Monthly Archives: February 2023

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Romeo Void, a breakout band of the San Francisco new wave scene of the early 1980s, shares details of their first fully-authorized concert release. Live from Mabuhay Gardens: November 14, 1980, is an official Record Store Day selection, arriving in stores April 22. The 11-track album will be available in a special galaxy-blue colored vinyl edition, as well as CD and digital. All formats are released by Liberation Hall with distribution by MVD Entertainment Group.

Romeo Void was formed in 1979. Drawing inspiration from the local underground music scene, the band’s founding members were San Francisco Art Institute students Debora Iyall (lead vocalist, lyricist) and Frank Zincavage (bass guitar), alongside local musicians Peter Woods (guitar) and Jay Derrah (drums). They soon added saxophonist Benjamin Bossi. According to Iyall, the name Romeo Void referred to “a lack of romance.”

Live from Mabuhay Gardens: November 14, 1980, was captured during the same period that Romeo Void was recording its critically acclaimed debut album for 415 Records, It’s a Condition. Derrah was still drumming with the band at this live show, but was replaced by John “Stench” Haines by the time the sessions for It’s a Condition were underway. Live from Mabuhay Gardens: November 14, 1980, features one of three Romeo Void live sets captured that year at the famed punk club by deejay Terry Hammer, who would typically broadcast portions of his recordings on the UC-Berkeley radio station KALX.

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Remembering Nina Simone, born on this day in 1933. —Ed.

To say Nina Simone needs no introduction surely feels right as far as clichés go, but it ignores that thousands of music fans are currently unfamiliar with her work. And that’s thousands too many. Those looking to dive into her vast discography are presented with a marvelous opportunity, as BMG is offering Mood Indigo: The Complete Bethlehem Singles on compact disc and on vinyl with a bonus 7-inch. Over the decades much of its contents have been fitfully available, but in oft-shoddy editions and with little or no context for the novice. With warm sound and informative notes by Ashley Khan, the set amplifies Simone’s brilliance from the beginning. Its release is reason to celebrate.

My introduction to Nina Simone came through her 1961 Colpix 45 “You Can Have Him” b/w “Gin House Blues,” which was tucked into a jukebox housed in a tea room in my hometown. Ruth’s Tea Room it was called, but the proprietor was named Vivian. It was just her and a canine companion, a friendly boxer named Zeus. On weekends, high school friends and I would often end up there to do exactly what you’d expect; converse and drink tea, though she also made a splendid orangeade. And on every visit, someone would get up to play that jukebox.

Occasionally, Nina’s A-side would get picked, but it was really “Gin House Blues” that we loved. And you might assume that hearing that record sent me on an immediate search to hear more of Simone’s work, but no; at that moment, in that context, curiosity and an unquenchable musical appetite was quelled by the comfort of ritual. Right then, those two songs were enough.

Naturally, I eventually took the plunge, and it was frustrating that Simone’s pre-RCA stuff wasn’t easy to find. It’s true that Little Girl Blue, her debut album for Bethlehem, which features most of the songs on Mood Indigo, has a long reissue history, but most of the action seems to have occurred in Europe and Japan. In the ’90s there was a slew of Bethlehem jazz reissues in the bargain bins, but Nina’s album never turned up. But over time and a handful of compilations, it was possible to piece together nearly all of Simone’s sole session for the label.

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On February 24, Merge Records unveils The Collected Works of Neutral Milk Hotel, reissuing a prior vinyl boxset that was assembled and self-released by Jeff Mangum on Neutral Milk Hotel Records back in 2011. Along with the outfit’s two celebrated studio albums, On Avery Island and In an Aeroplane Over the Sea, the set includes Live at Jittery Joes as a picture disc, two 10-inch EPs, three 7-inch discs, and two posters. Altogether, it’s an exquisitely designed one-stop-shop annotating a defining act of the Indie Era.

In 1994 Neutral Milk Hotel released “Everything Is” as either a 7-inch (two songs) or a CDEP (three songs), the set marking Jeff Mangum’s commercial (that is, non-demo) debut. For The Collected Works, as on the self-released box set prior, “Everything Is” gets expanded to a 7-song 10-inch. First album On Avery Island followed in 1995 (issued as a 2LP in Merge’s edition of the box set), its contents firmly planted inside the realms of indie rock, the disc well-received overall while not generating too much in the way of hubbub, as I recall.

That might read like modest beginnings, and that’s not wrong, but if Neutral Milk Hotel had closed up shop after On Avery Island’s release, which is to say, prior to the emergence of the group’s consensus highpoint In an Aeroplane Over the Sea, they would still be very much worth discussing, especially in connection to the lo-fi and psych-folk wings of the ’90s indie superstructure.

Bluntly, my assessment of Aeroplane as NMH’s consensus highpoint rather than an agreed upon masterpiece is due to its divisiveness as a record, and I’m not talking about the anti-hipster sentiment that began swirling around the album in the wake of its slow-blooming cult stature. No, Aeroplane is just a spectacularly weird experience that’s as likely to inspire fidgets in a listener as rapt attention and adulation.

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We’ve closed TVD’s HQ for the Presidents’ Day holiday. While we’re away, why not fire up our Record Store Locator app and visit one of your local indie record stores?

Perhaps there’s an interview, review, or feature you might have missed? Catch up and we’ll see you back here on tomorrow, 2/21.

VIA PRESS RELEASE | A dazzling array of musicians, across generations and genres, have contributed to a new album that celebrates the deep influence and legacy of Doc Watson, the North Carolina guitarist, singer and songwriter who would have turned 100 on March 3 of this year.

I Am A Pilgrim: Doc Watson at 100 features new renditions of some of Watson’s most beloved recordings from his expansive catalog. It will be released April 28 on FLi Records / Budde Music and features Nora Brown, Rosanne Cash, Jerry Douglas, Chris Eldridge, Steve Earle, Bill Frisell, Corey Harris, Valerie June, Jack Lawrence, Lionel Loueke, Jeff Parker, Dolly Parton, Ariel Posen, Marc Ribot, Matthew Stevens and Yasmin Williams. It was produced by guitarist/ songwriter/ producer Matthew Stevens (known for his work producing and performing with esperanza spalding and Terri Lyne Carrington) over the past year and executive produced by Mitch Greenhill, Matthew Greenhill, and Peer Steinwald.

“The Last Thing On My Mind,” written by Tom Paxton in the early ’60s, was a staple of Watson’s catalog and recorded/ performed by Parton throughout her career. She released a recording of it in 1967 with Porter Wagoner, and Watson and Parton performed it together in 2001 at MerleFest. “Doc Watson is everyone’s hero and a great guitar player. Some say he is the absolute best, and I was honored to get to work with him a few times in my career,” says Dolly Parton.

Arthel Lane “Doc” Watson earned 7 GRAMMY Awards and 23 nominations including the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004. He received the National Medal of Arts in 1997 from President Clinton and has been the subject of multiple books, boxed sets, and compilation albums.

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Celebrating Tony Iommi in advance of his 75th birthday on Sunday. —Ed.

Dear Satan, I’ve always considered you a cool guy. Lord of the Flies, Leader of the Loyal Opposition, natty dresser, boogie man of little kids and grown Puritans alike–even your horns are badass.

So why, if you don’t mind my asking, did you appoint Ozzy Osbourne your ambassador to our world of sin? I would have thought you’d do better than a drug-addled, ant-snorting, famous-for-biting-the-heads-off-small-animals shlub in tragically ill-fitting leather pants. Had you come to me for advice, dear Lucifer, I’d have recommended someone more appropriate–Jimmy Page say, or Maroon 5. Of course it’s possible Ozzy swiped your title without your permission. Plenty of people have done so over the years, Mick Jagger included, and maybe you figured if you’re gonna cut milksop Mick a break you might as well give poor witless Ozzy a pass too.

Or–and I’m working on this assumption–you’ve let Oz get away with it because Black Sabbath is quite arguably the first and heaviest heavy metal band to ever ooze its way out of the Underworld. What’s more, they scare the shit out of lotsa people, most of ‘em parents, music critics and hippies. You must love putting the frighteners on hippies–all that peace and love shit’s enough to make you puke hellfire.

Zonked metal kids are dead sure you’re partial to such early Sabbtunes as “Iron Man” and “War Pigs” cuz they sound real evil, but that’s not the way I see it. You’re a dancer, as Mick Jagger can attest, and I’m betting your tastes run more to Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. If early Black Sabbath was a cement mixer grinding its way up a steep incline in first gear, come 1973 they’d slapped a super-charged engine on that puppy and tricked it out with some nifty accessories including strings, synthesizers and Rick Wakeman, who makes for a nifty head ornament. Satan can’t drive 55.

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PHOTO: RALF LOUIS | Sometimes, in order to go forward, you must first take a look at your past. Graham Nash has a rich and undoubtedly storied history behind him and he has recently released a live album titled, Graham Nash: Live which features him performing his first two albums—Songs for Beginners (1971) and Wild Tales (1973)—in their entirety. 

Nash, however, has often focused on the future and shows no signs of slowing down. While he’s excited about this new live release, he’s also recently published A Life in Focus: The Photography of Graham Nash which showcases his longtime affair with photography. And, as we learn in this interview, he’s just completed a brand new solo album which is due to be released in early 2023. But in this chat, Graham and I talk about why he chose to revisit his first two solo albums and the experience of retracing the footsteps he made nearly a half-century ago.

Of course, we also discuss the Hollies and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, making long-term musical relationships work and how you can’t really envision where you’re going, unless you know where you’ve been.

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.

What were you doing at age 12? I can tell you what I was doing. Living in a one traffic light town in South Central Pennsylvania, playing backyard football with my brother, sister, and neighborhood kids, plowing through all 167 paperbacks in Ballantine Books Illustrated History of WWII, and serving as co-founder and vice president of the Anti-Orioles Association, a two-person organization (my older brother was president) dedicated to the hatred of the Baltimore Orioles.

Meanwhile, across the county in Hawthorne, California (home of the Beach Boys!) middle-schooler Steven McDonald was playing in a hard core punk band called Red Cross, whose first gig was opening for Black Flag. Steve’s band mates included older brother Jeff on vocals, Greg Hetson (who would go on to the Circle Jerks and Bad Religion) on guitar, and Ron Reyes (who would become the second of the three pre-Rollins vocalists of Black Flag) on drums.

After being threatened with a lawsuit by a certain international vampiric blood-sucking organization sharing the same name, Red Cross changed their name to Redd Kross, but not before releasing their first record, the eponymous EP “Red Cross,” in 1980. Meanwhile they were playing gigs in Orange County, whose hardcore scene was infamous for its ultraviolence. The McDonald brothers, who were friendly and smart and too busy sponging up the pop culture references that would inform their subsequent albums, thought it was all pretty stupid. Much as the Beastie Boys, who were undergoing a crash course in pop culture on the other side of the right coast, likely felt about NYC’s fist-to-the-face hardcore scene.

Anyway, “Red Cross” is a great little record, six songs with a total running time exactly one-minute and 22 seconds shy of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven.” But it’s far cooler than “Stairway to Heaven” because instead of bustles in hedgerows and spring cleans for the May queen, “Red Cross” includes songs about cover bands, hating high school, girls who use Clorox Bleach to lighten their hair (not a good idea!) and various and sundry other important cultural issues. The piper may indeed lead us to reason, but who needs reason when they’ve got Annette Funicello?

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