The Rails - The Inheritance

The Rails are a new duo specialising in folk-rock, although the term "new" is used advisedly. The male half of the pair has been playing guitar for long enough to have been hailed a "teenage prodigy" after working with everyone from Son Volt and the Pernice Brothers to Jerry Lee Lewis, Ray Davies, the Pogues and the Pretenders (Mojo called him a rock Zelig, a neat way of capturing his ubiquity). He even recorded a solo album for Heavenly, prompting Nick Hornby to describe him as "an unearthly cross between James Burton, Peter Green and Richard Thompson". "Walbourne's fluid, tasteful, beautiful solos drop the jaw, stop the heart, and smack the gob, all at the same time," proclaimed Hornby, one of the greatest music writers ever to be named after a toy train company.
Talking of Richard Thompson, the female half of the Rails is vaguely related to him, and by vaguely we mean she's his – and Linda Thompson's – daughter (as well as Teddy Thompson's sister, we have just ingeniously surmised). It was Hornby who gave Walbourne his pass into British folk-rock's foremost dynasty when he introduced him to La Thompson. Through her he met Kami when they both worked on Linda's 2007 album Versatile Heart – and they later recorded together, before going on the Rails, as Dead Flamingoes. Her own CV is pretty full, including stints touring with Sean Lennon and Bonnie "Prince" Billy and issuing her own solo album, Love Lies, in 2011.
Together, Walbourne and Thompson, who got married in 2012, are a force worth taking seriously, a fact concluded by Island Records, who decided to reactivate the Pink Label for their benefit. And so it is that Fair Warning, the Rails' debut album, will be released on the same imprint that gave us classics by John Martyn, Nick Drake and Fairport Convention. It was also produced by Edwyn Collins, that other legendary folkie (well, he did used to wear his fringe like Roger McGuinn's), and features Eliza Carthy on fiddle. Carthy must have been exhausted because there's a lot of fiddle on the record. Maybe that's why they called it Fair Warning. The instrument is used to decorate, or just plain deliver, a mixture of traditional and original songs, the latter unearthed from the famous folk archive at Cecil Sharp House. They chose songs "so icky, and potent, and heart-wrenching, they could have been written 500 years or 10 minutes ago, it doesn't matter". The other proviso was that the arrangements should be simple, even simplistic: "Singing, fiddle, electric guitar, no tricks" – that was their want-list. "You can hear everything, it's bare," they've said. "It's hard to convince people to make a record like that now but the sound is fantastic, it's so direct."
Fair Warning could, we suppose, give or take some of the technology, have come out at any point since Liege and Lief in 1969, which means, give or take some of the production, it could have been sung on street corners at any point since 1569, or whenever Olde Englishe Folke was the music du jour. There are vernacular interventions from the modern era, though. On Breakneck Speed Thompson gives someone "props" and mentions her "fragile, fucked-up heart", not a term used in many madrigals, but we could be wrong. William Taylor – which sounds like a lightly rocked-up version of a trad arr ballad – is, Thompson explains, "the ultimate bitch revenge fantasy for every guy you've had a shit time from", to coin a phrase from the Middle Ages. Panic Attack Blues alludes to Xanax, caffeine and cocaine and feeling "strung-out and left all alone". It also has what they used to call a lyrical guitar solo, such is its eloquent expression of the protagonist's pain ("I'm giving up, I'm checking out … It's time to leave these earthly shores"). Many of the songs seem to be about that hardy perennial, the fall-out from degraded male-female relations. "Our long-term goal is to make the perfect divorce album, obviously," joked Thompson.  From: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jan/10/the-rails-new-band-of-the-day

Pillow Queens - February 8th

Pamela Connolly and Sarah Corcoran—joint vocalists, guitarists, and bassists for Pillow Queens—are reciting a list they made early in their career, of all the loftiest goals they could conceive of.
“One of them was to tour in a tour bus,” says Corcoran. “We were able to cross that off that spring. We wanna do a US tour; we wanna tour Australia.” To Connolly, she adds, “I think you also said that you wanna be listed on Wikipedia in Donaghmede’s famous people.”
“Yeah. I tried to put myself in a few times, but apparently, you can’t do it for yourself,” Connolly deadpans.
In the few years since making that list, the four-piece have been diligently checking items off; winning the Music Award at the Irish Tatler Women of the Year Awards 2019; festival appearances, and opening slots for bands such as IDLES, Pussy Riot, Future Islands. Currently, the pair are Zooming from their respective lockdowns at home in Dublin—likely not where they thought they’d be in the run-up to the release of their debut album, In Waiting, but it hasn’t by any means lowered anticipation.
“We’re very proud of this album, but we don’t know what’s gonna happen, and it is a lot of pressure,” Connolly says. “But if it wasn’t there, we wouldn’t be working as hard as we are.”
Hard work was their intention from the start. The band—completed by drummer/vocalist Rachel Lyons and guitarist/vocalist Cathy McGuinness—formed out of a pre-existing friendship group in 2016, all of whom had played in bands before, but this time, they wanted to go further than gigging in local venues alongside their day jobs. “Even when nobody knew who we were, we said from the outset we wanna do this properly,” Corcoran recalls.
It was also the intention that the band would consist of four queer women. Queerness is in the very DNA of Pillow Queens; their foundation built on being visible as queer artists, with In Waiting featuring song titles such as “Gay Girls” and “Handsome Wife”. “That was something that was important to us,” says Corcoran. “I’ve been in bands before where we were approached by a queer publication, and the other members of the band were like: ‘We don’t want it to be a gimmick, we don’t want to make that a thing’. And it’s like, okay, it’s not gimmicky, it’s just a big part of my identity that I don’t wanna be hiding. I don’t wanna feel like we wouldn’t do any queer press. With Pillow Queens it’s the total opposite to that.”
“[We would] welcome it. We don’t get enough,” Connolly laughs, before quipping, “I don’t think people know that we’re gay.”
“This is our coming out article,” Corcoran replies, tongue in cheek.
Following two previous EPs, In Waiting was born from a more collaborative writing process than ever before. “Everybody feels like their stamp is on the album,” Corcoran notes, and it’s as sure-footed as the band has ever been. Lyrically, much of the album deals with watching their beloved Dublin fall victim to gentrification, and concerns around financial and living circumstances grow ever more pressing.
Yet Ireland’s influence on the album spreads its roots deeper even than that. Catholic imagery crops up throughout; something they found almost worked its way into to their lyricism unnoticed, merely a language picked up after growing up in a country where it’s so unavoidable.
“None of us really grew up in a strictly religious household,” Connolly says. “But we got a hangover of a very strictly religious country. And we had to grow up as four queer women in a country that didn’t necessarily see us as whole people.”
The conflation of religious language with perspectives that are intrinsically and uniquely queer results in a viewpoint that almost feels like a reclamation; a way of facing and re-sculpting this element of spirituality from which both Connolly and Corcoran felt ripped away. “When I was quite young, I was incredibly spiritual,” says Corcoran, “and there were a lot of incidents—including me coming to terms with my sexuality and realising that that wasn’t accepted—that were really disappointing. I was like, okay, I can’t coexist harmoniously."
“I thought I’d have this part of me forever, and [now] I just have to be like: no, it’s not me, it’s not actually a part of me at all; I’m this other person. Which doesn’t necessarily mean that I don’t have a spiritual side, but the foundation of it was completely shattered.”
Speaking to the crux of how this division shaped the band's songwriting, Connolly adds: “I think that grief of losing something that you thought was good when you were younger is in our songs a lot... It’s a loss when you lose something that is, for a point in your life, something that gives you joy or gives you solace. It’s a bit of jealousy, I think, when I see people who have that spirituality,” she says.
“But I find [spirituality] quite beautiful as well,” Connolly continues. “So it comes in ebbs and flows in terms of why you think it’s a negative, and why you think it’s a positive. It certainly affected how we see ourselves and how we look at the world.”
“It makes me put a critical lens on things that maybe I wouldn’t have done before,” Corcoran agrees, “because when I was coming to terms with being queer, I thought that it was wrong, I thought that it was immoral, I thought that it was perverse. And then suddenly I was like, ‘Oh, wait a second, maybe it’s not’, and I had to reassess that. And so it made me reassess everything.”  Format: https://www.thelineofbestfit.com/features/interviews/queerness-is-in-pillow-queens-dna

Free - Ride on a Pony / The Highway Song / The Stealer

Such was the way of the music industry in 1970 that Free were back in the studio on August 21st barely a few months after the release of the “Fire and Water” album to begin recording the follow up “Highway”.
Through the first three albums they had built up a solid reputation as a hard working solid blues rock band. For each of these albums the songs had been written and honed on the road, so much so that the entire previous album was played live at some point or another in the year of its release. That wasn’t the case with “Highway” though and for the first time the band were forced to write in the studio. The irony of this is that the recording of the second and third albums had been fraught with difficulties as the band disagreed with record company people and producers alike despite having the material all prepared. “Highway” though had none of these problems and was generally regarded by the band as the easiest to record.
There is a marked change in styles again on “Highway”. Just as “Tons of Sobs” had been very bluesy, “Free” very folky (even though Paul Rodgers claimed it to be a soul album) and “Fire and Water” very rocky, “Highway” was drenched in melancholy, soul and even tinges of country and southern boogie. With far more piano than on previous albums “Highway” is certainly the softest of the Free albums although this does give added punch to the harder Free rockers on there.
The album starts with the curious ‘The Highway Song’. Curious in subject matter anyway,  for you don’t get many rock songs about farming. Okay so its only loosely based on farming but you get my point. A nice mid paced piano and drum shuffle it sets the tone for the album and casts thoughts of lazy summer days. The idea behind the song is said to have come from Rodgers’ love of “Music From The Big Pink” by The Band.
‘The Stealer’ was the single and supposed successor to ‘All Right Now’ and is one of the two real out and out rockers on the album. A great strutting piece of classic Free it is still a mystery to many as to why it bombed so terribly as a single. Lyrically it is not dis-similar to ‘All Right Now’ but it does lack the latter's trademark solo and bridge so is musically inferior. Which makes the decision to use the single edit on the album even more surprising. There is a great “extra Koss” version which is now available which extends the song by over a minute and is virtually all Kossoff guitar. Quite why this wasn’t used at the time is beyond me. Incidentally when this was recorded, on first take at 3AM in the morning engineer Andy Johns woke Island boss Chris Blackwell and demanded he come and listen to it straight away as it was a surefire hit. Luckily for Johns Blackwell agreed with him, unluckily for Free the record buying public didn’t and it never even charted.
The second out and out rocker on the album is ‘Ride on a Pony’. A dirty classic Free riff that just leaps out of the speakers and grabs you by the throat. The song just struts along throughout its entirety. Nowhere else is the description of Free’s sound as “four flat tyres on a muddy road" more apt. It has long been my favourite Free song, is still my ringtone on my phone and once led to me sacking a guitarist on the spot for declaring it boring and refusing to play it as an encore!!! One strange little thing about the song is that no-one seems to actually have the definitive answer as to what it is really called. It has appeared and been introduced live as ‘Ride on a Pony’, ‘Riding on a Pony’ and ‘Ride on Pony’. ‘Riding on a Pony’ would be the obvious choice as those are the actual lyrics but the original album used ‘Ride on a Pony’ and the “Free Live” album used ‘Ride on Pony’. Fact of the matter is whatever you call it its one blinding rock tune and along with ‘Be My Friend’ became a staple part of the live set even before the album was released.  From:  https://classicrockreview.wordpress.com/2021/06/13/free-highway-1970/

Paula Cole - I Believe in Love / La Tonya / Pearl / Be Somebody / Free

You'd have to concede one thing about Paula Cole. She's candid. In a 20-minute phone interview, the former Peter Gabriel backup singer - best known for her solo hits Where Have All The Cowboys Gone? and I Don't Want to Wait, the theme for telly's Dawson's Creek - admits her new album hasn't done the business she hoped for.
 And she's felt increasingly uncomfortable with her high profile since those seven Grammy nominations for the This Fire album three years ago. And she's found a faith, a sticking point for critics who formerly embraced her. It's a lot to give away. But Cole comes off as comfortable with herself, good-humoured, and can't understand why she copped so much flak for appearing at the Grammys with unshaven armpits. "It was mostly women who were uptight about it." But frankly, she doesn't like much of what she's seeing and hearing in these millennial days. Hence her upbeat and optimistic new album Amen, on the cover of which she poses with what looks suspiciously like a halo.
"I consider music to be a harbinger to politics, a reflection of what society's going through," Cole says. "Even just three years ago music was better, more substantial and conscious.
" Music now is in some fantasy world with boy bands and singing blond boob jobs who are 16. It's really manufactured, teenage gimmicky music. 
"My continual fight is feeling really depressed by the state of the world and fighting it to stay positive and contributing something positive." 
That positivity takes voice with Amen, a collection which finds her moving away from personal statements into a search for universal truths, but which also addresses "the critics and the cynics who don't understand the lyrics" on Rhythm of Life.
The album references Malcolm X and Gandhi, and finds her embracing black soul and hip-hop with Gang Starr's DJ Premier and T-boz of TLC.
 "Rhythm of Life is like my reincarnation song meets my hip-hop influences. It's an awareness of what was to come with this album because I knew I would be criticised for being white and talking about race, and being white and influenced by black music, especially hip-hop.
" In the past we loved Elvis, Janis Joplin, the Beatles. These are all artists who are influenced by black music, but that was accepted. I knew I wouldn't be." 
Cole says her critics have a beef with her either because of the Armpit Grammys or because her song was on Dawson's Creek.
 "I'm saying they just don't understand, and it's true, they don't," she laughs.
 Her new-found, non-prescriptive faith has seen her through.
 "I'm not a religious person but I truly believe in God now and have profoundly changed my life. It was an intellectual search and reading philosophers like Jung, Hesse and Joseph Campbell was helpful. 
"I started having feelings I couldn't describe. Yoga helps because it calms you and its like a prayer-like state, like you are a violin tuning yourself so a beautiful melody can be played on you, and that melody is God's hand in a way."
 Her new album appears under the banner of the Paula Cole Band, an acknowledgment of her longtime fellow travellers Jay Bellerose (drums) and Kevin Barry (guitar).
 "I was feeling increasingly uncomfortable having the spotlight on me when those two, essentially my brothers, have been with me since I was 19, about 12 years now. I needed to acknowledge them. We've always been a band."  From: https://www.elsewhere.co.nz/absoluteelsewhere/10251/paula-cole-interviewed-1999-arm-en-to-that/

Primitive Ring - Fire And Brimstone

Luke Dumpert: What spurred you guys to start Primitive Ring?

Charles Moothart: It really started with a conversation between Bert [Hoover] and I. We both have spent a lot of time touring with a lot of bands. So, there were a few conversations he and I had where we were just kind of wanting to have a new collaborative experience. Sometimes you just need to kind of hit refresh on that creative energy. We talked about just getting together and jamming, and Jon [Modaff] has played drums with Bert a lot. Jon was also then playing drums with me, and so we'd all spent time playing music together. So it just made sense, like our worlds were kind of coming together, you know? 
At the time, Bert had a recording session booked with our friend Eric Bauer, who's an awesome engineer. They were just going to just do a garage home recording session, just a kind of “throw paint at the wall” kind of thing. Since he already had that booked, Bert was like, ‘let's just write a couple songs and do that.’ That's what ended up becoming our first two seven inches. So, it was kind of just a fortuitous moment where it just made sense. 

Luke: Your bio states ‘Rock and roll is in its essence a primal experience, and the name reflects that.’ Does the ‘Ring’ in your name represent unity within the band, to expand on that primal feel through your music?

Charles:  I'm glad you asked that, because, to me, I think that's the most fun thing about the name. You can kind of take any definition of the word “ring” and it works. There's the ring like we are all here together, then there's also the sound. There’s also the physical primitive ring, like, if you were to think of [it as] some archaic or lost vestige of the past or something. I think that it's a fun way to kind of pay homage to both what the band is as three people continuing the journey of rock and roll. We’re aware we're not reinventing the wheel, but we still take pride in what we do. We are all part of the primitive ring.

Luke: The album is described as a Genesis story, and I was wondering, do the lyrics tell a story in chronological order within the tracklist?

Charles: No— but there are moments, though, where I think that we are toying with that. Once “Fire and Brimstone" started coming together, it was pretty clear that it was going to be track one. Once we were working on it, we were like, ‘cool, let's tackle this as the opening song.” We were really trying to lean into a kind of a cinematic [feel]. Bert kept using the term ‘title,’ like if the record was a film– then this is the title sequence. That, in itself, felt like an explosive creativity moment of kind of being like, ‘this is the genesis of the record.’ This is us really trying to make ourselves known to the world, or whoever wants to listen and to people who are getting familiar with our music. Our singles were that as well, but this is us kind of trying to put some mistakes out there and be like “This is who we are, and we retain the right to go farther than this.”

Luke:  I’m glad you brought up “Fire and Brimstone.” The string arrangements on that song and “Golden" are awesome. I think they add to the song in such a unique way. How did you decide to bring those into the mix?

Charles:  With “Fire and Brimstone”, we were definitely in the demoing process. We used a Mellotron to get the sounds we knew we wanted there. And Lena, who plays strings on the record, she's just so talented in so many ways. She's a great musician, she has a great ear. She's also an incredible guitarist, so it's like she has a rock and roll mindset. She can do both things and take it on. We figured out a way to kind of tackle the idea in a way that actually makes sense for her instrument. 
With “Golden”, once we knew we were going to have strings and some keys on there, the idea came to us to have it end with those with the guests being part of the ending. I don't always like to reference the references we make, but there's definitely a Here Come the Warm Jets [by Brian Eno] kind of energy that I think we were trying to channel where it's the end of that record and the way it kind of fades away, then all of a sudden you're left with this beautiful line. Lena was just kind of freestyling. 

Luke:  Was the original release of “Golden In Your Eyes” more of a demo? 

Charles: Yeah, I really like the life that that song has had because when we went in to do the first session, we didn't really know what we're going to come out with. Like, in our heads, we were like, ‘Oh, if we have one single, or whatever this is a win.’ And then once we realized that we had three songs, it was like, ‘Okay, well, shit, if we could get four, that would be awesome.’ Bert had that basic melody for Golden, and I started kind of playing with it in my head a little bit and came up with a very basic vocal arrangement. 
It's funny because it was obviously the outlier of the three. Like the other three tracks were rocking, and this one was going to be mellow, which was fun too, because at a certain point it was just us three sitting there playing acoustic guitars. Jon is playing the 12 string on the seven inch recording. I was just kind of trying to lead the way that I heard it in my head with vocals and we just started layering it. But the real beauty of it was that after we'd made the song, we're like, “Oh, this is really cool.” 
It feels really rough around the edges on the seven inch. It essentially is a demo. Once we started playing it live, you know, realizing that it worked in this more up tempo, rocking [way] like The Velvet Underground, that it started to open up new approaches to that song. Then it kind of took on a life of its own. 
So it became a fun thing when we realized,  “Oh, this might be the only song that we re-record from our first four seven inches for the LP”, especially because it's the only one we felt like we really were starting to play differently. That song had a really fun little journey, [going] from being a little seedling to now just this fun rock song.

Luke: Your cover of “I've Been Waiting for You,” by Neil Young is fantastic. What led to the inclusion of the B side to “Luck”?

Charles:  That was one of those things where we had it in our heads that we wanted to do four seven inches in a year, and then make it the goal to make an LP out of all songs that were not on the seven inches. I don't remember where that decision was made, but we consciously made that choice at some point in time. I feel like, at least in our world. 
“I've Been Waiting for You” pretty early on was a song that was Bert’s idea to cover it, and I would have never thought to cover that song. We started playing, and we were like, ‘Oh, this is awesome.’ When we first played our first couple of shows, we didn't really have enough songs to play a show, so we needed something like a cover to bring into the mix. We fell in love with playing it pretty quickly. The first two seven inches were recorded in one session, and the second two seven inches were recorded in another session. We were writing a lot at the time and we sat down and set out a couple days at my rehearsal space to record what would be the next two seven inches and it was a no-brainer that “I've Been Waiting for You" would be one of those songs. 

From: https://www.occult-magazine.com/interviews/primitive-ring-charles-moothart-interview 

Joan Armatrading - Killing Time / Figure of Speech / Reach Out

Conversation has never really been my strong point. There was a time when I used to find myself doing interviews and hardly saying anything. I still find I have to make the effort sometimes now although it is becoming easier. I suppose that's why I write songs. They give you time to think. They can be more precise and say so much more than a hundred conversations sometimes. If the song's good.
So he's here and I'm here. I've got a new album out. Produced it myself. I'm proud of it. I've never really done that before. I've always had control over the album. Very much so. Even when I did the album with Steve Lillywhite I didn't go to him and say 'stamp your sound on these songs'. I went along with the songs sounding exactly how I wanted them and he produced them after that. That's how I do my demos. Always have done. I try to make them as polished as possible. I'll write the song on a guitar or a piano. Then I think about what instruments I want to play what on the song. That always works out very logically for me. It might not sound logical but it is for me. When I did Secret Secrets I worked everything out exactly. All the brass parts I did. I did some on a keyboard and I play a bit of saxophone so that was handy, I even worked out the drums on my Drumulator. Then I told the drummer exactly how I wanted him to play it. He's laughing at me now because I was miming playing the drums. I play the drums. That's how I mime playing the drums.
I'm not what you'd call a multi-instrumentalist though. I'm not a Mike Oldfield. I can get a tune out of most instruments. Yeah, a bit like Roy Castle. But really I'm a guitarist. A very good one. You know it's funny, I kind of realised that I was very good when I was doing the new album. I had this guy in to play on one track. I played all the other parts myself but I had this guy in and he's very good and I was showing him what I wanted him to play. Then I thought, 'hang on, if I can play it to show him the notes why don't I do it myself?' I suppose I've got a pretty distinctive style of playing now. I can play in quite a lot of styles but I'm best at my style. That's the one I'm most confident with.
I'm not really a piano player. I've played less and less over the years so I've sort of regressed. I only really use the piano for writing now — all in C. It's the same with the acoustic guitar now — I don't play that half as much as I used to. I really enjoy playing electrics now; for all of the new album I just used an Ibanez Roadstar — it's brilliant. Tell a lie I used a Strat once but that was only a tiny part. But the Ibanez has got a whammy bar so I can be like Van Halen! I can't play that really fast stuff like the Heavy Metal guys do — that widdly widdly stuff — But I really like it. I like Heavy Metal — some of it is really brilliant. I like what you might call older Heavy Metal too like Led Zeppelin. I've got a few of their albums. At the moment I haven't got any new Heavy Metal albums like Iron Maiden or anything but it's quite possible that one day I could go into a record shop and buy one. That's not what you'd imagine me to like. What would you imagine me to like? You see what I listen to and what I play aren't the same thing at all so you'll probably make a wrong assumption.
You don't like the new album. What are you here for if you don't like it? You think it's too heavy. When you say heavy do you mean heavy handed, clumsy or heavy as in rocky? I can see that you think it's rocky. I wrote the songs like that. If I'd have produced an album before it would sound like this one. I know there's a lot of distorted guitar on it. That's my Rockman. They're brilliant you know. They've got a new rack mounted one now. I've been trying to get hold of one really badly but there's a waiting list until the end of time and I just can't get my hands on one. No, not even with a name like Joan Armatrading.  From: https://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/tale-of-a-trick/11007

Live - Selling the Drama / I Alone / Lightning Crashes / White, Discussion

Perhaps the largest signifiers of “post-grunge” are the influence of Nirvana and Alice in Chains on the vocals, along with similar touchstones from fellow Seattle prophets Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. Kurt Cobain, Layne Staley, Eddie Vedder, and Chris Cornell, respectively. Each had a signature vocal style. One could say they’re inimitable, and yet, that didn’t stop a bevy of rock singers emulating their pierced, curdled tone.
Live’s Ed Kowalczyk was likely not attempting to mirror some of the genre’s forbearers by the time the band holed up with Talking Heads’ Jerry Harrison to record Throwing Copper. But his crackling tenor absolutely evokes Layne Staley, cutting through deeper guitars and frenetic action like a buzzsaw. Kowalczyk has his own style, and his existential lyrics arrive from a different place than the original grunge scribes. Still, whether conscious or not, Kowalczyk’s vowel-forward cadence and tempered grit, especially on the gorgeous, anthemic single “I Alone” or the raging opening track “The Dam at Otter Creek” belongs to the lineage of grunge.
But beyond the vocals, Live imbued their harder sound with moments of sun-kissed beauty, the soft warmth often coming from Kowalczyk and Chad Taylor’s guitars. The iconic “Lightning Crashes” is the album’s most serene and sentimental moment, and the guitar tone that guides the song undoubtedly became an influential vehicle for post-grunge ballads. The tossing and turning of back-half cut “Pillar of Davidson” evokes a kind of heartland rock, albeit with more power and darkness baked within its open-hearted approach. Unlike Nirvana or Alice in Chains, Live sounded less indebted to the punk and metal of the ’80s. When they accelerate, it’s not to conjure a frenzy; it’s in service of a greater release.
This potent mixture of grunge’s vaguely-threatening energy with a softer, more accessible exterior is what makes up the post-grunge appeal. Jerry Harrison producing the album — his second for Live — helped root these songs on planet Earth while letting their anthemic sound soar off into sky. Toggling between a feedback-ridden, distorted presentation and clarity is a tough task, and by doing it so deftly, Harrison had his part in shaping an influential sound.
Together, artist and producer combine each puzzle piece flawlessly on the underrated “Iris,” which features a rollicking, tom-heavy drum beat from Chad Gracey, as well as a furious, aching performance from Kowalczyk. The song starts and stops, inhales and exhales. A serene bridge halts the song’s momentum, but when the band comes flooding back in at full force, it sounds like a completely different song.
Immediately following “Iris” is the miraculous “Lightning Crashes” — which we ranked as the 3rd greatest post-grunge track of all time. “Lightning Crashes” is deeply restrained until the song’s final minute, which turns its meditative sentimentality into cathartic desperation. The song has become a beloved document of the early post-grunge era, right up there with Bush’s similarly weepy “Glycerine,” and 30 years later, it hasn’t lost its evocative touch.
Many still associate “Lightning Crashes” with its heavily-syndicated music video, which features an old woman dying as a new mother gives birth. Kowalczyk explained that the video was more about the “transference of life,” but regardless of the band’s intention, there’s a tidal wave of emotion imbued into the visual, forcing the listener to really sit with the song’s gravity. With a slow-burning, honeyed guitar line and an emphatic performance from Kowalczyk, “Lightning Crashes” is both tied to the ’90s and timeless; its potency has yet to dissolve, and yet, when listening, you can’t help but place it in this fraught era of rock, mystifying and humongous and intimate all at once.
It’s not all crashing lightning, however — Throwing Copper is sequentially muddled, leading to the final track with pair of six-minute odysseys that rob the album of some energy. Still, Throwing Copper remains a triumph for Live and for the post-grunge genre they helped solidify.  From: https://consequence.net/2024/05/live-throwing-copper-review-post-grunge/

Lydia the Bard - Run

How long have you been singing?

Ah since I was a wee young thing. I idolized Taylor Swift when I was younger, it was a mild obsession. Taylor Swift would be played from my bedroom for hours on end, every album was completely memorised, and I dreamed of being just like her. Naturally, I grew up and my dreams and aspirations changed, but she was definitely a big influence in my early singing days. Following that, I moved on to idolise Lea Salonga and so the Musical Theatre obsession began. It kinda all spiraled from there! I went on to do theatre lessons and singing lessons, hoping to be just like them. To cut a long story short, I've been singing since I was around 8 years old with formal lessons from 12 years, but you're never too old to learn!
If you're interested in knowing about what formal training I have received, I started taking private singing lessons at 12 years old and proceeded to do a bunch of grades in Musical Theatre and pop singing. I went all the way up to my Grade 8, then beyond to take my ALCM Diploma in Musical Theatre Performance and Musical Theatre Teaching. I took these exams whilst I was training full time at D&B Academy of Performing Arts, where I continued my formal training and had the privilege to be taught by many different industry professionals. 

Where do you record?

I just recently invested in a recording booth with Kube Sound Isolation ltd! It's probably my biggest investment in my career and I love it! Saying that though, for the majority of my singing career I would record in a cupboard using clothing as soundproofing and I stand by that method as being very effective. I just moved house and was getting too self conscious about the neighbours so upgraded.

From: https://www.lydiathebard.com/faq 

The Golden Grass - Daytrotter Session 2017

The cool thing though is you don’t even need to dose to get into that far out headspace, the walls are undulating around you while the carpet is breathing underneath your feet and the colors are starting to take on tastes as the frenzy starts to creep up your spine… This is some far out stuff, man. There are a lot of bands out there right now that want to sound like they just fell out of the 70’s, but the truth is, most of them don’t succeed because that was another time and place, another headspace that most people can’t get into these days. Golden Grass on the other hand, have effortlessly traversed time back and forth, collecting bits and pieces of what they heard along the way to fashion a motley, yet almost divine, psychedelic Frankenstein of music encapsulated in the fuzzed out distortion, swirl of the organ and rumble of the bass. Heavy blues and garage rock are all the rage here, tasty riffs that will lodge themselves in the deepest parts of your brain, their lead singer floating above it all with tight vocal melodies and rhythms that hum and vibrate above the din of distorted noise and rock.
The band described their sound as “soulful boogie rock” and I wouldn’t disagree with that statement, but there’s a tasty driving energy behind it that propels the music from mid-tempo semi-psych blues rock into full-blown psychedelic territory while retaining all of the toe tapping, slow head nodding traits mentioned above; namely I think they might have listened to a good deal of Jimi Hendrix which always adds a bit of a driving force to something without nudging it out of place for genre.  From: https://www.psychedelicbabymag.com/2014/08/the-golden-grass-interview-with-ada.html

Jockstrap - Greatest Hits

London-based duo Jockstrap (Georgia Ellery and Taylor Skye) released their debut album, I Love You Jennifer B, in September via Rough Trade. Now they have shared an amusing video for the album’s “Greatest Hits,” which centers on a court battle between two fictional aging music icons and features Ellery as a judge’s clerk. Aiden Zamiri directed the video. 
Zamiri had this to say in a press release: “I think Jockstrap are one of the most exciting bands in the world and I’m stoked we were able to make this video together. We wanted this to have a bit of a reflection on the time we live in now, whilst still having a sense of humor about it. Georgia and Taylor are geniuses, and I was so grateful to explore this mad story with them. We did our best to make it as legally accurate as possible (with a few artistic liberties) and this was possible thanks to Jean Lee, our barrister consultant who also played the judge.”
In a previous press release, the band collectively had this to say about the album: “I Love You Jennifer B is a collection of Jockstrap tracks that have been three years in the making. Everything on it is pretty singular sounding so we hope there is a track on there for everyone and something that speaks to you and says ‘I’m a banger.’”  From: https://www.undertheradarmag.com/news/jockstrap_share_amusing_and_judicial_video_for_greatest_hits/

Black Mountain - Horns Arising / FD'72

Your latest album, Destroyer, sounds great! It’s the heaviest sounding of all of your albums so far. Any specific factors that led to this increase in heaviness as opposed to being more folky-psychedelic on the previous albums?

Stephen: It would just be a combination of the chemistry of the people playing on the record – some new members. I guess a bit of the material, and we recorded a lot of songs so we just gravitated towards the heavier ones this time. It seemed like the heavier ones were a little bit more special than the folkier ones this time. A combination of humans, and machines, and electricity happening at once and a little bit heavier.

I also really enjoyed the video for “Licensed to Drive”! Great combination of Atari imagery and live action. Was the idea for the video your own concept?

Stephen: That was the director, Zev Deans, he I guess submitted for a video and I’m not really a fan of videos but I liked his idea and we did a bunch of green screen and I didn’t know what he was going to do and he sent me the first cut and I was like “oh wow, that’s great. I don’t even have any comments – it just looks cool.” Usually there is like… I don’t think anyone likes looking at themselves on screen… except maybe porn stars. (haha) Yeah, I don’t know. It was fun. It was easy. A bunch of our friends got to together and brought all the props in and everything. It was pretty painless. Which always was nice because sometimes it can be pretty painful with a camera in your face.

Adam: Yeah, it was definitely good energy all day.

Stephen, you just got a driver’s license, or I guess it was a few years ago now, but I’m really impressed that you have gone this long without a driver’s license.

Stephen: Yeah, that’s definitely true. I managed to live in Los Angeles for seven years without driving. Even pre-Uber and stuff. I had my bicycle and I would ride around. I finally got a kick in the butt to get my license. I had it before but I never actually tried driving. And then when I did start driving it opened up another portal to experiencing music that I had never experienced before. So, that was pretty cool. I spent many hours in vans riding shotgun, flipping tapes, and making playlists but it definitely like, and especially when you are driving alone, and just put on an album and yeah… that probably had a lot to do with the more heavy metal aspects of the album. I heard certain albums by Judas Priest or Slayer for the first time driving and it was pretty exhilarating. When you are making a playlist you just kind of go for the go-to numbers but there are all these deep-cuts that you sometimes forget about. And you can listen to the Wall in it’s entirety which is cool.

You staying out of trouble driving so far?

Stephen: Yeah, I got pulled over once but I didn’t get a ticket.

Speeding?

Stephen: Yeah, we were up in… somewhere in Northern California on a camping trip and it was that thing driving up into the mountains. It was funny because I had just said, “what is the speed limit? I don’t see a sign.” But he let me off the hook which was cool.

What’s your favorite food to eat while driving?

Stephen: I have eaten microwavable Kraft dinner while driving. Gotta be a little careful. Especially with microwave foods. It can get a little scalding.

So, you microwaved it and then hopped in the car?

Stephen: Well, it was in the RV so Jeremy (Schmidt) made me the little tour packet of Kraft dinner and set me up to drive. I mean, I think if I was driving when I was a teenager, I would have been a little bit more rambunctious behind the wheel. But now I’ve experienced good and bad drivers and watched their tricks and know what they are doing like people that drive with one knee. I’m like “okay, I’m not going to do that” and other ones that have two hands on the wheel. So, I don’t text or Tinder while I’m driving.

(haha) That’s good! You guys recorded 22 songs and picked out 8 of them for Destroyer. Will there be a Destroyer part 2?

Stephen: Well, we released one of those songs as a single about a month ago, “What’s Your Conquest”. We will probably work on some other ones or re-do some when the next album cycle starts.

Are you going to play any of those other songs in your live performance tonight or stick with what’s on the albums for the most part?

Stephen: For now, we are just going to stick with the… how many albums do we have now? Five?

Adam: Five.

Stephen: So, yeah, not to sound pompous but we are a band that is blessed with having a handful of good numbers. So, it’s nice to pull from each record and keep certain fans… it keeps the self-titled only fans happy and the people who have discovered us through the new record. The Spotifys and all that. Yeah, kinda like a ‘greatest hits’ each night.

How long will you guys be in Austin?

Stephen: We’ve been here for three days but are we leaving tomorrow?

Adam: Yeah, to drive to Nashville. A long-ass drive.

Stephen: I usually stay most of Psych Fest or Levitation but gotta get on the road and get that gas money.

Any bands you will be seeing tonight or that you saw last night?

Stephen: I saw Angel Olsen last night. I saw a bit of Power Trip. I might go check out Mercury Rev. Definitely see Stonefield and Kikagaku Moyo. We are playing with them tonight and we played with them in Switzerland.

Adam: I really wanted to catch Beak> tomorrow but we’ll be gone.

You guys seem to tour a lot. I know I’ve seen you in Austin as Black Mountain as well as Pink Mountaintops. Any crazy tour stories you’d be willing to share? Bonus points for drug references…

Stephen: I remember being on a tour where like… in probably 1999 we played in Austin, older band, and we played at the old Emo’s and we didn’t have anywhere to stay and we just parked the van and we had the windows down because it was so hot and I remember waking up to this hand reaching in trying to grab the garbage off the dash and we are like “hey!” and the hand didn’t flinch and I don’t know… A lot of the crazier ones are just a blur. We are pretty responsible now. Whenever we tour with Dead Meadow and stuff we get to live vicariously through their tour insanity.

You have toured with them quite a bit?

Stephen: Yeah, we toured Europe with them and the US a bunch of times and some of them were in Pink Mountaintops in some incarnations of that.

From: https://www.psychedelicbabymag.com/2019/11/black-mountain-interview.html

Bhopal's Flowers - 1221 Jasmin Street

Bhopal’s Flowers are a Montréal-based psychedelic pop band crafting a sound where 1960s-inspired melody, cinematic atmosphere and Indo-Persian textures meet. Led by Lionel Pezzano, Bhopal’s Flowers is the musical outcome of a singular journey through Indian music, Persian music, rock and country. Before founding the band, Pezzano explored these different traditions in depth; Bhopal’s Flowers brings them together into a sound that is both personal and vividly evocative. Running through the project is a constant spirit of discovery, that of true mystic explorers, moving freely between styles, landscapes and inner visions.
At the heart of the project is a distinctive guitar language built around 12-string textures, drones and melodic interplay, giving the band a shimmering, immersive identity. Rather than treating psychedelia as mere nostalgia, Bhopal’s Flowers approach it as a living, expressive form: colourful, mysterious, and emotionally direct. Their songs move between intimate reverie and widescreen intensity, combining rich arrangements with a strong sense of melody and atmosphere.
Based in Montréal, the band have steadily built their presence through live performance, recently touring with Kula Shaker and Levitation Room. That live experience has helped shape a sound that is both detailed on record and fully alive on stage.
Their forthcoming album, Poivre Rose, continues this journey with a collection of songs steeped in mysticism: a genuine psychedelic oriental western. Released in digital and digipack formats, the record captures Bhopal’s Flowers at their most confident and fully realised: a Montréal band with an outward-looking vision, rooted locally while reaching toward something far more expansive.  From: https://montrealguardian.com/montreal-music-bhopals-flowers/

 

Lo-Pan - Chichen Itza

For nearly seven years, my measuring stick for Small Stone debuts has been the first, self-titled Sasquatch album, and each new band that’s come along on the label (there have been plenty) since then, I’ve said, “Well, okay, but is it as good as the Sasquatch?” Listening to Lo-Pan’s Salvador – which, admittedly, is their third album following a self-titled and the excellent Sasquanaut which Small Stone re-released late last year – I might have to revise my comparison point. I was fortunate enough to hear rough mixes of Salvador back in December, and even as rough as those tracks were compared to the finished product I’m reviewing now, it was clear that the Columbus, Ohio band, the label, and anyone who would seek it out to listen, had something formidable on their hands. I don’t want to get lost in hyperbole or overestimate the appeal of the record, but Lo-Pan’s Salvador has all the makings of a classic in the genre.
The single-guitar four-piece present 11 tracks in just under 46 minutes, and nearly each one of them is perfectly memorable (I’m not counting “Intro,” though even the riff to that is catchy), varied in its approach and masterfully written. The guitars of Brian Fristoe are unrepentantly fuzzed out, and his riffs are heavy rock of the highest order, and Jeff Martin’s soulful, wonderfully melodic and inventive vocals cut through the thickness just right, followed by Skot Thompson’s running bass and the center-stage drums of J. Bartz. Having seen them live on more than one occasion, Lo-Pan is one of those bands where each element involved in the making of the songs just works so well, and on Salvador, not only are those elements working, but they’re working together. You can listen to any part of any song on this record and say, “That’s killer,” or you can listen to how the parts interact with each other and say the same thing. It comes down to this: if you’re not coming out of Salvador glad to have heard it, it’s your own fault.  From: https://theobelisk.net/obelisk/2011/02/15/lopanreview-2/

 

Tracy Bonham - Sharks Can't Sleep

Tracy Bonham was going through a period of intense personal growth when she wrote the songs for her debut album, The Burdens Of Being Upright. "Sharks Can't Sleep" is one of those songs. It's a look at how our animal instincts can compel us to do or feel things that might not feel right.
In a 2022 Songfacts interview with Bohman, she explained: "It was around that time when I was contemplating what it means to be in a relationship with someone else, but it was less about this ex-boyfriend and more about how people say they're in love and so close with someone one day, and then just turn their backs on them the next day, and that included myself, because I was looking at myself and past relationships and confused by the about-face. One day I could feel like I want to spend the rest of my life with this person, and then it seemingly felt like the next day I was moving on and I didn't have anything to do with that person. So it really felt like the Nature Channel. Like sharks, how do they sleep? How do they go to bed at night? That was the metaphor I was using."
One of her live favorites, Bonham performed this song on Lilith Fair when she toured with the festival in 1997 and 1998. She's classically trained on violin, which she plays on her big hit "Mother Mother," but on "Sharks Can't Sleep" she's on guitar.
The music video finds Bonham in an aquarium shop, and also within a tank in a SpongeBob-like world. It was directed by Phil Joanou, who did several videos for U2, including "One Tree Hill" and "All Because Of You."
In 2017, Bonham released a new version of this song with Tanya Donelly of Belly and Throwing Muses for Modern Burdens, an album that re-imagines the songs on The Burdens Of Being Upright.  From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/tracy-bonham/sharks-cant-sleep

Delta Shade - Fire

Hailing from the high desert, Delta Shade play hard rock with a fierce groove that provides the backbone to their soulful melodies. After starting in 2016 by members Chad Buchanan, Andrew Laich, and Travis Prine, the band quickly gained a sizable local following and became known for their lively, impassioned performances that meld a variety of music genres. Their songs are full of life’s turmoil and heartache, as well as rising above such dire experiences to make it out the other side. Delta Shade are constantly looking to the future and striving for progression, eager to avoid getting tied down to any particular genre. They released their first full-length album in 2017 and are currently working on their second album.  From: https://www.reverbnation.com/deltashade 

 

Hatis Noit - Illogical Lullaby (Matmos Edit)

Hatis Noit may seem like a new artist, but she’s not; Illogical Dance is giving her a global boost.  The artist first became known as a member of Mutyumu, and her solo debut Universal Quiet made a splash in Japan in 2014.  While the EP’s initial release in 2015 should have made her a public name, it remained an eastern secret.  Add a new cover and a striking video, and the results should be completely different.
While Hatis Noit explores the outer possibilities of the human voice, she concentrates on magical and lovely tones, avoiding the ugly or off-putting.  She whispers, but never screams; soars, but never wails.  If our ears could open in wonder, they would.  Her sonic precision is extended to the stereo mix; her use of channels is exquisite, creating an illusion of surround sound.
The artist is often described as “enigmatic,” thanks to a visual identity that experiments with gender expectations and a sound that borrows from ballet, theatre and world music.  Segments of “Illogical Lullaby” find antecedent in Dead Can Dance’s “The Host of Seraphim.”  The name Hatis Noit refers to the stem of the lotus, and as “The Lotus Eaters” was Dead Can Dance’s last recording before their first split, it’s easy to make the comparison.  Katie Gately is another relative, due in this instance not to the voice but to the approach of looping and layering.  Yet while the artist is not afraid to emulate, she follows her own path, folding in so many influences that she creates her own distinctive recipe.
While the lyrics are not in English ~ they in fact seem like a made-up language of onomatopoeic chant ~ the opening syllables of the album are phonetically similar to “crystalline,” which just happens to be the name of a track by Björk, another artist to whom the artist is compared.  And while her voice can be as low as that of a Tibetan throat singer or as high as that of an operatic diva, “crystalline” is a perfect description.  Is it any coincidence that Björk collaborators Matmos remixed “Illogical Lullaby” for this release?  The duo’s participation nudges this sound from experimental to electronic.  Astoundingly, the center of the original version sounds like an electronic production, awash in stutters, trills and spliced tones; but it’s all voice.  The biggest compliment to Hatis Noit is that she didn’t need to be remixed; the biggest compliment to Matmos is that their version is a worthy addition to the artist’s oeuvre.  (Note: as I typed “oeuvre,” my computer kept changing it to “Louvre” ~ and why not?)  After a crash of thunder, director Yoshiko Akita shows the artist singing in color.  Our perception has been altered.  From: https://acloserlisten.com/2018/03/22/hatis-noit-illogical-dance/

Todd Rundgren - I Saw The Light

Todd Rundgren was already showing signs of being a one-man musical army when he settled in to make his 1972 album Something/Anything? He had already gone through two bands by that time (Nazz and Runt). He had a habit of playing all the instruments on the records made by those outfits anyway.
With Something/Anything?, he dropped that pretense and released the album under his own name. Rundgren was so brimming with ideas that he decided to make it double. Three sides of the record are self-made studio creations, while the fourth consists of live, in-studio takes played with session musicians.
Todd Rundgren heard hit-single potential in “I Saw The Light”. That’s why he chose to put it at the start of side one, mimicking what he had witnessed Motown acts do for years by leading off with their hits. He was right about it being a hit, but he’d later show some regret for how he created it.
Todd Rundgren wrote “I Saw The Light” in about 15 minutes. He claimed that he was taking stimulants around that time so that he could work quicker, but that they also prevented him from stopping to take a breath to ponder what he was writing.
After the fact, he claimed that he wrote the song in such a rush that there wasn’t really any forethought behind it, nor did he have any kind of plan. As a result, he worried that the rhymes came out sounding a bit simplistic. While it made for a catchy tune, he was dismayed that there wasn’t more depth behind it.
We think that his assessments of “I Saw The Light” are a bit on the harsh side. The song is a proven classic that has stood the test of time. But Rundgren did make a career pivot from that point, as he started writing music and lyrics that were a tad more complex.  From: https://americansongwriter.com/beauty-in-simplicity-the-meaning-of-i-saw-the-light-by-todd-rundgren/

Grandma's Ashes - Cold Sun Again

In the intimacy of a trio format, Grandma’s Ashes paints a portrait of everyday Paris life overshadowed by violence and insensitivity. Purged through the raw energy of live rock, the three young women connect with their audience through an explosive show that challenges perceptions, embracing their own identity as alternative goth rock. In 2021 and 2023, they released an EP and then a debut album, where powerful riffs intertwine with a crystalline voice to deliver the ambivalent emotions of an intimate journey.
The Fates, their first EP infused with progressive and stoner influences, already revealed their eagerness to conquer the stage. Their love of heaviness was confirmed with This Too Shall Pass, their debut album warmly welcomed by the specialized press and performed in hundreds of venues across France, and major festivals such as Hellfest, Motocultor, and Les Francofolies, as well as clubs in Spain. Their universe, steeped in mythological and artistic references, has come to life in carefully crafted artwork and narrative-driven music videos. The poetry of their lyrics also carries the feminist and eco-anxious voice of a generation plagued by doubt, raising the alarm on the rapid decline of both our rights and our environment.
In 2025, Grandma’s Ashes are set to keep explore their thirst of experimentation and freedom with their second album, Bruxism, to be released on label Verycords on October 24, 2025. The record unveils compositions rooted in new wave and grunge, fueled by the stage and by a need to push their fierce, engaged message ever further.
Cold Sun Again is the second single from their upcoming album Bruxism, out October 24 on Verycords. The track is a metaphor for chronic depression. It reflects the apathy that arises from the loss of pleasant and comforting sensations, even in the summer. “We wanted to capture the contrast between an environment conducive to joy and well-being, and a state of mind haunted by a recurring negative presence,” the band explains. Depression is personified as an old friend, knocking at the door, welcomed in because it visits so often, yet always without warning. “We evoke an almost benevolent weariness toward this ‘entity’ we continue to live and move forward with, one that comes and goes freely through our daily lives,” adds the trio. The video, once again directed by the talented Julien Metternich, perfectly illustrates this metaphor.  From: https://doomed-nation.com/french-alternative-goth-rock-band-grandmas-ashes-reveals-new-single-cold-sun-again-from-upcoming-album-bruxism/

Hey Geronimo - Carbon Affair

A quirky little song called 'Carbon Affair' first hit my eardrums back in 2012. Unsurprisingly, it came from yet another burgeoning band from Brisbane's booming music scene who called themselves Hey Geronimo. After a string of singles and EPs over the past four years, the collective have had a chance to finalise their line-up and refine their sound - and are now ready to present their debut album 'Crashing Into The Sun'.
The long wait has been well worth it. From start to finish, this is an exceptional album, without an iota of mediocrity to be found. With influences including The Beatles, The Beach Boys and Weezer, Hey Geronimo benefit from a wide and varied style; listening through the LP, no one could accuse them of being easily categorisable. It's a little indie pop, it's a little retro, but it's a lot of fun.
If you happen to be familiar with Hey Geronimo's work, there's a few familiar tunes scattered throughout. The intro track with a western twist 'Millions Of Miles' transitions seamlessly into the bold and boisterous 'Lazer Gun Show', an undeniably righteous way to kick off the album. Moving on to the title track, you'll be struck by a summery retro tune with a surprisingly cheerful kick for a song about earth crashing into the sun.
Latest single 'Boredom' has a somewhat different flavour to that of the rest of the album, being a little rockier and slower-paced, really giving you the feeling you're moving through molasses while you're listening to it. 'Bermuda' takes us on an underwater trip with a sleepy laid-back pop feel.
'The Girl Who Likes Me' is about as much fun as you can have in three minutes and eight seconds, a bright and bubbly 60s sound modernised with a little electronic fuzz. The earworm 'Bake A Cake' is a slice of deliciously upbeat schoolyard pop that will definitely have you going back for a second helping.
“From start to finish, this is an exceptional album, without an iota of mediocrity to be found.”
The aforementioned 'Carbon Affair' appears toward the end of the album, just before the pure electro-pop party track 'Finale' - and yet, despite the name, it doesn't wrap up the album; instead, we're left with 'Garble Arch' to bring things to their conclusion.
'Crashing Into The Sun' is an extremely solid debut album. Sure, they might have had the past four years to plot its production, but nobody's likely to hold that against the band. This is an incredibly well-crafted and clever offering, with catchy tunes and well-crafted lyrics. Let's just hope it's not another four-year wait for another album this good from Hey Geronimo.  From: https://www.maketheswitch.com.au/article/review-hey-geronimo-heating-things-up-with-their-debut-album

The Lucid Furs - Oxide Sessions 2023

Melodic Mag: Hey Karen, how’s the beach!?


Karen O’Connor: Cold! But it’s a nice break from the road.

Melodic Mag: I bet! Thanks for sharing your break with us. For those in our audience who don’t know, tell us a bit about the Lucid Furs.


Karen O’Connor: We like to describe ourselves as Detroit Freak Rock because we think our sound is reminiscent of Detroit, but not necessarily the genres that are mostly there. It’s a culmination of everything we grew up listening to.

Melodic Mag: Would it be correct to say that you’ve a strong 70s rock influence? Who are your influences?
Karen O’Connor: Heart. I get compared to Janis Joplin a lot too, but I didn’t listen to her as much and don’t seek out that comparison.

Melodic Mag: How would you describe your approach to your singing style?
Karen O’Connor: I grew up listening to those artists, then R&B on the radio, and then I listened to a lot of punk in high school. I resonated with that angst.

Melodic Mag: What can your audience expect from a Lucid Furs show?


Karen O’Connor: We have our own little thing, some stage banter that we do. We just bullshit with each other on stage the same that we would in the rehearsal room or in the van, really. We tried being scripted, but it doesn’t work for us. We mostly get as much music in there as possible, and we talk shit to each other between songs until Dan starts in with the drums and then we’re off again.

Melodic Mag: Tell us about the singles you released in the lead up to the new album.


Karen O’Connor:  We released three singles from the album; “Pull the String”, “Another Page”, and “Five Finger Disco”. “Pull the String” is on the heavy rock side, “Another Page” is very bluesy and chilled out for us. “Five-Finger Disco” is the funkiest song we’ve ever done. We try not to be formulated. The singles are like a sample platter. We did music videos for all three singles, and Five Finger Disco is my favorite right now. A nerdy rapper named Brian who I’ve been making t-shirts for for years did the video. I told him it was my turn to be his customer for a change, and it came out really cool. For those in the [Detroit] scene, there will be a bunch of familiar faces.

Melodic Mag: You’ve recently released your third album, Damn! That was Easy. Was it, in fact, easy?


Karen O’Connor: Very easy to write, not easy to put out. We were ready to release it in 2020, but there was no real way to release it except on the internet. We sell most of our records on the road, so we sat on it for a minute which worked out because we ended up getting label support from Argonauta Records. They took care of our vinyl, got us on some publications, and we ended up on some charts because of their efforts and connections. I’m glad we sat on it.

Melodic Mag: Did COVID have a big impact on this project in other ways?


Karen O’Connor: We had to cancel a Southwest US and Canadian tour. We didn’t see each other for a couple months at first. Some of us work in the food industry, and that’s risky. We met up outside during summer and practiced acoustic. It was actually good for us to have time to write and create while there weren’t any shows. We had to figure out how to record some things ourselves, which is a skill that we’re happy to have.

Melodic Mag: Tell us about lyrical themes on the album.


Karen O’Connor: Sassy…Sarcasm…I don’t do much story writing. My songs will often be about multiple things. I go with what sticks with me and feels like it flows as opposed to what tells a story.
In a song on the album called “Follow Me”, the lyrics are just things that a woman yelled at me at a pub once. She thought I was her husband’s mistress. Weird situations like that stick with me. I just remember what people say. “Straight to My Head” is about quitting my job at the print shop I worked at before opening my own business. The boss’s perspective versus my perspective. So yeah.

Melodic Mag: You don’t see sarcasm in American music much. What do you think the audience will take away from your lyrical themes?


Karen O’Connor: Hopefully nightmares. That’s the kind of strong impact I’d like to have. I’d like to be the monster under every listener’s bed.

Melodic Mag: Are there any musical themes that follow from your previous albums or are unique to this one?


Karen O’Connor: Gordy’s signature solo. That’s his thing. He gets one Santana-esque solo per album. Dan has always used claves, marracas, and other percussion on our albums. But on this album, every track is beefed up with bongos. We were missing someone in the studio on a day that we were paying for the studio time, so we threw some bongos in there and they ended up complimenting everything really well. There’s more bongos on the album than actual drum set.

From: https://www.melodicmag.com/interviews/the-lucid-furs-karen-oconnor-talks-beach-banter-and-being-the-band-of-your-nightmares/

Alice Cooper - Love It To Death - Side 1

01 - Caught In A Dream
02 - I'm Eighteen
03 - Long Way To Go
04 - Is It My Body
05 - Black Juju

'Love It To Death' is the album that nearly didn't happen. After two flop albums no one was to eager to throw more money behind what they assumed, with some justification, would be a non-starter. Shep and the band, however, weren't about to give up. Shep managed to convince Warner Brothers to pay for the recording of four new demos with a hot shot new producer he'd found from Canada called Bob Ezrin. 
Shep and the band realised that to take the next step they needed a proper producer and after a little searching they decided on Jack Richardson of Nimbus 9 Productions in Toronto, renowned at the time for his work with Canadian act 'The Guess Who'. Contact was made but Richardson simply wasn't that interested. To shut them up he sent his new boy Ezrin down to check out the band and get rid of them. It didn't work out that way. In September Ezrin flew down to New York to see the band at Max's Kansas City and saw something in the band he thought had value. He returned to Toronto to convinced his boss they were worth recording. Richardson, still not convinced, said "if you think their so great YOU record them!" and shortly after Ezrin moved in with the band at their Pontiac base to start two months of writing and rehearsing for what would become 'Love It To Death'. 
By November Billboard reported the band were recording at RCA Studios in Chicago. In 'Me, Alice' Alice recalls they recorded four songs (he names 'I'm Eighteen', 'Is It My Body', 'You Drive Me Nervous' and 'Sun Arise') as demos to show Warners what they had. It does the trick and the band get the go-ahead to finish the album.
'I'm Eighteen', originally called 'I Wish I was Eighteen Again', was released as a single around the first week of February 1970 and had been slowly climbing the charts for a while before the full album was released. The single was an edited version of the original bluesy jam the band had been playing for a few months. Bob Ezrin, who on first hearing the song had originally thought the song was called 'I'm Edgy', had cut the original down to three minutes and tightened up the arrangement to produce the bands first solid hit record.
Alice Cooper shows had always been theatrical. Even back in the Phoenix days as the Spiders the band used anything they could find on stage and very early shots of them at the VIP have a guillotine visible in the background. However the 'Love It To Death' tour was where all the parts really came together. For a start Alice played the 'Alice Cooper' character throughout the show, rarely speaking to the crowd between songs and if he did he avoided the standard 'clap your hands', 'Hello Chicago' banter with the crowd. But more then that they now had the snake, the nurse (played by Neal's sister and Dennis girlfriend Cindy Smith) and, for 'Black Juju', an electric chair smoke effects and lights that flashed as Alice was executed for the crimes commited through the show. This was a big deal at the time when almost all bands just walked on stage in jeans and t-shirts.
The shows including only one song from the first two albums, 'Return Of The Spiders', and that was the encore. Everything else was jettisoned for the new record. That too was gone by the next tour. 'Love It To Death' was almost a fresh start. The band knew that with Ezrin that had found the final part f the puzzle and didn't look back.  From: https://www.sickthingsuk.co.uk/01-discography/03-love-it-to-death.php