L'Ham de Foc - Live St. Chartier 2007 / Zoom TV 2006 / Directos de Radio 3 2008

 L'Ham de Foc - Live St. Chartier 2007

 

 L'Ham de Foc - Zoom TV 2006

 

 L'Ham de Foc - Directos de Radio 3 2008

 

Power and beauty are the two main concepts in their music, and fire and water the contrary elements that are symbolized by their name. L'Ham de Foc (Fish hook of fire) from Valencia are no longer an exotic musical phenomenon for specialists but a well sounding name within the international worldmusic scene and a timeless musical concept, that develops its strong character without taking care of current fashion. A new instrument, a new musical style can only be studied and understood going to where it comes from and within its cultural context. This attitude was responsible for a lot of journeys, especially to Greece where the main protagonists of L'Ham de Foc -singer Mara Aranda and multi-instrumentalist Efrén López- have now found their second home. Their compositions have the ability to transform music for specialists into an understandable but profound music. Each album of L'Ham de Foc reflects what they have experienced in their recent journeys and studies.
L'Ham de Foc´s audience is as diverse as their instruments and influences: with their concerts and CDs, apart from the standard worldmusic/folk audience, they have also reached listeners coming from classical music, Rock/Pop, Gothic/Wave and medieval music.  From: https://www.womex.com/virtual/galileo_mc/l_ham_de_foc

 

XTC - All You Pretty Girls

Ray Bonichi: Hi, this is Ray Bonichi and I'm talking to Andy Partridge of XTC about this beautiful album called The Big Express on Geffen Records. Has it been a year since the last one, Mummer?

Andy Partridge: Uhh, about 18 months, so - whoo, took a lot of writing, lot of rehearsing.

RB: Why The Big Express?

AP: Uh - actually, this album had so many titles along the way - it's been everything. It started out as Hard Blue Rayhead, for no other reason other than I liked the words, then it was The Son of Hard Blue Rayhead, 'cause it changed a little and mutated, and it mutated so much that it became The Bastard Son of Hard Blue Rayhead, and then it was Coalface for a couple of weeks, which we thought was a nice expression, and then The Big Express was chosen partly because of the railway connotation, and we live in a railway town, and it is our yearly big expression, it's our big express, we're expressing ourselves... (smarmy voice) Our thoughts, our hopes for the future... So it's the express with two connotations, a railway connotation and a connotation of expressing yourself.

RB: The very first track you've got there is called "Wake Up," a very appropriate track to listen to in the morning when you're half asleep.

AP: Yeah, Colin gets the opener again on this one. It's a Colin song, he's the photogenic one - damn him! (laughs) And this is his paean to people who don't seem to live their lives other than in a sleepy state and don't notice things going on around them. As we were recording this, Dave came to know this track as "Colin's Folly" because we were rapidly running out of tracks, and the amount of instruments that were going on and we were deciding "Shall we use this instrument or not?" Shall we use this 60-piece choir here or not? Shall we use these five pianos or these cellos and things? So we were piling this stuff on and the identity of the track was continuously changing, but the version that's now been fixed is like one of a million possibilities of what it could have been. The choir, actually, is all one person, it's a singer called Annie - Huckrack or Hushrack, I never knew how to pronounce her name, and the choir was the suggestion of David Lord, he was the producer that we worked with. I didn't envisage a choir on it, and I don't think Colin did, and the suggestion came up and we sort of looked at each other a little askew and said "OK, we'll give it a try," and I think it worked out lovely, because it has that kind of half-awake half-asleep feel, that celestial porridge floating through your head - beautiful girl voices. And I think it suits the track lovely, so we left it all on - which was just as well, because it took a hell of a lot of work getting her recorded about sixty times or whatever, bouncing around.

RB: "All You Pretty Girls," now, that's the current UK single, and now it's going to be the US single as well - it's a mixture of modern folk music, if you want to call it, with pop music, with the usual potpourri of ingredients that you put into XTC. I believe the credit goes to you on this one?

AP: Yes, I'm the - the strange squeaking noises, by the way, are nothing to do with any of my bodily orifices, a lovely leather chair I'm sat in here... Yes, "All You Pretty Girls" is - the few people who've heard the track so far, because it's not been officially released yet, but the few people who have heard the track so far have told me everything from, "It sounds like a whaling song or a sea chantey," and two people said it sounded like a Western theme song, you know, something like Bonanza or Cheyenne or one of those kind of television cowboy shows. Somebody else said it sounded Chinese, somebody said it sounded like some real cool jazz, so - (laughs) If you haven't heard this track, you're going to have to do a lot of imagining, 'cause I suppose it's got all those pieces in it. The song was written - I was playing around with an echo chamber and a guitar, and just tapping around with my foot and chopping away with the guitar and using the echo to supply the backbeat, you know - (imitates rhythm of "Pretty Girls") - and it had that nice rolling feel, and I kept thinking of the sea and this continual rolling - (imitates rhythm) - and the actual chords that were played were very simplistic, almost, as you say, kind of a folk song structure, and it sort of married at the back of my head, folk song/sea, and you get this kind of - it just grew into a chantey based on forever leaving, forever going away, whether you're touring in a pop group or rapping around the country, or whether you're traveling from someplace to another, continually leaving home - you know, you think, is this going to be the last time - am I ever going to see it again? And so it's got that "Am I ever going to see any of this again?" thread to it, but it does have this quasi whaling song or the Oriental percussion in it, which is probably why someone said it sounds Chinese, mixed with a sort of everybody's folk bass line, which is probably why it sounds like a cowboy theme song or something like that. And the chord structure in the verse is very jazzy, it's very kind of cool jazz chord structure. So it's a hell of an insect, this one!

RB: At this point I must ask you, because I'm very very confused now, where your real love of music lies - I mean, you love pop, folk, jazz, whatever -

AP: I like most things, and I must be truthful - if I like it, and it sets something off in the back of my head, I'm not particularly interested in its origins. If I like it, it doesn't matter where it comes from, whether it's something from classical music or something from blues or whatever, it's there for the taking - if it does that to me, I feel the right to take it, and use it, if you see what I mean. So I'm not proud about nicking styles from different sorts of things, if they set me alight and if I can use them, then that's fine. I think that's the same with most things, it goes for the world of clothes or painting or writing or whatever, if certain styles set you off, then you shouldn't be afraid to grab them 'round the neck and say "I'm going to have you, I'm going to use you! Come here, you've set me burning internally, now I'm going to use you and you're going to serve me!" You have to grab these styles and be unafraid and say, Yes, I'm going to use this. I mean, that's why it does sound like a Chinese sea chantey with cowboys riding through, in berets and dark glasses and goatee beards! It's a strange tropical mix of those things. But they're the particular elements that arose while the song was being put together. It's an enormous junkyard. I think the whole album is.

From: http://chalkhills.org/articles/Bonichi1984.html

Solstice - Wongle No9 - Grand Chapel Studios

What a wonderful surprise to discover this new album from Solstice, lighting up like a summer’s breeze even in the thick of winter. Before we dig in, let’s confirm which Solstice we’re talking about as there’s a few bands out there with that name. No, this is not the death metal Miami-based band, nor the English doom metal version of Solstice. However, this particular Solstice are indeed from England, Milton Keynes to be exact, starting out over 40 years ago during the second wave of prog-rock. Despite several extended pauses throughout their career, the band has continued to evolve and reinvent themselves over the decades, always with guitarist Andy Glass at the helm. Their latest renaissance started in 2020 with the release of the impressive “Sia”, now quickly followed by their 7th album “Light Up” with the same band lineup.
While Solstice’s origins stretch back to 1980, the new album reveals plenty of youthful energy bursting forth from the 6 tracks herein. The title track is a perfect opener for this sunny outing, buoyed by singer Jess Holland’s sprightly vocals which make each song shine. Holland is a delight throughout the recording, at times straying outside of familiar English lyrics to convey the energy of the material. On this track “Light Up” she establishes herself in the opening notes and never lets go while Pete Hemsley’s drum kit surrounds the listener with exciting grooves. Robin Phillips lays down a solid bass foundation which suggests a bit of funk as Steven McDaniel’s organ playing adds to the percolating rhythms. Solstice has always featured the violin as a key ingredient, originally offered by Marc Elton and now ably performed by Jenny Newman who elevates each piece – including this opening song – with her playing.
“Wongle No. 9” follows up with a truly funky groove that makes it impossible to sit still. Phillips’ bass playing is infectious, and Holland’s playful vocals woo the listener in with each twist and turn. Honestly, this song is completely addictive and may end up being one of my favorites of the year (though we’re barely out of January), it Wongles you up and won’t let go. Glass dominates the latter part of the song with an incendiary guitar solo, reminding the listener that this is his band even amidst such a wealth of talent. From: https://www.sonicperspectives.com/album-reviews/solstice-light-up-2/

Corridor - Jump Cut

You get older, you have a family, and you start to slow down—that’s how things are supposed to go, right? Not for Montreal band Corridor, who have returned on their fourth album, Mimi, with a sound and style that’s more widescreen and expansive than anything that’s preceded it. The follow-up to 2019’s Junior is a huge step forward for the band, as the members themselves have undergone the type of personal changes that accompany the passage of time; even as these eight songs reflect a newfound and contemplative maturity, however, Corridor are branching out more than ever with richly detailed music, resulting in a record that feels like a fresh break for a band that’s already established themselves as forward-thinkers.
Mimi immediately recalls the best of the best when it comes to indie rock—Deerhunter’s silvery atmospherics immediately come to mind, as well as the spiky effervescence of classic post-punk—but despite these easy comparisons, Corridor remain impossible to pin down from song to song, which makes Mimi all the more thrilling as a listen. The road to this point, as roads to greatness often are, was not without challenge; if the elastic guitar rock of Junior came together quickly—or, as guitarist and vocalist Jonathan Robert describes the process, “in a rush”—then the steady-as-they-go creative pace of Mimi marked a desire to break from the “exhausting” work ethic that previously birthed Junior.
“The goal was to work differently, which is the goal we have every time we work on a new album—to build something in a new way,” Robert explains. “This time, we took our time.” And so in the summer of 2020, Corridor’s members—Robert, vocalist/bassist Dominic Berthiaume, drummer Julien Bakvis, and multi-instrumentalist Samuel Gougoux—holed away in a cottage to engage in the sort of creative experimentation that would lead to Mimi’s ultimate creation. “We went there to write, and a lot of ideas came from that retreat,” Berthiaume explains. “We didn’t end up with songs as much as we did ideas, so the result is a collage of the ideas.”
After that productive session together, Corridor continued to tinker with the songs’ raw parts digitally and remotely over the next few years, with co-producer Joojoo Ashworth (Dummy, Automatic) lending their own specific talents in the theoretical booth. The process was a byproduct of not having access to their previous rehearsal space as the COVID-19 pandemic faded from public view, but also a result of the four-piece leaning harder into incorporating electronic textures than on previous records.
“For a long time, we identified as a guitar-oriented band, and the goal of making this whole record was trying to get away from that,” Berthiaume states while admitting that the band encountered their own challenges as a result: “We had to figure out how to make new songs without having the chance to play together. It was complicated sometimes.” Berthiaume also describes Mimi—which, fun fact, is also named after Jonathan’s cat—as a record about “getting older” and “figuring out new parts of life”—but despite any claims of transitional growing pains from the band, Mimi is a record bursting with new energy and life, a vibrance that’s owed in no small part to Gougoux joining the band full-time after pitching in on live performances in the past.
“I come more from a background of electronic music, so it was nice to involve that with the band more,” he explains, and Mimi contains a distinct rhythmic pulse reminiscent of classic era-post-punk’s own melding of dance and rock textures. Over bright, chiming guitars and ascending synths, Robert addresses his looming mortality on “Mourir Demain”: “I wrote it when my girlfriend and I were shopping for life insurance,” he laughs. With our little daughter growing up, we also considered making our will. I said to myself, ‘Oh shit, from now on I’m slowly starting to plan my death.”
“Jump Cut” is pure psychedelic bliss, with hypnotic ziggurats of guitar lines aligning themselves in the distance as Robert and Berthiaume’s vocals excitingly duck and weave throughout the lovely chaos created; meanwhile, the nocturnal air of “Caméra” provides perfect cover for ruminations on self-promotion and exposure in the digital age, while the hypnotic haze of “Mon Argent” tackles the realities of making a living while making music. “Nothing is more abstract, insecure, and random than a musician’s income,” Jonathan muses while discussing the song’s thematic bent. “The responsibilities piling up in my adult life have, unfortunately, prevented me from continuing to avoid the subject. We end up giving a lot of importance to something we don’t understand.”
Don’t mistake this as music about dead ends, though, as Mimi embraces and champions unfettered creativity while paving a way for Corridor’s own bright future.  “We just focused on making a record that sounded the way we wanted,” Gougoux exclaims while discussing the band’s aims. “There were no limitations when it came to what was possible.”  From: https://www.subpop.com/artists/corridor

Tracy Bonham - Mother Mother - Live 1996

In "Mother Mother," Tracy Bonham has flown the nest but her mom keeps checking in to see how she's doing, asking if she's staying out of trouble. Tracy tells her what she wants to hear: all is well. But it's really not. In the chorus, we hear what she really wants to say:

I'm hungry, I'm dirty
I'm losing my mind, EVERYTHING'S FINE!

In a Songfacts interview with Bonham, she explained the meaning behind the song: "I have a hard time communicating in real life and I'm a people pleaser. I want to make sure everybody's OK, especially my mother. I didn't want her to worry about me, but I was a typical teenager, and into my 20s I was getting into a lot of trouble and making really stupid decisions in my life and suffering. I would call home and didn't want her to know about it."
Tracy Bonham had lots of violin training and considered making that her career when she decided singing and songwriting suited her better. She integrated violin into many of her songs, including "Mother Mother," which added a unique texture.
The violin helped the song stand out, but it also meant she had to play the instrument and sing at the same time when she performed it. This wasn't easy, but she eventually devised a method and became a rare violin-playing pop star.
This song is often misunderstood as Bonham being angry with or tormented by her mother, but that's not the case. She loves her mom and appreciated her concern, but also didn't want her to worry, which is why she kept her anguish bottled up.
The screaming section is essential to the song but murder on Bonham's voice. "I'd been singing all my life, but I hadn't been screaming all my life," she told Songfacts. "So, when I was on tour it really took a toll - I had to cancel a bunch of dates. I even had to get one of those like laryngoscopies and they were telling me that I had possible nodes. I had to go on vocal rest for 10 days, cancel a bunch of dates, and relearn how to scream."
Bonham wasn't the first singing violinist. When she was living in Boston, she saw a band called the Dambuilders, whose frontwoman, Joan Wasser, would deftly play the instrument while singing. "it was so badass," Bonham told Songfacts. "She plugged her violin into a big, huge, Marshall stack, and I was like, That's what I want to do." The Dambuilders broke up in the late '90s but Wasser emerged as a solo artist under the name Joan As Police Woman.
Two videos were made for "Mother Mother." The first was directed by Jake Scott ("In the Meantime" by Spacehog, "Comedown" by Bush) and is one continuous shot. Bonham's real mother stars in it along with her stepfather. As her mother vacuums the floor in her living room, Tracy is on the TV singing the song, but her mom doesn't even notice. The video ends with her changing the channel.
The alternate video was directed by Pamela Birkhead and shows Bonham in an attic trying on different outfits. This one was made for the UK market because Bonham's label, Island Records, thought it would go over better there than the original, which did very well on MTV.
When YouTube emerged, the alternate "attic" version was posted but the original was nowhere to be found - even Bonham couldn't get a copy of it. It finally showed up in 2018, but by then the attic video had millions of views and was entrenched as the main video for the song. This tweaked Bonham, who considers that video a throwaway and is really proud of the original, which she helped conceive. In the original music video (with Bonham inside the TV), Tracy's band plays in the dining room, but her mother and stepfather are oblivious to them. She didn't have a guitarist at the time, so she dressed up as a guy and played the role.
This is one of the first songs Bonham wrote. She studied at the University of Southern California before transferring to Berklee College of Music in Boston. She left before getting her degree, but had refined her skills as a singer and songwriter. "Mother Mother" was one of the songs she put on a demo tape and sent to labels, a tactic that rarely works, but did in this case, getting the attention of Island Records, which signed her and released the song as the first single from her debut album, The Burdens Of Being Upright.
Bonham toured with Everclear and Spacehog, but her next single, "The One," didn't get much attention. She played Lilith Fair in 1997 and 1998, but then the musical landscape started pushing against her, with nu-metal and danceable pop taking hold. At the same time, Island was merging with Def Jam, causing her to lose her ballast at the label and delay her second album, which didn't appear until 2000. By then, Lilith Fair was kaput and the Limp Bizkits and Christina Aguileras of the world were gobbling up most of the airplay. The album stiffed, and she was dropped by Island.
Bonham got a gig touring with Blue Man Group in 2003, and the following year sang on Aerosmith's album Honkin' on Bobo. She's released a steady stream of new material, including an instructional music album for kids called Young Maestros Vol. 1 in 2021.
In the mid-'90s, singer-songwriters were expected to pay their dues, spending years on the road and toiling at independent labels before landing a major-label deal. Bonham signed with Island before paying any of these dues, so they engaged in some monkeyshines to make it look like she had the struggling artist backstory. Island commissioned the indie label CherryDisc to release an EP by Bonham called The Liverpool Sessions in 1995; the title is a joke, implying that she made it in the musically fertile grounds of Liverpool, England, which would have been very cool indeed. The ploy worked, giving journalists a solid talking point for Bonham when her album was issued in 1996.
"Mother Mother" wasn't released as a single (a tactic used to boost album sales), which made it ineligible for the Hot 100, but the song was huge in the summer of 1996, going to #1 on the Modern Rock chart in June and staying at the top for three weeks. Remarkably, it was 17 years before another solo female artist topped the chart. Lorde, who wasn't even born when "Mother Mother" was at #1, did it with "Royals" in 2013.
The song earned Bonham a Grammy nomination for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance, which she lost to "If It Makes You Happy" by Sheryl Crow. The Burdens Of Being Upright was also nominated for Best Alternative Music Performance and lost to Odelay by Beck.
Bonham released a new version on her 2017 album Modern Burdens, where she reworked the songs from her debut. By this time, she was a mother herself, having adopted a boy from Ethiopia.

From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/tracy-bonham/mother-mother

Blvck Ceiling - Wvfflife

The American electronic musician Blvck Ceiling is from Boston. His work combines several electronic music subgenres, such as industrial, witch house, and darkwave. Blvck Ceiling, who is well-known for his strong and atmospheric soundscapes, gives listeners an eerie and deep experience.
Blvck Ceiling is known for being an original and cutting-edge musician with a gift for fusing various electronic music elements. Visceral beats, distorted voices, and complex sound design are characteristics of his work. Each of his albums and EPs, which have been released, demonstrate his ability to fashion a unique musical environment.
The sound of Blvck Ceiling is not for the timid. It has a remarkable emotional depth in electronic music and is brooding, deep, and dark. He is one of the most intriguing and compelling electronic musicians currently active because of his unmatched ability to evoke a feeling or an environment through sound.  From: https://www.viberate.com/artist/blvck-ceiling/

Shocking Blue - Love Buzz

"Love Buzz" is a song by Dutch rock band Shocking Blue. It was written by Robbie van Leeuwen and first released on the group's 1969 album At Home. The original song is notable for its psychedelic rock style and its extensive use of the sitar, played by Leeuwen. The intro sample on the original single comes from the LP Monster Shindig featuring Snooper and Blabber (Hanna-Barbera productions 1965).
American rock band Nirvana recorded a cover version of the song for it's 1988 debut single, released on Sub Pop in the USA. It was described by Sub Pop as being "heavy pop sludge." The version recorded by Sub Pop was chosen for the feature soundtrack on 1990 skateboarding video Board Crazy.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Buzz  

Lovebyrd - Shot from the Sun

I don’t know where Lovebyrd has been hiding, but their debut album, the self-titled Lovebyrd, is being released by Hairy Records on my birthday and it already sounds like they’ve been around for years. They have a simplistic, mellow, laidback feeling to their music; shoegaze tripping through wave after wave of reverberation and jangling shimmering percussion on the entirety of their 10 track debut album.  “Spinning Around”, which was previously available on Lovebyrd’s EP cassette tape from the beginning of this year (2015), opens up Lovebyrd like the glistening psychedelic gates of some kind of paisley paradise.  There’s a melodic, warm, enveloping melody that oozes out of your speakers and gunks up the needle, dripping from your pores and beading up on your skin like sweat before long.  The angelic voice of Steffi Krauth is what really makes these tunes, minimalist sounds, and slowly shifting arrangements that comprise Lovebyrd standout.  The dream-pop label drifts slowly up like smoke rising from a crumpled joint pursed in your lips, smoke exhaling from the undulating guitars that clamor and rattle in the distance of “We’re Shining Through”.
Although it was available on the cassette EP, I don’t know if they’re the same recordings – and either way it sounds just as at home on this angelic slab of wax as it did on the tape that preceded it.  The abrupt end of ”We’re Shining Through” leads the listener directly into the echoing chambers of the third track, “Floating Up”.  “Floating Up” is the first song on the LP not to be featured on the original EP tape, and you can tell straight away.  The writing and composition are just a little less muddy, more concentrated, and absolutely gripping from the moment that it starts.  The hollow cavernous walls of sound instantly recall the guitar work of The Byrds and Jefferson Airplane while also showing off Lovebyrd’s unabashed Tame Impala influences. There’s a very almost, dare I say it, Oasis vibe to “Floating Up” as well. It has that hazy Beatles-esque swagger that so very few people are able to conjure up without becoming either completely consumed or losing their sound in.  Slithering through the finale of the song it’s hard to imagine why I haven’t heard anyone mention The Raveonettes in the same sentence as Lovebyrd before.  The thundering fuzzy tentacles of sound that erupt from “Shot From The Sun” only help to reinforce this idea, the simplistic repetitive guitar line crunching and popping above the dreamy vocals and vibrating drum track. It’s interesting how well the combination of material originally written for the cassette EP and the stuff done specifically for this 12” work together.  From: https://www.psychedelicbabymag.com/2015/11/lovebyrd-lovebyrd-2015-review.html 

The John Renbourn Group - Live Ohio University 1981

In 1967 the British guitarist and songwriter John Renbourn together with his friend Bert Jansch founded the British folk rock band Pentangle. Like Jansch, Renbourn was considered an outstanding representative of the British 'Folk Baroque' and fingerpicking playing technique. Since 1968 Renbourn successfully recorded several albums with Pentangle for the well-known UK folk/folk rock label Transatlantic. After the release of the album Solomon's Seal in 1973, the band members went separate ways. From then on Bert Jansch and John Renbourn realized solo plans. Albums like The Lady And The Unicorn and The Hermit by John Renbourn are still considered milestones today of British folk rock. In 1977 John founded the John Renbourn Group, recorded two studio albums and a live album with them and was busy touring again around the world. A 1978 live recording by Radio Bremen from the Roemer in Bremen, Germany also bears witness to these live activities. Again, with John on stage - the former Pentangle singer Jaqui McShee, multi-instrumentalist Tony Roberts, the well-known Indian tabla player Keshav Sathe (among others, John Mayer, Julie Felix) and the American cellist Sandy Spencer (member of the French based Prog Folk rock band Mormos, later also with the well-known Trevor Watts String Ensemble) completed the line-up of the John Renbourn Group in Bremen that night. Jacqui McShee, who also wrote the liner notes for the booklet to the album, still remembers the Bremen concert: 'To my knowledge this is the only recording of Sandy with the group, she left soon afterwards to return to America.' And goes on: 'I have been chatting to Tony recently (we laughed a lot) and of course we both miss John and Kesh, but we have these wonderful recordings and the albums that we made and we have a sense of pride in the music we played together.'  From: https://www.forcedexposure.com/Artists/RENBOURN.GROUP.JOHN.html

Minnesoda - Let's Get It On

Minnesoda did an obscure but fairly interesting self-titled jazz-rock album for Capitol in 1972, produced by Bob Johnston (famous for his work with Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen, Simon & Garfunkel, and numerous others). The record was in limited respects like the first recordings of Chicago and, more distantly, Blood, Sweat & Tears in its jazz-rock-with-vocals format. Minnesoda, however, had a substantially greater funk flavor, and a speedier, more aggressive edge to their material, though they didn't have the pop-friendly melodies of the more renowned bands. Half of Minnesoda's eight members were on horns, with tenor saxophonist Dave Gustafson playing flute as well, adding to the rock band-as-big-band feel.
A couple of the musicians in Minnesoda had performed with name acts prior to the album. Trombonist Don Lehnhoff had played with Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels. Much more unexpectedly, trumpeter Eddie Shaw had in the 1960s been the bassist for the Monks, the 1960s band of ex-GIs who recorded an album of ludicrously minimalist, furious pre-punk in Germany in the mid-1960s -- a record that was unknown by 1972, but which by the 1990s had an avid cult following.
Minnesoda were at first called Copperhead, but without the band's knowledge, they were renamed Minnesoda (in a nod to their Minnesota origins) for the Capitol album. (They were no relation to another band called Copperhead, including ex-Quicksilver Messenger Service guitarist John Cipollina, that also recorded in the early 1970s.)
Minnesoda's little-known self-titled LP is pretty hot white funk jazz-rock, sounding a little like Chicago or Blood, Sweat & Tears might have had those stars decided to go less commercial rather than more commercial after their first albums. Actually, Minnesoda are rawer and more frenetic than Chicago or BS&T were even at their earthiest, though their material lacks the pop hooks of even the boldest Chicago/BS&T outings. A quartet of brassmen on tenor sax, flute, trumpet, and trombone augment the usual rock lineup in this octet, fronted by John Elms' credibly high-octane, lusty upper-register blue-eyed soul vocals.
There's sometimes an almost big band-like dexterity to the horns, yet the more jagged, at times hyper, thrust of the guitars and drums give it a solid funk base. The melodies are often more ominous than they usually are in this kind of fare, frequently jetting off into unexpected, improvised-sounding horn interjections and key changes. Only the adventure film theme-like "Flexible Flyer," and the uncharacteristically reflective, jazzy ballad "Party" slow the tempo down much.
Johnston recorded a second album with the band that went a little further into jazz, and further away from any rough similarities with Chicago, although they were still present. But Johnston was unable to get the album released, and Minnesoda remained their only issued LP.  From: http://therockasteria.blogspot.com/2021/11/minnesoda-minnesoda-1972-us-stunning.html

Lucius - Wildewoman

What Haim is to early 90s pop/R&B nostalgia, Lucius is to mid-90s alternative pop and acoustic coffeehouse nostalgia. Don’t let the provocative cover fool you, because the two ladies who front this band (and the three men who back them up) don’t have to employ shock tactics to get your attention when they’ve got such irresistible rock grooves and delicious vocal melodies in their arsenal. This is an astounding debut from a band that sounds like they’ve got a long life ahead of them.
Just like a good title track should, Wildewoman sums up nearly everything that there is to love about the album named after it… and for that matter, the artist performing it. Its shimmying rhythm, bouncing bass line, steady acoustic strumming, and its little jolts of electric lightning would be entertaining enough if the track was purely instrumental, but throw in an incredibly well-written lyric brimming with details about how this unpredictable, untameable woman looks, thinks, and acts, and top it off with a triumphant chorus hook sung by both women in unison (one that’s bound to get crowds singing along in no time at their live shows), and this thing is just plain unstoppable.  It’s hard to resist quoting damn near every line from this one, but I think the second verse sums it up the best: “Her smile is sneaky like a fiery fox/It’s that look that tells you she’s up to no good at all/And she’ll say whatever’s on her mind/They’re unspeakable things, and she’ll speak them in vain/And you can’t help but wish you had bolder things to say.” Now that’s the kind of woman I’d like to sit down over a cup of coffee and have a long, perhaps sometimes awkward, but thoroughly insightful conversation with.  From: https://murlough23.wordpress.com/2014/11/13/lucius-wildewoman-we-all-scream-upon-realizing-thats-not-ice-cream/

Lovecraft - Brother I Wonder

Drummer Michael Tegza is the only original member from two years prior when the band was H.P. Lovecraft on Phillips Records. For this 1970 Reprise release, they are dubbed Lovecraft and have abandoned the psychedelic Jefferson Airplane sound for a progressive Crosby, Stills & Nash-meets-Uriah Heep flavor. In 1975, drummer Tegza re-formed the band again and separated the two words, their Love Craft album, We Love You Whoever You Are, took things into an almost Santana-goes-soul direction.
Valley Of The Moon is a surprisingly good album mixing leftover psychedelia with good harmonies. There are no throwaways here, just 11 fabulous songs, one better than the next. The arrangements are uniformly excellent, bolstered by superb playing from Tezga, guitarist Jim Donlinger, bassist Michael Been, and multi-instrumentalist Marty Grebb, formerly of the Buckinghams & Aorta, and soon after, the Fabulous Rhinestones. Every song was outstanding - tight musicianship, great vocals and just plain good songs.  From: http://therockasteria.blogspot.com/2020/10/lovecraft-valley-of-moon-1970-us.html

Her Majesty's Buzz - Wondering Why

The debut record from Her Majesty's Buzz, "One of Our Astronauts is Missing part one: the Cough Syrup Chronicles" is now available from the Label Music Group.
Recorded by Jake Robinson in Indianapolis and mixed by John Hampton in Memphis, the 10 song record showcases the songwriting of Greg Roberson and Don Main. The record was produced by Roberson and Main with Jake Robinson. Robinson said, "The collective insanity of each member makes this thing a whole. You get sucked into Greg and Don's energy, they are always on ready. I've never worked with guys with that kind of work ethic. They also hold the distinction of being the most insane people I've ever worked with. I saw things I will never share with anyone."  From: https://www.amazon.com/One-Our-Astronauts-Missing-Part-Cou/dp/B000CAGQYM

Shaun Davey & Rita Connolly - Granuaile - Ripples In The Rockpools

Granuaile is a song suite composed by Shaun Davey in 1985-87 for singer Rita Connolly and a frontline of uilleann pipes, harp, guitar, piano and percussion, with  single woodwind, horn, trumpet, timpani and strings. The songs portray episodes in the life of one of Ireland's most celebrated and courageous women, Grace O'Malley (Gráinne Ó Mháille), chieftain of a powerful, seafaring clan with extensive territories in Mayo and Galway. Her life is associated with resistance to Elizabethan invasion and plantation of Ireland in the 16th century. Towards the end of her life she famously sailed to meet, and confront, Queen Elizabeth the 1st at Greenwich Palace. 'Granuaile' made its public debut at the Lorient Interceltic Festival in 1986, it was performed and filmed at the Greenwich Festival, London, in 1987, and the next year toured with the RTECO to London's Albert Hall. A regular companion piece to The Brendan Voyage in Shaun Davey concerts, Granuaile continued Davey's unique collaborations between musicians of aural and classical traditions. The songs tell of Grace's loves and battles; it is intimate, expansive and sometimes explosive. A powerful historic event is explored in the song which describes the wrecking of the Spanish Armada along the west coast of Ireland in 1588, a desolation Grace O'Malley may herself have witnessed. It also includes what became possibly Davey's best-known song, with its distinctive shifting time signatures - 'Ripples in the Rockpools' and also one of his most beautiful - the heartrending 'The death of Richard-in Iron'.  From: https://shaundaveymusic.com/granuaile

Andy Pratt - Avenging Annie

There has to be a better category for the enigmatic Andy Pratt other than “one hit wonder.” The song he is best known for appeared like a comet on the pop music horizon in 1973, bristling with the buzz and excellence of a new discovery. “Avenging Annie” is a power ballad on the level of the kinds of things Elton John was producing at that time, alongside Yes and the Bob Welch era Fleetwood Mac. Annie’s time in the spotlight was brief if you only listen for chart positions splash. Yet there is something about this song that packs a wallop, not only of memory but of deliverance as we drop the needle a half century away from this magnificent obscurity.
The saga of Andy Pratt began with a self titled album in 1973, and progressed through one called Resolution in 1976 that Rolling Stone said “has forever changed the face of rock.” After that, he pretty much disappeared, but it wasn’t for lack of being unique.  He was educated at Harvard, attended Boston’s Life Institute, converted to Christianity, married a Dutch woman in 1988, and moved to Belgium in 1996, where he lives today. He says his best wish is for his music to offer inner healing. Just another famous Annie. American sharpshooter Annie Oakley (born Phoebe Ann Mosey; August 13, 1860 – November 3, 1926) had nothing to do with Avenging Annie. But her nickname was “Little Sureshot.”
“I wrote ‘Avenging Annie’ in the summer of 1972 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at my mother's 1926 Steinway B Baby Grand piano. I had broken up with my first wife... I was stoned on marijuana. On my turntable was the The Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo, in particular the Woody Guthrie song "Pretty Boy Floyd." You can clearly hear that the first part of "Avenging Annie" is an altered version of "Pretty Boy Floyd." I shut off the record and began playing "Pretty Boy Floyd." I was going into a creative trance, and I altered Woody's words, then out came a Bach-like piano riff which I liked, so I began singing to it in falsetto, taking the part of a woman I called Avenging Annie. A whole story came out, which was a fantasy version of my relationship with my ex-wife, combined with the outlaw theme of the American West. I worked on the song for a few weeks and played it for other people who liked it. I made a demo with Rick Shlosser and Bill Riseman, which became a hit at Brown University Radio WBRU. This new fame led to me being whisked away by John Nagy of Earth Opera, Clive Davis of Columbia Records, and Nat Weiss of The Beatles, being wined and dined in New York City and given star treatment at the famous Black Rock on 6th Avenue.
Once recorded and released on Columbia, ‘Avenging Annie’ took on a life of its own, which has never really stopped. My version was given extensive radio play, became a number one single in New Orleans and Providence, and reached about number eighty-five in the national charts. I did a successful tour of the East Coast, where Jimmy Buffet opened for me at Max's Kansas City, an Andy Pratt show was broadcast from Boston's Jazz Workshop over WBCN radio, and many other wonderful things happened. The Andy Pratt record, with ‘Avenging Annie’ is still available on various web sites, including www.amazon.com.
Roger Daltrey covered "Avenging Annie" in 1974, and his version appeared first on his One of the Boys album as well as other collections he released. My opinion of his version is that he was afraid to play the role of a woman in the song, and his band did not play the syncopations that we played in our version. I prefer my version. Still, I am grateful for his recognition of the song, and the added exposure that he helped me to gain.” —Andy Pratt, Sept 6, 2006.  From: https://professormikey.substack.com/p/old-school-single-avenging-annie

Far From Alaska - Deadmen

Far From Alaska formed in Natal (a city in the Brazilian Nordeste region) in 2012. Currently based in São Paulo, the band played at major festivals such as Planeta Terra and Lollapalooza in Brazil, SXSW in the United States and the French version of Download Festival. They recorded an EP (Stereochrome) and an album (ModeHuman, which has a great cover). Their upcoming second album (Unlikely, whose songs will feature titles with animal names), is due out in 2017, backed by a crowdfunding campaign.
Far From Alaska is: singer Emmily Barreto, guitar player Rafael Brasil, bass player Eduardo Filgueira, drummer Lauro Kirsch and keyboardist Cris Botarelli, who also sings and plays slide guitar. The band’s sound can be defined as stoner rock and their heavy, atmospheric and riff-based songs are sung in English.
I’d gotten a good seat in the theater, right in front of the stage, a great place to enjoy the show and take good pictures. My good fortune, however, was short-lived. Before starting to sing, Emmily Barreto called the audience to the front of the stage — if I wanted to shoot, I‘d must be in the middle of the crowd. That was ok because I was able to walk free throughout the theater and shoot the band from various angles. Their sound doesn’t call for a sitting audience, by the way.
Far From Alaska is a very tight band. The heavier parts are felt like a wall of sound by the audience thanks to the precision with which each member plays their parts. Rafael and Eduardo put good use to a lot of effects on guitar and bass. The interaction between them and Lauro Kirsch is great, which ensures that the dynamics variations have the intended impact.
They opened with “Thievery”, which was followed by more songs from ModeHuman, plus two songs from the upcoming second album. Emmily’s voice was what caught my attention when I first heard the band live, a few months ago. She travels easily between the melodious and soft singing and the aggressive moments in which the song demands more vocal power.
This concert showed me how keyboardist Cris Botarelli is also a good guitarist. Playing a lap steel next to his little synth, Cris showed good technique and a great taste for melodies on this instrument that isn’t commonly heard in heavy bands. “Politiks” is a good example of this cool mix.
I sometimes face with a certain distrust Brazilian bands that sing in English, especially if their members are very young - the risk of finding only half-baked cliches is always a possibility. Far From Alaska isn’t one of those cases, though. The quality of the compositions and arrangements shows that they still have a lot to offer.  From: https://medium.com/brazilian-stages/far-from-alaska-17b0ea93e36a

The Vespers - Live at The Station Inn

 The Vespers - Live at The Station Inn - Part 1

 The Vespers - Live at The Station Inn - Part 2

 

Join the fun December 12th at 1PM CDT when Nashville’s The Vespers visit the DittyTV Studios to perform. A band comprised of two pairs of siblings [the Cryar sisters and Jones brothers], The Vespers combine Americana roots with pop melody and rock & roll muscle that’ll have you humming in your favorite key right on in to 2015. Check out their single ‘Sisters and Brothers’ (via Paste Magazine).
Natives of Nashville, Tennessee, the Vespers began making their own kind of rootsy, southern stomp in 2009, throwing themselves into a music scene that was rich in history and high in competition. Playing as many as 115 shows a year and selling more than 10,000 copies of their second album, The Fourth Wall (2012), The Vespers found themselves at a crossroads. They could make another album of bluegrass-influenced folk music — a genre that had grown quite popular since the group’s early days — or they could throw some newer influences into the mix.
“We wanted to make a new sound, something people hadn’t heard from us before, and Sisters and Brothers came out of that desire,” says Phoebe Cryar. Over five years, the Cryars’ and Jones’ had laughed, fought, cried, smiled, learned about life and played their hearts out. Without the influence of a label or an A&R team, they’d learned to rely on each other, trusting few outside influences apart from the support of their own fans. Those fans had helped The Vespers through the hardest of times, becoming not only the band’s supporters, but their family, as well. The time had come for the Vespers to make an album birthed from the ups and downs of traveling in a band, an album that focused on the great things that can happen with the support of your literal and figurative sisters and brothers. The Vespers didn’t abandon their old sound for Sisters and Brothers; they just expanded it.
“Phoebe and I were fresh out of high school when we started the band,” Callie Cryar adds, thinking back to the days when they were teenagers working the 5 a.m. shift at a Nashville donut shop. “You’re never more vulnerable or unconfident than you are at that time. But in the years leading up this album, we all became more comfortable with each other, with our emotions, with ourselves. We became adults, and we started delving into some of the emotions that we wanted to make people feel. People want to feel when they listen. They want to feel something intense, and that’s the kind of album we hoped to record.”
Looking for the right collaborator to help them evolve, The Vespers turned to Paul Moak, a Grammy-nominated producer and accomplished songwriter who operates his own recording studio, Smoakstack, in south Nashville. Moak pushed the musicians to create music that was raw and real instead of polished and perfect. The goal wasn’t to sound flawless. It was to find imperfect performances that captured a genuine moment, performances that raised the hair on everybody’s arms. If a take didn’t evoke that sort of response, it was scrapped.
“We used to record our vocals over and over, separately, until every single note was perfectly correct,” Callie remembers. “But Sisters and Brothers was completely different. We wanted it to be raw. We realized there was more attitude and more emotion whenever Phoebe and I sang together, even with that slight element of imperfection.”
“Every time you make a record, you’re summing up where you’ve been for the last few years,” says Bruno Jones. “Our band went through some challenges in those years, but we also went through a lot of growth, both onstage and off. We came out of it and realized we still cared about each other.” Bruno adds, “Sisters and Brothers is a rallying cry for the band.” Indeed, Sisters and Brothers does feel like a battle cry. It’s an album about beating the system, banding together, taking care of those around you and focusing on what really counts.  From: https://dittytv.com/vespers-dittytv/

 

 

Uni and The Urchins - Clean

The course of history often seems wayward and chaotic. It’s the gum on the heel of your shoe that a homeless saint picks off and plops in his mouth to chew again. Uni and The Urchins grow underneath your fingernails when you sit next to your parents in Church, digging them into the soft flesh above your knee.
Uni and The Urchins dribble from the mouths of sidewalk sleeping drunks and slither into the throat of a politician to make him cough and loosen his tie. Uni and The Urchins were there during your first masturbation and first confession. Uni and The Urchins wake you up in the middle of the night. Parents of America, a new phenomenon has taken over our youth. Uni and The Urchins wage war on the apathy and digital narcissism of 1st world ignorance.  
It is a cult of one, a cult of infinity. Jack James is the voice, a slender boy from Texas with a penchant for glitter and Oscar Wilde, who came down from another planet to be the rock star of the future. David Strange is the sword, a grisled poet and carpenter who can build anything, writing sonnets and summoning demons on his guitar. Kemp is the brain, a crazed scientist who composes prog riffs and surrealist visuals, leading the three into the great abyss. But you are the hands. Go spread the message.  From: https://www.chimeramusic.com/artists/uni

Orchestra Of Spheres - 2,000,000 Years

Orchestra of Spheres is a wide-ranging collective from Wellington, New Zealand whose distinctive music crosses from disco and electro to kuduro and mbalax, from neo-psych to no wave, from kosmiche to prog, on instruments both formal and homemade.
The group’s members adopt outlandish pseudonyms and don equally far-out costumes, and their performances and recordings consist of ecstatic sonic rituals and peaceful, playful dance mantras. Making their full-length debut with ‘Nonagonic Now’ in 2010, the Orchestra continued to shift styles and group members on subsequent releases, including 2016’s ‘Brothers and Sisters of the Black Lagoon’ and 2018’s ‘Mirror’.
The group formed in the early, heady days of Wellington’s artist collective, the Frederick Street Sound and Light Exploration Society, in 2009. Early members included Baba Rossa (biscuit-tin guitar and sexomouse marimba), Zye Sosceles (electric carillon), Jemi Hemi Mandala (drums), and Mos Iocoss (keyboards and gamelan).
Their self-released debut EP, ‘Space Art Music’, appeared that same year, followed by the full-length ‘Nonagonic Now’ in 2010. ‘The Bad Spheres’ single appeared in March of 2011, and the‘Numbers‘ EP in June. Meanwhile, the U.K.’s Fire Records signed the group and re-released ‘Nonagonic Now’ later in the year. An intense and prolonged period of touring and recording ensued, during which time EtonalE joined on bass carillon and percussion. Fire released ‘Vibration Animal Sex Brain Music’ in December of 2013.
The group returned with its third album, ‘Brothers and Sisters of the Black Lagoon’, in 2016. The album featured drumming by Tooth, and Woild Boin also mixed and contributed to the recording. Along with percussionist Farmerboy and several guest musicians, Orchestra of Spheres recorded their fourth full-length, ‘Mirror’, and Fire released it in 2018.  From: https://www.firerecords.com/artists/orchestra-of-spheres/

Sundowners - Hummingbird

How do you all know each other, and when did you get started as a band?

Me and Niamh [Rowe, also vocals and rhythm guitar] have been mates for years – she showed me how to play guitar and I encouraged her to sing, so we started playing together doing covers at small gigs and that’s mostly where we found our style and learnt hamonies. Alfie [Skelly, lead guitar] saw us playing and he wanted a singer for his band at the time, so we went into practice and jammed “Run Away” by Del Shannon for about an hour. He never officially asked us to join but we just kept showing up. For a while we had another drummer and bass player who went on to play in other bands, and that’s when Tim an Jim joined. We’ve all been playing together now for just over a year.

How would you describe your music, if pushed?

Well i’d say there’s a definite influence of ’60s/’70s rock and roll but individually we’re all into lots of other eras and genres that come through. I mean we get the obvious ones like The Byrds but have also had a lot of people say some of the songs are like Blondie.

Who or what are your primary inspirations for music-making?

The Beatles as a band and solo artists, Tom Petty, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Fleetwood Mac, Bruce Springsteen and Oasis.

Where can we hear your music?

On our Facebook page, our SoundCloud and our MySpace. We also have some videos on YouTube. We’ve just recorded in Parr Street (Liverpool) our new single “Humming Bird”, to be released with a B-side, so listen out for that!

Which have been your most exciting gigs so far?

We played a great gig supporting Cat’s Eyes in the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London but a close second has to be York – we played some dive and went down a storm with a load of students. We always enjoy supporting The Moons.

Got any more big gigs or festival dates coming up?

There’s no festivals planned this year but there’s plenty of gigs always popping up, mostly in Liverpool, Manchester and London. You can find out dates on the events page on our Facebook.

Are there any other up-and-coming acts that you’d like to recommend or give a shout-out to?

The Moons, Neville Skelly, By The Sea, Ren Harvieu, Cold Shoulder and The Sand Band. Also love Paul Weller’s new record!

From: https://rocksucker.co.uk/2012/05/interview-sundowners.html