At 9:30 p.m., the Rolling Stones hit the stage with a somewhat de rigueur “Start Me Up.” The overwhelming size of their stage was immediately apparent: 180 feet wide by 65 feet deep, flanked by 46-foot-tall digital screens that showed the band and their eight auxiliary musicians from multiple angles.
The Rolling Stones dug out another rarity for their second of two shows in Inglewood, CA, last night (July 13th). Mick Jagger and company delivered “Fool to Cry” from 1976 album “Black and Blue” for the third-from-final show of their Hackney Diamonds tour. The ballad, recorded soon after Mick Taylor had quit the band, reached No. 10 when released as the album’s lead single, and featured session guitarist Wayne Perkins.
Favourably compared with another ballad, “Angie,” . While they performed “Fool to Cry” 42 times on tour during the year of its release, last night was only the 14th time they’d done so since 1977.
The audience enthusiastically responded to a sing-along, gospel-inspired “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” Other highlights included “Gimme Shelter,” featuring an incendiary showcase from backing singer Chanel Haynes; and the extended “Midnight Rambler” that showed off Jagger’s harmonica skills and a bluesy guitar interplay by Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood.
“Whenever we have played live shows, ‘Norwegian Wood’ is the song that we talk about when we all come offstage; we are always like, ‘Wow, that one was really special.’” Risi jumps in: “Playing live is a massive part of who we are. We’ve gigged so much, and embraced the reception to [‘Norwegian Wood’] so many times now that it felt like the obvious choice.
Beyond the release of their debut single, they are gearing up for festival appearances across the UK, “If there’s a ‘buzz’ around us as a band, then we’ll keep it going,” Parlour says firmly. We’ve worked really hard for this – and this is just the beginning.”
Courtney Love even shared a live recording of Picture Parlour to her Instagram story earlier this year, praising the quartet’s “songs and swagger”. Risi giddily holds up a screenshot of the post as she talks: “It gives me a lump in my throat when I think about the fact that a legend knows who we are.”
Parlour and Risi met while studying philosophy and music respectively in Manchester, having previously been part of other various bands and projects. Yet Risi was the only woman in her class of guitar players – and was often made subject to patronising comments from her peers. In an industry that continues to sneer at emerging female-identifying acts – Panic Shack and The Last Dinner Party have both been subject to unsolicited critique online in recent months .
In 1979, two school-kids all hopped-up on punk-rock started their own group in their hometown of Hawthorne, Los Angeles (birthplace of the Beach Boys) and soon found themselves opening shows for notorious scene pioneers Black Flag. Jeff McDonald was fifteen, his brother Steven McDonald only eleven. But that didn’t stop their group from becoming one of the most remarkable, enduring and unique outfits punk-rock ever brought together.
2024, then, marks Redd Kross’s forty-fifth birthday – an important anniversary for any group whose heart pulses at 45RPM – and the brothers celebrate the event with a veritable multimedia extravaganza. There’s a memoir, Now “You’re One Of Us”, author Dan Epstein telling the group’s story in the McDonalds’ unmistakable (and occasionally contrary) voices. A brilliant rockumentary, “Born Innocent”, directed by Andrew Reich, will premiere later in the year.
Most exciting of all, this new album – an eponymous double-album, no less, packed with eighteen of their sharpest, most addictive songs yet. These years of joyful service to rock’n’roll have seen Redd Kross evolve into a killer pop-rock concern, dealing in dayglo power-chords, choruses as tall as skyscrapers and a lyric sheet thick with acid couplets and arch pop cultural references their loyal following will gobble up like quaaludes.
“Redd Kross” is part of a 45th-anniversary celebration campaign that includes Reich’s documentary and an upcoming memoir (Now You’re One of Us), and it’s a self-reflexive exercise in every way, from the cover art (a ruby-tinged makeover of the Beatles’ White Album, the first record Jeff bought as a kid) to the uncharacteristically wistful, introspective songwriting. But seeing as Redd Kross are the rare band who can celebrate 45 years in showbiz while one founding member is still in their 50s, the eternally youthful McDonalds are still committed to chasing new glories.
The Magpie Salute is an American rock band formed in 2016 by the Black Crowes guitarist Co-founding member Rich Robinson. Rich Robinson announced the formation of the Magpie Salute in October 2016. In addition to Robinson, the group features UK singer John Hogg, former Black Crowes guitarist Marc Ford and bassist Sven Pipien, as well as keyboardist Matt Slocum, plus drummer Joe Magistro, and backing vocalists Adrien Reju and Katrine Ottosen from Robinson’s solo band. John Hogg; songwriter and singer of Moke and song writing partner on Robinsons’ Hookah Brown, was invited to support Rich on his 2015 tour in Europe and the UK.
The name The Magpie Salute comes from a superstition based in the UK,” Rich explained about the band’s moniker. “There are many variations, but the version I’m drawn to is the belief that if you see a Magpie, you would do well to salute it ‘to ward off negativity, or to have a good day.’ The way you salute the Magpie, based on some traditions is to say ‘Good Mornin’ Captain.
Hogg and Robinson picked up from where they left off with Magpie Salutes first single ‘Omission’, Hogg bringing a well crafted and soulful voice and his own London flavour to the lyrics.
This came on the heels of a series of shows Robinson performed earlier in 2016 in Woodstock, New York, where he was joined by Ford, Pipien and former Black Crowes keyboard player Eddie Harsch. Harsch was slated to tour as a member of the band until his sudden death in November 2016, and his appearance on their self-titled debut marks his last recording.
The Magpie Salute released their debut studio album “High Water I” in August 2018, The band’s second studio album “High Water II” was released October 2019, Rating it four out of five stars for American Songwriter, commented, “High Water II” has a consistent quality, never veering too far off the boys’ true sonic course, which starts and ends with the blues.
The Magpie Salute’s “High Water II”, on Eagle Rock Entertainment, its titular Part One (the band’s 2018 debut, “High Water“) receives a worthy expansion of style and exuberance. Produced by Magpie guitarist/vocalist Rich Robinson, the album was recorded at the same time as its predecessor, but it stands out as a cantered, less introductory release.
Much of the album was written during those early recordings at Dark Horse Studios in Nashville, which is why the album feels like a perfect continuation of its predecessor.
While “High Water” contained a mélange of blues, folk, soft and hard Southern rock tracks, packaged together as a first impression of the group’s impressive musical bandwidth, the new LP has a uniformity which, even in its delicate moments, is always tethered to the members’ bluesy, hard-edged approach.
Rich talked about the decision to feature multiple players and singers within The Magpie Salute, “I wanted to try something different. I wanted to hear this music with two drummers, two keyboard players, and multiple singers. I, and everyone involved, love playing music. Not only on our own, in The Crowes and in my band, but playing music in general.
The first single, “In Here,” follows an uplifting heartland rock groove as Robinson sings imagery-rich verses urging people to let go of any hang-ups which keep them from living in the moment. “Mother Storm,” an acoustic-driven anthem, similarly inspires some version of self-empowerment with its choruses’ tuneful peroration: “you made it here, you faded here, you shine your light down on the empty floor.” In fact, a great deal of the album consists of second-person reassurance, including the Alison Krauss-assisted ballad “Lost Boy,” in which she and Robinson comfort a wayward adolescent (“lost boy, let me tell you what you mean to me”).
From sweltering hard rockers like album opener “Sooner or Later” to soft drifters like “You and I,” B3 organ, lead guitar riffs and Robinson’s high-octane voice connect the dots with blues licks and swagger.
Will Butler (formerly of Arcade Fire) and his band Sister Squares released a self-titled album last year, and they’ve followed it with a new single, “Burn It Away,” an anthemic synth-pop track. “I wanted to make an open-hearted song about destroying the world, about despair in the face of trying your best to find hope,” Will says. “There’s a lyric that got cut about thinking you see the sun rise but it’s just the forest fires burning over the horizon. But I think music is intrinsically hopeful—always implicitly arguing in favour of creation—so maybe the song balances itself out.”
Next up for Will is a tour with Sister Squares of the UK and Europe, which starts on Saturday (7/13) and runs through the end of the month.
Laura Marling has announced her eighth album, “Patterns in Repeat“, due out on October 25th via Chrysalis/Partisan Records. It follows on from 2020’s “Song For Our Daughter” (and her 2021 collaboration with Tunng’s Mike Lindsay as LUMP), and she wrote, recorded, and produced it in her home studio in London. Dom Monks co-produced, and it also features Rob Moose.
“Over the course of nine months, I had happily prepared myself for the fact that my life as a songwriter would be put on hold while I adjusted to life as a new parent,” Laura says. “How delighted then was I to discover that for the first few months of a baby’s life, you can bounce them in a bouncer and play guitar all day. For the first time in my life, I was able to gaze into another human’s eyes as I wrote. Of course, new parents feel like they discovered that feeling – one of the very finest that life has to offer, of looking into the eyes of your child and feeling the enormity of the picture as a whole, the enormity of a precarious life, celestial, fragile and extraordinary, taking its place among the comparatively banal constellation of a family. This banal constellation seems to have dominated the writing of “Patterns in Repeat” – the drama of the domestic sphere, the frail threads that bind a family together, the good intentions we hold onto for our progeny and the many and various ways they get lost in time.
So much complexity in the banal, the caged, the everyday.
“Being as I am, 34 years old, now 15 years and 8 albums into a life in song, I am unable to escape the fact that each record has served as a time-stamped chapter of my life (though some have appeared more a premonition),” she continues. “Now, here we are, following a youth spent desperately trying to understand what it is to be a woman, I am at the brow of the hill, with an entirely new and enormous perspective surrounding me.”
The first single is the beautiful “Patterns,” .
Laura has also announced a pair of intimate live residencies to support “Patterns in Repeat”, happening in London (Hackney Church on October 29th and 30th and November 1st and 2nd) and NYC (Bowery Ballroom on November 11th and 12th). Those are her only upcoming dates at the moment.
The beautiful first single from Laura Marling’s newly announced eighth album, “Patterns in Repeat”,
One of the most exciting musicians today, Nilüfer Yanya returns with a brand new studio album ‘My Method Actor’ set to release September 13th via Ninja Tune. With a unique blend of soulful melodies, indie rock grit, and jazz influences, Yanya’s music continues to captivate audiences worldwide. The new body of work being a development and evolution from her previous sound. Her first album ‘Miss Universe’ and its 2022 follow-up ‘Painless’ cemented her as one to watch and a staple in the indie scene, lauded by critics on both sides of the Atlantic.
Since her debut, she has performed on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon, Late Night with Stephen Colbert, Later with Jools Holland and NPR’s legendary Tiny Desk.
It takes a certain kind of bravery to fully trust your instincts,” Nilüfer Yanya says regarding “Call it Love,” the latest single from her upcoming album “My Method Actor“. “It’s about allowing your calling to lead you, to let it guide you somewhere. Let that consume you and destroy you.
Taken from ‘My Method Actor’, released September 13th, 2024 on Ninja Tune Records:
“Commit Yourself Completely” is the second live album by American indie rock band Car Seat Headrest, released digitally in June 2019 by Matador Records. It compiles songs performed by the band on tour in 2018 across the United States, United Kingdom and France, with the members of the Naked Giants playing with the group in a seven-person lineup. The indie rock album includes live renditions of songs from “Teens of Denial” (2016) and “Twin Fantasy” (2011, 2018), as well as a cover of Frank Ocean’s “Ivy”.
The release “Commit Yourself Completely”, a compilation of live recordings from 2018. For now, here’s a video of our performance of “Fill in the Blank” at the Newport Music Hall in Columbus, Ohio, one of 9 cuts to make the compilation.
“Mind Games” was meant to be a return to form for John Lennon, after an instantly dated protest album that felt didactic and cold. He seemed to be back on track with its opening Top 20 hit title song. But the rest of “Mind Games” could be a strangely ruminative and often mid-tempo, with a shaggy studio approach. “Mind Games: The Ultimate Collection” makes it clear who fans should blame: The producer.
Featuring “Mind Games – The Ultimate Mixes” and “The Out-takes” – 24 tracks on 180mg vinyl; plus an 8-page booklet of photos and artwork; a reproduction of the original 1973 triptych marketing poster; postcard sized reproductions of 1973 advert artworks and an individually numbered Citizen of Nutopia ID Card.
After three straight projects with co-producers Phil Spector and Yoko Ono, Lennon took over those duties. He clearly couldn’t place enough distance between himself and the material to make the best choices for these songs. An outside voice might have encouraged him to continue work on some tracks, or to toss one or two aside.
Thankfully, the new Ultimate Mixes remove many of the production excesses, while the consistently intriguing Elemental Mixes strip things down still further. What’s revealed is a work of tender emotions and no small amount of genuine confusion.
Lennon was at a crossroads in 1973, professionally and personally, and this album allowed him to admit it. Every one of his mixed emotions plays out. But “Mind Games: The Ultimate Collection” also provides an opportunity for reassessment not unlike Peter Jackson’s expansive Get Back series: The Evolution Documentary places listeners inside the studio where warm and sometimes very funny exchanges are revealed.
Unfortunately, not all of “The Ultimate Collection” is quite so revelatory. Its Elements Mixes quite confusingly present all of the originally over-produced songs – only without Lennon’s voice. This is both beside the point and a curious subversion of the box set’s entire reason for being. “Mind Games” still doesn’t rock enough and when it tries, the LP sometimes does so unconvincingly. That’s part of where Lennon was, too.
He attempts to apologize in “Aisumasen (I’m Sorry)” but in the gorgeous sorrows of “Out the Blue,” Ono is already gone. That hints at how badly things were going behind the scenes. We know now just how much worse they’d become as Lennon’s Lost Weekend unfolded.
Yet there’s something consistently touching about this moment, finally revealed in its stillness. We hear Lennon, so often a closed-off fighter, falling back on his heels. “Mind Games” is the sound of someone reaching out.
Produced by Sean Ono Lennon, Mixed and Engineered by Triple GRAMMY Award-winner Paul Hicks, Additional Engineering by Sam Gannon, Mastered by Alex Wharton at Abbey Road Studios.
The Fat Angel Sings 