Marc Ribot, Kee Avil @ The Jam Factory, Friday

Here are a few clips of guitar picker extraordinaire Marc Ribot in action. 

The Mants unleash their Bug Rock Invasion March 29th

Here's the scoop...
Slack-jawed humans of planet Earth – prepare yourselves for the Bug Rock Invasion! Canada’s most reviled rubber-headed garage rock mutants THE MANTS are back with a new record on Portugal’s Chaputa! Records, and your auditory sensory devices will never be the same! 7 new “Slop-o-Sonic” songs recorded straight to tape and calculated to induce maximum listening displeasure are jammed onto one awesome 10-inch record in a limited pressing of 500 copies – 300 ant black and 200 aqua blue. Pre-order Bug Rock Invasion directly from Chaputa! Records right here.

Hey Frat Rocker, you're gonna Shake 'N Shimmy as the Bug Rock Beat pulverizes your cranium as you drool on the dancefloor! Hide your bratwurst ‘cause there’s a Hungry Mant on the loose! Blast off, Spacenik! and take your Beatles records with you! Check out the ode to love gone wrong in Exterminator Van! I'm A Bug scream THE MANTS, before they launch into an abominable tribute to their fave L.A. fast food joint In-N-Out Burger! There’s no use fighting it – the Bug Rock Invasion has begun, and things will never be the same. Check out the promo clip below.


Bug Rock Invasion! track list:
A1 - Frat Rocker
A2 - Shake 'N Shimmy
A3 - Hungry Mant (The Choads)
A4 - Blast Off, Spacenik!
ANT Side
B1 - Extermination Van
B2 - I'm a Bug (The Urinals)
B3 - In-N-Out

Recorded by Graham Fraser at Atomic Recordings - Victoria B.C.
Mixed by Cam Hayden
Mastered by Josh Stevenson at Otic Sound
Artwork by Rui Ricardo

Sinkane to play Toronto's Velvet Undergound on June 18

Watch the video for Sinkane's Everybody filmed by Bruno Ferreira in Rio de Janeiro. Dépaysé is out May 31.

Ahmed Gallab on Dépaysé

It’s easy to be angry in moments like now. And that’s OK. But it takes courage to turn that anger into productive energy. The previous Sinkane album, 2017's Life and Livin' It, was released at a very crazy time: things like the Muslim ban, police shooting unarmed people of color, massive corruption in my native Sudan, fake news, Donald Trump, Brexit and so many other calamities all really forced me to think about my place in the world as a musician. I began to think about how I could use my music in a constructive way — not only to help myself but to help others who feel frustrated and powerless.

I’ve made a lot of music out of my life story but I’ve always kept things vague enough that anyone listening to my music could relate to it on their own terms. And yet I have to admit that I never truly felt satisfied with that. I eventually realized that, in order to truly connect with other people, I first needed to connect with myself on a deeper level than before.

Throughout the making of my new album I kept asking myself the same question: “As an immigrant to America, where do I belong?” So, during the writing process, I worked mainly by myself so that I could ensure the most honest and personal answers to that question.

At some point, I discovered the French word dépaysé, which basically means “to be removed from one’s habitual surroundings.” By extension, it means to be disoriented, homeless. That's a feeling I relate to very much in these times — and I’m not the only one who feels this way. That word gave me clarity and made the journey inward that much more exciting.

So here we are. Dépaysé is the story of an immigrant’s journey of self-discovery in the Trump era. The music is loud and raw, and it's bursting with an energy unlike anything I’ve ever done before. The album starts with “Everybody,” an anthem of inclusion. Every day we wake up to another horror story about racism, and it’s left many of us angry, confused and frustrated. But we can change the news for the better. We can show people that a multicolored world is a beautiful one. Celebrating our differences yields beauty in life. And that takes... everybody. On “Everyone” I continue that line of thought to its logical conclusion: love is the key to helping us understand one another.

I confront my insecurities with identity on songs like “Ya Sudan,” “Dépaysé” and “The Searching.” Truly understanding one's duality means seeing beyond where you came from: let go of any definition that others put on you and then you can truly see the beauty of your life experience. This, along with the rest of Dépaysé, has given me peace. I’m no longer confused about the duality of my Sudanese and American identities. Now I accept it.

I want Sudanese kids to see a person like them as a positive role model in the arts. And to everyone, I want to make it clear that the world is a better place because of our differences. We’re all strangers in this ever-stranger land of America. We are all the American Dream.

Best,
Ahmed Gallab






Sinkane on Tour
6/12 – Washington, DC @ U Street Music Hall
6/13 – Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s
6/14 – Brooklyn, NY @ Elsewhere
6/15 – Boston, MA @ Cafe 939
6/16 – Burlington, VT @ ArtsRiot
6/18 – Toronto, ON @ The Velvet Underground
6/19 – Detroit, MI @ El Club
6/20 – Columbus, OH @ The Basement
6/21 – Chicago, IL @ Chop Shop
6/22 – Minneapolis, MN @ Turf Club
6/25 – Seattle, WA @ Tractor Tavern
6/26 – Portland, OR @ Doug Fir
6/28 – San Francisco, CA @ The Independent
6/29 – Los Angeles, CA @ Bootleg Theatre

Watch Leni Sinclair's 1969 promo clip for The MC5's Kick Out The Jams

B-Side Wins Again: The Jiving Juniors

Derrick Harriott's delightful ska swinger "Hip Rub" is hidden on the flipside of "Over The River" from 1961.  

That time Rahsaan Roland Kirk played "Haitian Fight Song" on the Ed Sullivan Show

Here's some "True Black Music" performed by Kirk & Mingus along with Archie Shepp, Roy Haynes, Dick Griffin and others in 1971. 

Watch Teenage Fanclub's video for "Everything Is Falling Apart"

Teenage Fanclub return to Toronto on their 30th Anniversary Tour for a show at The Phoenix on Friday (March 8). Check out their new tunes below.  

That time David Bowie made a TV commercial for Lodger

Here's RCA's entertaining 1979 television spot for David Bowie's Lodger album. 

Celebrate 35 years of Girl Trouble in Tacoma on March 9

Yep, believe it or not, Takoma's Girl Trouble played their first show on March 9, 1984. Read an interview with Bon Von Wheelie right here

R.I.P. Talk Talk's Mark Hollis, 1955-2019

There are reports that Talk Talk co-founder Mark Hollis has passed away. We'll remember Mark with Spirit Of Eden.

The Beths, Bad Bad Hats @ The Garrison, Tuesday

Auckland indie-rock aces The Beths play a rare Toronto show at The Garrison with the Madeline-obsessed Bad Bad Hats from Minneapolis. 

Black Keys' Pat Carney & Cobra Verde's John Petkovic form Sad Planets

Check out "Not Of This World" off The Sad Planets' debut Akron, Ohio – featuring J. Mascis – due in April. 

Chrome Sparks @ The Velvet Underground, Sunday

Check out the title track from the new Chrome Sparks release, Be On Fire followed by his remix of Major Lazer's "Get Free"

The Legion offer a timely reminder of what rap used to sound like

Check out the video for The Legion's "1980 Something" off Three The Bronx Way out now via Fat Beats. 

R.I.P. Mac Wiseman, 1925-2019

Remembering bluegrass and country great Mac Wiseman who passed away today at the age of 93. 

Whaddya mean you don't know Codé di Dona

Here are a couple of clips of Cape Verdean accordion great Codé di Dona. There's a reason he's on the 1000 Escudos note.

B-Side Wins Again: Pete Rock

The flipside of Pete Rock's "Take Your Time" single was "Tha Game" featuring Ghostface Killah, Raekwon & Prodigy. 

Cotton Mather's new album Young Life and Other Mysteries on the way

Check out Cotton Mather's performance "Mighty Girl," the lead track off the new album Young Life and Other Mysteries. 

Listen to Marissa Nadler's "Poison" duet with John Cale

Wolf Eyes w/ Mark Morgan, Retired, Processor @ The Garrison, Saturday

One For The Weekend: Otoboke Beaver

"Anata Watashi Daita Ato Yome No Meshi" is off Otoboke Beaver's Itekoma Hits out April 26 – ushering in a new era in Japanese music.

Happy Birthday Nina Simone

Remembering Nina Simone with a stellar piano performance on her own composition "African Mailman" from 1960.

Portland singer/songwriter Carl Solomon @ Duggan's Basement, Friday

Watch Carl perform "Navajo Rain" off his Simple Things album during the Folk Alliance conference in Montreal. 

Jon Spencer hits the Horseshoe Tavern June 1

Check the clips for "I Got The Hits" & "Do The Trash Can" off Jon's Spencer Sings The Hits. Get yer tickets right here.  

Freddie Gibbs & Madlib favour herbal remedies

"Flat Tummy Tea" and "Bandana" are the latest tracks from Madlib's collaboration with Freddie Gibbs. 

Happy Birthday Poison Ivy!

Celebrating Poison Ivy's birthday with a few interviews discussing The Cramps.

Havana's Orquesta Akokán ready to rock your living room

Here's Orquesta Akokán performing “Yo Soy Para Tí” off their self-titled Daptone debut out now. 

The stars come out for Chris Houston's Hazards of Glitter album

Chris Houston's Hazards Of Glitter is out now on DW Records. Check out his cover of Tommy Ramone's Mean To Me. 

Forgotten Rebels great Chris "Baby Jesus" Houston is back with an all-star support cast of longtime pals – including the amazing Mary Margaret O'Hara, Teenage Head's Gordie Lewis & Jack Pedler, Blue Rodeo's Jim Cuddy, Bazil Donovan, Greg Keelor and Cleave Anderson, Michelle McAdorey, Harold Nix, Michael Fonfara, and his former One-Eyed Jacks bandmate Steve Koch – for his latest epic Hazards Of Glitter (DW Records).

Recorded with Tim Vesley at Toronto's Woodshed studio, the 10-track album of rough-cut gems is split between Houston's own streetwise revelations and well-chosen covers like the Robert Calvert-penned Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters ripper The Right Stuff, Lou Reed's Vicious Circle and Tommy Ramone's Mean To Me featuring fellow Hamiltonian Lori Yates of Rang Tango and Last Resorts infamy (listen below).

Chris Houston's Hazards of Glitter album is available now from DW Records right here. Incidentally,  DW Records also has copies of Houston's previous album Today's Temperature released last March and his Evil Twang album from 1997 which features many of the same suspects involved with Hazards of Glitter, namely Mary Margaret O’Hara, Jim Cuddy, Greg Keelor and Michelle McAdorey.

Peter Brötzmann + Keiji Haino + Heather Leigh to play Victoriaville, May 19

Get your advance tickets for the 35th annual Victoriaville Festival right here. Watch Heather, Keiji and Peter in action below.

Happy Birthday Irma Thomas!

Celebrating the New Orleans soul queen's birthday with two Muscle Shoals gems and an Allen Toussaint swinger. 

New live album from Dennis Coffey due in March

Recorded back in 2006 but never issued, Live At Baker's finds soulful guitar slinger Dennis Coffey in the company of his tight organ combo.

Dennis Coffey’s first recording date was in the 1950s, when he was only 15. Years later, he would become a member of The Funk Brothers, playing on hits like Edwin Starr’s “War” and laying down the solo on The Temptations’ “Ball Of Confusion.” He also performed on tracks with Parliament/Funkadelic, Wilson Pickett, Chairmen Of The Board, and produced Cold Fact for Rodriguez. That’s some resume!

But, even as a session musician, Coffey shines brightest playing live, as evidenced on the acclaimed One Night At Morey’s: 1968, a previously unissued set released last year.

Live At Baker’s brings Dennis’ live legacy into this century, with Coffey and his band (two-time Detroit Music Award winner Demetrius Nabors on keys, Grammy-nominated Gaelynn McKinney on drums and bassist Damon Warmack) tearing through nine tracks, which include covers of Miles Davis, Freddie Hubbard, Miles Davis, Jimmy Smith, and The Temptations—plus a searing version of Coffey’s own Top 10 1971 hit, “Scorpio,” one of the earliest songs by a white artist played on Soul Train. “Scorpio” has been sampled over 90 times ensuring that its captivating qualities will be enjoyed for generations to come.

Live At Baker’s, recorded in 2006, features liner notes from writer Bill Kopp and a new interview with Coffey. Enter the club, get your groove on, and truly feel the soulful guitar magic of the legendary Dennis Coffey. Live At Baker's is due March 1 from Omnivore Recordings. Pre-order it right here. Check the track list following the trailer below.




Dennis Coffey – Live At Baker's
LITTLE SUNFLOWER
CHICAGO SONG
SCORPIO
MOONLIGHT IN VERMONT
JUST MY IMAGINATION
THE SERMON
ALL BLUES
WAY BACK HOME
DINK’S BLUES

Bob Mould Band, Drew Thomson Foundation @ The Phoenix, Monday

Bob Mould's latest album Sunshine Rock is out now. Watch Bob discuss how it came together and whatever happened to Hüsker Dü below.  

Bob Mould Band on tour
Feb 18 Toronto, ON – The Phoenix
Feb 19 Pittsburgh, PA – Mr. Smalls
Feb 21 New York, NY – Brooklyn Steel*
Feb 22 Chicago, IL – Metro
Feb 23 Chicago, IL – Metro
Feb 25 Ft. Collins, CO – Washington’s
Feb 26 Denver, CO – Gothic Theatre
Mar 01 Los Angeles, CA – Teragram Ballroom
Mar 02 San Francisco, CA – The Fillmore
Mar 08 Hamburg, Germany – Gruenspan
Mar 09 Berlin, Germany – Columbia Theater
Mar 11 Düsseldorf, Germany – Zakk
Mar 12 Leuven, Belgium – Het Depot
Mar 14 London, UK – Electric Ballroom
Mar 15 Leeds, UK – Brudenell Social Club
Mar 16 Edinburg, UK – The Liquid Rooms
Mar 17 Manchester, UK – Academy 2 Manchester
Mar 30 Minneapolis, MN – The Palace
Mar 31 St. Paul, MN – Turf Club
Apr 02 Dallas, TX – Granada
Apr 03 Austin, TX – Mohawk
Apr 05 Portland, OR – Wonder Ballroom
Apr 06 Seattle, WA – Neumos
Apr 07 Vancouver, BC – Rickshaw Stop
* w/ Titus Andronicus

R.I.P. word jazz innovator Ken Nordine, 1920-2019

Sadly, pioneering word jazz stylist and voiceover ace Ken Nordine has passed away. He'll be greatly missed. 

LINKS
Chicago Tribune: Ken Nordine, creator of word jazz, dies at 98
Chicago Sun-Times: Ken Nordine dies at 98

Watch Black Midi live in Reykjavik

London's Black Midi tore up Iceland's Kex Hostel in Reykjavik back in November. Check it out. 

Happy Birthday David McComb

Watch the late great David McComb play a Triffids show at Lausanne's La Dolce Vita on October 2, 1986. 

R.I.P. Wings of Desire star Bruno Ganz, 1941-2019

Remembering Bruno Ganz with an interview alongside Wings of Desire director Wim Wenders. 

Whaddya mean you don't know the Mighty Cavaliers

Check out "Dunia Ina Mambo" off the Black Blood album from Kenya's Mighty Cavaliers.

Happy Birthday Machito!

Remembering influential bandleader Frank "Machito" Grillo with an interview and a live version of Tangá. 

Kurt Vile, The Sadies @ Danforth Music Hall, Saturday & Sunday

Watch Kurt Vile & The Violators perform "Yeah Bones" on Late Night with Seth Meyers. 

One For The Weekend: Dani

Here's Dani's 1967 classic "La Machine"

That time Patti Smith appeared on Belgian TV

Patti Smith was interviewed and performed "Gloria," "Land" and Chubby Checker's "Let's Twist Again" in 1976. 

Wavelength's Winter Fest 2019 w/ Twist @ The Garrison, Saturday

Saturday's Winter Fest lineup includes Toronto's own Twist, Future Peers and Isla Den along with Montreal's Anemone. 

Fuzzed and Buzzed celebrates the wicked 'n' witchy with Altar box set

Hamilton's Astral Witch (top left), Toronto's Rough Spells & Häxan each contributed something dark and doomy for the Altar box set of singles.  

Fuzzed and Buzzed are launching the Alter box set in Hamilton at The Doors Pub (56 Hess St. South) on Friday. 

Listen to Lux & Ivy on KALX 97 FM in 1981

The Cramps' Lux Interior & Poison Ivy dropped by UC Berkeley's radio station to play some of their fave 45s, 

Watch Gillian Welch & Dave Rawlings sing "When A Cowboy Trades His Spurs For Wings"

This song that Dave & Gillian wrote for the Coen Bros. western The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs was nominated for an Oscar.

The Budos Band ready fifth album "V" for April release

Staten Island's finest could be getting even heavier with their cleverly named "V" album due April 12.  

Here's the scoop from Daptone HQ...
As menacing and unhinged as ever, the pride of Staten Island is back with their fifth full-length album, titled simply "V" (out April 12 on Daptone). Raw and absent of the modern technological trappings, the Budos boys pick up where they left off with 2014’s Burnt Offering, and finds the Budos expanding on the brooding, fuzz-fueled riffs, whilst harkening back to the Ethiopian inspired rhythms and percussive proclivity that put Budos Band on the map.

“Old Engine Oil,” a rocker at heart, kicks things into gear and delivers a high-octane burst of Budos mayhem. “The Enchanter” serves up a classic dose of upbeat afro-soul, drenched in a venomous assault of wall-melting proportions that leads you to the “Spider Web,” a rumbling ode to the Cowbell Colossus whose punctuated horn stabs take you on an untamed ride to the dark side of the spoon. The side closes with “Peak of Eternal Night,” whose odd time signature and haunting horns transport the listener to the peak of a menacing otherworldly landscape that’s further explored in the final track “Ghost Talk” – a guitar driven groover that gives way to an organ-washed space ritual beneath sun-summoning trumpet blasts.

Side Two opens with “Arcane Rambler,” an interstellar ramble across space and time that leaves the listener in cosmic purgatory. “Maelstrom,” released as a single shortly after the release of “Burnt Offering,” boasts waves of furious sonic power that batter the listener via a maw of snarling sea-foam bubbling with the power of the Budos. Soon darkness falls as “The Veil of Shadows” is draped across the land – in this realm of twilight one quickly loses their way, only to find themselves at a dusk-to-dawn pyre of budonian proportions.

“Rumble from the Void” then pulls you into a percussive black hole of formless beat-worship. There are no horns to help you here, just the tentacles of rhythm that tirelessly pull you back into the void. “Valley of the Damned” closes the record, it’s twisting groove coupled with hypnotic drones of synth and horns transports you to a place of little hope and even less reason. Pre-order V directly from Daptone right here. Listen to "Old Engine Oil" below.