Archive for the ‘MUSIC’ Category

The CHURCH ” Starfish “Expanded Edition 2 x 180G LP Set

Posted: January 25, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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The pandemic continues to have a profound impact on Intervention’s key partners. Earlier this year both Stoughton Printing, the company that makes our amazing jackets, and our pressing plant RTI shut down for a period, and have struggled to catch up since. Earlier this week Stoughton announced it has suffered a small Covid-19 outbreak and needs to close again until February 1st.  When Stoughton reopens it hopes to be at or near full capacity. Where this affects Intervention and its fans and friends is that The Church “Starfish”release is delayed since we can’t get the jackets completed for several more weeks. There is something of a domino effect here, as we cannot get in RTI’s queue until the jackets are done and delivered. Starfish is the fifth album by the Australian rock band The Church, released in April 1988. The band’s international breakthrough album, “Starfish” went gold in America and has remained their most commercially successful release. 

The high guitar priests of the Australian band the Church have been making pretty much the same record for nearly eight years with twin guitars overlapping in crystal formations of pinging harmonics, staircase arpeggios and clarion twangs and singer-bassist Steve Kilbey’s voice walking a thin line between a melancholy drone and an embittered hiss. Yet no two Church records ever actually sound alike. At its most compelling, the band scrambles the real and the surreal with ease, rattling its stately guitarchitecture with howling north-wind echo and the troubled undertow of Kilbey’s enigmatic lyrics. It’s like being in the middle of a recurring but constantly evolving dream where only the faces remain the same.

The first single, “Under the Milky Way”, charted in the US Billboard peaking at No. 24, leading to significant exposure of the then relatively underground Australian act. “Under the Milky Way”  was recorded/produced in Los Angeles including renowed L.A. session musicians Waddy Wachtel and Greg Ladanyi.  The recording is more sparse and open than its predecessor, Heyday, which featured orchestral arrangements with brass and strings. Many of its songs have seen heavy rotation in live set lists, and the album remains a favourite among many fans. The song “Under the Milky Way” was co-written by Kilbey with his then-girlfriend Karin Jansson of Pink Champagne. When drummer Richard Ploog was unable to find the right feel for the song, the band played to a click track and session musician Russ Kunkel was brought in to add the drums and percussion later.

The album’s title was taken from singer/bassist Steve Kilbey’s nickname for friend/ musical partner Donnette Thayer, who signed herself that way on postcards she sent to Kilbey. Kilbey contributed a long untitled poem to the album’s liner notes. “Hotel Womb” has dream-themed lyrics relating to an imagined wedding. Music videos were filmed for “Under The Milky Way” and “Reptile.” The fifth season of the US TV show, Miami Vice, featured two songs from the album. “Under the Milky Way” was used in an episode called “Asian Cut” and “Blood Money” was showcased throughout the episode “Heart of Night”. Starfish, The Church’s sixth and possibily their best LP, is about the spaces between the faces and about the tensions that fill those spaces. “Our instruments have no way/Of measuring this feeling,” Kilbey sings with edgy resignation in “Destination,” heightening the icy picking of guitarists Peter Koppes and Marty Willson-Piper with visions of musty old bones, stormy weather and “clapped-out swingers. “Blood Money” could be about nothing more sinister than a whore and her john (“She says, ‘Why can’t you get hard/Because you paid for this now in cold hard cash?'”), although the dripping sarcasm in Kilbey’s voice and the metallic sting of the guitars hint that this sexual transaction has more to do with emotional piracy.

There is certainly a lot of betrayal “Reptile” and dislocation “Lost” on tap on this album. At times, it’s hard to reconcile Starfish’s richly appointed production – pillowy strumming, aqueous reverb, the sunshine blast of synthesized bagpipes in “Under the Milky Way” with the negative energy charging some of these relationships. But it’s the very contrast of otherworldly ambiance and sly baroque lyricism with the earthy erotic tug that lights up songs like “Hotel Womb” and Willson-Piper’s “Spark.” On “Hotel Womb” the urgent guitars stoke Kilbey’s vocal despair like a “White Light-White Heat” for distraught young lovers.

For a number of other dates on the American tour, the band was paired with another of their heroes: Tom Verlaine of Television. Verlaine supported The Church. For their encore every night (“You Took”), they brought Verlaine on stage with them for a three-way guitar duel. Some fans consider the Verlaine/Church shows to be some of the best live performances they’ve ever witnessed. Starfish set up the band’s well-deserved breakthrough in the States,” and added that the performances throughout “are at the least fine and at the most fantastic.

During the tour drummer Richard Ploog became gradually disengaged from the band during this tour, even though he stayed with The Church for another two years. The exact nature of his malady is unknown but most agree that LSD exacerbated his condition. There were degrees of internal strife within the band and a high pressure of expectation from Arista Records. Because of this, Kilbey smoked more pot on this tour than at any other point in his life – such large quantities that he routinely coughed up blood. By the tour’s end, The Church had performed 94 shows across the US, Canada, Europe, the UK and Australia.

The Church:

  • Steve Kilbey – bass, lead vocals 
  • Peter Koppes – guitars, lead vocals
  • Marty Willson-Piper – guitars, lead vocals
  • Richard Ploog – drums, percussion
Additional musicians:
  • Greg Kuehn – keyboards
  • Russ Kunkel – drums and percussion
  • David Lindley – mandolin
  • “Awesome Welles” – Synclavier
  • Waddy Wachtel – Guitars backing vocals

What sets Starfish a notch above other distinguished Church hymnals, like 1986’s Heyday and the 1982 import beauty The Blurred Crusade, is its remarkable musical unity and refined dramatic poise. “Under the Milky Way” is the closest the band has come to adapting its expansive guitar chorales to potential-hit-single form since “The Unguarded Moment” . 

While my hope at this point is that these LPs are in stock and shipping in June, I’m calling it summer of 2021 and crossing fingers and toes that it comes sooner. I am so sorry for this delay! The test pressings sound AMAZING, the artwork will be stunning and you will be thrilled! 

Artist-Approved 2X LP Expanded Edition!, 8 Bonus Tracks Not Included On Original Vinyl Release!

FLYYING COLOURS – ” Big Mess “

Posted: January 25, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Pic by Naomi Lee Beveridge

Flyying Colours have announced a brand new album. The Melbourne group are set to release their second album, “Fantasy Country”, on Friday 26 February. 

“This album was supposed to now be 6-12 months old,” said songwriter and guitarist Brodie J Brümmer of the album.

“We take touring and supporting our music live quite seriously so it would have been very difficult for us to put out this album in the early stages of the pandemic… but here comes a time now where we need to get these songs out there and make it work in any way that we can.”

The band have announced a tour in celebration of the release, which will kick off at Adelaide’s Grace Emily on release day. They’ll then head to Melbourne’s Corner Hotel, Brisbane’s The Brightside and wrap up at Sydney’s Lansdowne Hotel. 

“Big Mess” by Flyying Colours Released via Club AC30 (UK & Europe) and Poison City Records

BURR OAK – ” Flower Garden “

Posted: January 25, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Burr Oak is the new project of Chicago based singer-songwriter Savanna Dickhut who merges together brutally honest, story- driven lyrics with raw, dreamy vocals. With just two singles out this past year, the Chicago Tribune wrote her songs “show the promise of a songwriter sure of her voice and sound, one that is piercing and deeply relatable and authentic.”

Based on her efforts in the first few months of 2020, Burr Oak could easily have appeared on this list last year. The project of Chicago’s Savanna Dickhut, Burr Oak was in the process of recording her debut album with producer Nick Papaleo, as well as opening shows for the likes of Twain and Buck Meek, until spanners were thrown into the global works. It wasn’t all bad news, as Savannah found time to release a pair of well-received singles, tracks that hinted at just how special her debut album might be, whenever it finds its way into the world.

Burr Oak formed following the ending of Savannah’s previous project, Elk Walking, with Savannah finding the confidence to launch her solo-project and allow her song writing to really shine. Debut offering Trying, is a straight talking depiction of her Savannah’s struggles to maintain her mental health and tendency to self-medicate with alcohol, delivered via fizzing-guitar lines and an impassioned vocal delivery as she sings, “some days I can’t get out of bed but I’ll keep trying, until I drop dead”.

That was followed in November by Flower Garden, which took the seasons as a metaphor for the ebbs and flows of a relationship and set them to a soundtrack of rolling drums and languid meanders of guitar that feel like an extension straight from the soul of their songwriter. There’s an open-hearted quality to Savannah’s song writing, the sound of someone with a story to tell, opening her lungs and letting it all out, whenever it does arrive Burr Oak’s debut album is going to be a record well worth keeping your eyes on.

Released November 18th, 2020
music & lyrics by Savanna Dickhut

CHICAGO – ” 25 or 6 to 4′ ” Released in January 1970 Classic Single

Posted: January 24, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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By the time Chicago had their first number one single in 1976, “If You Leave Me Now,” they were a far different band from their early days. Although their hits from that mid-1970s era onward were, by any measure, well-crafted pop songs but middle of the road, as the phrase went in those days, Chicago had left behind the horn-powered, soul-infused innovation of their earliest days. And they were very far removed from the music heard on “25 or 6 to 4,” recorded live at Tanglewood . Watch the Classic Video and you will witness one of the hardest rocking bands of its time. It’s actually difficult to imagine that this is the same band that cut those later hits.

In fairness, they weren’t quite the same. As you watch this seven-minute performance of “25 or 6 to 4” take note of what happens just before the three-minute mark. Terry Kath, the group’s guitarist, tears into a two-and-a-half-minute solo that has to rank among the most insane of the era. He’s so numbingly good that Jimi Hendrix reportedly stated that Kath was a better player than he was. To understand how Chicago became what it did, it’s informative to know where they came from. They formed in 1967 as Chicago Transit Authority, with guitarist/singer Kath, keyboardist/singer Robert Lamm, bassist/singer Peter Cetera, saxophonist Walter Parazaider, trumpeter Lee Loughnane, trombonist James Pankow and drummer Danny Seraphine. Signed to Columbia Records in 1968, they released their self-titled debut album the following spring. The group, which happened to come around at a time when rock bands were beginning to incorporate horn sections Blood, Sweat and Tears and the Electric Flag were two others. 

Two singles culled from the James William Guercio-produced album, “Does Anybody Really Know What Time it Is?” and “Beginnings,” reached the top 10 in 1970 and ’71, respectively, but by that time the group had shortened its name to Chicago and released its second LP, another double, this one simply titled “Chicago”. (From that point onward, most of their albums, for the rest of their career, would be titled with consecutive Roman numerals at last count they were up to Chicago XXXVI in 2014.)

Like its predecessor, Chicago struck a balance between soul, hard rock, ballads and what might be called nascent jazz fusion, although its center-piece was the 13-minute suite “Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon.” From that, the undeniably catchy “Make Me Smile” written by Pankow and sung by Kath, it became Chicago’s first top 10 hit in 1970, but it was the follow up, “25 or 6 to 4,” written by Lamm and sung by Cetera, that showed their ability to rock as hard as anyone else on the scene. It reached No#4 in the summer of ’70, the period seen on this Classic Video.

So what exactly was “25 or 6 to 4” about? Who knows?! In its time, there was speculation that the “25” part of the title was a reference to LSD, whose full pharmaceutical name was LSD-25. The “6 to 4” was said to be a ratio involved in the manufacture of the drug. Lamm laughed off those suggestions, stating that it was simply inspired by a time of day: 25 or perhaps 26 minutes before 4 o’clock.

Still, with lyrics such as these, one can understand where some listeners might have come up with the idea that it was about an acid trip:

“Should have tried to do some more, Twenty five or six to four, oh yeah
Feeling like I ought to sleep, Spinning room is sinking deep
Searching for something to say, Waiting for the break of day, ohh”

As early as Chicago III the first of the numbered albums the band began losing its original driving focus but its increasingly mainstream sound benefited Chicago commercially. “Saturday in the Park,” in 1972, was the last gasp from the original Chicago before they morphed entirely into a more disciplined pop outfit.

They continued to release an album per year and had recently put out Chicago XI when tragedy struck. On January 23rd, 1978, Terry Kath was in California at a party when he began playing around with guns. Although he was an experienced gun user, he did not know that the pistol in his hand had one round in its chamber. Kath pointed the gun at his head, pulled the trigger and died instantly. He left behind a wife and young daughter. Chicago briefly considered quitting, but they soldiered on, replacing Kath on the dance music-oriented Hot Streets (before returning to numbers on their next album) with guitarist Donnie Dacus. Chicago is still an ongoing outfit today, with four original members still on board: Lamm, Loughnane, Pankow and Parazaider. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2016.

If they ever had a more incendiary moment than this one from 1970 though, we haven’t seen it.

The band Chicago performs “25 or 6 to 4” and “You’re the Inspiration” as part of the “Be Chicago, Together We Can” fundraising event on April 29th, 2020, benefiting the Chicago Community COVID-19 Response Fund to aid the on-going efforts by the United Way of Metro Chicago and the Chicago Community Trust in the fight against COVID-19

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The SOUP DRAGONS – ” The Albums “

Posted: January 24, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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The Soup Dragons were a Scottish alternative rock band of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Named after a character in the 1970s children’s television show The Clangers, the group is best known for its cover of the Rolling Stones’ song “I’m Free”, which was a top five hit in the United Kingdom in 1990, and “Divine Thing”, a Top 40 hit in the United States in 1992. The Soup Dragons were formed in Bellshill, a town near Motherwell, in 1985.

The line up was Sean Dickson (vocals, lead guitar), Jim McCulloch (guitar, second voice) who replaced Ian Whitehall, and Sushil K. Dade (bass). The original drummer, Ross A. Sinclair, left the group after the first proper album, “This Is Our Art”, to pursue a career in art, and was replaced by Paul Quinn. Most of their songs were written by Sean Dickson. The band recorded their first demo tape, You Have Some Too, after playing a few local gigs, and this was followed by a flexi disc single “If You Were the Only Girl in the World”. The band signed to The Subway Organization in early 1986 and their first proper single (The Sun in the Sky EP) was Buzzcocks-inspired pop punk.

The band’s big breakthrough came with their second single for Subway, “Whole Wide World”, which reached No. 2 on the UK Indie Chart in 1986. Dickson and McCulloch also moonlighted in another band BMX Bandits at this time.  The band were signed by former Wham! co-manager Jazz Summers’ label Raw TV with further indie hits (and minor UK Singles Chart hits) following during 1987 and 1988. Over the course of six singles (the first three collected in 1986 on a U.S. only compilation, Hang Ten), they gradually developed a more complex rock guitar sound, which culminated in their first album proper “This Is Our Art”, now signed to major label Sire Records. After one single from the album “Kingdom Chairs” they then returned to original label Raw TV and Big Life Records. In the year following “This Is Our Art” their sound underwent a change from an indie rock sound, to the rock-dance crossover sound, this was mainly due to being without a drummer and buying a sampler and drum machine and experimenting with sound with the release of the album “Lovegod”.

This change can be attributed to the rise of the ecstasy-fuelled acid house rave scene in the UK. In 1990, they released their most successful hit single in the UK, “I’m Free”, an up-tempo cover of a Rolling Stones song with an added toasting overdub by reggae star Junior Reid, which reached number five. The single also appeared on the soundtrack to British science fiction comedy film The World’s End. Subsequent albums continued in their own style and In 1992 they enjoyed their biggest U.S. hit with “Divine Thing” It also hit number three on the Modern Rock chart and its video was nominated by MTV as one of the year’s best, though beaten by Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. The Soup Dragons disbanded in 1995. Paul Quinn joined Teenage Fanclub. Sushil K. Dade formed the experimental post rock group Future Pilot A.K.A. and is now a producer for BBC Radio. Sean Dickson formed The High Fidelity, came out as gay, had a breakdown, then met his husband and established a successful career Djing as HiFi Sean.

Jim McCulloch joined Superstar, wrote and recorded music with Isobel Campbell, and formed the folk group Snowgoose.

The Albums: Hang Ten!(1986) This Is Our Art (1988) Lovegod (1990) Hotwired (1992) Hydrophonic (1994)

Ross A. Sinclair had a successful career in art, winning a number of international awards and becoming a Research Fellow at Glasgow School of Art.  He still makes music The story of The Soup Dragons is traced as part of 2017 documentary Teenage Superstars.

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LULUC – ” Dreamboat “

Posted: January 24, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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As unexpected as it is to find Luluc closing out 2020 sharing a producer with pop behemoth Taylor Swift, it seems like a fitting end to this liminal, otherworldly year. The kinetic Aaron Dessner beat that opens the Australian duo’s fourth album is as much of a departure from the more muted tones of their previous work as its siblings brought to folklore – and yet, just as those propelled Swift’s heroine east from St Louis, this synthesised pulse also takes the listener on a journey.

The opening “Emerald City” began in a world halfway between the Melbourne of Luluc’s beginnings and the Brooklyn the duo have since come to call home: in Berlin in August 2018, where, on an invitation from Dessner, Zoë Randell and Steve Hassett flew out to perform at the PEOPLE festival. There, in an old East German radio-station-turned-venue-and-studio, the frequent collaborators – together with drummers JT Yates and Jason Treuting, and CJ Camerieri on trumpet – sought to translate the restless energy of the streets of New York into music.

Friends, festivals, transatlantic flights: the “Emerald City” origin story couldn’t be further from the Australian coast where Randell and Hassett finished mixing the album, seeing out the pandemic in isolation. And yet the thread that runs through “Dreamboat” is primarily an introspective one: of wild horses and weatherbirds, Wizard Of Oz metaphors and waking in the night. Luluc’s dream world, like the real one, is still complicated: at times as idyllic as the vision of “blue water and sunshine” in the Carpenters-esque “Dreaming”; at times a claustrophobic nightmare roping you in against your will.

The frantic buzz of that opening track is straight from the fast-paced, pre-pandemic world in which it was occasionally played live – but the anxieties tied up in its frenetic layers, punctuated by panicked bursts of trumpet, will be familiar to anyone who has lain awake these past few months, “tumbling and twisting” with “too much” in their head. The song is a stream of consciousness set in those anxious moments before sleep; above the noise, Randell’s voice a steady ship, with lines that seem prescient now. “Like Dorothy on the run,” she sings, “breaking my will, I stay in”.

The track is one of two to feature a Dessner co-production credit, Randell and Hassett handling the majority of the album solo. Combined with their decision to release independently rather than through long-time label Sub Pop – an amicable decision, Randell explains, driven by the duo’s desire to release this music into the world at their own pace – the implication is of full creative control. The simplicity at the core of the duo’s song writing remains intact, but the confidence that comes with experience allows them to lean into different choices as the songs dictate, be it duelling drummers, tenor saxophone or a touch of New York jazz guitar.

Wurlitzer and walking bass lend “Hey Hey” a vintage country feel, jazz drummer Dalton Hart working with Hassett to keep the song at a simmer until a melodic burst of sunshine shoots through the middle. “Weatherbirds” is built around another Dessner beat, but it’s the brightness of Hassett’s guitar and backing vocals that carry the song; and Arcade Fire touring member Stuart Bogie’s saxophone brings the pink flush of sundown to “Out Beyond”, a harmonious Randell-Hassett duet from the edge of the world.

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But sometimes, the songs call for nothing at all. “All The Pretty Scenery”, a feather-light beauty in which the narrator’s gaze turns from her own interior world to that of another, features only Randell and Hassett, some vocal doubling the closest thing to trickery. “Gentle Steed”, recorded live in Berlin with Hassett on piano and Caimin Gilmore on double bass, falls somewhere between old folk song and mythology, Randell’s vocals timeless and pure. Her voice carries something of a myth-making quality in its timbre, making the everyday details that creep into her lyrics – a reference to “booze”, an affectionate “my man” designation for a partner – twice as charming.

The real world creeps in as it must: as the sound of cars “rolling their way into my notebook” among the diary-esque lyrics of “Hey Hey”; in the shape of an arachnid in “Spider”. But behind it all, a self-possessed Luluc in isolation, daydreaming of friends apart until they can once again cross the sea.

“Dreamboat” released through Sun Chaser Records  October 23rd, 2020

PINK FLOYD – ” Meddle ” Released 50 Years Ago

Posted: January 24, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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‘Meddle’ didn’t have a very auspicious start, having evolved out of a series of experiments in music making with everyday objects titled ‘Nothings,’ ‘Son of Nothings’ and then ‘Return of the Son of Nothings.’ Yet, in exploring so far outside of the realm of the every day, they were clearly onto something. ‘One of These Days’ and ‘Echoes’ (both featuring weirdly involving instrumental elements) became signature favorites, while an unused song evolved into ‘Brain Damage’ for ‘The Dark Side of the Moon.’ They were mere steps away from greatness.

Arriving bereft of ideas, Pink Floyd did something that was becoming increasingly rare on Meddle: They collaborated together in the studio.

At first, this didn’t lead to much. The album, before its arrival on October. 31st, 1971, was actually known as Nothing, Parts 1-24. Recorded in a series of locales around London between concert dates, Meddle eventually came together with help – both instrumentally and lyrically – from all four members, a stark contrast to the Roger Waters-dominated albums to come in the ’70s.

“When we started on Meddle, we went into it with a very different working basis to any previous album in so much that we went into the studios with nothing prepared, and did a month of – well, we just called them nothings,” Nick Mason said Ted Alvy of KPPC-FM in 1971. “I mean, they were ideas that were put down extremely roughly. They might have been just a few chords, or they might have been a rhythm idea, or something else – and this was just put down, and then we took a month and examined what we got.”

What emerged was the bridge between their earliest recordings and the career-making triumph of 1973’s The Dark Side of the Moon. Meddle still boasted the wide-open improvisational gumption of transitional albums like 1968’s A Saucerful of Secrets, 1969’s Ummagumma and 1970’s Atom Heart Mother, but their focus started to narrow. In some ways, the LP represents the best of both worlds.

They got there together, swapping musical ideas and – in the case of the album-opening “One of These Days” – even swapping places. David Gilmour took up the bass as the song opens, before being joined by Waters. (You’ll notice the second double-tracked instrument has a flatter sound. “We didn’t have a spare set of strings for the spare bass guitar, so the second bass is very dull sounding,” Gilmour told Guitar World in 1993. “We sent a roadie out to buy some strings, but he wandered off to see his girlfriend instead.”) Mason takes a rare vocal turn on “One of These Days,” as well.

A swirling breeze links that song to the tender “A Pillow of Winds,” which was inspired by time spent by Waters and Mason with their wives in the south of France. Waters’ “San Tropez” – the only song here not co-written with Gilmour – also recalls trips to the French Riviera. Together, Pink Floyd bring an impish humor to songs like “Fearless,” which features a field recording of a Liverpool soccer club singing “You’ll Never Walk Alone” – forcing Pink Floyd to co-credit Rodgers and Hammerstein – while “Seamus” includes the howling of Small Faces/Humble Pie vocalist Steve Marriott’s dog, whom Gilmour was watching.

Meddle will always be defined, however, by its side two-encompassing closing track, “Echoes.” The song, which stretched to 23 minutes, again grew out of a collaborative moment – this time onstage, when the song was reportedly introduced as “Return of the Son of Nothing.”

Richard Wright wrote the long piano intro and the chord progression, while Waters added lyrics – after coming up with the idea of running Wright’s original “ping” sound through a Leslie rotating speaker. Gilmour achieved the seagull sounds by reversing the inputs on a wah pedal.

“Things like ‘Echoes’ would be all of us in a rehearsal room, just sitting there thinking, playing – working out ideas to see if they went anywhere,” Wright told Rolling Stone in 1987. “It’s a nice way to work – and I think, in a way, the most ‘Floyd-ian’ material we ever did came about that way.”

“Echoes,” which later provided the title to a career-spanning retrospective, was Pink Floyd’s breakthrough moment. An complex and stirring finale, “Echoes” holds together as one narrative piece, unlike the lengthy title track from Atom Heart Mother.

‘Meddle’ (1971): “Echoes”

Pink Floyd spreads way, way, way out on this extended epic – at 23-plus minutes, the length of an entire side of vinyl. It’s not the duration of “Echoes” that’s noteworthy, only that the extra running time allows for such a wealth of noises and ideas. If the early, psychedelic Floyd stuff was “space rock,” this is “deep sea rock,” and just as enchanting. Wright creates a submarine-like “ping” while Gilmour dreams up a pod of whales by plugging a wah-wah pedal in backwards. Nick Mason guides the ever-changing song, and Roger Waters writes of wind, water and, more importantly, humanity. The band believed this mix of outward-looking lyricism and dynamic sounds was the stepping stone to full album suites, like Dark Side of the Moon. (And, if you agree with Waters, this descending chord motif led to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera.)

“I think ‘Echoes’ is the masterwork of the album – the one where we were all discovering what Pink Floyd is about,” Gilmour told Guitar World. “Meddle is really the album where all four of us were finding our feet – the way we wanted Pink Floyd to be, much more than on Ummagumma or Atom Heart Mother. Although Atom Heart Mother has some pointers and directions as to where we would finally go, it’s not as important as Meddle was.”

Even though Meddle reached No. 3 in the U.K., the U.S. was proving a tougher market to conquer. The album actually finished 15 spots further back from Atom Heart Mother, at a paltry No. 70. Still, the stage was set – as evidenced by the appearance in these sessions of “Brain Damage,” which would later help close out The Dark Side of the Moon.

“All those stages are part of a general evolution, made of progression and dead times,” Mason mused in 1973, as Pink Floyd found themselves finally on the cusp of superstardom. “They weren’t exactly succeeding experiments, but rather exercises about a particular aspect of music, so you could evolve after that. Anyway, we never did an album saying, ‘That’s it, we reached the zenith.’ On the contrary, we always asked ourselves: ‘What will we do next?’”

Pink Floyd’s sixth album was a turning point of sorts, as the band inched closer to more structured songs, as opposed to the atmospheric set pieces that dominated their previous records. ‘Echoes,’ ‘Meddle”s highlight, still runs more than 23 minutes, but its mix of long instrumental passages and vocal patches is a precursor to the career-changing ‘The Dark Side of the Moon.’

Pink Floyd, released on 31st October 1971 by Harvest Records.

Black Pumas ‘The Electric Deluxe Sessions EP

Posted: January 24, 2021 in MUSIC
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Black Pumas have shared The Electric Deluxe Sessions , a new EP featuring reimagined versions of three of the group’s hit songs and a cover.

The Amazon Music-exclusive release contains new takes on “Colors”, “Fire”, “You Don’t Know Better”, and Jimmy Webb‘s “Wichita Lineman”. This new EP follows Black Pumas’ Grammy-winning, self-titled debut album from 2019. The Electric Deluxe Sessions finds the Austin-bred soul-psych duo consisting of Eric Burton and Adrian Quesada examining themselves and the direction of their short career. Even as the songs are already familiar, Black Pumas are able to make them into something completely new while still containing many of the musical hallmarks that took the group’s debut album to the top of Billboard‘s Heatseekers Album chart. “When we recorded the record [Black Pumas] we’d only been working together for a few months,” Quesada said in a press statement shared with this week’s release. “All the touring we did over the last year, the live show has elevated all the songs arrangement-wise, everyone gets to shine a little bit and we don’t get to put that down too often.”

The EP’s only new offering, which is ironically a cover, features Black Pumas taking on the Webb tune that has been made famous by Glen Campbell, The Meters, and more. This “Wichita Lineman” contains a more classic kind of Black Pumas, with Burton adding a vintage crooner flair to his vocal stylings. Meanwhile, the background floats with reverberated guitar melodies that further add to the feelings of nostalgia that make Black Pumas an anomaly of new-age sounds combined with vintage techniques.

GENESIS – ” Behind The Lines ” The Last Domino Tour Rehearsal

Posted: January 24, 2021 in MUSIC
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Genesis reveal brand new behind-the-scenes rehearsal photos

Genesis have released a teaser video of the band in rehearsal for their upcoming The Last Domino tour. The new clip, which features the band performing the intro to “Behind The Lines” from The 1980’s album “Duke”, it gives fans a chance to view a very impressive looking stage set and lighting rig. Tony Banks, Phil Collins and Mike Rutherford are joined by longstanding live guitarist/bassist Daryl Stuermer and Collins’ son Nic on drums. Two male backing vocalists are also visible. Yesterday the band announced that they’d rescheduled their dates to September and October due to ongoing problems with Covid-19. The band originally announced the dates for November last year back in March of last year, and have already rescheduled once, moving the dates to April.

“The decision to move the tour again is due to the global pandemic, and even with the roll out of the vaccine, there are still a huge amount of uncertainties and unanswered questions that make a tour in April difficult for everyone,” the band said in a statement. “It is appreciated, that for whatever reason, those planning on attending the shows may not feel comfortable doing so, so by moving the tour we can alleviate some of those concerns and in turn that will allow the band and the crew to prepare with less unpredictability and create a show that both the band and fans alike will treasure and enjoy.”

The Last Domino? tour will be the first gigs Genesis have played since 2007, with Phil Collins previously saying: “There were more reasons to do it than not to do it. If we had to do it the way we used to tour, I don’t think I’d be doing it. But nowadays it can be done differently, and I’ve been doing that for the last couple of years.”

Genesis are re-scheduling their April UK and Irish tour dates for autumn 2021 in light of the ongoing pandemic. ‘The Last Domino?’ Tour 2021 will now start in Dublin on 15th September and is set to be Tony Banks, Phil Collins and Mike Rutherford’s first live outing together since the globe-trotting, sell-out ‘Turn It On Again: The Tour’ in 2007. They will be joined on stage by Nic Collins on drums, and the band’s long time lead guitar and bass player Daryl Stuermer.

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JOHN SMITH – ” The Fray “

Posted: January 24, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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I think we all had a tough time of it last year. I felt myself going through the mill, along with so many others. However, the experience resulted in a new collection of songs. Songs about love, loss and ultimately hope. And so my new album ‘The Fray’ will be released March 26th on Commoner Records/Thirty Tigers worldwide. Recorded at Real World Studios in Wiltshire and produced by Sam Lakeman and myself, ‘The Fray’ features guest performances from Sarah Jarosz, Bill Frisell, Lisa Hannigan, The Milk Carton Kids, Jess Staveley-Taylor and Courtney Hartman. Ordinarily I would hit the road for fifty nights to tour a new record. For this release however, I’ve put together a bunch of special signed pre-order packages, available only through my website. There are T-Shirt bundles, exclusive recordings, guitar lessons, private concerts, a high-quality ticketed livestream event on the weekend of release and more. ‘The Fray’ comprises twelve of the most personal and, I think, the most honest songs I’ve ever written. I can’t wait for you to hear it.

Born in Essex, raised by the Devon seaside, and making his bones in the bars and clubs of Liverpool, John has released five albums with over 33 million Spotify streams.  He has played to audiences all over the world in living rooms, festival tents and sold-out concert halls. He is a genuine folksinger, an inquisitive truth-seeker, devoted song interpreter and enchanting writer.

Steeped in the lineage of British folk, taking his cue from Richard Thompson and John Martyn, Smith has evolved a transatlantic blend of fingerstyle and slide guitar techniques. John’s intimate takes on love, loss and the journey we make, combined with his innovative guitar work, have won him a loyal following.  His honey-on-gravel voice and mesmerizing fingerstyle guitar are undeniable. Sometimes using a slide, sometimes with guitar on his lap, sometimes detuning mid-song, John Smith’s obsession with the instrument has made a master of him. Whether by way of album or concert, he leads the listener, enthralled in his presence, on a viscerally emotional journey.

My new record ‘The Fray’ will be released March 26th on Commoner Records/Thirty Tigers worldwide! Ordinarily I would hit the road for fifty nights to tour a new record, but for this release I’ve put together a bunch of special signed pre-order packages, available only through my website.

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