Monthly Archives: November 2016

I’m listening to Kansas. My shrink gave me explicit directions not to do this. But what does he know? He’s the same fool who tells me I’m sane, hah! As for me, I say, “Pop prog from America’s wheat belt, what could possibly go wrong?” Why, I’m listening to 1976’s Leftoverture as I write this, and–Gak! Erk! Blagh! What Lovecraftian horror is this? Quick, Thorazine! Shock treatment! Gag and glumph, I should have listened to my shrink! I’m vomiting poisonous toads! And giant black death buzzards are hurling themselves against my glass patio door! Oh, I know they’re an appalling hallucination brought on by Kansas poisoning, but still! Their shrieks sound real enough! Must turn off! Must (review ends here; writer vanished, and has yet to be found).

Three days later: Okay, so I’m back. And perhaps I overreacted. Kansas may carry the horrid prog virus, but its music isn’t as infectious as that of its compatriots across the pond. And Kansas did, much to its credit, write Thee Definitive Eschatological Dirge in the great “Dust in the Wind,” something you can’t say about Grand Funk Railroad or Jackson Browne or the Velvet Underground even.

And frequently Kansas actually rocks, instead of slavishly aping that geriatric classical sound, the way Emerson, Lake & Palmer were wont to do. Why, the big guitar riff in “Carry on My Wayward Son” off Leftoverture is deserving of kudos, and it’s not until the hackneyed Icarus allusions that the song threatens to go downhill. But instead the band launches into a hard rock jam featuring a vicious guitar wrapped around a muscular organ. And if that’s not enough, vocalist Steve Walsh tosses off the truly profound lines, “And if I claim to be a wise man/Well, it surely means that I don’t know.”

Read More »

Straddling the fence between jam session and no-fuss recording date, Sunday Morning Revival by the Schwartz-Fox Blues Crusade features major figures from the fledgling late ’60s Cleveland rock scene including three members of The James Gang and harmonica maestro Bill “Mr. Stress” Miller. The first release in Smog Veil Records’ Platters du Cuyahoga Series 2, this archival recording (once thought lost) is loaded with covers tackled with a combination of studiousness and verve; destined to bring a smile to the face of Butterfield and Musselwhite fans far and wide while deepening the already rich history of its municipality, it’s out now on LP, CD, and digital.

Smog Veil’s Platters Du Cuyahoga Series 1 illuminated a wide array of Cleveland underground nooks, specifically post-Electric Eels-style punk racket with a freedom jones (Albert Ayler’s Ghosts Live at the Yellow Ghetto by X__X), glam-tinged avant-pop (French Pictures in London (1975) by the Robert Bensick Band), and post-Butterfield harmonica-driven blues-rock (Live at the Brick Cottage 1972 – 1973 by the Mr. Stress Blues Band).

Series 2 appears to be an equally broad affair, though it begins by burrowing deeper into the city’s blues-rock backstory and adding another chapter to the tale of the late Bill “Mr. Stress” Miller; Sunday Morning Revival finds the singer, bandleader, and mouth harp specialist in a loose conglomeration of likeminded upstarts. There’s keyboardist Mike Sands (Mr. Stress Blues Band), guitarist Glenn Schwartz, drummer Jimmy Fox, and bassist Tom Kriss (all from The James Gang), and guitarist Rich Kriss (Chuck Bates & The Barons and The Joyful Wisdom).

Today the impulse of white guys playing the blues is often oversimplified as mere cultural appropriation, but Nick Blakey’s outstanding footnoted liner booklet for this set does a fine job of complicating this scenario by describing the friction between the ’60s establishment and the sustained tide of nonconformity. One way of articulating opprobrium with the prevailing norms was that of d.a. levy, the jailed Cleveland poet whose work served as posthumous inspiration for Sonic Youth’s NYC Ghosts & Flowers.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | “This first critical appreciation of T Bone Burnett reveals how the proponent of Americana music and producer of the cream of the crop of artists has profoundly influenced American music and culture.

“Renowned as a studio maven with a Midas touch, Burnett is known for lifting artists to their greatest heights, as he did with Raising Sand, the multiple Grammy Award–winning album by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, as well as acclaimed albums by Los Lobos, the Wallflowers, B. B. King, and Elvis Costello. Burnett virtually invented “Americana” with his hugely successful roots-based soundtrack for the Coen Brothers film, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, which went on to sell 8 million albums. Outspoken in his contempt for the entertainment industry, Burnett has nevertheless received many of its highest honors, including Grammy Awards and an Academy Award.

Lloyd Sachs offers the first critical appreciation of Burnett’s wide-ranging contributions to American music, his passionate advocacy for analog sound, and the striking contradictions that define his maverick artistry. Lloyd Sachs highlights all the important aspects of Burnett’s musical pursuits, from his early days as a member of Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue and his collaboration with the playwright Sam Shepard to the music he recently composed for the TV shows Nashville and True Detective and his production of the all-star album Lost on the River: The New Basement Tapes.

Read More »

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.

We don’t throw the term “legend” around too much, but today it’s very appropriate—Keith Morris, founder and former lead singer of Black Flag, Circle Jerks, and OFF! joins us to talk about his career, his music, his life, his unique perspective, and of course his record collection.

We go deep on this one and share information on Keith’s new autobiography My Damage, a fascinating read through his life and the early days of punk rock. Plus a short record-nerd tutorial on Black Flag and SST’s first record, “Nervous Breakdown”—early pressings fetch several hundred dollars. Today we share what you need to know to spot one.

Anybody desiring a hearty serving of topnotch country music shouldn’t dally in snatching up Omnivore Recordings’ 2CD Buck Owens and the Buckaroos retrospective The Complete Capitol Singles: 1957-1966; out on December 9, it’s a bountiful but easily digestible dive into the birth and growth of the innovative and enduring Bakersfield sound. Those needing another helping need not fret, for a week later Omnivore spills the spotlight onto key Buckaroo Don Rich via the rewarding 18-track collection Guitar Pickin’ Man.

The career of Alvis Edgar “Buck” Owens, Jr. remains one of the essential developments in the history of country music; primarily remembered today for a still impressive string of chart hits and as the co-host of the TV show Hee Haw from 1969-’86, he wasn’t an immediate success. Often described as a prime dissenter during the reign of countrypolitan, Owens’ embracing of the honky-tonk style and pioneering of the Bakersfield sound (alongside Merle Haggard, who came later) occurred only after his initial 45s for Capitol stiffed.

Active as a musician as far back as the mid-’40s, somewhere in the middle of the following decade Owens made his recording debut for the Pep label. The resulting sides include the pretty cool rockabilly one-off “Hot Dog” b/w “Rhythm and Booze” issued under the pseudonym Corky Jones, but the rest finds him largely in honky-tonk mode and with a detectable debt to Hank Williams.

Due in part to extensive session work in Hollywood for Capitol, Owens landed a contract with the label at roughly the same time that country music was establishing its mainstream; his debut for the company reflects this trend, lacking fiddle and steel guitar while adding the backing voices that were soon to become a defining countrypolitan trait. To be fair, “Come Back,” the rockabilly-ish “Sweet Thing” and their respective flips are decent enough tunes, but they’re not what anybody thinks off when they think of Buck Owens.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | “A Fat Wreck: The Punk-u-mentary, the music documentary film about the influential California punk label Fat Wreck Chords is out today on iTunes, Amazon Video, Google Play, Vimeo On Demand, and Blu-ray/DVD via The Orchard and Something Kreative.”

“A Fat Wreck is a successfully crowdfunded music documentary that premiered at Dallas International Film Festival. It is the first to feature puppet reenactments and was produced by open-ended films and directed by first-time director Shaun M. Colón. Film Synopsis: Fat Wreck Chords… The influential music label proud to say they’ve spent the past 25 years “ruining punk rock.” A Fat Wreck tells the story of founders Fat Mike (of the legendary punk band NOFX) and his ex-wife Erin Kelly-Burkett, spanning the birth, growth, struggles, and survival of the Fat Wreck Chords label.

Half inspirational story of chosen family and community, half debauchery and occasionally involuntary drug use… A Fat Wreck blazes exciting new ground in the cinematic genre of puppet-driven punk rock music documentary filmmaking. If you only see one film featuring a dominatrix spanking a puppet in your lifetime… Make it A Fat Wreck!

Read More »

“There were stacks of vinyl in my youth, mostly well-known, critically acclaimed classics, but I don’t need to go there because, number one, I did not purchase these hand me downs, and number two, they were acquired well before I knew I wanted to make music of my own. I hope you’re willing to read about an artist you may have never heard of. He unofficially refers to himself as an “author unknown,” but his name is Jason Falkner and the inspiring album I purchased was Can You Still Feel?.“

“My brother showed me Jason’s first album, appropriately titled Author Unknown, and told me that he was one of the original members of the band Jellyfish, which we were pretty obsessed with for their likeness of The Beatles, Queen, Beach Boys, and Supertramp. Why anyone would exit a band as special as Jellyfish is a question that made checking out Jason a necessity. A few songs in, it was clear that his solo thing was way too awesome to not devote all of his time and energy. Whatever the case was, focusing on his own music was the right move.

His debut was a masterpiece in my opinion, so by the time this second record Can You Still Feel was released, I needed to have it right away, and I needed the vinyl. The artwork was cool as hell—Jason dressed in leather, sitting in an outdated airplane with orange interior, being served a drink by a sexy/ghostly flight attendant. I loved this album before I even played it.

The opening line “Take a chance with me…” had me on the edge of my seat, and this new mixture of raw ‘in the room’ sounds along with a signature scapey vibe, courtesy of producer Nigel Godrich (Radiohead, Travis) made this album different yet still very much Jason doing what he does best—which is everything. He plays ALL the instruments on his records extremely well. His witty lyrics, catchy song melodies, and guitar hooks made this another fully satisfying journey.

Read More »