Jay O'Rourke Band
continued from page 26
play [live] again!
IE: You’ve got all this music in the can.
What are the next steps with the music
you have finished now that things are
opening up a little bit?
doing. It’s not like it’s the next Pixar film,
they don’t say, “Oh my God, we’ve got to
get this out, [meet] these financial
demands, and you’re going to miss a
release quarterly.” Like when I [with The
Insiders] was on Epic records. So it can
Jay: I’ll just send the files off to a guy
named Mike Tholen, who’s down in
Southern California. He lived in Chicago
for many years, he worked with Ministry,
and he’s worked with lots of bands in
Chicago. I’ve been working with him
now for years, and we have a flexible
workflow [arrangment] between us.
There’s not a great demand for what I’m
wait, and I’m just going to bite the bullet
and start writing songs again. My girlfriend
is trying to get me to swim. So
yeah, she’s like tan now and swims a
hundred laps a day.
The Jay O'Rourke Band's "Boom Daddy
Boom" is available now. Their new video
"Stop Pushin' Me" is also available now on
YouTube.com.
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Continued from page 24
14 songs. Amoeba Gig, however, represents
the first release of the entire performance
and benefits from a vibrant new mix. Five
then-fresh tracks from 2007’s Memory
Almost Full album are included. The first is
a rocking version of “Only Mama Knows,”
followed by the whimsical mandolin feature
“Dance Tonight.” McCartney reminisces
about school days in the rollicking
**Memory Almost Full standout “That
Was Me.” He praises the crowd for its ability
to nod in time to headbanger “Nod
Your Head.” McCartney dips back a
decade to the Flaming Pie album for the
acoustic shimmer and uptempo waltz of
“Calico Skies,” which the songwriter has
described as “a gentle love song that
becomes a 1960s protest song” in the vein
of the Beatles “Blackbird.” Other jubilant
selections include the reggae-pop of
Wings’ “C Moon.” McCartney shows his
roots with a spirited cover of Carl Perkins’
“Matchbox.” “Ha, new ending!”
McCartney laughs after flubbing the outro
of an off-the-cuff run through Tin Pan
Alley classic “Baby Face.” The room
buzzes with energy throughout the show,
although McCartney brings the crowd to a
hush with intimate solo acoustic performances
of “Blackbird” and “Here Today.”
The latter is dedicated to departed loved
ones including John Lennon, George
Harrison, and Linda McCartney. The band
comes raging back with “Back in the
U.S.S.R.” Unsurprisingly, the scales of the
song selections tip in favor of Beatles fare,
with 11 selections from the Fab Four catalog.
Highlights include a rowdy “Drive
My Car,” wistful “I’ll Follow the Sun,”
bouncing piano feature “Lady Madonna,”
and rapturous “Let it Be.” The band is bristling,
perhaps because it’s a hometown gig
for drummer Abe Laboriel, Jr. and guitarists
Rusty Anderson and Brian Ray. As
the show winds down, you can feel the
band getting into the swaying, communal
vibe of “Hey Jude” along with the enraptured
audience. McCartney leads a singalong
that echoes around the cavernous
warehouse, with fans packed between
racks of new and used CDs. The room
erupts when McCartney announces that
former Beatle bandmate and “one of the
great men of the world” Ringo Starr had
been among the relatively intimate group
of a thousand or so lucky fans. The show
concludes with the spark and snap of “I
Saw Her Standing There.” As an encore to
the encore, the LP set includes Wings’
disco-friendly “Coming Up,” recorded
during soundcheck. The song features
keyboardist Dave Arch, performing the
R&B horn charts and standing in for longtime
McCartney bandmate Paul “Wix”
Wickens. The song’s third verse morphs
into a tribute to Henry Mancini’s “Peter
Gunn Theme.”
While picking up Amoeba Gig, you can
also upgrade your old copy of Wings Over
America with a fresh 3xLP reissue. Capitol
has also re-released 1993’s Paul is Live and
1998’s Choba B CCCP on heavyweight
vinyl.
– Jeff Elbel
9