MANSFIELD, MA | Multi-platinum band Incubus rocked the Xfinity Center amphitheater just outside of Boston Wednesday night, showcasing their collection of tight, interstellar grooves ranging from of six albums.

The night was highlighted with tracks “Warning” and “Drive” that were fully backed by the crowd in a rejoicing fashion. Throughout the night, Incubus made this audience feel like a sixth member of the band as they dropped the music at key points to shine a spotlight on the crowd’s vocals and excitement—an energy that the band was noticeably engaged with.

Incubus and Sublime wouldn’t necessarily be categorized among the same musical genres, so touring North America together might stand out to some. However, the majority of Incubus fans tend to be into the genre-fusing, reggae-ska-punk pioneers Sublime, who in turn had actually influenced Incubus. This isn’t the first time these two have played together as well. Incubus opened for Sublime in 1995 when they filmed their infamous DVD, Sublime’s 3 Ring Circus—Live At The Palace. More shared stages would follow in later years.

This summer tour is a dream bill for fans who had the unique experience in the 2000s of diving into the catalog of a trailblazing band, while also following the newly emerging Incubus as they were evolving their sound and releasing new music.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | “There are a million guys who sound like Stevie Ray Vaughan, but I never heard anybody who could really pull off sounding like Rory Gallagher.” —Slash

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Rory Gallagher’s Deuce sophomore solo album from 1971, a deluxe CD boxset will be released by UMC on Friday September 30th. The album is available to pre-order here.

The extensive celebratory release digs deep into the Rory Gallagher Archives and will include a new mix of the original album, twenty-eight previously unreleased alternate takes, a six-song 1972 BBC Radio In Concert, and seven Radio Bremen radio session tracks. The package will contain a 64-page hardback book with a foreword by Johnny Marr of The Smiths, unseen images by the late Mick Rock, essays, and memorabilia from the album recording. The 2CD and 3LP will be cut down versions from the deluxe box and there will be a special D2C 1LP of the BBC In Concert – Live at The Paris Theatre, 13 January 1972.

Released in November 1971, just six months after his eponymous solo debut, Rory Gallagher’s second album, Deuce, was the summation of all that he’d promised in the wake of Taste’s collapse. Rory wanted to capture the feeling of a live performance, so he would look to record immediately after live concerts while keeping production to a minimum.

He chose Tangerine Studios, a small reggae studio, in Dalston in East London, due its history with legendary producer Joe Meek. With Gerry McAvoy on bass guitar and Wilgar Campbell on drums, the album was engineered by Robin Sylvester and produced by Rory. Deuce features many Rory highlights, from the blistering “Crest Of A Wave” to the Celtic-infused “I’m Not Awake Yet.”

PHOTO: NINA FERNANDEZ | Hatched via email between musicians, the new trio Night Crickets comprise the talents of Violent Femmes co-founder Victor DeLorenzo, David J of Bauhaus and Love and Rockets, and multi-instrumentalist Darwin Meiners. Their debut release A Free Society, released earlier this year on CD has just been issued on vinyl this summer by Omnivore Records. From his studio in Milwaukee, DeLorenzo talked about the collaboration, his experimental drum approaches, the split with Violent Femmes, and the drum pattern that captured the world.

How did Night Crickets come to be?

In 2013 my band Violent Femmes played the Coachella Music & Arts Festival in California and backstage, I came across Darwin Meiners. It turned out that not only was he a fellow musician, but also was the manager of David J of Bauhaus and Love and Rockets.

I didn’t really know that much about Bauhaus or Love and Rockets other than maybe the one or two hits that Love and Rockets had. But I got on well with Darwin and stayed in touch. And then two holiday seasons ago, he got in touch with me and asked me if I would be willing to create some drum tracks for him that he could write some music to. So I said, yeah, that sounds like a great idea because as a matter of fact, I own a recording studio here in Milwaukee and I’ve had this studio for over 30 years.

From time to time, when I had a great drum setup going, I would just record wild drum tracks just to some kind of click track or some kind of drum track, and I would just store them away to be able to use in the future for different music projects.

So I told Darwin I had some of these already recorded and that, if he wanted, I could create some new ones for him too. So I did that, but when I got to the point where I sent him some stuff, I said, what about the idea of maybe seeing if David would want to be involved in this and maybe we could create some stuff together, what do you think about that?

And Darwin went to David and got back to me and said, “It sounds like a great idea.” So that just started us on our kismet way of putting together some music that eventually became this full length record.

Is it unusual to start songs with drum tracks?

I think for some people, it’s just another way of recording. Because I’ve been in the business so long, I’ve learned to record music from many different ideas at the onset. Whether it’s just the drum track, or it’s the guitar track that’s recorded to a click track, or what have you. Or maybe just starting with a lyric and building from there. So I don’t look at recording music as being a one way process. I’ve got many different ideas in my arsenal.

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In December of 2020, the pianist Frank Kimbrough passed away far too soon. Noted for his extended role in the Grammy-winning orchestra of Maria Schneider, Kimbrough was also an extensive collaborator in smaller groups, including three discs as part of the Herbie Nichols Project. Additionally, he led his own quartet, and fitting for a pianist, exceled in the trio configuration, which is what’s heard on Palmetto Records’ 2003-2006: Volume One: Lullabluebye / Volume Two: Play in two distinct lineups, one with bassist Ben Allison and drummer Matt Wilson and the other with bassist Masa Kamaguchi and drummer Paul Motion. The 2CD is out Aug 12, with a 4LP set scheduled for December.

Frank Kimbrough’s influences are unimpeachable. Alongside the perpetually undersung Herbie Nichols, there is Bill Evans, Thelonious Monk (Kimbrough’s exquisite 6CD set Monk’s Dreams: The Complete Compositions Of Thelonious Sphere Monk, was released by Sunnyside in 2018), Paul Bley, and Andrew Hill, with the last two distinguished as mentors for Kimbrough (who was born in 1956).

Listening to 2003-2006, the nature of this relationship with Bley and especially Hill comes into sharp focus, as the pianist’s playing is at once cerebral and highly accessible, and right off the bat in the melodically grooving opening title track of Lullabluebye, a set recorded at Maggie’s Farm, the studio of Palmetto founder Matt Balitsaris, in April of 2003 and first released the following year; it and Play, which was also recorded at Balitsaris’ Pennsylvania-based studio just a smidge over two years later (and issued in 2006), will be making their vinyl debut in December.

“Lullabluebye” is one of eight varied Kimbrough originals on the first set, alongside the meditative “Ghost Dance” (inspired by the music of Annette Peacock), the jauntily catchy “Fu Bu” (a bit of a dis to the US prez of the time), with Allison and Wilson killing it throughout,  and my pick for the Lullabluebye’s standout piece, the wildly energetic “Whirl,” a tour de force blending thorny structure and freeform execution; it was often this trio’s set closer. But for the album’s finale, “Eventualities” begins with Kimbrough in solo mode, the playing contemplative as the emerging trio action is beautifully intense.

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Celebrating Rikki Rockett, born on this day in 1961. —Ed.

I finished this review only to discover–much to my chagrin-that I wrote one 3 years ago. Just more proof, as any were needed, that I have the memory of a house fly. In any event, this new review is 150 times better than the old one. Besides, all self-respecting music critics should return to this hair metal masterpiece every couple of years. It’s that great.

Judging by the Punky Meadows look-alike on the cover of their 1986 debut and the twin sister of Gene Simmons on their second, these Mechanicsburg chest waxers couldn’t decide whether they wanted to be Angel or Kiss, so they went ahead and bested both of ‘em. Glam metal idols in the days before Kurt Cobain placed former hairdresser Rikki Rockett’s skyscraper ‘do on the endangered species list, Poison packed enough hair to stuff a mattress into their metal and by so doing lubed the loins of a million girls itching to steal their makeup.

Had Poison been nothing more than a pretty pooch they’d have gone the way of Cats in Boots, and poor C.C. DeVille would have had to scuttle back to Three Mile Island with his poison blue Flying V guitar beneath his legs. But Poison had the skills to pay their thousand dollar spandex bills, and come Open Up and Say… Ahh! only Guns ‘N’ Roses had more powder in their pistol.

Counterintuitive as it sounds, there was an innocence to Poison’s twist on L.A. sleaze; unlike those moody social Darwinists Guns ‘N’ Roses (welcome to the jungle!), Poison believed in the power of positive partying. No appetite for destruction for these hair teasers; like Def Leppard, all they wanted was for you to pour some sugar on ‘em and lick it off.

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PHOTO: SHAWNA SCHIRO | Michael Rault embraces the skill that all great musicians are good at: listening. All of his life, Michael has been carefully listening to his influences, and filtering those sounds through his own lens. It seems he’s finally completed the album that he’s been destined to make, his self-titled, second solo release.

Musically, he’s a sponge picking up some of the greatest sounds of the latter half of the 20th century. If your record collection is eclectic, then what Michael creates will fit right in next to the tried and true, well-traveled grooves sitting on your shelf. Completing this musical journey is the production and flavor that Daptone Records’ subsidiary, Wick Records, brings to the formula: a warmly textured, funky, organic and earthy feel, but applied to a rock and roll singer-songwriter instead of to the soul, funk, and R&B projects that the label is often known for.

This Canadian, like many famous songwriting Canadians in the 1970s, has made his current home beneath the sunny skies of Los Angeles, California. While there, he has connected with a like-minded group of other musicians who support each other musically and otherwise which is perfect for Michael, because he seems to always be looking for inspiration, always looking for something new to listen to.

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.

1896 saw the premier of literary bomb-thrower Alfred Jarry’s play Ubu Roi, with its anti-hero Pere Ubu. The play promptly caused a riot, and Jarry—who once said “One can show one’s contempt for the cruelty and stupidity of the world by making of one’s life a poem of incoherence and absurdity” was undoubtably pleased. His goal—to the extent that he had one—was to see the hidebound and the conventional art of his time dead and buried. “Art,” he said, “is a stuffed crocodile.”

No one has ever accused Cleveland’s Pere Ubu of being a stuffed crocodile. The band that would make a virtue of clang and clamor rocketed from the tomb of the Mistake on the Lake’s Rocket from the Tombs, a promising band that collapsed over the usual creative differences.

Tombs’ members split into factions—David “Crocus Behemoth” Thomas and a collection of new players here, Stiv Bator and Company’s Dead Boys (originally Frankenstein) over there. (A third band, Friction, which was fronted by Rocket linchpin Peter Laughner, would collapse without recording an album after he rocketed his way into his own tomb at the ripe old age of 24, the result of booze and drugs.) Pere Ubu and the Dead Boys couldn’t have been more different. The latter band fit comfortably into the Heartbreakers and Richard Hell and the Voidoids mold; Pere Ubu followed their namesake straight into the revolutionary absurd.

Thomas’ notion was to create a clamorous and fractured sound, and to do so he enlisted an initially reluctant Alan Ravenstine, whose synthesizers, atonal saxophone, and innovative tape manipulation techniques spelled the difference between Pere Ubu and its contemporaries. The result was the band’s 1978 debut The Modern Dance—arguably the most innovative LP to emerge from the post-punk era.

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