Recorded live during a European tour of 2017, the six DKV Trio concerts featuring Joe McPhee included a performance of "Nation Time"
Here's the scoop... Not Two Records presents The Fire Each Time, a 6 CD boxset of recordings from the DKV Trio with Joe McPhee as a guest, and dedicated to James Baldwin. The music was recorded during the quartet's tour in Europe which took place in November of 2017, and at shows in Chicago and Milwaukee from December of that year.
These performances are historic in many respects: the DKV Trio – with Hamid Drake [drums], Kent Kessler [bass], and Ken Vandermark [reeds] – has only recorded with other musicians on four occasions in it's two decade career (with Fred Anderson, [Okka Disk, 1997]; Joe Morris on "Deep Telling" [Okka Disk, 1999]; with Mats Gustafsson, Paal Nilssen-Love and Massimo Pupillo on "Schl8hof" [Trost, 2013], and with The Thing ["Collider," Not Two, 2016]); also, this is the first time all four musicians have worked together as a band; and the material documented over the six concerts included in the collection features performances of Joe McPhee's compositions – like his classic "Nation Time" (listen below) as well as completely improvised music generated by the participants.
Modern Harmonic's sweet One Man's Journey comp selects the best of Alan's first three albums, In Debt, Good Morning World and First Light.
One Man’s Journey is a compilation based on Alan Munson's real life happenings, a blend of singer-songwriter music and his experiences, accompanied by beautiful guitar and voice. It would be unfair to place Munson's music in a single genre — it’s a fusion of mellow psychedelic folk rock with the amazing atmosphere of the times. Originally released as private pressings, his recorded songs have a very intimate feel. Wonderful harmonies and meaningful lyrics will get deep under your skin, and the stripped down production gives these songs an even more intense personal ambiance. At times you can even hear British influences coming through his music, think of Nick Drake and the like.
If you want a red vinyl version of the new Writhing Squares pounder, you'd better act fa... oops, sorry, it's sold out.
Here's the scoop... Writhing Squares have been conjuring up cosmic slop from the Philadelphia underground for a few years now, mixing growling bass, motorik synthesis, and skronking sax into a heady brew of punk-laced progressive R’n’R. The duo of Daniel Provenzano (Purling Hiss, Spacin, Rosali & the Middlemen) and Kevin Nickles (Ecstatic Vision, Taiwan Housing Project) emerged in 2015 with their self-released “Gemini Blues” 7-inch, following it up the next year with their debut album In The Void Above for the venerable Siltbreeze label. Their sophomore album, Out of The Ether, is their first for Trouble In Mind and should be in storesby the time you read this.
Out of the Ether opens with the metronomic throb of “Dirt In My Mind’s Eye”, setting the stage for the album’s five tracks of minimal, droning ambience, overtaken at times by Nickles’ wailing, saxophone skronk; a mixture of the soulful runs of The Stooges’ Steve McKay & the no-wave stabs of James Chance. “Steely Eyed Missile Man” picks up the pace, with a four-on-the-floor drive underneath Provenzano’s guttural basslines. “Bloodborne Hate and Black Book Mass” and side one closer “I Turned To The Mirror” add the industrial menace of Cabaret Voltaire to a locked-in groove and lysergicly introspective lyrics. Album closer “A Whole New Jupiter” (listen below) takes up all of the LP version’s side two, slingshotting the listener over the event horizon and thru the center of a sonically sculpted black hole, it’s relentless motorik dirge evolving over the course of the track’s 19-minute runtime into an abstract pulse before lurching back into the groove, riding it into the sun. Check out a the Withering Squares' performance at the Philadelphia Record Exchange after "A Whole New Jupiter"
The new Danko Jones album A Rock Supreme – produced by GGGarth Richardson – is out April 26.
Here's the scoop...
It's long been clear that the Canadian hard rock trio Danko Jones lives and breathes – and even sweats and bleeds – rock n' roll. The group's namesake front man loves to talk about it (check out his long-running “The Official Danko Jones Podcast” for proof); he loves to write about it (as his new book, “I've Got Something To Say: 10 Years of Rock and Roll Ramblings,” pointedly captures); and he loves to sing about it, as evidenced by a number of the group's best-loved songs (“I Gotta Rock,” “Rock Shit Hot,” “Do You Wanna Rock,” etc.).
On the group's new album, A Rock Supreme, Danko Jones – the man and the band – up the ante considerably from the moment the very first words blast from the speakers: I'm in a band, and I love it / All I want to do is play my guitar and rock and roll. There's no midlife crisis here, no softening with age, no signs of self-doubt – just 11 fist-pumping (literally, in the case of “Fists Up High”) jolts of sonic adrenaline with nary a ballad in sight.
“'A Rock Supreme' is the name of our new studio album. There are 11 songs on it, and they're all fantastic,” says Jones. “Trust me – we know what we're doing when it comes to hard rock.”
Produced by GGGarth Richardson (Rage Against The Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers) and featuring cover artwork by Ulf Lunden (Graveyard, Europe, Bombus), A Rock Supreme – which is available now for pre-order – will be released on April 26 via M-Theory Audio (U.S.), Rise Above (UK), Indica (Canada, AU, NZ) and AFM (rest of the world). All digital pre-orders include three instant downloads – the previously released singles “We're Crazy” and “Burn In Hell,” and the newly-released “Dance Dance Dance,” which can now be streamed on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and other digital platforms.
Recently, Danko Jones premiered the track “Dance Dance Dance” on Jonesy's Jukebox with host Steve Jones (see below). The band will soon hit the road for a two-week headlining tour in the Western U.S. with support from the amazing Nashville Pussy and recent European tour mates Prima Donna. A complete list of the band's upcoming concerts follows the album's track listing and the Jonesy's Jukebox clip. For tickets and more info, go the official Danko Jones site right here.
DANKO JONES - A Rock Supreme
1. I'm In A Band 2. I Love Love 3. We're Crazy 4. Dance Dance Dance 5. Lipstick City 6. Fists Up High 7. Party 8. You Got Today 9. That Girl 10. Burn In Hell 11. You Can't Keep Us Down
DANKO JONES on tour with Nashville Pussy and Prima Donna
Wednesday, February 6th at 172 in Las Vegas, NV (only date without Nashville Pussy)
Thursday, February 7th at The Nile in Mesa, AZ
Friday, February 8th at Whisky A Go Go in West Hollywood, CA
Saturday, February 9th at Marty's on Newport in Tustin, CA
Sunday, February 10th at The Observatory in San Diego, CA
Wednesday, February 13th at Alex's Bar in Long Beach, CA
Thursday, February, 14th at Discovery Ventura in Ventura, CA
Friday, February 15th at The Ritz in San Jose, CA
Saturday, February 16th at Slim's in San Francisco, CA
Sunday, February 17th at Harlow's in Sacramento, CA
Tuesday, February 19th at Wild Buffalo House in Bellingham, WA
Wednesday, February 20th at Dante's in Portland, OR
Thursday, February 21st at El Corazon in Seattle, WA
October 13th to 18th on Megacruise departing from San Pedro, CA
The legendary Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, has toured internationally, as well as recorded numerable celebrated projects over the last 45 years. The current line up, featuring Corey Wilkes (trumpet), Alex Harding (baritone sax) and the band’s founder, Dr. Kahil El’Zabar (multi-percussion/ composition), are returning to Toronto to present their forthcoming recording Be Known (check the preview clip below) at La Maquette (111 King St. East at Church) on Friday (February 15) at 8:30 pm with doors open at 6:30 pm for drinks. Early bird tickets are $25 (until February 3 at 5 pm), advance tickets are $35 (until Friday, February 15 at 5 pm) with any remaining sold at the door for $40. Space is limited so grab your tickets quick and arrive early for best seats. For more info, check the Caliban Arts site right here.
Dr. Kahil El’Zabar is considered by his peers to be one of the most prolific innovators of his generation. He has recorded more than sixty well–received projects, and won numerous international awards as a musician and composer. In 2014, Mr. El’Zabar was knighted by the Counsel General of France, and christened as a “Chevalier Medal of Letters”. In 2012, President Barack Obama’s administration awarded him the International Ambassador’s Award in the Arts. In 2006, The Chicago Tribune named Kahil El’Zabar Chicagoan of the Year. In 1994, President Bill Clinton appointed El’Zabar to the National Task Force on Arts in Education. Mr. El’Zabar has worked with such luminaries as Dizzy Gillespie, Cannonball Adderley, Stevie Wonder, Donnie Hathaway, Pharoah Sanders, Neneh Cherry, Nina Simone, Ntozake Shange, David Murray, Nona Hendryx, Lester Bowie, and the extensive list goes on and on. Dr. El’Zabar holds a PHD in Inter–Disciplinary Arts from Lake Forest College (2006), and is Executive Creative Director and Director of Curriculum Planning/Teaching and Music Strategies at the new Chicago Academy of Music. He has also taught and held the position of Associate Professor at the University of Nebraska (Lincoln) and at the University of Illinois (Chicago), and served on several prestigious panels such as the National Endowment of the Arts, the NPN (National Performance Network) and the Lila Wallace Reader’s Digest Fund. El’Zabar is a former Chairman of internationally acclaimed, AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians).
Corey Wilkes has established himself as one of the best improvising trumpeters in the modern era. Having the skill to approach mainstream repertoire of jazz standards with his own unique sensibilities, he combines them with his deep appreciation of hip–hop. Mr. Wilkes continues to bring his brand of musicianship and talent to the forefront of the genre. He has also shared the stage with numerous jazz masters including but not limited to; Wynton Marsalis, Roy Hargrove, James Moody, Kurt Elling, Von Freeman, Greg Osby, Roscoe Mitchell, Marcus Belgrave, Clark Terry, Harry “Sweets” Edison and Mulgrew Miller. His soulful notes can be heard gracing a variety of contemporary projects including sets by DJ Logic, Osunlade and Josh Deep; tracks on Hidden Beach Recordings Presents: Unwrapped Vol. 4, Kahil El Zabar’s Ascension Loft Series as well as Nona Hendryx, Soulive, Meshell Ndegocello and Ledisi.
Alex Harding is considered one of the top baritone players in New York City. He has been a fixture on the New York jazz seen since 1993 performing touring and recording with the Julius Hemphill Saxophone Sextet, Hamiett Bluiett Baritone Nation, David Murray Big Band, Oliver Lake Big Band, Craig Harris, Joseph Bowie’s defunkt, Aretha Franklin, David Lee Roth, Lester Bowie, Andy Gonzales, Muhal Richard Abrams, Jayne Cortes and the Fire Spitters, Abdullah Ibrahim and the Tony award–winning Broadway show Fela! Alex Harding has several recordings of his own as a leader as well as sideman with other artists.
"Be Known" by the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble is due in March on SpiritMuse Records. Watch the preview clip below followed by a list of upcoming tour dates.
UK singer/songwriter Michael Chapman's True North album (produced by Steve Gunn) is out February 8th on Paradise of Bachelors.
The masterful follow-up to his universally celebrated 2017 album 50, Michael Chapman’s True North finds the elder statesman of British songwriting and guitar plumbing an even deeper deep and honing an ever keener edge to his iconic writing. This authoritative set of predominantly new, and completely devastating, songs hews to a more intimate sonic signature—more atmospheric, textural, and minimalist than 50, stately and melancholy in equal measure. Recorded in rural West Wales, True North unflinchingly surveys home and horizon, traveling from the Bahamas to Texas to the Leeds of Chapman’s childhood, haunted by the mirages of memory and intimations of mortality. Joining him on this introspective journey is a cast of old friends and new disciples: once again Steve Gunn produces and plays guitar, and fellow UK songwriting hero Bridget St John sings, collaborating with cellist Sarah Smout and legendary pedal steel player BJ Cole, who has accompanied everyone from John Cale to Scott Walker to Terry Allen to Björk. Check out "It's Too Late" below.
Michael Chapman’s elegiac new record True North, the latest chapter in the long story of one of our greatest living guitar stylists and songwriters, navigates the same treacherous and tenebrous territory of time. The album begins with the gnawing regret of “It’s Too Late,” and every song Chapman sings thereafter directly references the passing of time—its blind ruthlessness, its sweet hazy delights—in noirish language almost mystical in its terseness and precision. (The two transportive, gorgeous instrumentals, one per side, both have appropriately evocative—though decidedly not Northern—pastoral place names for titles: Eleuthera is an island in the Bahamas where Chapman habitually holidays every winter, and Caddo Lake straddles the border between Texas and Louisiana.) This is Chapman at his darkest and most nocturnal, yes, but also his most elegant and subtle, squinting into the black hours with an unseen smile.
“Sometimes no disguise is the best disguise of all,” he sings on the unaccompanied ballad “Vanity & Pride,” offering a lyrical key to unlock the album. By the time True North is out in the world, Chapman will be seventy-eight years old and will have released nearly as many records, a staggering achievement. True North represents the most nakedly personal album of his career, his most authoritative, unguarded, and emotionally devastating statement. His universally celebrated full-band 2017 album 50 flirted with much-deserved triumphalism, offering a retrospective of his illustrious career, revisited in the company of the fellow UK songwriting hero Bridget St John and a rowdy gang of younger acolytes including Steve Gunn, James Elkington, and Nathan Bowles. (Intergenerational collaboration has been central to Chapman’s periodic reinventions and perennial relevance since the 1960s—he is the only musician ever to have played with Mike Cooper, Mick Ronson, Elton John, Don Nix, Thurston Moore, and Jack Rose.) The distinguished quartet of old friends and new disciples that supports him on True North features old friends and new disciples alike, but the sonic strategy this time is intentionally subtractive rather than additive. Once again Steve Gunn produces and plays guitar, and Bridget St John sings, collaborating with cellist Sarah Smout and legendary pedal steel player BJ Cole, who has accompanied everyone from John Cale to Scott Walker, Elton John to Terry Allen, Felt to Björk to Brian Eno. Cole is the album’s secret weapon, contributing sublime, skyscrapingly sculptural steel leads, weaving in sympathetic warp and weft with Chapman’s and Gunn’s guitars and Smout’s hovering cello.
Throughout the band hews to an intimate, hushed sonic signature that is more atmospheric, textural, and minimalist than 50, stately and melancholy in equal measure. Without a regular rhythm section—Gunn and Chapman provide occasional, austere drums and bass on an ad hoc basis—arrangements drift dreamily, ebbing and flowing, following Chapman’s confiding growl and helical guitar figures wherever they lead. Michael cites the Jimmy Giuffre Trio’s performance, without a rhythm section, in the 1959 film Jazz on a Summer’s Day as “a revelation” and direct influence on True North. The production hearkens back to Chapman’s classic Millstone Grit (1973), as well as recalling Bob Dylan’s Time Out of Mind (1997); True North shares something of that album’s spectral gloaming, midnight heartache, and sly, self-knowing winks. Integral to the shift in scale and the production decisions were the remoteness and natural beauty of the recording environment. True North was recorded at Mwnci Studios, a residential studio in rural, woodland West Wales. Jimmy Robertson, who has earned nine Mercury Music nominations for his work with the likes of Depeche Mode, Ride, and Arctic Monkeys, engineered and mixed.
Compositionally, True North finds Chapman plumbing an even deeper deep and honing an ever keener edge to his iconic writing. Compared to 50, these recordings feel narrower in range, less overtly narrative and dynamic and more impressionistic and restrained, but they are correspondingly more piercing and arrow-like in their rending impact, more concerned with an archer’s deadeye aim than pyrotechnics. And Chapman’s aim remains true. Whereas 50 featured two new songs among radical reinterpretations of material from Chapman’s deep catalog, True North includes twice as many new numbers among its quiver of eleven arrows—“It’s Too Late,” “Eleuthera,” the fiery “Bluesman,” and slow-rolling album centerpiece “Truck Song”—confirming the exultant return of Chapman the songwriter. The other songs were selected from various obscure corners of Chapman’s vast catalog (“Youth Is Wasted on the Young” was previously recorded with Thurston Moore and Jim O’Rourke for a compilation, for example.) In these renderings they receive their definitive treatments, utterly transformed. “After All This Time” and “Full Bottle, Empty Heart,” two of the moving duets with St John, are as weightless and lovely as “Hell to Pay” is alternately brooding and menacing.
True North zooms in and focuses the lens more tightly not just musically, but also visually. The title suggests the geography of memory, evoking the Northern England that is Chapman’s home, ancestral and current. Born and raised in Leeds, for many years he has lived in isolated, ravishing Cumbria, near Hadrian’s Wall and the Scottish border. The jacket photographs date to 1963, when Chapman was working as a photography instructor at a college in Bolton, Lancashire, after completing his postgraduate degree. During this period he stopped playing music for three years to concentrate on visual art. It’s fitting that these beautiful, ghostly images of a vanished North grace the album artwork, because, more than any other record in his oeuvre, True North surveys home and horizon.
Following the levitating lament “Youth Is Wasted on the Young,” Chapman leaves us with a moment of levity, the solo number “Bon Ton Roolay.” Appropriately, this sole moment of unbounded joy and ragged hangover humor dissolves. It remains unfinished, unseamed and tossed aside with a chuckle. The work of time is never done. Where Chapman says good times, he means years, means life.
German NDW crew Keine Ahnung released the club classic "Plastik" back in 1983 which you can hear below.
Keine Ahnung was a quartet from Wörth am Rhein, Germany formed in 1980. The original line up was Rolf Schmuck, Franz H. Rodenkirchen, Elke Fuchs and Olaf Schumacher. Hermann Kopp from Stuttgart, a friend of the band, contributed a composition on their first LP and became a full member in 1985. Taking cues from Conrad Schnitzler, Tuxedomoon and Dome, the band members shared a common interest in industrial, pop, avant garde literature and cinema. The name Keine Ahnung translates to “Don’t know” or “Haven’t got a clue” in German. The quartet would record three LPs in 6 years, two of which remain unreleased.
In March 1983, Keine Ahnung recorded their self-produced and financed debut LP in two days in a small studio in Stuttgart (12 hours total). The mixing was done in one day in a studio in Karlsruhe, April 1983. The self-titled LP was released later that summer on their own PASSIV label in an edition of 1000 copies. This record obtained recognition far beyond the German borders. Keine Ahnung in the studio and live were completely different. Studio time was expensive in these days, so the music was minimal electronic pop, expertly crafted and razor sharp man machine music. The live sound utilized more complex synthesizers, tapes, guitars, metal percussion and custom built electronics. The beats and bass lines came from the Roland 606/303 duo triggering a KORG MS-20 for the bass drum. All four members would take turns singing and playing the instruments. Check out their dancefloor classic "Plastik" and get the Dark Entries reissue of their self-titled 1983 debut right here.
Eric Mahoney's documentary on Dayton, Ohio's influential Brainiac will premiere at SXSW 2019 in Austin.
Here's the scoop...
In the mid 90's the Dayton, OH music scene became a hot spot generating world wide buzz from the influential indie rock being produced there (The Breeders, Guided by Voices). Arguably the most innovative of them all was the band Brainiac, led by musical genius and insanely charismatic front man Tim Taylor. The band was opening for Beck and being courted by major labels when Tim was tragically killed in a bizarre auto accident leaving his family and bandmates to pick up the pieces. Eric Mahoney's film explores the band's music, legacy, massive influence on pop culture and how people survive and cope with the loss of loved ones. Check out the trailer below.
The sudden passing of Red Aunts bassist Debi Martini was announced on the Red Aunts facebook page.
"With tremendous sadness we are heart broken to announce the sudden and unexpected passing of our sister and friend Debi. She was our rock goddess and our anchor and we will always treasure our time together and all that we accomplished. Thank you to all our friends and fans – we love you forever. If you would like to send a message please email theredaunts@gmail.com and we will share with it Debi’s family and friends. We are devastated. We love you Debi." Xo, Terri, Kerry and Lesley
James Blake's "Mile High" feat. Travis Scott & Metro Boomin is off the Assume Form album out Friday.
New York, NY – Ahead of the release of his eagerly-awaited fourth album Assume Form tomorrow via Republic Records, James Blake debuts brand-new track “Mile High” featuring Travis Scott & Metro Boomin. Combining Blake’s ethereal cals and Scott’s lyrical prowess, the track offers a refreshing take on love, masking its underlying vulnerability with Metro Boomin’s pulsing beats. Listen to “Mile High” below.
Over the past few years, Blake has become one of the most sought-after producers, singers, and songwriters in the music industry, working with top talent including Beyoncé, Frank Ocean, and Jay-Z, co-writing and touring with Kendrick Lamar, performing with Travis Scott on the MTV Video Music Awards, and collaborating on the record-shattering Black Panther soundtrack. Assume Form features an all-star roster that includes André 3000, Moses Sumney, Travis Scott, Metro Boomin, and ROSALÍA.
Blake is embarking on a 17-date North American tour in support of Assume Form, kicking off in Atlanta on February 18th with a stop at the Sony Centre in Toronto on February 27th. Tickets are available now via http://www.jamesblakemusic.com/.
James Blake Tour Dates
February 18Atlanta, GATabernacle
February 20Boston, MAHouse of Blues
February 21Washington, DCThe Anthem
February 22Philadelphia, PAThe Fillmore
February 24New York, NYTerminal 5
February 25New York, NYTerminal 5 February 27Toronto, ONSony Centre for the Performing Arts
February 28Montreal, QCL’Olympia
March 2Royal Oak, MIRoyal Oak Music Theatre
March 3Chicago, ILRiviera Theater
March 4Saint Paul, MNPalace Theatre
March 8Portland, ORRoseland Theater
March 9Vancouver, BCHarbour Convention Centre
March 10Seattle, WAMoore Theatre
March 12Oakland, CAFox Theater
March 15Pomona, CAFox Theater
March 16Los Angeles, CAHollywood Palladium
Here's a Terry Riley interview followed by a 1977 performance of Shri Camel and another with his son, guitarist Gyan Riley.
Intricate and often improvisational with elements of minimalism, jazz, ragtime, and north Indian raga. Terry Riley was influenced by John Cage and John Coltrane. His works, such as In C and A Rainbow in Curved Air, have influenced virtually every contemporary classical and many rock composers since, including Peter Townshend, Lou Reed, and Radiohead. The first part of the program features Terry Riley (piano/synthesizer & vocals) accompanied by Tracy Silverman on electric violin, followed by Terry and his son, Gyan Riley, on electric guitar. For tickets and more information about the 21C Music Festival check the Royal Conservatory of Music site.
ALL TERRY RILEY PROGRAM:
Excerpts from The Palmian Chord Ryddle
Shri Camel
Mongolian Winds
Selections from Salome Dances for Peace
Ebony Horns
Emerald Runner
The Bull
Song From the Old Country
Here's Kenny Dope's Weekend mix of funk 45s from 2012 – check the track list below.
Tracklist:
1.Love Me A Little While Longer - Funky Music Machine (Black Top)
2.Baby - The Phenomenal Handclap Band (Truth & Soul)
3.Mango Walk - Walter Branco (Dynamite Soul)
4.Ham Hocks & Beans Pt.1-Chuck Womack (Re-Joint)
5.Fancy Roll - The Grips (Ged Soul)
6.90% Of Me -Amrau's Trinidad Band (Weed Beat)
7.Strychnine - The Grits (Mocambo)
8.Chicken - The Soul Investigators (Timmion)
9.Get Involved Pt.1 - Wolfpack (White)
10.Hey Sallie Mae, Get Off My Feet - Lee Fields (Desco)
11.Scopolamine - Michael Leonhart (Truth & Soul)
12.The Hatch - The T.M.G's (Funk 45)
13.Black Boy - Dyke & The Blazers (Beat Goes Public)
14.Nervous Like Me Pt.2 - The Dap-Kings (Kay-Dee)
15.Dance Of The Dragons Pt.2 - The Heliocentrics (Now Again)
16.Freeway Crowd - J.T. Allen (Crowbar)
17.Hot Pants On Fire - The Fabulous Soul Investigators (Timmion)
18.C'Ex -Phillippe Nicaud (Rivera)
19.Hook N Sling - The Soul Command (Soul Fire)
20.Cold Heat - Lil Lavair
21.Daytona - Yosuke Tominaga (Champ)
22.Funky Thang - Dorando and The Ice Picks Of Soul (Sure Shot)
23.Stay In The Groove Pt.4 - The Dap-Kings Feat Rickey Calloway (Kay-Dee)
24.Purification Pt.4 - Funkshone (Kay-Dee)
25.Leave My Beat Alone - Raw Soul (Plut)
26.Pistol Whip - T-Bottoms (Funk Night)
27.Rappin All Over Pt.2 - The Marvelous 3 (Kay-Dee)
28.It's Just Begun - The Simonsound (Project Blue Book)
29.Electronic Brain Break - Virgil Howe & Shawn Lee (Breakin Bread)
30.The Clayton Break - Virgil Howe & Mark Clayton (Breakin Bread)
31.Phantom Pt.2 - Yosuke Tominga (Champ)
32.Soul To The People Pt.2 - The Fantastic Souls (Kay-Dee)
33.Tighten Up Pt.1 - Maceo & The Flames (Dynamite)
34.Ritual Pt.1 - Soul Sugar (Mocambo)
35.The Popcorn (Inst) - The Soul Believers (King)
Here's the scoop...
On Wednesday (January 23), Henderson Brewing (128A Sterling Rd) is hosting a panel discussion of Toronto's Hardcore scene prompted by the recent release of TOHC BOOK: Tomorrow Is Too Late - Toronto Hardcore Punk in the 1980s – published UXB Press.
The panel will include the people behind the book, namely Derek Emerson (MSI guitarist), Shawn Chirrey (Still Thinking fanzine), Simon Harvey (Ugly Pop label), Fran Grasso (Urbain Grandier label), and Sue McCluskey (Principal at Goods & Services) who will discuss the history of TOHC, including comparisons of the downtown vs suburban scenes, how punk changed lives, landmark gigs, slam dancing, thrashing, and hardcore punk’s influence on the greater local culture over the years.
Simon Harvey is also bringing the tunes – he'll be spinning classic worldwide punk on original 45s, with an emphasis on Canadian/Toronto stuff!
This is a free event, and everyone is welcome. Copies of the book will be for sale at the brewery! Listen to Danko Jones chat with Derek Emerson, Shawn Chirrey and Simon Harvey below.
"Song For Winners" is off Nick's new self-titledalbum. Tour dates following his set from the Nelsonville Music Fest.
More raw, heavy and overtly confrontational than anything he’s made before, Nick's forthcoming self-titled album (due March 8 on Innovative Leisure) was recorded in Hollywood, California at Electro Vox Recorders – the last surviving ‘Golden Era” 50’s style footprint a la Gold Star, Master Recorders, et al. The 11-track LP was cut with a gang of new faces and recurring true believers and co-produced by Paul Butler.
Nick’s songs here are personal, but personal in the way that “Please Mr. Postman,” “What’s Going On” and “Cathy’s Clown” are — intimate, direct, yet still malleable enough for listeners to suffuse their own life stories into the mix. “Adapt or die",” Nick wails, sardonically, on crime-jazz blitz “Black Glass”, telling you all you need to know about his process.
Check out "Song For Winners" (below) which has an opening lick that echoes Joe Moretti's memorable riff from Johnny Kidd and the Pirates' "Shakin' All Over."
"All I Need" is off the posthumous Townes Van Zandt release Sky Blue due March 7 on Fat Possum.
Here's the scoop... Sky Blue, a collection of unreleased songs by one of the most celebrated songwriters of the twentieth century, is a time capsule that Townes Van Zandt created forty-six years ago. Scheduled for release by TVZ Records and Fat Possum Records on March 7—which would have been his 75th birthday—this album shows the artist working out some of his most iconic songs in an intimate, comfortable setting with one of his lifelong confidantes.
These tracks will sound both fresh and familiar to even the most avid fans. Sky Blue includes eleven unreleased recordings made in early 1973 with the late Bill Hedgepeth, a journalist, musician, and most crucially a close friend of Townes. The singer-songwriter was splitting his time between Texas, Colorado, and a shack outside Franklin, Tennessee: an itinerant life that informed many of his most famous and beloved tunes. Throughout his life he would often return to Hedgepeth’s home studio in Atlanta, later with family in tow, to record, re-work, and experiment with new songs as well as old favorites.
The versions of “Pancho & Lefty” and “Rex’s Blues” show these songs as early drafts: raw, sorrowful, and as stunningly moving as he ever was, full of clean flat-picking and adept flourishes in just the right places. He emerges as a master of economic songwriting and playing, providing all that’s needed and nothing more, confident that his ideas and emotions would come through more clearly for being so judiciously understated.
In addition to a handful of old favorites, Sky Blue also includes two new songs that have never been heard before—”All I Need” (hear it below) and “Sky Blue”—as well as covers of songs by Richard Dobson and Tom Paxton. There is a smoky version of “Blue Ridge Mountain Blues” and a scarred and scarring interpretation of “Hills of Roane County,” an East Tennessee murder ballad from the 1880s that was popularized by Tony Rice. Van Zandt performs them deftly, sings them intuitively, and displays his delightfully twisted sense of humor on the devious “Snake Song” and the vicious “Dream Spider.”
Conceived by Townes’ surviving family—his wife and literary executor Jeanene, along with his children, J.T., Will, and Katie Bell—Sky Blue sounds like an entirely new album rather than a reissue of old recordings. That’s how urgent and invigorated these performances sound, offering a revealing glimpse into Townes’ process, the evolution of his songs as well as the myriad versions he had in his head.
Pre-order a copy of Sky Blue from Fat Possum right here. Check out "All I Need" below.
Sky Blue tracklist
1. All I Need
2. Rex’s Blues
3. Hills of Roane County
4. Sky Blue
5. Forever For Always For Certain
6. Blue Ridge Mountain Blues (Smoky Version)
7. Pancho and Lefty
8. Snake Song
9. Silver Ships of Andilar
10. Dream Spider
11. The Last Thing On My Mind
