Trading Snake Oil

The mercurial Tony Williams assembled a dream line-up of superb session men bassist Tony Newton and keyboardist Alan Pasqua but it's with the addition of guitarist Allan Holdsworth that the line-up featured a musician that not only brought this band together and it also brought in a member that was equally as innovative and extraordinary gifted as Tony…

Vermont bluesman John Fusco and his band the X-Road Riders will follow up their acclaimed 2019 self-titled debut with the 20-song double album John the Revelator, due out July 31, 2020 on Checkerboard Lounge Recordings.

Harvey Mandel - Snake Box (2015) {6CD Box Set Purple Pyramid Records CLP-2100-2 rec 1968-1972}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 1.63 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 618 Mb
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© 1968-72, 2015 Purple Pyramid Records / Cleopatra Records | CLP-2100-2
Rock / Blues / Guitar Virtuoso / Blues-Rock / Boogie Rock / Jazz-Rock / Rock & Roll

Legendary blues guitarist from Canned Heat, Harvey The Snake Mandel, presents this deluxe limited edition 6CD box set that includes 5 classic solo albums from 1968-1972 plus a bonus vintage concert recording from 1968 that features guests Jerry Garcia & Elvin Bishop! Each of these albums showcase Mandels innovative, hugely influential playing that earned him a place alongside not just the Heat but also The Rolling Stones, John Mayall and others! All 6 CDs come individually packaged in its own cardboard sleeve reproducing the artwork from the vinyl jackets.

Boogaloo Joe Jones - Snake Rhythm Rock / Black Whip (1992) {Prestige–BGP CDBGPD 043 rec 1972-1973}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 392 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 171 Mb
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© 1972-73, 1992 Prestige / Fantasy / BGP | CDBGPD 043
Jazz / Soul Jazz / Boogaloo / Hard Bop / Jazz Funk / Guitar / Organ

Guitarist Ivan "Boogaloo Joe" Jones two albums were made in the same period (1972-73) as the Funk Inc sides and use the same production /engineering team of Ozzie Cadena and Rudy Van Gelder. Snake Rhythm Rock and Black Whip were originally released as Prestige LPs 10056 and 10072, respectively, and the band expands in size from a quintet on the first album to a septet by the second.

Sultry Texas vocals lead the listener through rockin', swingin', bluesy slices of life that everyone can relate to.

The largely unacknowledged open secret lying at the heart of Rick Springfield's career is how, at his core, he's a serious artist. His gift for power pop and his spell as a television actor obscured this essential fact, but on the many albums he's made since his popular peak during the early '80s, he regularly returns to sober subjects, which means most of his fans may not be surprised that he spends the bulk of his 2018 album The Snake King exploring depression, faith, political confusion, and other weighty ideas. Even so, he hits these subjects hard throughout The Snake King, his lyrical explicitness finding a match in a shift his music: He's moved from arena rock toward heavy blues and folk-rock anthems straight from Bob Dylan in 1965.

Fred Ho & The Saxophone Liberation Front - Snake-Eaters (2011) {Mutable-Big Red Media 002}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 351 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 142 Mb
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© 2011 Mutable Music / Big Red Media | 002
Jazz / Avant-Garde Jazz / Experimental / Modern Creative / Saxophone

Snake-Eaters debuts Fred Ho's Saxophone Liberation Front, featuring composer Ho on baritone saxophone and Hafez Modirzadeh (soprano), Bobby Zankel (alto) and Salim Washington (tenor). Darker than Blue, inspired by Curtis Mayfield's song, We the People Who are Darker than Blue, employs shifting meters (including a blues section in 11/8 and 11.5 /8), 12-tone serialism, compound meter ostinati, and Lydian chromatic approaches to orchestration. Ho's Yellow Power, Yellow Soul Suite coincides with the soon-to-be publication of the Drs. Roger Buckley and Tamara Roberts' festschrift by the same title, and includes the previously recorded "Fishing Song of the East China Sea" (originally a flute trio with bass violin on the out-of-print recording by Fred Ho and the Asian American Art Ensemble, Bamboo that Snaps Back; and the now-defunct Brooklyn Sax Quartet recording The Far Side of Here), as well as Afro-Asian adaptations of other Asian folk songs.

Depending on your viewpoint, director Brian De Palma has been frequently lauded/taken to task for liberally appropriating the stylistic flourishes of other directors. And if De Palma's biggest "inspiration" on Snake Eyes is Alfred Hitchcock, the director found an admirable, if unlikely, semblance of frequent Hitchcock collaborator Bernard Herrmann in Ryuichi Sakamoto. Though better known for more delicate, electronic, and ethnically tinged work, here Sakamoto does a truly amazing Benny impression, cranking up the brass and swirling the strings into an unsettling sonic maelstrom that would've done late '50s Hitch proud. Meredith Brooks and LaKiesha Berry also contribute a pair of songs in the contemporary pop vein that the kids seem to like so much.

This home-made and self-produced platter was issued by Roy Buchanan (guitar/vocals) after being rejected by Polydor. The artist decided to privately distribute the album on his own BIOYA label, whose initials stood for the message that Buchanan had for Polydor – B(low) I(t) O(ut) Y(our) A(ss). For obvious contractual reasons, his name wasn't even intimated on the burlap bag (no joke) that housed first pressings of the 12" platter – which was sold only at "underground" stores, head shops, and Buchanan's gigs. The music within the grooves proved to be equally as rustic and authentic as the packaging would suggest…