Black Mountain - Mothers of the Sun

Black Mountain's mixture of texture and force is a potent one, with the Vancouver collective drawing from a variety of heavy and pastoral sounds throughout their four LPs. Founded by Stephen McBean and Joshua Wells near the end of their previous project Jerk with a Bomb, Black Mountain evolved from a eponymous song from those early sessions into one of the most prominent of the prolific McBean's multiple projects. Their 2005 self-titled debut was a critical success, and set the template for the band (currently consisting of McBean, Wells, Jeremy Schmidt, Brad Truax, and Amber Webber), whose touring and recording was steady throughout the end of the decade. After some time spent on other projects, Black Mountain returned earlier this year with their fourth full-length album, the aptly-titled IV. "Mothers of the Sun" both serves as the album's opener and its thesis statement, a striding, miniature epic that maximizes the heavy efficacy every one of its eight minutes. Equally utilizing a sludgy main riff and eerily glowing atmospherics, the tune underscores the band's talent at balancing restraint with crunch – every element of the songs plays a distinct role, sublimely arranged with clockwork precision. (Or at least as much precision an eight-minute psychedelic jam can feasibly have, anyway.) "Mothers of the Sun" is a fantastic return, effortlessly capturing the band's best qualities and channeling them into a winding, expansive eight minutes.  From: https://www.kexp.org/read/2016/5/4/song-of-the-day-black-mountain-mothers-of-the-sun/

Wovenhand - Crook and Flail

Wovenhand is a Gothic Americana rock band formed by Colorado singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist David Eugene Edwards. Since the demise of his brooding alt-country band 16 Horsepower, it has become his full time vehicle. The music offers winding, dark, atmospheric lyrics with a fierce spiritual bent circling around elements of vintage folk, country blues, and gospel music given force by swampy rock & roll. While Edwards performed (mostly) solo on Wovenhand's self-titled 2001 debut and two subsequent albums, he expanded the studio group to a quartet for 2006's gloomy Mosaic. By the time 2010's globally acclaimed, modally structured The Threshingfloor was released, the band had become a trio. Wovenhand's sound evolved to include mutant rockabilly, surf, desert blues, and spooky prog on 2016's Star Treatment, with guitarist and future songwriting partner Chuck French. It was their last outing for six years. Edwards and French wrote, recorded, and released 2022's wildly diverse Silver Sash with a quintet.
In 2001, 16 Horsepower went on hiatus, and as the group pondered a new creative direction, Edwards launched Wovenhand, built around similar musical and thematic frameworks but with a more powerful and personal approach. Edwards initially formed Wovenhand as a trio with multi-instrumentalist Daniel McMahon and guitarist Steve Taylor (also a member of 16 Horsepower), though soon the lineup would expand to include Ordy Garrison on drums and Paul Fonfara on cello. (For live work, Shane Trost subbed for Fonfara on cello.) Edwards played nearly all the instruments on Wovenhand's first album in 2002, released by Glitterhouse in Europe and Sounds Familyre in the United States. In 2003, he reworked several pieces from the Wovenhand debut for a Belgian dance troupe, and the results were released on the album Blush Music. For 2004's Consider the Birds, Wovenhand contrasted Edwards' solo material with tracks that featured a full band, while for live shows Wovenhand was a duo consisting of Edwards and Garrison.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/wovenhand-mn0000581700#biography

Indigo Girls - Three Hits - Live 1992

1992-05: rites of passage, epic records press release:

" 'three hits' was inspired by the poems of frank stanford. a music writer friend of mine sent me a book of his poetry, 'the light the dead see', and i went crazy over it - it changed my life a little. i was reading some autobiographical notes on stanford and learned that he'd committed suicide in the early '80s at age 30 - he shot himself three times in the heart. that image really stuck with me. so i used images from his poems and his life: that he was adopted, that he left his wife behind. i started this song on electric guitar, a gibson melody maker with a gun-metal blue finish."

1992-06-07: indigo girls bring literature to songwriting, the st. louis post-dispatch:

q: you make direct references to virginia woolf on "rites of passage." you also cite a poet named frank stanford as an influence on your song "three hits." how does a poem or a novel bear on your songwriting?

a: i get a lot of ideas from what i read - more from what i read than from what i hear. i'm not going to listen to a song and be as inspired because it's the same medium i'm working in. for some reason, that doesn't work with me. the books really get me going. when something i read moves me, it first of all helps me to finish a song i'm writing, even if the song has nothing to do with the book. what i'm doing is reacting on an emotional level to what i've read and writing whatever comes into my head.

From: https://www.lifeblood.net/songs/backgrounds/threehits.html

Psychotica - Ocean of Hunger

After several label changes and finally settling on Red Ant, Psychotica recorded what was to be their landmark album. “Pandemic,” only to have it never be released.Pandemic opens with a melodic guitar/violin which shifts quickly into high gear with the open notes of the first song, “Fool’s Gold.” This song swings between frantic electric guitars and synthesized string ambience. Angelic voices back Briggs’ often brash voice. The album floats through deep swells and decrescendos having no defiantly climax or closing. In fact, the album cycles. The beginning of the first song, “Into,” picks up right where the last song, “Valentino” leaves off.Not only does the music take the listener through the gamut of human emotions, so do the lyrics. In “Oceans of Hunger,” Pat croons to the listeners, “And I wish you were the conscience lost forever in the war/Wish you were my spirit what went out with the storm/Wish you were the air that feeds the fire,” he brags in “Euthanasia,” “You were a slave in heaven/And now a superstar in hell” and assures him/her in “Contradiction,” “I used to be a feather in your headdress/But it beats the fucking loneliness /And I'm happy now.” The only disappointment was the song “Valentino,” where Briggs and band over-dramatize a refrain. It feels like a rough jolt from the serene sadness of the rest of the piece. It feels like a Broadway musical gone sour. This being said, Pandemic is a must for new listeners and hard-core Psychotica fans alike. Who knows what could have been, with this possible break-though album left in the vaults. Everyone should check it out because you sure can’t beat the price.  From: http://saltyka.blogspot.com/2007/06/psychotica.html

Eurythmics - Who's That Girl

"Who's That Girl?" is a song by British pop duo Eurythmics. It was written by band members Annie Lennox and David A. Stewart and produced by Stewart. In the UK, it was released in July 1983, several months in advance of their third studio album Touch (1983), on which the track eventually appeared. In North America, "Who's That Girl?" was issued as the second single from Touch, and did not appear as a single until April 1984.
The music video for "Who's That Girl?" features Lennox in the role of a suspecting woman demanding to know with whom her lover has been seen associating. The video became a heavily played clip on MTV, and further showcased Lennox's gender-bending image. She appears as a nightclub singer performing the song (complete with 1960s-era blonde flip wig) and also as a male member of the audience akin to Elvis Presley (as seen on the cover of the single). At the end of the video, the female Lennox is shown kissing the male Lennox.
Stewart appears in the video, escorted by a number of different women played by a variety of guest stars including Cheryl Baker and Jay Aston of Bucks Fizz, Kiki Dee, Hazel O'Connor, Kate Garner of Haysi Fantayzee and all four members of Bananarama (including Stewart's future wife, Siobhan Fahey and future group member Jacquie O'Sullivan, who was a member of the band Shillelagh Sisters when the video was filmed, and who would replace Fahey in Bananarama in 1988). The gender-bending pop star Marilyn also makes an appearance in the video as another of Stewart's escorts.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who%27s_That_Girl%3F_(Eurythmics_song)

Ben Folds Five - Army

In this song, Ben Folds is going through a life crisis and is thinking about joining the Army, since nothing else is working out. It is mostly autobiographical: Folds was in a band called Majosha that broke up, with some of the other members forming another band without Ben. He had also been divorced twice by this point ("my ex-wives all despise me"). He took some liberties in the part about dropping out of college after three semesters, blowing $15000 of his dad's money: He left the University of Miami after just one semester, but he was on scholarship. He also never had a mullet, although he later grew a mini mullet because the hair on the top of his head grows slower than the back. He didn't work at Chick-fil-A, but did have a job at a Hardee's in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Folds plays this regularly at concerts. He often gets up from his piano and conducts the crowd for the horn part, having them sing the horn lines for him. Depending on the crowd, it sometimes sounds surprisingly good.  From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/ben-folds-five/army

Bonnie Raitt - Live at Sigma Sound, Philadelphia 1972

Bonnie Raitt - Live at Sigma Sound, Philadelphia 1972 - Part 1

 

 

Bonnie Raitt - Live at Sigma Sound, Philadelphia 1972 - Part 2 

01 Mighty Tight Woman
02 Rollin' & Tumblin'
03 Any Day Woman
04 Women Be Wise
05 Thank You
06 Bluebird
07 Finest Lovin' Man
08 Big Road
09 Stayed Too Long At The Fair
10 Under The Falling Sky
11 Walkin' Blues
12 Can't Find My Way Home
13 Richland Woman Blues
14 Blender Blues
15 Since I Fell For You

While attending Radcliffe College in Cambridge in the late 1960s, Raitt’s life changed course when she met Dick Waterman, a blues promoter who worked with legends like Son House, Mississippi John Hurt, and Buddy Guy. Through Waterman, she gained unprecedented access to these towering figures and seized the opportunity to learn directly from the masters. Following her instincts rather than a calculated career plan, she took a semester off from school to travel, listen, and play with the musicians whose records had inspired her.
After Cambridge, Raitt immersed herself in Philadelphia’s vibrant folk and blues scene of the late 1960s. The city’s Philadelphia Folk Festival was at its peak, and venues like the 2nd Fret and the Main Point hosted both local talent and national icons. For a young blues guitarist, there were few better places to develop. Raitt performed in these clubs, often alongside the very bluesmen she had come to admire. Philadelphia wasn’t just a backdrop—it was her proving ground, marking her transition from fan to performer.
Her ties to the city deepened in 1972 when she recorded a live acoustic set at Sigma Sound Studios. Backed by local musicians, the show was broadcast by WMMR, one of Philadelphia’s influential rock stations. Selections from the performance aired regularly, helping build a dedicated regional fan base that has followed her ever since. In a world dominated by male blues musicians, Raitt’s ability to play bottleneck slide guitar with confidence and soul made people take notice. While her gender may have drawn initial curiosity, it was her tone, timing, and touch that earned respect.
She acknowledged that playing “pretty good blues guitar for a girl” helped get her foot in the door—a phrase that speaks volumes about the low expectations she faced. Rather than conform to the industry’s ideas of marketable image or sound, she stayed true to what she loved: traditional blues, folk roots, and heartfelt storytelling. That sincerity resonated, especially with seasoned blues musicians who took her seriously because she took the music seriously. She wasn’t borrowing the blues—she was living it.  From: https://www.knowyourinstrument.com/bonnie-raitt-blues-journey/