The Rock House

Omar Dykes tears it up big-time on this marvelous live outing. Pulling tunes largely from his then-current Hard Times in the Land of Plenty album, Dykes and his band deliver the goods with loads of panache and attitude for a hometown crowd hanging on every note. Dykes' voice is poised somewhere between Howlin' Wolf and Bob Seger, while his guitar style is a Texas version of John Fogerty's work with Creedence, but the sound he produces out of all this is totally unique. The disc is loaded with solid Dykes originals like "Mississippi Hoo Doo Man," "Same Old Grind," "Hard Times in the Land of Plenty," and a wild encore performance of Jerry McCain's "Rock'n'Roll Ball." One great little package.

Sunset In The 12th House is a new band founded by Dordeduh masterminds Edmond Karban (aka Hupogrammos) and Sol Faur. Acting mainly as an instrumental band, the quartet, which is completed by Dordeduh drummer Sergio Ponti and bass player Mihai Moldoveanu, performs a unique style that can be best described as a blend of Psychedelic Post Rock and traditional oriental music. The enigmatic band name refers to the astrological array in which the twelfth house is the house of subconsciousness and unconsciousness, of intuition, compassion and spiritual transcendence.

Have you ever driven past one of those really old homes that looks like the local "haunted house", and wondered who might have lived there over the years? As kids we probably all knew of one of those homes and made up horror stories about them around the camp fire. At a more serious level it's been the storyline of countless movies… and now Guy Manning has written an album about a place he saw on the way to his Summers End gig.
So it's another Guy Manning concept piece, and once again, Manning's CD is more than just a collection of songs - he always produces music with a purpose - or at least, with a story…

The Seventh House came out almost four years after IQ's previous studio album, Subterranea. In light of this CD, it appears that the critically acclaimed 1997 concept album was the band's creative peak, which does not mean The Seventh House is weak. The general feeling of the album makes it closer to 1993's Ever. Peter Nicholls' theatrical voice gains in beauty with age. The playing is unsurprisingly tight, the musical approach firmly anchored in melodic progressive rock. Highlights include "Guiding Light," "The Wrong Side of Weird," and the title track, the latter a complex and exhilarating number. On the other hand, "Erosion" and "Zero Hour" feel like they miss a dimension, even if the acoustic guitar on the latter brings in a different texture…

GarciaLive Volume 12 chronicles Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders' performance at The Boarding House in San Francisco, CA on January 23, 1973, joined by John Kahn (bass), Bill Vitt (drums) and Sarah Fulcher (vox). Both sets from that evening were unique with rarely featured Motown composition "Honey Chile" and famous Carmichael/Gorrell penned "Georgia on My Mind." This one-of-a-kind, previously uncirculated show was mixed from multi-track recordings by Jonathan Wilson (Father John Misty).