Big Daddy Love Feature- Virginian Pilot

To say that the modern folk-rock revival has taken over the nation's airwaves would be an understatement.

Just try scanning the radio dial without the tuner landing on a foot-stomping, banjo-driven ditty.
That's good news for Big Daddy Love, a North Carolina quintet that boasts a sound the members have dubbed "Appalachian Rock."

"Imagine if Led Zeppelin had grown up on a dairy farm in the mountains," joked the band's banjo player, Brian Swenk. "That's one of the ways we like to describe our vibe."
It's a clever descriptor.

More important for the musicians, however, is the time they live in. As the saying goes, timing is everything, and right now it's cool to be a folksy rock band.

From recent Grammy winners Mumford & Sons to indie-folk hipsters the Avett Brothers, down-home rambling has never been cooler. But make no mistake: Big Daddy Love isn't simply chasing a trend. The band comes by its musical pedigree honestly.

"We didn't live anywhere near a big city," Swenk said of growing up in Sparta, N.C., a small town in the Appalachians, about 10 miles from the Virginia border. "In the mountains, playing music is a way to get together and be social."

The terrain also inspired a deep affinity for nature.

"There's a lot of mountain and river imagery in our lyrics," Swenk said. "Growing up in Appalachia, you're really in tune with the environment. When you turn 16 and can drive, everybody would meet by the river to just hang out and play."

Those teenage jam sessions featured everything from North Carolina bluegrass to the music of the South's favorite sons, the Allman Brothers. It's a repertoire that informed the band's inventive mash-up of musical genres.

"We really think we're on to something good," Swenk said. "Somehow we've been able to mix bluegrass and Southern rock and make it work."

Big Daddy Love, which plays The Jewish Mother Backstage in Norfolk on Saturday, first made waves at FloydFest, an annual music festival held near Floyd, Va., in the Blue Ridge Mountains. In 2010, the group beat out approximately 30 other acts to win the festival's new-band showcase. "That was a real game-changer for us," Swenk said. "It put us on a whole new level and created some new opportunities."

One such break was an invitation to open a home-state gig for Willie Nelson last summer.
"Halfway through our set, the crowd was on their feet and dancing, which was an amazing experience," Swenk said.

Now based in Winston-Salem, N.C., Big Daddy Love released its debut album, "To the Mountain," in 2010 and "Let it Grow" the following year. Next up is a live CD/DVD slated for release next month.

"We are really excited about the video," Swenk said. "We got some neat footage with a camera that was attached to the headstock of the banjo and electric guitar so we were able to capture some close-up shots of some furiously fast flying fingers."

Tight musicianship aside, Swenk seems most proud of Big Daddy Love's following, which rivals that of a jam band when it comes to devotion.

"Some of our fans wanted us to make a video, so they hosted a party and raised almost a thousand dollars. That's how we were able to make this DVD. We get to know our fans as good friends and try not to keep some type of wall between us and them. I think they really respond to that."

Preservation Hall Jazz Band-Virginian Pilot Feature

Ben Jaffe wants people to know a few things about his hometown.

"For too long, people have portrayed New Orleans as this fool's playground of Bourbon Street, beer and beads," he said. "New Orleans is church on Sunday and red beans and rice on Monday. It's playing music with your friends and staying up all night to watch the sun rise."

Forgive Jaffe if he sounds like an ad by the Louisiana city's visitors bureau.

The guy has passion for his hometown, and the art that has made New Orleans one of the most distinct cities in America.

But even though he was born to the son of the founders of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and raised in the French Quarter of the Big Easy, Jaffe didn't quite "get" New Orleans until he was mature enough to appreciate it.

"This city has a real identity, and it wasn't until I was older and had traveled the world a bit before I fully understood just how unique my neighborhood is," he said.

Now, as creative director and tuba player of Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Jaffe's passion is to carry on the mission his parents established more than five decades ago: to nurture and perpetuate the art form of New Orleans jazz.

The group, which plays the Attucks Theatre in Norfolk on Sunday night, derives its name from Preservation Hall, the vintage Crescent City music venue founded by Jaffe's parents in 1961.
The band, a vital link to the beginnings of this uniquely American music, celebrated its 50th anniversary last year.

"The fact that you can trace the bloodline of our membership all the way back to the early days of jazz is just so special," Jaffe, 42, said.

Many of the group's charter members performed and recorded with such jazz pioneers as Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton and Buddy Bolden.

Through the inevitable lineup changes that come with any long-running organization, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band continues to represent the indigenous music of New Orleans.

"This band embodies all of the things that make our city so distinctive," Jaffe said. "It's so important to me that we continue to embrace that."

Even so, he knows that cultural traditions evolve over time.

"I think it's important to acknowledge that the Preservation Hall Jazz Band does not live in a bubble," he said. "We are a living and breathing institution. You have to keep moving forward, otherwise you become stagnant."

To that end, the seven- piece band is gladly embracing the 21st century. "We are not interested in being a museum piece," Jaffe said.

By collaborating with an array of contemporary artists, the musician works to introduce more people to the rich musical tradition of New Orleans jazz.

In 2010, the group recorded with bluegrass great Del McCoury and indie rocker Ani DiFranco on the record, "Preservation."
Two months ago, the rock group The Black Keys invited the Preservation Hall Jazz Band to perform the Keys' hit song "Lonely Boy" during the Grammy Awards show broadcast.

The Preservation Hall Jazz Band's latest alliance is with Jim James, frontman for the experimental rock act My Morning Jacket.

"He also played on our 'Preservation' album, and we became good friends," Jaffe said. "Now he's co-producing our new record."

The disc, which is slated for a summer release, will be the band's first album of all original material in its long history.

"Right now, we're focused on our next 50 years," Jaffe said. "We want to expose as many people to the music as possible, and if we have to go out there and do it one person at a time, by God, that's what we're going to do."

Sex Pistols' Glen Matlock Feature-Virginian Pilot

Glen Matlock was just 19 when he became one of the four most notorious people in England.

That was in 1975 when Matlock was a founding member and bassist in the Sex Pistols, the seminal British punk band.

While frontman Johnny Rotten was the face and voice of the insolent band, Matlock was the chief architect behind the punk rock classic "Anarchy in the U.K." and the sneering anti-monarchy anthem, "God Save the Queen." Both songs made the Sex Pistols public enemies to much of the English isles.

Even though Matlock provided the melody and lyrics for 10 of the 12 tracks on the band's groundbreaking album "Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols," he was eventually replaced by Rotten's best mate, Sid Vicious. Rumor has it Matlock got sacked for being a Beatles fan. It makes for a good myth, but in his 1990 autobiography, "I was a Teenage Sex Pistol," Matlock wrote that he left the band in 1977 of his own volition.

The musician went on to form the new wave pop band The Rich Kids, toured with American punk icon Iggy Pop and rejoined the Sex Pistols for various reunion tours between 1996 and 2008.

He's mellowed a bit since. On Friday, Matlock, 56, brings his Acoustic Anarchy tour to The Jewish Mother in Virginia Beach. He'll be joined by former New York Dolls guitarist Sylvain Sylvain, who was added to the bill after Tommy Ramone had to cancel.

During a recent phone conversation from his home in London, the musician talked about his punk past and the appeal of going unplugged. With his gruff cockney accent, he's not the easiest guy to understand, but here are a few of the highlights we were able to decipher.

The Filthy Lucre
"It's a laugh that the media said we were selling out when we reunited. Could we have done five tours if people weren't buying tickets? So if the chance comes along and we get offered some good money, why not do it? You might as well give people what they want.
"People hang on to the Sex Pistols, all their memories, hang-ups, relationships, lots of things, I suppose. But it's never going to be the same as when we started out... because the socio-economic political climate is different now. It was a product of the time.
"I am proud of what the Sex Pistols achieved and always will, but whatever we all do individually will always be measured against that. It was such a big deal that nothing is ever going to eclipse that."

Sid & Glen
"The era of the Sex Pistols was a very intense period, and when John started getting in the magazines it upset the power balance and it all fell apart. I was sick of it.
"People think I hated Sid, but it's not true. We weren't the best of chums, but we were neighbors and we used to go drinking now and then. We even did a one-off show just to prove that we weren't enemies. We called it The Vicious White Kids.
"The thing with Sid is that he was a really good rock 'n' roll singer. I mean he certainly had something going for him, he just wasn't a bass player. He was atrocious. But as a frontman for a punk band, he would have been very good."

Punk goes acoustic
"I consider myself to be a songwriter above all else; that's my art form. It's like being a carpenter. If you're a carpenter, sometimes you need a chisel and sometimes you need a mallet to get to the final result. That's kind of what I'm doing when I write a song, and it all starts on the acoustic guitar.
"I think the audience gets more out of a performer with an acoustic show. There's no hiding behind all that noise and equipment. It's actually much more nerve-wracking to do an acoustic show, but that's why I do it. It's an occasion to get in the ring, so to speak. I've done this kind of tour a few times now, and I keep getting asked back, so people must like it, or maybe they're just manic."
Anarchy in the AARP

"I know my audience is a bit older now. The thing I like to do these days is to have a laugh instead of going on about politics. I don't ever write out a set list because I just want to go with what the crowd is getting off on. Some of the people that have grown up with me don't necessarily want to come to something that is going to bring them down. I'm just having fun. I've got nothing to prove at this point."