp, period-perfect originals and a playful selection of covers from across the decades. A songwriter unsurpassed at evoking the subtle wit and exuberance of 1920s/30s swing, blues and Hawaiian music, her style is more cajolery than outright seduction, notwithstanding her stage outfit, in this case a vintage black slip over fishnets. “It’s like when the Moonlighters used to play Tonic, with industrial metal in the basement,” she sneered, as the thud from the downstairs room threatened to drown out her ukelele. “Let’s all stomp on the floor and scream!” she grinned, and the crowd was only glad to comply. Her plaintive original Winter in My Heart (from the Moonlighters’ excellent new cd Enchanted) was inspired, she said, by an ex who refused her invites to join her on myspace and facebook – pretty cold, especially when you consider that there are guys out there who would probably be willing to pay to join Bliss Blood’s virtual circle of friends.
She worked every innuendo in Al Duvall’s Sheet Music Man (also from the new album) for all they were worth, offered up cheerily swoony versions of the old jazz tunes Moanin’ Love and Fooling with the Other Woman’s Man, scurried through a fast, scorching take of the Moonlighters’ anti-maquiladora bolero Dirt Road Life as well as a trio of Kinks covers from Village Green. And then a request, Animal Farm (turns out she was a Kinks fan for a considerable time before she met the Davies brothers and Dave kissed her on the lips). “I could play all night,” she laughed before finally wrapping up her show with an original, the blithe hobo anthem Texarkana Bound, which is available as a free download. |
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| CD Review: The Moonlighters "Enchanted" LUCID CULTURE BLOG by Alan Young |
| posted:
8/17/2009 |
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CD Review: The Moonlighters "Enchanted"
Fifth time is a charm. The Moonlighters were among the first and remain the best of the oldtimey bands who started popping up around New York around the turn of the century. The last century, that is, although their sound has more in common with the one before that.
Frontwoman/ukelele player and main songwriter Bliss Blood is the sole holdover from the band's original 1999 incarnation, a torch singer par excellence and onetime college semiotics major who perhaps better than any other current-day writer captures the droll effervescence and innuendo-laden wit of classic ragtime, early 1920s swing and hokum blues.
The clear, soaring beauty of her voice blends with the harmonies of another period-perfect singer, guitarist Cindy Ball, backed by the fluid bass of Peter Maness and Mark Deffenbaugh on fiery, incisive steel guitar. As consistently excellent as their first four releases, including the ecstatically good Live in Baden-Baden cd, have been, this looks like the album that's going to put them over the top.
This time out the band blends their irresistible Hawaiian-inflected makeout music with vintage-style ragtime, swing, a bouncy hobo song and even some vintage European film songs. It's playful, sexy, often poignant and sometimes very subtly funny.
The cd's opening cut sets the tone with Blood and Ball's fetching harmonies, a winsome Hawaiian swing tale about breaking a hex and finding love at last.
By contrast, Winter in My Heart is gorgeously plaintive yet ultimately optimistic. A couple of cuts, Blood's I'm Still In Love With You and Ball's Don't Baby Me channel a 1920s flapper vibe; those women reveled in their emancipation, and they weren't about to take any grief from guys!
The best single track on the album might be Night Smoke, written by Ball, a vivid Henry Mancini-esque salute to the pleasures of the wee hours.
The covers are good too. They take the old Cole Porter standard It's Bad For Me and reinvent it as a sassy Rat Pack-era come-on, jump into silent-film character for Fooling with the Other Woman's Man and take their time, deliciously and tongue-in-cheek, with Al Duvall's Freudian innuendo-fest Sheet Music Man. The album closes with a medley of Marlene Dietrich songs, doubtlessly inspired by the Moonlighters' success touring Germany over the past few years. Look for this on our best albums of 2009 list toward the end of December.
The Moonlighters play their Manhattan cd release show Saturday, August 22 at 10:00pm at the Living Room.
The Moonlighters' new label, WorldSound has also brought Blood's teenage S&M industrial punk band the Pain Teens' catalog back into print, a welcome development for people who were into Ministry, Butthole Surfers, Throbbing Gristle and that sort of stuff back in the early 90s. In case you're wondering, they didn't sound anything like the Moonlighters. But they could also be very funny. |
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| Moonlighters video on TIME OUT NEW YORK web log |
| posted:
8/17/2009 |
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Live at TONY: The Moonlighters croon sweet, old-timey swing
Posted in The Volume by The Volume on August 7th, 2009 at 9:00 am
The Moonlighters are one of the city's hardest-working bands: Rarely a week goes by without a club gig by the ever-charming old-time-swing outfit.
On August 22, 10pm you can catch the group at The Living Room, 154 Ludlow, Manhattan, where it celebrates the release of its fifth CD, Enchanted.
Singer and ukulele player Bliss Blood (currently of Delta Dreambox and formerly of Pain Teens), Cindy Ball, Raphael McGregor and Rus Wimbish were kind enough to stop by TONY a few days back and perform a warm-up tune. |
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| Bliss Blood is featured in the new UKULELE PLAYER online magazine |
| posted:
8/3/2009 |
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Click on the attached link to a PDF file of UKULELE PLAYER magazine, Issue 7 for an in-depth interview with Bliss Blood of the Moonlighters and a review of the new cd, "Enchanted." |
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| Download one of the new Moonlighters songs for free! |
| posted:
7/16/2009 |
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Here's a chance to sample a song off of "Enchanted" as an mp3 download for absolutely free! Just go to this link: |
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| "Square Pegs & Round Holes" is now availble! |
| posted:
7/14/2009 |
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"Square Pegs & Round Holes" is now available!
This is a cd compliation benefiting the American Asperger's Association that Bliss Blood of the Moonlighters played a track on, a version of "ENCHANTED" with additional instrumentation by Steve Boisen of the Barnkickers.
You can obtain a copy of the CD here: http://cdbaby.com/cd/squarepegs
A digital version (minus the track by the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain) is now available here:
http://www.digstation.com/AlbumDetails.aspx?albumid=ALB000031386
The CD is also available from Flea Market Music: http://www.fleamarketmusic.com/store/scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=73
“Square Pegs & Round Holes” is a compilation CD that was produced by Steve Boisen of The Barnkickers to benefit the American Asperger’s Association (AAA), a non-profit organization that provides free treatment to children with Asperger’s Syndrome which is a type of high functioning autism. The 16 artists are all well-known in the uke community and cover a wide range of genres. Brand new recordings and existing tracks were contributed by James Hill, Greg Hawkes, Victoria Vox, Ian Whitcomb, John King, Jim Beloff, Lyle Ritz, John Kavanagh, Gerald Ross, Craig Robertson, Fred Sokolow, Tripping Lily, Bliss Blood, The Barnkickers, Brittni Paiva and The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. Great music for a great cause!
P.S. The CD was sponsored by Ohana Ukuleles and those of you who play (or want to) should check out their great line of affordable ukes! |
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