18.09.2022.

TOM WAITS - The Early Years Vol. 1 & 2 (1991/93)

Tom Waits is an American musician, composer, songwriter and actor. His lyrics often focus on the underbelly of society and are delivered in his trademark deep, gravelly voice. He worked primarily in jazz during the 1970s, but his music since the 1980s has reflected greater influence from blues, rock, vaudeville, and experimental genres.

The Early Years, Vol.1 is an album of early demos recorded by a 21-year-old Tom Waits in 1971, two years before the release of his first album, Closing Time, and issued on the record label owned by his ex-manager. Waits accompanies himself on piano or guitar and sings in an unaffected nasal tenor. (One track, "Ice Cream Man," is given a full-band treatment.) Several of these songs, notably "Ice Cream Man," "Virginia Ave.," "Midnight Lullabye," and "Little Trip to Heaven," turned up on his later albums, but the overall level of writing and performance is well below Waits' usual standard. Clearly, his better early material was chosen for his Asylum albums. Hardcore fans will want to hear this album, of course, but others need not bother.



Like its predecessor, The Early Years, Vol.2 consists of demos recorded by Tom Waits in 1971, two years before he released his debut album, Closing Time. "Hope I Don't Fall in Love With You," "Ol' 55," "Grapefruit Moon," and "Old Shoes" later turned up on that album, while "Shiver Me Timbers," "Diamonds on My Windshield," and "Please Call Me Baby" appeared on Waits' second album, The Heart of Saturday Night, in 1974. The release of the two Early Years albums demonstrates that Waits' better early material made it onto his regular releases -- the previously unreleased stuff, while interesting, is not as good. And since Waits' albums were not overproduced, the main difference between these versions and the familiar ones is that the familiar ones are better. Still, Waits fans will enjoy hearing, for example, "Ol' 55" performed in a higher key and with an acoustic guitar backing.

17.09.2022.

SAVOY BROWN - The First Four... (1967/69)

Savoy Brown was formed in 1965 by guitarist Kim Simmonds in London, England. Simmonds has been the group’s guiding hand from the first singles released in 1966 through the band’s newest effort, their forty-first album “Ain’t Done Yet” to be released August 28, 2020. Energetic blues has been the calling card of the band from the beginning. Blues Rock became the catch-all phrase in the late 1960s to describe the band’s music along with that of contemporaries including Cream, Fleetwood Mac, and Jimi Hendrix. In fact, in the 2013 movie, “Jimi Hendrix: All Is By My Side,” a Savoy Brown song co-written by Simmonds was included in the soundtrack. Many of the band’s singles and albums have appeared on the Billboard charts. Through the 1960s, 1970s and 1980’s songs such as “I’m Tired”, “Train to Nowhere”, “Tell Mama” and “Lay Back In The Arms Of Someone” became Hot 100 entries. Two of the band’s albums in the 1970s, “Looking In” and “Hellbound Train”, appeared on the Billboard Top Forty charts. This pattern continues today, culminating with “Witchy Feelin’,” the band’s 2017 album, reaching #1 on the Billboard Blues Chart.



Along the way, Savoy Brown has toured continuously, making it one of the longest running blues rock bands in existence. Through the years, the band has headlined concerts at many prestigious venues including Carnegie Hall, the Fillmore East, the Fillmore West, and London’s prestigious Royal Albert Hall. Savoy Brown, having established national status in the 1970s, provided other groups opportunity. Kiss opened the bill on a Savoy Brown national tour as did ZZ Top, The Doobie Brothers and many, many more acts. Former members, having cut their teeth under Simmonds’ leadership, have gone on to complete their careers with other bands. Among others, these include singer Dave Walker with Fleetwood Mac and Black Sabbath, Bill Bruford with King Crimson, Andy Pyle with the Kinks and Paul Raymond with UFO. Many familiar names have recorded and toured with the band including Hughie Flint (original Blues Breaker with John Mayall) Miller Anderson, Stan Webb, and Dave Olson (Robert Cray Band). Three other band alumni – Lonesome Dave Peverett, Roger Earl, and Tony Stevens, went on to become the founding members of the multi-platinum act Foghat.



A resident of the USA since 1980, bandleader Simmonds has received many accolades himself. These include placement on the front cover of Guitar Player magazine, enshrinement on the Hollywood Rock Walk of Fame and acceptance in many regional “Halls of Fame” in the USA and Canada. “I have always opted for a non-mainstream, yet complimentary, music route,” says Kim – “one that would allow me personal and artistic freedom. In the end, it seems I’ve had the best of both worlds.” Savoy Brown helped spawn the 1968 UK Blues Rock boom and later opened the eyes of many 1970s American teenagers to their own home territory blues artists. More than 50 years later, Savoy Brown remains a formidable, progressive Blues Rock force. The three- piece line-up includes Kim Simmonds on guitar and vocals, Pat DeSalvo on bass and Garnet Grimm on drums. This trio has established itself as the longest-running consistent line-up in the band’s history, now going strong for more than 10 years. Their legacy continues with the coming 2020 release of “Aint Done Yet” released by the Californian-based record label, Quarto Valley Records. Savoy Brown and Kim Simmonds have a body of work that is matched by only a small portion of musical artists. As they continue to tour the world, young and old find inspiration in their timeless music, classic style, and performances.

16.09.2022.

LINN COUNTY - Proud Flesh Soothseer (1968) & Fever Shot (1969)

Linn County formed around 1966 in Linn County, Iowa, United States as the Prophets. In 1968, the band signed with Mercury Records, moved to San Francisco, and changed its name to Linn County. They released their first album Proud Flesh Soothseer in 1968, and toured performing with bands and musicians such as Albert King, Led Zeppelin, Sly & the Family Stone, Eric Burdon & the Animals and Ten Years After. They were becoming more well known when the group broke up shortly after Clark Pierson left to join Janis Joplin and Stephen Miller left to join Elvin Bishop. Fred Walk kept the band together with different personnel for a time then disbanded the group in 1973. Linn County also headlined or played with Ike & Tina Turner, Earl Hooker, John Lee Hooker, Paul Butterfield, Bo Diddley, Howlin' Wolf, Elvin Bishop, Charlie Musselwhite, Steve Miller, Albert Collins and a host of others during music festivals.



An unusual late-'60s band that combined horn-embellished soul-rock with more interesting material utilizing jazz-colored arrangements and somewhat spacy songwriting. There were few parallels for this kind of thing at the time, other than perhaps the only slightly less obscure Insect Trust. A minor group, but at their best an intriguing one.

14.09.2022.

OZZY OSBOURNE - Patient Number 9 (2022)

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee and Grammy®-winning singer and songwriter Ozzy Osbourne proudly presents his anxiously awaited new album, Patient Number 9, out now via Epic Records / Sony Music Australia. Right out of the gate, Patient Number 9 has incited unanimous critical applause. Consequence of Sound proclaimed, “From start to finish, Patient Number 9 is an inspired and consistent Ozzy studio offering,” and Metal Hammer rated it “4-out-of-5 Stars” and attested, “It sounds like the Prince of fucking Darkness having an absolutely smashing time, with a bunch of his mates and, weirdly, a newfound sense of artistic ambition.” The Guardian also scored it “4-out-of-5 Stars,” while Revolver Magazine assured, “this heavy-metal patient only sounds recharged, not ready for any farewells or swan songs just yet.”



The new album marks the first release since Osbourne’s critically acclaimed, worldwide, chart-topping 2020 album Ordinary Man. Produced by Andrew Watt (who handled the same duties on Ordinary Man), the new album marks Osbourne’s 13th solo studio album. It’s heavy, it’s hard-hitting, it’s historic–it’s everything you’d want from an Ozzy Osbourne record and maybe more. Working with producer Watt for the second time, Ozzy welcomed dynamic A-list featured guests. For the first time ever, Black Sabbath co-founder, guitarist, and riff-master Tony Iommi appears on an Ozzy solo album. The record also boasts guitarists Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Mike McCready of Pearl Jam, and longstanding righthand man and six-string beast Zakk Wylde who plays on the majority of the tracks. For the bulk of the album, Chad Smith of Red Hot Chili Peppers held down drums, while the late Taylor Hawkins of Foo Fighters appears on three songs. Old friend and one-time OZZY band member Robert Trujillo of Metallica plays bass on most of the album’s tracks, with Duff McKagan of Guns N’ Roses and Chris Chaney of Jane’s Addiction supplying bass on a few songs.

11.09.2022.

THE KINKS - Picture Book (2008)

One problem with a long wait is that things happen in the interim. In the case of the highly anticipated Kinks box set, these things were a steady stream of reissues and repackages -- some of these were pulled from the shelves before the unveiling of the six-disc Picture Book in late 2008, but at that late date almost all of the Kinks vaults had been emptied on deluxe reissues of every album from 1964's The Kinks until 1984's Word of Mouth (capped off by a triple-disc version of Village Green Preservation Society), with various other compilations like Live at the BBC and Dave Davies' Unfinished Business filling out the gaps. All this means that Picture Book isn't quite the clearinghouse for rarities it once would have been -- and many of the unreleased tracks here are often alternate takes or mono mixes, although there are some quite interesting demos here -- but the main purpose of Picture Book, as it would be with any box set this size for an artist with a career as significant and lengthy as the Kinks, is to tell the story as thoroughly as possible and on that level, it's very successful, even observant. As always, it's possible to quibble over song exclusions, this time with some justification -- since they had a surplus of great songs in the '60s many are left behind, singles from "Plastic Man" to "Jukebox Music" are overlooked, and another opportunity to reissue the studio version of "When I Turn Off the Living Room Light" is missed -- but to dwell on what's missing is to ignore what's here: 138 tracks that tell the tale of one of Britain's greatest bands -- and one of their strangest -- in detail.

This detail does mean each act of the story gets almost equal treatment, with the band's heyday of 1966-1970 deservedly receiving a slight emphasis, with precisely a third of this set devoted to these glory years. Even this cold statistic suggests that the box leans heavily on Face to Face through Lola, which isn't quite right: it lingers on the prime but not at the expense of either the group's early or later years or even their early-'70s detour into odd theatrics. Picture Book takes a little while to get going, cycling through some standard-issue British beat before the band starts to hit its groove after cutting "You Really Got Me," which non-chronologically opens the set like a fanfare. Similarly, it also has a bit of a long close, as the Davies brothers drag into the mid-'90s with Phobia and To the Bone, but between this slow start and finish lies one of the greatest pop sagas in all its glory and occasional bewildering embarrassment. Fortunately, there's not much of the latter, as the set cherry-picks Ray Davies' convoluted concept albums well and gets the best of the uneven '80s LPs (although the choice to include the smash comeback "Come Dancing" as only a demo is a bit puzzling), making this a full-bodied, representative portrait of a band that's notoriously difficult to pigeonhole.

Inevitably, some partisans will grouse that there's too much latter-day stuff at the expense of that classic '60s run, but that's not quite right: Picture Book does a remarkable job of getting into the flow of their career, so the transition from the delicate Village Green to the America-conquering arena rockers of a decade later makes sense. The group had to go through the loose-limbed, ragged Muswell Hillbillies before settling into the concept albums where every gesture became grander -- all theatrics amped up for the time when the amps themselves ruled the roost. As this covers the Kinks itself, not Ray Davies, this stops during his fallow period in the '90s -- ever the misfit, he managed not to capitalize on the Brit-pop moment he godfathered -- so there's not quite an upward swing at the conclusion as there would be if his solo albums were taken into equation. Even so, Picture Book has a wealth of riches, proof that the Kinks are in the first ranks of rockers, right up there with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. What other band could invent hard rock and metal with a two-chord riff, then detour into wry social satire, then establish modern British pop with Something Else, retreat into nostalgia before inventing the rock opera before the Who, then sell America tongue-in-cheek hard rock about gas shortages and the falling dollar, then feel totally at ease on MTV...all the while having a second command as exuberant and open as Dave Davies, who does get his fair shake here. No other band could claim that because there is no other band like the Kinks, as this long-awaited, largely essential, always absorbing box set proves conclusively.

10.09.2022.

NEW RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE - The First Five... (1971/74)

For most of the early '70s, the New Riders of the Purple Sage™ were the successful offshoots of the Grateful Dead. Although they never remotely approached the success or longevity of the Dead, they attracted a considerable audience through their association with Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, and Mickey Hart, whose fans couldn't be satisfied with only the Dead's releases -- the New Riders never reached much beyond that audience, but the Deadheads loved them as substitutes (along with Garcia's periodic solo projects) for the real article. Their initial sound was a kind of country-acid rock, somewhat twangier than the Dead's usual work and without the Dead's successful forays into experimental jams, but they later acquitted themselves as straight country-rockers. Essentially, the New Riders of the Purple Sage (their name derives from an old country outfit, Foy Willing and the Riders of the Purple Sage, who in turn took the name from an old Western novel) were initially formed as a vehicle for Garcia, Lesh, and Hart to indulge their tastes for country music beyond the albums Workingman's Dead and American Beauty. Their original lineup at early performances consisted of Garcia on pedal steel, Lesh on bass, John Dawson (born 1945) on rhythm guitars and vocals, sometime Dead contributor-member David Nelson on lead guitars, mandolin, and vocals, and Mickey Hart on drums. The New Riders quickly evolved into more of a free-standing unit, with Dave Torbert succeeding Lesh, and ex-Jefferson Airplane member Spencer Dryden on the drums, succeeding Hart. They also developed an identity of their own through Dawson's songwriting, which had an appealing command of melody and beat. The group was a little shaky as a country-rock outfit, without the strengths of soulfulness or strong in-house songwriting of, say, Poco or the Burrito Brothers, but their association with Garcia and the Dead (Lesh co-produced one album) gave them a significant leg up in terms of publicity and finding an audience.




High school and college kids who'd scarcely heard of Gram Parsons or Jim Messina but owned more than one Dead album, were likely in those days to own, or have a friend who owned, at least one New Riders album. That translated into many thousands of sales of the self-titled first album, which proved an apt and pleasing companion to Workingman's Dead and American Beauty with its mix of country and psychedelic sounds. By the second album, Buddy Cage had come in on pedal steel, replacing Garcia, and their sound had firmed up, helped by the fact that Dawson and Torbert were good songwriters. Powerglide, their second album, proved that they had what it took to stand separate from the Dead, even though Garcia and Bill Kreutzmann played on a handful of cuts. The group continued to attract a following through the early and mid-'70s, mixing country-rock and folk sounds (Buffy St. Marie was a guest vocalist on the 1974 hit album The Adventures of Panama Red) and attracting the mellower component of recreational drug users. By the end of the decade, following a label change from Columbia to MCA, it seemed as though they were running out of steam and originality, however, and the growth in popularity of punk, disco, and power pop made them seem like an anachronism, along with most other country-rock outfits of the era. Ex-Byrd Skip Battin joined in 1975, replacing Torbert; Dryden gave up playing in 1978 to assume management of the band, and by 1981, Nelson was gone. The New Riders essentially disbanded in 1982, although the name was later picked up by a new lineup built around Gary Vogensen (guitar) and Rusty Gautier (bass). Nelson subsequently played with the Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band and assumed the de facto role of group archivist, supervising the release of unissued tapes by the band through the Relix label.

09.09.2022.

OZZY OSBOURNE - The First Four... (1980/86)

Blizzard of Ozz is the debut studio album by British heavy metal vocalist Ozzy Osbourne, released in September 1980 in the UK and on 27 March 1981 in the US. The album was Osbourne's first release following his firing from Black Sabbath in 1979. Blizzard of Ozz is the first of two studio albums Osbourne recorded with guitarist Randy Rhoads prior to Rhoads' death in 1982. In 2017, it was ranked 9th on Rolling Stone's list of "100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time".



Diary of a Madman is the second studio album by British heavy metal vocalist Ozzy Osbourne. It was released in November 1981, and re-issued on CD on 22 August 1995. This is the last Osbourne studio album to feature guitarist Randy Rhoads and drummer Lee Kerslake. An altered version appeared in 2002 with the original bass and drum parts removed and re-recorded. In 2011, a Deluxe 30th Anniversary Edition was released with all original parts restored. To date, the album has sold over 3 million copies worldwide.

Bark at the Moon is the third studio album by British heavy metal vocalist Ozzy Osbourne, originally released on 15 November 1983. The album marks Ozzy's change to a synth infused pop-metal sound, with both its "sonic production, and in Ozzy's imaging". A commercial success, Bark at the Moon peaked at number 19 on the Billboard album chart and within several weeks of release was certified gold for over 500,000 sales in the United States. To date, it has sold over 3,000,000 copies in the United States. In the UK, it was the third of four Osbourne albums to attain silver certification (60,000 units sold) by the British Phonographic Industry, achieving this in January 1984. The album was remastered on CD in 1995 and again (with a different mix) in 2002. This is Osbourne's first album to feature guitarist Jake E. Lee and only studio album to feature drummer Tommy Aldridge.



The Ultimate Sin is the fourth studio album by British heavy metal vocalist Ozzy Osbourne. It was released on 10 February 1986, and was remastered and re-issued on compact disc on 22 August 1995. It is the second and last of Osbourne's albums to feature lead guitarist Jake E. Lee, and the first to feature drummer Randy Castillo and bassist Phil Soussan, who co-wrote the album's hit single "Shot in the Dark". The album was awarded Platinum status in May 1986 and was awarded Double Platinum status in October 1994 by the RIAA.

08.09.2022.

THE WHO - The Kids Are Alright (1979) [2LP + 2CD Edition]

The Kids Are Alright is a soundtrack album by the British rock band The Who, a companion to the band's documentary film of the same name. As a compilation album, it serves as a retrospective look at the band's biggest hits throughout their career to the point it was released. Most of the tracks are live recordings, rather than the original studio versions. It was originally released as a double album in June 1979 on Polydor Records in the UK and MCA Records in the US. The performance of "My Wife" was from a concert The Who filmed for The Kids Are Alright at the Gaumont State Cinema in Kilburn; however the footage was not used in the film. That show was later restored for DVD and released as The Who at Kilburn: 1977 in 2008. "Tommy Can You Hear Me" had a longer outro with Roger Daltrey repeating the word "Tommy" before Keith Moon screams "'Ello!" to end the song. The soundtrack album did well in the US where it peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard albums chart and went platinum, while it peaked at No. 26 on the UK charts. The Kids Are Alright soundtrack album was reissued in its original packaging with the 20-page booklet and two LPs on coloured vinyl (LP1 on red vinyl, LP2 on blue vinyl) for Record Store Day in 2018.

The double LP soundtrack album for The Kids Are Alright contains material that doesn’t actually appear in the film, while the film contains material that doesn’t appear on the soundtrack. The original CD issues edited what had been the fourth side of the album due to then existing technical limitations, but the full track list was restored in the 2000 CD reissue . Certain tracks were identical to the original releases, which in the movie The Who lip-synched to playback. The soundtrack, taken from various film clips, regular releases and special staged performances, was remixed by John Entwistle. It offered alternate versions of previously released material, mainly live cuts, many of which, especially ‘Sparks’, ‘See Me, Feel Me’, ‘Baba O’Riley’ and ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’. The Kids Are Alright reached #26 in UK and #8 in US.

07.09.2022.

FANCY - The Complete Recordings (2021)

Fancy were an early-mid-1970s pop group. The band was made up of session musicians produced by Mike Hurst. They had a surprise U.S. hit single in 1974 with a version of the classic "Wild Thing", peaking at #14 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #31 in Australia. They also had a second U.S. hit with "Touch Me", peaking at #19 and #97 in Australia. In 1973, Fancy came together around producer Mike Hurst - alongside guitarist Ray Fenwick and bassist Mo Foster - to record a glam rock cover version of The Troggs' hit 'Wild Thing'. Issued on Atlantic, the single was a U. S. hit, peaking at #14 on the Billboard Hot 100 (it also reached #31 in Australia). Prompted by the success, a touring band was assembled with new singer Annie Kavanagh. And an album, Wild Thing, yielded a second American hit, 'Touch Me'. In summer 1974, Fancy signed to Arista, and embarked on a U. S. tour, supporting Kiss, Wishbone Ash and Steppenwolf (in early 1975, they also supported 10cc at the Hammersmith Odeon). The new deal led to a second album Something To Remember (re-titled Turns You On in the States), promoted by two singles, 'She's Ridin' The Rock Machine' and a cover of Steve Wonder's 'I Was Made To Love Her'. In late 1975, Fancy bowed out with a non-album single, 'Music Maker'. With input from original band members, this welcome triple-CD set offers up all of Fancy's studio recordings - both albums plus non-LP tracks - plus a previously unheard live recording from legendary jazz club Ronnie Scott's. As a bonus, Disc 3 closes with a fascinating US radio interview. Also included are two brand new tracks, Ray Fenwick's 'Sidewinder' and Mo Foster's 'Driving Home'.

06.09.2022.

KING CRIMSON - Radical Action To Unseat The Hold Of Monkey Mind (2016)

When it comes to quality live material, there's never been a better time to be a King Crimson fan than the 2010s. In addition to the exhaustive 40th anniversary boxes, there have been multiple releases from the 2014-2015 seven-piece band culminating with Radical Action to Unseat the Hold of Monkey Mind, a set that features every song performed on the tour in excellent audio and video quality. The vast majority of the set was recorded in Japan, with other shows filling in on the songs that weren't performed there. Every show was recorded in high-quality audio and video with a multi-camera shoot, so there's no difference in quality. While the band doesn't improvise as extensively as they have in the past, a comparison of the solos shows that they aren't phoning in their performances, either. The Blu-Ray presents the show (mostly) as it happened from beginning to end. The cameras were in fixed positions (for minimal distraction) but they effectively capture all the action. Sometimes the superimposed shots get a bit dense as they try to show as much musical action as possible, but on the whole, the footage and direction are excellent. You even see Robert Fripp smiling at times! If you just want to experience the show without the visuals, there's an option for that on the Blu-ray version. The CDs dispense with the running order of the show (and the audience!) in favor of slightly arbitrary thematic groupings: "Mostly Metal," "Easy Money Shots," and "Crimson Classics." These are different mixes than those on the Blu-ray set, specifically for audio-only. The different mixes and running order provide a different feeling to the sets, but both are equally powerful. This band is a juggernaut and hearing them tackle not just the '70s repertoire they hadn't performed in decades, but some '90s tracks as well, is something fans could not have dreamed of at the turn of the century. Rarely has a band that's been around for 45-plus years sounded so vital. This is essential for fans.

“What I like about this band is, that what it is actually doing is not what it appears to be doing...This is King Crimson re-imagined” – Robert Fripp, June 2016.