PerKelt - Morana

Have any of you played in other bands?

Stepan: I have played just very briefly with a punk band called Poetické Odpoledne (Poetic Afternoon) and Bohemian Guitar Orchestra (if that is considered a band) back in the Czech Republic

Pavlina: I've played oboe in several orchestras and early music ensembles...

David: I've played in a melodic death metal band called "Shades of Syn" for 5 years in France.

Will:Yes! Many. At least 25 other full time bands and many smaller projects, as well as collaborating on various performances and recordings. Mostly I played with one3four, a math punk band, BAAMPHF!!!, an instrumental math metal band, Vultures Quartet, improvised music and modern composition ensemble, and a few other goth bands and Asian traditional projects, primarily. 

How is it that you started playing music?

Stepan: Music education is a big tradition in the Czech Republic. Primary schools of music are in every town, attended by many children, and, if you are lucky, have a good teacher, and show a hint of talent and interest, there is no way to escape playing music.

David: Since I was a boy I have always been attracted towards percussion and drums. At the age of 16 I decided to start playing drums and became self-taught; finally this year at 28, I've enrolled in Music School.

Will:I started beating on things when I was about 15. I wanted to join my high school band, but I was told I was too old. Then I went to university where there was a small music program and I took a few percussion performance classes and lots of classical music history classes, but mostly I started playing with other musicians outside of university then. That would have been about 1983 or before. Quickly, I ended up in a few bands, and in some cases made my own percussion. The start of a trend that continues through to today! Now I have completed a few music degrees and play music full time.

What are your names? / Who plays what? / How old are you?

Stepan Honc (30) on guitar

Pavlina Bastlova (29) on recorders, harp and vocals

David Maurette (28) on percussion

and Will Connor (51) on percussion.

Have you had other previous members? Stepan: many... Michal Benda on viola, Filip Tomanek on percussion, Karel Novotny on viola, Matej Stepanek on Cello, and after we moved to UK we have briefly played with George Seaton on drums and Maya McCourt on cello as well. PerKelt takes a lot of dedication and only the fittest survive :)

Did you make music even when you were young?

Stepan: Yep, if I don't count a regrettable experience with a super noisy metal drum when I was 4 years old (my mum loved it!), I started playing guitar when I was 7, wrote my first song when I was around 15.

Pavlina: What is it? I'm 29, I'm still young!

David: Since I can remember, I've always made up wood sticks to play on anything

Will: Constantly. I was always tapping on something or making noise generating devices (and often getting told off for it by my parents, who hated that I was leaning towards being a musician even when I was a child). And I’m still young, too...

Where are you from?

Stepan: Originally from the Czech Republic, PerKelt first formed around students of Conservatory in Pardubice. Now we live in London, UK

David: I'm originally French but I grew up in New Caledonia.

Will: Technically, I'm a resident of Honolulu, Hawaii. I grew up in the Appalachian Mountains of South and North Carolina, and I've lived in Juneau Alaska, Chengdu, Sichuan and Lhasa, Tibet, China, and I am currently in the Czech Republic until I return to the band in the UK, where we all live in London.

What year did the band form? 

Stepan: 2007

What's your style of genre? 

Stepan: we call it Celtic Medieval Speed Folk, or occasionally Progressive Celtic Music as we are writing more and more of original material these days. We like to describe it as a music that sounds like folk songs from their own country (we have exactly this feedback from people from Ireland, England, Spain, Brazil, Peru, Eastern Europe...) with some ancient tweaks, and generally played way too fast...

What inspires you?

Stepan: Everything around what sounds good. We have a massive background of classical music, the first idea to form a band came to us once we heard the River Dance and a Czech medieval band called Gothart. Since then it is whatever from Jethro Tull, Loreena McKennit, random rock and folk bands, Irish folk music, alternative scene, jazz, math punk, jamming with friends...

Pavlina: I think that my greatest source of inspiration lays mainly in traditional Irish music. Particularly Irish dance music. I simply love its vibe... And I am also very fond of classical and film music because it can express a huge range of moods and feelings and it's got a lot of dynamics and tension... Those are the elements which we try to put in our music when we compose.

Will: H. P. Lovecraft has always been and probably always will be my main influence for everything. Godzilla mythos is also high on the list, as well as kung fu / samurai movies, noise music, Medieval music, ethnomusicology, and all things Gothic and Halloween related. It all feeds in to my music somehow. Energy is the other big thing. Perhaps that’s vague or cliché, but if music doesn’t have the energy (not necessarily speed or volume, although, that’s fine, of course), it’s just not inspiring to me, so a intangble influence for me is aiming for a high level of (good) energy.

How often and where do you reherse? 

Stepan: Approximately twice per week at my house in Balham, London

How have you developed since you started with the music?

Stepan: We are still evolving but since I was 7 I definitely learnt how to play guitar better and since we started with the band I've learnt better how to arrange music, how to work with timing and orchestration, how to change time signature within one song seventeen times...

Pavlina: It's been a constant evolution since I was 4 and started playing recorders. A couple of awards from competitions settled my confidence; the Summer School of Early Music, which I regularly attended, introduced me to some music we later arranged with PerKelt; and performing technically demanding baroque pieces gave me the technique and sparkled the love for playing insanely fast. And, of course, 9 years of studies of oboe and playing in orchestra at conservatory and academy of music count too, with the background of music theory and harmony it's much easier to compose something interesting...

Will: I think this a question for the others, really, when referring to PerKelt’s development, but I would add that since I have joined the band, we have grown to be more “speed folk” oriented and taken a turn towards more rhythmically varied composition, and moved slightly away from straight forward Medieval sounds and even away from more traditional Celtic melodies, whilst still retaining a feel for it all. It's been a very fun development and I love the direction we are headed currently!

Do you have other interests of work outside the band?

Stepan: strictly speaking of work PerKelt is our full-time project, but of course we have another interests. For me it's nature, Pagan culture and Wiccan magic, poetry, Buddhism, philosophy, psychic explorations etc...

Pavlina: I am actually working on my first solo EP as well, and do abstract painting quite intensively.

David: I was working as barista/bartender but I just quit my job as school and PerKelt became the priority and took over most of my time, so good!...

Will: As Stepan says, PerKelt is our 9-5 job, but for me, in terms of non-PerKelt stuff, it's mostly Gothic and Asian cultural things, with many things relating back to percussion. (As I mentioned above) Lovecraft, old horror movies, Godzilla, kung fu and samurai movies and tv shows, XBox games, comics, Ethnomusicology studies, building instruments, Halloween, and I like to grow cacti. In addition, I still play a lot of other music, but PerKelt is my main focus. I play solo percussion dark ambient Lovecraft-influenced compositions and work on sound design for the Gothic immersive theatre company Dread Falls Theatre as my other main music outlets.

Are you looking for a booking agency, and what are your thoughts around that?

Stepan: We are just about to sign a big contract with one, so we are really keen to these things. Many agencies in London are quite incompetent but some really do their job great and it's a win-win situation, then. When you are an artist it's a great benefit for you to be able to focus on what you are good at and not be bothered by what you are not.

Are you looking for a label, and what are your thoughts around that?

Stepan: We absolutely want to keep total artistic freedom so major label would probably be avoided (not that we have any offer on the table :)). But to be honest this was never our main interest so I just hear rumors about labels pushing artists towards main-stream music, dictating what they can and cannot say on stage etc... Not really something we would like to do to our PerKelt baby.

Pavlina: Totally agree on this.

What made you decide to make this music?

Stepan: Coincidence... I happened to meet Paja and have exactly the same taste of folk music, preferably fast with strong melodies. Then we joined up with few schoolmates at conservatory and very quickly were offered a job as a band at one massive Medieval tavern to play regularly, which led us quite strongly to discover some great ancient melodies from 13th-16th century, but later we found that we need more artistic freedom. We moved to London and now we are rather curious what will inspire us next and where the band style will evolve.

Pavlina: I just always really wanted to create something new and interesting...

What are your songs about?

Stepan: Lyrics are mostly stolen from people who wrote them several centuries ago, so they are about random folklore things (trolls, drinking, animals, love, warfare...) or Christian topics. But we never really cared, most of them are in foreign languages so we use the vocals as another instrument rather than to bring some message to our audience... However, after few years in UK we are daring enough to write some lyrics, too. The last song Dancer in the Wind is about freedom, another one Going Home is about going home... so pretty much random things again :) We shall see in the future.

Who does the composing and writes the lyrics?

Stepan: I was always writing a poetry in Czech, so now when I actually speak English, I'm logically the source of things that rhyme again. With composing it's more interesting, because we all are involved in the process. Paja usually brings some short melody on harp or flutes, I get an idea to write something contrasting, then we all work on the harmony, accompaniment and argue about structure, and eventually our percussionists finish the full sound or bring some more ideas... It's pretty vivid, exciting and long process.

Do you start with the music or the lyrics? 

Stepan: Almost always with the music. Even if the lyrics are already written, we are quite good at bending them to fit the melody we like. Usually it sounds better than before.

Do you compose in a certain environment?

Stepan: Not really, sometime in the park, in the pub, or romantically at home with my laptop.

Pavlina: My ideas come so spontaneously, that I have a pen and paper with me on the bus, on the lift, in the coffee shop...

Will: The bus and the tube work well for me, too, and I have been known to wake up in the middle of the night, having dreamt of a new song bit and I have to go write it down immediately (or even call/email Stepan at some ridiculous hour), a la the late great Sun Ra writing for his Archestra.

Have you done any covers live? 

Stepan: If you consider 13th century songs from which we've grabbed lyrics and 8 bars of melody, and covered it with a 5 minutes song of completely different nature, then we are mostly a cover band :) But otherwise, apart from few jam sessions where we've played live Fee Ra Huri by Omnia, we don't do covers...

What language do you sing in? 

Stepan: I was looking forward to this question :) Old Galician, Old  Occitan, French, Swedish, Scottish Gaelic, Czech, English and few more are coming.

From: https://ghgumman.blogg.se/2015/october/interview-with-perkelt.html 

Red Hot Chili Peppers - Breaking The Girl

For Red Hot Chili Peppers’ 1991 album BloodSugarSexMagik (BSSM) the band seemingly had it all. A breakthrough album with 1989's Mother's Milk, a new line-up with the mercurial John Frusciante on guitar and major tours booked. Yet there was much messiness behind the scenes.
The band were still grieving for guitarist Hillel Slovak, who overdosed on heroin in 1988, a tragedy that prompted frontman Anthony Kiedis to beat his own heroin addiction. A few other guitarists were tried out before Frusciante arrived in 1989. Ironically, Frusciante would soon spiral into heroin abuse himself and leave (in 1992) for six years. On the bright side, the Chili Peppers had great new songs and a new producer, Rick Rubin.
Rubin was a maverick and bought ‘The Mansion’, a 10-bedroom pile in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles. The house had been used by actor Errol Flynn in the '30s and was once home to famed escapologist Harry Houdini. It wasn’t a typical studio, but Rubin and the Chili Peppers agreed they would record there for “the vibe”. Audioslave, The Mars Volta and Slipknot have all since recorded albums at The Mansion.
The basic chords for Breaking The Girl were written by Frusciante, partly inspired by Led Zeppelin’s acoustic forays Friends (III) and The Battle Of Evermore (IV). Kiedis immediately wanted to match Frusciante’s folksy neopsychedelic music to a lyric addressing his recent break-up with model Carmen Hawk.
Kiedis’ words also mused on fears that he was repeating the mistakes of his womanising actor father, John, who had bizarrely organised for Anthony to lose his virginity at just 12 with Kiedis Snr’s own 18-year-old girlfriend. Witness the lyric: “Raised by my dad / Girl of the day / He was my man / That was the way.”
The singer also later mused: “I began to wonder if I was following the standards of my father, jumping from branch to branch… As exciting and temporarily fulfilling as this constant influx of interesting and beautiful girls can be, at the end of the day that shit is lonely and you’re left with nothing.”
Clearly Breaking The Girl is no ordinary ballad. Unusually in the Chilis’ canon, it’s also in 6/8 time and a true collaboration. As Frusciante said of the Chilis’ modus operandi: “Everybody’s their own boss. I write the guitar parts, Chad does drums, Flea writes the bass and Anthony writes the vocals. Everybody makes suggestions about everyone else’s part. If you really want to do that part, you can do it, but everybody takes suggestions from everybody else.”
Bassist Flea has since revealed he wanted to adapt a “less is more” approach for BSSM: “I had been playing too much prior to that… If I do play something busy, it stands out, instead of the bass being a constant onslaught of notes. Space is good.”
Frusciante concurred, adding: “Space is a huge part of it. Like those parts of life when you’re able to kick back and do nothing – those are amazing parts of life. It’s the same with music… Mother’s Milk doesn’t represent the type of guitar player I am. I’m a bit embarrassed by the album, really.”
Meanwhile, Chad Smith’s Breaking The Girl drum parts were inspired by the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s Mitch Mitchell. “I was trying to think like Manic Depression, the Hendrix song, that tom thing… and that’s almost what Breaking The Girl is. I’ve always been into taking suggestions from other [band members]… Flea’s a very interesting pedestrian drummer and he’ll play a straight roll on a tom and I’ll move it around, but I wouldn’t have thought like that. I kind of digested [Flea’s] version and made it more drum-oriented.”
The percussive bridge is another story altogether. Smith recalls the whole band wanted a “metallic” breakdown. “We sent out the runner guy from the house to go to the dump yard and bring back big metallic pipes and stuff. We sat on the ground in the foyer and Flea had this big pipe and was beating it, and I’m playing [car wheel] brake drums and Anthony was playing a garbage can or something. Then we all kind of switched and double-tracked it and Brendan [O’Brien, engineer] put a mic out there and would say, ‘OK, now you sit closer, you sit farther’… and it was done in half an hour.”
Indeed, working at The Mansion encouraged such improvised recording. While Breaking The Girl’s metalwork was hit in the foyer, Kiedis recorded many vocals in his bedroom and all of Frusciante’s acoustic guitars for BSSM were recorded in his sleeping quarters. For Breaking The Girl, Frusciante played a Maton Messiah 12-string, down-tuned a semitone to Eb. A Mellotron was used for the ‘flute’ parts.
By the time the video for Breaking The Girl was filmed, Frusciante had tumbled into drugs and quit. The Breaking The Girl video is one of only two Chilis videos to feature Arik Marshall (who briefly acted as a replacement before Dave Navarro), the other being If You Have To Ask. But it’s Frusciante who plays both tracks.  From: https://www.musicradar.com/news/red-hot-chili-peppers-breaking-the-girl

Tanya Donelly - Pretty Deep

Question: I have the impression that your surname is Irish. Do you know much about your family roots? Do you feel much of a connection to Ireland or wherever else your family roots might be from?

Tanya Donelly: Donelly is Irish, but my family came over so long ago that I feel no direct connection to Ireland, other than a romantic one. I just recently developed an interest in genealogy and would like to learn more about my blood. I’m also Hungarian on my mother’s side—easier to trace because my great grandparents came over in the beginning of this century.

Q: Is it scary having your name on the CD cover rather than having Throwing Muses or Belly on there?

T: Yes.

Q: Do you feel comfortable being a solo artist?

T: More so now.

Q: Or does it just seem natural?

T: It doesn’t feel completely natural to me yet. I’ve got a band again in a way–the people I toured with are playing on this new record and will most likely do the next tour with me, too.

Q: How do you perceive your place in the marketplace? Are record sales important to you? Or do you leave that kind of stuff to your manager and others? Are you happy with a small cult kind of following? Or does having huge record sales appeal to you?

T: I’m more happy with a small cult following and the artistic freedom that comes with that. It’s also important to sell enough records in order to continue to make them.

Q: How different was the transition from the Muses to Belly, compared to going from Belly to solo?

T: Leaving the Muses was an amicable, sad experience. The Belly breakup was a less than amicable, sad experience. I think the Muses split was harder, because I was younger and much more easily freaked out.

Q: Do you feel like you’re writing music more for yourself now, rather than for a band?

T: Yes, although I still keep the people I play with in mind when I have certain noises in my head and when I’m thinking about parts. Dean, Rich, Elizabeth and Dave are very much part of the process on this record.

From: https://fairangels.wordpress.com/2018/05/12/brief-interview-with-tanya-donelly-1998-2/

Best known as frontwoman for Belly and sometime member of Throwing Muses, this first solo outing by Tanya Donelly is everything you’d expect. Issued on 4AD records in 1997, ‘Lovesongs For Underdogs’ does not always sound like great departure from previous work with Belly; but while not greatly different, it manages to pull together the soft sounds of that band’s ‘Star’ and rockier parts of ‘King’ on one release.  In that respect, it could be viewed as Donelly’s most “complete” record.
Released as a single, the opening number ‘Pretty Deep’ sets the tone for a lot of the record’s best moments.  It’s a brilliant piece of chorus driven alt-rock (with poppy edges), its ringing guitars evoking lots of great 90s vibes, while the quieter moments highlight Donelly’s fantastically breathy vocal style.  The chopping between loud and quiet is typical of the musical fashion of the time, and the multi-tracked guitars toward the end of the number have a great mix between dirty and clean, which in turn bring things to a solid climax.  From: https://www.realgonerocks.com/2013/03/tanya-donelly-lovesongs-for-underdogs/ 

Stevie Wonder - Live Cannes, France 1974

Ah, Steve! Oh, Wonder! You don’t miss much, do you? “Who’s eating that bread?” Stevie reaches over and gropes around for my hand and his fingers discover the piece of garlic bread I’ve just picked out of the basket on the bar. “Thought it was you,” he laughs. “You hungry? You want to eat now?”
No, no, I’m fine, Steve. Don’t let me interrupt. On his other side is Mike Sembello, Stevie’s guitarist, with an acoustic, and right here in the bar of the Fifth Avenue Hotel, amidst the cocktail-hour clamor, they are working out a tune which has been gestating in Steve’s head. “Um, Mike, let’s try it this way. Doo doo da doo... no, doo doo doo da doo... yeah, then a C-major seven, pom pom pompom, C-minor seven, then a D with a C in the bass.” He clears his throat and croons liquidly: “When I said love... each word... I meant... forever... But when I told you that... C-major seven... But when I told you that...”
Charlie Collins, Stevie's business manager, steals up holding a big Sony portable cassette recorder. You can never tell when Stevie Wonder is going to feel like working so they always try to have one of these cassette rigs handy in case that stray hit might pop out. Bar service comes to a screeching halt as the bartenders and the waiters crowd in to hear Stevie sing: “... each word I meant forever, uh, there it goes for four counts then on to F... I meant, duh, duh, duh, duh, forever. Okay?” Sembello plays it back as requested and an enormous grin spills over Stevie Wonder’s face. “Oh, that’s beautiful, that’s so beautiful.” He clutches my hand again. “I still got to work out the words.”
Tonight is an occasion. We are gathered here at the Fifth Avenue to celebrate Stevie Wonder’s return. Six weeks before he was nearly killed in an accident in North Carolina when the car in which he was riding ran into the rear of a lumber truck. A log from the truck’s payload had come smashing through the front windshield and had caught Steve squarely in the forehead. You can still see the great, raging pink splotch of a scar above his dark glasses. He was pulled from the wreck bloody and unconscious and remained in a coma for over a week. When he came to, his sense of smell was completely gone and it was thought at first that the damage might be permanent.
Steve responded well to treatment, however, and the smell returned. He wouldn’t be allowed to resume touring for a couple of months yet, or even to return to his normal rather frenetic work pace, but he’d improved sufficiently that a press conference had been held the previous week to announce to the rock cosmos that Stevie Wonder was back on the case.
I’ve just met Steve a little while ago here in the bar, but it is already clear that we are not to relate solely as writer and subject. Whatever objectivity I’ve brought into this is crumbling fast. My God, I’m thinking, I don’t want to write a press release on the guy, but I love him already. His time is my time, he says. All he has on tap for the week are a couple of rehearsals and some doctor’s appointments; for the rest we can do what we like, do the interviews, see some movies maybe, kick around Manhattan, or just lay back and screw off... whatever. Furthermore, he says, he doesn’t want to know anything about what I’m going to write. If somebody’s out to do him a job, they’re gonna do it, no matter what, he says.
And right now, anyway, it’s time to get down. Most of the members of Wonderlove, Stevie’s band, are gathered under one roof for the first time since the accident, and tomorrow rehearsals start for a new album. But tonight it’s party time—the juice is flowing, the music and the chatter are loud... folks are feeling good. These last six weeks have been tough on everybody but now Stevie’s out of the woods sure enough. And right now that boy is really cooking. He’s left off working on the new song, and with some of the Wonderlovers gathered round to chip in with the echoes and doo-wahs, he’s launched into a rollicking retrospective medley of wonderful Wonder goldies. Stevie’s head wobbles drunkenly around on his neck like a spent gyro and the whole place throbs as he slams into the prophetic finish of Higher Ground, his hit single currently dominating the AM airwaves: “I’m so glad he let me try it again/ ’Cause my last time on earth I lived a whole world of sin/ I’m so glad I know more than I knew then/ Gonna keep on tryin’/ Till I reach the highest ground... Whew!”
I’m telling you! Stevie, you are a piece of work. “Oh, this is fun!” he exults. “I’m having so much fun. Really. Everything cool with you, Burr? You having a good time?”
I can’t tell you, Steve, but I can’t help wondering what it is you’re cruising on. I mean nobody feels that good without a little help. “I don’t even drink, man,” Stevie laughs. “Not since the accident anyway. And never too much before that. I used to drink a little beer now and then, and sometimes a little Mateus. But I even cut the wine out when I heard what the Portuguese were doing in Angola. Drugs? I never did acid or anything like that, but I did try grass a couple of times. The first time was pretty nice, I got out there, but the next time was nothing but a lot of paranoia so I never went near it again. I love to hear people talking about all the junk I must be doing, though. You know, ‘There goes Stevie Wonder jivin’ around. Must be stoned again.’ Sometimes I’ll be sitting somewhere listening to tapes, like on a plane or something, and my head’ll get to going around like it does when I hear music, and I’ll hear somebody whisper, ‘Look at Stevie Wonder over there actin’ crazy. You reckon he on dope?’ That’s so funny. First of all, they figure that ’cause you’re blind you can’t hear them. And my moving my head around like that, that’s just what is called a ‘blindism.’ When you’re blind you build up a lot of excess energy that other people get rid of through their eyes. You got to work it off some way, you know, and it’s just an unconscious thing. Like a lot of blind people are always rubbing their eyes. Each person develops his own blindism.”  From: https://classic.esquire.com/article/share/5fd27dfa-6495-4dda-8e1f-8d071414f6b7

Bonnie Raitt - Old Grey Whistle Test 1976

Bonnie Raitt made her professional debut performing in and around Philadelphia in 1969 shortly after taking a break from college to explore a career in music. As a lover of folk music she heard at camp, she picked up the guitar around 9 years old to play songs by her heroes Joan Baez, Odetta and Bob Dylan. Always a fan of Ray Charles, Fats Domino and Motown as well, she first fell hard for the blues through The Rolling Stones and English bands who turned the world onto Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf in the mid-sixties.  She fell under the spell of Country blues at 14 and taught herself slide and blues guitar listening to records until she had the great opportunity to befriend and learn from legendary Blues artists like Mississippi Fred McDowell, Muddy Waters, Son House and Sippie Wallace. What started out as a hobby, through a kismet of timing and opportunity, became a career. A few of her performances were captured on TV during the 70’s, including her 1976 performance on the BBC’s iconic ‘Old Grey Whistle Test’ program recorded in London.  From: https://www.bonnieraitt.com/flashback-to-the-old-grey-whistle-test-bbc-1976/
 
In the 1970s, "The Old Grey Whistle Test" was a popular BBC TV show. Typically, it would have a variety of different performers for each show, but occasionally it would devote an entire show to just one artist. One such occasion was when the American singer Bonnie Raitt played a short concert for the show in London in 1976. Most of the songs are from her early 1970s albums, but she also does a couple from her latest at the time, "Home Plate," released in 1975.  From: https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2022/08/bonnie-raitt-bbc-concert-old-grey.html 

The Move - Shazam - Full album

1 Hello Susie
2 Beautiful Daughter 
3 Cherry Blossom Clinic Revisited  
4 Fields of People 
5 Don't Make My Baby Blue 
6 The Last Thing on My Mind

Very few Americans have ever heard of The Move unless they found themselves bored enough to dig deep into the liner notes for one of the Electric Light Orchestra’s commercial successes and learned that Jeff Lynne and drummer Bev Bevan were ex-members. Lynne was a johnny-come-lately, however, and did not appear on Shazam, a forgotten masterwork originally designed to properly introduce this long-popular-in-the-mother-country British band to the colonies, courtesy of A&M Records.
Things didn’t work out as planned. A&M was out of its league when it came to promoting rock bands (the “A” stands for Herb Alpert, for chrissake), and arranged a comically disastrous tour that required the band the lug their stuff around the USA in a U-Haul trailer. Creative and personal tensions between band members didn’t make things any easier. When the rubble had cleared, however, what survived was Shazam, one of the most fascinating rock recordings ever made.
The album has been buried for years, and I only vaguely remember hearing parts of it while growing up. I rediscovered it accidentally while browsing through iTunes and tracked down an extraordinarily expensive import CD version for my collection. I fell in love with it on the first listen, knocked out by Bevan’s drumming, the sheer diversity captured in a mere six songs, the intense riffs, the gorgeous harmonies and the great good fun captured in random street interviews and band chatter.
The album explodes with the no-bullshit guitar and pounding drums of “Hello, Suzie,” the story of a ditzy British teenybopper featuring an introduction that almost forces you out of your seat. Roy Wood growls out the lead vocal with good humor and strong support in the form of a thrilling backdrop of harmonies that come together with a huge exclamation point at the end of the bridge. I keep praying that somewhere out there a band will cover this sucker and use it as an opening number for a gig, as I’d love to see this done live with the same great energy as the original.
After a short interview with some native Brits, Carl Wayne steps to the microphone for the lovely and bouncy string piece, “Beautiful Daughter,” delivered in a perfect combination of romantic sincerity tempered by a touch of tongue-in-cheek and supported by the energetic strings that would later characterize early ELO recordings.
Then... a door creaks... footsteps...the door closes... and we hear a diffident voice narrating the story of how he would up going off his HEAD! The band explodes with heavy bass, drums, the works! This is “Cherry Blossom Clinic Revisited,” a high-power remake of one of their earlier songs, and a delightfully wacky remake it is. The heaviness fades into acoustic guitar playing Bach, no less, and ends with an over-the-edge falsetto picking up the tune and eventually blending into layers of perfectly executed harmonies.
Next comes the delightfully free-flowing “Fields of People,” spiced with chit-chat with passers-by, plenty of laughter, more gorgeous harmonies and one of the great drum rolls in history. Bev Bevan knocks me out on every song, and whenever I hear ELO today, I generally tune out the band and ride out the song with Bev. The song is an unusual combination of great fun and well-executed shifts that make for an entirely engaging listening experience.
The Move then go heavy-bluesy with their cover of “Don’t Make My Baby Blue,” which gives Carl Wayne a great opportunity to apply his naturally melodic voice to something with more oomph. The tone of the guitar anticipates the heavier sound common in 70’s rock, and the bass and drums provide an unusually strong bottom for a Move song (pre-Shazam Move tended towards baroque pop). Despite the variation from the norm, this is a strong performance that makes you wish The Move had gotten their shit together and explored the new possibilities suggested by this piece. Alas, they opted for a rebuild, and their follow-up album, Looking On, is a godawful mess (though I have always been rather fond of the song “Brontosaurus”).
Shazam ends with a long and again heavy cover of Tom Paxton’s classic, “The Last Thing on My Mind.” The Move’s version is nothing like the mildly pleasant folk original, with big guitars and pounding rhythms leading the way. Wayne does a superb job with the vocals and Roy Wood’s harmonies are dead-on, providing a beautifully sweet wrap to end this most unusual album.  From: https://altrockchick.com/2012/05/02/classic-music-reviews-shazam-by-the-move/

Mitsoura - Pala Late

Six years after the self-titled debut of the band around Hungarian singer Mitsu, Mitsoura deliver their second album. Was it worth the wait? Indeed it was. As it turns out the intriguing mix of traditional lyrics and music with modern arrangements that was already present on their debut was only a preview of what the new album has in store. Connecting original Roma lyrics from Hungary, Romania, Serbia and even Egypt with modern (electronic) music seems nice on paper but, as we have seen in the past, can turn out completely wrong. Not so with Mitsoura who display the ability to create a whole new musical genre on their own. You will recognise influences from Nordic groups like Mari Boine and Värtinna, gypsy brass band music but also modern electronic music that we hear from artists like Mercan Dede or Transglobal Underground. Even fans of Lisa Gerard and Dead Can Dance will find strands back. The sum of all this is not a copy but a highly original musical approach. Of course the typical voice of Mitsu is the centre point but the contribution of Andras Monori (a.o. bansuri, sax and sitar), Peter Szalai (percussion) and Miklos Lukacz (cymbals) is substantial. To top it off the modern twist comes from the programming of Mark Moldvai. ‘Dura Dura Dura’ is a diverse musical journey around Eastern Europe. From the epic titletrack to the hotblooded ‘Tutti Frutti’, from the stomping ‘Kelushka’ to the powerballad ‘Ederlezi’, from the raga influenced ‘Pala late’ to the introvert closing track ‘Le shavore’.  From: https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/mitsoura/dura-dura-dura/ 

The Temptations - I Know I'm Losing You

In this dramatic offering from The Temptations, David Ruffin gives voice to an anguished man who's losing his girl to someone else. Motown hitmakers Eddie Holland, of the Holland-Dozier-Holland songwriting team, and Norman Whitfield wrote the tune, along with guitarist Cornelius Grant, whose searing guitar hook opens the track. 
According to Temptations founder Otis Williams, Holland's lyrics often tapped into a female sensibility that translated into hits. "We knew that women love to hear guys pleading, begging, confessing, and basically admitting they'd made mistakes," he wrote in his 1988 autobiography, Temptations. "After all, it works so well in real life."
Whitfield took up the mantle as The Temptations' primary songwriter and producer from Smokey Robinson after "Ain't Too Proud To Beg" - another co-write with Eddie Holland - hit big earlier in 1966.
The Temptations had a lock on the R&B chart for 16 weeks in 1966 with four consecutive singles reaching the apex, the last being "(I Know) I'm Losing You," which held the top spot for two weeks starting on Christmas Eve. The lead single from the group's fifth studio album, The Temptations With A Lot O' Soul, it also reached the Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The Motown rock band Rare Earth recorded a 10-minute version for their 1970 album, Ecology. Also produced by Whitfield, the funky psychedelic-rock cover was edited for a single release and peaked at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 - one spot higher than The Temptations' original. Another Whitfield act, The Undisputed Truth, recorded a psychedelic-funk rendition for their 1975 album, Cosmic Truth. 
Rod Stewart recorded this for his breakthrough Every Picture Tells A Story album in 1971. Stewart told Rolling Stone that he and David Ruffin later became friends when both of their bands played in Detroit.  "Ruffin would come to every show and we'd sing '(I Know) I'm Losing You,'" he recalled in a 2004 essay for the magazine. "His voice was so powerful - like a foghorn on the Queen Mary. He was so loud."  From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/the-temptations/i-know-im-losing-you

Old Blood - Glowplug

Old Blood’s music has been called a number of things recently. As the band blend Doom, Psych, Stoner with a creepy Psychedelic Acid effect. Their S/T debut album is one I’ve been looking forward to for the past few months. Now it’s finally here. Fans of Black Sabbath, Pentagram and Uncle Acid will find much to enjoy here. The band’s main strength has to be their lead vocalist – Feathers – as she can sure hold a note to give Old Blood such a soulful groove.
Opening track Wolves is a creepy occult based number with twinges of murky blues rock that firmly remains in the Psychedelic Doom world. The lyrics have quite a playful vibe as they match the sultry tones coming from Feathers. If you’re here for the riffs then Old Blood have that area covered. As the music contains a heavy amount of different styles with an acid-style Fuzz based quality.
Second track Glowplug runs for an epic eight minutes as the band start to broaden their musical horizons. Classic Doom based noises are mixed with a more modern day Occult based sound. The band takes their time in creating a psychedelic Uncle Acid style atmosphere. Though they still create their own sound. Feathers vocals are a mixture of hollow earthly blues sounds and the heavier occult doom vibes when the band play a heavier kind of Doom/Stoner Metal.  From: https://outlawsofthesun.blogspot.com/2016/08/old-blood-st-album-review.html

Myrth - Don't Pity The Man

Myrth’s 1969 self titled album is their only release. This killer album is a something of a beloved if little known release from this Phoenix, Arizona band. It’s somewhat in the vein of brassy jazz rock bands such as Chicago and Blood, Sweat & Tears. Myrth also have different sides to their musical personality too which make this a standout. No sour notes here. My favorites are the sunny and melodic pieces “Gotta Find A Way”, “He Don’t Know” and “We Got To Stand Together”, along with the deeply funky “Myrtholate” and the more psychedelic soul cousin to it in “Mythadrine”, not to mention the more abstract psychedelia of “Shed My Skin”.  From: https://www.facebook.com/groups/359479891287024/posts/1558552544713080/ 

Meer - Something In The Water

I adore Meer. There’s something very warming about listening to them, for all that they lean melancholy rather than saccharine. Best described as symphonic/progressive pop and/or rock, their music is lushly textured, drenched in strings, and emotive, often reaching for a soaring crescendo. Meer’s previous album Playing House narrowly missed the top spot in my 2021 list. In hindsight, it should probably have taken it.
The good news is they haven’t broken anything that made Playing House great. I mentioned in my TYMHM piece that Meer has a sound: a sparse melody on piano or guitar, some strings join, a fragile vocal line, and a build of all of those up to a great big soaring payoff. That’s still present and correct in Wheels Within Wheels, and it even opens with a brief string motif that’s a deliberate callback to the previous record before setting off in its own direction. The even better news is that the writing outshines Playing House. Nearly every song is a banger. The big, catchy vocal lines are really big. “Golden Circle,” “To What End” and more are super satisfying to sing along to. They play with the instrumentation and writing a bit more. There’s more of a dalliance with rock, with more distorted guitar, a spot of slide guitar here and there, and solos on “Chains of Changes” and “Today Tonight Tomorrow.” Closing track “This Is the End” goes actively post-rock, with heavier instrumentation, an unsettling key, and a more complex, extended song structure.
Meer is an ensemble, not just a band, and the (very many) musicians here are great. They succeed by combining all the moving parts with a sense of orchestration that would make most symphonic metal bands blush. They’re confident across the whole range of styles they touch, from sparse to bombastic. Still, Wheels Within Wheels is never too busy, allowing listeners to pick out the details. There’s a bass bit I love on “Something in the Water,” some pretty viola on “Take Me to the River,” or the piano on “Today Tonight Tomorrow.” Yes, I’m writing for a metal website, but I really enjoy some songs being more rock and guitar-forward (“Golden Circle,” among others). I’m inclined towards having opinions on vocalists and often feel slightly bad about not having space to say as much about, say, Åsa Ree on violin. But Meer’s two vocalists and lyricists, brother/sister duo Knut and Johanne Nesdal1 are brilliant. They carry the emotional heart of the music, trading lead vocal roles and duets, from the tender and fragile to the big, belted choruses.  From: https://www.angrymetalguy.com/meer-wheels-within-wheels-review/ 

Little Feat - Easy To Slip

An early Little Feat song, "Easy To Slip" was written by the band's guitarist/singer Lowell George and his frequent writing collaborator Martin Kibbee. Kibbee had the original idea, then played it for George, who added the guitar part. It's one of those upbeat-sounding songs with lyrics that reveal dread and despair, with Lowell George singing about the good things that have slipped away, leaving him alone in a world gone cold. According to Kibbee, he wrote the song after his wife left him, which inspired the lyric.
Little Feat was angling for a hit with this song, keeping it lively with a compact production by Ted Templeman, who produced the Doobie Brothers album Toulouse Street that same year - 1972. "Easy To Slip" was issued as a single from Little Feat's second album, Sailin' Shoes. They won over critics with their self-titled 1971 debut album, especially with the song "Willin'," but it didn't translate to much radio play or sales. Sailin' Shoes faced a similar fate when "Easy To Slip" failed to chart. Their label, Warner Bros., stuck with the band and did reap some rewards down the road when their 1978 live album, Waiting For Columbus, went Platinum, but Little Feat never grew the huge audience many expected and remain one of those hidden gems in a pile of '70s rock. Group leader Lowell George is a tragic figure: Drug use and poor lifestyle choices led to a heart attack in 1979 that killed him at age 34. The band returned to action in 1987, with keyboard player Bill Payne remaining the only constant member. 
The song's writers, Martin Kibbee and Lowell George, started their own publishing company around this time called Naked Snake Music because they had lost the rights to their earlier songs. Pre-Little Feat, Kibbee and George were in a band together called The Factory.
Martin Kibbee was often credited, including on this song, as Fred Martin. This meant that the writing credit would go to "George/Martin." George Martin was the producer for The Beatles and this was their way to pay tribute to him.  From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/little-feat/easy-to-slip

MediaBanda - Dr. Vertical

MediaBanda's name is in homage to the memory of Jaime Vivanco. This was the name of the first group where he began playing keyboards with Willy Valenzuela (drummer) and Cristian Crisosto (flute & reeds) between 1979 and 1981. In 1984 , together with Arlette Jequier (vocals), Jorge Campos (bass) and Jaime Vasquez (woodwinds), they formed Fulano, a rock-jazz, fusion, avant-garde/rock in opposition chilean group. The band went on to play for eighteen years (1985- 2003).
MediaBanda has an intent of continuity, renewal, and a link between two generations of musicians. Those who lived the years without democracy, and those who don't have that burden in their memories. The result is a solid proposal, fruit of the union of experience and young ideas
The group develops a multi-style tendency, going from chromatic cumbias to rumbas, passing through jazz, pop, atonal music, reggae, instrumental music and rock. This versatility is possible due to the musical studies of its members. 
The lyrics situate the band in the national reality with a critic and constructive perspective, they are definitely not the kind of "boy meets girl" songs. They are stories related to our reality as a nation, as citizens of a merging, dichotomic, adolescent & bipolar country. The issues of our society are portrayed in the theme's names ("Chilean Wiken Again", the "Peligrosos Disfrazados"(Dangerous in Disguise), the "Jale, Copete y Pucho"(Coke, Booze & Smokes), adding irony and humour to a music full of difficult passages and changing atmospheres.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=2350

The Mighty Orchid King - Clouds

Would you like to talk a bit about your background? What bands were members part of before and how did it all collide to start The Mighty Orchid King?

We’ve often described ourselves as a collective and the cast of musicians from one record to the next tends to change quite a lot. On this album we had the original trio of Jonny (vocals, drums & guitar) Martin (guitar & vocals) and Pete (trumpet & vocals). We all went to school together and back then we just jammed for about 5 years without ever making any songs. Also on this record we have Marcelo on bass and sax who has a “cinematic-rock” band called The Vone, Michael on guitar who has a “cow-fi” project called Symbol Soup, and Ian who plays cello and is in a band called Vipera. Will is our in-house engineer/wizard and also played some keys and sang some BVs on the record.

How would you present some of the main influences? What in particular influenced you by certain artists?

A few years ago we decided to perform The Beatles’ ‘Abbey Road’ medley live to mark the 50th anniversary of the record. It was joyous bringing that psychedelic symphony to life and we got such a thrill out of sharing our vocal duties and trying to really jump into the crazy characters on those songs. That certainly felt like the seeds for what we ended up creating on our new record. We wanted to make something that jumps around a lot but is cohesive and segued.
More recent examples like King Gizzard’s ‘I’m In Your Mind Fuzz’ and ‘Nonagon Infinity’ were touchstones too as well as any live performance by White Denim (although we’ve long given up on coming close to their virtuosity!) We’ve been listening to a lot of Yes and are very drawn to the grand symphonic scale of their work. The Beach Boys are a constant influence from a vocal perspective but I think the sketch-like nature of some of the album was a specific nod to the ‘SMiLE’ record.
There were also bands / voices we tried to emulate on specific moments of the record to try and match the vibe of a character. We listened to a lot of The Doors throughout the composition of the record, and loved the idea of Reynard The Fox being voiced by either Jim Morrison, Iggy Pop or Mark Lanegan.

From: https://www.psychedelicbabymag.com/2022/12/the-mighty-orchid-king-interview-new-album-mycelium-music-volume-i-pinedemonium-awakes.html

Mary Jane - Wherever She Goes

Mary Jane hail from Southampton. The summer of 1995 saw both the release of the debut EP on 7" and the recording of the first album Hazy Days. Having secured deals in Germany the band spent their first 10 years better known on the European market rather than the UK. November 2010 and Talking Elephant released Eve and later a collection of their past music in the form of Brigits Daughter. Since then they have played more and more at festivals across the UK and Europe and are set for many festivals in 2014 playing music from Solstice. Lead singer Jo Quinn evokes memories of Annie Haslam of Renaissance as her soprano soars high on rocking original songs that often have a slightly medieval feel.  From: https://www.ebay.com/itm/236058606749 

Bad Company - Do Right By Your Woman / Silver, Blue & Gold / Run With The Pack

It could be said that the story of Bad Company began with a bang – the neck-snapping sound of those titanic drums coming in on Can’t Get Enough signalling the start of a band that sprang, fully formed, like a greyhound out of a trap. In reality the band’s origins were far from simple. “Oh, that’s a good question,” Ralphs says now, speaking from his home in Henley in the run-up to Mott’s own recent reformation. “I was unhappy in Mott, but I don’t think I would have just left without something else to do, no.”
And what of vocalist Paul Rodgers? After his short-lived foray with Peace, Free reconvened. But Rodgers became wrung out by the experience of trying to hold the band together with a guitarist, Paul Kossoff, whose drug problems would lead to his death. In fact, Rodgers had been planning a solo album before Ralphs happened to play him a demo of a song called Can’t Get Enough that he’d written for Mott, but which vocalist Ian Hunter had rejected on the – understandable – grounds that he couldn’t sing it. Rodgers is still incredulous at the memory. “I said: ‘Well, you give it to me and I’ll do it’.” Even then, Ralphs says, “we weren’t really planning on having a band, we were just talking about recording some songs together. Then Simon [Kirke] turned up and started playing and that was it.”
Free drummer Kirke was another victim of the post-Kossoff fall-out. “It was a huge release when Free broke up,” he says now. With Kirke at one point even having to show Koss the chords to All Right Now before a gig at the Albert Hall because the guitarist was so damaged by downers he could no longer recall his own band’s greatest hit, Bad Company was “enough already. Let’s have some fun.”
Speaking from his home in Connecticut, Kirke recalls how “you couldn’t have been further away from Paul Kossoff than Mick Ralphs. I wasn’t interested in any more geniuses. Mick drank – of course he drank, he was from Hereford! – but he was great fun. And he brought Rodgers out of his shell. By the end of Free, Paul had his back to the audience, he didn’t want to know. Then Ralphs came along with his Max Wall impressions and the whole thing changed – and for the better. Paul really blossomed with Mick.”
Built on the ruins of Free, what Ralphs is less ready to admit today is that the beginning of Bad Company also spelled the end of Mott The Hoople. Ariel Bender and then Mick Ronson joined the band on guitar; ‘Ronno’ teamed up with Ian Hunter; the Hunterless band continued as plain ol’ Mott… it was never quite the same.
A surprisingly self-effacing chap in person, with a nicely lilting West Country accent, Ralphs insists: “I would never have dumped them in it.” He likens his early meetings with Rodgers as “like being married [to Mott] and having a bit on the side”. Not because it was a secret, he says, but because he couldn’t wait to leave Mott. “I told Paul: ‘We’ve got to finish off this album [Mott] and then we’ve got to do this American tour that was already planned’. Paul said: ‘That’s fair enough. I’ll wait for you to get back’.”
For Ralphs, the music of Mott, the incoming kings of glam rock, had become too stylised. “I wanted something more bluesy, more simplistic, more earthy” – phrases that would sum up Bad Company to a tee. The antidote to the glitter overkill that Mott – along with their mentor, David Bowie – now personified, Bad Company would be the defiantly unprogressive rockers who played it straight down the line, their music influenced more by blues and soul than by passing trends.
Other pieces of the jigsaw “just fell into place”. Beginning with the band’s name. “I already had the song Bad Company,” Rodgers explains, chatting down the line from his lakeside Canadian home. “And I thought it would be kind of a first for the band to have its own song theme.” When he phoned Ralphs and suggested Bad Company as the band’s name, “he dropped the phone! We both said: ‘That’s it!’. Names are so important. They’re really the war flag under which you fly.”
The title was inspired by the 1972 American Civil War movie Bad Company about two young men who escape the draft by becoming outlaws – an allegory for a generation of hippies then in fear of being drafted to Vietnam – which was billed as the first ‘acid western’.
“The record company felt it was a dangerous name – too over-the-top. I explained it wasn’t about being as evil as we can or anything of that nature. I meant it in terms of the early settlers; the real, gritty toughness of it… It was really the law of survival, and that’s the kind of essence of that song. But there was a tender side, too, an emotional side. Those people would look at the wonders of the land they were in, and be moved by it. So you could open out musically.”
Or they would once they had a bass player. Enter former The Boz People singer and, later, novice King Crimson bassist, Raymond ‘Boz’ Burrell. “He was playing a fretless bass, but I doubt if he’d been playing it more than a year,” Kirke chuckles. “Robert Fripp had just shown him the basics. But he came in and he looked great; good-looking guy, beard, fringe jacket. Mick said: ‘We’re gonna do Little Miss Fortune, it starts in G…’. Boz said: ‘Just give me the key, I’ll figure it out’. And he played it bloody well! We said: ‘Do you want the job?’ He said: ‘Yeah, all right’.”
Band name and musical direction sorted, next on their ‘to do’ list was get a manager and a record deal. As chance would have it they got both of those in one, over-large package called Peter Grant, the Led Zeppelin manager then overseeing the launch of Zeppelin’s own record label, Swan Song. Rodgers was encouraged to phone Grant by former Free tour manager Clive Coulson, who was now working for Zeppelin. Like Kirke, Rodgers does an amusingly accurate impersonation of Grant’s famously nasal voice.
“He said: ‘Yes, I know about you. I’m interested.’ I explained it wasn’t just me, it was a band, and he went: ‘Hmm, I see…’.” Grant agreed to go along to the Surrey village hall where they were rehearsing. Kirke tells the story of the band waiting all afternoon for him to show up. Then, just as they’d given up hope, he strolled in. “We were so pleased. We said: ‘Hello, Mr Grant. Welcome. We’ll run through the set’. He said: ‘Don’t bother, I’ve heard it’. He said: ‘I knew you’d probably be a bit nervous so I just stayed out of the way’. He’d been sitting in the Porsche, having a ciggie, listening through the wall. That was the first inkling we had that this guy was something special. Because he had quite a reputation, and we were nervous. He said: ‘I think you’re great. Would you like to be on Swan Song?’.”
The rest, as they say, is history – though not always as it’s been written over the years. As Kirke acknowledges, the received wisdom now is that “we had Peter Grant and Led Zeppelin behind us; we couldn’t fail”. Things are never that easy, though, as any of the other half-dozen acts signed to Swan Song over the next two years – not one of whom enjoyed the level of success Bad Company did – would doubtless testify.  From: https://www.loudersound.com/features/bad-company-the-bad-old-days

Aux Couleurs Du Moyen Age - Ut Queant Laxis

For nearly 25 years, the group "Aux Couleurs du Moyen Age" has been touring medieval France. In the early days of this "honorable" company, music was just one of the assets of their dynamic and festive performances, which combined fanfares, revisited ancient songs, folk dances, juggling, fables, and chivalrous combat… However, it was the musical aspect of these performances that quickly attracted public attention, and from the very first year, their success was phenomenal. The group was invited to the biggest festivals and events in France, such as the 800th anniversary of Chartres Cathedral, the "Jeanne Hachette" festivities in Bayeux, the Grand Fauconnier festival in Cordes-sur-Ciel, the Remparts festival in Dinan, the Roi de l'Oiseau festival in Le Puy-en-Velay, Provins, a French casino, and many more. From 1996-1997 onwards, various groups of young musicians followed in their footsteps: this marked the beginning of the renaissance of medieval festivals in France. Today, without nostalgia or a backward-looking approach, the group "Aux Couleurs du Moyen Age" is primarily dedicated to music from the 12th to the 16th centuries, while also drawing on traditional repertoires closer to our time (Sephardic romances, Breton hymns, dance tunes from Europe and the Mediterranean basin). The large number of ancient instruments used for each concert program, thus offering a variety of unique soundscapes, the fervor and freedom of expression with which the artists invest themselves in their interpretations of the music, songs, and dances, and finally, the costumes, a true touch of deliberate artistry, make each "Couleurs" concert a captivating musical and poetic journey.  Translated from: https://www.couleurs-moyen-age.com/ 

King Crimson - 21st Century Schizoid Man / I Talk To The Wind / The Court Of The Crimson King

21st Century Schizoid Man

In the Court of the Crimson King starts with a terrifying introduction for those unfamiliar with King Crimson’s musicality or progressive rock. In fact, it’s a punch in the gut. Obviously, nothing on this album came from a creative vacuum—the influence of Sgt. Pepper’s on this track is notable. The band members made it clear — King Crimson wouldn’t have existed without The Beatles. The dissonance and sound collages, for example, are strikingly similar to ‘A Day In The Life.’ I think the most incredible thing about this song is the polyrhythmic sections. It’s quite difficult for musicians to execute this as well as it’s done on this track. ‘A Love Supreme’ (1965) by John Coltrane was also a starting point when it comes to harmonic exploration, which evidently influenced many bands during this period.
What I find particularly fascinating and unmatched is how classical music was utilized. In this track, for example, chromaticism and dissonance are clear influences from contemporary musicians such as Edgard Varèse and Bartók (I intend to write an article about Bartók later on). Greg Lake and Robert Fripp are self-proclaimed fans of the genre, and they incorporated classical music into their later works.
The parameters of progressive rock were established right at the beginning of this album. It was evident — the polyrhythms and dissonance became defining criteria for what was to come, along with elements of jazz fusion and classical music. 21st Century Schizoid Man is, in my view, a great summary of progressive rock.
However, an album of this magnitude brought influence beyond progressive rock. I often ask myself if industrial music would exist without In The Court of The Crimson King, for example. When I listen to Nine Inch Nails, the muffled and distorted vocals clearly remind me of this track. Other tracks outside of prog that I could mention include War Pigs (Black Sabbath, 1970) and Bleak (Opeth, 2001). There is much debate over what truly defined progressive metal — and while the album Red solidified this, I believe the ideas were already laid out in this track.

I Talk To The Wind

At the end of the first track, the anxiety and guttural despair are muffled by a melancholic and hopeless sound. I Talk to the Wind is sad, and filled with morbidity. “The wind does not hear” gives us the idea that death might be the best solution for a soul troubled by pain. The comfort of eternal rest is not a fatalistic idea, but rather beautiful and comforting for the character embedded in the album. Here, I find it interesting to highlight something. Being a fan of medieval music, I see a very clear influence here. The medieval revival was already evident in the music and fashion of the late ’60s, but here it is represented in a distinct, more complex way. The harmony is quite modal, not strictly following the chord patterns of Western music. Here, the influence of folk and classical music is clearly evoked.
Lamento di Tristano (Minno Amor, Cantiga 29) by the 14th-century musician Carlos Magraner reminds me of this track. La harpe de mélodie by Jacob de Senleches also clearly comes to mind. As a fan of the medieval revival music of the ’70s, I believe this track was an essential influence on later works by bands like Steeleye Span, Midwinter, Forest, and Spirogyra, which evidently became a significant influence on post-rock and shoegaze, for instance.

The Court Of The Crimson King

The Tyger (1794), by William Blake, questions the duality of divinity. How could God, so perfect in His mercy, create the Lamb of God — and, on the other hand, create evil? How can something so perfect also create something so destructive? After all, what is His true nature?
The Court of The Crimson King is Peter Sinfield’s great masterpiece. Here, we witness the grand farewell of the work. Indeed, the entire piece is steeped in theology and mysticism, somberly and gloomily, contrasting with the mysticism bathed in positivity that emerged in the ’60s. The album’s farewell, marked by this track, also unintentionally marks the farewell of the hippie generation. The poetry, characterized by a medieval aesthetic but with deep roots in Romantic literature, is implicitly filled with layers of criticism and anguish about a period full of wars and conflicts, especially the Vietnam War and the Cold War. “One soft morning windows cry, the wise men share a joke” made that quite evident.

The keeper of the city keys
Put shutters on the dreams
I wait outside the pilgrim’s door
With insufficient schemes
The black queen chants the funeral march
The cracked brass bells will ring
To summon back the fire witch

“I wait outside the pilgrim’s door with insufficient schemes” is, like Blake’s poetry, a question about the very nature of the divine. If Blake’s work questions His morality, in this track the lyrical voice questions the very nature of its salvation. What must we bargain for?
 Relayer (Yes, 1974) and Turn of the Century (Yes, 1977) are examples that I believe continue Sinfield’s magnificent work, combining baroque poetry and protest within the musicality of progressive rock. King Crimson made it possible for young writers, not afraid of embellishment and exaggeration, the liberty to speak and replicate their passion through rock music.

From: https://rocknheavy.net/in-the-court-of-the-crimson-king-a-historical-analysis-0bbe3f59f78a

Vanishing Twin - Pensiero Magico - 2021 Concert Film

 Vanishing Twin - Pensiero Magico - 2021 Concert Film - Part 1

 

 Vanishing Twin - Pensiero Magico - 2021 Concert Film - Part 2

 

This is a concert film and live album from one of my very favorite bands, psychedelic pop legends Vanishing Twin. It’s excellent as a watch or a listen with the theatrics and the raw musicianship both being top notch. The version of the band documented here consist of the incredible rhythm section of Valentina and Zongamin aka V/Z, one of the most psychedelic songwriters and talented vocalists in the business Cathy Lucas, and the synth experimentalist Phil MFU (who has since departed the group.)
This film, musically and visually, is one of the finest live sessions of the 2020s. The prodigious band is costume clad and filmed in black and white. The direction accents the otherworldly songs and doubles down on the feeling of mystery and possibility contained in the music. The songwriting and the instrumental virtuosity are given equal attention across the set. It’s a performance with a real musical and psychic weight to it that highlights the way cinematic and experimental kinds of music can perfectly soundtrack the inherently strange and epic experience of being a conscious living being.  From: https://thelastpsychedelic.blog/2025/09/08/vanishing-twin-pensiero-magico-live-2020/

 

The Animals - Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood / We Gotta Get Out Of This Place

 The Animals - Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood

 

 The Animals - We Gotta Get Out Of This Place

 

Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood was written by Horace Ott, Bennie Benjamin and Sol Marcus. Benjamin and Marcus were a songwriting team that had been working together since the '40s; their compositions include "Lonely Man" by Elvis Presley and "Fabulous Character" by Sarah Vaughan. Ott is an arranger who worked on tracks for Nat King Cole and Aretha Franklin, and later gave life to most of the Village People's material - you can thank him for those horn lines on "Y.M.C.A."
Ott started writing the song after getting in a heated argument with Gloria Caldwell, whom he had recently married. Sitting down at the piano, he expressed in song how he was well intentioned, but misunderstood by his wife - a sentiment many married men could relate to.
Gloria Caldwell is listed on the credit instead of Ott because of contractual issues. She learned to understand him: the couple stayed together.
Nina Simone was the first to record this song, releasing an orchestrated, downtempo rendition on her 1964 album Broadway-Blues-Ballads that nicked the US chart at #131. The best-known version is by The Animals, who reworked it into a rock song. Eric Burdon recalled in Rolling Stone magazine, "It was never considered pop material, but it somehow got passed on to us and we fell in love with it immediately."
In our 2010 interview with Eric Burdon, he said: "I've really been misunderstood. By my mom, my dad, school teachers, a couple of the women that I married. I've been misunderstood all of my life."
In 2013, Eric Burdon recorded a new version of this song with Jenny Lewis for the HBO TV series True Blood. "When I was asked to record a new version of 'Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood' for the new season with Jenny Lewis, I had to bite," Burdon said of recording the song for the vampire drama.  From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/the-animals/dont-let-me-be-misunderstood

We Gotta Get Out Of This Place was written by the husband and wife songwriting team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. Mann had just signed a record deal and recorded this song himself, but his version was pulled when The Animals released the song. Mann and Weil were very productive in the mid-'60s, as they made the transition from writing fluffy pop songs like "Blame It On The Bossa Nova" to songs with more of a message, which appealed to rock bands like The Animals.
The Animals producer Mickie Most heard this song and had the band record it. He was looking for American material as he was trying to break the band in the States, and had a call out to the New York City songwriters in the Brill Building and 1650 Broadway looking for songs.
Animals lead singer Eric Burdon came in #57 in a Rolling Stone poll to find the greatest singers of all time. On this song, he delivers an anger and energy that was an influence on later punk bands. In our 2010 interview with Eric Burdon, he said: "I've always viewed myself as a punk. The Animals could have evolved that way. We had the energy and the anger, but we didn't stick together. When the punk scene became commercial, I was all for the politics of the movement, but the music didn't really stand up and ultimately, it was self destructive."
There are two entirely different recordings of this song by The Animals. The US single version is an alternate take, shipped to MGM, The Animals' American record label, by mistake. Nevertheless, this is a far superior version of the song. Unfortunately, it's this version that's played by almost all Oldies radio stations today. 
Adrian Cronauer (the movie Good Morning Vietnam was based on his life) mentioned on a special Independence Day show on Sirius Satellite Radio that this was the most requested song on Armed Forces Radio when he was in Vietnam. 
At the 2012 SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, Bruce Springsteen talked about this song when he gave the keynote speech. After reciting the lyrics, he said, "That's every song I've ever written." Bruce was referring to his penchant for writing songs about getting away in search for something better in life.  From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/the-animals/we-gotta-get-out-of-this-place

 

 

Sneaker Pimps - Post Modern Sleaze

In the 1991 movie Thelma & Louise, two women from Arkansas who escape their humdrum routines by going on a road trip where they leave a trail of destruction before driving off a cliff. The film touched a nerve with many women who felt constrained by their everyday lives and unsatisfied with their partners. Many of these women set out on road trips of their own in what some in the mental health community labelled "Thelma & Louise Complex." 
Sneaker Pimps, a trip-hop act from England, were quite amused when they read about this in a newspaper, and wrote "Post Modern Sleaze" in response.
According to Sneaker Pimps guitarist Chris Corner, this song was inspired by his sister, Deb. "She's a post-modem sleaze - an odd person - pretty f--ked-up," he told Vox in 1997. "Love her though I do, I think she's psychologically unstable."
The video was directed by Howard Greenhalgh, who also did Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" and System of a Down's "Question!" Sneaker Pimps lead singer Kelli Dayton dons a wig to portray a woman from the South in the Thelma & Louise style. "It's an indictment of the American road movie and the power it has in glamorising problems and suggesting that everyone should be on a quest for self-discovery," Pimps keyboard player Liam Howe said.  From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/sneaker-pimps/post-modern-sleaze

Sweet Pill - Dog Song

In less than five years, Sweet Pill has gone from a local band playing rowdy hometown shows all over Philadelphia to a five-piece touring across North America. What started as a college project for guitarist Jayce Williams (the band’s lone New Jerseyan) and frontwoman Zayna Youssef has expanded into a fully formed band that’s already garnering recognition from artists like Hayley Williams and La Dispute. 
Williams and Youssef say it was when they rounded out their lineup and added Sean McCall on guitar, Ryan Cullen on bass, and Chris Kearney on drums that they really became what people know as Sweet Pill. Together, Sweet Pill is crafting a love letter to the Philly music scene and its community through their music — which is exactly what they aim to share with the rest of the world, show by show. 
In May 2022, the band released their first LP Where the Heart Is, a 10-track record full of emo anthems that fuse hardcore with pop sensibilities. Their title track takes math rock elements and blends them with strong melodic hardcore guitar riffs and punchy lyrics — confidently introducing the band to the world through their freshman effort. 
You don’t have to look any further than the album’s cover art to see the impact Philly has had on the group. “The painter [who did the album art] was my neighbor in South Philly. During quarantine when I used to hang out on my roof, he would be out there on this roof painting,” Williams says. “I would play my guitar and he’d always tell me I should write a record. I was like, ‘I did,’ and sent it to him.”
Little did Williams know: His next-door neighbor was artist Kerry Dunn, a successful portraitist whose award-winning work has been exhibited across the country for over three decades. Through neighborly camaraderie and a shared love of art and music, Sweet Pill and Dunn collaborated to create a portrait for Where the Heart Is that has been captivating prospective listeners since the album’s release. 
“The album art helped a lot with people randomly listening to us,” Youssef says of the eye-catching image of her own likeness. After fans were reeled in by the art, they found that Sweet Pill’s music speaks for itself, and kept coming back for more. “All it took was somebody to share it with somebody.”  From: https://www.altpress.com/sweet-pill-where-the-heart-is-interview/