Xenia Rubinos - Help

Do you remember when your interest in music and recording was sparked?

I was always listening to music in my house. My dad was from Cuba. My mom is from Puerto Rico. They both liked salsa music and traditional folk music from Puerto Rico. My dad loved to dance, so any excuse that he had to dance salsa, we were dancing salsa. My dad was also a classical music fan. He wanted me to be an opera singer and a classically-trained pianist, which is what he always wanted to do. But I was really into Mariah Carey, and I wanted to be her. I was seven years old and would spend the entire day learning all the lyrics to every song. I didn't even know what she was talking about, or what most of the words meant, but I would study them. My mom got me a karaoke machine and tapes of Mariah Carey songs. I would sing to these, and then I figured out that I could tape myself. As I got a little older, around 12, I started writing my own songs on this machine. I would take two blank tapes and layer voices, my little keyboard, and beats on it. I found some of these cassettes last week. They're still somewhat playable. It's wild. I was making beats. I didn't even know what I was doing. I didn't have any formal training. Music was something for myself; my own private space.

Were you bouncing these tapes back and forth, doing sound on sound?

Yeah, that's exactly what I was doing. By the end, there was a thick layer of noise on top of everything. I had a Casio keyboard that had built-in speakers that came with some pre-programmed beats. I'd play the beats and spit on top of it. Or I'd get a pencil and play the table or the bed frame, and I'd use the karaoke mic to record it.

I'd love to hear some of that!

It's intense! There are some that are more experimental, where I'm doing what I think is jazz. There's one that's me clearly trying to figure out this pop music thing. The lyrics are, "I came down here to bust a move." It's ridiculous. It's so embarrassing.

But you were a kid! It's supposed to be ridiculous.

I was 12. We might need to issue a re-master. [laughter] Get Heba Kadry [Tape Op #139] on the case and see if she could fix it!

It sounds like your parents were supportive of your musical endeavor.

They were very supportive and patient of the space that I needed to do my thing. My dad was paying for lessons early on, because he thought that I could be a child prodigy. Then he quickly realized that I was not interested. But when it came time to figure out what I was going to do after high school, I just wanted to move to New York. I grew up in Hartford, Connecticut, and I wanted to move to New York, meet other musicians, and learn how to do music. That wasn't an option. I'm first-generation born in the United States. My father escaped communism. He was a professor in Havana and came to the U.S., worked at a 7-11, and started all over again. My mom was the first person to graduate from university in her family. For me, the "no college" thing was not an option. I was like, "Okay, music school then." My dad was saying, "You'll never be able to do anything because you're too lazy. And also, you're old." He was thinking about that young, 6-year-old violinist vibe. That wasn't me! For both of my parents, it was important to give me the opportunities that they never had. That was their dream, to create this situation that was such a luxury for me to be able to say, "I'm going to study music," or to choose what I wanted to do. My mom took the approach of, "I'm not going to force you to do something else and then have you grow up and hate me."

How was your debut, Magic Trix, conceived?

Magic Trix came out of a period of time where I was urgently trying to play my music. I had moved to New York and was coming out of this jazz/composer scene. I would write music, I would write all my parts out, and then I would get people together to play it for me. I would never, myself, play it. I graduated from college and studied jazz composition; but, despite doing that, my physical writing of parts skills was not so great. I had varying degrees of success in getting my music to sound like what I wanted it to sound like, getting a band together to play it, and being able to rehearse them the way I wanted to. It was always an uphill battle to get my music played. A lot of the rhythms I was playing were easy to me, because I felt them in my body and wrote them naturally. I didn't think it was complicated. I didn't think it was something to argue about. All of my rehearsals would devolve into, "You wrote it like this, but I think it's like that." It was a nightmare to get to the point where the music sounded like what I had envisioned, and the players were confident in playing it. It was exhausting.

Eventually you did it all yourself?

I urgently needed to play. I got a [Boss] Loop Station. It was when Tune-Yards [Tape Op #88] first came out. I thought maybe this could be a way for me to make my music without other people. I also was shy about playing instruments that were not my voice in public. I was coming out of this very jazz-centric scene, where it's like, "Do you have the chops?" I started looping and playing keyboard. That accelerated everything. Some of the songs I started developing became Magic Trix. Then some of the songs, "Los Mangopaunos" and "Ultima," I had been playing with my instrumental group – more on a composer tip – became more developed songs. All of a sudden, I had all this music. I was sharing it with Marco, who had been playing with me all these years, and he said, "You should make a record. Record this." We made [Magic Trix] in my basement studio with this great engineer, Jeremy Lucas. It was very much live playing. It was my first time ever making a record. I had no idea what I was doing. Marco and I started our own little LLC to put out the record. A year later, Ba Da Bing Records, a small independent label in Brooklyn, re-issued it.

From: https://tapeop.com/interviews/152/xenia-rubinos 

The Rolling Stones - Monkey Man

 

In the mid-1970s, I became friends with a guy on my block, Steve, who was a couple of years older than me, played guitar (he would eventually be the guitarist for very popular Fresno new wave covers band Aqua Bob), and was enough of a Rolling Stones fan that he had a poster of Mick Jagger on his bedroom wall.
It was a poster for Ampex tapes, featuring a close-up of Mick doing his thing with a giant “AMPEX” in black letters below him. Only Steve had crossed out the “M” and the “X” so that the poster just said “APE.” Which teenage Jim always found pretty hilarious. Anyways, I think of that every time I hear “Monkey Man,” a very self-conscious piece of myth-making in the vein of “Sympathy For The Devil.”
“Monkey Man” opens with an ominous Bill Wyman bass line accompanied by equally unsettling piano tinkles by Nicky Hopkins and a Jimmy Miller tambourine, all of which lead into one of Keith Richards’ greatest rhythm guitar parts, a jumping and jiving riff that always seems like it’s on the verge of leaping out of your speakers and kicking the shit out of you.

I’m a fleabit peanut monkey
All my friends are junkies
That’s not really true

And it wasn’t, yet, as Keith hadn’t yet entered into full-blown junkiedom, though he’d probably dabbled by that time. (One of the quotes that comes up in nearly every book I’ve read about the Stones is from Anita Pallenberg, who pointed out that Keith dealt with his guilt about Brian Jones’s death by becoming Brian (though obviously Keith was made of sterner stuff, in case you haven’t noticed.) In any event, Mick continues, even more delighted in himself than usual:

I’m a cold Italian pizza
I could use a lemon squeezer
Could you do?

But, I’ve been bit, and I’ve been tossed around
By every she-rat in this town
Have you, babe?

Oh look, it’s another Robert Johnson reference! I’d honestly not put together how much Johnson was on Let It Bleed, outside of the cover of “Love in Vain” — which they infamously credited to “Woody Payne” until eventually Johnson’s estate sued. It was probably recorded around the same time that Led Zeppelin recorded “The Lemon Song,” in yet another case of great minds stealing from the same source. Meanwhile after Mick expresses that he’s a monkey man and is glad that the potential lemon-squeezer is a monkey woman, he continues shit-talking.

I was bitten by a boar
I was gouged, and I was gored
But I pulled on through

Yes, I’m a sack of broken eggs
I always have an unmade bed
Don’t you?

Well, I hope we’re not too messianic
Or a trifle too satanic
We love to play the blues

That last verse is, of course, just Mick fucking with people: a wink an a nod to the devilish image they’d been cultivating and darkness they’d been flirting with for a couple of years, and is delivered with Mick’s massive tongue firmly in his cheek, and wouldn’t even come close to being the last time he’d go down this road.
That said, this is all a warm-up for the main event, an absolutely thrilling instrumental break, where Keith turns his jumping jack riff and bounces it pretty much all over the place in a battle with Charlie Watts, who answers Keith with some big slams on his floor tom before overdubbing some slide guitar, or not as the case may be. In addition, Nicky Hopkins is all over this, and even takes a long piano solo while the guitars wheeze all around him. It’s finally cut off by Mick singing “I’m a monnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn-kayyyyyyyyyyyyyy . . . man” a couple of times in the sickest possible voice, literally Steve’s poster come to life.
After that, it’s Mick just screaming that he’s a “ma-ma-ma-monkey” in a shattered falsetto as Keith continues to dance with his guitar. The whole thing is equal parts ridiculous and awesome, and “Monkey Man” is one of those Stones songs that’s honestly so over-the-top I can actually see people hating it with a vengeance, but I come back every single time to how Keith and Charlie are playing off of each other, and that’s what does it for me.

From: https://medialoper.com/certain-songs-2053-the-rolling-stones-monkey-man/

The Nields - May Day Cafe / I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry / Mercy House / One Hundred Names

On their fourth album, the Nields remain primarily a vehicle for Nerissa Nields' songs, which here are concerned with the opportunities and pressures of community and relationships. A search for home is the subject of several songs, but Nields makes it clear that home is to be found in emotional commitment, not in a specific place. In fact, the more conventional sense of home is a place to be escaped from: In both "This Town Is Wrong" and "Caroline Dreams," specific friends identified by name are urged to get away, and the spoken word "Barbie Poem" associates convention with artificiality. The songwriter's affection for locations is ironically tinged. In the lead-off track, the catchy "Jeremy Newborn Street," she is content to wait even though she's been stood up, while the "May Day Cafe" is a place she goes to drink alone. Her ambiguous sense of romantic attachment is expressed in a trilogy of songs in the middle of the album, beginning with the unlimited devotion of "One Hundred Names," continuing with the dangerous attraction of "Mr. Right Now," and concluding with "Jack the Giant Killer," which is about domestic abuse. By the end of the record, she declares, "I Still Believe in My Friends." The accompanying music to these songs generally falls into the category of Beatles-influenced, folkish pop/rock, specifically the Beatles music of 1966-67 found on the singles "Paperback Writer"/"Rain" and "Penny Lane"/"Strawberry Fields Forever" and the album Revolver, with their touches of strings and horns augmenting the pop arrangements. Katryna Nields remains her sister's mouthpiece, with Nerissa joining in on harmonies, and she gives the lyrics an emotional edge with the pronounced break between her chest and head voices, which she uses to expressive effect. This is elegant, appealing music that speaks to the varied concerns of contemporary women.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/album/if-you-lived-here-youd-be-home-now-mw0000605572#review 

Prick - Riverhead

I know that for a lot of people, Prick isn’t much more than the random product of the clout Trent Reznor carried at Interscope in the 90s; a favour extended to former bandmate, friend, and mentor Kevin McMahon. You might hear “Animal” out at a more retro-minded industrial club night now and again, but the first Prick album just isn’t discussed that much, and second LP The Wreckard, released seven years later, is almost entirely unknown. But Prick was an integral part of my initiation into industrial music. I have innumerable memories of and associations with “Communiqué”, “No Fair Fights”, and “Makebelieve”, many of which are deeply personal and not of any interest to anyone else, but I think the way in which the record blended ’90s industrial production and rock structures is worth discussing.
Whether I was conscious of it at the time or not, part of what drew me to Prick was how it framed industrial rock as being part of, or at least clearly connected with, extant rock traditions and markers in the broadest sense. As opposed to, say, Skinny Puppy, one of my other recent discoveries and obsessions circa ’96-’98, Kevin McMahon’s music didn’t sound wholly separate from the music I’d heard on the radio all my life…and yet it was still undeniably different from the glam rock and new wave it drew inspiration from (two other genres I was also busy exploring at the time). Unlike industrial metal, itself a hybrid of two “extreme” genres, Prick wears its debt to the smoother (if no less alienated, perhaps) sounds of Bowie and Bolan on its sleeve. In a way, that made Prick a weirder listen than Last Rights, which I understood the place of only by virtue of its complete opposition to music itself as I then understood the term. I didn’t know where Prick fit in in the topos of music, and thus it puzzled and beguiled me.
Two decades on, I realise that by straddling two worlds, Prick was forcing me to pay attention to core compositional structures rather than the production and engineering techniques with which I was, and still am, enchanted (I can’t overstate how much of my taste was formed by Flood and Alan Moulder at a young age). After a few years with Prick I could listen to Pretty Hate Machine and notice just how much it owed to pop songcraft. That seems painfully obvious now, but it would have been blasphemy to my sixteen year-old self, decked out in ripped fishnets and chipped nailpolish. The reasons why Reznor cited Prince as an influence were now plain as day.  From: https://www.idieyoudie.com/2015/01/22/in-conversation-prick/

Silly Sisters - Geordie / My Husband's Got No Courage in Him / The Game of Cards

Muddy Waters one week, Maddy Prior and June Tabor the next. Flitting from genre to genre, from men to women, my reputation as a musical slut is secure. I’ve tried to imagine what would happen if I got a job at a hard-core blues club as the chick responsible for the filler music between the acts—and instead of slipping the expected John Lee Hooker disc on the turntable, I decided to play Silly Sisters. “What the fuck is that crazy bitch doin’ back there?” I hear the audience shout. I’d probably get the same result if I played Muddy at a British folk festival, though the crowd would probably not use such foul and offensive language. How might I respond to such casting of aspersions?
I would defend myself, heart and soul! While the differences between these two musical genres are quite obvious to anyone with ears (the use of the scales, rhythmic patterns, instrumentation and vernacular to name a few) there are also deep similarities. Both blues and traditional folk (from whatever country you choose) are the “music of the people.” They are forms of music where the commoners get to express both directly and indirectly their feelings about the uppers, weave stories about the conflicts that arise among themselves and celebrate the various and sundry vices that make life worth living, especially those of the erotic variety. The sentiments expressed in Silly Sisters’ “Four Loom Weaver” aren’t that far removed from the anguish of job loss that Ramblin’ Thomas sang about in “No Job Blues.” A similar parallel can be found in “My Husband’s Got No Courage” and “You’ve Been a Good Old Wagon,” both of which deal with lovers who have lost their mojo. Add to that the myriad songs in both genres honoring hooch and John Barleycorn and the commonalities begin to balance the differences.

June Tabor’s solo is “Geordie,” a song that may or not be another song that evil fellow Huntly, as the names used in this tale have changed over time to reflect whichever murderous creep happens to be in the headlines of the day. The basic story is of a man who is jailed for murder and of the woman who comes to his rescue, but there are implications that the murder is a trumped-up charge based on politics. As the executioners sharpen the axe, the bonny lady pleads with the king to “give me back my dearie.” One of the wiser of the king’s counselors whispers in the king’s ear that the royal treasury is having a cash flow problem and it might be a good idea to trade the accused for a badly needed infusion of currency. June Tabor gives her usual fabulous performance, but what really drives “Geordie” is Martin Carthy’s mastery of guitar rhythm, keeping the beat constant and steady on the bottom strings while still managing to add color with counterpoint on the higher notes.

The anonymous multitudes who composed British folk songs always found their way into the sack sooner or later, but in this tale, sad disappointment lurks under the counterpane. “My Husband’s Got No Courage” is a dramatic monologue sung by a young wife who finds she’s married a man who can’t get it up. Since women were not allowed to divorce in the 19th century, and the possibility of release through lesbianism, masturbation or a quick trip to the vibrator shop were not realistic options, her agony is understandable. Maddy and June sing the moaning, hand-wringing chorus together without harmony and then take turns singing the verses solo. This poor horny broad has tried everything: vittles, meats, oysters, rhubarb, clapping a hand between his thighs, throwing her leg over his and nothing she does gets a rise out of this hopeless prick. Bitter that he continues to present himself to the world as handsome and desirable, she finally explodes in the last verse, giving as clear an expression of sexual frustration as you will ever hear.

“The Game of Cards” is a flirtatious, metaphorical trip down lover’s lane by a young man and woman who take a break from their travels at a moment when “this young damsel began to show free.” The young man responds by suggesting the game of “All-Fours,” hint, hint, nudge, nudge, wink, wink. The pair “play cards,” having at least two sexual experiences of unknown variety, but certainly implied when she keeps taking his “jack” in card play and saying, “Jack is the card I like best in your pack.” As is usually the case, the girl dominates the proceedings and the man whimperingly surrenders to her power, saying, “You’re the best I know at this game.” The gracious victor offers him a rematch: “Young man, if you’ll come back tomorrow/We’ll play the game over and over again.” That’s my girl! June takes the lead here, with Maddy providing lovely complementary harmony at a slightly lower volume. Martin Carthy is superb once again, aided by Andy Irvine’s delicate touch with the mandolin and gentler play on the whistle by Johnny Moynihan.

From: https://altrockchick.com/2013/11/18/classic-music-review-silly-sisters-by-maddy-prior-and-june-tabor/

Birth of Joy - The Sound

Birth of Joy is a Dutch rock band, founded in 2005 at the Utrecht-based Herman Brood Academy. After many live concerts in the Netherlands, the band was signed by Dutch indie label Suburban Records following a performance at the Zwarte Cross Festival in 2011. After further shows at the Rencontres Trans Musicales in France and the Eurosonic Noorderslag festival in Groningen, supported by Rockpalast, the group became known outside the Netherlands. The band played their (provisional) last concert on 3 January 2019 in Paradiso, Amsterdam, after more than 1300 live performances in the Netherlands, Europe and the US.
The band's music is influenced by the blues and psychedelic rock scene of the late 1960s and early 1970s, but also borrowed from rock 'n' roll and boogie-woogie.[citation needed]
The band chose L'Ubu club in Rennes, France (city of the Rencontres Trans Musicales) to record a live album during two evenings (29 and 30 January 2015). The band's name is a reference to Friedrich Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_of_Joy 

Sleater-Kinney - One More Hour

Sleater-Kinney‘s self-titled debut laid down a solid foundation for the Pacific Northwest trio’s artful yet furious punk. Their second album Call the Doctor only expanded the possibilities of their music, incorporating darker textures and greater nuances between impassioned yelps of desire to be someone’s very own personal Joey Ramone. But they didn’t achieve perfection until their third album, Dig Me Out, a 13-track rollercoaster of two-guitar, no-bass punk rock. The band’s first album with new drummer Janet Weiss, Dig Me Out almost sounds like the work of a completely different band—and in all fairness, it is 33 percent of a new band. It’s crisper, punchier, more streamlined, yet still fierce and with some of the most urgent, rhythmically taut drumming on an album of its kind. Thus would begin one of the most rock solid lineups in rock ‘n’ roll for the next nine years.
While Sleater-Kinney’s roots may have been in the riot grrrl movement in the Pacific Northwest, the band took a different stylistic tack than the raw punk of Bikini Kill or the grunge of L7. For a slight hint of what one’s getting into on Dig Me Out, just look a little bit beyond the guitar on the album’s cover (which pays homage to The Kinks’ Kink Kontroversy) to find the LP sleeve of Black Sabbath’s Vol. 4 pinned up on the wall. Sleater-Kinney aren’t metal, but having emerged from a D.I.Y. punk scene and with an ear for the heavy rock canon, Sleater-Kinney created a brand new sound all their own, one that steps outside any comfortable D.I.Y. constraints in favor of something bigger.
The group plays their most confrontational cards up front with the title track, guitars blazing and drums rumbling beneath Corin Tucker’s raw lyrics like “do you get nervous watching me bleed?” Yet “One More Hour” shows a more tender side of the band, written by Tucker about her prior relationship with guitarist Carrie Brownstein, as she revealed in a somewhat awkward interview several years later. This balance of the personal and the political is another component that sets Sleater-Kinney apart, with feminism and personal politics coming to fuse into one brutally honest package that could only be paired with their aggressive but fun brand of indie punk.  From: https://www.treblezine.com/sleater-kinney-dig-me-out-review/

The Smithereens - Drown In My Own Tears / Especially For You / Spellbound

Late August, 1987: The Smithereens - guitarist Pat DiNizio, lead guitarist Jim Babjak, drummer Dennis Diken and bassist Mike Mesaros - were winding up a packed 16-month tour in support of their breakthrough effort, 1986’s Especially for You. Encouraged by the strong showing of EFY cut “Blood and Roses,” the New Jersey-based foursome was eager to get back into the studio in order to strike while the iron was hot. With little time to spare, the pressure was on for chief songsmith DiNizio to deliver.
“We’d just come off this amazing run on the road after scuffling for six years in search of a deal,” recalls Diken. “I remember being in the van during the last leg of the EFY tour seeing Pat sitting in the last set of seats with a recording Walkman, singing riff ideas into a microphone. I know he was very concerned about and consumed by the prospect of coming up with the material for our second album and avoiding a sophomore slump. Pat had the makings of the songs in dribs and drabs and as he put it at the time, ‘I just needed to get organized’.”
Weeks later, the Smithereens convened inside their East Village rehearsal space and began working on the new batch of tunes DiNizio was cranking out in short order. Like “Blood and Roses” and much of the group’s previous effort, “Only a Memory,” “House We Used to Live In” and “Drown in My Own Tears” were angst-filled odes to failed romance. Despite the gloomy overtones, however, the wall-of-guitar foundation, fortified by Diken’s thunderous rhythms, made for some incredibly catchy pop music. “I, for one, was quite knocked out by the quality of the songs Pat was writing,” recalls Diken. “I remember finishing up the last rehearsal before flying out to LA for the sessions; Pat held his head in his hands and was literally weeping/laughing with relief and delight that the burden had been lifted.”
Tracking for the set of songs that would become Green Thoughts began shortly before Christmastime at the famed Capitol Studios in Hollywood. “The prospect of working at the Capitol Tower was very exciting to us,” says Diken. “We were rabid record fans and Pat and I had a fierce fascination with all things Capitol. Of course we were into the Beatles and Beach Boys and all the rock stuff, but we were equally enamored with Stan Kenton, The Four Freshmen, Les Paul and Sinatra, and as such we were hoping to grab hold of the ghosts of some of these venerable giants as we did our thing within those hallowed walls.”
Like their mentors, the Smithereens wasted little time getting down to business. Setting up inside the smaller Studio B, the band proceeded to record and mix two-dozen new tracks in just over two weeks. “We did all the drum tracks in 2 or 3 days,” says Diken. “We just didn’t have the luxury of time to spare.” At the console was producer Don Dixon and engineer Jim Ball, both of whom had manned the controls for the group’s previous effort. “I like certain sounds on all of our albums for different reasons, but I have a special place in my heart for the spirit of the records we did with Don,” says Diken. “We were also fortunate to have Capitol staffer Peter Doell on board as assistant engineer, who knew the room and gear and was a great help to us.”
If the group was going for “a bit of a tougher sound” as Diken suggests, that attitude was immediately apparent on the album’s opening cut, “Only a Memory,” its molten riff born during a sound check in Spain earlier that year. Contrasting DiNizio’s suicidal sentiments (“I feel much too weak to live/ I’ve got nothing left to give”) was Diken’s powder-keg snare attack, liberally laced with gated reverb (as was the fashion of the time). “We rented a kit from Jeff Chonis, who was the drum tech for Jim Keltner and is still is Ringo’s guy,” says Diken. “He came in, set it up, tuned them and we had at it.”
Issued in March 1988, Green Thoughts would spend the bulk of the year on the album charts, solidifying the Smithereens’ standing worldwide. Meanwhile, the single “Only a Memory” gave the group its first-ever Album Rock chart-topper. Twenty years on, the Green Thoughts repertoire remains the centerpiece of the Smithereens’ blistering live shows.
“I felt that we had really achieved something important for ourselves, and for our fans,” recalls Diken, who these days doubles as a session man and songwriter when not working with the band. “Plus it was the realization that maybe this thing would last after all. It was one of the best times of my life.”  From: https://www.bmi.com/news/entry/Takes_from_the_Top_The_Smithereens_Green_Thoughts

Rocket - Act Like Your Title

You just finished a tour with Smashing Pumpkins. How was that experience?

Baron Rinzler: Unreal. It was a dream come true in a lot of ways. And also seeing them every night was epic because they’re one of our favourite bands.

Desi Scaglione: They played a lot from Mellon Collie, which was super cool. Like, they just put out a record, but they only played about four songs from it. And they played close to two hours every night. So they did all the hits off of Siamese Dream and then the ones off of Mellon Collie, but also some deep cuts, which was really cool. And yeah, I don’t think it comes as a surprise, but they’re a huge band for us. So having the honour of playing with them and getting to see them every night was very amazing.

How approachable were Billy, Jimmy, and James?

Desi: They’re all actually very nice people. James, I think we probably talked to him most. He also lives in L.A., so we were able to bond over that. We talked to Billy a few times and he was super, super friendly and genuine. And we met Jimmy briefly and he was really nice.

Alithea Tuttle: They’re all very… around, which I think was really cool, just because when you look up to somebody, obviously, you hope that they would be like all the things that you wish and they absolutely were. They kind of went out of their way to welcome us and they each gave us a good amount of advice, which is really nice because obviously what they’ve done and the music that they’ve made in their career has been incredible. So to be able to talk to them and ask, “How’d you do this? How’d you do that?” I think it was just so special to us.

When I first heard your band, I initially wondered, “Did they get their name from the Siamese Dream song?” Because I hear a lot of Pumpkins in some of your guitar tones. Is there any truth to that?

Desi: Not necessarily. I mean, first of all, it’s a very valid assumption, and you are not the first person to assume that. [Alithea] came up with the name, I can’t even remember how. But it was the only name we could say out loud that we liked and we’ve had a bunch of names. Like if you have to tell your parents your band’s name, like, what sound can you get out of your body?

Alithea: We knew immediately, though, that it would be the assumption, and I think we were so okay with that because they’re such an amazing band and because they’ve been such an influential band for us specifically. So we thought they were awesome company to be with. Sometimes people will assume that and we don’t even necessarily correct them because it makes sense.

Were there any other names you’d considered?

Desi: Yes, and they will not be repeated.

Alithea: There were none that we really considered heavily. Like, this is the only one where we thought, “This is us.”

Since we’re talking about Smashing Pumpkins, what are some of the other ‘90s bands that kind of helped shape your sound?

Desi: Probably all the ones you would assume. There’s a band called Chavez that’s really big for us. I feel like there are some songs on the new album that are more leaning towards that than some of the softer stuff we’ve listened to, but that’s a huge band for us. Pumpkins are a huge band for us.

Alithea: Fugazi is one of our favourite bands, even though obviously we don’t sound much like them. Their music is a massive influence on us and. What else?

Is that more about their DIY ethos or a lyrical thing for the Fugazi influence?

Alithea: No, I don’t know how to really put it into words, but guitar-wise they’re just so unreal and awesome. And just their energy behind things, I feel like they always came across so passionately, even on recording, which I feel is so hard to pull off. For me personally, I can see a band live and feel moved by it more often than not, just because it’s in your face and it’s real and it’s tangible. But I think sometimes it’s hard to come across as that energetic on a recording because you’re in the studio and you’re just by yourself and you’re just singing. It’s hard to channel that same energy. And I feel like they always did that perfectly, which was something that, again, I don’t think necessarily comes across maybe on our new record. I don’t think that we sound like them, but there were little things like that that I feel made us all think differently about recording, but also playing live. They were amazing.

I see Desi is also wearing a Helmet shirt.

Desi: Helmet, yeah. Fugazi, also Television was a big band for Baron and I specifically with guitar playing, which is funny because I feel like Television and Fugazi, as different as they are, are very similar in terms of how important the guitar playing is. They’re also very similar in the sense that there are two guitar players and they’re both individually, really good from one another and they work together really well.

I saw a video the band shared where you talk about some influences for the album. I thought it was really cool that Alithea mentioned Juliana Hatfield’s Only Everything.

Alithea: Yeah, the first time I heard that record it just evoked such a feeling and it was so exciting to me. It was so new, even though we’ve been listening to this genre of music for years and years and years. But I only found out about Juliana Hatfield a couple of years ago. It was Baron who played me a song, and I remember just feeling so excited because she was a girl and, not to deduce down to that, but just at a very simple level, I was like, “This is so cool. I want to do this so badly.” And I think it made me even more excited than I already was to try to be like that. I would look up photos of her and think, “Oh my God, she’s so cool.” All of those aspects of it.
But I love that she is so talented. Her melodies are incredible, her lyrics are so honest, but then at the same time, her guitar playing is incredible. Like, she doesn’t leave anything out. And I feel like sometimes people just will sing and they’ll just play rhythm guitar, and that’s just kind of their thing, which is also really cool. But she was like, “I’m gonna do both and be really, really incredible at both.” So I feel like that’s kind of what also influenced me personally about it, just being like, “I’m going to sing and I’m going to play bass. I’m not going to just play it simple. I want to try to do this the best that I can at both.” I think just her sound on that record, it feels very honest. She’s like, “This is what I am. Here you go. Take it or leave it.” And I appreciate that about it.

I feel Only Everything is one of the more under-appreciated albums of the ’90s. People usually mention her previous album, Become What You Are instead.

Alithea: Yeah, no one talks about it, and that’s exactly how I felt when I heard about it. I was like, “Why have I not heard this sooner? All of my favourite bands are in this same vein and this is the first time I’m hearing of this?” She’s incredible and just as good as the most famous bands of the ‘90s, but it feels like no one ever talks about her. And then, of course, I got into Blake Babies. And I love The Lemonheads. And once I kind of found out all that out, I was like, “Okay, I guess she was around more than I initially knew.” But I had never heard her name. I had never heard anything about her. So anytime anybody asks, I’m like, “Yeah, she’s just incredible.” And she’s still making incredible music, which is crazy.

Rocket formed during the pandemic. At what point did you realize that Rocket was no longer just a pandemic project?

Desi: From the moment we started, it really wasn’t a pandemic project in a sense of, “Oh, there’s nothing to do, we might as well be in a band.” Whether the pandemic was happening or not, I think this was going to happen.

Alithea: But I think it gave us the freedom to do it because we all were at home, able to start writing and brainstorming, just having a lot more free time than prior to being home. Obviously, everybody picked up new hobbies and such, but from the get go, we’re like, “This is not going to be a hobby. We’re gonna try to give this our best effort.”

From: https://firstrevival.substack.com/p/an-interview-with-rocket 

Belles Will Ring - Come to the Village

“I suppose the thing that surprises me most is how bang on some reviewers are to our intentions,” Liam says, “Some have delved even further than us, and have come out with some incredibly lush sounding descriptions of what they see and hear from our music. That’s what really gets you excited as the artist.”
The band fled to a small town in rural New South Wales to make the record last year, and hoped to evoke their isolated and eerie surrounds in a psychedelic collision of guitars.
“We wanted to create characters and situations, but not make it too obvious or too much like a concept album. On the other hand, we wanted the album to play out kind of like an audio road movie – or perhaps a fitting companion to your own dusky, haunted road trip,” Liam explains, “I think it’s the kind of album that people can lose themselves in, and come out the other end with their own interpretation.”
Crystal Theatre represents a more refined sound for Belles Will Ring, a distinct progression from the wall of sound aesthetic on 2007’s Mood Patterns. Liam describes the difference as the band “playing less”, being more selective with their instrumentation, more experimental with their song structures and more grandiose with their melodies. Some of the songs on the record have been part of the Belles Will Ring set for at least two years, and have taken on a richer character in the recording process. Other tunes were road-tested at the Big Sound Festival in Brisbane last year and at The Church’s show in Sydney (where Belles Will Ring featured as a support act). The response was fantastic, giving the band confidence that their new approach was working.
Belles Will Ring will launch a national tour to promote Crystal Theatre in Melbourne (“Because we love you the best”), at the Workers Club this Friday 1 July. Fans can expect their standard lush and glittering performance, with a few added effects to accommodate the new songs.
“There are way more instruments on stage,” Liam says. “We make use of that with the older songs too sometimes – bringing some of the new sounds to the old.”
When they’re done here, Belle With Ring strike out for South Australia and Queensland before winding up back in their adopted home town of Sydney a couple of weeks later. They’re primed for the trip.
“The best thing is that it’s your own road trip with some of your closest buddies – it’s an adventure. Crazy shit sometimes goes down; often there is incredible amounts of laughing. You get to listen to music together – you’re not often in a situation that lends itself to that, but it’s a really great thing. The bummer is food. You start feeling unfit very quickly due to the amount of garbage food you are forced to consume on the road. On a brighter note,” Liam smiles, “We’ve been doing this long enough now to know what towns to turn off onto to get good food.”  From: https://beat.com.au/belles-will-ring/

Michelle Shocked - Secret to a Long Life / Jump Jim Crow / Over the Waterfall

Arkansas Traveler, the third and last album Michelle Shocked released for Mercury/Polygram records ‘received little commercial notice’ according to Shocked’s Wikipedia entry. Which shows you exactly how underrated this album is. Not only to ‘the public’ (which proves once again how poor taste it has, generally speaking), but also in the music critics and opinions – at leat that is the impression you get looking for information about the album in places such as her own website, not to mention other places you would expect to find one of the classic and most amazing Roots music records ever. It’s not really mentioned all too often and when it is it’s mostly the album that didn’t do well – a greatly undeserved accolade.
It was, fortunately, however re-released together with her other early work on her own Mighty Sound label, made possible thanks to the fact that she retained the rights to her work when she signed to Mercury (wise move, that). Which means that if you don’t know the album you should still be able to get it should my review entice you to do that. The album I am writing about here however is the original 1992 version.
She is undoubtedly best known and most revered for her 1988 album Shot Sharped Shocked with its iconic cover image – and the standout track Anchorage, her ‘greatest’ (and pretty much only) chart hit. However good that album is (haven’t heard that in ages I have to confess, as I don’t currently own a copy – it’s been on my to-buy list for a very long time). Of course I love Anchorage a lot too (how can you not?), but Arkansas Traveler is most definitely my favorite album of hers by a long shot.
Even just reading a list of the artists involved on here is jaw-dropping, really. And that’s a long list indeed, but I just have to give you that here, although I am not too keen on name-dropping generally: The Band. Don Was/Mitchell Froom/Jerry Scheff/Kenny Aronoff. The Red Clay Ramblers (w/Bernie Leadon). The Hothouse Flowers (Anybody remembering them?). Uncle Tupelo. Taj Mahal. Doc Watson (R.I.P) & Jerry Douglas. Alison Krauss & Union Station. Rising Fawn String Ensemble (feat. Norman and Nancy Blake). (Paul Kelly) & The Messengers. Jimmy Driftwood (R.I.P.) Her father ‘Dollar Bill’ and brother Max Johnston (later of Uncle Tupelo, Wilco and The Gourds).
So far, so good. Just names. But what this list doesn’t tell you is what each and every single artist mentioned here (and the ones not mentioned by name in their respective bands) contributes to making this album, well, one of the best albums of all-time, especially as far as Roots music is concerned. I kid you not. Of course this is an entirely personal and subjective matter. But the sheer quality you get on each track is utterly amazing. I would assume she had the time of her life recording this album – although getting all the artists together must have been a hell of a lot of work. Pleasant in nature of course, but doubtless there must have been a lot of hurdles to get them all to commit to this project. But given they must have all been artists for which the joy of playing comes first it most probably didn’t take them too much convincing to join the fun.  In any case all of the tracks on the album are brimful with energy, enthusiasm and the fun I assume was had by all is palpable anywhere, but especially in her vocals.
Irish band The Hothouse Flowers for example. Not the first band you would expect to creep up on here, but they were huge in the late 1980’s, if only for a short time (if I remember correctly). I have got no idea what became of them, but their track on here is brilliant. It’s pretty much a classical upbeat Irish Folk tune, with Tin Whistle, Bodhran and Bouzouki and it sounds exactly as you would expect it to, best part is the high-speed part towards the end – full of joy and as entertaining as the best songs that fall into that category ever sounded.
Secret To A Long Life has written The Band (although I have to confess to a rather sketchy familiarity of their work) all over it, with Garth Hudson’s unmistakable Accordion the most prominent instrument. Contest Coming, recorded with the until then unbeknownst to me, Red Clay Ramblers (excellent name that btw), is the first track on here steeped ankle-(actually rather knee)-deep in traditional music with entirely acoustic instruments such as Banjo, Accordion, Fiddle and the like – the result ia a good-natured romp through Bluegrass and Hillbilly with a short vocal and a longer up-speed and instrumental Jam-band part.
Jump Jim Crow features only Michelle Shocked’s (or as she called herself throughout the album Arkansas Traveller’s) mandolin and voice and Taj Mahal’s guitar – his vocal contributions however are limited to growled/grunted ‘mmmh’s and ‘hhh’s. This sounds a tad stupid written here, but actually it sounds bloody amazing. The music is reduced, primeval acoustic Folk-Blues at its very best.  From: https://backroadbound.com/2014/05/13/michelle-shocked-arkansas-traveler/

5uu's - Comeuppance

David Kerman, the drummer-composer behind the avant-rock group 5uu’s, has made significant contributions to experimental music since the mid-1980s.
His band, 5uu’s, was influenced by the European Rock in Opposition (RIO) movement and collaborated with other avant-garde groups, blending complex compositions with a rock sensibility. After reuniting with the 5uu’s in 1994, Kerman embarked on various projects, contributing to the revival of the experimental rock scene. In 2022, after a long hiatus, he returned to the music world with a new 5uu’s album, reaffirming his innovative approach to avant-garde music.

You’re coming from a very interesting background. You were born in Torrance, California, and began playing drums very early on. Keyboardist Keith Godchaux was a family friend? How did he influence you to begin playing drums?

David Kerman: Yes, Torrance: We were spoiled-rotten baby boomers. We were upper-middle-class children of parents who gave us a million miles of leeway and even more support. We were never told that we might possibly fail at anything, so very few of us did.
Keith Godchaux lived across the street. This was in the late 60s, before he joined the Grateful Dead. I was friends with the kids who lived there. We youngsters thought we were alone there one day, so the others egged me on to play the set of drums next to the family piano. I’d never played before, so I beat the hell out of them, like only a nine-year-old could, merely to wake the hippie in the next room, Keith G.
He emerged from what must have been a deep sleep and walked across the room towards the upright piano. I stopped thrashing about, scared as hell to be caught playing someone’s drums. But he urged me on, saying, “Hey, keep that going…I like the beat.” So I did, and he joined in. Can you imagine that? The first time you play your craft is with the guy who would end up doing ‘Blues for Allah’ and ‘Terrapin Station’? He took me across the street and somehow convinced my mother to buy my first set of drums. I owe him a lot, bless his soul, and I’ve never looked back.

Was there a certain scene you were part of? Maybe you had some favorite hangout places? Did you attend a lot of gigs back then?

Well, we were children of Progressive Rock. I came to the Syd Barrett and Captain Beefheart later in the ’70s. I saw Gentle Giant a bunch as a teenager, and that band, probably more than any other, inspired me. Their last string of gigs was at The Roxy, and yeah, that was my hangout. I was there a lot for some years. Cobham and Duke, Genesis, Beefheart, Gentle Giant, Peter Gabriel’s first solo shows, etc. The list could go on forever. Man, it WAS the house.
I had a trick, and the owner of The Roxy knew it but allowed me to pull it off nonetheless: I would buy a ticket for the early show, arrive late, and hide in the men’s room, kneeling on the toilet lid between sets, to get the best seat for the second set. “David, you in there? Need some aspirin? David, is that your cigarette smoke?” I can’t remember his name for the life of me, but that guy booked everything that was cool. Most normally, two pals, Peabody and Muller, would have sneaked in a tape deck—God only knows how—and taken their places at the right upper balcony, condenser mics dangling just below their sneakers. These were great bootlegs, but it was never about money. We were fanboys and traded cassettes. Ah, Roxy, the REAL Roxy, on Sunset.

How did you originally meet guitarists Greg Conway and Randy Coleman? Together, you started your first band. Tell us about those early experiences of making your own music.

We knew one another from school and got hooked on fusion quite early, especially Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return to Forever, and Weather Report. Eventually, Greg and I spent hours and hours with ‘I Sing The Body Electric,’ and Randy and his brother Wayne turned us on to King Crimson when the album “Islands” came out. There was a cornucopia of compelling music back then, and we youngsters wanted to be part of it. Our core was Greg, Randy, Beck, Chuck Turner, and me. And a bit earlier, Juan Croucier, who later joined the big hair band Ratt. Ha, in 1974, as fifteen-year-old kids, Greg and I went to Juan’s house to “audition” him as bassist for our band, only to find him already a maniacally talented violinist, playing along to ‘Birds of Fire’ note for note. A humbling experience, to be sure.

Since the beginning, you were interested in modifying drums and experimenting…

I’ve done all kinds of strange stuff over the years—not to be deliberately weird, but to try and find something “different.” I played a couple of concerts with tuna fish cans filled with nuts and bolts flopping around on the drums and cymbals, kept somewhat in place with fishing line. And whereas a lot of drummers use pillows or foam inside the bass drum, I tended to use junk that would rattle around and be noisy. Sound men (or women) tend to either hate me or be amused by the antics. But there is a method to the madness, as I’m going after a more industrial sound than wonderful, professional frequencies. I’ve impaled bowls of fruit along the edges of cymbals to deaden the ringing sounds, and used Barbie dolls in place of soft mallets. I became pretty adept at decapitating them against the bottom of the ride cymbal at propitious moments, allowing the doll heads to fly into the audience.
It’s all in the name of entertainment, visually as well as sonically, because if nice people are going out of their way to watch you perform, you might as well do your damnedest to give them their time and money’s worth. Most rock drummers have a little bit of Keith Moon in our psyches anyway, or we’d play clarinet or something less abrasive to the senses. As a personal philosophy, I think one can always go overboard and back off a bit if needed. It might require some damage control afterward, but it’s better than not going far enough in the first place.

From: https://www.psychedelicbabymag.com/2024/04/5uus-interview-david-kerman.html

Stevie Wonder - Musikladen Beat Workshop 1974

 Stevie Wonder - Musikladen Beat Workshop 1974 - Part 1

 

 Stevie Wonder - Musikladen Beat Workshop 1974 - Part 2

 

Stevie Wonder 1974 concert on German TV show Musikladen. Wonderlove members were: Stevie Wonder, keyboards, vocals; Reggie McBride, bass; Michael Sembello, lead guitar; Marlo Henderson, rhythm guitar; Ollie. E. Brown, drums; and vocalists Shirley Brewer (with the glasses on), Lani Groves, and Deniece Williams.
The ladies are amazing, and Wonder throws in quotes from “Danke Shoen” and “Signed, Sealed and Delivered.” Abruptly, he cuts that tune short, and the band slams into the brilliant fusion masterpiece that later emerged on Songs in the Key of Life, “Contusion.” Everything about this is right: Wonder on electric piano, Sembello crushing, McBride and Brown laying down a nasty funky bass, and the ladies on tambourines.
Next Wonder romps on clavinet as the band soars on “Higher Ground,” a track from Innervisions, which had been released the previous August. Brown’s work at drum kit is magnificent. There is another stop/start as they move to “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing” (also from Innervisions). Presumably this was to get as many songs in as possible in the confined television time. The ladies offer fine backing vocals to Wonder’s lead. 
Next is the ballad “I Can See The Sun in Late December,” a song Wonder wrote for Roberta Flack. Two more songs from the new album are next. “He’s Misstra Know-It-All” again intertwines the four voices together in a heavenly chorus. 
It is amazing seeing Wonder perform this music live that has become part of the American fabric. That goes double for “Living for the City.” Sembello is tweaking that synthesizer as Wonder plays electric piano, and the ladies are again front and center. Brown then kicks that unmistakable beginning to “Superstition” (Talking Book), Wonder dancing over his clavinet. This is a powerful if all-too-short version of the song, and the music fades under the closing titles. 

 

From: https://soulfuldetroit.com/mb/index.php?threads/stevie-wonder-1974-concert-on-german-tv-show-musikladen-beat-club.23395/ 

 

The Smithereens - Blood And Roses

"Blood and Roses" is a song by the American alternative rock group The Smithereens. It is the first single released in support of their debut album Especially for You. Pat DiNizio explained of the song's origin, "I was walking home from my job as soundman at NYC's legendary Folk City nightclub through the freezing rain at about four in the morning when the bass line came to me, the chords and melody came later built around the bass part." Lyrically, the song is about a girl DiNizio knew in highschool, who took her own life. The title was taken from a short story of the same name by the Japanese writer Yukio Mishima, a literary hero of DiNizio's. "I found out years later that Blood and Roses was also the title of an obscure early 1960s horror film directed by Roger Vadim", DiNizio said.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_and_Roses_(song) 

The Claypool Lennon Delirium - Satori

The Claypool Lennon Delirium reinterpret classic tracks from Pink Floyd, King Crimson, the Who and Japanese psych-prog act Flower Travellin’ Band on their upcoming covers EP, Lime and Limpid Green, out August 4th. The four-track set, previously issued for 2017 Record Store Day, will be available as a limited-edition run of 3,000 on clear vinyl with green and double-mint splatter. 
The duo, composed of Sean Lennon and Primus’ Les Claypool, previewed the EP with an eye-popping clip for their version of Flower Travellin’ Band’s 1971 epic “Satori.” Director Koichiro Tsujikawa pairs Claypool’s elastic bass and Lennon’s menacing guitar riffs with a hallucinatory claymation landscape of brains, marching fingers and floating eyeballs. 
Lime and Limpid Green – which follows the group’s debut LP, 2016’s Monolith of Phobos – compiles studio versions of cover songs the Delirium have performed onstage over the past year. In addition to “Satori,” the track list also includes the Who’s abrasive 1966 oddity “Boris the Spider,” Pink Floyd’s 1967 freak-out “Astronomy Domine” and King Crimson’s 1969 prog landmark “In the Court of the Crimson King.” The Delirium looked backward through rock history not only to flesh out their set lists, but also to reflect their mutual love of experimental music. 
“I think the genesis of this band began with Les and I listening to old records together and feeling like our universes were uncannily intertwined,” Lennon tells Rolling Stone. “We were both feeling and hearing something that we wanted to do that was deeply inspired by those people who were the most peculiar in their time, like Syd Barrett. Since we only had one album as a band, we wanted to add songs to the live show that would illustrate and elaborate upon what the Delirium were all about.”
Claypool, who’s set to release a new Primus album this fall, adds, “The thought was to play songs that we hadn’t interpreted in the studio prior. Most of these tunes were played extensively live, so they had time to evolve and develop their own greasy little personalities.” Their aim for the cover tunes was to epitomize what Lennon calls “our band’s persnickety peculiarities.” 
“Satori,” the five-part title-track from Flower Travellin’ Band’s second album, is the EP’s clear left-field selection. Claypool says he’d never heard of the band until “Sean dropped them onto his lap.” He adds, “I was pretty much sold once I heard the name of the band because, coincidentally, I originally wanted to name my band Primus that … except I would have had added the word ‘Banana.'” 
But the cover took on a more personal meaning for Lennon. “‘Satori’ was a kind of spiritual journey of the motherland from my perspective,” he says. “I just wanted to do something for Japan since they had been suffering since the tsunami. The least I could do is give a nod to my people and say ‘Hey, remember we’re fans of your music.’ (He also notes that his mother, Yoko Ono, had known the band personally at one point.) 
While the duo are quick to distance themselves from a defining genre label, they swiftly acknowledge their prog-rock influences. Lennon points to Mahavishnu Orchestra, Egg and Gentle Giant; Claypool, who performed at Rush’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, calls the band’s 1978 opus, Hemispheres, “one of the greatest albums ever.”
“I said that 25 years ago,” he adds. “And the punk-oriented international press threw rocks at my head.”  From: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/claypool-lennon-delirium-cover-pink-floyd-king-crimson-the-who-on-new-ep-195335/ 

Tardigrade Inferno - Execution Is Fun!

Russia’s Tardigrade Inferno released their debut Mastermind back in January, but I didn’t catch it until February. It hasn’t left my rotation since, and I love it just as much now as I did then. Hence, a Thing You Definitely Missed.
Mastermind is one odd duck. Put one way, this album is literally my personality written into a metal record. Put another way, it’s a circus-tent nightmare from clown hell, and Frontierer happened to play there once and left their chunky guitar tone there by accident. What sets Tardigrade Inferno apart from the only other act on the planet that I know of who sounds remotely like these Ruskies—Stolen Babies—is that their concoction of dark cabaret and metal is more straightforward and therefore way more fun. Cheesy? Hell-fucking-yeah. Yet, every microsecond of Mastermind claws deeper and deeper into my brain with every single riff or chorus or synth lead, of which there are multitudes.
Take the opening track, “All Tardigrades Go to Hell,” as the template for the album as a whole. Darya Pavlovich hosts The Greatest Show Under a Microscope with her sometimes sneering, sometimes quasi-operatic ringmastery. Maxim Belekhov and Alexander Pavlovich follow right behind with an elephantine riff that will stomp your skull flat. Keyboardist Viktor Posokhin further ensnares my imagination with eerie calliopes and buzzing synths, and drummer Andrew “Drew” [Last Name Redacted] provides a dynamic, albeit not at all technical, rhythmic backbone to support this colorful cannon of confetti and carnage.  From: https://www.angrymetalguy.com/tardigrade-inferno-mastermind-things-you-might-have-missed-2019/

 

Sly & The Family Stone - Everyday People

“Everyday People” is a curious beast. It’s a thesis statement for Sly Stone’s entire enterprise, a perfect-world vision of people from different races and different walks of life learning how to come together and respect each other’s differences. But it was also a departure from the band’s freaked-out chaos. It’s a two-minute soul heater with clean, pronounced hooks, a bugged-out band’s fairly straightforward idea of pop music at work.
The beat of “Everyday People” is almost machinelike, the bass and drums locked in together rather than going off on their own voyage, as they sometimes were in this band. The horns do a pretty good imitation of the Stax house band, but the vocals stay buried in the mix, a reflection of a Bay Area acid-rock scene where the vocals were almost an afterthought. We hear little bursts of gurgly guitar fuzz or rumbling drums, but this is pretty clearly a band holding back, possibly at the behest of a label that was determined to harness their considerable pop-music power before they spun off into insanity again.
49 years after “Everyday People,” the song’s message feels trite in an after-school-special sort of way — not because things are any better between the races in this country, but because we’ve all had its lessons baked into our heads from years of schooling and cultural conditioning. A single line from “Everyday People,” “different strokes for different folks,” became the basis for a sitcom that ran for eight seasons on NBC. (I don’t know whether the “scooby dooby doo” line inspired the cartoon dog, but I do know that Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! debuted on CBS seven months after “Everyday People” hit #1. So… probably?) 
The ideas within “Everyday People” have become such a deeply embedded presence within mainstream American thought that the song itself sounds pat. In 1968, I have to imagine that it was a whole lot more urgent. Civil rights leaders were being gunned down, and racial violence was driving every big news story, so this warm-hearted and gibberish-laced anthem of togetherness struck a chord. Maybe it was revolutionary then. Today, it’s simply a good song.  From: https://www.stereogum.com/2023240/the-number-ones-sly-the-family-stones-everyday-people/columns/the-number-ones/

Purson - Death's Kiss

Frontwoman and main composer Rosalie Cunningham was more than happy to share her thoughts on anything Purson, the sudden rise of vintage/occult rock and her fondness for theatrics.

Purson started out as one of your projects after the demise of Ipso Facto. Can you take us through that period?

It was really bad timing to split up with Ipso Facto because we were about to record a new album. There was also an in between band called Hung Ray, but we never played a gig. It was basically me figuring out Purson really. I wanted to have technically proficient musicians and play prog. In the end it didn’t work out and I needed that experience to figure out what I really wanted to do.

You describe Purson’s music as “Vaudeville Carny Psych”. Care to explain?

It’s just something we made up. People put lots of different labels on our music and we don’t particularly agree with any of them, so we made something up. Vaudeville is old-fashioned entertainment and it’s something typically British, of which I think we have an element in our music. Carny is cockney slang and psych refers to the psychedelic parts in our music. It’s something we made up.

Purson also has a strong visual presentation. Is that a leftover from your Ipso Facto days?

I’ve always been very conscious of the image of the band, because it’s entertainment. A show, if you will. It looks better than ugly men wearing band T-shirts. I really enjoy dressing things up. It’s something our audience deserves.
The album has a very enigmatic title. What’s the thought behind it?

The Circle And The Blue Door is something of a running theme through some of the songs on the album. A lot of the songs have to do with a certain ex-boyfriend who had a mental breakdown. At the time we didn’t know he was schizophrenic. He went through a lot of hardships before he got diagnosed. I had to look after him for a very long time. The Circle And The Blue Door was something he talked about before the time he broke down. It was really interesting and it really inspired my lyrics. It’s ironic, because he really didn’t know what he was talking about, but he was admitted to the Sapphire Ward, which was the blue door he was talking about. It’s a beautiful irony, really.

We understand the recording experience for The Circle And The Blue Door was rather hectic. What happened?

It was very difficult—horrible actually. We didn’t record the album as a band, because the rest of the band couldn’t be around my boyfriend at the time, including myself. It was my album and we had to get it done. He left the band halfway through the recordings. We only had four days to record and the rest was by me at home. Those four days in the studio were utter hell. Crying, fighting, drama, the basic stuff that happens when you hate your boyfriend. We had a very turbulent relationship. He was pretty nuts and any normal task was impossible for him to do, let alone a whole project with pending deadlines.

Despite the proggy edge to your music the songs on the album are very song-orientated, much like pop music. Is that a conscious thing?

Yes and no. I wrote the songs and recorded the demos before I showed them to the rest of the band. The line-up changed lots and lots of times, so there wasn’t much room to grow as an actual unit. At the moment it’s actually them playing my songs. That will change on the next album and there will be more room for improvisation. On the other hand, it was a conscious decision because I feel a well-written pop song has more impact than even the most amazing prog jam. Some jams are very enjoyable to listen to, but for some reason they aren’t very memorable. I love prog, but I’m not interested in noodling wankery. I like to have things structured.

Do you think that because of this poppy approach Purson will appeal to people who aren’t necessarily into progressive music?

I certainly hope so. It’s really a niche market, especially with people our age (Rosalie is in her early 20s). Most people don’t have the same taste in music as the members of the band. I hope that our songs, which are essentially pop songs, will appeal to a bigger audience.

Do you feel any kinship with a band like Ghost? They’re also into the theatrical side of things and they also add a lot pop influences to their music.

Yes,definitely. Our music is very different from Ghost’s, but we come from the same basis. It’s the same theatrical and the progressive take on the Beatles, really. The Beatles are a huge influence on our music. I’d love to play with Ghost, I’m sure it would work out quite well.

Finally, vintage/seventies flavoured rock is really popular at the moment. What’s your take on this phenomenon?

I have different thoughts on this. It’s great to see that bands that I love are finally getting popular again. My whole life I’ve been listening to music that wasn’t popular with my peers. None of their music appealed to me, ever. For the first time in my life, I feel there’s a hell of a lot of good bands out there now. That’s obviously very exciting for me.I’m not so pleased with the fact that I’m getting tied into this occult rock thing, because I’m a female singer in a rock band. I don’t think Purson sound like any of the occult rock bands out there. It may sound naive, but I think we’re coming from a very different place. I think people are lazy to compare us to those bands, just because we have a female singer.

From: https://ghostcultmag.com/the-door-to-domestic-bliss-an-interview-with-purson/

Lost Crowns - Et Tu Brute

Roger (R) – It falls upon me to guide our readers through the downuplands of this strange weather, otherwise known as The Heart Is In The Body, the new exercise in aural semaphore emanating from behind Richard Larcombe’s excitable brow under the guise of Lost Crowns. Assisting me in this not inconsiderable task I have my diminutive colleague Phil. He’s from Wales. Phil?

Phil (P) – Remember we were talking about the first album? We saw it in allegorical terms as Gentle Giant’s mythical and psychotic descendant. It has probably always existed, locked deep in the dungeons of Richard Larcombe’s Mind Palace. But he released it! The Lost Crowns Monster broke the shackles that impaired its freedom.

R – Yes, and I surmised that since that day it been running up and down the High Street, knocking all the bins over.

P – Yes! And this second album is to their debut album as Mothra is to Gojira. Maybe I’m now just used to the debut album (not really), but The Heart Is In The Body could just make Every Night Something Happens sound like Baby Shark. Well, it is relentless and difficult, so to those who don’t like amazingly complex music, it might.  Just as before, the whole band sounds fantastic on this recording, do they not?

R – These players are all el fabbo for sure, but that drummer chap Keepsie…by crikey, he must be an octopus! He isn’t, obviously, as we’ve seen him behind his drumkit.
Let’s get to the task at hand. This first song falls out of the sky right in our laps. It’s called I Might Not. Richard tells us that the germ of this album arose from a wassail of out-of-synch folk players, convened during a COVID lockdown Zoom meeting. If only my work meetings were half as discombobulating! Apparently, on this recording Richard picks up all manner of folksie instruments he’d not played before, because he could, the lucky fella! Just take a look at those credits. Rhodri isn’t far behind!
I Might Not, like most other songs on this disorienting waxing appears to change musical subjects at will within the same bar. Hey! Look! There’s a bit that I’m sure references Sound As Colour, or did I imagine it? This seemingly directional randomness concept should present no problem to you, eh Phil?

P – The opening bars of I Might Not sound far more accessible than just about anything from the first album. Initially. But hard as this might be to comprehend, I suspect Every Day Something Happens was just Richard testing the water, even lulling us into a false sense of security.

R – Why?

P – Why? Well, a comparison with other music might be useful. But no. It would be misrepresenting the music to try to nail down any influences. In fact, this music may well be a new and future strange influence for the coming generations of musicians!

R – There’s a song ‘ere called Did Look A Fool. “Things look unfamiliar, things look new” sings Richard. He’s right there, innit? As you say, THIITB makes EDSH look, well, not normal, but certainly of a more sensible cut of trouser than one would ever have assumed. This shiny new baby is dancing about just out of reach, I cannae get a hold of it, the slippery beastie…

P – Throughout the album, I fail to successfully analyse it. I used to pride myself in being able to work out the so-called complex time signatures of certain progressive rock bands from the seventies and eighties, but don’t try counting the bars for the last minute or of the first one – therein lies madness.
The brain-mushing complexity may make you feel as if the band is battering you over the head with their virtuosity. None of this matters, just go with it! Then the blend of the rhythm section, keyboards, woodwinds and the plinky guitar, furnishing the music with unique properties, could make you grin like a loon.

R – This loon is grinning! And I just knocked another bin over. Lost Crowns do things with melody that should be only theoretically possible.

P – Richard’s choice of melodies and lead vocals and the band’s harmonies perfectly complement the preternatural combination of notes. If you’ve followed the band and have seen them live, then you may have become accustomed to the unorthodox choice of instrumentation. Yes, there are vocals, drums, bass and keyboards, but a plethora of other instrumentation, played expertly by top people…. TOP people… are evident.

R – Yes – we find theremin, Charlie’s bowed double bass (and his normal one), bagpipes, bassoon, wind instruments, string sections, all manner of things weaving their magic on this lysergic excursion.

P – I’m particularly enamoured of Charlie’s bass lines and Keepsie’s drumming. They form the anchor of this musical adventure. But there are also some lovely bits of atmospheric sound design, albeit abruptly replaced with the surreal. Lyrically – I can’t even begin to…!

R – Lyrically? Well, you have some fabulous word salad reproduced as one slab of text on the CD cover, as if it wasn’t all dense enough to start with! Weaker Than Me celebrates (or castigates, I ain’t sure?) weediness, a pretty unusual subject in the world of rock’n’roll machismo, doncha know? “Blades of grass will crush him”, indeed!

Sea shanty subjects of love left behind, and trad folk concerns of wrongful conviction and execution (for arson no less!) are two other less obvious focal points for Richard’s wily wordsmithery. There’s even Et Tu Brute which bigs up Caesar’s supposed last words: “While Caesar bled, not yet even dead, they whispered ‘Did you hear what he said?'”
Those are the ones I can get a handle on. There’s almost too much going on in here, but maybe that’s the point? I don’t think there are any songs about cars’n’girls.
The album ends with the frankly epic (and for once that overused word definitely applies) A Sailor And His True Love , a tune that builds on swells of storm-tossed emotional seas. It is fitting then that Richard tells us:
“I wrote this tune the day after Tim Smith died. It’s a kind of elegy to that wonderful talented man.”
In summary, imagine Phil and Roger singing this like half a barbershop quartet:
The Heart Is In The Body is a staggering piece of work, resulting in the discombobulating bamboozlement of our two scribblers. Will it stop the bins being destroyed? Doubtful. Somehow, I think the bins are less safe, and to add to the mayhem we could see traffic cones on every stately statue’s head in That London.

From: https://theprogressiveaspect.net/blog/2025/04/03/lost-crowns-the-heart-is-in-the-body/

First Aid Kit - The Lion's Roar

First Aid Kit - The Lion's Roar: This song, which Klara has described as both “mystic” and “symbolic” in various interviews, is Dylanesque in its imagery: not specific, but powerful enough to evoke strong, precise emotions from its listeners. In its lyrics the sisters discuss the faces of religion, loneliness, courage, and foolishness.
In Buddhism, there are two “lion’s roars.” First, there is the roar of the Buddha himself, who roars as a lion to extol his own doctrines and spiritual truths. The second is the roar of the disciple, who roars to signify he has achieved the goals set for him by the Buddha. This is outlined in The Lion’s Roar: Two Discourses of the Buddha.
‘The Lion’s Roar’ was written during a U.K. tour when we drove through a very dramatic moorland in Scotland. During the tour, we listened a lot to Townes Van Zandt in the car. We were inspired by this mystic scenery, as well as Townes Van Zandt’s beautiful melodies. By far our darkest song to date. It was the first song we wrote for the new record, and we chose to name the record after it. ‘The Lion’s Roar’ marked a new stage in our songwriting, and the mystic feeling of this song came to characterize a big part of the new record.  From: https://genius.com/First-aid-kit-the-lions-roar-lyrics

Deerhoof - The Devil and his Anarchic Surrealist Retinue

Clutter-rock band Deerhoof release their new album The Magic today via Polyvinyl Records, along with a music video for “The Devil and his Anarchic Surrealist Retinue.” The claymation reverie was created by Joseph Baughman, who has previously created videos for Cool Uncle, Tuxedo, The Roots and more. In the video description, Baughman explains:
Stop-motion improv is probably the slowest form of spontaneity, but even so it allowed the characters and actions to take shape as I was animating them. It was a strange way to animatate, but it felt appropriate for this track. I’m grateful for the freedom Deerhoof gave me to animate in this style and for getting to work with such an interesting tune (both lyrically and musically). The visual’s landscape is full of multi-colored Minotaurs, spinning chessboards and celestial pinballs that charge like rogue molecules alongside Satomi Matsuzaki’s vocals.

From: https://www.pastemagazine.com/music/deerhoof/deerhoof-share-the-devil-and-his-anarchic-surreali

The song’s title is taken from Alex Ross’ book The Rest Is Noise, describing Stalin-era Soviet Union. Full quote: “…in Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel The Master and Margarita, written in secret in the 1930s and not published until 1966… that Russian-Soviet version of the old Faustian tale the devil and his anarchic-surrealist retinue expose the madness of Stalin’s society by way of violent farce.”

From: https://genius.com/Deerhoof-the-devil-and-his-anarchic-surrealist-retinue-lyrics 

Pink Floyd - Astronomy Domine

“Astronomy Domine” is a song by the English rock band Pink Floyd, written by founding member Syd Barrett. The song was released on their 1967 debut album, “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn”.
The lyrics describe an otherworldly journey through space and time, with imagery that is both vivid and surreal. The title “Astronomy Domine” is Latin for “Lord of the Stars” and the song’s lyrics reflect the psychedelic and cosmic themes that were prevalent in the band’s early work.
The song is known for its use of dissonant guitar and organ riffs, as well as its innovative use of panning effects to create a sense of movement and space. It is considered a seminal work in the psychedelic and space rock genres, and is often cited as a defining moment in Pink Floyd’s early career.  From: https://www.neptunepinkfloyd.co.uk/astronomy-domine-lyrics-pink-floyd-piper-at-the-gates-of-dawn