Turn Me On Dead Man - Fantasia

Formed in San Francisco in 2000, Turn Me on Dead Man are a psychedelic rock quintet with tinges of stoner metal (aka "heavydelic") and have gained notoriety in the Bay Area for the intensity and decibel level of their live shows. The band caught the eyes (with artwork for what would become the group's debut) and subsequently the ears of Jello Biafra, who signed them to his Alternative Tentacles label. The band released its first album, God Bless the Electric Freak, in 2005; Technicolour Mother was released a year later. The band has toured extensively throughout California and the East Coast and has appeared at the SXSW music conference.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/turn-me-on-dead-man-mn0000322813#biography  

L'Ham de Foc - Live St. Chartier 2007 / Zoom TV 2006 / Directos de Radio 3 2008

 L'Ham de Foc - Live St. Chartier 2007

 

 L'Ham de Foc - Zoom TV 2006

 

 L'Ham de Foc - Directos de Radio 3 2008

 

Power and beauty are the two main concepts in their music, and fire and water the contrary elements that are symbolized by their name. L'Ham de Foc (Fish hook of fire) from Valencia are no longer an exotic musical phenomenon for specialists but a well sounding name within the international worldmusic scene and a timeless musical concept, that develops its strong character without taking care of current fashion. A new instrument, a new musical style can only be studied and understood going to where it comes from and within its cultural context. This attitude was responsible for a lot of journeys, especially to Greece where the main protagonists of L'Ham de Foc -singer Mara Aranda and multi-instrumentalist Efrén López- have now found their second home. Their compositions have the ability to transform music for specialists into an understandable but profound music. Each album of L'Ham de Foc reflects what they have experienced in their recent journeys and studies.
L'Ham de Foc´s audience is as diverse as their instruments and influences: with their concerts and CDs, apart from the standard worldmusic/folk audience, they have also reached listeners coming from classical music, Rock/Pop, Gothic/Wave and medieval music.  From: https://www.womex.com/virtual/galileo_mc/l_ham_de_foc

 

XTC - All You Pretty Girls

Ray Bonichi: Hi, this is Ray Bonichi and I'm talking to Andy Partridge of XTC about this beautiful album called The Big Express on Geffen Records. Has it been a year since the last one, Mummer?

Andy Partridge: Uhh, about 18 months, so - whoo, took a lot of writing, lot of rehearsing.

RB: Why The Big Express?

AP: Uh - actually, this album had so many titles along the way - it's been everything. It started out as Hard Blue Rayhead, for no other reason other than I liked the words, then it was The Son of Hard Blue Rayhead, 'cause it changed a little and mutated, and it mutated so much that it became The Bastard Son of Hard Blue Rayhead, and then it was Coalface for a couple of weeks, which we thought was a nice expression, and then The Big Express was chosen partly because of the railway connotation, and we live in a railway town, and it is our yearly big expression, it's our big express, we're expressing ourselves... (smarmy voice) Our thoughts, our hopes for the future... So it's the express with two connotations, a railway connotation and a connotation of expressing yourself.

RB: The very first track you've got there is called "Wake Up," a very appropriate track to listen to in the morning when you're half asleep.

AP: Yeah, Colin gets the opener again on this one. It's a Colin song, he's the photogenic one - damn him! (laughs) And this is his paean to people who don't seem to live their lives other than in a sleepy state and don't notice things going on around them. As we were recording this, Dave came to know this track as "Colin's Folly" because we were rapidly running out of tracks, and the amount of instruments that were going on and we were deciding "Shall we use this instrument or not?" Shall we use this 60-piece choir here or not? Shall we use these five pianos or these cellos and things? So we were piling this stuff on and the identity of the track was continuously changing, but the version that's now been fixed is like one of a million possibilities of what it could have been. The choir, actually, is all one person, it's a singer called Annie - Huckrack or Hushrack, I never knew how to pronounce her name, and the choir was the suggestion of David Lord, he was the producer that we worked with. I didn't envisage a choir on it, and I don't think Colin did, and the suggestion came up and we sort of looked at each other a little askew and said "OK, we'll give it a try," and I think it worked out lovely, because it has that kind of half-awake half-asleep feel, that celestial porridge floating through your head - beautiful girl voices. And I think it suits the track lovely, so we left it all on - which was just as well, because it took a hell of a lot of work getting her recorded about sixty times or whatever, bouncing around.

RB: "All You Pretty Girls," now, that's the current UK single, and now it's going to be the US single as well - it's a mixture of modern folk music, if you want to call it, with pop music, with the usual potpourri of ingredients that you put into XTC. I believe the credit goes to you on this one?

AP: Yes, I'm the - the strange squeaking noises, by the way, are nothing to do with any of my bodily orifices, a lovely leather chair I'm sat in here... Yes, "All You Pretty Girls" is - the few people who've heard the track so far, because it's not been officially released yet, but the few people who have heard the track so far have told me everything from, "It sounds like a whaling song or a sea chantey," and two people said it sounded like a Western theme song, you know, something like Bonanza or Cheyenne or one of those kind of television cowboy shows. Somebody else said it sounded Chinese, somebody said it sounded like some real cool jazz, so - (laughs) If you haven't heard this track, you're going to have to do a lot of imagining, 'cause I suppose it's got all those pieces in it. The song was written - I was playing around with an echo chamber and a guitar, and just tapping around with my foot and chopping away with the guitar and using the echo to supply the backbeat, you know - (imitates rhythm of "Pretty Girls") - and it had that nice rolling feel, and I kept thinking of the sea and this continual rolling - (imitates rhythm) - and the actual chords that were played were very simplistic, almost, as you say, kind of a folk song structure, and it sort of married at the back of my head, folk song/sea, and you get this kind of - it just grew into a chantey based on forever leaving, forever going away, whether you're touring in a pop group or rapping around the country, or whether you're traveling from someplace to another, continually leaving home - you know, you think, is this going to be the last time - am I ever going to see it again? And so it's got that "Am I ever going to see any of this again?" thread to it, but it does have this quasi whaling song or the Oriental percussion in it, which is probably why someone said it sounds Chinese, mixed with a sort of everybody's folk bass line, which is probably why it sounds like a cowboy theme song or something like that. And the chord structure in the verse is very jazzy, it's very kind of cool jazz chord structure. So it's a hell of an insect, this one!

RB: At this point I must ask you, because I'm very very confused now, where your real love of music lies - I mean, you love pop, folk, jazz, whatever -

AP: I like most things, and I must be truthful - if I like it, and it sets something off in the back of my head, I'm not particularly interested in its origins. If I like it, it doesn't matter where it comes from, whether it's something from classical music or something from blues or whatever, it's there for the taking - if it does that to me, I feel the right to take it, and use it, if you see what I mean. So I'm not proud about nicking styles from different sorts of things, if they set me alight and if I can use them, then that's fine. I think that's the same with most things, it goes for the world of clothes or painting or writing or whatever, if certain styles set you off, then you shouldn't be afraid to grab them 'round the neck and say "I'm going to have you, I'm going to use you! Come here, you've set me burning internally, now I'm going to use you and you're going to serve me!" You have to grab these styles and be unafraid and say, Yes, I'm going to use this. I mean, that's why it does sound like a Chinese sea chantey with cowboys riding through, in berets and dark glasses and goatee beards! It's a strange tropical mix of those things. But they're the particular elements that arose while the song was being put together. It's an enormous junkyard. I think the whole album is.

From: http://chalkhills.org/articles/Bonichi1984.html

Solstice - Wongle No9 - Grand Chapel Studios

What a wonderful surprise to discover this new album from Solstice, lighting up like a summer’s breeze even in the thick of winter. Before we dig in, let’s confirm which Solstice we’re talking about as there’s a few bands out there with that name. No, this is not the death metal Miami-based band, nor the English doom metal version of Solstice. However, this particular Solstice are indeed from England, Milton Keynes to be exact, starting out over 40 years ago during the second wave of prog-rock. Despite several extended pauses throughout their career, the band has continued to evolve and reinvent themselves over the decades, always with guitarist Andy Glass at the helm. Their latest renaissance started in 2020 with the release of the impressive “Sia”, now quickly followed by their 7th album “Light Up” with the same band lineup.
While Solstice’s origins stretch back to 1980, the new album reveals plenty of youthful energy bursting forth from the 6 tracks herein. The title track is a perfect opener for this sunny outing, buoyed by singer Jess Holland’s sprightly vocals which make each song shine. Holland is a delight throughout the recording, at times straying outside of familiar English lyrics to convey the energy of the material. On this track “Light Up” she establishes herself in the opening notes and never lets go while Pete Hemsley’s drum kit surrounds the listener with exciting grooves. Robin Phillips lays down a solid bass foundation which suggests a bit of funk as Steven McDaniel’s organ playing adds to the percolating rhythms. Solstice has always featured the violin as a key ingredient, originally offered by Marc Elton and now ably performed by Jenny Newman who elevates each piece – including this opening song – with her playing.
“Wongle No. 9” follows up with a truly funky groove that makes it impossible to sit still. Phillips’ bass playing is infectious, and Holland’s playful vocals woo the listener in with each twist and turn. Honestly, this song is completely addictive and may end up being one of my favorites of the year (though we’re barely out of January), it Wongles you up and won’t let go. Glass dominates the latter part of the song with an incendiary guitar solo, reminding the listener that this is his band even amidst such a wealth of talent. From: https://www.sonicperspectives.com/album-reviews/solstice-light-up-2/

Corridor - Jump Cut

You get older, you have a family, and you start to slow down—that’s how things are supposed to go, right? Not for Montreal band Corridor, who have returned on their fourth album, Mimi, with a sound and style that’s more widescreen and expansive than anything that’s preceded it. The follow-up to 2019’s Junior is a huge step forward for the band, as the members themselves have undergone the type of personal changes that accompany the passage of time; even as these eight songs reflect a newfound and contemplative maturity, however, Corridor are branching out more than ever with richly detailed music, resulting in a record that feels like a fresh break for a band that’s already established themselves as forward-thinkers.
Mimi immediately recalls the best of the best when it comes to indie rock—Deerhunter’s silvery atmospherics immediately come to mind, as well as the spiky effervescence of classic post-punk—but despite these easy comparisons, Corridor remain impossible to pin down from song to song, which makes Mimi all the more thrilling as a listen. The road to this point, as roads to greatness often are, was not without challenge; if the elastic guitar rock of Junior came together quickly—or, as guitarist and vocalist Jonathan Robert describes the process, “in a rush”—then the steady-as-they-go creative pace of Mimi marked a desire to break from the “exhausting” work ethic that previously birthed Junior.
“The goal was to work differently, which is the goal we have every time we work on a new album—to build something in a new way,” Robert explains. “This time, we took our time.” And so in the summer of 2020, Corridor’s members—Robert, vocalist/bassist Dominic Berthiaume, drummer Julien Bakvis, and multi-instrumentalist Samuel Gougoux—holed away in a cottage to engage in the sort of creative experimentation that would lead to Mimi’s ultimate creation. “We went there to write, and a lot of ideas came from that retreat,” Berthiaume explains. “We didn’t end up with songs as much as we did ideas, so the result is a collage of the ideas.”
After that productive session together, Corridor continued to tinker with the songs’ raw parts digitally and remotely over the next few years, with co-producer Joojoo Ashworth (Dummy, Automatic) lending their own specific talents in the theoretical booth. The process was a byproduct of not having access to their previous rehearsal space as the COVID-19 pandemic faded from public view, but also a result of the four-piece leaning harder into incorporating electronic textures than on previous records.
“For a long time, we identified as a guitar-oriented band, and the goal of making this whole record was trying to get away from that,” Berthiaume states while admitting that the band encountered their own challenges as a result: “We had to figure out how to make new songs without having the chance to play together. It was complicated sometimes.” Berthiaume also describes Mimi—which, fun fact, is also named after Jonathan’s cat—as a record about “getting older” and “figuring out new parts of life”—but despite any claims of transitional growing pains from the band, Mimi is a record bursting with new energy and life, a vibrance that’s owed in no small part to Gougoux joining the band full-time after pitching in on live performances in the past.
“I come more from a background of electronic music, so it was nice to involve that with the band more,” he explains, and Mimi contains a distinct rhythmic pulse reminiscent of classic era-post-punk’s own melding of dance and rock textures. Over bright, chiming guitars and ascending synths, Robert addresses his looming mortality on “Mourir Demain”: “I wrote it when my girlfriend and I were shopping for life insurance,” he laughs. With our little daughter growing up, we also considered making our will. I said to myself, ‘Oh shit, from now on I’m slowly starting to plan my death.”
“Jump Cut” is pure psychedelic bliss, with hypnotic ziggurats of guitar lines aligning themselves in the distance as Robert and Berthiaume’s vocals excitingly duck and weave throughout the lovely chaos created; meanwhile, the nocturnal air of “Caméra” provides perfect cover for ruminations on self-promotion and exposure in the digital age, while the hypnotic haze of “Mon Argent” tackles the realities of making a living while making music. “Nothing is more abstract, insecure, and random than a musician’s income,” Jonathan muses while discussing the song’s thematic bent. “The responsibilities piling up in my adult life have, unfortunately, prevented me from continuing to avoid the subject. We end up giving a lot of importance to something we don’t understand.”
Don’t mistake this as music about dead ends, though, as Mimi embraces and champions unfettered creativity while paving a way for Corridor’s own bright future.  “We just focused on making a record that sounded the way we wanted,” Gougoux exclaims while discussing the band’s aims. “There were no limitations when it came to what was possible.”  From: https://www.subpop.com/artists/corridor

Tracy Bonham - Mother Mother - Live 1996

In "Mother Mother," Tracy Bonham has flown the nest but her mom keeps checking in to see how she's doing, asking if she's staying out of trouble. Tracy tells her what she wants to hear: all is well. But it's really not. In the chorus, we hear what she really wants to say:

I'm hungry, I'm dirty
I'm losing my mind, EVERYTHING'S FINE!

In a Songfacts interview with Bonham, she explained the meaning behind the song: "I have a hard time communicating in real life and I'm a people pleaser. I want to make sure everybody's OK, especially my mother. I didn't want her to worry about me, but I was a typical teenager, and into my 20s I was getting into a lot of trouble and making really stupid decisions in my life and suffering. I would call home and didn't want her to know about it."
Tracy Bonham had lots of violin training and considered making that her career when she decided singing and songwriting suited her better. She integrated violin into many of her songs, including "Mother Mother," which added a unique texture.
The violin helped the song stand out, but it also meant she had to play the instrument and sing at the same time when she performed it. This wasn't easy, but she eventually devised a method and became a rare violin-playing pop star.
This song is often misunderstood as Bonham being angry with or tormented by her mother, but that's not the case. She loves her mom and appreciated her concern, but also didn't want her to worry, which is why she kept her anguish bottled up.
The screaming section is essential to the song but murder on Bonham's voice. "I'd been singing all my life, but I hadn't been screaming all my life," she told Songfacts. "So, when I was on tour it really took a toll - I had to cancel a bunch of dates. I even had to get one of those like laryngoscopies and they were telling me that I had possible nodes. I had to go on vocal rest for 10 days, cancel a bunch of dates, and relearn how to scream."
Bonham wasn't the first singing violinist. When she was living in Boston, she saw a band called the Dambuilders, whose frontwoman, Joan Wasser, would deftly play the instrument while singing. "it was so badass," Bonham told Songfacts. "She plugged her violin into a big, huge, Marshall stack, and I was like, That's what I want to do." The Dambuilders broke up in the late '90s but Wasser emerged as a solo artist under the name Joan As Police Woman.
Two videos were made for "Mother Mother." The first was directed by Jake Scott ("In the Meantime" by Spacehog, "Comedown" by Bush) and is one continuous shot. Bonham's real mother stars in it along with her stepfather. As her mother vacuums the floor in her living room, Tracy is on the TV singing the song, but her mom doesn't even notice. The video ends with her changing the channel.
The alternate video was directed by Pamela Birkhead and shows Bonham in an attic trying on different outfits. This one was made for the UK market because Bonham's label, Island Records, thought it would go over better there than the original, which did very well on MTV.
When YouTube emerged, the alternate "attic" version was posted but the original was nowhere to be found - even Bonham couldn't get a copy of it. It finally showed up in 2018, but by then the attic video had millions of views and was entrenched as the main video for the song. This tweaked Bonham, who considers that video a throwaway and is really proud of the original, which she helped conceive. In the original music video (with Bonham inside the TV), Tracy's band plays in the dining room, but her mother and stepfather are oblivious to them. She didn't have a guitarist at the time, so she dressed up as a guy and played the role.
This is one of the first songs Bonham wrote. She studied at the University of Southern California before transferring to Berklee College of Music in Boston. She left before getting her degree, but had refined her skills as a singer and songwriter. "Mother Mother" was one of the songs she put on a demo tape and sent to labels, a tactic that rarely works, but did in this case, getting the attention of Island Records, which signed her and released the song as the first single from her debut album, The Burdens Of Being Upright.
Bonham toured with Everclear and Spacehog, but her next single, "The One," didn't get much attention. She played Lilith Fair in 1997 and 1998, but then the musical landscape started pushing against her, with nu-metal and danceable pop taking hold. At the same time, Island was merging with Def Jam, causing her to lose her ballast at the label and delay her second album, which didn't appear until 2000. By then, Lilith Fair was kaput and the Limp Bizkits and Christina Aguileras of the world were gobbling up most of the airplay. The album stiffed, and she was dropped by Island.
Bonham got a gig touring with Blue Man Group in 2003, and the following year sang on Aerosmith's album Honkin' on Bobo. She's released a steady stream of new material, including an instructional music album for kids called Young Maestros Vol. 1 in 2021.
In the mid-'90s, singer-songwriters were expected to pay their dues, spending years on the road and toiling at independent labels before landing a major-label deal. Bonham signed with Island before paying any of these dues, so they engaged in some monkeyshines to make it look like she had the struggling artist backstory. Island commissioned the indie label CherryDisc to release an EP by Bonham called The Liverpool Sessions in 1995; the title is a joke, implying that she made it in the musically fertile grounds of Liverpool, England, which would have been very cool indeed. The ploy worked, giving journalists a solid talking point for Bonham when her album was issued in 1996.
"Mother Mother" wasn't released as a single (a tactic used to boost album sales), which made it ineligible for the Hot 100, but the song was huge in the summer of 1996, going to #1 on the Modern Rock chart in June and staying at the top for three weeks. Remarkably, it was 17 years before another solo female artist topped the chart. Lorde, who wasn't even born when "Mother Mother" was at #1, did it with "Royals" in 2013.
The song earned Bonham a Grammy nomination for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance, which she lost to "If It Makes You Happy" by Sheryl Crow. The Burdens Of Being Upright was also nominated for Best Alternative Music Performance and lost to Odelay by Beck.
Bonham released a new version on her 2017 album Modern Burdens, where she reworked the songs from her debut. By this time, she was a mother herself, having adopted a boy from Ethiopia.

From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/tracy-bonham/mother-mother

Blvck Ceiling - Wvfflife

The American electronic musician Blvck Ceiling is from Boston. His work combines several electronic music subgenres, such as industrial, witch house, and darkwave. Blvck Ceiling, who is well-known for his strong and atmospheric soundscapes, gives listeners an eerie and deep experience.
Blvck Ceiling is known for being an original and cutting-edge musician with a gift for fusing various electronic music elements. Visceral beats, distorted voices, and complex sound design are characteristics of his work. Each of his albums and EPs, which have been released, demonstrate his ability to fashion a unique musical environment.
The sound of Blvck Ceiling is not for the timid. It has a remarkable emotional depth in electronic music and is brooding, deep, and dark. He is one of the most intriguing and compelling electronic musicians currently active because of his unmatched ability to evoke a feeling or an environment through sound.  From: https://www.viberate.com/artist/blvck-ceiling/