Monthly Archives: September 2021

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Abramorama announced today that they have acquired distribution rights to Jesse Lauter’s music documentary Learning To Live Together: The Return of Mad Dogs & Englishmen. An electrifying documentary jam-packed with music spotlighting the celebrated “Mad Dogs & Englishmen,” Joe Cocker’s short-lived tour featuring a mammoth thirty-piece band, told through the lens of the reunion of 12 remaining band members, 45 years later, to perform with Grammy Award-winning Tedeschi Trucks at the Lockn’ Festival. The film features archival footage alongside current performances and interviews with Leon Russell, Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi, Rita Coolidge, Chris Robinson, Jim Keltner, Dave Mason, Claudia Lennear, and many more.

Filmmaker Jesse Lauter stated, “The original Mad Dogs & Englishmen album and documentary played a foundational role in my early years as a music producer and musician, so it’s only appropriate that my first film as a director is about this critical piece of music history. There has always been a shroud of mystery around this tour—how it came about, what was it like, why it never happened again—so I felt it was my duty to reveal the truth, beauty, and yes drama, behind the music, in hopes to uncover why this music has resonated for so many generations. It was the greatest honor of my career to capture this once-in-a-lifetime reunion.”

Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks added, “Mad Dogs & Englishmen were one of the groups that inspired us from when we first started our band and paying tribute to their work with so many of the original members on hand was a highlight on many levels. This film is a labor of love many years in the making, and we’re so proud to share the music and the stories of the men and women of Mad Dogs & Englishmen.”

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Celebrating Jarvis Cocker’s 58th birthday yesterday. —Ed.

Some albums give off light; others suck it up like a black hole. They’re so dark you’d need Diogenes’ lantern to negotiate their lightless depths. Such an album is Pulp’s 1998 release This Is Hardcore, one of the most unremittingly bleak LPs this side of Lou Reed’s Überbummer Berlin. The brainchild of Jarvis Cocker, jaded romantic in search of purification through immersion in the squalid, This Is Hardcore is a joyless (but always melodic) diagnosis of the human condition, and the diagnosis isn’t good.

You’ve got the Fear, says Cocker, because you’re taking too many drugs, and you equate sex not with love but with pornography, and you fail your young and are terrified of growing old. And there aren’t enough kicks or kink out there to save you; and even the man who does right is dissatisfied.

Cocker is the same fellow who 3 years earlier had written “Sorted for E’s & Wizz,” which eviscerated rave culture and reduced it to a lost soul who’s seriously lost the plot: “And this hollow feeling grows and grows and grows and grows/And you want to phone your mother and say/’Mother, I can never come home again/Cos I seem to have left an important part of my brain somewhere/Somewhere in a field in Hampshire.'” A nattering nabob of negativity he may have been, but no one else of Cocker’s time–which was marked by a rebirth of pride in the culture of the UK–wrote so cogently and forthrightly about the “hollow feeling” at the core of Cool Britannia.

Pulp was formed in 1978, but it wasn’t until 1995’s Different Class–with its hits “Common People,” “Mis-Shapes,” “Disco 2000,” and “Something Changed”–that the band became bona fide rock stars and reluctant members of the Britpop movement. And while Different Class was chock full of class-conscious satire and dark sarcasm, it sounded upbeat; “Sorted for E’s & Wizz” may well be the cheeriest-sounding song ever written about the down side of a drug culture, while “Common People,” as sarcastic a song as any ever written, is also perky and upbeat sounding.

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There’s a game I like to play. It’s called “Who’s the worse poet, Jim Morrison or Patti Smith?” Morrison generally wins by a nose. Like Patti Smith, the late Mr. Morrison viewed himself as a visionary in the grand tradition of 19th Century French poète maudit Arthur Rimbaud, but the duo’s sum contribution to poetry consists of a few decent song lyrics and some very bad books of poetry.

So why don’t I give the nod to Morrison? He wrote “L.A. Woman” for one. And he possessed a sense of humor. “Some of the worst mistakes in my life were haircuts” is a great one-liner, as is “Actually I don’t remember being born, it must have happened during one of my black outs.” So far as I know Smith hasn’t delivered a legitimate quip in her life—she’s far too busy taking herself seriously.

All of which brings us to 1978’s disgraceful American Prayer, which I doubt Morrison would have found amusing. What you get for your wasted money is shit and shinola without the shinola. American Prayer is a dog’s breakfast comprised in part of short (and purposeless) fragments of Morrison spouting off at live shows and “collages” melding well-known Doors’ songs to scraps of Morrison’s verse.

But what you mostly get are tracks on which the surviving Doors add after-the-fact musical accompaniment to Morrison’s poetic detritus. Most of said music is mediocre jazz fusion along the lines of later Steely Dan, although you also get tastes of bad funk and (believe it or not) disco.

American Prayer includes examples of Morrison at his poetic worst. There are too many examples to cite in full, but let’s start with “Lament,” with its lines “Guitar player/Ancient wise satyr/Sing your ode to my cock.” Equally awful is the title track’s “Cling to cunts & cocks of despair/We got our vision by clap/Columbus’s groin got filled with green death.”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Celebrating its 45 anniversary, Destroyer was originally released in 1976 and is considered to be one of the quintessential KISS albums. It is the band’s first album to sell one million copies in its first year and holds the title of being their all-time best selling studio album. Packed with concert staples and KISS Army favorites including “Detroit Rock City,” “Shout It Out Loud,” “God Of Thunder,” and “Beth,” on November 19, 2021 UMe will release KISS – Destroyer 45th in the form of a Super Deluxe 4-CD + Blu-ray Audio box set as well as on standard double black vinyl and limited edition yellow and red double colored vinyl, 2-CD set, and digital. Destroyer 45th can be pre-ordered, HERE.

For the recording of Destroyer, Bob Ezrin was brought in as KISS’s new producer, helping the band reach new levels, both sonically and creatively. The album also showed the band’s growth as musicians and songwriters, experimenting with new sounds which came in the form of the softer side of songs like “Do You Love Me?,” and songs heavy with orchestral arrangements including “Great Expectations” and their Billboard No. 7 hit single “Beth.” Following the breakthrough success of 1975’s No. 9 Billboard charting Alive!, Destroyer was the KISS album that brought them to the forefront of the mainstream and transformed them into global rock icons. For its anniversary, UMe celebrates this seminal album’s legacy with a staggering amount of bonus material.

CD 1 includes the original album newly remastered at Abbey Road Mastering, while CD 2 features 15 demos from Paul Stanley’s and Gene Simmons’s personal archives—9 of which are unreleased. CD 3 is packed with studio outtakes, alternate versions / mixes and single edits—most notably a brand-new stripped-down mix for “Beth (Acoustic Mix),” and CD 4 contains an electrifying performance from the band’s visit to Paris France at the L’Olympia on May 22, 1976.

For the Blu-ray Audio disc, Steven Wilson was brought in to create a first-ever Dolby Atmos and 5.1 surround mix of the original studio album plus 2 bonus tracks “Beth (Acoustic Mix)” and “Sweet Pain (Original Guitar Solo)” the latter featuring Ace Frehley’s original recorded guitar solo that was not released on the studio album (this track is available on the 2012 Destroyer: Resurrected project.)

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Gregory Porter embodies the best of what a popular singer should be: he’s a suave and stylish songbird with the heart of a poet, painting the lyrics he’s reciting onto his canvas while letting his soul lead the way. With six albums under his belt, he’s had the opportunity to do a little bit of everything, and do it well: from traditional interpretations from the Great American Songbook to more contemporary fare. If that weren’t enough, he’s also a talented songwriter.

Like all of us, Mr. Porter is ready to get the needle back in the groove that his career was in prior to the pandemic which included five Grammy nominations and two wins. In fact, Gregory won two Grammys in the same category, in the same year for two different albums. Has anyone ever done that before?

Porter is back on the road. Our New York City area listeners have one treasured opportunity to catch him in our region at the beautiful New Jersey Performing Arts Center on Tuesday, September 21st before he jets off to the UK and Europe in November.

So, join us as we discuss his latest work, our mutual affinity for Nat “King” Cole, whether, or not, he’s a vinyl disciple, and hear some secrets about his creative process. You’ll find him incredibly intelligent, insightful, and passionate about his work, and hopefully you’ll walk away feeling lucky that we have a vocalist as skilled as Porter is in our modern midst. I know I do.

Evan Toth is a songwriter, professional musician, educator, radio host, avid record collector, and hi-fi aficionado. Toth hosts and produces The Evan Toth Show and TVD Radar on WFDU, 89.1 FM. Follow him at the usual social media places and visit his website.

1970’s live Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out is the first Rolling Stones album I ever heard. It was 1974, I was just an impressionable kid, but even so I remember thinking Get Yer Yawn-Yawn’s Out would make a better title. Afterwards I asked my older brother what all the hoopla was about, and he replied that Mick Jagger used to be Satan in the flesh but he’d become an old fart and Alice Cooper had taken his pitchfork. He then recommended that I file the album under D for Decrepit and buy a copy of Billion Dollar Babies. I was inclined to agree. I didn’t catch a whiff of brimstone as Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out was playing, and “Midnight Rambler” in particular struck me as being about as demonic as tapioca. If these were The Rolling Stones, I’d stick with Elton John.

My problem with Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out goes beyond its bogus Satanism. It lacks energy and fire; if Mick and Keith are both elegantly thin, their bloated cover of Chuck Berry’s “Little Queenie” isn’t. “Stray Cat Blues” should be alley cat quick—instead it’s a spayed “look at what the Stones dragged in” proposition. “Honky Tonk Women” has a ham-fisted feel, and to make matters worse the cowbell is MIA. Missing! The cowbell makes the damn song.

The Stones turn “Midnight Rambler” into a Saucy Jack mini-musical and kill the song’s momentum during the histrionic and tedious psychodrama that is Act II. The band slows to a crawl, stops playing altogether, then works its way back to a crawl—that “rambler” in the song’s title is all too appropriate.

Somewhat better is show opener “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” although to be honest the part I like most is when Jagger says, “I think I busted a button on my trousers, hope they don’t fall down. You don’t want my trousers to fall down, do you?” I once dated a woman who’d previously gone out with Engelbert Humperdinck (only two degrees of separation from the world’s greatest entertainer!) and she swore up and down he’d said the exact same thing the one time she saw him live.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | After nearly six decades, a private recording of a rare, nightclub performance by John Coltrane of his magnum opus, A Love Supreme, is set for commercial release.

Recorded in late 1965 on the culminating evening of a historic week-long run at The Penthouse in Seattle, A Love Supreme: Live In Seattle is a musical revelation of historic importance, capturing Coltrane as he began to expand his classic quartet-adding Pharoah Sanders on second saxophone and Donald Garrett on second bass-and catapulting him into the intense, spiritually focused final phase of his career. Today, you can listen to A Love Supreme, Part IV – Psalm. The full album A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle is for release October 8, on Impulse! Records/UMe.

The significance of A Love Supreme: Live In Seattle is heightened by the fact that Coltrane seldom performed his four-part suite after originally recording it in the studio in 1964. Composed and created as a public declaration of his personal spiritual beliefs and universalist sentiment, it became a bestseller and received a GRAMMY nod the next year.

For more than six decades, it seemed the only recorded public performance of A Love Supreme took place at a French festival at Juan-Les-Pains in July 1965 and was released almost twenty years ago. The tape reels containing this performance from October 1965 sat in the private collection of Seattle saxophonist and educator Joe Brazil, heard by a few fortunate musicians and friends-and largely unknown until now.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | The Black Keys will release a special tenth-anniversary edition of their landmark seventh studio album El Camino via Nonesuch Records on November 5, 2021.

El Camino (10th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) will be available in several formats including a Super Deluxe edition of five vinyl LPs or four CDs, featuring a remastered version of the original album, a previously unreleased Live in Portland, ME concert recording, a BBC Radio 1 Zane Lowe session from 2012, a 2011 Electro-Vox session, an extensive photo book, a limited-edition poster and lithograph, and a “new car scent” air freshener. A three-LP edition, which include the remastered album and the live recording, will also be available, as well as a special fan club version of the three-LP set. The Super Deluxe version will also be available digitally (full details below). Pre-order El Camino (10th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) here.

El Camino was produced by Danger Mouse and The Black Keys and was recorded in the band’s then-new hometown of Nashville during the spring of 2011. The Black Keys won three awards at the 55th annual GRAMMY Awards for El Camino – Best Rock Performance, Best Rock Song, and Best Rock Album—among other worldwide accolades. In the UK, the band was nominated for a BRIT Award (Best International Group) and an NME Award (Best International Band). The week of release, the band performed on Saturday Night Live, The Colbert Report, and The Late Show with David Letterman, and later that year, went on to perform their first Madison Square Garden show.

Rolling Stone, which featured the band on its cover around the release, hailed El Camino for bringing “raw, riffed-out power back to pop’s lexicon,” and called it “the Keys’ grandest pop gesture yet, augmenting dark-hearted fuzz blasts with sleekly sexy choruses and Seventies-glam flair.” The Guardian said, “They sound like a band who think they’ve made the year’s best rock’n’roll album, probably because that’s exactly what they’ve done.”

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