Russkaja Russkaja Russian Voodoo (2010)

"Voodoo Guitar", the way-kool debut studio disc by this bad-ass, killer blues/rock axeripper from Los Angeles, features 10 tracks of hard-assed, get-down, nasty, rough & ready, blues-based heavy guitar power trio riffage that will rock your low-down blues and kick your ass right into the next county. Dirty Dave Osti is a bonafide blues/rock guitar hero who can rip it hard with the best of them. The man gets down to serious six string business and rocks the blues with wild abandon as the Dirty One cuts loose and goes for the throat nailing down each muscular riff with sheer force and relentless groove. Osti knows when to jam hard and when to kick back @ the shack for an unforgettable, dynamic, blues/rock guitar ride. Fierce and powerful blues-based heavy guitar riffage rules in the world of Dirty Dave Osti.

A rare find, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy's release Whatchu' Want for Christmas gives the listener a peek back @ one of todays original, 'classically fresh' and unique swing bands. This album is a mix of early recordings of their current hits, You and Me and the Bottle Makes Three Tonight (baby), Go Daddy-O, The Jungle Book favorite, I Wanna be Just Like You and, three Christmas tunes that promise to get you in a swingin' holiday mood. If there is one thing this album lacks it is the presence and "finishing touch" Josh Levy (piano, vocals) and Karl Hunter (alto, tenor & baritone saxophones, clarinet) provide in the band's current self titled release. Amidst all of the '90's swing' being thrown our way, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy offers an original yet classic swing sound that will leave you Jumpin' Jack… Go-Daddy-O!!

Much more than a usual "Best Of" album, on these double CD-sets the musicians themselves picked out 24 pieces, which they feel represent the most important, significant and personal selections from their repertoire. Remastered and given the best possible post-production. An excellent introduction for established fans as well as newcomers, who have yet to discover the musicians and their art.
Nguyên Lê opens his Signature Edition with a kind of prelude: the previously unreleased track "Magic Constant" introduces the listener to his incomparable musical kingdom, full of very different landscapes. There are pure classic adaptations (for instance on the traditional "Lo Rossinyol") as well as abstract clusters of contemporary music; many pieces are defined by Vietnamese music traditions…

Epic/Legacy expanded Stevie Ray Vaughan’s second album Couldn’t Stand the Weather in 1999, adding four outtakes and an interview excerpt to the eight-track original, but the 2010 Legacy Edition expands it further still, retaining those four cuts, adding four songs from the posthumous compilation The Sky Is Crying (“Empty Arms,” “Wham!,” “Close to You,” “Little Wing”) along with three previously unreleased alternate takes (“The Sky Is Crying,” “Stang’s Swang,” “Boot Hill”), and a full, unreleased concert SRV & Double Trouble gave at the Spectrum in Montreal on August 17, 1984. Apart from “Empty Arms” and “Stang’s Swang,” every studio outtake is a cover, underscoring how Vaughan spent much of Couldn’t Stand the Weather drawing from his influences and synthesizing them into his own voice, and their addition actually strengthens the album considerably. With that in mind, the lively concert on the second disc is a bonus treat, evidence that SRV & Double Trouble were flying very high during 1984 and one of the better complete live sets in Vaughan’s discography.

Ex-boxer Screamin' Jay Hawkins' live show, full of on-stage coffins, skulls, and toilets, prefigured the extravagant concert productions of later artists like Alice Cooper and George Clinton, and Hawkins' full awareness of the visual aspect of rock music extended even to his lyrics, which were purposefully graphic and surreal. In essence, Hawkins was a one- or two-trick pony, but boy, those ponies could run. His masterpiece was "I Put a Spell on You," which he originally recorded for OKeh Records (supposedly while extremely drunk) in 1956, and while Hawkins' version was never even close to being a commercial hit, the song has been covered so many times (most notably by Nina Simone) that it has deservedly been certified as a rock and R&B classic.

That music is close to the heart of Swedish world class trombonist Nils Landgren can be heard in every single note of his playing - whether with his Funk Unit, his duos with Esbjörn Svensson or his ballad albums.
His band Funk Unit soon get into to a rootsy, raw groove with kicking tracks such as "Funk For Life" and "Finish What You Started". Tightly honed funk nuggets have been lovingly crafted by this gifted bunch of scandinavian souleros, it's all here blistering trombone, deep in the pocket drumming, crisp and choice guitar melded together by floaty keyboards.
Nils voice sounds on it too and the vocal harmonies that weave in and out of his compositions really add a touch of class to this already funk enflamed flagship. Highlight for me is "Matutu" the dirty synth, reminiscent of funkadelic really steals the show and Nils treated trombone just adds its own special flava to this bangin' broth!