The Far Meadow - Prove It Then / Hang On / Industry

The Far Meadow were founded as a five-piece rock combo in London by Eliot Minn (keyboards), Paul Bringloe (drums), Paul Mallatratt (bass), Jon Barry (guitars), and Nok (voices). The band grew out of the remnants of 'Blind Panic'. Under this name the band didn't release any music and, soon after, the name changed to The Far Meadow. They released their first album entitled "Where Joys Abound" in 2012, not too long afterwards, Nok, Jon Barry and Paul Mallatratt all left the band, to be replaced by Keith Buckman (bass), Dennin Warren (guitar) and vocalist Marguerita Alexandrou. In this new line-up The Far Meadow released "Given The Impossible" in 2016 and "Foreign Land" in 2019.
The band played under the influence ranging from the classic rock and prog of the innovators (Yes, Genesis, Rush, Focus, Soft Machine, Deep Purple, King Crimson, Gentle Giant, et al) to the contemporary torchbearers who keep the music alive (Spock’s Beard, Flower Kings, Rocket Scientists, Dream Theater, and many more), together with an added dash of funk, soul, classical, jazz, a twist of blues, and an extreme splodge of general mayhem and insanity.
Whilst all the other members of the The Far Meadow had had experience playing in bands previously, and it's clear when you listen to them play each member of the band really knows his instrument, for Marguerita to front a band was a wholly new experience. "I didn't actually start singing until I was 32, and I'd never sung in a band before. I made my stage debut with The The Far Meadow at the Resonance festival in 2016, and I was really very nervous, but the band helped me get through it."  From: https://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=7682 

Gold Dust - An Early Translation of a Later Work

Gold Dust are more than a band. They’re a family. In a time of greater isolation and existential anxiety, they form a vital community. It wasn’t always this way. Gold Dust started four years ago as a solitary solo endeavor – a way for Western Massachusetts musician Stephen Pierce to branch out from his roots in DIY punk and explore a longtime fascination with traditional folk and psychedelia. After releasing two records, 2021’s self-titled and 2022’s The Late Great Gold Dust, Pierce welcomed new voices into the fold. Their collective effort, In the Shade of the Living Light, is the story of four people at a crossroads in their lives. They may never find the answers, but they have found solace and unconditional support in one another. 
Joining Pierce are Ally Einbinder (guitar, formerly of Potty Mouth), Adam Reid (drums, of Nanny), and Sean Greene (bass, of The Van Pelt). As a four-piece, Gold Dust springs out of the cloistered interior and transforms into a dynamic force. In the Shade of the Living Light embraces you with captivating guitar squalls and warm vocal harmonies, steady rhythms, and an innovative blend of influences, from traditional folk to West Coast psych, alternative punk, jangle-rock, and ‘90s college rock. 
“I look at this as a band starting to figure out who they are by leaning into regionalism,” Pierce says. “That's something that I miss, when different parts of the country and world would have distinct sounds and musical movements coming out of the communities, usually having something to do with their surroundings, be it geographical or cultural. Our rural part of the state is so culturally different from the more metropolitan part of MA; I've been pretty intentional pulling together from all the various music from around the world that influences me and tie it to something specifically evocative of rural New England.” 
Just as much as Pierce has given Einbinder, Reid, and Greene a creative platform and emotional sanctuary, the rest of the band have likewise encouraged the guitarist to push himself to release this collection. Initially, Pierce never thought he’d want to record the deeply personal tracks that make up In the Shade of the Living Light, a title with regeneration in mind and inspired by the writings of 11th century philosopher Hildegard of Bingen.  From: https://golddust.bandcamp.com/album/in-the-shade-of-the-living-light  

Sunflower Bean - Champagne Taste

So, you’ve been making music as Sunflower Bean for around a decade, and your fourth album ‘Mortal Primetime’ reflects that time. How do you feel you’ve changed as individuals and musicians over the years? 

Julia: I feel like the first big change was around the pandemic, because that was when our lives changed. ‘Human Ceremony’ and ‘Twentytwo In Blue’ followed the indie rock thing where you tour for a year and a half, make a record in six months, and then you go and tour that. That was the first time we got out of the schedule and realised that there was no schedule that needed to be upheld. We then went from being a band that was known mostly for our live stuff to people who became more focused on just our writing, because that’s what we were doing. It was basically all we could do. It led to writing like, a billion songs for ‘Headful of Sugar’, and that change stayed with us. Now, with ‘Mortal Primetime’, I think that we all felt like we were able to sit in ourselves a little more, be comfortable with those changes that were made and how we wanted the record to reflect that. 

If you were to reintroduce yourselves at this stage, how would you define Sunflower Bean as a band and your overall sound? 

Nick: Well, ‘Mortal Primetime’ was pretty much made the opposite way of ‘Headful Of Sugar’, which was done over the course of two years. We were making tons of demos and using a lot of modern music production techniques like copying and pasting choruses, sampling drum loops and lots of MIDI. That was really fun to experiment with and a lot of great stuff came out of it, but some less great stuff came out of it as well. The thing about our band that’s special is the fact that we’re three people who came together organically through a music community. We had a location and a scene, and we’ve played together for over ten years. We have this live chemistry that we’ve developed within our city and our city’s music culture. We really wanted to capture that special quality on record. 
So, to make ‘Mortal Primetime’, we rented a studio and played live together in a room. We recorded almost the entire record in fourteen days. Everything was live. We treated the recording like we were going to tape, so every performance is unique. Every guitar take is full, and you can really feel the three of us in the room playing together. It’s an organic record that was made in a way that’s closer to how an album would have been made in 1965 than how albums are made today.

Julia: With all of that context, if I were to try to reintroduce us, on paper I would say that we’re an indie-alternative power pop band [Nick: Maybe not indie!]. I don’t know, people feel weird about that word. But one thing that we’re not is a post-punk band [Nick: That’s true]. Which I think is funny, because that often makes people not quite sure what to do with us in itself, as they’re so used to post-punk being the defining sound of rock at this time. But the footnote to that would be we are artists who are trying to keep the band tradition alive through our own organic experiences. What we’re fighting against is homogenous music culture and anti-creativity in production. We’re trying to fight for something real. All of our records have been trying to do that. That’s one of the most important things about our discography to me. It’s humanity, I guess.

Nick: And then record labels will say that means “hard to market”. 

That’s an interesting point because you’ve been described as a band that defies definition, blending different influences and largely being “unclassifiable”. Was this your aim or a natural outcome of having a variety of tastes that contribute to your sound?

Julia: I feel like that part of the discussion is so loud, it sort of puts us in a position to have to explain ourselves. People are so used to singular artists that they aren’t used to what a band having different influences can create. The way that I describe it is that we think of songs as very individual. We have a song called ‘Champagne Taste’ on the record, and then the record ends with ‘Sunshine’. If you were to look at those genre-wise, you would say ‘Champagne Taste’ feels like an alternative rock song, but ‘Sunshine’ feels like a My Bloody Valentine shoegaze song. In my mind when we’re working with those songs, what’s interesting to me is the dissonance in both of the guitars and the fact that they feel as though they’re about to veer off the edge. It’s the tension that keeps it connected. 
Perhaps what happens is we aren’t thinking in the genres. In fact, when we recorded ‘Mortal Primetime’, we made sure that we used the same group of instruments and the same mics on the drum kit. We wanted to make sure that the songs would be literally related through using all that stuff, so that there was a small amount of variation that could occur at all. It’s something that we definitely think about, though it’s not our intention to be everywhere. I hope that the things that keep the songs connected to us really come through.

Nick: Honestly, maybe I’m having an epiphany right now, but it’s just an old school band thing. If you go back and look at a lot of classic rock records or classic records in general, they are so varied in their sound. There are so many bands that have mixed heavy music with ballads and acoustic music. Every single one of our records has had a wide range of influence and a wide range of sounds, and while we’re making them it’s never even come into question for us. We love all different kinds of music. I guess the most classic album ever made is ‘Sgt. Pepper’s’ – think about how varied that is. They use tubas and stuff!

From: https://www.clashmusic.com/features/i-knew-love-sunflower-bean-interviewed/

Spiral Guru - I, Machine

The fourth EP in the 10-year history of Brazil’s Spiral Guru, who also released their Void long-player in 2019 and the “The Fantastic Hollow Man” single in 2021, Silenced Voices is distinguished immediately by the vocal command and range of Andrea Ruocco, and I’d suspect that if you’re already familiar with the band, you probably know that. Ruocco‘s voice, in its almost operatic use of breath to reach higher notes, carries some element of melodic metal’s grandeur, but Samuel Pedrosa‘s fuzz riffing and the fluid roll of bassist José Ribeiro and drummer Alexandre H.G. Garcia on the title-track avoid that trap readily, ending up somewhere between blues, psych, and ’70s swing on “Caves and Graves” but kept modern in the atmosphere fostered by Pedrosa‘s lead guitar. Another high-quality South American band ignored by the gringo-dude-dominant underground of Europe and the US? Probably, but I’m guilty too a decade after Spiral Guru‘s start, so all I can say is I’m doing my best out here. This band should probably be on Nuclear Blast by now.  From: https://theobelisk.net/obelisk/tag/spiral-guru-silenced-voices/ 

Rod Stewart - Gasoline Alley

I’ve said it before, but Rod Stewart’s fall from grace remains one of the saddest and most precipitous in rock history. In the early seventies the rooster-cropped, sandpaper-voiced party animal who took nothing seriously was fronting one of the greatest live acts of all time, the Faces, while simultaneously putting out solo albums that were heart-breakingly brilliant. And then? I wish I could say nada, but his post-1974 (hell, make it post-1972) output was far worse than nothing—it was flat-out debasing, both to Stewart and his fans.
It can be argued that his fans were anything but disappointed by swill such as “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?” After all, the song did slither to the top of the Billboard Charts. To which I can only respond that nobody deserves such fans, and had Rod come to his senses he’d have made the best out of a bad job and laughed it off (to use his own words), ideally by sending each and every person who bought the abominable “Sexy” a letter telling them to bugger off. Instead the song’s success just encouraged the worst in Stewart, who turned himself into a veritable treacle machine until his muse deserted him (wisest thing it ever did) in sheer disgust, leaving Rod to torture us all with album after album of dull standards from the dreaded American Songbook.
Finding the present unbearable I sought solace in the distant past, and Stewart’s 1970 sophomore solo album, Gasoline Alley. I’ve never so much as listened to the damn thing, as I already possessed what I assumed were the LP’s premier tracks on various Stewart compilations, and it turned out to be a pleasant surprise, combining (as was Rod’s wont in those days) rock’n’roll, R&B, and folk rock in the form of a few originals along with covers of songs by the likes of Bob Dylan, The Valentinos featuring Bobby Womack, Elton John, and Ronnie Lane and Steve Marriott of the great Small Faces, which had already morphed (with Ronnie Wood and Stewart taking Marriott’s place) into the equally great Faces.
Gasoline Alley is one gritty and hardscrabble LP, without so much as a hint of the slick and sleazy cocksman Stewart would slowly transform himself into, much in the same way Jeff Goldblum turned himself into an oversized insect in 1986’s The Fly. From opener “Gasoline Alley,” a Stewart-Wood collaboration so evocative you can almost smell the petrol fumes, Stewart plays his familiar role as down but by no means out wayfarer, and relies for assistance on the stellar playing of one fine assemblage of musicians, including Faces’ band mates Lane (bass and vocals), Wood (guitar), Ian McLagan (piano/organ), and Kenney Jones (drums), as well as the likes of mandolin savant Stanley Matthews, classical guitarist Martin Quittenton, and a host of others.
Anyway, to get back to the mid-tempo title track, it relies on one great electric guitar riff, some superb acoustic guitar and mandolin playing, and Stewart’s inimitable rasp to communicate Stewart’s desire to return to his origins in rough and tumble Gasoline Alley, “the place where I started from.” In this it has much in common with such Elton John classics as “Honky Cat” and “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” and if you find the comparison absurd, well, all I can say is it behooves you to listen to some of John’s early material, because once upon a time the dude in the ridiculous glasses really had it goin’ on.  From: https://www.thevinyldistrict.com/storefront/graded-curve-rod-stewart-gasoline-alley/

Sarah McLachlan - Fumbling Towards Ecstasy

You said that it took about six years to learn how not to edit yourself and remain open in your music…

(laughs) Hopefully I’ll get that back again someday.

What kinds of things can a songwriter do to reach that place in their writing?

Well, for me on this new record, it was mainly secluding myself, being away from society and being away from everything. I locked myself up in a cabin in the mountains and stayed there for seven months. It was just an amazing time for me to really focus on a lot of stuff that had sort of been lurking behind the scenes in my brain, but never had the time to come out. Or it kept being put aside, because there were so many distractions. Also I think, I got incredibly in tune with the earth, with nature, like I hadn’t before. I couldn’t write a thing for three months. My brain was eating itself. It was terribly cold out and I couldn’t do anything creative. I was just frozen.
Everything was churning around inside but nothing would come out. Then spring happened and everything totally opened up. I was blossoming as well. Most of the songs–I had written four previous to going to the cabin–were written then, about seven of them, between April and May. The place that I got to in myself of feeling calm and peaceful and also for the first time in my life, feeling I’m happy now. Not ‘I would be happy if . . . ‘ There was always that going on with me. I finally got to a place where I was totally happy and peaceful and living in the present tense instead of in the future, you know and projecting things.

Did you go into that experience with any sort of agenda?

Well, in the process of not being able to write, I kept a journal, these sort of morning pages. I wrote three pages before I’d do anything else, just to try and clear my head. Most of it was totally banal like mmm, coffee smells good, I have nothing to say, I have nothing to say (laughs) for ten times. But sure enough, about midway through the second page, sometimes I’d really open up and all this stuff would come out. You know, you’re not really awake yet and you’re just sort of spewing whatever’s on the top of your head sort of free form. And there was no editing happening there at all, because no one was going to read this book. I could say whatever I wanted. I didn’t have to hide behind anything, and I think that really helped me. To be really open and honest with myself, that was good. I’m pretty good at deceiving myself or I’ve known myself to do that in the past (laughs).

Did you listen to music while you were there?

I listened to a lot of Tom Waits, and Talk Talk’s Spirit of Eden, which is one of my favorites.

The opening lines of your songs are always captivating and they seem to contain the germ of the whole song in just a few words.

I figure the first two lines usually tell the whole story of a song (laughs). The first two lines are what comes out first when I’m writing, and they basically tell which direction, for me lyrically, the song is going to go. Sometimes those two lines will sit for months by themselves, until they find a completion to the story, or a completion to the stage that I’m in of trying to work through something, until hopefully I’m somewhere near the other side of it, when I can be a little more objective and write it down. It’s the same with titling the songs. Most of the song titles come from the last word in the second line (laughs).

Say you have those two lines and the music wants to continue. Will you let it go on without words?

Unfortunately, I often try to fill it in. I’m sort of still a bit stuck to that convention of writing a song with a four-line verse, the more traditional phrasing of a stanza or whatever. So if there are only two lines, there usually end being four lines. I work at making it four before I stop (laughs). But there’s also this thing, when I go in the studio, Pierre (Marchand, her producer) is great at editing. He’ll say, why don’t you just not sing that line, do you really need to say that, you kind of already said it. He has done that, which is something that I can’t really do, because I’m not as objective about it. And I don’t see things from the same direction that he does, which is why he’s so good to work with.

Do you demo songs before you go into the studio?

Well, I demo them in a very simple way, with acoustic guitar or piano. Sometimes a drum machine. But my sort of restrictions on myself for going into the studio are making it strong by itself in the simplest form. So if you’re hiding behind a lot of production, if you take it away, you can still play that song and it’ll still be strong on its own.

You mentioned a drum machine. Do you ever write with just a groove?

I have never have before. I’m pretty lazy as far as technology, and I think it’s something I’ll probably have to get more into, because I’m sort of exhausting the instruments that I’m using, or exhausting the inspiration that they give me. I can go back and forth, but I don’t have a piano, so I end up doing a lot of stuff on guitar. But when I was in Montreal I did, so a lot of this record came from piano because it was such an exciting thing, a new sound, a new instrument. That happened with electric guitar as well. I started writing with that, because it was a new sound. So maybe I will get into the drum machine. I just have to learn how to use the damn thing first (laughs). I always fight against technology. I want to be grass roots and I want where it comes from to be organic.

Well it sounds like you have a good combination with your producer, because he strikes me as a technically minded guy…

Oh, he’s amazing that way, because he’s such a techno-head. But at the same time, he totally comes from the organic sense of letting the song happen in whatever direction it goes in. Just following and not pushing the song for any wrong reason, whatever feels right go with it.

A lot of your songs have an air of mystery and darkness. Is there something you do during the writing process to conjure this mood?

(laughs) I just think it’s what’s in my brain. It’s not that I’m really pessimistic or anything–I’m not. But I sort of like the effect of two sides of things–one being really pretty and one being really ugly, like when you lift up a pretty rock and there’s all these mites and worms underneath it (laughs). I think that sort of came from this one poem I read in grade nine. It’s funny, the little things that stick with me my whole life. Wilford Owens, he’s a World War I poet and he wrote about being in the field in the war and all the horrors that went on. But somehow, without glamorizing or romanticizing it, he made it incredibly beautiful. In the same breath, he’d be talking about something horrendously grotesque. I just really loved that. That’s actually where the title of the record came from too, “Fumbling Towards Ecstasy.” It was taken from a line in one of his poems. “Quick boys, in an ecstasy of fumbling we fit the masks just in time . . .” and I thought that was amazing, that “in an ecstasy of fumbling.” It was so beautiful, and since grade nine I’ve been trying to fit that into something (laughs). I sort of have a little library of phrases and words in my head that I like. Like “murmur.” Never been able to use it yet, but it’s a beautiful word. I like words that say so many things. Language is such a beautiful thing and words are so amazing.

From: https://addictedtosongwriting.com/sarah-mclachlans-walden-pond/

Lo-Pan - Savage Heart

Lo-Pan is an American hard rock band from Columbus, Ohio. The band has been praised for its "ability to write a driving, catchy rock song in a well-established aesthetic while still sounding original, vibrant and exciting," and for "performing heavy rock that's at once infectious and distinctly ambitious." Their most recent album, Get Well Soon, was released in April 2025. 
The band formed in 2005 with bassist Skot Thompson, drummer Jesse Bartz, and guitarist Brian Fristoe. Singer Jeff Martin joined the following year. The band shares its name with a villain in the comedy-martial arts film Big Trouble in Little China. Lo-Pan started with a stoner rock sound but have since added elements of traditional hard rock and heavy metal.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lo-Pan_(band) 

Rickie Lee Jones - Gravity

Debbie Millman: 
One of the things I loved reading about was how you loved The Beatles so much you had a Beatle haircut, Beatle boots, Ringo rings, you collected Beatles trading cards that came with sheets of bubble gum. You felt that if you could not have Paul, you would be Paul, and your love of The Beatles seemed to really help you undergo a social and spiritual metamorphosis, and rock music at that point became your Bible. But one thing that I loved was that you didn’t want to be a girl singer or The Beatles’ girlfriend. You wanted to be a Beatle, and there’s a big distinction there.

Rickie Lee Jones:
 That’s the key, isn’t it?

Debbie Millman:
 Absolutely.

Rickie Lee Jones:
 And maybe that’s the calling. I just don’t know, but I could never have settled for any of the roles that were offered to the girls. It was just automatic that I would be them.

Debbie Millman:
 Over the course of your early life, in sort of preparation for your career, you had a number of incidents that you turned down, which took a lot of bravery and courage. And the first was when you started singing, your dad was so impressed with your ability, he took you to an audition for the Lew King show, which was a local television talent show, and you won. But then a decision had to be made that really did impact one direction that your life could have taken. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Rickie Lee Jones:
 Sure. The Lew King Rangers show was, like you said, a talent show for kids. Who is the famous guy in Vegas, [singing], what was his … he was a star on that show. I auditioned and I was a good singer as a kid, but they told my parents that they would have to buy an insurance policy if I was going to be on the show. An insurance policy was just gangsterism. It would’ve cost a lot of money, from what my parents earned. When we were driving home, I was in the backseat, and I remember this so well, lots of talking, lots of talking about it. Then finally they put it back in my hands and said, “If you really want to do this, we’ll find a way to do it.” And I said, “No, I don’t want to do it—it’s wrong what they’re doing,” and I turned down what I lusted for, which was not only to be on television, but to sing in front of people.

Debbie Millman:
 You write that the Lew King show and that decision was your first lesson in the dark corners of the music business, where favors are exchanged and sins offered up as collateral. You go on to state, of the many exercises and integrity you have achieved or endured or failed, this was your greatest. Why is that?

Rickie Lee Jones:
 Because I was a little kid and didn’t have the years that come as you get older, the years of reason. And I instinctually knew it was unethical, but a little kid wants what they want. So I think it’s a harder decision for a little kid to make, maybe not.

Debbie Millman:
 You describe how that decision really gave you a compass of sorts, which is the one that comes to children who sacrifice their dreams for family, and all around you, your childhood was slipping away. But you write, to your North, you had a dream and only one direction you could call your own. Was that when you knew you wanted to be a professional musician?

Rickie Lee Jones:
 I knew that I wanted to entertain. I wanted to act, I had been in tap and ballet. I was also swimming, hoping to go to the Olympics. So whatever I was going to be, it was going to be a self-made thing, not a thing I went to school to learn to be. It would be on my shoulders.

Debbie Millman:
 Yet when you tried out for the school choir, you were turned down.

Rickie Lee Jones:
 Yes.

Debbie Millman:
 Not only were you turned down, but the music teacher singled you out in front of your friends and stated that your voice was too unusual and would not fit into his chorus. How do teachers like that even exist?

Rickie Lee Jones:
 He kind of looked like a Marine. They’re just kind of people that are about everything being the same. Why they’re in the arts … I think there were a lot more of them in the arts. He was teaching everybody that if they wanted to be in music as a profession, they’d have to sound like this and sing like this, and maybe they’d get a job in this choir. You remember in the mid to late ’60s, choirs were very popular. They all sang in unison. So that was the job you could get, and I was like, “That is not the job I’m going to get.” But that hurt really badly.
Yet, he was right. My voice was different. There was something about me that seemed to piss teachers off, and they very unceremoniously sent me on my way. Maybe even at 12 or 13, I had a personality that was singular and meant to be a star on stage. I was not ever going to be in the choir. I always liked that little girl who did the long bow. I would always separate myself somehow, but they could have been so much gentler with me. It’s a longshot.
The people who become famous are longshots. They’re the people that teachers and most people around them go, “This guy’s never going to amount to anything,” because we are finding our way to a different plateau entirely. In that realm, we would be a bum; we’re not meant to be there. We’re meant to be up there. Since so few people make it, I guess, are able to define themselves and sell themselves as a singular new and different, because so many people want the same, same, same. So they treat you so badly. It’s a miracle that anybody who’s a little bit different ever achieves anything that they’re meant to achieve, I think. Yeah, that guy was a bad guy. He really hurt my feelings. He meant to hurt my feelings.

Debbie Millman:
 And that’s the part that makes it cruel.

Rickie Lee Jones:
 Yeah.

Debbie Millman:
 Your childhood was abruptly and forever altered by your brother’s injury. At that point you described your family life as something like a nuclear submarine waiting for the signal to destroy all known life. But music became an even stronger solace for you, and you write how Jefferson Airplane was on your turntable every day. Buffalo Springfield, Jimi Hendrix, Vanilla Fudge, and The Mothers of Invention were frequently played. You also love show tunes, particularly from West Side Story. You go on to describe how Jefferson Airplane’s Surrealistic Pillow seemed to be at the eye of a storm you longed to be part of. What storm was that?

Rickie Lee Jones:
 Well, outside of my house, the hippies were growing. They’d been growing since ’65 and ’66. There’s an article in LOOK or LIFE Magazine about them on LSD, and little slices of them out there, and their long hair and Indian headbands. So first it’s a look that invites a child, but what they’re talking about, peace, protest, that’s way lower on the list. I wanted to be part of all that love and attention. They would have love-ins. There was a love-in or something in Encanto Park. I wanted to be there so bad. Well, all it was was people standing around. It wasn’t anything like what the title … I thought something magical would be happening in there. But nevertheless, I was drawn out of the family circle and all that trouble and drama to a larger picture that maybe I could find a place in.

Debbie Millman:
 The last song on Side A of Surrealistic Pillow, “Comin’ Back to Me,” was my favorite. You taught yourself how to play the guitar, sounding out each note one phrase at a time by ear. How did you feel when you realized you could play it?

Rickie Lee Jones:
 It took so long, so many weeks of practice, and memory, and getting … the fingers would hurt so badly pressing on those little steel razors. Then finally I could make that beautiful motion walking down from the C to the A minor. And when you’re making music, it’s like you’re weaving reality. You’re weaving places. You’re bringing the … it’s magic, and bringing these feelings into existence out here before you. Oh my God. I had longed to do it and I was doing it. That’s all I can say about that. It was pretty wonderful.

From: https://www.printmag.com/podcasts/2021/design-matters-rickie-lee-jones/

Fuzzbubble - Boomerang

Modern day power popsters Fuzzbubble immediately bring to mind such past masters as Cheap Trick, the Beatles, and even Nirvana, during Cobain and co's more melodic moments. The group (comprised of members Mark DiCarlo, Jim Bacchi, Jason Camiolo and Brett Rothfeld) first caused a splash during 1997, when rap mogul Sean Combs signed the group to his Bad Boy label - holding the honor of becoming one of the first non-hip hop artists to call the record company their home. The future looked bright for Fuzzbubble, as the group backed Combs on his 1997 hit, "It's All about the Benjamins," while two of their original songs were heard on both the big and little screen - "Out There" appeared on the Godzilla Motion Picture Soundtrack and "Ordinary" was featured on the TV show, Felicity. But their road to stardom soon became turbulent, as Fuzzbubble parted ways with the label come 2000. Undeterred, the band found a new home the same year with the Orchard label. The company issued their self-titled debut the same year, which was produced by Mike Clink, and featured guest appearances by Susanna Hoffs (ex-Bangles) and Roger Manning (ex-Jellyfish).  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/fuzzbubble-mn0000186908#biography 

Raun - Sordarvalla

The past decade has seen an endless stream of amazing music from the Nordic countries, and now we can add the group Raun as a promising new contender in the folk-rock category. What makes Raun stand out in this crowded field is their bare, stripped-to-the-bones approach to their music. The band keeps the arrangements spare: hurdy-gurdy, bass, drums, and vocals dominate the mix, but that description does not quite capture the oddness of Raun's sound. These are mostly traditional songs that lumber out of your speakers as if performed by a group of large, rubbery skeletons. The crunching, metallic percussion of Magnus Ek and Goran Mansson (they call what they do 'junk beat') clearly send Raun out into a folk-industrial territory, and the wheeze and clunkiness they lay down for the band brings to mind both Tom Waits' Bone Machine and the Broadway show Stomp. 
I do not mean to imply that Dance Jon is overly noisy; in fact, the dark and spacious quality of Raun's sound makes for one of the quirkiest records I have heard lately. "En Sadan Vacker Flicka" is a fairly straightforward track, buzzing along on hurdy-gurdy, flute, and chanted vocals: call it trance-folk. But that is preceded by the band's electro-hurdy-gurdy track "Dance Jon" with its distorted vocals, and the huffing, ominous sound of "Heiemo Og Nykkjen," a tune that begins with insane laughter and recounts the lure of the evil spirit of the waters. Lead singer Helena Ek has a beautiful voice that nicely grounds the postmodern joy of Raun, and fans of Garmarna will sit up and take notice of her interpretation of "Sordarvalla."  From: https://www.rootsworld.com/reviews/raun-jon.shtml 

Aerosmith - Seasons of Wither

Aerosmith's 1973 debut album didn't exactly make them household names, but it gave them a solid foundation to build on. When they reconvened in the studio to record the follow-up, they were faced with every young act's trickiest challenge: avoiding the sophomore jinx. They gave it a pretty good shot with Get Your Wings, released in March 1974. The album wasn't a huge hit at the time, but it proved a definite portend of things to come for the band.
The track listing was stacked with future Aerosmith concert favorites like "Same Old Song and Dance," "Lord of the Thighs" and their cover of "Train Kept A-Rollin'." Just as important was their connection with new producer Jack Douglas, whose presence behind the boards was a crucial factor in some of their most critically and commercially successful records.
Like a lot of young bands faced with recording their second album, Aerosmith had a relative shortage of material when they entered the studio for Get Your Wings in December 1973. They coped with it using a variety of methods, including reaching back to the past ("Woman of the World" dated from Steven Tyler's days with the New York band Chain Reaction), recording a cover ("Train Kept A-Rollin'" was first cut by Tiny Bradshaw in 1951), and partaking in the time-honored tradition of squeezing out one last song in order to pad out a record ("Lord of the Thighs" was the result of a last-minute writing session).
On paper, it sounds like a patchwork affair, but Get Your Wings holds together. If Aerosmith's debut laid down the template for the band's sound, then the follow-up filled it in. Douglas' production struck a balance between polish and grit while augmenting the group with a battery of session ringers, including the Brecker Brothers on horns and guitarists Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter, who were brought in to shore up songs where Joe Perry and/or Brad Whitford were indisposed.
"Joe hadn't yet developed into the player he is today. He's up in the big leagues now but back in those days the stuff was more simplistic," Wagner later explained. "Obviously for some reason he wasn't there to do it and I never really questioned it. At the time I was living at the Plaza Hotel in NYC just waiting for the phone to ring ... Jack called me up at like 10:00 in the evening and I went in and did it and that was it." With all the elements in place, the stage was set for Aerosmith to take the world by storm. This LP might have missed its sales target, but Get Your Wings proved to be prophetically titled: The band started soaring with its third LP, Toys in the Attic, released just over a year later.  From: https://ultimateclassicrock.com/aerosmith-get-your-wings/

Led Zeppelin - Live at the Royal Albert Hall 1970

 Led Zeppelin - Live at the Royal Albert Hall 1970 - Part 1

 

 Led Zeppelin - Live at the Royal Albert Hall 1970 - Part 2

 

Led Zeppelin - Live at the Royal Albert Hall 1970 - Part 3

 

It isn’t hard to understand the substantial appeal of Led Zeppelin. Their current two-hour plus act is a blitzkrieg of musically-perfected hard rock that combines heavy dramatics with lashings of sex into a formula that can’t fail to move the senses and limbs. At the pace they’ve been setting on their current seven-town British tour there are few groups who could live with them on stage. Friday night, the third stop of the tour brought them back to London’s Albert Hall for a two and a quarter hour solo marathon that completely destroyed the ever-weakening argument about British reserve. At the end of two 15-minute long encores, when the audience had been on its feet dancing, clapping and shouting for 35 minutes, they were still calling them back for more. It was electricity that had been building up throughout the evening. The Albert Hall suits the Zep’s style and they were in good form, working through a selection of their heavier numbers of which Dazed and Confused is still a tour de force.
The slight frame of Jimmy Page, clad like a Woolworth’s sales counter in Alf Garnett shirt and jeans, belies the fearsome aggression of his guitar, which the other side of his nature comes through on the intricate White Summer solo. Midway through the set John Paul Jones switched to Hammond organ for a segment of quieter Led Zeppelin not previously heard on stage, before John Bonham’s Moby Dick drum solo brought him a standing ovation. But the Zeppelin forte, the closing 20 or so minutes were still to come and when it did, such was the rapport that when on How Many More Times, Robert Plant sang I” want you all to put your hands together…” the audience en masse had done so before he’d finished the request.
Strutting about the stage with arrogance, Plant is a most accomplished performer, drawing from the finest blues/soul-shouter traditions with a confidence out of line with his inexperience previous to Led Zeppelin. His control is masterful; so much so that when he dragged out the lyric “I’ve got you in the s-s-s-sights of my gun,” hesitating dramatically over the “s,” the crowd was shouting back and filling in the missing word. I spoke to Jimmy Page after the show and he confessed that the whole band had suffered extreme nerves beforehand, mainly because people like John Lennon, Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck had requested tickets.
“But it was just like it was at the Albert Hall in the summer,” said Jimmy, “with everyone dancing around the stage. It was a great feeling. What could be better than having everyone clapping and shouting along? It’s indescribable; but it just makes you feel that everything is worthwhile.”
“We’d actually finished How Many More Times and were going into the Lemon Song, but the audience was still clapping so we just went into another riff and carried on for a further ten minutes.
The group’s intention in doing solo shows of such length, says Jimmy, is so that if the audience wants it, they can continue playing without having to worry about whether earlier support groups have overrun and how much time there is left. They’ve had hassles with hall management on this point in the past and Jimmy points out:
“Our sets have gone longer and longer anyway. They are now always at least two hours long – and that’s without any extra numbers for encores. I really believe in doing as much as it is physically possible to do… if the audience wants it.”  From: https://www.ledzeppelin.com/show/royal-albert-hall-january-9-1970

 

Portishead - Machine Gun

In 2002, rumours abounded that Portishead’s third record would be called Alien. They were wrong, but not without truth; much of Third sounds like the soundtrack to a genuinely chilling sci-fi horror film. It’s not an accident that the fascistic, ossified and mechanical rhythm of ‘Machine Gun’ finds itself transformed and consumed by crazed Terminator / Blade Runner / Vangelis synthesisers.
The sound throughout is muffled and dark, cinematic still, but differently. ‘The Rip’ swells electronically just over two minutes in and suddenly becomes magnificently repetitive. The oddly falling in-and-out of earshot shuffles that open ‘Plastic’ are perhaps the closest thing here to trip-hop, only the crackling, noir-ish strings one might expect of Portishead are replaced by shuddering, unsettling electronic echoes.
‘We Carry On’ is Third’s highlight, a monolith at its centre that is stomped into submission by a serial-killer drum pulse, and which climaxes in an intensifying storm of gothic guitars, before ‘Deep Water’ offers brief, disquieting acoustic relief. Every speck of dusty spittle on Beth Gibbons’ lips is apparent in ‘Small’, the opening minimal pain, the mid-section and finale run through with weird bass ululations, fucked-up cello, scraping guitar and dissident synth. Huge piano chords, tick-tocking cowbell percussion, and squalling, corrupted brass characterise ‘Magic Doors’ while the doom-laden drum rolls and cancerous, radioactive bleeding edges of ‘Threads’ close the album in a clamour of nuclear alarms.
Third is not a pleasant experience. Even Mezzanine and Maxinquaye, perhaps the only other two records to have come from Bristol’s stable that come close to this in terms of foreboding aura, seem like twinkly children’s albums by comparison. Both ancient and futuristic, a mildewed signal from a more advanced culture that failed to survive the ice age, Third doesn’t make you pay attention to its desolate contours, but rather stare out of the window, creeping panic causing your mind to dart in a million dark directions at once. This is not a nice record. It is music without a time, a place or a context. Inertia, solitude, suffocation.  From: https://drownedinsound.com/releases/13067/reviews/3158523-portishead-third 

Turn Me On Dead Man - Missing Time

Turn Me On Dead Man is a rock band from San Francisco that formed at the turn of this century but didn’t release their first album until they were five years old.  Since then they’ve released a few more and have now released their newest one titled, We Are The Star People which is their first for the Alternative Tentacles label.
The band is an interesting one as they sound as if they appeared here in a time machine that left in the 1970’s. Their sound is primarily psychedelic space rock with very loud, fuzzed-out guitars that are played at volume 11. The songs are mid-tempo and have a melodic edge to them despite the big wall of sound guitars that owe at least a nod to the shoegaze and stoner metal scenes. The vocals sound layered as well and are slightly buried in the mix right behind the guitars. They’ve got some good hooks too and wrote some really catchy and soothing songs. Notable standouts include, “Dreamchild” with its very thick fuzzed out guitar songs and slightly reverb vocals and strong leads, and “Missing Time” which starts out simple and slowly builds into a dense, psychedelic wall of sound only to come gently back down. The little dabs of things like grunge and shoegaze add depth to their excellent space rock sound and this is definitely a band that would be amazing to see live at top volume. This record is a shining example of mixing the heavy with the melodic without going too far in either direction and striking that perfect balance.
In keeping with their retro style sound the band recorded this album on analog tape and the only physical media it is available on is vinyl! This kind of rock record was designed to be analog and kudos to the band and label for sticking to that format. The record does come with a download code so you can take this on the go but ideally you should be playing this on a turntable at top volume with the lights  turned down. Being my first exposure to this band I was extremely impressed with this album and now aim to check out their back catalog to see what I’m missing.  From: https://punkvinyl.com/2013/12/03/turn-me-on-dead-man-we-are-the-star-people-lp/

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/