|
| Return to Newsletters Index. |
April 2006 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
Kokomo a GogoOK. As you will have noticed, the website has been rather ignored recently, and it's because we have been going hell-for-leather getting the new live album ready. And it is! Everybody is dead chuffed with how it has come out, and Graham Clark has done another fantastic job with the artwork and 12-page booklet, making it (the band agree) the best-looking Kokomo album to date. The album is now officially called Kokomo a gogo The band will have a special limited number of advance copies of the CD available at the Montana 44th National Jazz Festival in Tauranga on 15th and 16th April. The official release will be about a month or so later, as the DVD still needs a lot of work. When it is finished they will be simultaneously released through Jayrem. That is expected to be at the end of May or early June. For your interest, here are Auckland writer/drummer Bruce Morley's liner notes from Kokomo a gogo:KOKOMO: THE VIEW FROM OUTSIDE INSIDE In the Beginning, there was Kokomo Blues, a nice tight little boutique blues band, Derek’s guitar and voice flanked by Grant and Roger (the Flying Bullot Brothers) on harmonica and bass. While the rest of us watched and listened from the sidelines, this sterling trio recorded two lean and focused albums (no drums, no extras, no foolin’ around) that were a handy compendium of Derek’s knowledge and research of the blues, and began the non-stop touring that became the Kokomo trademark. But if you’re a Dylan man like Derek, Bob will out, and soon an original Derek Jacombs song or two appeared here, a couple of tracks there and, almost before you knew it, whole albums of original Kokomo songs were available while the band continued to tour and build an audience. Somewhere along the way Roger left the band to pursue his art career (while remaining with the band in spirit), Blues was dropped from the title, Grant (and the band) acquired a trumpet-playing wife named Sonia, Nigel Masters (the Tony Garnier of New Zealand) brought both acoustic bass and recording skills to the party, and sidemen began to make occasional appearances live and on record. Now Derek, Grant, Sonia and Nigel, the four-piece Kokomo, are the core of an original music touring and recording operation that also involves, as occasion demands, many other friends and musicians. Which is where I come in. I’ve played drums many times with the band and it‘s always fun, and always tricky, because they are constantly reinventing things. If it’s been a week or three since last time, you’ll find that songs that once loped along are now played at breakneck speed, up-tempo shuffles now thump along to a swampy back beat, and what was once an introspective ballad now demands a whacking great bass drum. Keeps you on your toes. Over the last 10 years, more than 60 Kokomo sidemen and women have had the pleasure of being led by Derek’s guitar, surrounded by Grant and Sonia’s unique two-person-harp-and-horn-section and boosted by Nigel’s bass. Many have become firm friends in the process. On this occasion, it’s Kokomo’s home town boys making sense of the melee. Me, I’m writing this note because I gotta get on the album somehow!
Bruce Morley |
|
| Top | |
| Return to Newsletters Index. |
|
— — — — — — — — — — — — — |
