Femi Akinyemi :: Egungun Riot 1976
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SIRIUS/XMU :: Aquarium Drunkard Show (Noon EST, Channel 35)
Our weekly two hour show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35, can be heard twice every Friday — Noon EST with an encore broadcast at Midnight EST.
SIRIUS 425: Jean-Michel Bernard - Générique Stéphane ++ Oliver - Off On A Trek ++ Linda Perhacs - Paper Mountain Man ++ David Wiffen - Never Make A Dollar That Way ++ David Crosby - I’d Swear There Was Somebody There ++ Neil Young - The Old Laughing Lady ++ Dungen - Franks Kaktus ++ Ellen McIlwaine - Can't Find My Way . . .
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Jon Tiven of Prix :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
1975 was a strange time for rock & roll in Memphis.
Big Star, the flagship band of Ardent Records, was kaput, and the label itself was in flux, tethered to the financial woes of its distributor, Stax. Following the tumultuous sessions that would eventually be fashioned posthumously into Big Star's Third/Sister Lovers, a young rock writer named Jon Tiven showed up from New York. A fan of Big Star who'd helped organize the Memphis Rock Writers Convention -- helping to forever align rock critics and the cult band -- he embarked on a serious of sessions with Chilton and hooked with up with a young singer/songwriter named Tommy Hoehn. Together, they tapped into the Memphis scene orbiting Ardent Studios, enlisting Chilton, Jim Dickinson, Chris Bell, and a few more session hands for a series of recordings under the name Prix, mixing Big Star-like Anglophile pop with hard-edged rock.
Only a handful of the group’s recordings ever saw official release, winding up on Miracle Records and Terry Ork’s pioneering punk label Ork Records (a couple Prix cuts are featured on Numero Group's excellent Ork anthology, Ork Records: New York, New York). Apart from a Japanese import CD, the group's recordings have remained unavailable until now: this month sees the release of Historix, featuring most of the group’s entire recorded output, via Hozac Records.
Prix didn't take off, but Tiven's enjoyed a long career in music, working with the Jim Carroll Band, producing records by Wilson Pickett and Frank Black, and writing songs for artists like Irma Thomas and Robert Cray. Inspired by renewed interest in Prix, he's begun a new incarnation of the group featuring Sid Herring of the Gants and is currently recording new material. Sadly, Bell, Chilton, Dickinson, and Hoehn have all passed, leaving Tiven as one of the last standing musicians able to shed light on the frenzied recording project. Aquarium Drunkard spoke with Tiven via the telephone to discuss the group and new reissue.
Aquarium Drunkard: How did Prix get started?
Jon Tiven: I went down to Memphis from New York City to produce some Alex Chilton tracks, which came out as Singer Not the Song and later as Bach's Bottom. I came back to New York and I couldn't find a label [for the songs]. I was working with [Memphis singer/songwriter] Van Duren, trying to get him a record deal. He said, "Why don't you come back down here [to Memphis]? You can join my band and we can see where we get." He had a band with Jody Stephens and Chris Bell, so I was happy to join that band. We did a couple of gigs with another guitar player who doubled on bass named Mike Brignardello, who was very good. I basically felt like a third wheel on a bicycle. There wasn't much for me to do. I enjoyed it, but I wasn't doing enough to merit having a five-man lineup. It was basically Van's thing.
Rather than just bide my time, I decided to do some recordings with [singer/songwriter] Tommy Hoehn. Van and Tommy were a little bit competitive with each other at that point. Van had a song called "Grow Yourself Up" -- which I thought was a very good song -- and Tommy wrote a song called "Blow Yourself Up," which was not an accident.
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Wax Wonders :: Abdou El Omari
In the mid '70s, to western ears, records rarely arrived more exotic than these Moroccan beauties featuring organist Abdou El Omari. Combining rock / funk / progressive jazz and (very psychedelic) Moroccan melodies, these are the types of records that get collectors salivating, opening their wallets deep to capture a piece of El Omari's Moroccan magic. Regarded in his homeland as an innovator who took traditional music and added a contemporary flavor, the following two singles (1976) compile a good chunk of an entire album that Abdou laid to tape. With a rhythm sometimes reminiscent of Can (a . . .
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I Cut Meat and Sing My Song: The Soft Boys, 1976-78
40 years after they emerged from Cambridge, The Soft Boys remain a totally singular band: both ahead and behind their times, Robyn Hitchcock and co. blended an array of influences (Barrett, Beatles, Beefheart, Barbershop, Britfolk, Byrds and many other things that don’t start with “B”) into something pretty magical and unique. Compiled by Evan Kindley, the following is an excellent collection of early Soft Boys rarities (drawing from a sprawling Chronological Hitchcock project making the rounds). Demos, rehearsals, outtakes, alternate mixes, live cuts, etc. And as an added . . .
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Ty Segall :: Music For A Film 1
Speaking of Can, in 2013 Ty Segall released "Music For A Film 1", the A-side to a split 7" with Chad & The Meatbodies via Famous Class Records. The Can intonations abound, here -- the shit just rips. I picked up the digital upon its release (100% of the digital sales go to the Ariel Panero Memorial Fund, dedicated to restoring music education in American public . . .
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Lucinda Williams :: The Ghosts of Highway 20
Is there ever a point in your life where it's in some way easier to lose someone? Does getting to spend a little more time with them - well into and past their expected life span - somehow ease that pain, or does it make it all the sharper? Does the larger swath of places dotted with your memories of them give you happiness or does it make the whole Earth seem haunted?
Lucinda Williams' twelfth studio album, The Ghosts of Highway 20, is as much about the memories of her father, poet Miller Williams, and her own life as it is the characters who dot the length of the title road. The term 'ghosts' here holds a variety of meanings -- memories of loved ones, people who exist when we need them to and fade out when not, and our past selves. All of this creates a fantastic tapestry interwoven with the heartbreak over the passing of her father in 2015. The previous year had birthed Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone -- an lp marking the first collaboration between father and daughter, with Lucinda adapting one of Miller's poems for the album's opener, "Compassion". And while that was the only track Miller Williams was directly a part of, on this album his presence is a constant.
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Can :: The Peel Sessions (1973-1975)
Consider the following a public service announcement: Can's collected session work with John Peel, recorded on four different occasions, between 1973-1975. The six tracks were released in 1995 via the Strange Fruit label, only to go out of print shortly thereafter. Having said that, the collection is available for download via krautrock mania, here. Get it. Much respect to More Dark Than Shark for the tip.
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Checking Back Into The Solar Motel :: Chris Forsyth & The Solar Motel Band, Sunwatchers + Nick Millevoi
Chris Forsyth's Solar Motel adventure continues with The Rarity of Experience, a double LP that brings plenty of the six-string fireworks that have become the Philadelphia-based guitarist's signature over the past few years. There's the opening 1-2 punch of "Anthem," the rave-up to end all rave-ups "High Castle Rock," and the cover of Richard Thompson's classic "Calvary Cross," which sees Forsyth stepping into some very big shoes and filling them ably . . .
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Chris Forsyth :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Chris Forsyth & The Solar Motel Band’s new double album, The Rarity of Experience, is out Friday via the increasingly trustworthy No Quarter Records. No surprise from Forsyth at this point: it’s a fantastic record, and to boot, his most daring yet. We recently caught up with the Philadelphia man to discuss the album, the deviation in tone between the two discs, his many musical influences and what, in fact, 'the rarity of experience' means.
Chris Forsyth & The Solar Motel Band :: The First Ten Minutes of Cocksucker Blues
Aquarium Drunkard: Your new record very much feels like one of two halves. The first half being inhabited by crunchier, straightforward rock songs, and the second slipping into a much slower, vibier tone. They’re even marked by different album covers and technically different titles (The Rarity of Experience I and II, respectively). What inspired this shift in direction halfway through, or sort-of double album approach, and what does it mean to you musically?
Chris Forsyth: Well, I didn’t want to make the same record again, and the last couple records [Solar Motel and Intensity Ghost] were pretty distinct from each other. Solar Motel was the album that spawned the band and then that band recorded Intensity Ghost. So, the thought of going into another recording was that I want to keep moving and keep changing and also keep challenging the band. So, I spoke to Mike Quinn, who runs No Quarter, and we talked about shooting for a double record, just trying to do something bigger. And we thought maybe we could do some stuff that’s a little more experimental. And through the course of recording we kept going back and forth, saying, “Maybe we should boil it down” and “No, let’s go big,” but eventually I sat down to listen to all the material and I called up Mike and was like, “Uh-oh, we didn’t make one record, we made two separate albums.” And so I was having a bit of an artistic freak-out but Mike said, “Oh, well, perfect, we’ll just put both out at the same time.” And that made sense to me; it’s like the first two Syd Barrett records. And, ultimately, I do think it hangs together as a piece. There’s definitely not one long whole vibe, it definitely has these distinct parts, but it holds together.
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Ornette Coleman :: To Whom Who Keeps A Record (Reissue)
Ornette Coleman assembled To Whom Who Keeps A Record in 1975 for release in Japan only. He sequenced this batch of unused compositions and alternate takes to spell out a message via track list: "music always brings goodness to us all, unless one has some other motive for its use." I am firmly of the belief that music has the power to bring goodness, but am intrigued by Coleman's caveat. Does he ever have some other motive . . .
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WNEW FM – New York (1982) :: How To Kill A Radio Station
A slice of 1982. A vignette courtesy of the late WNEW FM - New York, NY.
NEW YORK (AP) -- For 32 years, it was the place where rock lived. WNEW-FM once ruled as the nation's premier rock station, boasting an influence that extended far beyond its Manhattan-based signal. (WNEW) was rock 'n' roll: John Lennon stopped by to spin records, the Grateful Dead played cards in the studio, and new music from the Rolling Stones to the Ramones to the Replacements was championed.
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Nap Eyes :: Thought Rock Fish Scale
Last summer Paradise of Bachelors introduced the Nova Scotia quartet Nap Eyes to a wider audience with the US release of their debut album, Whine of the Mystic. The band has seemingly grown by leaps and bounds between laying down that record and their recently released sophomore offering, the excellent Thought Rock Fish Scale. Sounding tighter and more self-assured, Nap Eyes weave through eight airy, existential numbers, with vocalist Nigel Chapman evoking . . .
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SIRIUS/XMU :: Aquarium Drunkard Show (Noon EST, Channel 35)
Our weekly two hour show on SIRIUS/XMU, channel 35, can be heard twice every Friday — Noon EST with an encore broadcast at Midnight EST.
SIRIUS 424: Jean Michel Bernard - Generique Stephane ++ William Sheller - Exitissimo ++ Petalouda - What You Can Do In Your Life ++ The Limiî±anas - 3 Migas 2000 ++ Silver Apples - Oscillation ++ Armando Sciascia - Circuito Chiuso ++ Kraftwerk - Transistor (AD edit with Can vocal) ++ Jan Hammer Group - Don’t You Know ++ Spike - Kanti Datum ++ Yura Yura Teikoku - Ohayo Mada . . .
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All Roads Lead Back To Red: A Pedal Steel Mixtape / Tribute Vol 2
This mix picks up where All Roads Lead To Red: A Pedal Steel Mixtape / Tribute left off, delving deeper into the sessionography of the Velvet Hammer, Orville “O.J” “Red” Rhodes. While perhaps best known as Michael Nesmith’s musical foil on the former Monkee’s 1970s country rock masterpieces, Red also played steel on countless LA sessions in the 1960s and 70s. In addition to leaving his unmistakeable mark on . . .
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