Friday, September 30, 2022

BraAgas - Vargtimmen


 #BraAgas #Balkan folk #medieval #Scandinavian folk #world music #Sephardic folk #traditional #ethno #period instruments #Czech Republic #live music video

BraAgas is an all female quartet created in 2007 after the split-up of the band Psalteria. The first two albums were hard to define genre-wise. “The first album called No.1 was a mix of everything – medieval and folk songs as well,” says Katka Göttlich. The four members of BraAgas have been playing for a long time. In addition to the previously mentioned Psalteria, the musicians played in other bands. “Our experiences from other bands have merged here – for me and Karla it was the Psalteria band, for Beta it was Gothart. Michaela had been sometimes the guest in different groups (e.g. Krless) before BraAgas originated,” says Göttlich. The four musicians play mostly ethnic instruments and historical replicas. Many guests helped them at the studio and there were also some electronic elements. Thanks to the electronics, a new modern sound was developed for Tapas, which was produced by David Göttlich and Petr Koláček. Tapas includes songs from various parts of Europe, including Spanish, Balkan, Nordic and Italian sources, originally dating back to anywhere within a thousand years time span, interpreted in a very modern way.  Current members include: Katerina Göttlichova on lead vocal, cittern, guitar, bagpipes, shawms; Alzbeta Josefy on vocal, davul, darbuka, duf, riq; Karla Braunova on vocal, flutes, recorders, clarinet, shawms, chalumeaux, and bagpipes; and Michala Hrbkova on vocal, fiddle, cittern.  From: https://worldmusiccentral.org/2017/01/09/artist-profiles-braagas/

Danko Jones - King Of Magazines


 #Danko Jones #hard rock #garage rock #garage punk #blues rock #blues punk #Canadian #animated music video #Dave Cooper

We just got word of a new Dave Cooper animated video for Canadian rock band Danko Jones. Nick Cross, an award-winning animator, teamed up with Cooper to make this drum-pounding latex-headed bounce fest sing, oddly perverse and frantic like a Clampett cartoon. We’ve got an interview with Cooper on the project:

How long have you known Danko Jones?

Dave: I’ve been a fan of their music for quite a while. They’re sort of an institution in Canada. Very big in Europe too; just haven’t cracked the US market yet. Anyway, I sent them a fan email a couple of years ago, saying that i wanted to send them all my books. JC, the bassist, got back to me to thank me for all the swag and said that they really loved my work. So I wrote in passing, almost as a joke, “You should get me to do a video for you guys, even though i’ve never done one in my life.” He seemed receptive. The rest is a pretty long story, but basically they offered me the third single off their new album and i wrote up a treatment for a live action video. Big, beautiful models, custom made latex outfits, tons of pretty extras, a custom built rocket car, sets, locations, props, camera men, a producer, etc. etc. Needless to say, the budget was a little steep. so the label put the kibosh on that. I was bummed, but then a few months later, I decided to re-pitch the same treatment but fully animated by one of my favorite animators, Nick Cross - for a third of the budget. In the end, the label, the distributor, and the band themselves all pitched in and got us the budget. Suddenly I was faced with a 6-week turnaround time! Unheard of. So i started making the storyboard sketches. Each day i’d bring the days work over to my animator friend, Nick, and go over them with him, describing how I wanted things to go. He’d get cracking and I’d come over again the next day. After the first week, my part was done and Nick was in for a very long, hard 5 weeks. All this during a time when Nick was putting together his very first TV pilot for Canada’s Teletoon! He was a wreck. Man, animators are hard workers. Make’s me feel like a total slacker!

From: https://hifructose.com/2008/12/19/new-dave-cooper-animated-video-interview/

The Yardbirds - Turn Into Earth


 #The Yardbirds #Eric Clapton #Jeff Beck #Jimmy Page #blues rock #psychedelic rock #British R&B #British blues revival #1960s

The Yardbirds put out their strongest album ever in 1966 as well as their only album of all original material. It originally had an eponymous title but has come to be known as Roger the Engineer because of the sketch (drawn by guitarist Chris Dreja) on the album’s cover of Roger Cameron, the album’s engineer at Advision Studios in London. The album was co-produced by bassist Paul Samwell-Smith, who left the band shortly after and was replaced by Jimmy Page, who filled in on bass until Dreja mastered the instrument and Page returned to his primary instrument, the electric guitar. But the central influence that shaped the sound of this album was the innovation and experimentation of lead guitarist Jeff Beck. His heavy blues and guitar distortion is considered by many to be the earliest precursor to heavy metal. Beck joined the Yardbirds in May 1965 after founding guitarist Eric Clapton decided to leave the band. With Beck, the group began to expand their heavy blues base into different sects of rock and roll including unexplored areas of psychedelia, middle-aged chants, and Indian-influenced music. Primarily a singles-oriented band, each 7-inch release by The Yardbirds added new dimensions to the band’s sound or expanded on the ideas of the previous single. With Beck’s first full album with the group and the band’s first attempt at an album of all-original material, the band brought this experimentation to a new level, while still holding on to the core of blues roots.  From: https://www.classicrockreview.com/2011/10/1966-the-yardbirds/

Lola Colt - Vacant Hearts


 #Lola Colt #hard rock #art rock #alternative rock #post-punk #indie rock #garage rock

Lola Colt are a London-based six-piece spinning hypnotic heartache and art-rocking film noir. Comprised of Gun Overbye, Matt Loft, Margin Scott, James Hurst, Kitty Austen and Sinah Blohberger, they’ve been throwing psych-tinged shapes for the last five years, picking up their fair share of plaudits along the way. Frontwoman Gun adds a spiritual dimension to proceedings, with fierce vocals sitting halfway between The Kills’ Alison Mosshart and Wildbirds and Peacedrums’ Mariam Wallentin.

We first started making music because:
Its creation is somehow therapeutic, and we were young and had issues to deal with.

Our music is:
A way for us to understand the world, take it in, filter it down through our past experiences, dreams, feelings and regurgitate it back out into the world as some new beast, better understood.

From: https://www.prsformusic.com/m-magazine/new-music/30-seconds-interview-lola-colt

The diversification and therefore the evolution of modern music can almost be described as fractal in nature. These are created by repeating a simple process over and over in an ongoing feedback loop, driven by recursion, fractals are images of dynamic systems – the pictures of chaos, and just like the best music which itself is built on repetition and structure. The exponential growth magnifies each change or nuance without breaking totally from the original blueprint. This has resulted in a plethora of musical genres that all allow fresh ideas to blossom without the heavy shadow of plagiarism coming into play. Lola Colt are a six piece ensemble from London who seem to be an amalgam of many sub-genre’s and appeared at the Bodega club in Nottingham on Friday, the 27th of February, touring to promote their debut album, Away From the Water. Cinematic is the all-encompassing description that seems to suit them best, which is enforced by them taking their name from a 1967 Spaghetti Western film directed by Siro Marcellini.
The versatility which this music allows was highlighted by the stage dynamic of Lola Colt, which included frequent instrument interchanges between members almost akin to a gothic version of Arcade Fire, which resulted in a vibrant and aesthetically diverse performance. Lyrically, though the cinematic tends to veer towards the elements (sky, science, elements), but Lola Colt, similarly with probably the best band to come out of Nottingham, the Tindersticks, dealt in the darker side of love and human relationships. During the track “Vacant Heart”, the vision that the blood was already dripping from the walls akin to the scene in the film Angel Heart, formed as Gun Overbye the Danish female vocalist pierced the night with “You tore it all / Thoughts still seeping in my head dripping in my bed,” which was as sexual as it was overtly mysterious. The beauty and originality that Lola Colt possess created a vivid visual canvas, but left enough space for one’s own imagination to take flight. The possibilities for them are endless and just the same as the fractal: very exciting.

From: https://www.qromag.com/lola-colt/  

Chris Isaak - Wicked Game


 #Chris Isaak #rock & roll #rockabilly #Americana #roots rock #singer-songwriter #1980s #1990s

Chris Isaak fashioned himself as a throwback to the early days of rock & roll, devising a fusion between Elvis Presley's rockabilly croon and Roy Orbison's moody, melancholy balladeering. Unlike his roots rock peers of the 1980s, Isaak didn't care for the earthier elements of rock & roll. He offered a stylized, picturesque spin on the spare, echoey sound of pre-Beatles rock, creating an atmosphere that was equally sweet and sensuous. Certainly, "Wicked Game," the sultry single that became a career-defining hit in 1989, captured his seductive side, a trait that would re-surface on the subsequent "Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing," a darkly lit rockabilly tune from 1995 that was later included in Stanley Kubrick's 1999 film Eyes Wide Shut. Those two songs crystallize the shadowy sexiness lurking within Isaak's music, but much of his body of work found him exploring the lighter side of the first wave of rock & roll with a knowing yet loving playfulness. This sense of understated showmanship helped Isaak ease into side careers as an actor and television host, plus it was central to the live shows that kept him on the road in between a steady stream of records.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/chris-isaak-mn0000775323/biography

Wednesday, September 28, 2022

Arrowhead - Coven of the Snake


 #Arrowhead #stoner rock #alternative rock #post-grunge #hard rock #doom metal #Australian #music video

Australian stoner rockers Arrowhead offer a unique blend of fuzz rock, with '70s infused grooves and thick doses of down-tuned doom to take you on a psychedelic trip. Playing around Australia since 2008, Arrowhead stand out amongst the crowd with songs full of infectious grooves, catchy riffs, hard hitting drums, thunderous bass lines, and brutally raw and passionate vocal delivery.  From: https://arrowheadrock.bandcamp.com/album/coven-of-the-snake

Rising from the underground of Sydney’s stoner rock scene, the Arrowhead brotherhood fire an explosive, all killer/no filler triptych of volume, attitude and down-tuned grooves. Hitting you harder than a Frank Frazetta-airbrushed panel van travelling at 100mph, Arrowhead is very much a band defined by the riffs that raised them. Fronted by guitar player, vocalist and chief songwriter Brett Pearl, Brett was brought up on a staple diet of classic rock with Hendrix, Zeppelin, Floyd and Sabbath rarely leaving the turntable. Joined by fellow purveyor of low-end grind is bass player/Viking Arron Fletcher, guitarist Raff Iacurto and living backbone of the band, Matt Cramp on drums. With each member feeding into the Arrowhead-approved vision of hard rock reverie via Hollywood monsters and science fiction cinema, having paid their dues as a band since late 2009, following on from 2010’s Atomsmasher EP, their self-titled debut and 2016’s Desert Cult Ritual, the latest addition to the quartet’s quiver is new album, Coven of the Snake. An album that is equal parts venom and mysticism, and 100% blood-bound to steal your soul in the name of rock and roll.  From: https://maximumvolumemusic.com/band-of-the-day-arrowhead/

Varttina - Karuliinan Kangaspuut


 #Varttina #Scandinavian folk #worldbeat #Finnish folk #world fusion #traditional #folk rock #contemporary folk #Finland

They are one of Finland's biggest musical exports but they could hardly be described as typically Finnish. They are, simply, Värttinä: musicians with a unique sound, with their feet firmly rooted in Finnish ground, in its language, culture and history, yet with the courage to develop over nearly two decades, something no-one else in the world has been able to copy.
Värttinä’s devoted and loyal fans all over the world may not all be Finnish speakers but they are intoxicated by the voices of Susan, Mari and Johanna, singers with the stage presence of a Wagnerian soprano, acting out roles from fishwives to lovers, while the guys lure the listeners with beguiling bouzouki, sax, accordion playing to die for, searing drums, guitar and bass.
Driving all this forward is the Finnish language itself, with its unique rhymes and rhythms, and spitting throaty sounds; words that launch themselves into the atmosphere and return several syllables later. Think of the pumping rhythms of Longfellow’s Hiawatha and you’re half way there.
For Värttinä it all began in the Finnish village of Rääkkylä in 1983 when a few mothers and grandmothers encouraged the children to sing and play some of the old songs from the Karelian region. Ancient stories once told with a simple accompaniment on the kantele (the Finnish zither-like instrument) suddenly woke up to find saxes, fiddles and guitars in their midst. This wasn’t important just for the birth of Värttinä but for the revival of Finnish folk music in general.
What emerged though wasn’t a folk band but, eventually, a ten-piece pop/rock style ensemble which established the formula of female voices at the front, boys at the back. Blessed by the no-nonsense and sometimes shocking lyrics of the ancient traditional sagas of blood, sweat and a lot of tears, the confrontational style of singing and song-writing won the music world over until the band was propelled into Finnish stardom in 1991.  From: https://realworldrecords.com/artists/varttina/ 

Frente! - Sit on My Hands


 #Frente! #indie rock #alternative rock #pop rock #folk-pop #Australian #1990s

Frente! were an Australian folk-pop and indie pop group which originally formed in 1989. The original line-up consisted of Simon Austin on guitar and backing vocals, Angie Hart on lead vocals, Tim O'Connor on bass guitar, and Mark Picton on drums. The Australian rock music historian Ian McFarlane felt that the group's "quirky, irreverent, acoustic-based sound was at odds with the usual guitar-heavy, grunge trends of the day. The band's presentation had a tweeness about it that could have been off-putting if not for its genuine freshness and honesty”. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frente!

Frente!'s second album really seemed to be a difficult second album. The music aboard Shape is fine. By 'difficult' I'm referring more to difficulties the band appeared to have had with line up changes and perhaps with the 'difficult' dynamic that must have been the at times fractious Hart-Austin relationship. Foundation members Tim O'Connor and Mark Picton had departed by Shape and it seemed previously that nobody gave proper kudos to their songwriting finesse; previous releases had shone brightly with their stellar contributions. Thus one imagines Shape could have been a struggle without them. The strain upon Hart and Austin, having dissolved their personal relationship just as Frente! got 'famous' but then having to press on with the band's newly found success, well, it must have been hard, too. From within this context it's no surprise that second album Shape was also their last.
Plenty of lilt, plenty of charm, and no shortage of Hart's sweet vocal sounds. For me there was always an intriguing contradiction in her vocal tones: sweet, young and innocent girl tones that emanated a rather sarcastic, world weary experience via the words and themes. I was slow to grab a copy of Shape, by the time I did Frente! had already flamed out. It took a friend and mutual Frente! fan to chide me "it's good, get it!" So I did. I think back and perhaps it was "Sit on my Hands" at track one that had made me baulk, seemed a little too different to my past Frente! experience (reality check: it's not).
Maybe I could make a successful argument that the lack of O'Connor's and Picton's quirky and zippy contributions shifted the Frente! sound back a few gears into a more predictable rhythm. Hart appears to have taken over the principal songwriting (with Austin also prominent) on almost every song. New members, bassist McDonald and drummer Barden, are really not involved much at that level. And an almost exclusively acoustic band like Frente! really stands on its songwriting.
The album Shape was recorded in Spain for whatever reason. Escape perhaps? The angst and tensions surrounding this band at that time may well have contributed to the pith of the songs presented here. Hart's turn of melody entwines with Austin's acoustic fingerpicking to constitute the bulk of the songs. Where Frente! departs from this we get a whole new bunch of tones starting to emerge, even if they may sound unusually underconfident in taking these bold strides. That the mixdown took place 'everywhere' suggests to me the prodding and pushing of a record company, possibly even overtaking the band on certain production issues. It seems either to provide 'variety' or to disrupt continuity, depending on your own particular take.
Overall, Shape was an interesting album taking Frente! into new territory. But without the band being able to find their own way I can possibly see how it may have gone pearshaped. The middle order of songs feature some classic Angie Hart, while a few other songs here - "Sit on my Hands", "Horrible", "What's Come Over Me", for example - see them starting to crank up amps and possibly evolving into a different sort of band. It's a shame then that this was the last Frente! album. A good one to go out on.
From: https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/frente/shape/

Tuesday, September 27, 2022

Tobacco - Streaker


 #Tobacco #Thomas Fec #electronica #alternative hip-hop #experimental rock #lo-fi #indietronica #ex-Black Moth Super Rainbow #music video

Thomas Fec, better known by his stage name Tobacco, is an American electronic musician. He is the frontman of the psychedelic rock band Black Moth Super Rainbow, in addition to working as a solo artist. As of late 2018, he has teamed up with rapper Aesop Rock to become the music duo Malibu Ken, releasing their self-titled debut album in January 2019. Little is known about Tobacco, as he, along with the rest of Black Moth Super Rainbow, is very private and rarely does interviews. It is known that Tobacco grew up in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, and graduated from Hampton High School in 1998 along with bandmate Seth Ciotti. In a 2009 interview with Skyscraper Magazine, Tobacco said that his name derived from "a character that freaked me out as a kid, the Tobacco Man," referring to the character from the film Redneck Zombies. In a 2016 interview with Song Exploder podcast, Tobacco discloses that he doesn't know "any instruments," but that he became enamored with a four-track recorder that his parents gave him while he was in high school. Tobacco released his first solo album, Fucked Up Friends, in 2008. It was recorded using entirely analog equipment. Rolling Stone said of the album, "one of the year's best stoner-rock records - only it's powered by synths, hip-hop beats and vocoders instead of guitars."  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_(musician)

On the surface, there’s nothing especially secretive about Tom Fec. He’s easy to find online, particularly in photos, playing both in his solo project Tobacco as well as the band Black Moth Super Rainbow. He lives in Pittsburgh, a working-class Rust Belt city once anchored by steel and brick. And yet a definite mythology has developed around Fec over the years. Critics write that he’s mysterious and reclusive, because his bands often play with masks on, and because he doesn’t generally talk about his personal life in interviews. That sense of mystique is due, at least in part, to the way his music sounds. His songs have an ominous air, his vocoded voice sounding like a badly mic’d cult leader, or a B-movie horror villain. On his upcoming album, Sweatbox Dynasty, he recorded every instrument onto a cassette before mixing it into the track, giving it a warble and fuzz. The result sounds like a record that’s been left out on a 100-degree day. Despite the fact that his music has garnered critical accolades, Fec shies away from the spotlight. He doesn’t want to headline your festival or talk about his influences. He doesn’t want to be part of any scene, or to be pigeonholed as a “psych rock” artist. He just wants to make his bizarre music in peace and play shows for the people who like it. These desires sometimes conflict with the realities of being a musician in the 21st century, who needs to be known to make a living.  From: https://daily.bandcamp.com/features/tobacco-interview?utm_source=footer 

Monday, September 26, 2022

The Black Crowes - Blackberry


 #The Black Crowes #blues rock #hard rock #southern rock #roots rock #jam band #1990s #music video

At the time of their 1990 debut, the kind of rock & roll the Black Crowes specialized in was sorely out of style. Only Guns N' Roses came close to approximating a vintage Stones-style raunch, but they were too angry and jagged to pull it off completely. The Black Crowes, on the other hand, replicated that Stones-y swagger and Faces boogie perfectly. Vocalist Chris Robinson appropriated the sound and style of vintage Rod Stewart, while brother Rich Robinson fused Keith Richards' lean guitar attack with Ron Wood's messy rhythmic sense. At their best, the Black Crowes echoed classic rock without slavishly imitating their influences, and the band's nostalgic sound helped foster a long, popular career.  From: https://www.sputnikmusic.com/bands/The-Black-Crowes/511/

Black Crowes! Scourge of our nation's natural resources! Weed smokin', booze guzzlin' rock and rollers with longass hippy hair, tight Southern trousers and a sound stolen from early '70s bloozy rockers like Free and Exile-era Rolling Stones. Same guitar tones as the Stones, Chris Robinson shrieking like a siouxsie and/or a banshee, sounding not like girly-mouthed Rod Stewart as so many critics claim, but like Paul Rodgers in his pre-Bad Company mad chested eyes closed sweat yelling finest. Their first album smashed like a retro monster onto a world poised and ready for something they could relate to (of course, I hated it at the time because I was punk, real and hardcore, and would never sell out - frig you, Ronald Reagan!). But after that, pfft. Nobody wanted to hear their slowed-down, soul-tinged shig. Nobody but ME, that is! Sure, they picked a style that had already proven to be successful way back in the early '70s, but how many other billions of interchangeable bar bands had done the same thing throughout the previous two decades? What separated the Black Crowes from that pack was, quite frankly, riffs so unceasingly pleasing in their simple catchiness that they beat the shit out of most of the stuff, or rather, the stuff out of most of the shit, that the Stones themselves had been churning out since 1980!  From: http://www.markprindle.com/blackcrowes.htm

Quicksilver Messenger Service - Pride Of Man


 #Quicksilver Messenger Service #psychedelic rock #acid rock #folk rock #blues rock #psychedelic folk #San Francisco sound #1960s

Quicksilver Messenger Service was one of the most acclaimed San Francisco psychedelic rock groups from the 1960s. At its best, the band’s bluesy flights of fancy were propelled by the interplay between guitarists John Cipollina and Gary Duncan. Their origins lie in the folk and rock and roll scenes in San Francisco during the early 1960s, two musical circles that rarely mixed. Cipollina recalled in Guitar Player, “The folk scene was going strong in San Francisco in the early ‘60s, and rock and roll and electric guitars were pretty much identified with greasy hair, beer, and teenage trauma.” Folk singer and guitarist David Freiberg, intent on forming a band with New York folk singer Dino Valenti and singer Jim Murray, began playing with rock guitarist John Cipollina. Drummers came and went, and Freiberg switched to bass guitar. After Valenti was arrested for possession of marijuana in 1965, he was replaced by two members of the San Francisco rock group The Brogues, drummer Greg Elmore and guitarist Gary Duncan. Freiberg explained the origin of the band’s name in Rock Names: “Originally there were four Virgos in the band, and one Gemini. Of the four Virgos, there were only two birthdays: John and I were born on August 24, and Gary and Greg were born on September 4. The ruling planet for Virgo in astrology is Mercury, and it is for Gemini also. So in searching for a name, we said, ‘Well, let’s see - mercury’s the same as quicksilver, right? Mercury’s the messenger god? Quicksilver Messenger Service.’”  From: https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/quicksilver-messenger-service

Maria McKee - I Forgive You


 #Maria McKee #alternative rock #alt-country #folk rock #roots rock #singer-songwriter #1990s #ex-Lone Justice 

Singer and songwriter Maria McKee enjoys the odd claim to fame of having "broken through" to music celebrity twice - first as lead singer for the rockabilly band Lone Justice, then almost ten years later, as a solo artist. The first breakthrough, in the mid-1980s, occurred virtually overnight and earned Lone Justice what People music critic Craig Tomashoff called "a few minutes of fame"; in fact, they were the rage of Los Angeles clubs and airwaves during the summer of 1985. McKee's vocals, in particular, were hailed as the driving force behind the band. When Lone Justice fizzled, McKee attempted to shift gears into solo work; but her first solo album fell short of expectations, and by most accounts, McKee did not return to the path promised by her early work with Lone Justice until 1993, with the release of her second solo set.
McKee's career singing rockabilly and country music was actually not incongruent with her Los Angeles childhood. Born in Hollywood in 1965, McKee developed an early and unusual passion for 1930s Americana, artifacts of an era when country and western still reigned in rural America. This musical direction was influenced by McKee's parents, Jack, a carpenter, and Elizabeth, a painter, both of whom also shared the ownership of a neighborhood bar; by the 1970s they had adopted Baptist doctrine and would not allow rock and roll in their home. In 1985, McKee revealed to Rolling Stone interviewer Steve Pond, "My friends used to think I was weird because I was really into the Little Rascals and the 1930s, and my favorite movie stars were people like Joan Blondell." She further explained that she even kept her record player in her closet, maintaining, "I wanted the record to sound like it was old and far away, like a scratchy radio or something. I was really into escaping into this era, this time of life I knew nothing about."
McKee was also influenced by her half brother, Bryan MacLean, who played guitar with a popular 1960s psychedelic rock band called Love; McKee recalled going to L.A.'s famous Whisky A Go-Go to watch him play - though she was not yet six years old. By 1980 McKee, who would eventually drop out of Beverly Hills High, was devoting her time and talents to performing with local bands, including her brother's. Singing at a rockabilly concert held in the parking lot of a drive-in theater, McKee so impressed a young guitarist in the audience that he called her the next day. Ryan Hedgecock told People writer Todd Gold that he "was desperate to put a band together." That phone call would eventually blossom into Lone Justice.
McKee recounted to Rolling Stone' s Pond how simply the connection began: "Ryan came over to my house with his guitar and we just sat around listening to rockabilly records." The listening gradually evolved into writing and playing together, and that collaboration led to engagements as a country duo at local clubs. McKee and Hedgecock began rather modestly, playing standards, but moved to their own music by 1983, when the duo grew into a band. They found experienced collaborators in bassist Marvin Etzioni and drummer Don Heffington, who had played with country veteran Emmylou Harris. With this line-up, Lone Justice took L.A.'s rockabilly scene by storm. McKee early on demonstrated considerable character and definition in her compositions, which, as Pond described them, "evoked a world of dust-bowl immigrants, migrant workers and skid-row habitues."
Pond also captured the band's reception in those first years: "Almost from the start, local critics raved about the group's sparkling mixture of galloping two-beat country music and Rolling Stones-style rawness - and particularly about McKee, who's got striking, down-home good looks, a commanding stage presence, and, above all, a startling voice that captures simultaneously the sweetness of Dolly Parton and the grit of Janis Joplin."
Within a year, the band had added guitarist Tony Gilkyson and had secured a record contract with Geffen, a major rock label. Then, music critic Jon Pareles noted in Mademoiselle, "came the hard part - making an album whose songs were as strong as McKee's stage presence." But veteran producer Jimmy Iovine seemed equal to the challenge. The eponymous album consolidated the band's local prominence and set a national reputation in motion; in the fall of 1985, Lone Justice hit the road. As Gold noted, praise for the album was "almost unanimous." Writing for Rolling Stone in 1987, Jimmy Guterman recalled that the "debut album revealed an astonishingly mature new band and a blockbuster talent in irrepressible singer and primary songwriter Maria McKee."
Although the band had little trouble living up to the high expectations set for their first album, they ultimately were not able to carry their momentum through to a second. Shelter, released in 1987, met with mixed reviews; the band's lineup and musical format had been changed, and critics and listeners were less sanguine this time around. The band disintegrated soon thereafter. McKee detailed her part in the breakup to Chris Morris of Billboard six years later, stating, "I claim full responsibility for the lack of focus. I was 21 years old, and I had a record company that would give me money to do anything that I wanted. I was just confused, very confused." At the time, however, Geffen had no intention of dismissing their still-promising songbird, and they prepared a solo album, Maria McKee, for release in 1989.
When the performance of the solo debut repeated the disappointment of Shelter, McKee decided that it was time for a hiatus from the music industry. She moved to Dublin, Ireland, in 1989, providing herself with a different atmosphere for her music. While there, she landed a single on the British charts, "Show Me Heaven," from the soundtrack to the film Days of Thunder. Ultimately, however, she felt the experienced hindered rather than helped her, as she later told Morris: "I was flirting with all different kinds of music. I didn't know what I was gonna do. I had written all these weird songs, everything from cabaret music to Kate Bush music." When she returned to Los Angeles to start work on a new album, she decided to put aside the experiments for her tried-and-true country sound.
Back with Geffen, she brought in producer George Drakoulias, who had scored recent successes with the Black Crowes and the Jayhawks. She also brought back Lone Justice mates Etzioni and Heffington. She told Morris, "I moved away, I got homesick, I missed my friends. I missed the music I grew up with, I missed that original celebration that Lone Justice had." And You Gotta Sin to Get Saved did, in fact, recreate much of the excitement that Lone Justice had incited ten years before.
Acclaim for You Gotta Sin was essentially universal. People's Tomashoff, for one, declared McKee "among the best vocalists and songwriters in the business." Thom Jurek of Detroit's weekly Metro Times echoed the enamored accolades of the first Lone Justice reviews; he saved his greatest enthusiasm for the song "My Girlhood Among the Outlaws," exclaiming, "[McKee's] country wail breaks out of itself, burns down the past and becomes a vehicle for transformation and change. Her confession registers not merely as atonement, but as a promise to rise from the ashes with her soul intact." Of the album itself, Jurek pointed out that McKee seemed finally to have reclaimed the potential of her first musical venture: "It reveals a singer exploring her talent (and its limits) in the music that inspired her in the first place. It also exposes a songwriter who has crawled back from the dark edge of an abyss to balance the ecstasies and excesses of language and sound by listening intently to the voice of her muse."  From: https://musicianguide.com/biographies/1608001016/Maria-McKee.html

Black Sabbath - Spiral Architect


 #Black Sabbath #Ozzy Osbourne #heavy metal #hard rock #classic rock #heavy blues rock #British blues rock #doom metal #1970s

With 1973's Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, heavy metal godfathers Black Sabbath made a concerted effort to prove their remaining critics wrong by raising their creative stakes and dispensing unprecedented attention to the album's production standards, arrangements, and even the cover artwork. As a result, bold new efforts like the timeless title track, "A National Acrobat," and "Killing Yourself to Live" positively glistened with a newfound level of finesse and maturity, while remaining largely faithful, aesthetically speaking, to the band's signature compositional style. In fact, their sheer songwriting excellence may even have helped to ease the transition for suspicious older fans left yearning for the rough-hewn, brute strength that had made recent triumphs like Master of Reality and Vol. 4 (really, all their previous albums) such undeniable forces of nature. But thanks to Sabbath Bloody Sabbath's nearly flawless execution, even a more adventurous experiment like the string-laden "Spiral Architect," with its tasteful background orchestration, managed to sound surprisingly natural, and in the dreamy instrumental "Fluff," Tony Iommi scored his first truly memorable solo piece. If anything, only the group's at times heavy-handed adoption of synthesizers met with inconsistent consequences, with erstwhile Yes keyboard wizard Rick Wakeman bringing only good things to the memorable "Sabbra Cadabra", while the robotically dull "Who Are You" definitely suffered from synthesizer novelty overkill. All things considered, though, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath was arguably Black Sabbath's fifth masterpiece in four years, and remains an essential item in any heavy metal collection.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/album/sabbath-bloody-sabbath-mw0000194838

Cover by Drew Struzan

Saturday, September 24, 2022

BlackLab - Warm Death


 #BlackLab #doom metal #stoner metal #post-metal #shoegaze #sludge #psychedelic metal #witch metal #Japanese #music video

When you hear the phrase ‘dark witch doom’, it’s hard to shake off thoughts of Hammer Horror clichés and the kind of retro-flared, post-hippy rock that took Coven as a starting point and never really bothered to take it anywhere else - thankfully, BlackLab take that label and drag it right into the Stygian mire where it belongs. Originally formed in Osaka as a three-piece, they soon settled on the line-up of Yuko Morino and Chia Shiraishi as the ideal vessel to transport their sound, a colossally loud mix of Sabbathian doom, sludge and noisy punk-tinged insanity. Following on from the success of Under The Strawberry Moon 2.0, a re-recording of early demo tracks made for London’s New Heavy Sounds, they have quickly set about delivering the aptly-titled Abyss in time for a UK tour that, as with so much lately, will have to wait. Still, we have Abyss to vibe to in the meantime so The Sleeping Shaman decided to catch up with the devilish duo, find out where they’re coming from and where they’re yet to take us.

You’re often described as ‘Dark Witch Doom’ - how accurate do you feel that is? Does witchcraft or mysticism play any part in your sound?

Yuko: The person in charge of the shop that handled our self-produced CD used the expression. I liked that so much and then I describe myself so. I think it’s a phrase that expresses the character of the songs and sounds I make well. I like horror movies and mysteries stories, so they may have influenced my creations. When I write songs, I often get inspiration from those visuals. But those stories are not important - it’s just from visual stuff. Foreign media sometimes metamorphose us as Sadako. I welcome that, because she’s a superstar in Japanese horror movies. I believe in mysterious world. But unfortunately, I have no magic or mystery experience. I enjoy them daydreaming.

Chia: The term ‘Dark Witch Doom’ might convey the atmosphere of BlackLab’s sound. I like it. I’m not a witch, but I live on a spiritual basis. I might be a ‘star seed drummer’.

From: https://www.thesleepingshaman.com/interviews/blacklab-interview-with-yuko-chia/

Los Lobos - Reva's House


 #Los Lobos #chicano rock #roots rock #tex-mex #country rock #Americana #cowpunk #blues rock #folk rock #Mexican #1990s

Los Lobos has defined the East Los Angeles sonic landscape for nearly a half century. Following the musical trajectory of giants such as Ritchie Valens and Lalo Guerrero, who melded traditional Mexican music with other popular forms, Los Lobos has carried the torch of Chicano music into the present and has amassed a body of work that will be cherished, studied, and emulated for many years to come.
Formed in 1973 by guitarist/accordionist David Hidalgo and percussionist and lyricist Louie Perez, their joint eclectic musical interests led them to recruit two other students from Garfield High School in East Los Angeles. Guitarist Cesar Rosas and bassist Conrad Lozano joined and they decided to call themselves Los Lobos del Este. As young, music-loving Chicanos from the barrio, they were a product of their surroundings. African-American influences such as the blues, rock n roll, jazz, and doo–wop were a natural complement to the deep and soulful Mexican and Latin American sounds they had grown up with, such as the bolero, rancheras, music Norteña, son jarocho, son huasteco, and cumbias. Los Lobos utilized these multicultural influences to give birth to their unique sound. From back yard family parties, weddings, and Mexican restaurants, Los Lobos was quickly in demand amid the pre- and post- Chicano civil rights movement. In 1978, they recorded and released their first album Los Lobos del Este De Los Angeles (Just Another Band From East LA), which led them to more popularity and to connect them to the versatility and angst of the city’s punk rock music scene. Their association with the LA roots band, the Blasters, led to the addition of multi-instrumentalist Steve Berlin, who left the Blasters to join them, further expanding their sound.
The wildly successful soundtrack of La Bamba (1985) catapulted Los Lobos into international stardom, earning them industry recognition and a Grammy Award. Los Lobos responded to this success by releasing the traditionalist La Pistola y El Corazon (1988).  The band’s accomplishments do not overshadow their ongoing commitment to mentoring and elevating up-and-coming bands that have benefited from their trailblazing, such as Making Movies, Ozomatli, Chicano Batman, La Santa Cecilia, and Quetzal.
A “musician’s band,” Los Lobos’ lyricism and unique poetic prose, mostly manifested by lyricist Louie Perez, expresses the environment and consciousness of the barrio in relation to the world around it. Their delivery in English, Spanish, or Spanglish espouses the important ideas of humanity, pro-immigration, depression, love of self, community, and deep Mexican/Chicano culture and heritage. Each of their albums takes the sound of Chicano rock music into another stratosphere.  From: https://www.arts.gov/honors/heritage/los-lobos

Moby Grape - Indifference


 #Moby Grape #psychedelic rock #acid rock #folk rock #country rock #blues rock #West coast sound #1960s

Mention the name Moby Grape to a roomful of rock critics, and you'll hear nothing but praise for the 1960s San Francisco rock band. But aside from fans and critics, few people today have ever heard of Moby Grape. Why? Bad advice, bad breaks and bad behavior are three short reasons. Now that a label is trying to right these wrongs by reissuing the group's first five records, old problems still stand in the way. The name Moby Grape comes from an absurdist punch line: What's big, purple and swims in the ocean? But the band that influenced groups ranging from Led Zeppelin to The Pretenders was no joke. Neither was its 1967 debut, according to Rolling Stone senior editor David Fricke.
"It's one of the few rock 'n' roll albums of any era that you can say, 'That is a perfect debut album.' The songwriting on it is memorable - you take those songs with you wherever you go. The triple-guitar orchestration - it's not just power chords. Everyone is playing melodies and counter-melodies and rhythms. Very funky, also very country, very punk, very surf. And they were all singers."
When other San Francisco bands were stretching out with long, psychedelic jams, Moby Grape was producing catchy three-minute songs that were composed, played and sung by each member. Moby Grape's drummer, Don Stevenson, calls the songwriting process a "collective consciousness." That "collective consciousness" was a little surprising, since these five guys had little history and a lot of differences. Guitarist Peter Lewis and bassist Bob Mosley came from Southern California surf bands. Stevenson and guitarist Jerry Miller played in organ trios around Seattle. Canadian-born Skip Spence had just left another San Francisco band, Jefferson Airplane. Yet all five members produced remarkably cohesive vocal harmonies.
The members of Moby Grape worked hard to achieve their tight sound, and they first caught the attention of fellow musicians like Buffalo Springfield and Janis Joplin during marathon rehearsals that ran from night until morning. Record-company executives eventually started showing up, and Moby Grape found itself in the middle of a bidding war. It signed with Columbia, which pronounced the band San Francisco's Beatles and spared no expense on its first album. But the label's decision to release five singles at the same time alienated and confused disc jockeys. Rolling Stone's Fricke explains: "Columbia really went to town. And yet they went to town at precisely the wrong time. That was an era when hype was suspect." The musicians didn't handle the hype well, either. At their record release party, some members were busted for pot possession and for contributing to the delinquency of minors. Guitarist Miller says the diversity that made their musical blend so rich was also pulling them apart.
"What we had was five guys just going completely nuts just looking for the leader," Miller says. "We couldn't even lead ourselves." Moby Grape's members grew increasingly frustrated with their manager, whom they believed had botched their chance to be included in the now-famous Monterey Pop Festival film. By the time they reached New York to work on their second album, the band was cracking up - and so was guitarist Spence.
"Skippy bumped into some people that turned him on to some hard drugs, tell you the truth," Miller says. "And that's when things started to unravel, 'cause Skippy started to unravel." In a drug-fueled psychotic episode, Spence attacked Stevenson's hotel-room door with an ax and ended up in the criminal ward of Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital. Sadly, Spence lived much of the rest of his life in California mental institutions.  From: https://www.npr.org/2007/12/21/17498799/moby-grape-just-cant-catch-a-break

The Broken Penis Orchestra - Easy Listening for Difficult People


 #The Broken Penis Orchestra #plunderphonics #noise #experimental #sound art #electronic #sound collage #psychedelic noise

a1 Timothy Leary in his death bed
a2 The pope's pot, penis and pussy
a3 A struggle for supremacy over the axe makes a good man humble
a4 Fornication under the control of the king
a5 Easy listening for difficult people
a6 The whore of Babylon
a7 Ball buster

Lots of collage-weirdness, not for stress-sensitive people. Dick Flick, conductor in chief, displays a wild and twisted array of sound collages that pull your ears through your brain and back again, (not unlike early Negativland or Nurse With Wound).

Leem Lubany - Peace Train


 #Leem Lubany #actress/singer #Israeli #world music #Cat Stevens cover #movie soundtrack #Rock the Kasbah

When noted film director Barry Levinson (Diner, Rain Man, The Natural, Bugsy, Wag the Dog, and many more) first read the script for his new film, Rock the Kasbah, he realized he needed the help of a pop icon: Yusuf Islam—that is, the singer/songwriter formely known as Cat Stevens. In this comedy (dark at times, sweet at times), which opens this weekend, Bill Murray plays a down-and-way-out LA talent manager who has but one act left in his falling-apart stable, a neurotic bar singer (Zooey Deschanel). Yet somehow he finds a gig for her: USO shows in Afghanistan. And off they jet to the war zone, where soon Murray’s only meal ticket abandons him, and he’s stranded in Kabul with no passport, no money, and no way home. Hijinks—and violence—ensue, as Murray falls into the world of sleazy arms dealers, cynical American mercenaries (including a tough guy played by Bruce Willis), and competing tribal warlords. But this is no adventure flick. It’s a tale of cultural and spiritual bridge-building—with laughs—because Murray, stuck at one point in rural Afghanistan, stumbles into a cave and discovers an Afghan teenage girl (Leem Lubany) singing beautifully. And the song she’s covertly crooning is Cat Stevens’ “Trouble.”
From here on, Murray has a mission: to get this Muslim teen on the Afghan version of American Idol, which has never featured a female performer. The film is based, as they say, on a true story, and the real-life Afghan woman who appeared on this television show, Setara Hussainzada, confronted tremendous opposition from religious and cultural conservatives; she even received death threats and fled Afghanistan for exile in Germany. Levinson’s film tracks a tale of female empowerment in the Muslim world, while — get this!— being respectful of the society it portrays. Most of the laughs it generates are at the expense of Murray’s character, not cheap gags aimed at the natives. As Levinson put it, he was looking to craft “a humanistic, dramatic comedy that dealt with the Muslim world in Afghanistan.”
The script, penned by Mitch Glazer (Scrooged, Great Expectations) had been knocking about Hollywood for years without being made, even though marquis-name Murray was attached to the project. “It was too foreign some said,” Levinson explains in a blog post. “Too much about that part of the world, not enough action, not a war film, too much about people, and in whispers, too much about Muslims.” But Levinson, Glazer, and the rest of the film’s team were able to get the movie going on a basement budget (just $15 million) — with the actors pocketing lower-than-usual rates — but they needed the okay of Yusaf Islam. At least, to a certain extent. Several Cat Stevens songs play a critical role in the movie, so much so that Stevens is something of an unseen co-star. And the film’s climax—slight spoiler alert—makes effective use of his anthemic “Peace Train.” So when Levinson read Glazer’s script and saw that it included these tunes, he asked, “Do we have the rights?” Not yet, he was told.
Usually, it’s not a big deal for a director to obtain the rights to use music in a film. The music supervisor contacts the folks who control the rights to a song and negotiates a deal. But it was not so simple in this case. Yusuf wanted to meet Levinson and Glazer. So on a spring afternoon in New York City, hours before Yusuf was to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, he and Glazer met with the singer at his hotel. There was a bit of apprehension on the filmmakers’ part. If Yusuf said no, they weren’t sure what they would do. “We didn’t know what we could use instead, what would get us there,” Levinson says. The Cat Stevens songs were instrumental to the story. (After all, how many Muslim-Western mega pop stars are there?) Yusuf had been sent a copy of the script, and shortly after the introductions were done, Levinson and Glazer were relieved: He liked the story and was excited by the prospect of being involved in the project. “He wanted to make sure his music was being used appropriately,” Levinson says. “And he saw exactly what we were trying to do with the whole idea of an Afghan Muslim young woman so taken with his music that she becomes a pop star and remains a Muslim.” Islam gave them a green light. “It was a key element to get into place,” Levinson notes.  From: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/10/cat-stevens-rock-the-kasbah-bill-murray-barry-levinson/

Thursday, September 22, 2022

Octopus - Beyond the Center


 #Octopus #stoner rock #blues rock #hard rock #heavy metal #psychedelic rock #1970s retro #music video

Led by powerhouse vocalist Masha Marjieh and guitarist J Frezzatto (ex-Electric Six) and including ex-Big Chief bassist Matt O’Brien, the band soaks hard riffs and otherworldly atmospheres in wah-wah guitars, out-of-phase tones, grimy organ and a general sense of the children having pillaged the psychedelic pantry a few times before hitting the studio. Heavier than your average 70s-worshipping gang of stoners, but more colorful than unrefined metallic sludge, Octopus' Supernatural Alliance will rattle your lobes and juice your ‘nads.  From: https://octopus888official.bandcamp.com/album/supernatural-alliance-2

Spring is in the air. Depending on where you reside, this may or may not be a big deal. For those not residing in a paradise climate, this signifies the coming of tolerable temps and more regular doses of some much-needed vitamin D. It’s also a signifier that we can soon roll the car windows down, crank the jams, and make our best Maxell “Blown Away Guy” impression. With that in mind, red-eyed headbangers everywhere should be champing at the bit to blast the debut record from Detroit’s Octopus out in the open (and springtime-y, flowery, sunshiney) air. Supernatural Alliance beams with an invigorating, revitalizing energy that the rock ‘n’ roll (and our seasonal affective disorder) has been missing lately. One look at that album cover should give you an idea of exactly what you’re in for: fantasy, sci-fi, ardor, majesty, and triumph.
Still, like their aqueous namesake, Octopus are a slippery group to tack down in spite of their mostly retro tendencies. Sometimes you get a Master of Reality-era Iommi stomp complete with undulating tom work (“Beyond The Center”), others a nearly Blue Öyster Cult haunt (“Sword and the Stone”). Then there’s moments like the overdriven title track where they mesh a full-commit stoner rock lead with a glossy, celestial synth foundation, leavening things to a smooth and almost floaty glide. By shifting the weight of the song to the full-throated powerhouse chorus, there’s a nifty dynamic balancing act taking place that never leaves the track feeling thin or uneven. This consistent shapeshifting becomes a varied and eclectic package,  the band to touch upon many throwback microcosms. Masha Marjieh’s commanding vocals bind everything together nicely. Her power and delivery suit the high intensity regimen the group doles out, and she handles herself well during the albums few dialed back moments. Album standout “All the Love” (which brings to mind “Planet Caravan” in all the best ways), slows things down at the perfect moment – disarming listeners before they surface again with a potent closing duo.
While a synthy foundation beds most of the record, they avoid entering corny waters that seemed to have doomed everyone in the 80s. Octopus masterfully modernize the keyboard-driven, shag-carpeted sound. A perfect world would have “Strike (While the Iron is Hot)” playing in the background of a dim and smoky pool hall where too-cool-for-school lyrics like “I see that the squeeze ain’t worth the juice” can be said un-ironically and the clapped-along gang vocal chorus can be belted out with reckless abandon – it’s basically modernized Joan Jett in terms of ‘tude and songwriting acumen – what more can you want? Little touches like the way Adam Cox’s piano key slides cozy up with ferocious organ roars put this track over the top, it’s an approachable, yet dense pop track.
Psych rock has largely been a west coast staple, but if the waves made here by Octopus are any indication, we might not be looking coastward for the next great offering of stellar metallic psychedelia. Supernatural Alliance is an eye-opening debut, delivering the goods like seasoned vets instead of stumbling on their first rodeo. It’s a pleasure to hear a band craft something this well-rounded with such confidence, much less as a first impression. There will be obvious parallels to be drawn to Vancouver’s Black Mountain (keyboard/synth heavy compositions, superbly tight songwriting, stylistic variety), which is about as great as a compliment as there can be for this particular style of stoner rock.
From: https://www.heavyblogisheavy.com/2018/03/22/octopus-supernatural-alliance/ 

Steppenwolf - Don't Step On The Grass, Sam


 #Steppenwolf #psychedelic rock #blues rock #acid rock #hard rock #Canadian #1960s #1970s

Starin' at the boob tube, turnin' on the big knob
Tryin' to find some life in the waste land
Fin'ly found a program, gonna deal with Mary Jane
Ready for a trip into hate land
Obnoxious Joe comes on the screen
Along with his guest self-righteous Sam
And one more guy who doesn't count
His hair and clothes are too far out

While pushin' back his glasses Sam is sayin' casually
"I was elected by the masses"
And with that in mind he starts to unwind
A vicious attack on the finest of grasses

Well it's evil, wicked, mean and nasty
(Don't step on the grass, Sam)
And it will ruin our fair country
(Don't be such an ass, Sam)
Well, it will hook your Sue and Johnny
(You're so full of bull, Sam)
All will pay that disagree with me
(Please give up you already lost the fight, alright)

Misinformation Sam and Joe
Are feeding to the nation
But the one who didn't count counted them out
By exposing all their false quotations
Faced by a very awkward situation
This is all he'd say to save the day

Well it's evil, wicked, mean and nasty
(Don't step on the grass, Sam)
And it will ruin our fair country
(Don't be such an ass, Sam)
Well, it will hook your Sue and Johnny
(You're so full of bull, Sam)
All will pay that disagree with me
(Please give up you already lost the fight alright)

You waste my coin Sam, all you can
To jail my fellow man
For smoking all the noble weed
You need much more than him
You've been telling lies so long
Some believe they're true
So they close their eyes to things
You have no right to do
Just as soon as you are gone
Hope will start to climb
Please don't stay around too long
You're wasting precious time 

Porno For Pyros - Tahitian Moon


 #Porno For Pyros #Perry Farrell #alternative rock #psychedelic rock #indie rock #funk metal #heavy metal #neo-psychedelia #space rock revival #1990s #ex-Jane's Addiction

Perry Farrell's post-Jane's Addiction band, Porno for Pyros, followed the same path as his previous band, combining art rock, punk, heavy metal, and funk into one shrieking whole. On their self-titled 1993 debut, Farrell's pretensions got out of hand at times, resulting in some ridiculously self-absorbed conceptual pieces sitting next to some straightforward rockers and pop songs. While he prepared new Porno material in 1994, Farrell returned to the organization of Lollapalooza - the traveling rock festival he conceived - for the first time since 1992. The band released Good Gods Urge in 1996. Although Good Gods Urge was a successful release from both an artistic and musical standpoint, the album disappeared from the charts shortly after its release. On the album's ensuing tour, former Minutemen/Firehorse bassist Mike Watt filled in for the departed Maryn LeNoble, and to the delight of longtime Jane's Addiction fans, guitarist Dave Navarro was a special surprise guest on select dates as well. After the album's ensuing tour wrapped up in early 1997 (and a pair of Porno for Pyros songs appeared on the motion picture soundtracks for The Cable Guy and Private Parts), Farrell promptly ended the group, and focused on a solo recording career as well as sporadic Jane's Addiction reunion shows.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/porno-for-pyros-mn0000355208/biography

Laura Love - Bad Feeling


 #Laura Love #folk #Afro-Celtic #Americana #Afro-Carribean #folk rock #funk #R&B #world music #singer-songwriter

Over the past several years, Laura Love has become quite acclaimed in the Northwest music scene as an unparalleled vocalist, bassist, and songwriter. Love's style is a synthesis of inner-city funk and folk-ish sensibility. One of the most difficult tasks for a musician is to find an apt label for her music; folk/funk, African/Appalachian, and House/Celtic have been bandied about for Laura Love. Whatever you choose to call it, Love's original music is at once fresh, def, and rooted in tradition. Although a popular headliner in her own right, she has opened for John Lee Hooker, Lyle Lovett, Bo Diddley, Karla Bonoff, and Elayne Boosler and been invited to perform at a number of folk and eclectic music festivals. Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, Laura Love began her career at the age of 16, singing jazz and pop standards at the Nebraska State Penitentiary. Since then, Love has played in a blues-grunge outfit, in a duo, trio, and in the funny feminist foursome, Venus Envy. Love has released three albums: Menstrual Hut (1989), Z Therapy (1990), and Pangaea (1993), all on her own label, Octoroon Biography. Shum Ticky followed in 1998 and Fourteen Days arrived in 2000 on Zoe Records.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/laura-love-mn0000116761/biography

Singer-songwriter Laura Love isn't yet a household name, but she's done pretty well for an African-American woman who grew up in abject poverty in Nebraska - a place where other black faces like hers were few and far between. She's got her own flavor of music she calls folk-funk, and has sold more than 200,000 records over the span of her short and very independent career. Her latest creative blast is a combination memoir and CD of songs inspired by the trials during her young life, You Ain't Got No Easter Clothes. Love's life story isn't an easy one, but her words and music convey a wry wit and deep sense of joy and humor. Almost all of the songs on the You Ain't Got No Easter Clothes CD were composed at the same time she wrote her memoir. The book reveals Love's often shocking struggle against adversity - her mother's mental illness, the family's deep poverty, her stays in foster homes and other setbacks. But instead of hitting back, Love's words and music recall the gratitude, joy and sense of humor that characterize her outlook on life.  From: https://www.npr.org/2004/08/26/3871856/laura-love-two-for-easter 

Tuesday, September 20, 2022

Kuunatic - Tītián


 #Kuunatic #psychedelic rock #experimental rock #progressive rock #folk rock #noise rock #post-punk #avant-garde #Japanese #animated music video

Kuunatic is a thrilling Tokyo based tribal-psych trio bolstered by diverse global sonics and powerful female vocals. Drawing on the members’ different musical and cultural perspectives, their music explores ritual drumming, pulsing bass lines, atmospheric keyboard sounds and Japanese traditional instruments. Having previously released an EP (“Kuurandia” 2017) as well as a split 7” (with Taiwanese fuzz psych garage band Crocodelia), “Gate of Klüna” is Kuunatic’s much awaited debut album. Produced by Tim DeWit (Gang Gang Dance) the record reveals a mesmerizing sound world that transcends genres and hemispheres and succeeds in being both boldly experimental and wildly catchy. Kuunatic are Fumie Kikuchi on keys and vocals, Yuko Araki on drums and vocals and Shoko Yoshida on bass and vocals. The possibilities to project onto Kuunatic’s music are endless. This is because the band has created that rare thing: catchy music that is impossible to pigeonhole. The track ‘Lava Naksh’ is a form of renaissance dance; a pavane, maybe, albeit with Kraftwerk’s early organ sound. ‘Full Moon Spree’ could be a ritual version of The Fall’s ‘What You Need’. ‘Raven’s War’ is a dry-as-dust progressive soundtrack, it could be a lost cut from the Valley of the Dolls record. The transportative elements in all are key: certain beats and near-melismatic melody lines hark back to archaic processional and ritual music. In ‘Desert Empress Part II’ for example, a glowering bass line walks ponderously alongside the toms, framing and guiding the mood. Finishing matters off with what sounds like a backwards organ is also discombobulating. Such sonic sleights of hand are part of the Kuunatic playbook.  From: https://swampbooking.com/kuunatic/

Stevie Wonder - Living for the City


 #Stevie Wonder #Motown #soul #R&B #pop soul #funk #rock #gospel #jazz #progressive soul #1970s

Inspired in part by the fatal shooting in New York of a ten-year-old black boy by a white plain-clothes policeman, the audacious centerpiece of Stevie Wonder’s experimental 1973 album was a seven-and-a-half-minute meditation on the brutality of black America: Living for the City. Just as Wonder’s saccharine, middle-of-the-road smash hit You Are the Sunshine of My Life was selling millions around the world, the virtuoso former child star was busy in the studio pioneering the sound of black music by recording a concept album: Innervisions. Expanding on the ambitions of Talking Book the year before, it would secure his transformation from Motown pop star to legendary artist and activist.
Meanwhile, early on the morning of April 28th, 1973, Clifford “Cleophus” Glover was walking with his 51 year-old stepfather along New York Boulevard in Jamaica, Queens, New York when a white Buick Skylark drew up alongside them and a white man got out of the car shouting “You black son of a bitch!” and started shooting at them. They ran for their lives, but Cliffie did not make it. Police Officer Thomas Shea claimed that Add Armstead and his stepson resembled two known thieves – thieves who had been described as around 24 years of age and about six feet tall. Shea, who became the first police officer in almost 50 years to be charged with committing murder while on duty, claimed that the child had reached for a gun. Forensic evidence proved that the ten-year-old had been shot in the back; no evidence of a gun was ever found. Thomas Shea lost his job on the force, but in June 1974 a jury of 11 white men and one black woman found him not guilty of murder and he walked away a free man. Riots had followed the initial shooting and worse still came when the verdict was announced. Hundreds took to the streets. White children playing baseball were attacked by angry rioters on a local playing field. Cars were turned over and burned and two police officers were injured by rioters.
Stevie Wonder attended the funeral of Cleophus Glover, and sang for the congregation as the procession left the church. “I have followed the case,” he told Jet magazine. “It brings America down another notch in my book. I hope that black people realise how serious things are and do something about it”. This was the burning issue on Stevie Wonder’s mind as he wrote the epic Living for The City. With an infectious funk swagger – and complete with authentic street noise sound effects, spoken dialogue and the poignant slamming of a jail door – Living For The City contains a cinematic intermission that tells the fictional story of a wide-eyed innocent who comes to the big city to make his fortune and finds himself quickly duped into becoming a drug runner, arrested by the police and sentenced to ten years behind bars. There is not a lot of hope in this tale of the boy from “Hard Times, Mississippi” – his dreams are crushed and any prospects of a productive future along with them. Far from finding a welcoming community and useful work, he is plunged into a heartless ghetto populated by unscrupulous gangsters in a city controlled by a draconian white establishment. As the story concludes we hear a jailer yelling: “Get in the cell, nigger!” brutally underlining the unfeeling institutionalized racism. There is no happy ending in this potted saga. As Stevie gruffly sings: “If we don’t change, the world will soon be over.”  From: https://www.musicto.com/active/fight-evil/living-for-the-city-stevie-wonder/

The Babe Rainbow - Secret Enchanted Broccoli Forest


 #The Babe Rainbow #psychedelic rock #neo-psychedelia #psychedelic pop #alternative rock #indie rock #retro-1960s #stoner pop #Australian

Australian neo-psych outfit the Babe Rainbow first introduced themselves in 2015 with a sprinkling of cheery nuggets like "Ashmay & Dr. Love Wisdom" and "Secret Enchanted Broccoli Forest." The trio's affable take on cosmic Donovan-inspired flower pop won them a contract with Danger Mouse's 30th Century Records imprint, which offers up this eponymous full-length debut. Natives of the coastal surfing town of Byron Bay, New South Wales, the Babe Rainbow comprise singer/drummer Angus Dowling, guitarist Jack "Cool-Breeze" Crowther, and bassist Lu-Lu-Felix Domingo, who collectively espouse the sunny peaceful vibes of late-'60s California in their music and imagery while folding in elements of modern psych and electronic experimentation. Recorded in their hometown by King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard frontman Stu Mackenzie, the LP is a generally lighthearted affair, though the Babes are no slouches in terms of craftsmanship. Layered throughout with spry riffs, jazzy instrumentation, and attractive grooves, the record comes across as more of a vibe generator than a dazzling display of songwriting. While standouts like "Losing Something" and "Survival in the 21st Century" offer more thoughtful pop missives, the bulk of the album is concerned with fun grooves and textures.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-babe-rainbow-mw0003062347

Paula Cole - Mississippi


 #Paula Cole #singer-songwriter #alternative rock #alternative pop rock #indie rock #art rock #piano rock #1990s

I may have gotten here because of Dawson's Creek, but I am staying for the wonderful blend of 90s alt-rock and art pop on Paula Coles’ This Fire! Paula Cole, the winner of Best New Artist 1998, released a searing critique of the men in her life with some more marketable songs tossed in for good measure. When Cole can blend the acerbic edge of her 1990s sisters with the art-pop sensibilities of a musician like Kate Bush, she is unstoppable. 'Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?' feels particularly relevant in the current cultural moment. In fact, Cole's question predicts the shifting archetypes of American Heroism that artists (Mitski, Lil Nas X, Mac) continue to think about today. Paula Cole does a good job at maintaining the same level of intensity throughout, and she has an ear for thoughtful production and fantastic images. She utilizes religious imagery, in particular, to think about her relationship to history. Take, for example, the crazed, 'Throwing Stones,' where Paula matches her intense vocals with equally fierce lyrics and a piano that just won't quit. 'So call me a bitch in heat, I'll call you a liar' Cole screams on each chorus; Her voice feels sharp and violent. She partners this with the story of David and Goliath, conflating her experience with biblical struggles. It's a powerful moment that feels challenging, but the song maintains a catchy chorus that helps the sentiment get stuck in your head. Paula Cole's This Fire manages to be compelling throughout while not sounding too one-note. While I think there are direct comparisons to Kate Bush, Cole's music manages to differentiate itself by embracing the guitars and pianos of alternative rock. Her music is a little rough at times, but the creativity behind this music is fantastic. If you only know, 'I Don't Want To Wait,' give the rest of the album a chance!  From: https://www.albumoftheyear.org/user/musicmagpie55/album/26256-this-fire/

Sunday, September 18, 2022

Black Moth - Moonbow


 #Black Moth #Harriet Hyde #stoner rock #heavy metal #hard rock #grunge #alternative rock #indie rock #music video

Posed by one scribe as 'an onslaught of monumental riff sorcery and serpentine grace' Black Moth rose from the Leeds underground scene at the end of 2010, indulging their love for both Sabbath sulphur and Stooges squalor. Equal parts horror movie atmosphere, thunderous drive and maverick spark, with Harriet Bevan's biting and beguiling voice leading the charge.  From: https://blackmothband.bandcamp.com/

This weekend, Leeds-via-London stoner metallers Black Moth will play their final shows. After breaking onto the scene in 2012 with debut full-length The Killing Jar, they harnessed the power of the occult and the morose with a healthy dose of Black Sabbath, Nick Cave and Uncle Acid to become one of the brightest lights in the British stoner/doom scene. However, such is life, circumstances didn't work in their favour. Their final album, Anatomical Venus, was recorded a year before it was eventually released, which ultimately slowed the band's momentum – leaving over three years between records.
"The album was done but we weren’t out there promoting it," vocalist Harriet Hyde tells Kerrang! from the comfort of a north London pub. "Although we did some really nice things off the back of it. We toured with L7, played with Sleep, which for us were ultimates. Hearing Donita (Sparks, L7 vocalist) say to the crowd that I was their frozen embryo child (laughs)… It genuinely made me cry.” Couple the delay with the fact that Black Moth's lineup are split across England – two members living in London, and three living in Leeds – made touring and rehearsal a trying ordeal.
"I quit so many jobs because we’d been offered a tour, and you can only do that for so long. What’s sad is you’ve got five people who have this incredible chemistry for making music together, but it all ends up being frustrating because you can’t scrape two hours together on a Friday night." Logistically, it became impossible to carry on. Harriet herself was burning out, using every available holiday she had to go on tour, she never found time to actually rest. "There was a heartbreaking moment where we were playing Vienna on tour and I was desperate to go see Vienna. Did I see it? Did I fuck!" she laughs. "I saw the back of a van then a venue, then we left." Ultimately, Harriet wrote the band an email, calling time on Black Moth. Admitting it was a hard pill to swallow initially, the rest of the band agreed that the band should leave it at the three albums they're proud of, instead of "pissing it away and falling out."
From: https://www.kerrang.com/a-farewell-to-the-perverted-darkness-of-black-moth


The Jayhawks - Save It For A Rainy Day


 #The Jayhawks #Gary Louris #Mark Olson #alternative rock #country rock #alt-country #folk rock #Americana #roots rock #1990s

I once heard The Jayhawks described as the “greatest Lutheran bar band ever,” and though I’m still not exactly sure what that means, I know I like it. It’s certainly better than the “alt-country pioneers” label they normally get saddled with. Or worse, heirs of Gram Parsons’ “cosmic American music” legacy. (Which is not a knock on Gram in any way, just on the flaky non-genre he coined). My own description would be: jangly God-haunted Midwestern country-folk with fuzz guitars and harmonies that essentially define the phrase “sandpaper-and-honey.” But even that doesn’t cover the oddly circular progression they’ve undergone, from breezy singer-songwriters to arty and somewhat angsty recordmakers, and back again. Regardless of how they’re categorized, The Jayhawks are an American treasure, responsible for at least four brilliant albums, two of which feature co-founder/-lead singer Mark Olson (Hollywood Town Hall and Tomorrow The Green Grass), two of which don’t (Sound of Lies and Rainy Day Music are exclusively Gary Louris-led affairs).  From: https://mbird.com/music/weds-morning-jayhawks-mark-olsons-still/