Monthly Archives: April 2018

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Cheap Trick fans positively inhaled our first batch of rarities, so we’re back with 16 more lost tracks from Rockford, Illinois’ finest! Except this time, Ken Sharp’s notes feature track-by-track commentary from Bun E.
Carlos, Tom Petersson, and Rick Nielsen…this collection is a deep dive into the Cheap Trick hive mind!

So let’s jump in… first up are three tracks taken from the 1980 EP “Found All the Parts,” including a live version of The Beatles’ “Day Tripper” with an instrumental nod to The Yardbirds’ “Shapes of Things.” Then comes the single “Oh Boy,” followed by the demo of “Loser,” which was recorded in 1980 but was written by Nielsen way back in 1976, all CD debuts.

Two live tracks, “The House Is Rockin’ (with Domestic Problems)” and “Way of the World,” from a New Year’s Eve 1979 show at the L.A. Forum raise the temperature, then comes the George Martin-produced single versions of “World’s Greatest Lover” and “Everything Works If You Let It.”

Two tracks, “Reach Out” and “I Must Be Dreamin’,” from the Heavy Metal soundtrack and the title song from the Spring Break soundtrack cover the Cheap Trick silver screen legacy, while the demo version of the classic “If You Want My Love” premieres on CD. The “Super New Dance Re-Mix” of “Saturday at Midnight” and “Short Version” of “Dancing the Night Away” also appear on CD for the first time, as does the last track, the b-side “Get Ready.”

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Power Pop fans, the long wait is over! The Los Angeles mid-seventies post glam, pre-punk, power-pop band The Quick are set to re-issue their 1976 Mercury Records debut Mondo Deco as an expanded edition on June 1 from Real Gone Music. This will be the first time the album has ever been released on CD.

Mondo Deco’s original 10 tracks were produced by Kim Fowley and Earle Mankey (original Sparks guitarist and also engineer) at the Beach Boys’ Brother Studios. The Expanded Edition is now a jam-packed 21 tracks and features those tracks newly remastered by Bill Inglot plus an additional 10 demos (which got them signed to Mercury Records) and an unreleased bonus track. The package also includes a track-by-track commentary by band member Danny Benair, extensive liner notes by The Quick fan-club President (and Frontier Records head honcho Lisa Fancher), a new essay on the bands legacy and never-before-seen archival photos.

“We are really thrilled to be releasing The Quick’s debut album as an expanded edition,” said Gordon Anderson, Co-President of Real Gone Music. “It’s just hard to believe it took this long to be reissued before this as it’s such a key album in L.A. rock history. There is a unique mixture of glam, power pop, and punk…add to that the illustrious achievements of the various band members and Mondo Deco really is the missing link in the evolution of Southern California rock and roll.”

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The history of rock’n’roll is littered with great scams and practical jokes that took on a life of their own; I give you Klaatu (they’re really The Beatles!) and the great 1969 tour of America by The Zombies (two separate bands toured the States at the same time, and neither was the real Zombies, who had broken up). And of course there are Self Portrait and Metal Machine Music, both of which stand as great practical jokes regardless of their makers’ true intentions.

But the grandaddy of all rock’n’roll swindles is the 1969 “bootleg” The Masked Marauders, which supposedly documents a top-secret supersession involving John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney and other notables held at a top-secret location near Hudson Bay, Canada, which was supposedly produced by (it only figures) Mr. Supersessions himself, Al Kooper.

The whole affair started innocently enough with a practical joke of a record review concocted by Rolling Stone scribe Greil Marcus, but soon took on the dimensions of a conspiracy straight out of the mind of Thomas Pynchon. Writing under the pseudonym of T.M. Christian (swiped from Terry Southern’s The Magic Christian), Marcus penned a review of the nonexistent bootleg in which he extolled its myriad virtues, which included Dylan “displaying his new deep bass voice” on a cover of “Duke of Earl” and an eighteen-minute version of “Season of the Witch” on which Bobby “does a superb imitation of early Donovan.” The same song, gushed Marcus, “is highlighted by an amazing jam between bass and piano, both played by Paul McCartney.”

The sham might have ended there, but fate had other plans. An excited public wanted to know where it could find The Masked Marauders, and an emboldened Marcus (along with Rolling Stone editor Langdon Winner) went the next mile by sending San Francisco’s Cleanliness and Godliness Skiffle Band into the studio to record a few singles from the imaginary album including the aforementioned “Duke of Earl,” the Stones parody “I Can’t Get No Nookie,” and the Nashville Skyline parody “Cow Pie.”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Nineties hell-raising rock’n’rollers Thee Hypnotics announce the release of Righteously Recharged, a colored, heavyweight vinyl anthology, including rare and unreleased material, due out June 8th via Beggars Arkive. They’ve also reformed for live UK dates happening now, including a sold-out London show on April 13th.

Righteously Recharged will feature four LPs including Thee Hypnotics’ acclaimed debut album Come Down Heavy (on violet colored vinyl), the swamp-rock follow-up Soul, Glitter & Sin (on red coloured vinyl) and their Chris Robinson, Black Crowes produced third album The Very Special Speed Machine (which never saw a UK release and will be on clear vinyl), along with a fourth disc, called In A Trance on white vinyl, with their very first single “Love In A Different Vein” plus early demos and Peel Sessions.

The set also contains in-depth liner notes by journalist Julian Marszalek, featuring interviews with the band and a savvy look at the band’s rip-roaring career, featuring outrageous tales of rock’n’roll excess and exhilaration.

Taking their cues from the Detroit militancy of The MC5, the corrupting output of The Stooges and the gospel according to The Cramps, Thee Hypnotics’ devastating brand of rock’n’roll was propelled by near punishing decibel levels and a fervor bordering on the evangelical.

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Among the riches of Record Store Day 2018 is the first time release of the album Johnny Mathis recorded in 1982, written and produced by Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards of Chic. Though some of its tracks first came out last year on the boxed set The Voices of Romance: The Columbia Original Album Collection, this will be the first time the almost experimental I Love My Lady will be released as a standalone album, pressed on clear smoke vinyl. “That was just stuff that was happening at the moment and I’m glad I did it,” Mathis, 82, said in an interview with TVD. “It was a learning process, though. It was like: tell me what to do and I’ll try to do it.”.

It was a little weird for him, the smooth singing balladeer whose first hits came more than 60 years ago, teaming up with the duo who were behind big hits from Diana Ross and Sister Sledge, as well as their own indelible funk sound that provided the basis for hip-hop hits (and for Daft Punk’s last album). “It was a completely different process, as far as my making the recording,” says Mathis. “I got in there and they were writing the songs as I was singing. And along the way, they would say, ‘Oh, that sounds nice, let’s go with that a little more,’ and they’d write a melody or something. But it was mostly rhythmical, kind of words, not so much melody. But it was fun.”

Mathis says remaining open to new avenues is something he did throughout his career. “I started studying at a very early age with a voice teacher, but I also went to church and I heard church music. I also had classes in school listening to classical music, so I was just jumping in anywhere I was thrown,” he says. “With Bernard and Nile, it was fun. They were really, really enthusiastic. Of course, they were in a different genre of music than I was. But they were to me the first people who opened my eyes to the fact that just because you sing one kind of music doesn’t mean that people who do other kinds of music aren’t listening to you. So when I got an opportunity to work with them, I was thrilled.”

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Amongst the steady flow of contemporary post-punk, Chicago’s Ganser register a few cuts above the average. As evidenced on their new full-length, they offer coherent yet multidimensional muscularity that’s rooted in but not beholden to the tradition informing their work. The playing is dynamic, the shared vocals are complimentary and engaging, and the whole thing seems likely to go down a storm from the bandstand. Odd Talk is out April 20 on milky clear or black vinyl, cassette, and digital through No Trend Records.

Ganser is Alicia Gaines on bass and vocals, Nadia Garofalo on keyboards and vocals, Charlie Landsman on guitar, and Brian Cundiff on drums. Unlike numerous outfits who jampack their bios with loads of portraiture (and hey, there’s nothing wrong with that), Ganser seems to prefer letting their music do the talking, a tendency that jives interestingly with the disc’s stated theme of “communication breakdown.”

The band aren’t mysterious, however; along with clarity over who plays which instrument, it’s not exactly a secret that Ganser came together in 2014 and the following year announced their presence with a sturdy digital single. In 2016 the 3-song “Audrey” cassette EP maintained the quality as it underscored post-punk toughness that’s rightly considered goth-edged but without leaving the lingering impression of being covered in cobwebs or half-whacked on belladonna.

A second digital single emerged shortly thereafter, its A-side “Pyrrhic Victory” continuing down the dark post-punk avenue as the flip “Sunk” dove into noisier territory that, largely through beaucoup guitar racket, affirmed the positive influence of No Wave and Sonic Youth; thus far, it stands as the gem of their discography.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Big Gold Dream: Scottish Post-Punk and Infiltrating the Mainstream dusts off old vinyl sleeves and record players to rewind back to 1977 – mid-1980s to celebrate the incredible and vital epoch of Scotland’s post-punk and indie music scene by two small, short-lived labels, FAST Product and Postcard Records.

Director Grant McPhee returns with feature-length music documentary, Big Gold Dream distributed in the US by TriCoast Entertainment and CEO’s Strathford Hamilton and Marcy Levitas Hamilton. Big Gold Dream credited producer Wendy Griffin alongside co-producers, Innes Reekie, Erik Sandberg, and Angela Slaven.

Often overlooked and forgotten, Big Gold Dream preserves Scotland’s lost music gems and their legacy by highlighting FAST Product and Postcard Records essential role in shaping the post-punk and Independent music scene. Postcard Records and FAST Product were initially influential in shaping UK’s music scene with their eclectic rosters (musicians that didn’t guarantee instant revenue or even a full crowd).

Big Gold Dream captures the labels’ revolutionary roles in the ‘70s punk movement to ‘80s pop music, creating Scotland’s launch pad for little known bands like Scars, Orange Juice, Dead Kennedys, The Human League, Josef K, and early Joy Division, to be pushed out into America mainstream, eventually creating a name for themselves and going down in music history.

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“I got a record player for my birthday one year, but I only had a limited amount of money to start buying. So, rather than just buy one or two records I was more tempted to get my hands on as many different sounds as I could. I left the store with an armful of records by Van Morrison, Phoebe Snow, Rickie Lee Jones, The Animals, Dennis Wilson, Steely Dan, and Pink Floyd. I’ll never forget that first moment of being in a record shop and about to dive down the rabbit hole of music and never return! I suppose the vinyl record that has stuck with me the most from that shopping spree is Luxury Liner by Emmylou Harris.”

“Compared to people who I know who have massive vinyl collections, I wouldn’t necessarily say that I am a hard core ‘quantity’ collector. But I do have a decent collection, and every record that I own has a great meaning to me. That is the probably the biggest reason why I wanted to release my EP on vinyl as a limited edition vinyl pressing. You can really achieve such a great sound for the music by listening to it on vinyl. Especially with recordings, such as mine, that were recorded live to tape (Studer A820 24-track) at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios in the UK, which in itself… is a deep rabbit hole of recording gear that I won’t even get into!

As I delved deeper into my own songwriting, I found it a lot more interesting to continue on with my vinyl collection as a way to discover older records. This was before music became digitized and other than the local vinyl/CD shop or the public library, it was hard to catch on to great music. Buying old or new vinyl really opened up new possibilities for finding an artist that I hadn’t encountered before. Jackson Browne was someone who I found at the record shop and his single “Doctor My Eyes” was something that I gravitated to without knowing why. I have probably listened to that song over 1,000 times on vinyl.

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