Monthly Archives: October 2018

I’ll be the first to admit I sold Lady Gaga short when she detonated like a hyper-sexualized glitter bomb on the pop scene with her 2008 debut LP The Fame. Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta sounded like a brazen Madonna copycat to me, and if there’s one thing I can’t abide it’s a cheap Lower East Side Madonna knock-off. Ms. Ciccone and I go back too far.

Ah, but then her Gaganess sat down for an interview with Vanity Fair, and said an astounding and wonderful thing. Namely, “I have this weird thing that if I sleep with someone they’re going to take my creativity from me through my vagina.”

I mean, wow. Those words hit me like a diamond bullet smack in the third eye. Because NOBODY who says crazy shit like that can be written off as fake goods. No, I knew right then and there that Lady Gaga was a stone American original, and deserving of the kind of same degree of unwavering respect as the Dali Lama, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and Kanye “This hat makes me feel like Superman!” West.

Why, I haven’t heard such naked honesty since Little Richard said, “The only thing I like better than a big penis is a bigger penis.” And with her refreshing candidness in mind I promptly sat down to listen to Lady Gaga with new ears.

Read More »

Featuring Jon Schlesinger on banjo and guitar, Michael Kiefer on drums, and a dude named Steubs on mandolin, guitar, and electronics, More Klementines are far from a typical excursion into rock-rooted improvisation (if standard examples of the form do indeed exist). The self-assessment of the music as a “sort of Appalachian Krautrock” reinforces this, as does the trio’s use of non-standard instrumentation; along with guitar and drums, there’s banjo and mandolin. The results jazzed the participants, and it should also gas lovers of improv, psychedelia, and yes indeed, even roots mavens who like to take it “out.” It’s available October 19 as a co-release from Twin Lakes and Feeding Tube Records.

In its commingling of abstraction and intensity, a lot of hardcore improvisation can strike listeners who’ve thus far subsided on a musical diet of recognizable patterns and progressions (in a nutshell, form) as an arduous experience. After soaking up this eponymous offering of two side-long untitled tracks by the Connecticut-based More Klementines, I feel confident in declaring it a suitable point of entry for the improv-curious as it’s simultaneously poised to offer satisfaction to fans of the heavy-duty stuff.

This is in part because the players are no strangers to free-rock endeavors. Kiefer runs Twin Lakes, a label that’s activity might register as modestly underground, that is, until ya’ stumble upon Michael Beach’s Golden Theft, which stands as one of the best, and most slept-upon, riffs-and-songs rock records of this decade, but he’s also the drum half of the free-rock duo Rivener, whose releases on Twin Lakes have brought pleasure to many ears with a predilection for rock expansiveness.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | 2018 marks the 30th Anniversary of the release of Almost Acoustic, the out of print 1988 live classic from The Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band. In honor of this milestone Almost Acoustic will receive a special limited-edition reissue for Record Store Day 2018 on November 23rd. The album will be made available on CD and as a double LP on 180-gram vinyl for the first time. The vinyl package will include two green and black marbled LPs with individually numbered foil-stamped gatefold jackets. Only 5000 copies of this limited-edition run will be available.

Recorded in 1987 at The Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles and the Warfield Theatre in San Francisco, Almost Acoustic features Garcia (guitar & vocals) performing with some of his closest pre-Dead friends and collaborators from the early 1960’s – Sandy Rothman (mandolin, dobro & vocals) and David Nelson (guitar & vocals). Joining in were Kenny Kosek (fiddle) and long-time Jerry Garcia Band alums John Kahn (upright bass) and David Kemper (snare drum). Songs include influential folk traditionals, such as “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” “Blue Yodel #9,” and “Diamond Joe.” The album also highlights songs that were consistently woven in and out of Garcia’s career as both a solo artist and with the Grateful Dead, including “Deep Elem Blues,” “Oh, The Wind And Rain,” and the Garcia/Hunter classic, “Ripple.”

Much of 2017 and 2018 saw the year-long celebration of Jerry Garcia’s 75th birthday, which culminated with the release of the historic and critically acclaimed boxed set Before The Dead. The 4-CD/limited-edition 5-LP collection shed a new light on the earliest period in Garcia’s journey starting as a young, raw and developing multi-instrumentalist coming of age during the early 1960s folk-revival, to becoming one of the most revered and groundbreaking artists of the rock ‘n’ roll era. By the time The Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band formed, Garcia had become a master of his instrument. Recorded and released during the apex of the Grateful Dead’s popularity, Almost Acoustic features the artist coming full circle by going back to his acoustic roots where it all began.

“The first vinyl record I ever bought was The Velvet Underground & Nico—I don’t think it gets more cliché than that. I was 14, and in boarding school in Monterey, CA. I started making monthly visits to the record store downtown and each month picked out a record—sometimes just based off whether or not the album art gripped me. I miss that process of uncertainty.”

“I remember bringing the album home and it made my empty, undecorated dorm room feel full. Having the actual vinyl with you forced you to stare at the artwork and listen to the music at the same time. Today that audio-visual experience is replaced by a Spotify banner photo—usually a self-obsessed band photo (not that there isn’t any merit to that). It’s just a different experience. It’s less tangible. You don’t live through the ritual of sitting on the seat of a bus going home and gripping onto the texture of vinyl itself.

Earth Wind and Fire, Parliament, and Kool and The Gang have some of my favorite album artwork, but you wouldn’t be able to cherish it with the small window that streaming platforms provide you to view artwork. The ’70s took album art to a whole new level. There was such detail and such storytelling in the artwork itself—almost like a comic designed to propel you into the music, or at least provide a focus for your mind. Also, the layouts of some of these records were incredible. The best vinyl record in terms of layout that I own I think would have to be Black Moses by Isaac Hayes—the whole thing unfolds into a 5-foot, cross-shaped photo of Isaac at the edge of lake in robes with his arms spread out like a prophet.

Read More »

Distinguished for co-founding Throwing Muses, Kristin Hersh’s 21st century musical thrust has been dominated by the trio 50FootWave, and even more so her increased solo activity; six of the ten albums released under her own name have emerged post-2000. Recurring and ambitious, as Hersh’s prior set presented what seemed a hard act to follow. Rather than fall victim to the pitfalls of the repetitive (or the willful avoidance thereof), the noted self-multi-tracker just rounded up some frequent playing partners (including her son Wyatt) and tore into ten fresh ones. If it lacks the breadth and heft of her last, Possible Dust Clouds is tidy, tough and strong, and it’s out now through Fire Records.

Kristin Hersh’s previous full-length, 2016’s Wyatt at the Coyote Palace, combined two CDs with a hardback book featuring lyrics, notes, essays, and photographs (released through the music-related book publisher Omnibus Press), though a standalone 2LP version came out the following year (offered by Athens, GA’s Happy Happy Birthday to Me). In either iteration it connected as a major career statement. What it wasn’t was any kind of return to form.

It wasn’t even Hersh’s first music-book combo; that would be Crooked from 2010 (and regarding standalone tomes, she has more than a couple). Wyatt at the Coyote Palace did shape up as a highly personal statement that cemented the artist’s creative longevity as both remarkably consistent and persistently urgent (scenarios that have proved elusive for a significant portion of her Alternative-era contemporaries). And after time spent, it additionally registered as a hard act to follow.

The success of Possible Dust Clouds comes through adjustments in scale and delivery that are no stretch for Hersh. Therefore, they feel natural. Specifically, there’s a focus on a smaller trad-album length batch of songs, something she’s done more often than not in Throwing Muses and 50FootWave, as she opens up the recording process to additional players, an operating procedure (it should go without saying) of which she’s no stranger, though Hersh was in fact the only contributing musician on Crooked and Wyatt at the Coyote Palace.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | On October 12, Craft Recordings re-released iconic folk singer Joan Baez’s self-titled debut album both on vinyl and digitally. Recorded in the summer of 1960, Joan Baez’s first record introduced the world to the pure and soaring soprano of a then-19-year-old folk singer, who had recently come to prominence after the 1959 Newport Folk Festival.

Armed with just her voice, two guitars (the second guitar being played by Fred Hellerman of The Weavers) and two microphones, Baez injected new life into a series of traditional songs that she had chosen and arranged herself. In doing so, she placed herself at the forefront of the folk music revival that would take over America. The album landed at #15 on the Billboard 200 and spent 140 weeks on the chart. Arguably one of the most historically and culturally important American popular albums of the 20th century, Joan’s self-titled debut album was inducted into the Grammy® Hall of Fame in 2011 by the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences and selected to be preserved in the National Recording Registry in 2015 by the Library of Congress.

This all-analog vinyl reissue–cut from the original stereo tapes by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio and pressed and plated at RTI–will be housed in a Stoughton Old Style tip-on jacket. There will be a Barnes & Noble exclusive red vinyl (limited to 750 copies), and MFiT and hi-res digital releases available for the first time.

Read More »