Archive for the ‘CLASSIC ALBUMS’ Category

GANG OF FOUR – ” 77:81 ” Limited Edition Box Set

Posted: February 8, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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New Gang Of Four 77:81 Limited Edition Box Set Announced

Gang Of Four have announced a release date for their limited-edition box set, “Gang Of Four: 77-81”, which was initially scheduled for release last year, but delayed due to production issues.

The brilliant, limited-edition box set gathers Gang Of Four’s influential early work – including “Entertainment!” and “Solid Gold” (both remastered from the original analogue tapes), an exclusive singles LP, and an exclusive double LP of the never officially released Live At American Indian Center 1980.

Additionally, the package includes two new badges, a C90 cassette tape compiling 26 never-before-issued outtakes, rarities and studio demos from Entertainment! and Solid Gold, and an epic 100-page, full-colour hardbound book. The book details the history and legacy of the original Gang Of Four with never-before-seen photos, contributions from surviving original band members, rare posters, ephemera, flyers, essays, artwork, liner notes and more. It also marks the first official publication of their lyrics.

Gang of Four was formed in Leeds in 1976 by bassist Dave Allen, drummer Hugo Burnham, guitarist Andy Gill, and singer Jon King. The band pioneered a style of music that inverted punk’s blunt and explosive energies — favouring tense rhythms, percussive guitars, and lyrics that traded in Marxist theory and situationism. They put every element of the traditional “rock band” format to question, from notions of harmony and rhythm to presentation and performance.

This original line-up of the band released two monumental albums, Entertainment! (1979) and Solid Gold (1981). A third, Songs Of The Free (1982), was recorded with bassist Sara Lee replacing Dave Allen. After Songs Of The Free, Burnham departed the band and Andy Gill and Jon King continued on to release Hard in 1983. After this release, the band broke up. In 2004, the original quartet reformed for tour dates and released Return The Gift (2005). Andy Gill died on 1st February 2020.

To mark the release of Gang Of Four 77-81, fans can watch a lyric video for the song “Damaged Goods”, as well as hearing the demo of the unreleased song, “Elevator”, which is included on the cassette in the box set.

Speaking about Elevator, Jon King said:

“Andy & I both lived in a shitty house in Leeds where we used to sing The Band or Muddy Waters songs, chugging disgusting homebrew beer that I fermented in a dustbin. We started writing songs – mostly homages to Dr. Feelgood or the Velvets – recording them on a crappy cassette player. Inspired by the New York scene and with UK punk rock on a thrilling rampage, Hugo, Gill, and I formed a band.

The first couple of gigs were those early songs and a fast Beatles cover. Dave joining us raised the bar. He was really good, and we quickly came up with new material we all wrote together, built on grooves from Dave & Hugo, over which Andy and I would improvise until we’d got somewhere. Elevator always worked well live. It was a keeper until it wasn’t. By the time we got into the Workhouse studio to record ‘Entertainment’, it was in the dumper. I’d forgotten ever writing it until it was dug up for the box set cassette. I like it: the jangly riff, propulsive rhythm, and dopey lyrics take me right back to the day.”

The post-punk legends’ first two albums – 1979’s Entertainment! and 1981’s Solid Gold – are remastered for this excellent four-disc set, which also includes a disc of singles from the four-year period covered. Also included: an unreleased concert, Live at the American Indian Center, recorded in San Francisco in May 1980. Almost everything you need by Gang of Four – who’ve re-formed and issued more albums over the years – can be found on 77-81.

The limited edition box set, Gang Of Four: 77-81 will be available on vinyl on 12th March, and on CD on 23rd April.

A new tribute album, The Problem Of Leisure: A Celebration Of Andy Gill And Gang Of Four, will be released in May via Gill Music and features contributions from Flea and John Frusciante, Warpaint, La Roux, and more.

The BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE – ” Take It from the Man! “

Posted: February 8, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Take It from the Man! is the third studio album by American psychedelic rock band The Brian Jonestown Massacre. After recording their shoegaze-influenced debut album Methodrone (1995) and releasing a collection of early recordings, Spacegirl & Other Favorites, the band took influence from 1960s British psychedelic garage rock and recorded Take it from the Man! from November 1995–February 1996.

After recording the entire album with an unnamed producer who scrapped the recordings, the band re-recorded the album on a minimal budget, mostly at Lifesource Studios in Emeryville, California with production from Psychic TV’s Larry Thrasher, whose usual “studio” approach was vetoed out by the band’s back-to-basics approach.

The album’s psychedelic garage rock has often been compared to the Rolling Stones. Released by Bomp! Records on May 28th, 1996, it is the first of three full-length albums released by the band in 1996, preceding Their Satanic Majesties’ Second Request and Thank God for Mental Illness. The album was released to critical acclaim, with journalists praising the exuding of its influences and spirit. Anton Newcombe has since named the album as one of his favourites by the band. The album has featured in several “best of” lists and has been cited by several musicians as an influence. “Straight Up and Down”, which is featured in two alternate versions on the album, later became the theme music for Boardwalk Empire.

According to the liner notes, “Take it from the Man!” was recorded “live” between November 1995 and February 1996 at Dance Home Studio and Larry Thrasher’s Lifesource Studios in Emeryville, California, with digital editing undertaken at Music Box, Hollywood. The band initially recorded Take it from the Man! with an unnamed producer who, in wanting to “get on board”, recorded the album and “chopped it up to make it like so perfect” and then requested 3% of the royalties, leading the band to “just [laugh] in his face.”

As a result, the producer, as Newcombe recalled it, “got so pissed and he said he was going to destroy the recording. I was like, ‘Fuck you dude. Then I’m gonna kick your ass the minute I see you on the street.’ He did end up destroying it but I let him off the hook as far as the violence.” With the band needing to re-record the album in its entirety, Larry Thrasher from Psychic TV became interested in the band and producing the album, and borrowed a recording studio, possibly belonging to the Counting Crows, for the band to record in, presumably his Lifesource Studios credited in the liner notes.

Newcombe stated that, with a line-up of Newcombe, Dean Taylor (guitar), Matt Hollywood (bass) and Brian Glaze (drums), the band showed up on the day of recording without guitarist Jeff Davies because “he was a junkie” and so Newcombe’s girlfriend Dawn played guitar instead. The album was recorded on a minimal budget. When the band turned up to the studio, they were surprised to find that Thrasher had “about sixteen microphones set up for the drums,” because the band preferred a stripped down studio approach; Newcombe stated that “I asked him, ‘What the hell is this?’ and he said, ‘Well, these are for the drums…’ and I was like, ‘We don’t need sixteen mics for the drums. Take all of these away. I’m gonna use three mics for the drums and we’re gonna record it live, all at once. We’re just gonna put all the guitar amps down the hallway, the drums will be in here, and we’ll put on headphones and we’ll just play our set.’

We record everything the same way, so that’s what we did and then at the end he whipped out all of these effects when mixing at his studio and I just asked him, ‘What are all of these for?’ and he said, ‘You can’t have it sound the same on every song’ and I’m like ‘Bullshit, that’s the charm of this,’ we just try and get a certain sound.” Newcombe noted that “Straight Up and Down” was mixed to cassette. The band were recording their follow up album Their Satanic Majesties’ Second Request (1996) concurrently with Take it from the Man!, although not in the same studio or with the same producer. Newcombe recalled “recording “Take It from the Man” in the day time and then recording Their Satanic Majesties’ Second Request in the night time.

I was doing them simultaneously. I would go and stay at this one studio and then take the train out to the other one so instead of being homeless I was going between these two studios and crashing on the couches and doing two, 18 song records at the same time. Released May 28th, 1996

SNACKING – ” Painted Gold ” EP

Posted: February 8, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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An indie-rock quintet out of St. Petersburg, Fla., Snacking will release their new EP “Painted Gold” on February. 8th via Chillwavve Records. Lead single “Blacked Out on a Train” is a song of transition, taking liminal space—like the titular train car moving from a dark past to an uncertain future (“We’re leaving town alive / Without saying goodbye”), or the stylistic space between Minus the Bear-style math rock and emo revival—as its setting. Snacking show off effortlessly melodic guitars, forceful low end and emotionally complex lyricism, building “Blacked Out on a Train” up into an invigorating instrumental firestorm. “We chose ‘Blacked Out On A Train’ as the single because it’s a step in a different direction for us,” the band said upon the song’s premiere. “It’s more dissonant and hectic than anything we’ve written previously. We thought it would do a good job of attracting new listeners and hopefully surprise those who are already familiar with our prior material.”

Track List: 01. Blacked Out On A Train (0:00​) 02. Crossword (2:59​) 03. Edward (6:21​) 04. Painted Gold (10:10​)

Chillwavve Records Released on: February 8th 2021

MERE WOMEN – ” Romantic Notions “

Posted: February 8, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Music from Sydney, Australia, Mere Women are back with a divine new offering song ‘Romantic Notions’ the title-track from their eagerly awaited fourth album due 5th March 2021 via Poison City Records. We are excited to premiere the song’s clip directed and lovingly crafted by the band, shot on the land of the Kuing-gai and Eora Peoples. Vocalist Amy Wilson gives us an insight into the track, We wrote the majority of the record at our place on the Hawkesbury River where three of us live. It’s a stunning spot right on the water, surrounded by national park. The record has soaked up this place over the writing process and as a result is more spacious and considered I think. Living here has made me feel like more of an outsider and this really comes through lyrically. As an album it’s dark and self-reflective but hopeful.

‘Romantic Notions’ the theme came from. It explores the idea that love can be used as a tool to control someone or can be used as a reason to make destructive life choices. As a band at that time we were inspired sonically by groups like TFS, White Hex and BAMBARA and wanting to create something that sounded sludgy and enveloping.

We were trying to create this sense of ‘becoming’ something new and leaving the old behind with the clip. It was filmed at our cottage and in the surrounding bushland by Flyn and Mac from the Band. Mac edited the clip and made the opening titles. Our friend Kim from White Lion Cosmetica got on board to do makeup and created this really cool monsteresque look that changes and grows throughout the clip. We’re so happy to be releasing again and getting back to playing music. Thanks for watching and listening to ‘Romantic Notions’ – it means a lot and we hope that you enjoy it. 

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.”W.Y.G” follows a trail of destruction left behind by family violence. It travels through distressing family resemblances and conflicting feelings of loving someone and hating them all at once”.

Released via Poison City Records

Releases March 5th, 2021

IGGY POP and the STOOGES – ” Raw Power ” Classic Albums Released February 7th 1973

Posted: February 7, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Iggy & The Stooges - Raw Power

The Stooges released their classic third studio album, “Raw Power”, on this day in 1973. As one of the first punk albums, Raw Power didn’t initially find a audience to appreciate it until years after, but it’s now considered an integral part of both the rock and punk canons.

The Iggy Pop and David Bowie-produced Raw Power possessed the kind of playful, dangerous smirk, take no prisoners attitude and fiery energy that made it hard to resist. Tracks like “Search and Destroy” and “Gimme Danger” were marked by pumping guitars and Iggy Pop’s grimy, snarling vocals, and though many tend to classify this LP as a garage rock album or punk rock forerunner, it’s also been cited as a major influence on heavy metal and hard rock.

“Raw Power” is a total absolution. For 34 minutes, Iggy Pop pummels you with unadulterated human rage, painting the loudest and most succinct portrait in his career. It’s the voice of an uncontrollable artist, one who’s fighting a brutal war against rejection and addiction, and it’s through that fight that he went on to define himself to the world. Because, at this point in his career, very few people outside of soothsayer David Bowie believed in the Detroit rock ‘n’ roll statesman. Though, that miserable sense of marginalization is what wound up fueling the album, starting with the nuclear opening salvo of “Search and Destroy” and ending with the napalm drop of six-minute closer “Death Trip”. By then, everyone who was anyone was listening.

If ever an album was wholly encapsulated by its title, it’s The Stooges’ incendiary third album, “Raw Power”. Released in 1973, it set the bar for a wave of punk bands to try and, in most cases, fail to eclipse. It remains one of the most visceral, electrifying pieces of musical savagery you’ll ever hear. And as its chief creator James Newell Osterberg Jr, aka Iggy Pop, recalls: “It was done with drugs, youth, attitude and a record collection”.

Playing the Keef to Iggy’s Mick was a guitarist whose influence is threaded inexorably through the development of punk rock, James Williamson. Sex Pistol Steve Jones famously admitted he learnt to play by taking speed and listening to “Raw Power”. Johnny Marr said of Williamson: “He has the technical ability of Jimmy Page without being as studious, and the swagger of Keith Richards without being sloppy. He’s both demonic and intellectual, almost how you would imagine Darth Vader to sound if he was in a band.”

“As a guitarist, James fills the space as if somebody’s just let a drug dog into your house… and it’s big,” is how Iggy describes his bandmate’s playing. “He finds every corner of a musical premise and fills it up with detail.”

Born in Texas, Williamson joined The Stooges in 1970 aged 19, initially as second guitarist, before Ron Asheton switched reluctantly to bass. His raw, bluesy style was instrumental in Raw Power having a harder edge and more adrenal tempo than predecessor Funhouse, and he co-wrote all eight songs – much to the chagrin of Asheton, who felt he’d been usurped. Throughout the narcotic mayhem of the Raw Power sessions, Williamson played a Cherry Red Les Paul Custom that Iggy had encouraged him to trade in an SG and Jaguar to buy. Plugged into a cranked Vox AC30, it sounded like… well, raw power.

By the time the Michigan band regrouped in England to record Raw Power they’d already hit rock bottom, splitting in 1971 due to a combination of Iggy’s voracious appetite for heroin, extreme poverty, dangerously violent gigs and the lukewarm response to their first two albums. David Bowie came to the rescue, finding Iggy a label and management deal and setting up the recording sessions in London.

Iggy may have overdosed and been out cold for 14 hours at one point while writing the lyrics for Raw Power, but how about Search And Destroy’s “I’m a streetwalking cheetah with a hide full of napalm, I’m a runaway son of a nuclear A-bomb” for an opening couplet? And the frantic lead playing from Williamson, based around the C♯ minor pentatonic scale, is nothing short of blistering, the song a furious rallying cry for the anti-Vietnam war movement.

You can hear the influence of Chuck Berry on Williamson’s rock-solid rhythm and histrionic soloing on Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell, while the heroin horrors of the title track and the swaggering Shake Appeal also have their roots firmly in 50s rock’n’roll, the latter enabling Pop to “get to my dream of being Little Richard for a minute”.

Gimme Danger, with Williamson’s menacing acoustic riff in E♭ tuning, is there to fulfil the label’s demand for a ballad on each side of the album. As slow songs go, it’s pretty demonic, simmering with sexual tension as Iggy broods, “there’s nothing left alive but a pair of glassy eyes” before careering into the bloodthirsty chorus, Williamson’s lead playing and an insistent piano tangling lustily before the guitar wins out with a corking solo.

Iggy & The Stooges

The album’s other ballad is the Doors-esque “I Need Somebody”, a moody blues vamp in G written on an acoustic guitar by Williamson. Iggy thought it sounded like the inside of “a bordello” and his celesta part is a seductive counterpoint. Williamson’s final flourish comes as his virtuosic yet barbarous soloing envelopes the six-minute closer Death Trip, the album’s longest track.

Recording and mixing Raw Power was a suitably shambolic affair, with at least one member of the band by that point lucky to be alive. Unlike the first two Stooges albums, it was self-produced, resulting in a clueless Iggy mixing the whole band on one channel, the lead guitar on another and his vocals on a third of the 24-track desk. Handing the tapes to Bowie to sort out was the ultimate hospital pass. “He said ‘See what you can do with this’,” Bowie later recalled. “I said, ‘Jim, there’s nothing to mix’.” As Williamson remembers, “The fact of the matter is, when we made Raw Power, we really didn’t know what we were doing.”

In the circumstances, Bowie did a commendable job. Among his tweaks was feeding the guitar track on Gimme Danger through the Cooper Time Cube, a garden-hose based delay unit devised two years earlier, and of the several mixes of the album, Bowie’s is still widely regarded as the definitive version. Iggy was finally given the opportunity for some closure when he was invited to remix the album at New York’s Sony Music Studios in 1996, modern studio technology and all. While that incarnation has been dubbed “the loudest album ever made”, with every fader pushed deep into the red, it did little to halt the arguments, with Williamson complaining it “sucked” and Bowie saying his version had more “wound-up ferocity and chaos”.

Raw Power was a commercial flop, peaking at 182 in the Billboard Chart, but the reviews were positive, Lenny Kaye praising the “ongoing swirl of sound that virtually drags you into the speakers”. It didn’t stop Iggy being dropped by both his label and management company, but the record’s legend has grown exponentially over the years. Kurt Cobain said Raw Power was his favourite album of all time, British rock critic Nick Kent called it “the greatest, meanest-eyed, coldest-blooded hard rock tour de force ever summoned up in a recording studio” and Ted Maider of Consequence Of Sound “by far the most important punk record ever”.

In 1973, Iggy Pop may have been, unjustly, the world’s forgotten boy, but today The Stooges’ influence looms large over a generation of guitar bands. When a topless Iggy and the surviving Stooges tore wantonly through Search And Destroy at their induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2010, it felt like long-overdue recognition of the ultimate rock’n’roll album. “Raw Power” indeed.

Iggy And The Stooges, Raw Power (1973, Columbia Records)

  • Iggy Pop, vocals, celesta, piano
  • James Williamson, guitar
  • Ron Asheton, bass guitar, backing vocals
  • Scott Asheton, drums

HAYLEY WILLIAMS – ” Flowers For Vases / Descansos “

Posted: February 7, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Hayley Williams has announced that she is releasing ‘Flowers For Vases / Descansos’ on February 5th. The follow-up to Williams’ May 2020 debut solo album ‘Petals For Armor’ has been teased by the Paramore frontwoman in recent weeks, with Williams’ official website redirecting to a site called ‘Flowers For Vases’. In late January, Paramore singer Hayley Williams began teasing a new project. She posted cryptic social media posts and mailed mysterious packages to fans that included doll limbs and handwritten notes that said “Plant me.” It turns out she has a brand-new full-length album that she wrote, performed and recorded on her own, at home during quarantine, called Flowers for Vases – descanos. It comes just eight months after Williams released her solo debut, “Petals for Armor”.

Williams also ‘leaked’ a new track from the project late last month after she hand-delivered a CD to one fan in the US. After fans noted that the Genius page for ‘Flowers For Vases / Descansos’ showed a release date of February 5th, Williams tweeted early this morning the title of her next solo project, its imminent release date.

The ‘Flowers For Vases / Descansos’ release news follows on from Williams revealing last month that she was in the process of recording her equivalent of Taylor Swift’s surprise-released album ‘Folklore’. “We don’t need drums if this is my ‘Folklore’,” she said of a since-deleted behind-the-scenes clip.

ADRIANNE LENKER – ” forwards beckon rebound “

Posted: February 7, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Adrianne Lenker of Big Thief has released a new video for her song “forwards beckon rebound” from her 2020 solo album “Songs”. The video features Lenker’s silhouette shot floating around the screen accompanied by her elucidative dancing at dusk in the desert. Filmed at Wild Heart Ranch in Joshua Tree, the “forwards beckon rebound” video was self-directed by Lenker but brought to life by cinematographer Adam Gundersheimer and producer V Haddad.

Last fall, Lenker released two solo albums titled “Songs” and “Instrumentals”, which featured her strong song writing abilities and indie-folk sound seeping through each track.

Both albums were written and recorded in April 2020 while under quarantine. After Big Thief’s European tour ended early due to COVID-19, Lenker retreated to a one-room cabin in the mountains of western Massachusetts and set up a studio there with the aid of engineer Philip Weinrobe.

“I grew really connected to the space itself,” said Lenker in a previous press release. “The one-room cabin felt like the inside of an acoustic guitar—it was such a joy to hear the notes reverberate in the space.”

The FLYING BURRITO BROS – ” The Gilded Palace of Sin ” Classic Albums

Posted: February 7, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Country music’s influence on rock ’n’ roll is nearly as old as rock itself, a dominant gene in rockabilly and vocal touchstone for seminal artists from Elvis to Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers. in 1968 the rise of a school of artists consciously bridging those genres, accelerating the pace that two of the sub-genre’s defining albums would overlap in conception even as the bands creating them buckled under internal strain.

The Byrds had enjoyed first mover advantage in recording “Sweetheart of the Rodeo”, spurred on by Gram Parsons, a 21-year-old singer-songwriter whose deep love for Southern country and R&B found a kindred spirit in bassist Chris Hillman and pragmatic support from lead guitarist Roger McGuinn. Country influences were already in the air, not only in originals and covers from the Beatles, the Lovin’ Spoonful, Buffalo Springfield and the Byrds themselves, but also in up and coming artists like Bobbie Gentry and Linda Ronstadt.

Before “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” hit stores in late August, Parsons had bolted from the band on the eve of South African dates and veered into a bromance with Keith Richards that injected the Rolling Stones with country influences while fanning Parsons’ own dreams of rock glory. After hanging out in London with Richards, Parsons returned to Los Angeles in early August weighing his next move.

The Flying Burrito Brothers’ original line up: Sneaky Pete Kleinow, Gram Parsons, Chris Ethridge and Chris Hillman. The recording line up had yet to add a drummer

Meanwhile, Chris Hillman had left the Byrds’ coop after increasing tensions with management. Despite an earlier falling out with Parsons, Hillman reconciled with the Florida-born, Georgia-raised musician. The erstwhile combatants once more bonded over music and even became roommates, writing the bulk of what would become the original material on the debut for the Flying Burrito Brothers. Chris Ethridge was recruited as bassist, freeing Hillman to play guitar and mandolin, and the duo tapped Sneaky Pete Kleinow on pedal steel guitar.

The chance to snag a new band with two Byrds quickly drew competing bids from Warner Bros. and A&M Records, with A&M winning the battle. In contrast to the sessions for Sweetheart, shepherded by a seasoned producer and crack session players, the Burritos entered the studio with a big advance, a lot of ideas, a fledgling co-producer who was no match for the strong-willed Parsons and Hillman, and no drummer. The Burritos would share producer credits with A&M’s Larry Marks and engineer Henry Lewy, reflecting a more chaotic studio environment that would find them going through a collection of drummers.

Gram Parsons had envisioned the Burritos as “his” band, but The Gilded Palace of Sin, released in early February of ’69, underscores the partnership between Parsons and Hillman, who co-wrote six of the album’s eight originals. The opening track, “Christine’s Tune,” finds them sharing lead vocals and driving acoustic rhythm guitars, with harmonies built on classic thirds that harken back to the Louvin Brothers, the Everlys and other high, lonesome harmony singers. An overly ripe bassline evidently designed to emphasize rock power loses its edge to muddiness, but Sneaky Pete’s pedal steel commands centre stage with an aggressive, fuzz-toned attack and his own unorthodox tunings.

A stop-motion animator and special effects craftsman, Kleinow provides a potent departure from the more traditional steel parts heard on Sweetheart, leaning here into the rock side of the sub-genre’s equation. Kleinow unleashes that power elsewhere on Gilded Palace while proving his skill with more traditional accents on the ballads, starting with “Sin City,” a country waltz that trades in the sin and salvation polarity central to Parsons’ vision for an amalgam of country, rhythm ’n’ blues and rock.

Its synthesis of country soundscape with urban modernism strikes an apocalyptic tone. “On the thirty-first floor, a gold-plated door won’t keep out the Lord’s burning rain,” the duo sings in a prophesy that warns “this old earthquake’s gonna leave me in the poor house.” They could be singing about L.A. or Las Vegas; heard today, it’s hard not to envision the gilded escalators in Trump Tower.

The R&B component in Parsons’ “cosmic” Southern synthesis leads him back to Memphis, source for Sweetheart’s countrified R&B cover (“You Don’t Miss Your Water”). this time yielding two superb ballads sharing lyrics from Dan Penn. “Do Right Woman,” written with Chips Moman, was a sensuous Aretha Franklin cut demanding equal sexual satisfaction from her man, a contract that survives its gender flip as another gliding country waltz. Instead of changing the mood or their compass bearings, the Burritos follow with the darker sexual torment of “Dark End of the Street,” a Penn collaboration with Spooner Oldham. Parsons dominates the vocals with an audible anguish over a locked battle between passion and guilt for two lovers “hiding in shadows where we don’t belong,” resigned to the inevitability of discovery and shame in a tableau of illicit love familiar in both country and soul tropes.

For two self-referential album tracks, Parsons wrote with Chris Ethridge. “Hot Burrito #1” is another soulful ballad that dispenses with any hint of sexual guilt to remind an ex-lover that “I’m the one who showed you how/To do the things you’re doing now” in frank sexual metaphors. With “Hot Burrito #2,” Ethridge grounds the track in a strutting bassline as Parsons rants about a lover’s quarrel with an eyebrow-raising opening “Yes, you loved me and you sold all my clothes.” If the lyrics verge on incoherence, the track itself is a lively standout.

Elsewhere, Parsons and Hillman nod to the tension between their music’s Southern roots and their countercultural instincts. On “My Uncle,” Hillman takes the lead on vocals and mandolin as a young American pondering the draft who’s “heading for the nearest northern border” against a fleet bluegrass backdrop. And on the closing “Hippie Boy,” Hillman reverses roles for a poker-faced, spoken word sermon as a redneck whose encounter with a hippie brings something like peace, love, understanding and the sage advice to “never carry more than you can eat.”

With the album completed, the Burritos recruited a third Byrd, drummer Michael Clarke, but chaotic behavior sabotaged supporting tour dates as they burned through the label’s advance, missing a crucial New York date. The Gilded Palace of Sin stalled on the Billboard chart, considerably worse than Sweetheart’s disappointing tally months earlier. The addition of Bernie Leadon would strengthen them musically, but Gram Parsons was already restless. He would leave “his” band after the Burritos completed a scattershot follow-up, Burrito Deluxe.

Gone missing years before the death of Gram Parsons, one of the four iconic outfits worn on the cover of the Burritos’ The Gilded Palace of Sin, and unknowingly bought by Elton John, resurfaces

Thanks Sam Sutherland

TRIPTIDES – ” Alter Echoes “

Posted: February 7, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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With a sound oscillating between psychedelic pop and space rock, Triptides’ album “Alter Echoes” channels both The Byrds at their most hallucinogenic and Floyd at their most cosmically composed while creating something immediate and new. The band has established itself as a preeminent part of the Los Angeles new wave psych music. With “Alter Echoes,” they pull away from the pack, thanks to the quality of their song writing, performance and production.  

Triptides have become a staple of Southern California’s sun-baked, surf-tinged psych-rock scene over the last decade, and now the Los Angeles trio is gearing up to release a new album called Alter Echoes, due next month via Alive Naturalsound Records. Today, the band continues to live up to its name with a dreamy, hallucinogenic new single premiering below. “Perhaps the most laid back track on the record, ‘Moonlight Reflection’ is a love song gliding through the darkness of a clear night,” vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Glenn Brigman says.

The track opens with a breezy, undulating intro, but the first verse sets the scene: “In the dead of night, see the moon reflecting the light / Do you feel alright? Don’t run and hide.” Brigman’s spaced out vocals are barely tethered to the instrumentation below. Eventually those vocals give way to a heady, transcendent guitar solo the kind of guitar solo that begs to be performed outside on a warm summer night. “We drew upon the dreamy moods of Erasmo Carlos,” explains Brigman, “and the heroic melodies of the Isley Brothers, letting the vocal track ebb and flow while the lush chords glisten in anticipation of the climactic conclusion: a final jet-phased guitar solo that ascends like the first light of a new day.”

“Moonlight Reflection” is the second single off Alter Ehoes following the more driving “It Won’t Hurt You,” which arrived last month. Both tracks follow a string of singles and double-singles released over 2019 and 2020. 

For our new record, we decided to create something more organic, performing together in a classic Hollywood studio and recording it live to tape,” says Brigman. “We wanted to make sure we were expressing the true sound of the three of us in a room before elevating the recordings with additional overdubs.”

The band recorded the album at Boulevard Recording Studio. Formerly the Producer’s Workshop then Westbeach Recorders, the studio was upgraded in 2010 when engineer Clay Blair decided to revamp it. “I came across this Craigslist ad,” Blair told an interviewer in 2016. “It said, ‘Recording Studio.’ There was only a picture of the building outside.” In its previous eras, the studio hosted Pink Floyd, Ringo Starr, Bad Religion, Blink-182, and plenty of other pop, rock, and punk hitmakers (it also housed Epitaph Records at one point).

“We kept the writing spontaneous and let our influences drift from 70’s fuzz rock (‘Hand of Time’) to bossa nova (‘She Doesn’t Want To Know’) to electric jazz (‘Another Dream’),” says Brigman of Triptides’ new material. “Through our collaborative mind we were able to weave these vibrations together to form “Alter Echoes.”

Alter Echoes comes after the self-described “sun-warped psychedelic rock” band’s 2018 albums Visitors and Estrela Magica (with Winter), as well as 2017’s Afterglow. Triptides is led by multi-instrumentalist Glenn Brigman, the trio is rounded by bassist Stephen Burns and drummer Brendan Peleo-Lazar.

“Moonlight Reflection” is out February 5th. Alter Echoes arrives March 19th via Alive Naturalsound Records.

PHANTOM HANDSHAKES – ” Be Estranged “

Posted: February 7, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Phantom Handshakes are the New York- based duo of Matt Sklar (Exiles) and Federica Tassano (Sooner, Mônetre), a band who have pretty much only existed in the age of social distancing. Last year saw the band release their debut album, “Be Estranged”, recorded in their respective homes in Brooklyn and Manhattan at the end of Spring 2020. The album was released by Slovakian cassette-label Z Tapes, who will also release their second offering, No More Summer Songs, recorded in the same manner as their debut, and due out in April. Ahead of that release, today Phantom Handshakes are sharing the first single from the album, No Better Plan.

In Phantom Handshakes’ Instagram bio, the project is described as “a band born to cope with the quarantine’s gloom,” but it would be just as accurate to say the dream-pop duo has been helping us cope, with gorgeous songs that have offered some serious sonic solace during what’s certainly been the strangest of years.

Now, about five months after the release of the NYC duo’s excellent debut EP “Be Estranged”, plus the newest track from Phantom Handshakes

Musically, Phantom Handshakes’ sound seems to exist in-between worlds, the guitars have a certain to the production of early-90’s shoegaze and the catchy unforget-ability of indie-pop. Through this heady mixture of influences, they seem to mark a path of their own, while there’s touchstones to the likes of Chorusgirl or Hazel English, ultimately Phantom Handshakes are plotting their own course, and sounding increasingly compelling doing it.

New single ‘No Better Plan’ available now From the upcoming LP ‘No More Summer Songs’ out April 30th Written and recorded by Phantom Handshakes (Federica Tassano & Matt Sklar)

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