Shame are releasing a new album, “Drunk Tank Pink”, next Friday (January 15) via Dead Oceans Records. This week they shared another song from it, “Nigel Hitter,” via a video for it. Maxim Kelly directed the video, reworking archival footage to make it seem like babies are singing along to the song.
Frontman Charlie Steen had this to say about the song in a press release: “The song is at the heart of what Drunk Tank Pink is about. After we finished touring I was left with a lot of silence as I stumbled around trying to figure out the daily routine. On top of that, I was confronting my subconscious at night through a series of intense dreams which left me in a daze during the day. ‘Nigel Hitter’ feels like a cathartic expression of that period.”
Frontman Charlie Steen had this to say about the song and upcoming album in a press release: “A lot of this album focuses on the subconscious and dreams, this song being the pivotal moment of these themes. A song about love that is lost and the comfort and displeasure that comes after you close your eyes, fall into sleep, and are forced to confront yourself.”
Drunk Tank Pink includes “Water in the Well,” and “Snow Day,”Shame’s previous album, Songs of Praise, was released in January 2018 on Dead Oceans.
It’s tempting to think that you have all the answers, screaming your gospel every day with certainty and anger. Life isn’t quite like that though, and the debut album from London four-piece TV Priest instead embraces the beautiful and terrifying unknowns that exist personally, politically and culturally.
Posing as many questions as it answers, “Uppers” is a thunderous opening statement that continues the UK’s recent resurgence of grubby, furious post-punk music. It says something very different though – something completely its own. Four childhood friends who made music together as teenagers before drifting apart and then, somewhat inevitably, back together late in 2019, TV Priest was born out of a need to create together once again, and brings with it a wealth of experience and exhaustion picked up in the band’s years of pursuing “real life” and “real jobs,” something those teenagers never had.
In November 2019, the band – vocalist Charlie Drinkwater, guitarist Alex Sprogis, bass and keys player Nic Bueth, and drummer Ed Kelland – played their first show, to a smattering of friends in what they describe as an “industrial freezer” in the warehouse district of Hackney Wick. “It was like the pub in Peep Show with a washing machine just in the middle…” Charlie laughs, Unsurprisingly, there isn’t a precedent for introducing an album during a global pandemic, but among the general sense of anxiety and unease pervading everything at the moment, TV Priest’s entrance in April with the release of debut single “House of York” – a searing examination of the Monarchy – served as a breath of fresh air among the chaos, its anger and confusion making some kind of twisted sense to the nation’s fried brains.
It’s the same continued global sense of anxiety that will greet the release of Uppers, and it’s an album that has a lot to say right now. Taking musical cues from The Fall and Protomartyr as well as the mechanical, pulsating grooves of Kosmische Musik, it’s a record that moves with an untamed energy. Over the top of this rumbling musical machine is vocalist Charlie, a cuttingly funny, angry, confused, real frontman.
“Decoration,” Uppers’ center-piece, has a streamlined groove soundtracking Charlie’s lyrical vignettes that captures the absurdity and mundanity of life. Its opening and closing line (“I’ve never seen a dog do what that dog does”) is a misremembered quote by Simon Cowell about a performing dog on Britain’s Got Talent. Charlie says, “We often said it in the studio as a kind of in-joke when someone did something good or unexpected. Having already toyed around with the ‘Through to the next round’ line,’ this seemed too good to leave out.” And the chorus “It’s all just decoration” is credited to 2-year old niece of Alex’s fiancé, who reassured him after he pretended to be scared by Halloween decorations.
“Press Gang” is inspired by Charlie’s grandfather’s life’s work as a photojournalist and war correspondent on the UK’s Fleet Street from the 1950s to the early 1980s. The song is about the shifting role in the dissemination of information and ideas, and how the prevailing narrative that the “Death of Print Media” has contributed to a “post truth” world.
Album closer “Saintless” is the most personal and raw moment on Uppers. Charlie wrote a note to his son after his birth, following a difficult period his wife had faced during and after the pregnancy. The song is about how as parents we’re fallible and human, and while the world can be a difficult place at times the one thing that gets you through is giving your love to those that need and appreciate it. “Saintless” rides a motorik beat, with guitars, bass and synths building layers of intensity and emotion that replicate and swell with the message of the track.
Uppers sees TV Priest explicitly and outwardly trying to avoid narrowmindedness. Uppers sees TV Priest taking musical and personal risks, reaching outside of themselves and trying to make sense of this increasingly messy world. It’s a band and a record that couldn’t arrive at a more perfect time.
“Press Gang” is Out now – our new one from our album ‘Uppers’, out on Sub Pop Records next month. “Uppers” It’s about Charlie’s grandad, news cycles, truth, chip paper, and information. It’s also pretty loud. Lots of love to Joe Wheatly for another wild ride making the video & big love to all the crew who helped us out over a very cold weekend.
“Press Gang” by TV Priest from their album “Uppers” (Release Date: 02/05/2021)
Whitesnake celebrates the blues sound that helped inspire its multi-platinum career on a new collection that features remixed and remastered versions of the group’s best blues-rock songs. “The Blues Album” is the third and final release in the band’s “Red, White and Blues Trilogy”, a series of compilations organised by musical themes that began earlier in 2020 with Love Songs (red) and The Rock Album (white). The new compilation delivers a potent mix of hits and deep tracks that originally appeared between 1984 and 2011 on six Whitesnake studio albums and Coverdale’s solo album, “Into the Light“.
Whitesnake’s singer-songwriter David Coverdale says, the music reflects how blues artists like Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and the three Kings (Albert, B.B. and Freddie) continue to inspire him. In the album’s liner notes, he writes: “It’s hard to find the words to show how profoundly they connected with my soul. But ‘blues’ to me is a beautiful word that describes emotional expression… feelings, be it feelings of sadness, loneliness, emptiness… but, also those that express great joy, celebration and dance, sexiness and love!!!”
In the liner notes, Coverdale described how hearing blues legends like Muddy Waters, Albert King and Howlin’ Wolf affected him throughout his life. “It’s hard to find the words to show how profoundly they connected with my soul,” he writes. “But ‘blues’ to me is a beautiful word that describes emotional expression … feelings, be it feelings of sadness, loneliness, emptiness … but, also those that express great joy, celebration and dance, sexiness and love.”
The Blues Album includes two hits, “Slow an’ Easy” and “Give Me All Your Love,” which has been remixed to focus on the track’s guitars. You can check out the set’s opening track, “Steal Your Heart Away,” below.
“The Blues Album” showcases two of the band’s biggest songs: “Slow An’ Easy,” a big hit in 1984 from Whitesnake’s massive album “Slide It In”, and the smash “Give Me All Your Love” from the band’s 1987 self-titled globally successful album. Other choice tracks from Whitesnake are also featured: “Looking For Love” and “Crying In The Rain,” and “Steal Your Heart Away.” The collection also includes “If You Want Me,” a studio recording released in 2006 as a bonus track on the live album, “Live…in the Shadows of the Blues“. Coverdale also taps his 2000 solo album, “Into the Light”, for “The River Song.”
Quavering vocal harmonies and delicate acoustic accents roll through a blissful backcountry scene on Valley Maker‘s “No One Is Missing”, in part recalling the dusky lo-fi plains of Kurt Vile and Cass McCombs – lyrics interpreting the organic unison of nature and the art of music as a form of remedying the pandemic’s myriad social repercussions.
Seattle-based for the last ten years, Crane, along with his family, recently decamped to South Carolina – an uprooting and re-assimilation that finds a voice in the upcoming third album “When The Day Leaves”. Crane expands upon the bearing this had on the premise of his latest track: “I wrote this song, along with much of When The Day Leaves, as a way of grappling with the partiality and temporality of how we connect with one another, I guess as an attempt to collect and reflect on recent experiences of loss, love, leaving, returning, missing, etc. While recent months of social distancing have often felt isolating, I’m continually grateful for how music and the natural world can remind us we’re not alone.”
Latest video from the new album. Probably the most progressive (by their standards) and challenging track on the new album. I think it works in the context of the album but is a poor choice of single. I think enough has been released already.
The Black Crowes have announced a 30th-anniversary reissue of their breakthrough debut album, “Shake Your Money Maker”. The Super Deluxe version – available on either four LPs or three CDs – will include a newly remastered version of the original 1990 album, as well as three previously unheard studio recordings. One track, “Charming Mess,” is a song that was originally earmarked to be the Black Crowes’ first single but eventually was left off Shake Your Money Maker.
The Black Crowes’ debut album, “Shake Your Money Maker”, may borrow heavily from the bluesy hard rock grooves of the Rolling Stones and Faces (plus a bit of classic soul), but the band gets away with it due to sharp song writing and an ear for strong riffs and chorus melodies, not to mention the gritty, muscular rhythm guitar of Rich Robinson and brother Chris’ appropriate vocal swagger. Unlike their later records, the Crowes don’t really stretch out and jam that much on Money Maker, but that helps distill their virtues into a handful of memorable singles (“Jealous Again,” “She Talks to Angels,” a cover of Otis Redding’s “Hard to Handle”), and most of the album tracks maintain an equally high standard.
Shake Your Money Maker may not be stunningly original, but it doesn’t need to be; it’s the most concise demonstration of the fact that the Black Crowes are a great, classic rock & roll band. Other material on the Super Deluxe edition includes two demos from the band’s early years (when they were known as Mr. Crowe’s Garden), a collection of B-sides and a previously unreleased 14-song concert recording from a 1990 performance in their hometown of Atlanta. Reproductions of early band flyers, a tour laminate, a Black Crowes patch and a 20-page booklet highlight the collectibles included in the set.
Originally released in February 1990, the Black Crowes‘ debut album defied rock sensibilities at the time. While spandex and hair metal were dominating the airwaves, the Crowes offered a back-to-basics approach, full of Southern-rock influences and Rolling Stones-style swagger.
The album would go on to sell more than 5 million copies, spawning radio favourites like “Jealous Again,” “Twice as Hard,” “She Talks to Angels” and a hit cover of Otis Redding’s “Hard to Handle.”
The group had intended to celebrate Shake Your Money Maker’s 30th anniversary with a nationwide tour in 2020, but those plans were put on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic. A 2021 trek is tentatively scheduled to kick off next June. The Black Crowes ‘Shake Your Money Maker’ 30th Anniversary Edition Box Set!! Featuring the original studio album remastered by George Drakoulias, 3 never before heard studio recordings, 2 unreleased demos from Mr. Crowe’s Garden, a 14 song unreleased live album from Atlanta GA 1990, vintage The Black Crowes artwork, archived photos, liner notes from David Fricke, plus a 4” Patch.
Available February 26th,
The Black Crowes, ‘Shake Your Money Maker’ 30th Anniversary
Punk legend Alice Bag has announced a new album and shared the lead single, which features Allison Wolfe (of Bratmobile and much more). Alicia Armendariz (aka Alice Bag) is a Los Angeles punk legend, not just for her ground breaking first band the Bags (featured in Penelope Spheeris’s Decline of Western Civilization), but for her outspokenness, activism, writings, and embodying the D.I.Y. ethic instilled in her by her mother.
When L.A. punk legend Alice Bag and I recently talked on the phone, she began the conversation by telling me her dog, Cinnamon, had died three weeks earlier. She said thinking about the Rainbow Bridge—a poem that has been adopted by the pet-loss grief community—has really helped her. Her voice is light and calm, and sounds like many flowers opening, undulating. It is melodic and sweet, like an extract of something very powerful, and philosophical. But when she sings, that extract explodes.
Since the mid-1970s, her voice has exploded on stage and on record with the Bags, which she co-founded as part of the first wave of L.A.’s punk bands. She described her tough childhood in East Los Angeles and her coming of age into the punk music scene in her powerful 2011 memoir .
Alice told me that “Punk rock is my therapy,” and singing has always just come naturally to her. The first money she ever earned was from singing. Miss Yonkers, her fifth-grade teacher in Los Angeles, asked her to sing on an educational bilingual cartoon, and Bag earned $100—more than the monthly rent her parents paid. Said Bag, “I thought, ‘maybe I could be a singer when I grow up’”. She is still singing at 62, having released a solo album, Alice Bag in 2016, Blueprint in 2018, and Sister Dynamite in 2020.
But she didn’t tell her dad about her dream of becoming a singer because he would tell her she should strive to own the record company instead. “I think he treated me the way some men of his generation would’ve treated their firstborn son,” she said. “That’s why he filled my head with dreams.”
In The Red, Bob Baker Marionette Theater and Pancake Mountain present: Breadcrumbs! The first single from the forthcoming record SISTER DYNAMITE out April 24th 2020 on In The Red Records.
Musicians: Alice Bag, David Jones, Rikki Watson, Sharif Dumani Special guest vocalists: Allison Wolfe and Lysa Flores
The Telescopes have been described by the British music press as ‘more a revolution of the psyche than a revolution of the sidewalk’; a thread consistent throughout a body of work spanning over 30 years. The Telescopes have constantly pushed at their own boundaries to unravel new pathways of existence, colouring outside the lines of all expectation to reach beyond the realm of natural vision.
With a legacy full of eureka moments, intravenously fed through a crack in the cosmic egg, The Telescopes invoke the kind of altered perceptions that time has shown not only withstand repeated listening, but reveal something new whenever one ventures into the depths of their highly influential artistry.
At the core of their being, The Telescopes are an all embracing concern, in every sense, a constant revolution of the psyche exploding endless spores of sound, carriers of warm transmissions seeped in aural innovation that spiral around ones inner receptors to induce a series of auditory illusions that completely immerse the listener in the grip of their own imagination.
The most revolutionary act we can all perform is to stand by our calling, to keep doing what we do, for the reasons we are conceived to do so, no matter what. Some call it ‘The New Weird’ but call it what you will, it is born of love. The Telescopes are one of the very few artists that are living proof that this revolutionary act is possible to evolve and sustain free from artistic corruption.
“Songs Of Love And Revolution” is a solar burst of trance inducing rhythms gripped at the helm by a wall of throbbing bass held in place by a swarm of encircling guitars. Lashed to the mast of this whirling dervish, incantations abound to dispel what is bound. This is the 12th album by The Telescopes, music for a four-piece ensemble that will never sound the same twice in any given environment or to any set of ears.
The Telescopes Album: Songs Of Love And Revolution
A collaboration between Faris Badwan (The Horrors / Cat’s Eyes) & renowned guitarist John Coxon (Spring Heel Jack / Spiritualized / Treader), “Boiling Point/Promise Land” is the first release of an ongoing collaborative series between Faris and other artists, details of which will be subsequently announced.
Badwan & Coxon met some years ago when Faris was looking for producers to work with on his solo material and their working relationship evolved beyond the existing songs into something more improvisational and instinctive. As Faris explains: The new songs we ended up working on were largely spontaneous and cut together from early takes with minimal overdubbing. The lyrics were improvised and the focus was placed more on creating atmosphere and keeping things fairly raw and expressive. I guess I found it rewarding particularly with the guitar playing because it was so intuitive and completely free from any expectations of how a song should be constructed. There are hooks and repetitive sections but fewer traditional structures.
We tried to avoid doing any planning beforehand and focussed more on responding to what was happening in the moment. I guess the sessions were kind of a constant dialogue where we would each respond to the other’s improvisation.
With Promise Land I began by improvising lyrics over a drone track John and I created. Some time later I came across “To Our Land” by Mahmoud Darwish, a Palestinian poet, and was struck by the similarities – there are a few lines that match really closely. Despite being half-palestinian myself this was a total accident and I know for sure I hadn’t seen Darwish’s piece before.
With Boiling Point the lyrics are almost the ghost of a narrative rather than an explicit story. I’m interested in the subconscious and how the hidden parts of your brain express themselves when given the opportunity. Looking back it was almost more about creating the right conditions for the subconscious to come out.
Boiling Point / Promise Land is out on Tough Love Records on Friday 5th February 2021 on DL and as a limited edition (500) 12” which includes a very limited run of 100 copies with hand painted sleeves by Faris which are available via Bandcamp. In keeping with the approach of the music, each design was improvised and instinctive. Faris added about the artwork:
What was interesting about it was the way the style of the designs naturally evolved as a result of having so many blank squares to fill – there’s a really clear development from start to finish – beginning with angular lines filling the sleeve and ending with smoother, more minimal abstract shapes responding to the existing sleeve design. It ended up almost like a process-based art project where you work repetitively within really strict confines and let the results emerge organically.
For Another Michael, it all boils down to trust. In mid-2017, the critically acclaimed indie three-piece packed their bags and collectively relocated from Albany, NY to a shared house in West Philadelphia. This move signalled not only the start of a new chapter for the trio, but also a deepening of the bonds that would come to define their captivating debut LP, ‘New Music and Big Pop.’
“It’s hard for a group of people to get closer than living together,” says bassist and producer Nick Sebastiano. “The stronger our connection grew, the more it shaped the music we found ourselves making.”
It should come as little surprise, then, that ‘New Music and Big Pop’ is Another Michael’s most collaborative work yet. Recorded in a small A-frame house-turned-makeshift studio outside Ferndale, NY, the record finds the trio pushing their sound in a dreamier, more folk-influenced direction, building songs around vulnerable, intimate performances using an ethereal palette of breezy guitars, subtle keyboards, and layered harmonies. As on the band’s early EPs, singer and songwriter Michael Doherty’s mesmerizing voice is front and centre here, calling to mind Robin Pecknold or Ben Bridwell in its reedy, crystalline timbre, but it feels more at home than ever before amidst the album’s lush, Technicolor landscape, which the band partnered with producer and fellow housemate Scoops Dardaris to create. The result is a masterfully understated record that belies its status as a full-length debut, a thoughtful, poetic, collection all about growth and change, hope and faith, endings and beginnings, delivered by a band that’s only just begun to scratch the surface of their story.
Serving as a precursor to the bands forthcoming debut LP, the New Music 7″ offers the title track, backed with a truly great non album b-side “Boring for the Times”.
We are happy to announce New Music and Big Pop, the beautiful forthcoming debut LP from Another Michael. The first single “I Know You’re Wrong” is streaming now on Spotify, Apple Music, and on Youtube with an accompanying Runescape visual.
“New Music” by Another Michael from the 7″ / 2 song digital single ‘New Music’ out now via Run For Cover Records
The Fat Angel Sings 