Wucan - King Korea

 #Wucan #hard rock #folk rock #psychedelic rock #doom metal #stoner rock #progressive metal #retro-1970s #German #music video

Wucan - Retro Rock with Romanticism and Women’s Power

eclipsed is a music magazine based in Aschaffenburg and has been on the German market since 2000. It is aimed at friends of sophisticated rock music who want to go on a new acoustic voyage of discovery month after month.

eclipsed: Tell me the origin of the band.

Francis Tobolsky: Well, I started the band with an ad when I moved to Dresden four years ago to study. In my old hometown Chemnitz I didn't see the chance to find like-minded people. My claim was to make classic blues rock by Free and Rory Gallagher. First of all our drummer Axel Pätzold reported himself on the ad and peu à peu they all came together. About Tim George on guitar and finally Patrick Dröge on bass.

eclipsed: And how did you find your way to this special sound, a mix of classic hard & blues rock with Tull's flute, Krautrock influences and modern retro rock à la Blues Pills?

Tobolsky: Yeah, then the songwriting started. Somehow it came all by itself that we drove this, I say, old-school sound. I think that this is also connected with the fact that none of us really listens to new, current music. Many productions are simply too polished to a high gloss for us, especially in the metal area, of course also in pop/rock. Somehow we didn't like it.

eclipsed: Where'd you learn to play the flute so well? It really reminds you of Ian Anderson.

Tobolsky: (laughs) Funny you should say that. Just a few days ago a metal music magazine said that this was the biggest insult to the majesty I would do on the flute. Jethro Tull wasn't an influence at all, but as a thirteen year old I enjoyed two years of classical flute lessons. Later I concentrated more on the guitar. But then I thought to myself that I could also bring the flute into the band.

eclipsed: Where does your band name come from?

Tobolsky: We were really desperate to find a band name. And Tim sent me an unspectacular music link. This was the music video of the song "Wucan" by psychedelic rocker Black Mountain, which in Chinese means "lunch" in addition to the name for a Chinese city (laughs). We decided that together as a band.

eclipsed: How did you approach your first album?

Tobolsky: So on our first release, an EP, we weren't really happy with the sound. This time we wanted to make it clear from the outset that this was not supposed to sound so modern, but ... yes, "mustier". Also adapted to our music style. We also recorded live and took a little more time to experiment, for example with the Moog synthesizer and the theremin I play.

eclipsed: So how did the long track "Wandersmann" come about, which is out of the ordinary in German? This reminds me of romantic poetry as it used to be with "Leiermann" from Franz Schubert's "Winterreise".

Tobolsky: You, exactly. I used to want to study literature. I was always such a cultural epoch freak, and my absolute favorite time was romanticism and especially the so-called black romanticism. Maybe that had some influence, too.

eclipsed: "Sow The Wind sounds a lot like early seventies. Would you have wanted to live back then?

Tobolsky: (laughs) That's a difficult thing. Somehow you're used to all the comforts of the 21st century. At least then I would have experienced this spirit of the time first hand. So I can only have this told to me by people like my grandparents, who already lived then, or people who were active in student movements.

eclipsed: Young people nowadays tend to hear the charts, hip hop and electro more often. How do you get your obviously so rich musical knowledge about older music at all? Where does this love come from?

Tobolsky: Well, I've asked myself that question many times before. I've been interested in music since I was a kid. I was often with my grandparents, and here in Saxony they had an oldie radio station on the air, from the sixties to the eighties. I must have preferred a certain sound and song structure. When I finally had my own internet access when I was fourteen or fifteen (laughs), I could surf around and was constantly looking for music. You can always get links to other bands and songs on YouTube, which you then like, and you can keep on hanging around like that.

eclipsed: It's nice that the Internet also provides such positive things. What are your musical role models?

Tobolsky: Besides Blues Rock there are many old Krautrock bands like Novalis, Hoelderlin and Birth Control, but also East German bands like Renft and Karat.

eclipsed: How do you see the current retro-rock scene with bands like Siena Root, in whose opening program you will play in the coming months, or especially the Blues Pills, with which you will probably be compared now, simply because there is such an energetic front woman on stage.

Tobolsky: Hm, difficult question ... I almost think that some people in the press are already annoyed about it. But every retro rock band sounds different to me anyway. In Metal, for example, many of the bands sound much more similar. No, it's full of musical diversity, it can be more like blues rock or heavy metal or it can be psychedelic. Yes, or even garage rock of the late sixties, there are so many different ways of playing that you can't even say, so this retro rock, that annoys me. This all sounds so fresh and different. I just think that certain bands are promoted in a very strong way and that can get on people's nerves. I can imagine that, especially what comes from the big labels.

From: https://www.eclipsed.de/en/current-issue/underground/wucan-retro-rock-romanticism-and-womens-power

Deerhoof - Scarcity Is Manufactured

 #Deerhoof #indie rock #experimental rock #noise rock #art rock #noise punk #animated music video

At the beginning of 'Can’t Get You Out of My Head', the latest documentary by historian and filmmaker Adam Curtis, is a quote by anarchist activist David Graeber: “The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something we make and could just as easily make differently.” It sets the tone for a sprawling thesis about how we’ve arrived at our current state of global affairs, reminding the viewer that there’s always another path. The film shares the same message at the heart of 'Actually, You Can', the 18th studio album by San Francisco’s Deerhoof. It’s a record of re-imagination, revolution, and reconstruction in the face of a seemingly inevitable status quo.
However, gleaning a clear message from Deerhoof’s music is like drawing water from a stone. Though singer/bassist Satomi Matsuzaki’s lyrics are playfully inscrutable, they contain moments of clarity. Chaotic opener “Be Unbarred, O Ye Gates of Hell” casts wealth disparities and labor rights into the metaphor of who benefits from a household appliance. Next, the shambling guitar-pop of “Department of Corrections” proposes that it’s time to reclaim autonomy from the powers that be: “O jailer, who’s in charge around here? And if not you then is it I? Yeah.” And the anthemic tangle that is “Ancient Mysteries, Described” switches to straight-up power chords for its ode to civil disobedience. Still, for each line that seems decipherable, twice as many are charmingly enigmatic.
The music of 'Actually, You Can' gets its message across much more effectively. With little more than two guitars, a bass, and drums, Deerhoof conjures anxious garage funk, Tejano-infused noise rock, introspective dissonance, mercurial power pop, and just about everything in between. Guitarist John Dieterich has described the record as “utility music that makes you move and motivates you,” and indeed, each of these nine songs contorts with joyous abandon. A song as chock full of dueling riffs and fleeting tangents as “Be Unbarred, O Ye Gates of Hell” could only put people on their feet. Greg Saunier’s splashy and relentless drumming turns art-rock jams “Department of Corrections” and “Plant Thief” into songs that could soundtrack an uprising. Even the dislocated, slow-burning “Our Philosophy is Fiction” still feels like a rallying cry in the hands of a seasoned and uniquely expressive band like Deerhoof. Whatever 'Actually, You Can' may lack in pointedness, it makes up for in raw energy.
Yet with all of the intensity and musical bedlam at work here, the brief sections of calm somehow resonate the longest. There’s something oddly hopeful and pure in the softly strummed verses of closer “Divine Comedy,” where Matsuzaki muses on yet to be realized possibilities for change. The tone of her delivery is flat and her cadence is hard to follow, but they are coupled with tender guitar chords, inviting the listener to dig deeper into the ideas behind this rare emotional break. Such reserved divergences are uncommon on 'Actually, You Can'. So when Deerhoof does step back from their onslaught of prismatic garage band tropes, it’s a welcome reminder that rock & roll spectacle isn’t the only way to inspire change.  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/deerhoof-actually-you-can/

Blue Man Group & Venus Hum - I Feel Love

 #Blue Man Group #Venus Hum #performance art #alternative/indie rock #experimental #electronic rock #percussion based #music video #Donna Summer cover

Matt Goldman, Phil Stanton and Chris Wink are entrepreneurs, innovators, educators, artists, and contemporary comedians, known collectively as the founders and originators of Blue Man Group. That these three bald and blue characters would become a cultural phenomenon – let alone the foundation for a most dynamic and successful artistic organization – is an idea that was all but unimaginable when these inscrutable beings first emerged, walking the streets of New York. “We weren’t really goal-oriented,” says Stanton. “When we started walking around the city, we did it because we wanted to see how people reacted. And being bald and blue was our social life. We didn’t want to go to bars and be part of a singles scene, a drinking scene. We wanted our social life to be somehow creative, and this was a lot of fun. We knew we would eventually do some kind of performance, but we never envisioned a commercial theater run.”      
Blue Man Group’s wildly popular, always evolving theater piece has been a mainstay in New York, Boston and Chicago for years. Now touring the country for the first time, there are also productions in Las Vegas and Orlando, and there are or have been productions in Tokyo and numerous European cities. The show is an absurd and wondrous blend of music, painting, science and technology, as the Blue Men silently engage in a variety of set pieces that run the gamut from primitive and childlike to witty and sophisticated. And the character has been the springboard for numerous additional ventures, including a rock tour, a museum exhibition, a 3D movie and a school.
“It’s all about creativity and innovation,” says Puck Quinn, creative director of character development and appearances. “If someone asks, ‘What does Blue Man Group do?,’ my answer is simple: ‘We innovate.’” Everything begins with the Blue Man, and although he’s been around for more than two decades, his founders still can’t entirely explain where he came from. Like the character himself, his origin is enigmatic. “There really isn’t an explanation,” says Goldman. “Chris dug up a picture that he drew when he was five years old, and it had three blue men in it. And I had a thing in my wallet for years with a blue tribe in South America. I don’t know why it was there; I never put pictures in my wallet. We think the Blue Man has always been here. The best answer is that we found each other.”
The impulse for going bald and blue emerged, in part, when the three longtime friends observed a clash of cultures on a New York sidewalk that no one else noticed. “We saw three punk rockers – giant Mohawks, safety pins in the cheekbone area, leather and chains – walk between three other gentlemen who were dressed in Armani suits and carrying alligator briefcases,” says Goldman. “These six guys didn’t even blink, and the people around them didn’t even blink. And we turned to each other and said, ‘If that scene didn’t even get one iota of consciousness put to it, what human imagery possibly could?” Eventually, an image began to emerge. “We thought, ‘What would surprise people?” says Stanton. “‘What’s going to catch someone’s eye and make them think?’ We thought that if we created a bald and blue character, that image would have the ability to surprise and spark some thought for a long time."   Goldman adds, “The first time we got bald and blue, we knew instantly it was something very special. And it was so freeing, because it wasn’t us. Our own egos were gone.”
Eager to see an end to the 1980s, they carried around a coffin and staged a “Funeral for the ’80s” in Central Park – two years before the decade ended. “We also walked around the streets or into bars; we were really interested in being a little provocative,” Goldman said. The traits of the Blue Man developed gradually. “There was something about him that seemed timeless, and something that seemed a little bit futuristic,” says Stanton. “He seemed to have the ability to be beautiful and comic at the same time. I’m not even sure we thought about that at first. It was really intuitive. We were trying to create a character that somehow represented humanity, but was able to be outside of humanity and look at it at the same time. We wanted to make a statement about community, about the power of a group, as opposed to the American individualist mentality. We thought the character would express community through something tribal, and drumming seemed the way to go. Chris had trained as a drummer, and I was from a really musical background. We wanted to draw from our own interests and backgrounds, and bring them into some kind of performance. We wanted to express something about the process, or the impulse to create.” They built drums and instruments made of polyvinyl chloride – or PVC – pipes. They caught thrown objects with their mouths, and learned how to make things squirt out of their chests. Not all their experiments were successful. “We tried these hats that had tape recorders in them,” says Goldman. “They were called ‘Read Your Mind’ hats.” An acquaintance complimented them for their bravery.          
They continued to develop material for three years, performing in downtown clubs and event spaces. “We wanted to do work that had never been seen onstage before,” says Goldman. Their shows were fresh and funny, exhilarating and experimental, but they were uncertain how long they could continue; they often paid out more than they took in on a gig. But in 1991, they were invited to perform at La MaMa, the prestigious off-off-Broadway theater. The show created a buzz, and that summer Blue Man Group took part in Lincoln Center’s Serious Fun Festival. In the fall they moved off-Broadway to the Astor Place Theater, where they remain to this day.
Two decades later, Goldman, Stanton and Wink are still tinkering with, refining, and updating the show. Each additional production, including the tour, provides an opportunity for new material, and even the New York show is refreshed from time to time. “Sometimes we just see something that we think is really cool, and we’ll try and see how we can make it theatrical,” says Stanton. The success of the show has enabled Blue Man Group’s founders to do what they most enjoy: innovate, create, and inspire. Among their many enterprises are CDs and DVDs; toy development; and the Megastar World Tour, their take on what a rock concert should be. “It plays around with all the trappings of the big arena concert,” says Quinn, “all the things we do that we don’t even think about – waving your hands in the air and bopping your head and dancing in your seat. We’re poking fun at all those little actions. But at the same time, we’re trying to put on the best rock concert there is, with all the stuff we want to see.”  From: https://www.stifeltheatre.com/news/detail/coloring-the-world-blue-the-history-of-the-blue-man-group

Shireen - Umai

 #Shireen #witchpop #folk rock #dark folk #neo-medieval #folk metal #electronic #Dutch #music video

Shireen is a band that comes from Netherlands and has managed in a little while to form a completely personal sound which is constantly evolving. By mixing folk and acoustic rock with ambient and pop and introducing the use of electronic samples and beats in their music, they created their own genre they call Witchpop. The "acrobatics" between various genres produces an excellent result that dresses the wonderful voice of Annicke, frontwoman and Shireen's lyricist. Annicke very kindly gave us an interview about the band's work and dreams.

What motivated Shireen to go on their own genre and what reactions do you get when you say “We play Witchpop”.

The genre we play (or actually, not conforming to a set genre at all) has never been a choice for us. We write whatever we like, and don’t try to fit it somewhere because that would only retain us from using the full scale of possibilities. So it happens naturally that our music usually floats in-between genres. We get our inspiration from a lot of different artists and music styles. We gave our style the name Witchpop to get rid of the “describe what you play” questions (which actually didn’t work haha). But even if people don’t know the genre, they immediately have a general idea or a feeling about what kind of music we play.

When someone listens to your works for the first time, they might be surprised by the contradiction that comes from the atmosphere of your music and your lyrics. How do you manage to combine social and inner matters (like the human cruelty and endurance or femininity and modern religion) in a style of music that in its "traditional" form is more "out of this world" and how does the audience respond to it?

I don’t feel there is a contradiction in the style of our music and my lyrics. I write the lyrics and sing vocals exactly how I feel them. The rest of the musicians in the band are really attuned to what I mean by it, and every single one of them has their own unique influence on the sound when writing songs. I strongly believe in using people’s strengths as good as possible. When we write a song for me it feels as if it grows like an organic thing. People who like our music sometimes tell me in person that they are very touched by the lyrics and their meanings, that is the most rewarding thing for me.

How do you evaluate Shireen’s musical evolution since 2014 and ‘Unmarked’, until today and what changes brought the new member addition to the Shireen sound?

We took it slow, deliberately. I’d rather do things good than rush it. I don’t want to make “fast food music” anyway; bringing out singles for the sake of exposure, or fill an album with less good songs just to finish and be able to sell the album sooner. The whole modern world is already filled with stuff like that, and I feel, and hope that people also feel that there is no soul in it. We all deeply enjoy the positive reactions we get from people, and it motivates me to make new things. Every new band member has a big influence on our writing music. When Guido joined us with electronics he brought a complete new world of possibilities with him, and we started to (re)write songs to implement his amazing sounds. So does Berend, our newest band member and guitar player, bring in his style and we get inspired by the new possibilities of it.

Starting with the Umai video we can see a character like an alter ego developing and we find her again on the covers of Shireen’s three digital single releases and of course on the ‘Matriarch’ album cover. Is this character going to be Shireen’s optical signature?

I have always styled myself quite dramatically for our live shows. It is like a ritual; I always do my own hair, makeup and design and make my own stage outfits. I try to catch this feeling in a sort of character design that I then wear and become it. It’s not like becoming a different person to me, it’s more like “wearing my extra special skin”. I just don’t like “normal”, So I would say yes, as long as I’m the frontwoman of Shireen it will probably always be a dramatic signature style.

From: https://www.blackvelvetradio.gr/index.php/synentefkseis/430-interview-with-shireen-welcome-to-sound-world-of-witchpop

 

It's A Beautiful Day - White Bird

 #It's A Beautiful Day #David LaFlamme #folk rock #psychedelic rock #jazz rock #1960s

San Francisco psychedelic folk-rock unit It's a Beautiful Day was primarily the vehicle of virtuoso violinist David LaFlamme, born April 5, 1941 in New Britain, Connecticut but raised in Salt Lake City, Utah. After beginning his musical education at age five, LaFlamme later served as a soloist with the Utah Symphony, following an army stint by settling in the Bay Area in 1962. There he immersed himself in the local underground music scene, jamming alongside the likes of Jerry Garcia and Janis Joplin; after his short-lived Electric Chamber Orchestra splintered, LaFlamme also co-founded an early incarnation of Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks before assembling It's a Beautiful Day in mid-1967. The group -- which originally included LaFlamme's keyboardist wife Linda, vocalist Pattie Santos, guitarist Hal Wagenet, bassist Mitchell Holman, and drummer Val Fuentes -- issued its self-titled debut LP on Columbia in 1969, scoring their biggest hit with the haunting FM radio staple "White Bird." Linda LaFlamme left It's a Beautiful Day soon after, going on to form Titus' Mother; keyboardist Fred Webb signed on for the follow-up, 1970's Marrying Maiden, while Holman exited prior to 1971's Choice Quality Stuff, recorded with new guitarist Bill Gregory and bassist Tom Fowler. In 1973, ongoing disputes over royalties forced LaFlamme out of the group he created, and upon installing new violinist Greg Bloch, the remaining members issued It's a Beautiful Day...Today before dissolving in the wake of 1974's 1001 Nights. LaFlamme mounted a solo career in 1977 with White Bird, continuing his protracted legal tussle with ex-manager Matthew Katz for years to follow.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/its-a-beautiful-day-mn0000109012/biography

Patti Smith - Dancing Barefoot

 #Patti Smith #art punk #proto-punk #art rock #hard rock #new wave #alternative rock #singer-songwriter #1970s

Jeanne Hebuterne was married to a famous artist in the early 1900s. They had a child together, and she was pregnant with another. In 1920, her husband died, from either drug addiction, illness (or both). Two days later, Jeanne threw herself off a building, killing herself and her unborn child, leaving their first child orphaned. In ‘Dancing Barefoot’ Patti Smith looks at this shocking story of love, loss and grief, probably through the lens of her own relationships. She grabs the cliche "Oh God, I fell for you" with both hands, and twists it into a grotesque meditation on love and death. That last line is repeated over and over while Smith recites some cryptic poetry, probably representing the last thoughts in Jeanne's mind before she died.  From: https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/3530822107858544768/

"I had the concept to write a lyric line that would have several levels - the love of one human being for another and the love of ones creator," Patti Smith wrote on her website. "So in a sense, the song addresses both physical and spiritual love."
The lyrics didn't come with the album, but a blurb on the sleeve read, "Dedicated to the rites of the heroine," which was the only way to know for sure that Smith wasn't singing the homophone "heroin." Smith says she was asked to change the word to avoid confusion and make the song more marketable, but she refused. This certainly stymied the song commercially, but Smith wasn't going to compromise her art.
Jim Morrison of The Doors was an influence on this song. "I always imagined Jim Morrison singing it, which resulted in me singing and recording it in a lower vocal register," Smith wrote. "I wanted the verse to have a masculine appeal and the chorus to have a feminine one." At the end of the song, Smith recites some of her poetry ("The plot of our life sweats in the dark like a face..."), which is something Morrison innovated on Doors songs like "Peace Frog" and "The WASP (Texas Radio and The Big Beat)." In some live versions, Smith would start the song with this spoken intro:
    We shut our eyes, we stretch out our arms
    And whirl on a pane of glass
    An affixation
    A fix on anything
    The line of life, the limb of tree
    The hands of he
    The promise that she
    Is blessed among women
"Dancing Barefoot" is one of Smith's most popular songs, and one of her favorites, performed at most of her concerts. It was never a hit, but neither were any of her songs with the exception of the Bruce Springsteen-written "Because The Night." Considering her acclaim it's surprising how few albums she sold and how rarely she made the charts. A song like "Dancing Barefoot" certainly could have become a hit if she had made some concessions and did the standard promotion, but that wasn't her M.O. Fans, journalists, and other musicians (like Springsteen) did what they could to spread the word, but mass appeal eluded her, which seemed to be for the best. Even decades later, many listeners are pleasantly surprised to discover her music and peel back the layers of her lyrics.
On the album notes, the song is dedicated to "Jeanne Hebuterne, mistress of Amedeo Modigliani." Modigliani was an Italian painter who died from tuberculosis in 1920. The next day, Hebuterne joined him in death by jumping out of a window.
"Dancing Barefoot" is the theme song to the 2023 miniseries Daisy Jones & The Six, about a fictional band from the '70s. The series uses a lot of original music, but producers felt "Dancing Barefoot" encapsulated the story better than anything they could write. The main character, Daisy (played by Elvis Presley's granddaughter Riley Keough), makes a spiritual connection with music that eventually leads her to the band.
From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/patti-smith/dancing-barefoot

Mr. Elevator & The Brain Hotel - When the Morning Greets You With a Smile

 #Mr. Elevator & The Brain Hotel #psychedelic rock #psychedelic pop rock #neo-psychedelia #garage rock #alternative rock

Four years on from their debut album, LA Psych quintessentialists, Mr. Elevator & The Brain Hotel deliver a thoughtful and enticing experience in the 13-track work When The Morning Greets You. From a quick scan over, it is fair to say that Mr. Elevator has pulled out all the stops to deliver a wholesome spectacle. For fans of The Coral, Allah-Las, Pink Floyd, and Mystic Braves. From the start 'When The Morning Greets You with A Smile' the band are on it. Zesty vocals moving around a skippy bright drums/bass and organ groove. This song gets better with every turn with The Doors style bridge. While the chorus is vast and enrapturing, especially when the three-part harmony vocal line "And she's so fine" arrives. Again we hear a similarly skippy vibe with 'Madeline', which smiles all over the place, via the electric piano, bubbly bass, and enthusiastic drumming. The chorus has a melodic and harmonic feel not dissimilar to The Hollies mid 60's work. Beat rhythms and sugary Davey Jones vocals lead the way on the slightly distant 'Sunshine Daydream'. There is some mellotron like lines present which warp and warble cheerfully. 'Dreamer' has classic fuzz organ stomp, oompah bass and glam rock shuffle drums under a very Monkees formula, and pounding keys led groover 'Are You Hypnotized?' awakens rather than lulling, there are moments of late 70's British Two-Tone on here. The candyman-ish dull ghoulish piano 'A Lullaby' would have been an ideal sound shot for the end of last year. Leveling and pulling is the cosmic comedown Pink Floydful 'Intro' , moving into the dimly-lit 'Cosmic Bloom' a speedy Doors latin groove with grimy guitars, spacey organ flurries, under ghostly vocals.The energy intensifies via the powerhouse drums 'Fuzz Phantom', with hyped-up organ under Marc Bolan-ish whining. It has some sort of dramatised retro space crisis, think the late 60's/early 70's sci-fi TV programs. The robotic sonic expanse 'Tears Of Green' terrifies truly, like an imaginary galactic empirical marching anthem. For fans of the likes of Temples and Kula Shaker, here is a gem of a tune, mid-tempo drum beat, organs surround and drive forward, under exquisite three-part harmonies exploring the freedom mantra 'Let Me Be'. It really takes you away from life's current intense environment and the 'Let Me Be (Outro)', sees drums quick double-time march forward in a Doors style organ crescendo. The mellow dreamy, 'Ending' moves in an uncanny similarity, melodically to 'All Across The Universe', and that is fine as it revives the song's overwhelming essence.  From: https://soundblab.com/reviews/albums/17251-mr-elevator-when-the-morning-greets-you

Sally Rogers & Claudia Schmidt - Way Down The Road

 #Sally Rogers #Claudia Schmidt #folk #traditional #Americana #contemporary folk #singer-songwriter #a capella

Sally Rogers is a singer/songwriter and educator, who is originally from Beulah, Michigan and now resides in Pomfret, Connecticut. In her youth, Sally lived by the family farm and was exposed to music at an early age, as her mother was a pianist and the organist for the local church. Folk music was very popular in the ‘60s and early ‘70s, and singers like Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez and Judy Collins, were dominating the charts. After receiving a guitar for Christmas, Sally began to learn and explore songs from these and other popular artists. During her college years at Michigan State University, she studied Music Education and frequented the legendary coffee house The Ark… which showcased popular touring folk artists of the day. At The Ark, she attended ballad workshops, hoots, guitar and folk gatherings. During this time, she added the dulcimer and banjo to her arsenal and continued to expand her repertoire. After graduating college with a teaching degree, Sally began to perform regularly at local venues and clubs. She met the established Canadian folk singer Stan Rogers and he persuaded her to audition for a booking agency in Toronto. This turned out to be a good move because after passing the audition, she began to perform at major festivals and fine venues throughout Canada and the United States.  From: https://musicguy247.typepad.com/my-blog/2020/05/sally-rogers-interview-mountain-dulcimer-music-teacher-claudia-schmidt-howie-bursen-quilts.html

I first heard Craig Johnson sing "Way Down the Road" at the North Country Folk Festival in Ironwood, Michigan, where I was also performing. The version of "Way Down the Road" that I transcribed from Craig's set at the North Country Folk Festival is quite close to the version attributed to Sally Rogers. The differences are minor, mainly in syntax and punctuation. Since I was sitting next to Sally during Craig's performance, it is reassuring to know that our versions are nearly identical. Although I lost my transcription a while ago, I was able to reconstruct it from the information on this thread.
- Brian Humphrey

I remember back in '33
When we were still down in Tennessee,
Just gettin' by took all your time,
Away down the road.
The word went out in '41
Uncle Sam said get the big job done,
So we hired out at Willow Run
Away down the road.

Blow your whistle up through the pines
Out across the mountains and the Clinchfield Line
Blow for better times
Away down the road

Well we come from the mountains and the damp coal mines,
Started in to working on Henry's lines,
Eight hours steady and overtime,
Away down the road.
The city folks didn't want us 'round,
So they moved us out to the edge of town,
Salt box houses on the bulldozed ground,
Away down the road.

Chorus

We were strong backs bending in the welder's light,
Rivet guns pounding on a windy night,
A rich man's war, a poor man's fight,
Away down the road.
Punch in, punch out, make your time,
Hurry with the turret boys, you're getting behind,
The bombers roared low in the blacked-out skies,
Away down the road.

Chorus

You try to pay the rent man, try to save a buck,
Patching up the tires on a wore-out truck,
City folks pass and holler "Hey Kentuck",
Away down the road.
You say you'll move back south when the war gears down,
But your dreams die easy when your check comes round,
Caught between the mountains and a factory town,
Away down the road.

Chorus

Now the plant's closed down and the gates are closed,
New cars rust in the rain and snow,
Let me sleep where the gunstick laurel grows,
Away down the road.
You can bury me down in Tennessee,
'He lived for a dollar' - let my tombstone read
And died unknown in a strange country,
Away down the road.

From: https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=534

The Tea Party - The Bazaar

 #The Tea Party #hard rock #progressive rock #experimental rock #blues rock #industrial #Middle Eastern #Moroccan roll #Canadian

The Tea Party is a Canadian rock band from Windsor, Ontario, with blues, progressive rock and Middle Eastern influences who formed in 1990 and disbanded in October 2005. They reformed in 2011 to play some shows in Canada. They have released seven albums commercially during their time together. Guitarist and vocalist Jeff Martin, who has perfect pitch, was also producer for almost all of their albums. All three members played a range of instruments and they took up to 37 on tour with them at times in their career.  From: https://www.concertarchives.org/bands/the-tea-party

The Tea Party is a versatile and long-running Canadian rock band with a towering stage presence and a dynamic sound that combines blues, industrial rock, and psych-blasted progressive rock with Middle Eastern influences. Emerging in 1990 and led by charismatic frontman and guitarist Jeff Martin, the group released seven albums before they ceased operations in 2005. After reuniting for a series of shows in 2011, the Tea Party announced that they were officially re-forming, resulting in the release of 2014's acclaimed The Ocean at the End. The band continued to ply their esoteric wares into the next decade, releasing Blood Moon Rising in 2021.
The band formed in 1990 around the talents of Jeff Martin (guitars, vocals), Stuart Chatwood (bass, vocals), and Jeff Burrows (drums, percussion), all of whom had played in various groups together during their teenage years in Windsor. Adopting their moniker from the legendary hash sessions of Beat generation poets Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and William Burroughs, the Tea Party released their eponymous debut album in 1991. Steeped in the dark, psych-blasted blues-rock of the Doors and Led Zeppelin and produced by Martin, who would go on to helm all of the group's future albums, the self-released record caught the attention of EMI, which quickly added the trio to their roster. 1993's Splendor Solis marked their debut for the major label, and the LP found favor both at home and in Australia. The group further honed their unique blend of hard rock, mystical open-tunings, sitar, and Middle Eastern rhythms on 1995's Edges of Twilight. Continuing to absorb influences, the trio adopted a darker, more industrial tone on 1997's Transmission, which maintained the dervish-like esthetic of prior outings while introducing sequencers, samples, and loops. The Tea Party continued to straddle the nexus of alternative hard rock and orchestral worldbeat on 1999's Triptych.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-tea-party-mn0000565815/biography

Stevie Wonder - Live PBS Soul! 1972

  Part 1

Part 2

#Stevie Wonder #Motown #soul #R&B #pop soul #funk #rock #gospel #jazz #progressive soul #1970s #PBS TV broadcast #music video

Introduced by smooth-talking host Gerry B, Stevie Wonder's 50-minute 1972 live set for PSB show Soul! was never broadcast in the UK. It documents a period when Wonder's creativity was so rampant that nothing Soul!'s producers threw at him could crush it: not a contemporary dance interpretation of You And I, nor a surfeit of low-budget psychedelic effects, nor the deadly patter of Gerry B ("You used to be Little Stevie Wonder. What was it like being Little Stevie Wonder?"). He shifts between My Cherie Amour and Dylan's Blowin' in the Wind with breathtaking slickness, interpolates Superwoman with passages of intricate afro-funk and ends a frantic Uptight with a wall of dive-bombing synthesized noise. Meanwhile the studio audience provide delightful period detail: when Wonder plays a vocorder, they gasp in awe, as if he's just donned a jet pack and flown around the studio.  From: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2005/sep/30/dvdreviews.popandrock

Oh boy. It just doesn’t get much better than this. Stevie Wonder at the height of his powers playing on the PBS show Soul! with his band Wonderlove. The episode was broadcast on December 20, 1972, just two months after his landmark album Talking Book was released. One month later, “Supersitious” would be the number one song in the country. As you watch this footage, try to wrap your brain around the fact that the man was all of 22 years old. From all indications Soul! was a wonderful show indeed. Produced by Ellis Haizlip, it ran from 1968 to 1973 and featured a wide array of incredible black performers and personalities, including Al Green, Kool and the Gang, the Staple Singers, Richie Havens, Earth, Wind, and Fire, Herbie Hancock, and Gladys Knight and the Pips as well as fascinating individuals like James Baldwin, Imamu Amiri Baraka, Louis Farrakhan, Nikki Giovanni, James Earl Jones, Melvin Van Peebles, and Stokely Carmichael. On occasion people like Curtis Mayfield or Wilson Pickett would take over the hosting duties. Nobody can say they put on a dull program. There’s so much astounding stuff in this video. Stevie sings a chunk on “My Cherie Amour” in Italian, while “You and I” is accompanied by a fully choreographed ballet. Stevie covers Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” and the Temptations’ “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone”—on this last number, Stevie uses a vocoder to arresting effect. There’s a brief, amusing interview with host Gerry Bledsoe. Like any good show, things heat up steadily, and by the end things are well-nigh out of control, up to and including the kaleidoscopic video effects (which actually make use of a kaleidoscope).

Track listing:
For Once in My Life
If You Really Love Me
Superwoman (Where Were You When I Needed You)
You and I (We Can Conquer the World)
What’s Going On/My Cherie Amour
Blowin’ in the Wind
With a Child’s Heart
Love Having You Around
Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours/Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone
Superstition
Maybe Your Baby/Superstition Outro
Uptight (Everything’s Alright)

From: https://dangerousminds.net/comments/higher_ground_transcendent_stevie_wonder_pbs_tv_special_from_1972

Today we take it for granted that Black culture is mainstream American culture. But, before the age of hip-hop, cable TV, the internet, streaming, and mobile phones, African Americans basically had to crowdsource their own entertainment guide. Forget about Black stories being told — so few Black artists were even accepted on TV that the African American community found out via word of mouth when a beloved performer would make a guest appearance on a sitcom, drama, or talk show. One appearance was treated as an important event. During the Civil Rights Era, negative representations of violence were easy to find on the nightly news, but positive portrayals of Black culture were hard to come by. Just one movie, TV episode, or live appearance was treasured. Sammy Davis Jr. starred in a 1967 TV war thriller, The Enemy, where he figures out that a fellow GI is really a German soldier and kills him before he can sabotage American troops. Audiences were shocked; Black audiences were shocked in a very good way.
As seen in the Mr. SOUL! documentary, that was the landscape that Ellis Haizlip wanted to change with his groundbreaking, often thrilling, public television series SOUL! (exclamation point included!) SOUL! showed the Black community in a positive, highly diverse light. Haizlip did not represent the Black artistic community as a monolith but as a mosaic with only excellence and originality as the connecting threads. That community could be classically trained or church-taught, rural or urban, come with exact theatrical diction or speak with a Spanish accent.
Starting in September of 1968, Haizlip produced and eventually presented, the very best of Black art, from dance and poetry to cultural icons and thought leaders. But the glue that held Haizlip’s venture together was music. Haizlip selected R&B sax legend King Curtis as the show’s musical director and even stepped aside to have soul legends Jerry Butler and Curtis Mayfield present a number of episodes. Like its namesake, SOUL! featured the greatest R&B artists of the day — many of them the greatest artists of all time. Caught right at the start of his career, the unstoppable vocal talent of future Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award-winner Al Green just bursts out of the screen. The same can be said for Patti Labelle, who performed on SOUL! a rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” that shows how naturally the Hollywood standard fit into the Civil Rights movement.
Ellis Haizlip, a black, openly gay intellectual, may have been a theatrical producer but he could spot musical talent a mile away. The songwriting team Ashford & Simpson had just scored a huge hit for Diana Ross with “Reach Out and Touch (Somebody’s Hand)” but Haizlip asked them to perform the song on his show. SOUL! features the duo’s very first performance and they knock it out of the park. Ashford & Simpson became stars while some artists on the series never broke through. Watching Novella Nelson’s searing rendition of “Cold Water Flat” may have you scratching your head as to why she didn’t become a household name.
The single greatest performance on SOUL! may just be Stevie Wonder’s marathon version of “Superstition.” Wonder was so thrilled to be on the series, and the audience was so into it, that Stevie would not stop playing. They literally ran out of tape - not film, tape! - and had to change cassettes to keep capturing Wonder in motion. As seen in the Mr. SOUL! documentary, when Questlove mentions the joy of watching the studio audience watching Stevie Wonder perform for them. They knew magic was being created in front of them.  From: https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/blog/listen-up-music-was-heart-of-soul/

 

Bent Knee - Leak Water

 #Bent Knee #progressive rock #art rock #industrial #baroque pop #avant-garde #music video

Boston’s Bent Knee proudly occupy the grey area where baroque pop, rock, and the avant-garde meet, but even they are sometimes caught off guard by their intricately woven, surrealist stylings. The element of surprise and desire to fuse disparate sounds was felt throughout their sophomore record, 2014’s well-received Shiny Eyed Babies. It shines through even brighter on follow-up album Say So, due out May 20th through new label home Cuneiform. A press release dubs the forthcoming LP a “thrilling, aural roller-coaster ride with arrangements designed to make listeners throw their arms up in wild abandon.” Surveying Say So’s heady yet meta subject matter, it’s easy to see how such a varied sort of record could come about. Along with “the emergence of personal demons,” the new full-length sees Bent Knee digging into the abstract, specifically “looking at the bigger picture and figuring out where we as individuals stand, and how we carve out meaning in this giant universe,” according to violinist Chris Baum.
While complex, contrasting compositions might be in Bent Knee’s DNA, much of the “surprise” in Say So can likely also be attributed to the unconventional space in which it was recorded. “A friend of ours pointed us to an empty, unlocked, million-square foot industrial complex in Boston,” says frontwoman/keyboardist Courtney Swain. “It felt like zombies were going to jump out anytime. It was a foreboding locale and gave the session a distinctly dark vibe.” As a first look at the album, the band has unveiled a new song called Leak Water. It’s a relatively straightforward number compared to their past releases, as Bent Knee note; still, a potent sense of urgency tingles in the air. In a statement to Consequence of Sound, guitarist Ben Levin explains the track’s backstory and how it’s captured in the corresponding official video: “‘Leak Water’ is written from the perspective of a little girl whose mother is pulling her through a painful morning beauty ritual. With this in mind, for the music video we wanted to feature a little girl singing the lyrics while being thrown around in some way. The video was directed by Greg Bowen, who also created the album art for Say So. Greg makes amazing art in just about any medium you can imagine, and we decided to take advantage of his range by stylizing this video like a collage.”  From: https://consequence.net/2016/04/bent-knee-announce-new-album-say-so-premiere-leak-water-songvideo-watch/

Fairport Convention - Time Will Show The Wiser

 #Fairport Convention #Ian Matthews #Ashley Hutchings #Richard Thompson #folk rock #British folk rock #electric folk #British folk #psychedelic folk rock #1960s #music video

Fairport Convention’s wonderful performance from the French TV Show "Bouton Rouge" was broadcast live on 27 April 1968 and features the original Fairport Line up of Judy Dyble, Iain Matthews, Simon Nicol, Tyger Hutchings, Richard Thompson, and the late Martin Lamble playing Morning Glory, Time Will Show The Wiser and a simply awe-inspiring mind-melting performance of Reno, Nevada. At this time Fairport had just released their first album and were very influenced by American folk rock and psychedelic groups like Jefferson Airplane, Bob Dylan and The Byrds. The sound, look and name of the band led many to think that either they were an American band or at best just a British version of Jefferson Airplane. The star of the show is definitely Richard Thompson who is seen here in mega guitar hero role. After a fairly muscular solo in Morning Glory he delivers an astonishing perfectly paced 4 and a half minute six string marathon in Reno Nevada - so full of power, invention, imagination that the solo seems to run away with itself. Is Richard playing the guitar or is the guitar playing Richard? For the duration of this nearly 5 minute solo they are no longer the British Jefferson Airplane copying their heroes but arguably go beyond anything the Airplane, Grateful Dead or other San Francisco bands were doing in early '68 (although it must be said that the Dead would start to achieve similar high levels of  jazz inspired improv syncopation before the year was out but that is another story and post). And to top it all the band just look so damned cool. As the solo finishes Judy Dyble slowly gets up and wanders back to the microphone and the whole band just have a look of “Hey, this is nothing special. We are this shit hot every night.” After this performance they signed with Island Records, Judy Dyble left the band to be replaced by Sandy Denny and they went off to reinvent British folk rock.  From: http://strangerthanknown.blogspot.com/2013/01/fairport-convention-bouton-rouge.html

IC3PEAK - Kiss Of Death

 #IC3PEAK #experimental rock #electronic rock #witch house #industrial rock #electro-metal #political #subversive #Russian #music video

You have followers in a society, the sheep, and you have those who stand up against the herd mentality and show their middle finger to oppression. One of those bands is the Russian electronic band IC3PEAK. They saw their VK page (the biggest media in Russia) banned because of our anti-war statements. Their concerts are also officially prohibited by the Russian government. Instead of remaining silent, they unleashed the video “Kiss Of Death” (the title track of their most recent album) which is “dedicated to the Russian police state which tries to censor us all but is doomed to fail.” The band is also collecting funds to support Ukrainian humanitarian aid.
IC3PEAK is the duo Anastasia Kreslina and Nikolay Kostilev. They formed the band in 2013 and released the English sung EP “Substances” the following year. Shortly after, they released the video for the song “Ether”. In 2017, IC3PEAK released their first album (in Russian), “Sladkaya zhizn” (“Sweet life”). The duo released another Russian-language album, “Skazka” (“Fairy Tale”), in 2018. The band’s third album in Russian was #Do Svidaniya” (“Goodbye”) and was released on April 24, 2020. By then they were already under political scrutiny, especially because of the video for the song “Smerti bolshe net” which was considered as an insult to law enforcement structures and to the Russian authorities. There were also accusations that the video would be promoting suicide, which, according to the authorities, could have an impact on the duo’s underage fans. What followed was targeted harassment, threats, and intimidation from the Russian security forces. Concert venues throughout Russia were told not to program them or cancel shows. The performance in Novosibirsk on 1 December 2018 became the peak of that confrontation. On that day, the members of IC3PEAK and the local concert organizers were detained while exiting the train at Novosibirsk Central Railway Station. The concert took place at an alternative venue.  From: https://www.side-line.com/russian-band-ic3peak-gets-banned-on-vk-for-anti-war-comments-their-reaction-an-anti-putin-video/

Mark Stoermer - Blood and Guts (The Anatomy Lesson)

 #Mark Stoermer #ex-The Killers #alternative rock #indie rock #post-punk revival #psychedelic rock #pop rock #heavy metal #music video

Mark Stoermer, bassist of The Killers, has released a surreal, bloody new video for “Blood & Guts”. The video is a mini psychedelic rock opera based on the Rembrandt painting “The Anatomy Lesson” featuring Adan Jodorowsky and directed by Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger’s Charlotte Kemp Muhl, which sees Stoermer portraying a crazed conductor hell bent on destruction. “It is a theatrical journey that juxtaposes sex and death, the material and the spiritual, the sacred and the profane, the grotesque and the beautiful, the somber and the silly. It is a celebration of life in the face of our mortality, while paying tribute to the forces of creation, preservation, destruction and resurrection,” Stoermer said of the video.  
Dark Arts, Stoermer’s second solo album, comprises a mosaic of sixties-induced psychedelia, bluesy desert rock swagger, plaintive lyrical poetry, and lithe and lush cinematic orchestration. Co-produced by David Hopkins of Bombay Heavy and recorded at The Killers‘ Las Vegas headquarters Battle Born Studios and Studio at The Palms, Dark Arts weaves together a twisting and turning trip through a myriad of styles.  From: https://ventsmagazine.com/2016/10/25/mark-stoermer-releases-nsfw-blood-guts-video/

Mark Stoermer is an American musician and songwriter. He is best known as the bassist for the rock band the Killers, with whom he has recorded six studio albums. In addition to his work with the Killers, Stoermer has released three solo albums, Another Life in 2011, Dark Arts in 2016, and Filthy Apes and Lions in 2017. Stoermer also joined the Smashing Pumpkins to tour in support of the band's ninth studio album, Monuments to an Elegy (2014), and produced Howling Bells' third studio album The Loudest Engine (2011).
Stoermer mainly plays with a pick. He says "I love the punch and grit of a pick. I do a lot of unconscious palm muting. I love how you can instantly get that clunky tone with shorter notes. It's a great sound." He tries to play the bass as a "half percussive, half melodic instrument". Stoermer feels that "You can add to a song's melodic side without taking away from the vocals. That's my favorite kind of bass playing." His signature bass playing is featured prominently in the Killers' debut and sophomore albums. While his aggressive playing was a focal point in the Killers' first two albums, Stoermer's playing became more funk-driven in Day & Age, and much more reserved and subtle in Battle Born. His style of playing has influenced many other bands and even a genre of music in bass-driven New Wave-synth rock.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Stoermer

The BellRays - Infection

 #The BellRays #garage rock #soul #punk rock #punk funk #rock & soul #R&B

Blues is the teacher. Punk is the Preacher. It’s all about emotion and energy. Experience and raw talent, spirit and intellect. Exciting things happen when these things collide. Bob Vennum and Lisa Kekaula made The BellRays happen in 1990 in Riverside, California but they weren’t really thinking about any of this then. They wanted to play music and they wanted it to feel good. They wanted people to want to get up, to need to get up and check out what was going on. Form an opinion. React. So they took everything they knew about; the Beatles, Stevie Wonder, the Who, the Ramones Billie Holiday, Lou Rawls, Hank Williams, the DB’s, Jimmy Reed, and Led Zeppelin (to name a very few to whom “blues is the teacher”) and pressed it into service.
Those bands and artists have since become “buzz words”, things to imitate and sound like. That was never The BellRays intention. The BellRays were never about coming up with a “sound”, or fitting in with a scene. It was about the energy that made all that music so irresistible. The BellRays’ influences learned from the Blues and then learned how to to make it their own. The Beatles wanted to play R&B, converted that energy and invented “Rubber Soul”. The Ramones were trying to be Del Shannon or Neil Sedaka and out came “Rocket to Russia”.
The BellRays believe combining Rock and Soul is not meant to be a conscious effort. You shouldn’t have to force them together because they’ve never really been separated in the first place. It’s an organic trail that flows through Bob and Lisa and the current rhythm section of Bernard Yin (Fur Dixon, Par Avion) on bass and Dusty Watson (the Sonics, Dick Dale) on drums, and comes out honest and urgent. You will learn and you will feel. Blues is always teaching and Punk is always preaching. The BellRays are always listening.  From: https://first-avenue.com/performer/the-bellrays/

Jorma Kaukonen - Genesis

 #Jorma Kaukonen #ex-Jefferson Airplane #ex-Hot Tuna #folk rock #blues rock #acoustic blues #singer-songwriter #1970s

Genesis, the opening song on Jefferson Airplane guitarist Jorma Kaukonen’s first solo album from 1974, has always been a favorite of mine. It details his plea toward a new beginning that was needed in his relationship with his wife, due to some typical thoughtless indulgence that frequents the lives of traveling musicians. In the liner notes of the re-release we read the following:
Although a wistful romantic ode on its surface. what many apparently don’t realize is that the song is a confessional. Says Jorma, “It’s about a guy who cheated on his wife and got caught. I was living the rock and roll life and one thing led to another and I was forced to fess up. The good news is I got a good song out of it. The bad news is I don’t even remember who it was that caused the song to be written. “At the time,” he continues, “my wife Margareta and I realized we were really miserable and we were trying to be happier together. I was writing a lot of true love songs—true love almost always gone wrong but saved at the last moment. Some people have suggested that wouldn’t it be nice if you could write songs like ‘Genesis’ all the time, and I always say, “Yeah, it would be, but it would be great not to have to be in the place I was when I wrote it.’ Many of the best songs get written in a state of abject misery. I prefer to write fewer songs and have less cataclysmic events in my life.”
Thus, “Genesis” is one of those songs that is ultimately both sad yet beautiful. Sad in it’s potentially cataclysmic origination yet beautiful in its expression of a new beginning. The “flying angel” cover art used for the album called “Quah” was created by his wife. Jorma dedicated the re-issue of the album to the memory of Margareta.  From: https://manifestpropensity.wordpress.com/2014/01/25/genesis-by-jorma-kaukonen-a-song-born-from-the-cataclysmic/

Jorma Kaukonen's 50 plus year career began in his hometown of Washington DC when he and friend Jack Casady formed their first band, the Triumphs. Later, attending Antioch college, Kaukonen learned the fingerpicking style of guitar playing and got his introduction to the music of the Reverend Gary Davis which became an integral part of his performances. Moving on to northern California, Kaukonen enrolled at Santa Clara University where he played in coffee houses and accompanied Janis Joplin on some acoustic demos. From there Kaukonen helped form Jefferson Airplane, followed by Hot Tuna and when that band broke up, he continued a solo career he began when Hot Tuna was still active. Jorma Kaukonen has continued his solo career and work with Hot Tuna over the decades. His career has also been marked by numerous collaborations, from working with Jaco Pastorius to collaborating with former members of the Grateful Dead.  From: https://wnrn.org/decade-of-difference-jorma-kaukonen-2/

Mellow Candle - The Poet And The Witch

 #Mellow Candle #folk rock #progressive folk #acid folk #Celtic folk #1970s #Irish

Although they are anything but a household name today, in their time, Irish folk-rock band Mellow Candle were frequently mentioned in the same breath as more enduring names from the Emerald Isle's late-'60s generation of rock bands, such as Steeleye Span, The Chieftains, Thin Lizzy, Horslips, et al. The origins of Mellow Candle can be traced back to 1963, when precocious young ladies Clodagh Simonds, Alison Bools, and Maria White formed a vocal trio named the Gatecrashers while enrolled at Dublin's Holy Child Convent. After several years of impromptu performances, covering hits of the period inside the school walls, 14-year-olds Simonds and Bools (White had already left) sent a demo to Radio Luxembourg DJ Colin Nichol, who in turn brought it to respected producer Simon Napier-Bell, then manager for the likes of The Yardbirds and John’s Children, among others. Napier-Bell was duly impressed and soon arranged for a recording session from which emerged the 1968 single "Feeling High" b/w "Tea with the Sun," released through his own short-lived SNB label imprint and credited to the already renamed Mellow Candle.
The single's poorly rendered approximation of psychedelic girl group sounds failed to chart, however, and Simonds' parents strategically intervened by shipping her off to school in Italy, while Bools began attending art college back in Ireland and singing with local covers group Blue Tint. This paired her with guitarist and future husband David Williams, so that, with the addition of bassist Pat Morris and Simonds' return from Italy, Mellow Candle were relaunched in 1970, making their debut performance in support of The Chieftans. Numerous concerts and festival appearances alongside fellow rising Irish acts such as Horslips, Taste, and Thin Lizzy helped build the band's public profile over the next year, and Simonds even contributed harpsichord and Mellotron to Thin Lizzy’s Shades of a Blue Orphanage LP. By the time this was released, Mellow Candle were already hard at work on their own debut album for Deram Records, having replaced the unsuitably straight-laced Morris with former Creatures bassist Frank Boylan and augmented their formation with a drummer for the first time in ex-Kevin Ayers man William Murray. That debut album, Swaddling Songs, was produced by David Hitchcock (Genesis, Caravan, etc.) and released in April 1972 -- a month that also saw Mellow Candle supporting Steeleye Span at Dublin's National Stadium.
But this reputable concert booking unfortunately did not reflect the public reaction to Swaddling Songs, which, for reasons unknown, was generally either ignored or dismissed by critics of the time (the NME famously calling it a "tax loss"), only to subsequently transform into a paradigm of overlooked British folk-rock in the decades that followed. In fact, come the 1990s, its magical musical amalgam of Celtic folk, progressive, goth, psych, and rock, topped with Simonds and Williams' otherworldly vocals (honed to telepathic interaction over years of partnership), was being hailed as a lost masterpiece, and exchanging collectors' hands for hundreds of dollars until long overdue CD reissues began covering some of the demand. All too late to save Mellow Candle, of course, which had initially weathered Swaddling Songs' commercial failure with tours alongside Genesis and Curved Air, then briefly changed their name to Grace Before Space, but ultimately crumbled altogether and went their separate ways toward the end of 1973.  From: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4wbGwhI4lo3t4mpQt727o4

 

 

Andy M. Stewart - By the Hush

 #Andy M. Stewart #ex-Silly Wizard #Scottish folk #Irish folk #traditional #singer-songwriter

Andy M. Stewart was a Scots singer and songwriter who was at the forefront of a resurgent contemporary Scottish folk scene in the 1970s as the voice of the Edinburgh-formed group Silly Wizard. In their early days the band held a residency at the small but popular Triangle Folk Club in the city, a Saturday night haunt which typified Edinburgh’s rich folk scene of the time alongside venues like the Crown and Edinburgh Folk Club; at the height of their popularity they toured to great appreciation in Europe and the United States – and sold out an annual engagement at the Playhouse during the Edinburgh Festival. The reasons for Silly Wizard’s success were many, but easy to broadly sum up: on the one hand, the striking musical virtuosity of the prodigiously talented young brothers Johnny and Phil Cunningham from Portobello, on the other the marvelously soft but powerful vocal ability of Stewart, and in between the skills of key prime-era members Gordon Jones and Martin Hadden.
A well-spoken raconteur on the live stage, whose ability to introduce his songs informatively and with genuine humor enhanced the experience of hearing them, Stewart wrote music and lyrics which are – particularly in the case of his ballads – rich and still freshly emotive. A skilled banjo player who used his middle initial to distinguish himself from the elder Scots singer who shared his name, Stewart’s skills lay in interpreting Scottish folk standards and in writing additions to the canon which were at once traditional and modern. His songs ran a range of emotions from the delicate romance of The Queen of Argyll to the knowing humor of The Ramblin’ Rover.  From: https://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/obituary-andy-m-stewart-singer-and-songwriter-1997406

By the Hush / Paddy's Lamentation

O.J. Abbott from Hull, Quebec, sang the emigrant and Civil War song By the Hush, Me Boys in a 1957 field recording made by Edith Fowke. It was included in 1961 on his Folkways album Irish and British Songs from the Ottawa Valley, and in 1975 on the Leader album Far Canadian Fields, which was offered as the acoustic companion to Fowke's Penguin Book of Canadian Folk Songs. She noted in the Leader album's booklet:
Although this song obviously came out of the American Civil War it seems to be unknown in the United States. O.J. Abbott learned it from Mrs. O'Malley, the wife of an Ottawa valley farmer, for whom he worked back in the 1880s. We can only surmise that she must have heard it from some Irish-American who wandered up to Canada after the Civil War.
This is an interesting combination of two themes common in many Irish songs: that of emigrating, and of becoming involved in other countries' wars. Of course thousands of Irish emigrants did ‘fight for Lincoln’, and the ‘General Mahar’ mentioned was probably General Thomas Francis Meagher, commander of the famous Irish Brigade that distinguished itself on the heights of Fredericksburg and in the battle of Richmond. His promise of a pension ‘if you get shot or lose your head’ is a fine example of Irish graveyard humour.

Edith Fowke collected this song, also known as Paddy's Lamentation, in 1957, from O.J. Abbott (1872-1962) who was born in Enfield, England, and came across to work in Ontario lumber camps. It has been found in print as a broadside ballad called Pat in America, but it appears that Abbott's version might be the only one collected in oral tradition. The realisation that Irish immigrants were essentially drafted off the ships into the Union Army during the Civil War provides the distressing backdrop for this song. General Meagher led the renowned Irish-American Sixty-Ninth Brigade from New York.

Will Finn and Rosie Calvert sang Paddy's Lamentation in 2018 on their Haystack album Beneath This Place. They noted: A song from the Irish Diaspora, this story was unfortunately true for millions of Irish immigrants who fled terrible conditions in Ireland for the promise of a new start in America, only to be conscripted into a civil war that they had no stake in.

More Maids sang By the Hush on their 2021 CD Fourmaids. They noted: This song is among the first ones Barbara Coerdt learnt when she started getting interested in Irish Music, and she is very grateful to have come across it on Andy M. Stewart's epic solo recording. It is one of the saddest emigrant songs as it tells the story of a man who gets no chance to start a new life but is drawn into the American Civil War, loses his leg and is denied the pension he was promised. In the end he only wishes to be back home, poor in “dear old Erin”—“dear old Ireland”.

From: https://mainlynorfolk.info/folk/songs/bythehush.html

Tokyo Jihen - 秘密 (Secret)

 #Tokyo Jihen #Shiina Ringo #experimental rock #avant-pop #acid jazz #alternative rock #progressive J-Rock #Japanese

Tokyo Jihen started as Ringo Sheena's backing band at first for her last concert tour before ending the first half of her solo career. Sheena was contemplating working with a band while working on her last solo album, Kalk Samen Kuri no Hana. She began looking for members of her backing band to support her solo tour "Sugoroku Ecstasy" in the Autumn of 2003. The tour band was introduced as Tokyo Jihen during the tour for the first time, featuring guitarist Mikio Hirama, pianist H Zett M, drummer Toshiki Hata, and familiar bassist Seiji Kameda. The musicians she selected became the core of what would become Tokyo Jihen. After the tour, she announced that she would stop her solo career to join Tokyo Jihen as a full-fledged member.

Ringo Sheena (椎名 林檎, Shiina Ringo)
Instruments: Lead vocals, Electric guitar, Acoustic guitar, Piano, Electronic keyboards, Melodica, Kazoo
Real name: Yumiko Shiina (椎名 裕美子, Shiina Yumiko)
Sheena is an acclaimed singer-songwriter who has enjoyed enormous popularity since her debut at the age of 18. She is the founder and the leader of the group, and initially wrote almost all their songs, but later shared songwriting duties with the other band members.

Seiji Kameda (亀田 誠治, Kameda Seiji)
Instruments: Bass guitar, Upright bass, Electric upright bass
Kameda is a music producer and music arranger for many Japanese musicians. Kameda is also a famous session bassist. He participates in many musicians' recording, or plays a bass as a member of various solo singers' backing band. Kameda knew Ringo Sheena before her debut, and he has supported her since then. Ringo Sheena calls him "Shisho", meaning master or teacher. He rose to fame along with her and became a famous producer, but he concentrates on playing a bass guitar in Tokyo Jihen.

Toshiki Hata (刄田 綴色, Hata Toshiki)
Instruments: Drums, Percussion
Real name: Toshiki Hata (畑 利樹, Hata Toshiki)
Hata had drummed as session musician and tour musician for various artists, including Mika Nakashima, Dreams Come True, and Fujifabric. He was also a member of a band headed by Junpei Shiina (椎名 純平, Shiina Junpei), Sheena's elder brother. Hata frequently plays as a support member of his former band Scoop, as well as forming the band Kotoho (コトホ) with Hideaki Yamazaki, another ex-Scoop member and current bassist for School Food Punishment.

Ukigumo (浮雲, The Drifting Cloud)
Instruments: Electric guitar, Acoustic guitar, Backing vocals, Rapping
Real name: Ryosuke Nagaoka (長岡 亮介, Nagaoka Ryosuke)
Ukigumo is an old friend of Sheena's. He has also played music with Junpei Shiina before, as well as Hata and Tabu Zombie of Soil & "Pimp" Sessions; he also played on Sheena's fourth solo album, Sanmon Gossip. He gave Sheena advice when the former members of Tokyo Jihen left the band. He has his own band, Petrolz (ペトロールズ).

Ichiyō Izawa (伊澤 一葉, Izawa Ichiyō)
Instruments: Piano, Electronic keyboards, Electric guitar, Background Vocals
Real name: Keitaro Izawa (伊澤 啓太郎, Izawa Keitaro)
Izawa and former Tokyo Jihen pianist HZM are alumni of the Kunitachi College of Music, and have been in a band together before. He has his own band, Appa (あっぱ), and has more recently played with the band The Hiatus as a tour member.

H Zett M (H是都M, H ZETT M)
Instruments: Piano, Electronic keyboards, Background Vocals
Real name: Masayuki Hiizumi (ヒイズミ マサユ機, Hiizumi Masayuki)
HZM is a core member of the Japanese instrumental jazz band PE'Z, which made their major debut before the formation of Tokyo Jihen. After the release of Tokyo Jihen's first album, he decided to leave to devote himself to PE'Z full-time.

Mikio Hirama (ヒラマ ミキオ (晝海 幹音), Hirama Mikio)
Instruments: Guitars, Background Vocals
Real name: Mikio Hirama (平間 幹央, Hirama Mikio)
Hirama had released two mini-albums on indie labels as a solo musician, and was also in the band "Peppermints Kiss Cafe" as a guitarist at the time he joined Tokyo Jihen. Sheena had met him before at an audition, and subsequently searched for him in hopes of adding him to the band. After the release of Tokyo Jihen's first album, he decided to return to his career as a solo musician.

The real names of Hirama and Hata are 平間 幹央 and 畑 利樹 respectively, but, Ringo Sheena gave them stage names, using Kanji which is not usually used for their names, but as they are the phonetic equivalent, the pronunciation is not changed. Since Ryosuke Nagaoka always drifted unsteadily and nobody knew where he would go, Sheena named Nagaoka "Ukigumo" which means the drifting cloud. Sheena planned to give Keitaro Izawa a stage name, but he refused and chose one for himself, Ichiyō Izawa.

The band members have different writing styles. Sheena Ringo and Ichiyo Izawa write their songs using musical notation. Seiji Kameda uses different methods, recording himself humming, using musical instruments, or using a computer. Ukigumo, on the other hand, cannot write musical notation, Izawa or (less frequently) Sheena transcribe his tunes in the studio. Since Ukigumo writes music without considering a song, it is hard for Sheena to put the words to his music, so he often writes the lyrics to his own songs. Finally, Toshiki Hata stubbornly refused to write music, even declining to write lyrics when Sheena asked him to. He finally did contribute one song to the band's last EP before their split, Color Bars, and the first EP since their reunion.

From: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Tokyo_Jihen