RALEIGH, NC | Some fans waited 20 years for this night. On Wednesday at The Ritz in Raleigh, Saosin played their 2006 self-titled album from start to finish, with Cove Reber back on the mic, for a room that mixed day-one fans with kids who weren’t old enough to crowd surf when the record dropped. Add three hungry openers, a light show I’m still blinking from, and a closing singalong two decades in the making, and this was a night that earned every bit of its nostalgia.

The night started early. The crowd was trickling in slowly, as a mix of people getting out of work and throwing on their black band tees joined a younger crowd. By the time the first band hit the stage, you could feel both generations waiting for the same thing.

The first band to play was Save Us, a newer act on its first tour. The transatlantic trio, fresh off the October release of their debut album, Death To Something, came out much like the crowd, slowly warming up to louder, more pounding melodic tones. They had the unenviable job of playing to a room that was still filling in, and they did an excellent job of getting the crowd ready while gaining a new audience.

Next up was Like Moths to Flames, and their frontman didn’t want anyone standing still. The Columbus, Ohio metalcore band came out with a fury, and their light show matched the chaos—I don’t think I’ve seen that mix of colors before. Every breakdown landed harder than the last. They got the crowd moving and set the tone for everything else to come.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Third Man Records is celebrating the 20th anniversary of The Raconteurs’ classic debut album, Broken Boy Soldiers, with a new opaque green vinyl variant out on Friday, December 11 and available at select record stores on December 18. Pre-orders are available now.

In addition, today sees the digital premiere of Broken Boy Soldiers (Deluxe) featuring the original studio album plus a full-show recording at New York City’s historic Irving Plaza on April 7, 2006—the band’s first-ever live performance in the United States. While previously available as a one-time, vinyl-only pressing in a truncated form, this digital reissue of the Raconteurs first-ever show on American soil at Irving Plaza from April 7th, 2006 adds three previously unreleased takes from the encore.

Here, the Raconteurs’ barn-burning “Blue Veins” is in elevated company with blistering covers of “It Ain’t Easy,” as popularized by David Bowie, along with the frenetic “Headin’ For The Texas Border,” originally by the Flamin’ Groovies.

This announcement follows The Raconteurs’ surprise reunion during Jack White’s concert at Nashville’s The Truth on October 10. The five-song encore, which marked the band’s first live performance in nearly seven years, saw performances of Broken Boy Soldiers favorites “Steady, As She Goes,” “Hands,” “Level,” and “Broken Boy Soldier,” as well as “Carolina Drama” (from 2008’s Consolers of the Lonely).

Read More »

Remembering Screaming Lord Sutch, born on this day in 1940. —Ed.

This very heavy solo debut by renowned English loony Screaming Lord Sutch (aka the 3rd Earl of Harrow) comes with some very heavy baggage. And I’m not referring to the late Lord’s Heavy Friends, who included such rock luminaries as Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, John Bonham, Noel Redding, and Nicky Hopkins.

No, I’m talking about the album’s deplorable reputation. A 1998 BBC poll crowned Lord Sutch and Heavy Friends the worst album of all time, to which I can only reply that the people polled did a grave injustice to Rick Wakeman’s The Six Wives of Henry VIII. And plenty of others have heaped scorn upon this benighted 1970 LP, which mortified just about everyone, including the people who played on it.

Me, I think they’re being unfair. I rather like Lord Sutch and Heavy Friends, and not as kitsch either. The musicians who recorded the LP would go on to condemn it as a bunch of demos that should never have been released, but to my ears it sounds like rock’n’roll primitivism at its best. The album has a lovably raw-boned, one-take feel to it, and what it lacks in polish (there is no polish), it makes up for in pure bluster and monolithic garage-rock raunch. If you’re a fan of “You Really Got Me,” Blue Cheer, the Troggs (and who isn’t a fan of the Troggs?), or any number of sixties garage bands, you’ll most likely dig what’s on offer here.

Read More »

Al Cisneros carries a solid rep as the singer and bassist for two of the finest bands to have churned and thudded at the intersection of stoner rock and doom metal, Sleep and Om. However, Cisneros also has a rewarding string of solo forays into the hissing, echo-laden realms of dub, with the new “Dragonaut Dub” EP his latest dive into this heady style. The set is out now on vinyl with an absolutely splendiferous cover illustration by Arik Roper via Eremite Records.

Prior to Sleep, there was Asbestosdeath, a gang of doom crushers who released a pair of 7-inch slabs in the 1990 timeframe that were later compiled by Southern Lord on the “Dejection Unclean” 10-inch in 2007. With some personnel changes, Asbestosdeath quickly morphed into Sleep, releasing Volume One in 1991 through Tupelo Recording Company, and then Sleep’s Holy Mountain the next year through Earache Records. From there, the band became a defining outfit in the slowly unfurling stoner rock scene.

It was Dopesmoker (originally Jerusalem) that really put Sleep on the map when it was released after a hiatus in 1999 by The Music Cartel and then in an updated version with the band’s preferred title in 2003 by Tee Pee Records. Subsequent expanded editions have hit racks through Southern Lord and Third Man, as the latter label has released Sleep’s last two albums, The Sciences from 2018 and Hemispheres from earlier this year.

In one of Sleep’s dormant stretches, Om was formed by Cisneros and Sleep drummer Chris Hakius, though through a slew of studio and live recordings Om released between 2005- ’14, Cisneros has been the constant member. Such is obviously the case with his solo output, which commenced in 2012 with the “Dismas” 45 on his own label Sinai.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Rhino’s Quadio series revisits the rich musical landscape of the mid-1970s with four new quadraphonic releases: Carly Simon’s Hotcakes/Playing Possum, Gordon Lightfoot’s Cold on the Shoulder, Hot Tuna’s Yellow Fever, and the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band’s self-titled debut and Trouble in Paradise. They arrive today on Blu-ray.

Each disc pairs the original quadraphonic mix, sourced from the analog four-track quad master tapes, with a hi-res 192 kHz/24-bit stereo transfer. Available exclusively through Rhino.com and select Warner Music Group stores worldwide, each title lists for $24.98, or $79.98 as a four-disc bundle. Order HERE.

Hotcakes/Playing Possum (1974/1975) brings together two albums from Carly Simon’s remarkable run of three consecutive Top 10 albums. Hotcakes (#3) delivered a pair of Top 20 hits: “Mockingbird,” her duet with James Taylor, and “Haven’t Got Time For The Pain.”

The following year, Playing Possum (#10) explored erotic themes on songs like “Slave” and “Waterfall,” while “Attitude Dancing” became its biggest hit. That provocative spirit extended to the artwork, with Norman Seeff’s photograph of Simon appearing on the cover, which earned a Grammy® Award nomination and a place among Rolling Stone’s 100 greatest album covers.

Cold on the Shoulder (1975) was Gordon Lightfoot’s 10th album and followed the chart-topping success of 1974’s Sundown. It reached #10 and introduced “Rainy Day People,” a song about friendship that topped the Adult Contemporary chart. Lightfoot’s storytelling shines throughout, including the title track, “Fine As Fine Can Be,” and “Cherokee Bend,” a haunting tale of prejudice and violence against Native Americans.

Read More »

Remembering Richard Lloyd. —Ed.

Sometimes I flabbergast myself. I think I know what I like and what I don’t like, only to find out I don’t know a damn thing about anything, least of all my likes and dislikes. Take KC and the Sunshine Band. I hated them with a passion for like 30 years, and now I think they’re great. Or Elton John’s Caribou, which I liked for like 80 years, only to realize just yesterday that it has only two good songs, although to Captain Fantastic’s credit, they’re two really great songs.

But occasionally I get it right the first time, as with Queen’s “We Are the Champions,” which I hated when it came out and still hate to this day. And the same goes for Television’s sophomore LP, 1978’s Adventure. People—as in every sentient human breathing air the year it came out—wrote Adventure off as a lackluster follow-up to the band’s 1977 debut, Marquee Moon. Everybody but me, that is. Because I had never heard of Marquee Moon. I didn’t even know it existed. Hell, I can’t even remember how or why I came to buy Adventure, because I had no clue as to who Television was and absolutely no inkling that they were an integral part of a musical revolution in progress at a ratty club in New York City called CBGBs.

But buy it I did, just as I bought Kill City without having ever heard the Stooges, which just goes to show you how isolating rural living was back in the days before the internet gave you access to all kinds of information, including who was who on the rock circuit. About all you got exposed to back in those days were hoof and mouth disease and square dancing, which is why I spent my teen years doing my level best to do as many drugs as I could get my greedy paws on, while trying to wrap my vehicle around a utility pole, which I finally accomplished on March 1, 1980. You’ve got to have goals, even in the boondocks, or life isn’t worth a damn.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | The history of punk is full of arguments. Who invented it? Which band mattered most? Which scene came first? Ask ten fans, and you’ll get ten different answers. But there is far less debate about one thing: 1977 was the year punk exploded.

In Punk ’77: The Year and Music That Revolutionized Rock, Martin Popoff revisits the twelve chaotic months when punk rock burst from clubs, fanzines, and underground scenes into the mainstream. Moving through the year month by month, the book traces the records, personalities, controversies, and cultural flashpoints that transformed punk from a provocation into a global force.

Rather than retelling the familiar argument over punk’s origins, Punk ’77 focuses on the year everything accelerated. From the interconnected scenes of London and New York to emerging hotspots across the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, the book follows punk’s rapid expansion as new bands, new sounds, and new ideas reshaped rock music.

Drawing on interview material with key figures from the era, including members of the Damned, the Dictators, the Dead Boys, the Sex Pistols, Generation X, the Buzzcocks, the Patti Smith Group, Talking Heads, and more, Popoff builds a chronological portrait of a movement in motion.

Read More »

They shoulda been somebody. Country rock band Poco featured players with impeccable pedigrees, including two former Buffalo Springfield members and two future Eagles members. The band was a refuge for stars on the wane and a testing ground for stars in the making, and how could you go wrong, right?

Well, it didn’t help that one member (Richie Furay) would end up in the Titanic-class “supergroup” The Souther-Hillman-Furay Band, while another (Jim Messina) would later be half of the execrable duo Loggins & Messina until being “Garfunkeled” by Kenny Loggins. And what did the future members of the Eagles (Randy Meisner and Timothy B. Schmit) really have to be proud about? The Eagles’ moral repugnance was only matched by the gargantuan egos of Don Henley and Glenn Frey.

So maybe they shouldn’t have been anyone after all. It didn’t help that they specialized in watered-down country rock, with the occasional forays into other genres including third-rate rock and (yes) jazz, which prevented the band from establishing a consistent “brand” that buyers could depend on.

Still, they managed to put out a very small handful of decent songs during their long career, including the hardly chart-busting singles “You Better Think Twice” (1970) and “A Good Feeling to Know” (1972). That should certainly count for something. It doesn’t count for much.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | The Stooges’ self-titled debut lit punk rock’s fuse in 1969, long before it exploded in 1976. Today, a new audiophile edition of The Stooges is available on reel-to-reel from Rhino High Fidelity.

The Stooges (Rhino High Fidelity R2R) was duplicated in real time from a 1:1 copy of the original flat analog master tape. The result is a master-quality listening experience that captures the recording’s full dynamics. The 15 i.p.s. half-track 1/4” tape is produced to the IEC equalization standard on premium RTM LPR90 tape stock and stored on a 10.5” metal reel. The Reel-to-Reel edition is limited to 350 copies worldwide and available exclusively at Rhino.com.

Iggy Pop (aka Iggy Stooge on this album), Ron Asheton, Scott Asheton, and Dave Alexander left Ann Arbor, Michigan, to record their debut in New York with producer John Cale. Across eight tracks, the band’s visceral rhythms and roaring guitars fused with Iggy’s confrontational vocals, forging an elemental sound that was ahead of its time.

“1969” opens the album with a sneer, while “I Wanna Be Your Dog” and “No Fun” bristle with the quartet’s primal power. Cale, who played viola on the Velvet Underground’s first two albums, also plays it here on the eerie, experimental “We Will Fall.”

Read More »