Shawn Colvin - Orion in the Sky

The first Shawn Colvin album I listened to, A Few Small Repairs (1996), was the commercial breakthrough, and though following by a full five years, the next, A Whole New You (2001), was the pop-oriented follow-up. But Fat City is a project of a very different context. Following her Grammy-winning debut Steady On (1989), Fat City features an artist not yet widely known to the average radio listener, yet also prominent and respected enough to earn guest appearances from musicians like Joni Mitchell, Bruce Hornsby, and Richard Thompson. These musicians had realized what everyone else was in the process of discovering: that Colvin is a seriously good songwriter.
Fat City opens with “Polaroids,” perhaps the most obviously folk song on the album by virtue of its repeated acoustic guitar progression and its storytelling. (The delineation between pop and folk is, to my ears, pretty vague most of the time.) It’s a compelling piece, weaving a lyrically beautiful story of an inevitably fading intercontinental relationship. From a musical standpoint, I enjoy the way the music of the verses tenses toward the end, but not at the end, returning to the steadier, calmer progression for a few more bars after. Featuring also a beautiful guitar solo on, evidently, Weisenborn Hawaiian guitar (I don’t believe I’ve seen that credit on an album before), “Polaroids” is an effective start to what proves to be a very good album.
There are a number of highlights here. After the comparably subdued “Polaroids,” Colvin kicks up the tempo with the country rock-styled “Tennessee,” an engaging track featuring prominent banjo and the aforementioned Richard Thompson on electric guitar. One prominent element of this album, perhaps first on clear display here, is that Colvin’s vocal performance is terrific. She seems especially engaged with the material, and the sound is very much as if the performance is live, guitar in hand, leading the band behind her. I don’t know how producer Larry Klein actually recorded this album, and given the litany of session men providing the instrumentation Colvin was most likely not working with a full unit at any time, but it feels that way and that’s what counts, because it creates a tangible energy that takes the material at times to another level.
“Round of Blues” is a winner too, a driving composition with an airy, breezy chorus that not only engages on its own, but also works wonderfully as a lead-in to a fantastic harmonic bridge. It’s a favorite, as is “Orion in the Sky,” a six-and-a-half-minute track that earns its length with a poetic lyric and a hell of a climax in the last couple minutes.  From: https://friendlyfiremusic.tumblr.com/post/128108736178/shawn-colvin-fat-city-1992-harrison-reviews

Sly & The Family Stone - Everybody Is A Star

This song is about how everyone is equal and how people try to change themselves to be what the media wants them to be. For black individuals, it can be about how we try to change ourselves to "act white" but in the end the system brings us down, yet we bring ourselves back up with the help of our people. This was released as a double-A-side single with "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)." The single went to #1 in the US, so under Billboard methodology at the time, the chart position is attributed to both songs combined. Like many Sly & the Family Stone songs of this era - "Everyday People" and "Stand!" among them - "Everybody Is A Star" has a message of togetherness and self-worth. These songs were set against joyful melodies that kept them from sounding preachy. They went over very well at live shows where a sense of community formed. The nonsense chorus ("ba pa-pa-pa ba...") actually makes a lot of sense - it's about the power of music, which can speak without words. In this case, the rhythmic syllables play against horn lines in a very similar fashion to Otis Redding's 1966 track "Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song).”
From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/sly-the-family-stone/everybody-is-a-star

Remember how, in my post on “Everyday People,” I joked how it would be kind of impossible to see Sly Stone as one of the titular everyday people, given all of his talent and how his music was topping the charts? Well, he figured out a way around that conundrum, because of course he did. If Sly Stone, the star was everyday people, then it could only follow that everyday people were also stars!
Compared to the hard, dark funk of “Thank You (Falettine Be Mice Elf Again)” — which with it shared a 45RPM single, “Everybody is a Star” was a relatively normal slow soul song, full of lazy horns, glowing organ and of course the trademark vocal trade-offs between Sly, Rose Stone, Larry Graham and Freddie Stone.
But, of course, it is gorgeous, and the “everybody is a star” message still resonates in the social media era, maybe even more than it did in the late 60s. And, on top of all of that, “Everybody Is A Star” has a tremendous hook that takes over the back half of the song. With a great arrangement that stopped the song for each and every one of those “ooooooooohs,” “Everybody is A Star” never got out of second gear, but they were smart enough to know it didn’t need to. And so while — technically — “Thank You (Falettine Be Mice Elf Again)” was the song that got the credit for topping the charts, it probably wouldn’t have gotten there without “Everybody is A Star.”
As it turns out, “Everybody is A Star” was probably the last gasp of Sly Stone’s utopianism, as the toll of drugs and stardom and drugs sent him spiraling inwards — hell, the flipside of the single (which we’ll discuss tomorrow, duh) was literally about him dealing with, well, everything.
And, of course, both songs — plus “Hot Fun in the Summertime” — were going to be the anchor for Sly & The Family Stone’s much anticipated follow-up to Stand!, due out in 1970. But, of course, that follow-up never materialized, and all three songs made it to the epochal Greatest Hits album, instead.  From: https://medialoper.com/certain-songs-2260-sly-the-family-stone-everybody-is-a-star/


Belly - Silverfish

Belly’s King was recorded by engineer/producer Glyn Johns at Compass Point studios in Nassau. Johns had worked on Let it Be, Let it Bleed, Stage Fright, Who’s Next and Led Zeppelin (just to take the five biggest titles from his discography). Working with a guy like that was an extremely unusual move for an alternative rock band in 1995, when every record label just wanted Andy Wallace or, if he wasn’t available, one of those Lord Alge brothers with that new-fangled drum sound of theirs. Johns was as old school as it got, and his work on King made it stand out a mile. Johns encouraged the band to record the album live: two guitars, bass and drums, all together, all bleeding into each other. Even the vocals. “Any band that can play a gig can play live in a studio,” he’s said. “There was no backup plan.”
This was not standard industry practice in 1995, and in 2016 is practically unheard of. When you record this way, every microphone contains ambient sound as well as the direct sound of whatever instrument the microphone is primarily picking up. Bass goes into the guitar mics. Drums go into the bass amp mic. Everything goes into everything else. Fine, if the band can play well. But because nothing can be edited independent of any other sound source, it’s a method of recording that forces you either to not make mistakes, or to make them and live with them.
King is full of mistakes. It’s a document of a band, and a band that were, for all their many virtues, not Steely Dan. Donelly’s voice cracks. Chris Gorman’s drums threaten to fall apart on Seal My Fate and Silverfish. Gail Greenwood hardly gets on a one in 45 minutes. Real-time fader and pan-pot moves are plainly audible. It sounds great. I wouldn’t want to hear it mixed any other way.
This sound is perfect for the set of songs Donelly had written (largely in collaboration with Tom Gorman). Less surreal and sinister than the songs on Star, King tracks like Judas My Heart and The Bees still demonstrate that quality of prime-era Donelly: a gorgeous, indelible melody coupled with a lyric that seeks to hide its vulnerability behind images and symbols, the urge to be plainspoken and honest fighting with the urge to protect oneself.
At this point, the record’s slower, more interior-looking songs – The Bees, Seal My Fate and Silverfish – are my favourites, but if sparkly, guitar-heavy pop is more your thing, King has plenty of that, too. Red, Super-Connected and Now They’ll Sleep are all neglected White Album-ish classics, and the title track is a grindy, initially unpromising grower that halfway through suddenly becomes something else entirely.
Star is the record that Belly will be remembered for, and it’s obvious why. Its best songs are extremely portable. Taken out of their context and played on the radio or placed on a iTunes playlist, Gepetto and Feed the Tree sound just wonderful. Star has some great second-tier material, too. Dusted. Slow Dog. Sad Dress. White Belly. I love them all. But King? King is timeless. King is its own thing.  From: https://songsfromsodeep.wordpress.com/2016/03/01/king-by-belly/

Planxty - Johnny Cope

Most of us probably first heard the epic six-part Johnny Cope as it opened Planxty’s third album, “Cold Blow and a Rainy Night”, but Johnny’s journey starts much earlier than that. The tune is strongly associated with Irish traditional music, but actually began life in Scotland. The song sung by Planxty originated with Adam Skivring, who wrote it in 1745 to lampoon Sir John Cope, commander-in-chief of the English forces in Scotland at the Battle of Prestonpans at the start of the 1745 Jacobite uprising, where he was very decisively defeated by Bonnie Prince Charlie. If the lyrics are any judge, he was more than a bit of a coward about the whole thing, although the court martial did find otherwise. There are opinions that the melody was derived from an even earlier tune, rather than composed by Skivring. However, for the sake of containing the article, let us put this as the starting point of Johnny Cope’s march from Scotland.
The trail of Johnny Cope’s passage can be traced to page 19 of the second volume of James Aird’s 1792 collection of Scotch, English, Irish, and Foreign Airs, where a four-part version is found that bears quite a strong resemblance to the current favourite setting. Aird published his collections in Glasgow, and prominence was given to Scottish melodies, and in addition the title refers to an event of significance to the Scottish, so the tune surely started life in Scotland. The question then becomes, how did this Scottish melody become so paradigmatically Irish?
The tune shows up in one of the early Irish bagpipe music collections, O’Farrell’s Pocket Companion for the Irish or Union Pipes (“Being a Grand Selection of Favorite Tunes both Scotch and Irish etc”), in Vol 3, page 51, published between 1804 and 1810, where it is almost identical to the setting in Aird’s, and this may be the first instance of the tune found in a primarily Irish context. However, there was a lot of “borrowing” (nowadays we would likely call it plagiarism) and O’Farrell did label this one as “Scotch”, so it’s unlikely that it was thought of as Irish, yet. The melody appears again in Scotland, this time in the Edinburgh Repository of Music, vol 2 p. 30, published around 1818. This is once again a four-part setting, however there are significant differences, and especially the fourth part in this version has changed significantly.
Another setting of the tune is found in Howe’s The Musician’s Companion part 2, p. 49, published in Boston in 1843. This one is a bit of an oddity, and features a whopping eight parts. It’s worth noting this version because it shows that the tune had spread to America. Also curious is the note that it is “A favorite English Air.” Back in Scotland we find the Ross’s Collection of Pipe Music, where a martial version of the melody is presented in five parts, published around 1869. In the 1880s, James Kerr published twelve volumes of music, four of them called Merry Melodies, which include jigs, reels, and other lively tunes. Volume 3 contains a two-part version of Johnny Cope.
We’ll now check back in with Irish music collections, and start with largest collector of Irish music, the Chief himself, Captain Francis O’Neill, collector of music, and Superintendent of the Chicago Police. In O’Neill’s Music of Ireland (published 1903) we find tucked away in the Marches and Miscellaneous section, a curious two-part tune called Johnny Cope. In his Irish Music (published 1915 and arranged with piano harmonies), we find a reprint of a version published in a mysterious collection called The Repository of Scots & Irish Airs, with a note from O’Neill regarding the Irishness of the tune: “A footnote in Wood’s Songs of Scotland states that this old air originally consisted of one strain. The chorus or burden of a silly song, adapted to it was the first strain repeated an octave higher. The simple air although claimed as Scotch is in the Irish style and known all over Ireland. The above setting without the harmonization was copied from, ‘The Repository of Scots and Irish Airs’ – printed in 1799.” This setting is listed as being in March time.  From: https://rushymountain.com/2017/10/06/johnny-cope/

Carole King - Really Rosie - Side 1

Really Rosie is a musical with a book and lyrics by Maurice Sendak and music by Carole King. The musical is based on Sendak's books Chicken Soup with Rice, Pierre, One was Johnny, Alligators All Around (which comprise 1962's The Nutshell Library), and The Sign on Rosie's Door (1960). Sendak based the story on a demonstrative little girl who used to sing and dance on the stoop of her building, whom he observed while he was a little boy growing up in Brooklyn. The show follows a typical summer day in the life of the Nutshell Kids, a group of several neighborhood friends, including Pierre, Alligator, Johnny, and Chicken Soup from the Nutshell Library books, and Rosie and Kathy from The Sign on Rosie's Door. Rosie, the self-proclaimed sassiest kid on her block of Brooklyn's Avenue P, entertains everyone by directing and starring in a movie based on the exciting, dramatic, funny (and slightly exaggerated) story of her life.
A half-hour animated television special aired on CBS TV on February 19, 1975. It was directed by Maurice Sendak, animated by Ronald Fritz and Dan Hunn of D&R Productions Inc., with Carole King voicing the title character. King was ultimately selected as the voice of Rosie when casting directors had difficulty selecting a child actor whose voice could complement the pre-recorded songs. An album of the songs by King and lyrics by Sendak is available on Ode Records. In the animated special, only the first seven songs and Really Rosie (Reprise) were showcased.
Sendak expanded the piece for London and Washington, DC stage productions in 1978, and an off-Broadway production, directed and choreographed by Patricia Birch with designs by Sendak, which opened on October 14, 1980, at the Westside Theatre, where it ran for 274 performances. During its off-Broadway run, the lead role of Rosie was first played by a then-12-year-old Tisha Campbell-Martin. Midway through the run, Tisha left the cast and was replaced by cast member and "Rosie" understudy Angela Coin, age 10. Angela also sang the role of "Rosie" on the cast recording.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Really_Rosie 

Chicago - Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon

The first question to understanding the rock suite Ballet For A Girl In Buchannon is defining “suite.” A textbook definition is a good place to start. A suite is defined as a composition “made up of a number of movements, each like a dance and all the same key or related keys.” Suites originated in France in prototypical form and reached their apex in Germany during the Baroque era of the 17th century. The tempos of the movements quickened and slowed to give the dancers variety. Jimmy’s main inspiration from the Baroque era was Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos. In the liner notes to Claude Bolling’s “Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano” (a very sweet album), Bobby Finn wrote about the “great fluctuation of mood within the movements” and the “constant dialogue between the jazz and classical elements which seem to fight, to interrupt, to stimulate, to mimic, and even to embrace each other.” It is easy to also think of Ballet with this description. Jimmy’s own invention and synthesis could be recognizable across the centuries if Bach could attend a Chicago concert or listen to Chicago II.  
Each movement in a suite is enhanced by the contrasting movements around it, the beauty and grace of Colour My World are made more wonderful by the intricacy and complexity of West Virginia Fantasies. Each of the movements has its own feel and identity, the whole bigger than the sum of its parts because of the contrasts and relationships. In Baroque style, movements may have changes between complementary keys. In this rock suite, key changes are handled in more than one way. Sometimes they are modulations using pivot chords (a chord that is found in both keys) or the key changes using measures with no chords as transitions. Time signature changes abound as well, a characteristic feature of many Chicago tunes. This constant dynamism of key, tempo, time signature, and texture, provides an energy that keeps ears perked and blood racing, something that everyone can feel whether or not one has any background in music theory. In essence, Jimmy makes his challenging composition accessible to a very wide audience without compromising what is complex and technical.
In Make Me Smile alone, we hear three different keys. The introduction is in the key of Ab, modulating to C minor after the chord of Absus4 acts as a pivot chord. The key shifts again to E minor in the B section. Terry’s guitar solo in this section kicks off with a fiery 16th note riff that is something that jazz fans might recognize as originating as a classic horn riff, similar to Lee Morgan’s trumpet solo in Moanin’ by the Jazz Messengers. The key changes again for the last four measures, back to Eb to segue into So Much To Say, So Much To Give. In this transition between the first two movements, the woodwinds and brass give the mood a rather forlorn quality. This second movement of the suite features Robert Lamm’s only lead vocal in the suite, his excellent performance perfectly capturing the impassioned plea of the lyrics. Throughout Ballet, the vocals and instruments express a full range of human emotion through music, perfectly symbolic considering the theme and subject of the suite.
The next two movements, Anxiety’s Moment and West Virginia Fantasies together form a mid section of the suite. The communion between Lee Loughnane’s trumpet and Walter Parazaider’s flute in West Virginia Fantasies holds a uniqueness not just in Chicago’s repertoire but in rock and roll overall. Their perfect execution exposes their formal training at DePaul University and with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Lee trained on trumpet with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and Walter was a clarinet protege of the CSO’s clarinetist Jerome Stowell. (I do wonder if Lee learned his valve vibrato on his own or from one of his professors!) When Walter comes in on flute, he’s playing in harmony with Lee; then their parts diverge into counterpoint, two independent melodic lines. This approach is echoed by Terry Kath’s guitar and Robert’s organ in the next section of the movement. Writing for a band such as Chicago, a veritable rock orchestra, surely must have opened up the possibilities of what the writers, particularly Jimmy and Robert, could put on paper. Not only did a composition this technical have to be executed in the studio but on stage as well, and Ballet is no mere jam session.  
The transition to Colour My World is a dramatic one. The tempo is taken down, the time signature shifts to a triplet feel in 12/8, and the change from brass and woodwinds to a simple acoustic piano provides for a beautiful shock. Again, Jimmy’s training and instincts as a writer inform the modulation to the key of F with C7 as the pivot chord between the last measures of West Virginia Fantasies to the opening arpeggio of Fmaj7. The arpeggios flow over unexpected changes inside and outside the key. Jimmy further proves his gift for melody with his direction of the flute solo, quite different from Walter’s own sometimes avant-garde style even though it is one of his most famous solos. Still, Walter brings his own warm, breathy tone and expressiveness directly from the soul. As a whole, Colour My World, often unfairly characterized as maudlin, is sophisticated pop perfection.
The suite finishes with the grand finale of To Be Free and Now More Than Ever, featuring the highly rhythmic strumming that is quintessentially Terry Kath, the horns blowing full bore, showing just how wedded Jimmy’s horn arrangements are to the essential melodies and identities of the tunes. Now More Than Ever reprises Make Me Smile, acting as a bookend and building to a jubilant conclusion. For the final measures, Jimmy’s trombone appropriately takes the fore in a proudly accented solo, a grand finale of his epic composition.  From: https://hornbandreviews.wordpress.com/2016/11/14/jimmy-pankows-opus-ballet-for-a-girl-in-buchannon-by-stephanie-carta/

Animated Music Videos - Ape School - Wail to God / Chelou - Halfway to Nowhere / Cuushe - Airy Me / Mumiy Troll - Moshka / Tenacious D - Classico / The Bobby Lees - Be My Enemy / Trash Talk - The Great Escape

 Ape School - Wail to God

 

 Chelou - Halfway to Nowhere

 

 Cuushe - Airy Me

 

 Mumiy Troll - Moshka

 

 

Tenacious D - Classico

 The Bobby Lees - Be My Enemy

 

 Trash Talk - The Great Escape

 

Ape School is the moniker of Michael Johnson, a multi-instrumentalist studio wiz based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who was previously a member of the indie rock bands Holopaw and Lilys. He made his debut as Ape School in 2009 in association with Ninja Tune.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/ape-school-mn0001061374#biography

The “Halfway to Nowhere” video was made with illustrator Polly Nor, whose work explores female sexuality, insecurities, past pains, and future desires with a frankness and dark sense of humour that’s rarely seen in the media. Guts, hair, dirty rooms, devils and sensory greenery are recurring images in her work, and her video for Chelou (created with animator Andy Baker) includes them all. “The story follows a woman trapped in a grotesque and devilish manifestation of her subconscious,” says Nor. “Lost in this strange place, she’s led to confront her demons and make peace with herself.”  From: https://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/33775/1/chelou-halfway-to-nowhere-polly-nor-video

Mayuko Hitotsuyanagi, better known by her stage name Cuushe, is a Japanese singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer from Kyoto. She is based in Tokyo. She is one half of the duo Neon Cloud along with Geskia. In a 2012 interview with Dazed, Cuushe cited "musician friends, movies, and sadness" as her top 3 musical inspirations. Colin Joyce of Pitchfork wrote, "The wispy-voiced Tokyo songwriter is nominally a dream-pop act, indulgent in the stirring static and hushed whispers that have become requisite for the genre."  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuushe

Taking their name from a character in the famous children's books of Tovi Jansson, Mumiy Troll have become one of Russia's most popular and critically acclaimed contemporary pop/rock acts of the '90s and 2000s. Centered around the offbeat romantic lyrics and intelligent, charismatic presence of songwriter and frontman Ilya Lagutenko, the band has developed separately from the rest of the Russian music scene, opting to work with foreign producers and recording the majority of it’s work in England. Although experimenting with different musical genres over the years, Mumiy Troll have developed an idiosyncratic sound placed halfway between traditional Russian rock and Brit-pop.  From:  https://www.allmusic.com/artist/mumiy-troll-mn0000984476#biography

Tenacious D is an American comedy rock duo formed in Los Angeles in 1994 by the actors Jack Black and Kyle Gass. Their music showcases Black's theatrical vocal delivery and Gass' acoustic guitar playing. Critics have described their fusion of vulgar absurdist comedy with rock music as "mock rock". Their songs discuss the duo's purported musical and sexual prowess, their friendship and cannabis usage, in a style critics have compared with the storyteller-style lyrics of rock opera. Prior to the release of the 2001 debut album Tenacious D, the duo had a three-episode TV series released on HBO between 1997 and 2000. The series came about after they met David Cross on the LA music scene and Black featured in episodes of Mr. Show with Bob and David. The band befriended the musician Dave Grohl, which began a relationship between Grohl's band the Foo Fighters and Tenacious D. Towards the end of the 1990s, the duo supported large rock acts such as Weezer, Pearl Jam, Tool, and Beck.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenacious_D

The Bobby Lees are an American rock music group founded in 2018 in Woodstock, New York. The band comprises vocalist and guitarist Sam Quartin, bassist Kendall Wind, drummer Macky Bowman, and guitarist Nick Casa. The band's name originates from a hallucination experienced by Sam Quartin, in which she believed she saw a ghost named Bobby Lee. The song Bobby Lee, from their debut album, was written based on this experience.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bobby_Lees

Trash Talk got their start playing DIY venues in Northern California more than a decade ago. They've since gone on to play their hardcore punk in front of crowds at music festivals like Coachella and Camp Flog Gnaw. The music they play is fast. It's loud. Very aggressive. Think along the lines of Black Flag or Suicidal Tendencies with a bit of thrash metal thrown in.  From: https://www.npr.org/2020/07/09/889433987/hardcore-punk-band-trash-talk

 

 Ape School

 

Chelou

Cuushe

Mumiy Troll

Tenacious D

The Bobby Lees

 

 

Trash Talk

The Hu featuring Lzzy Hale - Song of Women

Mongolian rock sensation The Hu has released "Song Of Women", featuring a guest appearance by Lzzy Hale of Halestorm. The track will appear on the deluxe edition of The Hu’s critically acclaimed album "The Gereg". This version includes three of The Hu tracks re-made with special featured artists. "Yuve Yuve Yu", featuring Danny Case of From Ashes To New, was the band's first-ever radio single. The band's current single "Wolf Totem", features Jacoby Shaddix of Papa Roach. The third track exclusive to the deluxe edition is "Song Of Women". There will also be three acoustic tracks on the new release. Lzzy appears in the video for "Song Of Women", which was filmed prior to the coronavirus quarantine. "I'm so thankful to The Hu for welcoming me, my words and my melody into this song," says Hale. "I can count on less than one hand the number of times where a project has changed the course of my spirit and renewed my faith in humanity. This was one of those projects. I'm still levitating." May is a month filled with events honoring women — Mother's Day on May 10 and Women's Health Week from May 12 through May 18, so the band felt it important to release the song in May. The Hu stands for the Mongolian root word for human being, inspiring the band's original style of music that it calls "Hunnu Rock." The group pulls inspiration from the Hunnu, an ancient Mongolian empire better known as The Huns in western culture. Their music is deeply embedded with their ancient culture, even integrating old Mongolian war cries and poetry into their lyrics. The group was founded in 2016 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia by their producer Dashka, along with band members Gala, Jaya, Temka and Enkush. Together they create rock music with traditional Mongolian instrumentation such as the morin khuur (horsehead fiddle), tovshuur (Mongolian guitar), tumur khuur (jaw harp), guttural throat singing built around the pillars of heavy rock: distorted guitars, bombastic drums, and aggressive rhythms. All four members have earned Bachelor's or higher degrees in classical music and have gained several years of touring experience throughout Asia and the Pacific Rim.  From: https://ultimatemetal.com/threads/mongolian-band-the-hu-releases-song-of-women-featuring-halestorms-lzzy-hale.1659738/

Uriah Heep - The Wizard

When Uriah Help returned to the US for the second time, in January 1972, they were booked to open for Deep Purple, their noisy neighbours from Hanwell Community Centre. Their gregarious guitarist, meanwhile, was taking advantage of his group’s burgeoning reputation by thumbing through local phone directories and placing calls to random young ladies, inviting them along to gigs and parties.
“You’d tell the bird you were in Uriah Heep, and next minute the hotel was full of women,” Mick Box recalled cheerfully. But such a lifestyle wasn’t for everyone. On January 31, upon completing the final date of the Deep Purple tour, bassist Mark Clarke quit the band, having joined only four months previously.
“Mark jumped ship because he couldn’t deal with the stresses of the touring we were doing, which were excessive, I have to say,” Box says. “It was a mad, mad, mad time for us all. Mark felt that he just could not keep up with it, that he was going to have a full-on nervous breakdown if he stuck around any longer.”
Although Clarke’s time in the band was short, the ex-Colosseum bassist did make one lasting and significant contribution to Uriah Heep, writing a striking, harmonised middle eight for a new Ken Hensley composition titled The Wizard, based on a fantastical recurring dream he’d had every night for a week.
“I remember Ken playing The Wizard on an acoustic guitar in the back of our van,” says Box. “It was the first time I’d heard anyone play guitar with a drop-D tuning. He couldn’t find a middle eight, so Mark Clarke wrote that, and the whole song sounded so good to everyone. I think we all knew it was something special."
Gerry Bron, too, heard potential in Hensley’s whimsical power ballad. Ahead of their second visit to the US, Heep were rushed into Lansdowne Studios in Holland Park, where they tracked the song (and single B-side Why) in a matter of hours. Before the session ended, The Wizard’s semiacoustic intro was beefed up with the addition of an unusual instrument – the studio kettle.
“We were making a cup of tea, and had the studio door open, and as we were listening back to the intro of the song we heard the whistle, and thought: ‘Hang on!” Mick Box recalls. “We went into the kitchen, recorded the kettle whistle two or three times and got it re-tuned to a high C. That’s the note you hear at the beginning of the song.”
While Bronze Records readied The Wizard for an international release, Heep bedded in Mark Clarke’s replacement Gary Thain with a five-night stand at the Whiskey A Go Go club in Los Angeles in February ’72. New Zealander Thain had come from the Keef Hartley Band, and clicked instantly with Heep’s other new addition, drummer Lee Kerslake, who had joined just three months previously. The pair’s obvious chemistry, and superior musical ability, immediately elevated the whole band to a new level.
“Now we finally had a real steam engine of a rhythm section,” Box says, admiringly. “Having those two powerhouses behind us provided a wonderful foundation for the band. Lee was a fantastic drummer, and Gary would come up with these great bass lines that never got in the way of the melody of the song but always seemed to enhance it. It was an incredible knack. It was a real pleasure to work with the pair of them. Everything just clicked into place.”  From: https://www.loudersound.com/features/whacked-out-occultists-scary-seances-and-the-saga-of-uriah-heeps-demons-and-wizards

Rosalie Cunningham - Number 149

Rosalie Cunningham, well known on progressive rock circles as the driving force behind the well-received band Purson, grew up in a home with music all around her. She was writing her own songs and picking out melodies on a piano before, at 12 years old, she began seriously learning the guitar. With an ear for The Beatles, early Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Small Faces, Genesis and Black Sabbath, she had musical tastes beyond her years. At 13, she formed her first band, Suzie's Lip. Her first professional band, Ipso Facto toured with Magazine and The Last Shadow Puppets. In 2011, she formed the band Purson, which spread her music around the world, and culminated with the highly acclaimed album, Desire's Magic Theatre. Since the breakup of Purson, Rosalie has worked towards a solo career, and released her self-titled album in 2019.

Her first solo album was excellent, but here on her second, I feel she has outdone her previous masterpiece, Purson’s ‘Desire's Magic Theatre’. While her self-titled solo debut is beautiful and superbly crafted, on this one she has re-energized her progressive leanings with a vengeance. Her wit and whimsy are still on full display here, and I would say even more so than on DMT. I am tempted to mention my favorites from her lyrics, but I think each listener should experience the joy of hearing her words by listening to the album themselves. Every track is exquisite prog, and Rosalie manages to create perfection in every style she weaves into her compositions, be it symphonic, jazz, honky-tonk, and even a Beatles-like raga. Speaking of which, ‘Tristitia Amnesia’ absolutely blows me away, starting with the above-mentioned raga, and seamlessly escalating into an amazing psychedelic rock finale. I've mentioned this about her previous albums, but I find that Rosalie is one of the few artists whose albums consistently make me feel like I did a half century ago, when I would come home with a pile of records and find some that would send my mind soaring to new places. In simple terms, her music makes me feel young again.

From: https://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=11303

Polyphia - Look But Don't Touch

Guitar-bending instrumental group Polyphia have distinguished themselves as prog rock mavericks, playing a style that falls somewhere between blisteringly fast metal-god virtuosity and pure pop. They first grabbed attention in 2013 after the track "Impassion" went viral. Since then, albums like 2014's Muse and 2016's Renaissance have found them further honing their technically brilliant instrumental sound, combining sophisticated pop hooks with face-melting guitar solos. Later on, the group added elements of hip-hop, EDM, and jazz to their repertoire with diverse outings like New Levels New Devils (2018) and Remember That You Will Die (2022). Formed in the quiet suburban landscape of Plano, Texas in 2011, Polyphia initially consisted of dual lead guitarists Tim Henson and Scott LePage, bassist Clay Gober, and drummer Brandon Burkhalter. They released two EPs, 2011's Resurrect (their only recording to feature vocals) and 2013's Inspire, before recording their 2014 full-length debut, Muse. Funds for the recording and production of Muse were raised by the band in an online fundraising campaign to which fans generously donated. The self-released album charted in the Top 100 of Billboard's album chart, and Equal Vision signed Polyphia, reissuing the album in 2015.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/polyphia-mn0003313453#biography 

October Project - Funeral In His Heart - Live on FX 1995

With their unique blend of pop, classical, a cappella, and choral, October Project have carved a distinct niche in the landscape of independent music. Known for their lush harmonies, sweeping melodies, and warm and reflective lyrics, the New York group found critical and commercial success with the release of their 1993 self-titled debut and sophomore effort, 1995's Falling Farther In, but splintered shortly after the latter's release. A slightly re-tooled lineup returned in the 2000s and released a series of EPs, and in 2015, the band issued a full-length collection of choral recordings, The Book of Rounds. They returned to a more pop-driven style on 2024's Ghost of Childhood. Initially comprised of composer Emil Adler, vocalists Mary Fahl and Marina Belica, guitarist/vocalist David Sabatino, and poet/lyricist Julie Flanders, October Project honed their skills playing in friends' living rooms and small New York clubs, but they really constructed the specifics of their distinctive sound in the studio while in the process of recording their eponymous debut album. Released in 1993, Mary Fahl's unique and powerful voice was the focal point of the record, and the band's trademark vocal harmonies and soaring arrangements evoked classical choral music as much as they did alternative pop. The LP included the singles "Bury My Lovely" and "Return to Me," the latter of which appeared on the soundtrack to the 1994 action film Blown Away. Falling Farther In appeared in 1995 and yielded the singles "Deep as You Go" and "Something More Than This," but despite garnering positive reviews, Epic chose to sever ties with the group in 1996, and the band elected to part ways shortly thereafter.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/october-project-mn0000467881#biography

Steppenwolf - Sookie Sookie

Formed in Toronto and adding two Los Angeles-based musicians, Steppenwolf came on the music scene just as hard rock was heading toward its ascendancy. Looking for all the world like a biker gang, Steppenwolf could have been created by central casting to portray a hard-edged, leather-clad group of rockers. But Steppenwolf was a real group, taking its name from a 1927 novel by Herman Hesse and led by vocalist and guitarist John Kay.
Steppenwolf had released their debut single, “A Girl I Knew” b/w “The Ostrich,” in late 1967, but the 45 went largely unnoticed, making not a ripple on the singles charts. Both tunes would be included on the group’s self-titled LP, recorded in the fall of ’67 and released on January 29, 1968. In fact eight of the album’s 11 tracks would eventually appear on singles as the band’s reputation took off.
For that debut album, the band worked with Gabriel Mekler, house producer at Dunhill Records. Mekler’s résumé at that point was quite thin; his only previous production credits were three singles by the Dunhill act Lamp of Childhood. But working together, Mekler and Steppenwolf crafted a debut that defined the new rock subgenre that would come to be known as heavy metal. (The term would eventually come to represent a very different style of music, but in 1968, heavy rock meant Steppenwolf, Iron Butterfly, Blue Cheer and other loud, aggressive rock acts.)
Steppenwolf opens with the first of three cover songs, a reading of the 1966 Steve Cropper-Don Covay soul tune, “Sookie Sookie.” Where Covay’s original featured a prominent horn section, Steppenwolf’s version features distorted electric guitar. Kay and his band change the key, slow the arrangement down a bit, and mine the blues influences in the song. Goldy McJohn’s gurgling Hammond organ underpins the song while the guitar and rhythm section move it forward. Mid-song the band steps up a key as Michael Monarch takes a short electric guitar solo. More a groove than a song, “Sookie Sookie” nonetheless establishes the hard rock template upon which Steppenwolf would find its fortunes.  From: https://bestclassicbands.com/steppenwolf-debut-album-review-11-27-177/

Baskery - Old Man (Neil Young cover)

Baskery have never been shy of their influences, with the Swedish sisters indebted to the “file under country and folk” of North America. Although they self-describe their music as “killbilly”, or banjo punk, the reality is that they are a world apart from any of the frantic fringes of cowpunk, a closer reference point being maybe as an amalgam of the (Dixie) Chicks and the Roches. It is a good brew, though, and their previous releases contain a melodic fusion of country rock tropes. Greta Bondesson manages to combine playing drums with a guitar/banjo hybrid, with sister Stella playing bass and sister Sunniva handling guitars and cello. All sing, their sibling harmonies a characteristic feature. As well as playing all the instruments, the three usually write their own songs. However, The Young Sessions – Live to Tape sees them doing a cover album, selecting ten Neil Young tracks to cover, most of them from his 1969-1972 peak.
The Young Sessions opens with a medley of “Out on the Weekend/Don’t Let it Bring You Down/A Man Needs a Maid”, and that opening shot proves that Baskery has the Harvest soundscape down just pat. The drums mimic the simplistic metronome of the originals, and Greta’s harmonica is Shakey-level authentic. Indeed, so much so that, as the tripartite vocals come in, it sounds… odd, a little Chipmunks-do-Neil. Not to say they are shrill, sticking much to the singer’s own timbre; it is just the novelty of hearing three Neil-adjacent voices all at the same time. This is least apparent for “Maid,” given, clearly, no orchestration, leaving the sisters to garnish it with just what they have to hand, which makes for a first hint of new light through the old windows.
“Old Man” returns to superior karaoke, but the sibling harmonies make the exercise worth that conceit. The sound of the guitar/banjo hybrid gives an idea of the instrument’s capabilities, it sounding actually exactly as billed, the plucking pitched between the sonic of both instruments. “Heart of Gold” actually benefits from this, not least as it granted some slide styling for the familiar riff.
“Alabama” is the first to have you wonder whether the sisters are up to reproducing the idiosyncratic boxing-gloves guitar style of Young. The answer: nearly, if more in spirit than execution, the soloing more prosaic and decidedly more conventional. It’s fine, but there remains a yearning for the cack-handedness of the original.
That said, spotting a running time of over 10 minutes for “Down by the River,” the feel is, and the hope stronger, that this is maybe where Baskery let rip. And, as they begin, they deliver a wonderfully aspirational assault. The interplay between orthodox guitar and the hybrid is superbly monosyllabic and repetitive, where each of these are essential facets of the Neil Young Experience. For me, this is where the album comes suddenly to life, my hand casually dialing up the volume, and then some more. Too late for our best covers of the year list, this song might have had my vote.  From: https://www.covermesongs.com/2024/12/review-baskerys-the-young-sessions-live-to-tape.html

Millionaire - I'm Not Who You Think You Are

Millionaire have released LP number four Applz ≠ Aplz (pronounced Apples Not Apples), a burst of psychedelic rock n roll energy with a soul twist wrapped in a celebratory flavour, while exploring themes of consumerism, environmental destruction and the peril humans are facing, largely due to our own hand. Millionaire founder, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Tim Vanhamel talks to Gimmie from his home in Belgium.

Why is it important to you to create things?

Tim Vanhamel: Let me think about that, that’s a good question. I have no idea. I was contemplating that yesterday actually. It just happens in a way. If you want to give it importance then it usually is not that good, it’s more the ego trying to do something or create or whatever. It’s best to just let it happen, it doesn’t matter what it is, whether it’s making a dish or making a song or making a little video, or just singing to yourself or making a joke. The best creativity just comes up, there’s a need to.

I know what you mean. At Gimmie we love making things, we feel we just have to. It is hard to explain. There’s just something there that needs to come out, that needs to express itself.

TV: Yeah, exactly. I can see that with you guys. It is what makes you feel good in a way, if it makes you feel good doing it then the art is usually good and other people will like it as well. We all do different things and sometimes, writing a song in my case, if it’s not happening that’s fine, then something else can happen.

I saw you mention online the other day that because you’re in lockdown at home you’ve been writing and painting?

TV: [Laughs] That was a joke actually! I’ve been making these little films the last week. I posted one and I was making a little fun about how all these people feel called to live stream and how they feel like, “oh I gotta help the world”. The world doesn’t necessarily need help, in the way that everybody is locked down, mediocrity is really coming out. It was a little joke I was posting. People were like “Oh, it’s a lockdown, we have to be creative! I’m gonna write a new album”. I made a joke that I was doing six paintings and writing two books and doing a movie script [laughs]. I then made a second film and then it became kind of a thing, a character that was playing a song but it just never works out, everything goes wrong; he was trying to get a song going for everyone but he kept failing all the time. That’s also creative though, I was following that creativity, that need to share a joke.

I think laughter is important in these tough times.

TV: Exactly, I think that laughter is one of the highest goods in the world. People are really serious, also with sharing all this advice… everyone is so serious. A good laugh is good, it’s a high good and when we laugh we are what we’re meant to be as human beings; we’re ourselves and there’s no war going on. It’s fantastic.

Everything that’s happening in the world is so crazy and intense right now, consumerism and capitalism is finally failing! In a crisis like we’re experiencing, people are realising that they don’t need all the excess stuff they fill their lives with, all the luxuries they usually take for granted and don’t think twice about.

TV: Yeah, it’s not so crazy though. As you know I just released an album and I am singing on that album about everything that is happening right now!

You are!

TV: Everything that’s happening, I could feel it already about a year ago. The first song “Cornucopia” is about consumerism etc. The second song “Los Romanticos” is about there’s a shit storm coming and its moving fast, it’s an ironic song about how supposed love eats up the world, it’s not true love, it’s false. The third song “Strange Days” I’m singing about doing nothing, I’m literally singing: “when the world ends I will be watching from a front row seat, you bring the thunder, I’ll bring the lightning and maybe we can meet for the very first time…”, it’s not to pat my own shoulders but this is exactly what’s happening. I don’t think there’s another song in the world that’s more true than that right now. I can’t believe it. A week ago the album came out and I did a bunch of interviews, which I don’t really like doing, I don’t like explaining my songs… it’s bizarre that five days after I released my album everything happened big time!

Your new album is great! I like how in interviews you rarely talk about your songs, I know you like people to have their own interpretations of your songs, to think for themselves about it. Like with something like all the visuals to accompany the album, the cover art, film clips, they feature the apple and that right there has so much symbolism attached to it throughout the history of the world and can have so many different meanings.

TV: Exactly. Explaining art is like the Wizard Of Oz pulling back the curtain and then you have a little man in a machine sitting there and the magic is gone. If it was my choice, I would never ever, ever say one word, I wouldn’t explain nothing. I try to boogie around those questions. [Laughs].

From: https://gimmiezine.com/2020/03/31/millionaire-interview/

Disappear Fear - Live TV 1994

Disappear Fear, formed in 1987, consisted of sisters Sonia Rutstein and Cindy Frank, and expanded the following year to include guitarist Howard Markman. Their lyrics often addressed love, life, Baltimore, LGBT rights, and progressive political issues. The pair released six albums as a duo.  In 1994, after self-releasing their music via their own Disappear Records label, the band was signed to Rounder/Philo Records. Two years later, Cindy stopped performing regularly with the band in order to focus on her growing family. Cindy's teen son Dylan Visvikis has shared his talents on vocals and piano.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappear_Fear

Rossington-Collins Band - Don't Misunderstand Me

On this day in rock history in 1977, tragedy stuck when the plane carrying Lynyrd Skynyrd crashed in Mississippi on its way to Baton Rouge only three days after releasing their latest album. Six people perished in the accident including two members of Skynyrd including lead singer Ronnie Van Zant. Amazingly, six other members of Skynyrd survived and from the ashes of the plane crash emerged the Rossington Collins Band with their forgotten '80 tune, Don't Misunderstand Me.
Four of the surviving members of Lynyrd Skynyrd decided to resume making music but didn't want to call themselves Lynyrd Skynyrd out of respect for their fallen band mates. Instead they became the Rossington Collins Band named after guitarists Gary Rossington and Allen Collins. One big change was the addition of a female lead singer - Dale Krantz. Their 1980 debut album went gold, and its lead single Don't Misunderstand Me reached No. 55 on the singles chart.
While Collins survived the 1977 plane crash, his story did not end well. Days after Rossington Collins started to tour as a new band, Collins' wife died of a hemorrhage and the rest of the tour was cancelled. By 1986, Collins had gotten the band back together and was back in a relationship, but tragedy would strike again when the car he was driving (while intoxicated) crashed killing his girlfriend and paralyzing Collins, leaving the man who played one of rock's most iconic solos on Free Bird, unable to play the guitar. Collins would pass away in 1990 at the age of 37 due to pneumonia.
More drama followed the band as both Rossington and Collins would battle for the affections of Dale Krantz, but it was Gary Rossington who won her heart and the two were married in 1982. These days, the "new" Lynyrd Skynyrd tours although Rossington is the only original member still left in the band.  From: https://www.tampabay.com/the-legend-of-rossington-collins-and-dont-misunderstand-me/2299385/

Laura Nyro - Eli's Comin'

‘Eli’s Comin’’ is a love song with an ominous sound, that begins with a quiet warning then builds into an explosion of aggressive harmonies.  Laura Nyro was able to write songs that would speed up and slow down, setting the mood with the tempo concluding with a well paced climatic ending that is unparalleled by her peers.  The tempo in this song gets faster and faster as the relationship between the womanizer Eli and the woman who was warned to hide her heart intensifies.  Three Dog Night, with Danny Hutton, Chuck Negron and Cory Wells singing lead vocals did a high energy and a fast pace cover of this song on their 1969 studio album, Suitable For Framing.  Negron used to watch Nyro perform in New York City and he liked her sound.  He brought this song to the group, thinking it would be a good fit for Wells’ voice.  Most of the lyrics in this song are clear cut, being a prediction about Eli who is coming and that he will break this girl’s heart unless she is able to hide from him, except for one line.  I read an article by WordPress blogger and music aficionado John Holton which stated that the lyrics “Apollo by the bay” according to Answers.com is a place by the water in Australia.  Actually, the Temple of Apollo by the Bay of Baiae (now the Bay of Naples) was in ancient times considered to be one of the entrances to the Underworld.  However, I discovered something slightly different, being that the line “I walked to Apollo by the bay” comes from the story of Daphne and Apollo, which was an essay written by Patricia Spence Rudden.  The Roman and Greek god Apollo mocked Cupid the god of love for using his bow and arrow.  Cupid got insulted, so he shot Apollo with an arrow making him fall in love with the river nymph Daphne.  Cupid then shot Daphne with a different kind of arrow which caused her to reject Apollo.  Apollo appeared in the shape of a man and Daphne called to her father to save her.  Apollo used his powers of eternal youth and immortality to render Daphne into an evergreen.  For this reason, the leaves of the Bay laurel tree do not decay, and this became sacred forever thereafter to Apollo.  Laura Nyro was a proud feminist and women’s rights activist who dug into the sexist assumption that the only thing that causes a young woman heartache, or makes her hide her loving heart, or that can give her a broken heart is a man.  From: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2019/06/14/elis-comin/

Traffic - Coloured Rain

"Mr. Fantasy" was Traffic's first album and is also one of their most popular. This is one of the albums which leads to their categorisation as a Prog Folk band, later releases moving in a more jazz oriented direction. Prior to the release of the album in 1967, the band had enjoyed singles chart success with "Paper sun" and Dave Mason's "Hole in my shoe". Neither song was included on the original UK version of "Mr. Fantasy", Winwood feeling that the latter in particular did not represent how he envisaged the band sounding. They do both now appear though on the expanded CD remaster which contains the UK and US versions in full. The reason for the differences in the albums is that the US version was released some time after Dave Mason had departed for the first time. He had in fact left prior to the album's release in the UK, but the band were still credited as a quartet there. For the US version (initially called "Heaven is in your mind"), two of Mason's songs were dropped, while his "Hole and my shoe" was added along with "Paper sun" and another single "Smiling phases". The band however were presented on the sleeve as a trio.
It should be mentioned at this stage that around the time of this album's release Winwood was still a teenager, while the rest of the band were in their very early 20's. Even more astonishingly, Winwood had already been a member of the Spencer Davis group for four years before the formation of Traffic. Perhaps as a reaction to the success of their singles, the band, or at least three of the four them (Mason being the exception), appear to have made a determined effort here to create something with more substance right from the start. "Heaven is in your mind" mixes psychedelic influences with some bluesy instrumentation to create a relaxed West Coast sounding piece. The following "Berkshire poppies" indicates that Mason was not the only one prone to light hearted deviations, members of the Small Faces joining in to create an enjoyable but disposable drunken sounding ramble.
Mason's "House for everyone" is the only track of his which survived on both versions of the album, the song sounding rather like a Syd Barrett piece. The title track is an astonishingly accomplished and assured piece of pure proto-prog. Winwood is in superb vocal form as the track develops magnificently through passionate verses and striking instrumental passages.
"Utterly simple" is a "Norwegian wood" like slice of psychedelia, the mood continuing with "Coloured rain", which finds Winwood talking about when he was a "young boy"! "Hope I never find me there" includes some good old fashioned phasing from the period. The album closes with "Giving to you", an instrumental jam credited to all four band members which offers an early indication the style the band will later adopt.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=7040

Joydrop - Beautiful

Once you see Tara Slone burn her way through unforgettable Joydrop tunes like “Beautiful” or “Sometimes Wanna Die”, you might find it hard to believe that before she was singing for the band, she wanted to be an opera singer. As she says in her bio, “I received a scholarship at Dalhousie University and did a year of music program there. I quickly realized that although I loved singing, I didn’t want to spend every minute of my life living and breathing opera.”
So what did she do? “I left school, pierced my nose, got a tattoo, moved to Montreal and joined a rock band.” But it was still a while before she auditioned for Joydrop and the only reason she actually ended up in Toronto at all was so she could pursue a career in acting. After six months of struggling and feeling miserable because she wasn’t singing, she found an ad in a newspaper – “It’s funny thinking back to that, because I almost didn’t bother to call. I spoke to someone named Tony Rabalao (I thought he was Italian) on the phone and made arrangements to meet at the Joydrop rehearsal space. The connection was instant and the rest is history.”
The first big deal for the band was getting tremendous airplay for their song “Beautiful”, which was on Metasexual, their first album. From there, things got crazy and after getting noticed by Tommy Boy Records, they signed a record deal that has now resulted in the fantastic release, Viberate. “Sometimes Wanna Die” is the first single off this new album and already people have gone nuts for it. A lot of hit radio stations have even picked it up and have been playing it in high rotation. It didn’t hurt the band’s popularity that they filmed the video for “Sometimes Wanna Die” with veteran rocker, Tommy Lee Jones (of Method’s Of Mayhem/Pam-Anderson-videotape fame).
Collectively, singer Tara Slone, bassist Tom McKay, drummer Tony Rabalao and guitarist Thomas Payne have all combined their efforts to write their music. With four writers things can get a little harder to finish and as Payne said in an interview with UtterMusic.com, “A lot of bands have just one songwriter and the other musicians just augment that. With us, with four writers, it’s extremely difficult in a lot of respects. You’ve got four different visions but you have to make them work together so they’re all coming from the same place. Basically it’s a harder demo process, because everyone will bring in their songs and we demo tons and tons of songs and it’s really hard to pick the ones that go on the record.”  From: https://www.thegate.ca/music/03885/joydrop-opera-acting-music-mayhem/