By the second day of Ithaca Reggae Fest, one thing had become clear: events like this don’t simply happen. Behind every performance is an army of volunteers directing traffic, keeping the grounds clean, and setting up gear so thousands can simply enjoy the weekend—along with the vendors, food trucks, nonprofits, and staff who make it run. Their efforts often go unnoticed, but they deserve as much applause as the musicians on stage.

Sunday’s lineup was another reminder that Ithaca Reggae Fest isn’t only about big names—it’s just as committed to introducing artists you’ve never heard. One of the afternoon’s first highlights came from Mosaic Foundation. Fronted by the immensely talented Cha Cha, the band delivered a beautiful blend of roots reggae and sharp musicianship. Cha Cha owns a voice that commands attention—powerful, smooth, soulful—making it one of the day’s best early sets.

Between performances, DJ Art V and RDF spun reggae classics, dub, dancehall, and lovers rock, while Roadman added another strong set—one continuous celebration rather than a string of concerts.

Then came one of my biggest surprises of the weekend. I’d never heard iGNITE! before stepping into Stewart Park, but by the time their set ended, I understood why. They didn’t just perform—they threw a party, every musician sharp, the harmonies keeping the crowd dancing, start to finish. They left with plenty of new fans.

The surprises continued with Strykers Posse. All-female reggae bands remain a rarity, making their set even more refreshing. Traveling from Baltimore, they owned the stage—thunderous riddims, undeniable confidence, and beautiful harmonies. Their chemistry was unmistakable, and by the end, they’d won an entirely new audience.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Thirty years after Scream rewrote the rules of the slasher film, Varèse Sarabande and Craft Recordings celebrate Marco Beltrami’s landmark score with a new anniversary reissue. Arriving August 28th, the original 14-track album returns to vinyl in a collectible “blood-soaked” sleeve featuring an iconic image of Drew Barrymore as Casey Becker in the film’s unforgettable opening scene.

In addition to the wide “Woodsboro Bloodbath” red vinyl, fans can find the 1-LP set in a variety of limited-edition exclusive pressings, including a “Knife’s Edge” silver vinyl with poster (Target), “Surprise, Sidney” metallic blend vinyl (Barnes & Noble), “Don’t Hang Up” clear vinyl (Books-A-Million), “I’ll Be Right Back” blue vinyl (Urban Outfitters), “Final Girl” splatter vinyl (Hot Topic), “Wrong Answer” Blood Red Splatter vinyl (Varèse Sarabande/Craft Recordings), and “Final Phone Call” blue vinyl at select indie retailers. An Extended Cut Edition of the Scream (Original Motion Picture Score), featuring all 40 of the film’s cues from the 2022 Scream boxset, will also be available on CD. All formats are available to pre-order or pre-save today.

In 1996, Scream ushered in a new generation of slasher films, mixing self-awareness and satire with chills, gore, and plenty of plot twists. Written by Kevin Williamson (Dawson’s Creek, The Vampire Diaries) and directed by horror pioneer Wes Craven (A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Hills Have Eyes, Swamp Thing), the film flipped the genre on its side, with a host of characters who not only referenced classic horror flicks but recognized they were living inside one.

Brimming with a who’s who of Gen-X stars—including Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Drew Barrymore, David Arquette, Matthew Lillard, Skeet Ulrich, Jamie Kennedy, and Rose McGowan—Scream became one of the highest-grossing horror films of all time and launched a long-running franchise of sequels.

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Remembering Albert Ayler, born on this day in 1936. —Ed.

Although some have managed to expand upon his groundbreaking intensity and flights of abstraction, Albert Ayler is one of the few sui generis figures in the history of jazz. An uncompromising player with only a small following in his lifetime in music, he cut a record in 1968 that initially seemed to satisfy nobody except for (perhaps) Ayler himself. That LP was New Grass, lambasted as a sell-out by those who favored his prior work, while less adventurous listeners weren’t buying. 

I’ve been contributing to this column for over eight years, but until this piece, I haven’t delivered a full review of a record by Albert Ayler, who’s one of my favorite jazzmen, though I have included him in this site’s New In Stores column and in at least one group review. As this omission is remedied, I feel it should be immediately qualified that the term jazzman isn’t necessarily a tidy fit for Ayler’s brilliance.

Albert Ayler was certainly a man whose work falls inside the boundaries of jazz, so calling him a jazzman isn’t in error, but it still might give those unfamiliar with his work the false impression of a figure, sharply decked-out in a classic tailored suit maybe, who excelled at extending, through live gigs and studio sessions, the core tenets of Modern Jazz.

While innovators are surely jazzmen and vice versa, Ayler remains one of the ever-evolving form’s major freedom-seeking iconoclasts. In short, he’s best placed in the avant-jazz category, which means that for long stretches after his death in November 1970 (presumably by suicide, as his body was discovered in the East River of NYC) his music was difficult to obtain. This was especially true at the end of the 1980s, which is when I first learnt of his existence.

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PHOTO: MIKE WHITE | Urge Overkill, the Chicago rock band, isn’t exactly out on the road this summer. But it is celebrating the 30th anniversary of the remastered custom pink-and-purple vinyl reissue of Exit the Dragon, the double album recorded at the height of their success. It was also an album, produced by the Butcher Brothers, that might have signaled the end of the band, or at least the start of a 15-year hiatus until their next release, Rock & Roll Submarine, 16 years later, in 2011.

Band stalwarts Eddie “King” Roeser and Nash Kato got together to talk to us about the project (from New York and Chicago, respectively) to muse on what it all means in an era when rock has been sidelined. The conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Was Exit the Dragon issued on vinyl when it first came out in 1995?

Eddie “King” Roeser: Yes, it did come out on vinyl. At the time, labels were not as interested in that, since vinyl cost a lot more, and this was a double album. We didn’t intend it to be, but once it reaches a certain length, you can’t squish everything into one record without compromising the sound.

That was a bone of contention with the record company, which meant they would have to make it a double record. And we were quite happy about that. But at the time, we had the juice to push it through. At that time, people were transitioning so heavily away from vinyl that you had to have some juice to even get your record out on vinyl. At that time, we did, and once we realized it was going to be a double, we were happy, because we could do our gatefold. Every band dreams of having a gatefold.

Nash Kato: But they wouldn’t give us the gatefold. I think we went to that well one too many times. We got the green light for the vinyl double record, but then we said the album has got to have a gatefold sleeve. And I was disappointed. Because who doesn’t clean their weed on a gatefold album? I used always to clean mine with ZZ Top’s Tres Hombres: you open it up, and there’s that crazy Mexican fiesta.

The colored vinyl is new, right?

Roeser: Yeah, that wasn’t a big thing yet then. So we picked out the pink and purple. The main cover has these pink and purple overtones with the UO ball, so it vaguely corresponds with pink and purple for each record.

Kato: Which was the chromatic theme of the album.

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Celebrating Roger McGuinn on his 84th birthday. —Ed.

So I died and went to Heaven (naturally), and who should I see as I step off that divine airline but The Byrds’ Roger McGuinn, which took me back a bit, as McGuinn is still very much alive. So I said, “Roger, sir, what are you doing here?” and he replied, “God likes my music so much he’s given me a hall pass to come and go as I please.”

So I asked him what the Lord’s favorite Byrds songs are, and he said, “Well, you’d think it would be ‘The Christian Life,’ but he actually doesn’t like that one very much. Says it’s a straightedge bummer. No, the song that always gets him is ‘Wasn’t Born to Follow’ or, if he’s been partaking of the magic mushrooms that are everywhere up here, ‘Eight Miles High.’ Says it can turn the most twisted trip into a Holiday Inn of the Mind.”

So here I am, typing this in between playing chess with Sam Cooke and drinking brandy with Richard Manuel, and basically all I want to say is that The Byrds were a great band, a very great band. Stylistically, they traveled a weird but not unique road from their early days as the Jet Set, from folk rock to psychedelia to pure country to a combination of all of the above, while establishing themselves as the world’s best Dylan interpreters—so that with every new album, you didn’t know what you were going to get, but you knew it would be interesting.

Between the band’s extraordinary harmonies and McGuinn’s guitar tuned to the key of LSD, it was hard to go wrong. And the talent! Between McGuinn (who was calling himself Jim then) and David Crosby and Gram Parsons and Gene Clark and Chris Hillman and Clarence White—all of whom passed through The Byrds at one point or another—they had enough great musicians to fill a whole wall in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

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Some festivals are built around the lineup. Others are built around an idea. Ithaca Reggae Fest belongs firmly in the second category. For someone like me, reggae is always the main attraction. Give me a weekend of roots legends, conscious artists, and Jamaican culture, and I’m happy. But after day one at Ithaca Reggae Fest, it became obvious the music is only one part of what makes this event so special.

Festival director Russ Friedell told me before the weekend that the goal has always been to create something bigger than a concert. Reggae is the heartbeat, but protecting Cayuga Lake, celebrating local culture, welcoming families, promoting wellness, showcasing skateboarding, and bringing together people from every walk of life give the festival its soul.

Stewart Park couldn’t be a more fitting home. Along the southern shore of Cayuga Lake, towering trees throw shade, families spread blankets across the grass, children dance barefoot in front of the stage, and strangers quickly become friends. It’s impossible to spend much time here without feeling exactly what reggae has always tried to create: unity.

One of the day’s first highlights wasn’t even musical. The Gayogo̱hó:nǫʼ Cultural Celebration offered a heartfelt look into the history of the Cayuga Nation, whose ancestral homeland surrounds the park. Through storytelling, traditional dancing, music, and plenty of humor, it reminded everyone that understanding a place begins with understanding the people who first called it home.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Org Music, in partnership with Westbound Records, proudly announces the reissue of Funkadelic’s groundbreaking 1971 masterpiece Maggot Brain, available September 11 on vinyl, CD, SACD (Super Audio CD), cassette, and digital formats. Maggot Brain returns in newly remastered editions cut directly from the analog master tapes.

Led by George Clinton and anchored by Eddie Hazel’s legendary ten-minute title track, Maggot Brain fused psychedelic rock, soul, jazz, and funk into something entirely new—a deeply emotional and radically experimental statement that continues to resonate more than five decades later. Songs like “Can You Get To That,” “Hit It and Quit It,” and “Super Stupid” remain foundational recordings whose influence can still be heard across rock, hip-hop, funk, and beyond.

For this reissue campaign, Maggot Brain was mastered from the original analog tapes by Dave Gardner at DSG Mastering, with tape restoration by Catherine Vericolli. The vinyl editions preserve the warmth, depth, and dynamic intensity of the original recordings while presenting the album with expanded detail and clarity.

The reissue will be available in multiple vinyl configurations, including a widely available standard color edition, multiple exclusive variants available from retail partners, and a deluxe 2xLP 45RPM edition housed in a case-wrapped Stoughton gatefold jacket. CD, SACD (Super Audio CD), cassette, and digital editions will also be available.

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Celebrating Dave Smalley, born on this day in 1949. —Ed.

When it comes to Seventies power pop, you tend to be either a Raspberries person or a Big Star person. Me, I’ve always been a Raspberries guy, if only because they were about as subtle as a brick. Now, Big Star had subtlety and class, but then again, they were so subtle and classy that hardly anybody heard of ‘em until they were long gone. Say what you will about the Raspberries–you could hear their songs on your car radio.

And as a male adolescent of the time, I could actually relate to the Raspberries in a way that I probably wouldn’t have related to the heartbreaking nostalgia of “September Gurls” or “Thirteen” because I was too young to be nostalgic, and all I wanted to do was go all the way, which was just about the only thing Eric Carmen sang about. He was the Dante Alighieri of Teenage Lust and as such gave voice to every shrieking hormone in my adolescent zit suit.

Musically, the Raspberries succeeded on a hybrid sound that was equal parts The Beatles, The Who, and The Beach Boys, with a wee pinch of The Faces thrown in for flavoring. Eric Carmen was a clever synthesist and even better thief with grand ambitions, and the epic sweep of his songs is a million miles away from the more nuanced power pop of Alex Chilton and Company. The Raspberries may have been from Cleveland, but they were a peek into a rock future that the overblown sonic likes of Boston would dominate, and I’m talking about the band, not the town.

Eric, who suffered from delusions of grandeur for sure, aimed for the fences every time out, and he struck out a lot. But when he connected, the result was power pop greatness, and his biggest homers can be found on Raspberries’ Best Featuring Eric Carmen (his hubris is right there in the LP’s title). He didn’t hit that many home runs, it’s true, but that’s one of the best things about this particular album. Some best-of compilations hit the skids cuz the people who put ‘em out pad ‘em with too much weak material, but that isn’t the case with this bare bones, 10-song 1976 best-of from a great band that was so much dust in the wind by the time it came out.

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I recently spoke with Sally Timms, co-lead singer of The Mekons since 1985, the year she stepped into the band on their breakthrough album Fear and Whiskey.

The Mekons formed in Leeds in 1976 under Jon Langford and Tom Greenhalgh and have outlasted nearly every other band to emerge from that same British punk explosion, shapeshifting through country, folk, dub, and art-punk without ever settling into one shape for long. Before joining, Timms recorded the experimental film score Hangahar with Pete Shelley of Buzzcocks in 1980 and fronted the all-female outfit the Shee Hees.

Timms has run a parallel solo career the whole time, moving between lo-fi electronics and alt-country with releases including Someone’s Rocking My Dreamboat, To the Land of Milk and Honey, Cowboy Sally’s Twilight Laments for Lost Buckaroos, and In the World of Him, a record of songs written by men, sung from their perspective. Her song “Horses” was later covered by Will Oldham.

The Mekons are currently touring behind Horror, a new record on Fire Records built around what they’re calling horror-folk, tackling imperial legacies with the same nerve they’ve had since 1976. Catch them in the UK this fall at The Prince Albert in Brighton on October 22 and The Garage in London on October 23. She and Langford also just played Mini-Mekons at Solid Sound Festival, stripped down and acoustic, mining the deep dark Mekonic lake for classics and rarities.

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Remembering Ronnie James Dio, born on this day in 1942. —Ed.

There are 666 things you need to know about Ronnie James Dio.

1. Ronnie is widely credited as having invented the “Sign of the Horns.” Under patent law, you are legally obliged to pay Ronnie 15 cents every time you use it. Per hand.

2. Fact: In 2003, Dio lost part of his thumb to what he called a “killer garden gnome.” Afterward, Ronnie tossed the gnome in the trash, but it kept coming back. “It’s out there,” he would tell friends, peeking out the window. “Waiting. Just waiting.”

3. Ronnie was a big medieval music fan and used to get together with former Rainbow bandmate and fellow medievalist Ritchie Blackmore to play flute, sing madrigals, and contract the Black Plague.

4. In a 1991 poll, kindergartners were asked what historical personage they would least want to see added to the cast of Sesame Street. Ronnie James Dio came in next-to-last, just before Adolf Hitler.

5. Ronnie, who was 5′ 4″, was once quoted as saying, “I always wanted to be a basketball player.” He then added, “Preferably with the Delaware Dwarves.”

6. Dio’s first band was called Elf. The name led to a revolt in the Elven community. Haldir, Elf of Lothlórien, told his troops, “We must crush the man on the Misty Mountain before he joins Black Sabbath and lays waste to the band that bequeathed us “Fairies Wear Boots.”

7. The biggest difference between Dio and his predecessor in Black Sabbath was that Dio didn’t have a serious ant addiction.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Lakeshore Records announces the release of a limited edition 2xLP vinyl version of The Mighty Nein (Prime Original Series Soundtrack), In “gold and cobalt” vinyl with gatefold jacket, full color inner sleeves and liner notes.

Available in stores on August 7, the soundtrack to the fourth campaign of the adult animated fantasy-adventure series based on beloved characters and stories from the world of Critical Role and Titmouse showcases Neal Acree’s vivid electronic score accentuated by pulsing percussion. The series, a production of Amazon MGM Studios, Critical Role, and Titmouse is streaming now on Prime Video.

The Mighty Nein follows a group of fugitives and outcasts, bound by secrets and scars. But when a powerful arcane relic known as “The Beacon” falls into dangerous hands, they must learn to work together to save the realm and stop reality itself from unraveling.

The Mighty Nein is an Amazon MGM Studios, Critical Role, and Titmouse production for Prime Video. The series stars Critical Role founders and cast members Laura Bailey (The Last of Us: Part II), Taliesin Jaffe (World of Warcraft), Ashley Johnson (The Last of Us), Liam O’Brien (Marvel’s Avengers), Matthew Mercer (Baldur’s Gate 3), Marisha Ray (Fallout 76), Sam Riegel (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), and Travis Willingham (Marvel’s Avengers).

The Critical Role cast serves as executive producers alongside Tasha Huo (Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft) who also serves as showrunner, Chris Prynoski (Metalocalypse), Shannon Prynoski (Fairfax), Antonio Canobbio (Star Trek: Lower Decks), and Ben Kalina (Big Mouth).

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Wewantsounds is delighted to continue its Ziad Rahbani reissue program with Ana Moush Kafer, a classic album by the Lebanese legend Ziad Rahbani, recorded at his By-Pass Studio in Beirut during the height of the Lebanese Civil War in 1985.

Showcasing Rahbani’s signature blend of Arabic music infused with touches of jazz-funk and bossa nova, the album has attained cult status over the years. Originally released on cassette, it has never before been available on vinyl. Newly remastered, this edition features the original Relax-In cassette artwork from 1985 and includes new liner notes by Mario Choueiry of the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris.

Ziad Rahbani, who passed away in 2025, remains one of the most influential figures in modern Arabic music and a cultural icon in Lebanon. A musician, composer, pianist, producer, and playwright, he helped modernize Arabic music over five decades. The son of composer Assi Rahbani and singer Fairuz, he shaped her late ’70s–”80s recordings producing Wahdon and Maarifti Feek, while building a major solo career with classics such as Abu Ali and Houdou Nisbi, which have become cult favourites for a new generation of DJs and music lovers.

​Released in 1985 in Lebanon, Ana Moush Kafer stands as one of Rahbani’s key achievements. Recorded at his By-Pass Studio during the Lebanese Civil War, it blends Arabic melodic traditions with jazz-funk, bossa nova and Western arrangements. Originally cassette-only, it became one of his most revered releases.

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