For Valley reggae fixture Noel Noel, being asked to contribute on a special project with Manou Dalomba of The Black Rebels was high praise enough.
After watching the process of recording Dalomba’s “War Is Not The Answer” at Northfire Studios in Amherst last month, however, the Dredi frontman says he now believes the entire endeavor is being guided by a higher power.
“Manou invited several reggae revolutionaries to write and sing their own verses and bridges,” he says of the origins of the sonic call to disarm. “I’m a witness to the fact that none of them got together after our initial talk with Manou, nor did he have any idea what we had written when he gave us our numbers for the vocal booth. As each person entered and began their words, every verse flowed perfectly into the one that preceded, without exception, and you’d swear we had sat and written the entire piece together.”
Noel adds that the reggae dream team—which also includes Ras John, Preacha and Manou’s brother Jeanot Dalomba, to name a choice few—will reconverge on Northfire this weekend to “sweeten things up with extra vocals” and obtain the final mix. For his part, Noel notes that he is also pulling double duty on the project—not only lending rhymes, but also shooting footage for a future video/mini-documentary.
Meanwhile, Noel’s band Dredi celebrates its 20th anniversary next month.
“We played our first show on Earth Day in Pittsfield back in 1990,” he says. “The band then consisted of myself, Michael Moss on bass, and… oh, yeah, our trusty drum machine!”
As a means of celebrating the musical milestone, Dredi has planned a special anniversary show for Saturday, June 12 at the Crown Plaza Pittsfield.
For more info on that or the Rebel-lious single, kindly point your browser to myspace.com/dredimusic.
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In other news, many is the Valley-based musician who will rack up the frequent flyer miles this week. Noho singer/songwriter Chris Pureka, rocker Lord Jeff and Amherst icon J Mascis are among the Western Mass. contingent performing at the annual South By Southwest conference in Austin, Texas this weekend. Which, incidentally, is right about the same time The Campbell Apartment’s Ari Vais says he’ll be in the skies—en route from his current San Francisco home back to NYC—to begin recording the follow-up to 2008’s Insomniac’s Almanac.
While the band has yet to adopt a working title for the new studio effort, rough versions of at least four tunes can be previewed at myspace.com/AriVaisDemos.
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And, as all the aforementioned local notables crisscross the country, at least another half-dozen are headed clear out of it—off to the land of the rising sun to support the ageless Young@Heart Chorus and its upcoming Japanese tour.
“We’ve been to Europe with them a dozen times now, and the chorus toured Australia at the turn of the century,” says F. Alex Johnson, who, along with fellow Drunk Stuntmen member Steve Sanderson and Ken Maiuri, Jim Armenti, Dave Trenholm and Billy Arnold, performs the backing music for the Chorus’ soaring vocals. “But this is a whole new playground, and all I know is, my visa has cleared and the shows are near sold out already, so I can’t wait.”
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This last little chestnut comes courtesy of Michael Metivier, who performs under the name Oweihops, and his March 19 tribute to singer/songwriter Vic Chesnutt slated for The Basement (iheg.com) in Northampton.
“I have vivid memories of seeing Vic perform at Pearl Street in 1999 and a couple other times at the Iron Horse,” Metivier explains, “and through the wonders of social network websites, I saw that a lot of my musician friends in the Valley were also heartbroken to hear of his passing.”
In addition to Oweihops’ performance, the Winterpills’ Philip Price and Flora Reed are both expected to pop in for solo sets. The Grown Up Noise, Matt Silberstein, Matthew Larsen and Drew Hickum round out that bill.
Send correspondence to Nightcrawler, P.O. Box 427, Somers, CT 06071; fax to (860) 698-9373 or email Garycarra@aol.com.
