And Bands: Bill Janovitz and Friends

Bill Janovitz: Tumblin Dice
[Janovitz's website]

And so … for the next two weeks it’s “Bands with <and> in the name”. You could make a game out of this: how many such bands can you think of without Internet help? But the real/money question is: how many can SMM highlight and which would you have had us mention? (You can do so in the comments)

For the most part, bands in this category include the famous leader in the name (ex: Eric Burdon and the Animals), but there are almost equally many others where the “lead” is a figment (Derek and the Dominoes).

Bill Janovitz is prolific. He founded Buffalo Tom back in 86 and they are still playing together out of the Boston area. If you do a YouTube search for him, you’ll find clips of Bill Janvitz and Crown Victoria, Tanya Donelly and Bill Janovitz and more collaborations/ands. One of his projects has been a coversong blog started back in 2007 where you can read his thoughts about and download close to 100 songs. In his blog, he says:

I would love to share what I have been listening to more often, and as an artist, I encourage such use of music as another outlet for exposure. I don't want anyone posting files for downloads of whole records as thievery, but a sample tune or two would be fine.

Several years back, I had the fortune to pick up a couple of songs by Bill Janovitz and Crown Victoria, from music.download.com in what was then a legal process. Despite Bill Janovitz’s sentiments about sharing, the song I wanted to post has been flagged as copyrighted by my file hosting service, so I can’t share it here.

Elvis Covers Part II: Oliver's Army

Bill Janovitz: Oliver's Army

[download from Janovitz's blog]

A number of years back, I located a copy of Almost Beating, a Bill Janovitz piece he played with Crown Victoria, one of several groups he has been involved in. It's a song that I have moved from one music playing device to another - just love the drive of the guitar and vocals. Although this song isnt the subject of this post, here's a link to a streamed version of the song which I first found on the now-changed music.download.com website many years back

Being physically distant from places where I might have the chance to see him play live, I periodically go searching online for more Janovitz. I hadn't previously noticed Janovitz's own blog, "Part Time Manof Rock", but in digging for Elvis Costello covers, I was elated to see that not only has Janovitz covered Costello, but he also writes specifically about it in his blog about the covers he has done.

About Oliver's Army, Janovitz says what I myself felt about his work: the lyrics are important, but "the music always has to hit me first." Costello is well known for his lyrics-writing abilities: Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic notes both Costello's writing skills as well as his ability "to re-invent the past in his own image" - the Buddy Holly appearance brought to the 80s.

New York: Long Island

Bill Janovitz: Long Island

[purchase]

Driving in and out of Long Island has never been a pleasant experience for me. But Buffalo Tom frontman and LI native Bill Janovitz almost makes being stuck on Long Island sound attractive on this catchy track from his second solo disc.

Incidentally, Janovitz did escape. His family moved to Massachusetts when he was 16.