The Smiths - Girlfriend In A Coma

At the tail end of 1987, the kings of indie-pop released their fourth and final studio album Strangeways, Here We Come a little over a year after their masterpiece The Queen is Dead. We at Melophobe certainly did not hold back with our praises with that record being one of the five albums to receive a perfect 10/10 score from us. Between the two final studio albums, two unique compilation albums were also released showcasing a handful of unreleased tracks rather akin to the style of The Queen is Dead with Panic and Ask at the forefront. In the Smiths final go at it, they seemingly tried to separate themselves from the jangle-pop sound which at this point, went hand in hand with the perception of The Smiths sound as a whole. To their credit, this album definitely exhibits a stylistic evolution, and has a sound more so in the alternative rock family (although it’s still an oceans width away from the alternative rock sound of R.E.M or The Pixies) than the indie pop family, at least in the context of the Smiths sound. All in all though, Strangeways, Here We Come was a great and largely under-appreciated record at a time when the alternative rock world was very malleable.
The room filling keyboards and microphone effects which kick off the album on A Rush and Push and the Land Is Ours set the stage for a stylistically different sound than the previous studio album; in fact, there are no guitars at all in this song. The Smiths with no guitars!? And the best part is, they nailed it. Although Johnny Marr is not wielding his 6 string on this song, Andy Rourke still lays down a great bassline raising the question, why do all The Smiths basslines go so hard? Following the guitar free opening track, fear not, Marr bluntly comes back in with a more classic sounding guitar forward song with I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish.
The star child track from the final studio album (at least to the masses) was the lead off single Girlfriend In a Coma. Short, sweet, and very concise, this song just shows what the Smiths do well - jangly, indie pop. No matter how hard they may have tried to separate themselves from that tag, they are just so iconic and good with that sound. The lead-off single finds itself with nostalgic, almost medieval sounding English folk melodies played so gracefully by Johnny Marr on his acoustic guitar. Although it may not be well noticed, and it certainly has not been talked about much, the bright indie folk sounds of this song were decades ahead of its time with the indie folk scene not popping off until the early 2000’s. For me though, it's the musically interesting third track on the album Death of a Disco Dancer that steals the show with its massive outro and interesting guitar work almost akin to what you might expect from a band like Radiohead. The Smiths had never released a song quite like Death of a Disco Dancer and although they made the sound their own in their unique Smiths fashion, that was a seemingly experimental and out of left field fantastic track.
The impact The Smiths had on indie and alternative music really cannot be overstated. They made it sexy, they made it accessible but most importantly, they were really good musicians. No one is saying Strangeways is The Queen is Dead, but it is great in its own right and allowed The Smiths to branch out a tad more before they vanished into the sunset. The legacy of The Smiths lives on today in the indie world, and is not going anywhere anytime soon. Just as most of what The Smiths have released, the songs hold up today as strong as ever.  From: https://www.melophobemusic.com/post/the-smiths-strangeaways-here-we-come-retrospective-review

Solstice - Bulbul Tarang - Live at Grand Chapel Studios

Thankfully, I chose to listen to (for the first time) Light Up in the morning. I wrote the review from that wonderful listening perspective. I did it because this wonderful album sounds like a bright, morning wake-up call. A soft, simple awakening to a summer or spring day (even though it’s winter, as I write this review). Light Up will be released January 13th, 2023 and it follows in the footsteps of Solstice’s very successful release, Sia, from 2020. Solstice is not a new band. They have been around since founder Andy Glass, who plays lead guitar, assembled the band in 1980 with violinist Marc Elton. But the band has a new sound and a relatively new voice, that of Jess Holland on lead vocals (she joined in 2020). Jess recently was voted amongst the top Female Vocalist of 2022 from Prog Magazine’s Reader’s Poll. Jenny Newman plays a mean fiddle and violin, Peter Hemsley plays explosive drums, Steven McDaniel plays amazing keyboards and Robin Phillips plays bass.
Light Up is a wonderful album to review as a first album of 2023. It will be a great year if more of the releases that I expect this year will fulfill expectations as well as Solstice have with Light Up. This band begins with one of the best voices from across the Atlantic. Jess sings in the title track,“Light Up”: “Let the morning in and the day begin. Wash the night away. There’s a place in here. She will keep you near. Don’t look the other way. Let the new light in. And begin again. Find another way. Here’s a place to start. Listen to your heart. See a brighter day. Give your heart away”. What a wonderful way to start a new year, eh? I think so. Love this song - already one of my favourites for the early new year.
Solstice was also voted one of the top progressive bands of 2022 by that same Prog Magazine Reader’s Poll. And it is no wonder. They are a dynamic band of musicians which provide a jazzier, Canterbury style of prog which is simply amazing. Andy Glass looks and at times sounds like one of my favourite guitarists, Steve Howe of Yes, and Jenny Newman on fiddle and violin make this band one to be reckoned with for the future of progressive rock music. And, even though this is an EP, the tracks are long enough and full of enough beautiful music to make this compilation fit well within the composition of most of the classic and modern progressive albums that you may already know, own and love.
“Wongle No. 9”, is no “Bungle in the Jungle”. Instead, it’s what might happen if Yes was to play alongside Steely Dan live. Truly inspirational in every way. Absolutely powerful jazz prog. You can dance to it. When was the last time you could say that about prog? I can definitely hear in this music how this band was so successful on the festival circuit this past summer with songs like this one. Andy’s cutting electric guitar soloing, Jenny Newman’s ripping violin solo, Jess Holland’s clear vocals, Peter Hemsley’s perfect drum beat, and Steven McDaniel’s radiant keyboards keep this musical train running at top speed. Speaking of Yes, Robin Phillips brings back memories of Chris Squire on bass. Such a great follow up to the title track and EP opener.
Then they hit you with Jenny Newman coming at you full speed with fiddle, the likes of which you probably haven’t heard since Charlie Daniels’ “Devil Went Down to Georgia” which lit up the amps and speakers back in the 1970s. “Mount Ephraim” also has some fantastic bass fun from Robin Phillips who keeps good pace with Newman and Hemsley’s solid drum beat. McDaniel’s adds some soft keys along with Glass’ guitar soloing. Jess sings around midway through this instrumental extravaganza. She takes the song higher and adds words to this wonderful fiddle symphony. A beautiful symphony of sound that just takes you over.
“Run” is absolutely not what you were expecting from that title. After all this cool, relaxing music, I don’t think anyone wants to run. But that is not what Jess and the band are talking about here. In fact, it is a confident, calm statement that, if you call, Jess will come running home. A beautiful keyboard and solo guitar statement, with Newman’s violin and soft drumming. Beautiful, and so wonderfully calming. Keep this one near, with a glass of wine and soft light, at the end of the evening. After all the work, or the things that you do during the day, sit back, relax and enjoy this song. “Home” is another wonderful instrumental journey for the band with Jess’ soft vocals adding to the sound. Home is where everyone’s heart is, and the band knows it to be true. This song encompasses everything we all appreciate about where we love to live, wherever that is. We all wish we were going home. Another wonderful Glass and Newman soloing experience. Just sit back and let them dazzle you again!
“Bulbul Tarang” is a string instrument from Punjab, which evolved from the Japanese taishōgoto, which likely arrived in South Asia in the 1930s. Andy Glass uses it to full extent on this exquisite piece of music to close the album. The harp-like sounds at the opening immediately remind you of some of the wonderful music off one of your favourite Yes albums. But this innovation is Glass’ and Solstice at their best. However, the comparisons are fair. This song sounds like something that Jon Anderson, Steve Howe and Chris Squire may have thought of and that is meant only as a compliment. However, Newman’s violin adds an Eddie Jobson-like feel to the atmospheric sound. Jess, at times, sounds like Jon Anderson on, say, “Onward”, or something off Tormato, Jon’s solo albums, or the ones with Vangelis. What a beautiful way to close this album. Steven McDaniel, finally gets front stage, with a beautiful, soft, piano solo. I wish it was longer, but as Pete Townshend sings, sometimes “a little is enough”.
Light Up is already one of my early year, favorite prog albums. There is a lot more to come this year, but Solstice has grabbed my ears early. This should definitely make my top 10 Prog albums of the year. Everything you could want and imagine out of a progressive rock album. Blistering, Hackett/Howe-like guitar solos, keyboards that melt your heart, great bass and drums, and a wonderful voice, as well as something more. Something that you didn’t expect. Violin to make you want to come back for more. Not Kansas-like violin. A unique and music enhancing violin sound.  From: https://www.solsticeprog.uk/reviews/light-up

The Flying Burrito Brothers - Christine's Tune

The Flying Burrito Brothers were a country rock band which formed in 1968 in Los Angeles, California. The band’s original lineup consisted of Chris Hillman (vocals, guitar), Gram Parsons (vocals, guitar), Chris Ethridge (piano, bass) and Sneaky Pete Kleinow (pedal steel guitar). Later members of from the band’s initial existence included Eddie Hoh (drums), Jon Corneal (drums), Bernie Leadon (guitar, vocals), Michael Clarke (drums) and Rick Roberts (vocals, guitar). The group originally disbanded in 1972 following Hillman’s departure. Kleinow and Ethridge instigated a reformation of the band in 1975 which continued through 1984. The band was reformed once again in 1985 and were disbanded for a final time in 2001.
The band best known as the “Flying Burrito Brothers” actually ‘borrowed’ their name from the original “Flying Burrito Brothers”, composed of bassist Ian Dunlop and drummer Mickey Gauvin, bandmates of Parsons from the Boston-based International Submarine Band, plus any of a loose coalition of musicians, including Parsons himself from time to time. In a deliberate choice of focusing on just creating and playing music without the distractions of the music industry, in 1968 the original Brothers moved from Los Angeles to New York City. From this base they continued to tour the Northeast playing their eclectic traditional/rockabilly/blues/R&B-oriented version of rock, using the name “The Flying Burrito Brothers East” after Parsons’ group became famous.
Meanwhile, on the West Coast, Parsons and guitarist/mandolinist/bassist/vocalist Chris Hillman thought this same moniker would be perfectly suited to the band they had been dreaming of since early 1968, when, as members of Roger McGuinn’s band The Byrds, they created one of the first country-oriented rock albums, Sweetheart of the Rodeo. They immersed themselves in their vision in their house in the San Fernando Valley, dubbed “Burrito Manor”, even replacing their wardrobe with a set of custom country-Western suits from tailor to the C&W stars, Nudie’s Rodeo Tailors (Parsons’s had marijuana leaf embroidery) and began a period of intensely fruitful creativity. At this juncture, the band also included pianist/bassist Chris Ethridge and pedal steel guitarist “Sneaky” Pete Kleinow.
Their first album The Gilded Palace of Sin (1969) did not sell terribly well, being a radical departure from anything most of the record-buying public (either rock or country) had ever seen, but the group had a cult following which included several famous musicians, such as Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones. Parsons soon became friends with Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones and left the group after 1970’s Burrito Deluxe, which also saw the departure of Ethridge and addition of guitarist/dobro player/vocalist Bernie Leadon and drummer Michael Clarke (of The Byrds). Rick Roberts replaced Parsons and released a self-titled album with the group in 1971. Kleinow then left to become a session musician and Leadon joined The Eagles. Al Perkins and Roger Bush replaced them, and Kenny Wertz and Byron Berline joined as well, releasing The Last of the Red Hot Burritos (1972), a live album. The band fell apart. Hillman and Perkins joined Manassas, while Berline, Bush and Wertz formed Country Gazette. Roberts reassembled a new group for a 1973 European tour, and then began a solo career before forming Firefall with Michael Clarke.
As Gram Parsons’s influence and fame grew, so did interest in the Flying Burrito Brothers, leading to the release of Honky Tonks (1974), a double album, and the recreation of the band by Kleinow and Ethridge in 1975. Floyd “Gib” Gilbeau, Joel Scott Hill and Gene Parsons (no relation to Gram) also joined, and the band released Flying Again that year. Ethridge was then replaced by Skip Battin for Airborne (1976), followed by an album of unreleased early material, Sleepless Nights. For the next few decades, the group released albums and toured and had a country hit with “White Line Fever” (1980, a cover by Merle Haggard) and then became the Burrito Brothers. Headed by prolific songwriter and ace guitarist John Beland and Gib Guilbeau, and normally featuring Sneaky Pete, this incarnation scored moderately well on the Country charts in the early 1980s. Through numerous incarnations (including Brian Cadd for a time), the band released albums and toured throughout the 1980s up till 2001 when John Beland “officially” ended FBB. While the bands work during the 1980-1999 period was exceptional, after 1984 none of the many releases had any chart impact. Sneaky created a Burritos spinoff in his new band Burrito Deluxe, which featured Carlton Moody on lead vocals and Garth Hudson from The Band on keyboards. While a good band, there has never been any real continuity with the true Burritos and this group can not be considered anything more than a spinoff. Pete however, left the band due to illness in 2005, leaving no direct lineage to the original masters.  From: https://thevogue.com/artists/the-flying-burrito-brothers/

L'Rain - Two Face

On her piercing self-titled 2017 debut as L’Rain, Brooklyn artist Taja Cheek sifted through the aftermath of her mother’s death with roaming sensitivity. Intimate field recordings, tape loops, and fragmented harmonies resembled loose sketches, yet L’Rain’s scattered structure framed an astounding, up-close document of grief. Fatigue, Cheek’s second album, once again looks inward, but this time allows more light into the corners. It’s a graceful record whose wearied landscapes of synth, air horn, strings, and saxophone distill a suite of low moods—depression, regret, and fear—into resilience and hope.
“What have you done to change?” demands Buffalo alt-rock artist Quinton Brock on Fatigue’s blaring opener, “Fly, Die,” a question that weighed heavily as Cheek put this music together. The album’s nonlinear framework replicates the elliptical way the mind works through intense emotions, twisting in different formations until it fractures into a breakthrough. Some of these diffuse songs evolved out of voice memos Cheek made for herself or in collaboration with others, but while her music can be intentionally illegible, it’s never unapproachable. Fatigue’s swirling blend of orchestral groans and human whispers evoke a state of subconscious drift where self-growth is nurtured in real time. It’s a way of taking stock of the bruises of life.
Cheek and co-producer Andrew Lappin’s work is painterly and methodical, daubing vocal loops over clattering percussion, sweeping strings, and resonant synths to create a shapeshifting strain of experimental pop. On the shattering standout “Blame Me,” she sings in a nimble voice over fingerpicked guitar: “You were wasting away, my god/I’m making my way down south.” Jon Bap and Anna Wise’s background vocals form an armature of strength as Cheek’s words grow more woeful: “Fought my demons until you were old—maybe ’cause you love me/Thinking ’bout it lately: future poison-blooded little babies.” Wherever Cheek goes on Fatigue, the ghosts of regret and trauma follow closely behind, an emotional state that colors the album in foreboding shades even as she creates space to recover and improve.
Like L’Rain, Fatigue is marbled with personal recordings: Dishes being washed in the sink beneath a piano melody on “Need Be,” a voicemail from her mother buried in “Blame Me.” The clips imbue the music with fleeting traces of closeness and familiarity. Cheek approaches them from a distance, recontextualizing some of the most heartfelt or difficult moments of her life in song. The mercurial, six-minute highlight “Find It” begins downcast, with a metronomic synth loop and the repeated mantra, “Make a way out of no way.” Screams echo through the sluggish beat as coming through a wall; the dust settles on an organist and singer performing the gospel song “I Won’t Complain,” recorded at the funeral of a family friend. Cheek intones over it until the song crests in a rapturous, overwhelming finale, with no less than 13 musicians contributing to the commotion. It’s easily the most poignant song she has ever made, a deeply felt, Biblically minded portrait of forging a path out of darkness. Yet the journey has room for lightness and humor, too, like the “oops” that slips into the end of “Walk Through” or the wacky vocal affect of a former roommate on “Love Her.” On the brief “Black Clap” and the rhythmic, low-lit “Suck Teeth,” Cheek incorporates the percussive sounds of a handclap game she made up with multi-instrumentalist Ben Chapoteau-Katz, a way to pay tribute to the joyful sound of childhood hand games played by Black girls.
Cheek upends expectations in more direct pop and dance traditions, too. On “Two Face,” a roving piano line and stuttering samples melt into a soulful, psychedelic throb as she ruminates on a failed friendship. “I can’t build no new nothing no new life no new nothing for me,” she trills in a singsong cadence, the words bouncing over oscillated coos. The lyrics on the tense “Kill Self” are even more unforgiving: “Did you see me chew myself out?” she asks, voice rippling in a cascade over shuffling percussion. “Hear the gnawing?” At once the album’s darkest and most propulsive moment, “Kill Self” eventually assumes a seething dancefloor pulse, bending skillfully toward structure without abandoning Cheek’s wandering impulses.
Fatigue ends with the beatific “Take Two,” a spare reconfiguration of “Bat” from L’Rain. She repurposes the song in a similar way to her field recordings, as raw material to mold into an unfamiliar shape. Stripped bare of percussion and transformed into an airy, droning spiritual, Cheek’s voice unfurls in billowy, Auto-Tuned tones as she repeats the words, “I am not prepared for what is going to happen to me.” In her skyward voice, the sentiment is more life-affirming than terrifying, suggestive of infinite possibilities. There is no fixed road toward healing, Fatigue reassures us; there is only the way forward.  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/lrain-fatigue/

Psychedelic Porn Crumpets - Mr. Prism

Perhaps more than in any other country – although there is fierce competition – Australia’s music culture is linked to the outdoors and festivals. A place of vast expanses and desirable weather will do that. Considering the enormity of the country too, a national tour can feel like a world tour, certainly in the sense of exhaustive travelling. Bands from the country – Spacey Jane, Ocean Alley, Skeggs, or DMA’s for example – thrive in the live setting, their years defined by festival slots and incessant gigs. Australian music is also indelibly linked to psychedelic rock, from psych revival bands in inner Melbourne to the idyllic revivalists from the coastal towns. Tame Impala and King Gizzard may have taken it to the world, but Australia’s psych-rock tradition thrives supremely on its own. Psychedelic Porn Crumpets adhere to both of these things: they are ferocious performers and festival favourites, and they also bang out psych-rock hits at an alarming rate. It’s fortunate, then, that their country’s superior handling of the COVID-19 pandemic has meant that the Crumpets’ hazy tunes can be enjoyed outside as touring slowly but surely returns to Australia, for their songs are designed to be heard from within a messy moshpit or under the sun.
New album SHYGA! The Sunlight Mound opens with “Big Dijon”, a soothing swirl of contemplative rhythm, its lyrics inane psychedelic nonsense about a curious aardvark. Once that’s out of the way, the unceasing energy begins. The Perth band can appear ridiculous to an outsider – just consider their band name – but behind the whimsy and the folly is genuine technical ability. Harbouring their love of The Beatles and Black Sabbath, they spin it into relentless turbo-charged guitar riffs and earnest melodies. That love of the Fab Four shines during the shimmer melody of “Mango Terrarium” or the Sgt. Pepper’s-lite “Glitter Bug” and “More Glitter”. Before those, “Hats Off To The Green Bins” is a delightful ode to hastily cleaning a decrepit share house before a landlord arrives to inspect. The first half of SHYGA! contains most of the sharper hits, while the guitars on the second half are allowed to roam looser and longer. Apart from a few tracks like the interlude “Round The Corner”, the guitar riffs dominate. They thrash and fizz and never let up; it can have a bit of an enervating effect after so much – death by guitar.
It’s the lyrics that betray a band at a crossroad. “Tally-Ho” is a quintessential Crumpets track, featuring a wonderful metaphor for cocaine (“One more line of avalanche-winterland-handicap / Bleeding from the nostril”). Such a song is why they are, above all, a band for the fans. A review of their music can only go so far, for Psychedelic Porn Crumpets exist for the people like them: the festival-goers, the people that they used to be; as they now occupy the stage, they want to give back to their fans some anthems that they can relate to. This is who they’ve always been. It’s emphasised by main songwriter Jack McEwan’s description of one of SHYGA!‘s tracks, “The Terrors” (a term for the anxiety and despondency of the days following a big weekend of partying): “I wanted to write a track that paid homage to where Porn Crumpets began, back in our drug-ridden cave of a share house at Hector Street. There was a solid group of us on Centrelink, either studying or pretending to work, waiting for our pay-check to arrive so we could pickle the membrane and substitute reality for a while, very much in the name of science. The classic Australian coming of age saga.”
The crossroad arrives when they show signs that they’re considering their lifestyle. The raw punk energy of “Sawtooth Monkfish” belies thoughtful reflection on the effects of their hedonism; after listing all the different types of alcohol that they’ve consumed on “Tripolasaur”, McEwan sighs “I guess I’ll never know the reason why I feel so vacant.” “Mr. Prism” is about McEwan being informed by a doctor that he should probably quit smoking (“No more lungs, doctor says I’m done”); it’ll inevitably be bellowed back at them by teenagers smoking rollies as at a Mac DeMarco when “Ode to Viceroy” comes on. On the disgustingly-named “Pukebox”, McEwan says “One more day alive / I must be the luckiest boy around / Drinking moonshine my old man made,” before pondering if he’s truly lucky. “Mundungus” is the greatest reckoning with it on the album; “They said at my intervention / You should give drinking a rest,” McEwan begins, and after listing three days of truly awful effects of withdrawal he screams “I ain’t being sober no more.”
The Crumpets end the album with “The Tally of Gurney Gridman”, an illusion after all the noise from before. Beginning like a skidding and heaving rock song that recalls Sabbath or Led Zeppelin, it dissolves into a twinkling and meandering psychedelic closer. The song also sees a juxtaposition in its lyrics; “Life is dull without meaning / But drinking all day makes the future warm,” McEwan sings at the start, and as the contemplative tone arrives he ponders life and its meaning: “There’s no finish line, ticket sign or button to start it all again / Every old man tells me the same / Live while you’re young / Enjoy each day.”
This is Psychedelic Porn Crumpets of today: standing on the edge of two existences. Much of their music, their style, has often valorised excess and hedonism. Here, four albums in, McEwan and his fellow Crumpets acknowledge the less glamorous after-effects that are a considerably larger part of their lives now. Yet, for all of this, they still sound like a band content to party on. Ending the album with the lines “Live while you’re young / Enjoy each day” feels like a message of defiance as much as a moment of introspection.  From: https://beatsperminute.com/album-review-psychedelic-porn-crumpets-shyga-the-sunlight-mound/

Dengue Fever - Sni Bong

Dengue Fever’s psychedelic take on the Cambodian pop sounds of the ’60s makes them one of rock ’n’ roll’s most unique success stories. They draw enthusiastic crowds from L.A. to the UK, from Maui to Moscow, and leave critics rummaging through their thesauruses looking for new superlatives to describe their sound. Their appearance at WOMEX, the world’s largest international music conference, cemented their position as a global phenomenon. Amazon.com named their album Escape From Dragon House the No. 1 international release for 2005. Venus On Earth (2008, M80 Records) is the third chapter in the band’s continuing journey to create a unique fusion of Cambodian and American pop.
Brothers Ethan (keyboards) and Zac (guitar) Holtzman started Dengue Fever in 2001 when they discovered they shared a love for the Cambodian pop music of the ’60s. After adding sax man David Ralicke (Beck/Brazzaville), drummer Paul Smith, and bassist Senon Williams, they went looking for a Cambodian singer. Enter Chhom Nimol, who performed regularly for the King and Queen of Cambodia. Her powerful singing, marked by a luminous vibrato that adds exotic ornamentations to her vocal lines, and hypnotic stage moves based on traditional dances, complemented the band’s driving Cambodian/American sound.
The Cambodian pop music of the 1960s seems an unlikely template for an American band, but that sound captivated Ethan Holtzman during a trip to Cambodia in 1997. Before he flew back to L.A., he picked up every cassette of Cambodian pop from the ’60s he could find. Back home, Zac Holtzman had just returned to L.A. after living in San Francisco for 10 years. He’d been listening to a compilation of Cambodian pop and when the brothers reconnected, they decided to play their version of Cambodian rock. They hung out in the Long Beach Cambodian community to find a singer.
“We saw Chhom Nimol at The Dragon House,” Zac Holtzman recalls. “She was already a star in Cambodia and made a living singing traditional music at Cambodian weddings and funerals.” Chhom wasn’t sure she wanted to sing with Americans, but Dengue’s dedication to the sounds of Cambodia won her over. Dengue Fever was an immediate hit, both in the Cambodian clubs of Long Beach and regular L.A. rock venues. They won LA Weekly’s Best New Artist Award in 2002, and actor/director Matt Dillon asked them to supply a Cambodian version of Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” for his Cambodian-based thriller City of Ghosts.
The band’s eponymous debut was mostly covers of Cambodian classics, a tribute to the singers and songwriters who were killed by the Khmer Rouge. Their second album, Escape From Dragon House, written almost entirely by the band, was more psychedelic, freer, looser, and more experimental than the debut. The album featured “Ethanopium,” a cover of a tune by Ethiopian singer Malatu Astatke that was used by Jim Jarmusch in his film Broken Flowers. “One Thousand Tears of a Tarantula” was later featured on the soundtrack as well as on the Showtime series Weeds.
In 2005, the band toured Cambodia. It was the first time any band, much less an American one, performed Khmer rock in Cambodia since Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge took over the country in 1975. The country gave Chhom a lot of respect for “Cambodianizing” the Americans. The band met and played with Cambodian master musicians that survived the Khmer Rouge years and recorded those sessions. They hope to use that music on future albums. A documentary feature film of this trip, Sleepwalking Through the Mekong, has received an enthusiastic reception at international film festivals, as well as the Tucson Film Festival, the Silverlake Film Festival in L.A., and the Hawaii International Film Festival, and it had its New York premiere on opening night at the Margaret Mead Film Festival in New York.  From: https://www.laphil.com/musicdb/artists/1444/dengue-fever

The Everly Brothers - Cathy's Clown

The Everly Brothers were one of the most important acts in all of American music. There is a reason they were first ballot inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and are in the Country Music Hall of Fame as well. Though some consider their music mostly within the rock realm, the home base for their career was Nashville, and country songwriting duo (and fellow Country Hall of Famers) Felice and Boudleaux Bryant wrote most of their big hits like “Bye Bye Love,” “Wake Up Little Susie,” and “All I Have To Do Is Dream.” But all great things must come to an end, and that’s what happened 50 years ago today, July 14th, 1973 in a rather spectacularly catastrophic fashion. It was the culmination of years of turmoil and conflict between brothers Don and Phil Everly, as well as conflict with the country music industry.
Unlike many of their contemporaries, the career of The Everly Brothers seemed to hit a brick wall in the early 1960s, and they never really rekindled their popular magic later in life. The country music industry was to blame, and it led to a deeper conflict between the two siblings. The well-known guitar player, producer, and country music executive Chet Atkins was a close friend of the Everly family dating back to before the brothers were a duo and were known more as a family band with their father Ike. Chet brokered the brothers’ first record deal with Columbia in early 1956, and also introduced the brothers to Wesley Rose, son of Fred Rose, who was the well-known songwriter and founder of Music Row publishing house Acuff-Rose. Wesley Rose also became The Everly Brothers manager.
In 1961, the brothers had a falling out with Wesley Rose. At the behest of Rose, they only used Acuff-Rose writers, including Felice and Boudleaux Bryant. But as time went on, The Everly Brothers wanted to record other songs. Wesley Rose adamantly refused, so the brothers dropped Rose as their manager. At the time, Acuff-Rose had a virtual monopoly on all the best songs and songwriters in the music business for the type of music The Everly Brothers played. The duo’s falling out with Wesley Rose meant they no longer had access to ‘A’ list song material. Both Don and Phil Everly were songwriters as well, and wrote many of their own songs. However, in a strange twist of fate only fit for Music Row, because the brothers were still signed to Acuff-Rose as songwriters, the falling out with Wesley Rose meant that the brothers lost access to their own material as well, and any material they may write in the future. So The Everly Brothers began recording cover songs, and started writing under a collective pseudonym of “Jimmy Howard.” However, when Acuff-Rose sniffed out what was happening, the publishing house brought legal action against the brothers and obtained the rights to those songs as well. Between 1961 and 1964, one of American music’s most brilliant and popular bands was resigned to singing cover material, and their popularity plummeted.
In 1964, the conflict finally abated with Acuff-Rose, and The Everly Brothers began to record their own material again, along with resuming work with Felice and Boudleaux Bryant. But not only had popular music in America mostly passed them by, due in part to the turmoil, both brothers were now addicted to amphetamines. Don Everly was also taking Ritalin, and eventually suffered a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized due to his addiction issues. By the late 1960s and the release of their album Roots, The Everly Brothers were beginning to turn things around, and remained popular in England and Canada. They were also announced as replacement hosts for The Johnny Cash Show for a stint. But behind the scenes, things were beginning to fray between the brothers. Don released a solo album in 1970, but it was mostly unsuccessful. So they began recording together again for RCA, but the entire time, Don was ready to break away from his brother to be a solo artist.
All of this led up to what was announced as the final performances before a two-year break for The Everly Brothers set to take place at Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park, California on July 13th and 14th, 1973. It was supposed to be a joyous occasion for the brothers who knew some space would do them good, and wanted to keep things amicable. But that’s not exactly what happened. The July 13th performances went fine, but by the time Don Everly was set to take the stage on July 14th, he was clearly drunk. He was slurring words and forgetting some of the lyrics to the songs—something unheard of for Don Everly even in his worst state. Warren Zevon happened to be playing keyboards for them at the time, and recalls of the evening, “I’d seen Don perform with the flu and a temperature of 103. I’d never heard him hit a sour note or be anything short of professional in front of an audience. But, this night, he walked onstage dead drunk. He was stumbling and off key and I remember Phil trying to restart songs several times. It was embarrassing.” As the crowd started jeering, Don Everly lashed out at the them, and at Phil. Embarrassed and frustrated, Phil slammed his guitar down on the stage, smashing it. As he walked off the stage, he said to the promoter, “I’m really sorry, Bill, I have to go. I can’t go back on stage with that man again.” Surprisingly, Don tried to continue the show, telling the crowd famously, “The Everly Brothers died 10 years ago.”
Don Everly later recalled to Rolling Stone,  “I was half in the bag that evening—the only time I’ve ever been drunk onstage in my life. I knew it was the last night, and on the way out I drank some tequila, drank some champagne—started celebrating the demise. It was really a funeral. People thought that night was just some brouhaha between Phil and me. They didn’t realize we had been working our buns off for years. We had never been anywhere without working; had never known any freedom. We were strapped together like a team of horses. It’s funny, the press hadn’t paid any attention to us in ten years, but they jumped on that. It was one of the saddest days of my life.”
Though the hiatus was supposed to only last a couple of years, it would take another 10 for the brothers to reunite on stage at at the Royal Albert Hall in London on September 23, 1983 in a concert that was recorded for an album and a cable special. Meanwhile, their infamous breakup on stage would go on to define the spectacular destruction of a band in public. The Everly Brothers would continue on and off for the rest of their lives. Phil Everly died in 2014, and Don Everly passed away in 2021. Despite the turmoil the brother duo experienced, they left a legacy that crossed genres and generations, and is still lasting today. There’s nothing like the blood harmonies of The Everly Brothers, no matter the bad blood that came between the brothers at times during their legendary career.  From: https://www.savingcountrymusic.com/50-years-ago-everly-brothers-tumultuously-break-up-on-stage/