Gillian Welch & David Rawlings - Sessions at West 54th Street 1997

I've always been a big fan of Gillian Welch's albums. She and her musical partner, Dave Rawlings, made two records (Revival and Hell Among the Yearlings) for Almo Sounds with producer T Bone Burnett that I enjoyed. But it was the next album, the Dave Rawlings-produced Time (The Revelator) on their own Acony Records, which put them onto my desert island list. It's quietly stunning, both musically and sonically, and Gillian's new album The Harrow & The Harvest is equally as strong. I got a chance to speak with them while they were on tour supporting Buffalo Springfield. At first they seemed a bit bored by yet another interview, but when I mentioned I wanted Dave to stay in the room so we could talk about recording, they both visibly perked up. Although Dave is credited with production, Gillian also has some deep knowledge and opinions on recording. As befits two people who have worked together for over a decade, they often finish each other's sentences and thoughts. Their strong connection as musical partners is evident.

Time (The Revelator) is one of my favorite records. I think it's a classic album.

G: We made it in the old RCA Studio B in Nashville that was built in the late '50s. It had no gear in there.

D: We were looking for a recording space and I had been driving around Nashville trying to find an old studio to rent, or possibly buy. One day I drove by Studio B and the door was open. I thought, "Oh my God, that's Studio B. I've never been in there." I walked in, heard my footsteps on the floor and knew that I liked the sound of the room. Bob Moore was there that day — Elvis's bass player. He just happened to stop by. I was really interested in [renting] it. I then found out that the Country Music Hall of Fame — who had been running a lot of tours through it and whatnot — were building the new Hall of Fame. In the interim they were going to be too busy to do anything with RCA B. We approached them through a friend who was on their board and they said would it be all right if we brought our gear in and rented it on a monthly basis. They treated it as a donation to the new Hall of Fame, which was real nice. We rented it out for about 14 months. When we first got in there, I spent a month or two cleaning out the troughs and I fixed the plate reverbs. The place hadn't been used much as a professional space in quite a while.

G. It had not been a functioning studio.

But they had a little bit of gear, like the plates?

D: They had the plates in the other room and they had somebody doing some karaoke sessions out of the live room. The control room was basically empty.

G: The speakers were still there.

D: Oh yeah, the old Altec 604s were still there, but they needed to be fixed.

Is that what you monitored on?

D: It was mainly [Yamaha] NS-10s and the Altecs. What we ended up bringing in was all the gear from the home studio — stuff that we've assembled over the years. Our tape machine is a [Studer] A800.

Is it 24- or 16-track?

D: 16-track. I actually bought the headstack before the machine. I found some unused 16-track heads when I was buying some other gear, and I threw those in. Then I found a 24-track machine. What else?

G: The Neve desk.

D: Yeah, we started buying [Neve] 1084s really early on. I bought a BCM-10 frame and every time we went on tour I would come back and buy a couple more modules. I found some other 1084s from the next console made, so the serial numbers were still pretty continuous. We hadn't filled the frame for ...Revelator, but we had enough — we only needed four or five.

G: That board came out of WGBH Boston. It was the old Sesame Street board.

So it had a Muppet vibe.

D: Yeah, rubber ducky. I got this other old BCM-10-style console made by Neve that has 1055 modules in it; they're the wide, black ones with three fixed bands. They basically have a high, low and a mid — you can't select the frequency — and 10 dB steps. They are very unforgiving with transients; they really don't like anything barking. There is distortion all over our records because of those modules.

Does it squash the transients or distort?

D: They break up in a weird tear-y way. If you hit them with the top of a vocal it will have a little "kkkrrrrrr" on it. I would go through those, as well as the 1084 at line level to get five dB gradiation; as a buffer stage. I had some 1084s that bypassed the fader, and those were the ones that I used before the tape machine. So the signal chain was two [Neumann] M 49s, a [Sony] C-37a on my guitar and an M 582 Neumann on Gil's guitar. There are other setups: "Dear Someone" would have been an Altec 639a, one of those birdcage mics, with a [Neumann] U 67 right on top of it. They end up perfectly out of phase and you just flip them. We were in there and we would have to break down every couple days 'cause they would run a tour, so we weren't able to leave the mics set up or anything. It was a difficult process.

G: With us, millimeters of difference in the mic setups are huge because the picture is so affected by overall phase between our four mics.

D: Everything is pretty close together.

How far apart are the two of you when recording?

G: Two and a half feet. As close as can be.

D: Some days we would set up, the phase would be great and everything would click in. Then a tour would come through and we would have to tear down. We got a little rug with everything spiked, but we would have to get within millimeters. That's the difference with this new record. Since we were finally working in our own studio, we set up and we never touched the mics.

So a lot of the same gear has made it from record to record?

D: Yeah. There are two tracks on Hell Among the Yearlings that we did at home on those same preamps. By then we also had the [Neumann] M 49s. That was the beginning of what I look at as that incarnation of duets, like "Miner's Refrain" and "Rock of Ages." "Rock" is a banjo song, so it's a little different because I used a [Neumann] U 47 on the banjo.

You had 14 months to make Time (The Revelator). However, it wasn't really 14 months because you were constantly interrupted?

D: We made that record in five weeks. Most of the album was probably created within three weeks, and then there was a little bit of time on either side. I also produced part of the first Old Crow Medicine Show record in that time period. We just happened to be renting the studio for that long.

How long did Harrow & The Harvest take to record?

G: Four weeks. That's about how long our records take.

Is everything recorded live?

G: Totally.

D: Yeah, everything is live. It is pretty much all from takes one, two or three. Very few mixes. This is the first record we've done that Stephen Marcussen [our mastering engineer] listened to and said, "Okay, Let's transfer it." We didn't compress or EQ anything. Just transferred it from a machine of his that we really like, through the nice converters and a clean signal chain.

When you are two-feet away from each other there is no way you are going to punch in and fix a part.

G: We have never done that.

D: About half the songs on the album are complete takes. Five of them are composites of adjacent takes. G: Edits between takes.

Edits on the 2-inch master tape?

D: Yeah, I do a lot of 2-inch editing. I've always done that.

G: Dave's really good at editing. I'd put him up against anybody at this point, because he's not even getting to cut on drums. [Drums make it easier to find the edit points. -ed.]

D: I know where the edits are on this record, but they are pretty hard to find. I bet you can find a few on ...Revelator.

G: But I don't even mind. I like the sound of a tape edit.

Sometimes they're cool. It can totally change the ambience in an unexpected way.

D: Yeah, as long as it's musical.

What speed, 15 ips?

D: 30 ips. I think Soul Journey was at 15, but everything else we have done was at 30.

Why 15 for Soul Journey?

D: Drums. There was more of that vibe. There might be a couple [of songs] at 30, but I just wanted to try it. But that was a very different rig. That was mostly [Shure] SM57s and API preamps.

Was that still mostly tracked live with the band?

D: Yeah. The only thing I should say is that I overdubbed some organ on a few things. I'm a terrible [Hammond] B3 organ player, but if I get one pass at something I usually do a really good job. So I go in, do one pass and that's it.

G: One band song went down without any singing and I had to go back in and sing.

D: We were jamming with the chords of it and it sounded good, but then I think we used your scratch vocal to see if it worked.

Do you have an engineer helping you?

D: We have worked pretty closely with Matt Andrews in Nashville for a while now, and our methodology has developed around the three of us. I'm not in the control room while we are tracking, so we rely on Matt, to some degree. We have some sense of whether or not we are getting there, but it's always good to have another set of ears. If we are going to be editing between takes, it's generally good to get parts from adjacent takes. I suppose I handle most of the responsibilities that you'd associate with a producer.

G: We all listen and weigh in on what the good takes are. Happily, we pretty much agree. It's pretty evident.

Do you do the mixing?

D: I do a lot of mixing. On The Harrow & The Harvest, we weren't really moving faders very much — we never really ride stuff. For most mixes we set the faders and let them run. It's very rare for there to be fader moves within a song. Matt did a lot of live mixing, where he would get the picture a particular way. If we liked it when we came in, we might only tweak things slightly. He did a lot of riding the preamps and then we would adjust from there as far as color and compression.

G: We did a lot of printing tracking mixes — this is very common for us. If we like what we have — even if we can narrow it down to one, two or three takes — we will print them that night.

D: We did that when we were at Studio B and we needed to bring songs back to the other room. We don't have automation, but I have a system of recalling mixes that is crazy accurate by using voltage to get faders in exactly the right spot.

Do you measure it with a voltmeter?

D: I measure the fader levels with a voltmeter. It's actually more accurate than any of those moving fader systems. I mean, you can be off a quarter or a half [dB], which, in our world, a quarter and a half is like...

G: A totally different mix.

D: I don't think we moved the reverb sends on this entire record. We moved as little as we could so we could get a consistent picture.

It seemed really consistent with ...Revelator. They seem to be a pair.

D: That's good, 'cause it's a different room.

G: You're not the first one to say that.

D: Soul Journey was intentionally a departure from the duet thing. Gillian had songs that we thought would be good with drums.

I'm assuming you work out the arrangements well in advance and bring them in?

G: No.

D: Some of the writing goes down in the studio.

G: It's a very "in the moment" dynamic process.

D: The improvisation is usually better early on, and of course you always have time later if you fail.

G: I tend to be... the positive way to say it is that I'm really consistent. But once I've been playing a song for a while it tends to solidify for me. That can be a problem if we are having trouble recording something, as it's unlikely that I'm going to change what I'm doing enough to make a difference. Dave's really good at suggesting arrangements. But, even broader than that, he creates musical changes that really crack things open. For instance, having me move from guitar to banjo or totally recasting a song from major to minor. A lot of these songs are very spontaneous takes on a new arrangement or even new music.

D: "Hard Times" is the second time Gil ever played it on banjo. The first take is un-listenable 'cause there are so many chord mistakes.

G: It's clam city.

D: As the second take was going down, I knew it was magic. I actually cut the solo short because I didn't want there to be any more time — I wanted less time for things to go wrong.

G: He shot me this look of, "Start singing again."

D: Let's get through the fucking thing! It was moving me so much.

G: "Six White Horses" was maybe one of the first times we ever performed it, with me hamboning and with you at the rack [harmonica]. This runs through the whole record — it's very spontaneous

D: ...but only after quite a bit of writing and working. The studio time is the culmination of the writing. "The Way the Whole Thing Ends," has approximately 25 verses. The studio is where we figure out how long the songs need to be and where to cut them down. It was the same situation with "I Dream a Highway;" it's a very long song and I thought it was appropriate for it to remain long. Most of the time they get better if you shrink them, but that one seemed nice long.

G: We had only ever sung that twice.

D: I said, "We shouldn't ever play that until we...

G: 'Til we have tape rolling."

D:We didn't know if it would fit on a reel. I cut out a couple of verses in the final — that's a composite of takes one and two.

You've done enough records in this format, and it seems like it's quick to get set up with Matt.

G: The interesting thing about this record is that we had never had a room that was great sounding to do duet records in at Woodland Sound Studios [Gillian and Dave's studio].

D: We made Soul Journey in the A room at Woodland. We have tried several times to do acoustic stuff — even during the first record with T Bone. We worked in Woodland in '95 and tried to do some acoustic stuff, but never really got anything satisfactory. AES held an event where they brought in Glenn Snoddy, who'd built the studio. We looked at the room and realized that what we didn't like was basically a '90s renovation. So we took the B room and tore it down to studs. We took the wood floor up and basically restored it to how it was in the '60s, when it was built, with linoleum floor and acoustic tiles — basically the same construction as RCA B, which is what Woodland B was built to mirror. We didn't know what we were going to get. We came back, finished the trim, worked for a few weeks, buffing the floor with the same wax compound. Then we set up mics and did one take of a song that ended up being an outtake. The next thing we played was "The Way it Will Be." We did one take of that and it was a master. We felt like, "Okay, this room is working well." ...Revelator sits back in speakers in a very nice, mysterious way — The Harrow & The Harvest throws out the speakers and combines in the space you are in.

G: ...Revelator you have to listen into more. I feel like this new record comes out.

Tell me a little bit about working with T Bone Burnett. How did the transition go from working with him to essentially producing yourselves?

G: I kind of learned how to make records from him. Rik Pekkonen (engineer on Revival) and T Bone came up with our mic'ing rig.

D: From the first days of Revival, we had Gil sing into a [Neumann] [U] 47, [U] 67 and an [M] 49. It was pretty apparent to everyone that the 49 was a great mic for her. When we got done, Rik Pekkonen sent me a very nice list of, "This is what you would need to buy in order to make professional recordings." We started out with an [Ampex] ATR-102 and a couple of U 67s.

G: T Bone is really the one that pushed us to have a recording rig in our house.

D: ...and the methodology when it comes to tape editing. That's how T Bone was working at the time. In my mind we record in a mid '70's methodology, and I think that's the pinnacle of fidelity in the recording world.

G: We have to capture a performance and T Bone got that. That's why he said, "Have a way to record in your house."

It sounds like he really encouraged you guys to move into producing yourselves.

D: In a way, he forced us into it. He was not around at the end of either of the first two records. We mastered Revival without him. T Bone is an incredibly talented, fantastic producer. Listen to his track record and listen to his music. But oftentimes he is working on a lot of things, and he had a lot more energy at the beginning of these projects than he did at the end. There are tracks on Hell Among the Yearlings that he never heard before the record was out. That's just the truth of it — we needed to finish the record.

G: You would be hard-pressed to find someone who commences a project with more inspiration and enthusiasm than T Bone.

D: The man is a genius.

G: I think it is part of his process of how he goes to the next project. He has to mentally get out of the one he is in. Sometimes that happens before the record is done, if that makes sense.

Around the same time you started your own record label?

G: Yeah, Time (The Revelator) came out on our label.

How hands on are you with the label?

G: Pretty hands on.

D: We were walking around one day and I said, "I don't know how we're going to sign with another label that we can be sure we'll be with in another five years." 'The industry was so volatile and that became reason enough to start our own label.

Is there anyone else on the label, besides you two?

G: Both of our records.

D: We did a project with a friend of ours' named Morgan Nagler; her band is called The Whispertown 2000.

Was there a flip-flop of roles with the Dave Rawlings Machine, A Friend of a Friend album?

D: There was in terms of the musical thing. It was a difficult record to produce because it was one more layer of, "Oh god. I'm listening to myself."

So you [Gillian] didn't kind of chip in a bit?

G: No, I'm really not a producer. There is a reason why the albums say, "Produced by David Rawlings."

D: It was harder to do, but it was a lot of fun. We did that pretty quickly in RCA B. I didn't know how we were going to do it, but we ended up with all four vocals around an [Neumann] M 49 in omni mode, a couple of low instrument mics and a mic for the bass. There wasn't much to mix or fuck with.

Do you rent Woodland Sound Studios out to other artists?

D: Robert Plant made his last record [Band of Joy] there, but we don't really rent it out.

G: I wouldn't really call it "eccentric" gear-wise, but it's not a commercial studio.

D: It works for us. There isn't a [Pro Tools] HD rig. We have a decent complement of mics. G: Buddy Miller [Tape Op #34], who recorded that Robert Plant album, totally understood that. He's local, so he brought in the gear he needed, knowing that our equipment would be available for him to use as well.

What was the history of Woodland Sound before you bought it?

D: They made [Kansas'] "Dust in the Wind" there and [Neil Young's] Comes a Time. It was a very hot studio in Nashville — maybe the hottest studio in the world, as far as pop music from '73 to '83 — all the "urban cowboy" country.

G: And [The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's] Will the Circle be Unbroken.

D: You can read up on Woodland — it's interesting. It was also Denny Purcell's — he had a mastering suite there, as well as two studios. If you look at the logs, they were running 24 hours [per day]. You may have noticed the studio business in the last decade hasn't been so good. The only reason we could buy this building in 2001 is because it had been on the market for two years. No one wanted it — it was going to be a Walgreens.

G: Who wants an enormous old studio?

From: https://tapeop.com/interviews/85/gillian-welch-and-dave-rawlings/

Soundgarden - MTV Live 'n' Loud 1996

Upon its release on March 8, 1994, Superunknown wasn’t just a highly anticipated album from a critically acclaimed rock band—its multi-platinum success and Grammy wins practically felt predestined. This was Soundgarden’s long overdue turn to come out on top. Though they were the first late-’80s Seattle-scene spawn to sign to a major label, and dutifully embarked upon traditional career-building exercises like opening stadium tours for Guns N' Roses, they would be soundly leapfrogged on the charts by their Emerald City peers in Nirvana and Pearl Jam; by comparison, Soundgarden’s metallic sonatas were seemingly too knotty (and naughty) to inspire the same magnitude of crossover success. Sure, 1991’s Badmotorfinger landed a bare-chested Chris Cornell on the cover of SPIN, and an MTV ban of the allegedly blasphemous “Jesus Christ Pose” video brought the band more attention than if the station had actually aired it, but Soundgarden appeared destined to be the perennial bronze medalists in the Grunger Games.
By early 1994, however, the playing field had changed considerably: Though Pearl Jam were still the most popular rock band in America, they were actively trying to be the least visible one, declaring a moratorium on videos and interviews in an orchestrated (and ultimately successful) campaign to kill their own hype. Nirvana, likewise, were in the midst of a similar retreat, and though their story had yet to reach its tragic conclusion, ominous warning signs were in the air. But as a band that enjoyed a steadier ascent than their flannelled friends—and whose records got progressively better after jumping to a major—Soundgarden didn’t seem so conflicted about success. Their response to the Seattle-scene media storm wasn’t to try to avoid it, but transcend it, and embrace the opportunity to, for a moment, become the biggest band in the land.
Usually, it’s a bad sign when the wild-child frontman of your favorite group cuts his hair and starts wearing shirts. But the clean-cut Cornell that emerged with Superunknown was emblematic of the album’s mission to deliver maximal effect with minimal histrionics. With its despairing worldview, gold-plated production, and CD-stuffing 71-minute running time, Superunknown is a quintessential ’90s artifact. But thanks to its still-formidable high-wire balance of hooks and heft, the album nonetheless represents, some 20 years later, the platonic ideal of what a mainstream hard rock record should be. And even if that’s an ideal to which few contemporary bands aspire (aside from, say, Queens of the Stone Age), Superunknown remains a useful model for any left-of-center artist hoping to achieve accessibility without sacrificing identity.
For Soundgarden, the push toward pop was the result of incremental evolutions rather than a spectacular leap. Where Badmotorfinger introduced flashes of psychedelia and paisley-patterned melody amid Kim Thayil’s pulverizing riffage, on Superunknown, these elements become featured attractions. The once-oblique John Lennon references gave way to unabashed homage—centerpiece power ballad “Black Hole Sun” is pretty much “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” turned upside down and dropped in a heap of soot and coal. That song counts as Superunknown’s most wanton act of subversion—setting its apocalyptic imagery to a tune so pretty, even Paul Anka can dig it—but if that element of surprise has been diluted by two decades of perpetual rock-radio rotation, the album boasts a wealth of less celebrated deep cuts (the queasy psych-folk of “Head Down,” the dread-ridden doom of “4th of July”) that retain a palpable sense of unease.
Even the album’s eternal fist-pump anthems—“The Day I Tried to Live”, “Fell on Black Days”, “My Wave”—are infected with misanthropy and malaise, making Superunknown the rare arena-rock album that makes just as much sense in blacked-out bedroom. (And yet, despite the junkie intimations of its title, “Spoonman” is really just about a man who plays with spoons.) That said, if you don’t hate the world now quite as much as did when you were 18, you may find yourself skipping over the leaden likes of “Mailman” and “Limo Wreck,” while developing a newfound appreciation for how bassist Ben Shepherd’s India-inspired oddity, “Half”, injects a welcome dose of absurdity into the mix.
By fortuitous coincidence, Superunknown hit stores the same day as Nine Inch Nails’ The Downward Spiral, an album boasting a similarly expansive scope and thematic framework, albeit approached from a drastically different set of influences (’80s new wave, goth, and electro as opposed to ’60s classic rock). The connection between the two albums is strong enough that the two bands toured together in 1994 and—despite some shit-talkin’ in the interim—are reuniting once again this summer for a joint-20th-anniversary jaunt. For casual Soundgarden fans who still own the record, a concert ticket may ultimately be a more efficient way of celebrating Superunknown’s birthday than by shelling out for this reissue (available in two-and five-CD box set iterations), whose bonus material mostly amounts to demos and rehearsal tapes that cast this epic album in a more normalizing light. However, you do develop a greater appreciation for the final product when you hear the ideas that got scrapped along the away or relegated to B-sides, like the dirgey embryonic arrangement of “Fell on Black Days” (a.k.a. “Black Days III”), the free-form ambient stew of “Jerry Garcia’s Finger”, and a club-friendly industrial funk mix of “Spoonman” by Steve Fisk that sounds like a test run for his beat-driven project Pigeonhed.
You also get a glimpse of the band’s future course with a beautifully spare acoustic treatment of “Like Suicide” that points the way to 1996’s more temperate Down on the Upside, the album that effectively triggered Soundgarden’s subsequent 13-year break-up. But then the go-for-broke, peak-conquering triumphalism of Superunknown was itself a harbinger that the writing was on the wall for this band at the time. When Cornell sings, “Alive in the superunknown” on the album’s acid-swirled title track, it’s both a valorous testament to Soundgarden’s last-gang-in-town fortitude and a telling prophecy of the uncertainty to come, with grunge’s early ’90s stranglehold on alt-rock radio soon to be loosened by the emergence of pop-punk, Britpop, electronica, and nu-metal. But amid a musical landscape now splintered into infinite subgenres, Superunknown remains the very definition of no-qualifiers-required rock—a tombstone for a once-dominant aesthetic, perhaps, but also a solid, immovable mass that endures no matter how dramatically its surroundings have changed.  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/19407-soundgarden-superunknown/

The B-52s - Revolution Earth

Kate Pierson is showing off the Pepto-Bismol pink cabinets in Suite No. 5. The retro furniture fits right in with the rest of the decor at Kate’s Lazy Meadow, the Hudson Valley, New York motel owned by the redhead from the B-52s and her wife Monica Coleman. There are suites dedicated to cowgirl Annie Oakley and Native American hero Sacagawea, and all of the rentals are filled with ’50s-style whimsy and a collection of B-movie VHS tapes with titles like The Incubus and G.I. Executioner. The kitschy getaway brings to mind the B-52s’ classic “Love Shack” video, where the band partied alongside a crowd of revelers—including a young RuPaul—inside of a tiny technicolor cabin. The mountain hideaway suits the 71-year-old’s eccentric onstage style, but her demeanor is more reserved than the loud decor of her motel or her hair (now magenta) lets on. For our interview, she’s dressed like a ski-bunny in black leggings and fur-lined boots, with pages of detailed notes about her favorite songs through the years, which she says took days of research to compile.
More than four decades ago, the B-52s began with a burst of spontaneity. In 1976, Pierson, Fred Schneider, Keith Strickland, Cindy Wilson and her older brother Ricky shared a flaming volcano drink at a Chinese restaurant in Athens, Georgia, headed home to jam—and never stopped. The band relied on improvisation from the start, combining the music they all loved—surf rock, Afrobeat, doo-wop—to become a vibrant fount of pure merriment. They’ve endured hardships, including Ricky’s passing from an AIDS-related illness in 1985, financial woes, and Cindy taking a brief sabbatical in the early ’90s, but the B-52s are the rare band that never broke up. In fact, the remaining founding members continue to play to sold-out crowds across the world.
Now the band is looking to celebrate their history with a documentary, a book, and a jukebox musical, all of which are in the early stages of development. This reminiscing has made Pierson excited to think about the band’s legacy. “The basic message we put out is inclusion,” she says, noting that people tell her all the time that the B-52s got them through high school or an illness. It’s the kind of music that makes a person feel less alone. “They can forget their troubles and they can dance,” she says. “That’s the greatest thing you can give someone.” Here, Pierson looks back at the music that served a similar purpose for her throughout her life.

Les Paul and Mary Ford: “Mockin’ Bird Hill”

Kate Pierson: My grandmother owned the house we lived in in Weehawken, New Jersey. She lived upstairs, and as soon as I woke up I would go up there, and she’d play the piano. She sang this song, “Tra-la-la, tweedlee dee dee, it gives me a thrill.” I don’t remember much from when I was 5, but I specifically remember her playing that. It’s almost like a vision of her, angelic, playing “Mockin’ Bird Hill.” She was singing dramatically, and that made me think, I want to be a singer.

Jerry Lee Lewis: “Great Balls of Fire”

When I heard this song on the radio in 1958, it just had this visceral effect on me. I had a laughing fit and I couldn’t stop—I started rolling around on the floor. My parents didn’t know what was the matter with me. It just hit me like a lightning bolt, and I was like, “OK, I guess I’m destined to rock and roll.” I had no idea at that age, but kids tore up auditoriums and threw chairs to this song. That’s why parents were like, “Rock and roll is the devil! It’s making kids crazy!” It did make me crazy, in a great way.

Bob Dylan: “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”

At this point I had my own folk protest band called the Sun Doughnuts, and I played this song for my other bandmates over and over, but they just couldn’t get it. Not only did Dylan’s voice grab me, but the meaning and the message made me realize that the words really matter. A lot of songs, even “Great Balls of Fire,” are kind of funny, but this song, wow—it really affected my life. I became aware of the civil rights movement through music by people like Dylan, Joan Baez, and Joni Mitchell. When I look back at my life, I wonder why I didn’t run away to Greenwich Village and become a folk singer.

Janis Joplin: “Ball and Chain”

This was 1968, and I wanted to look like Mary Travers and Joni Mitchell. I had long straight hair with a part in the middle, while all my classmates had these teased bouffants, which is so ironic now. I transferred to Boston University that year, and that summer, all the hippies moved from San Francisco to the Boston Common. I was like, “Wow, perfect timing.” I got into acid at that time. Of course, I was smoking pot, but LSD was my drug of choice. But it wasn’t like, “Oh, let’s have fun and drop acid!” It was like, “We are expanding our minds. We are going to trip.” So that’s the year I tuned in and turned on—but I didn’t drop out.
I became aware of psychedelic music, but the one singer that really got me was Janis Joplin. I listened to her sing “Ball and Chain” by Big Mama Thornton, and it blew me away. I could never sing like her—I mean, I can’t even try. I don’t know how she did it. She was so unique and seemed to be so free. She epitomized hippiedom, and she seemed like such a strong woman, even though she was singing about a man taking a piece of her heart. She took a piece of my heart, too.
At that time, a group of us stoners were like, “Some music sounds really good when you’re tripping and some sounds good when you’re stoned or when you’re drinking.” I never really got into alcohol, but we drank some really cheap wine and listened to Janis Joplin, and it was like, “That sounds great!” And then we took acid and listened to Janis Joplin—not so good. She wasn’t so psychedelic. She was more of a warm, visceral singer, like red wine flowing through your veins.

David Bowie: “Space Oddity”

I was in the White Panthers, which seems like a joke now, but I was supporting the Black Panthers, holding signs and protesting. After the Kent State shootings, I decided I’d had it with America and went to Europe. I left the summer of ’71 and came back in ’73. While I was there, I met my future ex-husband, Brian Cokayne, who was from Manchester, England. On the way back we went on this major cruise ship that was going one way for $99 in the middle of January. So I go to get on the boat, and who should be getting on right before me: David Bowie. He was dressed to the nines. He had on a really great jacket and these high red leather boots. Some of the crew yelled out “Faggot!” and I was like, “God, that’s David Bowie!” There was a hipster element on the boat, so someone invited what he perceived to be the hipsters to a party, where David Bowie sang “Space Oddity.” It was pretty amazing. It made me realize what an image, what a voice, what individuality he had. It was just like nothing else. It was this new brand of rock and roll that was forming who I wanted to be as a singer. I wish I had gotten to hang out with him, but I was seasick. Everyone was puking all over the place.

Patti Smith: “Horses”

It’s 1978, and this was when we started going back and forth between Athens and New York City. We played CBGB’s and Max’s Kansas City, and we were the first band to play the Mudd Club. We weren’t living in New York so we’d go up and stay with friends. We stayed at Brian Eno’s place once, though he was away—I don’t even know if Brian Eno knew we were staying in his apartment. I saw the Ramones and Talking Heads and Blondie. Debbie Harry and Chris Stein were so nice, they took us to their apartment, and we had drinks over there. They were like the Patsy Cline to our Loretta Lynn.
But the artist I saw that just grabbed me was Patti Smith. She did “Horses” and, oh my god, the poetry at the end and the fact that she had this different voice and this gritty look. She was androgynous and tough and she commanded the stage. I’ve seen her perform many times, and she just takes the music by the throat. I don’t know how she has it in her to express such emotion and communicate that to the audience. It’s like a transfiguration—the wine to blood, the body of Christ. She really transforms the whole atmosphere of the room. She’s the shaman of rock and roll.

R.E.M.: “Stand”

I saw R.E.M. at one of their first concerts at this little hole in the wall in Athens, and we’ve been friends and fans of theirs ever since. But by 1988 we intersected again because they had quit their record company and wanted to sign with Warner Bros., which we signed with in 1979. Somehow we were at the Warner Bros. office at the same time, and Michael [Stipe] took me aside and said, “What do you think about them?” I said, “They never really tried to change us or tell us what to do.” That encouraged R.E.M. to sign with them. We were in the studio then, and R.E.M. came in, and we played “Love Shack” for them, and they were like, “This is a hit!”
Later that year, they were working on Green and doing the video for the song “Stand.” They came to Woodstock, and I was just tagging along and helping them location scout. While filming the video, [director] Katherine Dieckmann said, “We’ll just run into this field and try to do this shot really quick before anyone sees us.” And this guy came out with a gun and said, “Get off my land!”

The B-52s: “Revolution Earth”

We toured for a year on 1992’s Good Stuff, and I got a call from my mother to fly home when we were in Europe. She said, “Your father’s dying.” I knew he was sick, but we were on this big tour. I was devastated, of course, but also like, “I’ve got to fly home right away, but we have a show.” I felt so emotional. I sang “Revolution Earth” like my life depended on it—that song never meant so much to me as when I sang it that night. It was so sad but it also gave me this courage. It just felt like everything will be all right, I’ll get home OK and see my father. Thankfully my father lived another couple of weeks, and I got to be with him when he passed away on New Year’s Eve in 1992.

From: https://pitchfork.com/features/5-10-15-20/the-b-52s-kate-pierson-on-the-music-that-made-her/

XTC - Making Plans for Nigel

"Making Plans for Nigel" is a song by English rock band XTC, released by Virgin Records as the lead single from their 1979 album Drums and Wires. It was written by Colin Moulding, the band's bassist. The lyrics are told from the point of view of overbearing parents who are certain that their son Nigel is "happy in his world", affirming that his future, to be spent working for British Steel, "is as good as sealed", and that he "likes to speak and loves to be spoken to". The single marked XTC's commercial breakthrough. It spent 11 weeks on the UK Singles Chart and peaked at No. 17. In 2016, the song was ranked number 143 on the Pitchfork website's list of the 200 best songs of the 1970s.  It was also ranked number 73 in NME list of 100 best songs of the 1970s.
Bassist Colin Moulding said of the song: I didn't know where it came from. That phrase popped into my head, and one line followed another. Before I knew it, I'd written three parts of the song, and the rest of it just kind of fell in line probably a day or two later. When I was about 16, my father wanted me to stay on in school. But by that time, I really didn't want to do anything other than music, I think. So, in a way, is it autobiographical? Well, a little bit. I knew somebody called Nigel at school. But I think that, when you write songs, it's a lot of things all wrapped up, like in your dreams. Your dreams are kind of bits and pieces of all the walks of life you've been in.
During this time, XTC typically rehearsed about two or three times a week, at which juncture Moulding would introduce his bandmates to whatever new songs he had been working on. He remembered that "Making Plans for Nigel" appeared to receive "a favourable response. But at that time, I didn't really have enough confidence in myself to know where I was going with the arrangement. The other guys helped me on that, I suppose."
In the XTC biography Chalkhills and Children, it is stated that the song's drum pattern was discovered by accident after a miscommunication between guitarist Andy Partridge and drummer Terry Chambers. Partridge said that the drum pattern was actually a deliberate attempt to invert drum tones and accents in the style of Devo's cover of the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction". He explained that Moulding introduced the song to the rest of the band on a nylon-string guitar at a slow tempo and did not have an idea of how the arrangement should be fleshed out, "so we said to Colin, 'Do you fancy trying something like Devo for this?" And Colin said, 'Yeah, give it a go.'"
In Chambers' recollection: "Because of the subject matter, I wanted to make the beat a bit more industrial. So instead of keeping the rhythm on the hi-hat, I played it on the floor tom and used the hi-hat for the accents. It was the opposite to what drummers usually do but it gave it a juddering, production-line feel. We used a keyboard to make a smashing sound, like an anvil in a foundry. Partridge said that once the drum pattern was established, the band decided that Moulding should duplicate the tom rhythm on his bass guitar. He continued:
Our second guitarist Dave Gregory began to chop away, doing a much more syncopated version of the basic chords, on electric guitar. Almost snare-drum-like, you know? And I thought, "Well, what the hell am I going to do?" So I locked on to that with this two-note, little oriental pattern. That's really how the whole feel of the song came about, because when Colin brought it up, at about half that tempo, on a nylon-string guitar, it was a case of, "Well, this is a great melody, and great subject matter, but it's going to go nowhere like that.
Among the idiosyncrasies of the song's arrangement is Partridge's high backing vocals. He commented: Literally, as soon as it came up, it was like, 'Jesus, this is annoying! But then again, that might be a good thing. That might click with people, if they find it as irritating as I do!' [laughs] It was just a little 'byoo-doop,' sung in a falsetto. We still loved those high-falsetto, Beach Boys-y answer things. You can hear them all over White Music and Go 2, and it only starts to get out of our system over the next few albums. I still love it."
Virgin Records immediately earmarked "Making Plans for Nigel" as the lead single off XTC's Drums and Wires, although the band did not expect that the single would be successful. Partridge later complained about the amount of time spent recording the song, remarking that "we spent a week doing Nigel and three weeks doing the rest of the album."  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Making_Plans_for_Nigel

Marnie Stern - Believing Is Seeing

In the decade since her last LP, New York City lifer Marnie Stern stepped back from her solo career at the edge of math rock to focus on domestic life. In the late 2000s and early 2010s, she was at the forefront of the new millennium’s wave of noisy, kinetic rock acts, showing off a gymnast’s flexibility on a string of high-energy records. In a twist on a day job, Stern has spent much of the last 10 years playing guitar in Seth Meyers’ late-night backing band—a gig more conducive to raising kids than the interminable grind of touring. But, she says, she never lost sight of the guitar as a “blank canvas.”
Stern reclaims her place among the era’s most commanding guitarists on her polished fifth LP, The Comeback Kid, a densely packed showcase of her distinctive style. The latest set is noisy at the core and fuzzy at the edges, heavy on fingertapping and busy melodic displays that snap together elements of punk, grunge, and surf rock. Re-sharpening the rounded edges that shaped much of 2013’s The Chronicles of Marnia, Stern flaunts a reinvigorated spirit in searing songs that live up to the playfully celebratory mood she establishes in the album’s title. In press materials, Stern described making the new LP as an exercise in learning to “start being myself again.” Any time she wondered whether a choice was too strange, she’d remind herself that this was her project: “I’m allowed to do whatever I want!” In that spirit, “Plain Speak” opens the album with bright, bristly, major-key riffs that she tempers with layered vocal harmonies. “I can’t keep on moving backwards,” she barks, standing firm at the center of the song’s dizzying tilt-a-whirl spin.
She leans further into her idiosyncrasies on “Believing Is Seeing,” unleashing a creepy, almost cartoonish cry—“This place is cold! I can’t hear you!”—over icy ostinato guitar before stepping sideways into a series of riff-heavy passages. “What if I add this? And this?” she asks as she heaps layers of guitar onto the mix, playing up the self-referential humor. The churning energy of “The Natural” and the short bursts of “Oh Are They” both channel classic elements of ’80s and ’90s underground rock; her repeated yelps have the feeling of a rallying cry. Like the oaky notes of aged bourbon, the particulars of Stern’s technique have only gotten richer since The Chronicles of Marnia. Her dives feel more dramatic, as when she approaches power-metal poses in “Forward” or shreds up a storm in “Working Memory,” and she reaches piercing vocal highs that land between a ’70s psychedelic shriek and a winged mythical beast. Drummer Jeremy Hara is Stern’s reliable companion throughout, complementing her breakneck fretwork with powerful percussive blasts.
After the gleeful pirouettes of the A-side, the album’s back half becomes more reflective. Even when she pursues a more linear path, Stern moves with surprising intensity. She grapples with the blues in the striving “Get It Good,” and “Earth Eater” fizzes with nervous energy as Stern contemplates lingering pain. The ragged, grungy sound of “Til It’s Over” gives it an even darker cast. Hara’s drumming pushes the song relentlessly forward, as if hitting the gas on a long stretch of open road at night. The Comeback Kid blasts by in under half an hour, and Stern’s impulses to chase her weirdest muses serve her well throughout. She lands her adventurous leaps with breathless energy. Aglow with her triumphant shredding, Stern’s howling return is a neon-haloed song of herself.  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/marnie-stern-the-comeback-kid/

The Besnard Lakes - Feuds With Guns

I think that it’s fair to say that, without The Besnard Lakes, this website would not exist. It was 2010 and I was getting to that stage of life when I was beginning to fall back on music from a former time, preferring the ease and safety of nostalgia over the challenge of the new. This was something that many of my peers had already done, Britpop somehow ossifying many of their musical tastes. However, with my wife and very young family unusually out of town, I decided to look through the gig listings for that week and alighted on what looked like an interesting double header of Sleepy Sun and The Besnard Lakes at the tremendous Brudenell Social Club in Leeds.
I had heard of neither band before but a quick listen of their music piqued my interest, and I decided to take the plunge… what followed was, for me, something of a revelation as the music of both bands just washed over me and filled those dehydrated musical pores… I was back and ready to explore new music again, and never really looked back. By the time I saw the bands again, both playing the 2014 Liverpool Psych Fest (The Besnard Lakes on Day 1, and Sleepy Sun on Day 2), fittingly the best couple of days I’ve had with live music, that sort of sealed the deal.
I will admit that I had sort of lost touch with The Besnard Lakes in the meantime and, while playing their first three albums regularly the next two did not really register with me. However, the release of their sixth long player seems to have caused something of a stir and so I decided to give it a listen, and from the off I was absolutely wowed by it. It’s interesting that a number of the reviews of this double album have stressed that this is not a set for the casual listener, that it requires some buy-in to really appreciate it. This for me is the minimum that you should afford an album to really get it, and it is certainly the case that an investment into these four sides of wax – each side of which has its own title: Near Death, Death, After Death and Life – is essential to really begin to understand what it is about.
This, then, is an record with big themes, and with it comes an overall feeling of music that is grand and panoramic - this feels like an album of vision: a grand narrative vision, and a psychedelic vision. This is case from the outset with ‘Blackstrap’ as the band play through an ominously sounding overture before the plaintiff cry of (half-of husband/ wife songwriting duo of Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas) Lasek, hits you and gives you the first taste of the pain and mystery of him facing the death of his father - a life event which informs the whole of the this sprawling suite of songs, designed to be listened to in one sitting.
After the intensity of ‘Blackstrap’ there’s a real lightness to ‘Raindrops’, with a melody that is as stunning and it is silky. This beautiful track really reminds me of that first night I saw them back in 2010. It gives me the same feeling of deep joy and discovery - it is one of those tracks that feels simultaneously like it has always existed, and yet is so fresh. It feels to me like a song of hope within the darkness. There are also references to the death of Mark Hollis, a musician who I myself very much mourn here and it is, I will say it again, simply stunning.
The third, and final track, on the ‘Near Death’ side of the vinyl version is ‘Christmas Can Wait’, a deeply affecting meditation on absence and death which, when you focus on the lyrics, is a very moving paean to Lasek’s father, and gave me cause to also think about my own father who died ten years ago. For me this is such a powerful and heartfelt moment in the album, where you really feel the music holding those both playing and listening. After this comes ‘Death’, and the first track ‘Our Heads Our Hearts on Fire Again’; and while this may be a song about death, it ultimately feels like one of hope. The chorus here is so stoic, so joyous, that your cannot help but to feel defiant and emboldened - to feel the strength gained from the experience of tragedy. Again this is intense and yet just so beautiful to listen to - the sort of beauty that can only be hewn from the rock of experience.
’Feuds With Guns’ is a trippy song which, with ‘The Dark Side of Paradise’, provides us with a much more meditative atmosphere through which to think about the ultimate nature of life and death, and consider our place within the great cycle of existence - a thought that might feel somewhat grandiose for many records - but here is just feels right as the music of the latter track sweeps to a fading drone for the last few minutes of the side. That is a good place to pause, if you’re listening on vinyl you have to change the record anyway. but it’s also good to let those first six numbers sink in for a moment before embarking on the second half of the ‘suite’, which comprises of just three tracks, kicking off with ‘New Revolution’- a song of such joyous hope and optimism. You can feel the drive here - the feeling of having steered through the darkness and emerging on the other side to a new dawn.
After that the band play tribute to Prince. Using his original name of Jamie Starr, this is a fitting eulogy to a major musical influence, and, with the mantra of ‘with love there is no death’ another defiant and uplifting moment in which The Besnard Lakes find just the right balance between remembrance and belief - a companion to the Dead Skeletons mantra of “(s)he who fears death cannot enjoy life” on ‘Dead Mantra’. Which then brings us to the title track, an eighteen minute long opus that takes up the whole of the ‘Life’ side of the album. The lyrics seem somewhat bittersweet to me, combining a certain world-weariness with self-consolation - a sense of aloneness (as opposed to loneliness) but also a sense of realism to leave us with, and as the vocal finishes the music does too, abruptly. We are left with a slow and atmospheric drone which gradually pervades your consciousness as you sit with it and think about what you’ve heard. It is a wonderful way to finish the album, giving you a rare chance to just be.
This then, and I’m going to say it again, is an absolutely stunning album by The Besnard Lakes - a career high in my humble opinion, and one in which you can absolutely lose yourself. However this is not some directionless loss but one that is both focused and accessible for those who want to contemplate the profound themes being considered here. It is an album that I am sure I will be playing frequently, and will become part of the cannon of albums that mean an awful lot to me.  From: https://fragmentedflaneur.com/2021/03/05/album-appreciation-the-besnard-lakes-are-the-last-of-the-great-thunderstorm-warnings/comment-page-1/

Earth Tongue - Miraculous Death

Q: How do earthlings so young get into a style of music which is so old?

A: We’re influenced by so many different genres and eras, new and old, but in terms of our playing we’re both drawn to off-kilter time signatures and riffs that catch you off guard. We both come from music loving families, so naturally were brought up on 60s and 70s classic rock, and as we grew up we both went through different musical phases, but that psych/prog sound from the early 70s is what we always go back to. As well as the sound, we really love the artwork and aesthetic associated with that period so that makes it even more appealing.

What was your ‘journey’ of musical taste and discovery?

My journey was pretty typical for a small-town angsty kid from New Zealand. Age 10 I was into Snoop Dog, Nelly, and whatever else was fed to my vulnerable mind by commercial radio. I was also into Limp Bizkit, Rage Against the Machine and Blink 182 at this time, thanks to my cool older brother. I remember watching Woodstock 99 footage on VHS and freaking out at how cool it was. At age 12 I started to learn guitar, and soon discovered Metallica and Pantera, which sent me down the metal spiral. I guess I discovered Queens of the Stone Age around this time too – their first 4 albums were all very important to me, and still are. Around age 14 I discovered Black Flag, Minor Threat, and punk rock in general. I then played in a punk band for years and got pretty deep into that. At 16 a family friend burned a copy of Black Sabbath’s first album onto a CD for me and that’s where my 70s proto-metal and psychedelic period began. Today my taste is really varied. I’m a bit of a crate digger – there’s no better feeling then finding obscure, forgotten psych, kraut and disco gems.

Is being a two piece for reasons of economy or because you just don’t need a third/fourth member?

When you want to play live as a two-piece you really have to get creative with the way you write songs. We both like the way this works. Simple riffs, complex time signatures, interesting melodies – it just works with our style. The financial side of it is a huge bonus too of course. We’re pretty ambitious with touring, and if we had more members this would simply be unachievable.

Do you read a lot of sci-fi fantasy books or graphic novels?

We’re both really into 70s and sci-fi films more than anything. Logan’s Run, Silent Running and Holy Mountain are some of our faves.

Favourite ever movie?

Favourite ever movie is tough! Recently I saw Repo Man and had a really good time! Also Rosemary’s Baby is a must.

Have you watched the classic old sci-fi movie Silent Running? (hope so) if ever there’s a remake you should do the soundtrack.

I seriously didn’t read this question before mentioning it in the answer above! Yes we’ve seen it. And yes we’d love to do the soundtrack but in all honesty, remakes are very rarely good!

What kinda movie would you like to soundtrack?

An animated version of Barberella. Animated by René Laloux.

How far out was I with the Black Sabbath meets Stereolab comparison?

We weren’t actually too familiar with Stereolab when we read your review. But we listened to them and we approve. Being compared to Black Sabbath is always a compliment, so thanks!

Is Primitive Prog a fair descriptor?

We usually go with the descriptor ‘Heavy Psych/Fuzz’ or similar. I feel like we’re not quite virtuosic enough to claim the ‘prog’ title – but we’ll take it! Thanks Ezra.  I picked a few video clips from YouTube to illustrate your  musical journey and influences and it makes a great selection,  Earth Tongue to me seem to be a band following their own path, irrespective of trends or fashion or hipness.  It’s a completely shit comparison but White Stripes conquered the world  so there is no reason Earth Tongue can’t do the same. And I just can’t wait for the animated Barbarella soundtrack! Earth Tongue are not just another girl and boy from another planet.  They are a band who are simply out on their own and out of this world.

From: https://louderthanwar.com/earth-tongue-interview-primitive-prog-rock-band/

Lost Crowns - Sound As Colour

Lost Crowns formed in London in 2018 and released their debut album in 2019. The are part of the Cardiacs related scene in London and are a genuine supergroup made up of members of Stars In Battledress, Knifeworld, North Sea Radio Orchestra, William D Drake band, Prescott, Scritti Politti. The leader of the band and writer of all the material is Richard Larcombe. They play psyche avant wonky pop songs with density, complexity and witticism.
"Lost Crowns assault the mind with the densely detailed songs of Richard Larcombe (Stars In Battledress). There isn't half a lot going on. Complex drum patterns, bass and guitar parts with a lot of notes and hardly any gaps, the keyboards have to play each other at times there's so much to do, with the clarinet, harmonium and voices weaving through the middle like a twisting country road that can't shift an inch left or right in case it strays onto someone else's territory BUT they play it and sing it with the relaxed air of a druggy jam. Will the head leave the body? It will if Lost Crowns have anything to do with it." - Band facebook bio.
"A rich, unfolding master-craftsman's confection, complex, artfully-meandering songs built from delightfully byzantine chords and arpeggios that cycle through ever-evolving patterns like palace clockwork; accompanied by rich, lazy clouds of hilarious, hyper-literate, wonderfully arcane lyrics; all sealed by an arch, out-of-time English manner which (in tone and timbre) falls into a never-was neverworld between Richard Sinclair, Stephen Fry, Noel Coward and a posh, Devonian Frank Zappa." - Misfit City.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=10736

Daisy House - Superman

I was turned on to three hit albums last week, all by a duo calling themselves Daisy House. I had forgotten what it was like, hearing track after track after track and thinking hit, hit, hit, hit as I listened. I kept expecting it to end, this string of songs, but they didn’t. One after another, the songs piled one on top of the other, all more than worthy of airplay on the AM radio in my head. Good songs. Wonderful songs. Like Ebenezer Scrooge, I was giddy with delight. I didn’t think I would experience it again, albums packed to the gills with musical delight. Maybe all of the tracks weren’t Top Ten, but they were chartable.
You hear it? The early Fairport Convention influence? The Judy Dyble/Sandy Denny-leaning voice? The layering of acoustic and electric guitars? As important, the choral background, especially at the end of the bridge? The twelve-string lead? This is not only good stuff, it is arranged to perfection. And there is more. It is not all psych-infused folk/pop. They bend genre to song but always with a melodic and harmonic edge. Indeed, the melodies and harmonies are what elevates them to hit status. What songs they record are pleasant to the ear with just enough edge to make them fresh.
I could nominate any one of their albums for a Grammy in a number of categories but if it had to be one (or two), it would have be production and arrangement. Some of the songs are simple and almost sparse by the albums standards while others are arrangement gems, the voices stacked, the guitars weaving in and out, the piano/harpsichord/organ placed precisely, and the crescendos well-placed and amazingly effective.  It’s almost over and I will bet you hardly felt it, the songs the perfect icebreaker to what could have been the drudgery of reading. I have done you a favor. I have switched out words for music— one video is worth ten thousand words. Now, if you will, head to the Daisy House Bandcamp page and download. Stream away and get comfortable for I will even allow you to download individual tracks. You are welcome.  From: https://www.nodepression.com/album-reviews/daisy-house-sounds-of-todays-real-hits/

Elephant Stone - Hollow World

Today sees the release of the new album from Montreal psych rockers Elephant Stone. Back Into The Dream, the band’s sixth full length project, dwells on the mysteries of dreams and capturing the cycle of sleep and wakefulness with a blend of power-pop, psychedelic rock and frontman Rishi Dhir’s trademark sitar. The record starts with three fantastic tracks: “Lost In A Dream”, “The Spark” and “Going Underground” are bursting with upbeat choruses and Byrds-esque harmonies. Amongst other highlights are “Godstar” which is a mystical instrumental while “Pilgrimage” is a sprawling epic with hints of Beatles and Pink Floyd mixed in. Rishi Dhir is the driving force behind Elephant Stone, writing all the tracks and providing vocals, guitars, synths and many other instruments. Rounding out the rich soundscape of Elephant Stone are stalwarts: Miles Dupire on drums, Jason Kent juggling keys and guitar, and Robbie MacArthur on guitar. We caught up with Rishi over Zoom in his home studio to talk about the new record and getting more sitar into his music.

Your new album Back Into The Dream comes out in a couple of weeks. I think I may have just seen it but where did you write and record it?

Yeah, this is it. My writing process is here, my demoing here, the recording, the mixing; it all happens in the studio. It’s a small room. This is the first full-length album since Hollow in 2020. I did like a French EP, I did a soundtrack and I’ve been slowly chipping away at this record.

You mentioned that the album has been ready for a while – what was the delay in releasing it?

I’m releasing the record on my own label, but I also partner up with the US label Little Cloud Records out of Portland and Fuzz Club in Europe. I also wanted to find an Australian label and I’m working with Cheersquad there. I guess the plan for this record was that we hadn’t released a full length in a while, so rather than just releasing the album, I wanted to put out some singles as like a waterfall release. It’s funny; when you release an album, a lot of songs just get lost. People focus on a few, and I just wanted to kind of present each song as its own thing. The song I find that people have been connecting with most is my favorite too, “Pilgrimage”. It’s our last single. It’s a really mellow saxophone one but that’s not a song you’d think for a single, though.

Which classic album cover art is your current mood?

I guess Talk Talk – Spirit of Eden. I’m just in a Talk Talk mood these days. Conceptually, I love the covers they had for The Color of Spring and Spirit of Eden.

With Hollow being released in 2020, I was wondering if Back Into The Dream is your COVID record?

The French record that I put out – that was my real COVID album! It was about the end of the world and this new one was kind of coming out of COVID.

You’re known for your sitar playing and there’s not a lot of sitar in modern music. When did you start learning to play?

I guess in February 1997. I’m Indian and I went to my cousin’s wedding in India with my parents. I was 19 at the time, in a band and I love the Beatles so I was like, “Oh, I’ll buy a sitar.” So I bought a sitar and brought it back with me. I didn’t have a teacher for a few years. I found my teacher who is a German fellow named Uwe Neumann. He looks a bit like Charles Manson and he studied in India for 10 years. And I took lessons pretty regularly for about 10 years. I had a band. I left that band. I started this (Elephant Stone) and I wanted to incorporate more sitar in the music I was making.

Listening to your albums, there always seems to be a sitar-heavy track (“Godstar” on the new album), almost like a mystical interlude, very reminiscent of late 60’s Beatles. You don’t hear that with many modern bands.

Well, CornerShop! When I Was Born For The Seventh Time and Teenage FanClub – Bandwagonesque were my albums when I was younger.

Back Into The Dream is the sixth full-length Elephant Stone record in fifteen years – how have you kept the project going?

Well, the band is just me but prior to Elephant Stone, I was in another band, The High Dials, for about 10 years. I was like a side man in that band. I didn’t write the songs, I was the bassist and I left that band because it wasn’t satisfying me artistically. I felt like I needed something else. I went on a big journey. My wife and I were trying to have a baby. We had a miscarriage and I think that was the catalyst for me to start writing music. It was my therapy – writing songs became my therapy. Our first record (2009’s The Seven Seas) was me going on a journey. We packed up, went to India for a few weeks, and I wrote a lot of songs there. So, this band is very much me.

You’ve worked with some amazing musicians outside of Elephant Stone – does working on other projects help keep things fresh?

Yeah, I guess it’s part of the journey. Along the way you meet so many amazing musicians and you’re inspired by them. I was in the Black Angels for a bit, I got to play with Beck, and moments like that, it just kind of makes you feel like, okay, what I do is of value to people and it is worth continuing.

What’s one piece of advice you would give the 2009 version of yourself if you could?

Relax a bit – things will come when they come.

We touched on some of your influences earlier but who were you listening to when you were growing up that made you go “I want to be a musician”?

I mean, the Jam or the Who. When I was like seven, it was The Who and The Beatles, and then in my teens, it was Teenage Fanclub and The Pixies. Then, as I got into my late teens, I got into the whole mod thing and I was all about Paul Weller. I had my scooter and everything was Small Faces. At every stage, there was always something that I was obsessed with.

If you could only listen to one record, what would it be?

Revolver. I mean, that’s just my easy answer because it’s the album I’ve listened to most in my life.

Where did the name Elephant Stone come from? Was from it The Stone Roses or somewhere else?

I wanted to name the band Elephants, because I had a sandstone statue of Ganesh, the Hindu god of new beginnings. So, when I started the band, I wanted to have some kind of Indian reference in it. I’d just gone on the travels through India, and I was thinking of “The Gandharvas” but there was already a band called that. And then elephant, and I was like Elephant Stone. I love that first record (The Stone Roses). It just made sense.

You’re going on tour in March – is there somewhere you’re really looking forward to playing or a favorite location that you’ve played before that you’re excited to play again?

The album comes out February 23rd, and then in March, April and May, we’re doing the US and then going to Europe. So it’s going to be a busy few months. Europe is always exciting – I think we’re playing Sweden for the first time, I’ve never toured there. We’re going back to Italy and haven’t been there in years with the band, so it’s gonna be nice.

What’s one thing you can’t do without when you’re on tour?

Good coffee!

What would go on your signature pizza and what would it be called?

Well, it’s funny because I make a pretty amazing pizza. My signature pizza that I’m known for is my “Pickle Pizza”. I make my own pesto. It’s basil, dill, oregano, garlic, olive oil. It’s a white pizza so some parmesan and mozzarella, and I slice up some naturally fermented pickles. And then garnish it with dill.

What else do you have planned for 2024?

Yeah, you mentioned that I play with a lot of other people; I have another band, Mien, which is me, Alex Maas from the Black Angels, Tom Furse from the Horrors, and Jon-Mark from The Hurleys. We put out our debut in 2018 and I’ve just finished mixing our new album which will come out in early 2025 after we finish the Elephant Stone tour.

From: https://idreamofvinyl.com/2024/02/24/i-just-wanted-to-kind-of-present-each-song-as-its-own-thing-an-interview-with-elephant-stone/

The Rattles - You Can't Have Sunshine Everyday

Edna Bejarano is an Israeli-born German singer. She was born in 1951 in Tel Aviv, the daughter of Esther Bejarano.The family moved to Germany in 1960. She was the lead singer of the German rock band The Rattles from 1970 until 1973 and sang on their biggest selling record, the 1970 song "The Witch", which sold over one million copies globally. She also performed in the 1980s with her mother Esther Béjarano, one of the last survivors of the Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz, in the musical group Coincidence. They sang songs from the ghetto and in Hebrew as well as anti-fascist songs.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edna_B%C3%A9jarano

In December 1960, the Rattles were founded in Hamburg by Achim Reichel and Herbert Hildebrandt. On February 3, 1963, the band won a competition in the Hamburg Star Club and became the first German band to play in this club. In the autumn of the same year, they recorded their first single. The group then went on a six-week tour of England with Bo Diddley, Little Richard, the Everly Brothers and the then little-known Rolling Stones. After the release of the film Hurrah, the Rattles are Coming in early 1966, they appeared on stage with the Beatles in June of the same year and played as the opening act for the Bravo Beatles Blitz tour in Munich, Essen and Hamburg - to great acclaim.
Rattles records were released that were a regional success in England, and for a time they were celebrated in Liverpool as the "German Beatles". The group had a dozen hits in total, including titles such as La La La (1965), Come On and Sing (1966) and Cauliflower (1967). In 1965 they also recorded songs with Johnny Hallyday (Laß die Leute doch reden, It's Monkeytime), which appeared on the LP/CD Johnny Hallyday Meets The Rattles.
In 1970 the Rattles had an international hit with The Witch. The song was first released as the B-side of the 1969 single Geraldine. In June 1970, The Witch reached number 79 as the A-side in the USA, and in October it reached number 8 in the UK. The Rattles line-up at this time: Kurt "Zappo" Lüngen (bass), Rainer Degner (guitar), Peet Becker (drums) and Henner Hoier (vocals), who had moved from the Rivets. Because of its success, the Rattles recorded a new version of The Witch with Edna Bejarano as singer, which climbed to number 4 in the German charts in October 1970. The piece was composed by Herbert Hildebrandt. Henner Hoier, who had sung the original, left the band a year later and founded the Les Humphries Singers with Les Humphries. By this time, Achim Reichel had long since left the group. After his time in the Bundeswehr, he founded the group Wonderland in 1967 with the ex-Rattles Dicky Tarrach and Frank Dostal, as well as Helmut Franke and Les Humphries. The "new" 1970s Rattles with Edna Bejarano, Frank Mille, Borny Bornhold and Zappo Lüngen only had something to do with the original formation insofar as Herbert Hildebrandt continued to be the composer and producer of the group. Other singles, such as You Can't Have Sunshine Every Day and Devil's on the Loose (both 1971) were only minor hits in the Federal Republic of Germany.  Translated from: https://www.wikiwand.com/de/articles/The_Rattles

Green Seagull - It's Too Late

Ah psych-pop…Harpsichords, sitars, fuzz guitars, reverse recording, and Beach Boys harmonies married together with pop, culminating in gorgeous melodically ornate songs. Hailing from London’s underground neo-psych scene, the baroque honey-drenched Green Seagull return from the ether again bringing us a myriad of delights in their recently released album ‘Cloud Cover’.
Arriving in 2016, the 4-piece formed when Paul Nelson (New Electric Ride) approached Paul Milne (Hidden Masters/Magnetic Mind) to work on a project. With a shared predilection for late-60s baroque psychedelia and 12-string jangles shortly the songwriters united together, and to this day they’re still going strong with a dedicated UK and European cult following. Joined shortly after by Sarah Gonputh on keys and Elian Dalmasso on drums, the quartet quickly recorded a demo in their rehearsal room on an old cassette 4-track. Consequently, the lo-fi recordings produced found their way into the laps of Mega Dodo Records, who without hesitation signed the band for a record deal.
Experimenting with contrapuntal melodies and functional harmony patterns, ‘Cloud Cover’ is an ambitious and stylistically broad venture that follows their widely praised 2018 number ‘Scarlet Fever.’ Beginning with the buoyant rhythms of “Aerosol”, which framework being owed to drummer Elian Dalmasso also fuses the sound structures of The Kinks, Strawberry Alarm Clock and The Zombies to name a few. Green Seagull showcase their musical breadth and scope throughout with an enviable arsenal of 60s and 70s psych influences.  Here we have a cognoscenti with a forensic understanding of 60s pop construction that feels and sounds effortless, with both sharp and subtle chord changes alongside hauntingly euphoric and dreamscape lyricism.
“Made to be Loved” stands out here as a grooving catchy 12 string jangle with a late 60s New York Baroque sound, think The Magic Plants/Left Banke/Stories. They’re so authentic and embellished with vintage nuance, you’d hear this in a bar and think they were an obscure long-forgotten 1960s collective – and be very surprised when Shazam informs you their vinyl came out yesterday, and they’re only down the road. 
Their deeply entrenched love for 60s experimental eclecticism is clear as the playful psych adventure continues into the “Little Lady in the Amplifier”, a West Coast beachy melodic boardwalk with psychomimetics echoing the vocals of Brian Wilson. “This Wheel” is it’s darker counterpart that faces the listener with a ‘cold winters morning’ allowing the stinging nostalgic timbre of the moody keys to take centre stage. Pink Floyd, SuperTramp, 70s prog all tied up with a psych-power pop bow.
Quintessentially English and with such an acute sense of identity – they are evidently leaving behind less desirable tropes of retromania/pop-pastiche. We’re certain that Green Seagull will find themselves recognised among their contemporaries which is exactly where they need to be. Above the cloud cover, among the stars, propelled into the burgeoning London Psych scene’s stratosphere and beyond.  From: https://moofmag.com/2020/08/07/album-review-green-seagull-cloud-cover/

The Nields - Christmas Carol

The Nields have been called equal parts The Beatles, The Cranberries and Joni Mitchell but the comparisons hardly end there.The Cincinnati Enquirer said they’re “The Roches meet The Cranberries but with better songwriting and better harmonies.” The Chicago Tribune said they’re a mix of The Bangles, The Roches and Alanis Morrissette. Sing Out! said they’re like Natalie Merchant if Merchant “had a sister with an equally good voice singing perfect harmony.” But while almost every profile or review of folk-rock sisters compares them to other acts, perhaps the comment that puts it best came from a concertgoer quoted in a Winston-Salem, North Carolina, daily: “If you don’t like the Nields, you need to get your ears checked.”

OVERVIEW
Western Massachusetts-based sisters Nerissa and Katryna Nields started their singing careers as part of a trio that morphed into a quintet before becoming the duo that they are today. Nerissa is the tunesmith of the pair, penning meticulously crafted songs with lyrics that are as heartfelt as they are intelligent, the deep sensitivity of some belying the toned, muscular nature of the writing itself. Katryna handles lead vocals, adding both clarity and nuance that provide her sister’s thoughts with an organic magic that at times is positively breathtaking. With Nerissa singing back up, the result is overwhelming proof that there’s no harmony quite like blood harmony.
Known for their oft-hilarious on-stage banter and direct engagement with fans, they’ve opened for artists including James Taylor, The Band, Indigo Girls, Ani DiFranco and 10,000 Maniacs and have recorded 21 albums over the past 30 years. Their latest is Circle of Days, released in June 2023.

MUSICAL BEGINNINGS
Nerissa (b.1967) and Katryna (b. 1969) were raised in Washington, DC, by folk-music loving parents and they remember singing together as preschoolers in the car during family trips. The elder sister wrote her first songs at age seven and the younger learned to sing from her father, spending innumerable hours practicing in the kitchen of their home. Both strengthened their singing skills by taking a class with John “Jack” Langstaff at The Potomac School in McLean, Virginia. A highly respected vocal trainer, Langstaff was director of The Revels, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based group in the ‘70s that performed a wildly eclectic mix of medieval and modern music. Nerissa and Katryna sang together throughout high school before Nerissa left home for Yale, where she studied English, and Katrina went to Trinity College in Hartford, where she studied religion.

TRIO FORMATION
The first incarnation of what became the Nields came together in 1987 when Nerissa met David Jones, a Yale graduate student and accomplished guitarist who started playing gigs with Katryna occasionally as a duo. In 1990, Nerissa and David married and – in an example of a thoroughly modern relationship – he took her surname, becoming David Nields. In 1991, when Katryna graduated from Trinity, the Nields began performing as a trio in coffeehouses and other small venues in and around DC with Katryna singing lead, Nerissa on back-up vocals and rhythm guitar and David on lead guitar.

MOVE TO CONNECTICUT
In 1992, the three moved to Connecticut, where David had taken a job as an English teacher at the Loomis Chaffe School in Windsor. “What we didn’t realize was it was the absolutely perfect cradle to start a band,” Nerissa told Live Music News & Review in 2016 about Windsor at the time. “We were in this incredibly supportive, intellectually stimulating community, centrally located, and we definitely had a dream to get famous.” While living in the school’s dorms from 1991 to 1995, they tried out their new songs – a number of which wound up on their future albums – on the students at the school and asked for their honest feedback. “Being around teenagers kept us grounded in that youthful transition period,” Nerissa told Live Music News & Review.

66 HOXSEY STREET, LIVE FROM THE IRON HORSE MUSIC HALL
In 1992, the band recorded its first album, the self-released 66 Hoxsey Street, an 11-track collection of original material named for a house in Williamstown, Virginia, where Nerissa and Katryna had lived as kids. They gigged across New England, eager to build their reputation on the region’s folk scene. In 1993, they recorded a 15-track live album, Live at the Iron Horse Music Hall, recorded at the popular club in Northampton, Massachusetts. Later that year, Nerissa and Katryna contributed harmonies to Dar Williams’ The Honesty Room, and in 1996 they did the same on her LP Mortal City.

QUINTET FORMATION
In 1994, the band became a quintet with the additions of bassist Dave Chalfant, whom Katryna had met in college, and his friend, drummer Dave Hower. With a rock-solid rhythm section, David’s Pete Townshend and Adrian Belew-influenced guitar riffs and the sisters’ lilting harmonies, the five-piece was an acoustical force across the board. Spin magazine likened them to Alanis Morisette fronting Indigo Girls.

BOB ON THE CEILING, ABIGAIL, GOTTA GET OVER GRETA
The five-piece band self-released their first album in 1994, Bob on the Ceiling, and to nobody’s surprise it was infinitely more rocked out than anything the trio had ever done. The disc’s critical acclaim in the New England press boosted audience sizes so much that band members were able to quit their day jobs and become full-time musicians.
In 1995, they self-released the EP Abigail (named for Katryna and Nerissa’s sister) and landed a deal with independent label Razor & Tie. They recorded 1996’s Gotta Get Over Greta, produced by Kevin Moloney (U2, Sinéad O’Connor), which one critic described as “acoustic folk music meets pop, punk and country in a strong and daring shoot out.”
In 1997, The Nields signed their first and only major-label contract with Elektra sublabel Guardian (Joan Baez’s label at the time), which reissued Gotta Get Over Greta in 1997 with three bonus tracks. With a global label’s support, the future looked bright for The Nields but their dreams of major national fame were short lived; Elektra liquidated Guardian within six months of signing the band.

‘MOUSSE, “Jam for the Van,” PLAY
To add insult to injury, in 1997 the group’s aging tour van was in bad shape from near-constant use. Without enough cash on hand for repairs or a new ride, they self-released the album ‘Mousse (the nickname of Chalfant’s sister Andromache) and held a fundraising concert entitled “Jam for the Van.” As a result, the Nields were able to purchase brand new wheels.
In early 1998, they signed with Zoë, a division of Rounder Records. Their first release on the label was 1998’s Play, a 14-track collection. “There’s a sense of literary high-mindedness at work throughout this album that lifts the material to another level,” wrote critic Cub Koda. “Despite the sing-songiness of several of the songs, there are some deliciously dark moments in the lyrics that makes this a cut above your usual folkie rant album.”

IF YOU LIVED HERE YOU’D BE HOME NOW, LIVE FROM NORTHAMPTON
In 2000, the group recorded If You Lived Here You’d Be Home Now, yet another dense effort with 15 tracks. “This is elegant, appealing music that speaks to the varied concerns of contemporary women,” wrote AllMusic’s William Ruhlmann, noting the exceptional expressiveness of Katryna’s voice.
In early 2001, the band self-released Live From Northampton (recorded at the Iron Horse Music Hall) but by the end of the year they had stopped performing together despite a strong local following. It turned out to be David’s final album with the band; later that year he and Nerissa divorced and he moved to North Carolina.

Duo Formation, LOVE AND CHINA, AMELIA, THIS TOWN IS WRONG
In 2002, Nerissa and Katryna started billing themselves by their first names occasionally, not always as The Nields, and recorded 2002’s Love and China (with bassist Chalfant and studio musicians), which Nerissa has called “basically a break-up album.” They followed up with an EP of children’s songs, Songs for Amelia, and the LP This Town is Wrong in 2004.

2006-2017 ALBUMS
Between 2006 and 2017, the Neild sisters were extremely busy in the studio, recording 12 self-released albums: All Together Singing In The Kitchen (2006); Sister Holler (2007); Rock All Day/Rock All Night (2008); Organic Farm (2010, live DVD); The Full Catastrophe (2012); XVII (2015) and  Joy to the World (2017). In 2016, Mercury House Productions issued Haven’t I Paid My Dues By Now – Greatest Hits 1991-2016.

NOVEMBER, CIRCLE OF DAYS
In 2020, they released their 20th album, November. Topical in nature, songs address subjects including the climate crisis (“Kids Always Get It”), disputes over immigration (“Goodbye, Mexico,” “Jesus Was a Refugee”) and democracy (“Tyrants Always Fall”). It also includes two standards, “America the Beautiful” and Woodie Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land,” on which Dar Williams, Chris Smither and others sing harmony alongside Nerissa and Katryna’s children and members of a local youth chorus.
In June 2023, the Nields released their latest studio effort, Circle of Days. Each of the 11 tracks refers to an annual event such as the winter solstice (“Darkest Day of the Year”), Easter (“Death and Resurrection”) and Thanksgiving (“Comic Books and Movies”).

CURRENT ACTIVITY
Nerissa and Katryna live in western Massachusetts’ Pioneer Valley and still play shows together, mostly as a duo. When they appear with a full band, they’re backed by former bandmates Chalfant on guitar and Hower on drums, with the addition of Paul Kochanski on bass. They also lead a popular singing class for preschoolers called Hootenanny. Dave Hower plays drums with a variety of bands, including Winterpills, Spanish for Hitchhiking and The Fucking Sparklies. Dave Chalfant owns a recording studio and teaches instrumental music at the Academy of Charlemont in Charlemont, Massachusetts.
David Nields was the theatre director for the Imperial Centre of Arts and Sciences in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, and now he teaches theater at the State College of Florida.

COMMENTS ON SONGWRITING
Asked in a 2016 interview with Me & Thee Music if she has any advice for young songwriters, Nerissa said the important thing is to put in the work, even if you write some terrible songs.
“I think it’s great for songwriters to write songs, at least sometimes, just to work those songwriting muscles,” she said. “I have put in my 10,000 hours of practice. I have probably averaged one song a month since about 1988. That’s over 300 songs. And we’ve recorded around half of those. So I know how to write a song. Still, sometimes, when I am sitting with my guitar or at the piano, it’s as if I am a pure beginner again. That first phrase is the hardest.”
“One last thing I’ll say, and this goes for any kind of writing, too,” she added. “It helps to give yourself permission to write a really bad song. I like to do what Phillip Price [of the Winterpills] does: write five versions of one song. That takes the pressure off!”

From: https://www.mmone.org/the-nields/