The Grays were a short-lived rock band comprising singer/songwriters/multi-instrumentalists JonBrion, Jason Falkner, Buddy Judge, and Dan McCarroll. They released only one album, the out-of-print but highly regarded Ro Sham Bo (1994) on Sony/Epic Records.
In 1993, former Til Tuesday touring member Jon Brion and guitarist Jason Falkner, fresh from his tenure in Jellyfish, got together with a couple of other musician buddies (Buddy Judge and Dan McCarroll) and crafted one of the definitive power-pop classics of that decade as The Grays.
Falkner who had just come out of a tumultuous period with the band Jellyfish. The band members would often swap instruments depending on the need of the individual song and would contribute to each other’s songs
Out of print forever and never pressed on vinyl, this expanded edition of the band’s sole LP, “Ro Sham Bo”, contains two bonus tracks from the original recording sessions, and is limited to 1,300 copies for Record Store Day. Don’t be surprised if this one’s gone within the first hour of shops opening their doors.
The band released its first and only album “Ro Sham Bo! on February 22nd, 1994, on Epic Records.
Definitely one of the greatest blues compilations ever, the list of contributors is jaw dropping, Tom Waits, Lucinda Williams, Rickie Lee Jones, the Cowboy Junkies among others covering the brilliant songs of Blind Willie Johnson…The album was funded via a Kickstarter campaign that featured cigar box guitars made of wood from Willie Johnson’s 1920s/1930s Marlin, Texas, home that he shared with wife Willie BHarris. These ten unique folk instruments are individually numbered and collectively known as the Blind Pilgrim Collection. The album “Reflects the enduring, mercurial influence of the artist, but also the weight the Christian gospel imposes on questions of the human condition as it encounters suffering, joy, mercy, loneliness, death, and resurrection.” The Press praised the album saying “Producer Jeffrey Gaskill’s able guidance has resulted in 11 stirring renditions which replicated the soul of the songs not just the sounds.
Willie Johnson wrote a lot of good songs and a lot more people have heard of him because of this. His memory and his songwriting deserve to be heard,
Tracklist 0:00 A1 –Tom Waits The Soul Of A Man 3:29 A2 –Lucinda Williams It’s Nobody’s Fault But Mine 7:24 A3 –Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi Keep Your Lamp Trimmed And Burning 10:36 A4 –Cowboy Junkies Jesus Is Coming Soon 14:53 A5 –The Blind Boys Of Alabama Mother’s Children Have A Hard Time 19:35 A6 –Sinéad O’Connor Trouble Will Soon Be Over 22:54 B1 –Luther Dickinson, The Rising Star Fife and Drum Band Bye And Bye I’m Going To See The King 26:49 B2 –Lucinda Williams God Don’t Never Change 31:13 B3 –Tom Waits John The Revelator 34:04 B4 –Maria McKee Let Your Light Shine On Me 38:02 B5 –Rickie Lee Jones Dark Was The Night—Cold Was The Ground
Bruce Springsteen performed “Because the Night,” the 1978 Top 20 hit he co-wrote with Patti Smith, at “People Have the Power: A Celebration of Patti Smith,” the tribute concert that took place tonight at Carnegie Hall in New York.
You can watch, below, a video of the performance, at which Springsteen was backed by Tony Shanahan (of Smith’s band) and Charlie Sexton on guitars, Flea (of The Red Hot Chili Peppers) on bass, Benmont Tench (of Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers) on piano, and Steve Jordan (the current Rolling Stones touring drummer) on drums.
“We love ya, Patti,” said Springsteen, after taking the stage. “Patti gave me this big hit, right here, I’m about to sing. If I had sung this song, it would not have been a hit. It needed her voice, and her incredible lyrics, so Patti, I have to thank you, so dearly, for our one big hit together. Thank you, darling.”
I will add more details from the show — which included a surprise appearance by Johnny Depp — when they become available.
The show was part of an annual series of tribute concerts that raise money for music education. Michael Stipe, Jesse Malin, Courtney Barnett, Ben Harper and Susanna Hoffs were among the many other artists scheduled to perform, with Scarlett Johansson, Michael Shannon, Jim Jarmusch and Sean Penn reading Smith’s poetry.
Patti Smith herself sang “People Have the Power,” with Springsteen, Lenny Kaye, and many of the evening’s performers.
Another set of two great songs by Cat Stevens, performed LIVE from the Saturnight concert in Tokyo, 1974. As most fans know, this album is rarely available on CD yet, only on vinyl. It was only released in Japan for raising money for UNICEF. The 50th anniversary of Cat Stevens’ classic live album, “Saturnight (Cat Stevens Live In Tokyo)”.
Originally issued by A&M Records only in Japan, and following its Record Store Day Black Friday 2024 release on 180g coloured vinyl, the album is now available on limited-edition 140g lava splatter vinyl and is packaged for the first time in a gatefold sleeve, which features lyrics and new retrospective notes by Hallam Kite, tour manager Carl Miller, and bass player Bruce Lynch.
Recorded at Nakano Sun Plaza in Tokyo on June 22nd, 1974, on the Japanese leg of the Bamboozle Tour that supported the release of “Buddha and the Chocolate Box”, Saturnight was Cat Stevens’ first live album. Also included is a soulful cover of Sam Cooke’s “Another Saturday Night.” Stevens and his band were fresh from recording the song at a studio in Tokyo using a Japanese brass section – the very same version that would go on to become a hit single later that year. The performance on “Saturnight” captures the first time they ever played “Another Saturday Night” live.
“Saturnight” includes many of his greatest hits from the early ‘70s such as “Wild World,” “Where Do The Children Play?” “Hard Headed Woman,” “Father & Son,” “Peace Train,” “Bitterblue,” “Sitting” and “Oh Very Young.”
Stevens arranged for the proceeds to be donated to UNICEF. He had recently become a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, and with their help, had visited Ethiopia and Kenya earlier in 1974. There, he saw firsthand some of the utter devastation caused by drought and famine, but also witnessed the remarkable resilience and nobility of the human spirit. The experience moved him profoundly and had a truly lasting impact on his life and career, so much so that his humanitarian efforts would soon overtake his personal musical ambitions.
Yusuf / Cat Stevens’ little known 1974 concert album, “Saturnight: Live From Tokyo”, will be released in the U.S. in multiple formats for the first time ever, more than 50 years after it was originally released only in Japan, The record has been remastered from the original production master at Abbey Road Studios and will be available on CD and vinyl on May 2nd, 2025, via Cat-O-Log Records/UMe.
Inspired entirely by the life and mythos of actor Dennis Hopper, Mike Scott and The Waterboys created this expansive album as tribute to one of American popular culture’s most compelling public figures. Deeply conceptual, this album of all original songs brings together high-profile featured artists like Bruce Springsteen, Fiona Apple, and Steve Earle to musically weave through Hopper’s life, including a song for each of Hopper’s wives. The Waterboys’ Mike Scott wrote the band’s new single, but it’s Fiona Apple singing and playing on the recording.
The album also features Fiona Apple, and she’s on the latest single, “Letter From An Unknown Girlfriend.” It was written by Mike Scott, but it’s Fiona singing and playing piano on the recording, which is raw, powerful, and a real treat to hear. In 2019, Fiona covered The Waterboys’ “The Whole of the Moon” for the series finale of The Affair.
Fiona also features on a new Bridge School benefit compilation covering Neil Young, though we haven’t heard her contribution, a rendition of “Heart of Gold,” yet.
The Waterboys‘s new “Life, Death And Dennis Hopper” is about the titular actor, director, and they tapped a bunch of artists to contribute to it, including Bruce Springsteen, Steve Earle, The Go-Go’s Kathy Valentine, Dawes’ Taylor Goldsmith, and more.
Peter Murphy has unveiled another track off his new album “Silver Shade”, The Bauhaus frontman new album arrives on May 9th, and he’s given us another early taste with “The Artroom Wonder,” which features TOOL bassist Justin Chancellor. It’s another dark, driving slice of synth-funk, and Murphy says it’s “an echo from my fourth year at senior school. Daniel Ash and I are listening to the mysterious sixth-year cool intelligentsia that have gathered in the artroom. We have dared to enter their conclave, and the music coming from it was intriguing. We discover that the song being played is ‘The Bewlay Brothers,’ highly intelligent, mystical and sensual, with the singer’s voice as seductive as anyone I’d ever heard.”
“‘The Artroom Wonder’” has a surreal approach, telling the story in my typical oblique style, including the description of a lowdown that leads into an evocation of the perfected human being, the Prophet Muhammad (may peace be upon him),” Murphy adds. “The final verse celebrates my own self-advancing and position on this.”
“Silver Shade” was produced by Youth of Killing Joke, and is due out on May 9th via Metropolis Records.
Alaska Reid and Dylan Fraser have shared another track off their debut EP “Beast” as Witch Post. Their cryptic statement about the song reads, “Last night I left a big, raw soup bone at the end of the driveway with a note underneath. This morning the bone is gone and all that is left is shredded paper covered in pinkish slobber. I walk with a friend and we speak about it all; the note, the bone, the feeling that I had been harbouring in my gut that I needed to make contact. A few weeks back, I had pieced together the mystery of why neighbours’ small dogs would go missing once a month, or trash cans would be tipped over, slashed with claw marks. It’s all connected to those lonesome long howls that irritate people on moonlit nights.
To me it’s music. I saw his eyes once before, after a late night coming home. Now I can’t stop looking for those two silver moons glinting deep in the bushes. I know we have to speak. I will try again soon, maybe with fruit this time…”
“Rust” is out now!, We started Witch Post a year ago. We were both hesitant as we have solo careers but so far it’s as if a kind of magic pushed us to do it. We’re from thousands of miles apart and the whole thing is very strange. Alaska kissed a witch post, Dylan found mermaid tears and visited in MT (and really rallied for this whole thing). Anyway, the story is in the song — winter solstice approaches, here is “Rust” for your hibernation.
Beach Bunny announced their third album and shared the title track, “Tunnel Vision“, due out April 25th via AWAL Records. It follows 2022’s “Emotional Creature” and they recorded it with producer Sean O’Keefe, returning to a guitar-centric sound after using synths and samplers on “Emotional Creature”. .
The album features their 2024 singles “Clueless” and “Vertigo,” and they’ve shared the bouncy title track. Bertie Gilbert directed the accompanying video, Beach Bunny will be on tour soon.
Taken from Beach Bunny’s third album, “Tunnel Vision2, is out next month, and they’ve given us another early taste with “Big Pink Bubble.” Lili Trifilio directed the accompanying video, which references Pleasantville and Twin Peaks.
Beach Bunny’s new album “Tunnel Vision” is coming April 25th!
Ethel Cain found unlikely pop fandom with “Preacher’s Daughter“, her 2022 debut album, thanks to its emotional dirges and heavy lyrics. Instead of turning toward catchier choruses, Cain subverts expectations entirely with her atmosphere and moody new album, “Perverts“. Written, recorded, and produced entirely by Cain and led by “Punish,” “Perverts” consists of sprawling drone songs, languid ambient music, and soft-spoken—if spoken at all—slowcore tracks that stay intentionally shrouded. For the immersive experience, consider listening at night.
It would be natural to view “Perverts2, the daring follow-up to Ethel Cain’s 2022 breakout “Preacher’s Daughter”, as a response to, and rejection of, everything about success that might register as noise, not least because it was accompanied by a Tumblr post entitled ‘The Consequence of Audience’. “Preacher’s Daughter” amassed a fervent following, and “Perverts” no doubt poses a challenge to the segment of Cain’s audience that has trouble engaging with the artist’s persona in the absence of unambiguous lore and soaring melodies. Yet the 90-minute project – promotional materials variously refer to it as a “body of work” or even an “EP,” so yes, technically not an album – does not feel like a departure so much as an opportunity for Hayden Anhedönia to home in on the esoteric darkness she holds a deep reverence for, the eerie dissonance and muffled silences that were seen tangential rather than core to her song writing.
Ethel Cain started the year by releasing the mostly ambient/noise/drone “Perverts”, and she’s now announced another follow up album! “Willoughby Tucker, I Will Always Love You”, which she’s calling her sophomore album, is due out in August, and a press release describes it as a prequel to “Preacher’s Daughter”. .
Ethel has also announced a tour for the album, beginning with a North American run in August and September, and followed by shows in Europe and the UK in October and November. She’ll be joined by Toronto shoegazers 9million for the shows, featuring her collaborator Matthew Tomasi, and she calls them “the greatest band to ever do it.”
The Fat Angel Sings 