With a 30-day window to return gear bought with a “borrowed” credit card, young wannabe rock stars Jeff Whalen and Dan Kern were on a mission in 1998 to record the songs they had been kicking around for a few months. Those tunes were a winning mixture of shimmering power pop, strutting glam rock, and non-clichéd alternative rock that eventually became the basis of Tsar’s self-titled debut album. The two guys called in favors from friends for more gear as needed while fighting off a faltering 8-track recorder and racing to the finish line with one goal in mind: scoring a record deal. These tapes have circulated before in less official channels, but Omnivore’s 2025 release of The Drugboy Tapes is their official coming out party, and it’s a blast to hear…
Tag Archive: Omnivore
Guest appearances from Brian Wilson, Mike Love, America, Robert Lamm (Chicago), Christopher Cross, Los Straightjackets, and more on this first-ever anthology of Jeffrey Foskett.
Born and bred in the Golden State of California, Jeffrey Foskett and his angelic voice were destined to be part of the California Sound forever. An early acolyte of The Beach Boys and the music of Brian Wilson, Foskett was serendipitously “discovered” by Beach Boys lead singer, Mike Love, in a bar in Santa Barbara in the early 1980s. Foskett would later describe this “chance meeting” as “opportunity knocking” and he seized it with every ounce of talent he possessed.
Soon after meeting Love, Foskett joined The Beach Boys on the road.
78 live performances on three CDs, 75 on CD for the frist time, 25 previously unissued in the US, and 20 more prevoiusly unissued anywhere.
There is no doubt Buck Owens and His Buckaroos were one of the biggest acts in the world from 1964–1974. Not only were they topping the music charts, they were filling concert halls worldwide. They were such a popular concert draw that many performances were recorded and released only in the corresponding foreign market. Unfortunately, much of that material never saw the light of day outside the country in which it was released. Until now.
Adios, Farwell, Goodbye, Good Luck, So Long: On Stage 1964–1974 is the first comprehensive look at this revolutionary time in music.
Under the lonesome cry of the midnight train, stars twinkling over hillbilly lights in the mountain fog, Nellie McKay returns with her new album, Hey Guys, Watch This. Recorded in Charleston, West Virginia with The Carpenter Ants — Michael Lipton, Ted Harrison, Jupie Little, and Mark Bates — and a roving retinue of musical compadres, Hey Guys, Watch This traces the haunted sounds of Appalachia through lush sonic textures. So unpack your washtub bass, fill up your red cup, and pull on your shitkickers — ’cos the night is young and the moon is bright, even if we’re not.
Nellie has produced an array of wildly varying albums, including her groundbreaking 2004 debut Get Away from Me and Normal As Blueberry Pie: A Tribute to Doris Day…
Twenty-one years ago, the 21-year-old Nellie McKay released her debut album Get Away from Me to much critical acclaim. Reviewers from the New York Times to Pitchfork and PopMatters praised its eclectic mix of musical styles from Tin Pan Alley to hip-hop, cabaret jazz to spoken word, blues to Broadway, singer-songwriter to rock, and its unclassifiable singularity.
McKay was compared to everyone from Doris Day to Frank Zappa, Eminem to Green Day, and Tom Waits to Randy Newman. While the album made Billboard‘s Top 200 chart and McKay appeared on network television shows, it was never a big financial success. At the same time, McKay squabbled over creative differences with her record company and was soon dropped by her label.