VIA PRESS RELEASE | After Leeds alt-rock band The Lost Pandas disintegrated around them in the early 1980s, singer/guitarist David Gedge and bassist Keith Gregory decided to form a new group. In 1985, beguiled by pop radio, punk brashness, The Velvet Underground and David’s erstwhile schoolmates, The Chameleons, they launched The Wedding Present.

That band was—and remains—uncompromising and unwaveringly authentic in every way, and, as a result, Gedge, without intention, has become a legendary figure in alternative music. He has become one of the chief architects and originators of modern guitar rock and the mastermind behind one of the richest, catchiest, and most consistently enthralling catalogues in pop history.

Four decades on, and with 13 studio albums, 20 compilation albums and a whole host of singles, EPs, live albums and radio sessions—with more on the horizon—The Wedding Present : 40 is a commemorative reflection of this complex and fascinating catalogue.

Available as four vinyl and four CD box sets, this is not your usual collection of “most popular” songs, but rather a chronological, aural journey of album tracks, singles, and B-sides. The stunning artwork has been put together by Jonathan Hitchen—who designed many of the band’s original record covers—and there are extensive sleeve notes by David Gedge himself, along with esteemed music writer Mark Beaumont (NME, Guardian, Independent). Gedge’s commentary provides a unique insight into the workings of the band and an absorbing track-by-track guide to the compilation.

Tickets are now on sale for the band’s 40th Anniversary Tour which starts in September and includes support from—amongst others—Mozart Estate and The Loft.

Remembering Alan Vega, born on this day in 1938. —Ed.

Alan Vega has departed this realm, but the music he made in partnership with Martin Rev in a union known as Suicide will long endure as a beacon at the crossroads of defiant individualism and fascinating leftfield imagination. Suicide is a sui generis cornerstone of punk’s grand 1977 convulsion, as alien as it is eventually incendiary, while Alan Vega Martin Rev explores refinement without marketplace capitulation at the dawn of the 1980s.

On September 19, 1981 Alan Vega and Martin Rev played a tenth anniversary concert at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN. The show is documented on Ghost Riders, just one of numerous authorized, grey market, and bootleg Suicide live recordings; cult status has since been established, but jump ahead ten years from that night at the Walker Art Center and the jury was still deliberating the pair’s artistic success rate and overall value.

By 1991 all of Suicide’s proto and first wave NYC cohorts were pretty easily categorized. The Dictators were smart-aleck celebrators of trash culture, Patti Smith and Richard Hell rough bohemians mingling rock and poetics, the Heartbreakers glam graduates brandishing Stones-like edge, Talking Heads essentially art-rockers helping to define the parameters of new wave and paving the exit ramp of post-punk, Television expansionist jammers in punk threads, and Blondie and The Ramones swipers and solidifiers of classic pop and rock moves into fresh and groundbreaking territory.

However, two decades after their formation exactly what Suicide was up to was still difficult to parse. Vega surely exuded an abundance of rock attitude, but thanks to Rev’s one man wrangling of his musical rig (the “instrument”) they landed outside of the genre in formal terms; this blend of rock attitude and non-rock execution is at the root of why quite a few (rockist) listeners continue to disdain their work.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | 3x GRAMMY® Award-winner Shooter Jennings has announced the release of Songbird, a completely new, previously unheard album by his legendary father, Waylon Jennings.

The first of three previously unheard albums worth of material by the groundbreaking country music superstar, Songbird collects recordings produced between 1973 and 1984 in various studios by Jennings and his longtime drummer and co-producer Richie Albright, featuring members of his indelible backing band, The Waylors, including Albright and renowned pedal steel guitarist Ralph Mooney, along with such special guests as Tony Joe White, Jessi Colter, and more. Compiled and mixed by Shooter Jennings at Hollywood, CA’s hallowed Sunset Sound Studio 3, Songbird arrives via Son of Jessi/Thirty Tigers on Friday, October 3, 2025. Pre-orders/pre-saves are available now.

Songbird is heralded by the first single and title track, Jennings’ stunning version of Fleetwood Mac’s “Songbird,” available everywhere alongside an official visualizer/music video streaming now at YouTube. Both “Songbird” and the Songbird project were officially unveiled yesterday at a special Waylon Jennings Birthday Party/Father’s Day celebration hosted by Shooter Jennings at The Viper Room in West Hollywood, CA. The surviving members of the Waylors, Waylon Jennings’ backing band, were the house band for performances by Jaime Wyatt, Elizabeth Cook, Ashley Monroe, Charley Crockett, and Shooter Jennings, as they performed songs from Waylon Jennings’ illustrious catalogue.

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Remembering Robert Hunter, born on this date in 1941. —Ed.

The Grateful Dead: God invented ‘em at the same time he invented the sloth. They were renowned for their shambolic jams, lethargic grooves, and endless noodling—when I saw them I saw ‘em with Bob Dylan in 1987, they played a version of “Joey” that lasted longer than The War of Jenkin’s Ear. One critic wrote of the show I attended, “Pity anyone who actually sat through [it]… with a clear head.” Well, my head was about as clear as stained glass, and it didn’t much matter. There simply aren’t enough narcotics in the world to make “Drums and Space” anything but torture. I’d have asked for my money back if I hadn’t seen, with my own eyes, an acid casualty try to snort a Birkenstock.

Truth is, I saw the Grateful Dead decades too late. Because it’s a cold hard fact that the Dead were a spent force in the studio by the mid-70s, and definitely dead in the water by the time they released those twin abominations, 1977’s Terrapin Station and 1978’s Shakedown Street. Even their famed live shows went downhill—Donna Godchaux, anyone?—as they cycled through keyboardists the way Spın̈al Tap went through drummers and Jerry Garcia gradually dedicated more and more time to his various pharmaceutical side projects.

Still, theirs is a fascinating history. The Grateful Dead began their career playing Ken Kesey’s Acid Tests, and through their connection with Merry Prankster Neil Cassady bridged the Beat Movement of the Fifties and the Hippie Culture of the Sixties. The early Dead played a psychedelic soup of the blues and acid-trip-length explorations of inner space, but by the late sixties had tightened things up to become a stellar, if notoriously erratic and self-indulgent, live act. I love large chunks of 1969’s live Grateful Dead (which the band wanted to call Skull Fuck) and Europe ’72, but my favorite Grateful Dead albums were both released in 1970—namely, those two studio masterpieces, Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | On August 15, 1972, Deep Purple took the stage in Japan for the first of three shows that would give rise to one of rock’s most celebrated live albums, Made in Japan. Today, Universal Music announces a new Super Deluxe Edition of the landmark release, due out August 15—exactly 53 years after the first performance was recorded.

Made in Japan (Super Deluxe Edition) features new stereo and Dolby ATMOS mixes of the original by acclaimed producer Steven Wilson, all three concerts newly remixed by Richard Digby Smith, and several rare single edits. It will be released as a 5CD/Blu-ray set at retailers nationwide, and a 10LP black vinyl edition, available exclusively from the official artist shop and UMG D2C stores. A 2LP black vinyl version of Steven Wilson remixes will be available on August 15. The digital companion will also be available everywhere on August 15.

Originally intended as a Japan-only release, this double live album became a surprise global phenomenon. Released in the UK in December 1972 and in the US the following March, Made in Japan went platinum in America and several European countries.

Singer Ian Gillan, guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, keyboardist Jon Lord, bassist Roger Glover, and drummer Ian Paice—Deep Purple’s famed Mk II lineup—turned studio staples like “Smoke On The Water,” “Highway Star,” and “Space Truckin’” into explosive live statements. “We came halfway around the world and found the audience singing every word. It was magical,” Glover recalls in the collection’s liner notes.

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Celebrating Ray Davies in advance of his 81st birthday tomorrow.
—Ed.

Ah, the Kinks. Of all the great bands to come out of England in the 1960s, they were by far the most English. Their music hall inclinations and deadpan irony simply didn’t translate, and until they reconstituted themselves as a hard-rocking touring band in the 1970s their only claims to fame here in the U.S.A. were “You Really Got Me” and “Lola.” Ray Davies was simply too smart, and had his tongue too far in his cheek, to win over U.S. fans, although I do remember—because it was, I think, the first 45 rpm record I ever heard—my older brother’s copy of “Apeman.” Nor did it help that the band was refused permits by the American Federation of Musicians to tour the U.S. for 4 years, ostensibly due to over-the-top on-stage band mate on band mate violence.

Of course, the Kinks always had their Kultists, people who lovingly cuddled their copies of 1968’s The Village Green Preservation Society the way you might your dog Blighter. As for the rest of us, we listened to our Beatles and our Stones and The Who, and the rest of England be damned. This was especially true if you were raised, the way I was, in a rural outpost of provincialism, where the Klan once marched through town and “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” was considered the pinnacle of pop sophistication.

I guess what I’m trying to say here is that I was a real latecomer to Ray Davies and Company, but have come to love their music, including Muswell Hillbillies. It’s one of the bleakest and funniest albums I know, and it deals with a subject that I hold near and dear to my heart—namely, the failure of everything. Tormented character follows tormented character on this LP, and I can’t get enough of it. Davies sings about paranoia, rampant alcoholism, and the myriad other complications of life, all from a working class perspective. Only Randy Newman could compete with Davies in the hilarious downer department, and while I prefer Newman, Davies more than holds his own.

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PHOTO: REUBEN RADDING | It seems that New York City resident Dylan Hundley is perpetually busy. Many know her as one half of Lulu Lewis alongside her partner Pablo Martin. She’s also the curator of the monthly multi-disciplinary music and art series Salon Lulu, and on top of that, the host of Radar on this very website.

But Hundley has even more things happening, including her solo project Darling Black, which has released an EP and a handful of singles since 2020. Today we’re premiering a new Darling Black song, “Deep Down in the Ground,” the track as rhythmic and as reflective of a classic NYC subterranean sensibility as anything in Hundley’s discography.

Dylan Hundley has a number of qualities in her favor. There’s her vocal prowess, which in “Deep Down” is breathy and soulful. Her voice is also layered in the track’s grand scheme, and that brings us to another of Hundley’s strong points, her abilities as producer.

Akin to Lulu Lewis, there’s a historical thrust to Darling Black that transcends the standard retro impulse. Described by Hundley as minimal wave/synth pop, the music of Darling Black connects as a deliberate callback to an era in the city that if more dangerous was also more creatively alive.

Most important of all, Darling Black gets the sound right. “Deep Down in the Ground” has a solid groove that’s not too busy, and the track never sounds like a relic. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable taste of what’s to come with the release of Darling Black’s debut LP, which is due in September. Until then, just play “Deep Down in the Ground” over and over, because it’s a grower.

In the sleeve text of their 1971 sophomore album Acquiring the Taste, Gentle Giant made the brave claim, “It is our goal to expand the frontiers of contemporary popular music at the risk of being very unpopular.” And they succeeded beyond their wildest progressive rock dreams; during a tour opening for Black Sabbath a year or so later, they were booed off the stage—every night!

Then again, that “acquiring the taste” means exactly what it says—your average Black Sabbath fan wasn’t likely to enjoy their first taste of what Gentle Giant had to serve up, because (as they say themselves) you have to really listen to this music over and over to fall in love with it. That said, some never find Gentle Giant’s fare to their taste, and deem it unpalatable no matter how many times they attempt to swallow it. People with good taste, for example.

And speaking of good taste, or I should say its opposite, there’s that album cover, which features a tongue licking what appears to be someone’s, er, anus. Analingus is indeed an acquired taste, even if the cover’s a trick—open the gatefold, and the buttocks turn out to be a peach.

Acquiring the Taste is said to be a departure from the blues and soul on their 1970 eponymous debut. The only problem is that only a madman would characterize the pastoralisms of their debut as blues and soul. Acquiring the Taste isn’t so much a departure as a furthering, and to many, they venture too far from what they call later in their “mission statement” of sorts, “blatant commercialism.” What’s wrong with blatant commercialism? It gave us “Hang on Sloopy.” It gave us The Monkees. It’s given us just about every great rock song ever!

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We’ve closed TVD’s HQ for the Juneteenth holiday. While we’re away, why not fire up our Record Store Locator app and visit one of your local indie record stores?

Perhaps there’s an interview, review, or feature you might have missed? Catch up and we’ll see you back here tomorrow, 6/20.