Archive for the ‘CLASSIC ALBUMS’ Category

The CARS – ” The Cars ” Classic Albums

Posted: February 8, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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The Cars’ 1978 self-titled debut, issued on the Elektra label, is a genuine rock classic. The band jokingly referred to the album as their “true greatest-hits album,” but it’s no exaggeration — all nine tracks are new wave/rock classics, still playing regulary on rock radio. Whereas most bands of the late ’70s embraced either punk/new wave or hard rock, the Cars were one of the first bands to do the unthinkable — merge the two styles together. Add to it bandleader/songwriter Ric Ocasek’s supreme pop sensibilities, One of the most popular new wave songs ever in america, “Just What I Needed,” is an obvious highlight, as are such familiar hits as “Good Times Roll,” “My Best Friend’s Girl,” and “You’re All I’ve Got Tonight.” But like most consummate rock albums, the lesser-known compositions are just as exhilarating: “Don’t Cha Stop,” “Bye Bye Love,” “All Mixed Up,” and “Moving in Stereo,” the latter featured as an instrumental during a steamy scene in the popular movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High. With flawless performances, songwriting, and production, the Cars’ debut remains one of rock’s all-time classics.

The Cars first album has been about four decades since they committed this effort to disc. It’s not a bad record; there are some songs I really like and Elliot Easton is an outstanding lead guitarist. The songs are basic rock songs disguised by cheeky but often nonsensical lyrics and heavy use of a decorative synthesizer. I say “decorative” because like so many bands in the late 70’s and 80’s, the synthesizer was used to make songs sound more important and cool than they really were. I don’t know who chose the track order, but opening with the weakest song on the album isn’t the best way to make new friends. “Good Times Roll” is hardly an original title, and the music hardly evokes good times. The chord structure is simple enough but the choice to use a declining pattern tends to make the song a downer, especially in contrast to the promise of the title. I suppose the dour chord pattern could be a statement of New Wave ironic chic , but if irony was the goal, one would think there would be some confirmation in the lyrics. But no, they’re just silly:

Let the good times roll
Let them knock you around
Let the good times roll
Let them make you a clown
Let them leave you up in the air
Let them brush your rock and roll hair
Let the good times roll

Ric Ocasek employs his soon-to-be-overused pouty vocal style to the point of irritation, and the harmonies used on the last line of the chorus are a pale imitation of Queen . The intrusion of synth-produced strings causes even more damage. When you have as natural an opening song as “Just What I Needed” in your possession, failing to place it in the lead spot is tantamount to criminal negligence.

While the opening is so Tommy James, “My Best Friend’s Girl” is at least a more coherent composition. We get to hear Elliot Easton’s lead guitar more clearly, and he gives a pretty impressive all-around performance on the fills and in the solo. Ocasek’s lead vocal isn’t much better, and his occasional Bolan-esque grunts lack sincerity and seem out of context. The harmonies here are stronger, and the rhythm section of Benjamin Orr and David Robinson keeps things moving at a nice pace. The song definitely encourages you to sing along, so overall I think “My Best Friend’s Girl” is a plus.

Then there’s “Just What I Needed,” a song on a much higher plane. The opening passage is fantastic, with its strong forward movement dramatized by single then double power chords that vanish in the seamless transition to the bass-and-drum drive of the first verse. Though I definitely would have whacked the synth and replaced it with more Elliot Easton, this sucker rocks so hard even the synth can’t kill it, and when Elliot gets his shot in the spotlight, he nails it with a perfectly-arranged solo that ends on an exciting upward run. Benjamin Orr’s lead vocal is outstanding, expressing the contradictory emotions of self-loathing and desire with just the right amount of tension:

I don’t mind you comin’ here
And wastin’ all my time
‘Cause when you’re standin’, oh so near
I kinda lose my mind
It’s not the perfume that you wear
It’s not the ribbons in your hair
And I don’t mind you comin’ here
And wastin’ all my time

The way to read the lyrics is as follows: the guy is lying in six of the eight lines. The only directly-spoken truth is “‘Cause when you’re standin’ oh so near/I kinda lose my mind.” All the other lines reflect the exact opposite of what he’s feeling. It is the perfume, it is the ribbons, and fuck yeah, he wants her to be there. The spot harmonies on “ribbons in your hair” are inspired and always give me the chills. As an exposition of male paralysis when overwhelmed by desire, there is no better song than “Just What I Needed,” and the fact that it kicks ass.

“I’m in Touch with Your World” is the most quirky song on the album, and I rather like quirky. Interestingly, the guitar duet establishes the beat, while the percussion instruments (drums, cymbals, bells and ratchet) make the whole thing sound like a mechanical fun house. Ric Ocasek’s vocal is shoved into deep background by the heavy reverb, adding to the mystery of the sound. Both the narrator and object of his one-sided conversation are virtual shut-ins who have created alternative realities through either psilocybin, science fiction or both, and so the message “I’m in touch with your world” is an attempt by Party A to encourage Party B to air his weird thoughts in a safe space. The closing lines, “It’s such a lovely way to go” could imply suicide but the music doesn’t communicate darkness—it’s “music for those whose inner compasses are out of calibration” or more conventionally, those whose cranial containers are “a few bricks shy of a load.”

We leave the introverts in their artificial cocoon and return to the equally complex world of sexual interaction with “Don’t Cha Stop.” Given my perpetually horny nature, one might think that I would love a song that opened with these lines:

Right here I’d like to melt inside of you
Right here you kiss is totally new
Right here your hands are soft and creamy
Right here your mouth is wet and dreamy

Wrong! Of all the songs on the album, “Don’t Cha Stop” is by far the most irritating, a song that turns sex into the aural equivalent of a Disney tune. The sickeningly sweet chorus sounds like it was written for pre-teens who have no idea what those funny feelings in the nether regions are all about

“Just What I Needed,” a song that exposes the moments of desperation experienced usually by those held in the thrall of mating season and gives them legitimacy as a natural step in the rite of passage. The narrator of “You’re All I’ve Got Tonight” is in a real bad way—so horny he has no problem being used, abused and lied to, and he’ll do it anywhere you like. Ric Ocasek finally finds some discipline and delivers a performance true to the character, and there’s more than enough excellent work from Elliott Easton throughout the song to make you forget the synthesizer had ever been invented. This album would have been a thousand times better had The Cars realized what a great lead guitar player they had and let him loose.

“Bye Bye Love” features another unoriginal title, another round of flanged guitar and really annoying synth fills that detract from a comparatively strong vocal from Ocasek. What I notice most in this piece is the outstanding drum work from David Robinson, but underneath all the college-level lyrics, this is really just another song that blames it all on the woman. It’s followed by the darker tones of “Moving in Stereo,” a song about failing to face reality that goes absolutely nowhere. We end our journey with “All Mixed Up,” an odd combination of medieval English folk and off-day Queen.

In the interest of supporting your right to hear both sides of the story, you can head over to AllMusic and read a glowing review of The Cars, where you will see the album described as “a genuine rock masterpiece” and that “all nine tracks are New Wave/rock classics.” What I hear is the sound of a band addicted to the latest toys to the point that they forgot about the real talent they possessed in their quest for trendiness.

thanks 50THIRDAND3RD interesting view

The CARS – ” Shake It Up / Heartbeat City ” Rhino Records Reissue

Posted: February 8, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Following expansions of The Cars’ Candy-O and Panorama, the classic New Wave group (one of this year’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees) will expand two more in their classic discography in the spring.

Rhino Records will release 1981’s Shake It Up and 1984’s Heartbeat City with rare and previously unreleased bonus tracks on March 30th. CD and double LP editions will be available, and will utilize the 2016 remasters overseen by co-lead singer Ric Ocasek as well as art direction overseen by drummer David Robinson. (For the box set The Elektra Years, Heartbeat City changed from a burgundy cover to white, in accordance with the group’s original vision; that design choice repeats here.) Ocasek and Robinson have also sat for new interviews for David Fricke’s liner notes for each title.

A total of 15 bonus tracks appear between both packages, from B-sides (“Breakaway,” from the Heartbeat City period), dance mixes (among the band’s only ones: the Top 20 hit “Hello Again”), a cover of The Nightcrawlers’ “The Little Black Egg” (the backing track of which was used for Bebe Buell’s covers EP) and the two exclusive tracks from the band’s seminal 1985 greatest hits set: the Top 10 smash “Tonight She Comes” and a remix of Shake It Up‘s “I’m Not the One.” Gems from the vault include early versions and demos of “Shake It Up,” “Since You’re Gone,” “Drive,” “Heartbeat City” and “Coming Up You,” later released on the group’s 1987 effort Door to Door.

Shake It Up and Heartbeat City continued the Boston quintet’s dominant turn from New Wave masters to pop-rock hitmakers. These albums, respectively produced by Roy Thomas Baker (his fourth consecutive collaboration with the group) and ascendant pop-rock craftsman Robert John “Mutt” Lange, contain The Cars’ biggest hits, including their first Top 10 track, “Shake It Up”; the power-pop gem “Since You’re Gone,” and bestsellers like “You Might Think” (remembered for its cutting-edge-at-the-time MTV video), “Magic” and the simmering ballad “Drive,” sung by the band’s late bassist Benjamin Orr and the band’s biggest hit.

 

The Cars / Heartbeat City and Shake It Up expanded editions

Spring is going to be pretty swell for The Cars, what with the band being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but for Cars fans, it’s going to be all about the SHAKE IT UP: EXPANDED EDITION and HEARTBEAT CITY: EXPANDED EDITION both releases. Due March 30th, each includes remastered versions of the original albums, rare and previously-unreleased bonus tracks, and illustrated booklets featuring new interviews with Ric Ocasek and David Robinson as well as liner notes by noted rock critic David Fricke. We know it’s going to be a long wait for March 30th to get here, but to help you endure the suffering, we’ve got something for you right now: the demo for the band’s HEARTBEAT CITY hit, “Drive.”

 

NO AGE – ” Snares Like a Haircut “

Posted: February 8, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Don’t call it a comeback, but nearly five years after their last record, LA duo No Age has returned with its fifth full-length. Since 2005, guitarist Randy Randall and drummer/vocalist Dean Spunt have toyed with the idea and the definition of punk, always redefining it in terms of their sound but never wavering from the ethos underpinning it. With 2013’s An Object, for example, the pair physically made ten-thousand copies of the record themselves, despite the fact that it was being released on Sub Pop Records, a label more than capable of manufacturing those copies itself.

Of course, the world has changed a lot since then, and it seems that No Age are poised to confront it with these twelve songs. That said, this album doesn’t rage against the machine with visceral aplomb, but given that this is No Age, that’s perhaps not surprising. Instead, the pair provide a disturbing and unsettling soundtrack to reflect these disturbing and unsettling times—a fuzzy, fizzling backdrop to the chaos and trauma that surrounds us at the moment.

The record begins on a somewhat antagonistic note, with the rambunctious and frenzied surge of “Cruise Control.” But even in that rush of buzzsaw guitars and charged feedback, there’s an unavoidable warmth, one that both reflects but then transcends any problems at hand, be they personal or political or a combination of the two. This is the case for many of the rest of these songs—“Stuck in the Changer” is wistful but forceful, “Popper” doom-laden but also optimistic, and the instrumental title track a soothing flood of comfort. It’s both a non-song—an interlude, an afterthought—and the most important track on the record, offering, as it does, some time to reflect, a moment of near-meditative calm.

There is—as there always has been on No Age records—a sense of almost naïve innocence. This is a band continuing to make music the way it wants to make music with no concerns for how other people will perceive it, and that approach serves them just as well here. Because this is a record that—subtly, subconsciously—offers some kind of solace while also invoking the unnerving and disquieting times we live in. A song like “Sqashed,” for example, with its nod to The Velvet Underground, simultaneously puts you on edge and gets you through it. For better or worse, it’s the perfect backdrop to life in 2018, and for as long as we need it, this album will be here to help.

In certain musical circles, the word “accessible” is a death sentence, a Judas-esque betrayal. Or worse, a synonym for “sell-out.” For noise-punk veterans No Age, it means their best release in recent memory. With recurring choruses and a selection of guitar riffs you can actually hum, much of Snares Like a Haircut feels like a new era for Dean Spunt and Randy Randall, who got their start doing time at L.A.’s The Smell, a grotty, sweat-marinated touchstone of DIY legitimacy. “Cruise Control” signals this change, as the duo turn their churning, rumbling noise into an almost hooky(!) melody, and introducing the positive feeling of release that characterizes the album

Track from LP/CS/CD “Snares Like a Haircut”, released January 26, 2018 on Drag City Records.

MIEN – ” Earth Moon “

Posted: February 8, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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As reported before Rocket Recordings are extremely excited to be releasing the self-titled debut album by MIEN, the new four piece band comprised of The Black Angels’ Alex Maas, The Horrors’ Tom Furse, Elephant Stone’s Rishi Dhir and The Earlies’ John-Mark Lapham.
After revealing the video for their debut track Black Habit we are pleased to share with you the second track from the album which is called ‘Earth Moon’.
The single will be released on 6th March and will feature a killer remix of MIEN’s first single Black Habit by the ever great $hit and $hine. We will reveal this mighty slab of industrial psych shortly!

The press reactions to the band’s first single “Black Habit” has been overwhelming:
“Apocalyptic psych rock.” Pitchfork–
“MIEN is the line-up of your dreams.” Clash–
“Kaleidoscopic series of atmospheres and excursions.” Self Titled Mag

Elephant Stone

FRANKIE COSMOS – ” Being Alive “

Posted: February 8, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Our friend Daniel Martin hopped in the car on tour with us for a few days and brought his camera. Little did we know he would end up making this cool music video!! and making puppet versions of us!!.
We are very excited to announce the 2nd single from Vessel, a song called “Being Alive”. You may recognize this song because we’ve been playing it live for a while now, and also because I (Greta) released it as a demo many years ago. But this new recording is very different and special because it has David Maine, Lauren Martin, and Luke Pyenson playing bass, keys, and drums respectively, and David, Lauren, and our friend Anna McClellan sing on it too.

Frankie Cosmos is so great. Greta’s demos and her studio versions of songs can create two different experiences, and a lot of the time they show major growth in her musical talent.

Vessel (Release Date: March 30th, 2018) via Sub Pop Rccords

DONOVAN WOODS – ” Burn That Bridge “

Posted: February 8, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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That push-and-pull, especially in relationships, has long been Donovan Woods’ stock in trade. As the lead track of his forthcoming album Both Ways, “Good Lover” unfolds with acoustic instruments and Woods’ quietly compelling delivery — not what a listener might expect from the title alone. The first song off Donovan Woods‘ highly-anticipated new album. “Both Ways” will be available April 20, 2018 via Meant Well.

Woods is also a notable Nashville songwriter .”There are very few writers who can make you laugh and break your heart in the same song.” No Depression noted that Woods’ style is “as fresh and captivating as any out there.”

In Both Ways, Woods shows the rare ability to distill complicated situations and emotions into songs that are intriguing and relatable. Perhaps the collection’s most beautiful song is “I Ain’t Ever Loved No One,” a duet with Rose Cousins. The song captures that moment of bringing someone home to meet the family, using it as a backdrop to the anxieties of falling in love. True to the album title, a listener could either imagine a happily-ever-after ending or hear it as an ode to the one that got away. In most cases, Woods prefers to leave lyrics open to interpretation.

As Both Ways progresses, radio-friendly songs like “I Live a Little Lie” and “Easy Street” employ a full-band sound to flesh out the sonic landscape. A number of the songs are guitar-driven, yet they stop short of full-blown rock ‘n’ roll. With his typically droll sense of humor, Woods notes, “I know that nobody likes rock music anymore. I don’t even really like it anymore.” But he says the more aggressive moments on Both Ways are inspired by camaraderie in the studio and on tour, as well as the pop and R&B music he heard growing up in Sarnia, Ontario, where he could pick up the radio stations out of Detroit.

Both Ways concludes with “Next Year,” one of five songs on the album he co-wrote in Nashville, where he has a publishing deal with Warner/Chappell Music. The poignant narrative follows a boy through adolescence and adulthood, where hopes and dreams are in a race against time. While the lyrics are drawn from Woods’ own life, the experiences are universal.

“The Worst Way” is the follow up single to Donovan Woods‘ critically-acclaimed full-length “Hard Settle, Ain’t Troubled.”

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EZRA FURMAN – ” Maraschino-Red Dress $8.99 at Goodwill “

Posted: February 8, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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We loved Suck The Blood From My Wound, the last single Ezra Furman shared from his much anticipated new long player Transangelic Exodus, which will be released on the 9th February on Bella Union Records.

Now we have his latest offering from the record, the jagged, agitated, and it must be said, spectacularly named “Maraschino-Red Dress $8.99 at Goodwill”.

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The CRAMPS – ” Bad Music For Bad People “

Posted: February 7, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Bad Music For Bad People is a sumptuous collection of 11 hits (“Human Fly” is represented) and B-sides that often serves as an introduction to the psychobilly legends’ swampy goo goo muck.

“Bad Music for Bad People” is the second compilation album of previously released material by the American garage punk band the Cramps. It was released in 1984 on I.R.S. Records and was seen by most fans as a cynical cash-in by the record label, following the departure of the band. Sounds, the now defunct UK music paper, gave the album a 5-star review but said, “Miles Copeland’s IRS label pick the carrion of their former label mates even cleaner by releasing a watered down version of the ...Off the Bone singles collection that was released in the UK.

The Band:

  • Lux Interior – vocals
  • Bryan Gregory – guitar
  • Kid Congo Powers – guitar
  • Poison Ivy Rorschach – guitar
  • Nick Knox – drums

GOAT GIRL – ” Goat Girl “

Posted: February 7, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Goatgirl rgb 4000px logo

Across 19 tracks in just 40 minutes, Goat Girl’s self-titled debut creates a half-fantasy world out of a very dirty, ugly city reality. In the group’s words: “Simply put, it’s an album that comes from growing up in London and the first hand experience of our city’s devolution. We wanted to think of it as this place seen not necessarily just through our eyes, but someone who can’t get past the abnormalities and strange happenings that exist in our city. We think this gives the freedom lyrically and musically to explore unspoken truths and emotions that we all as humans feel.”

Goat Girl belong to a burgeoning, close-knit south London scene, born in venues like The Windmill and including bands like Shame, Bat-Bike, Madonnatron, Horsey, Sorry, and many more. “We help each other – I put you on, you put me on – because we genuinely like each other’s music. We’d played gigs all over before but never really settled in a comfortable environment, which is what The Windmill is. It’s an important place for us, it was the first space that our music made sense to exist within. It’s a safe space where music is genuinely listened to and appreciated, and where laws and licensing haven’t reached over to ruin the venue.”

This live freedom enabled the band to think without constraints when it came to recording. Goat Girl enlisted producer Dan Carey (The Kills, Bat For Lashes, Franz Ferdinand) to help them capture their vision, set a goal to write and record a piece of music in a day in effort to capture that raw first-creation moment, and chose to record to tape. “We wanted it to have a similar expression to our live sets and so knew from the start that a tape-based approach would work for us. There’s less awareness of trying to achieve perfection as you can’t edit out mistakes and so you allow them to occur instead. It felt like a really relaxed and natural environment, and you can hear the comfortability in the energy of our sound. Recording to tape also meant that we were able to get the foundations of each song down very quickly, and there was a lot more thought put in to the pre-production of the album, as well as how we would allow the songs to flow in a cohesive manner from one to the next to create a story, rather than an album made up of singles.”

It’s a very English album — sharp-eyed observations like The Kinks, louche rage like The Slits — but it’s also full of swampy, swaggering guitars and singer Lottie’s filthy drawl. “It wasn’t exactly intentional to have this warped country sound, but I think that was initially what we were all drawn to and inspired by, bands that existed in a lo-fi, dissonant, scratchy context.” Each member brings a diverse range of influences and contributions, ranging from krautrock to bossa nova, jazz to blues. They resist being boxed in to an indie, guitar-based genre, and focused intensely on the layers and textures of each song as well as the different contexts they could sit within. “It seems all too easy to exist in that kind of world with the instrumentation of our band, and so now was our chance to transcend that feeling. The joy of working in Dan’s studio is that you’re surrounded by these possibilities to sound more electronic, with such a vast array of different analog synths and sounds to choose from…to be able to experiment and evolve with our music in the recording process has allowed us different possible future routes for our music to take.”

The result, Goat Girl, succeeds in conjuring a complete world all unto itself, and is arranged in segments — divided by improvised interludes — that offer glimpses of an even stranger parallel universe. With each song acting as its own story of sorts that features different settings and characters, listeners are transported therewithin. It’s dark yet cheeky, varied yet cohesive, and striking in its vision; this world is populated by creeps and liars, lovers, dreamers, and wonderful lunatics. Lead single “Cracker Drool” is at once jaunty and sinister, a foreboding tale full of swirling guitar, echoing vocals and synthetic drum hits that stumbles and gurgles straight into “Slowly Reclines,” an equally menacing and considerably heavier track. “Creep” is, predictably and grimly enough, inspired by actual events: Creep on the train / I really want to smash your head in. “You want to think you could stand up for yourself in that kind of situation,” says Lottie. “But then a lot of the time a quiet politeness takes over and you act like nothing has happened – even though in your head everything has happened. I think the purpose for a lot of the lyrics in the songs is to act out that power role that isn’t necessarily a truth, but the freedom of writing gives you that sense.”

On “Country Sleaze,” she sings about sex in a way that embraces visceral reality and defeats shame. “If you say you’re sexually free, as a woman, society still deems that a bad thing. But really it’s a beautiful thing to be confident in yourself – to know that you can have sex and it doesn’t have to mean anything and that doesn’t make you a bad person.” Ellie smiles: “That song is quite disgusting, in a good way. It’s not trying to be nice, it’s not a love song.” Goat Girl is altogether an album crafted with intention, and invites imaginations to run wild; it draws listeners in to its half-fantasy world from the slow fade, eerie instrumental intro “Salty Sounds,” to the gorgeous, unsettling closer “Tomorrow” –– a rendition of the song featured in Bugsy Malone — which ends with dawn-chorus birds and the feeling of new possibilities after a long and messy night.

BRIAN FALLON – ” Sleepwalkers “

Posted: February 7, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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“SLEEPWALKERS” sees Brian Fallon once again pushing timeless rock ‘n’ roll into the modern era, recasting British Invasion rock, first generation UK punk and American pop and soul into a near irresistible sound he’s dubbed “Heavy R&B.” Recorded earlier this year at New Orleans’ Parlor Recording Studio with producer Ted Hutt – the man behind the board for The Gaslight Anthem’s breakthrough, THE ’59 SOUND – the album is perhaps the strongest example yet of Fallon’s always adventurous artistry, with songs like “Forget Me Not” and the brass-blasting title track fit to burst with spirit and light, an intangible magic that draws listeners to the dance floor while also striking chords within their hearts.

“I haven’t had this feeling since THE ’59 SOUND,” Fallon says. “When I wrote that record, I was pure. I had no pre-conceived notions. I was following this thing and when it was done I knew it could stand against anyone.”

Known far and wide as singer/guitarist of The Gaslight Anthem, as well as The Horrible Crowes, Fallon made his long-anticipated solo debut with 2015’s masterful PAINKILLERS. The album – which includes the hit singles, “A Wonderful Life” and “Painkillers” – drew widespread critical applause upon its release, with Rolling Stone noting, “For a guy whose songs have always traded in the pains and pleasures of nostalgia, the Fallon of PAINKILLERS seems to have arrived at a newfound, forward-looking clarity.”

Fallon toured the world in support of PAINKILLERS, during which time the New Jersey-based tunesmith began considering what might come next. Once again, Fallon had a sound buzzing in his ear, a modern marriage of rock and soul with the hard edge of punk, ribboned with the “cool and kind of creepy” tones of the one and only Vox Continental, the distinctive organ used by some of his favorite artists spanning The Animals and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers to The Specials and Elvis Costello and the Attractions.

“Believe it or not, I started taking piano lessons,” he says. “As a professional musician, you think, well, taking lessons seems weird, but then you remember there’s still a world of things you don’t know. I was okay with the idea that I didn’t know anything about playing piano so I was able to really learn. And that opened up whole new worlds for me.”

Despite his new skill set, Fallon was still somewhat stuck, unable to access the part of himself necessary to truly go deep in his songcraft.

“It seemed like I had all the music in the world, but couldn’t find the melody,” he says. “The brakes were on. The muse had left the building. I was really struggling to get songs because I was still searching for something. I finally had to let go, I had to stop trying to control it so much and just tell the truth. Once I did that, once I let go of any preconceived notion of what it should be, that’s when it all came out.”

Fallon knew he had the musicians needed to back his hard R&B in The Howling Weather – guitarist Ian Perkins, bassist Nick Salisbury, and drummer Dave Hidalgo – but the right studio partner was key to truly nailing his sound and vision. He decided to reach out to an old friend in Ted Hutt (Old Crow Medicine Show, Dropkick Murphys), with whom he previously collaborated on The Gaslight Anthem’s landmark THE ’59 SOUND and AMERICAN SLANG LPs as well as The Horrible Crowes’ ELSIE.

“I thought, who’s going to understand what I’m trying to do,” says Fallon, “and not try to correct it. I thought, there’s nobody who loves what I love, the British rock, the R&B and soul music, there’s nobody who understands this music better than Ted. And no one draws the best out me like Ted. He pushed me hard on these songs, it was like, you’ve got to dig for this. He knew what I needed to do and how I needed to get there. It was great to be pushed liked that by someone you know cares for you.”

Fallon began writing about his real life, his immediate family and closest friends, baring himself to the bone freely and unguarded. The celebratory sound of songs like the opening “If Your Prayers Don’t Get You To Heaven” belies the heart of darkness that beats within Fallon’s always frank songwriting, the fist-pumping choruses and body-rocking rhythms casting light against richly complex lyrics born of a recent “conversation with mortality.”

“I’m not the same kid that wrote THE ’59 SOUND,” Fallon says. “Things are very different now and I think I sort of lost my place, like what do I write about now? I don’t want to write songs about taxes. You have to find your center and just write about where you’re at now. I decided to just write about me and my friends and my family, I’m going to write about the things that I know right now.”

“Proof of Life” and “See You On The Other Side” provide potent bookends to SLEEPWALKERS, offering a glimpse of Fallon’s trepidation and desire to confront his own naked truth. “Forget Me Not,” the album’s first single, is an impassioned rush of ‘60s pop, all urgent guitars and giddy handclaps, though Fallon admits the glorious energy disguises a badly broken heart.

“I was thinking how every song doesn’t have to be so serious,” Fallon says. “It can just be fun. It can just be a song that I would want to play live. ‘Forgot Me Not’ came out in just a couple of minutes and actually ended up being pretty serious – it seems my subconscious had other plans.”

Recording SLEEPWALKERS in New Orleans marked the culmination of a longtime dream of Fallon’s, getting to spend real time in the Big Easy and truly absorb the culture. Indeed, the special musical energy of the Crescent City infused the album with an even greater connection to the swinging garage R&B he and the Howling Weather were cooking up in Parlor Recording. “Etta James” is both heartfelt paean to the legendary singer and a universal celebration of pure artistic passion in the face of great personal difficulty while the title track conjures the soulful spirit of Sam Cooke with big brass from the one and only Preservation Hall Jazz Band – remarkably, the first time Fallon has incorporated a horn section into his polyglot approach.

“At first I was very against it,” Fallon says, “ but I said, you know what? I’m just going to go for it. Full on. So I had known Ben Jaffe – the Preservation Hall creative director – and the guys a little bit, we did a song together once in Asbury Park, and they invited me down to hang out and play some music. They were so cool, I said, hey, we’re recording right down the street, you’d be great on this one song I’ve got. They came down and they just started going full throttle, they just went for it. It was done in about a half hour but that half hour was mindblowing. Just this incredible experience of hearing your own music be birthed and come to life. It was insane.”

As emotionally powerful as it is musically exultant, SLEEPWALKERS is Brian Fallon at the very top of his game, now as ever pushing and kicking the rock ‘n’ soul sounds he grew up on into the future.

“I think my job, in one sentence, is to carry on the tradition,” says Fallon. “That’s all I’m doing. All I’m trying to do is take what I’ve learned, give it my own spin, and keep it living. Keeping the pulse going.”Brianfallon sleepwalkers cover final 2

New single “Forget Me Not” Available Now: Album Sleepwalkers Available February. 9th, 2018!!!

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