Remembering Gregg Allman, born on this day in 1947. —Ed.

You can say what you want about yours truly, but you’ve got to grant me this much; not knowing jack squat about a thing has never stopped me from writing about it. No, I am not one those lily-livered sorts who let something as minor as complete ignorance stand in the way of stating an opinion.

Take the Allman Brothers. I’ve been a detractor for years, based largely on an LP (1971’s At Fillmore East) I’ve never actually listened to. But the way I see it, I don’t have to listen to it; it’s enough for me to know that it contains such interminable blues numbers as “Whippin’ Post” and “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” for me to write it off out of hand. The road, as Gregg Allman sang, may go on forever, but that’s no reason a song should.

But the recent passing of brother Gregg inspired me to give the Allmans another listen. I mean, ignorance may be its own reward, but sooner or later you have to suck it up and learn something, as unpleasant as that is. That said, I lacked the intestinal fortitude to give At Fillmore East a spin. But 1972’s double-LP Eat a Peach, why not??

And so I did. And I’m here to say that actually listening to the Allman Brothers mostly corroborates what I already believed about the Allman Brothers; to wit, they’re a powerful blues band when they keep things short, and they’re a great band when they write songs that break out of the blues idiom, but set them loose to meander and they’ll wear out your patience, and then wear it out some more.

Indeed, on “Mountain Jam” they wear out your patience to the tune of exactly 33 minutes and 38 seconds. You actually have to take Side Two off and put Side Four on to listen to “Mountain Jam” in its entirety, which cannot be an easy thing when you’re as stoned as you have to be to want to listen to “Mountain Jam” in its entirety. Many an argument must have taken place over which wildly tripping hippie was going to stagger to his feet and do the album turning. Well I say kick out the jam, brothers and sisters. Kick it right off the LP.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | The Tom Petty Estate today announces the surprise release of a vinyl store exclusive in stormy “Cool Blue.” This mottled version of The Live Anthology – From The Vaults Vol. 1 is an ultra-limited edition pressing and a special treat for fans with tracks chosen by the man himself.

A total of just 2,000 individually numbered copies will be made available; purchase here. These recordings capture an intimate and powerful portrait of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers legendary onstage performances featuring a dynamic deep track set list featuring “Like A Diamond,” “Think About Me,” and “Ballad of Easy Rider” and more.

Tom’s personally curated disc was originally included as the final bonus disc in a limited edition 5CD box of The Live Anthology (a 2009 Best Buy–exclusive) and has never before been available as a standalone vinyl release.

On Black Friday, fans were able to purchase the turquoise version of Petty’s archival vision, retailed exclusively at indie record stores with a pressing of 11,000 internationally.

Over his 40-year career, Tom Petty became a beloved American rock & roll icon, world renowned for his songwriting and his incredible band the Heartbreakers. In addition to the 13 studio albums he made with the Heartbreakers, Petty recorded three solo albums, including the acclaimed Full Moon Fever, Wildflowers, and Highway Companion. Petty was also a member of the supergroup Traveling Wilburys and in the pre-Heartbreakers band Mudcrutch.

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Jerry Kasenetz and Jeffry Katz met at the University of Arizona, started producing bands, and went on to create a bubblegum music empire in the form of Super K Productions. Their stable of artists included the likes of the Music Explosion, The 1910 Fruitgum Company, and Ohio Express, and their “practices” were morally dubious at best.

Kasenetz and Katz were capable of anything, and anything reached its peak with the Kasenetz-Katz Singing Orchestral Circus, a supposed “supergroup” made up of ALL of the members of the above bands as well as those of lesser-known Super K Productions acts as Lt. Garcia’s Magic Music Box, which bequeathed us the racist but catchy “Latin Shake,” which if you check out the single on the Kama Sutra label you’ll see it has a photo of a pudgy-faced geek on it. And then there’s J.C.W. Rat Finks, who gave us the “Hong Kong Flu.” On which the singer says he’s got it and wants to give it to you. Because he loves you. Be grateful he doesn’t hate you.

The Kasenatz-Katz Singing Orchestral Circus’s 1968 eponymous debut captured a live show at Carnegie Hall on June 7, 1968. How K&K and their despised stable of bubblegum acts managed to score a gig at prestigious Carnegie Hall remains a mystery. For the longest time, I thought the concert was just another K&K invention, and I’m not alone. But a look at the Carnegie Hall website confirms—they were actually there!

Their second album, the very title of which is hard to discover, was a low even for K&K. It featured the band’s three “name” acts as well as the past-their-prime Shadows of Knight and Professor Morrison’s Lollipop, which gave us perhaps the worst-ever bubblegum kiddie anthem ever in “Itchy Itchy.” It’s so catchy you’ll want to see your dermatologist.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Ed Hamell, aka Hamell On Trial, delivers an early Christmas gift to the world with his new 13-track album Dirty Xmas. Having previously recorded for a variety of labels, including Mercury, Ani DiFranco’s Righteous Babe Records, and New West, Hamell has made a string of singles, EPs, and albums for San Antonio-based Saustex Records.

This new, succinct volume has everything his fans have come to expect: ribald humor, heartbreak, and social and political commentary that’s tempered with a unique brand of humanity.

The musical palette ranges from novelty, anti-folk, and indie pop, with dashes of poetry and beats. With producer Matt Labozza he has crafted an album that is a mixture of holiday-themed and more everyday sorts of tunes that’s punctuated with humor and heartbreak.

You have new naughty holiday standards like “Xmas Carol,” “Rudy,” and “Dirty Xmas” rubbing up against more personal tunes like “Dream,” and contains perhaps his greatest achievement yet as a songwriter, “Adele.”

It’s being released digitally and on 180 gram crimson vinyl in a strictly limited edition of 110 and packaged with an Hamell original painting that can be displayed on your wall OR affixed to the cover (along the lines of his early 2025 release Harp (For Harry) and has a special message for all ye faithful listeners etched in the runout bands.

Pre-orders have begun shipping. Purchase includes the full digital download immediately, and the album is now available on all major streaming platforms.

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Todd Rundgren has never stood still for long. Across a career that is positively littered with abrupt changes of direction, unexpected shifts in outlook, and startling flashes of off-kilter brilliance, it is difficult (if not impossible) to truly pin down who he is, what he does, and why he does it. It was inevitable, then, that one day he would gather up all those different identities and attitudes, and take them all on the road on his own.

Nobody knew what to expect when Todd Rundgren announced his next tour would be strictly solo, some three dozen shows sprawling across the first four months of the year, and launching at the New Orleans House of Blues on January 20, 2003. There would be no band, no backing musicians, nothing beyond Todd and his songs—and they were certainly destined to be shuffled in and out of the set as the mood took him.

Guitars, samplers, piano, backing tapes—”Some people feel I’m playing with pre-recorded music… or some nonsense,” he quipped. But no. “I have the whole band standing by and ready to broadcast through this tiny little device.” Of course he was joking, but it’s fun to imagine the alternative.

So it is, as anyone versed in Cockney rhyming slang will already have punned, Todd on his tod… (ah, but did you know the expression actually refers to an American jockey, Todd Sloan?), and Solo In Clearwater—making its physical (double colored vinyl and 2 CD) debut today—is as representative as any recording from this magical, mercurial, outing.

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Remembering Rick Buckler in advance of his birthdate tomorrow.
—Ed.

I missed most of England’s post-punk music—was too busy doing my taxes or drugs or something—and what I did hear (New Order, er, New Order) simply confirmed me in my mad conviction that I wasn’t missing much. What can I say? As a great man once said, Youth is wasted on the young.

The Jam are one of the many bands I snubbed back in the day. Why? Because I heard “Town Called Malice” exactly once and thought it was bouncy pop tripe, that’s why. It’s a piss-poor reason to write off a great band, but that’s the way I am. I was in an ugly mood back then and I needed ugly music to put me in the proper ugly frame of mind to think ugly thoughts about all the ugly things in the world. It was an ugly time.

The sad thing is I missed a lot of excellent music. The good thing is I’m getting a second chance to catch up, and what better way to catch up than by basking in the brilliant pop glow of 1980’s tres smart and musically adventurous Sound Affects? I used to smirk when people called Paul Weller a genius. Mark E. Smith—now there’s a genius, I would say to myself. And I will always prefer Smith to Weller, if only because I prefer off-kilter rock cranks with odd ideas on how to build songs to pop savants, Elton John and Eric Carmen excepted. But Weller is a Wunderkind no matter how you cut the liverwurst, and on the Jam’s fifth studio LP he outdoes himself.

Weller—who has gone on record as saying he thinks Sound Affects is the Jam’s best LP—cited the Beatles’ Revolver and Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall as key inspirations. I certainly hear the Beatles; Jackson not so much. Okay, so I suppose I do hear Jacko in the funky bass line that harbors “Pretty Money,” and on the heavy funk bass and drums that propel the altogether strange (the band basically natters away the first minute before launching into a herky-jerky ska beat) “Music for the Last Couple.” As for the Beatles, they’re all over “Start!” And amongst the unreleased tracks from the Sound Affects sessions are covers of “Rain” and “And Your Bird Can Sing.” The unreleased “Liza Radley” and “Dead End Street” both have Paul McCartney’s fingerprints all over them as well.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | In 1985, Fine Young Cannibals made an unforgettable first impression with their debut single “Johnny Come Home” and their self-titled album, showcasing a fully-formed act with a sharp, soulful sound and potent songs.

It was 1989’s The Raw & The Cooked that propelled them onto the global stage, becoming their defining masterpiece. Powered by hits like “She Drives Me Crazy,” “Good Thing” (both US Billboard #1s), and their inspired take on the Buzzcocks’ “Ever Fallen In Love,” the album encapsulated 30 years of music in 35 minutes and sold over five million copies worldwide, topping charts on both sides of the Atlantic, and earned the band two BRIT Awards, an Ivor Novello, four MTV Music Video nominations and three Grammy nominations. After their tidal wave of success, they closed in 1996 with the elegiac final single “The Flame.”

Fine Young Cannibals’ rise was almost as unlikely as it was spectacular. When UK outfit The Beat split unceremoniously at their peak, bassist David Steele and guitarist Andy Cox forged a creative alliance and pushed past waning industry enthusiasm for the fading 2 Tone scene. Teaming up with former Ska band Akrylykz frontman Roland Gift, a singer with matinee-idol looks and a voice steeped in Otis Redding-esque soul, they forged a sound that would make them one the most internationally successful acts of their generation.

Forty years on and the enduring influence of the band and their sound continues to resonate, with their songs making prominent appearances in film (“Johnny Come Home” in the Andrew Haigh’s award winning film All of Us Strangers and TV (“She Drives Me Crazy” in Season 4 of the acclaimed series The Bear), as well as “She Drives Me Crazy” becoming the musical centerpiece for the Chanel 2025 Handbag campaign starring Dua Lipa and Jennie from BLACKPINK.

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Talk about your gross miscarriages of justice—here, Feral House put out an entire book, encyclopedic (if idiosyncratic) in scope, about bubblegum music, and other than one small mention, it has nothing to say about Mansfield, Ohio bubble-garage greats The Music Explosion. Who bequeathed us the great “Little Bit O’ Soul!”

I swear, I scoured 2001’s Bubblegum Music Is the Naked Truth: The Dark History of Prepubescent Pop, from the Banana Splits to Britney Spears, and nada!

Which I find inexplicable, because like many of your great bubblegum acts, the Music Explosion were signed, produced, and shamelessly manipulated by evil bubblegum Uber-producers Jerry Kasenetz and Jeffrey Katz, whose legendary machinations under the auspices of Super K Productions swept the whole concept of artistic integrity into the dustbin of music history, where it belongs! Both of these shysters, and I’ve seen the medical records, underwent scruples-removal surgery before they got into the record biz.

Their most famous antics involved The Ohio Express. The songs were written Brill Building style and recorded by studio musicians. There was no Ohio Express. But, and this is the great part, a band of ringers toured as The Ohio Express, and communications between Kasenetz-Katz back at Shyster Central and the touring band were so poor that the latter didn’t even know they had a hit single (the great “Chewy Chewy”) on the charts because they’d never heard it and nobody had bothered to tell them.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | With its inspired marriage of bossa nova and cool electronics, Bebel Gilberto’s acclaimed debut album, Tanto Tempo has perfectly captured the mood of the times.

Released by Crammed Discs in 2000 on its Ziriguiboom imprint, Tanto Tempo has become an international best seller, making it one of the most globally successful albums of Brazilian music ever. Produced by Suba (the São Paulo-based Serbian producer who tragically passed away just before the release of the album), and featuring collaborations with Amon Tobin, Mario Caldato, Chris Franck & Nina Miranda, and Thievery Corporation.

From the original press release: The album features guest appearances by prestigious musicians such as veteran pianist/arranger João Donato, guitarists Celso Fonseca and Luis do Monte, percussionists João Parahyba and Carlinhos Brown, drummer Robertinho Silva, and a couple of horn sections who play in a genuine ’70s samba-soul-funk style.

Tanto Tempo’s modernist angle is supplied by Suba’s typical arrangements and production, as well as by contributions from young electro-Brazilophiles such as Smoke City, Thievery Corporation, Beastie Boys producer Mario Caldato Jr., and Ninja Tune artist Amon Tobin.

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Remembering Gary Rossington, born on this day in 1951. —Ed.

It is my unreconstituted thunk that Lynyrd Skynyrd is America’s second greatest rock’n’roll band, right behind the Velvet Underground. Hyperbole? Mebbe. But during the four short years before fate shot their airship down, the Southern rockers produced a veritable shitload of immortal (and yes smart) tunes that I, for one, have been listening to with pleasure for decades.

1975’s appropriately titled Nuthin’ Fancy isn’t the best Skynyrd LP out there. It may even be the worst of the five albums the original Lynyrd Skynyrd—which is the only Lynyrd Skynyrd that matters—recorded between 1973 and 1977. It lacks the sublime touches that make Skynyrd’s first and second albums rock landmarks, and the assortment of to-die-for songs (“That Smell,” “One More Time,” “All I Can Do Is Write About It”) scattered throughout the two LPs that came after it. The way I see it, Nuthin’ Fancy only boasts two songs—I’m talking about “Saturday Night Special” and “Am I Losin’”—that are truly indispensible.

The biggest problem lies in the songs, natch, and the problem with the songs is that they were written in a rush, in the studio between tours. I’ll stand Ronnie Van Zant up against any American songwriter (exceptin’ B. Dylan) ever, but when it came to Nuthin’ Fancy he simply didn’t have the same amount of time he’d had to write such immortal tunes as “Sweet Home Alabama,” “Tuesday’s Gone,” or “Simple Man” from 1973’s (Pronounced ‘Lĕh-‘nérd ‘Skin-‘nérd) and 1974’s Second Helping. (Indeed, he’d never again have the time to sit down and do some leisurely songwriting during his lifetime, which is why Lynyrd Skynyrd was never able to top the transcendental brilliance of its first two LPs.)

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On Hold Fast, Mac Lloyd cuts deep. The multi-talented singer, songwriter, and producer delivers his most introspective and musically ambitious work to date, an album that fuses Blues grit, Neo-Soul warmth, and Americana storytelling into one emotionally charged package.

Lloyd’s baritone is a commanding presence throughout. Weathered yet expressive, equally at home soaring over smooth R&B soundscapes as it is growling through slide-guitar blues. His voice doesn’t just carry melodies; it carries the weight of lived experience.

Addiction, depression, fatherhood, grief, homelessness, Hold Fast is shaped by the difficult roads he’s walked, and his writing refuses to sanitize any of it. Yet this is not a record steeped in defeat. Instead, it’s about resilience, about McLeod family mottos, and the refusal to let hardship halt creativity or love.

While the subject matter often sits in the shadows, the production shines; lush, soulful layering contrasted with stripped-back vulnerability when the moment calls for it. Each track seems engineered to mirror the emotional arc of its lyrics: redemption comes with a groove, doubt hides behind warm harmonies, and every guitar bend feels like a breath drawn before pushing on.

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