(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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Australia’s Cloud Control may claim to rule the skies, but the band’s debut LP, released in the states this November, channels a much earthier sound.  Tribal without being stale or dark, pop without losing impact, and mainstream yet memorable, half-way through Bliss Release, when I hit the track “Gold Canary,” I finally put my finger on the nagging memory the album was calling to mind: Bliss Release is The Lion King of today’s music.

“Gold Canary,” in particular, with its nah-nah-oh-whey-oh vocal beat-keeping, brought L King to mind, though I wasn’t sure if it was merely for the song’s similarity to The Tokens’ “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” which the cartoon, of course, introduced to me at an impressionable age.  But as I kept listening to Bliss Release, I couldn’t help feeling that same soaring feeling that only the tale of an animated lion overcoming his own guilt and self-doubt had been able to instill in me before. Read the rest of this entry »

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Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward teamed up for A Very She & Him Christmas earlier this year, adding their record to my Christmas rotation of Elvis Presley’s Blue Christmas and A Christmas Gift for You From Phil Spector.  But their cover of “Baby It’s Cold Outside” fell short, speeding up the tempo and losing the lovely, snuggle-down feeling of the song.

Stepping up to the plate to replace this lackluster cover is Little Hurricane, another boy-girl duo, but more along the lines of The Kills or The White Stripes than cutesy-pootsy She & Him.  Though most of their tracks lean on heavy, fuzzed-out blues, San Diego’s Little Hurricane kept it plain and simple for their cover of “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” available as a free download below. Read the rest of this entry »

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Yesterday, Austin’s T Bird and The Breaks tore it up during a live Daytrotter session.  Playing tracks from their most recent independent release, the awesome Never Get Out of this Funk Alive, T Bird and The Breaks infused a heaping mess of steamin’ retro funk swagger into Daytrotter’s daily routine stream.  These Texans play what they like to call Chunk Music: “A form of twenty-first century American music consisting of equal parts funk, hip-hop, and rock and roll…more characterized by its rough sonic quality and energetic, visceral performance. Commonly served hot with a side of girls and brass.”

During their Daytrotter session, they played three pitch-perfect and super-fun Never Get Out tracks: the give-it-to-me-now “Your Nasty Love,” the James Brown-vibing “Put it On the Spot,” and a version of Shirley Ellis’ classic “The Clapping Song,” called “The Clap Hands Song.”  The Breaks cooed, ooed, and hit it outta the park like a pack of hall-of-fame back-up singers, while the band’s lead singer, Tim Crane, ran on pure soul power. Read the rest of this entry »

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Yesterday, Maryland’s New God released their debut full-length, Motorcar, through indie label The Royal Army Recording Company.  Packed with psychedelic pop and tinged with experimental electro, including a few sound collages, Motorcar is the product of five-plus years of recording and re-recording, making it a very tight, almost conceptual debut album.

Spanning the gauntlet of Strokes or Shins-style pop numbers like “On and Off” and “Drag the Lake” to the more jazzy vibe of “Governors Lap” and “To the Gallows With You,” New God incorporate incredibly diverse influences into a seamless and delectable debut. Read the rest of this entry »

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About to head out into the cold darkness that is BLACK FRIDAY 2011?  Hopefully you’re not headed into the gloom and doom of your local mall, but to PREX for some sweet Black Friday releases to stuff into a special someone’s stocking (or, ahem, your own stereo).  Either way, you’ll need a soundtrack to guide you through the chaos and maintain inner peace and happiness while your fellow shoppers tear out each others’ jugular for a chance at half-priced plastic.  Enter Penguin Prison.

Even their name already has everything you need: a reflection of the arctic chill found in fuming shoppers’ cold stares and the image of the world’s more lovable aspects hidden out of sight as the shopocalypse reigns its fiery fury.  But the nightmare ends there.  Push play on Penguin Prison’s new video for their hit single “Don’t F*ck With My Money” and the shimmering glory of old-school disco mixed with sunshine and hilarious swagger will rain down upon you.  And suddenly the urge to elbow that lady screaming over the last Twilight poster will leave you and another urge will replace it…The urge to dance! Read the rest of this entry »

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Hailing from overseas, the UK’s brand new singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Lianne La Havas recently released her debut five-song EP, Lost & Found.  Packed with pretty love songs from a pretty girl with a powerful voice and a delicious dose of adorable wit, La Havas’ debut EP landed her a spot on tour with staggeringly successful balladeer Bon Iver. Her debut dips deep into nearly nodding slow songs, but a few tracks open the door onto promising potential. Read the rest of this entry »

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It would seem this blog has gotten big for its britches.  We started with our loyalty to a certain artist-who-will-never-be-named-in-this-blog-again, we had brushes with greatness (Jeff Berlin, Bill Bruford, Jon Anderson, Rick Wakeman, so on) we forget what time of year it is, and what we have to be thankful for.

I remember some of the things I have to be thankful for now that I am back in an area where even I made an impression on the local musical scene.  Imagine my surprise when I returned after 18 years away to find that the little band I was a part of was historic in that it was one of the first area local bands to make a splash.  The band made news doing MTV basement video contest, local radio airplay, local television appearances, etc.  Yeah, we were original before original was cool.

I have the scars and road rash to prove it.  Long before Breaking Benjamin broke up.

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San Francisco’s The Downer Party released a 7″ of new material earlier this week, Blue State.  Coming on the heels of the band’s successful Cities EP, Blue State combines lead singer Sierra Frost’s cute and cutting voice with a rough folk-meets-garage sound.

The album’s title track, “Blue State,” sings sweet until Frost hits a frustrating CSNY “love the one you’re with” sentiment, where the anger and hurt break through.  “The One South” starts less adorably, with a deep note, tough voice and images of a naked drunk.  Strong and sundry, “The One South” expands across sugared ah-ahs and ascending, dirty guitar chords. Read the rest of this entry »

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RACES, formerly known as Black Jesus, officially released their three-song digital EP, Big Broom, yesterday, complete with creepy-cute cover art oddly reminiscent of Mickey Mouse in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” (or maybe that’s just me).  Produced to promote RACES’ first full-length, Year of the Witch, due out next year, two of the three songs are from that anticipated album, while another, “Hope & Gloom,” is exclusive to the EP.

Big Broom is the perfect tease.  The title track (click here to download, via Brooklyn Vegan) is thick with fuzzed-out, burning guitar licks matched to a clean sweep metaphor that finds beginnings dusty and endings clean.  Not weighted down by these thoughts, “Big Broom” focuses on the revitalizing feeling of a good sweeping.

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New tunes from Wishbone Ash! Photo courtesy of Glass Onyon

Danbury, CT - Elegant Stealth represents a benchmark in the evolution of Wishbone Ash, one of the most influential guitar bands in the history of rock. Signature twin-lead melodies and a powerhouse rhythm section frame 11 new tracks that reflect a diverse realm of styles and moods. Elegant Stealth will be released on ZXY Music on November 25th.

Formed in 1969, Wishbone Ash has more than 20 original studio recordings and several live albums to their credit. On Elegant Stealth, the group coalesces around strong songwriting and serious chops. Founding member Andy Powell handles lead vocals and trades licks with Finland’s guitar wizard Muddy Manninen. Bassist Bob Skeat, a 14-year veteran of the band and in-demand studio musician, sets the pace with Joe Crabtree, one of the best of Britain’s new breed of drummers, having played with Pendragon and David Cross of King Crimson.

The band demonstrates its versatility on Elegant Stealth, from the pop/rocker “Reason to Believe” to the gentler vibe of “Give it Up” to tunes like “Warm Tears” and “Big Issues,” where the band gets to stretch out and flex its musical muscles.

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