#was he just playing the solo? piano arranged for a guitar? vocals arranged for a guitar?... drums arranged for a guitar?????

[roxannepolice]

I feel that this is very relevant

Holy Trinity.

[rhapsodynew]

#everything you need to know about rock

Britain's first guitar hero who influenced everyone 

Hank Marvin was born in Newcastle upon Tyne on October 28, 1941 and grew up in a two-story family home with an outdoor toilet and no running water. From an early age, he showed an insatiable craving for music: he tirelessly mastered the banjo and piano.

But the fascination with blues, folk and skiffle inevitably led the young enthusiast to the guitar: 

"I was trying to learn how to play skiffle tunes, copy what I heard on the radio, learn how to play the melody that the singer was humming, as well as any saxophone or orchestral phrases."

At the age of nine, Hank Marvin was upset that he was prescribed glasses:

 "I was a skinny, pimply, insecure kid. And I got the big round glasses of the National Health Service in a tortoiseshell frame."

But then a cool author and performer Buddy Holly appeared from across the ocean, who forever changed the opinion about bespectacled people. Soon after, Marvin's life changed. His glasses suddenly became a fashionable rocker accessory. He got a job at an electrical engineering firm to earn money for a train to London.

Events were developing rapidly. Hank Marvin left in April 1958, in September he met the young vocalist Cliff Richard in Soho, who was trying on a jacket in an atelier, and immediately joined him on tour. When Hank returned to his native Newcastle, he was already a star and performed in front of an audience of screaming girls.

Cliff Richard's band was named The Shadows. Their music is instrumental rock classics, which to this day has not left the current repertoire. It is the "Shadows" They released the legendary hit "Apache", written by English songwriter Jerry Lordan and influenced a legion of aspiring guitar heroes. Including on the VIA "Singing guitars".

After becoming a star, Hank Marvin absorbed everything the music world had to offer: 

"I wouldn't believe it if I was told at the age of 16 that we were going to have incredible success. We played concerts all over the world. We performed in African villages. They caused riots in Germany when there were so many people on the streets that the limo almost overturned. It's an incredible experience, some frightening, and some just wow!"

Cliff Richards and The Shadows have created quite a few era-defining hits. Hank's band continued to come out and record. The line-up broke up between 1968 and 1973, but was reformed. In 1975, The Shadows took second place in the Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Let Me Be the One".

Hank Marvin began his solo career in 1969 with an album of instrumental compositions, in which guitar parts were accompanied by arrangements for the orchestra. He experimented with styles and materials, recording instrumental records, albums with vocals, acoustic guitars.

Hank Marvin's guitar can be heard in the recordings Roger Daltrey and Jean-Michel Jarre. Its unique sound has always remained instantly recognizable. Hank did not seek to increase the volume, preferring a light vibrato and giving his parts vocal qualities.

In the late 1970s, The Shadows impressed even punks: "During the release of the album "20 Golden Greats", people came to our concerts who looked completely out of place. When we asked why they were here, they replied, "We like the economy of your music. It's like early punk." I didn't quite understand what they were talking about, but it was nice."

With his melodic playing style and expressive "singing" phrasing, Hank Marvin inspired George Harrison, Eric Clapton, David Gilmore, Brian May, Tony Iommi, Pete Townshend, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page. One of the most loyal fans is Mark Knopfler from Dire Straits. Hank Marvin's red Strat struck his imagination as a child. They subsequently performed together.:

Even the patriarch of Canadian rock paid tribute to the leader of The Shadows as one of the architects of modern music Neil Young. No wonder one of his songs is called "From Hank to Hendrix."

He was one of the first to bring instrumental GUITAR music to the top positions. Before that, there were cool guitarists, even pioneers, some by sound, some by melodies. But The Shadow (and Marvin, as a lead guitarist, of course, occupied a dominant position) were, if not the first, then at least one of the first to bring the guitar instrumental to a leading position.

The epoch!

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 30/11/2023

Sunday Morning

Season 4 Episode 1 Featured on: SECOND WIND ~ SiIvaGunner: King for Another Day Tournament Original Soundtrack VOL. 2

Ripped by wolfman1405, cazsu Performed by cazsu (Piano, Vocals), wolfman1405 (Guitar, Bass, Backing Vocals), Andrew Garrison (Tenor Saxophone), Tav Bartlett (Piano Solo)

And so, November comes to an end, with autumn officially over, and the holiday season just a day away. My 22nd birthday passed, the blog has been going without break in schedule for about half a year, and 2023 is almost coming to an end. I get a bit sentimental thinking about it, and felt it only fair to close the month out with a rip that sits close to me. Sunday Morning as featured in the King for Another Day tournament.

Y'know, for the first few years of my SiIva watching, it was really easily for me to filter things out based on my interests - I'm sure a lot of current SiIva viewers still operate this way. I adressed this back with Beautiful! ~ Curveball of Sean Kingston and waterwraith pokos, but there are simply so many moving pieces of the channel operating at once, that its easy to miss a lot of things along the way. And during Season 1, 2 and 3, SiIva's reverence for Kara's Flowers/Maroon 5 was part of that - I brushed it off as Chaze's silly gimmick and didn't really pay the rips themselves much mind. Yet part of what made the King for Another Day Tournament in Season 4 Episode 1 so special, was that this sort of self-selecting felt far harder to do - the tournament was a community event that asked ALL of us to participate, and part of that participation was to collectively listen to and appreciate all of the various demo tracks released by each participant. Despite their prevalence on SiIva, I had very little knowledge of Adam Levine and Maroon 5 - until suddenly, rips like Sunday Morning made me gutted that he was eliminated from the tournament so early.

And like, I get it - He never truly had a fighting chance specifically due to viewers like me. SiIvaGunner is a celebration of pop culture with a particular fascination and fixation on video game music, and the overlap between that nerdy audience and fans of 2002 Pop Rock album "Songs about Jane" by Maroon 5 realistically didn't have all too much overlap. But this arrangement was my first time ever hearing Sunday Morning, and it absolutely enamored me.

The jazzy feel of cazsu's piano playing and wolfman1405's bass are immediately gripping whilst also clearly establishing the song's tone as different from the original, punctuated to cazsu's vocal performance. I vividly remember just how much the performance spoke to me, specifically for how truly earnest it felt: it reminded me of Season 1 and the performances by Nick Oleksiak in rips like Everyday Goodbyes (SiIvaGunner Band Cover), and further reminded me of how much of a fan initiative SiIvaGunner truly is. The vocals are fantastic, but not in the sort of overproduced, perfectly-pitched studio mixed way that studio albums like Songs about Jane typically are - the vocals, when push comes to shove, feel like that of a human being, one who loves the song they're covering. That much appears to be evident, if nothing else: a commenter on the YouTube upload noted that the arrangement even takes elements from the song's original demo tapes.

Its hard for a rip made by wolfman1405 to ever disappoint, and his additions to the arrangement are unmistakeable. Yet its cazsu's performance that sells it all for me, paired with the context the arrangement slotted into - as part of the biggest SiIvaGunner event in its entire history, and as a celebration of everything the channel had accomplished in that time. It did really get me emotionally, and it was effectively the first in a set of dominoes that led to me becoming far more interested in music culture as a whole, outside of the comfortable little bubble I'd set up for myself within SiIvaGunner and VGM. Today, I'm running a blog entirely about all of the little nooks and crannies of the SiIvaGunner channel - ones I'm familiar with, ones I only discovered recently, and ones from submissions that I'd never even heard of.

Put simply, it was thanks in large part to King for Another Day tournament that I truly opened up in terms of my music tastes. And I owe so much of it to Sunday Morning, to Adam Levine, to Maroon 5 - and to caszu, wolfman1405, Andrew Garrison and Tav Bartlett.

Thank you.

[dollarbin]

Mitchell Mondays #3:

Chelsea Morning

Artists cannot outperform Joni Mitchell's with her own songs. Most who attempt to do so wind up sounding like Neil Diamond: he's all bluster, bombast and bongos.

The strings here are pretty cool actually, even though they have no idea what song it is that they are appearing in. And the uncredited bass player rocks. Still, the overwhelming sense one gets is that Neil Diamond needs to shut the hell up.

Chelsea Morning may have stupefied the kids in the studio audience in Joni's live TV take, above, but it got all kinds of musicians' hearts racing back in the day. Mitchell was not yet an untouchable icon so everyone from gave her ode to a sexy summer day a go. Check out this earnest and clear headed Finish version which even tries to recreate Mitchell's ricocheting vocal gymnastics at the close:

And at least this male-led soft rock Swedish take features fewer of Diamond's swaggering spin moves:

Who can blame all these Scandanavians for giving the song a go? Chelsea Morning places perky bounce alongside rippling joy, plus it contains a singularly brilliant appeal for new love: "Oh, won't you stay, we'll put on a day and we'll talk in present tenses."

As with so many of Mitchell's early masterpieces Fairport Convention and Judy Collins were the first to take up the challenge that is Chelsea Morning.

Fairports' pre-Sandy Denny version came first. They do a seasick Beatles thing with the Ian Matthews' verses, Richard's teenage guitar playing is alternatively bold and dull, the percussion is bonkers and there's a fender bender depicted at the end: the band, who'd barely set foot outside central England at that point, seemingly imagined the Chelsea neighborhood in New York to be one big cartoon traffic jam.

I love everything Fairport touched in this era so my objectivity is suspect when I say their version is great. Even so, it surely is not the song's apex.

Judy Collins 69 version is equally busy and decidedly less cool: a rock band, which probably features Stephen Stills on bass, bongos and balogna, competes here with a bubble blowing birthday orchestra. Collins lets the song get stuck between her Wildflowers orchestral and her Who Knows Where the Time Goes light/psych rock phases. And no one in Chelsea is happy about it.

Great as Collins could be on occasion, her take simply does not work. Indeed, like every other attempt at Chelsea Morning, her cover sends us hurtling back to Joni's own unfussy, jubilant and utterly complex original solo arrangement.

It's simply Joni's song: no one else has ever really understood what it would be to stand in her posh shoes.

So maybe the key is to not even try and channel her. That possibility lead us to my favorite cover of Chelsea Morning, which comes compliments of the great bossa nova / funk act Brasil 66. Band leader Sergio Mendes, who just passed away this fall, set a smooth American, Lani Hall, at the mic in 1970 and told everyone involved to avoid swing the song without any sense of mimicry.

What emerges served as a blueprint for everyone, including Mitchell herself, who wanted to transition Joni's music away from white washed soundscapes. Mendes' piano sends nearly all of Joni's incense, jewels and curtains airborne and aloft.

The rainbow simply never washes away with this song. It's always out there, eager to shine on us. We just need to take the time to look.

[hellraiseher]

obsessed with this version for how grotesque it is in stripping the song of all its sincerity and commonly interpreted victimhood (whether or not you want to read the lyrics as implicating abuse - popular with the nancy sinatra cover - there is clearly a positioning of a Wronged Party here). instead with sonny's delivery it reeks of being a grandiose, overblown display of male fragility & collapsing vanity.... his sleazy cabaret vocals are less a plea for empathy and more an ex-husband drinking himself into the gutter after his wife has rightfully left him because he cheated on her only 500 times. while cher's original iteration had a campiness, it still undoubtedly laid thick into the tragedy of it all with its instrumentation focusing on melodic strings and acoustic guitar. by gross contrast, this arrangement is more befitting of a slick 70s action movie that tarantino would reference and sample. ... the isaac hayes-ish funk styling of the bass, piano and keyboards.. the explosive brass that's given its own intervals... it's such a flagrant effort to somehow maintain a modicum of masculine pride within the song's narrative but just ends up sounding more pathetic because of how OTT the showmanship is.... he even goes so far as to manipulate the narrator and subject's ages, the original 'i was five and he was six' altered to 'she was five and i was six' to reiterate that the boy is older than & thus experientially superior to the girl ......

on top of that the final note isn't even worth his masturbatory dialogue interlude !!!!!! (the drum solo is fun but then his flirting with the audience and shit elvis impression euuhgghh ).... it FEELS like such a disrespectful misinterpretation (of his own song!!!!) bc of the much more culturally embedded & solemn nancy sinatra cover, so this machismo-theatrical reframing plays out like a bastardisation... all that being said it is the version i listen to the most and all feminism leaves my body when the brass kicks in ...

[idontwanttospoiltheparty]

This is probably a dumb or unanswerable question but your answer about George's songwriting has me thinking about it again and I really do want to know. I understand intellectually the where the line is between songwriting and arranging in terms of labor, but I don't really understand how they can be different skill sets? Isn't part of writing a song figuring out how all the pieces fit together? To me it sounds like writing without arranging would be similar to writing beautiful sentences without being able to construct a paragraph?

Preface: I kind of misread your question at first so sorry for saying some things you probably already know, just find this fun to talk about :( I love the journey of creating art!!!

Most songwriting happens with a single instrument at hand or even none. It generally involves coming up with the main melody, the words, the chords, and perhaps something like a guitar solo. Cause of this it doesn't involve much imagining because one can as a single person create the song on its own, and many great songs are strong even when stripped to their bare bones – not all, some songs live off their arrangement which is fine! I think this is true for a lot of pop music nowadays tbh.

Take the Esher demo of While My Guitar Gently Weeps! It's great and shows incredible skill in lyricism and melody building, it transitions from minor to major absolutely beautifully and would be performable just like this.

The song is fully written here, apart from a few lyrical changes. We have the full structure, all the chords, and a basic idea for a descending bassline, which I'd say toes the line between arrangement and songwriting.

Arranging is mapping out every other instrument in detail, the vocal harmonies, studio effects you might want to use, possibly even how loud everything is. It's much more holistic and multi-disciplinary I'd say, requires knowledge of instruments one might not play or requires cooperation between instrumentalists. It's also a lot more free I'd say. There's more types of sound than types of melodies in our music, I'd say (that might differ from something like classical Indian music which uses multiple tunings and uses microtones more liberally, while generally keeping to a specific set of instruments afaik)*

*feel free to correct me on this if you know more.

That brings us to the final version of the song:

Now we've added a piano intro, we've figured out the percussion, we've brought in backing vocals in some places (but not everywhere!), the bass has a full fledged part, the rhythm guitar isn't the same as in the Esher demo. Balancing all these pieces together is, I'd say, entirely different from matching lyrics to melodies and chords.

Sometimes the writing and arranging happen simultaneously, which can blur the lines a bit, but they're very distinct skills IMO. It's what distinguishes the songwriter from the producer profession nowadays (less so in the 60s I think, and it's different with bands anyways, think more of modern pop solo songs here).

Two more fun before (pre-arranging) and afters (post-arranging) below the cut:

(skip to 0:43) The lyrics were still incomplete at this stage. The producers are actually shouting production/arrangement ideas live which is cool!

The final version has a completely different flow and a distinctive minimalist electro sound, which isn't discernible from Taylor's initial song. The instrumental is quite masterfully arranged to build tension throughout the song, making the background chords slowly get louder throughout the second verse, using ad libs in the final chorus.

That being said the song still sounds great with just her and a guitar.

Another interesting example: Real Love

John did do a fair amount of his own arranging in this version – his piano part is fully developed and he recorded a simple tambourine. Still, this is incomparable to what Paul, George and Ringo would eventually do with it:

John is the sole credited writer of this song, yet obviously he had no hand in its final arrangement, though his piano playing definitely guided the other three.

Would John have done the same with it? Who knows. Would it have been as good? Who knows.

[heartsoulrocknroll]

Piano Man Ranked

This was so hard for me, because I love every song on this album. These rankings are based primarily on the album versions, but if I was unsure, the position was ultimately determined by my favorite live version. I firmly believe that you can't truly appreciate how great the songs on this album are without hearing them played live by the 1976-1982 Billy Joel band.

1) The Ballad of Billy the Kid

I am so obsessed with this song. I think it's one of the greatest songs Billy has ever written, from the excellent instrumentation and arrangement to the fanastic storytelling lyrics. I love the album recording. The clip-clop of the horse hooves. The campfire harmonica. But the back and forth between the band (especially when the strings come in) and those ICONIC piano riffs does something to my brain. I freak out every time I hear it even though I've heard it repeatedly for 12 years. And the piano work throughout the entire song is just phenomenal. The live versions obviously don't have the strings, but the post-1975 live versions with the core Billy Joel band have a whole different energy that make the strings unnecessary. I have to mention the 1976 University of Connecticut live performance of this song, because that particular combination of Billy's vocals, Billy's kickass piano playing, and the band's pure energy literally makes me the audibly-yellin', hand-wavin', object-throwin' kind of insane.

2) Somewhere Along the Line

This song reminds me a bit of James Taylor in parts, but then those big backing vocals and piano riffs come in and take the song in another direction. The melody is great, the lyrics are some of the best on the album, and Billy just goes nuts on the piano, especially on the break after the third verse, during the fourth verse, and on the break that closes the song. I love the album recording, but this is another song that really comes to life in the live setting with the slightly higher tempo, the more prominent guitar riffs, Liberty on the drums, and Billy singing and playing like the world-class singer and piano player that he is.

3) Worse Comes to Worst

This song rocks so hard and blends so many musical styles. The signature guitar riff is super funky. The pedal steel guitar makes another appearance for more country undertones. The background vocals provide a gospel flavor, while the steel drums come in later on for a bit of a Caribbean feel. But even still, this remains distinctly a rock 'n' roll song. The album version is great for the aforementioned reasons, but the live versions rock so much harder. I love the 1977 CW Post live version more than life itself. I know I never shut up about it, but my god, Liberty's drumming adds so much drive to these early songs, and Billy sings the hell out of this song live.

4) Travelin' Prayer

I love absolutely everything about this song. The brushes on the drums, the bass, the opening piano, the banjo, the fiddle, the lyrics, Billy's vocal, the psychotic tempo. This is just a fantastic country/bluegrass song that takes what is great about those genres and improves it with the incorporation of Billy's brilliant piano breaks, especially the piano solo during the first instrumental break, which just rocks. This song doesn't have as strong of a country feel without the banjo and fiddle, but the live performances with Liberty's energetic drums, Richie's sax additions, Doug's driving bass, and Billy's piano improvs are incredible in an entirely different way.

5) Ain't No Crime

The soulful, gospelly vibes of this song really do it for me. I LOVE the use of the organ, and the piano riffs slap so hard it ain't funny. This is another song that needs to be heard live to be truly appreciated, with Liberty on the drums and Richie adding some sax. Billy goes crazy on the piano and does such a fantastic, soulful vocal on this song live.

6) Captain Jack

This is just an epic song. Billy's piano parts in the intro and the verses are beautifully done. The combination of Billy's organ and that legendary guitar riff in the chorus is so dramatic and really gives the song its epic feel. The lyrics are a great commentary on how people can have everything and still be overcome by the aimlessness and hopelessness of life. I like the album version, but this is another song that really takes on a whole new life in the live setting with Billy improvising on the piano and singing so incredibly well, while Liberty adds the dramatic opening cymbals and the ridiculous driving drum transitions from the third and fourth verses into the third and fourth choruses. 😭😭

7) Piano Man

No matter how many times I hear this song, I will never stop loving it. It's popular for a reason: it's great. That iconic opening piano riff gets me every time. The harmonica parts are great. The piano break after the third verse rocks on the album, and rocks even harder live. These are some of the best lyrics on the album. They are excellent, immersive, storytelling lyrics with a great rhyme scheme.

8) If I Only Had the Words (To Tell You)

This is a gorgeous melody with a distinctly beautiful opening piano riff, more beautiful piano work throughout the song, and some nice strings toward the end. This is also one of those songs that really makes me go, "Damn, that guy can sing." I am a freak about singing, and there is a live version of this (supposedly from Carnegie Hall in 1974) in which Billy gives a vocal performance that brings me to tears if I focus on it too hard. Billy may not like the sound of his own voice, but I'd give anything to sing like that.

9) You're My Home

This is a great, country-sounding song. It's one of those classic, beautiful Billy Joel melodies. The album version isn't very piano-heavy, but there are a few nice piano bits in there. And the instrumentation is great nonethless, from the finger picking on the acoustic guitar to the pedal steel guitar. Billy's vocal here is really beautiful as well.

10) Stop in Nevada

This is a beautiful song with a great melody and a great build from the quiet piano and pedal steel in the verses to the big, full choruses with the backing choir and the strings

[burlveneer-music]

Alessandro Alessandroni - Alessandroni Proibito (Music from Red Light Films 1977​-​1980) - some real vintage 70s Italian soundtrack grooves, from erotic movies

Alessandro Alessandroni is no longer remembered simply as 'the whistler' in Morricone's spaghetti western soundtracks – and rightly so, since he was the key figure behind much of Italian 'secret music' from the 60s and 70s, always there in the studio during recording sessions, whether as a multi-instrumentalist or as the leader of session vocal group I Cantori Moderni di Alessandroni. Today his pervasive presence and important role has been finally recognized by music professionals and enthusiasts alike, so much so that he is now considered the true father of Italian library music – a genre whose sound he shaped since 1968.

As a film composer, Alessandroni often worked for small productions that had very limited (and often regional-only) distribution, and whose budgets were worlds apart from those in the 'top league' where friends and colleagues like Morricone, Bacalov, Trovajoli or Piccioni thrived. Rarely released as a soundtrack, this music ended up, at best, forgotten inside dusty ¼-inch reels or, at worst, disappearing into thin air. After a string of releases that have brought back to life forgotten or lost works by Alessandroni (Sangue di Sbirro, Afro Discoteca, Lost and Found, etc.), it was pretty natural for us at Four Flies to start delving into a little investigated area of his filmography: his scores for erotic films, the last genre to gain popularity in the flourishing Italian film industry of the 60s and 70s, and perhaps the most extreme too, the one that, by pushing things too far, eventually put an end to that industry and its genres. So, we're now very proud to present Alessandroni Proibito, an exclusive boxed set of five 7-inch records. It contains a total of 14 previously unreleased tracks from the soundtracks of 4 soft-core erotic films that included hard-core sequences and, therefore, fell somewhere in-between normal commercial distribution and the underground scene of adult movie theatres. Taking an artisanal approach to his musical craft, Alessandroni was not afraid of having to deal with spicy subject matter, wobbly productions, implausible plots, improvised actors, or cinematographers who were clearly no disciples of Storaro. And he was so good at making a virtue out of necessity, at turning budget constraints into creative advantages, that he created soundtracks that far surpass the films' quality, with music that at once captures and elevates the spirit of the erotic genre as if into a condensed symbol. More specifically, the maestro recorded many of the pieces in a DIY fashion at home, using a 4-track Teac tape machine to arrange his compositions. The Teac allowed him to play different instruments on each track, which meant he could basically put an entire soundtrack together all by himself, or almost all by himself. These recordings often feature drum machines – which provide that retro, early electronic music vibe – as well as funk guitars and exotic-sounding percussion in the rhythm tracks. In addition, there is an extensive, almost bewildering use of synthesizers to replace solo instruments that would have required a paid session player. On top this minimalist arrangement, Alessandroni layered what he could: some piano chords, a little flute and, most importantly, his signature 12-string guitar phrasing. The result is just stunning: a unique mixture of electronic music and acoustic instruments, in a style that stops short of kitsch and ranges from cinematic ambient pieces like "Tensione erotica" to disco-funk tracks like "Snake Disco" and "One Sunday Morning", both of which feature vocals by Alessandroni himself.

[luuurien]

Lil Shine - Lovesick

(PluggnB, Pop Rap, Trap)

On his latest EP, Lil Shine’s candied cloud rap throws in more rock guitars and lush orchestration, his melodic flow given a little more space to breathe. Lovesick’s playful PluggnB hasn’t changed much from his debut, but it’s the little things that make all the difference.

☆☆☆☆

Underground trap’s idiosyncrasies often make for some of the wildest listens, and that’s especially the case for Minneapolis’ Lil Shine. With dozens of singles and his SH!NE and Heavenly Ascension mixtapes establishing his presence prior to his debut album Losing Myself, his nasally vocals and sugary plugg beats had already found their sweet spot, making the album one of last year’s strangest and loveliest listens. But, like before, his music had to continue expanding, his latest mixtape Lovesick throwing rock guitars and lush orchestration, his melodic flows given a little more space to breathe while the music stays as energetic and boastful as ever. It shares all its main characteristics with Shine’s previous releases, and Lovesick is all the better for it, a second helping of Losing Myself addictive PluggnB with just enough new flavors thrown in to make it distinct and exciting to hear.

Fitting to its name, Lovesick features more romantic arrangements replete with swooning strings and warm piano leads, distorted drum programming and synth chord progressions still here but driven by a softer spirit. Mistakes opens up with a grand piano progression and gentle strings before the beat kicks in, Shine’s midtempo flow letting him slowly work out tangled feelings towards a breakup, while the title track interpolates its melody from Paramore’s Stop This Song (Lovesick Melody) (even playing a bit of the song as the song fades out) to harness some of that bitter, heartbroken pop rock energy into a hazy cloud rap cut. The obvious heavy hitter is Jeans Soaked, a massive second half highlight pushed by a winding electric guitar and triumphant horns for one of his best hooks to date (I haven’t stopped humming “I spilled wockhardt on my jeans, now my jeans soaked!” for weeks now), but the surrounding song’s lighter presence makes for a good balance, Too Much’s 8-bit synth leads and the smooth guitar solo in One Last Time subtle but lovely changes to Shine’s sound that don’t mess with the form of his songs. It’s some of the best rap this year, and all of its weirdness only makes it better. Lovesick’s playful PluggnB hasn’t changed much from his debut, but it’s the little things that make all the difference. Leaner and more diverse in its sound, it makes a wonderful follow-up to Losing Myself with some new twists, taking on the sharper edges of rock and pop punk and sprinkling it around the usual bassy 808’s and synth leads. Still tapping into the possibilities of PluggnB and how far he can stretch its limits, Lil Shine’s music continues to be as fun as ever with all the weirdness and creativity those early Soundcloud releases got so much traction from. Lovesick may be about heartbreak, but it’s the most lovable and exciting music from Lil Shine yet, bittersweet alt-rap in all the right ways.

[dojae-huh]

JN and JW hinting they are starting to record for 127 cb album. The keyword is "starting" we may not know when it'll release it could be next year. DJJ start recording for mini album since Jan 2022 its means the plans had been cooked since 2021. DJJ is still busy with fansigns and if the fancon is a tour we might get another date at least until July. TY solo is on June 5th. Dream tours is still going until July 11th (if theres no additional show). If nct2023 will be release on Aug then Dream cb is on Sept (SM said they both in Q3). On the other hand, today timeline has been talking bout TI bbl, he said about sleeping for hours and feel hopeless. I dont know exactly what he refered it could be anything, but I bet its about lack of solo activity and his e-date is due. Or it could be about his songs got rejected by SM. SM has a plan for whole year, its only on Q2 yet already messed up (aespa and Taeyeon cb should be on April). Seems like he cant fit anything on the masterplan and he frustated. I pity him really, but SM is SM, they are business oriented company. He must be working on something profitable if making music doesnt give him a place in company. I wish he has a bit of DY/TY confidence in building his own idol self, doing something to gain attention from gp, networking with people in industries, creating his own portofolio on sns, etc.

I'd prefer to wait more but get a good result out of it.

Granted, we, fans, lost fate in SM after the mess of the last year, however, the delays were always a problem, meanwhile SM does have a record of performing well (2018 run, NCT2020 run). DJJ's debut and aespa's comeback show improvements in quality of preparations. As such, I wouldn't catastrophize. It's in SM's interest to give 127 an album this year. Album sales and new songs for a new tour bring money, not delays. It's not like 127 is an unprofitable group or a group from a small company that has no funds for a new comeback.

I think what's important to realise is that the fear of 127 disbanding is not valid anymore.

Taeil's bubble.

Fans in quirts "read the future". They put words in Taeil's mouth, they don't know what he feels really, what he meant to convey with his bubble. Who wouldn't want to have a long sleep? People dream of having lots of money and not needing to work. And here is Taeil, with money, and not needing to wake up 3 a.m.

Taeyong did a promotion today in a theme park for the Rose day. He said he always wanted to do something on this day, and here he is, giving out 605 roses on the street. The company heard his wish and arranged the flowers and the event. Is this mistreatment? If Doyoung and Taeyong get budget for their covers and dance numbers for a YT channel, then why it is expected that Taeil would be treated differently? Being the best vocal in the group? Why SM can give him two solo numbers for Link+ and center a cooking show for YT content around him, but "acts evil" otherwise?

We don't know what is the deal with Taeil. Is it the problem of scheduling and him needing to enlist soon, or maybe it's a problem of him being a less popular member and SM starting the solo releases with more popular members for a better publicity, or maybe he is stuck with the creative side of things/SM not finding him a worthy A-track yet. He will get his solo album sooner or later. Everyone does now, so there is no worry about that.

You wish Taeil to be like Taeyong or Doyoung. Will it make him happier? Why the fans refuse idols like him (homebodies who instead of wandering the streets of a new city spend hours playing pool or who cook meat in 20 ways) to exist and just be? He has respect from people around him, he is friends with renowned producers, he has security in his job, he travels the world, he has money for a private pilates instructor, he has time to play piano and guitar and learn how to compose, he has freedom of doing lives where he sings for hours for millions of people tuning in if he wishes so... and if he sounds or looks unhappy or frustrated sometimes it is because noone is always happy, it's simply impossible, our human programming doesn't allow it.

Anyways. Let's stop thinking for idols and pity those who made it to the top of idol career.

[dustedmagazine]

Adeline Hotel — Whodunnit (Ruination)

Dan Knishkowy’s band Adeline Hotel appears as a sextet of musicians on his 2024 Ruination recording Whodunnit. The singer/songwriter/guitarist is joined by keyboardist Winston Cook-Wilson, drummer Sean Mullins, upright bassist Carmen Quill, and vocalists Katie Von Schleicher and Jackie West. Von Schleicher and Sandro Perri are on the production team. Despite the numbers, the music is more subdued and the arrangements sparer than last year’s Hot Fruit or 2020’s Solid Love. Knishkowy has remarked that emphasizing the lyrics was an important consideration in recording Whodunnit.

Adeline Hotel has been a prolific project, releasing music steadily since 2016. Knishkowy channels a number of indie luminaries, including David Grubbs, Phil Elverum and Jim O’Rouke. He also addresses the breakup of his marriage. This is noteworthy in that, without rancor, Knishkowy examines emotions, endings, and paths not taken.

“How did I Get So Lucky?” opens with an extended acoustic guitar introduction, punctuated by piano chords and a dash of birdsong. When Knishkowy’s voice enters, it is a brittle, upper register keening. The opening motive also serves as an interlude between verses. After a keening final verse, the song slowly dissipates on a held guitar chord.

The title track, which clocks in just above six minutes, has gentle singing combined with subdued acoustic guitar and piano. Partway through, sparks of electric guitar and group vocals accompany a gradual overall crescendo. A cadential halt is followed by a return to the verse amid synth whorls. The chorus resumes, adding electric guitar, piano, and backing vocals to synth glissandos. However, the final verse is nearly unaccompanied, and the coda brings back an acoustic guitar alongside a laconic vocal.

“Preying On” is a delicate miniature in which the band plays a subdued background to duet vocals. “Grief” emphasizes the singing in the mix, underlaid with arco bass and dulcet piano harmonies. Partway through, a sustained note on the double bass serves as a pedal for guitars, which are then distressed by synths. “Egg On My Face” brings the whole instrumental cohort together to buoy a wistful vocal. There is an extended outro emphasizing the acoustic guitar and textural synths that is quite fetching. “Joy” is a warm yet melancholic ballad with trading solos from piano and acoustic guitar. Krishkowy’s vocals are sinuously mesmerizing. “Isn’t That Enough” is another ballad conception, with propulsive acoustic guitar, gleaming keyboards, a simple patterning in bass and drums, and doubled vocals. The opening of “Joy” sounds more laconic than ebullient, but Krishkowy’s singing and the backing band gradually take on an affirming demeanor.

“Isn’t that Enough?” is about how much is emotionally revealed to a partner, and whether our innermost thoughts can safely be shared. While the love affair is over, memories of a time together are potent and persistent. “I Will Let Your Flowers Grow” affords the band the opportunity for a long solo section. Afterwards, Krishkowy returns to sing some of the most poignantly revealing music on the album. The refrain serves as an outro with backing vocals added to the mix. The final track, “Possible Lives” pits a rousing arrangement against vulnerable singing. Krishkowy sees painful memories and lost opportunities, “I was lucky, so lucky,” with a sense of resignation and resilient hope that there may be more to his life than this challenging time. Whodunnit isn’t like any previous Adeline Hotel, and it is the better for it.

Christian Carey

[krispyweiss]

Cat Power at Columbus Athenaeum, Columbus, Ohio, Sept. 18, 2024

Cat Power took the Columbus Athenaeum stage and a faux Bob Dylan concert broke out.

The singer and her six-piece, small-“b” band were in Ohio’s capital city Sept. 18 on the long-running Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert tour, which grew out of the 2023 Power album that recreated the long-bootlegged Dylan gig erroneously believed to have occurred at the titular venue but was actually held at the Manchester Free Trade Hall.

Without introduction, Power walked on to the Athenaeum’s darkened stage at a fashionably late 8:20 p.m. and, accompanied by acoustic guitar and occasional harmonica, leaned into Dylan’s folksinger side with “She Belongs to Me.”

Employing simpler-than-Dylan’s arrangements and her own vocal phrasing, Power’s deep, smoky voice matched the dim, smoky ambience that obscured the singer in near darkness, save for a small lamp illuminating the lyrics Power continues to read nearly a year into the tour.

A forgotten turning of the page during “Desolation Row” confirmed the songbook’s necessity as the small audience listened respectfully - and noticed it was he who makes love “Just Like a Woman” and breaks like a little girl - and applauded each number lustily.

While Sound Bites’ mind occasionally wandered during the 55-minute, Cowboy Junkies-quiet opening segment, the blog was instantly riveted - and reaching for earplugs - as the rest of the musicians emerged and launched into “Tell Me, Momma,” their cacophonous, big-“B” Band sound - piano and organ; two electric guitars; bass and drums - blasting through the dim haze on stage.

The slow-rolling rendition of “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” was a highlight as the dueling keyboardists wound around and tangled with each other and Power’s soulful vocals matched the soul emanating from the rhythm section.

The purposeful sloppiness of “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat” inspired Power to mimic playing the solo on top of the upright piano at stage left; the brooding “Ballad of a Thin Man” mirrored the singer’s onstage demeanor; and the double-time arrangement of “Like a Rolling Stone” found her for the first time removing her mic from its stand and moving around as she sang.

“Fight the power,” she said when it ended. “Keep your chin up. Take your time. It’s your time.”

And then she disappeared.

Setlist: “She Belongs to Me;” “Fourth Time Around;” “Visions of Johanna;” “It’s All over Now, Baby Blue;” “Desolation Row;” “Just Like a Woman;” “Mr. Tambourine Man;” “Tell Me, Momma;” “I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Met);” “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down;” “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues;” “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat;” “One Too Many Mornings;” “Ballad of a Thin Man;” “Like a Rolling Stone”

Grade card: Cat Power at Columbus Athenaeum - 9/18/24 - B-

9/19/24

[daggerzine]

Blind Terry- The Beautiful Youth and Everything That Follows (cloudberry)

(cover art- Matilda Flodmark)

It’s been a long time coming for these Blind Terry tracks to be released. I loved their first EP:

I searched for more songs, but only a few live songs turned up on YouTube (great songs eventually released on this new release). So, I contacted Roque Ruiz of the fine cloudberry records label about them after hearing the first EP. He said they had more music and was hoping for a full length, but little did I know it would take fifteen years to release some more. These “new” tracks were recorded in Stockholm, Sweden’s Panic Room Studio back between 2008-2010. The band consists of Kristina Bergström on vocals, piano; Henrik Burman on vocals, guitar; Isak Ekblom on bass; Björn Andersson on drums; and Josefin Carlén on trumpet. Numerous additional musicians add guitar, choir, saxophone, flute, trumpet, including Jon Bergström, who produced and mixed the tracks. All of the songs are written by Kristina Bergström and arranged by her and Henrik. The bouncy piano ballads from the first EP take a slight backseat, but the songs are still catchy indie pop. “Hundred Years Too Old,” kicks off side A with jangly guitars upfront, but Kristina’s vocals and piano add to the beauty. The addition of the angelic backing vocals, the soaring brass, and the gorgeous flute truly add to the emotion of the lyrics, “Everything, I wanted it to be a symphony that would sound like solitariness, of a fair, after closing time, no single moments, just noise, all noise to surround me, perfectly. I sit in silence and think of the matchbox trick, the beauty and perfection almost makes me sick. I must be a hundred years too old.” Next up is “I Dream of Contracts.” Another beautiful, somber song that has punches of guitars, until the rest of the band joins in. Kristina’s piano technique and heartfelt vocals are in tip-top shape here. It’s a great one to sing along to (if only I could figure out all of the lyrics). I got a taste of this song from this live version from 2010, but the studio version absolutely soars:

The last track on side A is “Train.” It’s back to Kristina and her detailed piano skills up front. “I am broke, and I’ve been on the train all day.” Throw in some subtle touches of horns, cymbals, and beats that eventually build with the band rocking in full throttle. In trickles sax, bass, flute, and guitar. The mix of instruments here is unbelievable, great production by Jon. Here’s another live version from 2010:

The B-side starts with “How Love is Fast,” a jangled guitar assault that’s another beauty with a beat and horns. The drums enter center stage in the middle for a nice segue back to the beginning melody filled with a beautiful vocal arrangement. Next up, “Close, Closer, Closer” starts with a pounding drum attack until Kristina’s beautiful piano enters front and center. A slower, softer tune that shares the emotional vocals the melody emits. A throbbing bass guitar over piano and background vocals leads to razor-sharp guitar solos. The album ends with “Headspins and Bad Dreams,” a “hidden” track that is possibly my favorite in this batch. Amazing piano, jangly guitars, blasting horns; it’s everything you could ask for in an indie pop song. “Readymade, it's all in your head, grieve the discomfort you've had. It somehow makes you proud though if no one will ever see. You just begun to imagine how you would feel.” It’s another beautiful song from the heart that builds and builds with the additional sounds from the rest of the band. It’s one of those tracks you just don’t want to end. And that’s a perfect way to close this album. If you’re quick enough, you're going to want to snag the limited pressing of the 10” on the cloudberry website. (I can't stop playing it. Excellent production!) Just so you know, everything sells out quickly there so don’t wait too long. ERIC EGGLESON

(photo: Viktor Sjödin)

https://www.cloudberryrecords.com/

[sinceileftyoublog]

Jon Langford Interview: Serve the Song

BY JORDAN MAINZER

When you ask Jon Langford what he's up to in the near future, he'll likely list a few upcoming concerts and art exhibitions before you realize he's referring to just this upcoming weekend. For the singer-songwriter and painter, the Mekon and Waco Brother, his past, present, and future discography and levels of participation seem just as vast. During his most recent visit to Austin (of which SXSW was a mere part), Langford played twelve shows: four with The Waco Brothers, three with The Far Forlon (his Austin-based band that plays Langford solo and Mekons songs), and five with The Bright Shiners, his new band that just released their debut record, Where It Really Starts (Tiny Global Productions). But Langford views himself as a mere thread rather than the center. "I am lucky to get to work with people more talented than me," he said to me over the phone after returning from SXSW. Sarcasm aside, Where It Really Starts epitomizes that democratic approach. "I love having not all of the responsibility on myself to come up with stuff," Langford said. "It's not a solo album. It's better than that."

The Bright Shiners started when Langford and John Szymanski, his frequent musical partner, attempted to make a duo acoustic guitar record that resulted in some interesting tunes, but not enough to resist contacting singer and keyboard player Alice Spencer. That is, though the Austin-based Spencer played in soul-funk band Shinyribs, Langford and Szymanski were enraptured by her solo work and Mellotron playing. Spencer was on board, and then Langford and Szymanski brought in violinist Tamineh Gueramy. The four wrote the majority of the songs on Where It Really Starts, with Langford concocting first drafts, Spencer arranging, and the group taking them to fruition. The result is easily the most lush music of Langford's career, from the steadily chiming "For The Queen of Hearts" to the dulcet "I Have A Wish".

Where It Really Starts is rich without being overstuffed, a natural combination of layered guitars and vocal harmonies, piano, pedal-affected strings, looped percussion, and of course, Mellotron. In other words, it's folk music with contemporary touches, Langford's storytelling firmly in the present while sometimes sounding appropriately old-timey. His vocal delivery resembles that of a troubadour on the fluttery, swaying "Awake The Land Of The Shadows"; he passionately trills on "Seahouses". And on "Discarded", a duet with Spencer, the two finish each other's sentences like a sardonic country couple. "You can talk about love, you can talk about society," sings Langford, "But when push comes to shove, you wiped the floor with me," responds Spencer, atop brawny, off-kilter horns. "Seahouses" and "Discarded", specifically, contain a multitude of musical ideas Spencer brought to the table, the former's filmic feel and the latter's horns. And even producer Brian Beattie gets his kicks: The album's final track, which sounds like an outtake from or demo of "Discarded", was actually Beattie playing all of the instruments in the studio and recording his half-hearted attempt at the lyrics of "Discarded", which The Bright Shiners found so funny, they decided to put it on the album.

My interview with Langford was not set up through a publicist. I literally said hello to him when I ran into him at The Beer Temple, at which point he mentioned he had a new record coming out that he'd be down to talk about. Two weeks later, we spoke on the phone. He and The Bright Shiners signed a two-album deal with Tiny Global Productions, so you can expect to hear more, but who knows what else--spontaneous or otherwise--Langford will get up to. In the meantime, read our interview below, edited for length and clarity.

Since I Left You: When did The Bright Shiners form, and when did you start writing Where It Really Starts?

Jon Langford: It was more a social thing. We were talking. Alice Spencer was in a band...she's a keyboard player and a very good technical singer. She was doing other solo stuff which was really fascinating. She has a jazz background, but isn't into that virtuoso jazz stuff. We decided to write a few songs with John Szymanski and Tamineh [Gueramy.] John [had] been working with me, and I said to him [about Alice], "This woman's playing a Mellotron." And he said, "We should form a band with her." I didn't know there was such a thing as digital Mellotron. It's really kind of fascinating to me. Most of the songs are co-writes by the whole band. But I was handing over sketches and [Alice] was turning them into fully realized arrangements with vocals.

SILY: Did you come up with the lyrics?

JL: All the lyrics are mine.

SILY: How did you finish the songs? Was that a group effort?

JL: Yeah, the arrangements and the songs. The guy who produced it with us, [Brian Beattie,] had been working with Alice a lot. They'd done a duo together. The studio is called The Wonder Chamber. Alice was doing some recording there and sent me some video. I said, "Where is this? This is fantastic! If we do anything, this is where we should do it."

SILY: Is it in Austin?

JL: Yeah.

SILY: It seems to me that this album, more than your other solo albums, exists in the folk tradition but with more contemporary touches. Maybe that's the digital Mellotron. Would you agree?

JL: Yeah. We just wanted it to be kind of minimal. We started off with acoustic guitars, because John and I had been doing that for quite a while in a duo. We tried to make a record just me and him with acoustic guitar. It was alright, and we had a few ideas, but that's kind of on the backburner.

Music is so inherently collaborative. I've had solo records where I was totally in charge. This is basically something else. The song "Seahouses" was this epic thing Alice came up with based on something I'd sent her. I thought, "I don't remember writing this." It was mind-blowing. So beautiful, so different.

SILY: It definitely is a song that sounds like the seaside.

JL: There's something cinematic about it. I want to bash things down as simply and plainly as possible. That one has some epic moments. It's minimal in the sense that it's not a jam band. It's more like a dub reggae record where you have parts that lock and drive the song along and serve the record. When there's no singing, the parts get kind of detached from it. You can listen to these individual parts. It's getting away from the virtuosity and soloing: Just trying to serve the song.

SILY: Was there anything different this time around that inspired your lyrics?

JL: That's a good question. I'll have to talk to my therapist about that. [laughs] The lyrics are quite personal. They are inspired by the visual art I do. "For The Queen of Hearts", there was a painting called The Queen of Hearts that I made, a country singer that's like a playing card, body on top and repeated underneath. She's got two heads and is singing. The other one is a skull. I thought the song was kind of based on that.

SILY: Are you contextualizing each song with paintings you've done that might have inspired them?

JL: Some of them. "Seahouses", I went to a place called "Seahouses". It's a really dramatic place in the north of England, kind of bleak, pebbles rolling and smashing against each other, permanent and impermanent at the same time. The transitory nature of life and time itself, or something. It sounds really bonkers when I say it like that. [laughs]

Each song, I guess, has its own life. There's a lot of visual stuff in them.

SILY: There seems to be a good mix of songs that are reflective or internal and others more about storytelling, such as "Tell Me Your Story".

JL: I wrote that with a friend in Chicago, Jenny Bienemann. She had a project where she would write haikus and would hand them out to [people] to write a song from it to perform in a concert. There were 15 haikus, and she said, "Pick one you like." I thought "Tell Me Your Story" was fantastic. When you meet someone, you want to find out everything about them.

SILY: When you write or listen to folk music, do you tend to draw parallels between the modern day and the past?

JL: I think I write pretty much in the present. I'm not writing nostalgic or particularly optimistic [songs] anymore. I've tried to temper realism or pessimism.

SILY: A song like "The Emperor's Fiddle", with lines about talking to the dead and necromancing, and a line like, "We have more guns and disease than you can ever use" sounds like something that could be from an old folk song, but you could apply it to the modern day.

JL: You can apply it to the modern day. It's about going up the river and selling the Natives whiskey.

SILY: Why did you choose to throw in an unlisted track at the end that's basically an outtake of "Discarded"?

JL: That's actually Brian Beattie setting up the studio before we even arrived and playing all the instruments himself. [laughs] The first time I sat in the studio properly, he played me that. [laughs] I could have walked out. "Are you taking the piss? Are you making fun of us?" We all find it really amusing. "Is it you...I?" It grew on me in the end. I was like, "It's gotta go on."

SILY: It's like when people leave in studio chatter, but taken to the extreme.

JL: It exists. I don't know what else we were gonna do with it. Put it in a box and bury it somewhere? [laughs]

SILY: Did you do the album art for this?

JL: It's a collaboration between me and Jim Sherraden, the master printer at Hatch Show Print in Nashville. It's his woodcuts and my central figures.

SILY: How does it relate to the story of the album?

JL: It's parallel. I started working with him when we started The Bright Shiners. It was work that I was making. The idea of two people with a guitar flying through the air. There's an ethereal nature to a lot of these songs that ties in quite nicely. I like the idea of the printmaking. It's ornate. I like repetition. Mark E. Smith said, "It's not repetition, it's discipline." I find that in a lot of music I like. There doesn't have to be a high point or piano solo for people to show off their virtuosity. I thought that was a good parallel to the album. It can be beautiful and serious, but it doesn't have to be.

SILY: You can apply what Mark E. Smith says to listening, to, especially more repetitious songs that take a level of discipline or commitment, especially when they have abstraction to it.

JL: This is sort of artistic conceit. It wasn't just folk songs. We were definitely thinking about robotic, repetitive things going on. Some sort of hypnotic thing. "A Scale of One to Nine", I just wanted to [write a song] that sounds good when it comes back. [laughs] It's really relentless.

SILY: Any time you include wordless harmonies, it wriggles its way into your head.

JL: I don't like when people ask if I've made a concept record. Every record's a concept record to me. It's not like I've made a rock opera. It's a definable narrative. There's a story.

SILY: For how long have you been playing these songs live?

JL: [For] probably about eight months. After playing [at first], we understood what we wanted, and the writing process became a lot easier. We didn't do a whole album in one sitting, it was about four sittings, a few songs each time, and we got better at working. The song "I Have a Wish" is completely live. We wanted to see what it was like all playing together. It was really beautiful. We knew what we wanted to do. It's a simple song.

SILY: It has a really nice lilting melody.

JL: Alice is a really good singer. Most of the songs are duets. She really listens to phrasing and writes harmonies over the top. A lot of the time she's doing quite odd harmonies that are kind of cool.

SILY: How was it adapting some of the other songs to a live performance?

JL: It was pretty easy with this. We don't try making it sound exactly like the record. We did some gigs with a bass player and percussionist last year. Economically, we can't really do [that all the time]. We need to make it work as a four-piece. John and I have an understanding, telepathically, if I go up the neck, he goes down. The snare drum is often playing more percussively than he is, and he's finding notes that are similar to what's on the record but not exactly. Everybody sings really well, as well. We all sing together. There are beautiful moments. Tamineh uses pedals for the violin, and there are a lot of violin effects she's using. She'll use them in place of electric guitar on the record. Some Mellotron sounds are pretty fantastic. The violin with pedal delays can sound like a whole orchestra.

SILY: Did you put horns on "Discarded"?

JL: We did. Alice wanted to put a Salvation Army [brass] band on a track. I wasn't there when she did it. She got some people from Austin. I mirrored the part she was playing on the Mellotron and made it into something bigger. I wasn't sure about that song.

SILY: Are you always writing songs?

JL: Yep. I haven't for a while. I think when we finished the album, I definitely went through, at the end of last year, a phase where I wasn't doing anything. It's like a muscle. Once you turn it on again, it's like a tap. If you're not writing, you are writing somewhere in your head. A lot of things in the songs seem strange to me now because I didn't know what I meant when I wrote them, but sometimes, when we sing them on stage, I go, "Bloody hell, I wonder whether that's what that means." [laughs] It's kind of revealing tapping into the subconscious. That's where a lot of the stuff gets written.

SILY: Do you find it the same when someone in the audience might ask what something means or say a song means something different to them? Do the songs then change meaning for you?

JL: I kind of like the limitations of being a songwriter in the sense you can try and communicate something, but it might be misconstrued. I think that brings responsibility to what you talk about. It's so boring to set up a message, and say, "This song is about." It's a delicate balance to start writing songs and not be pedantic but still be authentic. Hopefully, people think about what you're singing about.

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

JL: I listen to a lot of reggae still, but it's not new. I've got a vinyl player in my painting studio. I like that it stops every 25 minutes and you have to go and choose something else. You can't just put on a playlist. A lot of British reggae music from the 70s and 80s which wasn't appreciated at the time but is pretty fucking great. Steel Pulse, Misty in Roots. Bands I saw and played with at the time.

[newmusicradionetwork]

Brian K & The Parkway Set To Release “Straight Through” featuring Cat Popper March 1

Brian K. Pagels and Stephen Russ, the DC-area duo, Brian K & The Parkway, are releasing their second single, “Straight Through” featuring Cat Popper, known for her band Puss N Boots with Norah Jones and Sasha Dobson and for her work with Jack White, Ryan Adams, Willie Nelson, among others, who provides guest vocals on the track out March 1, 2024 – Pre-Save HERE. But how did a new band that’s just starting out secure Popper on their debut album?  The answer is simple, just ask. Pagels has been a fan of Popper’s vocals since he first heard her sing on Ryan Adams & The Cardinals’ album Cold Roses. “I was immediately struck and moved by her voice,” says Pagels. So, when he heard she was working on releasing her own solo material, he decided to take a chance and reach out. “I filled out a form on her website and asked her if she would consider singing a duet with me,” says Pagels thinking the message would go into a black hole of webforms. “Instead, she responded within an hour with ‘damn dude, I love this tune!,’” says Pagels. After emailing back and forth and talking on the phone “everything came really naturally from there, including the vocal arrangement which I was honored to lay out for Brian and Cat,” says Russ. “They both brought their own touch to it, Cat delivered an incredible vocal take, and that’s the magic you hear on the song.”  Adds Popper, “This song was so fun to sing on and was stuck in my head for weeks!” Brian K & The Parkway just released their debut single “Wind The Clock” January 12 – Listen HERE. On release day, Unrecorded named it a “best new track.” Mayhem Rockstar Magazine said it’s “…a light, infectious composition” while Alchemical Records says the song, “…really highlights this focus on songwriting and storytelling while embracing an energetic and uplifting musicality that is guitar driven, rooted in rock and roll…” “Wind The Clock” which opens with a lilting guitar riff and drum groove, is a commentary on tribalism and the extreme black and white thinking that has materialized in society today. The song offers a means to expel the frustration of it all while expressing a spirit of hope and solidarity with those actively fighting for a better world despite all the forces working against them. “I wanted it to be an anthem for ‘my people,’ those who value peacebuilding, justice, equality, democracy, and universal human rights,” says Pagels. The duo are set to release their debut album, Killing The Bear, March 29, 2024. Most of the work on Killing The Bear was done by Pagels and Russ, but it was mastered by Justin Perkins (North Mississippi Allstars, The Replacements, Lydia Loveless), co-engineered by Zac Thomas at The Jam Room in Columbia, SC, and co-produced and mixed by Collin Derrick. The nine-song collection, a nod to the ‘70s rock sound of artists like Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, and Warren Zevon, is guitar-based, roots-oriented rock, infused with a healthy dose of soul and R&B. Piano and organ play a critical role in establishing the sound along with some horns thrown in for good measure. The duo dubs their sound “coastal heartland rock,” reflecting the fact that their major influences are artists that hail from coastal areas such as New Jersey, Florida, and California, but are known for their own mix of classic heartland rock. Pagels and Russ formed Brian K & The Parkway in 2021. Pagels is from Springsteen’s hometown of Freehold, NJ, Russ is from the Carolinas, both share an innate connection to The Boss and are acutely inspired by him. Although the guys refer to the band name fondly as “very Jersey,” it denotes Pagels‘s name and the fact that The George Washington Memorial Parkway connects the route between their Northern Virginia homes; Pagels lives in Alexandria, Russ lives in Arlington. Killing The Bear’s overarching theme is about our ever-increasing inability as humans to deal with the source of our problems and instead, look to surface-level, near-term solutions, and then declare immediate victory. The songs serve as vignettes about the things we do to cope, for better or worse. Now, with their debut coming, Brian K & The Parkway can’t wait to get out on the road to play it for audiences up and down the east coast beginning this March. They will be kicking off their east coast tour with a special all ages album release party at Jammin Java in Vienna, VA on March 29. Tickets are on sale now HERE. Additional dates below, including a stop in Brooklyn, NY with Diane Gentile. More dates to be added soon. TOUR DATES: March 29 – Jammin Java, Vienna, VA – All ages album release show April 25 – Tin Roof, Charleston, SC April 26 – Curiosity Coffee, Columbia, SC April 28 – The Pinhook, Durham, NC April 30 – The Camel, Richmond, VA May 1 – Quarry House Tavern, Silver Springs, MD May 3 – The Berkeley Oceanfront Hotel, Asbury Park, NJ May 4 – Faces Brewing, Boston, MA May 5 – Sleepwalk, Brooklyn, NY (with Diane Gentile) Brian K & The Parkway Website Instagram Spotify Facebook Substack #  #  # Read the full article

[all-the-fun-of-the-cirkus]

album #7 of the year, and i'm back on my neil young bullshit with after the gold rush

i really hate talking about albums like this. not because it's bad, not at all, it's really good. i just... don't quite like it as much as i'm supposed to on initial listen

most albums sag in the middle imo, and the start of side 2 is the problem here; the oh lonesome me cover is sluggish to the point where it loses me, and birds kinda passes me by, except for that gorgeous chorus. throw in the full band arrangement of don't let it bring you down, which is a great song but oddly sounds less intense than in its guitar-only guise on young shakespeare than here and it drags ever so slightly

the rest of it rules though. it's interesting coming back to early neil, given i've mostly been listening to the ditch trilogy onward, there's a very different vibe to it. it's not really less sad, per se; there's just as much humour on his later albums, and just as much sadness here, but it feels... less desolate in its sadness, i don't know. the sadness on this album feels like being alone on a dark wet evening, where sure, you feel it as much as any other time, but you know the sun's just around the corner, whereas later on it becomes outright depression. until it blasts into a rocker about growing your own weed, at least, but you get the gist

anyway, the start of side 2 is only so disappointing bc side 1 is flat-out jawdropping, especially since it has the good grace to start with two of the most beautiful songs ever written. tell me why is just stunning, absolutely note-perfect, saturated in that lovely melancholic optimism from the raggedly beautiful harmonies (i love the harmonies so much on this album) to the lyrics. i'm so weak for simple summaries of profound emotion, and by-and-large i find neil's lyrics more interesting when he's waxing wry intricate metaphor than when he's being straightforward, but the second verse of this song is such a pure and delightful description of love, it's wonderful

nothing else on here quite compares, but there's a lot of bangers yet. i've been familiar with the title track all my life, and i haven't got bored of it yet. mind you, how could anyone get bored of a song with a flugelhorn solo like that? only love can break your heart is the saddest "cheer up mate" song ever written (i have no idea if this actually cheered graham nash up, maybe he needed the sympathy rather than the pepping up) but it's so tuneful, and the heavy-hearted piano, particularly in the chorus, twists your gut

and then southern man smacks your around the face. i'd like to think these days it'd be a fairly uncontroversial, if blunt, attack on racism but, uh, lmao. i'm sure a lot of the backlash came from people indignantly going "#NotAllSouthernMen" or something, so nothing changes there, i guess. tbh there are many people vastly more qualified than me to talk about this song and racism as a whole, so i'll just say i don't particularly find this song unreasonable and move on to the music. it's the only time on the album you get Guitar Hero Neil, and it's not a bad showcase; the repeated hammering onto that dissonant chord just before the fadeout is just breathtaking. the chorus is the real kicker here, with neil's screaming angry vocals and that bass! in years i'd never noticed that bass, why was this the only album of neil's this guy played on?

the other seriously great song here is when you dance you can really love, which has more top-notch melodies and harmonies and some real strange decisions that kinda pay off? idk why neil didn't bother to write a second verse, but the desperate repetition of "i can really love, i can really love" weirdly ups the intensity so much, and the piano kind of clutters the place up some of the time but makes the chorus with that incessant banging. i'd love to hear an acoustic version of this, actually, the vocals are really gorgeous again. beyond that, i believe in you is nice, and the two snippets at the end of either side are goofy and cute

i must admit, after till the morning comes i was ready to rave about this album. i still love the vibe, and there's some absolutely wonderful stuff on here, it's just a little sad it doesn't manage to maintain its momentum