Just a quick post to say, Saturday night I went out after my bedtime to see Bambi Kino, a newish band formed around the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ first appearance in Hamburg and with the goal of recreating those raw early years. (“Slow Down” is here.)
I’ve seen some great shows recently — Sonic Youth, Pavement, Belle & Sebastian — but in its very different way this was as thrilling. Even as a Boomer-disdaining Xer, my musical taste was founded on early exposure to the Beatles, a band I’ve never seen live. To see the blend of rockabilly, girl group songs and early Lennon-McCartney tracks (“Ask Me Why”!) was a rare thrill — especially because this stuff is not the Beatles songbook overplayed on AOR, commercials, etc.
Not to mention how well all this stuff was played, with great enthusiasm and on vintage instruments and amps. I hope this group has an afterlife. (With Doug Gillard, the band has a virtuoso guitarist of the sort the Beatles never did.) Most of the surviving recordings of the Beatles playing these songs are marred by bad fidelity, screaming girls, or both, so seeing it this way was a gas.
My interview with a Mark Rozzo, rhythm guitarist for the band (whose members are drawn from Guided by Voices, Catpower, Nada Surf and Maplewood) here.
Let me fly an R.I.P. here for the great soul-singer who struck gold during the Beatles’ era, Solomon Burke. His early Atlantic sides will always endure. His Joe Henry-produced Don’t Give Up On Me, from ’02 is a landmark of a different kind and, and was a very important record for my then girlfriend, now wife, in the year or two after it came out. King Solomon will be missed!