Judson Claiborne / The Black Atlantic / The Cave Singers Empty Bottle 3.27.10

Please check out dedicatedears3 you-tube channel for my interview and the entire live set of Geert and The Black Atlantic. I also have four songs from Cave Singers that are incredibly good. Also, check out Chicago folk band Judson Claiborne.

I had figured that after listening to The Blacks Atlantic's album Reverence For Fallen Trees (free download on their site!) more than 30 times that the band would be really good live. There's a great video series called Amsterdam Acoustics in which The Black Atlantic performed on the streets of Amsterdam. This video showed that there was no studio trickery responsible for the beautiful sound of The Black Atlantic. They were GREAT live! The crowd was pretty full by then and recognized how good The Black Atlantic were live! Geert's vocals have another dimension live. The harmonies of the whole band were amazing. Geert set up the songs with stories about the origin of the songs. It was heart-felt and beautiful the way he spoke of his family and the loss of three grandparents in one year. He addresses these in length on the interview that he kindly did with me.



Chicago folk band Judson Claiborne opened the show and I was struck by their sound that is faithful to the sound of the early music of the band James. There is a Celtic swirl mixed in with the folk music. They used many different instruments, some I haven't seen before. They have loose groove to their sound that makes it all the more interesting. I took a video of one song. I look forward to doing an interview with them soon and getting video of their full set. You can buy their album Time and Temperature on their site. I have it an it's really good!



As The Cave Singers took the stage, Paul and I were downstairs doing the interview with Geert. Everyone upstairs was stomping, hooting and hollering. There was some dirt that shook lose from the ceiling above and came floating down almost making it appear that the Cave Singers were going to induce the crowd into stomping right through the floor and falling on us. ( I needed to use quite a few audio filters for Geert's interview as a result!) We went up after the interview and the Cave Singers were an amazing sight to behold. Lead singer Pete had whooped the crowd into a frenzy. Here are some of the thing that Pete did or said: He told the crowd "Thank You" and then when we cheered he said "You're welcome". He said that they would play in the parking lot across the street after the show, and I spied him grabbing Derek's ass (caught it on video too!). The crowd got louder and louder and started to scream "YA YA YA" and other calls that made it sound as if we were at a south of the border fiesta and the aunts and uncles present had consumed a bit too much of the ol' adult beverage. The band's sound leans more heavily on the psychedelic and blues elements live and there is more jamming as well. It's a wonderful mix live and I was fortunate enough to take a video of four songs.

As if this were not enough, I was able to hang out with my good friend August from Novo Entertainment. Also, my compadre in music, Paul Leddy was there. He shot the interview footage and came up with the last two really good questions in Geert's interview. Last but not least, my friend Steve Juras was there shooting pics with his "big boy camera" for this blog. Can't forget his heartwarming tales of bonding with loved ones! I met so many cool people that night, as I often do. I got to hang with Rebecca from the Chicago music blog Love Shack Baby. Rebecca and I were lucky enough to help The Black Atlantic land this gig. Check out her blog and facebook. She goes to a ridiculous amount of shows and has turned me onto some really cool bands.

I did get to talk some before and after the show with the Cave Singers. Great guys. I wish I had more time that night. I'd love to interview them as well. Geert and the guys from the band were incredibly nice. If you get a chance, see them perform. I hope to help them get a return gig here in July. I'll keep you posted on that one.