The second recording and first studio set by the L.A. Four matched together Bud Shank on alto and flute, guitarist Laurindo Almeida, bassist Ray Brown, and drummer Shelly Manne for a diverse yet consistently enjoyable program. The selections range from "Dindi" and "Manteca" to "St. Thomas" and a 13-minute exploration of "Concierto de Aranjuez." As usual, the band mixes together bossa nova and Brazilian jazz, some touches of classical music, and cool-toned bop. Recommended as a strong example of the group's appealing sound.
Kurt Cobain made a lot of mistakes in his life but loving the Vaselines was not one of them. Nirvana covered one of their songs for their MTV Unplugged session, two other covers show up on the Incesticide record and as Kurt might tell you if he were alive today, from 1986 to 1989 the Vaselines were the best pop band on the planet. Sub Pop was kind enough to cash in on the Nirvana connection and on The Way of the Vaselines: A Complete History, release everything the Vaselines recorded. From the stomping, singalong opener "Son of a Gun" to the distorted and nasty "Let's Get Ugly" 17 tracks later, this collection is the Holy Grail of indie pop music. It's unfailingly amateurish, almost completely silly, occasionally quite perverted, and always about sex. The music has the simplicity and ear-grabbing melodies of the best bubblegum, the loud and semi-competent guitars of punk, and some of the attitude and lo-fi sound of the noise rock scenesters like the Jesus & Mary Chain.
A Night Of A Thousand Vampires’ is a recording of a one-off show in October 2019 from The Damned, in which the punk trailblazers performed tracks from throughout their four-decade career at London’s Palladium Theatre, in the company of The Hammer House Of Horror and the cast of ‘The Circus Of Horrors’. The show also marked the final performance of drummer Pinch, who had played with the band for more than twenty years.
The Who's second album is a less impressive outing than their debut, primarily because, at the urging of their managers, all four members penned original material (though Pete Townshend wrote more than anyone else). The pure adrenaline of My Generation also subsided somewhat as the band began to grapple with more complex melodic and lyrical themes, especially on the erratic mini-opera "A Quick One While He's Away." Still, there's some great madness on Keith Moon's instrumental "Cobwebs and Strange," and Townshend delivered some solid mod pop with "Run Run Run" and "So Sad About Us." John Entwistle was also revealed to be a writer of considerable talent (and a morbid bent) on "Whiskey Man" and "Boris the Spider." The CD reissue adds an acoustic version of "Happy Jack."
Back Against the Wall is an album released in 2005 by Billy Sherwood in collaboration with a number of (mostly) progressive rock artists as a tribute to Pink Floyd's album The Wall…
This is the difficult third album with which they overshoot the mark and risk to escape their roots… but they don’t care". Andy Tillison, singer, songwriter, and keyboardist of the Swedish-British prog rock group The Tangent pulls his own leg and at the same time kiddingly prepares the gentle listener for a few changes. However, the innovations A Place In The Queue can offer, one and a half year after the brilliant The World That We Drive Through, will send every fan into raptures. A Place In The Queue is not really a concept album but all songs deal with the idea that our place in society is similar to a queue where everybody lines up.