It can certainly be said that Springsteen’s commentary on the plight of the
working class in last year’s Born In the U.S.A. not only made him a
populist spokesman, but also appealed to a common denominator among several
million record buyers. An observation could be made, though, that the
mini-dramas presented on Born In the U.S.A., stories of America’s
industrial decline, the deterioration of its cities, and the omnipresent
Springsteen triad of cars, girls, and rock ‘n’ roll have their roots firmly
placed in the factory atmosphere of the Northeast and Midwest.
This
sets the stage for Southern Accents, Tom Petty’s Dixie born ‘n’ bred
proclamation of Rebel pride. Petty is an artist whose style and influences are
similar to those of Springsteen, so it should come as no surprise that Petty
would develop a work such as Southern Accents. At its best,
Southern Accents is adventurous, insightful, and reflective of the
Southern experience. Petty takes more than a few risks, though, which makes this
perhaps his most flawed work.
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers’ Southern Accents
One of the chances that Petty takes is in his unlikely paring with Dave
Stewart of Eurythmics on three of the album’s nine cuts. Although Stewart
proved that he held a fine grasp of pop stylings during his stint with the
Tourists, you won’t find an inkling of this influence on these songs.
Stewart’s presence as co-producer and songwriting partner seems to force Petty
and the straight-rockin’ Heartbreakers into an unnatural mold. “It Ain’t
Nothin’ To Me” is the first of these collaborative efforts. Although
interesting, lyrically, the musical accompaniment is a confused, discordant
mish-mash of blaring horns and misused instruments. Trying to emulate a
Stax/Memphis feel on the song, Petty would have been better off asking Booker
T for advice … this is easily the worst song that Petty has ever recorded.
“Don’t
Come Around Here No More,” the initial single release and the second
collaboration, is a much better song. Petty’s talents take over, with
Stewart’s influence shading the performance only a bit (mostly with the
unusual addition of a sitar, it would seem). The lyrics are sparse and
tightly-edited, the music ethereal and Petty’s vocals brilliant. The third cut
done with Stewart, “Make It Better (Forget About Me),” is mere filler … easily
forgettable.
The strongest two songs on Southern Accents are
the two Confederate anthems: “Rebels” and the title cut, “Southern Accents.”
Petty illustrates that not everyone has forgotten (or forgiven) the insults
paid on the South over a hundred years ago; certainly not the legion of fierce
young men to whom fast driving and hard drinking help combat the day-to-day
grind of deadening, hard-ankle jobs. Generations have been born with
resentment burning in their blood, a fact easily recognizable to Florida-born
Petty: “even before my father’s father, they called us rebels, while they
burned our corn fields, and left our cities leveled, I can still feel the eyes
of those blue-bellied devils, when I’m walking ‘round at night through the
concrete and metal…”
Much of the South, now called the “Sun Belt,”
has become the new playground of the rich. More and more, as modern day
carpetbaggers try to remake the South in their image, from the “concrete and
metal” down to the destruction of Southern culture, Petty’s pride in his
heritage becomes a battle cry: “there’s a Southern accent, where I come from,
the young ‘uns call it country, the Yankees call it dumb, I got my own way of
talkin’, but everything is done with a Southern accent where I come from.”
Both
cuts are powerful statements, echoes of a mindset shared by artists and the
alienated in the rapidly-integrated (by Northerners) “New South.” The
remainder of the LP’s material is solid, TP-brand rock, including “Spike,” a
satirical poke at the nihilistic “punk” lifestyle and dress. Perhaps “Johnny
Reb,” in his gray uniform and proudly-worn “stars ‘n’ bars” was really the
original punk … the Civil War certainly did its part in creating an aura of
angst and frustration south of the Mason-Dixon line, long before
economically-bankrupt British youth rediscovered the feeling in ’76 and
imported the trend to the states, casting millions of bored, upper-crust youth
into a stylistic frenzy of strange hairdos and leather/chains/studs they
bought with father’s Visa card. Daddy’s little boys and girls needed only to
look into their own backyard to find the roots of this phenomenon.
The Reverend’s Bottom Line
Even with its flaws, Southern Accents is among one of the year’s
best … Petty’s artistic experimentation and the strongly-worded feelings
placed in these songs, though sometimes missing their mark, still represent
the most ambitious attempt since the landmark works of Lynyrd Skynyrd in
creating an identity and pride in Southern roots. (MCA Records, 1985)
Review originally published in the Summer 1985 issue of Anthem: The Journal
of (un)Popular Culture
October is here and the labels will be emptying their vaults and clearing
their slates to get Q4 releases off the books with an eye towards January and
maybe, just maybe a more sympathetic commercial environment. Considering that
artists are unable to tour much, if at all, in support of new records, it's no
surprise that the record labels are hedging their bets, releasing a lot of
goodies from the archives, and hoping for the best in terms of sales.
There's a lot of very cool archival material that will resurface in October,
including albums by Memphis rocker Van Duren, rarities from NRBQ, and big box
sets from folks like Bob Mould (24-CDs), Bobby Bare (8-CDs), Tom Petty
(4-CDs), and Thin Lizzy (6-CDs, but no more info is available right now, so
it's your guess is as good as mine if it will actually be released this
month). But it's not all just vault-diving, there's also new tunes from folks
like Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Chris Smither, Joey Molland of
Badfinger, and Dream Theatre guitar whiz John Petrucci, among others.
Release dates are probably gonna change and nobody tells me when they do. If
you’re interesting in buying an album, just hit the ‘Buy!’ link to get it from
Amazon.com...it’s just that damn easy! Your purchase puts valuable ‘store
credit’ in the Reverend’s pocket that he’ll use to buy more music to write
about in a never-ending loop of rock ‘n’ roll ecstasy! If you're boycotting
Amazon and don't have an indie record store close by, may we suggest shopping
with our friends at
Grimey's Music
in Nashville? They have a great selection of vinyl available by mail order,
offer quick service, and if you don't see what you want on their website,
check out their
Discogs shop!
OCTOBER 2 45 Grace - Sleep In Safety [vinyl reissue]
BUY! Coven - Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls [vinyl
reissue]
BUY! Death Valley Girls -
Under the Spell of Joy
BUY! Bob Mould - Distortion 1989-2019 [24-CD set!]
BUY! New Order -
Power, Corruption & Lies: Definitive Edition
BUY! NRBQ -
In • Frequencies
BUY! Robert Plant - Digging Deep: Subterranea [2-CD set]
BUY! Chris Smither -
More From the Levee
BUY! Corey Taylor -
CMFT
BUY! Roger Waters -
Us + Them
BUY! Frank Zappa - Halloween 81 [6-CD box set]BUY!
OCTOBER 9 Buffalo Tom - Birdbrain [vinyl reissue]
BUY! Dire Straits - The Studio Albums 1978-1991 [6-CD
set]
BUY! The Doors -
Morrison Hotel: Deluxe Edition
BUY! The Replacements - Please To Meet Me: Deluxe Edition [3-CD box
set]
BUY! Thin Lizzy - Rock Legends [6-CD box set]
OCTOBER 16
Allman Brothers Band -
The Final Note
BUY! Joey Molland (Badfinger) -
Be True To Yourself
BUY! Kevin Morby -
Sundowner
BUY! Tom Petty - Wildflowers & All the Rest [Deluxe vinyl &
CD reissue]
BUY!
OCTOBER 23 Bobby Bare - Bobby Bare Sings Shel Silverstein Plus [8-CD box
set]
BUY!
Shemekia Copeland - Uncivil War BUY!
John Frusciante -
Maya
BUY! Greg Lake - The Anthology: A Musical Journey BUY!
Little Richard - Lifetime Friend BUY!
Little Richard - The Second Coming BUY!
The Mountain Goats -
Getting Into Knives
BUY! Pearl Jam - MTV Unplugged BUY! Bruce Springsteen - Letter To You BUY! Jim White -
Misfit's Jubilee
BUY!
OCTOBER 30 Black Stone Cherry -
The Human Condition
BUY! Elvis Costello -
Hey Clockface
BUY!
Grateful Dead - American Beauty [3-CD Deluxe 50th anniversary] BUY!
Joni Mitchell - Joni Mitchell Archives - Volume 1: The Early Years (1963-1967) BUY!
Mr. Bungle -
The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny Demo
BUY! John Petrucci -
Terminal Velocity
BUY! Van Duren - Are You Serious? [CD & vinyl reissue]
BUY! Van Duren - Idiot Optimism [CD & vinyl reissue]
BUY!
Jimmie Vaughan - The Pleasure's All Mine: The Complete Blues, Ballads & Favorites CollectionBUY!
Album of the Month: Tom Petty's Wildflowers finally receives a
deluxe reissue that restores the album to the two-disc set that the rock
legend originally envisioned. The four-CD or seven-LP set features 54 tracks,
8 unreleased songs, and 24 unreleased alternate versions. In addition to the
15 track original album (remastered), the deluxe edition contains the album
All The Rest (10 songs from the original Wildflowers sessions),
a full CD of 15 solo demos recorded by Petty at his home studio, and a disc of
14 live versions of Wildflowers songs recorded from 1995 – 2017.
Great music often occurs by happenstance, and never more so than with the intriguing story of the Traveling Wilburys. According to the tale told by former Warner Music chairman Mo Ostin in the liner notes to The Traveling Wilburys Collection, George Harrison was hanging around with a bunch of friends in Bob Dylan’s studio, working up a song called “Handle With Care” to use as a B-Side for “This Is Love,” the first single from Harrison’s Cloud Nine album. These “friends,” by chance, happened to include the Electric Light Orchestra’s Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, the legendary Roy Orbison and, of course, the greatest songwriter that rock music has ever produced, Bob Dylan.
This humbling assemblage of musical talents finished the song and Harrison hustled “Handle With Care” over to Ostin’s office for executive approval. Warner Music A&R chief Lenny Waronker listened in, and everybody agreed that the song was too damn good to waste as a lowly B-side. Featuring a wonderful Orbison vocal performance and Harrison’s vastly-underrated fretwork, the song became sign of bigger things to come. The superstar quintet reassembled in the studio and quickly knocked out a proper album, Traveling Wilburys, Volume 1 which was released in late 1988. “Handle With Care” was chosen as the album’s first single, just barely missing Top 40 status, but was a hit nonetheless. The album climbed to the number three position on the Billboard charts and subsequently sold over five million copies.
The Traveling Wilburys, Volume 1
Traveling Wilburys, Volume 1 and its 1990 companion, Traveling Wilburys, Volume 3, represented an accomplished musical collaboration by a group of rock’s biggest stars and brightest talents. As the friendly, pop-inflected rock of the Traveling Wilburys gave way during the ‘90s to the onslaught of Seattle bands and harsher styles of music, the two albums slipped out-of-print and the rights to both reverted to Harrison. By the end of the decade, though, as the millennium approached, people began to rediscover the charms of the Traveling Wilburys and the two albums became coveted collector’s items, fetching premium pricing on eBay and elsewhere. After Harrison’s death, his estate sat on the albums for a while, but now Rhino has licensed them both and slapped them together as The Traveling Wilburys Collection, a two-CD set with a bonus DVD and collector’s booklet with liner notes, photos, and credits.
What made Traveling Wilburys, Volume 1 so enchanting wasn’t the infectious video for “Handle With Care” that grabbed significant MTV airplay, or even the impressive pedigree of the superstar participants. No, what mattered most was the music, which sounds like it was created by a bunch of close buddies hanging around the studio. The songs are loose and ego-free, yet they showcase the talents of all the collaborators. To reinforce the group concept and downplay their individual star status, they all took on the “Wilburys” surname – Lucky (Dylan), Lefty (Orbison), Otis (Harrison) and Nelson Wilbury (Lynne) along with Charlie T. Jr. (Petty). An entire Wilburys’ mythology was created around the faux group, further creating an aura of mystery around the band and its music.
Every one of the Wilburys brought something to the table, each one singing and playing on every song. The material runs the gamut of musical styles, perhaps reflecting the individual group member’s tastes at the time. Lynne’s rockabilly-styled love song “Rattled” is a rollicking Carl Perkins/Jerry Lee Lewis hybrid, while Petty’s reggae-tinged “Last Night” offers staggered rhythms and great harmonies behind his tale of romance under the moonlight. Dylan’s “Dirty Word” pairs the bard’s penchant for oblique wordplay with sly, tongue-in-cheek humor. His other song here, “Tweeter and the Monkey Man,” is a deliciously wicked Springsteen-styled story-song, a sordid tale of shady deals gone bad that features one of Dylan’s most electric vocal performances.
Handle With Care
The aforementioned hit single, “Handle With Care,” features a lush Jeff Lynne soundtrack behind Harrison’s romantic fantasy, the song taken to a higher level by Orbison’s transcendent vocal contribution. The album’s other hit single, “End of the Line,” offers up the combined harmonies of the five Wilburys behind strong lead vocals courtesy of Petty, and some intricate, intertwined guitars, each doing something different in the mix to great effect. Orbison’s “Not Alone Any More” represents, perhaps, his best performance since the ‘60s, his quivering vocals drenched with emotion, simply heartbreaking as they soar towards the heavens behind Harrison’s delicate fretwork. The Traveling Wilburys Collection adds two previously unreleased bonus tracks to the package: “Maxine” is an upbeat number with slight production but energetic Harrison vocals and fretwork, while the grand performance of “Like A Ship” is reminiscent of late-period Beatles, putting Dylan’s creaky vocals behind the epic instrumentation instead of John or Paul.
The critical acclaim and commercial success enjoyed by Traveling Wilburys, Volume 1 was tempered by Roy Orbison’s unexpected death shortly after the album’s release. The singer’s passing made a sequel problematic, as Orbison’s powerful and unique vocals were an integral part of the first album’s songs. Two years later, however, the surviving Wilburys gathered together to honor their fallen brother and celebrate his life, recording Traveling Wilburys, Volume 3 (yup, there is no “Volume 2”), which would subsequently be dedicated to “Lefty Wilbury.”
Aside from Orbison’s death, a lot had happened in the two years between the 1988 release of Traveling Wilburys, Volume 1 and its 1990 follow-up. The Harrison album that inspired the entire Wilburys phenomenon, Cloud Nine, had also provided the former Beatle with a bona fide late-career comeback. Ditto for Bob Dylan, whose own Daniel Lanois-produced Oh Mercy album, released in 1989, provided the aging rock star with a third career, launching a never-ending tour that continues rolling today. Lynne and Petty worked together to fashion Full Moon Fever, Petty’s first solo album and a hit in its own right, while Lynne also produced the critically-acclaimed posthumous Roy Orbison album Mystery Girl.
So, by the time that the remaining Wilburys foursome returned to the studio to put together Traveling Wilburys, Volume 3 they all had other things on their mind. As such, rather than the easy-going camaraderie that made the first album so user-friendly, Lynne and Petty tend to dominate these sessions to the detriment of Dylan and Harrison. For one, the material isn’t as strong as that from Volume 1, and the vocal performances don’t revel in the laser-like focus that they previously shared.
Traveling Wilburys, Volume 3
That’s not to say that there are no good songs on Traveling Wilburys, Volume 3. You can’t go wrong with a group of this caliber talent, and the album has many memorable moments. “The Devil’s Been Busy” easily rises to the level of the first album, showcasing similarly magical vocal harmonies, with the guys swapping lead vocals in front of a wall of jangling guitars and rolling rhythms. Dylan’s “If You Belonged To Me” sounds like a Blood On the Tracks outtake, a lovely romantic confession that offers an extremely satisfying vocal performance, timely harp work and delicate rhythm guitar.
The album also yielded a pair of hit singles, the first – “She’s My Baby” – a rocking number that benefits from Lynne’s retro-styled production (with slight echo), shared vocals and a red-hot guitar lead courtesy of guest Gary Moore. The second single, “Inside Out,” also features strong harmonies, with the guys swapping vocal leads on top of a steady drumbeat and complex six-string play. Overall, however, Traveling Wilburys, Volume 3 falls short of the performances created for, and the expectations created by its predecessor. Keep on listening, though, and these songs grow on you. They don’t share the spontaneity and intimacy of the material on album one, but they’re certainly not without attraction.
The Traveling Wilburys Collection also adds two bonus tracks to the end of Volume 3, although both songs had been previously released. The first, “Nobody’s Child,” was originally included on a benefit album. A trembling country blues, the song is, quite frankly, not much to talk about. The vocals are inappropriately over-the-top and somebody forgot to tell Dylan, et al that you don’t have to affect a nasal twang to sound like an authentic bluesman. Much better is an inspired cover of Del Shannon’s classic song “Runaway” that was released as the B-side to “She’s My Baby.” The song cries out for Orbison’s soaring vocals, but Lynne does a fine job on the lead and the harmonies build impressively on the song’s fast-paced rhythms.
The Reverend’s Bottom Line
The set’s additional DVD includes a “making off” mini-documentary titled “The True History of the Traveling Wilburys” as well as the music videos for all four of the two albums’ singles and one for the embarrassing “Wilbury Twist.” A deluxe edition of The Traveling Wilburys Collection includes a larger CD booklet, presumably with more pictures and content for the extreme fan. For this listener, however, the standard two-CD set works well, presenting the music in all of its original glory, finally resurrecting the magnificent sound of the Traveling Wilburys for a new generation. (Rhino Records, released June 3, 2016)
Review originally published by the Trademark of Quality (TMQ) blog
It's the fourth quarter of the business year for the record labels and pretty much the end of the road as far as new releases go. The labels are emptying their archives this month, though, with rejuvenated old releases finding a new audience from Bob Dylan, Brian Eno, Big Brother & the Holding Company (with Janis Joplin), Lee Michaels, Metallica, and more! There's a smattering of "new music" to be had from folks like Dead Can Dance, Marianne Faithful, Tenacious D, Muse, J. Mascis, and the Tangent and for psych-rock fans, ATO is reissuing the first (indie) albums by Aussie rockers King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard. Enjoy!
If we wrote about it here on the site, there will be a link to it in the
album title; if you want an album, hit the 'Buy!' link to get it from
Amazon.com...it's just that damn easy! Your purchase puts money in the
Reverend's pocket that he'll use to buy more music to write about in a
never-ending loop of rock 'n' roll ecstasy!
NOVEMBER 2
Dead Can Dance - Dionysus BUY! Bob Dylan - More Blood, More Tracks [box set] BUY!
Marianne Faithful - Negative Capability BUY! King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - 12 Bar BruiseBUY!
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - Eyes Like the Sky BUY!
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - Float Along Fill Your Lungs BUY!
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - Oddments BUY!
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - Willoughby's Beach BUY!
Metallica - ...And Justice For All [30th anniversary box set] BUY!
Sun Kil Moon - This Is My Dinner BUY
Tenacious D - Post-Apocalypto BUY!
NOVEMBER 16
Chris Robinson's Brotherhood - Betty's Midwestern Magick Blends BUY! Chris Cornell - Chris CornellBUY! Brian Eno - Discreet Music [vinyl reissue] BUY!
Brian Eno - Ambient 1: Music For Airports [vinyl reissue] BUY!
Brian Eno - Ambient 4: On Land [vinyl reissue] BUY!
Brian Eno - Music For Films[vinyl reissue] BUY!
John Mellencamp - Other People's Stuff BUY!
Lee Michaels - Nice Day For Something BUY!
Lee Michaels - Tailface BUY!
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers - The Best of Everything BUY!
The Tangent - Proxy BUY!
NOVEMBER 23
Bauhaus - The Bela Session BUY!
Dan Reed Network - Origins BUY!
Roine Stolt's The Flower King - Manifesto of an Alchemist BUY!
Vandenberg's MoonKings - Rugged and Unplugged BUY!
DECEMBER 7
Jason Becker - Triumphant Hearts BUY!
Cold War Kids - This Will All Blow Over In Time BUY!
Van Morrison - The Prophet Speaks BUY!
The Long Ryders - State of Our Union [import box set] BUY!
Album(s) of the Month: King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard reissues. As a testament to the band’s growing U.S. popularity, ATO Records –
which released King Gizzard’s last few albums stateside – will be
reissuing the band’s first five records on both CD and vinyl this month. Each album title will include ‘reimagined’ artwork and
packaging and new liner notes, and the vinyl versions will feature
dazzling, eye-popping colored wax. If you haven't heard 'em, get on it!
Hot on the heels of a very cool four-disc Tom Petty box set – American Treasure – comes word of a career-spanning “best of” set that encompasses the late rocker’s solo work as well as recordings with his two bands, the Heartbreakers and Mudcrutch. On November 16th, 2018 Geffen Records/UMe will release The Best of Everything, a two-CD set that features 38 tracks including two previously-unreleased songs.
The Best of Everything will be released simultaneously as a two-disc CD set sporting deluxe packaging and in all digital formats. Two different vinyl versions, in both black and clear vinyl, will be released on December 7th. The set includes an essay on Petty written exclusively for the collection by Academy Award-winning screenwriter, director, and former rock critic Cameron Crowe. All the material has been re-mastered from “pristine transfers of the original studio multi-track masters” sayeth the press release announcing the album.
The set features a number of familiar hits, Heartbreakers’ tunes like “American Girl,” “Refugee,” “Learning To Fly,” and “Breakdown” (one of the band’s earliest tracks) as well as a solo hits like “Wildflower” and “I Won’t Back Down.” Of the two unreleased tracks, one is the autobiographical “For Real” and the other is an alternative version of the title track, which restores a never-heard second verse to the song that was originally recorded for the 1985 album Southern Accents. Check out the complete track list below and then get thee over to Amazon.com and order your copy of Tom Petty’s The Best of Everything!
Editor's Note: UMe has changed the release date for the CD, digital, and vinyl versions of The Best of Everything to February 1st, 2019
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers photo by Aaron Rapoport
The Best of Everything track list:
Disc One
1. Mary Jane's Last Dance - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
2. You Wreck Me - Tom Petty
3. I Won't Back Down - Tom Petty
4. Saving Grace - Tom Petty
5. You Don't Know How It Feels - Tom Petty
6. Don't Do Me Like That - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
7. Listen To Her Heart - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
8. Breakdown - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
9. Walls (Circus) - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
10. The Waiting - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
11. Don't Come Around Here No More - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
12. Southern Accents - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
13. Angel Dream (No2) - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
14. Dreamville - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
15. I Should Have Known It - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
16. Refugee - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
17. American Girl - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
18. The Best Of Everything (alternate version) - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Disc Two
1. Wildflowers - Tom Petty
2. Learning To Fly - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
3. Here Comes My Girl - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
4. The Last DJ - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
5. I Need To Know - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
6. Scare Easy - Mudcrutch
7. You Got Lucky - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
8. Runnin' Down A Dream - Tom Petty
9. American Dream Plan B - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
10. Stop Draggin' My Heart Around (featuring Stevie Nicks) - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
11. Trailer - Mudcrutch
12. Into The Great Wide Open - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
13. Room At The Top - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
14. Square One - Tom Petty
15. Jammin' Me - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
16. Even The Losers - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
17. Hungry No More - Mudcrutch
18. I Forgive It All - Mudcrutch
19. For Real - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
More musical goodness than one person can handle is coming your way in September, and if last month didn't bust yer bankroll, you just weren't trying! Take out a home loan or hit up your local neighborhood loan shark 'cause this month brings new albums by folks like Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, Eric Lindell, Richard Thompson, Billy Gibbons, Joe Bonamassa, R&B legend Swamp Dogg, and the great Alejandro Escovedo that you know you're gonna want. Throw in CD and vinyl reissues and archive releases from talents like J.D. Souther, Moby Grape's Skip Spence, Bob Seger, Eric Burdon & the Animals, Tom Petty, and the Ramones and you'll be raiding your kid's college fund before the month is through...
If we wrote about it here on the site, there will be a link to it in the
album title; if you want an album, hit the 'Buy!' link to get it from
Amazon.com...it's just that damn easy! Your purchase puts money in the
Reverend's pocket that he'll use to buy more music to write about in a
never-ending loop of rock 'n' roll ecstasy!
SEPTEMBER 7
Clutch - Book of Bad Decisions BUY!
Mike Farris - Silver and Stone BUY!
JEFF the Brotherhood - Magick Songs BUY!
Lenny Kravitz - Raise Vibration BUY!
L7 - Hungry for Stink [vinyl reissue] BUY!
Eric Lindell - Revolution In Your Heart BUY!
Paul McCartney - Egypt Station BUY!
Mirah - Understanding BUY!
Pentangle - Sweet Child [vinyl reissue] BUY! Bob Seger & the Last Heard - Heavy Music: The Complete Cameo Recordings 1966-1967BUY!
Paul Simon - In the Blue Light BUY!
Spiritualized - And Nothing Hurt BUY!
Swamp Dogg - Love, Loss and Auto-Tune BUY!
SEPTEMBER 14
Eric Burdon & the Animals - Winds of Change [mono vinyl reissue] BUY!
The Doors - Waiting For the Sun: 50th Anniversary Edition BUY!
Alejandro Escovedo - The Crossing BUY!
Hawkwind - Road To Utopia BUY!
Malcolm Holcombe - Come Hell or High Water BUY!
Low - Double Negative BUY!
Monster Truck - True Rockers BUY!
Jorge Santana - Love the Way: The Solo 70s Recordings BUY!
Richard Thompson - 13 Rivers BUY!
Uriah Heep - Living the Dream BUY!
Various Artists - Chicago Plays the Stones BUY!
We Were Promised Jetpacks - The More I Sleep The Less I Dream BUY!
Paul Weller - True Meanings BUY!
Ann Wilson - Immortal BUY!
SEPTEMBER 28
All Them Witches - ATW BUY! King Crimson - Meltdown In MexicoBUY!
Mudhoney - Digital Garbage BUY!
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers - An American Treasure [box set] BUY!
Skip Spence - AndOarAgain [3-CD reissue] BUY!
U2 - The Best of 1990-2000 [vinyl reissue] BUY!
Tony Joe White - Bad Mouthin' BUY!
Release dates are subject to change, so don't blame us...
Album of the Month: The Textones' Old Stone Gang...after better than three decades, Textones' frontwoman Carla Olson put the original band together (sans Phil Seymour, R.I.P.) to record a few tracks and see if the old band magic still exists (hint: it does...). The result was Old Stone Gang, the Textones’ third official studio album and their first in 30+ years. If you were ever a fan of the band, you definitely need to hear this 'cause it's really like they never left!
For those readers too young to remember, the first US Festival took place over Labor Day weekend in September 1982. Held in San Bernardino, California the event was sponsored by Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, with the music end of things handled by veteran promoter Bill Graham. Ever the visionary, Wozniak felt that if the 1970s was the “Me Generation” then the decade of the 1980s could be the “US Generation,” and the festival was conceived to combine music and technology and to encourage people to be more community-oriented.
Wozniak paid for the bulldozing and construction of a state-of-the-art venue for the event, which was held during some terribly hot weather and resulted in a loss of around $12 million. Graham lined up some heavy hitters for the festival, and the diverse group of artists performing included punks and new wavers like the Ramones, the Cars, the Talking Heads, and the Police as well as classic rockers like the Kinks, Santana, Fleetwood Mac, and Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers.
A second US Festival was held over the Memorial Day weekend in May 1983, with promoter Barry Fey taking the reins and Wozniak again paying the bills. The second festival featured some repeat performers from the first, including the English Beat, Oingo Boingo, and Stevie Nicks, performing solo. The Memorial Day event eventually conceived as a three-day festival, with performers on each day slotted under “New Wave Day,” “Heavy Metal Day,” and “Rock Day” but a fourth “Country Day” was added. Performers at US2 included the Pretenders, Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest, U2, Van Halen, David Bowie, Willie Nelson, and Waylon Jennings, among others.
The second festival also lost a reported $12 million but, taken together, the two events proved to be enormously influential on a generation of rock fans. The festivals have been sliced and diced and released on home video in various formats, with individual performances by Triumph, Quiet Riot, the English Beat, and Willie Nelson released. The festivals evidently had a profound effect on award-winning filmmaker and rock ‘n’ roll documentarian Glenn Aveni, who had previously made An Ox’s Tale: The John Entwistle Story. Working with co-director Jay Cedarholm and producers Bruce Gibb and Rich Schmig, Aveni has created The Us Generation: The Making of the 1982 US Festival, an in-depth look behind the scenes at the influential rock festival.
Scheduled for August 10th, 2018 release on DVD and Blu-ray disc by MVD Entertainment, The Us Generation is the authorized (by ‘Woz’) story of the 1982 festival. The film features re-mastered live performances by artists like Tom Petty, Fleetwood Mac, Santana, the Cars, the Police, Fleetwood Mac, the B-52s and others, and if that’s not enough to convince you to add check it out, the film also includes interview footage with Steve Wozniak, Mick Fleetwood, Eddie Money, Marky Ramone, Stewart Copeland (The Police), and Mickey Hart (The Grateful Dead), among others. The two-disc Blu-ray is going for less than $20 on Amazon so what are you waiting on – this is an essential addition to any fan’s collection of rock ‘n’ roll documentaries.
Thanks to the vagaries created by loopholes in international copyright law, it seems that live music from the 1970s – particularly FM radio broadcasts – are fair game for release on CD by dodgy European labels. The situation is a godsend for rock ‘n’ roll fans, who now have access to budget recordings by their favorite artists that were only previously available as higher-priced bootleg titles.
Not all of these so-called “copyright gap” releases are worth your time and money, however, which is where That Devil Music’s “Bootleg Rodeo” comes into play. This monthly (give or take) column aims to separate the wheat from the chaff and let you know which of these recordings deserve a place in your collection and which should have been left to collect dust in a closet somewhere. Get ‘em while you can, kiddies, ‘cause one never knows when copyright treaties will be revised and the availability of these albums disappears.
For this sophomore “Bootleg Rodeo” column the Rev has chosen to round up recently-released live CDs from Neil Young, Tom Petty, and Stephen Stills and Manassas, with links to buy ‘em from Amazon.com.
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers – Psychotic Reaction (Zip City Records)
Of a later vintage than the mighty fine Petty set we previously reviewed, Psychotic Reaction captures an FM radio broadcast of a live November 1991 Heartbreakers performance in Oakland, California. The Heartbreakers has previously gone on hiatus when Petty hooked up with his idols Bob Dylan, George Harrison, and Roy Orbison as a member of the erstwhile ‘supergroup’ the Traveling Wilburys, appearing on albums by the band in 1988 and 1990. In between, working with his Wilburys bandmate Jeff Lynne and the Heartbreakers’ guitarist Mike Campbell, Petty recorded his first solo album, 1989’s Full Moon Fever.
Petty and the Heartbreakers reunited in 1991 to record Into the Great Wide Open with Lynne co-producing, after which the band hit the road for a 48-date North American tour from which this recording is taken. Psychotic Reaction is a lengthy (73min) collection of sixteen tracks that includes older tunes like “Refugee,” and “Here Comes My Girl” alongside new Heartbreakers’ jams like “King’s Highway,” “Into the Great Wide Open,” and “Learning To Fly.” Throw in live versions of Petty solo tunes like “Free Fallin’,” “I Won’t Back Down,” and “Runnin’ Down A Dream” and you have a totally electrifying set. Sound quality is better than an FM broadcast should be. Previously released on CD-R and widely traded in taping circles, Psychotic Reaction gets its name from the band’s raucous reading of the classic Count Five song featuring Petty’s ramshackle harmonica, Campbell’s scorching fretwork, and Benmont Tench’s undeniably foot-shufflin’ keyboards. The Rev’s recommendation: buy it!
Stephen Stills & Manassas – Live Treasure (Go Faster Records)
This might be the CD find of the month – provided that you’re a fan of Stephen Stills and Manassas, of course – Live Treasure a budget-priced two-disc set capturing a March 1972 performance at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam that was broadcast on FM radio. After releasing two well-received solo albums in the span of a roughly nine months circa 1970-71, Stills put together Manassas with former Byrds and Flying Burrito Brothers multi-instrumentalist Chris Hillman, later recruiting Crosby, Stills & Nash drummer Dallas Taylor, pedal steel wizard Al Perkins (Flying Burrito Brothers), keyboardist Paul Harris, and percussionist Joe Lala (Blues Image). Manassas would release its self-titled debut in April 1972 (the label flogging it as “Stephen Stills’ Manassas”), which means that Live Treasure documents the band still knocking the rough edges off their (then) unique blend of rock, country, and blues music – what we’d call ‘roots-rock’ or “Americana’ these days.
Among the 29 songs and better than two hours of music you’ll find on Live Treasure are a bunch of songs from Stills’ solo albums, including gems like “Do For the Others,” “Change Partners,” and the hit “Love the One You’re With” as well as tracks from the then-forthcoming Manassas album like “Bound To Fall,” “Don’t Look At My Shadow,” and “Johnny’s Garden.” There are also performances of a couple of outliers like “Hot Burrito #2” from the Flying Burrito Brothers’ Gilded Palace of Sin album and Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth.” The band displays a complex musical dynamic here, and Stills’ fretwork is simply stunning on songs like “Blues Man.” The sound quality on Live Treasure is spotty, but don’t believe the negative reviews on Amazon – although not as impressive a recording as, say, the aforementioned Tom Petty album, it’s not as bad as your garden variety bootleg, either; the overall fine band performance documented on these two discs more than makes up for the album’s sonic flaws. The Rev’s recommendation: buy it!
Neil Young – Bottom Line 1974 (Gold Fish Records)
Rock ‘n’ Roll legend Neil Young has released a number of classic live recordings under the banner of his “archive series” over the past few years, but this often-bootlegged performance seems to have been overlooked as of this date. Recorded at New York City’s storied Bottom Line club in May 1974, the album showcases Young performing in a solo acoustic setting. As legend has it, Young was in the audience that night for a performance by the talented Ry Cooder and, so moved was he that Young jumped onstage and proceeded to knock out a stellar eleven-song set clocking in at over an hour.
Although the Gold Fish Records release of Bottom Line 1974 states that it was taken from an FM radio broadcast, notes on Young’s own website say that it’s an audience recording. My educated ears say that it probably falls in between – maybe a soundboard recording with some bleed through from the audience – but there’s no denying the strength and passion of Young’s performance here. Young debuts five entirely new songs and a total of ten unreleased songs from future albums like On the Beach (“Ambulance Blues,” “Revolution Blues,” “Motion Pictures,” “On The Beach”), Tonight’s The Night (“Roll Another Number For The Road”), and Zuma (“Pardon My Heart”). Young draws upon not only his own songbook but also material like “Long May You Run,” from his future (1976) collaboration with Stephen Stills, and Buffalo Springfield’s “Flying On the Ground Is Wrong.” A charming display of Young’s talents, Bottom Line 1974 is an obscure but important addition to the artist’s catalog. The Rev’s recommendation: buy it, or wait for Neil to release a legit version…
Thanks to the vagaries created by loopholes in international copyright law, it seems that live music from the 1970s – particularly FM radio broadcasts – are fair game for release on CD by dodgy European labels. The situation is a godsend for rock ‘n’ roll fans, who now have access to budget recordings by their favorite artists that were only previously available as higher-priced bootleg titles.
Not all of these so-called “copyright gap” releases are worth your time and money, however, which is where That Devil Music’s “Bootleg Rodeo” comes into play. This monthly (give or take) column aims to separate the wheat from the chaff and let you know which of these recordings deserve a place in your collection and which should have been left to collect dust in a closet somewhere. Get ‘em while you can, kiddies, ‘cause one never knows when copyright treaties will be revised and the availability of these albums disappears.
For our inaugural “Bootleg Rodeo,” the Rev has chosen to round up recent live CDs from Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Carlos Santana, and George Thorogood & the Destroyers, with links to buy ‘em from Amazon.com.
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers – New York Shuffle (Sonic Boom)
A lot of shows from the legendary My Father’s Place in Roslyn, New York have appeared on bootleg vinyl and CD through the years, most of them snatched from the frequent and ubiquitous radio broadcasts by WLIR-FM. Radio stations generally hold onto tapes of these shows in their archives for years (or at least until some employee grabs ‘em!), and while more than a few of these previous bootleg releases were no doubt sourced from off-air recordings, in the case of Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers’ New York Shuffle, the sound quality is good enough to believe that it’s a first generation soundboard taping.
Capturing an early Petty & the Heartbreakers’ performance from November 1977 at My Father’s Place, New York Shuffle documents a young band touring in support of their acclaimed debut album. As such, there are spirited performances of great songs like “American Girl,” “Breakdown,” and “Anything That’s Rock ‘n’ Roll” as well as “Listen To Her Heart” and “I Need To Know” from their upcoming album, You’re Gonna Get It! The disc also includes raucous covers of the Isley Brothers (“Shout”) and Bobby Troup’s “Route 66.” To fill out the CD’s tracklist (and get closer to an hour of running time), Sonic Boom added two tracks from a KSAN-FM broadcast earlier in the year, including a rowdy take on Chuck Berry’s “Jaguar & Thunderbird.” The Rev’s recommendation: Buy it!
Carlos Santana w/John Lee Hooker – One Monday Morning (Laser Media)
This lil’ disc from the enigmatic Laser Media label bills itself as “legendary” Santana radio broadcast dating from 1985, but that’s really all the information that they’re willing to reveal. Although his name is writ large on the front cover beside his smiling face, with a smaller “Special Guest John Lee Hooker” in a box below, this album has very little to do with Carlos Santana. Rather, it’s a mid-‘80s John Lee Hooker performance, the legendary bluesman backed by his Coast to Coast Blues Band, including guitarist Roy Rogers and keyboardist Deacon Jones.
Nevertheless, there are a few things on One Monday Morning to like, providing you can grab a copy at a decent (> $10) price. There are only eight songs here, two of which feature the CCBB cranking out blues/R&B standards like “Shake Your Money Maker.” They bring on John Lee and, after a couple of perfunctory warm-up tunes (“One Monday Morning” and “I Don’t Know’), the Hook launches into an incendiary reading of his classic “Boom Boom” that offers up some scorching fretwork courtesy of rock ‘n’ roll legend Santana. The sound quality is, to be kind, mediocre, shallow without noticeable equalization, but around half the performances here (i.e. those with Carlos) are incendiary. The Rev’s recommendation: Maybe?
George Thorogood & the Destroyers – Boogie Chillin’ (Zip City)
The El Mocambo club in Toronto, Ontario is one of Canada’s legendary venues, and the site of many a notable performance. Since the club opened in 1948, it’s hosted a literal “who’s who” of incredible performers like Muddy Waters, Elvis Costello, the Rolling Stones, and the Ramones, among others. It’s also been the site of the not-infrequent live FM radio broadcast, like this red-hot set by George Thorogood & the Destroyers, attributed to a July 1978 performance and broadcast by an uncredited local station. Thorogood and his rough-riders had been together a few years at this point and already released two critically-acclaimed albums (1977’s self-titled debut and 1978’s Move It On Over), and the performance documented by Zip City’s Boogie Chillin’ is largely comprised of material from those discs.
This is around the time that the Reverend first saw Thorogood & the Destroyers perform, at Nashville’s Exit/In with the Nighthawks opening, and I can personally vouch for the band’s explosive and entertaining live show. Boogie Chillin’ opens with Thorogood’s lively take on bluesman Homesick James’ “Baby, Please Set a Date” and, from that launching pad, soars with blistering covers of classic early rock ‘n’ blues gems by Bo Diddley (“Who Do You Love?), John Lee Hooker (“Boogie Chillin”), Willie Dixon (“I’m Wanted”), and Chuck Berry (“Reelin’ and Rockin’”). Thorogood was never the most prolific of songwriters in those early days, but his own “Homesick Boy” is an inspired rocker that fits like a glove with the other material here. The sound quality on Boogie Chillin’ is very good, with a sonic few drop outs, and George’s guitar seems to be out-of-tune at times, but Thorogood and crew more than make up for it with the passion and energy of these performances. The Rev’s recommendation: Buy it!
