In the Mix

Martin Scorsese is a serious Rolling Stones fanboy. He's been making movies with Stones soundtracks in his head for 40 years, and he's finally got the chance to do his own Jagger/Richards flick with Shine A Light, an excellent distillation of what the band is about right now, and hopefully the last Stones movie that will ever be made.

The day before Easter, I interviewed him on the phone from Boston where he was shooting a movie that's either going to be called Shutter Island or Ashcliffe, which will feature Leonardo DiCaprio, Max Von Sydow and Emily Mortimer, among others, and which Scorsese says is, "in a sense, a psychological thriller, possibly, a detective story, a mystery, and it also has elements of a Victorian gothic horror story. There's a lot in there."

There's a version of the interview in Wednesday's paper, but it got whacked, like the guy who ends up in Joe Pesci, Ray Liotta and Robert DeNiro's trunk in Goodfellas, and has the temerity to not immediately die, and thus disturb the late night dinner being served to the capos by none other than Martin Scorsese's mother. So if you're hungry for more, the full version's here.

Here's the full Marty:

Martin Scorsese got his wish.

Not to win an Oscar, which the Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, and King of Comedy director did, for The Departed, in 2007.

No, something much more important. With Shine A Light, the concert film shot in New York in 2006 which opens in theaters on Friday, he finally got to make his Rolling Stones movie.

Stones music has been as much of a constant in Scorsese’s movies as Robert DeNiro. He’s made use of “Monkey Man” in Goodfellas, “Heart Of Stone” in Casino, and “Gimme Shelter” so many times that Mick Jagger recently joked that Shine A Light was the first Scorsese movie that didn’t feature the song.

As a tribute to Charlton Heston, here's Carbon/Silicon doing "Soylent Green," live in 2006. The band, featuring Mick Jones and Tony James, plays the World Cafe Live on Monday night.

Oh yeah, James used to be in Generation X, and Jones was in a band called the Clash, a long time ago.

I have to admit I stole this post's title from a guy I know named Ravi, who wondered how a movie about a heavy metal band in Baghdad could be called anything but Iraq & Roll. Good question. Instead, the documentary, which is about a Slipknot- and Metallica-loving outfit called Acrassicauda, and is showing at the Philadelphia Film Festival on Thursday at 7:15 at International House, is called Heavy Metal in Baghdad.

Directed by Canadian guerilla journos Eddy Moretti and Suroosh Alvi of VICE magazine, the doc follows the earnest, likable boys in the band - which takes its moniker from the Latin name for deadly black scorpions that crawl about in the desert outside Baghdad - from the days before Saddam Hussein's fall in 2003, until 2006, when they emigrate to Syria in an effort to stay alive and find a new practice space after their spot was destroyed by a SCUD missile.

The movie doesn't contain all that much music, in part because it turns out to be hard to get gigs when you're living in a war zone in an Islamic country where growing your hair long like Zakk Wylde can get you thrown in jail, or worse. It does, however, give you an excellent sense of what life is like on the ground in Baghdad, both for Iraqis simply trying to go about their daily lives and express themselves, and Western journalists attempting to report in a country where no one will be seen talking to them for fear of ending up dead. The MySpace page for the band, whose members now live in Turkey, is here. The trailer for the film is below.

In the new Madonna issue of Vanity Fair, Duff McDonald did an excellent job putting together a two page graphic spread on Bob Dylan - you know, the guy who won one-sixth as many Pulitzer Prizes on Monday as the Washington Post. The imagery in the feature, entitled Inside Dylan's Brain - is based on Milton Glaser's famous Dylan poster, and the words are a combination of quotes and data drawn from the Bard's XM Radio show. You can't read them in the reproduction above, but here's a sampling of Bob bon mots:

"Willie Nelson’s tour bus runs on cooking oil….I’ve toured with Willie…sometimes late at night you can see us, I’m filling up my tank at the gas station and he’s filling his up at Denny’s.”

“A lot of people who play one kind won’t play with people who play another kind, but me personally, I never understood any kind of border patrol when it comes to music.”

“I don’t trust a man who doesn’t tear up a little watching Old Yeller.”

“America is certainly the great melting pot. Where else could someone like Slim Gaillard sing a tribute to matzoh balls and gefilte fish? It’s the kind of thing that makes me proud to be an American. Sing it, Slim.”

“I gave a bald-headed friend a comb. You know what he said? ‘I’ll never part with it.’”

“One of the greatest songwriters who ever lived was Hank Williams, of course. Hank could be headstrong and willful, a backslider and a reprobate, no stranger to bad deeds. However, underneath all of that, he was compassionate and moralistic.”

“I leave you with the words of Benjamin Franklin. ‘He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money.’ Thank you, Ben. Peace out.”

The link is here.

This is Saul Williams' "List of Demands." His first is that you go to his Tar Spangled Banner Tour date at the Trocadero on Friday night.

Rupa Marya's bio makes her sound like a female Buckaroo Banzai, updated for the multilingual, multicultural present. Born to Indian parents, raised in part in the south of France, and based in San Francisco, she's a gypsy jazz singer who throws a little Indian raga and puckish punk energy into the mix. She sing sin English and French, and oh yeah, she's a doctor. Her band Rupa & the April Fishes have a new album called Extraordinary Rendition, and they're at the North Star Bar on Saturday.

So I was sitting in the front pew in the tiny Frank Furness chapel of the First Unitarian Church on Friday night, which holds a mere fifty souls. The Felice Brothers had just finished banging and shouting through the Lieber and Stoller gospel number, "Saved." "I used to lie, cheat, step on people's feet/But now I'm steppin' on to glory/Salvation is my beat."

"Okay," drummer Simone Felice said, with the Devil in his eye. "Now we're going to blaspheme."

My pal Trip had been recommending the Felices for a while - I think he went to see them six times at SXSW this year. But it was Justin Townes Earle that got me out to the Church on Friday. I saw part of Steve's son set in Austin, and wanted to have another look to make sure the slick haired scion was as much of a fully formed real deal as he seemed on my first impression.

That had to wait, though. First up, was McCarthy Trenching, an Omaha, Nebraska acoustic threesome led by plain spoken singer Dan McCarthy. Good songwriter, bluegrass flavored tunes, quietly powerful, understated stuff. Like the Felices, he's signed to Conor Oberst's Team Love label.

The Felices followed. And while I can't say the hour-long set from the fivesome from - brothers Ian, James and Simone (all of whom can sing), plus two other dudes - amounted to literal blasphemy, they certainly raised hell. After a foot stompin' "Whiskey For My Whiskey," somebody shouted out "Now that's shit kicking music!" That's about right, but there's more to the Felices, who are coming to the Philadelphia Folk Festival in August, than that.

There's a ragged-but-right recklessness about the Felices, but also a haunted country soul, that comes out in such abyss-confronting songs as "Hey Hey Revolver" and "Frankie's Gun" and "It's A Wonderful Life." They hail from Palenville, N.Y., just down the road from Woodstock, and some of the spirit of the Band's Music From Big Pink courses through their music. They're a great live band. MySpace page here.

And here's a YouTube video of "Ballad of Lou the Welterweight," from the show at the Church chapel, and below it the video for "Trouble Been Hard."

Oh, and as for Earle: He was way more than an afterthought. Decked out in Western wear along with his multi-instrumentalist sideman Cory Younts ("Ladies, if you take him home tonight, please make sure that he gets to New York city by tomorrow"), Earle's got his father's gift of gab, alright.

But the 25 year old trades in old timey strands of folk and country, tending to pull from songwriters that influenced his father rather than taking a page directly from his dear old Dad's songbook. (Though he's got a ballad called "Who Am I To Say" that I bet Steve wished he wrote himself.) He impressed with a song he wrote after reading Joe Klein's Woody Guthrie: A Life, delivering with a witty take on Mance Liscomb's "So Different Blues" and showed off the songwriting chops on The Good Life that suggest he's got a long career ahead of him.

The wood carved FU Church chapel, by the way, is about as cool of an intimate space to see a band in the city as I can think of. Here's hoping Sean Agnew books more shows there.

Below that are some fuzzy photos I took of the Felice Bros., and Earle, with my phone. Next time I'll bring a real camera.

There was a rock star sighting in the Inquirer newsroom on Monday. He showed political skill while discussing important issues of the day: "I guess the Eastern Conference is so bad that the Sixers are going to make the playoffs. But then again the Bulls are so bad that they aren't even going to make the playoffs."

The Philadelphia connected musical portion of the Colbert Report's Zellerbach week got under way with Stephen Colbert refusing to let University of Pennsylvania grad John Legend sing the National Anthem by himself. The Roots are on tonight.

This Saturday is Record Store Day. Hundreds of independent stores across the country that have thus far survived the downloadable music revolution will jointly celebrate the bricks and mortar music store culture, and lots and lots of bands will play free shows amidst the bins of CDs and vinyl.

In Philadelphia, the marquee act is British songwriter Kate Nash. Her show at the Trocadero on Saturday night is sold out, but she's playing for free at Main Street Music in Manayunk at 3 p.m. that day. And at a.k.a. music in Old City, Princeton punkers Home Blitz will be playing at 7. Repo Records on South Street is also participating, though there's no in-store perfromance there.

Over at recordstoreday.com, where there's a list of all participating stores around the country, they've gathered up lots of quotes from estimable individuals on the importance of the local record store to the health of the culture at large.

Among them:

Damon Albarn, of Blur and Gorillaz: "My local independent record shop (Honest Jons) is a library, where you can go to listen to music, learn about it, exchange ideas about it and be inspired by it. I think independent record shops will outlive the music industry as we know it because long term their value to people is far greater, because even in our era of file-sharing and blogs, you cant replace the actual look on someone’s face when they are playing something they really rate and think you should listen to it too. It’s special.”

Bruce Springsteen: "I buy CDs all the time. I'll go into a record store and just buy $500 worth of CDs. I will! I am singlehandedly supporting what's left of the record business."

Del The Funkyhomosapien: "Independent record stores are like the best thing going for real music lovers. There's just no way you're gonna find those elusive grooves that fan fan salivates over at a chain store. Those important records that shape the industry and add so much dimension to it can be found at the indie spots. I remember going to a store named Leopold's in Berkeley CA when I was younger. Man, I used to live in that place. They were pretty much the only place I could find Hiphop. Back then, there wasn't much at the chain stores. You had to go forth and discover stuff, and the indie stores is where the discovery begins. People in the store are informed, they can actually HELP you find stuff that you're interested in or suggest things that you may be interested in. It's just a hip place to be, man."

Nick Hornby: "Record stores can't save your life. But they can give you a better one."

Regina Spektor: “I just really love anything that’s not faceless and where people know each other and work together to build, like, a community. People that work there know their stuff; they’re not coming in today to sell music and tomorrow to sell TVs and the next day to sell whatever. Somebody can come in and say, “I want somebody who plays piano music” or something, and somebody will actually tell them to listen to my record and they’ll play it in the store for them and they’ll talk about it. You can connect in some way with somebody who’s doing something that they love. And that it’s important to have something that is being done just out of true love for new music that is being welcomed into the world. People should go to their indie record store and find out what is happening.”

Joan Jett: “The indie record stores are the backbone of the recorded music culture. It's where we go to network, browse around, and find new songs to love. The stores whose owners and staff live for music have spread the word about exciting new things faster and with more essence than either radio or the press. Any artist that doesn't support the wonderful ma and pa record stores across America is contributing to our own extinction.”

Shelby Lynne: "You can't roll a joint on an iPod - buy vinyl!"

The Roots tore it up on Colbert last night. It was the power trio version of the band - Capt. Kirk Douglas on guitar, Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson on drums, Owen Biddle on bass. First, they ripped through their 18 second version of the Cheap Trick-penned Colbert Report theme, setting the tone for a show that was sharper than Monday's Philly debut.

Colbert introduced them by saying "The album is called Rising Down; ladies and gentlemen, please rise for The Roots." Then the Legendarys did a savage "Star Spangled Banner" that started out kind of countrified before fiercely rocking out and ending with Douglas smashing his guitar into pieces in a thunderous finale. (Biddle didn't have as much luck with his bass.) I interviewed Black Thought backstage about Rising Down, the band's tenth album, which comes out April 29, but he didn't perform.

Through the magic of TV, the "Star Spangled Banner" performance was made to appear as if it closed the show. But in the deliriously loud Zellerbach Theater, it actually came before Colbert showed the video of his local historical tour ("Because every Philly needs a stud"), during which he asked a Park Service ranger if he could "tongue the crack of the Liberty Bell." Nice.

He wondered if Barack Obama is up to the job of "Condescender in Chief, " and pitched woo to Michelle Obama, comparing her to Jackie O, and asking her why she would want to be first lady, since "as I understand it, the phone keeps ringing at 3 a.m." When he started to sing Nat Cole's "L-O-V-E" to her, though, she said her husband has "a better voice." He also pitched her a softball with his opening question. "Everybody knows you and your husband are elitists. Could you tell us about your elite upbringing on the South Side of Chicago? How many silver spoons in your mouth?" "We had four spoons," she said. "Then my father got a raise at the plant, and we had five spoons." "That sounds posh," Colbert replied. And thus was the Pennsylvania "bitter" issue dealt with.

Linton Kwesi Johnson, the great Jamaican born black British dub poet, is doing a poetry reading at the Center for African Studies at the Rotunda at 4014 Walnut St., at 6 p.m. on Wednesday. It's free.

Here's a clip of LKJ performing in Germany in 1999.

In the celebrity endorsement competition, Bruce Springsteen has weighed in for Barack Obama. It was posted this morning on the Springsteen website. The Boss, who headlined the Vote for Change tour in 2004, calls Obama "head and shoulders above the rest," and says he "speaks to the America I've envisioned in my music for the past 35 years, a generous nation with a citizenry willing to tackle nuanced and complex problems, a country that's interested in its collective destiny and in the potential of its gathered spirit. A place where "...nobody crowds you, and nobody goes it alone."

On a musical note, here's Springsteen being joined by Alejandro Escovedo for "Always A Friend" from Escovedo's upcoming Real Animal album, from a show in Houston this past Monday.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band doing "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)," from the Hammersmith Odeon in London, 1975. Danny Federici, who died on Thursday, is on accordion. There's a memorial show for Federici at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park on Wednesday, and donations are being taken for the Danny Federici Melanoma Fund, with money going to the Sloane-Kettering Cancer Center in Federici's name. The information is at Backstreets.com, or here.

Does Stephen Colbert love back the City That Loves You Back? Last week, the PECO Energy building announced its ardor for the mock cable host. But now that Colbert has returned to New York, will that special feeling last?

Dance-punk bands seems to be a dime a dozen these days, but the Yannis Philippakis fronted outfit from Oxford, England called Foals have done a nice job of differentiating themselves from the herky-jerky pack on Antidotes, which was produced by Dave Sitek, the TV On The Radio guy who will soon gift the world with a Scarlett Johannsson album of Tom Waits covers. Foals play Johnny Brenda's tonight.

Who says pop music doesn't have an impact on Presidential politics? Across the street from City Hall yesterday, this mother-loving Hillary Clinton supporter was singing his candidate to victory in a lilting Caribbean voice over a pre-recorded steel drum rhythm, "Don't betray your Mama," he sang, "Vote against Obama."

Later on, both candidates clung to white male symbols of working class populism. Clinton took to the stage for her victory speech at the Bellevue to Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down." Obama geared up for the battle of Indiana with Chevy salesman John "This Is Our Country" Mellencamp in his corner.

Just as Beirut is from New Mexico and Architecture in Helsinki hails from Australia, I'm From Barcelona are not, naturally, from Barcelona. Rather than the Catalan capitol, the 29 member indie pop carnival led by Emanuel Lundgren - he's the redhead holding his yellow ukelele high - originates in Jonkoping, Sweden. Tonight they play the First Unitarian Church, with Pepi Ginsberg, on their way to Coachella. Now how are all those people going to fit on stage? Below is the band's super-cheery signature tune, "We're From Barcelona." Go to their MySpace page to hear "Britney."

Here's Leslie Feist and band, doing a burning electric version of the trad folk tune "When I Was A Young Girl," in Paris in 2006. It's from her 2005 album Let It Die, which I'm still sweeter on than last year's The Reminder. She plays the Academy of Music on Sunday.

The new Roots album, Rising Down, is out Tuesday. An interview with ?uestlove and Black Thought is in the Sunday Inquirer A & E section. The single, "Rising Up" with Wale and Chrisette Michelle, is here.

Leslie Feist got the reverential crowd at the Academy of Music up and dancing in the aisles during her folk-song rave-up of "Sea Lion Woman" on Sunday night. But while the Canadian chanteuse's two-hour show rocked-out every now and then - and included an excellent, almost-bluesy take on the Bee Gees' "Inside and Out," far different than the version on her 2005 album Let It Die - it was mostly a you-could-hear-a-pin-drop vibe at the classical music hall, so much the better to highlight Feist's supple, expressive voice. I could have done without the low-fi shadow light show that added to a precious quality to the proceedings, and the show was sleepier, on the whole, than when she came through last September to the Tower Theatre in support of The Reminder. Lots of lovely moments though, including a troika of mid-set covers that included boyfriend Kevin Drew's "F---ed Up Kid," Tony Scherr's "In My Hands," and Sarah Harmer's "Open Window," accompanied by a cornet solo. (The YouTube video below of the latter is from a San Francisco show last year.) And along with the obligatory "1-2-3-4," singalong, there was a propulsive "I Feel It All." Feist will do that song, and be interviewed, tonight on The Colbert Report.