DIIV—Zachary Cole Smith [lead vocals, guitar], Andrew Bailey [guitar], Colin Caulfield [vocals, bass], and Ben Newman [drums]—craft the soundtrack to personal resurrection under the heavy weight of metallic catharsis upheld by robust guitars and vocal tension that almost snaps, but never quite.
In 2017, DIIV took the stage at Brooklyn’s Murmrr Theatre for a special, one-off, “unplugged” performance.
In August 2017 I was 5 months sober and DIIV hadn’t played a show in almost a year. Our friend Ric helped us set up an intimate acoustic show in a theater in our hometown of brooklyn. We decorated the stage with stuff from our houses and played our home videos on a tv. We invited our friends and family and played some songs from our first two albums and some other artists’ songs that felt important to us as a band. It felt like some kind of reset. We recorded the show and forgot about it for a bunch of years. We recently found the recordings and thought people might want to hear them. I think of it as a kind of official bootleg I guess. our friend Jarvis mixed it and our friends Parker and Jim made the art. enjoy. – Cole
Includes unique arrangements of songs off DIIV’s first two albums, plus covers of Alex G’s “Hollow” and My Bloody Valentine’s “When You Sleep”.
Now comes something more daring, and cinematic, and still more successful: “Moonage Daydream”, an attempt to capture on film some of the otherworldly appeal of the extraordinary David Bowie. (There was a recent biopic, the unpardonable Stardust, and there have been numerous earlier documentaries, some of which are drawn upon here, including the terrific BBC film, “Cracked Actor”, from 1975. But nothing on screen about Bowie has come close to this in terms of ambition or execution.)
“Moonage Daydream” is written, directed, edited, and produced (phew!) by the American filmmaker Brett Morgen, previously known for The Kid Stays in the Picture, his affectionate homage to the Hollywood producer Robert Evans; and for Cobain:Montage of Heck, about the unhappy Nirvana frontman.
Morgen’s new film is less montage than collage: a kaleidoscope of concert footage, snatches of interviews, pop videos, movie clips, and psychedelic starbursts of visual pyrotechnics. Bowie’s cut-up technique of lyric writing, borrowed from William Burroughs, has inspired a film that is almost as restless and spacey as the man himself.
Sanctioned by the Bowie estate, which apparently gave Morgen access to five million pieces of archived material (it’s a wonder he kept the run-time to a brisk 140 minutes), “Moonage Daydream” does not seek to be definitive, or exhaustive. It’s a meditation on Bowie’s brilliance, an immersion in his aesthetic, and a portrait of the artist as existentialist — a searching, compulsively creative spirit. The Bowie of “Moonage Daydream” is funny, charming, courageous, and endlessly patient with journalists (a rare and valuable quality, that one). Also: great hair, incredible wardrobe. To say that he was worshipped by his fans is to considerably undersell Bowie’s messianic effect, especially during his Seventies pomp. Bowie was beloved, and this film leaves those of us too young to clearly remember his imperial phase in no doubt about why that might have been. He is mesmerising.
The film opens in media res, with a recording of Bowie speaking. He’s in philosophic mode, talking about Nietzsche and sounding, just for a moment, dangerously like the adenoidal drug dealer Danny, from Withnail and I, creator of the Camberwell Carrot. Chaos and fragmentation defined Bowie’s early worldview and it’s chaos and fragmentation we get here, plunging headlong into a sci-fi extravaganza of sounds and visions, beginning with a gripping live “All The Young Dudes” — the first of a series of previously unseen concert performances, testament to Bowie’s terrific stagecraft. (The music has been remixed by the great Tony Visconti.)
It’s not that there is no narrative thrust to this rocket. We revisit Bowie’s south London childhood. (He was born in Brixton, just down the road from Danny’s Carrot.) We follow him to the locations of his triumphs — Hammersmith, Hollywood, West Berlin — and on his perpetual, peripatetic adventures. We watch him emerge as Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, the Thin White Duke. We join him during his pop hitmaker years in the mid-1980s — remunerative, but unfulfilling — and his later return to more experimental concerns. We learn little about his private life, beyond the fact that he feared going mad, following the dreadful fate of his brother, Terry; and he was extremely keen on his second wife, Iman.
Of course, it was almost inevitable that there would be a soundtrack, but no one wants, or needs, another collection of standard versions of Bowie tracks, and at least this isn’t that. While this musical accompaniment includes classic songs spanning Bowie’s career, it includes previously unheard material, unique mixes created for the film and it incorporates dialogue from Bowie himself.
“Moonage Daydream” fails to reduce its subject to a series of weary cliches, or to get hung up on the mundane details, all of which you can Google if you really, really haven’t heard them already. This is a rock doc, then, that changes the record. Best of all it reminds us of what a singular figure Bowie was, and how exciting pop culture’s glory years really were, when a freaky, druggy, sexy avant-garde artist could also be the number one teenybopper sensation in the world. What a beautiful man he was. How we miss him.
The companion album features songs from spanning Bowie’s career and includes previously unheard material, unique mixes created for the film and this release along with dialogue from Bowie himself. Highlights include a previously unreleased live medley of ‘The Jean Genie / Love Me Do / The Jean Genie’ recorded live at the final “Ziggy Stardust” concert at Hammersmith Odeon in 1973, featuring Jeff Beck on guitar. Other rarities include an early version of the Hunky Dory favourite ‘Quicksand’ and a previously unreleased live version of ‘Rock ’n’ Roll With Me’ from the legendary 1974 ’Soul Tour’.
“Moonage Daydream” released in cinemas on 16th September.
Back in 2016, Jenny Hval released “Blood Bitch”, a concept album about vampires and menstruation. Six years and five projects later (including two with Lost Girls), the Norwegian art-pop icon still can’t get the fanged menaces out of her head. As fate would have it, though, she seems to have changed her once-positive attitude toward the bloodsucking breed.
“Buffy,” Hval’s first single since the release of “Classic Objects” centers one of history’s most notable vampire dislikers. But like much of Hval’s catalogue, it can’t be taken at face value. Spawned from a free-flowing synth jam, the new song gives an emotional and literary reading of “Buffy’s” less immediately obvious themes. “This is / Why I love her,” she begins. “Now I love / How she could / She couldn’t stop fighting / The facts / The facts of the world / More real than what / We believe is realism.”
From there, Hval moves into a more structural, hierarchical analysis of the show, postulating on its potential as praxis. “Somehow I improvised some lyrics that referred to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, probably just because I have watched it many times,” she explains in a press release. “I do like the idea that a TV series with many episodes, like Buffy, can be used as a creative and political rehearsal. An episodic form rehearsing overthrowing a dictatorship, a plutocracy, or theocracy?
“Buffy” is not a song about a slayer, a superhero, or feminist icon,” she concludes. “If anything, it’s a song about hope, but in an understated and episodic way. Because to me, hope is more hopeful when it is presented in a subtle way.”
Hval, of course, is the queen of subtle, layered presentation. On “Buffy,” as on “Classic Objects” best tracks, she uses her angelic soprano and a sumptuous instrumental as vehicles for a message that’s nuanced, original, and infused with irony, allowing her to evade the trappings of self-seriousness.
“Buffy” arrives following the early November release of a gorgeous live video for two “Classic Objects” cuts — “Cemetery of Splendour” and the title track — directed by Jenny Berger Myhre and including a cameo from Hval’s beloved dog, Cleo.
The most comprehensive archive of Silverhead’s brief but shining time in the spotlight. Featuring their two excellent albums plus bonus tracks. And, including the hard to find ‘Show Me Everything’ and a host of other live recordings. In 1971, Deep Purple’s management set up Purple Records, not just to release Purple’s own releases, but also the various side projects the band members were developing, and artists that they respected. Along with early albums by artists as diverse as Ronnie James Dio and Yvonne Elliman, Purple Records tenth release was from a new band called Silverhead who featured future Blondie bassist Nigel Harrison, future Robert Plant guitarist Robbie Blunt, and legendary front man Michael Des Barres.
Their much-feted self-titled debut was released in 1972. That self-titled debut ‘Silverhead’ (CD1) was produced by Martin Birch, famed for him work with Iron Maiden, Whitesnake, Black Sabbath, Rainbow, and of course, Deep Purple. A heady mixture of hard rock, glam rock and of proto-punk, this edition also includes 7″ single versions of ‘Ace Supreme’ and ‘Rolling With My Baby’, plus ‘Oh No No No’ (the B-Side of ‘Ace Supreme’).
Silverhead’s second album for Purple Records, ’16 And Savaged’ (CD2), kicked off with ‘Hello New York’ plus ‘More Than Your Mouth Can Hold’, and now features the debut solo 45 from Michael Des Barres, ‘Leon’ b/w ‘New Moon Tonight’. Most exciting is the inclusion of ‘James Dean’ and ‘Marilyn’, two tracks from the shelved, third Silverhead LP.
When Silverhead supported Nazareth at London’s famed Rainbow Theatre on November 9th, 1973, they didn’t even know that they were being recorded, which no doubt added to the spontaneous mood on ‘Live At The rainbow, London’ (CD3). Released in Japan in 1975, by which time the band had sadly disbanded, it features the best songs from their two albums, plus ‘James Dean’ from what would have been their third. This release also includes the band’s In Concert recording at the BBC’s Paris Theatre on August 31st, 1973.
This six CD set is the most comprehensive archive of Silverhead’s brief but shining time in the spotlight, and now includes the rare and hard to find ‘Show Me Everything’ (CD4), featuring tracks recorded at London’s Alexandra Palace on 29th July 1973, as well as the self-explanatory ‘Berlin Backlash’ (07/02/1973) (CD5) and finishes off with ‘Live In Japan’ (19/01/1974) (CD6).
Silverhead : More Than Your Mouth Can Hold: The Complete Recordings 1972 – 1974
6CD Box Review – Michael Des Barres – Cherry Red Records
If you think you don’t know lead singer Michael Des Barres from Silverhead, you do!
He has probably been in every living room in the world via his acting roles. As a vocalist he has influenced many of rockr biggest names and I cannot imagine Paul Stanley, David Lee Roth, Steve Tyler, Motley Crue without thinking of Michael Des Barres.
Silverhead should have been huge and it was starting to happen just before Purple Records pulled the plug. This box set contains both the studio albums ‘Silverhead’, “16 and Savaged”, the “Live at the Rainbow” album and three further CDs of live material.
I also cover the 2016 reissues and touch on Michaels later career with Detective, Chequered Past, The Power Station, Live Aid and coming right up to date with his documentary, new release and his radio show with Steven Van Zandt.
‘The Sky Was All Diseased’ with Tess Parks, the first single from the upcoming album ‘Friends In Noise’ A collaborative record between Black Market Karma and their musical allies, This video was filmed by Stan from the window of a Japanese Bullet Train cut with footage captured by Tess back in 2014/2015 when her and BMK first met and started to tour together. Good times! Some words about the song from Stan: “Tess and I first met in 2014 when she reached out and sent a very kind message about my music.
I dug what she was doing too so, upon her arrival to the UK, we met up and became friends, touring a fair bit together in the following years around Europe. During the downtime, we would often hang out at my studio. I’d had the groove and music to this song floating around in my brain for a while, but had no lyrics or vocal part. I happened to play it one time we were at the studio together and I drop into my own world when I’m making things up, but after a while I noticed Tess out of the corner of my eye scribbling down lyrics. She started humming a melody to herself and I loved what she was doing so we went with it. I added in one more verse with an different vocal melody and a few lines at the end of the song and there it was – ‘The Sky Was All Diseased’. I laid the music down a few days later and recorded Tess’ vocals which became the track as you hear it now”
Some words about the song from Tess: “I guess this was written in 2014? 2015? While I was living in Dartford a few doors down from Stan. Had a few very nice sessions at Stan’s studio where we pretty much instantly wrote a few really cool songs. It’s been 8 years and the time has finally come!!!
I’m excited to share this. This song seems to be a reflection on the weather at the time”
“So Far Gone,” the latest track from Weird Nightmare, the electrifying new project from METZ guitarist and singer Alex Edkins is now available for your listening pleasure on all digital service providers. The single is an exuberant blast of fun-as-hell, melodic indie rock that mixes equal parts Replacements, Teenage Fanclub, and Edkins’ own METZ-ian snarl.
This stand-alone track follows the double A-Side split, “I Think You Know” w/ “Bird With an Iron Head” with friends Ancient Shapes, and the self-titled debut full-length released earlier this year, which was aptly described by The Quietus as “…an irresistibly euphoric blast of feedback spattered garage-pop that is just what the doctor ordered to chase away any lingering post-lockdown blues.”
The unholy union of Weird Nightmare and Ancient Shapes brings you the double A-Side experience of the year! “I Think You Know” w/ “Bird With an Iron Head” delivers two sides of sing-along power-punk you need to hear to believe.
Weird Nightmare’s Alex Edkins says of the union, “Daniel has been one of my favorite writers/performers for many years now and his work with Ancient Shapes and the Outfit are a constant source of joy. I’m super excited to be sharing this record with him.”
Features tracks from The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Killing Joke, The Birthday Party, Joy Division, Soft Cell, Specimen, Sweet, T-Rex, Roxy Music, New York Dolls, Sparks, The Velvet Underground and more…London 1982. As the new romantic youthquake of 1981/1982 faded, and after what felt like a lifetime since punk’s last gasp, a tiny nightclub opened its doors in London’s Soho. Drawing to it a new generation of misfits and miscreants with a penchant for polysexual hedonism, for dressing up and showing out, The Batcave became the dark heart of alternative club culture,
“Young Limbs Rise Again” is a forthcoming compilation album that celebrates the subculture of Goth via the music that was played, and the bands that performed at the legendary Batcave, a weekly club night hosted in London’s Dean Street (and later in Leicester Square) in the early 1980s.
Art school students, ex-punks and psychobillys, boys and girls, gays, straights, don’t-knows and don’t-cares, Camden and Kensington Market stallholders, professional squatters, kids on the dole, kids in bands, nocturnal music journalists, edgy fashionistas, androgynous randoms and even a smattering of bona fide popstars. All were welcome to pile in, gawp at the hair, ripped, torn, bleached and rubberised fashions, and death-mask make-up and take in the dancefloor’s heady musical mix of beats-heavy post-punk pioneers, outsider icons like Wayne County and The Cramps, and a teetering pile of lusty glam rock singles from the likes of T. Rex and The Sweet.
By the summer of ’82, The Batcave became a focus for alternative club culture, just like The Roxy and The Blitz before it and it’s “No Funk, No Disco” rule set it apart from other club nights at that time. Famous regulars included musicians and singers such as Nick Cave, Robert Smith of the Cure, Siouxsie Sioux, Steven Severin, members of Bauhaus, Marc Almond and many others. Acts would play live (the club even had its own house band, Specimen) and visitors could enjoy four-hour DJ sets.
The“Young Limbs Rise Again” collection attempts to capture both the fun and freedom of The Batcave while also looking back to reflect the musical influences on the scene and examining how that scene pointed forwards. There’s plenty of space in which to do that, since it’s offered as a 5CD or 6LP vinyl set. Both come with an 80-page hardcover book with an introduction from KrisNeeds, packed with flyers, record sleeves, over 100 photographs, many previously unseen, and the whole story of the club as told by the people who were there.
It was a light bulb for all the people like me who were from the sticks and wanted a bit more from life. Freaks, weirdos, sexual deviants, there’s people around who’ll always be attracted by something shiny, glittering, exciting Jonny Slut, SPECIMEN
Both big sets are broken down into themed albums and the 6LP vinyl offers 63 songs while the more generoous (and cheaper) 5CD large format box delivers 89 tracks. There’s a 2LP vinyl edition for a more concise overview.
Specimen’s Jon Klein and Jonny Slut, along with Sophie Chery (from another stalwart Batcave band, Sexbeat), have worked with the record company to help putting together this musical and visual accompaniment to this very specific moment in time.
“Young Limbs Rise Again: The Story of the Batcave Nightclub 1982-1985” will be released on 24th February 2023, via Demon Music.
“Foreground Music”, is the title of Ron Gallo’s 4th LP, and debut for Kill Rock Stars might also be a suitable name for his own genre. In simplest terms it’s the opposite of background music – unavoidable, urgent, in your face – Gallo’s consistent theme is to confront, disrupt and sometimes even confuse people into a sense of awareness. The intention to steer away from apathy and self-empower by focusing on what we can control and make light of in a world designed to take it away. The guitar is less an instrument and more of a primal noise machine. This record is a challenge to everything and everyone, including his own self, who is holding back the progress of humanity (especially in America) into a more open, empathetic and collective unit – the words delivered with a punkish tenacity and lining even the heaviest topics with an ever-present sense of humor. It covers the full spectrum of emotion. This music feels like life feels right now. In his eyes, how could it not?
Clad in caution tape and construction orange colour scheme, much like his surrounding neighborhood in Philadelphia where it was written and recorded. Gallo doesn’t see now (or ever) as the time to sit back and chill – this is going to be what we make it.
Over the course of the record traversing between sounds akin to an exploding NYC subway station, oddball dance-punk, noise pop, even the more grave moments would sit well in whatever a modern version of CBGB’s 1975 would be – in 11 songs Gallo shares detailed anecdotes and takes on male entitlement, the age of anxiety, apathy vs. action, gentrification, narcissism, retail therapy, xenophobia, the dread of future generations, right wing extremists in giant pickup trucks, capitalism, climate change and the experience of having a loved-one who is an addict.
If an existential crisis could somehow be fun – it’s this record.
“Foreground Music”, new album, coming 3/3/23 on Kill Rock Stars
The Great Escape is the central date in the calendar for industry players and storm chasing fans alike as it showcases a carefully chosen selection of new key bands to get to know. In combining festival with conference, TGE is a huge moment for the bands that feature, some practically playing for their lives, or at least their record deals. It is an exciting, action packed few days, the British answer to SXSW, and this year already looks set to deliver, with only a fraction of what will come to almost 500 bands having been announced.
The festival stormed back into our consciousness back in November with their ‘First Fifty’ showcases, throwing up the devilish choice of which to pick. For me it came down to The Dinner Party or Jessica Winter with Grove. I went with The Dinner Party, acutely aware that their rapidly growing profile meant that this could well be one of the last chances to see them in as small a venue as MOTH Club for quite some time. They are a truly exciting new band, drawing on the classic pop irresistibility of bands like ABBA and Sparks and bringing to it the attitude and style of the modern London scene.
They are just one of the many tantalising prospects leading the line in the initial lineup announcement of TGE. The exceptional quality of Jessica Winter and Grove, who also reliably bring brilliant live performance stacked with quality songs, speaks of the strength depth already written into the bill. Winter was a highlight of Mutations back in November, with her unique, intelligent take on contemporary pop. Grove dazzled throughout festival season, my favourite set being to a small but dedicated crowd of Wide Awake goers in search of something fresher than Primal Scream.
All that indecision and brilliance compressed into three of the vaunted ‘First Fifty’! That is not to mention the ‘Spotlight Show’ headliners, Mercury winner and 6 Music favourite Arlo Parks and pop superstar in the making Maisie Peters, back from tour with Ed Sheeran to the city where she started out as a busker. Elsewhere on the bill are riotous Brighton punk favourites Lambrini Girls and Ethan P. Flynn, a modern-day songwriting master. Melin Melyn bring an exciting jangly psych sound breathing life into a Welsh indie heritage dating back to Gorky’s and the Super Furries, while Been Stellar come in from New York with Strokes guitar lines magnified to stadium scale.
The festival encompasses over 30 venues across the mercifully walkable Brighton city centre. As with Austin during SXSW, the entire city comes alive with music, with bands popping up in the most unlikely locations. Tickets are available to buy to guarantee access to the bigger shows, but the official Alternative Escape throws up an additional set of free events showcasing acts from the bill in smaller spaces for those lucky enough to get in. If you want to get in on the ground floor with a new wave of unmissable bands, mark the 10th to 13th May in your diaries, check in on your Brighton mates with spare sofas, and start dissecting that lineup in search of the next big thing.
The Fat Angel Sings 