John Mellencamp and Republic Records release the live album to accompany the The Good Samaritan Tour 2000 documentary. The documentary, which is narrated by Academy Award winner Matthew McConaughey, chronicles Mellencamp’s historic tour in 2000 when he performed for free in public parks and common spaces across the country.
“This is not a concert. I’m just playing on the street. I’m not promoting anything. I’m not selling anything. I’m just giving back to the people who have been so good to me.”
So claims John Mellencamp on his new live album, “The Good Samaritan Tour 2000“. The remarks come after he wrapped up a decidedly down-home version of “Small Town” during one of the tour’s street corner performances. The lead-off track on this new offering (well, not so new— it was recorded more than 20 years ago), is part of a surprisingly different concert collection, one that eschews “the hits” in favour of covers (“Pink Houses” and “Key West Intermezzo” are the only other songs plucked from the Mellencamp catalogue), it’s meant as aural accompaniment for a documentary being screened on the Turner Classic Movie’s (TCM) YouTube channel. Narrated by actor MatthewMcConaughey, it details a jaunt that took Mellencamp and his band to parks and public places throughout the U.S. The performances sound somewhat extemporaneous and there’s even audible crowd noise intruding on several of the songs. That only adds to the sense of spontaneity and makes the experience that much more vivid and visceral.
It’s that setlist that makes for the most unusual element in this soundtrack of sorts. Mellencamp culls a wide variety of songs and sources—Woody Guthrie (“Oklahoma Hills”), the Rolling Stones (“The Spider and the Fly,” “Street Fighting Man”), Jimi Hendrix by way of Bob Dylan (“All Along the Watchtower”), Donovan and the Animals (“Hey Gyp”), and Rod Stewart (“Cut Across Shorty)—and yet still manages to hit the mark with his astute interpretations. What inspired him to take this unusual tack is anyone’s guess, but given the unorthodox approach to this outing in general, it seems to fit the format. So too, Mellencamp’s take on “Street Fighting Man” and “Cut Across Shorty” in particular are well attuned to his everyman persona.
The former Smiths Guitarist Johnny Marr has unveiled ‘Spirit, Power And Soul’, the first single from his upcoming new double album project. Marr described the song in a press release as “a kind of mission statement” and “an electro soul anthem.”
Marr will release a new four-track EP, ‘Fever Dreams Pt 1’, from his double-album on October 15th via BMG Records.
Meanwhile, the release date fo the full double album, ‘Fever Dreams Pts 1-4’, is to be announced. The record will be Marr’s first since 2018’s “Call The Comet”. Speaking about the new single, Marr said: “’Spirit, Power And Soul’ is a kind of mission statement. I had an idea about an electro sound with gospel feeling, in my own words… an electro soul anthem.”
In July Marr announced that he would play a run of ultra intimate shows across various venues in the U.K. this September. Whether you noticed or not, Johnny Marr has been cranking out a killer string of solo singles over the past several years, dating back to 2014’s indie dance floor crusher “Easy Money.” He found a watermark with his excellent 2018 album “Call The Comet“, and dabbled in electronics on the following year’s “Armatopia” before unleashing “The Bright Parade”.
To warm up for a huge outdoor show with the Courteeners at Manchester’s Old Trafford Ground on September 25th, the musician will perform three tiny shows in Leeds, Blackburn and London. Tickets on sale now.
It’ll be good to hear this new track as part of Marr’s growing live arsenal, and it should sound absolutely massive in those big rooms.
The 50,000 capacity Manchester show in support of Courteeners sold out in 90 minutes. Blossoms and Liverpool band Zuzu are also on the bill. Johnny Marr has also been announced as support for the US leg of The Killers 2022 arena tour dates, which begins in August.
The new EP, ‘Fever Dreams Pt 1’ out on 15th October:
When Gulfer guitarist and vocalist Vincent Ford sets out to write a song, the words often come before the music–and even then, the overarching meaning isn’t always clear until the song is complete. “Neighbours”–a frenzied and raucous one-off rife with technical flourishes–is no different. Ford says that the song was written specifically about processing his experiences with a loved one diagnosed with schizophrenia, but that he only realized when the song was done. Between its noodly, punchy transitions–a signature staple of the band’s songwriting–Ford explores what it must have been like to live with schizophrenia and not know it.
Musically, “Neighbours” speaks to this mentally debilitating experience with tact and deliberation: frantic, stop-on-a-dime passages set a punkish, animated backdrop for Ford’s ruminations, giving him an appropriate setting to unpack his and his loved one’s experiences.
the Band: Joseph Therriault – guitar Vincent Ford – guitar and vocals David Mitchell – bass Julien Daoust – drums
“Goats Head Soup” emerged from a period of deep uncertainty for the Rolling Stones. After their successful tour for Exile on Main Street, they’d splintered across the world; a few months later, in late 1972, they reconvened in Kingston, Jamaica, to cut a set of dark grooves that sounded like nothing they’d ever released. There were drony experiments (“Can You Hear the Music?”), strung-out ballads (“Coming Down Again”), and snarling rockers (“Dancing With Mr. D”).
Critics didn’t enjoy the change of direction. Atlantic Records disapproved of their choice for a lead single, wanting another ‘Brown Sugar’ instead of a ballad. It was the first in a series of misunderstandings that makes rediscovering GHS such a joy; ‘Angie’ sounds better than it ever has before in the 2020 remaster, as does everything else.
Did you know there were actually 3 different album designs proposed for Goats Head Soup – a (stuffed) goat’s head in soup (deemed too uncomfortable for some but used as an insert), the band depicted as centaurs: half-man, half-horse (mock up below – ended up being rejected) and finally the one you see today – the band enveloped in chiffon veils of various colours shot by David Bailey. Pink for Mick Jagger, black for Keith Richards, white for Charlie Watts, green for Bill Wyman and red for Mick Taylor.
The Rolling Stones have created a video for “All the Rage,” the third and final previously unavailable song from the newly released Goats Head Soup reissue.
Recorded in late 1972 during sessions in Kingston, Jamaica, “All the Rage,” embedded below, has shown up on bootlegs as “You Should Have Seen Her Ass.” But as Mick Jagger told UDiscoverMusic, he decided to pen some new words to get it ready for its first official airing.
“That’s like a very Rolling Stones rock track,” he said. “That wasn’t finished, it didn’t have a finished vocal or many lyrics, [so] I had to finish that one. But the guitar parts, I think, were all done. Might have added percussion, but that’s what you would have done anyway – [added] a bit more maracas and stuff afterwards.”
“[I]t’s in that mold,” Keith Richards added when informed of its similarity to “Brown Sugar.” “Certain songs seem to be either closely related, or cousins of one another. I’d forgotten about it until I heard it again, but yeah, it does come off to me, now you mention it, [as being] in the ‘Brown Sugar’ mold.”
The other two unearthed tracks on the Goats Head Soup reissue are “Criss Cross” and the Jimmy Page-fuelled “Scarlet.” Earlier in the week, Jagger revealed that, when the idea of including them was posed to him, he thought, “’They’re all terrible!’ That’s always my initial reaction, ‘They’re all useless!’ I mean, actually, I always liked the songs, but they weren’t finished.”
By the time he heard them cleaned up, however, the singer realized that “these three songs are all up there with the rest of the songs on this record.”
For the penultimate stop on the Rolling Stones’ 1973 European tour, they staged a pair of loose, swaggering sets in Brussels. They’d already played around 40 dates — but as showcased on Brussels Affair, a rare live album bundled in the new deluxe edition of Goats Head Soup, their energy was still at a peak.
“Toward the end of [listening to] it, I wondered what the rest of the band were on because things were really starting to rock at a ferocious pace,” guitarist Keith Richards recalled in a 2011 interview. “What’s interesting about these bootlegs is the band don’t know they’re being recorded, so they don’t give a shit, and they’re playing what they’re playing and you get a natural feel, you know?”
The LP documents the band at its scrappiest: Richards sounds like he’s on the verge of blowing out his voice during Exile on Main St.’s “Happy,” and frontman Mick Jagger is seemingly gasping for air on a brassy version of “Brown Sugar.” Throughout, including then-recently issued songs like “Angie” and “Dancing With Mr. D,”the Stones push forward with the relentless of a teenage garage band.
“We were hitting some very fast tempos,” Richards noted in the 2011 interview. “Mick was doing an incredible job. It didn’t faze him.”
It’s far from the Rolling Stones at their smoothest or most pristine, but the backing band — including keyboardist BillyPreston and a full horn section — offers a cinematic wrinkle to tracks like “Star Star” and “Street Fighting Man.”
With the “Goats Head Soup” reissue, the show is finally available in a (somewhat) more accessible physical format. The album was first released digitally in 2011 through Google Play Music and the Rolling Stones Archive website, followed in 2012 by limited-edition vinyl box sets (which cost at least $750) and a 2015 Japanese CD.
“Brussels Affair” is included on Goats Head Soup’s four-disc CD and vinyl box sets, along with rarities and alternate mixes. And if you trust Richards, the live set is essential listening. “I was impressed very much with the Brussels [show],” he said in 2011. “I’ve rarely heard the Stones that early on playing live and that well recorded.”
Goats Head Soup 2020 released Friday September 4th.
Eyedress’ fourth album “Mulholland Drive” is the latest evolution of the Filipino musician’s unique sound. Following his 2020 breakthrough Let’s Skip To The Wedding, which introduced global hits Jealous and Romantic Lover, the new record features collaborations with some of his favourite artists (King Krule, DāM-FunK, Triathalon, Vex Ruffin and more), while staying true to his vision.
“This album is about loving yourself and your life” Eyedress
Los Angeles based Filipino producer/singer Idris Vicuña has been making making glammy, twee DIY pop as Eyedress since the early ’10s. While some artists associated with that sound and city may have fallen out of favour, Eyedress is still going strong and had success recently when his 2020 single “Jealous” has become a viral hit.
Working to maintain the momentum, he’s back with new album “Mulholland Drive“, out via Warp Records imprint Lex Records, that features a cavalcade of notable guest stars not to mention a whole bunch of catchy, melted pop songs. Among those guests are King Krule, who brings his moody, murky production style to “Chad and Gordy”; Dent May who sings a verse on the album’s most immediate earworm, “Something About You”; Dâm-Funk who slathers his namesake sound on slow jam “Keep It Real With You”; and DIY punk Vex Ruffin who brings a claustrophobic energy to “Fulfil the Dream.”
The guest-free songs are good, too, including the gothy, angry “Brain Dread” and “Spit on Your Grave,” the crystalline “Long Nights At The 711” and the yearning “Want You There Tomorrow.” Nostalgia is baked into Eyedress’ sound, pulling from the 2000s that were inspired by the ’80s that were inspired by the ’60s, while making room for the ’70s, ’90s and now, all recorded over the same cassette, with tracks bleeding through as the loop closes in.
Originally released in 1997, the Britpop band’s second album feels like a crash course in the history of UK rock, zipping through glam, psychedelia, punk, and pop in fresh, surprising ways. This newly expanded edition of their classic second album features remastered audio, plus bonus material.
The lp has been remastered from analogue tape on 180g black and 140g turquoise vinyl (retail exclusive). lp also includes 12” single ‘Sun Hits The Sky (bentley rhythm ace remix)’ / ‘The Animal’ on 140g white vinyl. not available on record since original release. the 3cd format includes 43 tracks over two cds of b-sides, rarities, outtakes & live tracks, imagery from Kevin Westenberg and sleevenotes from Charles Shaar Murray. compiled by Supergrass.
Indulgence can be its own reward. Take In It for the Money, the wild, careening sophomore set from Supergrass. Flush with success and fresh out of adolescence, the Britpop trio embraced all the new adventures heading their way, a journey that steadily pulled them away from the frenzied pleasures of their 1995 debut “I Should Coco“. Where their peers sang of common people and wonderwalls, Supergrass concerned themselves with teenage thrills: buzzing on speed, getting busted by cops, telling dirty jokes, and hanging out with friends. At the centre of the album was the smash hit “Alright” an incandescent pop song about being young, dumb, and free. Other bands might have chased the charts by attempting to re-create the spirit of “Alright.” Supergrass instead chose to see how fast and far they could run.
In It for the Money isn’t so much a departure from I Should Coco as a progression. Often, it feels as if Supergrass are attempting to offer a crash course in the history of British rock, cramming in elements borrowed from the swinging 1960s and 1970s classic rock, then filtering these well-known sounds through the irreverence of punk. They still sound vigorous—witness the rampaging single “Richard III”—but they lack the exuberance that fuelled their first album. The shift was necessary for their long-term survival. “Alright” threatened to pigeonhole Supergrass as loveable teenage imps, a role they played to the hilt in the song’s supremely silly video. (They played their part so well that Steven Spielberg believed Supergrass would be ideal candidates for a gen-X spin on The Monkees..)
Supergrass turned down Spielberg, choosing instead to do the things normal rock’n’roll bands do: play an enormous amount of shows before hunkering down in the studio to make another record. It helped that Supergrass had arrived just as the Britpop wave crested, its rising tide not only lifting the shaggy group into the Top Ten but putting them squarely within a happening scene. They shared space on charts and festival bills with the amiably straightforward likes of Cast, Sleeper, the Bluetones, and Ash, yet they were qualitatively different, possessing punk-pop smarts to rival Elastica, a brawnier musicality than Oasis, and a self-evident sense of humour.
All of this comes to a head on In It for the Money, an album where the riffs and jokes are wrapped in woolly psychedelia, blaring horns, and splashes of sweet melancholy. Where I Should Coco blew by at a breakneck pace, In It for the Money unfolds with a deliberate sense of drama, slowly coming into focus with the menacing swirl of the title track and proceeding to ebb and flow across its 12 songs. The record feels so unified that it’s remarkable to realize they entered the studio in 1996 with only two completed songs in tow, forcing them to write the bulk of the album during the recording sessions. Along for the ride was Rob Coombes, a keyboardist who was the brother of Supergrass frontman Gaz. He’d been on the band’s periphery for a while, hammering out the piano to “Alright” and playing woozy organ on “Going Out,” the stopgap 1996 single Supergrass released between their first and second albums, but he’s an integral part of In It for the Money, earning writing credits on all 12 songs and adding distinctive colour throughout. (Rob Coombes would officially become a member of Supergrass in 2002.)
Listen closely—or spend some time with the clutch of monitor mixes and rough versions that fill the second disc of the new 3xCD deluxe reissue of the 1997 album—and it’s apparent that Supergrass did indeed write In It for the Money in the studio. Many of the songs are rooted in vamps that blossom into full songs: The slinky funk that propels the verses of “Cheapskate,” the circular stomp on “G-Song,” the lazy, shambling gait of “Hollow Little Reign” all bear telltale signs of compositions that began as group jams. None of these songs sound tossed off, though, littered as they are with overdubs, backwards guitars, and sound effects. Supergrass couldn’t resist any bit of studio trickery when they were making In It for the Money, yet they retained their sense of concise craft. The record feels vibrant, not overstuffed.
The triple-disc reissue of In It for the Money can dampen some of the album’s energy. Some fine B-sides, such as the tuneful neo-music-hall ramble “Melanie Davis,” are buried among the alternate mixes and working versions on the second disc, a collection of ephemera that plays better as individual tracks than as an album. The disc of live recordings is another story. Anchored by a full show from January 1998, a concert given nearly a year after the release of In It for the Money, the live disc shows Supergrass at full roar, turning these studio creations into breakneck rockers.
The title of In It for the Money is a nod toward Frank Zappa’s anti-hippie classic We’re Only In It for the Money.Supergrass may not sound anything like the Mothers of Invention, but their choice reflects the extent to which they were steeped in rock history. Supergrass never attempted to be innovators. They were magpies who busied themselves with figuring out how to assemble pieces of glam, psychedelia, punk, and pop in fresh, surprising ways. They would continue to hone their craft, making sleeker albums than In It for the Money, yet the group’s enthusiasm and imagination are at a peak here. They sound delighted to discover their full potential, and that giddiness remains infectious decades later.
The Hawks were a shortlived UK band led by Stephen Duffy and Dave Kusworth and formed in 1979. Duffy had just quit Duran Duran (he was their original lead singer) and was approached about starting a new group by Kusworth (still a few years from forming Jacobites with Nikki Sudden), whose band TV Eye had just broken up. With TV Eye members David Twist and Paul Adams, as well as ex Duran Duran bassist Simon Colley rounding out the line-up, the band were formed and originally went by Obviously 5 Believers (named for a Dylan song), before changing their name to The Subterranean Hawks which was then shortened to just The Hawks.
The Hawks rehearsed constantly, creating a tough yet sensitive sound that was somewhere between Sniff ‘N’ The Tears and Felt. They played live when not rehearsing, gaining a small but rabid following, and released their debut single, “Words of Hope,” in 1980. They broke up not long after, unfortunately, leaving the rest of their material in the practice space. Those practices were recorded, however, and the dozens of tapes sat in a box in Duffy’s house unopened as he went on to lead groups TinTin and The Lilac Time and later a solo career. In 2019, Duffy and Kunsworth met for lunch, caught up, and Duffy promised to dig out The Hawks tapes and release them. Kusworth passed away in 2020 but Duffy has made good on his promise, and here we have the band’s debut album, 40 years after breaking up.
Duffy has said that The Hawks didn’t make demos — “we played live and I sang over the top, just to see what we sounded like” — and refers to these tapes as “field recordings,” but the 10 songs on Obviously 5 Believers show a band that seemed to have it all figured out. A bunch of them seem ready to go: “Bullfighter” is muscular power pop worthy of The Only Ones or The Soft Boys, “All the Sad Young Boys” predates The Smiths’ mopey glamour, and “BigStore” is swaggering and effete a la The Monochrome Set. Other songs are rougher around the edges, and many clearly sound like cassettes that have been stuffed in a drawer for 40 years but that doesn’t make the music any less compelling. The Hawks sound vital and alive on these recordings and it will leave you wanting more and wondering what might have been.
“All Day Gentle Hold !” is the fifth album from Aaron Maine and a celebratory collection of songs. Harder, faster, shorter and louder than any other Porches record, it’s direct and pointed, charged up and chaotic, described by Maine as “the most energetic, off-the-cuff moments, collaged together into the most captivating songs [he] could make.”
“All Day Gentle Hold !” is a celebratory collection of songs. Harder, faster, shorter and louder than any other Porches record, it’s direct and pointed, charged up and chaotic, described by Maine as “the most energetic, off-the-cuff moments, collaged together into the most captivating songs [he] could make.” After years of experimentation, All Day Gentle Hold !is Maine’s music at its most fundamental, made with blind momentum and without the structure of everyday life: regardless of what would happen to his career, the industry, or the world at large.
Fully embracing his rock roots and the guitar as his main instrument, Maine pared down the maximalism of Ricky Music to a focused sonic palette of two guitars, keyboard, live drums, and a drum machine. The 11 songs, written to work together from the onset, take cues from the cadence of The Ramones, the power of Nirvana, and the influence of teenage years spent listening to pop punk and grunge. Each track is totemic in its angst.
Equally personal and universal, tapping into moments intimate, absurd, banal and strangely everyday, All Day Gentle Hold !takes the listener on a dreamy, primal journey through the mind of a man coping with an incomprehensible time, revelling in the joy and confusion of living through it all. It was recorded by Maine in his New York home studio, and mixed and mastered by James Krausse.
All Day Gentle Hold ! is available for pre-order as a single brown vinyl LP, housed in an embossed jacket with a printed inner sleeve.
Praise for previous single “Okay”: “a loud, highly saturated rush — a quintessential summer rock song by a musician who…is a master of the form.” – PAPER “It’s a breezy blast of dry drums and acoustic guitars with a chorus that sucks you in like a vortex.” – Stereogum “‘Okay‘ shines with the gloss of ’90s adult contemporary radio, but there’s something delightfully bent about its particular luster.” – The FADER “unforgettable” – FLOOD
“Baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, who’s the baby?”sings Aaron Maine aka Porches on his latest single “Lately” from his forthcoming album, All Day Gentle Hold !, out October 8th. On the album opener, Maine wastes no time flinging himself into the crashing synths, cymbals, and guitars, while repeating lyrics as if in a trance, stumbling upon a new meaning each time,“Crying out! How’s everybody holding up out there??!!”
“Lately” arrives with a video directed by frequent collaborator, Nick Harwood, and follows Maine as he thrashes around a house while his unlikely band pummels through the song.
Porches – “Lately”, from ‘All Day Gentle Hold !’ out digitally 8th October 2021 on Domino Record Co.
The video for Dragonfly is made by Søren Lynggaard Andersen, who also did the video for ‘Living Other Lives’, and it features the three of us alongside our live-band members Indrė Jurgelevičiūtė, Bert Cools, Øyunn and Christian Balvig who all have contributed significantly to the making of our new album. It was Indre who had the idea of featuring kite flying in the video and shortly after we found a box of abandoned white clothes and then it sort of rolled organically from there. We were all on Møn for Efterklang’s Sommertræf (Efterklang’s Summer Summit) and took the afternoon and evening off to fly kites, swim and run around and dance silly and un-choreographed in Danish corn fields. It was a beautiful moment with people we love dearly and I am so thankful it’s been captured so stunning and vibrantly by Søren.” – The song features Indrė Jurgelevičiūtė and Karen Beldring on vocals.
Efterklang will take the album on tour 2021 & 2022.
‘Dragonfly’ by Efterklang. Taken from the new album ‘Windflowers’ released October 8th 2021 on City Slang Records
Hauntingly beautiful vocals paired with a minimal musical backdrop makes for a truly inspired selection of emotional and beguiling songs. Marissa Nadler announced a new album, “The Path of the Clouds” and shared its first single, “Bessie Did You Make It” via a video for it. The Path of the Cloudsis due out October 29th via Sacred Bones and BellaUnion.
Nadler wrote and recorded the album during the pandemic and was partially inspired by binging reruns of Unsolved Mysteries as she “began to notice parallels between many of its stories and her own life,” as a press release puts it. On The Path of the Cloudsshe worked with various collaborators, including Mary Lattimore, Simon Raymonde (of Cocteau Twins and Lost Horizons and the head of Bella Union), multi-instrumentalist Milky Burgess, Jesse Chandler (Nadler’s piano teacher and a member of Mercury Rev and Midlake), Emma Ruth Rundle, and Black Mountain’sAmber Webber. Seth Manchester (Lingua Ignota, Battles, and Lightning Bolt) mixed the album.
Thou’s Mitch Wells directed the “Bessie, Did You Make It?” video and had this to say in a press release: “When I first got the chance to hear Marissa’s new album, and was asked, ‘Which song would you like to do a video for?’ I sort of panicked because literally every song is SO good. It was like being at a buffet of all your favourite food and only being able to choose one thing to eat. I had a blast making the video, but there was always the pressure of ‘don’t let down the song.’ It’s such a beautiful opening track and I’m really lucky I was given the chance to be a part of it.”
Nadler’s last album was 2018’s “For My Crimes”.
So glad that Marissa releases all this extra material. I often like the demo versions better than the final thing, it’s so intimate and real. Like having a friend show you a song they are working on.
Bessie, Did You Make It? from the album “The Path of the Clouds” Out 10/29/21 on Sacred Bones Records and Bella Union Records
