'Live at Wild Blue' is a snap shot of E For Elephant's proggy jazz rock

Also, Gwen Stefani name drops Let's Go Bowling on national TV and we get an old-timey video from New Old Man.

As a music nerd, I have an affinity for live albums.

See: The Misfits’ “Evillive,” MC5’s “Kick out the Jams,” Roky Erikson and the Explosive’s “Halloween.”

There is something true and telling about hearing a band in its live form, especially if (as in the case of the above albums) you weren’t able to experience it for yourself. Double points if the album captures some historical context from the moment (and the best ones do).

Enter E for Elephant’s “Live at the Wild Blue.”

Located next to a Chinese restaurant on Fulton street in the Tower District, Wild Blue was THE venue for original local music (some awesome touring acts came through, too) for at least two decades before it closed in 1994.

E for Elephant was one of the dozens of bands who cut their teeth on that stage and the members of the band playing that night (March 14, 1991) have all established their own musical identities.

Originally released in 2014, the 40-ish minute recording captures the band’s spastic prog/jazz leanings and turn-on-a-dime song structures. There are glimpses of future sounds (for those familiar with the music Tarik Ragab, Jim Owen, Brian Kenney Fresno, Jim Schmidt and Matthew Embry are doing now).

Schmidt’s flute playing lends some nice Jethro Tull vibes (on the opening of “Raw Hell” for example).

If it wasn’t for the song breaks and crowd noise, you might not realize this was a live album at all, which says something about the band and also how the venue itself must have operated.

E for Elephant’s full catalog is available on Bandcamp.

Does Jimmy Kimmel know Let’s Go Bowling?

On Tuesday, Gwen Stefani was on the Jimmy Kimmel Live talking about her new turn as a country musician and of course the conversation turned to ska and a call-out to the Fresno band Let’s Go Bowling.

Early in the segment Kimmel asks Stefani whether her life partner Blake Shelton enjoys ska music in the same way she’s learned to love country music.

“Not quite,” Stefani says, though he is curious.

“He’ll get online and … he’ll list all these random ska bands that I’ve never heard of in my life, that I don’t know really existed or not … This is one that you will probably know … Let’s Go Bowling,” Stefani says.

“I think we played with them,” she says.

According to a post on the Let’s Go Bowling’s Instagram page, No Doubt did indeed play with the band in the 1990s, at St. Andrew’s Hall in Detroit just before “Tragic Kingdom,” was released. No Doubt opened the show.

According to the website Concert Archives, the bands shared a bill again in 1995, this time at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, with No Doubt headlining.

Shameless self promotion: “Ammunition” video release

This week in shameless self-promotion, I released a video for “Ammunition,” the debut single from my solo project, New Old Man. The video is pretty much an occult-laden “Deadwood” cosplay, produced and directed by Christopher Alocern and Maya Solano-McDaniel.

The duo create IG and TikTok content as Christopher (and Lady) Alocern and are worth checking out if you are occult curious.

Check out the video below.

That’s it for this week. If you have anything you think I need to be looking at or listening to, feel free to let me know: jtehee@gmail.com