Check out John Wesley Harding's modern folk classic "There's A Starbucks (Where The Starbucks Used To Be)"
John Wesley Harding's "lost" album The Man With No Shadow from 2002 is being issued by Yep Roc on August 29th.
Here's the scoop...
In May 2002, just weeks before the release of John Wesley Harding's The Man with No Shadow album, Mammoth Records had their plug pulled. About 300 journalists received advance CDs of Harding's new recording, and a handful of radio stations received the single "Negative Love'. No other physical copies existed. Over the years those advance CDs have fetched untold hundreds of dollars from an eager fan base in search of Wes' great 'lost" album. Though many - but not all - of the songs ended up on 2004's Adam's Apple (DRT Records), which All Music Guide called 'the finest album of his career', those that did make the cut were in a jumbled running order. The album has never previously been released on vinyl. Yep Roc's The Man With No Shadow (First Edition) restores the album to Wes's original vision. The audio has been remastered from the original tapes, and the package includes cover art from the original sessions and extensive liner notes. The CD version includes the original album plus a bonus unheard band demos and studio outtakes, all previously unreleased. The vinyl version is being pressed in an edition of 1,000 copies. Check the track list following the trailer clip below.
John Wesley Harding - The Man With No Shadow (Yep Roc)
SIDE A: 1. Nothing At All 2. Negative Love 3. Monkey and his Cat 4. Sleeper, Awake
SIDE B: 1. Hard 2. Pull 3. Sussex Ghost Story 4. It Stays
SIDE C: 1. When You Smile 2. Sluts 3. She Never Talks 4. Already Dead 5. Protest Protest Protest (from Adam's Apple)
SIDE D (BONUS MATERIAL): 1. Slippery Slide to Bliss (Out-take) 2. Sluts (Demo) 3. Negative Love (Demo) 4. Monkey and his Cat (Demo) 5. Sleeper, Awake (Demo)
Two To One boasts all new songs from Stooges' guitarist James Williamson and Radio Birdman's Deniz Tek.
Here's the scoop from Deniz Tek...
James Williamson and I have completed work on a new LP, Two To One. The album is on Cleopatra Records, and will be out Sept 18th.
Two To One contains all new original songs of guitar-based high energy rock and roll. The basic tracks were recorded in San Francisco in December, with the vocals, overdubs and mix finished in February just as the pandemic hit. Michael Urbano plays drums, and Michael Scanland is on bass. James and myself play guitar, and I sing.
Watch a video filmed in the studio (below). Pre-order Two To One right here.
On the flip of Dion's 1968 folk hit, "Abraham, Martin and John" is the whumpin' "Daddy Rollin' (In Your Arms)"
Crashing The Party with Dion!
Dion's new Blues With Friends album is making all kindsa noise so the king of the New York streets will be sitting in for Crashing The Party's two-hour show at luxuriamusic.com today at 6PM EDT. That's 11PM UK/midnite EU. Join Dion with Marc Miller and Miriam Linna on this very special episode! This is the end-all gab that goes offa the deep end! Come on now!
Listen to the title track from Edgar's fine 2012 album Patches Of Blue with artwork by Chicago's Dimitry Samarov.
Sez Edgar...
Patches of Blue, my 2012 album on Flying Inn Records is now up and available on Bandcamp (https://edgarbreau1.bandcamp.com/album/patches-of-blue). All the fine details music fans appreciate are on the web site there including lyrics and the musical lineup on each track. You can purchase individual tracks or the whole damn thing if you so desire. It's all as easy as pie. My whole catalogue will soon be available including previously unreleased songs. Hope you all check it out.
Check out "Katchi" and "I Feel An Urge Coming On" and "Some Place" from Nick's new double live album.
Here's the scoop...
A decade ago, journalists, fans, critics, and audiophiles alike were wont to compare Nick Waterhouse to his predecessors. And it was a convenient way to categorize an artist that has since proved uncategorizable—he had a voice that balanced somewhere between Van Morrison and Ray Charles, an aesthetic that caught the attention of style reporters at GQ, an ambitious production vision that stood out among the lo-fi rock and alternative bands of the zeitgeist. And he was disarmingly earnest in his own influences—citing artists like Mose Allison and Them as early inspiration. But now, coming off of his searching, intimate, self-titled album of 2019 and bringing us Nick Waterhouse – Live at Pappy & Harriet’s: In Person from the High Desert in 2020, it’s clear that comparisons, of any kind, no longer suffice.
After self-releasing his debut single “Some Place” in 2010, Nick Waterhouse and his backing band, The Tarots, along with three back-up singers, The Naturelles, quickly caught the attention of then-nascent, Los Angeles record label Innovative Leisure. Released by Innovative Leisure in 2012, Waterhouse’s debut album, “Time’s All Gone,” was an incredibly ambitious record. Full band, three back-up vocalists, careful and intricate arrangements, a studied balance of light and dark, thoughtful decisions on everything from studio to album art: Waterhouse had vision.
While Waterhouse continued to release records at a steady clip—“Holly” in 2014, “Never Twice” in 2016, the self-titled “Nick Waterhouse” in 2019, and now “Live at Pappy & Harriet’s”—he extended his vision beyond his own act, collaborating with friends like garage-rock mystic Ty Segall and retro-futurist R&B bandleader Leon Bridges. He meticulously produced the successful debut and sophomore albums of long-time friends the Allah-Lahs, whom he met after moving from southern California to San Francisco, fortifying his musical education by selling vinyl in the Lower Haight. There is a “Waterhouse Sound” and it’s resonant in both his own records and his collaborations, rooted both in the man and the method — recording everything on magnetic tape, through analog equipment, and playing live, eyeball to eyeball, whenever possible.
Though Waterhouse’s artistic practice has remained thoughtful and deliberate, it’s also proved adaptable. As his career grew to encompass a consistent schedule of national and international touring, producing, co-writing, and working with legendary elders like Ira Raibon, Maxine Brown, and Ralph Carney, the story of Waterhouse’s musical arc can be tracked through the sounds and arrangements on each record. From the magical, youthful ambition of “Time’s All Gone” to the more reflective and existentially fraught “Nick Waterhouse”—it all tells a story.
The breadth and pace of his output is also evidence of the fact that however stylishly he may do it, Nick Waterhouse works. Hard. “Nick Waterhouse Live at Pappy & Harriet’s” came immediately after a long and intense string of European tour dates, which came immediately after a certain reckoning that most musicians encounter at some point, or several points, in their careers: a point where Nick Waterhouse, whose artistry and musicality evokes a blistering energy and drive, was questioning the whole thing—the shows, the exhaustion, the money, the will.
It turned out that the excitement and momentum that fueled the 2019 European tour answered those questions in the resounding positive. And “Live at Pappy & Harriet’s” reflects the work of an artist who has seen some things. He’s studied, he’s composed, he’s receptive, he’s loose, and he’s gotten to know his own artistic practice in a way that shows up, fiery and raw, on this live, hometown record.
Because ultimately, Nick Waterhouse is not simply in dialogue with others. He hasn’t responded to a revived appetite for neo R&B or Ronson-type pop production by altering his vision. He has remained, resoundingly, Nick Waterhouse. Whatever growth, transformations, or nuances a listener can hear are entirely his own story. Waterhouse has built his own sonic world, one whose orbit is totally unique. That sonic world is rich and complex; its language is intelligent, clever, and vulnerable; it’s at once ambitious and intimate, groovy and deeply serious.
In fact, the Waterhouse sonic world might look a lot like a glimmering desert sky at dusk, or the damp, overheated air that awaits through the doors of Pappy & Harriet’s. And now we’re invited in.
Live at Pappy and Harriet's is available on vinyl right here. Listen to three tracks below.
"Way Star" is credited to Joachim Sherylee, an alias for sound library great Jacky Giordano.
Here's the scoop from Ace Records...
For the first time on 7-inch, here are two hugely in-demand library music tracks. Rubba’s ethereal ‘Way Star’ has been sampled by Madlib and will be included on a new Ace collection called Cafe Exil: New Adventures In European Music 1972-1980 later this year. Here’s your chance to get a rare limited-edition 7-inch of a track from a De Wolfe library album, In Motion: Modern Progressive Group Sounds Played By Rubba, which would otherwise set you back an eye-watering £200. On the flipside, ‘Moon Bird’ features an ethereal Barbara Moore wordless vocal plus Roger Webb’s flute-led autumnal jazz backing, and was a highlight of Ace’s acclaimed English Weather compilation. It was originally on De Wolfe’s Vocal Patterns LP in 1971, which is now a £150 item.
Rockers director Ted Bafaloukos' street-level account of filming in Kingston makes for a fascinating read.
Here's the scoop from Ginko Press...
Set amongst the reggae scene of late 70s Jamaica, the film Rockers achieved instant cult status among music and cinema fans. Rockers’ director, Ted Bafaloukos, has received many accolades for his work on the film, but the fact that he was also a fine writer and undercover photographer is often overlooked. In 2005, just before his death, Bafaloukos penned this vivid and never-before-published autobiography.
Beyond Bafaloukos’ fascinating story of the “making-of” Rockers, it tells the tale of a Greek immigrant from a family of sailors and his move to New York, eventually rubbing shoulders with the likes of The Velvet Underground, Robert Frank, Jessica Lange and Philippe “Man on Wire” Petit. But there’s a twist to this 1970s’ New York story: Bafaloukos fell in love with reggae when it was still just an underground facet of Jamaican culture in the City. His experiences in New York eventually led him to shoot Rockers, praised for the portrait it paints of Kingston’s late 70s music scene along with its unique style, mentality and fashion.
The director’s intense experiences in Jamaica and New York between ’75 – ’78 provide the substance of the scorching stories within, including; gunshots at his first ever reggae concert in Brooklyn, the director’s bizarre arrest for suspicion of being a CIA operative, paranoia at the Bob Marley compound, musicians-turned actors’ “rude boy” antics, and naturally, sympathetic, highly descriptive recollections of the music that first drew Bafaloukos into Jamaica’s music and culture.
An invaluable collection of photographs taken during the conception, writing and production of the film captures the zeitgeist and breathes life into the book. Production stills and photos taken during the era by Bafaloukos form the visual, cinematic backbone of the tome, faithfully rendering the amazing people, styles, and locations in living, breathing color. Taken all together, the text and images within Rockers will uncover new facets of this all-important era in Reggae music for even the most seasoned reggae aficionados. Beyond reggae circles, this new anthology offers an unparalleled snapshot of a highly fantasized and sought after je-ne sais-quoi: the all-time Jamaican cool.
Watch a preview clip below. Get a copy of Rockers: The Making Of Reggae's Most Iconic Film from Ginko Press right here.
Rick Miller seems to be channelling Hasil Adkins in Southern Culture's new clip for "Cicada Rock 2020"
Here's the scoop...
Hey, what's that buzzin?! It’s Cicada Season here in NC. Brood IX is coming and it's gonna get loud. To celebrate our favorite ugly bug and the eerie song they sing, the amateur entomologists of Southern Culture on the Skids are premiering this buzzin' DIY video for a brand-new recording (digital single) of “Cicada Rock 2020”.
Rick says, “I grew up fascinated by cicadas. They look prehistoric. When I was a kid we would walk through the woods collecting all the husks from the pine trees and then have a contest to see who got the biggest. Sometimes we would put them in old metal band-aid tins and shake them like some kind of a good luck charm. When all the cicadas would start to sing around dusk – it sounded like alien spaceships were landing in the woods!”
The swingin' 7-track collection The King Of Sudanese Jazz collects Sharhabil Ahmed's brilliant early recordings.
Here's the scoop...
Contemporary Sudanese music draws a lot of influences both from Arabic musical as well as subsaharan traditions. “[...]It is rooted in the madeeh (praising the Prophet Mohamed in song). The genre filled out into something quite irreverent in the 1930s and 1940s when haqiba music, the madeeh 's secular successor, caught on. Haqiba, a predominantly vocal art in which the musicians accompanying the lead singer use few instruments, spread like wildfire in the urban centres of Sudan. It was the music of weddings, family gatherings and wild impromptu parties.
Haqiba drew inspiration from indigenous Sudanese and other African musical traditions in which backing singers clapped along rhythmically and the audience joined in both song and dance. The lead singer's incantations induced a trance-like experience in which spectators swayed along to the rhythm of the beat“ as Gamal Nkrumah wrote in a 2004 article Al Ahram Weekly newspaper. One of the first singers which Habibi Funk came across some years ago who struck a chord was Sharhabil Ahmed. Sharhabil was born in 1935 and he is the founding father of the Sudanese Jazz scene. His aim was to modernize Sudanese music by bringing it together with western influences and instrumentation like he summarized it himself in a 2004 interview for Al Ahram Weekly:
“[...]Haqiba music, you know, was traditional vocal music with little accompaniment beyond a tambourine. When our generation came in the 1960s, we came with a new style. It was a time of worldwide revolution in music. In Europe, the rhythms of swing and tango were being replaced by jazz, samba, rock- and-roll. We were influenced by this rejuvenation in Sudan, too. I started out by learning to play the oud and traditional Sudanese music, and got a diploma from the music institute of Khartoum University. But my ambition was to develop something new. For this, the guitar seemed like the best instrument. Western instruments can approximate the scales of Sudanese music very well. After all, a lot of Western music is originally from Africa. I have absorbed different influences, from traditional Sudanese rhythms to calypso and jazz, and I hold them together in my music with no difficulty.”
Referring to its sonic apperance, Sudanese Jazz hasn’t too much in common with the western idea of Jazz. Sharhabil’s sound feels more like a unique combination of surf, rock n roll, funk, Congolese music and East African harmonies a.o. So it kind of made sense to me, while visiting him in Sudan, to see the records he kept over the years: two of his own and two by Mulatu Astatke signed to him, further proving the influence of Ethiopian and other neighboring countries. In fact, Sharhabil was not just one of many Sudanese Jazz artist. He is the king of Jazz, literally, since in he won a competion over other artists for that title.
Around the same time we first heard Sharhabil’s music we released a Hip Hop project on Habibi Funk’s sister label by a German producer called Pawcut and a Sudanese MC called Zen-Zin. The two had never met in person but connected over the internet and the result of the exchange was a demo we liked so much that we decided to release it. Zen-Zin was probably the first person we asked whether he knew anything about Sharhabil his answer was, “His son lives next door from me. We actually have a project together, his father and mine are old friends”. What might feel like a crazy coincidence actually turns out to be some kind of recurring serendipity. It’s only one of many stories, in which the stars align the paths in our favor and make projects possible. Be that as it may, Zen-Zin connected us with Mohamed, Sharhabil’s son, who at this point was in the process of moving to New York to pursue his own music career.
Mohamed was interested in the idea and shared it with his dad, who was fond of looking into it. We went back and forth to share ideas and suggestions. Finding Sharhabil’s music in a quality that it could be used as source for this release was a particular though task. It was easy to find a lot of songs on the internet but all of them in very bad quality. It took us years to find good source material, with occasional hick-ups like master tapes that also did not produce a satisfying quality.
In 2017, we visited Sudan for the first time personally and was lucky to meet Sharhabil in his house in Omdurman. Despite being in his mid 80s he’s still very active and mentally sharp with a vivid memory filled with artistic achievement from his musical work to his work as a comic artist, something he his equally known for in Sudan. The following year we featured his song “Argos Farfish” on our first compilation. And what a song it is! Driven by an an electric guitar, horns and Sharhabil’s energetic voice it’s a personal favorite on this release. Why this release is only coming out now? I really can’t tell you! But at least finally here it is. The king of jazz is holding court.
You can order a copy of the album from Habibi Funk via Bandcamp right here. Listen to "Argos Farfesh" below.
Listen to "Forever Starts Now" which Andy Gill was working on at the time of his death on Feb. 1, likely from COVID-19.
A note about Gang Of Four's back catalogue...
Matador Records will now oversee a number of key catalog titles by the legendary Leeds band Gang of Four, including the classic albums 'Entertainment! '(1979), 'Solid Gold' (1981), and 'Songs of the Free' (1982). These records are once again available across streaming services and are joined by 14 live releases capturing performances between 1979 and 1984. Here's a playlist with some highlights : https://spoti.fi/3fqHGf1
“Ether,” the introductory track on 'Entertainment!', was recently sampled by Run The Jewels, who used the song’s core riff to form the backbone of their track “the ground below”on the newly released 'RTJ4'.
Gang of Four was formed in 1976 by bassist Dave Allen, drummer Hugo Burnham, guitarist Andy Gill, and singer Jon King. The band pioneered a style of music that inverted punk's blunt and explosive energies — favoring tense rhythms, percussive guitars, and lyrics that traded in Marxist theory and situationism. This first lineup of the group released two monumental albums, 'Entertainment!' (1979) and 'Solid Gold '(1981). A third, 'Songs of the Free' (1982), was recorded with Sara Lee replacing Allen. These records have endured as a formative influence, not only to subsequent generations of musicians, but also activists, writers, and visual artists.
"Baby Girl" is off Canyons, the third yacht rock album from Andy Platts & Shawn Lee, aka Young Gun Silver Fox.
Here's the scoop...
Canyons are places of mystery and beauty. The interesting thing is, while they are one of the great wonders in the history of planet earth and attract scientists of all kinds of disciplines, they have also been a popular retreat for artists and musicians. You will have heard of Topanga Canyon, Rickie Lee Jones and Chicago recorded here. Laurel Canyon is even more well known, a mythical place where Crosby, Stills & Nash developed their unique vocal sound while hanging around Mama Cass' place. Or was it in Joni Mitchell's house on Lookout Mountain? Ok, you get the picture. There is something unexplainable, almost magical going on in canyons.
Maybe that's why Andy Platts and Shawn Lee were thinking of "Canyons" when they wrote and recorded their third album as Young Gun Silver Fox. With "West End Coast" and "AM Waves" these two very talented musicians, singers, songwriters, arrangers and producers already explored all things West Coast, AOR, Soft Rock and Boogie. But - especially if you are into the golden age of this sound running from circa 1976 to 1984 - you will be aware that there is no return once you started digging these unconditional musical delights with their timeless compositions, untouchable musicianship and refined arrangements. The great albums from that era appeared when punk broke and the musical establishment was shaken to the ground. Today they sound more up to date than ever. Who would have thought back then?
On Canyons Young Gun Silver Fox turned it up to eleven. They are nothing but "Kids" cruising in the fast lane, totally over the top searching for the "Dream Woman," touching down in Tokyo caught in a "Long Distance Love Affair," imagining the theme for a lost '70s TV series starring "Danny Jamaica," being on the winning side in a "Private Paradise," getting deep and soulful in "Things We Left Unsaid" and wondering how to spread "All This Love," Their bass lines, sound layers, brass arrangements and harmony vocals are immaculate. Everything fits perfectly. Just like this. "Who Needs Words" when everything is crystal clear? Exactly!
Young Gun Silver Fox's "Baby Girl" is available on digital and streaming platforms via Colemine Records' sister imprint Karma Chief Records. Watch the animated clip for "Baby Girl" below.
Listen to Polly Harvey's demo for "Down By The Water" below. To Bring You My Love – Demos is out September 11.
Here's the scoop...
16 JULY 2020 (TORONTO, ON) - On the 11th of September PJ Harvey’s third album TO BRING YOU MY LOVE will be reissued on vinyl, alongside an album of previously unreleased demos which will be available on CD, vinyl and digital.
TO BRING YOU MY LOVE was produced by Flood and John Parish and originally released in February 1995 and celebrates its 25th anniversary this year with a reissue on black heavyweight vinyl. Featuring singles such as ‘Down By the Water’, ‘C’mon Billy’ and ‘Send His Love to Me, TO BRING YOU MY LOVE originally reached #12 in the UK Albums Chart on release and dominated album of the year polls from The New York Times to the Guardian, with nominations for Grammy Awards and The Mercury Music Prize.
The release will be accompanied by full restorations of the videos for ‘Down By the Water’, ‘To Bring You My Love’, ‘C’mon Billy’ and ‘Send His Love to Me’.
TO BRING YOU MY LOVE - DEMOS
A 10 track collection of previously unreleased demos of all songs from the third studio album by PJ Harvey - To Bring You My Love – from 1995. Includes demo versions of the singles ‘Down By The Water’, 'C'mon Billy' and ‘Send His Love To Me’. Audio has been mastered by Jason Mitchell at Loud Mastering under the guidance of long time PJ Harvey collaborator John Parish. Features new artwork with previously unseen photos by original photographer and designer Maria Mochnacz.
LP Info:
1LP, 180 gm black vinyl
Full colour outer sleeve, with printed inner sleeve
Download card. You can pre-order the album right here.
Films We Like is presenting Scott Crawford's film Creem: America's First Rock 'n' Roll Magazine in Toronto.
Here's the scoop...
Ripping back the curtain on legendary rock rag CREEM Magazine's wild and disruptive newsroom; a dysfunctional band of unruly outsiders who weren’t all that different from the artists they covered.
Capturing the messy upheaval of the '70s just as rock was re-inventing itself, Scott Crawford's documentary film explores Creem Magazine's humble beginnings in post-riot Detroit, follows its upward trajectory from underground paper to national powerhouse, then bears witness to its imminent demise following the tragic and untimely deaths of its visionary publisher, Barry Kramer, and its most famous alum and genius clown prince, Lester Bangs, a year later. Fifty years after publishing its first issue, "America's Only Rock 'n' Roll Magazine" remains a seditious spirit in music and culture.
Watch the trailer below.
DIRECTOR
Scott Crawford
CAST
Alice Cooper, Kirk Hammett, Joan Jett, Michael Stipe, Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Peter Wolf, Wayne Kramer, Cameron Crowe, etc.
RUNTIME
75 minutes
AVAILABLE
July 31, 2020 at 12:00 PM EDT
TICKETS
$9.99
NOTE: This Toronto premiere screening can be viewed only in Canada.
