She Said

A 3-CD set, I Said She Said Ah Cid gathers together the cream of Alshire’s late Sixties/early Seventies roster, incorporating key LPs (including The Animated Egg and the extraordinary Astro-Sounds From Beyond The Year 2000) in full, an entire CD of music from scandalously overlooked California psych/rock band The California Poppy Pickers (including a handful of tracks issued in that name by a pseudonymous Wilson McKinlay) and selected highlights from elsewhere in the Alshire catalogue, stretching from obscure UK acts like Autumn and Amalgamation to (almost unbelievably) an attempt to update the music of Hank Williams for the acid-rock generation.

Ali Handal’s fourth album That’s What She Said (now out on Red Parlor Records) says plenty about this girl rocker who pulls no punches even while she spins out tightly constructed songs. Occupying a space roughly between Melissa Etheridge and Bonnie Raitt with the bluntness of Ani DiFranco, Handal’s a confessional singer-songwriter in a world overflowing with them but she stands above the pack with her rather good guitar playing and a bevy of attitude. By the time the album ends gracefully with the astral “Last Lullaby,” there’s a strong sense of knowing this artist personally well.

Learn how spoken words can change a mind, a community and the world with this collection of remarkable speeches by women