Blues rock quartet Gov't Mule have announced their European tour dates, playing shows in the UK, France, Belgium, Germany, and The Netherlands.
It's been over a year since our last proper European Tour and we can’t wait to get back and see you! Tickets for all shows will be available for purchase starting this Friday, February 1 at mule.net.
Isaac Hughes-Dennis is a political comic folkie from Hebden Bridge, a village in Yorkshire that is a fertile breeding ground for DIY musicians who shun the mainstream. His new album Welcome to the Revolution will annoy supporters of the Conservative Party (Oppression) and hipsters (Fake Glasse), and of course shock strict Christians. The latter will be up in arms when they hear Teenage Jesus - a frankly hilarious tune set to the melody of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah: "Behind the bike shed he'd had a quick smoke and then he turned water into water and coke". Open minded folks with a skewed sense of humour will embrace it as a great parody by a 21st Century troubadour.
He played all the instruments - ukulele, an electric kazoo and a bunch of synthesised instruments on a cheap Casio keyboard. Hughes-Dennis strays off pitch quite a few times, which in his case is quite quite endearing, but with his words he can sting and accuse like a roving field reporter in the midst of political turmoil. Now that Albion is divided in two by Brexit, while uncaring millennials are more interested in their (de)caffeinated beverages than the current affairs that will affect them deeply, satirical protest songs are needed more than ever. And Isaac Hughes-Dennis brings them with a laugh, so what's not to like.
Australian garage rockers Money For Rope have made a video for their single Actually, using B&W photos made by the band and David Barrioquinto. The track will be included on their Picture Us album, due for release on March 8. "Don't look no further for a modern day equivalent of the 13th Floor Elevators".
Watch AJ Lambert tackle the John Cale classic Cleo. She turned it into a jazzy pop song, with some ill-advised vocal effects. It's a track of her Careful You album. She is the grand daughter of Frank Sinatra and the album contains some of his deep cuts as well.
(Thanks: Marek Koudelka)
Frank Zappa alumnus Ike Willis and Anglo-Dutch band ZAPPATiKA were on tour in the Uk in November last year. They have released the Highway Maintenance road movie, with the members talking about life on the road plus a full hour of in concert footage. A live albym will be released on March 1st through all the usual platforms and later on also on CD.
David Bowie fans rejoice. The forthcoming BBC documentary David Bowie: Finding Fame will include something special. From The Telegraph:
David Bowie’s Top of the Pops appearance as Ziggy Stardust in July 1972 is regarded as a seminal moment in music history.
But few people remember that Bowie actually made his television debut as Ziggy a month earlier, singing Starman on an ITV teatime show called Lift Off with Ayshea. The performance was believed lost to history when the tapes were accidentally wiped.
Canadian alt-country singer-songwriter Suzanne Jarvie is a bit more optimistic on her sophomore album In The Clear. Once again her son's near fatal head injury is a huge inspiration - it was the main subject of her on her debut album Spiral Road, but now she serves up a delicate mix of light and shade as she tries to move on. There is anger (Point Blank), melancholic longing for the past (The Core) and grief (You Shall Not Pass).
Jarvie was hurt and shocked pretty badly, but she refused to let it get the better of her. Through her music she seeks closure and healing, while she is heading for the light at the end of the tunnel. Producer Hugh Christopher Brown let her voice do the talking, on top of subdued acoustic music. With violin, piano and dobro as his instruments of choice he provided a comfortable yer intricate tapestry for the vocals.
English instrumental prog experimentalists The Fierce & The Dead may be busy assembling bits and pieces for their fourth studio album, but they could not pass up the opportunity to appear at some select Summer festivals, including their first ever show on German soil.
Greek singer, songwriter and producer LOGOUT shares another piece of the puzzle that makes up the story of a traveller who got stranded a desert island. Bayorsai offers no straight answers to what has actually happened. Βαψορσαι means dance and that the protagonist is likely to be doing, maybe joined by the woman he came across on the previous single Love Me.
Aided by three backing vocalists (Nalyssa, Green, Zoe Lianou, Themistoklis Tsitsos) he spins another mystery by means of dreamy electronics. Intriguing and ambiguous stuff by a modern day pied piper. The accompanying video was made by metaphorms.
Italian guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Donatella Canepa honours the art of shredding on her progressive post-grunge mini album L'Orizzonte Degli Eventi. She kicks off the procedures with the cinematic Marcia a Oriente . If Ennio Morricone would have into hard rock this it what he would have come up with for a particularly bloody Western, Canepa keep the momentum going through her short and sweet excursions, nodding to dance rhythms in DJ Attacco and updating the classic use of contrapuntal techniques in the fast and furious Fuga.
Canepa has reinvented herself. From being classically trained musician - three years at the Filarmonica Citta' Di Chiavari in Genoa - she is now a rock guitarist, who can put theory into something loud and invigorating. Progressive rock can blossom within the space of three minutes or less compositions. Have fun dissecting her ideas, but first and foremost, enjoy the ride.
Dutch musicians Anne Soldaat and Yorick van Norden will release their new album Unsung Heroes Too on March 15 via Excelsior Recordings. Their version of the John Cale classic (I Keep A) Close Watch can be streamed via the usual digital outlets. It's a respectful recreation of Cale's original arrangement that was released on his Helen of Troy album.
French funky avant-blues duo The Inspector Cluzo will traverse the globe to promote their We the People of the Soil album: "Strictly analog was the order of the day during the recording sessions to capture the band's dirty and vibrant sound. The call-to-arms rock title track, the gentle acoustic excursions Little Girl and Brothers In Ideals, and the Hendrix inspired guitar mayhem of Pressure On Mada Lands all made it to tape and were mixed and mastered without any sign of brick walling. Dynamite dynamics that will make the speakers purr from contentment."
Europe:# w/ Clutch
HCTF review of We the People of the Soil.
Most the songs on the new album Open Water by Dutch indie rock band The Fire Harvest were started as conversation pieces during a tour in Germany. Lead single Not Going To Work is available for streaming from the regular digital outlets. J.K. Bragdon created the animated promo video.
Open Water is available for pre-order via Snowstar Records (CD, vinyl, digital) and Subroutine Records (vinyl). Release date March 1.
The blues is like a planet. It's an enormous topic. You can't ignore the impact that it has had and continues to have on the whole musical culture. It's a tree that everyone is swinging from. Without it, I don't know where I would be. It's indelible and indispensable.
Tom Waits
London grunge punk band Skinny Girl Diet are now a duo, but that hasn't slowed down Delilah Holiday (guitar, vocals) and Ursula Holiday (drums, vocals). Their second full-length is filled with plenty of righteous anger, energy and hooks. The title track is prime example of the good-old quiet-loud-quiet approach that was all the rage in the early Nineties. The Holidays take shit from nobody, have a sharp eye for veiled sexism, champion outsiders, strike out at the celebrity fans (Starfucker) and zoom in on Clickbait.
Ideal Woman is a pamphlet, a wake up call by means of heartfelt music. They are dead serious, but they have wrapped their message in rollicking tunes. Crank it loud and repeatedly.
Canadian psychedelic doo-wop rock trio The Velveteins will be on tour in Europe, playing shows in Germany, The Netherlands and Switzerland.
Live dates:Steven Yasell captured Chicago based funky soul band The Right Now performing Postcard during the hometown NYE extravaganza @ Chubby Bear. They will be back on the road in March.
Tape Op sat down with musician and sound designer Julie Kathryn for their podcast series. She was interviewed by Larry Crane:
Julie Kathryn, AKA I Am Snow Angel is a producer, artist, sound designer, and advocate for female empowerment in the music industry. Her latest release Mothership was recorded in a cabin in New York's Adirondacks
Tune in tonight for a free webcast of The Wood Brothers live from The Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, NY. The show is broadcast the Relix Channel. The Americana trio will hit the stage at 9 p.m. ET.
Put three well-versed folkies in a studio and changes are that they will come up with something that is greater than the sum of its parts. Dutch folk musician Broeder Dieleman joined forces with like-minded Flemish artist Wannes Capelle and Frans Grapperhaus came on board to play the cello. Singing in their respective Zeeuws-Flemish and West-Flemisch dialects (which are actually quite alike), these musicians have mastered the art of storytelling.
Dit Is De Bedoeling is a mini-album with six songs about father trying to get their children to drink, pirates led by a notorious leader holed up in a cave, and the fear of missing out being superseded by the simple fact that dinner is served. Spontaneity is key for these 21st Century balladeers. Being able to make it sound as if at was made up on the spot is quite hard. It only works when musicians have a real connection. Dieleman and Grapperhaus are able to write a song about anything, plus they share a wicked sense of humour and a childlike curiosity. Let's hope they do it again in the near future.
Aussie rockers Psychedelic Porn Crumpets keep their flow of off-kilter party tunes going with their new single Keen For Kick Ons?, an uptempo fuzzy guitar driven song with the muffled vocal harmonies, a hard to ignore invitation to join in the party and dance with reckless abandon.
Two years in the making the album by The World Of Dust will be a special one. Stefan Breuer, the man behind the Dutch one-man dreamy lo-fi project wrote the lyrics to instrumental backdrops created by Todd Tobias (Guided by Voices, Robert Pollard). This transatlantic collaboration served as a kind of therapy for Breuer who turned it into "personal suite of lyrics, reflecting his struggles with his mental health and his experience of becoming a father". Lead single Blood can be streamed on Soundcloud.
Indie powerpop band Daddy Lion have made a video for Mother Sun, a track from their latest album Learn to Have Nothing and You Will Have Everything. Dressed as low budget superheroes they climb the stairs of Columbia University, carrying a small black flag with their logo. The clip was made by Alex Davis. Lion animation by Katly Hong.
HCTF review of Learn to Have Nothing and You Will Have Everything.
Singer Nate Salman is back with a new Waterstrider single. Weaker One is about trying to cope in the midst of serious personal crisis. Using the upper registers of his vocal range he gets personal on top of a carefully arranged stack of electronics:
Often, for me, writing a song is like trying to solve a puzzle in my mind. In doing so, I'll unlock some new realization about myself and my experience in this universe. Then, the process of recording is a matter of attempting to translate something hyper-personal and slightly abstract into something tangible. Thankfully, this time around I had the help of co-producers St. Francis Hotel to make that process far less maddening.
Hungarian glam rockers Ivan & The Parazol have to deal with their longtime bass player Jani being forced to step down after he fell ill. Their new single Changin’ tries to address this with some against all odds bold swagger. They could have tightened up the middle-eight a bit, but apparently emotion got the better of them. The song will be included on their Exotic Post-Traumatic album.
Lincoln trio The Ego Ritual keep the freak-psych rock flying on their self-titled debut EP, a multi-layered, TechniColor, time travel trip to the late Sixties. Swirling guitars, treated vocals razor-sharp cue drums to keep it all together leve the listener wanting more after enjoying a 20 minutes rollercoaster ride.
With nods to early Hawkwind, Love, and the often overlooked Pretty Things they give themselves a head start in the dreamy, good-natured retro niche. Recommended if you Like The Luck of Eden Hall and Elephant Stone.
British avant-jazz rock band Soft Machine will be on the road in the States to promote their Jidden Details album. The current line-up consists of John Etheridge (guitar), Theo Travis (flute, sax, Rhodes), Rou Babbington (bass) and John Marshall (drums).
Denver, Colorado based space folk duo Astralingua have made a video for their latest single Space Blues, capturing "capture the loneliness and homesickness of the unnamed traveler as he stairs out of his window of his vessel". They used footage from the heyday of the space age to tell the story.
Blues has always been the most important ingredient for me, specially the passion and the drive to create something out of nothing. It’s this thing which you can’t calculate but when it falls into place and works for everyone then these are the moments ...freedom.
Jan Akkerman
One of the world's most annoying mainstream songs ever is turned into an art installation. Namibian-German artist Max Siedentopf loaded an MP3 player with Toto's Africa playing on a loop in the Namib desert. Imagine travelling through the sand dunes for days on end and stumbling upon this in stead of an oasis. The damn thing runs on solar batteries, so it's likely to keep playing for quite some time. Now, that is truly a Desert Island disc from Hell.
Austrian duo Cari Cari are on the road to promote their debut album Anaana. "Tex-Mex inspired surf, blues, indie rock and psychedelic pop are thrown into the mix for a rollercoaster ride that is a feast for the ears."
Australian garage rockers Money For Rope heaped tones of Fuzz, reverb, and feedback onto their Actually single. Don't look no further for a modern day equivalent of the 13th Floor Elevators. The track will be included on their Picture Us album, due for release on March 8.
Denver, Colorado based space folk duo Astralingua embark on a journey to the stars on their single Space Blues. Composer Joseph Andrew Thompson and vocalist Anne Rose Thompson capture the loneliness and homesickness of the unnamed traveler as he stairs out of his window of his vessel: "did i choose to take the trip? // did the trip choose me? // how much have i sacrificed // for curiosity?". Deryn Cullen (cello) and David Weiss (flute) were on board to lend a hand for this slow moving trip in outer space that turned into nightmarish, soul searching journey.
Heavy funk rock pioneers Mother's Finest will be playing shows in Germany, The Netherlands and Switzerland, After that they have three gigs lined up in Georgia.
Live dates:
Finnish punk rockers Van Dammes are having a blast in their new EP Risky Business. Never mind that one of songs is called I Don’t Like Music Anymore. It's obvious that they still love churning out loud ans fast songs. The Helsinki based band won't win any awards for musical inventiveness, but will receive high grades for entertainment value.
Plenty of fuzz, locked-in vocals sharing, some politics, but above all energy. They never changed their formula - four EPs and counting - and why should they? Play loud and enjoy.
Thw Who have just announced their North American Moving On tour. There's more: a new studio album will be released later this year, their first since Endless Wire (2006).
The Who will also be releasing their first album of new songs in thirteen years later this year. On stage, the line-up will be rounded out by familiar Who players featuring guitarist/backup singer Simon Townshend, keyboardist Loren Gold, bassist Jon Button and drummer Zak Starkey, and complemented by some of the best orchestras in the US and Canada.
Multi-instrumentalist and singer Phil Vincent loves fronting separate bands as an outlet for melodic hard rock. D'Ercole is a quartet playing rather safe songs about being wronged in a relationship. Make no mistake: the playing is flawless and clean, but the hurt is wrapped in tired chords sequences that only fool-hardy Toto fans will describe as cool or heart wrenching.
This is the kind of music budding rockers have to outgrow before escaping from the mainstream and head out to lesser crowded niches. Made to Burn is an album that fails to ignite.
English indie band Waves of Dread have made a video for Lay, a track from their self-titled debut EP. The song is a love letter to Barcelona, a melancholic blend of shoegaze and psychedelica a la The Jesus and Mary Chain. Leo Astudillo edited the clip, using footage shot in the capital of Catalonia by the band's singer and songwriter Nick Hodgson.
The catchy pop funk vibe of Prince is alive well on the new Superbird single Cola Bottle Fizz, a happy-go-lucky tune that has "floor filler" written all over it. Joe Finnigan (vocals, guitar), Alex Ash (drums) and Fed Sidero (bass, vocals) have uncorked a sparkling bottle of technicolor beverage that is badly needed in Brexit-ridden Great Britain.
Lexytron, Manchester based singer with a soft spot for Sixties psychedelic pop, has three "Live and Acoustic" shows coming up. Herr latest single I'm Not A Disco is about "having fun while dancing on the ruins of a relationship [which] is always a good idea. And it's cheaper than booze, drugs or therapy".
Manchester alternative rockers switch between harsh noise and ambient on their new single Red Music, sounding like Radiohead in a manic and probably foul mood. Howling feedback and heaps of distortion clash with short mellow breather interludes. It is an uneasy, yet alluring listening experience.
Watch Rayland Baxter tackle the Neil Young classic Vampire Blues as part of a session @ Paste Studios in New York, NY - 2018/01/08.
Dutch psychedelic garage rock quartet Mozes and the Firstborn don't give a fuck about what is hip and happening. They named their third Dadcore, because rock is now considered to be the music of parents and the kids are into hiphop and modern day R∓B. Well, it's not that simple, but nevetheless it's a bold move to release an album with connected (albeit loosely) songs in an age when listening to the whole thing will be a stretch for the limited attention span of the streaming generation.
Taking cues for Dutch beat boom of the late sixties and moving forward in time via Big Star, Pixies and Nirvana, this a 101 for a couple of decades worth of influences. Dads can go out on a limb pointing out the references, but rest assured: it can be enjoyed as stand-alone statement from a band who are keen to keep the tradition alive and something new to it as well.
Phish have announced their Summer 2019 dates. The Vermont jam band will be performing 26 shows.
Phish will hit the road this summer with a 26-date tour beginning with two-nights in St. Louis, MO, and culminating with the band’s traditional Labor Day run of shows in Commerce City, CO. As part of the tour, the band will perform at this year’s Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, TN, playing a late-evening set on Friday, June 14 and again on Sunday, June 16 with a festival-closing 2-set show.
A ticket request period is currently underway at tickets.phish.com (ending Monday, January 21 at 10am ET). Tickets go on sale to the public beginning January 25.
Listen to the lyrics - we're singing about everyday life: rich people trying to keep money, poor people tying to get it, and everyone having trouble with their husband or wife!
Buddy Guy
Irish singer Rosie Carney plays mellow, almost ambient, folk on her debut full-length Bare. The soft-spoken music purrs quietly underneath her crystal clear vocals. Inspired by her immediate surroundings she paints the musical equivalents of water colours.
Every note counts and this less is more approach demands undivided attention. She discusses isolation and lovers lost in concise poetry that belies her age. Carney is only 21, but she has been writing songs since she was 13. Her quiet, bittersweet intensity is compelling and endearing as well. No Hollywood endings, but as a listener you hope she comes out on top.
At first it seems that LA based trio PLNT9 could be booked for speeding with their new single Meant to Run, but they slow down just enough to be considered as a contender for the fast, but not super fast, alternative rock niche. It's the first half of the song however that will get a thumbs up from the rawk crowd, who latched on to them after they released their previous single Who Knows. This one is bit more commercial and less hectic. It might get some airplay on AOR stations, provided they have the balls to spin a track from an unsigned band.
Phish is one of the headliners at the Bonnaroo festival in Manchester, TN (June 13-16). They will on June 145 fro a late evening set and twos sets on June 16. It's been seven years since the Vermont band last played there. Tickets go on ale on January 10 at Noon ET.
Eric Meyers took the long way to reach his destination to become a musician. The lead singer and guitarist of Arizona outlaw country rock band The Rev was in real estate (a job he did not like at all) and he was a surfer and drifter looking for kicks. It nearly killed him when he sucked into a cave by a freak current. It became his wake up call and he picked up the guitar again, an instrument that he had abandoned over a decade ago. Long story short: he started writing songs, took guitar lessons from seasoned veteran Frank Monaco and thus the seeds were planted for The Rev, a Southern rock band with country leanings.
The latest reincarnation of Z.E.R.O., The Zãþþã Éårlý Rênáissánçê Ørçhêstrå, will perform three shows in March. Founded by Kevin Crosby in 2012 the rock/comedy band with a variable line-up takes on the towering catalog of Frank Zappa. FZ alumni Ike Willis and Craig Twister Steward take part in this latest incarnation.
English avant-garde musician Colin Robinson bought himself a generative music program and and loaded it with his own sound and musings to record an album of ambient tunes that could be labeled as zany Zen music for his one-man project Jumble Hole Clough. He used synthesizers (real and imaginary), guitars and his trusty 6-string bass to create wordless short stories about walking around in English cities, visiting deserted places of worship, and observing decay in general.
While it may seem easy to let the software take care of making art, it's still the human being who has to do the heavy lifting. The old "garbage in, garbage out" out" is a given that can't be avoided. If a musician runs out of ideas it's just another useless piece of equipment. But when you are a creator like Robinson who can bang any tool into submission to create something worthwhile and memorable, it becomes a powerful gizmo to conjure up with something fresh and slightly haunting. Who would have thought that the chore of daily shopping could become an adventure with aliens lurking behind the shelves (Chance Is The Gateway To The Supernatural - Or The Supermarket)? And washing your hands can be an embarrassing experience when the whole world appears to watching (The Ritual Humiliation Of The Public Ablution).
A nearly complete video of the legendary Phish show at Amy Skelton’s Larrabee Farm in Auburn, Maine on August 3, 1991 has been posted on Phish.net. Matt Laurence brought this video gear and captured the free show that became the blueprint for the big festivals the Vermont jam band would organize later on in their career. The footage had been gathering dust for 27 years before finally being digitized and synced with a great sounding audio capture.
Matt Laurence roamed the grounds with a camera on his shoulder and set up a camera at the soundboard. His footage remained on VHS and “lost” until last year, when he started the process of digitizing his video. The raw video has been edited and synced with high-quality audio to give current fans the best possible look at the memorable day in Phish history. While footage of the encore in incomplete, Matt did a nice job of mixing what video does exist with photos from the show. Much thanks go out to Laurence for all of his hard work.
Canadian singer-songwriter Suzanne Jarvie will release her second full-length In The Clear on January 22nd. Once again her son's head injury is the main inspiration for the album. Lead single Headless Rider is a fine example of alt-country, a mix of light and shade.
Barcelona based singer-songwriter Daniel Ruiz signed a deal with Santa Rosa Records. The Texas label got him in touch with Jesse Gilmore to take care of the mastering of his new single Ecstasy Queen, a song about a drug-riddled dancer/drug dealer to got him into serious trouble. Júlia Martín lended him a hand, playing drums. Note the vintage organ part and loud but sad electric guitars. It's one of those songs that will make listeners reach for the bottle and other mind-numbing products.
Facing Dullness, the new single by Scandinavian duo Sail By Summer is a mixed bag of emotions. The lyrics are drenched in melancholia and ennui, but the music is a smart slice of electropop. This inner tension works quite well and is in sync with the local weather that Danish keyboard player Jens Kristian and Norwegian singer William Hut have to deal with in their current place of residence Bergen: lots of rain interspersed with glorious sunny days.
Anna Coogan, singer and guitarist who serves up a mix of opera, indie rock, and sculpted guitar excursions, brings her The Curse Of Eve 10th Anniversary Tour to Europe. besides proving a live soundtrack for this classic silent movie she will cherry pick stuff from her back catalog as well as perform a handful of choice covers:
I’m pleased to announce tour dates for the upcoming tour of mainland Europe. This will be a celebration of ten years and almost 20 tours (I’ve actually lost count) across Europe. I will be performing a combination of “The Curse of Eve” live silent film sets and songwriter sets. I’ve been working hard at new songs and new-to-me covers, as well as reviving favorites from nearly 20 years of songwriting.
Tape Op sat down with musician and producer Michael Beinhorn for their podcast series about the all important process of pre-production. He was interviewed by Geoff Stanfield:
Michael Beinhorn's name has graced some of popular music's seminal recordings including Herbie Hancock's Future Shock and Soundgarden's Superunknown. He is a musician and producer, author of Unlocking Creativity: A Producer's Guide to Making Music & Art, and most recently has launched a service for artists and bands that focuses solely on pre-production.
Chicago ensemble Surabhi take their eclectic bend of music on the road for a "Global Peace Tour", playing shows in Vietnam, Spain, Portugal and Senegal. Their debut album served as a summation of their open-minded approach: "By mixing rhythms and tunings their music breaks down walls between various traditions and creates an intriguing tapestry of moods. This record can act as a stepping stone into the world beyond the dominant Western outlook on music".
Seattle honours Jimi Hendrix by renaming the Renton Post Office. From the Seattle Times:
The James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix Post Office is less than a mile from where the legendary guitarist is buried in Greenwood Memorial Park cemetery.
Before Johnny Dowd heads out to Europe to promote his new album Family Picnic - due for release in March - his Stateside fans will have a handful of opportunities to see him perform with musical partner in crime Michael Edmondson on guitar.
Live dates:HCTF review of Twinkle, Twinkle.
One of the things I like about music is it's an abstract art, totally abstract, where you can convey an emotion, which I find amazing.
Bernard Sumner
