#Alligator Records

[odk-2]

Hound Dog Taylor and The HouseRockers - Talk To My Baby (1974) Elmore James from: "Natural Boogie" (LP)

Elmore James Cover

Electric Blues | Chicago Blues | Slide Guitar

JukeHostUK (left click = play) (320kbps)

Personnel: Hound Dog Taylor: Vocals / Lead Slide Guitar Brewer Phillips: Second Guitar Ted Harvey: Drums

Engineered and Mixed by Stu Black Produced by Bruce Iglauer / Hound Dog Taylor

Recorded: @ Sound Studios in Chicago, Illinois USA on October 5, 1973

Released: 1974

Alligator Records

Hound Dog Taylor | Brewer Phillips | Ted Harvey

[sinceileftyoublog]

Selwyn Birchwood Interview: Blues Sorcery

BY JORDAN MAINZER

“Blues musicians are exorcists,” Selwyn Birchwood told me over the phone last month. In some ways, Birchwood is a traditional blues artist like the magicians he refers to. The Tampa guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter, who cut his teeth playing with Sonny Rhodes and has opened for Buddy Guy and Robert Cray, wields a dusty voice and expressive guitar style, traversing the worlds of Chicago blues and Southern soul, subjects from heartbreak to swamp folklore. In other ways, though, he’s uniquely modern. For one, unlike blues stars then and now, Birchwood doesn’t play covers, standards, or traditional tunes. He also doesn’t write original songs that border on self-parody because they try so hard to sound like standards; instead, his pieces are biographical, centered in the places they were created and aim to illustrate, skirting notions of rockist purity to use contemporary recording techniques. And thankfully, his songs still do rock, whether emphasizing Birchwood’s lap steel, longtime baritone saxophonist Regi Oliver’s horns, or the rhythm section’s deftly controlled tempos.

Exorcist, Birchwood’s latest album out tomorrow via Alligator Records, is Birchwood’s most assured release yet. “I’ve always felt like I’ve been trying to find my own sound, and with this album, I’m confident [I have],” Birchwood said. “The music is imaginative, with real emotion and relatability.” From the soulful and sharp opener “Done Cryin’” to the album’s upbeat closing instrumental “Show Tune”, Birchwood takes us on a journey through not only the weird creeks and absurd depths of his home state, but the peaks and valleys of his mind. Of course, “FLorida Man”, given today’s political climate, is a hilarious standout. Beginning with studio recordings of real news headlines to come out of the Sunshine State, Birchwood leads the band through a horrified, yet strangely affectionate tour of the place “where rebel flags meet Mickey Mouse”. (“People outside of Florida think we are crazy. People inside of FLorida KNOW we’re crazy!” Birchwood has said about the track.) And the mighty “Swim At Your Own Risk” features field recordings from “a woodsy area by my house,” Birchwood said. “I put it all together on my laptop. COVID put me headfirst into [editing].”

Sure, Birchwood’s enraptured-but-doomed relationship songs, from the “love gone terrifying” title track to the blistering, 6-minute “love gone wrong” jam “Horns Below Her Halo”, are phenomenal. But the true centerpieces come when Birchwood has time to reflect. “Plenty More To Be Grateful For” is a refreshing slice of perspective, 7 minutes of pure blues, while “Underdog” is a bit of psychedelic autobiography. And piano jaunt “ILa-View” perfectly combines Birchwood’s contemplations with knowing smirks, his similes for his affection akin to vices rather than romantic expressions. “I’ve heard so many songs that say, 'I love you,’ so if I say, 'I love you like the church loves money,' you believe me now,” Birchwood said, displaying the same sense of humor that’s obvious on record.

Birchwood’s last record, Living in a Burning House, made #1 on the Billboard Blues Chart, and he admitted he’d like to see Exorcist “hit some of the same numbers.” More importantly, though, he’s always looking to experiment. For instance, he played bass on a few songs on Exorcist, his first time doing so on a recorded album. In general, he recognizes that any record is momentary. “The finished albums are a snapshot,” he said. “I’m always moving, always growing.” One thing, though, will never change: Birchwood will continue to wield his voice and his axe, whether expelling the evil spirits of lost love and rabid demons, or even just sitting back and appreciating how far he’s come.

[moongothic]

Seen at least one (1) person complain about Crocodile losing his "unique faceshape" (now having the same facial structure that 90% of OP men have) after episode 1086 came out and like

To be fair, yes, the shape of his head HAS changed since his first appearance in The Year 2000. The thing is, Toei's latest Crocodile Offering is frankly more in-line with how Oda drew Crocodile during Impel Down and Marineford than ever before. Like yeah he looks different, but this change isn't new

But that comment really did make me think about how FUNNY it is just how different Croc really looks from his first appearance, like. The evolution in how Oda draws the bastard is so facinating to me

These are from chapters 155, 160 and 205 respectively.

No massive changes happening here in the middle of the arc, but you can kinda tell that Oda was definitely still figuring out how this asshole was supposed to look as he got further into the Alabasta (which is perfectly normal), which just makes That First Appearance look even funnier with time because. Who the fuck is that lmaooo

But then we get to see him briefly during Miss Goldenweek's cover story, this being from the cover of chapter 413! All things considdered, bastard hasn't changed that much, still looks pretty much the same as in Alabasta. His head is maybe a little less elongated than before but still, chin is quite pointy still

And now we're in Impel Down at chapter 540. Again, dude looks about the same as he did before...

But it really doesn't take long for Oda to start reshaping this bastard's entire head at this point

Chapters 544, 546, 578, and cover of chapter 584

The chin is easily the most obvious part, but you can tell Oda kind of defaulted to giving him that same ol' evenly square-ish head most his conventionally attractive characters have during these story arcs (instead of the elongated shape he originally had).

And then we have the latest appearances, from 1082 and 1100

I do feel like comparing these to what's come before would be a little unfair considdering his health and eyesight and how those affect the artwork itself, but. They're there, for comparison's sake

But the point is still there. Crocodile's face shape has changed since his first appearance, but it's not like Toei was behind that, the change was (mostly) gradual and from Oda himself. And it mostly happened in 2008, so it's not new by any means either

So really, all Toei did was just update his character model because ⬆️ is more accurate than ⬇️ for One Piece right now

Regardless. The sheer difference between the two is hysterical to me

[wildbeautifuldamned]

Rare 47 Piero Fornasetti Plates TEMA E VARIAZIONI Julia Collection Authentic ebay silvercapsule

[godzillareader]

Behind the scenes of the boat chase scene of Minus One

[mothshrub]

There's something really funny to me about how sometimes one picture on iNaturalist will inexplicably get like seven consecutive identifications all with the same ID.

Like--there probably wasn't a question after the first agreement, and at this point it just feels like a crowd of people all standing around the same gator going 'ayup, that's a gator alright, and a mighty fine one too'

[hikikomorialice]

Loki Season 1 vinyl soundtrack, POs open!

I nearly missed this completely! ^^;

Yes! At long last we have a vinyl soundtrack coming from Mondo for $50 plus shipping:

Fyi, vinyl only shipping to UK is only $16.95 DHL, so if you aren't from the US don't be discouraged!

There are 2 disc options: black or translucent colour - it's the same price either way!

They come in a retro TVA orange, yellow, and Loki seidr green - each with its own sleeve.

Finally, soundtrack info is featured in a TVA casefile:

Additionally, if you like the slipcase illustration by Anne Benjamin there are 3 print versions of her artwork also available on Mondo.

Loki Poster - $60 (215 prints)

Loki TVA Variant Poster - $85 (140 prints)

-SOLD OUT- :(

Loki Lamentis Variant Poster - $85 (140 prints)

-SOLD OUT- :(

[friendrat]

Ok, I knew that they were gonna go the lawyer route... but I really, really, just wanted the Litigator to be a literate alligator...

[timeandspacelord]

No but your tags imply the secret lair and corresponding levers were built by someone before Yzma came along, meaning there was some other mad alchemist-type long before Kuzco who was actually competent (and probably liked rollercoasters), which would also explain why Yzma doesn't really understand the purpose of the extra lever if she wasn't the one to design the whole thing (again, the rollercoaster aspect of it is clearly not Yzma's idea of fun, but it must've been someone's). I think we cracked the whole thing open with this one

"why do we even have that lever" is made funnier by the fact there are only 2 levers to begin with (disguised as a pair of tusks on a statue)

i find the implications hilarious:

kronk only had to remember the location of one lever, and couldn't even manage that

but on the other hand, it's easy to get two identical unlabelled levers confused, this one's on yzma tbh

yzma only needed to make one lever to begin with, but she actively chose to turn the second tusk into a functioning trapdoor. she could have just...just not connected the second tusk to anything. it didn't need to have a function

upon reflection, this also answers the question itself: "why do we even HAVE that lever?" it's because yzma herself specifically designed it as a booby trap. "why do we have that lever?" because yzma had it built to keep people out of her secret lair! yzma made the very purposeful choice to put that lever there! and then both she and her inept henchman immediately forgot about her own booby trap! yzma that is YOUR LEVER!!!!!

[headlinehorizon]

Thrilling Angling Feat Shatters Fishing Records

Read about the captivating story of a massive 283-pound alligator gar that has broken four fishing records, leaving the angling world astounded by its size and power.

[superiorsturgeon]

out of curiosity, why do you like sturgeons so much?

A chance to info dump about my favorite fish…?!

I grew up in the Great Lakes area of North America, where fishing is pretty popular but everyone knows that fish populations aren’t anything like “the good old days” when people took out huge numbers of fish while messing up their spawning sites. I got pretty into fishing when I found out that I could catch bluegill in the surrounding farm ponds, and once in a while my family took me to an isolated fishing cabin for vacation, but for years I never encountered a wild fish bigger than a kilogram or two.

BUT THEN…

I found out about sturgeon! They were HUGE fish that had once lived in the rivers and lakes all around my home, and better yet, fish almost exactly like modern sturgeon had existed all the way back in the Cretaceous period alongside the dinosaurs, and they STILL EXIST TODAY!!! The fact that small numbers of these huge dinosaur fish still existed made them seem almost like a real-life lake monster/cryptid, except that we had proof of their existence!

Furthermore, there’s just nothing else like them. Sturgeon get big. Like, REALLY big. The record for the largest sturgeon was almost 11 meters/24 feet long, which is colossal for freshwater animals. They have armor plates of bone running down their sides, and at the same time they don’t have bony skeletons. They also have a crazy mouth structure, which allows them to actually pop their jaws out like a tube and suck up food. And on top of all of this, the adults are absolute tanks. I’ve seen skin nearly 8mm thick, and it’s so tough that people make leather out of it, and they occasionally lose fins or even entire gill plates and just keep on swimming! (I found out about that last one when I tried to wrestle a big female out of a river and my hand went straight into her gills. She didn’t seem that bothered by it!)

For a long time I filed sturgeon along with Alligator Gar, Giant Mekong catfish, and Yangtze paddlefish as a semi-legendary fish that may still exist, but I was never going to see except possibly in an aquarium, until I enrolled in graduate school. For those unfamiliar with grad school in the US, it typically involves both high-level classes as well as an independent research project the student designs and carries out with help from an experienced professor. When my mentor asked what kind of thing I wanted to study, I tossed out “sturgeon” as one such possibility, expecting to hear that I would probably have to limit myself to more common/accessible species.

I was blown away when she said “Actually, I think I know a guy…”

For the next several years, I got to ride along collecting wild adult sturgeon, gathering eggs, and raising the baby fish in a lab and in a hatchery. I was holding something that I had thought of as a semi-mythical lake/river monster in my own hands! I got to see a river choked with giants as big as 2 meters long, and I got to hold a 5-centimeters mottled baby whose armored scutes were still sharp and possessed the little arrowhead shape and big black pectoral fins that remind me of Mickey Mouse ears! In the video below you can even see a little heartbeat! (Don’t worry, this little guy was returned to the tank soon after to recover from his anesthesia!)

Sadly, I didn’t find anything super groundbreaking in my research, but my experience DID land me a job working in sturgeon aquaculture! If you’ve ever had caviar that wasn’t poached, it probably came from a sturgeon farm, and if you want to see a lot of big fish up close, this is a good place to do it! I probably personally handled more individual sturgeon than there are wild fish in several sturgeon species. In addition, while the wild broodstock I mentioned above might reach 2 meters and over 50kg, the sturgeon I dealt with at the farm would easily double that, and there were a LOT of them! I got to see sturgeon behavior that had never been recorded in field guides, and even a few crazy one-in-a-million mutations like the infamous “ghost” sturgeon!

I even got the opportunity to cook my own sturgeon meat (Yeah, I basically turned into the Touden siblings from Dungeon Meshi except for sturgeon instead of RPG monsters). I got pretty good at making smoked sturgeon, but the meat is also good on the grill or baked, and people have been cooking them in various ways for centuries.

My favorite part of the job was physically wrestling the big fish! Sturgeon are easier to grab than other fish with the right know-how, but a human-sized fish often has its own plans for the day and won’t always cooperate. I was pretty good at moving the adults by the time I left that job, but it was still a wild rodeo every time!

Even more exciting was how we spawned each new generation of sturgeon. In the wild, they form massive spawning runs in big rivers that in the past would be enough to tip small boats, but in a lab or farm we have to use other means. I’ll spare you the details, but I am one of a small number of people who have surgically extracted eggs from a live sturgeon and sutured them back up to swim another day.

The tldr of this essay is that sturgeon are a big, crazy-unique fish that have been around a long time, and I’ve spent a lot of my career handling and working with them. There’s just nothing like them for a fish nerd and they’re damn cool!

(Clip art not mine, I think @sturgeonposting drew or shared it!)

[soulmusicsongs]

Alligator Strut - Jay Morton (Alligator Strut / Did You Get The Message, 1970)

[sinceileftyoublog]

GA-20 Interview: Outlier Blues

Photo by Jessica Calvo

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Even though it seems like everything is rehashed versions of something else these days, guitarist Matthew Stubbs thinks GA-20 is unique. Indeed, when the Boston-based trio (Stubbs, vocalist Pat Faherty, and drummer Tim Carman) released their debut album Lonely Soul in 2019 via Colemine/Karma Chief, they seemed like the only contemporary band making music wholly inspired by classic Chicago blues, loud and proud, raw and ear-shattering. In the years that followed, they’d double down, releasing an excellent 2021 record of songs written or performed by Hound Dog Taylor, in conjunction with Alligator Records for their 50th anniversary. Last fall, they released Crackdown, which delved further into the garage-punk side of blues. And now, they’ve revealed Live in Loveland, a pre-pandemic relic that tells the story of the first few years of the band more clearly than ever.

GA-20 had recorded and originally planned to release Crackdown shortly after Lonely Soul, mirroring the fast schedule and prolific recording nature of the legends they grew up listening to. In the early stages of 2020, setting out on a tour, they stopped in Loveland, Ohio, home to Colemine and its associated Plaid Room Records store. Burning through Lonely Soul favorites, Crackdown highlights, and other unreleased covers and originals, the band lit up an after-hours in-store at Plaid Room. They covered Little Walter’s “My Baby’s Sweeter”, rife with a bridge chock full of blistering guitar solos, and brought the crowd down with Lonely Soul’s surfy title track and the heartsick “Dry Run”. They paid tribute to their roots with the Chicago blues of “I Let Someone In” and “My Soul”. Faherty especially shined, with gravel-throated performances on “Lonely Soul” and the unreleased original “Hold It One More Time”. The performance, recorded to tape, edited down, and switched up, makes up Live in Loveland, the band’s first live record.

Shortly after their performance at Plaid Room, COVID hit, and GA-20 delayed the release of Crackdown until last fall. In between was when they collaborated with Alligator for GA-20 Does Hound Dog Taylor: Try It...You Might Like It!; they didn’t play any Hound Dog songs at Plaid Room because, as much as they grew up worshipping the house rocker himself, they didn’t even yet know they would release a tribute record. So if you’re a record completist who cares about canon and lore, know that Crackdown was supposed to be the band’s second as opposed to third LP. Either way, the ever-changing-yet-consistently timeless and, yes, unique band already has finished their next album, an acoustic concept record. And they’re writing their next electric one--you might hear “Hold It One More Time” on it.

Earlier this month, I spoke over the phone with Stubbs from his house in Providence about classic live albums, setting up a setlist, the story of how GA-20 signed to Colemine, and where they fit in music today. Read our conversation below, edited for length and clarity.

Photo by Matthieu Joubert

Since I Left You: GA-20 has released live EPs before. What made you want to do a whole live record?

Matthew Stubbs: First of all, historically, all styles of music, but especially blues and jazz, have put out lots of live records. Growing up, lots of my favorite blues records were live records because in blues and jazz, there’s a lot of improvisation. Every night can be a little bit different or very different. One of my favorite records is BB King’s Live at the Regal. It was one of the first blues albums I really connected with.

This particular record, we were on our way to do a gig. We were starting a tour, and our first stop was Loveland, Ohio, which is where our record label, [Colemine] is based. They also own a store called Plaid Room Records. We were starting to tour and had a day off, so we decided to do a show after hours in the record shop and sell tickets. A couple days before, I had contacted Terry Cole, the owner of the label, who also records. They have a recording studio above the record store. I just threw it out there, “Why don’t we try recording tonight to see what happens?” He had just bought a second TASCAM-388 tape machine. We pulled in the night before the gig, and he was working on the tape machine in the store. It was a spur of the moment idea. We didn’t know we’d get a record out of it. It was fun: great audience, and it was cool being in the hometown of the label. 

SILY: Were you pretty much playing the songs on this record on the tour, from Lonely Soul and Crackdown?

MS: Yeah. Lonely Soul songs and Crackdown songs. This live record has three unreleased songs, one original and two covers. We recorded all night. I went through it and picked what songs had stronger performances, and songs off those two records. It was recorded in January 2020, before we did the Hound Dog record, so there’s no Hound Dog [songs] on this particular record.

SILY: But you had already been working on Crackdown?

MS: Yeah. Crackdown was recorded not long after Lonely Soul. The plan was to release it in 2020, but shortly after recording this [live record], everything shut down, and we couldn’t tour. We decided to hold off on releasing [Crackdown] so we could do proper touring and a proper release behind it. During COVID, we got approached by Alligator Records to do a record for them. They didn’t realize we were already signed to Colemine. So I cooked up the idea of doing a Hound Dog Taylor tribute record. Alligator started its label to release Hound Dog Taylor’s first LP. It was the 50th anniversary of the label and Hound Dog’s first record, and we were all just at home hanging out. So we ended up recording that and releasing it before Crackdown, but it was recorded after Crackdown. It was released under Colemine and Karma Chief in partnership with Alligator. We used their promotion in coordination with our team and got their full stamp of approval.

SILY: In your sets, do you work in Hound Dog songs?

MS: Every night, we do a few Hound Dog songs for sure.

SILY: What was the first time you heard Harold Burrage’s “I Cry For You” and Little Walter’s “My Baby’s Sweeter”, the first two songs on Live in Loveland?

MS: “I Cry For You”, I remember hearing that song at 16. I got a double CD compilation of Cobra Records, and that song was on there. I’d always loved that song and never heard anybody do it. When we started GA-20, it was on the list of cover songs I’d like to do. I presented it to Pat, who sings it very well. “My Baby’s Sweeter”, Pat and I had been doing since we started the band. We didn’t have any originals yet and were doing lots of 1950s Chicago blues, Little Walter and stuff, even though we didn’t have a harmonica player. It’s [been] in our catalog of songs to pull from for a long time. We did a full gig that night, and [it was] one of the slow blues numbers we called on the fly. We didn’t play it planning to release anything. The performance was good.

SILY: What’s the story behind the original song played that night and on here, “Hold It One More Time”? Have you recorded it yet?

MS: I think it’s gonna be on the next electric studio album. We haven't recorded it yet but had written it not long before that gig. I love blues and soul music, but I also love garage rock, so I’m pulling from it on that song.

SILY: I love how when Pat introduced “Dry Run”, he told the story behind it, that it was about a girl who was using him to practice her flirting. Since at so many blues gigs bands are just playing standards as opposed to originals, I feel like I so rarely hear an ounce of the story behind the song, especially the ones about heartbreak.

MS: Pat wrote those lyrics, and I arranged it with him. He tells the story most nights, and people always chuckle.

SILY: How many songs did you play this night?

MS: It was probably a 75-90 minute set, and for the most part, our songs aren’t very long compared to most modern day blues bands. We never have a song that goes over 4 minutes. It’s maybe 2 and a half or 3 and a half [minutes], and then maybe one longer song. So usually, a 75-minute set has about 20 songs. 

SILY: Did you just take out some of the songs for this record, or did you actually rearrange the order?

MS: The order of the record is definitely not the order we played them in. There are a couple songs that go into each other that we kept, but I definitely changed the sequence for the live record to get it to have a smoother flow.

SILY: How would you compare sequencing a setlist versus sequencing a live record?

MS: I’d probably approach it similarly. The only thing that changes is not doing 75 minutes of music on this record. We usually try to come out with a bang, something pretty hard hitting. I like to have peaks and valleys in a set. I want to draw the listener in and have dynamics with quiet moments, loud moments, songs more focused on the lyrics and songs more focused on the energy of guitar playing, or drum solos. I want to keep people engaged. People don’t have super long attention spans, so whatever I can do to keep them with us in the show.

SILY: What’s the story behind the cover art for this record?

MS: Terry’s wife Whitney shot the show, and the effect on there is a crystal she put in front of the lens. The vibe of it was more on Terry. We talked about what we wanted, and we had that photo, and I wanted it to be vibrant and jump out on the shelf of a record store or on the merch table.

SILY: What are some of your favorite cities to play?

MS: I love playing Chicago. A lot of major cities tend to be really good to us. Los Angeles--I used to live out there, so I like coming back through. Austin. Denver.

SILY: Are there any countries overseas that tend to be really receptive?

MS: They’re all pretty good to us. This past year--and we’re going back in June--we went to Finland. I had been there with other bands, but not GA-20. We had maybe 8 gigs, and a bunch of them were sold out. It blew my mind that we rolled into a theater in Helsinki and it was sold out, us having never been there and a fairly new band. Every time we go back to London, it’s growing and growing. Spain is fun. France is great. Europe and the UK are very supportive in general.

SILY: What else is next for you?

MS: We have a couple singles that will come out in a few months. We’re gonna release a 45. We have another album all done that’ll come out in a year or so. It’s more of a concept album, an acoustic album. Right now, we’re writing the next original electric record.

SILY: Do you feel a kinship with other contemporary original American blues bands?

MS: A little bit. There are a few that are into similar things we’re doing. Modern blues in general for me, a lot of the modern day blues rock scene, it’s hard to explain unless you see us live and those bands live, but we definitely rock. We’re pretty loud. I consider us a traditional blues band live, and when we’re making records, I’m trying to make timeless records. There are some modern elements to it, but I like 50s, 60s, 70s records for blues and soul. A lot of the modern day blues releases seem like they’re coming from a different place, with their influences starting with the British blues of the late 60s on, or Southern rock. Their approach is [that] the entrée of the song is the guitar solo. Everything is based on the guitar solo coming, and long collections of notes. That’s not us, man. We have songs that don’t have a guitar solo. Most of them are in the 3-minute range. I’m more interested in producing songs I’m interested in listening to. To my knowledge, there aren’t really any up-and-coming blues bands making those kinds of records. There are bands in other genres making them, especially traditional country and soul music, like [those on] Daptone. Some garage rock bands are doing it. But not a ton of blues bands are making that style of record, getting out on the road and trying to reach a broader audience.

There are a few younger players I dig. Jontavious Willis is a player we’re friends with. Eddy 9 Volt is a good buddy. I like Cedric Burnside. Those are who come to mind. But I feel like we’re slight outliers in general.

SILY: That’s why I noticed GA-20 in the first place. It’s timeless, harking back to an era long before I was alive, but that sound like those old records I’ve heard. It retains that spirit without pretension.

MS: When we recorded Lonely Soul, we didn’t have a record label yet. We recorded 6 out of the 10 songs. I sent the EP/demo to Colemine and Alligator. They both got back to me in the same week. Alligator very quickly rejected it. They didn’t want anything to do with that record. Bruce [Iglauer], the president, said it was too distorted and too retro sounding. He didn’t like the production at all. He thought it was too raw. At the time, I found it interesting because I didn’t know I could be too raw for a label that started for Hound Dog Taylor, one of the most raw electric guitar players of all time. I said, “Why don’t you take the weekend and listen to it just in case?” He turned it down. The same week, Colemine got back to me, and they had no blues acts, loved it, and wanted us to go back in and record a few more to make it a full-length. The non-blues label that put out a lot of cool sounding soul records--and now that they have Karma Chief, it’s not just soul music--that had the common thread of timeless production, [accepted us,] and the blues label wanted nothing to do with the up-and-coming band playing raw blues. Then [Alligator] saw us live, and when COVID hit, they sent an email saying, “We saw you live, and we get it now.” They didn’t understand the production sounding lo-fi and raw, because new blues records don’t sound that way anymore. Eddie 9 Volt releases ones that sounded that way. I also heard a rumor that Alligator wasn’t interested in his first record, but I don’t know that for sure. I’m not saying I’m the greatest thing ever, but I’m pretty proud of [Lonely Soul], and I think we’re outliers.

SILY: Is there anything you’ve been listening to, reading, or watching lately that’s caught your attention?

MS: I really like Sierra Ferrell. I like Ty Segall, King Gizzard. There’s a band out of Australia called Surprise Chef, an instrumental, like an El Michels Affair-type groovy funk 70′s thing. I listen to a lot of instrumental music. I have a side project kind of on hiatus now called [The] Antiguas, which is like psychedelic twang cinematic music.

[blu-ish]

Tom bought this shirt for Knuckles. And yes, it's because he did, in fact, obliterate the Alligator Animatronic at Rainforest Cafe.

Also, yes, for the record, he is banned for life.

they weren't allowed to play Security Breach for a while lmao.