Mary's Danish - Live Cleveland, OH 1992

Killjoy
Hellflower
Julie’s Blanket
Beat Me Up
Underwater
God Said
Oh Lonely Soul, It’s a Hard Road
Weeping Tree
My Dear Heretic
Blue Stockings
Sister Shade
Leave it Alone
Can I Have a Smoke, Dude?
Shotgun
Abalone Blues

There’s no one named Mary. Nobody’s Danish, either, and they aren’t very sweet. It’s Mary’s Danish, a hard-edge band fronted by a couple of smart girls heading for a smart venue--the Anaconda Theater. That’s the place right next to UCSB and all those students who love that so-called “alternative rock,” which is basically the cool stuff mainstream radio is too dumb to play. Mary’s Danish, a band with 5 1/2 years experience, got its big break in 1989, when KROQ picked up on their single “Don’t Crash the Car Tonight.” That tune quickly spawned an album, “There Goes the Wondertruck,” on small, independent Chameleon Records. The newly released “American Standard” on Morgan Creek Records (perhaps named for the funniest movie of all time, “The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek”?) is the band’s third album. For years, it seems, the band has had to deal with the “Next Big Thing” label much like the Blasters, X and Los Lobos before them.
“I don’t know about that--it makes me uncomfortable,” Gretchen Seager said in a recent phone interview. “I don’t like to think about that stuff. I don’t like to categorize things. I’m too close to it. I don’t describe our music.” Someone has to: Remember Exene Cervenka, the shrill-voiced singer from those raucous rockers, X? Imagine Exene in stereo, and you’re getting close to what Mary’s Danish sounds like. Seager and Julie Ritter trade vocals, share vocals, and generally have the power of an air-raid siren that would shatter grandma’s china in a heartbeat. But that’s exactly the attraction of the group, or the detraction, depending upon how you hear it. Throw in some thrashy garage rock to back the two lead singers, and that’s Mary’s Danish. Seager and Ritter formed the band while students at UCLA, but they met at Cal Berkeley where they were both French literature majors, a field offering about as much hope for a career as Rich Person on the Beach in a world filled with convenience store clerks with social sciences degrees.
“Yeah, my parents were wondering the same thing,” said Seager. Not into the “scooby-doo-the-sky-is-blue-I-love-you” kind of rock, the band is not afraid to take a stand and offer an opinion. In fact, they’re pushier than a busload of New Yorkers late for a hockey game. They took on the lead singer of Guns N’ Roses with a cynical song off their last album, “Axl Rose Is Love.” On the new one, they take on TV evangelists, gun nuts and all sorts of lousy relationships to the point of making J. Geils’ “Love Stinks” almost seem like a Doris Day song. There’s 20 “don’ts” and seven “can’ts” on “Leave It Alone.” And the musicianship has never been better.
“I think we’ve grown as a band,” said Seager. “I think every artist hopes to become more sophisticated. I think we’re just a better band even though none of our records have done well enough to keep us on the road for any length of time. We just want to make good music that’s saying something important, but sometimes it’s tough to handle the business affairs.” Of course, it’s no fun if you can’t complain, but Mary’s Danish have never been afraid to put their time where their mouth is. Three years ago, their first single was a natural for RADD--Recording Artists against Drunk Driving; lately, the band’s been on the road to support Rock the Vote.
“We’re not as involved in RADD as much as we were, because certain other things have moved to the forefront, like Rock The Vote,” said Seager. “We just finished a two-week tour for Rock The Vote, and it went really well. People came in droves to register, and they seemed very enthusiastic. Although Tipper Gore probably wouldn’t wear a Mary’s Danish T-shirt, do you not vote for Clinton because of his running mate’s wife? We need a new person to lead the country, and we need to win the big battle first and worry about the little battles later.”
There’s a lot more to the rock star scene, however, than working an hour a night twice a week, driving around the country and picking up those big checks in the mail. Remember, “fan” is short for “fanatic.”
“Yeah, we have groupies, but not in a mean way,” said Seager. “They give us flowers or jump on stage and give us a kiss on the cheek. But sometimes, it’s very frightening to be a small girl and have some big guy charging you. I’ve had many a tooth chipped by a stage diver who hit me in the face and knocked the microphone into my mouth. We do have a dental plan at Morgan Creek, however.”
Could this be the career for you? Flowers? Kisses? A bop in the chops? Here’s what Seager’s experience says: “Just stay true to what you do, and don’t compromise just to get signed. Don’t try to be the Flavor of the Month. Right now every band wants to be like the Red Hot Chili Peppers or Nirvana.” And as a former student of both Cal and UCLA, well, so much for sports, and they both are bears. “I don’t root for either. I don’t go to football games and I just don’t really care.”  From: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-10-22-vl-886-story.html

Pinnick Gales Pridgen - Every Step Of The Way

Less than 18 months after the release of their debut album Pinnick Gales Pridgen, PGP are back with a follow-up record that matches the supergroup’s earlier work in fervor and intensity. Of their first record, bassist and vocalist “dUg” Pinnick (King’s X) described the collaboration as natural, effortless and “built upon raw energy.” For PGP 2, listeners will come to the instant understanding that none of the band’s initial energy was lost in the time that lapsed between the two releases. PGP 2 is energetic and ambitious, a dynamic creation by musicians whose high performance levels are simply second nature.
Guitarist and vocalist Eric Gales (of the Eric Gales Band and Lauryn Hill’s band), drummer Thomas Pridgen (formerly of The Mars Volta) and Pinnick don’t waste any time bringing their A-game to this 2014 follow-up. PGP 2 kicks off with Gales’ howling guitar on “Every Step of the Way” as Pridgen and Pinnick support. Gloomy lyrics on “It’s Not My Time to Die” pull the trio into dark territory as Pinnick recounts speeding through sharp turns in his car and surviving a brutal stabbing. As each dismal scenario unfolds, Pinnick remains determined, ending each chorus with a resolute, “It’s not my time to die.”
Pinnick and Gales work in tandem on lead vocals throughout the record, passing the role back and forth from one song to the next. As Gales’ smooth baritone voice lends an edge to “Every Step of the Way,” the vocal harmonization by Gales and Pinnick at the beginning of “Have You Cried?” acts as that one standout element that makes the track truly memorable. Yet for all there is to be said about the album’s lyrical delivery, few songs place the vocals as the single point of focus. “Psychofunkadelic Blues” speaks to the sonic blend the trio achieves in their work as they mesh influences from Cream and Jimi Hendrix to Stevie Ray Vaughan and Stevie Wonder into one simultaneously complex and seamless package. Softer instrumental numbers like the delicate “LaDonna” and album closer “Jambiance” reveal the expansive range of a group that seems to hit the mark every time they strike a chord.  From: https://bluesrockreview.com/2014/06/pinnick-gales-pridgen-pgp-2-review.html

Petra Haden - Petra Haden Sings The Who Sell Out (full album)

01 Armenia City in the Sky
02 Heinz Baked Beans
03 Mary Anne with the Shaky Hand
04 Odorono
05 Tattoo
06 Our Love Was
07 I Can See for Miles
08 I Can't Reach You
09 Medac
10 Relax
11 Silas Stingy
12 Sunrise
13 Rael
14 Track Records

Petra Haden Sings: The Who Sell Out is an album by Petra Haden, an entirely a cappella interpretation of the 1967 album The Who Sell Out by English rock band The Who. Haden supplies all of the vocals. It was released in 2005 on Bar None Records. The recording was suggested by Haden's friend Mike Watt, who ranks Sell Out as one of his favorite albums and gave Haden an 8-track recorder she used to create the album. Haden formed a ten-woman choir, dubbed Petra Haden & The Sellouts, to perform songs from the album live.
In the Boston Globe on 13 March 2005, Pete Townshend, The Who's guitarist and principal songwriter, spoke positively about Haden's album: I was a little embarrassed to realize I was enjoying my own music so much, for in a way it was like hearing it for the first time. What Petra does with her voice, which is not so easy to do, is challenge the entire rock framework ... When she does depart from the original music she does it purely to bring a little piece of herself -- and when she appears she is so very welcome. I felt like I'd received something better than a Grammy. In his book Paddle Your Own Canoe, actor Nick Offerman recommends the album as ideal to listen to while building canoes.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petra_Haden_Sings:_The_Who_Sell_Out

In the 21st century, the Who have become spokesrockers. "Who Are You", "Won't Get Fooled Again", "Baba O'Riley"-- as themes for CBS' "CSI" franchise the songs are meaty enough and beaty enough to match David Caruso's ego, while being big enough to hook baby boomers into Tivoing the clunky procedural crime dramas. Someday a CBS! Miniseries! Event! will unite the three "CSI" casts in an epic struggle against GSR residue and Dan Cortese's career as a character actor, and its theme song will be the 10-minute Tommy epic "Underture". When that happens, the Who will have reached Kravitzian levels of licensing overexposure. But in the meantime we can still enjoy the band's music for its strong points-- thundering power chords, machismo blending with naughty British schoolboy humor, ambitious flights of pop songwriting, and a conceptual scope that was as enviable as it was flawed.
All of that's wrapped up in Petra Haden Sings: The Who Sell Out, the Los Angeles singer's a capella interpretation of the Who's 1967 album. Haden recreates the entire record with only her voice and an eight-track recorder, from the flatulent trumpets and "What's for tea, darling?" drop-ins of fake advert "Heinz Baked Beans" to the swirling psych-rock of classic rock radio staple "I Can See for Miles". On the latter her harmonic selves suggest a Mellotron while she sings the lead in a voice that's clear and bright, but also a little deadpan. And that wryness is important for Haden, because it's both a connection to and a departure from her primary source. While Who Sell Out was a gleeful lambaste of advertising and radio, it also featured some really strong songs. Haden understands both aspects, but knows she can't retell it accurately with her limited materials. So she doesn't. She uses suggestion instead, and a fan's emulation, and her own sense of humor, too; she makes something that loves its predecessor but has no intention of resembling it exactly. And at that, the baby boomers and rockists breathed a little easier.
As the story goes, Mike Watt put Haden up to this project in the first place. She'd already done an a capella record-- 1996's fanciful Imaginaryland-- and Watt wondered what she might do with one of his favorites. There's no purism in that backstory. Petra Haden Sings: The Who Sell Out is just a fun exercise, the work of a daydreaming geek girl who sings like an angel and makes cool guitar noises with her mouth. Its casual "Why not?"-ness is its greatest strength. But there's attention to detail here, too. "Face the music with Odorono", the original Sell Out's fake ad copy smirked beneath a shot of Townshend mugging with an enormous can of the stuff. "The all-day deodorant that turns perspiration into inspiration!" But at the same time, the actual song "Odorono" exemplified the songwriter's emerging flair for epic pop. Haden has fun recreating the album art, and the songs on Sell Out, too. Of course, since she's the only instrument, this is done with lots of layers and a general knack for hitting the sweet spot of Pete's famous fanfares. "Triumphant!/ Was the way she felt/ As she acknowledged the applause..."  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/4005-petra-haden-sings-the-who-sell-out/

Robert Palmer - Hey Julia / Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley

If you mention Robert Palmer today, the first thing you think of is the influential music video for his song "Addicted to Love." Because of the heavy airplay on MTV, the song became an international sensation and the signature song of his career. The downside of this success is that his early work tends to get overlooked. Sneakin' Sally Through The Alley is his debut album and probably the most under-appreciated work in his discography. In 1974, after a three-year stint in the British rock/R&B band Vinegar Joe, Palmer left the group and signed a solo deal with Island Records. His next task was to search for session players for the album.
The quest took him to New York City and New Orleans to find these musicians. Palmer stated to Fred Shuster of the L.A. Daily News in 1996,  "Here was this white English kid coming to New Orleans and New York to work with bands I had only heard on vinyl. I first knew Stuff (guitarist Cornell Dupree, drummer Bernard Purdie, keyboardist Richard Tee and bassist Gordon Edwards) when they were called The Encyclopedia Of Soul, the seminal New York Rhythm and Blues band. They had been on loads of records and still had that raw edge. So, I jumped in the deep end and asked if they would be up for some sessions. They didn't know me from Adam and, at first, they wouldn't even say hello. But eight bars into the first tune, Purdie turned around and said, 'Sir, excuse me, what did you say your name was?' From then on, it was great."
Palmer struck gold in New Orleans, where he managed to wrangle the Meters (comprised of drummer Zigaboo Modeliste, bassist George Porter Jr., guitarist Leo Nocentelli, and keyboardist Art Neville) and Lowell George of Little Feat into the fold. Palmer wanted to capture a funkier sound relative to the music that he had previously made with Vinegar Joe and it doesn't get any funkier than having this incredibly accomplished group of musicians backing you up. Throughout his career, Palmer proved to be an excellent interpreter of other people's material and he did not fail to deliver on Sneakin' Sally Through The Alley. Even though his career went off in many different directions, his solo debut album was a sign of great things to come later.
Sneakin' Sally opens up with one of the best three-song sequences heard on any album. "Sailing Shoes,” penned by Lowell George and originally performed by Little Feat, kicks things off into high gear. This version is more uptempo and funkier (with a huge assist from backing vocalist Vicki Brown) than the original, which leaned towards the more bluesy and slower end of the pool. "Sailing Shoes" flows seamlessly into the second track of the trilogy, the sublime but clever "Hey Julia", written by Palmer and highlighted by the vocal interplay between him and the aforementioned Brown.
The final piece of the opening trilogy is the title track "Sneakin' Sally Through The Alley,” penned by New Orleans legend Allen Toussaint and originally sung by Lee Dorsey of "Working in a Coalmine" fame. Backed by the Meters with Simon Phillips on drums and Lowell George on slide guitar, this song is one of Palmer's best vocal performances of his illustrious career. The power and confidence of the then 25-year-old singer leaps off the vinyl and into your eardrum. After the three-song opening, you're buying the water Palmer is selling. Despite the fact that "Hey Julia" was recorded with different musicians, these three songs mesh together perfectly.  From: https://albumism.com/features/robert-palmer-debut-solo-album-sneakin-sally-through-the-alley-album-anniversary

Paper Bird - Don't Want Half

Hailing from Denver, Colorado, Paper Bird is a band that has been on the rise for a number of years now. Their latest self-titled release, off of Thirty Tiger/Son Of Thunder Records, is a record that will have listeners hooked on the first spin. The album is extra special for the group as they called upon the legendary John Oates to join them in the studio. The opening track “To The Light”, features a strong vocal performance by lead vocalist, Carleigh Aikins, showcasing her powerful voice. To the listener, this song rings true in life sometimes with the lyrics: “The world is full of broken hearts. The world is full of hard times.” Let’s be honest, we’re all going to go through some hardships at some point, but we just need to keep looking “to the light”. The track is a testament of how Paper Bird’s dedication to their craft has brought them to where they are today. Lending his masterful skills on guitar, Paul DeHaven, shows off his craft, in the foreground of the opening number.
The hidden gem on this eleven track self-titled album is “Heavy Road”. All three singers' harmonies are “A+” on this number and the musicianship is top notch from all. Drummer Mark Anderson keeps a strong background beat on Aikins and vocalist Genevieve Patterson harmonizes flawlessly on, “Don't Want Half”. The six-piece displays its wide range of influences with “The Run”, DeHaven’s down and dirty guitar work compliments Caleb Summeril’s thumping bass lines well as vocalist Sarah Anderson, along with her counterparts Patterson and Aikins, display why three vocalists are a perfect fit for the group. “Waiting For You” closes out the Colorado based quintet's best release to date. This record shows that hard work and a passion for the music is what takes a group like Paper Bird to the next level in their musical endeavors.  From: https://www.215music.net/paper-bird-album-review.html

Otis Redding - Pain In My Heart

Otis Redding’s second single, That’s What My Heart Needs, sold reasonably, but the youthful singer with the mature voice dropped a bomb with his third release for at Stax, Pain In My Heart, a heartbreaking wail of love gone bad that was a smash in the autumn of 1963. His song prompted a cover by British up-and-comers The Rolling Stones and triggered a row with New Orleans’ R&B kingpin Allen Toussaint, who’d written Irma Thomas’ Ruler Of My Heart on which Otis had based his hit. No matter: the record helped establish Otis as a major force.
Sessions continued with Stax’s regular musicians, Booker T & The MGs, plus Johnny Jenkins on guitar, saxophonists Packy Axton and Floyd Newman, and trumpeter Wayne Jackson. Everyone at Stax was struck by the creativity and sheer life force of their new star. His debut album was set for release at the start of 1964. Otis had arrived… Well, up to a point. Pain In My Heart sold reasonably well for a debut album by a black artist of the era, just failing to broach the US Top 100. However, Otis was soon drawing attention abroad, particularly among the UK mod movement, and in one of those curious slow-burning successes that sometimes occur in music, the album saw a British release three years after its US pressing and hit the Top 30.
The music Otis’ new fans enjoyed was a bit of a mixed bag. Apart from the three singles, there were plenty of covers. Otis put his stamp on The Dog, an R&B hit by his labelmate Rufus Thomas. He took on one of the great early soul ballads, offering a beaty, stripped-back version of Ben E King’s Stand By Me which showed off some of the vocal tics and nuances that would soon become so familiar. His voice was even more distinctive on You Send Me, written by one of his all-time favourite soul artists, Sam Cooke; Otis would go on to cover Cooke on several more albums, including 1965’s Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul, which had initially been intended as a tribute to the lost soul originator. There was a frenzied version of Richard Berry’s Louie Louie, clearly an influence on Toots And The Maytals’ reggae version eight years later. And Otis dipped into his immediate past as a Little Richard apostle on the rock’n’roll pioneer’s Lucille and his own Hey Hey Baby.
Just to remind us that Otis was a great writer in his own right, there was the bright and poppin’ Something Is Worrying Me, with a beautifully gentle vocal from the soon-to-be king of soul; the tender and intimate That’s What My Heart Needs, which is a confession straight from Otis’ troubled mind, with the singer breaking – unusually, for him – into James Brown-style wailing towards the end; and his fourth single from Pain In My Heart, Security. This latter soul groover was a modest hit but should have been bigger. Etta James recognised its potential and landed a Top 40 hit with her version of the song in 1968.
Packed with soul and feeling, Pain In My Heart was not so much a modest introduction to a major talent, more a banging on the door with both fists. Otis was already able to show the broad range he was capable of; within months he’d honed his talent further and sharpened his style. But all the original ingredients of his unique sound were in place and he already looked unstoppable. A year later, he’d become such a fixture on the soul scene that it would be impossible to think of him as a comparative newcomer. The legend started the moment he confessed to the pain in his heart.  From: https://www.thisisdig.com/feature/pain-in-my-heart-otis-redding-album/

Sam Phillips - Circle of Fire

Sam Phillips (not to be confused with the Sun Records impresario) is many things: a gifted singer-songwriter, an underrated alt-rock goddess, a composer of incidental television music (all those “la, la la’s” on Gilmore Girls) and a performer with a stage presence that’s both warmly confident and magnificently eerie. In recent years, she has also become a fiercely independent artist, almost an iconoclast of sorts—a quality one can trace back near the start of her career, when she recorded Contemporary Christian music under her birth name, Leslie Phillips. After four well-received albums in that genre, she concluded she no longer wanted to be “a cheerleader for God” (as she bluntly put it in one interview) and switched over to secular pop music (and professionally adopted a childhood family nickname). Whether brought on by an actual crisis of faith, feeling discomfort from that boxed-in community, or by meeting musician T-Bone Burnett (who became both her longtime producer and romantic partner after helming her final Leslie album), her decision to leave one world behind for another continually enhances the cultural, philosophical, and yes, spiritual nature of much of her subsequent catalog.
Transitioning from religious to secular music, her artistry immediately flourished. The Indescribable Wow (1988), her debut as Sam, is a near-perfect ten-track album of sly, sighing retro pop. A little more tart and perhaps a few shades darker, Cruel Inventions (1991) kicks off with the clever confession, “If I told myself I believed in love, and that’s enough / I’d be lying,” and concludes with a gorgeous manifesto against uniformity (“Where The Colors Don’t Go”). Both records are very good, though the former’s production sometimes feels a little dated and the latter is occasionally a touch too internal (it could use a little more sweetening). By contrast, Martinis & Bikinis is an important step forward, not only for Phillips’ growing confidence and agility as both a lyricist and a tunesmith, but also in how effortlessly it balances her affable persona with an ever-cunning acidity (just look at that album cover).
Following “Love and Kisses”, a minute-long apéritif whose lyrics contain the album’s purposely frivolous title, Phillips doles out one catchy, tightly constructed pop song after another. Practically every instrumental and vocal part provides some sort of hook, from the clipped barre chords of “Signposts” and the elastic bass line of “Same Rain” to the declarative opening riffs of both “When I Fall” and “Same Changes” (the latter almost as effective as the one in The Beatles’ “Day Tripper”). And yet, only roughly half of Martinis & Bikinis is strictly guitar pop. As with the Fab Four, Phillips doesn’t shy away from adornments inspired by a spectrum of musical genres. “Baby I Can’t Please You”, for instance, has a Middle Eastern flavored, Van Dyke Parks string arrangement (along with plenty of sitars and tablas), while ecological lament “Black Sky” aims for Tom Waits-style, post-apocalyptic minimalism, with Phillips’ vocal almost entirely carrying the melody over a stark, clanging percussion-heavy backdrop. Both are pop songs that also expand the idea of what such a thing can contain.  From: https://hauntedjukebox.com/2015/12/06/sam-phillips-martinis-bikinis/