PASO ROBLES, CA | On a beautiful late September evening in a beautiful setting, some of the most, you guessed it, beautiful music was heard. Robert Plant and Saving Grace came to Vina Robles Amphitheatre in Paso Robles, California, an open-air venue set in the heart of Central Coast wine country, where vineyards and oak-studded hills make for a backdrop few concert halls can match.

As the sun went down over those hills, a crowd that spanned generations, from longtime fans in faded Led Zeppelin shirts to younger listeners drawn in by Plant’s more recent roots work, settled in for something that was neither a nostalgia act nor a greatest-hits revue. In that earthy setting, Plant and company delivered a night of otherworldly music, drawing on British folk, American gospel and blues, and, yes, the Zeppelin songbook, all of it filtered through a singer who has spent more than five decades refusing to stand still.

As part of a West Coast swing supporting their 2025 album, Saving Grace, Plant, along with Saving Grace, the band, a group he has been touring with since 2019, played to a packed house, or rather a packed backyard, since the venue is outdoors. Front and center with Plant for most of the show was Suzi Dian on vocals, accordion, and a bit of bass guitar. The rest of the band features drummer Oli Jefferson, guitarist Tony Kelsey, banjo and string player Matt Worley, and cellist Barney Morse-Brown.

A legend like Robert Plant could have pulled musicians from anywhere in the world, but Plant’s current musical journey brought him as close as his local pub to start this new venture. While Plant has explored folk and roots music before, most notably with Alison Krauss, this group is entirely English and Welsh, and Dian is his first English singing partner. That alone gives a unique take on the covers that Plant chose to explore and reinterpret.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Five decades after its original release, Elton John’s raucous and freewheeling album Rock of the Westies will receive a 50th Anniversary Edition reissue, out November 20 via UMe.

The special reissue will be available on multiple formats, including 2LP, 2CD and 1LP, with the expanded editions featuring previously unreleased Piano & Vocal Versions from the original album sessions. The 2017 remasters of the original album will now also be available for the first time on CD and digital. All available to pre-order now here.

Released in October 1975, Rock of the Westies is the tenth studio album by Elton John. Recorded at Caribou Ranch in Colorado and produced by longtime collaborator Gus Dudgeon, the album captures Elton and his band having fun at the height of their mid-’70s success. It was, as Elton says today, “the most genuine rock and roll record that I’ve ever made.”

The album arrived during an extraordinary year for Elton, following Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy just five months earlier. In 1975 alone, Elton headlined Wembley Stadium, released two studio albums, enjoyed a succession of hit singles and played his era-defining concerts at Dodger Stadium.

Against this backdrop, Rock of the Westies marked the pinnacle of an extraordinary period of commercial success, becoming his sixth consecutive album to reach No. 1 in the U.S.. It made history by entering the U.S. Billboard 200 at No. 1 and remaining there for three consecutive weeks, while also reaching the top five of the UK Albums Chart.

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Celebrating Robert “Kool” Bell on his 76th birthday. —Ed.

Funky stuff—and even more funky stuff—that’s what Kool and the Gang have on offer on 1973’s party manifesto Wild and Peaceful. Just how funky is this LP? Well, my copy has its very own musk, and I had an enormously difficult time with this review because I couldn’t stop toprocking long enough to write it. From the whistle that sounds at the beginning of the opening track “Funky Stuff,” you know things are going to get wild, and they do. They do.

I’m familiar with Kool and the Gang thanks to Top 40 radio, which played both “Jungle Boogie” and “Hollywood Swinging” with wonderful regularity when I was but a young sprout.

And how I loved them! A naysayer might interject that neither tune rises to the pure badassness of P-Funk, but said naysayer would be missing the point. Both of them were like nothing else on the radio at the time—their chanted vocals, fierce horn charts, rubbery grooves, and sheer funky strangeness (love roadie turned lead singer Don Boyce’s maniacal lip blubber on “Jungle Boogie”!) were sui generis, baby. They could almost have been novelty tunes, and perhaps in fact they were, but if so, the novelty never wore off and never will.

Robert “Kool” Bell and the Gang’s “Jungle Boogie” was without a doubt the funkiest song to ever hit this adolescent honky cat’s ears; toss in some cool guitar scratch, a relentless groove, and some truly deranged vocals, and what you have is a song for the ages. “Hollywood Swinging” is a subtler beast; in its unique way, it presages Kool and the Gang’s subsequent shift towards disco, but it possesses a sophistication—so many layered voices and sounds, such a cool guitar, and check out those horns!—that most disco tunes lacked.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | New Orleans Joys: The Earliest Recordings, 1923–1926 chronicles the definitive early work of pianist, composer and raconteur Jelly Roll Morton, who created masterpieces born from the cultural melting pot of 1900s New Orleans; the primitive blues of prostitutes, hymns to God from its churches, joyous anthems of the city’s brass bands, the lessons from ragtime “professors” and the elegance of the opera. He was the first composer of the music that would be called jazz, and elements of his music are still influential today.

All 53 tracks were meticulously transferred and restored from the super rare original 78rpm records, resulting in the best sound available to date for these recordings—by far—with more depth, clarity, and presence than ever before achieved. Morton’s life and music are illuminated through exhaustively researched essays by Grammy-winner Ricky Riccardi, Andrew Oliver, and co-producers Joe Lauro and Russell Shor.

A trove of rare photos and ephemera is assembled in a lavish 80 page booklet. Mastered by Grammy nominated engineer, Jessica Thompson. Designed by Grammy nominated art director, Barbara Bersche. Transfers and restoration by Mike Kieffer, Dustin Wittmann, Mark Berresford, and Richard Nevins.

From Josh Rosenthal (Tompkins Square): The spark for this project started with Tompkins Square’s book/CD, Treasures Untold : A Modern 78 RPM Reader, released in April 2025. (sold out—still available as a kindle ebook.) I was listening to a lot of Jelly Roll on 78. It became apparent that JRM’s pre-Victor output had never been properly anthologized, and what was available didn’t sound especially good. Also, there hadn’t been any JRM on vinyl LP in the US in decades.

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Second Song is Neil Young’s second studio album with the Chrome Hearts and is a follow-up to last year’s Talkin’ to the Trees. Like that album, this one was co-produced by Young, his brother-in-law, the iconic record producer Lou Adler, and Niko Bolas. It was recorded at the fabled Shangri-La Studios in Malibu, California. Young’s band includes Spooner Oldham, Micah Nelson, Willie Nelson’s son, Corey McCormick on bass, and Anthony LoGerfo on drums.

The album is a sparse, stripped-down, organic, raw affair that finds Young in a reflective, gentle, at times almost child-like frame of mind. It really isn’t in the vein of his previous, more acoustic-based albums, but is actually something quite new. Young references the song “Long May You Run,” the title track from his one and only Stills-Young Band album from 1976, on “Casting Me Away From You,” when he sings, “We found things to do in stormy weather.” Also, the song “Long May You Run” includes a reference to a chrome heart, which appears to have inspired the name of his new band.

“Soon I Might Be Going,” a deeply personal song of acceptance, also directly addresses the sad state of the US presidency, but not in any angry way. Instead, it expresses a resigned reporting-the-news feeling, with the lines “President was on TV, says everything is golden/He’s tearing down the old White House, those days were never olden.” Of the seven songs, “Casting Me Away,” from 1965, in demo form, was previously released on Neil Young Archives Vol. I in 2009. “I’ll Love You,” from 1965, was a song Young recorded with his band the Squires.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Billy Idol’s electrifying second studio album, Rebel Yell, is the newest title to receive the premium audiophile treatment from Interscope-Capitol Records’ Definitive Sound Series (DSS). Available for pre-order, the all-analog 180g One Step Edition is set for a November 20 release, with an independent retail release to follow on December 18.

Mastered from the original analog master tapes by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering, the DSS edition of Rebel Yell was pressed on Neotech VR900-D2 180g high-definition vinyl at Record Technology, Inc. Utilizing the state-of-the-art One Step process by Dorin Sauerbier, which eliminates multiple plating stages, the edition brings exceptional clarity and depth of Keith Forsey’s dynamic production while bringing listeners closer to the power and detail of the recording.

Limited to 3,000 individually numbered copies, the DSS edition is presented in a premium heavyweight tip-on gatefold jacket and housed in a custom-designed slipcase. Each copy includes a certificate of authenticity detailing the mastering, plating, and pressing chain.

Originally released November 10, 1983, Rebel Yell transformed Billy Idol from a charismatic former Generation X frontman into an international rock star. Produced by Keith Forsey and fueled by Idol’s unmistakable vocals and Steve Stevens’ inventive guitar work, the album fused punk attitude, hard rock, new wave, and electronic textures into a sound that became one of the defining signatures of the MTV era.

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Celebrating John Mellencamp on his 75th birthday. —Ed.

I’ve always liked John Mellencamp. Sure, I’ve been known to call him the poor man’s Bruce Springsteen, but I mean it as a compliment. I’m all for the poor man. Anyway, what I’ve always liked the most about the fellow who started out calling himself John Cougar is that he’s a curmudgeon. Mellencamp casts a gimlet eye at such things as Hope and the American Dream and smirks because he knows they fall short. He understands that our forefathers talked about the Pursuit of Happiness, but were wise enough to remain mum about the possibility of ever catching the slippery fucker. Mellencamp is no dreamer. He sees what he sees, and he’s not happy about it.

Take “Jack and Diane.” You can call it hokum, a clichéd look at growing up horny in the heartland of America and all that, but its core message (“Oh yeah, life goes on/Long after the thrill of living is gone”) is as dark as anything dished out by the likes of Lou Reed or Bob Dylan. Mr. Mellencamp is most certainly not out to sell fairy tales.

On 1982’s Uh-Huh, Mellencamp cynically lets us know that we’ve all been sold a bill of goods that has landed us in cookie-cutter pink houses in the spiritually dead suburbs, that you can fight the law but will never win, that in the end you’ll trade in your dreams for a warmer place to sleep, and there ain’t no golden gates gonna swing open, not in this life. The last refers to “Golden Gates,” a truly beautiful and anthemic ode that almost contains a strain of hope, when Mellencamp sings, “Only promises I know to be true/Are promises made from the heart.”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Capitol Record Club continues its exploration of influential recordings from the Capitol archives with an expanded edition of Digable Planets’ landmark second album, Blowout Comb. The new release pairs the acclaimed 1994 album with non-album tracks from the original recording sessions and a bonus 7-inch featuring “Land of Mu,” a newly discovered and previously unheard track being released for the first time. The album is out October 23 and is now available for pre-order.

Strictly limited to 2,000 individually numbered copies, the Capitol Record Club exclusive is pressed on dark indigo vinyl and includes a bonus 7-inch single. The album was remastered and lacquers cut by Levi Seitz at Black Belt Mastering.

Digable Planets arrived in 1993 with Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space), establishing Butterfly, Ladybug Mecca, and Doodlebug as three distinctive new voices in hip-hop. But with Blowout Comb the following year, the trio expanded both the sound and scope of their debut, creating an album that has become a defining work in their catalog and hip-hop legacy.

Building on the group’s use of iconic samples, Blowout Comb incorporated live instrumentation and appearances by contemporaries, including Guru and Jeru the Damaja, while moving into denser, more politically direct territory. Its lyrics confronted oppression and political struggle alongside sharply observed snapshots of life in Brooklyn, all woven through the trio’s fluid interplay and deep connection to jazz.

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Featuring two former members of the California desert rock specialists Thin White Rope, Odom-Kunkel have released their second recording, the 4-song 10-inch EP “Sniffing Spirits,” the set available now via Too Long to Chew Music. Stoo Odom brings the upright bass and vocals, and Roger Kunkel handles the guitar. Rootsy with an experimental, improvised edge, the quality rises with repeated spins.

Thin White Rope was a key band from the desert rock side of the Paisley Underground spectrum, forming in the early 1980s in Davis, CA, and releasing their debut album, Exploring the Axis, in 1985 on Frontier Records. Guitarist Roger Kunkel was in the band from essentially the beginning and remained a participant until they called it quits in 1992.

To the band’s credit, it’s not exactly easy to choose Thin White Rope’s best record. The debut is solid, its follow-up Moonhead (1987) is a little better, and third LP In a Spanish Cave (1988) maintains the quality, but Sack Full of Silver (1990), with its leftfield cover of Can’s “Yoo Doo Right,” likely takes the prize. The final album, The Ruby Sea (1991), is far from a disappointment, however.

Bassist Stoo Odom joined late, playing on The Ruby Sea and the EP “Squatter’s Rights” (also 1991). Odom also plays on The One That Got Away (1993), a double live set documenting Thin White Rope’s final show. That gig took place in Ghent, Belgium, on June 28, 1992. It doesn’t appear that Thin White Rope has ever reunited.

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Some festivals are built around a headliner. Power to the People was built around a cause. On Saturday, October 3, with the midterm elections a month away, Tom Morello filled Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland, with generations of performers from rock, punk, folk, and hip-hop, then asked every person who came through the gates to do more than sing along: register, organize, and show up.

A share of every ticket went to VoteRiders and HeadCount, dozens of nonprofits set up shop in the Freedom Village behind the lawn, and the artists spent the day wandering into each other’s sets like one big extended family with something to say. It was loud, joyful, defiant, and at times genuinely moving—a reminder that music has always been one of the best ways to bring people together, pointed in the same direction.

The day started on the grass. The lawn filled first, and by the time the first few bands hit the stage, it was packed, blankets and bodies stretching up the hill. Nobody was easing into this one.

The Last Internationale owned the main stage from the jump. Delila Paz sounded amazing and carried the kind of presence that makes an opening slot feel like a headline set, and when bassist Chris Barker launched himself off a speaker mid-song, it was killer. Morello has championed this band for years, and there was no better way to open the Pavilion stage at his festival.

The Linda Lindas came out fun, lively, and spunky, and they were the ones who really kicked off the day’s energy for me—no small feat, considering I was running on zero coffee. Their punk is pure joy, and the crowd fed off every bit of it.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | There was never a band quite like The Pretty Things.

Fiercer than many of their contemporaries, endlessly adventurous, and gloriously unwilling to follow fashion, they travelled a path from raw rhythm & blues through psychedelia, proto-progressive rock, hard rock and beyond, leaving behind one of British music’s richest and most inimitable catalogues. Yet much of their story has remained hidden—preserved on acetates, home demos, rehearsal tapes and audience recordings that reveal how the music was really created.

Across twelve CDs, Pretty Rare opens that archive and follows The Pretty Things from their earliest recordings in 1965 through to Phil May and Dick Taylor’s final recordings over fifty years later. Rather than simply revisiting familiar albums, it captures the moments in between: the songs taking shape on home tape machines, abandoned versions, alternate mixes, legendary lost projects, intimate rehearsals and electrifying live performances that document the band’s evolution in real time.

The journey begins with extraordinary early studio material, including previously unheard demos, acetates and alternate recordings from the Emotions and S.F. Sorrow era, before moving through stunning concert performances from Paris, Hyde Park and Amsterdam that find the group at the height of their psychedelic powers. The Philippe Debarge sessions finally take their rightful place alongside the remarkable Westbourne Terrace Revox demos, revealing Phil May and Wally Waller building the musical language that would culminate in the masterpiece Parachute.

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Remembering Glenn Branca, born on this day in 1948. —Ed.

“Lesson No. 1” is Glenn Branca’s first release as a composer, originally issued in 1980 as a mini-LP on the 99 Records label. Not only does it stand as an avant-garde debut of remarkable assurance, but it’s also a strikingly prescient document, sounding, in retrospect, like a harbinger of indie rock to come.

It was in the late ’80s that many young underground rock listeners first encountered the name Glenn Branca, largely due to the composer/guitarist’s association with Sonic Youth. For folks under the sway of Evol, Sister, and Daydream Nation, those LPs served as a gateway into a subterranean, art-drenched New York City that was extremely alluring, especially to suburbanites who perceived their immediate surroundings as being conspicuously lacking in worthwhile cultural activity.

Those residing in other large US cities often decried NYC’s significance as the country’s art Mecca, but for thousands of young people stuck in towns devoid of an extant scene, reading about and hearing the recorded evidence of the city’s defiant underbelly proved a fascinating antidote to the nagging strains of ‘80’s conformity.

Inquiring minds could browse text on Glenn Branca pretty easily in this era, since his symphonies for multi-guitar orchestras and percussion made for good copy, as did that connection to Sonic Youth and his impact upon Tin Machine, the unjustly maligned crew of the Sales brothers, Reeves Gabrels, and David Bowie (the group once cited their influences as Gene Krupa, Charles Mingus, Jimi Hendrix, Branca, and Mountain.)

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