We're Just Good Friends

"Bad" is the seventh studio album by American singer and songwriter Michael Jackson, released on August 31, 1987 in the United States by Epic Records and internationally by CBS Records. It was released nearly five years after Jackson's previous solo studio album, "Thriller" (1982). Bad was written and recorded over the span of over three and a half years. The lyrical themes include media bias, paranoia, racial profiling, romance, self-improvement and world peace. The album cemented Jackson's status as one of the most successful artists of the 1980s.

C89 is another celebration of the Eighties Indie scene, documenting a golden era when tuneful guitar-based bands made records on shoestring budgets, often issued on small labels with hand-made artwork, with little hope of mainstream exposure.

As the title suggests, Calm After the Storm is a companion volume to the simultaneously released Storm Before the Calm compilation. But whereas that set highlighted the fiery operatics for which the (predominantly) 1970s-era Hammill was best regarded, this package takes the opposite tack, and isolates the gentle ballads that have always been a major part of his persona…

On May 13, 2000 the Chicago Underground Quartet played one of the most searing and transcendent sets of music I’ve ever witnessed, as part of the Empty Bottle Festival of Jazz & Improvised Music. Cornetist Rob Mazurek, guitarist Jeff Parker, drummer Chad Taylor, and bassist Noel Kupersmith performed with a fiery singularity of purpose, ripping through its set like a bulldozer, albeit a machine marked by nuance and soulfulness. The following year the same line-up—which had previously made two albums for Delmark as the Chicago Underground Trio despite, with Parker nominally billed as a guest—dropped its eponymous debut on Thrill Jockey, serving up one of the strongest entries in the city’s modern history. Little did anyone know it would be nineteen years for the follow-up to surface.

Beyond their professional relationship as bandmates, Oscar Peterson and Alvin Queen were also good friends. Thus, this tribute to the great pianist is a heartbeat for the drummer who played with bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen in Oscar Peterson's famous trio during the coda of Peterson's life. That Alvin Queen has chosen to record in collaboration with two Danish musicians speaks volumes about the musical level of pianist Zier Romme and bassist Ida Hvid.

Peter Thorup, a well-known Danish blues-rock musician, gained an international reputation because of his cooperation with blues icon Alexis Korner in New Church, CCS and Snape in the early '70s. After he dispended his first band The Beefeaters in 1969, Thorup was helped by some old friends from famous Danish groups Young Flowers, Burning Red Ivanhoe, The Beefeaters, and Rainbow Band to record Wake Up Your Mind in February and March 1970. Thirteen titles were recorded of which 7 found its way in 1970 on the Philips-released album Wake Up Your Mind. The music was not restricted to just blues-rock and consequently this release had a much wider appeal, as the rest of Peter Thorup's efforts. The album reflects the musicians' good reputation and it is rather a band project than a solo effort. Fantastic guitar playing by Peter Thorup and Peer Frost (Young Flowers), gorgeous vocals by P.T. and Ole Fick (Burning Red Ivanhoe), excellent organ work by Morten Kjaerumgard and impressive flute and sax playing by Bent Hesselmann (Maxwells, Rainbow Band/Midnight Sun) define this real killer. A must-have.