VIA PRESS RELEASE | Waxwork Records is proud to present the Us Original Motion Picture Soundtrack featuring a score by composer Michael Abels. Us, released in March 2019, is an original nightmare written, directed and produced by Academy Award®-winning visionary Jordan Peele (Get Out). Set in present day Santa Cruz on the iconic Northern California coastline, the film, starring Oscar® winner Lupita Nyong’o and Black Panther’s Winston Duke, pits an ordinary American family against a terrifying and uncanny opponent: doppelgängers of themselves.

A blockbuster that earned raves from critics and audiences alike, Us earned more than $250 million at the worldwide box office to become one the highest grossing R-rated horror films of all time, buoyed by an unexpected and innovative soundtrack and by a groundbreaking, terrifying original score by Abels. Us marks the second collaboration between composer Abels and Peele, who first worked together on Peele’s 2017 Oscar-winning horror film, Get Out. For the Us score, Abels explored themes of duality and discord. “Sonically, what defines ‘scary’ is the unfamiliar,” Abels says. “It is the things that we can’t place, and that we don’t expect, that take us to that place of fear. We wanted to really strike terror into the audience.”

Central to the score was the opening track, an anthem for the doppelgängers, known in the film as The Tethered. Abels hit on the idea of using choral elements. “Jordan really loves the sounds of voices, and the human voice is an incredibly expressive instrument that anyone can relate to,” Abels says. “The anthem sounds a little like a march of people preparing for battle, like an uprising maybe, but the sounds are not in a recognizable language. In other parts of the film there are vocal effects, just these strange sounds. They’re designed to really freak people out.”

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“I was at a friend’s house in 7th grade. It was the first time he had invited me over because he had recently won a contest on KROQ and Grouplove was coming over to play at his house.”

“While we waited for the band to show up I was introducing myself to his house and particularly his room. As I walked around I began to shrink, getting smaller and smaller as I walked. Everything in the room was foreign and unspeakably cool to me. Posters of bands I didn’t know, instruments I’d never seen, and a giant record collection. I had never seen a vinyl record before, but I knew what they were. I couldn’t believe how cool this kid was that he had gone out himself and bought these records—it was a level of commitment to a band and music that meant a lot to me for some reason. (He went on to form Slow Hollows.)

By the time the band had arrived and began to play, I was still in his room sifting through all of these records. I was so infatuated by them that I begged him to let me take one home with me. I persuaded him to give me a Youth Brigade LP even though I didn’t have any way of playing it.

After that, buying records became an obsession. I was also skating everywhere at this time and the two obsessions had a marital effect, skating all day then going to the record store (Freakbeat) and straight to the dollar bin to buy the first name I recognized or the first album cover that peaked my interests. Some of the first in my collection were John Lennon’s Mind Games Devo’s Q: Are We Not Men… and a single pressing of the Tom Tom Club’s “Genius of Love” and an eBay purchase of Blink 182’s Dude Ranch.

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Everybody knows the rap on Whitesnake–bad Led Zeppelin rip off, dumb songs without a spark of originality, and even dumber vocals by former Deep Perp singer David Coverdale–the guy Robert Plant once playfully renamed David Cover Version.

And you know what? As much as I like to be a contrarian, in this case everybody’s right. Whitesnake’s self-titled 1987 breakthrough is a fearsome display of relentless banality, and almost makes me rethink my hatred for the music of Sammy Hagar. It’s as if both band and producer checked their brains at the studio door, then proceeded to check off the boxes of a rock cliché checklist.

The stupid song titles tell the story; if “Bad Boys” and “Still of the Night” don’t give you the horrors, “Children of the Night” certainly should. They scream “formula” and it’s formula you get–the pair of songs with “love” in the title are trite power ballads (as is the LP’s only listenable tune, “Here I Go Again”); as for the rest of the songs, they seem to be an attempt to prove that Whitesnake isn’t a Led Zep tribute band because, well, they’re happy to rip off just anybody. So on Whitesnake you get cheap facsimiles of Van Halen (“Children of the Night”), Sammy Hagar (“Bad Boys”), “Here I Go Again” (Bon Jovi) and “Is This Love” (Jennifer Warnes and Don Henley).

There’s no denying that the band produces an impressive din. Ansley Dunbar is one helluva drummer, and one can only wonder why he’s slumming with these bozos. And despite his knack for playing solos that go nowhere, John Sykes plays one manly guitar. Whitesnake’s problem is that it doesn’t have a single unique thing to say.

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PHOTOS: LAURA KILGUS JENKINS AND CHRIS JENKINS IN MANSFIELD, NH | The air was filled with the scent of incense burning on stage as images of Woodstock illuminated the space, setting the tone for a tour that commemorates the milestone anniversary of Santana’s infamous performance some five decades ago.

Only a few days following the 50th Anniversary of their performance at the Woodstock festival in August 1969, the band named after Rock and Roll Hall of Fame guitarist Carlos Santana and the iconic musician himself brought the house down at the Xfinity Center outside of Boston.

Santana’s show is a true bounty of musical stylings. The set featured Latin and African beats, Latin rock, sounds of Jamaica, bluesy vocals, and guitar solos that no-doubt is a check off the Bucket List for long-time fans. Much like a maestro, Santana gestures to bandmates for smooth and subtle arrangement changes all while showcasing the skill of the artists and enriching the overall performance.

Fans were on their feet as the evening began with a hit-filled set from special guests, The Doobie Brothers. “I’d like to hear some funky Dixieland, pretty momma come and take me by the hand…” The Doobie Brothers sang in an engaging sing-a-long with the audience.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | On September 27, Qwest/UMe is set to release the groundbreaking, multi-genre Boyz N The Hood soundtrack on double vinyl in two different color options: black and translucent blue. This will mark the first time the soundtrack for Boyz N The Hood has been reissued on vinyl since the album’s initial release on July 9, 1991. This special new 2LP edition also honors the indelible legacy of Boyz N The Hood director and soundtrack executive producer John Singleton, who sadly passed away in April 2019.

As the perfect sonic companion piece to Singleton’s incendiary 1991 directorial debut, the Boyz N The Hood soundtrack masterfully stacked cutting-edge of-era gangsta rap alongside a fine selection of R&B, funk, and jazz tracks. From the visceral thrust of Ice Cube’s West Coast gangsta manifesto “How To Survive In South Central” to Tevin Campbell’s New Jack Swing-styled Top 10 R&B hit “Just Ask Me To” (featuring rapper Chubb Rock) to the East Coast boom bap of Main Source’s spitfire take on “Just A Friendly Game Of Baseball (Remix),” the Boyz N The Hood soundtrack encompassed the full scope of Singleton’s singular vision for the film. Two tracks on Side D had been included on the initial 1991 CD release—Quincy Jones’ sultry “Setembro” and Stanley Clarke’s still poignant “Black On Black Crime”—with the latter making its vinyl debut.

Boyz N The Hood, a coming-of-age film starring Ice Cube, Cuba Gooding Jr., Morris Chestnut, and Laurence Fishburne (then billed as Larry Fishburne), followed the trajectory of three friends growing up in early-’90s South Central L.A., and it established Singleton as an insightful chronicler of the then-shifting urban landscape.

At the time, urban film soundtracks were also on the rise, and Boyz N The Hood (which reached No. 12 on the Billboard 200 Albums chart) built on the success of the popular soundtracks for March 1990’s House Party and January 1991’s New Jack City. For his part, Singleton would go on to direct 1993’s Poetic Justice, 1995’s Higher Learning, 2003’s 2 Fast 2 Furious, and 2011’s Abduction (his final film). He also co-created the acclaimed TV crime drama, FX’s Snowfall, which began airing its third season in July 2019.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | This fall, Craft Recordings will reissue three titles from Social Distortion’s independent catalog on vinyl. Set for a September 27th release, the LPs include the band’s 1983 debut, Mommy’s Little Monster, their 2004 studio album, Sex, Love and Rock ‘n’ Roll, and 1995’s Mainliner (Wreckage From the Past), which compiles early singles and rare B-sides. Celebrating their 40th anniversary this year, the enduring So-Cal punk icons just kicked off their extensive, two-month North American tour.

Social Distortion formed in Orange County, CA, with front man Mike Ness and guitarist Dennis Danell at the helm. With their distinctive blend of punk and primitive rock ‘n’ roll, the four-piece (whose bassists and drummers would fluctuate over those years) found equal influences in bands like the Sex Pistols, the Ramones, and the Clash as well as the early country music of Hank Williams and the classic blues of artists like Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and Lightnin’ Hopkins. Their 1983 debut, Mommy’s Little Monster was released on the band’s own label, 13th Floor Records. Full of raw vocals, powerful guitar-driven hooks, and plenty of attitude, the seminal album gained Social Distortion a national following and went on to inspire the likes of the Offspring, Rancid and many other well-known artists. Standout tracks include “The Creeps (I Just Wanna Give You)” and “Another State of Mind.”

The next two decades would bring the band continued lineup changes, a rehab stint for Ness—who has maintained his sobriety since 1985—a major label deal, some of their highest-charting singles (“I Was Wrong” and “Bad Luck”), and two Gold records (for 1990’s Social Distortion and 1992’s Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell). In the late ‘90s, the band returned to their indie roots and signed to Time Bomb Recordings.

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The Decline and Fall of Roderick David Stewart is one of rock’s great tragedies. Five years, tops, is how long it took for “Rod the Mod”—the lovable rogue with the rooster-cut and the great cackle whose unique talents as a singer and songwriter gave us the magnificent Every Picture Tells a Story—to transform himself into “Rod the Bod,” the sleazy, self-proclaimed sex symbol and trend-following hack who bequeathed us “Hot Legs” and “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?”

Since then Stewart has released a slew of desultory LPs (does anybody remember 1983’s Body Wishes or 1988’s appropriately titled Out of Order? If so, you have some explaining to do) and reinvented himself as an interpreter of popular song via his five “volumes” of The Great American Songbook. (Me, I prefer unpopular song. As Oscar Wilde once noted, “Everything popular is wrong.”) And I’m forced to ask: Am I the only one who wonders what happened? Because Stewart’s precipitous plummet from genius to sex goat is nothing less than a riddle wrapped in an enigma, or to be more accurate a mystery wrapped in the awful suit he’s wearing on the cover of Body Wishes, which makes him look like Don Johnson in flames.

Stewart’s singing career began in the early sixties, and he played in some half-dozen bands including The Steampacket (with Long John Baldry and Brian Auger) and The Jeff Beck Group before joining The Faces at about the same time he released his first solo LP, 1969’s The Rod Stewart Album. Rod was an ambitious lad, splitting his time between the Faces and his solo work and somehow managing to put out both a Faces album and a solo album nearly every year. Unlike the Faces’ rough-edged but smart good-times rock’n’roll, Stewart’s solo albums tended to cover the waterfront from rock, country, R&B, to folk.

Stewart’s first two LPs—for which he basically dragooned the Faces as a backup band—didn’t chart particularly well, although they included such excellent songs as “Handbags and Gladrags,” “Cut Across Shorty,” and “Gasoline Alley.” So come LP no. 3, Stewart tried a different approach, limiting the input of the Faces (excepting guitarist Ron Wood) to basically one tune—a cover of The Temptations’ “(I Know) I’m Losing You”—in favor of a sound that accentuated the mandolin of Lindsay Raymond Jackson (of Lindisfarne infamy), the violin of Dick Powell, and the 6,000 different guitars of Ron Wood.

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PHOTOS: RICHIE DOWNS | Bernard Fowler has been singing with the Stones since the ’80s and his CV reads like a Who’s Who of music legends. But this veteran rocker is anything but intimidating—in person he’s warm, charming, and full of great stories. Cratedigging with Bernard feels like cratedigging with an old friend, even if you just met him five minutes ago.

When we met up at Som, his most recent record, Inside Out, was up on the wall. It’s a collection of Rolling Stones songs, but instead of merely covering familiar tracks like “Sympathy for the Devil” or “Dancing with Mr. D,” Inside Out uses elements of free jazz, funk, and spoken word to completely reinvent songs you thought you knew. Nobody’s better qualified to do this than Bernard, with his impressive musical pedigree and years of personal experience with the Stones.

The day before the No Filter tour’s rescheduled stop at FedEx Field, I asked him what his favorite thing was about playing with Mick and Keef and Ronnie and Charlie. He’s got the best seats in the house, he said, with a laugh. What song would he add to the setlist, given the opportunity? “Dandelion.”

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