Carolina Chocolate Drops - KRCB Live

A few years ago I interviewed Dom Phlemons, who plays, by turns, four-string banjo, guitar, jug, harmonica, kazoo, snare drum, bones, and quills in one of my all-time favourite bands, The Carolina Chocolate Drops, an American acoustic ensemble playing in a traditional string band style. Their instruments include four-string banjo, five-string banjo, guitar, jug, harmonica, kazoo, snare drum, bones, quills, fiddle, beatbox, tambourine, mandolin, and cello. They use a mix of both traditional arrangements and their own creations, performing both their own and traditional American songs. Occasionally they also do covers of recent pop songs.
Sound quests are among the most fascinating of journeys—you never know where you’ll end up or what you’ll be doing at the end of one. Dom Flemons arrived at traditional Southern string band music via a long musical exploration that began with a period of collecting Bob Dylan albums from the ’60s. Rhiannon Giddens came to the same musical subgenre from a classical career that included several operatic roles. She also dabbled in English contra dancing and had a stint in a Celtic band.
These are the kind of cultivated people who populated New Orleans after the Civil War. Were it not for the Jim Crow laws, they might have simply merged with the white upper crust and contributed to the high culture that already existed. Instead they were compelled to channel their refinements into “low” culture, eventually spawning a myriad of new musical genres, including jazz. In the course of all this, the United States developed one of the most vibrant popular cultures in human history.
The two founding members of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Flemons and Giddens, have now made it a five-member (and sometimes more) string band with fiddle, cello, guitar, and three kinds of banjo (including the gut-strung minstrel banjo which I’d never heard of before now) as well as the jug, the bones (like castanets), the quills (like a pan pipe), and the kazoo. Their performances include flatfoot dancing.
The Carolina Chocolate Drops’ repertoire sprouted from the early 20th-century folk tunes and string band arrangements of songs from the Piedmont region of the Carolinas, much of it harking back to 19th-century minstrel shows wherein fiddles and banjos figured prominently.
Is there a pattern here? Earlier in the same week I’d reviewed Akal, an album by the Moroccan group Izenzaren, led by Igout, a master Moroccan banjoist playing in the Ahwach and Gnaoua styles of North Africa. This led me back to my own sound quest, a perennial exploration of the influence of slaves from northwestern Africa on American music and how parallel musical traditions developed in Africa and the Americas. Inspired by the sound quest, on a recent visit to my folks in Canada I retrieved my two dusty banjos from the attic and brought them back to New Hampshire to play at our Friday night gatherings, nicknamed “Marty Night” after the son of our musical friends Frister and Chris, who they bring along to our music sessions. Marty is so popular with my brother’s kids that the named the soiree after him.
We had discovered early on that we were all devotees of the Carolina Chocolate Drops. When we realized we’d now have both a five-string and a tenor banjo among us, we decided to start learning some of their songs. “Cornbread and Butterbeans” rolled off our tongues like we’d sung it all our lives; it’s the kind of song that’s easy to do at home when you’re having fun, but hard to do well if you let your ego get in the way.
Which makes you wonder how a group of such deeply gifted and rigorously trained musicians can pull it off so well. The Carolina Chocolate Drops are creative intellectuals dedicated to preserving a priceless past by keeping it alive with innovative approaches uniquely their own. Yet not for a moment do they sound like prima donnas; nor is there an ounce of the commercial veneer that renders so much of traditional repertoire false and hollow.
They sing the kind of song I heard growing up: the music of Aunt Nellie on the spoons and Uncle Paul on the hambone and Mom on the autoharp. My experience was not so different from that of rural boomers all over North America, and much of the style and aesthetic of these homely tunes was revived by folk singers of the 1960s—luckily, or they might have faded from awareness.
I’ve heard white folk singer versions of so many Drops songs that I was surprised to even discover they had originated in African-American communities that sooner or later abandoned them. The hard times evoked by these songs were just too painful a reminder to black musicians, who by the 1960s had embraced urban musical genres like soul, rhythm-and-blues, jazz, and funk. I remember hearing an African-American musician in a radio interview saying he hated the word “blues” because for him it evoked all that was nasty, brutish, and short about the life of the African-American.
But full circle we’ve come at last, and here we have a band that’s not only composed of superlative musicians passionate about this quite narrow segment of traditional American folk music, but that also has the chutzpah to give itself a name that’s dangerously close to a racial epithet. Their 2010 Grammy-winning debut album was called Genuine Negro Jig, the title alone a supremely confident flipping-of-the-bird to political correctness.
Another beautiful thing about this music is that it brooks none of the ethnic boundary lines that in spite of their absurdity we’ve allowed ourselves to accept. The Drops just keep on mixing genres the way normal musicians have done for millennia. They remain true to the original—and incredibly thrilling—bricolage quality of American folk music, while performing the supreme political act of forcing politics to bow it’s head to art. Enough. Let’s see what Dom had to say.

What role did music play in your background?

I’ve always had a love for history and for older music in general. My first interests in music were from the oldies station. A lot of rock ’n’ roll, doo-wop, ’60s rock, and pop. Later I grew an interest in folk music from the ’60s, Bob Dylan, Dave Van Ronk, Lightnin’ Hopkins, and people like that. I also enjoyed a lot of field recordings and New Orleans jazz as I got into college, and bebop when I was still doing slam poetry. After I did slam poetry for a bit I really got into the older songster repertoire and started going from there. That was around the time I first went to the Black Banjo Gathering in 2005.

What was your most mesmerizing musical experience?

I think the most mesmerizing experience I ever had was when I went to go see Dave Van Ronk in Phoenix, Arizona in 2001. He was such an engaging performer. He was sick at the time and would sadly pass away maybe four or five months later, but he left an impression on me. I was sitting in the back and had hooked up my four-track to the board. I recorded the show, which was an intimate audience of maybe 40 people. It changed my life and it made me want to do what he did. He not only played the songs he sang, but he had a story for every song. Some were historical, some were anecdotal, and some were connected to his personal experience with the performer associated with the song (he told stories about John Hurt, Bob Dylan, Reverend Gary Davis, Tom Paxton, and Clarence Williams). It blew my mind, and I started forming my shows around that idea. I found that it was so important to talk to an audience about the music. You never know what people are going to take away from it. I’ve kept this way of playing a show with me since from the Black Banjo Gathering to now.

Who were your main influences?

For the group, I know that Joe Thompson has been a huge influence. When Rhiannon, Justin, and I first started going down to see him there was a great sense of making good music and also that we were helping a long tradition of string bands live on. This was all just by going to Joe’s house on Thursday nights. We never talked a lot about those things when we were there, we just played music. I know that I always felt blessed to be able to be a part of that.
On my own level, I would say that a fellow by the name of Gavan Weiser gave me my most beneficial experience. When I first started playing guitar I had a flat pick, and I kept dropping it in the sound hole. It was a terrible experience every time I tried to get it out of there. I was about 16 and I saw Gavan play guitar with his fingers. His main gig was playing bass in a punk band, so when he played acoustic guitar he just strummed it. I adapted what I saw him doing, not knowing that playing with my fingers would open up a whole new form of guitar playing.
I’m always looking for a new sound, and even when I just sit and listen to records with other people it creates a new experience with that music. Also, folks who are into roots music usually have their own set of research they’ve done on their own and they’re usually more than willing to share, which is also a wonderful thing. That’s probably the best training I’ve ever received: Share the knowledge if you’ve got it.

Are you ever accused of being politically incorrect?

Surprisingly, we haven’t received a lot of flack face to face about our choice of titles and the like. Most times, once people see that we’re serious about our music and that we’re not trying to do a bunch of shuck and jive they get it. “Carolina Chocolate Drops” is an homage to older black string bands and we have never tried to shy away from the uncomfortable racial, social, and political aspects of our material. That being said, our first notion has always been to present the music and material in a respectful and articulate way so that our audience can enjoy the music without needing to know the history, while making sure the historical materials are present for those who are interested.

How do you escape academic strictures and keep this music so vibrant and alive?

By making sure the music is good. It’s one thing to hear a lecture about a song style and then to hear an authentic presentation, but the only way to really get it out to an audience is to make it a living song. The history is important, but it’s just as important to construct and arrange songs well. Folk music is not “popular” music; folk music has to be presented in such a way that the audience can appreciate it whether they know the history or not.
The Drops are not easy to pigeonhole. Purists they’re not, although in terms of musical authenticity they’re the best act in town. They keep tradition alive by allowing it to grow and develop along purely creative lines, following the dictates of the work in process rather than according to any set of rules imposed from the outside.
“Riro’s House” is not a traditional arrangement. Hubby and Rhiannon are playing the main arrangement that she and I learned from Joe Thompson, and I added snare drum and bass drum in the fife and drum style. While this may not seem like a big difference, these subtleties are the way we give the music our personal stamp, which is truly the way to make a modern song out of a traditional song—taking material from the past and making something new out of it.
Repertoire also emerges organically; some songs simply show up unannounced and immediately win the agreement of all band members, while others need some time to incubate. My good friend Mike Baytop, who showed me a lot of things on the bones, told me this one time: “Music is like a good pot of greens. When you make it right, it tastes good, but it’s when you’ve let it sit for a day or two in the fridge that the flavors all really mix together.” It’s like that.

How do you keep your creativity strong and healthy?

Time off is the biggest thing I’ve been needing. I have a wife at home, and just being able to get back to her and my music collection is what I need to keep creating. Besides that, I do all of my work on the road. I listen to a lot of records, looking for unique songs and deciding which ones would be worth working on. It’s really a fun time since I enjoy listening to music in general.”

What do you feed your muse in terms of reading, listening, and viewing?

Books: African Banjo Echoes in Appalachia; Stomp and Swerve; The Chitlin’ Circuit: And The Road to Rock ’n’ Roll; Way Up North in Dixie: A Black Family’s Claim to the Confederate Anthem; Louis Armstrong, In His Own Words; The Negro Cowboys; and Where Dead Voices Gather
Albums: Altamont; Good For What Ails You; Atlanta Blues; Deep River of Song, Black Texicans; Henry Thomas, Texas Worried Blues; Blind Willie McTell, Last Session; and Gus Cannon, Walk Right In
Films: Festival!; Hallelujah; Times Ain’t Like They Used To Be; Rashoman; City Lights; And This Is Free; and Let It Be (bootleg)

Do you have any political beliefs that influence your art?

In terms of politics, I’m a fan of our American culture. My contribution as an American citizen is to present the culture of America through its music, while not sugarcoating it. Our country always needs improvement and I feel that we can learn a lot from the music that’s been made by the people over several hundred years.
Also, as a mixed-race person (black and Mexican), I find it so important to be able to create awareness about an important part of black culture that before we started was just not generally known by the public. Our group is one of a whole community of people, white and black, who’ve worked hard to bring this knowledge out to the world and discuss it seriously and critically through a love of music.

From: https://themindfulbard.com/2016/02/27/the-carolina-chocolate-drops-interview/

The Grip Weeds - Live Online Show 2020

Though they prefer to think of themselves as creators of a classic-style rock’n’roll, to most ears, The Grip Weeds are carriers of a powerpop tradition. And while that alone should be enough to bring them fame, the sheer quality of their music should earn them fortune. As it is, while they maintain a successful career, the four-piece is less than a household name. Among those in the know, however, the arrival of a new Grip Weeds album is cause for celebration. Ever since their 1994 debut House of Vibes (expanded and reissued in 2007 as House of Vibes Revisited, making a great album even better), the appearance of a new long player has also been a rare occurrence; after that debut, only three albums followed in the ensuing decade. So it was with some delighted surprise that fans greeted the news of the group’s 2011 album Strange Change Machine: it included twenty-four tracks spread across two CDs. I ask Kurt Reil (vocals, drums, guitars, keyboards) why the Grip Weeds released a double album, and why now.
“Because we took so long between putting out Giant on the Beach [2004] and Strange Change Machine,” he explains, “we wound up with a whole batch of songs.” He also points to the fact that the House of Vibes Revisited project took more time than expected, keeping them busy. “It’s not as if we have an archive crew that goes into the vaults and does all this stuff for us,” he laughs. Finding themselves with an embarrassment of riches – the songs on Strange Change Machine are up to the Grip Weeds’ typically high standard – the band considered some options. “We got into the mindset of, ‘Yeah, we’ll give away half of the album on the internet,’” Kurt says. But more importantly, the double-album format freed the band up a bit. “We were free to go off in a few directions, and explore more long-form presentation.” Having some ideas, approaches and styles that simply wouldn’t fit comfortably on a single album, the band used the longer format to find a home for those songs.
The twin sonic hallmarks of Grip Weeds music are punchy instrumentation and carefully executed and fairly intricate harmonies. There are strong echoes of Todd Rundgren’s early group Nazz on the band’s vocal arrangements; the Grip Weeds don’t always take the most obvious path when crafting vocal harmonies. “Green Room Interlude” is a showcase of this, but it’s on display throughout the album. “More than anything,” Kurt observes, “it’s a case of trying to pull out of your head a sound that you hear in your head, and make it into reality.” Kurt arranged “Green Room Interlude,” but enlisted all four band members to add vocal parts. “Having all the different voices really makes it much more dimensional,” he observes.
While Kurt plays many instruments, in the band his primary role is holding the drum chair. His stick work is always very musical; it’s rarely a case of just thumping a rhythm along; the songs always end up with a very human, organic feel. “It’s always analog,” Kurt says. “I never go anywhere near an electronic drum kit, or even any samples.” While he pauses and adds, “Never say never,” it’s clear where he’s coming from. “I usually defeat electronic kits anyway, because I play too fast,” he chuckles. But in the end, Kurt’s goal as a drummer is singular: “I’m always looking to serve the song, not overpower it.” Since he’s also a songwriter, he brings that sensibility to bear on all of his parts. “When a write a song, I hear a soundscape – a full band sound – in my head,” he says.
Kurt’s musical inspiration comes from some perhaps-unexpected places. “I was inspired by this band Dungen, from Sweden,” he reveals. “Dungen has never been tied to the three-minute song format,” he notes. “The Grip Weeds have always been a song band. Dungen is more of an ambient group; I think they’re really good for their tone, their sound.” On “Speed of Life,” Kurt’s out-front drum part was the basis for the song. “That doesn’t usually happen; it’s usually the other way around. I’m going to have to do more of that,” he muses.
The Strange Change Machine songs are very well-layered; they’re straightforward, but there’s a lot going on in them. Often – as on “Close to the Sun” – there are multiple keyboard parts. “Live, it’s a whole different thing,” Kurt says. Lacking a keyboard player onstage, the band inventively develops different arrangements for some songs, ones that play to other strengths that the melodies possess. There’s an interesting pair of short tracks on the album called “Sun Ra Ga.” I tell Kurt that when listening to them, I hear the raga, but not so much the Sun Ra. He laughs and points to the pieces’ out-there, improvisational nature. “We were just jamming in the studio,” he says, “and I ran tape. Wherever it went, it went. It’s just very pure music.” There’s even an eleven-minute version of the song available for as a bonus download for purchasers of the HD version of the new album.
Powerpop – or whatever label you’d care to apply to the classicist approach the Grip Weeds use – has only rarely been a commercially successful formula. Clearly the Grip Weeds think there’s a market for the style: People like me, for example. In an age of market narrow-segmentation, online social media plays an important part in the band’s efforts to reach fans…and potential new fans. Kurt agrees that the internet makes it easier to connect with those people, but it’s a double-edged sword: “The internet wrecked the music industry. There’s no chance for fame or fortune anymore.” As far as that powerpop tag — Kurt cites Pete Townshend’s “three-minute single on steroids” description – the Grip Weeds have always been about more than just that style. “On this album in particular, we really cover a really wide range.” The band strives to follow their own path, hoping that in being true to themselves, they’ll create something that resonates with listeners.
To that end, the Grip Weeds don’t record a lot of covers. That makes Strange Change Machine’s cover of Todd Rundgren’s “Hello It’s Me” even more notable. Close to a note-for-note creation, the song makes one important departure: Kristin Pinnell’s guitar takes the place of Something/Anything’s horn charts. “We were asked to cover the song by Pat DiNizio of the Smithereens,” Kurt explains. “He was doing a show about baseball for ESPN, called Seventh Inning Stretch.” Part of that program would feature Todd’s sons Rex and Randy, minor-league baseball players. DiNizio wanted the song for background ambience but the budget didn’t cover licensing fees. So the Grip Weeds re-recorded it. While the goal was to hew closely to the original, the session provided an opportunity to chance a few things they didn’t like. For example, Kurt says that he’s “not a big fan of the chick singers” on Todd’s version. He also could do without the sax and other jazzy elements. The resulting Grip Weeds track has it both ways: true to the original, yet with an indelible Grip Weeds stamp.
“What wound up happening,” Kurt notes, “is that the segment got cut from the show!” Again, the double-album format came to the rescue: this band that “didn’t do covers” could now reasonably include one on an album. At the time of this writing, the Grip Weeds’ web site and Facebook page do not list any upcoming shows. “It costs a lot of money to go out and play out of town,” Kurt admits. “But it is really hard right now, with gas prices, and with the uncertainty of knowing how many people you’re going to draw.” He says that the band’s “days of sleeping on the floor, traveling around in a van and living on ramen noodles” are pretty well behind them. Still, he says, “If there’s a good opportunity, we’re there.”
At the moment the band is busy putting the finishing touches on two other projects. “We have a live record in the can right now,” Kurt says. That CD+DVD package is slated for release in early 2012. “This live album is designed to give people a taste of what we’re like live. And a Christmas-themed Grip Weeds album will be out in time for the holidays.  “We recorded a Christmas song in 2006, and we had good success with that,” Kurt says. “Every year it comes back. And we wanted to do more. Eventually realized we could do a whole album, between originals and covers.” That project will feature special guests including The Smithereens, former Paul Revere and the Raiders lead singer Mark Lindsay, and members of the Anderson Council. “Once we’re done with those projects, we’re going to start on our next new album,” Kurt says. “We had about half a dozen songs left over from Strange Change Machine, so we’ll pick up from there.” If past is any indication, expect that record – no release date set — to be another essential purchase.  From: https://blog.musoscribe.com/index.php/2011/09/30/a-conversation-with-the-grip-weeds-kurt-reil/

Uni and The Urchins - Adult Video

Uni and The Urchins graced the galaxy with a new album in 2023. Their eerie LP, a 10-track record titled Simulator dropped in January on Friday the 13th. Self-described as “Trans-Human-Glam-Art-Punks” on their website, the trio consists of Kemp Muhl, Jack James Busa, and David Strange. Musically, Uni and The Urchins use Simulator to develop compelling contrasts in texture. In their opening track “Subhuman Suburbia”, a slow-churning ballad about a “little black hole town” seemingly fused with supernatural elements, Busa delivers velvet vocals against a rough and distorted electric guitar. More often than not, Busa’s croons are rich and buttery as they blend with more edgy instrumentals and electronic sound effects. The title track “Simulator” is especially synthy with smooth, ethereal sounds that more directly complement the singer’s vocal quality.
Oozing with imagery and clever word choice or rhymes, part of Simulator’s strength is in the lyrics. The closing track “In the Waiting Room” constructs creative rhymes with lines like “The dentist grins with his laughing gas, receptionists in Venetian masks,” or “Bottles for every sickness, spotted tongues and black liquids.” In “Popstar Supernova,” the band paints their lyrical pictures by using color to emphasize emotion: “The earth feels colder when the blues have turned to gray.” Though the song’s air of electronica suggests a funky space soirée, so its twist is in the lyrics: thematically, “Popstar Supernova” critiques capitalism, with an implication that if humans had to evacuate Earth, wealth would determine priority. 
Playful and glamorous in sound yet dark in subject matter, Simulator is an edgy disco party in the stars. Certain songs’ synth-pop quality may remind listeners of Depeche Mode, with themes that more closely resemble Muse’s caution towards technology. Overall, UNI and The Urchins rock with both softness and intensity, always with a backdrop of extraterrestrial electronica. Their world is a glittery dystopia, and we’re here for it.  From: https://music.mxdwn.com/2023/02/02/reviews/album-review-uni-and-the-urchins-simulator/

Mary's Danish - Underwater - Live 1992

“I’m caught between hideous and forgotten,” bemoan Mary’s Danish in one of the finer tunes from the lamentably forgotten band’s far-from-hideous and impossibly eclectic catalog — a catalog whose eclecticism is especially notable considering its relatively small volume. Mary’s Danish, which came together in Los Angeles in the late ’80s, was itself a diverse lot — in personality and background — that served up funk, pop, punk and country. The blending of the last two genres clearly betrays the influence of X, from whom lead singers Gretchen Seager and Julie Ritter also inherited intricately woven harmony vocals. They were joined in Mary’s Danish by bassist Chris “Wag” Wagner, drummer James Bradley Jr., guitarist David A. King and second guitarist Louis Gutierrez, who had played in the Three O’Clock. All were accomplished musicians with an uncanny pliability, but their secret weapon was frequent sax sideman Michael Barbera, who added jazz and R&B flavor to the mix. Mary’s Danish were as varied thematically as they were sonically, with religion, domestic violence, social criticism and biting self-analysis all receiving narrative attention.
There Goes the Wondertruck ably introduces the band’s offbeat stylistic fusion. The bizarre narrative of “Mary Had a Bar” does not seem to be a band theme song, and “What to Do” is not a Stones cover. It’s not revealed what “BVD” stands for, but “It’ll Probably Make Me Cry” does just that. The catchy college rock favorite “Don’t Crash the Car Tonight” impressed some in the West Coast music biz, including Peter Asher, who became the band’s manager. Five of the six live tracks on Experience are more fully realized versions of songs from There Goes the Wondertruck, particularly a frenzied, beefier “Blue Stockings” and the high lonesome croon of “It’ll Probably Make Me Cry.” The disc’s studio track, a riotous take on Hendrix’s “Foxey Lady,” slyly recasts the classic rock staple with a letter-perfect Led Zeppelin quote inserted into the bridge.
With funding from pseudo-indie Morgan’s Creek, Mary’s Danish beefed up the production values to adequately match their expanded palette of musical ideas. A veritable omnibus of musical styles, Circa encircles just about every genre imaginable. The metallic crunch of “Mr. Floosack” leads into the introspective back-porch southern rock of “Hoof.” The folky instrumental jam “Down” begets the Devo dada of “These Are All the Shapes Nevada Could Have Been.” It’s easy to get lost within the stylistic shifts of Circa, where “Julie’s Blanket (pigsheadsnakeface)” is the only straight-ahead rocker. As few of the 17 tunes exceed three minutes, the five-minute “7 Deadly Sins” seems positively epic. Despite its attention deficit, the presence of songs as clever as “Beat Me Up” and “Cover Your Face” helped make this label debut a promise of big things to come.
American Standard marked a shift to a more standardized classic rock sound, thanks to longtime Linda Ronstadt/James Taylor supervisor Asher, who’d taken on the role of Mary’s producer. The album’s consistency makes it more listenable, if less adventurous, with an immediacy and urgency missing from prior work. Sure, there are pensive meditations on death and dying, but there’s also an emphasis on muscle, evidenced by the ferocious rocker “Killjoy” and the terse pneumatic punch of the single “Leave It Alone.” Chops are still evident, but there is less of an agenda to impress. Wag’s slap-happy bass style is distilled to a booming low-end vibe that fits more snugly in the depth of “Underwater,” the spiky beat of “Porcupine” and the eight-minute Crazy Horse exercise of “Sister Shade.” It’s a bulldozer of an album, a veracious testament to the strength and endurance of femininity in rock.  From: https://trouserpress.com/reviews/marys-danish/

Turbowolf - Nine Lives

Gaze if you will upon the size of these riffs. I kid you not, Turbowolf’s sophomore effort ‘Two Hands’ is a bona fide avalanche of monstrous, single-mindedly face-melting tracks. It’s not just the writing either, it’s also the monolithic intensity of tones and textures employed. Combining elements of punk, classic rock, and stoner, the band have dropped, to my eyes, one of 2015’s finer aural assaults. Skeptics won’t be for long. There’s nothing particularly ferocious to it, however, in that the band shouldn’t be mistaken for aspiring to the raw fierceness of hardcore, for example. Turbowolf quite evidently swear only by the power of fun, which results in a joyous, raucous energy. Every element of the band’s style is conceived around getting the most fun out of it: the choruses and hooks are predictably catchy the album over, the riffs ooze with personality, and there’s a surprising element of variety going on throughout. Particular highlights include ‘Rabbit’s Foot’’s fuzz-heavy riffage; ‘Invisible Hand’’s multiple shifts from floaty album opening to blistering punk track to stoner finale; ’Rich Gift’’s superb prog-rock tangent (which only goes to show they’ve mastered the long-form as much as the short); and finally their stoner finale ‘Pale Horse’ and the micro moment of greatness that is interlude ‘Toy Memaha’. If you like rock music, I’d struggle to believe you cannot appreciate what Turbowolf are doing at the moment. They not only honor the very tradition of rock, they appear to embody it completely. ‘Two Hands’ is a belter, and the most entertained I’ve been by any piece of music this year.  From: https://alreadyheard.com/album-review-turbowolf-two-hands/

Steeleye Span - Gaudete

British folk rock group Steeleye Span had a hit in 1973 (No. 14, UK singles chart) with an a cappella recording of the song Gaudete. Guitarist Bob Johnson had heard the song when he attended a folk-carol service with his father-in-law in Cambridge, and brought it to the attention of the rest of the band. (Unlike the album version which fades up slowly and fades down slowly, the single was at the same volume for the entire length of the song.) This single is one of only two top 20 British hits to be sung fully in Latin (the other was a recording of "Pie Jesu" from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Requiem performed by Sarah Brightman and Paul Miles-Kingston in 1986). Gaudete is also one of only a handful of a cappella performances to become hit singles. When Gaudete was performed on Top of the Pops, the resident dance troupe walked onto the set in medieval-style robes, holding candles, followed by the members of Steeleye Span.
Gaudete is a sacred Christmas carol, thought to have been composed in the 16th century. It was published in Piae Cantiones, a collection of Finnish/Swedish sacred songs published in 1582 in the North German city of Greifswald. No music is given for the verses, but the standard tune comes from older liturgical books. There is a known entry from around 1420 in the Hussite Jistebnice hymnal. The Latin text is a typical medieval song of praise, which follows the standard pattern for the time – a uniform series of four-line stanzas, each preceded by a two-line refrain (in the early English carol this was known as the burden). Carols could be on any subject, but typically they were about the Virgin Mary, the Saints or Yuletide themes.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaudete 

Pryapisme - Un Druide Est Giboyeux Lorsqu'il Se Prend Pour Un Neutrino

Short and True Biography

Pryapisme still hasn’t learned how to write a biography since 2000, even though they receive daily advice from a dozen communication consultants. Pryapisme is the true definition of a band with a tragic background: from a failed career in the professional table football league, followed by an eviction from the board of a major oil company, to ending up being the only men to have nearly died of leucosis because they systematically accompany their Burgundy beef with cat urine. Some members are digging even deeper by sporting a moustache, long hair or having flabby nails. There’s even an almost bald redhead. In other words, a grenadine diabolo might not be enough to pick up girls. So, Pryapisme prefers spending their time with small cats, and getting hugs on a cozy couch in exchange of a few music notes. This is now their only social bond. On stage, it’s almost as if a 10-year-old child raised by Saint Seiya was trying to play a DragonForce track on Guitar Hero while eating a pizza with extra cheese. There are failures, but it’s really funny. Yet, they still haven’t understood that their music is bound to be a commercial failure and will end up lost in the digital limbo, the place where some obscure and forgotten bands are only listened to by a bunch of theoreticians of the vacuum.

Full and Boring Biography

The band started in Clermont-Ferrand, France, with Ban Bardiaux and Aymeric Thomas in 2000 during high school. Aymeric played drums on Ban's classical piano songs then they were joined by two musicians: Simon Gastaud on bass (who would later play in the band Format) and Jack Bardiaux, Ban’s brother, on guitars. To rehearse, the band found a good place in Aymeric’s mum cattery, among around 30 cats who often pissed on their amplifiers and bass drums. In their hometown, they had a solid reputation for being a band that smelt like cat piss and ammonia. Which was true. For many years, the band played a bunch of gigs in France until the release of their very first listenable demo "Pump up the pectine" in 2005.
Then, Nicolas Sénac on guitars and Alex Peronny on bass/cello joined the band. The band was featured on the Ulver Tribute "My own wolf" (on Aspherical Asphyxia/Cold Dimensions Records) in 2007. They worked for 4 years to produce the first full-length album "Rococo Holocaust" in 2010, mostly composed by the pianist Ban. The album was mastered by Tom Kvalsvoll from Strype Audio in Oslo, Norway. Alex left Pryapisme soon after, and the band continued for 3 years as a trio. They also recorded a music soundtrack ordered for the videogame documentary "Tournament of Legends".
The years 2012/2013 were a turning point: they moved from their rehearsal room to another place, still in the cattery but in a safe zone (i.e. without cats). Since then, Aymeric has been handling most of the composing and arrangements with computer softwares.  They turned their place into a bigger home-studio to record the instrument tracks and to rehearse. The "Plimptphlymst Studio" is now cat-proof and better equipped! In 2012, they also met Simon Capony, the sound-engineer from Basalte-Studio who has mastered most of their releases since then. Thanks to "Rococo Holocaust", the band was contacted by Apathia Records and signed their first record deal.
In 2013, they released their second album "Hyperblast Supercollider" and a tape of chiptune music from their two first albums "Blastbit Rococollider" in 2014. A first music video came out: "Un druide est giboyeux lorsqu'il se prend pour un neutrino". It made over a million views on YouTube before being removed due to less than a second of nudity content. Soon after, Nils Cheville on guitars and Antony Miranda on bass/guitars/moog joined forces for live gigs. Pryapisme played for the first time outside of France. Since then, the band has been a five-headed monster.
2 EPs later, "Futurologie" (one long 23min track - Apathia Records in 2015) and "Repump the pectine" (re-arrangements of their first demo EP - self-released in 2016), they produced their third album, "Diabolicus Felinae Pandemonium" (still on Apathia in 2017) after 17 years of existence. In 2017, the band was commissioned by the French video-game studio "Macrales" to create the original soundtrack for the game "Epic Loon". With the support of Shibuya, Pictanovo and the CNC, the game was published by Ukuza on July 2018 on PC, Switch and Xbox One (later on PS4). Apathia records also released the OST (2Cds digipack) the same year. Some cats from the beginning have died, but new ones are born and continue to inspire Pryapisme with cuddles. History goes on.  From: http://www.pryapisme.net/the-band.html

Maria McKee - Life is Sweet - Live 1996

To my ears and soul, Life Is Sweet is not just one of the greatest lost albums of all time, but one of the greatest, period. It’s glam. It’s rock. It’s operatic. It’s art. The story behind it: While touring in support of her country-rock classic You Gotta Sin to Get Saved in 1993, one of the members of Maria’s band is said to have given her a mixtape of classic glam and glitter tunes. Maria listened. Loved. Obsessed. And then wrote and recorded a set of songs, released in 1996, that blended those glittery hues of yore with dramatic colors of her own design.
“Scarlover,” the opening track, is a great example. It’s rough, ragged and refined all at the same time, with guitars giving way to strings that give way to guitars, set to Maria’s seemingly stream-of-conscious admission that “ugly inside of me taught me of beauty/I wouldn’t trade that work of art.” As a whole, the album explores self-doubt, self-loathing and, ultimately, self-acceptance. At times, yes, it’s stasis in darkness (aka Sylvia Plath set to song). More than that, however, it’s Maria McKee unshorn, seemingly exploring her rapid-cycle bipolar disorder in ways that both replicate it and make it relatable. It’s the Bowie homage “Absolutely Barking Stars” with lyrics that delve into yin-yang duality and the dramatic “I’m Not Listening,” in which she attempts to ignore the voices inside her head that are taunting and haunting her.
The utterly catchy “Everybody” explores celebrity and Andy Warhol’s infamous “15 minutes of fame” maxim: “We’ve all been flirting/with the perfect day/when they think we’re perfect/Yeah, but who are they?” There’s also a flat-out incendiary guitar break: “Carried” is another highlight and, of course, there’s the title track, which may well be the greatest song she’s yet written or recorded. Geffen, her record label, hated the album. AAA radio stations like WXPN, which embraced and promoted the hell out of You Gotta Sin, refused to play it. Some critics slammed it. Some fans did, too. Artistic growth often comes at a price, and in this case the cost was Maria’s major-label career. Life Is Sweet failed to sell, and she left Geffen not long thereafter. The album also fell out of print, and has never been reissued, even digitally. (A true crime against art. Twenty-plus years since its release, however, and it sounds as fresh and hauntingly familiar as it did upon first listen. If you like Anna Calvi, Bat for Lashes, and similar dramatic acts, seek it out. You won’t be disappointed.  From: https://oldgreycat.blog/2018/06/23/the-essentials-maria-mckees-life-is-sweet/

Little Feat - Dixie Chicken (with Emmylou Harris & Bonnie Raitt) Live 1977

"Dixie Chicken," a classic rock staple by Little Feat, went on to define the Southern music-loving Californians and inspire the former Dixie Chicks' name. Lowell George, Little Feat's primary guitarist, vocalist and songwriter, co-wrote the future standard with Martin Kibbee (billed as Fred Martin). It tells of a visitor to the Commodore Hotel who goes from thinking he's met the love of his life to pouring his broken heart out to a bartender. They soon learn that other barflys at the hotel had been let down by the same potential suitor.
"Lowell and I had been up all night trying to write a song. We had the Ace Screen Door factory down on Laurel Canyon. As I was leaving, there was a chicken place with a sign that said, 'Dixie chicken,'" Kibbee later recalled in an interview. "He'd been playing the damn thing all night, you know, [imitates riff], which was going through my brain. By the time I got home, I had written this song. When I came back the next morning to the rehearsal hall at the Warner Bros. soundstage, I went, 'I've got it! I've got it!' And they all looked at me like, 'Puh-leeze, you're kidding!'"
Dixie Chicken became the title of the group's third album. Its 1973 release came at a time of transition for the band. Prior albums Little Feat (1971) and Sailin' Shoes (1972) sold poorly, and the group's lineup had become a revolving door. Two new members (guitarist Paul Barrere and congas player and percussionist Sam Clayton) shored up the band's New Orleans R&B/funk sound, while Kenny Gradney replaced original bassist Roy Estrada, who'd left to join Captain Beefheart's Magic Band. These newcomers teamed with keyboardist and synthesizer player Bill Payne, drummer Richie Hayward and George for the remainder of the '70's.
Noteworthy songs beyond Dixie Chicken's title track include Allen Toussaint's  "On Your Way Down," instrumental jam "Lafayette Railroad" and George compositions "Fat Man in the Bathtub," "Roll Um Easy" and "Kiss It Off." "Dixie Chicken" wasn't an overnight success, but its fame grew after subsequent albums (namely million-selling live LP Waiting For Columbus (1978)) gained new fans hungry to hear Little Feat's earlier material. Once momentum was in Little Feat's favor, "Dixie Chicken" became easy pickings for rock radio.
It still hooks in listeners to this day because it's a Los Angeles-based band's earnest exploration of the great Southern music to come out of Memphis and New Orleans, highlighted by George's slide guitar solo and the backing vocals of roots rock icons Bonnie Raitt and Bonnie Bramlett. Raitt, Emmylou Harris and Jesse Winchester joined Little Feat during a 1977 episode of the Midnight Special for a proto-jam band rendition of "Dixie Chicken" that captures the song's jazzy appeal even better than its classic studio version.  From: https://www.wideopencountry.com/little-feat-dixie-chicken/

Jill Sobule - Bitter

Q: It’s been almost a decade since you last released a proper solo album. Why such a long time?

A: Yeah. That’s so weird. I had that little Dottie’s Charms record, which was more of a concept album, out in 2014 and I’ve been working on musicals, but I’ve procrastinated so long on making another solo record of new songs. It’s funny, I think maybe LA just got to me. I also think I had a little bit of a depression and I kind of got spooked. You know, the last record didn’t do so well and you just get a little crestfallen. It also coincided with going through a bad breakup. For whatever reason, I needed a break. I needed to start loving music again. I needed to start listening to older stuff, to newer stuff. Eventually I started writing again. It also coincided with getting a couple of theater projects that I had to write for. When you’re on your own and you don’t have a record company saying, “We need that record,” it gets harder. I think about a band like the Beatles, who had people saying to them, “We need another new record in three months!” When you don’t have someone pushing you, sometimes you stall. The good thing is that I was writing for other projects. Being forced to write for my musical projects, having to be a part of a collaborative community, it all nudged me back into writing again. I started loving it. Also, there’s something great for me about being back in New York, where I go out and see music all the time. In LA it just feels so hard to get in your car and drive for 40 minutes. It feels easier here.

You were famously one of the first people to use a crowdfunding platform to raise money to make your own record. This was back in 2008, before things like Kickstarter. Now it’s such a common thing to do. So many artists now even question if they need a label at all, or whether it’s easier to just do everything yourself.

Well, here’s the thing. When I did my jillsnextrecord.com no one really knew if it would work or not. I came up with the various pledging levels over the course of a drunken night with a friend. The donation levels ranged from polished rock to weapons-grade plutonium. Somehow CNN got hold of the story and the whole thing started going totally gangbusters, mostly because there wasn’t anything else like that yet. Eventually I stopped it after raising nearly 100,000 dollars because Perez Hilton—you remember that horrible man?—wrote about greedy Jill Sobule asking fans to give her money. So, I freaked out. Then a few months later everyone is doing projects this way. I remember having meetings with the people from Kickstarter, telling them about what had worked for me and what hadn’t. So, all these years later I used Kickstarter to make my new record. I was afraid it might fail because nowadays there are so many people asking everyone else to donate to things, but in the end I did it and it worked and it was great. Still, I procrastinated forever before doing it. I just finally had to come to a point of thinking: I want to do a record. I’m not gonna get a record deal or an advance, so I’m gonna have to do this on my own. It was out of necessity, really. I had no choice.
It’s an easier thing to do if you already have an existing fanbase, but it’s still hard. You have to be really tenacious about promoting it and coming up with good rewards for people. I think crowdfunding can be hard for people because it still involves asking for help on some level, which can be a hard thing to do.
The way I look at it, you just have to make sure you are giving something back in return. It’s an exchange. You’re not begging people. My recent Kickstarter met its goal times three, and it had done really well within the first two weeks. I was completely taken aback. Some of the levels of sponsorship we created were really just like jokes, things I thought nobody would ever actually do. For 10 grand you will be my personal lord and savior. Very funny, right? Somebody bought it! Joss Whedon bought it. So on my record he gets listed as my personal lord and savior. I also did things like offer to write people their own personal theme song. That was a big ticket item that a lot of people actually went for. So now I’m writing people their theme songs, as promised.

People might now realize how many different kinds of things you’ve done over the years, other than releasing solo records. Did you find that having these outside projects—writing a musical, for example—let you come back to your solo work with renewed energy or a different perspective?

Oh, completely! How boring would it be to just do this? On one hand, with the music industry changing and being so terrible, I mean, who makes a living doing this now? It’s the one percent who actually make a living doing only this. I’m really a part of the other 99%. There used to be such a thing as a middle-class working musician, but now? I mean, we used to complain about the stupidest stuff, and how the record labels were ripping us off, but now? Shit. I’d love an advance, you know? I actually had something called a “tour bus” for a couple of years that we toured in, with all of this nice airbrushing on the side. I will never get that again. I had to explore other options, take on other kinds of projects and collaborations.

I know you worked with Ben Lee on Nostalgia Kills. When you are doing things on your own terms with your own money, do you set up certain parameters for yourself? Did you give yourself specific deadlines?

Not really. Actually, I had written a bunch of songs over the last few years here and there and just kind of stuck them aside. I basically gave everything to Ben and asked him to pick out the songs we should work on, which was a little overwhelming for him because I think there were over 50 songs there. He definitely gravitated towards the songs that were kind of melancholy. I was really interested and surprised by the things he chose, but it also felt nice to hand that part of the process off to a friend who I also trusted. There was definitely a kind of running theme in the songs he picked that might not have been there if I had chosen them. I also wrote some new songs during the process, which felt good.

Everyone’s career has peaks and valleys. Big tours and small tours, hits and misses, going from playing big rooms back to clubs. How do you keep all of that stuff from creeping into the art you make? Was there ever a time when you were sort of like, “Screw this, I’m gonna do something else instead?”

Yeah, absolutely, because it can be heartbreaking. It can all be so wonderful and then also just so crushing. There was a time when I just didn’t want to listen to music. At all. Not just mine. I don’t know if listening to music just reminded me of my own regrets or failures or what, but I just couldn’t do it. At some point I also realized that I have no marketable skills doing anything else. I have a friend who is a very talented artist and musician, but she also has a law degree and a real job and can be organized. Her thing was always, “If I wasn’t a lawyer and didn’t have this job, maybe I could have made it in the arts.” Jane Siberry has a song that’s called something like, “I’d probably be famous now if I wasn’t such a good waitress.” I basically have no skills to do anything else. Sometimes that feels like a curse, but it could also be a kind of blessing. There was nothing else I could do but this.

How has your definition of success changed over the years?

Oh yeah. What is success? I hate how it’s always like you have to be at the very top or somehow you are meaningless. Like, if LeBron James is the greatest of all-time that somehow means Michael Jordan is now a loser. Like, what are you talking about? Does it mean that I’m a loser if I’m not playing Madison Square Garden or if I’m not even selling out the Bowery? I always get people coming up to me and saying things like, “Oh, I loved you! Why aren’t you bigger? Why aren’t you more famous?” I know they mean well and that they mean that as a compliment, but damn. It’s hard to hear things like that over and over. Like, yeah, why aren’t I? I don’t know. But when that happens I have to remind myself of things like… you know, last week I played a show at someone’s house and I was singing, “I Kissed A Girl” in between Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner, who were singing along with me at a party that I was hired to play. In that moment I’m like, you know what? I’m a fucking success. We’re all so fucked up about what success means now.

From: https://thecreativeindependent.com/people/musician-jill-sobule-on-reconfiguring-what-success-means/

The Big Moon - 2 Lines

The Big Moon come across like four different parts of the same person. They finish each other’s sentences between sips of coffee, all the while dutifully filling in holes in one another’s biographies. But perhaps to the surprise of some, frontwoman Juliette Jackson writes the band’s songs in complete solitude. “Juliette lives near the market where I get my groceries from, so sometimes I’d be like, ‘Wanna come in for a cuppa?’ and she’s like, ‘No! I’m trying to finish this song!’” says the band’s Welsh drummer, Fern Ford, miming Jackson’s blustering frustration. At a bustling central London cafe on a brisk British morning, the entire band – Ford, Jackson, Sophie Nathan (lead guitarist) and Celia Archer (bassist) – are crammed around a table built with only two adult-sized humans in mind. They’re here to discuss their upcoming second album, Walking Like We Do, although the conversation often finds itself coming back to the travails of the modern music industry, as well as the prospect of an impending apocalypse.
The Big Moon formed in 2014 after Jackson posted a call-out on Facebook in search of instrumentalists to help her execute a budding songwriting vision. The call-to-arms worked: soon after coming together, the group began hitting a stride, combining ’00s-style indie with Jack Antonoff-ed hooks and production. It was a sleek guitar band sound as indebted to Taylor Swift as it was the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The quartet burst into wider prominence in 2017 with their debut album, Love in the 4th Dimension, which earned them a place on the Mercury Prize shortlist. Thematically, the album was interesting with the metaphysical: infatuation dragging you headfirst into the unknown. This time around, though, Walking Like We Do’s songs offer a liveliness only this plane can. Optimistic, danceable pop rock shot through in flashes of modern anxiety and heartbreak, where keyboard chords have mostly replaced the grungey guitars. A bigger audience has meant more shows. During a soundcheck in Toronto last year, the band’s punishing schedule appeared to physically and mentally grind Ford – who was juggling roles as tour manager, driver, and drummer – to a halt. She collapsed, crying, even though she didn’t feel sad.

Because of the position you’ve found yourselves in, it might seem ungrateful to complain about working conditions. But musicians – especially independent or less commercially successful ones – are increasingly flagging mental health as being a big issue.

FF: It’s the best job in the world, but it’s not the easiest. It takes its toll in so many different ways. You’re away a lot from your closest friends and family. You’re away for long periods where there’s nothing, then you have this burst of adrenaline for like an hour and it’s… [gestures a sudden deflation] afterwards. So that, everyday, fucks up my moods. You have to find some kind of equilibrium in all of that.

It’s essentially a 24/7 job when on tour.

SN: It’s about finding a way to do it that gives you a sense of routine – in a healthy way. We’ve toured enough now that we’re getting more professional about the way we see it. At the beginning, it was more like, ‘We’re on tour, this is so much fun!’ But you can’t keep that up.

CA: Musicians complaining and suddenly starting to moan about their mental health is good. It’s quite nice to hear people who do the same job as you being like, ‘Hey, I feel weird at the end of a tour. Does anybody else feel weird?’

JJ: We have to work with it at the end of the day, because this is what we all want to do. It’s hard to be honest about those feelings because, well, this is a dream job. This is my dream job – every time I have a bad day, I remember what it felt like to work in a cloakroom, or work in a bar. This is still better. But it’s really hard to be honest about when it’s shit because people just don’t get it. I still have friends who joke about when I’m going to get a real job.

SN: I feel guilty sometimes with friends who work full days.

So when you say that you’re suffering from burnout, do they almost struggle to believe you?

SN: When I’m at home, they’ll say I’m not doing anything. I am – it’s just in a different way. It’s not like people always make me feel like that, but I do sometimes get that feeling. I’m not really doing anything, then I go away for a month and it’s like, ‘Oh my god, this is so intense.’

CA: Then you cry.

SN: It is comforting to know that other people feel weird and that it’s normal [for a musician].

An awkward segue, but one of the things that has caught my eyes has been your visuals. Juliette, do you think about songs visually – and who comes up with the ideas for the videos?

JJ: We usually come up with the ideas ourselves. When I’m writing, I do think about visuals a bit. I quite like watching videos while I’m listening to a song that is half-written.

Because I work on my laptop, with my guitar or whatever, you can get really stuck looking at these little blocks of music that you’ve recorded – graphics, sound waves. But if you watch a video on mute while listening to your song – and I’ve got some favourites, like Robyn, who has got some great videos – you can suddenly hear your song.

Just music videos or other types of videos, too?

JJ: Just music videos, because they have loads of slow-mo and dancing and flashing lights.

SN: It’s a great idea! Your senses are distracted and you’re not overthinking with your eyes.

Your videos have a strong sense of self-awareness.

JJ: The video for ‘Your Light’ – which is the one where we’re riding bicycles – we spent ages just trying to decide what to do for that video because it was our first single back after the first album and we wanted it to be more serious than previous videos.

CA: ‘It’s not a joke! We’re not a joke!’

JJ: Like, we mean these things – we’re a serious band. We developed this little routine on the bikes and then, obviously, the puppets appear. There was a moment where we looked at each other and went, ‘Oh, we can’t help it. This is just who we are.’

Is this lack of self-importance central to your music?

JJ: I think it’s just our personalities. We take our music seriously, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously.

SN: The songs aren’t sad, even though some of them are about sad things, or are moving in certain ways.

CA: With our first album, there was a lot of, ‘Who are these girls that just bounded onto the scene? Oh, The Big Moon? Lol!’ It was a bit like, ‘Do you not take us seriously? Maybe we should make people take us seriously.’ But then we realised that’s boring, and we’re not like that.

And where does the album title come from?

JJ: It’s a lyric from the song, ‘A Hundred Ways to Land’. It just summed up the whole feeling of the album, which is about growing up and moving on and going forward. But also about trying to feel strong when everything in the world feels quite unsteady. 

From: https://www.huckmag.com/article/the-big-moon-interview-walking-like-we-do-album

Sarah Jarosz - Song Up in Her Head

For Sarah Jarosz, it had to be validating to earn a Grammy Award (her fourth overall) for 2020’s World On The Ground, an album released in the thick of the pandemic, when so much great music fell into a lockdown-induced black hole. Produced with style and restraint by studio veteran John Leventhal, the Best Americana Album winner is a beautiful piece of work, propelled by inventive arrangements and one pristine melody after the next. It’s also one of the finest things Leventhal has helmed since Shawn Colvin’s 1996 breakthrough, A Few Small Repairs. After 2021’s low-key song cycle, Blue Heron Suite, Jarosz aims to regain some commercial momentum with the new Polaroid Lovers (Rounder), the 32-year-old singer/songwriter’s seventh studio album in 15 years. A mandolin prodigy raised in Wimberly, Texas, she was just 18 when she released her debut, and the accolades have rained down pretty much ever since. Polaroid Lovers was produced by Daniel Tashian, who’s best known for his work on Kacey Musgraves’ Golden Hour, a 2019 Grammy winner for Album Of The Year. For the most part, Jarosz’s latest comfortably follows in the same refined folk/pop vein as World On The Ground, though with a bit more of a rock edge. We caught up with Jarosz in her newly adopted hometown of Nashville, where she’s prepping for a tour that kicks off in Washington, D.C., on February 1.

From a songwriting standpoint, Polaroid Lovers is your most collaborative album to date. How did that come about?

I hadn’t really embraced cowriting with other songwriters before this record. Any cowriting I’d done was with other musicians—people in my band, for example. Every song on this record is cowritten by someone—mostly Daniel Tashian, but also Jon Randall, Natalie Hemby, Ruston Kelly … So, yeah, it does feel more collaborative in that sense.

How much did moving to Nashville play a role in your urge to collaborate more?

I moved here in March of 2020, so there wasn’t a lot of meeting up with people at first. I spent a lot of time at the house with my husband (acclaimed bassist Jeff Picker) making music. But when it came time to start thinking about a new record, I wanted some outside inspiration in terms of fleshing out what I wanted to say. In the spring of 2022, I decided to reach out to some writers I’ve always admired. I was sort of closed off to doing that on my earlier records because I was still finding my voice. It was cool to finally reach that moment where I felt there was actually something to be gained by meeting up with other writers I really respect.

How was working with Daniel Tashian different from your experience with John Leventhal?

Daniel’s studio—the way he has it set up, the vibe—is almost like the Nashville version of what Leventhal has in New York. It’s a home studio. Its comfortable. It’s cozy. It feels like a safe space to try stuff. But with Leventhal, we were recording in bits as we went along. The demo would sometimes become the track itself. He plays everything, so something like “Orange And Blue,” for instance … He actually built out that track, playing drums, piano and bass, and recording a verse and a chorus. I wrote the vocal melody and lyrics and recorded my part over top of that. With Daniel, we wrote everything on the front end. Our first writing session was the first day I met him. We wrote “Take The High Road”—the song that got me so stoked and made me see what this record could be. Then he put together a band, and we tracked the album in eight days, mostly live. That’s a very common occurrence in Nashville, but it was new and different for me. I think the energy from that process comes through on this record.

World On The Ground came out at pretty crazy time, yet it still got some great recognition. How weird was it to snag a Grammy Award in the middle of a pandemic?

The awards were virtual that year, so it was challenging. But that time was challenging for everybody, so I’m obviously not alone in that. We mastered the record in January or February of 2020, and there were a lot of conversations about whether we should even put it out at the time. Ultimately, I’m glad I did. I think it was comforting for people who dug into it, and I’m happy about that.

It seems like you’ve finally settled into a sound you’re comfortable with. How has that evolution felt over the past 15 years?

I feel confident and comfortable right now, especially with this record. But more than anything, that comes from time and growth—not being 18 and knowing myself a little better. It’s a never-ending thing. I hope that I never feel like I’ve arrived. There’s no finish line with art. The goal is to keep running the race.

From: https://magnetmagazine.com/2024/01/29/a-conversation-with-sarah-jarosz/

The Asylum Choir - Tryin' To Stay 'Live

You've mastered the basics of late-'60s pop-rock: Beatles, Stones, Beach Boys, Kinks, Dylan, Who, Hendrix, Joplin, Doors, Creedence, Stax, Motown. You've explored the second tier: the garage rock and mild trippiness of the box sets Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968 and Nuggets II: Original Artyfacts from the British Empire and Beyond, 1964-1969; the stirrings of singer-songwriters; fusions of pop and rock with new forms such as metal and old ones such as country and jazz. You've liked much of what you've heard from these sources, so you've acquired a taste for early-'70s pop-rock that carried on late-'60s traditions: the power pop of Badfinger and Big Star; the glam of David Bowie and T. Rex; the folk-rock masterpieces of Neil Young and Joni Mitchell and so on, and so... Where do you go next, time traveler? Consider visiting the Asylum Choir.
Don't let the name fool you; the Choir consisted of a duo on its first album. Additional musicians appeared on its second, final release, but the assembled multitude never added up to a full choir, not even through the then-limited art of multi-tracking. In whatever form, the band probably never played in an asylum either. The duo consisted of Marc Benno, who sang and played guitar and bass, and Leon Russell, who sang and played guitar, piano, and drums. Benno hailed from Texas, Russell from Oklahoma. They met in LA, where Russell enjoyed an active career as a session musician, from early-'60s work with Phil Spector to mid-'60s work as a member of the so-called Wrecking Crew.
Benno and Russell's debut, Look Inside the Asylum Choir, appeared in 1968. It runs all of twenty-six minutes on the original LP, forty minutes or more with bonus tracks on CD (and the bonus tracks consist of mono mixes or alternate mixes). Benno and Russell cowrote all the songs, either just together or with others.
Like the best work of power-popsters and other lovers of period pieces from the '60s and '70s, so much about this album feels both retro in a good way and totally fresh. The original cover depicted a roll of (unused) toilet paper, a choice so controversial at the time that the album was soon reissued with a photo of Benno and Russell on the cover. Toilet imagery was forbidden in those days--the john on the cover of the Mamas and the Papas' If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears (1966) had to be hidden, and the graffiti-laden loo on the Stones' Beggars Banquet (1968) was replaced with an elegant but faux invitation card. Decades later, indie rock bands would use shots of toilets, even the contents of unflushed toilets, for their album covers. The original Look Inside cover would fit right in--and has been restored on reissues.
Likewise, the duo's music, so affectionate toward its sources and painstakingly crafted, would fit in with late-'60s-style sound collages, pastiches, and homages from the 1980s through today. Think of the Paisley Underground bands Rain Parade, Opal, Three O'Clock, and early Bangles (and don't forget these bands' one-off side project, Rainy Day); XTC's psychedelic recordings and Dukes of Stratosphear alter ego; Bongwater and the Shimmy-Disc Records catalog generally; the Flaming Lips; the Fiery Furnaces; the Lennon-Claypool Delerium. If those references signify for you, if you've grooved on the box set Children of Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the Second Psychedelic Era, 1976-1995, you'll probably love Look Inside. However, you might want to get your sugar fix there and not venture further into the Asylum Choir. Or at least you should go into the second album expecting something different than the first one. If Look Inside delivers high-quality bubblegum, its follow-up tastes more like homemade falafel, hummus, or baba ganouj.
Benno and Russell recorded Asylum Choir II in 1969 and were joined by studio musicians. The guitarist, Jesse Ed Davis, is now best known for work with Taj Mahal, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. One bassist, Carl Radle, worked with Eric Clapton, including in Derek & the Dominoes. The other bassist, Donald "Duck" Dunn, played on more Stax and other classics than this sentence could possibly do justice to. The drummer, Chuck Blackwell, played with Taj Mahal and Leon Russell as a solo artist. Asylum Choir II wasn't released until 1971, by which time the Asylum Choir was over and Russell had established himself as a star. While Benno and Russell cowrote seven of the songs here, Russell wrote the remaining four by himself, and the collection feels much more like his self-titled, guest-enhanced 1970 solo debut than like the original Asylum Choir. Eschewing his clipped vocal delivery on Look Inside, Russell lets his drawl hang out. Abandoning that first album's tightly controlled, highly produced, mildly psychedelic freneticism, the band sounds organic, relaxed, pleasantly stoned, a bit ragged. Filter Look Inside the Asylum Choir through Music from Big Pink and The Band and you might get Asylum Choir II. Put another way: this Southern-fried music sounds more like 1971, when it was released, than like 1969, when it was recorded. Maybe this analysis comes across as fitting angels on the head of a pin. However, the history matters if the music matters. Oddly, Asylum Choir II has been reissued on CD with most of Look Inside as bonus tracks, as though the first album was just a warm-up. Taken in chronological order, the two Asylum Choir albums illustrate how '60s pop transitioned into '70s rock.
Since the end of the Asylum Choir, Benno has released solo albums. He is most well-known as the second guitarist on the Doors' L.A. Woman (1971), which is one damn great album to be best remembered for. He also played guitar with Rita Coolidge and wrote a song by the System on the Grammy-winning soundtrack to Beverly Hills Cop (1984). Leon Russell's career peaked in the early '70s, when he worked extensively with Joe Cocker, released albums that remain lower-tier classics, and enjoyed hit cover versions of his songs. In the following decades, he experienced partial eclipses and reappearances. His eclipse was nearly total by the time Elton John, a fan from way back, invited him to collaborate on 2010's The Union. Russell died in 2016, his recordings a mix of highs and lows, his time in the Asylum Choir a footnote, even a footnote to a footnote, but a highly entertaining and enlightening one.  From: https://www.furious.com/perfect/asylumchoir.html

PJ Harvey - Naked Cousin

"Naked Cousin" by PJ Harvey explores themes of identity, self-reflection, and the pursuit of freedom. The lyrics depict a complicated relationship between the narrator and their "naked cousin," who serves as a symbol for aspects of the narrator's own self that they dislike or want to distance themselves from. In the first verse, the naked cousin is portrayed as being scared and vulnerable, running around aimlessly in the headland. This can be interpreted as a representation of the narrator's own insecurities and fears, which they may be trying to avoid or escape from.
The line "My naked cousin can cook till he's good and done" can be seen as a metaphorical reference to the cousin's struggle to find his own identity and purpose in life. The image of his skin frying in the sun suggests a sense of discomfort and unease, highlighting the challenges he faces in navigating his own existence. The chorus, which repeats the phrase "He's running," emphasizes the theme of escape and the cousin's constant need to flee from difficult situations or confrontations. It can also be seen as a broader commentary on society, where individuals often find themselves running from various forms of oppression or personal struggles.
The third verse suggests that the cousin is actively running away from anything that disrupts his "master plan." This implies a desire for control and an aversion to anything that challenges his comfort zone or predetermined path. The narrator, on the other hand, acknowledges that if they "flip," they are as good as done, further emphasizing their sense of powerlessness in the face of their cousin's relentless pursuit of freedom. The outro repeats the phrase "He's running" multiple times, accompanied by lyrics that describe the narrator's fear and their willingness to go along with the cousin's escapades. This can be interpreted as a combination of admiration for the cousin's freedom and a desperate plea for the cousin to take them along on their journey. Overall, "Naked Cousin" delves into the complexities of self-perception, the struggle for autonomy, and the constant desire to break free from societal constraints. The use of vivid imagery and repetitive phrases adds to the song's emotional intensity and invites listeners to reflect on their own relationship with identity and freedom.  From: https://www.songtell.com/pj-harvey/naked-cousin

Pauw - Visions

The last couple of years have been a bit of a whirlwind for Dutch psych-rockers Pauw. They have followed hot on the heels of their compatriot Jacco Gardner and just before Christmas unveiled their debut LP Macrocosm Microcosm – a spangly piece of 60s-inspired pop that has drawn comparisons to Tame Impala and Caribou. What’s more, they’ve already bossed some pretty huge spaces after touring with Kasabian and Temples in Europe. The four-piece touched down on UK soil for the first time at last year’s Liverpool Psych Fest, but for those who missed them, we set out to find out a little more about Pauw with frontman Brian Pots.

How has the reaction to the record been?

It’s been amazing, especially in the Netherlands where I think people already knew us.  It was exciting to get the reaction we did because a lot of people had already seen us play live. They have extra patience so it was nice fulfill them. It’s all been positive, really great.

Did the success of those early live shows give you a lot of confidence?

Yeah, it gave us confidence, but also it made us kind of insecure. It put a bit of extra time pressure on recording the album. At the same time we were playing live a lot and we were still studying in school. We had to fit the recording in between these things – and some of the writing because there were still some songs that weren’t properly finished yet. It was pretty heavy, but we made it through!

Have the live shows felt different since you got the record out there?

Some people were singing along, which was pretty cool. The crowds were getting bigger and bigger at shows. Afterwards people were asking for autographs and to take pictures with us. That was all new for us, so it feels pretty amazing.

Was that a strange feeling, the sensation of sudden fame?

Yeah I think so. You know how the process goes, we’re still the same people as before the album came out, we’re still human beings. We couldn’t believe all that stuff at first, but overall it’s pretty cool.

You had some pretty big support slots early on – including Kasabian – how did that help your progression?

It was amazing. Kasabian were a band I was planning on going to see anyway, and then we ended up supporting them! I learned a lot from this experience of playing on the big stage and the whole production that comes with that. The day of the show is really different. There’s a much tighter schedule and obviously a lot more people are coming. Even though we were just the support act the crowd seemed really into our music!

Pauw clearly have an ear for a melody, who are some of your favourite songwriters?

It kind of depends from song to song, but in terms of stuff all four of us are into, Pink Floyd, The Beatles, also The Small Faces and King Crimson. With this particular record we took a lot from the 60s and 70s psychedelic scene.

Psychedelia has had a bit of a resurgence in popularity over the last few years, is that something you have noticed in the Netherlands too?

Yeah, somehow there is some hype from somewhere. There is something going on in the psychedelic scene. We already had our own Jacco Gardner, and you guys in the UK seem to love him too, which is pretty cool. And we have many more, so it’s great to see it is still alive!

Speaking of the UK reaction, how was Liverpool Psych Fest?

It was our first show in the UK and a really great experience. People are coming specifically to see psychedelic music so it was perfect for us. The reaction afterwards was really great, a lot of good reviews. We want all our future shows in the UK to be like this.

What’s next for Pauw? Any early ideas for the second record?

We’ve got some ideas floating around but we’re not really ‘writing’ at the moment. We’re playing live a lot at the the moment and really still focusing on that. But then after we will take some proper time for writing. From tomorrow we’re just going to rehearse for three days and really work on the set we have now. Some of the songs were written in the studio during the process of the recoding. So we need to really get them in our fingers, you know? It’s a bit like we’re playing covers of our own songs!

From: https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/interview-a-far-out-introduction-to-pauw/

L'Ham de Foc - Voldrien

Cor de Porc is the third record from L'Ham de Foc and on this one they have taken the next logical step and actually lived in the Northern Greek city of Thessaloniki for six months before recording it. The forty hours of material that led to the twelve songs on The Pig's Heart were recorded between Efren Lopez and Mara Aranda's home regions of Valencia and Greece.
What led them to temporarily move to Greece was the need to more carefully explore the Oriental rhythms, still active in the city due to its proximity to their source, and the particular social characteristics of the city. They even utilized some Greek musicians to achieve this, on instruments such as ney, kaval, rebec and Black Sea lyra. Their Iberian spirit is very much alive, particularly in their use of a style of playing from Valencia called the Cant d'Estil, where a poet whispers the lyrics into the singer's ear who then improvises over a fixed melodic line in a mode not too dissimilar from flamenco. They named the record after the eternal human quest to delve deep and unearth the secrets of our existence, just like a pig searching for food. The results are fascinating. L'Ham de Foc have already proved that they can assimilate their influences from across the Mediterranean Sea, but this time they have moved further East, creating what I feel is the first entechno record by someone who is not Greek (a real accolade for a style of interpretation that is based to a great degree on the specific social parameters of Greece) while at the same time staying true to their own homeland.
The daring process that led to this record has produced a work that, while highly idiosyncratic, is rooted in the musical comings and goings of the Mediterranean and the Near East, the vast cultural space extending from Iran and Afghanistan (here lending instruments and modes of playing) to Valencian Spain. Like their previous efforts, there are moments when things might seem to get too serious or involved, but the sparks that fly as a result of this tension lend it a sense of timelessness.  From: https://rootsworld.com/reviews/porc06.shtml