Monthly Archives: October 2020

“My first records were metal: Judas Priest, AC/DC, Ozzy. It was the music that my friend’s big brothers listened to and therefore, so did we. It was the entire universe, as far as I was concerned. “

“I spent hours listening and wondering what it would be like to go to a concert. Ozzy and AC/DC frightened me at first.. but the more I listened the more I wanted get closer to all of it. I was obsessed.

The first time I heard the Ramones, I was all in. It was the coolest thing I could imagine. It sounded like the ’60s (another obsession that came later) but LOUD and FAST. It was catchy, weird, and simple enough for me to think I could try playing my own music someday.

I gave away all of my metal records the next day. It felt like a line in the sand. I started collecting Ramones records, then the Clash. That led to the Cure and the Smiths—it went on from there and branched out.

I love how vinyl creates its own time and space—it feels like an event. As a kid, I’d study the artwork while listening. It was all so other-worldly, so completely different from anything I knew about in my neighborhood in San Antonio, Texas.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Resist Phony Encores! is a selective memoir in the form of graphics, images, and mass communications by musician and songwriter Gruff Rhys. Rhys weaves anecdotes from his life in performance through designer and long-term collaborator Mark James’ xeroxed graphics and doctored photos, as well as cue cards, which—for the past 15 years—Rhys has used as a part of his live performances. The book—available for pre-order now via Hat & Beard Press—will be published on 2/21 and retails for $29.95. (Available for shipping from the UK on domestic postal rates.)

​Rhys, whose projects over the last few years have included a Super Furry Animals reunion tour, a gallery exhibition of his collection of internationally pilfered hotel soaps titled Hotel Shampoo, a much lauded book—and accompanying documentary—tracing an 18th century relative’s journey across North America in American Interior, and a steady stream of captivating solo recordings, is one of the UK’s most inventive and brilliant artists. Resist Phony Encores! begins with photographs of his pre-Super Furries punk band, a Welsh language group whose name translates roughly to “Coffee Beans For Everyone.”

Popular on Europe’s minority language punk rock circuit, Gruff cut his teeth as an outsider artist intent on infusing his work with irreverent, often absurdist, humor. His live shows have long been renowned for his playful encouragement of audience participation and fans will be familiar with many of these images, some of which have been made into a companion set of cue cards.

Applause! Louder! Thank You! These cue cards have gradually become more ambitious and absurd: Wild Abandon! Burger Franchise Opportunity! Generic Festival Reaction! The crowd generally goes wild on cue, prompting Rhys to seek explanations for the unimaginable highs and weirdness of life in music through the lens of crowd psychology. The book will appeal to students of linguistics, propaganda, and graphic design, and anyone interested in music and live performance.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Formed in 1984, Fields of the Nephilim is the creation of vocalist and front man Carl McCoy. Highly influential, especially in the world of goth, but also within the metal and electronic genres, their legacy endures to this day. You can hear their influence on bands like Swans, Godspeed! You Black Emperor, Explosions In The Sky, Wolves in The Throne Room, Behemoth and more. Carl McCoy has even been called the “Uncle” of black metal.

​Beggars Arkive are happy to announce a 30th anniversary vinyl reissue, out December 11th, of their third highly acclaimed album Elizium, released by Beggars Banquet in 1990. Recorded and produced by Pink Floyd engineer Andy Jackson, the audio is via analogue transfer to 96khz/24 bit by John Dent at Loud, with vinyl mastering by Geoff Pesche at Abbey Road. It’s pressed on dark green 180g vinyl.

The band’s unique sound, an apocalyptic fusion of Victorian underworld meets Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western, had an appearance to match (wide-brimmed hats, long duster coats and cowboy boots, usually black and smothered in white flour as a substitute for dust), and set them apart from their contemporaries.

“When everything else failed me the Nephilim inspired me and gave me light in the darkness. As a musical vessel, we have never sold our soul or changed our tune to achieve major recognition. We always stood apart from everything else that was going on around us. The goth scene embraced us, but then so did many other scenes and subcultures. In the early days the audiences didn’t know how to take us but that is why we did what we wanted to do and certainly were not interested in doing what other bands were doing.” —Carl McCoy

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Casual research into the name Joe “King” Carrasco reveals the synopsis of a manic Tex-Mex bandleader better suited for the club stage than to the purposes of recording LPs. Mention his name to someone who’s seen him in action and you’ll likely hear an enthused recollection of a wild and happy night. Listen to Mil Gracias a Todos Nuestros Amigos, the 1980 Stiff Records debut of Carrasco and the Crowns, and the ear will be greeted by 12 songs from a group that from under the wide umbrella of the New Wave was briefly able to transfer their wild performance-based abandon into the grooves of long-playing vinyl.

There’s been a lot of debate over the years regarding the value of the late-‘70s musical surge known as New Wave. Setting aside the zealous haters that simply could not abide the movement’s departures from the Zeppelin/Eagles Arena Rock model, many detractors continue to associate the term with a weakening of the punk aesthetic set in motion by acts looking for wider success as encouraged by the interests of parties that were largely if not completely mercantile in character.

Naturally, some kernels of truth reside in this assessment, as the linguistic sleight of hand of Seymour Stein’s “Don’t Call it Punk” campaign easily attests. But naturally, it’s a far more complex situation than that. For example, new wave’s proponents often describe it as music made in direct response to ‘70s arena rock having reached a juncture of stylistic exhaustion, and for emphasis they point directly to the recycling of the buzzword applied to the cinematic uprising known as the Nouvelle Vague, which in the US, Great Britain and elsewhere was translated under the heading of the French New Wave.

That much needed and still influential development in film was surely a break with its home country’s Tradition of Quality, but it was also delivered by a small handful of auteurs, the most famous being Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Éric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette, and Claude Chabrol. Displeased with “a certain tendency in the French cinema” they surely all were, and they did certainly set themselves to the task of creating something fresh.

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With Strum & Thrum: The American Jangle Underground 1983-1987, Captured Tracks kicks off their Excavations compilation series with a 2LP deep dive into a scene, both regional and national, that’s long overdue for the retrospective treatment. 28 selections document Reagan-era US bands invigorating and extending an already well-established sound, with the results delightful and cohesive. Fans of melodic guitars will find much to love here, while heavy-duty record nuts can expect some true discoveries; it’s out on orange wax October 24 for Record Store Day, with CD, black vinyl and digital to follow November 13.

In the accompanying press release, Captured Tracks draws a distinction between this set’s chiming guitars and the roar of the 1980s Hardcore uprising. But this contrast can also be extended to the underground groups of the decade that progressed beyond HC and defined the loose movement which came to be known as the beginnings of Indie Rock. Specifically, those acts were detailed extensively in Michael Azerrad’s tome Our Band Could Be Your Life.

That book spanned from the emergence of Hardcore to the dawn of grunge and generally (but not entirely) covered bands that were breaking new stylistic ground, all while staying true to the spirit of punk by disdaining HC orthodoxy. The difference with Strum & Thrum is that the bands it compiles aren’t explicitly connected to punk’s disruptive impulse.

Instead, the contents shine a light on the legions of guitar pop outfits who represented one aspect of the ’80s College Radio sound, with the bands it collects rarely branching beyond the left of the dial in terms of popularity. One group that did, namely R.E.M., are described in the press release by Record Store Day founder Michael Kurtz as the sort of Big Bang of Strum & Thrum’s compendium of jangle, specifically through their 1981 Hib-Tone Records’ single “Radio Free Europe” b/w “Sitting Still.”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | This official book is now available for pre-order: The first 1,000 special edition copies come with an exclusive free “Wardance” Liminal Twins disorientation mix 7-inch vinyl single, numbered 1–1,000.

​Since late 1978, Killing Joke have been ripping up rule books. The original (and current) line-up of Jaz Coleman (vocals, keyboards), Paul Ferguson (drums), Geordie Walker (guitar), and Youth (bass) has been responsible for pioneering albums that have shaped music genres and pulverisingly intense gigs often likened to religious ceremonies.

The band achieved mainstream success in 1985 with both the album Night Time and the single “Love Like Blood.” But Killing Joke’s influence runs much deeper and darker. No Killing Joke no Nirvana, no Jane’s Addiction, no Faith No More, no Nine Inch Nails, no Soundgarden, no Marilyn Manson, no Metallica in the form you have come to know them.

This official release is an oral history of Killing Joke, mixing over 300 anecdotes from the fans known as Gatherers with a narrative by the band, other musicians, and celebrity devotees. The book also features never-before-seen photographs, collectable memorabilia, and fans’ pictures capturing Joke’s incendiary live performances.

PHOTO: LORI STOLL | The first book from Chris Hillman has the same title as the first song he wrote as a founding member of The Byrds, Time Between.

Subtitled “My Life as a Byrd, Burrito Brother, and Beyond,” the volume, due out November 17 on BMG Books, chronicles the nearly 60 years of music he’s made as a member of a handful of potent musical units that combined bluegrass and country into folk and rock, from The Byrds to The Flying Burrito Brothers to Manassas and the Desert Rose Band, not to mention a trio of amalgamations that sounded more like law firms from Souther-Hillman-Furay to McGuinn, Clark & Hillman.

His intent in writing, he says over the phone from his home in Ventura, California, is “to leave some kind of record, a story of me, for my kids,” that includes two grandkids so far. But also he adds, “ I’d read so many inaccurate stories, inaccuracies on The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers,” that it made him think, “Wait a minute, I was there! Let me clarify this a bit!”

Setting the record straight means dousing the notion that, say, The Byrds’ Sweetheart of the Rodeo, which celebrated a 50th anniversary tour in 2018, was not in fact either the first country-rock record nor the first hint of Americana. “We were doing country stuff way before Sweetheart of the Rodeo,” says Hillman, 75. The band’s second album Turn! Turn! Turn! in 1965, with the hit title song and two Bob Dylan covers, included the track “Satisfied Mind.”

“I had heard that song by Porter Wagoner when he had the hit on it, and loved it. I loved the lyric. It was great. It was perfect for The Byrds. And I talked the guys into doing it,” Hillman says. “It was the first time we had really done a country song,” he says. But he adds, “It wasn’t a stretch for us. It never was. Because we were basically folk musicians, you know. I was more bluegrass, but we did not come from a garage rock band background. I would say we literally plugged our amps into the wall, and started to transpose, going from acoustic to electric.”’

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Welcome! Let me show you to your seat, can I get you a cocktail? This week on Radar, we visit a truly golden age of Hollywood. Who better to join us on this journey than the always glamorous, sophisticated, beautiful and talented Peggy Lee?

2020 marks Peggy Lee’s 100th birthday—her centennial—and as such there are several projects to discuss: the Grammy museum hosted a panel discussion about Peggy including Billie Eilish, K.D. Lang and others, and many of Peggy’s albums have been reissued, on vinyl of course, particularly the Ultimate Peggy Lee, the forthcoming Ultimate Christmas, and an exciting reissue of Ms. Lee’s much-revered Black Coffee album.

Peggy Lee was iconic, a true original: with her sultry take on a song and her platinum blonde hair she must have radiated star quality from the stage. While her vocal contributions to jazz and popular music were many, she achieved other notable accomplishments during her seven decades in showbiz. She was a composer who wrote and co-wrote more than 200 songs, with many collaborators, including all of the original lyrics in Disney’s Lady and the Tramp, and of course she voiced some of the film’s characters.

Her songs, including “Fever” and “Is That All There Is?” hit the charts 100 times, she was nominated for 13 Grammy Awards, won in 1969, and received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995. She was also a no-nonsense businesswoman who wasn’t intimidated by any industry giant.

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I had the strangest dream the other night. I was cruising Broadway Avenue in Saskatoon (The Paris of the Prairie!) with a dead moose tied to the hood of my pickup truck. The dead moose was Rod Stewart. Pedestrians kept pointing and asking, “Is that dead moose Rod Stewart?”And I would answer, “Sure is. Went hooves up around the time he released Foot Loose & Fancy Free.”

I know there’s a lot wrong with this scenario. For starters, Rod Stewart is not a moose. And he hails from England, not the wilds of Canada. Furthermore, he has a rooster comb haircut, while your average moose prefers antlers. And while moose are majestic creatures of good taste, most of them don’t listen to Rod Stewart. They would sooner graze and rut and clash antlers and do other fun moose stuff. And moose don’t go around asking other moose, “Do ya think I’m sexy?” Moose know they’re not sexy. Same deal with hot legs. The females of the moose species do not have hot legs. Nor do they wear jet black suspender belts.

But here’s the rub–something went terribly awry between 1971, when Stewart released the classic Every Picture Tells a Story, and 1977, when Foot Loose & Fancy Free hit the record shelves. What had become of the Rod Stewart who’d roamed the white birch forests of Saskatchewan Province, singing his mighty moose heart out? He’d become a hack. Sold his antlers for filthy lucre. It was a snorting shame.

1977’s Foot Loose (or should that be Hoof Loose?) and Fancy Free, a collection of insipid ballads and hand-me-down remakes with only two rock tracks to cut the treacle, squandered the good will of all but those moose who’d embraced punk, outraging their elders with their Mohawks, safety pins, and nasty habit of pissing anarchy symbols on every second tree in the boreal forest.

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