Seasick Steve – Sonic Soul Surfer (2015)

Seasick Steve - Sonic Soul Surfer (2015)

Seasick Steve - Sonic Soul Surfer (2015) Some stories are too good to be true. Imagine a hobo, a man with no past, future, nor present who eventually end up making a blues album and bringing in John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin to play the bass only because he do not knew anybody else playing that instrument. So, yes, I mean no, this could not happen.
Steven Wold (aka Seasick Steve) was born in 1941 in Oakland, California and in the 1960s he started touring and performing with fellow blues musicians. He made friends like Joni Mitchell and since then he has worked, on and off, as a session musician and studio engineer. In the late 80s he worked with several indie label artists around Seattle. In the 1990s he work as a recording engineer and producer, producing several releases by Modest Mouse including their 1996 debut album “This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About”. Read more Seasick Steve – Sonic Soul Surfer (2015)

From Mozambique To Minnesota Volume 2 featuring Rich Prewett (2014)

Rich Prewett From Mozambique To Minnesota Volume 2

Rich Prewett From Mozambique To Minnesota Volume 2 This is a quite ambitious and interesting project I had stumbled into a few years back and yes, I saw the opportunity in it and gave the link to my American guitarist friend Rich Prewett. If I recall it correctly, the first song he made was “Egoista”, then he did “Sonhar” and it was followed soon by another one. Rich did an awesome job mixing those African vocals with good old tasty blues flavors. I told him that it would be great if he put together a whole album out of it and that’s what he did!
And this is really good. Feel good, sound good. Rich Prewett is a quite experience and versatile musician and producer, he made miracles with those vocal stems. The music he created and performed around those vocal tracks it’s a vivid mixture of blues, rock, reggae and Latin vibes and sounds, but maintaining throughout a “world”, an universal flavor of it. This is extremely universal, but still, very particularly Rich.
I love it throughout!! Read more From Mozambique To Minnesota Volume 2 featuring Rich Prewett (2014)

Dog Fashion Disco – Sweet Nothings (2014)

Dog Fashion Disco - Sweet Nothings (2014)

Dog Fashion Disco - Sweet Nothings (2014) Originally named Hug The Retard, Dog Fashion Disco was formed in 1995 by Todd Smith, Greg Combs, and John Ensminger in Rockville, Maryland. Tod, Greg and John were high school colleagues. Combining many different music styles from the 70’s psychedelic, through jazz to heavy metal and circus music, Dog Fashion Disco was categorized as avant-garde metal band being heavily influenced by Mike Patton’s Mr. Bungle. The band’s lyrical content is often highly esoteric and satirical, with constant tongue-in-cheek references to the occult, drug use, and other oddities.
Their first two albums were self released and low budget products. The first – “Erotic Massage” (1997) – was funded by a loan taken out by drummer John Ensminger. The second self-released album was titled “Experiments In Alchemy” and released in 1998. While the first album was Read more Dog Fashion Disco – Sweet Nothings (2014)

Trophy Scars – Holy Vacants (2014)

Trophy Scars – Holy Vacants (2014)

Trophy Scars – Holy Vacants (2014) Four years ago Trophy Scars and their fabulous “Darkness, Oh Hell” rocked my world. Literally. That hypnotic mixture of punk fueled post-hardcore, indie-psychedelic rock, jazz, blues and funk was fresh and powerful, totally addictive.
Meanwhile they lost a little bit their punk edge, but not their intensity and “Holy Vacants” it’s an excicting and charming, throughout enjoyable album. Actually they know how to get slowly under your skin and once you get “infected”, you can’t get rid of them anymore. Must mention this, they released an album entitled “Never Born, Never Dead” in 2011, but somehow I missed that.
“Holy Vacants” is Trophy Scars’ fourth album and was two years in the making. It was also intended as their last, not because of any cataclysmic upset in the band, but because the four – Jerry Jones (vocals), John Ferrara (guitarist), Andy Farrel (bass player), Brian Ferrara (drummer) and Gray Reinhard (keys, vocals) – felt that after eight years, it had run its course. Read more Trophy Scars – Holy Vacants (2014)

EarthBound – The Tales of EarthBound (2013)

EarthBound, known in Japan as Mother, is a role-playing video game series created by Shigesato Itoi for Nintendo. The series started in 1989 with the Japan-only release of Mother (planned to be released in North America as “Earth Bound”) for the Famicom, and was then followed up by a sequel, released in North America as EarthBound for the Super NES in 1995, and followed up again 12 years later with the Japan only release of Mother 3 for the Game Boy Advance in 2006. Itoi stated in an interview that the name “Mother” was greatly influenced by the John Lennon song “Mother”.
About the EarthBound trio it was damn difficult to dig out useful informations, although I find them on Facebook, Bandcamp, Soundcloud and YouTube. It seems they are an Australian band and probably “The Tales of EarthBound” it’s their debut album, as they declare, “a conceptual journey through a mystical musical land called Cleftopia.” Actually, this is a simultaneously familiar and refreshing adventure around several very famous and recognizable rock themes with a great combination of rock, funk, jazz and blues elements. Incredible talented musicians, great instrumentalists. All of them.
Joe Jeremiah – Keys, Jon “Oshy” Ooi – Drums and Jonathan “Menjeed” Mengede – Bass manage to twist in and out and back again some great themes and tied up together several different songs and at the bottom line it’s sound brand new, fresh and their own. Some things were out of my knowledge, I wasn’t able to identify precisely the source, but almost every passage sounded familiar. I’m still thinking of “Simple Bloom” and its tango flavoured aroma. Read more EarthBound – The Tales of EarthBound (2013)

Jimi Hendrix – People, Hell and Angels (2013)

Jimi Hendrix – People, Hell and Angels (2013) Although Hendrix died pretty young, at age 27, on September 18, 1970) and he only released three studio albums (the 1967’s “Are You Experienced”, the 1967’s “Axis: Bold as Love” and his seminal 1968’s “Electric Ladyland”), he managed the unequalable performance to release 12 posthumous albums. Not bad for a dead guy and those who are still earning big bucks by exploited his inheritance.
But while the so-called tasteless whatever called music these days it’s not even boring anymore, but directly annoying, listening Hendrix again made me feel better and enjoying turning the levels up on my loudspeaker. And honestly, it’s been a while since I actually enjoyed something released nowadays…
The tracks featured on “People, Hell & Angels” are previously unreleased recordings of songs that Jimi Hendrix and fellow band members – mainly the Band of Gypsys lineup featuring Billy Cox and Buddy Miles – were working on as the follow-up to “Electric Ladyland”, tentatively titled “First Rays of the New Rising Sun”. The majority of the recordings are drawn from sessions in 1968 and ’69 at the Record Plant Studios in New York, with a few inclusions from Hendrix’s brief residencies at Sound Centre, the Hit Factory, and his own Electric Lady Studios.
According to Eddie Kramer, the engineer who recorded most of Hendrix’s music during his lifetime, this will be the last Hendrix album to feature unreleased studio material. Kramer said that several as-yet-unreleased live recordings would be available in the coming years. I’m pretty sure, the greed will bring to the surface a few more “lost” recordings and we will have at least a couple of new recordings in the following years, but if those recordings will be just as good as this one, I do not mind! Read more Jimi Hendrix – People, Hell and Angels (2013)

Eric Burdon and The Greenhornes – Self-titled EP (2012)

Eric Burdon and The Greenhornes – Eric Burdon and The Greenhornes (2012) When I said a few days back that I’m tired and bored of music because music became only the additional sub-product of an exclusively profit oriented industry and the true values (the music) were replaced by fad, predictable, patterned and instantly forgettable (background) noises. In this world, in this frightening circumstances, Mr. Burdon and his youngster new allies, The Greenhornes, delivered balm for my (ears and) soul.
In a world where nothing seems genuine anymore, 71 years old Eric Burdon, the man who led The Animals in the 60s and the War in the 70s, proves – once again – that music it’s music when it’s still played with soul.
While Burdon was ranked 57th in Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time; the Garage Rock band The Greenhornes from Cincinnati, Ohio, are less famous. Formed in 1996 by vocalist/guitarist Craig Fox, bass guitarist Jack Lawrence and drummer Patrick Keeler, they released four albums, one EP and one compilation. In 2005 Lawrence and Keeler formed The Raconteurs with Jack White and Brendan Benson which eventually bring them some more exposure.
Released on November 23rd as part of Record Store Day’s “Black Friday”, this 4 track self-titled EP it’s a raw, pounding, powerful modern Blues release flavored with noises and garage feel. If this is not genuine, don’t know what it is. Read more Eric Burdon and The Greenhornes – Self-titled EP (2012)

Iggy Pop – Apres (2012)

I was afraid of this and eventually I’m right. On the other hand, this is almost like a trip back to my childhood and back to some of the songs my mom and dad danced on. So, the brand new link between Joe Dassin, Serge Gainsbourg, Harry Nilsson, Yoko Ono, Edith Piaf, Georges Brassens, Henri Salvador, Cole Porter, The Beatles and Frank Sinatra is Iggy Pop. Since January 6, 2009, when original Stooges guitarist, and Iggy’s self-described best friend Ron Asheton was found dead, Iggy acts…. different. Meantime – on March 15, 2010 – The Stooges were included into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and Iggy released “Préliminaires”, his less rock-oriented and deeply sad album, flirting with Blues and Jazz, inspired by a novel by French author Michel Houellebecq. And Iggy keep on hanging to this… French connection. “Après” (After) definitively would delight my parents and bring me back some memories, but honestly, I’m not a nostalgic at all and can’t really feel this. 10 sad songs are a little bit too depressing for me right now when the whole world seems to sinking… Read more Iggy Pop – Apres (2012)

Jack White – Blunderbuss (2012)

Jack White – Blunderbuss (2012) Sex is probably the most powerful driving force in nature, in arts, implicitly in music. Some people believe that the power behind The White Stripes was the (sexual) tension between Jack and Meg White. When this flame faded out, Jack White moved over, eventually Jack find Alison Mosshart and we’ve got The Dead Weather.
The roots of “Blunderbuss” Jack’s first official solo album goes back several years when White was recording songs for several artists such as Tom Jones, Insane Clown Posse, etc. White was in contact with Wu-Tang Clan member RZA and they were going to do a recording session, but RZA couldn’t attend the session, so White recorded several tracks, which would ended-up into “Blunderbuss”. We’ve got 13 tracks, Jack delivering from raw blues to garage Indie Rock all the tricks and approaches he tried out in the last 15 years. Still, Jack managed to be timeless and fresh, shiny. This music is both simple and flawless! Read more Jack White – Blunderbuss (2012)