Posts Tagged ‘Light In The Attic Records’

ACETONE – ” 1992-2001 “

Posted: November 17, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Acetone was an American rock band formed in 1992 in Los Angeles, California, The three core members first came together in 1987 as Spinout when Lee on bass and Mark Lightcap (guitar) were attending the Cal Arts Institute in Valencia, Calif. Lee and Lightcap, a compositional music student and tuba player, recruited local high school student Steve Hadley to play drums. The group disbanded after Lee committed suicide on July 23rd, 2001.

The band played together behind a succession of singers under the name Spinout before finally settling as a trio. Acetone released several well-received albums beginning with their debut record Cindy, the album generated comparisons to the Velvet Underground. While Acetone toured in support of label mates the Verve, the band’s debut was lost amidst a glut of alternative rock releases. In addition to pursuing music, Lee earned a degree in Fine Arts from Cal Arts. Both a painter and a photographer, Lee frequently contributed artwork and photography on the band’s releases.

In 1994 Acetone released I Guess I Would, an EP of country covers that included an eleven minute version of Kris Kristofferson’s “Border Lord,” as well as covers of Jerry Cole and John Prine tunes. If You Only Knew, their next full-length release and a critical favorite followed in 1996, but failed to make any waves in the already waning alternative music scene, and the band was dropped from Vernon Yard in 1997. They signed to Neil Young’s label Vapor Records and released their self-titled third album that year and last October released York Blvd..

Between 1993 and 2001 the trio released two LPs and an EP on Vernon Yard Label-a Virgin subsidiary-and two LPs on Vapour, the L.A.-based label . In that span, they were selected to tour with Oasis, Mazy Star, The Verve, and Spiritualized. Against a rising tide of post-Nirvana grunge and slipshod indie rock, Acetone tapped into a timeless Southern California groove by fusing elements of psychedelia, surf, and country. They rehearsed endlessly in an empty bedroom in northeast Los Angeles, recording hours of music onto cassettes that were subsequently stuffed into shoeboxes and left in a shed behind the drummer’s house. Those tapes are being released for the first time in this anthology, which also includes highlights from Acetone’s official releases. Taken together, the songs form a companion soundtrack to Sam Sweet’s book, which maps the character of Los Angeles as a place through the lens of these three unique characters bonded by music.

This fall, the independent literary press All Night Menu will publish Sam Sweet’s Hadley Lee Lightcap, a nonfiction novel that traces the backstories of the three members in Acetone, a band that played in Los Angeles for nine years. Though few heard them, their recordings are time capsules of who they were, how they lived, and where they came from. Light In the Attic has partnered with All Night Menu to present Acetone 1992-2001, the first anthology of the trio’s music. The book and the album will be released concurrently on September 22nd.

Counting their early years in the scuzz-rock band Spinout, whose sole self-titled release came out in 1991 on Delicious Vinyl, guitarist Mark Lightcap, bassist Richie Lee, and drummer Steve Hadley played together for a total of 15 years. They disbanded in July 2001, when Lee committed suicide in the garage next to the house where the trio practiced. Afterwards, Rolling Stone ran a short obituary saying Acetone’s albums were “well received” but “failed to make any waves.” It was the first and only time they were featured in the national music press.

They rehearsed endlessly in an empty bedroom in northeast Los Angeles, recording hours of music onto cassettes that were subsequently stuffed into shoeboxes and left in a shed behind the drummer’s house. Those tapes are being released for the first time in this anthology, which also includes highlights from Acetone’s official releases. Taken together, the songs form a companion soundtrack to Sam Sweet’s book, which maps the character of Los Angeles as a place through the lens of these three unique characters bonded by music.

“I think our music is all about moods and feeling but hopefully it will get as weird as it possibly can,” said Richie Lee in 1997. “We want things to get weird in the way that you could hear an Acetone song and know that no one else in the world could make that kind of music but us.”

TERRY REID – ” The Other Side Of The River “

Posted: January 1, 2017 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Other Side of the River

Dubbed “superlungs” for his raw vocal power, Terry Reid will forever be remembered as the man who declined the frontman job in Led Zeppelin , Okay, so the music here isn’t exactly new. But the latest release from the British soul shouter Terry Reid consists entirely of unissued songs, jettisoned from one of the most under-appreciated albums of all time. Back in 1973, the scratchy voiced star issued an album called “River”, which provided a daring contrast to his stentorian blues-rock declarations of the late ’60s. While cutting the original album, Reid moved from London to L.A., absorbing that locale’s folk-rock muse while elaborating it with the influence of dreamy jazz.

One high point is 1973’s River, Reid’s third album and first after escaping the clutches of producer Mickie Most (Yardbirds, Herman’s Hermits).Offering an hour of previously unreleased music, The Other Side of the River isn’t the first time the River sessions have been revisited, with a 2006 reissue adding bonus tracks to the original seven songs. Terry Reid also took inspiration from Puerto Rico (via contributions from Willie Bobo) and Brazil (aided by Gilberto Gil). The result suggested a cool amalgam of Tim Buckley, Van Morrison and John Martyn. ‘The Other Side of The River’ collects outtakes from the original ‘River,’ leading us farther into Reid’s ambitions. In one of the most adventurous tracks, “Country Brazilian Funk,” he finds an unlikely connection between Gil’s Tropicalia and David Lindley’s Americana. More than forty years later, these songs still trace the cutting edge.