The Hu featuring Lzzy Hale - Song of Women

Mongolian rock sensation The Hu has released "Song Of Women", featuring a guest appearance by Lzzy Hale of Halestorm. The track will appear on the deluxe edition of The Hu’s critically acclaimed album "The Gereg". This version includes three of The Hu tracks re-made with special featured artists. "Yuve Yuve Yu", featuring Danny Case of From Ashes To New, was the band's first-ever radio single. The band's current single "Wolf Totem", features Jacoby Shaddix of Papa Roach. The third track exclusive to the deluxe edition is "Song Of Women". There will also be three acoustic tracks on the new release. Lzzy appears in the video for "Song Of Women", which was filmed prior to the coronavirus quarantine. "I'm so thankful to The Hu for welcoming me, my words and my melody into this song," says Hale. "I can count on less than one hand the number of times where a project has changed the course of my spirit and renewed my faith in humanity. This was one of those projects. I'm still levitating." May is a month filled with events honoring women — Mother's Day on May 10 and Women's Health Week from May 12 through May 18, so the band felt it important to release the song in May. The Hu stands for the Mongolian root word for human being, inspiring the band's original style of music that it calls "Hunnu Rock." The group pulls inspiration from the Hunnu, an ancient Mongolian empire better known as The Huns in western culture. Their music is deeply embedded with their ancient culture, even integrating old Mongolian war cries and poetry into their lyrics. The group was founded in 2016 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia by their producer Dashka, along with band members Gala, Jaya, Temka and Enkush. Together they create rock music with traditional Mongolian instrumentation such as the morin khuur (horsehead fiddle), tovshuur (Mongolian guitar), tumur khuur (jaw harp), guttural throat singing built around the pillars of heavy rock: distorted guitars, bombastic drums, and aggressive rhythms. All four members have earned Bachelor's or higher degrees in classical music and have gained several years of touring experience throughout Asia and the Pacific Rim.  From: https://ultimatemetal.com/threads/mongolian-band-the-hu-releases-song-of-women-featuring-halestorms-lzzy-hale.1659738/

Uriah Heep - The Wizard

When Uriah Help returned to the US for the second time, in January 1972, they were booked to open for Deep Purple, their noisy neighbours from Hanwell Community Centre. Their gregarious guitarist, meanwhile, was taking advantage of his group’s burgeoning reputation by thumbing through local phone directories and placing calls to random young ladies, inviting them along to gigs and parties.
“You’d tell the bird you were in Uriah Heep, and next minute the hotel was full of women,” Mick Box recalled cheerfully. But such a lifestyle wasn’t for everyone. On January 31, upon completing the final date of the Deep Purple tour, bassist Mark Clarke quit the band, having joined only four months previously.
“Mark jumped ship because he couldn’t deal with the stresses of the touring we were doing, which were excessive, I have to say,” Box says. “It was a mad, mad, mad time for us all. Mark felt that he just could not keep up with it, that he was going to have a full-on nervous breakdown if he stuck around any longer.”
Although Clarke’s time in the band was short, the ex-Colosseum bassist did make one lasting and significant contribution to Uriah Heep, writing a striking, harmonised middle eight for a new Ken Hensley composition titled The Wizard, based on a fantastical recurring dream he’d had every night for a week.
“I remember Ken playing The Wizard on an acoustic guitar in the back of our van,” says Box. “It was the first time I’d heard anyone play guitar with a drop-D tuning. He couldn’t find a middle eight, so Mark Clarke wrote that, and the whole song sounded so good to everyone. I think we all knew it was something special."
Gerry Bron, too, heard potential in Hensley’s whimsical power ballad. Ahead of their second visit to the US, Heep were rushed into Lansdowne Studios in Holland Park, where they tracked the song (and single B-side Why) in a matter of hours. Before the session ended, The Wizard’s semiacoustic intro was beefed up with the addition of an unusual instrument – the studio kettle.
“We were making a cup of tea, and had the studio door open, and as we were listening back to the intro of the song we heard the whistle, and thought: ‘Hang on!” Mick Box recalls. “We went into the kitchen, recorded the kettle whistle two or three times and got it re-tuned to a high C. That’s the note you hear at the beginning of the song.”
While Bronze Records readied The Wizard for an international release, Heep bedded in Mark Clarke’s replacement Gary Thain with a five-night stand at the Whiskey A Go Go club in Los Angeles in February ’72. New Zealander Thain had come from the Keef Hartley Band, and clicked instantly with Heep’s other new addition, drummer Lee Kerslake, who had joined just three months previously. The pair’s obvious chemistry, and superior musical ability, immediately elevated the whole band to a new level.
“Now we finally had a real steam engine of a rhythm section,” Box says, admiringly. “Having those two powerhouses behind us provided a wonderful foundation for the band. Lee was a fantastic drummer, and Gary would come up with these great bass lines that never got in the way of the melody of the song but always seemed to enhance it. It was an incredible knack. It was a real pleasure to work with the pair of them. Everything just clicked into place.”  From: https://www.loudersound.com/features/whacked-out-occultists-scary-seances-and-the-saga-of-uriah-heeps-demons-and-wizards

Rosalie Cunningham - Number 149

Rosalie Cunningham, well known on progressive rock circles as the driving force behind the well-received band Purson, grew up in a home with music all around her. She was writing her own songs and picking out melodies on a piano before, at 12 years old, she began seriously learning the guitar. With an ear for The Beatles, early Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Small Faces, Genesis and Black Sabbath, she had musical tastes beyond her years. At 13, she formed her first band, Suzie's Lip. Her first professional band, Ipso Facto toured with Magazine and The Last Shadow Puppets. In 2011, she formed the band Purson, which spread her music around the world, and culminated with the highly acclaimed album, Desire's Magic Theatre. Since the breakup of Purson, Rosalie has worked towards a solo career, and released her self-titled album in 2019.

Her first solo album was excellent, but here on her second, I feel she has outdone her previous masterpiece, Purson’s ‘Desire's Magic Theatre’. While her self-titled solo debut is beautiful and superbly crafted, on this one she has re-energized her progressive leanings with a vengeance. Her wit and whimsy are still on full display here, and I would say even more so than on DMT. I am tempted to mention my favorites from her lyrics, but I think each listener should experience the joy of hearing her words by listening to the album themselves. Every track is exquisite prog, and Rosalie manages to create perfection in every style she weaves into her compositions, be it symphonic, jazz, honky-tonk, and even a Beatles-like raga. Speaking of which, ‘Tristitia Amnesia’ absolutely blows me away, starting with the above-mentioned raga, and seamlessly escalating into an amazing psychedelic rock finale. I've mentioned this about her previous albums, but I find that Rosalie is one of the few artists whose albums consistently make me feel like I did a half century ago, when I would come home with a pile of records and find some that would send my mind soaring to new places. In simple terms, her music makes me feel young again.

From: https://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=11303

Polyphia - Look But Don't Touch

Guitar-bending instrumental group Polyphia have distinguished themselves as prog rock mavericks, playing a style that falls somewhere between blisteringly fast metal-god virtuosity and pure pop. They first grabbed attention in 2013 after the track "Impassion" went viral. Since then, albums like 2014's Muse and 2016's Renaissance have found them further honing their technically brilliant instrumental sound, combining sophisticated pop hooks with face-melting guitar solos. Later on, the group added elements of hip-hop, EDM, and jazz to their repertoire with diverse outings like New Levels New Devils (2018) and Remember That You Will Die (2022). Formed in the quiet suburban landscape of Plano, Texas in 2011, Polyphia initially consisted of dual lead guitarists Tim Henson and Scott LePage, bassist Clay Gober, and drummer Brandon Burkhalter. They released two EPs, 2011's Resurrect (their only recording to feature vocals) and 2013's Inspire, before recording their 2014 full-length debut, Muse. Funds for the recording and production of Muse were raised by the band in an online fundraising campaign to which fans generously donated. The self-released album charted in the Top 100 of Billboard's album chart, and Equal Vision signed Polyphia, reissuing the album in 2015.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/polyphia-mn0003313453#biography 

October Project - Funeral In His Heart - Live on FX 1995

With their unique blend of pop, classical, a cappella, and choral, October Project have carved a distinct niche in the landscape of independent music. Known for their lush harmonies, sweeping melodies, and warm and reflective lyrics, the New York group found critical and commercial success with the release of their 1993 self-titled debut and sophomore effort, 1995's Falling Farther In, but splintered shortly after the latter's release. A slightly re-tooled lineup returned in the 2000s and released a series of EPs, and in 2015, the band issued a full-length collection of choral recordings, The Book of Rounds. They returned to a more pop-driven style on 2024's Ghost of Childhood. Initially comprised of composer Emil Adler, vocalists Mary Fahl and Marina Belica, guitarist/vocalist David Sabatino, and poet/lyricist Julie Flanders, October Project honed their skills playing in friends' living rooms and small New York clubs, but they really constructed the specifics of their distinctive sound in the studio while in the process of recording their eponymous debut album. Released in 1993, Mary Fahl's unique and powerful voice was the focal point of the record, and the band's trademark vocal harmonies and soaring arrangements evoked classical choral music as much as they did alternative pop. The LP included the singles "Bury My Lovely" and "Return to Me," the latter of which appeared on the soundtrack to the 1994 action film Blown Away. Falling Farther In appeared in 1995 and yielded the singles "Deep as You Go" and "Something More Than This," but despite garnering positive reviews, Epic chose to sever ties with the group in 1996, and the band elected to part ways shortly thereafter.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/october-project-mn0000467881#biography

Steppenwolf - Sookie Sookie

Formed in Toronto and adding two Los Angeles-based musicians, Steppenwolf came on the music scene just as hard rock was heading toward its ascendancy. Looking for all the world like a biker gang, Steppenwolf could have been created by central casting to portray a hard-edged, leather-clad group of rockers. But Steppenwolf was a real group, taking its name from a 1927 novel by Herman Hesse and led by vocalist and guitarist John Kay.
Steppenwolf had released their debut single, “A Girl I Knew” b/w “The Ostrich,” in late 1967, but the 45 went largely unnoticed, making not a ripple on the singles charts. Both tunes would be included on the group’s self-titled LP, recorded in the fall of ’67 and released on January 29, 1968. In fact eight of the album’s 11 tracks would eventually appear on singles as the band’s reputation took off.
For that debut album, the band worked with Gabriel Mekler, house producer at Dunhill Records. Mekler’s résumé at that point was quite thin; his only previous production credits were three singles by the Dunhill act Lamp of Childhood. But working together, Mekler and Steppenwolf crafted a debut that defined the new rock subgenre that would come to be known as heavy metal. (The term would eventually come to represent a very different style of music, but in 1968, heavy rock meant Steppenwolf, Iron Butterfly, Blue Cheer and other loud, aggressive rock acts.)
Steppenwolf opens with the first of three cover songs, a reading of the 1966 Steve Cropper-Don Covay soul tune, “Sookie Sookie.” Where Covay’s original featured a prominent horn section, Steppenwolf’s version features distorted electric guitar. Kay and his band change the key, slow the arrangement down a bit, and mine the blues influences in the song. Goldy McJohn’s gurgling Hammond organ underpins the song while the guitar and rhythm section move it forward. Mid-song the band steps up a key as Michael Monarch takes a short electric guitar solo. More a groove than a song, “Sookie Sookie” nonetheless establishes the hard rock template upon which Steppenwolf would find its fortunes.  From: https://bestclassicbands.com/steppenwolf-debut-album-review-11-27-177/

Baskery - Old Man (Neil Young cover)

Baskery have never been shy of their influences, with the Swedish sisters indebted to the “file under country and folk” of North America. Although they self-describe their music as “killbilly”, or banjo punk, the reality is that they are a world apart from any of the frantic fringes of cowpunk, a closer reference point being maybe as an amalgam of the (Dixie) Chicks and the Roches. It is a good brew, though, and their previous releases contain a melodic fusion of country rock tropes. Greta Bondesson manages to combine playing drums with a guitar/banjo hybrid, with sister Stella playing bass and sister Sunniva handling guitars and cello. All sing, their sibling harmonies a characteristic feature. As well as playing all the instruments, the three usually write their own songs. However, The Young Sessions – Live to Tape sees them doing a cover album, selecting ten Neil Young tracks to cover, most of them from his 1969-1972 peak.
The Young Sessions opens with a medley of “Out on the Weekend/Don’t Let it Bring You Down/A Man Needs a Maid”, and that opening shot proves that Baskery has the Harvest soundscape down just pat. The drums mimic the simplistic metronome of the originals, and Greta’s harmonica is Shakey-level authentic. Indeed, so much so that, as the tripartite vocals come in, it sounds… odd, a little Chipmunks-do-Neil. Not to say they are shrill, sticking much to the singer’s own timbre; it is just the novelty of hearing three Neil-adjacent voices all at the same time. This is least apparent for “Maid,” given, clearly, no orchestration, leaving the sisters to garnish it with just what they have to hand, which makes for a first hint of new light through the old windows.
“Old Man” returns to superior karaoke, but the sibling harmonies make the exercise worth that conceit. The sound of the guitar/banjo hybrid gives an idea of the instrument’s capabilities, it sounding actually exactly as billed, the plucking pitched between the sonic of both instruments. “Heart of Gold” actually benefits from this, not least as it granted some slide styling for the familiar riff.
“Alabama” is the first to have you wonder whether the sisters are up to reproducing the idiosyncratic boxing-gloves guitar style of Young. The answer: nearly, if more in spirit than execution, the soloing more prosaic and decidedly more conventional. It’s fine, but there remains a yearning for the cack-handedness of the original.
That said, spotting a running time of over 10 minutes for “Down by the River,” the feel is, and the hope stronger, that this is maybe where Baskery let rip. And, as they begin, they deliver a wonderfully aspirational assault. The interplay between orthodox guitar and the hybrid is superbly monosyllabic and repetitive, where each of these are essential facets of the Neil Young Experience. For me, this is where the album comes suddenly to life, my hand casually dialing up the volume, and then some more. Too late for our best covers of the year list, this song might have had my vote.  From: https://www.covermesongs.com/2024/12/review-baskerys-the-young-sessions-live-to-tape.html

Millionaire - I'm Not Who You Think You Are

Millionaire have released LP number four Applz ≠ Aplz (pronounced Apples Not Apples), a burst of psychedelic rock n roll energy with a soul twist wrapped in a celebratory flavour, while exploring themes of consumerism, environmental destruction and the peril humans are facing, largely due to our own hand. Millionaire founder, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Tim Vanhamel talks to Gimmie from his home in Belgium.

Why is it important to you to create things?

Tim Vanhamel: Let me think about that, that’s a good question. I have no idea. I was contemplating that yesterday actually. It just happens in a way. If you want to give it importance then it usually is not that good, it’s more the ego trying to do something or create or whatever. It’s best to just let it happen, it doesn’t matter what it is, whether it’s making a dish or making a song or making a little video, or just singing to yourself or making a joke. The best creativity just comes up, there’s a need to.

I know what you mean. At Gimmie we love making things, we feel we just have to. It is hard to explain. There’s just something there that needs to come out, that needs to express itself.

TV: Yeah, exactly. I can see that with you guys. It is what makes you feel good in a way, if it makes you feel good doing it then the art is usually good and other people will like it as well. We all do different things and sometimes, writing a song in my case, if it’s not happening that’s fine, then something else can happen.

I saw you mention online the other day that because you’re in lockdown at home you’ve been writing and painting?

TV: [Laughs] That was a joke actually! I’ve been making these little films the last week. I posted one and I was making a little fun about how all these people feel called to live stream and how they feel like, “oh I gotta help the world”. The world doesn’t necessarily need help, in the way that everybody is locked down, mediocrity is really coming out. It was a little joke I was posting. People were like “Oh, it’s a lockdown, we have to be creative! I’m gonna write a new album”. I made a joke that I was doing six paintings and writing two books and doing a movie script [laughs]. I then made a second film and then it became kind of a thing, a character that was playing a song but it just never works out, everything goes wrong; he was trying to get a song going for everyone but he kept failing all the time. That’s also creative though, I was following that creativity, that need to share a joke.

I think laughter is important in these tough times.

TV: Exactly, I think that laughter is one of the highest goods in the world. People are really serious, also with sharing all this advice… everyone is so serious. A good laugh is good, it’s a high good and when we laugh we are what we’re meant to be as human beings; we’re ourselves and there’s no war going on. It’s fantastic.

Everything that’s happening in the world is so crazy and intense right now, consumerism and capitalism is finally failing! In a crisis like we’re experiencing, people are realising that they don’t need all the excess stuff they fill their lives with, all the luxuries they usually take for granted and don’t think twice about.

TV: Yeah, it’s not so crazy though. As you know I just released an album and I am singing on that album about everything that is happening right now!

You are!

TV: Everything that’s happening, I could feel it already about a year ago. The first song “Cornucopia” is about consumerism etc. The second song “Los Romanticos” is about there’s a shit storm coming and its moving fast, it’s an ironic song about how supposed love eats up the world, it’s not true love, it’s false. The third song “Strange Days” I’m singing about doing nothing, I’m literally singing: “when the world ends I will be watching from a front row seat, you bring the thunder, I’ll bring the lightning and maybe we can meet for the very first time…”, it’s not to pat my own shoulders but this is exactly what’s happening. I don’t think there’s another song in the world that’s more true than that right now. I can’t believe it. A week ago the album came out and I did a bunch of interviews, which I don’t really like doing, I don’t like explaining my songs… it’s bizarre that five days after I released my album everything happened big time!

Your new album is great! I like how in interviews you rarely talk about your songs, I know you like people to have their own interpretations of your songs, to think for themselves about it. Like with something like all the visuals to accompany the album, the cover art, film clips, they feature the apple and that right there has so much symbolism attached to it throughout the history of the world and can have so many different meanings.

TV: Exactly. Explaining art is like the Wizard Of Oz pulling back the curtain and then you have a little man in a machine sitting there and the magic is gone. If it was my choice, I would never ever, ever say one word, I wouldn’t explain nothing. I try to boogie around those questions. [Laughs].

From: https://gimmiezine.com/2020/03/31/millionaire-interview/

Disappear Fear - Live TV 1994

Disappear Fear, formed in 1987, consisted of sisters Sonia Rutstein and Cindy Frank, and expanded the following year to include guitarist Howard Markman. Their lyrics often addressed love, life, Baltimore, LGBT rights, and progressive political issues. The pair released six albums as a duo.  In 1994, after self-releasing their music via their own Disappear Records label, the band was signed to Rounder/Philo Records. Two years later, Cindy stopped performing regularly with the band in order to focus on her growing family. Cindy's teen son Dylan Visvikis has shared his talents on vocals and piano.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappear_Fear

Rossington-Collins Band - Don't Misunderstand Me

On this day in rock history in 1977, tragedy stuck when the plane carrying Lynyrd Skynyrd crashed in Mississippi on its way to Baton Rouge only three days after releasing their latest album. Six people perished in the accident including two members of Skynyrd including lead singer Ronnie Van Zant. Amazingly, six other members of Skynyrd survived and from the ashes of the plane crash emerged the Rossington Collins Band with their forgotten '80 tune, Don't Misunderstand Me.
Four of the surviving members of Lynyrd Skynyrd decided to resume making music but didn't want to call themselves Lynyrd Skynyrd out of respect for their fallen band mates. Instead they became the Rossington Collins Band named after guitarists Gary Rossington and Allen Collins. One big change was the addition of a female lead singer - Dale Krantz. Their 1980 debut album went gold, and its lead single Don't Misunderstand Me reached No. 55 on the singles chart.
While Collins survived the 1977 plane crash, his story did not end well. Days after Rossington Collins started to tour as a new band, Collins' wife died of a hemorrhage and the rest of the tour was cancelled. By 1986, Collins had gotten the band back together and was back in a relationship, but tragedy would strike again when the car he was driving (while intoxicated) crashed killing his girlfriend and paralyzing Collins, leaving the man who played one of rock's most iconic solos on Free Bird, unable to play the guitar. Collins would pass away in 1990 at the age of 37 due to pneumonia.
More drama followed the band as both Rossington and Collins would battle for the affections of Dale Krantz, but it was Gary Rossington who won her heart and the two were married in 1982. These days, the "new" Lynyrd Skynyrd tours although Rossington is the only original member still left in the band.  From: https://www.tampabay.com/the-legend-of-rossington-collins-and-dont-misunderstand-me/2299385/

Laura Nyro - Eli's Comin'

‘Eli’s Comin’’ is a love song with an ominous sound, that begins with a quiet warning then builds into an explosion of aggressive harmonies.  Laura Nyro was able to write songs that would speed up and slow down, setting the mood with the tempo concluding with a well paced climatic ending that is unparalleled by her peers.  The tempo in this song gets faster and faster as the relationship between the womanizer Eli and the woman who was warned to hide her heart intensifies.  Three Dog Night, with Danny Hutton, Chuck Negron and Cory Wells singing lead vocals did a high energy and a fast pace cover of this song on their 1969 studio album, Suitable For Framing.  Negron used to watch Nyro perform in New York City and he liked her sound.  He brought this song to the group, thinking it would be a good fit for Wells’ voice.  Most of the lyrics in this song are clear cut, being a prediction about Eli who is coming and that he will break this girl’s heart unless she is able to hide from him, except for one line.  I read an article by WordPress blogger and music aficionado John Holton which stated that the lyrics “Apollo by the bay” according to Answers.com is a place by the water in Australia.  Actually, the Temple of Apollo by the Bay of Baiae (now the Bay of Naples) was in ancient times considered to be one of the entrances to the Underworld.  However, I discovered something slightly different, being that the line “I walked to Apollo by the bay” comes from the story of Daphne and Apollo, which was an essay written by Patricia Spence Rudden.  The Roman and Greek god Apollo mocked Cupid the god of love for using his bow and arrow.  Cupid got insulted, so he shot Apollo with an arrow making him fall in love with the river nymph Daphne.  Cupid then shot Daphne with a different kind of arrow which caused her to reject Apollo.  Apollo appeared in the shape of a man and Daphne called to her father to save her.  Apollo used his powers of eternal youth and immortality to render Daphne into an evergreen.  For this reason, the leaves of the Bay laurel tree do not decay, and this became sacred forever thereafter to Apollo.  Laura Nyro was a proud feminist and women’s rights activist who dug into the sexist assumption that the only thing that causes a young woman heartache, or makes her hide her loving heart, or that can give her a broken heart is a man.  From: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2019/06/14/elis-comin/

Traffic - Coloured Rain

"Mr. Fantasy" was Traffic's first album and is also one of their most popular. This is one of the albums which leads to their categorisation as a Prog Folk band, later releases moving in a more jazz oriented direction. Prior to the release of the album in 1967, the band had enjoyed singles chart success with "Paper sun" and Dave Mason's "Hole in my shoe". Neither song was included on the original UK version of "Mr. Fantasy", Winwood feeling that the latter in particular did not represent how he envisaged the band sounding. They do both now appear though on the expanded CD remaster which contains the UK and US versions in full. The reason for the differences in the albums is that the US version was released some time after Dave Mason had departed for the first time. He had in fact left prior to the album's release in the UK, but the band were still credited as a quartet there. For the US version (initially called "Heaven is in your mind"), two of Mason's songs were dropped, while his "Hole and my shoe" was added along with "Paper sun" and another single "Smiling phases". The band however were presented on the sleeve as a trio.
It should be mentioned at this stage that around the time of this album's release Winwood was still a teenager, while the rest of the band were in their very early 20's. Even more astonishingly, Winwood had already been a member of the Spencer Davis group for four years before the formation of Traffic. Perhaps as a reaction to the success of their singles, the band, or at least three of the four them (Mason being the exception), appear to have made a determined effort here to create something with more substance right from the start. "Heaven is in your mind" mixes psychedelic influences with some bluesy instrumentation to create a relaxed West Coast sounding piece. The following "Berkshire poppies" indicates that Mason was not the only one prone to light hearted deviations, members of the Small Faces joining in to create an enjoyable but disposable drunken sounding ramble.
Mason's "House for everyone" is the only track of his which survived on both versions of the album, the song sounding rather like a Syd Barrett piece. The title track is an astonishingly accomplished and assured piece of pure proto-prog. Winwood is in superb vocal form as the track develops magnificently through passionate verses and striking instrumental passages.
"Utterly simple" is a "Norwegian wood" like slice of psychedelia, the mood continuing with "Coloured rain", which finds Winwood talking about when he was a "young boy"! "Hope I never find me there" includes some good old fashioned phasing from the period. The album closes with "Giving to you", an instrumental jam credited to all four band members which offers an early indication the style the band will later adopt.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=7040

Joydrop - Beautiful

Once you see Tara Slone burn her way through unforgettable Joydrop tunes like “Beautiful” or “Sometimes Wanna Die”, you might find it hard to believe that before she was singing for the band, she wanted to be an opera singer. As she says in her bio, “I received a scholarship at Dalhousie University and did a year of music program there. I quickly realized that although I loved singing, I didn’t want to spend every minute of my life living and breathing opera.”
So what did she do? “I left school, pierced my nose, got a tattoo, moved to Montreal and joined a rock band.” But it was still a while before she auditioned for Joydrop and the only reason she actually ended up in Toronto at all was so she could pursue a career in acting. After six months of struggling and feeling miserable because she wasn’t singing, she found an ad in a newspaper – “It’s funny thinking back to that, because I almost didn’t bother to call. I spoke to someone named Tony Rabalao (I thought he was Italian) on the phone and made arrangements to meet at the Joydrop rehearsal space. The connection was instant and the rest is history.”
The first big deal for the band was getting tremendous airplay for their song “Beautiful”, which was on Metasexual, their first album. From there, things got crazy and after getting noticed by Tommy Boy Records, they signed a record deal that has now resulted in the fantastic release, Viberate. “Sometimes Wanna Die” is the first single off this new album and already people have gone nuts for it. A lot of hit radio stations have even picked it up and have been playing it in high rotation. It didn’t hurt the band’s popularity that they filmed the video for “Sometimes Wanna Die” with veteran rocker, Tommy Lee Jones (of Method’s Of Mayhem/Pam-Anderson-videotape fame).
Collectively, singer Tara Slone, bassist Tom McKay, drummer Tony Rabalao and guitarist Thomas Payne have all combined their efforts to write their music. With four writers things can get a little harder to finish and as Payne said in an interview with UtterMusic.com, “A lot of bands have just one songwriter and the other musicians just augment that. With us, with four writers, it’s extremely difficult in a lot of respects. You’ve got four different visions but you have to make them work together so they’re all coming from the same place. Basically it’s a harder demo process, because everyone will bring in their songs and we demo tons and tons of songs and it’s really hard to pick the ones that go on the record.”  From: https://www.thegate.ca/music/03885/joydrop-opera-acting-music-mayhem/

R.E.M. - Finest Worksong

As R.E.M. sprinted toward a long-developing commercial breakthrough in 1987, they came to more fully understand their powers as a band – both musically and socially. They also came to terms with everything they'd left behind, a workaday existence where nothing is guaranteed. And all of that happened within "Finest Worksong," the opening cut on Document. "The minute we wrote that," Peter Buck said in Reveal: The Story of R.E.M., "we pretty much knew that it had to be side one, track one."
Document reached the Top 10 on Billboard's album chart, a first, even as the band prepared for a shift from indie I.R.S. Records to the major-label exposure provided by Warner Bros. They ended up reeling off five straight Top Five studio projects in the early '90s, including two chart-toppers, but this is where R.E.M. officially made the transition from college-rock upstarts to mainstream rockers.
"Finest Worksong" showed they weren't shying away from it, either. This riffy, U2-esque statement of populist purpose blended radio-ready, largely improvised sounds with a new lyrical assertiveness. The intent here, Michael Stipe said in Reveal, was to attack "the idea that you can work and work, and get what you want, and then try for even more. It's the American dream, but it's a pipe dream that's been exploited for years." He seethes with anger while singing lines like, "What we want and what we need has been confused."
This topical bent was a new development for a band that had largely avoided politics early on, choosing instead to couch their intent in elliptical phrases and just as elliptical guitar figures. They tended to walk a fine line, partly because of a reluctance to be seen as dilettantes, and also to keep some sense of mystery around the songs. "I don't like sloganeering, especially when it gets to something like the Clash who don't know what they're talking about," Buck once said. "They're fucking boneheads. People think that's revolutionary, and it's garbage!"
By 1984, however, R.E.M. was turning a corner, as Stipe began to engage in the issues of the day during extemporaneous comments on stage. Document showed they were now ready to fully integrate those steadfast beliefs into their musical narratives, as well.
"Rock 'n' roll is supposed to be about personal freedoms," Buck told UPI in 1987. "How can you do this and act like a clown, jump around in striped trousers, and then just go home and not worry about it because you've got your million? That's just sickening. I'm not saying you have to make social messages, but the Motley Crues and Van Halens, they have a tool to talk to every disenfranchised lower-middle-class kid who works in a garage and tell them something about what's happening to them – but all they tell them is 'go ahead and jump.' A lot of these bands make it on rebellion, but it's really safe rebellion. All the kids raise their hand in the air and yell and drink a bunch of malt liquor for about three hours, then they go right back home and go to the mall."  From: https://ultimateclassicrock.com/rem-finest-worksong/

Heart - Cry To Me/Go On Cry

Heart’s sophomore album, Little Queen, arrived in a storm of controversy – or, more specifically, passive-aggression on the part of Heart’s former label, Mushroom Records. Unhappy that the band had defected to Portrait Records, Mushroom released the half-baked Magazine, which featured rough studio cuts and some live tracks, right around the time of Little Queen. But the sabotage attempt backfired: Little Queen reached No. 9 on the chart and helped Heart continue their ascent to superstardom.
Still, a legal fight with Mushroom hovered over the recording process for Little Queen. For starters, Heart had to make the album in just three weeks due to the looming court battles over their desire to dissolve the band's contract with its old record label.
“When we went in to record Little Queen, the lawyer had sat us down and said, ‘There’s a hearing in three weeks, and at that hearing, we don’t know if you’re going to be stopped from completing Little Queen until the lawsuit is settled, or not,’” recalls the album’s producer, Mike Flicker, in Jake Brown’s book Heart: In the Studio.
“Mushroom was seeking a temporary restraining order to stop Heart from doing any more recording at all till the lawsuit was settled. So the lawyer said, ‘But, if you actually get the album on the streets before then, the chances are way, way In your favor that the judge is not going to stop it.’”
Remarkably, Little Queen reveals little about this behind-the-scenes stress. The LP underscores their dual strengths: ferocious rockers ("Kick It Out," "Barracuda") and delicate acoustic numbers ("Love Alive," "Cry to Me"). "Dream of the Archer," with its regal mandolin and harmonies, conjures the band’s idols, Led Zeppelin; the title track is a smoldering blues-rock lope; and "Kick It Out" is a feisty, Rolling Stones-esque strut.
Still, the album is more consistent than Heart’s debut, 1976's Dreamboat Annie – and it feels rougher around the edges, albeit in subtle ways. For instance, "Go on Cry" is nearly six minutes long, and it’s a somber, almost hymn-like song buoyed by gospel-style choir harmonies, nimble bass and moody guitar.
And then there’s "Barracuda," which we described in our look at the Top 100 Classic Rock Songs, as “Stacked, Zeppelin-esque riffs rumble with the power of a buffalo stampede in tandem with the galloping drumming and Ann Wilson’s powerhouse voice — an instrument that’s simultaneously operatic, twang-touched and blues-based.”
Wilson’s rage at the misogyny she’d already experienced in the music business informed the song’s poetic lyrics. The stance Heart took in the song crystallized a galvanizing, pro-women message Ann and her sister Nancy Wilson still speak out about today.  From: https://ultimateclassicrock.com/heart-little-queen-35/

Hedwig & The Angry Inch - Wicked Little Town

Like watching the Moon landing or the moment they locked eyes with the person they love, people remember where they were the first time they saw Hedwig and the Angry Inch. The queer punk-rock musical about Plato, the Berlin Wall, love, gender, fame and self-acceptance started first as a stage show before becoming a much-loved cult film with a fervent fandom of "Hedheads" that unwaveringly adore it. Twenty years since the movie was released and 27 since John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask first debuted the character at New York nightclub Squeeze Box, Hedwig has been a constant presence, being screened and performed all over the world.
The story centres on Hedwig, a singer in a punk-rock band from East Berlin now living in Kansas following botched gender reassignment surgery that left them with an "angry inch". Hedwig has their heart broken twice, first by the GI who coerced them into the operation to allow them to marry and emigrate, and then by Tommy Gnosis, who fell in love with Hedwig but then stole their songs and used them to become the rock star Hedwig always wanted to be. It's a tale that many have a deep connection to, not just because it's hilarious, heart-breaking and has a phenomenal, timelessly cool, soundtrack but also because it taps into the fundamental question of identity and how it's shaped by the relationships we have.
Stephen Trask, co-creator, composer and lyricist of Hedwig, has seen that intense connection first-hand during theatrical performances, telling BBC Culture, "From the stage we would see couples break up and other people would come and get engaged. People would make life choices watching the show". For Trask that's evidence that Hedwig's enduring appeal is in its universal themes. "There's a lot of soul searching that Hedwig does about looking for a romantic partner and trying to find wholeness and be recognised for their music and their creativity; it's not just a gender journey. John and I were very much talking honestly about our own journeys and expressing them through this character that in many ways, most of our audience didn't have a lot in common with. But the story is so human and fundamental that people can figure out by watching if they are on the wrong path or the right path."  From: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20211111-hedwig-and-the-angry-inch-a-love-story-that-broke-taboos

Faraualla - Tonga

After they had gone in for polyphony within ancient music for a long time, Faraualla have applied themselves to study traditional songs of mediterranean provenience, concentrating on emissions, polyphonies and harmonic unusualness, sounds of the words and, in general, on what that most of all fascinate singers: the vocal language. After the success of their first record "Faraualla", their are known in Europe to be the "Zap-Mamas of the Mediterranean", who through their experience with ethnic sources and improvisation games are always looking for new musical frontiers. The result of these auditory, singing and emotional experiences is now represented in original songs, in which their invented and used language becomes sound. "Sind”, in the dialect of Bari (Apulia, South Italy) means "hear, listen": it is not easy to describe the sound of Faraualla and for this reason when someone asks them "what kind of music do they play?", they simply reply: "Sind!"  From: https://amiatarecords.com/faraualla

Buddy Miles Express - Let Your Lovelight Shine

Best known as the drummer in Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsys, Buddy Miles also had a lengthy solo career that drew from rock, blues, soul, and funk in varying combinations. Born George Miles in Omaha, NE, on September 5, 1947, he started playing the drums at age nine, and joined his father's jazz band the Bebops as a mere 12 year old. As a teenager, he went on to play with several jazz and R&B outfits, most prominently backing vocal groups like Ruby & the Romantics, the Ink Spots, and the Delfonics. In 1966, he joined Wilson Pickett's touring revue, where he was spotted by blues-rock guitarist Mike Bloomfield. Bloomfield had left the Paul Butterfield Blues Band earlier in 1967 and was putting together a new group, the Electric Flag, which was slated to be an ambitious fusion of rock, soul, blues, psychedelia, and jazz. Bloomfield invited Miles to join up, and the band made its debut at the Monterey Pop Festival; unfortunately, the original lineup splintered in 1968. With founder Bloomfield gone, Miles briefly took over leadership of the band on it’s second studio album, which failed to reignite the public's interest. With the Electric Flag's horn section in tow, Miles split to form his own group, the similarly eclectic Buddy Miles Express. Signed to Mercury, the group issued it’s debut album, Expressway to Your Skull, in 1968, with Miles' fellow Monterey Pop alum Jimi Hendrix in the producer's chair.  From: https://prince.org/msg/8/164332

Curious Grace & Black Rabbit - Scars And Children

Led by married songwriting duo Tom and Mary Erangey, Chicago sextet Curious Grace & Black Rabbit is “an indie art rock band that unites the talents of six performers who draw on everything from 70s/80s Brit rock, prog, and classical, to Irish traditional music and metal.” As you’d expect for such a description—as well as influences that include Thin Lizzy, Queen, Joe Jackson, the Beatles, Elvis Costello, ELO, and “the guy who plays down at the pub on Saturday nights”—their music is wonderfully eclectic, dense, and simultaneously celebratory and grave. In particular, their latest LP, #WorldOnFire, is a charmingly complex yet welcoming slice of fantastical social commentary. Billed as “an album for this moment,” the band notes that it was “born out of the madness and magic of living in a Twitter-driven world that can’t tell whether a dream is upside down or downside up.” In creating it, the troupe “tapped into the angst, the defiance, the uprising” to create a record that “celebrates complicated dreams, heroines, and heroes.” In a nutshell, they evoke the lively elegance of Phideaux (including male/female vocals), the steampunk theatrics of Gandalf’s Fist and Dirt Poor Robins, and the sobering deliveries and commentaries of Andy Tillison (The Tangent) while yielding a vastly gripping, imaginative, meditative, and cohesive conceptual production.  From: https://www.rebelnoise.com/reviews/curious-grace-black-rabbit-worldonfire

The Moody Blues - The Lost Performance - Live in Paris 1970

 The Moody Blues - The Lost Performance - Live in Paris 1970 - Part 1

 

 The Moody Blues - The Lost Performance - Live in Paris 1970 - Part 2

 

This is an amazing find, and a piece of history I didn’t realize existed until I came across it in a record store not long ago. I was traveling and as usual didn’t bring enough music to fill the evenings in the hotel, so I managed to find a record store and picked up this and three CDs. It wasn’t until I got back to the hotel that it occurred to me that all the discs I had bought were live recordings. Go figure.
This is apparently some obscure and rather amateur video recorded at La Taverne de L’Olympia in Paris during the band’s 1970 European tour supporting the release of ‘A Question of Balance’. The club setting is actually a night club, with small tables of Parisians sitting around drinking and smoking while the band performs on a small stage at the front center of the room. There appear to be at least three cameras, one of which is clearly hand-held and wobbles a bit from the back of the room. Another is on or near the stage and shows some very close-up views of the band members, while a third is positioned behind Graeme Edge and shows several unoriginal shots of his back. Not sure what the thought process was behind that one. The quality of the video is marginal at best, with the close-up shots being pretty good and the ones further away a little washed-out due to the overhead lighting. The audio is quite good though, especially considering it was recorded thirty-seven years ago and sounds like it comes from positioned microphones and not the soundboard. The subtext narration is also primitive, just simple white lettering (Times New Roman I believe) with the names of the band members flashed at the beginning, and the song titles scrolling past as each one begins. At the opening the hand-held camera tracks the band as they carry their drinks and instruments from the dressing room and through the audience to the stage. Very laid-back, and kind of charming.
The song selection is quite good, even though there is quite a bit of overdubbed music, especially the vocals. But it includes what were probably the band’s best- known tracks at that time: “Never Comes the Day”, “Are You Sitting Comfortably?”, “Ride My See-Saw”, and “Don’t You Feel Small” among them. The crowd responds enthusiastically to a great rendition of “Nights in White Satin”, as well as to “Tuesday Afternoon”. Most of the songs are very faithful renderings of the studio versions, which is a bit surprising considering the modest and informal setting. Justin Hayward and Ray Thomas keep up a small bit of banter with the audience between tracks, while Michael Pinder mostly sets off to the side playing his keyboards and a bit of acoustic guitar. This is a great snapshot of the band in their heyday, although it is quite unpretentious considering the simple packaging and pretty much nonexistent promotion behind its release. The closing “Question” is an excellent fadeout to an enjoyable sixty minutes of music.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=14532