Shawn Colvin - Climb On (A Back That's Strong)

Did you always want to write, or were you more comfortable playing other people’s music?


No, I think I always wanted to write. I wrote a lot when I was a teenager and was learning the guitar. And I’ve always been a good chameleon–I can really cop another person’s vocal thing. I learned a lot of people’s guitar styles–obviously, cause that’s a good way to learn. But I wasn’t endowed with the kind of creative gift in my opinion. And the music that I wrote then wasn’t really good, it was derivative. Maybe some good melodies here and there. But I did write. I mean as soon as I picked up the instrument I wrote ten or twenty songs during the first year I was beginning to play. Then I just put up the writing. I don’t know why, but I did.

When did you pick it up again?


I didn’t really write again until I moved to California in 1979 and was in a quandary about what to do with my life. I was playing music, but to pass the time I would write snippets of things, they never came to anything, I never finished anything. Then I moved to New York in 1981 and met John Leventhal who had a band that was doing really sophisticated Steely Dan-esque kind of pop music. I loved the way they sounded and I began to write with him. He gave me music and I started to write the lyrics. And again I would be loathe to play any of those songs for anyone. They were not very genuine. But the relationship with him kept me at it because where I would falter he would push and vice versa.

When did you start writing on your own?


There was a breakthrough after four or five years of this where he gave me a track of music and instead of just writing the words over his production, I took his production and transposed it to the guitar. I dropped my E strings to D, a la Richard Thompson who is my second wave influence–Joni Mitchell being my first–and made this song into kind of a droney folk groove and I wrote “Diamond in the Rough.”

Did that open the door to your own writing style?


Yeah. That seemed like something I could really stick with. It was the first song of that style. And from that came everything else that’s on my first album. From that door opening and that stumbling upon my voice, if you will, came a system, a security, a net, that I could fall into and go and do something that I really did think was unique to me. And it definitely had to do with being confessional and personal.

Do you feel somewhat exposed by the personal nature of your songs?


They are personal. I sometimes feel as though I should apologize for that, but I’m too quick to negate myself as a songwriter…that’s part of what’s taken so long (laughs). I’d like to push myself and challenge myself beyond it, but it’s been enormously gratifying for me to write this stuff and my motto is stick with what you know. I didn’t have it in me to paint fictional pictures. I think that when you do that you’re going with things that have to do with you anyway. But I didn’t have the skill to make an interesting story, and I don’t know that I do now. But what I did have was a strong feeling of where I came from and where I was at. And it had been a struggle. Part of me wanted to document that. I also just needed to express it, and I had really gone through some things and come out the other side. I was just moved to shed light on that.

Are you comfortable singing those songs to such a large audience?


I think the thing that has made it possible for me to write personal songs and sing them year after year is the sensibility for good writing. In that just opening your veins all over the paper is not necessarily going to be interesting. I wanted to speak to people. I was interested in being good and in moving people, not just “I’m going to say what I want to say.” So there’s a poetic aspect to them. Some songs I would just go way overboard on the emotion and then I’d have to rein it back in to make it accessible. You have to watch for a twist that you can put in or a way that you can make the point in a more unexpected way. So it’s not hard for me to play the songs. There’s an artistic content to them that satisfied me to the point that…they’re nice pieces. You don’t have to know they’re about me, you know. I wanted people to be able to sing them themselves.

Do you write daily?


No. I’ve never written daily unless I’ve been under complete pressure to do so. I’m a very reluctant writer (laughs). I keep vowing to change that, but I don’t and I’m in such admiration of people who do. I ran into Lucinda Williams–and I think her stuff is just fabulous–and asked her if she writes all the time, and she said “No, I write when I have to and I do it under pressure, and I think it’s going to be a disaster,” and I just said “Praise the Lord,” you know (laughs). Finally somebody who does it the way I do. When I write it’s more like a spurt of writing and put it away. Or a spurt of writing, put it away and get it out the next day, and if I’m totally dry on it I’ll put it back away again because I don’t want to force it.

Were you under more pressure, deadline wise, during the making of Fat City?


Yes! I was pressed for time and I had a lot of songs one-half and three-quarters finished–not just one but a lot–and I was forced to become disciplined. It was really a great experience because I was terrified and had kind of made peace with the fact that I was just going to do bad work. And I found that I can set times and go into a room and it still can happen.

Do you keep some kind of journal?


I do keep a journal and a songwriting notebook. I’ll get a verse, a rhyme or a title I’ll just try to keep notes of things because 90% of the time I’ll end up using things that I just jotted down absent mindedly.

Do you use rhythm a lot to get an idea for a song?


Yeah. If you get a groove going and you kind of say nonsense over the groove then some words come out that you couldn’t have predicted. Some you keep, some you don’t. “Cry Like An Angel” was written like that. I would go down to this pond in North Carolina every day just bopping along to the rhythm of the song and I would do it over and over in my head. I had tons of words and most were thrown out, like I had the word mortician in that song (laughs).
So it’s a matter of just flooding the rhythm with more lyrics than you could ever use and then weeding them out and making a story out of it. Because when you just start free-associating like that over some rhythm you end up not realling talking about nonsense, but talking about yourself. It’s wierd, it’s cool, it’s scary, you know. This stuff comes out and you go “I haven’t thought about that in years,” but it’s you. So it’s kind of a cool way to write. You end up having a perspective maybe that’s not so forced. There’s room for things to creep in that you couldn’t have thought of.

Have you had much success with co-writing since developing such a definitive style?


“Set The Prairie On Fire,” which I wrote with Elly Brown (a New Yorker who used to be in a band called Grace Pool) is the exception to the rule–with the rule being that I have yet to have a successful outcome of sitting in a room with someone and trying to write a song. The way that I generally co-write is that someone else writes the music or part of the music. Like on “Round of Blues” I wrote the whole song but Larry Klein said that it needed a bridge. So he wrote the bridge and I wrote the words to it. But Elly and I really shared every part of the song equally. She wrote some of the words, I wrote some of the words, she wrote some of the music, I wrote some of the music.

When you finish a song, are they really finished or do you go back and pick at them?


They’re pretty much finished. I have a short attention span and even when I’m not completely satisfied with a line here and a line there I generally leave it as it is. I’ve got a dilemma, though, because I wrote “The Story” and it makes mention of not having any children and not being married. And I’m getting married. So once I get married the question is…well it’s probably so silly to even ponder it. I should probably just sing it like it’s written. But I did think maybe I should go back and kind of update it for what’s going on now and keep the same spirit. It’s kind of a challenge because I’m getting married and the people who love the depressing confessional kind of stuff go “don’t get too happy,” you know (laughs). I mean there’s still a lot of conflict in life even if you get married, it doesn’t solve your own damn problems. And that song’s very angry, so to hang on to my identity in that song and be married could be interesting.

From: https://addictedtosongwriting.com/shawn-colvin-born-to-be-telling-her-story/ 

The Lovetones - The Sound And The Fury

Be What You Want is a striking debut for Sydney, Australia's the Lovetones, a trio led by singer/songwriter Matt Tow, that manages to keep its balance on that difficult path between the past and the present. Tow is clearly a major fan of '60s U.K. pop from Revolver-era Beatles to the Move in their early days to the gossamer pop of the Zombies to David Bowie's pre-stardom mod phase (the anthemic, powerful opener "The Sound and the Fury" would have been a killer follow-up to Bowie's 1966 single "Can't Help Thinking About Me"), but unlike a lot of his contemporaries, Tow knows the difference between homage and thievery. Think Neil Finn or Allen Clapp, not Oasis. Songs like the dreamy neo-psychedelia of "Guiding Star" or the passionate title track are mature, literate pop with thoughtful, non-clichéd lyrics and sturdily memorable hooks.  From: https://poprunners.blogspot.com/2018/09/beatlesque-pop-lovetones-be-what-you.html 

 

Rhiannon Giddens - I'm On My Way

In a video that went viral at some point over the past few years, a gene-testing company gathered up a bunch of folks who were so very, very proud of their various heritages — some to the point of outright hostility to other races and ethnicities. When the tests came back to show that their DNA wasn’t exactly what they had presumed it to be, many of them cried, confronted by the existence of human migration and miscegenation across continents and centuries which had “sullied” their perceived ancestral purity.
Where humans travel, so go their customs and cultures, including music. Nothing is pure. Not this far into an ever-evolving world. And, because no thing is just one thing, all things share some things. That is the idea, on both the personal and musical fronts, at the heart of there is no Other, the new album by Rhiannon Giddens in partnership with Francesco Turrisi.
As students of music, history, and musical history, the two have created a glorious confluence of African, Arabic, and European cultures presented by an American roots artist and an Italian multi-instrumentalist armed with banjos, violin, accordion, frame drum, tamburello, lute, and other globe-spanning instruments. The result exists completely outside of time and place yet is still very much of the here and now.
In song after song, Giddens allows listeners to feel the weight of generations in her voice. With the opening track, “Ten Thousand Voices,” she seems to summon all of the stories and souls to pour right through her. She is but the vessel and the vehicle for both first takes on original compositions and new spins on old tunes, including Ola Belle Reed’s “I’m Gonna Write Me a Letter” and Oscar Brown, Jr’s “Brown Baby,” as well as various other traditionals. Three cuts in, “Wayfaring Stranger” brings all it has to bear in a performance that must be experienced, as any words used to describe it will fall embarrassingly short.
Produced by Joe Henry and recorded in Dublin, Ireland, there is no Other puts the connectedness of our world into stark relief and the hypocrisy of all bigotry to great shame. Once again, Rhiannon Giddens has shown what it means to be an artist of truly great import, using her platform to not just entertain, but to amplify and to educate.  From: https://folkalley.com/album-review-rhiannon-giddens-with-francesco-turrisi-there-is-no-other/

PigPen Theatre Co. - As Lonely As Me

The seven members of PigPen Theatre Co. first met as freshmen acting students at the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama in 2007. After working with each other in various classes, particularly movement and voice, the group decided to collaborate on a theater piece to present at the drama school's student-run theater festival Playground. The show, titled The Hunter and the Bear, was an original folk tale told through movement, music, and puppetry, and set the aesthetic for the group's projects moving forward. The production proved extremely popular, but the group did not seriously consider forming a theater company that could exist after graduation until they collaborated again for Playground the following year.
The group continued developing their plays, with plans to move to New York City as a collective theater company after graduation. During a residency in Martha's Vineyard in 2010, they were approached by a music executive who offered to help them also become a band after seeing one of their presentations. Prior to this, the company had only used original music as a "soundtrack" to support their works, but shifting to working as a band allowed them to focus more on individual songs, as well as the chance to increase their exposure by touring their music. Since then, the group has toured both their theatrical productions and recorded music as a band, with their debut album Bremen released in 2012. Recorded shortly after their graduation from Carnegie Mellon in 2011, Bremen consists of both music from their existing shows, as well as original songs. Bremen was acclaimed on release, with compliments to its layered harmonies and "Americana instrumentation" and comparisons made to British folk rock band Mumford & Sons. A second album, Whole Sun, followed in 2015. The group also have four EPs: The Courier's Wife, The Way I'm Running, PigPen Theatre Co. on Audiotree Live, and Out of the Overture.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PigPen_Theatre_Co.

Gone Cosmic - Dazed

Championed by a soaring songstress Abbie Thurgood (The Torchettes), whose boldly evocative tones recall Skunk Anansie chanteuse Skin and Alabama Shakes’ Brittany Howard, and accompanied by an agile and aggressive psych-rock outfit, composed of guitarist Devin “Darty” Purdy (Chron Goblin), bass player Brett Whittingham (Chron Goblin), percussionist Marcello Castronuovo (Witchstone), Gone Cosmic has carved out an expansive domain that stretches from sweltering Southern sludge pits to breath-stealing sonic spacewalks.
A blood (orange)-scented breeze that bows the trees, Gone Cosmic chases the infinite haze from the skies and puts it right back in your eyes. Groove-mining breakdowns become the stuff of legend as the four pieces’ floor-thudding tail kick and hellfire halo holler originates a whole that is far more potent than the sum of its individual elements. Meet your new astromancers, the phase-shifting and hard-rocking force that channels the empyreal sounds of heaven on Earth.  From: https://calgaryguardian.com/psychedelic-rock-band-gone-cosmic/

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Love Or Confusion

Jimi Hendrix was, as Patti Smith once said, a “guitar poet”. Every note he played was spiritually resonant, and there was nothing beyond his reach. We may never see another guitar player who is able to do what Hendrix did. There are imitators, for sure, and there are many capable Hendrix impressionists. But none of them can capture the energy of the man, or the soul of his art.
“Love or Confusion” is a droning, knotty masterpiece from the “Are You Experienced?” album. It’s a multi-part, polyrythmic composition that reeks of mystery and power. The lyrics are among Jimi’s best, and the Experience plays with more finesse than almost any other track on this album. The arrangement features multiple time signature changes and relies heavily on interlocking syncopation. Jimi’s guitar sounds expand and contract like stars collapsing in on themselves. The mid-song key change is so abrupt that that it almost feels like a different song. And listen to those crazy pauses at the end, when the gritty, bent guitars swing back and forth in your headphones, and the drums dance around and then vanish into thin air. This song was so tricky to play that the Experience apparently never attempted to pull it off live, save for once during a recording session for the BBC.  From: https://audioreckoning.wordpress.com/2012/08/24/awesome-tune-love-or-confusion-by-the-jimi-hendrix-experience/

Deep Throat Choir - Ada

In 1972 a pornographic film called Deep Throat, starring Linda Lovelace as a frustrated woman who could only be sexually satisfied through performing fellatio, triggered three major events in culture. One was the advent of the “Golden Age of Porn,” an era of increased respectability and cultural discussion around pornos. During this time films such as The Devil in Miss Jones in 1973 and The Opening of Misty Beethoven in 1976 premiered with increased production values and a focus on plot and dialogue in addition to sex. When Johnny Carson (cultural arbiter of ‘70s America if there ever was one) admitted to seeing Deep Throat, the rest of the country followed suit.
The other was the nicknaming of the informant who became the lynchpin that brought about the Watergate scandal, resulting in the resignation of Richard Nixon in 1974. In a stunning example of the entwinement of porn and politics, Deep Throat, later revealed to be W. Mark Felt, number two in the FBI at the time, was so pseudo-named because of the unprecedented cultural pervasiveness of the film in addition to the deep nature of his information.
The last, and remarkably least likely result is the all-female choral group based out of Hackney, London: Deep Throat Choir. The 30-member strong collective gather once a week to sing together; mostly covers of pop songs like Sade’s “The Sweetest Taboo” or Bjork’s “Stonemilker” but the group is now branching into new territory, having just premiered their first original composition, “Be OK” – a soaring, empowering track that is as much a dance-y romp as it is a feminist battle cry – from the album of the same name, (out now via Bella Union).
Still, Deep Throat Choir is far from done with covers. “The process of arranging a song for a cover gives you the ability to manipulate and experiment with the sounds, harmonies, and melodies of the original song – which is really fun.” Choir member Sophie Tunstall-Behrens explains, “You have to be creative in the way that you build in the instrumental sounds of the song using voices. In this sense each cover is its own work.”
In an age where everybody is connected at all times, yet people seem lonelier than ever, there is something rare and precious about these young women embracing old ways of social bonding. Luisa Gerstein, the de facto leader of the Choir, credits the organic growth of the Deep Throat Choir community to the power of people getting together and raising their voices. “Singing every week feels really good and you always come away feeling very uplifted. Whatever time you’re having, it’s always a really secure and comforting space and it can make you feel better and good.”
Choirs have existed since at least the 2nd century B.C.E. when they played an important part in Greek drama. From the all-male coal miner chorus’ in 19th Century Wales to African-American Spirituals in the late 1800s, song as a form of resistance is inextricable from the history of choral music. Most recently, Jan Chamberlin, a member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir resigned from the Choir rather than sing at President Donald Trump’s inauguration. Chamberlin, writing in her open resignation letter, said, “I also know, looking from the outside in, it will appear that [the] Choir is endorsing tyranny and facism [sic] by singing for this man.” Deep Throat Choir member Thalia Allington-Wood echoes these sentiments. “I also think music as activism is not always about the artist either, it is also about the audience – how they understand a song and use it. We sang ‘Be my Husband’ for a while – made a video that mocked the words – but also stopped performing it live – potentially because that subversion wasn’t actually working in a live performance. Which says something about how conscious we are about the power of songs, words, and who sings them.” As Gerstein tells me later over email, “That perhaps one day that you might Google Deep Throat and find a group of empowered women singing at you is an activism of sorts.”  From: https://www.flaunt.com/blog/music-deep-throat-choir

Michael Head & The Strands - The Prize

The Magical World of the Strands is an album that ages well and in hindsight what rises to the top is a triumph over adversity, as it travels through addiction and out the other side. The album gives off the aura of overwhelming beauty and calm which sometimes results from opiate ingestion. Like the other Northwestern Songwriters of the 80’s and 90’s most notably Noel Gallagher, Michael Head’s biggest fan and supporter. He has faith in the romantic notion of rising above his working class north country roots. He is not an anthem writer, but rather a bruised soul writing in an ethereal and evocative style. The beauty in the music and the lyric is the underpinning of the release as it follows in the tradition of the storied Romantics of England’s prose tradition.
The Magical World is an amalgam of pastoral Merseyside with the Velvets, Simon and Garfunkel, the Byrds and Love all being blended into its delightful concoction. One thing to take away from the album is that it will deliver something different to the listener with each spin. It should be listened to in its entirety to appreciate all the textures and emotions that are on display.  From: https://www.xsnoize.com/album-review-michael-head-the-strands-the-magical-world-of-the-strands/

Autorickshaw - Humours of Autorickshaw

The cultural presence of Canada'’s South Asian population has given rise to a wave of Indo-Canadian fusion bands; Tandava in Vancouver, Tasa in Toronto and Galitcha in Ottawa each have different takes on fusing Indian traditions with other musical impulses. Based in Toronto, Autorickshaw is the busiest of these, having toured the country four times and released three discs since 2003.
Initially the partnership of vocalist Suba Sankaran and tabla player Ed Hanley yielded a blend of South Indian classical forms with jazz and a touch of funk. Constant activity in the last few years has seen them add two band members, electric bassist Rich Brown and percussionist Patrick Graham, and their new album So The Journey Goes is their most ambitious work yet. "The last few years have seemed like we were running to catch up,” Sankaran says. "[This is] very much an audio snapshot of where we’re at so far. It speaks to having gone through process a couple times before, but without as much experience and repertoire.”
The inspiration for the existential title track came from Sankaran’s trip to India a few years ago. "That was the first time I went to India without my family, to study on my own. Even though I dressed the part and had the same skin, I was pegged as a foreigner instantly. It’s like I had this bizarre alien radar. It was a bit of a culture shock.” Now, having toured India with the band last November, both Sankaran and Hanley have gained new appreciation for the dual cultural impulses in their work. "It was amazing,” Sanakran says. "I think we carried some paranoia with us —- is it presumptuous to take their music back to them in a completely different package that they may not be expecting? But that ended up being the point of entry for them to understand what they were doing. Specifically the comments to me were that they were overjoyed that I was embracing the Indian culture and doing it in a way that made sense to me.” The most ambitious song on the album is its closer, the digitally composed "Heavy Traffic.” "The song was commissioned by [Toronto’s] Harbourfront Centre,” Hanley explains, "but the only part of the tune that was left when we got to the studio was the vocal part. Suba laid it down to a click and we overdubbed drums and bass, then everyone just started overdubbing their parts.” The final result distilled 64 tracks into a tripped-out, free form groove. It is their most abstract statement on record, and brilliantly solves the problem of how to incorporate electronics into their sound while building on the band’s foundation.
The opposing forces of tradition and experimentation can be difficult to balance, and Suba’s father, master percussionist and professor Trichy Sankaran, was initially cautious of Autorickshaw. "He will always say he’s a purist,” according to the younger Sankaran. "He’'s done experimental music, electronic music, and jazz but his heart is with South India. At first he didn’'t know what to make of us. I’'ve studied with him my whole life; it was like cutting the umbilical cord. He saw us perform and realised ‘they’re not diluting the music in any way, they’re creating this fusion in a way that makes sense to them coming out of this culture where a lot of things are blended.’ As long as it’s done in a meaningful way, that’s what he was concerned with. From: https://exclaim.ca/music/article/continuing_journey_of_autorickshaw 

Jethro Tull - With You There to Help Me / Nothing to Say / To Cry You a Song / Teacher

The beneficiary of a rich sonic contrast that brought elements of light (acoustic guitar, John Evan’s piano) and dark (Martin Barre's guitars) into the mix. "Benefit" is a noisier, heavier record than anything the band had done to date and a harbinger of what would follow ("Aqualung" et al). Where Stand Up played up the band's acoustic side and thus had a bluesy gentility to it, "Benefit" bares its teeth in the distorted, drenched electric end of the musical spectrum. Ian Anderson had already shown a penchant for animalism in his flute solos; now taking a wider berth behind the boards, he was able to carry that style over to the other instruments, notably for the electric guitars. The folk sensibilities remain, but they're subordinated to rock riffs that suggest Led Zeppelin on a lighter scale, especially on the riff-driven "To Cry You A Song" and "With You There To Help Me". To the dismay of some, Anderson was also growing more indulgent in his lyric delivery, dripping with disdain on "Son", "Nothing To Say" and "Play In Time". In many ways he was becoming the Frank Zappa of folk/rock, creating intricately knotted ribbons of music on which to hang his effigies. As a result, the pockets of youthful optimism ("Inside", "For Michael Collins, Jeffrey And Me") now sound disingenuous and out of place, the first casualties of the new Tull. To balance the darkness, Anderson would come to rely on humor to rise above the fray he'd made; "Teacher" (with its clockwork precision) is part of a select company of Tull songs that pokes fun at philosophizing ("Fat Man", "Thick As A Brick edit #1") for example. The album ends with the didactic, delicious "Sossity; You're A Woman", an acoustic wonder that holds its own with the best of them (including the first half of "Stairway To Heaven"). "Benefit" affords the listener their choice of the hot sun or cool shade; that is, without the inhospitable heat of a bright concept hanging over their heads. Some saw it as the end of the line, others the beginning, making it one of the few Tull albums most fans can agree to enjoy.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=2017

Besvarjelsen - Falsarium

First of all, congratulations on a great album! In my review of Atlas I attempted to describe your sound as dark with a certain warmth to it. I’m not sure if this sounds fitting to your ears – so how would you describe what you do, and what you sound like?

Erik: Thank you! Dark with a certain warmth is a good way to describe it. We mostly describe what we do as some sort of heavy rock or doom rock but it’s up to the listener. Dark with a certain warmth is a good way to describe it…

You’ve all played in several bands prior to forming Besvärjelsen. Was there an urge to do something different, or anything in particular, when you formed the band?

Erik: Andreas’ [Baier – guitars, vocals] initial idea was to make something heavy, and drawing inspiration from the forest where he had his cabin. He had, at the time, been playing grind in Afgrund so I think that was one of the urges, to do something else, a bit slower. But I think the band has evolved a lot since the first formation.

Please describe the creative process in Besvärjelsen, how you work on new material and finally how an album is made?

Erik: Over the years we have tried different approaches, like someone bringing a riff to the rehearsal to build it from there, or someone bringing an almost complete song to the rehearsal and so on.

Was this approach different on Atlas compared to Vallmo or Frost?

Erik: Yeah, this time around we couldn’t meet up due to covid so everyone shared their ideas on our drive. We narrowed it down after a while and made simple production demos of the songs that made it past the first round so we could try out how they would work with vocals. When we had a bunch of songs with vocals, we had an evening with the whole band where we decided which ones to go on the record.
I think we all wanted the album to feel as one unit but with diverse individual songs. Vallmo was made mostly at the rehearsal room. Frost was the first record where we worked more from home than before, but maybe 50/50 home/rehearsal. We also started working more with the arrangements on that record.

How did you hook up with Magnetic Eye Records and what’s it been like working with them on the release of Atlas?

Erik: I knew Jadd from when I was in Dozer. He first put out the Welcome To Meteorcity compilation where we had a song on in 98 (I think), and later we toured together with his band Spiritu, along with Clutch and Spiritual Beggars. Many years later we got in touch again when I joined Besvärjelsen. I wanted him to check our band out and see if it was anything he was into, and fortunately he was.
It has been great so far with Magnetic Eye Records, great support, and easy communication, they aren’t afraid to come with ideas or suggestions so it’s all good!

To me at least, Sweden has one of the most interesting and nuanced doom, stoner and psychedelic scenes. How does being part of that scene influence what you do, if at all?

Erik: I can only speak for myself here, but I don’t think it influences us at all in a musical way, we’re too old haha. But it is a good scene with a lot of great bands that is always great to both hear/watch and hang out with when we have the opportunity. And I think it’s great that it’s a very healthy scene where bands help each other out when possible.

Continuing in the same manner – who/what inspires you to do what you do?

Erik: We have some sort of common musical language; I know what Andreas means if tells me to do a Danzig thing on the drums for example. But everyone has their own influences as well which spill into the songwriting, and that’s a good thing. It ranges from pop, rock, metal, stoner to folk music, so it’s hard to name a specific band or artist. Everyone has their own influences as well which spill into the songwriting, and that’s a good thing…

The sound across your albums seems complex, blending doom, punk and even folk, with a lot of effects used. So what are a desert island pedal for the guitarists and bassist? With the exception of fuzz/overdrive pedals as the island has those already.

Andreas: The HM2 Heavy Metal!

Staffan: A good reverb pedal is always nice, maybe a Keely Hydra

Do you have any tour plans in support of the album? And are there cities/countries you want to play that you haven’t visited yet?

Erik: We hope to get out on the road later this year and we would love doing a European tour to start with.

From: https://thesleepingshaman.com/interviews/a-f/besvarjelsen/

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Blood Sugar Sex Magik

These days, admitting to liking the latest Red Hot Chili Peppers release is akin to holding your hands up and saying "Yes, I love the new Maroon 5 album, what of it?". Consider if you will their last album offering - 2006's Stadium Arcadium. The title alone should have been more than enough to put us off. But chuck a bunch of mediocre 'radio-friendly' tracks into the mix, and the whole affair is disappointingly average. In recent years then, it's been easy to forget just how flipping good the Chilis used to be.
But cast your minds back to 1991 and the release of the band's fifth album, Blood Sugar Sex Magik. The line up had changed prior to recording commenced following deaths and departures from the band, and Rick Rubin had been brought in on production duties. The result is an album that is frequently heralded as one of the defining albums of the 90s and one which far exceeds anything else the band have ever produced.
The funk/punk style and Keidis's 'rapping' that had permeated previous RHCP album's is most definitely still there, but mixed with it is a strong melodic feel which adds a different dimension to the tracks. There's a structure and thought process to the songs that hadn't existed before. And even at a just-about-fittable-onto-a-CDR duration, the quality of "Blood Sugar Sex Magik" doesn't waver for a single one of it’s 74 minutes.
The album is largely about sex - as the title might suggest. Tracks such as Suck My Kiss, Sir Psycho Sexy and Give It Away are dripping with not just innuendo, but out and out, unadulterated sexual imagery. And it's this raw, straight up, no holds barred sexuality that gives the album such impact and distinctiveness - more so than any of their subsequent works. OK, so maybe it would sound weird now to have a 45-year-old Keidis asking you to suck his kiss (although arguably, there are many who would still like to). But when he did it in 1991, it really did hold such an irresistible clout. And despite being cited as an inspiration to countless artists since its release, the brilliance of Blood Sugar Sex Magik is that no-one else has managed to do anything quite like it.  From: https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/6j4h/   

Van Morrison - It's Too Late To Stop Now - Live 1973

Van Morrison - It's Too Late To Stop Now - Live 1973 - Part 1

 

Van Morrison - It's Too Late To Stop Now - Live 1973 - Part 2

 

By the early 1970s, Van Morrison had already earned a reputation as one of the more unpredictably mercurial live performers in rock. As rough as his gigs could get, though, Morrison was just as capable of leading his audiences to unparalleled heights – an experience unforgettably captured on his classic double live LP It's Too Late to Stop Now.
Released in February 1974, It's Too Late found Morrison working with a massive band he'd dubbed "The Caledonia Soul Orchestra," featuring strings, brass and woodwinds in addition to the standard keyboards, guitar and bass. With so many moving parts, the potential for disaster was always high, but these performances – recorded during the Los Angeles and London stops on Morrison's Summer 1973 tour – were the work of a band that benefited from not only having a legendary taskmaster at the forefront, but a long period of time in the trenches bonding the players to the music.
"I figured that we'd done that show so much that it should be captured," Morrison told Blank Space's John Tobler in 1979. "We were using the strings on the tour, so I figured if I'm going to do a live album, I'll put this string section on it, because it's really nice and it freshens up the songs for us. Because that band at the time had been playing the same set for four or five years, so it was just a matter of touching up the set that was already existing and getting into it. I wanted to capture that set on an album, because I hadn't done it yet."
While Morrison's quote makes It's Too Late to Stop Now seem like a pragmatic decision, the record's stage setting helped free him from the stultifying atmosphere of the recording studio, where he'd long struggled to capture an honest representation of his music.
"The thing is, when it gets down to it, it is like most people's jobs," he told Rolling Stone in 1982. "Because when you're working in the studio and you're making an album, you have to be pregnant every year and give birth to material. It's not much different from other jobs. I mean, a recording studio is not different from a factory. It's just a factory for music. And sometimes there are moments when you get off, but it's moments. The rest of it is very hard work. And the environment is not a creative environment."
While Morrison had been known to have his own problems with playing live, this tour found him operating at peak performance, leading the band through arrangements of his songs that always felt fresh – and were occasionally even revelatory. And while a good-sized portion of the LP's 18-song track listing consists of relatively compact versions of songs like "Domino" and "Into the Mystic," the Caledonia Soul Orchestra was also capable of stretching things out with Morrison's precisely calibrated brand of Northern soul abandon, as they did with the album-closing one-two punch of "Caravan" (9:20) and "Cyprus Avenue" (10:20).
Unlike a lot of live albums, It's Too Late to Stop Now eschewed heavy post-production; although it was co-produced by Ted Templeman and went through the same mixing and mastering as any other major release, it's devoid of the in-studio overdubbing that's often used to bolster (or outright rescue) live recordings. In fact, Morrison's insistence that things be presented exactly as they were led to the removal of one song, "Moondance," because of an errant note from guitarist John Platania.
Although it wasn't a big hit at the time, getting no higher than No. 53 on the Billboard charts, It's Too Late was well-received by critics, and it's now widely regarded as one of the better live albums in rock history. But it also served as a farewell for the Caledonia Soul Orchestra: Morrison disbanded the group shortly after its release.
"I wanted to keep the band together, but it had got to a certain point where it had peaked and peaked a lot," he explained to Tobler. "It got to the point where it was getting overworked on one thing. I sort of tried bringing in other arrangements and some other new energy involved in the band, but it didn't work, even though I'd signed a new arranger, so we just decided to leave it for a while. ... I took actually a year or so off, when I didn't even play. I mean, a whole year went by, and I didn't even touch a guitar or anything, because I just needed the break."
That break ended up being temporary, of course: Van Morrison endured his share of critical slings and arrows over the years, but he's never stopped working. He's repeatedly tried to shrug off what he does as "a job," yet it's a job that, on any given day, is capable of offering a gateway to joy.  From: https://ultimateclassicrock.com/van-morrison-its-too-late-to-stop-now/

 

Lene Lovich - Lucky Number

Lene Lovich was born Lili-Marlene Premilovich in Detroit to an English mother and a Yugoslavian father. She moved to Hull, England when she was 13 and met there the guitarist/songwriter Les Chappell, who became her longtime collaborator and longtime partner.
Before signing to Stiff Records in 1978, Lovich was an art student, worked as a go-go dancer, busked around the London Underground and overdubbed screams for horror films. In 1975, Lovich joined The Diversions, a funk group that put out three singles and an album without success. She enjoyed her first chart success three years later when she penned the lyrics for French disco singer Cerrone's sci-fi dance hit "Supernature,".
In 1978, Stiff Records agreed on short notice to release Lovich's cover of Tommy James & The Shondells' "I Think We're Alone Now." Lovich and Les Chappell had to quickly write and record a B-side. The song they came up with was "Lucky Number."
Lyrically, the song describes how Lovich used to be happy enjoying the single life on her own - her "lucky number" was one. However, her attitude changes when a guy sweeps he off her feet. She never wants to be apart from him, so now her "lucky number" is two.
Lovich released three albums on Stiff Records: Stateless (1978), Flex (1979) and No Man's Land (1982). They spawned several other minor chart entries in the UK; one of them was "New Toy," which was the first hit song penned by Thomas Dolby, who played keyboards in her band.  From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/lene-lovich/lucky-number

Gentle Giant - The House, The Street, The Room

The group's second album lays it out in the liner notes: "We have recorded each composition with the one thought - that it should be unique, adventurous and fascinating". Although they'd come closer to that lofty goal on subsequent records, you can hear the various magical elements that make up Gentle Giant’s best work coalesce on this effort. The complex vocal harmonies found here are some of the band's most ambitious, while medieval interludes and unexpected musical shifts (in keys and meters) make their appearance.
Produced by Tony Visconti (again), "Acquiring The Taste" does feature a sludgier attack than later albums, at times suggesting King Crimson or even Black Sabbath (though much lighter on their feet than the latter). Wisps of mellotron can be heard in the opening "Pantagruel's Nativity" while heavy saxes lurk in works like "Edge of Twilight". Filled with dark and portentous sounds, "Acquiring The Taste" might be initially off-putting to listeners enamored of GG's more limber arrangements, but as the album progresses the band seems to visibly lighten up. The playful interaction on "The House, The Street, The Room" is one example of this, though its ending is as heavy as anything they've recorded (recalling the apocalyptic sounds of Van Der Graaf Generator). Using a similar musical theme, "The Moon Is Down" adopts a lighter approach, showcasing the interweaving of sounds from Kerry Minnear, Gary Green and Ray Shulman that otherwise seems to exist only in fits and starts.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=1145

Goldfrapp - Strict Machine

Oh goody, more electronic music! I can certainly speak intelligibly about this by now, no doubt! And you know what? I think I am slowly becoming a bit more knowledgeable. While re-listening to “Strict Machine,” the thought “I think this might be electroclash!” popped into my head. And then I looked it up, and was vindicated by multiple sources. Discogs. Wikipedia. AllMusic. 
Now, don’t ask me to define electroclash in any sort of concrete musical terms, because I’ll fall flat on my face. Actually, you know what, let me try: every Goldfrapp song I’ve heard contains a simulacrum of the “Boogie Chillen”/”Shake Your Hips”/”La Grange” riff. You can tell the temptation to just straight-up gank the entirety of “I Feel Love” was strong, so something kinda similar was chosen to get the job done. I can tell you my non-musical impressions of electroclash: Sex. Drugs. Filth. Single-entendre innuendo. Bright neon colors. Relentless energy (see “drugs” above). Soiled glitz. Tarnished glamour. Tight gold lamé. Big hair. Disco, but on the internet. Hated by most, but loved by many. Like disco, the scene was gay- and trans-friendly (in a pre-modern unwoke kinda way), so prejudiced assholes found it an easy target for ridicule.
“Strict Machine” is fun and cool, and more substantial that the trifles offered by Fischerspooner, Peaches, and other flagship electroclash acts. I can’t really explain why I feel that way–maybe it’s because Goldfrapp had already shown their chops on wildly-different first album Felt Mountain. Maybe it’s that Alison Goldfrapp had been in the game for a long time by the time her band donned the electroclash costume–“Strict Machine” dropped a week before she turned 37, and she’d been providing feature vocals on tracks by Orbital and Tricky for nearly a decade by then.  From: https://oneyearin2003.wordpress.com/2020/09/19/day-124-goldfrapp-strict-machine/

Mien - Hocus Pocus

Mien’s seeds were planted as far back as 2004 when The Black Angels vocalist Alex Maas and Elephant Stone sitarist Rishi Dhir shared a bill at SXSW. Their mutually complementary musical output was an obvious shoe-in for a collaboration, but it wasn’t until they attempted to cover an obscure ‘60s sitar-pop “banger” with The Earlies’ electronics whizz John-Mark Lapham years later that MIEN really started to build its foundation. With The Horrors’ synth guru Tom Furse joining the cause sometime later, the conception of this psychedelic supergroup was complete; and their knack for propulsive grooves and soft, synthesised dreamscapes is realised fully on this impressive debut.
Alex envisions the band as “Nico in her 80’s industrial phase mixed with George Harrison and Conny Plank”, and at the heart ‘Mien’ is the stellar fusion of tangible world instruments and understated electronic programming. Zen opener ‘Earth Moon’ is a cornucopia of tribal drums, sitars and flutes, offering a flowery alternative to some of the record’s darker, more electronic pieces. It’s the perfect mirror to closing track ‘Earth Moon (Reprise)’, which swaps out much of the exotic instrumentation for finger-picked nylon guitars, a subdued trip-hop beat and fluttering, tremolated synth chords.
‘Black Habit’ plays a clever trick by recycling the memorable bass line to The Horrors’ two-minute post-punk schism ‘Sheena Is A Parasite’ into a rumbling, synthesised sidewinder reminiscent of Neu or Wooden Shjips. Enduringly addictive and devoid of arty pretentiousness, ‘MIEN’ is evidently an album made by true connoisseurs of psychedelic music both old and new. Like-minded audiophiles will find plenty to cheer about across these ten tracks.  From: https://diymag.com/review/album/mien-mien-album-review 

Illuminae - Blood On Your Hands

These days I am so far behind on my reviews that even if I read the press release at the time the album was made available to me, I have long forgotten who was involved by the time I get around to playing it. Hence this was a wonderful surprise when it finally made it to my ears, and I wondered how such a well-formed band could have come out of nowhere, and in some places there was no doubt whatsoever that they had Troy Donockley (Nightwish, but for me will always be associated with Iona) playing as I recognise his work anywhere, so who was this band and who did they bring in? It transpired that the people behind this are multi-instrumentalist Ian Jones (Karnataka, Chasing The Monsoon) and singer Agnieszka Swita. While I guess Polish singer Agnieszka will normally be linked with Caamora, I have been aware of her other works as well and highly recommend searching out her solo album 'Sleepless'. Then they brought in a few others to assist, such as Steve Hackett (Genesis), John Helliwell (Supertramp), the aforementioned Troy Donockley, Craig Blundell (Steven Wilson), Luke Machin and Gonzalo Carrera while it was mixed by Joe Gibb (Massive Attack, The Cure and Leftfield).
The result is an album which is a delight from start to finish, encompassing a myriad of progressive styles while always steeped in the symphonic. We get Celtic, crossover, pop, and perhaps unsurprisingly some real theatrical. Agnieszka Swita has long been involved with Clive Nolan and the Caamora project, and of course plays the part of Amelia in 'Alchemy', and there are times when that style comes through, especially on "Black Angel". She has a wonderful voice, professionally trained, and her experiences allow her to work in multiple different styles and types of music while always in full control, with clear annunciation and a warmth which invites in the listener. Add to that the sumptuous arrangements and one knows this is a work of some import.
It is so easy to listen to, yet each time it is played it gets even better. Needless to say, everyone involved is a master of their instruments, but Ian has ensured that the guests are used for just that, so while John Helliwell has a huge impact on "Sign of Infinity", that is it. The core of this is a consummate musician and an amazing singer, and together they have delivered a wonderful album which is sure to be a firm favourite of any lovers of melodic crossover symphonic prog with elements of the stage. The next trick will be to form a full band and get this out on tour as music as strong this needs to be in the live environment.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=11713

Psychotica - Ice Planet Hell

LRI (Crash Crafton): For those who are not familiar with your career, can you give them a brief history of who you are and what you do?

Patrick Briggs: I’m Patrick Briggs and I was formerly the singer of Psychotica. Well, actually, I still am. I don’t know why I’m referring to myself as formerly. I’m now launching my first solo record. I’ve been in the music business, this is my 30th year!

LRI: As a child you began in theatre at 8 years old. What drew you to theatre & what memories of your first role do you have?

PB: I was eight when I wandered into a little theater in Burbank that was in our local recreation park. I had no idea that I had wandered into an audition for “The Seven Year Itch” but I had and being that I was the only kid there I won the role of Little Ricky. I remember being like a deer in the headlights and I’m sure I was terrible by all industry standards but I also knew this would get me out of the house that I hated being in so I was totally down with it.

LRI: When did you start playing in bands, it has been rumored that your first band included Tracii Guns of Guns N’ Roses & L.A. Guns fame, any truth to that?

PB: My first band, I was actually the backup singer for and that was this 90 something year old former Penthouse Pet who had been fucking Tommy Lee. So she put together a glam rock band to do a showcase at the Limelight in New York and the band consisted of Tracii Guns, Johnny B. Frank from Kingdom Come and Rikki Rockett on drums, and then me as the backup. I had never sang in a band before that. After the show, their management pulled me aside and asked if they could represent me, and that they were dumping the Penthouse Pet and because of it she never spoke to me again…..oh well!

LRI: What bands or musicians were an influence to you as a vocalist and performer?

PB: Boston’s first album & Parliament Funkadelic’s The Mothership Connection. Parliament was and is highly underrated as one of the leaders of the then glam rock movement but because they were black they were called a funk band. I learned how to do harmonies from George Clinton.

LRI: In the 80’s you moved to New York City and was working at the Cat Club when you were discovered by former KISS Manager, the legendary Bill Aucoin. What year was that and how long did he manage your career? Are there any memories of working with Mr. Aucoin you care to share?

PB: Actually my best friend, Raven-O & I were go-go dancers at the Limelight when Bill and Geoff Grayson approached me and asked if I’d like to join a band. We recently lost Bill unfortunately but he was an amazing human being. As charismatic as any of his acts were. Unfortunately by the time I got him as a manager he was on the decline and I’m not going to divulge in print any specifics but let’s just say he taught the rockstars how to party!

LRI: In 1994, you were managing Don Hill’s in New York City that hosted the legendary Squeezebox. You formed Psychotica to function as the house band of the Squeezebox but things went haywire & the band got signed to a major label after their first rehearsal, were invited to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame alongside David Bowie and Iggy Pop in a exhibit celebrating fashion in music at your first gig and asked to play Lollapalooza at your second gig. What was that time like in your life? Is that exhibit with your costumed mannequin still on display at the R&RHOF?

PB: At that time of my life I would venture to say that I had my head so far up my own ass that I wasn’t even able to enjoy what little success that I had…..unfortunate!

LRI: You recently stated that you were going to release an autobiography soon. Back in 1998 there was news of you releasing an autobiography entitled “The Tom Sawyer Complex”. That never came out. Will this upcoming autobiography be that book plus all that has happened since that time?

PB: The thing about “The Tom Sawyer Complex” is that it got picked up for development by Ted Demme. He optioned it and I don’t know if you know anything about books but it locks it up for a certain amount of time. Then he died. During that time, all this really wild insane shit in my life started happening. I realized where I’d ended on “The Tom Sawyer Complex” that my life hadn’t really begun yet, really. It is all that stuff and a whole lot more.

LRI: When do you think that will be released?

PB: I’m hoping the whole thing will come out in the middle of 2015. I want to package it as a, I don’t know what the term would be but release it as a book, chapter by chapter, with a song and a video. Basically a CD-Rom for every chapter.

From: https://www.legendaryrockinterviews.com/2014/07/02/when-the-laughter-muffles-the-screams-an-interview-with-pyschotica-frontman-patrick-briggs/

Buffalo Daughter - ET (Densha)

Music classified as “experimental” often triggers the same type of response as if you turned a corner and found a gang of possums mid-brawl: back away slowly, then run. The Japanese trio Buffalo Daughter might be relatable to a gang of possums, but instead of brawling they are hunkered around a microphone surrounded by an array of instruments. If you turned a corner to this scene, you may be more intrigued. BD is technically classified as indie rock, but I would venture to call them experimental in every sense of the word: They find a way to kick down boundaries of music without making listeners question, “is this even music?” Each of Buffalo Daughter’s seven albums has one-of-a-kind cover art, a track list filled with their mind-mashing sound and unpredictably clever music videos.
In the same way Gorillaz makes genre-less, aesthetic-less, unboxable artistry through the lens of their unique style, BD fans love them for their pointed ambiguity. In a world where so many musicians, media outlets and companies try to appeal to everyone, Buffalo Daughter leans into their niche and spoon feeds it to the lucky ones who fall hard in love with their music. We Are The Times echoes the patchwork structure of Buffalo Daughter’s past projects while incorporating lyrics that are honest, emotional and relevant.
Over the past year and a half, statements along the lines of “these are dark and uncertain times” rang in every conversation, advertisement and media outlet. Everyone had something to say, and Buffalo Daughter picked up the microphone in their own deconstructed way. There seems to be two sides to this album: the sprinkle, dance cuteness of “Music” and “Everything Valley,” and the dark, insidious, looming danger of “Global Warming Kills Us All” and “ET (Densha).”
“Music is the vitamin to live and die,” Buffalo Daughter prescribes in the opening five seconds of We Are The Times in “Music.” The language is critical here—in a time when health and safety are the world’s obsessions, words like “vitamin,” “live” and “die” stand out. Buffalo Daughter shares the importance of the music presented, giving listeners a deeper understanding of why they should listen to this album.  From: https://www.slugmag.com/music/national-music-reviews/buffalo-daughter-we-are-the-times/

Filter - Hey Man, Nice Shot

After spending over three years touring with and lending some recorded guitar parts to Nine Inch Nails, Richard Patrick decided in 1993 that he needed to go out on his own. He has said that he pushed NIN mastermind Trent Reznor to go more guitar-heavy with his pioneering industrial band, something that most certainly happened on the groundbreaking The Downward Spiral album in 1994. It would go on to sell more than 4 million copies in America.
Patrick felt confident with his own artistic vision, and with his band Filter he would eventually follow a similar trajectory to NIN whereby he would pave the way for the music, with band membership shifting over the years. After leaving Cleveland, where he had spent many of his formative years and joined up with Reznor, Patrick journeyed to L.A. with his demo for “Hey Man Nice Shot.” He has claimed he was signed by Warner Bros. within a day of presenting it to them. Eight months later, he returned to Cleveland to work on Filter’s first album, Short Bus, which would be launched by the song that landed him the deal. We explore the meaning behind “Hey Man Nice Shot” below.
Patrick found the lyrical inspiration for “Hey Man Nice Shot” from the January 1987 suicide of Pennsylvania State Treasurer R. Budd Dwyer. It occurred on the day Dwyer was to be sentenced for 11 counts of bribery for which he had faced up to 55 years in prison and a $305,000 fine, according to an Associated Press article from the time. No money was said to have exchanged hands. The public official spent 20 minutes on live television proclaiming his innocence, then shot himself to death. The incident shocked family, friends, and political associates, not to mention the viewing audience.
“When I was 24, I didn’t have life experience other than, ‘I’m in a lot of pain,’” Patrick told the Hammer and Nigel radio show in 2013. “And I don’t want to say that, because Trent’s already in pain, and I don’t want to be the guy that’s in pain. So I started to focus on current events, and one of the things that I had seen was this guy R. Budd Dwyer that had shot himself. I thought about the guts [it took] to do that, just either the insanity or the clarity or whatever. It’s very awkward—I actually met one of his relatives. And I was like, ‘It’s an anti-suicide song.’ Of course, if he holds a press conference, it’s going to affect people. I never really admitted to it until the song was already a huge hit, and then the record company started spilling the beans, leaking it a little bit.”  From: https://americansongwriter.com/the-gruesome-truth-behind-the-meaning-of-filters-hey-man-nice-shot/

Janis Joplin - Live in Frankfurt, Germany 1969

Janis Joplin apparently didn’t care much for European audiences. “I’ve been working. We did Europe, I went to Europe, I played over there for about a month. Scared ’em to death I think,” She boldly proclaimed. When asked if she had fun, Joplin responded with, “No, I had a terrible time”.
She thought the problem was that she was tapping into some primordial trance, while those watching on were clutching their pearls. Detailing further, Joplin explained: “Nobody really gets loose, and nobody rocks over there. They’re all so cerebral, they’re really cerebral, do you know what I mean?”. She was up there sloshing Southern Comfort, and they were looking on wondering where she placed in the canon of art. 
Needless to say, a lot of this fear about analysis over appreciation was merely in Joplin’s culture confused eyes. That much is readily apparent in this footage from her first show in Germany. Joplin is a star who could rattle the rafters of an empty airline hangar without a microphone in sight. Her power was unfounded. She was a one-woman riot that even an Oxbridge professor would struggle to intellectualise.
Flashing through a thunderous 33-minute set, she journeys through classic tunes like ‘Raise Your Hand’ and ‘Summertime’ with snippets of interview in between, before the final closing blitzkrieg of ‘Take Another Piece of My Heart’ before the awestruck Frankfurt audience. If they seem stand-off-ish, Joplin, then that is merely because their minds have been walloped.
It’s a performance that also serves as time capsule. After all, Joplin is as much of an icon of the 1960s summer of love era as the Michelin Man is of tires. Tousled locks, tie-dye garments and a freewheeling attitude were all part of her oeuvre, but the thing that made David Crosby crown her the queen of rock is a voice that forever threatened to take sputnik out of orbit and end the space race in an explosion of earthly peace.
Her three-octave range might not be overly remarkable but her strength across it was herculean. And with that voice, she extolled a message of blooming flower power with a few prickly thorns in the bunch.
In fact, one of her shows blossomed so riotously that the brave police officers present – fearing a knees-up en masse and the chaotic smiling hysteria that comes with it – did all they could to restore banal order. They clambered onto the stage and kindly asked the famed rock ‘n’ roll insouciant performer whether she would perhaps reverse her intent and try to assist them in subduing the happy crowd into a more manageable state of ennui. In short, her response was “fuck off”.
That’s Joplin for you! Her tragically short life may have been a complex one, but it is her daring ways, performative bravura, upbeat attitude and rafter rattling voice that sustain in the memory to this day. This performance is glowing testimony to that.  From: https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/watch-janis-joplins-first-german-concert/ 

 

Genesis - Foxtrot - Side 1

Genesis’ fourth studio album, Foxtrot, mostly follows the general style of the band’s previous album Nursery Cryme. Foxtrot continues to hone the band’s very distinctive vision of symphonic prog, combining pastoral moments of beauty with accomplished ensemble playing and slightly odd, often humorous, details.
The album’s opening ”Watcher Of The Skies” starts with an iconic Mellotron intro (the contraption was bought from King Crimson, who still had two of the pieces left after the sale) and then kicks off in earnest with rhythm section Mike Rutherford and Phil Collins chiming in with their rather intricate playing (the tricky arrangement was inspired by a Yes show the band saw, according to Collins). Collins has always been Genesis’ most skilled instrumentalist, but Rutherford really shines on Foxtrot too. His bass playing throughout the album is really tasty sounding and most importantly he and Collins play fabulously together.
”Timetable”, which follows ”Watcher Of The Skies”, is a somewhat disjointed, romantically and nostalgically tranquil song, dreaming of more chivalrous times. It’s not bad music by any means, and on many other Genesis albums it might show itself in a better light, but in this company it is helplessly relegated to the role of a pleasant filler.
”Get ’em Out By Friday” puts the album back on track in earnest. It’s a nicely rocking piece at times, but also a multi-faceted mini-epic with a lot of different phases (the song is ”only” a little over 8 minutes long).
The lyrics are a fun mix of sci-fi and social criticism, and vocalist Peter Gabriel changes his vocal style on the fly depending on which character in the story he is interpreting. Gabriel also does a great job on the album. His original, somewhat immature, rough voice with a hint of soul, which is quite unusual for prog, is extremely charismatic and fascinating to listen to. While avoiding being as alienatingly strange as, say, the voices of contemporaries Peter Hammill (Van der Graaf Generator) or Roger Chapman (Family) can be at their most extreme. It is no wonder that numerous neo-prog vocalists have taken him as a role model (of course, Gabriel’s theatricality on live stages also contributed to this). It is Peter Gabriel’s vocals that put several of the songs on the album in the classic category with their originality. Not to underestimate the great work of the main composer Tony Banks on the music of the album.  From: https://pienemmatpurot.com/2024/02/29/review-genesis-foxtrot-1972/

 

Geese - 2122

Last week, on a balmy November night in Brooklyn, hundreds of people were queuing up outside the Paramount to see Geese play the last show of their Getting Killed North America tour.
It’s never particularly difficult to identify a fan base on gig night, and Geese’s fans proved no exception. There was a heavy emphasis on band merch, both official and satirical, paired with denim jackets on denim jeans, plaid shirts, and the occasional Afghan coat. It’s exactly the kind of 90s grunge meets 70s bohemia look you’d expect from fans of what the media has declared to be Gen Z’s first great rock band. Not in recent years, decades even, has a rock band commanded this level of fixation among a rapidly growing fanbase. But, for this audience in particular, a scene that ranges from recent graduates to high school seniors whose parents probably think they’re at a sleepover, Geese are speaking directly to their experiences of the present.
I know this because I’m running up and down this queue, speaking to as many of them as possible. Are Geese Gen Z’s first great rock band? It’s a question that speaks to the hype bordering on hysteria around both their latest album, this summer’s ecstatic and sporadically existential Getting Killed, and their frontman, Cameron Winter. But first, a brief history for anyone not familiar with the thrilling crescendo of Geese from a high school rock band to genre-definers: their first album, Projector, was met with buzz when it was released in 2021; their follow-up two years later, 3D Country, which combined sounds of Americana and old-school psychedelia, planted them firmly on America’s underground rock scene.
For many of Geese fans, it was this sophomore album that got them hooked. “When I first got into 3D Country I was like, I’ve never heard anything like this before in my life,” Sarah, 22, tells me in the queue. “And it was the only thing I listened to for six months.” Another 22-year-old named Charlie tells me: “I was obsessed with 3D Country, I saw them live, and it was like going back in time and seeing a proper rock group. That’s what I’ve always wanted to do.”
23-year-old Winter then released the folkier Heavy Metal last year to great acclaim from fans, critics and Nick Cave. Folksy and often melancholic, this is not an album used on Instagram reels, and when I ask fans how they got into the band, “word of mouth” is the recurring answer.
It’s the kind of All-American rock story that invokes memories of great bands gone by. Their Brooklyn upbringing draws natural comparisons to the likes of the Velvet Underground and The Strokes, while their 20th-century school-to-stadium trajectory makes you believe in the virtues of the music industry again. In a discourse peppered with accusations of ‘nepo’, ‘TikTok friendly’, and the dreaded ‘industry plant’, Geese stand out as being wholly genuine. “This is the kind of band you could see at a house party,” says Dan, 22. 
“This is our Nirvana,” a fan named Nate proclaims. But tribute band, they are not – Geese are planted firmly within their generation’s zeitgeist. “They voice a lot of the anxieties of our generation,” adds another fan, who refuses to be named. “They’re young, they’re relatable, and a lot of the rock bands of the past ten years are very derivative. They feel really special in that way.”
It’s also a collaborative effort. “The energy of the fans feels like nothing else,” another fan named Dani explains. “We went to the free gig in Brooklyn and it was the happiest show. It feels like how I imagined some of the bands in the 90s would’ve felt like.” Other fans also brought up ‘Geese-fest’: according to 18-year-olds James, John and Dexter, if you turned up early enough, you could kick it with the band themselves and play video games. “They’re really nice,” John says. “We played [Super Smash Bros.] with [bass player] Dominic. We lost.”
And then, of course, there’s Cameron Winter. Winter, in a vein similar to a young Bob Dylan, toes a line between generational jester and spokesperson. The frontman is spoken about with a warmth by fans that speaks to a successful relay of personality that never feels curated or contrived. In fact, he is spoken about more like a mate. “Cameron’s lyricism has a spirituality that’s been missing among Gen Z-ers. I like that a lot,” Gabe, 20, tells me.
“He is a voice for a lot of like-minded young people that don’t really know how to express themselves,” says Noah, aged 22. “In a thoughtful and direct kind of way. There’s a lot of cultural statements in terms of fashion, but the way [he] puts things into words, poetically, is something I feel like we haven’t really had, in terms of storytelling.”
It’s a noticeable difference from the usual trappings of contemporary stan culture. Geese fans are not hysterical over the topic of Winter and his bandmates; their online social media presence is not obsessive fan wars, but rather, comparing notes on shows in comment sections. When the concert starts, and Winter sporadically speaks to the audience, he does so to a view of swaying bodies and the occasional joint, rather than a sea of raised iPhones.  From: https://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/69195/1/nirvana-geese-gen-z-first-great-rock-band-brooklyn-cameron-winter