This month I’m releasing Deadstock: Uncollected Recordings 2005 – 2020, an album gathering up the songs no one got to hear: unreleased tracks and alternate versions from six studio records and scattered sessions, that form a kind of alternate history. ‘Here’s bunch of songs so good I never put them out,’ but these are as good anything I ever wrote, and we’ve played some of them on the road for years. They didn’t make it onto albums because I still think of albums as the unit of measure, and it’s more important to me to make a record work than it is to make sure a particular song sees the light of day. They tend to find their own way out the door anyway. Deadstock isn’t a documentary, it’s an album.
It’s arranged and meant to be heard that way, with seven new original songs – and two released prior only in Europe – as well as new full-band takes of back catalogue numbers like ‘Mesa, Arizona,’ ‘Ghost Repeater,’ and ‘Pretty Hands.’ Some of these are blood relatives, like ‘Real Love,’ ‘Any Town Will Do,’ and ‘Mesa, AZ’ (three songs written in three days driving around the desert southwest before the Ghost Repeater sessions) while some show the obverse side of the coin, like ‘Cold Late Spring Bark River’ (a less austere telling of a night I wrote about in ‘Heart to the Husk’ from Horse Latitudes), and ‘Crown of Smoke,’ the present-tense companion to the narrative flashback in ‘Little Warble,’ from Blood Brothers.
There’s a song I wrote for one of my heroes, the late great Rainer Ptacek of Tucson, and a song called ‘Jacaranda’ that I wrote while driving up the 101 in California years ago, feeling lucky; there’s a song called ‘Adios Mexico’ that I co-wrote with my friend Airon Kluberton – an airplane mechanic in Talkeetna, Alaska – when I was up there on tour, and there are two songs I always loved from the Cold Satellite collaborations with poet Lisa Olstein and guitarist David Goodrich, presented in new versions. The band is mostly the one you know from the last many years (featured on the Wolves and Blood Brothers records, and on the road), and then the Iowa boys from Ghost Repeater on two tracks, plus guest appearances by Kris Delmhorst, Pieta Brown, and Caitlin Canty on backing vocals. Deadstock won’t be streaming until 12/18, but you can pre-order copies for everyone you know right damn now to get it early, and in time for the holidays. To make that decision easier, you can go listen through all sixteen tracks right now, and hear/see the full single of ‘There’s a Destruction on This Land,’ (from the Salt As Wolves sessions).
All the older (in-print) albums from the back catalogue are available all this month 20% off, with the promo code JF2020. That’s right, I have a promo code. I’m having it tattooed on my ass. I’m not going to play a livestream concert this month, but I’ll be back in the new year to play through Blood Brothers, and maybe Deadstock too. In the meantime, keep an eye on the Store, as we’ll announce a few more things in the next few weeks. And then, if you would, please share the link for Deadstock around with your people, and add it to a playlist. I’m not hiring publicity or touring to promote this record, it’s just something to keep the party faithful amused, and a way to make a little cash in a lean year. You’re all deputized Junior Publicists now. Badges and hip boots will arrive by mail. I’m grateful to all of you out there, for taking care of each other, and for looking after us in a hard year. It’s meant the world. You’re all just aces.
The Band’s classic 1970 album is often considered slightly inferior to its two stone-cold-classic predecessors, the group’s debut “Music From Big Pink” and the self-titled follow-up — but what’s not often stated is that “slightly inferior” to those albums still makes it one of the best albums of the year if not the era.
While the group had started to fragment a bit at the time of its recording — largely due to substance abuse — it still contains several of their all-time best songs, like the title track, “The Shape I’m In,” “Strawberry Wine” and others. On February 12th, 2021, Capitol/UMe will celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Band’s classic third album, “Stage Fright”, with a suite of newly remixed, remastered and expanded 50th Anniversary Edition packages, including a multi-format Super Deluxe 2CD/Blu-ray/1LP/7-inch vinyl box set photo booklet; digital, 2CD, 180-gram black vinyl, and limited edition 180-gram colour vinyl packages. All the Anniversary Edition releases were overseen by principal songwriter Robbie Robertson and boast a new stereo mix by Bob Clearmountain from the original multi-track masters. For the first time, the album is being presented in the originally planned song order. The boxed set, CD and digital configurations feature a bevy of unreleased recordings, including Live at the Royal Albert Hall, June 1971, In the set’s liner notes, Robertson calls the show at London’s Royal Albert Hall “One of the greatest live concerts The Band ever played. ”It was a thrilling full concert captured in the midst of their European tour; alternate versions of “Strawberry Wine” and “Sleeping”; and seven unearthed field recordings, Calgary Hotel Recordings, 1970, an impromptu late-night hotel jam session between Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko and Richard Manuel of several Stage Fright songs recorded while the album was in the mixing stage.
Exclusively for the boxed set, Clearmountain has also created a new 5.1 surround mix and a hi-res stereo mix of the album, bonus tracks and the live show, presented on Blu-ray. All the new audio mixes have been mastered by Bob Ludwig at Gateway Mastering. The set also includes an exclusive reproduction of the Spanish pressing of The Band’s 1971 7-inch vinyl single for “Time To Kill” b/w “The Shape I’m In” in their new stereo mixes and a photo booklet with new notes by Robbie Robertson and touring photographer John Scheele, who recorded the Calgary HotelRecordings; 1970,” a fun and loose, impromptu late night hotel jam session between Band members Robertson, Rick Danko and Richard Manuel of several “Stage Fright” songs, recorded during the group’s legendary “Festival Express” Canadian tour with Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, Buddy Guy and others. plus a reprinting of the original Los Angeles Times album review by critic Robert Hilburn; three classic photo lithographs; and photographs from Scheele and several other photographers.
Originally Released on August 17th, 1970, Stage Fright features two of The Band’s best-known songs, “The Shape I’m In” and the title track, both of which showcased inspired lead vocal performances by Manuel and Danko, respectively, and became staples in the group’s live shows. Recorded over 12 days on the stage of the Woodstock Playhouse, the album was self-produced by The Band for the first time and engineered and mixed by Todd Rundgren with additional mixing by Glyn Johns.
For the 50th Anniversary collection, the sequence has been changed to present Stage Fright with the originally planned song order.
The release follows last year’s stellar reissue of “The Band,” which included the group’s previously unreleased set from the Woodstock festival. All the Anniversary Edition releases were overseen by principal songwriter Robbie Robertson and boast a new stereo mix by Bob Clearmountain from the original multi-track masters (which resolves the conundrum caused by some of the album’s earlier re-releases, which included incorrect mixes of several songs). While the release notes that “For the first time, the album is being presented in the originally planned song order,” what will really interest fans is the previously unreleased material.
Dana Margolin really has a way with words. She likes to roll them ’round and ’round until the meaning flakes off and there’s nothing but feeling left. With their debut record five years in the making, the Brighton collective provided us with an unusual take on somewhat-anachronistic indie, shaped by Dana Margolin’s quaking, often unpredictable vocal delivery. All the memorable peaks on “Every Bad” are characterized by Margolin’s unreliable insistence that, say, “everything’s fine,” while the jarring opener climaxes and ebbs with the repeated, impossibly tense line “Thank you for making me happy.” I don’t think you could possibly adapt the “This is fine.” meme more fluently into song writing.
As many of us have followed them around for years, we predicted big things for these Brighton locals but we never suspected they had something quite this special in them.
Songwriter Dana Margolin’s vulnerability has been her constant strength and despite the nuanced and difficult subjects she takes on in her songs, she’s always had some level of lo-fi production or guitar fuzz to shield her, thanks to the bedroom pop genesis of most of these tracks. however, on ‘every bad’, she unabashedly centres herself and the result is astounding. That’s not to say that the guitar fuzz and lo-fi production have vanished – far from it in fact. ‘Every Bad’ takes cues from nirvana, who mastered underpinning anxiety with abrasion, raincoats in their tendency to twist, turn and change a song without warning and pixies in their ability to turn the aggression of grunge into a diverse and supple sound. so yes, they are clearly inspired by the bands of their youth but on these familiar foundations, something uniquely dynamic has been built. the jagged instrumentation complements dana’s rugged vocals and authentic lyrics perfectly, matching the mood of each song and manoeuvring effortlessly to enhance a lyricist who tackles sensitive, esoteric and existential subjects.
On opener “Born Confused” the singer chants “Thank you for making me happy” for a minute and a half. It starts off a little wistful, then genuine. With about 40 seconds left the edges start to wobble and the mantra becomes a frenzied wash of anguish. By the time the song cuts out, mid-sentence, it sounds like an accusation, if not an attack.
She told Apple Music that the track “captures the feeling of frustration and trying to figure things out”, which is maybe the core of Every Bad. It’s full of direct contradictions, cocksure one second and confused the next. It does an incredible job of transmitting the anxiety of being in your mid-20s. I’m an adult, why am I still adrift? “Oh, I don’t know what I want/But I know what I want/Oh, I don’t know what I want/But…”. Despite this vulnerability, dana never softens her edges or compromises in her lyrics. her pronounced and very forthright uncertainty and confusion comes across as defined and unflinching – the only thing she can be certain of is that confusion. this is not music that moralises or offers answers to life’s big questions – it is here to express raw emotional response with no interest in resolution.
That refusal to offer an easy way out is what makes it both so personal and so relatable. we may not have experienced the same situations, but we’ve felt those same nameless, onerous emotions. these guttural anthems amass into a defining album that’s burst them out of their established Brighton bubble, got them mercury nominated and has firmly planted them in hearts everywhere.
‘Sweet’ by Porridge Radio, taken from their forthcoming album Every Bad released in March . The DIY Brighton outfit were called ‘slacker indie’ when they released their first full album. “Every Bad” shows that description had more to do with the garage they recorded it in than their motivation.
“We just want to confuse the fuck out of people, in a good way,” said Working Men’s Club frontman Sydney Minsky-Sargeant. Mission accomplished. The band’s self-titled debut draws from a large swath of danceable ’79-’83 post punk and second-gen ’00s groups, with great songs, infectious beat-heavy production and a clear love for The Fall.
It’s old music for young people and young music for old people. It’s the sound of teenage possibilities current or remembered. we’re discovering house music in New York with New Order, riding the night train in Germany looking for Kraftwerk with Simple Minds, out of our minds and sticking to the floors of the Hacienda. our tour guide is Sydney Minsky-Sargeant who reacquaints us with what has been before whilst giving us something tangibly modern by navigating an untrodden route through those familiar places. This Yorkshire indie-guitar turned synth-techno band stormed into our lives in early 2019 with the razor-sharp post-punk of their debut ‘Bad Blood’ (released via Melodic Records) – kicking off our obsession with their output, it turned out not to be a blueprint for the direction the ensuing album would take however, for when they emerged a year later with the irrepressible propulsion of ‘Teeth,’ it felt like we were dealing with quite a different band. But it transpires that we pretty much were, as Syd was the only remaining member of the original set up. With a band of new recruits consisting of Drenge’s Rob Graham and Moonlandingz’s Mairead O’Connor (whose influence feels like it permeates ‘Tomorrow’ and ‘Cook a Coffee’) – Syd drew further on his dance influences (Justin Robertson, 808 state, Jeff Mills and Soulwax) to pursue more heuristic grooves. . acid house, rave culture, Detroit techno, Italian sleazy house. “it’s almost like the difference between ’81 New Order and ’89 New Order , but achieved in the space of a year” – the line of best fit.
Although a majority of the album is a riot of hard electronic beats, everything is cut through with an industrial, post-punk grit that keeps this firmly rooted in sweaty northern basement clubs and not on shiny, well-lit dancefloors – a collision of euphoric rave and stomping claustrophobia. how is it possible that someone so young can have such an affinity for – and knowledge of – the entire 80s indie dance scene?.
Savage and stylish, I absolutely love the hedonistic rush of rising dark synth-pop stars Working Men’s Club. Choosing to play along to a drum machine can be a wee bit stifling during most live performances, but for Working Men’s Club it ensures their sets remain tightly wound which retains their razor-sharp edge on stage.
Finding a home on the iconic label Heavenly Recordings, the West Yorkshire band have already released “Bad Blood” that has that killer bass line and the truly infectious “Teeth” which is most definitely my single of the year. they exhibit a level of cynicism and alienation only possessed by the young but here it’s channelled into a music that sticks two fingers up at any musical age discrimination: old acid-head ravers stand up! industrial goths indulge! nostalgic grown-up indie kids get yer converse on.
It’s an album of contradictions and juxtapositions. despite the influences spanning decades and genres, it smartly coalesces into a fluent and vitally modern whole, whilst simultaneously retaining the sense of this being a mixtape you’re listening to in your best mate’s bedroom in the early 90s; the lyrics predominantly focus on fatalism, imprisonment and despair whilst the music is imbued with hope, freedom and redemption; it’s music for the elation of the dance floor that works equally as well as a headphones listen slumped in your armchair; it’s full of fervour and vivacity but delivered with a piercing, icy stare and a tone of ennui. it’s this friction, this tension, this opposition, that makes this album so compelling.
like Fat White Family partying with the Happy Mondays and then hooking up with Suicide for an after party at Gary Numan’s pad, this is a cross-generational, cross-genre masterpiece that reverberates with the enthusiasm of a house party but resonates with the maturity of a dinner party. it’s odd that a record which evokes club culture, energy and togetherness doesn’t make you miss what you can’t have, but instead celebrates what you can. The whole Working Men’s Club aesthetic is steeped in 90s rave culture – the acid house smiley, the flouro colours, their iconic dancing kanji logo – it’s the return to freer times we’re all craving so much right now. their frenetic energy brings a much-needed adrenalin shot to the tail end of a year that damn well needs it.
We are hearing reports they’ll be sticking with Jeff Barrett for the release of their debut album early next year and I need a copy now.
“[a] potent set of bruising electro songs like a cool composite of stephen mallinder and mark e smith” – uncut.
“packed with gurgling, yelping energy” – the line of best fit
To celebrate the birthday of legendary Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards and the late renowned rock saxophonist Bobby Keys. The melding of these two musical minds seemed to be ordained by the gods as they were born on the exact same day December 18th, 1943 — worlds away from each other in the UK and Texas.
Bobby Keys came into the world on that day near Lubbock, Texas and began his musical career at 15 playing with another famed son of Lubbock, Buddy Holly. Bobby first met The Rolling Stones in 1964 at the San Antonio Teen Fair as a member of Bobby Vee’s band. Keys would later rekindle his relationship with the legendary rockers and go on to lay down sax work on the Stones’ stellar records of the late 1960s and ’70s, most notably the iconic sax solo on “Brown Sugar” and the extended run on “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” as well as on a number of songs from the Stones’ landmark 1972 double LP, Exile On Main St.
Keith and Bobby Keys would become fast friends and Richards relates a number of musical, and extra-musical, adventures they had in his candid 2010 autobiography, “Life”. So it was only natural when Keith Richards formed his solo project the X-Pensive Winos in the late 1980s, Bobby was at his side on sax.
On February 13th, 1993, Richards, Keys and the X-Pensive Winos — also consisting of vocalists Sarah Dash and Babi (Bobby) Floyd, drummer Steve Jordan, bassist Jerome Smith, keyboardist Ivan Neville and guitarist Waddy Wachtel — performed the first of two shows at the Orpheum Theatre in Boston to support their 1992 album, Main Offender. The set, which opened with Eddie Cochran’s “Somethin’ Else,” included songs from Main Offender like “Wicked As It Seems” and “999” as well as tracks off their 1988 debut album, Talk Is Cheap, including “Whip It Up” and “I Could Have Stood You Up.” The concert also saw Keith doing Rolling Stones classics like “Time Is On My Side” and a grungy slowed down version of “Gimme Shelter.”Richards would deliver his signature Stones song, “Happy,” as the penultimate number of the evening ahead of closer “Take It So Hard” from Talk Is Cheap.
Setlist: Something Else, Wicked As It Seems, Gimme Shelter, 999, Running Too Deep, Locked Away, Time Is On My Side, Will But You Won’t, Words Of Wonder, Hate It When You Leave, Before They Make Me Run, Eileen, Bodytalks, Whip It Up, I Could Have Stood You Up, Happy, Take It So Hard#
It all began with Marty Robbins, whose cowboy ballads entranced and inspired Clash co-founder and vocalist Joe Strummer from across the Atlantic for years. When Amarillo-native Joe Ely toured London in ’78, Strummer went backstage to introduce himself and the band. They were huge Ely fans, and while he had never heard of them, they bonded over shared interests in rockabilly, movies, and poetry. They spent the next few days showing Ely around London, even taking him to their studio.
“It was like the West Texas hell raisers meet the London hell raisers,” Ely said. In Ely, the Clash finally had a direct connection to the world they’d only heard on records and seen on television.
“To them,” Ely said, “Texas was a mythical place that they only knew about in old Marty Robbins gunfighter ballads and Westerns and stuff.”
When Strummer brought up an upcoming American tour, the only places he wanted to play were those he’d heard about in songs—El Paso, Laredo, Wichita Falls. Ely returned home to Lubbock, and soon enough, the Clash called to book several Texas dates with Joe Ely Band as opening act. They played their first Texas show at the Armadillo World Headquarters, the 1970s venue that propelled Austin’s music scene to national attention and forever shaped the city’s image.
The night was October 4th, 1979, and Michael Corcoran’s in-depth article, “25 Most Significant Nights in Austin Music History,” features it at number twelve. Corcoran quotes the oft-cited description of the performance as “Ely and his band pouring gasoline all over the stage and then the Clash coming out and lighting a match.” The all-night jam session that followed, with Ely and the Clash joining local punk band the Skunks on stage at the Continental Club, turned an unforgettable night into one of true, incendiary fame.
When the Clash returned in June of 1982 to film “Rock the Casbah,” the Armadillo had been closed a year and a half. Perhaps in homage to the venue that hosted that first Texas performance, the video features a recurring armadillo running through various shots. Maybe it was just a funny thing to include, but a photo from that show did end up on the back of the London Calling album, suggesting the ‘Dillo’s significance to the band. The song was released as the second single from their fifth album, Combat Rock. “Rock the Casbah” was musically written by the band’s drummer Topper Headon, based on a piano part that he had been toying with. Finding himself in the studio without his three bandmates, Headon progressively taped the drum, piano and bass parts, recording the bulk of the song’s musical instrumentation himself. This origin makes “Rock the Casbah” different from the majority of Clash songs, which tended to originate with music written by the Strummer–Jones song writing partnership. Upon entering the studio to hear Headon’s recording, the other Clash members were impressed with his creation, stating that they felt the musical track was essentially complete, relatively minor overdubs were added, such as guitars and percussion
Joe Strummer was not impressed by the page of suggested lyrics that Headon gave him. According to Clash guitar technician Digby Cleaver, they were “a soppy set of lyrics about how much he missed his girlfriend”. Strummer just took one look at these words and said, ‘How incredibly interesting!’, screwed the piece of paper into a ball and chucked it backwards over his head. Strummer had been developing a set of lyrical ideas that he was looking to match with an appropriate tune. Before hearing Headon’s music, Strummer had already come up with the phrases “rock the casbah” and “you’ll have to let that raga drop” as lyrical ideas that he was considering for future songs. After hearing Headon’s music, Strummer went into the studio’s toilets and wrote lyrics to match the song’s melody. This phrase had originated during a jam session with Strummer’s violinist friend Tymon Dogg. Dogg began playing Eastern scales with his violin and Strummer started shouting “rock the casbah!”
Further inspiration for the lyrics of “Rock the Casbah” originated from Strummer observing the band’s manager Bernie Rhodes moaning about The Clash’s increasing tendency to perform lengthy songs. Rhodes asked the band facetiously “does everything have to be as long as this rāga?” (referring to the Indian musical style known for its length and complexity).
Strummer later returned to his room at the Iroquois Hotel in New York City and wrote the opening lines to the song: “The King told the boogie-men ‘you have to let that rāga drop.’ The song gives a fabulist account of a ban on Western rock music by an Arab king. The lyrics describe the king’s efforts to stop his population from listening to this music, such as ordering his military’s jet fighters to bomb any people in violation of the ban. The pilots ignore the orders, and instead play rock music on their cockpit radios. The population then proceed to “rock the casbah” by dancing to the music. This scenario was inspired by the ban on Western music in Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution
To watch the video now is to see glimpses of the Austin that long time natives speak of wistfully, reverently. As much as I wanted to believe in Austin Motel’s place in punk rock history after learning about the Clash’s Texas connection, I am sorry to report that the shots of a motel swimming pool were not taken at the Austin Motel. After a deep dive into obscure internet wormholes about the video, my best guess for the pool featured at 2:05 and 2:08 is the Sheraton Hotel near Interstate 35 and 11th Street. According to Songfacts.com, the actor who played the Rabbi, Dennis Razze, said auditions were held at the Sheraton, and pictures of that hotel pool do look like those in the video.
At fifty-four seconds, the two main characters, The Sheik and The Rabbi, drive in to Austin with the Capitol Building in the background. That skyline sure looks different, though, doesn’t it? Other noteworthy shots of 1982 Austin are fun to spot, and often difficult to discern. The Winchell’s Donuts is now a Subway. A close examination of this location, and a trove of trivia about the video, can be found in Adam Norwood’s delightfully obsessive blog.
The Burger King 27th and Guadalupe didn’t change too much—it’s now a Whataburger. Texans love Whataburger, if you don’t know, so this is one change that old-timers probably aren’t mad at. The Alamo Hotel at the corner of 6th and Guadalupe appears to now be the Extended Stay America. Fun fact: scenes from the music video for Willie Nelson’s “Panchoand Lefty” were filmed at the hotel’s bar. It was knocked down in 1984. The planes are flying into Bergstrom Air Force Base, which is now Austin Bergstrom International Airport.
The City Coliseum, which is now the Palmer Events center, was originally an aircraft hangar. Footage from inside The Coliseum was, according to Razze, “absolutely crazy, because they just worked us into the audience in front of the stage and shot us and the band in real time during the concert.”
The legend of the Clash lounging poolside at our motel may be debunked, but if you want to walk the same path as the armadillo featured in the video, it’s tough to find a better starting point. Plus, the former site of the Armadillo is only a ten-minute walk away, and located next door is Threadgill’s World Headquarters, a restaurant dedicated to honouring the renowned venue. Memorabilia covers the walls, and the juke box features one hundred albums by artists who played the ‘Dillo. In the spirit of two worlds colliding—Texas’ Joe Ely and London’s definitive punks—you can chow down on chicken fried steak while listening to that “crazy Casbah sound.”
Just be sure to wait thirty minutes before jumping back in the pool to avoid any cramping.
The music video for “Rock the Casbah” was filmed in Austin, Texas by director Don Letts on 8th and 9th June 1982.
50 years following the release of his self-titled first solo album McCartney, featuring Paul McCartney playing every instrument and writing and recording every song, Macca delivers McCartney III. Paul hadn’t planned to release an album in 2020, but in the isolation of “Rockdown,” he soon found himself fleshing out some existing musical sketches and creating even more new ones. Before long an eclectic collection of spontaneous songs would become McCartney III: a stripped back, self-produced and, quite literally, solo work marking the opening of a new decade, in the tradition of 1970’s McCartney and 1980’s McCartney II.
At midnight on the day of the release, McCartney released the official music video for the lead track, “Find My Way.” Directed by Roman Coppola, the shoot utilized 46 cameras to capture McCartney on every instrument and from every angle, resulting in an intimate glimpse.
McCartney III is mostly built from live takes of Paul on vocals and guitar or piano, overdubbing his bass playing, drumming, etc. atop that foundation. McCartney III spans a vast and intimate range of modes and moods, from soul-searching to wistful, from playful to raucous and all points between — captured with some of the same gear from Paul’s Rude Studio used as far back as 1971 Wings sessions. And Paul’s array of vintage instruments he played on the new album have an even more storied history, including Bill Black of Elvis Presley’s original trio’s double bass alongside Paul’s own iconic Hofner violin bass, and a mellotron from Abbey Road Studios used on Beatles recordings, to name but a few. Just as McCartney’s 1970 release marked Paul’s return to basics in the wake of the biggest band break-up in musical history, and the 1980 avant-garde masterpiece McCartney II rose from the ashes of Wings, McCartney III finds Paul back on his own, turning unexpected circumstances into a personal snapshot of a timeless artist at a unique point in history.
With extra time on his hands due to the pandemic, Sir Paul is rumoured to have recorded as many as 25 tracks. In keeping with McCartney & McCartney II’s photography by Linda McCartney, the principal photos for III were shot by Paul’s daughter Mary McCartney—with additional photography by Paul’s nephew Sonny McCartney as well as photos Paul took on his phone (it’s a family affair). The cover art and typography is by celebrated American artist Ed Ruscha.
From the album’s announcement: Recorded earlier this year in Sussex, McCartney III is mostly built from live takes of Paul on vocals and guitar or piano, overdubbing his bass playing, drumming, etc. atop that foundation. The process first sparked when Paul returned to an unreleased track from the early 90s, “When Winter Comes” co-produced by George Martin). Paul crafted a new passage for the song, giving rise to album opener “‘Long Tailed Winter Bird”—while “When Winter Comes,” featuring its 2020 intro, “Winter Bird,” became the new album’s grand finale.
Recorded earlier in 2020 in Sussex, “McCartney III” is mostly built from live takes of Paul on vocals and guitar or piano, overdubbing his bass playing, drumming, etc. atop that foundation. McCartney III spans a vast and intimate range of modes and moods, from soul searching to wistful, from playful to raucous and all points between. [A Songbook edition containing piano/vocal/guitar arrangements for all songs from McCartney III and accompanying CD is also available, The three releases are true solo efforts in that McCartney performed all the instruments himself (with occasional vocal assistance from his wife, Linda, on the first two).
A follow-up to his 1970 self-titled solo debut and 1980’s McCartney II, the new album features the McCartney playing all the instruments; he wrote and recorded every song.
Dave Grohl and producer Greg Kurstin closed out their Hanukkah Sessions covers series on Thursday night with a cover of “Rock & Roll” by The Velvet Underground, the iconic New York City art rock band fronted by nice Jewish boy Lou Reed.
Launched on the first night of the Festival of Lights last Thursday, the series features Grohl and Kurstin covering a different song by a different Jewish artist each night. Throughout the last eight days, the duo has paid tribute to Beastie Boys, Drake, Mountain, Peaches, Bob Dylan, Elastica, and The Knack.
This project, which initially began as a silly idea, grew to represent something much more important to me. It showed me that the simple gesture of spreading joy and happiness goes a long way, and as we look forward, we should all make an effort to do so, no matter how many candles are left to light on the menorah.
Toda Raba to Greg for being a musical genius and spending 2 1/2 days barnstorming through these songs together. You never fail to amaze me. Big round of applause for Markus Rutledge, the poor soul that had only 24 hours (8 days in a row) to churn out each of these videos for us! You deserve a medal for sleep deprivation! Huge hearts for the force of nature known as Peaches! You brought the real. And, of course to all of you for joining in on the fun. I hope that you enjoyed watching.
The relaxed take begins with a bit of levity, as Grohl counts off the song only to quickly drop on of his drumsticks. Unfazed, the camera keeps rolling and the two try again and nail the classic Loaded track—kudos to Dave for that fine, fine falsetto. As the duo leans into the song’s final “it was alright” refrain, we see a clip show of sorts from throughout the last eight days showing everything from the editing and recording process to Grohl posing with a menorah.
Along with the final video of the series, Grohl offered up some reflections and thanks laced with his impressive new arsenal of Hebrew phrases. Read the note from Dave Grohl reflecting on the Hanukkah Sessions. As 2020 comes to a close and another Hanukkah ends (my first!) I am reminded of the two things that have gotten me through this year: music and hope.
So, sing along one last time to “Rock and Roll” by The Velvet Underground, a song about music and hope, and let’s keep spreading the joy and happiness. It goes a long way…..
Pedro the Lion has always been David Bazan, but it took a long time to get back there. In August 2016, during what he now recognizes as his lowest point, Bazan was touring the country alone in an aging minivan and found himself in his hometown of Phoenix, AZ. In need of a break from the road, he spent a night off at his grandparents’ house instead of driving on to San Diego. Before leaving town the next morning, after realizing that even the most familiar places can become unrecognizable, Bazan gave himself the gift of a quick detour past the house he grew up in, and on the way, experienced a breakthrough – one that would lead him both forward and back to another home he had built many years before.
From the beginning, Pedro the Lion didn’t work like the bands Bazan had played drums in, where each player came up with their own parts. Instead, like scripting scenes of dialogue for actors to play with, Bazan recorded and arranged all of the skeletal accompaniments for his obsessively introspective lyrics and spare melodies. Each player would then learn their parts and, together as a band, they brought the skeleton to life. While bandmates played on a few recordings, Bazan often played all or most of the instruments himself.
“I found so much joy working this way,” Bazan remembers. “It came naturally and yielded a feeling and a sound that couldn’t have existed by any other process. At the same time, I was also aware that not everyone wanted to play in a band where the singer wrote all the parts and might perform them on the record. Someone even suggested it might not be a valid approach to having a band in the first place. Being insecure and wanting to find camaraderie, I became conflicted about my natural process.”
By 2002, after recording Control, the high rate of turnover in the band finally caused Bazan to ditch his “natural process” in favour of a collaborative writing process. When, after a couple more years, this move did nothing to stabilize turnover, Bazan was perplexed. In November 2005, Bazan decided to stop doing Pedro the Lion altogether.
Ironically, Bazan didn’t see “going solo” as a chance to revert back to his original process of writing and playing all the parts. For the next decade Pedro the Lion felt off limits, even forgotten, like a childhood home Bazan had moved out of. He pushed forward with releasing solo albums & relentless touring in living rooms and clubs, through every part of the US and beyond, sometimes with a band, but mostly on his own. It took a toll on his family and more acutely on himself. By the summer of 2016, he still hadn’t found the personal clarity or the steady collaboration he’d been seeking and was at the end of his rope.
“I had abandoned my natural way of working in the hopes of creating space for a consistent band to write with…and it hadn’t worked. So I got a rehearsal space, mic’d up drums, bass, and guitar, and really leaned into my original process again. It immediately felt like like home. Before long I realized it also felt like Pedro the Lion.”
In June 2018, with Bazan on bass, vocals, and arrangement writing, Erik Walters on guitar and backing vocals, and Sean Lane on drums, Pedro the Lion went into Studio X and Hall of Justice with producer Andy Park to create Phoenix, the first new Pedro album in 15 years.
The songs themselves are the result of mining your past for who you are now. On opening track “Yellow Bike,” Bazan encapsulates a core ache he’s been exploring since 1998’s.
“Phoenix” also deals with having to be better to yourself in order to be better to others on “Quietest Friend,” and harkens back to Control’s “Priests and Paramedics” with a story about EMTs facing a gruesome scene, and storytelling as coping mechanism, on “Black Canyon.” It bears witness to both what was around and what was inside, with the signature kindness and forgiveness that lightens Pedro the Lion’s darkest notes.
The result is a twisting, darkly hopeful introspection into home and what it means to go back, if you ever can. It is rock and roll wrapped in tissue paper, its hard edges made barely soft. Every melody is careful, a delicate upswing buoyed by guitar lines that hold each tender feeling together like string before ripping them apart to see what’s inside. It is an ode to the place he still loves despite how alien it can appear to him now. It is the story of a life from the beginning, but not a linear one. This life is a circle, and Phoenix goes back to that first point, to show that when we are looking for home we’ll eventually run into it again, whether it’s in the desert, in a rehearsal space, or on a stage.
Cory Hanson has led the Los Angeles psych-rock band Wand for the past seven years, and they just released their Laughing Matter album last year. But Hanson also makes music without his band. Hanson released his solo debut The Unborn Capitalist From Limbo in 2016, and he got together with his friend Ty Segall to drop a couple of benefit tracks earlier this year.
Hanson’s has a new solo album due out next year is called Pale Horse Rider, and it promises a way-out take on country-rock. First single “Paper Fog” is a warm, strummy chug that slowly piles on more and more spacey effects. Hanson’s voice is a relatively plainspoken tenor, but his guitar aims for the astral plane.
Setlist: Wonder [Wand, Laughing Matter] – 0:21 Blue Cloud [Wand, Plum] – 5:25 The Trap (just the intro) [Wand, Plum] – 8:50 Ordinary People [Cory Hanson, The Unborn Capitalist From Limbo] – 9:58 Cosmic Dancer (cover) [T. Rex, Electric Warrior] – 13:00 Morning Rainbow [Wand, 1000 Days] – 18:47 Rio Grande [Wand, Laughing Matter] – 22:10 Candy Says (cover) [The Velvet Underground, S/T] – 26:02 Growing Up Boys [Wand, Ganglion Reef] – 30:13
Go buy all his albums on bandcamp!!! Laughing Matter (LP, out 4/19/19) Perfume (EP, 2018) Plum (LP, 2017) 1000 Days (LP, 2015) Golem (LP, 2015) Ganglion Reef (LP, 2014)
ZEBULON SESSIONS PROUDLY PRESENTS A SANS AUDIENCE PERFORMANCE BY CORY HANSON PREMIERING JULY 9 2020 AT 7PMPST FILMMAKERS / BRANDON KELLY & MATT DOYLE & KEVIN LUNA & CHRIS SLATER & BRIAN LEE HUGHES
The Fat Angel Sings 