Happy Birthday James Williamson!

Celebrating James Williamson's birthday with a recording of Iggy Pop's "Tight Pants" – an early version of "Shake Appeal"

Happy Birthday James Williamson!

Cheers to guitarist and silicon valley exec James Williamson. Check out his interview with collaborator Deniz Tek. 

Guitar slingers Deniz Tek & James Williamson reunite for Two To One

Two To One boasts all new songs from Stooges' guitarist James Williamson and Radio Birdman's Deniz Tek. 

Here's the scoop from Deniz Tek...

James Williamson and I have completed work on a new LP, Two To One. The album is on Cleopatra Records, and will be out Sept 18th. 

Two To One contains all new original songs of guitar-based high energy rock and roll. The basic tracks were recorded in San Francisco in December, with the vocals, overdubs and mix finished in February just as the pandemic hit. Michael Urbano plays drums, and Michael Scanland is on bass. James and myself play guitar, and I sing.

Watch a video filmed in the studio (below). Pre-order Two To One right here. 

Alejandro Escovedo teams with Wayne Kramer, James Williamson and Peter Perrett for new concept album "The Crossing"

On his cinematic new concept album ‘The Crossing’ – due September 14th – Alejandro Escovedo tells the story of two young immigrants – Salvo from Italy, and Diego from Mexico – working in a Texas restaurant in pursuit of the American dream. Mirroring Escovedo’s own experience as the child of Mexican immigrants, and drawing inspiration from his relationship with Italian co-writer Antonio Gramentieri, their journey navigates cultural identity, ancestral weight, minority rights and racism as they realize they have arrived in a different America – one that’s not as open and free as they believed it would be.

Listen to the first track “Sonica USA” (below) featuring Wayne Kramer of MC5 on guitar. The scorcher serves as an ode to the 70s punk scene where Escovedo found solace as a Mexican-American growing up in Austin, and the solidarity he found in his brother’s own pioneering punk band the Zeros.

Escovedo crossed borders of his own for ‘The Crossing’ sessions, recording outside the US for the first time ever at a farmhouse in Villafranca, Northern Italy with the help of co-producer Brian Deck (Modest Mouse, Gomez, Iron & Wine). Italian all-instrumental group Don Antonio – helmed by co-writer Antonio Gramentiere – bring the record’s narrative to life with their sweeping arrangements, while cameos from Kramer and The Stooges’ James Williamson serve as reminders that Escovedo’s punk ethos burns bright (both bands name are checked in the lyrics as well). Elsewhere on the record, alt-country pioneer Joe Ely features on both the title track and his self-penned “Silver City”, while Peter Perrett and John Perry from UK legends The Only Ones reunite for their first recording in almost 40 years on “Waiting For Me.”

Alejandro Escovedo will kick off an international tour later this summer, with Don Antonio joining him on the road as backing band. For some reason, his only scheduled Canadian date is at the Interstellar Rodeo Music Festival which takes place at Hawrelak Park Amphitheatre in Edmonton July 20-22. Go figure.

‘The Crossing’ is available for pre-order here: https://lnk.to/thecrossing. Here's the audio clip of Sonica USA....



ALEJANDRO ESCOVEDO ON TOUR
July 22 – Interstellar Rodeo Music Festival – Edmonton, Alberta (w/ US band)
Aug 8 – The Grove KGSR BBQ – Austin, TX (w/ US band)
Aug 19 – City Winery – Boston, MA*
Aug 20 – City Winery – New York, NY*
Aug 21 – City Winery – Washington, DC*
Aug 23 – The Ark – Ann Arbor, MI*
Aug 24 – Old Town School of Folk Music – Chicago, IL*
Aug 25 – Dakota Jazz Club – Minneapolis, MN*
Sept 8 – Mushroom Festival – Kennett Square, PA
Sept 12-13 – Americana Fest – Nashville, TN
Oct 13 – Kafe del Teatro – Lleida, Spain
Oct 14 – Loco – Valencia, Spain
Oct 16 – Tempo – Madrid, Spain
Oct 19 – De Posthoorn – Hamont-Achel, Belgium
Oct 20 – Ramblin Roots Festival – Utrecht, Holland
Oct 22 – Boule Noir – Paris, France
Oct 23 – De Zwerver – Leffinge, Belgium
Oct 25 – Gosforth Civic – Newcastle, UK
Oct 26 – Oran Mor – Glasgow, UK
Oct 27 – The Hubs – Sheffield, UK
Oct 28 – The Lending Room – Leeds, UK
Oct 30 – Bush Hall – London, UK
Oct 31 – Hen & Chicken – Bristols, UK
Nov 1 – Bullingdon – Oxford, UK

*solo dates with Joe Ely

Radio Birdman's Deniz Tek joins James Williamson for unplugged Acoustic K.O. EP

Radio Birdman ace Deniz Tek has teamed up with Iggy Pop's axe-wielding sidekick James Williamson for the Acoustic K.O. EP (out March 31) – a new spin on four classic Williamson compositions from the early/mid '70s. The proto-punk guitar stars have unplugged their amps for drastic reworkings of two numbers from Iggy & The Stooges’ seminal Raw Power album (“I Need Somebody” and “Penetration”) as well as two tracks from Pop & Williamson’s underrated Kill City (“Night Theme” and “No Sense of Crime”). These songs were orginally composed by Pop & Williamson, with the exception of "Night Theme" which was penned by Williamson and Scott Thurston.

Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Williamson explains hooking up with Tek and working with him on this new project: “I first met Deniz in 2011 when doing the Ron Asheton Tribute show at the Michigan Theatre in Ann Arbor. Deniz had been a good friend of the Ashetons (having come from Ann Arbor like them) and had been asked to play on some of the old Stooges tunes that night.”

“Later we stayed in touch during the times I would visit Australia on tour with the Stooges, and it also turned out that he visited the Big Island of Hawaii frequently, as do my wife and I. In fact, during one of our get togethers on the Big Island Deniz mentioned that we should record some acoustic songs together.  Maybe do some of my old stuff. It was later that day, hiking in a remote area, that we came across some abandoned trucks. His wife, Anne, got her camera out and said 'there’s your record cover!’”

Oddly, in a parallel development, a long time fan and incredible collector of Stooges memorabilia, Hakan Beckman, had suggested to James a couple of years earlier that “Night Theme” should be orchestrated. Further, he had developed a fantasy album cover called Acoustic K.O. James loved these ideas and now, with Tek, had the vehicle to realize them.

“That’s how it all started,” Williamson admits. “However, once we began recording, the project took on a life of its own. If this was to be called Acoustic K.O. it needed to be entirely acoustic. Michael Urbano broke out his old 1920s drum kit and Gregg Foreman used my old 1930s pump organ and a piano. Guitars, of course, were acoustic, and the only exception was the bass that Bob Glaub played - an old hollow body Kay since an upright  just didn’t sound right for these songs. The horn section rounded everything out.”

“For ‘Night Theme’ I enlisted the help of Mark Culbertson, musician extraordinaire who had played contra-bass for me on the albums Ready to Die and Re-Licked, to do the arrangement. He did an extraordinary job! I was able to find an incredible group of players called The Awesome Orchestra from Berkeley, CA under the direction of David Moschler to realize Mark’s arrangement and I couldn’t be happier with the results.”

“It all came together once we layed down Deniz’s vocals while in Hawaii, and with the help of Petra Haden doing some backing vocals and violin, along with Annie Hardy (Giant Drag) doing the duet with Deniz on ‘No Sense Of Crime’ we had performances to be proud of.”

Check out Deniz Tek & James Williamson's reworking of Penetration followed by the original version by Iggy & The Stooges...

Get the reissue of Iggy Pop's Kill City while it's hot

Attention all Iggy Pop fans. His first post-Stooges album, 1977's Kill City has been slated for reissue on October 18 and the man himself couldn't be more nonplussed.
Never a particularly shrewd self-promoter, Iggy was recently quoted in Rolling Stone saying "Kill City to me was a very good minor work." Then, as if suddenly remembering it was about to be available for sale again in a remastered form, he added "It was an important work. It was my indie record." So much for the hard sell.

Well, even if Iggy isn't overly excited about his rip-snortin' James Williamson collabo – recorded in 1975 and released by Bomp! two years later – there's loads of young Stooges converts eager for more Iggy-style raw power. It's only fitting that Bomp! is the first to make available via mail order (www.bompstore.com  email: mailorder@bomprecords.com) the newly remixed and remastered Kill City in all it's green vinyl glory. And as a bonus, the first 100 orders in both LP and CD formats will receive a poster to boot.

Here's the scoop from Bomp!...

We wont be shipping copies of this one for months, but
they have arrived in our warehouse and we're making them available for
mail order immediately. INCLUDES FREE POSTER WITH FIRST 100 ORDERS.

RESTORED, RE-MIXED & REMASTERED edition, approved for the first time by
both Iggy Pop and James Williamson. GREEN VINYL LTD. EDITION of 1,000 with
INNER SLEEVE - INCLUDES FREE POSTER WITH FIRST 100 ORDERS. DIGIPAK EDITION
with 24 PAGE BOOKLET featuring rare/unpublished photos.

Kill City is Iggy Pop and James Williamson’s often overlooked, yet
ultimately essential album. Originally recorded in 1975 and later released
by Bomp! in '77, critics have long lauded the songs and performances but
have also regarded the overall sound as “sludgy.”

The sound quality of Kill City was compromised from the get-go, as it
originally suffered from a bad pressing (on the infamous green vinyl), and
over the years the quality of the record itself managed to get even worse.
When the original distributor went out of business, the 2-track album
production masters vanished and every subsequent pressing of the album -
on record, cassette and CD - used a copy of that deficient green vinyl as
its master.

Now 33 years later, here is the long overdue restored, re-mixed and
remastered version of this historically important record. Producer James
Williamson remixed the album with engineer Ed Cherney at Capitol Records
in Hollywood, and as the guitarist states, "He just made this record
sound, well, like it should have sounded all along. It has finally reached
its full potential."

"I like what this album has to say.
It is rather high concept, and the music is well thought out.
It adheres to no particular genre.
A lot of people have borrowed its ideas.
It's one of the very first independent LPs I know of.
I hope you like it." 

IGGY POP

"Kill City was by all measures a desperate effort, a singularly honest and
heartfelt performance, a genuine progression of our song writing, and
another in a long line of flops that were later resurrected and heralded
as masterpieces.
By the time it was released as a record, both Iggy and I were off doing
other things with our lives, but with this re-release we are not only
reunited in our musical endeavors but in our appreciation of this album,
its remix, and its importance to us as artists." 

JAMES WILLIAMSON

Kill City reissue promo clip