If you told us even as recently as six weeks ago that we’d be working on a Redux version of Black Sabbath’s “Volume 4“ and, before the end of March, artists including The Obsessed, Whores, Zakk Wylde, and Matt Pike would have all committed to be part of the project, we would’ve probably answered, “Wow.”
And if you’d then said, “Oh yeah, you’ll also assemble a Best of Black Sabbath companion LP featuring Earthless, Elephant Tree, Year of the Cobra, and tons of other great artists including a whole crop of brand-new MagneticEye roster bands, who by the way you’ll find time to sign during all the madness of your Vol. 4 Kickstarter,” we’d have most likely said, “piss off.” And yet, here we are, and all of the above has come to pass.
We are indeed reduxing Volume 4 and offering up a Best of Sabbath companion record, we do have some of the greatest heavy artists in the world committed to be part of this project, and we did somehow find time to sign three new bands during all of this, each of whom we’ll have a new record coming from later this year, and all of whom we’re inviting to be part of the project.
The San Jose trio known for crafting droning lo-fi rock tunes with undeniable melodies are poised for a comeback this year after breaking up way back in 2000. It begins with Capsule Losing Contact, a 51-track monster that compiles the material from Duster’s two full-length albums, 1998’s Stratosphere and 2000’s Contemporary Movement, as well as their three EPs and a handful of previously unreleased tracks, including “What You’re Doing to Me” and “Faint.”
San Jose’s sonic cure-all for the Y2K hangover that never materialized, Duster emerged from a cloud of lonely bong rips to take indie rock to the moon, and beyond. Scotch-taped guitars toggle between a chorus of brittle winter trees and a blanket of distorted fuzz. The low rumble of a cardboard box being kicked in a dead mall keeps pace in the background, as muffled, sung-spoken vocals ponder the great mysteries of modern mundanity. Three years of home recording accidents and blown-out 2AM studio experiments are spread across four LPs, gathering the short-lived trio’s Stratosphere and Contemporary Movement albums, 1975 EP, singles, demos, and other miscellaneous debris into one escape pod, now free to drift in the endless void of space.
Jenny Lewis has released an infectious new single titled “Wasted Youth” from her forthcoming album “On The Line”, due out Friday, March 22nd. Jenny Lewis releases her fourth solo album, On The Line – the follow up to 2014’s critically acclaimed The Voyager on Warner Bros. Records.
The 11 all new original songs were written by Lewis and recorded at Capitol Records’ Studio B, and feature a backing band of legendary talent including Beck, Benmont Tench, Don Was, Jim Keltner, Ringo Starr and Ryan Adams. The track, which sounds like vintage memorabilia in new packaging, was previously debuted during Lewis’ live-streamed hangout session/listening party for On The Line.
Other advance tracks from the album include “Heads Gonna Roll” and “Red Bull & Hennessy.” Utilize the present and listen to “Wasted Youth” below,
‘Wasted Youth,’ ‘Heads Gonna Roll’ and ‘Red Bull & Hennessy’ comes from Jenny Lewis’ new album ‘On The Line’ – available March 22nd!
Indie idol and former Rilo Kiley frontwoman Jenny Lewis has released her third solo album, titled On the Line. It’s a masterful and sprawling record, sometimes devastating and other times soaring to great emotional heights. Lewis manages to convey a complete portrait of herself as an artist who has been through the gauntlet of rock stardom and made it to the other side vibrantly, loudly alive.
These three British songwriters and frontmen who became famous on the heels of the punk explosion, Joe Jackson, Elvis Costello and Graham Parker although these fellows created music as unfettered as the Sex Pistols and the Damned, they seemed to channel the movement’s angry through gritted-teeth rage with their lyrics more than their music.
Jackson, Costello and Parker not only shared the “angry young man” banner, they also shared a complete hatred for the label and its limitations. It’s no wonder that all three would rebel against their ties to punk, especially Costello and Jackson who would dive heedlessly into excursions into country, jazz, R&B and classical works later in their careers.
But even with his second album, Joe Jackson was already resisting the label stamped on him. I’m the Man was released in October 1979 – only 10 months after his debut LP, Look Sharp! – with Jackson looking anything but sharp on the cover. Sporting a thin mustache and wearing a suit jacket loaded with stolen jewelry, Joe looked like the kind of petty criminal known as a spiv in the U.K. His tongue firmly planted in cheek, he said, “I think people always want to put a label on what you do, so I thought I’d be one step ahead of them and invent one myself – spiv rock.”
Regardless of what you filed it under, I’m the Man packed a wallop of great tunes, edgy vocal performances and cutting lyrics. The album was received by critics almost as positively as Jackson’s debut and performed well on the charts. As with Look Sharp!, the album was recorded with the four-piece Joe Jackson Band featuring Jackson on vocals and piano, Gary Sanford on guitar, Graham Maby on bass and David Houghton on drums – a lineup that initially held for just one more album, because of Jackson’s musical meanderings. (They reunited in the 2000s to record and tour.)
Back then, this foursome was as tight a musical outfit as existed anywhere and I’m the Man provides great evidence of this, perhaps most notably on the title track, the punkiest performance in Jackson’s entire discography. Over pounding drums, charging guitar and an acrobatic bassline, Joe impersonates a salesman who specializes in fads and offers his own commentary on the disposable nature of pop music in the process. He sneers: “I got the trash and you got the cash / So baby we should get along fine.” Maybe he wasn’t kidding about “spiv rock,” after all.
The album also featured Jackson’s biggest-charting hit in his native U.K., “It’s Different for Girls.” Joe said the song came about after he overheard someone use the cliched phrase in a conversation. He then invented his own conversation in the lyrics, turning the cliche on its ear where the female is seeking mere sexual gratification (“She said just give me something, anything / Give me all you got but not love”) and the male pines for something more. It’s a clever piece of work and Jackson’s bellowing vocals gives each line the appropriate amount of acid, but it’s the musical accompaniment (which does not include Jackson’s piano) that creates the tense atmosphere. The throbbing bass line and those stringing strains of guitar set the table for a lovers’ quarrel to explode, as it does in the chorus, and then fade into dismissive dissatisfaction on both sides.
I’m the Man rocks throughout, but it’s also dotted with moments of nuance, from the jazzy bits of piano that spar with jagged guitar riffs on “The Band Wore Blue Shirts” to the reggae feel of “Geraldine and John.” Together, they make I’m the Man the perfect delivery method for Jackson’s witty, and only occasionally angry, songwriting.
Astonishingly released within months of each other, Jackson’s 1979 debut album “Look Sharp!” and “I’m the Man” are tight and inspired sets of power-pop that feature some of Jackson’s best and most timeless tunes. Radio classics from these two albums include, “Is She Really Going Out With Him?,” “Sunday Papers,” “On Your Radio,” “KindaKute,” and “It’s Different For Girls.” Remarkably, this was the last album Jackson would make in this new-wave vein for over 20 years.
Joe Jackson went to New York looking for new inspirations and sounds, and found his greatest commercial and critical success with “Night and Day”, an album redolent of the glitz and glamour of the city. These superbly crafted and arranged pop songs are inspired by the grandeur of Cole Porter and George Gershwin, and confidently infused with elements of jazz, swing and salsa. A genre-jumping crossover hit that virtually no one who heard the edgy power-pop of Jackson’s first 1979 efforts- Look Sharp! and I’m the Man– could ever claim to have seen coming. Perhaps the fearless Jackson’s finest hour in the studio.
“Summer in the City’s” repertoire is an amazing bridge that spans the greatest hits of Jackson’s early canon with stunning new arrangements and covers of other great songwriters. Jackson classics like “Fools in Love,” “You Can’t Get What You Want” and “It’s Different for Girls” meet with covers as diverse as Duke Ellington’s “Mood Indigo,”The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby” and Steely Dan’s “King of the World.”
Look Sharp!, I’m the Man and Night and Day are sourced from the best-sounding analog tapes currently available, beautifully preserved ½” “safety copies” of the original stereo masters. We were able to maintain the grungy “New Wave” edge of the original LPs, but also restore the driving bass lines and bottom-end foundation on these tapes. The result is the best-sounding versions of Look Sharp! and I’m the Man anyone’s ever heard, with all the drive and pop of the original UK releases, but with superb tonal balance, imaging and clarity. The definitive issues of these iconic New Wave classics! Summer in the City was mastered to vinyl by Kevin Gray at CoHEARent Audio from newly-compiled high-res master files. Summer in the City was recorded live in New York City in August of 1999 by Steve Remote and Co-Producer Sheldon Steiger. Sony’s archivists and Battery Studios’ Mike Piacentini compiled new high-res digital master files from the original DATs with the final mixes, and IR consulted with Remote and Steiger on key aspects of the recording to ensure the best possible source files were used. The result is an absolute sonic stunner, brought to new life on this double LP set!
The Dandelion weave an old kind of magic. Their own mix of musical spells are not unlike those woven in the 1960’s. With a sound like seeds turning into flowers they bring gifts for the Goddess of magical powers.
This song is from Old Habits & New Ways of The Dandelion. Written Recorded & Performed by Natalie de Silver
Our new LP Old Habits & New Ways of The Dandelion will be officially released April 1st!! It will be available in all relevant formats Vinyl & CD via de Silver Recordings.
We’ll be performing songs from this album live for the first time this coming Saturday March 30 at The Lansdowne before heading off on our European tour the following day
Combining the lulling ambience of shoegaze with the iconic melodies and the vocal prowess of the classic American country music, The enigmatic outlaw cowboy – Orville Peck, croons love and loss from the badlands of North America. The resulting sound is one completely his own, taking the listener down dusty rose-colored desert highways, through a world where worn out gamblers, aloof road-dogs and lovesick hustlers drift in and out of his masked gaze.
Orville’s debut album, “Pony”, delivers a diverse collection of stories that sing of heartbreak, revenge and the unrelenting tug of the cowboy ethos. Warm lap steel guitars and echoing drums move through dreamy ballads, campfire lullabies and sometimes frantic buzzsaw tunes, all the while paying homage to his country music roots.
This debut album from the masked cowboy Orville Peck is a gauzy, pastoral journey through love and loss production with timeless country songwriting. It’s hard not to imagine a tumbleweed or two rolling by as Peck moves from song to song, effortlessly capturing the sounds, landscapes and relationships of the American countryside from a fresh new perspective.
The twenty-four-year-old London-based musician created a self-care protagonist named “Miss Universe,” the voice of the (fictional) organization We Worry About Your Health (WWAY Health). The 24/7 care program “worries about you so you don’t have to,” as she puts it, subduing symptoms of paranoia, anxiety, and all-around unhappiness.
The storyline that surrounds her zapping, intricate rock songs questions the commodification of mental upkeep. “They’re saying they care, but they don’t really care, and they’re just trying to sell you things that you don’t need,” she tells me.
We have been anticipating the debut album from British singer songwriter Nilüfer Yanya since 2016, when she first made a splash with the idiosyncratic singles “Small Crimes” and “Keep on Calling.” The debut album “Miss Universe” delivers on the promise made by those early releases, with 17 tracks of bright, soulful pop that’s like nothing else you’ll hear this year.
One of the album’s most raw, subdued tracks, “Monsters Under the Bed,” self-awareness and the perceptions of other people butt heads. “They all think I’m not okay / Such a shame, never felt so good,” she sings. Yanya tells me that’s the oldest song on the record. “I don’t know how it ended up on the album. It makes sense, but I didn’t plan to [include it]. I was a different person when I wrote it, and it’s kind of crazy it’s on there. I like that, as well—that the younger me is on the album.” She explains how it was revised for a documentary her sister was making about their grandmother who suffered from mental illness. “I wrote it from her perspective, or was trying to write it with her mind,” Yanya says.
Nilüfer Yanya’s debut album, Miss Universe, is out March 22.
Billy Joel was eleven songs into his set at Madison Square Garden last week when he stopped to briefly address the crowd. “Coming out to do a song or two with us,” he said, “please welcome John Fogerty!” With that, the former Creedence Clearwater Revival bandleader ran out onstage as the band kicked into CCR’s 1970 hit “Up Around The Bend.” They followed it up with a powerful version of “Fortunate Son.”.
It’s the first time that Fogerty has guested with Billy Joel at his Madison Square Garden residency, where he’s played with everyone from Miley Cyrus and Paul Simon to John Mayer, Steve Miller, Tony Bennett and AC/DC’s Brian Johnson. Joel turns 70 on May 9th and he’s celebrating with a show at MSG where it feels practically inevitable that he’ll be joined by at least one or two more surprise guests.
John Fogerty was in New York City to appear at a press event at New York’s Electric Lady Studios to announce the lineup for Woodstock 50. He’s one of many vets from the original festival that will be returning. “I don’t expect it to be the same,” Fogerty told the media. “The mood in the country is different, similar in many respects, but different. I’m very glad that I’m able to be here 50 years later celebrating it. I hope to have a great time. I’m going to be playing most of the same songs that I played then. I’ve had a few more songs since then. But I think culturally, for me, it resonates because it was such a watershed moment in the time of my generation.”
John Fogerty with Billy Joel at MSG 21st March 2019
2019 marks forty years since Elton John became the first Western rocker to tour Russia. To commemorate the anniversary, Mercury/UMC will release a 2-LP set of the May 28th show with Ray Cooper that was originally broadcast by the BBC. This collection is sourced from the original broadcast masters and was remastered by Bob Ludwig at Gateway and cut at Abbey Road. The records will be pressed on 180-gram, “ultra-clear” vinyl.
Elton John was one of the first major western artists to perform in the USSR during the cold war. This excellent register comes from a BBC Broadcast and shows off Elton John with Ray Cooper on the percussion performing a anthalogical concert for the sovietics!.
Elton John‘s legendary 1979 Russian two-man tour with percussionist Ray Cooper will finally be commemorated for 2019’s Record Store Day. Best Classic Bands reported the two-record vinyl set, Live From Moscow, will feature the long-bootlegged concert from May 28th, 1979 held at Russia’s Rossya Hotel Concert Hall, which was broadcast at the time on BBC radio.
Elton John told us that because of the size and scope of his catalogue, he can change a show around almost at the drop of a dime: [“Songs come and go — having a big repertoire means that you could dump songs. I’ve got enough numbers to be happy with all of it, hopefully. If there are any numbers that you don’t like playing, you can soon substitute them, and then put in something that works better.”]
Singer/Musician: Elton John
Percussion: Ray Cooper
