Blondie shared the original demo of their track “Go Through It” that was originally recorded in 1980. It comes from the forthcoming box set “Blondie: Against the Odds 1974-1982“, which is out August 26th via UMe and The NumeroGroup. It’s the first proper archive from the punk trailblazers, spawned from the two decades worth of material gathering dust in Chris Stein’s Woodstock barn.
The box set includes 124 songs and 36 previously unreleased recordings. There’s the band’s first basement studio session and a bunch of outtakes and alternate versions, including the one we’re hearing today. “Go Through It” made its way onto the A-side of their 1980 album “Autoamerican”, which was a concept album focused on American pop culture.
From first ever authorized and in-depth archive in Blondie’s history, this deluxe 4LP features the very best of the out-takes & rarties from the Super Deluxe Collectors’ Edition, remastered from the original analogue tapes and cut at Abbey Road Studios. Available on 4LP black vinyl with 112 page book featuring an exhaustive look at Blondie’s international notoriety via picture sleeves and regional pressings.
The London trio’s third album is full of hallucinogenic scenes where jazz, prog, electronic, and punk pretzel around each other until it looks like one musical gordian knot.
Black Midi continues to be a genre atom smasher on their third album, “Hellfire“. On each successive record, the group has refused to settle on just rock, jazz, electronic, or punk music. Their 2019 debut “Schlagenheim” was constructed from an unhinged series of improvisational jam sessions, while 2021’s “Cavalcade” then shifted to more closely considered prog-rock night terrors. Black Midi never sticks to one sound, and that’s part of what’s so appealing or confounding about them, depending on who you’re talking to.
On “Hellfire“, the London group embodies the phrases yelped by vocalist/guitarist Geordie Greep at the beginning of the record: “There’s always something… an odd twitch, hearing loss, a ringing noise, new flesh.”
The band’s Geordie Greep explains in a press release: “‘Sugar/Tzu’ imagines that in 2163 it’s possible to see a championship fight between two 600 lb men. Albeit in a so-called ‘Leadweight’ division. The fight is between Sun Sugar and Sun Tzu; the latter being a fan of the Chinese general, hoping to channel his strength; and the former looking to continue the lineage of Sugar Ray Robinson, Leonard etc.
“Present at their battle is a young boy who stands just over three feet tall. At ringside, he briefly exchanges a glance with Sun Sugar, who, in perhaps an attempt to inspire, comes over to the boy and shakes his hand. It is then revealed, as the contender walks back to the action, that the boy is in fact a killer. He takes a small pistol from his little jacket and shoots the man in the back, honour be damned. The boy believes this not to be a cruel act, but a virtuous one, with his interference giving the audience an ultimate, rare entertainment.
“As Sun Sugar hits the deck, the crowd cheer and scream, believing this only to be the result of a particularly vicious shot from Sun Tzu.
“There is a little joke here. It is regular for a boxing audience to bemoan an early stoppage, the official stepping in to save a fighter who could’ve gone on. And while there is the surface agreement of most that ‘it was the right thing to do,’ there seems to be often left unsaid the fact that we actually do want to see a brutal knockout. And in the split second where these one-shot, punch-perfect, coma-inducing blows do occur, there is an undeniable rush. The boy in this story feels he is a hero for giving the crowd what they all really want. This is not to say the song is a critique of boxing or anything of the like—I love the sport—but it is an interesting and rare phenomenon worth exploring.”
The title track prominently features an ominous pipe organ, which is reminiscent of the soundtracks for deadly Roman gladiatorial games. This type of tension ratchets up throughout the album’s 38-minute runtime while influences drop on the listener in waves, with bits of early Genesis, Captain Beefheart, and ’70s jazz-fusion icons Magma tumbling over each other as each track is revealed in full.
The concept for the album is set during a war with vivid military characters serving as the nervous mouthpieces of each track. The subject matter of each song is on the seedier side—“The Defence” and “Dangerous Liaisons” are from the perspective of a brothel owner and hired killer, respectively. World War I and Dickensian poetry feature prominently as influences for Greep, and his delivery remains truly alien. “Still” is the most melodic the dark album ever gets as it contorts and changes shape.
It’s a modern mutation on a traditional strain of ’70s rock and jazz jamming, but Black Midi remain mostly appealing three albums into their ascendant career. It’ll be intriguing to see what they mutate into for their fourth effort.
Los Angeles indie band Goon have been staying busy, debuting a new line-up earlier this year with their “Paint By Numbers, Vol. 1” EP, and sharing a Bandcamp exclusive “Six Covers” EP in support of the Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund. Last month they returned again with another new single, “Angelnumber 1210,” alongside news of the band’s sophomore LP, “Hour of Green Evening”, out July 15th. Today they’re back again with the record’s second single, “Ochre,” along with an accompanying video.
“Ochre” is a bit of a different take on the placid suburban soundscapes found throughout “Hour of Green Evening”. The band’s latest effort is more sparse and nocturnal, capturing the surreal unreality of a sleepless night (“I wandered out of bed / Cause there’s a firing line in my head / And it worked for a minute / Open my evil eye”). In this setting, frontman Kenny Becker and company find an alluring moon-lit beauty, conjured via haunting vocal melodies, the rhythm section’s playful swing, and a sweeping piano solo from Spoon’s Alex Fischel.
Becker explains of “Ochre”, “This track centers around anxieties and depression. Like that feeling when you’re laying in bed wide awake at 3 am and your mind is racing so much that you just have to get up and walk around.
To me, the ‘arrow’ refers to the inevitable passage of time. Knowing that every moment will eventually pass, and therefore just trying to focus on the present. This was an especially fun one to record because it’s the only Goon song so far that swings. Also, our brilliant buddy Alex Fischel plays piano on this track, and he totally improvised that piano bit at the very end.
I shot this video using a junky little point and shoot camera made in 2009. To me, its lo-fi digital grittiness feels very fitting with the introspective and longing vibe of the song. All the songs on this album correlate pretty strongly with specific times of day. I always pictured “Ochre” occurring somewhere in that formless, transitional moment between night and day, where everything is like hauntingly blue.
“Hour Of Green Evening” out everywhere on July 15th.
Fonteyn—a.k.a. singer-songwriter Suzanne May, has a knack for crafting sepia-tone sunshine pop that shamelessly, satisfyingly evokes one of her idols: Carole King. But a new visual for “Girl on a Motorcycle”—directed by May and Julianne Brough edited by May—shows the UK-born, Salt Lake City–based musician embodying another legend: Marianne Faithfull.
“Girl on a Motorcycle’ is an homage to the 1968 film of the same name,” says May. “The song seeks to capture the quirky, ethereal tone of the film while at the same time give the feel of a motorcycle engine chugging along. The video is heavily inspired by the imagery of the film and the lead character, played by Marianne Faithfull, and her bewitching performance.”
In the original film, Faithfull’s character, Rebecca, ditches her husband via motorcycle to reconnect with a lover. For Fonteyn, the theme of freedom is paramount: “Girl, rebellion is the only thing that’s keeping you alive,” she sings in the track. “Girl, like a little mouse inside your cage until you ride.”
“Girl on a Motorcycle” is the third single off Fonteyn’s forthcoming EP “Trip the Light Fantastic”.
It was only meant to be one show. If you’ve been following the Pavement reunion, you’ve probably heard Stephen Malkmus—the band’s fetishized chanteur—temper the significance of reunion número dos. He’s right, of course. They agreed to a Spanish sojourn, Primavera Sound, in order to shoot the breeze with old friends (Yo La Tengo, Dinosaur Jr., and Kim Gordon were among the alternarock greats from the stacked line-up) and, as Malkmus half-joked before anything further was announced, “I’m staying in a hotel right across the street, and I have immediate entrance, and there’s beer on tap anywhere I walk, and everyone likes me and stuff.”
Asserting his trademark disinterest maintains self-preservation for both himself and his bandmates should the calls of “nostalgia bait” start to percolate. Thankfully, that’s not been the case. Indeed, unlike the perfunctory reunions of some of their peers , Pavement’s is off to an uncharacteristically auspicious start. “Originally we were going to play one show and then see if we fell in love again,” they told Primavera’s radio program, but with shows in 13 countries booked throughout the fall, it looks like the third iteration of Pavement gets the honeymoon that never was.
The “Harness Your Hopes” official music video, directed by Alex Ross Perry and starring Sophie Thatcher. “Harness Your Hopes” is featured on the upcoming re-issue of the ‘Spit on a Stranger’ EP, out April 8th on Matador Records.
The Mountain Goats continue to be highly prolific and consistently great. The indie folk vets’ latest LP was produced by Bully’s Alicia Bognanno, and band leader John Darnielle says, “I got this idea to write a bunch of songs where they were all up-tempo mini-action movies. Plots, characters, heists, hostages, questionable capers, getaway cars, all that stuff.” Sounds like a very Mountain Goats-y concept, and the recently released lead single finds the band’s trademark sound in great shape.
When I write an album that revolves around a theme, it usually takes two or three songs before I notice what’s going on. There’s always one song that becomes the ‘might as well dive all the way in’ song and on “Bleed Out” that song was “Wage Wars Get Rich Die Handsome,” written while watching a French action movie way past my normal bedtime. Once I had the chorus of this one I started asking myself the kinds of questions that usually end up shaping the album: What if I just wrote all the songs on guitar? What if I leaned into the up-tempo ones? In recent years I shy away from the fist-punch no-brakes anthemic style but here I figured, you know, no point just wading around in blood if I’m already in knee-deep.
“Training Montage” by the Mountain Goats from their new album ‘Bleed Out’ coming August 19th, 2022 on Merge Records.
Taken from the Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, this fantastic clip of Campbell introducing U.S. TV audiences to a very english rock band “The Cream.” It took place on July 14th, 1968 when the then-32-year-old singer was the summertime host for the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. It’s a show that’s perhaps most famous for the flash-bomb explosion that damages Pete Townsend’s hearing forever, but the Smothers Brothers have always featured musical turns. Buffalo Springfield, Donovan,The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, and Steppenwolf all guested on the show.
Cream (guitarist Eric Clapton, bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker) were promoting their third album and were no strangers to U.S. audiences either collectively or individually. The British classic rock supergroup’s 1966 debut, “Fresh Cream“, and then 1967 follow-up, “Disraeli Gears“, The latter included “Sunshine of Your Love,” which became a huge breakthrough hit when it was released as a single in January 1968.
The July 1968 double LP “Wheels of Fire” continued their commercial success. The second disc was a live album recorded in San Francisco earlier that year. The studio side included another huge hit, “White Room” which became their only Top 5 single.
In the broadcast, Campbell introduces “The three guys you are about to meet were at one time considered to be the finest studio musicians in England. They were considered the cream of the crop of their profession so they figured they were so much in demand that they started their own thing. Ladies and Gentlemen… The Cream!” Cream would break up just four months later.
The contrast of “Greetings” and “Barely” succinctly represents the overarching spirit of Gulfer, now in their tenth year as a band whose proclivities range from rousing punkish anthems to technical and exploratory indie rock. In its opening seconds, “Greetings” boasts inventive drumming and playfully intricate guitar to set the scene for a song that attempts to unpack the abundant contradictions and debaucheries that comprised our youth. There’s a hint of personal introspection in the lyrics, but singer/guitarist Vincent Ford avoids explicit resolution in favour of open-ended narration.
On “Barely” the band’s impressionistic side emerges with an upbeat, pithy composition bookended by droning atmospherics. Exploring the transactional nature of so many of our relationships, singer/guitarist Joe Therriault uses “Barely” to speak on attempts at reciprocity of kindness that ultimately fall short in our over-transactionalized world.
released July 15th, 2022
written by Gulfer: Vincent Ford Joseph Therriault David Mitchell Julien Daoust
A new limited edition Grateful Dead CD box set, “In And Out Of The Garden: Madison Square Garden ’81, ’82, ’83,” will showcase six previously unreleased concerts recorded at Madison Square Garden between 1981 and 1983.
Due to release September 23rd, “In And Out Of The Garden” will consist of a 17 CDs in a custom box featuring artwork by Dave Van Patten, with detailed liner notes by award-winning music journalist David Fricke exploring the band’s connection to New York City. The box set will be numbered and limited to 12,500, and a truncated three-CD version featuring just one concert from 3/9/81 will also be available along with digital downloads of both versions.
“As Jerry Garcia famously said, Madison Square Garden was ‘juiced.’ It had an energy unlike any other venue the Grateful Dead played, particularly of this size, owing to the symbiotic relationship between the Dead, the Dead Heads, and New York City itself, says Grateful Dead legacy manager and archivist DavidLemieux. “The Dead didn’t play the Garden until 1979, almost the midpoint of their performing career. but once they got rolling, they made it a home away from home, playing 10 shows in the next 15 years. These performances from 1981, 1982, and 1983 are six of the best the Dead played at the Garden, any of which could have been released on their own. We’re thrilled, though, to allow these six complementary shows to be housed together, each one its own story, its own event, but all contributing to the story that is the entirety of the Dead’s 52 show run at Madison Square Garden.”
The recording captures an under-appreciated era of ’80s Dead when the addition of keyboardist Brent Mydland added fuel to the band’s already blazing fire. Mydland’s powerful voice and spirited keyboard playing brought new energy to old songs like “The Wheel”, “Truckin’”, and “Eyes of The World” and inspired the band to break out long-neglected rarities like “Dupree’s Diamond Blues” and “Crazy Fingers”.
The concerts featured in the collection were recorded between the release of 1980’s “Go To Heaven” and 1987’s “In The Dark” during a time when the band continued to write and road-test new compositions. Four songs that would ultimately end up on “In The Dark” are featured on the recording, including “Touch Of Grey”, “Hell In A Bucket”, “Throwing Stones”, and “West L.A. Fadeaway”, plus the B-side, “My Brother Esau”. Get a taste of the upcoming archival release with audio of “Feel Like A Stranger” from March 9th, 1981. “Since its debut in 1980, ‘Feel Like A Stranger’ offered the Grateful Dead another song with plenty of room internally to stretch out,” Grateful Dead archivist and legacy manager David Lemieux wrote. “By a year into its life, the song often went to nearly 10 minutes, and often opened shows. This rendition from March 9th, 1981 is driven with the controlled chaos that is the Grateful Dead at their best.”
“In And Out Of The Garden: Madison Square Garden ’81, ’82, ’83” was mastered by Jeffrey Norman and features newly restored and speed-corrected audio by Plangent Processes.
“In And Out Of The Garden: Madison Square Garden ’81, ’82, ’83″ Box Set
The EP see’s Sunflower Thieves exploring themes of self-discovery and growth, navigating and reflecting on the past as well as looking towards the future as they touch upon friendship, relationships, personal growth and loss along the way. All of which is delivered by the duo in their unique way as they release a body of work which is all at once warming, reflective, honest and authentic.
“We’ve both had a lot of change happen in our lives over the last few years, and this was a recurring theme throughout the writing sessions that birthed these songs. We touch on friendship, loss, relationship breakdowns, personal strength and growth. An additional overriding theme is collaboration – we have loved working with so many wonderful creative friends on videos and photos for each release”
Released April 22nd, 2022
Performers:
Amy Illingworth [vocals] Lily Sturt-Bolshaw [vocals, guitars, synths, samples, trumpet] Chris Milnes [guitars, samples] Jacob Cracknell [bass guitar] Lucy Revis [cello] Matt Hill [drums] Sam Griffiths [guitars, vocals] Sam Perry [vocals, guitars, synths] Tom Hammond [vocals, guitars, percussion]
The Fat Angel Sings 