2022 continues to be another banner year for audiophile jazz reissues. While the Blue Note and Verve label reissues from the last few years have paved the way for bespoke jazz archival releases, the recent series from Craft Recordings of reissues of albums from the Contemporary Records jazz label to celebrate its 70th anniversary, as part of the Acoustic Sounds Series, are just as welcome.

All of the albums are mastered from the original analog tapes by Bernie Grundman. The records were pressed on 180-gram vinyl at QRP with Stoughton old-style, tip-on jackets, include the iconic black-and-gold Contemporary label of the period, and come with archival sleeves. The key to why these particular recordings sound so good is the superb original engineering of Roy DuNann. All three reissues boast the original liner notes from the legendary jazz scholar, author and journalist Nat Hentoff.

Contemporary Records was founded in 1951 in Los Angeles by Lester Koening. The label’s heyday lasted until the early 1960s. It became very identifiable with the cool school of West Coast jazz. Those artists included Chet Baker, Howard Rumsey, and several artists that are part of the Craft reissue series, including Art Pepper, Shelly Manne, Hampton Hawes, Barney Kessel and others. Rumsey and Manne were also integral to two key West Coast jazz clubs—The Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, California, which Rumsey got off the ground in 1949 and which featured his All-Star’s, but which was owned by John Levine, and Shelly’s Manne-Hole, which opened in 1960 in Hollywood.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Independent Label Market announces two events for Winter 2022—ILM’s flagship London event will take place Saturday 12th November at Coal Drops Yard, King’s Cross with a new date at Manchester’s New Century on Saturday 19th November.

Earlier this year, ILM: London introduced a vibrant new set of stalls featuring artists and craft makers. The Craft Makers Corner makes its return for the Winter edition with Hand Jazz, East London Printmakers, Dan Jamieson and satirical artist / illustrator Darren Cullen.

The first record labels to confirm for ILM: London include Bella Union, Big Dada, Dirty Hit, Earth, Erased Tapes, Fire, Late Night Tales, Ninja Tune, Partisan and Sonic Cathedral. They will bring with them a trove of exclusives including vinyl rarities and test pressings as well as extended back catalogues, signed merchandise and advance copies—just in time for Christmas! Watch this space for the full line-up announcement, as well as further details of the ILM curated DJ sets from artists, labels and friends.

Following a hugely successful debut in Manchester in collaboration with Tim Burgess’ Vinyl Adventures Record Fair, ILM returns to Manchester this Winter at the newly reopened New Century, a historic Grade II listed building that played host to the likes of Jimi Hendrix and The Kinks in the ’60s and acid house parties in the ’80s. It has now been restored to its former glory for a new era.

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In the early 1970s, two kingpins of Jamaican music, namely Count Ossie and Cedric “Im” Brooks, merged their respective groups The Wareikas/the African Drums and The Mystics into one unit, and The Mystic Revelation of Rastafari was born. Their 3LP set Grounation was released in 1973, the first reggae triple album, and while obviously massive in scale, the music’s dive into sustained gloriousness transcends the norms of reggae by exemplifying the Art Ensemble of Chicago’s motto, “Great Black Music: Ancient to the Future.” Its reissue by Soul Jazz on vinyl and compact disc is cause for celebration.

What must be understood right away is that Grounation isn’t six vinyl sides loaded with commercial reggae jams circa 1973. Instead, this is the bedrock of what Coxsone Dodd and Bunny Lee were rapid fire cutting onto disco plates prior to and at the very time of Grounation’s release. To drive the point home, the sound of guitars are nowhere to be found here, as the title of the set references the Rastafari holy Grounation Day, which celebrates Ethiopian emperor Hailie Selassie’s visit to Jamaica in 1966.

Horns and vocals are an inextricable part of the record’s weave, and as Grounation plays one can soak up sounds rooted in New Orleans, Kansas City, Chicago, and New York City, along with roughly contemporaneous connections to the African continent via Afrobeat and highlife. But the music’s dominant component is rhythm, with even deeper ties to the African rhythmic root of it all. And yet, Grounation is thoroughly Jamaican, and a cornerstone record in the country’s musical history, if one perhaps undervalued in the global scheme of things.

The horns do kick in early on in opener “Bongo Man,” and there’s a brief gust of rough blowing in “Narration” that establishes an affinity for Fire Music and spiritual jazz in general. It’s a bond that reinforces The Mystic Revelation of Rastafari as far more than a gesture in pure throwing back, which really shouldn’t be surprising given that Selassie’s visit to the island occurred only six years before the record’s release.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Between 1981 and 1990, The Human League released four studio albums and one extended EP on Virgin Records. Those albums and that extended play have been collected in a special limited edition colored vinyl box set. In addition, the remix album Love And Dancing, initially released in 1982, was recently reissued on white vinyl for Record Store Day.

The Human League “Mark Two,” as they have been described, arose from the ashes of the band’s first incarnation and became one of the most influential and commercially successful groups of the early 1980s. The Virgin Years box set opens with Dare, which is simply one of the greatest albums ever made. It launched the band to superstardom across the globe and despite being over 40 years old still sounds as thrilling and powerful as ever.

In the Spring of 1983, the group released the six-track EP “Fascination,” which brought together the singles “(Keep Feeling) Fascination” in its extended forms, “Mirror Man,” along with the classic b-sides “You Remind Me Of Gold” and “Hard Times” along with a new track “I Love You Too Much.”

The group re-recorded the latter track for the Hysteria album, which appeared in May 1984. The LP contained three hit singles “The Lebanon,” “Life On Your Own,” and “Louise.” Whilst not a multi-million seller like its predecessor, the album showed the band progressing artistically. Two years later, the band would experiment even further by mostly recording the album Crash with the production team of Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis. The gamble paid off, and it returned The Human League to the top of the US charts with the song “Human.”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Originally released on June 21, 1982, Awakening is Hiroshi Sato’s fourth solo record and first for ALFA. Featuring Canadian vocalist Wendy Matthews and liberal usage of the LinnDrum machine (the cutting-edge drum machine of the time), this record fuses Sato’s highly regarded sound sensibilities with the atmosphere of the American West Coast.

The mellow and soulful record doesn’t feel inorganic despite the heavy use of programmed drums and is considered a masterpiece having influenced future generations in Japan and abroad. Tatsuro Yamashita, Tsunehide Matsuki, and Yuji Toriyama are guest guitarists on some of the tracks.

Disc 1 contains the original record as it was released in 1982 and Disc 2 features versions of 8 tracks taken from the original record with vocals and waves removed including “BLUE AND MOODY MUSIC (WENDY’S VERSION),” which was on the original CD in 1986 and a new version of “IT IS NOT EASY remixed by Sato in 2005. This is the first time the contents of Disc 2 are being released on vinyl. Disc cutting was overseen by Japanese master craftsman Shigeru Takezawa. Both discs will be available on color vinyl. Disc 1 on transparent light blue vinyl and disc 2 on regular transparent vinyl.

More about Hiroshi Sato | Hiroshi Sato was born in the ’40s in Kagoshima, Japan to a Buddhist monk family. By his early teen years he was depressed, feeling stuck with the expectation that he would carry on the family tradition of becoming a monk. It is in this context he would discover music, first through playing guitar. In high school he learned drums and bass, recorded his own songs at home and eventually got his hands on a SONY Open Reel 4 track recorder. At 20, Hiroshi Sato taught himself keys.

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Celebrating Jody Stephens on his 70th birthday. —Ed.

The Memphis group Big Star has long been a favorite of folks who love smartly conceived guitar-based pop-rock, and while few bought their records when they were hot off the presses, their status as an enduring cult staple is undeniable. After a long relationship with discerning turntables everywhere, Big Star received the Big Screen treatment with a documentary titled Nothing Can Hurt Me, and the soundtrack collects unique mixes of material long-considered classic. That the songs included here could easily slay a busload of Big Star newbies is testament to not only the band’s everlasting importance but also to the admirable ambitions that made this 2LP set and its accompanying film possible.

Over the last few decades the music documentary has really become one of the steadiest (some might say unrelenting) currents in the whole vast field of non-fiction filmmaking. And this shouldn’t be any kind of surprise. For everybody loves music, or so it’s often been said. But this doesn’t change the fact that some musicians/bands are far more deserving of having their story represented on film than others.

Simply stating that a very few groups are more worthy than Big Star of having their existence outlined through the medium of the film doc can initially smack of extreme devotion and perhaps even flat-out hyperbole. For just like the old saw that everybody loves music, it’s just as often been said that everybody has a story, and even, nay especially, in the non-fiction field the plain facts of the narrative ultimately aren’t as important as the way the events get told.

But if we dig a little deeper, the documentary’s inherent connection with the “real world,” or specifically the manner in which things don’t always work out the way we’d like them to, is especially resonant to the tale of Andy Hummel, Chris Bell, Jody Stephens, and Alex Chilton. For unlike the life of Ray Charles or the early years of The Beatles, Big Star is far from a good fit for the Hollywood treatment, or at least for the situation as it currently stands in the movie-making industry.

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Joseph Stevens is a vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter currently working as Peel Dream Magazine, with his latest album under the moniker a considerable departure from the shoegaze-fuzz pop-motorik action of its predecessors. What’s changed? Well, there are bold moves into the baroque pop arena with some bossa nova flavor and indie pop erudition. The new record is also an undisguised dive into the conceptual, and yet not a particularly weighty listen, as the 15 tracks unwind in a crisp 43 minutes. Pad is out October 7 on limited edition white vinyl (with or without a bonus 4-song 7-inch, the choice is yours) and compact disc through Slumberland and Tough Love.

Pad isn’t a complete break from Peel Dream Magazine’s past, though the new disc is a significant detour from the unrestrained Stereolab-isms of 2020’s Agitprop Alterna. What ties Stevens’ three full-length albums together is strong songwriting, though this aspect naturally comes to the fore on his latest, as the fuzziness gives way to gentler atmospheres, with vibraphone up front in opener “Not in the Band,” and flute prominent in the title track to follow.

“Pictionary” is more of a forthright chiming indie pop strummer on the sophisto side of the equation, which is to say, there’s nothing loud or unkempt about it. “Wanting and Waiting” is no less urbane, as it sidelines the strum for a sort of laid back flute and mallets-laden art pop with a funky undercurrent. Spreading out even more, “Self Actualization Center” introduces banjo, faux-mellotron strings, sci-fi synth secretions, and vocal harmonizing with Samira Winter into the mix, and “Walk Around the Block” is a nifty flute-driven instrumental that oozes cinematic tension.

More to the point of Stevens’ approach, the track reinforces Pad’s conceptual orientation, as the songs tell a story of Stevens’ getting fictitiously booted from a musical outfit (“Not in the Band”) and his subsequent attempts to rejoin, with numerous detours along the way, and eventual success (“Back in the Band”). Stevens’ lyrics enhance this narrative without feeling awkward or forced, as “Hamlet” combines psych-tinged folk with a late-night drum machine vibe a la Young Marble Giants (see also: Yo La Tengo circa And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out).

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Sundazed Music announces the November 25 release of Alex Chilton’s Live in London: Encore Edition. Available on 2-LP or CD, the album is now available for pre-order.

Featuring unheard songs from his 1980 London dates, the live performance set marks the first time anyone beyond the hardy handful in attendance on the first night of his U.K. solo shows at Dingwalls will get an earful of Chilton’s distorted stock of Memphis psychobilly at its best. The package also includes new liner notes from Jim Allen, who chats with key players from the two-day pajama party.

With eight previously unreleased songs on LP (nine on CD) and pressed on colored vinyl, the Encore Edition of Live in London includes 14 songs from the original Live in London album, which were culled from the second night when Chilton and his new British buddies had fully gelled. The bonus tracks offer an extended peek into Chilton’s arcane bag of cover tunes. A complete tracklisting is below.

Chilton had recorded The Seeds’ “Can’t Seem to Make You Mine,” Troy Shondell’s 1961 rocker “Girl After Girl,” and The Kinks’ “Come on Now” all summarily savaged with a gusto that goes even beyond the brutalism of postmodern prankster he accorded them earlier. Plus, the band lends a feral bite to Big Star power-pop evergreens adding furry layers of feedback and existential yearning in equal amounts.

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Celebrating Tommy Lee on his 60th birthday. —Ed.

When the news circulated about my sex tape with Pamela Anderson I went into a panic. What would my mother think? Then it came out that the sex tape in question featured Anderson and Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Not so my mom. She called me in a huff and said “Here’s your chance to make something of yourself and you blow it. How am I going to face the ladies at my bridge club? Did you even have sex with the woman?” “I don’t think so,” I admitted. “I fell asleep while watching Baywatch and one thing led to another.”

Critics have been sniping at Mötley Crüe for decades. In a review of 1984’s Shout at the Devil the Village Voice’s Robert Christgau wrote “It’s hardly news that this platinum product is utter dogshit even by heavy metal standards,” but then Christgau’s an elitist and hates Guns N’ Roses too. God knows it’s easy to mock Mötley Crüe, both for their brand of hair metal and their fashion sense; their hair spray budget come the release of 1989’s Dr. Feelgood was $98,000 per week, and they were responsible for one-quarter of the world’s spandex sales. Without Mötley Crüe, many of Peru’s spandex farmers would have starved.

The important question when it comes to Dr. Feelgood is simple: Does it have a reason to exist? I would say yes. Vince Neil (vocals), Mick Mars (lead guitars), Nikki Sixx (bass and keyboards), and the aforementioned Tommy Lee collectively have the intelligence of a Cuban water rat, and their misogyny grows tiresome very quickly, but there’s no question they’re a top notch metal band. And a few of the songs on Dr. Feelgood—their first LP after being weaned from every mind-altering substance on planet Earth, as well as several they had to have shipped in special delivery from other regions of the galaxy—are well worth owning.

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Since 1989, Sundazed Music, founded by Bob Irwin and his wife Mary, has been the label to go to for hard-to-find reissues of rare surf, psych, and garage band rock and roll discs that have been lost over the years and were in dire need of a second life. In fact, in today’s crazy reissue world, it’s interesting to note that Sundazed was a pioneer in bringing long, lost recordings back to turntables all across the world.

However, the label is not only just focusing on those few genres anymore. There’s a big world full of different styles of music, and—with a fresh approach featuring Jay Millar at the helm—Sundazed is ready to explore them all. The label houses several imprints to organize the varied releases, with Modern Harmonic being the location for many of the more adventurous and exploratory titles.

Anyone who’s taken a peek at the label’s release schedule will note that they are as busy as ever. Millar stops by to not only walk us through the label’s recent catalog additions, but—almost more interestingly and importantly—he gives us the backstories behind how these releases came to be.

As we discuss, it’s refreshing for a reissue label to resist resurrecting the tried and true classics in favor of lesser known forgotten gems that deserve a wider audience. You’ll hear Millar explain how serendipity impacts Sundazed’s choices, and how casual conversations can sometimes lead to major discoveries.

Millar was generous with his time and has plenty of anecdotes and experiences to share; our conversation isn’t just browsing the aisles of Sundazed records, it’s a master class in the behind-the-scenes adventures involved in managing a major record label.

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.

“There have been tens of thousands (easy) more terrible rock songs than there have been good ones,” famed rock critic my grandmother once said, and in support of her theory she pushed the entire opus of REO Speedwagon my way. “‘Ridin’ the Storm Out’ is bong steady,” she said, “but you can flush everything else down the crapper.”

She was right, of course, and that’s what made it so hard to put this list together. Few of us are financially wealthy, but we’re all rich in rock and roll dreck. When the Jefferson Starship sing “We’re knee deep in the hoopla” in perpetual contender for worst song ever “We Built This City,” we know it’s not hoopla they’re singing about, is it?

But I’ve tried, Lord knows, to devise my own list of the Awful One Hundred. I’ve had to stomach the unstomachable, bear the unbearable, listen to the unlistenable, and in general audition more musical mortal sins than a talent scout in Hell, and these were the best I could come up with. I personally believe my efforts warrant the Congressional Medal of Horror.

Some of my selections you’ll agree with, others you’ll disagree with, and still others will make you wonder what dim creature from what low-IQ planet in what slow-witted galaxy spit me out like a watermelon seed with such force that I ended up here, solely to get the whole damn thing wrong. Some of my selections have let it be known just how unhappy they are. I’ve received hate mail. Threatening midnight phone calls. One song even took to standing outside my window at night screaming “Thank God I’m a country boy!”

A brief note on how I chose the songs on my list. There are gazillions of songs we can all agree are dog turds in burning paper bags, but to my way of thinking a truly appalling song is one I turn off the very second it comes on. If this means a sprained wrist, so be it. If, while behind the wheel of an automobile, this entails running head on into an 18-wheeler full of highly flammable nuclear waste, them’s the breaks.

Then again, there are countless Lovecraftian abominations out there I won’t turn off simply because they make me laugh. And even on some good days a hearty laugh can be as hard to find as D.B. Cooper. Who, if I understand correctly, leaped from a passenger jet at 10,000 feet into sub-zero temperatures on a stormy night in the environs of some of the most rugged wilderness in the country not to make off with $200,000 in ransom money, but to escape the Original Caste’s “One Tin Soldier.”

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