Venus and Mars from Wings, released in 1975, doesn’t often receive the recognition it so rightly deserves. Its release two years after Band on the Run came out often overshadows just how good an album it is in every way. Band on the Run may be McCartney’s best solo work and easily one of the best albums of the watershed 1970s, but Venus and Mars is an exceptional Wings album and one that holds up well 50 years later.

Like Band on the Run, the album is very much a thematic, unified effort and the group’s traveling outside of London to an exotic locale to work on it aided in making it such a strong effort and a timeless recording. Also, as with Band on the Run, internal band chaos brought about yet another change in the Wings lineup, with drummer Geoff Britton departing and Joe English taking over. While initial recordings for Band on the Run took place in Lagos in Africa, Venus and Mars was largely recorded in New Orleans, with some sessions In London, Nashville, and Los Angeles.

McCartney’s choice of recording locales once again reflected his desire to try new things and find ways to keep refreshing his music. While there are touches of an African influence on Band on the Run, Venus and Mars does not in any way tip off the listener that some of the music was either recorded or conceived in New Orleans or Nashville. Unlike other artists who record in various places to appropriate those locales’ musical or cultural color, McCartney maintains the focus on his impeccable songs and thematic ideas.

The unique sounds or local players of a given region don’t so much influence the music as allow McCartney to produce the music and sounds he hears in his head, while also giving the musicians an opportunity to improvise what will best suit the songs. It sounds simple, but it’s also part of McCartney’s genius, not just as a songwriter, but as essentially the producer of his own recordings even when operating in a group setting and/or with a producer.

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As a member of the dB’s, Peter Holsapple is an indisputable heavyweight in the history of guitar pop, having made additional contributions to the scene as a member of the Continental Drifters and more recently, The Paranoid Style. He’s also releasing his third solo album The Face of 68 through Label 51 Recordings. It stretches the boundaries of the sound that’s commonly associated with Holsapple while retaining the recognizable characteristics that have defined his body of work. A limited vinyl pressing hit stores for Record Store Day with the full release available on April 18.

The Face of 68’s opener “Anytime Soon” is a tough rocker with a solid melodic underpinning and bold production including a few high tech spurts that land in the middle of the zone between gloss and static. The song connects as distinct from anything Holsapple’s done before, but it’s still familiar, in large part due to the songwriting and the sound of his voice, which is the first thing heard on the LP.

The album was recorded by the core trio of Robert Sledge (of the Ben Folds Five) on bass and Rob Ladd (of The Connells) on drums, and the songs often sport a hard rock edge. Still fibrous but with Holsapple playing all the instruments (including keyboard), the title track has a Link Wray-like foundation, but handles it subtly, as a pop sensibility comes to the fore.

“The Face of 68” does connect like it was assembled in the studio rather than honed in the practice space (not a knock), but then “Larger Than Life” follows with a muscular groove that might’ve succumbed to the hackneyed if the songwriting wasn’t so smart and Holsapple’s singing didn’t tap so nicely into that old school Southern College Rock tone. The late turn to the psychedelic is also a positive.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Craft Latino continues the year-long centennial celebration of Celia Cruz with a reissue for Celia y Willie, her timeless collaboration with legendary bandleader Willie Colón. Featuring such favorites as “Dos jueyes,” “Latinos en Estados Unidos,” and “Cucurucucú paloma,” the 1981 release marked the second of three albums from the superstar pair.

Arriving on June 6th, and available for pre-order today, Celia y Willie has been remastered from its original master tapes by Clint Holley and Dave Polster at Well Made Music and pressed on 180-gram vinyl. A limited-edition “Oro Suave” (soft gold) color vinyl variant (limited to 300 copies), with an exclusive bundle option that includes a collectible Vaya Records logo T-shirt, is available at Fania.com.

Throughout 2025, Craft Latino is honoring Celia Cruz and her incredible contributions to the musical landscape with a series of vinyl and digital reissues, playlists, video content, and more. Visit the Celia Cruz Centennial page for more details about the celebration. As one of the most influential Latin artists of all time, Cruz was an internationally beloved star who sold over 10 million records during her five-decade-long career.

A ten-time GRAMMY® nominee, Cruz was honored throughout her life and beyond with numerous awards, exhibits, commemorative stamps, samples by major artists, and tributes, including a National Medal of the Arts, a Smithsonian Lifetime Achievement Award, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and a posthumous GRAMMY® Lifetime Achievement Award. Cruz was also inducted into the Billboard Latin Music Hall of Fame and the International Latin Music Hall of Fame, among others, while in 2024, she became the first Afro-Latina to appear on U.S. currency through the American Women’s Quarter Program.

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Remembering Herbie Mann in advance of his birthdate tomorrow.
—Ed.

Good morning class. I stand before you today to discuss a very important but relatively unexamined musical sub-genre. I’m talking, of course, about shirtless jazz. The “Shirtless Jazz Age” began at the dawn of the 1970s and came to an end in the mid-1980s, and at its peak buried excited record buyers in a virtual avalanche of bared nipples.

Jazz expert Roy Mantooth, author of the definitive shirtless jazz oral history Take It Off! , writes, “Free jazz was out. Free nipples were in. Shirts were for squares and white guys recording on the snobby Windham Hill label. As for the music, who really cared?”

And Mantooth was right. Because shirtless jazz had nothing whatsoever to do with music, and everything to do with posing shirtless on album covers. I’ve never even listened to the LPs in my carefully curated shirtless jazz collection, and I consider myself an expert in the field. Like children, shirtless jazz should be seen, not heard.

Historically, the movement was bookended by two bare-breasted titans. At the vanguard we have the great Herbie Mann, whose pioneering 1971 LP Push Push brought bold, topless improvisation to the Down Beat crowd. As Amiri Baraka noted in 1987’s The Music: Reflections on Jazz and Blues, “Something changed after Push Push hit the record stores. Discarded shirts soon filled the trash cans behind jazz clubs all across America.”

Push Push was a radical statement indeed; Herbie stands boldly on the cover like a swinger departing an orgy, hairy chest pelt slathered in WD-40, flute flung insouciantly over a naked shoulder, a decidedly smug post-coital pout on his face. Mann didn’t just invent shirtless jazz with Push Push; he suggested that the flute had other possibilities, creatively salacious uses that didn’t bear thinking about.

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Released for Record Store Day but with copies still available, Cavestomp! Volume One – A Torrent of Talent! collects live tracks by garage rock bruisers from the genre’s 1960s heyday amongst a batch of bands who followed in the, uh, footsteps of those style-defining bands to indeed stomp out some no frills high energy racket of their own. With Fleshtones frontman Peter Zaremba sharing MC duties with that compiler of Original Artyfacts Lenny Kaye, the celebratory atmosphere is as potent as the tunes are ripping. It’s safe to say this album is the next best thing to being there.

Many (and perhaps all) of the tracks on this comp have been previously released through the Cavestomp label on a series of CDs. Cavestomp! Volume One delivers a vinyl debut with the promise of a follow-up installment, likely for a Record Store Day in the not too distant future. The scoop on Cavestomp is that the events, instigated by John Weiss, span all the way back to the 1980s in the midst of a considerable neo-garage boom. However, the earliest songs on this set date from a reunion event of sorts held in 1997 at Coney Island High in New York City.

Numerous annual Cavestomp celebrations followed with the template essentially unchanged: To corral under the same performance umbrella reunited garage bands from the 1960s, many of which were included on the Kaye-compiled first Nuggets volume released in 1972, with outfits formed in the ’70s-’90s that are solidly in the garage tradition.

Cavestomp! Volume One makes clear that combining old and new schools of garage science is a smart impulse. If Beatles-Stones-Kinks-Yardbirds-Animals-Byrds is the foundation for the original garage bands, what they spat out as one-hit wonders and near misses was still an early iteration of punk rock. And so, the sounds of The Chocolate Watchband, The Monks, The Standells, and the Sonics weaves very productively with tracks from younger bands The Hatebombs, The Henchmen, The Mooney Suzuki, The Secret Service, The Mosquitos, and The Greenhornes.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | In the mid ’70s, Trigger earned a reputation along the Jersey Shore for their electrifying live shows, airtight harmonies, and arena-ready riffs, earning them a deal with Casablanca Records thanks to support from labelmates KISS. They are the reason Triumph didn’t name themselves Trigger, as first planned. Upon finishing their second album, Casablanca abruptly shuttered, their album shelved. Now, decades later, Second Round will finally be heard, offering a time capsule to a band at peak creativity—undeniably powerful, unapologetically melodic, and long overdue for the recognition.

Second Round finally brings to life the lost chapter of Trigger’s story. Their 1978 self-titled debut showcased dynamic songwriting and relentless energy, leading them to tour with Cheap Trick and The Godz. They quickly begin work on a second album. Recorded at the legendary Record Plant and Electric Lady Studios, Second Round would be the next step, but it was never released. Thanks to a record-collecting friend of guitarist Richie House, Ba Da Bing was made aware of this offense and devised plans to right things.

First up is “Sore Loser,” a powerhouse single that embodies the unfiltered energy and melodic punch of a ’70s hard rock who were the reason Triumph didn’t call themselves Trigger, as first planned. With scorching guitar solos, airtight harmonies, and a driving rhythm section, the track channels the band’s signature sound—equal parts grit and polish. “Sore Loser” is a testament to Trigger’s knack for crafting anthemic, high-voltage rock that feels both timeless and urgent. Now, 46 years later, the song finally gets its moment, proving that true rock and roll never fades—it just lays in wait for the right time to strike.

In early 1979, Trigger walked out of Electric Lady Studios with a completed second album. Mere months had passed since their self-titled debut came out on Casablanca Records, home to KISS and Parliament. The band had toured with Cheap Trick and The Godz, met Bruce Springsteen and Joni Mitchell, and things were looking bright.

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Celebrating Ritchie Blackmore on his 80th birthday. —Ed.

If I’ve never come forward publicly about the indelible mark I made on rock history at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1971, it’s because I’m still peeved that Deep Purple saw fit to slander me as “Some stupid with a flare gun” in their big hit single “Smoke on the Water.” Firing that flare gun into the roof of the Montreux Casino may not have been the smartest thing I’ve ever done, but STUPID? I was EXCITED, and I just happened to have a flare gun on my person, and one thing led to another and before I knew it the rattan ceiling was on fire and all manner of shrieks were freaking towards the exits.

But enough personal history and on to Deep Purple, a band that I’ve always had reservations about. I find the English heavy metal avatars ponderous, plodding, and unduly portentous, and if you don’t know what I mean I direct you to “Smoke on the Water,” which is the very un-lightweight little ditty they’ll probably best be remembered for and which I can only describe as a very stoned dinosaur stomping in slow dazed circles to the accompaniment of one gargantuan and omnipresent guitar riff.

That said, Deep Purple–who after a lot of early creative experimentation and moments of serendipitous genius finally settled upon a sound that combined elements of prog rock and the grinding blues-based hard rock that would become known as heavy metal–had their moments, and lots of them are to be found on their sixth and most commercially successful LP, 1972’s Machine Head. From its very metallic (the title’s stamped in steel!) cover to its far-out boogie numbers Machine Head is one wild ride, what with Ian Gillian’s shriek, Ritchie Blackmore’s blazing guitar, Jon Lord’s “I am two separate gorillas” organ, and the positively intimidating drumming of Sir Ian Paice, who has yet to be knighted but certainly ought to be lest he become angry and start throwing punches.

Deep Purple originally intended to record this baby at the Montreux Casino in Switzerland, but that was before, well, I’ve already broken my long silence about the fire that “burned the place to the ground.” After deciding that it probably wouldn’t be a very good idea to record their next album atop a smoking ruins, they retreated to the empty Grand Hotel at the outskirts of Montreux, and with the help of the Rolling Stones’ mobile recording unit proceeded to make this surprisingly uptempo (by D.P. standards) piece of music history, which the very clear-headed Ozzy Osbourne has called one of his ten favorite British LPs of all time.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | The Making Of Five Leaves Left, a project nine years in gestation, will be released July 25 via Island/UMe. This Nick Drake Estate authorized edition comprises more than 30 previously unheard outtakes from the sessions which gradually became Nick Drake’s debut album, Five Leaves Left, and will be available as 4CD and 4LP boxed sets.

The reason for the lack of any previous typical anniversary-related “deluxe” set, was the Estate’s wish that the listener concentrate on the beauty within the original released studio recordings. However, following the discovery of remarkable tapes from two new outside sources, plus a comprehensive reordering of the Universal tape library, Nick’s sister Gabrielle felt that now was the time to reveal the origin story of the album.

It should also be noted that that the choice of tracks was made in order to tell the story as faithfully as possible, and not simply to release all the takes on all of the tapes. The final disc in each package is the original Joe Boyd-produced album. The whole set has been mastered by John Wood and Simon Heywood and both vinyl and CD versions will be housed in the same beautiful packaging.

This lovingly put-together set features studio outtakes and previously unheard songs that tell the story of how Nick Drake’s debut album came to be released on Island Records in July 1969. The set includes Nick’s first-ever session at Sound Techniques—found on a mono listening reel that Beverley Martyn had squirreled away over fifty years ago. It also contains the full reel recorded at Caius College by Cambridge acquaintance Paul de Rivaz which had lain in the bottom of a drawer for decades, accompanying him and his family around the world.

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Garage rock primitivists and noise rock provocateurs Pussy Galore will always occupy a special place in my black heart thanks to their gleefully shambolic 1986 desecration of the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street. It’s ugly, incoherent, and a reckless and hilarious foray into the beyond incompetent, yet still manages to sound like a homage rather than a piss-take. Lots of bands commit to vinyl first takes—none I can think of, aside from Pussy Galore, use first tries.

But Pussy Galore aren’t just primitivists. Their music is a form of guerilla art rock—in other words, Pussy Galore are making a statement. It reminds me of Graham Greene’s short story “The Destroyers,” where a gang of London children systemically destroy a home designed by the architect Christopher Wren. Their programme (love the English spelling) reminds me as well of the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin’s famous quote, “The urge for destruction is also a creative urge.” Nihilism, anarchy—take your pick.

Pussy Galore couldn’t have come together in a more inhospitable place—Washington, DC, the birthplace of straightedge, and a town where punk and social consciousness were hopelessly intertwined. The punks there cared (Positive Force!), but Pussy Galore—whose original members included guitarist/vocalist Jon Spencer, guitarist and occasional vocalist Julia Cafritz, and drummer John Hammill—didn’t give a shit. Their idea of regaling hometown crowds included playing a song called “Fuck Ian MacKaye.” This made them even less popular than the nattering nabobs of negativity in No Trend, and it wasn’t long before Pussy Galore pulled up stakes and moved to New York City. It was that or the Witness Protection Program.

Pussy Galore had released one LP, three EPs (including the wonderfully titled “Groovy Hate Fuck”), and a live album when they went into the studio to record the 1988 EP “Sugarshit Sharp”. By this time their line-up consisted of Spencer, Cafritz, former Sonic Youth drummer Bob Bert, and guitarist Kurt Wolf, who replaced Neil Haggerty, who would return to the fold after “Sugarshit Sharp” and ultimately go on to form Royal Trux.

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