This week, let's listen to some old guys! They've been through it all, and are still working to come through the other side. We've got the most depressing soundtrack to a play of all time, a Beatle that just wants to "party every night," a Swamp Dogg masterpiece, with a side of Ice Cream For Crow. I dont know about you but this little blurb of a paragraph has me hooked so lets start reading!

Alice - a fantastic album surrounded by even more fantastic albums, which makes it all the more special and unique in my book. Dark, dreary, vaudevillian, melancholy, infinite sadness, the whole lot. It's not an uplifting listen by any means, as almost nothing was from this period of Tom Waits career. But Alice manages to capture an incredible amount of delicate beauty in its 48-minute runtime. I remember first listening to this album in the winter of 2009, right as I had first moved to Boston. I didn't know a soul, I had no friends yet, I'd broken up with my girlfriend to chase down my dreams, and it was cold. Shit - even my dog had just died. I was ripe for something sad, something to affirm all of these crazy feelings I was having. I was only 19 years old, still a kid, and sometimes when you reach out for something in the dark, all you'll get is more darkness - especially at that age.

Alice was one of three collaborations Waits had with playwright Robert Wilson. The Black Rider, their first collaboration, was the rare Waits album not received warmly from this period and one that I'll admit I've never thrown on. The other being Woyzeck resulting in the 2002 album Blood Money which released simultaneously with Alice. Both were received much better than The Black Rider no doubt due to his recent masterpiece Mule Variations still kicking around everyone's head at the time. Alice and Blood Money make interesting bedfellows, with Alice being the album that pairs best with a cup of cyanide between the two. This era of Tom Waits' music was a time when Waits became an exposed nerve through his songwriting. All of his music was so raw, so naked, and so completely unlike anything being released at the time.

I remember throwing Alice on my iPod and just walking around Beacon Hill, Back Bay, and all the old Revolutionary landmarks of Boston and just being completely intoxicated by it all. Yes, I was depressed, no Alice was not helping, but I was a history buff with a dramatic streak, and listening to that record while being out and about in an old city got me out of my apartment at the very least. Something about this music sounds so out of time. It sounds like something you'd hear in a janky, rundown barroom before there was even a possibility of recording sound. It's transitory - magical even. Alice is not Rain Dogs or Closing Time. You're not going to leave feeling happy after you listen to it. It's its own trip, but one you'll like taking if you're deep into the Waits catalog.

As you may or may not know, this blog is based on a weekly record club I have with a few of my old college buddies. One of them posited an interesting question when it came time to discuss McCartney III. "If this was the first album McCartney had ever released," he asked, "Would you want to hear more?" We all had to struggle to remove our Beetle Goggles with which we see just about everything music-related through. "No" was the consensus, with about half a dozen "ands," "ifs," and "buts." McCartney III is a tough record to analyze, because as admirable as it is that Paul is still putting out half-decent music, I can't help but think that he completely missed the mark here. It's meandering, the lyrics are lacking ("Deep Down" oof), and the songs are much too long. At the same time - it's excellently recorded, Paul sounds good on every instrument, and you can tell he is having a ton of fun. Just like what I pointed out in my review of McCartney II, what else does this guy have to prove to anyone? Paul McCartney recorded an album of songs all by himself. Who am I to say it sucks? He's Paul McCartney.

I'm sure this criticism of McCartney has dogged him his entire post-Beatles career, but it's true. Paul, without any meaningful collaborators, is lacking. Wings was essentially a springboard for whatever he wanted to do during the 70s, but no one in that band (save for Linda) could hold a candle to Pauls's voice and presence. There was no Lennon to keep him in check, to keep him interesting. Hell, he didn't even have a Ringo (I love Ringo, but you know what I'm getting at). At this point, at 78 years old, he has done it all. His last album Egypt Station was a major letdown in terms of songwriting, production, attitude, everything. McCartney plus Katy Perry's production team does not equal anything remotely close to what I'd want to listen to. Paul was trying to keep the popstar flame alive as best he could. I think McCartney may have recognized what a misstep that attempt was, and McCartney III is his overcorrection. "Hey, look! I'm releasing this through Third Man! Street cred, right kids?" Uh. I dunno. Sorry, Paul.

Look, if you're a big McCartney fan, there is plenty here you'll like. The guy has still got it musically, and he can play and sing his heart out like it's 1965. The very final song "When Winter Comes" is just about worth the entire price of admission on its own. It's competently produced music made by an icon having fun, which I could not say about a few of his albums before this one. As another Record Club buddy pointed out, "Paul McCartney IS pop-music." He will be setting the pace and template that all others after him have followed and will continue to follow long after he is gone. Unlike Dylan, who is constantly evolving; electing to blow up David and rebuild it in different ways, over and over again, Paul is still chiseling away at the granite that will be his ultimate legacy and sound. There is a throughline here that you can trace all the way back to the Beatles. Paul is no shapeshifter. In a way, how lucky are we that we all still get to have a piece of Beatle-Mania through Paul? But if Paul wants to stick the landing on this whole thing he's been working on the past 60 years, I think more ambition and scrutiny will be required. McCartney III is a slightly disappointing end to this trilogy. Despite its failings, there is still plenty of Paul to love here.

If you had to boil everything I loved about music, you'd probably arrive at Sorry You Couldn't Make It - the 2020 release by the tenacious and one-of-a-kind Swamp Dogg. This music is funky, fun, often sorrowful, and always soulful. It's excellent musicians in an excellent studio, performing excellent songs, by an excellent band-leader. You literally can't ask for more from the medium of vinyl than this record. It's thrilling that as recently as last year, there is still new music like this being released. It's the kind of album that slides onto your shelf right next to Bobby Bland, The Band, Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, Charles Bradley, and any singer (blue-eyed or otherwise) who's ever put a chill down your spine and a tear in your eye. Swamp Dogg is the real deal, and he's here to show us all how it's supposed to be done.

Now, Jerry "Swamp Dogg" Williams Jr. may be a revelation to you and me, but he's been here doing this thing since the 1950s. He's gone through many reinventions in his sound, most recently with the 808s & Heartbreak inspired Love, Loss, and Auto-Tune. This album marks somewhat of a return to his more R&B 70s era recordings. Swamp Dogg reminds me a lot of Charles Bradley or Sharon Jones; in that, he's been a hardworking musician his entire life who is just now beginning to see the kind of success and recognition that perhaps he's deserved all along. The biggest difference between Swamp Dogg and his Dap-Tone counterparts is that despite a less than stellar career for the last 60 years in the music industry - he has at least had a career that entire time. Jones and Bradley were both picked out of relative obscurity very late in their lives, and both came out of the gate screaming. You can hear while listening to them that that Dap Tones or whoever is backing them on any particular record are doing a lot of heavy lifting and/or playing to their relative strengths. Swamp Dogg is in full command of this band, these sessions, and this album. The thing they all have in common is wearing their hearts on their sleeves on every single track.

"Sleeping Without You Is a Drag," "I Lay Awake," "Memories," "I'd Rather Be Your Used to Be," "Billy," all have devastating lyrics. Each song reveals a different aspect of being a man of advanced age who despite living exactly the life he always wanted - is full of regret. I've never heard a song sung from the perspective of an older person that made me understand how hard it will be to slowly watch your friends and loved ones pass away. Swamp Dogg puts you at the grave, he puts your head on your pillow while you lay awake at night, and he puts the pen in your hand while you write that letter apologizing for all the times you weren't there. None encapsulate these feelings better than the final track "Please Let Me Go Round Again," where Williams openly begs his creator (with the help of John Prine in his final bow on record) for another chance around the sun. This time he'll make good on every promise, he'll behave himself - he'll finally be a good man. Devastating shit.

This record is notable for all the collaborators, like the aforementioned John Prine, who just sink into the fabric of the recordings. Jenny Lewis and Justin Vernon are all over this record, but if you didn't know that going into listening to this you may never have caught them. Williams uses them like you'd use any guest session musician; they're not there to be featured they're there to support. Another curious thing that I'd love to hear about in the comments if you know, but I found myself in love with the drum sound on this album, but I could not figure out if an actual drummer is even on this record. Listening closely, it appears that it could be an expertly managed drum machine - although there are no credits listed for either. Buy this record. After goin' round again and again (3 times in one day) I had to purchase the LP.

It's fitting that this particular blog started with Tom Waits and is ending with his idol, Captain Beefheart. Waits famously heard Beefheart and changed his entire sound afterward in the early 80s, to the maudlin sound he still carries in his music to this day. Where Waits was beginning a new phase of his career, Beefheart was ending his career as a musician for good. Ice Cream For Crow is a particularly notable high note to go out on as an artist. Beefheart had struggled throughout the 70s to find a particular sound, always fighting off the dregs of poverty, and a few times succumbing to the pressures of the music industry to become more appealing. Ice Cream For Crow is my favorite Captain Beefheart album and the first one I try to show people before ruining their day with Trout Mask Replica. Beefheart sounds as creative as ever, confident, and triumphant on this album. It's a 10/10 by a truly one-of-a-kind artist the likes of which we are likely to never see again.

I remember the first time I heard Beefheart in college and I thought to myself "Oh, so this is the 'Berklee Bullshit' music I've heard so much about!" I don't remember which album it was, probably Trout Mask but I hated it. None of his records are remotely approachable compared to anything resembling ordinary popular music. It wasn't until I heard his first album Safe As Milk that my ears opened up to him. His first album features Ry Cooder and is an all-around triumph of mid-60s electric blues. His albums slowly descend into madness from there, with Trout Mask Replica, in particular, occupying an unusual dual place in musical heaven and hell respectively. On his later albums, Beefheart incorporated spoken word poetry, free form jazz, rock, and blues, all wrapped in an art gallery aesthetic that can be an instant turn-off for most people. It wasn't until Ice Cream For Crow that Beefheart managed to meld the blues-rock of his early albums with the circus freak show cacophony of Trout Mask.

Ice Cream For Crow features an absolute A-List Magic Band in support of Beefheart and his signature incomprehensible style. When you realize that Beefheart designs his music to sound like a band falling down a flight of stairs while playing - on purpose - that is when you can truly appreciate his bizarre kind of genius. Beefheart would write all this music out for his players and they could follow him. It's so unique that it's no surprise that only someone as talented as Tom Waits would even dare to approach this kind of material. Ice Cream For Crow weirdly enough became my go-to workout music about a year ago (don't ask what else is on my workout playlist). There is something about it that has so much forward-leaning insanity that I think flailing one's arms and legs around might have been the originally intended way of enjoying this album. Start at Safe As Milk and know that Ice Cream For Crow is waiting to reward your Beefheart journey. Even I, a huge fan of Beefheart, can't fully get into all of his material (lookin' at you Trout Mask). Take a walk on the wild side. Ice Cream For Crow.

Gasp! It's more of the same! This week we're continuing on a bit from last time and looking at a few more albums and their varying association to film. I never thought I'd write a music blog, but for the longest time I was convinced I'd start a blog or podcast for movies. Don't be surprised by a part three sometime in the future! These albums are all very electronic in nature and (almost) no songs from any of them were even featured in any particular movie. But each of these artists has a strong connection to film through other work, and today we're going to explore that.

The mustache eternal, the voice of Lynch, The Greek Gods of Synth, and a guy who's all outta bubblegum. Lets dive in!

I made a musical mortal sin when I was in high school. I made sweeping generalizations and blanket statements about entire genres of music I knew nothing about. On top of that, while doing zero listening, or research, I would proclaim, "I don't like 'X' genre." This sentiment became a problem for me because I started believing this story I kept telling myself. I'd hear music from the 80s, or maybe a country song I liked, and anger and insecurity about my taste would flare-up. "How could this be good, I'm not supposed to like this." Living in Spain for a year broke me out of a ton of bad habits like this. I told myself when I got there that "I'm here all by myself, and it's time for a complete reinvention." It became a time for me to be open to new things, experiences, challenges, and music. It was a monumental decision that, to this day, I still benefit from. One of the largest barriers I had up was my supposed dislike of electronic music. Since all of my friends at Berklee Valencia were DJs, I had no choice but to dive headfirst into the world of EDM and electronic music. What I found was that I loved it. I traveled with my friends to go to famous dance clubs in Berlin, Ibiza, Barcelona, Prague - you name it. The scene in Berlin, in particular, was incredibly eye-opening. The dance clubs there are like musical churches. It was a spiritual experience I hadn't shared with music before or since. It was special, and I cherish those memories and experiences. Returning to the states, I knew I had to do a deep dive. After all, I loved listening to and making dub music, which in many ways was the first kind of electronically manipulated musical art form. I knew I had to go way back and start at the beginning. Moroder.

From Here To Eternity is actually more of a new listen for me, as I kind of put it off for years. I didn't think I was quite ready for it, but I finally reached a point where I thought I was ready to understand it. It lays out the template for what a dance set should be. Tracks are long, tempos are tight and similar, songs fade in and out of each other, you never know where one starts, and the next one ends, and the voice behind the controls is unique and singular. From the moment I put it on, I knew that I'd made a mistake not spending years dancing around listening to it. It's everything that I loved about the new school EDM I was introduced to in Spain but done by a mustachioed, disco-daddy straight out of Studio 54. It's an incredibly fun and infectious listen, one that grows on you and reveals more and more of itself to you with each revolution around the turntable. The craft on display by Giorgio Moroder is so strong, and from what I know about the old instruments he must have been using, pulling this off would have been no easy feat. Full of pulsing drum machines, synths, vocoders, and the flair of someone at the peak of his powers - From Here To Eternity is truly a masterpiece.

Hey, wait, wasn't this blog supposed to have something to do with movies?

Right, I almost forgot. So last month, I bought the 4K remaster of Scarface, one of Brian De Palma's many triumphs as a filmmaker. Believe it or not, I was obsessed with this movie when I was about 12 years old. I have no idea how or why I was allowed to watch such an insanely violent movie, but I'm sure glad I did! Scarface along with The Godfather and Pulp Fiction were extremely helpful in developing my taste and love of film and music from an early age. On this most recent rewatch - as the opening credits revealed themselves, my jaw was on the floor when I realized who else worked on this film. "Holy shit, of COURSE, Oliver Stone wrote this movie..... wait... MORODER did the music??!" I screeched as my girlfriend nodded and ate more popcorn. What I realized was the seeds for my love of this music were planted so early, and I'd spent much of my teenage and adult years intentionally stifling my own interest in it. I watched Scarface through an entirely different lens. The fact that Moroder stepped up and delivered a score that equaled the magnitude of the picture on screen was remarkable to me. As soon as the film ended, I got on Discogs and bought an original first pressing of From Here To Eternity.

Needless to say, this record has been on an endless loop since I received my copy. If you are unsure about electronic music, this is where you should start. There are gems, and then there are gems and this is definitely in the latter category. While From Here To Eternity is wildly different from anything I heard while living in Spain, it still manages to capture the spirit of that music perfectly for me. Moroder's work with Donna Summer, Bowie, Daft Punk (RIP), and others further cements his mastery of this style, as well as the breadth of discovery left for me as a listener. From here, to an eternity of spins of my record player.

While we're on another blog about movies, it seems inevitable that we'd have to feature a sequel of sorts this week. The Voice of Love by Julee Cruise is the follow-up to Floating Through The Night which sees returning collaborators David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti once again providing only the dreamiest of tunes for Cruise to croon over. Floating Through The Night is a perfect album in many ways, and to return to that sound with the same collaborators is bold, to say the least. It's not often that lightning strikes twice in the same place, and that is most often the problem with sequels, be they film, music, or otherwise. Lynch and co., more or less nail it once again with The Voice of Love, and it's hard for me not to keep this one spinning on my turntable. I may prefer Floating Through The Night overall, but I have listened to The Voice of Love almost constantly since my copy arrived.

If you enjoyed the first set of songs, you can find much of what you loved here as well. This song suite is slightly less dreamy and a bit more somber and wistful, but if you're looking for the perfect soundtrack to your Twin Peaks fantasy life - look no further. Once again Lynch writes all the lyrics and produces, while Badalamenti composes all of the music. There are almost no instances where these two get together for a collaboration that doesn't find its way onto the screen one way or another, and The Voice of Love is no different. Here we have several songs as the bedrock for much of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. Where that film feels like a major departure in tone from Twin Peaks the series, the music here is what remains a near-constant between the two. Without these two Julee Cruise albums, I wonder how much more discordant the series and the film would feel. Having this music as the tie that binds them both is perfect.

I mean it when I say I've just about played this one out the last few weeks. It's not often that I return to an album over and over again anymore. There is so much incredible music out there to discover, and keeping up on this blog requires me to always keep searching - but The Voice of Love has found its way to my turntable more times than I can count. While this record has fewer recognizable songs and earworms than Floating Through The Night, what it does have is an incredible ambiance wholly its own. Each track bleeds into the next seamlessly, and it goes far in making your life feel like it's being shot at 24 frames per second no matter what you're doing. If you like David Lynch, dream pop, and this trios blend of nightmare jazz - you can rest assured that this is every bit as worthy a listen as anything they've done together before or since. My only hope now is they give us one more and finish out a trilogy. I can dream, can't I?

Phaedra is the first release on Virgin Records by seminal electronic band Tangerine Dream, released in 1974. If you're curious as to what this album sounds like, look no further than the cover. Twisting, turning, slithering white noise - washing over Moog synthesizers and early 70s sequencers. The music evokes being adrift in whatever fantasy setting you choose. Close your eyes, and maybe you're floating through space, flying through some Kubrick-ian wormhole. Maybe, you're stuck on a boat - choppy seas nipping at your heels with no respite in sight. Maybe, you're baking in the sun, lost in the desert of Frank Herbert's Dune. This music is fertile soil for the imagination, and it surprises me not one bit that this group became so in demand for film scores after this released. Tangerine Dream would later produce music for William Freidkin's film Sorcerer (excellent, underrated film), Michael Mann's Thief, and many more excellent 80s fantasy films that were no doubt made better by their involvement. Phaedra is one of kind, sort of terrifying, and essential listening. My dog thought it was weird. Take what you will from that.

Famous eccentric-billionaire Richard Branson is somewhat responsible for this band's early rediscovery and giving them their first major record label deal. Phaedra was the first album produced by the band that introduced the sequencer/synthesizer-driven sound that made them famous. Sessions for this album typically lasted 10-12 hours a day due to the band having to tune these early machines as they were very susceptible to temperature changes. The title track is 17 minutes long and takes up an entire side on the record. "Phaedra" shifts and squirms in and out of key during its long runtime; by the end, it sounds much different than when it started. The sessions were mired by almost every kind of technical issue imaginable - compounded by the analog nature of all of that era's equipment. Tape machines went down, the console had constant problems, and tuning the synths could take hours out of each day. After two weeks of recording every single day, they had merely 6 minutes of music finished on tape. I honestly can't imagine how such a frustrating situation could have resulted in something so incredible. Plus, Richard Branson was probably there, which I'm sure didn't help a single thing.

The title of the album is in reference to the ancient Greek myth of Phaedra, which going into this listen, I had little knowledge or familiarity. The best and most succinct explanation I found was from the website GreekMythology.com. Go figure!

Phaedra was the daughter of King Minos and Queen Pasiphae of Crete, in Greek mythology.

She was the wife of Theseus, but she fell in love with her husband's son, Hippolytus. According to a version of the story, Hippolytus had mocked Aphrodite by telling her to be a virginal devotee of Artemis; so, Aphrodite made Phaedra fall for him, but he rejected her love. Bitter, Phaedra lied to her husband saying that Hippolytus raped her. Theseus cursed his son; so, a bit later, Hippolytus' chariot horses were scared by a sea monster and dragged him to death. In another version, Phaedra lied to Theseus, who killed Hippolytus; out of guilt, Phaedra committed suicide.

So there are (at minimum) two versions of the story, both resulting in your typical incestuous, back-stabbing, dramatic, suicidal Greek bedtime tales. I swear these stories were just the soap operas of their time. Who needs Twin Peaks in ancient Greece when you've got this stuff to chew on? I digress. What the band takes from this myth seems open to interpretation. As I said in the beginning, I get a lot of things from this music, but Greek tragedy does not spring to mind. I'll leave those connections to the smart bloggers.

All in all, Phaedra is one of the best electronic albums I have ever heard. I've loved Tangerine Dream's film scores for a long time, and I've always found that they add an immense amount to any film, but their traditional studio albums have always eluded me. I have their mid-80s album Tyger which was a bit of a letdown, and their catalog is so vast that it's hard to know where to even begin. Even including their film work, Phaedra is the best piece of music I have heard from this band so far, and if you're looking for the shallow end of the Tangerine Dream pool to take a dip in - start right here. Trust me, the water is warm, and you won't regret listening to it. There are dozens of Tangerine Dream albums, but none that I have heard match the cosmic brilliance and utter majesty of Phaedra.

If someone had a gun to my head and said, "Pick between David Lynch and John Carpenter," I think I would be in major trouble.

Both Lynch and Carpenter have the uncanny ability to bring a chill down your spine via your eyes and your ears alike. There are very few auteurs like either one of them; in that the totality of their creativity is what makes their work excel. Every part of the process, every piece of the puzzle - has their shine on it. However, the biggest difference between the two is how they go about their respective creative mandates. Lynch is a visionary - closer to a painter than a filmmaker. Seeing his vision come to life on screen is the draw; to meddle with that is to court disaster (see Dune, 1984). Carpenter, on the other hand, requires creative control out of necessity. The producers for Halloween couldn't afford a composer - so Carpenter stepped in. It's cheaper and easier for him to write his movies than to wait for something he liked thrown his way. Same goes for sets, makeup and all kinds of things in his movies. In another universe, Carpenter is just another journeyman director making B-movie genre films, but his imagination, vision, and creative autonomy make him a unique standout among many of his 80s counterparts.

John Carpenter has long been one of my creative heroes and a massive source of inspiration. I remember the first time I saw The Thing it arrived in my mailbox via Netflix's now ancient DVD delivery service. I put it on in the middle of the night, knowing I was in for something gross and scary, but I watched anyway. Immediately as the credits started rolling, I restarted the film and watched it again. Not only did that movie blossom into a full-blown Carpenter obsession I still have not let go of, but it solidified my love of horror and genre films. Ironically The Thing had a score by Ennio Morricone - granted, it was unlike anything he'd done before and was no doubt filtered through Carpenter's lens. Halloween, Assault On Precinct 13, The Fog, Big Trouble In Little China, In The Mouth of Madness, They Live, Escape From New York, and countless other films of his are a mainstay in my blu ray library. I watch them all the time, and his scores are, no doubt, an integral factor in their rewatchability.

I was lucky enough to see Carpenter live, two years in a row, on Halloween night at the Pantages Theatre while living in LA in 2017 and 2018. The 2018 show was particularly noteworthy because Halloween (2018) was in the middle of its massive theatrical run and the entire event felt like a special celebration. Nick Castle, the man who portrayed Michael Myers in the original film was in the audience, the classic 1958 Plymouth Fury from Christine was in the lobby of the theatre, and there were tons of b-list celebrity nerds throughout the crowd. It was Halloween night, so everyone dressed up as horror/sci-fi characters (my girlfriend and I went as Rick Deckard and Rachel from Blade Runner). Adding to the celebration was the fact that Carpenter was back. His son Cody, an excellent musician in his own right, was in the band, as was Daniel Davies - son of The Kinks Dave Davies (himself a Carpenter collaborator). The trio had just come off of yet another fantastic collaboration with the Halloween (2018) score and the world had finally recognized how essential John Carpenter was to the history of horror and filmmaking in general. The set was littered with classic themes from his movies, as well as pieces from his recent non-film score albums Lost Themes and Lost Themes II. It was a night to remember and one of my favorite concerts I've ever seen.

Lost Themes III is merely a continuation of the party. It's yet another well-deserved victory lap for a man who I hope manages to take ten more. The songs are slightly less guitar-heavy and very synth-focused. These songs, more than anything on I or II, resemble his 80s work to a startling degree. He's still got it, and Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davies helped him unlock this side of himself after being dormant for nearly a decade from the industry. The only downside to this set of songs is, it makes me desperate to see just one more film from John Carpenter. Everyone says he's too old, but the guy regularly goes on tour with his band and records incredible music in the studio constantly. For someone as prolific as he still is, I believe the only thing holding him back from getting behind the camera once again is himself. Lost Themes III is a firm reminder that this guy is the cornerstone of modern horror. Michael Myers can rightfully take his place alongside Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Wolfman on horror's Mount Rushmore. John Carpenter can do exactly what he wants at this point in his life, and lucky for us, when he's not playing X-Box he's making incredible music. Long live John Carpenter!

Oof - not off to a consistent start back are we? Hey folks, I'm trying! As some of you may be aware by now, I'm in the process of quitting my 9-5 so I can focus on the important work of listening to more records, writing more blogs, and making more music! Soon this blog will become a regular thing again. This week we are looking at four records you may or may not have discovered through film.

An architypal Outrun hero returns from the dead to cruise the neon highways is his Ferarri, a gang of witches conjurs up a frightening ballet, Nick Cave finally lets love in, and a dead mans party takes us home. It's a great set of albums that you will not want to miss! Despite this blog maybe needing a bit more fiber to keep it regular, I've always got something in the works. Stay tuned for more soon, and while you're here lets listen to some WAX!

The 2011 film Drive by Nicolas Winding Refn was a cult classic almost before it even left the theatre. The film reintroduced a whole new generation to Synthwave and Outrun and anticipated the surge in those genres we still see today. Arguably the most iconic scene happens at the beginning of the film, with Gosling's character cruising the streets of contemporary LA, all set to the tune of "Nightcall." This film, more specifically this album, and even more this song is unbelievably iconic at this point. The film was an instant midnight classic, and the "Nightcall" feature made Kavinsky into an overnight sensation in the electronic/EDM world. It's evocative of the idea of the 80s, but not the 80s themselves. It's nostalgia for something that never really ever existed, and it's magical.

Outrun has an album cover ripped right out of 1985. Miami-Esque font splashes across the image of a dark tropic background, along with a classic red Ferrari Testarossa backlighting our hero Kavinsky, adorned in his red letterman jacket. The album cover speaks directly to the themes and concepts in the music. Not just the font and the car but also by way of the black bars on the top and bottom of the image. It's supposed to look like a frame cut out of a film. As soon as you kick off this album you're made to understand that all of this imagery is intentional. The opening track tells the story of a young racer driving too fast, who ultimately meets his end in a fiery crash - only to return once again. Kavinsky is telling his legend, his tall tale, his myth. The classic Ferrari Testarossa on the cover? That's his real car. He's owned it for years. The guy walks the walk, and it is so damn cool.

The music itself is big, bombastic, and fantastical. The beats are driving, all at very similar tempos, and are perfectly crafted. Kavinsky is an artist who puts out quality music; very seldomly. To this day, this was the last album released commercially by Kavinsky. He lit the entire electronic music scene on fire, and that blaze is still burning today. Look up "Outrun Playlist" on YouTube, and you'll find hours worth of playlists completely aping his style, sound, and look. Only recently has it been hinted at on Kavinsky's Instagram page that he is due to release more music soon. Can lightning strike twice for this guy? Has the 80s revival fad run its course? Is he overdue for a reinvention? Only time will tell. Personally I'll take another round of the same thing. In the meantime, I'll be listening to "Nightcall."

You simply can't name your band Goblin and not make screeching, horrifying, baroque-folk by way of 70s prog-funk. I'm sorry, but you just can't. Good thing no one had to tell these guys that! The first thing you notice while watching Dario Argento's masterpiece Suspiria (the 1977 one, not the weird Thom York one...) is the music. The film tells of a young American girl looking to become a professional ballet dancer in Berlin. She arrives at a world-famous ballet academy and promptly enrolls before realizing that something about this school is not what it seems. A front for a coven of witches, perhaps? This is a spoiler-free blog - so I'd never tell. The moment she arrives at the school, the overwhelming, foreboding, technicolor-horror of this place is fully realized by the magnificent score by Goblin. I dare you - tonight, put on your headphones and listen to the title track while you get up in the middle of the night for a glass of water. I'd be willing to bet you can't because never has a more creepy-crawly film score been laid to tape.

A lot of the music on this album is exactly what it says it is: film score. Film scores can be a challenge to listen to, as one of my astute record club members pointed out during our discussions: Listening to film score without the film is like looking at a photo of a painting. Yes, you can still enjoy it, but there is a massive amount of context missing from the experience. You can't see the brush strokes with a photo, just as you can't feel the tension in the music quite as well without the film. The notion of a "Silent Film" was always funny to me because there is absolutely nothing "silent" about them! Watch a Charlie Chaplin film on mute and tell me that the music doesn't add everything that makes it funny, heartfelt, sad - what have you. In this same way, experiencing a score without picture is giving you a flawed experience.

All that is not to say this isn't an enjoyable listen, although I guess it depends on your definition of enjoyable. Some of the music on this album is funky, the players are shredding, and the grooves being laid down are so hip, so 70s, and so, so good. Other times, the film score beast rears its head, and you'll get a lot of screeching noises along with haunting chants, paper-thin cracks of snare out of nowhere, and a whole lot of nightmare fuel. By all means, you should definitely listen to this album. But even more than that - watch Suspiria as soon as possible. Dario Argento and Goblin had one of the strongest filmmaker/composer bonds I've ever encountered, and this being just one example of their many triumphs while working together. Beyond that, Suspiria is one of the greatest films (let alone horror films) ever put to picture. If you take film seriously in any way, shape, or form - it is an absolute must-watch. Wait for next Halloween if you must, but WATCH IT.

For me - "Red Right Hand" is the musical equivalent of what Satan listens to before he heads out for a night of sinning and bad influence. I've never heard evil sound so cool than on this song. Most of you probably know it as the theme song for Peaky Blinders (I've heard good things, never seen it), or maybe, like me, you first heard it in Dumb and Dumber. That movie was essentially my guiding light as a child, so I no doubt heard it hundreds of times that way. The scene in question happens when Jim Carry's character Lloyd, while carrying two cases of beer and streamers, and wearing a 10-gallon hat (lol), tries to purchase a copy of Rhode Island Slut (lol) from a vending machine with one hand - and promptly loses his wallet inside the machine. That's one hell of a red right hand, alright. In Lloyds case, sinning leads to more sinning - and punishment. For the most part, you can say the same about the album from whence "Red Right Hand" came. Let Love In is Nick Cave's rock n' roll self-flagellation. Cave becomes the didactic narrator of a trip through a very particular purgatory - that I for one could spend an eternity in.

The album weaves together themes of love, death, sex, religion, and murder - all under the same proud banner. I'm early in my newfound love for all things Nick Cave, but it's clear this guy has a dark side - maybe even his entire spectrum as an artist is just various shades of dark. This week I listened to three albums from various points in his career. Junkyard by his early band The Birthday Party, Let Love In, and Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, all three of which I loved. Juxtaposing these albums against each other (each about 10 or so years apart) shows how Cave has slowly managed to tame the chaos that is itching to burst out of him over his entire career. Junkyard can only be judged against itself, and I've never heard anything like it save for a few PIL albums from around this same time. It's a sadistic, chaotic listen. Much like a rabid animal gnashing its teeth and scaring all of its prey away, Junkyard is almost too wild for its own good. Let Love In tames this beast into a finely tuned murder machine. It's a serial killer stalking its victim from the shadows. Only when you get caught does it reveal its true ferocious nature. By Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! Cave's devilish demeanor has gone pro. He's a traveling salesman that will charm you with a smile that could swindle the boots off your feet just as easily as it could pack you away in the trunk of a car. All three of these albums show the same side of Cage; each is honed by age, experience, wisdom, and yes - more chaos.

Nick Cave is entering full-on obsession territory for me. There are few artists I've come across that are as dark, vampiric, and maudlin, all while exuding the essence of rock n' roll with every breath. He is the darkness at the edge of town, the funeral dirge, the cult leader. He's The Grim Reaper - trading his scythe for a guitar. I know there are many more sides to Cave to discover, and I'm thrilled to be taking the first steps towards that journey. There are few artists like him - Bowie, Dylan, Prince, being others - who can shapeshift before your eyes, all while being a model of consistency and artfulness. Despite being Australian, there are so many themes in his music that feel very American. Maybe it's that Australians are no strangers to the snake oil salesman who walk among us every day here in the States. Their entire history is peppered with criminals, ne'er do wells, danger, intrigue, and mysterious open wilderness from which good and evil can emerge equally. Cave is a piece of turn of the century literature walking among us. A vampire waiting to feast on his next musical victim. Most of all, Cave is a man apart from time and devilishly unique.

When we use the term "dated" when speaking about music - it's usually meant as derogatory. There is no higher praise to be hoisted on an album than to be deemed "timeless," or that it sounds like it "could have been recorded yesterday!" In general, I tend to agree with these sentiments, but there are many, many exceptions to this. It is by no means a rule. There is nothing about Surrealistic Pillow that isn't dated, or Born In the USA even. There are classic albums that are great because of the era they belong to, not in spite of it. Case in point, Danny Elfman's goofy new wave project Oingo Boingo and their fantastic album Dead Man's Party from 1985. Smack in the heart of the 80s. Everything about this album is "dated," but by being so, it becomes a relic of everything we still love about the 80s as a decade. It's fun, it's carefree, you can jazzercise to it, and that's not even mentioning the production! The production is like a masterclass in 80s technique. Synth bass, synths, giant brass, and lest we forget - GATED SNARE! GATED SNARE EVERYWHERE! In years past 80s production used to drive me crazy, but I find it very fun and charming now that I've explored the depths of 60s and 70s pop until my ears bled.

Danny Elfman is probably much better known as Tim Burton's composer and right-hand man. The two are inextricably linked via their collaborations, and what makes a Burton film work oftentimes is Elfman's music. They are the dorky goth version of Speilberg and Williams. Dead Man's Party predates the regular and recurring collaborations between Elfman and Burton by a few years. Instead, Elfman conjures up 80s magic with another, equally brilliant auteur of the time: John Hughes. The story goes that around the time Oingo Boingo was working on Dead Man's Party Huges phoned up Danny Elfman and asked him to compose a theme song for his upcoming film Weird Science. Elfman wrote the song in his car on his way to the studio, and one of my personal favorite 80s pop tunes was born. Strangely enough, Elfman has said that he dislikes the song and feels like it doesn't fit the album or Oingo Boingo's larger repertoire. It's a funny complaint about such a big hit, and I personally feel like it is peak Oingo Boingo. It's the song I think of when I think of this band.

Weird Science is considered lesser-Hughes by many of his fans, and that's a critique I only slightly disagree with. Like Dead Man's Party, Weird Science is also very dated - but not in a good way. The film features a lot of dumb boner humor, casual sexism, racism, and homophobia. I'm sure many of you reading this are reeling in horror that something like this exists - but it was a different time folks! Attitudes change, and we have thankfully moved on from such callousness and stupidity. Unfortunately, and predictably, all of these elements make the film much less enjoyable, let alone funny when viewing through a modern lens. It is still 100% worth the watch though. It's occasionally funny, charming, and the way Hughes manages to morph into a 14-year-old boy whenever he needs to write a script is kind of incredible. It's very much still a relic all its own, and the kind of movie Hollywood just doesn't make anymore. Our culture doesn't cater to the whims of teens and what they want or don't want anymore like we did in the 80s. Teens develop that all themselves now on TikTok or wherever (I don't know, I'm an old).

It should be unsurprising, but any of the Dead Man's Party’ songs would feel just as at home in a Burton flick. The spooky skeleton dance of "No One Lives Forever" brings A Nightmare Before Christmas to mind in particular. Elfman can just as easily charm the spirit of rambunctious teenhood as he can classic, spooky Halloween. I haven't had the fortune of listening to a ton of Oingo Boingo, but I adore this album. I have a rule when buying vinyl: if I can't imagine a party where I'd put it on, I probably won't buy it. Hughes movies on a loop, Oingo Boingo, and an 80s costume party? Sign me up. This is probably the very first record I'd put on. Ultimately Elfman and Burton were destined for each other, but I would have loved to hear more Elfman/Hughes collaborations. These are two guys imbued with the spirit of the 80s more than most during that time. They were able to craft pieces of art that will forever remind us of the simpler times when just being in High School and talking to your crush was a worthy event for a movie. No superheroes leveling buildings or giant robots. Just simple, funny stories about humans and what they go through. Cinematically and musically, we are a million miles away from that now. All that's left of the 80s now is a Dead Man's Party.

Hey! We're back. My college buddies and I have re-started our weekly record club and we're catching up with some awesome new music. This week doesn't really have a theme, it's more some of my favorite things that have been suggested through our weekly chats, as well as some stuff I've been into since the summer. I don't think this blog will be weekly on the dot anymore, it might be closer to bi-weekly, but that will allow me to be a bit more consistent with it without getting burned out. Anyway, enjoy!

Have you ever been so absorbed by a dream that you woke up believing you were still asleep? Dreams can be incredibly peaceful and inviting while being punctuated by certain things out of place or something weird and wonderful only your subconscious could drum up. I firmly believe dreams are your intuition working in real-time, and it's imperative to listen to what they may have to say. Music can be a major driver of dreams, whether from a writing perspective or as a vehicle to take you somewhere new while you sleep. I've had dreams that were major harbingers of change in my life, and just as often I've had dreams that were (seemingly) stupid and pointless. The most helpful and telling dream I've ever had came a few years ago, right before I moved to Nashville. At the time, I was working long, hard night shifts at Capitol Studios in Hollywood. I'd routinely return home at 5 or 6 in the morning and was in an almost constant state of dread and misery due to my schedule, and the stress of such intense and intimidating circumstances at work. I was pursuing my goals to the fullest extent of my abilities, but it took a huge toll. I'd almost completely lost myself in my stubborn pursuit of success in the music industry, and in that pursuit, I nearly lost all the passion I had to begin with.

I had a dream one night that I was in my childhood home where I grew up. My family was gone, it was dark, and the house was in an extreme state of decay and disrepair. I could distinctly see portions of my house lit only by moonlight, and I was stumbling around in surreal disbelief and panic. I discovered a tiger lurking around the house, stalking me - hunting me. The tiger looked me in the eye, gnashed its teeth, and as I began to run I had the sensation of being suspended in place. The floor began to give out from under me, and I began to fall into a deep, dark abyss. With the house collapsing all around me, no "bottom" to speak of, and a tiger close behind, it was clear to me all of these things were signposts for my real life. A few nights later, I was admitted to the hospital for a panic attack, and I do not doubt that my subconscious was trying to tell me something during that dream a few nights prior. Within a few weeks, I quit my job, and my girlfriend and I moved to Nashville and I will always see that dream as a major catalyst for why. Dreams are powerful and no one taps into these dream unrealities better than the king of modern surrealist art - David Lynch.

Floating Into The Night is the 1989 collaboration between filmmaker David Lynch, trusted composer Angelo Badalamenti, and the duo's dreamy muse Julee Cruise. Lynch writes all lyrics, handles production duties, and provides the overall creative direction of the album. Badalamenti deftly blankets the entire album in a wash of soft synths and Rhodes piano - expertly executing Lynch's ethereal vision of a 50's doo-wop diner turned opium den. Cruise, with her soft croon, is the perfect vehicle for Lynch's haunting lyrics and she cuts through the music like a scream in the night. It's a beautiful collaboration of three very distinct voices that manage to collapse into one. Dream imagery is present throughout the lyrics, but what is more impressive is the way Badalamenti manages to perfectly encapsulate the effervescent weightlessness of being in a dream punctuated by occasional bouts of unsettling, uncomfortable dissonance. The music here is almost timeless, in the sense that if you didn't know when this was released, I don't know if you'd be able to place it. It's unlike a lot of contemporary 80s music, while at the same time featuring many familiar synth-y elements of the time. There is a distinct 50s pop influence that adds to the surreal feeling throughout the entire production. I even can draw comparisons to torch songs and jazz from the 40s. It's the first proper dream-pop album in my book and serves as a wonderful, almost shoe-gaze template for a multitude of artists since its release.

If you're like me and you're a fan of David Lynch's work in film and television, you'll recognize a lot of the music on this album. Some of the songs were used for Blue Velvet, but most notably, the song "Falling" was used as the classic theme to Twin Peaks. Since being trapped at home for quarantine the last few months, I've rewatched many of Lynch's films as well as the entirety of Twin Peaks. Lynch's forays into music were not on my radar until discovering Twin Peaks a few years ago; I found that he manages to be as unique and inspired in the recording studio as he is behind a film camera on set. Listening to Floating Into The Night you get the same uneasy sensation you get from watching one of his films. This album was written and directed by Lynch, in a sense, while being executed by his "actors" Badalamenti and Cruise. His ability to convey the ethereal and unreal is unmatched in the visual medium of film, and I think you'd be hard-pressed not to make a similar argument about his music. His art is so alluring, and it's no surprise that after steeping myself in his film and television work for so long that I'm doing anything I can to discover new avenues of his to get lost in.

Floating Into The Night would be as at home in your headspace during an 8-hour midnight road trip as it would be curled up in bed with headphones and a joint. It's music to drift away and lose yourself to. Dreams are a potent creative well to draw from, and it is always surprising to me that more musicians don't draw from it directly as Lynch does. Famously, some have. McCartney claims to have come up with the entire melody for "Yesterday" during a dream. He woke up in the middle of the night and wrote the entire song "from memory" in a sense. Keith Richards dreamt the riff for "Satisfaction," rolled over in bed, recorded it on a tape recorder, and fell back asleep. Hendrix wrote "Purple Haze" in a similar way. Take it from these guys - write your damn dreams down, musicians. There is good stuff in there waiting to come out every night; you merely have to tap into it. I believe utilizing the full potential of dreams is a muscle you have to exercise, like anything else. Whether you use them for creativity, escapism, or developing your intuition, you have to pay attention to them. No one does this better than David Lynch, with no better example on record than Floating Into The Night.

In my 30 years on this Earth, I, like many music fans, have scratched my Beatles itch. I scratched it so hard I broke the skin, and when that healed I started picking the scabs. I've even hit bone a few times. I love The Beatles. The Beatles were an incredibly influential group, but their influence, at its best, is more felt than heard. You rarely get pop songwriting from the era that wasn't a copy of what The Beatles were doing but was more of a contemporary to what they were doing. Anytime I come across anything that gives me that John, Paul, George & Ringo vibe - I get very excited. Harry Nilsson's Aerial Ballet is the long-lost answer to Rubber Soul you never knew you wanted. Nilsson's 70's work is ironically much more removed from the 60s Beatles sound despite how much time he was spending drinking with actual Beatles. Aerial Ballet sounds like it could be Harry Nilsson's audition to be in The Beatles. It's Nillson doing his best impression of John, covering Paul songs.

I don't want to come across like I think Aerial Ballet is derivative or lesser than because of the stylistic similarities I hear with The Fab Four. Nilsson was still discovering his unique voice on this album, and as with many artists, the best way to do that is through imitation. Like Dylan did with Guthrie, Nilsson, in the same way, is exploring his songwriting through the template of something that already works. The fascinating thing about Nilsson and The Beatles is that it's hard to tell where one influence began and the other ended. Lennon was famously a huge fan of Nilsson's, and the two songwriters shared demos of their respective albums during this period. Was Nilsson's songwriting an influence of Lennon, or was it the other way around? Was it both at the same time? Influence is not a one-way street, and what we think of when we use the term "Beatles-esque" could easily actually mean something is "Nilsson-esque." Eye, meet Beholder.

This album contains several of Nilsson's biggest hits, including "One" and "Everybody's Talkin'," both demonstrating his delicate but powerful voice. Nilsson famously ruptured his vocal cords while recording a ridiculous "screaming match" with John Lennon for Nilsson's 1974 album Pussy Cats. Knowing that while listening to this album makes it all the more painful to know that such a wonderful singing voice was about to be ruined forever in just a few short years. It should not go without mentioning George Tipton, playing the role of pseudo-George Martin on these recordings. The orchestral arrangements that Tipton provides showcase the most telling Beatles influences on the album. These arrangement decisions are very deliberate.

The album is happy, positive, and (I can say from experience) a great way to start a morning. It's a sunny day that has greeted a so far gloomy 2021, and listening to this record was a very welcome experience. Nilsson is probably known more for who he influenced and was influenced by than any one particular album he did. Of everything I've heard, Aerial Ballet is the album that showcases his unique and peculiar genius in the best light. His later albums are fantastic in their own right, but none are as consistent and optimistic as Aerial Ballet. Give this one a listen with a morning cup of coffee.

When you're on top of the world, but you feel so low... The drink in the bottom of that glass is endless, and there is a hole in your chest that no one could ever reach. You've given up, but there is something beautiful to be found in the melancholy. Maybe all this is mixed in with a sense of wanderlust, and the idea of just getting lost and disappearing from the face of the Earth has never seemed more appealing. Every word that comes out of your mouth could lead to tears. I think we've all been there a time or two - I know I have. Music that can approach what these feelings are like isn't created with a ton of forethought or intention. These kinds of emotions tend to bubble over once you stop watching the pot boil. They just come out, and we're lucky when we can capture them on record. After devouring L'Amour by Canadian (?) mystery man Lewis, the depth of his lonely songwriting only scratches the surface of what turns out to be an incredibly fascinating album.

For a very long time, Lewis was the D.B. Cooper of 80s singer-songwriters (huh?). By complete happenstance, a copy of L'Amour was discovered in a flea market in Edmonton, Canada, in the early 2010s. News of this find spread to Light in the Attic Records in Seattle, and quickly plans were made for an official re-release of this seemingly lost 1983 classic. Immediately it became apparent that this artist, known only as Lewis, was nowhere to be found. It wasn't clear until they tracked down some of his distant friends and family if he were even still alive. All that could be discovered about the background of L'Amour was that a tall, handsome man showed up in a white Mercedes convertible, with a matching white suit to Los Angeles recording studio Music Lab around 1983. Joining him was a beautiful model, apparently, his girlfriend, with whom he lived in an apartment filled with pure white furniture. This man was the epitome of every 80s Outrun inspired fantasy there is. After completing the recording sessions, Lewis asked local photographer Edward Colver to snap some shots for the album cover - which was paid for with a check that promptly bounced. And that was that. No one could find him for decades afterward. Like D.B Cooper a decade earlier, he vanished without a trace. The inner sleeve tribute to Christie Brinkley didn't exactly help to clear things up either.

The music on L'Amour is a far cry from what Lewis's Euro-Playboy, yuppie image might suggest. While there is plenty of 80s synth on this album, Lewis is less Kavinsky and more of a wind-swept Leonard Cohen. Every song contains just a few recurring elements: delicate piano or acoustic guitar (presumably played by Lewis himself), synthesizers as accompaniment, and Lewis's incredibly delicate mumble, barely able to hold its head about the music's water. If it weren't for the breaks between songs, you'd be forgiven if you thought this entire album was a giant, sad, musical run-on sentence. Most often, that would be a critique of an album, but in the case of L'Amour it all contributes to the overwhelming sense of sadness and mystery that shrouds the entire production. Lewis's careful whisper over the waves of synth draws a clear parallel to the lyrical and musical sentiment of Lewis wanting to cross-dissolve out of life itself.

L'Amour isn't a sad album in the same vein as Sea Change or Blood On The Tracks. Remarkably it is even more personal, even more intimate than most albums of this ilk. Lewis is the guy at the end of the bar, mumbling into his drink after hours. If you were to speak, he would tell you half-truths, whole lies, and probably leave you with the check and a box of tissues. That Lewis decided to drop off the face of the Earth for decades after this album is a testament to the fact that his heartache present in these songs cut deep. You notice I said "for decades," and that is because Lewis - has been found. He's made several follow up albums after this devastating 1983 classic, but none can hold a candle to it. Luckily his reemergence has done nothing to dispel the mystery of the man or this music; it has only added a new set of enigmas that I'm sure we'll go over another day. Is it midnight? Is your VHS copy of Miami Vice playing on mute? Still hungover from that coke bender? Who's Ferrari is that parked on my lawn? Is that Christie Brinkley on my couch? It might be time to put on L'Amour.

Luckily there have been only a few times in my life where I felt truly out of control of my own body, whether that be from various substances, car accidents, or particular situations. Few feelings can match the adrenaline rush of being hurled through the air in a car or the absolute madness of being too far gone after a night of partying. Your mind is scrambled eggs, and your body is holding on for dear life, but the moment you find yourself in is relentless and unforgiving. Recklessness is oddly attractive to some people, and for better or worse, I've fallen into that camp at different times in my life. Without getting too specific, I'll say from experience that it is best to find other avenues to express your appetite for destruction. With the help of Suicide you can now enjoy self-destruction right in your own home without any harm coming to yourself or others!

I'm being cheeky, of course, but to say that 1977's Suicide by the band of the same name is anything less than a car driving 100 MPH into a wall would be underselling the mood of this album. It's a constant barrage of rudimentary drum machines, synths, and screeching vocals that make your head spin. The album's centerpiece, "Frankie Teardrop," is a 10-minute nightmare about a man working a grueling factory job who murders his family and himself - and then wakes up in hell. There are seldom any guitars or anything that would resemble a respite from the intensity of synths and pounding drum machines. This album needs proper context to be fully appreciated. Otherwise, you won't be able to keep from turning your head and looking away before the body hits the ground.

Suicide was a mainstay of early CBGB, Max's, and other NYC punk joints that fostered many great bands that would almost sound "pop" in comparison. Suicide was about as well received at the time as you would expect - two middle-aged men screaming and screeching on stage didn't exactly endear itself to a wide audience. Famously while opening for Elvis Costello and The Clash in Belgium, Suicide was booed off stage before a riot broke out. The band rushed out of the arena in secret. Even punks hated this band, which by the circular logic of punk-rock means, Suicide was the most punk rock band ever. If punk rock brought rock n' roll to it's most minimal and animalistic roots - then Suicide reduced punk rock down even further to its most basic elements. But they did it with keyboards and a drum machine.

I don't know where we are without this album. Do we get bands like The Kills, Nirvana, or even Daft Punk without Suicide? Do we get Nine Inch Nails or Radiohead? I honestly don't know if we do. Their legacy and influence, at this point, is immense. The band was lucky to count Bruce Springsteen and Ric Ocasek as early, unlikely champions, and the floodgates of support have been wide open ever since. It is an unyielding listen, but I've found the more spins I give this record - the more I love it. Its simplicity is a mirage, and once you dig into these tracks, it is clear there is a lot more under the hood than meets the eye. Suicide is an album that is decades ahead of its time. Its legacy and reputation are infamous, even with its recent reevaluation as a lost punk classic. Don't lie; you want to slow down and take a look at this car wreck - don't you?

This week we explore some sci-fi horror (my favorite genre) along with some bonefide classics. The film makers are all heavy hitters, and deliver some of the most satisfying movies of the month thus far. Enjoy, and sound off in the comments! Which of these films have you seen? Which of these do you love? Do they belong on this list?

Dark City may not be a straight horror film per se; it's more in line with The Twilight Zone and other heady sci-fi. A man wakes up in a bathtub, bleeding from his forehead, suffering from intense amnesia. He discovers a dead woman near his bed with strange markings on her chest and soon is on the run from some positively paranormal looking authorities. Its film noir meets sci-fi in the best way, with some Cenobite looking villains thrown in for good measure. My favorite thing about this movie is that the entire city is either done via miniatures or made up on a soundstage. There are no real locations in this movie, which gives it an otherworldly feel in the best way. Kiefer Sutherland has an incredibly annoying speaking inflection, where he takes a deep breath before every word or phrase (very interesting choice Kiefer), but for the most part, the performances in this movie are good. The CGI effects don't hold up to scrutiny when viewed through a modern lens, but they're dated in a very charming 90s way. Watching Dark City made me want to throw on an episode of Seinfeld to wind down. I can imagine Jerry and George following up a showing of Prognosis Negative with this one. This film probably won't be remembered quite as fondly as Alex Proyas' other film, The Crow, but this is still highly underrated sci-fi horror. All comparisons to The Matrix are moot to me as this film came out over a year before that one. Proyas even sold some of their sets to the crew of The Matrix. Check this one out, especially if you're a fan of noir.

Is there a better ghost story put to film than this one? Is there a haunted house film with a better twist, with more likable characters, all the while being genuinely scary? The Others is a movie I was reluctant to put on this list because I'd seen it so many times growing up. It's probably been close to ten years since the last time I watched it and I had so much fun with this film. The characters, the old house, the music, and the performances are all top notch. It's hard to go too deep without ruining the twists, and I think it's generally best to go into films like this totally blind. Nicole Kidman is a widowed during the end of World War II, and is left alone to watch over her two small children in a giant and rapidly deteriorating house. The children suffer from an acute sunlinght sensitivity, and the new maids who have been hired on have secrets they are waiting to reveal. The children swear they see and hear ghosts throughout the house, all the while dreading another vioent outburst from their mother. This is classic Halloween stuff. Don't watch trailers, don't talk to anyone about it before you see it; just turn it on and watch.

If you are a fan of The Twilight Zone or Black Mirror, you should stop what you're doing and watch The Platform. This movie is a perfect morsel of sci-fi-horror-dystopia, shot and edited excellently, with an incredibly intriguing premise. There is a building with hundreds of stories with two inmates housed on each floor. A large platform of food descends each day, with each group of inmates expected to eat the previous floors leftovers. Naturally, many at the top eat whatever they like, but many of those at the lower floors get nothing and have to resort to drastic (cannibalistic) means for survival. The film is an obvious metaphor for classism, a very literal rebuke of "trickle-down" theory, and I think depending on your particular political bent, you may view it differently than others. The Platform is brutal and does not give you a ton of faith in humanity or society as a whole. Characters in this film sink to complete depravity to stay alive, and even when they are relatively safe, they still choose to be awful to those below them. It's like if every anonymous Twitter comment section had to somehow get along with each other in real life - while hungry. Don't watch if you're looking to feel encouraged about the upcoming election, but if you're as jaded about our current era as I am, you should feel right at home with The Platform.

Wow. Lukas Feigelfeld is a name to watch in the coming years. Hagazussa, his debut feature film (and graduate project for film school), is as mighty of a first film as I've ever seen. Not since Robert Eggars' The VVitch from a few years ago have I been this impressed with a director's first feature. Speaking of that film, Hagazussa has a lot in common with that film and is somewhat considered "The VVitch of Germany." Feigelfeld's style is an amalgam of David Lynch, Panos Cosmatos, and Robert Eggars. Hagazussa is a tone poem or meditation on the life of a young girl named Albrun, divided into four chapters. It is the slowest of slow-burn horror films I've seen in a while, but if you appreciated Mandy or Under The Skin, you may enjoy this pacing a bit more than most. I may have buried the lede a bit here; this movie is incredibly disturbing. There is sexual assault, rape, plague, a bit of gore, and another awful aspect of the film that I won't ruin. Hagazussa can be a challenge to sit through, but the entire time you will be guessing and second-guessing the motivations and mysteries surrounding each character. This film is scary, tense, surreal, and downright gross at times, but it is also beautiful. Every frame in this movie is a marvel to look at, and I highly recommend viewing this in the highest quality possible. I participate in Horror Movie Month every year to ensure I find films just like this one. Hagazussa presents a challenge to the modern filmgoer. It's the absolute opposite of your Quibi or Tik Tok appetizer style of entertainment. This film is a feast and one that may be hard to stomach for some people. But for me, I'm ready for seconds. I can't wait to see what Feigelfeld does next.

John Carpenter, to me, is Superman. Not only in the sense that he can do everything (write, direct, score, edit), but also he is a personal hero of mine. Few creative people on Earth's work have struck such a chord in me and made me want to be even more creative in my own life. Carpenter is no bullshit, and he always makes exactly what he wants to make. His string of films in the 80s is almost unparalleled in cult rewatchability. To me, John Carpenter owns the month of October. He is the unofficial ambassador of the Halloween holiday, and he embodies everything fun and awesome that comes from celebrating these films. Body Bags is one of the few films of his that I hadn't seen until this year, and like all things Carpenter, I loved it. This film is an anthology, bookended by segments featuring Carpenter as our host, an undead morgue worker with a disgusting taste for formaldehyde. It's clear this was an effort by Showtime to cash in on successful shows like Tales From The Crypt and Creepshow, and it's a shame this one didn't take off. Tobe Hooper (of Texas Chainsaw Massacre fame) also directs a segment, and both directors bring as much humor and wit as they do gross-out goop and gags. There are tons of cameos by directors in this film, including Rodger Corman, Wes Craven, Sam Raimi, and others. It's clear watching Body Bags that this was pure fun for these guys, and the fact that the stories are effective and scary is the icing on the cake. Body Bags is essential Halloween viewing.

James Whale is a name I was not familiar with before this month. I was incredibly impressed with The Invisible Man and couldn't believe that he directed both Frankenstein and The Bride of Frankenstein as well. Even more unbelievable was that I hadn't seen either one of those films. Watching Frankenstein for the first time after viewing so many horror films over the years was like seeing a missing puzzle piece fall into place. So many references, tones, and choices made by other subsequent films started to make sense, and the magnitude of this film hit me. As far as fictional cultural icons go, Frankenstein's Monster is up there with Batman, Superman, Mickey Mouse, Darth Vader, etc. He's one of those characters that is hard to imagine the world without, and it's a shame that at this point, all of these Universal Monsters are took for granted. The film itself is a classic retelling of the Mary Shelley story and hits all the notes you'd expect from an iconic movie like this. One thing I didn't expect was how tragic the story of Frankenstein's Monster is. He is a creature who does not understand who or what he is, did not ask to be alive, and is supremely misunderstood. His failure to adapt, or more his creator's failure to help him adapt, leads to him being hunted relentlessly like a wild animal on the loose. It's a fantastic story, and the way Boris Karloff brings that character to life is incredible to see. Do not wait until you're 30 and have called yourself a horror movie nerd on the internet for years, like me, before you watch Frankenstein. Halloween is a week away - watch it now!

I watched Frankenstein and The Bride of Frankenstein back to back, for what was an incredibly fun bout of movie watching. Frankenstein is a fantastic film, but the fact the James Whale returned to the well to essentially remake that film as an even better sequel is nothing short of amazing. Yes, Bride is better than the original, and yes, I'm aware that you just read me heaping praise on that film. The Bride of Frankenstein is a notable improvement from the first film across the board, which is an incredible feat. The sequel begins where the first film leaves off and even offers up a recap of sorts for the original. Dr. Frankenstein is approached by his former mentor to form a new partnership to bring to life a Bride for Frankenstein's Monster. I'll admit, I was disappointed at first by how little screentime The Bride got, and truth be told, she doesn't enter into the movie until the very end. But wow, does she make use of what little time she has on-screen. I'd compare it to Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of The Lambs in that Elsa Lanchester does more with about 10 minutes than most actors can do in a lifetime. The entire final sequence that brings about her character is so perfect - it's become one of my all-time favorite movie scenes I've ever seen. If you only watch one of these films, I'd watch Bride. It retells the entire story of the first movie and uses it as a jumping-off point for this story. The Bride of Frankenstein is an exceptional movie.

If you've been following along with the initial list, you'll note that this night was supposed to be a showing of The Babadook, the wildly original 2014 film debut by Jennifer Kent. Rest assured, I love that movie, but the Blu Ray copy I ordered has not arrived yet, so I elected to substitute it for another favorite of mine: Bram Stoker's Dracula by Francis Ford Coppola. When I was a kid, for whatever reason, my parents let me watch Pacino's Scarface and The Godfather films. They were my favorite movies at about age 11 or 12, and I would watch them and rewatch them obsessively. The Godfather led to Apocalypse Now and then, in my mind, Coppola didn't make any more movies. When I discovered Bram Stoker's Dracula, I was gobsmacked. Coppola resurrects all of his superpowers of film making and pulls out all the stops. There is minimal use of digital effects, as Coppola instead elected to bring in his nephew Roman to use every single old school trick in the book to do practical effects in camera. This film expertly uses matte paintings, models, miniatures, makeup, and all kinds of forced camera perspectives to achieve what you see. It's masterful, and that's not even going into how great the performances, set designs, and costumes are. Gary Oldman, for my money, is the Dracula (commence with angry comments below). He connects with the character in a way that makes you feel bad for him, and he wields his powers of seduction in ways never seen before or since on screen. This movie is sexy, bloody, atmospheric, and of course, scary.

Now at this point, if you're not aware of the elephant in the room regarding this film, I'll cut to the chase: Keanu Reeve's performance. He is easily the weakest part of the film (even if he's an angel sent from heaven in real life), and his accent is awful. His performance in this film is so notorious that I think it's the only thing many people even know about this movie. I, for one, avoided this movie during the height of my Coppola obsession precisely because I'd heard Keanu Reeves ruins the entire film. Now, is that true? NO. His accent is bad, but he is hardly a reason to avoid watching this film. The ensemble cast is so fantastic (Winona Ryder, Cary Elwes, Anthony Hopkins, Gary Oldman) that the rest of them easily carry the film home despite Keanu phoning it in. I find Reeves' performance part of the charm of the film, and he's such a lovable guy it's hard not to just appreciating that he's in the movie. The filmmaker's motivation for casting him was suspect (they wanted a teen heartthrob to lure in the girls), which makes me wonder why they didn't just hire Johnny Depp in the role. Bram Stoker's Dracula should be remembered for what it is: Coppola's final great film, and the best Dracula movie to date.

We are here in Week 3 of horror movie month with a mixed bag of films from newcomers and bonafide classics from the masters of the genre. It's almost unfair to put Cronenberg and De Palma on the same list as some of these newer directors, but in the case of Mike Flanagan (the subject of this week's double feature), he mostly holds his own. This week is slightly lighter on the gore but doubles down on the tension. All of these films are worth exploring in their own right and make for yet another fun week of Spooktober viewings. Let's dig in.

By no means was Girl On The Third Floor a "bad movie" (it was actually quite scary at times) but, this one was not one of my favorites of this month so far. The main reason for this is the very unlikeable protagonist. The story goes that Don Koch and his pregnant wife purchase an old Victorian house in a quiet neighborhood after Don ran out of their former city for swindling his business partners. He has elected to move in early, as the house is in dire need of many renovations, but it's clear early on that he doesn't particularly like his wife. Don is on his "best behavior" when speaking on the phone with his wife while at the same time hiding his relapse with alcohol. The renovations on this old house are taking a long time, and his inexperience is making matters worse. After being tempted by a strange, seductive girl from the neighborhood, Don falls to her charms and begins an affair which he attempts to conceal from his wife, while eerie happenings begin escalating inside the house.

Without ruining any surprises, this movie gets pretty gross, and the practical effects are pretty spectacular. Once the yarn of this mysterious house and mysterious girl fully unravel, the film gets pretty wild and is actually pretty fun. If you are a true horror enthusiast like me, I would recommend watching this movie. The director, in particular, shows a ton of promise, and while the acting isn't top tier by any means, it's competent and watchable. It's not "so bad it's good" or anything like that; it's a fine movie. But if you're just now joining the horror festivities this month, I'd maybe start somewhere else. If you're anything like me, you'll no doubt find your way to this movie at some point regardless. I think that the Don character is unlikeable as to take a turn as sort of a "villain" later, but for me, I don't know if I want to sit through a whole movie where I'm supposed to root for this guy. Your mileage may vary, but I've enjoyed much worse movies than this.

I don't even know what to say about Brian De Palma's Phantom of the Paradise other than that I loved every minute of it. If you enjoy The Rocky Horror Picture Show and wish there were more movies like it, this film is your Holy Grail. I am a bit confounded as to why Rocky Horror has such a huge cult following, and this one does not. De Palma's direction is superb, the music is fantastic, the performances are wildly entertaining, the set pieces are incredible, and the characters are every bit as fun and imaginative as Tim Curry's Dr. Frank-N-Furter. The only reason I can think that this movie didn't find its way to quite as many people is that it doesn't have as many great songs as Rocky Horror, and that is not disparaging how awesome the music is in Phantom. It's almost silly to compare the two because we do have both, after all. But I can't help but wonder why these two films haven't been sharing a double bill in every midnight theatre for the last 40 years.

The movie is a rock-opera/musical based on Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera, Oscar Wilde's A Picture of Dorian Gray, and most notably, Faust by Kit Marlowe. It wears its literary influences on its sleeve while skewering the record industry of the 70s. You'll notice throughout the film that there are "drawings" superimposed on the film to cover up the fictitious "Swan Song" label throughout the movie. The reason for this is Led Zeppelin's real record label, Swan Song, took legal action against De Palma and the other filmmakers for using the name/logo, and rather than a lengthy court battle, De Palma elected to edit the offending images in post. It's a subtle reminder throughout the film as to why these filmmakers wanted to make fun of the rock music scene at the time in the first place. The narrative of the movie follows the Phantom of the Opera story relatively closely, but it manages to exceed this satirization and become something special and unique all its own. I implore you to seek this one out; it is so much fun. I can almost guarantee that I will watch this one a dozen more times before my curtain has drawn.

This one was another classic Universal Monster movie. I'm thrilled to be exploring these films, as they are the bedrock of what all other horror filmmaking rests on. The Wolf Man is the quintessential telling of the Warewolf mythos, and I even learned a few things from this film about that particular beast that I wasn't aware of. The five-sided Pentagram is a mark of the Warewolf, and those afflicted with lycanthropy will see this five-sided star displayed on their next victim. Without doing any research on this, I can't exactly tell if this is a detail added by this film or if this an aspect that's glossed over in other depictions of Werewolves but its fun nonetheless. The Wolf Man has spooky graveyards, traversing foggy forests by lanternlight, and plenty of howling at the moon (my new puppy loved that stuff). The makeup and effects are fantastic, and the Universal backlot sets add to the Old Hollywood feel of the film. What's not to like? It's The Wolf Man! It's practically begging you to pop some popcorn and enjoy it.

My only real complaint about this film, which goes for many of these old Universal Monster films, is I want more. Gimme the goods Universal. I want more Wolfman, I want more Mummies, I want more of Dracula draining his victim's blood. Maybe this is too modern a perspective for films from the 1930s, as I am merely an impatient millennial who wants everything all the time. But my desire for more monster action from these films is not an indictment of their quality but more a testament to how effective and incredible these movie monsters are. These movies always leave the viewer wanting more, and what better response could you ask for as a filmmaker? It's what has made these movies so indelible and integral to our culture for nearly 100 years now. If you like The Invisible Man, you will love this one. The Wolf Man is a classic for a reason; give it a watch.

Don't be fooled by the title of this poster Black Christmas was shortly renamed Silent Night Evil Night for a short while after it's release before being changed back. Call it whatever you want, but Black Christmas is an incredibly scary movie and easily one of my favorites of the month so far. The film is about a Sorority House that begins receiving disturbing and demented phone calls. When a little girl goes missing, and Sorority Sisters start disappearing, the walls start closing in on the remaining members of the house. Black Christmas is one of the earliest "slasher" films and became the template for John Carpenter's Halloween and all the knockoffs that came after it. The movie is loosely based on a series of murders that happened in Montreal and has an almost documentary feel to it, seldom seen in most horror films. The cast is excellent, featuring Margo Kidder, Keir Dullea, and Olivia Hussey, giving fantastic depth to these characters.

This film is also surprisingly progressive and very feminist, though it's unclear how much of that was intentional on the filmmaker's part. There is an exchange towards the middle of the film between Hussey and Dullea's characters about abortion that is remarkably prescient given the current Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings for Amy Coney Barrett. Most early 70s horror films expect nothing more than screaming and boobs from their female characters, so going into Black Christmas, my expectations were low. But this film gives agency to Hussey's character; she refuses to let her boyfriend control her or dominate her future. It was a refreshing exchange, given how low the bar can be for some of these movies. The actors insist that the scene was included just as "something for the characters to talk about" between all the murders, but I'd like to give the filmmakers more credit than that.

Black Christmas is creepy, tense, well written, and easily one of the scariest movies I've seen in a while. The Shout Factory release of this movie is fantastic, and I urge you to seek it out if you can. Black Christmas is easily a new favorite of mine and I already can't wait to watch it again.

Dead Ringers is yet another masterpiece in a long line of masterpieces by David Cronenberg. It's a disturbing and cerebral take on a true story about twin gynecologists found dead in their New York apartment in the 1970s. Jeremy Irons masterfully plays dual lead roles as both twins in this adaptation, bringing key but subtle distinction between the brothers. Irons' performance is easily one of the more impressive feats of acting prowess I've seen in a long time, and the technical wizardry involved to have him act against himself in multiple scenes across the film is remarkable. Cronenberg does not disappoint in bringing his unique brand of body horror to this film, in what could easily be every woman's worst nightmare. The story is about highly successful twin gynecologists living together and sharing every experience (patients, women, and increasingly drugs). One, named Beverly, is predominantly a researcher, shy and sweet, while the other, Elliot, is primarily a surgeon more of the Patrick Batemen ilk. Elliot is more outwardly sociopathic, but both only have fragments of a conscience when it comes to dealing with other people. During their meteoric rise in their field, the brothers get entangled in an affair with an actress who quickly discovers their schemes, and the fallout causes Beverly to descend into drug abuse and madness while his brother Elliot desperately tries to keep Bev going for the sake of their careers and lives.

Dead Ringers shot up as one of my favorite Cronenberg films as soon as it finished and is another film from this month that I am confident I will revisit many times in the future. Cronenberg has a way of penetrating deep beneath any viewer's pretense or expectation for what a movie experience should be, much in the same way David Lynch can. Like Lynch, his films operate on a kind of dream logic where the further into the narrative you get, the deeper into a nightmare you go. This film is so clearly based on our real life that when that descent begins, it's hard to shake off how horrifying it is. The film is a reminder that no matter how successful or wealthy one is, we are all just one bad day away from losing it completely. Sanity is like walking a tightrope, and if you don't have protections in place if you fall, it can be a horrifying thing to lose. Dead Ringers completely cemented Cronenberg as a master filmmaker for me. Watch it as soon as you can, but prepare yourself.

Mike Flanagan has emerged as one of my favorite horror directors of the last decade. Even when working with subpar material (like in the case of this film), he can still craft a movie that is paced well and delivers genuine scares. Ouija: Origin of Evil is a prequel to a film I am confident I will never watch, and even with my newfound love of Flanagan, I don't think I'll rewatch this one either. This film features a lot of actors from Flanagan's hit Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House, and they are all fantastic in this film. The real problem with this picture is the rushed ending and the shoehorned in story elements. Even in a movie I don't like Flanagan has a way of delivering scares like no one else can these days, but I can't help but feel like this entire film is a pale imitation of The Conjuring. The 60s setting, the family business built around the paranormal, the demon possession, etc. It's all a bit old hat already and reeks of a movie studio trying to cash in on a trend (and a toy company cashing in on a board game). In short, it's my least favorite kind of horror. These films are watered-down versions of The Exorcist that take advantage of horror's newfound cache with audiences. If you're looking for a cheap, jump-scare style spectacle to eat popcorn to, Ouija: Origin of Evil is the film for you. If you, like me, want to fully explore Flanagan's filmography, I will not tell you to skip it. If you like him, you'll like elements of this film, but Flanagan has done better.

On the complete, other end of the spectrum from Ouija is Gerald's Game. Based on the Stephen King hit and quietly arriving on Netflix a few years ago, Gerald's Game is tense, horrifying, and one of the most stress-inducing films I've watched in years. Gerald's Game is Mike Flanagan at his best and is one of the better Stephen King adaptations I've seen. The premise is simple; a couple, looking to spice up their relationship, take a vacation out to the middle of nowhere for a long weekend away. The husband brings along a pair of handcuffs for some bedroom (kink, and to enact a few dark fantasies he has about his wife. After being handcuffed to the bed, his wife (played by the wonderful Carla Gugino, another Flanagan regular) seizes up and does not want to participate in this activity anymore. An argument explodes between the couple, and the fight causes the husband to die of a heart attack while she's still handcuffed to the bed. Gugino is left to her own devices and mind as she spirals in and out of consciousness, locked in place. The film becomes part 127 Hours, part Misery, and 100% panic-inducing nightmare. Maybe it's just me, but I was borderline about to turn this movie off for the entire runtime, even at one point thinking I was about to vomit (seriously). That is not a condemnation, as I find it amazing that any movie that can elicit a response like that in me. I also have no plans to watch this again any time soon but for entirely the opposite reasons as Ouija. When he's bad, I don't want to revisit his films, and even when he's great, I still don't want to watch his films again. Sorry, Mike! This movie is shocking, surprising, expertly paced, taught, thrilling, insert any adjective you want. Just watch it. I promise it will annihilate any "tied to the bed" fantasies you might have and replace them with pure dread and anxiety.

Tigers Are Not Afraid was a bit disappointing as a horror fan. The film is great, the setting is beautiful, the young actors are more or less delivering great performances, but the horror elements feel a bit tacked on and even unnecessary at times. The film is horrifying enough just as a portrayal of what children wrapped up in the Drug Wars have to live with daily. Poverty, violence, hunger, and death are more than enough to keep this movie going. Adding in the supernatural elements as well kind of deters from the bigger picture of the story for me. The film gets genuinely creepy at times, but those moments are engulfed by the terrors brought by the situation these children find themselves in. This is by no means a "fun" horror movie, like many of the others on this list. It's a stark reminder of how awful this world can be and sticks out like a sore thumb on this list. I would recommend watching this film though. It's a well-directed fairy-tale, set in the real world ala Del Toro's Pans Labyrinth, which has a major influence on this film. Del Toro can weave the fantastical elements into his film much easier than Issa López can here though. I'd say give it a watch, but maybe in November.

This week we are covering a lot of ground, covering a group of films that span from the 1930s to 2020. All of these films are brought to life by incredible directors from all over the world, and all walks of life. This week shows the wide swath of creative real estate that the horror genre covers. The theme for this week's double feature is "VAMPIRES" featuring The Hunger and Near Dark. If you thought you were getting through this list without a David Bowie vampire film directed by Tony Scott, you were mistaken. Happy spooks! Hit the comments below and let me know what you think of these films. Don't forget to follow all of my social media pages, or else I'll haunt your nightmares just like these films.

Ten years or so ago, I got to see Elvis Perkins on tour, and I was blown away by his songwriting and performance. Little did I know at the time that his father was horror icon Anthony Perkins (of Psycho fame) and his brother Osgood was an up and coming film director in his own right. They're a fascinating family with a pretty mind-blowing lineage of actors, scientists, astronomers, and other American nobility. Their father certainly passed on his creative talents to these two brothers, and that is nowhere more evident than 2020s Gretel & Hansel. This film is a visual feast and is dripping with moody atmosphere. Osgood Perkins has a way of imbuing every scene with dread and mystery. Its well-trodden material, and that Perkins can reimagine it in a way that is more art than typical Hollywood trash is remarkable. I'll be the first to admit that there are pacing problems, particularly in the very beginning and the end. This movie would benefit from an extended cut to let those moments breathe a bit more, but the bulk of the film is fantastic, with wonderful performances from Sophia Lillis and Alice Krige in particular. Ignore IMDB and give this one a watch.

A term that has come into prominence in 2020 is "gaslighting," where you lie to someone's face so often that they begin to think they are losing their mind. The lies compound onto each other despite the truth, and all you're left with is madness. Les Diaboliques is a 1955 thriller that Alfred Hitchcock would have made instead of Vertigo were it not for Clouzot acquiring the rights first. It is said that after Hitchcock saw this film, he was even inspired to create Psycho. The film is about a run-down boarding school in the suburbs of Paris, run by a terribly mean Headmaster, and his wife, a teacher, who bankrolls the school. It's discovered early in the film that the Headmaster is having an affair with another teacher at the school. The two women decide to conspire together to kill the Headmaster and run the school themselves. It's only after their plan seemingly goes off without a hitch that things start to get very eerie, and nothing is as it seems. Les Diaboliques may be somewhat dry to a modern palette; it's French, it's in black and white, and there is no music or score to speak of. But this film is a master class of smoldering intrigue and mystery, with one of the all-time greatest twists in cinema. I've seen this one many times, and it is always worth the watch.

Where do I begin with Deep Red? This movie is a delicious feast for the eyes and ears. Dario Argento is a name that I hope is known by anyone even remotely interested in the horror genre, and his mastery is splattered all over this movie. Watching Deep Red, you can see the influence he has had on David Lynch, Panos Cosmatos, and even Kubrick. The color palette Argento uses is so vibrant and luscious to look at; I really can't say enough about how beautiful this film looks. Not to mention the score by Goblin is incredible. It's not a typical horror movie score by any stretch, and certainly not as scary as the work they did with Argento later with Susperia. The score here is more rock-influenced, but almost always builds into an impossibly tense cacophony during every scene it is featured. If you can track down the Arrow release of this film on Blu Ray, I would highly recommend it.

The film begins with a "magician" giving a seminar to an audience in a large auditorium. She claims that she can read the minds of people in the audience, and then begins having a panic attack on stage. She claims there is someone in the audience with murder on their mind, who will kill again. The rest of the film is a tense game of cat and mouse between our main characters investigating the murders, and the strange black-gloved killer who uses children's songs and toys while killing their victims. It should be noted, that the actors on set spoke English, but the entire film is dubbed over in Italian. There is no existing English audio for this film. This is in part due, as far as I understand, to the way Italian filmmakers liked to work at that time. It was a stylistic choice as much as it was practical, as it gave them more control and focus on the individual elements of sound and picture, respectively. It's an odd way to watch a movie, but if you watch anything I've featured this month so far... Watch Deep Red.

The Invisible Man, the first of three planned James Whale films on this list, is an old Hollywood classic. For their time, the special effects are incredible, the characters are fun, and the film is very charming and funny. Is it scary? Not really, but it's a great movie that I'd put in the same Sci-Fi/horror camp like the 50s B-movies it inspired years later. This movie has fun with the invisibility effects though occasionally you can see the strings behind the movements; more often than not, it's hard, as a lamen, to understand how much of these special effects were achieved in the 1930s. If you're looking for true scares though, you have to watch the reboot starring Elizabeth Moss that came out earlier this year. There are plenty of homages to the 1930s film, but it is a genuinely tense and scary retelling of the Invisible Man mythos set through the prism of an abusive relationship. The original film is a wonderful example of what makes the old Universal Monster films so endearing and long-lasting. There are mad scientists, experiments gone wrong, characters with wild delusions of grandeur, murder, mayhem, and madness. I liked this film a lot more than Dracula (1931) and The Mummy (1932), and those films are remembered how this one probably should be. The Invisible Man is nearly 100 years old, but it firmly holds it's place as a horror classic. I have no doubt that this film will be enjoyed for 100 years more.

"Long live the new flesh!" is David Cronenberg planting his freak flag firmly in your brain forever once you see his masterpiece, Videodrome for the first time. It's a film that explores sadomasochistic fetishes, torture porn, snuff films, waking nightmares, assassinations, and breathing televisions. It's a wildly inventive and creative film using almost entirely practical in-camera effects to achieve the incredibly grotesque imagery cooked up in Cronenberg's brain. Cronenberg, at the time, claimed that he only wrote at night so he could incorporate his dreams and nightmares into his work more effectively. Videodrome does not work without this horrifying dream logic in place. There are several points in the film where it's not clear whether James Woods' character is waking from a nightmare or falling into a deeper, more terrifying one. I found that you could wholly transpose the internet era onto this film, by substituting it for the video-era it depicts. Cronenberg couldn't quite imagine the weird dystopia he was depicting, but he was more or less spot on nonetheless. Videodrome is now; we just call it the internet. Videodrome has erupted out of our subconscious and exists in a semi-permanent state among the minds of every individual on the internet. It's entertainment only on the thinnest topmost layer. Everything underneath is subversive, pornographic, violent, hateful, and downright disgusting. Long live the new flesh.

The double feature this week has an obvious theme: vampires. But it also has a less obvious, secondary theme: James Cameron. The Hunger, directed by Tony Scott (little brother of Ridley Scott who directed Alien, while James Cameron directed it's followup Aliens) is a slightly flawed movie but an entertaining one all the same. The combo of Tony Scott, Susan Sarandon, and David Bowie in a vampire movie is about as irresistible to me as cake on a plate. The film is fantastic in its direction, visual style, acting, editing, and it's creature effects are excellent. Where it lacks is in its narrative, which can be a bit obtuse at times. The film is about Bowie and Catherine Deneuve's characters living their upscale lives as classical music teachers by day and undead vampires by night in New York City. Bowie is Deneuve's companion and has been since they met in 17the century France. Deneuve's character promises eternal life to Bowie, but what she fails to mention is that she is not promising eternal youth. The truth is that Bowie's character is doomed to live an eternal waking death, decaying alone in a coffin amongst Deneuve's other lovers upstairs in their townhouse attic. In her attempt to find another lover, Deneuve has a tryst with Susan Sarandon's character, who is a doctor studying sleep and aging. The two of them engage in an affair that leaves Sarandon bit, sick, betrayed, and hungry. The film is fun to watch and is one of the sexist, goth nightmares ever put to film. Putting Bowie in your picture is a surefire way to cult-classic status, and I see no reason why this movie wouldn't be considered such. It is dark, rich, romantic, and erotic. Its everything you'd want from a vampire flick, plus did I mention that David Bowie is in this movie?

The 2nd film in our "vampire/slightly related to James Cameron double feature" is Kathryn Bigelow's 1987 blood sucking western Near Dark. Bigelow at the time was married to Cameron, and several James Cameron regulars (Bill Paxton, Lance Henriksen, and Jenette Goldstein, last seen in Cameron's Aliens) show up in this film as supporting characters. Near Dark depicts what it would really be like to live life as a vampire. The media likes to portray vampires as suave, wealthy elites living the highlife for all eternity (Like in The Hunger). In reality, I believe Near Dark hits much closer to the mark. If the only way to sustain your life was to murder and drink blood every single night, you'd be living life on the run, hunted, and living a dirty, vagabond existence. Serial killers are lucky to get away with 10-20 murders over decades. Is your average vampire expected to kill every night for hundreds (even thousands) of years? You'd either have to be a genius criminal (the likes of which has never been seen), or you'd be tracked down and caught as soon as you stopped moving. The characters in Near Dark understand this, and it is not lost on them what a gang of disgusting cretins they are. They are pirates, thieves, rapists, and killers. Far from your idealized version of vampires, be it Bela Legosi's Dracula or whatever Twilight claims a vampire is. Near Dark is entertaining, and highly watchable. Kathryn Bigelow is an extremely underrated director who only recently has rightly emerged from the shadow of her egomaniac ex James Cameron. She's graduated to more mature styles of film making these days, but for me, she never made a better movie than Near Dark.

The Wailing. This movie was hard to pin down, and I found myself questioning and doubting so many aspects of the film as it unfolded. It centers on a horrifying mystery surrounding a Japanese man who recently moved to a rural Korean village. Members of the village keep getting sick and often murder their families and loved ones, and rumors quickly spread that it is this new strangers doing. We follow an oafish police officer tasked with figuring out what exactly is going on in his village, as this sickness creeps closer and closer to his own family. The Wailing begins with an almost even mix of horror and dark comedy. I found myself laughing out loud several times with the film, and then on a dime being completely horrified. This high-wire act is a feature, not a bug, of the picture. I commend the balance director Na Hong-jin can achieve between these two tones. For the first 45 minutes of the film, you'd be forgiven if you thought you were watching Hot Fuzz 2: Korean Police. Slowly but surely, the film becomes less and less humorous and more macabre and terrifying. The mystery deepens, and the twists begin to compound on each other in surprising and satisfying ways. As with any movie centered around a mystery, the less you know going in, the better. I'd suggest going into this one blind, you won't regret it. Highly recommended.

October is finally here. Each month in between has felt like a year. Especially during the daily horror show of 2020. For this first week, the films we're covering have witches, blood, guts, gore, vampires, nightmares, slashers, and hell hounds. Our double feature theme this week is "Scary Old Men" with Come To Daddy and VFW, respectively. It's been a fun first week, hit the comments below to share your thoughts on which you want to watch most!

A Nightmare On Elm Street is perhaps the perfect way to start this month. It has all the hallmarks of why I like watching horror movies from the 80s. From the infectious synth score to the charming "Hollywood as Midwestern town" setting, and the overabundance of creativity by Wes Craven, this movie is just perfect 80s horror nostalgia. It's almost silly to try and say anything that hasn't already been said about this film, as it is easily just another masterpiece feather in Craven's cap. Craven reinvented horror with this film only to see the rest of Hollywood ape off of his vision for the remainder of the decade. He even returned in the 90s with Scream to reinvent the genre all over again. Unsurprisingly, he is copied by major and minor filmmakers alike to this day. Craven's passing a few years ago was a huge loss for not only fans of horror, but fans of film in general. Freddy Kruger is an easy pick to be on the Mount Rushmore of horror villains. He's maybe the most grotesque and awful of all the 80s horror icons and has a much less sympathetic backstory than Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees. Freddy still conjures up the same scares almost 40 years later that he did in 1984. A Nightmare On Elm Street is a must watch this year, even if you've seen it ten times as I have.

The Omen is a great movie that wasn't appreciated in its time. The film was criticized for being a schlocky B-movie instead of being a religious horror/thriller right up there with The Exorcist and Rosemary's Baby. Gregory Peck is fantastic as a US Ambassador in London who is tormented by a literal demon child. Peck is taken on a quest across Europe and The Middle East to find out the truth behind the child he adopted as his own when his actual child died during birth. The film is tense and genuinely frightening, with plenty of intrigues and shocking scenes. "It's all for you, Damien," really turns the movie on its head early on. There are moments throughout where you wonder if Peck is going crazy, or if Satan does have his clutches on his adopted child. Richard Donner could have made a real run at horror if it hadn't been for that pesky Superman film a year later. Watch this one as soon as you can. It's a real treat.

The first film we watched as part of this week's Saturday double feature was Ant Timpson's Come To Daddy, a thriller set in a house as mysterious as it is gorgeous. Elijah Wood stars as a dorky Millenial music mogul who receives a letter from his estranged father of 30 years to come to visit him. He treks through wilderness to arrive at an incredible house overlooking a bay, only to be received by a hostile drunken father. Come To Daddy is a movie that is best knowing as little as possible going into it, as there are fantastic twists and turns in the narrative. It has a genuinely scary and strange atmosphere, peppered in between frequent bouts of hilariously dark comedy. After the midpoint of the film, Timpson doesn't take his foot off the gas the rest of the way. Seek this one out, its dark, funny, and one of the strangest and unique films I've seen in a while.

To say I was excited to finally get to watch VFW would be a huge understatement. One look at the poster, full of classic B-Movie actors armed to the teeth and covered in blood, and I knew this was a must-watch. I was not disappointed. From minute one, the movie wears all of its influences on its sleeve. The opening title sequence is a wonderfully done homage to John Carpenter's films and his score. The technical know-how that Begos shows behind the camera is fantastic. He is someone you can say was born in the wrong era. VFW is campy, but holds that camp up as part of its charm. The older actors in this film are having a blast, and the VFW Hall is a fantastic setting for this Assault On Precinct 13 type of shoot-em-up. There are times where you'll wish Begos had a slightly higher budget to build out the rest of this world more fully, but overall it's a pitch-perfect homage to the legendary John Carpenter films of the 80s. Stephen Lang's resurgence as a horror star as of late has been fantastic to watch, and I can't wait to see what comes next from Begos.

Mario Bava is mostly known as the creator of the first Giallo films, but about ten years before he championed that genre, he made an early masterpiece with Black Sunday. This movie has everything you want in a Halloween movie. There are witches, vampires, castles, cobwebs, graveyards, crypts, blood, gore, Satanic-panic, and even a mob carrying pitchforks and torches. The movie is about a witch who has a "Devil's Mask" nailed to her face and then burned at-the-stake, but a sudden rainstorm puts out the flames. She is then entombed for 200 years before travelers stumble upon her crypt and accidentally awaken an evil spirit hellbent on rising again. The film has a very classic "Universal Monster Movie" feel, but with more blood and is better than a lot of those movies. This one is hard to find. You can rent it on Amazon Prime, but the quality is severely lacking for my taste. Throw up the Jolly Roger flag to find a proper version of this one, or do yourself a favor and buy the Kino Blu Ray.

This week we're uncovering some true gems. We're looking at some of the odder, more eccentric electronic albums of the late 70s and early 80s. Some of these were incredibly hard to find until very recently, and we're living in a time where it seems the internet is uncovering lost masterpieces like this on a regular basis. Get ready for alot of Moogs, Juno 60s, Jupiter 8s, and drum loops. Here are four Electronic Oddballs.

I wouldn't be me if I failed to point out that today, August 10th, is my 30th birthday. If you enjoy reading these blogs please head over to Patreon.com/NateBridges and sign up! You're support is greatly appreciated.

What albums do you want to see me tackle in the future? Got any theme ideas? Leave a comment below and let's discuss it! Enjoy.

The Secret Life of Plants was a book from 1973 that argued for the existence of plant sentience. Its authors claimed that through their various experiments, including hooking house plants up to a polygraph machine, they discovered that plants were capable of telepathy with each other and could feel emotions. Not surprisingly, these aren't even the weirdest claims they make in the book. They also state that plants are members of the same supernatural origin as fairies, gnomes, and other mythical woodland creatures. It's a book that was widely disregarded in it's time for promoting pseudoscience, despite becoming a best seller, and inspiring a documentary distributed by Paramount Pictures with an original soundtrack by Stevie Wonder. The movie (which I'm now desperate to get my hands on) features filmed sequences of the experiments conducted in the book, and apparently even shows the weird phenomena in action. For example, one scene shows a house plant hooked up to a lie detector test reacting negatively to its owners' thoughts of burning it. So as it happens, The Secret Life of Plants was not so secret at all and became a very curious phenomenon in the 1970s. However, one piece of work inspired by this book was very much a secret. Mort Garson's Moog synth symphony Mother Earth's Plantasia.

Mort Garson was a successful session musician, arranger, and composer all throughout the 50s and 60s. He composed and arranged hits for Julie London, Brenda Lee, Nancy Wilson, and other easy-listening pop vocalists of the time. Garson wasn't at the forefront like Quincy Jones or other more popular composers/arrangers of the time. Instead, Garson was one of the many people in the recording studio who provided the magic behind the scenes. He seemed content with his moderate success and had found a role in the music industry that suited his talents well. But once Bob Moog invented the Moog Synthesizer, everything changed for Garson in an instant. Garson's Moog compositions are some of the earliest and most influential pieces recorded on the instrument, including a twelve-part album themed after each of the zodiac signs. Composing for synthesizer seemed to awaken some kind of primal, occult like arousal in Garson. In addition to his zodiac albums, he also released an album called Black Mass under the pseudonym Lucifer in 1971, as well as Ataraxia – The Unexplained (Electronic Musical Impressions Of The Occult). Something about the Moog synthesizer inspired Garson in unexplainable ways, and his career trajectory was freed up in ways most composers in his position were never afforded.

In 1975 during the height of interest in The Secret Life of Plants, Garson composed a whimsical and sublime companion piece to the book called Mother Earth's Plantasia. The album was initially only available alongside the purchase of a house plant from a store in Los Angeles called Mother Earth Plant Boutique, or curiously if you bought a Simmons Mattress from certain Sears outlets. The idea for the album was hatched between Garson, Joel Rapp, and Lynn Rapp, the latter who were the managers of the legendary plant boutique in the 70s. The idea was for Garson to compose music for young plants to listen to as they grew up, and in turn, by having your plants listen to these mini Moog symphonies, it would help them grow. This exceedingly limited distribution model meant that Mother Earth's Plantasia did not have much of a life outside of the burgeoning Los Angeles house plant scene in the 70s. But those who received a copy knew that what they had was nothing short of remarkable. The legend of this album grew alongside his other early work until it was finally officially re-released in 2019.

The music on the record is no less sophisticated or complex than a lot of Garson's earlier more traditional work; it's only the timbres and the imagination behind the composition that has changed. Each song feels like a mini-movie with a different plant in the lead role like "Symphony for a Spider Plant" and "Music To Soothe a Savage Snake Plant," among others. I can't speak for any plants in my vicinity who may have been listening, but I find the music on this collection to be tremendously soothing and thought-provoking. Garson is using his skill as a composer to considerable effect on these songs, and at times I found myself completely transfixed by these recordings. I can't say they were particularly evocative of plants or trees, but they did feel positively alien. If we're taking the album at its word that plants can feel emotions and telepathically communicate, I can't think of a better way to describe such plant beings as anything other than alien. So in a sense, Garson precisely accomplishes what he set out to do alongside the philosophy outlined in The Secret Life of Plants. Mother Earth's Plantasia is a forgotten masterpiece of Moog magic and one that instantly rewards the listener with complex composition and retro-futurist soundscapes. I'd be lying if I told you I haven't been keeping an extra close eye on my snake plant after playing this album all week.

If you were to base whether or not you should listen to McCartney II solely on its reviews when it came out, you would probably go out of your way to never listen to it, and that's precisely what I did up until this week. When this record came out in 1980, the reviews were absolutely horrible, easily the worst of Paul McCartney's career up to that point. In retrospect, it's now regarded as a cult favorite synthwave album with many fans and musicians praising its inventiveness, forward-thinking, and embrace of new sounds. Every song on the album is catchy, listenable, and full of McCartney's charm as only he can deliver. I was actually expecting McCartney to lean even heavier on the drum machine and synth aspects than he does, and in a way, I was slightly let down because I'd been led to believe that this was some sort of ridiculous album like Neil Young's Trans. In reality, McCartney II dips its toes into the New Wave, and electronic waters cautiously, but with great skill. The album is somewhat sloppily recorded and performed, but that only adds to its character. The recordings never sound like anything more than home demos, which is exactly what they are, and that adds to its fascinating fly on the wall nature. I would compare this album positively to McCartney and Ram in that Paul McCartney alone is at his best when he knows he has nothing to prove to anyone. McCartney II has firmly earned a spot alongside his earlier, more celebrated solo work in my book.

Only once before had McCartney released an album that didn't have the support of another collaborator or band, and that was 1970's McCartney. That particular album heralded the end of The Beatles, and actually superseded the release of Let It Be. People at the time expecting a follow up to Abbey Road were sorely disappointed, as McCartney (like McCartney II that followed) was an album of home-recorded demos. The songs on that album were much more traditional and approachable than anything found on McCartney II, and fans would have to wait until Band On The Run in 1973 before they heard anything resembling the ambition McCartney displayed in the recording studio during his time with The Beatles. By 1979 Wings had finally split up, and although they were never more than a carrier for McCartney's solo songwriting, a chapter had closed on his career. McCartney was for the first time in a decade at a crossroads, and reliant on no one but himself. Recording alone in the creative safety of your own house not only seems like the natural next thing to do but necessary for someone who'd already conquered the world of music more times than he could count.

Many musicians whom I respect and love recommended that I give this album a listen. It was jarring to hear so much praise from people I respected while the horrible reviews of the record floated around my head. I really didn't know what to expect. The first song "Coming Up" is an incredibly fun first single in the vein of Talking Heads and David Byrne. It really sounds like McCartney doing his best sound-alike of "Life During Wartime" from Fear of Music, which had not surprisingly been released during the summer recording took place for McCartney II. I read particularly bad things about the album’s 2nd track "Temporary Secretary," and I will partially agree that it's one of the most annoying, but good songs I've ever heard. There is an insane, frantic synth sequence that anchors the track that sounds very discordant with the rest of the song. The line is minor, and Paul's chords and singing are major. It's a small thing, but that, coupled with the childlike, earworm refrain, honestly made me laugh out loud. There are fantastic bluesy numbers like "On The Way," and McCartney's synth explorations are great. "Frozen Jap" (yikes on that title) is one of the better electronic-based tracks that shows Paul really could do anything he set his mind to. I only wish we had an album of Paul in the studio attempting this synth style more seriously because even his brief flirtations with it are fantastic.

I can see how McCartney II must have been jarring upon release in 1980, and it's definitely not the straightforward way to listen to Paul McCartney. But humor me and try this thought experiment for a moment. You're sitting with Paul McCartney, and he says to you: "Hey, I recorded an album all by myself at home, would you like to hear it?" Every person on Earth would say yes to that question. Imagine the gall it would take to then tell him it sucks. The man has blessed our brains with countless hours of bliss, and holding his feet to the fire for what are, basically, excellent sketches of ideas, is ridiculous. McCartney II isn't Sgt. Peppers and it's not trying to be, and that is something that I think early reviews of this album completely miss the mark on. They interpret Paul's laid back approach to this material as some kind of failing like he'd lost his power to create incredible music. They couldn't be more wrong. Paul McCartney is so gifted that an album he recorded completely by himself has more charm and great songwriting on it than most artists could muster on their best day. Give McCartney II a listen and enjoy how ahead of it's time it is. Paul stumbled into lo-fi and synthwave 30 years before it was cool without even trying.

Yellow Magic Orchestra, the '79 debut album by the band of the same name, is like if you asked an exotica band to compose a soundtrack for Pong or Pac-Man. It's a specific, basically ancient type of video game music being referenced on this album. It's incredibly nostalgic at times and will effortlessly draw your mind to early 80s video gaming and simpler, happier times. The songs are also almost always completely frantic and full of over the top energy, with a few loungy ballads sprinkled in for good measure. There are parts of this album that are very chaotic, especially the introductory track. But don't fall for that sonic juke out. The truth is that Yellow Magic Orchestra makes their electronic elements sound incredibly fluid and natural. Seldom while listening are you actually hit over the head with the fact that you're listening to computer-based music as you get with Kraftwerk. Aside from the introductory track and the mid-album interlude, the computers running the show are rarely center stage. Yellow Magic Orchestra is hyperactive muzak processed through layers of computer synthesizers and clever arrangements. The music is giddy, excitable, meticulous, and infectiously poppy while managing to sound incredibly human in the face of a powerful computer engine driving the album.

The band was made up of Harry Hosono, who mixed and played synth bass on the album, Ryuichi Sakamoto who provided additional synths and piano, and Yukihiro Takanaka, who sang played percussion, and drums. The MVP of the album, however, is Hideki Matsutake, who's unassuming credit of "Microcomposer Programming" should not be overlooked. The Roland MC-8 Microcomposer is a very early, and powerful, sequencing tool that allowed the user to program musical sequences note-by-note. Much of the music heard on this album would not have been possible without this piece of equipment, and it represents a massive leap forward for music technology. Upon first listening to Yellow Magic Orchestra, I had to do a double-take on the year it was released. Typically these kinds of blinding fast synth runs would not have been possible before MIDI and other advancements that came about in the ensuing decade. There were only 200 MC-8 Microcomposers released, and this, in effect, was the secret weapon to Yellow Magic Orchestra. The Roland MC-8 put them in a rare league of a group of composers that had a computer-based piece of equipment that could actually keep up with their compositional complexity. Other similar bands of the time like Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream acquired a number of these units around the same time, but none of them used them to quite the same effect as Yellow Magic Orchestra.

This album will certainly draw comparisons to Kraftwerk, but I think there is something here that really stands in stark contrast to their music, and that is the (albeit sparse) use of acoustic instruments. There are occasional flourishes of piano throughout the album that gives the record here a very human touch and makes it very unique amongst electronic music of this era. If Kraftwerk is The Terminator then Yellow Magic Orchestra is Robocop. Not quite full android, and enough humanity underneath its skin that it finds ways to connect with you faster than some of the rougher around the edges Kraftwerk releases of the same era. I wouldn't go so far as to say anything on Yellow Magic Orchestra is better than Kraftwerk. What I would say is that YMO is so different that it becomes hard to compare the two. The two bands are indeed using similar technology to achieve their respective sounds, but that's about where the comparison ends. Yellow Magic Orchestra stumbled upon making electronic music completely independent of their western counterparts, and that alone makes this a very interesting listen. They were using these electronic instruments as compositional tools; they were a means to an end that became a large part of the bands identity. If you're looking to branch out from the cold, dark, brutalism of Kraftwerk, and into more poppy electro music from the same era, look no further. Kraftwerk is the yin to Yellow Magic Orchestra's yang.

Who is William Onyeabor? Who is he indeed? It's incredibly unclear to this day, and now with his passing, I believe this compilation and the other Luka Bop collections of his music will have to do. What we do know is that after (maybe?) starting a hugely successful Nigerian flour mill, and studying film in The USSR, Onyeabor made eight incredible albums from 1978 - 1985. After his final album, he renounced music altogether, refused to speak about it, give interviews or insight, and became a born again Christian. When will someone denounce these damn Christians for brainwashing all of our best musicians? We nearly lost Bob Dylan for good, and Al Green barely plays live anymore. It's a blight on rock n' roll. Who is William Onyeabor? is a compilation of his eight albums, and although this collection fails to answer the question in posits, the mystery is all the juicier because of it. Onyeabor's music was a mix of afrobeat, funk, early disco, punctuated by synths, drum machines, and Onyeabor's backing choir. It's most likely that Onyeabor is playing or programming nearly every instrument, as well as writing, arranging, and singing, but it's impossible to verify that assumption. Who is William Onyeabor? is like if Lee Scratch Perry, Parliament, and David Byrne made an album in a basement together. Somehow Onyeabor manages to hold the reins on so many converging styles, which result in some wildly unique dance music.

Look up pictures of Onyeabor. In his tiny, but especially jam-packed recording studio, you'll see him encased by synths, consoles, tape machines, instruments, microphones, and mountains of gear. He's no doubt the lion at the center of his audio jungle. Listening to his music, you can hear all the different tape loops that are running, many unusual synthesizers, and his absolutely virtuosic playing on the Moog. But the music isn't entirely electronic; there are plenty of acoustic instruments in the mix. But it's the way he's utilizing those instruments is what is 100% electronic. The comparison to Lee Perry is apt because Onyeabor controls his sounds in much the same way a Jamaican dub producer would. He lays down a repeating drum loop, then bass loop, and then begins to layer all of his other instrumentation on top. It's a genius way to come up with no-frills dance music. Like Kraftwerk and Yellow Magic Orchestra, it's fascinating to hear two different artists on opposite ends of the Earth discovering similar ways to work. The main difference from Perry is that Onyeabor is less interested in manipulating his source music with effects than he is with producing relentless dance tracks.

Onyeabor was an eccentric man. He was often seen dressed in full western cowboy duds, which only adds to his mystique and bizarre intrigue. He never played live music, and he very rarely spoke to anyone about his music. His eccentricities show themselves in the form of track lengths here. Onyeabor rarely has any songs clock in under six minutes, and most are closer to ten. The beats are very repetitive, as are the hooks. But it made for the type of dancehall music that people all over the world were becoming really hip to. This is another album I'd put under "driving music" (I gotta do that blog someday). Driving music is robotic, monotonous, and infectiously groovy. It's about stripping away the complexities and getting lost in the beat, which with this album is easy to do. There are five-minute stretches of just groove before Onyeabor brings it back to another chorus. It's best to leave your analytical brain at the door when listening to music like this, your aim should be to almost disassociate and space out while you listen.

Onyeabor is a rabbit hole that I can't wait to get further down into. He's one of the most reclusive and enigmatic figures of recent music history, and his recent passing makes it all the more urgent to get your hands on his music. The Atomic Bomb! Band specializes in playing Onyeabor's music all over the world and features such luminaries as David Byrne, Damon Albarn, Pat Mahoney of LCD Soundsystem, Pharoah Sanders, and Kele Okereke of Bloc Party. The word is out on Onyeabor, and it has been amongst geniuses like these musicians I just mentioned for nearly two decades. Luka Bop, a label affiliated with David Byrne, has done an incredible job assembling Onyeabor's music on this collection. Luka Bop has gone above and beyond by actually pulling together all eight of his albums across two vinyl box sets, which can be found on their website. I'd like to think that Onyeabor would be ecstatic about the attention his music has received. I can't imagine walking away from music, only to have my body of work celebrated so publicly decades later and not being over the moon about it. It's every musician's dream. So while we may never really know who William Onyeabor is, Who is William Onyeabor? gives us every answer we'll ever need.

Lineup changes can either make or break a band. They can be blessings as often as they are a curse, they could kill a band just as easily as they could inject fresh blood into a rotting corpse. There are too many horror stories to count (looking at you Squeeze and Doug Yule). But there are plenty of band members who didn't start with the band that it would be almost impossible to imagine the band without. Brian Jones with AC/DC, Dave Grohl with Nirvana, Ronnie Wood with The Rolling Stones, etc. The list could go on forever really. Here are four albums made by bands with either new additions, entirely new lineups, and even one that drops the pretense of even being a band and utilizing an army of session musicians instead. Let's dive in with some New Lineups.

I don't know how to describe Roxy Music, and I especially couldn't explain the first thing about Bryan Ferry. I'm late to the Roxy party, so to speak, and they're a band that I'm still chewing on as of this year. I absolutely adore their final album Avalon, but it is also a record that is divorced from their prior 70s sounds. It's much more accessible and is an album that any band would be proud to go out on. Stranded by contrast, is no less of a thrill to listen to, but it is a different experience. Roxy Music in the early '70s was the art-rock band, which is a label I still struggle with. To me, they sound like huge, bombastic, dramatic prog-rock. You can definitely hear the theatre kid that must lurk behind Bryan Ferry's hard to pierce facade. The band had just come off of what should have been a vital blow; the loss of keyboardist and sonic contributor Brian Eno. Their first two albums were landmarks of the time and huge influences on punk and alternative music that would emerge later in the 70s. Even with the loss of Eno, they maintained their momentum, didn't lose a step, and Stranded proved to be a big success for the band.

It's hard not to notice the provocative album cover, which features Ferry's then-girlfriend and recent Playmate of the Year, Marilyn Cole. She is sprawled out in some kind of jungle or desert island setting, nearly exposing herself, while dramatically draping her golden locks all over the forest floor. It's a remarkable cover that immediately draws you in, and it feels evocative of later disco and dance records that were still to come later in the decade. Nearly all of Roxy Music's album covers feature beautiful or otherwise dangerously evocative women on their cover, which perfectly encapsulates the band. For the longest time, growing up in record stores and always shopping around for new music, I'd see these Roxy album's and they would elicit a kind of fear in me. They kept me at a distance, in the same way, I'd later discover I kept myself when put in situations where I wanted to speak with or flirt with a girl. There is that overwhelming feeling of nerves and excited temptation of just approaching. The women on these covers were strange and beautiful in ways that seemed almost magical. They were the gatekeepers of a party that was going on right behind the gatefold. A party I always convinced myself was too hip for me when, in reality, it's one I very well could have thrown myself.

The music on Stranded is dramatic, ethereal, and alien to many of the rock sensibilities and trends of the time. But one thing it has in common is that it completely rocks. I want to say this is prog-rock, but it is nowhere near Pink Floyd, King Crimson, or any of the other groups of the time in that scene. It really is it's own thing, and if people want to call it "art-rock" I get it, but it really doesn't matter. Roxy Music was so completely original that labels were invented just to make their sound remotely approachable for regular music consumers. Listening to this album in context makes you realize how ahead of their time they were. Stranded came out in 1973, and only five years before we were in the deepest throws of flower power and psychedelic music. Five years after this record, you have bands like Talking Heads, and to the untrained ear, David Byrne sounds like a near-perfect Bryan Ferry clone. Roxy Music was the herald of the new generation of Rock Stars that were to come, and the first nail in the coffin for the 60s dinosaurs who were already beginning their last act.

Stranded is a fantastic album, but it is not an easy listen by any means. The music is eclectic, the songs can be very long, Bryan Ferry's voice is definitely an acquired taste, and there are not readily approachable hooks or melodies you can glomb on to like with other popular bands at the time. This album doesn't contain a hit single, and there are no stadium anthems to sing along to. Stranded asks the listener to think a little harder, dig a little deeper and to challenge your sensibilities and preconceived notions of what a rock band should sound like. Roxy Music were mavericks of their time, and by some miracle were wildly popular and went on to create many more fantastic albums. Even Brian Eno after just leaving Roxy Music called Stranded Roxy Music's finest. It's an album that commands your attention and doesn't reward idle ears. Call it art rock, call it proto-punk, call it prog, call it whatever you want. It's just art to me.

Larks' Tongues in Aspic is one of the wildest, most challenging listens I've had in a long time. Like a classic film which reveals itself over multiple viewings, so too will Larks' need many repeat listens to properly understand the insane tapestry on display. By 1973, King Crimson was already on its fifth lineup, and had yet to create anything as dynamic and arresting as their incredible 1969 debut In The Court of The Crimson King. That album was a landmark piece of work in nearly every way, from the music to the performances, and most certainly the artwork. In The Court of The Crimson King was one of the best debut albums of any band before or since, and proved very difficult to follow up. The constant and frequent lineup changes no doubt added to fan and critic confusion, not to mention King Crimson's rapidly evolving sound between each release. Nothing could have prepared audiences for Larks' Tongues in Aspic, and King Crimson had set the stage for themselves for complete and total reinvention.

The albums directly preceding Larks' were a mixed bag of jazzy influenced prog albums and inconsistent collections of great musicianship that couldn't quite gell as they should have. Robert Fripp was a genius and anchored the group in a way that kept it alive despite its tumultuous lineup changes. Most bands couldn't survive this kind of constant flux, but I look to Josh Homme and Queens of the Stone Age as a modern example of what Fripp was possibly trying to accomplish with King Crimson. Like Homme, Fripp no doubt wanted to keep King Crimson fresh and interesting, and the best way to do that is to constantly inject new and diverse talent into the lineup. Fripp spent all of the 70s as the guitar muse for Brian Eno and made incredible contributions to both "Heroes" and Scary Monsters by David Bowie. Fripp has a way of channeling his virtuosity into incredible soundscapes and doesn't fall into the typical 70s guitar hero traps. His guitar is just another tool in the toolbox in recording situations. While he had great success collaborating with other artists, consistent releases with King Crimson were a challenge. Until Larks' Tongues in Aspic.

It's an album that draws as much on jazz and rock as it does eastern music and free improvisation. There are heavy Sabbath-like guitar riffs preceded by entirely acoustic sequences anchored by thumb pianos. Where some 70s prog artists would use synthesizers to carry instrumental passages, King Crimson looked the other direction entirely and employed extensive use of violin, violas, and flutes. All of these very eclectic melodic timbres were paired with wild changes of rhythm, meter, and tempo by the new rhythm section of Bill Bruford, John Wetton, and Jamie Muir. These musicians all bring incredible character and complexity to this music, and paired with Fripp it is a match made in heaven. It's a shame this lineup only lasted for this one album. Now it should be noted that Larks' Tongues in Aspic is an extremely challenging listen. It's not for the musically faint of heart, and it's best to listen to this music with no expectations of what it should or shouldn't sound like. It is not something that you could play at a party, or even in front of other people at all for that matter. It's completely dissonant compared to most typical rock releases from the time, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if most people who listen to it will hate it the first time. But you can't argue that it doesn't put the "progressive" in Prog-Rock.

Larks' Tongues in Aspic is a landmark album in 70s rock, and returned King Crimson to their rightful court. It's an album that challenges the notion of what a rock album should sound like and is completely littered with immaculate playing, fantastic improvisation, and captivating clashes of styles. It looks to the future while relying on the past, and pushes the boundaries of acceptability. I can't really compare it to any other modern rock album, and I believe you'd have to look back at Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring to find instrumental music that provoked such fright and awe in its listeners. This is an album you'll want to listen to with the lights off, and headphones in. The assault your ears will be under requires you to dull your other senses to focus and appreciate how insane this music is. Any distraction at all is the enemy of this music, it requires you to participate but don't even bother trying to anticipate. If you want to hear something truly different, look no further than Larks' Tongues in Aspic.

Bananamour is nearly equal parts Lou Reed and Otis Redding. It's a fantastically hip dirge of fantastic songs by Soft Machine alumni Kevin Ayers. The album has blues, psych, and proto-punk vibes in spades, and every track has an immeasurable coolness behind it. Ayers had formed an all-new band for this album with the intent of more straightforward material. That is not to say there isn't plenty of wild music on this album, the mixing, in particular, is very creative and unorthodox at times. Ayers sounds like a psychedelic John Cale, subbing synth for viola on the album's centerpiece "Decadence." That tune is supposedly even about one time Velvet Underground member Nico. As it happens, Bananamour has a very peculiar quality to it that I could only compare to some Velvet Underground, Lou Reed, and John Cale albums. It should be no surprise that Ayers ran with that exact crowd, along with Brian Eno and other outsider artists. Bananamour has laid back drones dispersed amongst rock and protopunk tracks, while also adding flourishes of Soft Machine-Esque psych throughout. There is even a song called "Oh! Wot a Dream" which is a tribute to acid victim and one time Pink Floyd frontman Syd Barret who was an occasional collaborator with Ayers. The Velvet Underground meets Syd Barret is a dream indeed, and one I never realized I wanted so badly. If you find yourself listening to the Spotify version of this album, be sure to check out the bonus song "Connie on a Rubber Band" which is a brief reggae-influenced foreshadowing of Ayers signing with Island Records. It's a very unique listen, full of varied styles and eclectic songwriting.

The title "Bananamour" makes you think immediately of The Velvet Underground & Nico once you get into the bulk of the album. Ayers like many who heard that album was no doubt profoundly influenced by it but was in the rare circumstance to actually be able to seek out and perform with the members of The Velvet Underground. Ayers' ability to exist between the worlds of Jimi Hendrix and Lou Reed is unique, and he acts as a perfect bridge between those two wildly different scenes and sounds. Ayers left Soft Machine a bit early in their career after a tour with The Jimi Hendrix Experience. He sold his pearl white bass to Noel Redding after that tour, started his solo career, and never looked back. It's not clear exactly how or when Ayers was accepted into the Eno and John Cale fold, but what that association resulted in is a fascinating live album simply called June 1st, 1974. The album featured Kevin Ayers, Brian Eno, John Cale, Nico, Mike Oldfield (Tubular Bells), along with Robert Wyatt and Ollie Halsall from Soft Machine and Ayers solo work respectively. The show may have suffered a bit from too many, albeit incredible, cooks in the kitchen. But what really harshed the vibes was that Ayers was caught sleeping with John Cale's wife the night before the performance. Oops. Such was the incestuous nature of rock 'n roll in the 1970s.

Ayers is a really unique figure in rock history. He straddles two wildly different music scenes with ease and weaves between them with his music like no one else I've ever heard. Ayers balances his psychedelic tendencies with heavy soul, and rock-solid songwriting and performances. He's a really underrated songwriter in my book and is another artist I've discovered during this series of blogs that makes me a bit embarrassed that I haven't been listening to him my whole life. I'm a diehard Velvet Underground fan, and anything even tangentially related to them usually commands my attention with ease. Ayers was a mercurial person, who often spent long periods hiding out, away from the prying eyes of fans and the press. He took a short break, absconding to Ibiza, after leaving Soft Machine, and similarly hid away in Mallorca for most of the 80s. He's a hard artist to pin down but lived in a way that I think more rock stars could have benefitted from. You don't need to live your life on the cover of every magazine to be a successful or interesting musician. Bananamour shows how different journeys can contribute immensely to the sound of an artist's musical footprint, be they personal or geographical.

Steely Dan is more of an idea than a band. The band is a loose collection of some of the world's top session musicians, engineers, producers, arrangers, and technical wizards that are all striving for an ideal under the guise of a band. Not that it was always that way; up until Katy Lied Steely Dan was an actual rock band who had created great records. It's just that none of those great records are as remembered or revered as the science experiments that were Aja and Gaucho. For a short while, there was a period in their history where they were in transition from rock band to rock experiment, and that is captured beautifully on their 1975 album Katy Lied.

Katy Lied is an album of impeccable musicianship which features the incredible playing of 20-year-old genius/phenom, and Toto drummer Jeff Pocaro, not to mention contributions by legendary session musicians Dean Parks, Larry Carlton, and Hal Blaine. Michael Mcdonald makes his first appearance on a Steely Dan record here as well, singing backup vocals. You would be forgiven if you skipped right past Walter Becker and Donald Fagen and instead scanned the credits to see who else plays on this or any other of their post touring albums. Steely Dan, in their later period, was infamous for spending years in the recording studio, using multiple engineers and up to 40 session musicians on their albums recording dozens of overdubs only to overdub all of the overdubs. That meticulous tinkering largely began here, and really reached its zenith a few years later on 1977's Aja.

Though for all of the effort that clearly went into Katy Lied, you almost can't hear it. The funny thing is, the playing on this album is so perfect that it basically sounds effortless, and because of that, you would be hard-pressed to find a casual listener who doesn't hear Katy Lied as a run of the mill 1970s jazz-rock album. At best, you'll have plenty of millennial hipsters looking to redefine Steely Dan as their own with labels like yacht rock. Steely Dan feels a bit too cynical and in on the joke, but it's a label that will stick for better or worse. They are incredibly smart musicians who infuse jazz into places where it otherwise might not be, and what you get from that is some relatively smooth rock that is rarely produced in that same way anymore. I think Steely Dan knew exactly what they were doing. In making waiting room music that actually rocked, they showed you don't have to be Led Zeppelin to kick ass. You don't have to ooze drugs and sex to be rock n' roll. You can be thorough, meticulous, intentional, and direct and still make rebellious music. This is rock music for nerds. Dorks, if you will. Middle-aged… Ok, I’ll stop. I promise I actually really like this album.

Katy Lied is not the best Steely Dan album, but it is very good. It’s everything you could expect from a group of people so dedicated to making music that transcends the limitations of the technology it was made on. Likewise, the goal for the musicians on the album was not to sound not human, it was to sound superhuman. Steely Dan is the side project of every working session musician who stole all the gigs from everyone else. Ironically for as seemingly perfect as this album sounds, a technical error in the DBX noise reduction system late in the process nearly crippled the album. The producers and engineers had to work overtime to restore the tapes to their previous sound, and according to members of the band did not quite hit the mark. Donald Fagen and Walter Becker swore off ever listening to the final released version of Katy Lied and swear that the original tapes sounded even better and more pristine than Aja before the DBX catastrophe. Striving for perfection is something attributed to many artists, but I don’t think any of them come close to the extremely high standards of Steely Dan. And yet, the point is not to make perfect music, perfect recordings, or perfect anything. The point is to push the boundaries of music and technology to its limits. How far before it all breaks? What is more funny than a yacht rock band discovering the answer?

Today we look at four albums, and more importantly, four mustaches. We analyze how said mustaches are either a compliment, or an analog for the music within these four wildly different albums by incredibly varied artists at different points in their careers. We explore musicians who had really come into their own, and a few who may have stumbled out of the gate while still impressing with musical statements that were important to their development. Get your mustache wax ready, and head to the comments. Who has your favorite musical mustache?

Mustache Grade: A mustache that is rough around the edges, unkempt, and with too many stories to tell. Kind of dirty, but charming. A-

Juarez by Terry Allen is a set of Tex-Mex fried tales of drunken nights and wild drives across the American southwest. It's at once full of wanderlust and constantly paying homage to places the characters in these songs once lived or came from. It's a sparse album in instrumentation, seldom featuring more than Allen's barroom piano, his voice, and sweet Spanish guitar. The songs seem loosely composed around a theme of Texas and Juarez, Texas specifically which is now known as El Paso. It's the perfect setting for the outlaw characters who inhabit Allen's songs on Juarez, who are constantly in flux between women, sobriety, the law, and their country. Allen writes a set of songs here in the greater tradition of literature more than any specific music being referenced. Juarez is like reading a good book, or listening to the musings of an old man with too many great stories to tell. The songs flow together in a theatrical way, which is no surprise given the other creative avenues that Allen is known for. Juarez is sentimental like a night spent drunk being sorry for yourself, and cinematic like stock footage of The Great Plains. It's another journey through Americana as only someone born in the heart of it could tell.

Listening to Juarez reminded me immediately of a close friend of mine, songwriter, and poet Sam Small. Sam has a similar was of imbuing his music with a sense of wonder and wander, along with the grounded earth from which he sprung. To a lesser extent, these songs and tales of adventure remind me of Sam's late father Don Small, who could enrapture anyone with his stories of seemingly hundreds of lives he'd lived. No surprise that being raised by a modern American folk hero could turn you into the literary type. Juarez feels like you're sitting in Terry Allen's parlor while he performs his southern musical in its entirety on his piano. Terry Allen comes across less as a welcoming old man reliving his glory days and more like a grimey hobo who's been thrown out of one too many bars doing the same. Terry's characters are unsavory, to say the least, and as often as they're found wallowing in the majesty of the American southwest they're found having drunken escapades with loose women in roadside motels. It's the kind of thing that's maybe more fun to hear about than to indulge in yourself.

To me Juarez is further proof that there must be something in the water down there in Texas; something that either draws in outlaws or maybe just changes those that have their fill. It's a uniquely American romanticism, and these drunks and outlaws are just our society's pirates, samurai, or Knights of the Round Table. They're archetypes that exist in every society, but for some reason, in ours, they have persisted longer than others. You can still find these archetypes in the wild here in America, and you don't have to look very hard as soon as you leave almost any major city. The rest of the world seems to have grown up while we're still looking towards our past for answers that are either not there or completely wrong. In a way, it makes America very unique that even as recent as the 1970s we can still sprout someone like Terry Allen, who would almost surely feel completely alien anywhere else. Juarez has so many stories to tell, and some aren't for everyone. But I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone with any semblance of American heritage who couldn't relate even just a little to what Allen has to say on Juarez.

Mustache Grade: A stache that is ready for primetime, but with a lot of room to grow. Far from hitting its ceiling, but no slouch either. B-

I still remember where I was the day Lou Reed died. I was in a production analysis class at Berklee with 20 other kids from all over the world. I remember my teacher, Susan Rogers, asking us all to raise our hands if we knew who Lou Reed or the Velvet Underground were. I was the only one who raised my hand. I was gobsmacked and felt the urge in my bones to wax poetic about what an incredible musician we had lost that day. Susan decided that there was no point in continuing her planned lecture that day, and instead, she and I held a conversation for the class all about Lou Reed, his incredible influence on our culture and Susan told us some amazing stories about her encounters with him. You see, Susan Rogers was the real deal. She was no run of the mill faculty member. She'd been Prince's primary engineer, and I'd argue collaborator, during his incredible run in the mid-80s. She helped produce and was in the studio with Prince for the entirety of his magnum opus Sign O' The Times. When she spoke about Lou Reed being a legend, I listened, because she of all people could recognize a one of a kind artist when she saw one. She'd been by the side of one of the most enigmatic and fantastic performers of all time during the height of his powers. Needless to say, I sat at the feet of a master and tried to take in as much as I could during that time. Having any kind of intellectual conversation with her about anything was a treat and a privilege for me as a music fan.

Susan also was instrumental in scoring me one of my first clients when I came to her in distress one day. I didn't exactly make a lot of friends in my major during my time at Berklee. I was extremely insecure, I knew I wanted to work in audio, but even at Berklee in the Music Production major, I felt totally lost. I felt like I was a fraud, and suffered as many college students do with imposter syndrome. I thought one day I'm going to slip, and the jig will be up. Commence pointing and laughing while I sulk my way back to California forever. I never took advantage of office hours with many teachers, I was so scared and nervous for them to see that I didn't understand certain things that I avoided them altogether to keep my mask up. But Susan Rogers was different. She had walked away from music 12 years or so before I had met her, and that choice imbued her with a powerful spirit in my eyes. She'd reached the top of the mountain in my field, as a woman no less, and realized that life held more for her than even all of that. She wanted to become an educator and I'm so grateful every day that she did because she made a profound influence on me. I came to her office hours one day and just let everything out, I told her how little confidence I had and that I wanted to quit pursuing music. I thought maybe she'd understand where I was coming from since she'd walked away herself. Instead, she convinced me to double down and booked me a client, a student band from one of her other classes. She convinced me that I was born to make records and that being afraid was no reason to stop. Again, when she spoke I truly listened and her words hit me like a ton of bricks. A few weeks later I was in a local studio, off-campus, producing an awesome band to 2'' tape. I was forever changed and haven't looked back since.

It made me think, if Susan had this effect on little old me, imagine the effect she could have on someone with immeasurable talent. And then Prince just made a whole ton of sense. Susan was a catalyst for putting emotion and ferocity into a musical production. She brought the best out in her students and I have no doubt did the same for Prince during her time with him. I say all this to point out that everyone has to start somewhere, and we aren't all born in our final forms. We all could use mentors during our formative years when fear and uncertainty take hold to guide us and keep us on the bath we were born to tread. It's helpful with that in mind to take a look at this album, 1979's Prince by the man himself. There is so much insanely raw talent on this album, and it really was just a preview of what was to come in the years ahead. I listen to this album and can't fathom how in a vacuum critics kind of considered it a middle of the road album at the time. Maybe it is compared to Prince's later output, but this is an A+ album by literally anyone else. Prince plays every instrument himself and at just age 19 he was already an incredible force to be reckoned with. The album is very disco-y and fun, with plenty of sexual soul numbers as only Prince could deliver. Everyone knew from one listen of this album that once Prince focused his superpowers on a sound of his own that he would have almost no equals. In my eyes, Susan Rogers was that focus on him just as she became for me all those years later.

This is not the best Prince album, but even the best Prince albums aren't as good as the even better best Prince albums. As with anything concerning Prince, it is just going to be unfair to compare him to anything or anyone. This album shows promise and kept Prince on the path towards dominating the world as he was so destined to do. If it wasn't for breaks like Prince in this world, I don't know where I'd be right now. When life puts up walls, sometimes all you need is a tiny crack to see the sunshine on the other side to keep you going. A tiny crack in the wall of life for Prince was a 3x platinum-selling album at age 19, but again stop comparing things to Prince. It's really not fair. Susan Rogers is an unsung hero of the music industry, and anyone in her orbit becomes more understanding, knowledgeable, and connected to music in a deeper way than they were before meeting her. Don't take my word for it, just listen to Prince. Nothing Compares 2 U Susan, cheers.

Mustache Grade: A stache that never reached its full potential much like Baby himself. A sad reminder of an immense talent cut too short. C

This album screams from the very start. It's clear that this is a band that made it to wax with a ton to prove, and they held nothing back. What you first notice is the gigantic horns, incredibly tight rhythm section, blistering guitars, and last but certainly not least BABY HUEY. Certainly no baby, Huey weighed nearly 400 pounds during the recording of his one and only album due to a glandular disorder combined with heroin and alcohol addiction. Not exactly a paragon of health, this guy, but wow could he sing. Baby Huey & The Babysitters were the funk band of the 70s that never was. Their one album The Baby Huey Story: The Living Legend contains more raw funk energy than most bands could muster in a lifetime. There is so much energy behind these songs because this was a band right on the brink of hitting it big. You can hear in the recordings every gig that led to this album, every session, every trial, and hardship. It's a mammoth album comprised of the best sounds of its era, and no doubt would have led to even bigger sounds than we could even imagine.

For all the emotional funk outbursts, the highlight of the album has to be Baby’s immaculate and chilling cover of "A Change Is Gonna Come." It's the kind of cover that should have supplanted the original as the version; like Jimi Hendrix doing "All Along The Watchtower" or "Hurt" by Johnny Cash. It's got so many peaks and valleys, Baby Huey is all at once reminiscent of Sam Cook, Otis Redding, James Brown, and Sly Stone all at once. It's a remarkable recording, performance, and arrangement. There are aspects of the song that are 100% soul, that lead to huge funky sections much closer to the rest of the album, as well as a lot of psychedelic influences from Sly and The Family Stone. Baby and his band have so much personality and it completely shines on this track. Even the instrumental passages are a welcome respite from some of the madness on this album. They show off his extremely talented band made up of The Babysitters, as well as members of producer Curtis Mayfield's band after the fact. It becomes hard to tell where certain contributions end and others begin because the band is so tight. There is nothing obvious on the album that sounds like it was added after the fact, and despite how it was put together posthumously it's remarkable how well everything manages to coalesce.

Curtis Mayfield's presence is felt less as a deft hand and more as a guiding one. This album is full of wild performances, extended instrumental passages, and incredible musicianship much like what you find on Mayfield's own records. The big difference is that Mayfield's albums are much more polished and restrained than anything found on The Baby Huey Story. Curtis and Baby's manager had to assemble what had been recorded up to Baby's death, and took what was there and added some members of Mayfield's band for overdubs. There are also wild live recordings like "Mighty Mighty" written by Mayfield that no doubt was planned for a proper studio rendition. At times during the song Baby even manages to sound a touch like Captain Beefheart, proving there was nearly no vocal style that wasn't completely enveloped by his talent. Other songs sound much more like a Curtis Mayfield song like the single "Hard Times" which is a highlight of the album. It's very dramatic and cinematic, like something from one of Curtis' soundtrack albums.

The Baby Huey Story went on to be a collector's item in soul circles and later became highly influential to hip hop. As far as posthumous albums go, it is easily one of the best ever put together despite how much work had to be done to get it to the state it is in. I have no doubt that had Baby Huey had a chance to finish this album it would hold an even larger place in the soul, funk, and hip hop lexicons than it already does. Curtis Mayfield's additions help this album reach its classic status, but are not completely responsible for it. Baby Huey & The Babysitters prove they were a force that was sadly not meant to be. Baby passed away at the incredibly young age of 26, but contained in those 26 years was a magnanimous spirit that endures to this day. If you're going to record just one album before you go, you could do much worse than the psychedelic soul of The Baby Huey Story.

Mustache Grade: A mustache that has reached its full peak and maturity. It's strong and confident while at the same time being inviting and warm. It's a stache by which all others should be measured, fit for a true dad. A+

The Beach Boys have always been considered the American answer to The Beatles, but I would argue that another response to the complex songwriting put on display by The Fab Four is none other than Simon & Garfunkel. The Beach Boys could match The Beatles in high concept and complexity, but Paul Simon and Art Garfunkle had the old world influences that rooted their music further back much the same as McCartney and Lennon. Simon and McCartney in particular seem like they could have been a match made in heaven had they ever collaborated in their prime. Two gargantuan songwriters like that surely couldn't have lasted more than an hour in a recording studio once egos reared their heads. Still Crazy After All These Years has always been one of my favorite offerings from Paul Simon, in which Simon brings back all of the wonderful tranquility from his Simon & Garfunkel days while also bringing in a cavalcade of upbeat and incredible New York and Muscle Shoals session players. It's an album whose songwriting is matched only by its sonic perfection and immaculate performances. It's the kind of album I would have loved to hear from any of The Beatles post-breakup, but it's almost as if they'd all run out of steam by the late 70s and who could blame them. Still Crazy After All These Years is still a magnificent statement from one of Rock's greatest songwriting voices.

The album cover is reminiscent of Harvest or Rumors with muted tones and a light tan hue that evokes a pastoral tone in the music. It's the perfect depiction of Simon attempting a rural album in an urban setting along with all the musical complexities that would bring about. It's the kind of calm and relaxing album you wouldn't associate with New York City, while at the same time containing music that is inherently New York. There are horns, strings, and big jazzy arrangements that accompany Simon's wonderfully tamed voice. The album is a showcase of the absolute power of the art of making records in the late 1970s. By this point technology, performers, and technique had all reached their zenith, and records recording during this period are some of the most sonically balanced examples we have before or after. Recording engineers at this time were striving for clean recordings which were often a losing battle due to the limitations of reel to reel tape machines. Special mention should be given to Phil Ramone who helmed this album and many more for Simon afterwards. Simon can experiment and achieve things in the studio he otherwise couldn't if it wasn’t for such an adept hand behind the console. Still Crazy After All These Years is nothing but the best in every aspect be it recording, performing, songwriting or otherwise.

It's no surprise that Art Garfunkle rejoined Simon on this album for the first time in five years on "My Little Town." Still Crazy After All These Years is the most Simon & Garfunkel sounding album in Simon's catalog, and I for one (controversial opinion incoming) could have used more Garfunkel on this album. Even if Simon was clearly the stronger songwriter of the two, having that kind of secondhand with another vocalist is incredibly rare and should be exploited at every opportunity. No doubt Simon was still showing the world that he could stand on his own two feet as a solo performer, but nonetheless, I still long for their harmonies when I listen to this album. This album shares the big sweeping reverb that fans of Simon & Garfunkel would recognize, as well as the clever sometimes unorthodox percussion and arrangements that Simon has always been known for. Simon makes plenty of use harmonizing with others on this album to great effect, but I can't help that a small taste of 70s Simon & Garfunkel is just too intriguing for my blood.

In my mind, Paul Simon picked up the songwriting baton from Paul McCartney after Paul's initial solo output. He never again was as ambitious as Simon proved to be for decades still to come. That ambitiousness didn't always translate to a win for Simon, but McCartney also never reached the same highs as Still Crazy and certainly not Graceland in the 80s. Somehow all roads lead back to The Beatles, even when talking about bonafide superstars like Paul Simon. The Beatles, even with all their accomplishments, are still one of the great 'what ifs' due to their somewhat premature breakup. I believe they had at least two or three great records still in them, and they could have defined the 70s in much the same way they defined the 60s. That being said, we're lucky they got out of the way so to speak, which allowed for powerful voices to emerge on to the top spot of musical royalty. Paul Simon has nearly no equals, and when you have to bring up the most musically gifted Beatle to even make a comparison you know there's little left to prove. Still Crazy After All These Years is a wonderful melding of styles as only Paul Simon could deliver, and is a slice of New York like no other. The title song still has a way of stopping me in my tracks, no matter what I'm doing.

Today we're exploring four records who owe as much to the genres they throw out the window as the ones they threw into the mix. We'll explore how the internet produced its first masterpiece, how cowboys and hippies found a place out west to settle down together, and how David Bowie went to Philly to start his journey as the plastic-soul god we know him as today. These are four albums where the artists stood at a crossroads, between two worlds, and charted a new path forward on their own. As always, sound off in the comments below and don't forget to like, subscribe, and share with others who might be interested in this blog.

The internet users who shape the culture of the internet as we know it (memes, twitter, Instagram, etc.) were born post 9/11. They've grown up in a post-Napster world where every single piece of music you could ever want to listen to is sitting on a device that you carry around in your pocket 24/7. I feel like I'm burying the lede with that statement; people today can access any piece of information from all of recorded history in an instant thanks to smartphones. The average person has more knowledge contained in their pockets than entire civilizations of the past. Floral Shoppe, the vanguard of vaporwave from 2011, is the first piece of music that was created that is almost post-genre. The music is a mix of hypnagogic, 80s nostalgia, slowed down to a crawl, with dreamy delays and reverb mixed into perfection. It's an album that may or may not ever see widespread physical release because of it's wild sample usage, and its album cover is nearly as iconic as the music contained within. It's the first album released that saw its success derived primarily via memes. Floral Shoppe is an album that could only exist in a time when genre has stopped being critical. Like how cultures in the far off future may all be bred together into one homogenous race, so too will various musical styles become obsolete and indistinguishable from each other. Floral Shoppe is humans' last best attempt at making the kind of genius music that artificial intelligence will someday churn out regularly and with great artistic flourish. If you can't beat em, join em. Right?

Macintosh Plus, the Portland, Oregon artist also known as Vektroid released Floral Shoppe early on in their career and from all indications have spent considerable effort trying to distance themselves from this Frankenstein Monster they've created. Vaporwave, like any genre, is cool for everyone involved until the labels start getting slapped on, and analysis (like this) begins. It's easy to develop music without expectation or scrutiny, but as soon as those eyes become fixed on you, the thrill can quickly become burdensome. Vaporwave exploded in 2011 with the release of Floral Shoppe, and now the genre has become the unofficial background tapestry of the internet. Cheesy 90s fonts, and late 80s computers, dotted with palm trees and neon produce the kind of early 90s hive mind sense memory that's become subconsciously agreed upon as nostalgia. When I listen to vaporwave, especially the YouTube playlist edits combined with old 80s/90s commercials, it gives me the kind of warm fuzzy feeling that I get when I'm homesick. Everyone longs for the time of their youth because not only did it feel simpler, it was simpler. Everything was taken care of for you, the worst thing you had to worry about was how many times you could see your friends that week or what music you could get your hands on. It's no surprise that artists are using pallets made of colors from that era in our lives to draw us in and access parts of our brain that have memories and associations tucked away. It's a brilliant melding of music and psychology that most genres can't begin to approach with this much intention. In the future, we'll see much more music that uses associations and sense memory like another instrument in the toolbox.

The muzak contained on this album is reminiscent of "The K-Mart Tapes," which is a collection of cassette tapes recently uncovered of official music played at K-Mart stores in the late 80s and early 90s. The tapes, containing some of the blandest pieces of music composed by some of the top session players of their day, is the kind of easy listening right at home in the cereal aisle at 1 am on a Wednesday, interspersed with chipper self-promoting corporate commercials. It's these two things that define vaporwave: muzak and commercialization. Somehow greed and self-obsession are perfectly encapsulated by this Stepford Wives-Esque lounge trash. Its music right at home in the final era before thinking about politics and global catastrophe became a minute by minute task of every day. It's oddly depressing in a way that is so listenable, and it's quaint to think back on an era when society was so naive. Floral Shoppe takes the tones and timbres of this era and presents them in a way that accentuates how ridiculous we all were to think this would never all come crumbling down on our heads. The dial-up tone was the harbinger of doom, and once it got its hooks in us, we never had a chance.

Vektroid is hard at work on the next iteration of Macintosh Plus and a proper follow up to Floral Shoppe, but I wouldn't expect anything resembling this album on its way. From the initial single "Sick & Panic" released last year, it is clear that Macintosh Plus is heading into wild new territory. The best way I could describe the single is if a computer virus tried to play free jazz, while it was on fire. It's one of the most remarkable pieces of music I've ever heard for the very reason that it's asking us what a "song" even is at this point. How many more verse/chorus/verses do we need, isn't it time to branch out and achieve the cyberpunk future we've promised ourselves? Floral Shoppe initially set people's brains on fire because it dared to slow down a song by 70%, glitch it out and create something so obviously timeless. Vektroid is working on something just as revolutionary with this follow-up that has the potential to turn the music world on its head just like Floral Shoppe did when it was released. Like it or not, this is what the kids ten years ago were into, so get with the times old-timer. It doesn't make a ton of sense, and it's not asking for your permission to be hard to understand. Floral Shoppe can be a confusing and confounding listen, but once you give in to its charms, it is hard to pull yourself out of its draw. Vaporwave is the punk rock of its time. It is non-binary, been forced underground due it's liberal and unsanctioned sample usage, and it's taking hallmarks of conformity and rebranding them as rebellious cornerstones of this new wild west we call the internet. If you think Floral Shoppe is strange, go listen to "Sick & Panic" so you can hear what is coming next. I promise that much like Floral Shoppe - you've never heard anything like it.

Today as I edit this piece I wrote a week ago, Elon Musk has announced that his revolutionary brain to computer interface project Neurolink has a new motto: If you can't beat em, join em. Indeed Elon. It's just starting to get interesting.

2020 is the year I get into Michael Nesmith. The last album of his that I explored was And The Hits Keep On Coming earlier this year which featured only him and his fantastic pedal steel player Red Rhodes. It's a sparse collection of beautiful country songs that serves as a bit of an epilogue to his work with The First National Band. For those of you who are giving that a double-take, yes Micheal Nesmith of mega pop band The Monkees. After the insane success of The Monkees, Nesmith hooked up with The Flying Burrito Brothers and others in the burgeoning country-rock scene of the late 60s. Most of those in the scene reacted much the same as you probably are if you're prior knowledge of Nesmith is from his Monkees fame alone. But Nesmith, armed with killer country tunes, a devastating yodel, and a set of murderously cool Nudie suits, fit into the scene like a glove. He played around LA clubs in the late 60s and successfully allowed him to revamp his image into a country-western artist. The great thing about Magnetic South is that it's a band that is playing country music with a rock sensibility. It's the perfect blend of the two styles and is yet another lost classic from this genre that slots right into your record collection right in between Burrito Deluxe and Sweetheart of the Rodeo.

The country-rock coming out of LA in the 1960s was the pinnacle of the genre. There is a sense of excitement and danger to those records; listening to them feels like you're about to head to a party in Topanga or Joshua Tree with the top down in a red Cadillac. It's no surprise to me that as soon as you give these country guys some weed and they loosen up a bit, the records they make become classics. The musicians that played country music in the 60s were absolute virtuosos, but they were conforming to relatively rigid studio work on albums that were more or less bland at times. Not only does rock's reclamation of country feel more loose and fun, but it feels more authentic too. There are barn stomping songs on Magnetic South with absolutely wild and electric playing. But there are also more traditional songs like "The One Rose (That's Left in My Heart) that feel more akin to Gene Autry or Marty Stuart and country's more western roots. That song, in particular, feels like a much more fleshed out, polished version of the song "Wallflower," a fantastic Dylan outtake from around this same time.

At the risk of getting a bit inside baseball, and potentially trodding on some unspoken rules of the music industry, I'm going to shed a bit of light on one experience I had involving Michael Nesmith. Around the summer of 2018, I was a runner at Capitol Studios in Hollywood, and my duties were relegated mainly to getting food for artists, setting up microphones, doing grunt work, and generally being available for anything that anyone may need in the studio. Capitol is one of the last remaining AAA recording studios on Earth, with it's only remaining rivals being Electric Lady in New York City, Abbey Road in England, and a few others. Very few recording studios left offer the kind of experience you can find at Capitol, and because of that, Capitol attracts some of the most famous artists in the world to come work there. Dwight Yoakum was a regular at the studio and had finished several albums there before and during my time. He was extremely passionate in the studio, demanded a lot from us, and his team, and as a result, achieved great things in the studio. The guy is a legend like few others in the industry, and his country accolades are hard to match. One day, there was a live session booked to broadcast out live to satellite radio for Dwight, and I'd heard that Michael Nesmith was coming in. I was a bit flustered at the thought because literally, the only things I knew about him were that he was in The Monkees and that he had helped produce one of my favorite movies of all time, the 80s punk rock masterpiece Repo Man by Alex Cox. At the time, I thought maybe Yoakum was branching out into other kinds of music or who knows what, until I heard them play together. Nesmith and Yoakum sounded incredible together and ran through a list of songs in both of their repertoires, including several country-fried Monkees covers. It was a unique, fun group to be witness to, and Nesmith became quite the enigma to me.

Despite such a unique experience, I hadn't gotten around to these post-Monkees Nesmith albums until this year. I imagine soon I'll feature a few more of the First National Band albums, as my friends who help me compile these records insist that the later ones are equally incredible. The original late 60s country-rock greats are few and far between these days, and it's hard to believe more of them didn't flame out in a blaze of glory as Grahm Parsons did. What you learn listening to Magnetic South and others like it is that there was this period in history when two wildly divergent styles were forced together at the end of the continent for all our benefit. The same things that attracted the hippies to California were what attracted the cowboys. Wide, open spaces, and the promise of freedom to explore music and everything in between in beautiful country. There is something incredible about California, in that, you can stand on the beach and know that you're at the edge of the world. You can put your back against the ocean, grab a guitar, and live fulfilled in the knowledge that you've made it somewhere so few have reached in this life. This album may be called Magnetic South, but listening to it makes me feel magnetic west. God, I miss California.

When I was in high school, I was in various bands and groups that would rehearse out of my garage. At the time, I was ardently against any kind of drug use but was convinced that the only way to create interesting music was to get myself into a trance-like, zen state while playing. The band room quickly became equipped with black lights, strobes, laser lights, and I let anyone who wanted to come and paint on the walls of the garage (bless my parent's hearts). Playing music in this dark room, with lights flashing on and off, made communicating visually with the other band members difficult. But we found that what we lost in sightlines, we gained tenfold in pure synchronized musicianship. We felt we could be ourselves in the dark, we could explore things musically without each others' judging gaze. The only language needed was sound, and when one sound was proffered, another was offered up in response. It obviously led to magnificently fun jam sessions, and our band became known amongst our high school as a band who aren't necessarily "must-see" live but were experienced best during these weird rehearsals. We let loose, let cover songs become something new, and let our own music become something unrecognizable entirely at times. When I read that Spirit of Eden, the 1988 masterpiece by post-rock pioneers Talk Talk, was recorded in much the same way - I knew this record was going to be on to something great.

The recording of Spirit of Eden took place over six or so months after the band had been given a blank check and creative carte-blanche by their label EMI. This kind of thing is unheard of in the music industry, and strings are almost built into every facet of life for working bands. As part of this extraordinary agreement with EMI, Talk Talk barred any label A&R, executives, or any other liaisons from entering the recording studio. The band blacked out the lights in the recording studio and seemingly improvised the contents of the entire album. Various session musicians were brought in to record parts entirely in the dark, with maybe a strobe light as their only source of illumination. What results is the closest thing I have heard to brush strokes on canvas, or the aural representation of flying through the air. There is absolute weightlessness to these songs, aided in large part by the spacious quality of the recordings and from how every song seems to flow right into the next. At no point in Spirit of Eden would you be able to tell when one song ends, and another begins without looking at Spotify or the needle on your turntable. It's an incredibly ethereal sound, reminiscent of later period Radiohead but with much less pretense.

It's a bizarre change of pace for a band who only a few years before was seen as a kind of throwaway Duran Duran clone, playing new wave synth-pop like everyone else in the early 80s. Talk Talk removed every ounce of their former selves for Spirit of Eden and emerged as something entirely different, and wholly progressive musically. It's what you'd hope for from a band who were allowed to do whatever they wanted in the studio; just make art and be as creative as possible. Record labels are understandably hung up on marketing and how to sell music, as their jobs depend on it, and I wouldn't have wanted to be the EMI exec who gave Talk Talk the go-ahead to record this album. At no point is there a song that could even be edited into a single. Every song just flows from one musical tone poem to the next, from beginning to end. This album, which should come as a surprise to no one, led to legal disputes between the band and EMI. No doubt, the label had some interest in recouping their costs from an album that would prove to be impossible to sell. Ironically they helped produce an absolutely timeless sounding recording that will outlive almost all of the commercial drivel from the time they'd hoped this would have been. Short term profits versus long term success are the bane of every creative's existence, and team short term profits lost this round soundly.

Spirit of Eden is emotional, ambient, and extremely musical. It's an album of absolutely inspired musicianship on an almost subconscious level. It is miles and miles apart from their early synth-pop beginnings which it should be noted are so different that it almost feels unfair to compare them to each other. If you played Talk Talk's first album and then followed it up with Spirit of Eden, I'd guess every band on Earth before I arrived back at Talk Talk. It's a testament to the growth that can happen when artists are untethered from whichever direction the winds are blowing that particular day, and instead just make music. Being able to freely create is almost looked at as a luxury in musician circles, which is so ironic because it's precisely what fans of music are trying to pay us to do in the first place. Everything is so focused on the hustle, and which hat as musicians we're responsible for wearing that particular day. Do I have to promote my music? Should I book a gig? Wait we can't go outside, how do I make a Zoom video with my band? How many t-shirts have we made? How much does it cost to get our album pressed to vinyl? What do I do with these 500 CDs we haven't sold? Where are we rehearsing tonight? All of these questions used to be answered by either labels or managers. Now musicians themselves, who are not famous for their organization or business acumen, are required to take care of all of these issues on top of trying to be creative. Almost always last on the list of questions for the modern musician in 2020 is, "should I create music today?" It's an unfair, but necessary way of life for all working musicians, and the quicker you learn to juggle, the better off you'll be. All the more reason to celebrate documents like Spirit of Eden for the minor miracles that they are. As hard as it is as a working musician these days, it's now all the more important to create art first and foremost and commerce second. So turn the lights off, hide your phone, and just play.

I defy anyone who can put on Young Americans and not immediately start grooving to that title track. Young Americans was the first Bowie album I was exposed to when I was in high school by my girlfriend at the time. I remember seeing him on the cover looking back, and he had an undeniably infectious gaze, and his lightning red hair glowing behind him was just too good to be true. I remember thinking at the time that the only reason my girlfriend cared about Bowie was that she was probably in love with him, another celebrity teen crush to add to the pile of those I'd have to live up to. But then she pressed play, and my whole world changed. I've been an absolute diehard Bowie fan ever since, and I would still say that to this day Young Americans is the album of his I revisit the most often. It's just dripping with Philly soul and has some of Bowie's most passionate vocal performances. It's an album that features Bowie at one of his most defining musical crossroads: the end of glam and the beginning of blue-eyed soul. Somehow anytime Bowie hit one of these junctures in his career, he always chose the right path for the time. He anticipated - more likely established - musical trends, and his genius at this is no better showcased than on Young Americans.

Bowie took time off of touring in 1974 during his wild and over the top stage show for Diamond Dogs to go to Philidelphia and completely revamp his image and sound. He'd already killed off Ziggy, his status as an absolute god-like rockstar was set in stone, and his next move was highly anticipated. No one expected him to morph mid-tour, but after Philidelphia Bowie remerged with a sound that would develop for years to come. There are inklings of soul creeping in on Diamond Dogs like the blaxploitation-Esque funk of "1984," but he never again got as down in the funky dirt as he did on Young Americans. Luther Vandross famously came in during record production to help arrange vocal parts, and according to producer Tony Visconti, the album was 90% performed live in the studio. There is indisputable energy to these songs, and I think you can attribute that to the decision to record so much of the album as if Bowie were on stage at a local disco. It's lost on a lot of music fans how incredibly powerful Bowie's voice was in it's prime, and that much is showcased all over this album.Young Americans was Bowie, being Bowie, lost in the groove. No need to name any characters or present this with any concept like his albums before and after. The line he straddled between rock and soul was never more pronounced than this one, and his next album Station to Station was a complete melding of the two to the absolute fullest extent.

The Spiders From Mars may be Bowie's most famous band, but the group he puts together here would more or less stay with him and become his core group of sidemen into the 1980s. Carlos Alomar and Earl Slick add so much to Bowie's sound from this point forward and are invaluable on Young Americans. Producer Tony Visconti would be apart of nearly every Bowie triumph, and he should be recognized as the man behind the man in every sense. There was another very high profile guest appearance on Bowie's cover of "Across The Universe:" the writer of that particular song, and drunken madman, John Lennon. For my money, this version of the song is absolutely superior in every way, and Lennon's contribution to backing vocals is a complete emotional exorcism. You can hear the two of them letting loose and leaving everything on the table to showcase Lennon's song in the way it probably should have been all along. Lennon also contributes the famous and integral response vocal on "Fame," another monster of a funk track. Another crucial element to the album is the fantastic backing vocals led by Robin Clark, who had known Luther Vandross for years and was married to Carlos Alomar. At times her backing vocals are like a soft bed for Bowie's voice to rest its head-on, and other times she just erupts into powerhouse gospel-like performances. There is nothing like hearing Bowie's high falsetto and smooth vibrato over this incredible assembly of sounds.

There aren't enough good things to say about this album, not to mention all the things Bowie had to say himself. No song better encapsulates Bowie's thoughts on the trappings that would nearly do him in than in "Fame." Life through the lens of a limousine, late nights, drugs, sex, and everything in between. "Fame" is like a taste of what's to come with Station to Station, an album Bowie recorded under such heavy cocaine usage that he swears he doesn't remember a single moment of recording it. Young Americans began the period of his diet consisting entirely of milk, jalapeno peppers, and cocaine. It's a miracle that this wasn't his final album, and thank the rock gods it wasn't. Without Young Americans you don't get Station to Station, The Berlin Trilogy, certainly Lets Dance and probably not even Blackstar. This is the album where Bowie accepted black dance music as the primary driver of his sound. Everything he created was singular and unique, but everything he did after this album had the soul throughline up until the very end. His songs were too fun to dance to, and his voice was too pretty to keep him off Soul Train forever. Everything we love about the later period of his career began right here with Young Americans, much in the same way my love for his music did too.

Today we explore psychadelic music, from some of the earliest examples to the Fearless Freaks of today. Psychadelic music can take all forms, and these four are just a small sample of what the genre has to offer. Take a listen to these four records, and sound off in the comments below. Which psychadelic records do you want to see on this list?

Something about Austin, Texas brings all the freaks out from hiding. All sorts of wild cards from Daniel Johnston to Gibby Haynes of The Butthole Surfers, Stevie Ray Vaughan to Townes Van Zandt, and Janis Joplin have called Austin home. Lest we forget the king of all freaks, Alex Jones is also an Austinite. Austin is a magnet for those in search of the wild, unencumbered American spirit. Some get their fill but many others spend their lives chasing that dragon to their own detriment. There is a dark side to the raw freedom that Austin provides, and from the outside looking in most Americans would seal it shut rather than let it out. "Freedom" is what people think they want, but in reality, it has been reduced to a buzzword devoid of its potency and meaning. Americans want a version of freedom that is sanitized, with designated operating hours, and never colors outside the lines. People now chant "freedom" while trampling on the rights of others. The word has become a complete perversion of itself. What do we do with those that stray from the designated path? We throw them in the brig, as we find out was the tragic case for Roky Erickson. Austin may be the last place in The United States where all walks of life are walked and that originalist spirit is alive and well.

Roky Erickson's band The 13th Floor Elevators were a group of true originals hailing from Austin, Texas, and they practiced pure brainwave anarchy. They were a band that fiercely advocated the use of LSD and other outlawed mind-altering substances to expand consciousness and open pathways that are covered over by regular life. A band that was so influential that not only did their peers at the time ape off their sound but so did the punks ten years later thanks to Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965–1968 (compiled by Lenny Kaye who would later go on to play guitar for Patti Smith). The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators was released at the height of the freakout psychedelic era of the late 60s, and there is relative consensus that this album was the first to coin the term psychedelic as a musical descriptor. The San Francisco scene owes much to this album, and flower power may as well be a direct export from the 13th floor. It's an album full of thin electric guitars blasting through Fender Twins turned to 11, along with extremely liberal usage of reverb and an electric jug. Oh don't you worry, we'll get to the electric jug, trust me.

Where else could we have started from this week other than the very beginning? Groovy.

The 13th Floor Elevators were primarily made up of Roky Erickson (vocals, guitar), Stacy Sutherland (lead guitar), Tommy Hall (electric jug), and the temporary rhythm section of drummer John Walton and bassist Ronnie Leatherman. This quintet came together while most of them were under 20 years old and created music that is still to this day being replicated. The brew that makes up their sound is equal parts surf, garage, rock n' roll, and folk. Psychedelic music was a bridge between British blues-rock and the more sophisticated prog rock of the early 1970s, which fine-tuned and expanded upon the psych genre until it became something else entirely. Listening to The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators, you can clearly hear the influence on Big Brother and the Holding Company, Jefferson Airplane, The Doors, Led Zeppelin, Iggy Pop, and countless other 70s bands. This debut album sold well enough for the band to continue on to make two more albums. But ultimately they were a niche band for a niche scene with a short shelf life. By '69 the psychedelic sound had peaked, and in a decade where entire genres were shifting from month to month, three years wasn't a bad run. What makes The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators special is that it is basically the dictionary definition of the genre. You could start and end here and get a great idea of what the entire sound was all about.

Speaking of sounds, how about that electric jug huh? Upon first listening to this album, I thought maybe my chair was squeaking, maybe there was an issue with my speakers; what on Earth is that weird noise on every song? Tommy Hall may not be as well known as Roky Erickson, but he co-founded The 13th Floor Elevators, wrote many of their lyrics, and was the chief LSD evangelist in the group. He advanced the cause for LSD so hard that it actually pushed their original rhythm section out of the band due to them being uncomfortable with how far he was taking it. For me to describe how the electric jug came about would be a great example of the typical LSD thought process. "Dude, what if I was inside the jug??" The electric jug is not a Minimoog or any kind of synth, nor is it even inherently electric. It is a simple crock jug with a microphone placed inside of it, while Tommy Hall blows and vocalizes bizarre, rhythmic noises along with the band. By recording it this way his voice distorts and bends in such a way that is true blue sci-fi. It is unusual, to say the least. Now, this may sound like it would be annoying, but after a while of listening it really is a part of what makes this band so unique. You'd be forgiven if you mistook The 13th Floor Elevators for the myriad of other bands from the time if it were not for that damn jug. The electric jug is a crucial element of the sound of this band. Trust me, just follow along, we like the jug, it's fine.

The context surrounding the release of this album, specifically concerning Roky Erickson is fascinating. Roky and Tommy flew the LSD flag harder than most and were openly taking it on almost a daily basis. During one of these trips in 1968, Roky was arrested, placed in a psych(!) ward, and given involuntary shock treatment. Sounds terrifying right? It's straight out of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, but it really happened and was a grotesquely prevalent practice at the time. Shortly after Roky's release, he was again arrested after being caught with a single marijuana joint. This time he chose to plead insanity rather than go to prison for 10 years, which is an almost impossible choice to be faced with. Given his prior experience with these institutions, Roky chose what seemed to be the lesser of two evils. After numerous escape attempts and years of involuntary shock therapy and Thorazine treatments, he was finally released in 1972. Years of institutionalization and drug abuse led to a fractured life, albeit more productive than other acid casualties like Syd Barrett. Roky had a brief solo career restart in the 70s, again with little success. By the late 80s, he was arrested for stealing thousands of pieces of mail from people in the Austin community and plastering it all over the inside of his house. Once caught for this bizarre act, he avoided punishment due to his prior history of mental illness and the fact that he never actually opened a single piece of mail. After finally getting straight and receiving proper medical help for the first time in his life in the mid-2000s, Roky was able to launch a proper solo career which led to numerous tours and a few albums before he passed away in 2019. It's the rare happy ending for an acid burnout.

It's not hard to see how The 13th Floor Elevators are seen as local legends in the Austin area. These guys were imbued with the free spirit that most Americans see as a 6th sense you acquire once you're born in The United States. You may think they'd be more at home if they had been a part of the Haight/Ashbury scene, but their enshrinement as part of Austin history is right where they belong. They're in welcome company with the likes of Hunter S. Thompson, Ken Kesey, Wayne Coyne and other gonzos that took "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" literally and without remorse or hesitation. So is this a cautionary tale? Kind of. If there were a sliding scale between Daniel Johnston and Alex Jones I believe Roky and co. would fall firmly in the middle. They had good intentions and didn't exactly deserve the pain they went through, but they weren't heroes either. As with most things, it's a grey area. But very few things are as colorful or vibrant as *The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators.

Had The Beatles continued the notion they began on Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club instead of the assortment of various sounds the arrived at on The White Album, it would have sounded like S.F. Sorrow. A story of a man who is born, falls in love, goes to war, and watches his wife die in a balloon crash before going on an incredibly dark journey to the innermost hole of his psyche where he realizes that he serves no purpose as an old man. Very heavy stuff. The music is just as heavy, with some songs being absolute proto-metal, much in the same way "Helter Skelter" is. S.F. Sorrow is a masterclass of mixing and recording, with actual magic tricks being performed by the staff engineers at Abbey Road. It's an incredibly experimental and progressive album that was unfortunately swept under the rug in its time due to poor reviews and the fact that it was released the same week as The Kinks' Village Green Preservation Society and The Beatles' White Album. Sometimes there can be too much of a good thing, and S.F. Sorrow was truly undervalued in its time and was seen as a complete knockoff album. Surely psych fatigue may have set in, but even in 1968, the signs were on the wall for a shift in sound, and with its wild use of effects, dreamscape lyrics, and insane concept, The Pretty Things planted their freak flag with S.F. Sorrow. If this was the hill they would die on, then so be it. The Pretty Things made a remarkable album that proved to be massively influential to similar recordings that came after by The Who and Pink Floyd - and it might even be better.

S.F. Sorrow starts off with the song "S.F. Sorrow Is Born" which is the first chapter of the life of our protagonist. The peculiar thing about the narrative of this album is how much Tommy and The Wall borrow from it. Those albums now read as fantastic imitations of a concept that was set in stone years before Pete Townshend or Roger Waters had even conceived of their great works. That is not to disparage either of those albums, which are obviously fantastic; I just can't stop thinking about how different the history of rock music looks if this album got the kind of attention it deserved right from the outset. 70s prog used this album as a stepping stone, and it deserves to hold a unique place somewhere between Revolver, Piper At The Gates of Dawn, Tommy and The Wall. Even Dark Side of the Moon feels indebted to this album; the technical achievements by The Abbey Road engineers are nothing short of incredible. You don't get the sound of Dark Side without the advancements that were made here. Don't even get me started on the absolutely gorgeous album artwork that was created by lead singer Phil May. This was a complete thought unlike what most bands have, and it was executed flawlessly.

This album has guitars dancing all over the place, along with brilliant pads of organs and mellotrons. There are other 60s psychedelic hallmarks like sitars, tack pianos, and vocals wildly swirling out of a Leslie cabinet. But these elements do not sound dated; they actually add incredible depth and an exotic fever to these songs. The stereo image of the album is incredibly open, and the engineers play with every square inch of real estate between your ears. The pan knob is exercised with particular frequency, and imagining pulling off some of these things without automation is just hard to wrap my head around as a recording engineer. Drums will fly from left to right, in and out with reverbs and delays. Other times the entire band will be in one speaker while vocals are in the other, and something wild and unimaginable is swirling in the center. The audio truly has a mind of its own on S.F. Sorrow. If the goal is to recreate the psychic turmoil that can only be felt on an intense drug trip, S.F. Sorrow should be considered a hallmark for all acid tests moving forward. S.F. Sorrow was the first album Peter Mew engineered after being promoted from tape op at Abbey Road. The perfect sounds he gets from every element in each song shows that he believed he had something to prove. Given the incredible fidelity on this record, it should be no surprise that he later went on to become one of the chief mastering engineers at Abbey Road. Peter Mew may as well be another member of the band on S.F. Sorrow.

About a decade after this album was released Roger Waters completed work on his rock opera The Wall, another record about a disillusioned warrior with a dark vision of life. Listen to parts of "I See You" and tell me there aren't elements that were lifted directly from it for The Wall. Even in the 90's when The Pretty Things returned to Abbey Road's Studio 2 to perform the album live in its entirety, they employed the services of none other than David Gilmore to add lead guitar. Floyd was aware of this album, and this isn't some kind of "gotcha," it's just brilliant to be able to hear such a clear stepping stone for their development. This may be one of my favorite albums I've written about since this the genesis of Wax On Wax. The performances are fantastic, the recording and production are leaps and bounds ahead of most albums, and to top it off it has a concept that is years ahead of its time. It stumbled out the gate, but S.F. Sorrow is bound for another fantastic journey, much like S.F Sorrow himself. Only this time, I hope S.F. Sorrow isn't quite so lonely.

Those who have partaken know that Reefer Madness is bunk. It doesn't turn you into a lunatic, you're not going to jump out of any windows, and you surely won't have a mental breakdown if you use marijuana sparingly. Now, I can't say the same is true for other drugs already mentioned in previous pieces in this article, but weed is mostly harmless and legal in places governed by politicians with half a brain. The tragedy is that we have states in this country with billboards selling marijuana, while a vast percentage of those in jail in those states are incarcerated for marijuana. It's cruel, stupid, and archaic. Imagine being in prison for a joint right now while there are commercials on TV selling the very product you're incarcerated for? Time and circumstance can be devils. Gary Higgins was imprisoned for two years in the 1970s over his possession of a single joint, but in the days leading up to his incarceration, he created a beautiful album called Red Hash. It's a surprisingly serene and beautifully laid back collection of songs, made all the more aching by his looming prison sentence. Songs like "Thicker Than A Smokey" and "Cuckoo" are fantastical ballads, evocative of Tolkien and accompanied by wonderfully recorded cellos, mandolins, and acoustic guitars. Most copies of Red Hash spent their lifetime in Higgins' attic, and proper evaluation of the album didn't take place until it was rediscovered in 2005. It's a fascinating and dreamy journey created by a man whose freedom was in imminent danger.

Gary Higgins is a quiet man who mostly kept to himself. At the time, he had an enormous red beard, along with a wild red mane he hid behind that almost surely made him a mark for authorities. Even since the resurgence of this album, Higgins has still mostly shied away from any notoriety or spotlight. He's humbled, as any musician would be, for his music to be rediscovered and appreciated. Music like this is hard to come by, not just because it was lost. Most American folk music we're familiar with draws on southern music, and is basically proto country music in a sense. The music on Red Hash is positively druid-like. It's baroque music not really in content but definitely in spirit. It's a calming storybook sound more at home with Skip Spence or Vashti Bunyan rather than anything you'd find at a kool-aid acid test. Even the title Red Hash is evocative of warm early mornings, coffee, nature, reading, and peaceful quiet. I advise finding a similar setting once you sit down to listen. It's the kind of music that is perfect for contemplation, meditation, and connection.

I'm going to use the word "tragedy" to describe the circumstances surrounding Red Hash because I can't think of another way to put it. Higgins was arrested and sentenced to two years in jail for possession of marijuana, and in a rush of fewer than 40 hours, recorded what he thought would be his only album. In interviews, he mentions that the goal was just to get this material recorded because he knew his life was about to change forever. He was robbed of a potentially fruitful career in music, and in turn, we were robbed of what could have been many more beautiful albums with his unique voice. It seems jarring that something so peaceful could erupt from such an incredibly stressful point in time for Higgins. The weight that was bearing down on him is not evident in these songs, and it seems that in resigning himself to his fate, he was able to concentrate and deliver excellent performances. Higgins is just one example of the robbed potential of our country's historically disastrous drug policies. We find it reasonable to completely ruin someone's life over what is essentially nothing.

Red Hash is the dream I think every struggling musician has. Maybe they don't find success now, or even in this life, but someday their art will find its audience. It seems trite to bring up Vincent van Gogh, and even extreme, but I can't help but think that most artists would give anything to have even a modicum of his success in death if it meant that in life they had to toil on in relative anonymity. Luckily for Higgins he was rediscovered, and we all can appreciate his music while he is here, which is the bare minimum of what any artist of his caliber deserves. Higgins has gone on to perform live over the years and has even released a few new collections of music. It's a welcome return after spending a life forced to turn his back on the thing he was so clearly born to do. The small success he has found now is not adequate justice for the time he spent in prison, but it is welcome success none-the-less. Let Red Hash be a reminder to us all that people are more than their perceived transgressions, and that we as a society still have much to atone for.

I associate more incredible memories with The Flaming Lips than almost any other band. They are easily one of the top ten bands performing today that I believe you must see before you die, regardless of if you like their records or not. The Flaming Lips encapsulate the ideals of pure scattershot, no holds barred, creativity better than any before or since. They were a bunch of snotty punks in Oklahoma who took acid and proved to be too weird for the 80s or the 90s. They were never properly appreciated in their earlier years, but they also didn't start creating their best work until they'd been a band for nearly 20 years. Their run of records from The Soft Bulletin to Embryonic was so excellent and so fun, and I feel incredibly lucky to be a wildly impressionable teenager during that time. The DIY ethos that listening to this band helped instill in me was so crucial to my development, and they were a group of musicians that were unashamedly weird, and that was a selling point. Clouds Taste Metallic is actually one of the stranger records in their entire catalog because of how polished and conventional it can be. It's a really great 90s rock album that sounds almost like grunge if it didn't have such a chip on its shoulder. Grunge music often had a hard time having unironic fun, and I am glad for The Flaming Lips for that very reason. They fit the MTV mold well enough for a moment, but they came up before that and made their real fans after that entire medium dried up. They exist outside of anyone's notion of what they're supposed to be, even their own, and that is especially true on Clouds Taste Metallic. This would prove to be the last album they'd release before they drastically changed their sound, lost and gained a few members, and underwent a complete creative shift.

The albums that directly precede and follow Clouds Taste Metallic tell the whole picture of where they were at while they created this record. The album before was 1993's Transmissions From a Satellite Heart, which scored them a mild hit single with "She Don't Use Jelly." The song is perfect Beavis and Butthead material, and the video ate up the airwaves that year and showed that The Flaming Lips finally had hit their stride. Their album after Clouds, depending on who you ask, is either one of the worst records ever made or one of the coolest listening experiences one could ever encounter. That album was called Zaireeka, and I fall firmly in the latter category. Zaireeka was a quadruple album that was meant to have all four CDs played in sync all at once. One CD would have vocals and guitar another would only have drums, another would have bass and reverb, etc. The idea was to get a group of people together and try and sync them up as best you could on four different sound sources. What resulted, due to playback drift between sources, or even just human error, was a completely unique listening experience every time you listened to the album. If CDs 1 & 3 were slightly out of sync, you might hear the reverb from a drum hit before the drum actually hits on the other CD. Guitars and vocals drift in and out, and instruments find ways to combine in ways you'd never think of doing intentionally. It's truly an incredible experience to listen to, not to mention how intoxicating it is being in a room with four pairs of speakers. When my friends and I listened to Zaireeka, we had CD 1 playing through my Playstation 2 on a big TV, CD 2 playing through a regular stereo, CD 3 playing through a boombox, and CD 4 playing through my laptop with a bullhorn up to the tiny speakers. It was incredible, and I'd give nearly anything to go back and listen that exact way again, but such is the beauty of Zaireeka and in turn, The Flaming Lips.

I saw The Flaming Lips the first time on "New Year's Eve, Eve" at the Bill Graham Auditorium in 2006. Cat Power and Gnarls Barkley at the height of "Crazy" opened for The Lips, and up to that point, it had already been one of the best one-two punch concerts I'd ever seen. The Flaming Lips then lowered a huge circular light display rig down towards the stage, and it soon became clear what it was: a giant UFO. On top of this, the cockpit of the "UFO" was a bubble full of smoke, inside which was no doubt our fearless leader Wayne Coyne. Before any band members emerged from the craft, a cavalry of superheroes emerged from the ship. The bubble rolled forwards to the edge of the UFO and leaped into the audience. Wayne Coyne rolled right over the top of me, I'm positive in my effort to hold him up above my head, I grabbed his wallet through the bubble. The rest of the band emerged and blasted into "Race For The Prize" and when I tell you that in the chaos of bubbles, lasers, balloons, superheroes, UFOs, and psychedelic ecstasy swirling around me that I truly felt alive for the first time... you better believe me. The Flaming Lips played amazing, thought-provoking music that made you understand how beautiful it is that we're all pieces of dust floating through the universe with the capability to love each other. They played "Bohemian Rhapsody," and yeah, I just about died. The concert ended with literal canons of confetti being shot while what had to be 20,000 balloons fell at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve "Eve." An incredible night that I'll never forget for the rest of my life.

That concert was a solid ten years after Clouds Taste Metallic was released, and their sound had drastically changed in the interim, but what hadn't changed was how good they had gotten at articulating their freakout sound onto tape. Zaireeka is the real beginning of how experimental they would really become, but their run of great records began with this one. It took them longer than most to learn how to properly craft an album, write great songs, innovate, and most importantly, bring all those elements together while still maintaining what made them such a uniquely great band. Clouds Taste Metallic showed how much promise they really had as a group and is the sleeper album in their entire discography. It was around this time that drummer Steven Drozd had an immense heroin addiction, but also emerged as not only an incredible drummer but also the most formidable musician in the group. Wayne Coyne decided to go even deeper than before into psych weirdness and really separated himself from most rock stars and became basically a living art installation. Clouds Taste Metallic was the crux in the road at which The Flaming Lips had peaked with their 90s rock sound and instead decided to double down on the freak weirdness they've become so notorious for.

Recently in the leadup to their new album, Wayne Coyne has mentioned that he had always thought of The Flaming Lips as "an Oklahoma band," but that they are now starting to look at themselves in the larger pantheon of great American bands like The Grateful Dead. Personally, I couldn't agree more with that, and I think whether you like them or not, the fact that they have graduated beyond a cult band and into one of the great live rock acts ever is indisputable. Not to mention that their records are continuously inventive, creative, innovative, and consistent. The Flaming Lips take the dread of existence and make you understand how lucky we are to even feel pain or anything else at all. You don't need drugs for that, you just need some level of understanding how much you'll never understand. The first time I listened to The Flaming Lips was in Hawaii for my older brother's wedding. I was 15 years old, and I purchased At War With The Mystics, and The Velvet Underground & Nico specifically for that trip. Somehow I thought the vibrant colors on the cover of this Flaming Lips record, and the pop art happy banana on the cover of & Nico would be the perfect fit for the lush overgrowth and picturesque beaches of Hawaii. I found out quickly that I was half right, and At War With The Mystics baptized me into the world of psychedelia like nothing ever before. I've been a major fan of the entire genre ever since. Psych truly knows no bounds, no borders, and no limits, and The Flaming Lips are living proof of that. They're the torchbearers of it all at this point, and I am so ready to get weird at a Flaming Lips show as soon as the current weirdness we're all living under is over.

The period between about 1987 and 1995 was a really crazy time in music. Seattle took the world by storm and foisted its scene on the world in a big way in what would turn out to be one of the last times a music city would dictate the taste of culture so considerably. The Seattle sound was inescapable, and for every Nirvana, Pearl Jam, or Alice n' Chains, were a hundred other bands who put out great records that were swept under the rug. In some cases, these bands had notoriety at the time, but have maybe since been a little forgotten. Even more interesting were some who used their early 90's bands' as a springboard for mainstream success with their more popular groups later on. Today we take a look at four such albums. Hit the comments below and let me know your thoughts on these four, and what records you think should have been on this list.

Kyuss is pure, animal sludge. The band's guitarist Josh Homme notoriously tuned his Ovation GP to drop C and only played through bass amps to get the thickest, most subterranean tone possible. That should give you a slight idea of what you're in for with Blues for the Red Sun. It's Black Sabbath back from the dead as if they got their start in '89 instead of '69. Kyuss is the progenitor to Queens of the Stone Age, and it should not surprise you that this album is riff city and contains absolute monster, headbanging Hessian guitars on every song. If Blues for the Red Sun is hitting you as it should, don't be surprised if you start breaking things, or driving too fast (hopefully not at the same time). This album puts you right in the dry Palm Desert of California, where it was recorded and the "Stoner Metal" moniker was famously coined for legions of copycat bands to follow. I've never quite gotten why it's called stoner metal. Maybe it was a time and place thing, I'm sure I had to be there, but Blues for the Red Sun does not make me want to smoke weed. If I smoked weed while listening, would it unlock some secret to this album I've yet to uncover? Who knows, I don't think it matters. What I do know is that Blues for the Red Sun brings metal all the way back to its Sabbath roots, and it rules.

I discovered this album through what I would imagine was a common way for people who were given musical hand-me-downs from their older Gen-X family members or friends. My older brothers got me deep into grunge rock, and by the time I was 13, I'd basically exhausted every single Nirvana album about 1000x over. Through my desperation in chasing one more hit of the Cobain dragon, I moved on to the next best member of the band: Dave Grohl. Foo Fighters are fun and are fantastic live, but they were a little too tongue in cheek to properly scratch my Nirvana itch. It wasn't until after searching through every Nirvana related Wikipedia page imaginable that I was shocked (and stoked) to discover Grohl was playing drums in a different band. Queens of the Stone Age entered my brain, and in an instant, usurped the throne as my favorite band. Immediately I dug into everything in their catalog, which in 2003 was only three albums. I was again in the same spot I was in with Nirvana. Cue more desperate wiki searches and voila! Kyuss was now punishing the tiny speakers in my Prius every day on my way to high school.

Blues for the Red Sun blew my mind the first time I heard it. Why after Black Sabbath did so many metal bands go out of their way not to play that dirty, dark, sludgy kind of metal the genre was founded on? Sabbath was always treated more as a launching off point, not an anchor. Maybe it was out of deference to such a great band, maybe there was no point in trying to even imitate Black Sabbath, but metal had kind of lost its way by the 90s. Sure there was Slayer and Metallica, but for every good metal band, you had a thousand hair metal bands that really diluted the landscape. Metal needed a new beginning after Metallica made The Black Album, and Kyuss was that blood-red reset button. Blues for the Red Sun pays homage to the pure roots of the metal genre while remarkably pushing the style forward as no other record had done at that time.

One of my favorite things about Queens of the Stone age is that they more or less change band members after every album, and no album sounds the same as the one before it. Listening to Blues to the Red Sun is like hearing a dry run of Songs for the Deaf, which is high praise. The later record, in my opinion, is one of the best rock records ever made, and as a musician it's a relief to see that 'Rome wasn't built in a day,' so to speak. Both records are similarly bare and feature a no-frills recording style that has every instrument clear and upfront. Well - as clearly as you can present these mudslide riffs. Homme's signature sound was perfected on Songs for the Deaf, and that journey clearly began here.

Blues for the Red Sun did not sell well when it arrived in 1992 despite the band touring in support of Metallica and some of their videos being featured on MTV. I can't help but think that there was just a glut of good music in 1992, which was possibly one of the best years for music in history. Music fans were drowning in great stuff by Seattle bands, not to mention all of the incredible hip hop emerging out of New York and LA. It's not surprising to see that even a landmark record like this could get lost in the shuffle of the early 90s. Blues for the Red Sun was almost immediately canonized into the Heavy Metal Hall of Fame by critics, but was received like a cult album by fans. It only sold 39,000 copies when it was first released. It took a while for these divergent receptions to reconcile, but now it is firmly in its place among the great metal records of all time. This is not a Queens of the Stone Age record, but all the major players are here. I left the Prius running, hop in nerd. LET'S RAWK.

Golden Smog was a club fixture in Minneapolis in the late 80s and early 90s. Early in the band's conception, they would play annual all cover sets of The Eagles or The Rolling Stones. They were the kind of loveable country pub rock band that every city has, except this band of locals comprised members of The Jayhawks, The Replacements, Big Star, Soul Asylum, and Wilco. Their debut album Down By The Old Mainstream has the loose fun vibe of early 90s Petty and other 70s country-rockers who set out for easy pastures in the 90s. Golden Smog is coasting on this album, but don't let that scare you away. This album is easy and fun, just like any night out at the local watering hole should be. Down By The Old Mainstream doesn't try too hard to impress, because it doesn't need to. This album sounds timeless and classic in a way that most music made in the 90s never could.

Golden Smog is a band that served as either a rest stop or a launching pad, depending on which members you ask. The lineup rarely stayed the same and was always in flux, and the odd cover song was never frowned upon. Speaking of, keep an ear out for "Glad & Sorry" from our old friend Ronnie Lane (WOW#4), an excellent cover featured on this album. For some members, Golden Smog surely was just a fun side quest, something to keep their songwriting muscles strong and their guitar chops intact between albums from their main bands. Wilco's Jeff Tweedy shows up on bass, guitar, and vocals, singing lead on "Pecan Pie" and the last song "Radio King." Tweedy surely was focused on his other band during this time, with this album slotting in between Wilco's first two fantastic releases. After the slow sales of A.M. Tweedy may have used this album as a way to refresh before Wilco's next (and more successful) outing, Being There. He may have been licking his wounds a bit, but Tweedy's presence is a welcome and natural fit in this group.

One of the crucial elements of Down By The Old Mainstream is how collaborative it feels, with almost every member of the band getting a chance to sing lead on each song. Tweedy was the new guy in the band on this record and isn't leaned on as heavily as he would be if Golden Smog had gotten their start a few years after this. The collaborative style really gives this set of songs a rock-solid cohesion that is catchy from start to finish. This kind of co-mingling was essential for them to craft the 'not quite last call' anthems that are found throughout this record. You'll hear the band all jump on a track and sing together as often as you'll hear one of them featured, and this is critical to get the regular’s head from up off the bar. Down By The Old Mainstream is also fantastically recorded, and is reminiscent of its more lauded 70s counterparts like Zuma or American Beauty. There is an undeniable reel to reel-ness of the sound here, brought to light by the famous Pachyderm Studios during its first and most successful incarnation. If Pachyderm rings a bell that is because this was the studio where Nirvana recorded their album In Utero with Steve Albini. The Neve 8068 console at Pachyderm is the same console that graces Capitol Studio B in Hollywood and Electric Lady in New York, and it is an instant vibe. That console may as well be an extra member of the band and is worth its weight in gold.

Down By The Old Mainstream is a fun and lighthearted set of songs that would be welcome amongst any folk-rock lover's collection. It has the easy-breezy vibe you wish life could have if everything wasn't so 9-5. It is timeless and sounds completely divorced from the time it was made, to its benefit. If someone had told me this album had been released in 1977 I would have believed them, there is nothing that ties this album to the trends at the time, which was deliberate. Golden Smog was one of the earliest groups to recognize that rock music had moved away from its folk/rock/blues roots and was now being taken over by punk and hardcore. They were a reaction to that reality and became a hub for many talented members of this new alt-country genre they helped spawn. Pour me another and flip the record, because I can't get enough of Down By The Old Mainstream.

Right out of the gate Mezcal Head, the long out of print 2nd full-length LP by English band Swervedriver, hits hard. It's the shoegaze missing link between Oxford haze and Seattle grunge. The initial blast of guitars is like a mix of period era Radiohead meets Stone Temple Pilots, with a little Smashing Pumpkins whipped in. "Last Train To Satansville" could be the long lost ancestor to Julian Casablanca and The Strokes, and it's the definite standout song amongst these tracks. Mezcal Head is drenched in guitars, effects pedals and sonic madness not to mention found sounds of motorcycles, engines, and outdoor that weave in and out with the wild guitar playing of Adam Franklin and Jimmy Hartridge. The band suffered from frequent lineup changes and label issues that stunted their success despite a string of good releases. They're the kind of band that just couldn't catch a break after they had caught their break. The addition of fame, touring, scheduling, egos, personality clashes, and middlemen sunk the initial incarnation of the group. But Mezcal Head stands as their grungy obelisk to this day.

It's hard not to get a sense that Swervedriver was in the right place at the wrong time, multiple times. The UK rivaled the US with their own early 90s rock scene. Swervedriver shared a city with Radiohead and no doubt benefitted from the bright light being shined on Oxford at the time, and they also toured with The Smashing Pumpkins, and Soundgarden. They were right in the middle of these two huge scenes developing while they were at the height of their powers, but were unable to fully capitalize on it. Even later during the Britpop explosion in the UK, post-grunge, internal infighting over which single to release or not release compounded with rights issues over lyrics led to the ultimate demise of the band before they reunited in 2008. This is a story that could be told a hundred times over about countless bands that got a little too close to the sun and burned out. That may be a bit of an unfair characterization, but taking a birds eye view of their career you get the sense that Swervedriver was this close to hitting it really big. It's unfortunate because the music holds up.

It should be noted that this record was mixed by Alan Moulder, and was one of his earliest successes. His contribution can't be understated here, and looking at his discography after this album makes Mezcal Head look like a template he was to follow for decades. His career is littered with huge albums by Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins, My Bloody Valentine, Arctic Monkeys, and numerous other hard rock bands. The guy is almost single-handedly responsible for the sound of hard rock radio in the 90s and 00s. His production here gives the band space to be themselves, and yet adds polish to the entire production that is welcome for such grimey arrangements. At times it is hard to know where Moulder's studio effects begin and the guitar pedals of Franklin end, which is by design. At times the songs are completely drowning in huge, bombastic, stir-crazy effects; it's a huge part of the sound of this record and Moulder provides the perfect architecture for it.

Ultimately, Mezcal Head will scratch your early 90s itch with ease. Its as much a shoegaze album as it is grunge, with a dash of early Britpop thrown in for good measure. The band has tons of EPs from around this time that contain some of their best material and their debut album is nothing to scoff at either. Mezcal Head is Pablo Honey if it was good. Radiohead moved on from this sound pretty quickly and ultimately abandoned it altogether, but Swervedriver shows here on Mezcal Head that Radiohead never gave it a solid go-to begin with. This album is full of creativity, big guitars, and is an excellently recorded period piece from the early 90s UK rock scene. The sonic fuzz assault is worth the price of admission alone.

When I first moved to Boston in 2009, I lived alone. I had decided to go against doing the dorm thing (which I'm not sure if I regret or not), and I lived in a studio apartment for my first year. I had an iPod loaded with 120gbs of music, a pair of headphones, and my own two feet for walking, and that's what I did. I would throw on some tunes and walk around the beautiful back streets by myself night after night. Being in Boston, especially in the late fall and winter, is serene. At night, Back Bay slows down enough to really take it in and breathe with the people that live in the neighborhood, and it's a different pulse entirely. I was too young to go to bars, but I would walk by them and imagine getting swept up in some weird adventure if I could sneak by the doorman. Boston has a rich history, and everywhere you're reminded of another bygone era through statues, ancient brownstones, and long forgotten graveyards. I'd find myself listening to Billie Holliday, Julie London, and very often Tom Waits just to help me get swept up in the romance and unsettling aura of the city at night. Often times I'd arrive back at home after midnight, feet hurting, and still feeling pretty empty and anxious about the life decision I'd foisted onto myself. So I'd throw on an old Hitchcock film, maybe Sergio Leone, and finally, fall asleep right before the sun came up. In addition to a lot of the jazz and soundtrack music I'd discovered while at Berklee, I had also just found The Wu-Tang Clan, so let's just say shuffle mode on my iPod could get really interesting really quickly. Each night walk I took through the city had a different flavor depending on what turned up on the iPod that night. Dummy lives somewhere between Ennio Morricone, Bjork, Dr. Dre, and those cold Boston shuffles. It's a sublime amalgam of torch singer jazz, and hip hop, all set to an incredible, cinematically spooky sample backdrop. The music on Dummy makes you feel like a character in Magnolia, or Punch Drunk Love. Its emotional, kind of scary, incredibly hip, and it makes me want to take another one of those walks more than ever.

Portishead had an incredibly creative partnership in creating the music for Dummy. Their idea was to make a hip hop record but to use samples of music they had recorded themselves. According to them, they made music, had it pressed to vinyl, and then intentionally walked on, scratched and scuffed up the discs to give them a bit more of that fuzzy 'record I found in a dumpster' kind of sound. There are plenty of other regular pop music samples on this record as well, most notably being Issac Hayes on the final track, but it's not used in the way you'd think. It's an incredibly downtempo style of hip hop found on this record, and you can hear how this album influenced so much in the years following. The crackles, noise, and intentional degradation of the sounds on this record especially bring to mind the current VHS 'a s t h e t i c' found in contemporary genres like vaporwave, and other lo-fi hip hop beats for chilling and or studying to. Dummy is leaving the TV on all night, falling asleep to infomercial reruns with a bong and a messy life strewn about your cluttered apartment. It's the feeling you get when you may have taken too much when you might just need to sit down until the dizzy wears off. It's slightly dismal, but fun in that self-destructive kind of way that can happen when you fall in love with being sad all the time. Its hip hop for goths.

Lead singer Beth Gibbons is pitch-perfect. Her voice glides above this material like a high wire act set to half speed, and she sets the tone for the music with her beautiful but melancholy lilt. Listening to her voice straight away makes me think of Thom Yorke and how I don't even have to know to know that he must be a massive fan of Portishead. Dummy reminds me more of Radiohead of recent than Radiohead in the 90s, almost as if that band wanted to double back and make sure they didn't miss out on mastering any trends that they forgot about. Beth Gibbons' voice is like the sonic baby of Yorke and Bjork. "Bjyorke," if you will. All that, really to point out how huge of an influence Portishead has had on so much incredible music. This album launched an entire genre/scene with trip-hop. Dummy essentially led the way for a whole group of kids that grew up with The Cure and Public Image Ltd but learned how to play a Roland 808 instead of a Stratocaster. Dummy is the initial thread that has led us to the Ableton-ization of the music the pervades Bandcamp and Youtube today. That Portishead managed to make an album in 1994 that still sounds contemporary today in 2020 is nothing short of magic, or maybe it again just shows how important they are to music as a whole.

I don't know where we are without albums like this one, albums from The Dust Brothers, albums by DJ Shadow, etc. They mashed up all of our culture's best music and re-presented it as something new. They were able to visit the past, return to the present, and show us the future. Dummy is a fantastic jumping-off point for bands like Massive Attack, Bjork, Radiohead, DJ Shadow, and so much other great music that came out before and after it's release. Without Dummy showing that hip hop can be about whatever it wants to be about, do we have Kanye West wearing pink polos and rapping about decidedly not gangster themes ten years later? Maybe not, but I can see it. Every time hip hop expands its wing's it's bound to sweet up new groups of people, and in turn, create totally new subcultures and genres. I defy anyone who listens to this album to not feel creative, so follow that bug in your brain that is telling you to out for a walk with Dummy and be the star of your own melodrama, like I wish I had done in '09.

This week on Wax On Wax we are exploring some of our favorite collaboration albums. Artists coming together to meld styles, and redirect each other's creativity can result in amazing music. I often look to film as a place where true collaboration takes place, as there are so many moving pieces. Musicians and bands can often lose this, be it from a producer taking over a project or the lead songwriter assuming control. Bands like The Beatles are rarer and rarer these days, where you might have a group of three or four songwriters coming together to push and pull each other into something unique. We've got some very interesting records to check out this week, let's dive in.

If you've ever experienced the ecstasy of true musical discovery with another person, you'll have a good starting place for My Life In The Bush of Ghosts, David Byrne's first solo album recorded with Brian Eno between Talking Heads releases in 1980. There is a certain amount of freedom and excitement that comes from tackling a new musical project with a collaborator. You realize how you complement each other, the strengths you bring to each recording, and what can sometimes come from wild abandon into uncharted territory. The music on this album is almost completely sample focused, in fact, its release was delayed by several months while lawyers scrambled to seek all the copyright clearance necessary for its debut. It's an album of extraordinary displays of tape looping, editing, mixing, performance, and creativity. David Byrne brings his brand of afro-nerd-funk to its zenith and combined with the seemingly unending soundscape textures of Brian Eno, this album screams out of the speakers.

My Life In The Bush of Ghosts was recorded between the Talking Heads releases Fear of Music and Remain In Light though it was released after due to copyright clearance issues. This album is the perfect prelude to Remain In Light, an album that features loose jams by the band which are sampled, cut up, and used as the base for David Byrne's vocals. The difference on this album is it's so clear that Eno and Byrne had yet to perfect any of the techniques that would later show up on Remain In Light. Everything they are doing here feels very exploratory but edited with extreme precision. Looping drums, sampling esoteric spoken word recordings, and combining samples was virtually unheard of at the time. Albums like this, due to all of the rights and usage issues involved, are unicorns. They only come along every once in a while, because the music industry has made it more and more difficult to get away with something like this. The only album that may leapfrog this one in sample usage is the Beastie Boy's Pauls Boutique which famously had so many samples that the courts basically said: "We'll let you get away with this ONE time, but after this, there will never be another album like this again". For the most part, despite hip hop being extremely sample-based, we've yet to see many widely released albums that rely on sample usage as the primary driver quite like this one does.

Byrne described the samples on this record as "the lead singer" and as far as I can tell neither he nor Eno show up on this record vocally. Instead what we hear are radio DJ excerpts, rhythmic chants, noises, found instruments, and a group of Lebanese mountain singers. The original release of this album featured a track called "Qu'ran" which showcased said mountain singers chanting passages from The Qu'ran. The Islamic Council of Great Britan requested the removal of the song after the first pressings of the album were already sent out, and subsequent editions of the album do not feature this song. I was delighted to find out my vinyl copy of this album contained that track which would make my copy one of the earliest that saw release.

Side B of the album slows down considerably and I would consider this to be the point where Brian Eno truly is able to stretch his wings as an essential element of the album. The songs become much less funky and more akin to his ambient recordings from around that time. The way these two color each other's contributions is fascinating. A song like "Mountain of Needles" has that indelible Eno expansiveness, but is anchored to the earth by the ever present rhythm of David Byrne. And likewise, the more funky Byrne songs on the first side are made all the more weird and wonderful by Eno.

There aren't enough good things to say about this album. It may not be for everyone, and it may take a bit of prior familiarity with Talking Heads and Brian Eno to completely grasp and enjoy. But if you can wrap your head around the music contained on this record it can really open your mind to the endless possibilities of what an album can be. All genres are on the table, all sounds are usable, and nothing is too weird. Plus you can dance to it. It's a nearly perfect album from two of music's most cherished creatives and we are all the more fortunate that they came together to make it.

Listening to Painted From Memory, the 1998 collaboration between Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach is midnight heartache in the elevator, heading back home after another long look at the bottom of the glass. Bacharach's signature muted horns, and classical 60s style arrangements work surprisingly well as a showcase for Costello's powerful and dynamic voice. You can hear a concerted effort in the production to make it sound like a record out of time. In no way does this scream 1998 but it should be noted that there is inherent cheese present in this kind of adult contemporary, 'late nights with Delilah' style. But every piece of Bacharach schmaltz is balanced well by Costello's cool. Save for a few shimmering keyboards, this album is clearly throwing back to Bacharach's lounge heyday with success more or less. Nothing on this album soars to quite the same heights as their most famous work, but they both manage to bring out the best in each other.

This album is Elvis Costello with Burt Bacharach, and that is very much felt. These songs are all showcases for Elvis done more or less on Bacharach's home turf. The album features a full band along with backup singers, horns, and even strings on some tracks. Painted From Memory is very melancholy, and is a surprising turn for two musicians who at their best can be so fun to listen to. The fun here is finding where and when the two of them combine and how their styles mesh to form a very odd balance between Elvis's new wave and Bacharach's baroque lounge. It is an odd pairing at first glance but the more you listen the more you realize that these two were a natural fit for each other, especially at this juncture in their careers. The album is a late-night bender, down, out, and hopeless; full of "what could have beens" running through your mind. Supposedly the two of them composed the album by sharing 3am voicemails with each other over less than a week. The late-night writing sessions bleed into the feel of the recordings. Listen with the lights low.

Elvis's vocals are noticeably dry and upfront on these recordings, which does well to show off just how remarkable of a singer he is. Elvis Costello has always struck me as more than the product of his initial surroundings. Yes, his early work with The Attractions was perfect new wave punk, but even then it was clear the craftsmanship in the songwriting and arrangements was so much more ambitious than that of his contemporaries. Costello has always felt to me like he was closer to singer-songwriters like Springsteen, Dylan, and Tom Petty, rather than Joey, Johnny, and Dee Dee. That being said, this album is so chock full of ballads that it makes you want to give the guy a hug, put a guitar in his hands and say "Dude, you're Elvis Costello. Cheer up, let's play some rock and roll." However, the worst thing you can do as a music fan is pigeon-hole an artist like Elvis Costello. What makes him so fascinating and loveable as a songwriter is how diverse and wide his influences and musical pursuits can be. A side tangent into an hour of moody ballads is welcome more than it needs to be forgivable.

Bacharach falls into the background tapestry of the album, and his influence is felt almost more as a producer than a co-writer. These songs take Elvis's strengths as a vocalist and recontextualize them into heartwrenching ballads. There are plenty of clear flourishes of Bacharach, from the big, expansive pianos, to the lush orchestration, and instrumentation. You can tell Elvis knew that there was only one way to make a Bacharach album and that was to go out and get the man himself. Bacharach gives the arrangements a real sense that there is a composer behind this material. These songs feel like they were put to pad and paper, and at times have the energy usually only found in a classical orchestra. Bacharach is the conductor to Elvis's 1st Chair Violin.

I don't think this album is for everybody, nor is it for any time. But if you'd like to hear two masters intertwined in an incredibly natural way, you can do worse than this. These two had a clear purpose and intent behind the writing and recording of this album and they succeed at all of their goals. Bacharach sounds like his mid-century self, and Costello is put forward to shine like the punk rock Bocelli that he apparently is. All artists should be afforded the ability to wear their hearts on their sleeves and to occasionally cut that sadness vein and let the heartache bleed out. Clearly, these two found camaraderie and a bond through those mid-career blues that eventually come for everyone, no matter how great they are or how fun they once were. Painted From Memory is a slightly frustrating but beautiful album, and a rare exposed nerve from an artist like Costello.

The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard & Clark is the country-rock album that truly started it all. Before The Band, Dylan, The Flying Burrito Brothers, and many others broke through with their own additions to the scene in the late 60s, I am fairly confident they were all listening to this album. It's really the first true intersection of country, rock, and folk turning into what we now know as "Americana" which has since become kind of an umbrella term for all music that can trace its lineage back to the American heartland. Clark and Dillard are top-notch, but with bassist Bernie Leadon co-writing so many great songs I think that this album should have been credited to Dillard, Clark & Leadon. They are a formidable trio with formidable accolades. Gene Clark of course had just left The Byrds (after shortly rejoining and then leaving again), Doug Dillard had stints in multiple fantastic bluegrass bands, and Bernie Leadon famously went on to join The Flying Burrito Brothers and co-found The Eagles after Dillard & Clark dissolved. The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard & Clark is as accessible as it is exceptional, and if you haven't pressed play already go ahead and do so now.

If you've ever been around musicians sharing beers, sharing acoustic guitars, and sharing verses you'll have a pretty good idea of what this album is like. It's the magic of supremely talented musicians in an informal setting, playing for fun. It's indescribable in a way. Party by The Beach Boys has this quality, even many of the MTV Unplugged albums share this undergirding of excitement. The performances are no less impressive because of how laid back everything is, in reality, they sound effortless. It's like being on a back porch singing songs with your dog, or passing a guitar around a bonfire with friends. There is a musical kinship between the artists in this music that shines through.

When I was in college in Boston, my friends and I used to host these musical jam sessions that we dubbed "Bluegrass Night". Never once did we actually play bluegrass, but we played music that owed part of its spirit to bluegrass. We'd drink, laugh, and sing at the top of our lungs while singing Dylan, Creedence, Neil, Hank Williams, you name it. It was a great way to loosely explore the boundaries of our musicianship without feeling like you're walking the plank in front of an audience. Our audience was each other, and a flub during a guitar solo elicited as big of a laugh as a good one drew cheers. These are the magic moments between musicians that are rarely captured, and cannot really be replicated in a recording studio setting. Well, most of the time and I think you know what I'm getting at.

It's mind-boggling that I haven't heard this album before, as this kind of music is right in my wheelhouse. After doing some cursory research, it turns out there is a reason for the obscurity of this set of songs. They botched the release. Aside from a short stint at famed LA venue The Troubador, there was virtually no support for this album upon its release. Gene Clark reportedly had anxiety about flying which put the kibosh on any tour plans. The album has since fallen into the nebulous category of "musician's music", and only the nerdiest of genre-heads sing its praises. Dillard & Clark recorded a 2nd much less heralded album before ultimately going their separate ways but not before this album left its mark. The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard & Clark truly deserves a 2nd life, and with songs like these, I believe it's only a matter of time before it does.

Rough Mix almost wasn't a collaboration. Ronnie Lane of Small Faces fame asked Pete Townshend to produce his next album in the mid-70s and after some back and forth with Townshend also looking to realize his next batch of songs, the two joined forces and hired Glyn Johns to produce a joint effort. What results is almost a non-collaboration-collaboration. The two alternate songs on the tracklisting, and wind up having different ideas for what this album should be. Its a "Rough Mix" if you will (I can leave, it's fine). Ronnie Lane seems to be trying to make a more country-bluegrass record, and Pete Townshend is using his set of songs to explore his brand of The Who-lite. Despite their divergent focus what is surprising is how cohesive it winds up being anyway. The reason for this is not just that Ronnie and Pete are on every song, it is the other all-star collaborators that they bring in that really pull the album together. This album has country, bluegrass, boogie, blues, and rock. It's everything you'd expect from this group of players and more. It doesn't sound forced, but it's two guys knowing they are going in different directions trying to pull together, with compelling results.

This album features contributions from Eric Clapton, John Entwistle, Boz Burrell (King Crimson), and Ian Stewart and Charlie Watts of The Rolling Stones. Clapton plays guitar on several of the songs, including "Rough Mix" which is a fun, classic, rock/blues instrumental and is the only tune co-written by Townshend and Lane. Clapton also adds beautiful dobro guitar on "April Fool," and is a perfect compliment to Lane. Entwistle, eschewing bass, adds french horn to a song, and Charlie Watts plays on the very un-Stones-y Townshend track "My Baby Gives it Away" and the fun "Catmelody." The MVP of all the hired guns has to be Glyn Johns. Johns is the reason this record sounds as cohesive as it does due to his deft hand behind production and engineering duties. It should be no surprise that the drums on this album sound absolutely fantastic, no doubt due to Johns' patented "Glyn Johns Technique," which is easily one of my favorite ways to record drums.

If I had to pick which direction this album went in, I think Ronnie Lane was hitting on something a bit more interesting and timeless than Townshend. Ronnie's songs are pastoral and sweet, and he really feels like he had something he needed to get out of his system and on to tape. It was discovered during the recording of Rough Mix that Lane had developed multiple sclerosis, which he would live with for 21 years before he died in 1997. Maybe it was mortality writing itself on the wall, but Lane seems to be touching on something a bit more deft and delicate than his counterpart.

Townshend's songs sound like they could have been castaways written during The Who's most recent tour. That's not a bad thing, but it illustrates that his contributions to Rough Mix could have easily been Who songs had the band not been on a break at the time. Some of his songs are very "dad rock" to use the modern, common parlance, but for the most part, just have a bit more edge to them than the Lane songs. Townshend is big and bombastic even when asked to contribute to some country folk songs, and you have to love him for it. Pete Townshend can't not be Pete Townshend.

This album did not sell well, and Pete and Ronnie went their separate ways after this recording for the most part. Townshend returned to The Who after a year apart, soldiering on through the death of drummer Keith Moon. Lane received support from his family and friends in the music industry for his condition for the rest of his life. Even Jimmy Page and a few others paid for his hospital treatment in the 90s. Rough Mix would prove to be one of the last moments these two had before mortality came bearing down on them like a truck. It's one last weekend of innocent fun, jamming, doing something unimportant because nothing is important. 1976 was the last year the great artists of the 1960s could really hold court. Punk rock reared its head and killed off the dinosaurs with great haste in '77 and never looked back. Rough Mix is an album that is looking forward to what is coming next - for one last time.

Protest albums. When a societal fire alarm is going off, we have always called on the more musical among us to cull our feelings together and make some sense of whats going on. Musicians have a unique place in society because the primary language we speak is non-verbal. Music crosses borders and boundaries undisturbed unlike politics or even religion. Music can bring us all together around a common cause in times of hardship and now, especially, we need music that can speak truth to power. We need music that doesn't ask for forgiveness or permission. Take a listen to four very different and very unique protest albums this week, and as always sound off in the comments below.

Zombie combines Curtis Mayfield-Esque funk with African Jazz and biting social commentary on the Nigerian Government of the 1970s. The album contains four songs, each about 15 minutes long which makes for a unique listening experience. At times it's more like being at a live concert than listening to an album. Players weave in and out, drift back and forth in the mix, and each song has extended instrumental passages that sound like some kind of blaxploitation soundtrack from The Cradle of Humanity. The 70s funk influence on this album is so strong and persistent. The guitar especially sounds like a mash of Catfish Collins and Steve Cropper. This is truly contemporary African music, made in the city. A far cry from what I think most Western listeners may be expecting.

Afrobeat is like a musical smoothie. Genres swirl and combine into a wonderful melange of sound made all the more interesting by whichever part of the world is doing the mixing. Afrobeat can encompass cumbia, reggae, jazz, rock, funk, soul, as well as traditional West African rhythms, and to me, there is nothing better than multiple genres creating something completely new. Especially if you can dance to it. Fela Kuti is a master of this, and even with my limited exposure to his music that much is incredibly evident.

Fela Kuti and Nigeria 70 (as they were known at the time) spent an undocumented 10 months in Los Angeles playing gigs on Sunset Boulevard and around the city. While there Fela was introduced to The Black Panthers, The NAACP, and other student-run organizations and through this education decided to start writing more socially conscious music. By the time Fela and his band were forced back to Nigeria due to their undocumented status, Fela was a changed man. His time in The United States had given him new purpose and a sense of urgency in his music.

Once back home Fela decided to start a commune known as the Kalakuta Republic which served as a home for his various band members and (numerous) wives, as well as a recording studio and free medical clinic. Fela declared that the Kalakuta compound was independent of the state military junta under Olusegun Obasanjo, which did not sit well with the ruling class at the time. Kalakuta was, by all accounts, a party as much as it was a refuge. Friends and family alike lived and worked there, made music, and created a unique society of sorts all on their own. Fela Kuti has a cult-like personality among his listeners and followers, and he truly walked the walk in that sense with the emergence of Kalakuta.

Zombie was a battle cry against the conformity and compliance of the soldiers in the army that had harassed Kuti at his compound while ignoring the rampant corruption of the government they served. Songs like "Zombie" and "Mister Follow Follow" were pointed critiques at failing state. In 1977 after the release of Zombie as many as 1000 soldiers stormed The Kalakuta Republic and burned it to the ground as a response to Kuti's open defiance. Fela Kuti's mother was even thrown from a window and died of her injuries 8 weeks later after falling into a coma. Fela's recording studio, master tapes, and instruments all burned completely during the raid. A year later, to mark the occasion, Fela married 27 of his backup singers.

The more I look into Fela Kuti the more fascinated I become of him as an extremely esoteric individual. It is so clear while listening to his music that he was completely divorced from any kind of oversight; be that government, record label, or otherwise. Here is an extremely talented musician making completely independent music in his own recording studio, without any strings or the preconditions that most artists would have to endure. It's a truly rare thing to see, especially with someone as genius as Fela Kuti. To observe something, you must shine a light on it, but by doing so you will inevitably change it. Attention brings the good with the bad and the way an artist handles that can define them. Zombie is a snapshot in time of a genius musician taking a stand both lyrically and musically and the repercussions he faced for this album make it all the more fascinating. Give this one a listen, especially if you've never listened to Afrobeat.

Pieces of a Man contains some of Gil Scott-Heron's most famous and most sampled works. Hearing some of these songs gives immediate thought to the era in which they were conceived. Woodstock, Altamont, JFK, MLK, RFK, Nixon, Watergate, Vietnam, Kent State, and the like. It's always struck me that by slightly missing the beatnik era (where he may have felt more at home), Gil Scott-Heron gave another era a voice and a life that it would have sorely missed out on. On this album, he is keeping one foot in the door of his poetic roots, and another foot stepping through the door of more traditional songcraft. It's a balance that is anchored by classic songs and a near virtuosic band of jazz/funk greats.

This album's sound was crafted beautifully with Brian Jackson, who would go on to create ten more albums with Gil Scott-Heron throughout the 70s. Jackson's keyboard timbre on "Home is Where The Hatred Is" almost sounds smooth, but it's played with the weight of Scott-Heron's words and spirit behind it. The album was recorded at RCA Studios with Bob Thiele on production duties. Thiele had an immaculate background in jazz recording, and he along with many others on this album worked with many of the greats. That throughline from more traditional jazz is felt on this album, despite Pieces of a Man not exactly being a "jazz" album per se. If anything I would compare it more to Bill Whithers output at the time than anything referenced on "Lady Day and John Coletrane". The jazz is in there, but there is plenty of soul, funk, and R&B to keep listeners on their toes.

Scott-Heron is seen as a progenitor of hip hop and rap music and listening to Pieces of a Man it is easy to see why. A decade before "Rappers Delight", I don't know what else you could call "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" but hip hop. The seeds are all there, the structure is in place and Gil is more than gifted behind the mic. Ron Carter, who plays bass on this album, famously appeared on A Tribe Called Quest's masterpiece The Low End Theory. Alt hip-hop owes a debt to this record, and that much is very clear when listening to De La Soul, Nas, and even harder artists like Wu-Tang and Biggie. Like dubplates in reggae music, you can easily see how these tracks could be recycled and reused by hip hop producers in a million different ways.

The album touches on themes of revolution, class struggle, drug addiction, and during some of the lighter moments the uplifting power of music. I was caught off guard by this the first time I listened through the album. I was expecting variations on "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" but instead found that song to be an island on its own. The irony of that song is that it seems the revolution is being televised and we are all the better for it. The movement we've seen erupt around the world this year is driven by social media, and the catalyst was the filming of a horrific event by a bystander's iPhone. The depth of Scott-Heron allows for much more than just a "protest album", despite those songs defining the album for those less familiar with the other tracks on this record.

One thing that should be noted about this album is that Side B slows down considerably and seemingly deliberately compared to the first few songs. There is a very sharp dividing line in the energy of the songs at the midpoint. Side A's anger is fueled by the sadness on Side B, and it proves to be hard to maintain. Maybe it's not something one can or is supposed to maintain, and what results is a beautifully balanced album that paints a portrait of a wonderfully complex man. Nothing more needs to be said about the big songs on this album, but don't sleep on "You Are Who You Are" and "Lady Day and John Coletrane".

This album took me by surprise. Based on the cover, I had expected some kind of cult, Manson-Esque, wannabe Donavan folk album. I was wrong, but I can't help thinking I was kind of right too. Time of the Last Persecution was released in 1971 to, essentially, no one and this album slipped into obscurity along with Fay's career for decades. Nearly every song contains at least a passing reference to God, Jesus, or the Bible, but Fay manages to sing about these topics in a way that does not feel evangelical. Fay is not preaching, he is merely resigning himself to the apocalyptic nature of his faith, expressed beautifully with a series of pensive songs based on the Biblical books of Daniel and Revelation. Time of the Last Persecution is a cold look at the consequences of society's transgressions, and a soft repudiation of the prevailing winds of the 1960s.

What few listeners had recognized at the time was a masterfully crafted album, overseen by guitarist Ray Russell. If Fay plays the part of the pious, quiet monk, then Ray Russell is the maniac street preacher. One minute Ray's playing very bluesy and sounds like he could fit right in on a John Mayall album or Highway 61. Some songs he plays beautiful nylon string guitar, reminiscent of Jose Feliciano. But seemingly out of nowhere, his guitar erupts with wild, guttural, noise. It's the kind of screeching mania that was at least a generation ahead of its time; ten years before Sonic Youth and Public Image Ltd. offered similar guitar madness. That dichotomy in Russell's guitar playing masterfully encapsulates people of faith. For example, a quiet churchgoer, known for their reverence and piety could, at a moment's notice, start writhing on the ground, screaming, and speaking in tongues. Russell's production is sparse, and tasteful, and leaves plenty of room for Fay's beautiful songs and arrangements. The addition of Memphis style soul horns is a welcome one as well. Russell is the MVP of this album and brings sonic characteristics to match the lyrical ones.

Deram, a subsidiary of Decca Records, seemed to be the perfect fit for Bill Fay before Time of the Last Persecution's release. The label had seen success releasing early singles by artists like David Bowie and Cat Stevens, and for an up and coming artist like Fay, this is where you would want to be. But Deram saw little success with Fay's handful of singles and first album. His second album was the nail in the coffin and Fay's career never recovered. Fay had essentially accepted that no one would ever hear his music, and Time of the Last Persecution would be an unfortunate victim to time and circumstance.

After this album, Fay returned to the studio for a follow-up album that didn't see the light of day until the mid-2000s when Jeff Tweedy and Wilco pulled him out of obscurity. Tweedy is a self-professed fan of Fay's, and some even compare Wilco's A Ghost Is Born with Time of the Last Persecution in the same way Gainsbourg's Histoire de Melody Nelson is compared to Beck's Sea Change. Tweedy wears his Bill Fay love on his sleeve, and I think he'd be the first to admit it, and thanks to him, there has been a resurgence in Bill Fay's career as of late. A friend of mine who suggested this album pointed out that 1st pressings are currently selling for up to $1500, which is insane for any record, but it shows how far Fay's standing amongst music fans has grown.

Initially, I had trouble squaring the circle of "is this a protest album?" After listening to it a few times, I've realized it is certainly a spiritual one. I look at it like this: punk rock is not just wearing safety pin shirts and an egg wash mohawk. Punk is about being ruthlessly opposed to conformity, authority, and to be as contrarian as possible. At the height of America's initial decoupling from its faith in the 60s, there was nothing less hip than making religious folk music. The damn had broken amongst the pop music intelligentsia, and it was decided that God was for country music and Nixon's "silent majority." Despite Jesus being a superstar around this time, it wasn't exactly cool to release an album based on The Book of Revelation.

Time of the Last Persecution is a wildly different take on what a protest album can be. It's an unflinching look in the mirror and a dive into the depths of one's faith. Apocalyptic visions, divergent attitudes, and isolation are commonly found by those who tread the path that Bill Fay takes here. It may not be a protest album for marching in the streets, but it is a protest album for your psyche and character. It may help to think of Time of the Last Persecution as more Martin Luther, and less Martin Luther King.

Black Messiah is such a fantastic album for so many reasons, but I have one major problem with it. The first song "Ain't That Easy" is so good that I have trouble not repeating it a hundred times before moving on to the rest of the record. It's the kind of song that you wish could just follow you around all day. Its 'the soundtrack to life' kind of music. This album kicks the door down from minute one with a barrage of Prince meets Sly Stone funk magic through to the end. Black Messiah is an incredible way to cap these four records because I think it incorporates the best aspects of all of them. This album is funky like water is wet, it's as timely now as it was when it was released in 2014, and the religious and political connotations of the title feel prophetic here in 2020.

Right now the whole world is on fire and you get the keen sense that D'Angelo saw it all coming. The sample of Dr. Khalid Muhammad at the beginning of "1000 Deaths" makes clear: the "Black Messiah" in Black Messiah is not MLK, Malcolm X, or even D'Angelo. It's Jesus Christ himself with "hair like lambswool". Black Messiah is not in search of a savior, or even proclaiming D'Angelo as such; it is D'Angelo's reclamation of black society, black music, and black culture all at once since his long departure began in 2000. What goes into the D'Angelo machine, always comes back out D'Angelo-fied, whether it be politics, religion, music, or otherwise. Black Messiah is the ultimate D'Angelo record.

Black Messiah gives back as much as it takes, but it takes a lot. Am I hearing Sly & The Revolution? Prince & The Family Stone? Jimi Hendrix sitting in during a Bitches Brew session? Is that Stevie Wonder smoking a joint with The Beastie Boys next to the reel to reel?

I don't even know, but this is all a good thing, right?

YES.

The album's influences are so wide-ranging and comprehensive, what comes out of the speakers is just incredible to hear. D'Angelo could be categorized so many different ways that it would be easier just to put him in a category unto himself; and with the departure of Bowie and Prince, I believe that he is. No one these days carries musical weight quite like D'Angelo does on Black Messiah. He's programming drums, playing guitars, bass, keys, singing, writing, and you have to believe he has his stamp all over the overall direction and production. That is not to say that he doesn't employ the absolute best of the best players on this album. Questlove, Pino Palladino, James Gadson, and Roy Hargrove are just a few of the heavyweights that show up. They all bring their absolute A-game and provide D'Angelo a playground to build his castles made of sand. What a band on this album.

It's not surprising that D'Angelo had no problem courting superstars to play on Black Messiah. His previous album, 2000's Voodoo made D'Angelo a megastar and an international sex symbol. I could make the obvious Chinese Democracy comparison to this album's 14-year incubation, but I'd rather make a friendlier one. It's more like Smile. D'Angelo took 14 years to make this album because of the toll fame and fortune took on his life. He wasn't tinkering away on this album, wasting millions of dollars on something that ultimately didn't live up to its own hype. Like Brian Wilson, he became trapped in a prison of his own art, and prisons built by perfectionist-geniuses are rightfully hard to escape. The 14-year journey to this album's release was marred by car accidents, alcoholism, spats with friends, labels, producers, and the expectation of the entire industry on his shoulders. D'Angelo was supposed to be a very particular thing according to everyone around him, but instead, he became something better. It just took him a while.

The amazing thing about this album taking so long is how relevant it was upon its release and still is today. D'Angelo apparently had more work to do on the record but rushed its release after a Grand Jury refused to indict the Ferguson Police Officer involved in the fatal shooting of Michael Brown. Likewise, the killing of Eric Garner by Police made not speaking out through Black Messiah an impossibility.

All we wanted was a chance to talk / 'Stead we only got outlined in chalk

Feet have bled a million miles we've walked / Revealing at the end of the day, the charade

These were the lines from "The Charade" in response to the police killings in 2014 that rocked the country. These words show that six years later in 2020, after a series of events that gave birth to Black Lives Matter - a national civil rights movement Americans haven't seen the likes of since the 1960s - we still have not made the necessary steps towards equal rights in this country. Six years later we are still stuck in 2nd gear, and the chants of "I can't breathe" are nothing new, especially to the loved ones of Eric Garner. Six years later for the struggle for equal rights to stretch into 2020 is an embarrassment to our society. And six years later all we've gotten are platitudes and empty gestures after so much innocent life has been taken. 2020 is nothing new, we've been through this too many times to count, only this time I hope we are finally done counting.

Black Messiah is a remarkable document of a singular, reclusive artist who used his platform to aid a burgeoning movement. It's a tree with roots that branch off into every genre and every corner of any music that ever made your feet move. Six years later, and a million To Pimp A Butterfly's and Blonde's in its wake, Black Messiah stands at the pinnacle of black music and culture. Just as it was when it was first released, it's an album that we all should be listening to right now.

Recently a few of my avid record collecting friends had an idea. What if, as a way for us all to stay in touch during this COVID19 quarantine, we all listened to the same records each week and discussed them over a video call? One of the four of us will pick a theme for the week, and then we each pick a record for the group to listen to and discuss during our video chats. It was a great idea and it’s a great way to expand each others horizons, and turn each other on to great records and deep cuts. This series will follow my thoughts on each of the records we pick leading up to our weekly discussions. 

I had the good fortune of picking this weeks theme: Albums by artists known for one genre, who made great records in a completely different genre.  

The first album I listened to this week was my pick. Aux Armes et cætera, by the legendary French musician Serge Gainsbourg.

The first time I heard this album was when I was living in Valencia, Spain while studying abroad at Berklee. I had to come up with a thesis for my program and decided on focusing mine around reggae and dub music, specifically how dub music has become kind of a lost and forgotten art form in popular culture. Granted, dub and reggae have their hardcore fans, and many are still making that kind of music today, but it is largely absent from mainstream music culture in the way that it used to be in the 70s. For instance in 1979 Serge Gainsbourg was largely a cult musician in France, but this album went platinum upon release.

What's so surprising about that, is that this is a very traditional roots reggae album. A reggae album that went platinum not released by Bob Marley? And its entirely in French? Its what they call an anomaly.

The sound he achieved was completely divorced from the work he had done earlier in his career with Jane Birken and certainly an entire solar system away from Histoire de Melody Nelson, his masterpiece from 1971. It's as if Gainsbourg just waltzed into a Jamaican recording studio while Bob Marley was recording and said "Hey, can I borrow your band?" And if you read about who played on this album, you'd be hard-pressed to believe otherwise.

This album features a murderers row of reggae musicians. Rita Marley and The I Threes, Sly & Robbie, and Ansel Collins just to name a few. A lot of artists at the time like The Rolling Stones, The Police, and The Clash paid lip service to the reggae genre while essentially doing their own thing. Here, Gainsbourg creates something that sounds truly authentic because it is authentic. He made a real reggae album.

What sets this album apart from other reggae albums before or since is Gainsbourg himself. His French croon over reggae music is jarring at first until you realize how unique and cool the combination truly is. He is pure gold in combination with these players. I'm convinced it would be easier to list the musicians Sly & Robbie haven't played with than those who have. Those two have truly unturned every stone there is.

This album is the hippest party you've never been to, the kind that exists only in the movies. It grooves so hard, and every single aspect of it exudes style and bleeds cool. If you're looking for something truly different, this one is a must-listen.

Next up, is the 1971 self titled album Link Wray. Wray's journey leading up to this album is really interesting. Basically planting the ultimate rock n' roll flag with "Rumble" in 1958, the Shawnee born, Korean War Vet set the standerd for all rockers to live up to since. "Rumble" is so cool. It's the swagger you feel walking dangerous into a bar; it makes you feel like you could walk out onto the stage at any moment. It's the easy, greaser anthem that screams 1950s car culture, rockabilly, you name it.

This album is not that.

This album is swamp rock. It's not sleek, it's not effortless, it's working hard to sludge through the mud it's surrounded by on all sides. Even during sweet songs like "Take Me Home Jesus", there is an undeniable feeling of defiant struggle against the conformity of modern music. There was a movement in rock at the time to move back to basics, back to its southern folk roots. The Band led the way, Eric Clapton followed suit, and rock found itself shaking off its psychedelic shackles by the early 1970s. Many 50s rockers were lost to the trippy 60s, only to re-emerge once the drug haze gave way to the styles that gave root to those forefathers in the first place.

Wray fizzled out after "Rumble" mainly due to his disdain for the corporate, cookie-cutter music machine that absorbed him after his overnight success. He disappeared to Maryland where he took over his brother's chicken farm, and soon after started recording music there. They retrofitted the chicken-coop with recording equipment and musical instruments and dubbed it Wray's Three Track Shack. The minimal setup of The Shack put them in a box that inspired some true creativity. No drumset? Here's a can of nails, and some boards to stomp on. Guitar too loud? Lets put the amp outside the coop and mic the window. These are the kind of wild risks that you couldn't even think to entertain in a lot of modern studios. Songs like "Fire and Brimstone" and "Jukebox Mama" (which holds a special place in my heart) could only have been born of swamp grime. But there are also songs like "Black River Swamp" which shows this album contains the type of serene beauty that can usually only be found in the rose-colored glasses of the displaced.

This album represents a clear delineation between Wray and his past self, but what Wray retains is the volatile energy that made "Rumble" so magical in the first place. Wray was always a country, swamp rocker. It was dressed up as something different in the 50s, and after his journey through the music industry what's left on Link Wray is just that. It's soulful, fun, spiritual, and embodies the underrepresented Swanee corner of the south. If you like music by The Band, Dylan, Bobby Charles, Neil Young, then give this a listen.

I won't say Ringo is my favorite Beatle, I don't know if I could pick one, to be honest. But to me, he is easily the most underrated Beatle by a Nashville country mile. Calling someone a "Ringo" is a derogatory way of saying you're not exactly carrying your weight in musician-speak. No one wants to be the Ringo, and what a shame that is because Ringo is secretly the best drummer of all time. However, my opinions on that particular bushfire that I've started will have to be saved for another time because here comes 1970s Beaucoups of Blues.

Despite my affection for Ringo, I'll be the first to admit he didn't have nearly as interesting of a solo career after The Beatles as the other three. Ringo's All Starr Band felt like a 50th reunion tour about 40 years too early, but that particular project kind of says everything you need to know about Ringo. He gets by with a little help from his friends, the guy is a Beatle and he knows it, and he knows that to not have a blast living life and being thankful for that is an impossibility. Ringo is relentlessly charming and sweet and those two qualities shine through in spades on his second solo album.

Beaucoups of Blues is a Nashville detour, and sounds like Ringo playing with Buck Owens All-Starr Band instead of his own. It's a really fascinating dalliance for a Beatle to take. Ringo didn't have songs piling up in the corner that were pushed aside while John and Paul stole the show, he was always the covers guy in the band, just as he is here. The other Beatles often wrote songs for him, like a director might write a part with a particular actor in mind. Ringo could do several things extremely well, and the other Beatles knew exactly when to pull the Ringo ripcord for a song or two on an album. Here he is given the most serene, pleasant country palette that is right in his wheelhouse.

This album and its spiritual sister album Nashville Skyline by Bob Dylan always give people pause and sometimes cause to skip altogether. Nashville country music was at the time considered very not hip by the tastemakers of the day. It was extremely commercialized and had next to no fingers on the counter-cultural pulse. It is not hard to see how this anti-country sentiment could have carried over through the years despite how much a little time and distance has proven it wrong. What Nashville has always had in spades, and what no one then or now could ever deny, is absolute godlike players. These guys can play this stuff in their sleep, and it's so fun to hear such a quintessential Nashville sound on record. Like Nashville Skyline it feels like a major detour until you realize Dylan and Ringo always loved country. Now freed from the ties of touring as with Dylan or The Beatles with Ringo, they can express their obvious roots and love for this genre. Country music is a songwriter genre, should we really be surprised that Bob Dylan and The Beatles loved it?

All of The Beatles have peculiar early solo work. It's as if they all were desperate to get fame off their backs, and the only way they knew how was just to make something weird. Look up George Harrison's Electronic Sound, or Lennon/Ono's Unfinished Music albums. Only Paul kept mostly to the formula established by The Beatles, and now listening to all this wildly diverse music that the other three released as soon as the demise of The Beatles was on the horizon gives you the sense that it was really his band all along. It's no surprise that Dylan released his own wanna-be career-ending album with 1970s Self Portrait. He probably talked to his buddies in The Beatles who had already tried something similar. However, Beaucoups of Blues is no self-inflicted wound, and unfortunately, it wasn't something much more interesting: a new beginning.

You get the sensation from listening to this album that Ringo loves this and on top of that he's really good at it. He has a very natural country croon that lends itself perfectly to this style, and his charm finds a welcome home in Nashville. This album is for anyone who needs an introduction to what some of us like to call good country music. It's not trying to sell you anything, it's not slick, it's not pretentious or patronizing. It's great songs played on acoustic instruments by masterful players while being recorded with near sonic perfection. This era produced a lot of albums like that, and who better to lead you to them than your new favorite Beatle, Ringo.

Charles Starkweather was a "spree killer", which in the 50s was the catchall term law enforcement would use to call what we now know as serial killers. Charles and his 14-year-old girlfriend spent a year of their lives between 1957 and 1958 killing family members, friends, and anyone else that crossed them all across the midwest. After a high-speed chase straight out of The Dukes of Hazzard in which Starkweather was shot, he surrendered and was later executed via the electric chair. His girlfriend, Carol Anne Fugate, was paroled in 1976 after spending 17 years of her life sentence in prison. As it happens, I just recently watched the amazing Terrance Malik movie Badlands inspired by these events. It's a beautiful, unflinching look at young love and the passions that can quickly devolve into fury and murder. It's very reminiscent of the works of Cormac McCarthy; a stark, unjudging look at the kind of unsavory characters that only America can produce. We have the beauty and splendor and the wide-open spaces, but life can be dark no matter how beautiful the setting.

"Frankie Teardrop" is a song by proto-punk electronic revolutionaries Suicide from their debut album. The song is a 10-minute fable that may or may not be based on a true story about a man at the end of his rope. In the song, Frankie works 10 hour days at the factory and makes very little money to feed his wife and kids. The dour, industrial circumstances he finds himself in as well as his helplessness from not being able to feed his family leads him to kill himself and their kids in violent fashion. The song then follows Frankie to hell where his torment continues for eternity all set to the drum-machine, synth horror of Alan Vega and Martin Rev. Suicide was not properly lauded in their time, but their influence is felt far and wide. Ric Ocasek of The Cars was so enamored by the band's debut that he decided to produce their follow up album for free. Springsteen said in an interview with Rolling Stone in 1984 that "'Frankie Teardrop' was one of the most amazing songs I've ever heard. That’s one of the most amazing records I think I ever heard. I really love that record.”

These are the kinds of subjects and influences found on the 1982 folk masterpiece Nebraska by Bruce Springsteen. When you think of Bruce, you think of a few things. Blue-collar rock n' roll, sung by a simple hard-working guy with a telecaster. Giant arenas packed to the brim with fans for marathon three or four-hour concerts. You think of 80s America. I usually think of New Jersey. What you don't think about is nihilistic, brooding, quiet folk music. At least I don't. I've never been much of a Springsteen fan but this could be the one that breaks the mold for me. This album is packed full of heart, soul, sadness, and grief. It's a strange confluence of feelings and a balance that only the greatest folk music can pull off.

Folk is unique in that it can lift us and inspire us by bringing us down. It often shines a light on subjects that until hip hop came about, were rarely focused on. Inequality, injustice, and tales of everyday life that can paint a picture of an entire group of people. The breadth of folk music can cover something as hopeful as "This Land is Your Land" to a song like "Nebraska"; a song about a brutal murder spree that ended in mayhem. Springsteen is able to walk this line well on this album, and in my mind etches him amongst the 20th Century's best singing storytellers.

The sound of the album is brought to life by a simple 4-track cassette recorder, with every instrument played by Bruce himself. The limitations put on Bruce by the recording medium produced the kind of lightning in a bottle magic that can't be replicated. Listen to Springsteen's vocal performances and choice of vocal delay on some of these songs and compare it to the songs found on Suicide; it's very clear the minimalism of these recordings was a feature, not a bug. Even the full band electric sessions were scrapped in favor of these versions of these songs. It goes to show that a great song recorded poorly can still be much more powerful and long-lasting than a poor song recorded well. Food for thought.

This is a rare perfect album, but may not be something you want to throw on at a party. It takes a long look at the soul of the working class in this country, and it doesn't always like what it finds looking back. Put on some headphones with this one and dive in, I couldn't recommend it enough.

Welcome to the first blog post here at High Noon, it’s time for some exposition.

My goal with this website is to provide a place for the audio curious, and potential clients to find me and work with me easily. My main focus has always and will always be audio, but having an outlet for writing is very exciting for me. I don’t want this blog to become an intellectual trash dump for every passing thought I have; the goal of this blog is to give specific insights into me as an engineer, producer, musician, and all around music fan. If you’re curious about my philosophy on production or how my taste may influence the music we work on together, this blog is for you. If you just like reading about up and coming artists and music you may have never heard, you’ll find a home here too.

Expect posts covering albums I’m currently listening to, an interview highlighting a particular client, or news about the studio. As High Noon expands I’m sure new ideas for this space will too.

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