Author Archives: Joseph Neff

Remembering Linda McCartney, born on this date in 1941. —Ed.

Paul McCartney was the member of the Fab Four whom so many used to relish knocking around. Whether it was in spirited bar chats or animated discussions at parties, when the tide turned to The Beatles, somebody could always be counted on for a hearty jibe at Macca’s expense. And in my above use of “so many,” I’m generally referring to males, and by “somebody,” I’m specifically speaking of those who indisputably consider John Lennon to be the Best Beatle.

While for those truly devoted fans of the band, there could never be a Worst, for many, Paul was the Square Beatle, a designation not borne out by the facts, for he was as interested in the avant-garde as any other member. Hell, in ’68 he co-produced “I’m the Urban Spaceman” by The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, for Pete’s sake, an act that places him rather high up on the cool meter. However, others derided him as the Corporate Beatle. And yeah, it’s true that Paul never lost track of the business aspect of the whole affair. Still, his behavior in this regard hasn’t really played out as particularly odious in comparison to other rock star types of not even half his stature or talent.

But both Paul’s image and the assessment of his post-Beatle solo career have rebounded in recent years. Much of this might have to do with the Four’s constantly regenerating fanbase, which is consistently growing older and perhaps letting go of the rebelliousness that once inspired easy identification with Lennon or Harrison. It might also be related to the race for the Coolest Living Beatle being down to him and Ringo “No More Mail, Thanks” Starr.

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Remembering John Coltrane, born on this date in 1926. —Ed.

John Coltrane’s Atlantic period presents an arresting convergence of circumstances. It was a time of raised profile and considerable transition, the artist’s confidence audibly growing as he united jazz tradition and experimentation; most of all, it was an era of major breakthroughs that established the saxophonist as a leader in his field. The Atlantic Years in Mono doesn’t include all of his work for the label, but it ably documents a thrilling era that brought Coltrane to a mainstream audience. 

By the time John Coltrane hooked up with the Ertegun brothers he’d already chalked up a significant list of achievements, serving as a powerful voice in post-bop’s development via the bands of Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis, guesting for a track on Sonny Rollins’ Tenor Madness, teaming with Hank Mobley, Al Cohn, and Zoot Simms for Tenor Conclave, and leading bands for Prestige and for one LP Blue Note.

Top billing came with Coltrane in 1957, and next was Blue Train for Blue Note, which many consider to be his first great album. John Coltrane with the Red Garland Trio followed in ’58 (aka Traneing In for its ’61 reissue), and Soultrane retained the services of the Garland band. As Coltrane’s fame grew, Prestige would later release nearly a dozen albums under his name from unissued sessions and elevated sideman dates, in turn possibly lending a false impression of the saxophonist as unusually prolific during ’57-’58.

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Celebrating Nick Cave on his 69th birthday. —Ed.

Need a fitting soundtrack for tuning up that rattletrap fuel-guzzling dragster in the garage? Or are you looking for a fab backdrop whist brushing up on the books of the Old Testament, though not for their supposed lessons but rather for their rampant bloodletting and begetting? Maybe you’re desirous of the appropriate musical accompaniment for the dilapidated trailer-park whiskey-still explosion finale in your yet to be filmed epic screenplay? Well, a suitable listening for all three circumstances is Junkyard by The Birthday Party.

These days, Nick Cave is a well-respected man of letters, an unabashed litterateur whose eternally thin visage gets brief cameo spots in the big Hollywood films that happen to sport his scripts. Indeed, he can be located in Lawless, currently (hopefully) playing in a theatre near you as directed by his friend and collaborator John Hillcoat. But it should also be noted that once upon a time, Cave was a completely punk-centric scribe, his scrawling taken seriously by only a small handful beyond the ‘80s subterranean music playground. In fact, his double duty as a musician and writer placed him in the direct company of such names as Henry Rollins, Lydia Lunch, and Chris Desjardins, aka Chris D.

Way back then, Cave’s “thing” as a pen wielder was totally wrapped up in how he presented a booze-soaked and drug-bent updating of the Southern Gothic tradition as previously staked out by such Advanced American Lit-Class stalwarts as William Faulkner and especially Flannery O’Connor at her most darkly acidic. Yes, even though the dude hailed not from the Southern US but from the very down under climes of the Australian continent. And why not? Hell, at the time Cave started putting pen to pulp, there was hardly anybody in the states besides the late Harry Crews who was even bothering to up the ante on this fine patch of fictive territory anyway.

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Remembering Jesse Ed Davis, born on this day in 1944. —Ed.

Prior to his death in 1988, the noted Native American guitarist Jesse Ed Davis played on records by numerous big names, including Bob Dylan, Leon Russell, Taj Mahal, John Lennon, Ringo Starr, and Harry Nilsson. If you’ve heard the guitar solo in Jackson Browne’s “Doctor, My Eyes,” well, that’s him. But not so well known are Davis’ own records, which are weird, as his 1971 debut for Atco, ¡Jesse Davis!, features guests Russell, Gram Parsons, and Eric Clapton, amongst others. It’s a solid affair that’ll be a welcome addition to any shelf of sharp and rootsy early ’70s sounds.

Listening with fresh ears in 2022, ¡Jesse Davis! fits into the early 1970s Atco Records scheme pretty damn snuggly, a tight fit that derives in large part from the judiciously applied guests; in addition to those named above, Davis’ debut pulled in contributions from singer Merry Clayton (The Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter,” Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama”), bassist Billy Rich (Paul Butterfield, Taj Mahal), drummer Alan White (Plastic Ono Band, Yes), and keyboardists Ben Sidran (Steve Miller Band, dozens of sessions, his own stuff), and John Simon (The Band, Big Brother & The Holding Company).

Rather than merely attempting to increase sales by flaunting the names Clapton and Russell, Atco’s intent seemed to be aligned with making the best record possible (along with some clear mutual backscratching). Other examples from the label include a handful from Delaney & Bonnie (albums that offer some insane credits lists) and Dr. John’s The Sun, Moon & Herbs, which is notable, as a couple of moments on ¡Jesse Davis! are reminiscent of the Night Tripper, the set’s opener “Reno Street Incident” in particular.

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Remembering Hank Williams, born on this day in 1923. —Ed.

Hank Williams is an icon of early country music, but he recorded before the LP era really took hold, so posthumously assembled compilations dominate his legacy. These sets come in various sizes and levels of quality. The latest, Pictures from Life’s Other Side: The Man and his Music in Rare Photos and Recordings, offers 144 transcriptions from Williams’ Mother’s Best radio program on six CDs, all tucked into a magnificent hardcover book loaded with photos, many of them in color, that serve to broaden the life of the artist beyond the still too common reduction of strife and an early death. But if it’s vinyl you require, the 3LP distillation Only Mother’s Best is also available from BMG.

When it comes to concise surveys of Hank Williams’ exceptional musical abilities (by which I mean single or double sets), the gold standard remains Polydor’s 40 Greatest Hits. Released in 1978, it was distinguished at the time for its lack of production meddling. Those four vinyl sides weren’t rechanneled into stereo, and there was no additional posthumous meddling such as overdubs or duet fakery.

40 Greatest Hits was just pure Hank, and for those who favored his work, disappointment in the listening experience was impossible. That’s not the same as being fully satisfied, however, which is where box sets come into the picture. Mercury’s 1998 10CD The Complete Hank Williams is an award winner, but amongst the numerous two- and three-disc collections, there’s an even bigger assemblage, Time Life’s The Complete Mother’s Best Recordings…Plus!, which emerged in 2010 as a 15CD behemoth.

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Celebrating Kenney Jones on his 78th birthday. —Ed.

Small Faces stand as one of the very finest groups of the 1960s. However, many know them mainly for Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake, their most ambitious and final album before Steve Marriott’s departure effectively ended their diminutive phase. The scoop is that all of the Small Faces’ ‘60s records are worthy of ownership, even the mercantile odds-and-ends collection From the Beginning. That disc and its self-titled predecessor are currently available as 180 g LPs. Are they cut to lacquer from the original quarter-inch production masters with front-laminated sleeves? Why yes indeed.

One gauge of the true greats is that the music improves, or at least maintains a high standard of quality, as the discs take their place in the racks. So it is with the Small Faces. With that said, the Decca period offers distinct and enduring appeal; more so than The Who, the Small Faces circa ’65-’66 are the true ambassadors of Mod. Utterly Brit in orientation, it wasn’t until the fourth LP that the group entered the US market.

The Small Faces consisted of Steve Marriott on vocals, guitar, and harmonica; Ronnie Lane on bass; Kenney Jones on drums and percussion; and, initially, Jimmy Winston on keyboards. Upon signing to Decca through the efforts of manager Don Arden, they released two singles in ’65. The first “What’cha Gonna Do about It” charted, hitting #14, while the second “I’ve Got Mine” didn’t. Shortly thereafter, Winston was replaced by Ian McLagan, the new keyboardist, assisting 3rd 45 “Sha-La-La-La-Lee” in reaching the #3 spot. A full-length followed a few months later.

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Remembering Julian “Cannonball” Adderley, born on this date in 1928. —Ed.

Blue Note Records celebrated 75 years of existence by giving numerous key titles from their incomparable catalog high-quality vinyl reissues, and it’s fitting that we began our tribute to the label’s longevity with a look at one of their very finest releases, the great alto saxophonist Julian Cannonball Adderley’s 1958 masterwork Somethin’ Else.

The LPs from Blue Note’s classic era are aptly described as an embarrassment of riches. Along with loads of amazing music, there is, of course, the surrounding context, and engaging with the fruits of the imprint’s labors offers a truly enlightening historical narrative. Naturally, it’s only part of jazz’s larger story. Still, it’s also a highly valuable component, since Blue Note is an example in which respect for the music trumped purely capitalist desire.

That respect extended to the amount of studio time given to the musicians. Still, it also concerned other vital aspects of record production, from the use of engineer Rudy Van Gelder to the company’s justly celebrated graphic design. Blue Note didn’t have the market cornered on either the Van Gelder touch or the manufacture of handsome album jackets, for it was a fantastic era in both fidelity and sharply conceived presentation. Still, throughout the salad days of Modern Jazz (and for a good while afterward), the label was at the forefront.

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Celebrating Arvo Pärt on his 91st birthday. —Ed.

Estonian composer Arvo Pärt is considered to be one of the greats in the broad spectrum of 20th-century classical music, and he’s further distinguished as a trailblazer of “holy minimalism.” Befitting a composer of his stature, the discography of Pärt’s recorded works is vast, but from inside that number there resides a smaller group of releases holding particular import. Silentium joins the list of essential Pärt recordings. 

Arvo Pärt came to prominence in his home country in the 1960s with a handful of recordings spanning the decade, but these are formative works that precede a long period of woodshedding after which Pärt reemerged with his tintinnabuli style of composing, a method where he utilizes two distinct voices (i.e. instruments), a tintinnabular voice restricted to the notes of the tonic triad and a melodic voice that can roam around freely.

Für Alina, first performed in 1976, introduced Pärt’s tintinnabuli style. It was eventually documented on one of the numerous recordings made for the ECM label, a label whose releases comprise a significant chunk of his essential discography. The first recording of Pärt’s compositions released by ECM was Tabula Rasa in 1984, the title piece dating from 1977, scored for two solo violins, prepared piano, and string chamber orchestra (consisting of two violins, viola, cello, and contrabass).

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Celebrating Bill Stevenson, born on this day in 1963. —Ed.

Though it seems they perennially garner fewer accolades than their Cali cohorts, Black Flag and the Minutemen, coffee-fueled Los Angeles band the Descendents’ full-length debut, Milo Goes to College, stands as one of the ’80s’ indispensable punk documents. Its grooves are teeming with furious catchiness, and what it lacks in good manners it more than makes up for in sheer gusto.

I’ve fond memories of and considerable goodwill for the Descendents, namely the incarnations of the group that recorded up to and including the Enjoy! LP, but must say that from my viewpoint, they can be easily underrated. Or, more appropriately, they often slip through the cracks, largely due to the non-flash nature of their music and image. First and foremost, about focused energy, they wrote tunes that joined musical and lyrical concerns triumphantly seeking to shirk the concept of the punk as a metal-studded casualty with a tube of Testors stuck up his/her nostril.

Occasionally described as “nerd-core,” their songs tackled topics like fishing, hanging out in nature, the joys of junk food, loyalty to friends, bodily gases, the desire not to be a fuck-up, coffee, friction between cliques, and, quite frequently, late-adolescent struggles with the opposite sex. Many of these concerns have been addressed by other bands. Still, frankly, a few haven’t, and certainly not with the appealingly direct (again, focused) musicality and no-frills sincerity that basically stands as their enduring legacy.

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Remembering Otis Redding, born on this day in 1941. —Ed.

As one of the undisputed titans in the annals of Soul Music, Otis Redding seemingly needs no introduction. Any serious discussion of the genre he so thrillingly mastered will reflect upon the rewards to be found in his work, and that it’s never fallen out of favor is a tribute to his talents. But in truth, scads of younger listeners do require some enlightenment about the man’s massive achievements. Lonely & Blue: The Deepest Soul of Otis Redding will serve as an exemplary primer for the uninitiated, and the thoughtful focus on the artist’s aching love balladry might lead many longtime fans to hear Mr. Pitiful with fresh ears.

With Sam and James and Wilson and Al and Marvin all making such singular contributions to the style, there will never be an undisputed King of Soul. But upon reflection, Otis Redding can perhaps be accurately described as the form’s Total Package, for the fabric of his music contains so many substantial fibers; a Southern “country” grit combining with the newfound sophistication of R&B, the powerhouse qualities of a consummate front-man coexisting with a distinctive desire to interact with his backing band, and the ability to knock ‘em stone cold dead on stage thriving alongside an uncommon level of success in the studio setting.

Furthermore, Redding’s considerable talents as a songwriter coincided with his equally impressive skills at interpreting others’ material, a substantial crossover into the pop market sacrificed none of his creative verve, and Stax’s significant spirit of racial harmony served as a beautiful example of brotherhood in an era that very much needed it. So Otis clearly lacked nothing in his ascension to the very top ranks of Soul expression.

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Arty, glammy, mathy, poppy, theatrical: Washington DC’s Shudder to Think emerged in the late 1980s as one of the most interesting bands to get slapped with the tag of post-hardcore. Persevering through productive lineup changes before transitioning to soundtrack work, they did what bands so often do; they broke up, only to reunite for shows, and now they’re fully back on the recording front, with a new digital EP “Who Sent You?” available on September 11 that follows a vinyl single from late last year. The wax and the digital, both released by Dischord Records, get a proper consideration below.

Shudder to Think made a big splash back in 1989 with their inclusion on the Dischord Records’ benefit compilation State of the Union, a grand tour of DC post-hardcore of the era with proceeds going to the A.C.L.U. and The Community for Creative Non-Violence (note that State of the Union is still available as a digital release).

“Let It Ring” was Shudder to Think’s contribution to State of the Union, closing the record in emphatic fashion, their explosiveness both soaring and stampeding as it stood apart from anything else on the album. “Let It Ring” also closes side two of Curses, Spells, Voodoo, Mooses, the band’s 1988 debut LP for Sammich Records, in a solid but lesser version than the compilation cut. Anyone interested in the band will want to hear both.

With 1990’s Ten Spot, Shudder to Think joined Dischord Records proper as they helped to stylistically broaden the label’s strongest decade. The lineup from the start was Craig Wedren on vocals, Chris Matthews on guitar, Stuart Hill on bass, and Mike Russell on drums, and so it remained through 1991’s Funeral at the Movies (find an original copy which includes a sweet version of “Crosstown Traffic”) and the following year’s Get Your Goat.

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Celebrating Al Jardine on his 84th birthday. —Ed.

Existence is unutterably strange. It’s a fact. The world is filled with miracles and marvels and inexplicable occurrences that defy all rational explanation and that stand, in fact, as rebukes to the very conception of rationality itself. Take the 45 rpm record I hold metaphorically before me. Soon, I will place it on my metaphorical record player. It’s by a band called The Beach Boys. Perhaps you’ve heard of them. Boy, could they sing!

But I’m not here to write about the baroque vocal skills of the band that gave us “Good Vibrations,” or how the Beach Boys gradually shed their squeaky-clean image to become hirsute, coke-snorting, acid-gobbling hippies. I’m here to talk about their choice in covers, specifically in the case of the metaphorical single that is now playing on my record player.

The A-side of the 1968 single, entitled “Bluebirds Over the Mountain,” was written and recorded by rockabilly artist Ersel Hickey in 1957. The B-side is entitled “Never Learn Not to Love,” and is a blatant (as in he took everything from soup to nuts) Dennis Wilson steal of “Cease to Exist,” a song written by one Charles Milles Manson, of swastika-carved-forehead and Tate/LaBianca murder-spree fame. Both tunes ended up on The Beach Boys’ 1969 LP 20/20.

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Thorn Wych builds her own instruments from the branches of trees. On her debut album, Aesthesis, she delves deep into an organic experimentation with a folkloric edge. Utilizing grooves, drones, chants, and hazy clouds of abstraction, her sound is connected to long-established traditions while standing apart through pure distinctiveness. Recorded and edited at home, Aesthesis has been available for a couple of years but is getting a welcome North American LP release on September 4 through Tompkins Square.

Living in the UK town of Bacup in Lancashire (near Manchester), Thorn Wych makes deeply spiritual music that leans toward swirling strangeness rather than slipping into blissful placidity. Starting with tree branches, Wych crafts flutes, strings for bowing, and percussion, and then further enhances the sounds she produces with delay pedals, looping, and pitch-shifting devices.

The results, as heard on Aesthesis, strive not to produce sharp contrasts of her rustic baselines against boldly applied technological strategies. Instead, Wych is just attempting to conjure beautifully weird blends. These final results, twisted but natural, are achieved through studiously applied repetitions, edits, distortions, and sound stretching.

The initial release of Aesthesis emerged on cassette (50 copies) and vinyl in late 2024 on the Hood Faire label. Early the following year, a 6-copy run of cassettes in a very attractive wooden case added a bonus track. And at the beginning of 2026, Hood Faire brought out a vinyl repress in a 150-copy edition. Now here comes Tompkins Square with the Stateside availability. There is digital, but only through Bandcamp.

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Unearthed vault recordings of The Cramps are a cause for gleeful galivanting, particularly when the sounds are of the vintage captured on Gravest Gravy, which is out now on vinyl, compact disc, and digital through Vengeance Records. The album delivers a dozen buzzy, fuzzy, thumping belters guided by the mighty hand of Alex Chilton in Memphis, Tennessee. Anybody interested in hearing uncut American greatness at its most frenzied should step right the fuck up.

In part through sheer commitment to an ideal of crazed trash-worshipping flamboyance, The Cramps have endured as one of the most beloved of all punk bands. Punk? Yes, it’s easy (and for some, preferable) to come up with a hyphen-laden genre descriptor to differentiate from standard, straightforward punk rock what singer Lux Interior, guitarist Poison Ivy Rorschach, and whoever spun through the revolving door to occupy the roles of third and occasionally fourth member, were up to.

The reality is that The Cramps date back to the days before punk became a largely codified stylistic experience. All a band needed during this initial burst of punkish activity was a loose handle on either inspired mayhem or savvy simplicity. Across the decades since then, a handful of the more unorthodox early punk bands have been awarded foundational post-punk status, but that doesn’t work for the scuzzy and sweaty roots junk of The Cramps.

Instead, Lux and Ivy and crew luxuriate in the same neighborhood as X, The Gun Club, The Blasters, The Flesh Eaters, Girl Trouble, Flat Duo Jets, Jon Spencer and the assorted bands of Ohioans Don Howland and Jeffrey Evans. It’s difficult to imagine labels like Norton, Crypt, and Estrus existing without The Cramps pointing backward with one hand and forward with the other.

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Remembering Tim Bogert, born on this day in 1944. —Ed.

To soak up Vanilla Fudge’s talent as song interpreters, the best route is their eponymous ’67 debut. A further understanding of them as a singles act is best gleaned from the Rhino compilation Psychedelic Sundae. If an immersion into the multifaceted positives and negatives of these trailblazing late-‘60s hard rockers’ everyday reality is what one wants, however, then one should look into the contents of Near the Beginning.

There’s no question that Vanilla Fudge is an important band. “You Keep Me Hangin’ On,” the group’s reading of a Holland-Dozier-Holland tune originally by The Supremes, is a vital evolutionary brick in the hard rock megastructure, and it stands as a one-song distillation of nearly everything good and potentially less than stellar about this hard-touring quartet.

There are two versions of the Fudge’s recording, a just shy of three-minute single edit and the take found on their debut; that one’s over twice as long, and this duality is to an extent indicative of the group’s creative problems. It’s far from that simple, though, and their somewhat brief and highly eventful initial existence provides a consistently interesting story, if one that’s only sporadically fruitful in musical terms.

Vanilla Fudge’s beginnings are in The Electric Pigeons, the soul cover unit featuring organist/lead vocalist Mark Stein and bassist Tim Bogert. They soon acquired guitarist Vince Martell and drummer Carmine Appice, and after hooking up with Shangri La’s producer, Shadow Morton, they changed their name and focused their attention on the studio.

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