Celebrating Jim Lea in advance of his 75th birthday tomorrow. —Ed. You can forget all about Kiss Alive! because Slade’s Slade Alive! is the real thing–a gut-bucket blast of pure rock ‘n’ roll energy from the poorest spellers in the history of music. This 1972 studio live affair captures this band of Wolverhampton rowdies at […]
From England’s green and pleasant land, an unprepossessing and pleasant band—Squeeze aren’t out to change your life, just to provide you with friendly and understated pop gems, domestic and romantic tableaux of the sort that won me over even when I was at the height of my Anglophobia. The Village Voice’s Robert Christgau more or […]
Remembering Brian Wilson. —Ed. The Beach Boys have arguably created the most fulsome and legendary canon of hit songs by any American group in popular music history. While most of those hits are confined to one decade (the ’60s), they are unmatched in durability, cultural relevance, artistry, sound and being perfect examples of post-war, popular […]
Born in 1931 in an Alberta, Canada mining town and deceased in 1988 from heart failure, Bruce Haack is rightfully considered one of the trailblazers of electronic music. He’s responsible for an eclectic and often eccentric oeuvre, but his most famous LP is the one he made for Columbia in 1970. The Electric Lucifer remains […]
Rhino continues to release Quadio discs, which seek to recapture and replicate the quadraphonic audiophile album format from the 1970s. Instead of vinyl albums, Quadio releases present the four-channel audio experience on Blu-ray audio discs with 192/24 Resolution and also provide listeners with High-Res two-channel stereo and, in some cases, 5.1 surround sound mixes at […]
Formed in 1984, The Jean-Paul Sartre Experience thrived as part of the second generation of Kiwi bands on Flying Nun, a label standing as one of New Zealand’s finest cultural exports. Between ’86 and ’93 The JPS Experience (their most excellent name litigiously foreshortened by Mr. Sartre’s estate; hell is other people, indeed) completed three […]
Remembering Sly Stone. —Ed. By 1970, Sly Stone was no longer his happy-go-lucky, upbeat-hits-producing self. Stone and his band had taken to ingesting large quantities of cocaine and PCP, a paranoia-inducing combo if ever there was one, and Sly’s own intake was such that he carried his stash in a violin case. The results were […]
For decades, the prime fount of Afrobeat has been Nigeria. However, turning retrospective attention southward to the landlocked nation of Zambia reveals a distinct strain of ’70s African rocking; Now-Again Records’ two Welcome to Zamrock! compilations spotlight this movement with appropriate depth. The CD editions come with a 104-page hardcover book co-authored by Now-Again’s Eothen “Egon” […]
Remembering Jackie Wilson, born on this day in 1934. —Ed. Singer Jackie Wilson landed a slew of hit singles in the 1950s and early ’60s with a sophisticated strain of R&B that crossed over to the pop charts. In 1967, he managed a sizable comeback with the song for which he is now likely best […]
I used to sleep well knowing that the English progressive rock band Family, like Savoy Brown and Steeleye Span, was one of those groups I could spend my entire life ignoring without having to worry I was missing something. I was wrong. True, some of the songs on 1971’s Fearless—their fifth—are just what I expected: […]
Celebrating Tom Jones in advance of his 85th birthday tomorrow. —Ed. What’s new pussycat? For starters, the legendary Tom Jones—that manly hunk of a man with the curly crop of black hair and awe-inspiring mutton chop sideburns—is back with a new LP, 2021’s Surrounded by Time. So what you ask? Well consider this—the world’s most […]
Remembering Tom Evans, born on this day in 1947. —Ed. Talk about your bad mojo. It would be hard to find a band with as tragic a backstory as Badfinger, not one of whom, but two, of its original members hanged themselves. And this despite a string of at least five timeless tunes, and plenty […]
Celebrating Freddie Stone, born on this day in 1947. —Ed. The late-1960s was loaded with musical groundbreakers, and one of the most enduring is Sly & the Family Stone. Formed by brothers Sly and Freddie Stone, the group grew by leaps and bounds through the combination of rock, R&B/soul, psychedelia, and pop, and by ’69 […]
Rock memoirs can be hit or miss. Many are ghostwritten, and some lack the musicians’ voices. Others can be glib recountings of oft-told tales of life on the road, drug and alcohol abuse, rehab and recovery, or the price of fame. Thankfully, three recent books offer different approaches to the standard rock memoir and make […]
Although she has a pair of EPs to her credit, the York, UK-based crafter of ethereal electronics Lucy Gooch is releasing her debut album Desert Window on June 6 through Fire Records. Lush but deeply layered, Gooch’s work combines complexity and warmth that is enhanced by her rich, soaring vocals. Unusually robust for a debut, […]
