Dutch post-punk/math band Combo Qazam have posted an in concert video of them playing @ Letní Kino in Olomouc (Czech Republic) on May 1o this year. It is a niece companion piece for the Live in Central Europe 2022 Tour Documentary they posted earlier this year.
Tracks:
Ross Langdon Page, who goes by the stage name Color Temperature takes part in the second installment of This Water is Life series. Each EP has one side of hiphop and one side of indie music. The release supports a good cause: keeping tabs on Cape Fear River Basin in North Carolina by Cape Fear River Watch and Coastal Plain Conservation Group. He contributed the sprawling track The River, a piece that speeds up and slows down like its title suggests. Part ambient, part left-field danceable indie rock, and sprinkled with synths and spoken word, he created a journey that you don't want to end.
Langdon Page explains: "The Cape Fear River in North Carolina is 191 miles long. About 2/3 of the way to the ocean lies the Fayetteville Works Chemours manufacturing plant, which has been poisoning the drinking water of hundreds of thousands of NC residents since the mid-1980s. “The River” is a 13 minute 48 second journey down the Cape Fear, through the eyes of a leaf - first falling from its tree at the mouth of the river in Raven Rock State Park, traveling through the toxic waters near the plant, past the town of Wilmington, NC, then eventually floating out into the ocean."
Steven Wilson has posted the remastered documentary that was made during the recording of his solo debut album Insurgentes in 2008. It was released on DVD in 2010.
The Insurgentes documentary / road-movie Lasse Hoile made in 2008-9 about the recording of my first solo album has now been remastered and can be viewed here. It’s a snapshot of where I was at that time in my life - having recently turned 40, this period was about taking some new creative paths, and both my solo career and work remixing classic albums began around this time. We had a lot of fun doing the film but it was not the happiest time for me in my personal life (which definitely comes across), plus not everyone got what we thought was surreal and funny. So I think it created an impression of me as a rather dour and over-serious individual that for some people is - understandably perhaps - still their overriding impression of me! Still I'm proud of what we did, and I believe it remains quite unique in the pantheon of music documentaries.
Watch the new Leah Callahan video for Diabolique, a track from her latest album Cut-Ups: "a collection of songs about relationships. The good ones (Let's Go Dance) and the bad ones (Diabolique) are covered as equals with lush '80s arrangements, as she takes a scalpel to her love life, making small incisions with deceptively straightforward lyrics".
Avant duo Moonchy & Tobias goes for an experimental choral mood on their new album Wild Eye. The musical partnership singer Pat Moonchy and multi-instrumentalist Todd Tobias is a journey of exploring the outer regions of popular music, with forays into ambient soundscapes, shifting time signatures and pushing the limits of electronics. With lyrics in Latin, Italian and English the vocals serve as an extra instrument. They are adamant to create something fresh and new with each release, and never repeat the same form twice. It can be challenging to get into, but it is worth the effort. And when it clicks, the listener is always left wanting more.
They look both East and West of their new album, visiting dreamed up places like Shangri La in Asia's Kunlun Mountains, endure the heat and the dust while traveling on a Road of Sand and are tricked by a Mirage. Their knack for creating tension and release is in full swing. Tobias's experience as an inventive producer and sculptor of sounds enables to use simple motif change that can turn the mood pretty much instantly, with Moonchy's innocent delivery turning into an operatic squeal without warning. Wild Eye offers a different perspective for anyone who wants to look beyond the safe routes and explore new ways to enjoy music.
Swedish singer and multi-instrumentalist Richard Öhrn goes back to the heyday of orchestral pop on his solo debut album Sounds In English. As a guitarist for power pop band In Deed he has been part of the music scene for more than 20 years, but going out on his own was never part of the equation. Until now. He has been working on and off on the tracks for years, adding layer upon layer, without smothering the basic idea: infectious melodies with a bite. The subject matter of his lyrics is mostly close to home: the importance of friendships, having a drink, trying to act and look cool, and the need for a lover/soul mate in one's life.
Öhrn played all the instruments himself. Some of them were bought dirt cheap at flea markets. Fellow guitarists will have their work cut for them, trying to replicate his versatility on a 12-string and his acoustic fingerpicking, which is on a par with Jorma Kaukonen. Ken Stringfellow (The Posies) played the main part of the guitar solo on Time's Not Running Out, and added a bit of tambourine and some backing vocals while he was at it. The arrangements and textures of Sounds In English are spot-on. Alternating between luscious and vicious Öhrn has crafted a timeless album that will make his next one will be "the difficult second" record.
Jimi Hendrix would have turned 80 today. Are your neighbours aware of this? No? Turn it up!
The Jesus freaks were the worst. While the ‘Suicide Solution’ case was going through the courts they followed me around everywhere. They would picket my shows with signs that read, ‘The Anti-Christ Is Here’. And they’d always be chanting: ‘Put Satan behind you! Put Jesus in front of you!’ One time, I made my own sign – a smiley face with the words ‘Have a Nice Day’ – and went out and joined them. They didn’t even notice. Then, just as the gig was about to start, I put down the sign, said, ‘See ya, guys,’ and went back to my dressing room.”
Ozzy Osbourne
HCTF is also on Mastodon as of now. As Twitter is heading for the abyss this spot will also serve as an outlet for regular updates about my long running music blog.
Update: website has disappeared. Oh well.
English musician Arthur Brown will forever be associtated wiht the classic Fire as the frontman of The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, but he still raging and making racous music. He announced a short tour in on tour in Germany & Italy to promote his latest album Long Long Road: "[It]" has all the trappings of his past, mixing the blues and psychedelic rock with plenty of references to misfortune, seduction, femmes fatales and mind expanding tidbits. His voice not quite reaching the banshee heights of yesteryear, but the power is still there. The title track is both a summation of his career and a window to his future. The self-proclaimed God of Hell Fire stills burns bright, especially in two parts of the bittersweet Once I Had Illusions. He will keep creating until his dying breath, but ailments are slowing him down, which both worries him and pisses him off. Fingers crossed that this not his last hurrah, but if it is, it sure is a damn fine one."
Live dates:HCTF review of Long Long Road.
English indie pop band The Primitives have dug out the first ever video they made: a promo clip for their Really Stupid single in 1986.
An expanded EP version of their Don't Know Where to Start single will be released on on January 20th via Happy Happy Birthday to Me Records (limited pink vinyl in a silkscreen cover, black vinyl, digital). The band hits the road in May 2023 to celebrate the 35th anniversary of their debut album Lovely by performing it in full in May next year.
Watch English ska band Madness perform Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake in Paris in 1979. The studio version can be found on their One Step Beyond... album.
English psych-jazz quartet Melotone are in a melancholic mood on their new single, Entre Ondas. With '60s Tropicalia as a source of inspiration they bring the sound of Brazil to Bristol by way of the Black Country, where the band was founded. It all makes sense when you have Alec Madeley, a singer whose mother tongue is Portuguese. A bit of bossa nova found its way into the percussion as well, but it is the guitar tone of Pete Carey that makes it special.
English indie pop singer Nell Davies had a lot fun combining two things that are sure fire guarantees for feeling awkward: the Christmas office party and ... what for it ... karaoke. No wonder that people are prone to drink too much at those occasions.
She used the dreaded Comic Sans MS (the go-to font for office party invites) in the accompanying video, so people can sing along with her: "Everybody’s dancing, the office is heaving // Mariah fucking Carey and Shakin fucking Stevens // Everybody’s doing the Christmas karaoke – why aren’t you?"
HCTF review of Repeat After Me.
Boston indie singer Leah Callahan navigates between pop and art-rock on her new album Cut-Ups. It is a collection of songs about relationships. The good ones (Let's Go Dance) and the bad ones (Diabolique) are covered as equals with lush '80s arrangements, as she takes a scalpel to her love life, making small incisions with deceptively straightforward lyrics. The suicide of the very successful Cordelia is used as a wake-up call not to chase after fame at all cost, but cherish some kind of anonymity.
As a veteran of the scene - she was a member of Turkish Delight, Betwixt, and The Glass Set - she knows what it takes to make a mark, basking in the spotlights. She can be a self-deprecating Enfant Terrible or go all out with the ode to night life City Lights, when the possibilities seem endless and the hassles of everyday life take a back seat to living in the moment. On the album's sole cover, David Bowie's Look Back in Anger, Callahan sings both lead and backing vocals, just like her hero did. It is not a slavish reproduction, but a tribute to a man who has been ingrained into her musical DNA as a major touchstone for decades.
Manchester neo-shoegaze quartet cruush take a swipe at the nightlife in their hometown with their new single Sombre by the Weekend. Workdays suck and the prospect of spending some well-deserved time off with a lover, getting plastered, laid or whatever, turns out to be as false as a promise by the Tories. Singer Amber Warren can project a mix of ennui and anger, with guitarist Arthur Boyd unleashing his inner Johnny Marr in full-on psychedelic mode. The video was filmed and edited by Luke Hallett.
Italian alt-rock/psychedelic band Earthset recorded the 11 tracks for their latest album Bound in a single take, not even pausing between tracks. It is a bold move that could easily have blown up in their faces, but they ended up with a full-length that rocks, soothes, teases, and grates.
It is best experienced as a whole, in order to fully appreciate the hills and valleys and the on stop creation of tension and release, but the songs can stand on their own as well. An accessible art rock piece like High Hopes can be followed by a Radiohead-inspired quiet-loud-quiet post-rock lament like Unspeakable Now and somehow it still fits. The intro of Tourists And Terrorists is almost pastoral, before they decide to shift gears and go head over in heels into metal/post-rock territory.
Tape Op has posted a new episode of their DISCussion podcast series. They get on the phone with an artist or producer to discuss an album they love. In episode 27 Geoff Swan talks about the Jamie Lidell album Multiply.
Brighton based sextet Opus Kink will be on the road in UK for their Written In The Stars tour, promoting their 'Til The Stream Runs Dry album: "The anger reaches a peak in the sprawling title track, wherein the jazz age meets progressive ska, with all band members singing "I will be happy" over and over at the top of their lungs, as a statement that they will mow down anyone who gets in their way. Recommended if you like Ian Dury at his most manic".
English musicians and music geeks extraordinaire Steven Wilson and Tim Bowness have posted two episodes about 1983 of their podcast The Album Years. They talk about David Bowie, Tears for Fears, Virginia Astley, Ben Watt, Tom Waits, Pink Floyd, Eyeless In Gaza, Van Morrison, New Order, Yes, The Smiths, Marillion, and whole lot more. They actually quite like The Final Cut, which is rare, but it makes perfect sense.
Funky afro-beat big band The Brighton Beat returns to The Falcon in Marlboro, NY for a show on December 3rd. They will play some new material they have been working on. Long overdue new recordings coming soon as well.
Dutch stoner rock quartet MOAN explores the outer regions of heavy sludge on their self-titled debut album, with four lengthy tracks wrapped in tons of fuzz and reverb. Despite the towering presence of the twin guitars, bass and drums, singer Jurgen Veenstra manages to rise above the din and tell tales about mind expanding chemicals and fabled festivals. Black Sabbath fans will love Burning Man and progressive metal aficionados will appreciate the sprawling Nothing In Nature, as if Porcupine Tree were having a few beers with Kyuss and Mos Generator.
Bass player Andre Manning's monolithic, less-is-more approach is the driving force for Learn To Bleed, a safe haven for the swirling guitars. The album's closer Desert Island Drugs is a 101 for capturing a slow moving jam - note the loooong notes laid down by guitarist Marcel Ennema, egged on by the upfront drums courtesy of Reinee Huizinga, who is signalling the others to follow his lead. It is a damn fine debut album that should earn them prominent billing at Europe's leading heavy rock festival Roadburn in Tilburg next year.
When prolific psych-pop musician Anton Barbeau found himself stuck at his farm during the pandemic, he made the most of it by doing some serious soul-searching and laying the groundwork for his second full-length to see the light of day this year. His first 2022 album Power Pop!!! was an optimistic, outgoing one and now it's companion piece Stranger focuses on people (Farm Wife) and things close by, but with his knack for off-kilter weirdness popping up more than once. Case in point the short holiday ditty Favourite Items sung by Rosie Abbott and the treated "Lucy" vocals for Soggy Problems. Straightforward, simple songs are not part of his musical make-up. Barbeau loves to sneak in little tidbits into his melodies to make the listener sit up and take notice.
Being stuck in one place for an unknown amount of time inspired him to paint a self-portrait of sorts and face the fact that you can be lonely, even while in the company of a loved one. If anything this album explores the grey area between wanting to go into the world again and the hesitation that things could go South yet again.
Greek singer, songwriter and producer LOGOUT once again sings in his native tongue on his new album, Πονέμελα, a collection of purring, lo-fi folk songs about pain (ponos) and carelessness (anemela). Nikos Thessalonikeus has his back with inventive drum parts as the safety net for his freeflowing soundscapes.
He has embraced his demons and worries, not as much by trying to surpress them, but by taking them for granted as part of life. His vocals sound totally at ease, with the gentle Κι Εγ and the '60s tinged blues Κυριακή, a duet with fellow Athenian singer Miss Trichromi, as the standout tracks.
Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it.
John Lennon
Vibraphonist and percussionist Mike Dillon and Punkadelick (Brian Haas amd Nikki Glaspie) have joined forces again. After their well-received collaboration on the Shoot The Moon album, as part of the Quarantine Trilogy, they have recorded a bunch of Zappa-esque freak punk songs for a new album, Inflorescence, due for release on January 27th via Royal Potato Family (180 gram gumball pink vinyl - 500 copies, digital). Dillon channels the tone of Ruth Underwoord on the lead single, Devil's Playground.
Watch Passenger perform R.E.M.'s Losing My Religion. Recorded live in London in 2016. The clip was directed by Jarrad Seng.
Power pop quartet Librarians With Hickeys have made a video for I Better Get Home, a track single from their new full-length Handclaps & Tambourines: "a sunny-side up album, where every shadow of doubt or worry is being chased away with a jubilant, jangling guitar part". The clip was directed by Mike Crooker.
» Librarians With Hickeys on Facebook
HCTF review of Handclaps & Tambourines.
Bill McClintock made a mashup of Metallica and Men at Work : One + Down Under = Land Down One-der. O, and some snippets of Judas Priest's Painkiller are in there as well. Want more? His YouTube channel has lots of them.
ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons reminisces about opening for The Jimi Hendrix Experience with his band The Moving Sidewalks and attending the LA Forum on April 26, 1969, a show that will get its long overdue proper release tomorrow.
15000 posts on Here Comes The Flood. Plenty more to come. As you were.
Dutch experimental musician Môgô goes for longform, ambient explorations on his new album, Somersaulting Through Eternity. The two side long tracks, Cycle I and Cycle II, are filled with drones, short noise outbursts, and gentle keyboards. Baronner's mixing skills are a guarantee for a captivating listening experience, with plenty of surprises like the dry percussion popping up in Cycle II or the pastoral coda that brings home Cycle I. People might even get up from their seats and head for the dancefloor, lured by a dreamy trance that brings avant-garde to the club scene. Imagine techno moving at glacier speed.
The album was recorded and mixed by Marc Baronner. He was the bass player of Kraak & Smaak and Junkie XL, so he is no stranger to smuggling in experimental elements into the more straightforward, popular stuff. Somersaulting Through Eternity will strike a chord with fans of LaMonte Young and the Theatre of Eternal Music.
Porcupine Tree have announced three shows in Germany, as part of their Summer 2023 festival appearances. More dates TBA.
Live dates:
Steven Wilson has curated a new boxset, selecting 58 tracks from his formative years. Steven Wilson Presents: Intrigue - Progressive Sounds In UK Alternative Music 1979–89:
This is my personally-curated attempt to redress the balance, and to perhaps introduce any 1980s-sceptics out there to the idea that conceptual thinking and ambition didn’t suddenly evaporate after 1977. Ambitious, weird and thrilling music was all around you in the 1980s - if you looked in the right places.
English old school vaudeville blues trio Jo Carley and The Old Dry Skulls are building on their formula on their new album, I'll Put My Voodoo On You, a collection of good-natured songs about death, drugs and the devil, topped off with plenty of sexual innuendo. They sound tight but loose, laying down captivating grooves on top of a walking bass.
With three multi-instrumentalists in the band they have a wealth of sounds to choose from, but none of the tracks is overcrowded, so it won't be a problem to transfer the songs to their natural habitat: the stage. I'll Put My Voodoo On You is a celebration of good-time music. People who sit still during tracks like Little Dead Lovin' or Crazy Little Demon In Love should consult their GP posthaste. It is a cliché, but yes, that the devil has the best tunes.
Singer and multi-instrumentalist Gregory Curvey goes all out on Phosphorus, the new double album by his Custard Flux project. Besides his knack for serving up richly decorated psychedelic rock anthems, jazz rock has found a way in, courtesy of Mars Williams's array of saxophones. Like the element the record was named after, the songs sparkle and glow, being pushed forward by a gentle tug of war between acoustic and electric guitars.
As a composer, he allows the tracks to take their time, going through sonic hills and valleys using tension and release. This immersive music will be embraced by fans of King Crimson and Weather Report. Taking it all in one session is the way to go to fully appreciate the textures, but taking a little pause after each side on the first try doesn't hurt. Curvey is still growing as a musician, taking more risks as he moves forward, but he is already leaving most of the competition far behind.
Spottiswoode & His Enemies will celebrate their 25th anniversary with a special show @ Rockwood Stage 2 in New York on December 9th. Some Christmas shehanigans may be part of the proceedings.
Live dates:HCTF review of Lost In The City.
Avant-prog improv trio Stick Men have announced shows in South & North America. Fans of Tony Levin, Markus Reuter and Pat Mastelotto in Europe will have to wait until November 2023 (and those in Japan until November 2024).
South America:
Philadelphia based band The Chairman Dances look back on remote collaboration during the pandemic on their new single, A Year Spent Floating. Foregoing tried and true song structures, the band's songwriter Eric Krewson wrote a short story about the technical snags getting in the way of conducting a properly functioning, long-distance conversation. Folk meets the Velvet Underground by way of indie rock.
Our goal with Talking Heads was never about making hits, although it felt really good when we finally did have a hit and when we had marvellous critiques in the press. Our real goal, as Tina said to American Bandstand host Dick Clark when he asked her what our ultimate ambition was, was to “make our mark on music history”. As Bob Dylan and The Beatles and The Beach Boys had done before us, we wanted to create something that had some musical historical significance.
Chris Frantz
Dutch musician Stefan Breuer will be on the road with a full band to perform songs from his The World of Dust project: "[He] is a keen observer and a collector of sounds that he used to add depth and texture to the basic framework of his songs. The recording process can be described as peeling an onion in reverse, adding layer upon layer and giving his circle of musicians a free hand to become part of the equation. Superb slowcore that digs deep".
Live datesHCTF review of Gaman.
Another archival Phish release is available for streaming and download: 2/12/1995 New Haven Coliseum, New Haven, CT:
On December 2, 1995 Phish played their second of three shows between 1993 and 1998 at the New Haven Coliseum (aka Veterans Memorial Coliseum) in New Haven, Connecticut. New Haven ‘95 fell in the middle of a legendary 54-date fall tour – the most extensive since 1993 - and the band was coming in hot from an impressive week, from their first Hampton appearance to shows in Nashville, Dayton, and Hershey. The Coliseum was a modernist style Northeast hockey arena with a capacity of about 11,000 and a built-in helical parking structure stacked dramatically atop the venue. Tickets cost $22.00 and the show was sold out – a scorching rocker on a freezing cold Saturday night.
San Diego, CA based avant-garde trio Gunther’s Grass take it slow with Ur, an album with two post-rock drone excursions named after two hypothetical super continents that existed 3.1 billion year ago: Vaalbara and Ur. Primitive life forms already existed and they are depicted by stray notes and dry electronics crawaling on top of both tracks.
Listen closely to find out that the drones slowly evolve, hinting at progress and adapting to changing circumstances. The unitiated may want to try listening to the short excerpt of Vaalbara first, as a preparation for an immersive post-rock experience that comes crashing down like waves filmed in slow motion.
English folk artist William William Rodgers has unveiled a video for his new single The Slippery Slide: "Singing about getting out of a bind only to be drawn into it again, it is a perpetuum mobile of hope and giving in. Rodgers' way with words and ironic outlook on life are presented on a bedding of '70s production values, complete with a singalong part and rather smart violin touches. Imagine Nick Drake in a cheerful mood being applauded by Al Stewart". The clip was made by made by Elsie Plimmer (Watch Paint Dry).
Peter Gabriel will release his new album i/o next year, his first new studio album since Up in 2002. He will promote it with an extensive European arena tour. Tickets are going to be bloody expensive though. Expect to pay 150 euros/pounds for a subpar seat, where you will need binoculars to see the action on stage.
The remaining John Cale UK shows have been rescheduled and are now part of the Mercy EU 2023 tour:
Many of you know, we’ve been fighting hard to resume these dates. Its been brutal. We’re sat here in the UK, unable to do anything other than wait for everything to become safe again. It has not. We tried everything to continue on but things are not better, they are actually worse as the days ticked by. I know many of you are rightfully frustrated with this news, for which I can only apologize and let you know how truly sorry I am for these circumstances. You must know in your hearts, we didn’t embark on this level of commitment, time, energy and gripping expense to simply just stop performing. Heartbroken is really the best description I’ve got.
We did everything we could to steer clear of this dreadful nightmare. Somehow, it got us in the end.
The John Cale show in London is not happening on November 9... The folks at the Palladium "apologise for any inconvenience this may cause, and want to thank you again for your patience". New date: Wednesday 8 February 2023.
Last year Dutch folk singer and multi-instrumentalist Diederik van den Brandt scooped up lots of praise for Revelation Never Came, an album from his home-studio project Aidan & The Wild. After tinkering with the tracks himself, he reached out to Bobbie, Desi Ducrot, Baptiste W. Hamon and Merel Sophie to lend a hand. Even though all recordings had to be remotely the album sounded great, capturing an intimacy that can easily fool the listener into believing that the songs were captured in the round. He got a few co-writes out of it as well as an added bonus. Rave reviews came rolling in and he went out on the road, only to be grounded again after just one show.
The new "deluxe"edition" of the album has four live tracks recorded @ De Effenaar for a Concert Plaza session in his hometown Eindhoven. All of them have some extra gravy to next to impossible to create in a studio environment. Van den Brandt has internalized all the best bits of Americana and made them his own. His excellent phrasing and ability to tell a story in deceptively straightforward language put him way ahead of the local - and maybe even international - competition.
Irish collective Supersonic Love Witch have released Look What Happened, a dreamy soundscape peppered with spoken word samples and eerie vocals. This is the kind of track to listen to with the curtains drawn as the wind and rain are rattling at the windows. A dystopian mashup of Propaganda and Dead Can Dance, hovering between reality and a bad dream.
Scottish folk duo The Paperback Throne have posted an animated video for Inside Every Mountain There's A Heart, a track from their new album, Waves: "Sylvia Hector and Ralph Hector have kept the core of acoustic instruments and shared vocals, but they are not purists. If a track needs a synth or electric guitar to fully blossom, so be it. Some of the tracks have been lying the house around for years, patiently awaiting completion. Kicking off with one of those- the soft-spoken Branches - they set the tone for nearly half an hour of carefully crafted tracks. The influence of Harry Nilsson, one of their all-time heroes is mirrored in the vocals and '70s orchestral pop arrangement for Inside Every Mountain There's A Heart".
» The Paperback Throne on Bandcamp
HCTF review of Waves.
It's not the music you hear in your head that other people are going to hear. You have to be able to make it true enough to the image in your head, and that's where technique and technology come in, for sure, and knowledge. It's not true and will never be true that someone who knows nothing can sit in a basement and make great music.
Neil Peart
Italian band Smile renamed themselves The Wends after Thom Yorke launched his project The Smile, but they kept their knack for R.E.M. meets power-pop inspired indie rock intact fo their new album, It's Here Where You Fall. Singing about relationships hitting a snag - or even rock bottom - they take it in their stridwe, making half-hearted attempts to make amends, but knowing fully well that all good things come to an end.
They wear their scars as badges of honour. Pat Benatar already knew that "love is a battlefield". The Turin based quartet taps into the same source and lucky for them it never out of ways to describe the pain and hurt.
Watch American guitarist Roy Buchanan and his band perform Neil Young's Down By The River. Part of the Introducing... Roy Buchanan program aired on November 8, 1971. The full documentary can be viewed here.
Chicago based psychedelic blues band Razorhouse have made a brooding lyrics video for their new single, Erase Your Face. It is a song about the panic that sets in when you are the victim of online identity theft and trying to get in tech with the tech gigant to fix it - spoiler: said giant couldn't care less.
Band leader and songwriter Mark Panick had a front row seat when it happened to one of his family members and some of his friends who got scammed. Panick: "I think in the frustration it’s a human reaction at some point to push away from the table, to erase your face and float off into anonymity". He doesn't shout, but points his fingers at the data grabbing businesses who don't give a fuck about their users when the shit hits the fan.
Jazz fusion prog rock trio The Aristocrats have announced three shows in Japan and their first ever show in Singapore. More shows TBA. Expet some new tracks, fan favourites, and deep cuts.
Asian dates:HCTF review of The Aristocrats With Primuz Chamber Orchestra.
Avant-prog improv trio Stick Men have posted a recording of their show @ Ardmore Music Hall, Ardmore, PA on October 66, 2022 on Bandcamp. The recording was made by F.O.H. engineer Robert Frazza, who handled the audio for the webstream. Don't sleep on their take on the King Crimson classics Red and Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Part 2.
Tonight's John Cale show @ Town Hall in Birmingham has been cancelled: "we've had a Covid outbreak on our team so we're unable to perform". They are working on a replacement date. It is unclear whether this will affect the remaining four dates of the UK tour.
Update: new date February 11.
English indie pop band The Primitives re-entered the scene in 2009, after quite a bit of success with their jangling guitar songs and lead singer's Tracy Tracy bubblegum vocals. They have released two full albums since then, plus a couple of well-received EPs.
A limited run (300 copies) of their Don't Know Where to Start single, their first new music in 5 years, quickly sold out, but the song and its B-side Till I'm Alive will be included on the expanded EP version, due for release on January 20th via Happy Happy Birthday to Me Records. The extra track are a live versions of their Reparata and the Delrons cover Panic and an "acoustic fuzzed version" of the title track.
English experimental post-punkers Organised Scum keep their genre-bending approach in good repair on their new album, Remoan, serving up a full-course meal of jazz, noise-rock, New Wave, spoken word and a bit of psychedelia. Post-modernism is mixed with humour and serious concern. Brexit has made a mess of the UK, hence the album's title. While it sounds a bit overcrowded in classic '80s fashion, it is worth the trouble to give it a few spins to get to the gist of their method: building a wall of sound, decorated with melodic footholds and handles to give the listener something to cling onto.
Remoan has all the trappings of becoming a cult album. From the slightly provocative cover art - a mirrored image of Nietzsche contemplating life on top of a collage featuring Mickey Mouse, the bartender from the Love Boat series, 45, Elon Musk, Leon Trotsky, Tom Cruise and various other leaders of ill and (sometimes) good repute - and off-kilter songs like the repetitive Secret Stalinist and the need for a face ornament by sporting a Modernist Beard, it is clear that these musicians are not out there to please, but make people think. A powerful statement that will finds its way to avant-pop aficionado who also like to read books and newspapers.
Watch an animated video about a bunch of teenagers making the drive to Indiana Beach to see The Who on stage at the Indiana Beach Ballroom, Monticello, IN - in the Summer of 1968:
This is my animated true story of encountering The Who in the beach arcade, and hanging out with Keith Moon, as he walked the Northern Indiana Amusement Park Boardwalk, playing the various arcade games.
The story concludes with The Who concert, and our interaction at stage front with the band that night.
I'm telling the world my story, because my friends are tired of hearing it!
John Cale performed at The Playhouse in Whitley Bay, UK - October 31, 2022. Note: Dirty Ass Rock 'n' Roll was sung as "Dirty Dirty Rock 'n' Roll".
The band:
John Cale: vocals, electric guitar, keyboards
Dustin Boyer: lead guitar, samples
Joey Maramba: bass
Deantoni Parks: drums, samples
Setlist:
English quartet Electric Pets have announced their first show in London. They will play @ West Hampstead Arts Club on November 18. Tickets are available here. Their latest single Show will definitely be part of the setlist: "Swinging London is still alive in Derby and as the British are in dire need for some consolation, so looking back at their glorious past offers a very welcome form of escape".
Glaswegian folk duo The Paperback Throne is branching out on their album Waves. Sylvia Hector and Ralph Hector have kept the core of acoustic instruments and shared vocals, but they are not purists. If a track needs a synth or electric guitar to fully blossom, so be it. Some of the tracks have been lying the house around for years, patiently awaiting completion. Kicking off with one of those- the soft-spoken Branches - they set the tone for nearly half an hour of carefully crafted tracks. The influence of Harry Nilsson, one of their all-time heroes, is mirrored in the vocals and '70s orchestral pop arrangement for Inside Every Mountain There's A Heart.
The Hectors' expanded musical palette comes to the fore with the psychedelic keyboard parts CTRL+Z - nice touch repeating some of the motifs to underline the message of wishing "to undo" some things in life, and the shoegazey bass in No Obvious Symbolism. As with all folk music the words are as equally important - or even more so - as the music. Most of the lyrics are pretty straightforward, but there is poetry bubbling under the surface. Case in point the piano ballad Misappropriate: "Hold your tongue, and keep your questions // Repeat the words, just change inflection // Keep it hid, play along, cos that’s the way".
