Plainsong - I'll Fly Away

This, the latest in the series of Elektra reissues from Man In The Moon Records, is quite a strange album in that from the title you’d expect a concept album built around the legend of Amelia Earhart, but it only accounts for a couple of songs herein.  Plainsong were a band born with great expectations. It was formed by Ian* Matthews (guitar, vocals) and Andy Roberts (guitar, vocals) with the lesser known Dave Richards (keyboards) and Bob Ronga (bass). The album artwork doesn’t actually credit them.
I say there were great expectations. A guy I knew at school (who was a fan of all things Fairport) thought they could be the new Beatles (perhaps I exaggerate a bit there). But they were pretty good but didn’t stick around to live up to the early promise.
It’s a real mixed bag. Opening track For The Second Time is gorgeous and heart-breaking. It’s a Matthews’ song and utterly poignant. Every-time I hear him sing “For the second time in year I was broken” I feel my throat tighten. Maybe that’s because I can directly relate to it, but that aside it’s a really beautiful and moving song. The mood is immediately shattered by the next song Yo-Yo Man. It’s an upbeat country song, and in its own way perfectly fine. You could argue it is a fine example of the band’s versatility, but I find the contrast with the opening song jarring.
So what of Amelia Earhart, who is the heroine of the piece, you ask. There’s a trilogy of songs here: Amelia Earhart’s Last Flight and The True Story Of Amelia Earhart’s Last Night linked by I’ll Fly Away (the same song that appears on the O, Brother Where Art Thou? soundtrack performed by Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch). What the two songs about Earhart do is present competing narratives; the first is the story about her taking off from New Guinea, with Captain Frederick Noonan, as part of her attempt to circumnavigate the globe flying West to East and disappearing without trace. It’s the story I knew. The second suggests they landed somewhere and were captured, imprisoned and presumably died at the hands of the Japanese, the two pilots being spotted as prisoners by a stevedore in Saipan.
Last flight… was written by a songwriter named David McEnery who put it out in the late 1930s. It’s a strange song, because you’d expect it to be a lament but it’s a jaunty number that you could almost expect to be performed at a square dance:
“Happy landings Amelia Earhart/Farewell first lady of the air”
The linking song I’ll Fly Away is a simple arrangement of mandolin, handclaps and voices but while it is much the same interpretation as the Krauss/Welch version it sounds really strange to hear male voices singing it. Once I got over the disconsternation of this it works really well.
The True Story… initially seems too wordy but it really worked some magic on me because after a few listens I came to really like it. Its feel is much sadder, recognising that it is about two people who died, and a complete contrast to Last flight… musically as well in the narrative. Even The Guiding Light follows Earhart and is really intriguing. It appears to be a farewell to Fairport Convention, but one tinged with bitterness and regret.
“I went up on the ledge/And didn’t find a soul around…”
For those unfamiliar with Fairport Meet On The Ledge has become their anthem and closes the Cropredy Festival each year.
The chorus goes:
Meet on the ledge, we’re gonna meet on the ledge/When my time is up I’m gonna see all my friends
On the original version Matthews shared the vocals with Sandy Denny. Here he sings:
“Now we’re falling over all these chiefs/And running out of braves”
and later in the song:
“Send me home with a country song/And leave it ringing round”. Yet while this suggests that the parting was less than sweet sorrow, time has healed the wounds and they’ve played together in various groups and Matthews has appeared at Cropredy. But clearly the country direction that Matthews followed with Southern Comfort and later on with this record shows he was very much at odds with the direction Fairport went in. The song is the rockiest on the album and finishes with an excellent guitar solo, I assume played by Andy Roberts.
It’s followed by another gorgeous Matthews composition Side Roads. Another melancholic song but again simply beautiful. Possibly addressed to the same lover that For The Second Time is about, it again features some lovely guitar from Andy Roberts and is probably my favourite song on the album.
The album ends with a song by Jerry Yester and Judy Henske titled Raider. This is taken from one of the notable reissues of 2016, their album Farewell Aldebaran. It got high praise in the reissue thread elsewhere on this site. This is a driving, menacing version completely at odds with the original. An excellent album closer. Earlier in the album there’s another Matthews’ composition Call The Tune which could also be a Fairport farewell, but less obviously. Again it demonstrates Matthews’ songwriting capability with a strong melody and literate lyrics.
The remaining two songs are Diesel On My Tail and Louise. Diesel could be a Merle Haggard song (though it is credited to someone just given as J. Fagan). It seems to me to be the inspiration for Steven Spielberg’s first film Duel. It was the title track for a Bluegrass album by a couple of guys called Jim and Jesse, released in 1967. It’s about a guy in a car being chased by a diesel truck:
“While I’m trembling a’shaking he’s blowin’ on the horn/So close I could steal his licence plate”
The Plainsong version is less bluegrass and more a straight country rock version. Louise is a song I know sung by Bonnie Raitt, and the arrangement here is the same as hers, though tougher sounding with the male vocals.
Lastly I’d like to mention the cover art. At first glance it’s somewhat unprepossessing, but then I started noticing some of the details, the lettering, the borders and it’s a fine art-deco pastiche, with a design echoing the Japanese Rising Sun flag and is all in all is rather excellent. It’s credited to Seabrook/Graves/Aslett – names that mean nothing to me. So what we have is a mixed bag. The strange thing is that the strongest songs are the Ian Matthews compositions, but only five of the eleven are his. The sad aspect is that the band didn’t last. No doubt at the time they felt (may have been pressured into) getting the album out and getting on the road. In 1972 the turnover of album releases was at a far higher rate than today. A gap of two years between releases was almost unheard of.  From: https://theafterword.co.uk/plainsong-in-search-of-amelia-earhart/

Suddenly, Tammy! - Live at Rafters, West Chester, PA 1993

Suddenly, Tammy! was formed by siblings Jay and Beth Sorrentino and friend Ken Heitmueller in Lancaster in the early ’90s. By 1992, the band had gained national attention. It later signed to Warner Brothers and opened for acts such as The Cranberries and Jeff Buckley. But after the deal with Warner Brothers went south, the band decided to take a break.
It ended up being a pretty long break — 23 years, to be exact. That hiatus will come to an end Friday night, when all three original members take the stage at the Chameleon Club during Lancaster Roots & Blues. These days, band members are spread out throughout the country. Beth lives in Los Angeles, Jay is in Austin, Texas, and Ken is in New York City.
The Sorrentinos grew up together in Mountville. Jay, the elder sibling, started playing drums before he reached double digits. When Beth started playing piano, they naturally started playing together. “We were kind of playing in a band together all of our lives without even knowing it,” Beth says. “It was kind of forming all along.” When they got older, they initially played in separate bands. But after Jay heard Beth play with Ken, he got involved in their project, too. Ken worked as the sound engineer at the Chameleon Club, often pulling double duty by working the sound board at the band’s shows.
The band’s earnest music blended pop and rock with upbeat enthusiasm. Beth’s sweet vocals deepened the charm. Suddenly, Tammy! embraced the DIY ethos of the time, making their own T-shirts, copying their own tapes, and hand-coloring the artwork on their cassettes. They gained a following locally in Lancaster, but also in Philadelphia (thanks to radio station WXPN), and later in New York City.
The Sorrentino siblings both point to the same moment when trying to pinpoint when they made it big. One day in 1992, Jay received a call from Karl Heitmueller, Ken’s brother who managed BBC Records in downtown Lancaster. He just received a fresh copy of College Music Journal. “He called me and he was like, ‘You’re not even going to believe it. You’re on the cover of CMJ,’ ” Jay says. Jay’s response? “Shut up.” It was a big deal. The magazine was a trusted resource for college radio stations and music junkies alike. “People followed that magazine like gospel,” Beth says.
The Sorrentinos had put the number for their family’s landline on their cassettes. After their CMJ cover debuted, the phone started ringing “off the hook,” Beth says. More success followed. They earned gigs as the opening band for major national acts. At a New York City show opening for The Cranberries, famed producer and industry executive Lenny Waronker of Warner Brothers records showed up to scope out the band — a rare occurrence for an executive of his stature. They signed with the label, which released the band’s 1995 sophomore album “We Get There When We Do.” It later self-released its third album. Suddenly, Tammy! played its last show before hiatus at the Tin Angel in Philadelphia. Beth and Ken moved to New York City, and Jay opened a recording studio in a Gothic revival church in downtown Columbia in 1999.
Beth has played separately with Jay and Ken as duos on occasion since the Tin Angel performance. But the trio hasn’t performed together since. The band was encouraged to reunite at Lancaster Roots and Blues after festival founder Rich Ruoff ran into Ken at an event last year. All three members had been hoping for a reunion for some time, it turns out. “I thought, you know what, this might not be such a bad time,” Beth says. “None of us are getting any younger.” Suddenly, Tammy! will include songs from each album in its setlist. The band plans to present the music chronologically, too. “Plant Me,” “Hard Lessons” and “Rushmore” are among the songs Jay is most looking forward to playing. They’ve been practicing solo in their respective cities and will have one day to rehearse in the Sorrentinos’ father’s basement before the show — a fitting location, Beth says. “That’s where we all started,” Beth says. “We all started in that basement.” They’re excited to see family, friends and fans at the Chameleon Club. But most of all, they’re just excited to be making music in unison again. “It really is magical when the three of us play together,” Beth says.  From: https://lancasteronline.com/features/suddenly-tammy-reflects-on-career-before-reunion-show-at-roots-blues/article_ee0d9a70-353d-11e9-86e1-939f470ed30a.html

War - Slippin' Into Darkness - Live 1972

This song is about trying not to slip off that other side, the deep end. War drummer and founding member Harold Brown told Songfacts: "Howard (Scott, War guitarist) was working on some lyrics and he had this concept, thinking of how one could slip into darkness. Your mind could just go on, and you just go off to the left - you have to be careful, you have to say, 'Don't go there.' It's like that wall between sane and insane. We all figure we're sane, and once in a while we look past that wall, our head pops over and we look and we say, 'Here's Johnny.' I always like that. You look over there and you see certain things, and some of us have been known to go over there and stay, and there's some that pop their heads right back. Because that's just right on that borderline of sane, insane, and really close to being a genius.
You get in that moment of creation and you start seeing things different than the way a lot of other people are seeing it. Most of the stuff we're seeing, it's accessible to all of us, but then we go and take these different words or materials. It's how you rearrange it that makes it different and it presents itself. Like a tree. I look at a tree, and I say, Okay I could do a couple of things with that tree. We can let it stay there, it's beautiful, I can cut it down, make firewood, or I can make furniture with it but rearrange it. You have to watch that balance. That's when guys start getting all blown out on drugs and stuff, and become crazy. You find out the people that have the highest amount of creativity, there's a fine line between them being sane and insane. They're the ones I find, guys that are really out there. You got to have a certain way to talk to them, you got to know their moods. You got to know those events, those episodes, when you're dealing with them.
I can think of a few, like our bass player (B.B. Dickerson). He's a brilliant person, the one that sang 'World Is A Ghetto.' He's so in touch. I think he went to Tibet and those places when he was very young, and he started seeing different things and experiencing different cultures and different glimpses of various wisdom. So a lot of time B.B. is very sensitive. I know there's a certain time I can go and give him a hug, and a certain time I know, don't touch. When he's in his certain mood or certain zone, I let him there, because I can go into his world and all of a sudden startle him. That's just amazing. I read a book called Creators On Creating, and they wanted to find out the state of mind of people when they're creating, like the guy that came up with DNA, or Einstein - they've got that fine line. You'll find generally that they're sensitive people. Different things can affect them different ways, so it's a balance you've got to find."


Steve Gold, who was War's manager, hooked them up with Eric Burdon, who was famous as lead singer of The Animals. They released two albums as "Eric Burdon and War" before Burdon left and War struck out on their own. Gold championed this song and got it airplay in many cities, which led to it becoming War's first hit without Burdon.


Howard Scott would sometimes introduce this song with a story about how when the band was traveling in London, he tried on a pair of boots that were way too small. Employees at the store yanked them off so hard, it threw out his back, and he ended up in the hospital, where they gave him a sedative. As it took effect, he found himself "slipping into darkness," which gave him the idea for the song.


Harold Brown: "'Slippin' Into Darkness,' there was a rhythm. I had perfected that rhythm out of a combination of rhythms. So when Howard came together with certain ideas and time sets of lyrics, I said, 'The next song that we play, I'm making sure that rhythm fits in it.' I was the only one written up in Downbeat for that particular rhythm that took and changed the course of drumming into the '70s. Even to this day drummers, they want to see how I play that. Miles Davis did Bitch's Brew, that finally liberated me. It's not a mistake if you constantly repeat it. It becomes deliberate. I've seen different drummers that all of a sudden just create a whole 'nother thing or just make it work."


You can hear similarities between this song and Bob Marley's 1973 release, "Get Up, Stand Up." Says Brown: "Me and Bob Marley and B.B. Dickerson were in Atlanta, that was the last time we were together. We were walking to the radio station. Bob Marley looks at me, and he punches me on the arm, and he said, 'Boo. I do song for you guys. I do song for you guys.' Song was "Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights.' He took that from 'Slippin' Into Darkness,' that motif. He told me, 'Your band, you're like us, you're street musicians.' That's when I knew we connected. He kept bugging me, he said, 'Come down to Jamaica, spend time with me,' but they wouldn't let me go. Management said it was bad because there were problems going on in Jamaica at the time, and then because of the name of the group - War - and I had a big afro, radical look, you know."

From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/war/slippin-into-darkness

The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger - Animals

Here’s a nice psychedelic freak show from GOASTT, the band otherwise known as The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger, otherwise known as Sean Lennon, who is otherwise known as John Lennon’s son. Sean’s girlfriend, actress/model Charlotte Kemp Muhl, is also in the band and they truly seem to have some bewitching musical chemistry with their heady lyrics flying over the busted drums, junkyard percussion, and fuzzy bass. An ode to the alternative rock and roll swagger Lennon Sr. helped refine during his “I Am The Walrus” period—perhaps pushing the boundaries a little more, at least with this wild music vid. The psychedelic video for the single “Animals” sets out to spoof the Source Family and all things wacky and occult. Wait for the UFOs ’round the 4:00 mark, and be sure to catch Sean and Charlotte on their current tour.  From: https://www.thevinyldistrict.com/storefront/2014/09/needle-drop-ghost-saber-tooth-tiger-animals/

We'd left them sitting side by side on their four-poster bed, a young, urban and decidedly hype couple, straight out of a fashion shoot for a trendy magazine or a Wes Anderson film. We've also known since Friendly Fire that Sean Lennon was an undeniably gifted musician and composer who now wisely prefers the anonymity of a band (with his girlfriend, model Charlotte Kemp Muhl) in order to escape an overwhelming heredity. His self-proclaimed eclecticism - from the soundtrack of an arty film to his participation in Mom's Plastic Ono Band via a few stints with The Flaming Lips - tended to muddy the waters. But while his last album, The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger, with its deliciously acoustic tones, was fondly remembered, no one expected him - or them, we should say - to make an album on the level of this totally psychedelic Midnight Sun, which is likely to shake many an audience. "Charlotte had only just heard 'Strawberry Fields Forever' when I met her," he once said of Kemp. It's reasonable to assume that she's had a refresher course or two since then, even if Midnight Sun is in no way, if not subconsciously, a Revolver/Pepper's pastiche with which the term "psychedelic", given Lennon's family tree, might be associated.
While the opening track, "Too Deep", may bring to mind some of the neo-planing rock of the late Oasis, it's the young guard (Temples, Tame Impala etc.) who are to blame. From "Xanadu" onwards, and especially the impressive "Animals", the case takes a completely different turn: The GOASTT's ambitious, unbridled compositions, with their often complex harmonies and structures, clearly rival the great pop goldsmiths of their time ("Last Call", "Poor Paul Getty"), as confirmed at the end of this kaleidoscope-like sonic trip by the almost seven-minute grandiose "Moth to A Flame", the real bravura piece of the record. Admittedly, here and there we'll find reminiscences of his illustrious father's first band (here, an upside-down guitar loop, there a pinch of slide, the vocal grain, especially troubling in the chorus parts). But above all, it's Sean's (and his partner's) artistic dimension that reveals every note of this strangely fascinating record.  From: https://fuzzymuzik.com/en/product/the-ghost-of-a-saber-tooth-tiger-midnight-sun-lp-_-neuf-new/

Slift - Altitude Lake

Slift released their debut EP ‘Space Is The Key’ in June 2017 via Howlin Banana (France) and Exag’ Records (Belgium). Inspired by Alain Damasio’s sci-fi novels and Pierre Ferrero’s illustration work, ‘Space Is The Key’ is a raucous wall of sound and energy. The five nervous tracks are loaded up with fuzz mayhem and maniac beats sharp enough to knock your head off spinning with their hypnotic riffs. In September 2018, Toulouse-based outer space jammers released ‘La Planète Inexplorée’, helped by garage rock producer Lo’Spider (The Monsters, Aqua Nebula Oscillator, Magnetix) and Jim Diamond (Fleshtones, Sonics, White Stripes) from the mighty Ghetto Recorders, Detroit. The record is the result of many overnight improvised sessions, probably due to their obsession with the krautrock scene and the 70s free jazz albums. Made of sci-fi digressions, the lyrics are about creating space warps and waking up ice giants after a millennia sleeping on a distant planet. In February 2020, Slift released their double LP ‘Ummon’ – a space odyssey about titans, blending acid krautrock, cosmic jazz and powerful heavy saturated guitars – through Vicious Circle Records (France/USA) and Stolen Body Records (UK).

What’s the basic concept behind forming Slift?

Jean Fossat: We love sci-fi novel called “La Zone du Dehors” (The Outer Zone) written by Alain Damasio. Slift is one of the characters. When the band started, we were playing punk. We wanted to explore another formula, trance, more progressive and “psychedelic”, which for us means freedom.

How did you guys get together? Did you play in any other bands together?

Remi and I are brothers, and we know Canek since high school. Canek was already listening to psych stuff back then. We wanted to start a band with Rémi. I called Canek and the next day we played our first jam. We’ve always played together. Over the years we have played in different bands in our area. And then we decided to start Slift, because it’s in this band that we can do what we want.

‘Ummon’ was released in February 2020 and your name exploded in the scene. What’s the story behind recording it?

We recorded this album in Toulouse with Olivier Cussac. He is an accomplished multi-instrumentalist, arranger, and sound engineer. We had this idea of a concept album, which would tell the exile of the titans to the borders of space and the return to earth of the titan Hyperion. We wanted a cinematographic aspect, to make images appear in the heads of people who would listen to the record. Olivier composes a lot of music for the cinema, so he was the man for the job! Musically, we sought the balance between jams and writing. I’ve been obsessed for a long time with this Hendrix track, ‘1983… (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)’, which I think represents that balance perfectly.

How would you compare it to ‘La Planète Inexplorée’ which was released in 2018?

The main difference between ‘La Planète Inexplorée’ and ‘Ummon’ is that we played a lot and therefore developed our sound. For ‘Ummon’, we took our time. IAt’s an album that we have thought from A to Z. Everything you hear on the record is what we wanted. This is the first time we have been able to do this. ‘La Planète Inexploréeis’ is quite another thing, recorded in three days, with all that implies of urgency and randomness. However, there is no “right” way to record an album.

You have several other releases like for instance ‘2016 : Spacetrip for Everyone’. Would you mind talking a bit more about those early stuff you released?

We were looking for our sound, so we were experimenting. It’s demos recorded in our barn by a friend. 2016, we wanted all our songs in the same key, with the same tempo.

How do you usually approach song writing?

I bring scenarios and riffs, moods or themes. Then we all jam together until we find the version we like. Then we play these versions live, they evolve, then we record them.

It was really cool to catch you on KEXP!

Thank you! It was our first live filmed experience. We have already played a lot of times in front of anyone on tour, but here with the cameras it’s something else. It is not a simple exercise! We are rather shy by nature.

How would you describe your sound and what are some of the main influences?

We are a power trio. It’s probably the thing that defines us the best I think. And we are all prayers at the Hendrix electric church. We dig the different psych eras. Krautrock a lot. Metal and noise. Blues and prog. We listen a lot of different things. When we started playing, the Osees were very important, we liked their way of playing music and for me John Dwyer has some similarities to Hendrix in the way he does things. He brought up to date a very elegant way of playing. Like a child, as if the guitar was playing a prank on you or playing hide and seek. But I must admit that we don’t really listen to the neo-psych scene anymore. At the moment I listen a lot to ‘Red’ (King Crimson), ‘Infinity Machines’ (Gnod), ‘Times of Grace’ (Neurosis) and ‘Ptah, the El Daoud’ (Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders), Yonatan Gat, Zombie Zombie… among many others.

From: https://www.psychedelicbabymag.com/2021/06/slift-interview-we-are-working-on-our-next-lp.html

Puta Volcano - Black Box

Puta Volcano started quite a few years ago. Would you like to talk a bit about your background?

Anna Papathanasiou: Our common background involves 3 LPs and 1 EP. At the very beginning Alex Pi the guitarist who also happens to be my brother asked me if I could join him in the studio because he was bored to death to just play the guitar on his own. And so it all began. From then on we grew bigger from every aspect of the term and are walking together up until this day as a family, or even better as a married couple of four.

What does the name “Puta Volcano” refer to in the context of the band name?

Nothing in particular at first. A friend of ours recommended the name one night that we were drinking wine in the countryside and we liked the sound of it. If we were to come up with a subtext though that would be the volcano in Chile with that exact same name. Well, it is in a way a cavity in the body of earth producing massive explosive amounts of steaming energy and that is something we kind of relate with when we write or play our music, so there you have it.

I first heard about your band when I heard Harmony Of Spheres released by IOTA5 Records. What’s the story behind it?

The album’s story is our imaginary wandering in a bunch of solar systems visiting uncharted territories and hearing to the tunes of the celestial bodies as they moved past by our studio spacecraft. IOTA5 on the other hand is a very earthling and dear member of the band managing us towards a decent representation out there and we love that person.

But your first album is from 2011, Represent Victory Below Eye?

Yes that is true. It was our first “official” recording as Puta Volcano. Steve S. the drummer was in the band for almost a couple of weeks by the time we hit the studio and the producer was the memorable Chris Tsangarides. It was our first step into some grown up recording procedures and attitude and it will always hold a special place in our hearts and minds.

And in 2015 you released The Sun via Front Yard?

Yes also correct. It was an interesting collaboration.

Can you share some further details how your latest album AMMA was recorded?

With hips of creative anxiety, different opinions about almost every single aspect of it that ended up converging when we all stepped foot in the recording studio. Johny Tercu was in charge of the production and we handed it over to him after the preproduction to take it a step further. In this case we were his instruments. Have to say though we were all slightly more mature than some while ago when we recorded Harmony of Spheres. Time cannot pass by super gently for any of us.

Is there a concept behind it?

Yes, and a rough connection with Harmony of Spheres makes sense in our minds. It is the return from our wandering trip to our place, only this time it seems unfamiliar like something has glitched. And to be honest the recent events with the pandemic caught up with us. We are describing a dystopian reality that has made us shut our mouths and watch history being recorded as we speak.

The cover artwork is really interesting.

Oh thank you, glad you like it. It actually is a sculpture I did back in 2018 in New York as part of a performative piece I did there as a resident artist. It is a universal mother wrapped in a space blanket, something like a solid monument to all the caretakers giving life and making it blossom.

How pleased were you with the sound of the album?

It is different. Personally I consider it a new point of view to an already existing sound. Like writing a text with a different quality of ink.

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

A great bunch. Nirvana, Tool, and a lot more. But in general we all come from different musical backgrounds which creates tension, diversity and spark at the least. We are happy and lucky to be so different with one another.

Do you often play live?

Well that hurts right now, I bet all of the musicians around the world. We were about to hit the road in mid April but Corona had other plans. Normally we would have a lot of gigs within 2020. That is our favourite part of being in a band playing live with a living audience sweating under the stage.

Do you think your music reflects the current situation in Greece?

Yes and no. In a microscale it reflects each one of the 4 of us, so we are part of the Greek reality more or less which makes us receptive to anything that has being going on here for the past tough years, but other than that we like to practice some sort of escapism through our chords and lyrics. We share our feelings between what we go through and what we visualize in our daydreaming.

From: https://www.psychedelicbabymag.com/2020/04/puta-volcano-interview.html

Cream - We're Going Wrong - Live

I saw Cream in fall of 1968, October, Olympia Stadium in Detroit (the old Red Wings arena). The stage was set up in the middle of the arena, me and my friends were lucky to have seats in the first row of the ‘regular hockey seats’ (there were chairs set on the floor as well), and we happened to be close to the center of the arena so we were close to them, and by luck a little in front of them (there was seating behind them as well IIRC) - perfect seats IMO.
Clapton was all in white - white pants, white shirt, white mod jacket. Clean-shaven, perfectly coifed long-ish straight hair hanging over and semi-hiding his face. There was no ‘show’ put on - they weren’t showmen except for Ginger Baker (RIP), who looked just like Sesame Street’s “Animal”, who I figured was modeled on him … tho Ginger also looked like he was 100 years old, altho he was 28. Jack Bruce (RIP) was all business but went all-out, workman-style. He quickly looked a mess up there, but he wasn’t there for his looks. Powerful voice, and much more of a bass-playing virtuoso than we knew or were expecting. And the band was all business … serious British Blues from start to finish. Massively loud, especially Clapton … but we were used to that, and after all that’s what we were there for … we loved it.
The performance was magnificent … three guys sounding every bit as good as their records (except the opening to “White Room”, which they did as a voice-harmony). Clapton was absolutely virtuosic (spoiling me from ever appreciating, for example, Jimmy Page in the two times I saw Led Zep), as we got used to him being - tho his voice was noticably weaker than Bruce’s, and he seemed to use it in the upper ranges as if that’s where he wanted to be, tho he’s not a tenor. Bruce never went into falsetto on “White Room”, which he did on the record I believe … and he sounded better in his regular voice here.
They played their classic Cream songs (from what I remember) including “Sunshine of Your Love” (which Clapton introduced, saying only, “And now … our Hit”), “White Room,” “I’m So Glad,” “Politician,” the great “Deserted Cities of the Heart” (my favorite Cream song), “Spoonful”, “Crossroads”, Baker’s “Toad” & “I Feel Free”. It was powerful, wonderful … Clapton was Clapton, Bruce was so impressive, and Baker was Ginger.
We’d seen, just weeks before, the magnificent “Jeff Beck Group” (Beck, Rod Stewart on vocals, Ronnie Wood on bass, the great Nicky Hopkins on keyboards, Micky Waller on drums), and in a smaller venue … so the bar had set been extremely high for us. This concert was every bit as good … and in a live performance there’s a huge built-in advantage in having an additional instrument up there, which Jeff Beck had in Nicky Hopkins (RIP), as well in having a smaller venue (for sound quality).

From: https://www.quora.com/What-was-it-like-to-see-the-band-Cream-play-live

Jaala - Hard Hold

When she was recording her band’s debut album, Cosima Jaala leapt around the studio, whiskey-drunk and mostly naked, with a wildness that surprised even her. “It was a magical summoning of power,” she explains when we meet in the shady yard of her Melbourne share-house,“It was something that I didn’t really have at the time.” The resulting record, Hard Hold, has been described as jazzy, but Jaala rejects most of those comparisons. “If a chord isn’t major or minor, people just say it’s jazz,” she says. Rodeo-riding the dynamic instrumentation is her soulful, elastic voice, which Jaala attributes to the cigarettes she smokes throughout our talk. Producer and engineer Paul Bender, who also plays bass with Australian neo-soul quartet Hiatus Kaiyote, was the one who first urged her not to be shy with her singing. Now she holds little back, ripping out anguished screams one second and dropping to a rattling husk the next.
Jaala was raised in Queensland, in a working-class beach town southeast of Brisbane with plenty of insidious ugliness: underage sex, hard drugs, gambling. “I started binge-drinking young because it was the kind of thing you did,” she says. “There was no real scope of the outside world. It was this reality that I figured out from a young age I didn’t want to be in.” I’d rather give my two good playing hands than stay in that hot climate and marry one of those men, she vows over a couple sideways chords on “Salt Shaker.”
As a young teen, Jaala escaped the humdrum grit of Queensland with her close friend, Maddie. “We started creating our own personal myths; we went through the existential phase of ‘Oh, everyone’s just moving the furniture around. Let’s get out of here and be us’,” she tells me. “We would go to the bookshop and find literature that spoke of the outside world.” The book Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins, which tells of the “iron and fuzz” required to steer one’s own destiny, was the catalyst that eventually encouraged her to skip town.
First she moved to Brisbane, where she haunted the pokey indie venue Ric’s Bar and observed the power held by cocky guys in rock bands. At 19, she moved to the creative hub of Melbourne and formed bands of her own—groups that teetered the line between punk and performance art, and had names like Velcro Lobster and Mangelwurzel—before focusing on her eponymous project in late 2014, and filling out its lineup with drummer Maria Moles, bassist Loretta Wilde, and guitarist Nicolas Lam. The result was a fleshed-out sound that channeled the vibes of classic indie misfits—particularly the buoyancy of X-Ray Spex and the temperamental rhythms of Throwing Muses.
Hard Hold documents a breakup, something Jaala says she felt better about when she heard Vulnicura, Björk’s 2015 album, which gorgeously chronicles the dissolution of a relationship. “I don’t think he’s too happy about these songs,” she says of her ex, “but he does the same thing with his band so it’s a pretty even playing field.” For Jaala, the record is like reaching out to her troubled teenage self. “When you had a hard time growing up, you want to send messages back: it’s going to be okay.” The ultimate gift, she reckons, would be to touch a nerve with those teens the way songwriters like Martha Wainwright and Jeff Buckley did with her. “They were so openly emotional and female, and so is this,” she says. “My album should just be called Songs From My Cunt.”
Near the end of our chat, Jaala fidgets with her blonde mop of hair and exhales a cloud of white smoke with gusto. She’s got the sort of presence that seems like it could get you both into a lot of trouble. “Last year was the most wasted year of my life,” she says, as if to confirm. “But it’s turned out to be the most fruitful, which is fucking hilarious.” This unruliness is evident across her project: in press photos, she’s lying in a bath with a rubber ducky; in videos, she’s sat on a toilet with tampons inserted up both nostrils. “Music innately is childish and playful,” she says. “When you’re older, you’re taught to shut that side of you off. But there are spirits that can hang around and compel you to do things.” She thinks for a moment. “If I was living a hundred years ago, I would have been institutionalised or murdered.”  From: https://www.thefader.com/2016/03/02/jaala-hard-hold-interview-gen-f

The Isley Brothers - It's Your Thing

"It's Your Thing" is a funk single by The Isley Brothers. Released in 1969, the anthem was an artistic response to Motown chief Berry Gordy's demanding hold on his artists after the Isleys left the label in late 1968. After scoring one popular hit with the label, with the song "This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak for You)", the Isleys felt typecast in the role as a second-tier act while well-established Detroit acts like The Temptations, The Miracles, and the Four Tops got more promotion from the label Motown.
The brothers' decision to leave Motown came after a successful British tour, where they had a bigger fan base than in the United States. A re-release of "This Old Heart" had reached number three on the UK Singles Chart. Similar success came with two more singles from their Motown catalog that were hits well after their Motown departure. Berry Gordy allowed the brothers to leave the label, and the Isleys reactivated their own label, T-Neck Records, which they had originally started a few years prior to their Motown signing.
Recorded in two takes and featuring the first appearance of 16-year-old Ernie on bass and Skip Pitts on guitar. The song was released as a single on February 16, 1969, and quickly rose to the top of both the Billboard pop and R&B singles charts, peaking at No. 2 on the former nd marking their first No. 1 hit in the latter. Upon the song's release and ascent to success, Gordy threatened to sue the group for releasing it in an attempt to bring them back to Motown, but he eventually cancelled his threat.
The song has been credited for being one of the first fully-fledged funk songs at the time that such artists as James Brown and Sly and the Family Stone brought their own funk anthems to the scene. Brown used the musical background from the song for the songs "It's My Thing (You Can't Tell Me Who to Sock It to)", an answer song by Marva Whitney, and Brown's own 1974 single, "My Thang".  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_Your_Thing

In this song, Ronald Isley is letting a girl know that she is free to spread her love around, as long as he gets some of it too. “It’s Your Thing” was a popular saying at the time and wonderfully ambiguous, so it could have a sexual connotation or simply be about personal independence.

In an interview on The Isley Brothers: Summer Breeze Greatest Hits Live DVD, Ronald Isley says he wrote this song while dropping his daughter off at school one day. He didn’t want to forget the lyrics so he hummed it in his head and rushed straight to his mother’s house to write it out. He sang it for his eldest brother O'Kelly, who thought it to be a hit, so they set up studio time to record it.

How did Ernie end up playing bass on this song?

Well, I was prepared in my mind to play drums. In rehearsal I had played drums, and then I switched off the drums and played the bass part. When we got to the session I was setting up the drum kit and the bass player came in, and I showed him what I had been playing. And when he started playing, he was more or less playing what he felt, but it wasn’t what I showed him. So just before we started the actual recording, Ronald came over to me and said in my ear, “You’re gonna play bass”, and my heart was immediately thumping. I was scared.They handed me the guy’s bass and put the headphones on me. I heard a voice saying, “Rolling” and counted it off. I held onto the bass for dear life and played it. And it turned out that it worked. Everything about that song, everything about that record worked. Everything. The tempo, the lyrics, the musical track. Ronald sang it on one take, the very first take. Of course, we didn’t know that it was going to be the Frankenstein monster hit 45 for the Isley Brothers’ career.
— Ernie Isley, Noozhawk, 2018

From: https://genius.com/The-isley-brothers-its-your-thing-lyrics

Magic Fig - Goodbye Suzy

Wondrous, majestic, and fantastical, Magic Fig’s debut rarely feels of these times, and it’s all the better for it. As so many struggle with their day to day existence, trying to make ends meet as the world crumbles around them, it’s not hype and “buzz” that we’re in search of, but a great escape, a place beyond the daily grind, beyond this realm altogether. The band’s self-titled album is an ever shifting kaleidoscope, the shapes all recognizable yet refracted in mirrored splendor. It’s a decidedly pop odyssey that wanders deep into the woods of late 60’s prog, Moog altered psych, and dream pop at its most visionary, a lysergic trip into an unknown cosmic past. As the isolation of the pandemic developed a need for collaboration and a communal approach in its wake, so came to be Magic Fig, stepping outside our reality, figuratively and somewhat literally as we decontextualize those involved from their best known work.
Featuring a selection of the Bay Area’s indie pop elite that includes members of The Umbrellas, Whitney’s Playland, Almond Joy, and Healing Potpourri, they’ve strayed beyond the jangle and crunch of power-pop, beyond any remnants of twee charm, instead embracing a tireless radiance and tasteful complexity. Magic Fig, comprised of Jon Chaney (keys), Matthew Ferrara (bass), Taylor Giffin (drums), Muzzy Moskowitz (guitars), and Inna Showalter (vocals), has one foot deep in the explorative and enigmatic world of Canterbury prog and the other in the pitch-bending dimension of psych. With nods to pioneers like Soft Machine, Caravan, and The United States of America, it’s clear that Magic Fig comes from a place of reverence, but the band are playing by their own rules. Having mastered the core elements of fuzzy pop hooks in their respective projects, they’re flexing different muscles, diving into the immersive abstract.
There’s an incredible balance to the record, the structures contort and drift into the choral abyss yet remain compact and breezy. It’s unabashed prog with a childlike glow, re-orchestrating our brains in under a half an hour, the band as concise as they are dazzling. The way Magic Fig weaves amorphous keys and dexterous rhythms with vocal melodies that feel more Broadcast or Stereolab than say Caravan, is rich with texture and immaculate detail. This isn’t progressive in an overtly flashy or indulgent way, the band are simply changing our mind’s chemistry, astounding with a graceful technicality (Taylor Giffin’s drumming alone will leave jaws glued to the floor). The songs evolve in plumes of serenity, a  never ending dream that remains eternally engaged, impossible to walk away from unchanged. Working together with producer Joel Robinow (of Once and Future Band, Howlin Rain), Magic Fig found their kindred spirit, an engineer whose own musical output could be considered their sonic and spiritual sibling. The recording is clear and precise, yet never overly polished, captured with a retro warmth that details each colossal drum fill, the natural waves of structural shifts, the celestial layering, and the unearthly hum of the manipulated Moog.
Magic Fig’s blend of prog and psych is sophisticated and developed, there’s a sense of patience even in the most dexterous of movements. From the hypnotic blossom of album opener “Goodbye Suzy” and its luminescent harmonies and the cavalcade of divergent drum patterns to the folk-leaning ease and natural aura of “Departure,” the band feel locked into the whole. They’re painting in unison with shimmering renaissance detail to create a singular masterpiece, a culmination of widespread ideas, each stunning texture given room to expand, balanced and with perfect synergy. Where songs like “PS1” lean toward lounge psych and “Distant Dream” opts for a laconic jazz induced art pop drift (reminiscent of Pearl & The Oysters), Magic Fig pair those moments with the pulsating paisley prog spirals of the appropriately named “Labyrinth” and the building disorientation of “Obliteration,” a song both gentle, soaring, and at times, rhythmically jagged.
Magic Fig is a record best experienced with an open mind. While the prog and psych inclinations create mountainous dynamics, being a fan of either genre isn’t inherently necessary on a record that’s far more accessible than one might imagine. Grandiose but delicate, Magic Fig are putting the pop into prog, and it’s safe to say they’ve stumbled onto something special, a slinking metamorphosis from magical dream state to vivid sonic exploration.  From: http://post-trash.com/news/2024/5/12/album-of-the-week-magic-fig-magic-fig

The Byrds - I Come and Stand At Every Door

There's no intro, just a chiming chord and straight into the vocal: "I come and stand at every door, but no one hears my silent tread. I knock and yet remain unseen, for I am dead, for I am dead." It's the recognisable Byrds sound, that Rickenbacker whine, but the tempo is slow, deliberate, with Michael Clarke's drums – so alive and mobile elsewhere – dragging behind the beat, like a funeral march.
On vinyl, I Come and Stand at Every Door is placed at the end of the first side of the Byrds' third album, Fifth Dimension: following three fast, super intense, proto-psychedelic tunes (Mr Spaceman, I See You, What's Happening?!?!), it could almost be a drag – and then Roger McGuinn's patient, paper-thin voice sucks you right in.
Musically, it's one long, lilting drone, taken from a traditional folk melody called Great Selchie of Shule Skerry (recorded by Judy Collins on her second album). The lyrics are adapted from a poem by the celebrated Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet – spoken from the viewpoint of a seven-year-old child incinerated at Hiroshima: "I'm seven now as I was then/When children die they do not grow."
I Come and Stand at Every Door was recorded in May 1966. During the previous year, pop had begun to go deeper and darker. Bob Dylan's ascent to mass popularity kick-started the protest boom of late 1965: among the plaints both consequential and trivial were anti-nuclear rants like Barry McGuire's Eve of Destruction and Tim Rose's Come Away Melinda.
The Byrds were more thoughtful. Thanks to their manager, Jim Dickson, and their own experiences, they had direct access to the hardcore beat/folk tradition. They had all grown up with the work of the blacklisted Pete Seeger, whose adaptations informed the Byrds' versions of The Bells of Rhymney and Turn Turn Turn, and whose translation of Hikmet's poem they used on this song.
The third verse takes you into the heart of the holocaust: "My hair was scorched by swirling flame/My eyes grew dim, my eyes grew blind/Death came and turned my bones to dust/And that was scattered by the wind." There is no solo, no break, just the relentless, measured, quiet voice: "I ask for nothing for myself/For I am dead, for I am dead."
No pop song had gone so far, nor pitched it so right. The documentary feel makes it of a piece with Peter Watkins's contemporaneous BBC film, The War Game (shot in 1965, scheduled for transmission in August 1966), which simply aimed to show the effect of a one megaton nuclear bomb hitting the town of Rochester. Banned by the BBC as "too horrifying", it was not shown until 1985.
Nuclear weapons haunted 60s pop culture. Throughout the 50s, there had been H-Bomb tests – weapons with the power of multiple Hiroshimas – and the world had nearly come to an all-out nuclear war during the Bay of Pigs face-off in October 1961. Throughout the late 50s and early 60s CND was a mass youth movement in the UK.
This ever-present threat – the Big Fear of the age – fostered a kind of mass existentialism. As Jeff Nuttall wrote in his brilliant survey of the 60s underground, Bomb Culture: "The people who had not yet reached puberty at the time of the bomb were incapable of conceiving of life with a future." The only certain thing in this world was what Nuttall called "the crackling certainty of Now".
People look back at the extraordinary explosion of music in the 60s with their own prejudices. They forget that it was rooted in a consciousness that felt the world could vaporise in an instant. In the same way, the onset of commercial youth culture – heralded by the creation of "the teenager" in late 1944/early 1945 – coincided with the end of the second world war and the terrible events in Japan.
I Come and Stand at Every Door reinforces this fundamental connection. But there is a resolution, some light at the end of the horror. As the song moves to its climax, a harmony voice comes in: "All that I ask is that for peace/You fight today, you fight today/So that the children of this world/May live and grow and laugh and play." The sense of catharsis is palpable.  
The Byrds put this masterpiece of tension and release into the US top 30 when its parent album Fifth Dimension entered the charts in September 1966. With nuclear weapons back in the news, this haunting, almost forgotten, song still strikes a chord.  From: https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2009/oct/12/jon-savage-byrds

Laura Marling - Devil's Spoke

After three months of shuttered concert venues, hearing Laura Marling’s voice eddy around the Union Chapel in north London is like being dosed with a vitamin I had been leaving out of my diet. It’s almost like hearing live music for the first time; a different kind of beauty than you get on a daily walk or a drive to a castle, something vividly real but constantly evaporating into the air.
Aside from 25 production staff, there’s almost no one else in the venue for this concert, which is being streamed online as one of the first fully realised gigs since the arrival of coronavirus. Backed solely by her acoustic guitar, Marling plays one set for the UK in the evening and a later one for a US audience. She is recorded in crystal clarity and filmed on three cameras, two of them roving around and approaching her, capturing the changing weather across her face.
There have been plenty of free lo-fi performances by stars on Instagram during lockdown, or charity initiatives such as Together at Home, but Marling’s concert is the next step for a live music sector flailing for its previous levels of artistry and revenue: £900m losses are predicted for this year in the UK. The event is ticketed at £12 or $12 a stream, and while her manager won’t give me exact numbers, he says more than 6,000 have been sold. Michael Chandler, the chief executive of Union Chapel, says events such as this feel like “a glimmer of light” for a shuttered venue that, with two-metre social distancing, could only accommodate 84 of its usual 900 capacity.
“I loved it,” Marling says between her sets, relaxed and happy. “I love the weirdness of the intensity of playing live, and that was a totally uninterrupted version of it. I don’t have to take a break and say something awkward – banter doesn’t come naturally to me.”
Marling superfan Mitchell Stirling, who watched the livestream at home and has seen her 32 times before, concurs. “Laura’s never one for onstage banter, so you’re not missing out on that kind of thing,” he says. “It was a strange hinterland between being at an intimate concert and watching a DVD, but it was excellent.” Another fan, Hannah Gallagher, says it was “gorgeous, and the production values were incredible. She doesn’t need to pull out many tricks, and that translated well. Me and my boyfriend WhatsApp-called each other while livestreaming the concert on our laptops; he put his phone up next to him so he could turn to me as if he was standing next to me at a gig, which was really nice.”
The livestream’s director, Giorgio Testi, says it is “a dream come true, because you can capture the beauty of the venue and the artist without ruining the experience for people watching in a crowd. My job can become even more creative.” He aimed for “something extremely cinematic”, using ambitiously long, unbroken shots to help immerse everyone watching at home, and says this approach demands an artist of Marling’s calibre. “It brings back the importance of being a very good performer, because you can’t hide. Either you can do it, or you shouldn’t show up on stage.”
The chat-averse Marling doesn’t acknowledge his cameras’ presence, but says there is potential for other performers to play around with them. “The ability to think up a persona with that level of intricacy is actually really hard, and that doesn’t come naturally to me, either. My persona, I guess, is holding on to intensity for as long as I possibly can. For other people, it’s more theatrical, and that could be an amazing extra quality to this new normal.”
The hope is that this could become an entirely new ticketed format to match the success of livestreamed theatre and opera performances, with the strictures of coronavirus forcing people to embrace the idea. Audiences who live too far from a touring route could get to experience a performer at close quarters, and as Hannah says: “There was no one putting their phones up and blocking your view; there was guaranteed clarity. And you don’t have annoyances like toilet breaks.”  From: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jun/11/i-loved-the-weirdness-can-laura-marlings-crowdless-gig-rescue-live-music

Deep Purple - Blind

Oddly enough, Deep Purple’s eponymous album is not the group’s debut, but rather their third effort, the last with the Mark I lineup which laid down so much for the future. By the time it was released, Rod Evans and Nick Simper were already being surreptitiously replaced with Ian Gillan and Roger Glover without their knowledge. This would be a reasonable explanation for the album’s banishment to the proverbial corner: it exists in a liminal space, out too late to be celebrated by the outgoing lineup and all but ignored by the incoming one eager to establish itself. The less romanticized side to the story is that Tetragrammaton, Purple’s record label, were experiencing financial difficulty and didn’t distribute the album much at the time of its release. Either way, in my opinion, it results in a great injustice, because this is the first truly great album Deep Purple unleashed.
Mark I finally come into their own as songwriters on this album. After two albums consisting of a great many covers mixed in with their own work, the young members of the band finally got going on creating their own music. The work they create as a whole is incredibly coherent while the individual pieces are memorable. There is still a cover included, but it is only one among eight, the lowest cover-to-original work ratio of this era of the band, and the feeling that the group is relying on others’ songwriting skills to bolster their own is therefore gone. The training wheels are off, so to speak.
This great songwriting is displayed right from the very start. The best albums start with a bang, and this was the first Deep Purple album to do so–with Ian Paice, Jon Lord and Ritchie Blackmore concurrently announcing themselves, to be exact. The number that follows, “Chasing Shadows” is an absolutely rollicking one, the best song on an album of strong songs. It sets the tone well for the album to come, being a song about the torture of insomnia. The excellence of the song comes down mostly to the brilliant drum line provided by Ian Paice. Paice has said that this song, like many he has come up with, relies mostly on rudiments. It also was influenced by African drumming patterns. This song established that Paice had come into his own as a musician; he remains a strong presence on the album, though this is his strongest performance.
Another quick mention must go to some of the other musicians on this song for opposite reasons, specifically the two stringed instruments. Nick Simper on this one is also a standout, giving a blistering bass line and keeping up easily with his rhythmic counterpart. He remains out of focus for the rest of the album, but in this moment he really shines.
Ritchie Blackmore, however, is surprisingly another story entirely. He remains weaker on the album, and while the solo on this song is decently memorable, it’s the only memorable work of his on this album. I will deal with him in due course, but first must mention the biggest issue he faces on this song: the very tuning on his guitar. For whatever reason, it sounds as if he decided to deliberately play on an out-of-tune instrument. It’s jarring and blends poorly with Jon Lord’s keyboards on this and other songs, at times being almost literally painful. It should be noted, in fairness to him, that this was a time of great transition in his sound as he moved into the harder-edged playing style that has defined him since. This still doesn’t make for a pleasant listening experience.
“Blind”, the second song on the album, interestingly uses the same three-note interval as the riffs from “Smoke on the Water” (albeit one a different key) and “Fools” (in the same key) to begin. It’s an interesting tidbit. Fitting well with the previous song about insomnia, this one was reportedly about a nightmare experienced by Jon Lord. He brings in a harpsichord, expanding the different keyboard sounds on the album quite elegantly and reinforcing the heavy classical influences found in Mark I. The lyrics, meanwhile, are some of the more mystical and psychedelic of the album, showing Evans the writer at his best. Once again, the worst part of the song is the guitar solo, which goes much too far in counterbalancing the harpsichord and once again is quite painful on the ears. The idea is good in theory, but poorly executed.
The third song, “Lalena”, is the only cover on the album. It’s just dripping with pathos without coming across as too much. Rod Evans is the standout here, giving one of the most emotional and tender performances of his tenure with Purple. The rest of the instruments keep a very light touch, highlighting him all the further. In the middle of the song, there’s a jazz-tinged instrumental break led by Lord. Blackmore gives his first good work of the album here as support to Lord, and the hints of their great instrumental partnership are visible throughout. The whole experience is intimate, tender, and bittersweet, making this one of the strongest covers the group has ever done.
Another one of the highlights of this strong album comes with “Fault Line”, featuring reverse-tracked drums and hammond for a rather unnerving experiences, along with hammond glisses to top the experience off. Lord and Paice work off one another smoothly. Simper briefly shines through as well, anchoring the two well. It contrasts well with the gentler “Lalena” which came before.
Warped tape sounds blend it smoothly into “The Painter”, which is reminiscent of a few of their earlier songs, specifically “Mandrake Root”. The song is sharper, however, with higher energy, hinting at their turn from psychedelia to hard rock. Evans’ lyrics are simple, fitting with the simple b-minor twelve-bar blues, but they’re still good. Neither of the two instruments who attempt solos end up with the most memorable performances, but neither are they particularly offensive. In the end, this is a solid song, less innovative than the songs preceding it but still a good entry.
The next set of songs aren’t quite as strong, but they’re by no means bad. “Why Didn’t Rosemary”, reportedly inspired by the group’s watching of Rosemary’s Baby during their previous US tour, has a twist of dark humor to it, elevating what could’ve been a typical bluesy number into something more memorable. The instrumental intro is an excellent tag-team by Blackmore and Paice, suggestive once again of the hard rock sound the two would anchor in the band’s next phase. Evans’ vocal work is alright, but lacking in emotional substance appropriate for a darkly humorous song. Ian Gillan’s wry delivery might have fit this song better; it’s a pity that this one never made it onto the stage. Neither instrumental solo is overly memorable, but the bouncy energy from the rhythm section makes the song well worth a listen.
“Bird Has Flown” was the first song recorded for the album, on the same day that the band recorded the pre-album single “Emmaretta”. Unlike the songs around it, this song looks back to the psychedelic sound the group had thus far used. It’s a bit of an anomaly, especially at this point on the album, and takes the listeners out a bit of what they were getting used to. Pity, because it’s a good song, just the one that flows the least well with the rest of the album. Evans once again must get a shout-out for a nice vocal performance and wonderfully trippy lyrics. Paice gets kudos as well for the way he provides a counterweight to everyone, keeping up with all of Lord and Blackmore’s solo work while also keeping the whole thing under control. It’s his switching between favoring hi-hats and favoring snare drums which show off the different sections of the piece, a small and seemingly obvious touch that nonetheless goes a long way for the song.
As a last observation, the opening sounds weirdly like the upcoming “No One Came” off of Mark II’s 1971 Fireball album to me. It’s bizarre but it’s there.
The closer for the album, “April”, is both an encapsulation of what has come before and a move subtly presaging what is to come later in the year. The two forces behind this, Blackmore and Lord, would soon move to rid themselves of Evans and Simper; fitting that these latter two don’t even seem to be present for anything but the coda of the song. The song also features a long orchestral portion, foreshadowing Lord’s forthcoming Concerto for Group and Orchestra. Between the Blackmore-Lord portion, the orchestral portion, and the band’s conclusion, this song clocks in at just over twelve minutes, the longest in their catalogue.
Longest, however, doesn’t always mean best. The three portions work together alright, but something is missing; it would probably have been better served keeping it as a trio of related but distinct pieces, like “Fault Line” and “The Painter” from side one. Meanwhile, within the song, there are a few glaring issues. Blackmore’s guitar is at its most annoying of the whole album, which is quite an achievement given how grating it was on some earlier songs. Once again, he sounds out of tune and blends with Lord poorly. The orchestral section following their duet seems somehow stiff and unfitting, though I still appreciate the guts the group had to include it. The best part is the full-band conclusion begun by the ever-energetic Paice assisted by Simper on D notes, which caps off the album and Mark I as a whole. The melancholy nature of this part of the song, then, is fitting, and manages to elevate the song from “not good” to “alright”. Though he had no way of knowing it was his swan song, Evans’ performance is another one of his strongest of the album, ending an overall mediocre song on a high note.
These songs as individual works range from decent but forgettable to sublime. The album’s strength, and why I consider it great, admittedly has less to do with the individual songs themselves and more with the larger picture they create. As a unit, this outporing of creativity is the most coherent album the band had created to that date (and one of the most cohesive in the band’s history period) in terms of mood and style. It’s particularly noticeable on side one, which flows together so naturally that it’s hard to believe the album was made between scattered tour dates as the group was approaching dissolution. This was something Mark I had up to this point failed to accomplish; Shades of Deep Purple is more a scattershot of well-produced songs that sound like they’re generally by the same artist, while The Book of Taliesyn is moving in this direction, but still sounds more disconnected. Not so here.
The mood of the piece is similarly strong. The whole work is lusciously brooding and melancholy, from the first song dealing with insomnia to the final stanza about the cruelty of the month of April. Occasionally there are moments of humor interjected, such as the darkly comedic “Why Didn’t Rosemary?” as mentioned above. Overall, however, the album is a dour one without being existentially overwhelming.
Is this album perfect? No, not really. Is it still a masterpiece that is ridiculously underrated? Hell yes. Even the most glaring issues on this album, namely the unremarkable closer and the grating guitar work, aren’t deal-killers. Meanwhile, the strengths, namely the brilliant ambiance, the thematic tightness, the incredible work from behind the drum kit, the generally high standard of musicianship beyond the errors I’ve stated, the opening number, and the nods to what is soon to come are well worth the price of admission. If you’re a fan of Deep Purple, you need this album. If you’re not, you need it anyway.  From: https://gottahearemall.com/album-review-deep-purple-self-titled-1969/

K's Choice - Mr. Freeze

K's Choice is a Belgian rock band from Antwerp, formed in the mid-1990s. The band's core members are siblings Sarah Bettens (lead vocals, guitar) and Gert Bettens (guitar, keyboard, vocals). They are joined by Bart Van Lierde (bass), Tom Lodewyckx (lead guitar), Reinout Swinnen (keys) and Wim Van Der Westen (drums).
In the early 1990s, Sarah and Gert played in an amateur band, The Basement Plugs. This led to the discovery of Sarah, who was offered a chance by a label; mainly because of her smoky, enigmatic voice. Under a more English name, Sarah Beth, she appeared on several movie soundtracks with covers including "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" (originally by Hank Williams) for the movie Vrouwen Willen Trouwen (Women Want To Marry) and a duet with Frankie Miller, "Why Don't You Try Me" (originally by Ry Cooder), for the movie Ad Fundum. She was offered a contract and formed a band with her brother Gert. The band was named The Choice and in 1994 they recorded their debut album The Great Subconscious Club.
In 1993, the band had five more or less permanent members: Sarah and Gert Bettens, Jan van Sichem, Jr. (guitar), Bart Van Der Zeeuw (drums) and Erik Verheyden (bass). These five toured Germany and the United States in support of the Indigo Girls. When they learned of another group in the U.S. named The Choice, they changed their name in order to avoid legal problems; they decided upon "K's Choice" by going through the alphabet to see which letter would sound best in front of the word choice. Since they thought they needed a story behind the new name, they previously claimed that the K referred to Joseph K. from Kafka's the Trial, but later the band revealed the arbitrariness of choosing the "K".
In 1995, they released Paradise in Me. "Not an Addict", the first single taken from this album, was successful and brought international fame. This single was their most popular hit, and even 10 years later in 2006 received fairly good airplay in major markets. For the next year (1996–1997) they toured supporting Alanis Morissette, who heard the band playing on a European festival and handpicked them as her support band. In 1998, Cocoon Crash, their third album was done. Meanwhile, American Eric Grossman had become the permanent bass player. In 1999, the band appeared on Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the episode "Doppelgängland" performing their song "Virgin State Of Mind". The song appeared on the soundtrack Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Album. It was at this point that their drummer Bart van der Zeeuw had been replaced by Koen Lieckens. In 2000, their next studio album Almost Happy was finished and release in Europe in September.
In 2001, Live (a 2-CD collection of live recordings) was in stores in Europe while Almost Happy was released in the US with another cover and a second CD of some songs from Live. In 2003, Ten (a collection of ten years of singles and songs that did not appear on their albums, plus the brand new single "Losing You") was released, accompanied by a DVD bearing the same name.
In 2003, the band decided to go on a sabbatical. Gert and Sarah both wanted to try out some solo work. Gert produced an album for a Belgian band, Venus in Flames, and Sarah recorded a solo mini-CD Go and appeared on several movie soundtracks with songs of her own ("All of This Past" for Underworld and "Someone to Say Hi To" for Zus and Zo). In addition to four full albums, a live album, and a best-of, they also produced four limited edition and fan club CDs: Extra Cocoon, 2000 Seconds Live, Home and Running Backwards.  From: https://ultimatepopculture.fandom.com/wiki/K%27s_Choice

Grant Lee Buffalo - Live London Astoria 1993 / Live at The 930 Club 1998 / Live at Schlachthof 1993

 Grant Lee Buffalo - Live London Astoria 1993

 

 Grant Lee Buffalo - Live at The 930 Club 1998

 

 Grant Lee Buffalo - Live at Schlachthof 1993

 

Grant Lee Buffalo is a Los Angeles-based rock band, consisting of Grant-Lee Phillips (vocals and guitar), Paul Kimble (bass) and Joey Peters (drums). All three were previously members of another LA band, Shiva Burlesque. As GLB, they released four albums: Fuzzy (1993), Mighty Joe Moon (1994), Copperopolis (1996) and Jubilee (1998, without Kimble who had left the band the previous year). After the release of Jubilee, the band broke up and Phillips continued to pursue a successful solo career. In 2010 the band reunited and they will be touring again in 2011. Grant Lee Buffalo has an Americana-tinged sound, clearly influenced by the likes of Neil Young and elements of old-fashioned country music, and often tackled political and social issues in their lyrics (for example, "Lone Star Song" from Mighty Joe Moon references the infamous Waco siege). They toured with major bands of the early-to-mid 1990s such as R.E.M., Pearl Jam and the Smashing Pumpkins.  From: https://www.last.fm/music/Grant+Lee+Buffalo/+wiki

I'll try to wrap it up nicely in one bright package, this accumulation of songs, years, human sweat and dreams. All of these shared amongst myself and my band mates, Paul Kimble and Joey Peters. Grant Lee Buffalo was our band name and the sum total force of our efforts for most of a decade.
The 1990's saw the underground uprooted and the mainstream flooded when, for one golden moment, no one seemed to be at the wheel. Our own history was rooted in Los Angeles near the end of the Eighties. Each of us had come to Los Angeles to pursue our individual dreams. In the beginning I roofed houses by day and attended film school by night. Joey Peters held all sorts of odd jobs at the time we met, from stocking groceries to film crew work, often juggling several drumming gigs at once. Paul Kimble sold stereos, set up hi-fi gear while pursuing his own musical yearnings. From the time I had arrived in LA I had hopes of joining a band, if not putting one together myself. Shiva Burlesque was part band/part lodge. For every show we played, we must have held 30 rehearsals. Those humid evenings would often disintegrate into long winded talks on the Marx Brothers and Aldous Huxley and the hidden parallels that lie between them. My role was primarily that of guitarist, co-songwriter and co-conspirator. Jeffrey Clark, from my home town of Stockton, CA was the band's singer and main lyricist. The original lineup would evolve over the years, but at one time or another, Shiva Burlesque featured the likes of James Brenner (later of Scenic), Biff Sanders (Four Way Cross, Ethel Meatplow), Rich Evac (Phsycom), and a handful of others. The group finally found it's footing with drummer Joey Peters, frontman Jeff Clark, bassist James Brenner, and myself. Peters brought with him an original style that was at once subtle, intuitive and also extremely dramatic. Our musical marriage was a spontaneous one and I suspect that our influence on one another's development is apt to be indelible. This lineup would release one self-titled album in 1988. Not long after, the band would lose Brenner and would begin to search for a new bassist. It was around this time that I first met Paul Kimble. Paul had traveled the farthest, from Freeport, Illinois. There was an instant creative chemistry among the group that ultimately found it's way on record with Shiva Burlesque's Mercury Blues in 1990. By then it was a five-piece with the inclusion of cellist Greg Adamson, who later performed on the song Mockingbirds. Personality conflicts and growing pains would eventually bring the group to an end as a new decade was dawning. For Joey, Paul and myself, Shiva Burlesque had brought us together, but our power as a trio would alter our lives.
Moonlighting under a different band name every show, we began to explore the songs that were gushing out of me in my mid twenties. "Rex Mundi" would appear on one night, followed by the "Machine Elves" the next. These bands had a whole lot in common -- we were both of 'em. Longing to step forward with the songs I was writing, I needed the courage of a veil to fully accept my lot as a performer. Grant Lee Buffalo was precisely that. It provided me with the strength and the camaraderie of a pack and it allowed me the freedom to be vulnerable as an artist. Questions of "who are, who is, and what is Grant Lee Buffalo still seem to abound. Within our little world, however, the axis was forever shifting. In the early part of the nineties we began to work diligently on the home recording of several songs. Most of the basic tracks were quickly cut with emphasis on capturing the drums. Joey and I would provide the basic skeleton in the recording room, as Paul would be twisting the dials in a separate building. Paul and I would then proceed to layer the overdubs, all of this just as Joey Peters was enlisting with the group Cracker. It was a setback that led to various replacement drummers over the following year. For this reason, early fliers and a limited vinyl single features the likeness of Kimble, myself and drummer David Strayer, although Peters had actually played on the recording. This release, originally a demo recording of "Fuzzy" was distributed by Bob Mould's Single Only label in the summer of '92 and before long was gathering significant airplay at Boston's WFNX. In October of that same year we signed a recording deal with Slash Records, Kimble, myself, and a nearly absent but Cracker-free Joey Peters.  From: https://grantleebuffalo.com/history1.html