VIA PRESS RELEASE | In celebration of the 30th anniversary of Phil Collins’ fifth solo studio album Both Sides, it is to be reissued as a special edition 5-LP box set. Released on 20 September, the pre-order is available now.

This deluxe edition contains the remastered full original album, cut at half-speed by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios, and is a compendium of early demo tracks from the recording of the album as well as rarities from the singles originally released on the album—”Both Sides of the Story,” “Everyday,” and “We Wait and We Wonder.” Both Sides (All The Sides) brings this full collection together with live tracks from the era, such as “Can’t Turn Back the Years,” “Both Sides of the Story” taken from Collins’ MTV Unplugged performance, “Doesn’t Anybody Stay Together Anymore” and more, as one release for the first time on vinyl. The set is housed in a slipcase with picture sleeves and a 16-page booklet containing newly-written and extensive liner notes by esteemed journalist Michael Hann.

Proclaimed by Collins as his most personal album to that point in his career, Both Sides originally released in 1993, is Phil Collins’ fifth album and was written, performed, and produced all by Collins himself at his home studio in just six weeks. In a 2016 interview with The Guardian newspaper, Collins named it as his “favourite album from a songwriting and creative perspective,” going on to reveal how “… the songs just streamed out of me, and as a writer, that’s the kind of thing that you dream of.”

Read More »

Remembering Albert Ayler in advance of his birthdate tomorrow.
—Ed.

Although some have managed to expand upon his groundbreaking intensity and flights of abstraction, Albert Ayler is one of the few sui generis figures in the history of jazz. An uncompromising player with only a small following in his lifetime in music, he cut a record in 1968 that initially seemed to satisfy nobody except for (perhaps) Ayler himself. That LP was New Grass, lambasted as a sell-out by those who favored his prior work, while less adventurous listeners weren’t buying. 

I’ve been contributing to this column for over eight years, but until this piece, I haven’t delivered a full review of a record by Albert Ayler, who’s one of my favorite jazzmen, though I have included him in this site’s New In Stores column and in at least one group review. As this omission is remedied, I feel it should be immediately qualified that the term jazzman isn’t necessarily a tidy fit for Ayler’s brilliance.

Albert Ayler was certainly a man whose work falls inside the boundaries of jazz, so calling him a jazzman isn’t in error, but it still might give those unfamiliar with his work the false impression of a figure, sharply decked-out in a classic tailored suit maybe, who excelled at extending, through live gigs and studio sessions, the core tenets of Modern Jazz.

While innovators are surely jazzmen and vice versa, Ayler remains one of the ever-evolving form’s major freedom-seeking iconoclasts. In short, he’s best placed in the avant-jazz category, which means that for long stretches after his death in November 1970 (presumably by suicide, as his body was discovered in the East River of NYC) his music was difficult to obtain. This was especially true at the end of the 1980s, which is when I first learnt of his existence.

Read More »

There’s nothing like the sound of an old Motown record. Whether you hear it in your hometown of Detroit, or turn it up in Kathmandu; it doesn’t matter, the music is great regardless of location and, truth be told, those recordings are inimitable.

One could say they encapsulate a certain time and place, but that wouldn’t be fair to the level of sorcery that was achieved in Motown’s studios during their hey-day. It wasn’t just music they were creating, instead it was an almost existential sound; sure, go ahead: they made magic.

Motown’s catalog is vast and while much of it has been grafted onto the American experience of the ’60s and ’70s, there are many recordings that still wait to be re-discovered by music lovers and record collectors. Elemental Music was founded by Jordi Soley in Barcelona in 2012 and is best known as a jazz reissue label. Recently, however, they’ve been given the opportunity to reissue a significant chunk of the Motown catalog. Achieving this keeps these important Motown milestones in print, but the label is also committed to doing it right so these releases proudly represent the timeless grooves located within their cardboard sleeves.

Joining me on this episode from Elemental is Kevin Keeley. Together, we discuss the process that Elemental is undertaking to bring these eternal tunes to a new generation of vinyl lovers. In a nutshell, this show is a guy from Ireland who works for a record company in Barcelona talking to a fella in New Jersey about music made in Detroit more than half a century ago. If that doesn’t show the worldwide, timeless appeal of Motown’s music, then I don’t know what to tell you.

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.

Talk about your inexplicable oversights—Netherlands’ Gore included a lyric sheet with their 1987 LP Mean Man’s Dream, but they forgot to sing them! Or probably not; certainly one of the metal power trio’s members would have said, as they were turning out the studio lights, “Aren’t we forgetting something?”

Which means Gore were expecting YOU, dear listener, to sing them! They invented at-home heavy metal Karaoke! They made you the star! It wasn’t like every other loser metal album in your record collection, where you have to compete with some Geddy Lee type capable of hitting notes so high you’d need a surface-to-air missile to hit them. Why, it was the greatest stroke of genius since Uriah Heep’s 1971 album Look at Yourself, the cover of which was a mirror allowing you to stare into it and say, “Fucking A, The Heep put ME on the cover!” And the lyrics are in Dutch and English. Which only sucks if you speak Swahili! (Wouldn’t it have been wonderful if they’d printed them in Swahili? Now that would have been a stroke of genius.)

The weird part about this is that Gore don’t strike me as pranksters. Their music is utterly devoid of humor. It’s also, in case you’re wondering, utterly devoid of color. And no wonder. Gore stripped metal down to its bare bone essentials. No vocals. No guitar solos. No harmonies. No irksome melodies even. All of that stuff is for decadent bourgeois types who can’t handle the brutal truth that life is a relentless and remorseless grind intent up grinding you into powder! Gore’s is a puritanical minimalism that brings them into the realm of the avant garde. Which is French for “no fun.” But who ever said you were supposed to “enjoy” music? Gore understood a simple truth: you’re its punching bag! And Gore wore brass knuckles.

Read More »

PHOENIX, AZ | Cage The Elephant is back on the road with support from Young The Giant, touring coast to coast this summer. Starting off in Salt Lake City, the Neon Pill tour made its way down to Phoenix, Arizona on the 4th of July weekend. Bringing some fireworks of their own, the show is brought to life by pyrotechnics and lasers.

Playing alongside legends in their own right, Young the Giant is just about the best opening bang you can bring with you. It takes a special band to come through Phoenix in the 110 degree July weather, let alone playing an outdoor amphitheater. Nevertheless, YTG absolutely rocked out on stage to a sold out 20,000 person crowd at the Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre.

Young the Giant warmed up the crowd before CTE with some throwbacks of their own. Celebrating the 10 year anniversary of their 2014 album Mind Over Matter, YTG is reviving their old tunes to a newer crowd. They have come through the Phoenix Valley area three times in the last year. Once on their headlining 2023 summer tour, a festival in early 2024, and now opening for CTE’s 2024 Neon Pill tour. I have been lucky enough to see them all three times and they bring something new to every show.

It’s incredibly impressive how every concert feels like a completely different performance. Their setlist covers their entire six album discography highlighting how their alternative rock sound has changed throughout the years. Their setlist creates a perfect compliment to the alternative rock sound Cage has as well. Fans should not take for granted the fact they get to see a headlining caliber band open for Cage the Elephant.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Alanis Morissette’s multi-platinum album Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie recently celebrated its 25th anniversary, and Rhino is celebrating with a 2-LP reissue featuring newly reimagined artwork and a digital deluxe edition with rare bonus tracks plus a brand new remix of “Uninvited” by electronic duo, Freemasons.

​On September 6, Rhino will release Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie (Thank U Edition) as a double album on black vinyl. Pre-order HERE. An ultra clear-vinyl version will also be available exclusively at select retailers.

​A new digital deluxe edition of the album is available through various DSPs. It has the original 17 tracks plus four bonus songs, including two B-sides, an outtake, and a demo and brand new Freemasons remix of “Uninvited,” a song written for the 1998 film City of Angels that won two GRAMMY® Awards.

Reuniting with Jagged Little Pill producer Glen Ballard, Morissette recorded Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie in Los Angeles. The album explores a range of musical styles and lyrical themes, including the Grammy®-nominated Top 20 hit “Thank U,” which was inspired by her recent trip to India.

​Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie reached No. 1 in several countries, including the U.S., peaked at No. 3 in the UK albums chart; lasting on the UK album chart for 23 weeks, and was a Top 10 hit on multiple charts around the world. In UK, the album is platinum certified, and once held the record for the highest opening-week sales by a female artist in America, where the album is certified triple platinum.

Celebrating Peter Murphy on his 67th birthday. —Ed.

Sometimes I’m ashamed for my fellow music critics. Take their rude treatment of Bauhaus’ 1980 debut, In the Flat Field. An NME writer described the LP as “nine meaningless moans and flails bereft of even the most cursory contour of interest,” while a Sounds writer dismissed the LP for having “No songs. Just tracks (ugh). Too priggish and conceited,” before writing the LP off as “coldly conceited.”

I’m no Goth fan because I have a pulse, but I think the writers above are idiots. I will concede that In the Flat Field is cold, but I also happen to find it brilliant—one of the finest LPs of 1980. Clamorous and loud, it’s a wonderful example of the sonic possibilities of carefully controlled noise, and its wild sounds and angular riffs provide the perfect backdrop for the chilly vocals of Peter Murphy.

Take “Dive.” Daniel Ash’s guitar playing and saxophone work are brilliantly crisp and menacing, the tune proceeds at a breakneck pace, and Murphy’s vocals are a marvel; he stutters, shouts, does it all. Or take LP opener “Double Dare.” It commences with some heavily fuzzed out riffs, then the drums kick in, and this is metal, people. Murphy is as his dark best, producing nonsense noises when he isn’t shouting, the rhythm section is heavy as Flipper, and what we have here is a drone rocker as good as any by No Trend.

The title cut is a racing rumble of distorted guitar, with great percussion and Murphy singing about who knows what (“black matted lace of pregnant cows”???), although the chorus is clear enough: “I do get bored, I get bored/In the flat field.” My recommendation is to ignore the lyrics about “spunge stained sheets” and hone in on Ash’s shredding sheets of guitar noise, the wonderful percussion, and Murphy’s vocals, which climb to an apocalyptic pitch while Ash’s guitar howls and howls.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Uncollected Noise New York ’88–’90 is Galaxie 500’s first release of new archival material in nearly 30 years and is their most comprehensive collection of unreleased and rare archival material ever.

Due September 20 as a joint release via Silver Current Records and the band’s own imprint 20/20/20, its 24 tracks make up the complete Noise New York studio recordings of the band’s outtakes, b-sides and non-album output. Compiled by the band, it traces their career from among their earliest recorded moments in the studio to their last. Two never before heard tracks from the collection: “Shout You Down” from the Today album sessions and “I Wanna Live” from the On Fire album sessions have been released today and are available to stream.

​
​”Opening up these tape boxes was like looking into an old journal or datebook. I had forgotten most of this happened at all, but it only took a few quick details to put me right back in the drum seat,” says drummer Damon Krukowski. “There are songs from all the Galaxie 500 recording sessions included here.”​
​
​Uncollected Noise New York ’88–’90 sees the restoration and inclusion of no less than eight never-before-heard studio tracks culled from sessions throughout Galaxie 500’s career, chronologically sequenced along with previously released, but rare and long out of print studio material.

​​”There is a sweetness in hearing the progression of us finding our own sound, our own collective voice. The Proustian power of music,” explains bassist Naomi Yang. “Listening to these early recordings I can hear myself figuring out how I wanted to play bass—finding my way up the neck to where the notes would cut through, where there could be a counter-melody to the singing. Making the bass my singing voice.”​

Read More »

Featuring guitarist-vocalist June Millington, her bassist-vocalist sister Jean Millington, keyboardist-vocalist Nickey Barclay, and drummer-vocalist Alice de Buhr, Fanny was a groundbreaking and undersung band, with a profile that’s been raised in recent years, partly through Real Gone Music getting their four early ’70s releases for Reprise back into circulation. Worthwhile albums all, but the band’s sharpest, most rocking stuff was cut live in a German studio. After years of blowing minds on YouTube the material has finally hit vinyl and compact disc as Live on Beat-Club ‘71–’72. Available now, it belongs on any shelf dedicated to standout achievements in rock music.

It’s been clear for a long time that Fanny was a great band. Not a producer-molded girl-group, but an aggregation of individuals who were adept on their instruments and talented as songwriters and who worked hard at realizing their band reality. It’s also obvious from the historical record that a whole lot of people at the time who were rock inclined either didn’t know what to make of them or were (consciously or un) threatened by them.

Four records for Reprise, Fanny (1970), Charity Ball (1971), Fanny Hill (1972), and Mothers Pride (1973), established a penchant for pop hooks and the ability to rock hard without migrating into hard rock territory proper. They could dish out the boogie (smartly), not the thud and the bombast. But without precedent, nobody at Reprise (notably an artist friendly label) had the backbone to let Fanny call the shots in the studio.

Traveling to Germany from England to record for the television program Beat-Club, Fanny was presented with a hands-off approach, so that they turned up loud and played with raw edge and enthusiasm. First cut “Charity Ball” is raucous enough that hard rock isn’t inappropriate as a descriptor, but Fanny’s really hitting the sweet spot where boogie crunch overlaps with rockin’ soul (it’s those vocal harmonies).

Read More »

CHATAUQUA, NY | Wilco played their final show of the summer this past Friday at the historic Chautauqua Institution Amphitheater with opener Cut Worms. It was their Chautauqua debut and a special treat for the historic educational and recreational community celebrating its 150th anniversary this year.

Of all the venues I’ve seen Wilco perform at through the years, this one was the most uniquely personal, as I spent my childhood and adolescent summers on the idyllic grounds, never dreaming that one day I’d be given the opportunity to photograph a favorite band in my favorite place. A great American band in a great American place over the 4th of July weekend? It doesn’t get more red, white, and blue.

The band, who coincidentally just held this year’s rendition of their own Chautauqua-like creation, Solid Sound Festival, was in full shred fest mode from the moment they kicked off the night with “Misunderstood,” to their banger of a finale cover, The Grateful Dead’s “U.S. Blues.”

There was a little something for everyone, as thoughtfulness takes up a good portion of the band DNA. They’re generous—to their crew, to their fans, to their tourmates. And it doesn’t hurt that their musicianship is otherworldly. This time around, I was particularly enamored with the live version of their newer “Bird Without a Tail/Base of My Skull.”

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | John Fahey’s Takoma label is best known for pushing the envelope when it comes to acoustic guitar playing, but in 1967 it released a record that has become one of the true cult classics of the ‘60s free jazz movement.

Charles Martin Simon was an aspiring writer whose artist wife died in 1965. When he tried to pick up the torch and become an artist using her art supplies, he was, in his words, “reduced to nothing,” and thus created an alter ego or “psyche fragmentation,” Charlie Nothing.

Under that moniker he became most famous for creating “dingulators,” working guitar sculptures made from parts of American cars; in 1967, though, he recorded The Psychedelic Saxophone of Charlie Nothing/In Eternity with Brother Frederic, an album consisting of two separate saxophone improvisations accompanied only with gong, tabla, and ukelele.

Its cover adorned by Nothing’s own hand-drawn art, this record has since become not only something of a “secret handshake” among free jazz fans, but also a classic of outsider art, fitting right next to your Moondog records if not in sound than in spirit.

For its first ever reissue in any format, we’ve gone back to the original tapes to present an all-analog release of The Psychedelic Saxophone of Charlie Nothing/In Eternity with Brother Frederic on black vinyl with the original art intact, offering an unfiltered experience of this man’s cracked genius. A memorable look ‘n’ listen to say the least.