Produced by Gregg Foreman (Cat Power, Delta 72). L.A. Witch’s eponymous debut album tapped into the allure of warm nights on the West Coast while hinting at the loneliness and lawlessness of living on the periphery of a country founded on a dark past. The three-piece composed of Sade Sanchez, Irita Pai, and Ellie English culled sounds from the outlaws of warmer climes, whether it was 13th Floor Elevators’ lysergic rock n’ roll or the cool hand fatalism by The Doors on songs like The End.
It’s an album transmitting subdued revelry while also smirking at the inevitable consequences of the night. There is no better season for these kinds of songs than the autumn, when the promises of summer have abated and the nights of reckoning grow longer. L.A. Witch seized the moment by revisiting some of their early tracks and reshaping them into “Octubre“, a five-song EP that delves deeper into their darker side.
Sade Sanchez Vocals/Guitar Irita Pai Bass/Organ Ellie English Drums/ Percussion + Gregg Foreman Additional Guitar/Piano/Organ Tracklist:
Songs: 1. Haunting 00:00 2. Sleep 03:22 3. BB’s Momma 07:15 4. Heart of Darkness 10:14 5. Outro 12:43
L.A. Witch performing live in the KEXP studio. Recorded October 10th, 2017.
Songs: Drive Your Car Kill My Baby Tonight Baby In Blue Jeans Get Lost
L.A Witch are veterans of the Southern California rock scene, with a sound equally tailored to scorching desert drives and downtown warehouse shows. Today, the band shares the new single “The Lines,” which arrives ahead of the album “DOGGOD“, out April 4, 2025 via Suicide Squeeze Records. “The Lines” opens with a chugging bassline and pummelling drums, which are peppered with fluorescent, wiry guitar riffs. “You shoot the stars / They’re not aligned / The way you hoped / You trace the lines,” Sade Sanchez talk-sings in the chorus. Fusing darkwave, punk, and psychedelia, it emphasizes L.A. Witch’s exciting feverishness.
On the track, member Sade Sanchez shares: “A part of the energy in our new album is a result to being able to record in a different city that we all love, which is so different from home. Recorded at Motorbass studios in Paris, 777 is considered to be an “angel” number. It’s a song about the willingness to die for love in the process of serving it or suffering for it. It’s about loyalty to the very end. Filled with chorus and guitar dive, it was one of our favourite songs to record and we can’t wait to play it live.”
‘DOGGOD’ out April 4, 2025 on Suicide Squeeze Records
Chester Arthur Burnett (June 10th, 1910 – January 10th, 1976), better known under his stage name Howlin’ Wolf, An American blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player. He was at the forefront of transforming acoustic Delta blues into electric Chicago blues, and over a four-decade career, recorded his blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and psychedelic rock. He is regarded as one of the most influential blues musicians of all time. Born into poverty in Mississippi, Burnett became a protégé of Delta blues musician Charley Patton in the 1930s. In the Deep South, he began a solo career by performing with other notable blues musicians of the day. By the end of the decade, he had established himself in the Mississippi Delta. Following a number of legal issues, a stint in prison, and Army service, he was recruited by A&R man Ike Turner to record for producer Sam Phillips in Memphis.
Producer Sam Phillips recalled, “When I heard Howlin’ Wolf, I said, ‘This is for me. This is where the soul of man never dies.
His reputation grew throughout the blues revival of the 1960s, and he continued to perform until November 1975, when he performed for the last time alongside fellow blues musician B.B. King. With a booming voice and an imposing physical presence, he is one of the best-known Chicago blues artists. described as “a primal, ferocious blues belter with a roster of classics rivalling anyone, and a sandpaper growl of a voice that has been widely imitated”.
He died on January 10th, 1976, after years of deteriorating health.
Moanin’ at Midnight
His first record “Moanin’ at Midnight” (1951) led to a record deal with Chess Records in Chicago. Between 1951 and 1969, six of his songs reached the R&B charts. Howlin’ Wolf’s first singles were issued by two different record companies in 1951: “Moanin’ at Midnight”/”How Many More Years“ released on Chess Records,“Riding in the Moonlight”/”Morning at Midnight,” and “Passing By Blues”/”Crying at Daybreak” released on Modern’s subsidiary RPM Records.
“Moanin’ in the Moonlight” was Howlin’ Wolf’s first collection of sides for the Chess label, packed with great tunes and untouchable performances by the man himself. The last word in electric Chicago blues, Wolf was possessed of fine guitar and harp skills, a voice that could separate skin from bone, and a sheer magnetism and charisma that knew (and has known) no equal. This disc is outstanding throughout, and features some of his best sides, including “How Many More Years,” “Smokestack Lightnin’,” “Evil,” and “I Asked for Water (She Gave Me Gasoline).” Highly recommended for the uninitiated and a must for collectors.
Wolf had persuaded the guitarist Hubert Sumlin to leave Memphis and join him in Chicago; Sumlin’s understated solos and surprisingly subtle phrasing perfectly complemented Burnett’s huge voice. The line-up of the band changed often over the years. Wolf employed many different guitarists, both on recordings and in live performance, With the exception of a couple of brief absences in the late 1950s, Sumlin remained a member of the band for the rest of Wolf’s career and is the guitarist most often associated with the Howlin’ Wolf sound.
His studio albums include “Howlin’ Wolfa..k.a The Rocking Chair Album“, a collection of singles from 1957 to 1961, Howlin’ Wolf had five songs on the national R&B charts: “Moanin’ at Midnight”, “How Many More Years”, “Who Will Be Next”, “Smokestack Lightning”, and “I Asked for Water (She Gave Me Gasoline)”.
Howlin’ Wolf’s second compilation album, “Howlin’ Wolf” often called “the rocking chair album” because of its cover illustration—was released in 1962. Those tracks afforded classic status are many, including “Spoonful,” “The Red Rooster,” “Wang Dang Doodle,” “Back Door Man,” “Shake for Me,” and “Who’sBeen Talking?” Also featuring the fine work of Chess house producer and bassist Willie Dixon and guitarist Hubert Sumlin, “Rockin’ Chair” qualifies as one of pinnacles of early electric blues, and is an essential album for any quality blues collection.
In the early 1960s, Howlin’ Wolf recorded several songs that became his most famous, despite receiving no radio play: “Wang Dang Doodle”, “Back Door Man”, “Spoonful”, “The Red Rooster”, “I Ain’t Superstitious”, “Goin’ Down Slow”, and “Killing Floor”, many of which were written by Willie Dixon. Several songs became part of the repertoires of the new young British and American rock groups, who further popularized them.
The Rolling Stones recording of “Little Red Rooster” rbecame a number one single in the UK. In 1965, at the height of the British Invasion, the Stones came to America for an appearance on ABC-TV’s rock music show, Shindig! They insisted, as part of their appearing on the program, that Howlin’ Wolf would be their special guest. With the Stones sitting at his feet, Wolf performed an empassioned version of “How Many More Years” with a few million people watching his network TV debut.
Howlin’ Wolf recorded albums with other established musicians starting with The Super Super Blues Band (1968), which featured Bo Diddley and Muddy Waters. This is easily a “super super blues bust.” Power trios, of course, were hip in the late ’60s — even at down-home Chess Studios, where ad hoc “supergroups” were assembled for 1967’s “Super Blues” and its sequel, “Super Super Blues Band“.
The band on “Super Super Blues Band” included two-thirds of the original “Super Blues” headliners — Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley — with Howlin’ Wolf replacing Little Walter to round out the trio. Unlike Walter, who was willing to cede the spotlight to Diddley and Waters on “Super Blues”, Wolf adamantly refuses to back down from his rivals, resulting in a flood of contentious studio banter that turns out to be more entertaining than the otherwise unmemorable music from this stylistic train wreck.
Although Wolf and Waters duke it out in earnest on the blues standards, the presence of Diddley (and his rave-up repertoire) makes the prospect of an ensemble impossible; in the end, there are just too many clashing ingredients (the squealing “girlie” choruses vs. Wolf’s growl, Diddley’s space guitar antics vs. Waters’ uncompromising slide guitar) to make the mix digestible.
Meanwhile, as the three frontmen struggle to outduel each other on every song, they drown out an underused, all-star backing band made up of Otis Spann on piano, Hubert Sumlin on guitar, BuddyGuy on bass, and Clifton James on drums. At least it sounds like they had fun doing it.
The Howlin’ Wolf Album, like rival bluesman Muddy Waters’s album “Electric Mud“, was designed to appeal to the new hippie audience. The album had an attention-getting cover: large black letters on a white background proclaiming “This is Howlin’ Wolf’s new album. He doesn’t like it.He didn’t like his electric guitar at first either.”
This album, though, originally released in 1969 on the Chess Records subsidiary Cadet Records, is hardly typical Wolf, and the bluesman himself hated it, which may in some way have contributed to the album’s odd cult standing. The idea was as simple as it was probably misguided, an attempt to modernize Wolf’s sound into psychedelic Jimi Hendrix land, and the results were, well, odd at best, and laughable and lamentable at worst, and through no fault of Wolf’s, who obviously tried his best to make sense of all of it. Howlin’ Wolf completists will want this for its novelty value, but it’s far from an accurate portrait of this powerful bluesman’s talent and appeal.
The album cover may have contributed to its poor sales. Chess co-founder Leonard Chess admitted that the cover was a bad idea, saying, “I guess negativity isn’t a good way to sell records. Who wants to hear that a musician doesn’t like his own music?”
The London Howlin’ Wolf Sessions (1971)
Musicians Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Ian Stewart, Bill Wyman, and Charlie Watts backed Wolf for The London Howlin’ Wolf Sessions, which proved more successful with his British audiences than American
For the casual blues fan with a scant knowledge of the Wolf, this 1971 pairing, with Eric Clapton, Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts from the Rolling Stones, Ringo Starr, and other British superstars, appears on the surface to be one hell of a super session. But those lofty notions are quickly dispelled once you slip this disc into the player and hit play. While it’s nowhere near as awful as some blues purists make it out to be, the disparity of energy levels between the Wolf and his U.K. acolytes is not only palpable but downright depressing.
Wolf was a very sick man at this juncture and Norman Dayron’s non-production idea of just doing remakes of earlier Chess classics is wrongheaded in the extreme. The rehearsal snippet of Wolf trying to teach the band how to play Willie Dixon’s “Little Red Rooster” shows just how far off the mark the whole concept of this rock superstar mélange truly is. Even Eric Clapton, who usually welcomes any chance to play with one of his idols, has criticized this album repeatedly in interviews, which speaks volumes in and of itself.
Message to the Young (1971),
I like this album enough to play it a couple times a year. Wolf has still got the voice and I kinda like the guitar being nice and rocky and jagged. The bass is full thunder. But his voice is great and strange and Howlin and eerie.
It’s a Howlin Wolf album – shut up with the “it aint’ as good as his first one nonsense”.
The Back Door Wolf (1973).
His last album was entirely composed of new material. It was recorded with musicians who regularly backed him on stage, including Hubert Sumlin, Detroit Junior, Andrew “Blueblood” McMahon, Chico Chism, Lafayette “Shorty” Gilbert and the bandleader, Eddie Shaw. The album is shorter than any other he recorded, a little more than 35 minutes, because of his declining health.
Howlin Wolf’s last public performance was in November 1975 at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago. He shared the bill with B.B. King, Albert King, Luther Allison, and O. V. Wright. Wolf reportedly gave an “unforgettable” performance, even crawling across the stage during the song, “Crawling King Snake”. The crowd gave him a five-minute standing ovation. When he got off the stage after the concert was over, a team of paramedics had to revive him.
Dire Straits will release a 3-CD/ 5-Lp set expanded edition of their massively successful 1985 album “Brothers in Arms” on May 16th. One of the world’s best-selling albums ever, Dire Straits’ “Brothers In Arms“, celebrates its 40th anniversary with this exquisite 5LP deluxe edition release.
The 5LP deluxe box features the full studio album and a previously unreleased full-length live concert from the band’s Municipal Auditorium, San Antonio tour stop in 1985. The Live In 85 Tour ran a total of 248 gigs in 117 cities and was seen by over two and a half million people.
Housed in a slip-case featuring art inspired by Mark’s National Style ‘O’ Resonator Guitar, seen on the cover of the studio album, the deluxe version includes a 16-page booklet featuring new liner notes, written by Paul Sexton, following new interviews with band members Mark Knopfler, John Illsley and Guy Fletcher, and come with exclusive art prints.
Featuring singles ‘Money For Nothing’ and ‘Walk Of Life’, “Brothers In Arms” spent 14 non-consecutive weeks at Number 1 in the UK Albums Chart and is the 8th best-selling album in UK chart history.
Two of the three CDs are dedicated to a previously unreleased live recording from the August 16th, San Antonio stop of the band’s 1985 world tour.
Fuelled by the No. 1 hit single “Money for Nothing,” which featured a ground breaking animated music video and a vocal cameo by Sting, “Brothers in Arms2 marked a major commercial breakthrough for the band. The album has to date sold over 30 million copies, and also spawned the Top 20 hit “So Far Away” and the Top 10 single “Walk of Life.”
The 3-CD set also includes a 28-page booklet featuring new liner notes written by Paul Sexton, following new interviews with band members Mark Knopfler, John Illsley and Guy Fletcher.
The concert recording of ‘Walk Of Life’, from the band’s Municipal Auditorium, San Antonio tour stop in 1985. ‘Walk Of Life’ is taken from Dire Straits’ 5th studio album one of the world’s best-selling albums of all time. To celebrate its 40th anniversary, 5LP and 3CD Deluxe Editions will include the original studio album and the previously unreleased San Antonio Live in 85 concert.
This album was MASSIVE. It was number one all over the world, including in America for 9 weeks and it spent 14 (non-consecutive) weeks at the top of the UK charts. In fact, it was in the British charts for so long it was nominated for ‘Best British Album’ at the Brit Awards two years running, picking up the gong for the second time of asking in 1987. It won a Grammy for best engineered album in 1986 and then 20 years later it won another Grammy, for Chuck Ainlay’s anniversary 5.1 mix.
That same 5.1 mix is included in the newly announced SDE blu-ray and so is a Dolby Atmos Mix created by Dire Straits keyboard player Guy Fletcher. Guy has also created a special instrumental version of the album in Dolby Atmos exclusively for this product!. Of course, the standard stereo version of the album (as released on CD) is included but so to is the original vinyl stereo version, which you may recall featured edited versions of four songs. This version of the album has only ever existed on vinyl, so this is another first.
I’m thrilled to be working in partnership with UMR/Mercury and Dire Straits to bring you what is surely destined to be the ultimate version of an album
The warm choogle of Heat Manager’s fittingly mellow debut album, “Relaxed American“, is the best harbinger for the oncoming spring that’ll reach your ears this season. The NYC-based band is a new outfit that includes Jake Rabinbach (guitar) and Jake Vest (bass) from High Time, one of the best and most eclectic Grateful Dead tribute bands to have ever taken the stage out east. Their years of breathing new life into the earthiest Dead jams certainly can be felt in the album’s stoned Americana vibes, yet their sonic tapestry is rich with a myriad of other more obscure, heady reference points.
Fans of cosmic American records, especially the first two One Eleven Heavy albums, and the unpretentious rock of David Nance need to sink their teeth into “Relaxed American“, as it’ll likely become a new favourite listen .
From jangly folk-rock sunshine to laid back psych-country twang and woolly, kosmische-affected jams with occasional surf guitar tones and garage grit, there is a wide plethora of sounds present in this album that truly speak to the group’s grand virtuosity.
Despite the vast spectrum of styles that have been melted down and mixed together here, the album flows beautifully, and goes down real smooth. All of the songs are packed with driving rhythms, tasty hooks and witty lyrics that satirize the realities of the music industry, These are tunes that you’ll be humming all day and want to hear over and over again.
released March 7th, 2025
Heat Manager is: Jake Rabinbach – Guitar, Jake Vest – Bass VI. Greg Faison – Drums
Jack White ended his March 15th show in Tokyo by bringing out Pearl Jam‘s Eddie Vedder to help him cover the Neil Young classic, “Rockin in the Free World.”
This version the two performed together was loud and percussive and everything you want out a song with the world ‘rockin’ in it. It also featured a brief Jack White guitar solo at the end, and Eddie Vedder improvising one line in the last verse. (Before this, White had played The White Stripes songs “Hypnotize” and “Seven Nation Army” as part of the encore.)
White himself performed the song as part of the Saturday Night Live 50th concert last month and Vedder and Pearl Jam have ended many a show with the song and have played it with Young several times.
Jack White will be back in the US for the next leg of his tour, beginning April 3rd in St Louis. Meanwhile, Pearl Jam will be kicking off their next run of shows, starting April 24th in Hollywood, Florida.
Cloth are twins Rachael & Paul Swinton from Glasgow, Scotland. Hot on the heels of their well-received winter 2024 single release ‘Polaroid’, Glasgow-based twin-sibling duo Cloth are back with third album ‘Pink Silence’, out on Mogwai’s Rock Action Records. Exploring universal themes of relationships, heartbreak, loss and self-acceptance, ‘Pink Silence’ sees the band move into poppier, upbeat territory whilst retaining their trademark haunting, ethereal vocals. Recorded in Bristol with producer Ali Chant, and featuring contributions from Adrian Utley, Owen Pallet and Stuart Braithwaite, ‘Pink Silence’ is the follow up to 2023’s critically acclaimed ‘Secret Measure’ .
The single is featured on their sophomore album, “No Obligation”, The Linda Lindas have released a music video for “Don’t Think,” a technicolor-tinged video with lyrics that critique the pressure of conforming to societal norms. The Kiki Banta and Marlowe Taylor-directed clip was filmed over two weekends in the backyard and home of one of the bandmates.
“This video was really fun because we got to work with filmmaking friends who are also our age,” drummer Mila de la Garza said in a statement. She added that the video they released was the directing duo’s first draft. “‘Don’t Think’ is about being lost in identities, and Kiki and Marlowe’s video reflects that with all these different surreal elements.”
“Don’t Think” follows “No Obligation’s” previously released singles “Too Many Things,” “Resolution/Revolution,” “All in My Head,” “Yo Me Estreso,” “No Obligation,” and “Nothing Would Change.”
“Don’t Think” appears on the Linda Lindas album, “No Obligation”, which the band — guitarists Bela Salazar and Lucia de la Garza, bassist-pianist Eloise Wong, and drummer Mila de la Garza — wrote and recorded during scheduled school breaks and weekends. The LP draws inspiration from Sleater-Kinney, Jawbreaker, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Paramore, with one single, “Lose Yourself,” reminiscent of “Green Day by way of Blondie,” .
The Linda Lindas embark on their tour in support of “No Obligation” Special guests throughout the trek include Be Your Own Pet and Pinkshift.
Kim Gordon and Kim Deal joined forces on the latest episode of Netflix talk show Everybody’s Live for their debut joint live performance. Gordon took the stage first, performing her song “Bye Bye,” while Deal followed with her own track “Nobody Loves You More.” The pair then collaborated on “Little Trouble Girl,” a Sonic Youth song Deal contributed vocals to on the band’s 1995 LP “Washing Machine”. Host John Mulaney emphasized that the moody rendition was the pair’s “first time performing together, anywhere.”
“Little Trouble Girl” marks the only time Deal and Gordon have previously worked together. Deal appeared in the song’s music video, but she apparently never played the track live with Sonic Youth before they disbanded in 2011.
Kim Deal released her debut solo LP, “Nobody Loves You More“, in November, while Gordon veiled her second solo album, “The Collective”, last March. In December, the pair teamed up for a conversation in Interview magazine, which saw them reflecting on their parallel careers and their approaches to writing and recording songs.
In the interview, Deal explained that there is no difference to how she approaches a solo track as opposed to one for the Breeders. “That never occurs to me,” she told Gordon. “The only thing that occurs to me is like, ‘I haven’t played a keyboard in a while. I’m going to put it through the Marshall and see if anything sounds cool.’”
KimGordon, meanwhile, said that her solo albums have been a different way to express herself than Sonic Youth. “I’m not a natural singer,” she said. “I know what works for me in the sense of using rhythm and space, and I really do like working off rhythms. I really just wanted to do more of that. I feel much freer in what I’m singing about in a certain way. I don’t feel like I have to hold myself back in some way.”
She added that there is currently no interest in a Sonic Youth reunion, noting that, “It would never be as good as it was.”
Eddie Vedder and Stephen Marley have shared new covers of two Neil Young classics from “Harvest” for an upcoming tribute album benefitting the Bridge School.
While “Rockin’ in the Free World” has become a Pearl Jam live staple, for his contribution, Vedder covered “The Needle and The Damage Done,” Young’s devastating 1972 song about heroin addiction. The Pearl Jam frontman plays the cover pretty straight (not that that’s a bad thing), with just acoustic guitar accompaniment and a vocal performance that’s distinctly reminiscent of Young’s soft, quivering tenor.
Marley, meanwhile, has turned in a reggae-infused rendition of “Old Man,” injecting Young’s ode to the caretaker of the Northern California ranch he purchased in the early Seventies with an atmospheric rocksteady energy.
Vedder’s “The Needle and the Damage Done” and Marley’s “Old Man” mark the third and fourth offerings from from “Heart of Gold: The Songs of Neil Young”, following, Courtney Barnett’s rendition of “Lotta Love” and Chris Pierce’s interpretation of “Southern Man.”
The upcoming compilation will also feature contributions from Fiona Apple, Mumford & Sons, Brandi Carlile, Sharon Van Etten, Lumineers, Steve Earle, and the Doobie Brothers with Allison Russell. Artists for volume two haven’t been announced yet.
Proceeds from “Heart of Gold” will benefit the Bridge School, which Young’s late ex-wife Pegi co-founded to help individuals with severe speech and physical impairments.
“Heart of Gold” arrives April 25th, and it’s set to be the first volume of a two-album project.
The Fat Angel Sings 