The concert at the Richardson Auditorium on Feb. 9 was advertised as a first-ever performance of the 1936 dramatization of Pushkin’s masterpiece Eugene Onegin, with incidental music by Prokofiev, performed by the Princeton Symphony Orchestra and Princeton University. It was quite a surprise then, that after the intermission the audience were treated to the Symphony Orchestra and British percussion maestro Joby Burgess performing a bass drum concerto. A quite remarkable composition as a bass drum concerto is not something you come across every day.

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 Editor’s note: this article was submitted by Henry Faust, a reporter for the The Redwood Bark, a National Pacemaker Award-winning high school paper based in Marin County – 15 miles north of San Francisco.  We are always happy to help promote students work in the music industry and are pleased he chose us to publish this article :)

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Businessmen adorned with suitcases and pea coats bustled up and down the damp boulevard. On that foggy Friday night, San Francisco felt suspiciously normal. A large mob of Occupy Wall Street protestors aimlessly paraded through Market Street, while blocking traffic and blasting music from the Wu-Tang-Clan. They began chanting, “F**k the police, we are the 99%,” I considered this to be routine.

In seconds, dozens of police encircled the protestors like ravenous hawks. As wailing sirens fused together with red and blue flashes, I couldn’t help but admire the light shows that the policemen so kindly put on. Observing this cat and mouse scenario between the police and Occupy Wall Street protestors was simply just a warm up for what would happen that night.

On Friday, February 10th, Excision was headlining at the Warfield Theatre, with opening acts by Liquid Stranger and Lucky Date. After I walked past hundreds of anxious and outrageously dressed fans waiting in line to enter the concert, I began to feel déjà vu rush through my veins – it had tricked me. Looking back to previous dubstep concerts that I’ve attended; such as Bassnectar, Pretty Lights, and Nero, among others, they all seemed tame in comparison to the experience of having Excision melt your face with the filthiest bass God has ever been lucky enough to provide humans with. Read the rest of this entry »

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Jon Anderson, bringing Wondrous Stories to a city near you! Photo courtesy of Glass Onyon

There has been much speculation regarding the lead vocalist position with the band YES.  Let’s get the story straight.  In case you had not heard, original replacement singer Benoit David has left the group.  Before the official announcement that Glass Hammer vocalist Jon Daivison would replace original replacement David, rumors were circulating that founding vocalist Jon Anderson was asked by founding bassist Chris Squire to rejoin.  As stated in the pres release below issued by Anderson’s publicity company Glass Onyon, these rumors were completely unfounded.  Here is the press release:

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Love folk music, Ja Rule, and guys that look like Harry Potter?  How do you feel about girls with breathy voices and dramatic cover songs?  If you’re into it all and ready to burst with adoration in this love season, check out modern folk trio Town Hall as they cover Ja Rule and Ashanti’s memorable hit, “Always On Time,” below. Read the rest of this entry »

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Aging with grace, Tori Amos hides behind a bazillion megawatt floor spotlight. Good luck seeing her face at all… Photo by Amanda Collins

Now that my recording studio consignment obligation is over, it’s time to get back to blogging!!!

Maybe there needs to be some clarification with regard to that headline.  I have been head over heels with Tori Amos since I first heard her tracks on the Little Earthquakes LP.  While I was curious about this petite red headed stick of dynamite playing in frigid water in her “China” video, her looks were irrelevant because she won me over with the music.  As she progressed (some would say ‘grew’) as an artist, she repeatedly proved herself to fans, critics, etc.  While some would say albums like Strange Little Girls and The Beekeeper were sub-par for her, I hung in there.  She hadn’t lost me yet.

However, when she released Midwinter Graces, I thought, “hey, everybody should experiment a little.”  Not being a cold weather/winter holiday fan, I figured it just wasn’t for me.  But I hadn’t lost faith in her.  Yet.  Then she released Night Of Hunters.

I researched the origin of this album, and it appears that the iconic label Deutsche Gramophone had commissioned Amos to write and record a pop symphony.  Amos recruited her daughter and niece to record vocals on the piece.  This is a common occurrence in pop music today, Kate Bush has her son on her latest release, Peter Gabriel has taken his daughter Melanie on tour and through his Real World Records, was able to release her solo EP.

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The candy’s on the shelves.  The commercials are on TV.  Pink is everywhere. The first of February has launched the pre-Valentine’s Day hype and hawking. Whether you’re stuck in a love haze or just trippin’ out, California’s hallucinogenic foursome with a killer name, Mwahaha, have all the psyched-out love you can handle this holiday.

The band recently released a collaged time capsule of a music video for a single off of their recent self-titled debut album, “Love.”  ”Love” looks like it would’ve felt right at home in the middle of Roger Corman’s classic acid movie, The Trip, in 1967 (which, by the way, you can now watch in full on youtube — mind the warning).

Get caught up in the feeling and check out Mwahaha’s “Love” video below. Read the rest of this entry »

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Jack White is done clowning around.    Almost a year to the day after the official end of the White Stripes — a year filled with diverse collaborations, endless speculations, and heartbreak – Jack has announced his impending solo album, Blunderbuss, a record that is ironically being touted as his “debut.”

It’s strange to think that a rock star who has become so iconic has yet to truly strike out on his own. But Jack has never had any trouble standing out from the crowd, especially when it was just a crowd of two.  With his Draconian look, unmistakable voice, and confident creative control, Jack White rose to the top of a merely twitching rock scene with the White Stripes, towering over hush-voiced, heavy-handed bandmate Meg, lauded by critics as if he were already a solo artist. Read the rest of this entry »

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Palmist Records’ sixth split release is grungy, gruesome, and growling…from both sides of the globe.  LA’s Growlers meet Leicester’s Thee Ludds for an oil-slicked slide through 60s garage rock, though both bands add their own spin and earn their own sides.

It’s rumored that Black Keys singer/guitarist Dan Auerbach will produce the Growlers’ next album, but while we wait for official confirmation, these five songs will sing us into submission.  The short but sticking “Graveyard’s Full” starts the side off with a sort of down-home, front-porch feel, mixed with creepy witticisms and the opposite of a sunny disposition.  A modern update on a tune that draws from early blues, “Graveyard’s Full” somehow also has a lilting, carnvial-esque vibe.  Check it out below: Read the rest of this entry »

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Chicago’s Wild Belle probably don’t listen to Sublime, but that just might be the secret to their sublime sound. Jammin’ without the slightest taste of irreverence, Wild Belle’s first single, “Keep You,” transcends ironic reggae, body-rockin’ sincerely to a shantytown shuffle.

The reggae feel of “Keep You” isn’t buried; it’s the jubilant edge to a song of slip-away sorrow, hazy, over-generalized, and real.  Add a horn section and some scattered space-age sounds (and an intro that at first reminded me of My Morning Jacket’s “Touch Me I’m Going to Scream Pt. 2″), and you have an undeniably catchy number that puts the sway in your hips and sweet lyrics on your lips.  Check out the new tune below: Read the rest of this entry »

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Richard Drexler, piano and upright bass (right), Berlin (center) and legendary drummer Mike Clark (left). A dangerous combo, promising intense music in February.

1/9/2012 – Clearwater, FL – Insiders who have heard bass legend Jeff Berlin’s newest CD are buzzing about the forthcoming release – a release that they are saying could possibly be among the greatest bass album of all time! The word is that Jeff Berlin has recorded a jazz CD so astonishing that the artist himself is in shock with what he played! “I prepared for it by practicing 5 hours a day for weeks,” Jeff explains. “What came of my preparation was to record solos on the bass that I believe have never been heard before from a bass player!”

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Sleepy-eyed redhead and bassist for the Brooklyn-based, Jersey-bred Vivian Girls, Katy Goodman re-dubbed herself La Sera last year and graduated from her girl group roots into a solo project that was often more slow, dreamy, and subtle than the garage-band sound of the Vivian Girls.  Emerging with a self-titled album full to the brim of breathy numbers like my favorite, “Devil Hearts Grow Gold,” Goodman proved she could keep her own beat, though the tune of her drummer proved to be not too unique.

Lost amid popular lo-fi retro-pop, Goodman seems ready to add a bit of grunge back into her girly tunes, especially if the first single off of her upcoming sophomore solo album, Sees the Light, is anything to go by.  Listen to “Please Be My Third Eye,” the fun, fully-fueled, freaky little love song, below: Read the rest of this entry »

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(PHILADELPHIA, PA) Jon Anderson, the voice of the rock group Yes for many years, has once again stepped up to help the Cancer Support Community of Philadelphia (CSCP) by providing the soundtrack for the organization’s 2011 electronic holiday card.  The e-card, designed by Lauren Keswick and Scott Bluebond and produced by Keswick (www.medicalartstudio.com) was distributed today to the cancer support organization’s friends, supporters, members, donors and others and is available at www.cancersupport-phila.org.  The card shows images from events and programs from the past year.

The song used for the e-card is called “Give Hope” and was originally released as a bonus track on the 22^ndanniversary reissue of Anderson’s fourth solo album, the holiday-themed 3 Ships. This reissue contained five tracks not included on the original release from 1985 including this song.  The original music for this song was by Narada Michael Walden and it was developed by Christophe Lebled.  CSCP marketing and communications director Scott Bluebond was listening to the track recently and thought it would make an excellent accompaniment to his organization’s holiday e-card this year.  He approached Anderson’s publicist, Billy James of Glass Onyon PR, who quickly was given the “OK” from Anderson. Read the rest of this entry »

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Possibly the Coolest Album Cover Ever

When or how my love for Sixto Rodriguez began is enveloped in a cool blue haze not dissimilar to the vaporous, encircling orb on the cover of the pysch-folk rocker’s debut, Cold Fact.  I was probably aimlessly cruising through Light in the Attic‘s offbeat reissues, thumbing past the confrontational garage punk of The Monks, the French seduction of Serge Gainsbourg, and my eternal favorite, the indescribable Betty Davis.  I’m sure that in this moment, I was slipping into a sepia-toned reverie, comfortable with my old friends, when the opening bass line of “Only Good for Conversation,” the second song off of Cold Fact, ripped my face in two.

“Only Good for Conversation” is the kind of little-known song that makes you want to dig back through the sands of time and unearth every piece of music ever created because WHAT IF SOMETHING AS GOOD AS THIS IS BURIED THERE?!?  Featuring a killer riff and a heaping spoonful of overflowing attitude, “Only Good for Conversation” calls out a cool woman with a fresh and undeniable boldness.  Rodriguez’s voice sounds clear and accented in that hollow yet all-encompassing way that only the 60s seemed to produce, layered on top of a thick fuzz.  Listen below: Read the rest of this entry »

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Perhaps the most comprehensive "demo" tape ever submitted by an up-and-coming artist, Sarah Spencer, enlisting the assistance of heavy hitter Steve Morse. Between that and her raw talent, you can't go wrong.

Please accept my apologies, dear reader.  I have been meaning to do this review for so long.  Here’s the issue:  Every time a new piece of music comes across my desk lately, it has been so new, so fresh, so unheard of to me, that I simply allow myself to indulge, devour and experience.

I also need to extend a personal “thank you for your patience” to Chris Brown of Random Touch.  I am dying to do the back-to-back Random Touch albums as the BOSCH disc was killer!  (I throw that on every now and again, just because I reviewed them previously, doesn’t mean they collect duct on my shelves.  The good ones migrate into my collection.)

But where Mr. Morse and Ms. Spencer went with Angelfire, you would not expect a disc of this caliber from these fairly divergent artists.

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I just don’t get it. I thought this was supposed to be terrible? I read the reviews, “’Lulu is a catastrophic failure on almost every level”, “grueling, even by latter Lou Reed standards”,” quite possibly a candidate for one of the worst albums ever made”, “Lulu sinks to almost unimaginable lows.” I was ready to write a really bad review (for once!), hopefully with a dash of humor. Surely the near $40 I spent on the double vinyl set could have been better donated to HomeFront for example. But no, for me this negative depiction is just so far off the mark. I just wonder what was really expected of a collaboration between Lou Reed and Metallica. This is Lou Reed is it not? Wasn’t he in The Velvet Underground? Didn’t they record White Light / White Heat? Didn’t he go onto record Berlin? Seriously, you can’t spend every waking music hour just tapping your foot and living in la-la land. Lou Reed certainly doesn’t.

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The Faces “Had Me a Real Good Time” by Andy Neill (Omnibus Press)

To most Americans, the Small Faces are mainly remembered for “Itchycoo Park,” a jaunty little pop rock ditty spiked with psychedelic imagery that cracked the top twenty in the final days of 1967. But in the band’s home country of England and other regions of Europe, not to mention Japan, they were huge superstars. So it was sad and shocking news, in 1968, when lead singer and guitarist Steve Marriott exited the band. And not only were the fans devastated by his departure, but the remaining members of the Small Faces, bassist Ronnie Lane, keyboardist Ian McLagan, and drummer Kenney Jones, also felt the loss. Yet they plugged on, fiddling with this and that, until finally striking gold on an award winning formula that included Rod Stewart on lead vocals and Ron Wood on guitar, who were both recent refugees from the Jeff Beck Group. Shaving their name down to simply the Faces, the band was ready to rock. Read the rest of this entry »

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We were once “Born to Run” or “Born to Be Wild,” perhaps touched with a tinge of trapped wanderlust ala “Ramblin’ Man” but otherwise encouraged to cast aside the have-to hostility of fate in favor of reaching for all possibilities.  Both of these classic tracks inspire us to see life as open and free, fate as something that happens along the way, and our birthright as the ability to explore, escape, and embrace.  Earlier this year, Lady Gaga gleefully told us we were “Born This Way,” justified in all our oddities, exultant and open to each other.

But now, according to indie songstress-turned-overnight superstar Lana Del Rey, we’re “Born to Die.”  Del Rey recently released an incredibly cinematic video to accompany her new, dark single, the title track of her upcoming album, that buries the optimism of our previous “Born to”s under an all-consuming and fatalistic bad romance. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. You’ve read the book, you might go and see the film, but what would the music sound like? For 3 hours and 39 tracks spread across 3 CDs you can find out. This soundtrack which has been just released by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is something worthy of the title an opus. Although opening with a cover of Immigrant Song and closing with a cover of Bryan Ferry’s Is Your Love Strong Enough, these two vocal tracks are anomalies that bookend 37 instrumentals. Because those two vocal tracks aside this is a largely ambient piece of work.

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Just arrived: over 300 electronic/avant-garde/ 20thCentury LPs

Today we are pleased to talk about one of the most unique LP collections we have had in years. It comes from a professor of music who is down-sizing. For several decades he collected some of the most unusual, cutting edge records made. From the early 60’s on, there are fine examples of all sorts of electronic/ avant-garde: microtonal, fluxus-related, 20thcentury classical, experimental, drone, noise, minimal synth, gallery editions, and more.

This collection has many imports, primarily German and U.K., and quite a few private editions featuring many of the most sought-after artists in these genres. There is more Stockhausen then we’ve ever had at one time, and recordings by pioneering musicians like Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, John Cage, Glenn Branca, John Zorn, Alvin Lucier, Globe Unity, and many others. Read the rest of this entry »

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Australian, all-female supergroup Seeker Lover Keeper are set to release their first, self-titled album next month, but while we wait, the band has cut a hilarious yet emotional video for their first single, “Even Though I’m a Woman,” starring Aden Young.

In the video, as Young’s mostly manly mouth forms around the girlish words and heartfelt lyrics of the song, what at first begins as a funny contrast ends as poignant and touching.  The song’s lyrics compare the narrator to a traveling salesman, and Aden seems to be the physical incarnation of this comparison, a much more believable slicked-back drifter than the cute voice that sings from between his lips.  Yet more than self-parody, Young’s constant eye contact and almost detached facial movements orchestrate a sort of painful exposition and unconvincingly hard exterior, easily bringing the tune past “pretty little love song” status, into something rooted in the rub between freedom and devotion and both the romanticism and oppression of distance.  Check out the video below: Read the rest of this entry »

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