Monthly Archives: December 2020

VIA PRESS RELEASE | The world lost Elvis Presley on August 16, 1977, when he was just 42 years old. News reports painted him as bloated and unconscious on his bathroom floor, leaving devastated fans with a graphic, tarnished final image of their shiny idol from Tupelo. Toxicology reports confirmed that he was overloaded with prescription medications—just another cliché, a rock star who popped one too many pills.

​Historian and author Sally Hoedel, however, doesn’t see Elvis as a cautionary tale of self-destruction. Instead, she sees a man who struggled, every day, to survive. In her compelling, thought-provoking new release, Elvis: Destined to Die Young, Hoedel offers factual and scientific data, plus never-before-published information she gained by interviewing people who personally knew Elvis, to dive deep into his struggles with multiple chronic health conditions.

Hoedel examines Elvis Presley — devoted son, husband, father and friend — while plowing through the negative hype and legendary myths surrounding the man. Elvis’ downward spiral of health struggles is intertwined with his life story, and for the first time, it is revealed that he suffered from disease in nine of eleven bodily systems. Five of those disease processes, Hoedel finds, were present from birth. She expertly puts all of this into historical context, pointing out differences in medical treatments and protocols for the time.

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Lee Fields stands amongst the titans of contempo classic-styled soul sounds, so it makes total sense that his work with the Expressions comprises Big Crown Vaults Vol. 1. It’s the first in a series of records finding Big Crown founders Leon Michels and Danny Akalepse tidying up their audio closet for the betterment of humankind. This album, availably now on vinyl (limited translucent purple ripple or reliable black), compact disc and digital, features six Fields-sung tracks followed by six instrumentals, five of them versions, effectively illuminating the Expressions’ skills and Michels’ production savvy. Altogether, for lovers of old-school soul, this set is a total keeper.

As a survivor on the scene, Lee Fields’ soul prowess is far from a secret. Having debuted on record via 45 rpm single in 1969, Fields cut a bunch more through the next decade and capped the initial stretch of his long career with his first LP, Let’s Talk It Over in 1980 for the Angie 3 label. As the warmth, grit and energy of classic soul ebbed in the years thereafter, Fields’s momentum was slowed until the early ’90s, when he recorded a few full-length discs for Ace, but the set that firmly established his presence was Let’s Get a Groove On in 1998 for Desco, which was recently reissued for Record Store Day.

It was Desco that helped pave the way for Daptone, so if Fields is a new name, that association might clue you in, as he appears on a pair of albums by Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings. He also cut a few singles for Daptone, plus the LP Problems for Soul Fire (the other label spawned by Desco’s demise) before hooking up with Truth & Soul for three records, My World in 2009, Faithful Man in ’12, and Emma Jean in ’14.

After Truth & Souls’ folding and as part of Big Crown’s flowering (events directly related through Michels as co-owner-operator of both), Fields recorded Special Night for his current imprint in 2016 followed by It Rains Love last year. That brings us to Big Crown Vaults Vol. 1, which rounds up songs from the sessions for those two LPs, starting out with a version of “Two Timer” by Little Carl Carlton (perhaps best known to non-soul aficionados for his smash reading of “Everlasting Love” from ’74) that’s faithful to the 1970 original while deepening the groove considerably, as is Michels’ and Big Crown’s way.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | On January 29, Geffen/UMe is set to release The Mama’s and the Papa’s’ If You Can Believe Your Eyes And Ears on black vinyl. Also, the album will be available on opaque yellow vinyl exclusively at uDiscover Music and Sound of Vinyl.

​Considered one of the best pop-rock albums of all time, the 12-song 1966 debut showcases the exquisite pop sensibilities and impeccable harmonies of Cass Elliot, Denny Doherty, John Phillips, and Michelle Phillips. Reaching No. 1 on the Billboard album charts within months of release and spending more than 100 weeks on the chart, the Lou Adler-produced gem opens with the No. 1 hit “Monday, Monday” and includes “California Dreamin’,” which hit No. 4 on the Billboard singles chart. Preorder here.

While best known for its two hits, If You Can Believe Your Eyes And Ears, features a mix of originals and covers that captivated fans and critics alike. The album is included in the top 100 of the influential reference guide 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. In their pursuit of pop music perfection, The Mamas and the Papas signed in 1965 and disbanded shortly after their performance at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, where “Monday, Monday” was first performed live.

In between, the foursome embarked on what has become a storied career during their brief time together. Contributing to their status as pop culture icons were unforgettable performances on The Ed Sullivan Show, including the John Phillips penned classic “Monday, Monday,” their interpretation of Lennon & McCartney’s “I Call Your Name,” and “California Dreamin’” co-written by John and Michelle Phillips.

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“Records have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, even prior to knowing I wanted to be a musician.”

“My parents used to play Abbey Road on vinyl a lot when I was growing up and I remember that we’d always have a quarter balanced on the needle cartridge because it wasn’t weighted correctly, which I always found to be funny. They used to play records often, but even after being exposed to them as much as I was, I never really had a collection of my own.

By the time I had reached the age to have my own money to pour into a collection I wasn’t stagnant enough to sit at home and enjoy the records, so I didn’t consider it. I spent too much time outside running from place to place. Whether I was going to some party or some park or getting into trouble with my friends, I just wasn’t home or even indoors all that much.

But in between all the running around I’d always stop by record stores, hi fi shops, and guitar shops and bother the people by sampling everything in the store. Most of the time the owners would find a soft spot for me after I had bothered them enough though!

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Often compared to Stevie Nicks, and as flattering as that sounds, it’s a comparison I don’t find apt. Yes, Lissie’s voice is haunting and spiritual like our favorite Gold Dust High Priestess, but it’s the sheer power of her voice, a commanding instrument of its own, that makes her incomparable.

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt like a resident of one genre of music,” Lissie tells me when I ask her what music has inspired her. “When I was in high school, and especially getting my driver’s license with that freedom—my dad had a Dodge Dakota pickup truck—I would cruise around and roll my windows down and listen. I was listening to mainstream country, gangster rap. I was listening to classic rock: Janis Joplin, Fleetwood Mac, Jefferson Airplane. I really was hungry for all of it. I loved Sheryl Crow, Sarah McLachlan, Fiona Apple, Liz Phair, and I loved Metallica.”

Lissie’s eclectic and diverse taste in music is well represented on her own albums as well as in her choice of covers. And Lissie loves her covers. “Thank You to the Flowers” is her third covers EP to date. As I talked with her on the phone to get to the hows and whys for this new collection of songs, she told me, “I’ve always done a lot of covers. I try to do it with a lot of reverence and respect, hopefully, for the artists who shared these amazing songs that help us all get through life’s twists and turns. And for me, the pandemic, and just everything—it was the politics, and the pain and cruelty. It was just such a heavy, heavy summer.”

Her first two cover EPs, “Cryin to You” (2014) and “Covered up in Flowers” (2012), honored the likes of Metallica, Danzig, Kid Cudi, Joe South, and Lady Gaga—songs that her voice brought entirely new life to. “The Black Album, I was cryin in my bedroom because Danny asked my best friend to homecoming instead of me or whatever… laying on my bed and listening to “Nothing Else Matters” crying, like oh poor me.”

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Not long after Radiohead released 2000’s Kid A, my friend Patrick and I gave it a scathing review without having actually listened to it, on the basis that its only appeal was to depressives better served by listening to the Archies. We also surmised that if Thom Yorke was such a creep why bother, because who wants to hang out with a creep? And seems we weren’t alone. Author Nick Hornby lambasted Kid A, and a critic for England’s Melody Maker dismissed it as “tubby, ostentatious, self-congratulatory, look-ma-I-can-suck-my-own-cock whiny old rubbish.” You won’t hear that sort of language on The Crown.

It was the Melody Maker review that finally convinced me to give Kid A a listen–if the the damn thing was really that bad, I wasn’t going to miss out on the opportunity to pile on. But Kid A isn’t the space age fiasco I’d hoped for; its Pink Floyd/Brian Eno vibe make it the perfect accompaniment to a hard day over a hot bong. Your more active types, on the other hand, risk drowning in its ambient ooze. That sound you hear off in the distance is a non-fan, crying out hopelessly for a lifeguard.

The band itself was split over Kid A’s new direction; vocalist/songwriter Thom Yorke went into the studio convinced rock music had “run its course,” while guitarist/keyboardist Jonny Greenwood and bass player Colin Greenwood worried that they risked producing “awful art-rock nonsense just for its own sake.” Yorke was full of it–folks have been writing rock’s obituary since the early 1960s. The Greenwoods were wrong as well–Kid A may not be my cup of studio overkill, but it’s a noble foray into the realms of electronica that works, at least in parts, very well indeed.

Dreamy atmospherics abound, and on occasion Radiohead take things too far. The soundscape that is “Treefingers” is a limpid pool of nothing special, and if Yorke thinks he’s breaking new sonic ground he’s dead wrong; David Bowie was doing this sort of thing in the late seventies. The title track is a trifle livelier thanks to its snazzy drum beat and electronic squiggles, but Yorke’s distorted vocals serve only to annoy, and the big bass thump at the end of the song is too little too late.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Deram Records originally released David Bowie’s self-titled debut album on June 1, 1967, the very same day as The Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band.

​While it was not a hit at the time, over the past 50 years it’s gained a reputation for being a perfect snapshot of the time and has earned plaudits for being one of the first contemporary pop albums to be sung in an English accent. Bowie himself revisited songs from this era in 2000 re-recording the likes of “Silly Boy Blue” for an album called Toy which remains unreleased. The album may not have been a huge success but there were music writers who saw something in Bowie, the NME called it “All very refreshing” and that he was “a very promising talent.”

The biography prepared at the time describes David Bowie thus “His remarkable powers of observation enable him to write with humour and wit about the people, loved and unloved, and the attitudes, lovely and unlovely, that constitute today’s society. A recent bout of ‘flu enabled him to pen half a dozen songs to go on a forthcoming Deram LP. In fact, David is one of the very few artists commissioned for an album before a single. Simultaneously, David is writing songs and situations for a colour film in which he is to star and putting the finishing touches to a unique cabaret act.”

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A year that began with a devastating fire at a California manufacturing plant and then moved into a pandemic looked like it would be a bleak one for the vinyl industry. But though Covid-19 caused a slowdown of production, and threw Record Store Day into initial disarray, the cursed year 2020 also became one of the biggest for vinyl sales in decades. Even so, continued travel restrictions and mass gathering shutdowns requires that gatherings like the 4th annual Making Vinyl conference December 8-9 is an online event.

​“It’s definitely not what we intended to do at the beginning of this year,” says conference president and co-founder Bryan Ekus. Still there are hundreds signed up for the event which will take place on a snazzy, custom designed platform designed in the Netherlands. And plenty to talk about.

“In looking for the correct platform to host the event virtually, I tried to find something that could replicate the experience of what we had physically,” Ekus says. In the past, there has been a main conference center, spaces for workshops, and places to meet with suppliers in the industry.

“On the virtual side, there will be those virtual booths that people can meet with the people that are providing the actual services or products and set appointments, and even meet with them directly on the spot,” he says. “So it’s as close as you can get to a physical event.”

Though not set in Detroit, Hollywood, or Berlin as past conferences have been, the fourth Making Vinyl will again gather experts from the industry in a business-to-business conference “dedicated to the rebirth of the global vinyl manufacturing business.”

Among the panelists will be Duncan Stewart of Deloitte Global who in 2017, during the first Making Vinyl event, called the return of vinyl a billion dollar business. “That has come to pass,” says conference director and co-founder Larry Jaffee. “It’s probably greater than a billion dollars right now in terms of all the associated activities surrounding vinyl. I think we surprised them all in terms of how it’s grown. I think he was thinking it was a bit of a fad and the traction I think has flabbergasted him.”

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“My grandma was an incredibly special lady. While in grade school, I didn’t have to load into the daycare bus like the other children—every day she was there to pick my brother and I up and care for us while my parents worked. Visits to her house were a delight—she spoiled us with ice cream, pastries, and the best homemade Ukrainian food nearly every time we were there.”

“I had such an admiration for her home; it was one of the first standing houses in her neighborhood—complete with the most adorable pink walls, little doilies on nearly every tabletop, and an oven that I’m positive would be considered a historic artifact today. My grandma also had quite the record collection—shelves full of her old-time country music albums that were meticulously organized and stacked. I don’t know how old her records were (I’m guessing VERY old), but she took such great care of them that not a single record had an imperfection.

My grandma hadn’t owned a record player for quite some time, so my family had the idea of gifting one to her for Christmas. My mom found a record player that was perfect for her—it was this charming little wooden box that looked like it had been revived right out of the ’60s. I remember how excited she was— and from that day forward how nearly every time we visited there was a new warmth in her house in the form of her records playing softly in the background.

I was delighted to learn about the world of vinyl records through visits to my grandma’s house—it always felt like an art to place one of the records onto the spindle and carefully lower the needle. I was raised on CDs and mp3s, so this was a new type of magic that I absolutely cherished—all the more special that I was introduced to it in a place that I loved.

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The other day I asked my girlfriend who I should write about. “Marilyn Manson,” she said, to which I replied “The only thing I know about Marilyn Manson is I saw him pull out his dick on stage at the old 9:30 Club in D.C. once.” “So write about that,” she said. So here goes.

Manson’s public cock-waggling and status as member in good standing of the androgynous undead community place him firmly in the Alice Cooper schlock rock tradition, which is to say they’re both big fans of P.T. Barnum and understand that what many teens want more than anything is to scare the bejesus out of their parents. Both are comedians whose fans are in on the joke, although both boast small idiot constituencies.

Only dolts took Cooper’s campy theatrical stage act as proof he was sick and obscene–if you weren’t laughing at that guillotine, it was most certainly laughing at you. Marilyn Manson’s shtick is more transgressive to be sure, but it’s still comedy; one need only check out the band’s 1995 EP “Smells Like Children,” which boasts song titles like “Shitty Chicken Gang Bang” and “May Cause Discoloration of the Urine or Feces.” These are not the products of the Anti-Christ, but of a goofy guy with a 7th grade sense of humor. School’s out indeed.

As for the music of Marilyn Manson, it’s your standard goth/industrial metal fare. Manson is a junior member of the law firm of Nine, Inch and Nails, but unlike the firm’s president Trent Reznor, he’s weirder, less doom-laden and flat-out sillier. Me, I’m not much on your earnest Trent types, who wear their agony like a cross and want you to know it. I may not be enamored of Manson’s music, but at least he’s trying–as my 2nd grade teacher once wrote on my report card–to be the class clown.

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