Joey Molland’s first solo record in close to a decade is a collaboration with the talented/wacky producer Mark Hudson, and a very pleasant listen from front to back. It finds Molland (who co-wrote the ten tunes with Hudson) playing up the pop-oriented strengths he first exhibited with Badfinger, and Hudson (who also plays and sings throughout) once again embracing the “Beatlesque mad wizard” guise he displayed during his tenure as Ringo Starr’s producer and musical director. Truth be told, it’s not much of a stretch to imagine Starr singing many of the tunes on “Be True to Yourself”, particularly the inspirational title track (with its oh-so-Beatles ’67 end bit), “This Time,” or the sunny-sounding “Rainy Day Man.” Hudson does a good job of masking some of Molland’s slightly gruff vocalizing by utilizing guests such as Julian Lennon, Jason Scheff and Micky Dolenz to lend some vocal support, while former Wings drummer Steve Holley mans the kit.
The Pete Ham-like vocal affectations on “I Don’t Wanna Be Done With You” and the cute little wink to “No Matter What” at the close of “All I Want to Do” should make the listener smile, as will most of the rest of Be True to Yourself.
Three plus versions of the same album. It’s ridiculous, but I’m glad.” The first paragraph of Richard Hell’s text in the booklet accompanying “Destiny Street Complete” lays it out. There are, indeed, three versions of his and his band The Voidoids’s album released originally in July 1982 album “Destiny Street” on this double-CD set. It seems excessive but this is a major release of a classic in the making .
Reviews of “Destiny Street” at the time of its release were positive. Creem Magazine said “Hell himself has hit on a style – part Nuggets-era basement rock ‘n roll, part speed-balling protest (not in content, but in attitude) rock, part confrontational CBGB psychodrama – that gives the album its pungent reverberations.” When considering the album, the New York Times frothed “Mr. Hell is the most soulful, emotionally compelling singer to have emerged from punk rock, and his lyrics are in the tradition of Rimbaud and Lautremont.”
Really though, Destiny Street was scrappy, overly short and bulked-out with cover versions and reworked old tracks. There was Dylan’s “Going Going Gone”, The Kinks’s “I Gotta Move” and Them’s “I Can Only Give You Everything”. There were also remakes of “The Kid With the Replaceable Head”, first heard on a single three years earlier, and of “Time”, which had been on an April 1980 EP. New inspiration appeared to be lacking. Destiny Street sounded messy too. Its trebliness was counterbalanced by muddiness. In his text for Destiny Street CompleteHell says “The final mix [of the album] was a morass of trebly multi-guitar sludge.”
Even so and despite its flaws, the original Destiny Street has some power-packed moments. The version of “Going Going Gone” is poignant. “Downtown at Dawn”, “Lowest Common Dominator”,“Staring in Her Eyes” and “Time” are all superb songs, however scrambled they come across.
What’s collected for Destiny Street Complete is the original album and a version titled Destiny Street Repaired, which was issued in 2009. This was created from a cassette of the album’s rhythm tracks which were overdubbed with new guitar solos (by Bill Frisell, Marc Ribot and former Voidoid Ivan Julian) and vocals.
These are on Disc One. On Disc Two is Destiny Street Remixed: a new mix of most the original album fashioned from the three of the four original multi-track master reels (one reel has been lost). The gaps in Destiny Street Remixed are plugged by three tracks from Destiny Street Repaired.
Destiny Street Repaired is a curio, an exercise in post-fact bricolage which is neither a new album or a remake – a half-way house. The new Destiny Street Remixed is aurally more up-front and punchier than the original album but doesn’t alter perceptions about the source album’s creative shortcomings.
Another inescapable problem with the original Destiny Street is that it was released close to five years after the debut Richard Hell & The Voidoids album, October 1977’s Blank Generation. It came too late. The moment had passed. Hell was integral to the New York scene, had been in Television, then The Heartbreakers and first played live with The Voidoids in November 1976. But the forward motion of 1976 and 1977 dissipated, and momentum was lost. Thereafter – fits and starts. Hell should have made a second album in 1978 or 1979, rather than 1982 (Destiny Street was recorded in 1981).
A broad hint at what could have been a more timely second album comes with what follows Destiny Street Remixed on Disc Two. There’s the careening January 1979 UK-only “The Kid With the Replaceable Head” / “I’m Your Man” single , nine demos from July 1979 (three of which are previously unreleased) and a live track from 2004.
The demos open a window into Hell’s pre-Destiny Street world, when he was still being facilitated by former Dr Feelgood road manager and Stiff Records co-founder Jake Riviera. A Hell supporter, Riviera had seen The Heartbreakers in 1976, tried to get the newly band-less Hell to play August 1976’s Mont-de-Marsan punk rock festival with Nick Lowe, issued the “Blank Generation” single on Stiff Records and organised support slots for Hell with Elvis Costello. “The Kid With the Replaceable Head” single was on Riviera’s post-Stiff label Radar. The 1979 demos heard here were made for Riviera and could have become the ground floor of an album, but in his essay Hell says “It was clear by the end of the summer that I wasn’t going to be dependable enough to warrant Jake investing in a full-scale album. So that plan was scrapped.”
Of these nine tracks from 1979 (misleadingly credited as “Destiny Street Demos”), six have been out before: “Don’t Die” and “Time” were on the 1980 Shake label EP mentioned above; “Crack of Dawn”, “Going Going Gone”, “I Lived my Life” and “Ignore That Door” were on the 1984 cassette album R.I.P. In full, the 1979 recordings sound terrific. Coherent, kinetic and spikey, this is wonderful stuff. The previously unheard “Smitten” brings in a Gang Of Four slant. But there was no immediately ensuing album, and Destiny Street arrived three years later.
Anyone with a passing interest in this ever-intriguing figure will need the 1979 demos. They’re as essential as the “The Kid With the Replaceable Head” single. But overall, the thought-provoking Destiny Street Complete says more about Richard Hell’s urge to wrestle with his past than it does about the original Destiny Street album itself.
Hell may have saved the best for last. Disc two of this set also includes Destiny Street Demos, an essential collection of raw early recordings and singles spanning from 1978 to 1980. This stuff smokes, plain and simple; it might even be the best argument for the Voidoids as one of the finest bands to emerge out of NYC during this period. Almost all of Demos has shown up on various collections in the past, but presented as a whole here, it’s as powerful a statement as Hell and co. ever made. Worth the price of admission alone.
Richard Hell, under exclusive license to Omnivore Recordings. Released on: 22nd January 2021
Taking a break from his gig as the drummer for The Posies, multi-talented musician/producer/studio owner Frankie Siragusa “covers and rediscovers” 14 tunes that the Beatles wrote for other artists but never officially released themselves. A similar tack has been taken by numerous combos over the years—Apple Jam, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s Band and The Beatnix are a few of ’em—but there is still room for talented, Beatle-loving musicians to put their stamp on these songs.
Siragusa sings lead on six of the songs, including the gorgeous, McCartney-penned rarity “Penina” and a version of “A World Without Love” that glides along with a distinct “I’m Only Sleeping” vibe. Keith Slettedahl (The 88) sings the bulk of the rest and particularly shines on “Goodbye” and “Woman.” (He’s credited with “McCartney vocals.”) Taking one lead vocal each are the Posies’ Ken Stringfellow (on George Harrison’s funky “Sour Milk Sea”) and Roger Joseph Manning Jr. (on the boppy, poppy “I’ll Keep You Satisfied”).
The whole deal was recorded on four tracks and the thing that distinguishes it from other releases of the same ilk is that some modern-sounding instrumental touches are seamlessly incorporated into several of the songs. It’s all just Wonderful.
Half Waif, aka Nandi Rose Plunkett, released her best album yet, “The Caretaker”, last year, and now she’s revealed her first new music of 2021. She has a new 7″ due out February 24th via ANTI-Records, and she’s shared its A-side, the gorgeous, haunting “Orange Blossoms.”
“I wrote ‘Orange Blossoms’ soon after finishing The Caretaker, and in some ways, it feels like the next chapter in that story,” Nandi Rose says. “In the fall of 2019, I found myself taking care of someone close to me who was struggling with addiction, and as a caretaker often does, I internalized that immense pain and took it on as my own. It’s paralyzing, to feel so powerless when trying to help someone you love. The song came out like an incantation, a desperate plea to be rescued from wrestling with everything. But it unfolded into something more resolute as I refocused on the task of taking responsibility for myself and my own life. The song touches on a phrase that kept coming back to me at that time, which was: ‘no one’s going to do it for you.’ You can help and be helped, you can love and be loved, but salvation is your own to seek and claim.”
Kynsey digs deep with her deadpan lyrics, traversing tales of overhearing racist remarks at parties (‘Cold Blue Light’) and the whirlwind of post-break-up emotions (‘Happiness Isn’t A Fixed State’). However, when paired with her sticky, distortion-heavy blend of homemade pop, indie and electronica that echoes ‘Is This It’-era Strokes, it somehow transforms into an uplifting light at the end of the tunnel. The Dublin-based 23-year-old talks her new EP, the Irish music scene and moving beyond Strokes comparisons
Ciara Lindsey is a big fan of The Strokes, but she’ll take any compliments with a pinch of salt. We’re clearly not the first to tell Lindsey, better known as Kynsy, that the opening riff of her latest single ‘Happiness Isn’t a Fixed State’ sounds like something Julian Casablancas would be riding on the coattails of for years. She thanks us, but sticks to her guns.
“I think my melody writing has been influenced by them, which people have picked up on,” the Irish singer-songwriter says. “I try and steer away from comparison, because I have a bit of a fear of complacency. My fundamental goal is to sound as much like myself as possible, not like the Strokes. It’s great! But the goal is to make something completely new.”
The 23-year-old musician is well on her way, making genre-fluid bedroom pop you remind you of all your favourite hitmakers. There’s a bit of Talking Heads, a bit of Saint Vincent, a bit of Bowie and even a touch of Iggy Pop, but even more names crop up when you ask her. Marina and the Diamonds, Charli XCX, Dua Lipa – nothing is off limits. “Being 23 in 2020, everyone’s into a bit of everything,” she says. “There shouldn’t be many boundaries.”
The sense of freedom in Kynsy’s output can be credited to a fairly new sonic curiosity. Feeling her way through her teen years dabbling in acting and writing for the stage, things only clicked into place more recently musically. “The only thing I liked when growing up was The Beatles, because my dad’s a massive fan – but I always considered it ‘dad music’ when I was a teenager.” It took what she describes as “a total teen cliché” for her to take music seriously.
“There was a lot of stuff in the charts like Rihanna and Beyoncé which I liked, but it never really hit home. It wasn’t until l was in that awkward 15-year-old ‘didn’t know what was going on’ phase and was really depressed that my dad was like, ‘Right, here’s David Bowie.’ He could see me needing something to hold onto.”
Having found her tether, Kynsy is now raring to go. This week she releases her debut EP, full of seductive and sultry belters that grapple with tricky post-breakup sadness as much as the discomfort of overhearing racism at a New Year’s Eve party. “I was with my friends and there were these two actors we recognised. We quickly learned they weren’t nice people at all; it was really horrible to overhear someone talking like that, especially when you have a bit of status.” Those racist comments fuel the twisty, contradictory layers of explosive track ‘Cold Blue Light’ . “On this song I’m thinking, ‘I wish the world wasn’t like this, but I really hope we’ll break out and through this.”
That fire is tangible on ‘Happiness Isn’t a Fixed State’, too, where that infectious riff teases a funky bassline and a curious neo-noir tension is always building. “I’m really interested in juxtaposition and contrast and I try to put it in all my lyrics and production – even where I placed the tracks on the EP.” On ‘Things That Don’t Exist’, there’s no single agenda with the songs here; the brooding, romantic indie of ‘Elephant in the Room’ and the shiny and glitchy pop on ‘Dog Videos’ join the first two singles. Lindsey simply describes them as all having this sense of “high energy”, something the world certainly needs right now.
Royal Blood have today shared “Trouble’s Coming”, the rock duo’s first new track since releasing their 2017 album “How Did We Get So Dark?”.
Serving as a sample of the Brighton band’s forthcoming third LP, “Trouble’s Coming” adds a bit of glitz to their grit. It pulls in influences from Daft Punk and Justice, turning Royal Blood’s usually hammering sound into something much groovier. According to the band, the muscular dance floor style of the song set the groundwork for the rest of their new LP.
Said vocalist/bassist Mike Kerr in a statement,
“It was the moment something started to click — where we started playing over those much more rigid dance beats. The breakthrough was realizing that there was real common ground between that and what we’d done before. It’s that AC/DC aspect: where the quality that makes the riffs seem so cutting is because of that beat. Although on the surface we were stepping outside what we’d done before, it didn’t feel at all unnatural; it felt like we were returning to music we’d loved from the very beginning: Daft Punk, Justice, things that were really groove-orientated. It was all about the beat. It felt like familiar territory, but something we’d censored in ourselves.”
blues-rocking sons continue to stoke the fires of anticipation for their new album (due on sale 30th April) – this time with a strutting, boot-stomping groove so addictive it can’t possibly be good for you. Expect fuzz and sass by the caseload. If Josh Homme and Muse got stuck in a disco together, they’d have come up with something like this. How tasty does that sound?
C’est Karma (aka Karma Caten) describes herself as an “18 year old human being from Luxembourg making music for anyone who will listen.” The press release for ‘Fist Fight’ describes her as an “Alt-pop sorcerer” who “invites you into her fantastical world”. What intrigued me is that whilst writing ‘Fist Fight’ she was inspired by the Serbian conceptual and performance artist. As Karma cites in her blog: Artist Marina Abramović once commented on her piece Light/Dark, where she and her partner Ulay, slapped each other in the face for twenty minutes, that: “It is not the pain itself that matters. […] We were looking for a key, a way to break through the body, to open something up, which is a desire that comes from another side of truth or reality.
Being a non-violent person, Karma describes her song as being an exploration of violence and about “the conflicts everyone finds in themselves at some point in life, about the fight between reason and instinct.”
Karma is another with a distinct voice that has sweet melody and wispish charm. The young artist has been pretty busy during the pandemic releasing three singles (‘Fist Fight’, ‘Pool Party’ and ‘Industrial Salt’) then the EP “Farbfilm” which features all of these plus 2 more tracks.
‘Fist Fight’ is her most pop-esque and bombastic track with up and downs, stops and starts– it’s where I met her and the song I like best. But all tracks have integrity and important stories to tell even if they are a slower burn. Looking forward to see what she does next.
Amanda Shires and Jason Isbell performed “The Problem” on `The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon’ this past Friday, January 22nd, 2021.
“The Problem,” featuring Isbell, was released last year to critical praise on International Safe Abortion Day, with proceeds benefitting The Yellowhammer Fund in Alabama. The Tonight Show performance coincided with two important events: The release of a new version of “Our Problem” featuring a variety of world-renowned female artists including Cyndi Lauper, Angie Stone, K.Flay, Lilly Hiatt, Linda Perry, Morgane Stapleton, Nona Hendryx, Peaches and Valerie June. Sheryl Crow is on bass, Isbell is on guitar, with Peter Levin on keys and Chris Powell on drums.
“I’m very grateful to have so many of my sisters joining me for ‘Our Problem.’ The issue of women’s rights and reproductive health affects us all. ‘Our Problem’ represents women of all generations, musical genres, and communities. Music has the power to bridge gaps and bring people together and I hope that ‘Our Problem’ reminds you that we are all in this world together and that we can be there for one another no matter what. You are never alone and I’m on your side.”
The other event was the anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade decision which gives women in America the right to legal abortion. To help mark this special collaboration, Shires has created an “I’m On Your Side” filter accessible on her Instagram page. She is inviting fans to send in videos of themselves singing or lip syncing “Our Problem,” which she will cut together into a full video.
Gena Johnson: background vocals Jennifer Decilveo: additional production (vocals and synth) Musicians: Sheryl Crow – Bass Jason Isbell – Guitar Peter Levin – Keys Chris Powell – Drums
The final album from Be-Bop Deluxe, “Drastic Plastic”, is getting an expanded release. The 1978 recording is receiving a newly re-mastered, limited edition, 6-disc deluxe (naturally) boxed set (comprising four CDs and two NTSC – Region Free DVDs), including 43 previously unreleased tracks. The set arrives March 5th, 2021, via Cherry Red Records.
“Drastic Plastic” was recorded in the summer of 1978 in the south of France utilizing the Rolling Stones’ mobile studio, with final sessions taking place at The Manor Studio and Abbey Road Studios. The record saw Bill Nelson (vocals, guitars, keyboards), Charles Tumahai (bass, vocals), Andy Clark (keyboards) and Simon Fox (drums) venture into new musical styles, with the album being ground-breaking in its move to more art rock and new wave influences.
Co-produced by Nelson and John Leckie, the English progressive rock band’s Drastic Plastic featured such songs as “Electrical Language,” “Panic in the World,” “New Mysteries,” “Islands of the Dead” and “Surreal Estate.” The recording sessions produced many more tracks which would appear as singles and others that were originally planned for release as an EP set, all of which eventually appeared on the retrospective compilation The Best of & the Rest of, later that year.
This expanded deluxe reissue has been newly re-mastered from the original master tapes and features an additional 88 tracks, drawn from new 5.1 surround sound and stereo mixes from the original multi-track tapes by award winning engineer Stephen W. Tayler, previously unreleased out-takes from the album sessions, a BBC Radio John Peel Show session from January 1978, along with a CD of Nelson’s previously unreleased demos for the album, A Feeling of Playing.
Also included is an additional DVD featuring Be-Bop Deluxe in the south of France, (a collection of Bill Nelson’s 8mm home movies shot while recording Drastic Plastic) and the band’s “Sight & Sound in Concert” performance for BBC TV from 1978.
“Drastic Plastic” (1978 album; remastered four-CD, two-DVD box set, featuring an additional 88 tracks, 43 of which are previously unreleased, drawn from new 5.1 surround sound and stereo mixes from the original multi-track tapes by engineer Stephen W. Tayler, etc.; Expanded & Remastered Edition, two CDs; Esoteric Recordings / Cherry Red)
The boxed set includes a lavishly illustrated 68-page book with many previously unseen photographs and an essay of recollections by Nelson. The set includes postcards and a replica poster.
The set arrives March 5th, 2021, via Cherry Red Records.
To call an album a group’s third best would usually be faint praise, but not where The Band is concerned: 1970’s “Stage Fright” arguably ranks slightly behind its two predecessors in their catalogue, but that’s only because those earlier records are their classic Music from Big Pink debut and their even better eponymous sophomore LP. In this group’s discography, third best is still good enough to put an album on a par with the finest releases of its era. It’s worth noting, moreover, that “Stage Fright” actually did better on the charts than either of the two earlier records.
Like those previous LPs, the self-produced Stage Fright sounds rooted in a mythic version of rural southern America (though all but one of the Band’s members were Canadian): if they’d had rock music in the South in the 1800s, it might have sounded a lot like this.
By the time The Band came to record their third album, in May 1970, expectations were high. They had already been Bob Dylan’s backing group and then broken out on their own to play an integral role in changing the direction of American music with their 1968 masterpiece, “Music From Big Pink”, and its self-titled follow-up. Judging by its title, Stage Fright suggested the group knew they’d have even more to prove. On February 12th, 2021, Capitol/UMe Records will celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Band’s classic third album, Stage Fright, with a suite of newly remixed, remastered and expanded 50th Anniversary Edition packages, including a multi-format Super Deluxe 2CD/Blu-ray/1LP/7-inch vinyl box set photo booklet; digital, 2CD, 180-gram black vinyl, and limited edition 180-gram color vinyl packages. All the Anniversary Edition releases were overseen by principal songwriter Robbie Robertson and boast a new stereo mix by Bob Clearmountain from the original multi-track masters.
Released on August 17th, 1970, “Stage Fright” features two of The Band’s best-known songs, “The Shape I’m In” and the title track, both of which showcased inspired lead vocal performances by Manuel and Danko, respectively, and became staples in the group’s live shows. Recorded over 12 days on the stage of the Woodstock Playhouse, the album was self-produced by The Band for the first time and engineered and mixed by Todd Rundgren with additional mixing by Glyn Johns.
For the first time, the album is being presented in the originally planned song order. The boxed set, CD and digital configurations feature a bevy of unreleased recordings, including “Live at the Royal Albert Hall, June 1971″, a thrilling full concert captured in the midst of their European tour.
The new set also includes alternate versions of “Strawberry Wine” and “Sleeping”; and seven unearthed field recordings, Calgary Hotel Recordings, 1970, an impromptu late-night hotel jam session between Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko and Richard Manuel of several “Stage Fright” songs recorded while the album was in the mixing stage.
As a gesture to the residents of Woodstock – who had endured some of the problems of living in a town that played home to famous musicians – The Band offered to record “Stage Fright” in a private town concert. The proposal was rejected by the local council and so the group recorded the album at the Woodstock Playhouse, without an audience. Young engineer Todd Rundgren was in charge of the acoustics, and guitarist/vocalist Robbie Robertson said, “It turned out to be an interesting acoustical thing because you could perform with the curtain closed and it would give you this dry sound and if you opened the curtain you got the sound of the house in there.”
Though The Band had privacy to be creative, the anxieties of fame and celebrity are evident in the themes of fear and alienation that permeate Stage Fright, which was released on 17th August 1970.
The songs are more personal than those of their first two albums, and an undoubted highlight is the title track, a candid song about Robertson’s struggle with stage fright. He turns his fears about performing for an audience into a universal lament. Robertson said, “In ‘Stage Fright’ a lot of stuff I was trying to hold in was starting to creep out.” Bassist and fiddle player Rick Danko takes lead vocals on the song and delivers a powerful performance, ably supported by Garth Hudson’s fluent organ playing.
Stage Fright continued to highlight The Band’s virtuosity. Hudson also played electric piano, accordion, and tenor and baritone saxophones on the record, while Levon Helm played drums, guitar and percussion (and sang lead vocals on four songs), and Richard Manuel played piano, organ, drums and clavinet.
All that instrumental talent, together with Manuel’s skill as a singer, came together on ‘Sleeping’, a Robertson-Manuel composition that blends rock and jazz inflections into a ruminative gem.
That pairing also co-wrote ‘Just Another Whistle Stop’, which races along in zestful Band style, while the mood darkens again on ‘The Shape I’m In’ and the catchy ‘The WS Walcott Medicine Show’. The bleak ‘Daniel And The Sacred Harp’ is a parable about a musician selling his soul: “The moment of truth is right at hand/Just one more nightmare you can stand.” Robertson, who wrote the song, said he was trying to convey how helpless and vulnerable things seemed for the musicians at the time.
Helm sings tenderly on Robertson’s poignant lullaby of ‘All La Glory’, which he wrote for his child. Hudson’s graceful accordion playing brings out the best from moving lyrics, while ‘The Rumour’, one of seven songs Robertson is credited with writing solo, is another strong offering.
In their 1970 review, Rolling Stone magazine called the album “elusive”. Indeed, “Stage Fright” has the uncertainty of a record made at a time when the bonds between the band members were being tested by personal and professional frictions. However, as a piece of music it stands the test of time.
“It was a dark album,” Helm admitted later. “And an accurate reflection of our group’s collective psychic weather. We all realised something was wrong, that things were beginning to slide.”
The public loved it, however. Stage Fright reached a career-best position of No.5 in the album charts and went gold after selling more than half a million copies.
Exclusively for the boxed set, Clearmountain has also created a new 5.1 surround mix and a hi-res stereo mix of the album, bonus tracks and the live show, presented on Blu-ray. All the new audio mixes have been mastered by Bob Ludwig at Gateway Mastering. The set also includes an exclusive reproduction of the Spanish pressing of The Band’s 1971 7-inch vinyl single for “Time To Kill” b/w “The Shape I’m In” in their new stereo mixes and a photo booklet with new notes by Robbie Robertson and touring photographer John Scheele, who recorded the Calgary HotelRecordings; plus a reprinting of the original Los Angeles Times album review by critic Robert Hilburn; three classic photo lithographs; and photographs from Scheele and several other photographers.
The new collection includes many previously unreleased live recordings.
