Incoming: Atomic Rooster Death Walks Behind You Soon to be published, a closer look (listen) to Atomic Rooster’s Death Walks Behind You, a “heavy” album from a band that grew out of The Crazy World of Arthur Brown and originally included Carl Palmer on drums (who left the band to join ELP before this album was recorded) and Vincent Crane. Crane’s keyboard work is sorely overlooked—the organ sounds are majestic, dark and gothic in an almost classical sense. Crane’s piano work is also stunning- the sense of weight and tone is a magnificent counterpoint to the... Read More
Fixing Certain Features on the Site
Fixing Certain Features on the Site As this site has grown, I have tried to improve it, and add certain features. Alas, some of them don’t perform as intended and need to be reprogrammed. Some of this is owed to custom programming when the site was set up to give it a particular “look” as well as interoperability issues between WordPress and the large commercial hosting service I had been using from inception. My team of IT support folks are working on various tasks now, including: fixes to the Letters to the Editor function (I know some of you have written and those... Read More
Taking a Wider View On Your Listening Choices
Taking a Wider View On Your Listening Choices If you take music seriously (and I’m not talking about pinky lifting pretension here)- you can take garage bands or punk as seriously as original Blue Notes, you know your taste. It is seldom dictated by the mainstream trends, marketing, or popular culture of the moment. Sometimes, popular music isn’t just fluff either and can prove enduring as well, see, e.g. “The Letter”. Chances are, you had some epiphany at some point- probably as a teenager—and recognized that there were certain things you liked, in preference to the music that... Read More
GRANICUS –s/t; Interview with Woody Leffel
GRANICUS –s/t; Interview with Woody Leffel Hailing from Cleveland, Ohio, Granicus recorded one self-titled album for RCA in 1973 that received little support from the label before the band called it quits. Even today, the album remains relatively obscure among aficionados of hard rock for reasons that remain a mystery: unlike many early hard rock records that have achieved cult status (often, with prices to match), it contains consistent, powerful performances and sounds neither derivative nor dated. I was sufficiently intrigued by the record to reach out to the re-formed band, which... Read More
LLOYD MCNEILL-ASHA AND BEYOND
LLOYD MCNEILL-ASHA AND BEYOND I’ve recently developed this thing for Lloyd McNeill, which started when a dealer friend of mine, Tosca Records, mentioned McNeill’s Washington Suite. What he failed to tell me was that the record was scarce, and good copies are not only hard to find, but quite pricey. I’ve been listening to a lot of spiritual jazz lately but Washington Suite is one of the finest pieces of music I’ve heard. It was composed by McNeill for a ballet in Washington, D.C. and released on McNeill’s private label, Asha. Original copies are truly scarce- not that this has... Read More
Blackwater Park- Dirt Box
Blackwater Park- Dirt Box An early hard rock release from Germany featuring an English singer, Blackwater Park is familiar to Opeth fans because it is also the title of an album that may represent Opeth’s peak as a metal band (before Opeth eventually turned to more naturally voiced, progressive rock sounds). Beyond name-checking this early band, I don’t recall much similarity to the Opeth album but admittedly, it’s been a while since I played Opeth’s Blackwater Park. This record, by contrast, is more straight ahead hard rock of the heavy variety; original pressings on BASF are... Read More
Orne –Tree of Life
Orne –Tree of Life Ever listen to “doom prog”? Tree of Life by Orne is a beautiful, dark journey that manages to avoid some of the clichés of the genre but shines in unexpected ways. Orne is an offshoot of the doom metal band Reverend Bizarre and started life as Mesmer. By the time of this release in 2011 (on Black Widow Records of Italy), Orne seems to have captured their muse, delivering a moody, delicate brooding sound without too much sameness. The album is very atmospheric—you let it play, rather than “listen” to it. The spoken word bit at the beginning of the album... Read More
Cargo a/k/a September
Cargo This Dutch hard rock outing was originally released in 1972 on Harvest in the Netherlands as Cargo and consisted of four tracks. At the time of recording, the band was originally known as September. Various reissues have included “bonus” tracks. The most current reissue on vinyl (2017) is on the Pseudonym label (which appears to be identical to that label’s 2012 reissue); it contains the original four tracks, with a handful of demo tracks that were allegedly unreleased, spread over two LPs. Although the original album is a known collectible, and priced accordingly,... Read More
SEDUCED BY SOUND: AUSTIN, 100 Musicians on Why They Make Music
SEDUCED BY SOUND: AUSTIN, 100 Musicians on Why They Make Music Even if you hung out in every bar, dive and dance hall in a town for the last 40 years, you wouldn’t capture the musical influences, history and “feel” of a place as well as this book tells it. Part history, part interviews with music makers, SEDUCED BY SOUND: AUSTIN is far more than a cheat sheet for the vast array of talent that inhabits this “live music capital of the world.” It tells the story of the Austin music scene, in the words of the people who lived and made it, in a way no narrative history... Read More
Krokodil – An Invisible World Revealed
Krokodil – An Invisible World Revealed If any album defies categorization, it is this one: an early psych driven effort by a Swiss band sporting a British bassist/guitarist/vocalist that is categorized as “Krautrock” but often dismissed by progressive rock enthusiasts as blues-driven hard rock. Who cares? It’s a wonderful record, starting with the first track, “Lady of Attraction,” with its swirling, phasey vocals and psychedelic atmospherics. You can detect the blues-rock elements in some tracks, but they are so effectively combined with other, more exotic motifs that the... Read More
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