We’ve closed TVD’s HQ for the July Fourth holiday. While we’re away, why not fire up our Record Store Locator app and visit one of your local indie record stores?

Perhaps there’s an interview, review, or feature you might have missed? Catch up and we’ll see you back here on Monday, 7/8.

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Celebrating the film’s 10th anniversary, Mercury Studios is re-releasing the acclaimed feature documentary Heaven Adores You in select theaters beginning August 6th.

Heaven Adores You explores the life and music of singer/songwriter Elliott Smith. The film includes excerpts from previously unreleased and unfinished songs along with his best-known tracks such as the Academy Award nominated “Miss Misery,” “Happiness,” “Son Of Sam,” and “Waltz #2.”

Nickolas Rossi, director of the 2014 film, states about the beloved singer and songwriter, “Ten years ago, our film’s worldwide run at festivals and eventual wide release touched audiences and fans on five continents, serving as an homage to Elliott Smith’s unmatched musical legacy. As time has passed, his influence on music and his significance as a cultural icon have only deepened, warranting a renewed spotlight on his life and work.”

Heaven Adores You is an intimate, meditative inquiry that showcases Smith’s rise to prominence in the 1990s and early 2000s, a promising career that was cut short by his untimely death at the age of 34 in 2003. By threading his music through the dense yet often isolating landscapes of the three major cities he lived in: Portland, New York, and Los Angeles, Heaven Adores You takes an affectionate and absorbing look at the work of a truly genuine talent and presents an earnest review of the singer’s prolific songwriting and the impact it continues to have on fans, friends, and fellow musicians.

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This is the third box set reissue of studio albums from Joni Mitchell, released as part of a far-reaching Joni Mitchell Archives reissue program of Mitchell’s music that also includes several live, rare, and previously unreleased music projects.

The first box in this series, The Reprise Albums (1968–1971), covered Mitchell’s first four albums (Song to a Seagull, Clouds, Ladies of the Canyon, and Blue). The second box, The Asylum Albums (1972–1975), covered her first four albums on Asylum (For the Roses, Court and Spark, Miles of Aisles, and The Hissing of Summer Lawns). This box covers her last four albums on Asylum (Hejira, Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter, Mingus, and Shadows and Light).

While Mitchell’s studio album Court and Spark, her second Asylum album, which was released in 1974, was her commercial zenith in the ’70s, her next album, The Hissing of Summer Lawns released in 1975, boasted a broader musical palette. Although she had been expanding her sound as far back as For the Roses and introduced healthy doses of jazz into her pop/folk-rock sound on Court and Spark, Hissing was a real departure and the beginning of narrow-minded, mostly male rock critics and record executives questioning her less-commercial direction and experimentation.

This new box picks up where Hissing left off. As with the two previous boxes in this series, we will review the vinyl box set version of this project. Hejira, the first album here, released in 1976 and the follow-up to Hissing, is an even more varied musical effort, with many songs essentially long prose poem travelogues. The music is evocative of a woman living her life out on the road, but also recalling her Canadian upbringing.

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PHOTO: AXEL DUPEUX | Towards the end of his memoir Under a Rock, which hit shelves on June 11th via St. Martin’s Press, Blondie co-founder Chris Stein reflects: “I remember that back then, Debbie and I never felt we’d quite succeeded, that we’d only attained some cult status; it’s only now in the rearview mirror that people consider Blondie as part of some grand showbiz hierarchy.”

Over the course of the memoir that covers Stein’s youth and formative years as an artist up until present day, Stein confronts his own life and artistic legacy with a down-to-earth grace and enlightened candor rarely found in a rock autobiography. And by reliving Stein’s and his group’s past along with him, one is left with the knowing feeling that they most definitely did succeed insofar as leaving a permanent cultural and artistic imprint on the world of music.

Other musicians contending with the weight of Blondie’s art-forward legacy in a continually digitized world, and the glittering charisma of a beautiful and compelling band frontwoman Debbie Harry (who contributes a warmly enjoyable foreword to the book) may have selected a cynical jaded tone for their first-person narrative. Faced with the alternately perplexing and bizarre post- COVID reality of the 2020s decade we are currently living through, Stein instead uses Under a Rock to treat both the collective cultural past and his own personal past with the respect, inquiry, and celebration they deserve, without negating or damning the present.

But Stein’s understanding of New York art-grunge founded in the era of the mid-late ’70s and ’80s CBGB and Max’s Kansas City rock club glory, and the colorful living that went with it, is well articulated in his book, reminding readers of the music scene’s vitality and immediate youth-based power that still resonates in Blondie’s recordings and those of the band’s contemporaries like Television, the Ramones, and Patti Smith.

Together with Debbie Harry, Stein founded Blondie in 1974, serving as its guitarist and ideological force. The group’s ’76 self-titled debut album introduced an art-first, pop-music-honoring sonic world that continued for a number of lauded records, which included a slue of chart-topping singles whose sonic adventurousness continues to influence musicians today. Blondie designed an aural character that married downtown New York art-hip with occasionally radio-friendly melody, molding a brand new sound character that left a dramatic mark upon the world of music.

In conversation with Chris Stein, infused with his inherent New York-cool, we learn more about the roots of Blondie and the origins of his new memoir Under a Rock, his and Blondie’s creative ideologies and artistic influences, and his ongoing captivation with the Burning Man Festival.

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With the fresh release of Live from the Ash Grove…Plus! by Liberation Hall Records, the already voluminous discography of versatile Texas bluesman Lightnin’ Hopkins just grew larger by one LP and CD. Available now, the set combines acoustic and electric performances that capture the man in solid, crowd pleasing form. If not an essential acquisition, the record’s pleasurable vibes are far from scrapings from the barrel’s bottom. Its purchase will increase the sturdiness of any Hopkins shelf.

Founded by Ed Pearl in 1958 in Los Angeles, the Ash Grove was a folk club, so it makes sense that Hopkins played there solo and acoustic. Additionally, beginning with his late 1950s “rediscovery” by Samuel Charters and Folkways Records, much of Hopkins’ output landed solidly in the folk blues zone, to the point that he’d become something of a staple on the folk circuit across the ’60s and beyond.

This reality comes through with clarity in Ash Grove’s sourcing two different performances from the venue, the first from September ’65 and the second from November ’70. This covers only a portion of Hopkins’ residencies at the club, but these inclusions still suggest a tougher, more energetic and intense Hopkins at the beginning of the five-year stretch who transitioned to a deceptively “laid back” yet appealingly garrulous comportment at the dawn of the decade.

The latter show is represented by eight songs (likely the entirety of a short set) plus spoken intros and it covers the whole of side one. As he chats up the audience, Hopkins’ comfort is palpable and his abilities are essentially undiminished. Overall, the short set really drives home the folky atmosphere; if this wasn’t the Ash Grove, it could’ve been any number of coffeehouses or folk clubs still operating in 1970.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Iconic Artists Group is thrilled to announce the 35th anniversary reissue of Linda Ronstadt’s timeless masterpiece, Cry Like A Rainstorm, Howl Like The Wind, arriving on June 28th. This long-awaited reissue marks the first time the album returns to vinyl in years and will be presented on a stunning 140-gram translucent blue vinyl pressing.

Featuring not just one, but two, Grammy Award-winning songs, “Don’t Know Much” and “All My Life,” Cry Like A Rainstorm, Howl Like The Wind showcases Ronstadt’s incomparable vocal prowess alongside the legendary Aaron Neville. Beyond its awards, the album also made waves commercially, selling over three million copies and achieving the remarkable feat of securing Linda her 10th Top 10 Billboard album. The album’s enduring popularity was further underscored by its streaming numbers, with both “Don’t Know Much” and “All My Life” amassing over 200 million streams combined, solidifying their place as timeless classics in Ronstadt’s illustrious discography.

Cry Like A Rainstorm, Howl Like The Wind was recorded in 1989 at Skywalker Ranch in Marin County, Calif., with Peter Asher producing and mastered by Doug Sax at The Mastering Lab. This reissue was remastered by James Sáez at The Audio Labs, lacquers Cut By Stephen Marsh at The Lathe Room, and pressed at Record Technology Inc.

Linda Ronstadt is the top-selling female rock artist of the 1970s and one of the most artistically diverse recording artists of the last fifty years. One of the world’s best-selling artists of all time, she has sung on over 120 albums, with at least 31 gold and platinum records, and sold more than 100 million records worldwide with such hits as “You’re No Good,” “Blue Bayou,” the duet “Somewhere Out There” with James Ingram, and “Don’t Know Much” with Aaron Neville.

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Remembering Paul Barrere in advance of his birthdate tomorrow.
—Ed.

Little Feat was one of America’s foremost pre-punk-era bands, perhaps even its best. Little Feat boasted musicians with mad skills, the best of them the brilliant vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter Lowell George. And like a great junkball pitcher, they could throw all manner of bedazzling shit your way. They played fastball rock, curveball boogie, knuckleball blues, and a dangerous forkball funk, and with a runner of third and one out they might even send some screwball country past you, and make you look like a fool, boy. No wonder none other than Jimmy Page hailed them as his favorite American band.

In short, Little Feat cooked. But lots of bands can cook—all you need is a frying pan and some grease. What truly separated Little Feat from the pack was its brilliant songwriting. The band bequeathed us a whole shitload of timeless songs—including “Easy to Slip,” “Willin’,” “Spanish Moon,” “Hamburger Midnight,” “Dixie Chicken,” and plenty more besides—not one of which I have ever heard played on my car radio. There is no justice in this world, boyo.

In addition to being a great band, Little Feat remains an enduring medical enigma. To wit: When did Little Feat, or Patient X as the band is referred to in the copious medical literature on the subject, actually die? Some would argue that Little Feat is very much alive, and it’s true that a band by that name continues to make the rounds of the concert circuit. But I would argue that said band is little more than an animated corpse, dragging its desiccated carcass and reek of putrefaction from town to town and playing by means of jolts of electricity carefully administered by technicians hiding backstage.

Still others would pronounce the time of death as June 1979, when George died of a heart attack in a hotel room in Arlington, Virginia at age 34. But in my expert medical opinion, and I will go into this in more detail later, Little Feat expired well before that, in 1975 to be precise, a victim of Lowell’s diminishing role in the band and a creeping case of Steely Dan Disease.

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New York City’s Lame Drivers began kicking up dust in the mid-2000s, but it’s been far too long, nearly a decade in fact, since they released a full length record. With the release of Become an Island, the band puts the kibosh on that discographical gap, working up a fine batch of tunes blending power pop with old school indie and shades of punk and new wave in the mix. It’s out now, with Portland, OR’s Jigsaw Records handling the compact discs and San Diego, CA’s Bleeding Gold Records pressing it up on vinyl in a limited edition of 100 copies. That’s ten tracks on the wax and four on the accompanying download.

Consisting of Jason Sigal on guitar and vocals, Joe Posner on bass, and Jeff Wood on drums, Lame Drivers conjure a sound that’s been called “slacker-core indie rock.” It’s a tag that effectively reinforces a seeming collective desire to make music that pleases them rather than streamline their songs in an attempt to momentarily grasp that big brass ring of widespread success.

With its opening title track tapping into the eternal fount of Big Star, flaunting similarities to Teenage Fanclub, the assorted bands of Paul Chastain and Ric Menck including Velvet Crush and even the terribly undersung Burke, VA outfit Poole, Become an Island displays no signs of rust after a long sabbatical; especially nifty is the revved-up pace in the song’s back half.

Lame Drivers’ range is quickly apparent in “My Problem,” as the cut’s melodic rock core sports a punky edge, late ’70s style. This is fitting for a band that has covered (and played with) Midwestern punk royalty The Gizmos. Lame Drivers has also covered Wire, Mission of Burma, and notably, “Drugs in My Pocket” by The Monks (the ’70s spoof punk UK band of ex-Strawbs, not the ’60s proto-punkers), the latter part of a 2023 WFMU marathon premium compilation CD Next Stop, Nowhere: 100 Percent Authentic Fake Punk, just to establish the band’s good taste and knowledge base.

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NOBLESVILLE, IN | Attending Tyler Childers’ sold-out concert on June 27th, 2024, at the Ruoff Music Center in Noblesville, Indiana, was quite the experience—it felt like a celebration of inclusivity and community. As a gay country music fan, it was heartwarming to witness an atmosphere that embraced diversity and acceptance, a testament to how the genre is evolving.

The night opened with Adeem the Artist, a non-binary musician from Nashville, Tennessee. Their soulful voice and poignant lyrics tackled issues of gender and sexual identity with pure honesty. Adeem’s performance was a powerful reminder of the importance of representation in music. Their ability to weave personal experiences into their songs created a deeply emotional and relatable set.

S.G. Goodman, hailing from rural Kentucky like Childers, followed with her valiant and raw storytelling. Openly gay, her songs painted vivid pictures of Southern life, touching on themes that resonated deeply with the audience. Her voice carried a strength and authenticity that was truly captivating.

Tyler Childers’ set was a beautiful blend of neotraditional country, folk, and bluegrass. The stage, adorned with antiques reminiscent of an old country cabin and covered in moss and grasses evoking Kentucky fields, added a whimsical, downhome charm. The projections behind him were clever and nostalgic, enhancing the intimate atmosphere.

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