The Fat Angel Sings

“Sam’s Place” was billed as Little Feat’s first blues album. “The result is an inviting opportunity to more deeply explore one of the small, good things that always girded Little Feat. They’re very much at home in “Sam’s Place.“

“Can’t Be Satisfied” was written by blues legend, Muddy Waters. It has Sam Clayton on lead vocals, Bill Payne on piano, Kenny Gradney on bass, Fred Tackett on electric guitar, Scott Sharrard on slide guitar, and Tony Leone on drums. This song also features special guest Michael “The Bull” LoBue on harmonica. This video was filmed in at Sam Phillip’s Studio in Memphis, TN. It was directed by Grant James and Jesse Lauter.

Little Feat have composed an album that’s their love letter to the blues entitled, ‘Sam’s Place.’ “Milkman” plus many other blues classics are on this album.

“Milkman” is an original Little Feat song written by Sam Clayton, Fred Tackett, and Scott Sharrard. It features Sam on lead vocals, Bill Payne on piano, Kenny Gradney on bass, Fred on electric guitar, Scott on slide guitar, and Tony Leone on drums. The recording also features special guests Marc Franklin on trumpet and Art Edmaiston on saxophone.

The ‘Sam’s Place’ album has Sam on lead vocals for the entire record. It’s got classic blues songs by legends such as Willie Dixon and Muddy Waters plus guest vocals by Bonnie Raitt on the song, “Long Distance Call.”

‘Magneticism II’ features some of the finest ‘live’ performances by Captain Beefheart & his Magic Band, many being previously unreleased rarities.

Led by California’s enigmatic singer/songwriter: Don Van Vliet (aka Captain Beefheart), his various Magic Band were faithful in their pursuit to realise his musical visions. ‘live’ they always shone and these joyously, unforgettable performances make this a truly important collection of work, showing a unique and innovative ring master directing his collaborators in staggering form to ecstatic crowds.

These recordings also give a broad scope of the Captain’s catalogue of work with material from the beginning of his career right up to his final compositions – reminding us today why he is still regarded as one of the most important and influential musician/artists of the Twentieth Century. To quote the Captain: ‘If you got ears- you gotta listen’……..

In November, Joan Armatrading will release “How Did This Happen And What Does It Now Mean“, The British singer-songwriter’s 21st studio album. Twenty albums down the line and over half a century recording, Joan Armatrading continues to move forwards, preferring the new to the old. Her splendidly named new album “How Did This Happen And What Does It Now Mean” is a forest of invention and great songs.  This one is very much in the grand tradition that gave the world “Me Myself I”, “Love And Affection” and “Down To Zero“, the unique kind of emotional rock and confessional pop that marks her best work.

The album – entirely written, produced, programmed and engineered by Joan herself – features ‘I’m Not Moving’. Joan wrote this track immediately after witnessing some alarmingly confrontational public behaviour by a young person. She explains the scenario:

He was like ‘I’m going to kill everybody! I’m not moving! You can get the police! You can’t move me!’ All the lyrics just flowed, in one, and I knew it had to have an aggression, because that’s how he was. I did a version of it that was a little bit milder, but you could tell that wasn’t it. Joan Armatrading

These are songs that, if their stories didn’t actually happen, sound entirely real: from the regretful “I Gave You My Keys” to the gorgeous “Come Back To Me (If Only In Dreams)“, this is a record full of sadness, soul and insane guitar workouts. On “Back And Forth” and “Now What?”, Armatrading does serious harm to electric guitars. The results are great, and entirely in keeping with an album that sounds both familiar and brand new.

The album was recorded this year and features two instrumemtals, showcasing Armatrading’s talents as a guitarist.

“How Did This Happen And What Does It Now Mean” is released on 22nd November 2024, via BMG.

A feral and liberatory public snapshot of a band’s blossoming imperial phase: this is a classic live album from their 1987 “Sister” tour. Indeed, ‘Hold That Tiger’ is the sound of a group at the peak of their powers, presenting new songs alongside a handful of older ones with the kind of wild, cathartic enthusiasm common to rock ’n’ roll’s most revered live albums.

“Hold That Tiger’s” encore—four songs by the band’s beloved Ramones, which Thurston would later astutely compare to “the perfect pudding after a hearty meal”—serves as a reminder that, like any true punks, Sonic Youth never could resist a good, rousing anthem to send the kids home with their ears ringing, their hearts hot-wired. This must be Sonic Youth at the heart of their greatness, great things done and lots of wonder still to come

“Hold That Tiger”, recorded at Chicago’s Cabaret Metro in October 1987, was first rolled out as a semi-bootleg on the long-ago Goofin’ indie. Superior Viaduct label will finally make the album more widely available (and on vinyl and CD to boot).

Featuring the band’s seminal lineup of Gordon, guitarists Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo, and drummer Steve Shelley, “Hold That Tiger” captured Sonic Youth at a pivotal moment. After establishing themselves as rock & roll dismantlers and disrupters earlier in the decade, the band had begun sculpting its sonic whirlwind into somewhat more traditional song structures while still retaining its New York scuzz. At the time, they were promoting “Sister” and were a year away from releasing their landmark 1988 double record “Daydream Nation”, which went on to become one of the most lauded albums in indie rock annals. (It’s even in the Library of Congress, where there is a collection of historic recordings.)

“Hold That Tiger” leans heavily on songs from “Sister”, including “Schizophrenia,” “White Cross,” “Tom Violence,” “Kotton Crown,” and “Catholic Block.” But the set also dips into earlier rattlers like “Brother James,” “Death Valley 69,” and the epic “Expressway to Yr Skull.” To wrap up the show and give a nod to their predecessors on the CBGB’s scene, the band also tore through four back-to-back Ramones covers: “Loudmouth,” “I Don’t Wanna Walk Around with You,” “Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World,” and “Beat on the Brat.”

In an interesting side note, the band was introduced onstage that night by Steve Albini, the equally iconoclastic producer who died this spring. “We pulled up to the Cabaret Metro to find our musician-friend Steve in front of the club telling us he couldn’t go to the show tonight because he was banned for some previous verbal or other provocation,” Shelley tells Rolling Stone. “We refused to accept that situation and demanded that our friend be allowed into the club in order for us to perform that night. Surprisingly the club caved.” As heard on the recording, Albini told the crowd, “Ladies and gentlemen, from NYC, the kings of cough syrup — Richard Kern and the Black Snakes!” (Kern was the underground filmmaker who’d helmed their gruesome “Death Valley 69” video.)

Adhering to Sonic Youth cheekiness, the reissue of “Hold That Tiger” includes its original cover art — a photo of Bob Bert and Julie Cafritz of Pussy Galore, their peers in noise rock, rather than a shot of Sonic Youth themselves.

Mastered by Bob Weston from the orginal tapes. Recorded by Aadam Jacobs.

Esoteric Recordings is proud to announce the release of a new 2 CD set anthologising all the recordings made by the legendary Stray made for Pye Records and its imprint Dawn Records between 1975 & 1976.

Formed in 1966 by West London musicians Del Bromham (lead guitar, vocals), Steve Gadd (vocals), Gary Giles (bass) & Steve Crutchley (drums). Crutchley soon departed the band and was replaced by Ritchie Cole. By August 1968 and whilst aged only 15 or 16 years old, Stray had begun to make a name for themselves on the Underground music scene in London, performing at legendary venues such as The Roundhouse and Middle Earth. The band’s hard-edged progressive rock earned a loyal following, which resulted in the band signing to Transatlantic Records in January 1970.

Over the next four years the band would record five remarkable albums and would tour with some legendary names in rock such as Black Sabbath, The Groundhogs, Status Quo and Ten Years After. One of the hardest working bands in Britain, Stray failed to make the commercial impact they deserved, and so in 1975 they signed to the Pye Records label.

During sessions for their first album for the label, “Stand Up and Be Counted”, Steve Gadd departed the band. Second guitarist Pete Dyer joined Stray and Del Bromham, the band’s main song writer, now handled lead vocal duties. Over the next eighteen months Stray recorded two further excellent albums for Pye, “Houdini” and “Hearts of Fire”, toured the USA and supported the likes of Kiss and Rush on British tours. Apathy from their record label and the emergence of Punk led to Stray disbanding in 1977 but their influence would be felt by a new generation of musicians such as Iron Maiden. Covering every track from the albums “Stand Up and Be Counted”, “Houdini” and “Hearts of Fire”, this set also includes single tracks and two studio out-takes. “Fire & Glass” includes an illustrated booklet with a new essay by Malcolm Dome featuring an exclusive interview with Del Bromham.

• A 2 CD SET FEATURING EVERY TRACK RECORDED BY STRAY FOR PYE RECORDS BETWEEN 1975 & 1976
• STRAY REUNION CONCERT AT THE BORDERLINE, LONDON ON OCTOBER 20th 2017
• INCLUDES ILLUSTRATED BOOKLET WITH NEW ESSAY BY MALCOLM DOME
• COVERAGE ON ALL SPECIALIST RADIO
• REVIEWS IN “CLASSIC ROCK”, “UNCUT”, “MOJO”, “RECORD COLLECTOR” & “PROG” MAGAZINES & ALL ESPECIALIST PRESS

A new six-track EP elevating the acclaimed new Jane Weaver album, ‘Flock’ to a new esoteric panorama of new pop. ‘Sunset Dreams’ featuring unreleased new tracks from the ‘Flock’ sessions and remixes from WH Lung and See Thru Hands that will be released digitally on Fire Records ahead of her UK/IRE tour.
One of the most requested selections from her unanimously celebrated 2021 ‘Flock’ LP, new single ‘Sunset Dreams’ is a collaboration between Weaver and long term co-conspirator Andy Votel. The product of the duo’s helplessly expansive listening habitat, the single is the result of Votel’s obsessive digging and Weaver’s mutable songwriting skills which defiantly (and respectfully) transforms this 1980’s mock-Eastern French New Wave sample into a multi-coloured mechanical mid-tempo, head-nodding-pop complete with radio-shack mic interference and broken Japanese toy sound effects.

‘Sunset Dreams’ retains Jane Weaver’s returning commitment to sample culture that previously saw her collaborate with Dave Brock on 2016’s ‘Electric Mountain’, and provides a stylistic would-be sequel to classic Weaver tracks like ‘Don’t Take My Soul’ and ‘Modern Kosmology’. Harbouring deep conceptual lyricism and the kind of malfunctioning Funk that kept the bailiffs away from labels like Celluloid and Ze in the early 1980’s, ‘Sunset Dreams’ is yet another frame in the artist’s ongoing sonic adventures on a perfect pop planet from an alternative universe.
The EP features a lengthy mind-expanding, body-swooning excursion on pulsing remix of ‘Solarised’ that’s energised further by northern outfit WH Lung who dismantle and reassemble on this exceptional reworking. Furthering the eclectic electronic vibe, See Thru Hands here mix ‘The Revolution Of Super Visions’ alongside two new tracks; ‘The Lexical Distance’ and ‘Don’t Tell Me I’m Wrong’ that captures the pop vision of this ever-morphing electronic pioneer.

‘Sunset Dreams’ re-imagines parts of ‘Flock’ continues the journey whilst shining a light on her glorious new album. 

An essential rock artefact tracing The Groundhogs from their pre – ‘Thank Christ For The Bomb’ blues roots to the final live show for the classic line up of Tony McPhee (guitar and vocals), Pete Cruikshank (bass) and Ken Pustelnik (drums).

Never before heard recordings from the Warner Brothers’ vaults including a vintage 1969 set from their show at the Richmond Athletic Ground (AKA The Crawdaddy Club) and their final explosive set at the Pocono Raceway track.

Includes the live debut of what would become the anthemic ‘Cherry Red’ and McPhee’s seismic destruction of ‘Amazing Grace’. A career-spanning gem from the ultimate heavy rock power trio book-ending 976 days and 250-plus live shows.

“In their stage act they concentrate on being as heavy and as hard-hitting as possible.” The Scene magazine “Performing on stage we feel that the emphasis is on excitement so we play the numbers that involve the greatest amount of movement and dynamics,” Tony McPhee told Star Pop.

Originally released November 5th, 2021

Brisbane band The Saints were as good as any international punk band and better than many. ‘Eternally Yours’ (1978) is a punk rock classic with the addition of a horn section being an inspired creative choice that would reach even greater heights with the band’s follow up album ‘Prehistoric Sounds’ released later the same year.

Australia’s The Saints predated the punk releases of soon-to-be iconic UK bands like the Sex Pistols, releasing debut single ‘(I’m) Stranded’ in September 1976. By 1978 however, with their second album “Eternally Yours”, they had already moved on from punk, pivoting to an R&B oriented sound backed by horns.

 on Music On Vinyl. Includes insert. Due 17th January 2025

The Saints were the punk era band from Australia featuring lead guitar ace Ed Kuepper. “Prehistoric Sounds” was the last album he featured on before everything got a bit frayed between him and singer Chris Bailey. It showcases how their rock-orientated sound blended with horns and a soul influences which yielded Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding covers. 

on Music On Vinyl.  Due 17th January 2025