Monthly Archives: June 2016

Presently based in Nashville, Free Pizza is a lightheartedly shambling trio deft at chiseling fresh chips off the old punk block. Their debut brandished quirk that bordered on the arty, but for their new EP they’ve honed the approach to offer increased melodicism combined with a sunshiny and at times almost laid back sensibility; if not quite as winning as what came before the results remain refreshingly unhindered by the generic. “Berlin, DE” is out now on vinyl through BUFU Records.

Free Pizza possess a fairly eventful background for such a young band. Founders Jesus Vio and Santiago Cardenas were born in South America but raised in Miami. Collaborators in art and music since high school days, their current outfit was formed after the pair moved up north to Boston for the purpose of attending art school.

Grabbing Rick Rasmussen on drums, Boston, MA was their first album, its ten songs in nineteen minutes co-issued by Beantown labels BUFU and Feeding Tube in an edition of 300 copies; unsurprisingly, it sold out rather promptly. Cited as DIY cohorts of MA units the Happy Jawbone Family Band, Quilt, and Guerilla Toss, Free Pizza lit out for a tour of Europe and upon returning settled down in Nashville. The name of this EP references its contents being written during a stay in the storied German city.

Admittedly from many listener’s perspectives punk rock has long run its course. However, for those of us who feel the genre is just getting warmed up Boston, MA landed rather sweetly; at some moments it brought early Meat Puppets to mind (“Freedom Pizza,” “Forward”), and at another kind came off like a strapping young Ian MacKaye following Henry out west and joining a combo on the Happy Squid roster (“Porty”).

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Lord, it’s hard to tell people how you feel, what’s going on, the tides pushing and pulling.

Time was when a mixtape was that bridge, or the spin of a well-intentioned record eliciting its own waltz about a candlelit room with the object of one’s adoration.

It’s an emotional world, it is. Thus, offered without comment, TVD HQ’s recurring fuel for your fires and mixtapes. Reading between the lines—encouraged.

“I was flitting from job to job when I wrote this song, and I felt kind of stuck. I think I just needed to reset my situation, and this song was the first step for me to do that. I quit all the jobs I was working, took all of the money I saved, and made this record. I think sometimes people get so entrenched in their current situation, that they fail to realize they can change things anytime they want. It’s just taking that first step that’s tough, and once you do it, the rest is easy.”
—Colton Kayser

Today we have the pleasure of premiering Colton Kayser’s newest single “Save My Soul” from his upcoming LP Place To Settle. The single’s nostalgic, worn out blues is beautifully captured by the swirling B3 organ and pristine vocal which walks along some well plotted guitar chords.

The themes of “hometown burnout” are treated with a compassionate sense of self-reliance, avoiding the venomous, no-accountability diatribes that Dylan imbues his kiss-offs with. And it is here where Kayser separates himself from the current pack of alt country troubadours—avoiding a put-on self-importance by adding a genuine sweetness and likability to his contemporary songwriting.

Place To Settle is out July 30th and can be pre-ordered through his website.

The Vinyl Guide is a weekly podcast for fans and collectors of vinyl records. Each week is an audio-documentary on your favourite records, often including interviews with band members and people who were part of the project.

It’s hosted by Nate Goyer, a self-described vinyl maniac who enjoys listening to records and sharing the stories behind them. Despite his Yankee accent, Nate lives in Sydney, Australia with his wife, 2 kids, and about 1,500 records. (But only about 1,000 of them his wife knows about.)

The Vinyl Guide takes records one by one, telling the tale of how they came to be, why the work is important, and then shares how collectors can tell one pressing from another. Learn more at the TheVinylGuide.com or simply subscribe via iTunes or RSS feed.

PART ONE | This week we’re in glorious Melbourne, Australia connecting with some of the best record shops of the city! We visit Heartland Records in North Melbourne to hear the history of one of Melbourne’s great rock record shops, and then to Northside Records, the soul, jazz, and afrobeat center in the suburb of Fitzroy where we learn about some new music and how to cratedig in Africa!

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Brigid Mae Power is a Galway Ireland-based singer-songwriter skilled on guitar, baritone ukulele, piano, accordion, and harmonium; active since the early part of this decade, her new album and first for the Tompkins Square label is poised to considerably expand her profile. Combining instrumental proficiency with an attractive and sturdy voice, the self-titled platter’s strongest attribute is emotional intensity that bypasses the conventional without ever misplacing its sense of control; as the halfway point of 2016 nears, its eight songs form one of the year’s finer releases. The LP, CD, and digital editions are available now.

Brigid Mae Power is of Irish descent but was born in London and didn’t move to Galway until she was twelve years old. These facts nicely underpin the nature of her latest effort as Tompkins Square introduces Power’s work to the vinyl format; Irishness is certainly tangible but ultimately plays a nuanced role in what makes her new disc so remarkable.

Although sure to increase her listenership, this is not her debut. A handful of items, some issued under the name Brigid Power-Ryce, are currently obtainable on Bandcamp, the offerings spanning back to 2011’s “Ode to an Embryo,” a five song guitar and vocals-centered affair recorded in an underground car park in Galway; those desiring a taste of her potential as an Irish folk songstress should definitely investigate the echo-laden a cappella reading of the trad “She Moved Through the Fair” that closes the EP.

2012 brought two versions of the standard “My Lagan Love,” one matching her voice with accordion and the other with harmonium played by frequent collaborator Declan Kelly. “Eee Tuts” emerged the following year, its five songs recorded at home (with a sole exception) and centered around a fantastic version of “The Auld Tringle.”

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Lord, it’s hard to tell people how you feel, what’s going on, the tides pushing and pulling.

Time was when a mixtape was that bridge, or the spin of a well-intentioned record eliciting its own waltz about a candlelit room with the object of one’s adoration.

It’s an emotional world, it is. Thus, offered without comment, TVD HQ’s recurring fuel for your fires and mixtapes. Reading between the lines—encouraged—with a sweet, sweet normalcy.

“In 1966 I was a seventh grader at Southern California Military Academy. Recently uprooted from the mid-west, I was living the lonely existence of a latch-key kid in a two room house when someone turned me on to KGFJ AM1230, ‘The Voice of the Black Community.’ This was like a window into an unknown galaxy! James Brown! What is that? My life was transformed forever”

“It wasn’t long before I discovered the local black record store, a little hole-in-the-wall called Jesse’s Records on Gaffey Street in San Pedro. The owner was a tall skinny old black man with a big tumor on his neck. Who knows what he thought of this little white kid in military school khakis asking for 45s by The Meters, or Barbara Acklin, or Ike and Tina Turner?

See, I’d get on the bus in the morning with my portable radio, (a really cool one) pressed to my ear and hear all the new songs. Seemed like James Brown had a new single out every week; “Popcorn,” “Mother Popcorn,” “Let a Man Come In and do the Popcorn.”

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Well I’ll be damned. The last time I spoke with Punky Meadows at his tanning salon in the Washington, D.C. suburbs, the legendary pretty boy guitarist for the long-defunct “Anti-Kiss” Angel told me he had no interest in returning to the rock stage, and was solely listening to, and playing his guitar along with, country music. But over the intervening years Meadows must have changed his mind, for he has just released his first-ever solo album, Fallen Angel, on Main Man Records.

Interviewing the famously androgynous Meadows, whose hair was invariably perfect and whose pout could beat Ben Stiller’s “Blue Steel” hands down, was an enjoyable experience, largely because Angel—which released six LPs during its career, which ended in 1981—was one of the most histrionic and inadvertently hilarious bands to ever mount a stage. All-white outfits, a giant head with laser beam eyes for a backdrop, Angel and its label Casablanca Records spared no expense in putting on a glamtastic hard rock show. The boys even appeared on stage amidst smoke via lifts under the stage floor, which once led to a real-life Spinal Tap moment when a band member’s lift refused to work. As he cried for help the band milled around on stage, uncertain of what to do. You’ve got to love them for that.

You’ve also got to love Punky for his good humor—when Frank Zappa produced a song called “Punky’s Whips,” which was anything but laudatory, Meadows gladly agreed to appear with Zappa on stage in his outrageous Angel outfit, to play the very song that mocked him. He could’ve held a grudge, but didn’t because as I can attest having spent time with the man, he’s a nice guy.

Anyway, new album, wow. Didn’t see that one coming from a guy who hasn’t played since 1981, and whose attitude towards the music biz was best demonstrated by the fact that after the demise of Angel he turned down offers to join not only The New York Dolls, but KISS, Aerosmith, and Michael Bolton to boot.

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