I've been a music fan since my parents gave me a record player for Christmas when I was still in grade school. The first record I remember owning was "Sesame Street Disco." I've been a professional writer since 2004, but writing long before that. My first published work was in a middle school literary magazine and was a story about a zoo in which the animals could talk.
Thanks to all who listened to my Deep Dive of Alison Krauss on WSND. She’s a living legend, and the show was dedicated to my late wife, Mandy, who introduced me to her.
Here’s the set list:
Alison Krauss – When You Say Nothing at All
Dolly Patron – You’re the Only One
J.D. Crowe and The New South – Old Home Place
Foreigner – Head Games
Electric Light Orchestra – Don’t Bring Me Down
Gary Numan – Cars
Richard Greene – The Tennessee Waltz
Alison Krauss – Grey Eagle and Nick’s Noodle
Dan Tyminski – Carry Me Across the Mountain
Alison Krauss – Too Late to Cry
Alison Krauss and Union Station – Midnight Rambler
Alison Krauss – I’ve Got That Old Feeling
Phish – If I Could
Alison Krauss and The Cox Family – Loves Me Like a Rock
Shenandoah – Somewhere in the Vicinity of the Heart
Alison Krauss – Oh, Atlanta
Alison Krauss – Forget About It
Alison Krauss and Union Station – The Lucky One
Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch – I’ll Fly Away
Alison Krauss and Union Station – Choctaw Hayride (live)
Alison Krauss and Union Station – Unionhouse Branch
Brad Paisley – Whiskey Lullaby
Alison Krauss and Robert Plant – Please Read the Letter (requested)
Alison Krauss, Mark O’Connor, Yo-Yo Ma, and Edgar Meyer – Slumber My Darling (live) (requested)
Heart – These Dreams (live)
Nickel Creek – Smoothie Song
Alison Krauss – Down to the River to Pray
Next week, I go in a completely opposite direction with a Deep Dive of The Damned. Don’t miss that one.
It’s 1991 and Bob Mould has two solo albums under his belt after the break-up of Hüsker Dü. He’s a writing machine and is getting back to his punk roots after his Workboook album that was a bit subdued and full of folk influences. He’s not sure how his fans and the general public are going to react to the new material, however. It’s loud and raw, but also more melodic than his Hüsker Dü material. He hires David Barbe to play bass and Malcolm Travis to play drums for him and names the band Sugar after seeing a sugar packet at a diner (Free advertising at every diner and coffee shop in the world!). He and his bandmates then put down just ten of the many tracks Mould had written (the word is that he had around thirty) and the result becomes Copper Blue.
It turned out that Mould didn’t need to worry, as the album was a stunner and people were hungry for the sound he’d created in the early years of the grunge scene. The chugging, growling guitar chords at the start of “The Act We Act” were like manna from heaven for early 1990s radio stations eager to spin anything that vaguely sounded like Nirvana‘s Nevermind album (and Mould has openly spoken about howthe success of Nevermind helped Copper Blue find an audience). “A Good Idea” is a roaring tale about twisted love and what it’s like to witness twisted love. Barbe’s bass thumps through the whole thing.
It flows right into “Changes” – a song about how nothing ever stays the same. “You can’t step into the same river twice,” as the saying goes, and “Changes” seems to reflect this as Mould sings about how he and his lover need to make serious adjustments to their relationship if it’s going to work. Mould’s chords on “Helpless” soar, as do his vocals about how hard he’s trying to help someone who is choosing to be helpless. Travis’ snare hits are like signal flares popping off to reflect Mould’s calls for help with the situation.
“Hoover Dam,” with its weird backwards synths, finds Mould in a strange place between madness and peace. The combination of his acoustic guitar with keyboard riffs is a nice one. ‘The Slim” has Mould grieving a lover after their death, and I can tell you that his lyrics are spot-on (“I felt your breath for a moment. I heard your voice for a moment. Then I looked back on my pillow. What you used to say, what we used to say.”). The guitars are almost manic, but they’re maintaining control. They’re managing it. It’s all you can do, really.
On the flip side of this, “If I Can’t Change Your Mind” has Mould trying to convince a lover that he’s going to be there no matter what, but they still won’t believe him despite all his efforts (“With all the crazy doubts you’ve got, I love you even still.”) “Fortune Teller” has that signature “Mould sound” of driving guitar chords backed by solid bass and drums and might be the closest to a Hüsker Dü track.
Mould’s lyrics in “Slick” use the imagery of a car crash (real or imagined?) to reflect his thoughts on his addictions, booze and love, and how they’re often the cause of his own harm. The fuzz on it is great, another metaphor for his roughed-up brain. The album ends with “Man on the Moon,” which has nothing to do with the R.E.M. song or the Jim Carey movie and everything to do with crushing riffs and rock anthem drums.
Copper Blue shook up the airwaves just when we needed it and probably made a lot of wanna-be grunge bands hang up their guitars. It’s a must-own if you’re a fan of Mould’s work.
Alternative-electronic artist Slighter presents his new album‘This Futile Engine’, released via Brutal Resonance Records and Confusion Inc. This 13-track record features collaborations with Steven Seibold (Hate Dept) and Craig Joseph Huxtable (Ohm, Landscape Body Machine, Front Line Assembly, Noise Unit), as well as Yvette Winkler (Vaselyne), Morgue VVitch and Deep Dark Water.
Slighter is the solo moniker of Colin C., who has been fine-tuning the future of electronic music since kickstarting his music in Mid City Los Angeles in the early 2000s. Creating from a unique vantage point, he was involved in collaborations for various Metropolis Records releases and Cleopatra Records compilations, in addition to Slighter releases via his own Confusion Inc. imprint.
Mixed and mastered atThe Cell Studio, through the sonic experimentation and innovation entailed in recording this album, Slighter continues to provide new fuel for the counterculture..
“This record was a lot of fun to make with my friends. I’m always enjoying collaborating on Slighter albums and, this time, it felt best to leave the majority of the vocal work to some great voices from Craig to Steven and Tara, Yvette, and Anastasia. It has been an experimental but cohesive experience, the classic cinematic vibes I’m known for hitting with faster Techno and killer bass lines across a 10 track narrative,” says Colin C.
“I think I have a pretty unique way of working outside of genres, but my work still gives off this sort of expansive cinematic vibe, which also retaining a darker mood that gets me associated with various dark sub-culture genres. The themes I often explore has me adopting an ‘Electronic Death Music’ umbrella for the music I make – a play on words, with the music I make being the antithesis of popular EDM”.
While very much an independent artist who largely files under the musical radar, Slighter’s music has also found its way on to mainstream shows over the years, with songs and remixes featured on such television shows as Showtime’s ‘House Of Lies’, ‘Elementary’(CBS), ‘Bones’ and ‘Lethal Weapon’ (FOX), ‘Defiance’ and ‘Covert Affairs’ (NBC-Universal).
As of July 21, ‘This Futile Engine’ will be released across fine digital platforms, including Apple Music, Spotify and Bandcamp. Available as a Deluxe Edition limited edition CD and as a digital download, this album includes three exclusive bonus remixes of ‘Cold Black Waters (feat. Morgue VVitch)’, ‘Pulling Me Under’ and ‘Have No Fear’.
Colorado-based artist Alien Gothicpresent their debut single‘In The Night’, a song that stretches cosmic goth music into a whole new realm, combining all the elements the duo has been striving to integrate into the project in the four years since their inception.
Conjuring up music that can be described as gloom from other worlds, they have been trying to find their way back to the original trajectory they were on previous to crash landing in Barnum, Colorado. With no time to put their lives on hold, they have cooked up a deal to release their ‘High and Dry’ album viaLatenight Weeknight Records.
With classic goth rock as its backbone, ‘In The Night’ also sees darkwave smoldering at the surface. A symphonic journey telling the tale of two unknown lifeforms, bringing their favorite sounds to a place they have never explored before, this music is inspired by the beauty of the world around them, while still being pulled into the darkness of the dead stars they came from.
The video tells the tale of their recent exploration as they look for a way out of this world, gravitating to the most iconic structures they find along the way. Mixing in elements of AI, traditional film and lost portraits of the two core members, the song blends reality and fiction, while introducing a vibe they hope to spread to all the other planetary systems around us.
Made up of Ryan Policky (A Shoreline Dream) and Andy Uhrmacher (Genessier), Alien Gothic creates deep gothic electronica, fused with spacial goth autoharp symphonies, deep mellotron overtures mixed with noises from unknown origins on the vast hour long debut. Themes and words recall events that the duo have had from the far reaches of the beyond. With deep beats, lush goth rock entwine with psych and shoegaze layers to create cosmic, pulsating melodies.
Recorded from 2020-2023, Alien Gothic take a journey out of a world gone mad, to spread a sound that is immersive and rich with varied instrumentation. Soundscaping goth is what these artists have become known for elsewhere along the milky way, their spectrums now hitting earth to bring forth a dreary alien orchestra, lost deep in a dark forest beyond the normal stretches of human imagination.
“It’s something we knew would destroy the seedy, cobweb filled danceclubs of the past, bringing forth a new era of goth… alien goth!” says Ryan Policky.
As of July 18, ‘In The Night’ will be available exclusively via Bandcamp. The full ‘High and Dry’ album will be released digitally on August 18 across all fine music platforms.
With little more under their belt than a relentless string of live performances, and a twice pressed (subsequently sold out) Self-Titled Demo, NYC based band Lathe of Heaven have proved themselves to be a potent and cohesive element amidst the torrent of hardcore punk and synth-driven pop revival currently proliferating throughout the U.S. underground. Today the band sign to Sacred Bones Records and announce their debut album ‘Bound By Naked Skies‘ is out September 1st. To coincide with the announce, the band are sharing the first single from the record, “Ekpyrosis” alongside a video directed by Lucas Cabu and Vitor Jabour.
Though the term Ekpyrosis has roots in Ancient Greek philosophy, the name has since been adopted and reformatted to signify a cosmological theory that describes the origins and destiny of space and time. The Ekpyrotic Model, commonly associated with The Cyclic Model, hypothesises that the universe undergoes periodic cycles of contraction and expansion, leading to the creation, destruction, and thus recreation of the universe.
Despite this theory’s contentious place in the field of cosmology, the band nevertheless finds its implications inherently compelling. There is something both horrifying and beautiful about the idea of our universe being in a constant state of death and rebirth, which Lathe of Heaven believes serves as a strong and apt portrayal of the various themes spanning across their upcoming debut record, Bound by Naked Skies.
The “Ekpyrosis” video aims to place its viewer in the uncanny space of present and past, thematically exploiting neo retro-futuristic depictions of New York City, it’s punk underground and its dystopian future – a future the universe may have unknowingly seen before. On the visuals, director Lucas Cabu said “This was a fun project. The band wanted to have space images playing behind them and have an 80’s look to it, so we used an analog mixer to do the chroma key in real time while the band was playing in my room! We kind of pre-edited it in real time then did the master in a beta-cam to give it an even more antiquated look.”
Formed in 2021, the band features members of noteworthy Brooklyn based projects such as People’s Temple, Porvenir Oscuro, Pawns, Android, Hustler and more.
Though this roster of past and alternate musical endeavors exposes a diverse range of genre and skill sets, Lathe of Heaven can only be understood as a departure from such influences, exploring a sound entirely of its own.
Now nearly two years later, LoH are finally prepared to unleash their debut Full Length Bound by Naked Skies. With careful consideration, this eleven track LP blends elements of British New-Wave and Finnish Post-Punk into a nuanced juxtaposition of 80s sonic mania. Incorporating themes of classic and contemporary Science-Fiction, Bound by Naked Skies indebts itself as much to its literary influences as it does to the music that informs its unique and deliberate sound. Paying powerful homage to the uncanny worlds of authors Arthur C. Clarke, Octavia Butler, Ken Liu and of course Ursula Le Guin (whose novel the band is named after), themes of cosmology (Ekpyrosis), simulation (Heralds of the Circuit-Born), mental illness (Moon-Driven Sea), and ontology (Entropy, The Spider.), weave implicitly throughout the arch of the record, providing a sense of insight into the minds of those plagued by the ambiguous nature of humankind’s terrifying and not-so-distant future.
Lathe of Heaven tour dates: 4th Aug – TV Eye (w/ Home Front and Deluxxe), Brooklyn, NY (Tickets) 18th Aug – Union Pool (w/ Temple of Angels), Brooklyn,, NY (Tickets) 7th Sept – TV Eye (w/ Witness and Eyedrops), Brooklyn, NY (Tickets) 13th Sept – The Dirty Bird (w/ The Poisoning and The Exile), Santa Ana, CA 14th Sept – Knucklehead ( w/ The Exile and Shrouds), Los Angeles, CA 15th Sept – Zebulon (w/ Protocultura), Los Angeles, CA 16th Sept – Stork Club (w/ Vulture Feather and Vague Lanes), Oakland, CA 17th Sept – Enzyme, San Francisco, CA 18th Sept – Naked Lounge (w/ Vulture Feather and Exposure Therapy), Chico, CA 19th Sept – Coffin Club, Portland, OR 21st Sept – 23rd Sept – Varning Festival, Montreal, MTL (Tickets)
I first heard of Mort Garson on an Amoeba Music “What’s in My Bag?” YouTube video featuring members of The New Pornographers. In it, bassist John Collins mentioned how bandmate Neko Case introduced him to Garson – a fellow Canadian who made weird electro music for television, films, and plants. Collins describes him as “a real studio cat.”
That studio cat’s albums are being reissued by Sacred Bones, and one of them is Journey to the Moon and Beyond – a collection of TV ad themes, film themes, and, yes, music he made to be broadcast during the 1970 moon landing. It’s a wild collection of electro oddities and fascinations.
“Zoos of the World” starts us off with an immediate drop into a world of 1970s electronic wonder. It sounds and feels like something you’d hear on a Disneyworld ride that’s long since closed and been turned into an overpriced restaurant. “The Big Game Hunters (See the Cheetah)” mixes Esquivel-like jazz (and sexy feminine vocals) with psychedelic synths and slick beats. “Western Dragon” comes in three parts: One a brief outro (part 3), one with a wild guitar solo (part 2), and one a cool meditative track (part 1).
The album’s centerpiece is “Moon Journey,” which simulates the sounds of space capsules closing, rockets launching, heroes being heroic, navigational systems bleeping and chirping, retro-rockets firing, and the strangeness of being in low gravity. There are three tracks titled “Music for Advertising” (numbers 6 through 8). Number 6 has a little bit of a bossa nova feel to it, number 7 is luxurious and thrilling, and number 8 is bold, adventurous, and robotic.
The inclusion of the main theme and end credits to the 1974 blaxploitation film Black Eye is pure gold, as is “Captain DJ (Disco UFO Part II)” – a groovy, sparkling disco dance track with Saturday morning cartoon lyrics and vocals (“Disco U-F-Oh-Oh-Oh! The faster you spin, the further you go!”). “Three TV IDs” is a collage of three TV jingles for cool stations you saw as a kid and then never again because they were bought out by some corporate monstrosity.
“Love Is a Garden” could be a follow-up to his entire Plantasia album (an electro record made for playing to your plants), as it’s soothing and almost an 8-bit version of floating down a jungle stream. “The D-Bee’s Cat Boogie” is a wonky, wild trip, and the album closes with the Black Eye end credits and its sexy, smoky vocals atop Garson’s slick arrangements (check out that 1970s jazz flute!).
This is a super cool record, and one of the best reissues I’ve heard in a long while, let alone one of the most fun electro records I’ve heard in a couple years. God bless Sacred Bones for putting Garson’s stuff back out there for people like me to discover.
Keep your mind open.
[Journey to the subscription box while you’re here.]
Located on one of the main streets in London’s Greenwich district, Music & Video Exchange is another place you can get lost in for hours, but go on a cool day. It was a hot day in London when I was there, and this store has no air conditioning (like most places in London, really).
Don’t let that keep you from visiting this place, though, as they have a ton of cool stuff there. I mean, look at this.
I love how they have a section of vinyl called “NOISE NOISE NOISE.”
Check out that “Mod Revival” section
They had a lot of cool, collectible vinyl there, and this wall of rare 45s was neat to see.
The Motörhead and Au Pairs discs alone are worth a look.
As if all this weren’t enough, there’s an entire basement full of CDs.
You can also see shelves of DVDs in that photo. There was a lot I wanted to dig through there, but the basement was so humid that I couldn’t stay long. I did find a cool score upstairs, however.
Ten pounds for ten Tangerine Dream albums? Uh, yeah. That’s a steal.
I’ll be sure to go back here if I’m ever in Greenwich again. I have a lot of bins to search there.
Today, Austin, Texas outfit Holy Wave continue to push their historically psychedelic sound with intricate, heady single “Nothing in the Dark”, premiering on post-trash. It’s accompanied by a beautifully-shot, atmospheric visual, directed by Vanessa Pla. The track follows airy “Bog Song,” and psych-tinged single “Happier” featuring Mint Field’s Estrella del Sol.
Both songs taken from their upcoming new album Five of Cups, out August 4, 2023 on Suicide Squeeze Records.
The band have also announced further US + UK/EU fall tour dates.
On the track, band member, Cook offers: “Nothing in the Dark is about how easy it is to let fear take over and control what you do and don’t do, how distractions can keep you from the things you want or disguise themselves as what you want. But when the light disappears from your life, like shadows, the distractions fade away, and you’re left with just yourself and the darkness. So I guess the song is about moving past the fear of the shadows; you can see in the light so that you don’t end up sitting alone in the dark.”
On the video, band member, Fuson offers: “We all acted in the video, but we also did the set design and all the props. Since it was a super small budget, we had to wear a bunch of hats to afford to pay the people who were good at their jobs, haha. The director Vanessa Pla also made some mean carnitas for the crew. They were fire.”
Tour dates Live Dates Aug 8 – Andy’s – Denton, TX Aug 9 – Opolis – Norman, OK Aug 11 – Back Alley Ballyhoo – Indianapolis, IN Aug 12 – JJs Bohemia – Chattanooga, TN Aug 13 – Upstairs at Avondale – Birmingham, AL Aug 15 – Alabama Music Box – Mobile, AL Aug 16 – Continental Club – Houston, TX Aug 17 – Paper Tiger – San Antonio, TX Oct 12 – Constellation Room – Santa Ana, CA Oct 14 – Sister – Albuquerque, NM Oct 15 – Hi-Dive – Denver, CO Oct 17 – Sleeping Village – Chicago, IL Oct 18 – Lager House – Detroit, MI Oct 20 – No Fun – Troy, NY Oct 21 – Mercury Lounge – NYC, NY Oct 22 – Baby’s All Right – Brooklyn, NY Oct 23 – Metro Baltimore – Baltimore, MD Oct 25 – Gasa Gasa – New Orleans, LA Oct 26 – Levitation – Austin, TX Oct 29 – Love Buzz – El Paso, TX Oct 30 – The Rebel Lounge – Phoenix, AZ Oct 31 – Casbah – San Diego, CA Nov 1 – Lodge Room – Highland Park, CA 11/7 – Lille, FR – L’Aéronef 11/8 – Groningen, NL – Vera 11/9 – Copenhagen, DK – Stengade 11/10 – Berlin, DE – Kesselhaus 11/11 – Halle, DE – Huhnermanhattan 11/12 – Prague, CZ – Cafe V Lese 11/13 – Munich, DE – Milla 11/16- Bucharest, RO – Control Club 11/17 – Belgrade, SE – Dom Onladine 11/19 – Zagreb, HR – Vintage Industrial 11/21 – Lyon, FR – Le Sonic 11/22 – Barcelona, ES – Sala Upload 11/23 – San Sebastian, ES – Dabadaba 11/24 – Madrid, ES – Wurlitzer Ballroom 11/28 – Vigo, ES – Kominski 11/30 – Bordeaux, FR – Allez Les Filles 12/1 – Paris, FR – Point Ephemere 12/2 – Brussels, BE – Botanique 12/3 – The Hague, NL – Hink Festival 12/4 – Amsterdam, NL – Paradiso 12/6 – Brighton, UK – The Hope & Ruin 12/7 – Bristol, UK – Crofters Rights 12/8 – Manchester, UK – YES 12/9 – Glasgow, UK – Stereo 12/10 Newcastle, UK – Cluny 2 12/11 – Leeds, UK – Brudenell Social Club 12/12 – London, UK – Moth Club
Keep your mind open.
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