Cream - We're Going Wrong - Live

I saw Cream in fall of 1968, October, Olympia Stadium in Detroit (the old Red Wings arena). The stage was set up in the middle of the arena, me and my friends were lucky to have seats in the first row of the ‘regular hockey seats’ (there were chairs set on the floor as well), and we happened to be close to the center of the arena so we were close to them, and by luck a little in front of them (there was seating behind them as well IIRC) - perfect seats IMO.
Clapton was all in white - white pants, white shirt, white mod jacket. Clean-shaven, perfectly coifed long-ish straight hair hanging over and semi-hiding his face. There was no ‘show’ put on - they weren’t showmen except for Ginger Baker (RIP), who looked just like Sesame Street’s “Animal”, who I figured was modeled on him … tho Ginger also looked like he was 100 years old, altho he was 28. Jack Bruce (RIP) was all business but went all-out, workman-style. He quickly looked a mess up there, but he wasn’t there for his looks. Powerful voice, and much more of a bass-playing virtuoso than we knew or were expecting. And the band was all business … serious British Blues from start to finish. Massively loud, especially Clapton … but we were used to that, and after all that’s what we were there for … we loved it.
The performance was magnificent … three guys sounding every bit as good as their records (except the opening to “White Room”, which they did as a voice-harmony). Clapton was absolutely virtuosic (spoiling me from ever appreciating, for example, Jimmy Page in the two times I saw Led Zep), as we got used to him being - tho his voice was noticably weaker than Bruce’s, and he seemed to use it in the upper ranges as if that’s where he wanted to be, tho he’s not a tenor. Bruce never went into falsetto on “White Room”, which he did on the record I believe … and he sounded better in his regular voice here.
They played their classic Cream songs (from what I remember) including “Sunshine of Your Love” (which Clapton introduced, saying only, “And now … our Hit”), “White Room,” “I’m So Glad,” “Politician,” the great “Deserted Cities of the Heart” (my favorite Cream song), “Spoonful”, “Crossroads”, Baker’s “Toad” & “I Feel Free”. It was powerful, wonderful … Clapton was Clapton, Bruce was so impressive, and Baker was Ginger.
We’d seen, just weeks before, the magnificent “Jeff Beck Group” (Beck, Rod Stewart on vocals, Ronnie Wood on bass, the great Nicky Hopkins on keyboards, Micky Waller on drums), and in a smaller venue … so the bar had set been extremely high for us. This concert was every bit as good … and in a live performance there’s a huge built-in advantage in having an additional instrument up there, which Jeff Beck had in Nicky Hopkins (RIP), as well in having a smaller venue (for sound quality).

From: https://www.quora.com/What-was-it-like-to-see-the-band-Cream-play-live

Jaala - Hard Hold

When she was recording her band’s debut album, Cosima Jaala leapt around the studio, whiskey-drunk and mostly naked, with a wildness that surprised even her. “It was a magical summoning of power,” she explains when we meet in the shady yard of her Melbourne share-house,“It was something that I didn’t really have at the time.” The resulting record, Hard Hold, has been described as jazzy, but Jaala rejects most of those comparisons. “If a chord isn’t major or minor, people just say it’s jazz,” she says. Rodeo-riding the dynamic instrumentation is her soulful, elastic voice, which Jaala attributes to the cigarettes she smokes throughout our talk. Producer and engineer Paul Bender, who also plays bass with Australian neo-soul quartet Hiatus Kaiyote, was the one who first urged her not to be shy with her singing. Now she holds little back, ripping out anguished screams one second and dropping to a rattling husk the next.
Jaala was raised in Queensland, in a working-class beach town southeast of Brisbane with plenty of insidious ugliness: underage sex, hard drugs, gambling. “I started binge-drinking young because it was the kind of thing you did,” she says. “There was no real scope of the outside world. It was this reality that I figured out from a young age I didn’t want to be in.” I’d rather give my two good playing hands than stay in that hot climate and marry one of those men, she vows over a couple sideways chords on “Salt Shaker.”
As a young teen, Jaala escaped the humdrum grit of Queensland with her close friend, Maddie. “We started creating our own personal myths; we went through the existential phase of ‘Oh, everyone’s just moving the furniture around. Let’s get out of here and be us’,” she tells me. “We would go to the bookshop and find literature that spoke of the outside world.” The book Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins, which tells of the “iron and fuzz” required to steer one’s own destiny, was the catalyst that eventually encouraged her to skip town.
First she moved to Brisbane, where she haunted the pokey indie venue Ric’s Bar and observed the power held by cocky guys in rock bands. At 19, she moved to the creative hub of Melbourne and formed bands of her own—groups that teetered the line between punk and performance art, and had names like Velcro Lobster and Mangelwurzel—before focusing on her eponymous project in late 2014, and filling out its lineup with drummer Maria Moles, bassist Loretta Wilde, and guitarist Nicolas Lam. The result was a fleshed-out sound that channeled the vibes of classic indie misfits—particularly the buoyancy of X-Ray Spex and the temperamental rhythms of Throwing Muses.
Hard Hold documents a breakup, something Jaala says she felt better about when she heard Vulnicura, Björk’s 2015 album, which gorgeously chronicles the dissolution of a relationship. “I don’t think he’s too happy about these songs,” she says of her ex, “but he does the same thing with his band so it’s a pretty even playing field.” For Jaala, the record is like reaching out to her troubled teenage self. “When you had a hard time growing up, you want to send messages back: it’s going to be okay.” The ultimate gift, she reckons, would be to touch a nerve with those teens the way songwriters like Martha Wainwright and Jeff Buckley did with her. “They were so openly emotional and female, and so is this,” she says. “My album should just be called Songs From My Cunt.”
Near the end of our chat, Jaala fidgets with her blonde mop of hair and exhales a cloud of white smoke with gusto. She’s got the sort of presence that seems like it could get you both into a lot of trouble. “Last year was the most wasted year of my life,” she says, as if to confirm. “But it’s turned out to be the most fruitful, which is fucking hilarious.” This unruliness is evident across her project: in press photos, she’s lying in a bath with a rubber ducky; in videos, she’s sat on a toilet with tampons inserted up both nostrils. “Music innately is childish and playful,” she says. “When you’re older, you’re taught to shut that side of you off. But there are spirits that can hang around and compel you to do things.” She thinks for a moment. “If I was living a hundred years ago, I would have been institutionalised or murdered.”  From: https://www.thefader.com/2016/03/02/jaala-hard-hold-interview-gen-f

The Isley Brothers - It's Your Thing

"It's Your Thing" is a funk single by The Isley Brothers. Released in 1969, the anthem was an artistic response to Motown chief Berry Gordy's demanding hold on his artists after the Isleys left the label in late 1968. After scoring one popular hit with the label, with the song "This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak for You)", the Isleys felt typecast in the role as a second-tier act while well-established Detroit acts like The Temptations, The Miracles, and the Four Tops got more promotion from the label Motown.
The brothers' decision to leave Motown came after a successful British tour, where they had a bigger fan base than in the United States. A re-release of "This Old Heart" had reached number three on the UK Singles Chart. Similar success came with two more singles from their Motown catalog that were hits well after their Motown departure. Berry Gordy allowed the brothers to leave the label, and the Isleys reactivated their own label, T-Neck Records, which they had originally started a few years prior to their Motown signing.
Recorded in two takes and featuring the first appearance of 16-year-old Ernie on bass and Skip Pitts on guitar. The song was released as a single on February 16, 1969, and quickly rose to the top of both the Billboard pop and R&B singles charts, peaking at No. 2 on the former nd marking their first No. 1 hit in the latter. Upon the song's release and ascent to success, Gordy threatened to sue the group for releasing it in an attempt to bring them back to Motown, but he eventually cancelled his threat.
The song has been credited for being one of the first fully-fledged funk songs at the time that such artists as James Brown and Sly and the Family Stone brought their own funk anthems to the scene. Brown used the musical background from the song for the songs "It's My Thing (You Can't Tell Me Who to Sock It to)", an answer song by Marva Whitney, and Brown's own 1974 single, "My Thang".  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_Your_Thing

In this song, Ronald Isley is letting a girl know that she is free to spread her love around, as long as he gets some of it too. “It’s Your Thing” was a popular saying at the time and wonderfully ambiguous, so it could have a sexual connotation or simply be about personal independence.

In an interview on The Isley Brothers: Summer Breeze Greatest Hits Live DVD, Ronald Isley says he wrote this song while dropping his daughter off at school one day. He didn’t want to forget the lyrics so he hummed it in his head and rushed straight to his mother’s house to write it out. He sang it for his eldest brother O'Kelly, who thought it to be a hit, so they set up studio time to record it.

How did Ernie end up playing bass on this song?

Well, I was prepared in my mind to play drums. In rehearsal I had played drums, and then I switched off the drums and played the bass part. When we got to the session I was setting up the drum kit and the bass player came in, and I showed him what I had been playing. And when he started playing, he was more or less playing what he felt, but it wasn’t what I showed him. So just before we started the actual recording, Ronald came over to me and said in my ear, “You’re gonna play bass”, and my heart was immediately thumping. I was scared.They handed me the guy’s bass and put the headphones on me. I heard a voice saying, “Rolling” and counted it off. I held onto the bass for dear life and played it. And it turned out that it worked. Everything about that song, everything about that record worked. Everything. The tempo, the lyrics, the musical track. Ronald sang it on one take, the very first take. Of course, we didn’t know that it was going to be the Frankenstein monster hit 45 for the Isley Brothers’ career.
— Ernie Isley, Noozhawk, 2018

From: https://genius.com/The-isley-brothers-its-your-thing-lyrics

Magic Fig - Goodbye Suzy

Wondrous, majestic, and fantastical, Magic Fig’s debut rarely feels of these times, and it’s all the better for it. As so many struggle with their day to day existence, trying to make ends meet as the world crumbles around them, it’s not hype and “buzz” that we’re in search of, but a great escape, a place beyond the daily grind, beyond this realm altogether. The band’s self-titled album is an ever shifting kaleidoscope, the shapes all recognizable yet refracted in mirrored splendor. It’s a decidedly pop odyssey that wanders deep into the woods of late 60’s prog, Moog altered psych, and dream pop at its most visionary, a lysergic trip into an unknown cosmic past. As the isolation of the pandemic developed a need for collaboration and a communal approach in its wake, so came to be Magic Fig, stepping outside our reality, figuratively and somewhat literally as we decontextualize those involved from their best known work.
Featuring a selection of the Bay Area’s indie pop elite that includes members of The Umbrellas, Whitney’s Playland, Almond Joy, and Healing Potpourri, they’ve strayed beyond the jangle and crunch of power-pop, beyond any remnants of twee charm, instead embracing a tireless radiance and tasteful complexity. Magic Fig, comprised of Jon Chaney (keys), Matthew Ferrara (bass), Taylor Giffin (drums), Muzzy Moskowitz (guitars), and Inna Showalter (vocals), has one foot deep in the explorative and enigmatic world of Canterbury prog and the other in the pitch-bending dimension of psych. With nods to pioneers like Soft Machine, Caravan, and The United States of America, it’s clear that Magic Fig comes from a place of reverence, but the band are playing by their own rules. Having mastered the core elements of fuzzy pop hooks in their respective projects, they’re flexing different muscles, diving into the immersive abstract.
There’s an incredible balance to the record, the structures contort and drift into the choral abyss yet remain compact and breezy. It’s unabashed prog with a childlike glow, re-orchestrating our brains in under a half an hour, the band as concise as they are dazzling. The way Magic Fig weaves amorphous keys and dexterous rhythms with vocal melodies that feel more Broadcast or Stereolab than say Caravan, is rich with texture and immaculate detail. This isn’t progressive in an overtly flashy or indulgent way, the band are simply changing our mind’s chemistry, astounding with a graceful technicality (Taylor Giffin’s drumming alone will leave jaws glued to the floor). The songs evolve in plumes of serenity, a  never ending dream that remains eternally engaged, impossible to walk away from unchanged. Working together with producer Joel Robinow (of Once and Future Band, Howlin Rain), Magic Fig found their kindred spirit, an engineer whose own musical output could be considered their sonic and spiritual sibling. The recording is clear and precise, yet never overly polished, captured with a retro warmth that details each colossal drum fill, the natural waves of structural shifts, the celestial layering, and the unearthly hum of the manipulated Moog.
Magic Fig’s blend of prog and psych is sophisticated and developed, there’s a sense of patience even in the most dexterous of movements. From the hypnotic blossom of album opener “Goodbye Suzy” and its luminescent harmonies and the cavalcade of divergent drum patterns to the folk-leaning ease and natural aura of “Departure,” the band feel locked into the whole. They’re painting in unison with shimmering renaissance detail to create a singular masterpiece, a culmination of widespread ideas, each stunning texture given room to expand, balanced and with perfect synergy. Where songs like “PS1” lean toward lounge psych and “Distant Dream” opts for a laconic jazz induced art pop drift (reminiscent of Pearl & The Oysters), Magic Fig pair those moments with the pulsating paisley prog spirals of the appropriately named “Labyrinth” and the building disorientation of “Obliteration,” a song both gentle, soaring, and at times, rhythmically jagged.
Magic Fig is a record best experienced with an open mind. While the prog and psych inclinations create mountainous dynamics, being a fan of either genre isn’t inherently necessary on a record that’s far more accessible than one might imagine. Grandiose but delicate, Magic Fig are putting the pop into prog, and it’s safe to say they’ve stumbled onto something special, a slinking metamorphosis from magical dream state to vivid sonic exploration.  From: http://post-trash.com/news/2024/5/12/album-of-the-week-magic-fig-magic-fig

The Byrds - I Come and Stand At Every Door

There's no intro, just a chiming chord and straight into the vocal: "I come and stand at every door, but no one hears my silent tread. I knock and yet remain unseen, for I am dead, for I am dead." It's the recognisable Byrds sound, that Rickenbacker whine, but the tempo is slow, deliberate, with Michael Clarke's drums – so alive and mobile elsewhere – dragging behind the beat, like a funeral march.
On vinyl, I Come and Stand at Every Door is placed at the end of the first side of the Byrds' third album, Fifth Dimension: following three fast, super intense, proto-psychedelic tunes (Mr Spaceman, I See You, What's Happening?!?!), it could almost be a drag – and then Roger McGuinn's patient, paper-thin voice sucks you right in.
Musically, it's one long, lilting drone, taken from a traditional folk melody called Great Selchie of Shule Skerry (recorded by Judy Collins on her second album). The lyrics are adapted from a poem by the celebrated Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet – spoken from the viewpoint of a seven-year-old child incinerated at Hiroshima: "I'm seven now as I was then/When children die they do not grow."
I Come and Stand at Every Door was recorded in May 1966. During the previous year, pop had begun to go deeper and darker. Bob Dylan's ascent to mass popularity kick-started the protest boom of late 1965: among the plaints both consequential and trivial were anti-nuclear rants like Barry McGuire's Eve of Destruction and Tim Rose's Come Away Melinda.
The Byrds were more thoughtful. Thanks to their manager, Jim Dickson, and their own experiences, they had direct access to the hardcore beat/folk tradition. They had all grown up with the work of the blacklisted Pete Seeger, whose adaptations informed the Byrds' versions of The Bells of Rhymney and Turn Turn Turn, and whose translation of Hikmet's poem they used on this song.
The third verse takes you into the heart of the holocaust: "My hair was scorched by swirling flame/My eyes grew dim, my eyes grew blind/Death came and turned my bones to dust/And that was scattered by the wind." There is no solo, no break, just the relentless, measured, quiet voice: "I ask for nothing for myself/For I am dead, for I am dead."
No pop song had gone so far, nor pitched it so right. The documentary feel makes it of a piece with Peter Watkins's contemporaneous BBC film, The War Game (shot in 1965, scheduled for transmission in August 1966), which simply aimed to show the effect of a one megaton nuclear bomb hitting the town of Rochester. Banned by the BBC as "too horrifying", it was not shown until 1985.
Nuclear weapons haunted 60s pop culture. Throughout the 50s, there had been H-Bomb tests – weapons with the power of multiple Hiroshimas – and the world had nearly come to an all-out nuclear war during the Bay of Pigs face-off in October 1961. Throughout the late 50s and early 60s CND was a mass youth movement in the UK.
This ever-present threat – the Big Fear of the age – fostered a kind of mass existentialism. As Jeff Nuttall wrote in his brilliant survey of the 60s underground, Bomb Culture: "The people who had not yet reached puberty at the time of the bomb were incapable of conceiving of life with a future." The only certain thing in this world was what Nuttall called "the crackling certainty of Now".
People look back at the extraordinary explosion of music in the 60s with their own prejudices. They forget that it was rooted in a consciousness that felt the world could vaporise in an instant. In the same way, the onset of commercial youth culture – heralded by the creation of "the teenager" in late 1944/early 1945 – coincided with the end of the second world war and the terrible events in Japan.
I Come and Stand at Every Door reinforces this fundamental connection. But there is a resolution, some light at the end of the horror. As the song moves to its climax, a harmony voice comes in: "All that I ask is that for peace/You fight today, you fight today/So that the children of this world/May live and grow and laugh and play." The sense of catharsis is palpable.  
The Byrds put this masterpiece of tension and release into the US top 30 when its parent album Fifth Dimension entered the charts in September 1966. With nuclear weapons back in the news, this haunting, almost forgotten, song still strikes a chord.  From: https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2009/oct/12/jon-savage-byrds

Laura Marling - Devil's Spoke

After three months of shuttered concert venues, hearing Laura Marling’s voice eddy around the Union Chapel in north London is like being dosed with a vitamin I had been leaving out of my diet. It’s almost like hearing live music for the first time; a different kind of beauty than you get on a daily walk or a drive to a castle, something vividly real but constantly evaporating into the air.
Aside from 25 production staff, there’s almost no one else in the venue for this concert, which is being streamed online as one of the first fully realised gigs since the arrival of coronavirus. Backed solely by her acoustic guitar, Marling plays one set for the UK in the evening and a later one for a US audience. She is recorded in crystal clarity and filmed on three cameras, two of them roving around and approaching her, capturing the changing weather across her face.
There have been plenty of free lo-fi performances by stars on Instagram during lockdown, or charity initiatives such as Together at Home, but Marling’s concert is the next step for a live music sector flailing for its previous levels of artistry and revenue: £900m losses are predicted for this year in the UK. The event is ticketed at £12 or $12 a stream, and while her manager won’t give me exact numbers, he says more than 6,000 have been sold. Michael Chandler, the chief executive of Union Chapel, says events such as this feel like “a glimmer of light” for a shuttered venue that, with two-metre social distancing, could only accommodate 84 of its usual 900 capacity.
“I loved it,” Marling says between her sets, relaxed and happy. “I love the weirdness of the intensity of playing live, and that was a totally uninterrupted version of it. I don’t have to take a break and say something awkward – banter doesn’t come naturally to me.”
Marling superfan Mitchell Stirling, who watched the livestream at home and has seen her 32 times before, concurs. “Laura’s never one for onstage banter, so you’re not missing out on that kind of thing,” he says. “It was a strange hinterland between being at an intimate concert and watching a DVD, but it was excellent.” Another fan, Hannah Gallagher, says it was “gorgeous, and the production values were incredible. She doesn’t need to pull out many tricks, and that translated well. Me and my boyfriend WhatsApp-called each other while livestreaming the concert on our laptops; he put his phone up next to him so he could turn to me as if he was standing next to me at a gig, which was really nice.”
The livestream’s director, Giorgio Testi, says it is “a dream come true, because you can capture the beauty of the venue and the artist without ruining the experience for people watching in a crowd. My job can become even more creative.” He aimed for “something extremely cinematic”, using ambitiously long, unbroken shots to help immerse everyone watching at home, and says this approach demands an artist of Marling’s calibre. “It brings back the importance of being a very good performer, because you can’t hide. Either you can do it, or you shouldn’t show up on stage.”
The chat-averse Marling doesn’t acknowledge his cameras’ presence, but says there is potential for other performers to play around with them. “The ability to think up a persona with that level of intricacy is actually really hard, and that doesn’t come naturally to me, either. My persona, I guess, is holding on to intensity for as long as I possibly can. For other people, it’s more theatrical, and that could be an amazing extra quality to this new normal.”
The hope is that this could become an entirely new ticketed format to match the success of livestreamed theatre and opera performances, with the strictures of coronavirus forcing people to embrace the idea. Audiences who live too far from a touring route could get to experience a performer at close quarters, and as Hannah says: “There was no one putting their phones up and blocking your view; there was guaranteed clarity. And you don’t have annoyances like toilet breaks.”  From: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jun/11/i-loved-the-weirdness-can-laura-marlings-crowdless-gig-rescue-live-music

Deep Purple - Blind

Oddly enough, Deep Purple’s eponymous album is not the group’s debut, but rather their third effort, the last with the Mark I lineup which laid down so much for the future. By the time it was released, Rod Evans and Nick Simper were already being surreptitiously replaced with Ian Gillan and Roger Glover without their knowledge. This would be a reasonable explanation for the album’s banishment to the proverbial corner: it exists in a liminal space, out too late to be celebrated by the outgoing lineup and all but ignored by the incoming one eager to establish itself. The less romanticized side to the story is that Tetragrammaton, Purple’s record label, were experiencing financial difficulty and didn’t distribute the album much at the time of its release. Either way, in my opinion, it results in a great injustice, because this is the first truly great album Deep Purple unleashed.
Mark I finally come into their own as songwriters on this album. After two albums consisting of a great many covers mixed in with their own work, the young members of the band finally got going on creating their own music. The work they create as a whole is incredibly coherent while the individual pieces are memorable. There is still a cover included, but it is only one among eight, the lowest cover-to-original work ratio of this era of the band, and the feeling that the group is relying on others’ songwriting skills to bolster their own is therefore gone. The training wheels are off, so to speak.
This great songwriting is displayed right from the very start. The best albums start with a bang, and this was the first Deep Purple album to do so–with Ian Paice, Jon Lord and Ritchie Blackmore concurrently announcing themselves, to be exact. The number that follows, “Chasing Shadows” is an absolutely rollicking one, the best song on an album of strong songs. It sets the tone well for the album to come, being a song about the torture of insomnia. The excellence of the song comes down mostly to the brilliant drum line provided by Ian Paice. Paice has said that this song, like many he has come up with, relies mostly on rudiments. It also was influenced by African drumming patterns. This song established that Paice had come into his own as a musician; he remains a strong presence on the album, though this is his strongest performance.
Another quick mention must go to some of the other musicians on this song for opposite reasons, specifically the two stringed instruments. Nick Simper on this one is also a standout, giving a blistering bass line and keeping up easily with his rhythmic counterpart. He remains out of focus for the rest of the album, but in this moment he really shines.
Ritchie Blackmore, however, is surprisingly another story entirely. He remains weaker on the album, and while the solo on this song is decently memorable, it’s the only memorable work of his on this album. I will deal with him in due course, but first must mention the biggest issue he faces on this song: the very tuning on his guitar. For whatever reason, it sounds as if he decided to deliberately play on an out-of-tune instrument. It’s jarring and blends poorly with Jon Lord’s keyboards on this and other songs, at times being almost literally painful. It should be noted, in fairness to him, that this was a time of great transition in his sound as he moved into the harder-edged playing style that has defined him since. This still doesn’t make for a pleasant listening experience.
“Blind”, the second song on the album, interestingly uses the same three-note interval as the riffs from “Smoke on the Water” (albeit one a different key) and “Fools” (in the same key) to begin. It’s an interesting tidbit. Fitting well with the previous song about insomnia, this one was reportedly about a nightmare experienced by Jon Lord. He brings in a harpsichord, expanding the different keyboard sounds on the album quite elegantly and reinforcing the heavy classical influences found in Mark I. The lyrics, meanwhile, are some of the more mystical and psychedelic of the album, showing Evans the writer at his best. Once again, the worst part of the song is the guitar solo, which goes much too far in counterbalancing the harpsichord and once again is quite painful on the ears. The idea is good in theory, but poorly executed.
The third song, “Lalena”, is the only cover on the album. It’s just dripping with pathos without coming across as too much. Rod Evans is the standout here, giving one of the most emotional and tender performances of his tenure with Purple. The rest of the instruments keep a very light touch, highlighting him all the further. In the middle of the song, there’s a jazz-tinged instrumental break led by Lord. Blackmore gives his first good work of the album here as support to Lord, and the hints of their great instrumental partnership are visible throughout. The whole experience is intimate, tender, and bittersweet, making this one of the strongest covers the group has ever done.
Another one of the highlights of this strong album comes with “Fault Line”, featuring reverse-tracked drums and hammond for a rather unnerving experiences, along with hammond glisses to top the experience off. Lord and Paice work off one another smoothly. Simper briefly shines through as well, anchoring the two well. It contrasts well with the gentler “Lalena” which came before.
Warped tape sounds blend it smoothly into “The Painter”, which is reminiscent of a few of their earlier songs, specifically “Mandrake Root”. The song is sharper, however, with higher energy, hinting at their turn from psychedelia to hard rock. Evans’ lyrics are simple, fitting with the simple b-minor twelve-bar blues, but they’re still good. Neither of the two instruments who attempt solos end up with the most memorable performances, but neither are they particularly offensive. In the end, this is a solid song, less innovative than the songs preceding it but still a good entry.
The next set of songs aren’t quite as strong, but they’re by no means bad. “Why Didn’t Rosemary”, reportedly inspired by the group’s watching of Rosemary’s Baby during their previous US tour, has a twist of dark humor to it, elevating what could’ve been a typical bluesy number into something more memorable. The instrumental intro is an excellent tag-team by Blackmore and Paice, suggestive once again of the hard rock sound the two would anchor in the band’s next phase. Evans’ vocal work is alright, but lacking in emotional substance appropriate for a darkly humorous song. Ian Gillan’s wry delivery might have fit this song better; it’s a pity that this one never made it onto the stage. Neither instrumental solo is overly memorable, but the bouncy energy from the rhythm section makes the song well worth a listen.
“Bird Has Flown” was the first song recorded for the album, on the same day that the band recorded the pre-album single “Emmaretta”. Unlike the songs around it, this song looks back to the psychedelic sound the group had thus far used. It’s a bit of an anomaly, especially at this point on the album, and takes the listeners out a bit of what they were getting used to. Pity, because it’s a good song, just the one that flows the least well with the rest of the album. Evans once again must get a shout-out for a nice vocal performance and wonderfully trippy lyrics. Paice gets kudos as well for the way he provides a counterweight to everyone, keeping up with all of Lord and Blackmore’s solo work while also keeping the whole thing under control. It’s his switching between favoring hi-hats and favoring snare drums which show off the different sections of the piece, a small and seemingly obvious touch that nonetheless goes a long way for the song.
As a last observation, the opening sounds weirdly like the upcoming “No One Came” off of Mark II’s 1971 Fireball album to me. It’s bizarre but it’s there.
The closer for the album, “April”, is both an encapsulation of what has come before and a move subtly presaging what is to come later in the year. The two forces behind this, Blackmore and Lord, would soon move to rid themselves of Evans and Simper; fitting that these latter two don’t even seem to be present for anything but the coda of the song. The song also features a long orchestral portion, foreshadowing Lord’s forthcoming Concerto for Group and Orchestra. Between the Blackmore-Lord portion, the orchestral portion, and the band’s conclusion, this song clocks in at just over twelve minutes, the longest in their catalogue.
Longest, however, doesn’t always mean best. The three portions work together alright, but something is missing; it would probably have been better served keeping it as a trio of related but distinct pieces, like “Fault Line” and “The Painter” from side one. Meanwhile, within the song, there are a few glaring issues. Blackmore’s guitar is at its most annoying of the whole album, which is quite an achievement given how grating it was on some earlier songs. Once again, he sounds out of tune and blends with Lord poorly. The orchestral section following their duet seems somehow stiff and unfitting, though I still appreciate the guts the group had to include it. The best part is the full-band conclusion begun by the ever-energetic Paice assisted by Simper on D notes, which caps off the album and Mark I as a whole. The melancholy nature of this part of the song, then, is fitting, and manages to elevate the song from “not good” to “alright”. Though he had no way of knowing it was his swan song, Evans’ performance is another one of his strongest of the album, ending an overall mediocre song on a high note.
These songs as individual works range from decent but forgettable to sublime. The album’s strength, and why I consider it great, admittedly has less to do with the individual songs themselves and more with the larger picture they create. As a unit, this outporing of creativity is the most coherent album the band had created to that date (and one of the most cohesive in the band’s history period) in terms of mood and style. It’s particularly noticeable on side one, which flows together so naturally that it’s hard to believe the album was made between scattered tour dates as the group was approaching dissolution. This was something Mark I had up to this point failed to accomplish; Shades of Deep Purple is more a scattershot of well-produced songs that sound like they’re generally by the same artist, while The Book of Taliesyn is moving in this direction, but still sounds more disconnected. Not so here.
The mood of the piece is similarly strong. The whole work is lusciously brooding and melancholy, from the first song dealing with insomnia to the final stanza about the cruelty of the month of April. Occasionally there are moments of humor interjected, such as the darkly comedic “Why Didn’t Rosemary?” as mentioned above. Overall, however, the album is a dour one without being existentially overwhelming.
Is this album perfect? No, not really. Is it still a masterpiece that is ridiculously underrated? Hell yes. Even the most glaring issues on this album, namely the unremarkable closer and the grating guitar work, aren’t deal-killers. Meanwhile, the strengths, namely the brilliant ambiance, the thematic tightness, the incredible work from behind the drum kit, the generally high standard of musicianship beyond the errors I’ve stated, the opening number, and the nods to what is soon to come are well worth the price of admission. If you’re a fan of Deep Purple, you need this album. If you’re not, you need it anyway.  From: https://gottahearemall.com/album-review-deep-purple-self-titled-1969/

K's Choice - Mr. Freeze

K's Choice is a Belgian rock band from Antwerp, formed in the mid-1990s. The band's core members are siblings Sarah Bettens (lead vocals, guitar) and Gert Bettens (guitar, keyboard, vocals). They are joined by Bart Van Lierde (bass), Tom Lodewyckx (lead guitar), Reinout Swinnen (keys) and Wim Van Der Westen (drums).
In the early 1990s, Sarah and Gert played in an amateur band, The Basement Plugs. This led to the discovery of Sarah, who was offered a chance by a label; mainly because of her smoky, enigmatic voice. Under a more English name, Sarah Beth, she appeared on several movie soundtracks with covers including "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" (originally by Hank Williams) for the movie Vrouwen Willen Trouwen (Women Want To Marry) and a duet with Frankie Miller, "Why Don't You Try Me" (originally by Ry Cooder), for the movie Ad Fundum. She was offered a contract and formed a band with her brother Gert. The band was named The Choice and in 1994 they recorded their debut album The Great Subconscious Club.
In 1993, the band had five more or less permanent members: Sarah and Gert Bettens, Jan van Sichem, Jr. (guitar), Bart Van Der Zeeuw (drums) and Erik Verheyden (bass). These five toured Germany and the United States in support of the Indigo Girls. When they learned of another group in the U.S. named The Choice, they changed their name in order to avoid legal problems; they decided upon "K's Choice" by going through the alphabet to see which letter would sound best in front of the word choice. Since they thought they needed a story behind the new name, they previously claimed that the K referred to Joseph K. from Kafka's the Trial, but later the band revealed the arbitrariness of choosing the "K".
In 1995, they released Paradise in Me. "Not an Addict", the first single taken from this album, was successful and brought international fame. This single was their most popular hit, and even 10 years later in 2006 received fairly good airplay in major markets. For the next year (1996–1997) they toured supporting Alanis Morissette, who heard the band playing on a European festival and handpicked them as her support band. In 1998, Cocoon Crash, their third album was done. Meanwhile, American Eric Grossman had become the permanent bass player. In 1999, the band appeared on Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the episode "Doppelgängland" performing their song "Virgin State Of Mind". The song appeared on the soundtrack Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Album. It was at this point that their drummer Bart van der Zeeuw had been replaced by Koen Lieckens. In 2000, their next studio album Almost Happy was finished and release in Europe in September.
In 2001, Live (a 2-CD collection of live recordings) was in stores in Europe while Almost Happy was released in the US with another cover and a second CD of some songs from Live. In 2003, Ten (a collection of ten years of singles and songs that did not appear on their albums, plus the brand new single "Losing You") was released, accompanied by a DVD bearing the same name.
In 2003, the band decided to go on a sabbatical. Gert and Sarah both wanted to try out some solo work. Gert produced an album for a Belgian band, Venus in Flames, and Sarah recorded a solo mini-CD Go and appeared on several movie soundtracks with songs of her own ("All of This Past" for Underworld and "Someone to Say Hi To" for Zus and Zo). In addition to four full albums, a live album, and a best-of, they also produced four limited edition and fan club CDs: Extra Cocoon, 2000 Seconds Live, Home and Running Backwards.  From: https://ultimatepopculture.fandom.com/wiki/K%27s_Choice

Grant Lee Buffalo - Live London Astoria 1993 / Live at The 930 Club 1998 / Live at Schlachthof 1993

 Grant Lee Buffalo - Live London Astoria 1993

 

 Grant Lee Buffalo - Live at The 930 Club 1998

 

 Grant Lee Buffalo - Live at Schlachthof 1993

 

Grant Lee Buffalo is a Los Angeles-based rock band, consisting of Grant-Lee Phillips (vocals and guitar), Paul Kimble (bass) and Joey Peters (drums). All three were previously members of another LA band, Shiva Burlesque. As GLB, they released four albums: Fuzzy (1993), Mighty Joe Moon (1994), Copperopolis (1996) and Jubilee (1998, without Kimble who had left the band the previous year). After the release of Jubilee, the band broke up and Phillips continued to pursue a successful solo career. In 2010 the band reunited and they will be touring again in 2011. Grant Lee Buffalo has an Americana-tinged sound, clearly influenced by the likes of Neil Young and elements of old-fashioned country music, and often tackled political and social issues in their lyrics (for example, "Lone Star Song" from Mighty Joe Moon references the infamous Waco siege). They toured with major bands of the early-to-mid 1990s such as R.E.M., Pearl Jam and the Smashing Pumpkins.  From: https://www.last.fm/music/Grant+Lee+Buffalo/+wiki

I'll try to wrap it up nicely in one bright package, this accumulation of songs, years, human sweat and dreams. All of these shared amongst myself and my band mates, Paul Kimble and Joey Peters. Grant Lee Buffalo was our band name and the sum total force of our efforts for most of a decade.
The 1990's saw the underground uprooted and the mainstream flooded when, for one golden moment, no one seemed to be at the wheel. Our own history was rooted in Los Angeles near the end of the Eighties. Each of us had come to Los Angeles to pursue our individual dreams. In the beginning I roofed houses by day and attended film school by night. Joey Peters held all sorts of odd jobs at the time we met, from stocking groceries to film crew work, often juggling several drumming gigs at once. Paul Kimble sold stereos, set up hi-fi gear while pursuing his own musical yearnings. From the time I had arrived in LA I had hopes of joining a band, if not putting one together myself. Shiva Burlesque was part band/part lodge. For every show we played, we must have held 30 rehearsals. Those humid evenings would often disintegrate into long winded talks on the Marx Brothers and Aldous Huxley and the hidden parallels that lie between them. My role was primarily that of guitarist, co-songwriter and co-conspirator. Jeffrey Clark, from my home town of Stockton, CA was the band's singer and main lyricist. The original lineup would evolve over the years, but at one time or another, Shiva Burlesque featured the likes of James Brenner (later of Scenic), Biff Sanders (Four Way Cross, Ethel Meatplow), Rich Evac (Phsycom), and a handful of others. The group finally found it's footing with drummer Joey Peters, frontman Jeff Clark, bassist James Brenner, and myself. Peters brought with him an original style that was at once subtle, intuitive and also extremely dramatic. Our musical marriage was a spontaneous one and I suspect that our influence on one another's development is apt to be indelible. This lineup would release one self-titled album in 1988. Not long after, the band would lose Brenner and would begin to search for a new bassist. It was around this time that I first met Paul Kimble. Paul had traveled the farthest, from Freeport, Illinois. There was an instant creative chemistry among the group that ultimately found it's way on record with Shiva Burlesque's Mercury Blues in 1990. By then it was a five-piece with the inclusion of cellist Greg Adamson, who later performed on the song Mockingbirds. Personality conflicts and growing pains would eventually bring the group to an end as a new decade was dawning. For Joey, Paul and myself, Shiva Burlesque had brought us together, but our power as a trio would alter our lives.
Moonlighting under a different band name every show, we began to explore the songs that were gushing out of me in my mid twenties. "Rex Mundi" would appear on one night, followed by the "Machine Elves" the next. These bands had a whole lot in common -- we were both of 'em. Longing to step forward with the songs I was writing, I needed the courage of a veil to fully accept my lot as a performer. Grant Lee Buffalo was precisely that. It provided me with the strength and the camaraderie of a pack and it allowed me the freedom to be vulnerable as an artist. Questions of "who are, who is, and what is Grant Lee Buffalo still seem to abound. Within our little world, however, the axis was forever shifting. In the early part of the nineties we began to work diligently on the home recording of several songs. Most of the basic tracks were quickly cut with emphasis on capturing the drums. Joey and I would provide the basic skeleton in the recording room, as Paul would be twisting the dials in a separate building. Paul and I would then proceed to layer the overdubs, all of this just as Joey Peters was enlisting with the group Cracker. It was a setback that led to various replacement drummers over the following year. For this reason, early fliers and a limited vinyl single features the likeness of Kimble, myself and drummer David Strayer, although Peters had actually played on the recording. This release, originally a demo recording of "Fuzzy" was distributed by Bob Mould's Single Only label in the summer of '92 and before long was gathering significant airplay at Boston's WFNX. In October of that same year we signed a recording deal with Slash Records, Kimble, myself, and a nearly absent but Cracker-free Joey Peters.  From: https://grantleebuffalo.com/history1.html

 

 

White Ring - Leprosy

Cult followers of the “witch house” movement will be familiar with industrial outfit White Ring, who are set to release their new album Gate Of Grief via Rocket Girl Records on July 27th. After an eight year hiatus, the band have returned and are ready to bewitch their fans with more of their corrosive sounds. We caught up with Adina & Bryan to ask them about their recent gig in London and their upcoming album.

You recently played a free gig at The Shacklewell Arms. Did you enjoy the show? What did you get up to whilst you were in London, aside from supporting God Is An Astronaut?

We had a great time playing shows again. We were really busy doing press stuff between shows. We didn’t do much.

Your stage presence is pretty intense – do you have any pre-gig rituals that help you prepare for your set?

We usually do some meditation, stretch and pray to our ancestors for good luck, very important.

You formed on Myspace and helped to develop the “witch house” movement, which dedicated fans keep track of online. Do you think the internet is crucial when it comes to forming a band, nurturing a scene, and sharing your music?

It’s definitely a blessing not having to be physically connected to any particular city’s music scene, but the pendulum also swings the other way too, and can make some people really locked in on what others are doing, and I think it’s making them lonely.

Your new album, Gate Of Grief, probes at difficult and uncomfortable territory. What are you most proud of about this record?

I’m proud that it’s done and that we are all still alive.

Do you have a favourite track? If so, why?

I really do love how this album functions more like the albums I grew up listening to – where track selection and placement are kept in mind. If I had to pick one it would probably be ‘Do U Love Me 2?’ just because I don’t remember writing it. I woke up after crashing from a 3 day bender in like 2012 and found this 11 minute song that I vaguely remember working on. I just made it a non-offensive length and released it as is. I feel like that one found me.

The image of the gate in the title refers to the real gate between Africa and Saudi Arabia, which is believed to be the place where the first humans migrated and went on to populate the rest of the world. How do you take a concept like that and turn it into densely electronic music? Do you have a process that you follow, or do you create each song differently?

We came up with the concept when putting together our first EP, Black Earth That Made Me. The only idea we have for White Ring is to keep changing. We like too much shit to get weighed down with any one ideology. We kind of just want to tell a story that helps people realize they are not alone. Trying to tell a story about struggling to survive. We have had 6-8 different setups for recording. As soon as we get comfortable with something we get rid of it.

As we’re a new music blog, we always ask bands what other new bands or artists they’ve been listening too. Who can you recommend to us?

I’ve just been listening to a lot of The Soft Moon, John Maus and Korn lately.

What are your plans for the rest of 2018?

We just started recording our next EP, touring the album and we are working on launching a manufacturing company.

Finally, if you weren’t creating music as White Ring, what do you think you’d be doing instead?

I would be making music in my room doing a job that I don’t like as much!

From: https://getinherears.com/2018/07/18/interview-white-ring/

Robin Trower - Bridge of Sighs - The Old Grey Whistle Test 1974

Full of subtle but solid and rewarding tracks which are well composed and sonically masterful, Bridge of Sighs is the album where Robin Trower may have advanced the rock guitar a bit. This second solo album by Trower is the most solid and heralded output of his career, filled with consistent tracks of strong blues-rock with just a sprinkle of jazz flare and improvisation that prevents the music from ever getting caught in a rut. Complimenting Trower’s guitar work are bassist and lead vocalist James Dewar along with drummer Reg Isidore, who complete this outstanding power trio and added their own fantastic performance contributions.
From 1967 through 1971, Trower was guitarist for the band Procol Harum, spanning most of that band’s successful career. Trower first worked with Dewar in a short-lived supergroup Jude before the two branched out with Isidore to commence Trower’s solo career. The debut album Twice Removed from Yesterday was released in 1973, but to little critical or commercial success.
Recorded and released in 1974, Bridge of Sighs was produced by Matthew Fisher, keyboardist for Procol Harum and Trower’s former band mate. Former Beatles’ engineer Geoff Emerick also helped out with forging the sound of this album. The album reached the Top 10 in the United States and stayed on the charts for the better part of a year.
“Day of the Eagle” sets a frantic pace for the album during the beginning rudiments, before the song settles into upbeat, bluesy groove with good, soulful vocals by Dewar. The guitar sounds are much more impressive than the actual techniques in this sonic explosion which starts the album. The title track, “Bridge of Sighs” follows as the most indelible track. Starting with gated chimes and long, decaying guitar notes, the song’s vibe is like bending the fabric of space and time. Droning and intense throughout, “Bridge of Sighs” never relents from its slower than slow pace, which works out well when Trower opts for long and slow outro with sound effects rather than the obligatory guitar lead in the coda section.  From: https://www.classicrockreview.com/2014/08/1974-robin-trower-bridge-of-sighs/

The Lovely Eggs - Nothing/Everything

Walking through Lancaster on a sunny spring day, Holly Ross has a theory about her home town and its inhabitants. Once towering over the city was Lancaster Moor hospital, formerly the Lancaster county lunatic asylum, which was home to thousands of patients. “People were sent here from all over the place,” she says. “There was a care in the community programme and people settled locally, so you had this real collection of characters – amazing artists who burned themselves out on acid and ended up here. There was one pub they all used to congregate in, a real bunch of outsiders and freaks – and I use that as a term of endearment because that included us.”
For the best part of 20 years, Ross has been making outsider art in the duo The Lovely Eggs with her husband, David Blackwell. The pair play psychedelic punk and infectious garage rock, and – despite playing sizeable UK venues and attracting collaborators such as Iggy Pop – are a fervently DIY operation. They run their own label, and have no manager, booking agent or publisher. They often make their own music videos, build their own instruments, host their own book club and, in 2023, they launched their own TV channel. Eggs TV broadcast a hugely ambitious six-part series featuring everyone from comedian Stewart Lee to Fugazi’s Ian MacKaye. “That was such hard work,” says Ross, as we form a production line to pack up hundreds of their latest 7in single Nothing/Everything at their storage space. “But once we dive in, we’re committed to the idea. Even though it might kill us, we can’t let go.”
Another idea they’ve seen to the bitter end is creating custom-made scratchcards they are sending out with records enabling fans to win prizes. “Ironically, they cost more than actual scratchcards to produce, so we’re losing money on the single to do this,” Blackwell says as he places them inside 7in sleeves, surrounded by records, merchandise, instruments and various vintage trinkets. “But it’s all about the art and the idea. We always think about the financial and practical factors last.” The pair have a real, sincere and deep-rooted belief in committing to The Lovely Eggs as an all encompassing artistic endeavour. “It’s not a career to us,” Ross says. “It’s never been a job. It’s a lifestyle, a way of life, an ethos, a commitment to creating.”
The pair have been making music in Lancaster since they were teenagers at the Lancaster Music Co-op, a nonprofit organisation that offers affordable equipment, rehearsal and recording space. The building is currently closed and the pair have been in a five-year long battle to save it. An agreement was struck with Lancaster city council for Ross, Blackwell and local volunteers to take it over and raise a further £600,000. Which, remarkably, they have. But Ross says the bureaucracy “imprisoned me for two years. That’s how I felt. I felt put in jail, emotionally, every day doing that pen-pushing shit.”
The experience echoes through their seventh album, Eggsistentialism, out next week. The opening punk thrash of Death Grip Kids comes with the scream of “shove your funding up your arse”. But as it unfurls, the album is less grungy guitars and furious railing against the system, and more electronic and expansive as it explores themes of loss, fading memories and survival. “It’s a very vulnerable record,” says Ross. “To let people see that side of you is quite hard – it’s difficult admitting things have been really tough. People think that we’re such resilient people but sometimes you’ve got nothing left to give. The album is a snapshot of when we were at our lowest.”
However, despite the hard times, the Lovely Eggs are not just surviving but thriving. Next week, they will be back at their huge storage space packing up over 1,000 vinyl pre-orders for their album before they head out on tour. It’s important for them to stress that a genuinely successful, self-sustaining and profitable band can be achieved purely on your own terms. “The music industry is smoke and mirrors,” says Ross. “You don’t need to be on a label. All that really creates is money to spend on marketing – the rest is bullshit.”  From: https://www.theguardian.com/music/article/2024/may/09/the-music-industry-is-smoke-and-mirrors-how-diy-duo-the-lovely-eggs-are-keeping-the-north-weird

Levitation Room - Warmth Of The Sun

East Los Angeles quartet Levitation Room’s floaty, cosmic songs are always a trip. Since forming nearly a decade ago, they’ve self-produced dizzying, otherworldly music that’s connected with fellow travelers in the hallucinogenic world of outré rock music. Led by singer and guitarist Julian Porte along with founding members Gabriel Fernandez (lead guitar) and Johnathan Martin (percussion), the band has enchanted live audiences at Desert Daze and on tour with like-minded groups Post Animal and Psychedelic Porn Crumpets.
The band’s vivid sound has found them placed on popular playlists like Modern Psychedelia and the legendary superproducer’s Danger Mouse Jukebox. Their 2015 debut, “Friends,” has surpassed 18 million streams. Joined by new member Kevin Perez (bass) in 2021, Levitation Room have continued to expand their colorful, unearthly sound, a process that has culminated with the vibrant new album Strange Weather. Collaborating with former Brian Jonestown Massacre keyboardist Rob Campanella, Jason Kick (Mild High Club), and Black Crowes’ Joel Robinow, Levitation Room take a new step in their story and vision with Strange Weather. The record’s lyrical narratives—about love in the park, life in the city, and the fact that “The world today is such an illusion”—are appropriately steeped in ’60s sonics and a dreamy, lo-fi atmosphere. It’s spacey, celestial guitar music for escaping into, and “it feels just like heaven.”  From: https://greenwayrecords.com/artist/levitation-room/

Bab L' Bluz - Imazighen

Bab L’ Bluz is a musical group consisting of four members of Moroccan-French origin. The quartet was formed in 2018 with the intention of paying tribute to the Gnawa culture, with the Arabic term “Bab” meaning “gate.” The group’s lead vocalist, composer and guembri player, Yousra Mansour, hails from Morocco, while her co-founder, Brice Bottin, is a French producer, composer and multi-instrumentalist. The two artists honed their skills on the guembri, a three-stringed instrument, while exploring its possibilities as they composed in their studio in Marrakech.
The creative output resulting from this collaboration is displayed on the group’s debut album, “Nayda!” Brice comments on the challenge of composing with such a limited instrument, stating that it was an opportunity to explore various styles, scales, and textures. This led Bab L’ Bluz to play original material that combines different styles. Yousra, who grew up in El Jadida, a fortified town on Morocco’s Atlantic coast, was exposed to a diverse range of musical styles, including those of Janis Joplin, Oumou Sangaré, and Erykah Badu. She also attended the annual Gnawa Festival in nearby Essawira and fell in love with the trance grooves of Gnawa music.
Young Yousra was raised by a strong, widowed mother, who was a science teacher and inspired her daughter to follow her dreams. Despite resistance at first, Yousra persisted in singing Gnawa-style music with friends and at home. However, she notes that injustice persists everywhere, with corruption, racism, and poverty, as well as notions of visas and borders, which continue to affect society. For this reason, Yousra and her bandmates believe that art can be used to open minds and change mentalities. Yousra mainly writes in Moroccan Darija and tackles current subjects and societal issues in her lyrics. The meaning of her writing can be easily understood, despite its subtle nature.  From: https://worldmusiccentral.org/2023/03/27/artist-profiles-moroccan-gnawa-blues-band-bab-l-bluz/

While this Moroccan-French band has made it a mission to introduce traditional instrumentation to the world, you'll likely agree with their self-characterization as a rock band. Drawing on their North African roots of Gnawa and meshing them seamlessly with African blues and the Western influences, this is hardly a band couched in a traditional sound. While respecting and presenting the history of the music they draw from, the trio takes North African instruments awicha and gimbri in directions previously unseen. Unafraid to transition to more traditional compositions amidst their ’70’s funk and ’60s psych, and rock explorations, these turns are coloured with unlikely sounds. The occasional nod to thumping electro beats results in hypnotizing digressions worthy of the nomadic artists of the California desert who spend their time composing hallucinatory soundscapes under the Milky Way after staking their place in Joshua Tree. Bab L’ Bluz offer not just a sonic bridge between genres but an overwhelming intersection of off ramps, turn lanes and open roads.  From: https://calgaryfolkfest.com/artists/bab-l-bluz

A Perfect Circle - Counting Bodies Like Sheep To The Rhythm Of The War Drums

Formed by Tool vocalist Maynard James Keenan and former Tool guitar tech Billy Howerdel, A Perfect Circle is an extension of the alt-metal-fused-with-art-rock style popularized by Tool in the early to mid-'90s. While similar to Tool in intensity and melancholy, A Perfect Circle is lighter and more melodic, with a theatrical, ambient quality that incorporates occasional strings and unusual instrumentation. After the release of Ænima in 1996, Tool found themselves in the midst of an extended legal battle with former label Freeworld Entertainment. When the dust settled two years later, the band reached a 50/50 joint venture agreement for future recordings and, feeling a little burned out, decided to take some time off. It was at this point that Keenan joined up with Howerdel and Paz Lenchantin to form A Perfect Circle. Keenan had met Howerdel in 1992 when Tool opened for Fishbone. Howerdel had been Fishbone's tech at the time and had played Keenan a few of his songs. Keenan was impressed and the two talked of collaborating in the future. However, the opportunity didn't present itself until after the Freeworld settlement. With Keenan on vocals, Howerdel on guitar, and Lenchantin on bass, the trio recruited ex-Failure and Enemy member Troy Van Leeuwen on guitar and ex-Vandals and Guns N' Roses member Josh Freese on drums. The quintet rehearsed together but didn't announce the formation of a new band until performing for the first time on August 15, 1999, at a benefit concert at the Viper Room in Los Angeles. Howerdel, who had been composing songs for years, as well as working with bands such as the Smashing Pumpkins and Nine Inch Nails, became the band's chief songwriter and producer. A Perfect Circle released their debut album, Mer de Noms, in 2000.  From: https://www.iheart.com/artist/a-perfect-circle-29559/

This man, Maynard James Keenan, may well be philosophical but he performs as an artist. That is his primary function in society. Art embodies feeling, emotion, information that is otherwise difficult to qualify but, nontheless, very real and generally significant to us. We tend to value art - possibly because art has this unparalleled ability to convey meaning through various mediums and not just spoken or written language. In other words, an artist does not have to explain his, her, or itself, through modern day language. If the work satisfies the artist's motivation, then it is a finished piece. Expecting a rigorous and/or logical explanation of said work is unreasonable and, possibly even, quite bizarre - however normal. So, therefore, permit me to address this piece from my gut - a place very real and possessing meaning, but a place that possesses little currency in a world that weighs words for the express purpose of creating corrupted scales upon which to weigh those very words. In me, Counting Bodies Like Sheep To The Rhythm Of The War Drums invokes frustration with the way civilization is going. We are but the descendants of a violent, aggressive manifestation of informational organization. We are prone to war, ready to snatch each other's faces off for minor grievances. Our society has become parasitic in nature rather than synergistic. We survive in spite of each other rather than as willing, mutual beneficiaries. How disturbing! Nay, how natural! Just go to sleep. Listen to the propaganda and the advertisements. Do not be alarmed or you may realize that you're a sheep, marching off a precipice to the benefit of someone claiming to care for you. Watch or read 1984, A Handmaid's Tale, Fight Club, various footage of Jane Goodall's research, and you will now the meaning of this song better than the artist himself.  From: https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/3530822107858515743/

Silly Sisters - Doffin' Mistress

Silly Sisters begins in the weaving mills of the Industrial Revolution, where we learn that the workers liked to stick it to the boss as much as we do today. “Doffin’ Mistress” is sung by a group of workers called “doffers,” who had the unimaginably dull job of changing the bobbins on the weaving machines in the spinning sheds. When you have a shit job, you have three choices: bitch about it, have fun with it or both. These young ladies, as expressed through the tight harmonies of Maddy Prior and June Tabor, choose both, supporting the female supervisor in a united front against the screaming bully of a boss. The arrangement is terribly inviting, particularly in the opening measures where Martin Carthy is joined by Andy Irvine on mandolin, Nic Jones on fiddle, Tony Hall on melodeon and Danny Thompson on bass before June and Maddy enter in tandem. The melodic magic of British folk is on full display here with a joyful, exuberant melody that makes you want to join in with throats opened to full throttle. The verse where the girls align in teasing defiance of male power is sung with a hands-on-hips, energetic display of psychological independence:

And when the boss he looks round the door,
 “Tie your ends up, doffers,” he will roar. 
Tie our ends up we surely do,
 For Elsie Thompson but not for you!

We leave this relatively happy scene for a dark tale of revenge involving Scottish clans. “Burning of Auchindoon” is based on a feud between the Clan Mackintosh and the Earl of Huntly, a thoroughly disreputable character who left a thick trail of blood in his wake and traitorously plotted with the Spanish to launch an invasion against his homeland. The Clan is out to avenge the death of one of their allies at the hand of Huntly by burning Auchindoun Castle (the “ou” is the proper spelling). This chilling tale receives an equally chilling treatment from Maddy and June, who heighten the tension with dissonant harmonies sung a capella. The ending interval, where June stays on the root of the C-minor and Maddy flattens the already flattened third of the key creates a powerful sense of foreboding: though the castle is in flames, the act is certain to trigger a response, and the bloody cycle will continue. Singers in search of new harmonic possibilities are encouraged to study these patterns in detail, for “Burning of Auchindoon” is a stellar example of how to move beyond the obvious to build tension and capture mood.
Each woman has a solo on Silly Sisters, and Maddy’s is “Lass of Loch Royal.” This is a song that has morphed over the years as it traveled through different countries from Ireland to Scotland to the United States, with various artists emphasizing different features of the plot to modify the message. It is believed that the original is a tale of betrayal of a young pregnant woman by the lover’s mother, and that aspect is certainly present in Maddy’s version. Through careful verse selection and an extraordinarily vivid performance, she transforms the main theme into one of abandonment, possibly after rape, possibly after a night of passion, or something in between. The lass travels day and night with her newborn baby to arrive at the castle of her lover, only to be turned away by the lover’s mother, who dismisses her with cold cruelty:

The rain beats at my yellow locks, the dew wets me still,
 The babe is cold in my arms, love, Lord Gregory let me in.
 Lord Gregory is not here and he henceforth can’t be seen,
 For he’s gone to bonny Scotland to bring home his new queen.
 Leave now these windows and likewise this hall,
 For it’s deep in the sea you will find your downfall.

The lass has no choice but to leave and accept her fate. When Maddy arrives at the last verse, you can picture her, drenched and cold on the heath, releasing all the bitterness of betrayal in a heart-rendering climax.
“The Seven Joys of Mary” features the pair in harmony again singing a folksy version of the Christ story. For some reason, the plain folk seem to capture the positive aspects of the faith more effectively than priests or preachers. The repetition of the affectionate phrase “good man” is a reminder that Christ retains more power when he is not embellished with godlike trappings but as a representative of the best aspects of humankind. The harmonies here are especially sweet during the crucifixion verse, as June and Maddy lower their voices in respect and mourning.
The anonymous multitudes who composed British folk songs always found their way into the sack sooner or later, but in this tale, sad disappointment lurks under the counterpane. “My Husband’s Got No Courage” is a dramatic monologue sung by a young wife who finds she’s married a man who can’t get it up. Since women were not allowed to divorce in the 19th century, and the possibility of release through lesbianism, masturbation or a quick trip to the vibrator shop were not realistic options, her agony is understandable. Maddy and June sing the moaning, hand-wringing chorus together without harmony and then take turns singing the verses solo. This poor horny broad has tried everything: vittles, meats, oyster, rhubarb, clapping a hand between his thighs, throwing her leg over his and nothing she does gets a rise out of this hopeless prick. Bitter that he continues to present himself to the world as handsome and desirable, she finally explodes in the last verse, giving as clear an expression of sexual frustration you will ever hear. The frustration is made more emphatic because June and Maddy break the pattern and join together for this verse, singing it with more passion than precision:

I wish my husband he was dead 
And in his grave I’d quickly lay him
 And then I’d try another one
 That’s got a little courage in him

From: https://www.50thirdand3rd.com/classic-music-review-silly-sisters-by-maddy-prior-and-june-tabor/

Post Animal - Bolt From Above

This past Friday night, I caught up with the boys in Post Animal before they headlined night one of Chicago’s Psych Fest at The Hideout. Although the band was down one member, with this weekend being one of the first times they’ve played without guitarist Joe Keery, the remaining five members still had plenty to talk about. Throughout the conversation, I found out all you need to know about this up and coming Chicago band, including news on their upcoming album and tour, stories about their haunted recording space, their influences, and their feelings on a certain Netflix show (which, if you didn’t already know, one of them happens to star in). There’s no doubt about it, 2017 will be an incredible year for Post Animal, so get familiar with them now.
One of the first things I always want to know about musicians is how they got into playing music.  Matt Williams, Javi Reyes, and Wes Toledo all credit their parents for getting them into music at a young age.  “I started playing music when I was like four,” Wes says. “My dad was a musician too, so he just kind of started me at an early age. I started listening to the Police and bands like that, like the Beatles and my liking of music came from that," he continued on. Matt adds, “My mom was a musician so she kinda forced me to take guitar lessons. She’s a bass player, but she was like ‘you need to learn how to play guitar,’ and then I kinda got forced to.” Javi says his mom also had guitars laying around, and he first started playing the guitar that his brother was given for Christmas one year. “I  learned how to play the James Bond theme,” he recalls.
Dalton Allison says that other bands, like Black Sabbath, inspired him to start making music, while Jake Hirshland admits that his inspiration stems from just wanting to be in a band, saying, “I just wanted to be in a band so bad dude, that I like picked up a guitar and tried to get good enough.” All of the guys also agree that films scores played a big part in influencing them, with Dalton deeming the Jurassic Park score as his favorite.
Oh, and the part about Mel Gibson? That came up while Matt chatted about the early days of guitar lessons, revealing, “The very first lesson I took was so awkward. There’s like these guitar books, I think they’re called Mel Gibson, wait! Not Mel Gibson...those learning books...”  It turns out he was actually talking about Mel Bay guitar books, which we quickly figured out, thanks to a member of another band playing that night.
If you’ve ever seen Post Animal live, you know they’ve got a lot of guitars on one stage (they also have a lot of hair on one stage, but that’s besides the point). The reason for so many bandmates stems from a few of them originally being substitutes who just never left. Dalton and Matt grew up together as self-proclaimed “bad boys of Danville,” first starting a band in sixth grade. As for the rest of the guys, Matt says,“We just kinda met people through friends and through work, and then someone was like ‘Hey I know this guy who’s a really good drummer, Wes. You should play with him.’ Then we did, and someone was out of town and Javi had just moved into town. So we were like ‘Javi wanna play these couple shows with us?’ And he just never stopped playing with us.”  
“We’ve pretty much just been tacking people on. I moved to Chicago and started playing with these dudes. It was a lot of people going out of town for a while, so we were just subbing people,” Jake chimes in.  The rest of band agreed that they just can’t let anyone go.
Dalton also gives credit to the adaptability of his bandmates, saying “We’re really lucky to have a mutli-talented group. Like Javi can pretty much play anything, Matt can pretty much play anything, Jake can play anything. Wes is one of the best drummers that I’ve ever played with.”  
It’s been a minute since Post Animal released their 6 track EP called The Garden Series, but lucky for us, the next album is just about ready. How is this new full-length different than the band’s previous releases? Other than the location where they recorded it, Dalton says,“It’s the first one with all 6 of us on it, so this is the most exciting for sure,” adding on that it should be between 10 and 13 songs. He also says that this new record is more collaborative than their past work, crediting each band member with writing their own parts.  
“Yeah we’re all pumped. Recordings are done and Dalton’s in the cave doing post production on it. We’re hoping the spring time,” Jake adds about the progress and planned release of the record.  Continuing on about their recording process, he adds, “I feel like the way we recorded is also...we did a lot of stuff at the same time and we never really used the rooms we were in. Rather than recording it in Dalton’s bedroom like we’ve been doing for the last couple, we actually went to this lake house of our good friend and just squatted in the living room and played everything loud...getting all the sound of the space. I think you can tell it was recorded live.”
While we’re on the subject of the lake house, Wes drops the bomb that the place was haunted. Javi and Dalton both attest to strange glitches appearing on their recordings from the lake house, while Jake, Wes, and Matt admit to having to sleep in the same room eventually after several scares. Jake recalls one night in which a nightstand flipped over in the room they were sharing, after already being woken up by a ghost. “These old, wrinkly leather hands just tugged me awake. It was bizarre,” Jake says. The rest of the band add that they’re not big on embellishment or really into paranormal activity, with Jake continuing, “Yeah we’re rational at heart, but it was bizarre, I had no explanations for some of the stuff I was feeling and seeing. The table flying over…”
In addition to the ghost scares, coffee got spilled on their computer halfway through recording, causing the band to worry they’d lost all of their work. Despite all of these scares, the band say they still had the time of their lives recording in the house adjoining Paw Paw Lake.
At the moment, the Post Animal boys have only got a string of live dates announced for this year, including some shows in Michigan with Twin Peaks and a slot at Daytrotter Downs Festival in Davenport, IA. However, they let on that they’ve just locked in the first two weeks of an upcoming tour, with Wes adding on that they’ll be out on the road all summer.
Talking more about Daytrotter, Dalton says,“I think that’s the first time that any of us were kinda shocked that someone asked us to play. We really respect what they’ve got going on.” They’re also all excited to check out some of the other bands on the line up, with Jake shouting out NE-HI and Wes and Matt giving nods to Joan of Arc and Gaelynn Lea.  From: https://www.anchrmagazine.com/interviews/2017/1/29/get-to-know-post-animal