Monthly Archives: October 2017

VIA PRESS RELEASE | From 1968 to 1978, Blue Thumb Records was one of music’s most adventurous and imaginative record labels, with a far-ranging roster of cutting-edge acts and an unconventional visual sensibility. Nurturing an eclectic assortment of artists from a wide variety of genres, Blue Thumb embodied the restless creative spirit of the era in which it was born, reflecting the emerging attitude that albums were worthy of being taken seriously as artistic statements.

Blue Thumb’s expansive musical vision was anthologized on the 1995 label retrospective All Day Thumbsucker Revisited. Verve Records/UMe is releasing the long-out-of-print collection, originally compiled by Gary Katz, known for his work with Steely Dan, in an updated two-CD edition on the eve of next year’s 50th anniversary of Blue Thumb’s founding. The first in a projected series of releases to celebrate the revered label, the CD set offers 32 vintage tracks spread across two discs, while the digital edition, due November 10, marks the first time this collection will be available as a digital download and for streaming. In showcasing Blue Thumb’s influential artist roster, the album also honors the iconoclastic musical vision of late label founders Bob Krasnow, who died on December 11, 2016, and Tommy LiPuma, who passed away on March 13, 2017.

Danny Bennett, President & CEO of Verve Label Group comments, “With the release of All Day Thumbsucker Revisited, we are so proud to honor Tommy LiPuma and Bob Krasnow by celebrating their Blue Thumb Records legacy and the incredible music they curated, all of which is well represented on this must-have collection.”

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“The new record, Woodland Echoes, I made for vinyl. That was the main thing, to make it an album. This is my first album that came out on vinyl since, well, the late ‘80s probably.”

“Even though it was made in my spare room, it’s a record, so I planed it like a record. I compiled it like, Side A, Side B, six tracks, six tracks, and there’s a story. So I thought, OK, and I made an album.

The concept of an album hasn’t gone away at all. I think people misunderstood. They thought when vinyl wasn’t selling they mistook it for the album going away. It’s a bit like thinking if books aren’t selling, then the novel is obsolete. It’s not. The stories are always going to be there. People will need—I will need—stories in that way.

The album concept is always there. I was brought up on albums, so I think albums. So even through the time of CDs, it was still an album, really. It just wasn’t vinyl—even if I wanted it to be vinyl. I didn’t like the plastic thing—I wanted it to be vinyl.

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John Frusciante is primarily known as a guitarist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, filling that role from 1988-’92 and again from ’98-’07. Shortly after his first departure, a collection of the guy’s home recordings saw release on Rick Rubin’s Universal subsidiary American Recordings. Due to the RHCP association, Niandra LaDes and Usually Just a T-Shirt’s ragged, surreal atmosphere has likely confounded more listeners than it’s thrilled, as major label-funded records don’t get much stranger. In a sweet development, Superior Viaduct has given it its first ever vinyl issue in a gatefold jacket with printed inner sleeves; the bonus pre-order 7-inch is sold out, but the meat of the matter is available now.

During the post-grunge and Alternative/ Indie ’90s, the once cool, calm and collected major labels were scrambling amid uncertain waters, signing acts with reckless abandon and funding a bunch of sub-labels and side ventures along the way; the economy was booming, after all, and nobody wanted to miss out on a potential Next Big Thing.

These circumstances resulted in a few truly bizarre records receiving corporate funding. A pair of examples: in ’92, Reprise issued Pop Tatari by Japan’s Boredoms, which gave underground noise rock the Carl Stalling treatment, and two years later Geffen released Zero Tolerance for Silence, a solo noise excursion by noted and normally well-mannered jazz fusion guitarist Pat Metheny.

Niandra LaDes and Usually Just a T-Shirt also came out in 1994, and if it was better received than Metheny’s curious one-off stylistic left turn, the overall response, seeing that it was the debut solo album from the former guitarist of one of the most popular rock bands of the era, was still somewhat muted.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | The 110 Best Australian Albums is sure to re-ignite one of the most heated arguments around Australian music this summer.

In 2010, three of Australia’s most highly regarded music writers—John O’Donnell, Toby Creswell and Craig Mathieson—thought it was time there was a definitive overview of contemporary Australian music: the best-selling book The 100 Best Australian Albums. The book highlighted the albums that have had the greatest influence on the musical fabric of our country. It celebrated the desert soundscapes of Midnight Oil’s Diesel and Dust; the sampladelic madness of the Avalanches; the unique, Australian narratives of Cold Chisel, Paul Kelly and Slim Dusty; the international explosions of AC/DC , Kylie, Silverchair and Nick Cave, and the influential noise of The Saints, The Birthday Party, The Drones, and more.

Fast-forward to 2017 and the three authors and Hardie Grant decided it was time for a new edition—The 110 Best Australian Albums. In those 7 years, the Australian music landscape has changed markedly, experiencing widespread digital disruption, the globalisation and open economy of the streaming world … and the emergence of Sia’s weird and wonderful wigs. More than ever, Australian music is plugged into the international zeitgeist. Flume is on the forefront of an electronic vanguard; Courtney Barnett is showing what can be done with intelligent, witty lyrics and a guitar, bass, and drums; Tame Impala is huge around the world with its neo-classic psych rock… Australian music isn’t standing still and we shouldn’t either.

The book also includes exclusive guest essays from leading artists discussing some of these great albums and artists: Peter Garrett writes about Skyhooks, Rick Rubin discusses AC/DC, Hoodoo Gurus’ Brad Shepherd raves about Radio Birdman, Nick Cave waxes passionate on Dirty Three, Paul Dempsey talks about Courtney Barnett.

PHOTO: KIKI CONWAY | “Thaassophobia is the fear of boredom or idleness. In our hyper-connected modern society, we are constantly stimulated. New lives enter the world bombarded by more light and sound than ever before.”

“We are now challenged by the prospect of sitting alone in a room in silence. Without an LED glow or the dull ping of a text message, how do we measure a day in a life? This is the new reality. Technology, and the real-time availability of boundless, immeasurable information, has come to replace the silence and tranquility of a still moment. It’s becoming harder and harder for human beings to hold attention. Everything happens, everyday. Everything is news. Everything is packaged for maximum attention and impact. There is no such thing as boredom anymore.

But if we are to be constantly stimulated, what does boredom even mean anymore? We are bored now not by our lack of access to excitement, but rather to its ubiquity. We are bored by stimulation. Thaassophobia (also spelled Thassophobia) is the irrational fear of boredom, idleness, or stillness. The Thaassophobic personality is one that is constantly moving, constantly shifting, constantly searching for the next shiny object. Something happens when nothing happens in our lives.”
—Nathan Lithgow

NØMADS are releasing one new song from their sophomore album PHOBIAC each month in 2017 leading up to its official release in February 2018. We’re pleased to premiere October’s “THAASSOPHØBIA.”

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Press Play is our Monday recap of the new and FREE tracks received last week to inform the next trip to your local indie record store.

Warning Light – At the End of the Road
Goon – Monday Monday Monday (Tegan & Sara Cover)
Lone Kodiak – Someone Else’s Future
Caroline Reese – Ease My Mind
Emily Curtis – Battleshade
Daniel Ellsworth + The Great Lakes – CONTROL
Pistoleros – NYC Queen
rotoscope – Clean Lines

TVD SINGLE OF THE WEEK:
Bloods – Bug Eyes

Helen Kelter Skelter – GUUD
TOMKAT – Drowning
Beat Fatigue – Dragonfruit Funk
Neosho – Big G
CO Defendants – 100
BROHUG – Boogieman
Hi I’m Ghost – 1NGHT
Friskie Business – Friskie Business presents Funk The World 41

I’ve spent decades trying to fathom the pull Frampton Comes Alive! had on me when it came out during my senior year in high school back in 1976. It couldn’t have been Frampton’s pureed baby food take on hard rock, or the songs that went on forever, or Frampton’s “talking guitar,” or those ubiquitous pop touchstones “Show Me the Way” and “Baby, I Love Your Way” even.

No, I’ve been searching my soul for years, and I’ve finally figured it out: Peter Frampton was the hottest babe I’d ever laid eyes on. Just check out the album’s cover. Frampton is a bigger turn on than seventies’ sex symbol Farrah Fawcett, God rest her soul, and I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I didn’t want to listen to the Framp so much as lose my virginity to him. And I don’t think I was alone. I suspect a very large swath of America’s hormonal teen nerds longed to bed Peter Frampton, cock and all. And he made the girls scream as well, which certainly helps to explain his otherwise uncanny rise to superduperstardom.

And that’s really all I have to say about Frampton Comes Alive! I doubt many of my acned cohort still listen to it; I certainly don’t know anybody who does. That said, an album came with the swoon-worthy cover, and like most album that album has songs on it. So I feel obligated to say a few brief superfluous words on those really rather superfluous songs.

The first word that comes to mind, when taking the album as a whole, is limp. Not limpid, mind you, but limp. There’s a difference. Frampton may have emerged from Steve Marriott’s very very ‘eavy Humble Pie, but he was always the squishy side of the HP equation, and it shows on his take of Humble Pie’s “Shine On” as well as on his menace-free cover of “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.” True, the latter has more stones than anything else on Frampton Comes Alive! besides “(I’ll Give You) Money,” on which Peter demonstrates that he has chops. But “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” is overly polite at best, and hardly designed to put a scare in your granny.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Tom Waits is set to release this year, newly remastered versions of each of his acclaimed albums in the Anti- catalog. In addition, the album Real Gone has been fully remixed and individual releases of each of the 3 discs of Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards will be available early 2018.

Remastering significantly improves the quality of sound files and restores the integrity and intent of the original recording. Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan personally oversaw this process for both the vinyl and digital formats of the catalog. Tom Waits explains, ”This restoration project could arrogantly be compared to restoring a faded tapestry, a painstaking process that requires meticulous attention to each color faded thread. Spending months on something completed once, many years ago was necessary though cursedly laborious for us.”

The albums roll out beginning November 2017 and continue through December. All albums will be available on 180 gram vinyl.

November 10 – Bad As Me
November 24 – Real Gone
November 24 – Blood Money
November 24 – Alice
December 01 – Glitter and Doom
December 15 – Mule Variations
2018 – Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards (released separately)

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