Television began life as a punk band—Richard Hell made sure of that. But Tom Verlaine soon tired of Hell’s determined amateurism and wildman antics (didn’t like him, you know, MOVING on stage) and so out went Hell, and as time passed Television became something very different. Twin guitars, lots of soloing, no “fuck rock ’n’ roll” nihilism—Television went from Dionysian to Apollonian, from raw and visceral to tight and (somehow) both wound up and ethereal. They weren’t America’s answer to the Sex Pistols—they were America’s answer to Wishbone Ash.

Television had a short but brilliant run—epochal debut (1977’s Marquee Moon), a second album that disappointed most but was at its best utterly sublime (1978’s Adventure), plus a live album that was released post-breakup (1982’s The Blow-Up) and an album they recorded after reforming briefly in the nineties (who cares). They weren’t a better to burn out than to fade away proposition—they succumbed to sheer fatigue and disappointing record sales, and went their separate ways with the usual “Why aren’t we stars, fuck this.”

Richard Hell had an interesting thing to say about the Tom Verlaine (then still Paul Miller) he’d first met at school in Delaware. He said Verlaine “…had this fundamental belief in his absolute inherent superiority to everyone else on this earth.” Such people tend to be control freaks, have delusions of grandeur and to be intolerant of the shortcomings of others, so it was perhaps inevitable that he’d end up a solo artist. Fellow Television guitarist Richard Lloyd’s drug problems, and the group’s failure to achieve commercial success mentioned above, didn’t help.

Verlaine didn’t let much time pass before he released his first solo album, 1979’s Tom Verlaine. It didn’t hurt that more than half of its songs—including the two best—dated back to Verlaine’s time in Television. Like Lou Reed, Verlaine didn’t walk away from his old band without taking a few mementos with him. Getting a fresh start is easier when you don’t have to make a fresh start.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Resonance Records proudly presents Lights on a Satellite: Live at the Left Bank, a blazing set of previously unissued 1978 concert recordings by Sun Ra and his Myth Science Cosmo Swing Arkestra, as a limited two-LP set for RSD Black Friday, November 29. Co-produced by Zev Feldman and Sun Ra archivist Michael D. Anderson (who also played drums on the ’78 concert), the newly unearthed live session is an exciting successor to Sun Ra at the Showcase: Live in Chicago, another archival find that Feldman issued on his Jazz Detective imprint for Record Store Day this April. The new collection will also be released as a two-CD set on December 6.

Prophetic avant gardist Sun Ra’s big band is heard in blistering form—playing repertoire ranging from space-age jazz to interpretations of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and jazz standards by Fletcher Henderson, Miles Davis, and Tadd Dameron—on a dynamic 12-track set recorded at a show mounted by the Left Bank Jazz Society at the Famous Ballroom in Baltimore, Maryland, on July 23, 1978. Those recordings are augmented by two tracks captured at the concert and featured in the classic 1980 film Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise by the acclaimed music filmmaker Robert Mugge, who also provided images for the new package.

The deluxe Resonance packages include an essay by noted jazz critic J.D. Considine (who attended the ’78 show); reminiscences from Anderson, Mugge, Left Bank member John Fowler, critic Dan Morgenstern, and Arkestra veteran and latter-day bandleader Marshall Allen; and thoughts on Sun Ra’s artistry from musicians Gary Bartz and Craig Taborn.

Feldman says of this newest discovery, “It was very exciting to learn from Sun Ra archivist Michael D. Anderson that these recordings from the Left Bank in 1978 even existed. Filmmaker Robert Mugge was also very kind to us by allowing us to borrow the music he had recorded for his film, which is presented here as bonus tracks. Also thanks to Mr. Mugge, we’ve included various high-resolution screen captures from his film that help capture the energy of what it was like to be there at the Famous Ballroom that night.”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | The Animals announce a 2CD reissue of their classic debut album The Animals which features the full album in both mono and stereo with bonus track “House of the Rising Sun,” to be released on 18th October. Pre-order here. Alongside this, The Animals will be available on exclusive yellow vinyl as part of this year’s National Album Day on 19th October.

Originally released in 1964, this groundbreaking record introduced the world to the raw energy of British rock fused with deep American blues. It features a mixture of blues, R&B, traditional folk covers and covers of songs written by John Lee Hooker, Chuck Berry, and Fats Domino. Produced by Mickie Most, The Animals featured Eric Burdon on lead vocals, Hilton Valentine on guitar, Alan Price on keyboards, Chas Chandler on bass guitar, and John Steel on drums.

The 2CD reissue includes “House of the Rising Sun.” Initially a traditional folk song, The Animals’ cover went to number one in the UK, US, and Canada and has since been dubbed as the “first folk rock hit.”

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Deep Digs, in cooperation with the B. B. King Estate, Universal Music Enterprises and INA France, will issue a sensational, previously unreleased B.B. King album, In France: Live at the 1977 Nancy Jazz Pulsations Festival, as a limited two-LP set for RSD Black Friday on Nov. 29.

The powerful set, featuring a dynamic, stops-out performance by the masterful blues singer-guitarist and his potent seven-piece band, which will be heard on record for the first time, will see release as a two-CD set on Dec. 6.

The collection, released in cooperation with the B.B. King Estate, was recorded at the titular festival by the Office de Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française (ORTF), France’s national radio agency. It succeeds Deep Digs’ widely acclaimed debut release, gospel singer-guitarist Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s Live in France, which was drawn from ORTF’s archives at INA for the imprint’s Record Store Day bow this April.

Award-winning archival producer Zev Feldman, whose Deep Digs titles are released in partnership with Jordi Soley and Carlos Agustin Calembert of Spain’s Elemental Music, says, “I’ve been a lifelong fan of B.B. King, and it brings me so much joy to make this truly remarkable document captured at a wonderful period of B.B. King’s career available for the world to hear.”

The LP edition of the collection will be issued on 180-gram vinyl and mastered and cut by Matthew Lutthans at the Mastering Lab. LP and CD editions will both include liner notes by French writer Jean Buzelin, author of books about Tharpe, Skip James, Memphis Minnie, and Blind Lemon Jefferson, and photos from the Nancy, France, performance by Jean-Marc Birraux, plus other vintage shots by Jean-Pierre Leloir and Ozier Muhammad.

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Checking in with cornetist-trumpeter-composer-bandleader-visual artist Rob Mazurek is always worthwhile. That’s because, to make it plain, the guy’s records just never miss. And when it’s a release by the Exploding Star Orchestra, that’s even better, as the band, which has been Mazurek’s primary musical focus over the last half decade or so (the group has been extant for nearly 25 years), is a certifiable murderer’s row of talent, of which more is said below. The latest album from Exploding Star Orchestra is Live at the Adler Planetarium, a sleek doozy of a performance captured in Mazurek’s old stomping grounds of Chicago. It’s out on vinyl and CD October 4 through International Anthem.

Rob Mazurek began leading ensembles of various sizes in the mid-’90s, but of particular note is the Chicago Underground Collective (17 releases ranging from duo to orchestra beginning with 12 Degrees of Freedom in 1998), São Paulo Underground (six releases beginning with Sauna: Um, Dois, Tres in 2006), and Exploding Star Orchestra (nine releases beginning with We Are All From Somewhere Else in 2007).

Live at the Adler Planetarium features Mazurek on trumpets, bells and voice (along with providing compositions and directing the band), Nicole Mitchell on flute, voice and electronics, Damon Locks on voice, samplers and electronics, Tomeka Reid on cello and electronics, Craig Taborn on Wurlitzer electric piano, Moog and electronics, Angelica Sanchez on Wurlitzer electric piano and Moog, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten on bass, and Chad Taylor and Gerald Cleaver on drums.

The music heard on Live at the Adler Planetarium was one part of an event that saw a stream of abstractions derived from Mazurek’s paintings and animations digitally projected above the heads of the audience and band in the planetarium’s Grainger Sky Theater. The record’s cover captures a glimpse of what the assembled experienced that night, March 24, 2023.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Hot on the heels of their critically acclaimed, sold-out summer headline tour, Bush is set to commemorate the 30th anniversary of their groundbreaking debut album Sixteen Stone with a special vinyl reissue. This milestone release marks the beginning of an exciting new partnership with Craft Recordings, a label renowned for its dedication to preserving and amplifying iconic music. The multi-Platinum LP, a cornerstone of the ’90s post-grunge era, is set to arrive on November 22nd and is available for pre-order.

Alongside a wide release, fans can get their hands on six limited-edition colored pressings: “Opaque Red” (available wide), “Silver” (exclusive to Independent Record Stores), “Translucent Lemonade” (via Best Buy), “Sepia” (via Barnes & Noble), and “Highlighter Smoke” (available at Revolver), plus a “Fog” pressing exclusive to the band’s Spotify followers.

Released on December 6th, 1994, Sixteen Stone propelled Bush into the international spotlight, selling millions of copies in the US—the album recently certified 7X Platinum by the RIAA—and producing a string of hit singles. With its blend of heavy guitar riffs and introspective lyrics, the album helped define the alternative-rock sound of the ’90s, cementing Bush as one of the era’s most successful bands.

Upon release, Sixteen Stone debuted at No.4 on the Billboard 200, staying on the chart for more than 70 weeks. The album’s runaway success was driven by its singles, including the chart-topping hits “Glycerine” and “Comedown,” both of which exploded at radio peaking at No.1 in Billboard’s Alternative Airplay charts and No.1 in the Modern Rock Tracks chart. Other fan-favorites on the album include “Machinehead,” “Everything Zen,” and “Little Things.” The enduring popularity of these tracks has kept the album resonance for new generations of listeners, while its influence on modern rock remains undeniable.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | “Perhaps more than any other record of the decade, [Sung Tongs] foresaw where indie hearts, ears, and minds would go in the next five years… the magic of this record was that it was both innovative and utterly, peerlessly beautiful.” —Pitchfork

Animal Collective will release a Canary Yellow and Ruby Red colored 2xLP vinyl repress of their beloved fifth studio LP, 2004’s Sung Tongs, in honor of the album’s 20 year anniversary. The new edition marks the first time the album has been available on color vinyl. Also available digitally and on color vinyl will be the new live album Sung Tongs Live at the Theatre at Ace Hotel, a recording of the 2018 concert in Los Angeles where Avey Tare and Panda Bear performed the album in full. All formats will be out October 4 via Domino.

Sung Tongs marked the beginning of a prolific five-year period in which Animal Collective went on to release their game-changing albums Feels (2005), Strawberry Jam (2007), and Merriweather Post Pavilion (2009). At the time of Sung Tongs’ release, Rolling Stone called it “one of the more creative and accomplished records you’ll hear this year,” adding, “Their songs cackle with soulful eccentricity while dazzling you with deceptive chops and improvised manipulations.”

Pitchfork later named it one of the best albums of the 2000s, raving, “Sung Tongs is an emotionally thrilling record, impossibly giddy and fully-charged with big, raucous enthusiasm: Acoustic strums and wild, flailing voices (including some mind-blowing harmonies by vocalists Avey Tare and Panda Bear) coalesce into something sublimely weird and undeniably beautiful.”

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The John Lennon estate has been releasing deluxe reissues of his solo albums. Plastic Ono Band and Imagine have been released so far and now comes Mind Games. Each series, presented in various formats, is complemented by an expansive coffee-table book.

The Mind Games album actually came out in 1973 after the album Sometime in New York, which came out in 1972. That album was skipped over and there is no official word on if it will eventually receive the same treatment of the three albums mentioned above.

This Mind Games book serves several purposes. It is a companion to the recently released Mind Games audio and video reissue series. It expands on the beautiful hardcover book that comes with the Mind Games “Cube” and deluxe editions. It’s a sumptuous coffee-table book, from one of the premier coffee-table book publishers in the world and therefore, along with being read, it can be pulled off the shelf and dipped into and enjoyed just for the pictures, art, photography, graphics and aesthetics alone. It’s also a very important work of reference for Lennon and Beatles scholars given the depth and fulsomeness of the information. The level of detail reaches an encyclopedic, historical, journalistic and you-are-there documentary diary level.

The book reflects Lennon’s time in New York with Yoko and is often a detailed chronicle of their life, art, and work. It was obviously very important for John to chronicle everything, in almost documentary form. Forms would actually be more accurate. Both Lennon and Yoko Ono were pioneers of multi-media. Few people other than Marshall McLuhan and Andy Warhol were as adept at and naturally comfortable with understanding and creating media in so many different formats, while simultaneously chronicling their efforts, although McLuhan was more of a media theorist, than creator.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | The Session Man: Nicky Hopkins, a documentary film that tells the story of the prolific virtuoso session pianist Nicky Hopkins, will be released in North America November 5th on TVOD/PPV on Amazon Prime, additional major platforms and will also be available on DVD in late 2024.

Featuring commentary from Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Peter Frampton, Pete Townshend and more, The Session Man explores the legendary 30-year career of Nicky Hopkins and his contributions to over 250 albums, including John Lennon’s Imagine, The Who’s My Generation, and countless iconic songs like “You Are So Beautiful” by Joe Cocker, “Sympathy For The Devil” by The Rolling Stones, and “Revolution” by The Beatles. Directed by Mike Treen, The Session Man has been shown at festivals in a number of countries, winning awards in London, Berlin, Rome, Madrid, Los Angeles, and Paris. It is scheduled to be screened in The New Zealand Indie Film Festival and The Albuquerque Film Festival at the end of September.

“Nicky Hopkins was a dear friend and iconic piano player. No one had his wonderful touch, feel and choice of notes. I was lucky to have him play on my Somethin’s Happening record. I miss him and listen to him often. He taught me plenty.” –Peter Frampton

“The Session Man film is not a Hollywood biopic, rather a homage to a virtuoso and prolific session pianist. There is a sad irony in that Nicky Hopkins was unknown to the greater public but amongst his peers, he was treated as Rock Royalty. The sheer volume of albums and singles that he contributed on and the testimonials from the star-studded list of interviewees in the film allows me the right to say that Nicky’s story deserves to reach a wide audience worldwide. As Bob Lefsetz succinctly put it, The Session Man is a link in your education. It fills holes in your mental history of rock and roll. Which revolutionized society, impacted an entire generation, music was the coolest medium, it drove the culture and Nicky was there, not on the periphery, but audible on some of your favorite records.’” —Director Mike Treen

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Formed in Los Angeles in 1980, Afterimage’s dark and moody approach was clearly influenced by UK post-punk while not being blatantly imitative of any specific predecessor. Joy Division is a bandied point of comparison, but Afterimage benefited from raw muscularity that reflected their Cali punk surroundings. Impeccably designed by Independent Project Records, Faces to Hide collects the early recordings of the band onto double vinyl (white or black) and compact disc. As the original lineup was extant for only a short time, the contents of this anthology adds live cuts and demos. The whole is surprisingly consistent as a deep dive immersion into a bygone era.

The Afterimage documented on Faces to Hide is guitarist Barry Craig (aka A Produce), bassist Rich Robinson (aka Rich Evac), drummer Holland DeNuzzio, and vocalist-saxophonist Daniel Voznick (aka Alec Tension). After splintering in the mid-’80s, Voznick continued to record as Afterimage with the aid of numerous contributors, but this set is focused entirely on the lineup that released the “Strange Confession” b/w “The Long Walk” 45 and the “Fade In” 12-inch on Contagion Records in 1981.

That’s a total of eight tracks, but Faces to Hide offers a significant expansion, although much of it was already collected on Anthology, a cassette issued in 1984 on Craig’s imprint Trane Port Tapes. In 2007, Craig and Voznick gave Anthology a CD expansion with Strange Confession, a co-release by Trance Port and Voznick’s Strategic Records.

Faces to Hide adds even more tracks (while subtracting the later Afterimage material that concludes Strange Confession) for a sequence of 26 that appears to comprehensively document the original incarnation of a band that largely flew under the radar, though the inclusion of “Satellite of Love” (not a Lou Reed cover) on the 2014 Sacred Bones compilation Killed by Deathrock: Vol. 1 raised Afterimage’s profile a bit, no doubt.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | In the 40 years I’ve known him, Hans-Joachim has joked countless times about the “hundreds of kilometers” of reel-to-reel tapes in his archives.

The word “archives” conjures images of underground vaults and white-gloved curators, but in Achim’s case it consists of a stack of cardboard boxes in his back room in Baden, bulging with hundreds of reels—some marked with cryptic notes, most not. If “hundreds of kilometers” seems a bit of a stretch, in Achim’s case it isn’t far off. If my math is correct, 80 hours of tape running at 7 ½ to 15 inches per second totals at least 75 kilometers—a pretty significant aural autobahn, even for a prolific 90-year-old.

The first epic step in preserving this sonic legacy—before age and decay rendered these delicate tapes unplayable—landed in the lap of Achim’s selfless friend Klaus Becker. For weeks on end, Klaus painstakingly spooled up one reel after another and saved to a hard drive the 2-track tapes Achim had made from 1968 until the mid-80’s on his trusty Revox A77 and B77 recorders.

A few years later, I carted home to the US the 40 or so reels that Achim had recorded in the ’80s and ’90s on an 8-channel Fostex machine. With the generous support of our dear friend Christopher Chaplin, we procured the vintage gear needed to digitize these multi-track tapes. Many shared a problem common to that era—the binding agent responsible for adhering magnetic particles to the polyester base had softened over time, rising to the surface.

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