Levitation Room - Crystal Ball

 

There’s nothing like the weight of Los Angeles pressures that range from societal standards to its fast-paced culture. The hazy smog sets over the City of Angels and the summer heat makes the sidewalks sizzle. Palm trees loom over the sunsets, making you feel like you’re in a dream. It’s the home of the psychedelic quartet Levitation Room. The band is composed of singer Julian Porte, guitarist Gabriel Fernandez, drummer Jonathan Martin, and bassist Kevin Perez. The four musicians break the bonds of gravity with their cosmic wall of sound and thought-provoking lyrics.
Levitation Room was formed around the band members’ mutual love of ’60s garage rock played with a psychedelic twist. Initially, they sought to re-create the sounds they love. Their own sound is described to be a perfect mix of lo-fi and fuzzy pedals. The wavy and atmospheric songs echo their influences: summers of love, sunny days at the park, life, society, and self-awareness. Today, Levitation Room is broadening their soundscape and dipping into the world of genres through intoxicating guitar tones while maintaining their dreamy melodies. Luna had the chance to talk to lead singer Porte about their latest single, “Scene for an Exit,” and the band’s upcoming record.

LUNA: Before we get into the meat of the questions, did you happen to participate in Barbenheimer? It’s when you watch Barbie and Oppenheimer on the same day.

PORTE: No, but I did see Barbie. My girlfriend dragged me to see it. Well, actually, I was persuaded to see it. A friend of ours was in town from up north, and my girlfriend and I were both kind of detesting it a little bit. We ended up trying it, and it’s really good. It's really funny — really hilarious. Once I put my guard down, I realized the movie was pretty good. I was trying to get everyone to go see Oppenheimer, but they were like, “We'll walk out of the theater sad.” I still have yet to see Oppenheimer.

LUNA: If a big movie studio decided to make a biopic on your life, who would you want to be cast as yourself?

PORTE: I think it’s gotta be someone who has my complexion, so that kind of narrows it down. I watch a lot of films, but trying to recollect actors' names is always tricky. Who's young enough to play me but also has my vibe? Who’s the guy who played Freddie Mercury… Oh! Rami Malek! Yeah, I would go with Rami Malek. I liked what he did with Mr. Robot.

LUNA: Rami Malik. Solid choice. He's phenomenal. To set the scene, how would you describe the beginning moments in forming Levitation Room?

PORTE: Well, it goes back to me and Gabriel, the lead guitar player. We were friends a long time ago and we were in a band called The Hits. At that time, I was just a singer. I wasn't a guitar player. We were starting with this band, but my involvement was short-lived because I ended up leaving due to conflicting musical interests with other band members. I went off to start learning how to play guitar and I was becoming, like, a folk musician, and I was a street busker — that's how I kind of built my chops. At some point, I was doing open mics and trying to get gigs as a folk musician, but no one ever seemed to pay attention to it. I thought, “I think I need a bigger platform; I think I need to expand my sound here.” I'm a big fan of psychedelic rock ’n’ roll. I like all kinds of music, but that was my favorite. That's what I really honed in on.
One day I made a Facebook post asking if anyone wanted to start a band, and Gabriel responded and was like, “Yo, I'm thinking about leaving The Hits,” because at that time they were gigging. They’d found another singer, and he was down to jam and meet up with me. So we started hanging out in his garage and going over covers of songs that we liked. We were dreaming up this idea of starting a band together. I think it really all came together when I met John at a party — our drummer, Jonathan Martin — and we started jamming together at our friend Isaac's studio. We realized that we needed our own studio, and I found this ad on Craigslist for a big warehouse space that was being rented out. John and I ended up moving in and living there.

LUNA: That’s really cool.

PORTE: In front of the warehouse was a music retailer space, and the owners had told us they were shutting the retail space down because they couldn’t afford it anymore. Eventually, the owners hit us up and offered to take it over and have some kind of business endeavor installed in there. And so a bunch of our friends helped and we all came together to start a music collective. That’s when things started to take off.

LUNA: Wow, I didn't know anything about the warehouse. I think that's really cool, that a lot of the things that propelled you guys forward were community, having those shows and other people coming together.

PORTE: It was in east LA. In the front, we sold guitars, music equipment, vintage clothes, records, and antiques. Our friend was a tattoo artist, so he was doing tattoos. We had another friend who was a video editor, so we built an office space for him. Then in the back, we had our studios, which we rented out to bands to rehearse. The thing that made the bulk of our income was throwing a big blowout party once a month. A lot of bands like Cherry Glazerr and the Mild High Club played and were doing some of their first shows there.

LUNA: That’s sick. It’s been about three years since you guys last released music — how do you think you’ve changed as a person over that period of time?

PORTE: The pandemic changed me quite a bit, I guess you could say. I feel like I'm socially inept now. I don't really go out as much. I get nervous in big crowds when I never really used to, and my interest in a lot of things has changed. I've gotten interested in history, and I've been trying to educate myself on how the financial system works and stupid things like that. Everyone else on this planet is constantly evolving, right? We're always changing. It's forever changing. That's one consistent thing that we're always doing. I used to be so attached to my ideals, and what I've come to learn is that I shouldn't do that because I'm always going to change my mind about certain things, interests, convictions, everything.
I remember when I was younger, in high school — and even after high school — I thought I was going to be a punk rocker forever, but I changed. As far as the music, we're trying to expand our sound because between the four of us, there's a culmination of interest, and we all like different things and we all like a lot of the same things. We're trying to bring every element of what we like into our music. There’s jazz, folk, and world music — and also trying not to pigeonhole ourselves into being just a psych-rock band because we want to make good pop music. We want to make music that we want to listen to and that spans all genres of music.

LUNA: Yeah, absolutely. Speaking of which, how do you think the writing process for “Scene for an Exit” has differed from the rest of your discography or past songs you guys have written?

PORTE: I think, at least for us, there are two types of ways to approach writing songs. One comes very naturally, where we're just kind of jamming in the studio. Someone's like, “Oh, that sounds really cool. Let's keep doing that,” and then it just evolves into a song, or sometimes it goes nowhere. Other times, it's a thing where someone has been really working on a song. Perhaps it came quickly, or perhaps it developed over a period of time. I'm thinking back to our song “Warmth of the Sun,” which is one of our top five listened-to songs — and that took me two, almost three years, to write. It just started with a little riff. “Scene for an Exit” was a particular song that came about in the studio from comfortably jamming with each other and thinking, “That sounds cool.” The song came very naturally, very organic. We didn't really sit and throw our heads at the wall or scratch our heads. It was a cool song that came quickly.

LUNA: Being held as staples to festivals such as Levitation Fest and Desert Daze is a testimony to how your recorded music translates exceptionally well into live music. What’s your favorite part about performing live?

PORTE: It’s an exhilarating experience. I think, especially the moments before you hit the stage, your nerves are just cross-wired. As soon as you get on stage and feel the reception of the crowd — especially if it's a warm reception — then it's on. You're floating in this space. It's almost like a dream, because it happens really fast. Then when you reflect back on it, it’s like, “Whoa, what just happened?” Sometimes when you're having a bad show it can feel excruciatingly long. You're just like, “Oh my god, I can't wait for this to be done.” A majority of our experiences have been very positive. It's almost like a religious experience. You're up there in the act of receiving God or something. I think we have to, a lot of times, realize that the music is bigger than us and kind of remove our egos from that experience. People are there for the music, and it's a total exchange between the band and the crowd. There's a conduit, almost — what the crowd gives us, we give back.

LUNA: Absolutely, yeah. To close everything off, the last question I have is: What aspect of your upcoming music are you most excited for your audience to experience?

PORTE: The way that the fidelity of how the songs sound on this record is much different than the lo-fi sound that we usually do, so I'm excited to present that to them. I'm also just excited to show people how much we've evolved in our sound and in our songwriting. I'm not trying to be too boastful, but I'm very proud of this body of work. For one, it took a long time to do because we kept re-recording it and trying to find the right home for it. This time we made an album that I would want to listen to, whereas before, I think a lot of the music that we've made… I don't think I would bump it in my car. I hope that people like it.

From: https://www.thelunacollective.co/journal/qa-levitation-room

Fiona Apple - Sessions at West 54th 1997

I don’t know where to start or stop with Fiona Apple. I mention her a lot; to date there are 10 review articles in which she is mentioned by name, but then she is the #1 female singer songwriter of the last 30 years in my opinion and if I make any reference to her you can be sure that is a huge endorsement of the artist I’m comparing to her. But I’ll wager there are some folk reading this article that have never heard of her, owing to her latter day isolation. A semi-recluse in her Venice Beach home, she hasn’t toured for years that I know of, once cancelled a tour of Latin America because her dog was sick and didn’t reinstate the tour later, and hasn’t been to Europe for close to 20 years. (I did read that she has a fear of flying, which might count as an excuse). I know of several organisations that have tried consistently to attract her, the Manchester International Festival being just one of them, but without any success. And her track record at releasing studio albums isn’t great either. On average one every 4.8 years from 1996 to 2020 or every 5.6 years until now. And the gap is getting bigger. The one between albums three and four was seven years and between four and five it was eight. Apple argues that she writes only when she feels like it, which isn’t very often but when she does she becomes obsessed with the project and wholly driven until it is completed to perfection… She doesn’t do anything to order, by record labels or anyone else. And you might well feel that’s the way it should be.
That degree of obsession possibly dates back to her third album, ‘Extraordinary Machine’ (2005), the first she recorded, as a New Yorker, in her new Los Angeles home and the one that introduced her to me. It was famously delayed because her label, Epic, held it back for two years, seemingly because they were concerned about a lack of ‘commercial appeal’. That led to a highly publicised fan-led ‘Free Fiona’ campaign and the re-recording of the album which was eventually released more than three years after the original recording sessions began.
There is a lot about Apple that I could talk about, such as her Melungeon ancestry (descendants from northern or central Europeans and sub-Saharan Africans, who mainly live in the Appalachian mountains – she gets her given name Apple from her grandmother), the Broadway showbiz background of her parents, her cabaret singer sister Amber, aka Maude Maggart, her Grammy Awards (she’s a three-time winner), her remarkable and career defining “the world is bullshit” outburst at the MTV Awards in 1997, her various physical and mental ailments that have troubled her for years (but which now seem to be under control) and what at the very least probably contributed to them; the brutal rape she experienced as a 12-year girl right outside her apartment door on her way home from school.
I’m astonished there is no biography of Apple but then again I don’t think she is the type that would want one anyway. Her songs are invariably about relationships that failed and often (but not always) written vengefully, belittling the ex-partner. If Los Angeles is ‘100 suburbs in search of a city’ as it was once described then its most lovelorn inhabitant is ‘100 dates in search of a love affair.’
The first video is of a performance of ‘Never is a promise’, from her debut album ‘Tidal’ in 1996. She long ago gave up on performing this song live; it clearly has an extremely emotional effect on her. This is taken from the West 54th Street Sessions, a popular TV show at the time. I have never seen a more genuinely emotional and passionate delivery of a song by ANY musician that can top this performance. It is breathtaking from start to finish and Apple lives it rather than sings it. Pass the tissues please. Watch for the way she uses facial expressions. (And there is an even more dramatic and impassioned live performance than this on YouTube but I declined to post it in case it frightened the kids).
She bares her soul like no-one else I know. And almost chokes on the emotion. Bear in mind that Apple was 14 or 15 when she wrote it and is 18 or 19 here. In fact it is one of three songs on a demo tape passed on by a babysitter friend to the child’s mother, a music publicist, who ensured it was passed on to Sony. That’s how she got her break. And tell me how a 14-year old writes lyrics like,

“You’ll never see the courage I know/Its colours’ richness won’t appear within your view
I’ll never glow the way that you glow/Your presence dominates the judgments made on you.”
And that’s just the opening verse. Later,
“But as the scenery grows, I see in different lights/The shades and shadows undulate in my perception
My feelings swell and stretch I see from greater heights/I understand what I am still too proud to mention… to you”

What?? 14? One aspect of Apple’s talent that is rarely mentioned strangely is her piano playing. She began learning aged six and by the time she was eight was composing her own songs and transposing guitar tablature into piano notation. Just think about that. The weird instrument being played in support by the way is a Chamberlin, a sort of early mellotron which you rarely hear these days but which remains one of her favourites.
For the second performance we move on to circa 2014. I said earlier that she doesn’t perform live much these days, the exception being in some of her favourite Los Angeles clubs including this one, Largo. Once again the lyrics, this time in the song ‘I know’, the final track on her second album, ‘When the pawn…’ are awesome. I can’t think of anyone who can surpass her. In this case Apple is in her rare gentler, forgiving mode, at least until the end. Try this:

“And you can use my skin to bury secrets in
And I will settle you down
And at my own suggestion
I will ask no questions
While I do my thing in the background”
And the coup de grâce:
“While you try to find
The lines to speak your mind
And pry it open, hoping for an encore
And if it gets too late, for me to wait
For you to find you love me, and tell me so
It’s okay, don’t need to say it…”

She spits out the “for you to find you love me” like a woman scorned a thousand times by indecision in the face of her obvious love for him, then immediately collapses into the heartrending pathos of “and tell me so”. And for all the complexity of those lines, “And if it gets too late, for me to wait, For you to find you love me, and tell me so” it trips off the tongue. And the brilliance of those lyrics is capped by the two words that everyone is expecting to be delivered right at the end but which never are, the title line, “I know”. She doesn’t have to say it because she knows so many women hanging on every word she says know it, too. That’s pure genius.
There’s more drama in this five minute video than in most of the movies made today but that is what Apple is all about, the impromptu live performance from an unpredictable artist. She’s left audiences begging for more but she’s also just walked off stage two songs in, because she didn’t ‘feel right.’ To any younger performers and especially female singer-songwriters reading this, Fiona Apple is the Gold Standard, and this is the level you should aspire to. The passion Apple brings to just about any song she performs is off the scale. I would pay whatever it took to see one of her mesmeric performances live, anywhere. And she is still very much a contemporary artist, aged only 47, even if she rarely gets out of first gear these days.  From: https://www.nordicmusiccentral.com/weekend-intermission-greatest-live-performances-ever-fiona-apple-never-is-a-promise-and-i-know/

The Lickerish Quartet - Lighthouse Spaceship

Sometimes there’s just no other way. You don’t want to do it, but all roads are traveling in that one direction. You go there or you don’t go at all. I imagine that’s the feeling the members of the band The Lickerish Quartet feel. The Quartet, which is actually a trio named after an Italian erotic film, consists of Roger Joseph Manning Jr., Eric Dover, and Tim Smith. They dropped their E.P., Threesome Vol. 1, last month. Crucially, all three members of this band were previously connected to the cult power-pop band Jellyfish, and unfortunately that is how the E.P. is being marketed, as a quasi-reunion.
I get it. In the years after the dissolution of Jellyfish, the group moved from a beloved and legitimately wronged band with a small but devoted fan base to something akin to a legend. A tiny legend – let’s keep things in proportion – but in a specific genre subsection, Jellyfish is godhead. Post-Jellyfish, The Lickerish Quartet’s members hadn’t become megastars. In Manning’s case, he did quite well as a session musician, backing up Beck and others, but his solo releases stayed low-profile, and not necessarily because he wanted it that way. His E.P. Glamping from a couple years back is a shockingly solid effort, worthy of praise and attention, not getting much of either.
So you are in this reunion effort, but here’s the problem. It doesn’t sound much like the top marquee band the reunion proposes to capitalize upon. Threesome Vol. 1 is not the second coming of Jellyfish, and it darn well shouldn’t be. The four tracks on the release are a piece with the stylistic tropes the previous group was known for, being ’60s influenced psych-pop, glistening AM radio confections, the occasional glam rock slap in the face, and a black streak of subversion throughout. Their second album, Spilt Milk, while appearing as all gorgeous with carnival lights and primary colors on the outside is at heart a concept record critical of organized religion.
Threesome Vol. 1‘s first single, “Lighthouse Spaceship,” comes closest to the identifying DNA. “Fadoodle” is a breezy fiddle-about on the the subject of…wanting to fadoodle. If I need to explain the euphemism to you, consider yourself hopeless and go watch some NC-17 content on Netflix.”There Is A Magic Number” and “Bluebird’s Blues” are also keepers, offering a solid effort from top to bottom. On the whole, I don’t think the marketing does the material justice. This is a terrific little mini-album and can stand on its own, but the industry does not work that way. You gotta have branding.
Since this is self-released by the band, they realize it too and have to do everything they can to give this new venture a fighting chance (especially since a certain Mr. Covid has bashed all musicians across the kneecaps). Is that fair? Most certainly not, so I would advise you give Threesome Vol. 1 a fair shot in spite of, not because of, the heritage. And I cannot stress this enough: the reasons why Manning, Smith and Dover did it are perfectly legitimate, and I guarantee that it was somewhat a sacrifice to lean on those connections. If you enjoy the recording as much as I did and that translates into sales and some excitement, one hopes that a Volume 2 will emerge and have the mojo it needs to stand alone.  From: https://musictap.com/2020/07/23/music-review-the-lickerish-quartet-threesome-vol-1/

Lysa Gora - Ripni Kalinke

It’s been a while since we’ve reviewed a Łysa Góra (meaning ‘bald mountain’) album. Łysa Góra is a five-member band whose past albums have been folk-forward and acoustic. This album is unique in its electric guitar and bass magic, and sadly, it’s extra special because it’s the last with violinist Sylwia Biernat who’s parting ways with the band.
The title track was released before the album as a single, and I strongly recommend listening to it. It tidily sums up the band’s sound and the spirit of the album. For those not listening, the lead singer Dorota has a simply amazing voice. There are some high-energy plaintive vocals, but most of the singing is somber and melancholy. There are guitars, bass, and drums that play nicely throughout the album. In such a vocally-driven performance, there’s really no room for showy guitar riffs or drum segments, but the “Oj Dolo” (“Oh, fate”) does feature some exceptional bass playing. On the folk end, the violinist also stands out and brings soul and spirit into each song.
Speaking of songs, each one is a meandering journey. No refrains, but quite a few memorable motifs and repeated phrases, almost exclusively in minor keys. The melodies are, like Łysa Góra’s other ventures, distinctly Slavic and eastern European, and even the guitar tones have a familiar sound to other bands in Poland and heading east. A few songs throw some sound effects into the mix. “Wdowa” (“Widow”), appropriately, has a church organ and some heavy drumming that’s evened out by the violin, and “Wolność” (“Freedom”), my personal favorite, starts with a dialogue and a woman crying. It’s a little heavy handed and not ideal for repeated listening, but the song is the strongest on the album. This is the strongest album Łysa Góra’s created to date. Together, they capture the true embodiment of Slavic folk metal. They have a full tour schedule of both acoustic and electric shows. They’re highly recommended and worth checking out.  From: https://www.folk-metal.nl/2023/04/lysa-gora-w-ogniu-swiat-2023/

Moving Oos - Minister Of Love

Since upper Norway in early February remains dark both at night and during most of the day, it is impossible for a visitor with only three days in the country to assess time with any accuracy. Add alcohol, plus sleep deprivation to the already extant sensory deprivation, and the task becomes laughable. The vague occasion was the after-party to what had previously seemed the after-party, on the day after the last night of Trondheim's by:Larm festival, and thus it could have been nearly any time in the early or even late morning that we emerged out of a cluster of warehouses and, ducking the wind off the snow and the nearby fjord, ascended the steps up into the third or fifth venue of the evening.
Though we had been told otherwise, we did not expect the "biker bar" to which we had been referred to contain American-style bikers, to boast mounted Death Valley cow skulls and wall-to-wall worn-out leather jackets. And we did not expect the Moving Oos, which we knew as a side-project to the New Violators and were our last stop before the airport, to have much to do with "classic rock"-- somewhere, somebody sketchily said, between the Faces and MC5. We expected them to sound like the New Violators: gauzy not bluesy, early 1980s not early 70s, good clothes and a dignified affect, not blue jeans and jean jackets.
OK, that's not quite right. We knew their singer had worked as a truck driver and knew that Per Borten, the gifted music mimic, singer, and songwriter behind New Violators, wrote the Moving Oos' songs too. And we knew that the New Violators' occasional backup singer/siren was one of the two "oos" in that band's three-person vocal front (the two bands also share a drummer and keyboardist). Two of us had even seen the Oos the night before. But who could believe the same people carrying off such a brilliant American/English 80s pop resurrection could be doing the same thing later that evening for a completely different decade, the 1970s??
Anybody who's heard Zeppelin or the Rolling Stones or the Black Crowes or AC/DC-- everybody-- will know what's coming in this music minutes before it actually happens, making Peace and Love a brain-teaser of a good record. How can we still enjoy this stuff: the bluesy lick, guitar or keys; the tambourine hits on the eights; the gesture skyward cued by women saying "ooh"; the multi-tracked, song-title-based chorus? The motorcycle revs on "Natural Man", the "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" interpolation on "Turn Back Time", the "Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution" intro on not one but two songs, "Prisoner" and "Promised Land"?
One answer is that Peace and Love is less homage than pretty close to the real thing, right place/wrong time, maybe, but right songs. What makes Peace and Love more than a joke or side-project or late night drunken escapism is something perhaps old fashioned or unfashionable, but it has to do with everyone in the band knowing how to sing, how to play their instruments, everyone knowing the exact moment on "Romancer" to get out of the way and let the two women deliver the second chorus by themselves, a shivery and sharp moment of clarity that says, just maybe, these guys know what they're about. It's easy to be taken by bands you see this way-- foreign place, foreign time, perfect for the exact moment they're stepping out into-- but the Moving Oos have no trouble pulling that space up by themselves, without help. Skeptics beware.  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/10037-peace-and-love/

High Places - She's A Wild Horse

High Places showed up in 2008 pegged as a Brooklyn act, but they never seemed very metropolitan. If anything, their innocent, home-recorded songs felt pastoral or coastal-- concerned more with breaking out of the city rather than toiling in it. That escapist tendency, mixed with their sonic primitivism and hopeful outlook, was refreshing. Even if their style wasn't exactly groundbreaking (we'd heard others combine global polyrhythms, hip-hop beats, and field recordings before), their approach was unique. In part because of Rob Barber's ragged production, High Places made those sounds feel roomy and lived-in. While a good record, 2008's High Places was primarily an extension of what the band established with their singles collection 03/07 – 09/07. The sound was slightly glossier, but mostly it was vocalist Mary Pearson once again cooing over Barber's fractured arrangements. With High Places vs. Mankind, though, all that is out of the window. If you count High Places as their first true album, then their latest is a classic sophomore change-up-- a departure in both style and temperament. Far from the doe-eyed innocence and sunny bliss of their earlier work, High Places are darker and much more somber here, and their approach to recording and presentation has changed.
The biggest difference is the band's mood. High Places used to stress resiliency and optimism, but now they seem resigned to life's disappointments. On an early track "On Giving Up", Pearson, who once radiated childlike hopefulness, sings solemnly of loss: "Though I have cried so many times before, it's all because I feel everything that's gone." Similar themes of heartbreak and fear exist throughout the album, and there's a notable change in the way the band sounds, too. Instead of the earlier sample-heavy style, Barber incorporates more live instrumentation, and as a result High Places feel more like a band. There are still loops and dance elements, but the focus is often more on heavy post-punk guitar-and-bass lines that enhance the overall gloomy vibe.
It's a surprising turn for the group, and whether or not you like them more as sunny optimists or somber realists is a matter of taste. The more pressing question is how this shift affects the quality of the songs. Mostly it works, but there are also songs here, especially the instrumental ones ("The Channon", "Drift Slayer") that aren't very memorable. Even a few of the more pop-focused cuts tend to skimp on melody, and it makes me think that in the band's desire to overhaul, they lost a bit of their initial spark. Still, the album is encouraging because it shows a talented young group unafraid of growth. Even if this isn't their best collection of songs, it takes nerve to try something so different.  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/14103-high-places-vs-mankind/

Macroscream - The Flying Giampy

Macroscream represents the flowering of bassist/vocalist Alessandro Patierno's long-term vision to create a seventies-style progressive rock band. His idea took root in 2001 but it was seven years before the group's line-up was completed with the arrival of drummer Marco Pallotti in 2008. Like their fellow band members, Davide Cirone (keyboards) and Tonino Politano (guitar) have backgrounds in the music schools and academies. However it was violinist Gianpaolo Saracino's involvement in a number of folk music projects that largely shaped the band's musical development. And their style has been further honed through a productive live activity since 2010; last year they supported Italian jazz ensemble Ibrido Hot Six at a concert in Rome that also featured guest appearances by Gary Green and Malcolm Mortimore of Gentle Giant.
The band's self-produced debut album 'Sisyphus' (2011) is a mature musical work that combines a strong Italian folk sensibility, courtesy of Saracino's violin arrangements, with a devotion to 1970s symphonic prog. The ambition of the music is matched by English-language lyrics that are derived from philosophy and classical mythology - the album is inspired by Albert Camus' reading of the legendary trickster Sisyphus who was condemned to eternal punishment by the gods. In spite of Patierno's highly distinctive vocals, which often sound at odds with the music, the band generally manages to exploit the opposing but balanced qualities of harshness and sophistication. Sisyphus' travails were dedicated to an eternity of accomplishing nothing but his namesake album has the potential to establish Macroscream as a major new RPI band in the near future.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=7335

Frequency Drift - 6:16 am Deceit

Frequency Drift was formed by classically trained keyboard player and multi-instrumentalist Andreas Hack in 2006 - the band subsequently releasing their debut, 'Personal Effects Pt. 1' in 2008 via Musea. This conceptual work, based around the tragic tale of two sisters in a futuristic setting, was inspired by films like 'Bladerunner', 'Ghost in a Shell' etc, and told the story of a girl named River living in 2046 and having problems with an imaginary association named 'Diomedeidae'.
Katja Hubner was the impressive female vocalist on this first album, and the follow-up album, 'Personal Effects Pt. 2' was released by Cyclops in 2010, the new album once again showcasing Frequency Drift's talent for powerful, soulful melodies and atmosphere. The album continued River's story, with new melodic, atmospheric songs - including a wider range of instruments - and female vocal contributions this time from Nicole Scharnagl, Kerstin Leidner and Christine Mettner.
For the band's 2011 album 'Ghosts', Antje Auer had joined them permanently on vocals, and this release saw the first notable appearance of later band member Nerissa Schwarz (electric harp) as guest composer and musician, as well as an evolution towards an enthralling, melancholic mixture of art rock, ambient, folk and metal. Martin Fox was now the band's permanent drummer, with original drummer Wolfgang Ostermann also performing as a guest on several tracks, and several other guest musicians being involved in the making of the album.
'Laid to Rest' (2012, Gentle Art of Music) continued this path, with world music influences and an even more varied instrumentation - featuring gemshorn, flute and clarinet alongside the harp and violin. There was a another change of drummer for this album (Jasper Joris) - with his partner Barbara Joris being responsible for the gemshorn and various other medieval instruments - and Martin Schnella of Seven Steps to the Green Door and Flaming Row fame guesting on acoustic & electric guitars on the album's final track.
The international success of their albums earned Frequency Drift an invitation to play live at the 2012 "Night of the Prog" festival on the famous Loreley open-air stage, a performance called one of the highlights in 9 years of NOTP by the festival's manager in the German magazine 'Eclipsed'. Frequency Drift's 5th album 'Over' (2014, Gentle Art of Music / Soulfood) established a writing collaboration between Andreas and Nerissa, and was marked by further experimentation with electric harp soundscapes and keyboard textures.
An ambitious and eclectic work, 'Over' offers a unique mixture of old school progressive rock, post rock, pop, classical and world music. Isa Fallembacher and guest singer Agathe Labus shared the vocals, and Martin Schnella again guested on acoustic & electric guitars along with Kalle Wallner (RPWL, Blind Ego) on bass. The band had no permanent drummer for this particular album, the role being fulfilled by another guest musician in Phil Paul Rissettio.
In the same year, Frequency Drift released 'Summer', a wistful collection of previously unreleased songs, and was re-joined by their original permanent drummer Wolfgang Ostermann, a move which brought fresh rhythmic drive to the music. In the months that followed, the band performed live at renowned international festivals, including Summer's End (UK) and Progdreams (NL), and as main act at the live club De Pul (NL).
February 2016 saw the release of the band's 6th album 'Last'. Stranger and darker than its predecessors, yet still highly melodic, with stunning artwork and evocative lyrics, it was Frequency Drift's most cohesive and cinematic work to date, with Martin Schnella now a full band member on electric & acoustic guitars, and Melanie Mau also joining the band on vocals.
Although they have an obvious love for album titles suggesting death and finality, Frequency Drift are still alive and kicking as of 2018 - despite their continuing line-up changes over the years - and their latest album 'Letters to Maro', featuring new singer and lyricist Irini Alexia, was released on 13th April 2018 via Gentle Art of Music / Soulfood.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=3907

Cream - As You Said

By 1968, London’s Royal Albert Hall was seen by most people as the UK’s home of classical music. Despite hosting concerts by the Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Bob Dylan and others over the previous five years, And while there had been rock concerts there before, there was never a rock concert as intense and as significant as the one on November 26, 1968, when Cream officially said farewell as a band.
In their two years of existence, the trio’s success had been phenomenal; they conquered America, fell out with one another and redefined what a rock trio with blues sensibilities could achieve. There is no band that followed Cream with a similar make-up that was not influenced by them. Cream became the template for heavy metal, and yet their respect for the blues and Jack Bruce’s huge musical talent for composition always gave them an edge over their rivals.
Prior to playing two nights at the Royal Albert Hall, Cream had completed a grueling 19-city tour of America, before the two back-to-back nights on November 25 and 26. The opening acts for their farewell show were Yes, still eight months away from releasing their brilliant debut record and using Leonard Bernstein’s “Something Coming” from West Side Story as the highlight of their set, and Taste, Rory Gallagher’s band, who like Cream were a three-piece and one that was also steeped in the blues.
Cream’s set included classic blues covers such as “I’m So Glad” (Skip James), “Sitting on Top of the World” (Mississippi Sheiks), “Cross Roads” (Robert Johnson), “Steppin’ Out” (Memphis Slim) and “Spoonful” (Howlin’ Wolf). These were complemented by the band’s own compositions, “White Room,” “Politician,” “Toad,” with Ginger Baker’s long drum solo, and of course, “Sunshine of Your Love,” the song that broke Cream in America.
Tony Palmer filmed cream’s farewell concerts, and the following year his insightful documentary was broadcast on the BBC to great critical acclaim. The initial plan was to release the concerts as a double album. Eventually, the idea was scrapped and instead, Goodbye was issued in February 1969 with some live songs and three recorded at IBC Studios in London in October 1968. The live tracks were taken from a show at the LA Forum in October 1968.
While Cream’s farewell shows were perhaps inevitably not their best, there is no denying their importance, both in the folklore of the band and in rock music in general. How could a band last for a little over two years, be so successful, and then break up? In fact, what they were doing was setting a template of another kind. The whole business of supergroups was to prove to be the thing in the 70s, starting with Blind Faith, which Eric Clapton and Baker formed with Steve Winwood and Ric Grech in early 1969.  From: https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/cream-farewell-concert/

Crystal Beth - Push Thru

Beth Fleenor is one of the many gems in Seattle. From her management group, The Frank Agency, to her band, Crystal Beth, Fleenor is focused on artistic expression and beautiful human connection. The Monarch had a chance to chat with Fleenor about her work, her music, her fears and her joys.
 
Jake Uitti: When you’re walking around in town or in conversation and you hear the word ‘Frank’ what goes through your mind?

Beth Fleenor: Ha! After 9 years of running the Frank Agency, ‘Frank’ has become so much it’s own entity in my life – as an outlet for a particular aspect of my personality, as a structural system of support and as a reflection pool – that I automatically refer all things related to that word/name back to my Frank. At least at first. For me it’s such a call to step up to yourself and others honestly, and that ethos comes through as a reminder every time the word comes up, even though its a tough challenge issued.

JU: And that’s sort of funny because, correct me if I’m wrong, did you start the agency with a masculine name to be taken ‘seriously’ or am I totally making that up?

BF: Well, not exactly, but it did come into play. Let’s call it a deep intuition that led to revelation through empirical evidence. The name first came up as a joke. I’ve had this nickname since I was a kid – Beef Weiner, you know, for Beth Fleenor. In 2004 Johanna Kunin – incredible musician and dear friend – made the joke that I should start going by Frank because it’s more elegant for my adult self, and suited my preferred means of communication. So it was a joke – all Beef Frank. At the time, I was graduating college as a performing artist, going through an excruciating divorce, and producing concerts & assisting a few artists individually. I had been doing this work since 1999 and in leaving school I wanted to create a ship to hold all of us – all of the artists, organizations and my own work – a single entity that could build, and transfer knowledge and systems between each of the visionaries I was working with, and amplify their efforts even more. I also saw the need to protect the artists – allowing them space to be focused on the work instead of dealing with the business (because these things really don’t have anything to do with each other, which is another tangent), and the idea of an agency felt like the right vehicle to accomplish that. The agency needed a strong name that communicated what it stood for, and being Frank felt perfect. Let’s deal with the nitty-gritty up front, straight to the point – we all know what has to happen here, so let’s get it done, let’s communicate.
So it became the Frank Agency because it felt right and personally meaningful. Then in taking it on, it opened lines of communication I hadn’t experienced before. Some because of the idea of the “Agency” and some because of the masculine connotation in that it appeared I, Beth, was assisting the man in charge, Frank. Beth was now working for the Frank Agency. It was actually startling to realize how much that made a difference in some people’s confidence in me – or how shocked they were to learn the truth. There was definitely a shift in how people interacted with the masculine name – the tone of conversation was altered. Ultimately though, the greatest gift that has come out of the name is that it functions as a buffer for Beth the artist, and Beth the person, to not be affected by the business. Frank deals with that stuff – Beth focuses on the art.

JU: So, you’re a musician and an accomplished one at that. What – to touch on that tangent – is the dichotomy between the work, the art, and the work of the agency as an entity for the artist?

BF: Let’s start with what is similar. I see it all as communication – whether musically, linguistically, or interpersonally. That’s my stake in it. My overall philosophy is that “Art is the discipline of being” – that human being and living in and of itself are the creative process. We are generating, creating, and improvising all the time (we have a lot to learn from the discipline of art). It’s in everything we do, and the more focus we bring to the act of living, the more mindful and dynamic the experience of it can become. At the same time, being an artist means pulling that awareness through the body and letting it collect and be redistributed in communication with others through the individual’s voice/perspective – that’s where the discipline comes in. Being willing and able to get down in the mud and sift for the truth & beauty, and try to then interact with it through a chosen medium. And do it over and over again, without concern for where it is leading – just working with the process and content itself. Trying to clarify a thought.
I think the actual “artwork” that is created is actually the feeling it transmits to whomever is experiencing it – it lives inside of the experiencer – the rest (or the hardcopy delivery system of the work, tangible, or intangible in the case of music) is an “artifact.”
The professional artist then has to figure out a system to connect those artifacts to the people who need/want them. I believe that there’s a place for everyone and the objective is to find the right audience to receive the work, and possibilities for the artist to sustain and create new work for a lifetime. This is where the divergence starts. People are not products – they’re a process. Artworks and artifacts are not products, they are a process delivery system. A work of art is an experience. But our world is collectively obsessed with products and doesn’t know how to deal with a living, breathing, changing process or experience.
For the artists, this becomes complicated because making the work and talking about the work are not the same thing. It’s hard to have perspective about what you’ve created. It’s hard to find more words to describe it when you’ve spent so much energy creating the thing itself. And the focus of the artist should be on continuing to create and investigate the work, not on promoting, propagating, and explaining it. But to continue to have support – fiscal and audience – to make new work, to stay active – that takes an immense amount of planning, development, instigation and implementation. A constant conversation, and a seemingly unending list of decisions – and this becomes more so the case with each year.
In addition to the logistical aspects of maintaining a career, there are also two expectations of artists that I think are exceedingly difficult to process: One is that you are in a constant state of struggling to create something new, and making arbitrary decisions to seek support for a work – trying to clearly communicate to possible funders about something that has not yet been created, and then two, once it’s created, telling the world about it, trying to get people interested in it, and then releasing it to be criticized. It being “you” the artist in most cases.
The Frank Agency was created to assist artists in the clarification, articulation and amplification of their vision, while simultaneously connecting audiences to work that moves them. I’ve worked for the last 14 years in areas including management, concert production, grant writing, promotion & publicity, marketing, booking, development, strategic planning, and the like, to try to offer artists more opportunity to focus on the work itself. Eight years ago I also added in an increased focus on artist therapy, resuscitation, and oxygenation, as I’ve come to understand more about the immense psychological pressure heaped on artists trying to maintain a professional career.
As an artist, the fact that there is no destination becomes very apparent. No matter what success you have, you must continue to work to sustain. There is always more, there is no end, there is no place of comfort or rest. Therefore, creating a healthy system for yourself, in which you can maintain & deepen your work and also not be in a constantly dramatic state with it, is paramount. You can’t take any of your personal validity, or the validity of your work, from the response or support it receives. Positive or negative, public opinion is separate from the work itself. Continue to realign and focus only on the work. That’s Frank’s viewpoint, and Frank reminds fragile artist Beth, and all the other fragile humans as well. As I always tell myself, “Just because you understand the process doesn’t mean you don’t have to go through the process.”

JU: So, in addition to all this work, this delving into the philosophy of creation, sharing, listening to audiences and yet realizing the work is, in a way, separate from the audience, where does Crystal Beth fit in?

BF: The short answer is that Crystal Beth is the release valve, the hurl every inch of yourself into the ring and feel it all simultaneously, visceral presence check point – the “this is it, one shot at being alive right now – push it to the edge” kind of release valve, but through my ritual – through my raw authentic sound. Music is like this consolidated, concentrated, seamless microscopic transmission of the macrocosm, which is human experience. With everything I do, ultimately, my interest is in a shared experience of connection. That connection is there all the time – between everything – but we’re surrounded by it so we often forget about it – the Alan Watts corollary is that the fish doesn’t know it’s in water – I love that, I think about it a lot… especially when I’m lonely. The way I see it, life is an experience that no one else can experience, that everyone is experiencing simultaneously. Each person has an individual voice/language, entirely unique to them, sculpted through their existence. To find this, and have opportunity to share it openly, in any form, is a vulnerable and intimate experience which gives rise to the deepest sense of connection.
For me, Crystal Beth is that voice. It’s as “me” as it gets – with all its greatness and deep, deep flaws, Crystal Beth allows me to explore the dynamics of self. This is the first band I’ve ever had that entirely plays my songs. All of my past projects as a leader have been mostly improvisation based, with a few written pieces thrown in as triggers or pivot points. In Crystal Beth & the Boom Boom Band it’s all of these strange chant-based songs that I’ve been working on, back to back in the set. It’s intense for me, to show that much of my true self, to let myself have fun with it and embrace it, not judge it, and revel in it – to enjoy existing as the form that I am, accepting all of it and trying to dance with it. My hope is that if I can open up, if I can accept myself, it will inspire others to do the same and we can share our connection more openly. I’ve been lucky to find a collection of musicians that speak Bethnic and are willing to work through it with me, and we’ve been sweating it out and trying to learn how to throw enough sound that we can push through to that other plane – where we realize how connected and powerful we are in that state of empathic presence. I adore those folks, the Workshop Ensemble players too, it’s similar there, but with a little less alien disco, primal screaming and hair metal *wink*.

From: https://www.themonarchreview.org/a-frank-interview-with-crystal-beth-fleenor/

Carolina Chocolate Drops - KRCB Live

A few years ago I interviewed Dom Phlemons, who plays, by turns, four-string banjo, guitar, jug, harmonica, kazoo, snare drum, bones, and quills in one of my all-time favourite bands, The Carolina Chocolate Drops, an American acoustic ensemble playing in a traditional string band style. Their instruments include four-string banjo, five-string banjo, guitar, jug, harmonica, kazoo, snare drum, bones, quills, fiddle, beatbox, tambourine, mandolin, and cello. They use a mix of both traditional arrangements and their own creations, performing both their own and traditional American songs. Occasionally they also do covers of recent pop songs.
Sound quests are among the most fascinating of journeys—you never know where you’ll end up or what you’ll be doing at the end of one. Dom Flemons arrived at traditional Southern string band music via a long musical exploration that began with a period of collecting Bob Dylan albums from the ’60s. Rhiannon Giddens came to the same musical subgenre from a classical career that included several operatic roles. She also dabbled in English contra dancing and had a stint in a Celtic band.
These are the kind of cultivated people who populated New Orleans after the Civil War. Were it not for the Jim Crow laws, they might have simply merged with the white upper crust and contributed to the high culture that already existed. Instead they were compelled to channel their refinements into “low” culture, eventually spawning a myriad of new musical genres, including jazz. In the course of all this, the United States developed one of the most vibrant popular cultures in human history.
The two founding members of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Flemons and Giddens, have now made it a five-member (and sometimes more) string band with fiddle, cello, guitar, and three kinds of banjo (including the gut-strung minstrel banjo which I’d never heard of before now) as well as the jug, the bones (like castanets), the quills (like a pan pipe), and the kazoo. Their performances include flatfoot dancing.
The Carolina Chocolate Drops’ repertoire sprouted from the early 20th-century folk tunes and string band arrangements of songs from the Piedmont region of the Carolinas, much of it harking back to 19th-century minstrel shows wherein fiddles and banjos figured prominently.
Is there a pattern here? Earlier in the same week I’d reviewed Akal, an album by the Moroccan group Izenzaren, led by Igout, a master Moroccan banjoist playing in the Ahwach and Gnaoua styles of North Africa. This led me back to my own sound quest, a perennial exploration of the influence of slaves from northwestern Africa on American music and how parallel musical traditions developed in Africa and the Americas. Inspired by the sound quest, on a recent visit to my folks in Canada I retrieved my two dusty banjos from the attic and brought them back to New Hampshire to play at our Friday night gatherings, nicknamed “Marty Night” after the son of our musical friends Frister and Chris, who they bring along to our music sessions. Marty is so popular with my brother’s kids that the named the soiree after him.
We had discovered early on that we were all devotees of the Carolina Chocolate Drops. When we realized we’d now have both a five-string and a tenor banjo among us, we decided to start learning some of their songs. “Cornbread and Butterbeans” rolled off our tongues like we’d sung it all our lives; it’s the kind of song that’s easy to do at home when you’re having fun, but hard to do well if you let your ego get in the way.
Which makes you wonder how a group of such deeply gifted and rigorously trained musicians can pull it off so well. The Carolina Chocolate Drops are creative intellectuals dedicated to preserving a priceless past by keeping it alive with innovative approaches uniquely their own. Yet not for a moment do they sound like prima donnas; nor is there an ounce of the commercial veneer that renders so much of traditional repertoire false and hollow.
They sing the kind of song I heard growing up: the music of Aunt Nellie on the spoons and Uncle Paul on the hambone and Mom on the autoharp. My experience was not so different from that of rural boomers all over North America, and much of the style and aesthetic of these homely tunes was revived by folk singers of the 1960s—luckily, or they might have faded from awareness.
I’ve heard white folk singer versions of so many Drops songs that I was surprised to even discover they had originated in African-American communities that sooner or later abandoned them. The hard times evoked by these songs were just too painful a reminder to black musicians, who by the 1960s had embraced urban musical genres like soul, rhythm-and-blues, jazz, and funk. I remember hearing an African-American musician in a radio interview saying he hated the word “blues” because for him it evoked all that was nasty, brutish, and short about the life of the African-American.
But full circle we’ve come at last, and here we have a band that’s not only composed of superlative musicians passionate about this quite narrow segment of traditional American folk music, but that also has the chutzpah to give itself a name that’s dangerously close to a racial epithet. Their 2010 Grammy-winning debut album was called Genuine Negro Jig, the title alone a supremely confident flipping-of-the-bird to political correctness.
Another beautiful thing about this music is that it brooks none of the ethnic boundary lines that in spite of their absurdity we’ve allowed ourselves to accept. The Drops just keep on mixing genres the way normal musicians have done for millennia. They remain true to the original—and incredibly thrilling—bricolage quality of American folk music, while performing the supreme political act of forcing politics to bow it’s head to art. Enough. Let’s see what Dom had to say.

What role did music play in your background?

I’ve always had a love for history and for older music in general. My first interests in music were from the oldies station. A lot of rock ’n’ roll, doo-wop, ’60s rock, and pop. Later I grew an interest in folk music from the ’60s, Bob Dylan, Dave Van Ronk, Lightnin’ Hopkins, and people like that. I also enjoyed a lot of field recordings and New Orleans jazz as I got into college, and bebop when I was still doing slam poetry. After I did slam poetry for a bit I really got into the older songster repertoire and started going from there. That was around the time I first went to the Black Banjo Gathering in 2005.

What was your most mesmerizing musical experience?

I think the most mesmerizing experience I ever had was when I went to go see Dave Van Ronk in Phoenix, Arizona in 2001. He was such an engaging performer. He was sick at the time and would sadly pass away maybe four or five months later, but he left an impression on me. I was sitting in the back and had hooked up my four-track to the board. I recorded the show, which was an intimate audience of maybe 40 people. It changed my life and it made me want to do what he did. He not only played the songs he sang, but he had a story for every song. Some were historical, some were anecdotal, and some were connected to his personal experience with the performer associated with the song (he told stories about John Hurt, Bob Dylan, Reverend Gary Davis, Tom Paxton, and Clarence Williams). It blew my mind, and I started forming my shows around that idea. I found that it was so important to talk to an audience about the music. You never know what people are going to take away from it. I’ve kept this way of playing a show with me since from the Black Banjo Gathering to now.

Who were your main influences?

For the group, I know that Joe Thompson has been a huge influence. When Rhiannon, Justin, and I first started going down to see him there was a great sense of making good music and also that we were helping a long tradition of string bands live on. This was all just by going to Joe’s house on Thursday nights. We never talked a lot about those things when we were there, we just played music. I know that I always felt blessed to be able to be a part of that.
On my own level, I would say that a fellow by the name of Gavan Weiser gave me my most beneficial experience. When I first started playing guitar I had a flat pick, and I kept dropping it in the sound hole. It was a terrible experience every time I tried to get it out of there. I was about 16 and I saw Gavan play guitar with his fingers. His main gig was playing bass in a punk band, so when he played acoustic guitar he just strummed it. I adapted what I saw him doing, not knowing that playing with my fingers would open up a whole new form of guitar playing.
I’m always looking for a new sound, and even when I just sit and listen to records with other people it creates a new experience with that music. Also, folks who are into roots music usually have their own set of research they’ve done on their own and they’re usually more than willing to share, which is also a wonderful thing. That’s probably the best training I’ve ever received: Share the knowledge if you’ve got it.

Are you ever accused of being politically incorrect?

Surprisingly, we haven’t received a lot of flack face to face about our choice of titles and the like. Most times, once people see that we’re serious about our music and that we’re not trying to do a bunch of shuck and jive they get it. “Carolina Chocolate Drops” is an homage to older black string bands and we have never tried to shy away from the uncomfortable racial, social, and political aspects of our material. That being said, our first notion has always been to present the music and material in a respectful and articulate way so that our audience can enjoy the music without needing to know the history, while making sure the historical materials are present for those who are interested.

How do you escape academic strictures and keep this music so vibrant and alive?

By making sure the music is good. It’s one thing to hear a lecture about a song style and then to hear an authentic presentation, but the only way to really get it out to an audience is to make it a living song. The history is important, but it’s just as important to construct and arrange songs well. Folk music is not “popular” music; folk music has to be presented in such a way that the audience can appreciate it whether they know the history or not.
The Drops are not easy to pigeonhole. Purists they’re not, although in terms of musical authenticity they’re the best act in town. They keep tradition alive by allowing it to grow and develop along purely creative lines, following the dictates of the work in process rather than according to any set of rules imposed from the outside.
“Riro’s House” is not a traditional arrangement. Hubby and Rhiannon are playing the main arrangement that she and I learned from Joe Thompson, and I added snare drum and bass drum in the fife and drum style. While this may not seem like a big difference, these subtleties are the way we give the music our personal stamp, which is truly the way to make a modern song out of a traditional song—taking material from the past and making something new out of it.
Repertoire also emerges organically; some songs simply show up unannounced and immediately win the agreement of all band members, while others need some time to incubate. My good friend Mike Baytop, who showed me a lot of things on the bones, told me this one time: “Music is like a good pot of greens. When you make it right, it tastes good, but it’s when you’ve let it sit for a day or two in the fridge that the flavors all really mix together.” It’s like that.

How do you keep your creativity strong and healthy?

Time off is the biggest thing I’ve been needing. I have a wife at home, and just being able to get back to her and my music collection is what I need to keep creating. Besides that, I do all of my work on the road. I listen to a lot of records, looking for unique songs and deciding which ones would be worth working on. It’s really a fun time since I enjoy listening to music in general.”

What do you feed your muse in terms of reading, listening, and viewing?

Books: African Banjo Echoes in Appalachia; Stomp and Swerve; The Chitlin’ Circuit: And The Road to Rock ’n’ Roll; Way Up North in Dixie: A Black Family’s Claim to the Confederate Anthem; Louis Armstrong, In His Own Words; The Negro Cowboys; and Where Dead Voices Gather
Albums: Altamont; Good For What Ails You; Atlanta Blues; Deep River of Song, Black Texicans; Henry Thomas, Texas Worried Blues; Blind Willie McTell, Last Session; and Gus Cannon, Walk Right In
Films: Festival!; Hallelujah; Times Ain’t Like They Used To Be; Rashoman; City Lights; And This Is Free; and Let It Be (bootleg)

Do you have any political beliefs that influence your art?

In terms of politics, I’m a fan of our American culture. My contribution as an American citizen is to present the culture of America through its music, while not sugarcoating it. Our country always needs improvement and I feel that we can learn a lot from the music that’s been made by the people over several hundred years.
Also, as a mixed-race person (black and Mexican), I find it so important to be able to create awareness about an important part of black culture that before we started was just not generally known by the public. Our group is one of a whole community of people, white and black, who’ve worked hard to bring this knowledge out to the world and discuss it seriously and critically through a love of music.

From: https://themindfulbard.com/2016/02/27/the-carolina-chocolate-drops-interview/

The Grip Weeds - Live Online Show 2020

Though they prefer to think of themselves as creators of a classic-style rock’n’roll, to most ears, The Grip Weeds are carriers of a powerpop tradition. And while that alone should be enough to bring them fame, the sheer quality of their music should earn them fortune. As it is, while they maintain a successful career, the four-piece is less than a household name. Among those in the know, however, the arrival of a new Grip Weeds album is cause for celebration. Ever since their 1994 debut House of Vibes (expanded and reissued in 2007 as House of Vibes Revisited, making a great album even better), the appearance of a new long player has also been a rare occurrence; after that debut, only three albums followed in the ensuing decade. So it was with some delighted surprise that fans greeted the news of the group’s 2011 album Strange Change Machine: it included twenty-four tracks spread across two CDs. I ask Kurt Reil (vocals, drums, guitars, keyboards) why the Grip Weeds released a double album, and why now.
“Because we took so long between putting out Giant on the Beach [2004] and Strange Change Machine,” he explains, “we wound up with a whole batch of songs.” He also points to the fact that the House of Vibes Revisited project took more time than expected, keeping them busy. “It’s not as if we have an archive crew that goes into the vaults and does all this stuff for us,” he laughs. Finding themselves with an embarrassment of riches – the songs on Strange Change Machine are up to the Grip Weeds’ typically high standard – the band considered some options. “We got into the mindset of, ‘Yeah, we’ll give away half of the album on the internet,’” Kurt says. But more importantly, the double-album format freed the band up a bit. “We were free to go off in a few directions, and explore more long-form presentation.” Having some ideas, approaches and styles that simply wouldn’t fit comfortably on a single album, the band used the longer format to find a home for those songs.
The twin sonic hallmarks of Grip Weeds music are punchy instrumentation and carefully executed and fairly intricate harmonies. There are strong echoes of Todd Rundgren’s early group Nazz on the band’s vocal arrangements; the Grip Weeds don’t always take the most obvious path when crafting vocal harmonies. “Green Room Interlude” is a showcase of this, but it’s on display throughout the album. “More than anything,” Kurt observes, “it’s a case of trying to pull out of your head a sound that you hear in your head, and make it into reality.” Kurt arranged “Green Room Interlude,” but enlisted all four band members to add vocal parts. “Having all the different voices really makes it much more dimensional,” he observes.
While Kurt plays many instruments, in the band his primary role is holding the drum chair. His stick work is always very musical; it’s rarely a case of just thumping a rhythm along; the songs always end up with a very human, organic feel. “It’s always analog,” Kurt says. “I never go anywhere near an electronic drum kit, or even any samples.” While he pauses and adds, “Never say never,” it’s clear where he’s coming from. “I usually defeat electronic kits anyway, because I play too fast,” he chuckles. But in the end, Kurt’s goal as a drummer is singular: “I’m always looking to serve the song, not overpower it.” Since he’s also a songwriter, he brings that sensibility to bear on all of his parts. “When a write a song, I hear a soundscape – a full band sound – in my head,” he says.
Kurt’s musical inspiration comes from some perhaps-unexpected places. “I was inspired by this band Dungen, from Sweden,” he reveals. “Dungen has never been tied to the three-minute song format,” he notes. “The Grip Weeds have always been a song band. Dungen is more of an ambient group; I think they’re really good for their tone, their sound.” On “Speed of Life,” Kurt’s out-front drum part was the basis for the song. “That doesn’t usually happen; it’s usually the other way around. I’m going to have to do more of that,” he muses.
The Strange Change Machine songs are very well-layered; they’re straightforward, but there’s a lot going on in them. Often – as on “Close to the Sun” – there are multiple keyboard parts. “Live, it’s a whole different thing,” Kurt says. Lacking a keyboard player onstage, the band inventively develops different arrangements for some songs, ones that play to other strengths that the melodies possess. There’s an interesting pair of short tracks on the album called “Sun Ra Ga.” I tell Kurt that when listening to them, I hear the raga, but not so much the Sun Ra. He laughs and points to the pieces’ out-there, improvisational nature. “We were just jamming in the studio,” he says, “and I ran tape. Wherever it went, it went. It’s just very pure music.” There’s even an eleven-minute version of the song available for as a bonus download for purchasers of the HD version of the new album.
Powerpop – or whatever label you’d care to apply to the classicist approach the Grip Weeds use – has only rarely been a commercially successful formula. Clearly the Grip Weeds think there’s a market for the style: People like me, for example. In an age of market narrow-segmentation, online social media plays an important part in the band’s efforts to reach fans…and potential new fans. Kurt agrees that the internet makes it easier to connect with those people, but it’s a double-edged sword: “The internet wrecked the music industry. There’s no chance for fame or fortune anymore.” As far as that powerpop tag — Kurt cites Pete Townshend’s “three-minute single on steroids” description – the Grip Weeds have always been about more than just that style. “On this album in particular, we really cover a really wide range.” The band strives to follow their own path, hoping that in being true to themselves, they’ll create something that resonates with listeners.
To that end, the Grip Weeds don’t record a lot of covers. That makes Strange Change Machine’s cover of Todd Rundgren’s “Hello It’s Me” even more notable. Close to a note-for-note creation, the song makes one important departure: Kristin Pinnell’s guitar takes the place of Something/Anything’s horn charts. “We were asked to cover the song by Pat DiNizio of the Smithereens,” Kurt explains. “He was doing a show about baseball for ESPN, called Seventh Inning Stretch.” Part of that program would feature Todd’s sons Rex and Randy, minor-league baseball players. DiNizio wanted the song for background ambience but the budget didn’t cover licensing fees. So the Grip Weeds re-recorded it. While the goal was to hew closely to the original, the session provided an opportunity to chance a few things they didn’t like. For example, Kurt says that he’s “not a big fan of the chick singers” on Todd’s version. He also could do without the sax and other jazzy elements. The resulting Grip Weeds track has it both ways: true to the original, yet with an indelible Grip Weeds stamp.
“What wound up happening,” Kurt notes, “is that the segment got cut from the show!” Again, the double-album format came to the rescue: this band that “didn’t do covers” could now reasonably include one on an album. At the time of this writing, the Grip Weeds’ web site and Facebook page do not list any upcoming shows. “It costs a lot of money to go out and play out of town,” Kurt admits. “But it is really hard right now, with gas prices, and with the uncertainty of knowing how many people you’re going to draw.” He says that the band’s “days of sleeping on the floor, traveling around in a van and living on ramen noodles” are pretty well behind them. Still, he says, “If there’s a good opportunity, we’re there.”
At the moment the band is busy putting the finishing touches on two other projects. “We have a live record in the can right now,” Kurt says. That CD+DVD package is slated for release in early 2012. “This live album is designed to give people a taste of what we’re like live. And a Christmas-themed Grip Weeds album will be out in time for the holidays.  “We recorded a Christmas song in 2006, and we had good success with that,” Kurt says. “Every year it comes back. And we wanted to do more. Eventually realized we could do a whole album, between originals and covers.” That project will feature special guests including The Smithereens, former Paul Revere and the Raiders lead singer Mark Lindsay, and members of the Anderson Council. “Once we’re done with those projects, we’re going to start on our next new album,” Kurt says. “We had about half a dozen songs left over from Strange Change Machine, so we’ll pick up from there.” If past is any indication, expect that record – no release date set — to be another essential purchase.  From: https://blog.musoscribe.com/index.php/2011/09/30/a-conversation-with-the-grip-weeds-kurt-reil/

Uni and The Urchins - Adult Video

Uni and The Urchins graced the galaxy with a new album in 2023. Their eerie LP, a 10-track record titled Simulator dropped in January on Friday the 13th. Self-described as “Trans-Human-Glam-Art-Punks” on their website, the trio consists of Kemp Muhl, Jack James Busa, and David Strange. Musically, Uni and The Urchins use Simulator to develop compelling contrasts in texture. In their opening track “Subhuman Suburbia”, a slow-churning ballad about a “little black hole town” seemingly fused with supernatural elements, Busa delivers velvet vocals against a rough and distorted electric guitar. More often than not, Busa’s croons are rich and buttery as they blend with more edgy instrumentals and electronic sound effects. The title track “Simulator” is especially synthy with smooth, ethereal sounds that more directly complement the singer’s vocal quality.
Oozing with imagery and clever word choice or rhymes, part of Simulator’s strength is in the lyrics. The closing track “In the Waiting Room” constructs creative rhymes with lines like “The dentist grins with his laughing gas, receptionists in Venetian masks,” or “Bottles for every sickness, spotted tongues and black liquids.” In “Popstar Supernova,” the band paints their lyrical pictures by using color to emphasize emotion: “The earth feels colder when the blues have turned to gray.” Though the song’s air of electronica suggests a funky space soirée, so its twist is in the lyrics: thematically, “Popstar Supernova” critiques capitalism, with an implication that if humans had to evacuate Earth, wealth would determine priority. 
Playful and glamorous in sound yet dark in subject matter, Simulator is an edgy disco party in the stars. Certain songs’ synth-pop quality may remind listeners of Depeche Mode, with themes that more closely resemble Muse’s caution towards technology. Overall, UNI and The Urchins rock with both softness and intensity, always with a backdrop of extraterrestrial electronica. Their world is a glittery dystopia, and we’re here for it.  From: https://music.mxdwn.com/2023/02/02/reviews/album-review-uni-and-the-urchins-simulator/

Mary's Danish - Underwater - Live 1992

“I’m caught between hideous and forgotten,” bemoan Mary’s Danish in one of the finer tunes from the lamentably forgotten band’s far-from-hideous and impossibly eclectic catalog — a catalog whose eclecticism is especially notable considering its relatively small volume. Mary’s Danish, which came together in Los Angeles in the late ’80s, was itself a diverse lot — in personality and background — that served up funk, pop, punk and country. The blending of the last two genres clearly betrays the influence of X, from whom lead singers Gretchen Seager and Julie Ritter also inherited intricately woven harmony vocals. They were joined in Mary’s Danish by bassist Chris “Wag” Wagner, drummer James Bradley Jr., guitarist David A. King and second guitarist Louis Gutierrez, who had played in the Three O’Clock. All were accomplished musicians with an uncanny pliability, but their secret weapon was frequent sax sideman Michael Barbera, who added jazz and R&B flavor to the mix. Mary’s Danish were as varied thematically as they were sonically, with religion, domestic violence, social criticism and biting self-analysis all receiving narrative attention.
There Goes the Wondertruck ably introduces the band’s offbeat stylistic fusion. The bizarre narrative of “Mary Had a Bar” does not seem to be a band theme song, and “What to Do” is not a Stones cover. It’s not revealed what “BVD” stands for, but “It’ll Probably Make Me Cry” does just that. The catchy college rock favorite “Don’t Crash the Car Tonight” impressed some in the West Coast music biz, including Peter Asher, who became the band’s manager. Five of the six live tracks on Experience are more fully realized versions of songs from There Goes the Wondertruck, particularly a frenzied, beefier “Blue Stockings” and the high lonesome croon of “It’ll Probably Make Me Cry.” The disc’s studio track, a riotous take on Hendrix’s “Foxey Lady,” slyly recasts the classic rock staple with a letter-perfect Led Zeppelin quote inserted into the bridge.
With funding from pseudo-indie Morgan’s Creek, Mary’s Danish beefed up the production values to adequately match their expanded palette of musical ideas. A veritable omnibus of musical styles, Circa encircles just about every genre imaginable. The metallic crunch of “Mr. Floosack” leads into the introspective back-porch southern rock of “Hoof.” The folky instrumental jam “Down” begets the Devo dada of “These Are All the Shapes Nevada Could Have Been.” It’s easy to get lost within the stylistic shifts of Circa, where “Julie’s Blanket (pigsheadsnakeface)” is the only straight-ahead rocker. As few of the 17 tunes exceed three minutes, the five-minute “7 Deadly Sins” seems positively epic. Despite its attention deficit, the presence of songs as clever as “Beat Me Up” and “Cover Your Face” helped make this label debut a promise of big things to come.
American Standard marked a shift to a more standardized classic rock sound, thanks to longtime Linda Ronstadt/James Taylor supervisor Asher, who’d taken on the role of Mary’s producer. The album’s consistency makes it more listenable, if less adventurous, with an immediacy and urgency missing from prior work. Sure, there are pensive meditations on death and dying, but there’s also an emphasis on muscle, evidenced by the ferocious rocker “Killjoy” and the terse pneumatic punch of the single “Leave It Alone.” Chops are still evident, but there is less of an agenda to impress. Wag’s slap-happy bass style is distilled to a booming low-end vibe that fits more snugly in the depth of “Underwater,” the spiky beat of “Porcupine” and the eight-minute Crazy Horse exercise of “Sister Shade.” It’s a bulldozer of an album, a veracious testament to the strength and endurance of femininity in rock.  From: https://trouserpress.com/reviews/marys-danish/

Turbowolf - Nine Lives

Gaze if you will upon the size of these riffs. I kid you not, Turbowolf’s sophomore effort ‘Two Hands’ is a bona fide avalanche of monstrous, single-mindedly face-melting tracks. It’s not just the writing either, it’s also the monolithic intensity of tones and textures employed. Combining elements of punk, classic rock, and stoner, the band have dropped, to my eyes, one of 2015’s finer aural assaults. Skeptics won’t be for long. There’s nothing particularly ferocious to it, however, in that the band shouldn’t be mistaken for aspiring to the raw fierceness of hardcore, for example. Turbowolf quite evidently swear only by the power of fun, which results in a joyous, raucous energy. Every element of the band’s style is conceived around getting the most fun out of it: the choruses and hooks are predictably catchy the album over, the riffs ooze with personality, and there’s a surprising element of variety going on throughout. Particular highlights include ‘Rabbit’s Foot’’s fuzz-heavy riffage; ‘Invisible Hand’’s multiple shifts from floaty album opening to blistering punk track to stoner finale; ’Rich Gift’’s superb prog-rock tangent (which only goes to show they’ve mastered the long-form as much as the short); and finally their stoner finale ‘Pale Horse’ and the micro moment of greatness that is interlude ‘Toy Memaha’. If you like rock music, I’d struggle to believe you cannot appreciate what Turbowolf are doing at the moment. They not only honor the very tradition of rock, they appear to embody it completely. ‘Two Hands’ is a belter, and the most entertained I’ve been by any piece of music this year.  From: https://alreadyheard.com/album-review-turbowolf-two-hands/

Steeleye Span - Gaudete

British folk rock group Steeleye Span had a hit in 1973 (No. 14, UK singles chart) with an a cappella recording of the song Gaudete. Guitarist Bob Johnson had heard the song when he attended a folk-carol service with his father-in-law in Cambridge, and brought it to the attention of the rest of the band. (Unlike the album version which fades up slowly and fades down slowly, the single was at the same volume for the entire length of the song.) This single is one of only two top 20 British hits to be sung fully in Latin (the other was a recording of "Pie Jesu" from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Requiem performed by Sarah Brightman and Paul Miles-Kingston in 1986). Gaudete is also one of only a handful of a cappella performances to become hit singles. When Gaudete was performed on Top of the Pops, the resident dance troupe walked onto the set in medieval-style robes, holding candles, followed by the members of Steeleye Span.
Gaudete is a sacred Christmas carol, thought to have been composed in the 16th century. It was published in Piae Cantiones, a collection of Finnish/Swedish sacred songs published in 1582 in the North German city of Greifswald. No music is given for the verses, but the standard tune comes from older liturgical books. There is a known entry from around 1420 in the Hussite Jistebnice hymnal. The Latin text is a typical medieval song of praise, which follows the standard pattern for the time – a uniform series of four-line stanzas, each preceded by a two-line refrain (in the early English carol this was known as the burden). Carols could be on any subject, but typically they were about the Virgin Mary, the Saints or Yuletide themes.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaudete