Category Archives: The TVD Storefront

VIA PRESS RELEASE | This November sees the release of 50th Anniversary edition of Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, available as a 4LP vinyl box set via UMe/Polydor. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the 1970 double album, the original has been given the ‘Half-Speed Mastered’ treatment by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios and is completed with a certificate of authentication. The 50th anniversary 4LP box set, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, is available exclusively through uDiscover and Sound of Vinyl and can be ordered here.

​Layla is often regarded as Eric Clapton’s greatest musical achievement. The album is notably known for its title track, an evergreen rock classic, which had top ten single chart success in the U.K. and features the dual wailing guitars of Clapton and Duane Allman. Alongside this are a further 2LPs of bonus material some of which has not previously been released on vinyl. All the bonus material across all of LP3 and LP4 is mastered normally (so is not half-speed mastered). The LP set also includes a 12×12 book of sleeve notes taken from the 40th-Anniversary Edition.

In 1970, following the break-up of Blind Faith and his departure from Delaney & Bonnie, Derek & The Dominos initially formed in the spring of that year. The group comprised Eric Clapton on guitar and vocals alongside three other former members of Delaney & Bonnie & Friends: Bobby Whitlock on keyboards, Carl Radle on bass, and Jim Gordon on drums.

Derek & The Dominos played their first concert at London’s Lyceum Ballroom on June 14, 1970 as part of a U.K. summer tour. During late August to early October they recorded Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, with the Allman Brothers’ guitarist Duane Allman sitting in, before returning to a tour of the U.K. and the U.S. until the end of the year. Shortly thereafter the group disbanded but their short time together offered up one of the rock canon’s most enduring albums of all time.

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“I didn’t know it was vinyl when it was ‘vinyl.’ It was just how the dance party would get started with my sister in the basement on a little portable 45 record player. Or, in the living room on my parents’ old system. It was easier to use than the A-track. “

“The first records that I remember playing over and over again was the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. My sister had some Madonna 45 singles…and my parents loved Simon and Garfunkel. I have to say that I got into Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass because of the cover. A naked woman covered in whipped cream seemed like a good invitation.

Later in college is when it really came back. I started hanging out with DJs and producers. I fell in love with the Golden Era of Hip Hop’s production techniques, and I started digging. And honestly, that’s when I started falling in love with jazz. Cannonball Adderley, Herbie Hancock obviously… Bitches Brew changed my life. Honestly, after Bitches Brew, my mind exploded.

Also, side note, while I was in high school listening to The Beatles’ “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds,” I finally made the connection that they were talking about LSD. I guess everybody has to figure it out at some point.

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Celebrating Joan Jett during her birthday week. —Ed.

Joan Jett’s 1979 debut LP is one of rock music’s most joyful readymades–an utterly endearing romp through rock history from hoary old standards (“Wooly Bully”) to bubblegum pop to Gary Glitter to the buzzsaw sound of the Ramones, Bad Reputation is a veritable vinyl jukebox you’ll never get tired of tossing dimes into.

On Bad Reputation–original title Joan Jett--the runaway Runaway dares to wear her heart on her sleeve by pledging allegiance to the songs that made her who she is; this is Joan Jett’s Self Portrait, and with the exception of her too-stiff-by-half take on the Isley Brothers’ “Shout,” she does her personal canon proud. Not only does she prove she’s the true successor to Gary Glitter (and by association her glam role model Suzi Quatro), she demonstrates conclusively that she’s her own gurl by contributing a couple of songs that (with the exception of the punk-tinged title track) blend seamlessly in with their esteemed company.

Jett (the Blackhearts were still in the future) chose her producers wisely. Top guys Kenny Laguna and Ritchie Cordell (Sex Pistols Steve Jones and Paul Cook also lent a hand) were both proud Super K Productions alumni working under immortal bubblegum producers Jerry Kasenetz and Jeffrey Katz, and they brought their many years of throwaway pop songcraft to the table. Remember that version of Led Zep’s “Stairway to Heaven” set to the lyrics of the theme song from Gilligan’s Island? You can thank Laguna for it. And Cordell is the guy who bequeathed us both “I Think We’re Alone Now” and “Mony Mony.”

I could go into all kinds of philosophical digressions about Jett’s reactionary backwards-looking worldview but I’m too busy bashing my head to her positively infectious takes on Glitter classics “Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)” and “Doing Alright with the Boys.” Jett hangs on to that big, bad Glitter sound (dig that tribal thump thump thump!) but takes both songs to Glamtastic new heights by making Glitter (no wallflower for sure) sound positively enervated; she doesn’t sing ‘em, she shouts ‘em, bringing an unprecedented amount of bad attitude to the table. Message to Glam Rock: You’re not dead until Joan Jett says you are!

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London-based dream-popper Philip Brooks produces nostalgic and emotionally charged tunes that land like bedroom bop Fleetwood Mac. “I’m So In Love With All Of My Friends” is a particularly bittersweet entry into his catalogue, examining regrets over having lost friends by admitting feelings for them. The German-born singer-songwriter has recently come out as non-binary.

Philip says about the track:
 “I wanted to write a love song for my platonic friends, because deep platonic love is so underrated in my opinion. In the past I was always seeking affection and I famously fell for my friends all the time—like, that was basically my brand. Every time I took the courage to be candid to find out if my crushes felt the same, people kept disappearing from my life until I found myself all alone.”

“Feeling both emotionally and physically distanced from my loved ones over the last few months led me to reflect on that, and writing this song helped me manifest that deeply loving people platonically is okay and enough and actually it’s really awesome. The track means a lot to me, especially because so many of my super talented friends are on it.”

VIA PRESS RELEASE | “Ready, Steady, Go! was the best rock ’n’ roll TV show of all time. It just seemed more vibrant and real…You always thought you were slightly on the edge there.” —Mick Jagger

​The London-based Ready, Steady, Go! began broadcasting in August of 1963 and, within a matter of weeks, became an essential television ritual for the newly confident British teenager. It set trends and became the barometer of popular culture by attracting and presenting everyone who was anyone in popular music: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Kinks, The Animals, Marvin Gaye, The Supremes, Otis Redding, and many more. RSG! also provided the first small screen exposure for then-unknowns such as Rod Stewart, Marc Bolan, David Bowie, Donovan, and Jimi Hendrix. The show ran for three and a half years, setting a blueprint for music presentation and production on television that resonated over the following decades and can still be felt today.

Ready, Steady, Go! has never been documented in full detail—until now, when BMG Books will publish Ready Steady Go: The Weekend Starts Here in the U.S., due out November 6, 2020. Featured in this lavishly illustrated and definitive history of the show are hundreds of photographs—the bulk of them previously unpublished—as well as exclusive essays and more (see below for details). Author Andy Neill fully examines RSG!, from quintessential Swinging London fixture to its current iconic status as the most legendary popular music program of all time.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | John Prine’s Souvenirs will be available for the first time on vinyl Friday, September 25 on Oh Boy Records. Originally released in 2000, Souvenirs was produced by Prine and his longtime collaborator and friend, Jim Rooney, and includes members from his longtime band, Jason Wilber and Dave Jacques. The fifteen-track album features new performances of some of Prine’s most beloved songs, including “Angel from Montgomery,” “Sam Stone,” and “Hello In There.”

​Prine reflected on the album in the original liner notes, writing, “These songs are beautiful. They have been faithful companions throughout the years, never letting me down and constantly making me new friends, even when I was sleeping… This collection of newly recorded versions was originally intended for European release only, as I have always wanted to be popular in Germany. After we mixed, sequenced and listened to the songs, all of us at Oh Boy decided that perhaps we should release this in the U.S., as I would like to be popular there as well.”

Additionally, on October 3, PBS’ Austin City Limits will kick-off Season 46 with “The Very Best of John Prine.” The hour-long episode will feature favorite performances across Prine’s eight visits to the venerable program as well as never-before-seen footage. Prine will also be honored as part of the Recording Academy’s Great Performances: GRAMMY Salute To Music Legends ceremony recognizing the 2020 Special Merit Awards recipients. Airing October 16 on PBS, Brandi Carlile, Jason Isbell, and Amanda Shires will all perform in celebration of Prine and the Lifetime Achievement Award he received this past January at the 62nd Grammy Awards.

Moreover, due to popular demand, Picture Show: A Tribute Celebrating John Prine, will re-air with additional footage on October 10 in celebration of Prine’s 74th birthday. Hosted on Prine’s YouTube channel, the tribute will begin at 7:00pm CT and will remain available through midnight on Sunday, October 11. Originally viewed over 500,000 times, the tribute has raised over $400,000 for NAMI, Alive, Make the Road New York and MusiCares.

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Starting in October of 2018 and then continuing last year, the Mancunian outfit A Certain Ratio received some well-deserved retrospective action via Mute Records, first the 2LP/ CD acr:set and then the 7LP/ 4CD ACR:BOX; now here’s ACR Loco, their first LP of new material since 2008, and it finds them in energetic and inspired form. It’s out September 25 on CD, cassette, and vinyl in a variety of colors: white, blue, red, or turquoise. The same day, the band and Mute are celebrating the release with the An Evening With ACR online event, which includes a live show from last year, a Q&A, the new album played live, and a DJ set from ACR Soundsystem. Tickets are available here.

When it comes to the combination of post-punk heft and funky dance-appropriate fervor, A Certain Ratio’s importance is commensurate with others of the same period who were dedicated to a comparable objective (e.g., ESG, Pigbag, Liquid Liquid, Konk, Pop Group, Delta 5, Gang of Four), and it should definitely be stressed that in the storied history of Factory Records, A Certain Ratio had established themselves as a highly rhythmic force prior to the recording of New Order’s first album.

However, for some, ACR’s lasting significance has been overly synopsized into the namechecking of “Shack Up,” their 1980 cover of a two-part funky-disco nugget from Banbarra, their sole single released in ’75 on the United Artists label. While “Shack Up” is indeed a whopper of a record (the original, ACR’s cover, and in some of its myriad interpolations via dance music/ DJ/ hip-hop culture since), A Certain Ratio’s career achievement has been substantially greater, as the size of ACR:BOX (comprised of singles, B-sides, rarities, unreleased material, and demos) helps to clarify.

ACR Loco is also their tenth full-length (excluding comps), though it is only the second album of new material they’ve released the 21st century. It’s suggested by bassist Jez Kerr that the boxset’s assemblage directly impacted the recording of this fresh offering, a sensible conclusion as ACR Loco incorporates sounds and styles from throughout their existence. Furthermore, the wide-ranging whole is heightened by cohesiveness and spirited execution that can be linked to the stated success of ACR’s recent tour.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | And She Could Be Next, a voting rights companion album to the PBS docuseries And She Could Be Next, executive produced by Ava DuVernay and chronicling the story of a defiant movement of women of color including Stacey Abrams, Lucy McBath, Rashida Tlaib, AOC, Nikema Williams, and more who are transforming American politics from the ground up, will be released in October 2 via Lakeshore Records.

​The album features dynamic, powerful, outspoken voices from the hip hop, pop, and R&B community including Aloe Blacc, Lila Downs, Sa-Roc, Sheila E, Arabian Prince (NWA), Madame Gandhi, Saul Williams, Tarriona “Tank” Ball, Hyro the Hero, William Stanbro, Flor de Toloache, Ruby Ibarra, Judith Hill, Shawnee, Sussan Deyhim, Sarah Thawer, Vivek Maddala, Jahi Lake, Daniel French from Las Cafeteras, Sarah DeAun McCrary, Dee MC, and Nappy Nina.

“It is only when we understand the sheer weight of our collective power that we can begin to grasp the tremendous potential for change. Being a witness to the commitment of this generation’s artists, activists, and policymakers to radically transforming our global landscape has cemented my belief in the inevitability of a new and just future.”
—Sa-Roc

And She Could Be Next is produced by and features musician and composer Gingger Shankar (The Passion of the Christ, CNN’s We Will Rise: Michelle Obama’s Mission to Educate Girls Around the World, Akicita: The Battle of Standing Rock), who scored the two-part documentary series.

On the heels of the docuseries release in June and after speaking with Stacey Abrams’ camp about the urgency surrounding the upcoming primaries and Presidential election and their inability to canvas door to door due to the pandemic, Shankar began reaching out to musician friends to help create a companion album—with the docuseries score woven through—as a tool for voting organizations to lift spirits and amplify not only the message and reach of the docuseries but of the organizations as well.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Like never before The Soul of the Midnight Special brings home audiences and music lovers everywhere an unforgettable collection of legendary soul artists performing their hits in the prime of their careers—uncut performances, just straight-from-the-heart soul singing with live musicians in front of a live audience. Now available at Barnes & Noble and Amazon for the first time on October 6, 2020.

​In the period between American Bandstand and MTV, there were sev­eral shows that tried to bring new music to television, but it wasn’t until The Midnight Special, premiered on August 19, 1972, that live music found a home on the air. Burt Sugarman, producer of Grammy Awards telecasts, was frustrated by television’s lack of programming after The Tonight Show ended—the screen reverting to test patterns at 1:00 a.m.. Recognizing this valuable airtime could cater to a brand-new audience that craved its latest musical heroes, he created The Midnight Special, which ran every Friday night on NBC from 1972 to 1981.

The’70s was a special time for soul music and The Midnight Special truly had an affinity for the genre. Week after week, home audiences would have virtual front row seats for performances by the greatest soul performers of the time including Al Green, Earth Wind & Fire, Patti LaBelle, Bill Withers, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, Spinners, The O’Jays, Teddy Pendergrass, The Stylistics, Chaka Khan, Gladys Knight and The Pips and so many more. The Midnight Special was the only show where you could see real live performances week after week.

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Remembering Uriah Heep drummer Lee Kerslake. —Ed.

Who was it who said, “He came to mock, but remained to pray?” It doesn’t matter. But such was the case–to a degree any way–when I decided to “relisten” to Uriah Heep. I’ve always loved “Easy Livin’,” but when I was but a teenage droogie I plunked down some hard-earned money for a Uriah Heep 8-track that quickly made its way to the bottom of my 8-track pile. And I haven’t thought of them, except to chuckle at their risible swords and sorcery pretensions, since.

So imagine my surprise when I turned on 1972’s Demons and Wizards–chortle, chortle–only to discover I rather liked the thing. Sure, the lyrics are the work of somebody who has spent far too much time amongst hobbits. And David Byron’s histrionic tonsils–his voice has more octaves than there are steps on the stairway to heaven–occasionally make Geddy Lee sound like Paul Rodgers. But I’ll be damned if Demon and Wizards doesn’t have something up its sleeve–namely some good songs featuring some dandy playing. It’s not some progressive rock nightmare, it’s a rock ’n’ roll album, at least in its better moments, and Demons and Wizards has plenty of very good moments.

Demons and Wizards is fantasy-drenched right down to its head shop cover art by the infamous Roger Dean, and I expected to hate it for that reason alone. There’s nothing I despise more than your standard dungeons and dragons imagery, and Demons and Wizards has all the makings of a dungeon torture device. Things start inauspiciously enough; LP opener “The Wizard” boasts some awful lyrics featuring “a magic man” who wears “a cape of gold,” and I wanted to call it a day right then and there. Then I realized “The Wizard” might as well be a Styx song, and I have a perverse liking for Styx. There was, absurdly, hope in the air.

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The word “icon” is thrown around alot these days, but some folks just qualify as goshdarn icons with no tired cliches attached. When it comes to radio icons, if you had to pick a few big ones, Cousin Brucie Morrow would be right there near the top of Modulation Mountain. He’s been there, done that: seen it all, even introduced The Beatles at Shea Stadium with Ed Sullivan. His voice was hard to miss on the radio in the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s until he moved to satellite radio in 2005.

But there was something that was always calling Cousin Brucie back to the radio radio. In this case, it was John A. Catsimatidis who literally called Brucie during his shows every Saturday night. After Catsimatidis purchased WABC in 2019, he knew he wanted to hear great music on his station and there was only one person who he saw fit to bring it back to a New York City audience via the airwaves: Cousin Bruce. Brucie returns to the station where his career began in 1961 with a new show on Saturday night at 6pm where he goes head-to-head on the airwaves in the same time slot as yours truly.

But, we’re not rivals. In fact, Brucie called me his “Cousin” which is really all I could have hoped to hear from this radio legend. He’s warm, he’s engaging. He’s one of those guys that you expect won’t have enough time for you and then makes you feel as if you’re the only one in the world. He’s had practice connecting with people and it shows. In this interview, we discuss his storied career, calming down a nervous John Lennon, his time on satellite, and how there’s no place like home on the radio airwaves beaming from an antenna and blanketing New York City.

Pull up a chair, cousin. We’re all family here.

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.

If there’s one thing I know about the hated eighties, it’s that absolutely no one I knew could abide synthpop. Oh, some of us may have locked our doors and listened to it in the privacy of our own homes, confessing to doing so one meant being labeled a Eurofop and drummed out of our social circle.

But while my friends and I despised the genre and were disheartened by the prospect of its conquering the world, A Flock of Seagulls were a kind of consolation prize. Them we could laugh at. Mike Score’s gull wings haircut cracked us up, and the little dweeb in the sunglasses was funny too.

But lately I’ve been wondering if there might have been more to A Flock of Seagulls than Michael Score’s iconic topiary coiffure, so I picked up a copy of the band’s 2006 VH1 Classic best-of compilation We Are the ‘80s and gave it a spin. And much to my chagrin, I discovered their music isn’t as bad as all that.

Just as I’d suspected, I found A Flock of Seagulls’ species of MTV-friendly Europop to have all the soul of an automatic car wash. But despite my social clique’s dismissal of the group’s synth-heavy dance music as bloodless as your average cyborg, there must have been a thumping heart in there somewhere, a point A Flock of Seagulls drove home in “Heartbeat Like a Drum.”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Brian Eno releases Film Music 1976–2020—his first-ever collection of music from his film and television soundtrack oeuvre digitally on November 13, 2020, and on 2LP and 1CD on January 22, 2021. Spanning five decades, this release features classic Eno compositions and includes some lesser-known gems and seven previously unreleased tracks.

​Eno’s long-standing affair with film goes all the way back to 1970 with his soundtrack to Malcolm Le Grice’s short experimental film Berlin Horse. In 1976 he followed this with Sebastiane and a long-forgotten Greek b-horror film, Land Of The Minotaur AKA The Devil’s Men. This led to an unstoppable momentum largely initiated by the release of Music For Films. Early classic Eno film moments include “Prophecy Theme” from David Lynch’s Dune, “From The Beginning” from Dario Argento’s Opera, “Force Marker” and “Late Evening In Jersey” from Michael Mann’s Heat, “Under” from Ralph Bakshi’s Cool World, and his moving cover of William Bell’s soul classic, “You Don’t Miss Your Water,” in Jonathan Demme’s Married to The Mob.

His 1978 studio album, Music For Films was a loose compilation of material recorded between 1975 ~ 1978. It was intended as a conceptual soundtrack for imaginary films, and only the last track, “Final Sunset” was written for an actual film. It proved to be a fruitful project with nearly every piece on the album going on to be used in future films, including several of Derek Jarman’s, the remake of Jean-Luc Goddard’s Breathless, John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow, Rock ‘n’ Roll High School, and Todd Hayes’ Safe.

Eno again explored this approach with U2 as Passengers on their collaboration album, Original Soundtracks 1. Four of the tracks from the album were used in films prior to release: “Beach Sequence” and “Your Blue Room” in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Beyond the Clouds, “Miss Sarajevo” in an eponymous documentary about a beauty pageant held in the midst of besieged ‘93 Sarajevo, and “One Minute Warning” in Mamoru Oshii’s Japanese animation classic, Ghost in the Shell. Another track, “Always Forever Now” later appeared in Heat.

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“My first introduction to the world of music was searching through my dad’s modest record collection.”

“I was a four-year-old who thought I wanted to be an astronaut or scientist at the time. My father was a casual music fan who came from a highly-gifted musical family. His stash of vinyl largely consisted of classics like The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Kinks, The Beach Boys, and lots of folk music. His taste in folk ranged from Leo Kottke to Buffy Sainte-Marie. I loved the harmonies of The Beach Boys, The Everly Brothers, and all of the folk groups. What really excited me was the raw guitar tones of The Beatles and the other rock groups.

In particular, I was drawn to The Beatles Rubber Soul. Something about the way the band looked on the cover resonated with me before I even heard the music. It inspired me to ask my dad for a “Beatles haircut,” which he happily gave me himself using a Tupperware bowl as his guide.

Back then my dad told me John Lennon had been assassinated some time ago. When I looked at the smoke-filled picture of him on the back cover of Rubber Soul he seemed other-worldly—almost like he sent that photo back from the great beyond. I asked my dad if that photo was taken after he had been shot. My dad just shook his head, probably not sure how to respond to such a ridiculous question.

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Living through a time in which live performance on a grand scale is more or less impossible, Matt Beckley is hanging in there. He’s a gifted guitarist and songwriter, but his creative interests truly lie in music production, so it’s no wonder his talents are faring well during the current pandemic, rather than being inhibited by an inability to tour.

The son of rock legend Gerry Beckley of America, Matt was a part of the professional world of popular music since birth. He grew up on the floors of recording studios in Los Angeles in awe of his father’s artistic prowess and the magic of making music, while at the same time understanding the realities of the recording artist’s vocation and its tangibility. While some young people exposed to such a situation might take it for granted or rebel against it, Matt possessed the intelligence and inherent artistic impulse to desire knowledge and experience, knowing he held an innate ability and interest to add something new to the ongoing legacy of recorded music.

Which is exactly what he’s done thus far in his career. Matt Beckley’s been involved in an astounding amount of number-ones and chart toppers from our era’s most successful pop singers. This is no coincidence; he understands what a listener seeks from “a voice” and the indefinable something that goes into the making of a recording star. Katy Perry, Kesha, Avril Lavigne, Leona Lewis, Britney Spears, and Camila Cabello (including her single “Havana” which reached one billion streams on Spotify in 2018) are just a few of the vocalists who Matt has produced.

In a fun, lively, and appropriately audiophilic conversation with Matt Beckley, we learn more about the earliest moments of his journey into music production, his familial influences and personal inspirations, and his knack for being behind some of the most successful pop singles of recent times.

Were there projects that you were involved in leading up to 2020’s pandemic? Did you have creative plans that were affected by all of this?

Clearly everything live was shut down. And there’s work that I’ve had to turn down because we just can’t do anything in a studio right now. But I got really lucky—right around the beginning of this, a friend of mine started doing this kind of film project that needed original music and he asked if I would score it, which is something I’d like to do more of. It’s kept me really busy.

We’re all just looking for shit to do while we’re holed up. The industry is shut down, but in a lot of ways, a lot of what we do is pretty isolated anyway. Everyone’s doing the best they can to stay busy. But anybody that does what is predominantly live is hosed. And the other irony is, that if you’re going to release a record, you can’t promote it. Nobody can tour. So in a way, for somebody like me who is mostly behind the glass these days—I’m sad that I can’t do my bar gig that I would do every month with friends to stay sharp—but I’m doing OK, you know. I consider myself very lucky, but I try to remain cognizant of the people who are suffering greatly.

Do you recall a particular moment in your artistic upbringing when you knew production was one of your primary musical interests—when you realized you had a knack for it?

I’m not a particularly good singer and I’m an OK player. It became one of those things of “we don’t really want to go see your band… but can you work on a record?” My dad is constantly working. So I grew up on the floor of studios; even when it was the converted garage, it was still a studio and I would watch him. He’s a very, very underrated producer. In fact, my mom was told by George Martin “Gerry needs to get off the road and really be a producer because he’s got a knack for it.”

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