It’s called The Big Tour, and after three sold-out nights at the 9:30 Club, with raging horns augmenting their full band, it’s hard to argue with the marketing. Concentrating on a different album each night, with more than 80 songs in their repertoire ready to go, They Might Be Giants have fans happily returning for more each night.

Once, They Might Be Giants was just two nerdy friends from Massachusetts, whose early shows were memorable not only for their guitar, accordion, and drum machine setup but their quirky songs, funny wordplay and a disarming array of giant props. Contrast that with the driving songs and soaring horns of today, with the humor and clever musical turns intact. But hardly any props.

At one point in the band’s show Monday, John Flansburgh banged a floor pedal with a long wooden stick, as if to bridge the ancient staphs of the old world with the electronica of the new. But that was about it.

Once, he and John Lindell were the poster boys for nerdy cool, with glasses and oddball interests and a million musical ideas. With both now at about retirement age, in their checked shirts and car jackets, they more resemble a couple of middle aged guys in the mall parking lot, looking for their keys.

But, hey, ditto the audience, who are much older and, to our credit, no longer sing along forcefully to every song like nutcases. And boy, it’s fun to stand and hear great songs for a couple of hours with a smile on your face throughout.

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Celebrating Taylor Swift on her 35th birthday. —Ed.

I like to think I’m an open-minded individual. But in truth I’m about as open-minded as Cotton Mather. Still, I occasionally attempt to broaden my horizons by listening to music I know damn well I’ll hate. And that’s where Taylor Swift comes in. People I respect have been telling me for years how great she is, but I was damn well sure the odds of my enjoying her music were right up there with being killed by space debris.

But something happened on my way to the vomit bag. Turns out I love Swift’s music. It’s frothy pop fun and comes complete with an important societal message, namely that romantic relationships are hell, guys are cretins who don’t know a good thing when they see one, and the best way to take revenge on the pricks is by skewering them in song. Swift’s tumultuous love life has long made for juicy tabloid fodder, and people with nothing better to do spend a lot of time putting names to the subjects of her songs. One thing they know for sure; fuck with Taylor’s heart and you’ll have your balls handed to you on Disney+.

1989 marked Swift’s total immersion into synthesized pop music. It’s right there in the ad campaign for NYC that is “Welcome to New York,” the only song on the LP not about interpersonal relationships of the fucked-up sort. Instead it marks the end of Swift’s transformation from Nashville ingenue to Manhattan sophisticate. She makes this very clear in the funky “”Style,” which harkens back to “Vogue,” Madonna’s celebration of the Manhattan glam dance scene.

On the beat-heavy “Blank Space,” Swift warns that looks can be deceiving (“I’m a nightmare dressed like a daydream”), brags about her superhuman transformative powers (“I can make the bad guys good for a weekend”), but concedes she’s willing to go the distance if you are. On “All You Had to Do Was Stay” boy hurts girl then wants girl back, but she’s not the sort of girl who hands out second chances.

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Andy Summers, renowned as the influential guitarist of The Police, reveals a multifaceted creative persona that extends far beyond music. He openly embraces his diverse interests, seamlessly integrating them much like he does with his guitar, weaving them into a cohesive tapestry that defines his prolific body of work.

While the guitar remains his primary artistic tool, Andy’s pursuits extend to photography with his Leica camera and creative writing with a keyboard. His latest endeavor, The Cracked Lens + A Missing String tour, ingeniously merges these passions together. Here, Andy not only performs music but intertwines his photographic art and narratives, transcending a mere recapitulation of his greatest hits. It’s a testament to his belief in the evolution of artistic expression in order to engage varied audiences with his restless visions.

In our discussion, guitars naturally take center stage alongside anecdotes from his iconic Police days; we even muse about guitar hunting. Yet, our focus remains forward-looking. Andy reflects on a journey marked by towering achievements and vast experiences, but he is now afforded the luxury to discover recurring themes and seek the synchronicity in his life’s narrative.

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.

Feedback, riots, and the Shangri-Las. Audience members gazing at their shoes. Audience members gazing at other audience members’ shoes in mute shoegaze envy. Audience members gazing back at their own shoes in mortified horror and thinking, “My God! My feet are preposterously huge! I’m a fucking CLOWN!”

As the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once said, “Gaze long enough at your shoes, and your shoes will gaze back at you.”

All of this is a roundabout and utterly frivolous way of getting to The Jesus and Mary Chain and their beloved 1985 shoegaze classic Psychocandy. They didn’t invent the genre—that honor is generally bestowed upon My Bloody Valentine—but their sound certainly hypnotized a lot of crowds, that is when said crowds weren’t rioting, which I must say surprises me—it can’t be easy to lay waste to a club while staring down your plimsouls.

Founded by a pair of Scottish brothers, Jim and William Reid, who amusingly settled upon a vocalist by flipping a coin—Jim lost and was forced behind the microphone—The Jesus and Mary Chain formula was simple—lay a whole shitload of radical guitar distortion over chewy pop melodies. Or that was the idea anyway.

Early on they sounded like the Ramones, but if life has taught me anything it’s there isn’t a single problem in this world a wall of white noise won’t solve. So that’s what they did—piled on the fuzz and the feedback and the distortion until they had something brand spanking new, anxiety of influence problem solved.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | David Sylvian’s The Good Son vs The Only Daughter – The Blemish Remixes and Died in the Wool – Manafon Variations will be released on vinyl for the first time in January 2025. Initially released on Sylvian’s samadhisound label in 2005 and 2011, respectively, they were previously only available digitally and on CD. Available to preorder now—shipping 31st January 2025.

The Good Son vs The Only Daughter is the nine-track companion to David’s 2003 solo album, Blemish. The record features remixes by Burnt Friedman, Sweet Billy Pilgrim, Ryoji Ikeda, Readymade FC, Yoshihiro Hanno, Tatsuhiko Asano, Akira Rabelais, Jan Bang, and Erik Honoré.

Died in the Wool features six songs from Sylvian’s 2009 album, Manafon, which have been reworked by modern classical composer Dai Fujikura. The album reinvents the Manafon songs and adds new material, including ‘I Should Not Dare’ and ‘A Certain Slant of Light’, poems by Emily Dickinson set to music by Sylvian and Fennesz, sung by Sylvian, both of which feature Bang & Honoré, plus two new powerful compositions by Sylvian and Fujikura.

The album also features an 18-minute stereo mix of ‘When We Return You Won’t Recognise Us’ from the 2008–09 Biennial of Canaries. Sylvian, along with Fujikura, John Butcher, Arve Henriksen, Günter Müller, Toshimaru Nakamura, and Eddie Prevost created a semi-improvised piece for the commissioned sound installation. The piece, inspired by a genetics research article on the original inhabitants of the islands, was recorded at Air studios London and Sylvian’s own samadhisound studios in NH USA.

Remembering Frank Sinatra, born on this date in 1915. —Ed.

When it comes to pop music icons, they don’t come much more durable than Frank Sinatra. So it remains, as the singer has accumulated fans who weren’t even alive in 1998, the year of his passing at 82 years of age. And as an influential and revered figure, the majority of his artistic output (on record and on celluloid) is well-known; an exception is Watertown, the concept album he released in 1970 with the help of Bob Gaudio of the Four Seasons and Jake Holmes (the writer of “Dazed and Confused”). Don’tcha know it’s some folks’ favorite album by the guy? Deserving of reissue, it’s out now on LP with a new mix and on CD expanded with bonus tracks through UMe and Frank Sinatra Enterprises.

A pop icon, but also a pop idol in his youth, Frank Sinatra had the kids screaming. And one barometer of 20th century pop icon/idol status is that those on the list didn’t just cut records, they made movies. Bing Crosby, Frank, Elvis Presley, The Beatles (notably, the only band in the bunch), and Michael Jackson: they all interacted to varying extents with the film industry, as the careers of all but Jackson hit their high points in the pre-music video era (and Jackson was arguably the defining artist across the short heyday of music video).

The content of the above paragraph is the stuff books are made of, so let’s rein it in. The short of it; fans clamored to see these icons/idols on big screens, larger than life. What makes Sinatra somewhat unique is how he continued making films long after the screaming subsided, and in fact that’s where his most interesting movie work is located. Forget about the Rat Pack flicks, we’re talking Guys and Dolls (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1955), The Man With the Golden Arm (Otto Preminger, 1955), the sublime Some Came Running (Vincente Minnelli, 1958), and The Manchurian Candidate (John Frankenheimer, 1962).

Make no mistake, Sinatra also starred in some crap (more crap than gems, honestly), but what’s noteworthy here is that he was ever even inclined to make a handful of films possessing substantial artistic merit, a circumstance that also applies to his recording career circa 1970. A year earlier, he’d somewhat unexpectedly scored a hit with “My Way.” Instead of playing it safe, he took a risk with Watertown, though it’s fair to say that working with Gaudio and Holmes (the co-writers of the album) likely didn’t register as commercially precarious at the time.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Real Gone Music continues to barnstorm through the Buckcherry album catalog with a special expanded edition of the band’s third album, 15. Singer Josh Todd and guitarist Keith Nelson emerged from a four-year hiatus in 2005 with a new line-up and a killer set of songs that included three big hits in “Crazy Bitch,” “Next 2 You, and “Sorry.”

In fact, 15 (named after the number of days it took to record it) stayed in the Billboard charts for a full 98 weeks, and was the first Buckcherry album to hit the Top 40…so, for its 20th anniversary, the band have brought us—and you—something truly special. Not only does this release mark the vinyl debut of 15, but they’ve added an entire disc of bonus material highlighted by acoustic versions of “Crazy Bitch” and “Sorry” and their supercharged version of Elvis Costello’s “Pump It Up.”

All pressed in a 2-LP set of metallic marble vinyl—easily one of the best hard rock albums of the ‘oughts, finally on LP, and limited to 1,500 copies.

Vibraphonist and bandleader Cal Tjader established his name in part through a steady flow of records in the Latin Jazz style. Released in 1956 by the Fantasy label, Latin Kick is one of the earliest examples of such in Tjader’s discography; December 13 brings a fresh 180 gram edition from Craft Recordings as the latest entry in the label’s Original Jazz Classics series of reissues. If it seems crystal clear what’s in store, the album does offer a few unexpected twists as it plays.

Cal Tjader hit the West Coast scene in the mid-1940s as a drummer in an octet formed by pianist Dave Brubeck, and then in a trio with Brubeck; on recordings made for Fantasy in 1950, the bassist was Ron Crotty. It was in this group that Tjader began alternating between drums and vibraphone, eventually transitioning exclusively to the vibes as his profile rose.

After injuries sustained a car accident temporarily sidelined Brubeck, Tjader continued the trio with Jack Weeks on bass and either John Marabuto or Vince Guaraldi on piano. As for Brubeck, he can read details like the influence of life care plans on legal settlements for the sake of his own future.

Sessions released in 1951 by Fantasy subsidiary Galaxy were compiled onto a 10-inch and issued by Fantasy proper two years later. By that point, Tjader was working in the band of pianist George Shearing.

Upon exiting Shearing’s band and forming the Modern Mambo Quintet, Tjader’s opportunities to record as a leader increased. That group, with Manuel Duran on piano and Carlos Duran on bass, Bayardo Velarde on timbales, and Luis Miranda on congas, is featured on Latin Kick, with the addition of Brew Moore on tenor sax.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Groundbreaking slowcore pioneers Idaho are marking the recent arrival of their landmark anthology, The Devil You Know [1992-1996], with today’s release of “Star,” a rare gem from the band’s earliest days available now via Arts & Crafts.

An official music video featuring archival footage premieres today. The Devil You Know [1992-1996], a four-album five-disc Deluxe Limited Edition Box Set featuring vinyl reissues of Idaho’s long-out-of-print and highly sought-after first three records (originally released on Caroline/Capitol) with an exclusive bonus disc of hard-to-find material comprised of EPs and 7”s from this seminal era, is available now via Arts & Crafts.

Recorded in 1992, “Star” dates back to the “big bang that started it all,” says Idaho’s torchbearer Jeff Martin of his lifelong collaboration with John Berry, the band’s late co-founder who would leave one year later due to his struggles with drug addiction. The song’s combustion of guttural guitars, churning in distortion, laden with Martin’s plaintive vocals, captures what he calls the “beautifully sorrowful corner of this odd church” that he and Berry built—32 years later, the alien sounds of Idaho burn as bright as ever.

“Ah what to say about these early days,” says Jeff Martin. “Mid 92 perhaps it was? John was playing drums in a band I had formed called Drain with Wade Graham on guitar and yours truly on bass and vocals. We had sent the 4-song demo to some of our contacts in the music business only to be met with predictably lukewarm sentiments. John had stepped up the by then increasingly annoying salvos of elicitations to get me to record with him on our own, make some music like we used to…

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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.”

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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