SHEL’s Acoustic Dream Pop.

Shel: Eva, Hannah, Sarah and Liza on Echoes

Download Podcast of Echoes SHEL interview.

The band called SHEL is from a generation of musicians who grew up on their parents record collections.  The four sisters from Colorado, ranging from 18 to 24 years old, were listening to folk music and classic rock as much as contemporary music, maybe more.  They’ve created a charming and infectious sound, full of serene harmonies and playful instrumentation, but there’s also something deeper lurking in this music.  On the heels of their self-titled debut album, SHEL came to echoes and gave us a glimpse into their music.

SHEL is Sarah, Hannah, Eva and Liza Holbrook.  Despite their age, many of SHEL’s songs portray a sense of loss and tragedy that is beyond their years, especially from people who appear to have had an idyllic childhood full of music and a Waltons kind of family life.  So you might wonder where the angst comes from in one of their earlier songs, “Try To Scream.”

“I read a lot of books by C.S. Lewis and George MacDonald,” explains SHEL’s Eva Holbrook. She’s the writer and mandolin player in the band. “Actually those are some of my favorite things to do, actually to curl up and read George MacDonald because his books are so full of conviction.  And it just reminds me that you know, no matter who you are, no matter what you’ve been through, the challenge of doing the right thing even when it’s hard, or not doing the wrong thing even when you want to do it, all of that like even in an ideal life there’s angst… you know, I’ve been in relationships that I felt really trapped in and always come out on the other side of it But that’s just how I expressed it is through music.”

SHEL grew up in a musical family and actually started out backing up their father, Andrew Holbrook.

“I think that’s part of our folk background as well,” says Eva.  “He’s been a singer-songwriter for most of his life, so we grew up going to his shows and–we all started playing our instruments around the age of 10 or so.  And we’d get up there on stage with him one by one and back him up on different songs.  So that’s actually how we got started.

They also listened to their parent’s record collection.

“Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, The Who, The Who was a big one. Yes, all the awesome bands. Super Tramp,” they all shout out, verbally tumbling over each other.

“Both Mom and Dad had great taste in music,” says Liza.  “They were definitely hippies.”

“She loved Echoes,” admits Eva. “She and our older brother did, so we grew up listening to Echoes.  It was like any time we were coming home late in the car at night and Echoes was on, it was awesome.”

I don’t know how much of an influence Echoes had on them but you can hear the classic rock sound in their cover of Led Zeppelin’s “The Battle of Evermore.”

You can listen to SHEL’s Echoes interview as a free podcast.  Subscribers to Echoes On-Line can hear their live performance on the show.  You can try it as a trial subscription for only $2.99.

~© 2012 John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

Now you can go Mobile with Echoes On-Line.  Find out how you can listen to Echoes 24/7

You get great CDs like these and our October CD Club selection,  Hans Christian & Harry Manx’s  You Are the Music of My Silence  by becoming a member of the Echoes CD of the Month Club.  Follow the link and see what you’ve been missing.

Join us on Facebook where you’ll get all the Echoes news so you won’t be left behind Dead Can Dance appear on the show, Tangerine Dream tours the states or Eno releases a new album.

A Lesson in Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin Celebration Day returns for 1 screening nationwide November 13.  Go to Led Zeppelin Website for theater listings.

Did you ever have trouble explaining the appeal of Led Zeppelin to someone?  Maybe your kid, the smart ass heavy metal dude in your office, the alt-rock snob college friend or your new girlfriend who thinks that Eric Clapton is the apotheosis of electric guitar.  Take them to see Led Zeppelin – Celebration Day.

5 years ago the three surviving Led Zeppelin members, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones commandeered the the stage of London’s O2 — 27 years after playing their last show as a band.  Joined by the late drummer Jon Bonham’s son, Jason, they proceeded to give a lesson in acid drenched blues,  epic rock and the many reasons why Page is always on the list of the 5 greatest guitarists.

The band looked great.  Robert Plant, 59 at the time, was still a lean sex machine, even with lines carved into his face like canyons.  His curly blonde locks (they must be dyed) falling into his face as he writhed across the stage.  Page, at 63, was a picture of disheveled elegance, his pure white hair falling in his face in unkempt swirls and John Paul Jones couldn’t possibly have been about 61 .   But while they’ve aged, their chops are still everything they ever were, maybe more.  It’s remarkable that someone with Plant’s sometimes adenoidal orgasmic singing-style can still belt it out as if he was 20.   And Jimmy Page had every bent string, whammy bar whine and distorted growl in place with some jaw dropping solos and crushing rhythm work.

I have to admit, Jon Bonham was only missed in spirit as Jason more than filled his shoes with manically propulsive drumming.  And speaking of propulsive, John Paul Jones milked his basslines, showing a bit of jazz flair interacting with page and laying slabs of deep throb on songs like “Dazed and Confused.”

In a career than spanned ten albums, narrowing it down to under 2 hours couldn’t have been easy, but Zeppelin didn’t succumb to the temptation of just the hits.  They opened with three of their classic rockers and then launched a set of deep psychedelic blues and gospel including “For Your Life,” “Trampled Under Foot, “Since I’ve Been Loving You and “Nobodies Fault But Mine.”   It was  lesson in English blues and Page seemed like he was receiving the spirit from Robert Johnson and Hubert Sumlin.   Their rendtion of the gospel hymn, “In My Time of Dying,”  dripped both sensuality and tortured spiritual transformation.   This wasn’t the Led Zep of FM radio hits, but it went right to their roots.  After paying homage to their original sources, which they of course, often ripped off without credit, they kicked into the core of the Led Zeppelin oeuvre.

Robert Plant and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin

“Dazed and Confused” took them back to their first album and it swirled in hallucinogenic glory, including Page playing his guitar with a violin bow.   It was not a Spinal Tap moment.   Neither was “Kashmir” which they stormed through in all it’s Middle Eastern trance crescendo, with Jones handling the orchestral and horn lines on keyboards.   The two encores included, of course, “Whole Lotta Love” which retained all its proto-metal, psychedelic glory including the mid-section space-out with Page playing a Theremin.

In revisiting their past, Led Zep managed to hit all the elements that made you love each song, while not being beholden to note-for-note renditions.   They also took it seriously.  There was no playing with tunes, mocking their past or mugging for the audience (okay, Plant mugged a little).  They just dug into this music with passion and even maybe a bit of discovery, something you wouldn’t expect from music they created some 40 years ago.

I’ve never been a fan of concert films, but this one could make me a believer.  It doesn’t have the visceral energy of a real live performance, but it also puts you on the stage with the artists, giving you an up close look that not even the front row elite get to see.  Coupled with the imaginative spectacle of the staging with the video screen integrated with the film footage, it’s a very immersive experience, even if the sound in the theater I saw it in, The Rave in University City, was several dbs below what you’d expect.   While the sound was impeccable, I could’ve used a lot more bass in the mix and I was also surprised that there wasn’t a surround sound mix or, from my vantage point, even a stereo mix.  But apparently, that is not the case in most theaters.

The music was so so great, the band was so engaged,  that Celebration Day begs the question –  Why aren’t these guys still creating together?  The DVD of Celebration Day comes out on November 19, but don’t wait.  I don’t care how big your Hi-Def TV set is, you want to see this on a big movie theater screen.  It will be showing again for a one day, nationwide performance on November 13. Led Zeppelin Website   Go see it and tell them to turn it up!

~© 2012 John Diliberto ((( echoes )))

Now you can go Mobile with Echoes On-Line.  Find out how you can listen to Echoes 24/7delphia area, Celebration Day it will be at the  IMAX in King of Prussia for only two nights, Wednesday and Thursday, 10/17 and 10/18.

You get great CDs like these and our October CD Club selection,  Hans Christian & Harry Manx’s  You Are the Music of My Silence  by becoming a member of the Echoes CD of the Month Club.  Follow the link and see what you’ve been missing.

Join us on Facebook where you’ll get all the Echoes news so you won’t be left behind Dead Can Dance appear on the show, Tangerine Dream tours the states or Eno releases a new album.