Acid rock comes in two flavors—good trip and bad trip. The former evokes images of Woodstock, big day-glo flowers, beautiful naked people doing blissful, ecstatic dances in the wonders of nature. The latter evokes images of Altamont and the flowers of evil. As for the beautiful naked people they’re the Manson Family, and they’ve come to your house to do the devil’s business.

Austin, Texas’ The Black Angels play bad trip rock. They’re the house band at 10050 Cielo Drive, the real Death Valley ‘69, and they are not groovy. Forget the Grateful Dead’s sunny “China Cat Sunflower.” The Black Angels sound features indecipherable and incantory lyrics buried alive in a fuzz and feedback-drenched drone underlaid by a drum pummel that will not make beautiful naked people want to do blissful, ecstastic dances. It will make them want to barricade themselves in a closet somewhere.

This is drug deal gone fatally south music, the sort of thing you’d expect from a band that got their name from a Velvet Underground song and included Edvard Munch’s “Illness, insanity, and death are the black angels that kept watch over my cradle and accompanied me all my life” on the inner jacket of their 2006 debut LP Passover. As for their 2008 follow-up Directions to See a Ghost, it surprises me not a whit that the History Channel saw fit to include some of its songs on their 2009 documentary Manson.

But here’s the thing about acid rock bad trips—some people love them. Especially when a band like The Black Angels are handing out the brown acid. Guitars, lots of them. Effects pedals out the wazoo. All producing a chaotic, wall-of-sound drone drenched in reverb, feedback, rogue electric sitar, and ghostly vocals, all nailed to the world of the living by the drum bash of one Stephanie Bailey, modern psychedelia’s answer to Maureen Tucker.

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We’ve closed TVD’s HQ for the Thanksgiving holiday. While we’re away, why not fire up our Record Store Locator app and visit one of your local indie record stores?

Perhaps there’s an interview, review, or feature you might have missed? Catch up and we’ll see you back here Monday, 12/2.

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Sub Pop is proud to share the news that we are the new home of The Gits, the ferocious Seattle punk band fronted by the late Mia Zapata. Their entire discography—Frenching the Bully (1992), Enter: The Conquering Chicken (1994), Kings & Queens (1996), and Seafish Louisville (2000)—features newly designed album cover art by Sub Pop’s VP of Creative Jeff Kleinsmith, and have all been remastered by legendary producer Jack Endino. They are available to hear NOW on all DSPs from Sub Pop.

On January 31, 2025, a physical reissue of Frenching the Bully will also be released, and is available to preorder now from Sub Pop Mega Mart in North America, MegaMart2 in the EU/UK, and independent retailers worldwide. Right now, you can watch The Gits’ official video for Frenching the Bully single “Second Skin,” directed by Doug Pray. The live visual features original film footage courtesy of DC9 and Pray from his 1993 documentary, Hype!. Read Evelyn McDonnell’s interview with The Gits’ band members Andy Kessler and Matt Dresdner in The New York Times (see November 12th “Critics Notebook”).

The Gits members Andy Kessler, Matt Dresdner, and Steve Moriarity offer this on the reissues: “It’s been more than thirty-one years since The Gits played our last show. We’re rereleasing The Gits catalog now for the people who loved our music, and hopefully others who have yet to find it. And we’re doing this now for the love of our dear friend, our co-conspirator, our singer, Mia Zapata.”

Sub Pop founder and president Jonathan Poneman says of the signing, “The Gits first knocked me out with their very unadorned, unmacho abandon. Their songs and spirit still kick, inspiring a triumphal racket.”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Bob Geldof, Midge Ure, and Trevor Horn announce details of the forthcoming Band Aid Compilation, a brand new 2024 Ultimate Mix and accompanying video release commemorating 40 years of Band Aid.

The latest incarnation of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” is set to be premiered simultaneously across UK breakfast time radio on November 25, 2024, the 40th anniversary of the recording of the original song. It will be available to stream immediately on all digital platforms. “Do They Know It’s Christmas?—2024 Ultimate Mix” is available to buy now digitally and physically on the Band Aid Compilation 1CD and 12” vinyl and will be released on November 29. Buy here.

“Do They Know It’s Christmas?” was recorded on three separate occasions, over three separate generations: Band Aid (1984), Band Aid 20 (2004), and Band Aid 30 (2014). What began life as a humble Christmas pop song launched the greatest series of events in pop history. “Do They Know It’s Christmas? ultimately corralled the political structures of its time to its own focused ends by assembling a roll call of talent that, in effect, describes the arc of British rock ‘n’ roll over these past 40 years. In celebration of this monumental “instrument of change,” producer Trevor Horn has taken these recordings and, through extraordinary music production techniques, blended all the voices of those separate generations into one seamless whole.

Unveiled on November 25, on “Band Aid – 2024 Ultimate Mix,” you will hear a young Sting sing alongside a young Ed Sheeran. A young Boy George, with a young Sam Smith. A young George Michael, beside a young Harry Styles. The young Bono with an older Bono, Chris Martin with Guy Garvey, the Sugababes and Bananarama, Seal and Sinead O’Connor, Rita Ora and Robbie Williams, Kool and the Gang and Underworld. The voices sing on against the Band Aid house band of Paul McCartney, Sting, John Taylor (bass), Phil Collins, Roger Taylor, Danny Goffey (drums), Thom Yorke (piano), Paul Weller, Damon Albarn, Midge Ure, Johnny Greenwood, Gary Kemp, and Justin Hawkins (guitar).

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Celebrating Tina Weymouth on her 74th birthday. —Ed.

How is it that sometimes, not always but just sometimes, the LP you swore your undying love for and allegiance to back in the day fails, after not having heard it for a long time, to set you on fire? It makes you feel like a turncoat.

Such is the case with Talking Heads’ seminal 1980 LP, Remain in Light. When it came out, I couldn’t find enough good things to say about it; it was flawless, an unparalleled work of synthetic Afrocentric genius, and I would have sworn under oath to the 1981 hearings of the U.S. Senate Commission on Un-American Influences on Rock’n’Roll to that effect. Now it fails to move me as it once did, and I’m left feeling like Benedict Arnold—a traitor to an album I once would have set off firecrackers in my pants for.

On Remain in Light, Talking Heads and co-conspirator Brian Eno eschewed the band’s heretofore twitchy new wave paranoia in favor of a liquid African-based sound that incorporated Byrne’s new stream-of-consciousness approach to writing lyrics, and it worked like gangbusters. Everyone I knew loved it and played it continuously. The hypnotic beats, the great percussion and insane guitars, the syncopated layers of backing vocalists, and David Byrne’s new and more ecstatic vocal delivery all contributed, as did Brian Eno’s far from negligible vision and musical and production skills, to create an album that was truly contagious.

On the LP, Byrne abandoned (for the most part) his characteristic deadpan irony for a potpourri of disparate influences: African rhythms, the fire and brimstone cadences of holy roller preachers, the studied speaking delivery of Nixon underling John Dean’s Watergate testimony (seriously!), and even the new-fangled rap of Kurtis Blow (seriously again!) Throw in a novel free-associative approach to the lyrics and what the Heads ended up with was an album that was radically different from their previous LP, 1979’s excellent Fear of Music.

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Technology’s growth in the last decade has been astounding. I don’t have to tell you how AI has just begun to impact our lives, and we all grit our teeth peeking to witness its evolution. But, through it all, there’s a timeless beauty to the still photograph. Even our 21st century blogs and social media are, in many ways, simply a digital photo book for us to flip through. Humans love looking at pictures and—as with vinyl records—we enjoy that experience even more when it is coupled with a tactile element: the paper, the saturated color, the feel, the smell, and, of course, the artistry behind the lens.

Eilon Paz isn’t so much a record collector, he’s more a collector of record collectors. Paz is a photographer who noticed the uniqueness of record collectors, just as the new wave in vinyl popularity was taking hold. He took his profession and his passion and pointed his camera at record collectors and their collections. First on the web as a blog, his project became a well-regarded book titled, Dust & Grooves which was first published in 2014.

Now, Eilon has released Dust and Grooves, Vol. 2: Further Adventures in Record Collecting, and he’s also expanded his online presence and offerings where collectors swap tales of funding epic hunts through sweep coins casino payouts. Believe me when I say I did not realize the size and scope of the book until I held a copy in my hands. Eilon has outdone himself with a collection of photographs of collectors from around the globe, paired with interviews that describe their methodology and allow a reader into their thought process when it comes to vinyl.

Sometimes, it’s more fun to see someone else’s collection of something rather than have it yourself. In this way, the book and Eilon’s photographic journey is appealing to those outside of the record collecting world as well: it’s an opportunity to see the passion and care that these collectors dedicate to their libraries and the humanity intertwined within. Eilon loves a good record collection, but it’s the collectors themselves that really catch his interest.

Evan Toth is a songwriter, professional musician, educator, radio host, avid record collector, and hi-fi aficionado. Toth hosts and produces The Evan Toth Show and TVD Radar on WFDU, 89.1 FM. Follow him at the usual social media places and visit his website.

The Northern Soul Scene was more than just one of the most fascinating “underground” musical subcultures to emerge from the UK in the mid-1960s—it was the Great Upside Down.

The scene was centered in Northern England and the Midlands in clubs with names like The Twisted Wheel, Wigan Casino, Blackpool Mecca, and the Golden Torch, and attracted youth dressed to the nines in Mod garb (although that would change) whose idea of heaven was dancing all night (thanks to the heavy intake of dexamyl tablets, or “blues”) to black American soul singles, the faster and heavier the better.

But the entire scene was built on an odd twist. The kids doing the dancing—and the DJs who ruled the roost—weren’t dancing to the latest hits. They snubbed their noses (for the most part) at the latest smash hits bearing the Motown label—their tastes ran to the rare and the obscure, and the result was a playlist heavy with also-rans, the no-names of the American soul and R&B industry. It was a scene that sought out and revered hard-to-find singles by artists who hadn’t made it. It was a scene, in short, that celebrated failure.

As the authors of 2000’s Last Night a DJ Saved My Life: The History of the Disc Jockey noted, “Northern soul was the music made by hundreds of singers and bands who were copying the Detroit sound of Motown pop. Most of the records were complete failures in their own time and place… but in Northern England from the end of the 1960s through to its heyday in the middle 1970s, were exhumed and exalted.”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | This year marks the 60th anniversary of the legendary Fania Records: one of the most significant Latin labels in the world, musically and culturally, with an influence that continues to reverberate today. To honor the New York label’s enduring contributions—as well as its powerhouse roster of legendary artists—Craft Latino proudly presents a new compilation, Fania Records: The Latin Sound of New York (1964–1978).

Available January 24 on 2-LP and out now digitally, the compilation highlights 16 of the greatest salsa and Latin soul songs released on Fania and its subsidiaries by some of the label’s most beloved artists, including Willie Colón, Héctor Lavoe, Rubén Blades, Johnny Pacheco, Ray Barretto, Celia Cruz, Fania All Stars, Joe Bataan, Eddie Palmieri, Cheo Feliciano, Pete Rodriguez, Joe Cuba, Ismael Rivera, Richie Ray and Bobby Cruz. The vinyl edition also includes archival images and all-new in-depth liner notes in English and Spanish by the New York–based music historian, author, artist, and activist Aurora Flores Hostos. This compilation is not only a fantastic tribute but an essential introduction to Fania for new collectors and fans of classic salsa and Latin music.

This special release rounds out an extensive, year-long celebration of Fania Records, which has included more than a dozen remastered 180-gram vinyl reissues, merch, and over two dozen remastered digital albums, many of which debuted in hi-res audio.

The legacy of Fania Records is just as meaningful to Latin music as Stax and Motown are to soul or Prestige and Blue Note are to jazz. From establishing itself as the definitive home for Latin big band, Afro-Cuban jazz, boogaloo and Latin soul, among other styles, to pioneering salsa music and popularizing it around the globe, Fania—and the immeasurable talent on its roster—illuminates a powerful American immigrant story that is as timely today as when the label launched.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | In Genesis’ incredible body of work, The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway is a landmark record. Originally released on 22 November 1974 (50 years ago this week), at the pinnacle of their early success, it came at a pivotal point in Genesis’ history. It is rated as one of the greatest albums of its era and one of the most influential progressive rock albums of all time.

The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition is the album’s definitive compendium, following the arc of the album’s creation and tour. With input from all of the band members involved in the record—Tony Banks, Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, Steve Hackett, and Mike Rutherford—it comes in 5LP+Blu Ray Audio, 4CD+Blu Ray Audio and Digital (including Dolby ATMOS) formats, all providing a deep dive into the music and visual elements around this album and includes:

The original album mix, remastered at Abbey Road Studios by Miles Showell from the 1974 analogue tapes

A Blu-ray audio disc includes the remastered 96kHz/24-bit high resolution audio and Dolby ATMOS mixes of the studio album done by Bob Mackenzie at Real World Studios under the supervision of Peter Gabriel and Tony Banks

The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway Live At The Shrine Auditorium from January 24, 1975. It is remastered and includes two encore tracks “Watcher of the Skies” and “The Musical Box.” This is the first time the full live show, including the encore tracks, has been released in its entirety

Three never-before-released demos from the legendary Headley Grange Session, included as part of a digital download card with the full audio from the set

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Remembering Rod Price in advance of his birthdate tomorrow. —Ed.

Here’s an interesting historical tidbit: I was the geezer wot gave Foghat their name. It happened like this: we were all (the band and I) totally pissed in Rod “The Bottle” Price’s bedsit in manky Manchester, when “Lonesome Dave” Peverett rolled a J the size of John Holmes’ John Thomas and set it ablaze. It took some real hyperventilation-level huffing and puffing to get that monster going, and by this time Dave’s head was wreathed in a glorious crown of cannabis smoke, and I cried out, “Lonesome Dave’s sporting a Foghat!” And Bob’s your uncle, that’s exactly how it didn’t happen.

Anyway, I don’t know what you think about Foghat, and I don’t particularly care, because I love them. They may have been your bog-standard, no-frills British blooz and boogie rock band, all meat and potatoes but skimping a bit on the meat, but they had a great name and were likeable blokes and the punters loved them because they played an arse-walloping live set. What’s more they displayed a sense of humor, as proved by the cover of their finest LP, 1975’s Fool for the City, which depicts drummer Roger Earl fishing in a manhole in the middle of East 11th Street in New York City, looking as casual as if he were casting bait along Manchester’s own River Irk, which none other than Friedrich Engels described as “a narrow, coal-black, foul-smelling stream, full of debris and refuse.” All of which leads one to suspect that Earl had a better chance of catching a real, live fish in said sewer than he did back in grim and grimy old Manchester town.

I also have an abiding affection for Foghat because the band’s music features in the final scene of one of my all-time favorite films, Richard Linklater’s 1993 cult classic Dazed and Confused. To wit, when Mitch Kramer, who has just returned home at dawn after having undergone all the requisite initiation rites and rituals (drinking beer, smoking pot, throwing a bowling ball from a moving car) of seventies teenagehood, puts on his oversized headphones, it’s the great opening of “Slow Ride” that brings a beatific smile to his face. Linklater could have chosen any song from the mid-seventies to produce that smile, but he chose Foghat, which raises my estimation of both him and them.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Clap Your Hands Say Yeah will celebrate the 20th anniversary of their landmark self-titled debut album with an epic world tour and exclusive new reissue. The first leg of the global headline run gets underway with North American dates beginning March 31, 2025 in Washington, DC and then performing 20 more shows including a very special homecoming performance set for May 10 at Philadelphia, PA’s Union Transfer.

September will see Clap Your Hands Say Yeah crossing the Atlantic for a series of European dates in Belgium, Ireland, France, and the United Kingdom including a two-night stand at London’s EartH (September 19-20). The tour then heads Down Under for dates in Australia and New Zealand beginning November 5 at Sydney’s Metro Theatre. Tickets for all dates go on sale Friday, November 22. Additional dates—including further European shows and visits to Japan, Central and South America—will be announced soon. For complete details and ticket information, please visit cyhsy.com/live.

The 20th anniversary of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah will further be commemorated with a special new reissue, arriving on limited-edition vinyl LP early next year on the band’s own label via Secretly Distribution, the defiantly independent home of Alec Ounsworth’s music for over two decades. The celebration officially gets underway with today’s premiere of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s original 2004 version of the fan favorite, “Heavy Metal,” available everywhere now.

Recorded live at Pawtucket, RI’s Machines with Magnets Studios, the newly remixed and mastered track was recently discovered among the original project files and captures what Clap Your Hands Say Yeah founder and frontman Alec Ounsworth calls “a special moment in time—a young group of guys all piling into one hotel room to wake up and go to a real studio (!) to try to come up with something special just for the fun of it.”

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Celebrating Tina Weymouth in advance of her 75th birthday tomorrow. —Ed.

Am I the only one who thinks the pre-Remain in Light David Byrne was the funniest rocker this side of Randy Newman? He turned twitchy paranoia into humor, and then did such a good job of channeling his alternately hysterical and wooden persona we were left wondering whether we were listening to an actor or the real David Byrne. He was, in his own way, rock’s equivalent of Andy Kaufman.

Take “Animals” off my favorite Talking Heads LP, 1979’s Fear of Music. It may open with “I Zimbra,” that portent of the Talking Heads future what with its tribal disco, heaps of percussionists, Afro-centric rhythms, and lyrics by Dadaist Hugo Ball (to say nothing of Robert Fripp on guitar!), but on the remainder of the LP Byrne has yet to stop making sense. Crazy sense, perhaps, but sense nonetheless.

And on “Animals,” which I consider one of the funniest songs ever, Byrne plays a barking mad fellow with a paranoid grudge against our cohabitants in the animal kingdom. “I’m mad/And that’s a fact/Animals don’t help/Animals think/They’re pretty smart/Shit on the ground/See in the dark.” He then adds, “Trusting them/A big mistake!” followed by “They’re never there when you need them.” And he concludes his diatribe by ensuring us that we’re being snickered at behind our backs by our animal fellows: “I know the animals/Are laughing at us,” he sings, and then adds, “They think they know what’s best/They’re making a fool of us.” I crack up every time I hear the tune.

On “Electric Guitar,” meanwhile, Byrne fears electric guitars, or at least considers them “a crime against the state.” Indeed, a guitar finds itself before a judge and jury; their verdict, “Never listen to electric guitar.” And it’s sound advice, because as he repeats at the end of the tune, which is catchy as all hell by the way, “Someone controls electric guitar.” He never says whom, but if that isn’t paranoia, I don’t know what is.

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