Happy Birthday Susan Cowsill

Cheers to Susan Cowsill on her birthday! Here's a couple of Continental Drifters clips and more. 

It's a Continental Drifters trifecta – biography, 'Best Of' & tribute album!

Watch an interview with Sean Kelly who penned the Continental Drifters book "White Noise & Lightning" out now.  

White Noise & Lightning: The Best Of The Continental Drifters

Omnivore's new Continental Drifters release White Noise & Lightning is a 15-track CD/11-track LP collection of material spanning their career produced with full cooperation from the band.

“There have been plenty of unquestionably great bands throughout history, but a relatively small number of those bands have a real distinctiveness to their sound and makeup. Once you get to know the Continental Drifters, it becomes apparent that they possess that rare singularity.” — Sean Kelly from his liner notes

 

Continental Drifters are a congregation of like-minded, creative musical souls, whose other bands just happened to include The Bangles, The Dream Syndicate, The dB’s, The Cowsills, and more. From their 1992 debut single “The Mississippi” through 1994’s eponymous debut, 1998’s Vermillion, 2001’s Better Day, and Nineteen Ninety-Three (recorded in 1992 but released a decade later), the Drifters’ lineup may have been fluid, but their sound has always been instantly identifiable, comforting, and fantastic.

White Noise & Lightning: The Best Of Continental Drifters paints the story of the band. The 11-track LP and 15-track CD (featuring a previously unissued scorching 12-minute live version of “Who We Are, Where We Live”) follows the journey across their entire career. It will be released in conjunction with the publication of Sean Kelly’s White Noise & Lightning: The Continental Drifters Story (coming September 27 from Cool Dog Sound) which chronicles the 10-year journey of the Continental Drifters and follows the band through years of cross-country moves, lineup changes, industry highs and lows, marriages, divorces, and dozens of classic songs.

Just as Kelly’s authorized biography of the band tells the story of a critically acclaimed, commercially overlooked band that became so much more, White Noise & Lightning is not only a great place to start for the uninitiated, but is the perfect soundtrack for this legendary proto-Americana band. 

Get a copy of White Noise & Lightning: The Best of the Continental Drifters directly from Omnivore Recordings right here. Check out the CD tracklisting (with four more songs than the vinyl version) below followed by an interview with biographer Sean Kelly and a few Continental Drifters performance clips. There's also a link to a Continental Drifters chat about the new releases on Facebook moderated by Brett Milano on Sunday (September 29) at 6 pm Eastern. 

WHITE NOISE & LIGHTNING: The Best of Continental Drifters CD:

THE RAIN SONG

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS TRANSCONTINENTAL HIGHWAY

DALLAS

MEZZANINE

INVISIBLE BOYFRIEND

MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN

THE MISSISSIPPI

GET OVER IT

MIXED MESSAGES

DON’T DO WHAT I DID

TOMORROW’S GONNA BE

NA NA

PEACEFUL WAKING

DRIFTERS

WHO WE ARE, WHERE WE LIVE (Live at the Court Tavern)

The Drifters and author Sean Kelly discuss the new book White Noise & Lightning right here. 

LINKS

Coachella Valley Weekly Continental Drifters

Offbeat Various Artists: We Are All Drifters

Happy Birthday Susan Cowsill

Cheers to singer/songwriter Susan Cowsill! Here's a recent tour de force performance in New Orleans and much more. 

Happy Birthday Susan Cowsill

Celebrating Susan's birthday with an Orlando house concert, a Continental Drifters tune, and a radio interview with John Broughton. 

Watch the reunited Continental Drifters play in New Orleans

Susan Cowsill & Vicki Peterson got together to play two Continental Drifters tunes for Steppin' Out and a Chickie Wah Wah show.

Grab a copy of Omnivore's 2CD Continental Drifters' rarities set Drifted: In The Beginning & Beyond right here.

Watch the Continental Drifters live in Austin

Vicki Peterson and Susan Cowsill reconvened the Continental Drifters in Austin to rock a few clubs last week. 

Watch Vicki Peterson sing "Too Little Too Late" with the Dream Syndicate

The Bangles' Vicki Peterson joined Steve Wynn and crew for a lovely reprise of The Dream Syndicate gem at St. David's in Austin.

Happy Birthday Susan Cowsill

Celebrating Susan's birthday with a vintage Continental Drifters clip. 

Continental Drifter Peter Holsapple finally releases a new album

"Tuff Day" is off Peter Holsapple's way overdue Game Day album out now on Omnivore. 

First solo album in 21 years from the veteran musician.

You would think being an integral member of one of the most beloved power pop bands, The dB’s, would be enough for a guy and his resumé. But no, Peter Holsapple just had to tour with R.E.M. and Hootie & The Blowfish, join Continental Drifters, and collaborate with John Hiatt, Indigo Girls, The Troggs, The Cowsills, Juliana Hatfield Three, Better Than Ezra, and so many others. Not one to rest on laurels, Peter has continually been in motion since his first recordings in 1972 with Rittenhouse Square.

Perhaps that’s why he’s releasing his first solo album in 21 years—he’s been a busy, busy man. And, as Peter himself says, “And it’s really ‘solo,’ too! I played and sang 99 44/100ths of the notes on this record. I wanted to be responsible for all of it, so I dove deep inside myself and the songs and came up with Game Day.”

Game Day contains 13 new tracks, a bonus track, and two “super bonus tracks”—Holsapple’s critically acclaimed single “Don’t Mention the War” b/w ”Cinderella Style,” originally released in 2017. “After putting the single out on my own last year, I made the decision to put out an album. Some tunes are brand new, some have been in rotation for a bit, but all are worthy. My ‘middle-aged Pet Sounds fantasy’ is real, with the issues of middle age put to memorable melodies. The old guy at work in ‘Tuff Day (listen below),’ watching my parents’ place get cleared out in ‘Inventory,’ a decades-late thank-you note to a college girlfriend in ‘Commonplace’—they’re all a part of the present-day me.”

Game Day is prime Holsapple, whose recording career spans nearly five decades. It contains all the hooks, clever lyrics, and deft instrumentation one would expect. As he paraphrases Jeff Beck in the packaging, “Today, with all of the hard competition in the music business, it’s almost impossible to come up with anything totally original. So I haven’t, but I had a lot of fun making Game Day, and I hope it comes through when you hear it.” Listen to Tuff Day below and then check out the new Billboard interview with Holsapple in which he discusses his strained working relationship with Alex Chilton and shares the track "Tennis Bum" right here.