Living Vegan For Dummies

By 1999, Crash Test Dummies probably figured they would never be hip in America, so they made partial concessions on Give Yourself a Hand. If you have trouble getting past Brad Roberts' awkward singing and writing, then maybe innovative breakbeats and arrangements might obscure them. The results are exactly what you'd expect – an instrumentally progressive pop album, completely neutralized by embarrassing lyrics and vocals. Give Yourself a Hand redefines the Dummies sound with lightly applied techno strokes, not far off from Everything But the Girl's classic Walking Wounded.

Led by Garth Watt-Roy and his younger brother (future Blockhead) Norman, five-piece Harlow band Living Daylights signed with Beatles publisher Dick James in 1967. Paired with a studio production team that included Caleb Quaye, the band were given a song that James published, 'Let's Live For Today', as their debut single. Released in April 1967, it entered Radio London's Fab Forty after being championed by the pirate station's DJ John Peel. Also issued in America, the song showed significant sales potential, and Dick James decided the band should record an album that would be rushed out if the single became a success. Unfortunately, 'Let's Live For Today' lost out to a cover version by American band The Grass Roots, who scored a US Top Ten hit. Without a hit to support it, the Living Daylights' album failed to appear, and the band split after a second single failed to find favour. 55 years later, that album finally gains a release, with mono and stereo mixes joined by their UK singles and American and Japanese versions. 'Let's Live For Today: The Complete Recordings' is a vital addition to the pantheon of British psychedelic pop albums from the epochal year of 1967.

Before he was bassist for one of the biggest bands in the universe, Guns N’ Roses’ Duff McKagan was a punk rocker in Seattle. And now we can hear what a 17-year-old McKagan sounded like thanks to The Living: 1982, a previously unreleased LP from his early band The Living.

Before forming Living Life, Johnny Betti was a drummer on the first line-up of psychedelic Italian band Circus 2000. After leaving the band, Betti spent a few years touring Europe with jazz musicians until his trip in Aghanistan for a year. In 1975 he formed Living Life in Turin and created his own record label Shirak which released his albums and on the debut he was joined by a former Circus 2000 guitarist Marcello Quartarone. The two albums by Living Life were released six years apart, ranging from jazz rock influenced by folk music to more symphonic influenced on the second release which involded four keyboard players. Living Life disbanded like many unnoticed bands on Betti's record label.

Baby Huey - The Baby Huey Story: The Living Legend (1971) {2018 2LP Expanded Record Store Day ROGV-051} (Vinyl LP rip 16-48)
FLAC (tracks) - 16bit/48kHz - VINYL LP RIP -> 471 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 162 Mb | Full Artwork | 5% repair rar
© 1971, 2018 Curtom / Run Out Groove | ROGV-051 | Expanded 2LP Deluxe Edition
Psychedelic Soul / Funk / Soul / R&B / Chicago Soul

James Thomas Ramey, better known by his stage name Baby Huey (taken from the Paramount Pictures animated giant cartoon duckling) was born in Richmond, Indiana and moved to Chicago in the early '60s to front his band The Babysitters with co-founders Melvin Deacon Jones on trumpet and Johnny Ross on guitar. By the time they recorded The Living Legend, only Huey and Jones remained (Deacon Jones would go on to play with Freddie King and John Lee Hooker). Because of a glandular disorder, Huey weighed close to 400 pounds at times, contributing to his "larger than life" stage presence, but also to a host of health issues.

Austrian composer Thomas Larcher’s new album features premiere recordings of three strongly contrasting works. The Times has hailed Larcher’s music as a world “of haunting landscapes and dreams, stylistically disparate but fused by the composer’s astonishing ear and quizzical attitude to traditional forms”, a description borne out by the compositions here. The Living Mountain, for soprano and ensemble, draws upon the memoir of the Scottish poet and nature writer Nan Shepherd. Unerzählt is an intimate song cycle for baritone and piano, deploying texts of German writer W.G. Sebald. And Ouroboros, named for the serpent of eternity, is a powerful piece for cello and chamber orchestra. Recorded in Munich and Weerberg in 2021 and 2022 and produced by Manfred Eicher, The Living Mountain is the fourth New Series album of Larcher’s compositions.