3/17/06

Some excellent photos from SXSW-Morrissey,The Vacation,The Like etc.

3/8/06



Audio Samples

Official Rhino press release:

RHINO RAWKS THE PLANK WITH PIRATE RADIO

Career-Spanning Pretenders Collection Includes Four Discs of the Band's Best
Plus Rare and Unreleased Tracks as Well as a DVD Featuring Unreleased Performances

LOS ANGELES - American expatriate Chrissie Hynde formed The Pretenders in 1978 while working in London and continues to be the band's driving force today. More than 25 years after the hard rocking quartet's original lineup-Hynde, guitarist James Honeyman Scott, bassist Pete Farndon and drummer Martin Chambers-launched the band's hit-making expedition, Rhino Records shivers ye timbers with PIRATE RADIO. The Pretenders' career-spanning boxed set includes four discs and a single DVD and is available March 14 at regular retail outlets for a suggested price of $74.98.

The collection-81 tracks and 19 videos-contains more than five hours of The Pretenders' best from all eight of the band's studio recordings plus soundtrack contributions and live recordings. PIRATE RADIO brings together the band's essential recordings with hard-to-find rarities and unreleased studio and live recordings. The DVD compiles the band's British television performances along with unreleased concert recordings from 1979-1995.

The Pretenders' musical evolution plays out over the course of PIRATE RADIO's four discs starting with the band's scrappy, early days in London-including a previously unreleased 1978 demo of "Precious" and the band's first two singles, "Stop Your Sobbing" and "The Wait." Starting in 1979, the band began a successful two-year run that included two albums and an EP-Pretenders (1979) and Pretenders II (1981) and Extended Play (1981)-that boasted some of the band's biggest hits such as "Brass In Pocket," "Message Of Love" and "I Go To Sleep."

The set also chronicles the aftermath of the heartbreaking losses of Honeyman Scott, who died in 1982, and Farndon, who died in 1983. Hynde returned in 1984 with Learning To Crawl, which featured the hits "Back On The Chain Gang," "Middle Of The Road," "Show Me" and "Thin Line Between Love And Hate." Two years later The Pretenders were back with Get Close, which included the hit "Don't Get Me Wrong." PIRATE RADIO also includes several unreleased session outtakes including "Tequila" from the Learning To Crawl sessions and "Worlds Within Worlds," Warren Zevon's "Reconsider Me" and an alternate version of "Hold A Candle To This" from the Get Close sessions. PIRATE RADIO also includes selections from Packed! (1990), Last Of The Independents (1994), The Isle Of View (1995), Viva El Amor! (1999) and Loose Screw (2002).

PIRATE RADIO also packs in music The Pretenders originally released on soundtracks and compilations, including the Burt Bacharach/Hal David-penned "Windows Of The World" from the 1969 soundtrack, a cover of Jimi Hendrix's "Bold As Love" from Stone Free: A Tribute To Jimi Hendrix, a cover of Morrissey's "Everyday Is Like Sunday" from the Boys On The Side soundtrack and a live cover of Radiohead's "Creep."

3/5/06

Riot at GBH/Adicts/Brit Punk Concert in Fontana, CA

3/2/2006

Truth is stranger than fiction..

90s singer-songwriter Jen Trynin's memoir of her adventures in the music biz

3/1/2006

From the official press release:

WOLF TRACKS: THE BEST OF LOS LOBOS contains more than an hour of wildly eclectic music by David Hidalgo on vocals/guitar/accordion, Conrad Lozano on bass/vocals, Louie Pérez on drums/guitar, Cesar Rosas on guitar/bajo sexto/vocals, and Steve Berlin on saxophone/keyboards. The album features 20 of the band's most beloved songs spanning nearly two decades and includes the previously unreleased track, "Border Town Girl," recorded during the sessions for The Neighborhood.

Arranged chronologically, the collection kicks off with "Let's Say Goodnight" and the Grammy©-winning "Anselma," a pair of tracks from the band's 1983 EP ...And A Time To Dance. WOLF TRACKS: THE BEST OF LOS LOBOS features five selections from Los Lobos' first full-length album How Will The Wolf Survive? including the title-track, "Don't Worry Baby," "A Matter Of Time," "Corrido #1," and "Evangeline." More than 100 critics cited the album as one of the best of 1984.

Three years later, Los Lobos found mainstream success to match their critical acclaim on the soundtrack to La Bamba. The title track to the Ritchie Valens biopic became a #1 hit for Los Lobos, and its follow-up single, "Come On, Let's Go" made the Top 40. The band also reached out to new audiences in 1987 with the moody By The Light Of The Moon, represented here by "One Time One Night," "Set Me Free (Rosa Lee)," and "Shakin' Shakin' Shakes." Also included on WOLF TRACKS: THE BEST OF LOS LOBOS is a live version of the Mexican classic "Volver Volver" recorded in 1987. WOLF TRACKS: THE BEST OF LOS LOBOS is rounded out with selections from the band's La Pistola Y El Corazón (1988), The Neighborhood (1990), Kiko (1992), This Time (1999), and Good Morning Aztlán (2002).

CD review forthcoming--to tide you over til then..

Audio Streams:

Listening Party

It's weird-a few days ago I got a sudden urge to scour You Tube for Monster Magnet videos, & this morning I was looking at their website, and now I find out--

Monster Magnet Singer Dave Wyndorf Hospitalized After OD, European Tour Cancelled

They're ex-drug addicts, aspiring country singers, reality tv stars, Access Hollywood co-hosts, groupiemongers, and DUI offenders--these guys have racked up quite an impressive post-80s resume. With the release of The Best of Poison:20 Years of Rock on April 4th and a tour sponsored by VH1 Classic, you can relive all you favorite Aqua Net and spandex memories.

WMP Audio Streams

Talk Dirty To Me


We're An American Band (Cover version of the Grand Funk song produced by Don Was)

2/28/06

I always knew the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame was evil and corporate, but I never knew that inductees had to pay for their families to attend.

Pistols Tell Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame to Fuck Off

2/25/06

I've resumed the "Slums Off Hollywood Blvd." blog. For Red Lightning EP Review and other items, go here.

Howard Stern launches contest for aspiring filmmakers..

Got any short films about strippers and midgets?

2/24/04

Once again--couldn't this time be spent on more pressing matters?

Feds Quiz Morrissey

My intro to singer/songwriter KT Tunstall came via this article on Ananova. Seems Scottish gal KT wasn't aware that rainbow suspenders mean a different thing in San Fran than in the lush green hills o' Scotland. For the real story on KT, check out her website, the official bio posted below, and audio samples on the Amazon link.

KT Tunstall.com

Buy The CD

KT Tunstall Biography

KT Tunstall is a sparkling new songwriter with Chinese blood, a Scottish heart, great legwarmers and a cool name - "well, it's got a bit more attitude than Kate which just says farmer's daughter to me," she laughs. KT celebrates classic singer-songwriting in the tradition of Rikki Lee Jones, Carol King and Fleetwood Mac with an articulate, accessible, immediate brew of rootsy sass, wistful quandary and after-hours atmosphere. The latest in a line of outstanding contemporary Scottish songwriters including Texas, Fran Healy, Teenage Fanclub and The Beta Band, KT's unique perspective offers a rare emotionally connecting intensity through it's gripping lyrical bite and heartfelt melody.

She grew up in the university town of St Andrew's ("beautiful but sheltered, a little bubble"), always knowing she had been adopted at birth. "I grew up knowing I could have had a million different lives. It makes your life mysterious and your imagination go wild."

Her debut album 'Eye To The Telescope' is the creative consequence of that inquiring imagination. "My songs examine and explore little specific emotions or situations or stories," she explains. "They're kitchen table songs, like a conversation between me and one other person. It's almost like an alien has been sent to get emotional samples from human beings and put it all together on a record."

KT spent her childhood up hills and under canvas with her outward-bound parents. Music was never really part of the equation until her older brother discovered the joys of hair metal. "I would sit outside his room and record his music through his door."

Her first album was the Never-ending Story soundtrack, but her favourite, reassuringly, is David Bowie's 'Hunky Dory'. "Its sound really touched my love for songwriting and spacey stuff," she says. "I was really into sci-fi books as a kid. My dad is a physicist and he used to take my brothers and I into his lab when we were little. We played games with liquid nitrogen and Van de Graaff generators. He had the keys to the observatory at St Andrew's University and he'd get us up in the middle of the night to show us Halley's Comet. That's partly why the album is called 'Eye To The Telescope.'"

The young active KT took up piano, then flute and gradually her singing voice developed its earthy individuality, "I'm pretty certain that I learned how to sing because someone gave me an Ella Fitzgerald tape - she was my singing teacher."

By her mid-teens, KT had started writing her own songs, "but I was just coming out with this schmaltzy love nonsense. It was a complete vomit of puppy love. But I thought I was rocking." At 16, she took up the guitar, teaching herself from a busker's book. Schmaltz was junked; a musical epiphany ensued.

Hungry for experiences and independence, she gained a scholarship to Kent School in Conneticutt, New England and absorbed gigs by The Grateful Dead and 10,000 Maniacs. She also formed her first band, The Happy Campers, and played a host of informal gigs. "By the second week of playing an open mic slot I was their 'special guest from Scotland!'," she recalls.

Next stop on her personal odyssey was a music course at Royal Holloway College, where she tried and failed to form another band. "I managed to win Battle Of The Bands with one mandolin player! It was me and eleven goth bands and I won."

After vanquishing the goths, KT returned to St Andrews and became immersed in the grassroots scene which spawned The Beta Band and the Fence Collective, forming a group with Fence's Pip Dylan and honing her tastes with an ambrosial diet of James Brown, Lou Reed, Billie Holliday, Johnny Cash and PJ Harvey.

A few years and bands later, it was crunch time for Tunstall. She hit London again where, finally, things started to fall into place. Working relationships were forged, deals were secured. She began writing projects with Swedish songwriter/producer Martin Terefe and London-based Orcadian Jimmy Hogarth and London's Tommy D. With over a hundred songs in her pocket, set to work on her debut album with her new band and legendary U2/New Order/Happy Mondays producer Steve Osborne at the helm.

"Steve was producer and engineer - he did everything. He even invited me to stay with him and his family so we could work longer. We recorded the album in this gnarly little studio in the woods in Wiltshire. It was this disabled guy's house. The vocal booth was the wheelchair ramp between his bedroom and the control room. So you could either sing going downhill or uphill. It was perfect, so raw. He's got this little shack in the garden where all the local bands rehearse. It was like Deliverance."

Minus the psychopathic locals, presumably. And no duelling banjos either. "I didn't want to take too much equipment into the studio because it's when you have to be inventive that you get interesting music. Tom Waits said if you want something to sound like a cardboard box being hit with a boot, then hit a cardboard box with a boot."

This lo-fi, visceral, boot-wielding approach was inspired by KT's recent conversion to the hiss and crackle of early blues. "On the whole, I'm a positive, skippity-la-la person but I love the dark side of music and I will always want to explore that. It's a positive-sounding album but there's stuff underneath for sure."

Since completing 'Eye To The Telescope', life has been a blur of gigs, first as support to Joss Stone, then a tour of Europe, singing with 'klezmer hip-hop' band Oi Va Voi, who ignited the Avalon Stage at Glastonbury.

"It was blazing sunshine and I went on in a turquoise neck muff, glamorous dress and muddy boots and just had the best gig, really emotional. I've had emails from people saying that they cried. They promised it wasn't the drugs."

Now KT is raring to channel all her infectious energies into her own music. "I'm not exactly sure what has driven me so hard," she says. "I've never questioned it. I've never had a back-up plan. I was never going to do anything else."

2/19/06

Tori Amos-Fade To Red
Video Collection
Rhino Home Video

The Backstory

Tori Amos transformed herself from a gawky young girl named Myra, a minister's daughter and a child prodigy on the piano, performing in nightclubs as a young teen, to the fiery-haired earth goddess of the keyboards, a gay and feminist icon, the mistress of oblique yet intriguing lyrics, and well, a just plain dippy broad to some.

Late in 1999, I went to a concert at Jones Beach in New York that featured co-headliners Alanis Morrisette and Tori Amos. It was one of the few concerts my roommate at the time and I agreed to attend together. I was a Monster Magnet gal and she was a Billy Joel gal, but we found middle ground in Tori. My roomie and I waited at the bus stop to the venue with group of teen and twentysomething girls, some of them accompanied by a soon to be metrosexual boyfriend. It certainly was a girl's night out; I even got my period unexpectedly. (I know, too much information.) Tori wasn't especially talkative that night, but just to see her at the piano, flowing red hair in the spotlight, crouched defiantly over the piano bench, was enough to summon Persephone back from the underworld. My review was simple. "Tori is a goddess,"I e-mailed my friends when I got home.

Being an old metal/biker/hardcore punk chick from day one, this was a weird assortment of concertgoers to behold, much less join. Aah, the things I did for Tori. But Tori, you know, started out as a metal chick in the late '80s. Soon after moving to L.A., she got signed and released Y Cant Tori Read (see album cover above.) Matt Sorum played drums, and Rick Nielsen and Robin Zander sang backup vocals on one of the songs. A few years later, Tori dumped the Aqua net and became the ditzy poetess of the piano we all know and love. Even musical prodigies fell prey to the big hair-metal of the 80s.

By the time 1999 rolled around, Tori had long been the poster girl for post-feminist singer/songwriters in a way that Sarah McLachlan or Alanis Morrisette could never claim. Tori, you see, was balanced in her approach. She was worldly, bohemian, glamorous, arty, sexy (everyone-gay, straight, male, female could agree on this point) and obviously intelligent and well-read. Though her you could never be quite sure what her lyrics actually meant. Not that Tori has ever cleared that up to anyone's satisfaction. If an interviewer asked her about a song's meaning, Tori's explanation only complicated matters. Still, she was one of the more intriguing, literate figures in '90s music.

Under The Pink was the first Tori album I bought. Icicles seemed vaguely to be about masturbation/sexual awakening, The Waitress about female rivalry. Cornflake Girl, while oblique to most, had a special meaning to me. Never was a cornflake girl/thought it was a good solution/ hanging with the raisin girls/I'm going to the other side/giving them the old heave-ho./ I must have played this song 50 times in a row, crying til my blouse was soaked with tears. I had just moved from New York to my hometown of Chicago and was in a holding pattern, wondering whether to go to Los Angeles or back to New York. As a female archetype, I didn't qualify as an L.A. woman (cornflake) or as a N.Y woman (raisin). Rather, I was like Tori in the "Cornflake Girl" video, driving the truck and twirling on the gym bars while the cornflake and raisin girls fought over a tied up studboy. (Eventually I wound up in New Orleans, fashioning my own interpretation of a "cornflake girl.")

Every Tori song means something slightly different to each listener. Since her lyrics aren't linear, they are open to individual interpretation. I'm sure someday a women's studies professor will teach a course on Tori's lyrics. Her fans are notoriously attached to her, although the hysteria of her mid-90s fame has waned. Her most ardent fans vent their fascination on websites and messageboards and in the occasional painting or tattoo. There's even a doll designer who based one of her first creations on Tori. While working as a production coordinator for a doll collector magazine in the mid-90s, I noticed that one of the fairy dolls in an ad bore an uncanny resemblance to a certain redheaded singer.

The Muse

A Spin magazine cover article on Tori in November 1999 caused quite a tizzy when Tori and the artist Pat Kochie took issue with some of the writer's fact checking abilities. Pat and her husband are still fashioning dolls at patkochie@aol.com.

So far this decade, Tori has given us The Beekeeper and Scarlet's Walk, two ambitious, adult works that demonstrate Tori is determined to grow as an artist, even if that means forsaking some of the emotional overload of her earlier songs. While The Beekeeper delves into autobiographical themes, now told from the POV of a 40ish married woman with a child, the obtuse lyrics are still intact. Tori still remains one of pop music's most evocative lyricists. She's less arty than Bjork and not as ethereal as Kate Bush. In many ways, her words connect more with listeners on a personal level because the emotions and images tell a story-even if we're left with a cliffhanger most times.

The Videos

Disc One

Past The Mission-Tori leads a group of black clad women of all ages through a village in Spain as they receive bemused glances from the local men. Tori encounters a priest. The women lie down while the priest walks around them to join the men. And then the women make their escape. A straightforward video, not the usual surreal riddles we've come to expect. (Under The Pink)

Crucify- Tori in bondage dress baptized in bathtub. Multiple Toris cheerleading in waitress uniforms. She peers through cut-outs prominent in all her videos from Little Earthquakes. On the audio commentary, Tori talks about Victorian gowns and the beheading of Anne Boleyn. I have no idea what that has to do with the finished version of the video.

Jackie's Strength- Tori as runaway bride in a taxi goes for a spin around the neighborhood as groom laments. Scenes from Tori's life whiz by as she watches her neighbors and family from the taxi window. (Choirgirl Hotel)

A Sorta Fairytale-An animated fairy tale on the streets of downtown L.A. Tori is not a whole person, she's only a head and a leg. Her suitor (Adrien Brody) has suffered the same fate as arm/head combination. Their resulting love makes them whole by the end of the video An unusual combination of a story and special effects. (Scarlet's Walk)

Winter--Tori at the piano. Another stark, all white video. She dances with a group of little kids who are wearing flower headgear, and revisits her relationship with her father. In the audio commentary, Tori explains how she burst into tears at one point she was so overcome with emotion and her make-up had to be redone. If you watch the last shot closely, you can see that Tori is still holding back the tears. (Little Earthquakes)

Spark-- Stylish concept video with Tori as kidnap victim who escapes from car trunk. She stumbles through the forest while her kidnapper follows her and manages to find her way to the road. There is a chance of escape-- but not for long. (Choirgirl Hotel)

Sleeps With Butterflies- A video based on the artwork of Aya Kato features Tori in a variety of costumes, sitting on a mushroom, surrounded by-what else-butterflies. (The Beekeeper)

Cornflake Girl-The American version of the video, filmed on a cheesy set that evokes the Southwestern U.S. Tori drives a pick-up truck while the raisin girls and cornflake girls brawl in the truck bed. Tori and the girls dance around the hapless stud as he sits in a bucket of water chopping up a carrot. Phallic reference? You're for dinner? Or both? (Under The Pink)

Hey Jupiter--A distraught, smoky-eyed Tori is rescued from a burning building by a little blonde girl (an angel?) and ostensibly saved from her addiction, crisis, or abusive relationship. Or perhaps the little girl is guiding her to the afterlife. (Boys For Pele)

Silent All These Years--In another grainy, white early video, Tori flings around in orange and blue miniskirt and rolls back and forth in a wooden box. A cute little girl dances defiantly against the stark background. (Little Earthquakes)

Disc 2

Caught A Lite Sneeze--I can't for the life of me figure out these lyrics. Pretty Hate Machine is another Trent reference (Tori mentioned Nine Inch Nails in These Precious Things), but I can't offer even a vague interpretation of anything else. The video begins with Tori rolling around on a floor covered with autumn leaves. A surrealistic ocean scheme keeps the lyrical riddle flowing. (Boys For Pele)

1000 Oceans--One of Tori's most decipherable love songs I know how the game Is played/ but I will be here following you. Tori, dressed in a black gown sings the song in a glass box on a street in downtown L.A. Street people, quarrelling lovers, and nuns pass by, some intrigued by the imprisoned singer, some disgusted. A mini L.A. riot occurs as Tori sings in her isolation booth, aching for human contact. (To Venus And Back)

God-- See what happens when your Dad is a Methodist minister? God sometimes you just don't come through/do you need a woman to look after you? Rats scurry over Tori as she lies on the floor. We see scenes from various religious ceremonies, including snakehandlers, Kabbalah, and Hinduism. (Under The Pink)

Bliss-- The obligatory live concert video. Tori and band engage in backstage camaraderie. Tori plays with a Teletubbie! A guitarist rides a bike in the hallway. Such rock 'n' roll decadance.. (To Venus And Back)

China- Tori in grey bodysuit slithering on rocks by the ocean. A shot of broken china mixed in with the rocks is included for good measure. A sculptor works nearby, building a stone piano while Tori stares seductively at the camera and sings.China, an absolutely haunting love song, demonstrates Tori's ability to impart the intense longing one feels when separated from a lover by using disparate and deliberately obtuse imagery. (Little Earthquakes)

Raspberry Swirl-- A bouncy and bass-heavy song that is an inch away from industrial. Tori follows a boy through his bedroom to a rave. She crawls through a tunnel. They end up at a dinner with kids in black wigs who turn in to pigs. (Choirgirl Hotel-- her most underrated album.)

Talula-- Captured by scientists, our girl is trapped in a plastic booth again, separated from her piano. (It's sealed in a booth next to her.) A scientist pokes and prods at her with scary looking medical instruments. Tori finally breaks out of the booth and runs to her piano. (Boys For Pele)

Sweet The Sting- Our girl sings the blues, posing a sexual challenge of sorts to a lover. In the opening verse, the man in question struts in the room ala "You're So Vain." (Lyrical aside--So what is cinnabar juice, hmmm?) Tori and gospel back-up singers gather round the piano. Some behind the scenes shots of Tori and her musicians. (The Beekeeper)

Pretty Good Year- Tori in her thermals sings the opening verse while sitting on an overstuffed chair in a white room. She jumps through a window, as glass shatters over the ivory void. Cut to Tori in bed, singing to her blonde lover boy, then dancing with a bunch of young studs in their underwear. (Little Earthquakes)

Extras

Cornflake Girl (UK Version) A plotless dream version of the video, loosely based on the Wizard Of Oz.

Professional Widow (Remix)

The Making of the "A Sorta Fairytale" Video

Audio Commentary by Tori Amos

Buy:

Fade To Red

Rhino.com

Watch:

Past The Mission

Video Stream

Tori Websites:

Everything Tori

Tori Amos.com