Uriah Heep - Live Japan 1973

 Uriah Heep - Live Japan 1973 - Part 1

 

 Uriah Heep - Live Japan 1973 - Part 2

 

By early 1973, Uriah Heep had released five studio albums and had already made a name for themselves, with a sound all of their own, fusing elements of progressive rock and hard rock. They were one of the most unique bands of their era, and remain revered by fans of the genre all these decades later.
The next thing on the radar for the band was a live record, which fans got in the form of Uriah Heep Live in the spring of 1973. Featuring the legendary lineup of vocalist David Byron, guitarist Mick Box, keyboardist Ken Hensley, bassist Gary Thain, and drummer Lee Kerslake, the double album was recorded in January of 1973 in Birmingham. 
You are not going to see Uriah Heep Live mentioned on the lists of great 70s live albums like Kiss’ Alive! Or Deep Purple’s Made in Japan. Does this release belong on such lists, or is it a rightfully forgotten release that pales in comparison to the group’s already excellent studio records?
Uriah Heep Live might just be the best moment of the band’s classic 70s era, with their ultimate lineup in fine form. Why this record does not get more recognition from classic hard rock fans all these years later is complete and utter blasphemy; the record shows off just how great these guys were on a live stage back in their prime. Essentially, this is the greatest lineup the band ever had, showing off their musical prowess in a high energy setting, pulling out all the stops for the fans. This is the way the band was meant to be remembered, captured on album. 
This is not simply a “greatest hits live” album, nor are the cuts here copycats of the studio versions either. The group plays a wide assortment of tracks covering most of their first five records, including the well-known cuts and deeper gems alike. Each member of the band gets more than a few chances to shine; Ken Hensley’s organ never sounded better than it does on this release, and the late, great David Byron gives a vocal performance for the ages. The classic “Gypsy” gets the “extended” treatment, turned into a 13 minute plus jam here! The wide variety of tracks keeps things interesting throughout; even with the extended jam versions of many of the songs, there are no dull moments in sight. The “Rock and Roll Medley” shows off the band’s more humorous side while at the same time paying homage to their early rock and roll heroes, and it makes for a comical yet appropriate finish to it all.  From: https://zrockr.com/2016/06/02/uriah-heep-live/

 

Juleah - Sommertraum

Tonight I have the pleasure of sitting down with Julia Hummer, who’s adopted the project name of Juleah, a fine neo-psych bluesy artist from Austria.

Jenell: Are you a classically trained musician? Do you come from a musical family?

Julia: If you mean classically trained in the sense of an academic music degree then no. But I had lessons in classical guitar from age 8 to 19. Yes, there are a lot of musically talented people in my family. Almost everyone did learn an instrument at some point.

Jenell: Your sound is far more than layered, instruments weave in and out of each other. Does your ability to play more than one instrument lend itself to this concept? And to that end, are you considering wrapping a full-time band around yourself, or do you enjoy the freedom that comes from picking musicians in reference to specific projects?

Julia: I see every instrument as being equally important in a song. Of course, as listeners we first notice the vocals and maybe the guitars, but this is due to the way our perception works. Yet on a more subconscious level and for the feeling in our body, bass and drums are equally important creating a good song as a whole. Over the years I had different ideas of how Juleah might work by including other musicians. I know now that it only works for me when the creative part stays with me and the band helps me to play the songs live. With Henry, Alex and David I found musicians who are happy with that concept. I am very thankful for this, otherwise there wouldn’t be Juleah-live concerts, as I wouldn’t have the courage to go on stage alone.
As far as picking musicians for specific projects, I can well imagine them helping me play parts on the recordings, for example, my friend Constantin Du Closel plays on the new record, holding down the drums on ‘Black Vanilla’.

Jenell: Some artists delight in making the music, while others seem to delight in playing live … do you discover new aspects of your songs developing in front of an audience?

Julia: Both things are great, but if I were forced to decide between these two, I’d pick the ‘creating’ part, both in the studio and at home. The adrenaline rush on stage is wonderful, though I find it more satisfactory to have something finished to enjoy over and over again. I love being able to express ideas via packing them into the sound of a 3 or 4 minute song. These things would be so difficult to express in other ways. It’s also liberating, cathartic … and very satisfying. Even more when you can hold a CD or vinyl in your hands.
Yes, the songs really come to life in a whole new dimension when we play live, and there’s always this magic point in rehearsal when all of the parts start to flow harmonically together. Every band member brings their own style of playing which makes it very exciting to see how the song will turn out, which song works better and which one not so well. If something is uncomfortable for my band members to play, we search ways it could work in order that everyone enjoys playing the song.

Jenell: You have a rather large body of work to draw from for live settings, are you surprised when fans ask to hear older numbers?

Julia: To be honest, this has never happened until now. Only one time I was told me after a gig that he missed ‘Strom Aus Licht’. However, several members of my live band asked why we don’t play ‘Anticipation’, with the reason being that we’d need an organ an acoustic guitar and two electric guitars to do it properly, otherwise the song won’t really work live.

Jenell: Have other women influenced you, artists such as Sue Foley? And please, take a moment to talk about music that’s had an effect on your sound.

Julia: I want to start with the second part of the question. I started to become a really big music fan in 1997 with the Oasis album ‘Be Here Now’. From then on I started to build out a strong attraction to the British rock music of the early 90’s. I loved Madchester, Britpop and also some Shoegaze. So I would say that these are my main influence. The fascination for psychedelic music started later, in the early 2000’s with Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and then later The Black Angels. I also got into 60’s psych bands like The Doors at that time.
Regarding the first part of the question, for the initial influences, I have to say no, and actually when I think about it, this is really sad. I thought a lot about the reason for this, where I could give a really loooong feminist answer, but I’ll keep it short and just say that I hope that female musicians will start to rely more and more on themselves, draw their self-esteem out of their talents and not so much out of their looks, and by so doing the problem will be erased automatically. In the meantime there are some woman that I admire, for example the two female drummers of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and The Black Angels, I love them both so much.

Jenell: Who’s on your turntable right now? And what is your most prized record?

Julia: At the moment it’s International Music with their album ‘Die Besten Jahre’ … I can sincerely recommend that one.
Prized, in a material way, it’s a limited red vinyl edition of ‘Specter At The Feast’ by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club , I grabbed that one on Discogs. On a personal level I’d say ‘Here Eye Go’ by Golden Animals, ‘New Candys As Medicine’ by New Candys, and ‘Fortune, Shelter, Love and Cure’ by Suns Of Thyme. The reason I’ve chosen these is because I’ve had amazing concert experiences associated with these records.

Jenell: Your vocals don’t stand in juxtaposition to the music, they’re not simply laid over top, but seem to be enveloped by the music, as if the mere sound of your voice is integral to every other note.

Julia: That’s cool that you perceive it like this because that’s how it was intended. I think that’s common in psych music anyway and probably the reason why my Aunt Hildegard is forever complaining about the concerts, saying “I couldn’t hear your voice”.
To be fair, it’s not easy to get so much done correctly live. Of course the vocals should be clearly hearable, but not too much. I think this is one of our main challenges in the future for live performances. And to that end we now have someone to help us with this aspect.

Jenell: Your voice floats in a low-keyed manner with a bit of swagger to it, when considering your other releases, those vocals seem to have gotten more intimate and more refined. Have you been working on your vocal presence?

Julia: Yes, I took some vocal and singing lessons over the last few years, I very happy with the results … my vocal strength is much improved. The only thing I did deliberately on the new record is shaping the vocal sound into a more megaphone-like direction, cutting most of the really high frequencies off, making things a little more lo-fi. When there are too many bright frequencies, the music begins to sounds too pop-ish for me, meaning my voice would be too front and center.

From: https://www.psychedelicbabymag.com/2019/02/juleah-interview.html 

Moon Tooth - Little Witch / Manic Depression (Jimi Hendrix Experience cover)

 Moon Tooth - Little Witch

 

 Moon Tooth - Manic Depression

 

Chromaparagon has an incredible number of musical ideas stuffed into every corner. How do you guys decide where to take a song—and do you ever draw the line or say “no” to an idea?

I don’t think we’ve ever said “no” to a stylistic curveball. This record was written by myself and our drummer, Ray Marte, who is also a killer guitarist. We’d each show up with half-finished riffs or song ideas and then suss them out together. Neither of us ever says “that’s too this or that’s too that.” Previously we’d been in a three-piece together, and the third guy had a problem with a lot of the very heavy things we’d bring in. But Ray and I listen to a lot of death metal and heavier stuff, and that’s an important part of our respective musical identities. This band is very much a reaction to our experience of not being able to express that within our last group. We operate with no boundaries on purpose, and it’s fun!

How do you characterize Moon Tooth’s music to the uninitiated?

The phrase we’ve been using is “aggressive progressive,” but that’s really just because saying you’re in a rock ’n’ roll band doesn’t quite get the point across these days. We’re not trying to be a prog band, really. We totally get that there’s an element of prog in what we do, but to me we’re just a rock band in the purest sense of that term—we just happen to push the envelope of what we can do musically and push each other to do crazier shit.

But there’s still a lot of classic prog in your music, especially on an instrumental like “Bats in the Attic”—which sounds like you’re quoting a bit of Yes.

Oh yeah, the “Heart of the Sunrise” riff. That was totally subconscious, but we laugh about it all the time because we listen to that Yes record a lot and always go, “Oh shit, we kind of stole that riff!” But it just happened that way—we absolutely didn’t write it as an homage or anything.
That said, we don’t operate the way a lot of contemporary prog bands work, and there’s never been an effort to write something specifically to impress other musicians. Ray and I have been playing together for so many years at this point that we’ve developed this friendly competition of who can come up with the crazier riff, but I want to write stuff that is memorable, rather than just impressive.

The album has some very dramatic dynamic shifts, including some surprising death-metal-tinged passages.

Yeah, we love blast beats. Ray and I grew up on Cryptopsy and Cannibal Corpse, and we still listen to a ton of that shit! I primarily listen to music that’s far heavier than what Moon Tooth does, but this band is a product of all of our influences and I think that shows. Pantera was a very big deal for me and Ray, especially things like how tight they could lock in live. We really aspire to pull off that kind of pocket and groove within our own thing.

Tell us a bit about where you come from as a guitarist.

My dad is a huge Black Sabbath and Motörhead fan, and I always had hard rock playing in the house. My parents’ friends and my aunts and uncles always had cover bands, so I was always surrounded by it. I heard Metallica for the first time when I was 6 and that changed everything. The darkness of it really hit me hard, and I just wanted to be James Hetfield when I was a kid. Once that started, I had the typical adventure and search through heavy metal. I discovered Dimebag and Pantera next, and eventually I got into Brent Hinds from Mastodon. His style, with the hybrid picking stuff, really opened up my musical world. I got into Chet Atkins and Leo Kottke through Brent Hinds’ playing—he changed the game for me a lot. The hybrid-picking and pull-off style of lead playing that comes from country music has become a big part of what I do. I really like to steal the best parts of country guitar playing and infuse my riffs with it.
I don’t really write simple songs naturally—most of it’s pretty physically demanding on me and I like that. For me, playing music is a very therapeutic, cathartic thing. I’m always trying to force some evil out onto the guitar, so the riffs I write tend to be very physical and busy as a byproduct of that. I’m also really into building a basic groundwork for riffs and expanding on that as a writing tool. A lot of the stuff I write for Moon Tooth begins as something simple in its infancy, and then I’ll add fills and ideas until it evolves into something unique.

You play like someone with a serious musical education.

I studied for 10 years under Mike Flyntz, who is best known as the guitarist for the band Riot—a classic New York metal band that has been around since the late ’70s, and which I also play in these days. Mike taught me everything I know. I took music theory in high school for a few years and I did a semester at college as a performance major, but I hated it at the time. I’d probably feel different about it now, but when I was 18 I didn’t want the guitar to be homework. So I’m educated enough to express what I want to, but I’m not like a deep theory head or anything, and I don’t consider it that much when I write.

How does Moon Tooth go about structuring songs and making these wild changes flow so well?

It’s pretty natural, honestly. A lot of those things just come together on their own, but a lot of the time we just add a little flair between the changes. It’s mostly organic.

There are a ton of guitar tracks on Chromaparagon, but you’re the sole axe-man live. How do you approach recreating all that sound onstage?

I use a lot of pedals, and live I run a ’74 Hiwatt. It’s loud as fuck, so I’m never worried about being loud enough or making all the noise I need to. For certain things, like the harmonies and double-tracked stuff, we just accept that it’s a different animal live, although I do use a lot of octaves and delays to fill things in sonically. We’re also very physical onstage—we do a lot of running around and climbing things, and we try really hard to put on a show beyond just the sonic experience.

From: https://www.premierguitar.com/artists/snake-rider-moon-tooths-nick-lee

Veruca Salt - Volcano Girls

Veruca Salt are an Alternative Rock band from Chicago, formed in 1993. Named after a character from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the band had some initial success in The '90s before fading out of view. The first and most famous incarnation of the band coalesced around Louise Post and Nina Gordon, who both played guitars, sang, and wrote almost all the band's songs (barring some covers and a co-write). Soon enough, they filled out the band with bassist Steve Lack and Nina's brother Jim Shapiro on drums, and gained a record deal with Minty Fresh Records. Their first album, American Thighs, boasted their trademark The Pixies influenced Power Pop and became reasonably successful, chiefly due to Gordon's "Seether" being released as a single and Brad Wood's Grungey production helping it appeal to the alt-rock audience.
After buying time with a noisier, harsher EP called Blow It Out Your Ass It's Veruca Salt, the band moved to Geffen Records and began working on their next album with Bob Rock, apparently because they were impressed by his production for Metallica's Self-Titled Album. The result was Eight Arms to Hold You, which once again became successful due to a Gordon lead single, namely "Volcano Girls" (the Colbert Bump it got from being in the credits of Jawbreaker may have helped). However, the band failed to sustain its momentum as subsequent singles from the album tanked on the charts and Shapiro left after the album was released, being replaced with Stacy Jones for the supporting tour.
The band acrimoniously collapsed only a year later as Gordon left with Lack after arguments with Post. Post re-organised the band, bringing in new members to an almost Revolving Door Band-like degree, and recorded two more albums: Resolver, which got a lukewarm reception due to its unfocused nature and Author Tract-like tendency to throw potshots at Gordon and various other targets, and IV.
Then the unthinkable happened, in March 2013 an announcement was made on the band's official Facebook saying "hatchets buried, axes exhumed"—officially Putting the Band Back Together. Fan's patience was finally rewarded with the release of a new song "The Museum of Broken Relationships" in April 2014 followed by the band embarking on a US tour. A second new song "It's Holy" was released during the tour. A brand new album, Ghost Notes, followed in 2015 cementing the band's return.  From: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Music/VerucaSalt 

The Dukes of Stratosphear - My Love Explodes / Your Gold Dress

 The Dukes of Stratosphear - My Love Explodes

 

 The Dukes of Stratosphear - Your Gold Dress

 

Time flies when your having fun and in 1985 XTC were having plenty of it - recording this mini-album homage to pyschedelia in just two weeks flat. Legend has it - and this being XTC there are plenty of legendary tales to take your pick from - that the origins behind the sessions came about when Andy Partridge's production job with Mary Margaret O'Hara fell through.
The resulting vacant fortnight gave the ever-hyperactive Partridge the opportunity to tick off a long held ambition to recreate the 1960s that he'd seen and heard in his head and get it all down on tape.
Adopting the collective personna of The Dukes of Stratosphear (a name that he'd considered for the band before finally settling for XTC) the band time-warped themselves across a series of brilliantly witty psych pastiches.
You'd need a trainspotter's notebook to chronicle all the musical references anthologised within, but a kaleidoscope of cameos would include The Beatles (What In The World and the exquisite Mole In The Ministry), The Electric Prunes (25 O'Clock), The Yardbirds (My Love Explodes), Pink Floyd and The Move (Bike Ride To The Moon).
Sometimes these kind of in-jokes are better on paper than they are in reality. Not in this case though. 25 O'Clock bristles with enthusiasm and energy, positively exuding good, and let's be honest here, wacky vibes. Released on April Fool's Day 1985 under the Dukes' pseudonym, it actually outsold their last album proper, The Big Express. Indeed, its influence can clearly be heard on straighter albums such as Tears For Fears' 1989 work, The Seeds Of Love.
The band enjoyed their break from the day job of being XTC so much that they repeated the exercise successfully with Psonic Psunspot in 1987, which has also been just been reissued alongside this one, complete with a clutch of demo tracks which are just as entertaining as the final versions.
If, as they say, there's a thin line between being a genius and being mad. Andy Partridge, Colin Moulding and Dave Gregory are clearly experts at walking that particular tightrope.  From: https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/qm63/

 

 

The Innocence Mission - Bright As Yellow

Empire Records the movie may not be a favourite of mine, but I have still have pretty strong memories of seeing it in college as my brother had bought the soundtrack, and knowing the tunes before I saw the film seemed to help it lodge in my memory. Likely he bought it because Edwyn Collins’s A Girl Like You was on it, but apart from that it also featured a decent cover of The Ballad of El Goodo by Evan Dando, the Gin Blossoms’ lovely Til I Hear it from You (co-written with power-pop pioneer Marshall Crenshaw) and the Innocence Mission’s equally lovely Bright as Yellow.
My first thought on hearing the Innocence Mission was that they had to have been opportunistic second stringers that the soundtrack supervisor settled for after not being able to secure a first choice. In the early 1990s, the Sundays, Mazzy Star, Belly and Juliana Hatfield were all indie favourites, and Innocence Mission singer Karen Peris seemed to owe something to all of them.
But, I think now, that was very unfair. By the time Empire Records came out in 1995 and the Innocence Mission got the closest thing they ever had to a mainstream moment, all of the above artists had seen their commercial waves crest and recede. Whatever you did to try to get big in 1995, it sure as hell wasn’t rip off the Sundays. In fact, the Innocence Mission had been going for as long as any of those artists whose sounds theirs resembled. Furthermore, they were a Christian band from a completely different milieu to those groups, and on close listening, I can’t help but feel their sonic similarity to other acts that had enjoyed recent critical and/or commercial success just had to be a coincidence. I don’t hear Karen Peris as capable of that kind of cynicism.
Bright as Yellow takes its time, builds slowly and may not sound like much initially, but each time that chorus comes around, it lands with greater force, and that middle-eight section (repeated twice) in which her singing becomes increasingly urgent and staccato is a wonderful bit of writing.  From: https://songsfromsodeep.wordpress.com/2017/10/18/bright-as-yellow-the-innocence-mission/

Unknown Mortal Orchestra - Swim and Sleep (Like a Shark)

Swim and Sleep (Like a Shark) is a song created by the musical band Unknown Mortal Orchestra (UMO). The video provided to accompany the song was directed and designed by Becky Sloan and Joe Pelling, creators of Don't Hug Me I'm Scared.
A man uses binoculars to gawk at a woman while she is in the nude and masturbate to the sight while in the safety of his home. However, the woman catches at him in the act, and now he now feels ashamed and decides to go to a therapist for help.
At the end a calendar is shown with June 19 encircled as a birthday and contains a picture of tree balloons in the colors red, yellow and green, the same colors as the main characters. (the palette also contains the three colors red, yellow and green.) The balloons and the birthday marked on the calendar play into the theme of parties, and the horse portraits and horses in general also frequently occur in both the web series and TV series of Don't Hug Me I'm Scared (the horse puppet seen in the video was even reused as a statue for DHMIS.) The trees have a similar design as in Episode 3 and the portrait of the naked women bending over a tree looks very similar to a portrait of the same nature occurring in Episode 2 of the web series. Lastly, the diamond patterned wallpaper in the therapist's office is similar to the background in a portrait of Yellow Guy and Roy.  From: https://donthugme.fandom.com/wiki/Swim_and_Sleep_(Like_a_Shark)

Ever since it was released late last year with its disturbing image of a bleeding baby’s face, I’ve been bopping my head to Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s “Swim and Sleep (Like a Shark)”, the single to their sophomore album, ‘II’, revolves around a very catchy guitar lick that is complemented by a driven drum – it’s a good listen. Well now the song has a video to accompany it, and it features masturbating puppets (yes, masturbating puppets). The self-pleasing puppets are only a small (but significant and totally memorable) part of the story of a character going through the motions of self discovery. The creative team did a fine job of making this puppet world come to life – colorful, animated, and detailed. I didn’t expect the group to couple “Swim and Sleep (Like  a Shark)” with puppets, and with it dealing with adult situations we’re treated to a twisted music video.  From: https://whiteboardjournal.com/blog/unknown-mortal-orchestra-swim-and-sleep-like-a-shark-music-video/

Iris DeMent - Sweet Is The Melody

Early morning, Corvallis, Oregon; Iris DeMent hunkers down at an economy motel after an unexpected scheduling change in her West Coast tour itinerary. The press interrupts her lazy morning with a call from the East Coast, which could conceivably annoy the road-weary singer-songwriter, were that her style — but she’s in a good mood, instead, happy that her motel has windows that open.
“Opening windows is the first thing I do when I can,” she explains over the prominent sound of a weed-eater being operated by an up-and-at-’em motel employee. “I can’t stand feeling cooped up in rooms where they don’t let you open the windows to get some fresh air in.”
DeMent’s songs are sorta like that too: they tell you something personal about her while evoking fresh air, long horizons and big spaces, where regular folks do regular things on a regular basis. Which fits, since DeMent has spent most of her life that way, growing up the youngest of fourteen kids in a religious, blue-collar household, marrying a firefighter who turned in his boots to manage his bride’s career, working in the down-home spaces between the folk and country communities. Of course, growing up as a regular girl, DeMent never imagined that she’d be in a place where folks would have any reason to call her up from the Coast while she watched the weed whacker.
“Music for me growing up was always in the context of the church,” she recalls. “So whatever dreams I had about music were wrapped up in that-and I never really thought of clubs or radio or anything else. Everybody around me sang: my family was the musical family of the church, so my sister would direct the choir and some of my brothers and sisters wrote special songs and then performed them. And I grew up admiring so many people who could put words together that I couldn’t imagine myself doing anything as good or meaningful.” Until desperation set in.
“I got really tired of doing things that I didn’t love and I realized that I was putting a lot of effort into things that didn’t matter to me,” DeMent continues. “I went to school, worked hard and got good grades for one semester, but that was not where my heart was. So I started thinking that if I put that energy into something I cared about, like music, then I could probably do well and have a little bit of happiness. And it all just opened up for me when I started thinking that way.”
But not immediately: it took three years worth of open mike shows before a Rounder Records representative spotted and signed DeMent, whose ear-opening 1992 Rounder debut, Infamous Angel, then won her a contract with Warner Bros. Her two major label releases, My Life (1994) and The Way I Should (1996), built on her reputation as one of the most important singers and songwriters to straddle the country-folk divide in this decade — and added to the anticipation for (and pressure associated with) her elusive next album.
“I’m not really trying to take my time with the next record,” DeMent concludes. “But that’s just how it is: I’m still looking for songs that say what I feel they need to say, songs that lift me up and say something to other people too. I’m trying to take a picture of my life experience and share it with other people . . . I feel a need to do that, although I don’t know why. Or, well, I guess I do: I just want to write songs and sing ’em for people ’cause that’s what makes me happy.”  From: https://jericsmith.com/1999/08/21/interview-with-iris-dement-1999/

The Beatles - I'm Only Sleeping

John Lennon wrote this as a tribute to staying in bed, which he liked to do even when he wasn't sleeping. The song is discussed in the DVD Composing the Beatles Songbook where they mention a theory that it's John's attack on "straight society," but conclude that the song IS about sleeping. John loved laying around in bed, sleeping, reading, watching telly or lovemaking. Didn't matter. He loved being in bed.
Maureen Cleave wrote of John Lennon: "He can sleep almost indefinitely, is probably the laziest person in England." She clarifies that she means physically lazy, not intellectually lazy.
The yawning effect is a guitar recorded backward. A few seconds before the yawn comes in, you can hear John Lennon say, "Yawn Paul."
Perhaps the greatest legacy to this song was the famous "bed-in" protests staged by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. They invented the term as a derivative of "sit-in" protests. Their first was in March of 1969, subsequent to their marriage, in which they invited the press into their motel room while they advocated for world peace. Others soon copied the motif. It does bring to mind the old quote (variously attributed) "All man's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone." Hey, if you stay in bed, you're not out fighting wars and making the world an uncool place, and if you've got someone with you, you're promoting more love in the world, right?
Musically, "I'm Only Sleeping" is known for its backwards guitar. It was conceived by George Harrison in a late-night session, inspired when a studio engineer accidentally flipped a tape and Harrison was amazed at the effect and decided to "do it for real." So he wrote down a solo and then played it twice, once forwards and once backwards, with fuzz effects on one track.
This song also marks the embracing of pure psychedelic music by The Beatles, as do the majority of tracks on the Revolver album. The lyric about "keeping an eye on the world going by my window" also gets called back later in Lennon's later solo hit "Watching The Wheels," which is also about passively being entertained by the busy goings-on of the world.
American audiences got to hear this first, as it was included on the Yesterday... And Today album in June 1966. When Revolver was issued in August, this song was left off American pressings. This was also the case with "Doctor Robert" and "And Your Bird Can Sing."
On November 2, 2022, The Beatles released an animated video for "I'm Only Sleeping" to coincide with the reissue of the Revolver album. It's suitably dreamy, comprised of 1300 oil paintings by the artist Em Cooper, who said it "explored the space between dreaming and wakefulness."  From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/the-beatles/im-only-sleeping

Nina Simone - My Baby Just Cares For Me

"My Baby Just Cares for Me" is a jazz standard written by Walter Donaldson with lyrics by Gus Kahn. Written for the film version of the musical comedy Whoopee! (1930), the song became a signature tune for Eddie Cantor who sang it in the movie. A stylized version of the song by American singer and songwriter Nina Simone, recorded in 1957, was a top 10 hit in the United Kingdom after it was used in a 1987 perfume commercial and resulted in a renaissance for Simone.
Simone recorded the song in late 1957 for her debut album, Little Girl Blue, released in February 1959. The track remained relatively obscure until 1987, when it was used in a UK television commercial for Chanel No. 5 perfume. To follow up this exposure, the track was released as a single by Charly Records. The Simone version of the song was featured on the soundtrack for the 1992 film Peter's Friends, the 1994 film Shallow Grave, and the 1996 film Stealing Beauty.
In 1987 a claymation music video was produced for "My Baby Just Cares for Me" by Aardman Animations and directed by Peter Lord. The video prominently features live action footage showing details of a piano, brushes on a snare drum, and a double bass as they play the song. The two focal characters are represented by a singing cat in a club and the cat who is in love with her.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Baby_Just_Cares_for_Me 

INXS - What You Need

Troubles in life? Michael Hutchence has got what you need. He doesn't give details, but he will take you where you want to be. Hutchence wrote the song with Andrew Farriss - they were the songwriting dynamic duo in INXS. The song has all the group's hallmarks: a big, catchy guitar riff; a prominent saxophone part (played by group member Kirk Pengilly); and an inspirational vocal from Hutchence.
The instrumental crash before the song starts up made it a great opener to the album Listen Like Thieves, the band's fifth. They were already huge in their native Australia, but the rest of the world was slower to catch on. "What You Need" was their first big American hit. Still, they had a long way to go: When they released their next album, Kick, the "Kick-off Tour" was a trek through college campuses in the US. Four massive hit singles from the album later, and INXS was an arena act.
This song was almost "the one that got away." Producer Chris Thomas told the band they needed one more guaranteed hit after they finished recording the Listen Like Thieves album. They thought it over that night, came in and literally finished the song in a day, in time for the album to cut and ship.
However, this isn't quite the magic trick it first appears; Andrew Farriss had already made a demo tape with a song whose working title was "Funk Song No. 13," which evolved into "What You Need." Chris Thomas listened to the demo for "Funk Song No. 13" and two other tapes, and picked this one because "it was great. I thought, 'I could listen to that groove for 10 minutes!' I said, 'Let's work with that groove.' So we went with that and in just two days it turned into the song that eventually broke them, 'What You Need.'"  From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/inxs/what-you-need

Twisted Pine - Live Green River Festival 2021

RLR: While this is technically your debut full length record, you guys have recorded some material in the past and the band has undergone a few changes in the past couple of years. What is it about this collection of work that you guys are most excited about in terms of how it represents how far you have come as a quartet and shaped where you started to where you guys are right now?

TP: We self-recorded 2 EPs over the years. The first was this crazy overnight session that we got for free because Dan was interning at a recording studio, and the other was collected from several live performances. They were both great for us at the time, but this album is another level of planning and execution. It’s the first to feature entirely our own original music, which is something we’ve been focusing on for the past year. That creative process.

RLR: I think what is particularly special about you guys is the dynamic that the four of you have as individuals and how its really brought together in this beautiful way. Everyone is so solid on the instruments, but together you are all greater than the sum of your parts. Has it always been easy for you guys to hinge on that? Was the chemistry with the 4 of you immediate or did it take a long time?

TP: Thanks for saying that! That’s definitely something we try to be conscious of. We’ve always had great chemistry playing together; that’s what led us to form the band in the first place, but that dynamic has evolved a lot over several years of playing together and especially through the writing, arranging, and recording of this batch of songs. It’s to the point now where we all feel this freedom and responsibility to really bring more of our individual voices and personal musical sensibilities to every performance. At the same time, we’re very careful to always be serving the song and making the right musical choices to get the songs across. 

RLR: This one is specifically for Dan…you are one of the growing mandolinists that plays an A style…did you ever had scroll envy? (A style mando bros for life!)

Dan B: Never! Not even once!

RLR: You all are pretty deeply embedded in the Cambridge/Somerville and greater New England community. Have you found it especially supportive over the past few years as roots music really establishes itself as a constantly growing genre of music? Or is there competition in any way to play certain clubs, try and rise up above the noise and establish the band as one that is really doing something different and special?

TP: Luckily, we’ve found that mutual admiration seems to be the norm. The great thing about being a part of this greater traditional/roots/folk scene is that it’s kind of built to be a supportive, self-sustaining thing that grows organically. It’s all about hanging and learning and having a good time, and the deeper you get into it, the more you realize that we’re all in this thing together and that there’s room for everyone. Yeah, we may be working on our thing and trying to make it unique and special, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re competing with anyone else’s thing. Success is shared, not won. I guess you could approach it in a competitive way, but that hasn’t been the case so far in our experience.

RLR: When you guys were either writing for the record or in the studio tracking, what were your sonic inspirations? Any particular records you looked to for guidance or stuff you listened to in order to decompress from longs days in the studio?

TP: Good question! There were definitely artists/records that we looked to for aesthetic inspiration and as a reference for communicating ideas to each other, mostly in the initial writing stages. A lot of the acoustic music heavy hitters and what you would expect: Nickel Creek, Crooked Still, Punch Brothers, Joy Kills Sorrow.  But also stuff like Paul Simon, Elton John, Margaret Glaspy, Lake Street Dive, old-time fiddle music, funk jams, Jobim. Once the songs started to develop, they usually took on a life of their own and we would try to intuitively follow wherever they would lead us. Our engineer and co-producer Dan Cardinal probably had the biggest influence on the sound of the record. He’s worked on so many great albums coming out of Boston, and brought all of that knowledge/experience to the table.He’s an extremely musical person/engineer and he really invested and got deep into each song and got what we were going for. He also had this great ritual of playing us stuff he was currently working on with other bands at the end of the day. All of it.

RLR: How does the songwriting process work with the band when someone brings a new tune to the table? I am always interested to see the different ways that groups of people tackle this and how it develops from one members idea to the full arrangement we get to hear live on the album.

TP: It works every which way. Some songs are seeds of ideas that get fleshed out by all four of us. Some are more fully realized when they are brought in. 
Usually the songwriter or writers will bring a full song or even an unfinished song to the table. The group will take a listen, and try some grooves. Sometimes the songwriter is very specific with their Groove choice or have an exact idea of the arrangement, and that really helps us! It gets the skeleton of the song down and then we make it our own. We play it out at shows, if we play divey bars then we really like to let loose on the song. Add solos, extend bars at a time, switch up grooves. It’s like the human body, you can’t always move it in the same way, otherwise it gets tired and the mind gets bored. Same with the songs, we always try to play them down strong, but always adding a little bit of spice, or sparkle to keep the songs fresh.

RLR: So…that Vulfpeck/Bill Monroe mash up…will we get to see that live at Green River…cereal box and all?

TP: Shhh, we can’t tell you yet! But Kathleen did mention she bought a box of strawberry cereal for the next road trip…maybe there’ll be a bit of Special K from Special Kay?

From: https://www.redlineroots.com/2017/07/woods-interview-twisted-pine/

The Byrds - Younger Than Yesterday - Side 1

1 So You Want to Be a Rock 'N' Roll Star
2 Have You Seen Her Face
3 The Girl with No Name
4 Renaissance Fair
5 Time Between
6 Everybody's Been Burned 

Given the tumult surrounding the Byrds at the end of 1966, it’s a wonder the group created such a stellar album as Younger Than Yesterday. Yet hindsight of over a half-century is particularly revelatory, both in terms of how this iconic American band found new resources within itself even as the members struggled to rise above the growing discord in their ranks.
This fourth Byrds album is as remarkable for what it might have been—a work of invention comparable to the Beatles’ Revolver–as for what it actually is as originally released: a formidable transitional work. On this first album to be entirely recorded by the Byrds without Gene Clark’s participation, guitarists Roger McGuinn and David Crosby continued to hone their songwriting skills; they even co-wrote “Why”  in an attempt to fill the void left by that founding member and chief composer’s abrupt departure early in the year prior to the release of Younger Than Yesterday.
Yet the paucity of original ideas for self-composed material that would plague McGuinn’s solo career (and the latter days of the Byrds’ existence) also manifests itself here. “CTA 102” continues his fascination with science fiction as introduced with “Mr. Spaceman,” but hardly extends the stylistic reach of this record (or its predecessors): it might well have been excised altogether and replaced with “It Happens Each Day,” a radiant, fully-formed outtake written by Crosby. “So You Want to Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star,” however, is something else again, a wry commentary of pop celebrity set to an insistent rhythm from co-author Chris Hillman’s bass, over which South African Hugh Masekela plays a bracing trumpet.
It is the first use of brass on a Byrds recording but hardly the last. Such instrumentation is integral to a superb cut of David’s not appearing on the album, the exalting “Ladyfriend; ” indicative of the author’s fundamentally argumentative nature, he fought almost as vociferously for the inclusion of the extremely self-indulgent “Mind Gardens” as the aforementioned gem as a single. The recognition  sought and most righteously deserved by this future collaborator of Stills, Nash & Young would’ve otherwise been based on his other splendid contributions to the album, “Everybody’s Been Burned” and especially “Renaissance Fair,” which prominently feature the Byrds signature sounds of chiming guitars and soaring vocal harmonies.
Along similarly, readily-recognizable lines lies the most surprising development within the Byrds at this juncture: the emergence of  Hillman as both a lead vocalist and songwriter. Besides collaborating with McGuinn on the aforementioned swipe at ephemeral stardom, he also contributed  “Have You Seen Her Face,” thereby reinstating a tangible emotional quality largely missing from the  Byrds oeuvre since Clark’s departure. In addition, the former bluegrass musician proved prescient by contributing two-country rock-flavored songs, “Time Between” and “The Girl with No Name,” both of which feature session musician Clarence White’s innovative guitar playing via the B-Bender device (he and Gene Parsons invented ; both of the latter musicians would further distinguish themselves  as official members of the band in the years to follow, circa Untitled and The Ballad of Easy Rider (not to mention the long-shelved concert recordings on Live at Fillmore East eventually released in 2000).
Meanwhile, Chris’ “Thoughts and Words” is distinguished by its author’s plaintive vocal as much as the sitar-like sound of backwards guitar effects. Such imaginative arrangements, reminiscent of “Eight Miles High” and the title cut of the Fifth Dimension album, belie the lack of commercial response to this album, as well as the otherwise sterling cover of Bob Dylan’s “My Back Pages;”  only moderately successful as a single, that track provides a deliciously tranquil closing to a uniformly impeccable track sequence offered by reprogramming the expanded CD of 1996.  From: https://glidemagazine.com/270003/55-years-later-revisiting-the-byrds-inventive-fourth-lp-younger-than-yesterday/

Utu - Happy To Be Sad

Not all love songs are about love. UTU’s “Love Collection: By the Ashes That Used to Be the Everlasting Fire” explores this paradox across ten tracks that refuse easy categorization. Through vocalist Petra Poutanen’s unflinching lyrics and the band’s genre-defying arrangements, what emerges is less a celebration of love than an autopsy of it.
“Reality Beats All Dreams” opens the collection with startling directness, examining love’s capacity for violence while blending dream pop textures with experimental edges. The juxtaposition between ethereal sounds and brutal imagery sets the tone for what’s to come.
“The Worst Is Yet to Come” continues this exploration through darker territory. The band’s diverse musical backgrounds shine here, with chamber pop arrangements providing deceptively beautiful settings for lyrics about secrets and inevitable revelations. The production maintains perfect tension between accessibility and experimentation.
“It Must Have Been Love at First Hit” emerges as one of the album’s most powerful statements. Playing with the familiar phrase “love at first sight,” UTU creates something both familiar and disturbing. The arrangement moves from indie pop sweetness to more challenging textures, mirroring love’s evolution from initial attraction to complex reality.
“In The Snow I Look Dead But I Just Pretend” provides one of the album’s most poetic moments, using the metaphor of a tree through seasons to explore cycles of love and hatred. The production here is particularly noteworthy, creating sonic spaces that feel both intimate and expansive.
The album’s middle section, including “All the Love” and “Happy to Be Sad,” demonstrates UTU’s gift for finding beauty in darkness. These tracks showcase how art pop can tackle complex emotional themes without losing its essential musicality. Poutanen’s lyrics here are particularly striking, finding fresh ways to examine familiar emotional territory.
“Waterfall” marks a shift in both tone and arrangement, introducing more electronic elements while maintaining the album’s thematic focus. The transformation metaphors in the lyrics find perfect companions in the music’s evolving textures.
“The Woman of My Dreams” stands as perhaps the album’s boldest statement, subverting expectations of a love song by turning the gaze inward. The arrangement builds from indie pop foundations into something more experimental, supporting lyrics that examine self-love without sentimentality.
“Money Into Love” explores transactional aspects of relationships with remarkable nuance. The band creates a sound that’s both dreamy and grounded, allowing Poutanen’s lyrics about desire and need to land with full impact.
The collection closes with “Oh, Sorrow,” a track that somehow manages to find hope without abandoning the album’s clear-eyed examination of love’s complexities. The full range of the band’s capabilities comes into play here, from chamber pop delicacy to experimental boldness.  From: https://bsideguys.com/2024/12/16/album-review-utu-love-collection-by-the-ashes-that-used-to-be-the-everlasting-fire/ 

Shamblemaths - Knucklecog

Shamblemaths is the new project by Norwegian duo Simen A. Ellingsen and Eirik M. Husum. This band is actually a direct contiuation of their first collaboration as a duo formed in their student days in 2004 under the name Fallen Fowl. That collaboration actually started as a side project to the band TiaC that was active in the early 2000s. The song "Stalker" from the new album is actually a TiaC song that was never recorded. A couple of demos and an EP were recorded under Fallen Fowl before a hiatus ensued when Ellingsen moved to London to complete his studies.
Now they've returned as Shamblemaths with an edgier sound and approach, adding more influences from Magma, Univers Zero and Egg. The band plays an eclectic mix of countless styles and the music is pretty much all over the place, exploring both melodic and quirky areas. Their self titled album was released in the spring of 2016 featuring guests musicians, most prominently Eirik Øverland Dischler on keyboards and Jon Even Schärer on drums. Husum is playing bass and Ellingsen is playing guitars, saxophones and also handles the vocals.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=9885 

Vas - Izgrejala

Feast of Silence is the most recent recording by the talented duo of Azam Ali and Greg Ellis, who together form the group, Vas. The two met in 1995 at a Master Musicians of Jajouka concert in Los Angeles and found a common bond in their approach to making music. In 1997, they released their first CD, Sunyata, on Narada Equinox and justifiably caused a stir in the “world” music community. Not only is Greg Ellis an outstanding percussionist; but also Azam Ali is an extraordinarily gifted singer. They have both proven themselves to be very fine composers as well.
They went on to record two more CDs as Vas: Offerings in 1998 and In the Garden of Souls in 2000. Then they took a brief hiatus as a duo and recorded solo albums. Azam Ali’s Portals of Grace (recorded on Narada World in 2002) embraces medieval musical traditions from Europe (a tradition in which Ali did not grow up) and shows the great depth of her talent and range. Kala Rupa, Explorations in Rhythm recorded by Ellis in 2001 is exactly that; but also an exploration in the many sounds that are created by amount of many different percussion instruments (such as udu, cajon, bendir, tambourine, tabla, bells, cymbals, shakers, etc) combined with guest artists playing such instruments as kemencheh, bansuri flute, cello, and on two tracks, the voice of Azam Ali. Many fans were worried that the two had gone their separate ways and would not be recording as Vas any longer. Feast of Silence has, of course, ended those fears.
Azam Ali was born in Iran; but when she was four her family moved to India, where she grew up and seemingly absorbed the rich culture that surrounded her. She sings in many languages, but also quite often sings in a language all her own — spontaneous vocals that work beautifully with the throbbing rhythms of Greg Ellis’ drumming. Her voice can be cultured and controlled when she is singing songs from a more “classical” tradition such as Latin songs, or it can be wild and strong when she is performing, for example, a traditional Bulgarian tune. On Feast of Silence Azam sings “Izgrejala”, a traditional Bulgarian tune, as if she was born to sing it and her voice compares with some of the great Bulgarian singers such as Yanka Rupkina and Valya Balkanska. She is a poet as well as composer and seeks to combine her poetic sense with her music. On Feast of Silence she composed nine of the twelve tracks.
Greg Ellis grew up in Los Gatos, California, and began playing trumpet when he was nine years old. He became interested in drums at age 12 and has made percussion instruments his major passion since then. He not only composes music for himself and for Vas, but also music for film and television.
Feast of Silence is a richly textured recording and although it would appeal to those who like “new-age music”; because of the rich imagination and creativity of both Ellis and Ali, they rise above this category and give birth to something of real depth and lasting value, and place Feast of Silence into a category all of its own — not really “world and not really “new-age”. Their spiritual side is obvious in the choice of their arrangements and subjects; but this serves to enhance their music because it is obviously so genuine. In Ali’s solo work, Portals of Grace, she says in the liner notes: “for me, singing and praying are one and the same.” Indeed, listening to a recording by Vas isn’t just entertainment or background noise; but a journey into the mystic realm.  From: https://www.popmatters.com/vas-feast-2496102933.html

Tō Yō - Titania Skyline

How would you describe the music you create?

Masami Makino: We found it interesting to see comments on YouTube such as “farming on acid” and “rice field psych.” We don’t have a concept as a band, but those comments certainly make us think that we are playing like farming on acid.

Would you like to talk a bit about your background?

Interestingly, we all have different musical backgrounds, with many different genres as one element, from acid folk, metal and tribal music to techno. The key to our songwriting lies in blending them together.

When did you decide that you wanted to start writing and performing your own music? What brought that about for you?

There was a time when we were covering songs, but at that time we had the confidence unique to young people that we could do the same. Once we started, this was a never-ending path of exploration, so we followed a kind of inertia and started to make songs and perform more often.
Photo by Sebun

What does the name “Tō Yō” refer to in the context of the band name?

It means eastern sheep. But as an interesting play on words, this is also pronounced the same as “oriental.” We don’t really represent the Orient, so it doesn’t have a deep meaning anyway. Just like there is a British band named Japan.

How do you usually approach music making?

We jam in the studio and make music. As we said we have different musical backgrounds, sometimes it doesn’t work at all and we waste a lot of time, but just try things out and if we find a good phrase or melodies, just cut it out and make a song out of it. We also jam a lot at our gigs.
Photo by Takaumi Minagawa

Can you share some further details how your latest album ‘Stray Birds From The Far East’ was recorded?

It was recorded by Yui Kimijima at Tsubame Studio in Asakusabashi. There are many items that are not normally used as instruments but make fascinating sounds, such as plates and tubs, which are very inspiring. It was therefore not uncommon for the arrangements to be made while recording, in an organic environment where good ideas are always turned into reality.

How pleased were you with the sound of the album?

We tried everything we could at this time, but we are a young band and always growing. Super happy with this album, but I think the next album will sound more original.

What are some bands/musicians that have a big influence on you?

Japanese psychedelic musicians have been a great influence. (Far East Family Band, J. A. Seazer,Flower Travellin’ Band, Kikagaku Moyo). At the same time, there are many musicians who have had a strong influence on each member of the band, so you can imagine that from the sound references.

Do you often play live? Who are some of your personal favorite bands that you’ve had a chance to play with over the past few years?

These days we play about three gigs a month. We also played at a rock festival for the first time and felt that our music is more pleasant to listen to in the open air. Played with a Japanese band such as Dhidalah or Barbican Estate, they are super awesome and have the same passion as us.

How important is improvisation for you?

Improvisation requires a fairly high level of communication and technique. The feeling of fusion between body and instrument, and sharing this with the other members of the band, is very important and is the goal.

From: https://www.psychedelicbabymag.com/2023/10/to-yo-interview-new-album-stray-birds-from-the-far-east.html 

Tranquebar - Tigers in Spain

Sometimes it can be better to accept and not examine things too deeply. Let it flow and enjoy it. Take Tranquebar’s music. In many ways, what the Danish band creates shouldn’t work. The mix of banjo, voice, accordion, and percussion is beautifully ramshackle (at least on the surface). Yet it succeeds, and it does it in a fashion that’s quite mesmerizing. Ø is actually a collection of four EPs, each recorded on a different Danish island (hence the title, as Ø means island). And each island exerts a subtle influence on the shading of the music. The first cuts, from Sejerø, are the most nautical, with a hearty shanty rhythm that percolates underneath, and reaches the surface on “Joy.”
Here, and with every track on the album, the band show the magic they have and how they knock it all into shape: not only can they write a good tune that takes unexpected turns but they create the kind of chorus that sticks in the brain (at its core, this is essentially acoustic, folky pop music of a very twisted sort), and they can also arrange with wonderful imagination. Layers of vocals on “Tigers In Spain,” for instance, or using dobro and percussive cast iron stove for the rhythm behind a track.  From: https://www.rootsworld.com/reviews/tranquebar-20.shtml

The Grateful Dead - Wharf Rat

“My name is August West…” So begins the second verse of “Wharf Rat,” a song I have long considered to be a key song—one that helps to unlock the whole body of work Robert Hunter created along with Jerry Garcia. The shape of the story told by the song is recursive—a sort of passing-of-the-torch for the down-and-out. The narrator whose voice frames the story is well on his way, from the sound of it, to being out there on the street, looking for spare change. In fact, he already doesn’t even have a dime; all he has is some time to listen. (Brings to mind the old saying, “I’m so poor, I can’t even pay attention!”)
Hunter and Garcia both had a certain amount of experience to draw on in writing and singing about being homeless, on at least semi-indigent, living in cars in their early years of first acquaintance, crashing where they could. The fact that Hunter has Garcia sing a song, one of whose characters is named August, seems possibly significant in light of Garcia’s birthday: he would have been 71 years old this week—born on August 1, 1942. There are other examples of songs in which Garcia sings lyrics, crafted by Hunter, which seem like personal cautionary tales: “Althea,” for example. So is this August West a character Garcia might have become had he not made other decisions?
“Wharf Rat” was first performed by the Dead on February 18, 1971, at the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, NY. This is another of those shows that included a number of firsts: “Bertha,” “Greatest Story Ever Told,” “Loser,” and “Playing In the Band.” This is the beginning of the songwriting period in which Hunter and Garcia collaborated on a series of great story songs set in an America peopled by outlaws, the down-and-out, and a range of more or less disreputable characters. The song was never given full studio treatment, although the version released on “Skull and Roses” did benefit from some studio enhancement, with Merl Saunders’s organ track overdubbed after the fact.
Back to the arc of the story. The song’s initial narrator seems to be a relatively young man who is wandering down by the docks of the city. He encounters a panhandler, August West, who then tells his story to the listening young man. August professes love for his “Pearly Baker,” apparently a girlfriend. Two things here, both fascinating, both probably without any particular bearing on the song. There were historical figures named August West and Purley Baker.
From an article about a historical plaque dedication in 2003 in Greenfield, Ohio: In 1837 a runaway slave named Augustus West arrived in the Greenfield area and along with local farmer Alexander Beatty, authored a story that has become a part of both the area's and the nation's history. To raise money to purchase his own land, West and Beatty devised a scheme to travel back south, sell West back into slavery, help him escape and then split the profits. On at least three documented occasions the two employed this money making scam and their story became the basis for a 1971 Hollywood film, The Skin Game, starring James Gardner and Louis Gossett, Jr.
West used his profits to purchase land near the intersection of Bonner and Barrett Roads in Fayette County. Some distance from the road he built a "mansion" and the dirt road leading up to his front door became known as Abolition Lane. In the years that followed, at least twelve cabins were constructed on West's land and these became temporary residences for other runaway slaves who needed a place to live and work as they stole their way further north to freedom.
Historically, Purley Baker was a man—the head of the Anti-Saloon League, which was an anti-drink temperance organization in the U.S. in the early part of the 20th century. This is one of those wonderful occurrences in Hunter’s lyrics of a name that carries a weight that might go completely unnoticed—who has heard, these days, of Purley Baker or his organization? It came to my attention thanks to a reader sending a contribution to The Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics website. And I think someone sent me a photo once of a bar ironically named “Purley Baker’s.” Possibly in upstate New York. 
So, in this song, Pearly Baker becomes the idealized woman of August West’s dreams and of his past. He feels betrayed by all those who told him he would come to no good—Pearly believed them. 
He spends his life drunk or in jail—doing time for the crime of someone else (either “some other fucker” or “some motherfucker,” not sure which—Garcia’s singing often sounds like the latter). But in the song’s amazing middle, one of the great Garcia bridges moves the time signature into waltz time, and August West avows that he will get back on his feet, if the good Lord wills it. (Though earlier, he had already stated bluntly that his maker was no friend of his—a key moment.) Moving back into march time, the music frames West singing what seems to be an extension of the bridge: “I’ll get up and fly away…”. From: https://www.dead.net/features/greatest-stories-ever-told/greatest-stories-ever-told-wharf-rat

There Is No Mountain - Song of Seikilos

Is there a Donovan song stuck in your head yet? No? Let me repeat the title, this review is about Luna, the second full-length album from There Is No Mountain. If “First There Is a Mountain” isn’t stuck in your head yet, I don’t think we can be friends. If you can push that ear worm out of your head for long enough, There Is No Mountain (TINM) has released an experimental/folk/Americana/psych-pop-rock record that takes inspiration from all kinds of genres. This Portland-based duo is made up of vocalist/percussionist/guitarist Matt Harmon and vocalist/drummer/keyboardist Kali Giaritta, who happen to be married.
There’s a ton going on with the guitars, whether they’re big and fuzzy or faint and picked, but it’s like life going on below the surface of a body of water. When the guitar is at its most intricate, it’s also at its softest volume. There are big, fuzzy chords on “Listening to Sadness” and “Waterbound,” but there are also soft, plucked parts hiding in there. “Hiking” is one of the few songs where the guitar gets all the solos it needs to really stand out. Because inspiration was taken from so many sources, at times the guitars sound like ‘90s alternative, or Latin (think of a world music CD being played at a Ten Thousand Villages store,) or a little Renaissance Faire-esque when it gets classical, or kind of folky Americana. I’m pretty sure I even caught a touch of zydeco in “Black Hole (Part 2).” Now keep in mind that all of those different styles may exist within the same song. There are tempo changes all over the place to accommodate for all of the style changes. Add in the vocals and you have even more styles for which to account.
The vocals are shared by Harmon and Giaritta, though their voices sound absolutely nothing like each other’s. They harmonize, but Harmon basically speaks all of his lead vocals while Giaritta has a clear voice I last heard from a church’s choir director. They harmonize well when singing together, but it’s a strange mix when they take turns singing because they styles are so different (even within the same song.)
While the music has dark moments, it’s punctuated by things like really audible maracas and tambourine – who can be sad with maracas and tambourines? The lyrics, however, are pretty dark. They’re full of anxiety and depression, like not feeling worthy of the sun’s rays on “Listening to Sadness” because she’ll be dead soon, worrying that she’s not a good wife on “Good Life,” or Harmon wondering what happens if he dies while laughing after announcing that he doesn’t take care of himself on “What If?” Despite the anxieties expressed, “Good Life” has a pretty upbeat sound, and along with “Cat’s Away,” kind of sounds like it was inspired by a sea shanty. “Benjamin” is full of warnings to the title character about how life is sucky and lonely, but it has these cute little plinky keyboard notes that sound so happy. Many of the songs reminded me of being dragged to church as a child, mainly because of Giaritta’s voice and some of the vocal arrangements being really reminiscent of some of the more modern hymns, but also because some of the lyrics start to sound a little preachy. “C’mon Friends” implores us all to give ourselves a break and forgive each other; “Listening to Sadness” wonders why no one listens anymore and guilts us into it; “Black Holes (Part 2)” tells us that we have a choice when we’re afraid. Then there’s “Song of Seikilos,” which sounds like it came from church because the oft-repeated lyrics were taken from an ancient tombstone in modern-day Turkey and translated to English. They basically tell us to live life for the moment because life is short, which is quite a different message than asking a body of water to let you drown (“Listening to Sadness.”) Again, “Hiking” stands out as being different because its lyrics seem to recount a good hike at dusk – though there’s still the worry that it will be too dark to safely find their way back down from the summit of the hill they just climbed. There is no such thing as happiness, you guys. Everything sucks, even successful hikes.  From: https://survivingthegoldenage.com/there-is-no-mountain-luna/

Monophonics - Chances

The Bay Area’s indelible psychedelic soul, live-show phenomenon, Monophonics have just released their third full-length, It’s Only Us. It combines the raw funk and sheer power of early soul masters with a touch of mind-bending effects in a dub-like vein. Singer Kelly Finnigan and company are calling it as they see it about the common day political state and the overwhelming sense of loneliness. Perhaps from the powers that be, perhaps not even in a political lean, but the theme strikes home for many of us in this day and static age. A proper soul record that smokes from start to finish is a fine way to mitigate the norms, social and otherwise. Simply said, if you can make it past “Chances” without a repeat, you’re dead inside.
With one of the best songs of 2020 starting things up, Monophonics stretch an eight-song record to its wildest abyss. Combining spacey build-ups with shuttering vocal effects is just part of the buttery slickness, reminiscent of early Impressions mixed with latter-day Curtis Mayfield too, and a touch of Isaac Hayes, after the acid, of course. Using them as building blocks but completing the assembly in their own sonic fashion with horns aplenty and a rhythm section well-versed in the sanctifications of their predecessors but deep diving to make a sound their own. It’s hard to put into words, but there are plenty of folks labeling themselves sweet soul and the numerous other morphs thereof, but there are few who come correct and keep it exactly where it should be in sound and spirit.
The brothers Cole not only record and produce quite a few of them but they’re becoming the nucleus of most of it all anymore. They’ve been mining gold out of Colemine Records for quite some time now, having given the light of day to the initial Durand Jones and the Indications offerings, Ikebe Shakedown, and Soul Scratch, not to mention countless seven-inch singles all within the same realm. If that’s a new label name for you, your diligence is due. Monophonics are most definitely a keystone, even coming from out in California, a bird’s distant fly from the label’s Loveland, Ohio headquarters. Birds of a feather flock together in the means of shaking tail feathers. Monophonics produced this one at Transistor Studios, straight to tape, no doubt.
Monophonics stretch things out a bit as they go off on psychedelic rock-inspired runs. Among the best are “Last Man Standing” an over seven-minute stretch of the band’s legs and late-sequenced banger “Run For Your Life” with a heady hook and spaced-out synth bridge, only half as much in time, but equal in message and posterity. The hypnotic percussions accentuate Finnigan’s vocal while the fuzzed up guitar and bass chop reverb into cutlets amidst a trap-slapping clinic, keeping time but perpetuating cool while keeping it hot.  From: https://www.popmatters.com/monophonics-its-only-us-2645577426.html