Monthly Archives: August 2020

VIA PRESS RELEASE | “The feeling I get when I write—the sense that time is simultaneously expanding and disappearing—that I’m simultaneously more me and also free of me—is the main reason I wanted to put my thoughts on songwriting down in book form to share with everyone so inclined.” —Jeff Tweedy

​Jeff Tweedy announces his inspiring new book, How To Write One Song, out October 13th via Dutton, and available for pre-order now. It’s the follow-up to Tweedy’s bestselling 2019 memoir, Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back), which was widely praised as an illuminating, moving “uniquely raw rock autobiography” (Rolling Stone). In How To Write One Song, Tweedy has created a candid and fascinating primer on the art form he knows best, revealing both the behind-the-scenes process, and the joy he gets from making something new, as few artists have.

The book is conversational and thoughtful—throughout, he offers actionable and practical tips on overcoming self-defeating dialog, building a creative habit, language techniques to get out of a writing comfort zone, easy recording methods, and so much more. He even goes through the exercises himself and shares how those techniques, along with his persistent creative schedule, have helped him write songs that listeners can fall in love with—songs that feel like they’re capable of loving back.

So, why one song? Because the difference between one song and many songs isn’t a cute semantic trick—it’s an important distinction that can simplify a notoriously confusing art form. By setting a goal of creating just one song from the ground up, the songwriting project becomes a focused, self-contained event, the mystery and fear subsides, and songwriting becomes an exciting pursuit. Tweedy upends the idea that songwriters and writers need to be suffering artists or constantly inspired. Instead, he focuses on the importance of digging deep and finding beauty even when we don’t have the time or the confidence in our ability to do so, and even if what we’re creating is only for ourselves.

Morrissey has long been the funniest man in the rock biz. The King of the Miserablists (my own word) and high priest of unrequited love has turned self-pity and general anomie into pop gold, and in the process has proven Samuel Beckett’s famous adage that “Nothing is funnier than unhappiness.” But the Moz is more than just a jilted jester. He can hit the tragic notes too, although he often filters them through irony and his trademark humor.

Since his beginnings with The Smiths, Morrissey has cut a unique figure on the pop landscape. Fey, sensitive as a flower, yet possessed of a wit as cutting as a straight razor, Morrissey is the closest we’ve ever gotten to a second coming of Oscar Wilde. He strikes one as being much too tender a violet for this world, yet can vent contempt as well as Bob Dylan. Throw in a unique voice, and a personal life that is veiled in myth and conjecture, and you’ve got my idea of the perfect pop figure—one who looks at life darkly, but transmutes that darkness into irresistible pop songs. Really, is there—or has there ever been?—another pop star who could pull off a song as complex, ironic, and ultimately hilarious as “Girlfriend in a Coma”?

I’m one of those rare birds who, all things considered, slightly favors Morrissey’s solo work to his work with The Smiths. That said, I’ve always felt the pull of Strangeways, Here We Come, from its title with its mention of a now-defunct English prison to such moving songs as “Death of a Disco Dancer” and “Paint a Vulgar Picture.” Strangeways was the fourth and final Smiths studio LP, with Morrissey and Marr parting ways after some false information in the press giving the impression that Morrissey was exasperated by Marr’s side projects managed to sever their remarkably successful partnership.

The Smiths hailed from Manchester in 1982 and included Morrissey on vocals; Johnny Marr on guitar, keyboards, harmonica, autoharp, synthesized strings, and saxophone arrangements; Andy Rourke on bass; and Mike Joyce on drums. Marr wrote the music, Morrissey the lyrics, just like Elton John and Bernie Taupin.

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Do yourself a solid and take a moment to dip into the rich audiovisual world of WaxFeet.

The Minneapolis-based chillhop duo create lush sonic grooves that sit somewhere between J Dilla and Ta-ku. This is easy riding, high flying electronica, marinated in neoclassical melodies and lo-fi hip hop grooves. WaxFeet is a word derived from surf terminology, which is fitting seeing as the band specializes in liquid flow electronica that is intended to act as a de-stressing agent.

Reflecting on their process, the duo assert, “We often ask ourselves: to chill, or not to chill? There is enough commotion in life without jacking up brain waves further. We are driven to write music that heals. Without words.”

As you might’ve noticed, there’s a massive amount of releases on deck for the first rescheduled date of Record Store Day 2020. A few labels have multiple items coming out on August 29, so it makes sense to spotlight them early in an attempt to expand the coverage in the approaching weeks. And so, here’s the five offerings from Jackpot Records of Portland, OR, which includes a 45 from Ted Cassidy and LPs by Martin Denny, The Wild Tchoupitoulas and The Wipers. The soundtrack to Dune, featuring strange bedfellows Toto and Brian Eno, is in there, too. Let’s get down to business…

Ted Cassidy, better known as Lurch, the Frankenstein-like manservant with the deep voice and the “You rang?” catchphrase on the 1960s macabre-themed sitcom The Addams Family, cut a novelty single in 1965, which Capitol released with a picture sleeve (because who’d want a 45 by Lurch without a pic sleeve?). “The Lurch” b/w “Wesley” is half of a suitable Halloween spinner, the a-side penned by Gary Paxton of The Hollywood Argyles, they of “Alley Oop” fame. He was also the man responsible for “The Monster Mash.”

Now, rather than just being a “pure” novelty tune, “The Lurch” does emit the familiar odor of cash-in, but it’s still enjoyably goofy in how it manages to get a tight grip on the shirttails of burgeoning youth culture and specifically, the dance craze impulse. Apparently, Cassidy appeared as Lurch on the Halloween episode of Shindig shortly after the record’s release, teaching those in the studio and at home the new dance, which was surely helpful, as lyrically, the instruction is to simply…lurch.

Quick-buck scenarios like this one increase in value by moving from goofy into the realms of the often unintentionally twisted, but “The Lurch” doesn’t quite get there, though it presents a rather schizophrenic contrast to the flip, which is a pop-country number (not a steel guitar or fiddle in the mix, but backing singers, oh yes) where Cassidy gives a spoken narration in his normal voice rather than singing (well, for accuracy’s sake he does sing a little towards the end). Altogether, far from amazing, but as said, definitely appropriate for an All Hallows’ Eve DJ set.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Celebrating 40 years in independent broadcasting, Radio Woodstock (100.1 WDST licensed to Woodstock, New York) commemorates the Woodstock Music Festival of 1969 with a salute to the live concert experience: “The Greatest Festival of All Time,” an August weekend special of curated live performances.

​Radio Woodstock asked station Supporters to submit their favorite concerts to include in the weekend’s line-up. With its eclectic music mix powered by listener support, Radio Woodstock has emerged as one of the most uniquely curated and influential radio stations in the world today. Radio Woodstock cranks up the volume to the sounds of such memorable live show sets as: Jimi Hendrix Monterey 1967, Rolling Stones at the Garden 1969, The Allman Brothers at The Fillmore 1970, Bob Marley London 1975, U2 at Red Rocks 1983, Nirvana in NYC 1994, and Brandi Carlile 2012 Seattle. “The Greatest Festival of All Time,” goes live on Friday, August 16 at 5pm – Sunday, August 18 at 7pm. Tune in 100.1 or listen online at radiowoodstock.com.

Radio Woodstock’s Director of Programming Greg Gattine says, “As we celebrate our 40th anniversary in 2020 we decided to put together the Greatest Festival Ever. A one of a kind virtual live experience from our vast archive. Although we won’t be able to celebrate together we can remember the times we stood shoulder to shoulder at some of the greatest concerts of all time and relive that experience for a few days in the middle of August in upstate New York.”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | In 1985 Johnny Thunders went into the studio in London, to record his third and final solo album. He gathered friends Mike Monroe, Patti Palladin, John Perry, Wilko Johnson, Henri-Paul Tortosa, Nasty Suicide, JC Carroll, Stiv Bators, Glen Matlock and others, and the resulting album was christened Que Sera, Sera.

It wasn’t all plain sailing—with Johnny it rarely was. Johnny had spent the previous two years in relative stability. He’d been gigging around the world, and between tours he was filming in France. Life was a series of nice apartments and hotels shared with his constant companions—his girlfriend Susanne and his manager Christopher. Now circumstances meant he had neither. Without a new release, touring slowed, and his high-maintenance lifestyle led him to seek friend favors for somewhere to live. The major labels that Christopher hoped would provide financial support hadn’t materialized.

In a row with Susanne, she complained that Johnny had never written a song for her. Johnny obliged, and along with new songs from his live set, he recorded “I Only Wrote This Song for You.” Before the album was finished, as soon as he had a rough monitor mix of the song, he flew to Sweden to attempt a reconciliation.

Those remaining at the studio were left to put the pieces together. Patti Palladin oversaw the mixing with the engineer, and found there wasn’t really enough for an album. Patti added “Tie Me Up” from the b-side of her Crawfish project, and “Blame It On Mom” was found from an earlier session. The title-track was actually an afterthought; recorded as a single 16 months later.

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“I had this roommate in college, and we were both crazy about music. I’m from Miami and this dude was from the cornfields of Illinois, so we had a lot to talk about and learn in terms of genres, albums, ect. Mind you, this was before streaming music so the only way to learn about music was either Napster, word of mouth, or lots of research and time spent at record stores.”

“He drove home one summer and when he came back, he brought back his small collection. He also happened to bring his dad’s MASSIVE collection of records. The first thing we did was go to the thrift store and picked up an old record player. We were hooked. There may have been about 100-200 records in there and we literally listened to every single one of them. (Remember having that much time in your hands?!)

I fell in love with the process, the sounds, the cracklings, and mostly in love with the fact that a lot of albums never made it to CD so there were so many gems that you could only listen to on vinyl. The whole time we lived together we basically just had his collection and I took full advantage of that.

Fast forward a year or so later and we moved to Jax Beach, FL and one morning while checking the surf there was this little pop up garage sale of sorts in the parking lot and we got there at the end of the event. There was this older gentleman who was disappointed with the fact that he didn’t get rid of any of his records and he didn’t want to take that box back home. I started looking through it and to my surprise there was gold in there: Gregory Isaacs, Allman Bros, Neil Young, Taj Mahal, to name a few. He ended up selling me the entire box of 50 or so records for $20! I immediately was hooked, and the search for records has continued ever since.

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The first release on Portraits GRM, issued in association with Editions Mego, has a lot of history behind it. First, it is a new initiative of the long-running INA GRM, or the Groupe de Recherches Musicales as part of France’s National Audiovisual Institute. This takes us back to the mid-20th entury in connection to the burgeoning avant-garde scene of the era. Flashing us forward a few decades, the innovations of GRM heavily impacted composer Jim O’Rourke as a young man. Jumping ahead to 2019, an older and accomplished O’Rourke completed Shutting Down Here as commissioned by INA GRM. In 2020, the resulting 35-minute piece is released in North America on August 14 on vinyl and digital.

Portraits GRM describes Shutting Down Here as symbolically spanning a 30-year period, this timeframe demarking O’Rourke’s two visits to the GRM, first as a budding artist and second as an experienced, indeed storied, creator. Absorbing this knowledge helps to transform O’Rourke’s piece, which is the first in a new series (titling the label) which focuses on contemporary experimental works; SPGRM 002 also releases on August 14, a split LP featuring Metabolist Meter (Foster, Cottin, Caetani, and a Fly) by Max Eilbacher and Forma by Lucy Railton (more on this release in TVD’s August 13th New in Stores).

The transformation of which I speak carries Shutting Down Here from a simple commission into the realms of reflective appreciation. It’s not overstating matters to call it a gesture of subtle hommage on the part of O’Rourke (but also so much more than that), partly because Portraits GRM is intended to be a contempo extension to the earlier GRM collection of recordings.

The GRM’s prior output was released in an earlier series/ label, Recollection GRM, also in connection with Editions Mego, that began in 2012 and ran right up to this year, featuring recordings by GRM founder Pierre Schaeffer, Bernard Parmegiani, Luc Ferrari, François Bayle, Beatriz Ferreyra, Michel Redolfi, and Iannis Xenakis. To date, Recollection GRM has issued 23 discs, and a stated intention of Portraits GRM is to reignite the spark of invention found in the earlier series and also the Prospective 21e Siècle line of recordings from the Philips label.

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Nicole Atkins’ new album, Italian Ice is assured—it’s a portrait of an artist who is becoming an expert at finding her vision and rallying the troops around her to help bring it to fruition. But there is also a tenderness, a vulnerability, a maternal instinct to care for those around her and keep the keel even. This isn’t Nicole’s first visit to The Vinyl District, she has appeared on—not one—but two episodes of TVD’s In-Store with… record shopping segments.

Italian Ice was recorded at the famed Muscle Shoals Sound Studio and comes on with the thickest pop grooves you’d ever want to experience. On side two the signal fades and the dial mysteriously drifts into distant stations you may not normally tune in: oldies, retro radio, swing, seasick ballads, and psychedelic torch songs. Stop controlling everything, let Nicole be the captain on this voyage.

Nicole isn’t wasting her time during pandemic days, she’s gathered much of her band in her parent’s NJ home so they can quarantine together and produce a weekly program for Amazon Music called Live From the Steel Porch. It’s a musical variety show with special guests that’s just right for these times.

Evan Toth is a songwriter, professional musician, educator, radio host, avid record collector and hi-fi aficionado. Toth hosts and produces The Sharp Notes each Saturday evening at 6pm and TVD Radar on Sundays at 5AM on WFDU, 89.1 FM. Follow him at the usual social media places and visit his website.

VIA PRESS RELEASE | From Craft Recordings is a special 25th anniversary reissue of Collective Soul’s acclaimed self-titled, sophomore album (available on CD and streaming platforms), featuring six bonus tracks, plus liner notes from music journalist Jeff Slate with new insights from the band’s frontman and guiding creative force, Ed Roland.

​Coinciding with the deluxe reissue is the release of two vinyl reissues from the renowned rock band, including: Collective Soul in its original form on vinyl for the very first time and for their 1993 debut album, Hints, Allegations and Things Left Unsaid, marking the titles first wide vinyl release since it was available as a limited-edition Record Store Day exclusive in 2018. Plus, Craft premiered a new music video today for “Where The River Flows,” promoting the tracks inclusion on the anniversary reissue.

The six bonus tracks on anniversary reissue (only available on the CD and digital versions) include live recordings of “December,” “Where the River Flows,” “When the Water Falls,” and “Bleed.” Also added is a studio recording of the song “That’s All Right,” which was previously only available on the Japanese edition of the album.

Formed in Stockbridge, GA in 1992 amid the rise of the grunge music scene, Collective Soul put their own spin on the genre, injecting influences of Southern hard rock and soul. The five-piece signed their first major record deal just one year later, following the massive success of their single “Shine.” Though their debut, Hints, Allegations and Things Left Unsaid, was culled primarily from demo recordings, the album went double-platinum. Seemingly overnight, Roland, Ross Childress (lead guitarist, backing vocals), Dean Roland (rhythm guitar), Will Turpin (bass, backing vocals), and Shane Evans (drums) were skyrocketed into international stardom.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | As purportedly the first Black-owned jazz imprint since the ’20s, the Black Jazz label had its roots in the Black Power movement of the late ’60s and early ’70s. But not every album on the label had a social message. Kellee Patterson’s Maiden Voyage was simply an extremely tasteful, mellow jazz vocal album, recorded with the top-notch sidemen that characterized Black Jazz sessions.

​Patterson first gained fame as the first Black woman (entered under her real name Pat Patterson) to win the Miss Indiana contest, culminating in a performance of “My Funny Valentine” at the Miss America pageant. Her success led to some acting gigs (the TV shows The Streets of San Francisco and The Dukes of Hazzard, and the movie Demolition Man), a brief brush with Hollywood fame (she was briefly linked romantically to talk show host Johnny Carson), and her signing with Gene Russell for her recording debut on Black Jazz (Russell went on to produce subsequent LPs for Patterson on the Shadybrook label).

1973’s Maiden Voyage is highlighted by a beautiful vocal performance by Patterson of Herbie Hancock’s title tune, backed with such premium players as long-time George Duke sideman John Heard on acoustic bass and Ray Charles touring band member George Harper on flute.

Our Real Gone reissue is remastered for CD and vinyl by Mike Milchner at Sonic Vision, with LP lacquer cutting by Clint Holley and Dave Polster at Well Made Music, and features new liner notes by Pat Thomas, author of Listen, Whitey! The Sights and Sounds of Black Power 1965-1975. An essential, though uncharacteristic, entry in the Black Jazz catalog.

“From the height of a small child gazing up at the bureau, some of my earliest memories were born.”

“There in the dining room, my grandfather’s beloved record player would sit, and Sergei Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf would emanate from the room. The bustle of my grandmother cooking in the adjacent kitchen, the TV softly murmuring in the living room, and the Southern California suburbs of the early ’80s would dissipate as I was whisked into another world, a world that at times felt more tangible in my mind than that which existed in my reality. Music profoundly shaped my imagination and symbolized a kind of freedom for which I was relentless in my pursuits.

My grandfather was a lover of classical music and had an extensive collection of vinyl records, with the likes of Mahler, Beethoven, Choin, Stravinsky, and many more. At the age of four, I would improvise short cantatas which my grandmother would score in her well worn and tattered music book. Imagining myself the composer of an opera one day, I’d sit in a little nook I created in the dining room, eating string cheese, and one by one peel the layers as I dreamt. I absorbed the organic quality to the audio, the scratches and earthiness as the music’s timbres would rise and fall. I loved the physicality of placing the record on the turntable, carefully setting the needle, and letting the crackling sound of the speakers fill my ears.

My mom also shared a feverish love of music and vinyl records with my grandfather. She and her sisters all loved to sing together. One would take the melody and the other two each took a harmony line. Their voices would fill the room at holiday parties and family gatherings. My grandmother was a talented pianist who taught lessons for a time. Ours was a musical family and I always felt so grateful to have had the early experience of the record layer.

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