Puscifer - V Is For Versatile

 Puscifer - V Is For Versatile - Part 1

 

 Puscifer - V Is For Versatile - Part 2

 

During the pandemic, the Pusciforce was not diminished. Instead of sitting around afraid, eating lousy food and watching terrible television, the great Puscifer crew took this moment to find new outlets to express their creativity and share their incredible talent with the world. Lead singer-lyricist Maynard “MJ” Keenan (also well-known from Tool and A Perfect Circle) shows off his hysterical acting abilities in two masterfully recorded and edited concerts that streamed live over Halloween weekend, V is for Versatile and Parole Violator. He has surrounded himself with a group of extremely talented musicians who understand and mesh with his eccentricities, and each brings their own individual flair to the project.
V is for Versatile contains music from the “V” is for Vagina era (yes, I said it) and, ohhh, does it slay. Maynard, playing the wild character Agent Dick Merkin, kicks off this live performance by reminding us that celebrities are the aliens that live among us. The rendition of “Mama Sed” is so heavenly it will put you in a seated position. Maynard digs deep into his lower register from which his vocals reach new heights. Puscifer vocalist Carina Round straight-out sounds like an angel from above. During “Trekka” she plays a slightly out-of -tune guitar that seems to blend perfectly with the different “Art Of Noise”-like tribute sounds. The remaining Puscifer player, Mat Mitchell, is a synth God who also plays a clean Telecaster and key-tar, creating such undefinable music styles on his vintage equipment. The leaps between live songs and studio sessions, and the variety of characters Maynard plays keeps things interesting and entertaining from start to finish.  From: https://brutalplanetmag.com/puscifer-v-is-for-versatile-and-parole-violator-brutal-planet-review/

 

  

 

The Spencer Davis Group - Gimme Some Lovin'

They say the greatest songs almost write themselves. Roy Orbison claimed Oh, Pretty Woman took him half an hour. Tony Iommi came up with the riff to Paranoid while the rest of Black Sabbath were at lunch. Keith Richards supposedly dreamt (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction in a Florida hotel room. The Spencer Davis Group’s classic Gimme Some Lovin’, covered by everyone from The Blues Brothers to The Grateful Dead and Thunder, came together in less than an hour. 
“The classic ‘wrote it on the back of a fag packet’ story was often true,” recalls Muff Winwood, then the band’s bassist. “Sometimes there’s that little bit of magic that you can’t put your finger on, but it happens and it just works. Gimme Some Lovin’ came really fast.” 
“We’d been rehearsing at the Marquee,” Muff laughs, “and he came down at midday but we weren’t there. We were down the road in a café in Wardour Street, and Chris found us in there. He went berserk: ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing with your careers? You’ve got work to do and you’re lazing around here!’ So we said: ‘Just wait until we’re finished, then come back and listen to what we’ve done.’ We’d done Gimme Some Lovin’ in ten minutes and couldn’t believe how good it was. So we’d packed up and gone for lunch. Of course, when Chris came back and heard it his jaw just dropped. It just sounded like an instant hit.”  From: https://www.loudersound.com/features/the-story-behind-gimme-some-lovin-by-the-spencer-davis-group

Marlene Ribeiro – Toquei No Sol

The name Marlene Ribeiro may not mean anything to you, just like it didn’t to me until I took on this review, and started researching a little deeper, but if you do have an awareness of the band Gnod, then you will already be aware of Marlene’s work, even if you can’t place the name. As one of the long-term members of Gnod, Marlene took the decision a couple of years back to step away, and focus on her own musical journey, embracing sounds and feeling that I imagine weren’t a hundred percent compatible with the band.
Obviously, after a trying few years, the fruits of the labours have come together and formulated an album, truly full of wonder and beauty indeed. Born and raised in Portugal, Marlene came to the United Kingdom as a teen and has resided in several different places, before falling into Wales to call home. In that time allegiances were formed, bands created, and throughout the course of an impressive number of years, those skills have been homed into what we see before us today.
And it’s that culmination that I will be looking at, a wonderfully deep, poignant, and warm album, filled with moments of pure joy, heart-melting ambience, and charm, that will leave you feeling like your very soul has been embraced. Toquei No Sol, which translates from Portuguese as ‘I touched the sun’, couldn’t be more aptly titled, because that is literally how it will make you feel throughout the whole experience. It is a six-track masterwork of depth, restraint, and carefully considered moments, guaranteed to leave you absolutely humbled in its wake.  From: https://www.thesleepingshaman.com/reviews/m/marlene-ribeiro-toquei-no-sol/

 

The Fast Camels - Tales Of The Expected

If Glasgow's Fast Camels were a beverage, they'd be a cup of coffee laced with hallucinogens. Alternatively — at times, concurrently — ethereal and driving, their sound can hit you between the eyes and induce headbanging or take those same eyes, lift them towards the lights, and set the brain behind them whirling with swirling, psychedelic mélanges of vocals and instrumentation. In this well-produced debut, one can hear the compositional influence of early Pink Floyd, sweet Byrds-esque harmonies, elements of thematic vastness and darkness reminiscent of The Cure, and the crisp undertow of 60s surf-rock. Yet these are all like well-cited references; The Fast Camels have an original sound all of their own. The album's single, 'Like A Magic Optician' shows what the band can do in the studio. But 'The Hump', with its menacing vocals, tribal drums, incisory riffs and eye-of-the-storm chorus, is where they perhaps shine the most. Then again, the achievement of this cut is no mean feat considering the strength already proven elsewhere on the LP.  From: https://www.theskinny.co.uk/music/reviews/albums/the-fast-camels-the-magic-optician 

Maria McKee - I'm Gonna Soothe You

Maria McKee’s You Gotta Sin to Get Saved opens with "I'm Gonna Soothe You," a disarming seduction of a friend's man. She's not just after the "decent man" mentioned in that song. She's after you. And she'll get you, at least for a while.
If the listener's infatuation with ex-Lone Justice McKee holds up for 35 more minutes, You Gotta Sin to Get Saved is a winding, sun-dappled country road with alternative signposts. McKee's voice keeps your attention, even when it is more faltering than spellbinding. Look to the band, and you'll find a fine collection of session men and young bucks: drummer Jim Keltner, keyboardist Benmont Tench, bassist Marvin Etzioni, guitarists Gary Louris and Mark Olson from the Jayhawks, and even producer Don Was on bass for one track. Two guys from the Posies stop by for background vocals on "Only Once."
The band perfectly executes this Sixties-type blend of Joe Cocker soul, traditional country and Southern gospel, with Louris' distinctive, personal guitar work leaving the most legible fingerprints.  From: http://www.louisvillemusicnews.net/webmanager/index.php?WEB_CAT_ID=50&storyid=12787&headline=Maria_McKee_-_You_Gotta_Sin_To_Be__Saved&issueid=54 

 

 

Squeeze - Hourglass

Squeeze is a wildly popular band in the UK, but much like the English Pop bands Oasis and Blur, they had far less success in the United States. This was Squeeze's biggest American hit, and along with "853-5937," one of only 2 to crack the Top-40. Unlike Squeeze UK hits like "Cool For Cats" and "Up The Junction," there is nothing distinctly British about the lyrics, which may explain the song's US appeal.
The songwriters in Squeeze are their guitarists Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook. Says Difford: "We were touring quite a lot in those days. You know, it wasn't anything other than, Okay, I've got to write a bunch of songs, and I don't know seriously where they came from. But they just arrived.
This was the first time we wrote together in the same room, which was Glenn's idea. I'd always thought of writing as a bit like masturbation: something you do on your own, not in the same room as another bloke. However, I went to Glenn's house and within an hour we'd written 'Hourglass.' Lyrically it doesn't mean much but we had some fun writing it."
The song is known for the distinctive rapid delivery in the chorus ("Take it to the bridge, throw it overboard, see if it can swim..."). According to Tilbrook, he created some intentional chaos on this song: "On 'Hourglass,' I got a thumping drum machine. So I thought it would be fun to feed a lot of chords into the drum machine and play it without the knowledge of what they were. The freedom of the knowledge of what they may do is actually very liberating. I think writing is always about tricking yourself into doing something different, and that's just one way you can trick yourself."
An elaborate video was made for this song using various optical illusions and unexpected images. The video was directed by Adrian Edmondson, with contributions from Squeeze keyboard player Jools Holland. It was inspired by surreal art like the paintings of Salvador Dali. It got significant airplay on MTV and won a Video Music Award for Best Special Effects.  From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/squeeze/hourglass 

Luscious Jackson - Ladyfingers

The genesis of the band Luscious Jackson actually took place a decade ago when Lower Manhattan streetkids Gabby Glazer, Jill Cunniff and Kate Schellenbach were sneaking out to clubs and absorbing the eclectic music of the early 1980s. Fellow street urchins were future members of the Beastie Boys, for whom Kate played drums before joining up with Gabby, Jill and European-bred Vivian Trimble on two live cuts of Luscious Jackson’s first EP, In Search of Manny, (named for a 17-year-old boyfriend of Gabby’s mother). This acclaimed first album, mostly demos, recorded in friend and producer Tony Mangurian’s basement, was released by the Beastie Boys’ own label, Grand Royale. The foursome has stayed together, touring as openers for such acts as the Breeders and Urge Overkill, and recording a second album, Natural Ingredients, now on the charts. A dense and spicy melange of influences, including jazz, hip-hop, punk, dance, overheard conversations, and street sounds, Luscious Jackson’s deep grooves and urban, post-feminist, mythical lyrics make their music impossible to categorize. Just back from the Lollapolooza tour and about to embark on promotional tours across America and Europe, they began lunch at Whole Wheat ’N Wild Berry with a discussion of the dreams each had the night before.

Gabby Glazer - I dreamt that my boyfriend was massaging Vivian’s shoulders.

Lynn Geller - How did you feel about that?

GG - I was watching it all from across the street and I didn’t really feel anything. But then I went over and pulled Vivien’s arm out of its socket.

Vivian Trimble - I dreamt that Mick Jagger insisted I come meet him after his performance. A car service comes to take me there and on the way I asked if we could stop because I needed to get some money. And then I kept stopping for money, accumulating more and more on my way to meet Mick Jagger. Finally we stopped one more time and when I came out of the bank, the driver had left. I saw him driving away with someone else in the car.

LG - Fear of success dream, I’d say.

VT - I kept saying, I have to get there and people would say, Where? And I’d say, I don’t know. And then my teeth started falling out.

LG - Vulnerability . . . Shattered . . .

Kate Schellenbach - I dreamt that all my equipment got stolen out of my apartment. From a window that I never knew opened. You know how dreams just change. I’d go out and come back and the sampler’s gone and the drums are gone. I was thinking, did I buy any of this stuff on Visa, can I get reimbursed?

VT - Having that dream about being in a car and not knowing where I was going, not having directions—it’s being out of control, which is something that exists on tour.

Jill Cunniff - I had dreams like that for five nights after we got back from tour: In a vehicle, I couldn’t find the hotel, was pouring rain. These other hotels, Days Inn, Comfort Inn, (laughter) were across the highway and I couldn’t get across the highway.

LG - Maybe since you all dreamt about touring, we should talk about Lollapolooza. (collective groans) Was it fun touring with other bands?

KS - Yeah, we made friends with the people from Flaming Lips and hung out with the Beastie Boys, who we already knew.

VT - Socially it was great even though we were rushing around. Everyone would share lunch and dinner hours. And there were these Tibetan monks. There was an opening prayer every day and they’d do a chant for it, and then do a closing chant and prayer—to try to help further the Tibetan cause. At first I was really worried about the monks and how they were going to deal with all these crowds circulating. What could be more alienating to them? But they dealt with it really well. There was a basketball hoop and the monks took over and became really good players.

From: https://bombmagazine.org/articles/1995/01/01/luscious-jackson/

Karma - Atlante

After nearly three decades, the Milanese rock band Karma has finally released their highly anticipated third album, "K3," via Vrec Music Label/Audioglobe. Recorded in the United States and Italy and mixed at Mauro Pagani's Officine Meccaniche, the album will be preceded by several singles. The Karma lineup is the original one led by frontman David Moretti on vocals and guitars (as well as piano and programming), Andrea Viti on bass (previously in Afterhours and also alongside Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan), Diego Besozzi on drums, Alessandro Pacho Rossi on percussion and Andrea Bacchini on guitars.
"Atlante" is the third single leading up to Karma's highly anticipated new album, "K3." After "Neri relitti" and the more abrasive rock of "Corda di parole," here comes the more mystical and modern Karma of "Atlante," a song over six minutes long that unites the different souls of the Milanese rock band. The band describes the song as follows: "You understand you're a child when you become a father. Atlante describes the inextricable relationship that underlies life itself in its evolutionary journey. The awareness of supporting, but at the same time being supported in a relentless role-playing game." The stunning music video, directed by Barbara Oizmud, perfectly captures the song's spiritual dimension, shot entirely in black and white with a single iPhone 14.  Translated from: https://www.italiarock.it/newsitalia/karma-atlante-e-il-nuovo-singolo-e-videoclip-della-band-milanese-4-8/

Grandma's Ashes - Daddy Issues

Grandma’s Ashes, can we get a bit of background on the band?


Myriam: I first met with Eva on the internet and joined her punk-rock/noise band and we played with different drummers before we eventually decided we wanted to play heavier music. We started over and found Edith online. We jammed, and her math-rock influences took us in a more progressive direction. That’s how we ended up mixing heavy riffs, progressive parts and powerful melodies. We’ve been playing together for three years now.

Are most of your songs a result of jamming, or do you work from structured ideas?


Myriam: One of us will usually come up with with a riff or melody that suits a particular emotion, then we’ll jam it around and end up with different parts that we’ll put together.


Eva: I write a lot of voice melodies when I’m at home, and often come to rehearsal with voice lines and simple bass lines, then Myriam will find something to do with it, bring heavy riffs before Edith comes with her complex rhythmics.

Are there any artists in particular that have inspired you two as players, or someone that encouraged you to pick up your instruments to begin with?


Myriam: My dad plays guitar and taught me the basics of blues with Muddy Waters and Buddy Guy when I was 9. However, it wasn’t until discovered Led Zeppelin at the age of 13 I became obsessed with the guitar. I’d say Jimmy Page, Eddie Van Halen and Matt Bellamy were my early inspirations as a teenager. I later discovered QOTSA and Frank Zappa, which inspired the tones I use with the band and the modal scales I sometimes use when I improvise.


Eva: My father was my first inspiration, he’s a multi-instrumentalist and was playing in different bands within different genres when I was growing up up, jazz, rock, punk and blues. I was surrounded by instruments as a child and he’d teach me. When I was 11, I discovered The Stranglers and was instantly very interested by the incredible J.J Burnel’s heavy, slamming but fat bass sound! I started playing bass right after that. After that I discovered Flea, and Chris Squier from Yes, both with more complicated bass lines. That paired with my growing love for funk, I started to work on my sound because I wanted to achieve a mix between two iconic styles, the incisive and punk one, and the groovy, melodic tone of my prog rock idols.

From: https://orangeamps.com/articles/interview-grandmas-ashes/

The Beatles - Get Back TV Special 1969

 The Beatles - Get Back TV Special 1969 - Part 1

 

 The Beatles - Get Back TV Special 1969 - Part 2

 

The story about a Beatles’ live TV show project had been developing since September 1968. On January 2, 1969, The Beatles entered Twickenham Film Studios to rehearse new songs in anticipation of a live recording planned on January 18 (in a yet-to-be-defined location). January 18 was missed, but on January 30, 1969, The Beatles with Billy Preston performed their final live performance on the top of the Apple headquarters, at 3 Savile Row, London.
Throughout January and early February 1969, the musical press mentioned the “Get Back” sessions, the upcoming live performance and an associated TV documentary. But at the end of January, it became clear that the plans for a live performance in front of an audience were called off. Updates on the TV documentary and the “Get Back” LP would surface again in April 1969.
The Beatles had spent January 1969 rehearsing and recording songs for a television special or a documentary film, as well as a new LP. Aside from a mixing session on February 5, no time was spent on the new LP in February. Early March, John Lennon and Paul McCartney invited engineer Glyn Johns to Abbey Road and gave him the tapes from the January sessions. Glyn Johns would spend April and May 1969 mixing the “Get Back” LP. In parallel, film director Michael Lindsay-Hogg started editing the associated film. Various press articles about the new LP were published in April – May 1969, anticipating a summer release for both the LP and the film.

Film of the Beatles working on their forthcoming LP has been edited from 68 hrs into two television specials, which it is hoped will be screened on successive nights this summer to coincide with the release of the album. Final tracks will now be recorded next month.
Out at the same time as the LP will be a paperback transcript, detailing behind-the-scenes incidents, during the making of the film. Extracts from the forthcoming species – in which the Beatles perform their rush-released single “Get Back” – were being featured on BBC-1’s “Top Of The Pops” last night (Thursday).
The Beatles’ paperback book has been edited by two American writers, David Dalton and Jonathan Cott, with a foreword by the group’s publicist Derek Taylor. It is understood to be “a candid insight” into the Beatles and includes notes of arguments which took place during production. From New Musical Express, April 19, 1968

A TV documentary will detail the making of the Beatles’ new record album. The cats on the roof are, of course, the Beatles. And what they’re up there is a recording session, the entire proceedings of which were, coincidentally, filmed for a television documentary.
The reason for making an album is obvious. The reason for filming the session is to let the world – all over which the Beatles hope to sell the documentary in a few months – know just how the Beatles go about their work. At least part of the world, however, was less than enchanted with the opportunity. Their neighbours (the recording studio just happens to be in London’s elegant Savile Row) dispatched bobbies to quell the noise. Even bobbies couldn’t do that. From the April 19-25, 1969 issue of TV Guide

From: https://www.the-paulmccartney-project.com/1969/04/get-back-rumors/ 

 

Matthews' Southern Comfort - Second Spring - Side 1

01. Ballad of Obray Ramsey
02. Moses in the Sunshine
03. Jinkson Johnson
04. The Tale of the Trial

Former Fairport Convention vocalist Iain Matthews formed Matthews Southern Comfort in 1970. The band’s country-tinged sound proved to be an excellent forum for Matthews’ songwriting talents and in the summer of 1970, their second album, Second Spring, reached the UK Top 40, followed by their chart-topping single, a version of Joni Mitchell‘s Woodstock.
Unfortunately, success was followed by friction within the band and two months later, Matthews announced his intention to pursue a solo career. One more album followed, after which the band truncated their name to Southern Comfort. After two further albums, they disbanded in the summer of 1972.
Matthews reformed the band with mostly Dutch musicians in 2010, releasing two new albums, Kind Of New and Kind Of Live, and again in 2017, releasing two further albums, Like A Radio (2018) and The New Mine (2020).  From: https://nostalgiacentral.com/music/artists-l-to-z/artists-m/matthews-southern-comfort/

The Dilettantes - Good Day

Rob- So, lets begin by talking about how the two of you came to form The Dilettantes. 

Kay- It was pretty much the same week I moved to LA. My good friend Nina Gordon was playing music with Michelle and Tracy Bonham in an outfit called the LadyApples. Well, Tracy was about to go out on a year long tour and Nina had a publishing deal with Columbia Records so she has a solo album commitment. Nina said that I should come meet Michelle because she knew we had similar tastes in music etc. So as soon as we met, we hit it off and have been friends and music partners since.

Rob- And when was this?

Michelle- This was two years ago.

Rob- Performing together… was it easy to read one another’s styles right away, or what it a slow process at first?

Kay- No, we blended well together right away. It felt very natural.

Rob- Where was your first live performance together?

Kay- At the Mint in LA. We did a 3 song improvised showcase. Nina was on stage with us too.

Rob- How was it?

Michelle- ROUGH! ha ha…it was Christmas time, so we had Kay’s sons Fisher Price xylophone on stage with us…it was funny. We struggled through it, but we’ve been together two years now, and it’s just so much fun.

Kay- The crowd was into us though so that was most important.

Rob- Describe the writing process between the two of you.

Kay- Michelle is great at writing melodies. We usually write music first with no lyrics, then I’ll come in and usually start humming a verse..hum hum hum…and we pretty much build a song from there, and it works out great.

Rob- So Michelle…you have written a lot of songs for other artists such as Cher, Jessica Simpson, Kelly Osbourne, Amy Grant..and so on. Would you rather be involved with songwriting with other artists, or are you busy working on a new solo album?

Michelle- If I ever get the itch to do another solo album, I will. Right now I’m enjoying the songwriting process of the business. These acts that go out there and perform as a solo act…….you really have to have thick skin in this business, and I really don’t have the stomach for it. You’re basically just a product in the industry and I don’t want to play that game. I much prefer to write for other artists and develop new singer-songwriters.

Rob- So Kay, are you working on a new solo album?

Kay- Definitely. I’ve been working in the studio with Fred Eltringham ( Gigolo Aunts, Wallflowers ). It’s all good stuff, I’m excited about it.

Rob- When might we see that released?

Kay- Wow, I’m not exactly sure, but sometime this Spring hopefully. That’s not definite though.

Rob- What I would like right now is for each of you to compliment one another. Tell us something about the other that everyone should know.

Michelle- She kicks my ass! Kay is the most kick ass, talented, most loyal, fun, rock n’ roll mom I know. She’s brave. She’s the bravest girl in this business that I know and she has pushed me as a performer and songwriter.

Kay- Michelle is awesome. She is just a great all around friend and knowing her has been life changing. She’s up’d my game and brought me to a new level that I never knew was possible for me. She’s the best.

Rob- Will we see a new Full Length album soon?

Michelle- Yes, next year.

Kay- We’re going to be taking it to some indie labels and shop it around soon.

Rob- (to Kay) You have done a lot of soundtrack work for films in recent years with the Josie Soundtrack and most recently the “Just like Heaven” soundtrack where you recorded a cover of Iggy Pop’s Lust for Life….which kicked ass by the way.

Kay- Thanks so much for saying that.

Rob- You’re very welcome. Is soundtrack work something the Dilettantes will be looking at doing?

Kay- We’re always looking. Soundtrack work pays great…better than solo work unfortunately. That’s the sad reality of it. I’ll do a solo album out of love, because it’s my passion, but the bottom line is, we have a family to support and film soundtracks make you the most money.

Rob- What are your thoughts on satellite radio?

Michelle- I’m loving it. My husband and I have our Sirius satellite radio all up and running. He’s a big Howard Stern fan. I think it’s great that artists will finally have a chance to be heard now. It’s exciting.

Kay- It’s great. Now bands can be heard on this medium, in the world of today where all you hear on commercial radio is Kelly Clarkson and hip hop.

Rob- If a young girl came to you and said that she really admired you and wanted to get into the music business, what would you say to her?

Michelle- Run! (laughs) But after I told her to run, I’d ask her if she really loves music. I meet young women all the time that say just that to me, and I ask them who influences them the most musically. If they say “oh well…umm…bla bla bla” then I tune them out. If they are excited about it and tell me that they are really into these artists and why they love them, and this and that..then I’m in. I’ll have such a great conversation with them about music because I know they love it and are passionate about it. That’s what it takes to survive in this business. Passion. If you don’t have it or are not willing to fight for your artistry when times get tough, then I say it’s not for you.

Kay- I tell them to go to law school. But if they don’t want to go to law school, then I tell them to have a back up plan. Always have a plan B, because in this industry, there are more disappointments than there are success stories. It’s all about luck when you get down to it. If you are easily broken hearted then maybe this isn’t for you. At least have a backup plan for yourself for the future in case it doesn’t workout. I see it all the time. A lot of my peers have fallen into this trap and are now stuck in this world of struggling musicians.

Michelle- Can I just say that I can hear the Boston accent coming out in Kay while talking with you… ha ha!

From: https://oceanviewpress.wordpress.com/2013/10/17/kay-hanley-michelle-lewis-2006-interview/

The Zombies - A Rose For Emily

On the face of it, A Rose for Emily by the Zombies seems an odd song choice to end each episode of the acclaimed, record-breaking podcast S-Town – the appearance of the William Faulkner short story that shares its title in the first episode notwithstanding. S-Town deals in real-life southern gothic: it is filled with chewy, sometimes incomprehensible Alabama accents and small-town intrigue and tragedy. But it is hard to imagine a more English record than Odessey and Oracle, the album from which the track originates, with Zombies frontman Colin Blunstone’s cut-glass enunciation, and its songs about parks in Hertfordshire and harmony vocals that sound like the Beach Boys, had the Beach Boys hailed from the home counties and met in a public-school choir. If you didn’t know your Faulkner, you would never guess A Rose for Emily was based on a story set in Mississippi. In the Zombies’ hands, the titular heroine sounds like an Eleanor Rigby-ish spinster pining away somewhere in the British suburbs, a spiritual sister of downtrodden Sylvilla in the Kinks’ Two Sisters or the BO-afflicted lady hymned in the Who’s Odorono.
And yet, you can see why it works. For one thing, A Rose for Emily possesses an eerie melancholy; for another, the Zombies’ retelling of Faulkner’s tale concentrates on the heroine’s otherness, her isolation, her sense of chances missed, her frustration, her pride – themes also found in the life of S-Town’s central figure, John B McLemore. Even the song’s own backstory seems weirdly fitting. By the time Odessey and Oracle was released in April 1968, demoralised by the failure of the two advance singles taken from it, the Zombies had split up. It attracted virtually no attention for another year, when its final track, Time of the Season, became an unexpected hit in the US. With no one to enjoy the fruits of its success, promoters hastily assembled fake versions of the band – featuring none of the actual members – to tour the country. Odessey and Oracle, meanwhile, took another 25 years to start showing up in best-albums-ofall-time lists. By 2008 it was legendary enough to warrant a live performance in full by the band’s surviving members – the group are doing a live tour of the album this year, including a show at the London Palladium in September. Like McLemore, it was long after its moment had passed that the record became known and hailed as the stuff of genius. Now, millions of podcast downloads later, both he and the album are suddenly more famous than ever.  From: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/shortcuts/2017/apr/17/rose-for-emily-s-town-zombies-podcast-john-b-mclemore

Sam Phillips - Signposts

Sam Phillips (not to be confused with the Sun Records impresario) is many things: a gifted singer-songwriter, an underrated alt-rock goddess, a composer of incidental television music (all those “la, la la’s” on Gilmore Girls) and a performer with a stage presence that’s both warmly confident and magnificently eerie. In recent years, she has also become a fiercely independent artist, almost an iconoclast of sorts—a quality one can trace back near the start of her career, when she recorded Contemporary Christian music under her birth name, Leslie Phillips. After four well-received albums in that genre, she concluded she no longer wanted to be “a cheerleader for God” (as she bluntly put it in one interview) and switched over to secular pop music (and professionally adopted a childhood family nickname). Whether brought on by an actual crisis of faith, feeling discomfort from that boxed-in community, or by meeting musician T-Bone Burnett (who became both her longtime producer and romantic partner after helming her final Leslie album), her decision to leave one world behind for another continually enhances the cultural, philosophical, and yes, spiritual nature of much of her subsequent catalog.  From: https://hauntedjukebox.com/2015/12/06/sam-phillips-martinis-bikinis/ 

The Grateful Dead - Estimated Prophet

This song is about people who interpret the Grateful Dead's music as divine and see themselves a "prophet" for said divinity. The Dead have (or at least had) a great many fans who take their music a bit too seriously. You could, perhaps, call them zealots. Members of the band were often a little freaked out by this crazy type of fan. Bob Weir and John Barlow decided to pen a song about it. However in typical Grateful Dead fashion the song is highly nuanced. So much so that most people who hear the song don't understand its meaning. This is great example of the way lyrics to Grateful Dead songs operate on such a sophisticated level. While lots of fans write songs about crazy fans the song meaning is rarely veiled.

According to Weir while on the road they would skip through the Bibles that were in hotel rooms. One night Garcia called Weir and told him to check out the books of Ezekiel and Daniel, they thought it was a reference to aliens visiting earth and other interesting strange things, so the song was wrote about that and people that would meet them after shows and share their spaced out trip experiences. Some of these people were so persistent it got annoying, so part of what Weir is singing is "I have heard it all before so please keep your mouth shut”.  

From: https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/47670/ 

Sally Rogers & Claudia Schmidt - Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing / Mountain Field

Sally Rogers and Claudia Schmidt's lives are riddled with synchronicities, not the least of which are that they share a middle name, Jane, and both of their fathers are named Gus. They met in 1980 at the North Country Folk Festival in Ironwood, Michigan. Their mutual eclectic taste in music and excitement of singing together in harmony led them to do occasional concerts together across the Midwest, as well as several appearances on Garrisons Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion. In 1982 they did their first Mother's Day Concert at the Ten Pound Fiddle Coffeehouse in East Lansing, Michigan, which has become an excuse to get together for song silliness and a tribute to their mothers, to whom this album, Closing the Distance, is dedicated. The CD reissue of this album includes four additional tracks not included on the original LP. Featured players include Jay Ungar, mandolin, fiddle; Molly Mason, bass, piano; Abby Newton, cello; Howie Bursen, harmony vocals; Dakota Dave Hull, guitar, and others.  From: https://www.amazon.com/Closing-Distance-Rogers-Claudia-Schmidt/dp/B000000MKT 

 

Syd Arthur - Ode (Summer Is Leaving Me Behind)

You don't get the impression that many of the performers involved were particularly keen to be seen as part of any Seattle scene at the height of grunge, and even though it's always been a popular place to buy joss sticks and beads we hardly saw bands operating around Dingwalls and environs, during the reign of terror that was Britpop, clambering to be part of any Camden scene.
The same is hardly true of the so-called Canterbury scene of the late 60s and early 70s. Maybe it was the drugs or the laidback, happy stoner vibe (man), but the groups loosely affiliated to the scene based largely around the college halls and bars of the titular town in Kent such as Caravan, Soft Machine, Gong and Camel generally seemed cool with the connections being made between themselves and their contemporaries, although one cannot rule out the possibility that they were too out of their gourd to notice when journalists did it.
Syd Arthur are sons and heirs of those Canterbury musicians who did sometimes whimsical, sometimes intense things with psychedelic and progressive rock and whose improvisational approach made the avant-garde seem accessible, and vice versa. Actually, one of Syd Arthur – violinist Raven Bush, which we smuttily assumed was a pot-induced pubic alias - is the nephew and heir of Kate Bush, a Kent girl herself who grew up surrounded by local musicians (but enough already about her extracurricular proclivities).
Winners of the Canterbury Best Local Band competition and formerly known first as Grumpy Jumper and then Moshka, they eventually adopted the name Syd Arthur. It fits them well, redolent as it is of long-lost rural idylls and days gone by – the "Syd" bit because of Barrett and "Arthur" with its intimations of the Kinks' album Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire). There are only four of them but they make a sound that suggests there are loads of them, all beards and, well, grumpy jumpers, noodling away on a variety of electric and unplugged instruments.
There are traces of folk and world music in their sound, and you can hear some of the intricacies of jazz and rhythms of dance – the band themselves call what they do "psychedelic funk rock" and that really suits a song like Secrets of the Planet Soul, which makes us think of Jamiroquai jamming with Jethro Tull, being as it is fairly equal parts fol-de-rol and funky. The Tale of As Is is Santana-esque while Kingdoms of Experience, an earlier single, could be Maroon 5 tackling something proggy and complex. The pastoral element of the Canterbury sound is made most explicit on the acoustic Berber Mountain Song while the single Willow Tree is like folk played by a funk band, or funk played by a folk band. We're not sure of the extent of their interest in such Canterbury staples as zen mysticism and Buddhism although titles such as ... Planet Soul suggest a pro-Gaian hippie consciousness at work here. Someone get out the flying teapot.  From: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/feb/15/new-band-syd-arthur 

Lais - De Wijn

Laïs is a Flemish folk group featuring the voices of Jorunn Bauweraerts, Nathalie Delcroix and Annelies Brosens. The inspiration for their songs comes from old song books. Their style can best be described as a modern take on medieval songs.The band was formed at the music workshop Volksmuziekstages in Gooik, Belgium. The well-established Flemish folk band Kadril noticed the girls singing a capella and took them on tour as their support act. While touring with Kadril Laïs built up a small fan base with their a capella songs. Their first CD featured appearances by Kadril, but later the girls would find their own musicians to complete the band. Today Jorunn, Nathalie and Annelies are joined by Fritz Sundermann (electric and acoustic instruments, harmonium), Hans Quaghebeur (squeezeboxes, hurdy-gurdy, whistle), Ronny Reuman (percussion) and Bart Denolf (electric and acoustic bass).  From: https://www.last.fm/music/La%C3%AFs/+wiki

Space Opera - Bells Within Bells

Space Opera are a little-known act. Widely believed to be from Canada, the four-piece group actually hailed from Fort Worth, Texas. Signed to a major label, they released just one LP, which quickly faded from view. Stories of missed opportunities are all too common in rock ‘n’ roll, but Space Opera’s tale is particularly lamentable—‘cause there’s magic in them grooves. 
The story of Space Opera really begins with Scott Fraser’s teen band, the Mods. The group got started in 1965, and became a popular local act, but by 1968 they were on their last legs. At this time, David Bullock and Philip White entered the picture, and the three talked about forming a new group. But first, they all took part in a studio project—with a young T-Bone Burnett behind the board—that became the album, The Unwritten Works of Geoffrey, Etc.. Pseudonymously credited to Whistler, Chaucer, Detroit, and Greenhill, the 1968 LP was barely promoted by the label, UNI Records, before sinking without a trace. 
Undeterred, Fraser (guitar, vocals), Bullock (guitar, vocals), and White (bass, vocals) continued on, playing shows anonymously with various drummers. In the spring of ’69, they were introduced to Brett Wilson, a jazz drummer, who was also from Fort Worth. They had actually all went to high school together, but Wilson was from a different crowd. Soon, they were performing their first show as Space Opera. 
The group quickly established a fan base in their hometown, playing frequently at a popular bar, as well as larger venues opening for big name acts that came through Fort Worth, including Jefferson Airplane and the Byrds—one of their biggest influences. Space Opera recorded some demos, and had some label interest, but nothing was happening. Their break came when a Canadian agent saw the play live. This set off a chain of events, culminating with the band signing a deal with the Canadian arm of Columbia Records, in which they were given total artistic control—an essentially unheard-of agreement, at the time, for a new group.
In the spring of 1972, Space Opera moved to Toronto to record their debut album. They played live in the studio, but then overdubbed heavily, saturating the tape with sound. Striving towards perfection, they spent a lot of time on it, which made Columbia nervous. When they finally finished recording in July, they returned to Texas, with the assumption that the label had a plan for them—but they didn’t. Disappointed with the lengths it took to make, mix, and then create the artwork for the album, Columbia was losing interest. Making matters worse, in order to duplicate their studio recordings, Space Opera ordered new, custom equipment, but the gear took a loooong time to arrive, breaking their momentum. 
The album Space Opera was formally released on March 21, 1973 (It came out on Epic Records in the U.S). The wait on the new equipment continued, though, and by the time it finally arrived two months later, the group was all but finished. After just a handful of shows to promote their debut LP—an album that showed so much promise—Space Opera called it a day. Blending country, folk, psych, prog, and pop to great effect, Space Opera is a fantastic rock record that, in a perfect world, would have been a huge hit. The songs are solidly sung and played, with gorgeous harmonies and guitar solos that are positively euphoric.  From: https://dangerousminds.net/comments/the_transcendent_psychedelic_country_rock_of_one-album-and-out_70s_band_spa/

 

Alison Krauss - I've Got That Old Feeling

When “I’ve Got That Old Feeling” garnered Alison Krauss 1990's Best Bluegrass Recording Grammy, it was an acknowledgement of the talent and poise the former child prodigy had shown through her first three albums. The album's tantalizing blend of tasteful folk and traditional bluegrass certainly deserved the award. But Old Feeling was more important as a footbridge to where Krauss would take her music -- and bluegrass itself -- over the next decade. It blended country and bluegrass with pop elements (the latter being most evident on "Longest Highway") in such an effortless way, the album couldn't possibly be seen as a play for the mainstream. The sentiment behind the gentle sway of "It's Over" and "Wish I Still Had You" was universal; blended into the honeyed voice of Krauss, it was irresistible. At the same time, the playing on "Will You Be Leaving" and "Dark Skies" was not only technically skilled, but startlingly genuine. (Sam Bush's mandolin and the dobro leads of producer Jerry Douglas were particularly impressive.) The record was imbued with the same old feeling that Krauss and her Union Station guitarist Dan Tyminski would later draw upon for O Brother, Where Art Thou? -- it was a bluegrass album at heart, but it came from a place where emotion and honesty weren't labeled with a genre tag.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/album/ive-got-that-old-feeling-mw0000316186#review 

Jellyfish - All Is Forgiven

The lyrics of Jellyfish songs launch them from great pop songs to musical poetry. Words snap together like candy-color Lego blocks. The phrases “chalk line dollar sign,” and “dialog swam from his pen like pollywogs” won’t ever fail to give me the chills. 
But on my first listens, the opening track, “Hush,” a mostly-acapella lullaby, and “Sebrina, Paste, and Plato,” a lighter-than-clouds track about an elementary-school crush that could have been the theme song for a carousel, had me wondering what the hell was going on here. Even songs I anticipated being pure power pop veered into very different territory. “Bye, Bye, Bye” began as a vocal harmony and building drums, then at 30 seconds, turned into…a polka? 
The album was obviously beautifully written and impeccably produced, but I couldn’t latch on, and I felt terrible about that. I wasn’t willing, however, to proclaim that I didn’t like Spilt Milk. I kept listening out of general devotion and a large dose of guilt. 
Things finally clicked for me three years or so later, long after the band’s breakup. Spilt Milk was what I loved about Bellybutton, exploded and spooled out to its logical conclusion. I saw the quasi-concept album in the madness, the circus-like sounds over the funhouse-mirror imagery of broken relationships, disillusionment and cyclical family dysfunction. Strands of this DNA have shown up in Melanie Martinez’s cracked childhood lyrics and sad babydoll aesthetic of the last decade. 
Spilt Milk’s bedtime lullaby kickoff and “Brighter Day” closing makes it the nighttime counterpart to XTC’s Skylarking, which starts with the bird-chirping gentle wake-up of “Summer’s Cauldron,” cycles through a metaphorical lifetime, and ends with the evening ritual of “Sacrificial Bonfire.” They both linger in the details of everyday lives and point the finger at religion as the culprit for any number of humanity’s issues, but XTC ultimately holds the little guy up as heroic (just barely), whereas the characters who inhabit Spilt Milk seem to haplessly trip over their own yearnings and desire to put others on pedestals. The Andys–Partridge and Sturmer–are the outsized ringmasters.
I’ve come to appreciate the sudden tone shifts of Milk, like when “All is Forgiven” builds to an angry crescendo – a wall of guitar and drums – that screeches to a halt before crashing into “Russian Hill,” one of the most laid-back Jellyfish songs. The array of instruments used on the album makes me imagine a dust-covered music shop in a picturesque valley in the Alps, run by a dusty, lovable old man. Andy Sturmer, Roger and Chris Manning, Jason Faulkner, Tim Smith and Eric Dover arrive (yes, yes, I know – but it’s my scenario and I want them all there) to buy up his vintage wonders – wind chimes! Harpsichord! Glockenspiel! It gives the album the feel of a chaotic miniature diorama where every splinter has been carefully arranged with tweezers.  From: https://rockandrollglobe.com/rock/best-wishes-simpleton-30-years-of-jellyfishs-spilt-milk/ 

June Rich - If U Dare Me To

While America's alt-rock scene lumbered through its wild '90s - the period of Beck's Odelay, the Beastie Boys' Ill Communication, Soundgarden's Superunknown, and Ice-T's Body Count - a nice Philly band, holed up at Manayunk's Grape Street Pub and Old City's Tin Angel, moved tiny mountains with a mellow brand of pop: June Rich. The band is led by two talented vocalists and lyricists: Vanida Gail (who takes the lower range) and Jackie Murphy (higher). They're abetted by a well-regarded musical crew: drummer Ronny Crawford, bassist Garry Lee, and guitarist Allen James.
June Rich fueled a quiet storm around their country-blues sound in the 1990s. Aided by radio support from WXPN-FM, their albums (1995's eponymous effort and 1997's Rain) hit and their shows were packed. Their fever-pitched Philly pop moment was comparable to that of the Hooters in the 1980s and, maybe, the War on Drugs now: adoration from fans, media, and radio, all at once.
We met at a party in Philly, started singing together, and it just clicked," says Gail of her 1993 meeting with Murphy. Both were bartenders at the time, with many friends in the restaurant biz happy to come out and support them wherever they played. After a writing stint in Crested Butte, Colo., Gail and Murphy returned and joined up with James, Lee, and Crawford.
"We didn't really have a formula to our sound," Murphy says. "We just wanted to sound good vocally and write songs that were relatable and fun to sing along with." "We also didn't want to just sing harmonies," Gail says, "because we knew that was done before." "Because of the difference in our voices, we focused on singing songs together-yet-separately, but at the same time, in harmony," Murphy says.
Early hits "Goodnight" and "Sweetthang" show June Rich's way of getting listeners to hear two voices without knowing who is taking the lead and who is backing. "That's one of reasons we named the band June Rich," Gail says. "A single name that didn't belong to either of us - which created confusion, which we liked."
"I think taking their rhythmic, acoustic-driven sound and blending it with our rock and blues-based approach created this unique vibe, made it more soulful and complex than most singer/songwriter stuff that was happening then," says Lee, then part of Manayunk's music, art, and open-mic scenes. He met Murphy and Gail in 1994 and enlisted playing pals James and Crawford, both studio guys indigenous to South Street's J. C. Dobbs. He credits guitarist James, who "found the right chord voicings to compliment the girls' open guitar tunings, then wrote his own melodic guitar lines to enhance their melodies."  From: https://www.inquirer.com/philly/entertainment/music/20150619_A_reunited_June_Rich_hits_Ardmore_Music_Hall.html

Alice Cooper - Hello, Hooray

“Hello, Hooray,” which has also been referenced as “Hello Hurray,” opened one of Alice Cooper’s biggest-selling albums, Billion Dollar Babies. Though Cooper had written the majority of the songs on his albums, “Hello, Hooray” was a standout track, penned several years earlier by Canadian singer, songwriter, and producer Rolf Peter Kempf.
After moving from Toronto to Los Angeles to pursue music, Rolf Kempf’s band split shortly after, and his guitar was stolen. Playing on a borrowed guitar, and reflecting on everything that transpired, Kempf began writing “Hello, Hooray,” while sitting near a swimming pool. A few days later, he gave the song to Judy Collins. “I fell in love with it the moment I heard it,” said Collins who released a more folk-driven version on her 1968 album Who Knows Where the Time Goes.
The song dug into the elation of performing and bringing the audience into a musical journey. The lyrics were about “renewing the spirit at those times when you have to pick yourself up and start over,” according to the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, something Cooper connected with immediately as the perfect setting for his stadium-filled shows. “He got the emotional essence of the tune right,” said Kempf, “and added a tag to bring it home.”
Following a childhood bout with polio, Kempf suffered from Post-Polio Syndrome, which can occur 15 to 40 years after the initial diagnosis and recovery. He continues to perform standards in jazz, blues, and pop originals and has released several albums. Kempf also recorded his own version of “Hello Hurray” and has performed the song during athletic events, including the Vancouver Paralympic Games. Cooper famously opened his shows for more than 40 years since 1973 with “Hello Hooray” and continues to include it on his set lists today.  From: https://americansongwriter.com/who-wrote-judy-collins-song-and-alice-coopers-jubilant-hit-hello-hooray/

Nephila - Live Sweden Rock 2025

 Nephila - Live Sweden Rock 2025 - Part 1

 

Nephila - Live Sweden Rock 2025 - Part 2

 

Nephila is a Swedish psychedelic rock band consisting of seven young musicians, five of whom appear to like being masked most of the time – and I don’t mean surgical face masks, these are the full-on “Plague Doctor” variety – without any clue why this be so! The band are collectively inspired by ’60s and ’70s rock, with hints of folk and a twist of theatrical expressionism. Nephila won the nationwide Swedish music competition LiveKarusellen in 2019 and made an impact on everyone who attended. And I can see why, the seven tracks on the album provide a mix of heavy prog, retro rock, sweet guitar solos and duelling vocal harmonies provided by the band’s dual lead singers, with elements of mysticism, folklore, and storytelling. 
The lead singers were previously with another Swedish retro band called Children of the Sün, who are distinctly hippy-ish so if you like the more psychedelic music of the late 60’s, early 70’s you’ll love this! Touches of heavy blues rock add to the retro feel, according to the band, guitars act as the basis on which hard rock rests as the heart of it all. Add to it that sense of mysticism and theatre, and that captures their ‘vision’. “Nephila’s strength definitely lies in our performance”, says one of the lead singers Stina. “The mystique is important. We all have strong personalities and our masks create yet another dimension. No matter what happens to any of us, the mask always lives on.”  From: https://www.velvetthunder.co.uk/nephila-nephila-the-sign-records/

 

The Bombay Royale - You Me Bullets Love

“You Me Bullets Love” is a new album by the Australian band The Bombay Royale from Melbourne, who specialise in bringing to life - and to the live stage - versions of many of the classics of India’s Bollywood film industry. The album (on Hope Street Recordings) is a 10 track CD/DL/Vinyl that showcases old songs such as the 1965 chestnut “Jaan Pehechan Ho” (from the film "Gumnaam") as well as entirely new pieces. The ‘golden years’ for Bollywood films are often cited as the 60s and 70s and The Bombay Royale mix these old songs (in Hindi and Bengali) with newer material they have written themselves (including some with English lyrics) inspired by these classic masterpieces.  In fact “You Me Bullets Love” features eight original numbers and two re-workings of almost forgotten Bollywood production numbers (the other is "Sote Sote Adhi Raat").
There’s a heavy retro vibe to the album that - bizarrely - makes it sound very fresh and bang-up-to-date! (obviously some weird tear in the time-space fabric…). For instance the opening track “Monkey Fight Snake” features massed brass, swirling organs, siren-like vocals and sarangi in the background, sub-Spaghetti Western blaring trumpet (Spaghetti Eastern anyone?) and wouldn’t sound out of place in some kind of drug-induced, trippy dream-sequence scene from The Avengers (the 1960s British series with the bowler-hatted, brolly-wielding Steed, not the Hollywood Marvel heroes one!). Conversely the title track is drenched in surf music, sort of 'Tarantino goes to Mumbai' (or is it India comes to South Melbourne Beach?).
At times the whole album sounds as if someone’s taken a giant cocktail shaker and thrown in some vintage 50s, 60s and 70s Bombay kitsch, a shot of James Bond, a gaggle of Go-Go girls, two slices of Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent, a pinch of Massive Attack, the serried ranks of saxophones, trumpets and trombones, a veritable forest of violins and yards and yards of orange, pink and turquoise silk, and then recorded the whole lot via the audio-equivalent of a Kodak Instamatic shot through a Dub filter.
Someone with more knowledge of Hindi music would probably be able to pick up on the Bollywood strands better than me, but that’s about as near as I can get to it at the moment! One of the Australian papers described it as being “where A R Rahman and Ennio Morricone converge, where Slumdog Millionaire meets Goldfinger head on, with Quentin Tarantino and Indiana Jones lurking in the corner”. “You Me Bullets Love” is a whole lot of fun. A lot of it is, I’m sure, very tongue-in-cheek, but then again so is much of Bollywood, and it plays with all those elements of East meets West meets East again (and in the case of Australia, meets South).  From: https://www.worldmusic.co.uk/the_bombay_royale_you_me_bullets_love_cd_review

The Byrds - Lady Friend / Renaissance Fair

 The Byrds - Lady Friend

 

 The Byrds - Renaissance Fair

 

Arguably the greatest song that David Crosby has ever written on his own, the majestic “Lady Friend” is kind of the “Have You Seen Your Mother Baby, Standing in the Shadow?” of The Byrds catalog: a fantastic non-album A-side that was sabotaged by questionable production.  Because it was considered a failure, it wasn’t released on either of their Greatest Hits albums.
I first heard it on a 1987 odds-and-sods compilation album called Never Before (an album that also featured a beautiful banner-shaped Byrds poster that hung on my wall in various apartments for years) where “Lady Friend” stuck out, but had these terrible overdubbed drums. 
It wasn’t until the 1990 box set where I heard “Lady Friend” the proper way, and I immediately realized that it’s one of those songs that should be more widely known: featuring gorgeous interlocking guitars, a rollicking drum beat (that didn’t need an overdub) and an utterly anthemic chorus.
It’s one of the more sophisticated arrangements they’d done, clearly influenced by what The Beatles and The Beach Boys were doing, but the sound that Gary Usher got in the studio just wasn’t up to par with what George Martin or Brian Wilson had done. And so it was a huge flop that has only over time revealed itself to be a secret success on the Rabin scale.  From: https://medialoper.com/certain-songs-163-the-byrds-lady-friend/

"Renaissance Fair" is a psychedelic/folk-rock song penned by David Crosby & Roger McGuinn and recorded December 6, 1966, for the Byrds' 1967 Younger Than Yesterday album. "Renaissance Fair" was inspired by an actual mock renaissance fair, entitled Renaissance Pleasure Faire and May Market, staged at the Paramount Ranch, Agoura, near Los Angeles in the spring of 1966. It was attended by the Byrds and a throng of 8,000 who, accompanied by a little imagination, were whisked back to the Elizabethan era, when King Arthur was monarch and Robin Hood was the cause celebre of the day. Demonstrating their sundry skills at the Faire were adventurous alchemists, magicians of every stripe, craftsmen and weavers, while English plays abounded. Games included archery, darts, executing dragons and punishing witches.
But this musical piece was about much more than that; it was an homage to, and yearning for, the sensuous hippie dream. The song's 12-string Rickenbacker electric guitar plucking, courtesy of McGuinn, is evocative of ringing church bells and Byrds' bassist Chris Hillman's ariose playing has a soft, undulating pattern, purveying a running jazz line. The opus moves along, image by image; the meter signatures varying, kept pace by Michael Clarke's dogged drumming.  From: https://www.furious.com/perfect/davidcrosby.html

 

Sheila Chandra & Monsoon – Shakti (The Meaning of Within)

Sheila Chandra has engineered a career that has consistently defied expectations — from producing lyric-less drone-based soundscapes, to forging a new global vocal vision out of a re-imagining of myriad vocal traditions. Hers is a living, breathing music that manages to reflect the context of its making, as well as creating a timeless reflection of the inimitable power of the human voice.  
That pursuit of radical vocal expression has been a lifelong process. It began when she made history at only 17 in 1982 as the first South Asian woman to appear on the UK’s flagship chart show ‘Top of the Pops’ with her band Monsoon’s global hit ‘Ever So Lonely’. In a sea of then-fashionable synth-pop, Monsoon’s fresh raga-based acoustic sound, topped by trendy crash beats over sensuous tabla cross-rhythms, nevertheless insinuated its way into public consciousness.
It was a watershed moment for the South Asian diaspora in the UK. Clad in a purple silk sari and teardrop tilak, this was the first positive representation of Asians from a mainstream media that had played on racist tropes in comedy and whose documentary makers had unfairly and persistently portrayed the community as a ‘social problem’ for 20 years. Monsoon’s ‘Ever So Lonely’ was simply too innovative and catchy a record to be ignored, and a mere two years on from the Southall riots, suddenly an Asian diaspora sound was fashionable for the first time.
The 70s had featured anti-racist protesting across the nation, aiming to combat the popularity of fascist organisations like The National Front. Chandra’s appearance in traditional Indian dress, as well as her very existence as a South Asian female artist, and one utilising traditional sounds, became a radical act of representation, five years before the term ‘World Music’ was coined to represent such a free-flowing mix of cultures. It was the first of many boundary-breaking moves that she made throughout the following 40 years of her career. Those decades saw her ignoring trends and pursuing her own musical interests, regardless of the pleas of industry marketing executives. For her, breaking musical ground and moving music itself on, always seemed more important than making a commercial record and selling as many copies as possible.  From: https://realworldrecords.com/features/long-reads/sheila-chandra-the-pursuit-of-radical-vocal-expression/