VIA PRESS RELEASE | From their record-breaking 50 States in 50 Dates Tour in ’81 to their current tour, The Baddest Show on Earth, George Thorogood and the Destroyers have always given 100 percent on stage.

Now, as the legendary blues rockers celebrate more than five decades together, Craft Recordings shines a spotlight on their high-octane concerts with The Baddest Show on Earth: Greatest Hits Live. Spanning 1978–2024, the brand-new collection showcases some of the band’s most electrifying live performances—many making their debut on record—including such enduring crowd pleasers as “Who Do You Love,” “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer,” “Bad to the Bone,” and “Move It on Over.”

Arriving June 12, The Baddest Show on Earth will be available on LP (featuring four previously unreleased tracks), while the expanded CD and standard/hi-res digital editions include eight previously unreleased performances. Both physical formats feature new liner notes from GRAMMY® Award-winning producer and blues musician Scott Billington. In addition to black vinyl, fans can pick up a Translucent Yellow vinyl pressing exclusively at Barnes & Noble and Blazing Red Smoke vinyl exclusively through GeorgeThorogood.com and on tour.

For more than 50 years, George Thorogood and The Destroyers have remained one of the most consistent—and consistently passionate—progenitors of blues-based rock. And no one knows that better than the millions of fans who’ve seen them live. Formed in 1973 by guitarist, singer, and songwriter George Thorogood and drummer Jeff Simon, the Delaware-based band honed their sound on stages across the Northeast, building a devoted word-of-mouth following through their high-energy performances and blistering grooves.

Read More »

Remembering Jerry Reed, born on this day in 1937. —Ed.

A guitar picker extraordinaire and redneck comedian whose songs could almost be called funky, the late Jerry “Alabama Wild Man” Reed is one of my favorite country artists. Me, I’d love him if he’d never cut anything but “East Bound and Down” (the theme song of Smokey and the Bandit!), “Amos Moses,” and “The Preacher and the Bear,” a hilarious tale of an unfortunate meeting in the woods between a preacher hunting on the Sabbath and a grizzly bear that ends with the preacher up a tree and praying to his Lord, “I mean/Look at how he’s lookin’ at me/Does the word ‘fast food’ mean anything to you, Lord?/Oh, he’s hairy/And he’s still thinkin’/And he’s lookin’ at me like I… smell good!”

The man’s usual mode was high-spirited, and he had a knack for what you could call novelty tunes, but he was also capable of singing about the more lugubrious aspects of life; you know, broken hearts and all that. But I much preferred him at his wildest and woolliest, as did Robert Christgau, who called him “a great crazy,” and said apropos his more saccharine tunes, “He couldn’t sell soap to a hippie’s mother” and “RCA should ban the ballad.” Me, I hadn’t listened to him for years when my girlfriend gave me a truly terrible ‘70s compilation CD redeemed only by R. Dean Taylor’s great “Indiana Wants Me” and Reed’s fantastic swamp tall tale, “Amos Moses,” which is one of the songs on the 2000 best-of compilation, Jerry Reed Visits Hit Row.

Fiddle-driven opener “East Bound and Down” is a bootlegger’s anthem and smooth as Jim Beam Single Barrel bourbon, and includes a great solo by Reed. It speeds along like an 18-wheeler on the run from Smokey, and if you think it’s a bit slick, well, all I can say is all those thirsty boys in Atlanta don’t agree. “Amos Moses” is a funky tune about a Cajun alligator poacher, mean as a snake on account of his old man, who used the young Moses as alligator bait. He’s got one arm on account of a hungry gator, most likely killed a sheriff trying to track him down in the bayou, and the only thing cooler than his biography are Reed’s righteous guitar picking and distinctive voice, which are as good old boy as you can get.

Read More »

PHOTO: DANNY CLINCH | I recently sat down with Ani DiFranco to talk about her new book, The Spirit of Ani: Reflections on Spirituality, Feminism, Music, and Freedom, out March 3, 2026 on Akashic Books. Written with Lauren Coyle Rosen, it’s a series of conversations tracing DiFranco’s creative process, spiritual life, and decades of work as an artist and activist.

Our conversation covers all of it and what it means to make art from a place of deep spiritual grounding. If you want to catch her live, she’s on the road this spring and summer for the Spirit of Love tour, kicking off April 22 in Jackson, MS and running through August. You can also find her at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on April 24, the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville on May 1, and a New York-area stop at The Capitol Theatre in Port Chester on May 10.

Radar features discussions with artists and industry leaders who are creators and devotees of music and is produced by Dylan Hundley and The Vinyl District. Dylan Hundley is an artist and performer, and the co-creator and lead singer of Lulu Lewis and all things at Darling Black. She co-curates and hosts Salon Lulu which is a New York based multidisciplinary performance series. She is also a cast member of the iconic New York film Metropolitan.

Everybody hates a mystery. Did Lee Harvey Oswald kill Kennedy? What became of Amelia Earhart? Did D.B. Cooper survive his immortal parachute jump, and who was he, anyway? And so it goes with the 1966 LP LSD Underground 12, recorded by an anonymous band of musicians and so mythical and hard to find that people questioned whether it even existed in the first place.

Well, it does exist, even if the writer Byron Coley wrote for Forced Exposure, “Virtually nothing is known about who, why, or how the album was created.” Well, the why is easily answered. Right on the very cool black-and-white cover, it says, “Music composed and played by LSD-influenced musicians the only record of this type available!”

Well, that “the only record of this type available!” is debatable—several LPs featuring people on LSD were released before this one, but they were mostly acid jibber-jabber with some music thrown in. Think Ken Kesey’s March 1966 LP The Acid Test or Alan Watts’ 1962 LP This Is It. And there’s strong evidence to support the notion that John Coltrane’s classic quartet (with the addition of Pharoah Sanders and two other sidemen) recorded the 1965 LP Om on LSD, although it’s never been fully corroborated.

Like Om, LSD Underground 12 is music and all music, and just as freaky-deaky as you’d expect. Not as free form as you’d expect—the musicians don’t just make random noises and go off on weird individualistic head-trip tangents. Or play like their faces are melting and their instruments along with them.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | UMe announces a suite of new physical and digital releases celebrating the 50th anniversary of Marvin Gaye’s No. 1 album, I Want You, out now.

The first highlight is a Vinylphyle premium vinyl reissue of the original album, the latest entry in a series of critically acclaimed audiophile releases which launched at the end of last year. As with all releases in the Vinylphyle series, lacquers were cut from the original analog tapes and pressed at 180gm at RTI, with the jacket, featuring its now-iconic cover by Ernie Barnes, a tip-on gatefold with reproductions of the original tape boxes and a new essay, this time a conversation with producer/ songwriter/ entrepreneur Salaam Remi. (More on him below.) Order HERE.

In tandem, UMe will unveil I Want You 2, a special 2LP set featuring bonus tracks, alternate takes, rarities first issued on CD in 2003, and now on vinyl for the first time with an additional new mix of the title song. Pressed on 180g vinyl, the packaging houses an exclusive lithograph, introductory liner notes by acclaimed Cincinnati-born R&B artist and sought-after songwriter Arin Ray (Chris Brown, John Legend). Order HERE.

Also arriving today is a stunning and spirited new digital remix of “Soon I’ll Be Loving You Again” by GRAMMY® Award-winning producer Salaam Remi (Nas, Amy Winehouse, Alicia Keys). “I’ve been listening to I Want You repeatedly in different ways for most of my life and have gotten a perspective of it over time,” Remi writes in the Vinylphyle release’s liner notes. “I realized this album is when I realized my adulthood… [it] gives me all the things I look for in music.”

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Eighties techno-pop band Vivabeat announced today the release of their first-ever live album, Wild World (Live in Los Angeles 1980-84), on Friday, March 27, 2026, via Liberation Hall Music. The album is available for presave and preorder here.

Fans of Vivabeat will be thrilled to learn that two never-before-released tracks, “Glisse le Rat” and “I’m Right,” appear on this new package. The 14 songs were recorded at three live shows in Los Angeles over a four-year period and capture different stages of the band’s career. The Whisky a Go Go date was one of Vivabeat’s earliest shows and features its original lineup. The Lhasa Club was a mid-career performance, and FM Station was the band’s final show ever.

The band’s co-founders, keyboardist and vocalist Marina (del Rey) Muhlfriedel and bass player and primary songwriter Mick Muhlfriedel spearheaded the live project after first reissuing their debut album Party in the War Zone and The House is Burning on Rubellan Remasters in late 2023, followed by expanded editions of Party in the War Zone Expanded and another incarnation of The House is Burning with Liberation Hall Music in 2025.

“I had doubts we could make a live album work given the primitive quality of the recordings,” said Vivabeat’s Marina Muhlfriedel. “I’m so glad to have been proven wrong. The live tracks on Wild World capture a wilder, edgier energy than our studio work, bringing me right back to who we were at the time.”

Read More »

Remembering Paul Atkinson, born on this day in 1946. —Ed.

With three enduring hit singles, the last of which derives from a classic album that’s as redolent of its era as any, The Zombies aren’t accurately classified as underrated, but it’s also right to say that the potential of much of their catalog went unfulfilled while they were extant. Since their breakup, subsequent generations have dug into that body of work, which has aged rather well, and right now nearly all of it can be found in Varèse Sarabande’s The Complete Studio Recordings, a 5LP collection released in celebration of the band’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. For anyone cultivating a shelf of ’60s pop-rock vinyl, this collection is a smart acquisition.

The Zombies began cohering as a band around 1961-’62 in St Albans, Hertfordshire UK. By the time they debuted on record in ’64 the lineup had solidified, featuring lead vocalist-guitarist Colin Blunstone, keyboardist Rod Argent, guitarist Paul Atkinson, bassist Chris White, and drummer Hugh Grundy. That’s how it would remain until their breakup in December of ’67. Rightly considered part of the mid-’60s British Invasion, The Zombies’ stature in the context of this explosion basically rests on the success of two singles, both far more popular in the US than in the band’s home country.

Those hits, “She’s Not There” and “Tell Her No,” each made the Billboard Top 10 (the former all the way to No. 2) and respectively open sides one and two of the US version of their first album, a move suggesting confidence on the part of their label Parrot that, as the needle worked its way inward, listeners wouldn’t become dismayed or bored by a drop-off in quality.

That assurance was well-founded. While “She’s Not There” is an utter pop gem, thriving on perfectly-judged instrumental construction (in its original, superior mono version with Grundy’s added drum input) and emotional breadth that’s found it long-eclipsing mere oldies nostalgia, and “Tell Her No” a more relaxed yet crisp follow-up, their talents were established beyond those two songs, even if nothing else on The Zombies quite rises to the same heights of quality.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Ahead of their final tour as Cabaret Voltaire, Stephen “Mal” Mallinder and Chris Watson recently announced details of a live album, But What Time Is It Really?, due to be released on April 24th via Memetune.

News of the album was accompanied by details of a final North American tour that will see the band on the West Coast in May, returning to the East Coast in September. Support across the dates will come from I Speak Machine, and ISM’s Tara Busch will also stand in for Chris Watson. The full live band is as follows; Stephen Mallinder – vocals, bass, keyboards, samples, Benge – keyboards, electronic drums, Eric Random – keyboards, guitar, and Tara Busch – keyboards, samples.

Tara says, “Cabaret Voltaire have always been a huge influence on ISM—the grit, the raw electricity, not to mention their visuals and art direction—and it’s truly thrilling to be supporting them in the US. I’m also very excited to be standing in for Chris Watson on synths and samples. I relish this as someone that loves performing and getting a deeper, “nerdier” look at how sounds and songs are created and executed live by bands I love—and Cabaret Voltaire is as good as it gets!”

The album—which will be available on vinyl and CD via the band’s webstore and on the upcoming tour—was recorded during last year’s jubilant sold-out UK tour. Marking 50 years since the live launch of one of Britain’s most influential electronic bands (at the Sheffield Students Union Refectory on May 13th, 1975), Stephen Mallinder and Chris Watson were joined by Eric Random and Oliver Harrap for an eagerly anticipated and long-awaited tour.

Read More »

There are few things finer on this perpetually spinning planet than a compilation dedicated to musical rediscoveries originally grooved into shellac, particularly when the bountiful selections are reissued on 2LP. That’s exactly what Sublime Frequencies has done with Indian Talking Machine Part Two: Instrumental Gems From The 78rpm Era; it’s a collection 26 tracks deep with all the contents recorded in India.

Produced by Robert Millis of Climax Golden Twins, with selections drawn from his personal collection, this follow-up extends the magnificence of the first volume, released in 2016 and also produced by Millis. It’s available March 20.

The first volume of Indian Talking Machine is a truly deluxe release, collecting 46 tracks on two compact discs and combining them with a book loaded with over 300 photographs, track notes, and an essay from producer Robert Millis. The kicker is that the first set was issued as a solitary edition of 1,000. That means when someone elects to sell their copy, it goes for some considerable scratch. But the music is available digitally, which is nice for listeners on a budget.

This second installment comes a decade later, this time on double vinyl with fewer selections but still quite generous with a 12-page booklet insert. The musicians utilize a variety of instruments, including shehnai, tabla, pakhawaj, violin, kashta-tarang, sarangi, clarinet, jalatarang, been, sundri, Saraswati vina, dilruba, sarod, kazoo, piano, vichitra vina, flute, nadaswaram, and whistle. The recording dates span over half a century, from 1904 to 1959.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Wewantsounds is delighted to continue its extensive reissue program of Meiko Kaji’s early discography, originally released by Teichiku Records in Japan between 1972 and 1974.

The Quentin Tarantino muse—famous for her starring roles in Lady Snowblood and Stray Cat Rock—was also a gifted singer. Otoko Onna Kokoro No Aika is another collection of superb cinematic songs featuring Kaji’s signature mix of Japanese Pop and Groove, backed by lush, atmospheric orchestrations. This includes her rendition of “Tokyo Nagare Mono,” the theme song for Seijun Suzuki’s cult 1966 film Tokyo Drifter. This reissue features the original artwork, an OBI strip, and a four-page insert with new liner notes by Hashim Kotaro Bharoocha, who interviewed Meiko Kaji for the occasion.

Japanese actress Meiko Kaji has become a worldwide cult icon, partly thanks to Quentin Tarantino, who heavily based his Kill Bill films on the 1973 revenge classic Lady Snowblood. Renowned for her roles in the Stray Cat Rock and Female Prisoner Scorpion series, Kaji was the definitive face of Japanese exploitation cinema while simultaneously developing a revered musical career.

Between 1972 and 1974, she recorded five sought-after albums for Teichiku Records—starting with Ginchou Wataridori (1972), followed by Hajiki Uta and Yadokari (both 1973). Wewantsounds is now delighted to continue its reissue program with her 1974 release, Otoko Onna Kokoro No Aika (“Lament of Man, Woman, and Heart”).

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Red Rockers revisit their early punk roots with It’s in Our Blood, a previously unreleased 2023 live set recorded in front of a sold-out crowd at Tipitina’s in the band’s hometown of New Orleans. The title will be available on Blu-ray, translucent red vinyl LP, CD, and digital, with the Blu-ray featuring bonus tracks. It’s in our Blood arrives in stores May 22 from Liberation Hall. Distribution will be through MVD Entertainment Group (USA) and Wienerworld (UK). Pre-order at Bandcamp.

Active from 1979 to 1985, Red Rockers were originally inspired by the radical political songs and styles of The Clash and The Dils. The band’s name is an homage to “Red Rockers Rule,” a song co-written by punk brothers Tony and Chip Kinman of The Dils, Rank & File, and Blackbird.

Red Rockers stormed out of the gate in 1980 with “Guns of Revolution,” a debut 7-inch single that sent shockwaves through the American punk underground and quickly made the band a popular live draw. A debut album, Condition Red, arrived the following year and galvanized critical enthusiasm for the band.

Rolling Stone dubbed them “the American Clash” and called out their “power, aggression, and highly charged political anger.” Despite the acclaim, and tour dates with The Clash, 415 Records struggled to convert the plaudits into record sales.

The Red Rockers’ fortunes would turn around in 1983 with the arrival of “China.” The first single off the band’s second album (Good as Gold), “China” was an immediate hit at college radio and MTV, and opened the doors to tours with The Cars, The Kinks, the Go-Go’s, Joan Jett, The B-52’s, and Men at Work. A final album, Schizophrenic Circus, was greeted with controversy over the band’s commercial new sound and image, and signaled the end for Red Rockers. The band’s legacy would remain mostly dormant for several decades.

Read More »

Neil Young remains one of the most prolific artists in music today. While he continues to put out previously unreleased live and studio recordings from his vast archives and reissues of albums from his full catalog, he also records new studio albums, releases live concert recordings from recent tours, and puts out soundtrack releases. Two recent must-have Young releases, from the many that came out in roughly the last 15 months, are Oceanside Countryside and Coastal.

Oceanside Countryside is an album Young shelved, consisting of songs he originally recorded by himself in 1977 in Florida, as well as several tracks he recorded with additional musicians in Nashville. Except for one song, all the music here would eventually be released in fuller versions. On the tracks with band backing, the core players are Ben Keith on dobro, Rufus Thibodeaux on fiddle, Joe Osborn on bass, and Karl T. Himmel on drums. There are also contributions from Tim Drummond, Greg Thomas, Dennis Belfield, and Tom Scribner, with Levon Helm of the Band on “The Old Homestead.”

This was the Comes a Time period, and most of the music has a wistful, acoustic country feel, with the quintessential ’70s classic Neil Young sound. “Goin’ Back,” “Human Highway,” and “Field of Opportunity” would come out on Comes a Time. “Dance Dance Dance” appeared on Harvest. “It Might Have Been” appeared on A Treasure. “Sail Away” would turn up on Rust Never Sleeps. “Lost In Space” appeared on Hawks and Doves, and “The Old Homestead” would appear on Hawks and Doves.

“Captain Kennedy” has been released in different versions on American Stars and Bars, Hitchhiker, and Chrome Dreams. “Pocahontas” would appear on Rust Never Sleeps, Hitchhiker, and Chrome Dreams. “Human Highway” would also appear on Hitchhiker and was intended for an aborted Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young album.

Read More »

In 2008, Jon Irabagon won the Thelonious Monk Saxophone Competition. Since then, his productivity as a player, composer, and improviser has been immense. His latest recording, just released on CD and digital through his own label Irabbagast Records, is Focus Out. It offers seven pieces featuring his quartet with Matt Mitchell on piano and Fender Rhodes, Chris Lightcap on electric bass, and Dan Weiss on drums, plus guests: KOKAYI on vocals, Donny McCaslin and Mark Shim on tenor sax, Miles Okazaki on guitar, and Dave Ballou on trumpet. Irabagon plays alto on this energetic and adventurous set.

Jon Irabagon was solidly on the scene prior to winning the Monk Sax Competition, most notably in Mostly Other People Do the Killing, a mind-bendingly proficient ensemble that could grapple with the grand span of jazz history through a seamless combination of virtuosity and unconventionality, with occasional stabs of humor.

As he played on 11 of Mostly Other People Do the Killing’s releases up to 2017, Irabagon also joined ensembles led by drummers Barry Altschul and William Hooker, trumpeter Dave Douglas, and guitarist Mary Halvorson. Additionally, numerous recordings in co-leadership mode have been released along with an increasing number of his own albums.

Having landed the opportunity through the Monk Competition victory to cut a record as leader for the jazz label Concord, the resulting set, The Observer, spotlighted him in straight-ahead mode with top-flight backing including trumpeter Nicholas Payton, pianist Kenny Barron, bassist Rufus Reid, drummer Victor Lewis, and on one track, a duet with pianist Bertha Hope.

Read More »