Following two enjoyable studio releases, San Francisco stoner rock band The Watchers give fans a genuine treat with their third release. ‘High And Alive’ shows the band in their natural environment, in front of an enthusiastic crowd. With four tracks recorded at The House of Rock, the EP shows how much better this band sounds without the constraints of a studio and with some extra volume applied.
Monthly Archives: April 2020
The Great 80s Project: 1982
In terms of pop, 1982 was a strong year: Madness took a further step towards songwriting sophistication with their album ‘The Rise & Fall’, Prince made a huge breakthrough with his ‘1999’ double platter of much filthiness and Phil Collins showed us that the previous year’s ‘Face Value’ wasn’t just a one-off solo success when his “tricky second album” spawned a #1 hit single and a few of his best solo tunes.
JUDIE TZUKE – Road Noise: The Official Bootleg
From an historical perspective, Judie Tzuke’s ‘Road Noise: The Official Bootleg’ is an interesting proposition. At the time of its original release in 1982, the double live album format had been dominated by rock bands – it was rare that a contemporary pop artist or singer songwriter would bother with such a release. Also, its extended format had almost become yesterdays news. In a musical landscape populated by synth pop bands and the birth of the New Romantics, the 7” single had once again become king, much as it had been in the early to mid sixties. The decision for Tzuke to release a double platter of live material in the Autumn of ’82 certainly went against the grain.
Real Gone Sessions #4: House Above The Sun – Small Town
With the world in turmoil and people in isolation, there’s a good chance you have far more on your mind right now than “What are the best albums of 2020 so far?”…but we’d be happy to tell you that House Above The Sun’s ‘Time I Got Goin’ EP is one of the finest releases to emerge from the year’s first quarter.
Check out the new track from The 1957 Tail-Fin Fiasco
The last time most people heard from The 1957 Tail-Fin Fiasco was in the summer of 2018 when they released a stand-alone video single ’39 Grams’. An odd tune, it side-stepped their usual sunny sounds and Steely Dan obsessions in favour of something with bigger beats and musical quirks. Understandably, the response was mixed.
The band actually sneaked out a new track, ‘Cold Cuts’ – a semi-acoustic number that was a little more traditional – at the beginning of 2020. They’ve followed ‘Cold Cuts’ with another off-piste affair ‘Dream Pharma’ which is as quirky as it is catchy.