Following a pair of compilations in 2023 chronicling earlier parts of their storied career, British rockers The Kinks have one more in the chamber to commemorate their 60th anniversary as a group, focusing on a period of transition and finality in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. The Journey Part 3 offer a dozen favorites originally released on Arista Records between 1977 and 1984, including the band’s last worldwide smash, “Come Dancing.” The newly remastered selections – which, in a first for The Journey series, are curated by the band – will be paired with a never-before-released recording of one of the group’s final concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in the summer of 1993.
After a challenging period of conceptual, theatrical creative ambitions but less commercial…
Category: rock
Sometimes the title of the album says it all. With Ain’t Rocked in a While, Brent Cobb & The Fixin’s decided to press pause on Cobb’s more singer/songwriter offerings, strap on the electric guitars, and turn the amps up.
Produced by Cobb and Oran Thornton, the players recorded live to tape at The Black Palace in Springfield, MO. Cobb brings his touring band, Len Clark on drums, Matt McDaniel on guitar, and Josh Williams on bass, to a headlining role with the louder offerings. The best of the crackling numbers is the title effort as the fuzzy riffs, head-banging groove, and foot-stomping drums pump up the country twanged ode to AC/DC.
The players then deliver their hearty, loud, but nondescript retro rockers.
“I suppose this could be considered my protest album” is how Bedford artist Luke Tuchscherer describes Living Through History on the blurb on the back of the LP. Certainly, from the first lines of the opening title track: “Sirens scream through the city / People under siege / Are we fighting an enemy / Too big to defeat?”
Through to the album’s signing off with a recording of a 1919 speech by Lenin denouncing workers’ oppression at the hands of the capitalists, there’s no doubt that impassioned dissent is a major motor on this album.
Tuchscherer mainly rails against social and economic injustice and exploitation, but also political hypocrisy and (sadly, in much more modern times than Lenin) the ongoing rise of…
It’s been two years since Paris-based Sababa 5’s previous full-length Aspan, and almost exactly a year since the release of their collaborative EP with Japanese vocalist Yurika Hanashima. And on Nadir, their compositions have a more mature — dare we say sexier — air. It’s possible that the band’s relocation to France has contributed to a slightly more sophisticated version of their sound, which finds its co-ordinates somewhere between Middle Eastern rock, psychedelic funk, and Americana — maybe even some subtle moments of reggae if you lean into the upstrokes, as they do on the gently-meandering “Atom.” To put it another way: If 2022’s self-titled album was a buoyant, jaunty teenager, then Nadir is the streetwise, stud-ish twenty-something with a cigarette…
Rupert’s People were one of the many excellent but obscure British bands exploring psychedelic rock in the late ’60s, producing just a few singles in 1967 and 1968, but evolving before and after that time under various other guises. Dream in My Mind: Anthology 1967-1999 is perhaps the most comprehensive look at this fascinating and short-lived group, collecting more of the band’s material than any of the various collections that have come before it. What’s most striking about Rupert’s People is how many various styles they attempted. Almost every song takes a different approach, often sounding very similar to other popular bands of their time. The flanger-coated mix and mellow tonality of “I Can Show You” is strikingly close to early Small Faces, while…
Do you put “motherfuckers” in your band name to attract attention or to put a cap on your audience — or, more likely, because such questions could not be farther from your mind? Relatedly, do you drop your debut album on the Fourth of July because it’s such a dead release week and there will be fewer releases competing for people’s attention, or do you choose a holiday exactly because yours is a low-stakes project that does not demand some grandiose rollout? Or, again, are these kinds of questions beside the point of a band like Motherfuckers JMB & Co.?
This is not a band that stinks of strategy. They seem more interested in sending cosmic vibrations into the universe than shockwaves through the industry. Music Excitement Action Beauty…
If there is one group that embodies progressive rock, it is King Crimson. Led by guitar/Mellotron virtuoso Robert Fripp, during its first five years of existence the band stretched both the language and structure of rock into realms of jazz and classical music, all the while avoiding pop and psychedelic sensibilities. The absence of mainstream compromises and the lack of an overt sense of humor ultimately doomed the group to nothing more than a large cult following, but it made their albums some of the most enduring and respectable of the prog rock era.
Alex “Stormy” Mundy and DGM present the unearthed treats from the murky, cavernous archives in the Stormy Monday series, some of which have been newly created from the archive…
First time on vinyl! Originally released as a 2xCD set in 2001, Don’t Let Go features the Jerry Garcia Band’s complete performance from May 21st, 1976 at San Francisco’s Orpheum Theatre.
Recorded live at San Francisco’s Orpheum Theatre on May 21, 1976, this release captures the Jerry Garcia Band with Grateful Dead bandmates Keith and Donna Jean Godchaux, plus John Kahn and Ron Tutt.
Driven by infectious grooves, soulful harmonies, and heavy doses of improv, this show reveals the band’s boundless creativity.
Highlights include an exploratory “Don’t Let Go,” a funky “That’s What Love Will Make You Do,” plus extended jams on “After Midnight” and “Lonesome and a Long Way from Home.”
The first standalone release of the songs from Giles, Giles & Fripp’s 1968 debut album, now with spoken word sections removed. New 2025 remaster by David Singleton.
While 1967 is rightly remembered for an abundance of classic albums, there were also quieter debut LPs emerging, signalling popular music’s imminent changes to a more rock-oriented, musician-centred approach.
It was also the year that Robert Fripp applied for a ‘singing organist’ role advertised by brothers Peter and Michael Giles, despite having no experience either as a singer or organist.
Experiencing a few challenges and disappointments on the way, the year was an exciting one for the trio, who recorded a series of…
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band perform a 27-song set in Marseille.
Highlights: “Twist and Shout” returns to the set; “No Surrender” and “Bobby Jean” rotate in.
2025 additions “Rainmaker,” “House of a Thousand Guitars” (performed solo acoustic), and the show-closing cover of Bob Dylan’s “Chimes of Freedom” all appear.
…Springsteen and the E Street Band brought their Land of Hope and Dreams Tour to the Orange Vélodrome in Marseille, France on Saturday, May 31 with a new twist.
A cover of the Isley Brothers and Beatles classic “Twist and Shout,” a first for the tour. A fan held up a sign with the word “resist” on it near the front of the stage during the song, according…
It’s rare that an album title so accurately reflects the songs within it. But Life Behind Bars is one of those titles. The collection of songs here gives heartfelt dialogue to The Vandoliers’ frontwoman Jenni Rose’s journey through addiction and gender dysphoria, culminating in her decision earlier this year to publicly come out and live her authentic life as a transwoman.
The ten tracks here manage to tell her remarkable story, all backed by the same country by way of punk rock soundtrack that the band has built their reputation going four records deep. From the very first lines of the opening track “Dead Canary,” Rose digs in for her most personal record yet (“I was running from my shadow/Tried to hide it, but it followed/It found me lying on…
Lost and Found: Selections from the Lost Albums is a curated collection of 20 previously unreleased songs from Springsteen’s Tracks II: The Lost Albums box set. These recordings illuminate key chapters in Springsteen’s storied career, offering fans unprecedented insight into his creative process. “The Lost Albums were full records, some of them even to the point of being mixed and not released,” Springsteen reveals. “I’ve played this music to myself and often close friends for years now. I’m glad you’ll get a chance to finally hear them. I hope you enjoy them.” Journey through Springsteen’s sonic evolution, from the raw, lo-fi LA Garage Sessions ’83 that bridges Nebraska and Born in the U.S.A., to the innovative drum loops and synthesizers of Streets of Philadelphia Sessions.
Bruce and the E Street Band perform a 26-song set in Villeneuve-d’Ascq, the second of two concerts.
Highlights: “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” “My Love Will Not Let You Down,” “My Hometown,” and “Glory Days” rotate in. 2025 additions “Rainmaker,” “House of a Thousand Guitars” (performed solo acoustic), and the show-closing cover of Bob Dylan’s “Chimes of Freedom” all appear.
The E Street Band: Bruce Springsteen – lead vocal, electric/acoustic guitars, harmonica; Roy Bittan – piano, keyboards; Nils Lofgren – electric/acoustic guitars; Garry Tallent – bass; Stevie Van Zandt – electric/acoustic guitars, mandolin; Max Weinberg – drums; Jake Clemons – tenor saxophone, percussion; Charlie Giordano – Organ, keyboards, accordion; Soozie Tyrell – violin…
Bruce and the E Street Band perform a 30-song set on the second night in Liverpool.
In the encore, Sir Paul McCartney joins for two songs: a debut performance of The Beatles’ “Can’t Buy Me Love” (written by Lennon-McCartney), and “Kansas City” (last performed in 2012; written by Leiber and Stoller, popularized by Little Richard, The Beatles, and James Brown).
Other highlights: “Ghosts” returns to the set, opening the show for the first time. “Seeds,” “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” “My Hometown,” and “Glory Days” rotate in.
2025 additions “Rainmaker,” “House of a Thousand Guitars” (performed solo acoustic), and the show-closing cover of Bob Dylan’s “Chimes of Freedom” all appear.
Jakko M. Jakszyk, most recently known as the vocalist & guitarist in legendary progressive rockers King Crimson, returns with his brand new solo album Son of Glen. The record is a companion piece of sorts to his acclaimed memoir Who’s The Boy With The Lovely Hair?, that was released in October 2024, and explores many of the themes and the subjects that the book touches upon.
Jakko comments: “A romantic fantasy narrative based on what I discovered about my real father after decades of fruitless searching for him.
Glen Tripp was a US airman based in the UK who fell for a dark-haired Irish singer. And here I was many, many years later repeating what he had done by falling for another. What if he had been watching me and guiding me from ‘afar’?”
The mention of the name Greg Lake will immediately takes your thoughts back to his work with Emerson, Lake & Palmer, the band he formed with keyboard maestro Keith Emerson, and powerhouse drummer, Carl Palmer, with whom he recorded nine studio albums between 1970 (Emerson, Lake & Palmer) and 1994 (In The Hot Seat), as well as 1986’s Emerson, Lake & Powell with drummer Cozy Powell, a period which also saw him release his massive Christmas hit single, ‘I Believe In Father Christmas’. Besides that, and even before ELP, Lake had also supplied bass and vocals for Robert Fripp’s progressive rock behemoth King Crimson on its genre defining debut album In The Court Of The Crimson King (1969) as well as supplying vocals on its follow up…