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For the Record With Grace Vonderkuhn

“For the Record” is a periodic feature in which musicians discuss what they’ve been listening to lately.

The electric charge of Grace Vonderkuhn is spreading wildly, and with her first full-length album Reveries out Feb. 23, she’s already been featured by NPR, WXPN’s The Key, and a half dozen other media.

The album, put out by EggHunt Records, is a gritty, mad dash of noisy garage rock plunging into melodic catharsis, backed up by bassist Brian Bartling and Dave Mcgrory on drums.

Reveries is available on vinyl, cassette and digitally on iTunes, Amazon, Bandcamp, Spotify and more.

In March, Vonderkuhn and her band will tour the Mid-Atlantic region and beyond, most notably playing at South By Southwest in Austin as official showcase performers (March 9-16). Locally, catch her at Wilmington’s 1984 on Thursday, March 29.

O&A caught up with Vonderkuhn before her spring tour, and she shared her music career’s five most formative, influential albums.

T. Rex — Electric Warrior

One album that really influenced me in my late teens is Electric Warrior. I remember the first time hearing the song “Cosmic Dancer.” I was waiting tables on a slow day and it came on. I thought it was Bowie at first, but I soon found out that it was Marc Bolan serenading me. I felt like I was transported into another reality. After that I delved into the whole album and fell in love with the sound. It’s true glam rock with dashes of psychedelic riffs and it’s all tied together with Bolan’s vibrato and spacey lyrics. It just grooves.

Pixies — Doolittle

It probably doesn’t come as a surprise to people that have heard my music that the Pixies are one of my favorite bands. Although I enjoy most of their discography, I wanted to highlight their album Doolittle because it was my gateway drug into late ‘80s/early ‘90s alternative rock. This album is stacked with hits and there are so many mood changes, it’s no wonder it’s hailed as some of their greatest work. I really could sing their praises all day, but I’ll probably just listen to Doolittle again instead.

Autolux — Future Perfect

Here’s another life-changing album for me. Autolux redefined what a three-member rock band could be. It comes down to their dynamics and the ability to use quiet and space to build up heavy parts into lethal rock. Plus, there are some deeply satisfying guitar and bass tones and entrancing vocal harmonies. I highly recommend listening to Autolux.

Elliott Smith — Either/Or

I’ve never heard an Elliott Smith song I didn’t like, but this particular album is close to my heart. This is deeply introspective and, well, sad music. Smith was a master wordsmith and one could write a dissertation on the meaning of his lyrics. He was also heavily influenced by the Beatles and I love the juxtaposition of his pop chords and heartbroken content. If you must explore your darkness, Either/Or is an ideal soundtrack.

Sex Pistols — Nevermind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols

Sex Pistols opened up a new world for me when I was a teenager. Along with The Clash, they sparked my interest in ‘70s U.K. punk and led me to bands like Buzzcocks and Generation X and later post punk bands like Public Image, LTD., Joy Division, and Magazine. Loud, fast, angsty music is truly cathartic and energizing.

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For the Record With Kurt Houff

“For the Record” is a periodic feature in which musicians discuss what they’ve been listening to lately.

If you talk to Montana Wildaxe lead guitarist and co-founder Kurt Houff about music, it’s surprising how much of the conversation focuses not only on sound, but also on sight and feel.

“Your influences are not always directly related to music,” Houff says. “Visual, auditory, anything that you process can be an influence to your music. It comes out in what you do.

“I have people come up to me and ask, ‘What do you see when you are building a solo?’ And honestly, I think of it more as a painting than an auditory thing. It’s more of a visual thing.”

It’s an interesting observation from a musician who has been long celebrated locally for his ambitious guitar solos—rollicking, circuitous sonic monologues that somehow counter a laid-back, almost instinctual style of play.

However, if Houff makes it all look easy, it’s an illusion of sorts. There is work to it, after all.

“I’ve done a fair share of studying [but I] apply it to the point where, when I go to perform, it’s not obvious that I tried to study something,” the guitarist says. “I assimilate it with what I do from a day-to-day perspective so that it really becomes another tool or another set of colors to put on [my] palette.”

With more than three decades with Montana Wildaxe, Houff has had time to collect a wide array of musical tools and colors. Along with the other members of Delaware’s most legendary jam band, Houff will be displaying that onstage artistry the night of Saturday, Dec. 23, at The Queen in the annual holiday show that has become a local tradition, attracting both longtime fans and inquisitive newbies looking to discover what the fuss is all about.

Houff himself remains somewhat curious about the popularity of the yearly event.

“I can’t put my finger on exactly why people continue to come out,” he says. “I’m assuming the music’s good because I enjoy it. But I think it also has to do with the camaraderie amongst the people who have come to see us [all these years]. They come out to see their friends who they haven’t seen in a while, and we’re a part of those friends. We’re kind of the catalyst for getting together.”

In addition to their revered renditions of songs by the Grateful Dead, Allman Brothers, Little Feat and other classic jam bands, Montana Wildaxe’s connection with its audience certainly has helped fuel its success. Houff recalls a time, not so long ago, when the band played back-to-back weekend nights every month at Kelly’s Logan House.

“We’d get a lot of crap for it, but we’d do the first set then we’d take that seemingly endless half-hour break and hang out with everybody,” Houff recalls, chuckling. “Throw back a couple of beers or whatever and then head up on stage. They’re working their tails off having a good time in the crowd, and we’re up there sweating everything out for them.”

If you plan to get wild and festive with the Wildaxe crew this month—whether for the first or for the umpteenth time— you may be interested in the influences that have colored the sensibilities of one of the local music scene’s most colorful musicians. Here’s Kurt Houff on those influences:

Artist Unknown – Autumn Leaves

My first exposure to recorded music in album form—I don’t even know what the album was called—but I believe it was a collection of jazz standards with the first cut on the record being an instrumental version of “Autumn Leaves.”

My mom used to tell me that, as a 3-year-old child, I would pull that album off the stack because I recognized the picture on the cover, a beautiful autumn landscape, and then I would put it on. I would play the first cut, walk over, jerk the stylus off the record player and start it again. I would play it for hours, the same song, over and over again.

I’m pretty sure it was a piano trio. And to this day, piano trios are my favorite jazz vehicles.

The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

When I was 8 or so, my sister and her friends were just absolute Beatles freaks, for lack of a better term, and so Sgt. Pepper’s would probably be the next record. Paul McCartney basically indicated that this album was the Beatles’ response to the Beach Boys and [what they were doing in the studio at that time]. Hearing that later made perfect sense to me. But back to wh

en I was first listening to it, that wasn’t even a thought in my head. I was just floored by sounds of that record: the

guitar tones, some of the tape loop stuff, and McCartney’s bass lines throughout the entire album.

Part of [what was going on at that time] was that artists were exposed to new and different things and were asking, “How do I get at this sound that I hear in my head?” In today’s music, that childlike sense of discovery doesn’t seem to exist much anymore. Everybody’s jaded. Nobody’s going “How do I do this differently?”

Jeff Beck – Wired

The next step in my thought process was probably Jeff Beck. The hit song off that record was “Blue Wind,” and it [featured] the guitar carrying these quite different melodies that I was not used to hearing a guitar carry. That’s what struck me about it.

I had listened to some Yardbirds stuff and Jeff Beck Group’s “Shapes of Things.” Then I listened to Yardbirds without Jeff Beck, but those guitarists didn’t speak to me as much as the Jeff Beck stuff. So as soon as Wired came out, I was like, “I gotta listen to this!”

I didn’t know how he was getting those sounds back then. It was not like I’d seen tapes of him, or video footage, or any of the stuff you can Google now. So I just listened to it and said, “That’s cool. How does he get the guitar to do that?”

Rory Gallagher – Tattoo

I was watching TV and saw Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert and they had a Rory Gallagher bit. There he is in this really worn flannel shirt playing this beat-up Stratocaster with a tone that was pretty much guitar-to-amp. Some of the stuff that he did with guitar just absolutely blew my mind. It was probably the first time I saw somebody doing that with guitar.

This would have been ’74 or ’75 and I would have been 11 or 12. I think I’d just recently bought my first copy of Guitar Player magazine. [I was] just really starting to wrap my head around it all.

So I went to the record store at the Concord Mall—Village Records or something like that—and went in there and saw the record. The album cover is a picture of Rory done up like a tattoo. Same flannel shirt he was wearing on Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert.

His playing was pre-Stevie Ray Vaughan “Stevie Ray-ism.” Somebody who kind of channeled stuff. And once he got into an extended jam, he was somewhere else.

The Kinks – Arthur

I think it was the political commentary. I didn’t quite grasp it as I would today: songs like “Mr. Churchill Says” and songs about the prudishness of the Victorian era.

It’s rock ’n’ roll. I mean rock ’n’ roll really is a rebellious voice back to its origin. It’s a distaste for authority, just beating the man down.

Dave Davies played a significant amount of Stratocaster on that record and the tone of those guitars always speaks to me.

Houff and the rest of Montana Wildaxe perform their annual holiday show on Saturday, Dec. 23, at The Queen. For tickets and more information go to TheQueenWilmington.com.

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For the Record: With John Lodge

At 72, John Lodge can look back on an extraordinary life as a musician who has played bass and sung and written songs for The Moody Blues since 1966.

Having sold more than 70 million records worldwide with The Moody Blues and with the band recently earning a nomination into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Lodge certainly has earned the right to rest on his laurels.

But after 50-plus years in the music business, he decided September of 2016 was the right time to embark on his first solo tour—eight club dates in the UK.

With last year’s release of his second solo album, 10,000 Light Years Ago, Lodge didn’t want to make the same mistake he did after releasing his first, Natural Avenue. He never toured after releasing that album 38 years ago.

“I always felt like I hadn’t completed that circle, really,” Lodge says, during an Oct. 20 phone interview. “So when I recorded my new album, 10,000 Light Years Ago, I was determined to go on the road and perform not only that album, but also songs from The Moody Blues that I’ve never played [live] before.”

Now he is bringing the tour to the U.S., with a stop here at The Queen on Sunday, Nov. 5. In addition to cuts from the solo album, Lodge also will be performing songs that can be heard on his new concert recording, Live in Birmingham, which was recorded on the last night of his UK tour in the town where he was born.

The Birmingham Town Hall show was especially significant, for it was there, as a as a 13-year-old boy, that he sat in the front row of the balcony and watched Buddy Holly perform for the first time in his life.
“Buddy Holly was the biggest influence in my career completely,” Lodge says. “People talk about rock ‘n’ roll, and I say, ‘Yeah, I was into rock ‘n’ roll from Day One.’ But Buddy Holly really tuned my music.

“What I wanted to do with my live album was for me to stand on that stage where Buddy Holly was and almost look back up at the balcony and see a young Johnny Lodge looking down. So that sort of completed a circle.”

Here are Lodge’s takes on his favorite Buddy Holly album and a few other records that have been on his turntable—or on his mind —recently and most resoundingly:

The Crickets – The “Chirping” Crickets
[This is] the album that really changed my life from a musician’s point-of-view, as a 13-year-old boy with a six-string guitar for the first time. There was a program in England called Jukebox Jury that played new records, and they played a record by Buddy Holly and the Crickets called “That’ll Be the Day.” I was just absolutely intrigued.

I tried to find it—it took me ages—two months I think, before that album was actually available in the UK.

It’s a go-to album, because of the double-tracking of guitar parts and the bass playing. It’s stand-up bass, but it’s really interesting the ways the bass and guitars work together.

The wonderful thing about Buddy Holly is that basically up until then, rock ‘n’ roll was 12 bars or eight bars. But Buddy Holly just changed everything by putting minors in there; putting sevenths in there; not playing 12 bars; putting guitar solos in there; different rhythms. Chirping Crickets was all of that.

Every time I play that album, it magically transports me back to that time. It reminds me of everything that got me hooked on rock ‘n’ roll. And the English version of rock & roll, I might say. I know Buddy Holly was American, but somehow he translated so well into the Englishness of rock ‘n’ roll.

John Lennon – Imagine
It’s just such a brilliant, brilliant album. Everything about it. The way it was played, the musicianship, and some wonderful songs on that album, like “Jealous Guy.” There’s a string part in that song. It just comes in once, and every time I hear that—there’s just something magic about that album.

Nina Simone – Baltimore
Nina Simone’s voice is unbelievable, and the orchestration on that album is beautiful. What I love about that album is that is the different way in which each song is approached. You’ve got sort of West Indian music in there, but you also have wonderful orchestrations in the song about a father going to Paris. If people want to listen to a fantastic album, listen to Baltimore.

Her voice just transcends everything to me, it’s pitch-perfect. There’s a melody in her voice. If there’s anybody who wants to be a fantastic singer, find the melody in your voice. It’s not so much about trying to hit the highest note possible and singing it as loud as possible. It’s about getting that melody, where you actually draw people into that melody. And her voice just draws me in every time.

B.B. King and Eric Clapton – Riding with the King
I love going to the Delta in America. All of that area, through Helena and Memphis and Tupelo, with Elvis [being born there]. When I was in Memphis once, I remember going to this rib shack. And they had all this wonderful music playing, Robert Johnson and other great blues artists. Then they played a track from this album, Riding With The King, which had just come out. To me, bringing those two musicians together in that rib shack was just brilliant.

I play that album a lot. We grew up with Clapton. Our first tour in America was with Clapton. The Moody Blues played our first concert, believe it or not, in Paris with Cream.

B.B. King and Eric Clapton, just playing against one another on this album, it’s just a great album. To me, it brings together the blues from the Delta and English blues.

John Lodge – Live From Birmingham
It was released today, so I have to mention it! [laughs]

The reason it’s a go-to album is that I’ve had to listen to it so much just to make sure the mix is right, and the mastering is right, and the pressing is right. [laughs again]

I’m so pleased with the guys in the band. They played so well. It was only one show. We didn’t go back into the studio [to do overdubs] at all. Everyone just gave their all with this record.

We were talking about Nina Simone, [and] trying to find the melody and emotion in the voice. And that’s what you got to do on stage: You’ve got to get that melody in the instruments. It’s not about how loud they play. It’s about that melodic sound that draws you in and captures you.

Bassist John Lodge of The Moody Blues will appear at The Queen on Sunday, Nov. 5. For tickets, go to TheQueenWilmington.com. To order copies of Lodge’s recent releases—and for more tour information—go to JohnLodge.com.

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For the Record With Darnell Miller

Photo Jim Coarse

In this year’s Performing Arts edition, we are launching a new feature, “For the Record,” in which local musicians discuss what they’ve been listening to lately.

Our first entry in this series focuses on Darnell Miller, who, by day, teaches music at Kuumba Academy Charter School in Wilmington. By night, Miller leads his soul and funk band, The Souldaires, at venues like The Nomad Bar, where they play the first Wednesday of every month. This month, Miller will also release his solo five-track EP, Jesus & Jameson, which features the already released single “Bastard.”

“I wanted to make it separate [from The Souldaires],” says Miller. “Sound-wise, it’s two different things: The Souldaires is one thing, and the Darnell Miller thing is a whole other thing.”

In other words, local fans should prepare for the unexpected.

“If I said what it is by genre, I would say funk, rock, soul, gospel,” Miller says. “But that’s too generic. I don’t know how to explain it, so I just call it Jesus & Jameson: a little bit of Heaven and a little bit of Earth.

A self-proclaimed music nerd with a love of liner notes, Miller has an encyclopedic knowledge of the back-stories of the music he likes. Keep reading and you’ll get an idea of what we mean.

Mavis Staples – Your Good Fortune EP
The sound of everything on that album—the song-writing—it’s really one of the most overlooked albums in the last couple of years. It’s a really great album. It was co-produced by Son Little, who is an up-and-coming, amazing guy. I didn’t discover him until later. But he [made his mark] on this Mavis Staples album, totally. Perfect combination.

Gary Clark, Jr. – Live North America, 2016
Oh, my goodness, I love that he can play his ass off! Lately, I’ve been really listening to songs, really listening to what that person is saying, and [paying attention to] black artists moving outside the lines. And he is one of those guys. To me, he’s more than just a blues artist: He’s a little bit of everything. The album, sonically, sounds great. The guitars are nice and dirty. The vibe. Everything sounds great.

CeCe Winans – Let Them Fall in Love
I think of albums that I play over and over again, and this is one of them. I don’t know if you know, but my background as a touring musician and as a professional musician was the gospel world.

[Ed Note: Miller’s career as a gospel vocalist spanned more than seven years and took him on tour across the U.S. and abroad, including England, Spain and Africa.]

When I decided to step back from gospel and transitioned, I stopped listening to anything gospel. I maintained relationships, but I just stopped listening. But then I just happened to see a picture of this album cover. And the picture told me what the album might sound like. So I was like, ‘I should check this out,’ and I was glad I did. For gospel, this album is a game changer. It’s retro. So she’s doing ‘70s country; she’s doing Ray Charles-type stuff; she’s doing Phil Spector-type stuff. It’s really good production-wise. Tommy Sims, who is one of my favorite producers, produced this with CeCe Winans’ son, who I didn’t know had it in him.

Chris Stapleton – From A Room: Volume 1
This dude can sing. Some of these songs made me revamp lyrics for Jesus & Jameson because I felt he was saying some of the same things that I wanted to say. So I just kept listening and listening.
I love the drums on this album. I listen to mixes and how stuff sounds sonically and the different sounds that people use. The drums on this album really pop.

Solange – A Seat at the Table
This album will probably be on everyone’s list, but for my last pick I’m going to have to go with this one. By the way, I’ve been a Solange fan for years. I’ve been always hoping that she would get her break. Everything about her is artistic. With Solange, either you love it or you hate it.
Her last album was very ‘80s-sounding. This one is stuff I’ve never heard before. And it features production by two of my most favorite people in the world: Raphael Saadiq and Questlove. Everybody knows I love Questlove. So, when he’s involved, it just has to be good. But for people to like this album was a complete surprise to me, because it’s so different. It’s not mainstream. She decided to tell a different story.