Over the course of the past six years, Omaha, NB musician David Nance has released three full-length albums for labels Grapefruit and Ba Da Bing, a 7-inch, numerous cassettes, CDRs and unlicensed "cover albums". His latest full-length is credited to the David Nance Group and features Nance alongside his recent hot-shit live band of fellow Omaha musicians. Peaced and Slightly Pulverized's sounds are alternatingly tender and brusque. The anthemic Poison with its fuzzed-out guitar riff that leans into a Crazy-Horsian guitar maelstrom and white-hot solo, to Ham Sandwich; a blisteringly frantic rant about a lunchtime torment - uncomfortable in its directness. Side one closes with the epic seven and a half minute Amethyst; an emotional odyssey with Nance and Schroeder strangling their guitars into a twin-guitar, barbed-wire duel. The album's centerpiece is In Her Kingdom, an emotive ballad that fades into view with a plaintive guitar strum that ebbs and flows with a ris ing tide of swelling guitars, it's riffs gilding the melody and adding flecks of gold to Nance's tale of poverty and grace.
California Dreamin' reminds us that '60s pop paragons The Mamas & The Papas had an appealing new sound, made some terrific records, and left behind a legacy that lives on more than 35 years after they called it quits. This hour-long documentary, originally aired on PBS, has all the standard elements of the genre: interviews (including some from 2004 and '05 with surviving members Michelle Phillips and Denny Doherty, as well as 1986 recollections by John Phillips, who died in '01, and a few brief words from Cass Elliot, who passed away in '74), photos, home movies, and a generous helping of music clips…
Though the soundtrack for Death Wish 2 may not sound like an interesting record on the surface, it is actually a significant release for any number of reasons. For one thing, it was the first album that Jimmy Page recorded and released after the breakup of Led Zeppelin, and the album serves as a fascinating transition from Zeppelin's final studio release, In Through the out Door, to the work Page would do with his ill-fated supergroup the Firm. In addition to containing Page's work with a full orchestra, there are several pieces that showcase his well-established ability to create eerie, unnerving guitar and synthesizer lines, mainly to serve as accompaniment to the film.