Planxty - The Little Drummer

 #Planxty #Christy Moore #Andy Irvine #Irish folk #world music #traditional Celtic folk #1970s #Irish TV

Planxty was an Irish folk music band consisting of soon-to-be-legendary musicians Christy Moore (vocals, acoustic guitar, bodhrán), Dónal Lunny (bouzouki, guitars), Andy Irvine (mandolin, mandola, bouzouki, hurdy-gurdy, harmonica), and Liam O'Flynn (uilleann pipes, tin whistle). The band was formed in 1972, and quickly revolutionized and popularized Irish folk music, touring and recording to great acclaim. The band broke up twice; first in 1975 and again in 1983. The band re-united again in 2004. Their final performance (to date) was in 2005.
In 1972 Christy Moore released his second album Prosperous, which he recorded with his old schoolmates, Lunny, Irvine, and O'Flynn. After recording Prosperous, they formed Planxty. The group's first major performance, opening for Donovan in Galway, was a great success. Neither the audience nor the band knowing what to expect, both were pleasantly surprised. Irvine, unable to see the audience through the lighting, was worried that the crowd was on the verge of rioting. It took him several minutes to realize what he was hearing was enthusiasm.
A formative influence on Planxty and, in particular, on Christy Moore was the singing of Irish Traveller John "Jacko" Reilly who hailed from Boyle, Co. Roscommon. It was from Reilly that Moore learned "The Raggle Taggle Gypsy", which was recorded on the first Planxty album, in addition to "The Well Below the Valley" and "As I Roved Out", which appeared on The Well Below the Valley. Christy later dipped into Reilly's songbook again for an updated version of the lengthy ballad "Lord Baker", which was featured on Planxty's 1983 album Words & Music.
Planxty released the highly acclaimed single, "The Cliffs of Dooneen, after which they were promptly signed to an exclusive contract in conjunction with Polydor Records. The band members, inexperienced in the world of business, signed a contract for £30,000, but for six albums, and with a low royalty percentage. (They were never to make much money from album sales, and were substantially in debt by the time the group dissolved.) The group became very popular in the next few years in Ireland, Britain and Europe, and they recorded two more albums in the following two years. After that they split up, and a compilation called The Planxty Collection was released. As time passed, the personnel changed - Johnny Moynihan replaced Dónal Lunny in July of 1973, and Paul Brady stepped in for Christy Moore in 1974. Christy, Andy, Dónal, and Liam, the original lineup, reformed Planxty in 1979. They recorded three albums, and made several changes and additions to their lineup, most notably the joining of Matt Molloy, flautist from the Bothy Band, later with The Chieftains.  
In 1983, Dónal Lunny and Christy Moore left to concentrate on Moving Hearts, and Andy and Liam started pursuing solo careers (the former in the band Patrick Street). The band broke up for the final time, or so it seemed. A low-key gig in Lisdoonvarna led to gigs in Dublin and County Clare in 2004, and the release of Live 2004 on DVD and CD. It remains to be seen if this is a new lease of life. Broadcaster and journalist Leagues O'Toole documented the band in the biography The Humours of Planxty, which was published by Hodder Headline in 2006.  From: https://sonichits.com/video/Planxty/The_Irish_March

The Claypool Lennon Delirium - Cricket and the Genie

#The Claypool Lennon Delirium #Les Claypool #Sean Lennon #psychedelic rock #art rock #experimental rock #progressive rock #alternative rock #neo-psychedelia #ex-Primus #ex-The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger

Two worlds have collided, and what glorious and odd worlds they are. After a successful summer tour, pairing Primus with Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger, the two bandleaders, Les Claypool and Sean Lennon, have decided to combine their abstract talents into a project called The Claypool Lennon Delirium. “Sean is a musical mutant after my own heart,” said Claypool. “He definitely reflects his genetics - not just the sensibilities of his dad but also the abstract perspective and unique approach of his mother. It makes for a glorious freak stew.” After some impromptu, backstage jams and an epic live sit-in on Primus’s psychedelic opus, “Southbound Pachyderm,” Claypool approached Lennon about doing a recording project. “I was trying to wrangle up an Oysterhead reunion since Primus was taking a rest for 2016 but the planets just wouldn’t align for that,” said Claypool. “I don’t like sitting around, so when Sean said he didn’t have plans for this next year, we started kicking around the notion of making an old-school, psychedelic/prog record. Next thing I know, he’s staying in my guesthouse, drinking my vino and banging on my drums.” Lennon responded, “I told Les that I was Neil Diamond’s nephew. I think that is what really sold him on the idea of working with me.” Over the course of six weeks or so, the two wrote and recorded a total of ten songs with both of them sharing various vocal and instrumental responsibilities, going beyond their core instruments of bass and guitar. Claypool explained, “Usually I play the drums and percussion on my records but Sean has such a different feel than I do, it just made more sense for him to man the kit on most of the tunes on this project. I took the helm at my old vintage API console and let him bang away. He was happy as a piggy rolling in shit every time he grabbed the sticks. His drumming is like a cross between Ringo and Nick Mason. But I think folks will be most surprised by what a monster guitar player he is, especially when you prod him a bit.”  From: http://theclaypoollennondelirium.com/

The Story - When Two and Two Are Five

#The Story #Jonatha Brooke #Jennifer Kimball #folk rock #alternative rock #indie rock #contemporary folk rock #singer-songwriter #1990s

Jonatha Brooke and Jennifer Kimball first met in 1981 while first-year students at Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts. Originally called simply "Jonatha and Jennifer", they performed regularly throughout the Boston area until graduation, at which time Brooke started working in a dance company and Kimball went to a publishing firm. In 1989 the duo recorded a demo, Over Oceans, and were quickly signed by Green Linnet Records. They changed their name to The Story, and their debut album Grace in Gravity was released in 1991. Elektra Records then signed the band, reissuing the album a year later. The Angel in the House followed in 1993, but a year later The Story dissolved. Known for their ethereal and dissonant vocal harmonies, both Brooke and Kimball have gone on to critically acclaimed solo careers. Although The Story's work has been highly regarded by critics and fans alike, both Brooke and Kimball have individually downplayed the band's work.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_(American_band)

Ten Years After - I'd Love To Change The World

#Ten Years After #Alvin Lee #hard rock #blues rock #British blues rock #psychedelic rock #1960s #1970s

Ten Years After was a British blues-rock band, most famous for their enigmatic lead singer and guitarist, Alvin Lee, and for the more than ten-minute jam of "I'm Going Home" they played at the Woodstock Festival in 1969. After the quartet's appearance at Woodstock and subsequent appearance in the Woodstock film the following year, Ten Years After gained significant popularity in the U.K. and the United States, yet their album sales and notoriety were fleeting. British blues-rock had already been done by the likes of the Yardbirds and the Rolling Stones, so by the time Ten Years After came along, fans wanted something more. Formed in 1967, the group disbanded in 1975.  From: https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/ten-years-after

 A Space in Time was Ten Years After's best-selling album. This was due primarily to the strength of "I'd Love to Change the World," the band's only hit single, and one of the most ubiquitous AM and FM radio cuts of the summer of 1971. TYA's first album for Columbia, A Space in Time has more of a pop-oriented feel than any of their previous releases had. The individual cuts are shorter, and Alvin Lee displays a broader instrumental palette than before. In fact, six of the disc's ten songs are built around acoustic guitar riffs. However, there are still a couple of barn-burning jams. The leadoff track, "One of These Days," is a particularly scorching workout, featuring extended harmonica and guitar solos. After the opener, however, the album settles back into a more relaxed mood than one would have expected from Ten Years After. Many of the cuts make effective use of dynamic shifts, and the guitar solos are generally more understated than on previous outings. The production on A Space in Time is crisp and clean, a sound quite different from the denseness of its predecessors.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/album/a-space-in-time-mw0000192047

Laboratorium Piesni - Karanfilce Devojce

 #Laboratorium Piesni #world music #European folk #Eastern European folk #ethnic #traditional #polyphony #polyphonic chant #Slavic folk music #a capella #white voice #Polish #music video

Laboratorium Pieśni (Song Laboratory) is a group of female singers from Poland, created in 2013. Using traditional, polyphonic singing they perform songs from all over the world: Ukraine, Balkans, Poland, Belarus, Georgia, Scandinavia and many other places. They sing a capella as well as with shaman drums and other ethnic instruments (shruti box, kalimba, flute, gong, zaphir and koshi chimes, singing bowls, rattles etc.), creating a new space in a traditional song, adding voice improvisations, inspired by sounds of nature, often intuitive, wild and feminine.  From: http://laboratoriumpiesni.pl/en/about/

Psychic TV - 8Transmissions8

 #Psychic TV #Genesis P-Orridge #industrial #experimental #acid house #post-punk #ambient house #neo-psychedelia #electronica #industrial dance #ex-Throbbing Gristle #performance art #video art #experimental video #Temple ov Psychick Youth #VHS rip 

A watershed time for Brion Gysin and William Burroughs was in Paris, in the decade of the
1960s. It was the only time Gysin ever earnestly garnered recognition for his creative efforts. While Gysin might be considered a jack-of-all-trades and master of none, his eminent energy paved the way through numerous monumental projects and seminal discoveries. In the decades prior to his relationship with Burroughs, he’d exhibited his works alongside the likes of Duchamp and Picasso; invited to be a Surrealist participant by Dalí - later booted from the group by Breton. But it was his association with Burroughs, always his biggest cultural advocate, which helped usher his artistic ventures into popular culture. So what’s this have to do with contemporary dance subculture? If the interconnectedness isn’t already obvious, move along to Act II. Enter Genesis P-Orridge. During the Paris years, P-Orridge had become a correspondent with Burroughs, and eventually a friend. And, of course, friends with Gysin. P-Orridge was a performance artist who’d exchange art mail with other interesting correspondance acquaintances like Burroughs and Monte Cazzazza. He also became pals with draggish film-maker Derek Jarman, for whom he scored a few short film projects himself, and later with his band, the “original” Industrial outfit, Throbbing Gristle. P-Orridge had ideas of his own, even if they were enmeshed with those of Gysin and Burroughs. His ideas included the dynamics inherent within ritual magick (not unlike the practices of Aleister Crowley), the necessity of trance-induced creative expression (such as in the art of Austin Osman Spare), and the immediatism of organized performance and media as weapons against social control. Shocking the hell out of crowds with the self-mutilation, enema-farting, lighted-candle-vaginal-masturbation performances of art troupe Coum Transmissions only paved the way for the all-out sensory onslaught of Throbbing Gristle’s live sets. And when that act diminished in 1981, P-Orridge and ex-Throbbing Gristle cohort Peter Christopherson (founder of Coil) not only joined forces with Alternative TV members to form musick group Psychick Television, but they also established a “non-dogmatic” ritualistic religious order: The Temple Ov Psychick Youth (TOPY). And to finalize the concrete front of anti-establishment propaganda, they created their own television network - Psychic TV, which is the working title of all of P-Orridge’s collaborative projects up through the present. “TG don’t get involved with the causes and cliches of The Great White Liberal consciousness, the dogmas and demonstrations of emotional hang-ups and guilt complexes (sexism, racism, no nukism, thisism, thatism) thinking them red herrings introduced to divert people from The Horrible Truth - into useless, fruitless ‘activism’.” Psychic TV didn’t conform to predictable conventions any more than TG had. Musically, the group explored the continuing usage of drum machines, tape loops, and electronics in combination with live instrumentation—a tactic which had become a standard in the music of TG. However, stylistically, PTV delved into numerous genres - Hyperdelic Rock, Muzack, Noise, and yes, Acid House and Techno - remixing and reinventing themselves sonically onstage and off. P-Orridge began to dabble in more contemporary video production for the day, creating sprawling, wild psychedelic imagery which moved in time to the music and while adopting some very MTV-ish trends, consistently moving beyond them. On a U.S. tour during 1986, P-Orridge & Co. visited a Chicago record shop, asking shop clerk (the now world famous deejay) Derrick Carter what the weirdest most underground sounds were in the shop. “Oh, that’d be the Acid,” Carter told them. Thinking the moniker referred to the drug and expecting psychedelic rock music, P-Orridge bought the entire stock. Upon returning to England and listening to the records, he was pleasantly surprised to discover that the music was instead tweaky, heavily-filtered electronic washes of sound with repetitive beats. As a result, Psychic TV began to dabble with the style and by 1987 released a now-legendary Acid House classic: “Tune In, Turn On Thee Acid House”. The single gained immediate popularity both in Europe and abroad, and foreshadowed the approach of the most important elements still lacking from the ecstatic dance culture in which Brion Gysin had once immersed himself.  From: https://www.deadlybuda.com/DeadlyType/deadlytype.pdf

Muse - Feeling Good

#Muse #alternative rock #progressive rock #space rock #hard rock #art rock #electronic rock #alternative metal #The Roar of the Greasepaint-The Smell of the Crowd

Songwriter Leslie Bricusse died in October 2021 at the age of 90. Bricusse was responsible for some of the most memorable songs of the 20th Century. He wrote the lyrics to the James Bond themes Goldfinger and You Only Live Twice, composed Talk To The Animals from the musical Dr. Doolittle and with his frequent collaborator Anthony Newley, wrote the song Pure Imagination from Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory. With Newley, the songwriter was also responsible for one of Muse's most memorable tracks - Feeling Good. The band recorded a version of the song for their 2001 album Origin Of Symmetry and it’s gone on to be a rock classic. But it almost didn’t happen, as Matt Bellamy has revealed.
“We didn’t do any covers at all,” he said. “We’d all been in covers bands when we were younger, so we wanted to do our own music.” However, the version of Feeling Good by Nina Simone caught Bellamy’s ear. “My girlfriend at the time,” he recalls, “her favourite artist was Nina Simone, and she was listening to it all the time. I kept hearing that song Feeling Good and I just thought, with Chris’s distorted bass line, that could be really good.” The track was chosen as the penultimate track on Origin Of Symmetry, and was considered strong enough to form a double A-sided single with Hyper Music in November 2001.
But Nina Simone wasn’t the first artist to record Feeling Good. In fact, it’s a show-stopping number from a Broadway musical. Feeling Good was written by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse for their 1964 production The Roar Of The Greasepaint-The Smell Of The Crowd, which opened in Nottingham in the summer of 1964 and transferred to Broadway in 1965. Newley was an interesting character, having been a pop singer and actor and a huge influence on a young David Bowie. The Roar Of The Greasepaint-The Smell Of The Crowd is a strange piece: the main characters are “Sir” and “Cocky”. Sir is taking Cocky through the Game of Life, but the younger, less inexperienced man always comes a cropper.
The musical had a hit with Tony Bennett’s take on Who Can I Turn To and the barn-storming number The Joker later became known as the theme tune to the Aussie TV comedy Kath & Kim. One of the key moments come when the two are arguing over the rules of “The Game” and a new character, a black man, steps forward and wins the game behind their backs. He sings Feeling Good as an expression of triumph over the oppression of the other characters. The song was first performed by actor Cy Grant and then by Gilbert Price in the Broadway run. In the hands of jazz singer and civil rights activist Nina Simone, Feeling Good became a powerful anthem for the times. Simone recorded the track for her album I Put A Spell On You in June 1965, and the version became for many the definitive reading of the song, that is, until Muse came along.  From: https://www.radiox.co.uk/artists/muse/why-did-muse-cover-feeling-good/

Black Mountain - Florian Saucer Attack

 #Black Mountain #psychedelic rock #stoner rock #space rock #acid rock #alternative rock #Canadian #animated music video 

After founding Jerk with a Bomb in the late ’90s, Stephen McBean had by the mid-2000s transformed the Vancouver area band into a group called Black Mountain. Drawing on blues, psychedelia, acid rock, and the Velvet Underground, Black Mountain’s sound was a cross between the darkness and grit of the Warlocks and Brian Jonestown Massacre’s trippiness. After debuting in October 2004 on Jagjaguwar with the 12” Druganaut, Black Mountain stayed with the label for an eponymous full-length, issued the following January. Joining McBean for the album were local players Matthew Camirand, Jeremy Schmidt, Joshua Wells, and Amber Webber, listed collectively to preserve the band’s communal ethic. (Black Mountain ran concurrent to and intermingled with McBean’s other band, lo-fi classic rockers Pink Mountaintops).  From: https://www.discogs.com/artist/336341-Black-Mountain

A no-holds-barred psych-blues assault that interweaves space-age synths into its otherwise paleolithically savage goth-metal sound, the newest single from Black Mountain’s forthcoming album IV, “Florian Saucer Attack,” shows the band pressing their instruments, and thereby the song itself, toward some limit-point where eschatological destruction looms precipitously near. We start at the almost-cosmic height best articulated by Robert Plant in “Kashmir” — “Oh, baby, I’ve been flying / No, yeah, Mama, there ain’t no denying” — but, as soon as the track roars to life with a ferocious drum break, we’re plunging toward Earth again, inexorably, flames and and debris and trails of smoke marking the descent, and while it’s unclear what knocked us out of the sky in the first place, one thing is certain: there’s nowhere to go but down.  From: https://www.popmatters.com/black-mountain-florian-saucer-attack-singles-going-steady-2495445091.html

Glim Spanky - 4-Dimensional Desert

#Glim Spanky #psychedelic rock #garage rock #blues rock #neo-psychedelia #1960s retro #1970s retro #Japanese

Glim Spanky is vocalist/guitarist Remi Matsuo and guitarist Hiroki Kamemoto. Their music has a contemporary vibe that seeps through their otherwise 60s and 70s rock and blues tone.  Originally, they formed in 2007 as a quartet. The group became a duo in February 2010 and have been making waves since. Their name comes from Matsuo’s interest in Celtic culture and fantasy literature; she read a book describing a goblin’s “glim” and added “spank” to describe their aggressive drive towards the music industry. Nevertheless, their music is heavily influenced by the Woodstock generation, as well as American and British acts from the mid-1960s to early 1970s, from The Beatles to Joni Mitchell and the psychedelic allusions of George Harrison.  Central to their sound are the vocals of Remi, whose voice has a rough quality that oozes rock’n’roll. While Hiroki’s guitar melodies flavor the rock sound with psychedelic Eastern flourishes. Not content to simply draw influences from Western rock music culture, they have set about globalizing themselves in a deeper way. In the fall of 2018, they decamped to Los Angeles to record their fourth studio album, Looking For The Magic with producer Kennie Takahashi. Glim Spanky approached Takahashi because of their love for his work with the Ohio band, The Black Keys. Rather than bringing support musicians with them from Japan, they hired two local musicians in Los Angeles: drummer Carla Azar from Jack White’s backing band, and Raconteurs bassist Jack Lawrence. For Glim Spanky, it’s not only about the love of rock but also the culture that surrounds it as well.  From: https://keepingthebluesalive.org/glim-spanky-blues-from-japan/

Laura Nyro - Stoned Soul Picnic

#Laura Nyro #blue-eyed soul #R&B #piano rock #jazz rock #folk rock #alternative pop #singer-songwriter #1960s #1970s

Whatever role Laura Nyro chose to play - earth mother, soul sister, angel of the Bronx subways - she committed to it. With a soaring, open-hearted voice and ingeniously crafted compositions, Nyro transformed a range of influences into her own kind of art song. She made vertiginous shifts from hushed reveries to ecstatic gospel-driven shout-ups with an intensity and a courage that, as Elton John would point out, left its mark on many contemporaries who achieved greater commercial success. As the music of the 1960s reached a climax, no one else merged the new songwriting freedoms pioneered by Bob Dylan with the pop sensibility of the Brill Building tunesmiths to such intriguing effect. As a teenager, she wrote And When I Die and Stoney End, songs that became hits for other artists. Her own enigmatically titled albums - Eli and the Thirteenth Confession, New York Tendaberry, Christmas and the Beads of Sweat - showed a precociously sophisticated sensibility. Later, rejecting commercial pressures, she would help push the boundaries of popular music by writing songs celebrating motherhood, female sexuality and her menstrual cycle. In the hearts of admirers, she kindled a loyalty fierce enough to withstand the semi-obscurity into which she had fallen by the time of her death from ovarian cancer in 1997, at 49. The dimming of her fame had been gradual and, to an extent, self-actuated. If her early songs seemed to give listeners the thrill of overhearing her innermost thoughts, she lived her adult life edging towards the spotlight before withdrawing to cope with personal upheavals, then re-emerging years later with songs that confounded expectations by explicitly affirming new commitments to radical feminism, animal rights and environmental activism.  From: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/jul/27/laura-nyro-the-phenomenal-singers-singer-the-60s-overlooked

surrey on

go somewhere, travel (from the ancient song 'surrey down to the stoned soul picnic', written by laura nyro (R.I.P.) and performed by the insipid 5th dimension)

a surrey is a 4-wheeled 2-seated horse-drawn carriage

lets' surrey on down to the bluntsman's and procure some 'goodness'

i'm going to surrey on over to jane's for a 'taste'

From: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=surrey%20on

The Small Faces - Afterglow

 #The Small Faces #Steve Marriott #hard rock #British R&B #British psychedelia #mod #British invasion #1960s #pre-Faces #pre-Humble Pie

There was no shortage of good psychedelic albums emerging from England in 1967-1968, but Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake is special even within their ranks. The Small Faces had already shown a surprising adaptability to psychedelia with the single "Itchycoo Park" and much of their other 1967 output, but Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake pretty much ripped the envelope. British bands had an unusual approach to psychedelia from the get-go, often preferring to assume different musical "personae" on their albums, either feigning actual "roles" in the context of a variety show (as on the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album), or simply as storytellers in the manner of the Pretty Things on S.F. Sorrow, or actor/performers as on the Who's Tommy. The Small Faces tried a little bit of all of these approaches on Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake, but they never softened their sound. Side one's material, in particular, would not have been out of place on any other Small Faces release - "Afterglow (Of Your Love)" and "Rene" both have a pounding beat from Kenny Jones, and Ian McLagan's surging organ drives the former while his economical piano accompaniment embellishes the latter; and Steve Marriott's crunching guitar highlights "Song of a Baker." Marriott singing has him assuming two distinct "roles," neither unfamiliar - the Cockney upstart on "Rene" and "Lazy Sunday," and the diminutive soul shouter on "Afterglow (Of Your Love)" and "Song of a Baker." Some of side two's production is more elaborate, with overdubbed harps and light orchestration here and there, and an array of more ambitious songs, all linked by a narration by comic dialect expert Stanley Unwin, about a character called "Happiness Stan." The core of the sound, however, is found in the pounding "Rollin' Over," which became a highlight of the group's stage act during its final days - the song seems lean and mean with a mix in which Ronnie Lane's bass is louder than the overdubbed horns. Even "Mad John," which derives from folk influences, has a refreshingly muscular sound on its acoustic instruments. Overall, this was the ballsiest-sounding piece of full-length psychedelia to come out of England, and it rode the number one spot on the U.K. charts for six weeks in 1968, though not without some controversy surrounding advertisements by Immediate Records that parodied the Lord's Prayer. Still, Ogdens' was the group's crowning achievement - it had even been Marriott's hope to do a stage presentation of Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake, though a television special might've been more in order.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/album/ogdens-nut-gone-flake-mw0000587922

Emiliana Torrini - White Rabbit

 #Emiliana Torrini #alternative rock #trip-hop #electronica #dream pop #singer-songwriter #Icelandic #Jefferson Airplane cover

An Icelandic singer/songwriter whose music embraces elements of folk, electronica, pop/rock, and trip-hop, Emilíana Torrini has earned favorable comparisons to such vocally gifted artists as Beth Hirsch, Kirsty Hawkshaw, and Bjork. Torrini was raised in Kópavogur, where she worked at her father's Italian restaurant and attended opera school as a teenager. After releasing three albums in her native Iceland (Spoon, Crouçie D'où Là, and Merman), she joined forces with Tears For Fears’ Roland Orzabal to produce her first widely released effort, 1999's Love in the Time of Science. The famed Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson heard her cool, otherworldly croon and approved Torrini to voice the finale music for 2002's The Two Towers, a job that Bjork had previously accepted before backing out due to pregnancy.  From: https://open.spotify.com/artist/08j69Ndyx1P7RLO3Janb5P

Pond - Man It Feels Like Space Again

#Pond #psychedelic rock #neo-psychedelia #glam rock #garage rock #space rock #funk #Australian #music video #puppets

It’s inevitable that Tame Impala comes to mind when thinking about the Australian psychedelic rock band Pond. Both projects hail from the same rock scene in Perth, Australia. Frontman Nick Allbrook and multi-instrumentalist Jay Watson are the most prominent songwriters of the group. Both have either spent time in or currently tour with Tame Impala. It’s been a two-way street as well, with Tame’s Kevin Parker contributing drums and production on a number of their releases. But let’s be clear on one thing, this band is neither a side project nor an afterthought. Sonically, Pond blends elements of pop, rock, and folk into a melange of peppy psychedelia, although their arrangements aren’t as kaleidoscopic or vibe-soaked as some of the band’s contemporaries. Pond’s vivid soundscapes have just the right amount of pop sensibility and spirited, left-of-center hooks that appeal to both altered-state listening, and road trip singalongs. They’ve never taken any dramatic, genre-bending left turns or enormous stylistic leaps. By the same token, they’ve also never face-planted or even put out a remotely disappointing record.  From: https://thirdcoastreview.com/2022/12/08/review-pond-brought-their-soaring-psychedelia-to-the-metro/

Mary's Danish - Beat Me Up

#Mary's Danish #alternative rock #power pop #indie rock #funk rock #pop punk #1980s #1990s

A fine band that never quite delivered on its immense promise, Mary's Danish blended power pop, punk, country, and funk into a sometimes scattershot but always unique sound that at times was among the most exciting sounds in what was then still called alternative music and sometimes sounded like the group was constitutionally incapable of picking a style and sticking with it for longer than a song at a time.
The seeds of the group were planted when college friends Gretchen Seager and Julie Ritter decided to form their own band in the middle of an X concert in their hometown of Los Angeles in late 1985. Seager preferred the band's punk edge, Ritter their country leanings, and both admired the vocal interplay of John Doe and Exene Cervenka, all of which would appear in their own band, which they named Mary's Danish after a line in an early songwriting attempt. Ritter's guitarist boyfriend David King and his bassist friend Chris "Wag" Wagner were drafted into the group at an early stage, but the group wouldn't settle into its permanent lineup until drummer James Bradley Jr., who had previously played with Anita Baker, and second guitarist Louis Gutierrez, formerly of Los Angeles paisley underground legends the Three O'Clock, joined in 1988.
The newly cemented group signed with Chameleon Records in 1989 and released their debut, There Goes the Wondertruck, later that year. Powered by the alternative radio and 120 Minutes favorite "Don't Crash the Car Tonight," the debut and a live follow-up EP, Experience, sold well enough to attract the attention of both superstar manager Peter Asher and Morgan Creek Records, a newly formed label headed by producer David Kershenbaum and spun off from a successful film production company. Eager to score an "alternative" band when that genre was becoming the next big thing, Morgan Creek threw quite a bit of money at Mary's Danish to record and release their second album, Circa, in 1991. Unfortunately, the neophyte label dropped the ball on promotion, and although the singles "Julie's Blanket" and "Foxey Lady" (a winningly sarcastic treatment of the Jimi Hendrix classic) got a lot of MTV airplay, the well-reviewed album didn't sell as well as There Goes the Wondertruck. The label prematurely rushed the group back into the studio to record 1992's American Standard, and the lackluster results showed it. Top management at Morgan Creek apparently had no idea of how to run a record label, and their poor track record caught up to them; after haphazardly burying American Standard through incompetent promotion and distribution, the label self-destructed, leaving Mary's Danish in legal limbo. Fed up, the group called it quits in 1993, with King leaving to form a new band, Rob Rule. Ritter embarked on an alt-country solo career, while Seager and Gutierrez, who had married and were expecting a child, formed the punkier Battery Acid.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/marys-danish-mn0000383632/biography

Strawbs - The Hangman and the Papist

 #Strawbs #Dave Cousins #Rick Wakeman #progressive rock #folk rock #progressive folk #British folk rock #symphonic prog #1970s

The Hangman and the Papist by Strawbs - a track from their album From the Witchwood, released in 1971. From an article I dedicated to Rick Wakeman's recording sessions between 1969 and 1971: As a full member, Wakeman played with the Strawbs on one studio album only, From the Witchwood, recorded early in 1971 and released in July that year. While the album has lovely acoustic interludes in the best tradition of the Strawbs, it is markedly more rock-oriented than anything the band attempted beforehand, and Rick Wakeman’s contributions give it that symphonic layer that made the album a favorite with progressive rock fans. A good example is The Shepherd’s Song, a great combination of acoustic guitars with virtuosic piano runs and Mellotron textures. Cousins: “The instrumental sections over Mellotron strings were inspired by the mariachi trumpets on Love’s Alone Again Or, and were played by Rick on a prototype Moog synthesizer that was kept in the studio. It was one of the first times that a Moog was used for this purpose on a record, and it encouraged Rick towards his multi-keyboard setup.” As progressive as the album was compared to the band’s previous records, Wakeman was already in a much more ambitious musical mind set than the rest of the band. Cousins: “He was great fun on stage and not at all difficult to control. He was more difficult in the studio when he didn’t like particular songs. It was also difficult to incorporate his own material into our own as it had so many chords – especially for me!” The crowning achievement of the album is The Hangman and the Papist. Dave Cousins: “The most important song on the album is The Hangman and the Papist. It’s written about two brothers who grew up on opposite sides of the religious fence, and it related to the outbreak of the troubles in Northern Ireland. One of  the brothers grows up as a Catholic and the other as a Protestant, which is an exact parallel of my own life: I’m a Catholic and my brother’s a Protestant, due to the fact that my mother married again after my dad died when I was  eight months old. We were booked to play the song on the first album spot on Top of the Pops, and it undoubtedly exposed the band to a much bigger audience. The only negative was that Rick was spotted playing the organ with a paint roller, but that’s our Rick!”  From: https://www.facebook.com/musicaficionadoblog/posts/2589036991241623/?paipv=0&eav=AfZWW_At8o26LUelPzH1L59UcRWoJZAEDXLVrbwAIdk5_CN_zg9Zwe6VL9HwISMtdjc&_rdr

Moon Honey - Self-Portrait Beneath Woman's Mask

 #Moon Honey #psychedelic rock #alternative rock #indie rock #experimental #neo-psychedelia 

It wouldn’t be surprising to find Moon Honey’s Jess Joy [vocals] and Andrew Martin [guitar] adorning the cards of a Tarot Deck. A wild red-headed musical enchantress and multi-faceted artist from the bayou of Baton Rouge, Jess’ je ne sais quoi extends beyond her primal vocal conjurings to handmade mysticism - from personally directing D.I.Y. stop-motion music videos and assembling surreal collages to building paper mache stage production and sewing period-correct costume pieces. Born in the Big Easy and raised on the Cayman Islands as an anachronistic disciple of Jimi Hendrix and Mark Bolan, Andrew speaks through six-strings often while decked out in mod velvet threads. The union of these two dissonantly kindred spirits yields a totemic pastiche of psychedelia, rock, soul, performance art and good old-fashioned voodoo. While on tour in 2013 (a month after becoming Moon Honey), the duo released their independent debut Hand-Painted Dream Photographs. It quietly sent shockwaves throughout the underground, bubbling up with praise courtesy of The New York Times, Noisey, NPR and more. Logging countless gigs including a fiery SXSW showcase, the West Coast called to Jess and Andrew. They settled in an Echo Park treehouse before finding a haunt nestled in the Silverlake hills. Immersed in the city’s arts scene, this aural universe unfolds further by their singular touch.  From: https://bigdealmusic.com/artists/moon-honey/

Yes - I've Seen All Good People

 #Yes #Jon Anderson #Steve Howe #Bill Bruford #progressive rock #art rock #symphonic prog #hard rock #1970s #Beat-Club

You can’t go wrong unearthing old prog videos, but The Lost Broadcasts
 DVD from Yes is a real gem. From 1969, we get Tony Kaye leaning far into his organ and drummer Bill Bruford mugging through the group’s version of Ritchie
Havens’ “No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed.” From this black and white Beat Club performance, we also get the previously unseen “Looking Around” and “Survival,” both from the first Yes album. The latter definitely was nodding to the future band we know and love. We jump to a 1970 lip-synched clip of “Time And A Word” with Peter Banks still on guitar. Though the band is obviously having a great time miming this semi-hit, Banks would be fired two months after this taping. We’re back to the Beat Club for the last four numbers. It was April 1971 when the band, now with new guitarist Steve Howe, laid down a blistering “Yours Is No Disgrace,” along with “All Good People.” For various reasons, the show needed these clips re-shot (we even hear someone tell bassist Chris Squire he was too far away from the microphone after one take), so we are treated to a trio of live rundowns.  From: https://vintagerock.com/yes-the-lost-broadcasts-dvd-review/

Labelle - Lady Marmalade

 #Labelle #Patti LaBelle #R&B #soul #funk #funk rock #glam rock #deep soul #pop rock #1970s

Labelle was an American girl group who were a popular vocal group of the 1960s and 1970s. The group was formed after the disbanding of two rival girl groups in the area around Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania, and Trenton, in New Jersey: the Ordettes and the Del-Capris, forming as a new version of the former group, then later changing their name to the Blue Belles. The founding members were Patti LaBelle (formerly Patricia Holte), Cindy Birdsong, Nona Hendryx, and Sarah Dash. As the Bluebelles, and later Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles, the group found success with ballads in the doo-wop genre: "Down the Aisle (The Wedding Song)", "You'll Never Walk Alone", and "Over the Rainbow". After Birdsong departed to join The Supremes in 1967, the band, following the advice of Ready Steady Go! producer Vicki Wickham, changed its look, musical direction, and style to reform as Labelle in 1971. Their funk rock recordings of that period became cult favorites for their brash interpretation of rock and roll and for dealing with subjects and matters that were not typically touched by female black groups. Finally, after adapting glam rock and wearing outlandish space-age and glam costumes, the band found success with the proto-disco smash hit "Lady Marmalade" in 1974, leading to their album Nightbirds, which achieved gold success. They were the first contemporary pop group and first black pop band to perform at the Metropolitan Opera House. They were also the first black vocal group to appear on the cover of Rolling Stone.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labelle

The Dukes Of Stratosphear - Vanishing Girl

 #The Dukes Of Stratosphear #XTC spinoff #1960s retro #psychedelic rock #neo-psychedelia #psychedelic pop #60s psych rock homage

XTC alter-egos, the Dukes of Stratosphear, may have begun as a joke, but this joke band's records rank with their creators' best work. It all started after XTC's Andy Partridge and producer John Leckie (Stone Roses) got tossed off a producer gig for Mary Margaret O'Hara's Miss America record for reasons that may involve strangeness on O'Hara's part, or religious differences, or the fact that Partridge told the band they needed a click track. As Chris Twomey's XTC biography Chalkhills and Children recounts, Leckie wanted to get something back for the time he'd lost waiting for the O'Hara gig. Partridge mentioned that he and bandmate Colin Moulding had written a bunch of psychedelic songs that were too out-there for XTC; Leckie pitched it to Virgin, asking them for £5,000 to cut a record. When they were done, they returned £1,000 of it.
The first EP, 25 O'Clock, shipped on April Fools' Day 1985, and it was rumored at the time (and official not long after) that the Dukes of Stratosphear were really XTC - with Partridge and Moulding as Sir John Johns and the Red Curtain, third member David Gregory taking the nom de hoax Lord Cornelius Plum, and David's brother Ian, E.I.E.I. Owen - on drums. But some people believed the band was real, and that the records really had been dredged out of a warehouse after decades of neglect. Why not? Not only did the Dukes stick to period instruments and effects, not only did they wear paisley shirts and floppy felt hats to the studio, and not only were all the silly lyrics and psychedelic excesses forgivable, but the band is fantastically, blindly in love with its material. And the songwriting kills. The Dukes began as a joke, but this joke band's two albums rank with XTC's best.
Quoting Partridge from definitive source Chalkhills.org: "The Dukes were the band we all wanted to be in when we were at school: Purple, giggling, fuzztone, liquid, and arriving. If you want to know where those cheap charlatans 'The Beatles', 'Pink Floyd', 'The Byrds', 'The Hollies', and 'The Beach Boys' stole their ideas from, well just listen to this and weep." But even though the homages are front and center, picking out influences is one of the dullest ways to dig these records; hearing these guys bathe in their boyhood record collections is the chief hook, followed by way they let their eyes bug out a little farther than on their "proper" albums of the time. XTC's Big Express and Skylarking came from a working band with adult problems and a grown-up's nostalgia; the Dukes have been like way out of it since high school.
Still, picking out the influences on the two Dukes of Stratosphear records is a good music nut's game. Some are obvious: compared to Pink Floyd's subtler "Arnold Layne", Partridge's "Have You Seen Jackie?" throws a victory parade with acid-laced confetti for its crossdressing hero(ine); "Pale and Precious" apes Beach Boys harmonies years before everyone in Brooklyn was doing it. Other references are subtler or better mashed-up, but rarely is the source of the song the point. You don't have to know the Hollies to adore how perfectly Moulding crafted the melody of "Vanishing Girl", or the way he bites off the high notes on the chorus.
And don't let the bits of gibberish and fluff - like young Lily Fraser "narrating" Psionic Sunspot - distract from the inspired arrangements on each song, like the backwards autoharp on "Have You Seen Jackie?" Or the "banana fingers piano" on "Braniac's Daughter", or the didg's and fuzz pedals and sick guitars and harpsichords and drawkcab loops and sped-up singing, and at the end of "Mole from the Ministry" a backward voice actually says, "you can fuck your atom bomb." Hey, it was the times.
Although I've been mixing up both of the albums in this review, there are marked differences between the debut EP and the career-ending LP. 25 O'Clock is more fun and more loyal to its sources; Psonic Psunspot has stronger songs, especially on the front half, but they're also not far removed from proper XTC material. 25 O'Clock is quick and sneaky; Psonic is wilder, but "The Affiliated" wanders, with the Latin section arguably the weirdest thing on the whole set.
The Dukes never gave a big, dramatic reason for breaking up. (Neither did XTC). They just hung up their axes after Psonic Psunspot, shelving a concept for a rock opera called The Great Royal Jelly Scandal. But they did get in one reunion: the reissue of 25 O'Clock includes their 2003 charity recording "Open a Can (of Human Beans)", which pays tribute to nothing more obviously than 90s-era XTC. And it sounds oh so unfortunately grown-up.  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/12893-25-oclock-psonic-psunspot/

The Nields - This Town is Wrong

 #The Nields #Katryna & Nerissa Nields #folk rock #contemporary folk #alternative rock #indie rock #Americana #1990s

The first incarnation of what would later become the Nields came together in 1987 in McLean, Virginia, when Nerissa Nields met David Jones, and started a band with Nerissa's sister Katryna. In 1991, Katryna had graduated from Trinity College in Connecticut, and Nerissa had graduated from Yale University. Nerissa married David, who was now known as David Nields, having taken her surname. By now, the threesome was performing together as the Nields, with Katryna as the lead singer, Nerissa playing rhythm guitar and singing harmony, and David Nields on lead guitar. In 1992, the three of them moved to Connecticut, where David had accepted a job at the Loomis Chaffee School, and the band recorded its first album, the self-released 66 Hoxsey Street, named for a house in Williamstown where they had lived. The band began to tour New England in earnest, earning a reputation in the regional folk music scene. In 1993, they released a live album titled Live at the Iron Horse Music Hall, recorded at the popular folk club in Northampton, Massachusetts.
In 1994 the band grew from a three-piece folk group to a five-piece rock band. The new members were Dave Chalfant (bass), whom Katryna had met in college, and Dave Hower (drums), a friend of Chalfant's. Chalfant also produced the band's album released that year, Bob on the Ceiling. This album featured a mix of the acoustic material that the Nields had previously specialized in and a more rock-oriented sound that would become their trademark. With their new sound, the Nields received critical acclaim, and quit their day jobs to become full-time musicians. Their 1995 EP Abigail, named for Katryna and Nerissa's sister, was self-released, followed by Gotta Get Over Greta in 1996 on the independent Razor & Tie record label. The album was re-released in 1997 with three bonus tracks on Guardian, a division of Elektra Records.
Unfortunately, the group suffered a number of setbacks the next year. Guardian folded, leaving them without a record label, and their tour van was growing increasingly unreliable. The band self-released an album called Mousse (the nickname for Dave Chalfant's sister Andromache) and held a special fundraising concert entitled "Jam for the Van." As a result, the Nields were able to purchase a new van, and were also able to secure a new label, Zoë, a division of Rounder Records. Over the next three years, the Nields released two more records (Play and If You Lived Here You'd Be Home Now), and in 1999 Katryna Nields and Dave Chalfant got married.
Although the band enjoyed a moderate degree of success, they ceased touring as a five-piece in 2001. Their final recording with David Nields was a two-disc album titled Live From Northampton. Like their 1993 album, it was recorded at the Iron Horse Music Hall, and was self-released by the band. In 2002, David and Nerissa Nields were divorced.
In 1998, Katryna and Nerissa were invited to play Lilith Fair as a duo. The performances were successful, and the two sisters performed several more shows together in areas where the full band had not previously been able to tour. By 2001, shows by the full band were increasingly rare, as Katryna and Nerissa toured mostly by themselves. In mid-2001, Katryna took some time off to have a baby, Amelia. Afterwards, she and Nerissa recorded their first album as a duo, titled Love and China, followed by an EP of children's songs, Songs for Amelia. In 2004, they released their second full album, This Town is Wrong. In 2005, Nerissa's young adult novel, Plastic Angel, was published by Scholastic Books. This Town Is Wrong was intended as a soundtrack to the novel, which came packaged with a CD containing the songs "This Town Is Wrong" and "Glow-In-The-Dark Plastic Angel" from the album.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nields