One of the best things to come out of this weird year is all the Jason Isbell live albums, and here’s another one. This one’s from the iconic Red Rocks amphitheatre, and as usual, you get to stream one song for free (“Anxiety”), and you have to purchase it to hear the other 18.
Fans are now able to relive Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit‘s September 2017 concert at Colorado’sRed Rocks Amphitheater, as the entire performance has been shared to their Bandcamp for streaming and digital download. Entitled, Live At Red Rocks – Morrison, CO – 9/7/17, the 20-track live album is the latest archive audio to be released to Isbell’s Bandcamp, which includes Live at the CMA Theater released last month.
The September 7th, 2017 concert at the famous outdoor amphitheater included performances of “Anxiety”, “Alabama Pines”, “White Man’s World”, “Cumberland Gap”, “Stockholm”, “Cover Me Up”, and “If We Were Vampires” to name a few. Isbell’s band for the evening included his wife and fiddle player Amanda Shires, bassist Jimbo Hart, guitarist Sadler Vaden, drummer Chad Gamble, and pianist/singer Derry de Borja.
The new Flaming Lips album, “American Head” is really shaping up to be melodic, A mellow psychedelic record like we haven’t really gotten since Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. They’ve just shared another single from it, “Will You Return / When You Come Down,” which is really lovely and comes with a video the band made during quarantine at their fully equipped AV studio and plays off the album art. The Lips are releasing “American Head”, on September 11th via Warner Records. The video for the track that features the band performing the song in the studio in a socially distant manner. Frontman Wayne Coyne co-directed the video with regular collaborator George Salisbury.
The 5:21 minute track dances along thanks to the sparkling instrumentation and soft vocals from both Wayne Coyne and Steven Drozd. Although they’re famously known for their expressions of alternative psychedelic material, the band also once again showcases their ability to deliver a ballad rich in softer melodies. The song’s affiliated video showcases each member appearing to perform their parts in isolation, with Coyne seen in what looks to be surrounded by a clear plastic wrap of sorts.
Longtime collaborator Dave Fridmann co-produced American Head with the band. The album includes “Flowers of Neptune 6,” a new song the band shared in May via a video for the track. The song featured Kacey Musgraves on additional vocals. Musgraves also features on another American Head track, “God and the Policeman.”
When the album was announced in June, the band shared its second single, “My Religion Is You,” via a video for the song. Then they shared another song from the album, “Dinosaurs on the Mountain,” Then they shared a fourth song from the album, “You n Me Sellin’ Weed,” .
In June, The Flaming Lips performed for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, with the entire band in separate plastic bubbles and also their audience, including some kids, in bubbles. And to make it even more timely, they did “Race for the Prize,” a classic from 1999’s The Soft Bulletin about two scientists racing to find a cure.
American Head is out September 11th via Warner Brothers.
Swedish duo First Aid Kit have shared a cover of Willie Nelson classic “On the Road Again.” We recorded this cover a couple of years ago and recently found it while digging through the archives. The song is a country classic, it feels like we’ve known it forever. Because of the situation with COVID, sadly, the theme of the song has never felt more relevant than it does today.” On a similar theme, First Aid Kit are donating all proceeds from the cover to Crew Nation, a charitable fund “created to help people working backstage that were supposed to be working on shows planned for 2020.”
The band explains about their new cover,
We’re excited to release our version of “On The Road Again” by Willie Nelson. We recorded this cover a couple of years ago and recently found it while digging through the archives. The song is a country classic, it feels like we’ve known it forever. Because of the situation with COVID, sadly, the theme of the song has never felt more relevant than it does today.
We made a video for the song using cellphone footage from our tours throughout the years. Going through all those videos made us emotional. It made us realize how much we appreciate being able to roam freely around the world. How much we love the feeling of playing live for people, in the flesh. How much we miss our incredible band and crew.
The song also acts as their first new recording since the respective releases of their Ruins and Tender Offerings albums in 2018.
Members/sisters Johanna and Klara Söderbergtook reminisce about their lives on the road as touring musicians in the cover’s affiliated video, which features a collection of archive concert and traveling footage. Though the video is nostalgic at its core, the two do a marvellous job of keeping the song light-hearted and uptempo for a fun listening experience as we all continue to dream of the day when Americans can return to a life of travel and attending concerts together.
We can’t wait to be on the road again! Until we all safely can be, we hope this song and video brings everyone some joy and hope for when that day comes. Our proceeds from “On the Road Again” will be donated to Crew Nation to support the global touring and live music community devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
It wouldn’t be Halloween without a little Frank Zappa…and this year, Zappa Records and UMe are delivering once again with a frightfully entertaining new box set.
The bandleader’s New York Halloween shows were among his most anticipated as he blended his signature musical virtuosity with a heavily tongue-in-cheek dose of seasonal revelry. The 1981 stand at the late, lamented Palladium – a once-luxurious 1927 movie palace theatre, sadly demolished in 1998 to make room for new dormitories at New York University – was particularly special to Zappa’s fans as he had curtailed the 1980 shows earlier than expected as a result of illness. (Not to mention that there was no fall tour, and no Halloween show, in 1979.)
Halloween ’81 would be even more special, however. Zappa had arranged for the midnight concert in front of the 3,000-capacity crowd to be recorded for both radio and television (the latter on a new channel called MTV) – reportedly the first live simulcast in cable television history. The early show at 8 pm was filmed, too, and multimedia auteur Zappa would put that footage to good use, too, on his home video releases of The Torture Never Stops (1982) and The Dub Room Special (1983) and on the audio releases of The Dub Room Special, One Shot Deal, and the You Can’t Do That on Stage Anymore series. This new box set, however, marks the first time audio from the concerts has been released in its entirety.
For the shows, Zappa was joined by his new band consisting of three new players – Scott Thunes on bass, Chad Wackerman, on drums and Robert Martin on keyboards – plus veterans Ray White on guitar, Ed Mann on percussion and Tommy Mars on keys. Steve Vai, affectionally referred to by Zappa as the “Little Italian Virtuoso,” appeared on his second tour as a band member. This unit had only been on the road for a month but played with the tightness of a seasoned troupe as they ran through Zappa’s intricate melodies both new and old. The tour supported the September 1981 release of You Are What You Is, and a number of that double album’s songs were featured including its title track, “Teen-Age Wind,” “Doreen,” “I’m A BeautifulGuy,” “Mudd Club,” “Dumb All Over,” “Suicide Chump,” and the Halloween-apropos, double entendre-laden “Goblin Girl.”
Available on October 2nd: there are 3 shows on 6 CD, more than 7 hours of Zappa, With a mask and costume, plus a 40-page booklet with rare photos from the event by John Livzey and new liner notes by touring band member Robert Martin, Vaultmeister Joe Travers and super fan-in-attendance Gary Titone who pens a remembrance of the shows. In addition, a 1CD version titled “Halloween 81: Highlights From The Palladium, New York City,” featuring performances from all three shows along with an exclusive track, “Strictly Genteel,” from the November 1st show not included on the box set.
These ended up as the final shows Zappa ever played at the Palladium and as his penultimate Halloween concerts. He would revive the tradition just once more at Madison Square Garden’s Felt Forum in 1984. Halloween 81 captures Zappa and his musical cohorts in peak form. Both the 6-CD and 1-CD iterations arrive from Zappa Records/UMe on October 2nd and can be pre-ordered .
In 2020, one of the best things that has just come out for me is an archival release of legendary Frank Zappa concerts from New York. Exploring this third in a series of comprehensive concert-run super deluxe boxed CD sets issued by the Zappa Family Trust, Halloween ’81 has given me pause to reassess a period of Frank’s later career which I kind of overlooked, especially when it came to appreciating his touring band of that moment in time. I had some of the albums, but I didn’t get into them as much as prior release for some reason.
As a lifetime Frank Zappa fan, why I downplayed this period is a good question beyond the scope of this review (besides, you don’t need to be bored reading about my trials and tribulations… this is about Frank!). Listening to these recordings with now really fresh ears has been revelatory. I am getting to hear the material from those ’80s albums played by his great band live without a net. It is all delivered in real time with the energy that only an on-stage performance before a live audience can bring. The result is quite tremendous, I must say!
A detail worth noting: these shows are much less interactive than the typical Zappa Halloween show from prior years. Usually Zappa would have fairly extensive involvement with the audience but since the shows were both being broadcast via satellite on the radio and filmed for the then-new Music Television network (ie MTV), the band just stays focused and plough through the performances (in majestic fashion, I might add!).
So a song like “Teenage Wind” feels a whole lot cooler live than on the studio release. The back to back story telling of “Beauty Knows No Pain” into ‘Charlie’s Enormous Mouth” works great here. Even a comic jam like “Stevie’s Spanking” sounds “just right,” rocking harder than the version which came out on 1984’s “Them Or Us”.
The version of “Sinister Footwear II” on the midnight Halloween show is quite beautiful and epic! “The Black Page #2” here has a nifty little reggae lift going on through out which is pretty remarkable when you stop and think about it (the song is reputedly one of the most complex of Zappa’s compositions). There are neat arrangement tweaks Frank made on Sheik Yerbouti favourites “Flakes” and “Yo Mama.” The early versions of “What’s New In Baltimore” and “Moggio” here are hypnotic.
There’s a really sweet moment toward the end the late show where Frank pays grateful homage to New York City and his appreciation for the fan’s support (remember what I said earlier about being a part of that NYC energy… it really was “a thing”).
Then they launch into a reggae version of “King Kong” (from 1968’s Uncle Meat album). And to end the show they whip out a near-epic heavy metal version of “Auld Lang Syne” — apparently Zappa had been accused of being the Guy Lombardo of Halloween! Whammy bar guitar pyrotechnics included, no extra charge. Brilliant!
Dana Gavanski has had something of a break-out year in 2020, her debut, Dana Gavanski has had something of a break-out year in 2020, her debut, Yesterday Is Gone, drew widespread acclaim following its release back in March. By all rights, Dana should currently be touring the album far and wide, however with those plans now on hold until 2021, she is finding new ways to share her music with the world. Her latest project is a brand new covers EP, “Wind Songs”, due out next month, and this week Dana has shared the latest single from it, her cover of Chic’s track, At Last I Am Free.
This period of enforced isolation came at a particularly odd time for Dana, not only was it meant to be a triumphant moment, marking her album’s release, it also came shortly after relocating to London. Channelling this isolation into something positive, “Wind Songs” arrives as a comforting draft of familiarity, by tapping into some of her favourite songs, Dana taps into a wider love of music, and its ability to root us. Take, At Last I Am Free, it is a track Dana only discovered in the last year, yet takes a special place with her, not least for Robert Wyatt’s beautifully odd rendition of the song which, “blows my mind, with his bizarre but amazing vocals and arrangement: that soft and gentle mellotron flute that pushes the song along coupled with his shrill wizardly voice“. Dana’s own take is led by her crystalline vocal, shimmering atop a warble of electronic keys and pulses of rhythmic piano. Wind Songs feels like a beautiful aside, a look at the songs that made Dana Gavanski the fascinating musician she is, and hint at just how much more there is still to come from her.
“Bile and Bone” is the new album from songwriter al Riggs and guitar annihilator Lauren Francis.
Two years in the making, and in between countless side-projects, singles, side-albums, and a premiere at Hopscotch Music Festival 2019, Al and Lauren recorded this nine-song album in two different New York apartments, an apartment in Durham, a house on the other side of Durham, and additional recording in yet another house on yet another side of Durham.
The track represents a somewhat different approach to writing for al, as they explain, “the song was a collection of lines and ideas I had for other songs…I started putting them together and it felt like creating a thrift store or pawn shop out of these ideas, so the song became about a pawnshop”. After an initial scepticism at its originality, Lauren Francis came to love the track, “at first I was like, damn this sounds like This Year by The Mountain Goats, but that’s a good thing. I wanted to make it our own…this has since become my favourite track because it’s so simple“.
Musically, like the best collaborations, this feels like the coming together of two musical worlds. Al’s background as an acoustic songwriter merges with Lauren’s contributions of guitar, piano, and, as she explains, after the pair debated the introduction of full- drums, “I added the bass drum loop just to give it some momentum”. The resultant track seems to exist in almost two different paces, al’s easy vocals and the meandering piano line seem to watch the world go round, while the prominent pulse of bass-drum throughout adds a certain urgency to proceedings.
Swaths of strings and electric piano are cut through by chunky acoustic guitar that sometimes teeters on the intrusive. Flirtations with soft rock (“Werewolf”) motorik pop (“Boyfriend Jacket”) and Eno-esque ambient balladry (“Apex Twin”) sit snugly against the ghosts of Fahey (“Dying Bedmaker Variations”) and the dust-clogged remnants of a pawnshop (“Love Is An Old Bullet”).
The title track is a shuffling climax of held-back fury, summarizing the overall air of the album with volatile lyricism (“I should not be in a place/where I am on my knees each night/praying for my leaders/to be shot down on sight”) with classic pop harmonies provided by Rook Grubbs (Vaughn Aed).
Love is An Old Bullet will to some be a beautiful introduction, and to those who know already, a further reminder that the combination of Al and Lauren might just have made one of the year’s most compelling records.
“Bile and Bone” is out September 18th via Horse Complex Records
Originally from Tijuana now based in Mexico City, two of the most exciting places for emerging music and art in Mexico, Mint Field is one of these bands that make it shine. Mint Field is guided by Estrella del Sol in vocal and guitar duties, and Sebastian Neyra in the bass. Mint Field explores the nostalgia and the melancholy of the daily life with loud guitars and vocals that are like sighs that give life to a unique and supernatural shoegaze.
With releases such as their debut album Pasar de las Luces and Mientras Esperas EP on Innovative Leisure, their sound has evolved over the course of this years of touring al over the world. With their debut LP In 2018 the band did over 100 shows in the United States, Mexico and their first two headline tours in Europe. At the end of such year they recorded in Long Beach, California their EP “Mientras Esperas”. In March 2019 the band released the EP. At the end of spring of such year they toured the US and Canada. Summer 2019 saw the band touring Mexico and closing said tour with two sold out shows in Mexico City.
The video for our third single ‘Delicadeza’ directed by our dear friend Santiago Arouesty. This song is one of the most special songs to us, it was the first one we recorded for our upcoming album ‘Sentimiento Mundial’ coming out September 25th.
This past 2019 autumn the band went on to record their follow up LP to London at Wilton Way Studios. The recording took place with help of producer Syd Kemp as well as the first time working with drummer Callum Brown, both members of Ulrika Spacek. In 2020 the band will release their second full length “Sentimiento Mundial”. A truly unique sound, passion and energy that takes us to unimaginable places.
Single taken from ‘Sentimiento Mundial’ by Mint Field
Los Angeles-based band Young Jesus have shared their new album, “Welcome to Conceptual Beach”, which follows 2018’s The Whole Thing Is Just There. They do a lot with just seven tracks their improvisational jams span jazz, math rock and haunting folk-rock, but nothing is set in stone. It’s blissfully conscious and unconscious, and at times, they sound more like conjurers than musicians. Their abstract, impressionistic lyrics heighten the beautiful recklessness of their music. Young Jesus met at Pea Soup Andersons and the rest is history.
Imagine a shoreline alone, carved from the continent, without land or water to border it, a rind of possibility, a moon-coloured border between land and sea, knowing and unknowing. This is Conceptual Beach, a place John Rossiter, vocalist/guitarist of Los Angeles-based Young Jesus, describes as his long-time mental refuge, where he imagines himself living. Their new album, Welcome to Conceptual Beach, first took form as a physical zine in 2016, when the four members of the band were on their first tour together. At that time, it was still somewhere Rossiter inhabited alone, protective of his solitude. Now, he is allowing others to join him there. “The reason it’s called Welcome to… [Conceptual Beach] is because I’m inviting other inner landscapes into it,” Rossiter explains as he describes the transformation of the beach’s terrain into a whole varied emotional world.
Coming in at over 10 minutes, “Magicians” is the latest single off of “Welcome to Conceptual Beach”, the newest Young Jesus album, out next week via Saddle Creek Records. “Magicians” acts as the larger than life closer for Welcome to Conceptual Beach, an album based on, well, the conceptual beach that is the mental escape of frontman John Rossiter.
“Faith,” the opening track, runs parallel to the album as a whole: dynamic and groovy and psychedelic and emotional. Each musician has a moment to shine and to speak. Opening with Kern’s version of the Purdie Shuffle, to Marcel’s polyrhythmic bass, to Eric’s organ solo, and held together by John’s whispered prayer that, “we just might grow,” Young Jesus offer a music uniquely in service to emotion. “(un)knowing” is a “meditation celebration,” a song about the confusion and pain of re-examining a life—of committing to a life of experience and curiosity. Mixing the spirit and experimentation of OK Computer with the sincerity of Bon Iver, “Root and Crown” is the first song that offers a way out of the traps and patterns of a life. A commitment to grieving, listening, and growing. A devotion to spring, sung from the depths of winter.
Young Jesus previously released two other singles from the album: “Root And Crown” and “(un)knowing.”Welcome to Conceptual Beach follows their 2018 release The Whole Thing Is Just There. The band also features bassist Marcel Borbon, keyboardist Eric Shevrin, and drummer Kern Haug.
On Welcome to Conceptual Beach, Young Jesus pries our sobs from parentheticals and wields them with a brutal but tender force. They take these elements and translate them into a spacious ground for growth, for ourselves, our communities, our world. They affirm that change starts with how we reckon with ourselves as individuals, that we are all magicians, as the closing track of Welcome to Conceptual Beach suggests, “making love and doing dishes,” capable of conjuring new worlds for ourselves, and to live in others’.
Release Date: August 14th, 2020
Band Members
John Rossiter (Guitar/Vox)
Kern Haug (Drums)
Marcel Borbon (Bass)
Eric Shevrin (Keys/Vox)
‘I, Jonathan’ is the fourth solo album by Jonathan Richman, released by the Rounder Records label in 1992. This is the first time it has ever been available on vinyl. As the founder of influential protopunk band The Modern Lovers, Richman had strived to convey authentic emotions and storytelling with his music. “I, Jonathan” continued this aesthetic with simple and sparse rock and roll arrangements, and straightforward lyrics about mundane topics. Songs on the album addressed topics such as backyard parties (“Parties in the U.S.A”), memories of neighbourhoods in which Richman had lived (“Rooming House on Venice Beach” and “Twilight in Boston”) and his admiration of his primary musical inspiration, the Velvet Underground (“Velvet Underground”). The latter song includes a brief interlude of the Velvet Underground song, Sister Ray.
The album helped increase Richman’s cultural profile, which would include a 1993 appearance on Late Night with Conan O’Brien in which Richman performed one of the album’s songs, “I Was Dancing in the Lesbian Bar”
In celebration of Rounder Records’ 50th anniversary, we’re pleased to announce the first-ever vinyl reissue of “I, Jonathan”, the 1992 lo-fi masterpiece from singer-songwriter Jonathan Richman.
I, Jonathan exemplifies Richman’s childlike ability to see the everyday–block parties, dancing, twilight walks–with wide-eyed wonder. The pop traditionalist’s familiar trademarks are all here: sometimes wobbly, but charmingly sincere vocals; crisply strummed guitars and simple, ‘60s-rooted rhythms. One of our most anticipated releases of the year is finally here! The first-ever vinyl reissue of I, Jonathan, the 1992 lo-fi masterpiece from singer-songwriter Jonathan Richman, is out now. Due to demand, the first pressing is already sold-out, with a second pressing due back in stock mid-September. In the meantime, you can still reserve your copy at the Craft store!
I, Jonathan exemplifies Richman’s childlike ability to see the everyday–block parties, dancing, twilight walks–with wide-eyed wonder. The pop traditionalist’s familiar trademarks are all here: sometimes wobbly, but charmingly sincere vocals; crisply strummed guitars and simple, ‘60s-rooted rhythms
LOMA is Emily Cross, Dan Duszynski and Jonathan Meiburg. We met on tour and made a secret pact to start a band together. Then we made an eerie and beautiful album way out in the country in Texas. Then, we made another. Don’t Shy Away comes out 10/23/20.
There was never meant to be a second Loma record. The collaboration between Cross Record’s Emily Cross, Dan Duszynski, and Shearwater’s Jonathan Meiburg released their challenging and brilliant debut album back in 2018, which topped our list of our the year’s best albums, and drew near universal acclaim. The gruelling tour that followed culminated at Sub Pop’s SPF 30 Festival and ended with Emily leaping from the stage, and heading straight for the sea. That was originally meant to be that – no more records, no more Loma. As Emily recalls, “it was the biggest audience we’d ever had. We thought, why not stop here?”. As you can probably guess from the fact you’re reading this, that wasn’t quite how the story ended. Courtesy of Brian Eno loving their music, the members pursuing their own projects, and a return to Texas, Loma were inspired to keep going, and the result is Don’t Shy Away, the band’s second album, out in October through Sub Pop.
Ahead of the release, this week Loma have shared “Ocotillo”, the first single to be lifted from “Don’t Shy Away”. Lifting its name from a cactus-like plant native to the deserts around the border of Mexico and the USA, the band were inspired by the somewhat precocious nature of the plant.
Band Members
Emily Cross, Jonathan Meiburg, Dan Duszynski
“Ocotillo” by Loma from their album “Don’t Shy Away” Release Date: 23rd October 2020 on Sub Pop Records.
