RIP Michael Been

Even in the internet age I was not aware until someone sent me a notice about it today that Michael Been of the band The Call had passed away last Thursday, August 19th. At a show by his son’s band Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Been was working backstage and had a heart attack; he was 60 years old. Click here for a short news story on Been’s death from HitFix.

Been holds a special place in my own musical history, as his band The Call was the very first act I saw in a real live concert setting when they opened for Simple Minds at the Gaillard Auditorium in Charleston, SC back in 1985. I had never heard of them before that night but promptly went and found Reconciled, their current album at the time.

At WUSC, the college radio station i DJ’ed at while a student at the University of South Carolina, I had ample opportunity to not only hear the rest of the band’s catalog and play it on the air, I got the chance to interview Been himself when The Call played on campus in 1987. The one line I remember from that has stuck with me ever since–when I asked Been about whether or not The Call was a Christian rock band, he responded, “We’re not a Christian rock band, we’re just a rock band made up of Christians…”

Been and the Call have popped up in pop culture several times in unlikely places. He played John The Baptist in the controversial film “The Last Temptation of Christ”, and the band’s song “Let The Day Begin” was used as a theme song for Al Gore’s presidential run.

I’ll remember him, and the Call, for the music, however. From the early songs such as “The Walls Came Down,” to later material like “What Happened To You,” the music was always powerful and spiritually charged.

Blast from SC Music Past (and Present): Uncle Mingo

In the 1990′s you’d have been hard pressed to find a more popular South Carolina band than Charleston’s Uncle Mingo. A funk-rock powerhouse quartet known for their extended live shows, Mingo released a string of albums that decade with classic tunes such as “Bottle of Moonlight” and “Steer.” Edwin McCain was an early friend and fan, recording Uncle Mingo’s “Just One Drink Away” on his very first release, which also included several of the band’s members on musical contributions.

I can’t begin to count how many times I saw Uncle Mingo play during those years, but it was a bunch. From the early shows where they would break into a note-perfect cover of the Allman Brothers Band’s “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” instrumental, through the crazy nights at the Windjammer on the Isle of Palms with keyboard/sax player Jason Moore pretending to be ‘scratching’ out beats on his shaved head, an Uncle Mingo show was always a good time.

The band never officially broke up, they just stopped playing more than a few shows a year; the current lineup of the band includes Blue Dogs drummer Greg Walker in original member Robert Thorn’s place but other than that they sound as funky and fun as ever. Here’s proof–the first video below is a vintage clip from 1993 when the band was at the peak of its live music powers, the second is from this past year’s “Party at the Point” festival in Charleston.

Kodaly’s Colorful Choral Tones

I’m no classical music scholar, but I’ve sung choral music for many years. Even with that experience, when I first heard and got the chance to sing the music of Hungarian composer Zoltan Kodaly it was both challenging and satisfying in the way that only difficult classical music can be.

Kodaly is not a well-known composer, check out his biography on Wikipedia here. His tunes are sometimes based on folk melodies, though they’re often unrecognizable in the swirling vocal arrangements. As a singer, a Kodaly piece is an athletic event requiring superior control, but his compositions have been adapted and arranged for children’s chorus as well.

The best way to understand Kodaly, however, is to hear his music done well…check out several examples below:

Sea Stories “For a 1000 Years”

Sea Stories was an Australian band from the late 80′s/early 90′s, but when I went looking for them online the only music out there was the video below, from their 1990 album Miller’s Pond. This was one of those ‘record store’ finds for me, a band I would never have heard had I not been in a record store when the album came over the in-store play speakers…nice mellow alt-acoustic sound.
Curious? Check out Artist Direct’s entry on the band here.