Moon Honey - Betta Fish

Moon Honey is a band that’s difficult to describe on paper, and I think that’s the point. Their intense uniqueness forces the writer to a higher creative plane—the observer has grown from what is observed. Their music feels like the sonic third-way, blending elements of the familiar and the bizarre to create something truly new. Meanwhile, their shows are a symphony of artistic mediums that exceed your expectations by subverting them. Everything they do feels new. Originally from Louisiana, they recently moved to Los Angeles to double down on all of their creative endeavors. We sat down with front-woman Jess to chat about her endless inspirations and commitment to wearing the mask of authenticity.

First off, tell us a little about yourself and how you came to find music:

I love all art, whether it’s music, painting, photography, underwater basket weaving, etc. I’m naturally introverted, so I find it pretty amusing this is now my life. Years ago, I was hired by Andrew (given two bottles of wine) to paint his guitar cabinet and I found out he was looking for a singer for his band. I had zero performance or writing experience, but joining a rock band was not a life experience I was willing to pass up. 

What is your songwriting process like?

It’s all over the place, but for the most part, we both start in solitude: Andrew composes a piece, records a demo and sends it to me. I write lyrics and melody for the piece, sometimes fresh, sometimes drawing from my bank of poems I keep handy. We get together and light candles to practice performing it to work out kinks.
 
One of the things that first captured me about your sound is how truly unique it is. In a world of pre-packaged pop and rock, how do you fight the urge to be “accessible” and instead push for your own creative ideals? 

Hey thank you! Personally, I’m coming to the realization my urges are just naturally inaccessible! I have tried to write a pop song, and I failed miserably. It sounded icky to my heart to hear it back. There is certainly an art to attempting to identify what is mainstream and accomplishing that perfectly. Perhaps crafting a pop song is like making a Piet Mondrian piece. You look at it and think, “I can do that!” But…can you really? His lines are dangerously straight; his geometry is outstanding. Can you muster that 27th perfectly tuned vocal layer and write that painfully addictive hook, or will you find when you’re done that it isn’t actually your style? My style, I’m finding, is pretty crooked. But then again…what is mainstream anyways? At one point, Korn was accessible. When I feel sad that our music could never make it on radio, I remember Korn. I can’t live my life trying to be someone else, I can only hope that in my humanism I tap into universal human emotions which translate. Like that mainstream band Korn did.

Another stand-out element of Moon Honey is the visually rich world you create. Has this always been a part of your performances? What would you say is its primary purpose? 

This is pretty new! I have been working on artwork for every song of our upcoming album’s artwork package—some of these pieces are very large, and so I feel excited to bring them on stage with me. We’ve been working with great lighting artists too. The purpose is to create an atmosphere to further describe the landscape of the music—to bring people into the songs, into deeper expression. Once I tried putting lavender essential oil into a smoke machine at a show—it didn’t really work or smell, but you can see our dedication to using all senses in the name of atmosphere.

Tell us about the headdresses/costume pieces you create for your performances. Does the donning of them help you transform yourself into “someone else” i.e. David Bowie’s “The Thin White Duke” or “Ziggy Stardust”?

Yes! First I’ll say that my biggest influence is Corinne Loperfido. When we first moved to L.A. I met Corinne and loved her costumes—they really spoke to me, as they are inspired by the beautiful culture of New Orleans where she lived and near where I grew up in Louisiana. The pieces are so creative and vibrant. I felt transformed when I began wearing them for sure. I suffered so much from stage fright and mild body dysmorphia (again, why am I a front woman?). I hated the idea that people were looking at my body and my movements on stage—I was afraid that people could see straight through my art and were only focusing on my nervousness and flaws. I thought no one enjoyed my presence. I craved a transformation of confidence, and the costumes were a big step in me finding relief—exiting my humanism and entering into the world of theater and fantasy, where I could be whoever I wanted. A new role.
This past year I’ve been wearing costumes that I’ve painted and sewed myself, and I’m thinking more about integration with the upcoming album. A core theme is the monarch butterfly, a symbol of transformation that is very personally dear to me. Another is white satin gloves—another theme of delicate transformation, a sublimation of wrongs if you will. Of course, it’s not so much role playing anymore—it is me taking myself to the maximum. It’s my inner freak of the moment coming out to play.

From: https://blog.society6.com/pure-imagination-an-interview-with-la-musicians-moon-honey/ 

Ideal Free Distribution - William Buss

The Ideal Free Distribution (IFD) were an indie rock band formed in Benton, Kentucky in 1997 and based in both Benton and Lexington, Kentucky. Heavily influenced by 1960s pop music and promoted by Robert Schneider, the band is indirectly associated with Elephant 6 Recording Company groups such as The Minders, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Olivia Tremor Control, and The Apples in Stereo. 
Guitarist Craig Morris and bass player Eric Griffy were next-door neighbors growing up and lead singer Tony Miller lived about two miles away. Griffy played a few of his four-track recordings on the way to the store one day and Miller claimed that “it was the best music Craig and I had ever heard.” This led Miller and Morris to fully engross themselves in songwriting. Morris wrote “the most brilliant two pop songs ever,” according to Miller, which led to an unofficial competition between the three friends. 
The group began recording at Griffy's parents home in 1997 using a Marantz cassette four-track and a Shure SM-57. Initially they looked to the early Who and Stone Roses for inspiration and as time went on they began adding more “elaborate overdubs to add depth to sound”. Finding a permanent drummer proved to be a challenge for the band after going through six. This, along with the fact that some of the group members had moved and now lived four hours apart, made live performances difficult. They were few and far between, occurring only when the group had a track appearing on a Lexington compilation. IDF's self-titled debut album was released by Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records in 2007. It combines a “variety of psychedelia, folk, and 60s British pop” and draws inspiration from a myriad of groups including The Zombies, The Beatles, The Who, Love, and The Moody Blues.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideal_Free_Distribution

Jill Sobule - I Kissed a Girl

LGBTQ audiences who wanted visibility in pop culture had it tough for most of 1995, when Morrissey’s “Boy Racer” was about as explicit as things got (“He’s just too good-looking…”). Two years before Ellen DeGeneres came out to a network TV audience of millions, several fresh shoots appeared in an otherwise largely barren field. The political ABC sitcom Spin City boasted a gay Black character, the third- or fourth-funniest cast member. A closeted lesbian chief of staff kept an eye on the hospital in NBC’s megahit E.R. Maria Maggenti’s film The Incredibly True Adventure About Two Girls in Love, whose title’s ironic alarmism begged for novelty status, got a limited release. On Billboard’s Modern Rock chart, the band Garbage, months before their breakthrough “Stupid Girl,” went Top 20 with a slinky, coquettish number called “Queer” back when many gays and lesbians considered it a slur.
Then Jill Sobule showed up. The Denver singer-songwriter, who died in a house fire on May 1, had already demonstrated a facility in packaging sticky melodies in acoustic pop arrangements that a granny could love. 1990’s “Too Cool to Fall in Love” hit Number 17 on the adult contemporary charts, its lilt and Sobule’s grainy warble a terrific palate cleanser amid hits by Gloria Estefan, Michael Bolton, and Wilson Phillips. (In its video, Sobule even sported short Chynna Phillps bangs.)
The Todd Rundgren-produced Things Here Are Different proved a solid debut that year; by 1995, the openly bisexual Sobule had “I Kissed a Girl” ready to go. Co-written with frequent collaborator Robin Eaton, the song has a strummy, unthreatening lope, which — in the year before Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act (reluctantly, he’d later insist) — came across as subversive, like normality can be in its small way. Making out with someone of the same sex was fine. It just happens. Sobule’s fictional scenario unfolds in a similarly matter-of-fact manner. Sympathetic to her neighbor, married to a “hairy behemoth” who’s as “dumb as a box of nails,” the narrator invites Jenny inside for a smoke and sympathy. When the inevitable happens, Sobule sings the title chorus with a winning subject-verb-object directness. Had Morrisey sung the line “He was just like kissing me,” we would mutter, “What a narcissist”; Sobule bodies it like she discovered radium. Yet the kiss is special, too, for being unexpected, as the song’s fierce guitar solo — a couple of reverb-drenched notes — suggests.  “And I may do it again,” she teases. She’s earned it.
The video might have helped push the song to its Number 67 Billboard Hot 100 peak and, alas, it also pushed towards dismissing Sobule as a gimmick. I mean, c’mon: Co-starring male model/romance novel cover boy/human cheesecake Fabio at his swole peak as Jenny’s dumb-ass husband, it looked like Pee-wee’s Playhouse Guide to Sapphism, with Sobule’s blonde hair styled in a combination of Princess Leia braids and a Mouseketeer cap.
Betraying little artistic anxiety, Sobule continued releasing music as if “I Kissed a Girl” didn’t exist, though, sadly, on the pop charts she might as well not have. Follow-up single “Supermodel” appeared on the Clueless soundtrack, and, thanks to co-writer David Baerwald of Sheryl Crow’s band, it has a welcome crunch, though Sobule had mixed feelings about the song for years. 2000’s Pink Pearl is her full-length triumph: a dozen well-observed and droll songs that helped her royalty statements as TV and film producers discovered how adroitly her material complemented their scenarios. “Rainy Day Parade,”  with a marimba line brightening the couplet “We’ll have a celebration/Getting back on my medication,” showed up in Ben Stiller’s woebegone superhero flick Mystery Men. She composed the music for the Nickelodeon teen sitcom Unfabulous, and, while I haven’t watched a single episode, I hope a girl did kiss a girl in one, for Sobule’s hit was meant for adolescents for whom a daydream is safer than the reality.
Had Spotify been around in 2007 and had fans of a new star hurriedly typed “I Kissed a Girl” in the search engine hoping to hear Katy Perry’s Number One smash, Sobule might have relished the streaming royalties; that platform didn’t exist yet, but YouTube did, and she wasn’t pleased.  “Fuck you, Katy Perry,” Sobule declared in a 2009 interview with The Rumpus. “You fucking stupid, maybe ‘not good for the gays,’ title thieving, haven’t heard much else, so not quite sure if you’re talented, fucking little slut.” Not long after the comments went live, Sobule backpedaled. She was kidding, she wrote in a Huffington Post column. She was, in the words of that cliché, taken out of context. 
Her rage makes sense, though. Sobule had written an unaffected, cheerful valentine when to be queer meant skulking in the shadows or presenting oneself as a leering curiosity — I don’t know which is worse. As subtle as a car alarm, Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” comes across as a declaration by a teen who tongued a friend on a dare and as a public penance can’t stop screaming in strangers’ ears about it. This “I Kissed a Girl” made its singer one of the next decade’s biggest acts, with a whole playlist of songs whose Spotify streams top one billion. Meanwhile, Sobule’s has just about 1.3 million as of this afternoon (“Supermodel,” at least, has more than 7 million).
“I used to have stars in my pocket/Now I just watch them on TV,” Sobule sang on “Rainy Day Parade.” The trick is, she doesn’t sound aggrieved. Before her death, she released several more albums, crowdfunded in part no doubt by the untold number of women who heard in “I Kissed a Girl” years ago a way to think about their desires with wit and frankness in a pop context. Her 2022 Off-Broadway musical F–k 7th Grade, about a queer middle schooler, earned good reviews. All of them mentioned “I Kissed a Girl.” Touchstones hang around—manifestos live forever.  From: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/jill-sobule-i-kissed-a-girl-queer-representation-1235330509/

Himmellegeme - Natteravn

Himmellegeme have a unique name and a captivating sound. Though the band is from Bergen, Norway, they actually remind me of a mix of two Icelandic bands: Sólstafir and Sigur Rós. I am a massive fan of those bands so Himmellegeme really fits my taste perfectly. On their debut album “Myth of Earth,” they balance the power and angst of Sólstafir with the ethereal beauty of Sigur Rós. “Myth of Earth” is one of those albums that sounds like it cannot POSSIBLY be a band’s first album. The production is stellar, the musicianship is immaculate and the band’s sound is fully realized. It’s quite staggering really. The lyrics are split between being sung in English on tracks like “Breathe in the Air Like Fire” and the title track and in Norwegian on the rest. And once again it works! Right off, the band showcase their two main strengths. “Natteravn” features their bombastic side (along the lines of Sólstafir) and then “Hjertedød” is more atmospheric but does have plenty of power. The title track dials things in a bit more so that 3 songs in, you have a great indication of just how great Himmellegeme are and how awesome “Myth of Earth” is. Plus no matter the language of the lyrics, you can feel what’s being sung. That’s a testament to vocalist Aleksander Vormestrand to be sure.  From: https://progressivemusicplanet.wordpress.com/2017/09/28/himmellegeme-myth-of-earth/

Daisy House - Open Your Eyes

A week ago, I didn’t know Daisy House existed. Then my friend Jim saw them mentioned on Mary Lou Lord’s Facebook page and told me they’d be right up my alley. Boy, was he ever right. This wonderful Long Beach folk rock band formed in December 2011, and consists of multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Doug Hammond, his daughter Tatiana (Angel) Hammond on vocals, and his long time friend Christ Stiles on cittern (an ancient, lute-like instrument). From the first listen, I was riveted by their deep grounding in British folk, most especially the late 60’s variety done so well by Fairport Convention. That is only a starting point, for it’s clear Daisy House have ingested a whole host of influences ranging from The Byrds to Donovan. I contacted Doug about an interview and he readily agreed to entertain my queries. 

I have been a fan of Sandy Denny and Fairport Convention for over 30 years. When I first heard your work the other day, I was astonished. Many have tried and failed to capture the excitement of that long ago era, and yet the three of you have nailed it. How did you accomplish this?

DH: Fairport….Chris and I hooked up again, Christmas 2011, after a 30 year pause. We’d bonded originally over New Wave stuff and he played bass in our 1st originals “band” when we were Tatiana’s age. Shortly after that, he went into a self-described “English Folk Frenzy”, buying up everything he could find while I was digging into The Smiths, The Cocteau Twins, and REM. I did a couple shows with Chris’s folk band though that were very, uh, “Holy”. It left an impression on me, the intimacy and purity of it. When we reconnected, Chris’ electric cittern had literally rusted in its case, though the brass fittings had corroded like some sunken treasure. We jammed a bit with his acoustic cittern, and I suggested we do some folky songs with Angel and I singing; .Donovan and Fairport in the back of my mind. As it progressed, I started seeing the possibilities more and more and the strange central hook of this singing blonde folk girl, flanked by these two elder dudes. Beauty and the Beasts, lol. Everybody loves her, little girls, college girls (except the mean ones). and their moms, who are reminded of their younger selves when they see her. 
So Chris had known about Fairport Convention back in the day, but I’d only known about Sandy through “Battle Of Evermore” like everybody else, and I didn’t didn’t realize she had this amazing body of work apart from that until around 2001. I heard “Blackwaterside” on KCRW (public radio), and after that just fell heart first into them. Fairport incorporated the depth of time into their music. The English writer Colin Wilson used to refer to the expansive psychological power and allure that “other places, other times” have on people’s imaginations. Fairport hit me like that, they just had it all, they were large, they were intimate, they were psychedelic, and they were grounded. They were “human-scaled”, in performance and improvisation, yet otherworldly in their themes. Sandy’s expressive voice and Richard’s playing, they were new to me, like a box of gold. The only thing that’s hit me as hard that way is discovering Elliott Smith.
I don’t know of anyone else who’s attempted that Fairport dynamic except the folks in the original UK folk-rock music scene like Steeleye Span and Pentangle. That was part of the appeal of using Fairport as a template; it felt fertile and abandoned by the world, at the same time, and it seemed to fit the global economic moment. Handmade music for a world that may or may not find itself using hand tools again ;) So, I guess Tatiana’s “Sandy”. I’m Richard Thompson, and Chris is the guy with the citterns. They are a big part of the “sound” of us. That, “what is that thing?” thing. Another thing that helps us get closer to the expansiveness and intimacy of Fairport I believe, is the dynamic of a 50-year-old’s thoughts being channelled by a 20-year-old girl. It makes for an interesting frisson; experience and innocence in one pretty package, “skater boy” it’s not.

What artists have influenced you the most? And why is it that so much of today’s modern music is missing that critical element that makes it stand out?

DH: Most influential artists? Beatles. Beatles and the Beatles. 60’s pop music in general. The untouchably best decade for pop/rock/soul music that will ever be. Fairport, The Byrds, Beach Boys, Velvet Underground, Nick Drake, Cat Stevens, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Donovan, Dylan, Zeppelin, Left Banke, Emitt Rhodes, Traffic, the Who, garage rock, The Kinks, The Association, Jefferson Airplane, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Animals, Mamas and Papas, Doors, The Monkees, Small Faces, Zombies, Simon & Garfunkel, Walker Brothers, Nilsson, Jimmy Webb, Fleetwood Mac (both iterations). So much foment in such a tight time span.
Like that song “Deep Blue” by Arcade Fire, my first memories of life are the songs of the 60’s coming out of car speakers when my older teenage half-brother had to babysit. He liked to go cruising in the suburbs with me in the back seat;) I love Elliott Smith,The Smiths, REM, My Bloody Valentine. I just started digging into Richard Thompson; I love his lyrics, voice and guitar work. People kept saying, “You sound a bit like The National“, now I like The National. There’s The Black Keys, White Stripes, Radiohead, and Sharon Van Etten.
Chrissy likes Gregorian chants, lute music, Bert Jansch, Martin Carthy, deep catalog UK folk artists, madrigals, and rounds. A lot of the “ancient” things I throw into Daisy House are a nod to Chrissy’s taste. Tatiana (I call her “Angel”) likes what I like. She never had a chance, poor kid. Hip hop is mocked in our house, singalongs are mandatory. She grew up with aphorisms like, “if singing is the most generous thing the human voice can do, what is rapping?” There’s really good stuff out there today in indie land, but there’s also a “dark side” to the “underground”. It can be lyrically obtuse, spiritually empty, and abstracted to death. Folk music hits more directly, usually with a bitchin’ story attached, if it’s done right.
The mainstream as far as I can see (I don’t pay much attention) is still being culturally CHOKED to death by what remains of the corporate music infrastructure. In rap, it’s been an endless parade of scowling clowns traipsing up to the mic over the last twenty years to rhyme “Bitch” with “Rich”, “Nigga” with “Trigga”. That’s corporatism at work, that “guaranteed revenue stream”. For pop music, the “career path” of any pop diva in America today seems to be innocent Disney chanteuse to pole dancing, cooch flashing “vixen”, that’s corporatism as well. Country? Pixel perfect approximations of the legacy of guys like George Jones and Johnny Cash, who used to sing about death among other non-pop subjects (end “old man rant”).
A lot of modern American cultural offerings leave one cold I believe because they are NOT human scaled anymore. They’ve been engorged and “perfected” and offered up to a species that will never be perfected. There’s your disconnect right there, it’s the fllaws that make a song adoptable and human in my opinion. I’m encouraged though, by the success of Adele (she’s got soul), The Black Keys (they’ve got funk on ‘em), Mumford and Sons (we have better songs though), and Arcade Fire. Makes me think that people may adopt us as well.

From: https://bigtakeover.com/interviews/an-interview-with-doug-hammond-of-daisy-house

Dinowalrus - Falling to the Periphery

An album created by a band with a, simply put, different name like Dinowalrus, is sure to hold something different musically. Their soon to be released album, Fairweather, set to drop September 23rd 2016, is definitely one of a kind. The band congregates loads of influences into one, light and airy yet powerful tone that skillfully uses contradicting sounds to create a psychedelic, electronic rock, punk dance voice. It pulls from a mouthful of influences and the album shows it, but it’s not distractingly busy in terms of instrumentals. One might even call it easy listening. Others will call it party music. And the fact that it’s not easily defined makes the album pretty special.
The group of eclectic musicians from Brooklyn started to dabble with their sound in 2008, releasing several albums and touring with a number of groups including Real Estate, Screaming Females and A Place to Bury Strangers. When asked what inspires their song writing process, they said, “Songs always start with a beat and bass line that moves us in a new and different way than anything we’ve done before, then layers of synths and guitars expand intuitively on top of that, finally vocal hooks and lyrics drop into our heads when we least expect it, usually while lulled into a trance by riding the subway around our hometown of NYC.”
A big part of their tone is the contradicting  instruments. Their drums and bass lines are driving and pushing through measures non-stop. They’re tight, driving and consistent while almost all other aspects of their tracks are at first, unexpected. The synthesizers are legato; long and flowing. Same goes for their vocals. Visually, this album is a gargantuan wall of bass and beats with wisps of melodies and harmonies seeping through the cracks.  From: https://nysmusic.com/2016/09/15/hearing-aide-dinowalrus-fairweather/

Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway - Alice in the Bluegrass

You come from a musical family with your father Jack being a bluegrass multi-instrumentalist and instructor and your siblings Sullivan and Michael being musicians themselves by playing the guitar and mandolin respectively. How would you describe this unique upbringing while being immersed in music from the day you were born?

I grew up hearing music around the house all the time and my dad had all these guitars lying around on the couches and on the walls. He would sit down and play me songs whenever I wanted to hear some of my favorites, which were usually these bluegrass songs my dad would sing. When I was really little, around the ages of three or four, I wanted to play the fiddle, and I thought I was going to stick with that. When I was eight, I asked my parents for a guitar because I was interested in trying it out. I played piano, but it didn’t really stick with me.
I’m the oldest out of my siblings, so I was the first out of us to start playing music and it became a fun way of bonding with my dad. Then my brothers wanted to get in on it too, so they started playing music, and when I was probably 12 or so, we started playing little gigs around town. These were at pizza shops, places where we’d open for bluegrass bands coming through the area and stuff like that.

You just mentioned that you’ve been playing guitar since the age of eight and you’re also the first woman to win the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Guitar Player of the Year Award, so how did this come about and what was your reaction to winning when it happened?

It was kind of a surprise and I actually remember where I was when I found out I was nominated. I was back home in California, and it was 2017 or 2018, so I must have been in my early 20s. I was just kind of scrolling through stuff on my phone and I think people were texting me saying “Congratulations!” while I was trying to figure out what happened. I saw that I had been nominated and I was a bit shocked. I had moved to Nashville in 2015, so it was a year or two after that.
I saw someone saying that I was the first woman achieve the nomination, which was really cool as well. I remember thinking how crazy it was that it’s taken this long for a woman to be recognized on the guitar at the Bluegrass Music Awards. Then after that, I was wondering what was actually going to happen at the ceremony and I ended up winning, which was another big surprise. There were a whole lot of questions about being the first woman to win, but I think for me it was just an honor to be up there at all. I grew up going to those award shows and it felt like the biggest thing in the world to me. I got to see my heroes like Tony Rice and Bryan Sutton win the award, so it was really cool to see my name up there with people I really admired and looked up to.

It must have been a great feeling. Over the past few years, you’ve been performing with your own backing band Golden Highway, so how did this come together and what makes this band stand out for you versus other projects you’ve been involved in?

It really started to come together during the pandemic. I wanted to switch things up, go back to my roots and make a bluegrass record. In the bluegrass world, you’ll often see the name of the artist and then their band name, so I thought that it would be fun to differentiate the record from what I’ve done in the past. From there, I put the band together and we’ve been touring ever since. It’s been really fun to step away from the total solo artist thing and really put a spotlight on these amazing musicians that I’ve been performing with on the road.

From: https://medium.com/culture-beat/interview-molly-tuttle-prepares-to-make-her-return-to-freshgrass-with-golden-highway-cba8b962cc7a

Elton John - Live A&R Recording Studios, NYC 11-17-70 Complete

01 I Need You to Turn To
02 Your Song
03 Country Comfort
04 Border Song
05 Indian Sunset
06 Amoreena
07 Bad Side of the Moon
08 Take Me to the Pilot
09 Sixty Years On
10 Honky Tonk Women
11 Can I Put You On
12 Burn Down the Mission / My Baby Left Me / Get Back
13 My Father's Gun

The Juliana Hatfield Three - Supermodel

Vinyl makes you sit down and listen. It's way too much trouble to get up to count grooves to find specific songs. So I put the record on the turntable and for all intents and purposes heard Become What You Are for the first time. I realized that all those years ago I had been selling this masterful collection short. Hatfield's girlish voice has an unexpected edge, cutting in the way paper can slice through skin. But her voice is the counterpoint to her true instrument: Hatfield is an adept and impressive guitarist. How did I not notice this? Driven by guitar riffs that veer away from expected patterns, producer Scott Litt keeps the elements balanced but doesn't polish off the rough sonic surfaces, taking a cue from trios like The Police, Nirvana, and Dinosaur Jr. whose sound is more than the sum of its parts, far bigger than guitar + drum + bass should be. These songs, which I was so quick to dismiss in my youth, are deeper and more complex than I originally gave them credit for. They document a time when Gen X-ers were old enough to make their own decisions, but young enough to not regret their mistakes. 
The Nineties were the golden age of the "Supermodel", also the title of the moody, drawling opening track, which exposes the veneer of perfection as a superficial – even degrading – illusion. "The highest paid piece of ass/You know it's not gonna last/Those magazines end up in the trash." It foreshadows the creepiness of reality television and social media influencers: "She's a living doll/and she's famous for nothing at all/She's living life like a dream/With a false sense of self-esteem." Then the ringer: "I wish she'd trade places with me."  From: http://www.apessimistisneverdisappointed.com/2023/01/this-is-sound-brief-review-of-reissue.html 

Steeleye Span - Blackleg Miner

The Blackleg Miner is printed in A.L. Lloyd’s book Come All Ye Bold Miners: Ballads & Songs of the Coalfields (1952). Lloyd commented in the revised 1978 version:
As sung by W. Sampey, of Bishop Auckland, Co. Durham,18 November 1949. George Korson, in Coal Dust on the Fiddle (Philadelphia, 1943) prints what looks like a parody of this song, The Yahie Miners. Korson’s version comes from Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, a well-known changing-post for British and American miners’ songs. The Durham song has become quite widespread since its appearance in the first edition of the present work, and the tune in particular has taken on variant shapes.

Louis Killen sang Blackleg Miners in 1961 oh his and Isla Cameron’s Prestige International album The Waters of Tyne: Northumbrian Songs and Ballads. He also sang The Blackleg Miners a year later on A.L. Lloyd’s project album, The Iron Muse. The Iron Muse sleeve notes commented:
At the height of the miners’ union struggles of the 1880’s and ’90’s, labourers were brought in from other areas to act as strikebreakers. Ballads of the time describe how the colliers hunted the strikebreakers “like hares upon the moor.” When caught, the blacklegs might be stripped and the clothes and tools thrown down the pit shaft. In the dark, a rope might be stretched across the way to catch the non-union man by the throat and fling him down.

Ray and Archie Fisher sang Blackleg Miner in a concert in Edinburgh that was published in 1964 on the album The Hoot’nanny Show Vol. 2. The album’s sleeve notes commented:
Industrial strife in the bitter bad old days of the mines provoked this Northumbrian ballad. Few songs are so completely unyielding in their attitude. The blackleg or the scab—the worker who defies the strike call of his mates—is still regarded as something that belongs under a stone. It is not a pretty song. Indeed, in these more tolerant times, it is a provocative, ugly song. But it expresses in most eloquent terms the genuine emotions of people at bay.

The Ian Campbell Folk Group recorded The Blackleg Miner for their 1965 album Coal Dust Ballads. The sleeve notes gave their source as W. Sampey as above, and continue:
No collection of miners’ songs would be complete without this song, which was so typical of the militant miners’ attitude to the non-union man.

Steeleye Span recorded The Blackleg Miner in 1970 for their first album, Hark! The Village Wait, with Tim Hart singing lead vocals. The album’s sleeve notes comment:
It is strange that a song as powerful and as singable as this should be so rare, yet it has only once been collected, from a man in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, in 1949. Seghill and Seaton Delaval (presumably the Delaval mentioned in the song) are adjacent mining villages about six miles north of Newcastle upon Tyne, but it is difficult to date the song due to the innumerable mining strikes which have occurred. It is, however, interesting as much as it illustrates the violent hatred felt by the “union” men towards the blacklegs. Ashley Hutchings: “This is the most modern traditional song on the album, possibly dating from the early part of the 20th Century, and is sometimes sung by singers from Northumberland. I believe it was suggested by Tim.”

From: https://mainlynorfolk.info/louis.killen/songs/blacklegminers.html 

Sally Rogers & Claudia Schmidt - Mama, I Miss You Tonight

Old friends Sally Rogers and Claudia Schmidt, each with productive and storied solo careers, relish joining forces to make glorious music. Between them, they have over 30 fine recordings, but only three as a duo, most recently Evidence of Happiness in 2012. Radio stations across the country voted their 1987 collaboration, Closing the Distance, in the top 10 most popular albums of the year. Their separate home bases (Rogers in Connecticut, Schmidt in Minnesota) and full teaching, composing, and touring schedules make it challenging to converge. This Ithaca concert is a rare chance to hear them create magic together, with the synergy that comes from shared musicality and a gift for lyrics, instinctive harmonies, passion for social justice, education, and the environment, and radiant joy in the “Tree of Life.” These are energetic, powerful women who revitalize their audiences with a mix of humor, poignancy, and fire. Both drew attention decades back as regulars on A Prairie Home Companion, and have traveled far and wide since then.
Free-ranging and unclassifiable, Claudia Schmidt is fluent in folk, jazz, blues, and world music styles, a prolific composer and great wordsmith, and a soulful player of 12-string guitar and mountain dulcimer. In addition to taking the stage at festivals, big arenas, and house concerts across North America and Europe, she writes and performs in film, television, and theater. She’s an inimitable force. “When Claudia sings a song, it stays sung,” declares Garrison Keillor. A reviewer in the San Francisco Bay Guardian wrote, “Schmidt’s shows are a lot like falling in love. You never know what’s going to happen next, chances are it’s going to be wonderful, every moment is burned into your memory, and you know you’ll never be the same again.”
Sally Rogers is firmly grounded in traditional folk, old-timey, and children’s music, graced with a pure voice and accomplished playing of guitar, banjo, and dulcimer. In her hands, songs, whether original, contemporary, or hundreds of years old, have a timeless quality. Once heard, audiences remember them and take them home to sing in the kitchen, car, or at gatherings. As a born, and now professional, teacher, Sally Rogers’ successful mission is to set the world singing. When she’s not in a schoolroom, she’s likely to be touring across the States, Europe, or China, recording, creating books and videos for children, composing songs for Unitarian and Quaker hymnals, and quilting.  From: https://canaaninstitute.org/mikesmusicblog/sally-rogers-and-claudia-schmidt-in-concert/

T. Rex - The Slider

In 1969, Marc Bolan published a folio of poetry titled The Warlock of Love. By that point, the man born Mark Feld had already been the guitarist of mod-rock band John’s Children (for all of four months) before turning his attention to folk-rock duo Tyrannosaurus Rex. Together with bongo player Steve Peregrin Took, the group released albums with titles like My People Were Fair and Had Sky in Their Hair... But Now They’re Content to Wear Stars on Their Brows and Unicorn. Bolan mostly sat cross-legged style on stage, strumming an acoustic guitar, singing with such heavy affect that his future producer Tony Visconti was certain he was French, not English. None of these endeavors turned him into a star. But the last line of that folio portended what was to come: “And now where once stood solid water/Stood the reptile king, Tyrannosaurus Rex, reborn and bopping.”
The very next year, Tyrannosaurus Rex was reborn. Bolan stood up, plugged in a Gibson Les Paul, replaced Took with Mickey Finn, and began to enunciate each syllable with lip-smacking aplomb on the band’s first single as T. Rex. Propelled by handclaps and a strutting gamecock of a guitar lick, “Ride a White Swan” climbed up the UK charts to No. 2. T. Rex was bopping. So much so that The Warlock of Love sold over 40,000 copies, making Bolan a best-selling poet.
When T. Rex’s second single “Hot Love” shot straight to #1, Bolan dabbed some glitter on his cheekbones before a “Top of the Pops” performance. As Simon Reynolds recalled in Shock and Awe: Glam Rock and Its Legacy, that performance was “the spark that ignited the glam explosion,” confessing himself to “being shaken by the sight and sound of Marc Bolan...that electric frizz of hair, the glitter-speckled cheeks...Marc seemed like a warlord from outer space.” With 1971’s Electric Warrior, T. Rex topped the charts and was poised to break in the U.S., where “Bang a Gong (Get It On)” reached the top 10. For a glorious, nearly two-year reign, England was caught up in what the music mags would call “T. Rextasy.”
What magic ingredients led to this transformation? Theories range, but this band pic offers a clue. Bolan wears a Chuck Berry tee, while Finn’s shirt proudly proclaims: “Enjoy Cocaine.” Stripping their sound back to the giddy early days of rock’n’roll while indulging in coke’s nervy stimulation, T. Rex very suddenly manifested the biggest screamfest since Beatlemania. Visconti deemed Bolan’s genius be in skipping over the Beatles’ influence entirely, instead reaching back to the ’50s: “He emulated Elvis, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, that was his little trick. It was ingenious.”
Recorded in March and released in July of 1972, The Slider marked both the zenith and imminent approach of the cliff’s edge for T. Rextasy. Recorded in a dilapidated castle in France, it captured Marc Bolan as the King of Glam at the absolute height of his powers. Think Nadia Comăneci in 1976, Prince in the ’80s, or Ronnie O’Sullivan running the snooker table. T. Rex could do no wrong during that span.
As such, every wrist flick and downstroke on The Slider rings out like an act of god. Each cast-off line from Bolan’s notebook transforms into a profound edict from on high. And every cut—be it pop perfection or half-sketched—gets spun into cotton candy by Visconti and the backing vocals of Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan (better known as Flo & Eddie), harmonizing their nasal voices towards new adenoidal highs. The Slider exudes confidence to the point of becoming delirious and drunk on Bolan’s own self-regard, careening between bawdy, brash Little Richard lop-bam-booms, weirdo machismo rock, and ethereal acoustic ballads, while line by line Bolan toggles between profundity and inanity, melancholia and nonsense.  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/t-rex-the-slider/

Holly & The Reivers - Willy O'Winsbury

The natural worry for live music fans, when you hear one of your favourite live acts is going to record music, is ‘is it going to sound as good recorded as it does live?’ Known for their ferocious live shows, Holly & The Reivers are an excellent live act; full of multi-part vocals, precise folk musicianship and lovely and interesting asides. If only in terms of capturing their energy, recording their debut album must have been a challenge. 
“We were a bit worried when we went in to record the album,” confirms singer and guitarist Holly Clarke, who makes up the band with Merle Harbron (vocals, fiddle) and Bertie Armstrong (vocals, banjo), “but we also knew we could play well so we were pretty confident it would come out okay.” And come out okay it sure does. Taken over 11 tracks, Three Galleys is a treat for lovers of the darker elements of folk. Accompanied by wonderful musicianship and stunning three-part-harmonies, the trio’s album tracks its way across some of the most iconic parts of folk, with each song breathing fully to capture the expanse of their surroundings – it’s like listening to a live Cormac McCarthy reading. 
“The album’s an amalgamation of all of the elements we love about folk,” continues Clarke, “which for us means that it’s heavily into ‘folk horror’ aspects, so imagine the sound of The Wicker Man soundtrack which is creepy and eerie in places.” 
Choosing tracks which fall into the ‘folk horror’ realm, Three Galleys has a deliberate narrative theme; songs such as The Bold Marauder and Walking Boss drawing out elements of protest and punk that are deeply rooted in the more defiant aspects of folk. 
“For the debut record we’ve chosen songs we really believe in. So songs like Bold Marauder are protesting war and Bleary Winter talks about lamenting the loss of England’s land. With the current times and ideas of war, and of the right to roam movement, we felt like these were good songs to not only showcase beautiful folk songs but also showcase messages that are still really vital today.  Another song, Willie O Winsbury, is a 400 year old song about Queer love – again these are great pieces to connect with but also to show that there is still much to fight for and to be angry about.”
Whilst album launch dates are still being figured out (“we’re really keen to do some local live album dates but there’s a few things to still be worked out”), the trio’s talk has already moved on to album two and what comes next. “We feel like this is just scratching the surface of what we want to make, but we’re really happy with the record and want to create new atmospheres as soon as we can.”  From: https://narcmagazine.com/interview-holly-the-reivers/

Marvin Gaye - Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)

Marvin Gaye was in full cry in 1971. Seized with a new passion to create music of deep lyrical meaning, and to sing about the issues affecting a troubled world, he perfected the art of doing that in the context of a huge-selling album and singles from it. The album, of course, was What’s Going On, and on October 9, the latest 45 from it, Marvin’s “Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler),” took its bow on both the Billboard Hot 100 and the Best Selling Soul Singles chart.
The What’s Going On album had been released in May, four months after the title track had signaled Gaye’s dramatic new change of direction. That single was an R&B No.1 for five weeks that spent three weeks at No.2 on the pop survey. Then early July brought the second single, “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology),” a two-week R&B champion and pop No.4. “Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)” completed a remarkable trinity. It climbed to the R&B summit for a two-week run that meant Gaye had spent nine weeks atop the soul chart with three singles from What’s Going On. 
Strange to think, then, that Motown boss Berry Gordy didn’t exactly embrace Gaye’s new direction, and was distinctly wary of the “What’s Going On” single in particular. Until Gaye’s audience showed that they were with him all the way, that is, and that they loved his new role as a soulful social commentator. As writer Ben Edmonds observed in the 30th anniversary edition of the album in 2001, the subjects on Gaye’s agenda remained all too relevant then, and all the more so now. “The music alone would assure What’s Going On of immortality,” he noted, “but its messages still bristle with urgency. Told from the point of view of a returning Vietnam soldier, its portraits of disconnected Vets, drug addiction, ecological disaster and economic desperation are so much our own that this 1971 recording now sounds like prophesy.”  From: https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/marvin-gaye-inner-city-blues-song/

 

Corpo-Mente - Scylla

Just slightly over four years ago, the eccentric soul behind Igorrr (who goes as Gautier Serre in real life) pulled what I like to call a ‘Casualties of Cool’. By that I mean that just like Devin Townsend, Serre poured his deepest innards into a strongly emotional side project which showcases feelings and moods above everything else. And just like Devin’s foray, Corpo-Mente is a stark departure from what we are used to hearing from Serre.
Corpo-Mente is truly something special, regardless from which angle it is viewed. Stylistically it’s difficult to pin down – as any proper record is – but if I’d absolutely have to say it’s something then it would be that it’s kind of an acoustic/modern classical frame that is filled to the brim with operatic vocals and a strong trip-hop aesthetic, all of which is then painted with a zestful handful of glitchy electronic shades and splattered with just a dash of Igorrr’s characteristic black metal.
The flow and composure of the record is quite thoughtfully laid down with a truly progressive mindset. This reverberates with exuberance in really every moment. The listener isn’t just entertained but rather immersed in a dark, gloomy, and visceral territory where emotions are incarnated and roam free. This particular trait is enhanced thousandfold by Laure Le Prunenec’s vivid and dynamic vocal delivery. I’m not only talking about how her technical prowess is absolutely on point, but also about how every pulse is perfectly articulated. There are very few vocalists that reach anywhere near this level, and for that, Laure’s contribution is an integral part of what makes Corpo-Mente so special.
I would be remiss if I wouldn’t mention how the production value gives extra depth in nuance to the entire trip. It adds that extra pinch of color which is sometimes missing on albums that are equally well crafted. This attention to detail is what separates a really good record from a masterpiece. Corpo-Mente is by no means a show of technicality or intricate composition, quite the contrary; it is an elegant display of how soul-stirring properties can emerge from something relatively simple. It successfully conjures an entire realm around the listener with an effortless grace and that is where its mettle lies. Such records are the ones I personally live for, regardless of the form or style they come in. All I hope is that Corpo-Mente doesn’t remain a one-album-wonder like so many other amazing projects.  From: https://everythingisnoise.net/features/a-scene-in-retrospect-corpo-mente-corpo-mente/

Hazmat Modine - Dead Crow

Hazmat Modine are a maverick New York band who are shifting from Americana to global influences with remarkable results. Founded by singer-songwriter, guitarist and impressive harmonica-player Wade Shuman, they are distinctive both because of their range and their line-up: two harmonicas are matched against a three-piece brass section, guitar, steel guitar and percussion. The songs here are often blues-based, but always different; the opening Mocking Bird starts like a slow work-song and builds into rousing, harmonica and brass-backed folk-blues, while Two Forty Seven is a finger-clicking burst of brassy R&B, and the title track is an exercise in poetry and blues. The cover songs are equally original, and include a cheerful, spoken treatment of Irving Berlin's Walking Stick and the harmonica-backed 70s soul of I've Been Lonely for So Long. But the collaborations are even better, with Kronos Quartet adding their strings to the cheerfully rhythmic blues Dead Crow and Benin's Gangbé Brass Band bringing African jazz influences to Cotonou Stomp and the slinky Child of a Blind Man, where Natalie Merchant provides lead vocals. A brave and unexpected record.  From: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/may/26/hazmat-modine-cicada-review 

Bosnian Rainbows - Eli

In March 2012, The Mars Volta released its sixth studio album, Noctourniquet, following a lengthy three year recording period. Only 19 tour dates were announced in support of the release, of which 18 were in Europe and one in Israel. Following the tour's completion, Rodríguez-López moved back to his home town of El Paso, Texas, and subsequently formed Bosnian Rainbows with frequent collaborator Teri Gender Bender of Le Butcherettes, Mars Volta drummer Deantoni Parks and Nicci Kasper, who previously worked with Parks in Kudu and also as the writing duo Dark Angels. Regarding the band's conception, Rodríguez-López noted, "I found myself lonely and bored. So it's like, 'OK, new phase — let's get into it and let's create a dialogue. Let's find some things out.
Rodríguez-López subsequently put The Mars Volta on hiatus (although the band dissolved four months later) in order to focus on a more democratic project, stating, "It’s a band — that's something I haven’t been in for over eleven years. The Mars Volta was my baby: I started the group; I named it; booked all our tours — it became known as my family, not my band. I had to be in control of everything and I was really fucking domineering with everybody, not just musicians." Rodríguez-López elaborated, "Doing films has taught me to be a collaborator, since it’s such a large medium, you couldn't do it on your own if you tried, you know? And also hanging out with all my friends, Jim and Tony and Paul, the At the Drive-In guys, and being in that headspace again, life puts you exactly where you need to be. You can try and pull away from it, but it will always remind you where your path is. So yeah, this past year has been a really illuminating experience for me."
In September 2012, Bosnian Rainbows embarked upon its first tour under the banner of the Omar Rodriguez Lopez Group, with Rodríguez-López noting, "The tour was booked five months before it happened, and it was going to be another solo tour, and then at some point, I decided to start a new group and have a team effort. So it got booked one way, but I try to make it clear every night that this is a new group, and these are the names of the players, and “thank you.”" The band chose to rehearse in Hamburg at Clouds Hill Studios, owned by Rodriguez-Lopez's longtime friend Johann Scheerer. During the rehearsals Bosnian Rainbows recorded a live session, which was released on 10" vinyl and DVD as a part of Live at Clouds Hill limited edition box set in December 2012. After the European leg of the tour they returned to the studio to record their self-titled debut album, with production by Scheerer.
Regarding the band's influences and aesthetic, Rodríguez-López noted, "These are very much shorter, more to-the-point songs [than The Mars Volta's]. They still have spaces that stretch out, but what I mean to say is that it’s all the same influences that have been in most of my writing and all the people in my bands’ writing. Can is there, Siouxsie and the Banshees is there, Gang of Four is there, all the Led Zeppelin, whatever... all those things are there, it’s just different elements of those things. You make it shorter. It’s stripped down, it’s starker. The very melodic side of Can; the very textural side of Siouxsie. You take all those elements, and you take elements that maybe you weren’t exploring as much before.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_Rainbows

 

Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Tarkus

"Tarkus" is the title track of Emerson, Lake & Palmer's second album. The progressive rock epic lasts 20:42. It was the longest studio suite by the band until the three impressions of "Karn Evil 9". The name "Tarkus" refers to the armadillo-tank from the William Neal paintings on the album cover. The artist has explained that the name is an amalgamation between 'Tartarus' and 'carcass' (hence the name being written in bones on the album cover). Consequently, the name refers to the "futility of war, a man-made mess with symbols of mutated destruction." The song "Tarkus" supposedly follows the adventures of Tarkus from his birth, through a fight with a manticore, which he loses and concludes with an aquatic version of Tarkus named "Aquatarkus". Keith Emerson, when asked what work he is proudest of, named his "Piano Concerto" (from the Works release) and "Tarkus".  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarkus_(suite)

Ani DiFranco - Worthy

We are looking forward to having you at MASS MoCA, Ani. When you’re on tour, do you explore the city where you’re playing? 

We don’t have a lot of days off, but whenever we do, then I have time to wander around and check a place out. On show days, I’m pretty ensconced with interviews and setlists. Making a setlist takes me a weirdly long amount of time, just trying to figure out what the flow is going to be like. I’m usually in the venue most of the day.

Your setlists vary depending on the venue? 

Yes, definitely. A rock club will be more rock and roll, and then in a seated theater, I can bring out the chill stuff. This spring is the first time I’ll be touring with my latest album, Unprecedented Sh!t. I haven't played any of those songs live.

I listened to the album again last night and really enjoy it. I'll ask you about that a little later. We have daughters who are a similar age, 17. How do you think your daughter’s life is different than when you were that age?

I guess the biggest difference is the smartphone. She's growing up in a whole other way, in a whole other world than those of us who were pre-internet creatures. I feel very grateful to have known the world before that. It sort of contracted from three-plus dimensions to two. She has her own world there in her headphones and with her phone and TikTok, which is typical of this generation of kids. I feel like these devices—having the world in your pocket—is expansive in some ways because you certainly are aware of much more than maybe we were at 17 just entering the world. But I feel it's also a deterrent to actually going out there and striking your own path in the world. It’s an intimidating amount of information. Anything that a young person could think to do, they can pull their phone out of their pocket and see somebody who's doing it better than anyone ever has. And I feel like that makes kids feel like, well, why would I bother? I can't be that pretty or that good a dancer or that smart of a designer or whatever it is. I feel like it's almost a repressive force. That’s just coming from my mother's instinct. It seems like a lot of young adults seem wary to leave the house and go try to do something.

What stands out most when you were 18 and on your own in New York City? 

New York was so different back then, in 1989, when I moved there. It was much rougher around the edges, more dangerous and edgy, but really fascinating, really vibrant. With money comes cleanliness and safety and convenience and all those things, but it also dulls down the spirit of a place. I'm also happy that I'm old enough to have known the old New York, where there were found sculptures everywhere and still chickens running around the Lower East Side, squats and artists and a less shiny and moneyed and rat race-feeling city. It was rough. Even though I grew up in the city in Buffalo, landing in New York at 18 was daunting. I had a sublet for two months, and I didn't know a soul. I had to get work. I had to figure it out real quick. I remember I cried a lot. It felt cold to me at first, but I was determined. I acclimated, and, of course, I fell in love with it. I would live again in New York in a heartbeat. 

What would you tell your younger self? 

I would mostly petition her to be more patient, to take more time doing everything. I was very driven and very determined. For whatever reason, I was flinging albums into the world twice a year, just churning out songs and throwing them against the wall and seeing what stuck. I would advise her to take more time—there’s no hurry—and even step back from making music, from making albums, from being on stage more than I did. I think it would have served me and my art, and in that sense, my audience, for me to remove myself and rebuild myself and regenerate my own cells more than I did.

Your kids must think you're so cool. 

I guess I'm doing okay in that regard. They're not mortally ashamed or embarrassed of me. It's amazing how little relevance the culture of one's parents has to their culture and their world. When I joined the Broadway show, I went up a notch with my daughter.

She got to experience New York and see her mom on stage, so I can understand why. Did you grow up wanting to be a musician? 

Yes, when I was nine, I started playing guitar, and right away it was the best medicine I'd ever had. It was the most healing thing to sing and to play guitar and to make music. Instantly, I wanted to do it and not stop. I didn't have a big plan for myself. I just knew that this was the best thing I found in terms of making art for me.

What did you listen to growing up? 

A lot of folk singers, so to speak. singer-songwriters of the ’70s, ’80s; I was fortunate to have a lot of them live and in person in my life.

How did that come about? 

When I was just a kid starting to play guitar, I made friends with this fellow in Buffalo, Michael Meldrum. He was a singer-songwriter, a troubadour playing in all the bars and running the open mics. I became his shadow. Another thing that he was doing was booking concerts. He had what he called the Greenwich Village Song Project, and he would bring songwriters in from the city. So, I met and hung out with a lot of them. I saw all of them play. The model for music was something you do. He and I would sit around and sing and learn songs and play together, and I would play with him at all his little shows. Growing up, it was more of a social act, which, I think, is the genesis of music and what it really is. So, I had a good, long beginning of the essence of what music is.

From: https://www.berkshiremag.com/post/10-minutes-with-ani-difranco

Gothic Chicken - Overthrow

Pink Hedgehog Records put together Gothic Chicken, a psyche-pop super group with members from The Lucky Bishops and Cheese; Marco Rossi (Guitars), Alan Strawbridge (Bass ), Tom Hughes (Keyboards), and Luke Adams (Drums) with all members contributing to vocal duties. The production here is high quality, a mix of Schnauser and Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd on the big opener “Overthrow.” Next the baroque pop gem “And As For Me” is like a Left Banke composition with smooth harmonies, but it dives into prog-land shortly after the chorus. This follows through for many songs, setting up a solid melody and then going ADD with it by flying into a Zappaesque direction. Gorgeous composition sets-ups like “The Mousetrap” and “Priest Hole” will demand repeat listens. “Westward Ho?” is another amazing gem; like a lost 10cc track floating through Pepperland. If you like psychedelic rabbit holes, this is an excellent album to turn on and tune in to. Highly Recommended.  From: https://www.powerpopaholic.com/2016/01/gothic-chicken-and-javier-escovedo.html