Has a single interesting thing ever happened in the state of Virginia? Sure, my old friend Steds broke his jaw after falling flat on his drunken face in a McDonalds’ bathroom during Spring Break at Virginia Beach, but hundreds of people must break their jaws every year after falling flat on their drunken faces in McDonalds’ bathrooms at Virginia Beach during Spring Break.

And then there’s the mystery of the lost colony of Roanoke Island in Virginia, but that cryptic message they left behind (“Croatan”) tells me everything I need to know—Croatan was obviously the name of a doom metal band, and the entire colony got lost on their way to see them at Virginia Beach during Spring Break.

But to answer my own question, one interesting thing has happened in the state of Virginia, and that’s Happy Flowers, the lower-than-lo-fi duo of cheerful chaos agents Mr. Happily Charred Infant (aka John Beers) and Mr. Anus (aka Charlie Kramer). Happy Flowers got their start at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia, and quickly established their signature shtick—primitivist songs about childhood that are as amusing as they’re hard to listen to unless you’re an aficionado of cheerful caterwaul. These guys make the Butthole Surfers sound like Steely Dan.

The 1987 compilation Making the Bunny Pay (which has a simply wonderful cover) comprises the band’s first two releases: the 1984 EP “Songs for Children” and the 1986 EP “Now We Are Six.” It includes their first and possibly greatest song, “Mom, I Gave the Cat Some Acid,” which makes the EP worth owning all by itself. (Sonic Youth did a cover, but their version is but a shadow of the original.) Happy Flowers would release four subsequent full-lengths before breaking up, although they’ve briefly reunited to enthralled listeners on several occasions, reminding us that horrible noise is its own reward.

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WILMINGTON, DE | As I drove into Wilmington, Delaware, for the festival, I made a meaningful stop—visiting the home once owned by Bob Marley’s mother, a place where Bob himself spent time over the years. It felt only right, a quiet moment of reflection before celebrating the 50th anniversary of Rastaman Vibration. This was going to be a special show highlighting roots and reggae in the Northeast, and one that I could not miss.

The evening was curated by local reggae artist Kenny Vannella, who assembled an exceptional band and welcomed a couple of true legends to the stage. But this wasn’t just a night of reggae—it was a community-driven event, with proceeds benefiting The Music School of Delaware. Opening performances by Cecilia Grace and Lower Case Blues brought diverse musical textures that enriched the night. Hosting duties were handled by Kenny’s friend, Sahr Abu, who kept the energy flowing.

Personally, my anticipation extended beyond the music. As a longtime fan, the opportunity to see—and meet—former Wailer saxophonist Glen DaCosta and Bob Marley’s cousin Jimmy Malcolm made the night even more special. The evening delivered on every level.

Cecilia Grace opened the show with a voice that was bold, clear, and angelic, yet grounded in a raw emotional honesty. Her ability to shift between powerful, slightly raspy belts and soft, controlled tones gave her performance real depth. Whether performing original songs or covers, she held the crowd effortlessly. Her guitar work was equally impressive—dynamic and rhythmic, creating a full sound that made it feel like more instruments were present. She was the perfect tone-setter for the night.

Next up was Lower Case Blues, a powerhouse trio featuring Jake Banaszak (guitar), B.J. Muntz (bass/vocals), and Tristan Gilbert (drums). From the moment they hit the stage, they brought an explosive energy that had the crowd fully engaged. Their sound was massive for a three-piece, blending blues, funk, and rock with an improvisational edge.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Jazz Dispensary returns with another sought-after rarity from Craft Recordings’ deepest vaults: The Visitors’ spiritual jazz masterpiece, Motherland.

Out-of-print since its initial release in 1976, Motherland showcases the genius of saxophonist brothers Earl and Carl Grubbs, who led their band (pianist Joe Bonner, bassist John Lee, drummer Victor Lewis) through heady originals and beloved standards. As with all releases in Jazz Dispensary’s album-centric Top Shelf Series, Motherland features all-analog (AAA) mastering by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio and is pressed on 180-gram vinyl at Fidelity Record Pressing. Rounding out the package is a stylish tip-on jacket that faithfully reproduces the album’s original design. Motherland, which arrives May 29th and is available for pre-order, will also make its long-awaited debut on streaming platforms in standard and HD audio.

Motherland is the second release in a year-long slate of anniversary programming from the curators at Jazz Dispensary, with more out-of-print cult classics, groove-forward compilations, special releases, global listening events, and additional surprises set to roll out throughout 2026.

Formed in Philadelphia in the early ’70s, The Visitors were a short-lived but highly respected spiritual and free jazz quintet, led by saxophonists and brothers Carl Grubbs (alto) and Earl Grubbs (tenor and soprano). The brothers often drew comparisons to John Coltrane—and for good reason, as their cousin Naima was the iconic saxophonist’s first wife. In their youth, the Grubbs were fortunate enough to learn from the best, with Coltrane and fellow jazz legend Eric Dolphy both serving as mentors.

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Celebrating Steven Tyler on his 78th birthday. —Ed.

Back in the day I went back on forth on Boston Very Baked Beans like a yoyo—liked ‘em in high school, loathed ‘em in college, then did what any sane person would do and put ‘em out of mind altogether. “Dude (Looks Like a Lady)” didn’t exactly make me want to keep abreast of what Aerosmith was up to.

First year in the dorms at Shippensburg College Aerosmith were inescapable, what with my floor’s resident dope dealers Sheesh and Shrooms cranking the Toxic Twins around the clock, and I’ll never forget the day in the dining hall I warned ‘em Aerosmith would rot their brains, and if they really wanted to improve their minds they’d switch to Frank Zappa! Who at the time, if I recall correctly, was producing such IQ-raising fare as “Crew Slut” and “Wet T-Shirt Nite”!

Yeah, I was full of shit for sure. Because like ‘em or not, Aerosmith were on to something. Steven Tyler, Joe Perry and the boys fused the New York Dolls’ glam-rock sleaze with Led Zeppelin’s sonic bombast to produce a brand new kinda high-stepping boogie strut. Aerosmith translated the leer into sound, brought David Johansen’s trash raunch aesthetic to the unwashed masses, and gleefully knocked the blues topsy-turvy, tossing in a whole bunch of dirty limericks in the process.

Theirs was garage rock of a sort, but the garage had a supercharged 1964 Pontiac GTO in it. Fact is Aerosmith boogied faster than almost any machine on the streets back in 1975. Punk was considered the fleetest thing on wheels at the time, but the title track of Toys in the Attic crosses the finish line before anything on Never Mind the Bollocks, and it came out a year and a half earlier! And Tyler’s nursery rhymes for adults are anything but dumb–anybody who can fit poor Paul Getty’s ear into a lyric is A-OK by me.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | MutMuz Gallery, the creative space founded by Mark Mothersbaugh, is proud to present DEVO: The First 50 Years, an exhibition celebrating the visionary legacy of DEVO through a photographic anthology honoring the band’s groundbreaking cultural influence.

Taking place on Friday, April 24, from 6-10 pm in Chinatown, Los Angeles (971 Chung King Rd., Los Angeles, CA, 90012), the exhibition offers a fitting home for this photographic tribute to the band’s first fifty years. Spanning live performances, defining moments, and legendary portraits, the photographs trace DEVO’s evolution from experimental art-punk innovators into global cultural icons. Emerging from Akron, Ohio, in the 1970s, the band fused music, conceptual art, satire, and design to create a visual and sonic language that continues to resonate across generations.

The exhibition brings together work by acclaimed photographers Allan Tannenbaum, BC Kagan, Bob Gruen, Chris Stein, Chuck Statler, Edward Colver, Moshe Brakha, Norman Seeff, Richard Peterson, and Ruby Ray. Their images capture the band’s unmistakable energy, aesthetic experimentation, and enduring cultural impact. Together, the images capture the creative spirit and radical ideas that have defined DEVO for more than half a century. More information is available here.

MutMuz Gallery represents a significant milestone in Mark Mothersbaugh’s career, providing an intimate look into his intellectual curiosity and visual imagination. The gallery’s name derives from Mutato Muzika, his Los Angeles-based production studio, which itself takes its name from the playful fusion of “Mutant” and “Potato.”

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Genesis, the sole album from the teen femme duo Wendy & Bonnie was released in 1969 to no fanfare, but over the decades it has quietly grown into a solid cult item. 2008 found Sundazed issuing a 2CD/3LP set with a massive helping of extra tracks, but that still in-print edition is a reward for the record’s most ardent converts.

Calling Genesis a period piece will automatically impact some readers as a putdown, in part due to many folks’ yardstick of measurement for the art of the past relating directly to whether or not it’s relevant to right now. On the other end of the spectrum, at least a few of Wendy & Bonnie’s most passionate fans surely prize the duo’s only LP precisely because it is indeed so evocative of the time and circumstances of its making.

Though I’m generalizing, those who love Genesis purely for its Flower Power era ambience are likely to value Roger Corman’s ’67 film The Trip over the great cinematographer Haskell Wexler’s first directorial effort, ‘69’s Medium Cool. The former is a spirited teen-exploitation flick that uses clichés and stereotypes as inspired playthings, but the latter is a one of kind motion picture with a seriousness of intent specifically concerning the upheavals of the tumultuous year of 1968.

And people who expressly use the term period piece as an insult could easily be prone to burdening The Trip and Medium Cool with that problematic bag, though with the possibility that Corman’s movie might be “appreciated” as camp and Wexler’s effort referenced as symbolic of the folly inherent in attempting a formally challenging, legitimately political cinema. And if the denigrators were asked to pair Genesis with one of these films on the basis of shared traits, I’m pretty sure the majority would choose The Trip.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | For more than six decades, David Porter has been writing the soundtrack of our lives. This spring, he tells his own story for the first time in his debut memoir, The Soul Man: Life of Songwriter David Porter, out April 14, 2026.

The Grammy-winning songwriter and producer, recently hailed as “the architect of the Memphis sound,” by Questlove, offers readers an intimate look at the life and career behind some of the most enduring songs of all time. As Keith Richards has put it: “There ain’t no soul music without David Porter. He is a huge part of it and, with Isaac Hayes, laid it all out. It’s a great read about an important part of American music!”

Spanning more than sixty years and over 1,700 songwriting and production credits, The Soul Man: Life of Songwriter David Porter goes beyond the hits to reveal the man behind the music. Growing up in segregated Memphis, Porter first encountered the power of song in the pews of his childhood church, was contemporaries on Beale Street with a teenage Elvis Presley, and close friends with Maurice White (Earth, Wind & Fire) and Booker T. Jones (Booker T. & the M.G.’s).

Immersed in extraordinary talent from an early age, these formative experiences shaped a lifelong devotion to music, ultimately leading to his groundbreaking work at Stax Records, where, as the legendary label’s first staff songwriter, he co-wrote classics like “Soul Man,” “Hold On, I’m Comin’,” and “When Something Is Wrong With My Baby” with Isaac Hayes—songs that not only defined an era but continue to resonate across generations, cementing Porter’s place as one of the most influential figures in music history.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | On July 9, 1999, Dr. John stepped onto the Rockpalast stage at the famous Loreley and turned a summer festival set into something timeless.

Available as a CD/DVD set starting March 27, 2026, Live At Rockpalast 1999 captures the six-time Grammy Award winner and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee in commanding form. Rooted in New Orleans rhythm, steeped in the blues, and carried by that unmistakable rolling piano groove.

Born Malcolm “Mac” Rebennack Jr., Dr. John shaped one of the most singular careers in American music. His 1968 debut Gris-Gris fused voodoo incantations, Creole soul, and R&B into a sound that still resonates today. While the Night Tripper persona became iconic, the foundation was always the music of his hometown: earthy, rhythmic, and deeply human.

At Loreley, backed by New Orleans musicians David Barard (bass), Bobby Broom (guitar), and Herman Ernest (drums), he delivers authoritative takes on signature songs: the Mardi Gras chant of “Iko Iko,” the elastic swagger of “Right Place, Wrong Time,” and the hypnotic pulse of “I Walk On Guilded Splinters,” later popularized internationally by Marsha Hunt and reinterpreted by artists from Cher to The Neville Brothers.

Throughout his career, Dr. John collaborated with musicians as diverse as Eric Clapton, Mick Jagger, Van Morrison and Frank Zappa, and appeared in landmark films including The Last Waltz and Blues Brothers 2000.

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Paul McCartney: Man on the Run, a documentary about Paul McCartney’s departure from The Beatles, his beginnings as a solo artist, and his founding of Wings, and ending in the early ’80s with his McCartney II album, is currently playing on Amazon. Directed by Gordon Neville, it’s an entertaining and surprisingly candid portrayal of McCartney’s early solo career, ’70s success, family life, and much more.

A companion soundtrack album has been released. The album is yet another recently released project that looks at the period. The Wings Anthology audio releases and Paul McCartney and Wings: The Story of A Band on the Run book are also part of chronicling this era. In many ways, the soundtrack album, best enjoyed on the 180-gram vinyl edition, is a pared-down version of the Wings Anthology. This album, though, includes some rarities.

There’s a demo of “Silly Love Songs,” a rough mix of “Arrow Through Me,” a track from the James Paul McCartney television special from 1973, and the Rockshow version of “Live and Let Die” from 1980. Although not in chronological order, the album actually has a nice flow. As a single album, it might be a good introduction for younger fans just discovering McCartney’s early solo music and Wings. Collectors will appreciate the rarities and the enclosed two-sided color poster. The sound quality is also quite good, particularly McCartney’s bass, considering how many different sources were accessed for this project.

While this soundtrack and even the Wings Anthology are welcome releases, an audio companion that matched the robustness of the book and film might have been more fitting. Gathering together several discs of rarities would have been thrilling. Also, many live concert discs could have been released, chronicling the different bands McCartney assembled during the Wings period. And of course, fans are still waiting for the obvious reissues of London Town and Back to the Egg from this period, as part of the McCartney Archive.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | “Xiu Mutha Fuckin’ Xiu: Vol. 1 gets in the ballpark of being consistently excellent…Xiu Xiu’s unified sound draws these complementary selections into an interconnected whole…To borrow contemporary phraseology, the album goes hard. Just as importantly, from top to bottom, the LP was obviously a labor of love.” —The Vinyl District

Xiu Xiu shares a Deluxe Edition of the delightfully wide-ranging collection of a series of covers that had previously only been available through subscription, titled Xiu Mutha Fuckin’ Xiu: Vol. 1 now with 4 new bonus tracks—featuring new covers of songs by Roxy Music (“In Every Dream Home a Heartache”), Boy Harsher (“Pain”), Rowland S. Howard (“Breakdown and Then”), and Dolly Parton (“Jolene”).

The original edition of Xiu Mutha Fuckin’ Xiu: Vol. 1 was named one of Pitchfork’s most anticipated releases of 2026, with pre-release singles including a raw, devastating cover of “Dancing on My Own,” the beloved track originally by Robyn, along with “Cherry Bomb” originally by The Runaways with the b-side “Some Things Last a Long Time” originally by Daniel Johnston, released in December, drawing acclaim from Stereogum who said: “Xiu Xiu are people of taste. This is obvious based on their decades of brilliant, provocative musical output, but also based on their selection of covers.”

According to Jamie Stewart: “We have a long history of doing covers and have done 3 albums of covers. The enduring and basic throughline with all of them is an attempt to say thank you to those songs. They are all in one way or another pieces of music that have moved us and exploring them in a deep way is a small honorific offering to the muse that created them. We never approach them thinking ‘How can we improve these’ but really “What can we learn from these?’”

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Far too frequently, when pop acts and rock bands attempt comebacks, the results register as disappointing. By extension, sometimes even good examples benefit from diminished expectations. This is not the case with The Searchers’ unexpected return to studio activity, the fruits of which are collected on Another Night: The Sire Recordings 1979-1981. Utterly avoiding nostalgia without straining for the new, they simply tapped into the period’s melodic-rock upsurge, and the albums’ meager commercial fortunes remain something of a stumper. 

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating; Rhino’s DIY compilation series, which emerged in one nine-volume splat back in 1993, delivered a consistently killer ride, and the four pop entries (two each for the US and UK) additionally served as an education for ears that’d missed out on much of the melodic action situated between ’75 and ’83. For one example, Starry Eyes – UK Pop II (1978-79) included the Yachts, Joe Jackson, Bram Tchaikovsky, Mo-Dettes, and naturally, The Records (as their classic titled the set) along with an intriguing track by The Searchers.

While familiar with and quite fond of the band’s ’60s material for the Pye label (released by Kapp in the US), I initially thought this was some other Searchers, as there isn’t another ’60s-era outfit on any of the DIY discs. Discarding the shrink wrap clarified matters, and listening to “Hearts in Her Eyes,” which opened the band’s ’79 LP The Searchers (just Searchers in the UK) drove home the wisdom of their inclusion, as they mingled with a younger generation without a snag (the song was written by The Records’ Will Birch and John Wicks) and sounded not at all like a dusted-off, reanimated relic.

Fact is, The Searchers never quit. Instead, after numerous attempts to put platters into the racks faltered post-’60s heyday, they just set their sights on the cabaret circuit, which, if far from glamourous, was preferable to desperately jumping onto a series of stylistic bandwagons in hopes of regaining lost success. That they didn’t soil their public image by going psych or hard rock or glam surely helped stoke Seymour Stein’s interest in getting them back into the studio.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Widely regarded as one of the greatest albums of all time, The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds redefined what an album could be upon its release on May 16, 1966, forever altering the course of popular music. Sixty years on, it remains as vital and influential as ever.

Providing deeper insight into the making of the album, The Pet Sounds Sessions Highlights compiles standout material from the 1997 Grammy-nominated 4CD box set, The Pet Sounds Sessions, which documented the legendary 1965–66 recording sessions. The collection features 25 alternate takes, a cappellas, and tracking sessions, all making their vinyl debut.

Available as a 2CD set and across multiple 2LP configurations—including standard black vinyl and limited-edition splatter/color variants—each format includes new liner notes by longtime Beach Boys historian Howie Edelson, along with a detailed sessionography. Currently unavailable for download and streaming, the full 90-track box set, The Pet Sounds Sessions, will be delivered to DSPs upon release.

Ahead of the release, The Beach Boys have released a three-track digital EP exploring their classic hit, “Sloop John B,” through a stunning a cappella version that isolates the vocal harmonies of Brian Wilson, Dennis Wilson, Carl Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, and Bruce Johnston, along with a fascinating alternative take featuring Carl in place of Brian on lead. The EP is capped off with the stereo mix.

Leading up to the anniversary, The Beach Boys are keeping the celebration going across socials and YouTube. Follow along as the band shares the stories behind Pet Sounds, explores its global legacy, and reveals new ways to experience the music. Starting anniversary week, tune into The Beach Boys’ YouTube channel for a special listening experience in collaboration with the San Diego Zoo, where the iconic Pet Sounds cover was famously photographed in 1966.

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