Maria McKee - Live at The TLA, Philadelphia, PA 1998

 Maria McKee - Live at The TLA, Philadelphia, PA 1998 - Part 1

 Maria McKee - Live at The TLA, Philadelphia, PA 1998 - Part 2

 

01 Intro
02 This Perfect Dress
03 Magdelaine
04 Everybody
05 Smarter
06 Carried
07 Panic Beach
08 Shelter
09 Breathe
10 I'm Awake
11 Human
12 What Else You Wanna Know
13 If You Were Still Around
14 I'm Not Listening
15 Absolutely Barking Stars
16 Scarlover
17 Life Is Sweet

 

Two years ago, celebrated roots-rock singer Maria McKee startled her longtime followers when she put out a biting, alternative-rock album, “Life Is Sweet.” The Bowie-esque project featured not only abrasive guitars but also some songs with complicated, art rock-type arrangements--a stark departure from the traditional folk and country-rock music that had made her a critical darling and cult favorite in the ‘80s as the leader of Lone Justice and later as a solo act.
“Shock! Horror!” is how McKee laughingly says some responded to her metamorphosis on “Life Is Sweet.” And that wasn’t just fans. Her record label, Geffen, initially was reluctant to release the album because of the dramatic shift it represented. When Geffen did release it, it did so with little fanfare. McKee, however, remains unabashedly proud of it, despite its lackluster sales. “I love it. It’s like the high point of my career,” she said in a recent phone interview.
When she performs Wednesday at the Galaxy Concert Theatre in Santa Ana, playing an acoustic guitar and with support from bassist Jim Akin and keyboardist-guitarist Dennis Roche for a relatively spare performance of her recent and older songs, it won’t be a retreat into her past. Indeed, she cautioned fans not to read too much into the concert’s acoustic format, saying her next album will explore terrain similar to “Life Is Sweet,” with more streamlined arrangements.
“If I were a new artist and I had made ‘Life Is Sweet,’ it probably would have been a big alternative-rock record,” the 34-year-old Los Angeles resident said. “But because I’ve been around and people expect a certain thing, it’s difficult. . .  A lot of people don’t understand. They think, ‘You were this and now you’re that--which one are you?’ I can understand that. A lot of artists find a niche and they stick with it.”
For McKee, “Life Is Sweet” represented a personal and artistic declaration of independence. She’s long been a fan of such alternative-rock forebears as David Bowie, Patti Smith and the Velvet Underground. But until recently, she lacked the confidence to express those influences in her music because of outside expectations. McKee is no stranger to high expectations. She was still in her teens in 1983 when she became the singer in Lone Justice. The media and industry hype surrounding the country-flavored rock band was enormous when its debut album was released by Geffen in 1985.
The group was lauded by the likes of Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan, Tom Petty gave the group a song, and it toured with U2 as an opening act. McKee was considered the crown jewel in Lone Justice largely for her rich and soulful vocals and commanding stage presence. So when the “Lone Justice” album flopped, the industry rethinking kicked in. Band members were fired and new ones hired.
“People were scared and people were impatient,” she said. “People [around the band] thought that record would sell more, and when it didn’t, they began to say, ‘Maybe this guitar player isn’t good enough’ or ‘Maybe this person isn’t a good enough songwriter.’ It just turned into a mess.” Not long after the group’s second album, “Shelter,” was released in 1986, McKee was the only original member left. She went solo with her “Maria McKee” album in 1989. But that effort and the 1993 follow-up, “You Gotta Sin to Get Saved,” also failed to make her the star many expected her to be.
She now says that before “Life Is Sweet,” she was either too stubborn or too compliant in her dealings with people who were trying to help guide her career and work. “For instance, I would make an album where people would influence what I was doing more than they should have,” she said. “Then once I realized I had given up too much, I would pull in the reins a little bit. But I wasn’t able to find the right balance. I was either completely terrified and fighting my way through things when I didn’t have to,” she said, “or I was allowing people to influence me regardless of what I thought.”
When Geffen balked at releasing the “Life Is Sweet” album, McKee tried unsuccessfully to get released from her contract with the company. When she returned to Geffen recently with her latest batch of similarly styled demos, the label agreed to make her a free agent. It was clear that the old country-rock Maria McKee wasn’t coming back any time soon. “It’s not like I’m making Young Gods punk records,” she said. “Some newer songs like ‘Life Is Sweet’ could be by a Lilith Fair artist.”
Her immediate plans are to find a drummer and, with Akin and Roche aboard, to begin recording a new album in January. She probably will finance the recording herself, but she said she’d like to find a label to distribute it. Next year she also is planning to marry Akin, a Laguna Beach native. McKee is confident that there is a substantial audience out there for her new sound.
“There are people who may never listen to me again,” she said. “But people who used to say, ‘Yeah, Maria McKee is really talented, but I never really hooked into her,’ a lot of those people are suddenly fans. Previously, they may have thought I was lacking the sense of adventure that’s evident on ‘Life Is Sweet.’ “Even a lot of my old fans,” she said, “once they got over the shock, are starting to learn to appreciate the new songs more.”  From: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-dec-01-ca-49315-story.html

 

The O'Jays - When The World's At Peace

The O’Jays are one of America’s most beloved old school soul and R&B groups. You no doubt know the songs from radio play and television commercials: “Love Train,” “I Love Music,” “Use Ta Be My Girl,” and “Backstabbers.” Perhaps their 1973 hit, “For The Love of Money,” encapsulates their career looking back all these years later — more fame than money as things turned out.
The O’Jays got their start in the Cleveland, Ohio market under the name The Mascots and then The Triumphs. “Basically, everyone was singing in the clubs there, like The Music Box, and places where a lot of the Motown acts would come,” said O’Jays founder Eddie Levert of the Cleveland music scene, “like The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, The Miracles, and James Brown. That was basically the music scene. That automatically inspired a lot of younger people in the neighborhood.”
Younger people like Levert and O’Jays members Bobby Massey, Walter Lee Williams, William Powell, and Bill Isles. Levert said there were small recording studios in Cleveland attempting to model themselves after Motown, but his group decided to seek their fortunes out west. By 1963, the group was known as The O’Jays and they released the song “Lonely Drifter.” 
After The O’Jays departed Cleveland for California, they recorded a number of minor hits on Imperial Records including “Lipstick Traces,” “Look Over Your Shoulder,” and “One Night Affair.” Being stargazers of Motown superstars and motivated to reach that level of popularity drove The O’Jays members’ towards fame, but not necessarily fortune.  
“With every record we recorded in the 1960s and early ‘70s before we went to Philly International that was the idea — that we were going to have a hit record and become major stars,” said Levert. “That’s all we thought about. We were focused on being stars, not songwriters, not producers. The people that we were in business with in those days only thought of us as (performing) artists, not songwriters or producers. Now, I know I should have spent a lot more time producing and writing,” Levert continued. “I might have been much richer now.” 
Signing with Philadelphia International Records was a game-changer for the career of The O’Jays. It was during this period — 1972-79 — that the O’Jays scored all of their Billboard Top 20 chart success. The label produced what was known as the Philly International Sound and the majority of the songs recorded by the label’s artists were composed, produced, and published by the ownership songwriter team of Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff.
“They were writing such great songs,” said Eddie Levert of working in the studio with Gamble and Huff. “And you felt like, my little song, I probably should not even mention it. They were such great producers that you were almost intimidated.” Levert said that while some songs such as “Backstabbers” were essentially brought to the group to sing, “Love Train” was written in the studio as they were making the album.
“In hindsight knowing that when we recorded those songs we had a lot of input on our vocals that became identifiable with the song, that should have been part of songwriting (credits).” But it was not. The popularity of the songs, however, propelled The O’Jay’s success with concert promoters and television appearances on programs such as “Soul Train” and “American Bandstand.” 
“We got more gigs and more gigs in high profile places because of the popularity of those songs,” Levert said, “because those songs were played everywhere. We became universal.” The music of The O’Jays had an impact on many people of all walks of life, serving as a soundtrack for the lives of those music lovers. This is not lost on Eddie Levert. “A lot of that music people use in their everyday living and apply it in what they’re doing in their lives. Having that kind of affect on people with your music, you’re grateful that you had the opportunity to record those hits, but, in hindsight, you wish that you had your mind more on the business instead of just being the artist.”  From: https://veermag.com/2024/03/lessons-from-the-ojays/ 

Wovoka Gentle - Small Victory

Wovoka Gentle (now Voka Gentle) is a British folk/acoustic trio comprising twins Imogen Mason and Ellie Mason together with William J. Stokes. Their name comes from the titles of two poems in the collection Flying Over Sonny Liston by American poet Gary Short.
“Wovoka Gentle is constantly evolving project. Our roots are in traditional soil - we love the structure and soundscape in folk songs - but we wanted to work from those foundations to develop a new vocabulary, a new kind of songwriting."
Having formed in the summer of 2014, the band wrote and performed the score for avant-garde physical theatre company Stasis' production A Table, directed by Aniela Piasecka, and went on to provide music for the world premiere of Alex Howarth’s stage adaptation of What's Eating Gilbert Grape at London’s Bridewell Theatre. Informed by such collaborations as these, the use of performance art, installations and projected visuals has made its way to the heart of Wovoka Gentle’s live shows.
Wovoka Gentle launched their first EP, Wovoka Gentle , via Yucatan Records in July 2015 with a sold out show at London's Cecil Sharp House. Their next EP Wovoka Gentle followed in November 2015 with a sold out show at Electrowerkz. Third EP Wovoka Gentle , produced by Gareth Jones (Grizzly Bear, Depeche Mode, Interpol) was released on October 7th 2016.  From: https://www.last.fm/music/Wovoka+Gentle/+wiki

Stardeath And White Dwarfs - The Chrome Children

 

Oklahoma indie-poppers Stardeath and White Dwarfs are due to unleash their dreamy sounds on us Brits next month, with the release of debut single ‘Toast and Marmalade for Tea’ via Half Machine Records on 3rd March. The artwork for the single is by The Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne, who just happens to be the uncle of Stardeath frontman Dennis.

That’s a rather unusual name you’ve got there - would you care to explain it for us?

I had a dream that me and Casey were flying on a dying star through the centre of the Earth. We came out of one side, and we were at the dawn of creation, getting ready to play a show in front of God and the Devil that was set to open up the new universe. Once we realised that a dying star was a white dwarf, the rest was easy.

More specifically, why is it ‘dwarfs’ and not ‘dwarves’?!

Dwarfs are dying stars and dwarves are little people, and I don’t think I would tell people if we would have been riding a little person in my dream.

To those who’ve not taken time to listen to you, how would you best describe your sound?
Loud and psychedelic.

Your recent single was called ‘Toast And Marmalade For Tea’. Us Brits have toast mostly for breakfast, have Americans not caught on to this?

Sorry, but you can’t blame that on us! That song was written by a band called ‘Tin Tin’ in 1968, and I believe they were from your neck of the woods. But I prefer toast for breakfast as well.

The flip-side was called ‘Chemical’; does that mean you’re all one-time science geeks?

If by ‘science’ you mean drugs, then yes.

You’ve already toured with a pretty hot list of bands - who has been your favourite to play alongside?

Without a doubt, The Flaming Lips.

Oklahoma is (to us, at least) best known for the musical of the same name. What do we also need to know about your home state?

It’s the home of The Flaming Lips, Chainsaw Kittens and The Starlight Mints, and I’m pretty sure this is Kylie’s favourite place to hang out.

From: https://diymag.com/interview/stardeath-and-white-dwarfs

Following in the footsteps of Oklahoma City's most famous freaks, the Flaming Lips, psychedelic rock outfit Stardeath and White Dwarfs have been exploring the boundaries of rock music since forming in 2004. Made up of Dennis Coyne (nephew of Lips' frontman Wayne Coyne), Casey Joseph, Matt Ducksworth, and Ford Chastain, the band's sound finds spacy pop and ethereal atmospherics colliding with a fuzzed out, lo-fi aesthetic, feeling at times like a blown-out, acid-drenched take on the early work of David Bowie. Stardeath and White Dwarfs made their debut in 2005 with the EP That's Cool before eventually signing with Warner Bros, where they'd release their first full-length, The Birth, in 2009. The band would also become frequent collaborators with the Flaming Lips, appearing with them on their remake of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon, as well as their 2012 reimagining of King Crimson's In the Court of the Crimson King, Playing Hide and Seek with the Ghosts of Dawn. After signing on with David Sitek's (of TV on the Radio) label, Federal Prism, the quartet returned with their sophomore effort, Wastoid, in 2014.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/stardeath-and-white-dwarfs-mn0001041890#biography 

The Cosmic Trip Advisors - Going Down (Jeff Beck Group cover)

Here’s an interesting tale to tell. Rock band, The Cosmic Trip Advisors fly from native Scotland to a “fancy ass” studio in Sweden to record an album, to be done in double quick time. The band are not young whippersnappers, they are (ahem) well worn experienced musicians.
They want to release it on vinyl, so the next step is to convince 90 of their fans to stump up £20 for an advance order (in fact to order several months in advance), and they offer various inducements such as a hand numbered signed copy or even a namecheck credit on the album cover. This is how it is in COVID life 2020.
Well, happily they managed to sell out the first vinyl production run of 500, and subsequently another run thereafter. It keeps selling! Just then a long forgotten rehearsal tape was re-discovered, and the idea ignited to release it as a double CD, the original together with this live run through where the red record button was on “play”.
The band describe it as what it would have sounded like at a keg party done in one hour, six months later – ie no second takes, no cheats, no overdubs. Put an album cover together with a beautiful Tanya Shatseva painting and “bingo” ! And if you like that heavy rock Hammond based sound, with more than a tinge of Vanilla Fudge era type psychedelia, this could be for you.
“Shy and Retiring” vocalist Lesley McGonnal is very remisicent of Debbie Bonham, and that’s a compliment! Debbie Bonham (John’s sister) fronts a similarly heavy ass kicking sound. The Cosmic Trip advisors are a very good band (a great live experience too). Prior to this album it’s well worth checking out their covers of Blind Faith’s ‘Can’t Find My Way Home’ and Merle Haggard’s ‘Sing Me Back Home’. You won’t find 1M views for any of their online content. In fact you won’t find more than 300 sometimes, but if you’re a sucker for that classic rock organ-based sound give it a try.  From: https://getreadytorock.me.uk/blog/2021/04/album-review-the-cosmic-trip-advisors-wrong-again-albert-2-cds/ 

Sly & The Family Stone - Hot Fun In The Summertime

"Hot Fun in the Summertime" is a 1969 song recorded by Sly and the Family Stone. The single was released just prior to the band's high-profile performance at Woodstock, which greatly expanded their fanbase. Thematically, "Hot Fun in the Summertime" is a dedication to the fun and games to be had during the summer. "Hot Fun in the Summertime" was intended to be included on an in-progress album with "Everybody Is a Star" and "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)"; the LP was never completed, and the three tracks were instead included on the band's 1970 Greatest Hits LP. This song is known for its rare use of strings in a Sly and the Family Stone song, featuring violins being played in the upper register. The B-side to this single is "Fun," a song taken from the group's third album Life.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Fun_in_the_Summertime

Rubblebucket - On the Ground

I first saw Rubblebucket in college — they toured through Saratoga Springs at least twice while I was at Skidmore and put on the most exulted, raucous show I’d ever seen. The horn section parading through the crowd with a giant robot puppet, the whole crowd singing along to uniquely catchy songs. Everything they do strikes me that way: familiar yet foreign, and always delivered with wild energy. 
Survival Sounds begins with a reverbed-out drone vocal, a warbley synth playing a simple/strange melody, and then quickly explodes with a very satisfying drum hit, into joyful horns and claps. Kalmia, the lead singer and sax player, comes in singing “leave me on the ground.” To me, the song captures the exhaustion and excitement that comes with being a human. “Please don’t shake us around” like she’s requesting a little breather from the whirl wind that is life.
If you ever need a song to lift you up when it feels like you’re going around and around, making the same mistakes, blast “Carousel Ride,” the second track, and let Kalmia compel you to “dance in the fire.” The fat, crunchy guitars invite you to head bang on the choruses, while the verses call for more of a step-touch-snap. One of my favorite moments in the whole record is on this song when Kalmia sings “oops… do do do do!” A little humor and self-awareness go a long way when you’re stuck in a cyclical bummer state.
Rubblebucket has dynamism on lock. They get all the way serious, then all the way fun. The production too, often swinging from one end of the spectrum to the other in a single song. There’s this section in the middle of “Rewind,” which is an overall funky jam, that melts into a dreamy swirly reminder that “fear is a lesson,” and then swells back into the run-through-the-streets-naked groove from the beginning.
This record has such reverence for the messy process of self-discovery, love, loss, and mortality. The giganticness of the production reflects the immensity of the concepts they cover. The horn parts get so complex and there’s so many little noises that come in to ping your ears, never to be heard from again. I think I could listen to it ten times a day for years and still hear something new every time. It’s a sound track for survival, bitter sweet reflections on the past, and courageous declarations for the future set to a beat you can let toss you from side to side until you give in and dance.  From: http://www.offyourradar.com/issues/160-rubblebucket/

Scorpion Child - Kings Highway

Less enamored of the new wave of British heavy metal than its fellow contemporaries, Scorpion Child pledges troth to the early Seventies, when hundreds of proto-metal bands joined Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath in redefining the art of the riff. The Austin quintet doesn't imitate the standard forebears on its full-length debut for major label metal imprint Nuclear Blast, even if the John Bonham thud and golden god howl of opener "Kings Highway" indicate otherwise. Instead, the gnarled, psychedelic roots of early metal feed the Child's headbanging. "Your remorse finds a virtual Zen," asserts singer Aryn Black in "Antioch," dismissing sleazy seduction from power balladry with a psychotropic twinkle in his eye. "Salvation Slave" interrupts its dramatic stomp with a dreamy midsection, while the anthem "Red Blood (The River Flows)" swells from acoustic guitars and bongos to power chords and wails, dissolving its celebratory wistfulness into cricket noises and pastoral acid pop. It's not all electric fairy tales, either. The brawny "Liquor" pushes addiction agony ("I've been aching lately to see you again/And lose another friend") through a melody rippling with thunderous power, and heartbroken stomper "The Secret Spot" climbs a guitar wall four decades thick. The locals find their sweet spot with "Polygon of Eyes," a perfect marriage of chugging verses and wide open chorus breathlessly fielding the lyric, "A time sent event horizon will leave our stories behind." Produced by Chris "Frenchie" Smith, Scorpion Child keeps jeans on its hips and stars on its brow.  From: https://www.austinchronicle.com/music/2013-06-28/scorpion-child/ 

Renaissance - Black Flame

The third album by this incarnation of Renaissance was a match for their previous success, Ashes Are Burning, with equally impressive performances and songwriting and a few new musical twists added. The songs here fit more easily into a rock vein, and the prior album's folk influences are gone. Turn of the Cards rocks a bit harder, albeit always in a progressive rock manner, and Jon Camp's bass and Terence Sullivan's drums are both harder and heavier here, the bass (the group's only amplified instrument) in particular much more forward in the mix. This change works in giving the band a harder sound that leaves room for Jimmy Horowitz's orchestral accompaniments, which are somewhat more prominent than those of Richard Hewson on the prior album, with the horns and strings, in particular, more exposed. Annie Haslam is in excellent voice throughout, and finds ideal accompaniment in Michael Dunford's acoustic guitar and John Tout's piano. The writing team of Dunford and Betty Thatcher also adds some new wrinkles to the group's range -- in addition to progressive rock ballads like "I Think of You," they delivered "Black Flame," a great dramatic canvas for Haslam and Tout, in particular; and "Mother Russia" is a surprising (and effective) move into topical songwriting, dealing with the plight of Alexander Solzhenitsyn and other victims of Soviet repression (you had to be there in the 1970s to realize what a burning issue this was). And then there were the soaring, pounding group virtuoso numbers like "Things I Don't Understand," which managed to hold audience interest across nine or ten minutes of running time.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/album/turn-of-the-cards-mw0000056582#review

This is an explanation of the song "Black Flame" directly from the lyricist herself. This is an excerpt from an interview With Betty Thatcher and Annie Haslam from a broadcast on WYSP Radio on 27 June 1993. The response was transcribed verbatim and I've edited it a bit, but only to remove unnecessary text not pertaining to the answer. The transcription of the entire interview is at http://www.jtl.us/nlightsweb/lib/reviews/that.htm but this is the relevant part pertaining to this song.
Interviewer: "How about the 'Black Flame'?"
Betty Thatcher: "OK, I know exactly why I wrote that. It was about the Vietnam War. I was talking to somebody at a party and they said that they thought, ‘The killing was so bad. It was terrible.' And I said, 'Yes, of course.' And they said, 'So we should take the Americans and line them up against the wall and shoot them.' And I said, 'Well can't you hear what you are saying?' That's killing them, you're being crazy.' And, I went home from the party and thought 'Yeah, but everything's like that. It's crazy.' We're all the same. I mean, badness in people is in us; people think we're not bad, but we are. We're all capable of doing things if we think it's right. And it might be wrong."
For any Renaissance fans out there that don't already know, Betty Thatcher passed away on 15 August 2011 after a long battle with cancer. She wrote almost all of the lyrics for the group, especially during their most popular and productive period in the 1970s.  From: https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/3530822107858686059/

Quicksilver Messenger Service - It's Been Too Long

Quicksilver Messenger Service, a Capitol release from 1968, was the debut album from one of SF’s most beloved bands. QMS were one of the earliest SF bands whose roots extend back to the mid 60s when they began as a vehicle for songwriter Dino Valenti. When Valenti was thrown in jail for a drug bust, guitarists Gary Duncan and John Cipollina along with rhythm section of David Freiberg (bass) and Greg Elmore (drums) put forth the group’s finest work in 1969’s live Happy Trails and this classic self titled debut album from 1968.
Quicksilver Messenger Service’s playing time is divided evenly between shorter folk rock compositions and two, long extended guitar jams. The album kicked off with a folk rock classic, QMS’ rendition of Hamilton Camp’s “Pride of Man.” This track was released earlier, in 1967, as a single and is probably the most popular song on the album due to radio play. “Dino’s Song,” is an upbeat folk rock track that sounds like it was recorded a few years earlier. Definitely a highlight, this cut was the A-side of that same single and written by Dino Valenti. Another distinct track, “Light Your Windows,” was a group original that has a dark, romantic folk rock feel highlighted by Cipollina’s jazzy angular guitar. The two long guitar jams have held up well. “The Fool” is over twelve minutes and perhaps the group’s most complex work to date. The most important track was “Gold and Silver” which was up to that point, one of the finest instrumentals in all of rock music. The explosive dual leads of Duncan and Cipollina were revolutionary for the time and thankfully captured in the studio on this amazing track. “Gold and Silver” was more or less rock n roll’s version of Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five” and stands as one of the greatest acid guitar jams of all time.  From: https://therisingstorm.net/quicksilver-messenger-service-quicksilver-messenger-service/

Frequency Drift - Dear Maro

German band Frequency Drift have been a steady provider of their own specific brand of progressive rock ever since 2008. dropping new albums on regular intervals - and fairly frequently switching labels as well. The band appears to have settled with current label Gentle Art of Music now though, although the band itself appears in a new guise for their latest album "Letters to Maro", which was released in the spring of 2018.
To my mind, Frequency Drift is a venture that have found, explored and settled in a musical landscape very much their own. With strong ties to futuristic landscapes as well as more ancient music traditions, this is a meeting of different times and different eras, kind of a musical equivalent of Tolkien and Asimov joining ranks. If this is a description that comes across as tantalizing, then I suspect you will find this album to be rather enjoyable.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=56824 

The Bangles - Live Pittsburgh, PA 1986

 The Bangles - Live Pittsburgh, PA 1986 - Part 1

 

 The Bangles - Live Pittsburgh, PA 1986 - Part 2

 

One of the most high profile gigs of The Bangles career occurred on the tour for that sophomore album, when MTV taped an entire concert at Pittsburgh's Syria Mosque on October 29, 1986 and broadcast the performance into millions of homes that December. Capturing the group at a peak moment, this concert has since become the most ubiquitous of Bangles bootleg recordings and is essentially the closest thing to a professionally recorded live album of the band in their prime.  From: https://www.wolfgangs.com/music/the-bangles/audio/20011035-7130.html?tid=40083

The Bangles – In Concert at Syria Mosque – Pittsburgh – December 13, 1986. I have particularly fond memories of working with The Bangles, which is probably why I enjoyed this concert so much. I remember doing the video for Manic Monday just before Christmas in 1985 and how we were under pressure to get everything shot and in the can in one day. How the director was under pressure to have it edited in two days, and how the record company wanted to air it on MTV by the start of January. Everything was last minute and, in typical record company fashion, hysterical.
We had no permits to shoot and we had a skeleton crew. We were driving around L.A., pulling up to a series of what looked like good locations. Everyone, including the band, piling out of the van. Setting up and doing the shot, all in less than fifteen minutes. Packing it all back up, and bolting off to the next location and repeating the process over and over, until we had no more sun. It was Gonzo filmmaking. The Bangles were troopers. Nobody complained. We all had a wonderful time.  And even when Susanna attracted the unwanted attentions of the whacked-out homeless guy in Pershing Square, we all pitched in, carted her off to safety and disasters were avoided. We were, for that one day, a little family.
At the time, no one had a clue just how huge Manic Monday would be for the band. There was that unmistakable undercurrent of anxiety that, if this one wasn’t going to make it, it was time to call it a day and do something else. But within weeks it was a different story and there was no looking back. Manic Monday was the turning point for the band. This concert comes a little under a year after that haywire romp around L.A. – and fortunes changed dramatically in so short a time. Still, fond recollections of how things fall together effortlessly when they’re supposed to.  From: https://pastdaily.com/2021/04/21/bangles-live-pittsburgh-1986-nights-roundtable-concert-edition/#google_vignette 

 

Acid Carousel - Eyes Glow

Sloane: “How was Acid Carousel born?”

John: “Acid Carousel was born when I decided to record a few songs I'd had for awhile that I wasn't going to use for the band I was in at the time. I released one of those songs as a single on Facebook where Gus saw it. He commented that he was going to play bass for the band and I just said alright.”

Gus: “Yeah, and eventually I wanted to play guitar too so I did that.” 

Sloane: “Describe your sound in three words.”

Both: “I guess you'd describe our sound as like enamored, sexy pop. (laughs)”

Sloane: “I read that you guys try to stay on a strict release schedule of putting something out every three months. What made you make that decision to work towards a goal like that?”

Gus: “Three months I guess is just the amount of time it takes John and I to get bored of our last release and get antsy to put out something new. We don't necessarily keep up a release schedule that tight, but we just like the idea of always working on a new release. Always.”

Sloane: “Who are some of your main influences musically?”

Gus: “My main peeps I try to draw inspiration from are people like James Brown, Tim Presley, Captain Beefheart, Ray Davies, Can, Serge Gainsbourg, and some heavier stuff like the Damned and Sabbath and things. But we listen to anything we can find so our music tends to sound like a weird blend of all the different things we like.” 

John: “I get a lot of inspiration from Anton Newcombe, The Beatles, mid-sixties Brian Wilson, Brian Jones, Spoon, The Olivia Tremor Control, Syd Barrett, Donovan, etc. I could go on, but we try and draw inspiration from as much as we possibly can.” 

Sloane: “What's your writing process like? Does everyone have a certain "job" in the process, or does it vary song to song?”

Gus: “Writing process is usually all John and I. We'll both write songs to either bring to the group to learn, or we'll bring ideas to each other to help finish. Recording wise its usually just a free for all between us two and a few other people, but generally John ends up writing all the bass lines, which I'll then put drums on top of.” 

Sloane: “Has music always been something you knew you wanted to do? Or do you remember a moment that you realized it was a path you wanted to pursue?”

John: “There hasn't really been a moment in my life I can remember where I didn't want to be involved in a band or just making music. Even through some of the dumb phases I went through in middle school, like thinking I could play football, I was always thinking about how a certain artist might have gotten a certain sound or how I could write music like my influences.” 

Gus: “I guess I started playing music around age 6 and kept playing. Music was the only thing I would consistently be interested in or any good at, so eventually I just stopped doing anything else and made it my full time obsession.” 

Sloane: “So you guys started your own label, 'Get With It Records'. What inspired that and how has that been working from both angles?”

John: “The inspiration for the label was mainly just having a platform to release stuff on. We want to record other bands or release other people's music, but we're always busy working on stuff of our own, or playing shows, so we haven't had time. I also feel like it makes more sense to release on your own label, because then you can do whatever you want.” 

Gus: “Yeah if anyone wants to be our label CEO feel free to hit us up (laughs).” 

Sloane: “If you could collaborate on a song with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be and why?”

Gus: “I wouldn't wanna collaborate with James Brown because that would just be silly, but I'd give my right arm to play in the J.B.'s for like ten minutes.” 

John: “I'd probably wanna work with Brian Jones, he could play anything he wanted and write such amazing parts. We could make a super Middle-Eastern vibe record together, I feel like.” 

Sloane: “Stylistically, were you guys all on the same page about how to dress and how you guys present yourselves? Or was it something that sort of developed into what it is?”

Both: “The street cowboy life chose us, so thats how we present ourselves to the world.”  

Sloane: “How was the name Acid Carousel decided upon?”

John: “I came up with the name Acid Carousel from Brian Jonestown Massacre references. "Acid" being another name Anton Newcombe released a few songs with in the early 90s, and "Carousel" which is a song from the If I Love You EP.” 

Sloane: “What message do you hope to get through with your music?”

Gus: “I guess my songs don't really have any message, they're just a way for me to have fun expressing all the weird things I find entertaining about life.” 

John: “A lot of my songs are about actual experiences I've had or things I see going on around me. There's a lot of memories I write about, just expressing how I feel or felt about those.” 

From: https://www.tumblr.com/pour-allumer/168643532764/interview-john-gus-of-acid-carousel

Sam Phillips - Love and Kisses / Baby I Can't Please You

The meaning behind ‘Baby, I Can't Please You’ has caused a bit of confusion over the years. With its politically charged video that alternates the breakdown of a right wing spy with flashes of Rush Limbaugh's face on a TV screen, most fans assume the song was aimed at the conservative radio host. The lyrics even seem to accuse Limbaugh and his contemporaries of a fear-mongering agenda: "You try to tell the world how it should spin, But you live in terror with the hollow men, Who stun you with their lies, With fever in their eyes as they drown you." 
But, according to Sam Phillips, the possibility of a political interpretation is just that - a possibility. She said in our interview: "It's not specifically about Rush Limbaugh, but it might be about what's wrong with Rush Limbaugh. But that might also be what's wrong with somebody else who's liberal. I try to make them a little bit more human than specific in that sense, so that 'Baby I Can't Please You' is a broader concept. It could be in a love relationship. It could be in a political relationship. Hopefully there are many levels you can take any of my songs on. That is always my aim."  From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/sam-phillips/baby-i-cant-please-you 

Superheaven - Stare At The Void

 

Upon hearing a band returning from a 10-year hiatus, you might expect them to sound a little rusty. That certainly isn’t the case for Superheaven, who have returned even stronger after an extended break. The Pennsylvania rock band formed in 2008, releasing a handful of EPs under the name Daylight. But it was with the release of their 2013 debut LP Jar that the band began to make a name for themselves—not long afterward, they officially became Superheaven.
 Setting Superheaven apart from other heavier bands in the early 2010s was their embrace of ’90s aesthetics—specifically shoegaze and grunge. Along with a healthy dash of hardcore thrown in, Superheaven’s music provided an intoxicating duality of heaviness, both riveting and dreamy. The group built on this with 2015’s Ours Is Chrome, but shortly afterward began that 10-year hiatus. In the years since, they would get together for one-off shows, but Superheaven’s big return to performing live came in the form of their tour celebrating the 10-year anniversary of Jar, which inspired the band to create new music.
Superheaven, the band’s third studio album, arrives a decade after the arrival of Ours Is Chrome. As much as it is a return to the band’s signature aesthetic, it also shows off how strong their songwriting talents have grown. I had the opportunity to talk with vocalist/guitarist Jacob Clarke and vocalist/guitarist Taylor Madison about Superheaven’s new album, the band’s hiatus, their thoughts on modern audiences being drawn to grunge, and more.

Treble: Playing the 10-year anniversary Jar shows clearly influenced the band, ultimately inspiring you to make new music. Prior to those shows, had there been any discussions about making new material?

Jacob Clarke: Yeah, we were always open to writing new material if it felt natural to us. As we were practicing for those shows, people would bring in ideas or a riff that they had been playing around with. We would jam on those ideas a bit during rehearsals and new songs started to take shape.

Treble: In a 2016 social media post, the band wrote that you were going on hiatus from full time touring to “pursue things in our own personal lives.” How difficult was it putting Superheaven on hiatus? Were there any reservations about that, or were you all really itching to explore other creative outlets/personal projects?

JC: It wasn’t that difficult really. We got to the point where we started to feel that in order to push things forward with the band, we would have to take on opportunities that were inauthentic to who we were. That wasn’t something we were willing to do so it made sense to take a break from touring. I think we were all in agreement that if opportunities came along that we felt good about, we would do them. We’ve always operated by doing what feels natural and right for us.

Treble: Several years after its release, “Youngest Daughter” went viral on TikTok and raised awareness of Superheaven big time. While understandably surprising, how does it feel to have such an intensely intimate song discovered on such a large scale? Additionally, how much of an influence, if any, did this moment have on the band’s decision to make new music?

Taylor Madison: While it’s great that it has resonated the way it has, I’m not sure how many people really connect with the subject matter of the song.  We wrote “Youngest Daughter” so long ago I’m not really sure I even have the same connection to the subject matter now. While it’s great to have all these new eyes on the band, it didn’t really have any impact on our decision to write new music.  That was only going to happen if ideas were coming to us organically and we were all excited about them.

Treble: How did the chemistry in the room feel coming together for a new album? Instrumentally speaking, how does writing work for you guys?

TM: It felt natural. When we were rehearsing for the anniversary tour, pieces of “Long Gone” and “Numb To What Is Real” started to come together. Each idea for a song starts out differently, usually one of us brings in a part and if everyone likes, we start to flesh it out. With “Long Gone” for example Joe [Kane, bassist] had brought in that main riff, which he had been working on outside of our practices. We all were into it, and we started to chip away at building a song around it, fleshing out a melody and lyrics.

Treble: How much of a collaborative process is lyric writing? Is there much conversation regarding how the band’s instrumentation is informed by lyrics, or vice versa?

TM: Generally speaking, if an idea for a song comes from a specific member of the band, they’ll also write the lyrics for the track. Sometimes we’ll collaborate if we need to figure out a melody or how to make it work with the song. Everybody’s approach is different, but I prefer to write my lyrics once the music is all fleshed out. Often when I have a melody in mind for the vocals, I’ll definitely write the lyrics to match and capture a certain feeling that I want the song to convey.

Treble: There’s been a resurgence of grunge and shoegaze over the years. What do you think has led to this renewed interest? What is it about this kind of music that you feel is emotionally resonating with audiences today?

JC: I think rock music in general is seeing a resurgence. Look at bands like Turnstile and what they are doing. There are so many bands that fit the “grunge” or “shoegaze” tags that never got their moment in the spotlight and now these younger audiences are discovering them. I think there is definitely an aspect of a generational shift back towards guitars which has helped drive this. I can’t really speak to what is emotionally driving it, but I like to think that people are just excited about good songs and giving them their due.

From: https://www.treblezine.com/superheaven-interview-look-horizon/

Iris DeMent - Our Town

I was wondering aloud whether the place Iris DeMent had in mind when writing and singing about Our Town was her home town of Paragould, Arkansas, or Cypress, California, where she grew up. It was neither, as I seem to remember Bill Taylor pointing out. DeMent based her song on some back-of-beyond Oklahoma dump whose inhabitants deserved better. I cannot find trace of the name of the town - maybe towns - that inspired her but this was how she described it in an NPR interview:
"I remember passing through this little town that was your typical dead town there in the Midwest, a lot of boarded-up windows, little white buildings with peeling paint, all the life had gone right on out of it.  And that was the first time in my life that I felt a song coming on like it wasn't just me trying to make something happen."  From: https://www.salutlive.com/2021/05/out-town.html

Jellyfish - The King Is Half-Undressed

Jellyfish were the right band at the wrong time. Their first single, The King Is Half-Undressed, in 1991, sounded like The Beatles, Queen and ELO rolled into one – a baroquerock blitz that should have made them huge right out of the gate. But in 1990 they arrived on a scene that was ruled by two trends: boy bands and grunge. 
“Not only did we not fit with the sounds of the time,” Roger Manning Jr. tells Classic Rock, “but it was very clear that what Andy [Sturmer] and I enjoyed writing and collaborating on, our sound and vision, was going further and further away from our generation at that time. But we didn’t really care about scenes. For us, it always came down to the song.” 
Manning and Sturmer met in high school in San Francisco, bonding over record collections and a love of 60s melodic pop. Their first band together, Beatnik Beatch, got signed to Atlantic, then “quickly got lost in the shuffle”. From the wreckage, the two friends formed the nucleus of Jellyfish. 
Of their early days, Manning recalls: “I was working sales at a music store in Haight-Ashbury. I dreaded it, but at least I could make enough to pay for the closet I was living in for a few hundred a month. It was a starving-artist, eye-on-the-prize, but pretty humiliating existence. But it happened to be an existence set in the basement of a recording studio.” Following the lead of studio-hermit artists such as Talking Heads and Tears For Fears, the pair started logging every spare moment demo-ing their songs and learning about recording. 
“We got used to being these lone guns,” Manning says. “A lot of our heroes talked about getting record deals through the demo process, not through playing the club circuit and getting discovered by some record company scout. It was more like, figure out how to make the best-sounding demo you can with the equipment you have, and that’s what’ll seal the deal. 
“That’s what we believed in,” Manning continues. “We didn’t really have a choice, because we didn’t have a band yet. So we taught ourselves all the technology.” Along with their technical forays, the friends were constantly composing. The King Is Half-Undressed began with a verse idea that Manning says was sparked by his brief stint playing keyboards with the Paisley Underground band The Corsairs. 
“They were led by Alan Shalby, who was just this wunderkind. A surfer, a car mechanic and an incredible songwriter. He was like a Beach Boy out of the sixties, but in the late eighties. He was also the big brother I never had to kick my ass creatively. He encouraged me. It was more education than I’d received in any course in music school. 
“So I started The King Is Half Undressed literally just copping this verse feel that Alan had in one of his songs. Of course, I changed the chords and melody. I was very excited about it, and brought it to Andy. In fifteen minutes we finished the chorus together. He came up with that repetitive melodic pattern, and we just sat there, streamlining it. We were both like: ‘Wow, that’s solid!’” 
The evocative title, a play on Hans Christian Andersen’s folktale The Emperor’s New Clothes, inspired a free-associative lyric from Sturmer. In 1993 he told me: “As a lyricist, I try not to edit myself, because I think when you do that kind of Kerouac-type of writing, just blurting things out, that’s the real window to your psyche. 
"It’s like speaking in tongues, and you’ll hit on certain phrases that really resonate. And it’s funny, a lot of people will come up to me quoting some lyric back to me, a line that I wouldn’t have thought would make sense to anybody, and it touches them in some way. The King Is Half-Undressed has an element of that.”
Their demo served as a blueprint for the recording, with two changes. “Our producer Albhy Galuten suggested we try a different feel on the verse,” says Manning, “which led Andy to come up with that Tomorrow Never Knows-type groove. It was intense to watch him perform that live. It was quite athletic. And then Jason [Falkner, guitar] came up with the idea for the vocal interlude section, with those Crosby, Stills And Nash cluster-type harmony vocals. That really sealed it for me. Then we wanted a further departure, where the song came down to almost nothing before we return to the chorus out. ” The end result was insanely catchy, but, at four minutes and with tempo shifts, a challenging spin for radio.
“Every song on [Jellyfish’s 1990 debut album] Bellybutton was completely irrelevant to what was currently going on in commercial music,” Manning says with a laugh. “But all the songs are single-worthy. We were adamant about having a chorus that was some kind of ear worm. The label got behind it. So did MTV. So initially the song came out guns blazing.”  From: https://www.loudersound.com/features/jellyish-king-is-half-undressed 

Faun - Satyros

Emer: So, here we are. Firstly, What impression do you get of playing at Castlefest?

Niel: We have just had our new cd out, Eden, and we are quite proud of it. It’s a nice feeling to be here at Castlefest and to see the people keen on the new album. We love to play at Castlefest!

Emer: Tell me about Faun ‘s new album.

Niel: The album is called Eden, like the garden of Paradise and this is like the main theme of our new recording. On the way to the album we found many aspects of the garden of Eden in the music we play. At the beginning we didn’t have a plan of making a concept album in this direction, but it crystallized that. There are turkish songs where boys and girls are playing in a garden, it’s got a headline like heaven. It is about people telling you that heaven is not on earth. We have come across many songs, also about the aspect and meaning of the apple.

Emer: What is Faun about for you personally?

Niel: Not a difficult but really a great question because many things can be said. We combine instruments from medieval times, from other cultures and try to make modern music, combining it with electronics and percussion. We try to promote a feeling to connect people back to nature, to a spiritual connection with it and with the world.

Emer: This is certainly a very interesting trait of Faun ‘s music, and the content, I personally find, is very simple and straightforward, it goes directly to the point: the simple values of life. It says “enjoy life” !

Niel: oh yeah.

Emer: How is this tour going?

Niel: Autumn will see a long big tour with Eden. A specialised stage show which will be connected to Eden.

Emer: What is your favourite song from Faun?

Niel: woah! Arcadia is my favourite song but is is also very difficult. You know, once I was out of the studio, sitting at home listening to the cd waiting for some kind of feeling. At a certain point I said to myself, “Ok, now I’m gonna listen to it as a record”, focusing on every single track and from the beginning I liked it so much that the album was playing for days in my house! I just couldn’t stop! I think this is the best thing that can happen when you come out of the studio.

Emer: What can you tell me about the instruments that Faun use? I find very interesting the blend of old with the new, of the traditional instruments with the use of electronic frequencies.

Niel: The special message that Faun wants to express would not be possible with the normal setup, like guitars, bass, drums. What we play are traditional instruments such as the nickelharp, irish bouzouki, overtone flutes…all of this give a characteristic sound. And here we have a specialist of drums and percussions.

Rüdiger: I play also Brasilian drums, a very light drum that has also an oriental sound.

Emer: As you said before, if you want to connect people through your music, you need “natural instruments” too…

Niel: We also use electronics of course. Before Faun, I was making ambient, quiet music, taking samples from the woods.

Emer: Through the use of frequencies to get to the underlying message

Niel: Yeah. What I mostly did in the album Eden was using samples of special instruments, like for example the noise you obtain from a bouzouki hitting the body. What I personally find great about the album is that it is very “organic”, you don’t notice the borders between electronics and natural sounds. This was also my goal.

Emer: So they blend together very naturally

Niel: Exactly.

From: https://musicadraconia.wordpress.com/2011/10/18/faun-interview-at-castlefest-2011/

Cornelius - If You're Here

Cornelius — yes, taking his name from The Planet of the Apes character — is a huge star in his homeland of Japan. He never really achieved success in the States, touring only sporadically during the late 1990s and early 2000s behind albums released on Matador Records: '98's Fantasma and 2002's Point. In 2002, I managed to catch Cornelius playing a support slot to Air at a show in Munich. It was one of the best concert performances I've ever seen, especially because of the syncopation of the live music and visual effects. I heard good reports of Cornelius's show last year at Eaux Claires, too, where he played Fantasma in its entirety. So it was a very pleasant surprise to hear that Cornelius is ending a hiatus of 11 years with a new release coming July 1. The video for the first single, "If You're Here," gives you an idea of what he's capable of. It's the best use of coffee, cigarettes and keychains ever!  From: https://www.thecurrent.org/feature/2017/05/30/dj-pick-of-the-week-cornelius-if-youre-here

Bent Knee - Invest In Breakfast

From the cacophonous opening blasts of “Invest in Breakfast,” the first track on Bent Knee’s latest record Frosting, you have some idea of the funhouse of sound the band operates within even if you’re unfamiliar with their back catalog. It’s a song about, um, something (feeling like oregano? Is this relatable?), but the lyrics and not-infrequent use of vocal distortion mostly serve to further scramble the wonky, left-turn instrumentals which frequently bring to mind the fractured disco of a group like Guerilla Toss mixed with just a bit of chiptune influence. “‘Invest in Breakfast’ sounds like an indecipherable cascade of pop-up ads, group texts, and unread email reminders smashing through your screen and reminding you to buy something,” the band aptly shares of the single. Ah, knew it sounded familiar.
It makes sense, then, that the video they’re now attaching to the song depicts a cascade of imagery that’s hard to keep up with, as the band members’ singing faces are imposed over a wide range of stock footage. “I’ve always wanted to put my head on a toddler’s body and squish Courtney’s face with a big gross foot,” adds bassist Jessica Kion, who animated the clip, which might have been better suited with a premiere on Adult Swim.  From: https://floodmagazine.com/96324/bent-knee-invest-in-breakfast-video-premiere/