Rainbow - Live In Munich 1977

 Rainbow - Live In Munich 1977 - Part 1

 

 Rainbow - Live In Munich 1977 - Part 2

 

 Rainbow - Live In Munich 1977 - Part 3

 

If you have any doubt who the greatest singer in the history of metal, heck, maybe in the history of rock ‘n’ roll is, just pop this DVD into your player and fast forward to the second song. When Ronnie James Dio belts out the vocal of Deep Purple’s “Mistreated,” an in-his-prime Robert Plant bows to the mastery and original singer David Coverdale quickly ducks back behind the curtain. There’s so much power in the performance that song alone would be worth the price of this movie, but then you get seven more.
Don’t think that just because there are only eight tracks you’re getting cheated either. There’s a lot of free form jamming and improvisation. They pull 12 minutes out of “Mistreated,” nearly 20 out of “Catch the Rainbow,” around 16 each out of “Man on the Silver Mountain” and “Do You Close Your Eyes?” and a whopping 27 minutes from “Still I’m Sad.” The last one also includes extended drum and keyboard solos.
After an intro that plays on “The Wizard of Oz” and Dorothy’s “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” things quickly move to the Wicked Witch of the West’s territory with a blazing version of “Kill the King,” which at under seven minutes is the shortest performance here, but it packs a heck of a wallop. For the next nearly two hours, the audience is alternately pummeled and lulled with numbers that range from a winding journey of a version of “Sixteenth Century Greensleeves” to a stomping rendition of “Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll” to an extended jam on “Man on the Silver Mountain” that also includes a snippet of “Starstruck” and the “Night People” improv by Dio.
Since it’s a song that’s so ingrained in hard rock, I find it interesting that this was one of the first times the band had played “Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll,” as the album had not been released. I tried to imagine what it might have been like to hear that tune for the first time, as many in the audience surely were. You certainly couldn’t tell it was an unfamiliar tune from their reaction.
The performance here makes an undeniably strong argument for Rainbow as one of the greatest hard rock bands of the 1970s. Dio has never sounded better. Ritchie Blackmore hadn’t thought about switching exclusively to medieval balladry yet and was instead whipping out scorching solos that ranged from blues rock to rapid-fire neoclassical runs to smooth, crisp slow leads. Cozy Powell pounds the drums with a vengeance, and Bob Daisley, who would later be responsible for writing some of Ozzy Osbourne’s best songs in the 1980s, keeps time. It’s a powerhouse core group of musicians.
That led to a bit of tension in the performance as well, and it was easy to see why this lineup was so sadly short-lived. There are clearly two main attractions sharing the stage, and at times they compete with each other, though in a good way.
On “Mistreated,” for example, you’d think that Blackmore’s blues rock licks would be the star, but once Dio steps up to the mic and that monster voice comes roaring out, you kind of forget about that guy playing the Strat, despite his big licks and showy moves. Likewise on “Man on the Silver Mountain,” Blackmore sets a frenetic pace that seems almost double-time the studio version and leaves Dio galloping along to keep up instead of drawing out those big notes. In both cases, though, the performances remain flawless.
Live in Munich showcases an amazing band at the absolute height of its powers. It was an outfit that, sadly, would only last another two years. Dio would move on to make a couple of amazing records with Black Sabbath before embarking on his successful solo career. Blackmore would carry on with a string of new band members and a much more commercial direction that lacked the power of the three records with Dio. But for this shining moment in Munich, Rainbow was easily one of the best ever.  From: https://somethingelsereviews.com/2013/05/08/rainbow-live-in-munich-1977-2013/

 

 

 

Winterpills - Celia Johnson

From slurry, fuzzy guitar to strings, Winterpills signature melodies see their most expansive sounds to date on Love Songs. Reminiscent of the best of the Elephant 6’s works, ‘Love Songs came together in collaboration with co-producer Justin Pizzoferrato, who has manned the dials for Dinosaur Jr., The Pixies, Lou Barlow, Speedy Ortiz, Parquet Courts, Lou Barlow, and And the Kids. From strings to trumpets; large-scale harmonies to harmonica, Winterpills has never sounded this big before, masterfully building from a whisper to a torrent.
Winterpills explores love of the idea of love, love of unrealized love, love of the dead, love of family secrets, love of the concept of eternal return, love of ideas, and love of celebrity. "At first the thought of calling it Love Songs was intended as a whimsical nod to the other million albums of the same title," principle songwriter Philip Price says, "but then casting that light on the existing songs made them jump into stark relief: they were all love songs after all, though arriving at that place through strange portals and unused back roads." “A New England Deluge” builds to a feverish pitch before abruptly stopping. “Wanderer White” kicks off as a low-fi dirge before moving into ‘90s indie rock territory. “Celia Johnson” is inspired by David Lean’s “Brief Encounter,” positing a middle class British housewife’s story of stepping out of her comfort zone. “He Grew a Wall” identifies with a local musician following his suicide, using a modded Casiotone as an orchestra.
Recorded during the band’s 10th anniversary, ‘Love Songs’ is also an appropriate title for a band led by musical soulmates and husband/wife Philip Price and Flora Reed. Based in and inspired by western Massachusetts’ fertile scene, Reed and Price’s voices are always the core of Winterpills’ music and provide incredible chemistry and lift in tandem. Over the past decade and half-dozen stellar albums, Winterpills has established a reputation for smart indie pop, prompting comparisons to Elliott Smith, Low, and Big Star.  From: https://www.signaturesounds.com/winterpills 

Violent Femmes - Gone Daddy Gone

The Violent Femmes didn’t make many videos. They had little 1980s MTV presence. I saw the video for Gone Daddy Gone just a few times, and it haunted my memory for decades. I mostly remembered an awful, depressing family dinner scene filmed in black and white, and that the song had a marimba, but I couldn’t remember anything else about it or even whom the band was. Whenever a video came on MTV with a marimba (such as Psychedelic Furs’ Love My Way), I would think “maybe this is that depressing dinner-scene video” but it never was. Then finally I saw it on VH1 Classic 20 years later and was astounded at how funny it was. It is dark, bleak, and depressing, but also completely hysterical. I couldn’t stop laughing for days.
It has no overt queer elements (aside from the band name “Violent Femmes” and their “alternative” categorization) but it subverts 1980s “family values” political discourse in a way that would instantly appeal to many gay people. Gone Daddy Gone is brilliant, biting satire of the idealization of the American middle class family that was at the heart of 1980s culture. Instead of the perfect families on television like the Huxtables and Keatons (channeling 1950s family sitcoms), in this video we see Daddy getting drunk at a bar and flirting (unsuccessfully) with a trashy dancer while back home, his depressed wife and two kids eat a horrible looking dinner in morose silence. Amazingly, the video squeezes humor out of this scenario.
The video opens with a dinner plate, shot from above in black and white, establishing the video’s dreary tone. The film texture is grainy and scratchy, like it’s been deliberately damaged. Amidst flickering light we see a heaping plate of beans and gravy, slices of white bread, and a cheap plastic drinking glass with flowers on it. The glaring light washes the food of any visual appeal. The tablecloth is messy with crumbs and other debris. It’s Lynchian in its overstated despair, like something out of Eraserhead or the Elephant Man. No doubt those films (released just a few years before this video) served as a visual reference point for this video’s depiction of the middle class American family dinner as a surreal nightmare.
Once the song kicks in, the video focuses on the band for the first two verses and first chorus. The band scenes’ black and white photography (not damaged and grainy like the dinner shots) evoke Every Breath You Take in its careful portraiture and framing. Shots of the marimba intercut with facial close-ups of the lead singer staring intensely into the camera as he lip synchs the song. The editing is slow and leisurely compared to most videos, but will accelerate in later verses. The band’s clothing and hair styles are understated; they look more like “regular people” than rock stars. They play with energy, bounce, and a hint of menace. The Violent Femmes were unique in the way they combined punk energy with acoustic spareness.
During the second chorus, the video returns to the dinner scene. An adolescent girl squishes her fork into the gross-looking food on her plate that is undoubtedly getting colder by the minute. The video intercuts between the singer and dinner scene: he is filmed in pristine black and white, which draws attention to the damaged film stock of the dinner scene. The idea of the filmmakers deliberately damaging the film to create this neglected, abused quality only makes the whole concept more funny. As the singer cries out “gone daddy gone, the love is gone” over and over, the camera zooms slowly towards the mother sitting at the head of the table, the world’s weight crushing her spirit as she glumly sips coffee and smokes a cigarette, not eating. Her mouth is forlorn and crooked. The male child looks at her blankly, then we see the girl picking at her food again. No one talks, no one eats, they just pick at their food silently and miserably.
The camera crawls spiderlike across the table, highlighting the messy crumbs, mismatched silverware, and cheap plastic glasses. The camera lingers on a Wonder Bread package just before showing an empty chair with the full plate of food in front of it. It’s Daddy’s chair, but like the song says, Daddy’s gone, gone away. As we stare at his empty chair, we are immersed into the scene’s claustrophobic despair.
Where’s Daddy? He’s at a sleazy bar a few blocks away called “Sammy’s Fireside, Lunch Dinner and Cocktails.” It’s not a place where respectable people spend time, certainly not family men with responsibilities. Daddy sits by himself at a small round table, playing with the ring on his finger. The table is littered with empty beer bottles and other glasses. Clearly he’s been there awhile, getting drunk in the daytime, neglecting his family and job. He looks like a decent, respectable white-collar man worker (I think it’s the band’s drummer). Nearby him sit a table of “sophisticated” people consisting of a handsome young man (the singer) wearing a ridiculous Hefneresque smoking jacket with two bunny-like women at each side. They watch a performance of some kind, smiling in amusement.
Then we see what they are watching: a young, thin woman in aggressively striped clothing performing a flailing, ridiculous burlesque tease, madly shaking her shoulders and hips while pursing and cooing her lips like a complete tramp. A strobe light effect makes her dance seem overstated and ritualistic, perfectly complementing the scene’s tacky sleaziness. Daddy stares intently at her, sweating and fidgeting. The video intercuts between Daddy and the dancer, zooming slowly towards their faces as they each stare directly at the camera (us, each other). Daddy wets his lips excitedly—finally, some real excitement in his life, some real action, he seems to think. He grins eagerly, but also sheepishly. Her stare is blank and robotic.
The editing accelerates. Things get wilder. The bass player, dressed like a sailor on shore leave, dances provocatively with the woman, almost like he’s dry humping her. Daddy looks like he’s about to pass out as he grimaces with lust and creeping nausea. She stares back at him with the same dead stare. These recurring slow zooms, each lasting about four beats, add to the comical absurdity by bringing us further and further into this pathetic scene. The two women kiss their sugar daddy on the cheek while the sailor sharply turns his neck revealing lip stick. Daddy slowly lowers his head onto the table.
The song’s conclusion brings us back to the sad dinner at home. We see a tight close up of the haggard mother biting her thumb, cigarette in hand, staring off into space, her eyes dark and barely open. More shots of uneaten food. The final shots show the mother aggressively scraping the food off the plate into a garbage can, scowling miserably, while daddy lies passed out surrounded by empty bottles. The video ends with a shot of the band.
It’s a short, tight video that highlights the band’s performance style while offering one possible visual interpretation of the lyrics. It’s less a story than a moment in time. There are characters and a bare plot, but it’s more like a snapshot of a family falling apart than a narrative. The video’s humor is hard to explain given the dreary visuals and subject material. Part of it’s the editing and sense of exaggeration, but the historical context is the key element. The video’s humor derives from how drastically this depiction of family life contrasted with the standard Reagan era pop culture depictions of family life circulating when this video was made, whether it be the Cosby Show or Family Ties or the Morning in America commercial. On those shows, families are affluent, mutually supportive; nothing bad happened that couldn’t be solved in 30 minutes. Reagan’s political rhetoric upheld the era’s conservative vision of families as the fundamental bedrock of society, emboldening anti-gay and anti-feminist rhetoric. The 1970s had been all about divorce and single mothers, and now it was time to return to “normal” (and embrace the very idea of “normality”). Gone Daddy Gone is a middle finger to the era’s emphasis on “family values”. The idealized 50s/80s vision of family is replaced by a grim vision of family life as broken, corrupt, and failed. It’s so overstated—and so true—that it’s funny. Families are fucked up, the video says. Here’s what a real family look like, Mr. Reagan. Drunk, passed out Daddy and depressing dinners with Wonder Bread and empty chairs. Here are your 1980s family values. Go fuck yourself.
The video’s black and white photography only heightens the connections between the 1980s vision of family values and all those old black and white shows from the 1950s. The video is not meant to look specifically like the 1950s, though it could be, just as easily as it could be the 1980s. The Wonder Bread, the bar’s neon sign all point to the 1950s, though the video avoids any obvious, clichéd 1950s references (like leather jackets or ducktail haircuts). The dinner scene’s scratchiness almost makes it look like 1950s home movie footage. The song’s use of the word “Daddy” also echoes stereotyped 1950s beatnik slang. Here’s the genius of the video, showing the seedy underbelly of family life in the 1950s and 1980s simultaneously. In both eras, the family values rhetoric is bullshit.
This video was about as authentically punk as MTV was capable of being in the 1980s. The video masterfully blends a sneering defiant punk attitude with a slick and sophisticated visual references. It’s either the funniest or most depressing video ever, depending on your mood and perspective.  From: https://videoclosetblog.wordpress.com/violent-femmes-gone-daddy-gone/ 

Kristeen Young - Absence Makes the Heart Grow Father

So, what’s a guy to do? The press release describes an album as being musical snapshots in the life of a serial killer and makes no mention whatsoever of normal key selling points such as kittens, self-discovery or the spiritual importance of vegetables. Listen or not? Yes, for “The Beauty Shop” is an example of the oft forgotten genre known as the concept album with a generous seasoning of the desire to be different and Kristeen Young goes sufficiently theatrical to make it all rather interesting.
And theatrical this album indeed is. The simplicity of the three minute pop song is displaced, nay abandoned, and replaced with angular but hand crafted representations of inner torment that would fit neatly on to any off Broadway type stage in the grimy back streets of any big city. The ghost of the machine looms large in the music contained in these eight songs to reinforce, no doubt, the recurring theme of control that skews these songs into the realm of the unconventional. Neither is this is a journey into art house introspection for, in the best traditions of those living in the shadow of the spotlight, Kristeen Young always aims her message outwards.
As an artistic statement, the value of “The Beauty Shop” is clear to see. Big city festival audiences will no doubt worship the album and connoisseurs of the eccentric will likewise see the value in Kristeen Young’s determinedly individualistic approach. Idiosyncratic – almost to a fault – “The Beauty Shop” is the kind of album that is an antithesis to the mainstream and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this were to become something of a cult album. It’s not just for serial killers.  From: https://bluesbunny.com/Reviews/ReviewID/3050/xmps/11123

Superheaven - Humans For Toys

Our recurring feature series Track by Track sees artists guiding readers through each song on their new release. This week, members of Superheaven break down their new self-titled LP.
A year after releasing their sophomore album in 2015, the four members of Superheaven decided to go their separate ways. Though they ultimately got back together in 2022 following several reunion shows, it wasn’t until fairly recently that they began contemplating a new record. Now, they’ve officially returned with that album, released under the eponymous title Superheaven.
After almost a decade away from the studio, Taylor Madison, Jake Clarke, Zack Robbins, and Joseph Kane have cooked up ten new tracks that seek to re-establish who and what Superheaven, as a project, is. The Pennsylvania group’s third full-length release was engineered by Clarke and Robbins, with Will Yip serving as the project’s co-producer.
“Every song starts from a different idea from a certain person in the band,” Madison tells Consequence about the songwriting process. “Everyone was really in the mix on just getting their hands dirty.”
Compared to previous records, Superheaven saw the quartet being more hands-on in terms of collaboration than ever before. As Robbins explains, “that whole dynamic of everyone cutting in on everything” is what makes these songs sound so fresh despite the band having been around for years.

“Humans for Toys”:

Taylor Madison: I think that the opening track for a record, at least in my opinion, should always be an ass-beater. I don’t like it when a record starts with a build-up song or anything like that. I think that’s the wrong way — you should let them know what time it is on track one. I feel like that’s part of the reason why this song is track one, because it kind of whips your ass out of the gate, and I feel like that’s important for track one. You want it to be like, “This is what you’re in for [over] the next ten songs.”

Zack Robbins: I think in the songwriting process, that was probably one of the ones that was toward the end of assembling everything and being like, “All right, we have enough and then some for a record.”

Madison: I remember I didn’t really like that song until the end.

Jake Clarke: Yeah, we had an intro to it, and it was just a guitar thing, and it didn’t hit, and then we kind of formed the end, and everything just kind of clicked when we did that. But it was a later song, and it wasn’t always one we were throwing around as an opener. I think Taylor came to that idea, and I was like, “Wait, yeah, this is cooking, this is cool.”

Robbins: I think that was one that was pretty collaborative, like on the vocals. Taylor wrote all the lyrics, but we all kind of cooked on that one a little bit with Will Yip as well.

From: https://consequence.net/2025/04/superheaven-self-titled-track-by-track-interview/

 

Flock of Dimes - Everything Is Happening Today

Handstamp: You’ve spoken before about your relationship with Baltimore, but what was your personal access to live music like when you were younger?

Jenn Wasner: “Oh, my gosh. I mean, that was honestly the thing that kept me in Baltimore. When I was in high school, I was dead set on leaving as quickly as I could. It just so happened that the Baltimore music scene in the mid 2000’s was and still is sort of understood to be one of those defining music scenes. We had these huge zeitgeist moments, where all of these bands were coming out of Baltimore. But yeah, it was a really vibrant community that I was exposed to from a pretty young age. I saw a lot of stuff that was pretty formative to my development.”

Handstamp: What was the first show you saw?

Jenn Wasner: “Oh, man. I remember there was a warehouse venue in West Baltimore where I saw a lot of bands, including maybe one of Beach House’s first shows. I remember seeing them lug their 250-pound organ up six flights of stairs and thinking ‘these guys are committed.’”

Handstamp: Back when they had to still play with regular stage lighting, I guess.

Jenn Wasner: “Right, or no lighting at all, just a room. I have a terrible memory and don’t remember my life very well, which I’m trying to work on, but I usually remember these things by going to my friends or bandmates, who have a better memory for those things. I definitely saw the band Ponytail pretty early on and was blown away by that. I saw Future Islands early too.”

Handstamp: What was that like? Was Samuel (T. Herring, Future Islands) bringing the same energy to the early shows?

Jenn Wasner: “Yeah. Every show I’ve ever seen them play has been full on. It didn’t matter if it was in front of 10 people, it was sort of what they were known for. Wye Oak was actually on tour with Future Islands in 2014 when the Letterman performance kind of popped off. It was interesting to see because I’d been seeing his on-stage charisma every night and it was like an open secret, so it was really fun to watch the world respond to it like that. They also have great songs, but he certainly has that natural performer energy.”

Handstamp: I interrupted while you were in your Baltimore flow…

Jenn Wasner: “Not at all. There was a restaurant where I worked, named Golden West Café, where they would have shows after hours. One of the earliest shows I remember seeing there was Sharon Van Etten. She had put no music out at that point. She was opening for a band that I had never heard of, playing solo. We had never met and I had just worked that night, so was exhausted, trying to get out of there as quickly as possible, but she literally stopped me in my tracks. I remember turning around, then just sitting down to watch the whole set. She played the song ‘Consolation Prize’ when I realised that she was special and not somebody I could walk out on. We met that night and have been friends ever since.”

Handstamp: Was your time at Golden West Café one of the biggest catalysts in your pursuit of this thing?

Jenn Wasner: “I was already in pretty deep, to be honest. I had bands all through high school and was writing songs already at that point. That was around 2005, 2006 and would have been the time Wye Oak, or Monarch as we were called before, we were already making music. So, I was already obsessed and fixated on it but, I mean, I learned a lot about what being in a band could mean and how adventurous music could be. It also taught me about the importance of a strong, DIY-rooted community. That’s something I am figuring out 20 years later, as I try to re-access and reimplement it into my own career, because there’s just no replacement for it.”

Handstamp: Totally right. Starting so early, I guess your relationship with watching live shows was different to other people your age? Could you still absorb shows from an objective point of view?

Jenn Wasner: “I think I always have been able to and I still can. It would be an unpleasant sensation to not feel it, in the same way fans or audience members are able to access that feeling of connection. There are parts of making art and music that are under siege by turning it into your day job, but I think it’s probably time to call it a day when you’re completely separate from the experience of being an appreciator and observer, which is such an essential source of inspiration. If we lose that, what are we even doing?”

Handstamp: It seems like you really value the performer-audience relationship.

Jenn Wasner: “I think that’s why I find myself drawn towards smaller shows, with less production value because I do think at a certain point, no matter how good you are, when you expand to a certain point, it becomes about the spectacle in a way that I don’t really care about. So, for me, I am always bumping against that idea of growing and expanding, because then you have to have conversations around lighting packages and a backdrop or whatever. I could give a fuck. I do not care. The further away I get from people, the less I enjoy the experience of doing what I do.’
“I also don’t think I’m a natural entertainer. I think I am an artist and musician, so a lot of the things that come from expanding are just trappings of entertainment, which is an area that I don’t really feel at home in. It always feels a bit forced, so I think the show is the show, the show is the music, the show is the band, the show is the songs.”

Handstamp: You have been part of more elaborate shows though, haven’t you?

Jenn Wasner: “I’ve played in massive bands. I played in Bon Iver and you know, the songs are incredible, the band is incredible, but you also had to have a crazy fucking laser lightshow. That was a fun and cool thing to be a part of, but it takes so much work, time and money. It’s an incredible thing to watch people execute, but it’s never going to be for me, as my songs are a little smaller and my ambitions are a little more humble.”

Handstamp: Do you value those experiences of playing with such a wide array of artists, at varying stages of their careers?

Jenn Wasner: “I treasure the experience, when I’m playing other people’s music. It’s been huge for my development, as a musician and as someone who often acts in support of other people’s work. It also just feels like a superpower, like, I remember when I joined Bon Iver and I was rehearsing to play in the Chase Center Arena, while also playing a basement show in Oakland. That sort of kills the romantic fantasy that a lot of people have, or the trap they fall into of thinking that bigger is always better, that validation comes from getting more people in the room. Those are the principles of unchecked capitalism, applied to art.’
“A lot of musicians, myself included have the experience of playing in huge places like that, then walking away feeling like they were floating in space, or playing a show on a weird asteroid in the middle of nothingness. It’s also hard to tell if it sounds good and difficult to hear your fellow musicians because they’re a hundred feet away from you. It almost feels like a simulation of a performance.’
“I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s good to free yourself from the aspirational treadmill of thinking that’s going to be the thing that makes you feel good about performance or good about your art. I’m grateful to have experienced it from all sides, so I understand that’s not where gratification is going to come from.”

Handstamp: The ‘disease of more’. I recently spoke to the artist Madi Diaz, who has played with Harry Styles in stadiums and enjoyed it, but it also quenched her thirst for those intimate shows that allow an audience to truly lean in. You mentioned the issue of space between band members, I guess it’s pretty hard to connect with somebody who is 20 feet away, especially if you’re a band that really depend on ‘feel’.

Jenn Wasner: “Oh, it’s next to impossible. It can be guesswork. It’s no accident that I’m now playing in living rooms, as much as I’ve loved playing with those bands. It feels so good and more human to talk to everybody who comes to the shows, have a conversation, person-to-person. I don’t think the fact that music is my calling makes me more special than anybody else. It’s important for me to lead with humanity and not place myself on a pedestal. Playing these shows makes you feel like a troubadour, back when music really felt like an act of service, or a working-class enterprise. It’s nothing to do with the building of celebrity, which robs you of your humanity.”

Handstamp: You moved to North Carolina in 2015. How would you compare your musical life there to the one you had in Baltimore?

Jenn Wasner: “North Carolina has a smaller community, with fewer people. The energy is very different, which is part of why I was drawn to it. Baltimore was absolutely transformative and exceptional, but there was also a slight distrust of success beyond the city, that lied within the DIY ethic. I make less adventurous music than some of those bands that broke out, I was a songwriter, sometimes making weird songs with unexpected arrangements, subversive themes, but ultimately I was singing my songs, which Baltimore wasn’t super oriented toward at the time.’
“When I moved to North Carolina, I found myself suddenly around people who were really big fans of my work and were super encouraging. There was a real positivity that felt really comforting, so I just moved towards it and it really changed my life. I loved my time in North Carolina in many ways, I even fantasise about returning there, even though I love LA too. I really needed that energy that I received there, as well as the lack of judgement. I was in my late 20s and nobody feels awesome about themselves at that time, with a few exceptions.”

Handstamp: I think, for a lot of people, myself included, that shift of no longer seeking approval happens in your 30s.

Jenn Wasner: “I think so, at least it did for me.”

Handstamp: You mentioned living in Los Angeles. I recently spoke to somebody who said you really can’t walk down the street without seeing a session musician you recognise in LA. How do you feel that has impacted you creatively?

Jenn Wasner: “That’s true. You know, I think the jury’s still out on that one, because we just got here and it has been a rocky, tumultuous year. We had been planning to move here for about a year, moved across the country, then the week we got here was the week of the fires. So, we spent the whole first month unsure if we were going to stay. We got evacuated, so it was a really scary, confusing time. It also takes time to become accustomed to living in a new place, especially after such a challenging entrance, but I’m excited to be here.’
“There are so many musicians here that I admire and I’m interested in collaborating with. I think there’s something about being physically present here, where without really trying, certain connections just happen. For example, I made music yesterday with this really wonderful artist who I really admire from Australia, her name is Angie McMahon.”

Handstamp: She’s great, I look forward to hearing that.

Jenn Wasner: “She’s fantastic. We’ve been writing songs together and I only met her because I moved here, I was introduced to her, we had a coffee and next thing you know, we’re collaborating. That’s just the kind of thing that happens here like it doesn’t elsewhere. It feels important to me in this moment to spend a little time here and see what kind of opportunities and connections present themselves.”

Handstamp: Yeah, the importance of proximity can’t be overstated. The Life You Save is a really beautiful and personal record. How have you found the process of sharing such personal songs with a live audience?

Jenn Wasner: “I would say the experience of just going public with the record and putting the music out in the smouldering hellscape that is what’s left of the music industry in 2025 has been less than awesome. The experience of sharing the songs with physically present live audiences at shows has been wonderful. So it’s really been a mixed experience.”

Handstamp: Can you explain more about the challenges that you mentioned?

Jenn Wasner: “Well, I’m really proud of the record. I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. I know everybody says that but I’m singing and performing better than ever, I also have the best band I’ve ever had and I’m really proud of what we’ve done together.’
“It’s just disappointing to have to bump up against the limitations that exist. I was talking to Angie when we met, about how there really is no music industry, it’s just a bunch of different tech companies. It has become so demoralizing to try to exist within that. But I believe in art, I believe people need art and that there’s a purpose for music. I feel no less dedicated to that path. The problem is not with the music and the audience, the problem is everything that’s getting in the way. I feel committed to making the things that I want to make and sharing them with people, however scrappy and resilient I have to be.”

Handstamp: It must be discouraging, especially given the nature of the record. Has that belief you describe ever faded?

Jenn Wasner: “It’s a vulnerable thing, you know? There was a big part of me that really didn’t want to put out this record, a part of me that doesn’t really feel like talking about it. There’s a big part of me that just thought it would be easier not to. But seeing it as part of my lived experience, it felt like something I needed to do for myself and also that it would be selfish to not at least offer it to people who may see themselves in it. I haven’t felt a whole lot of representation around a lot of this stuff in the culture, so it feels good to be part of whatever conversation is happening.”

Handstamp: Is that conversation happening? Have you heard of the songs finding those people so far?

Jenn Wasner: “You know, I believe that the music moves on its own. Once you start the ball rolling, people will share the music they love with the people they love, so it’s out there ricocheting around in ways that I may never actually be aware of.”

From: https://handstamp.substack.com/p/a-handstamp-interview-with-flock 

Preoccupations - Disarray

Preoccupations walk a high wire. On the one hand, the Canadian post-punk quartet, who originally took their name from the brutal insurgent group the Viet Cong and only changed it three years into their career after extended protests, tend to come off casually apolitical. “We’re just playing music,” frontman Matt Flegel said regarding the name’s backlash in a 2016 interview. On the other hand, their music often concerns the political sphere and the toll it takes on the psyche. They’ve written songs about the deadening effects of mass media and songs satirizing capitalism’s ethos of progress at any cost. Theirs is dark, paranoid music; Flegel sings as if he’s keeping one eye trained over his shoulder while the world around him drops deeper into chaos.
The contrast between the hapless stance they take in interviews and the tough subjects they tackle sincerely in their lyrics can make Preoccupations feel like two bands at once: one that doesn’t want to be taken too seriously, and one that does. That paradox has lent them an aura of poisoned irony, an air they manage to shake off, somewhat, with their third album, New Material. In a statement, Flegel called the LP an “ode [to] depression and self-sabotage, and looking inward at yourself with extreme hatred.” All of the above are states in which contradictory statements can simultaneously seem true (you have friends but not real friends; drugs are both killing you and keeping you alive), and could also explain how wounded, serious art that urgently wants to be heard comes wrapped up in a name like New Material.
Written collaboratively in the studio, the record furthers the band’s dual focus on moody, industrial atmospheres, and warmly melodic vocal lines. While on their first two albums—2015’s Viet Cong and 2016’s Preoccupations—Flegel often sang against the grain of each song, as if he were competing with the clamor of the instruments, he opts instead to settle into their flow here. On “Doubt” and “Disarray,” his voice sways along with his bandmate Scott Munro’s synth chords, like he’s being carried by a slow, hot breeze. Even as he continues to sing about hopelessness and disillusionment (”It’s easy to see why everything you’ve ever been told is a lie,” he murmurs on “Disarray”), the new arrangements supply an easier entry point into Preoccupations’ music than their earlier works. The band’s defeatism takes on a new tenor: battle-worn, sincere, and not quite so antagonistic. That may mean that New Material lacks the punch of their feisty debut, but it also lends these songs a soothing quality. They’re so heavy they’ve curled up in a ball on the ground.
In addition to adopting a new melodic strategy, Flegel also seems to have narrowed the focus of his lyrics. While Viet Cong and Preoccupations saddled their songs with abstract, worldly woes, *New Material’*s angst is more interpersonal; the lyric sheet is dotted with the word “you” and one of the record’s high points, “Manipulation,” even sees Flegel crying out in romantic torment: “Please don’t remember me like I’ll always remember you,” he sings. The plea comes at the song’s energetic climax, after a towering drum roll, which only deepens its abjection. Instead of asking to be held fondly in someone’s memory, Flegel begs to be forgotten, an artful rendering of the depressive desire to disappear completely.
By staging the album on the battleground of the self, and the self’s relationship to other people instead of society writ large, Preoccupations have made their most intimate album to date. Flegel still goes into a few word-salad tailspins—the “information overdose” and “uneven ratios under a microscope” at the end of “Antidote” sound like someone obliquely complaining about Twitter—but the soft production of his voice, and its holistic integration into the rest of the band’s sound, makes him sound more earnest than before. With New Material, Preoccupations wrestle with a conundrum that’s plagued many denizens of this data-numbed era: how to let yourself be vulnerable when all you want to do is make a joke of your suffering.  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/preoccupations-new-material/ 

 

Patsy Cline - Walkin' After Midnight

"Walkin' After Midnight" is a song written by Alan Block and Don Hecht. The song was originally given to pop singer Kay Starr, but her label rejected it. The song was left unused until Hecht rediscovered it when writing for 4 Star Records. The first released recording was by Lynn Howard with the Accents, released in August 1956. It was later recorded by American country music singer Patsy Cline in November 1956 and released as a single in February the following year. Originally, Cline was not fond of "Walkin' After Midnight", but after making a compromise with her label, she recorded it.
On January 21, 1957, Cline was invited to perform a song on the CBS television program hosted by Arthur Godfrey entitled Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts, a talent competition made up of rising young, unknown professionals. She originally intended to perform "A Poor Man's Roses (Or a Rich Man's Gold)" on the show, but the producers preferred "Walkin' After Midnight." Against her wishes, Cline performed the song during the program's 8:30 pm slot. The excessive audience applause froze the show's applause meter, and Cline won first place on that night's show. Because of the strong response, Decca Records (4 Star leased their music to Decca) released "Walkin' After Midnight" as a single in February 1957.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkin%27_After_Midnight 

Miracle Glass Company - T.R.O.U.B.L.E.

ME: For a little background, how did Miracle Glass Company come to be?


We had all been in different bands in Edinburgh, then me and Austen George had the idea to do a 3-piece rock n’ roll thing. I thought it would be cool if we could all sing harmonies and write songs too, so we asked Andy Duncan to get involved and we took it from there.
 
ME: How would you describe your sound for someone that has never heard it before?


Catchy rockin’ tunes performed on Electric guitar, bass, drums and 3 part vocal harmonies, with the odd psychedelic freak out.
 
ME: How do you guys feel that your music has been perceived on this tour?


People who are into it really love it. We find some folk seem to be conditioned against rock’n’roll, for whatever reason, and are into something else, but we’ve been managing to turn them on to what we’re doing. You can’t beat the energy of good rock’n’roll played loud and sweaty, and we’re also pretty keen on a good melody hook so everyone can get in to it.
 
ME: You said you will be pulling out some new material that people have never heard before?


Yeah, 2 or 3 new numbers which are sounding cracking.

ME: What are you most excited for fans to hear?


Everything. The old stuff is still new to most people too, although there are more and more people showing up to gigs and singing along with our songs. But we are getting tighter and the sound is constantly evolving and improving all the time. So, yeah, everything.
 
ME: 2017 is off to a great start for you guys, having been announced for Carnival Fifty Six alongside The Van T’s, Indigo Velvet and WHITE – Is there anything specific that you’re most excited about so far?


That looks like a really good one, I quite fancy that. Otherwise, just looking forward to getting around the UK in a van and spreading the music far and wide. Also, recording MGC2…
 
ME: What bands/artists have you been listening to lately?


We all like different stuff. As I write this I’m listening to Kashmir by Led Zeppelin. I think we’re going to start putting Miracle Glass Company playlists up on Spotify to let people get an idea of what we’re into. We listen to a lot of good old stuff in the van – The Band, Toots, Little Feat, Chuck Berry, Blind Faith, Manassass, James Brown. Are far as modern acts go, Father John Misty, Lana Del Rey, Tame Impala.

ME: And finally, what is to come for Miracle Glass Company in the next 6 months?

We have a pretty cool music video for our song TROUBLE. It was animated by Scott Morriss from The Bluetones (we toured with them last year) and he’s done a brilliant job. We also have our bi-monthly gig in Edinburgh, it’s called Late Night In The Big City and we invite other acts and DJs to come and put on a show with us. The first one was awesome and I’m really looking forward to the 28th of April when we’ll be playing with Glasgow’s Medicine Men and we’ll have 2 guest DJs spinning the very best rock’n’soul tunes of all time. It’ll be brilliant.

From: https://musicexistence.com/blog/2017/04/02/interview-and-show-review-miracle-glass-company-at-broadcast-glasgow-31317/

Besvärjelsen - The Cardinal Ride

Hot on the heels of the release of their sophomore full-length "Atlas" last Friday, May 27, Swedish forest rockers Besvärjelsen have launched a new driven and steaming video for the track "The Cardinal Ride".
Besvärjelsen have previously commented on "The Cardinal Ride": "First time I heard the riff for this song I knew I wanted to go punk and messy with the melodies and lyrics", singer Lea Amling Alazam wrote. "I had been reading The Seven Deadly Sins by Karin Boye and the book was lying on the table as I was listening to the track.The first line that came to mind was 'a rollercoaster of the seven deadly sins.' Life is a fucked-up rollercoaster and you never know how the path will turn next, so I wanted to celebrate the ugly parts of life. We live in a glass house society, in which people want to portray themselves as if they have their shit together and be on the right side of life, while most of us are messed up, confused, horny bastards with no self control. It's okay to be a fuck-up. It's okay to run through life not knowing where the hell the road is going. But if you are the type of person, who always gets super drunk and cries at parties, maybe it's time to go and see a shrink. Because chaos is fun, but taking mental health serious is even much cooler. See ya'll in hell!"
Erik Bäckwall added: "Well, "Cardinal Ride" was the only song on the album that started as a jam and evolved from there", the drummer continued. "It was faster at first and had the working name "Sendrag", which means 'Cramp' due to the effect it had on my right leg. The track went through several iterations before Johan finally nailed the arrangement and Lea came up with the perfect vocal melody and lyrics for it."  From: https://www.metalkaoz.com/metal-news/27776-besvarjelsen-release-the-cardinal-ride-music-video

 

The Rolling Stones - We Love You

The Story Behind “We Love You” by The Rolling Stones and How It Was a Message to The Beatles, The Who, and The London Times.
On February 12, 1967, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Marianne Faithfull, and art dealer Robert Fraser were arrested on drug charges after a raid on Richards’s Redlands country estate in West Wittering, England. Jagger brought a lawsuit against News of the World for libel over an article reporting on The Rolling Stones’ drug use. The newspaper had previously published an article about Scottish folk singer Donovan, who was busted shortly thereafter. The Rolling Stones went into the recording studio between the bust and trial to record a song. It was in response to the wave of support the band felt from their fans, fellow pop stars, and musicians. Let’s take a look at the story behind “We Love You” by The Rolling Stones.

The Beatles

Before the trials began, The Rolling Stones recorded “We Love You” at Olympic Recording Studios in June 1967. In 1990, Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman wrote in Stone Alone, “In the run-up to the court trials, we virtually dispersed, apart from recording one song: Mick, Keith, and Brian [Jones] had been warmed by the sympathetic messages from fans anxious about the crackdown on them, and Mick and Keith wrote a song by way of thanks. …. In July, John Lennon and Paul McCartney overdubbed backup vocals as a gesture of support. … The interaction between the Stones and The Beatles was always friendly, particularly since Mick and Keith and John and Paul had all embraced a hippie philosophy. In mid-June, Brian played tenor sax on a Beatles recording session for the song “You Know My Name (Look Up the Number).” Beatles experts have for 20 years been uncertain of whether it was the Stones Brian or another Brian Jones (of the Liverpool group The Undertakers) on the record. I can confirm, categorically, that it was our Brian: he said so. Paul McCartney remembers asking Brian to a Beatles session at Abbey Read in June 1967. To our surprise, he brought along a sax. I remember him turning up in this big Afghan coat at Abbey Road, and he opened up a sax case and we said, ‘We’ve got a little track here,’ and so he played sax on it. It was a crazy record, a sort of B-side. … It’s a funny sax solo—it isn’t amazingly well played, but it happened to be exactly what we wanted, a ropey sax, kind of shaky. Brian was very good like that.”

The Who

With the uncertainty of the coming trials, The Rolling Stones were not going to be able to release a new album anytime soon. As a show of solidarity, The Who had an emergency meeting and decided to record two Jagger and Richards originals as a tribute. They recorded “The Last Time” and “Under My Thumb” to keep their music in the public eye. The Who placed a large ad in the Evening Standard and Evening News that read, “Special Announcement – The Who consider Mick Jagger and Keith Richard have been treated as scapegoats for the drug problem, and as a protest against the grave sentences imposed on them at Chichester yesterday, The Who are issuing today the first of a series of Jagger Richards songs to keep their work before the public until they are again free to record themselves.”

The London Times

The traditionally conservative London Times published an op-ed by editor William Rees-Mogg criticizing the prosecutions of Jagger and Richards, calling them unfounded and unnecessary. 

Brian Jones

The Rolling Stones were in the midst of recording Their Satanic Majesties Request. It was the summer of love, and the band was experimenting with different instrumentation and was still a year away from “Jumping Jack Flash,” where they fully embraced being a rock group. In late June 1967, Brian Jones had a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized. He returned to the studio when he was released and added a mellotron part to the recording. “We Love You” was released in the UK on August 18, 1967, after the outcome of the Redlands trials. A sound effect of a prison door slamming shut was added. Bill Wyman wrote, “The lawyers drove us all apart. I remember Mick asking where Brian was, and I said he’d been told not to hang out with us. He began to hang around with a horrible group of people who leeched off him, and he decayed physically, mentally, and musically. Then Brian would turn to me and ask: ‘What are the Stones doing?’ He almost didn’t consider himself a Stone anymore. I saw him in the studio, incapable of playing. Then, I knew the end had come. Because, normally, Brian’s musicianship in the studio was such that he would know if a note was a quarter-tone out of true.”

Promotional Film

Peter Whitehead directed a promo clip to accompany the single release. Unfortunately, the producer of the popular UK music show Top of the Pops refused to show it. Portions of the clip were reenactments of Oscar Wilde’s 1895 trial, with bandmembers in full costume. Jones is visibly less than healthy. The BBC did not officially ban the film; they simply refused to play it. In 2022, it was remastered and released online.

From: https://americansongwriter.com/the-story-behind-we-love-you-by-the-rolling-stones-and-how-it-was-a-message-to-the-beatles-the-who-and-the-london-times/

Magenta - Live at Real World Studios 2024

 Magenta - Live at Real World Studios 2024 - Part 1

 

 Magenta - Live at Real World Studios 2024 - Part 2

 

"Live At Real World" is an acoustic concert by Magenta recorded at the famous Real World studios owned by Peter Gabriel. It took place on November 21st of last year and was combined with the filming of a video, which is also being released on DVD. On the small stage, in addition to the band, there was room for a string quartet and an oboist. 
What can be said about this album? That it sounds great, convincing, and is wonderful to listen to? That's nothing new for Magenta. That it's an example of sincere and perfect artistic expression? That's a trademark of this band. That it's another attempt to capitalize on the excellent run of studio albums by this group? It's hardly surprising that Magenta, having so much good material, tries to present it again and again in ever-new versions: whether live (the album "Live At The Point"), or remixed (the collector's edition "The Collection"), or instrumental (the recently released album "Seven – The Instrumentals," featuring music from perhaps the band's most famous album without vocal tracks – although not entirely, as the famous "cha cha cha" remains in the recording of "Gluttony"), or expanded and newly mastered (the album "Seven – Special 2 Disc Edition"), or – as now – acoustic. 
If one wanted to be exceptionally malicious, one could even formulate the accusation that Magenta is trying to sell the same material in several different ways. But perhaps it's good that this is happening. As long as there are buyers for these subsequent albums, there's nothing wrong with it. Even more so, the acoustic album "Live At Real World" truly sheds new light on some well-known songs from our heroes' repertoire. I was most surprised (and at the same time very pleased) by the new, acoustic versions of the compositions "Hate You" (a song from Christina's solo repertoire, included on her album "Broken Lives & Bleeding Hearts" released this year, but under a different title – "Hanging By A Thread"), "Anger", "Demons", and above all, "Metamorphosis". They present the work of this highly accomplished band in a completely new light and show that Magenta excels both with a full instrumental setup and in an unplugged version.  Translated from: https://mlwz.pl/recenzje/plyty/5783-magenta-live-at-real-world 

 

Good NightOwl - Encounters - Visual Album

Daniel Lewis Cupps has been in many musical projects over the years such as Orestes, Fate Fell Short, Crossing at Red Lights, Post Divinorum Orchestra, Iodine, Case 23, and Perocity. He has worked under the name Dàn Solo and the rap project Reach the Highest. He now has 5 LPs and 2 EPs released under the name Good NightOwl and he produces, programs, composes, and records all sounds under the name.  

Encounters

1. The Thought Collector 
2. Encounters 
3. Another Phase 
4. All That You Find 
5. Ever-Changing Presence 

6. The Thought Collector (instrumental) 
7. Encounters (instrumental) 
8. Another Phase (instrumental) 
9. All That You Find (instrumental)
10. Ever-Changing Presence (instrumental)

- Daniel Cupps / guitars, bass, vocals, keyboards, MIDI programming, composer, lyrics & concepts
- Joshua Cook / drums, composer

"An immortal supernatural being made of light travels the universe possessively inhabiting the bodies of mortal creatures to better understand the nature of creation, life, destruction, and death."

From: https://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=8221#biography 

The Band - S/T - Side 1

01 - Across The Great Divide
02 - Rag Mama Rag
03 - The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
04 - When You Awake
05 - Up On Cripple Creek
06 - Whispering Pines

The Band’s second album might have been called America. Robbie Robertson and Levon Helm were both partial to that grandiose moniker—years later, it was one of the only things they still agreed on. Harvest was also considered, as the record was conceived as a concept album about the South that begins with the promise of spring and ends with the make-or-break finality of the fall, when a farmer pleads for deliverance from financial ruin in “King Harvest (Has Surely Come).” As it turned out, the Band left Harvest behind for friend Neil Young, who used it for his commercial breakthrough nearly three years later.
The Band surely is a record obsessed with America, made by a mostly Canadian quintet who explored this country’s roots right as the U.S. became politically and culturally unmoored in the late 1960s. Harvest would have worked as well, given Robertson’s burgeoning literary pretensions. But ultimately, this record needed to be called The Band because it’s about the Band—how these men worked together, the way their personalities intersected and completed each other, the very architecture of their friendship. The album dispels all of the assumptions we carry about how bands are supposed to work—the songwriter is all-powerful, the rhythm section is the supporting cast, hierarchies are inevitable. The Band instead operates on a paradigm in which the power comes from the bottom up and authority is dispersed evenly among compatriots.
Maybe all of the players in a band can be on equal footing, and not merely back up the resident genius. Perhaps the singers, who inspire the songwriter and transform his lyrics into colloquial truths with salt-of-the-earth nonchalance, are paramount. And what if that “resident genius” archetype is a myth anyway, compared with the reality of musicians who work together in obscurity for years until their collective telepathy makes them stars? The Band was once treasured as a communal hippie fantasy, the epitome of the era’s anti-consumerist back-to-the-land proselytizing. Except, for a while, the members of the Band truly excelled in a utopian, all-for-one, one-for-all setting. Their signature album is the closest that classic rock comes to pure socialism.
This selflessness doesn’t come at the expense of each member’s individuality. On the contrary, the five figures staring out from The Band’s brown and sepia album cover are as recognizable as the cast members of your favorite movie or TV show. From left to right, there’s Richard Manuel, the broken-hearted piano player; Helm, the indomitable drummer; Rick Danko, the affable bassist; Garth Hudson, organist and mad-scientist multi-instrumentalist; and Robertson, the guitarist, songwriter, and self-appointed orchestrator. That album cover is arguably just as influential as the music on The Band. For years afterward, wannabes would don mustaches and bowler hats inside countless bars and juke joints as an attempt to replicate what the original articles came by honestly, back when nobody cared and all these five guys had was each other.
The idea was to rent a house in the Hollywood Hills and find a happy medium between the homespun naturalism of the unreleased “basement tapes” recorded in upstate New York with Bob Dylan in 1967, and the austere slickness of the Band’s 1968 debut, Music From Big Pink, which was made at top-flight studios in Manhattan and Los Angeles. The guys wanted to get back to the informality of the Dylan sessions, so they looked for a place to create their own world free of industry professionals and “engineers and union people,” Danko later told Band biographer Barney Hoskyns. “We’d be thinking Harveyburgers, and they’d be thinking caviar.”
The Band chose a scenic mansion that had once been owned by Sammy Davis Jr., and spent a month setting up a recording studio in the pool house in the backyard. (It was a far cry from the backwoods fantasia the album evokes, the guys really wanted to get out of New York for the winter.) Meanwhile, they lived together in the main house, drawing straws to see who would get which room—egalitarianism pervaded every aspect of the Band. After an 8-track console and other equipment Capitol Records shipped over were installed, they crammed two months of work into the remaining four weeks. Each day started at around 7 p.m. when the musicians assembled to rehearse and work on getting the sounds right. Then they would eat a good meal, after which they finally began recording at around midnight, working until dawn. At Manuel’s request, producer John Simon procured amphetamines from a neurosurgeon pal up in San Francisco to keep the band’s energy up.
A photo in the album’s liner notes shows how the Band was set up in their makeshift studio—Hudson and Manuel sit at their keyboards on the perimeter while Robertson, Danko, and Helm hold the middle. The guys stare up at the camera like it’s a stranger who has suddenly intruded on a private moment. They were children hanging out in the world’s coolest treehouse, best pals who spent weeks trading jokes and shooting pool, and then imbuing their freewheeling spirit into the ultimate “hang out” album that they happened to make in the process. That sense of togetherness, and the possibility of a counter-culture in which each person is crucial and valued as such, is what makes The Band so seductive. You want to crawl up inside of this record and bathe in the warmth of the enviable bond at its core.  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/the-band-the-band/

Winds of Neptune - The Faun's Rhyme

In the summer of 2020, with the world on lockdown, and consequently drummer Mike Alonso sidelined from his otherwise intense touring schedule with renowned Celtic Punk Rockers Flogging Molly, and with guitarist Kevin Roberts and bassist/vocalist Ross Westerbur both between projects and with pretty much nothing else to do besides ride out the pandemic, the three Detroit Rock stalwarts verified their respective COVID-19-negative statuses, and then agreed to take what was a pretty bold step in those days: getting together face-to-face in Kevin’s basement for a good old-fashioned Rock and Roll jam. Ross, who was until then primarily a keyboardist (with a long resume that includes noted Stoner Rockers 500 Ft. Of Pipe, as well as alt-country road warriors The Deadstring Brothers, and just about everything in between), had recently acquired a Fender Mustang bass, and was glad to have an excuse to finally figure out how to play it. (Although for those first few jams he brought along his Wurlitzer 200 electric piano just in case.) Kevin was not long off of a stint with Tesco Vee’s notorious Hardcore Punk unit The Meatmen, but the COVID-19-era jam session cover songs that would gradually evolve into Winds Of Neptune would be closer to his deep classic Rock roots: “Fire And Water” by Free, “Hope You’re Feeling Better” by Santana, and “New Day Yesterday” by Jethro Tull.
For that first year, it wasn’t so much a “band” as it was just a way to try to stay sane. The idea of ever playing a gig was at most a dark running post-jam joke during those “unprecedented times.” It was pandemic relief, in the form of the making of music in the old Rock style that the three mutually loved. For its own sake. No band name, no gigs, no records, no merch… just jams. But nonetheless, the jams were good.
It probably wasn’t just a happy accident. The apparent effortlessness with which Winds Of Neptune operates is likely a direct result of their intermingled history. Each member has been previously involved in projects with each of the other two members, pairwise-speaking: Kevin and Ross in the Heavy Psych-Blues band Bluesong, Kevin and Mike in the old-school Thrash Metal project Mykronian, and Ross and Mike in the MC5-inspired stoner trio Aquarius Void. It was maybe inevitable that they would eventually close the loop — especially given their shared affinity for the early ‘70s canon of Heavy Rock: Sabbath, Aerosmith, Deep Purple, etc. And as the pandemic ran its course, covers would eventually lead to originals. And originals begat more originals. Gradually, organically, unspokenly, the still-nameless group began to dial in a sound. And then in July 2021, as clubs began to cautiously re-open their doors, an opportunity for an actual, real-life gig at Detroit’s Lager House presented itself. The band adopted “Winds Of Neptune” from the name of the last unreleased Bluesong instrumental track, and the rest was history.
Since then, Winds Of Neptune has continued to cultivate a sound that makes no apologies for its obvious Classic Rock influences, while still forging a distinct and powerful identity of its own. Beyond just the Heavy riffs (and make no mistake, the riffs are indeed most heavy), there is a foundation of fantastically nuanced songwriting, played by three legit musicians who know their instrument and know its place in the greater whole of the band. It’s a sound that is firmly planted in the ‘70s, evoking the likes of UFO, Budgie, and Captain Beyond, but it is equally at home alongside retro-informed contemporaries like Earthless, Kadavar, and Clutch. And in 2023, that sound would eventually catch the ear of Small Stone Recordings’ Scott Hamilton at a gig in Royal Oak, Michigan, paving the way for the band’s first full-length album.  From: https://progrockjournal.com/news-detroit-rock-trio-winds-of-neptune-unveil-the-first-single-the-fauns-rhyme-from-their-upcoming-album/