Earlier this year, David Byrne appeared on Saturday Night Live for the first time in decades to perform two songs from his American Utopia Broadway show with the news that, after touring the ground-breaking music production around the world, a Spike Lee directed concert film of the incredible show was in the works.
The upcoming film was originally intended to premiere at this years’ Toronto Film Festival, but due to the current state of the world, will now be released to streaming via HBO on Oct 17th. In the first one-minute teaser that arrived today, Byrne narrates a philosophical passage over a montage of cuts featuring his roving musical ensemble (11 in total) who perform as one deconstructed band to deliver a career-spanning collection of tracks from the Talking Heads singer’s entire catalogue.
“Despite all that’s happened and despite what’s still happening, there’s still possibility,” Byrne says. “James Baldwin said: ‘I still believe that we can do with this country something that has not been done before.’”
“I see it as the journey of a character who is me but not me, because it’s not necessarily biographical,” Byrne told Ultimate Classic Rock, when speaking about the upcoming concert film last year. “He starts off within himself wondering how to be in the world, what’s the right thing to do, how you relate to other people. It’s all kind of a mystery to the character. Then this person finds himself within this little community – in this case the band – and that allows him to come out of his interior a bit. Then by the end, this person and the band are engaged in the wider world, getting involved beyond their own bubble.”
David Byrne’s American Utopia brings the critically acclaimed Broadway show to HBO in a one-of-a-kind film directed by Oscar and Emmy-winner Spike Lee. Recorded during its run at Broadway’s Hudson Theatre in New York City, David Byrne is joined by an ensemble of 11 musicians, singers, and dancers from around the globe, inviting audiences into a joyous dreamworld where human connection, self-evolution, and social justice are paramount. The HBO Special Event in partnership with Participant, River Road Entertainment and Warner Music Entertainment is produced by David Byrne’s Todomundo and Lee’s Forty Acres and a Mule Filmworks production companies and executive produced by RadicalMedia.
Who knew how wildly appropriate Byrne’s bubble metaphor would be one year later! The Spike Lee directed concert film of David Byrne’s American Utopia, will arrive on HBO Oct 17th.
Liz Brasher a singer songwriter based in Memphis, Tennessee, Brasher’s upbringing is central to her music and specifically to her album “Painted Image“. Raised in a religious Dominican family, they were active Baptist church singers in Charlotte, North Carolina. Brasher herself studied theology at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago but was soon drawn to secular music. This pursuit created familial tension resulting in excommunication. However, her exposure to religion, biblical texts, and sacred music directly informed her music. Brasher’s disconnect from strict dogmas also showed her the value in creating music that defined her as an individual.
Liz Brasher came in and knocked out a new song ‘Sad Girl Status’ in less than a few hours. She was an absolute joy to work with and has one hell of a voice. We had some time left over, so I blocked off a stairwell in the building and had (studio manager) Blair Davis and (assistant engineer) Spenser Frazier help set up a PA speaker to use the space as a chamber. It sounded so, so great. There isn’t a single digital reverb on that song.”
It’s been 20 years since The Flaming Lips released The Soft Bulletin, the instant classic that helped them make the transition from weirdo cult faves who made albums you needed four CD players to listen to, to being the confetti-shooting, giant-hamsterball-riding, phantasmagoric festival favorites they are now. They’ve made a lot of different records since, some even more popular (Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots), some awesomely, terrifyingly psychedelic (Embryonic), some that feature Miley Cyrus or full covers of Pink Floyd albums. But none that have quite had the magic of The Soft Bulletin.
King’s Mouth has some of that magic. Released for Record Store Day, the album recieved proper wide release on July 19th and grew out of an interactive art installation of the same name the band made for their Oklahoma City art gallery, The Womb. It’s a concept album, a fantasy tale of a giant king who dies saving his people from an avalanche who then cut off his head to display as a tribute. Or something. It’s a very loose concept that still centers around very Soft Bulletin ideas like the unstoppable force of death, the infinite power of love and hope, and the vastness of the universe. The storyline is tied together by narration from Mick Jones of the Clash, whose easy going, slightly sad delivery brings just the right touch to this fantastical tale.
Musically, King’s Mouth is very Soft Bulletin / Yoshimi —you know, orchestral space rock psych flower power pop. There may not be anything on here as immediate or as amazing as “Race for the Prize,” “Superman Song,” “Buggin’” or “Feeling Yourself Disintegrate,” but this album is a real grower and has stayed in my thoughts. The only song digitally released so far, “All for the Life of the City,” which falls right in the middle of the story — “The King saves the day…but the King dies today” — is the album’s most immediate, but it’s the song it segues into, “Feedaloodum Beedle Dot,” that comes closest to The Soft Bulletin‘s big drum orch-rock sound. It’s more of a coda than it’s own complete song, though, and King’s Mouth is all kinda like that, where the whole is more than the sum of its parts.
That said, there are so many great moments on this album. Side One-ender “Electric Fire” has great call-and-response from Jones’s low-key narration and Wayne’s multi-tracked harmonies (“Associated Regions!”, “Aurora Borealis!”) before going into another dimension of psychedelia (it was one of the pieces originally created for the installation). There’s also “How Many Times,” which is a classic Lips tale of not giving up despite the odds, and album closer “How Can a Head” is genuinely moving in a way that only the Flaming Lips can be, asking “How can a head hold so many things? All our life. All our love. All our songs we sing.” As someone who was obsessed with The Soft Bulletin in the summer of 1999, I am glad to have some of that spirit back in a new Lips record.
If you’re in NYC I highly recommend you head to Brooklyn’s Rough Trade to visit the King’s Mouth installation which is up through the end of May. You crawl through the mouth into the head and stare up at the ceiling for a highly psychedelic experience that is kind of like the last 10 minutes of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The Doors returned to their roots and were reborn a rock and roll band on “Morrison Hotel”, the group’s fifth studio album. 1970 was more than the dawn of a new decade. It was also the end of an era.
The year began with the breakup of the Beatles, wrapped up with the deaths of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin and was also hallmarked by any number of other musical convolutions. The Rolling Stones did not release a new studio LP, The Who were still struggling to follow up “Tommy,” and rock ’n’ roll itself was on such shaky ground that, when the critics looked around and tried to prophesy what the “Next Big Thing” was going to be, most of them settled upon the crop of singer-songwriters who — let’s be honest here — would barely have gotten a look in a year or two before. And then The Doors released “Morrison Hotel,” and, for 40 marvelous minutes or so, it was worth waking up in the morning again.
For this new collection, the original album has been expanded with more than an hour of unreleased recordings taken from the sessions for Morrison Hotel. These 19 outtakes transport listeners into the studio with Jim Morrison, John Densmore, Robby Krieger, and Ray Manzarek for an unprecedented perspective on the making of the album. Botnick says: There are many takes, different arrangements, false starts, and insightful studio conversations between the band who were in the studio and producer Paul Rothchild who was in the control room. It’s like being a fly on the wall.
Several of these unheard recordings spotlight how Queen Of The Highway and Roadhouse Blues evolved across multiple sessions. It’s especially interesting to hear how the band played with different bass players on Roadhouse Blues. Early versions include Harvey Brooks, who played on the band’s previous album, “The Soft Parade”. Later takes feature guitar legend Lonnie Mack on bass along with The Lovin Spoonful’s John Sebastian on harmonica who, due to contractual restrictions at the time, had to be credited as G. Puglese.
Among the treasure trove of unreleased outtakes are also rough versions of Morrison Hotel tracks Peace Frog and Blue Sunday, as well as The Doors rarity I Will Never Be Untrue. The collection also captures some incredible session outtakes of the band jamming on cover versions of the Motown classic Money (That’s What I Want) and B.B. King’s Rock Me.
Completed in only a few weeks and released in February 1970, the hard-charging album took its name from the skid row hotel in downtown Los Angeles that’s featured in the iconic cover photo taken by Henry Diltz. Morrison Hotel: 50th Anniversary Deluxe edition includes the original album newly remastered by the Doors’ longtime engineer and mixer Bruce Botnick, plus a bonus disc of unreleased studio outtakes, and the original album on 180-gram virgin vinyl. the music will also be available from digital and streaming services the same day. for this new collection, the original album has been expanded with more than an hour of unreleased recordings taken from the sessions for Morrison Hotel. “There are many takes, different arrangements, false starts, and insightful studio conversations between the band – who were in the studio.
“Morrison Hotel” is not the sole glimpse into this new-found funkiness around these days. Earlier this year, a staggering six CDs of live material culled from The Doors’ four-show residency at the Felt Forum in New York provided us with the most complete examination yet of The Doors as a working band. The shows catch The Doors firing on every cylinder, a blazing rock ’n’ roll band at the height of its creative and improvisational powers.
Plus, says Manzarek, New York was the Doors’ favourite place to play. “The New York audience was always interesting. London was great, and Los Angeles was good. But New York was the best, and you can feel that in the live show.”
“Morrison Hotel” was still several weeks away from release at the time of the Felt Forum shows, but much of the album was already firmly nestled in the live set, including the song that remains the new record’s definitive track, the opening “Roadhouse Blues. “What a signature lick. That’s all you have to hear, and you know what that song’s meant to be. And that great last stanza by Morrison… ‘I got up this morning and got myself a beer.’ Is that rock ’n’ roll or what?”
On that evidence alone, Manzarek says, “‘Morrison Hotel’ was definitely back to roots, back to basics. Great songs. In fact, the only thing it lacked was, as we called them, an epic. There was no song over five minutes. We didn’t have a ‘Light My Fire,’ ‘When The Music’s Over’ or ‘The End.’ But so what?”.
“Indian Summer” was an outtake that dated back to “the very first day of recording for the first album. We found it in our bin of stuff. There was us, our producer Paul Rothchild and our engineer Bruce Botnik, and we wanted a simple little song so we could get the sound down. So we did ‘Indian Summer’ and then went into ‘Moonlight Mile.’
Revamped and with much of it rerecorded, “Indian Summer” emerged as one of the most unexpected treats on the new album. But pressed to name his favourite, Manzarek has little hesitation in pointing to another song whose genesis dated back a few years, “Waiting For The Sun.”
The song was originally intended as the title track to The Doors’ third album, back in 1968. “We loved the title so much that we called the album ‘Waiting For The Sun,’ the artwork was done, but the song wasn’t ready. It hadn’t come out of the oven yet. Never mind, nobody will know there’s the song called ‘Waiting For The Sun’ as well. So when it did finally come out on ‘Morrison Hotel,’ people went — wait a sec! But I’m glad we waited, because it came out a stunning piece of music.”
So is the rest of the set, an album that drives from the opening punch of “Roadhouse Blues” to the closing grind of “Maggie M’Gill,” and, in between times, launches such future Doors favourites as “The Spy,” “Ship Of Fools” and “Land Ho!”.
Dave Marsh at Creem called The Doors’ fifth album “the most horrifying rock and roll I have ever heard,” and that was a compliment. “When they’re good, they’re simply unbeatable.” It was the best record he’d heard all year. Rock Magazine and Circus unanimously agreed that it was The Doors’ best record yet, and while it was maybe a little early to be making such pronouncements (‘Morrison Hotel’ was released in February 1970), Circus described it as “one of the best albums
New York, On December 15th, 1988, Keith Richards and his incomparable band, The X-Pensive Winos, played the Hollywood Palladium. It was the penultimate show in a 12 city US tour and a night both band and audience will never forget. Now this legendary concert is available for the first time as a limited edition box set.
Across all formats – Box set, CD, 2-LP vinyl & digital – Keith Richards leads his absolutely smokin’ band through one classic after another including his landmark solo tracks ‘Take It So Hard’, ‘Make No Mistake’, to Stones classics ‘Happy’ and ‘Connection’. Exclusive to the Boxset and Digital formats are 3 previously unreleased tracks ‘Little T&A’, ‘You Don’t Move Me’ and the Lennon-McCartney penned hit ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’.
“The real stuff,” is how Keith Richards describes The X-Pensive Winos.
“I wish to thank all the guys in this crazy beautiful band. Something to love. I know I do.”
Keith had assembled the core of this band throughout 1987 and ’88 during the ‘Talk Is Cheap’ sessions. For this first ever live solo Keith Richards tour, the stellar line-up was a who’s who of the finest musicians on the planet: guitarist Waddy Wachtel (Everly Brothers, Fleetwood Mac, Linda Ronstandt, Stevie Nicks), drummer Steve Jordan (long time Keith collaborator), bassist Charley Drayton, keyboard player Ivan Neville (Rolling Stones collaborator), singer Sarah Dash, and on saxophone, the inimitable, late great, long time Rolling Stones sideman Bobby Keys.
Live At The Hollywood Palladium comes as a special deluxe box set, presented in a matching folio, wrapped in a black cotton replica of the tour shirt sold that night, complete with a satin VIP pass on top, also including an impeccable all-new essay ‘The Loosest Tight Band You’ve Ever Heard’ by renowned rock writer David Fricke. It comes as a reissue after the original album was released due to popularity of the bootlegs. Newly remastered and back in print, the legendary Keith Richards & The X-Pensive Winos live album. Recorded Live on the Talk is Cheap Tour at the Hollywood Palladium on December 15th, 1988 and originally released in 1991.
Estonian outfit Holy Motors have shared their second album “Horse”. Like other album cuts, “Trouble” packs twang and sparkle. Eliann Tulve’s dreary vocals cascade over warbling vibrato guitars, and it’s clear that this is a song of the night, but not one of playful roguery—this is for stargazing and cycling through one’s hopes and fears.
A Stunning ode to America, country music a wilder west, and a world HOLY MOTORS have been enraptured in all along.
Out today on all digital formats, Holy Motors’ Horse — the more hopeful follow-up to the band’s stunning 2018 debut, Slow Sundown — further reveals the unique influences that led to the formation of this enigmatic band of ex-Soviet cowboys.
From the album’s opening moments, songs like the rollicking ‘Country Church,’ with its classic rhythm and blues guitarline, and ‘Road Stars,’ a duet steeped in country twang, hint at the shared infatuation with the American West that band members developed waiting out their native Estonia’s long, grim winters with the warm company of western films. Meanwhile, the darkly abstract lyrics on like those found on ‘Trouble,’ and the slinking melodies that drive tracks like ‘Matador’ bridge the gap between Horse’s eight songs and the band’s prior work.
As a whole, while Horse is equals parts more complex and more human than any of Holy Motors‘ releases to date, showcasing a band that becomes harder to define even as we learn more about them.
“Trouble” is from the album ‘Horse’ out on 16th October.
Local Natives and Sharon Van Etten have teamed up on a sublime acoustic single, “Lemon,” which will be one of a quartet of songs on the Natives’ new EP, “Sour Lemon.”
The EP arrives next Friday, a year and a half after the L.A. quintet’s fourth album “Violet Street” (which also spawned a couple of remix EPs). Local Natives have never been ones to release EPs, but, they said on social media, “We’re always working on new music, but songs tend to come at their own pace. There’s something freeing about writing without the goal of an album in mind. It feels like waking up for class only to realize that it’s Saturday and you can sleep in as long as you want. The songs on ‘Sour Lemon’ each have their own long histories but they all finally decided to arrive at the same time. Rather than waiting, we decided to share them as soon as we could.”
“Lemon” follows last month’s single “Statues in the Garden (Arras),” the video for which had lots and lots and lots of lemons.
The contemplative video for “Lemon,” directed by Kenny Laubbacher, features Local Natives’ Taylor Rice and Van Etten strolling on opposite sides of the Los Angeles River (deprecated in the lyric “The L.A. River makes you laugh / You say, why’s a gutter got a name like that?”). Well, it is pretty at that time of night.
The track feels like an expansion of the sound formed on last year’s Violet Street with an expansive guitar solo playing it out. “Arras” is a reference to the town in France where the song was first demoed.
Hello. I’m Jeff Rosenstock. In 2007 I started a free/donation-based digital label called Quote Unquote Records. I also used to be in the band Bomb the Music Industry! and then that band stopped. Now I just do this stuff. Hope you like .Yoooooo I have been recording stuff at home and I’m going to continue to post it here. Hope ya like it.
TRACKS 1-4: were recorded mostly in July 2020, with a little bit of August as part of a “let’s make some demos this month” pact I had with Chris Farren which I delivered on a little late. Jeremy Hunter played on “Collapse” and “Acab”Laura Stevenson sang on “Dept Of Finance, Collapse!” and “Done Done Done”.
We all recorded ourselves. Thanks Jeremy! Thanks Laura!,
TRACK 5 “Fox in the Snow” is originally by Belle and Sebastian, off the record “If You’re Feeling Sinister” which if you haven’t heard it, boy check it out every song is perfect. I recorded this April 25th and mixed it on April 26th. Stefan Babcock sings backing vocals on it and recorded himself I think? Or maybe Nestor recorded him. I hope one of them tells me the answer some day. This was originally available on a compilation that Augusta Koch put together called “Don”t Stop Now III” which was a collection of cover songs benefiting the COVID-19 Undocumented Worker Fund. Thank you Augusta for doing that comp and asking me to be on it, Stefan for singing on this and for, along with Chris Farren, listening to my mixes.
TRACK 6 This song was recorded in October 2020. A lot of guidance in recording and mixing these was given by Jack Shirley. Thank you, Jack. Thank you Chris Farren, Joel Hatstat, Rick Johnson,Christine Mackie, Mike Park and Bob Vielma for listening to these songs and giving me advice and notes. If everyone hates them it’s your fault.
Songs, mixing, mastering and art by Jeff. Please do not feel obliged to spend money on this music. I do not intend for it to be monetized. Any money that comes in through Bandcamp for these songs will be donated to charitable causes, but less money will get taken out if you just do that directly on your own – which I encourage you to do if you can afford it. And if not, it’s cool.
The live album “Return to Greendale” will be released in several formats: Double vinyl, a 2 CD set, and a limited-edition deluxe box set that includes a Blu-ray of the full concert, a DVD of “Inside Greendale” (the making of the album documentary), 2 LPs and 2 CDs. The film of the ambitious live show captures the vibrancy of Neil Young and Crazy Horse on stage in a unique multi-media experience. It seamlessly blends together the live performance, the actors portraying each song, with the story occasionally enhanced by scenes from the “Greendale” – The Movie. Both the live concert film and the Inside Greendale documentary are directed by Bernard Shakey and produced by L. A. Johnson.
Return To Greendale Track Listing for audio and Blu-ray:
1. Falling from Above 2. Double E 3. Devil’s Sidewalk 4. Leave the Driving 5. Carmichael 6. Bandit 7. Grandpa’s Interview 8. Bringin’ Down Dinner 9. Sun Green 10. Be The Rain
On the 2003 tour, Neil Young and Crazy Horse were joined on stage by a large cast of singers and actors to perform the story Neil Young wrote about the small town of “Greendale” and how a dramatic event affects the people living there. The ten songs from the powerful original album are performed in sequence, with the cast speaking the sung words – adding to the intensity of the performance. The film of the ambitious live show captures the vibrancy of Neil Young and Crazy Horse on stage in a unique multi-media experience.
No Bad Words For The Coast Today: The Execution Of All Things Covers Comp is a compilation featuring 14 artists, celebrating the band Rilo Kiley and their seminal 2002 album release. From now until November 6th, 100% of proceeds from Bandcamp (pre-order/digital downloads) will be donated to G.L.I.T.S., a New York City-based non-profit organization dedicated to supporting transgender people, offering asylum and urgent care for community members. After that date, 50% of the proceeds will go to the artists and the other 50% will go to G.L.I.T.S.
Mannequin Pussy shared a new cover of Rilo Kiley’s “The Execution Of All Things,” with the band giving a darker rock spin on the classic title track. It’s the latest glimpse from the forthcoming Rilo Kiley covers compilation, No Bad Words For The Coast Today: The Execution Of All Things Covers Comp. Previously, Sad13 had shared a cover of “Paint’s Peeling” for the compilation’s first single. Other artists who appear on the compilation include Diet Cig, Adult Mom, Lisa Prank and many more.
Mannequin Pussy’s Marisa Dabice said of their cover: Rilo Kiley is the band where I can confidently say that they are simultaneously one of my favourites but they also give me musical amnesia. By that, I mean I can obsessively listen to their discography for months because then I remember how much I love them, it’s like discovering them again for the first time, that sense of wonder for the songs never goes away – no matter how many times I’ve gone through their albums. I’m awestruck by Jenny’s gift for prose and poetry and her expressive voice, Blake’s tremendous capacity to create “noodly” riffs that never sound cheesy but that always perfectly complement and elevate every song. Listening to this band you can sense the collaboration. Collaboration between talented people can create magic and that’s what they are to me – musical magic.
“No Bad Words For The Coast Today: The Execution Of All Things Covers Comp”
The Fat Angel Sings 