The new METZ video for “Sugar Pill,” from their acclaimed 2020 release, Atlas Vending, is out now. Shot in Thunder Bay, Ontario, the video is an homage to the unstoppable spirit of skateboarding and a testament to the inspiring drive to ride in any condition and any environment. Director Shayne Ehman says of the video: “Skateboarding feels great. We love to skate. The birds need to sing, we need to skate. I hope the winter skateboarding footage carries with it some of the love we have for skateboarding. I hope it contains a spirit of perseverance and the will to make it happen. Come wind, ice, or stormy weather, we shovel snow, we torch frost, we skate.”
Atlas Vending, the most dynamic, dimensional, and compelling album of METZ’s career to date, is available now worldwide from Sub Pop. ”Sugar Pill” is the 7th(!) video from the new album.
What people are saying about Atlas Vending: “Atlas Vending is the sound of a band fully confident in itself and delivering their biggest and best work yet.” ★★★★ – Upset Magazine
“The Toronto band maintain a formidable degree of power and velocity throughout their fourth album yet… provide more welcome respites from the ferocious barrage they’re otherwise highly skilled at delivering.” [8/10] – Uncut
“A record which draws on 35 years of North American alt-rock excellence, while still stamping its creators’ own identity firmly across its grooves.” [4/5] –Kerrang
”By gathering everything the group has done to date and mixing it together METZ manage to create a perfectly potent cocktail, one filled with nostalgia, sadness and grinding euphoria.” [8/10] – Loud and Quiet
“The expansiveness of the sonic palette on Atlas Vending just gives the band more room to paint outside the lines.” [8/10] – Under The Radar
Metz play September. 21st – Leicester, UK – 02 Academy
Bowerbirds a folk trio, now the recording project of North Carolina singer-songwriter Phil Moore has announced its first new album since 2012. It’s titled “becalmyounglovers” and it arrives April 30th via Psychic Hotline. The new full-length follows a pair of EPs that were released last year, 2020 Singles and Azaleas.Bowerbirds’ last album “The Clearing” marked the band’s final recording with Beth Tacular, Moore’s ex–romantic and artistic partner. The two had a child together prior to the band’s split, as Moore explained in a statement last year. The new album is about his processing of the end of that long-term relationship.
Here’s what they say about it: “Hi there. I’m pleased to share that the new Bowerbirds record (and first Bowerbirds album since 2012!) will be out on April 30th. We’re also doing a special limited run of the violet swirl vinyl, which will come with a signed poster of the cover artwork. The new single “Moon Phase” is out everywhere now, along with a music video I made.
I wrote and recorded becalmyounglovers in bits across six years, with help from a lot of friends, including Matt McCaughan, Alex Bingham, and Libby Rodenbough, with additional group vocals by Chessa Rich, Joseph Terrell, and Wood Robinson. Drums were recorded by Ari Picker at Goth Construction Studio, and the record was mixed and mastered by Zach Hansen at April Base out in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. I can’t wait for you to hear the whole thing. In the meantime, you can watch/listen/pre-order at the link in my bio.”
Johanna Samuels just announced “Excelsior!”, Here’s what they say about it: “Before making this record, I felt the furthest from myself that I ever had. There was a lot of cognitive dissonance–wanting to pursue my music while also feeling good about who I am as a person. This record is a lot of me identifying what I don’t want to be & recognizing the importance of listening to each other, understanding that a conversation doesn’t have to end because one person has to be right & the other wrong.
I made it during a very snowy winter with Sam Evian producing at his new cabin studio in the Catskill Mountains. We tracked live to tape, laughed a ton & ate amazing meals. I’ll never forget where I was at when we made it & I’ve learned so much since–through both beautiful realizations & some very painful, disappointing experiences. I’m grateful for all of it because I’ve never felt more like myself. I feel resolute in what I believe & in my musical relationships & friendships. I love the record we ended up making & the personal growth it paved the way for.
For songwriting duo Joey Cobb and Katie Drew of White Flowers, one of the most exciting young bands in the UK right now, it was only on leaving London to return to their native Preston that the dark-hued dreampop of their debut album, “Day By Day”, began to crystalize.
“There’s something uniquely bleak about the North,” says Joey, speaking from the abandoned textile mill that White Flowers call home, “but in that bleakness there’s a certain beauty.”
The pair had left Preston for London to study at art college, and it was there that they first began to explore the nascent psych scene bubbling under in the few remaining arts-orientated spaces in the east of the city. It soon inspired them to begin work on music of their own. “We didn’t want to be a psych band,” explains Katie, “but discovering that music gave us both energy and focus. We’ve spent so many years developing these songs, because I think it was important we waited until White Flowers became its own defined thing.”
The pair found that by using equipment they barely understood, they produced their most innovative work. Beginning on GarageBand, they crafted loops that turned into songs, and by the time they’d worked out how to use it, they’d graduated to a drum machine. Now very much in control, and with a clear and determined focus, the pair began producing music that, whilst leaning into the North’s post-punk past, possessed a vision and depth informed by their own post-industrial Preston experiences. Creating all of their artwork, visuals and overall aesthetic, they began building a world that stretched beyond the music alone – in an unusual circular fashion, this auteurist-like approach became a way of translating their environment and experiences into a form of escapism from the very place that inspired them.
“We’ve always taken care to control every aspect of the White Flowers ‘world’, and because we’ve developed this over time, it feels to us like there’s a separate realm for White Flowers music to exist in,” observes Joey. “More than anything, the isolation that a place like Preston provides means that what we do is very much its own, separate thing”.
That ‘thing’ is the sound of the North at night; the unglamorous North, caught in the hinterlands that divide the main cities, a monochrome psychedelia formed in Preston and the imposing Lancashire hills that envelop them. As if always waiting there for them, in returning to their roots, White Flowers found themselves. Nonetheless, it was shortly before leaving London that another creative breakthrough occurred. While performing a small show as a support act, a fan in the audience, impressed by the wall of noise that would frequently extend for minutes at the end of tracks, suggested they work with a like-minded friend. Within weeks, the pair were recording at the Manchester studio of Jez Williams, erstwhile member of Doves.
Williams and Manchester immediately made sense, and it’s that industrial gothic that White Flowers were able to tap into as they built the album during on-off sessions across two years – sometimes leaving the studio for a couple of months to work on ideas, other times crafting the minutiae of details across all-night studio sessions. The access to flexible studio time was telling, and the band were able to develop an aesthetic that, whilst indebted to the various sounds that defined their youth, also leaned heavily into Kevin Shields’ droning wall of noise guitars, the palimpsestic hauntology of early Burial, and the ghost box sampleadelia of Boards of Canada.
“We like the more alien sounds” explains Joey, “where the focus is on creating atmosphere.” This is perhaps most obvious on the album title track, one of the more sonically enticing tracks on the record with its pulsing drone and Portishead-esque rhythm, or even ‘Night Drive’, a live favourite that the pair take pride in building into a monstrous wall of sound.
‘Daylight’ pushes forward with a prettiness matched by Katie’s oblique, near-glossolalia vocal. “We don’t like it when things are clean or overproduced” explains Katie, “and there’s something interesting in the instinctive nature of the first thing you sing, because you don’t really know what you’re singing until it comes out and it makes sense.” That psychographic-style process to writing informs a collection of songs that are at once both intuitive and fully-formed.
The oldest song on the record, ‘Help Me Help Myself’, bears witness to this approach. Perhaps their most direct and perfect ‘pop’ song to date, it suggests these songs were always there within, just waiting to be divined. “We’d just started using drum machines and there’s something of a naïve quality to it,” explains Katie, though its naivety has now been augmented by Jez Williams’ impossibly diaphanous production.
The constant upheaval of, well, everything has fed directly into Day By Day. “The songs on the album were written from when we were teenagers up to our early 20s, so it’s come of age in this weird apocalyptic time,” says Katie.
“Everything’s surrounded by uncertainty” notes Joey, “but it isn’t all doom and gloom, there are positives, rules are out the window and you can do what you want. There’s some hope in there.”
With ten Brown Acid records already released and no end to the series in sight, we figured the time was right to release the first ten records in a single, affordable batch. No colour is guaranteed, you might get a clear, two reds a black and a white or maybe they’ll all be purple. Who knows! It’s part of the game. Get on the Brown Acid train today, you won’t be disappointed.
First two releases by Riding Easy Records “Brown Acid” compilation series, “loads of Hendrix, Zepp, Stones, Sabbath, Skynard, worship included in these tunes, but it’s not just ‘Sounds Like’ material, there are a lot of great bands that for whatever reason never got the shine they deserved.” “We have enough tracks for 3 trips at the moment and the goal is to do 5.”
Screaming out of the gate, here’s the third volume of the critically acclaimed Brown Acid series! We curate these heavy compilations so the heads can hear the best songs they’ve never heard. As usual, this batch of tracks is off the rails. It’s an absolute tragedy that these cuts aren’t in heavy rotation on classic rock radio…yet. We continue down the wormhole of hard rock, heavy psych, and proto-metal here on The Third Trip with a set of tunes so obscure they can’t be seen without a third eye. Most of these tracks were recorded in shack-sized studios, privately pressed for promotional purposes, and tossed out like last night’s half empties only to later be discovered to be half-full, if not overflowing with greatness. The majority of these tracks are from the good ol’ US of A with two exceptions, Ash-labelmate New Zealanders, Chook, and the mighty Limeys, Factory. We won’t take full credit for it, but we’re sorry to say that these types of 45s have skyrocketed in value over the last little while and some of the records included in this volume have only changed hands a handful of times on the collector market. Although it’s a bummer for the pocketbook, we say “Hell Yeah!” it’s about time these rarities have become recognized as the priceless artifacts that they are. Unlike many labels doing compilations of rare dusties, we’ve actually gone to the trouble to contact the bands included here for permission to use their material. It was a long and arduous task to say the least, but it’s the way it should be done. And we paid ‘em! So sleep easy knowing that no one was ripped off in the making of this record. As they say, first is the worst, second is the best, third is the one with the hairy chest. So take a shot of whiskey, shotgun a beer, and put some fuzz in between your nipples with the hairiest Trip you’ve taken yet. You won’t be sorry you did.
If you thought we were getting close to the end of the Brown Acid series with our last Trip, you were dead wrong…we’re only just getting rolling. The well of privately released hard rock, heavy psych, and proto-metal 45s is deep and we are nowhere near tapped out. Most of these records were barely released and never properly distributed so they ain’t easy to find, but they’re out there if you’re willing to dig…and we aren’t afraid to get our hands dirty. Hard calluses have formed from handling the shovel and we’ve sifted through a lot of dirt, but we’ve dug up another ten tremendous records to share with all the heavy heads out there. This volume brings together eight insanely rare and skull-crushingly heavy 45s as well as two previously unreleased bangers. You may remember the Zekes’ jaw dropper “Box” from the First Trip. If you don’t, you better go back and refresh your memory, you stoner. That song rips! And so does this previously unheard recording we’ve legally obtained from the Beverly Hills Records vaults. “Comin Back” is the longest tune we’ve yet to include on this series and it’s a full-on rager! The only surviving copy of this recording came to us on the original 1/4” master tape from Hollywood’s long-defunct Demars & Duffy Music. We did our best to preserve the recording and we think you’ll appreciate the rawness. There have been numerous groups named Bad Axe over the years, but the one you hear here is the baddest. This five-piece fresh outta high school kicked out this jam (and a few others) in a Chicago studio in 1973 just for the hell of it. As a garage band, they were previously named The Burlington Express and they went on to be known as Bitch, but these dudes hit their stride as Bad Axe and “Coachman” is their crowning achievement. It went completely unreleased until 2014 when Permanent Records issued it and “Poor Man, Run” as a limited edition 45 with a killer picture sleeve. It’s long out-of-print and only obtainable now on Brown Acid. The rest of the records included on this volume vary in rarity, but at least two of them were virtually unknown until we discovered them. You’ll win the lottery before you find copies of all of the original 45s in even the best record stores. Many of the records included in this volume are owned only by the members of the bands and some of the band members don’t even have personal copies. Such a bummer. Anyhow, plug in, turn up, and freak out…this is what RocknRoll is all about.
And the hits just keep coming. For the Fifth lysergic journey, we’ve assembled 10 heavy slabs of obscure rock the likes of which have never been seen before… not in this form anyhow. And as usual, the tracks from these impossibly rare records have all been fully cleared through the artists themselves. We’ve gone to great lengths to get the best possible master sources, the worst case scenario being an original 45. ‘Cuz it ain’t worth doing unless you do it right. The legendary Captain Foam kicks off this Trip like an anvil to your skull with a rollicking stomper sounding like The Who with Matt Pike’s thunderous guitar tone. “No Reason” is a track we’ve been wanting to share with you boneheads since the start. Captain Foam (aka Richard Bertram) wasn’t easy to find, but lo and behold, our super sleuths located him and got his blessing to include the A-side of his sole single here for you. Good luck finding an original copy of the record. It’s rarer than raw beef. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. The other nine tracks continue the onslaught in typical Brown Acid form. You may be familiar with George Brigman’s psychedelic punk masterpiece “Jungle Rot”, but you don’t know Split until you’ve heard the charmingly disjointed bedroom-fi production of “Blowin’ Smoke”. Finch sounds way out of time (1968) and place (Milwaukee) on the grungeadelic anthem “Nothing In The Sun”. Cybernaut’s heavy prog — giving their Canadian cohorts Rush a run for their money — and Flasher’s “Icky Bicky” boogie prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that our neighbours to the north can rock with the best of ‘em. Meanwhile, Fargo’s hallucinogenic BBQ sauce soaked “Abaddon” and Mammoth’s fittingly beefy eponymous riff-monger continue the long line of heavies from the Lone Star State. Ohio based screamers Lance features members of Inside Experience, who you might recall from the Third Trip. Zebra’s gritty rendition of “Helter Skelter” is most likely the way Charles Manson heard the song in his head. And finally, the mysterious and previously unheard Thor appears here exclusively and for the first time ever with their unknown 45 track “Lick It”. Many thanks to our pal Mike Vegh for turning us on to this one. Speaking of turn ons, we love hearing about rare hard rock, heavy psych, and proto-metal records. So, if you know something we don’t, please drop us a line. If we’re able to track and include a record you hip us to, we’ll gladly give you props on a future volume. In the meantime, we’ll keep doing all the hard work ourselves and you can keep reaping the benefits… until we kill all your braincells.
If you’d told us when we started this epic journey that we’d have six volumes worth of licensed tracks released in just three years, we would’ve laughed in your face! Doing the Dark Lord’s work isn’t an easy job, but somebody’s gotta do it, so here we are with six Trips under our belt and more lined up. You heads just can’t get enough obscure hard rock, heavy psych, and proto-metal from the late-60s & 70s! And for that, we’re grateful for the opportunity to keep laying these slabs in your lap. This isn’t just a random mixtape we threw together off the Internet. We find the records, track the bands and transfer the tapes, so you don’t have to. The bands did their job back in the day by writing, recording and releasing this material, most times against all odds, and you’ve squandered your hard earned scratch on this record, so I guess the least we can do is continue to compile quality Rock’n’Roll cuts from the golden age of heaviness. This time around we have 10 deep cuts from across the continental US of A and one from our neighbors up North. This Trip kicks off with an outrageous number from Gold out of San Francisco circa 1970. The band used to open their sets with this over-the-top frantic jammer which is absolutely mind-blowing and also leads one to believe that the only band that could’ve held a candle to Gold back in the day would’ve been the mighty Blue Cheer.
Everybody’s favourite source for the hard stuff is back in business, with ten more lethal doses of rare hard rock, heavy psych and proto-metal! Hard to believe we’re eight Trips in and we haven’t lost any steam since the get-go. As usual, we’re laying the heaviness on you in the most legit way possible. These obscure tracks have all been licensed, the bands have been paid, and the sources are all analog. The quality of tracks seems increase along with the number of Trips and this cohesive collection comes outta the gate with both guns blazing!
The hard stuff saga continues with Brown Acid – The Eighth Trip! Yet again, we’ve searched high and low to bring you ten tracks of straight blue flame fire from the golden age of heaviness. As usual, these rare tracks have been carefully curated, analogically sourced, and fully licensed so you can listen guilt- free and save a lot of time and money tracking down the original copies.
This Trip comes straight at ya with an all out attack, quite literally. The residents of St. Clair Shores should consider themselves lucky to have been so close to the greatness of Attack! “School Daze” kicks out the jams Detroit-style, but has enough flair and style to have our main man Jimi rolling over in his grave. Another prime example of why Detroit is known as Rock City!
Speaking of rock, White Rock will knock your stank-ass socks off with their 1972 burner “Please Don’t Run Away”. This 45 was privately released by this Houston-based band that reportedly played shows with Josefus, Stone Axe, and Purple Sun. And it was basically unknown until it surfaced at the Austin Record Convention in 2018! The fact that there are still completely unknown records out there to be discovered never ceases to amaze us.
They don’t say “Don’t Mess With Texas” for nothin’! Riverside called Austin home way before anyone was worried about keeping it weird. This two-sider from 1974 rips from front to back. It’s also exclusively available here and is virtually unknown. Go ahead, try to look for it anywhere. Currently, there’s no proof anywhere online that it exists.
The forthcoming ninth edition of the popular compilation series featuring long-lost vintage 60s-70s proto-metal and stoner rock singles, Brown Acid: The Ninth Trip is set for release on Halloween 2019.
“So rare that diehard fuzz junkies say you’d have a better chance of winning the lottery than finding a physical 45 rpm single by one of the bands featured on their latest installment.” — Dangerous Minds “Will do for hard rock, proto-metal and heavy psych what Nuggets did for garage rock, and bring it to a wider audience of collectors and music fans.” — The Guardian
“Mining the surprising rich reserves of heavy rock and proto-metal from the ’60s and ’70s, these collections have been crucial to understanding the history of a subgenre of rock that had far deeper roots than most fans realize.” — Paste Magazine
The forthcoming ninth edition of the popular compilation series featuring long-lost vintage 60s-70s proto-metal and stoner rock singles, Brown Acid: The Ninth Trip is released on Halloween 2019.
The tenth edition -of the popular compilation series featuring long-lost vintage 60s-70s proto-metal and stoner rock singles, Brown Acid: The Tenth Trip is available now. As the celebrated series reaches landmark double-digits, there are no indications it will slow down in the near future. Here we are, arriving at the tenth edition of Brown Acid in just half as many years! As always, we packed in the highest highs of the dankest hard rock, heavy psych, and proto-metal tracks previously lost to the sands of time. As usual, all of these tracks were painstakingly licensed legitimately and the artists were paid. It’s hard to believe we’re already up to 10 volumes of this lysergic neanderthal wail, but the long-lost jams just keep-a-coming like Texas crude to fuel your rock’n’roll engine and melt your metal mind.
New Order have officially announced Education Entertainment Recreation, a new live album and concert film recorded during the band’s sole UK show of 2018, held at Alexandra Palace. The career-spanning performance is being released on 2xCD, 2xCD with Blu-Ray, 3xLP, and as a limited edition box set with the aforementioned physical formats plus a book and art prints. Education Entertainment Recreation arrives May 7th via Mute; below, find a previously released clip of “Sub-Culture” from the film release.
New Order released a new song called “Be a Rebel” last fall. A music video by Spanish director NYSU was revealed in December. Their last full-length studio album Music Complete arrived in 2015. Recorded live on 9th November 2018 (their only UK show of 2018), ‘education entertainment recreation’is a brand new live album from London’s Alexandra Palace. Sonically spectacular, spanning 2 hours 20 minutes, the show joyously mixed New Order classics, their latest acclaimed album ‘Music Complete’ and Joy Division’s finest.
Opening with ‘Singularity’ from ‘Music Complete’, they eased back in time to 1993’s ‘Regret’, to ‘Love Vigilantes’ from 1985’s ‘Low-Life’ to ‘Ultraviolence from 1983 debut ‘Power, Corruption and Lies’. Later, their power over the dance floor was proven by sublime performances in the manner of the celebrated extended 12 inch remixes they are synonymous with – on ‘True Faith’, ‘Blue Monday’ and ‘Temptation’ before a four song Joy Division mini set to end
A career spanning celebration, the band were on relentlessly sparkling form, blending eras and genres and redefining themselves as perhaps the most vital British band of recent decades. This spectacular live album is spread across various formats, a triple 180 gram edition, a 2CD edition or a 2CD + film on BluRay edition.
The Times *****: “the pristine power of the band….filled the sometimes unforgiving space of Alexandra Palace quite magnificently”
Clash: “a celebration of innovation, fabulous tunes and a career that has mined gold from tragedy”
New Order are: Bernard Sumner – lead vocals, guitar Stephen Morris – drums Gillian Gilbert – keyboards Phil Cunningham – guitars Tom Chapman – bass
Mamalarky spent two years working on their self-titled debut album (released last year via Fire Talk on November 20th). Raw and cerebral, the LP looks to a range of influences from their collective musical nerdiness. ”We might have a vocal melody that sounds like the lead steel guitar from Santo & Johnny, played over production that aims to be noisy and weird like Deerhoof or Sheer Mag, all the while steeped in the greats like Stevie Wonder or The Four Seasons,’ explains Livvy. The album itself was cobbled together in a mix of DIY ways: home recordings with Livvy’s roommate Joey Oaxaca (White Reaper, Mo Dotti), singles with Daniel McNeill (White Denim) and a “final wrapping-up” with engineer Jim Vollentine (Spoon, Skating Polly). The result is an album that’s as musically fun and explorative as it is catchy and sweet. Or as Mamalarky puts it “We want to provide an experience that’s exploratory and trippy, but far removed from the problematic and corny psych stereotypes carried out by all those 60s dude bands.”
“Any song on Mamalarky’s self-titled debut deserves to be a single.” – Vice
“Mamalarky are a band that emanates cool factor.” –
The harmony is beautiful and slightly strange. The drums are really strong, the vocalist is really skilled. The guitars and synths are really tasteful. Basically, the sound overall is really original, and really satisfying.
Mamalarky spent two years working on their self-titled debut album. Mamalarky debut album out October 14th on Fire Talk Records.
Due this April, London three-piece Flyte’s sophomore album is a labour of love – finely-crafted rootsy indie rock across ten timeless-sounding tracks. Made alongside collaborators Justin Raisen (Angel Olsen, Yves Tumor), Andrew Sarlo (Big Thief, Bon Iver) and engineer Ali Chant (Aldous Harding), the band’s extraordinary three-part harmonies span a rawer space than they covered in their 2017 debut album. It’s off-kilter, unpolished, music for music’s sake.
Flyte’s “I’ve Got A Girl” has been bouncing around my head non-stop ever since they released it and now we get a little video compliment to go along with the track that stars Tina Malone, star of the UK version of Shameless Feeling like a post-Halloween hangover, the video has a much different vibe than the one for “Losing You” and goes all in on a David Lynch eerie vibe that captures this sound that is very much Flyte, but a new form that we haven’t quite heard before.
watch the music video for “I’ve Got a Girl” below and stay tuned for a more Flyte related content coming very soon.
This Is Really Going To Hurt, on the 9th of April. This will be Flyte’s second album and features the previously released songs: Easy Tiger, Losing You, I’ve Got a Girl as well as the brand new, Under The Skin. This album beautifully weaves together complex and rich vocal arrangements and melodies, with lyrics steeped in literary imagery.
‘This is really going to Hurt’ follows up from their debut album The Loved Ones which was acclaimed by The Sunday Times as “The Best British debut album of the year” and is set to cement the band as refreshingly mature and exceptionally talented.
It’s hard to believe that it’s been nearly six years since I stumbled across the music of Flyte, one of the best bands out of the U.K., or anywhere, for that matter. While Covid has screwed up the release and touring plans for their looming second album, the band has still been slowly laying down the foundation by releasing a handful of new singles, such as the newly released “I’ve Got A Girl.” Late last month I had the pleasure of video chatting on Zoom with the band’s very own Will Taylor and Nick Hill. We spoke about the new track, how much of it really is about the departure of a founding member and friend, the evolution of their sound over the years, some hints of the new record, as well as what movies they’ve been watching. This is an interview I had wanted to do ever since I accidentally discovered their early single “Light Me Up” thanks to a brilliant working YouTube algorithm.
Having risen to fame following an appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival, where she was the lead singer of then little-known San Francisco psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the HoldingCompany, Janis Joplin released two albums with the group, but at the conclusion of 1968, she left Big Brother to continue as a solo artist with her own backing groups. The first of these, the Kozmic Blues Band, supported Janis throughout 1969 when she performed across Europe in the early months of the year.
One of the finest shows Janis and band performed during this time was at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam on 1st April, which was recorded for FM Broadcast and transmitted live across central Europe. Janis Joplin is of the most successful and widely known rock stars of her time. 50 years after her death she remains famous for her powerful vocals and “electric” stage presence.
Fuelled by The Kozmic Blues Band she knows how to rock a concert hall build for classical music. Experience the rich sound of this unforgettable performance like never before with hit songs like ‘Ball and Chain’, ‘Piece of my Heart’ and ‘Try (Just A Little Bit Harder)’.
Janis Joplin also performed at the Woodstock Festival in August 1969, and a few weeks later, in her home state, at The Texas International Pop Festival. This set was also broadcast and is generally deemed by critics to be a better performance to the one she gave at Woodstock. Both the Amsterdam and Texas performances are now included in full on this vinyl, providing fans with a fine opportunity to hear these rare recordings, which have remained unavailable for so long.
Live at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, April 1st,1969.
Janis Joplin – vocals. Sam Andrew – guitar,vocals. Gabriel Mekler – keyboards. Terry Clements – tenor saxophone. Cornelius Flowers – baritone saxophone. Luis Gasca – trumpet. Brad campbell – bass. Lonnie Castille – drums.
Happy 20th Anniversary to The Cure’s eleventh studio album “Bloodflowers”, originally released in the UK February 14th 2000 and in the US February 15th, 2000.
The Cure greeted the millennium with their eleventh studio album Bloodflowers, a deliberate statement from singer and guitarist Robert Smith written in the run-up to his fortieth birthday. Whereas predecessors Wish (1992) and Wild Mood Swings (1996) were more exploratory entanglements by the British group’s five members, Bloodflowers shows Smith fully reclaiming the artistic reins, just as he had 10 years prior with Disintegration (1989).
At the time he was making Disintegration, Smith was recently married and confronting the crisis of turning 30. His meticulous care in delivering on his vision for Disintegration was not only a gift to himself and the band, but to fans as well. Nearly 31 years later, the gorgeous opus continues to stir love and tears among all who come to know it. But, perfection is never easy to attain. And, Smith was well-aware of his obsessive, if agonizing, ways.
Speaking circa Bloodflowers’ released in February 2000, Smith commented, “I was very difficult to work with on this album, as I was with Disintegration, for that reason because I insisted everything was done exactly as I wanted. So, it’s kind of unpleasant band members really cos they don’t feel that they’re of any value, I suppose, when we’re making the record. Although I try and impress upon them the fact that without the group, it wouldn’t sound like The Cure….Who’s in the group defines the sound. But, with Wish and with Wild Mood Swings, they were group collaborations and everyone had a say. And I would kind of be just a fifth member of the band really a lot of the time.”
Only about half of the songs seemed to have any real depth. To my barely adult ears, the new album sounded somewhat recycled and uninspired. “39,” the penultimate track from Bloodflowers I caught up to the headspace Smith was in when he penned that song. But, it was also distressing to feel the gravity of the lyrics and realize them to be true: “Half my life I’ve been here / Half my life in flames / Using all I ever had to keep the fire ablaze / To keep the fire ablaze / To keep the fire ablaze / To keep the fire ablaze…But there’s nothing left to burn.”
After giving so much of yourself to life, whatever that may entail—relationships, career, artistic expression, yourself—it can be incredibly draining. It’s a struggle to find the energy to keep going through the motions, and if you do, it’s often devoid of emotion, which is all the more devastating for someone whose identity is so entrenched in feeling.
But, if Bloodflowers met midlife with this scorching warning, it also offers mature meditative acceptance that youthful ambitions and hopes may blind us to. Even in their earliest moments, Cure lyrics and instrumentation held a wistful longing, a romantic pull against reality, a nostalgic yearning for what never was. And although so much of Smith’s poetry, and the accompanying melodies, acknowledge the painful, often tragic, rift between fantasy and reality, time and time again, the records return us to this dreamlike world. With Bloodflowers, Smith consciously faces these idealistic tendencies. His choice to release the album on Valentine’s Day offers further evidence.
Smith explained, “I just thought it would be kind of darkly romantic…Valentine’s Day when you’re young particularly is a day of unrequited love. It’s actually one of the most depressing days of the year because you find yourself unable to tell the person you’re lusting or loving that it’s you….There’s elements of that, I think, that are in Bloodflowers…that sense of love never ever being able to be perfect, like my constant desire for things to be just as they are, as they should be and for them always to be as they are, which is not how I want them to be.”
As the tracks progress on Bloodflowers, the illusory narrative of youth asserts itself before eventually withering into quiet acquiescence, delivering waves of the heart-melting pangs, tingles and thrills long synonymous with The Cure.
“Out of This World” is the enchantingly woozy opener, immediately drawing us into a dreamy reverie no sane soul would ever want to crawl out from—even if we know we someday must. It captivated me the moment I first heard it 20 years ago and tranquilizes me still. As mentioned, I’ve come to comprehend the sage musings of Bloodflowers, but if this song was the album’s only treasure, I’d cling tight to it forever. And in many ways, that’s what this starry-eyed, wonder-filled intro is all about.
The escapist sentiments continue into the writhing odyssey of “Watching Me Fall,” which thrusts headlong into the expansive night with nocturnal seductions and terrors that would serve handsomely as the abstract to David Lynch’s next film. Perhaps not so coincidentally, the song takes place in Tokyo, which is where I chose to celebrate my 40th birthday. (Have I already mentioned how Smith is always way ahead of me?)
Although my take on Bloodflowers has shifted in the last few years, I can’t say I’ve warmed up to the album’s third and fourth tracks, “Where the Birds Always Sing” and “Maybe Someday.” However, Smith has noted the latter was included to add a little upbeat levity to an otherwise heavy record. Unsurprisingly, it was also the first promotional track for U.S. radio, which is telling, especially since Smith was adamant about not releasing any singles for Bloodflowers.
The remainder of the album showcases the breadth of The Cure’s songwriting talents, with songs like “The Last Day of Summer” and “There Is No If” evoking some of the band’s sweetest ‘80s B-sides. In fact, although the two flow together well, “There Is No If” was written in Smith’s adolescence, signifying a constancy in character despite his newfound perspective. I’m so glad this courageously simple tune about innocent love found the light of day, and revel in its placement between the solitary depleted spirit of “The Last Day of Summer” and the shared disillusionment of “The Loudest Sound.”
It’s been so long I can’t quite remember what I envisioned upon first hearing “The Loudest Sound,” but now I see a relationship that hasn’t run its course. Rather, it lives on in calm perpetuity. The couple have grown old together and care for each other deeply. The chimes are no longer bursting and the edge-of-the-world exhilaration is no more, but they both remember what those heart-racing moments were like together. And while the tenor of their connection has evolved, they’re still side by side, united by the commonality of their youth and the loneliness of aging. Despite the silence, his thoughts still manage to echo hers. When I was younger, I probably thought of these lyrics more in the vein of The Cure’s “Apart” (from Wish), but Smith’s ever-masterful words are well-suited to new interpretations.
As Bloodflowers approaches its end with the aforementioned “39” and the closing title track, it pushes past the acknowledgement of our individual finite capabilities into a greater spiritual understanding. The fire may indeed be almost out, but it’s better to accept that as part of life than to fight reality.
Before Bloodflowers, the Cure trilogy consisted of their second, third and fourth albums— Seventeen Seconds (1980), Faith (1981) and Pornography (1982)—as they were created in close succession and thematically related. However, once Bloodflowers was completed, Smith reassessed the trilogy as Pornography, Disintegration and Bloodflowers, citing these works as the three definitive achievements in the band’s career. I still wouldn’t say Bloodflowers is in my top three Cure albums, but I certainly have gained newfound appreciation in the last few years and see how it rounds out a story, for Smith the individual and the artist—and how the two are irrevocably intertwined.
Smith recalled, “When we were making it, everyone in the group believed that it would be the last Cure album because I wanted to have that sense of finality. There’s no point in making a record like Bloodflowers if you really think you’re going to do something else. I wanted it so that Bloodflowers would be so perfectly The Cure, there was no point in making another Cure album.”
The Cure
Robert Smith – guitar, keyboard, 6-string bass, vocals
The Fat Angel Sings 