{"id":2513,"date":"2021-07-31T22:36:30","date_gmt":"2021-07-31T22:36:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joeviglione.com\/?page_id=2513"},"modified":"2022-02-05T15:57:03","modified_gmt":"2022-02-05T15:57:03","slug":"joe-vigliones-history-of-boston-rock-and-roll-and-new-england-music","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/joeviglione.com\/?page_id=2513","title":{"rendered":"Joe Viglione’s History of Boston Rock and Roll and New England Music Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is a continuation of the original History of NE Music I started a couple of decades ago http:\/\/joeviglione.com\/?page_id=178<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read some of my history of N.E. music here: http:\/\/joeviglione.com\/?page_id=178<\/a> and more fully on the original page here: http:\/\/rocktableofcontents.blogspot.com\/<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Artist: Bird Mancini
CD: The One Delight<\/strong>
11 tracks
Contact:  info@birdmancini.com
Website: https:\/\/birdmancini.com\/album\/2043055\/the-one-delight


Going Track by Track with Joe Viglione<\/strong>


For those of us who love pop music, especially pop blended with folk, Americana, new wave perfectly performed, The One Delight is a delightful collection of moods, sounds and clever arrangements.


Opening with Space Between Two Worlds @ 3:35 minutes to track four\u2019s \u201cSouth Side of Summer\u201d  and the title track, #5, with its Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young leanings Bird Mancini has brought multiple elements that share colorful vibrations that gravitate to one another.


GOING TRACK BY TRACK

1)Space Between Two Worlds: – I\u2019m glad this up-tempo rocker starts the disc off.  Robin Lane put together a brilliant album of songs scattered across the decades, were the eleven titles on The One Delight constructed in the same time frame, or are they from different moments along your musical road?


Billy Carl Mancini: Several of songs on “The One Delight” were written with the new release in mind.  Others were from our back catalog of songs and were updated or rearranged.  “Space Between Two Worlds” is one of the new ones.  I had just been listening to the latest remix\/remaster of John Lennon\u2019s Plastic Ono Band CD. I was thinking about the song \u201cRemember\u201d and the way it moves, bounces, grooves. My fingers fell on some new chords and a melody. The words \u201clife\u2019s a mystery\u201d spilled out of my mouth. Ruby said, \u201cwe must have a better title than that\u201d and wrote a whole set of lyrics. A new song is born.  

Ruby Bird: Yes and no.  The first 4 tracks, plus \u201cThe Last Good Day\u201d and \u201cJust Carry On\u201d are totally new for this project. The other songs were taken from, as you say,  \u201cacross the decades,\u201d some with new lyrics and all newly arranged.


2)Man Plans God Laughs: the melody and playing are superb, but why the Devil\u2019s Advocate sensibilities?  The attitude feels like Al Pacino in that film with Keanu Reeves where Pacino is the petulant adolescent angry because he\u2019s not having fun.  Is this the sentiment, or is it parody?


BCM:  It\u2019s not a parody.  We all make plans and have desires that don\u2019t always work out quite the way we want them to.  I heard the phrase, \u201cMan Plans God Laughs\u201d on some television show and it struck a nerve.  I knew I wanted to write a song with that sentiment.  The verses reflect Ruby\u2019s and my life.  The first verse is me and my teenage dreams, the second verse is about Ruby and the third verse is about us together.

RB: Our intent here is that no matter how smart or wise we all think we are, we are not really in control\u2014God is. I think the pandemic has profoundly underscored this idea. Further into the song, the lyrics are autobiographical.  


3)Master of Nothingness combined with the above leads to eight and a half minutes of questioning things.  Are they meant to be connected a la the Rolling Stones twisted trilogy  19th Nervous Breakdown\u201d (Feb 1966,)   \u201cMother\u2019s Little Helper\u201d from Aftermath, (July 1966,) \u201cHave You You\u2019re your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadows,\u201d (Sept 1966,) keeping  a theme going, or am I missing something here?


BCM: If anything is connected it\u2019s almost by accident.  I guess it\u2019s just where our heads were at the time.  \u201cMaster of Nothingness\u201d is about a friend who always seemed happy and carefree. He didn’t seem to have any ambitions or desires beyond what he was doing every day. Just floating through life. No thoughts of pursuing a complicated career or striving for wealth. One day at a time. I always thought, “that’s the way to be happy and carefree.\u201d

RB: I don\u2019t see any of these songs as questioning anything or particularly connected.  \u201cSpace Between Two Worlds\u201d is simply a fantasy that might be construed as a metaphor for life, death and beyond. \u201cMan Plans God Laughs\u201d see #2 above. \u201cMaster of Nothingness\u201d is about a real person we know and appreciate because he is exactly who he wants to be. At least that\u2019s what these songs mean to me. If they mean something else to you or others, that\u2019s OK. I think all art should work that way. It\u2019s in the eye or ear of the beholder.


4)South Side of Summer is one of my favorite tracks.

In 2013 The Swinging Steaks had a CD, \u201cSouthside of the Sky\u201d \u2026what is it about the South Side?

RB: Glad you like this track! The South Side here is just about heading toward the last days of Summer.  I have no idea what The Steaks had in mind. Maybe the sibilance of the phrase is just catchy. I think so.

BCM: Ruby came to me and said she wanted a song that had a lazy, end of summer kind of feel. She already had ideas in her head about lyrics. I have always loved Gershwin’s “Summertime” (especially by Ella Fitzgerald) and thought of that laid back feel when I came up with the chords and melody. Ruby got it immediately came up with the perfect visual lyrics.


5)The One Delight \u2013 as stated in my intro: \u201cSouth Side of Summer\u201d  and the title track, #5, with its Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young leanings Bird Mancini has brought multiple elements that share colorful vibrations that gravitate to one another.  Can you advise us of your \u201csecret sauce,\u201d or do you want to leave it to our imaginations?

BCM: The \u201csecret sauce\u201d is we write, play and record what we like.  We\u2019re not trying to conform to any formula.  If something pleases us it will reach other people as well.

RB: Well, in my mind they are two very different songs, but it\u2019s interesting that you think they share characteristics that bring to mind CSNY. We love these guys, but CSNY was not on our minds during the writing of these songs. Or perhaps subliminally? If I were to name influences for each of them, I would say Gershwin\u2019s \u201cSummertime\u201d and Steely Dan were more to blame.


6)The Last Good Day \u2013 love the pulsating undercurrent (same with \u201cHomesick,\u201d  the themes seem like blues pop, but the music feels optimistic, is this the \u201chappy\/sad\u201d of a band like The Zombies?

BCM: I do like songs that have happy, uptempo music with contemplative lyrics.  Like Elvis Costello, John Lennon and, sure, The Zombies.  Although I must say that when I listen to music I\u2019m most effected by the vibe and and the way it makes me feel.  Lyrics usually go right past me unless I\u2019m reading along with the song.  Almost everything we do has an undercurrent of Blues, though you might not be able to put your finger on that influence.

RB: Very perceptive, Joe, that you\u2019ve named another band that we both love. It\u2019s certainly possible that their influence is present in these or other writings of ours, but not intentionally. In my mind \u201cHomesick\u201d and \u201cThe Last Good Day\u201d are as different as they could be from each other and still be on the same album.  But that\u2019s typical for Bird Mancini.


7)Homesick

    Same question as above

RB: \u201cHomesick\u201d was written years ago and never recorded. We just tweaked the lyrics and rearranged it for this project so that I could have one more song to sing. I almost didn\u2019t want it on the album because I didn\u2019t think it was a good fit, but this song turns out to be a favorite of a few friends and DJs that we\u2019ve heard from. Who knew? \u201cThe Last Good Day\u201d is a new product of the pandemic, as we were thinking about the last good gig we had before shutdown. But these lyrics of course can have very different meaning, depending on your own experience.


8)Just Carry On absolutely sounds like an immersion of CSNY\u2019s \u201cCarry On\u201d and \u201cWooden Ships\u201d.   Is this an inspiration or do you have inspirations that you\u2019d like to share?

BCM: I can\u2019t deny that I love both of those CSN (and sometimes Y) songs.  Everything I\u2019ve ever heard influences me.  \u201cJust Carry On\u201d started as a mysterious unnamed song file lurking on my computer desktop. What\u2019s that? I played it and it turned out to be a brief song idea I had recorded but had completely forgotten about. So, I finished the song. The words are just stream of consciousness stuff. I think maybe having to do with current times.  Not too much you can do about some things, so you just carry on.  The \u201coohs and aahs\u201d harmonies in the middle were straight off the top of my head\u2026no pre-planning.


9)Song for an Imaginary Life \u2013 dreamy and elegant, it\u2019s like the band went to the tropics and came up with this smooth essay.   A good sequel or counterpoint to \u201cSouth Side of Summer.\u201d  Where did it come from?

RB: This came from a surreal guitar riff that I heard Billy play once in awhile. Eventually, it morphed and expanded, and studio magic happened.

BCM: This is one of those songs that I\u2019ve had kicking around for many years. Might have been sort of inspired by John McLaughlin. Although I never recorded it, I never forgot it and often played it when I was just messing around on the guitar. I decided it was time to let it out of my brain and into the world. Ruby added some cool keyboard melodies to finish it off. This is one of only two tracks where we brought in another musician to play. The song was too weird for either of us to do percussion, so we called Joe Jaworski to play cajon and assorted things in his bag of percussive tricks. We knew he\u2019d know what to do. The title is just something we imagined\u2026.


10)Better Forever goes into a world where you can feel the voices of America (who copied C,S,N and Y to a T) \u2013 yet your style is not so seventies secure, I love how what I feel are those influences invade your style   Soothsayers and oracles\u2026philosophically more helpful than questioning God on track 2, but that\u2019s my opinion\u2026how did this come about?

BCM: Not really questioning God on \u201cMan Plans God Laughs\u201d.  If we\u2019re questioning anything, it\u2019s human limitations. One can\u2019t change what God has in mind for us. \u201cBetter Forever\u201d is another song that was in my back catalog that had never been recorded. Just a song about being in love and floating off to some place of calm and beauty. Someplace better. Like a Caribbean Island and being served drinks on the beach. Sort of uncharacteristic lyrics for me, I guess. But you just write what you feel when you feel it. This is the other track made better forever by Joe Jaworski on cajon.  -BCM


11)Bonus track of Master of Nothingness instrumental:  with so much space on a CD, why not the entire instrumental versions that the Beach Boys did with their amazing Stacks of Tracks?

BCM: Nowadays, with people releasing so called \u201cEPs\u201d and single downloads, I\u2019m not sure people can sit still for an 80 minute CD.  Many of my favorite albums are about 40-45 minutes in length. This instrumental originally came to me as a melody without any words. I needed to get the melody recorded in order to demo it to Ruby. Later on, the lyrics practically wrote themselves when I had the perfect person in mind. We added this as a bonus track for the download version.  It really wasn\u2019t intended to be on the CD but sounded good to my ears and I wanted others to hear it.  I had forgotten I\u2019d even done it until the CD was already in production.


Thanks for your time GOING TRACK BY TRACK.
You’re welcome…we enjoyed it!
-Billy & Ruby

****************************** Ruby Bird & Billy Carl Mancini BIRD MANCINI
email:  birdmancini@aol.com<\/a> Website:  birdmancini.com<\/a>
Bandcamp:  https:\/\/birdmancini.bandcamp.com<\/a>

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#JoeViglioneMedia   www.joeviglione.com<\/a>\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joe<\/strong> Viglione<\/strong>\nis<\/strong> the<\/strong> Chief<\/strong> Film<\/strong> Critic<\/strong> at<\/strong> TMRZoo<\/strong>.com.\nHe has written thousands of reviews and biographies for AllMovie.com, Allmusic.com,\nGatehouse Media, legendary writer Al Aronowitz’s The Blacklisted Journal, and a\nvariety of other media outlets. Joe<\/strong> also produces and hosts Visual\nRadio, a twenty-seven year old variety show (established 1995) on cable TV\nfeaturing A-list celebrities from all walks of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Kernels for the Birds – Mr. Curt <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Essays by Joe Viglione <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the Kids to the Real Kids to Mr. Curt solo on Euphoria Records, \nthe Mr. Curt catalog of music is a long and important, historic part of \nthe New England Rock and Roll Story. His bands Pastiche and The Exis \nmade their mark from the 1970s to the 1990s if my memory serves and \nsomehow a couple more decades developed to the year 2021, a half a \ncentury, and welcome to his newest CD, Kernels for the Birds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dave Godbey from Fox Pass co-writes the first minute and two seconds \nentitled \u201cIn a Haze.\u201d It\u2019s the intro to a collection of Space Age \nBachelor Pad music meets the avant-garde side of the New Wave, Track two\n is about breeding heroes and includes a hypnotic mantra if you will, \n\u201cRipped,Wrecked and Excited\u201d would raise the eyebrows of Roxy Music\u2019s \nEno and Velvet Underground\u2019s John Cale. There are a number of college \nradio stations which should embrace this, most notably the Record \nHospital over at WHRB, Harvard and WZBC Newton, bringing us truly back \nto the future. I\u2019m surprised Curt didn\u2019t invite members of Wet Pizza https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/user-785838058<\/a> and Free Pizza https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/bufurecords\/free-pizza-boston-ma<\/a>\n to join in on his two minute and forty-six second \u201cWhere\u2019s the Pizza?\u201d \n It\u2019s innovative enough to have three bands clashing in stereo. George \nHarrison\u2019s \u201cThe Inner Light\u201d (flip of Lady Madonna 45 and on Past \nMasters and the Love album from the Beatles.) With Andy Hollinger on \nimpressionistic guitars and Ed Morreau on assorted keys\/fx, it\u2019s \nactually a quite intriguing look into Lennon\u2019s pop jolt that Beatles \nfans did not expect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSoups on the Table,\u201d \u201cDay Lilly\u201d and \u201cFirst is the New Last\u201d segue \ninto each other like a trilogy while Curt\u2019s track on the tribute to the \nlate Asa Brebner (of Robin Lane and the Chartbusters\/Modern Lovers) \nalbum I Am Not Gone, similarly titled \u201cHe Is Not Gone\u201d is included here.\n It\u2019s very well done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also included is an exotic rendition of Bobby Hebb\u2019s \u201cSunny,\u201d \nrecorded for the maestro\u2019s Facebook SUNNY page. Bobby would have been \nvery proud to hear such a different version of his popular song, one of \nthe top 100 songs of the 20th Century for BMI. \u201cA Monk in a Ninja \nSuit,\u201d \u201cGaslighting,\u201d \u201cWannabees (that never were) right up to \u201cThe Last\n Night on the River\u201d are sixteen tracks that are entertaining, inviting\n and in some cases make your head spin. Let Kernels for the Birds be \nyour secret treat to surprise people with at parties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Curt article also on Somerville News Weekly https:\/\/thesomervillenewsweekly.blog\/2021\/06\/18\/hotline-to-the-underground-mr-curt-and-friends-going-track-by-track-with-the-walkoffs\/<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Charles Pettigrew of Down Avenue hit with WOULD I LIE TO YOU<\/strong> as Charles and Eddy
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https:\/\/youtu.be\/G_UXvcr22rM <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

AllMusic Review by Joe Viglione  [-]
   https:\/\/www.allmusic.com\/album\/down-avenue-mw0000985664  <\/a>
Alvan Long was the drummer in Boston’s November Group on its 1982 self-titled EP, and was joined by bassist\/vocalist Don Foote for 1983’s follow-up, Persistent Memories. They branched off on their own, releasing this five-song EP on the 6L6 label the same year November Group signed to A&M, 1985. “Girlfriend” sounds like the Jonzun Crew with snappy drums and ’80s club\/dance keyboards identifying immediately what Down Avenue is all about: a group that was as derivative as it was engaging. The mid-’80s brought a number of artists into this sterile but interesting realm, Adventure Set and Face to Face also making noise in Massachusetts and beyond, the artist’s identities all merged into a synth\/dance amalgam on radio and in the clubs. Only Michael Jonzun and his brother Maurice Starr broke out of the mold, with Laurie Sargent from Face to Face also carving a niche beyond the pack. The sad thing is that Down Avenue is among the best players of this sound just before it all fell off the ledge into manufactured disposable Muzak. This EP as well as the release by Adventure Set are the last vestiges of decent Boston music before the scene exploded and band names proliferated on a daily basis. “Nighttime” is another good melody and performance, though there is nothing here that jumps out at you as an unarguable hit. Roxy Music was performing this exact same sentiment on Avalon with far more personality, and for all the slick production and smooth musicianship, there is absolutely nothing to grab onto here. It could be anyone singing “Nighttime” and any group of musicians crafting these sounds. The three songs on side two, “Winter’s Past,” “Way Down the Avenue,” and “These 4 Walls” melt into a seamless essay devoid of peaks and valleys. “Winter’s Past” sounds like a soft rock version of the band New England’s classic “Don’t Ever Wanna Lose Ya.” “Way Down the Avenue” could be the band’s theme song with the hook lifted from Bruce Springsteen and Manfred Mann the decade before — “That’s where the fun is” sounds like it stepped out of “Blinded By the Light.” Nothing here is as outstanding as Adventure Set’s “Blue Is for Boys,” but there’s nothing bad here either. The band was rumored to have signed with RCA and probably did, but then vanished as quickly as November Group did on A&M. Charles Pettigrew’s vocals are slick and soulful, but they are pipes in need of a song that was more than just pleasant background music.
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