You know what’s harder to find than the ghost of Lord Haw-Haw chatting up Harry Styles in a brawler pub in green and pleasant mugger-happy Croydon? A good British noise rock band. Names get batted about—Fudge Tunnel, Vile Imbeciles, Jockstrap, Wales’ Mandy, Indiana—but none of them sound like noise rock to me. Frankly, they sound like ponces.

But seek, and ye shall find, and there is an authentic noise rock band in the UK, and they hail from Cardiff, Wales. Mclusky (Andy Falkous on vocals and guitar, Jonathan Chapple on bass and vocals, and Matthew Harding on drums) are my idea of a noise rock band, insofar as they sound like the Midwestern bands (Cows, Killdozer, Scratch Acid/the Jesus Lizard and Big Black, although Steve Albini’s drum machine fetish always put me off) that changed my life during noise rock’s Golden Age, which dates from the early eighties to the late nineties, or up the present day if you include Pissed Jeans and Mclusky. Flipper and early No Trend are honorary members.

That’s not very many bands, and the reason is that I’m a noise rock purist. To my way of thinking, a great noise rock band must include the following: 1) a rumbling bass that makes you feel like a claw hammer is removing your tonsils, but in a good way. 2) Impossibly loud guitars that stretch the limits of feedback and bad attitude. 3) Vocalists who are either hilariously foghorn loud lyrics geniuses (Killdozer’s Michael Gerald), criminally insane bugle blasters (Cows’ Shannon Selberg), or not quite as criminally insane live show menaces (the Jesus Lizards’ David Yow).

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We’ve closed TVD’s HQ for our annual summer break. 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 Monday, 8/10.

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Sony Music Vision is proud to announce that Queen Budapest, the first Western stadium rock show to take place behind the Iron Curtain, and the final filmed Queen live performance, will be presented in cinemas and IMAX worldwide beginning October 7 through Trafalgar Releasing.

Queen Budapest will be released to mark the 40th anniversary of this pivotal moment in the band’s history, and the film has been meticulously restored in 4K from the original filmed 35mm footage by Sir Peter Jackson’s Park Road Post Production facility in New Zealand, with newly remixed audio from the original multitrack recordings to deliver the most immersive presentation of the performance to date.

Captured on July 27, 1986, at Budapest’s Népstadion, during the band’s “The Magic Tour,” the concert was a groundbreaking moment, as Queen became the first Western rock band to perform behind the Iron Curtain during a period of profound cultural and political change. In addition to 80,000 tickets selling out, an estimated 45,000 people listened to the group outside, and some fans had travelled from as far away as Russia and Poland to see the concert.

The show was professionally filmed on 35 mm movie film by 17 of Hungary’s best cameramen. The gear employed included 17 cameras and 25 miles of film, which was all that was available in the country, and the Hungarian government approved the entire operation, which was a first for a Communist State.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Soon has been a long time coming. The new album from Scott Fagan has been some 55 years in the making. Its songs, all drawn from the 1971 Broadway rock opera of the same name that Fagan conceived and wrote with songwriting partner Joe Kookoolis, were originally intended as the follow-up to his classic 1968 debut, South Atlantic Blues, but fate intervened.

A radical call-to-arms against the complacency of the modern world, and a tone poem about art, radicalism, commerce, and corruption, the rock opera told an age-old story of an artist forced to make a devil’s bargain between their principles and success. It drew on Fagan’s own experiences in the music industry, and featured him in the lead role, alongside Richard Gere, Barry Bostwick (later the lead in Grease and The Rocky Horror Show), Joe Butler (of Lovin’ Spoonful), Vicki Sue Robinson, and Peter Allen.

The original Broadway production, subject to creative meddling that compromised its creators’ vision, closed the day after its opening. A year later, it was restaged in Los Angeles for a brief two-week run. Then Fagan’s opus was lost to time. The album was shelved, never to be recorded or heard. Until now.

Recorded over seven days in July 2025 at Sam Phillips Recording Service in Memphis, a hallowed studio that has hosted Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, Alex Chilton, and The Cramps among others, the sessions found the now 80-year-old singer-songwriter working with a crack Memphis rhythm section—drummer Terence Clark (Brandi Carlisle, Keith Urban), guitarist Steve Selvidge (The Hold Steady, North Mississippi All Stars) and keyboardist Rick Steff (Cat Power, Dexy’s Midnight Runners, Lucero).

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Celebrating Kenny Burrell on his 95th birthday. —Ed.

In March of 1958 producer and Prestige Records owner Bob Weinstock organized a session with two up-and-comers in a very fertile scene. Kenny Burrell & John Coltrane was the result, pairing one of the most consistent guitarists in Modern Jazz with the now long renowned tenor saxophonist. It took over five years for those recordings to hit the retail racks via the Prestige subsidiary New Jazz, but the contents have been reissued numerous times since, reinforcing the high level of play. 

Kenny Burrell & John Coltrane is certainly a notable album. While Coltrane had played with guitarists before, this set is the only studio album to feature him leading (in this instance, co-leading) a band with that instrument (Wes Montgomery did join Coltrane’s sextet featuring Eric Dolphy for some West Coat live dates in 1961, even playing the Monterey Jazz Festival, but any tapes of those performances have yet to surface).

That this album sat in the vaults for half a decade will understandably lead some to assume it’s a lesser recording, but Weinstock had amassed quite a bit of Coltrane studio material while he had him under contract, sessions methodically issued as the saxophonist’s star continued to rise, often with Coltrane posthumously designated as leader.

To expand a bit, Coltrane and Burrell do play together in a sextet for three tracks on The Cats, a 1957 recording released in ’59. Issued as a leaderless date (sometimes credited to the Prestige All Stars), it sure sounds like it was conceived as a Tommy Flanagan session; the other two tracks feature the pianist in trio with bassist Doug Watkins and drummer Louis Hayes (trumpeter Idrees Sulieman completes the sextet).

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab (MoFi), the leader in high-fidelity audio reissues, is proud to announce the definitive audiophile reissue of Michael Jackson’s 1987 album, Bad.

Marking the fourth chapter in MoFi’s ongoing quest for sonic perfection across the King of Pop’s legendary catalog, this landmark album will be available August 21, 2026, as an UltraDisc One-Step 180g 45RPM 2LP Box Set, strictly limited to 6,000 numbered copies (pre-order HERE). The label will also reissue the album on numbered-edition Hybrid SACD complete with mini-LP-style gatefold packaging.

Sourced from the original masters (Mitsubishi X-80 16-bit/48kHz digital master to analog console to lathe), housed in a deluxe slipcase, and pressed on MoFi vinyl at Fidelity Record Pressing, MoFi’s UltraDisc One-Step box set delivers this 11-times-platinum smash in audiophile quality for the first time. The set notably includes the bonus track “Leave Me Alone,” which was left off original vinyl editions.

Rendered on this reissue with enhanced balance, presence, physicality, imaging, and weight, BAD showcases Jackson’s signature vocals with lifelike detail and dimensions. This collectible set plays with a level of energy, crispness, and smoothness that throws into relief the innovative technology and instrumentation that help provide the foundations for Jackson’s brilliant compositions.

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Strike one up for the funny guys. I think it’s an incontrovertible fact that most people prefer serious bands, bands like U2 and the Police and Nirvana and Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Bands with a wild sense of humor? Most can’t take them seriously, and that’s the kiss of death.

So what are the odds that Minehead’s Getdown Services—the rock/disco/funk duo of Ben Sadler and Josh Law—are being called “Britain’s best band”? And not just by me. By fans, critics, fishmongers, and the pooch that gets played like an electric guitar on the video of “Doggy Dribble.”

Getdown Services have been described as “genre agnostic,” whatever that means. I suspect it means they’re all over the place—the duo has described their sound as “disco and eighties and like seventies infused groove-based music,” as well as classic rock.

One of my favorite Getdown Services moments is their cover of AC/DC’s “Let There Be Rock,” which they recorded double time (with the Bug Club) for the Humm Sessions. You owe it to yourself to gape at the band’s rock and roll savvy.

Ben Sadler on Getdown Services: “You see blokes who seem to have absolutely no dignity or self-worth at all, chucking mushy peas at a load of kids? I think we touch a similar sort of thing.” Josh Law on Getdown Services: “When we started playing live early on, it became quite obvious that this was a thing about us trying to make each other laugh, really.”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Trafalgar Releasing and Rhino Entertainment are proud to announce the return of a beloved annual tradition: the “Grateful Dead Meet-Up At The Movies.”

Screening in select territories worldwide, this year’s highly anticipated event will take place on Saturday, August 8 and Monday, August 10, beginning during “The Days Between,” the annual period honoring the band’s legendary frontman, Jerry Garcia, from August 1 (his birthdate) to August 9 (his passing). Tickets for “Meet-Up At The Movies” are on sale now at MeetUpAtTheMovies.com.

This can’t-miss global cinema event will see Dead Heads around the globe gather to celebrate the complete, historic June 17, 1991 concert from Giants Stadium, featuring Jerry Garcia, Bobby Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, Mickey Hart, and with Bruce Hornsby and Vince Welnick on keys. Opening with a shocking “Eyes Of The World,” the Dead were firing on all cylinders from the opening notes of the show, mixing beloved classics like “Truckin’” and “Uncle John’s Band” with rarities including “Saint Of Circumstance,” “Might As Well,” “New Speedway Boogie,” and “China Doll.”

But the real standout was the recurrence of “Dark Star,” which wove in and out of the setlist, making no less than six distinct appearances and teases during the show. The Dead capped off the spectacular night with a perfect song to send the crowd on its way—The Band’s “The Weight.”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Oh Boy Records—which celebrates its 45th Anniversary in 2026—has announced the October 9th release of Found Dogs, a newly curated John Prine archival release celebrating the 30th anniversary of Prine’s 1995 LP, Lost Dogs & Mixed Blessings.

Assembled from the original recording sessions and demos from the era, Found Dogs collects alternate takes, acoustic solo performances, and five previously unreleased Prine originals, offering listeners an intimate look at his songwriting and studio process during a pivotal era of his career. Initially previewed in April as a limited-edition run of 2000 LPs for Record Store Day, Found Dogs will be widely available physically and digitally on October 9th, a day before what would have been Prine’s 80th birthday on October 10th.

Out today, the single “World Without Love” is accompanied by a lyric video featuring never-before-seen Super 8 film footage of Prine on a family vacation in the early 1970s. An outtake from the Lost Dogs & Mixed Blessings sessions, “World Without Love” is one of five previously unheard, original John Prine songs in the set.

In addition to the release of Found Dogs, Oh Boy Records and the Prine family recently celebrated the release of John Prine: Live at Old Town School of Folk, a collection of 28 tracks captured during his headline performance at Old Town’s annual “Blue Jean Gala” benefit concert and fundraiser in his home city of Chicago, IL.

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