Monthly Archives: August 2018

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Lindsey Buckingham is widely considered one of the greatest guitarists and songwriters and musical expressionists of our time. A Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee and 3 time GRAMMY winner, Buckingham is best known as the producer, guitarist, vocalist, and chief songwriter for Fleetwood Mac and as a widely celebrated solo artist.

His forthcoming Solo Anthology – The Best of Lindsey Buckingham is a comprehensive record of this illustrious career. Out October 5th on Rhino Records, Buckingham’s Solo Anthology will be released as a 3-disc set on CD and digitally and will also be available as a single disc abridged release. A 6-LP vinyl release is slated for November 23rd. The album is available for pre-order now. Solo Anthology – The Best of Lindsey Buckingham includes album, live and alternate versions of some of Lindsey’s celebrated solo albums including cuts from Law and Order, Go Insane, Out of the Cradle, Under the Skin, Gift of Screws and Seeds We Sow and incorporates songs from his collaborative album with Christine McVie released in 2017.

The anthology features Buckingham’s film work with “Holiday Road” and “Dancin Across The USA” from the 1983 motion picture soundtrack to National Lampoon’s Vacation and “Time Bomb Town” from 1985’s Back to the Future. Live versions of Fleetwood Mac’s “Tusk” and “Go Your Own Way” round out the album, but the most thrilling tracks come in the form of two new songs that have never before been released, “Hunger” and “Ride This Road.”

Read More »

Sound reads from the archives, all summer long. —Ed.

Out of the UK’s punk scrap yard came Gary Numan, first as part of the ever more synth-imbued Tubeway Army and then as a solo artist for a long string of albums. His chart dominance in the waning moments of the ‘70s was fleeting but huge, and his most commercially successful run of LPs detail a pop-savvy artist of much deeper value than his hit singles; Replicas, The Pleasure Principle and an expanded Telekon see vinyl reissue in the US on December 11.

Gary Webb started out in the bands Mean Street and The Lasers; recording with neither (Mean Street waxed one song after his exit for the Live at the Vortex comp LP), after departing the latter with bassist Paul Gardiner they formed Tubeway Army with Webb’s uncle Jess Lidyard in the drum chair. Promptly signed by Beggars Banquet, with Webb on guitar they initially dished out beefy Bowie-influenced punk, the singles “That’s Too Bad” and “Bombers” later compiled with a mess of demos from the same era as The Plan.

It’s a cool acquisition for serious punk collectors, but ’78’s Tubeway Army was even better. By the point of its release Webb had adopted the name Gary Numan (he’d briefly wielded the handle Valerian) but his signature sound was still in development, the debut augmenting the punk excursions (which occasionally leaned into a hard rock/glam merger) and sci-fi themes (impacted by Phil K. Dick and William Burroughs) with interjections from a Minimoog discovered in the studio by Numan after recording began.

Tubeway Army is very good record with a few excellent spots and conversely a handful of lags; ‘79’s Replicas is more fully-formed, and while the group’s name remains on the cover it’s flanked by Numan’s on later editions; the LP is clearly his show and any doubts over such will be quickly dispelled by the icy/edgy opener “Me! I Disconnect from You.”

Read More »

Step back in time with me, won’t you, to the year 1965, when Dylan went electric, The Beatles went “Nowhere Man,” and a scruffy English R&B band called the The Rolling Stones released The Rolling Stones No. 2, which included a few tentative attempts at writing their own material.

In hindsight, the last named might be the most important musical occurrence of 1965, but Rolling Stones No. 2 isn’t a great album because it includes a trio of songs by what would become one of rock ’n’ roll’s most formidable songwriting teams. It’s a great album because The Rolling Stones had their R&R and R&B chops down, and were producing a cocksure product that belied their tender years.

So named because it was the second Rolling Stones LP released in England (if not in America), Rolling Stones No. 2 is a jaunty, swaggering romp through the archives of American popular music by a quintet of wide-eyed English lads who knew what they loved and were dead set on living up to the high standards of the artists who inspired them.

They kick first-generation rock ’n’ roll’s keister with their motorvatin’ version of Don “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” Raye’s “Down the Road Apiece,” which tools down the road just fine; prove they can’t be caught on their souped-up cover of Chuck Berry’s “You Can’t Catch Me,” on which they say goodbye to New Jersey forever; and go swamp rockabilly with a vengeance on their hand-clap heavy and reverberating take on Dale Hawkins’ immortal “Suzie Q,” which boasts lots of berserker drumming and some of the most frenzied guitar playing you’ll ever hear.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | The Kinks will release a 50th Anniversary Edition of one of the greatest British rock albums of all time The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society on BMG October 26th.

This essential album by one of the world’s best ever bands is defined by the extraordinary catalogue of Ray Davies’ songs, driven by brother Dave Davies’ power pop guitar and became the foundation of generations of British guitar pop. The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society cemented Ray Davies reputation as one of Britain’s greatest ever songwriters of his and any generation. “I think The Village Green Preservation Society is about the ending of a time personally for me in my life,” says Ray. “In my imaginary village. It’s the end of our innocence, our youth. Some people are quite old but in the Village Green, you’re never allowed to grow up. I feel the project itself as part of a life cycle.”

Somewhat overlooked upon its release in November 1968, The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society is now regarded as one of the best British albums ever recorded. Created in difficult circumstances by a band on the verge of disintegration and who refused to follow fashion, it is an album of timeless, perfectly crafted songs about growing up and growing old, and the decline of national culture and traditional ways. Enduring and unsurpassed, with its wit, sadness, quiet anger, regret and charm, it is generally considered the high point of The Kinks’ outstanding career and Ray Davies’ masterpiece.

Included in this anniversary edition are many previously unreleased tracks and versions, including the previously unreleased track “Time Song.” Despite never been included on a release, “Time Song” was performed by The Kinks at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in January 1973, celebrating Britain’s entry into the Common Market.

Read More »

“Vinyl records are beautiful and warm in a way no other format can compare.”

“The experience of bonding with an album on vinyl is infinitely more memorable than a digital introduction because of the record’s physicality and contextual weight. You get to sit down with a large piece of artwork, get lost in the text, smell the cardboard, and take in a thoughtfully curated set of songs from start to finish.

It’s more active and less passive. Unless you want to get up and move the needle, you’re most likely going to experience the album in its full sequence, and with an intentional presence that is lost in the age of streaming and clicking. That is what I love about the memories that emanate from my favorite vinyl records. They are memories that last.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | The singer, guitarist, and songwriter, best known for this work with Wilco, opens up about his past, his songs, the music, and the people that have inspired him.

Few bands have inspired as much devotion as the Chicago rock band Wilco, and it’s thanks, in large part, to the band’s singer, songwriter, and guiding light: Jeff Tweedy. But while his songs and music have been endlessly discussed and analyzed, Jeff has rarely talked so directly about himself, his life, and his artistic process. Until now.

In his long-awaited memoir, Jeff will tell stories about his childhood in Belleville, Illinois; the St. Louis record store, rock clubs, and live-music circuit that sparked his songwriting and performing career; and the Chicago scene that brought it all together. He’ll also talk in-depth about his collaborators in Uncle Tupelo, Wilco, and more; and write lovingly about his parents, wife Sue, and sons, Spencer and Sam.

Honest, funny, and disarming, Tweedy’s memoir will bring readers inside both his life and his musical process, illuminating his singular genius and sharing his story, voice, and perspective for the first time.

Lou Reed was so full of shit in his lifetime it was impossible to ever take a word he said seriously, so when he said of this unlikely 2011 collaboration with Metallica that it was “the best thing ever done by anybody,” it was easy to write it off as just more empty punk braggadocio by the guy who invented empty punk braggadocio.

And it was even easier to write off given that said collaboration, Lulu, is regularly featured on worst-ever album lists and received a largely hostile response from everybody from Pitchfork (who gave it a damning 1.0 out of 10) to noted rock critic Chuck Klosterman who wrote, “If the Red Hot Chili Peppers acoustically covered the 12 worst Primus songs for Starbucks, it would still be (slightly) better than this.”

Me, I gave it a cursory listen when it was released and promptly filed it under S for Suck. But something called me back–Lou, whom I love and hate, is always calling me back–and I’ll be damned if this much derided collaboration doesn’t have more than its fair share of alternately brutal, tender, cold-blooded, and yes even majestic moments.

Sure, most of the songs on this “concept album”–which returns us to the scene of 1973’s equally controversial Berlin–go on far too long, and both Reed and the boys in Metallica go out of their way to pummel normal human eardrums into cowering submission (just check out the hammering and unrelenting “The View,” on which Lou actually bellows). And it’s definitely not for fans of “Melodic Lou,” who opted to stay home during these proceedings.

Read More »

When jazz meets rock in the form of collaboration, the results are often well-intentioned and admirable but ultimately inessential. This is not the case with Ronda, which finds the expansive Chicago rock trio Mako Sica syncing up with the great percussionist Hamid Drake across four sides of vinyl. While Drake has extensive experience in jazz’s avant-free zone, the music here gravitates toward the gist of Mako Sica’s bag; amid an approach that’s reliably psychedelic, but with sharper than the average musicality, there are wordless vocals, guitar, occasional horns, and beaucoup rhythm. Intensity does build, but it’s with subtlety and gracefulness of interaction. It’s out now in an edition of 500 through Feeding Tube.

Mako Sica have been described as free-rock, but also desert rock, and the latter is a nice entry point into the sound offered on Ronda. Formed in 2007 by multi-instrumentalists Przemyslaw Drazek and Michael Kendrick (both formerly of the band Rope, who issued a couple of albums in the ’00s on Family Vineyard) plus Brent Fuscaldo, they don’t really specialize in freaking, spazzing, or even skronking.

However, they do like to drift and go deep, and can get heavy without underlining it. Through an ample discography including 2009’s Mayday at Strobe, the next year’s Dual Horizon, 2012’s Essence and last year’s Invocation (all LPs augmented by some cassette action and a split 12-inch with Zelienople), they can deftly inhabit established rock modes and make ‘em feel exciting rather than trite. Prior to the recording of the Renewal tape in 2015, Kendrick exited and Chaetan Newell joined, and so the lineup’s been since.

If Mako Sica’s output is plentiful, that’s in rock terms; compared to their partner in Ronda Hamid Drake, it’s tiny. This is standard for jazz, but what’s not so typical is the breadth of Drake’s recorded work both as an ensemble player and leader. Born in Monroe, LA, like Mako Sica, Drake is a resident of Chicago, first hitting record in the groups of the late saxophonist Fred Anderson, though he gets around so much that it might be better to describe him as a citizen of the world.

Read More »