Music for the Masses   

Little Richard: Live at the Toronto Peace Festival 1969. D.A. Pennebakker, dist. by Shout! Factory. Mar. 24, 2009. MUSIC DVD $13.98.

Little Richard had everything to prove. Accepting an invitation in 1969 to play at the Toronto Peace Festival alongside John Lennon, the Doors, and Alice Cooper, he had to show, amid acid rock and psychedelia, that HE, who had been their since the very beginning, was still the uncrowned king of rock 'n' roll, and that good, basic, dirty rock 'n' roll c...Read More

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Various Artists

Black Rio 2: Original Samba Soul 1971–1979

Compiled by DJ Cliffy

Strut Records

As improbable as it may seem, especially given the Tropicalia movement's well-documented 1960s struggles with the Brazilian power elites, Black Rio soul and funk musicians were given just as hard a time of it by the authorities. Considered "too black" and not Brazilian enough by the public at large, and given Br...Read More

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The Horrors
Primary Colours
XL Records
[iTunes/Amazon]

The bright young things in England's The Horrors burst out of the crypt in 2006, armed with a capeful of garage bleakness that was like the Cramos-via-the-Mighty-Caesars, unfeasibly frightwigged hair, and confrontational performance antics that saw a New York CMJ show end with a rumble. They gained a pretty rabid fanbase on the basis of early singles like “Death in the Chapel” and “Sheena Is a Parasite,” constant live work, a ...Read More

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Speaking of the hipping of the mainstream (see my last post, on NPR's recent programming), David Letterman sure has some savvy music bookers working on his dime. They've got to be ex-college radio staffers or somesuch. Last week Animal Collective (pictured at left) was the musical guest.
  
Animal Collective performed "Summertime Clothes" (video clip below) from their new album, Merriweather Post Pavillion—an album that, in addition to shovelling in the hip critical plaudits, seems to to be turning on an entirely new audience. Apocryphal tales abound of gigs selling out in ...Read More

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Music on NPR surely ain't just BJ Leiderman and Guy's All Star Shoe Band anymore! I've done the whole "dog staring quizically at gramophone" thing over NPR's suddenly hipper music coverage in a past blog post, and NPR's recent segment on minimalist composer Terry Riley and the genius of his piece In C really made me sit up and take notice. Here they were, breaking down the elements of chance that make hearing a performance of this piece so compelling... during drive time!

Public radio seems to be doing more substantive...Read More

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Who doesn't love a free festival? Electronic publisher Alexander Street Press kicks off its first ever Online Jazz Music Festival today (see fellow LJ blogger Cheryl LaGuardia's earlier post about the festival). On tap is free access to all of the company's voluminous jazz archive for the duration of the "festival," from May 12th until the 14th. The main attraction is a huge archive of online recordings, hitting many of the high points of the genre, and reference resources. It's an interesting way of pitching their wares to libraries.

...Read More

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Johnny Thunders
Sticks & Stones
Cleopatra Records

"Is that Johnny Thunders singing about hugging kids?," the voice behind me boomed. My heart sank. I knew I shouldn't have been playing this record in public. Yes, as it turns out, Johnny Thunders, junkie icon, glam godfather, New York Doll, was in fact singing "Children Are People Too." And maybe it did advocate treating kids like, well, people. Lord knows, at this late point in his storied career, Thunders wasn't getting treated that way. Broke, ripped off, strung out, he'd seen his ideas appropriated all the way to the bank by the likes of the Clash in the 70s and then LA glam-rockers like ...Read More

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Slow blogging lately. I've been wrapping up the latest Music for the Masses column (LJ 6/1, on Reggae) and contributed a listening list to accomapny the latest Word on Street Lit column. (Synergy!) In the interests of new content, allow me to cheat a bit and post these two images of a spotlight display on avant-garde American composer John Cage, contructed with two of my part-time employees, Raechel Brown and Chase Capo. 

The displayed materilal—a smattering of Cage recordings/performances and books by and about him—circulated mor...Read More

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I have to issue an early mea culpa. In the newest Music for the Masses column, Hardcore: Wild in the Streets (LJ 4/1), there are nine essential albums listed in the discography section. And not one of them was Minor Threat. Trust me, I recognize how important Minor Threat was, and is, both in terms of the history and continuing development of hardcore music. The band helped shape the tone and shape and velocity of the music in early singles like "Minor Threat," popularized the Straight Edge movment, and fostered the Washington, DC, scene with the ...Read More

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Leonard Cohen
Live in London
Columbia

Just as with Willie Nelson, money problems with the man forced Leonard Cohen back on the road (though in this case, instead of the IRS kicking down his door and making him do Taco Bell commercials, it was man-agement literally running for the border with his money and songs). The Zen master of despair, at nearly 75 years old, came down from his mountain retreat and took to the rock 'n' roll life again with considerable aplomb and style. The tracklisting for Live in London is every bit as impeccable as the natty suits Mr. Cohen wears onstage. And the album provides ample proof that Cohen doesn't just do cursory greatest-hits sets; instead, this is a Springsteen-esque marathon romp through  his extensive back catalog that hits arguably every high point ...Read More

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The Concord Music Group is a busy place these days. Three exciting reissues are poised for release, and music fans have much to look forward to.

First, as the opening shot in an extensive rerelease campaign of Ray Charles's classic albums, we have Genius: The Ultimate Ray Charles Collection, out April 7th. Given, since the movie Ray, Charles's output has been recompiled quite a bit, but this is a beautiful package, full of judiciously chosen...Read More

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Sweet
Action: The Sweet Anthology
Shout! Factory

Sweet are one of the "lost bands" of the Seventies glam rock scene. They lacked the conceptual fleetfootedness of a David Bowie, the experimental madenss of a Roxy Music, the dumb thrills of a Slade, or the cheekbones of Marc Bolan and found themselves on the wrong side of pop immortality, often left out of reappraisals of the era. (Including the one penned by this aut...Read More

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