Category Archives: The TVD Storefront

Remembering Danny Joe Brown, born on this day in 1951. —Ed.

I consider myself a southern rock fan of sorts—Lynyrd Skynyrd is one of my favorite bands, and I still plan to get that tattoo of their plane going down, Ronnie Van Zant looking out a window and saying, “Turn it up!”—but I always drew the line at Molly Hatchet. I think it had to do with those fantasy covers—you know, the ones with steroidal Huns in Viking helmets like the sopranos in operas wear, wielding wicked-looking double axes. I’ve never liked fantasy art, or people who like fantasy art, and while I’m ashamed to admit I refused to listen to a band because of its album covers, it’s the god-honest truth.

Anyway, I finally took the plunge, and I was shocked—Molly Hatchet wasn’t half bad. A kind of poor man’s Lynyrd Skynyrd—both bands hailed from swampy Jacksonville, Florida—Molly Hatchet boasted a singer who sounded a lot like Ronnie Van Zant and three guitarists just like Skynyrd, which gave them the ability to “Free Bird” out to their heart’s content.

True, their songwriting skills were never up to Skynyrd standards—all meat and potatoes, only without the meat—but they were good enough, good enough. And when I call Molly Hatchet a poor man’s Lynyrd Skynyrd it’s not a total diss, because I still—having finally heard them—rate them above the Outlaws, the Charlie Daniels Band, .38 Special, The Marhall Tucker Band, Wet Willie, and all the rest of their Southern Rock brethren, with the exception of Black Oak Arkansas, because BOA is just so fucking weird.

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You know the cover before you know the record. Bushwick Bill on a hospital gurney, eye bandaged, Willie D and Scarface wheeling him down the corridor, all three staring straight down the lens. No album art has ever dared you harder to press play.

But it was neither a costume nor a concept shoot. That was the worst night of a man’s life, and Bill said years afterward that it still hurt to look at the cover, that he had gone along with it and came to feel it was wrong. He deserved to be known for far more than his darkest hour, and he was—a Jamaican-born kid out of Brooklyn who grew into one of the most magnetic voices this music has ever produced.

Since we lost him in 2019, the picture has stopped feeling like a dare and started feeling like something left in our keeping. Twelve inches of restored artwork is where it belongs. The jacket doesn’t display it so much as place it in your hands at full scale, and that asks something of you before a note plays.

We Can’t Be Stopped arrived in July 1991 as a flat refusal to accept that rap’s center of gravity belonged to a coast. Houston. Rap-A-Lot. James Prince. Three voices with nothing in common but nerve.

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I was going to write about kittencore, which is a real sub-genre of screamo, the mere thought of which cracks me up, and then I was going to write about mallcore because it’s a real thing too and has to be the funniest sub-sub-sub-sub-genre (of screamo again) in the history of humankind. But in the end, I decided to write about The Clean, because they hail from New Zealand, where screaming is considered a breach of decorum.

Oh, and they’re a great band, nice Dunedin lads who’ve probably never screamed in their lives, and they have a melodic lo-fi thing going on with some guitar jingle-jangle and hints of a drone and occasional guitar workouts of the sort that let you know they’re familiar with a certain little-known group from far-from-Kiwiland New York City called the Velvet Underground. Why, Robert Christgau went so far as to call them “garage Velvets.”

But that’s extremely reductionist—they’re an eclectic’s dream and do all sorts of other things. Occasionally, they break out the Farfisa organ, and I even hear Joy Division in one of their songs. And they’re not scowling nihilists, as is evident from the lines from “Point That Thing Somewhere Else” that go, “Anything could happen, and it could be right now/And the choice is yours, so make it worthwhile.”

The Clean were formed in 1978 and are often credited with founding indie rock. I have no idea if this is true. It sounds like a gross simplification to me. But if so, I suspect they could be directly responsible for the Smashing Pumpkins. If I were certain about it, I’d dock them half a grade.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | TidalWave Comics is proud to announce the latest addition to its acclaimed Orbit comic book series, which spotlights influential people, movements, and cultural forces that have made an impact around the world.

Orbit: The History of Hip Hop arrives this week, bringing the groundbreaking story of hip hop’s rise from its roots in the Bronx to a global cultural phenomenon to life in comic book form. Written by Michael Frizell and illustrated by Luciano Felix, this 22-page comic book is available in both digital and print formats on platforms like Amazon.

About the book: Before the stages, before the platinum plaques, there was a block party in the Bronx and a movement born from rhythm, rebellion, and raw truth. Orbit: The History of Hip Hop is a 22-page, full-color comic that traces the genre’s rise from its underground roots to its global resonance.

Featuring pioneers like DJ Kool Herc, Marley Marl, Roxanne Shanté, Ice Cube, Tupac, Lauryn Hill, and Kendrick Lamar, this issue blends personal stories with historical depth to spotlight the artists who reshaped music, fashion, language, and power.

Told through dynamic art, this standalone comic is essential reading for fans of hip hop, culture, and creative revolution. Hip hop didn’t just change music. It changed everything.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Motorbooks announces GRUNGE! The Story of the Music That Redefined Rock, an authoritative chronicle of the Seattle music movement that transformed rock ’n’ roll in the early 1990s. Written by longtime Seattle journalist Gillian G. Gaar, who covered the scene as it unfolded, the book publishes October 13, 2026.

In GRUNGE! Gaar charts the rise of a sound that blended punk attitude, heavy riffs, and unvarnished authenticity into a cultural force that reshaped music, fashion, and global pop culture. She traces the genre’s roots in the Pacific Northwest’s earlier garage‑rock and punk scenes, then follows its explosion and enduring influence year by year, from 1986 through 1996.

At the center of the story are grunge’s so‑called “Big Four”—Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, and Alice in Chains—bands that rose from dive bars and DIY labels to dominate airwaves and redefine mainstream rock. Gaar also spotlights the broader ecosystem that made the movement possible, including foundational labels such as Sub Pop, C/Z, and Kill Rock Stars; key venues like the Central, Vogue, and Off Ramp; and the photographers and chroniclers who captured the era’s chaos and creativity.

The book features essential bands and trailblazers including Mother Love Bone, Mudhoney, Melvins, Screaming Trees, the Gits, 7 Year Bitch, TAD, Bikini Kill, Sleater‑Kinney, and Foo Fighters, offering a comprehensive portrait of the community that shaped the sound.

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Remembering Joe Strummer, born on this date in 1952. —Ed.

Vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter John Graham Mellor, better known by his recording and performance handle Joe Strummer, was a co-founder of one of the most important, and in the view of some, the very finest band in UK punk rock’s original wave. That would be The Clash, but the man’s activities preceded and extended far beyond that group. The Ignition label spotlighted the results with Joe Strummer 001, totaling 35 tracks, including a dozen unreleased.

It can feel (and will surely be read as) contrarian to say it, but I’ve never been greatly enthusiastic over The Clash. Sure, the first two albums, ’77’s The Clash and the following year’s Give ‘Em Enough Rope, are essential, and the third, ’79’s London Calling arguably so, but when they took a nosedive in quality after that they did so with gusto, following up a double album with triple album Sandinista!, a display of excess that no matter how well-intentioned sent them into a tailspin from which they never recovered, though folks who discovered them through the rather tepid pop move Combat Rock might disagree.

The bigger problem, at least for me, was how the band came to represent what I’ll call the Springsteenization of punk rock. That is, The Clash were often championed, well into the 1980s after their breakup, as the exception to the rule that punk rock sucked. By extension, certain folks frequently openly professed Clash-fandom as a way to prove they weren’t complete moldy figs.

Now, most of my punk-loving friends adored The Clash, and I could surely listen to them (the good stuff, anyway) without trouble; merely appreciating the group wasn’t a problem. It’s just that loving their output while deriding The Damned and Buzzcocks and The Lurkers, and yes indeed the Sex Pistols (to limit myself to a short list of UK outfits) was and remains downright suspect.

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Some rappers tell you what happened, and some rappers hand you the shovel and make you an accessory after the fact. Scarface has always been the second kind.

He was 23 years old when he cut The Diary, and Brad Jordan already sounded like a man who had buried more friends than he had left—that low, unhurried Houston drawl reading funeral arrangements over funk. It landed in October 1994 on an independent in Houston, which is exactly why it sounds this way: no committee ever got near it. Rap-A-Lot has brought it back to wax for the label’s 40th anniversary, and I’ll say it plainly—I’ve lived with this album for three decades, and the vinyl is the first time I’ve actually heard it.

That’s not collector nostalgia talking. It’s the low end. Mike Dean, N.O. Joe, Uncle Eddie, and ‘Face himself built these tracks from live bass, dusty Rhodes, and guitar that curls around the beat instead of sitting on top of it, and every digital version I’ve owned smeared it. Spreading fourteen tracks across four sides of a 2xLP fixes that—grooves cut wide, nothing crowded, all the headroom that bass needs.

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In August 1966, Wilson Pickett released The Exciting Wilson Pickett. It did more than just live up to its title—it made him. His third LP included four crossover hits, including “Land of a Thousand Dances” and “In the Midnight Hour,” and firmly established him as one of the premier soul and R&B belters of the time.

Some four months or so later (on January 1, 1967, to be precise) Wilson released The Wicked Pickett, and it more than lived up to its name. Indeed, it may as well have been called The More Exciting Wilson Pickett, and this despite the fact that it spawned only two hits, one of them the iconic “Mustang Sally.”

Both LPs were recorded at FAME Recording Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, where his co-musicians included members of that studio’s legendary house band, the Swampers. But whereas it took him almost a year to record The Exciting Mr. Pickett, he only spent two days recording The Wicked Pickett. Which may or may not have anything to do with the startling and rarely remarked upon distinction between the two albums.

On The Exciting Mr. Pickett, the singer sounds almost restrained (by Pickett’s live wire standards). On The Wicked Pickett, the “hard soul” titan’s vocals are positively galvanizing. He doesn’t just sing; he takes the words in his teeth and shakes them until they scream. Except Pickett is the one screaming. He screams a lot.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Malkmus meets Coltrane?

Twenty years after four jazz heavyweights took Pavement’s slacker-rock songbook for an inspired trip into uncharted territory, James Carter, Cyrus Chestnut, Ali Jackson, and Reginald Veal’s Gold Soundz: A Jazz Tribute to Pavement returns October 2 via Sundazed Music in an expanded 20th anniversary edition. The album is now available for pre-order.

What began with a deceptively simple question—What album would we want to buy that doesn’t exist?—became an audacious experiment in what happens when musicians disregard the boundaries separating record-store sections. Twenty years on, Gold Soundz makes an even stronger case that Pavement’s songs never belonged to just one of them.

Originally conceived as a musical “fantasy league,” assembling a dream lineup to make an album that didn’t yet exist, Gold Soundz brought together saxophonist James Carter, pianist Cyrus Chestnut, drummer Ali Jackson, and bassist Reginald Veal to reimagine the songs of Pavement not as rock covers, but as raw material for adventurous jazz.

Recorded over four days at New York’s Electric Lady Studios in 2004, the sessions transformed Stephen Malkmus and company’s crooked melodies, loose-limbed rhythms and indie-rock irreverence into something altogether new. The result earned an emphatic one-word review from Malkmus himself: “Insane!”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Craft Latino celebrates the 45th anniversary of ¡Que sentimiento!, the sixth studio album from legendary salsa singer Héctor Lavoe.

Marking Lavoe’s first and only self-produced album, the 1981 title features eight timeless salsa tracks, including “El son,” “No hay quien te aguante,” and “Soy vagabundo”—all of which are bolstered by lush arrangements from such esteemed figures as Luís Cruz, Louie Ramírez, and José Febles. Out of print for 45 years, ¡Que Sentimiento! arrives on 180-gram vinyl on October 2 and features all-analog (AAA) mastering.

A limited-edition Rojo Amor (Red Love) color pressing (only 300 copies) will also be available as a standalone or bundled with a Fania Classic Logo T-shirt at Fania.com. The remastered album will also be available in digital format, including Hi-Res audio for the first time.

One of salsa music’s greatest vocalists, Héctor Lavoe (1946–1993) was an influential force in the genre, thanks to his charming stage presence, impeccable delivery, and witty improvisations. Born Héctor Juan Pérez Martínez in Ponce, Puerto Rico, the artist relocated to New York City at 17, where he built a name for himself performing in bands led by Roberto García, Kako, and Fania Records founder Johnny Pacheco. It was through Pacheco that Lavoe met 16-year-old Willie Colón, with whom he would form one of Latin music’s most celebrated partnerships.

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Remembering Phil Lynott, born on this day in 1949. —Ed.

You wanna hear a miracle? I lived for almost five-and-a-half decades without ever hearing Jailbreak, or any other Thin Lizzy album for that matter. Here, vocalist/bassist and chief songwriter Phil Lynott and his Irish compatriots put out a truly tremendous LP in America’s Bicentennial Year, not to mention a parcel of other great LPs, and what was I doing? Listening to Elton John, John Denver, England Dan, and John Ford Coley, any band basically with a guy named John in it. If Debbie Gibson’s middle name had been John, I would have listened to her, too.

I would love to be able to say I wasn’t into hard rock back then, but I owned albums by Bad Company, UFO (UFO? Me? Inexplicable!), Robin Trower, and Foghat, so that’s sheer bunk. But there’s no point in crying over guilty milk, and it’s never too late to make up for past mistakes, that is, unless you’re Lee Harvey Oswald or that chimpanzee (name: Travis) who ripped a woman’s face off in 2009, and I’m neither of those personages.

So here I am making up for atoning for my inexplicable oversight, and listening to Jailbreak, which mixes tremendous twin-guitar hard rockers with sweeter fare, all of which I love with the possible exception of “Cowboy Song”—in which Lynott, a black Irishman, plays rodeo cowpoke.

But I take that back. “Cowboy Song” may start slowly, but its guitar solos are tremendous, and Lynott’s vocals are impassioned (especially when he sings, “It’s okay amigo/Just let me go/Riding in the rodeo”), and the jam at the song’s end is a bono fido guitar marvel. Turns out I love the damn thing! Just as I love everything about the LP, except for its cover. Too sci-fi for my decidedly earthbound tastes.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Thirty years after its original release, De La Soul celebrates the legacy of Stakes Is High with a definitive 30th Anniversary Edition, arriving October 23, 2026 via A.O.I. Records, distributed by Chrysalis. Available for pre-order, the expanded release honors one of hip-hop’s most influential albums with newly remastered audio, a wealth of bonus material, and exclusive collectible editions for longtime fans and new listeners alike.

Originally released in 1996, Stakes Is High marked a pivotal moment in De La Soul’s career. As the trio’s fourth studio album and their first without longtime collaborator Prince Paul, it ushered in a more stripped-back, hard-edged sound while remaining rooted in the wit, intelligence, and musical adventurousness that defined the group’s work. Featuring the title track produced by a then-rising J Dilla, the album found De La Soul confronting the changing landscape of hip-hop with clarity, confidence, and uncompromising artistry.

The title track would become one of the group’s defining statements, peaking at No. 53 on Billboard’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, while the album reached No. 4 on Billboard’s Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. Beyond its commercial success, Stakes Is High has only grown in stature over the past three decades, celebrated as one of hip-hop’s most insightful and forward-thinking releases.

Tracks including “The Bizness” featuring Common, “Itzsoweezee (HOT),” and “Pony Ride” showcase De La Soul at their most focused, balancing soulful production, razor-sharp lyricism, and social commentary that remains remarkably relevant today.

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Remembering Isaac Hayes, born on this day in 1942. —Ed.

Released in 1969, Hot Buttered Soul brought Isaac Hayes widespread attention as he helped lead the charge into a new decade of soul music innovations. An impeccable album in a genre that hitherto had been largely dominated by singles, Hayes’ achievement is a perfect addition to Craft Recordings’ Small Batch series. Pressed on 180 gram vinyl at RTI with Neotech’s VR900 compound using lacquers cut from the master tapes by Bernie Grundman, the edition of 3,000 arrived in stores in 2024.

Given how Hot Buttered Soul has consistently pulled in new listeners across a span of generations since its smash hit release, it can be easy to misplace the record’s reality as a groundbreaker. Featuring two songs on each side, the LP did something almost unheard of, hitting the marketplace without any accompanying singles; radio edits of “Walk on By” and “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” were subsequently issued (and charted) after the record’s unexpected success.

That Stax (through subsidiary Enterprise) allowed Hayes such creative freedom is not only unusual but also pretty risky, as the set’s bold conception couldn’t have been inexpensive. The scoop is that Hot Buttered Soul became a reality through Stax honcho Al Bell’s directive to the label’s active roster to cut a slew of albums for release in a very tight timeframe, a decision made because Stax had lost its entire back catalog to Atlantic Records.

Presenting Isaac Hayes, the artist’s debut from 1968, proved a disappointment, and to nobody more than Hayes himself, who responded to Bell’s album initiative with a demand for complete creative control. That the resulting LP received the necessary promotional push to take root with consumers and then catch fire is a testament to Hayes’ talent but also to Bell’s stature as a record man.

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HARRISBURG, PA | Certain live performances feel less like a concert and more like reconnecting with an old friend. Slightly Stoopid has always been one of those bands for me. I’ve seen them many times over the years, but somehow it had been a couple of years since our paths crossed. Their Road Trippin’ Summer Tour 2026, rolling into Harrisburg’s Riverfront Park with The Elovaters and DENM, was the perfect way to fix that.

Riverfront Park might also be one of the best settings in Pennsylvania for a reggae show. Stretching alongside the Susquehanna River between the shoreline and Front Street, the park provided a beautiful backdrop for a summer evening filled with reggae, rock, hip-hop, and plenty of good vibes.

Before the music even started, I ran into another familiar face: Ray Broome. If you spend enough time around reggae shows in the Northeast, chances are you’ve crossed paths with Ray. Artists know and love him, bands know and love him, and fans know and love him. He’s simply one of those genuinely good people who seem to be everywhere, but it had also been a couple of years since I’d seen him. There was really only one proper greeting for the occasion. Sheeeesh!

Before his set, I also had the opportunity to meet up with DENM for a few photos and a quick conversation. He was exactly what his music suggests—super laid-back and incredibly cool. My only complaint was that we didn’t have more time to talk. Then he hit the stage and flipped the switch.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Mercury Studios commemorates the 25th anniversary of legendary progressive rock band Yes’s 2001 album Magnification with a dynamic half-speed remaster, available September 18. Combining the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame band’s signature progressive rock sound with sweeping symphonic arrangements, Magnification will be released on vinyl for the first time as a 2LP set, alongside a limited-edition 500-unit cassette release available in the US and UK.

Originally released in September 2001, Magnification is Yes’s 19th studio album and the first recorded as a four-piece, featuring the classic core lineup of Jon Anderson (lead vocals, MIDI guitar), Chris Squire (bass, backing vocals, lead vocals on “Can You Imagine”), Steve Howe (acoustic, electric & pedal steel guitars, backing vocals), and Alan White (drums, piano, backing vocals). There was no dedicated keyboard player on the sessions, and perhaps the harmonic freedom this provided inspired an adventurous musicality that harkened back to the band’s early days.

Compositions such as “Dreamtime” and “In the Presence Of” feature extended instrumental sections, while songs including “Can You Imagine” and “Time Is Time” reflect Yes’s post-1980s pop sensibility. Seamlessly woven throughout the album are ambitious orchestral arrangements performed by the San Diego Symphony Orchestra under the direction of three-time Emmy Award-winning film composer Larry Groupé.

Magnification marked only the second time Yes had recorded with a full orchestra, following 1970’s Time and a Word. The band supported the album with its acclaimed Yessymphonic Tour, where songs including the “Magnification,” “Don’t Go,” and “In the Presence Of” were brought to life with a full orchestra onstage.

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