SHEEPDOGS: LIVE ROCK CRITIC THIRTEEN JAY LENO Aug 2011
Ray and the boys are performing at the Don Strange Ranch in Boerne Texas. The Sheepdogs performed on Jay Leno's Show and David Letterman hosted Explosion, Dave gets the "Dumhost" award. I have and I apologise, complained, but the David Letterman "Explosions In The Sky" absolutely flabbergasted me at how bad they played, how directionless they were and how nowhere the composition went, lyricless and cacophonic and at the same time the pinch faced freaked out hippies or whatever messy shrubs they were really knew they were bombing. THEN THE AUDIENCE APPLAUDED ! I decided that seeing I had Dave and Jay on the DVR to catch the "Sheepdogs" I had better check up on these Rubes to see if they were as dumb as the "Explosions" who burned as brightly and explosively as a campfire done from very wet wood in a very damp climate.
How dumb are the "The Tonight Show" and "David Letterman" ? Really dumb. The long time TV drones seek out minor embarrassments, stupid unentertaining guests, dumb stuff, as if their shows were not dumb and boring enough and they could not just watch the monitors to see lots of dumb embarrassment punctuated with drum snaps and rolls, the house bands on the NBC Jay Show and CBS are really good , without the music the dumbness would be even more gross . The stupid lists of ten whatevers. I have to force myself not to fast forward right away . I am going to review them so I have to .
The worst and most boring things I have seen on Jay Leno and David Letterman are the endless mindless meandering and then shamelessly self promoting celebrity interviews. Then they watch and yak and barf about movie trailers, are you entertained ? Some of the cloying mutual fawn fests go on for half an hour !
The Sheepdogs on the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine , I won't say much. I learned to play harmonica with many ensembles like the Sheepdogs. I remember the night I thought how boring the bar blues are. I will not ever be able to play this kind of music again. What is the problem with the genre of music ? There is the sameness. With rare exceptions the bar blues are bar boring. Something familiar to orchestrate the drinking. I often observe that the sounds are not those of music with rock blues and jazz bands. There are traditionally associated riffs rolls and ratches but the sounds do not comprise a tune, even if they are cool sounds. What is that special something which makes a tune a tune ? I believe that the lyrics and the music should do more than tell a story, protest or profess. The entire performance, live video recorded or animated and set to a musical score, should set the scene, put a feeling in the air and take the viewer and listener somewhere which is transcendent.
The Sheepdogs were not transcendent. I viewed a number of Sheepdogs offerings on Youtube. More of the same and worse they have sycophants uttering false praise. Someone wrote that they had missed out on Zeppelin and the Southern Rockers and now here they back as the Sheepdogs. I am not even reluctant to say that these boys are nothing like the Southern Rock Bands. Those bands soar they fall they flutter and get back up growing. I was at the Fillmore in SF in 1968, I saw Allman Joy, with Paul Butterfield and Nicky Hopkins. For god sake don't think the Sheepdogs are anything like the Allman brothers . To equate the Sheepdogs with Led Zeppelin is beyond absurd. I was fortunate enough to play harmonica on a number of occasions with well rehearsed Zep Bands. They fly, they are so wild they are so fast and they are so slow and they are so loud. Contrary to popular belief it is not easy to play loud.
I did view an entire concert from the Don Strange Ranch and I saw a band that can play well. The Pariah Dogs are good and they are playing a lot of the types of music I dislike as much as Rap and Hip Hop. It is possible I only really tolerate hard rock, progressive rock, jazz, funk and fusion.
Ray LaMontaigne plays some creditable Harmonica. Not all of his tones are right, and only one of his songs had good harmonica in it. I would not enjoy playing harmonica with the Sheepdogs. When the Pariah dogs stepped out of character and played a fast moving Jazz number. I would like to have been counted in. I would be really excited to play harmonica with Ray LaMontaingne and his band when they do Jazz. Although a lot of the rest of the performance was too countrified for me I wouldn`t be surprised if a lot of people enjoyed everything that this band played. It`s a really big band, the slide guitar player who also plays guitar is a bit of a star and Ray sings and leads the band. Its hard to play loud buts its also hard to play well with a large group of musicians and everyone in the band plays well. I believe that this is a fairly new band and you might find it interesting to watch for Ray LaMontaingne and the Pariah Dogs.
Ray and the boys are performing at the Don Strange Ranch in Boerne Texas. The Sheepdogs performed on Jay Leno's Show and David Letterman hosted Explosion, Dave gets the "Dumhost" award. I have and I apologise, complained, but the David Letterman "Explosions In The Sky" absolutely flabbergasted me at how bad they played, how directionless they were and how nowhere the composition went, lyricless and cacophonic and at the same time the pinch faced freaked out hippies or whatever messy shrubs they were really knew they were bombing. THEN THE AUDIENCE APPLAUDED ! I decided that seeing I had Dave and Jay on the DVR to catch the "Sheepdogs" I had better check up on these Rubes to see if they were as dumb as the "Explosions" who burned as brightly and explosively as a campfire done from very wet wood in a very damp climate.
How dumb are the "The Tonight Show" and "David Letterman" ? Really dumb. The long time TV drones seek out minor embarrassments, stupid unentertaining guests, dumb stuff, as if their shows were not dumb and boring enough and they could not just watch the monitors to see lots of dumb embarrassment punctuated with drum snaps and rolls, the house bands on the NBC Jay Show and CBS are really good , without the music the dumbness would be even more gross . The stupid lists of ten whatevers. I have to force myself not to fast forward right away . I am going to review them so I have to .
The worst and most boring things I have seen on Jay Leno and David Letterman are the endless mindless meandering and then shamelessly self promoting celebrity interviews. Then they watch and yak and barf about movie trailers, are you entertained ? Some of the cloying mutual fawn fests go on for half an hour !
The Sheepdogs on the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine , I won't say much. I learned to play harmonica with many ensembles like the Sheepdogs. I remember the night I thought how boring the bar blues are. I will not ever be able to play this kind of music again. What is the problem with the genre of music ? There is the sameness. With rare exceptions the bar blues are bar boring. Something familiar to orchestrate the drinking. I often observe that the sounds are not those of music with rock blues and jazz bands. There are traditionally associated riffs rolls and ratches but the sounds do not comprise a tune, even if they are cool sounds. What is that special something which makes a tune a tune ? I believe that the lyrics and the music should do more than tell a story, protest or profess. The entire performance, live video recorded or animated and set to a musical score, should set the scene, put a feeling in the air and take the viewer and listener somewhere which is transcendent.
The Sheepdogs were not transcendent. I viewed a number of Sheepdogs offerings on Youtube. More of the same and worse they have sycophants uttering false praise. Someone wrote that they had missed out on Zeppelin and the Southern Rockers and now here they back as the Sheepdogs. I am not even reluctant to say that these boys are nothing like the Southern Rock Bands. Those bands soar they fall they flutter and get back up growing. I was at the Fillmore in SF in 1968, I saw Allman Joy, with Paul Butterfield and Nicky Hopkins. For god sake don't think the Sheepdogs are anything like the Allman brothers . To equate the Sheepdogs with Led Zeppelin is beyond absurd. I was fortunate enough to play harmonica on a number of occasions with well rehearsed Zep Bands. They fly, they are so wild they are so fast and they are so slow and they are so loud. Contrary to popular belief it is not easy to play loud.
I did view an entire concert from the Don Strange Ranch and I saw a band that can play well. The Pariah Dogs are good and they are playing a lot of the types of music I dislike as much as Rap and Hip Hop. It is possible I only really tolerate hard rock, progressive rock, jazz, funk and fusion.
Ray LaMontaigne plays some creditable Harmonica. Not all of his tones are right, and only one of his songs had good harmonica in it. I would not enjoy playing harmonica with the Sheepdogs. When the Pariah dogs stepped out of character and played a fast moving Jazz number. I would like to have been counted in. I would be really excited to play harmonica with Ray LaMontaingne and his band when they do Jazz. Although a lot of the rest of the performance was too countrified for me I wouldn`t be surprised if a lot of people enjoyed everything that this band played. It`s a really big band, the slide guitar player who also plays guitar is a bit of a star and Ray sings and leads the band. Its hard to play loud buts its also hard to play well with a large group of musicians and everyone in the band plays well. I believe that this is a fairly new band and you might find it interesting to watch for Ray LaMontaingne and the Pariah Dogs.
