Los Lobos - Wake Up Dolores

Richly textured, beautifully played, brilliantly produced, Los Lobos records sound fantastic. And that is before you get to the songwriting of Hidalgo and Perez, with its highly visual quality and classic Latino-Americana feel. The results are very organic. Best rock band in L.A. And, quite possibly, the US of A. The music streaming platforms claim to have music discovery solved, largely through data. That’s incorrect though. Music discovery isn’t really data driven - but it might be information driven.
I really discovered the music of East L.A. legends Los Lobos through David Hidalgo’s guitar work on Suzanne Vega’s 1992 album 99.9 F. His playing blew me away and that guitar sound was a key element to 99.9 F being such a change of direction for Vega, too. Once I’d checked the personnel on the CD sleeve notes (remember those) and clocked Hidalgo, I went over to the Los Lobos catalogue and saw their most recent release had been earlier that same year, entitled Kiko. I bought Kiko on CD, loved it (because it is a work of genius) and then left it there for many, many years. The next encounter was Tin Can Trust, released exactly 10 years later. I bought Tin Can Trust on the strength of a review and again, it proved to be a thoroughly excellent record.
I say really discovered here because of course, I had first come across ‘Lobos’ in 1987 when they popularised Latin pop with ‘La Bamba’ (preceding Luis Fonsi’s Despacito by 30 years no less). The song bugged me at the time, so much so that I would turn the radio off when it came on (I was a kid rocker). Funny that La Bamba turned out to be nothing like a true representation of Los Lobos, but over 30 years later has been the band’s only hit single, contributing to making them one of the most misunderstood rock bands of all time. At least outside of their native North America.
Back to information, the connection between Vega’s 99.9F° and Kiko is that they are both produced by Mitchell Froom (whom Suzanne later married of course). Froom was one half of the most innovative production team operating throughout the 90s, with engineer Tchad Blake being the other half (the two had a full-time partnership between ‘92 and 2002). My next musical adventure is to track down every other project those two worked on, but it’s a long and eminent list (perhaps a future playlist). Since both Froom and Blake are geniuses, the combined effect is worthy of note for anyone interested in music and how it’s made. However, Froom and Blake only ever joined a band as full members with David Hidalgo and Louie Perez of Los Lobos - together they formed the experimental roots collaboration Latin Playboys, largely because their work on Kiko and Colossal Head could not fully satiate their desire to experiment. Wow.
In preparation for the Art of Longevity podcast with Steve Berlin, I had spent three weeks listening to as much of the Los Lobos catalogue as time would allow. Effectively, this experience retrained my ears. Richly textured, beautifully played, brilliantly produced and engineered, Los Lobos records sound fantastic. And that is before you get to the songwriting of Hidalgo and Perez, with its highly visual quality (yes, cinematic) and classic Americana feel. The results are very organic and deeply immersive.
It’s mystifying in many ways the band are not much bigger than they are (circa. 2 million monthly listeners on Spotify when I last looked) and indeed the band has very occasionally intimated the same thing. In an interview with for Paul Zollo’s “Songwriters on Songwriting” Louis Perez said ‘I wish we sold more records’. But, when I asked Steve Berlin whether their lack of commercial respect bothers the band, he gave me short shrift: “Not at all. The main thing for us is longevity and being able to do what we do and to answer to nobody other than ourselves, we have such gratitude for that. We have no obligation other than to move forward with our music”.
I guess approaching 50 years of making music together and paying the bills from doing it is success enough. And we listeners get to benefit as well. Indeed, it’s pretty hard to adjust back to listening to a lot of modern records, which sound a bit ‘thin’ by comparison. Anyway, if you happen to be barreling along Sunset Boulevard, then head East for a change, and keep on going until you reach the suburbs of East L.A. and Phillipe’s “Famous French Sandwich” restaurant, and crank up this playlist. You might not get your sandwich free but you’ll get to experience Los Lobos in their element. Or, you can just listen and see it in those pictures in your head.  From: https://www.songsommelier.com/los-lobos-wolves-of-east-la

Paper Bird - To the Light

For Paper Bird, their new album marks a milestone. More importantly, it provides them with a new beginning, a new chapter in their trajectory that sees them redefining their direction, a change in their musical sensibility while maintaining their trademark upbeat attitude. The band’s self titled album, available September 9th on Thirty Tigers Records/ Sons of Thunder Records, introduces vocalist Carleigh Aikins to the line­up, whose previous credits include extended stints with the critically acclaimed bands Bahamas and Fox Jaws. Her addition to the band adds an extra edge, highlighting a clear sonic evolution. A shift in the band’s line­up has opened up new possibilities, swapping electric guitars and amped up instrumentation for the laid back, folk­flavored sound they favored in the past. “In truth this is an entirely new band,” bassist Caleb Summeril explains. “With Carleigh coming on board, we’ve literally made a fresh start.” Guitarist Paul DeHaven first met Aikins at a concert on Willie Nelson’s ranch during South by Southwest in 2012. The two hit it off, and before long Aikins and the rest of the band began collaborating long distance via email. “It was serendipitous that we could join forces so seamlessly,” says Aikins. “We created an instant bond and a new sound we can all stand proudly behind; which merges our respective influences from the Canadian and American music we were raised with. Everyone’s input is welcome here and everyone has their moment to shine, in the true democratic sense and tradition of a band." Paper Bird has always made a point of encouraging each of its members to share the spotlight. The group boasts three lead vocalists ­­ singer Sarah Anderson, singer and keyboard player Genevieve Patterson, and Aikins herself ­­ all of whom blend their voices in seamless three part harmonies. The instrumental duties are shared by Summeril, DeHaven, and drummer Mark Anderson. Hailing from Denver, Colorado, Paper Bird first emerged from the same environs that launched such outfits as Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats and the Lumineers. The group has toured extensively throughout the U.S., sharing bills with the aforementioned bands, as well as Daryl Hall & John Oates, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, and Shakey Graves. On Paper Bird, the band collaborates with world-renowned musician, singer and songwriter John Oates, who co­produced the album with Aikins’ fellow Canadian David Kalmusky. The album was recorded and mixed at Addiction Sound Studios in Nashville, and for his part, Oates couldn’t be more delighted. “Paper Bird is a band that possesses a sound that’s more than the sum of its parts,” Oates effuses. “It’s the coming together of two perfect trinities. It has three distinctly unique female lead singers whose harmonies blend together as one...united with an inventive, cohesive rhythm section trio. I loved their sound from the first time I heard them and they just keep getting better. They are a true musical family united by a unique and pure artistic vision...a rare quality in this day and age of so much disposable and less than original music.” Paper Bird has a sound that blends the engaging vocal harmonies of Fleet Foxes and The Lone Bellow with the classic ‘70s stylings of bands like Heart and Fleetwood Mac without imitating or emulating any one of them in particular. Indeed, the new music is rugged, resilient and flush with enthusiasm. It conveys the essence of inspired Americana, while still staying true to its riveting rock regimen. The album starts with the soulful strut of “To The Light,” and heads into desire and yearning with the single “Don’t Want Half.” With its playful harmonies and rhythms, “I Don’t Mind” captures the ephemeral feelings of love, as “it’s not easy to be a dreamer, when you’re sleeping with the wind.” Paper Bird merge the musical past with the present on “Sunday,” conjuring up doo-wop, rock and groove sounds. “This is definitely the start of something exciting,” Summeril suggests. “We’re at a point in our career where we feel we’re ready to take on the world.”  From: https://livesessions.npr.org/artists/paper-bird

Dirty Sound Magnet - Organic Sacrifice

Q: When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening? Do you listen with your eyes open or closed?

A: I’m different from my fellow band members who see things like you. To me it’s more about feelings and concepts. So when we talk about music with Marco (bass) and Maxime (drums), we can talk about the same ideas but we experience them differently. When we jam I tell them for example that it sounded like “a trip through a magic forest or a middle Eastern army marching in the snow” but I will not see that. It’s a thought and a concept. The others will literally see these things. Eyes open or eyes closed, when music touches me deeply, nothing can get between us.

What were your very first steps in music like and how would you rate the gains made through experience - can one train/learn being an artist?

I think that my skills have improved but the spark has not changed. It’s there or it’s not. To me being an artist means loving your art very deeply. It’s an expression of the sublime, something otherworldly, almost religious. Can you train that? I’m not sure. Some people are very skilled but are not artists because the spiritual element is absent. There is no harm in that.

According to scientific studies, we make our deepest and most incisive musical experiences between the ages of 13-16. What did music mean to you at that age and what’s changed since then?

From age 13 until 15 I did not like music. Everybody at my school was listening to Hip-Hop and it did not appeal to me. There are things I like today but back then I did not like the fact that everybody was listening to the same music. I never liked mass movements where people don’t choose for themselves. Not listening to music was sort of a small rebellion in itself. And then a schoolmate showed me some punk music. I thought it was pretty cool and bought some records. My mom overheard that I was listening to guitar music. So she told me to sit down and listen. She said: “Let me show you a glimpse of the best”. She put on “Have a Cigar” by Pink Floyd, “Stairway to Heaven” and “Black Dog” by Led Zeppelin. I was mesmerised. My life had taken a different turn in that very moment. I thought that it was music made by the gods. I was caught up in misty dreams. Nothing else mattered anymore. I started listening to music all the time and spent all my money on physical albums.

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music and what motivates you to create?

Well actually, I was not only a music fan when I was 15 but also a failed preacher. Because I started walking around in my school with headphones and wanted to show people that rap music was not the only music. I wanted others to be able to feel the intense emotions that music is able to generate. It was not a very successful enterprise. I realised that trying to put headphones on people’s heads was not the best way to preach my newly found fate and that is when I naturally picked up a guitar. And this was a new illumination. From the first notes on, I started creating and writing music. I never really learned other songs. The new melodies just came to me. This was the right way to transmit my love of music. I was now able to write the music I wanted to hear. That’s perfect. I’m now 35 years old and my love for music has not changed. I love listening to music, I love writing new music and today I’m able to transmit that burning passion on stage. This is the basic drive. The key ideas are: authenticity, passion and keeping all doors open. With every new song an entire universe opens up. It would be too bad to impose limitations to the infinity before me.

To quote a question by the great Bruce Duffie: When you come up with a musical idea, have you created the idea or have you discovered the idea?

I would like to quote the title track on our new album Dreaming in Dystopia which is an expression of my love of music and answers this question in the second verse:

“I can see life as it should be.
Follow the melody, deep into the sea.
Where there’s a magic song waiting to be freed.
And together we can make eternity.”

Music is infinite and writing great songs is simply unlocking a new hidden treasure chest. By diving deep within yourself, you can discover new melodies and new songs. Sometimes the melody just comes to me in my sleep. I just need to let it guide me and a new song is born. Again, the key to unlock these hidden treasures is intense burning passion.

Paul Simon said “the way that I listen to my own records is not for the chords or the lyrics - my first impression is of the overall sound.” What's your own take on that and how would you define your personal sound?

I don’t really listen to our records. Here is the typical journey of a song I write. First, the musical idea comes to me. This puts me in a state of trance, fullness and happiness. Then I need to work on the idea to make it into a song. I write lyrics and from an early stage on, I work with the band so that everybody is able to put a part of themselves into the song. The song is not mine anymore, it’s ours. We then work countless hours on arrangements and finally we’re able to record it. Then there is a long process of mixing and mastering. After that, I think I honestly spend too much time working on the song order of an album. I become totally obsessed and try hundreds of combinations. By that time, I have listened to the song over a thousand times. When the song is released, I consider that it doesn’t belong to me anymore. It belongs to the audience and to whoever wants to listen to it. The song is dead to me in this form. But the beauty of death is resurrection and it’s on stage that the song continues to live and evolve. It takes on new shapes but the basic idea that once put me in a trance survives the process.

Sound, song, and rhythm are all around us, from animal noises to the waves of the ocean. What, if any, are some of the most moving experiences you've had with these non-human-made sounds? In how far would you describe them as “musical”?

I think that the sounds found in nature are all beautiful and they guide our choices when we’re mixing music. We want music to be organic and natural. That is why we do not add frequencies that don’t feel natural. For example, it’s very rare to hear very low sub frequencies in nature. Most of the sounds we hear are in the mid frequencies. They are the ones that give character and texture to sound. It’s maybe an explanation why our music is mostly mid oriented. It feels more real and more magical. When I hear too many bass frequencies, I instantly think of a recording studio. And that is not something that allows evasion and freedom.

From very deep/high/loud/quiet sounds to very long/short/simple/complex compositions - are there extremes in music you feel drawn to and what response do they elicit?

I love contrast. I like light and shade. I like variation. That is why I don’t like over compressed music because it’s in direct opposition with contrast. A boeing 747 makes a lot of noises but it’s constant noise. So you don’t feel the power. But if you are in a silent environment and all of a sudden there is an explosion, the effect is totally different. So yes extremes are important in music.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of one of your pieces, live performances or albums that's particularly dear to you, please?

The creative process can take multiple forms in our band. Every song has it’s story. Here are two examples that show how broad the possibilities are. The track “Lost my Mind” on the new record Dreaming in Dystopia came to me in a dream. I wrote it in one night. We worked on it with the band and in just a few session we were able to record the final studio version. On the other hand “Insomnia” (the track that comes right after this one on the record), has been on hold since the creation of the band. It was a long instrumental jam but we knew it had the potential to become a great song. Years passed but every time we tried something was missing. We didn’t do the idea justice. The idea got stored on our shelf of great ideas that should become songs one day. It was there, not really alive but still somewhere in our collective memory. One day I wrote a small ballad about insomnia, It was good as it was but the idea resurfaced from nowhere. What about combing that jam that is waiting on the shelve with this ballad to make it an epic track. We tried and it worked. We instantly knew that this was it. “Lost my Mind” was written in a few hours and recorded not long after that while “Insomnia” took 15 years. Both tracks feel complete and I like them equally. They just have a very different story.

Do you conduct “experiments” or make use of scientific insights when you're making music?

We do what feels right. We try to follow our instincts. Sometimes we experiment with sound, sometimes we feel that we don’t need to. We’re just trying to stay open and always do what will benefit music the most.

How does the way you make music reflect the way you live your life? Can we learn lessons about life by understanding music on a deeper level?

Music is an integral part of my life. Sometimes my own life doesn’t even matter. I’m not sure if it’s a good thing. My social life and love life greatly suffer from it. Because I’m able to express my emotions through music I don’t have much left in my daily life. Don’t get me wrong, I am a super happy person. I feel full and complete. I’m just not able to make the distinction between music and life. They are the same thing. I actually use sports to understand things about myself.

Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

Music is the expression of the sublime. I haven’t found other ways to express this. Maybe through words but then it becomes music again.

Every time I listen to "Albedo 0.39" by Vangelis, I choke up. But the lyrics are made up of nothing but numbers and values. Do you, too, have a song or piece of music that affects you in a way that you can't explain?

I have an artist that does that to me: Frank Zappa. I wouldn’t even say he’s my favorite artist (one of the favorites, yes). When I get into a Zappa phase, I can’t listen to anything else. Everything else seems without substance. The crazy thing is that Zappa’s music is not charged emotionally. And emotion is what touches me the most. Zappa’s music is charged intellectually and with moments of grace and music genius. It’s like he’s so smart that he’s over emotions. So yeah his music has a strange effect on me.

If you could make a wish for the future – what are developments in music you would like to see and hear?

I would like more variety. I would like the music to become important again. For the future, I wish we would go back. Back to something less digital, more emotional and more human.

From: https://www.15questions.net/interview/fifteen-questions-interview-dirty-sound-magnet/page-1/

 

Carmanah - Roots

Carmanah embraces the energy of Canada’s beautiful west coast and chose its name to honour the ancient rainforest on Vancouver Island, the Carmanah Valley. Known for connecting with audiences of all ages and musical preferences, the band delivers an eclectic sound that incorporates elements of folk, funk, rock and reggae. Four-part harmonies, supported by a grooving rhythm second, fiddle playing, guitars and a lap-slide, all give Carmanah its unique and captivating sound.
According to Jonathan Williams, popular radio host on The Zone 91.3, Carmanah band members "curate music from the heart and perform it with such zest and passion each and every time. Put them in a small intimate venue and they'll have the hairs on the back of your neck stand. Put them on a Victoria Celebrates Canada Day main stage, with a fair few thousand looking on, and they'll still have the hair on the back of your neck stand."
Carmanah has shared the stage with Ziggy Marley, Said the Whale, Wake Owl, Clinton Fearon, Spirit of the West and Current Swell, among others. The band has played at numerous music festivals, including Toronto’s Canadian Music Week and Victoria’s Rifflandia Music Festival. In 2014 the band performed in Ottawa at the closing event for Canadian Olympian Clara Hughes’ cross-country bike ride in support of mental health awareness (Clara’s Big Ride).
This past spring Carmanah completed its own cross-Canada tour and while on the road released their third album, Roots. In keeping with the band’s commitment to sustainability, the journey was powered mostly by vegetable oil gathered from local restaurants along the way. The tour’s grand finale was performing for a home crowd of thousands at Victoria’s Canada Day Celebration.
Carmanah is a dedicated member of The Jellyfish Project, an environmental initiative that brings musicians and bands into schools across Canada. Through the power of music and live performance, students are drawn into the environmental conversation and encouraged to become active participants in the sustainability movement. Increasingly known for its original songwriting and energetic delivery, Carmanah is a growing presence in the Canadian music scene.  From: https://www.musicglue.com/carmanah/about

Acid Carousel - Kaleidoscope Symphony

Watching the seven-piece psych rock band Acid Carousel perform is like watching a pen full of well-dressed wolf pups wrestle with their favorite sticks. Frontmen and songwriters Gus Baldwin and John Kuzmick are young, at 18 and 21, respectively; there’s a lot of long hair; they have boundless energy; and the band is perfectly coordinated, partly due to their carefully styled ’60s thrift clothes. They’re in sync even as they thrash around, playing their instruments while flipping their heads to the beat of the music. The chaos is almost balletic. And their music, a throwback to the 1960s, is full of ebullient, catchy, get-stuck-in-your-head pop tunes like “American High” and “Everything I Am.” They’re the kind of songs that you can sing along to the first time you hear them.
The band popped on the scene about a year and a half ago. Baldwin, who is a student at Jesuit College Preparatory, and Kuzmick, who studies photography at University of North Texas, had already been working together in a project called Moon Waves, which just recently called it quits. Kuzmick recorded a six-song EP in the summer of 2015 and he showed it to Baldwin. “I was like, ‘This is our project now,’” Baldwin says. Kuzmick jumps in to correct him, “No, you were like, ‘I’m going to play bass for you,’ and then you lasted one show on bass, and we decided we wanted to play with more people so we’ve been evolving the lineup since then.” Like the Texas Gentlemen concept of a collective of players, yet not nearly as large, Acid Carousel plays with a full stage of seven band members who are frequently changing roles and instruments. For instance, Baldwin plays guitar, bass, drums, mandolin and ukulele, and Kuzmick plays guitar, bass and keys. And like the Gents, most of them are involved in side projects too.
At Club Dada last Thursday night, the guys stood five across on the stage: Kuzmick on bass, keys and guitar, and Baldwin on guitar, alongside Steve Gnash of the Steve Gnash Experience on guitar, Ian “Skinny” Salazar of Majik Taylor on bass, and Drew Wozniack, who just started playing keys for the band less than a month ago. They were backed by Fielder Whittington on drums. The lone woman is Ariel Hartley of Pearl Earl, who fills out vocals on some of the tracks. It’s a nice little outfit. That night the band played to a surprisingly full venue of mostly people under 25. Toward the end of the set, they brought excited participants on stage to dance, sing backup and play tambourine. It was an all-out party. The band knows more than a thing or two about showmanship and audience engagement. Having promised Kool-Aid jammers to anyone in the audience willing to dance, the guys regularly rewarded the crowd with flying packs of juice. They themselves like to get down, thrashing and hopping around while playing. In his signature move, Salazar pulled off his poncho and played the rest of the set bare-chested.
They’re not above using sex appeal or any of the other tricks of the trade to get noticed. And while their music is good enough to stand on its own, letting loose, touting their charming personalities and engaging with fans is no doubt part of the recipe for how they became successful at a young age. “Come to our shows, dance with us, be our friend,” Baldwin says. “We don’t want to be distant from the fans,” Kuzmick adds. “The more people we meet, the more friends we have, and the more connections we have the better. They can come find us on Instagram if they want to see us post a bunch of sexy pics of ourselves,” Baldwin says with a laugh.
In a move that any adoring fans would love to hear, Kuzmick offers, “If they’re ever up in Denton, they can hit me up and stay at my apartment.” Then he changes gears. “Ask us if we’re single. I’m single,” he responds before being asked. “I’m eligible,” Baldwin pipes in. Kuzmick and Baldwin excitedly step on each other’s words and banter like a pair of brothers, which makes sense considering they’ve been playing together since they were kids at Zound Sounds music school near White Rock Lake. Baldwin was 13 years old and Kuzmick 16 when they started their first band, the Psycho Sonics. “What the school did that really changed us, is that they put kids together in bands and had showcases here at Dada. That’s how we learned to play like that, and that’s where we met Skinny Salazar the bassist,” Baldwin says. The Psycho Sonics soon morphed into Moon Waves. Concert promoter Jeff Brown, owner-operator of King Camel, saw Moon Waves perform in 2014, which led to their real start in the Dallas scene. Both Moon Waves and Acid Carousel have recently played his resident Saturday night series, Locked and Loaded at Armoury D.E. "Their enthusiasm, talent and stage presence was not only beyond their years, but really top tier without considering age," Brown says. "I just saw a lot of talent that needed a few nudges in the right direction."
“We were gigging at the Door, Curtain Club, the Boiler Room,” Kuzmick says. “Eventually Jeff saw us at Boiler Room. He put us at Three Links. He was the first promoter who gave us a chance. That’s how we met everyone. From there I just started going to shows all the time and meeting people ... all of the other musicians in the scene who we’re friends with now.” Baldwin met the band Sealion that way, and he recently started playing drums for them. “Sealion was my favorite band when I was 16. I used to worship them and their early albums,” he says. Despite full schedules for all of the bandmates, Acid Carousel are hoping to tour this summer with Sealion, Pearl Earl and the Steve Gnash Experience. And in the meantime they’re sticking to a rigorous release schedule, putting out a record or an EP every three months. It’s ambitious, but so far, they’ve been on schedule. In 2016, they released a record in June, EPs in September and November, and they’re waiting on Dreamy Life Records to finish pressing the vinyl and cassettes for their next release, a double album. Surprisingly, quality doesn’t suffer at the hands of quantity; each release is cohesive and strong. The guys looked to their music inspirations like Brian Jonestown Massacre and Ty Segall on the release schedule. “We want to put out as many records as possible,” Baldwin says.
They started a record label called Get With It! Collective to make sure the releases happened on time. Besides taking guitar lessons at Zound Sounds, the guys are all self-taught — on their instruments, and in the recording studio — which speaks to how driven they were to make music, even as children. Baldwin says he’d originally wanted to play drums, but his parents pushed him into guitar to avoid having a drum set in the house, so he snuck into the drum room at the music school and taught himself. Kuzmick wanted to make music so he started writing songs on the fly with his brother, a drummer, and making videos. They say their work ethic is about more than achieving success. “I can’t not play music. If I don’t play music I get depressed in like five minutes,” Kuzmick says. Baldwin agrees. “If I don’t touch an instrument for like two days, I will get angry at everyone.” “Grumpy Gus isn’t fun Gus,” Kuzmick warns, and Baldwin confirms it. “When I don’t get to play music, I get grumpy. That’s why we joined a bunch of different bands. I just want to keep playing music and be able to support myself doing that.”  From: https://www.dallasobserver.com/music/young-seven-piece-acid-carousel-keeps-true-to-its-name-with-ebullient-rotating-lineup-9195200

John Renbourn's Ship of Fools - In Concert

John Renbourn's Ship Of Fools: Renbourn went back in time even more than normal for the title of his album and band: Ancient Greece. It was Plato who first coined the metaphor of a 'ship of fools', meaning a group of people adrift without a proper leader, although knowing his love of all things Medieval John probably discovered the phrase through the paintings by Sebastian Brant (from whose work the album cover is taken). At first this wasn't meant to be an album or even a proper band, but John was invited to perform a set for an outdoor festival in Central park and figured he needed some amplification. The friends who took up John's invitation included old hands from his solo and 'Group' days such as Tony Roberts, Steve Tilston and Maggie Boyle, who all had their interests in John's favourite era of music. The concerts were well received and led to a tour, which was also well received and led to this album which features the usual mixture of traditional tunes from the Middle Ages along with three new John originals. Though Maggie Boyle is no Jacqui McShee, she is thank goodness a Maggie Boyle - another one of a kind singer with a delightful warm and velvet tone that coats an iron fist, closer in style to Maddy Prior or Linda Thompson than Jacqui's purer style. She's a good fit for these songs as is the rest of the band.
The fuller band sound makes it one of John's more interesting and unusual albums, with a sound quite unlike his usual guitar-based albums and with its more traditional players doesn't sound like the folkier John Renbourn Group either. At times this is to the album's benefit: 'Searching For Lambs' works well with four contrapuntal parts weaving around each other with the vocals on top, while 'I Live Not Where I Love', a very 1960s ballad about loss despite written closer to 1460, is one of John's prettier arrangements. And at other times its the loss: John's playing is hard to hear under so many extras and at times he really takes a back seat to everything else going on, which just makes this another exercise in re-creating old music without the usual Renbourn magic ('Lark In The Clear' for instance is mainly a flute solo without the song). What pushes this album over the edge into being one of the better albums of Renbourn's career is the emphasis on actual songs for a change rather than just instrumentals.
The title track, for instance, is a poetic take on the old story about a rudderless craft, more interested in description than allegory ('Rainbow colours that befell from stem to stern entrances me so'). John's regular 'Traveller's Prayer' also makes the first of several appearances, here as a pure Madrigal sung by four voices which is a hymn to the moon that's very atmospheric, praying for salvation and help for those suffering a lonely night in distress (it's an insomniac classic!) 'The Martinmass Wind' (celebrating a pagan day dedicated to the coming of winter, held on November 11th) is a much overlooked song too, a gorgeous song about loneliness and wishing you were home, the narrator fearing their love is broken by the geographical distance between when a tree snaps from under them. Though the more traditional songs aren't quite up to this high standard, the three new songs alone make this one of Renbourn's most interesting albums, perhaps his best of the post-Pentangle records. Far from being a ship of fools, Renbourn has rarely been surrounded by players this good and this is perhaps his greatest band following Pentangle. A shame there wasn't a sequel.  From: http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2016/10/pentangle-sololivecompilationreunion.html

The Bobs - Live Kentucky 1989

It all started when Western Union went bust, leaving all singing telegram deliverers broke and unemployed. Thus began the Great San Francisco Singing Telegram Depression of 1981. Gunnar Madsen and Matthew Stull, two of the newly unemployed, placed a free 25-words-or-less ad in the classifieds for a bass singer. They got one call--from bass singer, songwriter and recording engineer Richard Greene. After six months of rehearsal, the trio debuted at an open mike in a Cuban restaurant. They sang "Psycho Killer,” "A White Sport Coat" and a few others. The audience loved them. The Bobs were born.
At first, The Bobs’ material consisted of uniquely arranged cover tunes. As they began writing their own songs, the need for another voice became apparent. Auditions found Janie 'Bob' Scott. A contract with local record company Kaleidoscope Records produced an EP Out of the Mouths of Bobs  and then a first album, The Bobs. A Grammy® nomination for their arrangement of The Beatles’ "Helter Skelter" and a national concert tour resulted in radio airplay, television appearances, and concerts and festivals in Europe. The Los Angeles Daily News was moved to comment, “The Bobs prove that the best instrument in creating music is the human brain. They are nothing less than sensational.”
In 1986 The Bobs signed with Great American Music Hall Records and put out two albums, My I'm Large (1987) and Songs for Tomorrow Morning (1988). In 1990, Gunnar retired, replaced by Joe Bob Finetti, whose vocal percussion added a new layer to the sound.  Throughout the 1990's the Bobs were signed to Rounder Records and put out five albums: Shut up and Sing, Cover the Songs of..., Plugged, Too Many Santas, and i brow club. In 1995, The Bobs collaborated with German jazz composer Klaus Koenig on his large jazz orchestra plus vocal quartet and narrator project - "Reviews."
In 2004, Dan Bob Schumacher took over the role of resident groove-master and oral instrumentalist. In 1998, Amy Bob Engelhardt replaced Lori Rivera, who had replaced Janie Scott in 1997. In 2012 Angie Bob Doctor replaced Amy Engelhardt, bringing yet another dimension to the Bobs sound. Witnessing these ever changing yet always amazing four personalities and their combined musical wizardry, audiences tend to “spontaneously combust” (to quote a Bobs song) with alarming regularity.
Highlights of the group’s career include performing with Jason Alexander on the Emmy Awards telecast, and providing musical commentary for National Public Radio’s Morning Edition.  Citations have included Contemporary A cappella Recording Awards (CARA) too numerous to mention since the Awards were established in 1992.  Composer/lyricists Richard Bob Greene, Gunnar Madsen, and Amy Bob Engelhardt have repeatedly garnered ASCAP Songwriting Awards for their Bobs compositions.
The Bobs have collaborated extensively with artists in other disciplines. Their first commission was a series of songs, "The Laundry Cycle," for the Oberlin Dance Collective in 1987.  Later that year, they improvised with the dance troupe Momix, (later known as ISO), yielding a show that toured fine arts venues worldwide for a period of years, resulting in a commission from Lincoln Center and a one-hour “Lonesome Pine Special” for PBS.  The program is now part of the media archives at the Smithsonian Institute's Museum of American History. The Bobs were also featured in a tribute special on comedian Andy Kaufman for NBC, on PBS’ Great Performances in “The Beatles Songbook” and in a special with Harry Shearer for HBO. The group returned to Lincoln Center in 2001 to headline the prestigious American Songbook Series and in 2003 collaborated with The Flying Karamazov Brothers in “A Comedy of Eras” at Seattle’s A Contemporary Theater. 
Next came “Rhapsody in Bob,” their breathtaking arrangement of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” for piano (guest artist Bob Malone) and The Bobs (as The Vocal Orchestra). A show built around this piece toured fine arts venues in the United States, and it was recorded shortly afterwards. In 2007, Coldfoot Films released Sign My Snarling Movie: 25 Years of the Bobs, a documentary about the group’s history and evolution. In 2008, The Bobs released their 14th album, Get Your Monkey Off My Dog. In 2011, Dan Bob and Angie Doctor released an album of vocal duets He Said, She Said. Angie Doctor would join the Bobs in 2011, replacing Amy Bob and thus becoming "Angie Bob." In 2013, The Bobs released an album of biographies of famous and not-so-famous people throughout history, Biographies.
The Bobs, described by the Seattle Times as “a musical equivalent of a Gary Larson drawing,” use just their voices and body percussion to fill a room with an orchestra of harmonious sound.  They have left an indelible mark on vocal music, expertly skewering standards and establishing their own hilarious norms.  Once dubbed the only New Wave a cappella group in history, “The Bobs,” commented The Washington Post, “prove that the human voice remains the most powerful instrument of all.”  October 21st, 2017 after 36 years of gigging and several thousand live shows, the Bobs gave their last group performance at the Barns at Wolf Trap.  From: http://bobsbestofbreed.squarespace.com/history

Frente! - Horrible

You know you’ve made it in Australia when the most successful thing you’ve done becomes the butt of jokes. For Frente!, the indie-pop band formed in Melbourne by Simon Austin and Angie Hart, their moment came when Accidently Kelly Street – the accidentally misspelled song that became their best-known song after its release in October 1992 – was the subject of a savage parody, Accidentally Was Released, by ABC’s The Late Show. Initially hurt by the backlash, Hart struggled to reconcile with the song. Its author, bass player Tim O’Connor, left the band shortly afterwards, citing exhaustion. Jane Kennedy, who impersonated Hart in The Late Show’s video (which included her fellow D-Generation and Working Dog alumni Tom Gleisner, Mick Molloy and Tony Martin) stresses to Guardian Australia via a spokesperson that she loved and still loves the band. Thirty years later, Frente! are celebrating the 30th anniversary of their full-length debut, Marvin the Album, with a national tour. The album’s winsome folk-pop, topped by Hart’s sweet, sincere vocals, was a breath of fresh air amid the prevailing grunge and hard-rock sounds dominating radio at the time – particularly Triple J, which broke the band via airplay of the band’s earlier hits, Labour of Love and Ordinary Angels. Frente! enjoyed their biggest hit overseas with an acoustic version of New Order’s Bizarre Love Triangle in 1994, but only made one other album, Shape, before dissolving. There have been occasional reunions between Austin and Hart as Frente! since, with other musicians filling in on bass and drums. They chatted to Guardian Australia about Marvin – and revealed they’re working on what would be their first album since 1996.

Simon Austin (guitarist, backing vocals, songwriter): We sort of knew what we were doing, but we didn’t, really. We knew 80% of what we were doing, and the other 20% we just blagged it. Some of it worked, some of it missed the mark.

Angie Hart (singer, songwriter): I think of all the things that we did, Marvin was the least turbulent. I think it was vigorous – it was really hard work, in a very exciting way.

Austin: We were signed to Mushroom, and they weren’t really known for doing bands like us. For them to give us all that money, and for them to make [US music producer] Michael Koppelman available to us, and to be in a big studio doing that – it was so exciting. For me, as a nerd, it was like being given the keys to the car.

Hart: We were very genre-based at the time in Australia. There were musical tribes and teams, and I think we felt very out of step with that. But we were like that anyway. We were loners that all came together to make a band that was really odd.

Ian Rogerson (broadcaster, host of Triple J’s Hard Coffee 1990 – 1995): Angie’s voice jumped out of the speakers. It was a counterpoint to a number of the harder-edged vocals around then. She brought a sweetness to their songs that wasn’t saccharine, but young and positive.

Austin: It was very special when Angie came in to sing. We’d all look at each other and it was like, “Riiight – this is why we’re here.” It was awesome.

Hart: Making both Marvin and Shape were some of the most joyous things that we’ve ever done; that was the reason for it all. The rest was like, what the fuck am I doing here? They were really satisfying times.

Austin: When we recorded it, I thought, this is going to be a big song. I didn’t know it was going to be a hit, but I knew it was going to do something! And then I thought, there’s going to be a bunch of people who don’t like it, because it’s really open-hearted.

Tim O’Connor (bass player, songwriter): I read an article about [songwriter and record producer] Mike Chapman, and he said to Blondie, “You’ve got the singer, you’ve got the tunes, do you want hits or not?” I think the quote was, “If you can’t write hits, fuck off and go chop meat somewhere!”

Austin: Tim is a fairly reserved kind of a guy, and a lot of the time when we were touring, it was not a happy time for him. So when he came out with the song, it was even more supercharged – the happiness in it – because I understood the man who wrote it.

O’Connor: Frente! were basically playing at the Punters Club and living in share houses in Fitzroy, and suddenly we were on fucking Hey Hey It’s Saturday. It was a big jump. In some ways it was too much too soon.

Hart: Tim left the band when we were touring overseas quite heavily. We were all really fucked to be around at that time, so I can totally understand why he did that, and it was a very gracious stepping away. We got on stage with him the other night and did the song and it was the most beautiful thing. It was very hard not to cry on the stage.

Austin: The Late Show parody was a fairly thorough dusting. It was hard! I thought, should I get really upset about this? And then literally a day later I walked into the Punter’s Club and a couple of the guys from The Late Show were there, sitting at the bar. They looked at me with sheer terror in their eyes, and at that moment I realised, they’re doing what they’re doing because they love it.

Hart: I had no tools to deal with that at that time. I was very young, very sensitive, and I didn’t take it well. It was always a good-natured thing, but at my age – a girl in her early 20s, in the public eye – I didn’t know what to do.

O’Connor: Angie was 19, 20 years old, a bit sincere about what she’s doing, and these university-educated wankers were taking the piss out of her. Later I met them at the Logies and they were apologising to us!

Hart: We got an apology, which there was no need for. I felt quite looked after, because they saw how that might have affected somebody like me. I tried to shake that song off for a long time, but I’ve come full circle, to the point where I feel a bit protective of it. Now it’s like, leave the fucking song alone! I think it’s a really positive thing that we did. We celebrated Marvin’s 21st years ago, but for some reason the 30th has really brought up a lot of processing. I feel like we’ve really squared a few things away this time, had a proper look at our dynamic, and I feel like I hear the songs differently, too.

Austin: We’re writing new songs – we’ve just started – and we aim to have a record out by the end of next year.

Hart: We’re starting from scratch, and it’s feeling good so far. It’s been really healing, as far as looking back at the way some things have happened. I’ve been joking about mid-careerism for women in the Australian music industry. It starts at about 25 and goes until you’re 65 – so I’ve been in my mid-career for most of my career.

From: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/apr/22/frente-on-success-and-backlash-i-was-very-young-and-i-didnt-take-it-well

Gary Jules - Mad World (Tears For Fears cover)

Mad World by Tears for Fears is one of those interesting songs for multiple reasons. For one, a cover of the song (by Gary Jules) arguably became more famous than the original song itself. This isn't even credited to the notoriety of Gary Jules, as more people have probably heard of Tears for Fears. This leads to the second interesting aspect, the cover is just so different from the original that it nearly turns it into a completely new song. By now it is evident that listeners find Jules's version to be more favorable. But why?
The lyrics of the song paint a bleak picture of dark realizations around the world of the author. The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had is anything but cheery. However as a 21st Century listener, the music of the original version seems to clash fiercely with the words. Upbeat, New Wave, and young British energy are the words some could use to describe the music, and this couldn't be further from the essence of the lyrics.
However in Gary Jule's version, the first thing we are presented with is the simple, sad, descending piano melody that carries the song. Musically the song is a bleak piano ballad. In essence, the music matches the words. Listeners seem to favor this. In my opinion, songs are always always more honest in their original version. They wrote the song, and I believe the music they wrote perfectly matched what they were trying to capture. It clashes because it's supposed to clash. The music is the world around them. Upbeat, cheerful, unaware. The singer is speaking from the heart masked behind music made to match what was the norm of that time. Some could say it falls along the line of satire. To me, this captures the feeling of the words better than Gary Jules's version. I love Jules's version, but I can't shake the feeling that Tears for Fears still did it better, because they made it.  From: https://www.reddit.com/r/LetsTalkMusic/comments/42h8ab/on_the_two_mad_worlds/

Siouxsie & The Banshees - Kiss Them for Me

I can’t say I followed the punk rock scene of the mid-1970s, though I suppose I observed from a distance what was going on due to my constant fascination with music. But English singer-songwriter, musician and record producer Susan Ballion, better known as Siouxsie Sioux, sure did. She first saw the English punk rock band the Sex Pistols in 1975 (the year they formed) and became a regular follower. I imagine their grungy, anti-authoritarian, often-screamed songs might have touched a part of her that needed to be met with after growing up as a childhood sexual assault survivor in an isolated life with an admired but alcoholic father, whose death when she was 14 plunged her into terrible health.
As a devoted punk-rock follower, Ballion (who adopted the name Siouxsie Sioux) was known at the time for the makeup and bondage-inspired costumes she wore at shows but, eventually, after being beaten up at a concert, headed in another direction. She focused on her own, recently-formed band, Siouxsie and the Banshees. (In my post on David Bowie’s “Moonage Daydream,” I briefly refer to the fashion that I, as a thirteen-year-old with my parents, witnessed in the fans while waiting to be let into the Liverpool Empire Theatre to see his concert. I imagine the avant-garde style of costumes there in 1973 as a precursor to those Ballion/Sioux and her contemporaries would be sporting a few years later.)
As an artist, Sioux earned much acclaim; I recall hearing about her early in her career, though again, I didn’t connect directly with her music back then, for whatever reason, though the sense of it always carried a mystical quality I can’t quite explain. But her musician peers certainly connected. Siouxsie Sioux has been held up, her songs covered by others, and just generally admired by many of music’s most highly regarded artists. Many bands and singers like PJ Harvey, Elizabeth Fraser of Cocteau Twins, Dave Grohl, Dolores O’Riordan of the Cranberries, Joan as Police Woman, Alison Goldfrapp, and so many others revere her. She also influenced Joy Division, U2, Sinead O’Connor, among others. the list seems almost endless. Siouxsie Sioux has also collaborated with Morrissey, Angelo Badalamenti (famous for his soundtrack for the original Twin Peaks TV series), Suede, John Cale, Yoko Ono and others. Film director Tim Burton asked her to write a song for his movie Batman Returns (1992).
Siouxsie Sioux and the Banshees released “Kiss Them for Me” on the album Superstition in 1991. It’s a song I’ve heard quite often on one of my go-to stations, KEXP Seattle, on The Morning Show with John Richards. After genuinely enjoying hearing it many times (and it playing in my head a fair bit) lately, I looked up the song today. Wikipedia tells how the piece marked a departure for the band’s style, being more of a pop-oriented, mid-tempo dance song. The online magazine PopMatters listed “Kiss Them for Me” as one of “The 20 Most Memorable Songs of 1991.” I wonder why I’ve only come to know the song in the last year or two!
The lyrics for “Kiss The for Me” are a tribute to American actress and singer Jayne Mansfield (1933-1967) and include the use of the term “divoon” (a superlative she used for “wonderful”). The song touches on the provocative lifestyle that became Mansfield’s trademark and the automobile crash that ended her life. Having witnessed how our male supremacist society has historically dominated females and manipulated and exploited their careers, I’m left wondering how much of all that, in such a high-profile lifestyle, hastened Mansfield’s turbulent life and very young death.
The song begins with a percussed and somewhat synthesized chant/mantra type of vibe with an Eastern flavour carried to a degree throughout the song’s structure, effects, and treatments. There’s a synthesizer line that in part cleverly mimics the chorus, “Kiss them for me… ” The YouTube music video, which isn’t available in Canada, emphasizes the Eastern influence. (There are copies of the video on YouTube, but not authorized, and I always hesitate about sharing access to a post that allows a random channel owner to profit off someone else’s art.) “Kiss Them for Me” is definitely a current favourite. And all the history aside, I love the song in its brilliance and as an example of and a tribute to beauty. It’s a powerful and somewhat tragic piece by a bold and brave artist.  From: https://songoftheday.ca/2021/02/15/kiss-them-for-me/

It glittered and it gleamed
For the arriving beauty queen
A ring and a car
Now you're the prettiest by far

No party she'd not attend
No invitation she wouldn't send
Transfixed by the inner sound
Of your promise to be found

Nothing or no one will ever
Make me let you down
Kiss them for me, I may be delayed
Kiss them for me if I am delayed

It's divoon, oh it's serene
In the fountains pink champagne
Someone carving their devotion
In the heart-shaped pool of fame

On the road to New Orleans
A spray of stars hit the screen
As the tenth impact shimmered
The forbidden candles beamed

Nothing or no one will ever
Make me let you down
Kiss them for me, I may be delayed
Kiss them for me if I am delayed 

The Dukes Of Stratosphear - The Mole From The Ministry

On the surface, it made no sense at all. Their first two studio-only albums bombed. Critical reaction to Mummer and The Big Express was mixed at best; the latter album was almost entirely ignored by critics and music buyers in the United States. The recording sessions approached the chaotic and weren’t all that fun for anyone involved. XTC seemed headed straight down the road to oblivion.
So when Andy Partridge informed Virgin that the next project would attempt to revive a form of music that had been dead for over a decade and would be recorded under a different band name, management responded by limiting the budget to a mere £5,000. Given that Virgin had spent £33,000 on the video for the single “All You Pretty Girls” from The Big Express (which also bombed), it seemed that the suits were getting pretty wary about indulging in Andy’s fantasies.
Andy’s idea involved recreating and recording the psychedelic music of the 60s. Both Andy and Dave Gregory were devotees of the form; as far back as 1978 they had mused about the possibility of making a psychedelic album, even before Dave joined XTC. Andy explained to Todd Bernhardt that while they were hard at work on The Big Express, the urge to realize his dream overpowered him: “. . . during spare minutes I’d sneak off upstairs in Crescent Studios, in Bath, with my cassette machine and whisper these ideas for psychedelic songs into it. I was beginning not to be able to contain the desire to do this. You can see it leaking out earlier—you can see it leaking out on Mummer—‘Let’s get a Mellotron! Let’s put some backwards so-and-so on here.'”
Due to the limited budget and a two-week timeline, they had to hope that some good karma was headed their way. Andy managed to get top-tier producer John Leckie excited about the project and Leckie found a suitably cheap studio with 60s-era equipment while the boys scoured the music stores for period instruments. Caught up in the excitement of transforming themselves into a forgotten ’60s psychedelic band called the Dukes of Stratosphear, they dressed in Paisley and gave themselves fresh pseudonyms. Alas, they didn’t have enough time to create a full album, so the project was whittled down to a six-song mini-album.
Everything I’ve written so far sounds like the perfect recipe for a career-killing embarrassment, but lo and behold, 25 O’Clock sold twice as many copies as The Big Express and did pretty well in the USA. The keys to its stunning success were the ingredients missing in Mummer and The Big Express—a clear artistic vision, an accomplished producer and exceptionally positive vibes. From the documentary This Is Pop:
Dave: I had more fun in those two weeks than I’d ever had in the studio with anybody. We just put ourselves in the mindset of bands from the mid-60s and just find as much vintage gear as we can so we can it sounding as authentic as possible.
Andy: There’s a long tradition of - whatever media you’re in, writers do it all the time but musicians do it as well - where you want to not be you, to go to like a costume ball as some other character - a masked ball - wouldn’t that be great fun? So in our case, let’s make an album by a different band. So in two weeks, we wrote, recorded and mixed the Dukes of Stratosphere’s first record. It was so much fun, I’ll tell ya. So much fun not being yourself.
Ironically, the recording approach of “tarting things up” and overloading the mixes with superfluous sounds that made Mummer and The Big Express unsatisfactory listening experiences turned out to be just what the doctor ordered on 25 O’Clock. Psychedelic music is one of the few musical forms that embraces excess—you expect to hear all kinds of weird and unusual sounds coming out of the speakers. The key difference between the great psychedelic songs and the mucky messes released in the 60s was the presence of a skilled producer, and John Leckie cut his teeth at Abbey Road, where much of the best psychedelic music of the era was engineered and produced.
25 O’Clock and its follow-up Psonic Sunspot are truly labors of love. The Dukes worked hard to reproduce the sounds and styles of their favorite psychedelic bands and have been open and honest about which bands inspired each song. You will hear clear echoes of the Electric Prunes, Pink Floyd (especially Syd Barrett), the Move, Small Faces, Tomorrow, the Smoke, the Pretty Things, the Stones of Satanic Majesties, and of course, the Beatles. I found myself giggling with delight every time I recognized a classic psychedelic trope: “Oh, there’s the cheesy organ!” “And there’s the anti-resolution chord!” “Yay, backward loops!” “Oh, my, that is so walrusy!” I am thoroughly convinced that at least three of the tracks would have been Top 10 hits back in the day and the other three would have made for excellent B-sides.
That said, the Dukes had several advantages over their forebears. They were accomplished musicians in contrast to the sometimes questionable skills of fly-by-night psychedelic bands. The Psychedelic Era operated under the mantra “anything goes” and many of the experiments should have been left in the can. The Dukes had no need to experiment because the practices and values of psychedelic music were well-established. By embracing those core elements, the project became a testament honoring those who came before:
“In the later ’70s, I found myself longing to be doing the music that I loved as a kid of 13 or 14. I’d be listening to the radio then, and there’d be stuff like “See Emily Play,” or “Strawberry Fields Forever,” “My White Bicycle” — you know, all these great psychedelic singles, and I thought, “This is wonderful! When I grow up, I’ll be in a group, and we’ll make music like this!” Of course, as a kid, I had no grasp that this was just the whim of fashion, and that this music was going to last only a year or so, and then it would be gone! But it affected me so profoundly that when I was in a position to be in a group and making records, I thought I should say thank you to the people who made those records, and to say thank you to them by sounding just like them.” -Andy Partridge. From: https://altrockchick.com/2023/12/10/the-dukes-of-stratosphear-25-oclock-classic-music-review-xtc-series/

U.S. Girls - Mad As Hell

Early in Naomi Alderman’s 2017 novel The Power, teenage girls gain the ability to produce an electric charge with their bodies. This “electrostatic power” is channeled through a set of muscles at the collarbone called a skein. It allows women the ability to change their circumstances, and the way that individuals grapple with their new authority is a primary concern of the novel. Alderman’s book is one of a series of new works of art that are helping to, in the words of the writer Rebecca Traister, adjust “American ears to the sound of female anger—righteous and defensive, grand and petty.” Another, one that shares many qualities with The Power, is Meg Remy’s striking new album as U.S. Girls, In a Poem Unlimited.
Remy, an American expatriate who lives in Toronto, has been making music under the name U.S. Girls since 2007, but the moniker used to be a kind of joke. Her music was so idiosyncratic, even, at times, solipsistic. Responding to those qualities early in her career, Artforum called her “a woman who clearly spends a lot of time in her apartment with the shades drawn.” And reviewing her 2012 album GEM, the last released before she signed to 4AD, Pitchfork said of U.S. Girls that “you can tell without peeking at the liner notes that this is a project born of solitude and isolation.”
But by the time her 2015 record, Half Free came out, Remy had begun to open the band to external voices. And three years later, U.S. Girls has become a cacophony. In a Poem Unlimited, at once the most accessible and sharply violent U.S. Girls album to date, is the product of more than two dozen collaborators, many of them members of the Toronto funk and jazz collective the Cosmic Range. Not a single song was written by Remy alone; two were even written without her input. And yet, the glam and surf rock, disco and pop, (glorious, danceable pop!) on the record speaks to a unified vision, one of spit, fury, and chuckling to keep from crying.
Though it is unmistakably a record about women’s anger in its various shades and forms, Remy signals her awareness of male canons throughout (its title comes from Hamlet and the song “Rosebud” is a clear reference to Citizen Kane.) Those landmark texts are there to be turned inside out: Remy is interested in creating new mythologies, fertilizing stale old ground to nurture a different sort of harvest. The shuffling funk of “Pearly Gates,” for instance, turns a story of quotidian male cluelessness into a religious allegory, asking how a heaven controlled by men could ever be safe.
That might sound to some like a facile observation. But none of the songs on Poem can be folded neatly into a box. Remy remains a narrative savant wedded to the thrill of the unexpected, the razor under the tongue, and she fills her songs with cryptic passages and unexpected allusions. Making a record without psychological depth (or music fit to accompany it) might cause her to break out into hives. The album’s first track, the foreboding, psychedelic “Velvet 4 Sale” sets up a woman’s revenge tale. With its breathy ad-libs and spiraling, almost-Western cinematic synths, it would slot nicely into the soundtrack of Kill Bill: Vol 2, and it includes that most phallic of all musical passages, the guitar solo. The song, co-written with Remy’s husband, the musician Max Turnbull, begins in media res: “You’ve been sleeping with one eye open because he always could come back, ya know? And you’ve been walking these streets unguarded waiting for any man to explode.” It ends (spoiler alert!) with a woman instructing another on how to ensure that her male target is dead.
Hamlet, too, is nominally a revenge tale. But just as revenge becomes a portal to the many layers of Shakespeare’s play, so too do does In a Poem Unlimited soon migrate to more complex scenarios. On the extraordinary “Rage of Plastics,” Remy explores, with sax and surf guitar, the bubbling resentment of a woman whose job at an oil refinery has made her infertile. And good luck solving the riddle contained within the funky dirge “L-Over,” a song about ditching a mysterious lover, an animate being with no heart. With few exceptions, these are stories about how women react after being done wrong. But the reactions are so varied that it feels as if each belongs to a different individual, and the album comes to feel like an entire community in tense conversation with itself.  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/us-girls-in-a-poem-unlimited/

Dada - Here Today Gone Tomorrow

Cast your mind back to late 1992. Grunge was busy conquering the rock world if it hadn’t already. The scourge known as Hair Metal had been put out of our collective misery, at last, swept off the charts by Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and their Seattle kin. Then, between endless replays of “Alive” and “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, a catchy tune utterly incompatible with the prevailing zeitgeist somehow plied its way onto MTV rotation and the Modern Rock radio charts. Jangly, noodling guitars; delicate Simon and Garfunkel harmonies; plus snide, ironic, of-the-moment lyrics even more cynical than Cobain’s or Vedder’s rebellious dirges, if that be possible. Yet dada’s “Dizz Knee Land” still had plenty of muscle behind it, including whooped YEAH YEAH YEAHS and a couple of shredding Hendrix guitar solos. Call it a gimmick or a novelty song if you must. But “Dizz” was a huge indie hit, and people remember it – even if I.R.S. label guru Miles Copeland hated the single at the time.
Bassist Joie Calio echoes his fellow band members when he calls “Dizz Knee Land” both a blessing and a curse. “That song made us. It changed our lives,” he says today. “Fans loved it at our shows, even before Puzzle was released. But it became an anchor too.” Certainly never hurts to name a song after one of the world’s best-known brands, right? Moreover, dada did what every debut act is supposed to: deliver a hit for their record label. But both the band and their dedicated fans rate “Dizz Knee Land” as merely the introduction to a fantastic pop-rock record, with half a million in sales to prove it.
So now, with THAT SONG mercifully out of the way… How did these kids initially get together? “Guitarist Mike Gurley and I went to the same high school, but different grades,” says Calio. “Our first band was called A French Invention.” The duo then formed Louis and Clark with guitarist Louis Gutierrez, formerly of Paisley Underground darlings the Three O’Clock. “All our friends were getting signed, but not us,” according to Gurley. He stayed afloat as a sushi waiter while Calio worked in the Geffen Records mail room. “We decided that instead of trying to live the grand rock-star life, we needed to write better songs.” Which they did during a feverishly creative span in Los Angeles lasting somewhere between eight and eighteen months (depending on who you ask).
Quizzed about early influences, one word comes back: Beatles. Then the Byrds, Simon & Garfunkel, Led Zeppelin. Calio also mentions punk pioneers the Clash and the Ramones, while drummer Phil Leavitt cites the Doors’ John Densmore as a touchstone. All three members take pains to point out that AM pop radio was king back then. (Meanwhile, this urbane south Floridian still waits for somebody out there to credit AM stalwarts KC and the Sunshine Band, who out-charted all of the above except the Fab Four.) Thus the soon-to-be trio honed their sound: Beatles melodies topped by Simon & Garfunkel harmony, with a touch of Hendrix thrown in for brawny marbling. Much like Big Star and the Raspberries before them, dada would resurrect an anachronistic yet proven pop-rock formula that starchy conventional wisdom had left behind.
In one of several huge breaks along the way, Gutierrez heard Gurley’s and Calio’s initial batch of songs and invited them to open on tour for his new band Mary’s Danish. After famed producer Ken Scott caught their act at the Highland Grounds coffee shop, he offered to produce a demo tape – which may or may not have been the one Gurley claims he left inside I.R.S. exec Copeland’s Chrysler LeBaron cassette deck, in yet another lucky twist. Opportunity had officially knocked: Time to deliver that sparkling debut album!
Which, of course, I.R.S. summarily rejected. This led to a second self-produced studio session, which according to Leavitt yielded some of Puzzle’s best tracks. “Joie and Mike had originated most of the material,” he says. “I helped with the arrangements, and we reworked some other elements together.” Indeed, so well-produced and engineered was Puzzle that it served as a demo CD for Hi-Fi audio equipment at the time. Production was one aspect; the songs were another. Puzzle remains as musically intricate and rewarding today as it was then – a universally appealing, type-O record that adults, MTV teens, rockers, and even their girlfriends could all get behind. And not just because of THAT SONG, which we’ll return to in due time.
Gurley and Calio claim they invented the female name for album opener “Dorina” out of whole cloth, and that the song was based on a psychic who worked the Santa Monica pier. Right away dada’s effervescent vocals strike the listener: harmony is the focus of every verse, right up to the plaintive, begging chorus. The song is a confident six minutes, lengthy for a debut’s first track, and boasts a couple of ragged, wailing guitar solos. Is this Beatles pop-rock, or “Let’s Go Crazy”?
Followup “Mary Sunshine Rain” cements the point, demonstrating that those surprising powerhouse solos were no fluke. The song opens with Puzzle’s most haunting acoustic refrain, before delving into further guitar pyrotechnics in the Hendrix vein. Granted, the term “schizophrenic” is usually an epithet. No whiplash here, though – the melodies flow effortlessly from soft to jagged and back again, with those buoyant harmonies high above. Such gentle edges around a rough center were a hardy Page/Zeppelin trademark; it’s called a ‘formula’ because it works. Meanwhile, pressed for the inside scoop, Gurley reveals that the sunshine/rain “Mary” in question was his girlfriend at the time and a serious downer. But fear not Mary: unlike the rest of us, you’re officially immortal.
My personal favorite “Dog” is up next, featuring not only Puzzle’s greatest harmonies but some of the best of that decade. Gurley became convinced early on that he and Calio sang better together than separately, and the celestial sounds they produce on this track prove him spectacularly right. How about that chorus: “I know a girl / who believes a girl / who believes she used to be a dog”? Interviewing three band members often leads to conflicting stories or memories. But “Dog” is all about reincarnation, says Calio. “A girl one of us knew thought she was a dog in a former life. Being stoned might have had something to do with it,” he admits. Exactly who was stoned is a question we’ll graciously leave unasked. But the trailing-verse melody “Keep looking to the sky, ayyy, ayyyyy” never ever gets old, and never will.
Now saddle up: We’ve officially reached track four, which means it’s time to revisit THAT SONG. Mystical provenance? “Basically, the only radio hit dada ever had came to me in a dream,” says Calio of “Dizz Knee Land” today. “I heard the melody, and then a bus with the word Disneyland drove by. I woke up at five a.m. and started writing lines like I just robbed a grocery store. The first Gulf War was on TV the night before (‘I just flipped off President George’, unforgettable line), along with that famous Super Bowl commercial saying the winner was going to Disneyland. I thought it was an interesting juxtaposition. Later that morning I drove to Mike’s house, and he added the Zeppelin-style bridge. The spelling was changed in the studio later on.”
Hit, schmit: Thanks to some luck and a ton of hard work, dada had officially made it. Leavitt recalls touring with Sting the following year: “I looked around the stage, and here we were on tour with Sting. My whole life I expected early success, so I had absolutely zero doubt that we belonged there.” Road-movie soundtrack “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow” is another gem, perhaps the most biting cut on Puzzle yet also the most unadulterated fun. Its deep, drawling Lou Reed intro builds to a laconic Joe Walsh-style guitar solo, along with hilarious “Bonnie and Clyde” fantasy lyrics like “We robbed a bank in Santa Monica / Bought a Caddy and a gold harmonica…” The song also applies its vocals straight, with zero harmony, shoving its subversive desperado nature to the forefront.
Not to belabor every track, but broken-family dirge “Timothy” deserves special mention as well. Each lyric is beautifully harmonized, and the tearful string section brings subsequent 1990s Divine Comedy ballads to mind. Gurley credits every youthful bully, liar, or weirdo they ever knew for inspiration: “The teacher asks, oh where are your parents Tim / It’s been five months and I’ve seen no sign of them / My dad’s not here, he flew back to Mars…” Timothy also conveniently rhymes with ‘sympathy’, thereby justifying the choice of the song title.
Most music acts have trouble getting along for an hour, let alone three decades together. What’s dada’s secret for not hating each other’s guts after all this time? “Musical and creative respect,” answers Gurley. “Giving each other space, and coming together wherever you can.” Leavitt also credits the tail end of the old-school record business, pre-streaming, and pre-Napster, contending that the industry’s late 1990s upheaval made everything more difficult. For his part, Calio applies the classic ‘marriage’ analogy, but then grows philosophical: “Everyone involved has to understand that a rock band is like a submarine. You can’t get halfway off, and shit never leaves.”
So: After 30 long years (!), the music on Puzzle hasn’t aged one iota, but the rest of us sure have. Leavitt and Calio are focused on their roots-rock band 7Horse, while Gurley’s solo work includes his 2020 release Ultrasound and chasing his three-year-old son around the house. That enchanted period from ’92 to ‘96 understandably remains a bright spot, however. Gurley describes not wanting to take days off from the studio because the trio were having so much fun together, while Calio somehow still possesses every shred of the band’s notes, schedules, and other materiel from those golden days. “We were something back then, all three of us. I’m really proud of Puzzle and all our records,” says Leavitt in conclusion. “We connected with people, who continue to listen and be moved by our music to this day. That’s no easy trick, and I would never downplay it or take it for granted.”  From: https://www.popmatters.com/dada-discuss-puzzle-at-30

La Era De Acuario - White Rabbit (Jefferson Airplane cover)

La Era De Acuario are a Mexican Psychedelic Rock band, formed in recent times but with very well defined characters. The marked influences of the late 60s mixed with more modern and always refined sounds make them fresh and original. We are here to tell you about their self-titled album released in LP by Necio Records on 16 March, 2021 and containing 8 tracks also available in digital. As soon as I approached listening to this work, I hoped it was what it turned out to be, not the usual Psychedelia album, but something sophisticated and with original sounds, while still respecting traditions. Album that right from the start immediately immerses us in the sounds of the band with a song, “Om Ganesh, “involving and well developed, certainly successful. It highlights both the vocal parts that accompany us in a lysergic journey where they find space also pleasant intertwining of guitar and keyboards. “Lunar” is softer and more dilated than the previous one, where in the instrumental parts the guitar inserts are heavier and dreamy melodies are created with the keyboards. “Agujero Negro” connects with the previous one in the initial riff to subsequently insert Latin influences and give life to an interesting long-lasting instrumental section. The intensity increases with the passing of the minutes, the mix of several styles is interesting and original. “Etéreo” has a more 60s character projected to the present day, an example of those traditional sounds but interpreted with a personal and modern character. The mix between the keyboards and the guitar is good and the vocals make us travel in time, while the keyboard and guitar solo takes the sound to another level. “Fotografía” is more in the form of a softer and more linear ‘song’ than the previous ones, a good piece that still has positive and engaging melodies. “Bailando en el Mar” shows again a 60’s inspiration, in the Doors in particular, adding that personal touch that characterizes their sound. The melodies are darker and more intricate here, with a good guitar and keyboard solo in the final instrumental part. “Orgón” slows down in the rhythmic session, also dilating the melodies on dark tones and frequent tempo changes, and leading keyboards, while the acid guitar riffs blend well. “Hippie Hippie Hourra” is a cheerful track that is very reminiscent of the 60s, which closes by paying homage to the positivity of the sounds of the past. A band that succeeds in interpreting the Psychedelic sounds of the late 60s in a modern key, always giving their own modern and original touch to the tracks. An album recommended to all lovers of Psychedelic music with an even more modern vision, while remaining faithful to traditions. Well-developed and well-executed textures respecting the classic sounds of the genre, adding however a more modern and personal interpretation that guides us through this well-made lysergic journey.  From: https://progrockjournal.com/review-la-era-de-acuario-la-era-de-acuario/