Scorpion Child - Kings Highway

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

Renaissance - Black Flame

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

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

Quicksilver Messenger Service - It's Been Too Long

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

Frequency Drift - Dear Maro

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

The Bangles - Live Pittsburgh, PA 1986

 The Bangles - Live Pittsburgh, PA 1986 - Part 1

 

 The Bangles - Live Pittsburgh, PA 1986 - Part 2

 

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

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

 

Acid Carousel - Eyes Glow

Sloane: “How was Acid Carousel born?”

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

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

Sloane: “Describe your sound in three words.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Superheaven - Stare At The Void

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Iris DeMent - Our Town

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

Jellyfish - The King Is Half-Undressed

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

Faun - Satyros

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

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

Emer: Tell me about Faun ‘s new album.

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

Emer: What is Faun about for you personally?

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

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

Niel: oh yeah.

Emer: How is this tour going?

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

Emer: What is your favourite song from Faun?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Emer: So they blend together very naturally

Niel: Exactly.

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

Cornelius - If You're Here

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

Bent Knee - Invest In Breakfast

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

Los Lobos - Live at Graffiti's, Pittsburgh, PA 1992

 Los Lobos - Live at Graffiti's, Pittsburgh, PA 1992 - Part 1

 Los Lobos - Live at Graffiti's, Pittsburgh, PA 1992 - Part 2

 

Part 1

01 Ay Te Dejo en San Antonio
02 I Got to Let You Know
03 Kiko and the Lavender Moon
04 Let’s Say Goodnight
05 One Time, One Night
06 My Baby’s Gone
07 Short Side of Nothing
08 Just a Man
09 Dream in Blue
10 Wake Up Dolores
11 Anselma
12 Los Ojos de Pancha

 

Part 2

01 Carabina 30-30
02 Wicked Rain
03 Papa Was a Rolling Stone
04 I Can’t Understand
05 Georgia Slop
06 Peace
07 Jenny’s Got a Pony
08 Evangeline
09 Will the Wolf Survive
10 Don’t Worry Baby
11 Marie, Marie
12 That Train Don’t Stop Here
13 Bertha 

 

Michael Fremer: I want to go back to The Neighborhood, which Larry Hirsch recorded. In the sense of documenting a band playing live in a room, that strikes me as your best recording.

Cesar Rosas: Yes, I agree with you. More organic, more of a folk record.

MF: Where does that song dedicated to the children of the St. John of God School for Special Children in Westville, New Jersey come from?

CR: You gotta ask Louie, man. Louie and Dave write 90 percent of the body of work.

Louie Pérez: My wife contributes to many different charities, and she came into the room and I was looking for inspiration and this thing had come in the mail and it was a note card with the name of the school and I thought about what the whole school was about and then just sort of spun this little tale about a kid who has this problem, and then I told David about it and he got really excited and it was just one of those things that wrote itself.

MF: Do you like that record? It's a very different sound for you.

LP: Yeah, it's different. It's us trying to still kind of shake La Bamba — it was kind of like a long process. Our first reaction was to go back to the beginning and retrace our steps because we were all trying to screw our heads back on.

MF: It wasn't comfortable to have a hit with "La Bamba" because it was sort of a novelty item?

LP: Yeah, really. Commercially it eclipsed everything we'd done prior to that. It was the culmination of all of our experience playing in garage bands and then years of playing rock music, putting Mexican music aside, kind of entering the stream again with the punk-rock thing and the whole music community, the comraderie, and making a couple of records and finding ourselves all over the United States, and then all of a sudden, "La Bamba."

MF: Did you feel kind of cheapened?

LP: No, we didn't feel cheap. We didn't lose sight. But everybody kind of had this funny, kind of twisted kind of vision of us, you know?

MF: They kind of tried to put you in a box?

LP: It was easy for them to put us there.

MF: And you had to claw your way out.

LP: Yeah. We could have gone in the direction of "La Bamba" and we could have ended up with "Los Lobos' Mexican Village" in Branson, Missouri, and at that point we figured we had to go back to what we were doing, and I guess La Pistola... was about, like, throwing the proverbial monkey wrench in the works. And then The Neighborhood was kind of an overkill reaction. When we took that thing on the road we had, like, the Marshall amps way too loud 'cause we're rock guys. We wanted to interpret it loud. Then we met Mitchell and Tchad and they helped up to get to another chapter.

MF: You began using the studio as a tool — not just as a place to document the band.

LP: Yeah. We screwed around with technology. We found in Mitch and Tchad people who didn't take it as literally as most people had. They went in and said, “Hey, there's no formula” — we always believed that, you know?

MF: On your earlier records it sounds like the rhythm section is put down first — Jerry Marotta, or Ron Tutt — the beat is put down first and you guys had so much more to give, but you were in a rhythmic straightjacket. Now you have these heavily processed studio records. How do you take these songs and do them live? I guess I'm gonna hear that in an hour.

LP: Well, we've been playing together for so long, and we didn't have a Saturday off between 1973 and 1981. The way we tell it, if you're a Mexican American and you got married between 1973 and 1981, we probably played at your wedding. It's an intuitive thing. We just reinterpret again. As long as we don't beat ourselves up trying to sound exactly like the record... There's a Zen story about how it's better to approximate and maintain all of the soul than to make a lifeless duplicate.

MF: Ah yes. The CD versus LP story.

LP: I think our approach to the studio now is that it is a tool and that it is a different medium — it's all about expressing yourself. The studio is just another way of expressing yourself. Mitchell and Tchad — and I don't think I'm discounting them — they've admitted that they learned a great deal from us.

MF: Have you thought about doing a live album?

LP: Yeah. It's overdue. We kind of reclassified ourselves by the live stuff we threw on the two-CD set. Those things were recorded in Holland using 24-track recorders. Even if it's a radio taping they bring out stuff like that. I think the only way we would do it is if we had some kind of small transport and recorded every night and see what happens.

MF: Well, yeah, you wouldn't want the pressure of recording a one-nighter! And you'd want to do it in a smaller-sized club. So who's your audience today, do you know?

LP: We're not too sure. With our first record we had this huge college following of alternative rockers and we had stage-diving going on. We had hard-core kids and new-wave kids. Then "La Bamba" hit and these kids went, “Well, they're not cool anymore.” Then that went away and we kind of found ourselves in this funny kind of grey area again. You see, when we first made our way across town to play in the Hollywood clubs, like when we opened for The Blasters, they couldn't understand what was so exciting about us. They were like, “Stage diving?!” It could have been The Circle Jerks up there. And then back home [in East L.A.] everybody said, “What are they doing over there?”

MF: Isn't that amazing? In the United States you go across town and all of a sudden its, “What are you doing there?”

LP: Yeah. And with "La Bamba," with our audiences, we kind of felt like we were in the same place again, where there were all these people coming to see our show expecting to see "The Ritchie Valens Show," and it didn't happen. And we had all the others — the core following — going, “Okay, next!”

From: https://trackingangle.com/features/los-lobos-america-s-band-the-tracking-angle-interview

 

Country Joe & The Fish - I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die - Side 1

01 - The Fish Cheer & I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag
02 - Who Am I
03 - Pat's Song
04 - Rock Coast Blues
05 - Magoo

I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die is the second studio album by the influential San Francisco psychedelic rock band Country Joe and the Fish, released at the end of 1967.  The album was released just six months after the debut and is another prime example of the band's psychedelic experimentation. It again features organ-heavy psychedelia and Eastern melodic lines, with more acoustic guitar than the debut. During this time, the band continued to build on their growing reputation by performing at local venues like the Fillmore Auditorium and appearing at festivals including Monterey Pop and The Fantasy Faire. The album, as a whole, fit well in the Bay Area psychedelic scene. The band effectively used satirical humor to express their outspoken views toward the Vietnam War and other hot topics of the counterculture. 
Three songs—the title track, "Who Am I?" and "Thought Dream"—were all written and performed before the debut album. The title track remains one of the most popular Vietnam protest songs from the 1960s, having originally appeared in folky acoustic form on their October 1965 EP Songs of Opposition on Rag Baby Records. It was originally considered for the debut album but held over by producer Samuel Charters on account of its controversial lyric. On the album, "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag" appears following "The Fish Cheer", which at concerts became a Country Joe standard. At Woodstock, Joe had the crowd yell F-U-C-K instead of F-I-S-H. "Who Am I?" had also been recorded for the initial Rag Baby EP but left off. Another of the more well-known numbers is the charming waltz-time track "Janis", which opens side two and was written for McDonald's then-girlfriend Janis Joplin. It is one of a number of songs written for female musicians included on their albums, others being "Grace" on the debut in honor of Grace Slick as well as "Pat's Song" for Pat Sullivan and "Colors For Susan" for flautist Susan Graubard of Pat Kilroy's group The New Age. "Magoo" was named after a local Hell's Angel's leader.
The front cover photograph was taken by Joel Brodsky at a New York studio where many costumes were lying around, which the band decided to wear. David was a wizard, Joe was a soldier and Barry chose a Nazi uniform, although the swastika on his armband was later replaced by Vanguard with an American flag. The original album sleeve contained a poster for "The Fish Game", a huge 22 x 33-inch fold-out board game sheet for throwing a dice and moving five three dimensional paper cut-outs of the band members around. Various goals are available for the game such as "scoring a joint".  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-Feel-Like-I%27m-Fixin%27-to-Die
 

The Tea Club - Big Al

So, in a nutshell, modern Progressive Rock is very divided at this point, I believe. Some of the bands out their truly are still trying to push the musical envelope in new and interesting ways, and others are, well, just riding the coat tails of the real pioneers. Basically, the Progressive movement of today consists of obvious imitators, one-hit wonders and then the bands that actually succeed at taking music further. As I listened to The Tea Club's release, General Winter's Secret Museum, the question I had to ask myself was simple: which of the three categories do these guys truly fall into?
Well, obviously The Tea Club hasn't been around long enough to stagnate, so the second category can be ruled out immediately. But what of the band's integrity? Do they really care about the genre and treat it with the proper respect? Do they look at music from the right perspective, and most importantly, does their sound stand out enough to be considered a valid part of modern Prog? I am happy to say that after several intense listens of this album, the answer to all of those question is a resounding 'yes'!
So why do I love this band? Well, for starters, they have managed to make me feel moved in ways I didn't realize were still vulnerable. I've heard so much music that considers itself 'prog' by this time that I'm always forced to stand back and take notice when a certain combination of notes or rhythm can surprise me in such a way. Those moments happened quite frequently with me as I listened to General Winter. Also, I love this band because they aren't afraid to write and play what they want. It's very clear to me that none of these tracks were ever written with the intent of being the next radio sensation. There is virtually no immediately accessible content to be found here, which is in no way bad. However, I was very surprised that not one song sounded commercial. A lot of indie bands try to release at least a couple of works that are aimed at conventional audience's short attention spans, but not these guys; they know what they want to say through their art, and accept us sure as hell isn't it! It's all about the music with The Tea Club, no doubt about it.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=20605

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

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

Gold Dust - An Early Translation of a Later Work

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

Sunflower Bean - Champagne Taste

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spiral Guru - I, Machine

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