Unreleased David Bowie concert tapes will be dusted off after 45 years in the vault and released for Record Store Day 2020, Parlophone has announced. “I’m Only Dancing (The Soul Tour 74)” puts the spotlight on the period between Diamond Dogs and Young Americans as Bowie began embracing the sounds of Philadelphia and emerged with a new reconfigured group, new stage design, and new songs to perform.
The 2-LP or 2-CD set draws from recently discovered tapes of performances at the Michigan Palace in Detroit, recorded in October ’74, and Nashville’s Municipal Auditorium the following month. The setlist covers the full range of his career to date, including tracks that would eventially be released on Young Americans, plus songs from Space Oddity/David Bowie, Hunky Dory, ZiggyStardust, Pin Ups, Diamond Dogs, and a handful of covers. The music has been sourced from the best available tapes and while the press release notes that the tapes at times sound their age, the quality never detracts from the performances and the historical significance of these recordings outweighs any possible sonic imperfections.
I’m Only Dancing – Taken from recently discovered sources in The David Bowie Archive, “I’m Only Dancing (The Soul Tour 74)” was recorded mostly during David’s performance at the Michigan Palace, Detroit on 20th October, 1974, with the encores taken from the Municipal Auditorium, Nashville on 30th November, 1974.
The Soul Tour was a radical mid-tour departure from Bowie’s 1974 Diamond Dogs theatrical extravaganza. During a three week break in late 1974, the Diamond Dogs Tour’s elaborate six-ton Hunger City stage set was drastically stripped back, and the tour’s set list overhauled to include as-yet-unreleased tracks from the Young Americans sessions at Sigma Sound in Philadelphia. The Soul Tour also featured a revamped band, augmented to include musicians and vocalists from those sessions, and rechristened The Mike Garson Band.
I’m Only Dancing (The Soul Tour 74) follows on from the previous Record Store Day 2 LP release Cracked Actor (Live Los Angeles ’74) and is an incredible historical document of a performer and band at the height of their live powers. The artwork for both the 2 LP and 2 CD releases is based on the original design for the programmes available at venues for dates on The Soul Tour. The Soul Tour has taken a on mythical status among Bowie fans, as the tour only visited 17 cities in the East and South of US. This is the first time that any audio from this incarnation of the tour has ever been officially released.
You’ll only be able to find this set at your favourite brick-and-mortar shop as part of the Record Store Day celebrations. And, don’t forget, you can also pick up CHANGESNOWBOWIE, a 1996 acoustic radio show .
The Band:
David Bowie – Vocals, 12 string acoustic guitar, harmonica
Earl Slick – Guitar
Carlos Alomar – Guitar
Mike Garson – Piano, Mellotron
David Sanborn – Alto sax, flute
Pablo Rosario – Percussion
Emir Ksasan – Bass
Dennis Davis – Drums
Warren Peace, Anthony Hinton, Luther Vandross, Ava Cherry, Robin Clark and Diane Sumler – Backing vocals
Iggy Pop turned 73years of age on Tuesday and he celebrated by unearthing a cover of the Sly and the Family Stone classic “Family Affair” that he recorded with funk icon Bootsy Collins back in 1985. “I’ve always loved this song; it came out when I was kinda on the ropes in 1971,” Iggy told the BBC. “There’s a lot of truth in it, especially in the second verse, about all sorts of questions that are coming around again now.”
The song has sat in his archive for the past 35 years. “Then one day recently things had quietened down in daily life for everybody and for me, too, and I listened to it by accident,” he said. “It just made me feel good and it was good company and I hoped that I could put it out and it would be company for somebody else, too.”
Pop’s most recent record, 2019’s Free, is a mellow, jazzy collection of songs he created in collaboration with trumpeter Leron Thomas and guitarist Sarah “Noveller” Lipstate. “The only difference from this Iggy and the one who founded theStooges is the album’s jazzy horns, synthy backdrops, and greater emphasis on Sinatra-style crooning,”
To all Poptimists! “[this track] made me feel good and it was good company and I hoped I could put it out and it would be good company for someone else too” Featuring: Bootsy Collins on bass
Recorded and engineered by Olivier Ferrand, Studio Los Angeles Produced & Mixed by Bill Laswell
Protomartyr are back with news of their fifth album Ultimate Success Today, and have shared the lead single “Processed By The Boys”. the first single from Protomartyr since re-releasing their debut LP No Passion All Techniquelast year.
Ultimate Success Today will be Protomartyr’s first set of new songs since 2017’s Relatives in Descent. They recorded it at Dreamland Recording Studios in upstate New York. It’s co-produced by the band and David Tolomei (Dirty Projectors, Beach House), Guest contributions on the record include Nandi Rose, aka Half Waif (vocals), Jemeel Moondoc (alto sax), Izaak Mills (bass clarinet, sax, flute), and Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello).
Lead vocalist Joe Casey says of their forthcoming album, “The re-release of our first album had me thinking about the passage of time and its ultimate conclusion. Listening to No Passion All Technique again, I could hear myself hoping for an introduction and a long future, but also being cognizant that it could be ‘one and done’ for us. So, when it came time to write Ultimate Success Today, I was reminded of that first urgency and how it was an inverse of my current grapple with how terribly ill I’ve been feeling lately. Was that sick feeling colouring how I felt about the state of the world or was it the other way around?” . Casey adds, “This panic was freeing in a way. It allowed me to see our fifth album as a possible valediction of some confusingly loud five-act play. In the same light I see it as an interesting mile marker of our first decade of being a band – a crest of the hill along a long highway. Although just to cover my bases, I made sure to get my last words in while I still had the breath to say them.
The new single arrives with a video directed by David Allen, and is inspired by a clip of a Brazillian TV presenter being trolled by a puppet.
Protomartyr – “Processed By The Boys”, taken from ‘Ultimate Success Today’, out May 29th, 2020.
A stunning snapshot of the Tunnel Of Love Express Tour in its purest form, Detroit 28/3/88 serves as a showcase for the album’s key songs including “Two Faces,” “All That Heaven Will Allow, “Spare Parts,” “Brilliant Disguise,” “Tougher Than The Rest, “One Step Up,” the title track and most notably the first live archive release of “Walk Like A Man.” The 30-song set also features a cover of Elvis Presley’s “Love Me Tender” and the “Detroit Medley,” plus a bonus soundcheck performance of “Reason To Believe,” a song which never appeared in a Tunnel show.
The 1988 Tunnel of Love Express Tour was marked by material changes to the Springsteen concert baseline in place from 1978-1985. The band changed on-stage positions, setlist warhorses like “Badlands” and “Thunder Road” took a breather, and Bruce drafted in a horn section for the first time since 1977. But the true differentiator separating the ’88 tour from every other is its original narrative arc. A Tunnel performance was a blend of song selections, sequencing, and even on-stage elements that took the audience on a journey through the complex and nuanced world of adulthood and relationships: romantic, fraternal, and familial.
Bruce started Tunnel shows with an invitation along the lines of, “Are you ready to ride?” The visual metaphor on stage was that of an amusement park, implying a night of thrills, chills, and spills. Marketing for the tour intoned “This is not a dark ride,” but as Bruce wrote in “Tunnel of Love,” “the house is haunted and the ride gets rough.” Does it ever.
The Tunnel set, in story and song, explored adult life’s emotional ups and downs and the hard questions that arise when you recognize being in a deep committed relationship requires acknowledging your doubts and vulnerabilities. At the time, the tour’s setlist rigidity raised eyebrows from longtime fans, though it did loosen up as the tour wore on. But in hindsight, the initial core setlist in the tour’s first several weeks can be seen one of Bruce’s most fully realized artistic visions. Detroit 3/28/88 captures the Tunnel of Love Express Tour in its purest form.
The first set in Detroit borders on perfection, opening with a stellar version of “Tunnel of Love” into “Be True,” the latter released as a live b-side from this performance. The River-era selection serves as a showcase for the Big Man, Clarence Clemons, who was at the top of his game on the tour and blows “Be True” beautifully. Patti Scialfa’s vocals are also on point.
The resurrection of “Adam Raised a Cain” for the first time since the Darkness tour is a long-awaited return, especially with the Tunnel of Love Horns adding heft to the performance and Bruce’s guitar pushed to the fore. In terms of familial relationships, “Adam” is one end of a father-son thread that will come back later in the show with “Walk Like a Man.” But before that there is other provocative ground to cover: introspection (“Two Faces”), companionship (“All That Heaven Will Allow”), oppressive outside forces (“Seeds,” “Roulette”), shelter from those storms (“Cover Me”), self-doubt (“Brilliant Disguise”), a mother’s doubt (“Spare Parts”), and lastly the lingering impact of the Vietnam War (“War,” “Born In the U.S.A.”).
The sequencing of the set is so strong that the transitions between tracks are as memorable as the songs themselves. “Tunnel” gives way to the soaring “Be True.” “Roulette” ends but “Cover Me” rises from the mist in the same key. The haunting keyboards that end “Cover Me” flow straight into “Brilliant Disguise.” Every song change has been thought through and rehearsed, or in some cases newly written. The stirring piano and synthesizer suite that serves as the music bed to the introduction of “Spare Parts” is one of my favourite musical elements of the entire tour, cinematic in scope and poignant in expression. Kudos Mr. Bittan and Mr. Federici. The set ends with a brilliant “Born in the U.S.A.,” again showing that 1988 versions of the song are the most potent, driven by Bruce’s additional lyrics and storming guitar solo.
“Tougher Than the Rest” opens the second set on a majestic note and reminds us of its place among the very best songs Bruce has ever written. After a foray into longing via “Ain’t Got You” and “She’s the One,” the mood lightens with the playful and self-effacing “You Can’t Look (But You Better Not Touch)” and Geno Washington cover-turned-original (and ’88 tour exclusive) “I’m a Coward.” The pairing of “I’m on Fire” with “One Step Up” is a trip into a particular male psyche, perhaps even the same character at two different stages of life.
“Part Man, Part Monkey” offers a humorous take on animal instincts before the overall narrative arc reaches its dénouement with “Walk Like a Man,” revisiting the father and son from “Adam Raised a Cain.” The resplendently detailed yet understated arrangement is augmented by horns and shows off the band’s vocal chops, too. Bruce’s singing stays true to the original, and there’s a real power in the sincerity of his performance.
The set ends with “Light of Day,” in a less refined, more exploratory form than later versions in ‘88. In fact, rather than bring closure, this “Light of Day” seems more a celebration of uncharted waters — the line that really stands out now, “Don’t ask me what I’m doing buddy, I don’t know,” lands like an overall commentary on the narrative that preceded it. Standouts in the encore include “Love Me Tender,” which teeters on wedding band territory until you realize that Bruce is singing the hell out of it, and a free-flowing “Detroit Medley,” with Bruce calling out key changes and the band showing off their turn-on-a-dime prowess. The medley features “Sweet Soul Music,” which gives La Bamba & Co. one of the all-time great horn parts to chew on.
For dessert, we’re treated to the second soundcheck bonus track in the live archive series, “Reason to Believe.” While Tunnel of Love setlists had fewer variants than a typical Springsteen tour, 1988 soundchecks were often wide-ranging affairs, loaded with cover songs (some of which eventually found their way into the set) and other material. As cool as those covers could be, “Reason To Believe” is even more compelling.
The song regularly featured on the Born in the U.S.A. tour but was dropped when the show moved to stadiums. Here, Bruce and the band test drive a moody, horn-accented arrangement that is reminiscent of what they would do with Woody Guthrie’s “Vigilante Man” two months later at Madison Square Garden. Springsteen’s vocals and harp are resolute, the music swampy, and the end product a beguiling alternative take on one of Springsteen’s best and, as later versions attest most mutable songs. Highs, lows, pathos, comedy, sin, redemption—the Tunnel of Love Express tour had it all, and on stage in Detroit, Bruce shared as much of himself in these rich, satisfying performances as he would do three decades later on Broadway.
Thanks Erik Flanagan
Bruce Springsteen – Lead vocals, guitar, harmonica; Roy Bittan – Piano, keyboards; Clarence Clemons – Tenor and baritone saxophones, percussion, backing vocal; Danny Federici – Organ, glockenspiel, keyboards; accordion; Nils Lofgren – Guitars, backing vocal; Patti Scialfa – Guitar, percussion, backing vocal; Garry Tallent – Bass; Max Weinberg – Drums
Additional musicians: Mario Cruz – Tenor saxophone, backing vocal; Ed Manion – Baritone saxophone, backing vocal; Mark Pender – Trumpet, backing vocal; Richie “La Bamba” Rosenberg – Trombone, backing vocal; Mike Spengler – Trumpet, backing vocal
When Anna Burch introduced herself on her 2018 debut Quit the Curse, it was with a concentrated wash of energetic, serotonin-boosting pop. Jangly guitars, blithe vocal harmonies and an occasional undercurrent of grungy fuzz all converged in seemingly straightforward songs that hid their complexities under sunny hooks. The impact of the songs was immediate and exciting, presenting narratives of confusion and upheaval with melodies so bright it was hard to do anything but smile. Two years later, Burch’s follow up “If You’re Dreaming” takes us down a different path than its predecessor, shedding some nervous energy in favor of a deeper exploration of an internal world.
After months on the road in support of Quit the Curse, Burch disappeared for a while. The long stretches of touring had been broken up by only a few weeks off here and there, and a month spent writing in Berlin between European dates. The time she did get to spend at home in Detroit was disrupted by several unexpected housing changes, adding to the transient feelings brought on by constant touring. When things finally stabilized, Burch encamped into a slow, thoughtful and intentional writing process for what would become the second album. Days were spent playing guitar, exploring unconventional chord changes, ruminating on song structures and allowing her subconscious to wander until lyrics materialized. Though about half of the songs were already written, this time was dedicated to taking a closer look at the loose ends of three years of ideas and seeing if there were common threads that held them together.
If You’re Dreaming was tracked with producer Sam Evian in his home studio in the Catskill mountains of upstate New York. Where the first album had been a rush of inspired songwriting followed by a drawn-out process of arrangement and mixing, Burch and Evian worked with self-imposed time limitations to establish a sharper focus and get to the core of the new songs. The work was swift but somehow more relaxed, locking into a groove of tracking the basic elements and then expanding on the arrangements with overdubs and auxiliary instrumentation. The end goal was to present not just an assortment of new songs, but craft an album that moved dynamically through an interconnected emotional arc.
With recurring themes of isolation, weariness and longing, these songs deliver that emotional arc with a delicate but uncompromising execution. Burch’s intrinsically catchy songwriting dials down the urgency of her debut a notch, taking a turn towards airy, jazz-voiced chords, floating reverb and an expansion of the sonic palate with unexpected instrumentation. The soft-rock bass grooves and understated saxophone lines of “Not So Bad” push an impressive pop structure into exciting new territory, and the sweetly melancholic “Tell Me What’s True” centers around muted electric piano, its languid but metered vibe recalling the gentler side of Carole King.
The nuance of arrangements that could sometimes get buried on Quit the Curse rises to the surface on patient, opulent tunes like “Every Feeling” and in the twelve-string guitar hooks of “Party’s Over.” The album drifts dreamily as much as it hones in with a sharper clarity on some of Burch’s most personal songs.
Even at its most introverted, If You’re Dreaming is always warm and present. It’s a deliberately drawn chapter of Burch’s work, trading in the wild-eyed and sometimes neurotic party hopping of Quit the Curse for a more solitary walk after midnight. Daring and clear-headed, these songs cut deeper in their subtleties. If You’re Dreaming moves with intention, taking its time revealing new layers of sophistication and growth in Burch’s always charming songcraft.
“Fox,” the first single from their debut album, Dogleg devastate listeners with a heart wrenching take on losing touch, with a song that’s thrives on leaving blood on the page. The band, who are expected to release their debut album next Spring, they take a power pop approach and then distort the hell out of it. While the feelings of loss and confusion could resonate with anyone, few artists could deliver a song on the subject with as much energy as Dogleg.
Along with the high energy video, “Fox” rips with an epic level of engagement that most modern pop-punk lacks. The song puts an emphasis on intensity, but it also has the dynamics of an early Taking Back Sunday song or a Nimrod–era Green Day track. While so much of the enjoyment comes from the screamed gang vocals and fast, punchy riffs, the song is set in the soft bass breakdowns, where you’re reminded that you’re listening to a song with more emotional resonance than just your standard emo track. While this is clear to anyone who heard Dogleg’s Remember Alderaan EP, “Fox” takes the interesting parts of that release and smoothes out the creases.
A fantastic explosion of noise. fast, cathartic, melodic. if you want to cry/dance in your room alone on a saturday night while your friends are out having a good time this is the record for you.
Band Members
Alex Stoitsiadis – guitar, vocals
Chase Macinski – bass, vocals
Parker Grissom – guitar
Jacob Hanlon – drums
Stef Chura sings “If only you can hear me scream” 10 full times on “Scream” before she, well, screams. Bizarrely, it’s one of the few instances on Midnight, Chura’s sophomore release and first full-length release on Saddle Creek, where she shows restraint, a fleeting respite for her vocal chords that take hit after hit throughout the entirety of the record’s 43 minutes. Howling throughout with a confident vibrato, it’s perhaps the most impressive raw vocal performance since Hop Along last put out an album, reminiscent at times of a young Karen O. A major step up from her 2017 debut Messes (which was reissued in 2018 by Saddle Creek), Midnight is the complete realization of the Detroit-based artist’s solo project, chock full of perfectly fuzzed-out guitars on one of the best-recorded DIY-leaning records in quite some time. That’s thanks in large part to Car Seat Headrest frontman Will Toledo, who helps mold Chura’s songs into ones that sound like his own. “Scream” resembles the song structure of Teens of Denial’s“Unforgiving Girl (She’s Not An),” though potentially even exceeding it as Chura’s guitar solo provides a fist-in-the-air moment before she brings the house down for one final chorus. Chura has been one of the more buzzed-about rising artists in the indie rock community for quite some time; Midnight more than delivers on that initial hype, surpassing virtually all expectations en route to becoming one of her genre’s biggest breakouts.
This an indie record for the ages, a wonderful listen where each song is completely essential to the project as a whole. Midnight is an incredible record, owing, but in no way indebted to her pitch perfect partnership with Toledo, one that’s further catapulted by Chura’s distinctive voice and extraordinary songwriting chops.
“Close the door to your mouth and get the fuck in the car!” It’s an order that Stef Chura half sings, half-speaks halfway through the chugging “Method Man,” a big fat rock song that embodies the rattle and swagger of the Detroit artist’s sophomore release “Midnight”, itself a big fat rock record that staggers and struts like a drunk trying to walk straight, its riffs as sticky as a dive bar’s beer-sloshed floor and Chura’s delightful yips and yodels bearing the slurry quality of just a few too many bottles of Bud. Though the record has its straightforward moments —“Lemme do a jumping jack over your heart,” implores Chura on giddy number “Jumping Jack”—this is not pop and the medicine isn’t going doing easy and rarely in less than 2 minutes. Like the old rock records of yore, Midnight rewards repeat listening, the better to savor the ways Chura and Will Toledo find to reshape her loosey-goosey song structures into songs with edges as sharp and polished as diamonds.
Though Chura’s always been a creative, exciting guitarist, she’s equally as inventive with her vocals on Midnight. On the chorus of tightly wound “Scream,” she sings, “If only you could hear me scream!” three times in a row, changing the inflection of the final word so it sounds like “scram” or “scree-yum,” playfully expounding upon the possibilities of language while her fingers explore the boundaries of the electric guitar. “My girl is 3-dimensional,” exclaims Chura joyfully on “3D girl,” and she is.
“If only you could hear me scream,” Stef Chura sings at one point during her sophomore release, “Sweet Sweet Midnight”, her first full length album release for Saddle Creek Records. She makes good on her promise and does quite a bit of screaming throughout, even channeling a modern DIY Karen O at times. Produced by Car Seat Headrest’s Will Toledo, “Midnight” takes everything you love from his band and applies it to Chura’s transfixing voice, a perfect match for this rising act from Detroit. She’s long been building up buzz in the indie rock community; Sweet Sweet Midnight may launch her to stardom, a jump that’s been long overdue.
“For most people who create art I would assume there is some kind of deep unanswerable hole in your soul as to why you’re making it…” So says Stef Chura ahead of the release of her gritty, vehement new album – recorded and produced by Will Toledo ofCar Seat Headrest –and her first new collection of songs . Illuminating that search for answers with a fevered sense of exploration, Midnight is a bold leap forward from Messes, Stef’s contagious debut album, with every aspect of her new work finding bold ways to express itself as it rips through twelve restless and relentless new tracks.
A couple of years on from the release of Messes, Stef is still based in Detroit, that most singular city which has seen it all, from the no-mans-land of its initial collapse through to the resurgent place it is now. Stef found inspiration from the people she surrounded with herself with, more so than the place itself. It’s no surprise that Midnight is testament to those kind of characteristics; a rugged and robust burst of defiance. “I’m usually dealing with the context of what I can’t say or haven’t said,” . “This album has a depth to it and a particular sound because of Will,” Stef states regarding Toledo’s input, whose spiky nuances can be found across the length and breadth of Midnight, the record presenting an exhilarating rush of sound and colour as Stef’s spirited vocal finds and signature guitar sounds unravel alongside in a thrilling meeting of ideas and influences; dispelling demons, song by song.
“With this album I wanted it to be clearer and more listenable, in a number of ways,” Stef says. Proof of this outlook can be found on the edgy lead track ‘Method Man’, a boisterous three-minutes that melds jagged, skewed guitars with a distinctive voice that has a new-found sense of confidence, whether spitting spoken-word mantras during the exhilarating percussive coda or simply letting loose amid the squalling bluster of guitars.
You can find it elsewhere too, in fact it runs right through the heart of Midnight’s twelve tracks. Take the sweeping brilliance of ‘Jumpin’ Jack’, a somewhat more refined three-minutes that bursts into a thrilling finale, or ‘Sincerely Yours’, a brooding four-minutes initially gives deserved space to Stef’s voice and words more than ever before, before bursting into life with with a pent-up energy that positively roars from within.
Equal parts thrilling and angsty, Midnight is a testament to the collaborative process, a record that makes the very most of those who came together to make it, but more than that, it’s a firm statement of tenacity and perseverance, of not resting on your laurels but leaping forwards no matter the situation you find yourself in. From out of one day and into the next.
The Detroit-native indie rocker Stef Chura also released a Record Store Day release on April 21st. The song, titled “Sour Honey,” follows the double-sided vinyl’s previous release, a-side “Degrees.” Check out that first track’s lyric video below
“‘They’ll Never’ picks up where its predecessor ‘Method’ left off, combining grunge-y guitar with a surf rock sort of fervency. In this same manner, its visual counterpart (dir. Fidel R Ruiz-Healy & Tyler Walker) follows suit, meshing the bright with the dirty, the colorful with the muted and dilapidated.”
This June, the underrated Stef Chura is releasing her sophomore album, Midnight. We’ve already heard its incisive lead single “Method Man.” For its follow-up, Chura falls back into the twangy spark that filled the Michigan musician’s 2017 debut. “They’ll never tear this place apart,” she sings, a song that both romanticizes and repudiates the place that Chura called home.
She explains:
I wrote this song while living in a building in Ypsilanti, MI that was not up to code. No one cared about it. The kitchen was moldy, the carpets were dirty and the house was generally unfinished. This place existed in an odd realm. “Sideways from grace the angles lost” This means that at a certain angle and in the right light you can see what is amiss. No one really cared for it, and yet people would go on living in it and subsequently it would be a home. No one cared enough to take care of it and no one cared enough to notice it and destroy it or hold the people who lived there accountable for keeping it up to code.
It’s also about looking into the future, that when life hands you less and circumstances aren’t what you thought they were. “They sold you love, this chalk’s just dust.” Wanting something you can’t have. Having expectations that don’t go the way you think they should. How what you bought isn’t in the box and you have to start over. There is only a memory of what is left represented by a shell of what was there. A conversation on how you can never really own anything. And life goes on even if your house is moldy and you don’t speak the same language as the drunk old man you live with who steals your potted plants and plants them in the yard for you.
The Fat Angel Sings 