Heart - Heartless / Devil Delight

The success of 1975's multi-platinum album Dreamboat Annie left members of Heart feeling pretty good about their future. They'd become a tight unit following opening stints for acts like the Doobie Brothers, Rod Stewart, the Beach Boys, and Jefferson Starship, as well as headlining dates in clubs around North America.
New material they were writing showed the depth of the creative impulses Heart was marshaling through so much road work. The songs also rocked, of course, but they were also coalescing around a motif which Heart intended to turn into a concept album called Magazine.
"There was a whole theme behind it, where all the songs were going to be like articles in a magazine all tied together," singer Ann Wilson told Goldmine. "There was going to be a booklet that was shot like a really cool artistic fashion magazine. And not just fashion, but news and stuff like that that we would make up."
While the band was not short on creative spark, there was trouble afoot with their business relationships – namely with their record company, the small Canadian indie label Mushroom Records. The unexpected windfall of cash Heart had brought in with Dreamboat Annie led Mushroom to indulge in some previously impossible expansion.
"The label had attempted to leverage our success by signing more bands, adding U.S. distribution, and raising their industry profile," Ann Wilson said in the band's 2012 memoir Kicking & Dreaming. "Sometimes they did that with money that might have gone toward paying us royalties we were owed."
Guitarist Roger Fisher told Sounds in 1977 that Heart "had only seen royalty payments for less than a fifth of the two and a half-million copies of Dreamboat Annie that were sold."
As they gathered to record Magazine, Heart brought in a new management team whose first task was renegotiating the group's royalty rate with Mushroom. Additionally, other record companies came calling after sensing that Heart might soon be available. Wilson and her guitar-playing sister Nancy declined to pursue these options. They preferred to remain faithful with the label that first believed in them, in spite of the difficulty of the negotiations. That all ended with one magazine ad.
"[Mushroom] bought a full-page ad in Rolling Stone touting our success," Wilson recalled. "'Million to One Shot Sells a Million,' read the headline. They had mocked up the ad to look like it was the front page of the National Enquirer."
Further down the advertisement was a more troubling mock "story" containing a photograph of the Wilson sisters, bare-shouldered and back to back (as they were on Dreamboat Annie's cover), with the caption "Heart's Wilson Sisters Confess: 'It Was Only Our First Time!'"
The ribald double-entendre infuriated the group. "The ad went against everything we had hoped to achieve, against our ideals, and against all the intent and beauty in our songs," Ann Wilson wrote in Kicking & Dreaming. "What steamed us the most was that our own record label had put out an ad that implied we were incestuous lesbian lovers."
The advertisement was the final straw for Heart, who sued Mushroom in federal court for royalty payments and to get out of their contract. Also at issue was the status of Mike Flicker, Mushroom's house producer, who had discovered the band and produced Dreamboat Annie.
Amid the noise of Heart's warring with Mushroom, Flicker had either quit or been fired from the label, depending on whom one asked. That gave Heart what they felt was a legal out from their deal: They had a "key man" clause in their contract, stipulating if Flicker left Mushroom, the band could walk.
Heart began negotiating with other labels, eventually signing with Portrait Records and beginning work on the record that would become 1977's Little Queen. In retaliation, Mushroom got to work on producing an album around the handful of tracks that had been recorded for Magazine.
"They took the few tracks that were nearly done and completed them without our involvement, using our rough vocals," Ann Wilson recalled in Kicking & Dreaming. "To that they added a few outtakes and live tracks, and rushed the album into stores."
Heart pursued and was awarded an injunction that removed Mushroom's Magazine from store shelves. Eventually, the lawsuit was settled, with the band winning their freedom from the label and Mushroom getting one more album from the group.
"We decided to make Magazine that album," Ann remembered, "but insisted we finish the vocals and mixes. We did that in a Seattle studio later that year, as an armed security guard stood by. The court had ordered the guard because Mushroom was afraid we would erase our original multi-track recordings out of spite."
Mushroom re-released Magazine on April 22, 1978. "Heartless" was its enduring classic, a straight-up rock tune with a particularly vicious Wilson vocal. Ann noted the song "contained some of my favorite lyrics ever," singling out the refrain "Never realize the way love dies when you crucify its soul."
"Heartless" kicked off Side 1, which also contained the positively punishing "Devil Delight," with its plodding, Led Zeppelin-esque beat and exquisite weaving of guitars in the solo section. The side ends with a cover of "Without You," the Badfinger ballad that Harry Nilsson had taken to No. 1 in 1972. Ann Wilson wraps her voice gently around the verses and bears down on the anthemic chorus, crushing the high notes and proving herself one of the great rock singers of the day.
Side 2 contains the intricate title track, as well as two live cuts – covers recorded at Seattle's Aquarius Tavern, in 1975. Of the two, the band's take on the Kiki Dee Band's 1974 hit "I've Got the Music in Me" is the more un-Heart-like, but it nevertheless shows the group's versatility, shifting a jaunty pop song into a more rocking set piece.  From: https://ultimateclassicrock.com/heart-magazine/

Ellesmere - Stranger Skies

More than most other genres, I think prog rock and metal have the keen ability to capture the feeling of season and their changes. Some prog projects focus on nothing but this, but regardless bands that choose that sort of these for songs or whole albums just sound a certain way through their tones, scale usage, and tempo. Ellesmere certainly smacked of a bit of that before with prior projects like Wyrd which I reviewed over four years ago, but it seems to have been stepped up a few notches here with Stranger Skies along with the overall breadth of progged-out instrumentation and world-building.
Ellesmere still sees Roberto Vitelli (bass, keys, songwriting) at the helm of the project, but just like Wyrd there’s a number of prolific lifers when it comes to prog rock performance including some returning ones like Mattias Olsson (drums), Tomas Bodin (more keys), and John Hackett (flute) with additions like David Jackson on saxophone and wind instruments, Giacomo Anselmi on guitar, and Riccardo Romano on backing vocals and 12-string acoustic guitar. Speaking of vocals, for lead we get John Wilkinson on vocals which, if you heard a Genesis influence with Ellesmere‘s music before, Wilkinson’s voice will definitely drive that comparison home as he sounds like a pitch-perfect take on Phil Collins’ legendary English croon circa their Wind & Wuthering LP.
The result is Stranger Skies feeling like the adventurous album it’s set up to be, probably better than Wyrd and I loved that album. Six tracks here, the first four of which capture the cold of a winter-stricken world with an approachable whimsy. It doesn’t feel like an oppressive kind of cold, it simply colors in the world in a specific way with tracks like “Northwards” and “Tundra”. “Northwards” for its part is a wonderful intro to the album and to what Ellesmere has to offer nowadays which feels compositionally tighter than previous work at the natural expense of more variance in the tracks. This is fine for me! This is still progressive rock through and through, and there will of course be moments of movement and progression even within songs of average length. This one for example has a triumphant and explorative opening with tons of charm from robust horns and other orchestral touches – it’s like the opening sequence of a fantasy movie – and it gives way to stately ’70s-styled prog rock replete with the sounds of synths, rock guitars, and Wilkinson’s evocative singing.  From: https://everythingisnoise.net/reviews/ellesmere-stranger-skies/ 

Besvarjelsen - Alone

Besvärjelsen formed in 2014 by members from bands like Dozer, Greenleaf, Afgrund, Lastkaj and V. The band has strong ties with doom but it’s too easy to say it’s only doom as there can be influences from good old hard rock, folk, and progressive metal found. Besvärjelsen first EP was released in 2015 and yet another EP was released in 2016. The first full-length Vallmo will hit the streets in March and Lea Amling (vocals) was so kind as to answer some questions.

Hi Lea, how are things in Sweden at this moment?

In Sweden, we are having a full-blown winter. A few weeks ago I was super excited that we had all this snow but I’m getting pretty fed up now. I’m so ready for summer, I’m already wearing sneakers in total denial.

I guess you feel excitement at this moment as your debut album is almost released. Can you tell a little more about the album?

I’m very excited! We started working on the album in 2016 and we finished the recordings in 2017 so I’m just counting down the days until release. ”Vallmo” consists of 8 tracks, vocals are in Swedish and English, and I would say it’s a good representation of where we are right now. Finding a unique sound is hard but on ”Vallmo” I think we planted a seed that we will grow amazing things from. The record will be released by Suicide Records but we are also supported by DalaPop, a local company who works with and supports bands from our region (Dalarna).

How did the collaboration with Suicide Records come to exist?

Well, Henke has always been a great supporter of the band and has cheered us and banged his head at shows. I guess he convinced Roger to come to a show and we did our things and it all just clicked and now here we are. It’s hard to find a record label run by people who actually love music and don’t only see you as cash. Right now we are surrounded by genuine music lovers and Suicide has a stable of amazing bands that we are happy to call family.

How did the name of the band come about?

Besvärjelsen means Conjuring and we chose it because it sounds badass as fuck. We realize people outside of Sweden must be like ”how the fuck do you say this” but we like it. It’s cool. It was Besvärjelsen or Orkester Korv. We had a knife fight about it and Besvärjelsen won.

Two EP’s were released till now by Besvärjelsen, when comparing them to the upcoming album, what are the big differences then?

I would say the difference is HUGE. A few members changes have taken place and that always influences the sound. The album is deeper, more mature and just has an overall vibe that I really love. A few of us in the band moved from the big city out to the countryside and that has definitely affected us. I was stressed out and a nervous wreck recording the first EP’s, now I’m a zen fucking Buddha with cry control and confidence. I hope people will be happy with the sound.

What can you tell about the artwork for Vallmo?

The artwork is created by an amazing Swedish artist named Emelie Draper/Blodpest. I’ve always been in love with her style and she was my first choice for creating the art for the album. She is also one of the coolest and smartest people in Sweden so we are very lucky she wanted to draw this!

I believe it will be released as a double LP limited to 300 copies. If it gets sold out, and I believe it will, will there be a repress?

You would have to ask our label about this but I don’t think a re-issue will be impossible! But in case, you should pre-order it so you don’t miss out on the first sweet batch!

How did you discover your own style of singing?

I started singing when I was a kid, I was in a child group and we did a lot of talent shows and stuff, we were supercool. I’ve sung for the Royal Family and all. I always loved to be on stage but I was bullied a lot for it in school and it left deep marks on my confidence. I started screaming in hardcore and punk bands and stayed in that scene for a few years. I was too shy to ever sing ”clean” in front of anyone but when I was 21 I started singing in a band called ”Bandet Alltså” and my friends in that band are the reason I’m able to do anything musically today. They inspire me, have pushed me, cheered and encouraged me and my singing in ways I could never explain. I’m forever thankful for their cheers and friendship.

From: https://loudunity.home.blog/2019/03/07/besvarjelsen-qa-with-lea-about-the-debut-full-length-and-other-things/ 

 

Quicksilver Messenger Service - Light Your Windows / Dino's Song / The Fool / Babe I'm Gonna Leave You

Just another San Francisco band, ya know. Unfortunately, in the public eye Quicksilver Messenger Service aren't really notorious for anything but the name. They never made history like the Jefferson Airplane, never created a world religion like the Grateful Dead, and never even made it onto the official alternative list of "weird lost treasures" like Moby Grape. They were there at the time, made up some music, smoked some pot, played some shows, stayed together for a bit too long, and ended up in complete obscurity. Sort of like, uh, well, you know, the average mediocre fate of the average mediocre band.
Fact is, QMS may be "average", but they're anything but mediocre. The band revolved around a couple of really talented guitarists, capable of adjusting to a lot of different styles, from typical "acid guitar" to blues-rock and jazz. One of the main forces behind it was songwriter Dino Valenti (Valente), also known as Chet Powers, Jesse Oris Farrow, and under a couple thousand other names - a guy with his own flaws but also with creative ideas a-plenty. And at one time, the band could even boast the inclusion of none other than the fabulous pianist Nicky Hopkins as an official member, an honour that neither the Kinks nor the Rolling Stones nor any of the countless bands Nicky had played with could ever garner.
In short, QMS had a whole pool of talent to burn, or, rather, to dessicate. And they did. Starting out with a relatively accessible "hippie-folk" record, they followed it with a thoroughly unaccessible "hippie-jam" one, and afterwards plunged into cautious experimentation with a whole lot of things, merging psychedelia, folk-rock, blues, country, and artsiness in one boiling pot that never seemed to have much of a conceptual nature but was almost always nice to the touch, at least. It can't be said that Quicksilver made a whole lot of innovation in any one particular sphere, but they touched upon many, and, frankly, just wrote good songs, if that ain't enough for you.  From: https://starlingdb.org/music/qms.htm 

Fever Ray - Wanna Sip

A new Fever Ray album is a rare occurrence. After splitting off from the Knife, the political electro-pop vehicle formed with their brother Olof Dreijer, Fever Ray’s landmark 2009 solo debut explored the frustrations of motherhood via banks of frozen drones and memorably odd lyrics about plant care and kitchen sinks. Its follow-up took eight years: in 2017, Plunge honked the horn for Dreijer’s queer sexual epiphany with a stack of jittery dance tracks and explicit lyrics. Plunge was “more urgent,” says Dreijer, “like, ‘This needs to come out now!’”
The pandemic provided Dreijer with a different headspace for their third album, Radical Romantics. “I realised that I haven’t been so good with patience. That is something I really have had time to practise during the last years, to be still with a feeling. Some things,” they announce in mock revelation, “will work out by themselves without you having to do so much about it.”
Dreijer has previously flown a flag for socialist, feminist and genderqueer politics through the use of pitch-shifted vocals, elaborate masks, queer drag and demands for “free abortions”. An album about love might seem a bit pedestrian in comparison. Yet there’s something deliciously nonconformist about Dreijer turning to love songs aged 47, in a new phase of self-discovery. “Who am I while wanting you?” they sing. “Are they laughing at my thin skin?” It sounds as though Dreijer has taken a step back from living on the edge. That “peaceful sadness” seems to come from a reckoning with age, and what they might have missed out on. “Because I’m quite old now,” they offer, “when you discover things at this time in life, there has been a lot of time when you didn’t know.”
The music moves slower, too. Brother Olof brings his inimitable palette of drums, synths, bongs and squeaks, pulling instruments together in endlessly satisfying knots on Shiver, New Utensils and Kandy. Other borrowed brains include Portuguese producer Nídia, who builds a clattery batida rhythm under strangulated vocals on Looking for a Ghost, and Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, who underpin the album’s darkest moments with tape hiss and industrial fuzz. Carbon Dioxide is the big one, a symphonic endorphin rush from the mind of British experimental composer Vessel, which breaks down into stadium-sized trance as Dreijer’s voice soars: “Holding my heart! While falling!”
Dreijer’s gift as a songwriter is the ability to lace intimate observations and droll humour with occasionally sinister thoughts (“nothing is more fatal than an angry man,” they sang on the Knife’s Neverland) and outre ideas (the “bucket of tiger pee” from the Knife’s Without You My Life Would Be Boring). On Radical Romantics, their words remain tough nuts to crack, but between the lines there’s a heightened vulnerability. There are apologies – the album’s opening line is “first I’d like to say that I’m sorry” – and delicate questions: “Can I trust you?” they ask on the sex-starved Shiver, “I just wanna be touched.”
‘Because I’m quite old now, when you discover things at this time in life, there has been a lot of time when you didn’t know.’ Photograph: Nina Andersson
The lovesick dynamic comes to life on Kandy, a sensual slow dance with a Knife-esque shimmer. In the video Dreijer plays two characters: one the monstrous love interest, with stringy blond hair arranged in a tonsure, who does a lapdance for the other Karin, a sweet-seeming office drone in a bald cap. They think they’ve found love, says Dreijer, describing the force that’s taken hold: “I don’t care what they do to me, they can strangle me, but I just want to be seen by this person.” It’s a dangerous and familiar dynamic, a “crazy high feeling you can have for a lot of activities and people and stuff. You know that it’s probably not the best thing to do, but it’s there and it’s very tempting.”
Therapy was one experience behind this questioning album. After doing that, “the world becomes so much bigger”, Dreijer says. “If you don’t know why you get anxiety it will just keep on crippling you … When you know more about yourself you will also be able to play around with your fears.” There’s a similarity, I suggest, between therapy and kink, as Dreijer explored in Plunge: both involve working out what pushes your buttons. Dreijer allows a tiny smile. “There is always the dangerous route,” they say vaguely. “It’s always there as a choice. I know I have to use my boundaries to say no to this thing, whatever it is – a person, thing, act – because it’s not wise and healthy for me in the long run. But it can be so amazingly amazing, short term.”  From: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/feb/17/fever-ray-karin-dreijer-romance-ageing-kink-dangerous-route

R.E.M. - Pop Song 89 / You Are the Everything / Me in Honey

Me In Honey: Let’s just let Michael Stipe explain his motivation for this one himself, okay? This is taken from Marcus Gray’s It Crawled From The South:
Of “Me In Honey,” Michael admits, “Specifically, that song to me is an answer song to 10,000 Maniacs’ “Eat For Two.” It’s a male perspective on pregnancy, which I don’t think has been dealt with. There’s a real push-me-pull-me issue, saying, “I had nothing to do with it,” yet on the other hand saying, “Wait, I have feelings about this.”
Exactly one line in “Me In Honey” gives away the pregnancy angle — “baby’s got a baby with me” — and it’s kinda tossed off in the final verse, so it’s pretty easy to ignore that bit if you’d rather just hear it as song about a guy trying to save face with an angry lover. However, this song works far better just the way Stipe intended, with his protagonist expressing a mix of emotions that has him unsure whether he’s more freaked out by the onset of overwhelming responsibility, or the part of him that wants to escape from the situation.
There’s no doubt that the guy is going to do the right thing. The song overflows with love and goodwill, and despite its confusion, “Me In Honey” is among the most jubilant pieces of music R.E.M. have ever written, with Peter Buck’s circular rhythms driving the song towards percussive fills that push the tune towards its most ecstatic moments. Appropriately enough, the studio recording features backing vocals by the B-52’s Kate Pierson, who not only supplies the track with a wordless female counterpoint, but significantly boosts the tune’s dosage of soulful bliss.  From: https://popsongs.wordpress.com/2007/10/29/me-in-honey/

The Roches - Hammond Song

Today’s classic song of the day is more obscure than most, and I expect that many readers of this blog won’t know it. But if you do, you probably love it.
The tune is “Hammond Song” by the Roches. The Roches were a new-folk group of three sisters (Maggie, Terre, and Suzzy) out of New Jersey who hit the scene in the late ’70s and kept going through the ’80s and into the ’90s and mid-2000s. Their voices and harmonies were unique, to say the least, but that’s what made fans fall in love with them. They were sort of a punk-folk group, often singing a cappella, who wrote quirky songs in stunning three-part harmony.
“Hammond Song,” written by sister Maggie, is “a song about leaving town.” It was inspired by the sisters’ reaction to what was their first big break in the music business. Maggie and Terre had met famous musician guy Paul Simon when they crashed his songwriting class at NYU. He subsequently enlisted them to sing backup vocals on the song “Was a Sunny Day” on his 1973 album, There Goes Rhymin’ Simon. Simon’s record company took an interest in the duo but proved too intrusive for the sisters (including asking them to wear “hipper clothes”), inspiring them to skip town and head south to Hammond, Louisiana (not Hammond, Indiana, as I originally thought). Sister Terre relates what transpired:
“We were humiliated… We wanted to get out of the whole situation. We had a friend in Hammond, Louisiana, who was running a kung fu school. We gave up our apartment and told the record company, ‘We’re not going to promote the record anymore; we’re going away for a while.’ This was two weeks after the record came out. Maggie wrote the ‘Hammond Song’ about the whole experience.
The Roches started out as a duo with eldest Maggie and middle sister Terre; they released their first album, Seductive Reasoning, in 1975. Younger sister Suzzy joined the act when she graduated from high school, and they released their self-named debut album in 1979. Robert Fripp produced that one and contributed some wonderful electric guitar backup to the group’s distinctive vocals.
The group first got widespread attention when Phoebe Snow recorded Maggie’s tune, “The Married Men,” and performed it (with Linda Ronstadt) on Saturday Night Live. The Roches themselves were invited to perform on the November 17, 1979, episode of SNL, which is where I was first exposed to their magic. For the show, they performed the song “Bobby’s Song” and their own unique a cappella interpretation of the Hallelujah Chorus; that was back when SNL actually broke new musical acts.
“Hammond Song” was a standout on that first album, although there’s not a bad track on the disc. The Roches continued performing and recording through 2007, releasing a total of eleven albums as a trio. Maggie and Suzzy released two further albums as a duo, Suzzy released two solo albums, and Terre released three albums on her own. Suzzy also released three albums with her daughter, Lucy Wainwright Roche. (Yes, Lucy’s dad is singer/songwriter Loudon Wainwright III, making her the half-sister of fellow musicians Martha Wainwright and Rufus Wainwright). From: https://classicsongoftheday.com/hammond-song-the-roches/

 

Uriah Heep - Tears in My Eyes

The third album from Uriah Heep sees them taking further giant steps forward. The rhythm section is still in a state of turmoil, but the nucleus of Box/Byron/Hensley have found a solid direction, and are approaching the pinnacle of their combined creativity.
The title track has become one of the band's most enduring pieces, a solid five minute chunk of loud, infectious rock, with a wall of sound, and a breathtaking pace. The instrumental breaks are quite stunning, with Box in particular in fine form. Towards the end of the track, Bronze label-mates Osibisa add additional percussion as it increases pace before reaching a climactic conclusion. I only discovered recently, that the lead vocals on the track are performed by Ken Hensley, not David Byron, although the latter always took the lead when the song was performed live. Quite why this happened is puzzling, as the overall sound is very much as if Byron himself was singing as usual.
The album includes the epic "July Morning", with its majestic prog sound, and superb structure. The track alternates between soft and loud passages, and includes a wonderful Hammond solo followed by Byron reaching ever higher with his piercing screams. The main instrumental theme which closes the track is basically simple, but transformed by a guest appearance from Manfred Mann on synthesiser. While Hensley would later master this instrument himself, they were still somewhat rare at the time, giving the track a very progressive feel in the early 70's. A truly magnificent piece of music.
The rest of the tracks are all very strong, including the melodic ballad "What should be done", and the twin guitar lead on "Tears in my eyes". With this album, the Uriah Heep "sound" was firmly established. The tracks have great power, while strong melodies are still very much the priority. "July morning" especially is an absolute classic.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=5896

Edie Brickell & New Bohemians - Live Copley Square, Boston 2006

Edie Brickell has a dream. It's not to be rich, famous or even well-liked. Nor is it to save the whales, free political prisoners or feed the hungry.Surprise: She wants to be an old-fashioned mom. Although she says she'll probably always be a performer, or at least an artiste of some sort, she says she ultimately wants something "more important" out of life.
"What's important is creating a family basis," she said in a recent telephone interview. "Family relations are more important than relations with an audience. It's something you can go home to. Something you can trust. It's not something where they're going to love you one minute and not the next."
A convenient stance, the cynic might say, given that Brickell and her band, New Bohemians, are on deck for a Sunday night stop in Utah - arguably the homeland for traditional moms.
And yet, Brickell sounds utterly serious, if perhaps a bit naive, about her family goals. And even her naivete is mitigated largely by her acknowledgment that her view of families is an idealized one, likely born from the inadequacies of her own upbringing. "Sometimes people want to create the family they didn't have," she admits.
What kind of family did she have? She grew up in what press releases describe as a "lower-middle-class suburb" in Dallas. She lived mainly with her working mother who had divorced her father, a professional bowler, when Edie was very young. She attributes her shyness - which is evident on stage in her awkward, stiff-legged singing poses - to growing up in bowling alleys, moving frequently and being forced to attend many different schools.
Given her bashfulness, it's surprising she ever broke into a business where ostentation is a way of life. And, in fact, Brickell can only describe it as "inspiration" (fueled by a shot of Jack Daniels) that led her to make her impromptu singing debut at a Dallas night club early one morning in 1985. On a dare, she joined the British-influenced ska band called New Bohemians onstage And while she sang mainly improvised, sometimes nonsensical lyrics, the band members liked her so much they asked her to join.
Still, Brickell admits she's not entirely comfortable with the performance aspect of her chosen craft. She says she prefers writing songs to recording and touring. The main reason, she says, is that it's sometimes difficult to recapture onstage the emotion of a song she wrote years ago. "I'm more interested in new ideas and new songs," she said.
That urge to do something different is evident on their newest album, "Ghost of a Dog," which features songs that are more up-tempo and percussive than the band's 1988 debut album, "Shooting Rubber Bands at the Stars," which spawned a top-10 single ("What I Am") and was ranked the 10th best album of the year by Rolling Stone magazine.
But being different, especially after a successful album, is a risky proposition. The "if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it" philosophy dominates the pop music industry, and many bands find that forging this year's rec-ord in the image of last year's blockbuster is an easy way to financial success. And being different has had a price for Brickell and New Bohemians. "Ghost of a Dog" peaked at 32 on Billboard's list of top 100 albums and has since disappeared from radar.
But Brickell is nonplussed. The less-stellar success of "Ghost" was not a surprise, she said, "because the first one really went on to sell more than anyone expected. It had more of a pop feel. But we felt like, `Let's not repeat ourselves.' And we knew whatever we did would sell a little." It's perhaps the desire not to repeat herself that urges Brickell to contemplate her future family.
"I don't want to be the same," she said. "I don't like it when I have same thoughts. If I found someone who I could agree with, maybe, I would hope, I would be married in some kind of dependent relationship. I want to be a woman who has a career, but who has enough time to focus on the kids and not send them away."  From: https://www.deseret.com/1991/4/12/18915011/brickell-wants-to-be-traditional-mom/

Counting Crows - Catapult - Live TV 1996

A Counting Crows show always features unique versions of your songs, as the band often follows your lead on stage, which always appears to be extemporaneous. You get into an emotional state and you take a song into different directions, which is remarkable when considering how many musicians you work with.

Adam Duritz: Oh, yeah. That’s exactly how it happens. The first time you try something it might not be all that good, but as you work it through more and more you get better at finding your way. But they’re good. It would be impossible if we weren’t. Listening is really everything for us. It’s a big thing in our band. It’s like they say about jazz and soul music, it’s more important what you don’t play than what you do play. I would probably phrase that more like, “It’s more important how you listen on stage than what you play on stage,” because no matter how good you are as a player, if you’re not listening to the other guys, it’s a train wreck, especially in a band like ours, where there’s so much improvisation. It’s not like solo improvisation, more like necessary group improvisation. You really have to listen and that’s the thing we really kind of beat into each other’s heads for a long time.

I always get the feeling that you are kind of leading the band down the proverbial rabbit hole, and once the song gets in there, now it can go anywhere.

Yes. It makes it a little dangerous to not listen for me too because people will do things and on top of it, it’s messy. That’s the one thing in our band that everyone will call you out on, just not paying attention. Also a lot of things that may seem like me leading down the rabbit hole, might have been me hearing something cool someone else did that was a small thing, maybe too simple for anyone else to have heard or for the audience to have noticed it, but that might have given me an idea. It’s not like I’m the one coming up with the ideas every time. It probably sounds like it is, but probably a lot of times; it’s someone else doing something kind of cool that I hear and then I start something different and then that’s the part you hear, or the audience hears because it’s a little more obvious when the vocal does it. I suppose I’m the one making the decisions to take everyone down the rabbit hole with me, but I’m often inspired by just something little someone else did—or not so little. Little is the wrong word. Just something cool that someone else did.

That reminds me of your putting “Thunder Road” in the middle of “Rain King,” and I remember you doing it back in ’97 in Jersey and I thought, “This is perfect. It’s a homage to Springsteen.” But then it became part of what you did with the song, and after we did our first interview in 2008 you played that Apple show downtown in SoHo and you did it again, but this time it was a different way of utilizing it. When you include a verse or even a chorus of one song, maybe yours, maybe another’s, how predetermined or organic is that idea?

Could be a little of both. It could be an idea that comes while I’m on stage. The “Thunder Road” thing is a perfect example. I just started doing it one day, and granted, “Thunder Road” is one of those songs that without thinking about it we kind of know it from start to finish. It’s so dynamic in the way it builds that you kind of know most of the words. Even if you didn’t bother to learn them, they’re in your head. I was never really in cover bands very much. I never played “Thunder Road” in a band, but I started singing it that day. The first time I did it I only got about a third of the way through. No matter how well you know “Thunder Road” I’m singing it to the music of “Rain King” and that can get confusing.

(Laughs) Right.

You know? The next night I got a little further through it and eventually I put almost the whole thing in there. But it took a few days to do that. And sometimes you just get an idea while you’re singing something, like just a melody from another song will seem really cool in there, but the first time you do it you might not have the focus or the wherewithal to think of that melody in the context of the different song and also remember the words. The funny thing is a lot of times when we remember songs we remember them because of their melodies too, so when you try to sing them over a different song it can make your head spin around a little bit. 

From: https://www.theaquarian.com/2016/07/27/views-from-the-road-the-adam-duritz-interview-counting-crows-frontman-reveals-the-bands-unique-performing-secrets-his-love-of-creative-spontaneity-and-remembers-david-bowie-and-prince/ 

Mamalarky - Mythical Bonds / Shining Armor

 Mamalarky - Mythical Bonds

 

 Mamalarky - Shining Armor

 

Mamalarky have shared new single ‘Mythical Bonds’. The band have been through some changes, using the pandemic to decamp from Los Angeles to their new base in Atlanta, Georgia. Constructing a home studio in the Southern city, work began on their new album, slated to land later this year.
Titled ‘Pocket Fantasy’, the album is out on September 30th via Fire Talk, a work of unified creativity driven forwards by mutual support. New single ‘Mythical Bonds’ is a twisting, turning indie rock stomper, complete with a killer chorus.
Ambar Navarro directs the visuals, a fun-filled dive into the world of Mamalarky. Lyrically, the song is about friendship, with vocalist Livvy Bennett saluting band mate – and original Atlanta resident – Noor Khan.
“I really needed to write something to accurately show Noor how much her friendship means to me, and our journey as musicians and friends,” Livvy reflects. “We need more songs about friendship. In peak album-making mode we were churning out songs, at times to the point of delirium. So we decided to shake ourselves loose and make this serotonin rock song about how much we love each other–to push past all those hunched-over studio hours and create this little summer memento.” 
“At the time we were having a lot of pond, lake and pool-side hangs, laughter under the beating heat. At the end of those days all we wanted to do was come home and synthesise those feelings in our studio.”  From: https://www.clashmusic.com/news/mamalarky-return-with-punchy-indie-rocker-mythical-bonds/

Mamalarky are continuing to make some of the more unique versions of indie rock out there today. The band's latest single, "Shining Armor," is this bizarro version of R&B mixed with indie rock. It has this light yet funky feel to it, and unlike most indie rock, this one is actually a fun song. It's very danceable, as long as you don't mind dancing awkwardly to a rapidly changing beat. "Shining Armor" is reminding me of a more laid back version of Guerilla Toss. It's a noisy and chaotic song that is oddly pleasant and almost soothing at times.
Singer Livvy Bennett says of the new song: "This song goes out to conveniently anonymous YouTube haters. 'Shining Armor' is an invitation for anyone who has shit to say about how I play guitar to go ahead and reveal themselves and play a little song for us! When I wrote this I was getting a bunch of comments about my gender and appearance and how that corresponds with how I play guitar. The only response was to covert that anger into something that's genuinely so fun to play."  From: https://www.ifitstooloud.com/2022/09/mamalarky-shining-armor.html

 

Clutch - Burning Beard

There’s a name for us Clutch fans: ‘Gearheads’. not so much fans, as disciples – devotees, believers, if you will. Obsessives, even. If Clutch had started a cult instead of a band in ’91 then make no mistake, there’d be an awful lot of crazies holed up in Maryland, West Virginia, waiting for the mothership to beam them up. They’re that good. Indeed, with two decades of music and nine studio albums, not including compilations and rarities, it’s no stretch to put them among the company of the greatest rock’n’roll bands of our time. Really, they’re that good.
Like all the true greats, whatever their influences, from hardcore to blues and beyond, there is something about Clutch that puts them in a genre of one, often copied, never bettered. Moreover, they’ve managed to retain that pre-internet mystique, the stuff that builds urban legend and fills websites: “What does that lyric mean? Where can I find that secret track?”
The geek element that draws record collectors like moths. It doesn’t hurt that frontman Neil Fallon, the son of a military father, is a lyrical genius. He’s what Bill Hicks would have called “a reader”; a lot of sci-fi, but keenly aware of politics, too smart for regular rock’n’roll and with the onstage aura of some snakehandling, backwoods, hellfire and damnation preacher. Oh yes, there would be a lot of us holed up in West Virginia, armed to the teeth and looking up at the night sky: “Tell us when, oh wise and heavily bearded one!” It’s probably a good thing they formed a band, though it may not have been wise to inflict an unrepentant Gearhead upon Mr Fallon for over an hour, with questions to spare.
“We were in grade school together, then we went to high school together,” begins Neil on the 20-year lineup that’s completed by guitarist Tim Sult, bass player Dan Maines and drummer Jean-Paul Gaster. “We had different manifestations of rock bands: one week we’d be into metal and the next it was hardcore, so we’d rename the band and redraw the logo. The music we were listening to was hard to get; you had to pursue bands like Minor Threat, even though we only lived 30 miles from DC. And that was not the popular music at our school – neither was Slayer! It was very much a minority of people into metal, punk rock and hardcore. In 1991 the band was called Glut Trip and they had a different singer, this guy named Roger, and he couldn’t make a show, so I got asked to fill in, only because I’d jammed with them a year prior in high school.” By October 1991, the band, thankfully having changed their name to Clutch, put out their first record, a barbarically heavy four-track EP, on 7-inch vinyl, titled Pitchfork, on Inner Journey Records. Immediately, they stood out from the pack.
“We wrote those four songs in a couple of days. That was the first time I’d ever been in a recording studio,” recalls Neil. “The sounds you hear on the 7-inch is a lot of Prong, Bad Brains, Cro-Mags, maybe not obviously, but that’s what we were listening to. We were very into noise bands, labels like Amphetamine Reptile, and we were huge fans of Swans.”
Another EP followed in ’92, the colossal Passive Restraints on Earache. They had been getting interest from several labels including ATCO, East/West and some majors, and had no idea which way to go. Earache, being from England, was seen as ‘exotic’ and meant they’d be labelmates with Godflesh, who they loved.
“It was a very confusing time for us, as far as what a good business move would be,” admits Neil. “We just figured they [Earache] must know more about this kind of music. Thankfully it was just a one-off deal.” Ironically for a band so drama-free, (just one lineup change when keyboard player Mick Schauer joined in 2005 and left in 2008, with no ill feelings) the one thing they’ve continuously had a problem with is labels. Their debut album, Transnational Speedway League, on East/West in 1993, was no exception: while Beavis and Butt-head were going righteously nuts over the video for A Shogun Named Marcus, the label had no clue what to do with them.
“That was always the case with us and labels,” agrees Neil. “Our exposure on mainstream media was always through a back channel, never through a topdown, ‘this is gonna be the band we push’ scenario. All those labels were signing bands like it was going out of style: they were dropping hair bands and signing punk bands, grunge bands, and everything in between, and we were one of those bands. Their hopes were that we were gonna be multi-platinum, and obviously that didn’t work out and we got dropped. We just scratched our heads and went, ‘What were they thinking in the first place?’
“In hindsight, we were all babes in the woods, going to these high-rise offices with multi-platinum records on the walls. As much as we considered ourselves down to earth and well grounded, it does confuse you. But getting validation from [Beavis And Butt-head creator] Mike Judge was much more gratifying and effective, because it showed that people do like this band even though your [sales] may not be reflecting a meteoric rise to fame and fortune.”
Written in two phases between New York and San Francisco’s Razor’s Edge studio, (“because that’s where the Melvins were recording, and we were huge fans”), Transnational Speedway League, the primal hardcore root of the band, remains a classic; so heavy and intense that urban myth insists they had to stop playing Binge And Purge because audiences would kick the crap out of each other.
“With any urban myth there’s an element of truth with a lot of exaggeration wrapped around it,” allows Neil. “It became one of those things where people wanted to hear it because we weren’t playing it. I think, because there’s a huge barrage of curse words at the end of it, it’s seen as a moshpit classic, and I can recollect that the day I wrote those lyrics was the day we recorded them. I hadn’t written anything for it and finally I locked myself in the bathroom of the hotel and wrote the lyrics up until 20 minutes before tracking. I think that’s how my frustration with the song manifested itself, but we always knew that we weren’t the kind of band that got off on seeing violence in the pit. Maybe I was trying to reflect angry bands because I liked that music, but I ran out of that juice really quickly and I realised that I couldn’t fake it. It’s exhausting! I think we realised that heavy doesn’t necessarily equate to angry, you can still have a good time while you’re doing it.”  From: https://www.loudersound.com/features/getting-validation-from-beavis-and-butt-head-was-much-more-gratifying-it-showed-that-people-do-like-this-band-even-if-your-sales-may-not-reflect-fame-and-fortune-how-stoner-rock-enigmas-clutch-became-metals-favourite-weirdbeards

 

Burdon Folk Band - Zozulenka

The Burdon Folk Band  was founded in 2002 in Lviv (Lwów, Lemberg), Western Ukraine with an aim to play music inspired by eastern european and carpathian folklore. We're using acoustic folk instruments for the best reproduction of atmosphere of old dances which didn't change through centuries. But our music is not a real authentic reflection, we play modern folklore. We don't invent any new tunes, we play old and often very famous ones, with our own arrangement and modern influences.
We've started from nordic folk music. Also the band is working upon european folk and old dance music. The range of our ethnic interests is not limited to a certain region only, so we play also Belgian, English, French & Italian tunes. And our latest interests includes traditional music of Carpathian region (Hungary, Moldavia and of course, Ukraine).  From: https://burdon.lviv.ua/en.html 

Cobalt Chapel - In Company

Yorkshire, UK duo Cobalt Chapel recently released their second album, Orange Synthetic, and it’s a wonderful contemporary progressive take on the psychedelic music of the 1960s. It has fresh production values with lush textures and glowing vocals. So who are Cobalt Chapel? Cecilia Fage (from Matt Berry & The Maypoles) and Jarrod Gosling (from I Monster). Gosling also happens to make the album artwork for Tim Bowness‘ solo albums. 
Fage’s vocals are the clear centerpiece of the album, and her voice is absolutely stunning. It’s treated with some echoey effects that give it a choral feeling, which matches the aesthetic implied by the band’s name. The album sounds fantastic, with the vocals and music clear, clean, and distinct. The various organs and keyboards are the primary musical sounds, with their textures swirling around the listeners head as Fage sings in the center. The guitar, drums, and soft bass complete the psychedelic sound. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a better-sounding album out today. It is mixed very well with everything easy to pick out. Nothing is muddled. You can even make out the clicking of keys or buttons on whatever instrument Gosling is playing at the end of “A Father’s Lament.” There’s a slight hum in the background at that point which makes you feel like you’re in the room with him as he closes out the song. The whole record is really a pleasure to listen to.
There are folk elements to the music, with the album being influenced by Yorkshire itself. The song “E.B.” sounds the most folky, with instruments kept to a relative minimum and Fage’s voice carrying the brief track. Overall though the music retains a psychedelic vibe through heavy use of keyboards and organs, along with very 60s-sounding drums and guitars. The music is much more upbeat than the type of psychedelic music I’m more familiar with, though. It isn’t as spacey, although there are times when it sounds like they’re about to launch into the spacier side of this corner of rock music. They never quite get there all the way, except for on “Cry A Spiral,” which is the spaciest track on the record. Even on that song the ending is heavier and more lush-sounding, ending with a light touch of saxophone and various organs. Melody takes a central position on the album, which is perhaps what makes this album so appealing on repeated listens. You’re left feeling refreshed after listening to Orange Synthetic. 
If I had to make one complaint, it’s that I would have preferred some longer extended instrumental sections. The end of the first track, “In Company,” breaks into what sounds like it’s going to be a wonderfully psychedelic Floydian soundscape, but then it breaks off suddenly. The second track similarly fades out as it enters an instrumental passage. The third track does the same thing. It drops into the beginning of a 1960s-style psychedelic mood, yet it cuts off after a few brief seconds. At about 43 minutes in length, I think there’s room on the album for some longer musical exploration. They set the listener up for it, but they leave me longing for that instrumental space to breathe.  From: https://progarchy.com/2021/02/21/album-review-cobalt-chapels-orange-synthetic/ 

Collapsing Scenery - Let’s Burn Down the Cornfield

Through the early 2000s, Pennsylvania-born and New York City-based Don Devore played in many local bands, including punk rockers the Icarus Line, indie guitar band the Lilys, rockers Amazing Baby, theatrical band Ink & Dagger, and electronic group Historics; he is also a curator for the Brooklyn arts space Trans Pecos. Texas native and Los Angeles resident Reggie Debris doubles as Mickey Madden, bassist for Maroon 5. They met in Los Angeles and reconnected in London while each was touring. In 2013, the two musicians started a new band, Collapsing Scenery, with a goal of casting aside the stringed instruments on which they had first learned to play music and on which they were comfortable and versed. Instead, they assembled an array of analog electronics -- samplers, step sequencers, synths and drum machines -- all supplemented by effects pedals. It did not mean they were not going to abandon traditional instruments; it meant they were going to create untraditional music. Collapsing Scenery performed at art installations and underground clubs, and recorded music independently. Collapsing Scenery will release its debut album, Stress Positions, on June 28, 2019.
Collapsing Scenery celebrated the announcement of its pending album release with a free performance tonight at Home Sweet Home. Debris as vocalist and Devore as multi-instrumentalist, along with a drummer, Ryan Rapsys, crossed the lines of futurist electro, goth, industrial, techno, post-punk, chillwave and darkwave with haunting vocals and a hard pulsing beat. Abrasive, aggressive and jolting, the performance seemed to border the fine line between sanity and insanity, with Devore ranting on social injustices as Debris challenged the listener with a mix of conflictingly coarse and meditative soundscapes. Collapsing Scenery has built on the sounds pioneered by Suicide, Swans, and Sonic Youth in the 1980s and taken them one more step further over the edge for some creative and engaging experiments in noise rock.  From: https://www.themanhattanbeat.com/2019/04/collapsing-scenery-at-home-sweet-home.html

The Bateleurs - Since I've Been Loving You (Led Zeppelin cover)

The Portuguese band The Bateleurs presents a live performance/studio rehearsal of the classic Led Zeppelin song "Since I've Been Loving You" (1970), as part of their Namouche Sessions, a series of videos where they play their favorite songs and rock classics. The voice of The Bateleurs' vocalist, Sandrine Orsini, is one of the group's most striking features. Her voice combines soul and strength, carrying the weight of emotions with ease and soaring with an almost spiritual intensity, especially in moments where the interpretation demands emotional weight—a trait that naturally suits a song like "Since I've Been Loving You," which is essentially a deep blues.  Translated from: https://www.ecletismomusical.pt/en/cover-the-bateleurs-since-ive-been-loving-you-led-zeppelin-cover/ 

Young Widows - Call Bullshit

B.G.M. – Young Widows have been a favorite band of mine for some time now. The thing that first struck me when I heard your music was just the overall dark, tight, and heavy feel. What are some of the influences that shaped the band’s sound?

Evan Patterson – Appreciate the kind words. Influences come and go. Today, I might want to make a song inspired by Furry Lewis. Tomorrow, a song inspired by Throbbing Gristle. But most of the time, we get together and create with no direction or purpose other than to solely create new music that we feel compelling.

How have the various side projects Old Baby, Early Age, or Jaye Jayle affected Young Widows sound or writing process?

Jaye Jayle and Old Baby have highly affected me. The writing process for Young Widows is basically still the same, but since starting my other bands, I’m more open to using my voice as if it was an additional instrument. Words and lyric are valid and equally as important. The melody is why I listen to and create music. It took years for me to understand what I’m capable of. I attribute the majority of my progression to Kevin Ratterman’s influence during the recording of In and Out of Youth and Lightness and Jonathan Wood, who is my fellow bandmate in Old Baby and Jaye Jayle.

Easy Pain seems to combine the ferociousness of Old Wounds, with the slow minimal somberness of In and Out of Youth and Lightness. How would you say the new album fits in with your overall sound?

Fits like a glove.

Describe the writing and recording process for Easy Pain.

We can’t give away our secrets.

My favorite track off of the new album is “Doomed Moon”, I love the intro and how heavy the song is right out of the gates! What are you doing to create the noise at the beginning of the song? Is it just a guitar effect?

Thanks again. I have these loop pedals, a reverb pedal, and a volume nob on my guitar. Twist and stomp and there you have it. 

Do you have any favorite songs from the new album?

The “Last Young Widow” is probably the most pleased I’ve been with the use of a poem that I wrote last year and a riff that I’ve had for 4 or 5 years lingering in the back of my mind. When songs come together with such ease, that’s what I like to call “magic”.

Easy Pain only consists of eight tracks. This is an aspect that I really enjoy about your albums, they are very concise and devoid of any ‘filler tracks’. Is this intentional? Or do you tend to only include the songs you’ve written during a certain writing session?

Ideally, we intend to project a mood that doesn’t get disrupted. Even if we might be happier with a song that doesn’t make the cut for the album sequence than songs that made the cut, the mood is always the most important.

The artwork for all of your albums seem to be variations of each other. Is there anything behind the ongoing theme for your cover art?

No theme, besides visual cohesion. 

Any chance I can get a custom variation drawn up so I can get it as a tattoo?

I have no control or say in what anyone chooses to tattoo or get tattoos of. 

Young Widows have been releasing music through Temporary Residence for your past three albums. How did this relationship come to be?

Jeremy (deVine) was raised in Louisville and I met him when I was 11 or 12 skateboarding outside of a show. 2007 I wrote him and email, we reconnected. Eventually, we began to work together.

The band premiered / played Easy Pain in its entirety back in January way before the release date. How did this idea come about? 

Saint Vitus Bar, invited us to play two shows. We decided to perform Easy Pain. It’s that simple.

You guys have recently been on tour where you have been playing Old Wounds in its entirety. What was the motivation behind this, does it take you back in time?

Performing Old Wounds was enjoyable. I don’t see us doing that again in the near future. Performing our most recently written music is always our preference. 

You just finished a tour with Helms Alee and recently released a split 12” with them. Are you good friends with the band? Are these songs outtakes from Easy Pain?

Ben (Verellen) and I met on my first west coast tour in 2000. He was playing bass and singing in Harkonen and I was playing guitar in The National Acrobat. Since then, we have toured with each others bands and been fortune enough to be able to share a large majority or our musical journeys together. Ben also built my guitar amplifiers.

You guys are playing Salt Lake City June 21st. Seriously stoked for this show. Do you have anything special planned for this tour?

Looking forward to stopping by. Every tour and every show is special. 

Any bands / albums out right now that you guys are really digging that we need to know about?

Recent records are a tough. I mostly listen to older records. The Mark Lanegan Anthology recently came out. I’ve been a fan for some years now, but it’d be a perfect introduction for a new listener.  Zomes most recent record speaks to me in ways that most music can’t and never will, it’s called Time Was. Been listening to Endless Boogie‘s Long Island pretty often and David Lynch’s The Big Dream got my vote for best album of 2013. That covers the past few years of new releases for me.

From: https://beardedgentlemenmusic.com/2014/06/20/interview-young-widows/