Manchester duo Meena share It’s Okay To Be Tired.Meena show their moody rock sound within, integrating aspects of post-punk, shoegaze, and garage-rock.It’s Okay To Be Tired comes via the newly released album “Can’t See“. One-half the duo, Will, writes the following: “My vision for the record was a poppy hooky reverb-drenched layered record with big drums and deep bass, with a rich texture (every single bass note is played on the low E). I think the record is quite lyrically abstract but in general is about life, sadness and just trying to get through life.”
self recorded inside over the period of 7 months, a musical evolution from our first EP and an overall abstract record about the confusion of life.
Déjà Vu was the most-anticipated new album in America in 1970. More than 50 years later, it’s one of the most famous albums in rock history.
Crosby, Stills, and Nash’s 1969 eponymous debut was one of the most auspicious and omnipresent records of 1969, a remarkable and harmony-rich affair featuring such era-defining material as “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” “Marrakesh Express,” “Guinnevere,” “Wooden Ships,” “Long Time Gone,” and “Helplessly Hoping.”CSN blended folk, country, jazz, rock, and a dash of pop into an often-imitated but never-duplicated sound. In the U.S. alone, the album reached No. 6 on the Billboard Top LPs chart and the top 20 of the year’s best-selling records. Both “Marrakesh Express” and “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” became FM radio perennials. But rather than follow the LP up in an expected manner, the trio of David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Graham Nash made their supergroup even more super, and more unpredictable, with the addition of Neil Young. Roughly ten months after the release of CSN came Déjà Vu: the debut of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. Now, on May 14th, Rhino and Atlantic Records are delivering fans a long-awaited expanded edition of this seminal rock classic as a 4CD/1LP set featuring 28 previously unreleased tracks.
The March 1970 release built on the success of its predecessor, reaching the zenith of the Top LPs chart and yielding three top 40 singles. But the creative process was arduous and the atmosphere much changed since the first album was recorded. Stills even compared the sessions to “pulling teeth.” Nash had split with Joni Mitchell, the inspiration for “Our House.” Stills and Judy Collins had also broken up, and David Crosby’s girlfriend Christine Hinton was tragically killed in a car accident. New recruit (and Stills’ old Buffalo Springfield sparring partner) Young brought his own baggage. But from all this strife, some of the foursome’s most beautiful and deeply-felt music emerged.
The bandmates, as ever dealing with interpersonal tensions, initially recorded most of the material solo, with the others adding their contributions later. One of the significant exceptions to that rule was their searing rendition of Mitchell’s “Woodstock,” recorded at a full-band session. Drummer Dallas Taylor and bassist Greg Reeves appeared on most of the album (and received billing on its front cover) while Jerry Garcia lent his talents to Nash’s “Teach Your Children.”John Sebastian appeared on the title track. Ultimately, Déjà Vu boasted two songs each from Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, plus one Stills/Young co-write and “Woodstock.”
“Woodstock” was the biggest hit . “Teach Your Children” wasn’t far behind, at No. 16, and “Our House” peaked at No. 30. Déjà Vu was the 11th best-selling LP of 1970 and attained a Gold certification just two weeks after its release. It remained in the Billboard chart for 88 weeks, and paved the way for the success of the four solo albums released by CSNY in its wake (Young’s After the Gold Rush, the self-titled Stephen Stills,Crosby’s If I Could Only Remember My Name, and Nash’s Songs for Beginners). With this Deluxe Edition, the road to Déjà Vucan be explored via demos, outtakes, and alternates.
The remastered original album is featured in the new box on both CD and 180-gram LP. The second CD boasts eighteen demos, eleven of which are previously unissued. It’s bookended by two demos of “Our House,” one from Nash solo and one from Nash and Joni Mitchell. In between, listeners will discover songs that didn’t make the album as well as embryonic versions of those that did.
Many of these songs would be completed for solo or other projects including Crosby’s If I Could Only Remember My Name; Young’s After the Gold Rush; Stills’ Manassas and Stephen Stills 2; and Nash’s Songs for Beginners. The third CD has eleven outtakes (nine previously unissued) including Crosby’s “Laughing;” Stills’ “Everyday We Live,” “Ivory Tower,” “I’ll Be There,” and “Bluebird Revisited;” and more.
Finally, CD Four offers an alternate version of the original album in sequence sans “Country Girl” and “Everybody I Love You” and plus “Know You Got to Run.” Only the “Helpless (Harmonica Version)” has been released before. It all adds up to a deep dive into this period of prolific writing from all four members of the group.
Fresh off his work on the first volume of Joni Mitchell’s first volume of “Archives”, filmmaker-author Cameron Crowe has penned the new liner notes for the Déjà Vu: Deluxe Edition. In addition to the 4CD/1LP set, the box will be released in super-deluxe 5LP format exclusively from the new CSNY50.com and Rhino.com. Additionally, the audio will be released to download and streaming services as well as to high-resolution via Neil Young Archives.
Customers who purchase any version from CSNY50.com or Rhino.com will receive a high-resolution download. Young and Nash’s demo of “Birds” is streaming now and can be viewed at YouTube.
Déjà Vu: Deluxe Editionarrives from Atlantic and Rhino on May 14th.
The kind of music Massage makes sunny, bittersweet, tender is less a proper genre than a minor zip code nested within guitar pop. Take a little “There She Goes” by the La’s, some “If You Need Someone” by the Field Mice; the honey-drizzled guitars from The Cure’s “Friday I’m In Love”, a Jesus & Mary Chain backbeat, and you’re almost all the way there. Indie pop, jangle pop, power pop—whatever you call it, pushing too hard scares the spirit right out of this sweet, diffident music, and Massage have a touch so light the songs seem to form spontaneously, like wry smiles.
Still Life was more deliberate. Romano, Naidus, and Ferrer split their song writing duties, sending each other demos by email, an arrangement that grew permanent when quarantine hit. The songs brought out competition, even if Romano teases Naidus for denying it. “I own it. I love it,” he says. “When Alex sent me ‘Made of Moods,’ I was blown away. I thought it was the best thing he’d ever written. I got jealous, so I immediately wrote ‘In Gray & Blue.’”
The band recorded Still Life with Lewis Pesacov (Fool’s Gold, Foreign Born, Peel’d), testing and teasing out new sounds at his intimate backyard studio in Echo Park. Calling it “warm and tender guitar pop,” some of “the shoegazey sparkle and endearing moody charm of institutional indie pop spirits like Jesus and Mary Chain, Echo & the Bunnymen and early R.E.M.” We hope you like what you hear, too.
Alex Naidus: Vocals, guitar Andrew Romano: Vocals, guitar Gabrielle Ferrer: Vocals, keyboards David Rager: Bass Natalie de Almeida: Drums
This is a co-release between Mt. St. Mtn., Tear Jerk and Bobo Integral Records.
Jim Carroll expressed the Bomb-fear anticipation, the optimistic nihilism and glittering darkness of the 1980s that we who were there felt even if we couldn’t communicate it ourselves. When John Lennon was assassinated in front of the Dakota in December 1980, “People Who Died” was one of the most-requested songs on FM radio, just after Lennon’s own “Imagine.” Steven Spielberg chose “People Who Died” to play during the opening scene of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. “People Who Died” tapped a mainline. It was a hit even before it was released, and, as Newsweek’s Barbara Graustark noted, it “propelled [Carroll] from underground status… to national attention as a contender for the title of rock’s new poet laureate.”
“People Who Died” wasn’t the only thing that sustained Carroll’s reputation. The first full-length article about him appeared in 1969, when Jim was 19, and he was featured in Rolling Stone as early as 1973–the same year, it was rumoured, that he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize at age 22. The 1980 release of “Catholic Boy”, along with the re-publication of his cult- classic book The Basketball Diaries, shot Jim and his band into the international spotlight. “Catholic Boy”, named the second-most-popular album of 1980 by BAM, is now considered one of the last great punk albums. Jim appeared with his band on the variety program Fridays, he was interviewed by Tom Snyder, and he was featured on the MTV series The Roots of Rock, hosted by Lou Reed. Cover stories appeared in Newsweek, New York, Creem, Interview, Melody Maker, Stereo Review, Rolling Stone, Variety, and Penthouse. Playboy even printed a cartoon in which the punchline was, “Ever since the advent of Jim Carroll, ‘I’m a Catholic junkie poet’ seems hipper than ‘What’s your sign.’”
The Jim Carroll Band’s success can be attributed to the powerful combination of pure rock ‘n’ roll with Carroll’s poetic sensibility and ability to write from his own experience, forging a style that articulates the relevance of the individual to the particular, the past to the present. Carroll once said, “There ain’t much time left, you’re born out of this insane abyss and you’re going to fall back into it, so while you’re alive you might as well show your bare ass,” and that’s exactly what he does. Musician, Player and Listener described Carroll as “a transformer, chanting and moaning his litany into something infinitely more palpable than symbols made of sounds.”
When reporters began lining up in droves, wondering, “What’s a Pulitzer Prize nominee doing fronting a rock band?” Carroll was already well-known in underground circles for having lived a life of mythic proportions. One writer observed, “Carroll has his own voice and sound and he earned it the hard way
Lots of news as of late, here’s some more. I’ll be going on a small but mighty tour in June around the UK, so if you’d like to see me you can pre-order my new album ‘Feeding Seahorses By Hand’
With her eagerly-awaited third album ‘Flora Fauna’ being released on 21st May via Fiction Records, singer songwriter Billie Marten is giving us our newest glimpse at what to expect, revealing glistening new track ‘Creature of Mine’.
Speaking about the track, Billie says, “It’s an end of the world, post-apocalyptic scenario – you get to choose one thing, one person to leave it with. It’s a love song to a stranger and a polite request to momentarily leave Earth when it’s all too much.”
Accompanied by a new vid created with Joe Wheatley, Billie adds, “Joe and I wanted this video to represent that needless search for something other than what you have. Something intangible and elusive, something also quite beautiful and abstract to pair with the song – an inconclusively painted picture.”
“CreatureofMine” is the second track from BillieMarten’sBillie describes the song on BBC Radio 1 as a “post apocalyptic” situation where the “earth is dying” and you get to pick one person to leave Earth with.
Conor O’Brien presents Villagers’ fifth studio album “Fever Dreams”. Escapism is a very necessary pursuit right now, and Fever Dreams follows it to mesmerising effect. It works like all the best records – it becomes a mode of transport; it picks you up from where you are and sets you down elsewhere. Written over the course of two years, the main bodies of the songs were recorded in a series of full-band studio sessions in late 2019 and early 2020. Over the course of the long, slow pandemic days, O’Brien refined them in his tiny home studio in Dublin, and the album was then mixed by David Wrench (Frank Ocean, The xx, FKA Twigs). O’Brien says on the gestation of Fever Dreams: “I had an urge to write something that was as generous to the listener as it was to myself. Sometimes the most delirious states can produce the most ecstatic, euphoric and escapist dreams.”
Conor O’Brien has announced that his fifth studio album Fever Dreamswill be released on Domino Recordings on August 20th this year. The first single is inspired by a trip to the brilliant Another Love Story festival in County Meath.
“I had an urge to write something that was as generous to the listener as it was to myself. Sometimes the most delirious states can produce the most ecstatic, euphoric and escapist dreams.” Director Daniel Brereton says of the video “The whole process was pretty collaborative with Conor. I think we both imagined a floatiness to the video, and obviously the title conjures up a lot of imagery and ideas, ‘The first day of the rest of your life’. What does that look like? How does that feel? We were very lucky to shoot on film and have great casting and styling. Shooting during a pandemic is not easy, so I feel fortunate that we got to make it happen.”
Villagers – “The First Day”, from forthcoming album ‘Fever Dreams’ out 20th August 2021 on Domino Record Co.
The Brooklyn-based quartet discuss creating their own musical language, whether their songs are fit for hallucinogenic experimentation, and the importance of staying independent,
Crumb, four twentysomethings who sit inconspicuously in the centre of the room. Bassist Jesse Brotter picked the spot he says that his grandfather once came here and ate a full plate of herring after a funeral. Luckily, the mood today is not so morose. As the band peruses the menu, they display a quiet but goofy camaraderie, giggling nervously; they haven’t done many interviews.
The quartet’s ambitions for Crumb were always humble, and on the surface, at least, their music is equally subtle—the type of soulful psychedelia that’s ideal for introspection. Yet without any explicit push—no label, no management, no booking agent—Crumb’s streaming numbers surged with an intensity that countless unsigned bands crave following their 2017 EP, “Locket”. Currently, their most popular song boasts 11 million streams on Spotify, an almost unimaginable number for a new independent rock band. “I try not to look up the numbers because they sometimes freak me out,” singer, guitarist, and lead songwriter Lila Ramani shyly admits.
Because of their streaming success and unobtrusive sound, it could be easy to peg Crumb as just another band churning out “chill” playlist music that is made to lure listeners into easy-going apathy. But while Crumb’s work presents a heady front, little about it encourages actual emotional disconnection; subtle curls of detail—the distant bleat of a saxophone, a quivering synth note, a bowed guitar warble—emerge and ensnare the ear before fading back into the fray, never distracting from the overall mood. “A big part is making things shift in ways that are intentional but that you would never think about as a listener,” says keyboardist Brian Aronow. “I don’t want to do something that makes you think about a choice we made, but hopefully it made you feel something under the surface.”
Ramani’s opaque lyrics, meanwhile, are more haunting and anxious than calming. In a cool murmur, she sings of cracking up or fading away, demons invading her dreams, of dark spirits appearing at shows. “I feel trapped, my mind, the impending doom,” she frets on the group’s debut, self-titled EP from 2016. Forking a pierogi in the restaurant, Ramani attests, “I wouldn’t want to chill to our music.”
Crumb’s elaborate visuals have also undoubtedly helped to extend the band’s reach. Working alongside a Brooklyn-based director who goes by Haoyan of America, their trippy videos translate Crumb’s low-key psychedelia into hallucinogenic odysseys. In their first video, “Bones,” Ramani soaked in a tank of feeder fish for hours. For 2018’s “Locket,” a 360-degree camera warps the band like a funhouse mirror. Crumb are quick to add that though the videos appear incredibly professional, the process behind them is decidedly DIY, with the band often serving as both cast and crew.
The comments on these videos teem with listeners thanking Crumb for making music that gloriously complements certain types of hallucinogenic experiences. The band chuckle when I bring this up. “I wanna call a bluff on that,” drummer Jonathan Gilad says with a laugh. “There’s no way people are just dropping acid all year, all the time—if you are, we wanna see the video proof.” But they can understand why their songs would have such an effect. As Aronow explains, “A big part of the music is about being detached and taking you to a specific place in your own mind.” More than anything, though, Ramani proposes that Crumb’s music is defined by its insular universe. “One of my friends recently told me that she would categorize our music as ‘music you listen to when you’re by yourself,’ which I felt was very accurate.”
With the full band now living in Brooklyn, Crumb holed up with producer Gabe Wax (Fleet Foxes, Soccer Mommy) for a month last summer to record their first LP, “Jinx”. The title feels fated: On the first day of the sessions, Brotter tripped and broke his kneecap. Though Crumb spent an extensive amount of time fine-tuning Jinx’s understated complexities, the record never sounds taxing. As Brotter tells me, “It’s is a culmination of these songs pinging around our little universe for so long.”
In mid-march last year, we halted production of the album. We’d been recording it for weeks and had nine days left to finish. For the next few months, we hunkered down and waited in our spaces far from home – Jesse and Bri in an extended airbnb, Jonathan with his parents, and me in a room I was subletting. That period of uncertainty and deep reflection fed the energy that we put into finishing the record. “Ice Melt” was a rare and precious escape from the idleness and chaos of the year; at times it felt like the songs were the only things grounding us to this earth, a living breathing vestige of our pre-pandemic lives.
Thank you sm to everyone who stuck it out with us and helped us create this thing.- Lila
Perhaps realizing that The Juliet Letters was one step too far, especially after the willfully eclectic pair of “Spike” and “Mighty Like a Rose”, Elvis Costello set out to make a straight-ahead rock & roll record with “Brutal Youth”, reuniting with the Attractions (though Bruce Thomas appears on only five tracks) and Nick Lowe (who plays bass on most of the rest). Unfortunately, all this nostalgia and good intentions are cancelled by the retention of producer Mitchell Froom, whose junkyard, hazily cerebral productions stand in direct contrast to the Attractions’ best work. Likely, Froom’s self-conscious production appealed to Costello, since it makes “Brutal Youth” look less like a retreat, but it severely undercuts the effectiveness of the music, since it lacks guts, no matter how smugly secure it is in its tempered “experimentation.” Costello certainly had the raw elements for a dynamic little record here the band, when they can be heard, sound good, and many songs (highlighted by “Pony St.,” “Kinder Murder,” “13 Steps Lead Down,”“You Tripped at Every Step,” and “20% Amnesia”) are fresh, effective evocations of his classic work — but it needed to be punchier to succeed. He needed to be produced by Lowe, instead of just having him sit in on bass. Elvis Costello’s wonderful “Brutal Youth” album from 1994, which featured the full Attractions line up on a number of songs, limited edition 2LP . The album was produced by Mitchell Froom and was well received, reaching number two in the UK album charts, thanks in part to excellent word-of-mouth and a top thirty hit in “Sulky Girl”.
Although a relatively long album at 15 songs, it’s a real cracker with some wonderful material, including moving ballads like ‘All The Rage’, ‘Favourite Hour’ and ‘Still Too Soon To Know’ and fiercer, spiky numbers like ‘Just About Glad’, ‘20% Amnesia’ and ‘My Science Fiction Twin’.
Anyway, Brutal Youth is issued as this double coloured vinyl pressing via Music On Vinyl on 31st July 2020. It’s limited to just 1000 units with only 300 earmarked for the UK.
The record mostly features Costello with The AttractionsSteve Nieve, Pete Thomas and Nick Lowe (on bass), but original Attractions member Bruce Thomas does play the bass on five tracks.
The Thompsons were without a record contract in 1980, when Gerry Rafferty offered to finance an album for them with his “Baker Street” producer Hugh Murphy. The sessions yielded 10 tracks – and Richard later rejected them all. Eighteen months later, though, he and Linda re-recorded six of the 10 songs with producer Joe Boyd as “Shoot Out The Lights”. Rafferty’s Folly, then, offers an alternative version of what became the couple’s final album.
It’s more polished, with more instrumentation – keyboards, Moogs, accordion, simulated strings – compared to the stark Shoot Out The Lights. Other surprises include “Wall Of Death” and “Don’t Renege On Our Love” with Linda on vocals, as well as a beautiful version of Sandy Denny’s “I’m A Dreamer” (later included on Linda’s 1986 comp, Dreams Fly Away).
Both Thompsons have since relaxed their attitude to the Rafferty sessions – Linda has admitted she prefers some of her vocals here. But it wasn’t bundled in with last year’s deluxe edition of Shoot Out…, and for now, it exists only in boot form, including this and Before Joe Could Pull The Trigger, which throws in demos from ’80-’82.
Tracklist:
Don’t Renege On Our Love, Back Street Slide , Walking On A Wire , The Wrong Heartbeat , Shoot Out The Lights , For Shame Of Doing Wrong, I’m A Dreamer Written By – Sandy Denny , Modern Woman , Just The Motion , Wall Of Death , Lucky In Life , How Many Times Do You Have To Fall? , Pour Will & The Jolly Hangman , Wall Of Death , Sword Dance / Young Black Cow , I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight .
Bass – Dave Pegg
Drums – Dave Mattacks
Fiddle – Dave Swarbrick
Guitar – Simon Nicol
Guitar, Vocals – Richard Thompson
Producer – Gerry Rafferty
Vocals – Linda Thompson
Sound quality: Excellent See also: One Brave Henry, live folk club gigs from 1973
Recorded September/October 1980, Chipping Norton Studios
“I didn’t care for the sound he got on tape or the performance much either,” said Tom Verlaine, dismissing Brian Eno’s attempt to record the quintessential New York loft act’s first LP. Five tracks were recorded at Good Vibrations studio before Verlaine pulled the plug on a putative Island album and his schoolmate, bassist and musical co-conspirator Richard Hell. “Double Exposure” shows why; Verlaine, second guitarist Richard Lloyd and drummer Billy Ficca are moving towards the chiselled arches of 1977’s Marquee Moon, while Hell plunks agriculturally behind them. Told before the session that none of his songs (“Blank Generation” included) would be recorded, Hell knew the end was nigh when Verlaine told him to stop jumping around on stage. (“He didn’t want people to be distracted,” Hell later recalled.)
In late 1973 the trio formed, calling themselves Television and soon recruiting Richard Lloyd as a second guitarist. They persuaded CBGB’s owner Hilly Kristal to give the band a regular gig at his club which had just opened on the Bowery in New York. Television was the first rock group to perform at the club, which was to become, along with Max’sKansas City, the center of the burgeoning punk scene. The members of Television reportedly constructed the first stage at CBGB’s, where they quickly established a significant cult following.
“Double Exposure’s” never-to-be-released title track and a live version of the 13th Floor Elevators’ “Fire Engine” show the jazzbo-garage vision that Television abandoned along with Hell; early versions of “Venus” and “Prove It” signpost their future as Quicksilver Messenger Service but with better hair.
This is two demo recording sessions from Television years 1974 & 1975. The bands highly acclaimed debut album ‘Marquee Moon’ was released in 1977 (Elektra Records) and was very successful in Europe however failed to enter the Billboard 200 in the USA. Both sessions were included on the bootleg ‘Double Exposure’ which surfaced in Italy (No Label No. DE-92-SC), and was first released in 1992. The original bootleg included three live tracks from CBGB’s in 1975, that are missing from this version.
The Television 1974 demos were recorded at Good Vibrations Studios in NYC with Richard Hell on bass, and produced by Brian Eno and Richard Williams of Island Records.
The August 1975 demos were recorded with Fred Smith on bass and were part of the session for Terry Ork of Ork Records which produced Television’s first single “Little Johnny Jewel” (Ork, 1975, included on expanded re-issue of Marquee Moon).
It is fascinating listening to the early versions of these songs that eventually appeared on ‘Marquee Moon’. Each session and versions are distinctly different the second having a ‘harder edge’ to them and closer to the final released editions.
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The Fat Angel Sings 