Celebrating Paul McCartney on his 82nd birthday. —Ed.

The continued intense interest, unprecedented influence, and mythology of The Beatles can sometimes obscure and undervalue the musical contribution of the solo works of the four Beatles. More significantly, the works from the four that came after what is perceived as their solo heyday in the 1970s are given even less fair treatment.

Ringo Starr’s studio work has probably received the least praise, but his live All-Starr bands and his film and television work add more to his creative resume. John Lennon didn’t have a chance to move forward with his music, due to his senseless murder in 1980. One of the joys of the lives of fans of Lennon would have been to see what he would have done musically over the decades. George Harrison had some post-’70s glory with his Cloud Nine album and especially his two albums with the Traveling Wilburys, not to mention his place in cinema with Handmade Films.

Paul McCartney, however, has had a fruitful, if uneven, post-’70s musical life. While he has released some truly classic albums throughout his entire Wings and solo career, some of his albums have been inconsistent. Much of his work during the ’70s was as part of the group Wings with his wife Linda, Denny Laine, and a rotating cast of studio and live members, most notably Denny Seiwell, Henry McCullough, Jimmy McCulloch, Geoff Britton, Joe English, Laurence Juber, and Steve Holley.

His output as a singles artist is more consistent, as is evidenced by the uber 7″ Singles Box. Released in a limited, numbered quantity of 3,000 and including 81 singles (plus a 148-page booklet), the set is housed in a Redwood pine and Birch Ply wooden art crate that was made in the UK, while the actual entire physical package was made in France. This is a wide-ranging collection that covers 50 years. It is a remarkably consistent and listenable experience and McCartney’s uncanny knack for writing catchy, yet quirky and adventurous songs, with charm and wit, is in full display.

Read More »

On June 21, WEBO, the third installment in the Black Editions Archive series culled from the private tape library of drummer-percussionist Milford Graves, will be issued as a 3LP box set spotlighting previously unreleased performances from June 1991 held at the short-lived titular venue by the partnership of Graves, saxophonist Charles Gayle and bassist William Parker. The more than two hours of elevated interaction is especially timely, as tonight, Tuesday June 18, Parker will be honored with the Arts for Arts’ Lifetime Achievement award at the 2024 Vision Festival held at Roulette in Brooklyn.

Guitarist-composer-improviser-author Alan Licht’s terrific liner remembrance of attending the first night of these two astounding performances set off an avalanche of my own recollections from the same period regarding the three master musicians responsible; it feels right to arrange them together as part of this review.

Licht, a New York City resident prior to his attendance of the Webo concerts, cites night one as his first time seeing Parker and Graves playing live, adding that he’d listened to both on records. I was a frankly surprised by this statement, as NYC was very much in the thick (if not the specific focal point) of free jazz’s gradually resurgent profile during the period.

But upon reflection, Licht not witnessing Parker and Graves in performance prior to the Webo dates does make sense, as the free jazz rebloom at the dawn of the 1990s was very much a grassroots phenomenon (Licht adds that the Webo shows were promoted by flier, with no mention in The New York Times or Village Voice arts sections).

Read More »

PHILADELPHIA, PA | Seeing Swansea Sound at Johnny Brenda’s in Philadelphia on Sunday, June 9 was like the British Invasion all over again. True, one band hardly constitutes an invasion, but when you consider that Swansea Sound’s members are veterans of a veritable Who’s Who of glorious bands from that nation’s storied twee (and not so twee) indie pop past, it was like having an entire British Invasion on one stage at the same time. Heavenly! The Pooh Sticks! Talulah Gosh! The Dentists! Herman’s Hermits! Hey, how did they get in there?

Small wonder the crowd was giddy (I know I was). But it wouldn’t have mattered as much if Swansea Sound was simply attempting to recapture the past, an animate jukebox playing their previous bands’ greatest hits. No, they’re a fabulous new contender in the Great British Pop Sweepstakes, and garnering critical huzzahs galore for their two full-length LPs and an assortment of singles, all of which are catchy, whiplash smart, and guaranteed to light up the hedonic hotspots in your brain until it resembles a high-end pachinko machine. You’re familiar with the Talking Heads’ “Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town”? Well it was like that, without that annoying David Byrne fellow!

There were no screaming 13-year-old girls in the crowd at Johnny Brenda’s in the Fishtown neighborhood of Philly that Sunday night, but if there were any justice in the world (and this was 1964) Swansea Sound’s next stop would have been The Ed Sullivan Show. People were beaming! No one was crying! The British had arrived to save us from Vampire Weekend! But the night wasn’t an all-Brit affair; Swansea Sound were making the rounds with Jeanines, a wonderful three-piece pop group every bit as Brooklyn as a Sunday afternoon Dodgers double-header at Ebbets Field in 1954.

So yes, there were a lot of thrilled people in that club. Why, even the mope in the “Johnny Fuckin Marr” t-shirt, who seemed to be pretending he was holding up the bar in CBGB circa 1977 after being turned down by the Ramones because his haircut failed the audition, was excited, although he was doing his faux Lower East Side best to hide the fact. But he finally surrendered when Jeanines took the stage and delivered on a thrilling set of short, sharp, and melodic pop punk songs with the occasional twee edge, which is hardly surprising given they cite Marine Research and the Pastels as influences.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | RCA Records and Legacy Recordings, the catalog division of Sony Music Entertainment, will release Memphis, the definitive and first fully comprehensive collection of Elvis Presley’s hometown recordings, on Friday August 9.

Over 111 tracks, Memphis captures Presley from his earliest sessions at Sun Studio—which occurred 70 years ago this summer—to his final recordings in Graceland’s Jungle Room. Along the way, the Bluff City serves as both home and muse to Presley, playing a pivotal role in the dramatic arc of his artistry as he finds creative rebirth at American Sound in 1969, overcomes personal struggles at Stax in 1973, and brings his most extravagant and spellbinding live show to the Mid-South Coliseum in 1974. Produced by noted Elvis authority Ernst Jørgensen, with rare archival material and new liner notes by GRAMMY-winning music historian Robert Gordon, Memphis will be released in 5CD, 2LP and digital configurations, giving fresh insight into the bond between Elvis and his eternal home.

With the exception of the Sun recordings, all tracks on Memphis were newly mixed by four-time GRAMMY-winner Matt Ross-Spang at Southern Grooves in Memphis, with overdubs stripped away—leaving the listener with only what Elvis heard live in the studio. With this intimacy, new revelations abound—from Elvis’ intuitive chemistry with “The Memphis Boys” at American, to the subtle way he builds his vocal phrasing around his backing singers in the Stax sessions, or the palpable joy he brings to his final sessions in the Jungle Room. Through it all, the listener is standing next to Elvis—hearing exactly what he is hearing.

From the very first notes of Memphis, the city’s immense influence on Elvis is clear. At Sun Studio—located within walking distance from an 18-year-old Elvis’ apartment complex—he channeled a heady mix of Beale Street blues, the sounds of Dewey Phillips’ Red, Hot & Blue show on local radio station WHBQ, and the all-night gospel performances he attended at nearby Ellis Auditorium. As has been well documented, that distinctly Memphis blend would result in a singular, defining moment in the development of rock ‘n’ roll.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | “If you would like to know about some of the genre’s key players’ aspirations and motivations for their work then I can highly recommend this book to you.” —Michael Rother, Neu, Harmonia, Kraftwerk

West Germany, 1968. Like everywhere else in the Western world, the young generation is pushing for radical change, still suffering the after-effects of the Second World War. Many stream out of the lecture halls and onto the streets. Some into the underground. And some into the practice basements, in search of the soundtrack of the movement.

The unique and adventurous sounds produced by German bands such as CAN, Neu!, Amon Düül, Popul Vuh, Tangerine Dream, Faust, Cluster, or Kraftwerk, now widely-known as Krautrock, are considered a blueprint for modern rock music.

In Neu Klang, Christoph Dallach interviewed its pioneers, including Irmin Schmidt, Jaki Liebezeit and Holger Czukay of CAN; Neu!’s Michael Rother; Jean Herve Peron and Hans-Joachim Irmler from Faust; Dieter Moebius of Cluster; Klaus Schulze of Tangerine Dream; Karl Bartos of Kraftwerk, Brian Eno and many others.

Their answers combine to form an oral history that points far beyond the individual band histories: on the one hand, into the past, to Nazi teachers, post-war parental homes, free jazz, terrorism and LSD; but just as much into the future, to global recognition, myth-making, techno and post-rock.

Remembering Harry Nilsson in advance of his birthdate tomorrow. —Ed.

In the first month of 1970, RCA Records released Nilsson Sings Newman, a collaborative album between one of the period’s strongest and most unique pop vocalists and a truly gifted if somewhat obscure songwriter known primarily for providing other artists with prime material. A theoretical perfect match; it’s therefore unsurprising that hardly anybody bought the thing when it first came out.

On a purely commercial level, Harry Nilsson is vindicated by his very fine version of superb singer-songwriter Fred Neil’s “Everybody’s Talkin’,” initially an album track given second life by its use in the epoch-defining New Hollywood film Midnight Cowboy, and by the smash success of his 1971 LP Nilsson Schmilsson, which rose to #3 on the Album Chart and wielded three Top 40 singles including a #1 in “Without You,” another cover via UK group Badfinger.

Considering Randy Newman through this same specifically commercial prism finds him justified not only through the sizable hits his songs provided for other artists, but also via his late-career transformation into a film-scoring juggernaut, though it bears mentioning that he had an unlikely and somewhat unrepresentative #2 hit with “Short People” in 1977. However, many also know him through the smaller, though much longer-lingering success of his biting tribute to Los Angeles, “I Love L.A.”

But if there is one thing that the careers of Harry Nilsson and Randy Newman share, it’s in the way they exploit the futility of judging an artist purely in terms of record sales. To do so with Nilsson is to depict an artist of fitful slow-growth potential finally scoring a breakout success with his seventh album (or ninth if you count his soundtrack to Otto Preminger’s eternally divisive hunk of weird-meat cinema Skidoo, where Nilsson actually sang the film’s end credits, and his early ’71 “remix” LP Aerial Pandemonium Ballet) and then going through a long, slow decline.

Read More »

Multitasking is a popular trend in musicianship today, but, like in other aspects of life, it has its critics. Those against multitasking argue that the human brain performs best when focused on one task at a time. Just because we can multitask doesn’t mean it’s the most effective approach. What if we devoted all our time and energy to a single pursuit instead?

Molly Miller embodies this principle through her lifelong dedication to the guitar. Proficient in its complexities, she not only creates music with the instrument but also shares her expertise with others. Her latest album, The Ballad of Hotspur, created with her trio, showcases her deep connection with 20th-century guitar music. With a jazzy, meticulously composed finesse, the album also highlights her role as a guitar instructor at USC’s Thornton School of Music.

Also explored is Molly’s upcoming tour with Jason Mraz, with whom she serves as guitarist, and her experiences managing her various guitar-related endeavors. The release party for her album is set for Sunday, June 16, at the Jazz Lounge in San Diego, CA.

Instead of trying to do everything at once, let’s give Molly the same focused attention she gives to her guitar.

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.

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Varèse Sarabande and Craft Recordings announce the first-ever vinyl release for Michael Giacchino’s expanded Deluxe Edition score for J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek Into Darkness.

The expanded Deluxe Edition version of composer Michael Giacchino’s score for the film arrives on vinyl as a 3-LP Blue, Red, and Yellow set themed after the iconic Starfleet uniforms. The collection comes housed in a premium slipcase with a Starfleet Insignia-shaped cut-out, allowing fans to pick their own cover image, and includes a 16-page booklet with behind-the-scenes photos from the set and notes from J.J. Abrams and Michael Giacchino. Releasing September 6th, and available for pre-order now, the 3-LP tricolor set (limited to 1,000 copies) will be available at retailers in North America, while a Translucent Clear set will be available for the rest of the world.

Into Darkness is the 12th installment in the Star Trek franchise and the sequel to the 2009 film Star Trek, as the second in a rebooted film series. The returning cast of Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Bruce Greenwood, and Leonard Nimoy reprised their roles from the previous film, joined by Benedict Cumberbatch as the legendary Star Trek villain Khan. Set in the 23rd century, the film follows Captain Kirk and the crew of U.S.S. Enterprise as they are sent to the Klingon home world seeking a former Starfleet member-turned-terrorist, John Harrison.

The film was a financial success and received positive reviews from critics. Its gross earnings of over $467 million worldwide made it the highest-grossing entry in the Star Trek franchise. The film was nominated for Best Visual Effects at the 86th Academy Awards. One of Giacchino’s main tasks with the film was to evolve the themes from the previous installment and create new ones to reflect the film’s darker tone.

Read More »