Lenny Kravitz - It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over

"It Ain't Over 'til It's Over" is a song written, produced, and performed by American musician Lenny Kravitz for his second studio album, Mama Said (1991). Released as the album's second single in June 1991 by Virgin, the song is a mid-tempo ballad musically inspired by Motown, Philly soul, and Earth, Wind & Fire (particularly "That's the Way of the World"). The horn line at the end is performed by the Phenix Horns from Earth, Wind & Fire. The title is taken from a quotation from Yogi Berra: "It ain't over 'til it's over."
The song was written by Kravitz while dealing with a struggling marriage to his then wife, Lisa Bonet, and was an attempt to rekindle the relationship. Kravitz has described his thinking at that time as "not just a depression, but a fog. I didn’t know which way was up".
Initially Kravitz, realizing the hit potential of the song, did not want to release the song himself, wishing to remain an underground artist, thinking instead of giving the song to Smokey Robinson. His label however eventually persuaded him to include it on the album.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Ain%27t_Over_%27til_It%27s_Over

Lykantropi - Coming Your Way

With their groovy riffs and beautiful melodies, Lykantropi takes its listeners back to the rock and folk music of the early ‘70s. Sweet harmonies reminiscent of The Mamas & The Papas are layered with electric guitars and flutes and swirled into a smokey witch’s brew reminiscent of bands like Fleetwood Mac, Coven, and Blue Öyster Cult.
The mysterious, inexplicable, and obscure have always been what primarily defines Lykantropi -- rock music that comes from the Scandinavian forest and wilderness; deforestation and mire, bottomed within its folklore, myths, and legends. We cannot see or touch it, but we can feel it, experience it, and pass it on. That kind of art is more difficult to define and master, but it is probably what has made the sextet from Karlstad one of the most promising new additions to enter Sweden's rock scene in many years.  From: https://gettingitout.net/artists/lykantropi/

Custard Flux - The Hit Parade

US project Custard Flux released the album “Helium” on June 1st 2018. Custard Flux is a new venture by composer and musician Gregory Curvey, who is otherwise known as the driving force behind veteran psychedelic rock band The Luck of Eden Hall.
“This project was born out of a vision I had after acquiring a 100 year old Harmonium, and the ability to be able to set up in the park and play progressive psychedelic pop without any electricity. Newly located in Detroit, I’ve set out to find a group of like minded musicians, including a Double Bassist, Drummer, Keyboardist and Guitarist. It’s taken some time, but the spark has been lit, and the music sounds fantastic! I hope you’ll think so too.“  From: https://houseofprog.com/custard-flux-release-helium/

Alanis Morissette - Mary Jane - Jagged Little Pill Live

In her Spotify series “The Real Story of Jagged Little Pill,” Alanis describes this song by saying “It was my empathy for the feminine, for the vulnerable, and the self care, particularly for those of us who are service oriented and generous and the orientation in life is to give and ask questions later. For the people who are in a position of service for their career or otherwise, just a reminder to take care. And it was slightly influenced by a friend of mine at the time, just watching how sweet she was to me and sweet she was to everybody and then she would go home at night and be really depleted and in my case I would go home and be really depressed, so I just thought there was something that needed to be said about the self care needing to be upped and the empathy. Being in context with so many narcissistic people, the two qualities that disappeared were curiosity about well-being, like even just a "How you doing?” That would never happen for emotional well-being. That wasn’t even a consideration… and then empathy. Often, there was no empathy. So, that song was my way of turning it around and singing to myself in a lot of ways. I would often listen to that song on tour and pretend that “woman” was singing to me."
Throughout the song she paints the picture of a character who has lost enthusiasm for living, withdrawn from the world, and is sleepless, dieting, and denying herself the freedom to cry in order appear a certain way that is very different to how she genuinely feels to the objective observer. She is also portrayed as a person making risky choices about their lifestyle to their own detriment and not thinking clearly about the consequences of these decisions before making them.  From: https://genius.com/Alanis-morissette-mary-jane-lyrics

Crown Lands - Odyssey Vol. 1 Concert Livestream

 Crown Lands - Odyssey Vol. 1 Concert Livestream - Part 1

 

Crown Lands - Odyssey Vol. 1 Concert Livestream - Part 2

 

Classic rock. It’s not just for the guys who grew up in the ’70s and ’80s anymore. Thanks to the massive, global success of Greta Van Fleet, not only are the labels out looking for the next big thing, the kids are too as evidenced by Greta Van Fleet’s sold-out 2022 tour. One of the bands that has benefited from all of this is Crown Lands, a Canadian duo featuring Kevin Comeau (guitars/bass/keyboards) and Cody Bowles (vocals/drums), who served as one of the opening acts on the fall dates of Greta Van Fleet’s tour.
While the duo’s early sound was blues driven, as they’ve evolved, more and more prog rock influences have started to surface. And, if Greta Van Fleet is this generation’s Led Zeppelin, then Crown Lands is this generation’s Rush, something that Comeau will readily admit.
Crown Lands’ newly released third album, Fearless, has the audacity to open with “Starlifter: Fearless Part II,” an epic 18-minute, multi-part exploration through time and space and it’s perhaps the most glorious opening track of any album you’ll hear in 2023. Given the band’s influences, it would have been the most glorious opening track of any album released in 1974 as well.

Who was responsible for introducing you to the first music you listened to?

KEVIN: Cody’s dad was a drummer so Cody started playing drums when the was like 1-years-old, just banging on pots and pans. They quickly got Cody one of those little drum kits so Cody’s been at it truly his entire life. My parents were really into classic rock. My dad was more into the singer-songwriter folk world, he’s an amazing folk guitar player so I got into music by way of Bob Dylan, John Prine, and Paul Simon. My mom was a big Eagles fan. On road trips, it would be Queen and Creedence Clearwater Revival.
When I was about 11, that’s when I started going out on my own and finding music and the first band that really captured my interest was Green Day because of Mike Dirnt’s bass playing. Bass was my first instrument and the first time I really registered what a bass was was the bass break in “Holiday” by Green Day on their American Idiot record. My dad bought me a bass and taught me how to play “All Along the Watchtower” the first night because it’s just three chords. I was sold. That was it. Everything else in my life melted away and music completely took over.
Then I started getting into The Clash and The Misfits. As a bass player, you keep asking, “Who’s the best bass player?” So I got into The Who because of John Entwistle, discovered Rush because of Geddy Lee. Everything kind of took a huge turn when I was about 14 when I discovered Rush. Then it was like, “Who influenced Geddy?” and I got into Yes because of Chris Squire. Then I fell into King Crimson and Genesis and Pink Floyd, just went down the prog rock rabbit hole. That symphonic, storytelling classic prog rock is what really compelled me the most. That’s what I found the most inspiring. It’s very similar to Cody. Cody’s favorite band is Rush. My favorite band is Rush. When we met, about 8 years ago, Rush came up very quick and we bonded over them. And we’ve just been acting like two idiots ever since.

It’s funny that when you say you got into Rush when you were 14 because that was around the age I got into Rush, but I’m 20+ years older than you. It’s amazing that Rush has transcended time. There’s no time limit on that band. It’s sort of a rite of passage for teenage boys to get into Rush.

KEVIN: It’s true! As a musician, there’s always a kneejerk reaction against virtuosity. People are like, “Oh, music is not like athletics.” But, for a lot of us, it kind of is. I think that Rush just demonstrates that they are three of the greatest musicians of all time. They are not just technically proficient, but the way they write and arrange music, it’s just so unique. It’s still fresh to this day, whereas records that may not have resonated the same way when you were 14, if you were into the heavier proto-metal stuff like 2112 or Hemispheres, now you might like the more mellow songwriting of Presto and Roll the Bones. That’s the great thing about Rush, they were around for 40 years and they gave us 20 studio albums and there’s not one bad album there. It’s all varied, but it’s all them. It’s all just true, honest music. I think that’s something I aspire to do as a creator, never stop evolving but also honor what excites me as a musician. Rush is that for me. They are just so special.

In the U.S., Rush broke in Cleveland. The radio station WMMS was an early supporter and played them before any other station. I have to imagine the rust belt states are a good market for Crown Lands.

KEVIN: For sure. It’s so prohibitively expensive to tour the States as a Canadian band now thanks to the work permits. It goes through the Department of Homeland Security to come through as a musician. It’s about $12,000 every time you want to cross that border. It’s tricky, you have to really plan out your touring very well if you want to do it right. For that kind of reason alone, we haven’t really gone down to the States very often.
We did tour the States last year with Greta Van Fleet though. That was great. I think we’ve seen a huge shift in our audience because of that. I have to commend them for opening so many doors for that young generation of kids who are 14 or 15 that are discovering music just the way we did. There’s all this new and exciting music they can find, bands that are ushering in what’s being called the New Wave of Classic Rock. The kind of music that captured my imagination when I was a kid was the music basically from ’72 to ’82. It’s exciting to see it being accepted by this younger generation. Prog and classic rock wasn’t really cool to a lot of my peers and my friends whereas now I’m seeing all these kids that are ravenous for it. I think there are a lot of kids getting into us and then their older brothers or their uncles will be like, “You like that? Check out In the Court of the Crimson King by King Crimson or check out Close to the Edge by Yes.” I think that’s really exciting that we’re going to be a door-opening band for a lot of people discovering this really rich world of clever rock music or, hopefully, they’ll just stop with us. “Yep, this is it.” Hopefully we’ll be for someone what Rush did for us and hopefully we’ll inspire somebody else to keep carrying the torch of writing stupid, 11-minute guitar riffs.

From: https://bigtakeover.com/interviews/interview-kevin-comeau-crown-lands

 

The Nields - Bulletproof

Gotta Get Over Greta began in the fall of 1994 when Dave Hower called me up a few minutes after I’d called him to tell him we had twelve gigs in October for which we’d be needing his services. He said, “I’d better join the band for good.” I ran, shrieking, to the building next door [the NEO theatre at Loomis Chaffee School] where David Nields and Dave Chalfant were working on some music for Peer Gynt. I told them the great news. At that point, after many years and three previous recordings, The Nields, the five of us, was complete.
The first song written after that fateful day was “Bulletproof” which David and I wrote in a little lookout tower on the Outer Banks of North Carolina over Thanksgiving holiday. A few weeks later came “I Know What Kind of Love This Is.” I wrote the melody on a piano and walked around the room singing it to myself until it turned into a story. Around Christmas time as I was wrapping presents, I heard David playing my acoustic in the next room and singing “Gimme my ball back, yeah.” We didn’t arrange that song for another nine months, but that’s when “King of the Hill” was born. “Fountain of Youth” and “Best Black Dress” were written in the Spring of ’95. I was thinking about power relationships and generational warfare and Steely Dan’s “Hey Nineteen.” We arranged these two at Loomis Chaffee’s NEO Theatre and I remember our excitement when David Nields and Dave Chalfant came up with their bass/guitar interlocking duo on “Fountain.” Around that time, David wrote “Cowards,” and the five of us went up to Dave Chalfant’s brand new studio, Sackamusic, in Amherst [now in Conway] to record a demo of these five songs [all the above except “King of the Hill”] to send to record companies. We did a show at the Bottom Line, along with Acoustic Junction, Hart Rouge and our dear friend Dar Williams. It was hosted by WFUV DJ Rita Houston and Dar said, “Why don’t we work up ‘Lovely Rita’ to sing in her honor?” Dar’s record company, Razor & Tie was at the show and said, “Hey Nields, we’d like to put out your record.”
So we began preparing for that eventuality by seeking out different producers. A trip to Memphis was in order to do some work with John Hampton at Ardent Studio (he produced the Gin Blossoms there). Out of those sessions we kept takes of “Cowards” and “Alfred Hitchcock” for our EP Abigail. We also recorded “Fountain of Youth,” which later made it onto “Greta.” We had a great time with Hampton and ate a lot of peanuts and played with the velcro cats who prowled around the studio and would stay suspended on the carpet-covered walls just like those birthday party balloons do when you rub them just so.
In the fall of ’95 we relocated to Long View Farm Studio in North Brookfield MA to record with Kevin Moloney, a lovely, delightful Irishman fond of Guinness and the Beatles. We were psyched to work with him because we greatly admired his production of Sinead O’Connor’s first record The Lion and the Cobra. He slept in Keith Richard’s windowless room and ate a strict vegetarian diet, except for the last night when he had lamb with mint sauce. We breathed in the good New England autumn air, patted the horses and made our record, track by track.  From: https://nerissanields.com/thoughts-on-the-history-of-gotta-get-over-greta/  

Matthews' Southern Comfort - Southern Comfort

With Richard Thompson, Simon Nicol, and Ashley Hutchings from Fairport Convention, guitarist Mark Griffiths, drummer Gerry Conway, pedal steel player Gordon Huntley, and keyboardists Dolly Collins and Roger Coulam, Ian Matthews (aka Iain Matthews) recorded his debut solo album, Matthews' Southern Comfort, whose sound was rooted in American country music and rockabilly, in 1969. This was his first significant experience as a songwriter, although the band also covered the likes of Neil Young and Ian and Sylvia. He followed it up by forming a working band using the name of his first album, Matthews Southern Comfort (without the apostrophe), then released subsequent albums Second Spring (1969) and Later That Same Year (1970).
The band went through several different line-ups and toured extensively for the next two years, to general critical acclaim. They had one commercial success: a 1970 cover version of "Woodstock" (written by Joni Mitchell) was a number one hit single in the UK Singles Chart. It experienced heavy airplay in Canada reaching No. 5, as well as peaking at No. 23 on the Billboard singles charts in the United States in 1971. Afterwards, Matthews split with Southern Comfort, who went on to release three albums of their own on Harvest Records.
In 1971, Matthews recorded two solo albums (If You Saw Thro' My Eyes & Tigers Will Survive), on Vertigo Records. Under the sponsorship of former Yardbird Paul Samwell-Smith, and surrounded by likeminded British semi-folkies (notably another ex-Fairporter, Richard Thompson), he formed Plainsong with Andy Roberts, previously of The Liverpool Scene. The band's line-up consisted of Matthews, Roberts, guitarist Dave Richards and American bassist Bob Ronga. They were signed by Elektra, who released one album by them before the band split up.
Matthews Southern Comfort were frequently played on Top Gear during their lifespan, both sessions and records by the band appearing in John Peel's playlists. But not only was Peel a supporter of the band, he may even have been responsible for its existence. In an interview with Mojo magazine, Ian Matthews, who had just been fired by Fairport Convention in 1969 after the band decided to concentrate on its version of British traditional folk music, is quoted as saying: "I told John Peel the part of Fairport I loved was where we would interpret contemporary American songwriters. He said, 'Well maybe you ought to develop that as something of your own.'" And indeed this was what Ian Matthews did, first with Matthews Southern Comfort, then with Plainsong, and during his solo career.  From: https://peel.fandom.com/wiki/Matthews_Southern_Comfort

Matthews' Southern Comfort with Joni Mitchell