Dad Reissue

Fire was Hounslow's finest psychedelic rock group. Fronted by Dave Lambert (later to join The Strawbs), the band recorded two legendary singles for Decca before signing to PYE Records and recording this legendary Psychedelic Rock rarity in 1969. Featuring guest appearances by guitarist Paul Brett and Dave Cousins of The Strawbs, the album failed to sell in significant quantities at the time of release. Now hailed as a masterpiece of the genre, the album featured in Record Collector's Top Ten sought after rare albums list. This new remastered edition features four bonus tracks, namely both sides of th two Fire singles released by Decca in 1968 along with an extensive booklet featuring new liner notes.

By now, the story behind the reunion which begat CPR is well known. David Crosby, while awaiting a life-saving liver transplant, was found by keyboardist James Raymond, whom Crosby had given up for adoption years before. This would just be great People magazine rock & roll fodder if not for the great fortune that Raymond is an incredible keyboardist whose harmonies blend in sweetly with his legendary dad's. Veteran Jeff Pevar's crack guitar work once again helps drive these provocative pop/rock tunes, particularly on the few more aggressive tracks like "Katie Did"; elsewhere, he's a little more restrained on acoustic, and Raymond's blues-influenced keyboard and piano playing dominated behind the powerful vocals.

By now, the story behind the reunion which begat CPR is well known. David Crosby, while awaiting a life-saving liver transplant, was found by keyboardist James Raymond, whom Crosby had given up for adoption years before. This would just be great People magazine rock & roll fodder if not for the great fortune that Raymond is an incredible keyboardist whose harmonies blend in sweetly with his legendary dad's. Veteran Jeff Pevar's crack guitar work once again helps drive these provocative pop/rock tunes, particularly on the few more aggressive tracks like "Katie Did"; elsewhere, he's a little more restrained on acoustic, and Raymond's blues-influenced keyboard and piano playing dominated behind the powerful vocals.

Bad as Me is Tom Waits' first collection of new material in seven years. He and Kathleen Brennan - wife, co-songwriter, and production partner - have, at the latter's insistence, come up with a tight-knit collection of short tunes, the longest is just over four minutes. This is a quick, insistent, and woolly aural road trip full of compelling stops and starts. While he's kept his sonic experimentation - especially with percussion tracks - Waits has returned to blues, rockabilly, rhythm & blues, and jazz as source material. Instead of sprawl and squall, we get chug and choogle. For "Chicago" - via Clint Maedgen's saxes, Keith Richards' (who appears sporadically here) and Marc Ribot's guitars, son Casey Waits' drums, dad's banjo, percussion and piano, and Charlie Musselwhite's harmonica (he appears numerous times here, too) - we get a 21st century take on vintage R&B…

The mysterious Bill Quick: this guy was the son of a North American dad and Venezuelan mum, and landed in Madrid in the early '70s, spending most of his time playing music and manufacturing leather belts and other stuff that he later sold at the popular Rastro flea market in Madrid, a meeting point for all hippies of the time. He somehow got in touch with famous producer Alain Milhaud, who was really impressed by his work and quickly offered him a deal to record a long-play to be released in Milhaud's own Explosion label. Then Bill recruited some top studio musicians and foreign friends who were also living in Madrid at the time; the list of people who play on the recording is impressive: up to eleven musicians joined Bill in the recording studio including Salvador Dominguez and Chema Pellicó (ex-Cerebrum), Rafa Gálvez (later on Vainica Doble's backing band), Frank Rojas (Sangre) and Jess Lam (Jess & James)…