I first encountered the name Slim Gaillard in the pages of Jack Kerouac’s novel On the Road. In the book it’s Slim—not Bird or Dizzy or Miles or any of the others—who stands as the epitome of Beatness in a frantic club scene in which Dean Moriarty is driven to ecstasies by the singer and multi-instrumentalist who invented his own language (“Vout-o-Reenee,” for which he wrote a dictionary), performed with the likes of Bird and Dizzy, and in general flipped audience’s wigs with his crazy hep cat shtick.

It’s worth recounting Kerouac’s description of the scene: “Dean stands in the back, saying, ‘God! Yes!’—and clasping his hands in prayer and sweating. ‘Sal, Slim knows time, he knows time.’” Then: “Now Dean approached him, he approached his God; he thought Slim was God; he shuffled and bowed in front of him and asked him to join us. ‘Right-orooni,’ says Slim; he’ll join anybody but won’t guarantee to be there with you in spirit. Dean got a table, bought drinks, and sat stiffly in front of Slim. Slim dreamed over his head. Every time Slim said, ‘Orooni,’ Dean said ‘Yes!’ I sat there with these two madmen. Nothing happened. To Slim Gaillard the whole world was just one big orooni.’”

Listening to Gaillard is to be transported into another world, where Alice leaves Wonderland and bops on over to Birdland and nonsense rules the roost—the man awes you with every word, and he knew a lot of them—when he wasn’t speaking or singing in plain English or Vout-o-Reenee he might come at you in Spanish, German, Greek, Arabic, and Armenian—all of which he could speak with varying levels of fluidity. Like his contemporary hipster and philosopher of cool Lord Buckley, he was a comedian at heart and was tuned as far in as you can get. Buckley may as well have been introducing Gailliard to the world when he said, “Hipsters, flipsters and finger-poppin’ daddies: knock me your lobes.”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Beggars Banquet is happy to release an expanded edition of Buffalo Tom’s fifth album Sleepy Eyed, celebrating it’s 30th Anniversary this year.

Set for release on October 31st, on 2XLP/CD and digitally, the album has been expanded to include six demos that the band unearthed specifically for this release. All home recordings, “Hold Me Up” and “Don’t Blow Your Wind” are gorgeous completely unheard songs that somehow didn’t make it any further than a demo. “Tangerine,” “Summer,” “Kitchen Door,” and “Clobbered” are a window into how these Buffalo Tom classics got their start. Sleepy Eyed has been expanded into a double LP, and the refreshed artwork includes new photos and images of ephemera plus notes written by the band and producer John Agnello about the recording of the LP.

Sleepy Eyed marked a turning point for the band. Their previous album, 1993’s Big Red Letter Day was a huge album for them, landing on the Billboard charts and bringing them to new levels of fame when “Late At Night” was heavily featured in a pivotal scene of the short-lived mid-90s cult TV show My So Called Life which starred Claire Danes and Jared Leto. The song was not only in the episode, but the band was also shown performing it.

The making of that album was a massive, glossy undertaking, recorded in LA with huge producers, and as Bill Janovitz noted “It was a full-on, old-school peak-analog record production.” The band’s inclination for their follow-up was to bring it back to a more stripped down and raw recording situation. Bill said, “I was thinking of Some Girls and Tonight’s the Night, and those electric Dylan records like Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde, where you could hear instruments bleeding into each other, snare drum rattling from the guitars and bass, and off-microphone stuff, and even mistakes, where it just felt like you were in the room with the band.”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | In 1968, Yusuf Mumin was the blistering alto saxophone voice of the Black Unity Trio, who recorded the cult privately pressed album Al-Fatihah, one of the most sought-after albums in the genre. After extensive but unsuccessful searches for additional material by the group, Journey to the Ancient finally offers more unheard music from Yusuf Mumin.

The album presented here draws from a selection of recordings preserved in Mumin’s private collection, revealing previously unheard layers of his experimental vision. Mumin performs under both his own name and, when multitracking revelatory double bass parts, the pseudonym Dan Nuby.

“The undated material is culled from Mumin’s personal archives and features him on alto, tenor, flute and, for a short opening piece in memory of Abdul Wadud, cello and vocals,” writes Pierre Crépon in his liner notes for the release. “At least two sessions are represented. Drummer William Holmes, an associate of the late Sonny Simmons, provides an excellent rhythmic counterpart.”

Born Joseph W. Phillips in 1944, Mumin became a key figure in Cleveland’s radical free jazz underground of the 1960s. Deeply influenced by spiritual and esoteric traditions, Mumin was originally drawn to “outside” playing by the sonic explorations of Yusef Lateef. Shortly after Albert Ayler’s U.S. recording debut with trumpeter Norman Howard, Howard and Mumin were co-leading a group in Cleveland. Mumin’s legacy was cemented through his collaborations with Abdul Wadud and Hasan Shahid as the Black Unity Trio.

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Celebrating Steven Severin on his 70th birthday. —Ed.

My favorite Siouxsie and the Banshees fact; the early band, primitivists to the core, ditched axe player Peter Fenton because he was a “real rock guitarist.” Can’t have one of those gussying up one’s primal punk rawk sound, not if one wants to create something truly unique and new. Which is what Siouxsie and the Banshees created with their celebrated 1978 debut, The Scream. So revolutionary was their music that critic Clinton Heylin held that the post-Fenton iteration of Siouxsie and the Banshees, along with the formation of PiL and Magazine, marked the “true starting point for English post-punk.”

On The Scream, Siouxsie Sioux (aka Susan Janet Ballion), guitarist and saxophonist John McKay, bassist Steven Severin, and drummer Kenny Morris created a sound that perfectly melded discord and harmony—a twitchy, spiky, and seemingly chaotic ruckus that was actually filled with beguiling melodies.

Siouxsie’s vocals were by no means “pretty”—on The Scream she’s more attack dog than traditional female vocalist, and that’s a large part of the LP’s charm. But the real beauty of her vocals is the way they perfectly mesh with the band’s jagged yet catchy melodies; she’s in total synch with McKay’s remarkable guitar lines, and the pounding and throbbing of Morris and Severin on drums and bass, respectively.

McKay in particular is brilliant; I listen to his surprisingly ornate guitar work on, say, “Jigsaw Feeling,” and I marvel. The same goes for his magnificent guitar riff on “Carcass,” which is undoubtedly the catchiest song on The Scream. Between his guitar and Siouxsie’s alternately choppy and flowing vocals, this baby is a keeper, especially when you throw in the glam handclaps.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | On October 24, 2025, Merge Records reissues The Clientele’s debut album The Violet Hour on Merge vinyl for the very first time. Long out of print and highly sought after since its initial 2003 UK issue on Pointy Records, this LP pressing marks the first time The Violet Hour has been widely available on the format in North America. Its package features restored artwork that pays homage to both the original Pointy LP and Merge CD editions.

To celebrate the reissue, The Clientele will perform two sets at London’s St. Pancras Old Church in London on Wednesday, November 26. They are also sharing the Grant Wilkinson and Niko Dayandas—directed music video for “House on Fire” which was originally available on the enhanced CD version of the album.

Following the breakthrough success of Suburban Light, the 2001 collection of The Clientele’s initial singles and EPs, tastemakers and aficionados were eager to hear what the trio of Alasdair MacLean (guitars, vocals), Mark Keen (drums, piano), and James Hornsey (bass) could make if set loose inside a studio to record a full-length album.

What they emerged with from London’s Medina Road Studios in the fall of 2002 was tantalizing: Their already sharply realized motif of ’60s psychedelia and modern fuzz-pop took on inflections of jazz, particularly in how the space afforded by the LP format allowed for a keener articulation of atmosphere. The Clientele stretch the early evening of The Violet Hour out infinitely, manipulating the structured time of the pop song the way poets manipulate the structure of language—to capture place, mood, stray thoughts, disappointments, potential, and, above all, longing.

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Celebrating Bryan Ferry in advance of his his 80th birthday tomorrow. —Ed.

Bryan Ferry’s solo discography commenced in deceptively lowkey fashion with a pair of covers albums in 1973-’74. The setlist for BMG’s Live at the Royal Albert Hall 1974 draws from those records as it showcases the man’s sturdy, distinctive pipes and equally unique interpretive skills plus a killer band including guitarist Phil Manzanera, guitarist-musical director John Porter, pianist-violinist Eddie Jobson, bassist John Wetton, drummer Paul Thompson, and saxophonist Chris Mercer. 

An eternally sharp dresser with an erudite croon, Bryan Ferry can be synopsized as the high priest of chic. However, the sheer brevity of this designation ignores the atypical and occasionally downright oddball aspects of his personality; the art-school (big on Duchamp, he was), the art-rock (bandmate of Eno, he was), the smoky late-night lounge (a persistent component in his image, it was), the jetsetter (ditto), the student of pop (as revealed in numerous interviews and journalistic portraits over the years). All are traits that have fortified his work both with Roxy Music and as a solitary operator.

If you know Bryan Ferry’s solo debut These Foolish Things and its follow-up Another Time, Another Place, then you’re already hip to what transpires on Live at the Royal Albert Hall 1974. With the exception of “A Real Good Time,” a Ferry original from Roxy Music’s Country Life (released roughly a month prior to this performance), all the songs are drawn from his first two, and the only other non-cover is the title track from his second.

If you don’t know those records but do know Ferry, perhaps picking up the career thread at Roxy’s Siren (with its big hit single “Love is the Drug”) or maybe having just absorbed a latter portion of his long tenure as the Svengali of suavedom, this archival set needs a little contextualizing. Because for some, the contents, at least as represented on those solo LPs, inspired some head-scratching.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | “The Axis UHQR cut is amazing—full bodied, detailed, powerful and engaging. Very impressive. The best pressing of the record I have ever heard.” —Bill Levenson, Grammy Award-winning reissue producer

Analogue Productions is revisiting its first-ever UHQR (Ultra High Quality Record) title—The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s 1967 masterpiece Axis: Bold As Love—newly remastered and available for the first time as a 45 RPM edition, in both stereo and mono pressings. Both the stereo and mono versions have been cut by noted mastering engineer Bernie Grundman from the original analog master tapes, and pressed at Acoustic Sounds’ industry-leading pressing plant Quality Record Pressings (QRP) using hand-selected 200-gram Clarity Vinyl.

Each UHQR is packaged in a deluxe clamshell box and includes a booklet with liner notes by Brad Tolinski, along with a certificate of inspection. The stereo release of Axis is limited to 4,500 copies, while the mono release is limited to just 2,500 copies. Each LP jacket is gold foil numbered.

Axis: Bold As Love, the sensational second album from the Jimi Hendrix Experience—including Hendrix (guitar/vocals), Noel Redding (bass), and Mitch Mitchell (drums)—showcased the guitar genius’ expansive experimentation while acknowledging his early R&B and soul music influences. The album features classics such as “Spanish Castle Magic,” “Little Wing,” “Castles Made Of Sand,” and “If 6 Was 9.”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Nearly five decades after its original release, The Rolling Stones are set to celebrate their groundbreaking 1976 album Black and Blue with a definitive Super Deluxe Box Set, arriving globally on November 14, 2025 from Interscope/UMe. Originally released in April, 1976 Black and Blue marked a bold new chapter for the band and now returns in a stunning, remixed and expanded package across multiple formats.

Available as a 5LP vinyl box set and a 4CD box set, both editions include a Blu-ray disc, a hundred-page hardback book, and a replica tour poster. A limited edition 5LP version on exclusive black and blue marbled vinyl will also be available via select online retailers, alongside streamlined 2-disc and 1-disc formats on both vinyl and CD. Additionally, a limited edition 1LP zoetrope vinyl will also be released. Now available to pre order here.

Black and Blue is the Stones’ 13th studio album, the first following the departure of former guitarist Mick Taylor who was eventually replaced by Ronnie Wood. The recording sessions famously served as auditions with guitar greats Harvey Mandel, Wayne Perkins, Jeff Beck, and Robert A. Johnson all contributing. Ultimately, free from commitments to The Faces, it was Ronnie Wood who joined Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, and Bill Wyman as a bona fide Rolling Stone appearing on three tracks.

Soon after Ronnie officially signed up for the band’s US tour, starting his continuing tenure with the group across five decades with multiple live and studio albums and dozens of Stones groundbreaking world tours. In a brand-new interview included in the new box set, Ronnie reflects on joining the band in 1976 with these words—”Right then, this is where I’m meant to be.”

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Spinal Tap’s Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest), David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean), and Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer) are back from the dead and join a long list of iconic pop and rock bands, such as the Eagles, The Who and The Doobie Brothers, among many others, who have repeatedly retired, but couldn’t stay retired and just want to rock again.

Like some of them, they’re older, maybe not wiser, but surprisingly sounding better than ever. And can you blame the boys, I mean men, of Spinal Tap for wanting to barnstorm around the world, play deafening music, and eat bad airplane food? Not to mention hobnobbing backstage with record company regional sales reps in satin baseball jackets and psychotic fans after their grueling 60-minute sets in some cavernous hockey arena.

How can a band who said in song “Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight” stay away from the rickety stages of the rock hell holes of middling American cities that most rock bands wouldn’t go near even after every member of the group just went through a messy divorce? The Tap members know that for their fans there is a majesty to rock that can only be experienced live in overpriced (thanks to Live Nation) nosebleed seats at venues more suited for pro wrestling.

The group returns to a record business that is all business and no record. How much the group will earn from Spotify plays for their new album will barely cover their M&M rider expense. But these veterans aren’t in it for the money, or even the fame, or, heaven forbid, the girls. They do it because they can’t face the fact that they’re old and basically want to feel young again, although two weeks on the road in the South or Midwest of America will make anybody old fast.

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Remembering Linda McCartney, born on this date in 1941. —Ed.

Paul McCartney was the member of the Fab Four that so many used to relish knocking around. Whether it was in spirited bar chats or animated discussions at parties, when the tide turned to The Beatles somebody could always be counted on for a hearty jibe at Macca’s expense. And in my above use of “so many” I’m generally referring to males and by “somebody” I’m specifically speaking of those who indisputably considered John Lennon to be the Best Beatle.

While for those truly devoted fans of the band there could simply never be a Worst, for many Paul was the Square Beatle, a designation not borne out by the facts, for he was as interested in the avant-garde as any member. Hell, in ’68 he co-produced “I’m the Urban Spaceman” by The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band for Pete’s sake, an act that places him rather high up on the meter of cool. However, others derided him as the Corporate Beatle. And yeah, it’s true that Paul never lost track of the business aspect of the whole affair, but his behavior in this regard hasn’t really played out as particularly odious in comparison to other rock star types of not even half his stature or talent.

But both Paul’s image and the assessment of his post-Beatle solo career has rebounded in recent years. Much of this might have to do with the constantly regenerating fanbase of the Four consistently growing older and perhaps letting go of the rebelliousness that inspired easy identification with Lennon or Harrison. It also might be related to the race for Coolest Living Beatle being down to him and Ringo “No More Mail, Thanks” Starr.

But seriously. In my estimation Paul’s general critical resurgence is a welcome phenomenon, if only because his first two solo records have finally gotten something approximate to the proper level of respect. And yes, for years I bought the baloney regarding the collective underwhelming nature of McCartney and Ram, too.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | “Tears for Fears’ second album is the one sound of pop-rock in the ’80s. It’s personal psychology, meticulous compositions, and world-sized choruses evoked the loss of control in an overwhelming era.” —Pitchfork

Tears For Fears’ multi-platinum-selling second album, Songs From The Big Chair, will be reissued in multiple formats on November 14, marking its 40th anniversary and celebrating its enduring impact. Originally released on February 25, 1985, Songs From The Big Chair became a global sensation, topping the US charts and spawning five hit singles: “Mothers Talk,” “Shout,” “Everybody Wants To Rule The World,” “Head Over Heels,” and “I Believe.” The album captured a perfect intersection of pop accessibility, sharp lyricism, guitar power, and new-wave innovation.

To mark its Ruby Anniversary, UMe will unveil a range of special editions, including a limited edition 2LP Transparent Red vinyl featuring the original unused artwork and tracks previously unavailable on vinyl, a 3CD deluxe set, a limited edition 1LP Coke Bottle Clear vinyl, and a limited 1LP picture disc.

The album’s influence cannot be underestimated and continues to resonate with new audiences. “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” has been covered by Lorde for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and featured in Guardians of the Galaxy (as well as the Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind ride at Walt Disney World), Despicable Me 4, and The Lego Batman Movie, among many others.

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