VIA PRESS RELEASE | As part of the ongoing celebration of their 50th anniversary, on September 6 the Allman Brothers Band Recording Company–caretakers of the original band’s unreleased catalog–in conjunction with distributor The Orchard will release a four-CD set titled Fillmore West ’71, culled from an epic weekend of live music recorded at the legendary San Francisco venue. The Grammy-winning, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame band (formed in March 1969) were in great form on this weekend, where they were the middle act playing between headliners Hot Tuna and the 24-piece opener Trinidad Tripoli Street Band. This will be the debut release of these recordings. The packaging contains a front cover photo of Duane Allman from Jim Marshall Photography (taken at these shows) that has rarely been seen before.

Compiled from reel-to-reel soundboard masters, the January 29 show that kicks off this collection reads like an Allman Brothers Band greatest hits, from opener “Statesboro Blues” through the set-wrapping “Whipping Post.” On the next night, the standard sequence of “Statesboro Blues,” Trouble No More,” “Don’t Keep Me Wonderin’,” and “Elizabeth Reed” was typically riveting, and then the blues-soaked “Stormy Monday” was worked in, replacing “Midnight Rider.” Gregg’s vocals were visceral and honest, while Duane and Dickey added down and dirty licks. “You Don’t Love Me” showcased some run-and-gun guitar work, and a frenzied “Whipping Post” closed out another solid night.

The band–Duane Allman, Gregg Allman, Dickey Betts, Jaimoe, Berry Oakley, and Butch Trucks–were loose and talkative and you can hear them really dialing their sound in at what would be a final tune-up for the seminal At Fillmore East album, recorded less than two months later. At Fillmore East would cement the band’s place in rock history and Rolling Stone would eventually call it the second-best live album ever released.

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“My relationship with vinyl started when I was a kid in the early ’80s, and more than the records themselves it was almost like an infatuation with the look of my dad’s player. He had a Dual that he bought in Singapore before emigrating to Vancouver. It was sitting in a really cool looking teak enclosure with a sprung plinth and dark plastic cover—it just looked so badass to me, yet so clean and modern at the same time.”

“My dad didn’t have a huge record collection, probably because of the cost of shipping his belongings over from Singapore, but there was this one Bollywood record of his that I loved—Salma & Sabina Sing The Hits Of Abba In Hindi. I loved the flip open cover and would stare at the two beautiful women sitting in the convertible forever. I am confident that my love for ABBA to this day is due to my introduction to them through the Hindi versions of their hits. In my 20’s I gave that record to a DJ friend of mine, so it’s in good hands, but I sure wish I had it back now.

About five years ago, when I finally had the space, I went and grabbed that same turntable from my dad and had it refurbished and got it working smooth like butter. (I also grabbed his late ’70s pioneer speakers to maximize that full round warm sound.) However, I had to set some clear boundaries as to what type of vinyl I’m allowed to buy so that I don’t go spending all my money looking for rare Bollywood versions of popular songs, and more importantly I wanted my vinyl collection to be something special—full of songs and albums that I don’t listen to on the everyday while streaming, where I mostly listen to new rap and trap stuff.

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Namaste, fellow seekers! And welcome back to the Vedic District and your host, Michael Paramahansa Yogananda Little! On this week’s turn of the cosmic wheel we’ll be discussing New Age seer and synthesizer-around-the-neck avatar Gary Wright, whose chakra-cleansing songs and mystical crystal revelations make him the most spiritually evolved being on our astral plane.

Wright was, arguably, pop’s first New Age musician. Forget George Harrison–who turned Wright on to Eastern religions while they were recording 1970’s All Things Must Pass–he refused to give up on rock and roll. And compared to Wright, Van Morrison and Stevie Nicks are mere earthbound materialists–the Bertrand Russell and Ayn Rands of rock, respectively.

It’s all there on the cover of The Dream Weaver, where a blissed-out Wright rests his head against what is either a telepod to other dimensions or the Findhorn Community’s very own jukebox–the man was staking his claim as the first New Age technocrat, enlisting the aid of machines to further the cause of the Harmonic Convergence.

And, boy, did Wright make a splash. Who, my fellow theosophists, can forget the Annus Mirabilis 1976, when a cosmic convergence brought us both David Spangler’s book Revelation: The Birth of a New Age and Wright’s June 11th appearance on The Midnight Special, where he cast a magickal sorcerer’s spell on an entire nation with his mesmerizing performance of “Dream Weaver”? Surely the stars were coming into alignment at last, and the Age of the Enlightened Unicorn was nigh.

Of course that exalted age never arrived, nor did Wright’s success last. But if the former Spooky Tooth keyboardist’s fleshly fame was fleeting, he has accepted it with Buddhistic resignation–having parted the veil of Maya, he knows all too well that all we are is dust in the wind. Yet he continues to mould a new reality closer to the heart with his ecstatic ectoplasmic musical emanations, which make the ideal accompaniment to both Kundalini awakening and sweatless tantric sex.

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Ronnie Lane is a hardly a household name, but he is one of my all-time favorite rockers. Whether with the Small Faces, the large Faces, or his own band Slim Chance, Lane’s lovely and wistful voice was always a pleasure, whether he was singing sublime ballads like The Faces’ “Debris” or “Oh La La” or knocking off a hard rocker like the hilarious Faces tune “You’re So Rude.” The world didn’t know what it lost when Lane died at 51 after suffering for 21 years from multiple sclerosis. But I can tell you what it lost; a soulful and sweet soul whose bass work and vocals had an integral impact on not just one, but two great rock’n’roll bands.

Lane was a frequent collaborator with the likes of Pete Townshend, Steve Marriott, and Ronnie Wood (the two of them recorded the soundtrack to the 1972 Canadian film Mahoney’s Last Stand, and it’s a tremendous series of rave-ups despite its almost total lack of vocals). He recorded four LPs between 1970 and 1977 with Townshend, but three of them are hard-to-find tributes to their spiritual mentor Meher Baba, who lent his name to the great “Baba O’Riley.” Their fourth collaboration was Rough Mix, which was released in 1977 and featured an all-star cast that included Eric Clapton, John Entwistle, Ian Stewart, Charlie Watts, King Crimson’s Boz Burrell, the ubiquitous John “Rabbit Bundrick, and Medicine Head’s Peter Hope Evans. Why, even Townshend’s father-in-law, the noted British TV and movie soundtrack composer Edwin Astley, makes an appearance. Sly Stone is right; this one’s a family affair.

Lane and Townshend eschew rock for the most part, opting instead to mine the folk-rock vein, and it works. Lane wanted to collaborate on songs with Townshend but Townshend declined, and this collection of songs by two separate songwriters has a disparate feel, which is another way of saying it’s stylistically all over the map. But what holds it together is the passion both men pour into the songs, which stray from pure folk ballads to a pair of rave-ups to a handful of songs that defy easy definition, but show that both men showed up at the sessions—this despite the fact that Lane had just discovered he was ill—at the top of their game. No throwaways, in other words, or songs they didn’t think were good enough for their primary bands—they came to record great music, not just fuck around and jam.

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The Gun Club underwent myriad changes in personnel during their existence, but the one constant element was founder Jeffrey Lee Pierce. In 1979 he formed a group whose impact is still being felt today. The best place to begin investigating Pierce’s achievement is at the beginning with The Gun Club’s classic 1981 debut Fire of Love.

Whenever OFF! undertakes a tour there’s undoubtedly a smattering of older heads reliably if reluctantly finding themselves getting a little misty around the eye sockets when the band pencils in “Jeffrey Lee Pierce” for the set list. Deservedly so, for that song, all 1:21 of it, is a tribute to an important if undersung rock contributor, and not by a fan but from a close friend. Indeed, the intro to the cut on Live at the 9:30 Club finds Keith Morris steeped in emotion, his preamble roughly as long as the track itself.

Now, some folks might get a bit miffed over certain umpteenth-generation hardcore whippersnappers only knowing of Jeffrey Lee Pierce because Morris wrote a song about him. But easy there, partners. We all tend to occasionally idealize and even embellish our paths of musical discovery, mainly due to the reality sometimes being as bland as simply plucking a cassette from a discount bin. That was this writer, fishing a severely marked-down copy of the third Gun Club album The Las Vegas Story from a massive box of cut-out tapes in a mall chain store back in 1987.

Perhaps somewhat more interesting is what led me to make that purchase. I first learnt of The Gun Club through an article published in an anthology/anniversary issue of Flipside magazine. Having been exposed to punk not long previously, restlessness over the music’s generic inclinations had already set in, and simultaneous to the almost daily unearthing of new delights.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Craft Recordings is set to release a deluxe, 20th anniversary reissue of Filter’s platinum-selling, sophomore album Title of Record.

Due out August 9th, the album has been remastered and will be available on vinyl for the first time, as well as on CD and digital. All formats are expanded featuring four bonus tracks: “(Can’t You) Trip Like I Do” (originally recorded for the cult-classic soundtrack Spawn The Album), “Jurassitol” (previously released on The Crow: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), plus remixes of the singles “The Best Things (Humble Brothers Remix)” and “Take a Picture (H&H Remix).” Both the two-LP set, and CD will feature new liner notes by author, journalist, and Side Jams podcast host Bryan Reesman. The expanded digital album also offers five additional rarities, including a live version of “Take A Picture,” “The Best Things (Dub Pistols Club Mix)” and more.

First released in 1999, Title of Record was a sonic breakthrough for the Cleveland band. Following four years as a touring guitarist for Nine Inch Nails, primary member Richard Patrick formed Filter in 1993 with guitarist and programmer Brian Liesegang. Their 1995 debut, Short Bus, blended industrial pop with post-grunge metal, and became a best-seller, thanks to the hit single “Hey Man Nice Shot.” Though Liesegang departed the band just two years later, Patrick enlisted two of his touring band members (guitarist Geno Leonardo and bassist Frank Cavanaugh), along with drummer Steven Gillis, to work with him in the studio. D’Arcy Wretzky of The Smashing Pumpkins and cellist Eric Remschneider (The Smashing Pumpkins, Veruca Salt, Plain White T’s) were also collaborators.

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Well here you have it–the most feckless, no account, totally useless dog turd of an album it has ever been my displeasure to hear. On 1992’s Unplugged axe legend turned pop hack Eric Clapton plays the blues with far less passion and commitment than your average 94-year-old lady puts into a game of Mahjong, laying waste to “Layla” and adding his live version of “Tears in Heaven” to the short list of contenders for worst song ever in the process.

The joke’s on me, I suppose. Here I’d been begging somebody to unplug old Slowhand for years, and when they finally did I got… this monstrosity. Be careful what you wish for.

Robert Johnson–whose “Malted Milk” Clapton does a grave disservice to here–sold his soul to the devil; Clapton sold his soul–or what little was left of it–to MTV. As it turns out, one is much safer making deals with the Lord of the Underworld. But I’m not blaming MTV; its corporate heads didn’t force E.C. to go the adult contemporary, easy-listening route. The decision to sleepwalk his way through the LP’s assortment of hoary blues covers and lackluster originals was all his.

Champions of this bland excuse for an album–and there must be legion, given it’s the best-selling live album of all time–will no doubt argue that Clapton had every right to play like a guy who’s taken too many muscle relaxants, and they have a point; Clapton’s mid-1970s conversion to the easy-does-it Tulsa sound is a matter of historical record, and you can hardly fault a guy for digging the likes of Clyde Stacy and J.J. Cale.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | If You Don’t Know Me is the powerful and moving story of R&B star Teddy Pendergrass (Theodore DeReese Pendergrass), who was on the brink of global super-stardom when tragedy struck. A compelling tale with surprising twists and turns, the film is an intimate portrait of one of the greatest singers of his generation. It also tells how Teddy fought for the rights of African-American artists in a 1970s music industry prejudiced against black performers and reveals how, aged just 31, Pendergrass overcame terrible tragedy to get back on stage against all the odds.

The film’s triumphant world premiere at the Philadelphia Film Festival (Teddy’s home city), resulted in an Audience Award and a nomination for the Pinkenson Award. The film also had successful screenings at DOC NYC, Minneapolis Sound Unseen Film Festival, and San Francisco Black Film Festival. Earlier this year, If You Don’t Know Me was shown to sold-out cinemas in the UK, on Sky Arts, and also aired on Showtime in the US. Director and BAFTA award-winner, Olivia Lichtenstein conceived, researched and directed the film, which reveals Teddy’s meteoric rise from his tough childhood in Philadelphia to become the lead singer of Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes. His was the voice of worldwide hits, “Don’t Leave Me This Way” and “If You Don’t Know Me by Now.”

Olivia recalls: “I grew up listening to soul music and I’d just started listening to Teddy again when I saw a documentary about Shep Gordon, the legendary artist manager who worked with everyone from Blondie to Alice Cooper – and Teddy. It included a little bit about him working with Teddy Pendergrass and it made me realize that I didn’t know what had happened to him. I had a really strong sense that I had to make a film to tell his story.”

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Vancouver-based producer Nate Drobner, aka AstroLogical, crafts dreamy electronica that navigates between jazz, soul/funk, ambient, and future-beat.

TVD is pleased to premiere the newest single, “Symbiosis,” which bops along to an elegant mix of glowing synths and hushed vocals. AstroLogical is clearly not out to hijack anyone’s attention, but here to provide a mellow escape for those looking for an evocative soundscape to accompany their morning coffee or evening cocktail. It’s a lush and unhurried production which lends itself to a magic hour listening session.

After releasing a number of solo instrumental hip-hop projects through the label Jellyfish Recordings in the early 2010s, Drobner began focusing his energy within the production duo Potatohead People; a collaborative project with his old friend Nick Wisdom, eventually getting noticed by Brooklyn-based record label Bastard Jazz. The label is now backing AstroLogical’s solo output, beginning with the debut EP “Private World,” due in stores June 21st.