Celebrating Grace Slick on her 86th birthday. —Ed.

You should be ashamed of yourself. Here the most important date on my holy calendar has come and gone, and you didn’t buy me a single gift. I’m talking about the anniversary of Altamont, of course, the benighted free concert held on December 6, 1969 at the Altamont Speedway in northern California. Four people died, one poor fellow at the hands of the Hells Angels, who were hired to provide security. The Angels, anger fueled in part by the $500 in beer they received as payment for their services, also rendered Jefferson Airplane vocalist Marty Balin unconscious with a blow to the head, which is why the anniversary of Altamont is also known to strict religious observers such as myself as “Punch Marty Balin in the Mouth Day.”

Altamont is perhaps rock’s most significant day because it, along with the Manson Family killings, put paid to the Age of Aquarius. It was the end of the innocence, to quote that dick from the Eagles, the high water mark of peace, love, and understanding, and on that dark day the glorious lysergic wave of good vibes and universal brotherhood broke and receded forever, as Hunter S. Thompson so astutely notes in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

I write all of this because the Jefferson Airplane was Thee Official Band of the LSD era. “White Rabbit” and “Somebody to Love” were as much countercultural signifiers as they were songs, as was “Crown of Creation,” as in “you are the.” But the whole scene went south, first with the numerous drug casualties of Haight-Ashbury, then with Charles Manson’s bloody murder spree and the disaster at Altamont, about which Grace Slick noted, “The vibes were bad. Something was very peculiar, not particularly bad, just real peculiar. It was that kind of hazy, abrasive and unsure day. I had expected the loving vibes of Woodstock but that wasn’t coming at me. This was a whole different thing.”

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Letters to Cleo’s debut album offers a classic indie rock rags-to-riches story we just don’t hear enough of anymore. The band was close to breaking up (vocalist Kay Hanley had already started another band on the side) when they released Aurora Gory Alice on a small, local (Boston) label called Cherrydisc Records in 1993.

A year later, after receiving extensive airplay in New England, Billboard finally reviewed the album and the next day the band played a much-celebrated show at South by Southwest. Major labels then came calling, and Warner Brothers imprint Giant Records signed Letters to Cleo, re-releasing the album in 1994. But fame and fortune STILL eluded the band until Giant was asked to compile a soundtrack for the TV Show Melrose Place and put “Here & Now” on it.

Success, however long-delayed, was swift; the song went Top Ten on the Modern Rock charts and the album likewise cracked the album charts. That success was also richly deserved; Aurora Gory Alice presents smart, melodic indie pop graced with Hanley’s soaring vocals. We’ve remastered this ‘90s classic for vinyl, and, with the band’s blessing, are bringing it to retail on LP for the first time with a sea blue pressing. Recommended!

Nonstop touring afforded Letters to Cleo an opportunity to develop a harder-edged, more diverse sound, heard to excellent effect on 1995’s Wholesale Meats and Fish. The single, the propulsive “Awake,” is good…but the album highlight is definitely “Little Rosa,” a masterpiece of ‘60s-influenced jangle pop. Once again, Real Gone had the album remastered for its first widespread vinyl retail release. Highlighter yellow pressing, released with the band’s blessing.

On October 13 the Mushroom Hour Half Hour and New Soil labels co-release kwaNTU, a gorgeous album of South African guitar from the duo of Madala Kunene (the elder) and Sibusile Xaba (the protégé). Known as the King of the Zulu Guitar, Kunene is little known outside his home country, while the younger jazz-influenced Xaba is poised to break out even more on the world stage. This 10-track collection is a splendid balm for troubled times, available on vinyl, compact disc, and digital.

That Madala Kunene isn’t better known by international listeners can be chalked up to the difficulties of exposure that befell South African musicians in the waning moments of Apartheid and then immediately after. His self-titled 1990 debut album, originally released by Third Ear Music, is certainly a pleasant experience, if unsurprisingly a wee bit dated in the production department.

Sibusile Xaba’s 2017 debut, the double set Open Letter to Adoniah/Unlearning, was the first release on Mushroom Hour Half Hour, an adventurous Johannesburg-based label that began as a vinyl-only radio show on a pirate radio station. If jazz influenced (Wes Montgomery and Jim Hall are cited as having impacted his style), Xaba is no trad cat; his debut finds him just as moved by South African sounds and also singing, often exuberantly in a sort of dialogue/counterpoint with his guitar playing.

After a meeting and time spent together, Kunene and Xaba became friends, with a budding mentorship to follow, and now comes this collaboration, which is often stunning in its beauty, and immediately so in opener “Umkhulu Omkhulu,” with its exchange of folky and jazz guitar as Xaba sings atop.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | The Doors’ 60th anniversary celebration continues with the re-release of Tom DiCillo’s GRAMMY® Award-Winning documentary film When You’re Strange.

Remastered in 4K for the first time, the film will feature an introduction from John Densmore and Robby Krieger and the worldwide exclusive debut of a newly recorded performance of “Riders on the Storm” featuring Densmore, Krieger, and special guests in partnership with Playing For Change. The film will be released worldwide in theaters on December 4th and 6th. Tickets for When You’re Strange are on sale from Thursday, October 30 at 6 a.m. PT / 9 a.m. ET / 1 p.m. GMT at WhenYoureStrangeMovie.com. Visit the event website to sign up for more information and ticketing details for cinemas.

The chemistry of four artists made The Doors one of America’s most influential rock bands. With rare footage shot from their formation in 1965 to Jim Morrison’s death in 1971, When You’re Strange, Tom DiCillo’s GRAMMY® Award-Winning film narrated by Johnny Depp, follows the band through their career, providing insight into the revolutionary impact of their music.

On the occasion of the band’s 60th anniversary, the film will be presented in cinemas in 4K for the first time ever, and feature a newly recorded performance of “Riders on the Storm” featuring Densmore, Krieger, and special guests performing the song in exotic locations around the world in partnership with Playing For Change.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | At the height of summer of 1976, the sun was setting on The Band. Having ushered in the decade’s folk-rock movement by seamlessly weaving elements of rock, blues, jazz and country, The Band was at its breaking point.

Guitarist and songwriter Robbie Robertson was tired of the road and interested in exploring new musical avenues, pianist Richard Manuel was still recovering from a boating accident, and Garth Hudson, Levon Helm, and Rick Danko were all ready to go their separate ways. As the group prepared for their farewell concert, one that would go down in history, they released The Best of The Band, a retrospective of timeless classics that would influence music for generations to come.

On December 12, Capitol Records/UMe will release the newly remastered The Best of The Band on vinyl, CD, and Super High Material CD. The long out-of-print LP version will be available on standard weight black vinyl, marking the first time it’s been available since the 1980s. Both the CD and SHM CD versions have been mastered for digital format, with the SHM CD utilizing a special polycarbonate material that leads to additional clarity, depth, and definition of sound.

Released on July 16, 1976, The Best of The Band is a precursor to a landmark moment in music history. Having first formed in the 1960s as Ronnie Hawkins’ backing band, The Hawks, the group—Helm (drums, vocals, mandolin), Robertson (guitar, piano, vocals), Danko (bass, vocals, fiddle), Manuel (keyboards, vocals, drums), and Hudson (keyboards, horns)—would back Bob Dylan during his controversial electric “plugged-in” phase.

Read More »

Neil Young remains one of the most consistently prolific artists in music. He turns 80 on November 12, and his latest album is a self-reflective work that is heartfelt, honest, and occasionally angry, but ultimately uplifting.

Young’s output is staggering. Every year, he puts out unreleased music from his vast archives, reissues of previous works, and often albums of all-new recordings. It’s the variety, quality, and approach of these new recordings that spotlight his continued relevance. Young does not rest on his laurels, he favors making gritty, organic music with songs that are deeply personal and is not creating product for the marketplace or pandering to popular tastes.

The new album features many of the musicians Young has been recording and touring with since 2015. They are musicians who play with Young as Promise of the Real (Lukas Nelson, Anthony LoGerfo, Tato Melgar, Corey McCormick, Logan Metz) and in the case of this album, the Chrome Hearts (Micah Nelson, Spooner Oldham, Corey McCormick, Anthony LoGerfo). Lukas and Micah are Willie Nelson’s sons.

Oldham is one of the true legends of American music, stretching back to his unparalleled work as a lynchpin of the history-making Muscle Shoals sessions, including the key Atlantic Recordings of Aretha Franklin. He is a member of Young’s current touring band and has collaborated with him on a total of nine albums, dating back to 1978. His contributions to Young’s albums and music in general cannot be overstated. He was inducted into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame in 2009 as a sideman with Bill Black and D.J. Fontana.

Read More »

Beware of the clown! On the heels of the release of a handful of new songs, Swedish metal masters Avatar (guitarist Jonas “Kungen” Jarlsby, drummer John Alfredsson, vocalist Johannes Eckerström, guitarist Tim Öhrström, and bassist Henrik Sandelin) unleash their anticipated tenth album, Don’t Go In The Forest, on Halloween. True to form, Avatar’s latest effort is haunting, genre-bending, and a hell of a lot of fun.

If Avatar had a mission statement, it might say, “Never make the same album twice.” True to that approach, Don’t Go in the Forest is a step forward from 2023’s Dance Devil Dance. On that album, the lead-off track “Dance Devil Dance” set an ominous tone for the rest of that carnival ride as a danceable, devilish metal album. In 2025, “Tonight We Must Be Warriors” begins with flute and military-style drums, evolving into a fist-pumping power metal anthem. It’s a rallying cry to the listener, urging us to be brave as we journey into the dark forest of taboos.

Other singles have already provided tastes of the album’s eclectic sound. The catchy, growly, thrashy “In the Airwaves” is a return to “speed,” and I can already see the mosh pits that are sure to break out on club floors. “Death and Glitz” is glam and danceable—it would not have been out of place on Dance Devil Dance. But instead of the devil, the song takes aim at society’s fascination with true crime. The phrase “tragedy with tits” is likely to be written across chests at every Avatar show from now until the end of time.

“Captain Goat” is a sea shanty for chrissakes and is already a fan favorite, with affections fueled by a video featuring a Black Philip-looking sea captain and bassist Sandelin as a merman. Is it weird? Yes. Is it weird even for Avatar? No.

Read More »

Sublime Frequencies has travelled the globe in pursuit of worthy sonic discoveries, but until the arrival of West Virginia Snake Handler Revival “They Shall Take Up Serpents,” the set available now on LP and digital wherever adventurous music is sold, the label had never focused an entire release on a locale from inside the borders of the United States. As the title indicates, West Virginia is the destination, specifically Appalachia, for a deep dive into the fervor of a group known simply as the Pastor Chris Congregation. It’s one of the wildest and totally unexpected releases of 2025. The vinyl comes with a 13-minute bonus track.

The reality is that many will listen to West Virginia Snake Handler Revival with the intention to laugh and point. When people let it all hang out, a reliable reaction is derision. Soaking up these excerpts as captured by Grammy-award-winning record producer Ian Brennan (Tinariwen, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Zomba Prison Project, Peter Case), if nothing else, illuminates the difference between sincere Christian belief in its extremity and those who profess religious conviction but are in reality frauds.

But this album delivers much more, capturing the last snake-handling church in the only state that still legally tolerates the practice prior to the likelihood (if not inevitability) of the tradition’s disappearance. It offers excerpts of church service preaching ascending into the realms of pure mania. In Sublime Frequencies’ notes, Brennan details a snakebite that can be heard in the track “Don’t Worry It’s Just a Snakebite (What Has Happened to This Generation?).”

The whole of West Virginia Snake Handler Revival is fascinating, and most of all for the sheer power of the music. Those preaching excerpts are infused with the raw musicality that can be the byproduct of sheer conviction and the evaporation of inhibition. The intensity is galvanizing, formidable, at times uncomfortable, even from the distance this recording provides. One can only imagine what it was like for Brennan up close as he tended to his duties as an audio documentarian.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Vol. 12: 1996 of On Record, a comprehensive series of award-winning books, continues author and Colorado Music Experience director G. Brown’s signature, year-by-year chronicle of popular music from 1978 to 1998.

Vol. 12: 1996 brings together rare archival images and more than 100 in-depth interviews, revisiting a vibrant year in the music landscape. G. Brown, the longtime music journalist and radio personality who authored this series, presents a richly textured retrospective, featuring: pop icons like Celine Dion, Kenny G, and the Artist Formerly Known as Prince, alternative trailblazers such as Beck, Weezer, Sublime, and Rage Against the Machine, emerging talents including Dave Matthews Band, The Roots, and Wilco, genre-spanning coverage including hip-hop, classic rock, country, jazz and new age.

Interview-based artist profiles encompassing Fiona Apple, The Cardigans, Marilyn Manson, Jamiroquai, Eels, Social Distortion, Tool, Kula Shaker, Cibo Matto, Stone Temple Pilots, Tori Amos, Tony Toni Tone, New Edition, and Counting Crows.

Marking more than 50 years as one of America’s foremost popular music writers, G. Brown has interviewed more than 3,000 musicians, ranging from superstars to one-hit wonders in every genre. Each edition overflows with rare, powerful and informative editorial photographs from Brown’s personal archive of close to 15,000 images amassed over decades. These beautifully crafted, reader-friendly volumes, presented in a lively, engaging style, invite perusing at any point within the book.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Craft Recordings celebrates Los Angeles Groove ‘n’ Hook merchants The Record Company and their GRAMMY®-nominated debut with an expanded tenth anniversary edition of Give It Back to You. The deluxe reissue includes the original 10-track album—featuring the chart-topping hit “Off the Ground,” as well as favorites such as “Rita Mae Young” and “On the Move”—plus the band’s previously unreleased first concert, captured in bassist Alex Stiff’s Los Feliz living home in 2013.

The intimate set offers a glimpse into the band’s creative process with some of their earliest material, including songs that would later appear on Give It Back to You, as well as a down-and-dirty rendition of the Bob Seger classic, “Old Time Rock & Roll” (the band would go on to open for the legendary rocker in 2019). Arriving February 20th, 2026, and available to pre-order today, the album will be released on CD, as a 2-LP gatefold set, and on digital platforms. The digital edition will feature even more additional content—including bonus mixes, live versions, acoustic takes, covers, and more—stay tuned to the band’s official website and socials for the full tracklist reveal.

As part of their anniversary celebration, the band will also perform the album in its entirety during a 27-show run. The Give It Back to You Tour kicks off January 8th in Park City and concludes with a hometown show in Los Angeles on March 28th. Visit the band’s official site for tickets and more info.

The Record Company was born out of a late-night hang in 2011, when Chris Vos (vocals, guitar), Alex Stiff (bass, backing vocals), and Marc Cazorla (drums, backing vocals) spun classic blues records like John Lee Hooker’s Hooker ’N Heat and swapped stories of their favorite concerts (Iggy Pop & The Stooges, among them). Energized by the evening, the three musicians reconvened the next day for a jam session at Stiff’s Los Feliz home. Before long, his living room would become the band’s epicenter as they wrote songs, performed for friends, and, eventually, recorded and mixed their debut album, Give It Back to You.

Read More »

Remembering Rickie Lee Reynolds, born on this day in 1948. —Ed.

Just how great are Black Oak Arkansas? Well rock critic Ubermensch Robert Christgau once posed the question of why they couldn’t fill NYC’s Academy of Music on a Saturday night after two years of relentless touring and then answered it himself with the words, “Because unlike most similar bands they have never achieved competence—they are actively untalented, incapable of even an interesting cop.”

Is that a glowing endorsement or what? But if you ask me Christgau was missing the point. If you have a sense of humor and a taste for the totally inexplicable those are the very qualities that make Black Oak Arkansas so great! I mean, ANYBODY can be competent! And talent’s bullshit! The Police were talented, and they should have been arrested! Talent kills!

Black Oak Arkansas were working at a level of total inspiration that made basic proficiency much less mastery irrelevant, starting from the day they stole the PA from their high school and set up in an abandoned grain bin at the outskirts of the tiny burg they’d name themselves after and commenced to produce such an ear-splitting din that it took the cops all of ten minutes or so to swoop down on ‘em and not only pull the plug but arrest them for grand larceny, after which they were sentenced to TWENTY-SIX YEARS at some horrifying penal farm, although the sentence was later suspended. But there’s a lesson in there—playing the sounds they heard in their collective unhinged head could have put them away for decades, and it that ain’t the spirit of rock ’n’ roll, what is?

Black Oak Arkansas was a band of renegade long-haired redneck Krishna Baptists at the bizarro fringe of the southern rock movement who liked to sing about the halls of Karma and called themselves “mutants of the monster” and lived at one with nature in some kind of hairy hippie commune in the sticks where they perfected their totally incompetent but always electrifying and utterly unique brand of radioactive psychedelic southern rock, complete with their own three-guitar army and a drummer who liked to play solos with his bare hands, perhaps because he couldn’t afford drum sticks. But if so, why didn’t he just steal some? Arkansas is Purdue Country and literally crawling with chickens!

Read More »

Hearing Charles Mingus and his band in performance is a reliable pleasure, and when his various aggregations were really cooking, the sounds they produced remain one of the joys of modern music. Recorded in 1964 and released the following year, Mingus at Monterey is one of the bassist-bandleader-composer’s finest live recordings. Reissued earlier in 2025 for Record Store Day, the initial 2LP set quickly sold out after hitting the album charts. Now it’s back with a fresh edition via Candid Records in partnership with Charles Mingus’ Jazz Workshop, Inc. It’s a delight from start to finish. All Mingus fans need a copy.

The live stage is where any jazz musician has to make it. It can be at Lincoln Center or in the back room of a Unitarian church, in a nightclub after midnight, or in a college auditorium before noon, in a museum’s performance space, or under the canopy at a festival: it’s where the musicians prove they have the stuff.

Charles Mingus proved it repeatedly through a long, consistently evolving life in music, but in 1962, he hit a creative low point on the stage as his ambitious performance, conceived by Mingus not as a typical concert but as a sort of recording session with audience/workshop hybrid, was a notorious debacle, although that didn’t stop United Artists from releasing a portion of the evening as Town Hall Concert in 1962.

Town Hall Concert was reissued as an expanded CD in 1994 as The Complete Town Hall Concert. The addition of bonus material clarified that the event wasn’t as disastrous as it was long assessed, but it was still a tough night by any yardstick. Take note that the 1962 Town Hall show shouldn’t be confused with the release of a 1964 live recording also titled Town Hall Concert; we’ll discuss this return engagement a bit further down.

Read More »