R.I.P. Boncana Maïga, 1949-2026

Sadly, Boncana Maïga – co-founder of Maravillas du Mali and Africando – passed away in Bamako at 77. He'll be greatly missed. 

Before They Were Famous: Chet Atkins

Guitarist and producer Chet Atkins was still known as "Chester" when he cut "Guitar Blues" for Nashville's Bullet Records in 1946.

R.I.P. bluesman John Hammond, 1942-2026

Sadly bluesman John Hammond has passed away at the age of 83 after a short illness. He'll be greatly missed. 

Watch Joe Ely live at Gruene Hall in 1986

Here's some rare footage of the great Joe Ely with David Grissom tearin' it up at the historic Gruene Hall in 1986. 

Mozzy Dee, The Kewpie Dolls, The Shook Boys @ The Horseshoe, March 12

El Paso's Ameripolitan Awards crowned rockabilly queen Mozzy Dee tears it up at the Horseshoe with them Kewpie Dolls opening!

LINKS
Mozzy Dee site

Vintage Rock Soundtrack Of My Life: Mozzy Dee

Tickets for Mozzy Dee with the Kewpie Dolls & the Shook Boys at The Horseshoe available here 

Col. Tom's Swinging Door with special guest Tally Ferraro @ The Cameron House, Sunday

Singer/guitarist Tally Ferraro – whose family owns the Cameron House – sits in with Col. Tom and crew from 6pm to 8pm.  

Expanded 5th Edition of Blues and Gospel Recordings 1890-1943 discography on the way

The newly expanded fifth edition of Blues and Gospel Recordings – 1504 pages! – is due November 16th.

Blues and Gospel Recordings

1890–1943, Fifth Edition

Compiled by John Godrich, Robert M. W. Dixon

Revised and expanded by Howard Rye and Chris Smith

Hardcover 1504 pages, out November 16, 2026

Blues and Gospel Recordings: 1890–1943 is the fifth edition of a work that has been indispensable to listeners and scholars alike for over half a century. It is as comprehensive a listing as possible of the culturally and stylistically African American recordings made within its timeframe, with the exception of those usually regarded as jazz and those by secular vocal groups that are part of the mainstream of popular music.

The book covers all types of recorded sound documents, not only commercial recordings sold to the public on discs and cylinders but also films, transcription discs for the use of radio stations, and surviving radio broadcasts. Sound documents recorded by African Americans at locations outside the United States are included, as well as field recordings made for or deposited with academic institutions. In this new edition, the holdings of the Library of Congress are covered at greater length, in more detail, and more accurately. Numerous extensive and historically important collections held by other institutions are documented in print for the first time. The main text is preceded by a survey of the activities of the companies that recorded blues and gospel material for inclusion in Race series, along with a summary of the visits their traveling recording units made to the South.

Previous editions have been praised for their completeness and accuracy. For this edition, the text has been thoroughly revisited, with many revisions made, and significantly expanded in coverage and scope. Available as an ebook for the first time, this is the essential guide to the enjoyment and study of the first half-century of recorded African American blues and gospel music.

Available for pre-order now for $150 directly from University Press of Mississippi right here. 

R.I.P. guitar great Travis Wammack, 1944-2026

Sadly, guitarist Travis Wammack, heard on numerous Muscle Shoals recordings, has passed away. He'll be greatly missed.

Happy Birthday Margaret Ayre!

Raising a glass to Margaret Ayre with a few of her amazing Fern Knight recordings and performances.

LINKS 

Fern Knight Bandcamp site

Dave Graney & Clare Moore share video for "Hits Are The Worst"

Dave Graney and longtime collaborator Clare Moore preview their new album with "Hits Are The Worst." Check it out.

Here's the scoop...

"Hits Are The Worst" is the first single from Dave Graney and Clare Moore's forthcoming album, LABURNUM OF THE MIND due April 30th. The song? A Doorsy groove with a very late 60s chordal deal and flow. Kinda like  Brian Auger, Traffic or The Zombies. The vocal mixed right up front. The words? Hermetic. The music, “flash and expensive but dumb, loose and goofy too. Highly illogical..”

Check it out below. Read more about Dave, Clare and the title reference to "Laburnum" – which may be puzzling for those living outside of suburban Melbourne – on Backseatmafia.com right here. 

Mario Bava's Hatchet For The Honeymoon screens at Revue Cinema, Friday

In a special tribute to the late Stephen Forsyth, the Revue Cinema is screening Hatchet For The Honeymoon tonight at 6:45 pm.

Stompbox presents Mario Bava's Hatchet For The Honeymoon 

A tribute to T.O. born star Stephen Forsyth

Stompbox is presenting a special tribute to HATCHET FOR THE HONEYMOON star Stephen Forsyth (1938-2025) with rare, never-seen, original film and music memorabilia from Forsyth’s own personal archives of his time in the 1960s & 1970s Italian film industry, courtesy of The Candy Bar!

Seven years after innovating the grisly Italian giallo genre, Mario Bava returned to the form to create one of its deliriously frightening gems: HATCHET FOR THE HONEYMOON (Il rosso segno della follia). Canada’s own Stephen Forsyth stars as John Harrington, the head of an affluent fashion house, who harbors an uncontrollable bloodlust for women in bridal veils. Only by murdering a succession of them, can he delve deeper into his subconscious and bring to light the primal scene that spawned his very specific homicidal fetish. With its director doubling as cinematographer, HATCHET is one of Bava's most visually sumptuous films. (Kino Lorber)

Toronto-born HATCHET star Stephen Forsyth, who passed away on September 12, 2025, was a beloved fixture of the Kensington Market neighbourhood. But also had a successful run as a marquee actor in Italy in the 1960s and early 1970s, including westerns BLOOD CALLS TO BLOOD and IN A COLT’S SHADOW, and climaxing in his final and best remembered film role, as the disturbed lead of HATCHET FOR THE HONEYMOON, before leaving Italy to focus on music composition, photography and an array of artistic interests up until his passing.

Close friend of Mr. Forsyth, Paola Giavedoni, owner of The Candy Bar – College Street’s beloved candy and confectionary institution and longtime sponsor of the Revue Cinema’s Saturday Morning All-You-Can-Eat Cereal Cartoon Party - will be bringing a collection of posters, photos, and memorabilia from the personal archives of Mr. Forsyth, documenting his time at the nerve centre of Italian film history and his work with the incomparable Mario Bava. 

Get tickets for the Stompbox screening of Hatchet For The Honeymoon right here. Watch the trailer below. 

Remembering saxophone great Dexter Gordon on his birthday

Celebrating the birthday of tenor titan Dexter Gordon with Don McGlynn's documentary "More Than You Know," and much more.  

One For The Weekend: Louis Myers & The Aces

Here's the rockin' blues instro "Just Whaling" by Louis Myers (on harp) with the Aces on Eli Toscano's ABCO label from 1956. 

Terry Allen announces his new family band project Blood Sucking Maniacs

Terry Allen's multi-generational family band, Blood Sucking Maniacs release their self-titled debut April 24th. You've been warned!

Here's the scoop...

BEWARE 💀: Terry Allen and Jo Harvey Allen, along with their children and grandchildren, are pleased to announce the self-titled debut (and double) album by their new project, BLOOD SUCKING MANIACS, a multi-generational family band, out on April 24th. You can pre-order the album (the first release of all-new Terry Allen recordings since 2020’s “Just Like Moby Dick”) via Bandcamp right here here. Check out the first single, the eponymous theme song, “Blood Sucking Maniacs” below. Buy tickets to the May 21st album release show at Austin’s Paramount Theatre, dubbed "A Night With Blood Sucking Maniacs right here.

Blood Sucking Maniacs, the Allen family band, helmed by Terry  and Jo Harvey Allen, spans five generations and 121 years, including (among others) their sons Bukka Allen and Bale Creek Allen; grandsons Kru, Sled Allen, and Calder Allen; Panhandle Mystery Band mainstays Charlie Sexton, Lloyd Maines, and Richard Bowden, and frequent collaborator Will Sexton. The wild and wide-ranging songs collected on their eponymous album are miscellaneous and multiplex, comprising heartrending ballads and arch in-jokes on a spectrum from sublime to unabashedly sentimental. The unifying principle here is not so much blood harmony as blood entropy.

 ☠️ 

Get sucked ... 

The Allens will also perform two nights, in different configurations, at the fabulous Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, TN, with the Truckload of Art Road Show (an intimate book reading/signing, concert, and discussion/Q&A) on March 26th and with the full Panhandle Mystery Band on March 27th. For more info on the Big Ears Festival, visit their site right here. See y’all there.

For more information about Terry Allen, his music and artwork, visit his site right here. Listen to "Blood Sucking Maniacs" below.

New Griot Galaxy Live on WUOM 1979 double LP out now

Two Rooms Records release of a 1979 performance by Detroit's legendary Griot Galaxy is something to cheer about.  

Here's the scoop from Tani Tabbal...

"Great to hear this live recording and that it’s available on vinyl and cd from Two Rooms Records. Jaribu Shahid is now at the helm of Griot Galaxy, along with myself, and including Anthony Holland, Dave MacMurray, and Cassius Richmond."

Griot Galaxy – Live on WUOM 1979 

Two Rooms Records is excited to announce its tenth and most significant release yet, “Live on WUOM 1979” by Griot Galaxy. Nearly lost to history, this double-length release captures an extended radio performance by the seminal Afro-futurist jazz group, aka “The Sci-Fi Band,” featuring stunning versions of their classic repertoire circa 1979, in a compact, quartet setting.

Known for mixing complex polyrhythms, polytonality and non-western scales with grooves and minimalist elements from popular music, Griot Galaxy was founded in Detroit by saxophonist Faruq Z. Bey in 1972. The best known iteration coalesced in the late ‘70s as a quintet with bassist Jaribu Shahid and percussionist Tani Tabbal — both veterans of the Sun Ra Arkestra — and wind players Anthony Holland and David McMurray. All the members collaborated with their contemporaries in creative Black music, including Roscoe Mitchell, Anthony Braxton, Leroy Jenkins, Muhal Richard Abrams, Oliver Lake, Andrew Cyrille and many others. McMurray, absent on this recording, also stayed busy playing behind The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan.

Wildly popular in Detroit and amongst their peers, Griot Galaxy only released two full-length records during the band’s lifetime. Their activity effectively ended in 1986 when Bey was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident that required nearly a decade of recovery, making this release an important expansion of the Griot Galaxy universe. 

Griot Galaxy: Faruq Z. Bey - Alto, Soprano, and Tenor Saxophones, Bass Clarinet; Anthony Holland - Alto, Soprano, and Tenor Saxophones, Bass Clarinet; Jaribu Shahid - Double Bass; Tani Tabbal - Drums, Percussion. 

Recorded at WUOM Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1979

Mastered by Warren DeFever, Third Man Mastering, Detroit

Produced By Two Rooms Records, Detroit. 

Get a copy of Griot Galaxy's Live on WUOM 1979 via Bandcamp right here. Watch a performance of "Androgeny" and some performance footage from 1978 below. 

Watch the trailer for way overdue streaming series "They Called Us Outlaws"

"They Called Us Outlaws" – reassessing the legacy of Billy Joe Shaver, Waylon Jennings, Guy Clark, etc – premieres at SXSW '26.

Marissa Nadler, Maria BC @ Sound Garage, Thursday

Marissa Nadler plays a spellbinding set of songs from New Radiations at Sound Garage Thursday. Tickets are $31.56, get 'em here.

LINKS
Marissa Nadler site: https://www.marissanadler.com/
Marissa Nadler official merch
Marissa Nadler thoughtfully created a Spotify playlist of her original songs just for you

Catch Marissa Nadler with Maria BC at Sound Garage (165 Geary Ave) on Feb 26. Doors open at 7 pm.

Cincy folk duo The Montvales preview new album with "World Of Trouble"

The Montvales will be playing songs from their new Path of Totality album at The Horseshoe March 11. Hazel & Alice fans take note!

Here's the scoop...

Conceived under eclipsed skies, The Montvales' third album Path of Totality unites the vast American diaspora into one collective and cosmic tapestry. Inspired by the long tradition of radical country and folk artists, longtime friends Sally Buice and Molly Rochelson use their passion for literature and storytelling to craft an album that reckons with the current global fever pitch. 

The album’s 12 introspective, thematically and sonically layered tracks chart a transformative pilgrimage through an inextricably connected world. A woman desperate to save her community from a gas pipeline in “Plains of Ohio,” a devout grandmother traveling across the world to Yugoslavia in search of the Virgin Mary in “Our Lady,” and a trouble-making Bible College misfit in “Loud and Clear” are just a few of the archetypes listeners meet. Molly Rochelson recently spoke with KLOFmag journalist Alex Gallacher about The Montvales' experience on tour across the U.S. in 2024 which inspired many of the songs on the new album:

 

“It was an extremely surreal experience,” recently recalled Rochelson, “Across the country, student uprisings called attention to the ongoing genocide in Gaza, demanding that their universities divest from Israel and weapons manufacturing. The same universities where students in the 60’s had protested the Vietnam war, under the same series of Aries and Libra eclipses we were currently experiencing. We were about to play the Old Quarter in Galveston, and I thought about Townes and Guy Clark and what it meant to be in this role of traveling stranger and cultural witness during such catastrophic times. I wondered what would become of us, both personally and collectively. I wrote this one on an early morning outside of Galveston, staring across the bay and trying to capture how punchdrunk I felt.”

The Cincinnati-based duo started out busking on Market Square in Knoxville, TN. Twenty years on, the duo opted for a bigger sound and with the help of producer Mike Eli LoPinto (Chris Stapleton, Emily Nenni), result is a bonafide, left-of-centre indie country record. Path of Totality does not shy away from the weight of political strife and catastrophe, opting instead to boldly confront it, bringing to bear the power to unite us all. 

The Montvales' Path Of Totality is out March 20th via Free Dirt Records. You can pre-order a CD copy directly from the label right here. Check out a few performances following the tracklisting below. Advance tickets for The Montvales' Toronto show at The Horseshoe on March 11 are $14.50 – get 'em right here. Tell a friend!  

Path Of Totality

1. World of Trouble

2. Hellbent on Colorado

3. Loud and Clear

4. Carolina

5. The Wicked

6. Plains of Ohio

7. Cincinnati

8. Runaway Horse

9. Overtime

10. Funeral Singer

11. Our Lady

12. Eastern Bluebird

LINKS
Free Dirt Records https://freedirt.net/

KLOFmag.com The Montvales share "World Of Trouble"

Margo Price lights up The Phoenix, February 25

Rising country star Margo Price returns to Toronto for a show at the Phoenix on Wednesday, February 25. Get tickets here. 

Whaddya mean you don't know Free Expression

Here's a UK psych curio by the Free Expression... check out "My Life Has Changed" penned by Geoff Ramseyer later of Design. 

R.I.P. Willie Colón, 1950-2026

His political views aside, trombonist/songwriter Willie Colón's significant contribution to Latin music history is beyond reproach. 

Numero Group knocks out a "soundtrack" for imaginary spy flick

Numero Group needed a hook to hang their most recent random collection of rare recordings and decided on a spy film soundtrack.

 

Here's the scoop from Numero HQ...

The opening act of Louis Wayne Moody’s mid-century spy caper trilogy, 1962’s Call Me Old Fashioned put a tail on Agent Cara Seaworth’s debut undercover operation, fresh out of the Eastern Star Spy Academy for Young Ladies. Her assignment: to pose as songbird and nest, one thrush-like performance at a time, deep under the skin of widower Jack “Frenchy” Hammerli, proprietor of Jack’s Riverside Inn supper club. Her quarry: both an unblemished 1822 American Half Eagle piece—gone AWOL since the Academy’s turbulent Reconstruction-era founding—and Jack’s own beating heart. When the mobbed-up Sauk City, Wisconsin, night spot proves a tough coin to flip, Seaworth’s estranged father and celebrated numismatist “The Man” gets called up to the Not-So-Big Leagues. Will Cara pinch the minted MacGuffin and cooly cash in on a couple dozen missed birthdays, or wind up feeding walleye at the bottom of Mud Lake?

Struck for circulation after 63 years in hock within the Lou-Mood Pictures vault, this previously unissued soundtrack traffics in the high-tone timbre and highball-sipping swoon of pop’s post-war years. Muddling together sugar-lipped divas, barrel-aged big bands, and “zoo be zoo be zoo” zest, with a Latin jazz Luxardo for garnish, Call Me Old Fashioned is a 40-minute stereo-sonic adventure for the 7 & 7 spy-fi fanatic. You can get a copy of Call Me Old Fashioned LP via Bandcamp right here or try the Numero Group site over here. 

Call Me Old Fashioned

1. Pony Sherrell - Don't Do Anything Til You've Heard From Me 

2. Margo Guryan - More Understanding Than a Man 

3. Charleen Houston - Just Like a Fool 

4. Dolores White - Lovers Paradise 

5. Charlene Knight - If My Dreams Come True 

6. Darla Hood - Un Momento Mas 

7. Manny Lopez - Terra Bella (Que Bonita Es Mi Tierra) 

8. Nun Plus - Walk About The Craters Of The Moon 

9. Arnie & Chise' Trio - Three Cherries 

10. Carmen - Ukulele Mambo 

11. Jeanne Hatfield - Time 

12. Doris Drew - Aba Da Aba Du 

13. April Yen - If and When It Happens 

14. Birdlegs and Pauline - Mist of a Dream 

Jim Cuddy & Friends "Country Classic" Benefit @ The Horseshoe, Sunday

The annual Country Classic fundraiser for the Daily Bread Food Bank feat. Blue Rodeo's Jim Cuddy and pals is now sold out. 

Lost 1968 recording by Nanaimo's Glass Cage finally gets released!

Marcus Pollard found a mysterious acetate in a Port Alberni thrift shop which turned out to be the 1968 demo of Nanaimo's Glass Cage. 

In the summer of 1968, five Nanaimo, BC teenagers recorded an exciting six-song demo of West Coast garage psych. Cut to an acetate then lost to time for 50+ years. Until now. Watch the story of the Glass Cage's lost recording right here and below. 

“A remarkable discovery. The Glass Cage show impressive creativity and versatility as they transition between hard-hitting, organ-driven Northwest R&B slammers and dreamy, harmony-based psychedelic numbers.” – Mike Stax, Ugly Things

“I LOVE the Glass Cage!” – Grant Lawrence, CBC Radio

“Newly unearthed garage rock classic ... terrific California-style psychedelia”

– Craig “Rockin’ Prof” Morrison, Ethnomusicologist

“A garage rock gem” – John Dwyer, Osees

Restoration & remastering by Peter Conheim, deluxe 8-page booklet with story, photos and posters. Cover art by Bob Masse Studios. Get a copy of The Glass Cage's 1968 recording released by Supreme Echo as "Where Did The Sunshine Go! via Bandcamp right here.

LINKS
Times Colonist Thrift store find leads to new life for Nanaimo band, The Glass Cage 

Happy Birthday Poison Ivy!

Raising a glass to Poison Ivy – The Cramps guitarist, composer and producer – with some interview & performance footage.

Here's a bonus shot of Poison Ivy with The Cramps featuring Miriam Linna on drums circa 1976. 

One For The Weekend: The Creation from Albuquerque, NM

Here's the scoop...

The Creation were a short-lived but regionally influential psychedelic garage band from Albuquerque, New Mexico, active in the late 1960s. Centered on brothers Al O’Donnell (lead/rhythm guitar) and Mike O’Donnell (bass) together with Ernie (Earnie) Phillips (rhythm guitar), the trio wrote and sang their material collectively while hiring session players for drums and keyboards. Listen to "No Silver Bird" off their second single for Centurion from 1968 –both sides of which were covered by Hooterville Trolley who didn't share any members with The Creation – recently reissued by Guerssen Records and available digitally here. Incidentally, The Creation's first single "What The Daises Know" b/w "Sun and Stars (I Miss Her So) was also on Centurion and issued in December,1967. You can read more about The Creation on the Garage Hangover site right here. 

Ryan Bingham's They Call Us The Lucky Ones out May 15th

Ryan Bingham's new album "They Call Us The Lucky Ones" is out May 15th. You can pre-order it here. Check the clips. 

Watch a video for Zsuzsa Koncz's Hungarian psych whumper "Visz A Vonat"

Here's a clip for Zsuzsa Koncz's head-noddin'' Illes collaboration "Visz A Vonat" which translates to "The Train Is Coming" 

Happy 85th Birthday Irma Thomas!

Celebrating the 85th birthday of the legendary Irma Thomas, soul queen of New Orleans, with a few performances worth checking. 

Tommy Blake vs. Johnny Horton

When Tommy Blake pitched his best tune "Honky Tonk Mind" to Columbia in '57, they said "No thanks" and had Johnny Horton re-cut it as "The Woman I Need."

Remembering David McComb of The Triffids on his birthday

Remembering Triffids' mainman David McComb on his birthday with a documentary and a few performances worth checking. 

B-Side Wins Again: Pierre Rassin et Son Orchestre Antillais

Vogue snuck two Antillean creole swingers "Yoka" and "En Vespa" on the flipside of Pierre Rassin's Calypso, Vol. 1 EP. 

R.I.P. Robert Duvall, 1931-2026

Sadly, legendary actor Robert Duvall has passed away at the age of 95. He'll be greatly missed. 

Ranking Barnabas dub gem The Cold Crusher gets overdue reissue

Stanley "Barnabas" Bryan sadly passed away before his dub classic The Cold Crusher could be properly reissued. 

Here's the scoop from Helmut Philipps...

“The Cold Crusher” LP was released in the US in the 1970s by Phil Pratt in a mini edition and has never been reissued since. Now, for the first time, it has been superbly remastered by Dubplate & Mastering in Berlin and is now being distributed worldwide by the Italian label Cinedelic Records / Jamdung.  It also includes two pages with liner notes by yours truly and David Katz. I am delighted that David and I have worked together here for the first time, and I give thanks to Jamdung for the cooperation on this wonderful and long overdue reissue out February 6. Don't hesitate, the edition is limited. In memory of Stanley "Barnabas" Bryan, who passed away while we were working on the reissue. 

View Helmut's unboxing of The Cold Crusher LP right here. Get a copy via Bandcamp here here. 

Have a listen to the full album below.