K.D. Lang - Pullin' Back the Reins

 K.D. Lang #alt-country #cowpunk #country rock #folk rock #country pop #alternative rock #singer-songwriter #Canadian #1980s #1990s

When K.D. Lang released her first major-label album in 1987, she caused considerable controversy within the traditional world of country music. With her vaguely campy approach, androgynous appearance, and edgy, rock-inflected music, very few observers knew what to make of her or her music, although no one questioned her considerable vocal talents. Her self-reliant stature has never wavered over the course of her career, even when she abandoned country music for torchy adult contemporary pop in 1992 with her fourth album, Ingénue, which featured her biggest hit, "Constant Craving."
Born in Alberta, Canada, Lang was first drawn to music while she was in college, when she became acquainted with Patsy Cline while preparing to star in a collegiate theatrical production based on the vocalist's life. Soon, Lang immersed herself in Cline's life and music and decided that she would pursue a career as a professional singer. With the help of guitarist/co-songwriter Ben Mink, she formed a band named the Reclines in tribute to Cline, in 1983. They recorded a debut single, "Friday Dance Promenade," which received some positive notices in the independent press. Their album A Truly Western Experience followed in 1984 and received even better reviews and national attention.
All of the Canadian attention led to the interest of a number of American record labels. Sire signed lang in early 1986, and she recorded her first record for the label later that year. The resulting Angel with a Lariat was produced by Dave Edmunds and appeared in July 1987. The mix of '50s-styled ballads, kitschy rockabilly, and honky tonk numbers on Angel with a Lariat had heavy support from college radio as well as cutting-edge country stations. Though it was a mainstream hit in Canada and an underground smash in the U.S., Nashville resisted Lang, especially because of her tongue-in-cheek concert appearances.
Shadowland, her second Sire album, made her debt to Patsy Cline explicit. Recorded with Cline's producer, Owen Bradley, the album lacked the campy humor of Angel with a Lariat, which helped it succeed in traditional country circles. Shadowland became a sizable word-of-mouth hit, both in modern country and alternative music circles. The following year, Lang released the harder-edged Absolute Torch and Twang, which increased her mainstream American country audience in addition to being a college radio and Canadian hit. The attention made lang a minor celebrity, which meant that when she launched a protest against meat eating in 1990, it became a media sensation.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/kd-lang-mn0000852997/biography

Counting Crows - Omaha

 #Counting Crows #alternative rock #roots rock #country rock #blues rock #folk rock #contemporary folk rock #1990s

It's amazing the difference a year makes. Upon its release, Counting Crows’ ‘August and Everything After’ sounded remarkably fresh, a welcome change from the crunch and screech of grunge. Blending the vocal athleticism of Van Morrison with the moody rock of The Band, the Counting Crows turned on a whole legion of fans turned off by modern rock. But what sounded fresh soon became stale as dozens of bands flocked to the radio with euthanized versions of the Counting Crows' sound. But you shouldn't hold that against the Crow boys. ‘August and Everything After’ is a fantastic rock album. Though "Mr. Jones" was the moneymaker, the disc features such standout cuts as the dark lilt of "Anna Begins," the morose "Rain King," and the outstanding U2-meets-Grant Lee Buffalo anthem "Murder of One." Maybe time, and another listen, will heal the damage wrought.  From: https://www.amazon.com/August-Everything-After-Counting-Crows/dp/B000003TAP

Counting Crows lead singer Adam Duritz is eloquent. Especially when talking about his songwriting and nuanced singing ability, for which he’s earned great accolades and acknowledgment. Talking to Under the Radar several months back, the frontman said: “I think I realized at some point that I had a nice voice but that wasn’t the same thing as singing. Being a good singer was a craft and I think I felt unable to really properly express the emotions of the songs. So, I wanted to push myself and be able to do more that way.
“I remember doing some recording sessions for Immer [David Immerglück], who is our guitar player now. But he was just a friend of mine then; he was producing some stuff and I remember getting really, really pushed in some sessions for him to sing stuff that was difficult for me. And realizing that there were a lot of textures and dynamics in a voice that I wasn’t really using and pushing myself to kind of become aware of that and learn to be a singer, as opposed to just a voice.”
Duritz continued: “I just remember realizing that it was possible to sing much, much better than I was and that I was just singing melodies but there’s all this emotion and things that could be in there too. And I remember thinking how limited I was and how, you know, much I needed to get better and then really trying to do that. Really—I mean, I’m very, very, very, very self-critical, which I think is good.
“That’s how you get good at things, you demand a lot. And I think I do that in my writing, I do that in my singing. I’m trying to push everything through a very, very critical lens. And I think that helps after a while. Taxing? I guess it is. But, I mean, this isn’t supposed to be easy! Making art of any kind at a high level, there’s a thing that separates people who have hobbies from people who do it, who really do it. It’s the work.”
From: https://americansongwriter.com/omaha-counting-crows-behind-song-lyrics/ 

The Velvet Underground - I'm Waiting For The Man

 #The Velvet Underground #Lou Reed #John Cale #Nico #experimental rock #art rock #avant-garde #proto-punk #Andy Warhol

American rock band The Velvet Underground released "I'm Waiting for the Man" in 1967 on their debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico. Like many of the band's other songs, "I'm Waiting for the Man" focuses on the dark underbelly of life in New York City. The track, written by singer Lou Reed, tells the story of a man in New York traveling to Harlem to meet his drug dealer, who is never referred to as anything other than "the man" in the song. He brings $26 uptown, where he stops at a brownstone at the intersection of Lexington Avenue and 125th Street, which is currently the home of a 4/5/6 subway station. ("Up to Lexington, 1-2-5"). The Velvet Underground were one of the first groups to openly write songs about drug use and its catastrophic consequences (heroin, in the case of "I'm Waiting for the Man"). The accounts often came from the personal experiences of the band members.  From: https://www.musicbanter.com/lyrics/Velvet-Underground-I-m-Waiting-for-the-Man.html

The Rolling Stones - Jumpin' Jack Flash

 #The Rolling Stones #Kieth Richards #Mick Jagger #blues rock #hard rock #classic rock #British blues rock #rock & roll #folk blues #garage rock #R&B #British invasion #1968 music video

Long before the advent of MTV, music videos (then referred to as promotional films, or “promos” for short) were few and far between, with very limited outlets to air them. The most popular bands, such as The Rolling Stones, The Beatles and The Who, made these “promos” with the intent of allowing broadcast in several different countries without the bands having to travel to perform in TV studios where there were “genuine security issues” according to Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who directed pioneering videos for all three acts. Top of the Pops, the aforementioned Ready Steady Go!, Shindig!, Hullabaloo and The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in the US were early participants in broadcasting such materials. The Rolling Stones, who were already international superstars by the mid-1960s, now had another tool to help push a single such as “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.” Before capturing The Rock and Roll Circus on celluloid, director Michael Lindsay-Hogg had helmed many of The Rolling Stones’ promotional video clips: “She’s a Rainbow,” “2000 Light Years From Home,” “Child of the Moon,” and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” as well as The Beatles’ “Paperback Writer,” “Rain,” “Hey Jude” and “Revolution.” Lindsay-Hogg is the legendary music video director behind The Beatles’ Let It Be feature film and many of The Rolling Stones’ seminal video clips.  From: https://www.musicconnection.com/kubernik-the-rolling-stones-jumpin-jack-flash-restored-in-4k/ 

Jethro Tull - A New Day Yesterday

 #Jethro Tull #Ian Anderson #progressive rock #folk rock #hard rock #blues rock #English folk rock #art rock #classic rock #progressive folk #1970s

Much of the Stand Up album is about Ian resenting the constant travel and work-load of being a rock star. This song talks about how he's constantly away from his new girlfriend (and future ex-wife), Jeanine.

"It was a new day yesterday but it's an old day now"

It was kind of thrilling not knowing when or how long the two would see each other, but now it's growing old and Ian just wants to be with his new love.

"Oh I had to leave today just when I thought I'd found you"

Even when the two are together, it's an all-too-brief moment as Ian has to go back on the road again.

From: https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/3530822107858514097

Jethro Tull (baptised 30 March 1674 – 21 February 1741) was an English agriculturist from Berkshire who helped to bring about the British Agricultural Revolution of the 18th century. He perfected a horse-drawn seed drill in 1701 that economically sowed the seeds in neat rows, and later developed a horse-drawn hoe. Tull's methods were adopted by many landowners and helped to provide the basis for modern agriculture. Influenced by the early Age of Enlightenment, he is considered to be one of the early proponents of a scientific – and especially empirical – approach to agriculture. He helped transform agricultural practices by inventing or improving numerous implements. Tull made early advances in planting crops with his invention of the seed drill – a mechanical seeder that sowed efficiently at the correct depth and spacing and then covered the seed so that it could grow. Before the introduction of the seed drill, the common practice was to plant seeds by broadcasting (evenly throwing) them across the ground by hand on the prepared soil and then lightly harrowing the soil to bury the seeds to the correct depth.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jethro_Tull_(agriculturist)

Cosmic Rough Riders - The Gun Isn't Loaded

 #Cosmic Rough Riders #alternative rock #folk rock #alternative country rock #psychedelic rock #power pop #jangle pop #Scottish

It's hard to describe the Cosmic Rough Riders without mentioning Teenage Fanclub - both are Scottish, both rely on mellow guitars, soaring harmonies, and tuneful choruses; both draw from a similar well of Big Star and the Beach Boys. But the Cosmic Rough Riders have plenty of memorable tunes of their own. Who exactly the Cosmic Rough Riders are is a complicated story. The studio band was originally just singer/songwriter Daniel Wylie with help from guitarist Stephen Fleming. Yet when Wylie left, Fleming kept the band going under the Cosmic Rough Riders name, kind of like Doug Yule's Velvet Underground. The first post-Wylie album (2003's Too Close To See Far) actually managed to sound like a Wylie album, though a later one did not. Meanwhile, Wylie issued a number of solo albums before, more recently, recovering the band name and issuing a few albums as Daniel's Wylie's Cosmic Rough Riders. Anyway, Enjoy the Melodic Sunshine is the key release from the original incarnation of the band. It's a bit of a cheat, a compilation of sorts, mostly compiling tracks from an independently-released album called Panorama joined by a couple tracks from a prior release and a few new tunes.  And it's pretty damn great. You've got a few absolutely stellar singles, most notably "Glastonbury Revisited," "Revolution In The Summertime," and "Have You Heard The News Today?" Seriously, each one of these should have made the band a monster. The rest may blend together a bit more, but it's never less than lovely.  From: https://www.jitterywhiteguymusic.com/2019/06/cosmic-rough-riders-enjoy-melodic.html

Whippersnapper - Lizzie Wan

 #Whippersnapper #Dave Swarbrick #British folk #British folk rock #contemporary folk #acoustic #folk supergroup #ex-Fairport Convention

Whippersnapper were a four-piece acoustic band formed by Dave Swarbrick, Chris Leslie, Kevin Dempsey, and Martin Jenkins in Northamptonshire during 1983. Although none of the others could quite compare with Swarbrick's long experience or near-legendary status, each of the others brought something substantial to the table at the outset of the group's history - Chris Leslie was a musical instrument maker as well as an experienced violinist (who had Swarbrick's playing as a model); guitarist, singer, and percussionist Kevin Dempsey had played in Dando Shaft, and had experience with Latin music as well as Celtic and English folk repertory; and multi-instrumentalist Martin Jenkins had played with Matthews Southern Comfort and was also an ex-member of Dando Shaft, as well as a Bert Jansch alumnus. As a result, the group's work was highly anticipated by folk enthusiasts, as a unique all-acoustic supergroup. The group made its debut in January of 1984 at the Burnt Post in Coventry and subsequently played the Cambridge Folk Festival, a performance that was captured on video as well.
Their music was a deceptively complex brand of progressive folk, driven by the presence of four full-fledged virtuoso players. Whippersnapper spent most of their first year honing their sound and repertory, which started out fully formed, drawing on the song-bags of all four members. As a result, their debut album, when it came time to do it - recorded for their own Whippersnapper label - came together very quickly. The Promises long-player was recorded in December of 1984 and in stores just about eight weeks later, and well received by fans and critics. A second LP, Tsubo, didn't appear until 1987, and it was similar in form and structure to the first. A third studio album was intended, but in the interim the quartet issued These Foolish Strings, a compilation of four years' worth of live recordings. The fourth album, Fortune, was released in early 1990, and also marked the end of Swarbrick's involvement with the group. The group continued as a trio of Leslie, Dempsey, and Jenkins, and Leslie and Dempsey recorded the LP Always with You, released in 1996. Dempsey eventually teamed up with Swarbrick anew, while Leslie joined one of the latter-day lineups of Fairport Convention.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/whippersnapper-mn0000247625

Shooting Daggers - Manic Pixie Dream Girl

 #Shooting Daggers #hardcore punk #riot grrrl #metalcore #feminist punk #post-hardcore #thrash metal #queercore #European

‘We are queer, and we’re gonna live!’ roars Shooting Daggers’ singer Sal Salgado Pellegrin, on We Will Live, the penultimate call-to-arms on the band’s fearless new EP, Athames. It’s a lyric that sums up the steely eyed attitude behind the band’s brutal, yet triumphant, hardcore punk. Heavy music is a place where people can find a home, when they feel they don’t belong anywhere else. But for a community that prides itself on inclusivity, metal and hardcore can still be unwelcoming spaces for women, the LGBTQ+ community and people of color. It’s those intolerances that the trio - made up of French vocalist and guitarist Sal, Italian bassist Bea Simion and Spanish drummer Raquel J Alves - are determined to eradicate. Inspired by the riot grrrl movement, G.L.O.S.S and Black Flag, alongside queercore peers Sharptooth and Pupil Slicer, they’re fiercely and noisily taking their own space in metal’s traditionally white, cis-het male scene.
“We’re vegan, we’re feminist, we’re women, we’re queer, we’re political, so we’ve got a lot to say,” says Sal. “Our music shares our perspective on our place in the scene, and in the world. I feel like you still have to prove you’re worth something and you’re not a poser when you’re a woman in the scene. Sometimes people come to us, and they say, ‘When I saw you going onstage, I didn’t expect you to be that hardcore, that heavy,’” adds Bea, arching an eyebrow. “And I’m always like, ‘Why wouldn’t you expect us to be heavy?’”
Sal and Bea formed the band in London in 2019, releasing their debut demo EP that October with a different drummer. After a line-up change, Raquel, a long-time London resident and band booker on the local scene, joined the ranks in November. “I’ve noticed people are more open to booking different bands,” says Raquel of the progression she’s noted since she started working at shows 15 years ago. “At least you have some representation on the stage. It’s changing, really slowly, but now there are a lot of bands speaking up with their views. When I was younger, you wouldn’t see a black metal band that was anti-fascist, or a queer doom band like Vile Creature.”
“But even though hardcore is a safe space for us, there is still a lot of work to do,” Bea cuts in. “It’s still very white. It’s still very misogynistic. A lot of girl and queer bands still don’t have a space. You still need to have male respect: when men respect and like you, that’s when other people like you too. Men for sure still own the scene and they decide who is cool and who is not.”   From: https://www.loudersound.com/features/shooting-daggers-the-politically-charged-hardcore-band-who-will-not-be-silenced

Needshes - One Day

 #Needshes #Otabek Salamov #alternative rock #indie rock #pop rock #soul #blues rock #funk #singer-songwriter #multi-instrumentalist #Uzbekistan #animated music video 

The Central Asian country of Uzbekistan is the homeland of Otabek Salamov (Bek), songwriter, composer, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and founder of the alternative rock/indie-pop band Needshes. Currently based in Moscow, the band – rounded out by Ivan Petukhov (guitar) and Alexey Manakhov (drums) – continues to expand their eclectic style rooted in David Bowie, Queen, and James Brown in 2020. Bek started his musical journey in early childhood. He attended the music academy in his hometown, Tashkent, where he was awarded the first national prize for his precision on clarinet at the age of 13. As a teen, his interests varied, and he was drawn to compose and perform metalcore in night clubs with cross paint on his face. At that time, Bek was working as an assistant audio engineer in local studios, so he quickly adapted to recording and producing his own music. One day he decided to dilute it with melodic undertones. In the process of creating this transition, he realized that the switch was something that gravitated to his liking. In 2013 he founded a melodic rock project, Needshes, and moved to Moscow. His biggest influences stemmed from The Killers, Jack White, James Brown, David Bowie, Queen, RHCP, U2, a-ha, Coldplay, and Nirvana. Otabek gathered a full traditional formation around his brainchild with the intent to create authentic rock music. In 2016 after several line-up changes, Ivan (guitar) and Alexey (drums) joined him and made it possible for the sound created in the studio to fully sound live.  From: http://syncsummit.com/needshes/

Sheryl Crow - Maybe Angels

 #Sheryl Crow #country rock #folk rock #blues rock #alternative rock #heartland rock #roots rock #singer-songwriter #1990s

Hiring noted roots experimentalists Tchad Blake and Mitchell Froom as engineer and consultant, respectively, Sheryl Crow took a cue from their Latin Playboys project for her second album - she kept her roots rock foundation and added all sorts of noises, weird instruments, percussion loops, and off-balance production to give the eponymous “Sheryl Crow” a distinctly modern flavor. And, even with the Stones-y grind of "Sweet Rosalyn" or hippie spirits of "Love Is a Good Thing," it is an album that couldn't have been made any other time than the 1990s. As strange as it may sound, “Sheryl Crow” is a postmodern masterpiece of sorts - albeit a mainstream, post-alternative, postmodern masterpiece. It may not be as hip or innovative as, say, the Beastie Boys' “Paul's Boutique,” but it is as self-referential, pop culture obsessed, and musically eclectic. Throughout the record, Crow spins out wild, nearly incomprehensible stream-of-consciousness lyrics, dropping celebrity names and products every chance she gets ("drinking Falstaff beer/Mercedes Ruehl and a rented Leer"). Often, these litanies don't necessarily add up to anything specific, but they're a perfect match for the mess of rock, blues, alt-rock, country, folk, and lite hip-hop loops that dominate the record. At her core, she remains a traditionalist - the songcraft behind the infectious "Change Would Do You Good," the bubbly "Everyday Is a Winding Road," and the weary "If It Makes You Happy" helped get the singles on the radio - but the production and lyrics are often at odds with those instincts, creating for a fascinating and compelling listen and one of the most individual albums of its era.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/album/sheryl-crow-mw0000075511

Donovan - Wear Your Love Like Heaven

 #Donovan #folk rock #psychedelic folk #psychedelic rock #acid folk #British psychedelia #singer-songwriter #1960s

Rock music's first two-LP box set, Donovan’s A Gift from a Flower to a Garden overcomes its original shortcomings and stands out as a prime artifact of the flower-power era that produced it. The music still seems a bit fey, and overall more spacy than the average Moody Blues album of this era, but the sheer range of subjects and influences make this a surprisingly rewarding work. Essentially two albums recorded simultaneously in the summer of 1967, the electric tracks include Jack Bruce among the session players. The acoustic tracks represent an attempt by Donovan to get back to his old sound and depart from the heavily electric singles ("Sunshine Superman," etc.) and albums he'd been doing - it is folkier and bluesier (in an English folk sense) than much of his recent work.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/album/a-gift-from-a-flower-to-a-garden-mw0000691015

This very psychedelic song is a nod to the divine, conjuring up images of nature's colors and invoking both God and Allah. Heavy stuff. In our interview with Donovan, we asked how he came up with the vibrant images that appear in the lyric. Lines like:

Color sky Havana lake
Color sky rose carmethene
Alizarian crimson

Donovan explained that like many great songwriters - Joni Mitchell, John Lennon, Bob Dylan among them - he dabbled in art and thought in terms of paintings. This song is an example of translating images on a canvas into words. "'Wear Your Love Like Heaven' was really a paint-ily song - watching a sunset go down," he said.

From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/donovan/wear-your-love-like-heaven

Ian Matthews - Old Man at the Mill

 #Ian Matthews #country rock #folk rock #British folk rock #Americana #singer-songwriter #1970s

A vital figure in the history of British folk, Ian Matthews was a founding member of the pioneering U.K. folk-rock band Fairport Convention before he went on to found his own group, Matthews' Southern Comfort, and later moved on to a solo career. Matthews possesses a warm and expressive tenor voice and a talent for songwriting. While he drew from British folk traditions in his work, his greatest inspiration came from American country, folk, and roots music, and he blended their timeless themes with a hippie-fied pastoral feel that was warm and sweet or sorrowful, depending on the song. Though he would dabble in soft rock, power pop, and synth pop in the late '70s and early '80s, he always returned to the sun-dappled sound of the country-folk hybrid that was his trademark.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/ian-matthews-mn0000768231/biography

“Old Man At the Mill“ is a traditional folk tune with many variations and slightly different titles and you can search for its history on google. Some of them delve into all these meanings of the circle of life and death as the turning of the mill and it’s certainly a good discussion among folk scholars of the 1960s when this song seems to have been recorded the most. But I’m a clawhammer banjoist who has played and danced at many old time dances. When I learned the words last year so I could record it on my baritone banjo, it became apparent to me that many of the lyrics were old square dance calls.   “First to the left and then to the right”  “Ladies Step Forward and the gents fall back” Also I’m going to guess that “one hand in the hopper and the other in the sack” is some dance direction lost to the last century or longer.  Also “Mill turns around of its own free will“ sounds much like some sort of circling movement.  Although much of this tune seems to be dance calls embedded in an earlier folk song, the last verse seems the most curious to me and I guess it may have been added at a later date? “My old man’s from Kalamazoo” which is a Michigan city famous for making Gibson banjos. No wonder banjoists love to play and sing this tune. And I’m no exception — I looked inside my old Gibson RB250 mastertone and sure enough it says “made in Kalamazoo, MI”.  From: https://www.banjohangout.org/archive/351543

Bjork - Wanderlust

 #Bjork #art rock #avant-garde #experimental #electronica #alternative rock #glitch pop #psychedelia #trip-hop #neo-classical #singer-songwriter #ex-Sugarcubes #Icelandic #animated music video

Video production team Encyclopedia Pictura created the mind-boggling 3D video for Bjork's new single "Wanderlust".

Dazed Digital: What is Encyclopedia Pictura?
Isaiah Saxon: Right now Encyclopedia Pictura is Sean Hellfritsch and me, working together to make movies, often in collaboration with artists Daren Rabinovitch and Vanessa Waring. Soon it will be more people, working not just on movies, but on augmented reality applications and practical magic.

DD: How was it working with Bjork?
IS: Bjork is very tapped in. She assumed a position of support and generosity with us rather than a position of creative oversight. Her energy and focus were so strong that it pushed us to take this project on with a tremendous amount of mythological weight and tunnel vision enthusiasm.

DD: What's the basic concept of the video?
IS: Bjork is an archetypal nomad, shepherding giant yaks through the Mountains. She does hydromancy to decide whether to take them down a river or not. A second self, the Painbody Backpack, sprouts from her like a growth and then engages her in an action play which displays their relationship. The force which compelled Bjork to go down river begins to manifest itself in Bjork's head and in the physical world. This character, the Rivergod, is a transcendental attractor which pulls her into the future.

DD: How long did the video take to create? What was the hardest aspect?
IS: The video took nine months from concept art to us being pulled - kicking and screaming - from our computers. Sean had to become a 3D expert and build a 3D camera system and playback box and pioneer lots of DIY processes. For me the hardest aspect was trying to achieve an immersive, complete, and very specific aesthetic - because the only thing in the video that isn't hand crafted is bjork's face, hands, and feet. I used my own hands everyday but also worked with over 50 key artists to achieve the forms and textures of this world. We tried to lodge ideas into the forms and use the patterns and textures of these forms to transmit meaning to the viewer.

DD: What made you want to work with 3D in the age of YouTube?
IS: Well, firstly let me get out the news that 3D doesn't work on YouTube because of heavy color compression, which is what anaglyph 3D glasses rely on for decoding the 3D properly. A lot of people watch 3D on YouTube without knowing that they are actually looking at something that is way screwed up, or 'ghosted' in stereoscopic jargon. Secondly, why 3D? Because we see the ultimate transcendental function of art as "expanding the realms of direct experience." 3D allows a film to be more like direct experience and less detached and seperate from how we organically percieve. Right now technology is still trying to create better home viewing solutions (anaglyph sucks), but theatrically it’s already there. Because we are trying to touch people the best we can, we don't take into consideration the unfortunate current quality standards set by PooTube (or more accurately, the bandwidth limitations of today), but this will all be changing very soon.

From: https://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/296/1/creating-bjorks-wanderlust-video

Black Sabbitch - War Pigs

 #Black Sabbitch #Black Sabbath tribute band #heavy metal #ex-Betty Blowtorch #music video

It’s not often that a band is born out of a name, but that was the case with Black Sabbitch. “We were just goofing around one night and someone said the name ‘Black Sabbitch,’ and we just thought, Maybe we should do that,” Black Sabbitch drummer Angie Scarpa explained. “I’m a freak for Sabbath - a complete and utter lunatic about Black Sabbath. So I said if you guys want to do this, why don’t we get together and play?” The band’s initial core was Scarpa and Betty Blowtorch guitarist Blare N. Bitch. They soon recruited Scarpa’s Art of Safecracking bandmate Melanie Makaiwi to play bass, and eventually found a vocalist in an actual Ozzfest vet - Aimee Echo from the Human Waste Project. This “all-female Black Sabbath” (don’t call them a tribute!) prides itself on the players’ roots in original bands. They don’t get together once or twice a year, practice a 45-minute set and play it the next week. Scarpa’s goal was to nail the experience to the extent that she felt like a member of Sabbath. “For me, since I am such a huge fan of the band, I didn’t want to do it unless it was going to be spot-on, but not in a boring ‘We sound like their record way.’ More in a ‘This is what it would have been like to see Black Sabbath in 1972. I really wanted to be able to have that experience for myself,” Scarpa said. Evidence of their quality lies in the fact that Ozzy asked the band to open a show for him last year.  From: https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2016/nov/23/blurt-dont-call-black-sabbitch-tribute/

The Jerry Garcia Band - Rubin And Cherise

 #The Jerry Garcia Band #Grateful Dead spinoff #John Kahn #Keith and Donna Godchaux #folk rock #blues rock #classic rock #1970s

If you took a listen already to Day Of The Dead, the mammoth Grateful Dead tribute collection which was curated by the members of The National and includes many of the most celebrated artists of today covering the band’s music, you might be at a loss to explain the inclusion of “Rubin And Cherise,” a story song done by Bonnie “Prince” Billy and Friends. You have to widen your search beyond the Dead’s catalog to find it; it was done by the Jerry Garcia Band on their lone studio album, 1978’s Cats Under The Stars.
The album was a huge commercial disappointment, but it was nonetheless one that Garcia maintained was a favorite of his in later interviews. “Ruben And Cherise” opens up the album with a bit of funky intrigue. The music pulses with life thanks to bold keyboards and Garcia’s guitar, which, filtered in such a way to sand off all its hard edges, flows through the song like liquid gold. Meanwhile the lyrics of longtime Grateful Dead collaborator Robert Hunter are engaging yet elusive, challenging the listener to make sense of this modern musical myth.
Set at Carnival in New Orleans, the song features three main characters: Rubin, the mandolin-playing axis of a love triangle, whose music is so magical “the breeze would stop to listen in/Before going its way again”; Cherise, whose love for Rubin invokes suspicion that manifests itself in visions of death; and Ruby Claire, who shows up later in the song and seems at first to be the other woman of the story who has coaxed Rubin away from Cherise, at least until the layers of Hunter’s tale unfurl and make us second-guess that setup entirely. It ends with Cherise being carried away in Rubin’s arms, apparently lifeless (and most likely the victim of Ruby’s jealousy), the hair that she once combed so assiduously now hanging limp.
If you focus too hard on the story, you might find yourself getting a bit tangled up and missing out on the nuance in Garcia’s performance, as he taps into the innate sagacity of his voice. Hunter’s lyrics also hit home when you’re not worrying about wondering about who did what to whom. His descriptions put us right into the scene: “Masquerade began when nightfall finally broke/ Like waves against the bandstand dancers broke.” And all of the machinations of the characters pale next to the wisdom of the narrator’s summation: “The truth of love an unsung song must tell/ The course of love must follow blind/ Without a look behind.”
That last line seems to suggest that those in the throes of love don’t have time for regrets or ruminations due to the straightforward, relentless track of their ardor. But it actually paves the way for the final verses of Hunter’s complete lyrics, which went unrecorded by Garcia and show Rubin travelling to the underworld to retrieve Cherise, a la the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. As Hunter told Rolling Stone in 2015, Garcia’s reluctance to mess with a finished product led to the exclusion.
“One thing Jerry wouldn’t do is go back over and redo parts of songs,” Hunter remembered. “I’d written that extra verse for ‘Friend Of The Devil’ and he said, ‘Why the hell don’t you give me these things before I record them?’ And also the same thing with ‘Rubin And Cherise.’ I had some ending Orpheus and Eurydice stuff in there to complete the story. He liked it but he said, ‘I’ve already recorded it and can’t go back and do it again.’”
Hunter’s version may spell out the story a bit more clearly, but there’s something compelling about the unfinished nature of Garcia’s take. Besides, his lustrous playing in the song’s closing moments tells us all we need to know about both the irresistibility and impossibility of love. So if you’ve just discovered “Rubin And Cherise,” go back and check out the original by the Jerry Garcia Band and get lost in the wondrous mystery of it all.  
From: https://americansongwriter.com/jerry-garcia-band-ruben-cherise/

Cats Under the Stars is the only studio album by the American rock band the Jerry Garcia Band. Released in 1978 on Arista Records, the album was the first release by the group, which was a long-running side project of Grateful Dead singer and guitarist Jerry Garcia. While the band continued until 1995, they were primarily a live concert act following the release of Cats Under the Stars and never recorded another studio effort. Grateful Dead members Keith and Donna Godchaux, who were at the time also part of the Garcia Band, contributed to the album.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cats_Under_the_Stars

Orb - General Electric

 #Orb #psychedelic rock #hard rock #heavy metal #fuzz rock #neo-psychedelia #Australian #1970s retro

Playing dark, sonically massive guitar-based rock that's heavy without sounding excessively metallic, ORB (not to be confused with the influential electronic group the Orb) hail from Geelong, Victoria, Australia. The group was founded by three members of the Australian band the Frowning Clouds after that band broke up: guitarist and lead singer Zak Olsen, guitarist and bassist Daff Gravolin, and drummer Jamie Harmer. The three musicians lived not far from one another, and with some extra time on their hands, they began jamming regularly. Inspired by their youthful enthusiasm for hard rock and early metal bands such as Black Sabbath and Blue Öyster Cult, they started writing tunes that drew tongue-in-cheek inspiration from doom rock and psychedelia as well as hard rock. The longer they crafted heavy jams, the more they came to appreciate the style, and the less they approached the music with a smirk. In January 2015, ORB released their debut recording, a five-song cassette titled Womb. Within a few months, the group had earned a solid reputation among Australian heavy rock fans, and they struck a record deal with Flightless Records, the label founded by King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/orb-mn0003515658/biography

Dutar - Gelem, Gelem/Kis Kece Lanyom

#Dutar #Hungarian folk #world music #Gypsy folk #traditional

Hungary’s traditional music is as tricky a mix of East and West, of secular and religious, and of ancient and modern as Hungary is itself. While some theorists trace the earliest Hungarian music, and the Magyar people, back to Siberia, at the heart of the most widespread Hungarian musical tradition is Italian Catholic plainsong, a type of religious chanting that consists of one unaccompanied melody line. When the Turks arrived in the 15th century and conquered part of Hungary they brought sounds from the East, as well as Roma people who came with their own unique music. While “elite” Hungarians developed classical forms generally identified with the West, Turkish and Romani music infused Hungarian village with an Eastern flair. Zoltán Kodály and Béla Bartók, two noted early 19th century Hungarian ethnomusicologists, educators and composers, traveled into these villages to record Hungarian “peasant” music. They documented Hungary’s folk music traditions just in time, because after World War II music became the official domain of the ruling Communists. The regime established folk choirs and orchestras and only allowed music to played in public that was fully sanctioned (and fully sanitized) by the Song Committee. An underground folk music scene rose in opposition; people gathered in the táncház (dance hall) and revived traditional dances like the csárdás as a form of cultural protest. When the Soviets crumbled, Hungarian traditional music left the táncház and flourished once again. Today urban Hungarian bands like the Roma folk/folk and the Besh o Drom and the “speed-folk” Transylvanians have revived Hungarian traditional music, bringing it into the modern age, making it relevant for a new generation.  From: https://www.allaroundthisworld.com/learn/eastern-europe-2/hungary/hungary-music/#.Y611g-LMJq8

The Youngbloods - All My Dreams Blue

 #The Youngbloods #Jesse Colin Young #folk rock #psychedelic rock #roots rock #blues rock #West coast psychedelia #1960s

The Youngbloods' sophomore release Earth Music is an uncommonly solid follow-up, expanding upon the musical directions introduced on their debut LP. The infectious "Sugar Babe" (also featured in Michelangelo Antonioni's film Zabriskie Point) is one of the group's most popular tunes, while such numbers as "All My Dreams Blue," "Dreamer's Dream" and "Fool Me" demonstrate the strength of the band members' songwriting skills and customized covers of Tim Hardin's "Reason to Believe," the Holy Modal Rounders' "Euphoria" and Chuck Berry's "Monkey Business" demonstrate the Youngbloods' talent for seamlessly integrating a broad array of influences.  From: https://www.roughtrade.com/us/product/the-youngbloods/earth-music

The Youngbloods' second long-player built on the strength of their self-titled debut by once again creating a blend of captivating songwriting with an infectiously fun delivery. Although the album failed to produce a definitive single - as "Get Together" had done on their previous effort - there are a handful of equally definitive sides scattered throughout Earth Music (1967). Featuring Jesse Colin Young (guitar/bass/vocals), Jerry Corbitt (lead guitar), Joe Bauer (drums), and Lowell "Banana" Levinger III (piano/guitar), the Youngbloods recall the uptempo good-time sound of their East Coast contemporaries, the Lovin' Spoonful, on the opening cover of the Holy Modal Rounders' "Euphoria." The first of several stellar compositions from Young follows with the laid-back "All My Dreams Blue." In addition to the affective songcrafting, Banana's upfront piano fills provide a jazzy counterpoint to the interlocking Bauer/Young rhythm section. This refined power trio would become the mainstay of their later post-Corbitt recordings. "Dreamer's Dream" highlights Corbitt's inimitable contributions to the band with a highly affective melody as well as his unencumbered vocals, which effortlessly intertwine with Young. The countrified interpretation of the traditional "Sugar Babe" is a precursor to the direction that the band's sound would take after their relocation to the West Coast. The track became an international hit no doubt due to its inclusion in the Michelangelo Antonioni film Zabriskie Point (1970). Other standout tracks include the high-steppin' "Wine Song" and one of the better revisitations of Tim Hardin's "Reason to Believe."  From: https://www.allmusic.com/album/earth-music-mw0000074392

Dir En Grey - Obscure

 #Dir En Grey #avant-garde metal #progressive metal #alternative metal #death metal #gothic metal #nu metal #metalcore #Japanese #visual kei #music video

Dir en Grey is the first Japanese metal band to break through in the West. Initially associated with visual kei (a Japanese musicians' movement that employed aesthetic tenets drawn from Western glam metal, including heavy make-up, elaborate hair styles, flamboyant costumes, and an androgynous look), they were arguably the most successful non-English speaking rock act since Rammstein. The band made its U.S. debut with 2007's The Marrow of a Bone, and played the festival circuit internationally as their sound began leaning on influences from goth rock and death metal to the theatrical metal of Korn and Slipknot. 2015's Arche - widely considered their masterpiece - added vanguard and technical death metal to the mix. In 2018 they revealed a more thrash-oriented sound with the controversial The Insulated World. They reappeared in 2022 with the decidedly more progressive Phalaris.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/dir-en-grey-mn0000937315/biography

The term "visual kei" was derived from one of Japanese rock band X Japan's slogans, "Psychedelic Violence Crime of Visual Shock", seen on the cover of their second studio album Blue Blood (1989). This derivation is credited as being coined by Seiichi Hoshiko, the founding editor of Shoxx magazine, which was founded in 1990 as the first publication devoted to the subject. However, he explained in a 2018 interview with JRock News that visual kei was technically coined, or at least inspired by, X Japan's lead guitarist Hide. Hoshiko also said that at the time they were called 'Okeshou Kei' ("Makeup Style"), "but it simply felt... too cheap. Even though X Japan was a big band and people used the term 'Okeshou kei' to describe them, the term was still lacking substance. I didn't like the term at all! Because of this, I tried to remind all the writers to not use this term as 'They are not okeshou kei, they are visual-shock kei'. From there, it went from 'Visual-shock kei' to 'Visual-kei' to 'V-kei'. After we spread the word, fans naturally abbreviated it to 'V-kei'. The Japanese love to abbreviate everything as a matter of fact." Hoshiko considers visual kei a distinctive Japanese music genre and defined it "as the music itself along with all the visual aspects of it."  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_kei 

XTC - Respectable Street

 #XTC #new wave #post-punk #progressive pop #art rock #pop rock #baroque pop #art punk #power pop #psychedelic pop #orchestral pop #1980s #1990s

The 1980 release Black Sea represents the last stand of the punchy, angular new wave that had won XTC strong critical and college radio support. Still arranging with an ear toward the stage they'd soon retire from, they continued working in the Drums and Wires style that had christened their previous release. Black Sea brims with XTC trademarks: engaging guitar hooks, cleverly rendered lyrics, and frenetic, creative melodicism. The material represents the pinnacle of XTC's early incarnation - a counterpoint to contemporary punk imbued with style, rhythmic punch, and melodic charm.  From: https://www.roughtrade.com/us/product/xtc/black-sea-1/vinyl-lp

Respectable Street

Andy Partridge: “Actually inspired by my neighbour who spends half her life banging on the wall should I so much as sneeze. Not knocking people who have ‘respectable’ ideals (I know I must have a few), more of a song of people with double or hypocritical values. You know the sort, blind drunk one night, church the next. Or the mother who urges her daughter to go out and have fun dear, isn't abortion wonderful. If their daughter got pregnant they would beat her senseless.”

Andy: “The BBC felt the lyrics on the song on Black Sea would upset people. They asked if I could rewrite it and, being a good boy, I did. Contraception became ‘child prevention’ and abortion became ‘absorption’. Still they wouldn't play it. Here's that old peoples, pre-chewed version.”

Andy: “The A&R man decided the BBC wouldn't play this with words like ‘abortion’ and ‘contraception’, so he took out all the words he didn't like. It wasn't a big hit, though, because the BBC still didn't play it. A couple of bands have covered it, and they always get the chords wrong. The second one's a seventh, formed from the E-string up. They always miss it.”
Dave Gregory: “It's not really a guitarist's chord, that one.”
Andy: “Nope, but it's a Partsy one.”

From: http://chalkhills.org/reelbyreal/s_RespectableStreet.html