Happy Birthday Jane Bunnett

Celebrating the birthday of Toronto bandleader and flautist Jane Bunnett with a few songs from On Firm Ground, her new album with Maqueque. 

That time Harry Nilsson and Otto Preminger did Playboy After Dark

Here's Harry Nilsson trading quips with director Otto Preminger and Hugh Hefner with Carol Channing on the line back in 1968. 

Catherine MacLellan record release @ The Rivoli, Tuesday

Don't miss Catherine performing songs from her latest album Coyote with opening sets from Kerri Ough (The Good Lovelies) and Alyson McNamara. 

R.I.P. Nick Tosches, 1949-2019

Sadly, inflluential music journalist and novelist Nick Tosches passed away Sunday at his Manhattan home. He'll be greatly missed.

Whaddya mean you don't know Camizole

SouffleContinu have released Camizole's self-titled debut album from 1977 in a limited edition 2LP of 500 copies.

Is freedom worth more than mastery, construction and achievement? In replying yes, the utopians of Camizole clear show which side they are on. For them, musical creation must be as spontaneous as possible. To achieve this, it is better to put egos to one side to concentrate on collective experimentation, to be tried and tested in front of a live audience. Playing the card of unlimited and unhindered improvisation is Camizole's crédo, having decided to get a taste of the urgent game-playing already established by the Nihilist Spasm Band and the Living Theatre research of Julian Beck and Judith Malina.

At the time, that is to say when punk was exploding, this concept, itself inherited from the May 68 events, made an impact on Chris Cutler of Henry Cow, but also Lindsay Cooper, who invited Camizole member Françoise Crublé to join the Feminist Improvising Group. Also, the Tapioca label run by Jean Georgakarakos (co-founder of BYG Records), considered producing an album, from a live recording made at the Théâtre de Chartres in November 1977. Unfortunately the label rapidly ceased all activities and the recording was left in a drawer, which was a real shame.

Today, after extracts and other live bits and pieces came out via Spalax at the end of the 1990s, an integral double-album is finally being released to do justice to the collective created by Jacky Dupéty, and which included, amongst others Dominique Grimaud (Vidéo-Aventures), Chris Chanet (Etron Fou Leloublan, Urban Sax), Xavier Jouvelet (notably heard alongside Lol Coxhill) and Bernard Filipetti (Art & Technique). Better late than never! First ever reissue of this french underground essential. Remastered from the original tapes and comes with an eight page booklet. Mail order a copy directly from SouffleContinu Records right here. Listen to Extrait N°8 from the album below.




Here's a recent live performance by Camizole

Allah-Las vs. The Human Expression

L.A.'s Allah-Las – appearing at Lee's Palace November 24th – do a fine version of the Human Expression's "Calm Me Down"

Beth B's documentary Lydia Lunch: The War Is Never Over due in November

The crowd-funded film includes recent and vintage Lydia Lunch live footage intercut with talking head commentary from Thurston Moore and others.

Lydia Lunch: The War Is Never Over premieres on Saturday, November 9 as part of DOC NYC at the IFC Center (323 6th Ave @ 3rd St) – Theatre 1 at 7:05 pm. 
Get tickets right here.

Honeyboy Edwards talks about Robert Johnson & Tommy Johnson

Here's an enlightening interview Pete Welding conducted with Mississippi blues great David "Honeyboy" Edwards. 

Richard Thompson, Eliza Gilkyson @ Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Friday

Watch Richard Thompson perform two classics acoustically followed by another two with David Gilmour.  

One For The Weekend: André Ethier

Listen to "Jenny The Blues" off the new André Ethier album Croak In The Weeds out now on Telephone Explosion. 

Here's the scoop from Telephone Explosion...
Croak In The Weeds, the second instalment in a planned trilogy from ex-Deadly Snakes frontman André Ethier, will be released in fall 2019 on Telephone Explosion Records. The nine-song album was created in collaboration with Sandro Perri (producer) at his Toronto studio in late 2018 / early 2019.

“I was imagining a pond at the swamp,” Ethier explains. “A pond gets murkier the deeper you dive. Frogs are amphibians. They’re in and out of the pond like it’s no big deal, but we stay mostly on the shore and only peer in. Then, when the weather is right, the pond rises in a mist and we can breathe it too. We can be in the pond but also on the shore.”

Croak In The Weeds continues Ethier and Perri’s musical relationship which was originally established on 2017’s Under Grape Leaves. Croak expands upon that album, deconstructing synthetic elements to a point of raw organic beauty. Lyrically, André’s approach has shifted to the natural world, focusing heavily on flora and fauna. Almost every track on the 34-minute album references animals, with central characters ranging from pigs to dragons.

You can mail order a copy of André's new album Croak In The Weeds right here. Listen to "Jenny The Blues" below.

Beast Music, Killer Wails, Yellow Magnolia @ The Horseshoe, Thursday

Toronto's Beast Music will be previewing songs from their forthcoming Darkness Only Knows album tonight at The Horseshoe starting at 9:40 pm sharp.

Listen to "Midnight Strikes Back" right here.

Beck shares two songs from his Hyperspace album out Nov 22

Listen to Beck's "Hyperlife" and "Uneventful Days" off his forthcoming Hyperspace album produced in collaboration with Pharrell Williams. 

That time Lee Morgan sat in with the Oscar Peterson Trio in 1959

Here's trumpet titan Lee Morgan performing "Moanin'" with the Oscar Peterson Trio on the CBC in '59. So where's the rest of the footage?

Li'l Andy, The Layrite Boys @ The Burdock, Thursday

Montreal's Li'l Andy will be on stage at 9:30 pm tonight followed by Toronto's own Layrite Boys at 10:30 pm.

Happy Birthday John Casimir

Remembering New Orlieans clarinet great John Casimir with "Whoopin' Blues" by his Young Tuxedo Brass Band.

The Flat Five jazz up Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" for Halloween

Inspired by Blossom Dearie's vocal jazz group The Blue Stars, Chicago's Flat Five put their own swingin' spin on Poe's creepy classic. 

You can order a limited edition orange vinyl copy of The Flat Five's version of The Raven from Bloodshot Records right here. 

Edgar Allan Poe's classic poem, The Raven was first accepted for publication (under the pseudonym Quarles) in the American Review (Vol.1 No. 2) of February, 1845 which you can check out below. 

Japan's TsuShiMaMiRe, Vypers, Nikki Fierce @ The Monarch Tavern, Wednesday

Don't miss TsuShiMaMiRe – featuring Maiko Takagi, Yayoi Tsushima and Mari Kono – make a rare Toronto appearance at the Monarch Tavern tonight. 

Midweek Mixdown: Ancient Archive of Sound's Glen Brown Special

Remembering reggae great Glen Brown – who passed away Oct 4 – with a 2-hour version excursion from AAoS.

Glen Brown Special track listing:

1) 2 Wedden Skank - Glen Brown
2) Africa 12" mix - Sylford Walker & King Tubbys
3) Jah Power version - King Tubbys
4) Black Dub - King Tubbys
5) Do Your Thing - Ritchie McDonald
6) Whole Lot A Sugar Down Deh - Prince Hammer
7) Only Love Can Make You Smile - Gaby & The Cables
8) Va Va Voom - Carl Masters
9) This Ya Year For Rebels - Glen Brown
10) Jah Jah Bring Everything - Jah Glen
11) Natty lead The Way - Richard McDonald
12) Meditating Our Own Way Of Life - Frank Aird
13) Boat To Progress - Glen Brown
14) Festive Season - I. Roy
15) Festival Rock - Tommy McCook
16) Dub To Progress - God Sons
17) Father's Call - Ewan Gardener
18) Scattalight Rock - God Sons
19) School Call - Glen Brown
20) Yahama Dub - King Tubbys
21) Telavid Drums - Glen Brown
22) Realise - Richard McDonald & Glen Brown
23) Dread In A Babylon - Glen Richards as Jah Glen
24) Thief In A The Kitchen - The Hungrys
25) Check The Winner - Glen Brown
26) South East Rock - Glen Brown
27) Genie Dub - Dean Beckford
28) Determination Skank - Don D Jr & Bobby Ellis
29) Youths Of Today - The Shalimars
30) Dance Good - Johnny Clarke & Glen Brown
31) Lamb's Bread - Sylford Walker
32) Dub In African - King Tubbys
33) Bread Dub - King Tubbys
34) Nation Dub - King Tubbys
35) Save Our Nation - Glen Brown & Glenroy Richards
36) Music From Southside - Tommy McCook
37) Chant Down Babylon - Sylford Walker
38) One One Cocoa - Gregory Isaacs
39) Do It Again - I. Roy & Glen Brown
40) Do It Again Pt 2 - King Tubbys
41) Neck Tie - Joe White & Glen Brown
42) Dubwise - King Tubbys

Happy Birthday Mickey Baker!

Remembering guitar great Mickey Baker on his day with his 1964 instro "Steam Roller" 

Listen to Anbessa Orchestra's new single, "Tch'elema (Darkness)"

Brooklyn's 7-piece Ethio-groove combo Anbessa Orchestra captures the mood of the moment with "Tch'elema (Darkness)" due October 21st. 

New Jimmy "Duck" Holmes album Cypress Grove due October 18

Blue Front Café boss Jimmy "Duck" Holmes – last of the Bettonia bluesmen – cut his new album with Dan Auerbach for Easy Eye Sound. 

Whaddya mean you don't know Water Color

Check out Bill Littlejohn's California funk gem "All Bundled In One" off Water Color's 1974 single for Love Records, naturally.  

Happy Birthday Dusko Goykovich

Celebrating the trumpet titan's birthday with a couple of classic recordings.

Ernest Hood's 1975 Portland snapshot Neighborhoods gets reissued

Guitarist Ernest Hood issued his musical document of the Portland he knew in 1975. Freedom To Spend is recirculating it.

Here's the scoop...

Ernest Hood’s Neighborhoods album was released some two decades after the Portland, Oregon born and raised musician’s first forays into field recordings. These very recordings, and those captured over intervening years, define the universal sound and aural images of childhood, a theme memorialized by Hood’s privately-pressed opus of 1975.

Sprawling through a haze of zither, synthesizer melodies, and foraged pedestrian sound, Neighborhoods is both a score and documentary composed and directed by Hood to offer, in his words, joy in reminiscence. Hood’s nostalgic impulse ran parallel to the developments of other artists, writers, and filmmakers of the 1970s who were looking back to the 1950s to convey a collective memory of childhood. Unlike some of the widely embraced work of this nature, the music of Neighborhoods eschews irony or detachment for lucidity, striving above all for a dream-like return to the details of sensory memory.

Ernest Hood

Born into a musical lineage, Hood’s early, promising career as a guitarist in a globe-trotting jazz outfit was cut short when he contracted polio in his late twenties. Moving from guitar to less physically-demanding stringed instruments in the late 1940s, Hood first began implementing field recordings in his jazz ensemble collaborations as early as 1956. In 1961, Hood and trumpeter Jim Smith collaborated on a local Portland television program, with their large, tight ensemble providing breakneck contemporary jazz for an action painting by famed West Coast modernist painter Louis Bunce. Hood incorporated his own field-recorded sounds of birds in the performance – an element that would resurface in Neighborhoods with great abundance among other found sounds.

Whether using environmental sounds or instruments, a sense of musical narration is the central component of Neighborhoods, a strategy Hood tellingly referred to as “musical cinematography” in his original liner notes. Instead of using the picture frame, Hood broadcasts melodies and sounds from his beloved Portland surroundings to transport listeners to the story’s scene. Remarkably, Neighborhoods never falls into the sentimentality trap. Hood’s music augments its indeterminate, “anecdotal” sounds with a blend of zither and synthesizer melodies reminiscent of golden age cinema soundtracks.

Neighborhoods is an unusual hybrid––not quite an “ambient” record nor a collection of pure field recordings. The identifiable sounds (screen doors opening and closing, passing motorists, crickets chirping, children playing) feel both universal and highly specific, like a bulletin of Hood’s private geography from the middle of the last century. There’s something instructive – if not reparative – about time traveling into the bucolic dimension of Neighborhoods in 2019. If Hood were presenting the album today, he might invite listeners to unplug while locating that joy in reminiscence.

In the end, the concerns of Neighborhoods are poetic not formal, as Hood’s own summary of the album sounds a lot like Walt Whitman: “It hardly matters in which neighborhood you sprouted. The games we played, the mocks, the terminology and the feelings we experienced as youngsters are tantalizingly familiar.” And later, hitting a grand note, “How familiar, how indelible the pictures are: aromas of soft velvet days, strong friendships, fears, hates, loves... If the music seems a little bittersweet, well... isn’t that the taste of nostalgia?”

Freedom to Spend has restored Ernest Hood’s nostalgic masterpiece with the same care with which he viewed his source material, offering a remastered version of Neighborhoods transferred from the original tapes, expanded across four vinyl sides (the original version was crammed on two). The new edition reproduces Hood’s celebratory liner notes in full, alongside new liner notes by Michael Klausman. Order a copy of Neighborhoods directly from the Freedom To Spend label right here.

A portion of proceeds from this release will be donated KBOO FM, a volunteer-powered, non-commercial, listener-sponsored, community radio station for Portland, Oregon, the Pacific Northwest, & the World, founded in part by Ernest Hood. Come! Mend! Listen to "Night Games" below.



LINKS
Willamette Week: Obscure Portland Jazz Classic gets its first wide release 

Second volume of G Stands for Go-Betweens box set spotlights their golden era

Five years after the first volume, Domino is releasing G Stands For Go-Betweens Vol. 2 – including 5 vinyl LPs, 5 CDs and 112-page book – on Dec. 6

Here's what you get...

• 5 x LPs - Three studio albums from the group’s peak period on Beggars Banquet plus a previously unreleased double live album recorded at London's Town & Country Club on May 10th, 1987.
• 5 x CDs - Rare, hard-to-find and unreleased demos, recordings, radio sessions including a collection of 28 songs intended for what was supposed to be the follow-up to 16 Lovers Lane.
• 112 page book - A trove of archival photos and extensive historical liner notes from founding member Robert Forster - plus additional pieces from guest essayists, fans & contemporaries.
• The Liberty Belle And The Black Diamond Express songbook. Prepared at the time of release by their publisher, this is the first ever printing, containing hand-transcribed sheet music of all ten songs from the aforementioned album.
• Reproduction of the promotional poster for a contemporaneous Melbourne show.

Please note that the initial copies including a book from Grant McLennan’s personal literary collection have now sold out.

G Stands For Go-Betweens, Volume Two extensively documents the band’s creative output in the latter half of the 80s in an ambitious box containing four albums over five LPs, five compact discs and an extensive 112 page book, featuring a trove of archival photos and extensive historical liner notes from founding member Robert Forster (who'll be playing solo at Toronto's Drake Hotel on November 12th – get tickets here) , along with additional pieces from guest essayists, fans and contemporaries. Check out the complete tracklisting below. You can pre-order a copy directly from Domino Records for $180 U.S. right here.

G STANDS FOR GO-BETWEENS Volume 2 

LP 1: Liberty Belle And The Black Diamond Express
side A:
Spring Rain
The Ghost And The Black Hat
The Wrong Road
To Reach Me
Twin Layers Of Lightning
side B:
In The Core Of The Flame
Head Full Of Steam
Bow Down
Palm Sunday (On Board the SS Within)
Apology Accepted



LP 2: Tallulah
side A:
Right Here
You Tell Me
Someone Else’s Wife
I Just Get Caught Out
Cut It Out
side B:
The House That Jack Kerouac Built
Bye Bye Pride
Spirit Of A Vampyre
The Clarke Sisters
Hope Then Strife



LP 3: 16 Lovers Lane
side A:
Side One:
Love Goes On!
Quiet Heart
Love Is A Sign
You Can’t Say No Forever The Devil’s Eye
side B:
Streets Of Your Town
Clouds
Was There Anything I Could Do?
I’m Allright
Dive For Your Memory



LP 4: Fountains Of Youth: Town & Country Club 10/5/87
side A:
Bye Bye Pride
Unkind And Unwise
Part Company
The House That Jack Kerouac Built
side B:
The Clarke Sisters
This Girl, Black Girl
Don’t Call Me Gone
When People Are Dead
Your Turn My Turn
side C:
Cut It Out
You Tell Me
Head Full Of Steam
Right Here
Man O’ Sand To Girl O’ Sea
side D:
Apology Accepted
Spring Rain
Karen
Eight Picture

CD 1: The Devil Is In Your Dress
1. In The Core Of A Flame
2. Living The Life At Hand
3. To Reach Me
4. Grandfather Slow
5. Spring Rain
6. Head Full Of Steam
7. Wrong Road Round
8. Don’t Let Him Come Back
9. Reunion Dinner
10. Little Joe
11. The Life At Hand
12. Casanova’s Last Words
13. I Work In A Health Spa

CD 2: Run From Him
1. I Know What I Like
2. You Tell Me
3. Do It Like The Devil Did
4. Together At Last
5. Cut It Out
6. Easier Said Than Done
7. The House That Jack Kerouac Built
8. Right Here
9. Someone Else’s Wife
10. The Clarke Sisters
11. Bye Bye Pride
12. I Just Get Caught Out
13. A Little Romance
14. When People Are Dead
15. Don’t Call Me Gone
16. Time In The Desert
17. Doo Wop in ‘A’ (Bam Boom)



CD 3: Trying To Be A Strong Person
1. Wait Until June
2. The Devil’s Eye
3. I’m Allright
4. Was There Anything I Could Do?
5. You Won’t Find It Again
6. Love Is A Sign
7. Love Goes On!
8. Dive For Your Memory
9. Apples In Bed
10. Clouds
11. Head Over Heels
12. Casanova’s Last Words
13. You Can’t So No Forever
14. Quiet Heart
15. Wait Until June
16. Casanova’s Last Words
17. Rock and Roll Friend
18. Mexican Postcard
19. Rock and Roll Friend
20. Dive For Your Memory
21. Quiet Heart
22. Clouds
23. Love Goes On



CD 4: Loving Shocks: Demos for 7th album
1. Dear Black Dream
2. Danger in The Past
3. Easy Come Easy Go
4. Broadway Bride
5. I Love You Still
6. What You Call Change
7. Open Invitation
8. You Can Dream About Tomorrow
9. I’ve Been Looking For Somebody
10. Outlaw #1
11. Haunted House
12. Sally’s Revolution Blues

CD 5: Loving Shocks: Demos for 7th album
1. Just Get That Straight
2. The Days My Eyes Came Back
3. Running The Risk Of Ever Losing You
4. It Had To Me
5. Signs Of Life
6. How I Wish This War Was Over
7. Art Cinema
8. Nowhere By Any Other Name
9. No Peace In The Palace
10. Here They Come
11. Child Of God
12. The Man Who Died Of Rapture
13. House of Snakes
14. All The Time
15. Send Him Back Home
16. What Goes Up Must Come Down

Hamlet Minassian vs. Pino Massara

Hamlett Minassian's "Al Elnim" – a cover of Pino Massara's "Margherita" – is on his LP reissued by Numero Group.  

You can order a copy of Hamlet Minassian's Armenian Pop Music LP right here. 

Happy Birthday Linval Thompson!

Celebrating roots reggae great Linval Thompson's birthday with a few classic jams. 

Miranda Mulholland releases new album By Appointment or Chance

Miranda recorded the album at The Swiss Cottage in Twyford with Tara Minton, Joe Phillips and guitarist Tali Trow who also produced the sessions.

You can read more about the origins and songs of By Appointment or Chance on Miranda Muholland's site right here, where you can also order copies of the album. 

Listen to her version of Kate McGarrigle's "Heart Like A Wheel" followed by a performance of "Bar Rage" below. 

Ralph Weeks goes rocksteady with Combo Lulo

Ralph Weeks recently recut his classic "Something Deep Inside" as a rocksteady ballad with the help of Combo Lulo. 

50 years ago, a young Panamanian singer by the name of Ralph Weeks, who a few years prior had cut his teeth in the U.S. music landscape with the group Johnny & The Expressions, self-produced and independently released a record with an absolute monster of a soul ballad called “Something Deep Inside.” It was a song that Weeks had come up with on the spot during one of many gigs in the heart of Brooklyn’s Prospect Heights, at the time a cultural hub and community for many Panamanians living in the borough. Along with his group, The Telecasters, Weeks often played at a Panamanian-owned club in the neighborhood called 4 Star’s (STA4R’s) which would independently sponsor the release of the tune on a 7-inch single.

Fast forward to 2019, where a serendipitous meeting between Ralph Weeks and the Names You Can Trust label turned into a solid formation of musical synchronicity, bonded over a shared belief in musical fusion, a weaving of musical threads that was similarly the foundation of that earlier era in Panama.  It’s a fusion that has become a constant theme throughout the Names You Can Trust catalog in the last 10 years, connecting the dots from NY, the Caribbean and Latin America. An immediate plan was put into motion: return Weeks to a studio atmosphere that had eluded him in the preceding decades, a vibe and live musical presence that would be reminiscent of his time recording with The Telecasters and The Exciters in Panama.

In the ultimate tribute to Mr. Weeks and that foundation, NYCT label mates Combo Lulo refashioned the 50-year old original tune into a timeless rocksteady ballad. It was an opportunity for Weeks to acquaint himself with a new band and a new generation of musical talent. Ultimately, it was an unexpected chance for Weeks to reconnect to the music he wrote one fateful evening in a Brooklyn club. For Combo Lulo, Names You Can Trust, and now the rest of his musical admirers, it’s a chance to hear how gracefully Weeks’ voice has aged, still silky smooth with those beloved falsetto runs, sweet and rounded like a barrel-aged añejo rum. It’s a testament to the timelessness of Weeks’ original music, and certainly another reminder of how far and wide even the smallest of musical blips can spread.

Presented as a double-sided bilingual 45 single, both versions of Weeks’ classic tune, “Algo Muy Profundo” and “Something Deep Inside,” have been formatted in the traditional Jamaican style, skillfully cut live and mixed under the guidance of NYCT and Combo Lulo’s talented musicians. It’s a tribute to a brilliant record and an unsung architect of Latin American sweet soul, but also a love letter to a very particular NY-Caribbean fusion that theoretically could have happened 50 years ago, depending on the borough you resided in. After all, there was always something deep inside.

Produced & Mixed by Eric Banta.
Arranged by Combo Lulo.

Combo Lulo:
Mike Sarason – Piano, Organ
Anant Pradham – Saxophone
Billy Aukstik – Trumpet
Matt Kursmark – Guitar
Nykhil Yerawadekar – Bass
Eddie Ocampo – Drums
Larry McDonald – Percussion

Shovels & Rope, Cedric Burnside @ The Phoenix, Tuesday

Watch the trailer for the concert film, Shovels & Rope: The Movie, followed by clips of S&R and Cedric Burnside performing at Paste Studio NYC.

One For The Weekend: The Ugly Ducklings

Here's a rare recording of Toronto's legendary Ugly Ducklings performing "I'm A Man" in their Scarborough rehearsal space in 1966.

Midweek Mixdown: Belly Belly by A Man Called Warwick

Belly Belly is the name of a recent sound clash dance floor session held a few random times in the city of Toronto with selector: A man called Warwick. The focus is on Indo Arabic Balkan and Gypsy flavours strictly using vinyl recordings. After the success of these events, we decided to put together a new mix for those who never made it out to dance or for those curious about these lost sounds. Belly Belly will return again in the fall for another round so please keep your eyes on the Turning Point Facebook page for updates.

Good Morning, Scott Hardware @ The Baby G, October 21

Melbourne's Stefan Blair & Liam Parsons have just released a video for "Classic Quip" off their new Basketball Breakups album. Check it out. 

The Muffs' final album No Holiday spotlights the late great Kim Shattuck

The Muffs' No Holiday album – out October 18th – was completed just before Kim Shattuck passed away.

Just having completed work on The Muffs' No Holiday (Omnivore) album – their first in five years – the group's founding singer/songwriter Kim Shattuck sadly passed away on October 2 from complications related to her battle with ALS.

About the album, Kim explained in a press release for Omnivore Recordings, “I wrote the songs between 1991 and 2017. We decided to have a long album and use songs that had been in my arsenal but were weeded out for super concise albums. They were all great songs and we didn’t want them to go to waste. No way!”

No Holiday really is a celebration of everything The Muffs was about. Says bassist Ronnie Barnett: “I think this new album represents the depth of our band like none of our others. It could have easily been aptly called The Many Moods Of The Muffs. All of our strengths: melody, big rock, sweetness, nastiness… All on display and readily apparent. The three of us, after all these years, are a family. The love between us is well represented here. We laid it all out there on this one.”

No Holiday contains 18 tracks on CD, Digital, and a 2-LP set (with laser-etched fourth side). Drummer Roy McDonald: “I think No Holiday is the most unique album we’ve ever made. 18 songs that run the spectrum from full blown productions to intimate home recordings. This was a labor of love for us and I think that comes out in the record. We wanted to create something lasting and special. I, for one, couldn’t be happier with the results.”

Listen to "A Lovely Day Boo Hoo" below. You can pre-order a copy of The Muffs' No Holiday album directly from Omnivore right here.



The Muffs - No Holiday 
That's For Me
Down Down Down
No Holiday
Earth Below Me
A Lovely Day Boo Hoo
Late and Sorry
The Best
Pollyanna
Sick Of This World
To That Funny Place
You Talk and You Talk
Happier Just Being With You
Lucky Charm
On My Own
Too Awake
Insane
The Kids Have All Gone Away
Sky

Bootsy's 1969 demo for James Brown "More Mess On My Thing" due Black Friday

The three-track More Mess On My Thing album is being issued by Now-Again for Black Friday (Record Store Day) on November 22. 

Here's the scoop...
Rumored no more: More Mess On My Thing, the demo Bootsy Collins and his band recorded for James Brown in 1969 that won them the title “The J.B.’s” – and changed the course of popular music. Also included is the complete version of “When You Feel It, Grunt If You Can,” presenting two never-issued songs in a 22-minute medley, and the unreleased instrumental “The Wedge.”

This is the companion piece to Now-Again’s first-ever issue of the lost J.B.’s album These Are The J.B.’s. All tracks mixed by Mario Caldato, directly from the original multi-track masters. Overseen by Egon and Universal Music Group’s in-house Brown expert Harry Weinger.

Contains extensive booklet with full annotation, liner notes by James Brown historian Alan Leeds and never-before-published photos. Coming out on Black Friday Record Store Day November 22!

The J.B.'s - More Mess On My Thing
A1 More Mess On My Thing
A2 The Wedge
B1 When You Feel It Grunt If You Can (Complete Take)

Tweeted Bootsy:

Watch the video for Martin Bisi's "Save Sludgie The Whale of Gowanus"

"Save Sludgie The Whale of Gowanus" is off the BC35 Vol. 2 celebrating Martin Bisi's Brooklyn recording studio.

Here's the scoop on BC 35...
BC35 refers to the weekend of performances and resulting album making the 35 year anniversary of Martin Bisi's BC Studio in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Musicians spanning the history of the studio were grouped into ensembles— mostly improvisational, although there was new material written specifically for the occasion— and performed and recorded live before an audience of BC Studio supporters and members.

There were also some long-awaited reunions. Martin Bisi with members of Sonic Youth, Swans, White Hills, JG Thirlwell, Cop Shoot Cop, Live Skull reunion, Pop 1280, The Dresden Dolls, Alice Donut, Lubricated Goat, Sxip Shirley, Parlor Walls and many more!

Recorded with a live audience comprised of sound pioneers, social deviants, and studio fans, these tracks were mixed and edited with care over several month by Martin Bisi and by veterans of the studio throughout the decades.

The results were compiled into Volumes 1 and 2, this is the second chapter that will be released on April 19, one year after the first one. Martin Bisi founded BC Studio in 1981 in the desolate and post-industrial (but now rapidly developing) Gowanus section of Brooklyn, along with Bill Laswell, and with financial and technical help from Brian Eno. Eno’s record On Land (released 1982) was the first recorded session at BC Studio.

BC35 Vol. 2: The 35th Anniversary of BC Studio
order your copy here...
BANDCAMP: http://bit.ly/bc35v2BCAMP
SILVER LP (ltd.150): http://bit.ly/BC35volumetwo-Silver
BLACK LP: http://bit.ly/BC35volumetwo-Black
CD: http://bit.ly/BC35volumetwo-CD
Digital: https://www.feiyr.com/x/BC35Vol2

Radio Martiko recirculates rare Roger King Mozian near eastern swingers

Roger King Mozian's fabulous "Oriental Cha-Cha" and "Sirocco" were recently reissued by Radio Martiko. Check 'em out below. 

Here's the scoop...

Roger 'King' Mozian

Latin orchestra meets Greek bouzouki!!! A true hybrid musical dream, emerging and blending the sound from the migrant communities of 60’s New York. Under the direction of NYC bandleader Roger ‘King’ Mozian, the electrifying runs of Greek bouzouki wizard Yannis Tatassopoulos are set to a hard swinging latin beat for some unconventional yet ultra refined crossover madness from the golden era of space-age pop.  Roger ‘King’ Mozian was an American trumpeter, percussionist and band leader, born in New York as the son of Turkish immigrants with Armenian roots. He started his musical career playing in Jazz and Latin bands during the 40’s and at a very young age he composed several American standards, many of which bear the unmistakable sound of the Middle East, songs like “Asia Minor” and “Desert Dance” in particular. His talent and sparkling compositions connected with great jazz men and latin music icons like Machito, Tito Puente and Tito Rodriguez. In the early 50s, Mozian was tapped by Norman Granz for a couple of Clef 78s and EPs before launching an intriguing series of superbly recorded space-age pop albums for MGM aimed at the home Hi-Fi enthusiast market.  His Spectacular Brass and Spectacular Percussion albums released in 1960 were followed by Spectacular Brass Goes Cha-Cha in 1961.    Despite his relatively short life – Mozian died of complications due to pulmonary tuberculosis in 1963 at the age of 35 – he left some impressive musical artifacts. Mozian loved blending modern popular dances like twist, rhumba, mambo and cha cha with Greek, Turkish and Middle Eastern music. Some of the highlights of these ventures were incorporated on the posthumously released compilation Lp “A Musical Odyssey” released by the Greek-American Nina label in 1966.  After leaving MGM, Mozian encountered the talented Greek bouzouki player Yannis Tatassopoulos (aka Ιωάννης Τατασόπουλος) at one of the many "Bouzouki Bistros" dotting Manhattan’s night club scene and invited him to the studio to play Greek traditional dance numbers like “Tsamiko” and “Tsifteteli” over latin rhythms with a fabulous session band (unfortunately uncredited). The result of the blending musical traditions is astonishing as you can hear in the songs "Oriental Cha-Cha" and "Sirocco" re-issued by Radio Martiko as a seven-inch single on the Mambo Gitano imprint. Listen below. 

Happy Birthday PJ Harvey!

Cheers to PJ Harvey on her birthday. Here's a live performance from 2018 you may have missed. 

Pernice Brothers launch Spread The Feeling at Dakota Tavern October 9 & 10

The vinyl version of The Pernice Brothers' Spread The Feeling album is due in stores October 15th. Check out the Sandwich EP from back in March.

Here's the whole sad story:
Over a 20-year career in music, Joe Pernice has made 17 full-length records. He began in the mid-90’s, with Scud Mountain Boys, who released two albums (Pine Box and Dance the Night Away, later compiled as The Early Year) before signing to Sub Pop and releasing Massachusetts, considered by many to be an alt-country masterpiece.

In 1998, Pernice disbanded the Scuds and assembled Pernice Brothers, recording Overcome By Happiness (Sub Pop), called “a startling slice of beauty” by The New York Times and “A thing of pernicious beauty indeed” by The Irish Times. In 1999 and 2000, he released two records, under the names Chappaquiddick Skyline and Big Tobacco. (More or less considered solo records, they do feature assorted members of the Pernice family circus, so that designation is a bit misleading. This naming inconsistency also dogs the enterprise to this day, and therefore, Pernice promises to call everything Pernice Brothers from now on, until he changes his mind.)

Spread The Feeling is due in late September

In 2001, Pernice and his manager decided that they were as capable of not selling many records as anyone. They founded Ashmont Records, releasing a series of Pernice Brothers records, featuring various players, beginning with The World Won’t End, which was called a “lush, perfectly realized record” by The Onion (not ironically). 2003 brought the release of Yours, Mine and Ours, called “a monumental record from a tow-ering talent” by Magnet. A live record and DVD, Nobody’s Watching/Nobody’s Listening was released in 2004.

In 2005, Discover a Lovelier You came out, and the song “Amazing Glow” was included in the legendary “Partings” episode of Gilmore Girls. Pernice performed the song on the show. Live a Little, called “a stunning album” by Spin was released in 2006. In 2009 Joe Pernice published his first novel, It Feels So Good When I Stop (Riverhead/Penguin), and Ashmont released a soundtrack of the same name, more or less, featuring Pernice covering songs referenced in the novel. (A novella, Meat is Murder, was published by Continuum Books in 2003, as part of their popular 33 1/3 series. It remains one of the bestselling books in the series).

In 2013 after a 17 year hiatus The Scud Mountain Boys released their fourth full length album Do You Love The Sun on Ashmont Records. That same year Pernice teamed up with hip hop producer and musician Budo (Joshua Karp) to record an album under the name Roger Lion. That self-titled album was released by Team Love Records.

In 2014 Pernice, Norman Blake (Teenage Fanclub) and Mike Belitsky (The Sadies) formed the group The New Mendicants. Their debut album was released by Ashmont Records in North America and One Little Indian worldwide.

In 2017 Pernice took a brief hiatus from music to take a staff writer position on the Canadian homicide cop TV show The Detail. He co-wrote the sixth episode of season one. He has yet to determine how the very positive experience influenced his songwriting.

Spread The Feeling was recorded in Boston, Toronto and Washington State. It features appearances by a regular cast of players including Peyton Pinkerton, James Walbourne, Patrick Berkery, Bob Pernice, Ric Menck, Neko Case, Pete Yorn, Liam Jaeger, Budo, etc., etc.

You can order a copy of The Pernice Brothers' forthcoming Spread The Feeling album right here.
Get tickets for the Pernice Brothers show at the Dakota Tavern right here.

While you're waiting for your copy of Spread The Feeling to arrive, listen to the Pernice Brothers' Sandwich EP below.

R.I.P. Larry Willis, 1942-2019

Sadly, jazz keyboardist and bandleader Larry Willis passed away on Sunday in Baltimore. He'll be greatly missed.