Monthly Archives: April 2019

VIA PRESS RELEASE | This May UMe/Island celebrates Traffic’s influential legacy with this stunning limited-edition Island Records studio collection. Traffic’s first ever vinyl box set is available to pre-order here.

Inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, Traffic came to prominence in the late 1960s with a distinctive sound which quickly earned them U.K. Top Ten hits in the shape of “Paper Sun” and “Hole In My Shoe” before releasing their first album, Mr. Fantasy in December 1967. Formed earlier that year, Traffic comprised vocalist/organist Steve Winwood (still only 18 years old at the time); drummer/singer Jim Capaldi; singer/guitarist Dave Mason, and reed player Chris Wood. Alongside contemporaries like Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Traffic set about shifting the boundaries of rock music, experimenting with sound and incorporating elements of blues, soul and jazz to create their own unique oeuvre. A key part of their story is their retreat to a communal stone cottage in Berkshire, where they took inspiration from their natural surroundings and worked without distraction, writing and rehearsing the material for the first two albums, Mr. Fantasy and Traffic (1968).

Always revolving around the three core members, Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, and Chris Wood, Traffic had as few as three and as many as seven members between the years 1967 to 1974 but despite all the personnel changes and shifts, they remained a force to be reckoned with until deciding to split in 1974, having given their final performance on August 31st and releasing their last album, When the Eagle Flies.

Boasting all six studio albums recorded for the Island Records, the LPs have been remastered from the original tapes and presented in their original and highly collectable ‘first’ Island pressing form (gatefold sleeves, pink eye labels etc). The set also includes a related and super rare facsimile promo poster for each album.

“I own a small collection of records…”

“David Bowie – Young Americans, Otis Redding – The Soul Album, Live Aid Concert Record, Jamie xx – In Colour, Beach Boys – Endless Summer, Chaka Khan – I Feel For You, James Taylor – Gorilla, Carole King – Fantasy, Donna Summer – Bad Girls to name a few.

I grew up listening to great music—most of it my dad’s favorite records (some of my mom’s too). I heard The Rolling Stones, Queen, Beach Boys, Carole King, James Taylor, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Phish, Simon & Garfunkel, The Beatles, Don Henley, Earth Wind & Fire, Billy Joel and more in the car or at home.

My parents tell me that before I spoke, I sang—The Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” to be specific. We had driven to a family dinner and my parents must have played it on the way there, because on the way back I started singing the song, melody, and some of the lyrics. I was 2.

I’m 23. I grew up in the age of CDs, and then iTunes, not vinyl. In the Chicago suburb where I grew up until age 13, I used to visit a local store called CD City and look at/ pick out my generation’s vinyl. My dad tells me he had a large collection of vinyl, which my mom gave away after several years of them sitting in the basement. Needless to say, he was not happy!

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So if this Hobbit Trilogy of a ditty ain’t the greatest epic in the history of rock’n’roll, what is? It contains multitudes! Encompasses whole mythopoeic civilizations of stargazing shrub worshippers! And oh, it’s got three sections each of which is a wheel, which means it ain’t a stairway, it’s a tricycle! And if you hop aboard said tricycle it’ll ride you straight to heaven, which will save you from having to take the stairs!

“Stairway to Heaven” is both an architectural folly and the fullest and most baroque realization of the rock’n’roll dream–if Chuck Berry’s songs are street-ready hot rods, “Stairway”’s the fucking Sistine Chapel set down on the chassis of an Oldsmobile 442.

Written in part at the band’s Welsh hideaway Bron-Yr-Aur in 1970 following Led Zeppelin’s fifth American tour and in part at recording sessions at Headley Grange, Hampshire, “Stairway to Heaven” is–to employ yet another metaphor–a majestic and ever-widening river, one fed in turns by the tributaries of Renaissance music, English folk, heavy metal, and progressive rock.

“Stairway to Heaven” was famously never released as a single, but two U.S. promotional discs were issued in very small numbers, so collectors start your engines. Of course FM radio played the shit out of it anyway–I’m talking to the tune of an estimated 2,874,000 times by 1991, which if you were to listen to all 2,874,000 radio plays back to back would take you 44 YEARS! So start listening!

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | A new vinyl edition of The La’s much-acclaimed archival collection, BBC In Session, is set for release on coloured vinyl on 31 May.

Originally issued on CD in September 2006, BBC In Session is only now making its debut on wax as a limited edition, numbered coloured LP, which will be housed in a gatefold sleeve. BBC In Session includes the seminal Liverpool band’s session appearances on radio shows hosted by Janice Long, Liz Kershaw, Bob Harris, and Nicky Campbell. The sessions span a Janice Long session on 2 September, 1987 – captured shortly after the release of the band’s debut single, ‘Way Out’ – and a session for Bob Harris from October 1990, which coincided with the release of The La’s lone, self-titled studio album.

Originally formed by guitar and vocal songwriting duo Mike Badger and Lee Mavers in 1984, The La’s coalesced around Lee Mavers after Badger’s departure late in 1986. The band was frequently tipped for major success and were an influence on the Britpop bands of the 1990s, with Oasis’ Noel Gallagher later saying “We kind of wanted to finish what The La’s started.”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | California, 1991. All his life, people have told Jeff Buckley how much he looks like his father, the famous ’60s folksinger he barely knew. But Jeff believes he has gifts of his own: a rare, octave-spanning voice and a songwriting genius that has only started to show itself. After he falls in love with a mysterious girl in New York, he sets out to make a name for himself outside his father’s shadow. What follows are six turbulent years of music, heartbreak, hope, and daring – culminating in a tragedy that’s still reverberating in the music world today.

Written by Tiffanie DeBartolo, with art by Pascal Dizin and Lisa Reist, this graphic novel tells the heartfelt journey of Buckley – his rise from Sin-é and worldwide acclaim, to his settling in Memphis and accidental death – beautifully illustrated in a warm tone, to highlight his gracious personality juxtaposed with his horrific early end. “This story is more than just a story about Jeff’s life,” DeBartolo explains. “It’s also a story about the impact his extraordinary talent and his eternal spirit has on everyone who discovers his timeless music.” The biography uses archival material provided by Jeff’s mother, Mary Guibert, to reveal the young songwriter in the process of becoming a legend.

Tiffanie DeBartolo is the author of How to Kill a Rock Star (2005) and God-Shaped Hole (2002) and the writer and director of the Columbia Tristar movie Dream for an Insomniac (1996). She is the cofounder and CEO of San Francisco Bay Area record label Bright Antenna Records and lives in California’s Marin County with her two Irish wolfhounds, Kazoo and Dipsea, and her husband, Scott Schumaker. As a passionate music fan, DeBartolo became obsessed with Jeff’s music after reading a Chris Cornell interview, where he discussed his biggest influences. She began to feel Jeff everywhere and in everything, and couldn’t shake the heartbreaking fact that he had lived and died before she’d ever known he’d existed.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Unobstructed View and MVD Entertainment Group are pleased to announce the release of Lords Of Chaos on Blu-ray / DVD combo and DVD on May 28th in the US and May 21st in Canada.

It’s a thrilling coming of age horror/drama, weaving together rock’n’roll, youth, love, and death through an incredibly dark story. Renowned Swedish director Jonas Åkerlund (Polar) brings his notorious visual aesthetic to the film, alongside ground-breaking performances from Rory Culkin (Succession, Signs, You Can Count On Me) and Emory Cohen (The Place Beyond the Pines, Brooklyn). Inspired by a true story, Lords Of Chaos made its debut at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival before going on to impress audiences at Fantastic Fest, Beyond Fest, Fantasia Festival, and more…

Oslo, 1987: Seventeen-year-old Euronymous (Rory Culkin) is determined to escape his idyllic Scandinavian hometown and create “true Norwegian black metal” with his band, MAYHEM. He’s joined by equally fanatical youths – Dead (Jack Kilmer) and Varg (Emory Cohen). Believing that they’re on the cusp of a musical revolution, the group gets even darker, driven by the black metal dogma to spread evil.

They begin burning down churches throughout the countryside and stealing tombstones for their record store. But when the press catches up with them and Euronymous takes more credit than he’s earned for the group’s violent acts, Varg, fresh out of jail, arranges a dark encounter to settle the score and ultimately determine who the darkest black metal musician is…

The Blu-ray / DVD combo contains the unrated version of the film (118 min) and bonus features (11 directors teasers and trailers). The single DVD includes the rated version (116 min) and no bonus features.

All this week we’re celebrating the 2019 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductees with a look back from within our hall of fame archives.
—Ed.

Talk about your sweet essence of unicorn–Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks was THEE gossamer High Priestess of Pop from the mid-1970s until the late 1980s, a white-winged dove and New Age sex symbol whose smoky, country rock-tinged vocals and gauzy, fantasy-themed ensembles inspired crystal visions in a whole generation of adolescents, both male and female.

Nicks established herself as a beguiling striker of mystical poses and magnetic personality of the sort that birds of exotic stripe like to perch on for reasons even they don’t fully comprehend. Just ask the cockatoo on the cover of Nick’s 1981 solo debut Bella Donna how he got there. He won’t be able to tell you. Stevie has always been big on magic, and on Bella Donna she pulled off a conjuring trick that proved she could alchemize vinyl into platinum without the help of her Fleetwood Mac bandmates. And the bewitching one did it while dating the odious Don Henley. Had Stevie REALLY wanted to show off her sorceress’s skills she’d have turned her one-time beau from an Eagle into a Sri Lankan Frogmouth, but I digress.

But Bella Donna isn’t really magic; Nicks put it together the old-fashioned way, by writing a bunch of rock solid songs that may have sounded middle of the road to the critics, punk rockers, and New Wavers of the time but have withstood the test of time. In short, Nicks employed good old-fashioned popcraft, and added her trademark mystical sheen to the results. Call Bella Donna aural valium if you want, but haven’t your ears ever wanted to curl up into little balls of undifferentiated tissue and just relax?

Not surprisingly, smoky pop songs predominate. The country rock tunes come as more of a surprise. “After the Glitter Fades” has such a “Rhinestone Cowboy” vibe to it Glen Campbell saw fit to cover it, and for good reason; it’s pure El Lay Country Glam right down to Nicks’ “Well I never thought I’d make it here in Hollywood.” And Nicks drapes country lament “The Highwayman” in fairy lights with a lot of witchy “Haute Couture & Western” lyrics along the lines of “Her horse is like a dragonfly/She is just a fool.” I can hear Hank Williams Jr. singing the song but I sure as hell can’t hear him singing the words, if you know what I mean.

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Montreal young blood James Parm is a highly gifted singer-songwriter with a penchant for experimentation. His work feels both novel and bold, sounding vaguely familiar, yet clearly standing apart from contemporary indie rock.

The Vinyl District is pleased to premiere his newest single, “Re Arrange,” from the superlative debut LP, Oh My Darling, which arrives in stores this Friday. It’s a tastefully crafted track with the kind of lilting melody that brings to mind OK Computer-era Radiohead and latter-day Elliott Smith.

As the song cycles through its formalities and reaches the third verse, an odd wave of pink noise begins to engulf the singer, and before we know it the melodic framework has completely retooled itself into a string-laden mellotron sound collage that feels akin to Jon Brion composing the soundtrack to The Shining.

It goes without saying that “Re Arrange” is more than just a play on words. It’s a wily musical gem that satiates both the need for melodic certainty and the desire to be challenged by something completely new.