The release of archival material by the Stockton, CA-based outfit Torn Boys is yet another fine discovery from the fertile underground of the 1980s. 1983 offers selections from the year in which the band burned brief but bright. There’s vinyl in three colors (black, white, and green) and a compact disc available now through Independent Project Records, with all formats accompanied by a bonus DVD that contains newly shot videos for four of the album’s tracks.

The start of the Torn Boys resides in performances by school chums Jeffrey Clark and Kelly Foley, the pair singing and playing acoustic guitars at parties, clubs and cafés, where they reportedly rotated covers of Television, the Velvets, and “Mack the Knife” with their own material. The brief fragment “And Now” on 1983, credited as being live from the Blackwater Café, might be evidence of these beginnings.

To commence with strong (if not lofty) ambitions but in such a scaled back manner, just two guys with acoustic guitars, is indicative of the era and their locale; in the 1980s, outside of the cities with major music scenes, upstart musicians did what they could to get heard. Clark and Foley corralling drum machine programmer-synth player Duncan Atkinson and guitarist Grant-Lee Phillips so quickly into their scheme underscores that they were on the right creative track.

In the short span of their existence Torn Boys landed a radio performance on the student-run college station of the University of California at Davis); two songs from that KDVS show, “Mystery” and “Mack the Knife” are included here (sadly no recordings of Velvets or Television tunes seem to have survived). An additional KDVS number, “Fountain of Blood,” is found on the compilation Source: The Independent Project Records Collection; a different version of this song is included on 1983.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Human Scum! Raise Your Horns!

Infamous Lords and Masters of Shock Rock are thrilled to announce the re-issue of their landmark masterpiece album, Hell-O!, on this, its 36th anniversary. The new release will be blood-spattered clear vinyl and includes expanded artwork featuring never-before-seen photos from the time, including the original album release show in Richmond. Hell-O! (36th Anniversary Edition) will be available in physical form only with limited runs of both CD and Vinyl. It is due out September 13th on the band’s own label: Pit Records.

To help celebrate this momentous release, the iconic heavy metal collective is also reprinting the “GWAR Must Die” t-shirts made oh-so-famous back in their original pillaging days by human rabble everywhere. Get yours HERE! As some of you may know, the current lead singer of the band, Blóthar the Berserker, once inhabited the earthly form of GWAR’s original bass player, Beefcake the Mighty. We asked Blóthar for his feelings on this momentous occasion:

“It was the ’80s. I was so young and scared. I will always remember wandering around the seedy sex arcades of Times Square, pants around my ankles, tears in my eyes…little did I know, I was working on the most important record in the history of shock rock. We were polishing a turd for the ages…we wanted to call it ‘Beat the Meatles,’ but the record company said no…and ‘Hell-O’ was born.”

Remembering Joe Cocker, born on this day in 1944. —Ed.

Joe Cocker, he of the spastic stage gesticulations and mouthful of gravel, was one of rock’s greatest interpreters of other peoples’ material. He didn’t cover your song, he Cockerized it with that impossibly expressive rasp of his, and once he’d Cockerized your song you never heard it the same way again. He did it live, twitching like he’d just grabbed hold of a live wire, at Woodstock in 1969, and again on 1970’s Mad Dogs & Englishmen tour, and the amazing thing is not that he never inadvertently hurled himself off stage in mid-contortion, but that it took four decades (!) for his legendary Woodstock performance to finally be released as an LP.

How was such an oversight possible? Did the master recordings fall into the paws of a rapacious monkey who demanded an exorbitant number of bananas? I don’t know, but their availability, even if it took 40 years, has made the world a better place. 2009’s Live At Woodstock featured Joe Cocker with the Grease Band, who were backing him at the time, and together they create sparks.

Their arrangements are loose—too loose in some cases—but Cocker (who passed away in 2014) had one of the best blues and R&B voices of all time, and the Grease Band could cook, and the results are evident on such amazing tracks as the Beatles’ “With a Little Help From My Friends,” a masterpiece of shifting dynamics, call and response, superb musicianship, and pure ecstasy. And over it all Cocker, expostulating, roaring, screaming—he goes right over the top, Joe does, and it’s enough to leave you enervated when it’s all over.

With the exception of the overly long (as in 12 minutes) “I Don’t Need No Doctor,” which I’ve always disliked and which suffers from a slow as molasses midsection of the sort that rendered many live cuts of the era unlistenable, Live At Woodstock is a great if flawed (more on which later) LP. From Cocker’s very loose interpretation of Bob Dylan’s “Dear Landlord” (he speeds up the tempo and tramples all over Dylan’s lugubrious original) to the great “Hitchcock Railway,” which features organ, guitar, cowbell, and a rambunctious rhythm that runs right off the tracks, Cocker and the Grease Band play it loose and funky, while on slower tracks like the great Dylan tune “I Shall be Released” Cocker demonstrates his ability to convey pain and loneliness. He does the same on the slow and soulful “Do I Still Figure in Your Life,” an obscurity that he breathes pure soul into.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | As preparations are underway for another busy concert season at The Gorge Amphitheatre in Quincy, WA, unreleased footage from the widely acclaimed documentary film, Enormous: The Gorge Story—featuring Dave Matthews, Jason Mraz, Lake Street Dive, Shakey Graves, St. Paul and the Broken Bones, Steve Miller and others—has been released, finding acts creating comedic viewpoints on how the topography of The Gorge could have been formed. The reel is a compilation of these humorous outtakes starting with Dave Matthews who is gearing up to headline The Gorge with another installment of his three-night engagements this summer.

Enormous: The Gorge Story was directed by Nic Davis and produced by Tim Jack, CEO of JACKTV and 4:08 Productions, both earning an Emmy Award for their work on the film. Additionally, Enormous: The Gorge Story secured multiple film festival awards, and found critical acclaim from The New York Times and Rolling Stone during its theatrical release.

It’s a story of unlikely beginnings and beautiful accidents that no one saw coming. Enormous: The Gorge Story chronicles the evolution of a family-owned Washington winery—with a makeshift plywood stage—that eventually became “The Gorge,” an internationally-renowned concert venue that has attracted over seven million fans, and the world’s biggest musicians, to a patch of rural farmland “150 miles from nowhere.”

Despite the long trek (and perhaps because of it), The Gorge has become “a pilgrimage for the artist and the audience,” according to Jason Mraz, who first played at the amphitheater in its parking lot during one of Dave Matthews’ epic three-day shows. And if you’ve ever been to The Gorge, you know exactly what he means. The setting is breathtaking, the performances are unparalleled, and the community among its fans is undeniable.

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Celebrating Taj Mahal on his 82nd birthday. —Ed.

Taj Mahal’s been at it for longer than some of us (myself included) have been alive, and he doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. He’s got an extensive rack of recordings under his belt, with his self-titled ’68 debut being the most sensible place to begin. Whether a person chooses to scoop up one or more of his albums, elects to soak up what he’s putting down in the live setting, or lets it all hang out and does both, the result will certainly be a highly enlightening good time.

There isn’t really another musician quite like Henry St. Clair Fredericks, the man known to the world by his stage and recording moniker Taj Mahal. While an almost ludicrous number of players have explored the bottomless well of inspiration that is the blues, few have engaged with the form in such a complex, multifaceted manner while remaining so naturally accessible to listeners from different generations and varied backgrounds.

As a farmer and graduate of the University of Massachusetts, where he majored in agriculture and also studied ethnomusicology, he’s emblematic of the once common but increasingly rare phenomenon of individuals well-versed in both the fruits of physical, land-based toil and the rewards of intellectual pursuit. And as a musician, it could perhaps be summed up that Taj Mahal was just substantially more curious than the majority of those touched by the blues impulse, recognizing in the music a connection to a much wider global experience.

While most of his cohorts tapped into one or two streams of the blues; say the early acoustic “country” style and the later electric form it directly inspired, or the grit and fire of ‘50s R&B and the attempts at sophisticating it for a wider audience that developed afterward, Taj interacted with a much broader spectrum and fused it all with distinct but stylistically compatible genres. As his career has progressed he’s incorporated the music of Africa, the Caribbean, and the South Pacific into his vast thing; in fact, after moving to Hawaii in the ‘80s he began hanging socially with local players, a circumstance that resulted in the formation of The Hula Blues Band.

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You have to hand it to Nico—she made her mark in rock history by dint of a set of vocal cords that would have made Siberia jealous. You have to put on winter clothes to listen to them.

The German one-time actress/model made her mark with the Velvet Underground, of course, then embarked on a solo career, and while her debut album is accessible in a shivery Teutonic way, her second album, 1968’s The Marble Index, is about as huggable as an ice machine. It’s one frigid piece of vinyl. Heavy gloves are necessary just to put it on the stereo. And talk about catatonically depressing. I strongly suspect it was Nico’s vocals that led Cher to say of the early music of the Velvets, “It will replace nothing but suicide.” This has not stopped The Marble Index from becoming a real cult favorite. Some people like dying in the snow.

So far as I know, Nico’s first musical press clipping was Richard Goldstein’s “A Quiet Night at the Balloon Farm.” Goldstein is worth quoting. “[The Velvet Underground] are special. They even have a chanteuse—Nico, who is half goddess, half icicle. If you say bad things about her singing, she doesn’t talk to you. If you say nice things, she doesn’t talk to you either. If you say that she sounds like a bellowing moose, she might smile if she digs the sound of that in French. On-stage, she is somewhat less than communicative. But she sings in perfect mellow ovals. It sounds something like a cello getting up in the morning. All traces of melody disappear early in her solo.” And so on.

But back to The Marble Index. One of its champions was the late, great Lester Bangs, who praised it despite the fact that it “scared” him. He described it as “self-torture.” Now that’s what I call a glowing review. The album was produced by John Cale, who had special things to say about Nico’s non-negotiable determination to accompany her trance-like vocals on harmonium on every track. Said Cale, “The harmonium was out of tune with everything. It wasn’t even in tune with itself.” He was wrong. The harmonium is in tune with her vocals, which are tuneless.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Yes’s fourth album, Fragile, first reached the American Top 10 in February 1972. Reaching platinum in the U.K. and double platinum in the U.S., the record launched the group to new heights with hits like “Roundabout” and its beloved B-side, “Long Distance Runaround.”

This summer, Rhino is releasing an extensive reissue of Fragile featuring a newly remastered version of the original album on both CD and vinyl, plus rare and unreleased recordings. A Blu-ray disc completes the collection with Steven Wilson’s new mixes, including the album in Dolby Atmos and 5.1 Mix DTS-HD MA. Fragile (Super Deluxe Edition) will be available on June 28, including four CDs, one LP, and a Blu-ray disc. Renowned audio engineer Bernie Grundman cut lacquers for the set’s LP. Pre-Order HERE. The music will also be available on digital and streaming platforms on the same day. Ahead of the album’s release, an alternate version of “Long Distance Runaround/The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus)” is out digitally now.

Fragile marked keyboardist Rick Wakeman’s debut with Yes, which included Jon Anderson (lead vocals), Chris Squire (bass, vocals), Bill Bruford (drums), and Steve Howe (guitar). After he joined in the summer of 1971, the band recorded nine songs for the album, four group arrangements (“Roundabout”), and five individual compositions, including Anderson’s “We Have Heaven” and Howe’s instrumental “Mood For A Day.”

Fragile (Super Deluxe Edition) introduces a new remix of the album and instrumental mixes by Wilson. In addition, two discs of rarities provide a glimpse of the album’s creative journey, from early versions of “Roundabout” and “South Side Of The Sky” to unreleased live recordings from the Fragile Tour, including “Long Distance Runaround / The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus).”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Monsters of Folk—the acclaimed band comprised of Jim James (My Morning Jacket), M. Ward, Conor Oberst, and Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes)—are celebrating the 15th anniversary of their self-titled, one-and-only album with an expanded new edition, arriving Friday, June 14 via ATO Records on clear vinyl and digital download. Pre-orders are available now. In addition, a number of multi-colored vinyl options will also be offered exclusively via Barnes & Noble, Vinyl Me Please, and Rough Trade.

First released in 2009, Monsters of Folk now sees the original 15-song album joined by five additional studio tracks from a previously unreleased 2012 session featuring “Fifth Monster” Will Johnson (Centro-matic), including the high-energy heartland rock anthem, “Disappeared,” premiering today alongside an official visualizer streaming now at YouTube.

“That session was very much kept in the moment,” says Will Johnson. “I remember looking over at Jim playing drums on ‘Disappeared,’ joyfully bashing away, and it harbored that same exuberance of starting your first band: that moment in the garage where things take flight, and the energy and happiness just lead you onward.”

Twenty years ago, My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, M. Ward, and Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis came together for a revue-style tour that found the four musicians quickly developing a rarefied camaraderie. Taking their moniker from a tongue-in-cheek nickname bestowed by the tour’s road crew, the so-called Monsters of Folk reconvened a half-decade later and set to work on a self-titled debut album that alchemized their distinct sensibilities into 15 idiosyncratic yet strangely timeless songs, redefining the context of the supergroup while fully devoting themselves to the singular magic of creating without constraint.

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