Best of What’s New

Happy Saturday! Are you ready to listen to some new music? The featured tunes are on brand new albums that came out yesterday (March 3), except for the first, which appeared on Thursday, and the last, released on February 24.

Daisy Jones & The Six/Let Me Down Easy

My first pick this week feels a bit like the return of The Monkees: Let Me Down Easy by Daisy Jones & The Six, a fictional ’70s band loosely modeled after Fleetwood Mac, who are at the center of a new American streaming mini-TV series that debuted yesterday on Amazon Prime Video. According to this story in Variety, actors Riley Keough (Daisy Jones) and Sam Claflin (Billy Dunne), who had no prior professional singing experience, went through an intensive three-month band camp where together with their four fictitious bandmates they learned to sing and play the original music featured in the series. Some of the songs had input from Marcus Mumford, Phoebe Bridgers and Jackson Browne. The outcome is pretty remarkable. Perhaps genes also helped a bit: Keough is the granddaughter of Elvis Presley and daughter of the late Lisa Marie Presley. Here’s Let Me Down Easy, off the group’s debut album Aurora. Whether their life will continue beyond the TV series similar to The Monkees remains to be seen.

Fake Names/Don’t Blame Yourself

Unlike their name may suggest and contrary to my previous pick, Fake Names are a real band. From their AllMusic bio: An international punk supergroup, Fake Names are four musicians with long and impressive resumés who came together to play music that’s lean but full-bodied, melodic, and unpretentiously artful despite its velocity. The lineup includes former and current members of Minor Threat, Refused, Bad Religion, Embrace, Girls Against Boys, and Dag Nasty, and began as an informal collaboration between two longtime friends before it grew into a proper band who issued their self-titled debut album in 2020. While I featured them once before here in August 2021, I still don’t know all these punk bands from which they draw their members. Don’t Blame Yourself is a tune from Fake Names’ sophomore album Expendables. It’s credited to four members of the group: Dennis Lyxzén (lead vocals), Brian Baker (guitar), Michael Hampton (guitar) and Johnny Temple (bass). Brandon Canty (drums) completes the band’s line-up. Their melodic brand of punk is my kind of punk.

JAWNY/Fall in Love

JAWNY (born Jacob Lee-Nicholas Sullenger) is an indie pop singer-songwriter. Originally hailing from the San Francisco bay area, Sullenger picked up the guitar as a six-year-old and by the time he was in his early teens began writing songs. After briefly studying nursing in college, he dropped out to pursue a career in music. In 2016, the then-20-year-old relocated to Philadelphia where he started to make music under the moniker Johnny Utah. In January 2018, he released his eponymous debut EP. After signing with Interscope Records in January 2020, Sullenger changed his stage name to JAWNY and moved to Los Angeles. Fall in Love, co-written by Elie Rizek, Imad Royal and Sullenger (credited as JAWNY), is a tune from JAWNY’s first full-length album It’s Never Fair, Always True. While this song is certainly not in my core wheelhouse, it grew on me in anyway.

David Brewis/Keeping Up With Jessica

My final pick this week is new music by English singer-songwriter David Brewis. Together with his brother Peter Brewis, he is a member of English indie and art rock band Field Music, who they co-founded in 2004. To date, Field Music have released eight studio albums, two compilations, one soundtrack and one live album, in addition to more than 20 singles. During the band’s hiatus from 2007 to 2009, Brewis launched a solo music project called School of Language and has since come out with three albums under that name. His latest solo effort, The Soft Struggles, is the first to be released under his name. Here’s Keeping Up With Jessica, a laid-back lush pop tune with a jazzy vibe. Like all other tracks, it was penned by Brewis.

Last but not least, here’s a Spotify playlist of all the above tunes and a few additional songs by each of the featured artists.

Sources: Wikipedia; Variety; AllMusic; YouTube; Spotify

The Sunday Six

Happy New Year and welcome to the first 2023 installment of The Sunday Six! This also marks the 100th time that I’d like to invite you to join me on a time-travel journey into the beautiful world of music. As usual, the zig-zag trip includes six tunes in different flavors from different decades. Hop on, fasten your seatbelts and off we go!

Lee Morgan/The Sidewinder

The March 7, 2021 installment, the eighth of this weekly recurring feature, was the first to open with a jazz tune. I’ve since continued to start these mini-music excursions with an instrumental, typically a jazz track, and intend to continue the tradition, at least for now. Today, my pick is Lee Morgan, an American jazz trumpeter and composer. He started to record as an 18-year-old in 1956 with his solo debut Lee Morgan Indeed! After playing in Dizzy Gillespie’s Big Band from 1956 until 1958, he joined Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and between 1957 and 1966 was featured on numerous of their albums. Morgan’s prolific recording career came to an abrupt end in February 1972 at the age of 33, when his common-law wife Helen Moore shot him during an altercation at a jazz club in New York City where Morgan was performing with his band. Morgan is regarded as one of the key hard bop players of the 1960s. The Sidewinder, a Morgan composition, is the title track of a July 1964 album released under his name. He was backed by Joe Henderson (tenor saxophone), Barry Harris (piano), Bob Cranshaw (double bass) and Billy Higgins (drums). The Sidewinder became Morgan’s best-known track and even made the U.S. pop mainstream charts.

Natalie Imbruglia/Torn

For this next stop on our little trip, we jump to November 1997 and the solo music debut by Natalie Imbruglia. The singer from down under started her professional career as an actress in the early 1990s on Australian soap opera Neighbours. Left of the Middle, Imbruglia’s first of seven albums she released to date, became a huge international success, topping the charts in Australia and placing in the top 5 in The Netherlands (no. 2), Switzerland (no. 3), Germany and Italy (no. 4 each), as well as the UK (no. 5). In the U.S., it reached no. 10 on the Billboard 200. Left of the Middle also became her most commercially successful album with more than 7 million copies sold to date. The impressive performance was fueled by lead single Torn, a tune co-written by Scott Cutler, Anne Preven and co-producer Phil Thornalley. Originally, the song had been recorded in 1996 by American-Norwegian singer Trine Rein. While Rein’s version reached no. 10 on the charts in Norway, it was Imbruglia’s rendition that became a major internal hit. Imbruglia, now 47, remains active, both as a music artist and an actress. Even though Torn has a pretty commercial sound, I’ve always liked the tune.

Squeeze/Black Coffee in Bed

The time has come to pay a quick visit to the ’80s with a nice track by English pop rock and power pop band Squeeze. The group was initially formed in March 1974 by Chris Difford (guitar, vocals, lyrics) and Glenn Tilbrook (vocals, guitar, music). Jools Holland (keyboards, backing and occasional lead vocals), Harri Kakoulli (bass) and Paul Gunn (drums) rounded out the initial line-up. After five albums, Difford and Tilbrook decided to break up the band in 1982 and released an eponymous album as a duo the following year. In 1985 Squeeze reformed. The band’s second incarnation lasted until 1999 and saw seven additional albums. In late 1999, they broke up again. Their third incarnation started in 2007 and remains active to this day, with Difford and Tilbrook remaining as the only original members. Black Coffee in Bed, penned by Difford and Tilbrook, appeared in April 1992 as the lead single from Squeeze’s fifth album Sweets from a Stranger, released in September of the same year. It enjoyed moderate success in the UK where it reached no. 51 on the Official Singles Chart. In the U.S., the tune peaked at no. 26 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart.

The Clash/London Calling

One of the few punk bands I liked from the get-go were The Clash. During their 10-year career from 1976 until 1986, the British group released six studio albums. The third, London Calling, was their most successful one. The critically acclaimed record from December 1979, which has sold over five million copies worldwide and was certified platinum in the US for sales of one million, blends a traditional punk rock sound with elements of reggae, rockabilly, ska, New Orleans R&B, pop, lounge jazz, and hard rock. Overall, it also became the band’s best-performing album on the charts, reaching no. 2 in Sweden, no. 4 in Norway and no. 9 in the UK, among others. In Rolling Stone’s most recent 2020 version of its list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, London Calling was ranked at no. 16, only down 8 spots from the 2003 and 2012 editions. Here’s the great title track, co-written by vocalist Joe Strummer and lead guitarist Mick Jones. London Calling also appeared separately in December 1979 as the record’s lead single.

Plain White T’s/Hey There Delilah

For this next tune let’s jump to the current century. Like I suspect is the case for the majority of folks, I only know Plain White T’s because of their one no. 1 hit Hey There Delilah. The rock and pop punk band was formed as a trio in early 1997 by high school friends Tom Higgenson (lead vocals, guitar, keyboards), Dave Tirio (guitar, drums percussion), and Ken Fletcher (bass), and rounded out by Steve Mast (lead guitar, backing vocals) shortly thereafter. In 2000, they recorded their debut Come On Over. Hey There Delilah first appeared on the group’s third studio album All That We Needed, released in January 2005. But the beautiful ballad wasn’t noticed until May 2006 when it appeared as a single. Among others, it topped the charts in the U.S., Canada and Germany, and surged to no. 2 in the UK, Ireland and Belgium. Until that single, Plain White T’s essentially had been an underground act in Chicago. Hey There Delilah was also included as a bonus track on the group’s fourth studio album Every Second Counts, which came out in September 2006. It’s safe to assume the tune helped fuel the success of that record, which became their best-selling album to date and charted in multiple countries, including Ireland (no. 2), UK (no. 3) and the U.S. (no. 10), among others. Plain White T’s are still around. Their eighth and most recent studio album Parallel Universe came out in August 2018.

The Box Tops/Cry Like a Baby

Once again we’ve reached the final stop of another music trip. My pick is Cry Like a Baby, the title track of a studio album by American blue-eyed soul and rock band The Box Tops, released in April 1968. In February that same year, the tune had appeared as the record’s lead single. Overall, it became their second-biggest hit after The Letter, reaching no. 2 in the U.S. on the Billboard Hot 100, no. 3 in Canada, no. 15 in the UK and no. 46 in Australia. Formed as The Devilles in Memphis, Tenn. in 1967, the band soon thereafter changed their name to The Box Tops in 1967. Cry Like a Baby was the last album featuring the original line-up of Alex Chilton (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), Gary Talley (lead guitar, backing vocals), John Evans (keyboards, backing vocals), Bill Cunningham (bass, backing vocals) and Danny Smythe (drums, backing vocals). In 1971 after the first break-up of The Box Tops, Chilton became a co-founder of American rock and power pop band Big Star. In 1996, Cunningham organized the first reunion of The Box Tops, which lasted until 2010. Following the death of Chilton from a heart attack in March 2010, the group split again. In mid-2015, Cunningham and Talley reformed The Box Tops who have remained active since then.

Of course, The Sunday Six wouldn’t be complete without a Spotify playlist. Hope there’s something for you here!

Sources: Wikipedia; YouTube; Spotify

Yearend Musings Part 1

Happy Saturday and I hope everybody has been enjoying the holiday season. As 2022 is beginning to wind down, it’s time to revisit new music released this year. I decided to do this in two parts. Part 1, which draws on my weekly Best of What’s New feature, looks back at some of the new songs I like. Part 2 focuses on new albums that speak to me. To avoid overlap between the two parts, I won’t feature any tunes in part 1 that are on albums highlighted in part 2.

Following are 12 tunes released this year, one from each month. I’m doing this in chronological order. There’s also a Spotify playlist at the end, which includes all highlighted and some additional 2022 tunes.

John Mayall/Can’t Take No More (feat. Marcus King)

I’d like to kick off this post with the amazing John Mayall, who on November 29 turned 89. On January 28, the Godfather of the British Blues released The Sun is Shining Down, a true late-stage career gem I reviewed here. The soulful blues rocker Can’t Take No More, penned by Mayall, features Marcus King on guitar.

Gregor Barnett/Driving Through the Night

On February 19, Gregor Barnett released his debut solo album Don’t Throw Roses in My Grave during COVID downtime for The Menzingers, the Philadelphia-based punk band he co-founded in 2006. Driving Through the Night was written by Barnett like all other tracks on the Americana rock-focused album, a departure from his more punk-leaning music with The Menzingers.

Young Guv/Couldn’t Leave U If I Tried

Young Guv is a solo project of Toronto-based guitarist and vocalist Ben Cook. After playing in two Canadian hardcore punk bands, Cook launched a solo career in 2015 and has since released five power pop-oriented albums under the Young Guv moniker. I immediately loved the beautiful Byrdsy-sounding Couldn’t Leave U If I Tried, included on Guv III, his fourth album that came out on March 11.

The Linda Lindas/Talking to Myself

When I first came across The Linda Lindas in early March, I was struck by the energy of this Los Angeles-based all-female punk pop and garage band. The four-piece was founded in 2018 when their members were still young teenagers. Talking to Myself is a tune from the group’s first full-length album Growing Up, which appeared on April 8.

49 Winchester/All I Need

Va.-based 49 Winchester describe their music as “tear-in-your-beer alt-country, sticky barroom floor rock-n-roll, and high-octane Appalachian folk.” Formed in the mid-2010’s, the group has put out four albums to date. Lynyrd Skynyrd-flavored country rocker All I Need appears on their most recent Fortune Favors the Bold, released on May 13.

Lettuce/RV Dance

American jazz and funk band Lettuce were formed in Boston in the summer of 1992 when all of their founding members attended Berklee College of Music as teenagers. Initially a short-lived venture for just one summer, the group reunited in 1994 and released their debut in 2002. RV Dance is a groovy track from their latest album Unify, which came out on June 3. As I said at the time, you could picture James Brown singing to this great tune!

Dawes/Ghost in the Machine

Los Angeles-based folk rock band Dawes emerged from Simon Dawes in 2009 after that rock group’s co-songwriter Blake Mills had left. His departure did not only result in a new name but also in a change of music style from post-punk to folk rock. Here’s Ghost in the Machine, a cool tune from the group’s eighth and most recent studio album Misadventure of Doomscroller, out since July 22.

Marcus King/Blood On the Tracks

Guitarist and songwriter Marcus King is one of the most exciting young contemporary artists in my book. The 26-year-old has been on stage since he was 8 when he started performing alongside his family. Here’s the soulful rocker Blood On the Tracks from King’s second solo album Young Blood released on August 26.

Ringo Starr/Free Your Soul (feat. Dave Koz and José Antonio Rodriguez)

“Every band deserves a Ringo.” Unfortunately, I can’t remember where I read that great quote, which perfectly describes Ringo Starr. The ex-Beatles drummer always has been all about the music, never about himself. A perfect illustration is the All-Starr Band, his touring rock supergroup Ringo formed in 1989. Now 82 years young, he’s still rocking – and recording! Free Your Soul is the smooth closer of Starr’s most recent release, an EP titled EP 3 that appeared on September 16.

The Star Crumbles/Desperately Wanting

The Star Crumbles is a cool music project by fellow blogger Marc Schuster from Abnominations and his friend Brian Lambert. After meeting on Twitter and working together on one of Lambert’s songs earlier this year, they hit it off and decided to form The Star Crumbles. Both are into ’80s music and bands like The Cure, Echo & the Bunnymen, New Order and Ultravox, which is noticeable on their first album The Ghost of Dancing Slow released on October 7. Here’s one of my favorites, Desperately Wanting.

Larkin Poe/Southern Comfort

Sister act Larkin Poe have been among my favorite contemporary artists since they entered my radar screen a few years ago. Not only are Rebecca Lovell and her slightly older sister Megan Lovell great songwriters, but they are also really talented musicians and sing together in perfect harmony. Southern Comfort is a sizzling southern blues rocker from their sixth full-length album Blood Harmony, which came out on November 11 and which I reviewed here.

Mthunzi Mvubu/Mom vs the Bad Man

The final pick I’d like to highlight is by South African-based saxophonist, flute player and composer Mthunzi Mvubu. Playing professionally since he was 14, Mvubu has traveled globally with jazz luminaries since he was 18. Mom vs the Bad Man is a track from The 1st Gospel, Mvubu’s debut album as a leader, released on December 2.

Last but not least, here’s the above-mentioned Spotify playlist. While finding new music I sufficiently like can be quite time-consuming, I feel it’s been another rewarding year. Hope there’s something here that speaks to you as well!

Sources: Wikipedia; 49 Winchester website; YouTube; Spotify

Musings of the Past

It’s been about seven weeks since the last Musings of the Past, a feature that roughly runs once a month where I revisit previous posts published at a time when this blog was in its younger days. I guess I missed November! With the holiday season being in full swing, I thought this would be an opportune moment to republish a post from December 2017, which featured a variety of modern Christmas songs from various music genres. The Spotify playlist at the end wasn’t in the original post.

Making Your Christmas Groove

A list to get you into the mood for that most wonderful time of the year

When I was looking back at previous posts on the blog, I came across a list of Christmas rock, soul, rap and pop tunes I had put together last year [December 2016 – CMM]. For the most part, I still stand behind it and thought it would be fitting to publish a slightly updated version.

One of the things I liked to do during the Christmas holiday while growing up in Germany many moons ago was to listen to my favorite radio station, which was then called SWF III. At that time of the year, the DJs would frequently play song requests from listeners.

Not surprisingly, Christmas pop and rock songs were high in demand. Some of these tunes became seasonal anthems, such as Wham’s Last Christmas, Paul McCartney’s Wonderful Christmas Time and Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas. Okay, maybe these are not the most compelling examples, but these tunes come to mind first when I think about those times.

Some folks may cringe at the thought of pop and rock artists dressing up as Santa and performing Christmas songs, whether they are covers of traditional tunes or new songs with holiday themes. Others may get cynical about music artists and record companies suddenly discovering Jesus and Santa when people conveniently are willing to spend insane amounts of money on Christmas presents. I get all of that and being cynical about it is not unfounded.

I still think there are some great Christmas rock and pop songs that have come out over the years – in fact, make that over the decades! Plus, let’s be honest, while many traditional Christmas tunes have beautiful melodies, they don’t exactly groove. I don’t know about you, but I like listening to music that makes me want to get up and move – by the way, probably not such a bad thing during the holiday season when many folks like to indulge on food and drink. So how about rockin’ and rollin’ off that of these extra calories!

Below are clips of some of my favorite Christmas rock and pop tunes in no particular order: From John Lennon’s haunting Happy Xmas (War Is Over) to Chuck Berry’s rockin’ & rollin’ Run Rudolph Run to Run-D.M.C.’s cool rap Christmas in Hollis to AC/DC’s hard-charging Mistress For Christmas to a fantastic live version of Feliz Navidad with José Feliciano and Daryl Hall to the unforgettable James Brown and his funky Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto, these tunes come in many different genres!

John Lennon/Happy Xmas (War Is Over) (1971)

Chuck Berry/Run Rudolph Run (1958)

The Pogues/Fairytale Of New York (1987)

Run-D.M.C./Christmas In Hollis (1987)

AC/DC/Mistress For Christmas (1990)

José Feliciano & Daryl Hall/Feliz Navidad (2010)

James Brown/Santa Claus, Go Straight To The Ghetto (1968)

Otis Redding/Merry Christmas Baby (posthumous, 1968)

The Ravers/(It’s Gonna Be) A Punk Rock Christmas (1978)

Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band/Santa Claus Is Coming To Town (2007)

– End –

The original post, which was published on December 21, 2017, ended here. And, yes, I kept Springsteen’s version of Santa Claus Is Coming to Town, even though I snarkily commented the other day this tune has been overexposed – oh, well, it was part of the original post. Plus, it’s certainly not terrible!

The Spotify playlist is an addition. Instead of The Ravers, it features a rendition of It’s Gonna Be A Punk Rock Christmas by UK pop punk band Majorettes. Feliz Navidad is the studio version José Feliciano recorded in 1970, not the live performance with Daryl Hall captured in the clip. The playlist also includes some additional tunes. Season’s Greetings!

Sources: Wikipedia; YouTube; Spotify

Best of What’s New

It’s Saturday again, and welcome to another installment of my weekly new music revue. All featured tunes came out yesterday (December 2). Without further ado, let’s get to it.

NOFX/Darby Crashing Your Party

Kicking off this post are punk rock band NOFX who were founded in Los Angeles in 1983. Following numerous personnel changes in the group’s early days, their current line-up has been in place since 1991 and includes founding members Fat Mike (vocals, bass), Eric Melvin (guitar) and Erik Sandin (drums), along with El Hefe (lead guitar, trumpet). After a demo, Thalidomide Child, in 1984, NOFX released a self-titled EP in 1985. Their first full-length studio album Liberal Animation came out in 1988. This brings me to Double Album, the band’s 15th and latest album and the opener Darby Crashing Your Party. Unlike other punk I’ve heard, NOFX’s music is pretty easy on the ears. Lyrically, these guys don’t seem to take themselves too seriously.

Brendan Benson/I Missed the Plane

Next up is new music by American singer-songwriter Brendan Benson. From his AllMusic bio: A Michigan-bred singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist who occupies the more rock-driven end of the power pop spectrum, Brendan Benson earned critical acclaim during the front half of the 2000s with albums like Lapalco and The Alternative to Love. Benson’s profile was significantly raised when he and fellow Michigander Jack White formed the rock & roll supergroup the Raconteurs, cracking the Top Ten in the U.K. and America with a pair of highly regarded albums in 2006’s Broken Boy Soldiers and 2008’s Consolers of the Lonely. Benson remains a member of The Raconteurs and has also continued to release solo albums, including Low Key, his eighth and latest one. Let’s check out I Missed the Plane, written by Benson. I really like this!

White Lung/Mountain

I believe this is the first Best of What’s New installment featuring two punk bands. I also don’t recall having had a punk group from Canada. White Lung were formed in Vancouver in 2006. From their Apple Music profile: White Lung coalesce influence of riot grrrl, post-punk, and hardcore punk into their own dynamic, take-no-prisoners sound. They first grabbed audiences’ attention as part of the Vancouver Emergency Room art space scene of the 2000s with albums like 2010’s It’s the Evil and 2012’s Sorry. While the raw intensity of punk remains a core aesthetic, they’ve honed their approach, tackling issues of feminism, body dysmorphioa, and sexual assault – issues that drove 2014’s Deep Fantasy and 2016’s Paradise. White Lung – Mish Barber-Way (vocals), Kenneth William (guitar) and Anne-Marie Vassiliou (drums) – are now out with Premonition, their first album in more than five years. The band’s website describes it as chaotic, bold, and hook-driven,…a whirlwind of driving drums, intricate guitar work, and no-holds-barred lyrics about motherhood, pregnancy, and growth – couldn’t have said it any better! Here’s Mountain credited to all three members of the group, as well as producer Jesse Gandner. Similar to NOFX, my pop ear is receptive to this melodic type of punk.

Adeem the Artist/Redneck, Unread Hicks

Adeem the Artist (born Adem Bingham), aka Adeem Maria, is a country singer-songwriter. The non-binary and pansexual artist began performing on cruise ships in their 20s. After moving to Knoxville, Tenn., they began to record music. In 2021, following several independent albums put out via Bandcamp, they released Cast-Iron Pansexual, an album largely funded through Patreon. Now they’re back with White Trash Revelry. Here’s Redneck, Unread Hicks, which Adeem told Apple Music they wrote to draw a more refined picture of the South. “It becomes really easy to, I don’t know, kind of view the South through a very myopic lens,” he said. Pointing to Martin Luther, Jr., a local founder of Black Lives Matters and “a lot of queer folks who have fought hard”, he added, “There’s a lot more diversity here and a lot more nuance than people want to give it credit for.” I feel stereotypes about folks from the South are quite common, even in music (think of Neil Young’s Southern Man). Adeem is to be commended for addressing this topic.

The Rolling Stones/Happy (Live)

My last pick for this week are The Rolling Stones with Happy. ‘Wait a moment,’ you may think, ‘that song is 50 years old, how can it be new?’ Well, yeah, but it’s my friggin’ blog, isn’t it? On a more serious note, yes, the Stones first included the tune on their May 1972 gem Exile on Main St. It also appeared separately as a single in July of the same year. But they also just newly released a live version as the first track of their upcoming album and concert film GRRR Live!, and that’s good enough for me. Slated for February 10, 2023, it comes less than one year after El Mocambo 1977, which appeared in May this year and was just covered by fellow blogger Jim, aka. the Music Enthusiast. GRRR Live! includes 24 tracks captured in December 2012 at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. during the Stones’ 50th-anniversary tour. It features guest appearances by The Black Keys (Who Do You Love?), Gary Clark Jr. & John Mayer (Going Down), Lady Gaga (Gimme Shelter), Mick Taylor (Midnight Rambler) and Bruce Springsteen (Tumbling Dice). While I don’t know yet whether it will be as great as El Mocambo 1977, it certainly looks like fun and the version of Happy makes this Stones fan, well, pretty happy. Here’s a teaser clip about the album and film the Stones tweeted out. BTW, we’re now 10 years down the road from that gig, which means the Stones have now been together for 60 years – mind-boggling!

Of course, this post wouldn’t be complete without a Spotify playlist of the above and a few additional tunes!

Sources: Wikipedia; AllMusic; Apple Music; White Lung website; YouTube; Spotify

Best of What’s New

Happy Saturday! If you’re in the U.S. and celebrated Thanksgiving, I hope you had a great time. Of course, Saturday also means taking a fresh look at newly released music. Perhaps not surprisingly given the holiday, this week looked lighter, so finding four tracks that sufficiently spoke to me was more challenging than usual. The first two songs are on albums that came out yesterday (November 25), while the last two tracks appeared as singles last Friday (November 18).

Chase Ceglie/Tonight

My first pick this week is Chase Ceglie, a 26-year-old pop-oriented artist and multi-instrumentalist from Newport, Rhode Island. From his website: In his youth, Chase became involved in the RI music community. While at Rogers High School, Chase was twice awarded the Heritage Music Festival Maestro Award for distinguished individual performances. From 2007 to 2013, Chase was annually selected for Rhode Island’s All-State ensembles as a saxophonist. Performing at the Newport Jazz Festival in 2012 and 2013, Chase was awarded the 2013 George Wein Jazz Ambassador Scholarship. He is a 2017 graduate of Berklee College of Music where he received a B.M. in Professional Music with a focus in Composition and Saxophone Performance. Ceglie’s debut album Onion, which he performed, recorded and produced while still being a student at Berklee, appeared in 2016. He has since released three additional albums including the latest titled Chaseland. Let’s check out the opener Tonight, written by Ceglie who in addition to providing vocals played acoustic piano, electric guitar and Moog synthesizer. Acoustic guitar, bass, drums and percussion were provided by Jonathan Elyashiv. Quite a pleasant pop tune!

Elder/Endless Return

Nine out of 10 bands Apple Music tags as “metal” don’t speak to me, since to my ears their music is primarily loud and the vocals resemble screaming. As such, I was a bit skeptical when I saw that same tag for Elder. It turned out this group, which blends progressive rock with metal, is different. From their Apple Music profile: Elder formed in Massachusetts in 2005 behind singer and main songwriter Nick DiSalvo; bass player Jack Donovan and drummer Matt Cuoto completed their lineup. The trio released their self-titled debut on Meteor Records in 2008. Their second album, Dead Roots Stirring, followed two years later on Meteor Records and Headspin Productions, with the EP Spires Burn/Release arriving via Armageddon in 2012. Fast-forward 10 years to Innate Passage, Edler’s new album. In traditional prog-rock fashion all of the five tracks are long, ranging from eight and half to more than 14 minutes. Here’s the perhaps appropriately titled close to 10 minutes Endless Return. Joking aside, I think it’s actually a pretty good tune.

The Dirty Nil/Bye Bye Big Bear

The Dirty Nil are a Canadian rock band from Hamilton, Ontario, who I first featured in a Best of What’s New installment in early January 2021. They were formed in 2006 after their members Luke Bentham (vocals, guitar), Ross Miller (bass) and Kyle Fisher (drums) had started playing together in high school. The band’s debut single Fuckin’ Up Young in 2011 was followed by a series of additional singles and EPs before they released their first full-length studio album High Power in 2016. In 2017, The Dirty Nil, who blend hard rock with punk, won the Canadian Juno Award for Breakthrough Group of the Year. Following the release of their third studio album Fuck Art in January 2021, Sam Tomlinson replaced Miller on bass. Bye Bye Big Bear, co-written by Fisher and Bentham, is the group’s latest single. Their combination of grungy rock with a catchy melody is a bit reminiscent of Green Day.

Winterland/Set Me Free

Rounding out this week’s new music revue is Winterland, a Swedish rock solo project by Fredrik Nilsson. Here’s more from his Spotify profile: Reminiscing about 70’s yacht rock bands like Fleetwood Mac, he has discovered music as a therapeutic experience. [He] describes this experience. “I started writing for therapeutic purposes, and then there were a lot of songs all for a sudden. It has never been obvious that I should be on stage, be a front figure. I’ve just been keeping on really.” A music enthusiast from an early age, Frederik has played with several bands over the years, allowing him to develop a mature sound, which permeated his previous project, the band Waterhill. Here is Winterland’s latest single Set Me Free, a nice pop-rock tune credited to him and Björn Engelmann.

Following is a Spotify playlist of the above and some additional tunes.

Sources: Wikipedia; Chase Ceglie website; Apple Music; YouTube; Spotify

Best of What’s New

Happy Saturday and welcome to another installment of my weekly new music revue. All picks appear on releases that came out yesterday. Let’s get to them without further ado.

Larkin Poe/Southern Comfort

Great to see a new album by Larkin Poe, the roots and blues rock-focused singer-songwriter sister act of Rebecca Lovell (vocals, guitars, keyboards, drums) and her slightly older sister Megan Lovell (vocals, lap steel, slide guitar, keyboards). Their website describes their music as “gritty, soulful, and flavored by their southern heritage.” I first came across these two young dynamic ladies, who not only are excellent musicians but also great vocalists, in late 2019. They started out as teenagers with their eldest sister Jessica Lovell in a bluegrass/ Americana formation called The Lovell Sisters. After the trio disbanded in January 2010, Rebecca and Megan decided to forge ahead without Jessica and have since been making music as Larkin Poe. Apart from self-producing their own music, the two sisters have a very active YouTube channel that among others includes a cover channel featuring stripped-back renditions of many well-known rock and blues tunes. If you don’t know Larkin Poe, check them out! Their energy and enthusiasm are infectious! Meanwhile, here’s Southern Comfort, penned by Rebecca Lovell, a nice southern blues rock-flavored tune from their sixth full-length album Blood Harmony.

Jack Kays/Finally Fine

Let’s turn to Jack Kays whose music is “hard to pigeonhole,” according to AllMusic, blending “punk and emo with rugged acoustic folk and occasional detours into cloud rap.” Here’s more from their bio of the young artist: After a handful of independent releases, the Ohio native found viral success with his sparse but aggressive acoustic songs, especially “Morbid Mind.” Signing with Columbia Records, Kays released his debut album, Mixed Emotions, in early 2021. My Favorite Nightmares, a collaborative EP with Travis Barker followed later that year. I featured a tune of that EP in a Best of What’s New installment at the time. Kays who struggled with addiction during his teenage years is now out with his latest EP titled Cessation. One of the songs, Finally Fine, begins…from the perspective of an addict and then transitions midway through to the perspective of someone in recovery, a press release explains. There’s something captivating about Kays’ lyrics and stripped-back approach on this and the EP’s other tracks, which drew me in.

Action/Adventure/Levity

Action/Adventure are a pop punk band from Chicago. From their Apple Music profile: Combining the aggressive melodic approach of pop-punk with the punishing guitar attack of metalcore, Action/Adventure are a band from Chicago who’ve earned a powerful reputation on the city’s underground rock scene. They also upend expectations of what a hardcore band should look like: Action/Adventure is composed of five BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) men, and their songs sometimes examine the challenges and contradictions of being part of a dominantly white musical community. They just as often deal with the anger, imaginings, and uncertainty that often fuel hardcore, and they perform with a strong balance of fire and precision. They made an emphatic debut with 2015’s Rumble Pak EP, revealed a greater maturity and ambition on 2018’s Going Heel, and began breaking through to a larger audience with 2021’s Pulling Focus. Action/Adventure include Blake Evaristo (lead vocals), Brompton Jackson (vocals/guitar), Oren Trace (guitar), Manny Avila (bass) and Adrian Brown (drums). Levity, credited to all members, is a tune from their latest album Imposter Syndrome. Metalcore generally isn’t my cup of tea, but Action/Adventure’s pop-flavored type isn’t your usual metalcore.

Franz Nicolay/Wandering Star

Wrapping up this week’s Best of What’s New is a prolific multi-instrumentalist and writer, Franz Nicolay. From his website: In addition to records under his own name, he was a member of cabaret-punk orchestra World/Inferno Friendship Society, “world’s best bar band” the Hold Steady, Balkan-jazz quartet Guignol, co-founded the composer-performer collective Anti-Social Music, was a touring member of agit-punks Against Me!; and recorded (complete discography here) or performed (complete list here) with dozens of other acts. He studied music at New York University and writing at Columbia University (where he was awarded a Felipe P. de Alba Fellowship). He received fellowship residencies in composition at the Rensing Art Center and writing at the Ucross Foundation and the Edward F. Albee Foundation. He has taught at Columbia University and UC-Berkeley, and is currently a faculty member in music and written arts at Bard College. This brings me to New River, Nicolay’s latest solo album, and the opening track Wandering Star. Great tune – check it out! In fact, the entire album looks promising, based on sampling a few of the other tunes.

Last but not least, here’s a Spotify playlist of the above and a few additional tunes by each of the featured artists.

Sources: Wikipedia; Larkin Poe website; AllMusic; Sony Music Canada website; Apple Music; Franz Nicolay website; YouTube; Spotify

Best of What’s New

It’s Saturday and I hope everybody is enjoying their weekend. This also means it’s time to take a fresh look at newly released music. All picks appear on albums, which were released yesterday (November 4).

Big Joanie/Cactus Tree

Kicking us off today are Big Joanie, a black all-female punk trio formed in London in 2013. From their website: Championed by BBC 6Music, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork and Brooklyn Vegan, Big Joanie are a London-based Black feminist punk band who combine the fury of nineties riot grrrl with synth-heavy post punk. Following their 2018 debut album ‘Sistahs’ on Thurston Moore and Eva Prinz’s label Daydream Library Series, the band secured a coveted run of support slots playing with Bikini Kill, Gossip, Sleater-Kinney and IDLES. Ahead of their second album, set to come out on Daydream Library in the UK and Kill Rock Stars in the US, Big Joanie are ready to bring their unique brand of feminist punk to the entire world. Big Joanie are Stephanie Phillips (guitar and vocals), Estella Adeyeri (bass guitar and vocals), and Chardine Taylor-Stone (drums and vocals). Their aforementioned second album Back Home is now out. Here’s the opener Cactus Tree, penned by Phillips. It’s safe to say Big Joanie are the first black punk band I’ve ever encountered, not to mention all-female. More importantly, these ladies have an interesting and I find distinct sound – not even sure I’d call it punk. Check this out.

The Lone Bellow/Cost of Living

Next up is another trio, The Lone Bellow, an Americana and roots group that began as a song-writing project for Zach Williams (guitar, lead vocals). Following an accident his wife had, which led to temporary paralysis, Williams began writing in a journal to cope with the situation. At the urging of friends, he learned how to play guitar and turned his journal entries into songs – what a cool story! After starting out as a solo act in New York City, he joined with Brian Elmquist (guitar, vocals) and Kanene Donehey Pipkin (mandolin, bass, keyboard, vocals). In January 2013, they released their eponymous debut album. Cost of Living is a song off Love Songs for Losers, the fifth and latest album by The Lone Bellow who are now based in Nashville. I love their harmony singing and warm sound!

Emily Nenni/Useless

Emily Nenni, according to her website, is a California-born and Nashville-based [country] singer and songwriter [who] chronicles her life through delicate songcraft rife with honky-tonk spirit and spiked with just the right amount of soul...Growing up in the Bay Area “in a family of music nerds,” her father worked in radio…Mom and dad took her to countless concerts as a kid and regaled her with endless tales of music lore. Emily’s mother introduced her to the likes of Patsy Cline, Willie Nelson, Jessi Colter, and Hank Williams, while her father spun James Brown and John Coltrane. Following high school, she attended Columbia College with a major in audio engineering. After a year, she dropped out and saved up enough money to move to Nashville…Eventually, she linked up with producer and frequent collaborator Mike Eli. Together, they cut her independent debut LP, Hell of a Woman, in 2017. Next up, she joined forces with Teddy and The Rough Riders for the I Owe You Nothin’ EP before serving up 2020’s Long Game EP. This brings me to On the Ranch, Nenni’s label full-length debut, and Useless, a tune she co-wrote with Michael Elias LoPinto. While other tracks on the album are traditional country, this song has more of a country-rock vibe – not bad!

Turnover/People That We Know

My last new music pick for this week comes from an American band called Turnover, formed in Virginia Beach, Va. in 2009. From their AllMusic bio: Turnover emerged in the early part of the 2010s, quickly outgrowing their emo and punk roots to create a more introspective sound that incorporated the lushness of dream pop and the tender melodies of indie pop. 2015’s Peripheral Vision marked the beginning of their transformation as it dialed down the distortion and added touches of shoegaze haze and summery vocal harmonies. Further works saw them branching out into wistful introspection (2017’s Good Nature) and soft pop (2019’s Altogether.) By the time of 2022’s Myself in the Way, they had cooked up a slick slowcore-meets-disco sound inspired by Quincy Jones and Chic. Turnover are Austin Getz (vocals, keyboards), Nick Rayfield (lead guitar), Danny Dempsey (bass) and Casey Getz (drums). Here’s People That We Know, credited to the entire band, from their above-mentioned latest album. The smooth and groovy tune drew me in.

Last but not least, following is a Spotify playlist with the above and a few additional tunes by the featured artists.

Sources: Wikipedia; Big Joanie website; Emily Nenni website; AllMusic; YouTube; Spotify

Best of What’s New

Happy Saturday and welcome to another installment of my weekly new music revue. Once again, I found myself with more songs than I was able to accommodate, a nice problem to have. Following are four I decided to feature, all from albums that came out yesterday (October 7).

Disq/This Time

My first pick are Wisconsin indie rock band Disq, who according to Apple Music were founded by two teenage childhood friends. Here’s more from their profile: The roots of Disq go back to the friendship of Isaac deBroux-Slone and Raina Bock. The two grew up together, and both were surrounded by creative, artistic families. After learning several instruments and exploring pop music foundations laid by bands like the Beatles and alternative rock starting points like Weezer, the two budding songwriters formed Disq when they were still in their early teens. With Bock on bass and backing vocals and deBroux-Slone on guitar and lead vocals, the duo self-produced and released the Disq I EP in 2016. Over the next several years, the band expanded to include additional guitarist Logan Severson, drummer Brendan Manley, and guitarist/keyboardist Shannon Connor. After signing with indie label Saddle Creek, Disq released their full-length debut album Collector in March 2020. This Time, written by DeBroux-Slone, is a track from the group’s sophomore album Desperately Imagining Someplace Quiet. Great song!

Indigo Sparke/Pluto

This is the second time I’m including singer-songwriter Indigo Sparke in Best of What’s New after this installment from February 2021. According to a profile on the website of her record label Sacred Bones Records, Sparke writes with a rare and reflective power, creating music that builds and bursts as she examines love, loss, grief, and a newly realized rage. Born in Australia and now based in New York, Indigo worked as an actress before establishing herself in the Sydney music scene with her EP Night Bloom (2016). Over the next few years, she toured and collaborated extensively with Big Thief, released her single, “The Day I Drove the Car Around the Block,” to critical acclaim, had a song featured on the TV show Cloudy River, and performed across Australia and the U.S. Indigo signed with Sacred Bones in early 2021, and made her label debut shortly after with Echo [I previously featured the opener – CMM], which she co-produced with Adrianne Lenker (Big Thief), and Andrew Sarlo (producer of Big Thief, Nick Hakim, Bon Iver, and Hand Habits). This brings me to Hysteria, Sparke’s sophomore release, and Pluto, a beautiful song she wrote together with Aaron Dessner.

Surf Curse/Cathy

Next up is new music by Surf Curse, a music project by Nick Rattigan (drums, vocals) and Jacob Rubeck (guitar). From their AllMusic bio: A gritty and melodic Nevada-bred guitar-and-drum duo who later became a fixture of Los Angeles’ D.I.Y. garage and punk scenes, Surf Curse aligned themselves with the artist-run Danger Collective label where they released albums like 2017’s Nothing Yet and 2019’s Heaven Surrounds You. The sudden viral success of “Freaks,” a song they’d released years earlier, earned them a deal with Atlantic. That label has now issued Surf Curse’s fourth and new album Magic Hour. Here’s Cathy. I like their sound!

The Star Crumbles/Desperately Wanting

Before getting to the last pick, I have to call out fellow bloggers Jeff from Eclectic Music Lover and Marc Schuster from Abnominations, who brought the music project The Star Crumbles on my radar screen with recent posts here and here, respectively. The following is informed by these posts. Marc who is based in Philadelphia is actually a member of the project, which also includes his friend, Denton, Texas-based Brian Lambert. Both are longtime singer-songwriters and musicians. After they had met on Twitter, Lambert reached out to Schuster for some help with one of his songs earlier this year. Recognizing how well they worked with each other, they decided to form The Star Crumbles. Schuster and Lambert, among others, are both into ’80s music and bands like The Cure, Echo & the Bunnymen, New Order and Ultravox, which you can clearly hear on their first album The Ghost of Dancing Slow. They also came up with a fictitious story behind the band, which they captured in a hilarious mini-documentary. Here’s the remarkable thing from my perspective: While I used to dig much of ’80s music at the time, nowadays, I tend to be lukewarm about it. I definitely can’t say the same about The Star Crumbles and their tune Desperately Wanting, which pretty much grabbed me right away. Once again, this goes to show that at the end of the day, there are only types of music: Music you dig and music that doesn’t speak to you. Check this out!

The following Spotify playlist includes the above and a few additional tracks by the featured artists.

Sources: Wikipedia; Apple Music; Sacred Bones Records website; AllMusic; Eclectic Music Lover blog; Abnominations blog; YouTube; Spotify

Best of What’s New

After a two-week hiatus due to a vacation in Germany, I’m happy to be back. The first two songs highlighted in this post are from albums that were released yesterday (August 12). The two remaining picks reflect music that appeared while I was out. Let’s get to it!

Tony Molina/The Last Time

Kicking things off today is Tony Molina. From his Apple Music profile: California native Tony Molina spent years working in the punk and hardcore scenes before venturing out into his much poppier solo work. Living in the Bay Area, Molina played in various D.I.Y. hardcore acts starting in his teenage years. In 2013, while still fronting the much more aggressive Caged Animal, Molina released his solo debut, Dissed and Dismissed, a collection of 12 short and fuzzy tunes that took notes from ’90s indie and power pop acts like Weezer, Dinosaur Jr., and Teenage Fanclub. The incredibly brief album (the 12 tunes rush by in as many minutes) caught the ears of various labels and booking agents, and within the year, Molina was scheduled to release singles with indie luminaries like Matador and Slumberland. Fast forward nine years to Molina’s third solo album In the Fade. Here’s The Last Time, a nice fuzzy rocker!

Collective Soul/Reason

The first time I heard of Collective Soul was in March 1993 when they seemingly emerged out of nowhere with their debut single Shine. I immediately dug what became their biggest hit to date. Then the alternative rock band completely fell off my radar screen. Frankly, I had no idea they are still around and have since released 10 additional studio albums, including their latest titled Vibrating. Three of the group’s founding members are still part of the current line-up: Ed Roland (lead vocals, guitars, keyboards), his brother Dean Roland (rhythm guitar) and Will Turpin (bass, percussion backing vocals). Jesse Triplett (lead guitar, backing vocals) and Johnny Rabb (drums, percussion) have been with the band since 2014 and 2012, respectively. Reason, penned by Ed Roland, is a nice melodic rock tune.

Sheryl Crow/Circles

I trust Sheryl Crow, one of my favorite pop rock artists, needs no further introduction. When Crow released Threads in August 2019, she said her 11th studio album would be her last full-length effort, citing changed listening habits in the era of music streaming. I reviewed it here at the time. But the singer-songwriter also noted this didn’t mean retirement or no more new music. While Crow hasn’t been exactly prolific since Threads, she has followed through on her announcement. The latest example is her rendition of Circles, a tune written by Post Malone who first released the song as a single in August 2019, off his third studio album Hollywood’s Bleeding that appeared in September of the same year. Crow put out her cover of the tune as a single on August 2.

Tedeschi Trucks Band/Emmaline

My last pick for this Best of What’s New installment is Emmaline, a song off Tedeschi Trucks Band’s I Am the Moon: III. The Fall, the third of their ambitious four-album I Am the Moon studio project, released July 29. I covered the first two installments here. The fourth and final album I Am The Moon: IV. Farewell is scheduled for August 23. I Am The Moon is the fifth studio effort by Tedeschi Trucks Band, a group founded in 2010 by married couple Susan Tedeschi  (guitar, vocals) and slide guitar virtuoso Derek Trucks, who among others was a member of The Allman Brothers Band from 1999 until they disbanded in 2014. Emmaline was written by Mike Mattison, one of the Tedeschi Trucks Band’s harmony vocalists – great tune!

This post wouldn’t be complete without a Spotify playlist of the above and a few additional tunes.

Sources: Wikipedia; Apple Music; YouTube; Spotify