Monthly Archives: October 2021

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Bay Area jazz guitar legend Calvin Keys released his debut solo record, Shawn-Neeq, in 1971, and it remains one of the most beloved albums on the Black Jazz label. But that record was mere prelude for 1974’s Proceed with Caution; this time around, the arrangements were more complex, the instrumentation more diverse.

In short, a quantum leap forward; indeed, as Calvin tells Pat Thomas in his liner notes for the release, “I started going to the Los Angeles School of Music studying orchestrations and I was putting it to use!” And he recruited the band to fulfill his ambitious musical visions to their fullest, including legendary drummer Leon “Ndugu” Chancler, fellow Black Jazz mainstays Henry Franklin on bass, Kirk Lightsey on keyboards, and Charles Owens (Horace Tapscott, Buddy Rich, Terry Callier, John Mayall) on sax and flute.

Despite being hugely collectible, Proceed with Caution has never been reissued on vinyl before; our newly remastered edition is available on CD, black vinyl and orange with black streaks vinyl limited to 750 copies and exclusive to independent record stores.

Celebrating Patrick Simmons, born on this day in 1948. —Ed.

I saw the Doobie Brothers live a long, long, time ago. It was an afternoon show at a suburban amphitheater, and I smoked a shitload of what I thought was pot but turned out to be PCP. And before long all the Doobies were 9-feet-tall and changing colors like chameleons, and played every single song at about 300 mph, in effect inventing hardcore. Or at least that’s how I remember it. That PCP was some good shit. I recommend it to everybody.

Nobody pays much attention to the Doobies nowadays, except to laugh at them. I know I laugh at them; I can’t even hear their name without cracking up. They were, even during their heyday, the least hip and most faceless big-name act in rock, and since then they’ve become the punch line to a joke that goes something like, “Why did the Doobie Brothers cross the road? To get away from the Doobie Brothers.”

Unhip and faceless the Doobs may have been, but back in the day they were big—scary big, in fact—with rock’s protletarian audiences (i.e., the same folks who loved BTO, Grand Funk, etc.). This can be attributed to one of two things. Either The Doobie Brothers were a pretty decent rock’n’roll band, or the musical wasteland of the early to mid-seventies left rock fans so hard up they were reduced to lapping up all manner of crapulous corporate swill, including the Dööbiemeisters.

I may be the only one, but I think it’s high time for a reassessment of the Doobie Brothers. And since their career was so neatly bifurcated into pre- and post-Michael McDonald periods, I decided it would be only fair to review 1976’s Best of the Doobies, which while skewed toward the band’s earlier work includes two McDonald-era songs, although it omits (because they were, duh, released later) such McDonald hits as “What a Fool Believes” and “Minute by Minute.”

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Singer and multi-instrumentalist Norman Blake’s contribution to recorded music has been significant. He’s played on Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline, John Hartford’s Aereo-Plain, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Kris Kristofferson’s The Silver Tongued Devil and I, Joan Baez’s Blessed Are…, the soundtrack to O Brother Where Art Thou, and a slew of albums solo and as a duo with his wife, the multi-instrumentalist Nancy Blake. Day by Day is his latest, a nine-track set offering versions of his favorite folk songs alongside two of his own writing, all delivered in single takes. It’s a powerful, historically rich CD, available from Smithsonian Folkways and Plectrafone Records on October 22.

The first LP to feature the talents of Norman Blake, wherein he played the mandolin, was 12 Shades of Bluegrass by Bob Johnson and the Lonesome Travelers, released in 1963 by the Parkway label, though a year earlier he played guitar on and co-wrote “Uncle John’s Bongos” as recorded by Houston Turner and the Dixielanders, essentially a novelty tune about a Tennessean (that would be one Uncle John) who ditches the fiddle and starts slapping a set of bongo drums as he goes Greenwich Village beatnik.

Perhaps not the most auspicious of beginnings (and there’s a better-known version of “Uncle John’s Bongos” recorded around the same time by the country duo Johnnie and Jack with Blake also credited as co-writer), but that’s alright, as a couple years later he was playing dobro with Johnny Cash and heading down the road toward the Nashville Skyline.

Dylan’s album and the list in the intro up above might portray Blake as a high-profile session guy, but that’s not really accurate. While he was surely in demand, he spent as much time in studios working on his own albums or collaborating with his Newgrass cohorts Vassar Clements, Sam Bush, Tut Taylor, and Tony Rice.

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BOSTON, MA | WILLOW charmed fans at in Boston Wednesday night with a sold-out electric showcase of vocals, guitar and drums. Connecting with fans as friends, she sang to them as if they were just catching up. Stunning and sweet, each moment between songs was an opportunity for gratitude and WILLOW missed no opportunity to give thanks.

After delighting her audience with songs off of her latest album “Lately I Feel Everything,” WILLOW welcomed to the stage Tyler Cole, who together have performed under the band name The Anxiety. The duo performed their single “Meet Me At Our Spot,” a melodically addicting track that has skyrocketed in success, with credit to both their talents and TikTok for continued viral shares. Cole also shares credits as producer and co-writer for many of the tracks on “Lately I Feel Everything.”

The late July release highlights a pop/punk side of WILLOW that fans have had no trouble embracing. She is in good company on the album with Travis Barker on “Transparent Soul,” “Gaslight” and “Grow” which also features Avril Lavigne.

WILLOW’s Life tour continues through October 19.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Today—on Chuck Berry’s 95th birthday—Dualtone Records announces the December 17 release of Live From Blueberry Hill, an indelible document of the rock & roll icon’s legendary hometown shows at St. Louis’ Blueberry Hill. Taken from performances recorded between July 2005 and January 2006, Live From Blueberry Hill features Berry tearing through classics like “Roll Over Beethoven,” “Sweet Little Sixteen,” and “Johnny B. Goode” on the stage that he played more than any other in the latter decades of his life.

By 1996, Chuck Berry had conquered the world and, after his seminal “Johnny B. Goode” was included on the Voyager Gold Record and sent into space, the stars. But one evening, in a conversation with Joe Edwards—longtime confidante and owner of the beloved St. Louis restaurant Blueberry Hill—Berry commented “You know, Joe, I’d like to play a place the size of the ones I played when I first started out.”

A lightbulb went off and a scheme was hatched. “Let’s do it at Blueberry Hill,” they decided. On a new stage that Edwards had christened The Duck Room after Chuck’s signature onstage move, Berry would give 209 performances over seventeen years. Chuck Berry shows at Blueberry Hill became a rock & roll talisman, inspiring pilgrimages from all sorts of luminaries: the Band’s Robbie Robertson, Motorhead’s Lemmy, Lorde, fellow St. Louisans Nelly and Bob Costas, to name just a few.

Berry’s hand-picked backing group for the Duck Room shows evolved over time, but eventually became codified as the “Blueberry Hill Band,” a combination of family members, longtime Berry collaborators, and stars of the St. Louis scene, including daughter Ingrid Berry on harmonica, son Charles Berry, Jr. on guitar, bassist and band leader Jimmy Marsala, pianist Robert Lohr, and drummer Keith Robinson. Together they formed the longest-running band of Berry’s 60+ year career.

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People often ask me “Mike, what’s your grudge with Metallica? And why did you throw them out of your house then sic your Chihuahua on them after paying their cabby to skedaddle to Peoria, leaving them to run two miles down a creepy country road to the nearest house, whose owner just happens to have the tri-state area’s largest collection of chainsaws and hockey masks?”

“I don’t know,” I reply. “It could be the football tough meatloaf they brought as a housewarming gift. Or the way they always refer to themselves in the third person. ‘Metallica loves your sofa throw cushions.’ ‘Metallica really likes what you’ve done with the breakfast nook.’ And let’s not forget ‘Metallica is wondering if those blueberry muffins are homemade.'” Which really pisses me off. If Metallica wants a blueberry muffin, Metallica should just come out and ask.

But I have more important reasons, which I’ll get to after saying I felt really guilty for nearly have them sawed into convenient-to-eat pieces. It certainly had nothing to do with the fact that Metallica were instrumental in the development of thrash metal. It’s as if they’d said, “Metal’s great and all, but it would be even greater if we turned it into a funny car.” In short they combined metal’s massive tonnage with punk velocity, and ended up with a Tyrannosaurus Rex capable of running the fifty-yard dash in six seconds flat.

Given this stupendous accomplishment–and stupendous achievement it is–I decided to invite the foursome back to my place to apologize and explain the reasons for my inexcusable behavior. Surprising, the band accepted my invitation. (They’re very nice guys.) Which is how Metallica ended up sitting on my couch eating blueberry muffins while I sat across from them with my Caligula of a Chihuahua sitting sphinxlike on my lap, silently baring his fangs.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | New to digital platforms, feature documentary Show Me The Picture: The Story of Jim Marshall celebrates the legendary photographer’s captured moments of the rock ‘n’ roll gods and goddesses who changed the world and introduces viewers to the man himself.

Told through more than 850 iconic photos and interviews, the film chronicles the infamous photographer’s life behind and outside the camera. A child of immigrants and a life battling inner demons, Marshall fought his way to become one of the most trusted mavericks behind a lens, with an all-access pass to the musicians, music, and seminal events that defined the ’60s.

A passion for music led him to capture defining moments in the lives and careers of iconic figures including The Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin, Johnny Cash, and Miles Davis. Throughout his groundbreaking career, Marshall crossed boundaries to record images of protest, civil unrest and poverty along with the American jazz scene, San Francisco’s Summer of Love, and the early New York folk scene.

Synopsis: Photographer Jim Marshall captures the heights of the Rock and Roll music era, from the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix, to the civil rights movements and some of the most iconic moments of the ’60s.

Show Me The Picture is available on AppleTV and Altavod now and playing at select theaters nationwide courtesy of Utopia.

Jessica Louise Dye, frontwoman for NYC surf-pop combo High Waisted, steps out with grace and poise on her new solo venture Hello Lightfoot. With her kitty meowing in the background, she sat down with us to shed some insight on her new confessional, off-shoot endeavor.

Upon moving to New York City to start her solo project, Dye realized she didn’t possess the confidence to make the record she wanted to make. Dave, one of her best friends during this time, who in a support role steadfastly pushed her to believe in herself and her talents. Forming High Waisted, Dye learned to challenge herself within the confines of a band, but after Dave’s passing in March she knew it was time to let the sun in the room and revisit some earlier, brushed-aside songs.

Referring to Hello Lightfoot as her “self-care project,” she went through the many stages of grief and says that “having something to feel inspired by is one of the only things that can really help you when it’s so hard to put the energy into yourself. Even though I did a lot of the recording on my own, having this project was a good reason to reach out to people when it came to mixing or photos. It gave me a reason not to hide, and the connection part is enormously important.”

Looking at old songs with fresh eyes was an organic process, like a living creature that grows and changes through the years of emotional experiences, Dye says. At their inception, the songs’ melody and vocals were influenced by Metric and Feist, but in this new era she finds herself drawn to other diverse, strong women such as Robyn, Lykke Li, and Billie Eilish, for inspiration.

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Anyone who thinks the first wave of English punk was an all-lads affair has never listened to X-Ray Spex. Band vocalist and songwriter Poly Styrene spit as much bile as anyone, but she came at it from a woman’s point of view; the famed first words out of her mouth on the band’s 1977 debut single were “Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard/But I think… oh bondage up yours!” And from there on X-Ray Spex one-upped most of the bands in punk’s boys’ club. And they did it with the assistance of a very unpunk instrument, the saxophone.

X-Ray Spex were self-described “deliberate underachievers,” which helps explain why they only released four excellent singles and one album, 1978’s Germfree Adolescents. (Almost two decades later they released a second album, 1995’s Conscious Consumer, but I’ll be damned if I’ll count it.)

The only problem with Germfree Adolescents is it doesn’t include the singles, which include “Oh Bondage Up Yours!” This is a serious omission, but Caroline Records corrected things in 1991, when they re-released Germfree Adolescents with singles included. Who says record labels are all spawn of the devil?

It’s hard to escape the suspicion that X-Ray Spex didn’t receive the same acclaim as their as their contemporaries because they were fronted by a woman unafraid to express her opinions and keep up with the boys, Punk—and later hardcore—were primarily the preserves of the males of the species, although X’s Exene Cervenka certainly held her own.

Styrene, same deal; one listen to that thick accent and the band’s pure punk thrust belies any such prejudices. And anyone who doubts the band’s ferocity need only listen to 1977’s Live at the Roxy (which wasn’t released until 1991) and the band’s 2008 reunion LP Live @ the Roundhouse London—one of the small handful of reunion LPs I’ve ever loved.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Rock and Roll Hall of Famers and the number-one selling duo in music history, Daryl Hall and John Oates, are releasing Live At The Troubadour for the first time ever on vinyl.

The album, which will be gracing the shelves in 3LP vinyl format on November 26th (Black Friday) is a collection of live, stripped-back classics, including hits such as “You Make My Dreams’” Maneater,” “Sara Smile,” and many more. Alongside this, the album will also be released in 2CD format and is available to stream on DSPs.

John Oates explains; “Playing the Troubadour in LA has been a “rite of passage” for live musicians for 64 years and Daryl and I played our first show there opening for the late great Harry Chapin in 1973. Over the years I always loved seeing shows and hanging out there with musicians and friends…returning to play again in 2008 was a full circle moment for me and the vibe was amazing.”

Live At The Troubadour was initially released in CD and DVD format in 2008, however this is the first time the album will be available for fans in vinyl format—and it’s sounding bigger, better and more iconic than ever! This release adds to Daryl Hall and John Oates’ extensive and highly successful discography, which is still resonating with existing and new fans across the globe. Reflecting on the recorded shows, Daryl Hall whimsically adds; “It’s always interesting to return to the scene of the crime.”

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