Monthly Archives: August 2022

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Neal Casal’s second studio album, Rain, Wind And Speed, has been announced for December 2nd reissue on limited edition vinyl via the Neal Casal Music Foundation (NCMF).

The 11-song collection—originally released in 1996—will be presented on three color vinyl variants of which 333 LPs of each will be pressed: Blue Rain, Peach Wind and Black Speed, along with previously unpublished photos and new liner notes by Casal’s longtime champion and former publishing representative Jim Cardillo who details the period in the late singer/songwriter’s life when the album was created. The announcement arrives just a few days ahead of the three year anniversary of Casal’s passing on August 26, 2019. Pre-order for Rain, Wind And Speed, in which all proceeds benefit the NCMF, is available here.

A sparse, plaintive and largely acoustic album, Rain, Wind And Speed was written and recorded in the months immediately following Casal being dropped from his recording contract with Zoo Records, the label who’d released his debut effort, Fade Away Diamond Time. As Cardillo explains in the reissue’s essay: “At first Neal couldn’t comprehend what this all meant. No European Tour? No video? No single to radio? No tour support? All of the label’s promises withered and died like bitter fruit left on the vine. It was a disorienting sucker punch that left Neal numb and reeling. Five years of hard work, demos, showcases, phone calls, meetings, no-money gigs, all the results of that labor evaporated.”

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When the name Pink Floyd comes up, most people immediately think of the group’s iconic and record-breaking album Dark Side of the Moon. Other post-Dark Side albums like Wish You Were Here and The Wall also are well known. Yet, for some fans of the group, its first two albums—Piper at the Gates of Dawn and A Saucerful of Secrets—are coveted as landmark albums of 1960s psychedelia.

The two albums do have much in common, but in some cases are vastly different. Both have been recently reissued on vinyl in glorious mono. Both had been previously reissued on vinyl as Record Store Day releases, in 2018 and 2019 respectively, with the record store release of the group’s 1967 debut, Piper at the Gates of Dawn, at some points commanding on average $80 on the used market.

Piper at the Gates of Dawn is very representative of that golden, multi-colored year of 1967, the height of the psychedelic sound. It was, of course, the same year The Beatles released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and both groups were part of the EMI family and recorded their respective albums at Abbey Road Studios, with Sgt. Pepper coming out in June and Piper in August.

The album is very much a showcase for the group’s then de-facto guiding force Syd Barrett. Barrett’s trippy, whimsical and child-like pop songs dominate the album. The other founding members were Roger Waters, Richard Wright, and Nick Mason. The group’s debut was preceded by the equally psychedelic, Syd Barrett-styled singles “Arnold Layne” in March and “See Emily Play” in June.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | It’s hard to believe that it’s been ten years since Jake Bugg released his extraordinary self- titled debut album. Released on October 15th, 2012, Jake introduced himself to the world and blew open the doors with an exquisite debut that rocketed to number one on the UK Album Chart, going on to sell over a million copies, bagging both a BRIT Award and Mercury Music Prize nomination. Since then he’s become one of the UK’s most prolific and established songwriters.

Fast forward ten years, with countless awards, record sales, and sold out tours across the world, Jake is to celebrate the 10th Anniversary with the release of special deluxe editions of the album on 2LP black vinyl, Limited Edition 2LP, Gold Vinyl and a 3CD—out October 14th, 2022. Pre-order HERE.

“I can’t believe it’s been 10 years since album one,” Jake said of the anniversary. “Time has flown so fast so it’s been a real pleasure to go through the old unreleased tracks, videos and photographs and put this box set together. I love the end result and I hope you will too.” The set comes fully remastered at Abbey Road Studios with a second LP of two rare and fourteen previously unreleased tracks from Jake’s early recording sessions from his personal archive.

The CD edition will feature the remastered album, sixteen unreleased bonus tracks including a Rick Rubin version of “Broken,” and the full performance of his concert at the Royal Albert Hall from 2014, being made available physically and digitally for the first time. All formats will feature sleeve notes from Dean Jackson (BBC Radio Nottingham), who discovered Jake, and unseen images from Jake’s photoshoot with Kevin Westenberg. One of those previously unreleased tracks comes in the shape of “It’s True”—a raw, emotional slice of acoustic, bass and drums.

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If you’re a groover with a jones for get-down sounds that’re fresh to the ear and permeated with vintage ambiance, then Too Slow to Disco 4, the latest volume of discoveries assembled by DJ Supermarket, should fill that tall order without a hitch. But get this: the set is something other than a pileup of dancefloor burners, as the 16 selections feature strains of West Coast AOR and even a few yacht-y soft pop sojourns. And even better, there are enough unusual touches and unexpected twists to stir the interest of unrepentant ass-sitters. Everybody wins! It’s out on 2LP and CD August 26 through How Do You Are? Recordings.

For starters, let’s just say that Too Slow to Disco 4’s curatorial spirit is quite potent. Who’s the man responsible? To quote the press release, Berlin-based DJ Supermarket (real name Marcus Liesenfeld) is an “in-demand DJ wherever sophisticated dancing is popular.” Sweet. He’s also formerly half of the electropop duo Le Hammond Inferno alongside Holger Beier, with the pair also founding Bungalow Records.

Additionally, How Do You Are? Recordings is DJ Supermarket’s label, and this latest effort is the tenth installment in the Too Slow to Disco series, this one described as a getting back to the roots kinda deal, with those origins, as mentioned above, Cali AOR and boaters music. Spanning from the mid-’70s to the early ’80s, the global contents heard on this collection are smooth, frequently funky, and unabashedly overproduced (a term the label embraces).

Too Slow to Disco 4 serves as my introduction to the series, which should make clear that DJ Supermarket’s thematic passion falls a little outside my typical listening diet. That’s not to insinuate an aversion to the contents, as I’ve found many of the recent reissues of disco, boogie, AOR, city-pop etc. to be of no small worthiness.

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MANSFIELD, MA | Boston-based Dispatch teamed up with O.A.R. to co-headline a roots rock party jam that had the audience dancing all night. More than halfway through their Summer Tour 2022, both bands are in a groove and continue to bring lots of energy as their trek continues south along the east coast.

Live concerts have been integral to the success of both Dispatch and O.A.R. and have shaped the identity of each band. Notable live album releases Gut the Van by Dispatch and Any Time Now by O.A.R. have helped propel both groups into notoriety and mainstream success.

Dispatch’s second studio album Bang Bang was recorded at Lake West Recording Studio in West Greenwich, Rhode Island. Engineer/producer Jack Gauthier was asked by TVD if he got the sense these tracks would work so well being played live. “At the time… not really. You never really know until it’s tested live for a while, but I knew they were catchy vocal hooks and rhythms.”

Some studio tracks instantly give the impression that they will be great live—like O.A.R. ‘s “That Was a Crazy Game of Poker” which they closed their set with as decks of playing cards rained down on the audience. Other songs like Dispatch’s “The General” have taken on a life of their own when played live compared to the studio version – becoming a crowd favorite anthem.

O.A.R. and Dispatch have separately sold out Madison Square Garden multiple times so playing to a large amphitheater is nothing new. In 2004, Dispatch drew over 100,000 fans to a free show at the Hatch Shell in Boston with what was thought to be their last concert. Since this infamous night, seeing a Dispatch show has always felt special because you never knew if it would happen again.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | August 20th saw the 20th anniversary of the release of Neko Case’s seminal third solo album Blacklisted. Considered a darker and more understated effort than her first two records, Blacklisted is soaked to the bone in rueful wit, luxurious miserabilism, and morbid sweat,” said the Village Voice at the time.

While the record features stand out instrumental accompaniment from Giant Sand’s Howe Gelb, Neko’s long time pedal steel player and multi-instrumentalist Jon Rauhouse, Calexico’s Joey Burns and John Convertino, as well as Kelly Hogan and Mary Margaret O’Hara on backing vocals, Case’s voice is still its most compelling aspect. “Her opaque wail is more confident here than ever,” said Pitchfork. “[it is] dense with emotional heft and more richly expressive.” Listen to the album and order it on vinyl HERE.

Today Case is also releasing her performance of “I Wish I Was the Moon” from her first-ever official streaming performance entitled “Wild Creatures: Live From The Lung.” Recorded from Neko’s home studio in Vermont, the event was first streamed for paid subscribers of her weekly Substack newsletter Entering The Lung. Originally featured on Blacklisted, this rendition of the song was recorded in Case’s home studio and features Paul Rigby (pedal steel), Carl Newman (guitar), and Luke Reynolds (bass).

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It was in the autumn of 2018 that the Connecticut-based unit More Klementines released their eponymous first album, a sweet doozy of improvisational psychedelia, and now, nearly four years later, they’ve delivered a follow-up of considerable magnificence extending the outward bound qualities of the debut, but with perceptible growth and couple of sizable twists. Who Remembers Light is out August 26 on sturdy, reliable black vinyl in an edition of 340 copies, co-released by the record labels Twin Lakes and Feeding Tube.

More Klementines is Michael Kiefer on drums, a man known only as Steubs (co-founder with Kiefer of Twin Lakes Records) on mandolin, guitar, bass, electronics, and the mark tree, and Jon Schlesinger on guitar, lap steel, and in one of this album’s significant developmental turns, vocals. To elaborate, the two untiled side-long tracks on their debut were instrumental affairs, a circumstance that extends to three of the four cuts on Who Remembers Light.

The exception is “Key of Caesar,” a concise honest-to-goodness song, which, along with singing that reminds me a bit of J. Mascis, delivers the record’s other big twist, although ultimately, the cut isn’t a bit disconnected from More Klementines’ previously established psychedelic comportment. Featuring a downright handsome guitar line that endures amid the loose and blossoming drift, the track is tuneful yet druggy in a manner reminiscent of the more rock-aligned acts in the New Weird landscape of the ’00s. And please note: on their debut, More Klementines self-described as Appalachian Krautrock.

“Key of Caesar” counts as a substantial progression but it doesn’t overwhelm the outfit’s overall scheme. That is, opener “Hot Peace” is a wonderful stretch-out (over 14 minutes long) of resonating swirl and burn that gradually picks up the pace as that Germanic thrust gets blended with a rawness I associate with Spacemen 3.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | The first collection of Paul Weller’s solo greatest hits Modern Classics is getting the vinyl reissue treatment on October 14th. Available to pre-order HERE.

This covetable edition comes in a gatefold sleeve and includes a bonus live LP recorded at Victoria Park, Hackney, London, 8/8/98. The album was originally released in 1998 and hasn’t been reissued on vinyl until now. This stellar compilation is the perfect introduction To Paul’s solo work and features 16 tracks taken from his first 4 solo albums. Modern Classics collects together most of Paul Weller’s early solo singles from 1991’s “Into Tomorrow” to “Brand New Start,” and everything in between.

This double album includes the four U.K. hit singles taken from the seminal 1995 release Stanley Road: “Out of the Sinking,” “The Changingman,” “Broken Stones” and the timeless classic “You Do Something to Me.” Weller’s distinctive raw, bluesy style runs seamlessly throughout, from the chiming opening bars of “Sunflower” through to his debut solo single “Into Tomorrow.”

Celebrating Debbi Peterson, born on this day in 1961. —Ed.

Those who came of age in the 1980s surely remember The Bangles; with songs on the radio and videos on MTV, they provided the era’s musical environs with a crisp ’60s influenced guitar-pop breeze, but too few have gotten hip to the band’s early work. Ladies and Gentlemen…The Bangles! collects their initial recordings, a sum embodying the melodic end of the garage spectrum with gestures in accord with Cali’s neo-psych movement. 

A lot of bands who originate in the garage gradually shed layers of appeal as they make their way toward prominence, but even after they attained full-fledged stardom that wasn’t necessarily the case with The Bangles. Hitting pop consciousness in the latter half of the decade, Susanna Hoffs (guitar, vocals), Vicki Peterson (guitar, bass, vocals), and her sister Debbi Peterson (drums, bass, vocals) began in Los Angeles in 1981 as The Bangs, and it didn’t take long for the trio to wax a 45.

However, many early fans residing outside of L.A. were likely introduced through “Bitchen Summer / Speedway” on the 1982 Posh Boy compilation Rodney on the Roq Vol. III, making the tune a sensible place for this compilation to start, doubly so as it illuminates a connection to the region’s post-punk ’60s infatuation that came to be tagged as The Paisley Underground.

Featuring warm fuzz, bright surf vibes, and late in the track, a taste of their soon to be well-known vocal harmonies, it’s a nifty slice of the sort of classic-minded stuff that sprang up in void left by ’70s punk’s waning fortunes, and the relationship to the Paisley upswing is solidified through a co-writer’s credit alongside Hoffs for Dave Roback, then of the Dream Syndicate and later half of Mazzy Star.

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When English blues guitarist Robin Trower split Procol Harum in 1971, his guitar playing won him comparisons to Jimi Hendrix. Unhappy comparisons, so far as many critics were concerned. They suggested he give up on the slavish Hendrix impersonation and develop a style of his own. One reputable critic (yours truly, to be precise) even claimed he had solid evidence that Trower’s was no mere imitation, but the result of a dark conspiracy involving a team of crack surgeons attaching the cryogenically frozen hands of the late Mr. Purple Haze’s hands and reattaching them to Trower’s wrists.

But the kids cared nothing about such brouhaha. As a teen I owned a lime green 8-track version of Trower’s 1974 masterpiece Bridge of Sighs, and I played that lime green miracle of sound nonstop until my 8-track player ate it alive. I think my 8-track player was just jealous. And the arena crowd couldn’t get enough of Trower. His downer gobbling fans didn’t give an upside down guitar whether he played like Hendrix. His songs were massive, and his power trio played them at volumes capable of causing ears to dig nuclear silo deep holes in the earth and hide in them. He was Led Zeppelin without all that fey going to California shit.

Bridge of Sighs’s 1975 successor For Earth Below didn’t do as well as its predecessor—it lacked such instant classics and crowd thrillers as “Day of the Eagle,” “Too Rolling Stoned,” and the title track. For Earth Below still highlights Trower’s remarkable guitar prowess, Mariana Trench vocals, and knack for writing songs that weld power trio kick to a dark and misty sound. But the fall off in overall song quality is noticeable, which isn’t to say that there aren’t moments on For Earth Below that will light up your pleasure receptors the way bug zappers do moths.

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