Monthly Archives: March 2019

VIA PRESS RELEASE | To celebrate her 50th wedding anniversary, Yoko Ono will release a special reissue of Wedding Album, out Friday 22nd March with Chimera Music and Secretly Canadian. Its release comes 50 years after Yoko and John were married – to mark the golden wedding anniversary of two of the 20th century’s most emblematic cultural figures.

Originally released in 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Wedding Album was the couple’s third experimental, album-length record, following Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins (1968) and Unfinished Music No. 2: Life with the Lions (1969). Wedding Album has been often cited as the most remarkable of the duo’s testaments to an intense romantic and artistic partnership that would last 14 years, until Lennon’s tragic passing in 1980.

As Lennon later recalled, the two artists first met in late 1966, when Ono was preparing an exhibition of her conceptual art in London. On 20th March 1969, John and Yoko were married in a civil service in Gibraltar. To celebrate the event, in lieu of a conventional honeymoon, the newlyweds spent a week in bed at the Hilton Hotel in Amsterdam, inviting members of the press into their room for interviews and photo sessions to call attention to their campaign for world peace.

With Wedding Album, Lennon and Ono created an enduring snapshot of a vibrant pop-cultural moment, with the hostilities of the Vietnam War as its backdrop. The album features “John & Yoko,” a call-and-response duet, which features John and Yoko calling out each other’s names seductively and playfully over the sound of their heartbeat as well as clips from interviews with reports and John’s acapella version of the Beatles’ song “Good Night.” Altogether, Wedding Album captures the humour, earnestness, and spontaneity that marked the early years of the “Ballad of John and Yoko” era.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Murder In The Front Row: The San Francisco Bay Area Thrash Metal Story will premiere next month on Saturday, April 20 at AMC Kabuki 8 in San Francisco, CA at 1pm. Directed by Adam Dubin (Beastie Boys’ “Fight For Your Right to Party” & “No Sleep ‘til Brooklyn”), the film contains over fifty interviews with various metal stalwarts, (including Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Anthrax, Exodus, Testament, and Death Angel), telling its tall tales through a mix of first-person interviews, animation, and narration by comedian Brian Posehn.

“These are just good stories, and they are very human stories,” says Dubin. Narratively, MITFR follows the story of a group of young kids in Northern California with a shared passion for heavy rock bands like UFO, Iron Maiden, and Motorhead. “All these bands were mainly from England, and they never really toured the West Coast,” says Dubin. “So these young people started creating their own music, starting their own fanzines, booking clubs, and trading tapes. These were people who were adamant about music and the bands, but also each other.”

The documentary is loosely based on a 2012 photojournal of the same name by Harald Oimoen and Brian Lew. “What I loved about the book is that it wasn’t just about Metallica,” says Dubin. “It was documenting a vibrant scene, where all the bands were equal and there was real camaraderie. The photos captured the sweat of the clubs, the ringing in your ears, and the power of young people. Harald and Brian captured the humanity of it, and they understood that I was somebody who could bring that out in a film.”

Another strength of the film is shedding light on bands who never hit the heights of Metallica but certainly cast a wide influence — thrash forefathers Exodus in particular. “There’s a big four of metal that should really be a big five and include Exodus,” says Dubin. “I particularly think the movie will inspire viewers to re-evaluate the contributions of Kirk Hammett, who founded Exodus in the Bay Area three years before Metallica came to town. Kirk was the central mover who put the band together, guided the music, and found frontman wild man Paul Baloff.”

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On which Mr. Lou Reed, poète maudit of Long Island and member of the most influential avant-garde rock’n’roll band to ever sell about a thousand records, picks himself up a couple of guitar whiz Detroit boys best known for playing with Alice Cooper, pushes ‘em on stage at Howard Stein’s Academy of Music in New Yawk City, and proceeds to turn some of his most beloved Loutoons into heavy metal stompers.

1974’s Rock n Roll Animal Reed must have mortified the VU faithful, but it sure won him the big youth audience. When I fell in love with it I didn’t know the Velvet Underground from Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch, and I’ll never forget the day my older brother and I happened upon a copy of 1969: The Velvet Underground Live in the cheap-o bin at the Woolworth’s in Hanover and popped it into the 8-track on the way home. Did we like it? Hell no! We were so plumb disgusted with it we stopped the car, tossed it out the window, and BACKED THE CAR OVER IT!

In so far as populist moves go Rock n Roll Animal reminds me a lot of Dylan and the Band’s Before the Flood, released the same year. Both live LPs performed the same civic function–shot a buncha sacred songs full of steroids in blatant disregard of the tender feelings of the folks who adored the originals so as to bring ‘em to the hoi polloi (like me!). Fuck subtlety and crank up the volume was the recipe, and Robert Christgau’s words about Before the Flood (“I agree a few of [these songs] will never walk again, but I treasure the sacrilege”) apply as well to Rock n Roll Animal.

Me, I always appreciate a big hard rock move, and Lou pulls this one off without even showing any armpit sweat. The album’s built on the boffo twin guitar attack of Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner, who alternately play it pretty (the legendary “Intro” to “Sweet Jane”) or go the heavyweight route (“Sweet Jane” itself). For the most part the band keeps things hammer-to-thumb simple, the exception being the epic version of “Heroin,” on which they aim for majesty (albeit a very twisted sort of majesty) and hit the nail on the noggin.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | German label Groenland Records reissues The Bells of 12, the 2006 debut solo album from Sol Seppy, the project of British singer-songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist, Sophie Michalitsianos. She was a member of the band Sparklehorse and toured with Radiohead. The Bells of 12 is out April 13 on vinyl for Record Store Day followed by a CD and digital release on April 19.

All of the songs on The Bells of 12 were written and arranged over two years by Michalitsianos, a classically trained pianist and cellist. Born in England, and growing up between there and Australia, she was raised with music in her blood, beginning to write songs as early as 5 years old.

At sixteen, Sophie wrote music for television documentaries and lent her vocal abilities for free studio time at the EMI studios in Australia. For the next few years, labels would approach her with offers, provided she shifted her image to fit their ideals and sing the pop songs their producers wrote. She politely declined and continued on her own path of exploration. Here Sophie reached a peculiar juncture and went to university with the intention of becoming a diplomat. She soon shifted courses and was accepted into the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where she studied contemporary composition and orchestration. In due course, she began making a name for herself as Australia’s improvising rock cellist, touring with numerous acts, though the position soon wore itself out and Sophie decided it was time to move on.

At twenty-three she moved to the US and not long after received word that Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse had heard her music and wanted her to join them for their tour with Radiohead. Sophie obliged and contributed on Sparklehorse’s albums, Good Morning Spider and It’s A Wonderful Life.

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British singer-songwriter Tom Wardle creates plaintive and powerful country-rock, full of grit and golden-hued ’70s vibes.

The title-track from his gorgeous little 5 song EP, “Jacqueline,” is Wardle at his best, throwing his husky voice around like Rod Stewart in his heyday, milking his melodies over a jangly bed of drums and glowing organ. His soulful cry is suited for this kind of ballad, which reaches anthemic heights without losing the feeling of being grounded in reality. It’s no wonder that Tom has become fixture at high-end events around the globe with spins on the BBC and celebrity endorsements becoming a regular thing.

The “Jacqueline” EP arrived in stores this past February and features a set of impressive Americana-leaning gems and even a dip into reggae. All these tracks are worth a listen and provide a more upbeat approach than “Jacqueline,” and come across as raw, potent, and unprocessed. Wardle is one of the more promising crooners in recent years and it is clear that he knows how to play on his strengths, especially when given the space to serve the song in an intimate, slow burning way as he does on “Jacqueline.”

VIA PRESS RELEASE | “For me the music here brings a joyful tear. How wonderful to get a sense of the entire arc of Ronnie’s work, rough and smooth, lost and found.” —Pete Townshend

Ronnie Lane, bass player for the Small Faces and the Faces—songwriter behind iconic songs such as “Ooh La La,” “Itchycoo Park,” “The Poacher,” “Annie and Debris.” In many ways Ronnie Lane remains an enigma in the story of rock ‘n’ roll. An artist who was determined to chart his own destiny and break free from the demands of the music “business.” His sense of disillusion with the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle led him to leave his hugely successful band for a ramshackle country farm (Fishpool) and a life on the road (of sorts…) He assembled a new band—Ronnie Lane’s Slim Chance—and would create The Passing Show—a now legendary circus tent tour of the country with assorted clowns, acrobats and comedians. To further his ambition to do as he pleased musically, he built his own recording studio—The Lane Mobile Studio—itself an icon in the history of rock recordings.

Ronnie created a sound that was unique in British music, a style that leaned heavily on an array of influences particularly folk, country music, and later r ’n’ b with welcome contributions from the band of musicians he surrounded himself with. Ronnie was not alone in his rural idyll—many friends would join him in his new artistic endeavours—Gallagher and Lyle, Kevin Westlake, Billy Livesey as well as Ronnie Wood, Pete Townshend, and Eric Clapton (the latter wrote “Wonderful Tonight” round the fire at Ronnie’s Fishpool Farm). Eventually the symptoms of MS would surface and in the ’80s Ronnie would move to Austin, Texas where he still wrote and performed up until his death in 1997.

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