Monthly Archives: April 2017

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Run Out Groove’s second pre-order campaign closed on 3/31. Echo and The Bunnymen It’s All Live Now is being pressed to a limited quantity of 2,987 LPs and is no longer available on the website. The album will be shipping in June, so check with your local record store as they may have a copy. The new collection is available to stream on Spotify.

Secret Machines’ fans came out of nowhere and voted Now Here is Nowhere, as Run Out Groove’s 3rd pre-order title that is currently available to order until 5/2. This lost Space-Rock classic from 2004 was a personal favorite of David Bowie’s but did not garner the attention it deserved upon initial release. This is the first time the trio’s 2LP debut will be available on vinyl in the U.S., and has never sounded or looked as good. Fans will even get the opportunity to weigh in on what color will be chosen for the second LP in the set via their Facebook and Twitter pages. Now Here is Nowhere is available to order exclusively through the site for the next 30 days and will be limited and numbered based on total orders at the end of the pre-order period.

Two new titles have been introduced into the voting section this month: Howard Tate’s self-titled 1972 album on Atlantic and Dream Syndicate’s Complete Live at Raji’s. The Dream Syndicate title is the LA Paisley Underground legend’s mercurial live show recorded in 1988 and if voted for will be the first time the complete show will be available on vinyl in the U.S. with new art and liner notes. Howard Tate is a cult figure in the soul world, having first done Jerry Ragovoy’s “Get It While You Can,” which was later made famous by Janis Joplin. His sole album for Atlantic has not been re-pressed since its original release in 1972 but can be voted for here. Voting is now open on both new titles as well as Golden Smog’s Down By the Old Mainstream. And if you voted for Golden Smog in the first round don’t fret, your vote still counts. Whichever title gathers the most votes will become available for pre-order in early May.

The best way to stay on top of new monthly ROG titles for pre-order, voting options, and related artist information is to go to Run Out Groove and follow them on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Check with your local record store to find out if they will be stocking Run Out Groove releases.

They also encourage feedback, questions, and suggestions on potential new titles by emailing them directly at info@runoutgroovevinyl.com.

“My first experience with vinyl was probably stumbling onto my parents’ record collection as a kid.”

“They weren’t really played then, as during that time it was mainly cassettes, and then CDs came out. So these records were just sitting in boxes in the basement of that house. I think the smell is what I remember most. Old paper. Like library books. I remember seeing lots of The Ventures, Beach Boys, and Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass.

I grew up with CDs, and then when I went to college and learned of all the old sketchy programs like Limewire and Soulseek, I started a separate sort of education of music history—downloading anything I liked, and then researching the story behind those bands, what bands inspired them—and then I’d go download and listen to those bands too. This was pre-Pandora/Spotify, and there was no way I could afford the amount of music I was listening to otherwise.

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I don’t know of a single solitary Homo sapien who has heard “Hocus Pocus” by the Dutch band Focus and not been left indelibly altered, and I’m talking at the genetic level, by the experience. The weirdos, freaks, and flat-out perverts in Focus toss everything into the song but those flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz. You get one of the flat-out coolest rock riffs ever devised by man, lots of demented yodeling and even more demented human vocalizations that do not constitute yodeling but are even more frightening, some cool-ass jamming, a church organ, and even some industrial strength flute straight from the Jethro Tull school of deviant musicology.

I’ve never been able to decide if “Hocus Pocus” is a demonstration of the lengths to which some people, and by some people I mean the people in Focus, are willing to go to entertain themselves, or a symptom of creeping mental illness attendant upon dipping one’s French fries in mayonnaise. It could well be both. One thing I will say; this is progressive rock at its finest, because the lads in Focus don’t sound like they’re arrogantly looking down their nose at rock’n’roll and trying to make it more presentable to the hoity-toity by means of a lethal injection of classical music, but rather like they’re too fucked up on LSD or some such to recognize there is a distinction to be made between classical music and rock’n’roll.

“Hocus Pocus” is without a doubt the most twisted creature to ever wander yodeling onto the U.S. pop charts, but Focus was not some one-trick Dutch pony. No sirree. Focus was a veritable Dutch oven of musical inventiveness, as can be heard on the 2014 compilation Golden Oldies. Besides “Hocus Pocus”—and really, anything Focus produced in addition to “Hocus Pocus” constitutes a classic case of gilding the lily—you get the Jethro Tull flute pyrotechnics of the spritely and most excellent “House of the King,” the very lovely interplay between guitar and organ that is “Focus 1,” and the hard funk instrumental turned triumphal march that is “Sylvia.” Why, “Sylvia” alone is worth the cost of the album, which may or may not be hard to get your paws on but is probably the apple of the eye of every record collector in the Netherlands, so I recommend you start there.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Songs From The Wood is often referred to as one of the most commercially appealing Jethro Tull albums, containing elements of rock, prog and folk-rock. Although media reaction at the time divided opinion, the album has certainly developed a nostalgic rapport with fans through the years and it is perceived today as one of the band’s most popular albums.

Drummer Barrie Barlow comments that it sounds “Fresh, unique, great textures, interesting and dynamic!,” while guitarist Martin Barre remembers that, “It was a very tight band, one of the strongest line-ups Tull ever had… I think that Songs From The Wood and Heavy Horses [the follow-up album] as a pair of albums are near the top of the tree.”

The first disc of the set contains the Steven Wilson remix of the original studio album, accompanied by associated recordings. This includes the tracks “Old Aces Die Hard” and “Working John, Working Joe,” which are being released here for the first time on any format. “Old Aces Die Hard,” a title Ian Anderson recently gave the track in a subtle nod to Motörhead’s Lemmy Kilmister, is, according to Ian “an extraordinary find, because it’s a long piece, and quite evolved, and one that sounds like it is pretty much complete—it doesn’t sound as if it was waiting for me or anyone else in the band to go back and redo vocals or guitars or whatever.”

Discs 2 and 3 form 22 live tracks recorded on the Songs From The Wood Tour across two dates: Boston Garden, Boston, Massachusetts, USA on December 6, 1977 and Capital Centre, Landover, Maryland, USA on November 21, 1977. These tracks have been reconstructed as a complete set and then remixed to stereo by Jakko Jakszyk and are completely unheard.

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“We didn’t necessarily grow up with vinyl—it was like a forbidden fruit. Now that we’ve leveled up, we have tasted the fruit.”

“We all live together and have a band record collection in our house. In our collection, we have an assortment of sounds—Star Trek, Whale calls, Mahler, but our favorite records are by our friends. We tend to buy records mostly at the gig. Buying a band’s vinyl directly from them at a live show not only supports the band, but forms a nostalgic experience that can be re-lived every time we spin it.

Being a band in Boston and running a DIY space, we have gotten to know a lot of bands in the area. Getting an album pressed is a big deal. And our friends’ getting their albums pressed is an even bigger deal.

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Of all the names contained within the storied history of rock and roll, few have contributed more to the tradition, and done so in a greater number of ways, than Lenny Kaye.

Alongside the inimitable rock and roll poetess Patti Smith, Kaye has taken up lead guitar duties for over four decades now, infusing sanctified albums such as Horses and Radio Ethiopia with driving riffs and licks to go around. As a producer, Kaye has manned the helm for a great deal of his recordings with Smith, even producing their debut single of “Hey Joe / Piss Factory” on his very own Mer Records, as well as worked with underground folkie Suzanne Vega on a number of albums.

Through his writing, Kaye ups the ante for all so-called dual threats. Though he has contributed to many of the Patti Smith Group’s most enduring songs, such as the reggae slab “Redondo Beach” and the experimental title track to Radio Ethiopia, his writing as a music historian and critic is every bit as vital and essential.

Rising to initial prominence as one of the original rock writers, Kaye contributed to every music publication imaginable over the course of the 1970s, from Rolling Stone and Creem to Melody Maker and Crawdaddy. Unlike some of the more self-aggrandizing members (who shall remain nameless) of the early intelligentsia, Kaye maintained a quality to his writing that was just as pithy as it was lyrical. Whether he was attempting to summate the rise and fall of Hendrix or waxing poetic on the latest and greatest Stooges LP, he always made certain to place the music front and center. Plus, he remains one of the select few critics from the period to not completely execrate Zeppelin, but more on that later.

There’s also this little thing called Nuggets. Perhaps the most influential collection of music ever assembled, Kaye’s 1972 compilation of eclectic gems from the mid-to-late ’60s rock and roll renaissance presented the raw energy of the period at its finest and boldest, providing the blueprint for countless bands to follow, including a great many of the acts to emerge from the New York City punk circuit in the latter half of 1970s.

The Patti Smith Group is currently at work in the land down under, and we caught up with Kaye just before the southbound journey to talk the usual suspects: Nuggets lingo, 45 fairs, free jazz, and music journalism.

You’re more than likely aware of this, but I feel obligated to mention that the Aussies were putting out some absurdly great rock and roll back in the ’70s with groups like Radio Birdman and the Scientists, so it’s no surprise that you’ve got a nice little following down there.

Totally, and I’m going to do a couple DJ nights there playing what they call obscure ’60s garage rock, even though I don’t think it’s probably as obscure as some of the collector fiends would like. But yeah, I’m going to DJ and they seem very receptive to the sounds of classic, high-energy rock and roll.

I think it’s absolutely dumbfounding how the songs you had on that collection were so overlooked to the point where they needed reviving in the first place.

Oh, it’s amazing, but the music was changing so quickly then. It came out in ’72 and the latest song on there, by the Nazz (“Open My Eyes”), was from ’68. Things were changing very rapidly, where something that just came out a few years ago seemed like a part of ancient history. It was great to put it together. I didn’t have the long distance hindsight that probably would’ve made the record less interesting. I would’ve made it more “garage rock” as opposed to these kind of weirder things, like Sagittarius or even the Blues Project. A lot of it falls outside the parameters of what we’ve come to define as garage rock.

But, y’know, I was just feeling my way and not really sure that Elektra would even put out this album, so I was just having some fun and putting a lot of my favorite songs that seemed to fit together in a concept called Nuggets, which was kind of an open-ended concept the way Jac Holzman gave it to me. I was there and I had an opportunity. I didn’t invent this music, I just appreciated it, and it continues to live on, amazingly enough.

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The mission statement is short and sweet: Superior Viaduct’s sub-label États-Unis focuses on “unconventional sounds from truly unique artists.” Their initial batch of releases fits the description perfectly, offering the compilation Highlights of Vortex, Eight Electronic Pieces by Tod Dockstader, “ ” by Die Tödliche Doris, Bikini Tennis Shoes by Le Forte Four, and In Performance by Joe Jones, all on clear vinyl in editions of 500. In tough consumer news, the online bundle is sold out, as is “ ” at Superior Viaduct’s website. Advice? Snatch up the remaining four without delay, scour retail bins for stray copies of the Die Tödliche Doris, hope for a second edition, and keep eyes peeled for further developments.

In taking a cross-generational and stylistically varied approach to the unusual, États-Unis has set itself up for the long haul. Spanning from the end of the ’50s to the early ’80s, the label’s first five selections resist chronological matrix ordering; instead, after investigating the bohemian and DIY impulses of the mid-20th century, they undertake a big jump forward into the post-punk fringe. Then, a smaller move backward into prescient California-based strangeness and a culminating entry establishing circular thematic unity. Taken in the order of their spine numbering, it’s an enlightening ride.

Highlights of Vortex is a 1959 LP documenting the Vortex Experiments, an audio-visual experience organized by sound artist and performer Henry Jacobs and experimental filmmaker Jordan Belson, with the aim of stimulating the senses to the maximum degree. It played from ’57-’60, initially at San Francisco’s Morrison Planetarium and later at the SF Museum of Art; this album includes selections by David Talcott, Gordon Longfellow, William Loughborough, and Jacobs himself.

Henry Jacobs deftly straddled all sorts of artistic worlds, befriending and collaborating with Karlheinz Stockhausen, Ken Nordine, Alan Watts, Lenny Bruce, and numerous writers, some of them fitting the Beat description. The opening track from The Wide Weird World of Shorty Petterstein, a ’58 album for World Pacific where Jacobs mingles satire and the surreal through the guise of the title character, can be found on Rhino’s ’02 CD The Best of the Beat Generation; his output has been reissued by Locust Music and Important, the latter featuring a DVD of his ’70s television work.

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