Lee Dorman of Iron Butterfly

By GENE STOUT

Iron Butterfly needs no introduction to fans of classic rock. The legendary psychedelic rock group’s 17-minute-long 1968 hit song, “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vita,” helped propel the album of the same name to multi-platinum status. To date, the album has sold more than 25 million copies and is ranked the 31st best-selling record in the world.

Formed in 1966 in San Diego, the band today features early members Ron Bushy on drums and Lee Dorman on bass guitar. Last October, Rhino Records released a 22-song live album of the band’s 1968 concert at the Fillmore East.

The current incarnation of Iron Butterfly, has been on tour this year in Europe and the United States, is headlining a concert Saturday, May 12, at ShoWare Center in Kent. Doors open at 6:30 p.m., and music begins at 7:30 p.m.

Sharing the classic-rock bill are Magic Carpet Ride (an eight-member band inspired and licensed by Steppenwolf) and The Xperience, a Jimi Hendrix tribute featuring RG Valentino, who has done guitar arrangements for Lenny Kravitz, Quincy Jones, Prince and George Clinton, among others.

The show celebrates the heyday of psychedelic rock.

In addition to Bushy and Dorman, Iron Butterfly includes Charlie Marinkovich (lead guitar and vocals) Martin Gerschwitiz (keyboards, violin and background vocals) and

Glen Bui, guitarist for Magic Carpet Ride, performed with several members of Steppenwolf before the band’s breakup in 1976 and has backed such artists as Waylon Jennings, Roger Fisher (Heart), Tower of Power and Eddie Money. He’s also co-founder of Pegasus, which recorded for Epic Records.

Magic Carpet Ride

Magic Carpet Ride’s show features such songs as “Born to Be Wild,” “Rock Me,” “Pusher” and of course, “Magic Carpet Ride.”

Talk about a night of classic American rock. With a light show created by Northwest Laser Light Show, this concert promises to be a colorful nostalgia trip for concertgoers of all ages. And ShoWare Center will be divided in half, allowing for a more intimate experience for concertgoers.

Tickets can be purchased at the ShoWare box office, 625 W. James St., Kent; online at ShoWareCenter.com, or by phone at 866-973-9613.

Read more about Iron Butterfly on the band’s official website. Learn more about Magic Carpet Ride here. And visit The Xperience’s Facebook page here.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

All-female AC/DC tribute band Hell’s Belles opened the EMP Museum’s new AC/DC exhibit with an explosive performance April 27 at Sky Church.

Fans lined up for Hell's Belles (photo: Alex Crick)

Fans lined up around the block to attend the show and hear such AC/DC songs as “Thunderstruck” and “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.” The band led by Adrian “Angus” Conner (who plays the role of guitarist Angus Young) and Amber Saxon, a native Australian, performed in front of an eye-popping, floor-to-ceiling LED light show featuring huge flames and wild graphics.

Adrian Conner of Hell's Belles (photo: Alex Crick)

The exclusive North American showing of “AC/DC: Australia’s Family Jewels,” curated by Arts Centre Melbourne of Melbourne, Australia, will continue through Sept. 19 at the EMP Museum. Presented in association with the Western Australian Museum and AC/DC, it’s the only fully endorsed exhibition on the famous hard-rock band.

Amber Saxon of Hell's Belles (photo: Alex Crick)

The exhibition features more than 400 artifacts, including photos, instruments, 35 years of concert posters from shows around the world, letters, lyrics and costumes. There’s also an extremely rare Angus Young schoolboy outfit and his 1975 homemade “Super Ang” costume, complete with gold and red satin cape.

AC/DC exhibit entrance (photo: Alex Crick)

Read my interview with “Family Jewels” curator Tim Fisher in the Seattle Times. And visit the EMP Museum website here.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Seattle photographer Alex Crick is an occasional contributor to GeneStout.com. Visit his website here.)

AC/DC fans (photo: Alex Crick)

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

For me the Japanese girl band is epitomized by Paran Maum in the film “Linda Linda Linda,” a sort of “Afterschool Special” that’s not, um, especially special except when the group launches into its version of “Linda Linda” by J-Pop-punkers The Blue Hearts (Paran Maum is Korean for Blue Hearts; well, watch the ‘05 movie for details): “Linda, Linda,” goes the chorus. “Linda, Linda, Lin-DA!”

As you might have surmised, “Linda Linda” is the (excuse the shift into ALL CAPS) CATCHIEST POP SONG OF ALL-TIME.

Now, there are actually plenty of for-real Japanese girl bands, as evidenced by the just-released compilation “I Love J-Rock II” (Good Charamel Records), led off by Shonen Knife’s inevitable cover of “Rock ’n’ Roll High School.” (The venerable group, once championed by Kurt Cobain, celebrates the CATCHIEST POP-PUNK BAND OF ALL-TIME on its current album, “Osaka Ramones.”)

The younger generation is represented therein by the likes of TsuShiMaMiRe, whose spacey concept album “Shocking” is out this week, and the hard-rockin’ LAZYgunsBRISKY (I’m not the only one using CAPS here), whose self-titled new release is the band’s fifth.

Visit the Good Charamel Records website here.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Mikel Toombs is a frequent contributor to GeneStout.com. Read his recent preview of Sarah Neufeld of Arcade Fire here.)

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Sarah Neufeld

By MIKEL TOOMBS

Pop quiz.

Which is, ahem, hotter in Seattle: yoga or Montreal’s indie-rock breakout Arcade Fire (now of “The Hunger Games” fame and the Grammy-winning album “The Suburbs”)?

I know, I know, it’s a tough one. But you might not have to choose with Arcade Fire violinist Sarah Neufeld, who performs here Friday (May 4), not at KeyArena this time, but the Columbia City Theatre, as part of the Alone Together Tour (fellow soloists Colin Stetson and Gregory Rogove also are on board).

“Moksha Yoga Montreal became my second home to return to during the early days of being a touring musician,” said Neufeld, a Vancouver Island native. “I was drawn to the accessible style of practice, and the open-hearted nature of both the teaching and the studio environment.

“The Moksha practice is well-balanced,” she added. (Moksha, Sanskrit for “liberation,” is indeed a form of hot yoga, although when you Google “Sarah Neufeld hot,” that’s not the first thing that comes up.)

“When I’m exhausted or injured, it restores me. It also satisfies my inner energetic athlete, my love of sweating, and keeps me well in shape.

“I am now the proud co-owner of the first Moksha Yoga studio in NYC and that is proving to be a really amazing and fun adventure.”

An unaccompanied Neufeld may prove to be even more of a stretch to Fire fans, as she contrasts the “solo avant fiddle versus the enormous rock band.”

“Perhaps there’s a familiar spark of emotional intensity and relentlessness in my pieces,” Neufeld said. “But this solo stuff is a different animal, living somewhere between a lot of different genres. I think people will feel a lot of old fiddle sounds, some rock-ness and influences like Bela Bartok and Arvo Part coming through.”

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Mikel Toombs is a frequent contributor to GeneStout.com. Read his recent preview of the Portland Cello Project and Zoe Keating here.)

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Kenny G (photo: Dominick Guillemot)

By GENE STOUT

Saxophonist Kenny G begins a four-night, eight-show engagement Thursday night (April 26) at Jazz Alley.

It’s a rare Seattle club appearance for the Grammy-winning artist, who has sold more than 75 million albums since graduating from Seattle’s Franklin High School in the early ’70s.

On April 3, I interviewed the Seattle native (whose real name is Kenny Gorelick) for a Seattle Times concert preview. The platinum-selling musician was in an upbeat mood after performing the previous day at Festival Cultural Internacional de La Ciudad de Zacatecas in Zacatecas, Mexico.

“That is one place that is not easy to get to,” Kenny G said in a phone call after arriving in Los Angeles, where he now lives.

“It’s about an hour-long flight north of Mexico City. You’ve got to go to Mexico City and connect. But it’s a beautiful town, really beautiful.”

The only drawback to performing in Zacatecas, the capital of the Mexican state of Zacatecas, was the high altitude.

“The high altitude — that’s the only down side for a wind player,” he said. “So that was a little challenging for me last night, but it was a really beautiful setting, to play outside next to a cathedral. And there were about 7,000 to 8,000 people there.”

Despite his formidable lung power, Kenny G admitted he struggled the night of his performance.

“It was definitely challenging. The temperature dropped. If you talk to any horn player — if you could talk to (the late) Miles Davis — I’ll bet he’d tell you the same thing. Cold and high altitude and being outside really don’t mix.”

Kenny G also talked about his line of saxophones.

“They’re modeled after my Franklin High School soprano sax, my old Selmer,” he said. “We’re just kind of going through some changes regarding where they’re manufactured and things like that. Because, you know, I’m really in favor of creating jobs and so I want to get them made in the United States, but there are just no saxophones made in the U.S.A.

“Selmers, I don’t think they’re even made in Paris anymore. I think they’re made in Japan. Most saxophones come from Japan and China. So I think what we’re going to do, my business partner and I, is we’re going to get the parts made abroad, but we’re going to send them here and have them assembled here so we that we can say that they’re made in the U.S.A. — and maybe be the only brand that’s made here. It’ll cost more, but I think it’s the right thing to do.”

Kenny G has a dream of selling his saxes to local public schools for use in music programs — here in Seattle and perhaps around the country.

“I would just love to do that. Because I think I could be a really good spokesperson for a public school, since I went through the school system in Seattle.

But he admitted it could be challenging to convince local schools to try a different line of saxophones than what they are currently using.

“If I could get something going, then I would make visits to public schools and do clinics. I would go to music stores that carry my saxophones and maybe play a little something so the neighborhood could come together. And the music stores would benefit because I’m sure they would sell a whole bunch of instruments, whether saxes or something else. They’d get all these people to come and hear me and my band play. And it could be such a win-win all through the country as I’m doing my touring.”

Read more about Kenny G’s line of saxophones here.

And read my preview in the Seattle Times.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites