VIA PRESS RELEASE | Bursting Out, Jethro Tull’s first live album, was recorded at various locations during the European Heavy Horses tour in May and June 1978. Now, the album will be reissued in an expanded 3CD/3DVD format, remixed by the legendary Steven Wilson with an array of extras.

CD 1: Jethro Tull live: Bursting Out (Part 1) – A Steven Wilson stereo remix Soundcheck recordings – A Steven Wilson stereo remix. Tracks 7, 10, 11 (full version) and 12-16 previously unreleased. CD 2: Jethro Tull live: Bursting Out (Part 2) – A Steven Wilson stereo remix Soundcheck recordings – A Steven Wilson stereo remix. Tracks 11-13 previously unreleased. CD 3: Contains an edited version of the 1978 Madison Square Garden Show which was issued in 2009 but now mixed by Steven Wilson. DVDs 1 & 2 have the remixed tracks in 96/24 stereo and 5.1 surround plus the flat transfers of the original album at 96/24 stereo. DVD 3 has the full 93-minute MSG show, including 50+ minutes of video which was part of a transatlantic broadcast with the BBC and Radio 1. The audio is 48/24 stereo and 5.1 surround.

Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson said: “A live extravaganza from the ’70s Jethro Tull, this was recorded over several nights in different venues on a portable 8-track tape recorder and transferred to 2” multitrack when I got home after the tours. I had to listen all through to many shows and pick the best live versions. But much of it was, at least, from the concert in Bern, Switzerland, where dear Claude Nobs came to introduce the band in his inimitable style.

Also featuring on this box set collection is the live concert from Madison Square Gardens recorded a few months later and shown live on BBC TV in the UK. A scary experience for the band as it was, we were told, the first time a live rock concert had been the subject of a live satellite broadcast.

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Remembering Herbie Mann, born on this day in 1930. —Ed.

Good morning class. I stand before you today to discuss a very important but relatively unexamined musical sub-genre. I’m talking, of course, about shirtless jazz. The “Shirtless Jazz Age” began at the dawn of the 1970s and came to an end in the mid-1980s, and at its peak buried excited record buyers in a virtual avalanche of bared nipples.

Jazz expert Roy Mantooth, author of the definitive shirtless jazz oral history Take It Off! , writes, “Free jazz was out. Free nipples were in. Shirts were for squares and white guys recording on the snobby Windham Hill label. As for the music, who really cared?”

And Mantooth was right. Because shirtless jazz had nothing whatsoever to do with music, and everything to do with posing shirtless on album covers. I’ve never even listened to the LPs in my carefully curated shirtless jazz collection, and I consider myself an expert in the field. Like children, shirtless jazz should be seen, not heard.

Historically, the movement was bookended by two bare-breasted titans. At the vanguard we have the great Herbie Mann, whose pioneering 1971 LP Push Push brought bold, topless improvisation to the Down Beat crowd. As Amiri Baraka noted in 1987’s The Music: Reflections on Jazz and Blues, “Something changed after Push Push hit the record stores. Discarded shirts soon filled the trash cans behind jazz clubs all across America.”

Push Push was a radical statement indeed; Herbie stands boldly on the cover like a swinger departing an orgy, hairy chest pelt slathered in WD-40, flute flung insouciantly over a naked shoulder, a decidedly smug post-coital pout on his face. Mann didn’t just invent shirtless jazz with Push Push; he suggested that the flute had other possibilities, creatively salacious uses that didn’t bear thinking about.

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Somewhere in the Stars by Richard, Cam & Bert brings a healthy serving of late ’60s Greenwich Village folkie flavor to Record Store Day’s spring 2024 festivities, which take place this April 20. Consisting of Bert Lee, Campbell Bruce, and Richard Tucker, vocalists, guitarists, and songwriters all, the set is also positioned at a stylistic crossroads at the dawn of a new decade. Warmly sung and deftly played, the album is limited to 1,200 copies on transparent cherry vinyl tucked into a tip-on jacket with a heavy insert and a DL code, released by the Delmore Recording Society.

Richard Tucker, Campbell Bruce, and Bert Lee recorded a proper LP, but Somewhere in the Stars isn’t it. Cut after the songwriter demos heard on this set, Limited Edition dates from 1970 and is described as something of a private press that was sold mainly at gigs. That album has been reissued, but only digitally, so Somewhere in the Stars is the place to start for vinyl mavens as the contents are quite appealing. Indeed, this album is now the point of entry for anyone intrigued as to how Richard, Cam & Bert fit into the whole ’60s folk shebang.

To avoid burying the lede, Tucker comes to this record with a rather deep connection to Karen Dalton, the pair formerly married and collaborators. “Are You Leaving for the Country,” a Tucker composition, is well known from Dalton’s 1971 classic In My Own Time, and “Sleeping in the Garden” was co-composed by Tucker and Dalton. These songs combine with “Sitting in the Kitchen,” the album’s title track and “Ship” to establish Tucker’s contributions as central to this set but not overshadowing.

“Sitting in the Kitchen,” distinguished on the album by its basic rhythmic accompaniment, is a clear statement of purpose as crowd pleaser, relaxed but crisp with harmonies that might be influenced by the nascent uprising of CSN&Y, but existing on a distinct and more appealing plane. “Are You Leaving for the Country” is also enjoyable if not as strong as Dalton’s version. “Ship,” the last of Tucker’s compositions, is fast paced with group harmonies throughout combined with sturdy strumming and flourishes of deft picking.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Are you ready to hear the best live band of the early ‘70s? We at Real Gone Music have been privileged and proud to release Fanny’s four classic Reprise albums, each a tuneful testament as to why they were the first all-female band signed to a major label.

But there has always been a piece missing from the Fanny fable; for while the band hooked up with big-time producers and engineers like Richard Perry, Todd Rundgren, and Geoff Emerick, their studio albums never really were able to capture the sheer excitement they could generate in concert. However, buried away in a vault thousands of miles away from their Los Angeles base there long lay a recording that could make the Fanny myth a reality, one that could provide the emphatic answer as to why these four ladies were the hottest ticket on the Sunset Strip during the early ‘70s.

Now, over 50 years later, its time—and their time—has come. Live on Beat-Club ’71–’72 presents the two sets Fanny recorded for the German TV show, mastered by Mike Milchner of Sonic Vision from hi-res mono files taken from the original videotape. Aside from the incendiary and incredibly tight performances, what immediately becomes apparent is that all four of these women were powerhouses in her own right.

June Millington’s string bending Les Paul wizardry, her sister Jean’s driving, melodic bass lines and Janis Joplin-esque vocals, Nickey Barclay’s intricate yet somehow rocking keyboard work, and Alice de Buhr’s precise, piston-like drumming punctuated by ferocious fills—put together Fanny was an overwhelming display of talent, Yet somehow, as these shows reveal, live they were greater than the sum of their parts.

That’s why getting these recordings released has long been a crusade for Alice, and why June tells the story in the accompanying liner notes (which feature contributions from June, Jean, and Alice) that the engineer who was assigned to do the transfers of all the Beat-Club material told her that their material was the best in the vault, better even than Hendrix. We are releasing this invaluable archival recording on juicy peach vinyl and on CD with a bonus track of the soundcheck to boot. Essential for a full understanding of ‘70s rock!

English-Welsh indie pop supergroup Swansea Sound do quite the tightrope walk. The band specializes in witty, hyper-intelligent punk-infused songs that will have you jumping around in sheer giddy pleasure. But, and this is where the tightrope gets very thin indeed, many of these very same songs address the human toll of rapacious capitalism. In short, Swansea Sound do the seemingly impossible—they produce scathingly sarcastic protest songs that will have you (to swipe an image from the Immortal Moz) dancing your legs down to your knees.

And Swansea Sound (they’re Hue Williams and Amelia Fletcher on vocals, Rob Pursey on bass, Ian Button on drums, and Bob Collins on guitar) pull it off with aplomb on their sophomore LP, 2023’s Twentieth Century. Its fetching blend of pop punk swagger and savage satire put it near the top of my year’s faves, which is hardly a surprise when one considers that the band includes members from such indie pop legends as the Pooh Sticks, Heavenly, and Talulah Gosh (to name just three). But it’s also quite the feat because I’ve always been a firm believer in the separation between Rock and State.

What’s more, Swansea Sound don’t just talk the talk—they take action. Why, they’ve just announced they’ll be auctioning off a one-off lathe cut of their very witty new single “Markin’ It Down,” perhaps the most huggable track from Twentieth Century, to raise money for striking Amazon workers in Coventry, England.

I reached out to Swansea Sound bassist Rob Pursey, who just happens to be one of the best songwriters in the rock biz (as well as a very kind and funny man) for comment, and here’s what he had to say about the band’s throwing in their lot with the Amazon strikers: “I write songs that often satirise the digital oligarchs who dominate our lives. Maybe that achieves something—maybe nothing more than a wry smile. But the Amazon workers who have the guts to join a union and take industrial action against one of the richest and most powerful companies on Earth are the ones who are really making a difference. It seemed right to use the proceeds from the auction to help support them, and to let other people know about their struggle.”

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Celebrating Ed O’Brien, born on this day in 1968. —Ed.

Not long after Radiohead released 2000’s Kid A, my friend Patrick and I gave it a scathing review without having actually listened to it, on the basis that its only appeal was to depressives better served by listening to the Archies. We also surmised that if Thom Yorke was such a creep why bother, because who wants to hang out with a creep? And seems we weren’t alone. Author Nick Hornby lambasted Kid A, and a critic for England’s Melody Maker dismissed it as “tubby, ostentatious, self-congratulatory, look-ma-I-can-suck-my-own-cock whiny old rubbish.” You won’t hear that sort of language on The Crown.

It was the Melody Maker review that finally convinced me to give Kid A a listen–if the the damn thing was really that bad, I wasn’t going to miss out on the opportunity to pile on. But Kid A isn’t the space age fiasco I’d hoped for; its Pink Floyd/Brian Eno vibe make it the perfect accompaniment to a hard day over a hot bong. Your more active types, on the other hand, risk drowning in its ambient ooze. That sound you hear off in the distance is a non-fan, crying out hopelessly for a lifeguard.

The band itself was split over Kid A’s new direction; vocalist/songwriter Thom Yorke went into the studio convinced rock music had “run its course,” while guitarist/keyboardist Jonny Greenwood and bass player Colin Greenwood worried that they risked producing “awful art-rock nonsense just for its own sake.” Yorke was full of it–folks have been writing rock’s obituary since the early 1960s. The Greenwoods were wrong as well–Kid A may not be my cup of studio overkill, but it’s a noble foray into the realms of electronica that works, at least in parts, very well indeed.

Dreamy atmospherics abound, and on occasion Radiohead take things too far. The soundscape that is “Treefingers” is a limpid pool of nothing special, and if Yorke thinks he’s breaking new sonic ground he’s dead wrong; David Bowie was doing this sort of thing in the late seventies. The title track is a trifle livelier thanks to its snazzy drum beat and electronic squiggles, but Yorke’s distorted vocals serve only to annoy, and the big bass thump at the end of the song is too little too late.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Brooklyn-born master of minimalism Alan Vega is announcing a previously unreleased new album, Insurrection, and sharing the video for the lead single “Mercy.”

The video, directed by founding member of Jesus and Mary Chain, Douglas Hart, and featuring models Mateen Ismail and Helena Gawrzyalska, channels themes of movement, duality, choreographed op-art patterns and hypnotic geometric shapes that rival the intensity and vast landscapes of the music. Hart explains: “To underscore the powerful rhythms of the song, the video loops and repeats simple movements, like the repeated opening and closing of doors. The textures of the music are illustrated by using both black and white and heavy colour-tinted images.” Due out May 31 via In The Red Records, the 11 songs on Insurrection showcase the unparalleled vision and uncompromising force from one of the most influential artists of all time.

On the single “Mercy,” creative and life partner of Vega and solo artist, Liz Lamere says: “First you hear the primal beat, then the otherworldly Angels bleed. Alan’s fully immersive vocal performance draws you into the collective trauma he was feeling. It brings me back to being in the studio with him and I get chills hearing it. He felt the suffering of the innocents; and yet the music is majestic, conveying their dignity. There is strength and resilience in the sonic embodiment of the souls and how they move. Oh Mercy.”

Vega collaborator, musician and producer Jared Artaud (The Vacant Lots) says: “Mercy reminds me of some of the talks I had with Alan about Free Jazz, when we would hang out and listen to Albert Ayler’s “Spirits Rejoice” and Pharoah Sanders’ “Black Unity” albums together. It has this underlying Jazz spirit in the track that is unlike anything I heard him do before. The track is sparse yet deep and poetic, and shows the minimalist spirit Alan had, where he could always make the most from the fewest elements possible.”

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Celebrating John Kay on his 80th birthday. —Ed.

Steppenwolf’s most excellent eponymous 1968 LP is one helluva debut. If it were a waif, I would take it in, buy it lots of cool video games, and send it to Yale. Hopefully it would provide for me in my old age.

Even your pet goldfish knows Steppenwolf derived its name from Hermann Hesse’s 1927 novel of the same name. But your goldfish is wrong. In an exclusive 2018 interview with yours truly, Steppenwolf lead singer John Kay confessed he actually took the name from CNN anchorman Wolf Blitzer. Said Kay, “Wolf lived next door and I can tell you with absolute certainty he’s a werewolf. On full moons he used to chase rabbits across my backyard on all fours, howling. The next night he’d be back on CNN, looking his normal self. But if you looked closely, you could see flecks of blood in his hair.”

Steppenwolf’s origins can be traced to the Toronto band the Sparrows. In 1967 by Kay and two other members of the Sparrows relocated to Los Angeles, changed their name, and recruited two additional members, one of whom would later be handed his walking papers after–wait for it–his girlfriend convinced him to avoid LA because it was going to be leveled by an earthquake and fall into the sea. Hasn’t happened yet, but better safe than sorry.

Steppenwolf and Kay–who is legally blind, but not probing stick, seeing-eye dog, Jose Feliciano blind–came out of the starting gate running. Steppenwolf spawned two immortal songs, the best known of which has become the official anthem of outlaw motorcycle gang everywhere. The LP’s other songs aren’t as well known, but they all kick ass and take surnames.

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PHOTO: GREGG ROTH | It’s no secret that marriage is hard work. It requires heavy lifting by both partners to keep the boat afloat. It’s labor, but of course, it’s a labor of love; that’s what it’s all about. However, if you take the marriage and relationship deal and split it with a job in the entertainment business for both parties involved, well, now you’ve really got a challenging situation with which to build a successful marriage.

Larry Campbell and his wife Teresa Williams are no strangers to the road with plenty of frequent flier miles between them. Teresa has a long-time career as an actress, vocalist, and musician which led her to meeting Larry, a long-time session musician who’s resume includes a seven-year stint in Bob Dylan’s Neverending Tour and being the musical director at Levon Helm’s popular Midnight Rambles in Woodstock, NY. Larry and Teresa were also both key parts of Levon Helm’s fantastic final albums, Dirt Farmer and Electric Dirt. Married in 1988, they’ve become a musical powerhouse over the years, so much so that their relationship and musical work was evidenced in a 10 part docuseries which can be found at some of your favorite streaming outlets.

Separately and together, they’ve both worked with many high-profile artists, but there’s always something special in store when they work with each other. Larry and Teresa have just released their fourth album as a duo, it’s titled All This Time and features music and concepts that were born out of the pandemic era and Larry’s personal battle with Covid. On this episode, I’m lucky to have both Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams join me to discuss the new record, highlights from their storied careers, and, of course, how two musicians make the music of marriage.

Evan Toth is a songwriter, professional musician, educator, radio host, avid record collector, and hi-fi aficionado. Toth hosts and produces The Evan Toth Show and TVD Radar on WFDU, 89.1 FM. Follow him at the usual social media places and visit his website.