Derwana - Dziady

Derwana is a mythological goddess whose cult was associated with the forest and music. According to legends, she was a beautiful woman with long, fair hair, dressed in robes of leather and leaves, and her head was adorned with doe horns. Her face was calm and gentle and her eyes shone like golden stars. Derwana is an original music band founded by Magda Przychodzka, who from the very beginning has been the main vocalist, composer and author of most of the lyrics. The band is inspired by rich Slavic mythology and ancient rituals.  From: https://goout.net/en/velesar%2Bderwana%2Bdiabol-boruta/szirikx/

The Last Tavern: Summer is the event season. Fantastic events take place basically every weekend. The beginning of July will be very laborious in your case. Concerts in small clubs are different from those organized during themed events. Which form do you prefer?

Magdalena Przychodzka: Each concert is different for us. Everyone is unique in their own way. It does not matter if it is a great festival with a huge audience or a small chamber concert. We take great joy from sharing our music with everyone. It often happens that these concerts, which do not seem to be some great events, outweigh those festivals where we could count on wider interest, popularity or atmosphere. So there is no clear answer here. We just love to play.

Nowadays, the folk metal and folk rock scene is developing a lot and there is a lot of variety. Some bands only play traditional instruments, while others treat the folk atmosphere as an addition. You sometimes say in interviews that you think about adding elements from electronic music. Does all this mean that listeners of this genre are flexible and open to experiments?

I cannot talk about the preferences of the listeners, everyone finds what they are looking for in music. I believe that limiting oneself to some kind of stylistics or instruments is very harmful for a musician who wants to develop. Derwana is just such a line-up that has a specific style and specificity, but at the same time continues to look for new solutions to develop and move forward. Someone once said that there was everything in music. We do not agree with this. We create something that flows from us, we create, we search, we find and connect. This is what musical maturity is all about, this is what the future of music is about. On a search.

Slavic culture is very rich. Each region has something to offer. Any of them especially inspire you? Or maybe there is one that does not appeal to your imagination?

This is an interesting issue. There is no specific Slavic direction we would be hitting on. Our melodies and songs are a mix of various folk styles. We are open to various forms of early and folk music. We weave these canons with each other, creating something in its own way, different, with a hint of freshness. Many of the themes are based on early music, but they are also combined with modern sound, a well-developed rhythm section, melodic guitars and ethnic instruments. Otherwise. Everything that inspires us, no matter what style it is, can be interpreted in our own way. Give it its own language, its own style.

Over the years, Slavic culture has tried to break into the mainstream several times. Słowianki Donatana, “Koko, Euro Spoko” and now the performance of the Tulia band at the Eurovision festival. Some became a meme, a viral. How important is the serious approach to culture and where does the lack of tact begin?

Each musician has complete freedom in what he does. There are no diagrams or guidelines here. For some, some performances will be perceived as kitsch, while for others they will be a masterpiece. There is no definition here. Music is like art. Subjective. It’s not a sport where someone won or lost. Here you can perform the best song in the world and there will always be someone who doesn’t like it. It’s normal. Therefore, I am of the opinion that every artist creates music that comes out of him. Often, if it does not do it from the heart, it becomes an artificial creation devoid of authenticity. It is up to the recipient how he or she interprets it.

Do you conduct research when creating new material? Do you study the roots of legends from a given region?

No. The songs that are written are mostly stories of their own. These are stories about a non-existent world. At times, they may refer to legends or myths, such as Topielica or Południca. Many times, however, they are songs about life dressed in our own style. The song Nie Płacz Dziewko or A Tomorrow is a song that tells about mundane situations that can affect all of us. Told in a slightly different way. We want our texts not to be limited to myths or legends. We want to talk about what surrounds us, hurts and delights us. The message is very important.

Have you ever played in a location associated with the song you are performing? If so, what were the reactions?

We recently played such a concert in Węgrów. My adventure with folk began in Liw, 5 km from Węgrów. For me, this place is magical for many reasons. This is where my family’s roots go, many songs were written here, and finally here we shot the clips for our songs. So I can safely say that if it weren’t for Liw and the knightly tournaments organized there, maybe I would never have become fascinated with early music.

Your album “Czary Modły” may be a milestone. How was it created? Did you know immediately what the soundtrack would look like? Does the order of the tracks matter?

Czary Modły is a collection of songs that form one stylistic story. Each is different, but each has common features. We tried to choose the order of the songs so that it was varied and delicious. The album also includes graphics made by me, which refer to the plot of the songs, color and bind the material together.

In the information about you, you can find the words: “Slavic rock – full of secrets, undiscovered lands, fairy tales and yet unknown stories.” How much else is there to be discovered in this music genre? What are your goals in the near future? Do you have a specific plan for the next concerts, music videos, albums?

Our goal is to play, make people happy and keep creating. There are still so many undiscovered places that exist in our heads. We would like to be able to introduce them soon with a new album and concerts. There are many ideas. Willing too. Everything is a matter of time.

When it comes to inspirations besides musical – what fantastic universe is the most interesting for you? Do you have similar tastes or are everyone interested in something different?

Interestingly, each of us listens to completely different music. Maybe that’s why Derwana is so diverse. As a singer, I weave white chants there, but also strong rock vocals, Majkel is fascinated by the sounds of the past, she experiments with electronics, analog sounds, Tonic focuses on selectivity, strong support, rock flair. Grzesiek is fascinated by melodic and progressive metal with elements of symphonic metal. Radomir plays early music and shanties. However, no species is alien to each of us. We are happy to improvise during rehearsals in various styles. Music is also great fun.

From: https://ostatniatawerna.pl/en/interview-magdalena-przychodzka-vocalist-of-the-band-derwana-about-music-and-more/

Cheeto's Magazine - Chili Guillermo

Modern prog in the vein of metal has always been somewhat of an issue to me, with so many bands either sounding like Dream Theater or Animals As Leaders/Periphery clones, either uneccesarily dramatic, or simply very similar to all the other dark, gloomy, highly technical bands out there, doing little to separate themselves from the crowd. To this, there are of course exceptions. Enter Cheetos Magazine, a band that if nothing else, is wonderfully refreshing, but oh boy is it something else. While remaining firmly in prog territory, with longer songs with many shifts and solos throughout, I haven't heard such upbeat, fun music in absolutely ages. The best way I can think of to describe this band's aesthetic is that of some sort of twisted children's entertainment, further accentuated by the brightly coloured album art and goofy vocals. There's a very defined 80s feel that everything has, with over the top synths and a very cheery, almost glam rock vibe in places.
Chili Guillermo is an amazingly energetic piece with sweeping keyboard and synth lines that simply explode right from the get go, the song barely letting up as quirky vocal lines are belted out, backed up by a bouncy melody from the backing vocals. Of all the songs on the album, this one is definitely the one that I've had the strongest urge to just start singing whenever I listen to it, especially with the short, yet absolutely wonderful chorus, such a short melodic line beng so perfectly catchy. This song never fails to put a smile on my face, as it's just the perfect blend of melody, power, and an incredibly happy tone.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=60806

Buffalo Daughter - Mirror Ball

From the 1990s onward, Buffalo Daughter have been a consistently inventive force in Japanese music. Though they've been associated with the Shibuya-kei scene -- which was at its peak when the band emerged -- their vibrant mix of funk, dub, no wave, electronic music, and noise is more eclectic and overtly experimental, with roots in the work of acts like Neu! and Kraftwerk. Buffalo Daughter's genre-mashing style first made an international splash with 1996's EP compilation Captain Vapour Athletes, which was released by Grand Royal, the Beastie Boys' tastemaking label. From there, the group leaned into the different sides of their sound, honing their sleek motorik rhythms on 1998's New Rock and adding orchestral and acoustic touches to 2002's I. Though their output slowed in the 2010s, Buffalo Daughter proved they were as musically restless as ever with albums including 2010's hip-hop-influenced The Weapons of Math Destruction and 2021's kinetic and politically charged We Are the Times.
Prior to forming Buffalo Daughter, guitarist/vocalist SuGar Yoshinaga and bassist/vocalist Yumiko Ohno were members of the band Havana Exotica. Playing an electronically enhanced mix of dub and funk, the group released two albums on the Japanese indie label MIDI: 1991's Yann Tomita-produced Odotte Bakari No Kun and the following year's Hello! Martian!, which featured production by Pizzicato Five's Yasuharu Konishi. After Havana Exotica disbanded, Yoshinada, Ohno, and turntablist/graphic designer MoOog Yamamoto formed Buffalo Daughter in 1993, choosing the name because of its association with strength as well as the project's all-female lineup. The trio expanded on Havana Exotica's eclectic approach, combining analog synth experiments with sampling and mixing. Buffalo Daughter's debut EP, Shaggy Head Dressers, appeared on Japan's Cardinal Records in 1994; another EP, Amoebae Sound System, followed on the label in 1995. That year, Luscious Jackson heard Buffalo Daughter while they were on tour in Japan, and sent copies of the EPs to their label Grand Royal, the imprint founded by Beastie Boys' Mike D.
 Buffalo Daughter soon signed a deal with Grand Royal and made their debut with the 1996 7" Legend of the Yellow Buffalo. Later in the year, the collection Captain Vapour Athletes gathered the band's EPs. Another EP, 1997's Socks, Drugs, and Rock and Roll, preceded March 1998's full-length New Rock. Recorded with a digital multi-track recorder instead of the analog tapes the band used for their previous releases, the album boasted a more streamlined sound and reached number 77 on Japan's Oricon albums chart. Also in 1998, the trio collaborated with Delaware on the soundtrack to the video game Jungle Park. The remix EP WXBD, which featured contributions from Cornelius, Nardone, and Kut Masta Kurt appeared in 1999, but before Buffalo Daughter could ready another album, Grand Royal closed down. The trio moved to Emperor Norton for February 2002's I, which featured more acoustic instrumentation and a greater focus on the music's lyrics. Later that year, the Japan-only EP A Long Life Story of Miss Cro-Magnon collected remixes and covers of I's songs.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/buffalo-daughter-mn0000627258#biography

Albaluna - Gargull

While Albaluna hail from Portugal, and Els Berros de la Cort from Catalonia in northeastern Spain, both bands share a similar philosophy towards music-making. Albaluna began a decade ago, with research into medieval instruments, tunes and songs from Portugal; in essence, the group were initiates into historical re-enactment. Fifteen years ago, Els Berros de la Cort also rooted themselves in arcane musical instrumentation and medieval street theater. Both bands have evolved in remarkable ways.
Which brings us to ‘metal’/rock music. I would not describe either band as a ‘metal’ band (although, in this latest iteration of Albaluna, the band leans on a lot of electricity), but rather as groups informed by how rock dynamics can be applied to acoustic, medieval instrumentation. We are faced with two paths…First, the brand of folk-rock that has seen ethnic instruments express a form of nationalism by drinking at the wellspring of folk song (i.e., Finland’s Korpiklaani, Japan’s Wagakki Band, Estonia’s Metsatöll), or fantasy (Switzerland’s Celtic/Gaulish influenced Eluveitie). A hint of approaching or impending battle licks around the heels of many such bands. The second path is that of a group such as Germany’s Corvus Corax, or In Extremo: a sound built around medieval music, particularly bagpipes and other wind instruments, undergird with percussion. While Corvus Corax often takes a mostly acoustic approach and the racks of percussion instruments can rival Japan’s Kodo drummers, they have also dipped into rock, metal music and electronica; In Extremo, on the other hand, are mostly a metal band with medieval trimmings. Albaluna and Els Berros de la Cort remind me very much of the DiY ethos of the German medieval metal scene – with Els Berros de la Cort’s sound especially being a direct descendent of Corvus Corax’s experimentation.
Albaluna's Amor, Ira & Desgosta (Love, Wrath & Grief) immediately impresses with its album cover – thin statues foregrounded against a stark landscape. The artwork brings to mind a form of paganism, tinged with modernism. In fact, the title track of the album wears its metal influence clearly – brief spoken-word; a bottom-heavy groove; crashing percussion. But something different is also clearly afoot, as while the vocals occasionally veer towards screaming (thankfully, not the ‘cookie monster’ vocals of black metal), the song itself is very melodic. And the percussive foundation is based on ethnic rhythms as well as rock; a break emerges in the song, whereby the hurdy-gurdy and the percussion take center stage, before returning to some growling bass work. One way to characterize Albaluna’s direction on this album would be a form of prog-rock-folk fusion, with a metal/gothic sensibility.
What is really striking about Amor, Ira & Desgosta are the several strong instrumental tracks that grace the program. “Cascata Trofica” once again lets the hurdy-gurdy take the lead. And there are plenty of nods towards Turkish and Mediterranean music: “Kizim Icin,” “Udan,” Hajduk,” and “Katabasis Zeybek” show a band ready to wield its world music chops and, again, progressive rock metal inspiration.
The lovely “Chiaroscuro” and “Penedo da Saudade” nod more explicitly towards the band’s Portuguese heritage, the ‘light and dark’ of the Italian term ‘chiaroscuro’ fitting the element of the Portuguese culture infatuated with fado music. Altogether, Albaluna have crafted a surprising album that does not need a single electric guitar to make its metal-plated soul heard.  From: https://www.rootsworld.com/reviews/alba-berros-20.shtml

Deerhoof - Juan's Basement 2008

 

So Deerhoof, crazy band, right? Lots of weird tics, art-school tropes, music theory indulgences-- and yet the San Francisco quartet has steadily veered closer to accessibility the past of couple years. Not that any of their albums ever logically followed each other, but in three years they've managed to custom fit Satomi Matsuzaki's screwy vocals with honest-to-god melodies (Milk Man), consistently tug at heartstrings with those melodies (The Runners Four), and then wrap that package into slick, replicable three-minute pop structures (Friend Opportunity). What more can you ask for from a rock band?
Well, how about bigger guitars? With newly added guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Ed Rodriguez on board, the band recaptures the dual guitar interplay of previous albums and then some. I'm not talking about namby-pamby prog fiddling, either; there's legit Pete Townshend-style windmilling here, from the "Rockin' Me" bite on opener "The Tears and Music of Love" to the Chuck Berry seventh chords that propel the "Fresh Born" verses. Inevitably, Satomi gets intertwined in all this, yet never lost. There's still a melodic quality to Maggie, and it can still sound pretty and coherent at times, but the album's heartbeat is six-stringed and often distorted. Don't worry though, Deerhoof haven't pulled the plug on their pop tangent. They're just folding their canon on itself, taking the songwriting tricks they've learned during the last handful of albums and applying them to a raw rock aesthetic somewhere between Reveille and Apple O'.
Deerhoof's never fully taken the plunge into electronics, but Maggie's trace amounts of techno-lalia are egregious. The album's all fretboard, no circuit board, and it feels most comfortable that way. Removed from the grid, the band's music follows a much more organic path, and it's interesting to note how seemingly scattershot bleeps and bloops on prior releases actually kept the songs relatively grounded. The album's second half best demonstrates this, its song structures vine-like, twisting and turning rather than firing off/on like a transistor. The dual guitar lines sneak up on each other in "Numina O" and closer "Jagged Fruit", and even if listeners have no clue what's coming next, they never get the feeling they're about to get sucker-punched.
Satomi follows suit, projecting a very biological and terrestrial sound. Past allusions to time travel, robots, and outer space are replaced with themes of the flesh as Maggie covers "The Tears and Music of Love", "Family of Others", "Fresh Born", and even basketball. Also, while Satomi's voice hasn't deepened any, she certainly sounds less like a hyperglycemic/hyperactive little girl and more sage. Her vocal phrases are at their longest and most reserved here, patiently straddling the lead guitar of "Chandelier Searchlight" or Middle Eastern tumble of "Buck and Judy" for several measures before delivering a payoff hook. And though she often sings lockstep with Rodriguez and Dieterich, it's not the same hand-holding as Reveille-era Deerhoof. Satomi may sing in unison with the guitars, but she also shows the ability to establish mood. Her opening line, "Tell me about your purple past," on "My Purple Past" is at once both curious pillow talk and hard-boiled interrogation, and the song's coy chorus only leaves you feeling less at ease.
Despite these adjustments, Maggie is hardly a new animal within the Deerhoof canon. It's got all sorts of earmarks, from the token Greg Saunier Beach Boys homage "Family of Others" to the irritating hopscotch cadence of "Basket Ball Get Your Groove Back", this album's Shaggs-like "Kidz Are So Small" or "Dog on the Sidewalk". And even with all its perfectly nailed mid-tempo ballads, which filled the gooey center of the past two 'hoof releases, Maggie balks at the chance to make your knees go wobbly, keeping its allure strictly intellectual and technical rather than hot-blooded. That ethos isn't going to win a lot of hugs and kisses from fans or non-fans, but Maggie never asks for more than a firm, professional handshake, the kind of appreciation it more than deserves.  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/12310-offend-maggie/

 

The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath a Cloud - Amara Tanta Tyri (full abum)

 The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath a Cloud - Amara Tanta Tyri - Part 1

 

 The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath a Cloud - Amara Tanta Tyri - Part 2

 

The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath a Cloud was an Austrian musical duo composed of Albin Julius and Alzbeth. Their music reflected their deep fascination with myriad aspects of European medievalism including ritual, clerical chants and the daily experience of the peasantry. Their music combined modern electronics, tape loops and samplers with medieval instruments such as hurdy-gurdy, shawm, and Hexenscheit. Alzbeth was the primary vocalist for the group and often sang traditional songs in numerous archaic languages including Middle High German, Latin and Old French. Julius provided distorted and backup vocals.
When performing live, the band often played in old churches, fortresses, medieval prisons and theatres that provided an appropriate atmosphere for their static, militaristic performances. Early on, the band provided no official photographs or any more information outside of a Swiss mailing address found inside of the albums. The band rarely appeared live or granted interviews. No songs were ever given official titles. After their split, both of the duo were considerably more vocal and promotional images were released.
With each subsequent release the band presented themes traveling further into European history and becoming more martial, choral and bombastic in approach, culminating in their final album; the largely World War II-inspired The Smell of Blood but Victory (1997). In 1998, the duo, also a couple, parted ways and recorded no new material. All of the group's music was released on their own Arthur's Round Table record label and distributed by World Serpent Distribution.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moon_Lay_Hidden_Beneath_a_Cloud

The medieval runs deep within the sounds of this excellent group, whom originates from middle Europe. The essence of authenticity is undeniably strong, an impeccably accurate fusion of modern electronic and traditional music themes. Quite appropriately, the title of this project can also be applied to the people behind it... those whom bring us this mag-ickal music, whom have also been hidden by a mysterious cloud. They stepped out par-tially to let us know more and we are very pleased to present this rаrе interview which was loaded by Wren, amended by Tyler and polished by myself...
Please momentarily lift the cloud which hides the moon so to give your entranced listeners a however brief glimpse (or a complete divulgence of) whom the enigmatic creators of this medieval opus are. Does anonymity present freedom?

We, Alzbeth and Albin Julius founded The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath a Cloud in 1992. Since then we have released 6 CDs - on some of them we have been supported by friends like Lina Baby Doll (Deutsch Nepal, with him we also recorded a MCD), David Gibson, or Alan Trench. Of course anonymity presents a certain freedom, but for us naming our personages is not that important as we rather see the importance of the music itself rather than who stands behind it.

There are obvious strong semblances and deeply intriguing sense of spirituality when meditating on these arcane, euphonic, yet haunting incantations. What are the main sources of cultural mythologies, spiritual creeds, or рagaп beliefs which you most naturally relate with or which compellingly inspire thee?

We don't declare ourselves to anything but the strength of the individual. Personally we don't feel any need in running after a certain confession or ideology. We're against each form of religious oppression and conversion. As the Christian and Islamic churches were some of the most oppressive institutions in European history it's only a logical consequence that we're against them.
Nevertheless we're against all monotheistic and totalitarian confessions and religion itself. Rituals, grown from nature, are much more earthbound, realistic and native, not artificial and forced as with monotheistic religions. We have big interests in pre-christian European myths, but rather from a cultural point of view than from the religious side.

As I understand the whole of the medieval era to be a grim yet behoven time of de-spiritualization through the ascension of humanities' to be "unlimited" torsioned power over the оncе revered earth. What is the prioritized significant aspect of this period which TMLMBAC conveys when conjuring these authentic soundtracks to this chronological theme? Is there an allegorical message to promote spiritual awakening (or even social political awareness) through using the middle ages as a predominant basis for your music?

We're both occupied with all aspects of medieval life - music, literature but also with the circumstances of life of the normal people, but we don't see it as a predominant base for our music. We agree with you that in the middle ages the spiritual honour against earth turned (very slowly and over centuries) into, as you said, "torsioned power" over earth. But this was mostly propagandised by the Church, that turned the natural grown respect of the people for Nature into the subject of mankind, Nature had to serve us. This increased during the last Century, when we developed the skills to rape the Earth.

TMLHBAC powerfully conveys presence at the ritualistic site through the musical construction of individual tracks such as "The Plague Procession', "The Witches Begirt The Cauldron" and so forth. To what extent have you musically studied or trained to successfully grasp the theory of medieval composition? Are there non-electronically performed instruments used? Please give us an idea of your general musical background.

We use electronic equipment (such as sampler, tape loops and effect processors) as well as acoustic and also medieval instruments, such as shawm, hurdy gurdy, rebec, recorder, dulcimer and percussion. We like a lot of different styles of music - industrial definitely is something we're into, but also a lot of classic, medieval and Alzbeth, our singer, is also into Metal.

War is a dominant force which is a foundation for the inevitable. Certain excerpts or songs appeor as militaristic marching recitals invoking glorious visions. To the victory of whom or what are you exalting in this case?

There's no victory.

The transparent banality of socially conditioned human relations are never really challenged or questioned. Suppositive intimate relationships revolve around meek insecurities and restrictive emotions. Friendships revolve around mundane obligatory greetings and material interactions. In your experiences, how were such falsehoods of community remedied? What is уour reflection of the frivolous love that today's society has smothered itself within?

Each person has to make his own decision how to cultivate his social relations. You can't always make the society responsible for everything, be awake!

As industrial music seems to be the relative backbone of a portion of your material, what is your connection to thew apocalyptic reality of decaying machinery that shapes, almost biomechanically, many of our declining cities?

If it was decaying it would be inspiring. But as there's the tendency to erase everything decaying and invest into new stuff there's no more freedom to decay, no more "romantic, melancholic grief". We're more touched by the melancholic, morbid side of decay, what we find here all over Wien.

You have recently worked with other artists, among these Deutsch Nepal. The outstanding results on both ends made me wish to inquire further about this collaboration. Perhaps an elaboration?

We already worked on some songs together with Deutsch Nepal which we plan to release as MCD, that will fulfill the first issue. There are also some other plans that are not to be mentioned yet.

Is it fairest stated that you honour not only the bulk of the physical with regards to resolution? Also your opinion on the benefits/misfortunes of superstition?

This is only for weak people.

Lastly, do you consider your work cyclical, continuing to develop from and beyond the initial recordings? What does the current phase of past/present/future hold in regards to you and TMLHBAC?

Of course our personal phases do influence our musical work, but also we can't really foretell what will come in the future. Of course we hope that our work develops, there's nothing as boring as repeating yourselves.

From: https://drugie.here.ru/achtung/mlhdesc.htm

 

Southern Avenue - Don't Give Up

If Southern Avenue were a superhero group, like the Avengers, my origin story would be the wildest one. I’ve been playing guitar for as long as I can remember. I grew up in Tel Aviv, listening to my dad’s blues records like Chess, Verve, Alligator, Stax, ZZ Top and all I ever wanted to do was play like the guys on those albums. When I was 8, my dad found me a guitar teacher turned into mentor, a Black American musician out of Birmingham, AL who had played with Tina Turner and James Brown. He became my mentor for 10 years. Every week, he taught me how to play the blues, how to play jazz, and most importantly, how to respect the music and where it came from. He was a sign of what was ahead, even if I couldn’t see it then
Fast forward to 2012. I was touring Europe with my own band, and my lead singer at the time was my "high school sweetheart". I heard about a competition that could get us to Memphis - the home of the blues! We won the first leg of the contest, flew to Memphis, and made it to the semi-finals. From there, I managed to book a full U.S. tour. For two years, we hit the road together. Me, my girlfriend, and the band. Along the way, early on, I met a guy who treated me like family. He became our “manager” and helped us book gigs. Everything felt like it was moving forward. We all shared a house together and just had a great time. Felt like I am living the dream.
Then one night, she told me the truth. They had been sleeping together. They were in love. I was crushed. I was now alone. I went outside, laid down on the front lawn, looked up at the sky, and asked God, why is this happening to me? What did I do to deserve this? Please… show me this is leading somewhere. Imagine being forced to play shows every night with your ex and your ex-best friend, knowing what happened. It was like out of a movie. I had nowhere to go. I was living in our van, bouncing between Walmart parking lots around Memphis. I felt like I was buried. I needed to be bring myself back to life. So I did the only thing I knew how to do… I worked. I wrote Don’t Give Up for myself and used it as a mantra.
Then I asked someone who’s the best singer in Memphis that also writes? They said, “Tierinii Jackson.” I saw a video of her and instantly felt like I was looking at a queen. Not just someone who could save my career, but someone who could be the creative partner I had always dreamed of working with. When she told me her sister TK played drums, I said, Bring her in! Then I saw TK play. She was 19 and already playing with more fire and soul than most drummers twice her age. I knew this was something rare.
The few months we toured together - still under my name - were healing. Every day felt lighter. I started to feel joy again. I remember dropping them off at home after tour and heading back to sleep in my van at Walmart. But I wasn’t broken anymore. I felt alive. I felt like God had answered my prayer. That’s why I didn’t give up. That’s why I had to go through all that pain. Little did I know that in just a few years the Jackson sisters will become my entire universe.
Southern Avenue was born when the three of us realized we had something real. We trusted each other. We shared values. We made each other better. It starts with Long Is the Road, which is my story. Then Upside brings in Tierinii’s voice, telling me to leave the pain behind and keep looking up. Found a Friend In You is about how we met and found real, honest friendship. So Much Love captures how we felt during that time - full of hope, healing, and joy. If I hadn’t been cheated on, lied to, and left with nothing, Southern Avenue wouldn’t exist. Our paths never would’ve crossed. God works in mysterious ways. But we trust those ways. We stick together. This album is special because it’s the truth. These songs are our real stories. And I thank you for tuning in. -Ori Naftaly.  From: https://www.southernavenuemusic.com/post/the-story-behind-long-is-the-road

My Little White Rabbit - Secret

In this winter season where the sky is dark and the mood is gloomy, some psychedelic and colorful tunes are much needed… And so as soon as I saw the news of Wucan announcing a gig at Hamburg’s intimate venue Logo, I was beyond excited. This show was quite special for certain reasons. Firstly, the show was officially the last concert of 2019 for me, which will have a special place in my heart. Secondly, not only the headliners Wucan were announced but they brought two other amazing acts, My Little White Rabbit and Motorowl. So this gig was a perfect opportunity to get heavy and colorful!
My Little White Rabbit is not a foreign name to me as I already experienced their magical performance last year for the first time– surprisingly also around autumn/winter, when they opened for Lucifer. These Hamburg-based rockers make an interesting mix of psychedelia, blues rock and 60s pop. Their newest release “Bullets & Poor Hearts” was released this year and so it was time to celebrate and get lost in the beautiful tunes!
There was a bit of everything that MLWR offered for the chill Hamburg audience; the ‘rock’ sound with songs like “Neckbreaking Ride” and “Bullets” but also the ‘soft and mellow’ approach as in during “Poor Hearts”. As a matter of fact, this nice harmony of both aspects of their live show was what made them different than the other two acts of the night. This is indeed their interpretation of this style and there were many perfect moments – from the keyboards to the frontwoman Rike’s vocals – for everyone to just lose themselves to the music and enjoy the organic and sincere tunes. Overall, MLWR was the perfect opener for this night. Personally, I could also feel and see that the band gets better with each performance and it will surely be a delight to watch them live in the future and listen to the tunes they will deliver!  From: https://tempelores.com/?p=31878

Type O Negative - The Dream Is Dead

In 1996, metal was in an interesting and not very promising position. Metallica by this point were in the beginning stages of their much maligned Load (1996)/ReLoad (1997) era, which saw them become more rock and less thrash. Grunge had been the vogue form of rock for the last couple of years that ended with Kurt Cobain’s exiting of the mortal coil in 1994. R&B and hip-hop were slowly becoming the next musical zeitgeist. Alt-rock also rose to prominence with the rise of successful young punk adjacent bands like Green Day, Blink-182 and The Offspring. If you wanted the heavy stuff, you still had to tape trade and follow zines. Black metal was well into a second wave, the golden age of death metal would see a last great album in the form of None So Vile (1996) before the genre would hibernate for roughly a decade and nu metal was quickly rising to the forefront with bands like Korn and Rage Against the Machine leading the charge. Yet, there was still a strong fanbase for a genre that began earlier in the decade that still held a sizable following: gothic metal.
The earliest traces of the gothic metal sound could be linked back to the forefathers of doom: namely Candlemass, Trouble, and Saint Vitus. Doom would continue to evolve into the early part of the 90’s with albums such as Paradise Lost’s seminal Gothic (1991) being seen as the true launch point for bands like Theatre of Tragedy, The Gathering, Katatonia, and countless others, but while most of those European bands focused on more of a theatrical and grandiose form of gothic doom, a band right across the pond, in the Big Apple, would begin to infect the subgenre with their Halloween-esque image and melting pot of influences. That band was Type O Negative. To understand the unique position that this band was in at the time, you must dig into the past just a little bit. While we know the Drab Four for their popular MTV hits, their origins are much more sinister and heart wrenching as you’d expect.
No matter how you spin the story, the Type O Negative saga begins and ends with Petrus Thomas Ratajczyk, who would come to be known the world over as Peter Steele. The Red Hook, Brooklyn native began small with childhood band Fallout, which included his friend from youth: Josh Silver. The group recorded a two track single before breaking up soon after. A few years would pass by in which time Steele would form Carnivore. Compared to most other crossover thrash bands at the time, Carnivore’s self-titled (1985) debut eschewed politics and teenage beer runs in favor of barbaric lyrics involving “fighting, feasting, fucking…” in nearly every track. The S/T was and remains a controversial piece of underground metal and the ante was upped even more on 1987’s Retaliation, which saw such family friendly titles as Race War, Jesus Hitler, and S.M.D (Suck My Dick). By this time, Steele had begun to see that playing apocalyptic NY crossover wasn’t satiating his musical appetite. The artistic direction that Steele sought was then kamikazed by an event that is still semi shrouded in mystery but would alter his life and the lives of untold millions.
Shortly after Carnivore’s disbandment, Peter Steele would experience one of the worst things anyone can be acquainted with: his significant other cheated on him. Filled with self-hate and an unquenchable rage, he said, “October 15, 1989, I slashed my wrists. All I can say is that I fell in love with the wrong person.” This extreme response would lead to Steele contacting his old Fallout bandmate Silver, to form a new band called Repulsion with guitarist Kenny Hickey and drummer Sal Abruscato with Steele himself again handling bass and vocal duties and Silver on the ebony and ivory. The group hastily recorded a demo entitled None More Negative that would eventually attract the attention of Carnivore’s former label: Roadrunner. At the time, the band wished to re-record all the material from the demo to which Roadrunner responded with a resounding no. During this time as well, the band had to change their name due to it already being taken by the Flint, Michigan grindcore band. They would change the name to Subzero shortly after with the band members also getting matching tattoos with a circle and minus sign. Frustration would strike again when the group discovered that Subzero had also been taken by a local band. Steele, understandably frustrated, tried to think of something that would link the tattoos with the band’s image as doom mongers gone hardcore. Lo and behold the prophetic Red Cross radio advert asking for type o negative blood donations that day. Thus, Type O Negative were born.  From: https://www.heaviestofart.com/post/type-o-negative-october-rust-retrospective  

Mellow Candle - Sheep Season

Mellow Candle were a band that started in 1963 in Dublin, Ireland. In their time they managed to press two singles and release Swaddling Songs, which is still highly regarded among fans and collectors of psychedelic folk. Album was released by Deram in 1972. Swaddling Songs is an extremely well crafted progressive folk rock album with beautiful female vocal duets.

Mellow Candle began at Dublin’s Holy Child Convent school in 1963 with three very young girls – Clodagh Simonds, Alison Bools (later O’Donnell) and Maria White. They were singing some cover songs and were influenced by another Irish schoolgirl trio called Maxi, Dick & Twink. Before adopting the name “Mellow Candle” they were called “The Gatecrashers.” 

Who were some major influences?

Clodagh: Before meeting David – Omar Khayaam, Phil Spector, Dylan, the Beatles, T Rex, Paul Simon – that would have all been schooldays. Later, Dave brought a whole raft of other influences…..the most enduring of which – for me, anyway – were probably The Incredible String Band and Joni Mitchell.

Alison: Helen Shapiro, The Incredible String Band.

Did you play many gigs? What were some of the venues you played? Who were some of the artists you appeared with?

Clodagh: We didn’t actually play out all that much. Our manager, Ted Carroll, tried in vain to get us to firm up our live experience and our fanbase in Ireland before heading off to London, but here weren’t many venues in Ireland at the time which would have been available to us – Ireland then was still dominated by showbands and dance halls. Our very first gig was at Liberty Hall, Donal Lunny booked us to open for the Chieftains on St. Patrick's Day. They weren’t big stars then – they were all still working at their day jobs – and had a small but intense, mostly middle-aged or elderly, following. Who hated us – I remember clearly some old biddy literally trying to hit me with her handbag when we came off. We had a residency for a while at Slattery’s on Capel Street, again thanks to Donal. We played the Wexford Festival, and got noticed there by John Peel – we played the first Ballyvaughan festival in Clare, and we played the National Stadium a couple of times, opening for the likes of Thin Lizzy and Steeleye Span. We opened for Donovan at the RDS once. But any other gigs were pretty small and local, civic parks, tennis clubs, and so on – and I think in retrospect Ted was right, we were fairly wet behind the ears when we arrived in Kilburn in 1971. We hardly played at all in England, just a handful of gigs – I think we played at some kind of festival where Genesis were headlining, and somewhere along the line we shared a billing with Lindisfarne – but were rather harshly criticized by agents Ted had invited along. And he had his hands very full with Thin Lizzy, the other band which he managed – so the whole Let’s Move To London thing went a bit squiffy really.

Alison: We didn’t play as many gigs as we would have liked due to the fact that it was difficult to place a band that was both folky and rocky. Some of the Dublin venues we played were Liberty Hall, The Mansion House, The National Stadium, The RDS, Slatterys and The Marquee in London. We appeared with Alan Price & Georgie Fame, Donovan, Arthur Brown, Genesis, Thin Lizzy, Steeleye Span, to name a few.

What was the writing and arranging process within the band? Did anyone else in the band write?

Clodagh: In the schoolgirl version of the band, I was doing all the writing and we’d work out the harmonies together. But when Mellow Candle Mk II started, Dave was a big influence, he was older than us, and very much more experienced – he was a big fan of Yes and Zappa, amongst others – and Pat the bass player was a huge Jethro Tull fan – so we’d work out quite complex arrangements together for the backing, and also for the vocals. Alison began writing then, and Willy did some lyrics, so there were four of us writing – we co-wrote Sheep Season, which I think in retrospect was one of our best songs.

Alison: Clodagh Simonds, Dave Williams and occasionally William Murray all wrote within the band so the songs were quite varied with four of us in the writing process.

Swaddling Songs was released by Deram (Decca’s imprint) with David Hitchcock taking care of production. The album was recorded in a very short space of time in December of 1971. Alison recalls: “The sessions were full on and lengthy but thoroughly consuming and enjoyable. I was delighted with the finished product. I felt it was extremely creative.” What can you say about single “Feeling High” / “Tea with the Sun” (1968), released by SNB Records? Did it garner much airplay or chart in any markets?

Clodagh: Being completely clueless about the music industry, I had decided (at the ripe old age of 14) that the way to go was to send a demo tape to a Radio Luxembourg DJ. So I borrowed a reel to reel tape recorder and one afternoon, myself, Alison and Maria recorded about six or seven songs, and I sent it off to Colin Nicol. Several weeks later, he got back to me and said that he could get us a contract with SNB, which was a subsidiary of CBS. A certain amount of negotiation took place between him, and the parents – he came over to Ireland in order to convince them he wasn’t a child molester or a conman – and off we went. It was an amazing experience recording it – seeing London, being taken to Carnaby Street! Walking into the studio and hearing a big grownup orchestra play my funny little songs was a pretty unforgettable experience too. But the highlight, for me, was bumping into Marc Bolan coming out of a lift at Trident Studios. I was utterly gobsmacked – I was a huge T Rex fan. The single got very little airplay, and only on Radio Luxembourg as far as I know – but that didn’t stop the three of us staying up practically all night, for weeks, waiting to see if it would be played.

Alison: We were very young girls when we recorded Feeling High/Tea with the Sun for SNB. It was a surreal experience to go to London and record with an orchestra and Cliff Richard’s backing singers, who were also on ‘Alfie’ by Cilla Black, arranged and recorded with Burt Bacharach. I watched a clip of that on YouTube a while back and was blown away by how good they all were. The single got a bit of airplay to begin with. I got very excited when it played in the early hours of the morning on Radio Luxembourg. I didn’t get much sleep hoping it would come on the radio just after it was released. It was difficult to get me out of bed in the mornings and I always had to run up hills to get to the train for school. I often missed it and spent the time waiting for the next one calming down my aching lungs.

What can you tell us about cover artwork?

Clodagh: It was a take-off of W Heath Robinson – I remember going to see it when it was still being completed, we all liked it a lot. I was never too sure about the goofy sleeve notes though, I think Willy wrote them.

Alison: Unusual black and white cover by David Anstey, who worked mainly for Decca Records.

Would you share your insight on the albums’ tracks?

Alison: I think the songs should speak for themselves. “Boulders on My Grave” has some Irish style lilting in it although we didn’t know what lilting was back then. There’s a whole competition for it in the Fleadh Cheoil in Ireland. “Reverend Sisters” is widely recognised as a reference to our convent school upbringing and I mentioned something about “Messenger Birds” earlier. A lot of my work has religious references, i.e. Heaven Heath, something I am still doing in recent songwriting. It’s difficult to get away from the Catholic influence.

To what do you attribute the album continuing to be held in such high esteem among music collectors?

Alison: Swaddling Songs is a niche cult classic and held in high regard amongst musicians and listeners as well as collectors. It has been an influence on a number of musicians working in the late 80s, 90s and onwards. It is completely original and has cross-genre appeal in a rather offside way.

How did you see the acid psych folk scene back in the late ’60s, early ’70s? What were some other bands, that you would like to mention? Any band, that perhaps didn’t make a record, but were extremely good?

Clodagh: I was completely unaware of that scene before David came along. Nobody thought of it as “psych folk” back then – there were just some acts which were a bit more folksy, and some which were a bit more prog rock, and some that were neither quite one nor the other (like us!). I resonated more strongly with the folksy ones, like the String Band, Joni Mitchell, Nick Drake, Syd Barrett, Laura Nyro. It was a huge honour to be asked to play and sing with Thin Lizzy – that was my first ever session. Phil was a bit of a God in Ireland in those days. Willy was into some pretty cool alternative music – he’d been with the Canterbury set – Kevin Ayers, Mike Oldfield – for whom I did my next lot of sessions, but that wouldn’t have been folk, really. And yes, there is one person who really stands out who seems to have been totally forgotten, and knocked me out – Michael Hurley, whose album Armchair Boogie, Ted Carroll introduced us to – to this day his song “The Werewolf” is the only song I can play on guitar. And it remains one of those “I Wish I’d Written That…” songs, for me. He was something else, he was his own man – completely outside of fashion. And brilliant.

Alison: Sometimes there were music jams that had they developed into a proper band, they might have made some great records. Back in the late 60s and early 70s, a lot of musicians hung out and improvised together, including the trad music players. It was an extremely fertile and creative time with far too many excellent groups to mention. We had the same manager, Ted Carroll, as Thin Lizzy whom we admired for many reasons, not least because Phil Lynott was exceptionally cool. There were quite a few superb Irish bands around at the time and we had a lot of respect for each other. Then when we got to England, we found there was a great music scene going on there. We never got to the U.S. which was a pity.

Would you discuss some of your most memorable moments in Mellow Candle and what made them so?

Clodagh: The whole MC journey was so vivid, and there were so many rites of passage. The exhilaration of going to London and making the first single – the sense that your dreams could actually come true. The rather forlorn period where I thought I was going to go solo – the realization that I just had to accept whatever landed on my plate, adjust, and keep moving. The exhilaration of returning to Ireland and David forming MC Mk II – the enormous excitement of working with electric instruments, roadies, PA systems and so on. The wobbly feeling when the first bass player, Pat, left, and the gnawing suspicion that “being in a band together” might not be all that simple after all. The sense of camaraderie when we first arrived in London, with a new bass player, Frank – and shared a house. The anxiety that followed the news that Ted Carroll wasn’t going to be managing us any more. The disbelief and massive anxiety that came with the revelation that all our money (such as it was) had been handed over by our new manager to a con man who claimed to have been organizing a tour of Holland – this, at a time when things were already looking challenging for us, to say the least. The return of the wobbly feeling when Frank said he was leaving because we weren’t doing enough drugs. The even more wobbly feeling when Steve, the new bass player, started saying he wasn’t too happy, and then Willy joining in the chorus. And then the horrible sense of inevitability when the band broke up and we went our separate ways. Many moments of joy and exhilaration, and just as many of anxiety…. it wasn’t an easy ride, to be honest, but it was full of important learning curves!

Alison: Because I was young, the entire period of the existence of Mellow Candle was memorable. Going to London for the first time, rehearsing whole days cut off from the rest of the world, living with the other members of the band (I remember that house and garden in Mill Hill so well – No. 1, Sunnyfield), traveling and hanging out with other musicians, the album and so much more. To this day I have a good relationship with our decent, music loving manager Ted Carroll.

Would you mind answering question about psychoactive substances? Did in your opinion psychoactive or hallucinogenic drugs played a large role in the songwriting, recording or performance processes?

Clodagh: The reason Pat, the first bass player, left was because he felt we were smoking too much dope. The reason Frank left was because he felt we weren’t dropping enough acid. So I suppose drugs played a part in that sense…. but we could see people around us getting really fucked up, and none of us really wanted to go there…. we were relatively tame, fun-loving hippies.

Alison: Mind altering substances and spiritual influences played an auxiliary part but hard work was our driving force and creative fulfillment our main focus.

From: https://www.psychedelicbabymag.com/2016/03/mellow-candle-interview-with-clodag.html

Glass Skies - Light Rays

Glass Skies are a psychedelic rock band who write tunes about the good times and feeling good. Since beginning in late 2012, Glass Skies have played local shows with: Pond, The Datsuns, Brant Bjork, Everclear, The Delta Riggs, Kingswood and Deep Sea Arcade. Now they've been announced as the support act for Regurgitator's Adelaide show... sweet. The band also have a fascination with documentaries, and which musicians they think would make great narrators. “As much as we’d like David Attenborough to live forever, we are going to need new blood.”

1. John McCrea (Cake)
A documentary on how the human race is destroying the environment. John’s lyrics are usually about his ill feelings towards the human race, so this could be the next logical step. He could be the next Attenborough as he has an interestingly calming, yet serious voice. If our band blew up this would be one of the first passion projects off the rank.

2. Max Cavalera (Soulfly/ Sepultura)
A documentary about fire ants using his brutal singing style. Fire ants defeating another colony would be a great start as it involves his favourite topics: uprising and war. He could continue to release his rage through film well into his old age without ever having to tour.

3. Snoop Dogg
A documentary based on Yellowstone National Park. Narration on the trippy sky, the animal’s use of camouflage and their mating rituals. Constantly comparing all things to getting high, the hood, 'being gangsta' and his love of the ladies.

4. Marilyn Manson
A documentary on gun culture in America. He is a really smart, funny and insightful guy who has already done a lot of research on the topic. It’s a no-brainer.

5. Ghostface Killah (Wu-Tang)
A gangster-based children’s documentary series about the animal kingdom similar to ‘Totally Wild’ or ‘The Most Extreme’. Constantly getting blazed and interacting with the animals, telling the female zookeepers how ‘fly’ they are and then finishing with a segment at the end of each show where he raps about all the animals he has met.

From: https://scenestr.com.au/music/5-musicians-we-d-like-to-see-narrate-documentaries-with-glass-skies

Emily Steinwall - Welcome to the Garden

Welcome to the Garden is a gorgeous meeting of jazz, pop, and rock music that came seemingly out of nowhere (March) to sweep me off my feet. I guarantee that you’ll be shaking within the ten minutes it takes for the title track to introduce you to the album. It presents love as an all-encompassing primordial force whose harbingers are these layered, echoing vocals and creeping guitars. It should be jarring then that the remainder of Welcome to the Garden drops that menace in favor of bringing love back to the earth of here and now but it isn’t. Emily Steinwall may leave the horror on the opener, but she never loses the awe once she gets personal. The project morphs over its 40> minute runtime from a cosmic power to a lone lover whispering words of comfort and it is absolutely breathtaking to witness. The passion in Steinwall’s voice soars instead of rumbling, while the dance that the piano, synthesizers, and strings do becomes almost joyful as they all gradually come closer together and start working in unison. Welcome to the Garden starts imposing, but it grows more tender with each song, shedding the barriers and abstractions to wind up as accommodating as it needs to be. With her debut, Steinwall has created a bonafide odyssey, one that I will take part in wholeheartedly as many times as I am asked.  From: https://www.albumoftheyear.org/user/electricmess/album/427343-welcome-to-the-garden/

Deep Purple - Maybe I'm a Leo

Though not without its moments, 1971’s Fireball described something of a non-descript holding pattern for Deep Purple. Not a bad album as such it was, artistically at least, a curious underachiever compared to In Rock. What they needed was something with as much impact and which delivered them new standards to ensure their upwards path. With not a lot of spare change in the pocket as far as new material went, the recording session was a fraught affair. Yet out of such adversity, Purple dug deep into their reserves producing their strongest and most consistent set.
Released in 1972, Machine Head become the benchmark against which everything that followed would be judged against. In the canon of heavy rock this is an album replete with classic tracks. Concise in nature, killer punches are only ever a minute away no matter which song you play. Vocalist Ian Gillan excels himself on “Highway Star,” and “Never Before”, the latter an excellent single, released ahead of the album covering both pop, rock and some righteously funky turn-arounds. Blackmore dominates the album turning in some of his most understated and reflective playing on “When A Blind Man Cries” (the b-side to the single and not included on the original album) and of course, “Smoke On The Water.”
Its devastating simplicity is the foundation stone of the whole record and one of rock’s most archetypal riffs. Not only heavy as hell, it was insanely catchy and the long-haired denim-wearing world grasped it to their bosom without a moment’s hesitation. Detailing the burning of the casino near Lake Geneva (which caused yer actual smoke on the water), the lyrical content perhaps presaged the internal fires that would consume the group.  From: https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/3r3n/

Chimera - Come Into The Garden

It all started around 1963 when two Beatles groupies, Lisa Bankoff (piano) and Francesca Garnett (vocals) decided to start writing their own songs. After having a tape refused by EMI in 1965, they went to Rome where both their mothers were living. There they recorded a tape of their own songs but it remained a cassette until they came back to the UK in 1967.
It was in Rome, in May 1968, that they had the opportunity to approach Nick Mason while the Pink Floyd were taking part in a festival. Back in the UK, Nick Mason offered to become their manager with David Gilmour as producer. With Nick Mason as manager the two girls signed off a contract with Blue Morgan and assembled a band including Ian Milne on keyboards and two unknown musicians.
The band didn't last long so they had to hire the instrumentalists through Melody Maker. After some changes in the lineup, when they were recording the album, the label closed down. Nick Mason tried a deal with Atlantic, but the band rapidly disbanded.
Lisa Bankoff wrote: The project fell to pieces mainly because I had a car accident shortly after the recordings were finished and couldn't walk for a couple of years. Our producer was called Mal Luker. Almost all of those musicians appear in the album lineup: Mal Luker (The Smoke) who is currently a successful producer in films industry (OST of Pirates of Caribbean), the bassist Nick South (Alexis Korner), the guitarist Bob Weston, the drummer Roy Temro and the appearance of Nick Mason and Rick Wright. Atlantic declined its interest, then later Bob Weston joined the Fleetwood Mac.
There was a brief reunion in 1975 but nothing more happened until 1980 when ten surviving tracks were discovered in the Morgan's archives during a project for reissues. The tape was remastered from a cassette copy, but it remained in the archives only to be rediscovered in 2001, year of the final release of their album. A couple of tracks feature Nick Mason and Rick Wright. The album was released 32 years after being recorded. All their music, except those 10 tracks seemed lost forever, but 9 more tracks have been resumed somewhere and included in a later edition of the album. It's not official, but it looks like one of the reasons why the tracks remained unreleased was that Nick Mason owned the rights and didn't allow the material to be published. This is what a Lisa's friend says. Francesca and Lisa wrote a book about their life in London during the late '60s / early '70s called Making It! Famous Names and Silly Girls. A copy is in the Australian National Library (Lisa moved to Perth).
The music of Chimera is influenced by the British psychedelia of late 60s with folky elements mainly in the high-pitch voices and the use of acoustic guitars. With a bit more luck, they could have been predecessors to bands like Fairport Convention.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=5780  

Mien - Earth Moon

It’s a modern-day origin story, a group of musicians that have never all lived in the same city and have rarely been in the same place at the same time. Yet Mien (pronounced ‘mean’, a word defined as ‘essence’) release their second album, Miien, on April 18, extending both their vowels and their textural psychedelic repertoire.
Their lead singer, Alex Maas, is well-known to Austinites. He’s fronted the Black Angels since they began in 2004. Alex and drummer Robb Kidd (who plays in Golden Dawn Arkestra and on Alex’s solo endeavors) are both based in Austin, yet John Mark Lapham (The Earlies, The Late Cord, The Revival Hour) lives in Abilene, TX, and Rishi Dhir (Elephant Stone, The Datsons) calls Montreal home. Yet for today at least, they have all gathered for an Austin show and Studio 1A session. But how – and why – did Mien get started. Was Alex really in the market for another psychedelic band?
“I ran into Rishi at least 20 years ago,” Alex recalls, “during South by Southwest, right around the same time Black Angels started. I was at a Brian Jonestown Massacre show on Sixth Street. I remember a fight almost broke out. Then Rishi busts out his sitar. I hadn’t seen a sitar, especially with rock and roll. It just worked perfectly, so that’s how we first met.”
John Mark picks up the story. “I was in a band called The Earlies in England, and I think Rishi’s old band, the High Dials, opened for the Earlies one time. And we became friends. We kept in touch over emails. And I had this idea for a cover song that I’d been thinking about. I had it in my notebook, and then one day on some social media, Rishi posted that same song. It was by the band The Association from the 60s. I’d never heard anyone else mention or play this song. So I sent him a message, ‘I can’t believe you like this song. We’ve got to do a cover of it.’ And Rishi said, ‘We could get Alex from the Black Angels to do the vocal.’ It was just random. We weren’t really thinking we’re going to start a band. Let’s just record this song. We never even recorded the song, of  course, but we started recording our own. So that’s how it all got started.”
The outcome of their first experiment, a song called “Black Habit”, gave them all the enthusiasm to go further. “When I heard ‘Black Habit’,” Alex recalls,  I was like, ‘that’s a sound.’” It was. Veteran psychedelia mixes with Lapham’s swirling, Eno-esque electronics. It gives them a unique sound, and from the outset, Mien made clear they were interested in reaching beyond psych’s borders. 
“It became a blueprint for how we work,” John Mark recalls. ”Not only the methods, but also just the sonic direction we were going to go. We weren’t initially thinking about being a band. We’d record a song. And then when that song, ‘Black Habit’, started coming together, we thought we should do more. It just kept going until we finally said, ‘okay, I think that’s an album’s worth of material’.” The album was assembled piecemeal, sharing files, each of them working from their own locations. Each of them were busy with other projects so there was not much time to support the album. But they were happy with the results and more than willing to do it again.
“We were like, okay, now we’re a band,” John Mark recalls. “We’re going to record another album. But Covid hit, so we would have Zoom meetings like everyone else. And we were all so scattered and our heads were in so many different places. So we started setting goals, like, okay, we’re all going to do a little piece of music. It could just be 20 seconds, but we’re going to do something and it has to be done within a few days or a week or whatever, and we all had to present it to each other as like a show and tell type thing, just to to kind of motivate people. We had to fight through the Covid haze a bit, but we finally got there.”
All of them were writing, contributing ideas. “I might have a melody and some vocal lines that may or may not make sense to anybody else,” Alex says. “For me, it’s easier to find melodies and ask, ‘Hey, what do you hear when I sing this?’ It takes a certain trust for me to be able to do that, to hand it off. Like, ‘here’s some literal gibberish. But the melodies there, what can you do with that?’”
“That’s what I love about working with Alex” John Mark continues. “He’ll record vocal sketches that are not actual words, but he’ll do his melodies and his whole cadence and everything, and it sparks off so many lyric ideas for me. It’s really fun to be able to go through and start writing around that, filling in those spaces. Like the first time, everyone brings things to the table.”
Two years ago at SXSW, after months of working on these demos, they arranged to actually all get together for an actual recording session. “We had this concentrated time,” John Mark says. “Rishi was going to be here anyway with his band Elephant Stone. We had, I don’t know, 2 or 3 days in the studio to re-record a lot of stuff. A lot of times we’ll build songs with samples or loops. Sometimes we’ll keep that stuff and other times we’ll come back in and replay them with a live feel to it. That was one of the only times I’ve ever done that, where we were in the studio recording together.” Alex laughs. “It was crazy and mental.”
Essentially, the band had re-learn what they had recorded. And in the process of actually playing live, new ideas began to emerge.  And now, given their geographic distances and busy schedules, they are planning what was previously unthinkable. The Austin show is a kickoff. But suddenly, Mien seems like more than an internet recording project.
“We did one European tour to support the first record,” Alex remembers, and not much after that. And we just did 2 or 3 weeks in Canada. It was right after we had Luca on my son, literally a month after. My wife was really thrilled about that. We went over there and that was kind of it. We all had so many projects. And then Covid happened and at some point our hands were kind of tied in terms of what we could do. When you have something like this, a project where there’s four people living in different places, it’s just weird. To get everybody to commit to 2 or 3 weeks of touring, it’s almost impossible. Very tricky.”
Yet they seemed to have pulled it off. Their website has numerous European dates listed for April. “We just got a support tour,” Alex says. “I can’t say it is, for now. What it involves is everybody just being calm and clearing their schedules for everything, and just prioritizing it all.”  From: https://kutx.org/sessions-interviews/studio1a/from-an-internet-recording-project-to-an-actual-band-the-evolution-of-mien/

Derek And The Dominos - Bell Bottom Blues

Derek and The Dominos formed after working on George Harrison’s album All Things Must Pass. After that, they played a lot of different small clubs all over Europe. They made the album, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs in Criteria Studios in Miami, Florida. It’s there where Clapton met Duane Allman and a little later invited him to join them. Duane ended up turning Eric down because he believed in the Allman Brothers and he built them from the ground up. Eric was one of his guitar guys so it had to be a hard choice for him.
Clapton first heard about Allman when listening to Wilson Pickett’s version of Hey Jude for the first time and heard his guitar playing at the end of the song. He called up either Ahmet Ertegun or Tom Dowd and asked who was that guitar player? Eric has said that he has never heard better rock guitar playing on an R&B record. In 1970, Eric Clapton was experiencing emotional anguish over George Harrison’s wife Pattie Boyd.  He recounts writing the song for Boyd after she asked him to get her a pair of bell-bottom jeans while he visited the US.
Clapton repackaged this album and the first thing he did was to ask his attorneys…what is Bobby Whitlock going to get out of this? Bobby played keyboards and wrote a lot of the songs with Eric. The attorneys told Eric he would get nothing because he sold all of his rights. He was down at one time and had to sell everything. Eric and his attorneys went to the publishing company and bought back all of Bobby’s rights and handed it over to him without Whitlock even knowing.
Bobby Whitlock: Well, unbeknownst to me, Eric and Michael took their attorneys in to the respective Warner/Chappel and Universal and all the other companies and bought back my rights to my income and restored them and gave them back to me. Out of the blue. So all of my royalties have come back. And now it’s even more so, because it hasn’t been a month-and-a-half ago that I wrote him to explain how ‘Bell Bottom Blues’ came about, and I sent it to Eric and to Michael. Someone had come online and says something about, ‘Is this true that ‘Bell Bottom Blues’ was written about a pair of trousers?’ And I said, Yeah, well, it was that and this girl in France that Eric was seeing for a little while while we were there. I’d forgotten about Pattie [Boyd – subject of ‘Layla’] asking him about those pants.
Bobby Whitlock: “Eric met this girl, she was like a Persian princess or something, and she wore bell bottoms. She was all hung up on him – he gave her a slide that Duane (Allman) had given him and he wrapped it in leather and she wore it around her neck. She didn’t speak a word of English and they had to date through an interpreter. That relationship did not last but a week. He started the song over there, then when we got back to England, we finished it up in his TV room in Hurtwood Edge.”  From: https://powerpop.blog/2024/02/04/derek-and-the-dominos-bell-bottom-blues/

Jewel - Morning Song

It's a Sunday afternoon at the Theatre of Living Arts in Philadelphia. Employees are rushing around setting up for this evening's show.  This is the first Philadelphia headlining performance for 21-year-old Alaskan folk singer Jewel Kilcher – or just plain Jewel, as her friends, family and fans call her. Through the closed doors of the theatre waft the sounds Jewel's band practicing. In the bar area are a group of local rock journalists.  That's a scary sight at any time, made particularly daunting by the fact that they are catching an artist on the cusp of the wave of her career.
Jewel walks into the bar smiling, looking comfortable in a pair of jeans and a white top.  Looking much more blonde than you would expect from someone from the tundra state (due to Swiss descent,) she smiles and greets the throngs of press. Obviously, even at her young age, she's getting used to all the attention. As you talk to her, Jewel radiates a true happiness and trust of human nature – the type that could get annoying if not for the obvious strength and passion Jewel puts in these beliefs.
Born to musical parents – Jewel's dad was a well-known local pub singer and mom a music teacher – she took up music early. Playing with her dad and band as a young child, Jewel grew up on stage. As a teenager, Jewel decided to move to the mainland, ending up in San Diego.  There she waitressed, wrote poetry and songs, surfed, played local coffeehouses and lived in the back of her '79 V.W. Van.
Word got out about Jewel and soon she was working on Pieces Of You, her debut album, produced by legendary boardsman Ben Keith (Neil Young, Patsy Cline.) Released in late 1994, the album began a steady, long climb into the public consciousness. Despite critical acclaim, it sold slowly at first.   But her record label, Atlantic, stuck with it – much longer than most labels will go with an untested artist. Jewel steadily seeped into the news, playing Dorothy in a rock & roll version of The Wizard of Oz with Roger Daltrey, Debra Winger and Jackson Browne.  She had a rumored relationship with tough guy actor Sean Penn.  Then she made an appearance on VH-1 in concert with Melissa Etheridge, Joan Osborne and Sophie B. Hawkins. A year and a half after the album was released, the label re-issued Jewel's first single, "Who Will Save Your Soul?" and it has become a smash.
It still surprises Jewel. She never thought about music as making her famous. She was just looking for something to eat. Now she's in the midst of a mind-boggling tour.  It's been tough, but she can't help but smile. "I've just done forty (shows) in thirty days – had five days off the entire year. So, it's getting grinding. It won't always be this hard. But, I love doing it.  It beats waitressing. It's a kick. I thought I was going to steal toilet paper the rest of my life. I had no idea I would show up in Philadelphia and have a sell-out show... I'm not too cool to be excited, I guess. I'm a really excitable person, I'm not really a jaded rock & roll musician. This is all a kick for me. I'm really happy to have the opportunity."  From: http://www.popentertainment.com/jewel.htm

Affinity - I Am And So Are You

Like many bands riding on the crest of the jazz-rock wave in the early '70s, Affinity released one album and were just getting their footing when they decided to split up, despite the album being well received by the critics. They were fronted by Linda Hoyle, a powerful vocalist who sounds like a cross between Carole King and Julie Driscoll. The other band members were Mo Foster (bass), Mike Jupp (electric and 12-string guitars), Lynton Naiff (keyboards) and Grant Serpell (drums and percussion). Basically, their music is an eclectic mixture of a blues-rock with jazz, pop and folk influences as well as some rudiments of early '70s psychedelia. Their sound is very brassy and the Hammond organ omnipresent, the overall product sounding very progressive for its day.
Issued in 1970, their only official (self-titled) album shows much variety as well as plenty of soloing. As the excellent sound, musicianship and production will attest, it is a superb achievement for the times. Their material has since been reissued on different cd's, some featuring studio demos and full-band rehearsals. One of them is made up entirely of live instrumentals, recorded at a time when vocalist Linda Hoyle was temporarily hospitalized for a vocal chord operation, leaving the rest of the band on their own.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=1100