Monthly Archives: January 2019

It’s been nearly five years since the American composer Robert Ashley passed at age 83. Noted if underrated as a groundbreaker in the field of 20th century opera, he’s just as appropriately described as a leader in the modern avant-garde. But where many of his contemporaries were minimal, Ashley was labyrinthine. This may lead a novice to conclude that his work was formally rigorous or even downright severe, but in fact his mature work can be quite accessible while possessing depth that’s effectively inexhaustible. Private Parts is a crucial serving of the man’s brilliance, and on February 1 it’s getting reissued on vinyl by the folks who put it out way back in 1978, the aptly named Lovely Music, Ltd.

In chronological terms, Robert Ashley’s recording career dates to the 1957 piece “The Fox,” a five-minute hunk of vocals and early electronic manipulation inspired by a Burl Ives song. This is followed by “The Bottleman” in 1960, a much longer tape composition utilizing contact mics, loudspeaker, voice and other found sounds that was conceived to accompany the film of the same title by George Manupelli.

But the public at large didn’t get to opportunity to experience these pieces until 2003, when the Italian label Alga Marghen issued them on the CD Wolfman, where they were combined with the title track, an 18-minute blast of feedback, drone and vocals performed at Charlotte Moorman’s Festival of the Avant-Garde that’s been called the most extreme thing Ashley’s ever done.

A 15-minute “Wolfman” from ’67, performed as part of the University of California at Davis’ First Festival of Live-Electronic Music, hit wax as side-A of the 2×10-inch compilation/ magazine combo Source: Music Of The Avant Garde Issue Number 4, but that wasn’t Ashley’s debut on record, as his “In Memorium Crazy Horse (symphony)” was part of the ’66 comp Music from the ONCE Festival.

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It would be way too easy to slap a “melodic death metal” label on Sweden’s Avatar, but we’d be cheating ourselves.

I mean, it’s not easy to create an entirely new world called “Avatar Country” where the king is referred to as “the savior of mankind” and performs from a golden throne as part of an elaborate stage production. The makeup, the theatrics, and over the top costumes could easily be written off as gimmicky, but I had to see this for myself. Is the band overhyped? Does the production overshadow the music? I’m happy to report that the answer is a resounding no, to both.

The reality is that these guys are tremendous musicians, but possess the even more important trait needed to pull off this over-the-top, twisted circus—fun—something these guys have in abundance. It reminds me of the glory days of MTV, or more specifically Headbangers Ball when videos meant something and the best ones told a story. These guys lean in on the visuals and storytelling, and it works brilliantly in their videos without becoming a caricatures. Musically Avatar is all over the place, it’s controlled chaos, and it’s really fucking weird at times. It’s truly a cornucopia of styles grounded in hard and fast technical metal.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Over the years, the world’s most timeless musical artists have done more than create sound: they’ve put forth enduring images that invoke a flood of memory and emotion. Every year at the Grammys, legendary musicians gather to applaud the vision that goes into creating a song, an album, and an overall image that makes an indelible mark on hearts as well as history.

With the Grammys fast approaching, Morrison Hotel Gallery is saluting the canon of history-making musical legends with a world-class exhibition, A Grammy Celebration: Covers, as well as a special exhibit honoring Aretha Franklin. The exhibition will be open to the public beginning February 9th and run through March 1st at Morrison Hotel Gallery, located inside the beautiful Sunset Marquis Hotel in West Hollywood. Gallery hours can be found here.

The photographs that appear on the covers of some of the best albums in music history are inseparable from the music that’s contained inside. These images, captured by the world’s most talented photographers, are intricately tied to the sound and the overall message of the music itself. From the Mick Rock photo shoot that brought about the cover for Queen’s smash Queen II album (and was the inspiration for the “Bohemian Rhapsody” music video) to Frank Stefanko’s gritty shots of Bruce Springsteen that grace the covers of albums such as Darkness on the Edge of Town, the albums and the artwork are forever connected.

“The Grammys are always an exciting time of year for us to celebrate the best music on the planet!” said Los Angeles gallery director Casey Fannin-Kaplan. “This year we wanted to pay tribute to all of the photographers whose hard work made it on the iconic album covers we all know and love. The album art is so essential to the music—you can’t have one memory without the other. Our exhibition will juxtapose the original photograph next to the album cover it was used for, so get ready to go down memory lane!”

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“Growing up in a mid-sized, rust-belt city produced an experience we can only imagine was matched by any other middle-class American city: angsty teenagers listening to punk and hardcore, going to shows and buying obscure 7” records from the band passing through on whatever night the local promoters decided to book a show.”

“Our story is no different; it’s how my collection started. Round up any and all of the records you could at every show. Every subsequent trip to the record store was unique and exciting. ‘What will I find today?’ As high school progressed so did my tastes, moving from hardcore and punk to more ‘refined’ things like indie rock. The smaller the label, the weirder the cover art (surely coming stock with sound to match,) the more it felt like I was in on some big secret, or in an exclusive club, but one I couldn’t wait to talk about or share with my friends. Or anyone else who would listen.

Fast forward to college when musical tastes begin to expand and blossom—the sounds became more experimental, more underground, harder to find, or maybe they were just the deeper cuts from favorite pop, R&B, hip hop, or rock artists. The internet could now lead you down a rabbit hole you would follow from your computer screen to the record store where you would dig into every crate until you found those bizarre and left of center records—the ones you know aren’t a dime a dozen or found in the dollar bin of your local thrift store. Your membership to the club you joined in high school was just renewed for life.

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Like many rock genius types David Bowie had a way of cooly disposing of people like used tissues, but he reserved his shabbiest treatment for guitarist Mick Ronson, who during his tenure with the Spiders from Mars came as close as anyone ever would to sharing equal footing on stage with Ziggy Stardust himself.

They were like Mick and Keith, and frankly poor Ronno, who by all accounts was one of the nicest guys to ever pick up an electric guitar or any other instrument for that mater, never got over Bowie’s peremptory and very cold-blooded decision to sweep him (and his fellow Spiders) into the dustbin of history.

One of Bowie’s (and Mainman bad guy/manager Tony Defries’) “cosmetic” reasons for breaking up the Spiders from Mars was (ostensibly) to give Ronson the opportunity to make his mark as a solo artist, but just about anything I’ve ever read on the subject makes clear Ronson was decidedly uncomfortable as a front man and was anything but enthused about the idea. He was a behind the scenes guy, great at arranging songs and a natural second fiddle on stage what with his incredible guitar playing, but singularly uninterested in being in the limelight.

Throw in the fact that he didn’t have the most distinctive voice and wasn’t a prolix songwriter, and you have several good reasons why his 1974 solo debut Slaughter on 10th Avenue, while chock-a-block with impressive moments and some exemplary playing, underwhelms.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Thomas Nelson, a division of HarperCollins, announced the cover for the upcoming memoir by country music legend Randy Travis in an exclusive with People.com. The book is available now for preorder on Amazon and other retailers.

In his long-awaited memoir, Forever and Ever, Amen: A Memoir of Music, Faith, and Braving the Storms of Life, Travis opens up for the first time, sharing the deeply personal stories of his life. From a troubled, working-class childhood in North Carolina to the Country Music Hall of Fame; from a broken marriage to a miraculous daily recovery from viral cardiomyopathy, flatlining, massive stroke and coma, Travis, with the help of best-selling author Ken Abraham, tells his story of perseverance and redemption from start to finish.

“I didn’t really feel I had a book to write until I stood on the distant shore and looked back over the ripples my life has made—on myself and on others. My songs were the stories of my life and I learned from those who listened, they were theirs too—my fans inspired me and continue to do so,” said Randy Travis.

With candid, never-before-told details, Travis recounts his troubled youth full of drinking and stealing cars, a tense relationship with his father, and the rollercoaster ride of more than 40 years in the music and acting industry. He also shares the highs that came after playing “Forever and Ever, Amen” for the first time; having 18 number one hits and selling more than 25 million albums; and most importantly, the faith that has seen him through all of it.

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What if Hüsker Dü came from the deep south instead of the frozen north? It’d probably sound a lot like Holiday Gunfire, the Birmingham, AL, band of rock veterans whose ringing barrage of guitars and unerring bottom serve to encase melodic turns in seething vocals.

Guitarist Lester Nuby III, a noted producer who was also part of Verbena, churns up the trebly guitar and provides a yearning vocal drone not dissimilar to the kind Bob Mould did in Minnesota. Sparks fly in Nuby’s guitar interplay with Jason Hamric, formerly of Twinside (and a force behind Birmingham’s underground radio station).

Behind them bassist Craig Ceravolo, once of Great Lakes and drummer Michael Williams, who played in 13 Ghosts and Nowhere Squares, balance all that treble with a solid and shattering bottom end.

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