VIA PRESS RELEASE | Oscilloscope Laboratories in conjunction with MVD Entertainment Group announce the release of Not Not Jazz via video on demand, Blu-ray, and DVD on August 9th.

The documentary, directed by Jason Miller and produced by Tyler Davidson, Jim Stark, and Elie Weiss, is an in-depth look at the unique and wholly improvisational creative process of the revolutionary “avant-groove” band Medeski Martin & Wood, as they endeavor to record a new album at the famed Allaire Studio, twenty-five years after their formation. The film premiered at the Woodstock Film Festival—not far from where the documentary was filmed in New York’s Hudson Valley—and most recently screened during the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, TN this past spring.

Director Jason Miller notes: “I am deeply grateful to have met John, Billy, and Chris and to have been entrusted with documenting their process as musicians and exploring their personal lives. It’s been a long and arduous journey to get the film made and released, and I learned a lot from them along the way. It’s my hope that everyone who watches the film will take something away as well.”

Medeski Martin & Wood is a group that effortlessly straddles the gap between avant-garde improvisation and accessible groove-based jazz. They have simultaneously earned standing as relentlessly innovative musicians and as an enormously popular act. Emerging out of the New York Downtown scene in the early ’90s, MMW soon set out on endless cross-country tours before returning home to Manhattan to further refine their sound through myriad influential experimentations.

Read More »

There has been tremendous growth in the topic of vinyl records and record collecting over the last decade or so. There are podcasts (like this one), articles, and video channels dedicated to folks who blab about their treasured collections, and then there are those who shout from the rooftops about new releases the minute the news gets out. But what about holding a face-to-face conversation with another person about our beloved discs? When was the last time you looked someone directly in the eye and engaged in some good old analog repartee?

If you’re going to chit chat with an individual about this topic, then Corey duBrowa should be at the top of your list. After years of writing about music for publications like Rolling Stone and GQ, he no doubt commands a strong understanding of the subject matter. That’s not to mention the other exciting side of his career: a world of global corporate communications for many brands and companies that would be familiar to you. Like all good communicators, he has focused his interest on a brand new book that he’s written exploring the format of the EP. It’s titled, An Ideal for Living: A Celebration of the E.P. – Extended Play (Hozac Books) and it contains a history of the unique format coupled with reflections about noteworthy EP releases through the ages from his many friends and colleagues.

While our conversation via video featured me holding up many of the albums we’re discussing, you, dear listener, are relegated to using your imagination to fill in some of the blanks. I’m confident you’ll catch on. The discussion you’re about to hear is quick-witted, exciting, and chock full of absorbing details and anecdotes. This talk with Corey was a delight and I’m certain that you’ll have as much fun as I did by just listening.

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.

Put aside for a moment the critical praise that has been heaped upon this late sixties experimental electronics psychedelic folk-rock music group and their one and only album over the decades and listen to me: The United States of America suck. 1968’s The United States of America is a diabolical slog and war crime, released just ten days before that other war crime the My Lai Massacre, and comparisons can be made. It also happens to be one of the approximately 485 discs from 2005’s 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die you’ll be lucky NOT to hear before you die. Indeed it could well be—if you have a heart condition or good taste—the LAST album you hear before you die.

How to describe the album? Well, it’s well nigh impossible, but let’s just call it The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band as conceived by minor Fluxus composer/ ethnomusicologist/ social satirist/ member in good standing of the Communist Party USA/ electronics tinkerer Joseph Byrd and vocalist Dorothy Moskowitz, who worked in musical theater production and once sang in a vocal group with that other Fluxus legend, Art Garfunkel. Along with a cast of avant garde sympathizers, one of whom plays the electric violin and ring modulator but none of whom condescend to play the electric guitar. A former member of Canned Heat was involved early on. But he wisely asked himself why he would want to go from Canned Heat to an even worse band and promptly made himself scarce.

A few of the songs on The United States of America are relatively straightforward, but the big production numbers are infernal machines complete with lyrics every bit as smug and condescending as those of Frank Zappa. It’s not an edifying combination. The only positive thing to to be said about The United States of America is it includes brief flashes of hard-driving dissonance reminiscent of the Velvet Underground. But they’re few and fleeting, and too often buried in songs best left to those who enjoy being flogged by sound collages.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Johnny Marr announces the special edition reissue of Boomslang. First released by Johnny Marr + the Healers in 2003, the album will now be available in its entirety for the first time in 21 years, due for release on September 20th, 2024 via BMG.

In addition to the album’s 11 original songs, Boomslang 2024 offers fans new and unheard material from the first and only album by Johnny Marr + the Healers. Seven previously unreleased recordings titled “The Way That It Was,” “Get Me Wrong,” “A Woman Like You,” a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right,” plus an extended mix of original album track “You Are The Magic (Union Mix),” “Get Me Wrong (Instrumental Version),” and the expansive, swirling desert jam “All Out Attack.”

Boomslang represents a unique snapshot of Johnny Marr’s creativity at the dawn of the 21st century. Leaning into new technology, experimenting with new ways to write, record, and think. After becoming a member of The Pretenders, The The, Electronic, Neil Finn’s 7 Worlds Collide, and writing and performing with Pet Shop Boys, Bryan Ferry, Kirsty MacColl, Talking Heads, Beck and countless others, Johnny Marr + the Healers formed by chance.

Marr first met drummer Zak Starkey following a Who concert at Madison Square Garden in the summer of 1999. Former Kula Shaker bassist Alonza Bevan joined the pair later, following a recommendation from Noel Gallagher. Percussionist Liz Bonney emerged from Byron Bay with Lee Spencer’s rainforest synth wizardry in tow. Adam Gray summoned his slide guitar for the “Electro-Cosmic-Blues” and, united by chemistry and cosmic energy, the Healers came into existence.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Drag Queens In Limousines, the celebrated sophomore album by acclaimed, Grammy-nominated singer/ songwriter Mary Gauthier, turns 25 this year. To commemorate this milestone, Kill Rock Stars will reissue the album on vinyl, for the very first time, on October 18th. The vinyl package will include new retrospective liner notes written by Gauthier, as she reflects on the road that led to the recording and the impact it had on her inspiring path forward. You can pre-order the vinyl HERE.

Released independently on September 13th, 1999, Drag Queens In Limousines introduced the world to a special songwriter whose character-based narratives spoke of the outsiders, those not considered the “normal” members of society. Much like so many of her musical heroes, such as John Prine, Lucinda Williams, and Tom Waits, Gauthier’s thoughtful lyrics and honest voice shone light on the humanity deep within her protagonists, which served to remind us that we are all connected after all. Drag Queens In Limousines gave us a robust taste of what was to come.

“In retrospect, I believe these were the songs that helped me find my writer’s voice,” says Gauthier. “My characters, like me, were on the edge, but they were also on the verge. People cracked, crumbled, and burned as they tried to deal with the everyday dramas of love vs. lovelessness, community vs. loneliness, and despair vs. faith. I was learning about sobriety, humility, and about how a brutal crack in the ego could become a lifesaving gift. Many of these songs remain on my set list today.”

After living much of her life deep in the fire, which was well-documented in her highly praised 2021 book Saved By A Song: The Art and Healing Power of Songwriting, the Louisiana native moved to Boston in 1984 to get away from the drugs and scene around her. With a fresh start, she opened one of the city’s first Cajun restaurants.

Read More »

An undersung figure in the New York City loft jazz scene of the 1970s, Alan Braufman remains an inspiring figure in the jazz landscape. His latest album is Infinite Love Infinite Tears, available now on pink or black vinyl, compact disc, and digital through Valley of Search. It features Braufman on alto saxophone and flute, Patricia Brennan on vibraphone, James Brandon Lewis on tenor saxophone, Ken Filiano on bass, Chad Taylor on drums, and Michael Wimberly on percussion. It’s an energetic and welcoming set, expertly conceived and executed, very much a tonic for troubled times.

Alan Braufman’s discography is a compact one, offering only five releases a leader. His first, Valley of Search, came out in 1975 through the India Navigation label. The album shares its name with the label run by Braufman’s nephew Nabil Ayers, who released it on vinyl and compact disc in 2018 (copies of both formats are still available). Along with Braufman on sax, the band included Cooper-Moore (then named Gene Ashton) on piano, dulcimer, and recitation, Cecil McBee on bass, David Lee on drums, and Ralph Williams on percussion.

Valley of Search followed up that well-received set the next year with Live at WKCR May 22, 1972, an archival dive into duo exchange with Brafman on sax and Cooper-Moore on piano. The limited edition (250 copies) of the one-sided vinyl is unsurprisingly sold out, but the music lives on as a digital release on Bandcamp.

Released in 2022, Live in New York City, February 8, 1975 is still available on 2CD and 3LP (holding five sides of music). Captured in WBAI’s Studio C a few months after the session that produced Valley of Search, the band for February 8, 1975 retains Braufman, Cooper-Moore and Williams and adds William Parker on bass, John Clarke on French horn, and Jim Schapperoew on bass.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | “A brilliant and fascinating look into the world of street music. Take a chance and stand on the corner. You’ll be glad you did!” —Willie Nile, singer and songwriter

Anyone who has lived in or travelled through a city has encountered street musicians. Singers, often accompanying themselves on guitar or other instruments, playing the sidewalks, parks and subway stations. Perhaps you’ve tossed a quarter, or a dollar bill, or even $5 into the tip jar or open guitar case. But did you ever wonder who these people are—why they opted to make the streets their stage, and whether if any of them had gone on to make it in the music industry? Some of the performers he features—Lucinda Williams, Billy Bragg, the Violent Femmes—went on to become international stars; others settled into the curbs, sidewalks, and Tube stations as their workplace for the duration of their careers.

Drawing on years of interviews and eyewitness accounts, Down On The Corner: Adventures in Busking and Street Music—due out November 12, 2024, from Jawbone Press—explores street singers in a myriad of musical genres, from folk to rock ’n’ roll, blues to bluegrass, doo-wop to indie rock. He also surveys busking hotspots—New Orleans’ French Quarter, Chicago’s Maxwell Street, New York’s Washington Square, San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf, and London’s Tube, to name a few. For the first time, veteran journalist and music industry publicist Cary Baker tells the complete history of these musicians and the music they play, from tin cups and toonies to QR codes and PayPal.

Baker explains his longtime affinity for street music: “One day around 1970, my father said he’d like to take me to Maxwell Street Market, an open-air flea market adjacent to Downtown Chicago. He wanted to show me where his parents used to take him shopping as a child. When he parked his car in the University of Illinois lot, the first thing I heard, long before I could see where it was coming from, was the sound of a slide guitar—not just any guitar but a National steel resonator guitar.

Read More »

Celebrating Robbie Grey, born on this day in 1957. —Ed.

When people think about Modern English, the band that was formed in Colchester in the early eighties, it’s invariably their 1982 hit “I Melt With You” that comes to mind. It was dreamy, irresistible, and impossible to avoid. But before “I Melt With You,” to wit on their 1981 debut LP Mesh & Lace, Modern English showed a far more raw and dissonant face to the world. Mesh & Lace led to no comparisons with Duran Duran because it was an uncompromising slice of droning noise boarding at times on chaos, and had far more in common with Joy Division and PiL than, say, Simple Minds.

Not everybody liked it, that’s for sure. Yo La Tengo’s Ira Robbins, writing for Trouser Press, sneered at Mesh & Lace, calling it “a load of monotonous droning and shouting by a precious art band oppressively weighed down by its self-conscious 4AD pretensions.” Precious they may have been, and droning to boot, but Mesh & Lace is anything but monotonous. Rather it’s an adventurous foray into the heart of darkness by a band that would soon enough undergo a sea change that led to the synthpop of “I Melt With You.”

I’d have never known had it not been for a review comparing noise vandals Clockcleaner to Modern English. This struck me as being akin to comparing GG Allin to the Partridge Family, because like most sentient humans I knew nothing more about Modern English than “I Melt With You.” “Balderdash!” I cried. But I’ll be damned if Mesh & Lace wasn’t one fearless foray into the precincts of noise for noise’s sake. Manic drumming, long drones, chanted lyrics—these guys took Joy Division one step further, by sacrificing their melodies to the exigencies of total desperation. Mesh & Lace doesn’t sound like affectation to me; it sounds like a fatal bludgeoning by Ian Brady, the Moors Murderer.

Read More »

The Fest for Beatles Fans will be held in Chicago from August 9–11, 2024 at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare. Some of the guests who will appear are Billy J. Kramer, Mickey Dolenz, Randy Bachman, Freda Kelly, Chris O’Dell, and Steve Holley and Laurence Juber of Wings. There will also be other musicians, panelists, historians, disc jockeys, experts, and writers. Bruce Spizer and Aaron Badgley are two authors who will be there who have recently published Beatles-related books. Here is a roundup of recent Beatles-related books, included those from Spizer and Badgley.

The Beatles A Hard Day’s Night & More by Bruce Spizer (498 Productions) Happening concurrently with the 60th anniversary of the release of the film A Hard Day’s Night, and related soundtrack and non-soundtrack albums, Bruce Spizer has come up with yet another indispensable book on The Beatles. Along with Mark Lewisohn, Ken Womack, and arguably a few others, Spizer is one of the most authoritative chroniclers of The Beatles.

This new book is Spizer’s eighth in his recent album series of books. The eight books prior to this series, which launched Spizer, focused on the various record labels the group recorded for during their short time together in the 1960s. This is the fourth book in the album series in which Spizer covers multiple Beatles albums.

The previous books in the series covered Please Please Me, With The Beatles, Introducing The Beatles, and Meet The Beatles; Yellow Submarine, and Magical Mystery Tour; and Rubber Soul, Revolver, and Yesterday and Today, respectively. This book is focused on the British and American versions of A Hard Days Night, The Beatles’ Second Album, and Something New.

The beautiful hardcover book begins with carefully researched writing on the four albums and singles from this period, along with album jacket art, singles sleeve art, and a healthy dose of rare memorabilia of all kinds. There is also coverage of other music that was released and, in some cases, popular at the same time, along with details on then current movies, and further context on the news and cultural makeup of the era.

Read More »

The discography of the incalculably influential Bad Brains is in the midst of a long-overdue reissue program, and as the releases are coming through Bad Brains Records with assistance from ORG Music, this return to circulation has been a sweet development for both the fans and the band. I Against I, the beloved 1986 album from this stylistically restless outfit returns to availability this week; the options are compact disc, cassette, and black or plutonium color vinyl tucked into its original sleeve or a fresh Punk Note jacket designed by John Yates. Arguments will long persist over Bad Brains greatest achievement, but this album, their third and biggest seller, is surely a contender.

The Bad Brains story has been well documented. One of the few bands to come to punk from jazz fusion, they were a powerhouse of precise energy that barreled forth so furiously that the barrage could register as barely controlled. African-Americans in a scene dominated by Caucasians, Bad Brains stood out and excelled because they remained true to their experience, broadening the punk landscape rather than conforming to its more prevalent norms.

For some listeners, Bad Brains are the only hardcore punk band that matters. I don’t share this viewpoint, but do acknowledge that the list of worthy contemporaries is a short one, and will add that many of the other solid HC bands from the same era took direct inspiration from singer H.R., guitarist Dr. Know, bassist Darryl Jenifer, and drummer Earl Hudson.

Bad Brains weren’t perfect, however. They were enthusiastic about reggae (enough so that they became Rastafarians), and while that was admirable (and as said, helped to set them apart), the band’s excursions into the style, if not terrible, are still pretty far from top tier. I Against I is the first Bad Brains full-length release to not include any straight reggae tunes, which makes it their most consistently satisfying album to that point, even as its stand out moments don’t rocket as far into the stratosphere as those on the self-titled debut from 1982.

Read More »