Category Archives: The TVD Storefront

TVD Radar: Martha Wainwright, Martha Wainwright on vinyl
for the first time in stores 3/21

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Twenty years ago, Martha Wainwright stepped out of her family’s illustrious shadow and announced herself to the world with her stunning debut album Martha Wainwright. Featuring “Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole,” a song about her father, “Factory,” and “When The Day Is Short,” it immediately proved she was a major talent to be reckoned with.

This Spring, PIAS will release this album on vinyl for the very first time. The Sunday Times called her “a tour de force,” Uncut described the disc as “brilliant” while Q said she was “a thing of wonder.” She is all that and more and twenty years on continues to enthral both onstage and record. Wainwright also announces 12 new dates on her North American spring tour. Tickets go on sale this Friday, December 13 at 10am local time.

“20 years ago my life as an artist took shape when my first record was released,” Martha recalls. “In many ways that record defined me, as well as launched me into a now over 20 year long career that has made me who I am. It was after 10 years of playing in bars, making cassettes and EPs to sell at my shows, singing backup for my brother Rufus, falling in love and out of love, practising, writing, singing until I could barely sing anymore, partying, playing with musicians and listening to great artists, working with my ex-husband in the studio for 2 years, all that created this first record.”

“20 years later, with 6 other albums under my belt, 2 kids and a career that is chugging along, I can safely say my first record paved my way forward. On March 21st we will release the record on vinyl for the first time ever as well as digitally release unheard songs, outtakes and early material from that 10 year period of discovery that led to my first record. There will be a tour with a few great musicians, where I’ll play the record in its entirety as well as a few new songs—there’s no 48 year old me with the 28 year old me.”

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Graded on a Curve:
The Beatles,
The Beatles: 1964 US Albums In Mono

Ever since the 1994 Live at the BBC and the 1995 Anthology release of the TV series and VHS box set, and three multiple CD/LP sets, reissues of the music of The Beatles finally seemed to hit their stride.

The ongoing Beatles reissue program hit a high-water mark with the release of the group’s UK albums on vinyl in mono in 2014. Since the 50th anniversary of the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album in 2017, reissues of the music of The Beatles and as solo artists have been going through a particularly strong and consistent period. Substantial and well-produced reissue programs that offer various editions of a particular release and archival projects have offered fans a wealth of officially previously unreleased material and bespoke, gift-worthy packaging.

The main releases that have elicited the most interest are those that mark a milestone anniversary of an important album. This has been particularly the case with the 50th anniversary releases of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles (the White Album), Abbey Road, Let It Be, and the Disney series Get Back, but also some of the key solo albums from the members of the group that were released in the 1970s not long after the group broke up. The Live at the Hollywood Bowl was also a welcome release, as was the companion film Eight Days A Week in 2016.

Other more recent welcome releases include The Christmas Albums box in 2017 and The Singles Collection box in 2019. The reissue series for Revolver in 2022 seemed to pick up where Let It Be left off and appeared to set the stage for Rubber Soul to be given the deluxe box edition treatment. Instead, 2023 saw the reissue of the The Beatles: 1962–1966 (Red) and The Beatles: 1962–1966 (Blue) compilation releases, highlighted by the “new” track “Now and Then.”

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Lucinda Williams,
The TVD Interview

PHOTO: DANNY CLINCH | The gravelly drawl was familiar. Lucinda Williams was calling from Minneapolis, where she just appeared as a special guest on Cyndi Lauper’s farewell tour, joining her on a poignant “Time After Time.” Days earlier, Williams dueted with Elvis Costello on “Wild Horses” at the Jesse Malin comeback concert in New York City.

It all followed a fall tour that alternated the autobiographical Don’t Tell Anyone the Secrets I Told You, based on last year’s memoir of the same name, with a tour that emphasized her 15th studio album Stories from a Rock and Roll Heart, also released in 2023.

Now, she’s got a new album on Thirty Tigers, Lucinda Williams Sings The Beatles from Abbey Road featuring her takes on “I Got a Feeling,” “Yer Blues,” “Rain” and others. It represents the seventh edition in a series of Lu’s Jukebox series of cover songs saluting specific artists. All of this despite suffering a stroke in 2020 that sidelined some of her activities, including guitar playing.

We talked about the new album, the difficulty of choosing Beatles songs, writing her book, and the vinyl that set her on her course.

How did the Lu’s Jukebox series begin, anyway?

I always enjoyed taking other people’s songs and playing them to see what we could do with them. We had some studio time at Room and Board studios in Nashville with Ray Kennedy, who had been Steve Earle’s guy, and we worked with him so we were excited to set up some time, and we picked a couple of artists to do and picked the songs. Tom Petty was the first.

We knew a couple of guys who were good at videos and photographing and brought them in, to film those live sessions which we would then livestream. It just kind of took off, people seemed to really like it, and we decided to put them out as albums and as CDs. We were on a roller coaster

You went on to do soul and country classics, a Christmas album, and tributes to Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones—all in addition to making a new album of your own material. Did you have all that time because the pandemic kept you from touring?

That’s the whole thing. We wanted to be productive. Since we couldn’t go out and things were limited, we just decided to spend our time in the studio.

It had been a couple of years since your last Jukebox collection. What made this one different, recording at Abbey Road?

That’s the biggest difference. After the last one we were talking about what artists we were going to do next. We’d done a Rolling Stones one, and once you do a Stones one, who’s next? The Beatles. We were going to do a show in London anyway, so we had this idea of going into Abbey Road to cut Beatles songs, so it all fell together.

But first I had to pick the songs, and that was the hardest part of it. Then we rehearsed in Nashville before we left. When we got to Abbey Road we had three days.

Did you gravitate towards the Beatles songs you liked the best, or to those that best suited your sound?

A little of both. First, the ones I liked the best, I made that list, the initial list. There were ones I remembered from a long time ago, but for others I had to go through and look at albums and remember some songs.

What made the final list, once I made the list of the ones I liked, I had to sit down and sing through them and decide which one fit me the best. That’s what made the final decision. We had to pick out the ones in the right key. Once I sat and actually tried to sing them, It was obvious which ones would work.

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Graded on a Curve: Jennifer Castle,
Camelot

Although her roots are in indie rock, Toronto-based singer-songwriter Jennifer Castle has more recently ventured into contemporary folk territory, and to considerable success. With her latest record, she continues to expand her sound and strengthen her songs; one track from the album in particular has given her a substantial boost in profile. Camelot is out now on 140 gram vinyl with a poster insert and on compact disc in a gatefold LP replica sleeve from Paradise of Bachelors.

Jennifer Castle’s last record, Monarch Season, was released four years ago. Featuring her alone on vocals, guitar, piano, and harmonica, it was Castle’s first release to be accurately described as a truly solo effort (and a fitting pandemic recording, although it was cut just prior to the outbreak). Contrasting, Camelot opens with vivid intimacy, Castle singing sweetly in the title track, her piano augmented by Evan Cartwright’s drums and the grand sweep of Owen Pallet’s string arrangements (performed by FAMES Skopje Studio Orchestra).

As noted above, Castle is a singer-songwriter, but “Camelot” is decidedly Singer-Songwriter in approach (reminiscent of those records of yore when an undersung performer landed a sharp producer and a budget). But for the album’s next song, Castle scales it back to just voice and guitar, and yet the sturdy coffeehouse strumming of “Some Friends” registers distinctly from the more fragile indie folk aura heard on Monarch Season.

The drums swing back in alongside Mike Smith’s bass in “Trust,” setting in motion a warm pulse that culminates in a subtly pretty crescendo. “Lucky #8” follows with a full-band melodic rock thrust that’s topped off with sharp jangle-chime guitars; when the solo lets loose, it brings to mind Lucinda Williams from back in her Rough Trade days.

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TVD Radar: Joe Pernice, Chappaquiddick Skyline on vinyl for the first time in stores 1/24

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Joe Pernice of the Pernice Brothers & Scud Mountain Boys will release Chappaquiddick Skyline on vinyl for the first time on January 24, 2025 via New West Records. The original mixes were remastered by Bob Weston and will be released nearly 25 years to the day of its original issue by Sub Pop on January 18, 2000. Chappaquiddick Skyline will be available on limited edition clear vinyl as well as standard black vinyl. It can be pre-ordered now via New West Records.

Produced and engineered by Thom Monahan (Devendra Banhart, Fruit Bats) and recorded at home on 8-Track, Chappaquiddick Skyline was Joe Pernice’s follow up to the Pernice Brothers’ 1998 debut Overcome by Happiness. On the album, he is joined by Monahan (Pernice Brothers, Monsterland, Lilys), Peyton Pinkerton (Pernice Brothers, New Radiant Storm King), his wife Laura Stein (Jale, Pernice Brothers), Mike Belitsky (The Sadies, Neko Case), as well as countless friends who stopped by to assist.

Met with critical acclaim at the time of its release, No Depression said “Pernice has topped himself with a marvelous diamond in whose facets shine many such defining moments, in all their stark terror and nervous beauty” while AllMusic said “…marrying rapturous melodies with a poetic grace virtually unmatched among his contemporaries, Pernice’s confessionals cut almost unbearably deep, giving voice to the yearning and isolation most of us struggle to suppress.”

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Graded on a Curve: Dinosaur Jr.,
Fossils

Celebrating J Mascis on his 59th birthday.Ed.

Over the course of his long shambolic career, J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. has made an ethos of endearing sloppiness and a virtue of emotional confusion while producing an unending slurry of unhinged guitar noise, best summed up by the title of the song “Sludgefest.” With his inimitable stoner slur and drawl and chaotic guitar solos (best heard on 2021’s Live at the Middle East, where he really lets rip), Mascis took the anarchic sound of Neil Young and Crazy Horse to its logical extreme, and the results are a ferocious molten metal divorced from the realm of heavy metal itself by Mascis’ twisted indie-folk impulses.

Dinosaur Jr. blew minds and speakers with the triumvirate of 1987’s You’re Living All Over Me, 1988’s Bug, and 1991’s Green Mind, all of which are bong-fracturing, pot haze classics guaranteed to stone your ears into blazed and confused beatitude. They should be sold at dispensaries, not record stores, and the same goes for 1991 curio as compilation Fossils.

What you’re basically getting are the first three 7″ SST singles the band released after adding the Jr. to their name, highlights of which include a cover of the Cure’s “Just Like Heaven,” band high-water mark “Freak Scene,” and a very happy-making cover of Peter Frampton’s “Show Me the Way.” In short Fossils is as indispensable as bliss unless you’re some kind of Peter Frampton hater, in which case I can only assume you’re a joyless snob whose fondest wish in life is to become besties with Nick Cave. How utterly horrid.

“Little Fury Things” comes out of the gate in an explosion of guitar noise accompanied by some screaming (gratis, I think, Sonic Youth’s Lee Renaldo, not that I care) before telling itself to calm down and proceeding to play nice. Mascis sings about being smashed by a rabbit, goes emo for a moment because someone’s lying about him and people are believing it and it makes him mad, then in comes a civil by J. standards guitar solo accompanied by one very groovy tambourine. But the solo that follows shortly thereafter is anything but polite, all nasty fuzz and feedback–let it out J., let it out, you’ll feel better.

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Graded on a Curve: The Temptations, Solid Rock, The Undisputed Truth, The Undisputed Truth, & Gladys Knight & the Pips, Neither One of Us

The latest arrivals in Elemental Music’s Motown Sound Collection hit stores just in time for holiday buying. The three selections, all dating from the early 1970s, are The Temptations’ Solid Rock, the self-titled debut album by The Undisputed Truth, and Gladys Knight & the Pips’ Neither One of Us. Taken together, they offer a solid hunk of soul, 140 grams each, all available December 13.

By 1972, The Temptations were on lineup number four, with Eddie Kendricks freshly out the door for a solo career and Paul Williams’ role greatly reduced; he sings on only one track, “It’s Summer,” on Solid Rock, the group’s sixteenth LP. Unlike Kendricks, Williams did stay with The Temptations in a choreographical capacity until his passing in 1973.

These lineup changes (Damon Harris and Richard Street entering as replacements) would spell irrelevancy under most circumstances if not utter disaster, but in the case of Solid Rock, there is Norman Whitfield to consider. Although this is far from the strongest joint Temps-Whitfield effort, it does hold another of the producer’s fascinating and frankly sprawling psychedelic soul efforts. Breaking 12 minutes, “Stop the War Now” is amongst the wildest of Motown’s psych-soul forays.

In holding nothing back (Whitfield surely knew that psych-soul’s time was nearly up), the track avoids mere excess, in part through the skills of the Funk Brothers, who build up a heavy, heady experience. If “Stop the War Now” doesn’t fully justify its length, it’s not a space filler masking a lack of material, as Whitfield had no issues with interpreting recent hits by other artists; a version of Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine” is one of Solid Rock’s standouts. There was also no hesitation over returning to Whitfield’s own songs, as album closer “The End of Our Road” had already hit for Gladys Knight & the Pips in 1968.

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TVD Radar: Dub Syndicate, Out Here On The Perimeter 1989–1996 5LPs in stores 2/28

VIA PRESS RELEASE | England’s On-U Sound label is announcing the new release of re-issues of early ’90s Avant-dub classics by one of their flagship artists, the much-missed Dub Syndicate on February 28, 2025 on separate 12″ LP vinyl, CD box, digital download, and streaming under the name Out Here On The Perimeter. Part of the series is a brand new set of “versions” utilizing vintage rhythms in the ON-U archives. 

A follow-up to the Ambience In Dub boxset that anthologised the early Dub Syndicate albums, Out Here On The Perimeter 1989–1996 picks up the story in the late 1980s with Style Scott coming to the forefront of the project as bandleader and co-producer, and the group emerging as a live entity. This was also the period of their greatest popularity, with a much-loved series of albums that combined the best of Jamaican musicianship with the wild studio experimentation of UK production maverick Adrian Sherwood, resulting in music that appealed to ravers and dreads alike.

Four albums are being repressed on vinyl, with faithful reproductions of the beautiful original sleeve artwork, and new inner sleeves containing detailed liner notes and archival photos. Sherwood has also concocted a special bonus album, of brand new version excursions on rhythms from the period. A CD boxset anthologises all five albums.

Dub Syndicate was initially one of the many studio-based projects masterminded by Adrian Sherwood in the early days of his genre-blurring independent label On-U Sound. Built around deep and heavy reggae rhythms, and marshalling the talents of a revolving cast of Jamaican and British musicians. It evolved over time to become the main musical vehicle of Lincoln Valentine Scott aka Style Scott (also notable for his work with the Roots Radics and Creation Rebel), mirroring the trajectory of Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah of labelmates African Head Charge.

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Graded on a Curve:
Alice Cooper,
Billion Dollar Babies

Celebrating Dennis Dunaway on his 78th birthday.Ed.

Alice Cooper had the music world’s head in a guillotine in the year of our dark lord 1973; his cartoonishly ghoulish song matter and macabre on-stage shock rock shtick were thrilling to outrage-hungry teengenerates like my older brother, who went to a show on Alice’s Billion Dollar Babies tour in a suit covered with a billion dollars’ worth of stapled-on Monopoly money.

While your more sophisticated tastemakers were deriding poor Alice as so much P.T. Barnum hokum–a low-brow sensationalist who lacked the talent, subtlety and immediacy of such glam era creatures as David and Lou and Iggy–Alice was winning the big youth vote (“Elected” indeed!) and laughing all the way to the bank.

Who cares if his oh so chic contemporaries dismissed him with a smug wave of the hand? Sneered an offended David Bowie: “I think he’s trying to be outrageous. You can see him, poor dear, with his red eyes sticking out and his temples straining… I find him very demeaning.” Which didn’t stop Lou Reed, for one, from stooping to his own brand of low-rent on-stage theatrics; if shaving Iron Crosses onto your skull and mimicking shooting up on stage isn’t “straining” to be outrageous, what is?

Fact is Billion Dollar Babies isn’t really that different from Diamond Dogs or Berlin (whose producer, Bob Ezrin, also produced this baby). It’s not a concept album, per se, but it has the feel of one–on it Alice grapples with having money tossed at him, threatens to parlay the success of “School’s Out” into an apocalyptic run for higher office which he’s sure to win in a “generation landslide” cuz he’s got the toxic kiddie vote wrapped up, and in general flexes his skinny biceps while singing “God, I feel so strong, I am so strong.”

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Graded on a Curve:
The Wallflowers, Bringing Down the Horse

Celebrating Jakob Dylan, born on this day in 1969.Ed.

On the subject of The Wallflowers: I resisted Bob Dylan’s fortunate son and his band for a long, long time. I distrusted Jakob Dylan, scion of privilege and owner of one set of amazing cheekbones, the way I do all scions of privilege, and I continued to do so until the night I saw him live in Woodstock, where he was joined for a song or two by the great Garth Hudson, formerly of the Band, on accordion. And wham, I was sold.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m no fan boy of Jakob Dylan or the Wallflowers, but they’ve released some great pop songs over the years, most of them (in my humble opinion) on 1996’s sophomore release, the punningly titled Bringing Down the Horse. Produced by T-Bone Burnett, the album went quadruple platinum—and this despite the defection of lead guitarist Tobi Miller at the beginning of the sessions, which led Dylan to bring in a bevy of guitarists to fill in, including Mike Campbell of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers—and spawned four hits, two of which I happen to love heart and soul.

I call the LP an example of Pop Americana, and Dylan himself has described how, despite the LP’s roots lite feel, he “wasn’t interested in making a throwback album from the ’60s or ’70s.” And this is obvious from opening cut, radio smash “One Headlight,” on. As for the LP’s mood, Dylan has said, “Every song, fortunately or unfortunately is about feeling massively defeated, because that’s what I was living.” Hey, join the club.

Say what you will about Dylan, and the boost he got from being the offspring of the most famous folk-rocker of the 20th Century, he has a natural facility for writing catchy melodies, and if one compares his work to that of his old man during the same period, Bob’s carpet rat beats him hands down. Sure, you occasionally detect echoes of his dad; the title “Three Marlenas” sounds like a tune off Blonde on Blonde, and the song boasts the same circus organ sound that helped make “Like a Rolling Stone” so famous.

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TVD Radar: Grateful Dead, Dick’s Picks Volume Three–Pembroke Pines, Florida 5/22/77 4LP set in stores 1/17

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Grateful Dead archivist Dick Latvala considered this show to be the finest outing on the entire Spring 1977 tour, and, as any Dead Head knows, that is high praise indeed!

At the time this was released on CD, the Dead weren’t sure a market existed (ha!) for three and four-CD packages, so this four-LP set leaves off eight songs from the show, but consider what songs are here: a phenomenal “Help on the Way”/ “Slipknot!” / “Franklin’s Tower” comes after one of the definitive renditions of “Sugaree” and a terrific “The Music Never Stopped,” with the late, great Phil Lesh’s slithering bass leading the way in recording engineer’s Betty Cantor-Jackson’s mix.

But sides E, F, and G offer one of those sublime (and, in this case, never to be repeated) sequences of songs that only the Dead could pull off in concert; after the rarely-performed “Sunrise,” a medley of “Estimated Prophet” / “Eyes of the World” / “Wharf Rat”/ “Terrapin Station” (a truncated version two months before its official release)/ “Morning Dew” brings the show home, as Jerry Garcia’s soloing on “Morning Dew” reaches heights seldom attained even by him.

This was a knockout release on its first very limited vinyl run (check out those resale prices), and we’ve improved on it with a fresh mastering job by Jeffrey Norman (in his own words, “the sound is better than the original heard on the Brookvale release”), and lacquer cutting by Clint Holley and Dave Polster at Well Made Music. Pressed on 180-gram black vinyl at the plant we’ve been using to great acclaim for all of our Grateful Dead releases, Gotta Groove Records, and limited to 2,000 hand-numbered copies.

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Graded on a Curve:
Joe “King” Carrasco
and the Crowns,
Mil Gracias a Todos Nuestros Amigos

Celebrating Joe “King” Carrasco on his 71st birthday.Ed.

Casual research into the name Joe “King” Carrasco reveals the synopsis of a manic Tex-Mex bandleader better suited for the club stage than to the purposes of recording LPs. Mention his name to someone who’s seen him in action and you’ll likely hear an enthused recollection of a wild and happy night. Listen to Mil Gracias a Todos Nuestros Amigos, the 1980 Stiff Records debut of Carrasco and the Crowns, and the ear will be greeted by 12 songs from a group that from under the wide umbrella of the New Wave was briefly able to transfer their wild performance-based abandon into the grooves of long-playing vinyl.

There’s been a lot of debate over the years regarding the value of the late-‘70s musical surge known as New Wave. Setting aside the zealous haters that simply could not abide the movement’s departures from the Zeppelin/Eagles Arena Rock model, many detractors continue to associate the term with a weakening of the punk aesthetic set in motion by acts looking for wider success as encouraged by the interests of parties that were largely if not completely mercantile in character.

Naturally, some kernels of truth reside in this assessment, as the linguistic sleight of hand of Seymour Stein’s “Don’t Call it Punk” campaign easily attests. But naturally, it’s a far more complex situation than that. For example, new wave’s proponents often describe it as music made in direct response to ‘70s arena rock having reached a juncture of stylistic exhaustion, and for emphasis they point directly to the recycling of the buzzword applied to the cinematic uprising known as the Nouvelle Vague, which in the US, Great Britain and elsewhere was translated under the heading of the French New Wave.

That much needed and still influential development in film was surely a break with its home country’s Tradition of Quality, but it was also delivered by a small handful of auteurs, the most famous being Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Éric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette, and Claude Chabrol. Displeased with “a certain tendency in the French cinema” they surely all were, and they did certainly set themselves to the task of creating something fresh.

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TVD Radar: The Podcast with Evan Toth, Episode 167: Anastasia Minster

Light and dark have been engaged in an eternal dance since the earliest of times. You’ve all seen the yin and yang which, if nothing else, illustrate that complicated symbiosis between good and evil: you can’t have the hero if you don’t have the villain. It’s just one of those conundrums of humanity. Writers, poets, filmmakers, artists of all ilk have explored this deeply, and will continue to do so as it’s a concept that’s hardwired into the human experience.

You can look at the balance of values through many different lenses. Anastasia Minster has decided to explore light and dark through the experience of love. Her latest album, Song of Songs peels back the layers of common experiences when it comes to that most confounding of human feelings: there’s no greater experience than being in love with someone who loves you back, but there’s possibly no worse feeling than unrequited love, or losing your kindred spirit.

Anastasia joins us on this episode to explain how she perceives love, but she also shares the details of this new album, recorded in Canada with the support of the Toronto Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts. Song of Songs is a fusion of classical and jazz elements that satisfyingly dovetail with Anastasia’s artistic, scholastic, and psychological intellect. You might want to sit in the front of the class so you can keep up. Here, there’s an empty chair right next to me.

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.

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Graded on a Curve:
Miles Davis,
Jack Johnson

“The greatest rock and roll band you have ever heard.” That was what jazz legend Miles Davis, impressed by the likes of Hendrix and Sly Stone not only for their innovation but for the ability to draw the kiddies to their shows, set out to put together at the dying end of the sixties.

And if any rebopper could do it, Miles “Prince of Darkeness” Davis could. Over the course of his decades-long career he’d set standards in bebop, more or less pioneered cool jazz, moved on to hard bop, and kept on moving, like a boxer inventing a new technique every round. He couldn’t sit still, had ants in his trumpet, and had one last great move up his sleeve—he was going to go rock, just like Dylan, and just like Dylan he was going to do it with arrogance and attitude. Never look back.

He’d already gone jazz fusion, but by the time he got around to recording 1971’s Jack Johnson, a sound track for a documentary about the great black boxer who refused to bow to the racism of white America, he was dead-set on incorporating hard rock and funk into his fusion. It was a move that would alienate plenty in the jazz community in the process.

Jack Johnson wasn’t the most controversial album of Davis’ career—those would come later. But some jazz traditionalists howled. Leonard Feather (a long-time music critic of very pale complexion) was appalled by “the thumping, clinking, whomping battering ram that passes for a rhythm section” on Jack Johnson. Noted trumpeter (and retro-jazz traditionalist) Wynton Marsalis dismissed Davis as “a genius who decided to go into rock, and was on the bandstand looking like, basically, a buffoon.” As for the noted critic Stanley Crouch, who is no slouch, it was his expert opinion that everything Miles had recorded since his first foray into jazz fusion, 1969’s landmark In a Silent Way, made him “the most brilliant sellout in the history of jazz.”

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TVD Radar: The Clean, Modern Rock and “Late Last Night” reissues in stores 1/24

VIA PRESS RELEASE | On January 24, 2025, Merge Records will reissue two 1994 releases by The Clean: their second studio album Modern Rock, and the “Late Last Night” 7-inch. These vinyl releases represent the first time either title has been in print on the format since its initial release, and the first time Modern Rock has ever been available on LP in North America.

Modern Rock crackles with spontaneous energy, as if The Clean—namely, Hamish Kilgour, David Kilgour, and Robert Scott—couldn’t help but make music together whenever they were in the same room. Following their 1989 reunion tour and the 1990 release of Vehicle, those opportunities were rare, with Hamish in New York City fronting The Mad Scene, David releasing his first solo album, and Robert recording albums with The Bats at a breakneck pace. Then, for nine days in April 1994, the stars aligned over Dunedin and Modern Rock bloomed into life.

It’s an album of easy charm by a band so attuned to guitar pop that they make the creation of their sonic universe seem easy, as if what you’re being let in on is a long-running conversation between three masters at a point where all three are riffing off of each other, line by line and hook by hook. Significantly, after making Modern Rock, The Clean decided to keep the project going on a part-time basis. More than just a reminder to listeners of the reverence fans and musicians had for The Clean, each new record was a welcome surprise that established them as one of the great active bands of the 1990s and 2000s, their second act on par with the many, many groups their first act inspired.

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  • SUPPORTING YOUR LOCAL INDIE SHOPS SINCE 2007


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