On “Garden Party”, Rose City Band’s country psychedelic rock evokes the wide-open spaces of the American west and free spirits who call it home. Lead by acclaimed guitarist and vocalist Ripley Johnson, Rose City Band are some of the best players in contemporary rock: pedal steel guitarist Barry Walker, keyboardist Paul Hasenberg, bassist Dewey Mahood (aka Plankton Wat), drummer Dustin Dybvig, and features Sanae Yamada of Moon Duo on Synthesizer.
“Garden Party” is both a celebration of summer and all it brings: friends gathering at backyard BBQs, cold beers on a hot porch, 12-foot sunflowers, and an exaltation of the value and respite of a moment of calm; the pleasures of time in the garden to appreciate the beauty of a contorted carrot, or a morning on a stoop watching a hummingbird.
Freedom, contentment, and joy were the sources for the songs; they certainly bring the listener right there. From the soaring guitar solos to the driving rhythms, the elegant pedal steel lines to the organ grooves, “Garden Party” has a live band’s energy captured in exquisite detail. “Garden Party” is an invitation, a welcoming hand extended, and a joyous ride. Like all great music, the album taps into the listeners’ emotional center and takes them to their happy place – their sunny spot. Recorded at Center for Sound, Light, and Color Therapy in Portland and mixed by John McEntire, the band’s sounds surround and embrace you.
“Garden Party’s” last two tracks feature special guest Sanae Yamada (Moon Duo) who added some synth magic to the final two tracks. Ripley says it best “I always like when an album starts in one place and ends in another” What a beautiful journey it is!
Easily among the most star-studded original albums ever recorded, “Defiance Part 1” sees Ian Hunter joined by the late, great Jeff Beck, Johnny Depp, Joe Elliott (Def Leppard), Billy F Gibbons (ZZ Top), Taylor Hawkins (Foo Fighters), Duff McKagan (Guns N’ Roses), Todd Rundgren, Slash (Guns N’ Roses), JeffTweedy (Wilco), Robert Trujillo (Metallica), Waddy Wachtel (Stevie Nicks, Keith Richards), Brad Whitford (Aerosmith), Dane Clark (John Mellencamp), Billy Bob Thornton & J.D. Andrew (The Boxmasters) and Dean DeLeo, Robert De Leo & Eric Kretz (Stone Temple Pilots). DEFIANCE PART 1 is heralded by today’s premiere of the nostalgic first single, “Bed Of Roses,” featuring guitarist Mike Campbell (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Fleetwood Mac) and drums by Ringo Starr, available today at all DSPs and streaming services. An official music video for “Bed Of Roses” premieres today on YouTube.
“It was a fluke,” Ian Hunter says. “This was not planned. Really, I’m serious. I really couldn’t believe some of them. I mean, it’s amazing what’s happened. It’s been such a buzz.”
Now in its seventh decade, Ian Hunter’s illustrious career has long been marked by collaboration, from the golden age of Mott theHoople to his fabled partnership with Mick Ronson and 21st century renaissance with his crack backing combo, the Rant Band. Now, with “Defiance Part 1”, the legendary singer-songwriter, author, and rock ‘n’ roll star takes creative solidarity to an unprecedented new level with spectacular accompaniment from a truly awe-inspiring roster of special guests, famous fans, and lifelong friends.
The album first came together in early 2020 with the dawn of the pandemic era. An inveterate hard worker, Hunter took the lockdown as a creative opportunity, writing a series of new songs which he tracked in his Connecticut basement alongside his longtime collaborator, guitarist/producer/multi-instrumentalist Andy York. Working with little more than a computer, guitar, V5 piano, and “a very small keyboard,” Hunter and York created a collection of bare bones demos but with quarantine rules still in effect, were unable to flesh them out further by hitting the studio with the Rant Band. Manager Mike Kobayashi and renowned rock ‘n’ roll photographer Ross Halfin suggested reaching out to some of Hunter’s fellow legends who might perhaps use some of their own lockdown to contribute a track or two. To Hunter’s delight, the project quickly escalated, with a galaxy of stars clamoring to be involved. With time on their hands due the pandemic, his fellow musicians took the demos and stems that Hunter and York put together in his basement and added unforeseen power and creativity through their own trademark talents.
“Everybody’s sitting around,” says Hunter. “It’s Covid. Nobody’s going anywhere. We started sending them out. Slash started doing something. Robert Trujillo from Metallica. Ringo Starr, Mike Campbell. Joe Elliott is on a few tracks. Johnny Depp said ‘Jeff Beck’s with me and we’d like to do a couple of songs.’ I know Todd Rundgren, I toured with Todd way back, he’s done an amazing job. Billy Gibbons. Billy Bob Thornton and JD Andrew from The Boxmasters. It’s never ending. I mean, every day we’d get a phone call, this guy wants to do it, that guy wants to do it. It was like, I can’t believe this.”
Despite its genesis during the pandemic, “Defiance Part 1” is remarkably upbeat, ablaze with the life-affirming energy and unbridled passion that has marked Hunter’s music since the start. Indeed, “Pavlov’s Dog” is Hunter at his ferocious best, a snarling rocker featuring the surviving members of Stone Temple Pilots – brothers Dean DeLeo (guitar) and Robert DeLeo (bass) and Eric Kretz (drums). Songs like “I Hate Hate” and the album’s rebellious title track – the latter showcasing the one and only Slash on guitar with Metallica’s Robert Trujillo carrying the groove using the late Jaco Pastorius’ signature fretless bass, the same instrument played by the legendary jazz musician on Hunter’s groundbreaking second solo album, 1975’s “All American Alien Boy” – offer indisputable evidence that Hunter’s voice remains as uncompromising and provocative as ever before.
Having spent the better part of two years on the project, Hunter isn’t done yet. As its title promises, “Defiance Part 1” will be followed by the arrival of “Defiance Part 2”. The second chapter will feature an equally stunning range of special guests while projecting an entirely different thematic approach and song writing aesthetic.
With the wind at his back, Ian Hunter has somehow managed to pull off something impossible. “Defiance Part 1” is a full-speed-ahead rock ‘n’ roll record rarely heard in this day and age, recorded with a crew of irrefutable rock ‘n’ roll all-stars and released on the definitive rock ‘n’ roll label.
“There are a lot of reasons for calling this album “Defiance “ says Ian Hunter. “It’s like, people my age shouldn’t be making records, blah, blah, blah. But we’ve still got a bit left.”
FIRST SINGLE, “BED OF ROSES,” FEATURING MIKE CAMPBELL AND RINGO STARR
Rock ‘n’ roll legend Ian Hunter has announced the release of his landmark new album, “Defiance Part 1“, arriving via the Sun Records label on Friday, April 21st, 2023.
The duo’s first album for over two decades. “How reunion albums should be done. ‘Fuse’, their first album since 1999, is imbued with the sounds of today for a shimmering, immensely satisfying return” 4/5 – NME “Fuse picks up right where Temperamental stopped, as if they’re hitting play on a cassette they’ve kept on pause for 24 years. But they keep it fresh, using the latest digital effects to warp, filter, mutate Thorn’s voice into a deeper, more dolorous instrument”
‘Run A Red Light’ from Everything But The Girl’s forthcoming album, ‘Fuse’.
Leeds based Post-Punk Treeboy & Arc Explaining the track, Ben said “The lyrics for “False Objects” were written when I was really into watching late night TV shows about the supernatural. For some reason my girlfriend and I became weirdly obsessed with Jack Osbourne. We saw a programme called ‘Portals to Hell’ and the name sounded so ridiculous we watched it and it was him presenting it, that opened a can of worms. He also does a show with Sharon and Ozzy called ‘The Osbournes Want to Believe’ where he plays them spooky video clips of ghosts and UFOs and Bigfoot in an attempt to convince them it’s real and plausible. A lot of it is bollocks obviously but some of it is pretty compelling and left me thinking “OK well if that isn’t a ghost, then what on earth is it?”. At some point you can tell that Ozzy is really starting to buy into it all, and I realised that I was also starting to believe”
This is an alternative/ re-imagined version of “The Saboteur” which we made for EarthPercent x Earth Day 2023.
We are honoured to be involved in the Earth Percent campaign alongside many artists we admire and make our small contribution to this collective process.
The song is about toxic nostalgia, reluctance to change and self-sabotage. Throughout the record there’s the idea that what takes place internally and on a personal scale is mirrored in society and the world on a grander scale. That is hinted at in this song too. Where society clings to an imagined past we can’t move forward. The album explores whether we can change our fate to arrive in alternative future to the one we’ve been hurtling towards. For those reasons we felt this was a fitting contribution to the Earth Percent campaign.
The original version of the song will appear on our upcoming album “Versions Of Us” – out 2nd June 2023.
Lanterns on The Lake – “The Saboteur (Multiverse Version)” is an exclusive track available for a limited time only as part of the EarthPercent x Earth Day 2023 campaign.
View all tracks by artists kindly supporting Earth Day 2023: earthpercent.bandcamp.com
For every track sold, a minimum of £1.56 goes to EarthPercent’s grant making programme, after deducting only third-party platform fees and applicable taxes from the purchase price. No EarthPercent operating costs are deducted. Funds raised support organisations doing vital work to tackle the climate emergency. For more info go to earthpercent.org
Demon Records is proud to present the 20th anniversary edition of “Slideling”, the third solo album by frontman of Echo & the Bunnymen. First released in 2003, the album was produced by acclaimed producer Cenzo Townshend and features guest performances by Coldplay’s Chris Martin and Jonny Buckland on stand-out tracks ‘Sliding’ and ‘Arthur’.
McCulloch has created a grand pop rock album that wastes no time revving its engine, add to that the participation of Coldplay singer Chris Martin and Johnny Buckland. Mac sings in his trademark style, sounding as fresh as he did two decades ago. There’s a certain soulful feeling to the song as well, whether it’s the bass line or the backing harmonies kept in the distance. McCulloch kept it simple, knowing when to cut the fat from a song, resulting in few if any lengthy fading moments. This third album is a glorious return to what made Mac so damn cool in the first place. It’s his best solo record. Okay, he’s only had three, but this is classic McCulloch in a contemporary model.
To mark the 20th anniversary, the album is released on vinyl for the very first time, exclusively for Record Store Day 2023. Pressed on 140g white vinyl, newly mastered by Phil Kinrade at AIR Mastering.
Sadie Dupris and her band Speedy Ortiz return with their first new single in five years “Scabs” is the first single to feature long time touring members Audrey Zee Whitesides (bass) and Joey Doubek (drums), who are now full time contributors alongside Sadie Dupuis and Andy Molholt (guitar).
Engineered and mixed by Illuminati Hotties’ Sarah Tudzin, who co-produced with Speedy Ortiz, “Scabs” is the band’s first since since 2018’s “Bloodkeeper” and “DTMFA”/”Bigger Party” which were a part of the label Adult Swim’s single series.
“Living in progressive cities and working in the arts, you meet peers doing tremendous organizing work. And then there are neighbours who signal their ‘good’ politics through yard signs alone,” says Dupuis. “I wrote ‘Scabs’ standing in line at the post office, overhearing customers berate a USPS employee. This was during a time of postal unions-opposed budget cuts and other major issues for mail handlers, which were widely reported on. People advertising their support for essential workers acted conversely when faced with personal inconvenience. The song became more widely about self-designated ethicists who don’t quibble about crossing a picket line for individual benefit.”
During Speedy Ortiz’s hiatus, Dupuis has been busing releasing solo music under the moniker Sad13; collaborating with the likes of Lizzo, The New Pornographers, Ben Lee and Backxwash as well as running Carpark Records and the literary journal Wax Nine.
Speedy Ortiz: Sadie Dupuis – guitar, vocals, synth, toy piano Audrey Zee Whitesides – bass, backing vocals Andy Molholt – guitar, synth, backing vocals Joey Doubek – drums, percussion also featuring: Sarah Tudzin – backing vocals Ram Cantú – backing vocals Darl Ferm – additional guitar
The National are back with another new song from their forthcoming album “First Two Pages of Frankenstein”.“Your Mind Is Not Your Friend” features Phoebe Bridgers, and it arrives with a new psychedelic music video, directed by Bridgers’ brother, Jackson, and starring Matt Berninger’s brother, Tom. The Berninger brothers frolic in the woods and on a playground, both wearing black suits. (Matt’s is accented with plumes of fresh flowers.) Bridgers makes a brief cameo, picking up a baby sitting on the playground.
According to a press release, “Your Mind Is Not Your Friend” was born after Matt Berninger broke through some writer’s block. “When I feel stuck, I’ll often grab a book off the shelf just to get some words in my head, and the first two pages of Frankenstein ended up triggering ‘Your Mind Is Not Your Friend,’” he said. “The book starts off with the narrator on a voyage near the Arctic Circle, and that image of being adrift helped me to write about feeling disconnected and lost and lacking in purpose. Once I started confronting that strange, blurry panic of not having ideas, everything began to crack open a bit.”
Berninger talked about working with Bridgers on the song: Well, I had gone over to Phoebe kind of trying to work on songs. We talked about writing songs, and we both write in similar ways, I think. And we’re both fans of the way we write and we talk about how to write and how to write about the things that you hate about yourself, which she’s incredible at. And so after that I was like, “I have to write about this.” Even though I was allergic to myself at the time. I was like, “This is all I can do with this, so I have to write about it.” So when finished the song, I felt it needed, since my wife was a big part of the inspiration, I kind of felt like it needed that a presence of another voice or another person, and Phoebe jumped in, she was just perfect for that. And because her voice is just such a tender, just warm hug and so it added that sort of dimension to it, which was crucial for it to work.
“First Two Pages of Frankenstein” is out April 28.
2023 marks 20 years since the release of Joe Strummer’s last studio album, the posthumously released “Streetcore”. Dark HorseRecords will celebrate the anniversary with a limited-edition colour vinyl pressing for RSD. Originally issued on Hellcat Records, the standalone vinyl album has been out of print for years and commands high prices on the secondhand market.
Streetcore: In Joe’s words, “A distillation thru the mind bending coil…” In November of 2002 Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros had been on an extensive UK tour, the “Bringing It All Back Home Tour”, and were blending new songs into their set, which were recorded in December. “Streetcore” is a collection of new material, which reflected the Mescaleros’ life on the road together, combined with distilling their collective vast knowledge of musical genres. His final gig with his newfound cohorts was a controversial benefit for the British Fire Brigades Union.
As band mate and co-producer with Scott Shields, Martin Slattery said, ” I’ll miss the inspiration more than anything. He wanted us to make music that we feel – it’s such an alternative position these days to be able to work with a guy who is not only a legend, but is allowing you to do what you want.”
After a number of self-described ‘wilderness years’ post-Clash, Joe Strummer formed The Mescaleros in 1999 and embarked a roll of three great albums before his death in 2002. The last two were released on Californian punk label Hellcat, home of Clash-influenced bands like Rancid. This felt like full-circle for the rockabilly-punk icon, and his return to musical form made Strummer’s untimely demise hurt even more.
“Streetcore”, finished and released posthumously in 2003, is a great record to have gone out on. Strummer dug deep to sprinkle some of his old Clash magic over “Coma Girl” (an ode to Glastonbury festival, where you can still find Strummerville), the country-blues of “Long Shadow”, anthemic rocker “Arms Aloft”, and a heartfelt version of Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song”; which exactly 20 years after first hearing this album, still makes us a little teary for the loss of a true genius. Re-released for RSD on Dark Horse records, you’ll do a lot worse than to snap up this limited edition coloured vinyl pressing.
With the release of “Streetcore”, the electric axes are back, with a couple of unplugged-style tunes included – “Silver & Gold”, and a song Joe was inspired to write for Johnny Cash called “The Long Shadow”, whom he performs with Smokey Hormel as well as a terrific version of “Redemption Song” by Bob Marley, who’s songs and performances no doubt influenced Joe a great deal throughout his life.
DarkHorse Records celebrated what would be been Joe’s 70th birthday in 2022, with a beautifully curated retrospective box set, Joe Strummer 002: The Mescaleros, which shined a light on the intense period of creativity at the end of his life with his new band The Mescaleros.
Joe Strummer, was best known as the lead vocalist of the iconic punk rock band The Clash, formed The Mescaleros in the late 1990s. The band released several critically acclaimed albums, including “Streetcore,” which was their final album and was released posthumously in 2003, following Strummer’s untimely death.
Stand out rock tracks are “Coma Girl” and “Get Down Moses” (rock/reggae flavored) which the band had become well versed in performing live throughout 2002. It was Joe and the band’s desire to go straight from the road into the studio, not lose momentum, capture their energy, freshness & tightness as a band to record the new songs for this record.
Joe’s own artwork and logos for the record grace the cover and internal packaging, giving the record a personal touch. His diagrams and illustrations are put into a montage style – offering insight into his and the bands creative process behind the concept, truly depicting his vision and lyrical ideas for “Streetcore”.
Tracklist:
A1. Coma Girl A2. Get Down Moses A3. Long Shadow A4. Arms Aloft A5. Ramshackle Day Parade
B1. Redemption Song B2. All In A Day B3. Burnin’ Streets B4. Midnight Jam B5. Silver And Gold
