Lais - De Wijn

Laïs is a Flemish folk group featuring the voices of Jorunn Bauweraerts, Nathalie Delcroix and Annelies Brosens. The inspiration for their songs comes from old song books. Their style can best be described as a modern take on medieval songs.The band was formed at the music workshop Volksmuziekstages in Gooik, Belgium. The well-established Flemish folk band Kadril noticed the girls singing a capella and took them on tour as their support act. While touring with Kadril Laïs built up a small fan base with their a capella songs. Their first CD featured appearances by Kadril, but later the girls would find their own musicians to complete the band. Today Jorunn, Nathalie and Annelies are joined by Fritz Sundermann (electric and acoustic instruments, harmonium), Hans Quaghebeur (squeezeboxes, hurdy-gurdy, whistle), Ronny Reuman (percussion) and Bart Denolf (electric and acoustic bass).  From: https://www.last.fm/music/La%C3%AFs/+wiki

Space Opera - Bells Within Bells

Space Opera are a little-known act. Widely believed to be from Canada, the four-piece group actually hailed from Fort Worth, Texas. Signed to a major label, they released just one LP, which quickly faded from view. Stories of missed opportunities are all too common in rock ‘n’ roll, but Space Opera’s tale is particularly lamentable—‘cause there’s magic in them grooves. 
The story of Space Opera really begins with Scott Fraser’s teen band, the Mods. The group got started in 1965, and became a popular local act, but by 1968 they were on their last legs. At this time, David Bullock and Philip White entered the picture, and the three talked about forming a new group. But first, they all took part in a studio project—with a young T-Bone Burnett behind the board—that became the album, The Unwritten Works of Geoffrey, Etc.. Pseudonymously credited to Whistler, Chaucer, Detroit, and Greenhill, the 1968 LP was barely promoted by the label, UNI Records, before sinking without a trace. 
Undeterred, Fraser (guitar, vocals), Bullock (guitar, vocals), and White (bass, vocals) continued on, playing shows anonymously with various drummers. In the spring of ’69, they were introduced to Brett Wilson, a jazz drummer, who was also from Fort Worth. They had actually all went to high school together, but Wilson was from a different crowd. Soon, they were performing their first show as Space Opera. 
The group quickly established a fan base in their hometown, playing frequently at a popular bar, as well as larger venues opening for big name acts that came through Fort Worth, including Jefferson Airplane and the Byrds—one of their biggest influences. Space Opera recorded some demos, and had some label interest, but nothing was happening. Their break came when a Canadian agent saw the play live. This set off a chain of events, culminating with the band signing a deal with the Canadian arm of Columbia Records, in which they were given total artistic control—an essentially unheard-of agreement, at the time, for a new group.
In the spring of 1972, Space Opera moved to Toronto to record their debut album. They played live in the studio, but then overdubbed heavily, saturating the tape with sound. Striving towards perfection, they spent a lot of time on it, which made Columbia nervous. When they finally finished recording in July, they returned to Texas, with the assumption that the label had a plan for them—but they didn’t. Disappointed with the lengths it took to make, mix, and then create the artwork for the album, Columbia was losing interest. Making matters worse, in order to duplicate their studio recordings, Space Opera ordered new, custom equipment, but the gear took a loooong time to arrive, breaking their momentum. 
The album Space Opera was formally released on March 21, 1973 (It came out on Epic Records in the U.S). The wait on the new equipment continued, though, and by the time it finally arrived two months later, the group was all but finished. After just a handful of shows to promote their debut LP—an album that showed so much promise—Space Opera called it a day. Blending country, folk, psych, prog, and pop to great effect, Space Opera is a fantastic rock record that, in a perfect world, would have been a huge hit. The songs are solidly sung and played, with gorgeous harmonies and guitar solos that are positively euphoric.  From: https://dangerousminds.net/comments/the_transcendent_psychedelic_country_rock_of_one-album-and-out_70s_band_spa/

 

Alison Krauss - I've Got That Old Feeling

When “I’ve Got That Old Feeling” garnered Alison Krauss 1990's Best Bluegrass Recording Grammy, it was an acknowledgement of the talent and poise the former child prodigy had shown through her first three albums. The album's tantalizing blend of tasteful folk and traditional bluegrass certainly deserved the award. But Old Feeling was more important as a footbridge to where Krauss would take her music -- and bluegrass itself -- over the next decade. It blended country and bluegrass with pop elements (the latter being most evident on "Longest Highway") in such an effortless way, the album couldn't possibly be seen as a play for the mainstream. The sentiment behind the gentle sway of "It's Over" and "Wish I Still Had You" was universal; blended into the honeyed voice of Krauss, it was irresistible. At the same time, the playing on "Will You Be Leaving" and "Dark Skies" was not only technically skilled, but startlingly genuine. (Sam Bush's mandolin and the dobro leads of producer Jerry Douglas were particularly impressive.) The record was imbued with the same old feeling that Krauss and her Union Station guitarist Dan Tyminski would later draw upon for O Brother, Where Art Thou? -- it was a bluegrass album at heart, but it came from a place where emotion and honesty weren't labeled with a genre tag.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/album/ive-got-that-old-feeling-mw0000316186#review 

Jellyfish - All Is Forgiven

The lyrics of Jellyfish songs launch them from great pop songs to musical poetry. Words snap together like candy-color Lego blocks. The phrases “chalk line dollar sign,” and “dialog swam from his pen like pollywogs” won’t ever fail to give me the chills. 
But on my first listens, the opening track, “Hush,” a mostly-acapella lullaby, and “Sebrina, Paste, and Plato,” a lighter-than-clouds track about an elementary-school crush that could have been the theme song for a carousel, had me wondering what the hell was going on here. Even songs I anticipated being pure power pop veered into very different territory. “Bye, Bye, Bye” began as a vocal harmony and building drums, then at 30 seconds, turned into…a polka? 
The album was obviously beautifully written and impeccably produced, but I couldn’t latch on, and I felt terrible about that. I wasn’t willing, however, to proclaim that I didn’t like Spilt Milk. I kept listening out of general devotion and a large dose of guilt. 
Things finally clicked for me three years or so later, long after the band’s breakup. Spilt Milk was what I loved about Bellybutton, exploded and spooled out to its logical conclusion. I saw the quasi-concept album in the madness, the circus-like sounds over the funhouse-mirror imagery of broken relationships, disillusionment and cyclical family dysfunction. Strands of this DNA have shown up in Melanie Martinez’s cracked childhood lyrics and sad babydoll aesthetic of the last decade. 
Spilt Milk’s bedtime lullaby kickoff and “Brighter Day” closing makes it the nighttime counterpart to XTC’s Skylarking, which starts with the bird-chirping gentle wake-up of “Summer’s Cauldron,” cycles through a metaphorical lifetime, and ends with the evening ritual of “Sacrificial Bonfire.” They both linger in the details of everyday lives and point the finger at religion as the culprit for any number of humanity’s issues, but XTC ultimately holds the little guy up as heroic (just barely), whereas the characters who inhabit Spilt Milk seem to haplessly trip over their own yearnings and desire to put others on pedestals. The Andys–Partridge and Sturmer–are the outsized ringmasters.
I’ve come to appreciate the sudden tone shifts of Milk, like when “All is Forgiven” builds to an angry crescendo – a wall of guitar and drums – that screeches to a halt before crashing into “Russian Hill,” one of the most laid-back Jellyfish songs. The array of instruments used on the album makes me imagine a dust-covered music shop in a picturesque valley in the Alps, run by a dusty, lovable old man. Andy Sturmer, Roger and Chris Manning, Jason Faulkner, Tim Smith and Eric Dover arrive (yes, yes, I know – but it’s my scenario and I want them all there) to buy up his vintage wonders – wind chimes! Harpsichord! Glockenspiel! It gives the album the feel of a chaotic miniature diorama where every splinter has been carefully arranged with tweezers.  From: https://rockandrollglobe.com/rock/best-wishes-simpleton-30-years-of-jellyfishs-spilt-milk/ 

June Rich - If U Dare Me To

While America's alt-rock scene lumbered through its wild '90s - the period of Beck's Odelay, the Beastie Boys' Ill Communication, Soundgarden's Superunknown, and Ice-T's Body Count - a nice Philly band, holed up at Manayunk's Grape Street Pub and Old City's Tin Angel, moved tiny mountains with a mellow brand of pop: June Rich. The band is led by two talented vocalists and lyricists: Vanida Gail (who takes the lower range) and Jackie Murphy (higher). They're abetted by a well-regarded musical crew: drummer Ronny Crawford, bassist Garry Lee, and guitarist Allen James.
June Rich fueled a quiet storm around their country-blues sound in the 1990s. Aided by radio support from WXPN-FM, their albums (1995's eponymous effort and 1997's Rain) hit and their shows were packed. Their fever-pitched Philly pop moment was comparable to that of the Hooters in the 1980s and, maybe, the War on Drugs now: adoration from fans, media, and radio, all at once.
We met at a party in Philly, started singing together, and it just clicked," says Gail of her 1993 meeting with Murphy. Both were bartenders at the time, with many friends in the restaurant biz happy to come out and support them wherever they played. After a writing stint in Crested Butte, Colo., Gail and Murphy returned and joined up with James, Lee, and Crawford.
"We didn't really have a formula to our sound," Murphy says. "We just wanted to sound good vocally and write songs that were relatable and fun to sing along with." "We also didn't want to just sing harmonies," Gail says, "because we knew that was done before." "Because of the difference in our voices, we focused on singing songs together-yet-separately, but at the same time, in harmony," Murphy says.
Early hits "Goodnight" and "Sweetthang" show June Rich's way of getting listeners to hear two voices without knowing who is taking the lead and who is backing. "That's one of reasons we named the band June Rich," Gail says. "A single name that didn't belong to either of us - which created confusion, which we liked."
"I think taking their rhythmic, acoustic-driven sound and blending it with our rock and blues-based approach created this unique vibe, made it more soulful and complex than most singer/songwriter stuff that was happening then," says Lee, then part of Manayunk's music, art, and open-mic scenes. He met Murphy and Gail in 1994 and enlisted playing pals James and Crawford, both studio guys indigenous to South Street's J. C. Dobbs. He credits guitarist James, who "found the right chord voicings to compliment the girls' open guitar tunings, then wrote his own melodic guitar lines to enhance their melodies."  From: https://www.inquirer.com/philly/entertainment/music/20150619_A_reunited_June_Rich_hits_Ardmore_Music_Hall.html

Alice Cooper - Hello, Hooray

“Hello, Hooray,” which has also been referenced as “Hello Hurray,” opened one of Alice Cooper’s biggest-selling albums, Billion Dollar Babies. Though Cooper had written the majority of the songs on his albums, “Hello, Hooray” was a standout track, penned several years earlier by Canadian singer, songwriter, and producer Rolf Peter Kempf.
After moving from Toronto to Los Angeles to pursue music, Rolf Kempf’s band split shortly after, and his guitar was stolen. Playing on a borrowed guitar, and reflecting on everything that transpired, Kempf began writing “Hello, Hooray,” while sitting near a swimming pool. A few days later, he gave the song to Judy Collins. “I fell in love with it the moment I heard it,” said Collins who released a more folk-driven version on her 1968 album Who Knows Where the Time Goes.
The song dug into the elation of performing and bringing the audience into a musical journey. The lyrics were about “renewing the spirit at those times when you have to pick yourself up and start over,” according to the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, something Cooper connected with immediately as the perfect setting for his stadium-filled shows. “He got the emotional essence of the tune right,” said Kempf, “and added a tag to bring it home.”
Following a childhood bout with polio, Kempf suffered from Post-Polio Syndrome, which can occur 15 to 40 years after the initial diagnosis and recovery. He continues to perform standards in jazz, blues, and pop originals and has released several albums. Kempf also recorded his own version of “Hello Hurray” and has performed the song during athletic events, including the Vancouver Paralympic Games. Cooper famously opened his shows for more than 40 years since 1973 with “Hello Hooray” and continues to include it on his set lists today.  From: https://americansongwriter.com/who-wrote-judy-collins-song-and-alice-coopers-jubilant-hit-hello-hooray/

Nephila - Live Sweden Rock 2025

 Nephila - Live Sweden Rock 2025 - Part 1

 

Nephila - Live Sweden Rock 2025 - Part 2

 

Nephila is a Swedish psychedelic rock band consisting of seven young musicians, five of whom appear to like being masked most of the time – and I don’t mean surgical face masks, these are the full-on “Plague Doctor” variety – without any clue why this be so! The band are collectively inspired by ’60s and ’70s rock, with hints of folk and a twist of theatrical expressionism. Nephila won the nationwide Swedish music competition LiveKarusellen in 2019 and made an impact on everyone who attended. And I can see why, the seven tracks on the album provide a mix of heavy prog, retro rock, sweet guitar solos and duelling vocal harmonies provided by the band’s dual lead singers, with elements of mysticism, folklore, and storytelling. 
The lead singers were previously with another Swedish retro band called Children of the Sün, who are distinctly hippy-ish so if you like the more psychedelic music of the late 60’s, early 70’s you’ll love this! Touches of heavy blues rock add to the retro feel, according to the band, guitars act as the basis on which hard rock rests as the heart of it all. Add to it that sense of mysticism and theatre, and that captures their ‘vision’. “Nephila’s strength definitely lies in our performance”, says one of the lead singers Stina. “The mystique is important. We all have strong personalities and our masks create yet another dimension. No matter what happens to any of us, the mask always lives on.”  From: https://www.velvetthunder.co.uk/nephila-nephila-the-sign-records/

 

The Bombay Royale - You Me Bullets Love

“You Me Bullets Love” is a new album by the Australian band The Bombay Royale from Melbourne, who specialise in bringing to life - and to the live stage - versions of many of the classics of India’s Bollywood film industry. The album (on Hope Street Recordings) is a 10 track CD/DL/Vinyl that showcases old songs such as the 1965 chestnut “Jaan Pehechan Ho” (from the film "Gumnaam") as well as entirely new pieces. The ‘golden years’ for Bollywood films are often cited as the 60s and 70s and The Bombay Royale mix these old songs (in Hindi and Bengali) with newer material they have written themselves (including some with English lyrics) inspired by these classic masterpieces.  In fact “You Me Bullets Love” features eight original numbers and two re-workings of almost forgotten Bollywood production numbers (the other is "Sote Sote Adhi Raat").
There’s a heavy retro vibe to the album that - bizarrely - makes it sound very fresh and bang-up-to-date! (obviously some weird tear in the time-space fabric…). For instance the opening track “Monkey Fight Snake” features massed brass, swirling organs, siren-like vocals and sarangi in the background, sub-Spaghetti Western blaring trumpet (Spaghetti Eastern anyone?) and wouldn’t sound out of place in some kind of drug-induced, trippy dream-sequence scene from The Avengers (the 1960s British series with the bowler-hatted, brolly-wielding Steed, not the Hollywood Marvel heroes one!). Conversely the title track is drenched in surf music, sort of 'Tarantino goes to Mumbai' (or is it India comes to South Melbourne Beach?).
At times the whole album sounds as if someone’s taken a giant cocktail shaker and thrown in some vintage 50s, 60s and 70s Bombay kitsch, a shot of James Bond, a gaggle of Go-Go girls, two slices of Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent, a pinch of Massive Attack, the serried ranks of saxophones, trumpets and trombones, a veritable forest of violins and yards and yards of orange, pink and turquoise silk, and then recorded the whole lot via the audio-equivalent of a Kodak Instamatic shot through a Dub filter.
Someone with more knowledge of Hindi music would probably be able to pick up on the Bollywood strands better than me, but that’s about as near as I can get to it at the moment! One of the Australian papers described it as being “where A R Rahman and Ennio Morricone converge, where Slumdog Millionaire meets Goldfinger head on, with Quentin Tarantino and Indiana Jones lurking in the corner”. “You Me Bullets Love” is a whole lot of fun. A lot of it is, I’m sure, very tongue-in-cheek, but then again so is much of Bollywood, and it plays with all those elements of East meets West meets East again (and in the case of Australia, meets South).  From: https://www.worldmusic.co.uk/the_bombay_royale_you_me_bullets_love_cd_review

The Byrds - Lady Friend / Renaissance Fair

 The Byrds - Lady Friend

 

 The Byrds - Renaissance Fair

 

Arguably the greatest song that David Crosby has ever written on his own, the majestic “Lady Friend” is kind of the “Have You Seen Your Mother Baby, Standing in the Shadow?” of The Byrds catalog: a fantastic non-album A-side that was sabotaged by questionable production.  Because it was considered a failure, it wasn’t released on either of their Greatest Hits albums.
I first heard it on a 1987 odds-and-sods compilation album called Never Before (an album that also featured a beautiful banner-shaped Byrds poster that hung on my wall in various apartments for years) where “Lady Friend” stuck out, but had these terrible overdubbed drums. 
It wasn’t until the 1990 box set where I heard “Lady Friend” the proper way, and I immediately realized that it’s one of those songs that should be more widely known: featuring gorgeous interlocking guitars, a rollicking drum beat (that didn’t need an overdub) and an utterly anthemic chorus.
It’s one of the more sophisticated arrangements they’d done, clearly influenced by what The Beatles and The Beach Boys were doing, but the sound that Gary Usher got in the studio just wasn’t up to par with what George Martin or Brian Wilson had done. And so it was a huge flop that has only over time revealed itself to be a secret success on the Rabin scale.  From: https://medialoper.com/certain-songs-163-the-byrds-lady-friend/

"Renaissance Fair" is a psychedelic/folk-rock song penned by David Crosby & Roger McGuinn and recorded December 6, 1966, for the Byrds' 1967 Younger Than Yesterday album. "Renaissance Fair" was inspired by an actual mock renaissance fair, entitled Renaissance Pleasure Faire and May Market, staged at the Paramount Ranch, Agoura, near Los Angeles in the spring of 1966. It was attended by the Byrds and a throng of 8,000 who, accompanied by a little imagination, were whisked back to the Elizabethan era, when King Arthur was monarch and Robin Hood was the cause celebre of the day. Demonstrating their sundry skills at the Faire were adventurous alchemists, magicians of every stripe, craftsmen and weavers, while English plays abounded. Games included archery, darts, executing dragons and punishing witches.
But this musical piece was about much more than that; it was an homage to, and yearning for, the sensuous hippie dream. The song's 12-string Rickenbacker electric guitar plucking, courtesy of McGuinn, is evocative of ringing church bells and Byrds' bassist Chris Hillman's ariose playing has a soft, undulating pattern, purveying a running jazz line. The opus moves along, image by image; the meter signatures varying, kept pace by Michael Clarke's dogged drumming.  From: https://www.furious.com/perfect/davidcrosby.html

 

 

Sheila Chandra & Monsoon – Shakti (The Meaning of Within)

Sheila Chandra has engineered a career that has consistently defied expectations — from producing lyric-less drone-based soundscapes, to forging a new global vocal vision out of a re-imagining of myriad vocal traditions. Hers is a living, breathing music that manages to reflect the context of its making, as well as creating a timeless reflection of the inimitable power of the human voice.  
That pursuit of radical vocal expression has been a lifelong process. It began when she made history at only 17 in 1982 as the first South Asian woman to appear on the UK’s flagship chart show ‘Top of the Pops’ with her band Monsoon’s global hit ‘Ever So Lonely’. In a sea of then-fashionable synth-pop, Monsoon’s fresh raga-based acoustic sound, topped by trendy crash beats over sensuous tabla cross-rhythms, nevertheless insinuated its way into public consciousness.
It was a watershed moment for the South Asian diaspora in the UK. Clad in a purple silk sari and teardrop tilak, this was the first positive representation of Asians from a mainstream media that had played on racist tropes in comedy and whose documentary makers had unfairly and persistently portrayed the community as a ‘social problem’ for 20 years. Monsoon’s ‘Ever So Lonely’ was simply too innovative and catchy a record to be ignored, and a mere two years on from the Southall riots, suddenly an Asian diaspora sound was fashionable for the first time.
The 70s had featured anti-racist protesting across the nation, aiming to combat the popularity of fascist organisations like The National Front. Chandra’s appearance in traditional Indian dress, as well as her very existence as a South Asian female artist, and one utilising traditional sounds, became a radical act of representation, five years before the term ‘World Music’ was coined to represent such a free-flowing mix of cultures. It was the first of many boundary-breaking moves that she made throughout the following 40 years of her career. Those decades saw her ignoring trends and pursuing her own musical interests, regardless of the pleas of industry marketing executives. For her, breaking musical ground and moving music itself on, always seemed more important than making a commercial record and selling as many copies as possible.  From: https://realworldrecords.com/features/long-reads/sheila-chandra-the-pursuit-of-radical-vocal-expression/

 

Rare Earth - I Just Want to Celebrate - Live 1973

Rare Earth had a knack for improvisation, and could jam on a song for, literally, hours. “We hardly ever recorded anything under seven minutes long,” Bridges laughs. “We were a jam band, a street band. Some of the songs on our albums are absolute jams, we created them in the studio on the fly. We took the same approach when we played live.” Rare Earth soon caught the ear of Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown Records.
“There were other white bands that signed to Motown prior to us,” says Bridges, “but they didn’t go anywhere because Motown had no promotion in the white market. That’s why when they approached us they told us they were starting a whole new division, one that catered exclusively to white acts. They were also planning on bringing on some British bands as well. They didn’t have a name for this new division yet. Jokingly I said: ‘How about Rare Earth?’ And they said okay. That’s when we signed, because we knew they’d be behind us 100 per cent.”
The band got to work on their first album for Motown at the legendary Hitsville USA studios. The result was 1969’s Get Ready, a masterpiece of gritty, bluesy dance music that included covers of Traffic’s Feelin’ Alright and the Nashville Teens’ stomper Tobacco Road, and was anchored by the ecstatic title-track, a 21-minute, ode-to-joy jam on Smokey Robinson’s Motown classic that took up the whole of side two.
“We used to do Get Ready as the finale in our live sets,” says Bridges. “So it already was 21 minutes long. And we figured that since Iron Butterfly’s Inna Gadda Da Vida took up one whole side of an album, why couldn’t we? Motown freaked when we told them our plans. It was very much against their nature, but they let us do it. And it worked out great.”
Initially, much like the band’s first album, Get Ready stalled at the gate. “The record didn’t do anything for the first six months, and we thought, ‘Uh-oh, we’ve got a dud on our hands.’ And then all of a sudden a black DJ in Washington DC spun the record. At that time, ‘album-oriented radio’ was just coming out; it wasn’t just three-minute singles any more, the DJs could play longer songs and they had the choice of what they wanted to play. 
"The DJs really liked our song because they could take a coffee break or go to the bathroom or whatever, because they had 20 minutes on their hands. People went wild for it in Washington and it just spread out from there. The record broke in the black market first, and the first concerts we played were to black crowds; they were all shocked and surprised when a bunch of white guys got on stage.” Eventually Get Ready caught on with white audiences as well, and the band struggled to keep their sound as open-ended as possible. Not an easy task when you’re signed to Motown.
“Motown always had writers and producers that they wanted you to work with,” Bridges explains. “At one point they set us up with Stevie Wonder as a producer. He was 17 at the time, and they wanted to try him out. He really wanted to produce us, and it was his first attempt. The problem was that our singer at the time, Pete Rivera, could emulate anybody, and Stevie was making him sound just like him. I didn’t think that was good. Neither did Motown, so they shelved the project.”
The band settled in with producer Norman Whitfield, a pioneer of ‘psychedelic soul’, and together they scored another US hit in 1970 with (I Know I’m) Losing You, which had already been a hit for Motown royalty the Temptations. But Rare Earth’s most enduring triumph occurred a year later – although it almost didn’t happen at all.
“I Just Want To Celebrate was written by these two Greek white writers, Dino Fekaris and Nick Zesses, who worked for Motown,” Bridges explains. “They had staff writers and writing rooms, with a piano in each room, and these guys were going all day long, every day. They were writing material for all of Motown’s acts. And we happened to walk into the studio one night and they played …Celebrate for us. We were there to record something else, but we scrapped it right there and did …Celebrate instead. We recorded the whole song, vocals and everything, in one day.”
Perhaps the ultimate party anthem, I Just Want To Celebrate encapsulated everything that was great about Rare Earth. It had groove, energy, a wicked hook, and it lasted for days. It remains a near-constant presence in television, films, and parties the world over. It was also the high-water mark for a band that had achieved little real fame; they had, however gained some notoriety for being put down in the lyrics to Gil ScottHeron’s poem The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, which included the line: ‘The theme song [to the revolution] will not be written by Jim Webb, Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom Jones, Johnny Cash, Engelbert Humperdinck or the Rare Earth…’. From: https://www.loudersound.com/features/cult-heroes-rare-earth-motowns-funkiest-white-band

Luscious Jackson - Naked Eye

Luscious Jackson lead singer Jill Cunniff wrote this song. It seems to be about reaching a moment of clarity in a relationship, finally seeing it with the "naked eye," and not through a filter.

Luscious Jackson is an all-female alternative funk band that made four albums in the 1990s. "Naked Eye" was the most successful of the songs they produced. It's best remembered for its stylish video, in which all four members of the band (Jill Cunniff, Gabrielle Glaser, Kate Schellenbach and Vivian Trimble) portray the same character, a woman being escorted to a departing airplane by her boyfriend. Though the video looks like it takes place at an airport, it was actually filmed at the World Trade Center. According to frontwoman Jill Cunniff, the video for this song was inspired by the Luis Buniel film That Obscure Object of Desire, which featured two actresses playing the same role. 

This was recorded at Daniel Lanois' Kingsway Studios in New Orleans, where the band lived while they were making the album. Lanois, known for his work with U2, also produced the track along with Jill Cunniff and Tony Mangurian.
"Naked Eye" was the only Hot 100 entry for Luscious Jackson, the first band signed to the Beastie Boys' label, Grand Royal (their drummer, Kate Schellenbach, was an early member of the Beastie Boys). Their band name is a play on Lucious Jackson, a basketball player who played for the Philadelphia 76ers in the '60s and '70s.
After Beastie Boys moved from Def Jam Records to Capitol, they set up Grand Royal as an imprint for their own music so it would seem like they were on an indie label, not a corporate behemoth. It was purely symbolic until they heard from their old friends Jill Cunniff and Gabby Glaser, who sent them a demo of Luscious Jackson material and asked for advice. They loved the demo, so in 1992 they decided to make Grand Royal a real label and make the first Luscious Jackson EP, In Search of Manny, the first release. They promoted the band as best they could, including a feature in the first issue of a magazine they started called Grand Royal in 1993. The first full-length Luscious Jackson album was Natural Ingredients in 1994; that was followed by Fever In Fever Out in 1996, which includes "Naked Eye." The group called it quits in 2000 but reunited for a few years starting in 2011.
A corollary to this story: Beastie Boys kicked Kate Schellenbach out of their group in 1984 when they took on Rick Rubin as a producer. She found out after returning from a month in Europe and spotting the guys at a club, where they were dressed in matching Fila suits Rubin bought for them. The Beastie's knew they did her dirty and were happy to help make amends by helping out Lucious Jackson. Another corollary: Beastie Boys started degrading women in their music and presentation starting with their first album, Licensed To Ill, in 1986. They essentially became the characters they portrayed in their hit "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party)." By 1992 they were trying to shed this image and show due respect for women. Championing Luscious Jackson helped them to that end. From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/luscious-jackson/naked-eye


Cosmic Rough Riders - Baby, You’re So Free

A Chat with Daniel Wylie of Cosmic Rough Riders

Who or what most influenced you musically as a youth? Did you come from a musical family? 

DANIEL: David Bowie. He was my hero. I obsessed on him. I also loved bands like Roxy Music, Queen, Genesis, Yes, Steely Dan, Joe Walsh, Stevie Wonder, lots of sixties and seventies bands like the Kinks, Beatles, Beach Boys, Who, Byrds, and lots of Motown and seventies soul like the Chi-Lites, Detroit Spinners, Chairmen of the Board… so much. I was like a sponge soaking it all up…drawn to melody…then punk happened and I got into Elvis Costello, The Clash, and so many others. I also loved Disco music and electronic pop like Kraftwerk. My dad played a little bit of guitar, but there were no real musicians in my family. Both my parents were massive music fans, and I heard lots of great music through them: Buddy Holly, The Everly Brothers, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Hank Williams, Bob Dylan, lots of fifties, sixties and seventies country music like Glen Campbell, Skeeter Davis, John Denver, and Bobbie Gentry…some great folk music like Hamish Imlach, The Dubliners, and Alex Campbell. My dad had a record stall in Glasgow’s Barrowlands market, and when I was 14/15/16 years old, I would work on it at weekends. I would take records as wages. 

Can you tell us about some of the past groups you’ve played or worked with?

DANIEL: I can tell you the names of some of them…Transaction, Pioneers West, The Thieves (there have been lots of bands with this name), Rise (again, there are so many bands have used this name). The Thieves came close to getting signed as did Rise. EMI decided not to sign Rise because they’d just signed a band they thought sounded like us…that was Radiohead. :) The Thieves released four singles/eps and then disbanded. They were also the first band I appeared on TV with and had a large local following.

For the uninitiated, how would you describe your music?

DANIEL: Ultra melodic sums it up quite well. Generally, it’s either jingle jangle, chiming, guitar pop with harmonies and hooks, or it’s melodic, acoustic, melancholia with harmonies. My main focus is on writing super tuneful vocal melodies that you can sing in the shower.

Were you part of the Postcard era scene, or just a fan of the music that came out of that scene?

DANIEL: I was a fan of that label. I was in a band called Pioneers West around that time who might have fitted in well with that scene, but we were only together for about a year. I’m a massive fan of Orange Juice and Aztec Camera. Those bands were so great and set the bar high for Scottish music.

Please tell us a little about the early formation of the Cosmic Rough Riders, and how you met Alan McGee through Poptones Records.

DANIEL: Having been in bands for years, in 1996, I finally decided to become a solo artist. I was sick of always having a cynic dragging good bands down…kids…never be in a band with a cynic…they’re already beaten before you get started. A community studio called C# Sharp had opened in my area, and over the next three years I recorded some demos there. These formed the biggest part of the first Cosmic Rough Riders album Deliverance. Some of the album was recorded at Riverside Studios in Glasgow, with the aid of an arts grant. I had originally decided to release my music under the name Dylan Wylie, and in fact, one of the songs made it out on a magazine compilation under that name. However, I’d read a Gram Parsons quote about wanting to make Cosmic American Music and I thought that sounded great. Then, one day I noticed a poster in a jeans store…it was a girl wearing cut off shorts and they were called Rough Riders. I put that together with Cosmic from the GP quote and that’s how I got the name. CRR was a solo project and only became a band by accident. I needed to play a showcase for Alan McGee, who was interested in signing me to Pop tones. So we (CRR was a duo by this stage of myself and Stephen Fleming, who I’d brought in because he was a studio engineer and played some nice guitar), brought in some other guys to play live. McGee offered a deal on the SPOT, but he’d seen the band and wanted to sign us as a band. I’d been trying for a deal for years and was 41 by this time, so I opted to take a chance. So I ended up in a band with guys who hadn’t even played on my songs/records. It didn’t work out as I didn’t get on with a couple of them. When they started to bring in songs they’d written (that I didn’t rate or even like) and wanted them on the next album, I knew it was time to leave my own band. Shit happens. It got very complicated around this time, and I’d rather not go over old wounds again…it wasn’t the end of the world.

From: https://bigtakeover.com/interviews/a-chat-with-daniel-wylie-of-cosmic-rough-riders 

Black Mountain - Mothers of the Sun

Drawing on blues, psychedelia, acid rock, Led Zeppelin, and the Velvet Underground, Black Mountain's sound is a cross between the darkness and grit of the Warlocks and Brian Jonestown Massacre's trippiness, with a folky undertow weaving through it all. Black Mountain leader Stephen McBean previously fronted the semi-acoustic cowpunk band Jerk with a Bomb, but after releasing two albums, he reshaped the Vancouver-area band into a group called Black Mountain. After debuting in October 2004 on Jagjaguwar with the 12" Druganaut, Black Mountain stayed with the label for an eponymous full-length, issued the following January. Joining McBean for the album were local players Matthew Camirand, Jeremy Schmidt, Joshua Wells, and Amber Webber, listed collectively to preserve the band's communal ethic. (Black Mountain ran concurrent to and intermingled with McBean's other band, lo-fi classic rockers Pink Mountaintops.) The debut album earned enthusiastic reviews in the music press, and Coldplay tapped Black Mountain to open for them on an arena tour. In January 2008, Black Mountain released their sophomore album, In the Future, and showed off their willingness to explore proggy (and druggy) territory with the 17-minute opus "Bright Lights." The group's third full-length album, Wilderness Heart, arrived in 2010, and earned the group the Polaris Prize, one of the highest honors in Canadian music. In 2012, Black Mountain released their soundtrack to the film Year Zero, an ambitious documentary about surfing set against a dystopian, post-apocalyptic backdrop.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/black-mountain-mn0000950037#biography

Frank Zappa & The Mothers - Live At The Fillmore East, June 6, 1971

Sorry, Frank!  Though the title of Zappa and The Mothers' 1971 album was Just Another Band from L.A., listeners knew what the maverick bandleader was alluding to: his latest group was anything but.  Vocalists Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan (a.k.a. Flo and Eddie) and bassist Jim Pons - all freshly recruited from The Turtles - were now happy together with Zappa, drummer Aynsley Dunbar, keyboardists Bob Harris and Don Preston, and multi-instrumentalist Ian Underwood in one of the most outrageous and potent line-ups of The Mothers ever.  Though Just Another Band has its fans, this brief era of Mothers history was best captured on Fillmore East - June 1971.  Underneath its plain, white bootleg-esque cover, Zappa unleashed a live concept album linked thematically to his motion picture 200 Motels and its life-on-the-road theme.  With 200 Motels just having received the deluxe treatment last year from Zappa Records and UMe, the labels have turned their attention to Fillmore East.  While the original album has been expanded as a 3-LP vinyl set, the original concerts are premiering in full as part of a bigger set: The Mothers 1971.  This comprehensive 8-CD set follows the smaller, 4-CD box The Mothers 1970 which introduced Flo and Eddie into the band alongside Dunbar, Underwood, George Duke, and Jeff Simmons.
The 100-track, nearly 10-hour The Mothers 1971, produced by Ahmet Zappa and "Vaultmeister" Joe Travers, presents each and every note of all four shows played at NYC's late, lamented Fillmore East on June 5-6, 1971 from which the original album's dozen tracks were drawn.  (The concerts were among the closing acts at the historic venue; it closed permanently on June 27.  Today, a bank sits in its place.)  It marks the very first time the complete Fillmore East concerts, including the subsequently-released jam session with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, have been released in unedited form.  They're also newly mixed from the original tapes by Craig Parker Adams and mastered by John Polito.
But the Fillmore shows are far from everything on this comprehensive set.  To paint a fuller picture of the Mothers' 1971 - one which began in triumph and ended in tragedy - the box recreates a composite concert from the June 1 and June 3 performances in Scranton and Harrisburg, PA (respectively), and concludes with the full Rainbow Theatre concert in London, England on December 10, 1971 when a "fan" attacked Zappa following the band's performance of The Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand," leaving him with serious injuries.  The band had been playing that night with rented equipment, due to the shocking fire that engulfed the Montreux Casino on December 4 (and their instruments with it).  Thankfully, Zappa and the Mothers emerged relatively unscathed, not knowing that the fire would be mere prelude to more horror.
The premiere of the Rainbow show could threaten to cast a pall over the higher spirits displayed at the Fillmore East shows, but happily that's not the case here.  The complete Fillmore shows (which occupy the first five-and-a-half discs of the box) are very much a delight for fans of this still-controversial period of Mothers history in which Flo and Eddie steered the group in a more overtly comical direction.  Though the duo dominates the proceedings, whether with raunchy humor or distinctive harmonizing (and frequently with both!), the musicianship for which Zappa was known is still very much in evidence.
The box set makes the case that all of the strengths of this iteration of the band, individually and collectively, were in fact showcased at the Fillmore.  The epic "Billy the Mountain" was performed at every show, ranging roughly from 30-36 minutes in length.  Zappa's parody of a rock opera, about a talking mountain named Billy (with "two big caves for eyes") and his wife Ethel ("a tree growing off his shoulder") allowed for city-specific references, absurdist comedy, satirical jabs at the American right wing, and plenty of Frank's tasty guitar.  For the first two shows, the band arguably topped "Billy" with full-throttle renditions of "King Kong."  Flo and Eddie mostly sat out the lengthy and intricate jazz-rock instrumental which premiered on 1969's Uncle Meat and allowed for ample, impressive soloing on the Fillmore stage. So did an intense reading of "Chunga's Revenge" which closed the first show of June 6 in ferocious fashion with Zappa's searing guitar, Dunbar's forceful drums, and Pons' hypnotic bass all intuitively linked.  If the musicality of the Fillmore stand took a back seat to the comedy on the released album, balance is restored on the box set.
Other highlights of the Fillmore sets include the grooving, twisty, mostly-instrumental "Little House I Used to Live In" and numerous, eclectic selections excised from the original LP including the mordant one-two punch of "Concentration Moon" and "Mom and Dad" from We're Only in It for the Money (1968) and the early, high school-themed Zappa composition "Status Back Baby" from the abortive I Was a Teenage Maltshop project with Captain Beefheart.  From: https://theseconddisc.com/2022/04/27/review-frank-zappa-the-mothers-1971/

Black Sabbath - Sabotage - Side 1

01 - Hole in the Sky
02 - Don’t Start (Too Late)
03 - Symptom of the Universe
04 - Megalomania 

Sabotage is definitely a bit of an outlier in Black Sabbath’s catalogue. There’s an impressive commitment to keep pushing at rock’s boundaries, and for the most part it still sounds great. But it’s a much more inward-looking album than its predecessors, the urge to address the world’s ills now diminished by both the circumstances of its creation and the band’s personal demons (fuelled by various drug and alcohol addictions). Instead, we get recurrent themes of mental dissolution, impotent rage and fantasies of escape, slowly going crazy in search of peace of mind. While I’m often wary of placing too much emphasis on an album’s external context – because ultimately, that’s not what I’m listening to – Sabbath were clearly not in the happiest frame of mind when they recorded Sabotage.
For a start, the band had to contend with months of soul-sapping legal proceedings before they even got round to making it, with their original manager Jim Simpson suing them for wrongful dismissal. Not only did this effectively stop them from playing live for eight months, but the court settled in Simpson’s favour, with Sabbath forced to pay compensation to him. On top of this, they discovered that their current manager Patrick Meehan had been funnelling most of their royalties into his own bank account. Geezer Butler has said, “We were literally in the studio, trying to record, and we’d be signing all these affidavits and everything. That’s why it’s called Sabotage – because we felt that the whole process was just being totally sabotaged by all these people ripping us off.” (Another reason for the title was because part of the album had to be recorded again after the master tapes were accidentally wiped.)
It was also almost inevitable that at some point the band would reach a creative crossroads. Iommi wanted to keep experimenting in the studio and investigate new directions, while Ozzy hankered after the early years of knocking it out in a few days and then hitting the road. The spectre of the emerging American FM radio sound also looms over Sabotage as the band’s popularity in the US continued to mushroom (my favourite example of the apparent disconnect between Sabbath’s proto-doom metal and the stadium rock culture they were increasingly living inside is their performance at the California Jam show in 1974 – Ozzy implores the audience, “C’mon, let’s have a party!” while Iommi stands in front of a giant rainbow grinding out the opening chords to ‘Children of the Grave’). All of which makes for an album that’s reaching out to more mainstream rock tastes (without fatally over-balancing yet) while also trying to pull new rabbits out of the hat – the fact that it’s as enjoyable, and at times genre-defining, as it is shows how imaginative and resilient Sabbath were even under considerable duress.  From: https://thequietus.com/opinion-and-essays/anniversary/at-breaking-point-black-sabbaths-sabotage-revisited/

The Tea Club - Say Yes

The Tea Club is a band about feeling. Their music is earnest and impassioned, combining elements of art-rock, folk, electronica, and romanticism to create a distinctive sound that’s all their own. The band is fronted by the songwriting team of brothers Patrick and Dan McGowan whose unorthodox guitar playing and fervent singing form the core of the group’s unique style. Bassist Jamie Wolff, keyboardist Joe Dorsey, and drummer Dan Monda complete the ensemble.
The band has recorded four albums with renowned producer Tim Gilles at Big Blue Meenie Studios in Jersey City, NJ. They’ve performed hundreds of shows, supported Haken, Bent Knee, and Thank You Scientist, and have done multiple U.S. national tours and parts of Canada.
If/When, their fifth and latest record, is daringly personal, exploring themes of death, failure, new life, and hope. Complex and cerebral, unguarded and intimate, If/When is a thoroughly heart-felt addition to the band’s immersive catalog. Heralded by Prog magazine as “Challenging, modern, and frequently scintillating…” The Tea Club continue to explore new ways of communicating deep feeling through their art.  From: https://www.progstock.com/2021/artists-schedule/2021-artists/the-tea-club/

Sally Rogers - Lady Margaret

Sally Rogers began her career as a full-time touring musician in 1979, after encouragement from Stan Rogers, the legendary Canadian singer-songwriter.  That was followed by an invitation from Garrison Keillor to appear on A Prairie Home Companion.  She appeared more than a dozen times on that show, which launched her performing career.  Her travels have since taken her to Europe, China, Hungary and Poland, England and Scotland, and across the United States. Sally has released thirteen albums, not including several collaborative projects with other artists. Her first album, The Unclaimed Pint, has stood the test of time and continues to be a big seller. Her songs are included in the Unitarian Hymnal, the Quaker songbook, Rise Up Singing, Rise Again and both national music textbook series. Several of her songs are considered to be folk music classics. Although much of Rogers’ time is spent teaching music in the public schools and being an artist-in-residence these days, she continues to perform in concerts as opportunities arise.  Her gorgeous singing voice, boundless energy and good humor are welcomed from coast to coast.  From: https://ctartsalliance.org/2020/03/09/meet-our-members-sally-rogers/

Thumpermonkey - I Don't Know If This Is A Matter For Wardrobe Or Hairdressing

Thumpermonkey Lives! - We Bake Our Bread Beneath Her Holy Fire (Genin/Tooting Bizarre) - In which an unnoticed Sarf London band, twinkling away doing their good and frankly slightly odd stuff down there in the badlands explodes into an outrageous supernova, outshining half the sky. This album, these six epic songs, have ideas way beyond their station: huge depth, big sound, immaculate arrangements, and a big, big voice. It's a lot of things, and greater than the sum of its parts: unashamed proper prog, lifted, by an avant sensibility, out of cheesy traps, yet swapping the harsher elements of experimental and avant rock for something more melodic, for refined guitars and real singing. Main man Michael Woodman's downright classy voice is like a polished Peter Hammill, all power and in tune and spot-on vibrato. That fine voice is delivering twisted, complex melodies and equally twisted, happily ambiguous lyrics, the combination is thrilling. 
There's nothing quite like Thumpermonkey Lives! but I can guess where they're coming from: they're the English Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, a more experimental Van Der Graaf Generator, they've got some of the headbending melodies of Time Of Orchids. They've been threatening this for a while, with a great debut album and much time spent hothousing their talents in their Immersion Composition Society lodge (you what? Go on, Google it, I dare you) - but We Bake Our Bread Beneath Her Holy Fire is still a surprise - a classic, even. Stuffed to the gills with possibly unconscious references to good things - hints of Yes, moments of Cardiacs-like odd sounds, loads of Gentle Giant - crikey. Throw in some Alex Harvey and Bowie and The Associates and Bobby Conn, a touch of Melvins if you like. It's challenging only in that the melodies are thick on the ground and take you off in many directions, but that the complex mathyness underlying much of the songs is made easier on the ear by Woodman's voice and the warm, clarity of the arrangements. I can see both followers of hard-boiled avant-rock and fans of more traditional prog bands like Porcupine Tree getting this, and if Thumpermonkey Lives! ahem, live a bit longer, the big prog festival organisers could well be beating a path to their door.  From: https://thumpermonkey.bandcamp.com/album/we-bake-our-bread-beneath-her-holy-fire 

Royal Thunder - Blue

The almost 10-minute "Blue", which comes with an opening that may remind you of "Cherub Rock", is one of the more impressively vast tracks on Royal Thunder's debut LP, CVI, out now on Relapse. The Atlanta, Ga., band's fronted by Miny Parsonz, a singer and bassist who really sings: the quartet's Southern hard rock riffs are there, as is a deep, doomy atmosphere (they tap into post-punk and schizo psychedelia on this one), but time again she's the one who brings it all together-- and over-the-top-- with her sun-cracked, Robert Plant-style howl.  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/13723-royal-thunder-blue/ 

Old & In The Way - Midnight Moonlight

When not playing with The Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia liked to dabble in side projects including stints with his own Jerry Garcia Band, The New Riders Of The Purple Sage, gigging with Merle Saunders, recording with John Wales and guesting on albums by the likes of Ornette Coleman, David Bromberg, Brewer And Shipley, Bob Dylan, CSN&Y, Jefferson Airplane and many others. But Garcia was also a member of a bona-fide “supergroup.” When most people hear the term “supergroup,” bands like Cream, Blind Faith, Derek & The Dominos, CSN&Y and The Traveling Wilbury’s come to mind.
Garcia’s supergroup was Old & In The Way, a bluegrass collective of great pedigree featuring Jerry Garcia on banjo and vocals, David Grisman on mandolin, Peter Rowan on guitar, Vassar Clements on fiddle and John Kahn on bass. (John Hartford sat in with the band before Clements came on board.) Rowan and Grisman played together with ex-Byrd Clarence White in the bluegrass group Muleskinner, and also in the group Earth Opera.  Grisman also played with The Even Dozen Jug Band and guested on The Grateful Dead’s American Beauty album. Rowan and Clements were members of Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys, and John Kahn played with Muleskinner, Howard Wales and Garcia.
Garcia formed Old & In The Way in 1973 as a vehicle to play bluegrass banjo. The group grew out of living room jams between Garcia, Grisman and Rowan who all lived near each other in Marin County, California. Together they would gig around locally with John Kahn in tow and John Hartford on fiddle. After Hartford could not commit to a tour, the group called on Vassar Clements to take his place. They were together for a total of nine months, and the Old & In The Way album was recorded in October of 1973 in front of an audience at The Boarding House in San Francisco, where most of the group’s discography was recorded.
Their one-off eponymously titled album was subsequently released on The Grateful Dead’s Round record label in 1975 featuring today’s song of the day, “Midnight Moonlight,” which was penned by Peter Rowan. The album also included their bluegrass cover of The Rolling Stones’ “Wild Horses,” a version of the Peter Rowan-penned New Riders’ tune “Panama Red,” and traditional tunes like the Delmore Brothers’ “Pig In A Pen” and Carter Stanley’s “White Dove.”
With great harmonies and instrumental interplay, Old & In The Way’s old timey, good-feeling vibe struck a chord with Grateful Dead heads, making it one of the best selling bluegrass albums of all time. And indeed, several songs from the album have gone on to become standards of the Bluegrass repertoire including “Midnight Moonlight,” “Wild Horses” and the album’s title track, “Old & In The Way.”  From: https://internetfm.com/song-of-the-day-midnight-moonlight-by-old-in-the-way/

Raze The Maze - Letters From The Parking Lot

With their second album as Raze The Maze, former MoeTar musical part­ners Moorea Dickason and Tarik Ragab raise their game on all fronts. 7am Dream squeezes 10 songs into 31 minutes. The duo plant their feet in pro­gress­ive pop land; the mood is upbeat, the sound is snappy, yet the catchy hooks are car­ried on odd time sig­na­tures. The pro­duc­tion is a notice­able advance­ment from their self-titled 2019 release, feel­ing warmer and more cohes­ive, with rich multi-layered har­mon­ies. Dickason’s vocal scoops in the title track and By Design recall the style of Kate Bush or XTC’s Andy Part­ridge, while Let­ters From The Park­ing Lot spits out frantic gui­tar licks that sug­gest the influ­ence of Zappa. Per­sist­ence is all tum­bling melodic runs, played by Paul Han­son on bas­soon, and stut­ter­ing syn­co­pated beats from drum­mer Terry Branam that inter­twine to cre­ate a poly­rhythmic puzzle. It’s densely packed stuff, where there’s always a lot hap­pen­ing in the arrange­ments even when Ragab’s melod­ies could fit in a pop song. The brisk run­ning time is decept­ive: 7am Dream is full to the brim with ideas to tickle the cerebrum.  From: https://www.pressreader.com/uk/prog/20221125/283107073013057?srsltid=AfmBOooCpWoWfV1wR00asZlUzbOcQvkhHKr3DuN1WqcpRPfm6ndSHlbe

Nil Lara - How Was I To Know

Nil Lara is a Cuban-American songwriter with Venezuelan roots who has just blown me away. I read about him recently on Matt Nathanson’s celebrity playlist (of all places), sought him out, and immediately loved what I heard. Lara is soulful and passionate and sings like his heart is burning. Add in heavy doses of warm & layered Latin percussion, traditional Cuban and Venezuelan string instruments, and his soaring chants and vocals (in a combination of Spanish and English) – and I was hooked. It’s been named by some “Number 2 on my list of Best Albums By People That 99.5% of the World Has Never Heard Of.” His 1996 self-titled album was critically acclaimed, but never received the popular attention it deserves. I would completely go see him live, and surely dance myself sore, but he seems to be on indefinite hiatus. Download these, and buy the album, though – sheer fabulousness.  From: http://www.fuelfriendsblog.com/2006/07/19/world-music-wednesday-nil-lara/ 

Melissa Auf Der Maur - Followed The Waves

You probably know her as the bassist from Hole and the Smashing Pumpkins, but Melissa Auf der Maur’s career has extended far beyond the rock songs of the 1990s. Luckily, in Courtney Love and Billy Corgan she had two dedicated role models. “Courtney and Billy were both very different,” she told BP. “But I have so much respect for both of them. My time with Hole was more character definition, creating me as a person, and then my crash course in music, one on one, was with the Pumpkins, who refined and defined my musicianship.
“Billy in particular: his level of efficiency and musicianship and his commitment to art was pretty remarkable. He was a real mentor in that way. With Courtney it’s a different female bond, simply because there aren’t that many women in the rock landscape, so we have a real unspoken loyalty to each other based on that fact alone. We’re on a similar mission to put a female perspective out there. With Courtney it enhanced my commitment as a woman to keep on rocking!” Interestingly, Auf der Maur never wrote songs or riffs on the bass. Instead she'd pick up a Gibson SG, run it through a Fender Blues Deluxe, and write using a clean, slightly effected sound. “It's a disgrace to the bass player in me, but it's just hard to write on the bass. Playing power chords on a guitar is much easier.”
Auf der Maur spent five years with Hole, but it wasn't all wild parties and arena tours. In fact, two and a half of those years were spent in the studio, writing and recording the band's swansong; Celebrity Skin. It was a vastly ambitious – and vastly expensive – album. “I was there for every minute of every day. It was a very demanding process. We ended up spending millions of dollars.” The album emerged, eventually, to modest success, and there was the inevitable tour to accompany it. But by that time, it was clear to everyone that the whole thing was running out of steam. “It sort of felt like the time to go. Courtney was getting into films and I didn't really know what the future was gonna be.”
Within a week of leaving Hole Auf der Maur received a phone call from Billy Corgan, telling her that his bassist D'arcy Wretzky had quit the Pumpkins and he needed a replacement. “It was just a very dramatic coincidence. Billy said, ‘You're gonna be in my band!’ And I couldn't say no, because it was a dream come true. It was fulfilling a teenage fantasy, but it was also the best music lesson of my life. I knew it was only for one year, because they told me they were splitting up. And knowing I was going to be taught their back catalogue was incredible.”
When describing her own music, and specifically her use of chorus and reverb effects, Auf der Maur likens it to “a beautiful liquid poured over a thorny, rough-edged base.” She thinks of her bass playing in similarly imaginative terms. The bass, she suggests, is an intrinsically feminine instrument, since it performs a nurturing role at the heart of every band: “I call it the mother of all instruments, because it has to be sensitive to everything else. It has to respond to everything equally – the drums, the vocal melody, the guitar part. It has to be the glue. Females play that role in families, so it's natural for them to do the same in bands. It's about being sensitive, putting your ego aside, and picking up on the subtleties. Women are good at that. Do I play bass better because I'm a woman? No. But I think I honour the role of the bass player more naturally.”  From: https://www.guitarworld.com/features/melissa-auf-der-maur-looks-back-on-a-life-in-rock 

Love - August / I'm With You / Good Times / Nothing

A while ago, I came across a description of the quandary Arthur Lee found himself in after releasing his undisputed masterwork, 1967’s “Forever Changes.” Although I can’t recall the source, it’s since come to stand as my lasting image of the man. In 1968, Lee walked out the door, stepped onto the lawn, and turned to wave goodbye. Many years after shutting the door, we took a peek outside and there he was, still on the lawn, still waving good-bye.
“Forever Changes” is a curious case. Above and beyond the truly remarkable music, it came to represent the dangers inherent in an artist creating a definitive statement. Lee was convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that he was going to die after he completed the record, so he made sure he said everything he needed to say, and communicated it all with striking urgency. To top it all off, he somehow found a way to sum up everything and its mother with the brilliant closer, “You Set The Scene.”
But Lee didn’t die. (Not for a while, anyway). So, instead, he killed the band, erecting in its place a new version of Love. The new band had more testicles than the older, more classic incarnation, keeping Lee’s unmistakably skewed poetic perversity intact but opting to follow the Cream/Hendrix template (Lee was old buds with Jimi, having been behind the boards the first time he set foot in a recording studio). Gone was the orchestrated, almost show tune-like influence of Bryan Maclean’s songwriting, which leant a mesmerizing tension to the greatness of those first three records. Without Maclean around to keep things freakishly diverse, Love progressively became a progressive concern.
This may be the very reason the Love story with their fan base ended here. Along with the death of the classic line-up came the disappearance from their music of so many of the unique signifiers their fans had come to love. The baroque, jazzy arrangements, delicate Spanish accents, and touches of MOR sensibility that brought out the depth in their approach — all of it, gone. Instead, along with old friends and previous bandmates Jay Donnellan (lead guitar), Frank Fayad (bass), and George Suranovich (drums, with Drachen Theaker guest-whacking on three tracks), the subtlety of their previous sound is smashed to smithereens with a powerhouse, virtuoso approach that greets the idea of space and restraint with utter contempt, cramming solos and drum fills into every last inch of tape. Suranovich, especially, is all over the damn place, sounding every bit like a musician with everything to prove.
So conclusive was “Forever Changes” in the Lee canon that most see it as the last stop on the Love train. That’s simply not the case. Although it is indisputably their best record, and their days as a great band were certainly numbered, the flashes of inspiration to come were enough to see them through to the end of the decade. However, “Four Sail” is the last time it all came together full-throttle for Arthur. This thoroughly overlooked gem stands as their final release before the magic of their early days had been fully shaken off.
After Lee had assembled the new band, they entered a makeshift studio in a Los Angeles warehouse and recorded three LPs worth of material. Elektra Records were owed one more record before the expiration of their contract, and “Four Sail” contains the ten tracks that Elektra hand-picked. (The remainder came out on the Blue Thumb label four months later as the intermittently brilliant double-LP “Out Here.”) The album’s title is a cynical double entendre, referring both to their jumping ship from Elektra and the product-minded mentality of the music industry.
There are many words one could use to describe Lee’s new direction, but “product” definitely isn’t one of them. There isn’t a bad song here. Kicking off the proceedings with sledgehammer ferocity is lead-off track “August,” which in a way is a kitchen-sink template for everything late-era Love had to offer. A mysterious Spanish-style guitar intro leads in to an almost laughably bombastic power-trio assault; delicate, folk-style verses; and a crazy jam-out middle section that features drumming so busily fill-intensive that Neil Peart himself would beg for it to be taken down a notch. “August” is one of Love’s best songs, and proof positive that they hadn’t said it all with “Forever Changes.” If anything, they now had an entirely new vocabulary in which to articulate their life and times and overdriven Marshall stacks were certainly more era-appropriate by this point than flutes, horns, and strings.  From: https://irom.wordpress.com/2009/04/22/on-second-thought-love-four-sail-1969/

Deap Vally - Julian

A rock & roll duo from California, Deap Vally deliver a primal mix of hard rock stomp, glam rock swagger, and greasy blues riffs, like the White Stripes colliding with the Black Keys after time traveling to the 1970s and back. With just guitar, vocals, and drums, the group manage to sound full-bodied while possessing a deadly sense of cool, a healthy degree of sonic punch, and a deadpan sense of humor in their braggadocious lyrics. Deap Vally made a fiery debut with 2013's Sistrionix, upped their game on 2016's Femejism, and after looking for the right label for their music, they returned in 2021 with the polished but muscular Marriage. 
Deap Vally formed in Los Angeles after guitarist/howler Lindsey Troy, who had been performing as a solo singer and songwriter, took a crocheting class taught in a San Fernando shop by drummer Julie Edwards, who had been in a group called the Pity Party. The two swapped CDs from their respective projects and soon decided to jam together, blocking out plans for a heavy rock band with strong rhythmic grooves. They began rehearsing as a three-piece, but when their bassist started spending too much time with her other projects, they decided to try working as a duo.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/deap-vally-mn0002961957#biography