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Friday, Dec 22 2017, 2PM
Starting back in 2008 as a bedroom project more than a regular band, The Ills found quickly a missing spot in Slovak independent music scene. They connected their vision of how post-rock should sound, with shoegazery loudness. With two guitars, bass, drums and no vocals The Ills have performed from small pubs and cellars to clubs and festivals, and are one of the most active Slovak live bands. ills.bandcamp.com
From Zagreb, Croatia, it has just been announced this album has won 2017 Croatian Album of the Year.
From the group's Bandcamp: "The four-piece audio visual band Žen /zhen/ was formed in 2009. in Zagreb, Croatia; and from then till now we are unintentionally but consistently avoiding to fit in specific genre box, so description of our music is endless: kraut math post synth psy indie rock." xzen.bandcamp.com
"What I care about is that people know we're free. The older I get, the more of an anarchist I become. And I don't mean in the punk rock type of way where I just seek to destroy things. I mean, I believe truly we're not going to progress as a species until we feel responsible to educate and to bring every heart, or every person who belongs to this species, up to a point where we don't have a need for culture, religion, or nations to define us. I'm not saying you can't do your culture, religion or your nation, but that can't be the only thing that defines you as a human being, you know? I have to see your humanity before I see you as a Spanish man. I have to see your humanity before I see a white man. Doesn't mean I don't see a Spanish man. Doesn't mean I don't see a white man. It means that I don't let those things interfere with me respecting and loving you as a human being. That is sacred to me." ~ Killer Mike http://n.pr/2BE9755 | Watch RtJ perform live here at KEXP earlier this year: www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8zQHaIPzVw
Dealing with writer's block and conflicted about her mainstream success, Erykah Badu embarked on her Frustrated Artist Tour in 2003. Her increasing popularity brought upon some backlash towards her public image and expectations of her as "queen of neo soul", an honorific nickname that she found limiting. She took time off from her recording career to deal with her creative block and focus on caring for her children, although she continued to tour in the period between albums.
In 2004, Badu gave birth to a daughter, Puma Rose, with her former boyfriend, rapper The D.O.C. Later that year, she received her first computer as a Christmas gift from drummer and producer Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, and began communicating with and receiving music from him and other producers such as Q-Tip and J Dilla. Beginning in 2005, Badu worked from her home in Dallas and used the software application GarageBand as a digital audio workstation, which she was introduced to by her son, Seven. He taught her how to use her laptop as a mini recording studio, and she used it to construct various backing tracks for songs. Using GarageBand, she recorded demos of her vocals by singing into the computer's microphone
Badu composed more than 75 songs within the year and intended on splitting them among her planned series of New Amerykah albums. She said of her productivity with her laptop, "I could be here, in my own space, with headphones on, and the kids could be doing what they doing, and I’m cooking dinner still, I’m making juices still, and it’s so easy just to sing. You got an idea — boom! Idea, boom!" Dealing with writer's block and conflicted about her mainstream success, Erykah Badu embarked on her Frustrated Artist Tour in 2003.[1] Her increasing popularity brought upon some backlash towards her public image and expectations of her as "queen of neo soul", an honorific nickname that she found limiting.[1] Her third studio album, Worldwide Underground (2003), was released to mostly positive reviews and was certified gold,[2] although it was underpromoted and sold less than her previous albums.[3][4] Badu herself was not satisfied with the album and felt she had nothing substantial to express with her music at the time.[5][6] She took time off from her recording career to deal with her creative block and focus on caring for her children,[1] although she continued to tour in the period between albums.[7]
In 2004, Badu gave birth to a daughter, Puma Rose, with her former boyfriend, rapper The D.O.C..[2] Later that year, she received her first computer as a Christmas gift from drummer and producer Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, and began communicating with and receiving music from him and other producers such as Q-Tip and J Dilla.[1] Beginning in 2005,[8] Badu worked from her home in Dallas and used the software application GarageBand as a digital audio workstation,[9] which she was introduced to by her son,[1] Seven. He taught her how to use her laptop as a mini recording studio,[10] and she used it to construct various backing tracks for songs.[11] Using GarageBand, she recorded demos of her vocals by singing into the computer's microphone.[9][12]
Badu composed more than 75 songs within the year and intended on splitting them among her planned series of New Amerykah albums.[1] She said of her productivity with her laptop, "I could be here, in my own space, with headphones on, and the kids could be doing what they doing, and I’m cooking dinner still, I’m making juices still, and it’s so easy just to sing. You got an idea — boom! Idea, boom!"Dealing with writer's block and conflicted about her mainstream success, Erykah Badu embarked on her Frustrated Artist Tour in 2003.[1] Her increasing popularity brought upon some backlash towards her public image and expectations of her as "queen of neo soul", an honorific nickname that she found limiting.[1] Her third studio album, Worldwide Underground (2003), was released to mostly positive reviews and was certified gold,[2] although it was underpromoted and sold less than her previous albums.[3][4] Badu herself was not satisfied with the album and felt she had nothing substantial to express with her music at the time.[5][6] She took time off from her recording career to deal with her creative block and focus on caring for her children,[1] although she continued to tour in the period between albums.[7]
In 2004, Badu gave birth to a daughter, Puma Rose, with her former boyfriend, rapper The D.O.C..[2] Later that year, she received her first computer as a Christmas gift from drummer and producer Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, and began communicating with and receiving music from him and other producers such as Q-Tip and J Dilla.[1] Beginning in 2005,[8] Badu worked from her home in Dallas and used the software application GarageBand as a digital audio workstation,[9] which she was introduced to by her son,[1] Seven. He taught her how to use her laptop as a mini recording studio,[10] and she used it to construct various backing tracks for songs.[11] Using GarageBand, she recorded demos of her vocals by singing into the computer's microphone.[9][12]
Badu composed more than 75 songs within the year and intended on splitting them among her planned series of New Amerykah albums.[1] She said of her productivity with her laptop, "I could be here, in my own space, with headphones on, and the kids could be doing what they doing, and I’m cooking dinner still, I’m making juices still, and it’s so easy just to sing. You got an idea — boom! Idea, boom!" bit.ly
Cloud Cult performed a dreamy and incredibly embracing set in the woods of West Seattle during the Arts in Nature Festival. Check that out here: blog.kexp.org
Released in 1998, Mike Scott refers to this album as an "unofficial release" or bootleg recording, but praises the recording period as a "classic" period for the Waterboys. Most of the live songs on The Live Adventures... indeed already appeared on the bootlegs A Golden Day (1991) and Born To Be Together (1992). It is the only Waterboys album on which member Guy Chambers appears.
According to Scott, the album was put out by New Millennium Communications (NMC). Scott claims that New Millennium stopped paying royalties to the band but continued to sell the album. The album is not listed on the band's own discography.
The Waterboys released another, entirely official, live album, Karma to Burn, through Scott's own record label, Puck records, in 2005. bit.ly | This particular track was recorded on the Pyramid Stage, Glastonbury Festival, England on June 20, 1986. Watch as The Waterboys performed a heartstopping in-studio session in our star-filled Dexter studio: blog.kexp.org
One of the themes of Antisocialites, especially pertinent for an indie band gaining popularity, is the difference between their roots and their pop aspirations. This is evident on "Plimsoll Punks," which was inspired by Rankin's love of the Television Personalities classic "Part Time Punks." "In a way, there's a lot of focus on authenticity in music sometimes and having the freedom to grow and reinvent yourself is part of the freedom to grow as a musician or any kind of artist," she says. "I'm just intrigued by the idea of punk and what people define it as. I think it's a really tired way of validating something depending on how people voice their opinions. I just really like to write pop songs and I don't really care what genre that is." bit.ly
Velocity Girl was an American indie rock band formed in 1989 in College Park, Maryland, although it was generally known as a Washington, DC-area band. The band released three albums before splitting up in 1996. While much 1990s rock music featured an abrasive vocal and instrumental style, Velocity Girl's sound, especially post-1993, was more melodic and typically featured "clean" (non-distorted) electric guitar sounds and two-part harmonies; the band described their influences as "the Rough Trade and Postcard labels and some of the early Creation bands". However, on their first seven-inch records on Slumberland and Merge, as well as their first Sub Pop album, Copacetic, Velocity Girl were noted for their shoegaze influences. The band was noted for its love of releasing a steady stream of 7" vinyl singles. Slumberland Records was formed in 1989 by members of several D.C.-area bands, including Velocity Girl. bit.ly
The tale of Peter Perrett seemed destined for tragedy. After the glory of the Only Ones, the singer descended into a years-long battle with drug addiction that saw him surfacing for air regularly -- even releasing a very good album with his band the One in 2005 -- but then going back under, leaving fans to assume that they next time they heard his name, it would be in an obit. Luckily for all involved, Perrett cleaned up in the mid-2010s and got it together enough to record and release his first solo album. Working with his sons (guitarist Jamie and bassist Peter, Jr.) and producer Chris Kimsey, he's made an album that's not only a welcome return from a prodigal son, but also one that compares very favorably with those made during his time with the Only Ones. How the West Was Won is a witty, gutsy album built out of classic guitar rock bones and shot through with Perrett's hard-won wisdom and his offhanded, almost blasé, vocals, which sound almost exactly as they did in 1976, which is something of an achievement considering his hard living over the years. He snake-charms his way through melodies, tossing off casual asides and wringing emotion out of a simple twist of phrase or chilling reminiscence. The songs that hit hardest tell of years lost to drugs and the enduring love he feels for his wife of many years, Zena, who stuck by him through thin and thinner. His sons stuck by him, too, and Jamie proves to be the album's backbone as his guitar twangs, slashes, and burns through solos and riffs, providing all sorts of support for his old man. bit.ly
"I can remember what caused me to write 'Another Girl, Another Planet.' It would have been about April ’77, because we had it recorded by June. It was inspired by this girl from Yugoslavia. I didn’t go out with her, but she was like a total space cadet, which when I was really young I found interesting. She was just a bit weird – she’d say crazy things, and it just got me thinking that every girl has something different to offer. It would have been written on my Guild acoustic. I think any good song should sound all right on an acoustic guitar." ~ Peter Perrett www.uncut.co.uk/features/peter-perrett-wasnt-drugs-time-addicted-sex
"I spent a lot of this year feeling really shut off and in my head. I was on the road a lot on tour, and really consumed by my work. After my mom passed away, I just became obsessed with staying busy. I was really afraid that if I stayed still, I would fall into a deep depression. I also think that when you spend a lot of time as a caretaker for someone who is dying, you start to lose touch with your own feelings, and it’s hard to gather them back. A lot of the songs are about trying to work out of feeling disconnected—how to come out of that sort of temporary emotional paralysis cocoon you created to protect yourself and start connecting with people again. To love, to hurt, to feel. And a lot of the songs look back to another time, to other relationships to remember how heightened my feelings were back then." bit.ly
"There’s things in my life that would pop up in the writing. Just about getting older and my relationship to music, and relationship to other choices in my life that I’ve decided to not pursue. As you get older, how are you a part of that other story that other people are starting live through? I remember when I started writing, that’s right when that River [boxed set] came out. I remember hearing all these interviews, and it was just Bruce writing about how he was 30, 29, 28 when he was writing that. I was nine years older, but it was just an inspiration. I was like, just write. Try to write songs about whatever it is you’re going through in your life. And what are other people going through in their lives?" http://uproxx.it/2ix1HYu | Watch War on Drugs perform songs off this album here, live at KEXP: www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeMRlg8UsRw
The Lust for Life sessions took place soon after the completion of a concert tour in support of The Idiot album, the tour ending on 16 April 1977. Pop has stated, "David and I had determined that we would record that album very quickly, which we wrote, recorded, and mixed in eight days, and because we had done it so quickly, we had a lot of money left over from the advance, which we split." The singer slept little during its making, commenting "See, Bowie's a hell of a fast guy ... I realized I had to be quicker than him, otherwise whose album was it gonna be?" Pop's spontaneous lyrical method inspired Bowie to improvise his own words on his next project, "Heroes".
Bowie, Pop and engineer Colin Thurston produced Lust for Life under the pseudonym "Bewlay Bros." (name via the final track on Bowie's Hunky Dory). The recording was made at Hansa Studio by the Wall in Berlin and featured Ricky Gardiner and Carlos Alomar on guitars with Hunt and Tony Sales on drums and bass, respectively. With Bowie on keyboards and backing vocals, the team included three-quarters of the future Tin Machine line-up; the Sales brothers' "gale-force" contribution to this album led Bowie to invite them to join his new band twelve years later ("Check out Lust for Life," he told guitarist Reeves Gabrels, "I've found the rhythm section!"). The sleeve photo was taken by Andy Kent, who also shot the cover for The Idiot. bit.ly
"The truth is, the record took three years to make, and it was only in the last year that the studio was finished. Aaron was based in Hudson while that was happening, and we started work on this album up there as early as February of 2015, which wasn’t long after that O2 Arena show. He and I were in a church in Hudson, spending two weeks together and writing a lot of what eventually became the record, so there’s no doubt that Hudson was the heart of it, even well before Aaron’s space was ready." bit.ly | Watch The National perform this song, along with an incredible set, LIVE here at KEXP: blog.kexp.org/2017/12/18/live-video-the-national/
"I think the best way to contextualize this album is that I went into isolation for a month. Not complete isolation, but I just like lived in the mountains outside of Asheville in 2014 and it was amazing. I lived in a house with no internet, no phone service, and I didn’t really talk to anybody. I didn’t make any friends. I’d go into town occasionally, but I was just around, writing and thinking, and it was amazing. The first day or two was uncomfortable, and then the next three weeks were amazing. I had some fun by myself. It felt really fulfilling and beautiful, and I got so much done. I felt happy. Then the last week I completely lost my mind. I was like, this is actually so hard all of a sudden. I was like, there’s no one to talk to, and I was just thinking about all these horrible things that happened in my life. I was like, remember when I was 13 and I saw that dead body? There’s a complexity there. It’s not as simple as 'being alone is awesome.' Being alone is really complicated, and if you do it long enough you see different sides to it." http://bit.ly/2hgBtoT | Catch the intriguing video for this song here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDWFX7cO9co
Charlie Don't Surf is a famous line from the 1979 film Apocalypse Now, spoken by Lt. Col. Kilgore as justification for taking a beach at the Mekong Delta so the American soldiers could go surfing. American soldiers referred to the Viet Cong as "Victor Charlie" or simply as "V-C." "Victor" and "Charlie" are both letters in the NATO phonetic alphabet, corresponding to 'V' and 'C', respectively. "Charlie," when used alone, referred to communist forces in general, both Việt Cộng and Vietnamese. bit.ly | Remembering the late, great Joe Strummer, who passed away 15 years ago today.
Performing at the annual KEXP Yule Log at Neumos! Jimmy James: "I’ve been listening to music ever since I was a little kid. The first time I knew I liked guitar was when I heard 'My Girl' by the Temptations – that opening guitar line by Robert White – and hearing the guitar lick on 'I Second That Emotion' by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. My musical tastes were very adult for a little kid. I listened to The Mamas & the Papas, Johnny Taylor, Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin. My mom said she’d hear me singing songs like 'Respect' in the back seat of the car when I was four, like, 'Just a little bit! Just a little bit!' That’s how big I was into it. blog.kexp.org/2017/08/22/kexp-exclusive-interview-jimmy-james-of-the-true-loves/
"Lee Majors Come Again" is a song by alternative hip hop group Beastie Boys, released as the first single from their eighth studio album Hot Sauce Committee Part Two (2011).
Promo singles of the track were given out in very select copies of the Check Your Head quadruple reissue boxset. The track made its first appearance in media on the game DJ Hero, where it was mixed with Daft Punk's "Da Funk", listed as the final mix in the game when sorted by intensity. The track also appears in the EA game Skate 3.
The title of the song references American actor Lee Majors. bit.ly
"Go" is the first single from The Chemical Brothers album Born in the Echoes. The song features uncredited vocals from Q-Tip.
The song has achieved considerable success in advertising, particularly in the United States. In 2015, the song was used at Google's I/O Keynote, the gameplay trailer (and in-game soundtrack) for Need For Speed, Sony's press conference at E3 2015, and Sony's PlayStation 4 ad campaigns in Europe and the United States that continued into 2016. From 2015 through 2017, commercials for Cedar Point used the song. In 2017, the song was used in the US in both a commercial for the 2018 GMC Terrain and one for Smith & Nephew Verilast hip and knee replacements. bit.ly
After The Love Movement, A Tribe Called Quest split up due to relationship issues between group members, effectively rendering The Love Movement as the supposed final album. For years on out, Tribe denied that any new material was recorded, or even planned, although they reunited briefly to play several shows during Kanye West's Yeezus Tour in 2013. On November 13, 2015, the group performed on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, the same night of the Paris attacks. Feeling "charged", the group put aside their differences, and decided to record the album in secrecy. Q-Tip has stated it is their last album.
The album's production is attributed to Q-Tip, with longtime hip-hop engineer Blair Wells given co-producer credit. The group's DJ, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, was unable to co-produce the album with Q-Tip, as he was producing the Luke Cage soundtrack with Adrian Younge at the time; therefore, his name does not appear in the album's credits. Scratching credits on the album are instead attributed to DJ Scratch.
The album's title was chosen by Phife Dawg, and although the other members did not understand its meaning, they kept it in place after his death. bit.ly
"I’m a very cerebral person in certain ways, I do a lot of thinking and reasoning about things. But the decision-making matrix I have for the band is almost entirely gut. It’s weird for me to say, because I don’t think like that, I don’t value people’s gut too much. But listening to the records and figuring out what goes on is always a gut thing – like, ‘Oh, we need this one, that one needs to be on there.’ The order is always just gut, what naturally seems to come next. My gut instincts are strong, but they’re not always accessible to me, which is why I like DJing, because you don’t have time and you have to go on instinct. There’s one song that should have been on there in a way ['Pulse'], but it would have caused more trouble possibly, because it’s 14 minutes, and the record’s already nearly 70 minutes. So it would have been another piece of vinyl, it would have been a second CD. But in my mind, it’s the only thing that can come after the last song… it’s a bit of sunrise after the last song. So I hope I can make a 12” or something soon, so hopefully that will be added at the end of your streaming list." bit.ly
"The tuning on that song was pretty nutty. It's recorded with a wah wah in the low position used as a filter. That was the first time we did anything like that. It was Chris's idea; he wanted to get that weird tone that you can't really dial in on an amp. But if you use the wah wah as a filter, it gets an incredibly weird sound. And if you listen to that riff, especially if you've heard the original demos of it, it almost sounds backward." ~ guitarist Kim Thayil bit.ly
Moscow’s Glintshake have recently gone back to their native language. The band has drawn upon academic music, the Russian avant-garde, Soviet new wave and jazz. Taken as one, the concerts and video performances of ГШ become a single anthem to the paradoxical freedoms, spontaneity, and absurdity of Russian existence. Explore more from the album here; this particular track is #4: glintshake.bandcamp.com
"[This album] was a continuation of my previous work because it’s me writing the stuff and there is a link, but it felt completely new because it was hard to remember two or three lifetimes ago, and it feels like I’m doing it for the first time. When I did it before, it was literally another world. I feel like a newborn baby, which sometimes you do when you come out of decades of internal exploration. So yeah, it’s both. A continuation, obviously because it’s me writing the songs and I’m still me. But it feels like doing it for the first time. And being one of the unclean was a full-time occupation. It’s the complete opposite. It was the only way I was ever going to write again, by getting clean because you have to. To me, music has always been about passion and fun. And I think other distractions inhibit your ability to enjoy things to the fullest. It wasn’t hard to write clean. I never did write when I had a serious addiction. That’s the whole point of why I haven’t done anything for such a long time. In the mid ’90s, I was briefly productive for a couple of years when I did the album, Woke Up Sticky but, apart from that, it’s been a very long time." More from our exclusive interview with Peter Perrett here: blog.kexp.org/2017/06/20/kexp-exclusive-interview-peter-perrett/
Released in 1978 by ex-New York Dolls member Johnny Thunders. The title was taken from a line in the "Better Living Through TV" episode of the sitcom The Honeymooners, and was written for his close friend Fabienne Shine.
Considered by many his signature song, the ballad is said to be about Thunders’ heroin addiction. However, according to Nina Antonia's biography, Johnny Thunders...In Cold Blood, the song was written before he was even a member of the New York Dolls, and years before he had ever tried heroin.
Peter Perrett, from the English new wave band The Only Ones, supplied guitar and backing vocals. bit.ly
"When I was working on lyrics, I could hear someone like Elvis Presley singing it. I could hear some legendary rock star singing it. I could connect it to voices, which you can’t in Icelandic. We have a lots of huge artists, but they don’t sing much in Icelandic. Emilíana Torrini, Of Monsters and Men—all of these big Icelandic artists sing in English. When you’re writing Icelandic lyrics, you’re not connecting to a big history; you’re just connecting to a few songs that were written in Icelandic. When I was going into clichés, I was always thinking, ‘Michael Jackson would sing this!’" bit.ly
"There was one specific moment when I became really obsessed with hip-hop and that was when I was like 10. One of my older sisters used to sleep with the TV on all night tuned to MTV. Sometimes I’d wake up in the middle of the night and go in there if I couldn’t sleep. It was really comforting to me because the TV would be on and a fan would be going but she’d be knocked out, just snoring in the glow and the noise of it all. I went in there one night and the video for “On My Block” by Scarface was playing. It was very emotional and very hip-hop. He’s speaking about where he comes from and who he does it for and the video paints such a strikingly vivid and beautiful picture of that. I just started crying and crying. And there was a little star shining in the sky out of the window as it was slowly starting to get light outside and I just kept looking at the star." More from our exclusive interview with DoNormaal: blog.kexp.org/2017/09/19/kexp-exclusive-interview-donormaal/
Thinking of Joe Strummer on the 15th anniversary of his passing today. Musically, the Mescaleros continued the genre mixing that Strummer was known for during his time with The Clash. Elements of reggae, jazz, funk, hip hop, country, and of course punk rock can be found in the three Mescaleros releases.
The band is also the subject of a documentary by Dick Rude titled Let's Rock Again! which was released on 27 June 2006. The band also appear on many DVDs and have had several of their songs appear in major films such as Black Hawk Down and Mr. & Mrs. Smith. One song, "Johnny Appleseed," was used as the theme song to the HBO series John From Cincinnati.
Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros' last ever concert was on 22 November 2002, in Liverpool. This show is often overlooked however, in favor of citing the 15 November show at Acton Town Hall. It was this show, which was a benefit for striking fire fighters, that Mick Jones joined Strummer on stage for the first time in nearly twenty years, during the Clash song "Bankrobber." An encore followed with both "White Riot" and "London's Burning". The Last Night London Burned, a 64-page book written by George Binette, showing never before published pictures of Joe Strummer and Mick Jones, and a 26 minutes film by Gregg McDonald and Alan Miles, were released as a unique visual record of that last ever London concert by Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros. Following the conclusion of this tour, the band headed straight for the studio, but Strummer died of a congenital heart defect on December 22, 2002 after returning home from walking his dogs. bit.ly
"In 2013 I realised that after years of just writing songs, I had written an album which contained three albums instead of one. After this epiphany, if you will, it was clear that Amen 1 is supposed to sound the way it does and have the songs it has. It is the first step and the first part of the three but like all of them, it is also its own album and its own world of music and thoughts. [Amen 2] is about relief, forgiveness and letting go. Some years ago I went through a period of deep anxiety and depression. Amen 1 was dwelling a lot on these feelings and ideas. I wrote the songs on Amen 2 at a time when I first started to feel that this period was maybe coming, or already had come to an end. It was also at those times when I realised that my lifelong companionship with God came to a conclusion that He, who once meant everything to me, no longer existed. These were the core-ideas how Amen 2 came to be." Watch as Mikko stuns audiences at KEXP's Kex Hostel stage this past winter during Iceland Airwaves: www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0nbKS4adxg
Joensuu 1685 is a rock band from Helsinki in early 2007 . Its members are the brothers Markus Joensuu (drums) and Mikko Joensuu (vocals, guitar, Farfisa) and bassist Risto Joensuu (not related).
The first part of the band name is clear: it is the last name of all the members of the band. The year 1685, according to Mikko, was taken straight from the family tree: "Originally, the numbers were cool, the more numbers, the cooler. At some point, it seemed good to have some name, too, and Joensuu agreed quite naturally." The band was chosen as the most anticipated artist at the Lost In Music festival, which is held in the music industry's most important annual event Music & Media. bit.ly
Remembering the iconic and much-beloved Joe Strummer, who passed away this day 15 years ago. "After recording their second studio album Give 'Em Enough Rope (1978), the band separated from their manager Bernard Rhodes. This separation meant that the group had to leave their rehearsal studio in Camden Town and find another location to compose their music. Tour manager Johnny Green and drum roadie Baker had found the group a new place to rehearse called Vanilla Studios, which was located in the back of a garage in Pimlico.
Prior to this move to the Vanilla Studios rehearsal space, the Clash's songwriters Mick Jones and Joe Strummer had experienced a period of writer's block. They had not written a new song from scratch in over a year, with the material on their recently released Cost of Living EP, composed of a cover song and three songs that had all been written over twelve months earlier. The Clash arrived at Vanilla in May 1979 without a single new song prepared for their third album.
Once in Vanilla Studios, the group began performing cover songs from a variety of genres, such as rockabilly, rock and roll, rhythm and blues, and reggae. In contrast to previous rehearsal sessions, the band kept these rehearsals private, and did not allow hangers-on to attend. This seclusion allowed the band to rebuild their confidence without worrying about the reaction from outsiders, who were familiar with the band's punk rock musical style.
The band developed an 'extremely disciplined' daily routine of afternoon musical rehearsals, broken by a late-afternoon social football game, which fostered a friendly bond between the band members. The daily football match was followed by a couple of drinks at a local pub, which was itself followed by a second musical rehearsal session in the evening.
The band gradually rebuilt their musical and songwriting confidence during these rehearsals during the summer of 1979, with the styles of the session's early cover songs setting the template for the diverse material that would be written for London Calling. The band were also encouraged by a growing appreciation of drummer Topper Headon's drumming skills, which they realised could be used to perform music in a wide array of genres and styles beyond punk rock. The Clash wrote and recorded demos, with Mick Jones composing and arranging much of the music and Joe Strummer generally writing the lyrics." bit.ly
The song has been performed twice on television. One of them was on Tony Wilson's show and the other was on BBC, one of the few occasions in which singer Ian Curtis plays guitar. Twenty seconds of the song is shown in the movie Control (2007), directed by Anton Corbijn, a film based on the biography of Ian's wife, Deborah Curtis's Touching from a Distance. Greil Marcus has a chapter on this song in his book The History of Rock 'n' Roll in Ten Songs. According to Marcus, "'Transmission' is not an argument. It's a dramatization of the realization that the act of listening to the radio is a suicidal gesture. It will kill your mind. It will rob your soul." Marcus also quotes the band's bassist Peter Hook about the importance of this song: "We were doing a soundcheck at the Mayflower, in May, and we played 'Transmission': people had been moving around, and they all stopped to listen. I realized that was our first great song.'" bit.ly
"I always thought that Prince made the best singles. So whenever I was writing songs for records, I was like, 'I’m wanna make that song a single. That song’s gonna be a single, and that song’s gonna be a single.' So many of them, it was like, 'Here’s how we’re going to make this song a single.' We’re going to have one instrument that’s sort of the focus, and then we’re going to have it be about the beat." http://bit.ly/2pjddtw | Spoon performed a fantastic set earlier this year and yet again, made everyone fall in love with them afresh. Watch that here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xAVeoCS4qM
"I think I’m still growing. The more people I meet, the more cultures I start to embrace, the more people I open myself up to—it’s a growing process I’m excited about. But it’s also a challenge for me, to be at this level and still be able to connect with somebody who’s living that everyday life. At first it was something I struggled with, because everything was moving so fast. I didn’t know how to digest it. The best thing I did was go back to the city of Compton, to touch the people who I grew up with and tell them the stories of the people I met around the world. Making To Pimp a Butterfly was me navigating those experiences. I went to Africa and I was like, 'This is something I can enjoy and something I can challenge myself with.' I went to South Africa—Durban, Cape Town, Johannesburg—and those were definitely the 'I’ve arrived' shows. Outside of the money, the success, the accolades … This is a place that we, in urban communities, never dream of. We never dream of Africa. Like, 'Damn, this is the motherland.' You feel it as soon as you touch down. That moment changed my whole perspective on how to convey my art." More from Lamar's interview with Dave Chappelle here: www.interviewmagazine.com/music/kendrick-lamar-cover
"My mom got sick last year and I did not figure that moms wouldn’t be alive forever, or that my mom wouldn’t be alive forever, or that she could ever get sick. My mom is literally bionic, and all of a sudden she’s getting radiation and trying to keep it from all of us, downplaying everything … It was very bizarre to think that this amazing person that it was convenient to be annoyed by [might be] gone very, very soon. The reevaluation is so ugly. It’s so violent. It’s aggressive. Now I’m obsessed with my mom, and I’m not even sure that it’s all the way healthy because part of it is rooted in fear of losing her, and part of it is rooted in admiration." bit.ly
"Live plans at the moment are in a very formative stage. So far, we’ve just booked a handful of gigs in England at the end of October, beginning of November. I’d love to come to the states but it depends on opportunity and viability. It’s not the easiest place in the world to get into so it might be out of my hands. Also, it costs 20 times as much for an English musician to visit America as it does for an American musician to come and play in England, so that’s the viability side of it. I’m desperate to come. The last gig I did in the states I think was summer of 1980, playing with Johnny (Thunders) at Max’s or… I don’t know if there was an Only Ones gig after that or if that was the last gig. I’d really like to make it back to the states… but it’s not up to me. Here’s hoping." blog.kexp.org/2017/06/20/kexp-exclusive-interview-peter-perrett/
Reed said it was Andy Warhol who provided fuel for the song. "He said, 'Why don't you write a song called 'Vicious,'" Reed told Rolling Stone in 1989. "And I said, 'What kind of vicious?' 'Oh, you know, vicious like I hit you with a flower.' And I wrote it down literally." rol.st
The song gained attention for vocalist John Lydon's phrasing of the word "vacant", emphasising the last syllable to sound like the vulgar word cunt. According to bassist Glen Matlock, the song's main riff was inspired by hearing "S.O.S." by ABBA. The B-side of the single was a cover of The Stooges' "No Fun", which the band played on the spot without a proper rehearsal. It was taken from demo sessions recorded by producer Dave Goodman.
The band made a video of "Pretty Vacant" (as well as one for "God Save the Queen") on July 11 and 12, 1977, at the studios of ITN in Wells Street, London. They were thrown out after throwing cans of lager at the cameramen on the 11th, but came back on the 12th to finish the recording. bit.ly
“I think the world is just starting to become ready for this kind of open-mindedness[, where one woman can write a love song to another woman]. I’ve written songs about women since I’ve been involved with women, but I do know a few gay female artists who back in the day would write songs about men. One of my old friends, she was a rapper and she rapped about men and being involved with men. I think I asked her one time, ‘Aren’t you gay?’ She was like, ‘Yeah, but all my friends are straight – I make music for them to ‘enjoy.’ I thought that was really interesting. But for me, I make music for myself to enjoy.” bit.ly
"I was actually homeschooled from eighth grade, and I didn’t go to college. I learned to be a student through the world and through my experiences, through traveling, and meeting people. Sometimes I didn’t necessarily have the language to express myself. I knew I had all of these intense feelings and opinions on things, but i didn’t have the language. Constantly reading and trying to challenge the way I articulated things was a huge part of the writing process of this album." bit.ly
Recorded December 1990 with Rick Parashar and included in the 2003 rarities compilation, Lost Dogs.
Eddie Vedder celebrates his 53rd birthday tomorrow! Here is Pearl Jam covering The Clash's classic as we remember Joe Strummer, who passed away 15 years ago today. The original song begins with the words "This is a public service announcement...with guitars!" The structure of the song revolves around the rights held by the poor and disenfranchised, in which the speaker of the song, presumably a villainous civil servant (whose identity is assumed in the song by vocalist Joe Strummer), names the three actual rights. At the end, the notion that more rights should be granted is rebuffed by the speaker.
The three are:
1. "The right not to be killed. Murder is a crime, unless it is done by a policeman, or an aristocrat".
2. "The right to food money, providing of course, you don't mind a little investigation, humiliation, and, if you cross your fingers, rehabilitation".
3. "The right to free speech (as long as you're not dumb enough to actually try it)". bit.ly
The video revolves around (the real) Janie Jones, a famous London madam, being chauffeured around London with Mick Jones. Many of the contributors to the song feature in the video. Drew McConnell accompanies Janie Jones from the Windmill theatre right at the beginning as she's getting into her car, Alan Donohoe from The Rakes is driving the car, two members of Cazals are walking down the street near the start and their singer, Phil Bush, mimes 'lucky lady', the two guys standing in front of the telephone box are Josh Hubbard from The Paddingtons and one member of Guillemots; Carl Barât, Anthony Rossomando, Gary Powell and a guitar can be seen in a car pulling up to a petrol station, while Jack Peñate is also seen at the petrol station and Lisa Moorish is seen singing along towards the end. The lead singer from The Mystery Jets is seen walking with one of The Holloways on the side of the street. bit.ly
"I'd like to say that people people can change anything they want to; and that means everything in the world. Show me any country and there'll be people in it. And it's the people that make the country. People have got to stop pretending they're not on the world. People are running about following their little tracks. I am one of them. But we've all gotta stop just stop following our own little mouse trail. People can do anything; this is something that I'm beginning to learn. People are out there doing bad things to each other; it's because they've been dehumanized. It's time to take that humanity back into the centre of the ring and follow that for a time. Greed... it ain't going anywhere! They should have that on a big billboard across Times Square. Think on that. Without people you're nothing." Remembering this precious Human Being on the 15th anniversary of his passing. Take care of each other, and take care of your heart and your loves. We only have this life. Much love from the Afternoon Show crew.