The FLAMING LIPS – ” Scratching The Door: The First Recordings Of the Flaming Lips / Seeing The Unseeable: The Complete Studio Recordings of The Flaming Lips 1986-1990 “

Posted: March 1, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Scratching The Door: The First Recordings Of the Flaming Lips

Before signing with Warner Bros. Records in 1991, the outré Oklahoma band The Flaming Lips paid their musical dues with a series of releases beginning in 1984 with a self-released EP and continuing through a series of albums on the Restless label.  Beginning in April, the Grammy-winning band will revisit their earliest years via a new reissue program from Warner Bros. and Rhino.

On April 20th, Scratching the Door: The First Recordings of the Flaming Lips will arrive.  This single-CD compilation features 19 tracks from the first iteration of the band.  It’s followed on May 25th by Seeing the Unseeable: The Complete Studio Recordings of The Flaming Lips 1986-1990, a six-CD box set containing all four of the Flaming Lips’ Restless albums plus two discs of rarities.  Both releases will simultaneously be released on digital download and streaming services, with over 40 tracks making their digital debut. Later in the year, Rhino Records will drop vinyl reissues, including remasters of the Restless albums and some vinyl debuts.

Scratching the Door spotlights the music recorded by the band’s original lineup including leader Wayne Coyne’s brother Mark on vocals.  It includes the band’s first and second cassette demos plus their 1984 debut EP, newly remastered from the original analog tapes.  This is the first time these seminal recordings have been collected in one place.  Showcasing the band’s influences, the set is peppered with covers such as The Who’s “Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere,” Led Zeppelin’s “Communication Breakdown,” and Neal Hefti’s “Batman Theme” (which previously was released on Rykodisc’s 2002 collection Finally the Punk Rockers are Taking Acid.)

The box set Seeing the Unseeable picks up where Scratching the Door leaves off.  It contains all four of The Flaming Lips’ Restless studio albums, originally issued between 1986 and 1990:  Hear It Is (1986), Oh My Gawd!!!…The Flaming Lips (1987), Telepathic Surgery (1989) and In A Priest Driven Ambulance (With Silver Sunshine Stares) (1990). Like the compilation, all of these have been remastered from the original master tapes.  Two discs of rarities collect up odds and ends from this period, including B-sides, flexidiscs, and one-offs from various compilations like the Sub Pop single “Strychnine/Peace, Love And Understanding” and a rendition of “After The Gold Rush” from a 1989 Neil Young tribute album.  Rounding out the box is The Mushroom Tapes, the demos for the band’s final Restless LP.  These were previously issued on the Rykodisc compilation CD The Day They Shot A Hole In the Jesus Egg.

Producer David Fridmann has remastered both releases, with the assistance of the Lips’ Wayne Coyne and Michael Ivins.  Look for Scratching the Door: The First Recording of The Flaming Lips on April 20th and Seeing the Unseeable: The Complete Studio Recordings of The Flaming Lips 1986-1990 on May 25th, both from Warner Bros. and Rhino!

Scratching The Door: The First Recordings of The Flaming Lips (Warner Bros., 2018) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Links TBD)

  1. Bag Full of Thoughts
  2. Out for a Walk
  3. Garden of Eyes
  4. Forever is a Long Time
  5. Scratchin’ the Door
  6. My Own Planet
  7. Killer On the Radio
  8. Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere
  9. Batman Theme
  10. Handsome Johnny
  11. Flaming Lips Theme Song 1983
  12. The Future Is Gone
  13. Underground Pharmacist
  14. Real Fast Words
  15. Groove Room
  16. Jesus Shootin’ Heroin
  17. Trains, Brains & Rain
  18. Communication Breakdown
  19. Summertime Blues

Tracks 1-6 from The Flaming Lips EP (Lovely Sorts of Death Records WC 2412, 1984)
Tracks 7-10 and 15-18 from Finally The Punk Rockers Are Taking Acid (Restless Records/Rykodisc 7 73764-2, 2002)
Tracks 11-14 from 2nd Cassette Demo (recorded 1983, commercially released as Lovely Sorts of Death Records vinyl, 2013)
Track 19 from CD edition of Hear It Is (Restless Records 9 72173-2, 1986)

Seeing The Unseeable: The Complete Studio Recordings of The Flaming Lips 1986-1990 (Warner Bros., 2018) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Links TBD

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Disc 1: Hear It Is (released as Pink Dust 72173, 1986)

  1. With You
  2. Unplugged
  3. Trains, Brains and Rain
  4. Jesus Shootin’ Heroin
  5. Just Like Before
  6. She is Death
  7. Charlie Manson Blues
  8. Man from Pakistan
  9. Godzilla Flick
  10. Staring At Sound/With You (Reprise)

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Disc 2: Oh My Gawd!!!…The Flaming Lips (released as Restless Records 72207, 1987)

  1. Everything’s Explodin’
  2. One Million Billionth of a Millisecond on a Sunday Morning
  3. Maximum Dream for Evil Knievel
  4. Can’t Exist
  5. Ode to C.C. (Part I)
  6. The Ceiling is Bendin’
  7. Prescription: Love
  8. Thanks to You
  9. Can’t Stop the Spring
  10. Ode to C.C. (Part II)
  11. Love Yer Brain

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Disc 3: Telepathic Surgery (released as Restless Records 72350, 1989)

  1. Drug Machine In Heaven
  2. Right Now
  3. Michael, Time to Wake Up
  4. Chrome Plated Suicide
  5. Hari-Krishna Stomp Wagon (Fuck Led Zeppelin)
  6. Miracle On 42nd Street
  7. Fryin’ Up
  8. Hell’s Angel’s Cracker Factory
  9. U.F.O. Story
  10. Redneck School of Technology
  11. Shaved Gorilla
  12. The Spontaneous Combustion of John
  13. The Last Drop of Morning Dew
  14. Begs and Achin’

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Disc 4: In a Priest Driven Ambulance (With Silver Sunshine Stares) (released as Restless Records 72359, 1990)

  1. Shine On Sweet Jesus – Jesus Song No. 5
  2. Unconsciously Screamin’
  3. Rainin’ Babies
  4. Take Meta Mars
  5. Five Stop Mother Superior Rain
  6. Stand In Line
  7. God Walks Among Us Now – Jesus Song No. 6
  8. There You Are – Jesus Song No. 7
  9. Mountain Side
  10. What a Wonderful World

Disc 5: Restless Rarities 

  1. Death Valley ’69
  2. Thank You
  3. Can’t Stop the Spring (Remix)
  4. After the Gold Rush
  5. Death Trippin’ At Sunrise
  6. Drug Machine In Heaven (Sub Pop 7″ Version)
  7. Strychnine/Peace, Love and Understanding
  8. Lucifer Rising
  9. Ma, I Didn’t Notice
  10. Let Me Be It
  11. She’s Gone Mad Again
  12. Golden Hearse
  13. Stand In Line (Alternative Version)
  14. I Want To Kill My Brother; The Cymbal Head
  15. Five Stop Mother Superior Rain (Alternative Version)

Tracks 1-2 from The Bob Magazine flexi-disc No. 32, 1988
Tracks 3 and 5 from Finally The Punk Rockers Are Taking Acid (Restless Records/Rykodisc 7 73764-2, 2002)
Track 4 from The Bridge: A Tribute to Neil Young (Caroline/No. 6 Records KAR 002, 1989)
Tracks 6-7 from Sub Pop single SP-28, 1989
Tracks 8-10 from Unconsciously Screamin’ EP (Atavistic ALP-04, 1990)
Tracks 11-13 and 15 from The Day They Shot a Hole In The Jesus Egg (Restless Records/Rykodisc 7 73765-2, 2002)
Track 14 from Guitarrorists (No. 6 Records KAR 009, 1991)

Disc 6: The Mushroom Tapes (released on The Day They Shot a Hole In The Jesus Egg – Restless Records/Rykodisc 7 73765-2, 2002)

  1. Take Meta Mars
  2. Mountain Side
  3. There You Are
  4. Five Stop Mother Superior Rain
  5. Rainin’ Babies
  6. Unconsciously Screamin’
  7. Stand In Line
  8. God’s a Wheeler Dealer
  9. Agonizing
  10. One Shot
  11. Cold Day
  12. Jam

The RASCALS – ” Once Upoa A Dream ” Released in February 1968

Posted: March 1, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Happy 50th: The Rascals, ONCE UPON A DREAM

50 years ago this month, The Rascals released their fourth studio album…and, yes, that’s The Rascals and not The Young Rascals, and you’d better believe that it’s an important distinction, since it was the first album on which the band had been billed as such.

Co-produced by the band with studio legend Arif Mardin, Once Upon A Dream was arguably the band’s musical reaction to the Summer of Love, a theory we’re basing on the fact that frontman Felix Cavaliere pointedly told Melody Maker in 1967, “Our new album, and I say this in a humble way, will be SGT. PEPPER-ish.” Granted, virtually every band during that era which is looked back upon as being their Sgt. Pepper equivalent, but in The Rascals’ case, Cavaliere wasn’t wrong: even now, Once Upon A Dream is generally looked back upon as the pinnacle of the band’s creativity. It’s also arguably the most musically diverse of any of the band’s albums, with The Rascals veering not only into pop and R&B but also rock and jazz. The album’s lone single, “It’s Wonderful,” was a success, hitting #20, but like the album that spawned it, it deserved so much more commercial love.

In closing, it’s worth noting that The Rascals borrowed the album title in 2012 for a Broadway show directed by Steven Van Zandt which found the band reuniting to perform their greatest hits and then some. Despite the show’s stellar reviews, however, we still think of Once Upon A Dream as an album…and a damned fine album it is.

The Rascals

  • Felix Cavaliere – vocals, keyboards, sitar
  • Eddie Brigati – vocals, percussion, tamboura
  • Gene Cornish – vocals, guitar
  • Dino Danelli – drums, tabla

DINOSAUR Jr – ” Hold Unknown “

Posted: March 1, 2018 in MUSIC
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Dinosaur Jr.  have shared a brand-new track titled “Hold Unknown” for Adult Swim’s Singles Program.

The track is the band’s first new music since their critically acclaimed 2016 album, Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not, their 11th studio album. On “Hold Unknown,” frontman J Mascis sings with his typical baritone growl alongside an unfiltered, pedal-to-the-metal sound marked by hurried, melodic guitars and driving percussion.

Artists that have previously contributed to Adult Swim’s Singles Program include Julia Holter, Code Orange, Brian Eno, Kevin Shields, Wavves, Ghostface Killah and more.

UK Tour is just over a month away!
March 21 – SWX Bristol
March 22 – SUB89 : Reading
March 23 – Roundhouse – London
March 24 – The Albert Hall – Manchester
March 26 – Plug – Sheffield
March 27 – Belgrave Music Hall & Canteen- Leeds 

GOMEZ – ” Bring It On ” 20th Anniversary Edition

Posted: March 1, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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_Brantley Gutierrez_

UK indie-rock quintet  Gomez will celebrate the 20th anniversary of their breakthrough album Bring It On with a special remastered edition. Available May 18th via UME, the super deluxe four-CD boxset will include rare demos, sessions recorded by the BBC, unreleased tracks and the band’s entire 1998 Glastonbury set. Some of the new material includes covers of Neil Young’s “Unknown Legend” and T-Bone Walker’s “Mean Old World.” The double LP edition of Bring It On will be pressed on both classic black and red/yellow vinyl.

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of Gomez’s Mercury Music Prize winning debut album, Bring It On will be re-mastered and reissued on May 18th, 2018 as a super-deluxe 4CD set with an accompanying remastered double LP release. The 4CD 20th Anniversary edition of Bring It On contains the original, classic album remastered by Frank Arkwright @ Abbey Road studios and 35 previously unreleased tracks including 25 demos (recorded between January 1996 and August 1997) – 13 of which are appearing on an official Gomez release for the first time.

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Additionally, this spring and summer, the band has scheduled a world tour in support of the re-release, playing Bring It On in its entirety. No other record captures that period so perfectly,” says Elbow’s Guy Garvey. “The concerns of the songs, the stories, the experimental sounds. It was so brave for a band to record themselves at that time: it allowed a direct and undiluted account of the band as aspirational, big-hearted friends in love with making music and each other. It dared us to record ourselves. But they did it first. It’s the most deserving recipient of the Mercury Prize in its history: a breathlessly ambitious and lovingly crafted masterpiece.

You can pre-order the 20th anniversary edition of Bring It On and buy tickets for Gomez’s upcoming tour at their official website.

Released By UMe On May 18th, 2018

Bring It On went on to win 1998’s Mercury Music Prize, beating Pulp, Massive Attack, Cornershop and The Verve, with the judges describing the album as “an intriguing blend of swamp blues, bar-room rock and eerie power”.

INSECURE MEN – ” Insecure Men “

Posted: March 1, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Naively pretty melodies … Insecure Men.

It’s seldom that anything involving Fat White Family comes with a heartwarming story . Their music springs from a grimy personal world of mental torment and hard drug use. And yet, there is something at least vaguely cheering about the story behind the eponymous album by Insecure Men, a project that really came to life when the band’s chief songwriter, Saul Adamczewski, was asked to leave temporarily after – and this is a very Fat White Family kind of story – refusing to vacate the Paris venue the band were playing on the night of the Bataclan attack because he’d arranged to meet a heroin dealer there later on.

After a fairly harrowing spell in rehab, Adamczewski has emerged not only clean, but eager to make music more tuneful and less unsavoury than the oeuvre of Fat White Family, in the company of his schoolfriend Ben Romans-Hopcraft. The latter is no stranger to unexpected musical transformations: his own band, Childhood, converted themselves from a middling shoegazey alt-rock combo into the makers of last year’s Universal High, a brilliant, unfairly overlooked album rooted more in the tradition of British street soul than in indie music.

Anyone familiar with Adamczewski’s previous work might point out that suggesting an album is more tuneful and less unsavoury than Fat White Family’s work isn’t really saying much, and they would have a point. It is perhaps worth noting that the lyrics on Insecure Men variously deal with Operation Yewtree, Gary Glitter’s post-prison sojourn in south-east Asia, Adamczewski’s brief period as a crack-addicted building site labourer in Penge and the respective deaths of Whitney Houston and her daughter Bobbi, retold from the viewpoint of the latter’s ghost.

Insecure Men is often more unsettling than the last Fat White Family album, because, rather than the wilfully tuneless and grey noise that was Songs for Our Mothers’ stock in trade, its tracks set this stuff to naively pretty melodies, at which Adamczewski is considerably more adept than his past work might lead you to believe: unashamed pop choruses abound, presumably stockpiled while attending to a different musical agenda. The Whitney Houston track features a children’s choir, made up in part of the members of Rough Trade’s young trio Honey Hahs (aged 11-16), singing about a celebrated, mythic cure for reviving a victim of a drug overdose.

Elsewhere, the music carries echoes of glam, the showtune-inflected singer-songwriter stylings of Harry Nilsson, 80s synthpop, and the kind of cheap drum machine and saxophone-assisted lounge music you might once have encountered in the bar of a provincial hotel. Deliberate or not, the preponderance of clangorous, trebly guitars, Adamczewski’s disconsolate, estuary-accented vocals and the way the grimy production drowns everything in reverb recalls the early 80s work of indie pioneers the Television Personalities.

It also avoids the biggest failing of the last Fat White Family album in that the songs never seem to be trying to shock you for the sake of it: set to a fragile, off-key piano, the closing Buried in the Bleak depicts the dysfunctional relationship between Adamczewski and Fat White Family frontman Lias Saoudi far more effectively than the similarly themed tracks from Songs for Our Mothers that dragged Hitler, Goebbels and Ike Turner’s abuse of Tina into the equation. Once you get over your initial queasiness about its subject matter, Whitney Houston and I is desperately and affectingly sad, a portrait of a young woman who never escaped her mother’s shadow even in death, while Mekong Glitter is horrified by its subject’s lack of repentance and by the old pop world’s willingness to turn a blind eye.

It adds up to an album that feels like far more than just a repository for the tunes and musical influences, a slice of darkly skewed pop that’s weightier and much better than the side-project label suggests. Whether it represents a one-off diversion or an ongoing path that runs parallel to Adamczewski’s main musical outlet remains to be seen – there’s apparently a third Fat White Family album due later this year – but Insecure Men is good enough to make you hope it’s the latter.

The BREEDERS – ” All Nerve “

Posted: March 1, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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‘All Nerve’ – the first new album from The Breeders in a decade – reunites band members Kim and Kelley Deal, Josephine Wiggs and Jim Macpherson, the lineup behind the iconic and platinum-selling record, ‘Last Splash’.
The quartet returned to the stage in 2013 to celebrate the album’s 20th anniversary and have been quietly working on new material since then.
Featuring the tracks ‘Wait In The Car’ and title track ‘All Nerve’, recording took place at Candyland, Dayton, Kentucky, with Mike Montgomery; Electrical Audio, Chicago, with Steve Albini and Greg Norman; and with Tom Rastikis at Fernwood Studios, Dayton, Ohio.
Artwork was conceived by Chris Bigg, who has worked with The Breeders since their first album, ‘Pod’. ‘All Nerve’ is released on CD and 180g black vinyl with digital download card. It’s also available to us pressed on 180g orange vinyl with alternate artwork and digital download code. Released via 4AD Records.

‘All Nerve’, the new album by The Breeders, will be released on March 2nd 2018 on 4AD Records.

The album is available on standard black vinyl, indie-exclusive orange vinyl (w/ alternative cover), CD and digital services. It is available to pre-order now. Bundle options are available from the band and 4AD, including the final ‘Wait In The Car’ 7” and t-shirts:

 Tracklist:
1.Nervous Mary
2.Wait In The Car
3.All Nerve
4.MetaGoth
5.Spacewoman
6.Walking With A Killer
7.Howl At The Summit
8.Archangel’s Thunderbird
9.Dawn: Making An Effort
10.Skinhead #2
11.Blues At The Acropolis
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RAW POWER FESTIVAL The Dome Tufnell Park 25th-27th May 2018

Posted: March 1, 2018 in FESTIVALS, MUSIC
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“A righteous psychic celebration of sound and fury that draws together the cream of the underground, Raw Power draws on the fiery worlds of psychedelia, heaviosity, electronic innovation and avant-garde inspiration, from 2014 to 2017 saw visionary artists from across the globe converge on Tufnell Park to take part in weekends that fried brains and realigned perspectives in equal measure”
Baba Yaga’s Hut Presents:
Raw Power Festival 2018
May 25th – Raw Power Warm-up, Venue TBA
May 26th & 27th – Dome, Tufnell Park
2 Dartmouth Park Hill, Tufnell Park, London, NW5 1HL, United Kingdom

STRAIGHT ARROWS – ” Out And Down “

Posted: March 1, 2018 in MUSIC
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Australia’s coolest group of guitar slingers Straight Arrows dropped a new 7″ on Spacecase Records for 2018. Two new guitar-driven garage bangers fill the grooves on this single, combining for nearly 5 minutes of pure, unadulterated rock and roll.

This single looks to be their first release on a US-based record label since their sophomore LP on Hozac Records. It’s a glorious return to form for the Sydney 4-piece, who never really lost their step anyway – they were just quiet all through 2017. But if this single is any indication, that’s all about to change…

“Out & Down” opens with a gritty guitar tangle, quickly creating that infectious element that always seems to spearhead any Straight Arrows material. Frontman Owen Penglis leads the way with his distinctly boyish snarl, complete with some distant vocal howling in the background. “Every day I worry what my life’s about,” he cries, and he’s certainly not alone. The second half of the track is splintered with some buzzy guitar soloing, laying down a perfectly chaotic finale to this energetic single.

B-side “Franchisee” is fast-paced cave stomper of sorts, driven by the steady pummel of the kick drum. Penglis sings as if he had dollar signs for eyes, imagining heavy pockets and a thick wallet from all his incoming cash. The bruising track follows through with its relentless attack for a full minute and a half, eventually burning out and coming to a screeching halt. There’s the lone formula of simplicity that they clung to for these two tracks, proving in only 5 minutes time that sometimes less truly is more.

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In the end, the best news here is this all a precursor of things to come. Stay tuned to their pages and see what happens throughout the year for Straight Arrows.

DOT TO DOT FESTIVAL – Manchester, Bristol and Nottingham May 2018

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Image  —  Posted: March 1, 2018 in FESTIVALS, MUSIC, NOTTINGHAM CITY VENUES
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GENGAHR – ” Where The Wildness Grows “

Posted: March 1, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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As we eagerly await their second album, Gengahr have been so kind as to share the title track from their next LP Where The Wildness Grows. As you can imagine, it’s damn near perfect for today, blustery, mystical and layered beyond all measure.

Following singles ‘Carrion’ and ‘Mallory’ the title track from the album, which is out on March 9th, Gengahr are upping the appetite for their second album with this one. It’s a moving and ultimately compelling track that again showcases that Gengahr are a band for the present and the future.

Speaking of the track, Felix Bushe said: “Where Wildness Grows is an attempt to figure out what it is that makes us get out of bed in the morning. Where do we find the passion to create the lives we want for ourselves? And with these great expectations and ambitions, how do we cope when things don’t go to plan? I’m still not sure…”

They also shared details of the first Gengahr and Friends exhibition, which will take place between 14th-20th March in Hackney’s Side A/Side B Gallery. It will feature work from the band’s own Hugh Schulte as well as work from artists such as Alt-J, Mystery Jets, Slaves, Marika Hackman and many more.

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