Monthly Archives: October 2022

VIA PRESS RELEASE | The Skippy White Story: Boston Soul 1961-1967, a 15-track various artists compilation that pays tribute to the soul music of Boston and the legendary record store owner turned label owner and curator who captured the music on tape, is out today on Yep Roc Records; listen/buy here.

Specializing in R&B, soul, and gospel music, in 1961, Skippy White opened his first record store in Boston. Along with his radio show on WILD-AM, they served as a resource and beacon for R&B and soul until 2019, when his last store closed. For decades, fans and musicians from the Boston area and beyond would come to his store for the best and latest in R&B, soul, and gospel music. In addition to the stores, Skippy’s radio show began recording music by local Boston artists to capture the music of these great musicians.

An avid record collector, the set was curated and produced by Eli Paperboy Reed. Culled from obscure R&B, soul, and gospel 45s from the early 1960s, many of these recordings are from Eli’s private collection of 45s and acetates. The set features extensive liner notes by Peter Guralnick, Peter Wolf, Eli Paperboy Reed, and co-producer Noah Schaffer. Each provides context for the music, the time, and the impact that Skippy White, his stores, and the music he discovered and released had on those who frequented his stores, loved the music he released, and were influenced by it all.

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Celebrating five decades of his magnum opus, one of the most important reggae artists of all-time, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame® inductee, and GRAMMY® Award-winning icon Jimmy Cliff will unveil The Harder They Come 50th Anniversary Edition Vinyl on December 9, 2022 via UMe. This notably stands out as the record’s first commercial vinyl release. In addition to a 2LP gatefold wrapped jacket with lamented gloss coating, the package boasts the liner notes from the 40th Anniversary Edition in addition to brand new words courtesy of Jimmy personally and revered reggae historian Dana Smart.

In 1972, the film The Harder They Come arrived and eventually emerged as a cult classic with Cliff in the starring role. The accompanying The Harder They Come Soundtrack brought an international spotlight to reggae music. The album initially climbed to #141 on the Billboard 200, and its legacy would only grow as time passed. 2021 saw the Library of Congress choose it for preservation in the National Recording Registry, deeming it “culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant.”

The record essentially put reggae on the map. Rolling Stone touted The Harder They Come Soundtrack on its coveted “500 Greatest Albums of All Time.” In tandem, Jamaica recently celebrated its 60th Anniversary of Independence from the UK on August 6, 2022. If you haven’t experienced The Harder They Come, now is your chance…

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Remembering Jerry Lee Lewis. —Ed.

When it comes to the strange and ornery case of Jerry Lee Lewis, it’s illustrative to look to genetics. And the fact that it could be claimed that Jerry Lee got his contrary and bellicose genes from his great grandfather, of whom it was said he could knock a horse to its knees with a single punch. But it doesn’t really matter where he got his meanness; all that matter is he’s a volatile menace with a police record longer than a king cobra, and is every bit as venomous.

Exhibit one: following a dispute between The Killer and Chuck Berry over who would open a show, Jerry lost. He proceeded to drive the audience mad, set the piano on fire, and continued playing despite the flames before finally stalking off stage and saying to Berry, “Follow that, n____.” Exhibit two: At a birthday party for Lewis, he produced a .357 magnum, pointed it in the general direction of his bass player Norman “Butch” Owens, announced, “I’m gonna shoot that Coca-Cola bottle over there or my name isn’t Jerry Lee Lewis,” and proceeded to shoot Owens twice in the chest. Guess he wasn’t Jerry Lee Lewis that day. And to add insult to injury, Lewis’ current girlfriend’s only response to what amounted to near homicide was to holler at Owens for bleeding on her carpet.

Why, the Killer doesn’t even give a flying fuck about you or me. A fervent believer in the firebrand form of Christianity purveyed by his televangelist cousin Jimmy Lee Swaggart, he is dead certain that playing rock’n’roll buys you a one-way ticket to Hell, and has been quoted as saying, “I’m dragging the audience to Hell with me.” Dress for warm weather, people.

Over the course of his long and checkered career Lewis has gone from playing rock’n’roll to playing country and back, but he has always believed he’s destined for Hellfire, as if predestined not for Heaven but for fire and brimstone. He makes all those satanic metal guys look like pussies; how many of them, if pressed, really believe they’re going to Hell because of the music they play?

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Meet one of the most celebrated session guitarists of all time—a man who was also once a full member of both Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers: Jeff “Skunk” Baxter.

Goodness knows that the previous sentence gives he and I plenty to talk about, but we’re here to discuss the fact that Jeff has released his first solo album after being in the music industry for over half a century; the album is titled, Speed of Heat which clues us into another one of Jeff’s interests: missile technology!

Music and the arts are driven by passion and creativity, but there is also a science that can propel the mediocre into the extraordinary. When those two traits combine, well, hold on to your socks! Baxter is a master at doing just that, and he is more than happy to explain the commonalities between those two disparate chosen career paths.

Of course, we go over all of the territories that you’re hoping we do: we discuss his time slinging a six-string (and more) in the Doobies and the Dan, the music off of his energetic first solo record, where exactly the “Chuck Berry Portal” is and how to get through it, the many heavyweight legends he’s worked with and—since you never know where a conversation with Jeff Baxter might end up—you can also expect to learn about the latest in missile defense systems. He’s intellectually voracious, never boring, and has the coolest nickname you’d ever want. Let’s spend some time with Skunk.

Evan Toth is a songwriter, professional musician, educator, radio host, avid record collector, and hi-fi aficionado. Toth hosts and produces The Evan Toth Show and TVD Radar on WFDU, 89.1 FM. Follow him at the usual social media places and visit his website.

There are lots of reasons you should own the 1971 LP Budgie. There’s the cool cover with its fierce-looking budgerigar in samurai garb riding a mighty steed across a lavender sky. Then there are the three guys in the band, who are Welsh and scruffy and look like they enjoy heading down to the tafarn to drink cwrw like everybody in Wales. And let us not forget (who could?) song titles like “Nude Disintegrating Parachutist Woman,” which not even a consortium of French surrealist poets could come up with. But the real reason to own Budgie’s debut LP is its 1,280 HP riffage, which has made Budgie heavy metal legends amongst both fans and subsequent bands like Soundgarden, Queens of the Stone Age, and Metallica, the last of whom have covered a pair of Budgie’s songs.

The Cardiff power trio featured singer and bass player Berke Shelley, whose high-register vocals bring to mind Robert Plant or a less annoying Geddy Lee, who has over the course of his long career mastered the daunting feat of sounding like a parody of himself. Shelley and drummer Ray Phillips put the heavy in the metal, but it’s guitarist Tony Bourge’s Stonehenge-sized riffs that make Budgie one of the finest of metal pioneers.

Aside from drippy fifty-second acoustic throwaway “Everything in My Heart” and the quite pretty acoustic love song “You and I,” Budgie is one kick-ass, high-octane, stick-to-the-basics metal mover. The obvious point of comparison is Led You Know Who, cut with Black Sabbath, but Budgie aren’t as eclectic as the former (no California hippie rock) or as heavy as the latter. Still there’s no denying Zep’s influence on “The Author,” with its acoustic guitar intro and (once the song kicks into gear) guitar riff that is pure “Immigrant Song.”

Meanwhile, “The Rape of the Locks” is all Bourge, from the opening squall of feedback to the fire sale of a guitar solo that dominates the proceedings. But what really makes the song indispensable is its storyline, which has some cretin (the unmitigated gall!”) out to give Berke’s a haircut, which ain’t going to happen because Shelley needs his long hair the way Popeye the Sailor Man needs his spinach (“I grow my mind inside my head/I grow my hair to keep it fed”)!

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Bryan Ferry’s eighth solo studio album Taxi is being re-issued for the very first time since its initial release in March 1993. The album will be available from November 25th 2022 on limited edition yellow vinyl, and on CD in a limited edition Japanese-style oversized card sleeve, with new artwork overseen by Bryan. Pre-order Taxi HERE.

The news closely follows the 50th anniversary of Roxy Music, celebrated by the band with an arena tour of North America and the UK, widely acclaimed by critics and fans as a triumphant career high with stunning live performances of some of the most cherished and celebrated songs in popular music.

Alongside his peerless song writing as frontman and bandleader of Roxy Music, and as a prolific solo artist, Bryan Ferry remains a master of the art of the cover version. From the 1973 release of his first solo LP These Foolish Things—itself a collection of the rock ‘n’ roll, R&B, and pop songs so vital to his musical development—to the 2022 “Love Letters” EP, featuring new interpretations of four classic love songs, Bryan’s work has seen him illuminate the songbooks of some of the most acclaimed songwriters of all time.

Stephen Sondheim to Cole Porter, Holland/Dozier/Holland and Lennon/McCartney to Al Green, Bryan’s covers of classics like “Jealous Guy” (a UK Number 1 single), “Let’s Stick Together” and “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” have come to be regarded as the definitive versions.

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The Afrobeat sound has become a very popular genre in the last few years. Many bands—from all over the world—have embraced this exciting, funky sound that combines elements of West African music and couples it with American funk, jazz, and soul. While these recent creators make some wonderfully exciting music, the Super Yamba Band has a secret weapon that the others don’t have and his name is Kaleta.

Born in the West African country of Benin Republic and raised in Lagos, Nigeria, Kaleta is a longtime veteran of the Afrobeat scene. He has toured with none other than the godfather of Afrobeat music, Fela Kuti, but over the years has also lent his guitar chops to Lauryn Hill and others. Kaleta finds himself teaming up with the Super Yamba Band, a group of young American musicians who have a supreme devotion and dedication to the music of West Africa and Afrobeat in particular.

Kaleta & Super Yamba Band find themselves back on the road still supporting their last release, Mèdaho. However, they reveal that they do have a completed follow-up album on the shelf and promise to get to that right after their tour ends. But first, it’s what some might see as a pinnacle of their performing schedule, The Kennedy Center on 11/3.

Also joining us in the conversation is the band’s drummer, Daniel Yount; he and Kaleta explore and describe how much they value the authenticity that Kaleta brings to their group, but also how Kaleta appreciates the youth and exploratory nature of the band that he has connected with. On all accounts, it seems as though this symbiotic union was a match made in heaven. You’ll also hear us discuss how Kaleta found his favorite records in Lagos, and the experience of being fined by Fela Kuti. You can hear a lot of Afrobeat out there nowadays, but only the Super Yamba Band has someone who was there during its formation; only they have Kaleta.

Evan Toth is a songwriter, professional musician, educator, radio host, avid record collector, and hi-fi aficionado. Toth hosts and produces The Evan Toth Show and TVD Radar on WFDU, 89.1 FM. Follow him at the usual social media places and visit his website.

Talk about your legendary collaborations. People are still talking about the Bee Gees’ 1942 collab between KC & the Sunshine Band and Hideki Tojo that brought us “Banzai Shoes” and “I’m Your Kamikaze Man.” But even it pales in comparison to this year’s mating of San Francisco noise rock band OXBOW and German avant garde saxophonist and clarinetist Peter Brötzmann. During the live concert at the annual music festival in Moers Germany captured on this 2022 LP, OXBOW and Brötzmann produce some of the most emotionally powerful music of this or any year, and if your tastes run to either experimental noise rock or jazz this is the album for you.

Since the tail end of the 1960s, elder statesman Brötzmann has produced some of the most abrasive music in all of jazz, both as a band leader and in collaboration with a wide variety of artists. His 1968 release Machine Gun remains perhaps the most effective room clearer of all time, and his mid-eighties to early nineties LPs with free jazz supergroup Last Exit, which included guitarist Sonny Sharrock, bass guitarist Bill Laswell, and drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson, released five albums of ear-molesting genius.

OXBOW’s gut-wrenching and downcast music is the result of the tortured vocals of Eugene S. Robinson, the nerve-fraying guitar of Niko Wenner, the heavy bottom of bass guitarist Dan Adams, and drummer Greg Davis. Robinson is a Renaissance man who cuts an impressive figure—not only is he a giant of a man and real-life fighter and author of Fight: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Ass-Kicking but Were Afraid You’d Get Your Ass Kicked for Asking, he’s written for scores of top-notch publications, appeared on television and in films, and engaged in too many other creative ventures to list here. He likes to take his clothes off on stage and has been known to put unruly audience members on the injury list. Call it suicide by lead singer.

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I catch Mat Osman on a Monday morning, but he’s in London, where it must be nearing teatime. He doesn’t sound as if he needs a pick-me-up; as soon as he picks up the phone we’re off to the races. “I spend all of my life talking,” he says, which is one of the reasons he loves making music but hates writing about it. “I love the way music is kind of an older language than anything… it can express emotions that you can’t express in words. I’m always dissatisfied when I write about music because I can’t capture it.”

But he does capture the exhilaration of that primal, pre-verbal communion between performer and audience. His enthusiasm is palpable and genuine. He gives the impression of someone who loves what he does and doesn’t take a bit of it for granted. In an era of untouchable superstars and aloof, too-cool-for-anything auteurs, it’s refreshing to hear from someone who is unapologetically passionate about their art, and how they make it. “One of the things I love about making music is I spend my days with friends I’ve known for thirty years,” he says. “It’s not from the five of us but from some chemical reaction between us.”

That alchemical magic made Suede famous when their first LP won the Mercury Music Prize in 1993 and became one of the fastest-selling UK debuts in a decade. But almost from the get-go, they had a longer reach. “We were quite big in places that didn’t speak English very quickly,” Osman explains. “I think that people understood that we were singing about ordinary lives. Scruffy, poor, quite extreme lives in big cities. It’s dressed up in the clothes of London because that’s where we’re from, but if we had grown up in Tokyo, we’d be a Tokyo band. I think people respond not to the specifics, but the motion of it. We’re quite a dramatic, theatrical, aggressive live act.”

He and his bandmates hope to bring the infectious adrenaline of vintage Suede to their first US tour in 25 years. They haven’t played the States since then except for an appearance at Coachella in 2011. “We have no idea what to expect,” he admits. “It’s going to be absolutely fascinating.” They’re sharing the marquee with the Manic Street Preachers, whom they toured with back in ’94. “If you asked people which two British bands were likely to crash and burn,” he says, “it would have been us and them. It’s quite interesting that we’re the two left standing from those times.”

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