Monthly Archives: August 2022

TVD’s Radar: The Podcast with Evan Toth returns for a new season on September 12. —Ed.

She’s a woman of mystery: she goes by the moniker A Girl Called Eddy, but doesn’t mind if you call her Erin Moran; her last album came out in 2004, but then appears with a new project that is so fully realized and produced that you feel as though she hasn’t missed a beat; she’s from New Jersey, but the word on the street is that she’s living somewhere in England. The cover of her latest release—Been Around—features Moran, sunglasses on and coat collar popped, seemingly in a fast vehicle whisking her away to somewhere intriguing. Or, maybe she’s just trying to get by like the rest of us.

Been Around is an excellent album—with a great-sounding white vinyl release, as well. If you’re on the hunt for a sophisticated blending of theatrical composition coupled with hooks and earworms that will haunt you for days, then consider this interview your ticket to the show.

Join us as we chat with Erin Moran from her West Village safe house to discuss the production of her new album, her many musical influences and how—even if you become a sophisticated global jetsetter—when you’re from New Jersey, you’re always from New Jersey.

Evan Toth is a songwriter, professional musician, educator, radio host, avid record collector and hi-fi aficionado. Toth hosts and produces The Sharp Notes each Saturday evening at 6pm and TVD Radar on Sundays at 5AM on WFDU, 89.1 FM. Follow him at the usual social media places and visit his website.

It’s not as easy as you might think to find a band that truly, truly sucks. I decided the best way was to throw a bunch of names into a hat and drew April Wine, but not only do they not suck they’re great. How could they not be when they released a song called “Don’t Push Me Around” that includes the lines, “I got an old Cadillac/I like to sit in the back/And flog the dog between the covers of Sexteen.” Sexteen magazine? Oh, they’re great all right. Greater than the Stones even.

So I tried again and bingo! I drew the name of Donnie Iris, who as you may remember was at one time a member of Wild Cherry. But he wasn’t with the band when they released “Play That Funky Music” so you most likely don’t remember him, except perhaps for his subsequent work with his band the Cruisers, whose name you won’t find on 2001’s The Millennium Collection: The Best of Donnie Iris. Problem is you probably won’t remember Iris for his solo career either, because he only recorded three singles that made the Billboard Charts’ Top Fifty. And from this desultory track record comes this best of compilation. But cut Donnie a break. That “best of” may sound like false advertising, but isn’t when you keep in mind what his “worst of” must sound like.

Donnie doesn’t even look like a rock star. He looks like a New Wave dweeb and nice guy, although he could be a total dick. That’s the way it is with some people. They look like nice people but they’re total dicks. But enough with the “is he or is he not a total dick” stuff. What’s undisputedly true is that Donnie is one of those mystery meats of New Wave–you’re not sure what his music takes like (it could be worse than gefilte fish!) but you’ll try it if you get desperate enough, as in every other record in your record collection just spontaneously combusted, and this compilation is all that’s left.

Read More »

Remembering Alice Coltrane in advance of tomorrow’s birthdate.
—Ed.

The resurgence of interest and the increase in esteem for the work of Alice Coltrane is an unambiguously sweet thing, but it’s also not an especially new development, as her reputation’s been on the steady upswing for quite a while now. However, the first-time vinyl reissue of the pianist-organist-harpist-arranger’s 1972 LP Lord of Lords is a recent turn of events, and it sounds better than ever. Featuring bassist Charlie Haden, drummer Ben Riley, and a 25-piece orchestra, the record is the third in a trilogy that established Coltrane as a spiritually questing and musically trailblazing American original. 

For decades, the seven albums in a roughly five-year stretch that Alice Coltrane made for the Impulse label were essentially rated (by those with a favorable disposition to her work, anyway) as the crowning achievement of her recording career. Opinions unsurprisingly differed over which of her releases was the strongest, but it was almost certain the array of choices would derive from 1968-1972.

That is, until last year, with the arrival of World Spiritual Classics Volume I: The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda, a collection of recordings she made in the ’80s after leaving the commercial biz and establishing the Sai Anantam Ashram. Initially distributed in small cassette runs to the members of her spiritual community, Luaka Bop’s collection is a revelatory hour of material that while not usurping the primacy of her Impulse period in my personal esteem, does stand head and shoulders with it in terms of quality and sui generis verve.

Such was the fervent response to World Spiritual Classics I that no doubt many disagree and consider it to be Coltrane’s finest work. And who knows, maybe in a year or five I’ll be swayed into concurring with that line of thought. I say this not as a platitude but as a preface to relating how my esteem for Lord of Lords has grown since I evaluated it as worthwhile and occasionally superb but, in the end, a little lesser than 1971’s Universal Consciousness.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | In the fall of 1975, towards the tail end of a typically productive and prolific year that included finishing production on the One Size Fits All album, a spring tour with Captain Beefheart (immortalized on the live album, Bongo Fury, released in October of that year), and a performance of orchestral works, Frank Zappa and his band The Mothers played their first and only shows in Yugoslavia while in the midst of their fall tour.

The “Mothers of Invention Yugoslavian Extravaganza” as Zappa called it took place in Zagreb and Ljubljana (now the capital cities of Croatia and Slovenia respectively) on November 21st and 22nd, 1975 with the short-lived and slightly stripped-down lineup of Andre Lewis (keyboards), Napoleon Murphy Brock (tenor sax and lead vocals), Norma Bell (alto sax, vocals), Roy Estrada (bass), and Terry Bozzio (drums). In characteristically Zappa fashion, The Maestro made sure to record these historical shows behind the Iron Curtain.

On October 14th, Zappa Records/UMe will release Zappa ’75: Zagreb/Ljubljana, featuring the best performances of the Yugoslavian concerts sequenced in the exact order of the show’s setlist to present the crème da la crème from each night for the first time ever. Produced by Ahmet Zappa and Zappa Vaultmeister Joe Travers, the 27-track live album boasts nearly two and half hours of completely unreleased music and will be available digitally (26 tracks without disc breaks) or on 2CD complete with a 32-page booklet filled with photos of the era and lineup by Gail Zappa and John Rudiak with insightful liner notes from Travers, an interview between him and recording engineer Davy Moire who recorded the show and worked with Zappa from 1975-78, plus a firsthand account and illustration from drummer Terry Bozzio.

Read More »

When Suede released their eponymous 1993 debut, Glam fans took notice. No they didn’t. They leapt to their feet and dug through their closets for their six-inch platform Ziggy Stardust boots and moth-balled space age Brian Eno ultra-high collars before sprinting, or more accurately tripping and wobbling—have you ever tried to run in six-inch platform boots?—to loot the make-up counters of every store in London. Finally, they managed to lose (in six minutes flat!) the eighty pounds necessary to squeeze themselves into their old designed-for-skeletons glam attire. Depending on your point of view, it was a glorious moment or a bleeding horror show.

Actually, of course, none of this happened, because while Suede had that classic Glam sound, they didn’t necessarily look the part. They were, for the most part, Glam in mufti, and dressed, for the most part, in fashionable black, with the notable exception of vocalist Brett Anderson, who had that vintage Brian Ferry look—sans the 1940s tailored suits and jaded sophistication—down flat.

But none of this has anything to do with Suede, which ranks amongst the finest LPs of the Britpop era. By turns lush, romantic, low key, high strung, guitar heavy and flat-out metallic, the album’s songs are showcases for Anderson’s vocals, which tend towards the histrionic fabulous. His voice is the Glam glue that draws it all together—Bernard Butler’s guitar shapes the music, for sure, but it’s primarily Anderson’s arch delivery that sets the band squarely in the Great Glam Tradition.

“So Young” is as good as it gets. The song’s fresh melody captures the sound of youth, Anderson goes big time romantic, Butler’s piano adds flavor, and his guitar gives the song just enough muscle to keep it from dissolving into a lovely fey wisp. “Animal Nitrate” is a tougher beast boasting a killer chorus and Anderson singing, “Oh, it turns you on, on/Now he has gone/Oh, what turns you on, on?/Now your animal’s gone.” The ballad “She’s Not Dead” showcases Anderson’s ability to hit those dramatic high notes, while the band produces a Starman solar sound that fits Anderson’s voice like a tailored space suit.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | “For over thirty years I’ve trusted David Leaf with my music and my story. The 2001 Radio City tribute to me was a highlight of my career. And his SMiLE film Beautiful Dreamer was one of the reasons I was able to finally finish the record. He’s a true friend.” —Brian Wilson

A brand new and extensively updated edition of the classic rock biography God Only Knows: The Story of Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys and the California Myth by David Leaf is published by Omnibus Press and will be released on September 22nd.

Originally published in 1978 and updated in 1985, The Beach Boys and the California Myth by David Leaf was the first book to focus on Brian Wilson and recognize him as one of the most significant and influential artists of the 20th century. An intimate look at Brian’s rollercoaster life and career, the book was told through the eyes of those who were present at Wilson’s most legendary productions including Pet Sounds, Good Vibrations, and SMiLE. It covered turbulent family strife and internal conflicts as well as Brian’s remarkable music. The book became an instant classic.

Omnibus Press regards the original edition of the book as historically important and it is essentially unchanged in this new edition. Leaf has written two major new pieces that bookend his original opus, and in this edition readers are essentially getting “two books in one.” Included in the section that precedes the original work are exclusive contributions from Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Barry Gibb, an introduction from Jimmy Webb, notes from Melinda Wilson, the previously untold stories of Leaf’s first meetings with The Beach Boys, and much more.

Read More »

With his new self-titled record, Chicagoan Eli Winter has shepherded into existence a beautiful and powerful collection of instrumentals, as the immensely talented guitarist and composer effectively cedes the spotlight to a prodigiously skilled ensemble that includes Cameron Knowler, Ryley Walker, Jordan Reyes, David Grubbs, and jaimie branch (RIP). An LP of broad, captivating intensity, it is Winter’s first for Three Lobed Recordings, out now on 140 gram vinyl and digital.

Eli Winter covers a lot of territory without ever losing focus. It’s cohesive, connecting as a legit album statement instead of a bunch of random pieces assembled in a manner to approximate the same. By the end it really felt like I’d been taken somewhere, and for a set of instrumentals, that’s particularly impressive.

Winter’s debut The Time to Come, released in 2019 on cassette by Blue Hole Recordings and on vinyl the following year by the label Worried Songs, was a solo recording, as was the nearly 23-minute “Either I Would Become Ash” and closing track “Dark Light” from his second album, 2020’s Unbecoming. However, Winter’s discography is also loaded with collaborations, as “Maroon” from Unbecoming featured him leading a band for the first time.

Subsequently, he’s heard on duo sets with pedal steel guitarist Sam Wagster (Live at the Hideout September 24th, 2019, 2020, Dear Life Records), guitarist Cameron Knowler (VXVW, 2021 and Anticipation, 2021, both American Dreams Records) and multi-instrumentalist Jordan Reyes (Controlled Burning, 2022, Husky Pants Records).

Read More »