VIA PRESS RELEASE | Drawn together amid NYC’s Lower East Side, the men of Chavez—Matt Sweeney, Clay Tarver, James Lo, and Scott Marshall—pioneered a sound that blended jagged punk dissonance with the spooky power of ’70s hard-rock hooks.

On Ride the Fader (1996) the band perfected that formula. For proof, look no further than album opener “Top Pocket Man,” where soaring riffs and drum-fill fireworks give way to drop-tuned sludge just in time for the chorus. If you missed it back then, you’re not alone. Ride the Fader did not conquer the globe upon release (Despite what you may be led to believe upon watching the video for “Unreal is Here.”) Instead, its legend has accumulated gradually, burnished over decades via cool kid-to-cool kid tip-offs. Truly one of the most stacked and transcendent guitar records of this or any era.

Ride the Fader returns to us today in a clear-colored LP repress. We’ve also unearthed a massive tranche of era-appropriate video content: a new video for “New Room,” the remastered classic “Unreal is Here,” a 1997 live set, Little Twelve Toes (Chavez in the studio), and the tour documentary Boys Making Music, Music Making Men.

What’s more, we’ve also excavated a long-lost version of Boys that includes a commentary track from Scott’s father, the late great director Garry Marshall. “There was a lot of grab-assing, as they used to say in my generation. Jumping around and fooling around,” he observes, capturing the essence of Chavez’s 1996 European run with Guided By Voices.

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Celebrating Dennis Coffey, born on this date in 1940. —Ed.

As a guitarist, Dennis Coffey was a member of the storied Funk Brothers’ studio band and the architect of the million-selling instrumental groove monster “Scorpio,” while as a producer his credits include the initial LPs by Sixto Rodriguez of Searching for Sugar Man fame; the recent emergence of a 1968 live set spotlights Coffey’s talents as part of a trio perched at the intersection of soul, funk, jazz, and rock. 

The vast studio-based brilliance that helps to shape the musical prestige of the 1960s is by now well established. Alongside the Wrecking Crew, the Nashville A-Team, and the assorted members of the Stax and FAME studio bands, the group of Detroit musicians known as the Funk Brothers stands tall, their talent lent largely (but not entirely) to the immortal product of Barry Gordy’s Motown enterprise.

Dennis Coffey was part of that band, and his work with producer Norman Whitfield on a slew of Temptations recordings, including the classic hits “Ball of Confusion (That’s What the World Is Today),” “I Can’t Get Next to You,” “Just My Imagination (Running Away from Me),” and “Psychedelic Shack” are enough to secure the guitarist’s place in the narrative of Motown and in the story of Detroit’s musical heyday overall.

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Today on Radar, I recently spoke with David J, co-founder, co-songwriter, and bassist of Bauhaus and Love and Rockets, and one of the most influential figures in post-punk.

David formed Bauhaus in Northampton in 1978 with his brother Kevin Haskins, Daniel Ash, and Peter Murphy. “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” came out the following year and pretty much drew the map for everything goth that followed. When Bauhaus split, David, Daniel, and Kevin went on as Love and Rockets. Alongside the bands, he has built a long solo career, sixteen albums deep. He also wrote the memoir Who Killed Mister Moonlight? and has made theatre and visual art alongside his prolific musical career. We talk about all of it.

His new single, “Walking With The Angels,” came out of a session in Prague that fell apart. He was there to produce another artist, and the sessions were cancelled, but the orchestra was still booked. So he stayed up all night writing, then cut the vocal in one take the next day with two dozen players from the city’s Symphony and Philharmonic Orchestras. His friend, the actor Marc Warren, was in the room and shot the video in one take too.

The song closes his new album, Postcards From The Afterlife, out November 27 on Label 51 Recordings. It’s 14 songs that move from Cohen-style chanson and ’60s orchestral pop to the alternative rock he’s known for. David calls it a record about “the poignant persistence of connection, be it in life or in death,” and it’s a beautiful one.

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The late Jon Hassell remains one of recorded music’s great explorers. A diligent collaborator with an adventurous mind right up to the very end, Hassell’s talents are on vibrant display during Music Is Invisible (Pentimento Volume Three), which is not only his final concert recording but also the last piece in the Pentimento Trilogy (available as a CD box set). Few musicians are well served by their late works, as Hassell and his cohort blur the distinction between studio and live recordings. Music Is Invisible is out now on vinyl, compact disc, and digital through Hassell’s Ndeya label in partnership with Warp Records.

A trumpet player, composer, and a sonic architect of the highest rank, Jon Hassell debuted with the still striking Vernal Equinox in 1977 through Lovely Music, Ltd. and followed it up the next year with Earthquake Island on Tomato. But Hassell’s big splash came with his Brian Eno collaboration Fourth World, Vol. 1: Possible Musics, released in 1980 by Editions EG.

Dream Theory in Malaya: Fourth World Volume Two came out in ’81, also on Editions EG, as Hassell’s musical approach was firmly planted at the crossroads of ambient and world music. Back then (less so today), many derided these overlapping categories (and related genres such as new age, environmental-space music and neo-classical) as insubstantial and lacking in substance, but there was plenty of good stuff stocked in this corner of the record store during this era (late ’70s-late ’80s), with Hassell ranking high in mix.

That’s because there’s just so much going on in Hassell’s best stuff, and what’s going on is often wonderfully strange. It’s not background music, but there are plenty of subtleties that can give finicky attention spans the fidgets, and Hassell’s trumpet playing, while clearly influenced by jazz, and by Miles Davis in particular (and Chet Baker to a lesser extent), drifts and ripples and occasionally surges rather than rips and wails and swings.

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RALEIGH, NC | Some fans waited 20 years for this night. On Wednesday at The Ritz in Raleigh, Saosin played their 2006 self-titled album from start to finish, with Cove Reber back on the mic, for a room that mixed day-one fans with kids who weren’t old enough to crowd surf when the record dropped. Add three hungry openers, a light show I’m still blinking from, and a closing singalong two decades in the making, and this was a night that earned every bit of its nostalgia.

The night started early. The crowd was trickling in slowly, as a mix of people getting out of work and throwing on their black band tees joined a younger crowd. By the time the first band hit the stage, you could feel both generations waiting for the same thing.

The first band to play was Save Us, a newer act on its first tour. The transatlantic trio, fresh off the October release of their debut album, Death To Something, came out much like the crowd, slowly warming up to louder, more pounding melodic tones. They had the unenviable job of playing to a room that was still filling in, and they did an excellent job of getting the crowd ready while gaining a new audience.

Next up was Like Moths to Flames, and their frontman didn’t want anyone standing still. The Columbus, Ohio metalcore band came out with a fury, and their light show matched the chaos—I don’t think I’ve seen that mix of colors before. Every breakdown landed harder than the last. They got the crowd moving and set the tone for everything else to come.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Third Man Records is celebrating the 20th anniversary of The Raconteurs’ classic debut album, Broken Boy Soldiers, with a new opaque green vinyl variant out on Friday, December 11 and available at select record stores on December 18. Pre-orders are available now.

In addition, today sees the digital premiere of Broken Boy Soldiers (Deluxe) featuring the original studio album plus a full-show recording at New York City’s historic Irving Plaza on April 7, 2006—the band’s first-ever live performance in the United States. While previously available as a one-time, vinyl-only pressing in a truncated form, this digital reissue of the Raconteurs first-ever show on American soil at Irving Plaza from April 7th, 2006 adds three previously unreleased takes from the encore.

Here, the Raconteurs’ barn-burning “Blue Veins” is in elevated company with blistering covers of “It Ain’t Easy,” as popularized by David Bowie, along with the frenetic “Headin’ For The Texas Border,” originally by the Flamin’ Groovies.

This announcement follows The Raconteurs’ surprise reunion during Jack White’s concert at Nashville’s The Truth on October 10. The five-song encore, which marked the band’s first live performance in nearly seven years, saw performances of Broken Boy Soldiers favorites “Steady, As She Goes,” “Hands,” “Level,” and “Broken Boy Soldier,” as well as “Carolina Drama” (from 2008’s Consolers of the Lonely).

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Remembering Screaming Lord Sutch, born on this day in 1940. —Ed.

This very heavy solo debut by renowned English loony Screaming Lord Sutch (aka the 3rd Earl of Harrow) comes with some very heavy baggage. And I’m not referring to the late Lord’s Heavy Friends, who included such rock luminaries as Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, John Bonham, Noel Redding, and Nicky Hopkins.

No, I’m talking about the album’s deplorable reputation. A 1998 BBC poll crowned Lord Sutch and Heavy Friends the worst album of all time, to which I can only reply that the people polled did a grave injustice to Rick Wakeman’s The Six Wives of Henry VIII. And plenty of others have heaped scorn upon this benighted 1970 LP, which mortified just about everyone, including the people who played on it.

Me, I think they’re being unfair. I rather like Lord Sutch and Heavy Friends, and not as kitsch either. The musicians who recorded the LP would go on to condemn it as a bunch of demos that should never have been released, but to my ears it sounds like rock’n’roll primitivism at its best. The album has a lovably raw-boned, one-take feel to it, and what it lacks in polish (there is no polish), it makes up for in pure bluster and monolithic garage-rock raunch. If you’re a fan of “You Really Got Me,” Blue Cheer, the Troggs (and who isn’t a fan of the Troggs?), or any number of sixties garage bands, you’ll most likely dig what’s on offer here.

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Al Cisneros carries a solid rep as the singer and bassist for two of the finest bands to have churned and thudded at the intersection of stoner rock and doom metal, Sleep and Om. However, Cisneros also has a rewarding string of solo forays into the hissing, echo-laden realms of dub, with the new “Dragonaut Dub” EP his latest dive into this heady style. The set is out now on vinyl with an absolutely splendiferous cover illustration by Arik Roper via Eremite Records.

Prior to Sleep, there was Asbestosdeath, a gang of doom crushers who released a pair of 7-inch slabs in the 1990 timeframe that were later compiled by Southern Lord on the “Dejection Unclean” 10-inch in 2007. With some personnel changes, Asbestosdeath quickly morphed into Sleep, releasing Volume One in 1991 through Tupelo Recording Company, and then Sleep’s Holy Mountain the next year through Earache Records. From there, the band became a defining outfit in the slowly unfurling stoner rock scene.

It was Dopesmoker (originally Jerusalem) that really put Sleep on the map when it was released after a hiatus in 1999 by The Music Cartel and then in an updated version with the band’s preferred title in 2003 by Tee Pee Records. Subsequent expanded editions have hit racks through Southern Lord and Third Man, as the latter label has released Sleep’s last two albums, The Sciences from 2018 and Hemispheres from earlier this year.

In one of Sleep’s dormant stretches, Om was formed by Cisneros and Sleep drummer Chris Hakius, though through a slew of studio and live recordings Om released between 2005- ’14, Cisneros has been the constant member. Such is obviously the case with his solo output, which commenced in 2012 with the “Dismas” 45 on his own label Sinai.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Rhino’s Quadio series revisits the rich musical landscape of the mid-1970s with four new quadraphonic releases: Carly Simon’s Hotcakes/Playing Possum, Gordon Lightfoot’s Cold on the Shoulder, Hot Tuna’s Yellow Fever, and the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band’s self-titled debut and Trouble in Paradise. They arrive today on Blu-ray.

Each disc pairs the original quadraphonic mix, sourced from the analog four-track quad master tapes, with a hi-res 192 kHz/24-bit stereo transfer. Available exclusively through Rhino.com and select Warner Music Group stores worldwide, each title lists for $24.98, or $79.98 as a four-disc bundle. Order HERE.

Hotcakes/Playing Possum (1974/1975) brings together two albums from Carly Simon’s remarkable run of three consecutive Top 10 albums. Hotcakes (#3) delivered a pair of Top 20 hits: “Mockingbird,” her duet with James Taylor, and “Haven’t Got Time For The Pain.”

The following year, Playing Possum (#10) explored erotic themes on songs like “Slave” and “Waterfall,” while “Attitude Dancing” became its biggest hit. That provocative spirit extended to the artwork, with Norman Seeff’s photograph of Simon appearing on the cover, which earned a Grammy® Award nomination and a place among Rolling Stone’s 100 greatest album covers.

Cold on the Shoulder (1975) was Gordon Lightfoot’s 10th album and followed the chart-topping success of 1974’s Sundown. It reached #10 and introduced “Rainy Day People,” a song about friendship that topped the Adult Contemporary chart. Lightfoot’s storytelling shines throughout, including the title track, “Fine As Fine Can Be,” and “Cherokee Bend,” a haunting tale of prejudice and violence against Native Americans.

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Remembering Richard Lloyd. —Ed.

Sometimes I flabbergast myself. I think I know what I like and what I don’t like, only to find out I don’t know a damn thing about anything, least of all my likes and dislikes. Take KC and the Sunshine Band. I hated them with a passion for like 30 years, and now I think they’re great. Or Elton John’s Caribou, which I liked for like 80 years, only to realize just yesterday that it has only two good songs, although to Captain Fantastic’s credit, they’re two really great songs.

But occasionally I get it right the first time, as with Queen’s “We Are the Champions,” which I hated when it came out and still hate to this day. And the same goes for Television’s sophomore LP, 1978’s Adventure. People—as in every sentient human breathing air the year it came out—wrote Adventure off as a lackluster follow-up to the band’s 1977 debut, Marquee Moon. Everybody but me, that is. Because I had never heard of Marquee Moon. I didn’t even know it existed. Hell, I can’t even remember how or why I came to buy Adventure, because I had no clue as to who Television was and absolutely no inkling that they were an integral part of a musical revolution in progress at a ratty club in New York City called CBGBs.

But buy it I did, just as I bought Kill City without having ever heard the Stooges, which just goes to show you how isolating rural living was back in the days before the internet gave you access to all kinds of information, including who was who on the rock circuit. About all you got exposed to back in those days were hoof and mouth disease and square dancing, which is why I spent my teen years doing my level best to do as many drugs as I could get my greedy paws on, while trying to wrap my vehicle around a utility pole, which I finally accomplished on March 1, 1980. You’ve got to have goals, even in the boondocks, or life isn’t worth a damn.

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