The 50th anniversary of legendary music festival Woodstock is to be celebrated with what one can only describe as a quite exhaustive set of releases later this year. This summer marks the 50th anniversary of Woodstock, the defining event of a generation and one of the most iconic moments in popular music history. No one has ever attempted to document the historic festival as it unfolded in real time.
Between August 15th-18th, 1969, more than 400,000 people converged on Max Yasgur’s 600-acre dairy farm in upstate New York for Woodstock. 32 acts performed over the weekend including Joan Baez, The Band, Crosby, Stills,Nash & Young, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Santana, Sly and the Family Stone, and The Who.
Woodstock 50: Back To The Garden: The Anniversary Collection is available as a 3CD, 5LP, 10CD and a limited 38CD and blu-ray set! The 38CD experience has 432 songs, 267 of them previously unreleased, and features virtually every note played on the stage that weekend. As well as what they’re calling ‘sonic memorabilia’ such as stage announcements about brown acid, it being a ‘free concert from now on’ and – we’re presuming – any issues arising in the car park or people trying to locate their lost kids or minds (man).
The 10CD version features 162 tracks across and (along with the really big box) is the first Woodstock collection to feature live recordings of every performer at the festival. The vinyl version is a 42-track 5LP set with a 3CD edition mirroring this track listing.
The big 38CD edition is available from Rhino’s US site and also via the European store as well). It’s $800 in the USA and a bit over £600 over here. It looks like it’s direct-to-consumer (D2C) only.
Orders placed with Rhino for the big box will include exclusive Dale Saltzman 18×15 lithographs based on banners from the original festival. Think that’s probably enough? Oh no! Vinyl Me Please will have a special 10 LP package (due in early August) limited to 1,000 units pressed on tie-dyed-style coloured vinyl! This set contains Woodstock Vols. 1, 2, 3 and 4, which haven’t been in print on vinyl since 2009.
The three-CD, ten-CD and 5LP vinyl editions of Woodstock: Back to the Garden – 50th Anniversary Experience are released 28 June 2019. The massive box will ship on 2 August.
The three-CD, ten-CD and 5LP vinyl editions of Woodstock: Back to the Garden – 50th Anniversary Experience are released 28th June 2019. The massive box will ship on 2nd August.
I’m happy to share “Frontier,” a new single made in collaboration with my ensemble, Darío Alva animated a beautiful sequence to admire while listening to “Frontier”.
Holly’s third full-length album “PROTO” isn’t about A.I., but much of it was created in collaboration with her own A.I. ‘baby’, Spawn.
For the album, she assembled a contemporary ensemble of vocalists, developers, guest contributors (Jenna Sutela, Jlin, Lily Anna Haynes, Martine Syms), and an inhuman intelligence housed in a DIY souped-up gaming PC to create a record that encompasses live vocal processing and timeless folk singing, and places an emphasis on alien song craft and new forms of communion.
PROTO makes reference to what Holly refers to as the protocol era, where rapidly surfacing ideological battles over the future of A.I. protocols, centralised and decentralised internet protocols, and personal and political protocols compel us to ask ourselves who are we, what are we, what do we stand for, and what are we heading towards?
You can hear traces of Spawn throughout the album, developed in partnership with long time collaborator Mathew Dryhurst and ensemble developer Jules LaPlace, and even eavesdrop on the live training ceremonies conducted in Berlin, in which hundreds of people were gathered to teach Spawn how to identify and reinterpret unfamiliar sounds in group call-and-response singing sessions; a contemporary update on the religious gathering Holly was raised amongst in her upbringing in East Tennessee.
“There’s a pervasive narrative of technology as dehumanizing,” says Holly. “We stand in contrast to that. It’s not like we want to run away; we’re very much running towards it, but on our terms. Choosing to work with an ensemble of humans is part of our protocol. I don’t want to live in a world in which humans are automated off stage. I want an A.I. to be raised to appreciate and interact with that beauty.” Just as Platform forewarned of the manipulative personal and political impacts of prying social media platforms long before popular acceptance, PROTO is a euphoric and principled statement setting the shape of things to come.
Brand new music from Holly Herndon. New album ‘PROTO’ out on May 10th. 4AD Records.
The early ‘90s were very good to Juliana Hatfield. In the first half of that decade, she contributed to the best album by her former band Blake Babies, released two fantastic solo albums and one with a new project, The Juliana Hatfield Three, and played bass on The Lemonheads’ greatest achievement “It’s A Shame About Ray”. It’s a period of Hatfield’s career ripe for rediscovery, even as she continues to release fine new music currently.
Juliana Hatfield’s debut album Hey Babe. Filled with effortless melodies and catchy guitar riffs. Hatfield’s intelligent, hook-laden songs shine here in here exceptional debut.
A great first step is to listen to this new vinyl edition of her 1992 solo debut, Hey Babe. The album belies its heartbroken, self-reflective songs through Hatfield’s chirpy delivery of her lyrics and the urgent grind of its guitar rock (with help from members of Bullet Lavolta and fIREHOSE). All of that is rendered with sharp definition on this new pressing of the LP. This music needs clarity like this to let every shard of Hatfield’s broken heart stick in the listener’s skin while the music surges and blooms around the room.
It’s release from 1992 was the inaugural year of the “women in rock” era: a stretch of several years when artists from Courtney Love and PJ Harvey to Meredith Brooks unwittingly formed a cohort of so-called girls with guitars and the phrase “girl power” seeped into the popular lexicon from the underground precincts of the riot grrrl scene.
Juliana Hatfield was at the heart of this zeitgeist. In 1992, Hatfield had just broken up her college band Blake Babies and released her solo debut Hey Babe on Mammoth Records. Hey Babe was among the most successful independent releases of the year; 25 years on, it remains a largely forgotten minor masterpiece. Hey Babe offers a landscape of emotion – self-disgust, second-guessing, depression, cautious optimism – that has no place in a reception model so narrowly hinged on “empowerment”. The album dwells on muddled feelings, elevating confusion and insecurity over anger. Its 11 songs build entire worlds out of the state of feeling small, delivered in a voice that skids from girlish wail to shattered mumble. The album’s centrepiece is the song Ugly, an acoustic instruction manual on living with low self-esteem. “I’m pretty lost but I don’t want to be found/ My tiny screams don’t make a sound,” sings Hatfield.
Hatfield herself stopped playing its songs shortly after it was released. “Immediately after recording the album, I was really embarrassed by it,” she explained , “but now I’m really proud of myself.” Hey Babe will strike a chord with a new generation of listeners who are shy, ambivalent, inward and emotionally complex.
Sean Glonek at SRG Studios newly master from the original 1/4″ analog tapes. The artwork has been recreated from the original LP art but with a little twist thanks to the skill and creativity of award-winning designer, Aaron Tanner of Melodic Virtue. This exclusive limited-edition pressing, in a single-pocket gatefold jacket, was pressed by hand at Burlington Record Plant in Burlington, VT.
“Hey Babe” was produced by Gary Smith (Pixies, Throwing Muses, Blake Babies), and was originally released on Mammoth Records back in 1992. The album featured a bevy of guest players, including Mike Watt, Evan Dando, John Wesley Harding, Clay Tarver, Chick Graning, and Todd Philips.
This special 25th Anniversary Reissue is produced and distributed by American Laundromat Records, Inc. under license from Mammoth Records. .
Check out :
Undiscovered Planet – A Short Film by David Doobinin (with Juliana Hatfield) Shot, Directed and Edited by David Doobinin Starring Juliana Hatfield with Ayla Huguenot, Maia Devoy, Ananda Liveright
Songs “Touch You Again” (Juliana Hatfield) “Everything’s For Sale” (Juliana Hatfield) “Wipe It Up” (Juliana Hatfield/John Strohm) “Instrumental” (Juliana Hatfield) “Lost Ship” (Juliana Hatfield) “I Don’t Know What To Do With My Hands” (Juliana Hatfield/Matthew Caws)
“David (Doobinin) shot and directed the two videos from my Olivia Newton-John album and he has photographed me, too, and I’ve really liked working with him. There is a casualness to his style that puts me at ease–he doesn’t push too hard. And I like the results. He manages to capture something real about who I am and how I see myself, and not many photographers/vidoegraphers are able to do that. I was talking to David about maybe working with me on a larger project like perhaps documenting the making of my next album. As of now we’ve had trouble scheduling that but we did have time to sort of get our feet wet and shoot some everyday documentary footage in and around my home, which we thought made an interesting little short film.” – Juliana Hatfield “What always struck me about Juliana the previous times we worked together is her physicality. The way she moves through each moment. It’s an unselfconscious dance that teeters between a stumbling Chevy Chase and a Runway Model. She has this fearlessness in her music and the way she lives her life. I wanted to try and capture some of that.” – David Doobinin
Black Mountain’s Stephen McBean turned 16 after Woodstock but before Varg started burning down Norwegian churches. And yet, until just two short years ago, McBean had lived his entire adolescence and adult life without a proper driver’s license, that first and most coveted ticket to personal independence. When he did finally take the wheel in 2017, he essentially became a Sixteen Year Old for the first time, blowing out the doors off the DMV like a pyrotechnics display at a W.A.S.P. gig. Black Mountain’s new album, “Destroyer”, named after the discontinued single-run 1985 Dodge Destroyer muscle car, is imbued with all that wild-ass freedom and newfound agency (and anxiety and fear) that comes with one’s first time behind the wheel. McBean, welding mask pulled over his Alan Watts beard, has even been rebuilding a 1985 Destroyer in his step-dad’s garage all spring — building it from its frame, putting in weekends of work to have this beast ready for sunnier days. And wouldn’t you know it: when the Destoyer’s engine gives its deep snarl and the stereo rattles with Metallica’s $5.98 EP, McBean is fully in the driver’s seat.
Destroyer is structured around that first time behind the wheel of a hot rod. The fat, charging “Living After Midnight” riffs of opener “Future Shade” is, according to McBean, “Straight outta the gates. FM radio cranked.” He ain’t kidding. The song, and all of Destroyer for that matter, seems to exist at that crucial nexus of the early-to-mid 80s Los Angeles when a war between punk and hair metal was waged. Black Flag’s My War tried and failed to keep the peace. The heavy extended player “Horns Arising,” with its Night Rider vocals and golden, climbing Blade Runner synths, is a fill-up at a desert gas station just in time to see a UFO hovering near a mesa.
And other songs, like The serpentine “Boogie Lover” is a cruise down the Sunset Strip. You pull into The Rainbow Bar & Grill to take the edge off. Doesn’t matter what year it is, Lemmy’s there in flesh or spirit. To continue the teenage theme, there’s also a sense of to these cuts — “High Rise” is a foray into Japanese psych, rounding the bend to a careening, youthful sense of discovery, while “Closer to the Edge” feeling like falling in love with Yes (Remember how good they were for a minute there in your youth?). “Licensed to Drive” would easily be the most exhilarating and dangerous ripper on a titular film’s soundtrack, a dose of heavy right before the muscle car’s wheels fly off going 100 mph on the freeway.
Shacked up in his rehearsal space, McBean found an old chair in an alley, spray painted Producer on the back and pressed record. Friends from the endless rock’n’roll highway were invited over and 22 songs were brought to life. And while some were laid back into shallow graves to dig up once again at a later date, the remaining skeletons were left above ground — given organs, skin, eyes, and the opportunity to grow their hair real long and greasy. Some of these zombie hesher jams were sent on a journey to Canada where longtime band member Jeremy Schmidt, slipping on the Official Collaborator satin jacket, had at them with his legendary synth arsenal. As he added long flowing robes, sunglasses, driving gloves and medallions, the undead songs began to transform into the new breathing creatures that make up Destroyer. Schmidt’s work with these songs was the needed transformative glue for this new era of Black Mountain.
Coming off his newfound automotive freedom, McBean also saw some personnel shuffling within Black Mountain. Both Joshua Wells and Amber Webber have retired their Black Mountain Army uniforms while Arjan Miranda paid his outstanding membership dues and rejoined. New members include Rachel Fannan (Sleepy Sun) and Adam Bulgasem (Dommengang & Soft Kill) plus other familiar names like Kliph Scurlock (Flaming Lips), Kid Millions (Oneida), and John Congleton (St Vincent, Swans) take a turn in the shotgun seat. Collectively, there’s a renewed vitality to Black Mountain on Destroyer — a seasoned, veteran of heady hard rock that’s found new, young muscles to flex and roads to explore.
Black Mountain – “Licensed To Drive” from the new album ‘Destroyer,’ out May 24, 2019 on Jagjaguwar Records.
Hailing from Berks County, PA, Shannen Moser grew up steeped in folk and country music. Influenced by the historically rich area, stretching farmland, and local folkers, Shannen credits the area with giving her the tools to write the music she does today, influencing her self-taught guitar plucking style and confessional lyricism. She vividly recalls her first encounter with folk music in her dad’s old truck, playing “I’ll Be Here In The Morning” by Townes Van Zandt. Since then, her love for songwriting has continued to grow.
In 2014 Shannen moved to Philadelphia and began pursuing music more earnestly. Her debut LP “Oh, My Heart” was released in January of 2017, and reissued by Lame-O Records later that Spring. Mostly recorded in a barn in Earlville, NY, the record brought a more expansive sound to her small bedroom recordings, moving Moser forward sonically as an artist while preserving the sincerity of her earlier work and showcasing Moser’s folk and country influences.
Shannen Moser’s intimate sophomore album “I’ll Sing” was released on September 7th on Lame-O Records. An evocative and vulnerable storyteller, Shannen Moser’s narrative style makes every song on I’ll Sing like a short story, pulling listeners into the details while tackling big topics like heartbreak, loss, and battles with mental health. Written over a tumultuous year, Moser shows a willingness throughout the album to bear her scars, utilizing vulnerability in a way that feels powerful.
I’ll Sing was produced by Eric Muth and Cameron Konner at the Grey Ferry Warehouse in Philadelphia. Muth, Konner, and cello player and longtime touring band member Julia Peters were Moser’s backing band on the record.
To celebrate the release of their second studio LP, “Is This Real”, The Pinheads are playing a bunch of in stores along the East Coast for your listening pleasure. Born out of friendship, bowling, sci-fi movie marathons and literal brotherhood, The Pinheads formed out of what is now colloquially known as the Leisure Coast Australia, spread out among the northern suburbs of the Illawarra and Wollongong region.
They quickly established themselves as one of the area’s must-see live bands; no mic stand was left unturned, no face left un-melted, no speaker stack was left un-climbed. Is This Real marks a reunion of sorts for the band, after several members took a short sabbatical from The Pinheads, to go explore other musical projects – among them Tropical Strength, Luke Spook and Shining Bird. Reconvening in their home studio, known asThe Shed, the septet set out to once again push out into previously-untouched Pinheads territory.
The songs are longer, often slower and more methodically paced. The wildfire that sparked their initial run remains, albeit in a more contained manner. This is the sound of a band that has been re-calibrated, focused and with a reaffirmed sense of ambition.
When The Pinheads started out, their modus operandirevolved around two straight, simple rules: Never play it safe, and always make it fun. This remains as true now of their recorded material and their live shows as it did when they began in 2015.
‘Is This Real’is The Pinheads second studio LP, the follow up to 2017’s self-titled LP.
The video for ‘For Real,’ the latest previously unreleased single to debut from Tom Petty, is premiering today.The loving video was directed by Tom’s daughter, Adria Petty, and features archival footage and photos as well as intimate, behind-the-scenes moments of Tom and the band.‘For Real’ is off The Best Of Everything, out now via Geffen Records/UMe, the first career-spanning collection of Tom Petty’s hits-including songs with the Heartbreakers, solo projects, and essentials from the reformed Mudcrutch.
Official Music video for “For Real” from Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers. ‘The Best Of Everything’
Over the years, Peter More and his bandmates have called many places home. Originally from Fort Worth, Texas, More joined forces with Spanish flamenco guitarist José Juan Poyatos, Mexican bassist Diego Noyola, and French-American drummer Adrien Faunce in San Miguel de Allende, the colonial arts haven three hours north of Mexico City. There, the band began to record with prolific drummer Rick Shlosser (who played on many Van Morrison and James Taylor classics, among hundreds of other credits). A chance encounter with Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen, who happened to be visiting San Miguel, led to Fagen producing More’s debut album, “Beautiful Disrepair,” and a follow-up EP entitled “Shoulder.”
A sense of wanderlust underscores More’s music, weaving many influences and intersections from the principal songwriter and lead singer’s unconventional journey. These layered stories naturally evolved with the band’s continual movement through recording sessions beyond San Miguel that took place in Fort Worth, New York City, and Woodstock. Three of the songs were held back from the LP release in August 2018 and now appear as an EP with the anthemic single “Shoulder” and two b-sides “What We Used to Be” and “Marlene (Featuring AmyHelm).” At turns contemplative and rousing, the Shoulder EP is a precisely executed work with Fagen’s indelible sound stylings that More’s lyrics and vocals make feel uncomplicated and original, fusing together the many creative and geographic influences that define Peter More.
From Peter More’s latest EP “Shoulder” that was released April 12th, 2019, the video for the title track was shot on location in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
Philadelphia power pop trio Hurry have just announced “Frustrate You”, a new two-song single out now on Lame-O Records. The new songs “Frustrate You” and “An Element Of Surprise”. What was once a solo project for principal songwriter Matt Scottoline has evolved into Hurry, a power pop trio from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania composed of Scottoline,Rob DeCarolis (Univox), and Joe DeCarolis (Psychic Teens). The DeCarolises are cousins and they are both very talented. “As talented as Matt Scottoline?” Of course. Please don’t attempt to pry the band apart with potentially hurtful questions.
Hurry’s album Every Little Thought was released on February 23rd, 2018 on Lame-O Records. The album, written by Scottoline, is a light and dreamy plunge into life’s crushingly relentless uncertainty and doubt. The album is more pop-driven than Hurry’s previous efforts, focusing on catchy melodies, hooks, and harmonies influenced by Teenage Fan club, Robyn Hitchcock, Yo La Tengo, and Guided By Voices. Of the new album, Scottoline — a natural salesman — says, “I tried even harder this time to make it good.”
Hurry released it’s previous album, Guided Meditation, on Lame-O Records in 2016. It was recorded at Noisy Little Critter with Mike Bardzik. The album was likely critically acclaimed, however Hurry does not place much value on things like “critical acclamation,” nor do they place much value on “awards.” In fact, Hurry did not even pay attention to 2017’s Grammy winners. Ultimately, who knows if Guided Meditation won any (or all) of those awards.
Since Guided Meditation’s release, Hurry has toured and played shows with Yuck, Nada Surf, and Tommy Keene, and have had their music featured on FXX’s Man Seeking Woman. Scottoline, however, is not sure how important any of that information actually is. “I don’t really think it is [important],” he says. Hm. You can judge for yourself. Every Little Thought focuses on the general indecision of existence and how it can affect interpersonal relationships, as well as the frame of mind with which you approach day-to-day life. It is nice to listen to and it will make you smile.
I don’t think that L7’s co-founder Donita Sparks and longtime L7 members Suzi Gardner, Jennifer Finch, and Demetra Plakas have mellowed with age.
Born in Los Angeles in 1985, the crusty quartet raged and raved, on-stage and off, until its 2001 implosion—only to reform for live shows in 2014. Not long after they’d reunited, L7 reignited their socio-political torpor with 2017’s post-election rant, “Dispatch from Mar-a-Lago.” Now, they have their first new studio album since Slap-Happy (1999): the incendiary May release “Scatter the Rats”.
The reunion happened because we felt that there was still interest in us, and that there wasn’t anyone who had our particular spin. We thought that younger people who hadn’t experienced us the first time needed to experience L7.
L7’s brand new full-length album ‘Scatter The Rats’
