Bookended by the band’s excellent eponymous 1967 debut and 1969’s brilliant A Salty Dog, Procol Harum’s 1968 LP Shine on Brightly is a half-assed example of the sophomore slump. Side one is no disgrace, but the progressive rockers lose the thread on side two, which sinks beneath the weight of the acid-addled balderdash of the unconscionably long (and quite frequently inadvertently hilarious) song suite “In Held Twas in I.”

Shot themselves right in the dick with the song, they did. But all might have been forgiven had Procol Harum tricked up another song as magic and majestic as “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” which was THE song of 1967 and inspired none other than Beatle John himself to say, “You play it when you take some acid and … whoooooooo.’”

But Shine On Brightly’s only single, “Quite Rightly So,” inspired nary a “whoooooooo,” and only climbed to the half-century spot on the UK charts. A paler shade of “A Whiter Shade of Pale” it was, and as things panned out, the LP itself didn’t even chart in England’s Green and Pleasant Land. Perhaps if Keith Reid had included more Chaucer references, your literary Brits would have eaten them right up.

Procol Harum had a winning formula—a great singer in Gary Brooker, even if The Village Voice’s Robert Christgau once wrote that Brooker “learned his oft-praised blues mannerisms from the constipated guy in the next toilet stall.” Matthew Fisher’s organ gave them a rich sound, and was ideal when it came to copping odds and sods from classical compositions, which was what got them labeled a progressive rock band in the first place. And Robin Trower was a blues rock guitarist with mad skills who kept their compositions from floating away on the clouds of neo-classical pomposity.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | If Deicide’s first album defined death metal, their second album supercharged it.

Impossibly fast tempos, headspinning arrangements, just plain evil guitar tones—when somebody like bassist and vocalist Glen Benton labels the album “***kin’ over the top,” you know where you’re headed (if you said hell, you’re getting warm) when you insert the needle into this Legion’s vinyl vein.

As always with this band, drummer Steve Asheim holds the barely controlled chaos together, whose double kick BPM approaches 4 digits amidst guitar squalls from the Hoffman brothers. The material on Legion has also stood the test of time, with “Trifixion” and “Dead but Dreaming” enduring fan favorites.

Indeed, Legion (which, along with their self-titled debut, is one of the best-selling death metal records ever) is reckoned by many to be Deicide’s best album; it’s certainly their most brutal. Remastered for the format and pressed in metallic “rainbow inferno” vinyl, complete with a highly flammable lyric insert.

VIA PRESS RELEASE | It’s become commonplace to hear the words, “I can’t believe it’s been 50 years since that album came out!” That exclamation comes this year for legendary rockers Foghat—Roger Earl (founding drummer), Bryan Bassett (guitar), Scott Holt (lead vocals/guitar), and Rodney O’Quinn (bass)—whose Platinum-selling fifth album, Fool For The City (which gave us the rock anthems “Slow Ride” and the title track) was originally released on September 15, 1975.

To celebrate this illustrious occasion, Rhino Records is releasing the 50th Anniversary Edition of Fool For The City on September 12, 2025. This special reissue available as a double-vinyl or double-CD version, features the newly remastered original tracks, as well as an electrifying bonus disc featuring a never-before-released live album recorded during two live performances at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago in 1975. Pre-order info will soon be available on Foghat’s online store and Rhino’s official website.

A limited number of autographed CDs and vinyl can be pre-ordered now on TalkShop.Live, which will include an exclusive insert signed by Roger Earl and producer Nick Jameson. On Wednesday, August 6 at 4:00pm PT/7:00pm ET, Roger Earl and producer Nick Jameson will appear on the site’s Rock & Roll Channel with their good friend and host Steve Harkins for an in-depth discussion about Fool For The City and the incredible bonus material on the 50th Anniversary package.

Captured and performed by multi-talented bassist/producer Nick Jameson—the mastermind behind both Fool For The City and 1977’s legendary Foghat Live—these raw, high-energy recordings have been resurrected nearly 50 years later. Mixed and mastered by Jameson himself at a studio in Reykjavik, Iceland, the result is a time capsule of pure rock fury. The CD edition will also include two bonus live tracks and a brand new interview with founding drummer Roger Earl and Jameson, diving into the making of “Slow Ride” and the magic behind the Fool For The City sessions.

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Remembering Jerry Garcia, born on this day in 1942. —Ed.

Many Deadheads, and by this I don’t mean all Deadheads but only many many thousands of Deadheads, suffer from an alarming lack of quality control. To them, the monstrous Shakedown Street is every bit as listenable as Workingman’s Dead. Me, I love the Grateful Dead, but I have by no means swallowed the electric kool aid. Terrapin Station, for instance, makes me want to nail two-by-fours over my ears, and if I hear it coming, I run. Like Hell.

But I adore a half-dozen or so of their LPs, and their 1967 debut is one of them. I love the album for many reasons, but first and foremost I love it because it is, compared to many of the Grateful Dead’s later, more lackadaisical LPs, a real firecracker. The boys are energized, and most of the songs are psychedelic rave-ups that highlight the brilliant playing (I’m not sure he ever sounded better) of guitarist Jerry Garcia. Many Dead albums, including a few I like, are long-winded slumber parties, but on their debut they’re in and out, and traveling at light speed, even on the sole lengthy number, “Viola Lee Blues,” which includes some of the best rock improvisation I’ve ever heard.

I’m not the only one who thinks the LP is uncharacteristic of the Grateful Dead. Bassist Phil Lesh commented in his autobiography that “the only track that sounds at all like we did at the time is ‘Viola Lee Blues,’” before adding that the recording was rushed. To which I can only reply that all of their recordings should have been rushed. The key to their debut is velocity, a characteristic that no one, and I mean no one, would attribute to the mature Grateful Dead. Only two of the LP’s nine songs are originals, but only the bluesy “Good Morning, Little School Girl,” which highlighted the vocals and harmonica of Ron “Pigpen” McKernan sounds like a cover; remarkably, the Dead do a fantastic job of making a potpourri of other artists’ material sound like their own.

Amazingly, the LP only includes one slow burner, “Morning Dew.” And it sounds great reduced to bare bones, as anyone who has ever suffered through the extended live version on Europe ’72 will attest. On this one Garcia’s guitar sounds like the epitome of the “San Francisco Sound,” and his vocals are appropriately doleful. Pigpen’s organ adds some nice seasoning, and the band is as tight as they would ever be. And the Garcia solo! Exquisite.

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Joe Concra is a painter, a builder, and the CO+ founder of the O+ Festival, based in Kingston, New York.

O+ is a community-rooted organization that connects artists and musicians with health and wellness care through a radical exchange model that started with an annual music and healthcare exchange festival and has expanded into year-round care.

In this episode, we talk about how it all began, what it takes to create systems of care outside of the system, and the deep link between art, service, and place. Joe’s perspective is thoughtful, kind, and rooted in lived experience.

This is a conversation about action, belief, building something meaningful from the ground up, and creating real positive change in communities.

Radar features discussions with artists and industry leaders who are creators and devotees of music and is produced by Dylan Hundley and The Vinyl District. Dylan Hundley is an artist and performer, and the co-creator and lead singer of Lulu Lewis and all things at Darling Black. She co-curates and hosts Salon Lulu which is a New York based multidisciplinary performance series. She is also a cast member of the iconic New York film Metropolitan.

1986’s Candy Apple Grey marked the end of my love affair with Hüsker Dü, and not because the band “sold out” to the majors—I didn’t give a shit about that. The studio polish I didn’t much like, but what really sealed the deal of my fatal disaffection with a band I loved was the album’s generic quality. Although the affliction had yet to have a name, Candy Apple Grey was an early case of Foo Fighters Disease.

And it was wimpy, no doubt about it—too many feelings, not nearly enough feral noise. No feral noise, in fact. Hüsker Dü had always been suspiciously touchy-feely, but they subsumed the feelings in chaotic powerline hyperdrive. On Candy Apple Grey, they revealed themselves to be, and I really can’t think of another way to say it, emo bores. It even has ballads! I listened to the album a couple of times and never listened to it again. In fact, I put away all of my Hüsker Dü albums and never listened to them again. I moved on, and so did all of my friends. Opinion was unanimous that Candy Apple Grey was the end of something truly beautiful.

For years, I’ve wondered if I wasn’t too hard on Candy Apple Grey, but listening to it again, I realize I was dead right about the album. It boasts a few very good songs, but none of them reach the ecstatic heights of even the middling songs on Zen Arcade and New Day Rising. Too many acoustic guitars, too much piano, and even the electric guitar scorchers sound too clean, too streamlined, too sanitized. All those people who put down SST producer Spot for muddying up their sound and keeping them down? Fools. Clean up Hüsker Dü, and what you had were a couple of guys singing about how they felt. As if anybody cared. This was punk rock.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | “If your definition of ‘alternative music’ is Nirvana, The Smiths, and Radiohead, you’re missing out on perhaps a more profound and outrageous collection of talented outliers. Greg Prato’s oral history of alt-rock is an absorbing deep dive into an era when—for a short and wondrous time—freaks and geeks ruled the world.” —Brad Tolinski, author of MC5: An Oral Biography of Rock’s Most Revolutionary Band

No era in rock history delivered a more jarring upheaval—in sound and sensibility—than the 1990s. Practically overnight, hair metal —once dominant on radio and MTV—was swept aside. In its place surged a wave of alt-rock revolutionaries like Jane’s Addiction, Nine Inch Nails, Faith No More, Primus, Smashing Pumpkins, and, of course, Nirvana. These and other bands and artists didn’t just redefine rock—they reshaped the cultural landscape, transforming everything from fashion to politics with a raw, unfiltered ethos that felt like a wholesale rejection of the decade before.

This radical reordering of rock’s DNA is at the heart of Alternative for the Masses: The Oral History of the ’90s Alt-Rock Revolution, where veteran music critic Greg Prato delivers the definitive chronicle of the era, straight from the musicians and figures who lived it. Through more than 60 new interviews conducted exclusively for the book—focused on the pivotal years of 1990 to 1995—Prato assembles an insider’s portrait of the artists, trends, and cultural ruptures that shaped the alt-rock explosion.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Devendra Banhart has announced the 20-year anniversary reissue of his beloved album Cripple Crow. Out on September 12, the Cripple Crow 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition marks the first release on Banhart’s own label Heavy Flowers, distributed by Secretly Distribution. Along with the announcement, Banhart has released a demo of “I Feel Just Like A Child,” an early version of the fan favorite from the original Cripple Crow release.

The Cripple Crow 20th Anniversary album reissue includes a third bonus LP featuring “The Seventies” (a never-before-released recording from the Cripple Crow sessions), “Shame” (the long out of print B-side to “Long Haired Child”), five previously unreleased demos, and two live recordings. It also includes expanded artwork and liner notes written by Banhart himself.

Of the reissue, Devendra Banhart says: “Cripple Crow! equal parts gag and pride! What a trip! What a ride! What a time! It’s all a bit embarrassing, and yet, it was such a beautifully free time of uncensored experimentation and loving camaraderie that I can’t help but be proud to share this reissue with a bunch of new stuff I can’t believe didn’t get burnt in my ‘burning my archives’ phase! Thank you to everyone for sharing bits of pics and ephemera ya had flopping around!”

Originally released on September 12, 2005 Cripple Crow was met with international critical acclaim. Pitchfork praised it as an “undoubtedly impressive, vastly singular… inspired listening experience” and Rolling Stone called it “terrific,” specifically noting Banhart’s “impressionistic lyrics and a quavery croon.” Meanwhile, NME lauded Cripple Crow as a “cut-and-come-again treat” and The Guardian gave the project a rave four-star review.

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Celebrating Bill Berry on his 67th birthday. —Ed.

On 1992’s Automatic for the People—one of the finest LPs released that year or any other year for that matter—Michael Stipe and R.E.M. play Risk. The goal of the board game is to conquer the world, and that’s exactly what Automatic for the People did. Sure, the LP had its detractors and haters, but they were holed up in Yakutsk and things weren’t looking good.

R.E.M. arose from the burgeoning Athens, Georgia indie rock scene with 1982 EP “Chronic Town,” a record that bore an element of mystery that had as much to do with Stipe’s indecipherable vocals as it did the fact that nothing else sounded quite like it. I spent significant amounts of time trying to figure out what Stipe was saying in “Gardening at Night,” but he may as well have been speaking Quechua. Stipe kept mumbling on 1983’s aptly titled Murmur, but indecipherable lyrics notwithstanding “Radio Free Europe” was one of that year’s best songs.

As Stipe began to enunciate the band lost some of its luster—1984’s Reckoning, 1985’s Fables of the Reconstruction, and 1986’s Life’s Rich Pageant all had their moments, but none broke new musical ground, and R.E.M. seemed a band going nowhere. Then came 1987’s Document and “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (and I Feel Fine)” and suddenly R.E.M. found itself with a mass audience. They cemented their place as a commercial pop contender with the playful “Stand” on 1988’s Green and “Shiny Happy People”on 1991’s Out of Time. Both showed the band had a lighter sound, while “Losing My Religion” on the latter LP proved R.E.M. could produce a commercial blockbuster.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Daniel Johnston’s legacy is legendary. The quintessential DIY artist started his career in Austin, TX whilst hawking cassettes from his day job at McDonald’s. The rest, as they say, is history, and fans of US alternative music from the 1980s onwards know about his work and the people he went on to inspire.

This, however, is not a biography; it’s a simple piece of communication to let people know about the second pressing of Daniel’s radio sessions recorded for the BBC as a double album entitled Love Lives Forever (BBC Sessions 2003-11). A project inspired by BBC Radio 6 Music’s Marc Riley, the tracks have been licensed from the BBC and approved by Daniel’s family, management, and charity. The sessions were spread across an eight-year period, with two sessions for Rob Da Bank and three with Marc Riley (both of whom are executive producers of this album).

A few bootleg recordings of these sessions have been available across the years but now they have been lovingly mastered and cut by Frank Arkwright at Abbey Road Studios in London. Daniel was a lifelong fan of The Beatles and the overwhelming consensus from those who knew him was that he would be so proud and excited to have his music mastered above the legendary Studio 2 at Abbey Road.

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Celebrating Chuck D in advance of his 65th birthday tomorrow.
—Ed.

Between 1986 and 1998, Public Enemy released six albums for Def Jam, and they’ve been gathered across nine 180-gm LPs in the 25th Anniversary Vinyl Collection. Yes, that means their knockout debut Yo! Bum Rush the Show, the explosive second installment It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, and its odds-defying follow-up Fear of a Black Planet, are all included, but perhaps the biggest insight this hefty collection holds is in how well Apocalypse 91…the Enemy Strikes Black, Muse Sick-n-Hour Mess Age, and the He Got Game soundtrack have endured over the years.

So much ink has been spilled over the music of Public Enemy that endeavoring to approach the subject at this remove can be more than a little daunting. Bluntly, it can seem like the possibility of adding anything new to the discourse is basically nil. In searching for fresh twists on the subject, there is a recurring problem; any attempts to shed new light upon the group’s achievements can reliably lead right back to a very familiar place.

It’s a story that relates to the severe but worthwhile lesson their music dealt to the many listeners with the curiosity to drift away from the imposed safety zones of the time. For in the ‘80s, musical tastes were quite often still segregated. And it can feel downright tired to restate how Run DMC and The Beastie Boys essentially set the table for this audience, bringing certain expectations over what exactly this fresh form of music was supposed to encompass, with PE turning up right on time to craftily pull the tablecloth out from underneath it all.

For this observer, having not even reached seventeen years of age when Public Enemy’s second album, 1988’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, tore the roof of the sucker so sweetly, rap connected largely as party music. This isn’t to belittle those achievements, of course. Sometimes the party was a generational one ala the Beasties. Run DMC, LL Cool J, and especially The Fat Boys differed somewhat, providing examples considerably less threatening to concerned parents.

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