Category Archives: The TVD Storefront

Remembering Richard Lloyd. —Ed.

Sometimes I flabbergast myself. I think I know what I like and what I don’t like, only to find out I don’t know a damn thing about anything, least of all my likes and dislikes. Take KC and the Sunshine Band. I hated them with a passion for like 30 years, and now I think they’re great. Or Elton John’s Caribou, which I liked for like 80 years, only to realize just yesterday that it has only two good songs, although to Captain Fantastic’s credit, they’re two really great songs.

But occasionally I get it right the first time, as with Queen’s “We Are the Champions,” which I hated when it came out and still hate to this day. And the same goes for Television’s sophomore LP, 1978’s Adventure. People—as in every sentient human breathing air the year it came out—wrote Adventure off as a lackluster follow-up to the band’s 1977 debut, Marquee Moon. Everybody but me, that is. Because I had never heard of Marquee Moon. I didn’t even know it existed. Hell, I can’t even remember how or why I came to buy Adventure, because I had no clue as to who Television was and absolutely no inkling that they were an integral part of a musical revolution in progress at a ratty club in New York City called CBGBs.

But buy it I did, just as I bought Kill City without having ever heard the Stooges, which just goes to show you how isolating rural living was back in the days before the internet gave you access to all kinds of information, including who was who on the rock circuit. About all you got exposed to back in those days were hoof and mouth disease and square dancing, which is why I spent my teen years doing my level best to do as many drugs as I could get my greedy paws on, while trying to wrap my vehicle around a utility pole, which I finally accomplished on March 1, 1980. You’ve got to have goals, even in the boondocks, or life isn’t worth a damn.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | The history of punk is full of arguments. Who invented it? Which band mattered most? Which scene came first? Ask ten fans, and you’ll get ten different answers. But there is far less debate about one thing: 1977 was the year punk exploded.

In Punk ’77: The Year and Music That Revolutionized Rock, Martin Popoff revisits the twelve chaotic months when punk rock burst from clubs, fanzines, and underground scenes into the mainstream. Moving through the year month by month, the book traces the records, personalities, controversies, and cultural flashpoints that transformed punk from a provocation into a global force.

Rather than retelling the familiar argument over punk’s origins, Punk ’77 focuses on the year everything accelerated. From the interconnected scenes of London and New York to emerging hotspots across the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, the book follows punk’s rapid expansion as new bands, new sounds, and new ideas reshaped rock music.

Drawing on interview material with key figures from the era, including members of the Damned, the Dictators, the Dead Boys, the Sex Pistols, Generation X, the Buzzcocks, the Patti Smith Group, Talking Heads, and more, Popoff builds a chronological portrait of a movement in motion.

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They shoulda been somebody. Country rock band Poco featured players with impeccable pedigrees, including two former Buffalo Springfield members and two future Eagles members. The band was a refuge for stars on the wane and a testing ground for stars in the making, and how could you go wrong, right?

Well, it didn’t help that one member (Richie Furay) would end up in the Titanic-class “supergroup” The Souther-Hillman-Furay Band, while another (Jim Messina) would later be half of the execrable duo Loggins & Messina until being “Garfunkeled” by Kenny Loggins. And what did the future members of the Eagles (Randy Meisner and Timothy B. Schmit) really have to be proud about? The Eagles’ moral repugnance was only matched by the gargantuan egos of Don Henley and Glenn Frey.

So maybe they shouldn’t have been anyone after all. It didn’t help that they specialized in watered-down country rock, with the occasional forays into other genres including third-rate rock and (yes) jazz, which prevented the band from establishing a consistent “brand” that buyers could depend on.

Still, they managed to put out a very small handful of decent songs during their long career, including the hardly chart-busting singles “You Better Think Twice” (1970) and “A Good Feeling to Know” (1972). That should certainly count for something. It doesn’t count for much.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | The Stooges’ self-titled debut lit punk rock’s fuse in 1969, long before it exploded in 1976. Today, a new audiophile edition of The Stooges is available on reel-to-reel from Rhino High Fidelity.

The Stooges (Rhino High Fidelity R2R) was duplicated in real time from a 1:1 copy of the original flat analog master tape. The result is a master-quality listening experience that captures the recording’s full dynamics. The 15 i.p.s. half-track 1/4” tape is produced to the IEC equalization standard on premium RTM LPR90 tape stock and stored on a 10.5” metal reel. The Reel-to-Reel edition is limited to 350 copies worldwide and available exclusively at Rhino.com.

Iggy Pop (aka Iggy Stooge on this album), Ron Asheton, Scott Asheton, and Dave Alexander left Ann Arbor, Michigan, to record their debut in New York with producer John Cale. Across eight tracks, the band’s visceral rhythms and roaring guitars fused with Iggy’s confrontational vocals, forging an elemental sound that was ahead of its time.

“1969” opens the album with a sneer, while “I Wanna Be Your Dog” and “No Fun” bristle with the quartet’s primal power. Cale, who played viola on the Velvet Underground’s first two albums, also plays it here on the eerie, experimental “We Will Fall.”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Phantogram today celebrates a decade of their acclaimed album, Three, with a limited-edition Smoky Sky Blue color vinyl pressing, an immersive Dolby Atmos mix of the album, and an explosive new remix, all out now. Featuring alternate artwork and a new metallic foil cover, the anniversary LP is available exclusively at Phantogram.com and uDiscover Music.

“We made this album over six months in Echo Park during one of the heaviest periods of our lives. It came out of grief, heartbreak, noise, and the need to keep moving through it all,” says Phantogram’s Sarah Barthel and Josh Carter. “Ten years later, these songs have taken on lives of their own thanks to all of you. You’ve danced to them, cried to them, screamed them back at us, and carried them with you in ways we never could have imagined when we were making the record.”

Originally released October 7, 2016, Three debuted at No. 9 on the Billboard 200. The album brought Phantogram’s signature blend of electronic production, hard-hitting beats, gauzy guitars, Barthel’s crystalline vocals, and Carter’s brooding delivery into sharper focus. Informed by the loss of Barthel’s sister, Becky, the record balances its deeply personal subject matter with a more direct approach to songwriting. Across 10 tracks, the duo turns turmoil into music that invites both movement and reflection.

To mark Three’s 10th anniversary, English DJ, producer and composer Aaron Hibell has remixed “You Don’t Get Me High Anymore,” transforming one of Phantogram’s defining songs into an explosive, tension-filled banger. Hibell’s remix amplifies the original’s dark intensity with cinematic scale and momentum.

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Remembering Doug Sahm, born on this day in 1941. —Ed.

Hank Williams’ very last performance in this life was at the Skyline Club in Austin, Texas, in December 1953. On stage with him was an unusual figure; the 11-year-old Douglas Wayne Sahm, a prodigy who had made his radio debut at the age of five. Come 1965, Sahm became the frontman of The Sir Douglas Quintet, whose “She’s About a Mover” is nothing less than one of the greatest songs ever. (Yeah, that’s right.) Now jump forward to 1973 and Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records, produces Sahm’s debut solo LP, Doug Sahm and Band.

That “band” was misleading; the folks in that studio were nothing less than a supergroup, and had no intention of hitting the road together. Bob Dylan, Dr. John, David Bromberg, and the Tejano Mexican accordionist Flaco Jiménez were all involved, as was famed saxophonist David “Fathead” Newman and ex-Sir Douglas Quintet keyboardist Augie Meyers, who produced that great organ sound on “She’s About a Mover.”

It could have turned into a self-indulgent fiasco, as so many sessions crowded with big names do, but instead it was an instant classic—energetic, ecstatic, and in general the kind of LP guaranteed to put a smile on your face. Its mix of Tex-Mex, blues, and rock’n’roll means it’s all over the place, but the band put their magic touch on whatever genre they turned their heads to. Sahm wrote only 3 of the LP’s 12 songs—other contributors included Dylan, Willie Nelson, and T-Bone Walker, amongst others—but he managed to make them his own.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Twenty years ago, Cold War Kids introduced their distinctive blend of soulful storytelling, blues-infused indie rock and unforgettable melodies with their acclaimed debut album, Robbers & Cowards. Fueled by breakout singles “Hang Me Up to Dry,” “We Used to Vacation,” and “Hospital Beds,” the album landed on the Billboard 200 and launched a career that has since generated more than one billion streams worldwide.

Today, Cold War Kids celebrate the album’s 20ᵗʰ anniversary with Robbers & Cowards / Complete Cowards (20th Anniversary Edition), available now via UMe. The expanded collection completes four songs written during the album’s original era but left unfinished at the time, and adds six live recordings captured in 2007 as the band toured in support of its breakout debut.

Robbers & Cowards / Complete Cowards is available as a 2LP on black vinyl or limited-edition Brick Red vinyl, both featuring alternate and new artwork, and as a 2CD set. The Digital Deluxe Edition adds Phantogram’s newly reimagined version of “Hang Me Up to Dry,” which transforms the Cold War Kids classic with heavy electro beats, layered atmospherics and bewitching vocals. The collaboration offers a first glimpse of a further 20th anniversary celebration, with more artist reinterpretations of songs from Robbers & Cowards coming in 2027.

The four newly completed songs—“Loyalty,” “There Goes The Night,” “Jesse Latour,” and “She Can Do No Wrong”—all date back to the Robbers & Cowards era. Cold War Kids returned to the material two decades later to finish and record the songs for the anniversary collection.

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For decades, Lynyrd Skynyrd fans had to make do with only one live album—1976’s adequate but flawed One More from the Road. I’m a Skynyrd fan to the bone, but I never felt the need to own it. Did I really want to hear covers of the tired “Crossroads” or Jimmie Rodgers’ blues yodel “T for Texas”?

Or a bunch of other songs that sounded EXACTLY (frontman Ronnie Vant was a real stickler on this point) how they sounded on record? Only not as good? Then came 2009, when Geffen Records released a pair of live shows from 1975 (Live at the Cardiff Capitol Theatre) and 1976 Authorized Bootleg: Live in Winterland, San Francisco, CA, 3/07/76. It was cause for rejoicing, right?

Well, yes and no. What I love about Authorized Bootleg: Live in Winterland, San Francisco, CA, 3/07/76 is its raw power. What I don’t like so much about Authorized Bootleg: Live in Winterland, San Francisco, CA, 3/07/76 is its raw power. Let me explain. The songs on the LP are wonderfully rough around the edges, and don’t sound like replications of the studio versions for one simple reason—Lynyrd Skynyrd’s much vaunted “three guitar army” had been reduced to a two-guitar army.

Why? Because the album was recorded during the interim between the departure of Ed King (who’d finally had enough of Van Zant’s alcohol-fueled violence) and the addition of Steve Gaines, who would only play on One from the Road and 1977’s great Street Survivors before dying in the October 20 plane crash that also took the lives of Van Zant and Gaines’ sister Cassie Gaines.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Five decades on from the bleak picture of 1970’s Britain it embodied, Pink Floyd’s revered dystopian masterpiece Animals is being newly released in multiple formats and a deluxe box set, out 22nd January 2027 via Sony Music.

The 50th anniversary edition brings fans fresh insight into one of Pink Floyd’s most visceral and compelling works, featuring a raft of rare and unreleased music, alongside unseen photographs capturing a unique behind the scenes perspective of the recording process, creation of the iconic album art and groundbreaking tour production.

Animals 50 will be released in multiple formats, including a Deluxe Box Set, 1LP, 2LP, 2CD, Blu-Ray Audio and digital. The Deluxe Box Set contains 3 LPs: the original 1977 album, the 2018 Remix (remixed by James Guthrie), and a disc of five rarities that includes an unheard Roger Waters track titled “Young Nicholas Jon” and previously unreleased early versions of “Sheep’ and ‘Dogs.”

It also has 5 CDs mirroring the LPs, plus a 2-disc set of the May 9, 1977 Oakland show recorded live at the Oakland Coliseum Arena by a then 19 year old bootlegger, Reinhard Hohlwein, and the 1-disc Blu-Ray, which includes all of the above audio with the 2018 Remix being available in 5.1 and Dolby Atmos.

The Deluxe Box Set also features a 64-page hardback book comprising new sleeve notes from New York Times best-selling author and life-long Floyd fan Jonathan Lethem, an interview with Reinhard Hohlwein, and an excerpt from Hipgnosis’ Aubrey “Po” Powell’s memoir about the making of Animals’ iconic album art.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Boom Boom The Ultimate Animals 1963–1966, is the most comprehensive Animals retrospective to ever be released. Set over eight CD’s and a DVD, it is a deep dive into the band’s short but most prolific period. To be released on 4th December, it is available to pre-order now from here.

A comprehensive set containing over 150 tracks, it contains unearthed gems never before released alongside all their 1963–1966 studio recordings remastered in one place for the first time. The DVD contains the long lost film The World Of The Animals directed by Richard Mordaunt and filmed in 1965/66 during tours of the US and Poland. A great historical document of the time and a must see for all Animals fans.

CD1 is the band’s debut album, The Animals, remastered with the non-LP 45s and includes the Graphic Sound tracks as well as three unreleased Radio Luxembourg performances. CD2 features their second album, Animal Tracks, remastered with bonus tracks, and while CD3 grants a well-overdue UK reissue to their third LP, Animalisms, alongside its related non-LP 45s.

CD4 and CD5 provide a debut UK release of the mono and stereo mixes of Animalism, which were never officially released by Decca in the UK due to the band’s split in late 1966.

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Remembering Gram Parsons, born on this date in 1946. —Ed.

You’ve got to hand it to Gram Parsons; the boy had chutzpah. No sooner had the relatively unknown 21-year-old joined The Byrds in February 1968 in the wake of the departure of David “I Am the Walrus” Crosby and Michael Clarke, than he managed to talk the band, including leader Roger McGuinn, into scuttling McGuinn’s plans for an ambitious double album of the history of American popular music in favor of an album of straight-up country music, or country-rock if you insist, or “Cosmic American Music” as Parsons poetically termed it.

It must have been an audacious piece of salesmanship, for no rock band—much less a pop supergroup with the psychedelic bona fides of The Byrds—had ever attempted anything so potentially suicidal from a commercial standpoint. From “Eight Miles High” to “The Christian Life”? Longhairs playing pure country honk? Why, the idea was unthinkable, risible even, although The Byrds themselves had dabbled in country before and Bob Dylan himself would make the transition soon enough.

To add authenticity, The Byrds (McGuinn on acoustic guitar, banjo, and vocals; Chris Hillman on bass, mandolin, acoustic guitar, and vocals; Parsons on acoustic guitar, piano and organ, and vocals; and Kevin Kelley on drums) wrangled up a crew of mostly Nashville ringers, including legendary electric guitarist Clarence White (who would die tragically in 1973, hit by a drunken driver); John “Tear Down the Grand Ole Opry” Hartford on banjo, fiddle, and acoustic guitar; Lloyd Green and JayDee Maness on pedal steel guitar; Roy Husky on double bass; and Earl Poole Ball and Barry “Electric Flag” Goldberg on piano.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | “He’s got one of the most melodious voices ever transmuted into a piece of vinyl, matter of fact.” —Bob Dylan

The most comprehensive collection ever assembled of Louisiana music legend Bobby Charles’ studio recordings and life, The Bobby Charles Story, is released via The Last Music Co. The definitive 8-disc set includes seven CDs with 122 tracks, a previously unreleased documentary film on DVD, and a 12-inch-square, full-color hardback book featuring several interviews, discographical notes, essays, and career-spanning photos. Order HERE.

The seven-CD audio collection spans more than four decades of Charles’ music, from his early Chess and Imperial recordings through his landmark Bobby Charles album for Bearsville (1972), The Bearsville Studio Sessions (1974), Clean Water (1987), Wish You Were Here Right Now (1994), Secrets Of The Heart (1998), a double-CD set, Last Train To Memphis (2004), Homemade Songs (2008), and Timeless (2010). Completing the oeuvre is David Dubos’ full-length film documentary, In a Good Place Now, which debuts on DVD as part of The Bobby Charles Story. Malcolm Mills, founder of The Last Music Co., conceived, compiled, and produced the collection.

All told, The Bobby Charles Story is a remarkable archive of work by a trailblazing American original, championed by everyone from Bob Dylan to Dr. John. The comprehensive collection captures Charles on his own terms: he wrote and produced nearly all of these 122 songs, representing the brightest gems unearthed from more than four decades of soul-searching in his own tower of song.

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The Zombies—Colin Blunstone, Rod Argent, Chris White, Paul Atkinson, and Hugh Grundy—are a group that collectively and individually have lived many lives.

Their 1968 album, Odessey and Oracle, may be their high-water mark and one of the best albums of the 1960s. Leading up to that album, the group released other albums, as well as, more fruitfully, a long list of singles that can match or exceed those of nearly every other group or artist to emerge from the British Invasion.

While the tracks “Time of the Season,” “She’s Not There,” and “Tell Her No” were all hits, they weren’t the only singles or B-sides that reflected all their song talent. The Zombies had the effervescent, joyous pop sound that defined the British Invasion, complete with jangly guitars and soaring harmonies. However, they also had a sly jazzy side, primarily reflected in Rod Argent’s keyboard style.

Before Odessey and Oracle, the group had only released two albums. They were Begin Here in the UK and The Zombies in the US, both released in 1965. Begin Here had 14 tracks, and The Zombies had 12. The albums shared seven tracks.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | On March 19, 1957, Louis Armstrong and His All Stars performed before 1,200 fans at Highland Park High School, 27 miles north of Chicago, at a concert raising funds for the Highland Park Reform Temple. Nearly 70 years later, that performance is being released for the first time as One Night in Highland Park. The first single from the album is the joyfully energetic track, “Ole Miss,” a piece Armstrong had been playing since his teenage years in New Orleans.

Armstrong was at a high point in his career. Beloved around the world as America’s “Ambassador of Goodwill,” he was enjoying the success of his 1955 hit “Mack the Knife,” the album Ella and Louis and the film High Society. Just two days before Highland Park, he had performed two shows at the Chicago Opera House. Yet Armstrong continued to play high school auditoriums and other venues across the country as part of a demanding schedule of one-night engagements.

For Armstrong, these performances were about reaching his audience. “I play them because I love music,” Armstrong explained in 1957. “I don’t mind traveling and that’s where the audiences are—in the towns and cities—and that’s what I want, the audience.”

The Highland Park concert might have remained simply another date on that schedule if not for Joel Goldstein, who was serving as student Stage Manager for Armstrong’s visit. He decided to record the performance for himself, hanging two Telefunken microphones from a batten and recording the show on an Ampex reel-to-reel machine. Goldstein kept the tape, preserving a night that otherwise might have been lost.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Florence + The Machine announce a live recording of her critically-acclaimed tour, the Everybody Scream Tour Live album available digitally on November 6 with vinyl available for pre-order now. Alongside the announcement, Florence’s live performance of “Which Witch” is available on all streaming platforms. Pre-order the album HERE.

Following the North America, UK, and Europe legs of the Everybody Scream Tour earlier this year, Florence + The Machine bring the live experience to listeners worldwide. The North American run included sold-out New York shows at Madison Square Garden and Barclays Center, along with two sold-out nights at Los Angeles’ Kia Forum.

Across five albums—2009’s Lungs, 2011’s Ceremonials, 2015’s How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, 2018’s High As Hope, and 2022’s Dance Fever—Florence has become one of the most monumental artists of a generation, with multiple US and UK #1 albums and countless awards.

Known for her earth-shattering live show and singular, iconic voice, Florence has sold out shows and headlined festivals the entire world over. She has collaborated and shared stages with icons—The Rolling Stones, Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift among them—and published a book of lyrics, poetry and drawings, Useless Magic.