Monthly Archives: January 2021

This week on Radar, more great new music, and new to you music. ’90s power-pop kingmeister (a word that I apparently just invented), Matthew Sweet has a new album out on Omnivore titled, Catspaw. You’ll hear more of it in the next few weeks, but on this episode we begin at the beginning with the track, “Blown Away” which—if you love Matthew Sweet—is what you’ll want to hear.

Billie Joe Armstrong (that guy from Green Day) released his first ever solo album and it was the result of lockdown days. It’s a gallop and a romp through some of his favorite songs and – well, you’ll just have to tune in to see what classic song gets the Armstrong-treatment. The album on Reprise Records is titled No Fun Mondays because he apparently posted a new song each Monday during the pandemic.

Bobby Watson’s new album Keepin’ it Real (Smoke Sessions Records) does just that and also succeeds in imbuing strong, infectious melody in his compositions. Love him for his great sax jazz chops, admire him because of his longtime dedication to educating in the field of music.

You’ll also hear something new from the Avalanches and The Bee Gees, too! Have you been watching the HBO documentary? I haven’t finished it, but so far, so good. You’ll also enjoy music from two forthcoming interview subjects: A.J. Croce and Jim Keller who both have terrific new albums out.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Since its beginnings in Jamaica in 1959, the story of the pioneering Island Records label has been inextricably linked to the story of its founder, Chris Blackwell. Now, Blackwell has curated a series of compilation LPs, featuring his hand-picked tracks that correspond with his and Island’s legendary history.

​On February 26, Island Records / UMe will release Volume One of The Vinyl Series, a 14-track album covering the years 1962 to 1969. Volumes Two and Three will follow later this year and explore Island’s history in the decades that followed. “When I moved Island Records’ base from Kingston to London in 1962, all I wanted to do at first was just release the really great music that was coming out of Jamaica,” writes Blackwell in the collection’s liner notes. “But then I got caught up in all the music that I was hearing in London, much of it from America.”

The first volume of The Vinyl Series includes such groundbreaking hits as Millie Small’s “My Boy Lollipop” and “Israelites” by Desmond Dekker and the Aces—songs which introduced much of the world to the sound of Jamaican music. Several early singles set the context for these singles by Toots and the Maytals and “Forward March” by a teenage Derrick Morgan, the “first star of ska.”

The set also points to the expansive musical directions that Island would soon pursue, especially after the 1966 smash “Gimme Some Lovin’ “ by the Spencer Davis Group, whose lead singer, Steve Winwood, would later further influence the label’s direction.

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So the kids in Bomont, Oklahoma think they had it bad? In my rural hometown, we weren’t allowed to square dance. Our town elders also banned chewing gum, walking the streets after the 7:30 curfew, the subversive music of John Denver, and the word “squid.” Guess they thought it was an obscenity or something.

So imagine the liberating effect 1985’s Footloose and its accompanying official soundtrack had on us. No longer would we put up with our parents’ dour puritanism. No longer would we stand around at high school dances not dancing. We wanted to dance up a storm, press body to body and sweat up a healthy hard-on. We even created our own dance–a bouncing-like-pinballs variation on square dancing’s “boxing the qnat” we dubbed “moshing.”

The storyline of Footloose goes something like this: Chicago kid Ren moves to small town, falls for small town girl Ariel, wins game of tractor chicken (yes, it’s a thing) against town bully Chuck, and inspires the ire of the town preacher and his dour acolytes. A fist fight with Chuck and some book burning ensue, and Ren finally wins the day by holding the prom at a local grain silo, where everyone dances well past their 10:30 bedtime.

This is why I’ll always love the Footloose soundtrack; it represents sweet teen rebellion to me. Artists include, of course, Kenny Loggins, who contributes both the title track and “I’m Free (Heaven Helps the Man).” Other artists include the great Deniece Williams, Bonnie Tyler, Sammy Hagar, Shalamar, Moving Pictures, and Mike Reno and Ann Wilson of Heart fame, who duet on the soundtrack’s unforgettable love theme, “Almost Paradise.” Hardly what I’d call a stellar line-up for a dance-oriented movie soundtrack, and the fact that there are only two black acts represented here doesn’t improve matters. But I guess that’s the way it goes in rural Oklahoma.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | “Quick, think of any other American rock band formed in the ‘70s who is still putting out albums in the modern era that not only don’t embarrass the band but repeatedly revitalize their career. The list starts and stops with one name: Cheap Trick.” —Paste

​The one and only Cheap Trick have announced today’s premiere of their pummeling new single. “Light Up The Fire” is available now at all DSPs and streaming services. The song heralds Cheap Trick’s eagerly anticipated 20th studio album, In Another World, arriving via BMG on Friday, April 9 digitally as well as on standard black vinyl and CD. Limited edition blue and white splattered vinyl will be available at independent record stores nationwide. In addition, a limited edition picture disc will be available exclusively via Target. Pre-orders are available now, with all pre-orders joined by an instant grat download of “Light Up The Fire.”

Produced by longtime associate Julian Raymond, In Another World sees Cheap Trick doing what they do better than anyone—crafting indelible rock ‘n’ roll with oversized hooks, mischievous lyrics, and seemingly inexorable energy. Trademark anthems like “Light Up The Fire” and “Boys & Girls & Rock N Roll” are countered by more introspective – but no less exuberant—considerations of times past, present, and unknowable future on such strikingly potent new tracks as “Another World” and “I’ll See You Again.”

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“Music… it gave me an identity.”

“Music for me is a relationship that was solidified and blossomed from a very early age, I mean from the age of eight onwards I fell in love with this thing that I didn’t understand—that I was surrounded by on a constant basis. My family, my uncle and my cousins would play the guitar and at family parties music would be a big thing that would get everybody on their feet, would connect people, would make people emotional. From there I realised that I wanted to be the centre of that connection from around eight years old.

So around eight years old I got my first guitar and then from there my love affair with music developed. Then I started to understand music as such a bigger picture, it gave me an identity as I became a young boy, especially through discovering different kinds of music, and this whole new world, and this whole new universe was opening up to me before my eyes, through rock and roll to reggae to soul to grunge to punk to Motown, to all these different genres that I was in control of.

I’d never experienced a feeling like this where I could go out and research, and find music for myself, and the first time upon hearing bands like The Beatles, and how it blew my mind, and the first time I’ll never forget listening to things like that. The first time I ever heard The Doors and Ziggy Stardust, and “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” and these songs that encapsulated me with this feeling that I’d never felt before.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | “A Brief History of Amazing Letdowns ditches MBV as a reference point; the band has rediscovered pleasant, straightforward guitar pop. “Any Place I’ve Lived” is the best melody Heasley’s written to date; “Jenny, Andrew, and Me” (a Tsunami reference?) has a clever strummed solo over knotty chords.” —Douglas Wolk, Trouser Press

​The opening guitar riff and drums of “Ginger” became widely recognized in the mid-nineties through use in the notorious CK1 Commercial, as part of Calvin Klein’s Unisex Fragrance ad campaign playing constantly during American late night television. Also used in the Cadillac 2007 summer event campaign, “Ginger” has been touted as the first indie rock song ever used in corporate advertising. The song “Any Place I’ve Lived” is heard during the closing credits of the 2006 film, Keeping Up With the Steins.

These recordings, made in Philadelphia between 1993-1994, present what Kurt Heasley, Lilys frontman, founder, and sole constant member, terms as “a maximum listen, that properly represents the transitional phase” between the 1992 Slumberland Lilys debut In the Presence of Nothing and 1995’s Eccsame the Photon Band (reissued by Frontier Records in 2015).

This 2021 version of A Brief History of Amazing Letdowns (also reissued with Frontier) has the previously unreleased track, “G. Cobalt Franklin” which replaces the track “Glosseder” on the original 1994 10 inch (the song will be avail. on the digital version). The songs “Elsa,” “Coby,” “Timber,” and “Hymn” recorded in 1994 during the demoing process for Eccsame The Photon Band, were shelved, then released in 2000 as the “Lilys/ Aspera Ad Astra” split EP.

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Savannah, GA comic book retailer Neighborhood Comics has announced All These Perfect Crosses, the first comic book release from its publishing imprint.

​The All These Perfect Crosses comic combines the lyrics of singer/songwriter Craig Finn (The Hold Steady) interpreted by the artistic talents of comic book creator Andrew Greenstone. All These Perfect Crosses arrives in-stores March 3 in two formats, a traditional comic book and hardcover deluxe edition graphic novel with bonus material, and is available for preorder now. The work was commissioned by Finn’s label, Partisan Records, after seeing Greenstone’s Instagram pictorial review of Craig Finn and the Uptown Controllers’ 2019 performance at Los Angeles’ Bootleg Theater.

To celebrate the comic book’s release, Finn and Greenstone will join in conversation on March 3 at 9PM EST on Neighborhood Comics’ YouTube and Facebook channels. “As an artist, you are trying to connect with an audience who understands and appreciates the work, says Finn. “To have another artist use his talent and interpretation to create a new and vibrant look at these stories is a true major thrill for me. And I thank you all for joining Andrew and myself here in these pages.”

The comic is released in conjunction with the digital and streaming debut of All These Perfect Crosses, Craig Finn’s 2020 Record Store Day double vinyl LP. The first single from the release, “Calvary Court,” is streaming today. The full album will be available on all major digital platforms on February 26.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Keyboardist Gene Russell was the in-house producer of the Black Jazz Label and its creative helm.

​In between acting as producer on all of the Black Jazz label releases, keyboardist Gene Russell also cut two fine albums for the imprint, of which this is the second, released in 1973. Judging by the quality of their respective solo outings for the label, the fact that Russell’s band includes bassist Henry Franklin and guitarist Calvin Keys bodes very well for the quality of this LP.

And indeed, Talk to My Lady represents a sterling stylistic leap for Russell from his New Direction album, which was the first release issued on Black Jazz; here, he’s leading an electric band instead of the basic piano trio format found on the former record, and playing a number of original, soul jazz compositions like “Get Down” and the title tune.

As for the covers, both “Me and Mrs. Jones” and “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” are heartfelt renditions given a little extra bounce by Russell’s ivory tickling and Franklin’s expressive bass playing in particular, while the version of “My Favorite Things” goes way out beyond what John Coltrane played on his original Atlantic studio version. It’s hard to go wrong with a Black Jazz album and you won’t on this one from the label’s creative helm.

“For me, the best vinyl albums are the ones recorded mostly in one room with minor overdubs, if any. The records feature real instruments, not synthesizers.”

“The pairing of vinyl with a crackling amplifier, the organ swell of a Leslie, the tines of a Rhodes, the footwork and steel coming through an acoustic piano, the clack and thump of drums, the sound of a natural reverb on horns and voices, is right and harmonious.

I love listening to jazz on vinyl. Everything just seems to BE there. One of my favorite recordings is Duke Ellington and John Coltrane’s version of “In A Sentimental Mood” and on an LP it is sublime. With vinyl, you can almost simulate sitting in the room when the music was recorded.

Playing Robert Johnson’s King of The Delta Blues Singers on LP can completely transport you. The warble and moan of Johnson’s singing comes dancing off the player, and the vinyl seems to be able to emit the stifling heat and sweet air of the south. You can see the sweat coming off his brow, kicking up dust from the floorboards. Magic.

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Songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Martin Gore is best known as a founding member of Depeche Mode, with that electronic pop juggernaut’s most recent album Spirit released in March 2017. In the years since Depeche Mode’s 1980 formation, Gore has peppered his career trajectory with a few solo releases (though he did skip over the 1990s). His newest is “The Third Chimpanzee” EP, a five-song set out January 29 via Mute as a download, on compact disc, and on limited 12-inch azure blue vinyl with a sleeve featuring a commissioned painting by noted capuchin monkey artist Pockets Warhol.

The release of “The Third Chimpanzee” EP brings symmetry to Martin Gore’s solo output, which began in 1989 with the “Counterfeit e.p.” That set consisted of six cover songs, with its full-length follow-up of 11 versions Counterfeit² not emerging until 2003. Then, 12 more years elapsed before his next LP MG arrived. For that one, the 16 tracks were all Gore originals, and all were completed sans vocals.

“The Third Chimpanzee” is also comprised of Gore’s instrumental compositions, which in turn allows for his non-Depeche Mode activities to be grouped into the distinct halves of early and mid-career vocal covers and later instrumental originals, at least if one excludes the “MG Remix EP” from 2015 (which in addition to four remixes of tracks from that album featured two Gore originals) and his 2012 LP Ssss as half of VCMG alongside Depeche Mode cofounder (and the first to depart the band) Vince Clarke.

Of Gore’s two solo periods, the cover material has is pleasures (as interpretations often do) but it’s really the later stuff that’s more rewarding, partly for how it both solidifies and deepens the man’s abilities by extending them beyond the sphere of his main gig. Not that the departure is radical, but MG did allow Gore to delve into somewhat darker and harsher regions, while also engaging with melodies in ways that are distinct (if not wholly unique) from his songwriting in Depeche Mode.

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