Monthly Archives: July 2018

VIA PRESS RELEASE | MVD Entertainment Group has struck a deal with UK production and sales outfit Moviehouse Entertainment to bring the music-themed documentary Here To Be Heard: The Story Of The Slits to North America.

The documentary thoroughly examines the world’s first all girl punk band formed in London, 1976. As contemporaries of The Clash and The Sex Pistols, the band has been credited with pioneering the musical movement known as “Punky Reggae.” Here To Be Heard tells the complete story of The Slits and the lives of the women involved, from the very beginning to the band’s end in 2010 with the death of lead vocalist Ari Up.

Here To Be Heard features appearances by Viv Albertine (Slits guitarist), Ari Up (Slits vocalist), Palmolive (Slits founder / first drummer), Tessa Pollitt (Slits bass), Bruce Smith (Slits Second / PIL Drummer), Hollie Cook (Slits vocals / keys / percussion), Vivien Goldman (NYU’s Punk Professor), Don Letts (former Slits manager and punk rock documentarian), Dennis Bovell (album producer), Paul Cook (Sex Pistols drummer), Gina Birch (Raincoats bass), Adrien Sherwood (producer / long time friend of the band) and many more. This deluxe DVD package includes previously unseen footage of the band, as well as photographs and newspaper clippings.

Here To Be Heard: The Story Of The Slits is one of Moviehouse Entertainnment’s first in-house productions but is one of many music-related titles handled by the studio since its’ inception in 2001. Other films include Live Forever, New York Doll, Be Here To Love Me: The Story of Townes Van Zandt, Scott Walker: 30 Century Man, and Who Killed Nancy. Moviehouse is also currently working on director Kriv Stenders’ (Red Dog) The Go-Betweens: Right Here.

Sound reads from the archives, all summer long. —Ed.

John Stabb is dead. Anything I add to that is likely to sound trite, so let it just be said Stabb was a hardcore punker with extraordinary gifts and a sweet side, and that on a good night, Stabb and his long-time band Government Issue could blow the doors off anybody, fellow DC stalwarts Minor Threat and Fugazi included. I only met Stabb—who succumbed to stomach cancer at the young age of 54—once, to interview him for The Vinyl District, but he was kind and charismatic and very funny, and it’s a damn shame the man and his band never achieved the acclaim they so richly deserved.

From the 1981 “Legless Bull” EP, a seminal slab of in-and-out, slash and burn harDCore if there ever was one, Government Issue proceeded to go through a mind-boggling series of personnel changes as they evolved musically from hardcore to a more complex sound, one that combined elements of metal, Goth rock (Stabb loved The Damned), new wave, and psychedelia, none of which endeared them to the dyed-in-the-wool mosh pit monkeys who wanted GI to sing “Asshole” until the day they died. And even as a harDCore band, Government Issue failed to play by the rules. Stabb went in for flamboyant stage attire and demonstrated an actual sense of humor, both of which ruffled feathers in DC’s deadly serious hardcore scene.

As Stabb, the self-proclaimed “Clown Prince of Punk” told me, “My goal was always to shake people up and also just to confuse the punk rockers.” He added, “We started out doing the hardcore thing… and people thought we were this super hardcore band that was angry and frustrated with the world, but we always had a sense of humor, compared to SOA with Henry Garfield and Ian [MacKaye of Minor Threat] and all these other people. They were really, really angry bands. And we wanted to mix the anger with humor.” Which opinion coincided with mine at the time, and was the reason I gave a lot of hardcore bands a pass.

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“I started collecting vinyl when I was in the 9th grade. There was a record shop called Poobah in Pasadena that only sold vinyl. Me and my friends would go there every weekend and walk out with like 4 records for 10 bucks.”

“Listening to an album on vinyl is an event. It’s a commitment. The ritual of pulling the record from its sleeve, setting it on the table, lifting the needle and setting it down, hearing that comforting crackle. I’d lay down on the floor, close my eyes, and import the dark sarcasm of the Dead Kennedys, the stonsey punk of the Meices, the controlled chaos of Sonic Youth, right into my suburban bedroom.

Back when I was in high school the vinyl renaissance hadn’t happened yet so we bought our record players at the Salvation Army because it was the only place you could find them. Mine was a piece of shit, but it didn’t matter. Watching that big piece of plastic turn and hearing the music come out of the speakers was magic. It seemed both primitive and the pinnacle of technology.

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Gwenifer Raymond plays guitar, banjo, and even a little fiddle on her full-length debut, the assured and at times enthralling You Never Were Much of a Dancer. Although the Cardiff, Wales native and current Brighton, England resident has considerable formative experience in punk bands, the album is a solo instrumental showcase that highlights her interest in acoustic blues, Appalachian folk, and the eternal allure of the American Primitive guitar. It’s a well-established framework, but Raymond enlivens it with faultless playing and more importantly, elements of personal style. As refreshing as it is fully formed, it’s out now through Tompkins Square.

The story is that when Gwenifer Raymond was eight years old, her mother gave her a cassette of Nirvana’s Nevermind; as one might imagine, the gesture had a pronounced effect, and it wasn’t long before that My First Sony tape deck and headphones were augmented with a guitar. Jump forward a bit, and Raymond’s teenaged years found her in the role of guitarist or drummer in punk outfits.

Having a galvanizing musical experience and then diving into adolescent band activity is common enough. Raymond’s subsequent branching-out isn’t unusual either, as across the decades countless folks have expanded their musical diets beyond the realms of rock. Furthermore, that she wholeheartedly dove into expressing herself through a blues-folk-American Primitive template isn’t especially rare; what is striking is her assurance of technique and the range of mood on what’s essentially her debut release.

There was a Record Store Day 7-inch earlier this year and a digital EP in 2015; one song from the vinyl and the entirety of the EP (these in different versions, some with adjusted titles) recur here. Of course, playing guitar from age eight can’t but help in the strengthening of ability, but young players often strain against the limits of their talent, in large part because they have something to prove. There’s none of that here. I’ve no idea when she took up the banjo in earnest, but Raymond’s expressiveness on that instrument is no less impressive.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | 12th July 2018 marks the 60th Anniversary of the first Quarrymen (John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison) recordings, the starting pistol for the most important revolution in music in the 20th Century! The centre of these celebrations is an exhibition on 26th August entitled The Percy Phillips Studio Collection, which is part of the International Beatle Week giving fans the chance to experience first-hand a unique part of Liverpool’s history with the earliest recordings of The Beatles which has been overlooked for far too long.

A mock-up of the original studio will house some historic memorabilia and previously unseen (and unheard!) artefacts, and will be attended by musicians and celebrities, all to be announced in due course. For the first time, a vinyl and CD release featuring 70 tracks recorded at Percy Phillips Studio will be available to buy, signed by Percy’s grandson and featuring many tracks which have never before been made available, including rare Quarrymen material. This is an event not to be missed by Beatles fans, music fans, and those with an interest in Liverpool’s diverse cultural history.

Founded by Percy Phillips in 1955 in a small terraced house in the Kensington area of Liverpool, Phillips Sound Recording Service was the first of its kind in the city recording and cutting discs. It was here that Percy owned a record shop and created the first recording studio in Liverpool, achieving a number of firsts in the process—including cutting the first disc for The Quarrymen on 12th July 1958, John, Paul, and George later to form The Beatles.

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Blues rock avatars Canned Heat are best remembered by some for their long-windedness; the double-album-side, 41-minute version of “Refried Boogie” on 1968’s Living the Blues is a landmark in conspicuous boogie bloat. They’re best remembered by others for the so bad it’s funny jacket (looks like a Vincent Price B-movie horror movie poster!) of Living the Blues’ predecessor, 1968’s Boogie with Canned Heat.

As for me, I’ll always remember them best for Ann Magnuson’s hilarious take on the late and very hefty Bob Hite in Bongwater classic “Chicken Pussy”: “There’s a king-sized mattress in the middle of the room/Where me and the big fat lead singer from Canned Heat/Finish up an afternoon of incredibly hot sex/Boy does he have a big one.”

But you know what? Despite everything I said above about Canned Heat–which took its name from the canned heating fuel popular amongst America’s “I’m so desperate I’ll drink anything, even if it kills me” hobo set–does have a big one. They’ve got a whopper.

Unfortunately, Canned Heat tends to get overlooked amid the American blues and boogie rock throng of the late sixties and early seventies, probably because they were a homely bunch and lacked the flash and panache of such contemporaries as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and the Allman Brothers. That said, at their best, vocalist Bob “Bear” Hite, Alan “Blind Owl” Wilson (guitar, vocals, harmonica), Harry Vestine (guitar) and Company cooked like Sterno, and went down a hell of a lot easier.

If Canned Heat had a fault, it was in the songwriting department. The band put out a series of solid but not great Post-Summer of Love LPs, the best of them being 1970’s Future Blues. Which is where the humble The Best of Canned Heat comes in. Sure, it’s the sort of thing your serious vinyl collector turns her persnickety nose up at. The packaging is cheesy, you only get 10 songs so forget about your deep cuts, and have I mentioned the cheesy packaging? But if you’re unfamiliar with Canned Heat and you’re looking for an introduction, this boogified slice of refried vinyl is a good place to start.

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We’ve closed up the shop for the Fourth of July holiday. While we’re away, why not fire up our free 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 on Monday, 7/9.