Eugene Chadbourne

It´s about time we have some Eugene Chadbourne again in this blog!

In the video he is with Mr. King's Delite doing "Gone till November", and if you want party music, please check out Bryan and the Haggards featuring Dr. Eugene Chadbourne: "Merles Just Wanna Have Fun" (Northern Spy 2013). That is if you can take some country-jazz!

The album is a tribute to Merle Haggard, and these fine musicians play: Eugene Chadbourne – vocals, banjo, dobro, Bryan Murray – tenor, soprano, balto! saxophones, talzmer¡, nose whistle, recorder, ocarina, vocals, Jon Irabagon - C melody, soprano and tenor saxophones, bass clarinet, penny whistle, Jon Lundbom – guitar, banjo, vocals, Moppa Elliott – bass, vocals and Danny Fischer – drums, vocals.

The Last Hurrah!: The Beauty of Fake (Rune 2013)

HP Gundersen and his band The Last Hurrah! just released the summer album of the year on Rune Grammofon.

"The beauty of fake" is a 35 minutes long suite, where you get a fine mix of (among other things!) sweet pop music, Norwegian and eastern folk music (Hardanger fiddles and all) and relaxing Hawaiian music.

I detect a smell of hippies here, so let´s just mention some of the suites subtitles: "The Trip", "In India" and my favorite "High in Hawaii".

I´m not really sure if HP Gundersen (drone guitar and other guitars ++) and Heidi Goodbye (vocal) are the ones defining themselves as The Last Hurrah!, and additional musicians are added when they drop by, but here are the rest of them: Ivar Thormodsæter, Yuyeu Zheng, Esau Pinto, Alex Grieg, Silje Solberg, Daniel Birkeland, Jørgen Sandvik, Viktoria Winge, Johanna Vatne, and the one and only Jon Irabagon (saxophone on "In India").

If you feel that 35 minutes is a bit on the short side, hurry up and get the double vinyl edition with a live recording from a concert at the Bergen Kjøtt venue, with Jon Irabagon in the band. They play old Hurrah! tunes like "Chromatic Hysteria", "Mother Nature" and "Melodi Grand Prix 63", and also new ones "Joe Meek" and "Hit Me". Only 300 copies made!

Playing on the live recording are HP Gundersen, Heidi Goodbye, Sonja Otto, Silje Solberg, Jon Irabagon, Alex Grieg and Nils Are Drønen.

Buying the double vinyl edition, will also get you the CD version of "The beauty of fake". Nice package indeed!

Make sure you check out the previous fine releases by The Last Hurrah! too: "Spiritual Non-Believers" (Rune 2011) and "The Great Gig In Disguise" (Rune 2011, 10" vinyl, 500 copies).

Cover: Kim Hiorthøy.