Flavor Crystals are a psychedelic shoegaze band from Minneapolis, Minnesota, Hi everybody, sorry we’ve been pretty quiet lately, but we’ve been busy working on something. It’s been quite a challenging year for most all of us, but we do have some good news in this crazy thing we call 2020…Flavor Crystals album number five has arrived!. After years of exploration and weirdness, they added bubbly liquid and jelloed into a real band, recording their debut album On Plastic as a document of the sleepy wobbly blurry dreamscape vibe they found together.
The opening riffs to Double Grave’s “Long Drive Home” sound like Kal Marks covering Dikembe’s viscous cover of “If It Makes You Happy.” That all kinda changes when Jeremy Warden’s relaxed vocals take over, steering the single in the direction of its eventual (still grungy) slacker-rock guitar solo. It’s the kind of early single that keeps you guessing as to what kind of album Goodbye, Nowhere! could possibly be.
Performed and recorded at home by the band over the first half of 2019. The Band:
Jeremy – guitars, vocals, songwriting
Seth – drums, engineering, mixing
Bree – bass, artwork
Released via Forged Artifacts releases August 7th, 2020
This EXCLUSIVE bundle comes with a 10″x14″ paper placemat that is a replica of the original Pleased To Meet Me promo item from 1987, a bumper sticker, a 3″ Patch and a limited edition cassette. The cassette features a previously unreleased interview with Paul Westerberg recorded just before the release of the Pleased To Meet Me album. Brief excerpts from the interview were originally included in a radio promo LP that was released in 1987 but this marks the first time that the complete interview has been made available.
Pleased To Meet Me is the critically acclaimed fifth studio album by the American rock band The Replacements. Released in 1987 by Sire Records, Pleased To Meet Me is the only album recorded by the band as a trio, after original guitarist Bob Stinson acrimoniously left the band.
Following last year’s widely acclaimed Dead Man’s Pop release, Pleased To Meet Me will be receiving a similar ‘deep dive’ treatment with a 3-CD/1-LP deluxe boxed set, which will tell the story of the album in ways not previously possible with more than 50% of the content previously unreleased
New remaster of the original album by Justin Perkins, who was also behind the boards for our Dead Man’s Pop regimaging
1986demo session with Bob Stinson – his last recorded Replacements performance
Additional 1986 demos with the band as a three-piece outfit (sans Bob)
Previously unreleased rough mix of the album with alternate track listing
Studio outtakes from the album recording sessions (Memphis, 1987)
Rare single mixes
The making of Pleased To Meet Me was a transformative journey for The Replacements, one that began with the combustible Minneapolis combo on the brink of collapse and culminated in one of the definitive albums of the band’s career. That transformation is chronicled in-depth on the group’s latest boxed set, Pleased To Meet Me (Deluxe Edition).
More than half of the music (29 tracks) on this Deluxe Edition set has never been released, including demos, rough mixes, and outtakes as well as Bob Stinson’s last recordings with The Replacements from 1986.
The music is presented in a 12 x 12 hardcover book loaded with dozens of rarely seen photos along with a detailed history of the Pleased To Meet Me era written by Bob Mehr, who authored The New York Times bestseller, Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements.
Pleased To Meet Me was recorded over three months at Ardent Studios in Memphis with legendary producer Jim Dickinson before it debuted in June 1987. The collection opens with a newly remastered version of the original 11-track album along with a selection of B-sides and a version of “Can’t Hardly Wait” that was remixed by Jimmy Iovine. All of the music included in this boxed set has been remastered by Justin Perkins, who remastered the band’s widely acclaimed 2019 boxed set, Dead Man’s Pop.
The second disc explores the creative process behind Pleased To Meet Me with 15 unreleased demos recorded at Blackberry Way Studios in Minneapolis during the summer of 1986. The first seven of these demos represent the last recordings made by all four original members of The Replacements. After those demo sessions stalled out, singer/guitarist Paul Westerberg, bassist Tommy Stinson and drummer Chris Mars made the painful decision to part ways with lead guitarist Bob Stinson after recording five albums together.
The disc’s remaining eight demos feature the band as a trio and include “Shooting Dirty Pool,” two versions of “Kick It In,” and “Even If It’s Cheap,” whose opening line (“Pleased to meet me/the pleasure’s all yours”) would ultimately inspire the title of the album.
The collection’s final disc features 13 previously unreleased rough mixes by studio engineer John Hampton that include the majority of the album along with non-album tracks like “Election Day” and “Birthday Gal.” These rough mixes are also featured on the 180-gram vinyl record included in the set.
Rounding out the collection are several unreleased tracks (Westerberg’s “Run For The Country” and “Learn How To Fail,” Stinson’s “Trouble On The Way”) along with a selection of outtakes (“Beer For Breakfast” and “I Don’t Know”) that debuted on the 1997 compilation, All For Nothing/Nothing For All.
The “Fresh Evidence” era was the last original album. This is one of the best soundboard album’s, Included in this work is “Minneapolis” Performance on March 20th, 1991”. It is a sound board recording outflow of those concerned. Rory had toured until January 1995, six months before his death, but the world tour lasted in 1991. This tour also included the last performance in Japan,
This is taken from the 1990/1991 tour by Rory Gallagher. Even after 1992, tours were conducted with different members, but only in Europe. This was the last world tour to go to Japan, Australia and North America. Under such circumstances, the Minneapolis performance of his work was the concert corresponding to the last “North America” leg with 11 performance’s.
While covering 5 songs from his latest release “Fresh Evidence” thickly, it covers a wide range of tracks from his solo career for over 20 years. Speaking of this period, you can listen to precious numbers such as “Fresh Evidence” the other songs “Kid Gloves” “Walkin ‘Wounded” “Heaven’s Gate”, Nighthawk “Goin’ Down to Eli’s”, Stones’ Tumbling Dice ”on the sound board.
ROCKPALAST was a five-person group with a keyboard’s, but here it is the same four-person line-up as the performance in Japan. At the core is a trio with allied friend Gerry McAvoy and his friend Brendan O’Neill from his school days, with Mark Feltmann’s participating.
This recorded show is just among the best sound board recordings available. The show has been known for a long time, but this is from a new master leaked from a different party. Although it is clear that it is a new master because it is about 4 minutes longer, The important thing is the quality that goes through the whole set. I’m especially happy that the guitar is pretty intense. The balance that the guitar came out in front of the rhythm team may not be ideal as an ensemble for the whole band, but the main attraction is Rory’s guitar. Both hot and delicious phrases are directly connected. Although not as much as the guitar, the focus is on Rory’s vocals too. Although it is a level that can be called “official” in terms of audio quality, it is a sound board album that is more vivid than that existence of the experienced white bluesman. From the hard British hard rock to the deep blues like Chicago, it is the culmination of Rory. The late Rory was not able to deepen the ensemble with the new band due to the deterioration of the physical condition, but here he listens to a passionate performance that can be said to be the end of 20 years of solo career with McAvoy. A masterpiece of a live album where you can enjoy the full show
Rory Gallagher was one of the greatest rock/blues guitarist who ever graced this earth and the likes we will never see again with a profoundly beautiful heart and soul. Everything about this show was perfection. Rory’s guitar playing and his singing, Gerry’s bass playing, Brendan’s drumming and Mark Feltham’s harp playing. They were really having a good time that night. They were super tight.
Seminal Minneapolis bandThe Jayhawkshave announced their new album”XOXO”will release onJuly 10th via Sham/Thirty Tigers. Featuring their most diverse and wide-ranging group of songs to date,XOXOmarks a new era in collaboration, with songwriting and lead vocal contributions from all four longtime band members – Gary Louris,Marc Perlman, Karen Grotberg and Tim O’Reagan.Along with the announcement, The Jayhawks have released a new video with Louris performing a stripped-down version of “Living In A Bubble”, a timely song that laments the problematic nature of our ratings-driven news cycle.
“‘Living In A Bubble’ lyrically is a reaction to the 24-hour news cycle and how the media can fan the flames of fear if one let’s it,” says Louris. “It is also a commentary about data collection, Big Brother, and our obsession with devices, while never being truly present in the here and now.Musically it is an homage to the great Harry Nilsson, and is driven by the amazing piano playing of Karen Grotberg.”
XOXOis a testament to The Jayhawks’ unrelenting ability to evolve while remaining true to the authentic sound that has made them one of the most influential and respected bands today.Recorded over two weeks holed up together at the secluded Pachyderm Studios in Cannon Falls, MN, as well as at Flowers Studio, founded by their friend and Minneapolis music stalwart the late Ed Ackerson,XOXOis an album fueled by chemistry and trust.
The group’s camaraderie is at the heart and soul of these 12 songs, bringing an injection of confidence and energy to The Jayhawks’ signature harmonies, infectious melodies and masterful musicianship.From Louris’ pointedly transportive “Homecoming” to Grotberg’s timelessly poetic “Ruby” to the the Pearlmen-led, folk-driven “Down To The Farm” and the trippy O’Reagan/Perlman co-write “Illuminate”,XOXOis the product of a group that is more inspired and more itself than ever before.
“It was time to open things up,” explains Louris. “The Jayhawks are a true band, one where every-one’s an equal, and we wanted to make a record that really reflected that.”Elaborating on the process, Perlman says, “Some songs we molded together from scratch, but others had been fully written by one or the other of us.We didn’t worry too much about who penned what, because after all these years of playing together, everything we do just naturally comes out sounding like a Jayhawks song.”
When Poliça’s Channy Leaneagh fell off her roof while clearing ice in early 2018, she smashed her L1 vertebrae and battered her spine, leaving her in a brace with limited mobility for months. Yet Poliça’s fourth album, “When We Stay Alive”, is not about one debilitating accident. It’s about the redemptive power of rewriting your story in order to heal, and reclaiming your identity as a result.
While recovering, Leaneagh’s doctor told her to focus not only on physical healing, but to meditate on the mental act of healing as well – working to erase the anger, regrets, and fear she felt about her fall. To do so, he suggested she rewrite the story she told herself about what happened on February 28th. Left alone with her thoughts and her back fully braced, Leaneagh would visualize herself slipping and falling not onto cement, but instead onto a cloud, landing safely before breaking into a sprint over snow melting to reveal tall blades of green grass. As she felt the positive effects of this mental exercise, she set about doing the same for other injuries and pains that she gripped onto from her past.
Prior to Leaneagh’s accident, she had been setting music aside as she raised her children and worked to make ends meet as a nursing assistant. Now in the still silence of healing, she found that a multitude of feelings were becoming very loud. Leaneagh realized her self-identity had become attached to her experiences of physical and mental trauma, and she began to consider what it would be like to live without the past as a burden. “I felt there were many things I could look at and say, ‘This happened to me but I’m okay now. It’s not happening anymore and I got the care I needed for it. Now it’s time to rewrite the story I tell about myself and to myself,’”
The trio hails from Minneapolis, a city already well known for its connection to noise rock. They stand alongside other Gilead Media bands Couch Slut and Kowloon Walled City as a select group of artists masterfully harnessing overdriven, rhythmic, and noisy riffs.
Threading the needle between the Euro-freakouts of Girl Band and the bleak fatalism of Daughters, Buildings is notably a very not-black-metal band signed to a very black-metal label. On their second release for Gilead Media, the trio builds upon the Jesus Lizard aggression of 2017’s You Are Not One of Us while also venturing into a handful of other heavy-rock influences—including metal on the headbangable second track, “Sit With It.” Comprised of nearly doom-paced guitar and heavy-hitting percussion, “Sit” is…well, pretty bleakly fatalist (“What does this world have left for me?”) and pretty freaked out the sense of doom, like any track on Negative Sound, is fully their own.
Buildings is:
Brian Lake: Guitar and Vocals
Mike Baillie: Bass Guitar
Travis Kuhlman: Drums and percussion
Official music video for “Sit With It” from the Buildings album “Negative Sound”. Out November 22nd, 2019 on Gilead Media (US) and Antena Krzyku (EU).
Sass live up to their name, but they use sarcasm and cheekiness as a deflection tactic against a looming darkness. The songs on their debut album, “Chew Toy”, are about heavy shit, and Stephanie Murck never undersells the very serious topics she’s singing about. But the gnarled and fuzzy towers of attitude that Sass build up around that are stunning — frustrated bursts of pure release.
Kid Dakota is the musical moniker of Darren Jackson. Formed in 1999, Darren is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, engineer, teacher, and producer. He owns and operates Shortman Studio in Northeast Minneapolis. In addition to creating and recording music, he is currently a Ph.D. student in ASPECT (Alliance for Social, Political, Ethical, and Cultural Thought) at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. His areas of research are early twentieth-century avant-garde film, film theory, and philosophy.
An indie rock band from the land of lakes , led by Kerry Alexander who when she wants to write a song, turns on the radio. That’s because Alexander, the lead singer and songwriter of the Minneapolis band Bad Bad Hats, is interested in pop tropes – how to play around with them, why they work the way they do.
After alternating between acoustic offerings and revved-up, garage-leaning rock on their debut, the band settles into a comfortable mid-tempo groove on the new LP, with richly-produced synth-pop sound.
