Two important member s of the Rock and Roll elite have left us for loftier plains over these last few days. And while no one member of that same elite club is ever ignored , these two hit especially close to home with their passing.
On Monday, Ray Manzarek, who is best known as the keyboardist for The Doors passed away at the young age of 74, taken by the evil known as cancer.
Ray Manzarek 1939-2013 RIP
Ray Manazarek is well known as a vital member of The Doors. The Doors have left a complete brand on the hide of Rock that is worn with pride even to this day. But not many are aware of Ray Manzarek’s “other” band, Nite City.
Nite City was formed in 1977, just a few years after The Doors collapsed with the death of Jim Morrison. Nite City released two good albums (Nite City; Golden Days, Diamond Nights).
After Nite City, Ray Manzarek did many things including a reformation of The Doors with Ian Astbury (The Cult).
Ray Manzarek’s death hits especially hard given his major status in the beginnings of Rock and Roll. His passing is not without note, and his departed presence not without mourning.
You will be missed, Mr Manzarek. Now go and teach The Great Band a new song…or two!
Today, another of the great ones left us. Trevor Bolder, who knew no Rock and Roll boundaries, having played with David Bowie’s Spiders From Mars (with Mick Ronson), and Uriah Heep, died at the age of 62, also from cancer.
Trevor Bolder 1950-2013 RIP
Bolder joined the Bowie show recording on Hunky Dory (1971), up through Pin Ups (1973). Bolder joined the late ’70s line-up of Uriah Heep beginning with Fireflies (1977) Trevor Bolder joined a touring version of Wishbone Ash in support of that band’s Number The Brave release, which featured John Wetton as the bass player. While most of Bolder’s career was folded around Uriah Heep, his impact is felt just as strongly as the passing of Ray Manzarek. What Ray Manzarek was to a style of Rock, Trevor Bolder was to a harder-edged Heavy Metal.
And 62 was far to young to be removed from this earth. However, he still will add a unique touch to The Great Band.
Mr Bolder, you will be missed. I will be unable to play the previously mentioned Bowie albums, as well as the previously mentioned Uriah Heep albums without remembering your contributions. I saw you during the Wishbone Ash tour at Chicago’s ChicagoFest way back when.
The fine folks over at Legacy Recordings have assembled and announced the upcoming issue of Sound System, a 12-disc set (with cool stuff, too) featuring the music of The Clash. Within this richly filled box will be all of the band’s Epic Records studio recordings (The Clash, Give ‘Em Enough Rope, London Calling, Sandanista!, Combat Rock). Each of the albums will be remastered. And if that wasn’t reason enough to be excited, Sound System provides even more.
Besides the 8CDs used to cover each album (The Clash- 1CD, Give ‘Em Enough Rope – 1CD, London Calling-2CD, Sandanista!-3CD, Combat Rock-1CD), there are an extra three CDs with rare tracks, demos, non-album singles, and B-sides. Those three CDs are highly coveted and contain:
Sound System Extra CDs tracklist:
Disc One
1. White Riot (Single version)
2. 1977 (B-side)
3. Listen (Capital Radio EP) / Interviews (Capital Radio EP)
4. Capital Radio (Capital Radio EP)
5. London’s Burning (Live B-side Remote Control)
6. Complete Control (Single version)
7. City Of The Dead (B-side)
8. Clash City Rockers (Original single version)
9. Jail Guitar Doors (B-side)
10. White Man In Hammersmith Palais (A-side)
11. The Prisoner (B-side)
12. 1-2 Crush On You (B-side Tommy Gun)
13. Time Is Tight (Black Market Clash)
14. Pressure Drop (B-side English Civil War)
15. I Fought The Law (Cost Of Living EP)
16. Groovy Times (Cost Of Living EP)
17. Gates Of The West (Cost Of Living EP)
18. Capital Radio (Cost Of Living EP)
19. Armagideon Time
20. Bankrobber (A-side)
21. Rockers Galore On A UK Tour (B-side)
Disc Two
1. Magnificent Dance (12”) 5:36 (available on Singles box set)
2. Midnight To Stevens (Outtake)
3. Radio One (B-side Hitsville UK)
4. Stop The World (B-side The Call Up)
5. The Cool Out (US 12” B-side of The Call Up)
6. This Is Radio Clash (A-side)
7. This Is Radio Clash (B-side 7” – different lyrics)
8. First Night Back In London (B-side Know Your Rights)
9. Rock The Casbah (Bob Clearmountain 12” mix) – PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED
10. Long Time Jerk (B-side Rock The Casbah)
11. The Beautiful People Are Ugly Too (Outtake) – PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED
12. Idle In Kangaroo Court (Outtake listed as Kill Time) – PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED
13. Ghetto Defendant (Extended version – unedited) – PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED
14. Cool Confusion (B-side Should I Stay Or Should I Go 7”)
15. Sean Flynn (Extended ‘Marcus Music’ version) – PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED
16. Straight To Hell (Extended unedited version from Clash On Broadway) – PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED
Disc Three
Extracts from The Clash’s first ever recording session at Beaconsfield Film School 1976. Recorded by Julien Temple
1. I’m So Bored With The USA
2. London’s Burning – PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED
3. White Riot
4. 1977 – PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED
Polydor Demos – The Clash’s second recording session November 1976
Produced by Guy Stevens
5. Janie Jones
6. Career Opportunities
7. London’s Burning – PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED
8. 1977 – PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED
9. White Riot – PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED
Live at The Lyceum, London 28th December 1978
10. City Of The Dead
11. Jail Guitar Doors – PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED
12. English Civil War
13. Stay Free – PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED
14. Cheapstakes – PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED
15. I Fought The Law
In addition to those 11 CDs, there is a DVD, which is packed to the full mark with unseen footage filmed by Julian Temple, early Super8 film, ALL of the band’s promo videos, and previously unseen concert footage. Imagine this:
Julien Temple Archive – 6:20
White Riot Interview – 7:10
Promo and interviews with Tony Parsons
1977 1:87
White Riot 1:48
London’s Burning 2:05
Sussex University 1977
I’m So Bored With The USA 2:14 – PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED
Hate & War 1:94 – PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED
Career Opportunities 1:42 – PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED
Remote Control 2:73 – PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED
Don Letts Super 8 Medley 11:40
White Riot 1:52
Janie Jones 1:73
City of the Dead 2:04
Clash City Rockers 2:15
White Man in Hammersmith Palais 2:53
1977 1:41
Clash On Broadway – 19:50
London Calling
This Is Radio Clash
The Magnificent Seven
Guns Of Brixton
Safe European Home
Promo Videos
Tommy Gun 3:00
London Calling 3:20
Bankrobber 4:00
Clampdown (Live) 5:00
Train In Vain (Live) 2:10
The Call Up 3:10
Rock The Casbah 3:20
Should I Stay Or Should I Go (Live at Shea Stadium) 2:50
Career Opportunities (Live at Shea Stadium) 3:00
Discs aside, the Box will add in an “Owner’s Manual” booklet, along with a folder that will contain reprints of Armagideon Time 1, 2, qnd 3, new editions of the Clash fanzine recreated by Paul Simonon, and merchandise. The merchandise will include dog tags, badges, stickers, and a Future Is Unknown notebook. Also, a photo poster is included.
The 11CD/1DVD will be housed in a Simonon-designed Boom Box case.
For those unwilling to take this definitive Clash plunge, there will be a 2CD, and a 3LP collection called The Clash – Hits Back with 33 tracks from the band. Track-list of this set follows:
Disc 1
1. London Calling
2. Safe European Home
3. Know Your Rights
4. (White Man) In Hammersmith Palais
5. Janie Jones
6. The Guns of Brixton
7. Train in Vain
8. Bankrobber
9.Wrong ‘Em Boyo
10. The Magnificent Seven
11. Police On My Back
12. Rock The Casbah
13. Career Opportunities
14. Police & Thieves
15. Somebody Got Murdered
16. Brand New Cadillac
17. Clampdown
Disc 2 (Joe Strummer’s setlist continued)
1. Ghetto Defendant
2. Armigideon Time
3. Stay Free
4. I Fought The Law
5. Straight To Hell
6. Should I Stay Or Should I Go?
7. Garageland
Additional Tracks:
8. White Riot
9. Complete Control
10. Clash City Rockers
11. Tommy Gun
12. English Civil War
13. The Call Up
14. Hitsville UK 15. This Is The Radio Clash
However. if you don’t want the complete Box or the collected tracks, then the next opportunity for the newly remastered Clash albums is to acquire The Clash 5 Studio Album Set, which contains the 8CDs, while a separately available LP set of the same five albums set will be made available with 8LPs.
If you love The Clash, then this set is for you…in any of the available configurations.
After their rave SXSW show back in 2012, the buzz began to build for the Portland, Oregon dream-pop band simply named Blouse. Headed by Charlie Hilton, who is a modern day Nico look-alike with a distinctively dreamy voice to match her sexy looks, this three-piece band has all the classic sounds of synth-oriented ‘80s pop down to a structured science. And with enviable results too.
To call Blouse a retro band with all the right stuff is to ignore the art of taking popular music and infusing it with new things to make it stand out further, make it pop off the record and into your consciousness where it’s supposed to stay (if it has done its job).
With a full-length, self-titled album already in circulation since late 2011, Blouse has set the stage for a good future. The album is loaded. Ten songs in a span of about a half hour brings back a magic of the past that relied on awesome content, not so much the cram of many half-assed tracks that seem to permeate so many albums these days. Quality is the reason we fall in love with music, not quantity.
If you like any of the synth-pop from the ‘80s, then you’ll be immediately intrigued by this fresh band that takes a familiar sound and reshapes it into a twangy, ethereal gorgeousness.
The eponymous debut from Blouse contains contagious gems like “Into Black” (check out their stunning video for the song at the end of this piece), “Videotapes,” the perfection of “White,” and the quirky “Time Travel” with the interesting lyrics. You can stream the entire album below, thanks to the band and SoundCloud.
If ‘80s-styled pop — a little on the dark side — sounds like something you might be interested in, I highly encourage you to investigate Blouse. The name might be a generic oddity, but their music is memorable, deserving of a place in your playlist, or your library, or whatever it is that you use to listen to your music these days.
Mellonta Tauta is an interesting term to be adopted by a band as its name. It means “things of the future”. It is also a short story by Edgar Allen Poe. I knew the latter as I’m a Poe fan (Just ask my HS English teacher. She’ll tell ya!). The former I had to look up. Still, it’s an interesting term. And still an interesting band name.
Mellonta Tauta have their geographcal roots in Argentina, comprised of three very versatile musicans that include Daniel López Quiroga (guitars/bass), Federico Aldaz (drums), and the vocally talented Karina Altamiranda, who also writes the songs found on Rainbow Melodies. As the history of this band goes, Mellonta Tauta began in 1994 at a time when the Gothic music of the ’80s began to become a genre all its own with multiple spikes in various directions in style.
Fast forward some 20 years later, this band reassembles, as luck will have it, via the communicative powers of Facebook. The result is the excellent neo-classical hybrid album that is Rainbow Melodies.
Rainbow Melodies is a collection of songs that skate from one side of the genre to another. Cue the first song, “Love Is Happiness”, and you get a richly textured layer of sound, with Karina’s ghostly vocals providing the shimmer of the track. But move over into the second track, “Twenty Years Later”, obviously a reference to the re-emergence of the band, you get something entirely different. With a steady drum track, and vocals sounding like the alien operatic in The Fifth Element (and I truly mean that in a good way as I adored that part of the film), the song is an immediate favorite.
Rainbow Melodies has within its parts, songs that incorporate a highly enjoyable jazz element with excellent saxophone blended in. On the lengthy and electric, “Travel To The End”, the sax is mournful and, when it meets Karina’s operatically talented voice, it offers an emotion of a different kind. The sax is also heard in the equally lengthy folllow-up track, “Live Here Forever” but not before Karina has you travelling on a melancholy road.
“Paris Noir” gets a little psychedelically electric, and jazzy. Karina handles it well because she has a voice that can do miracles with every style she embraces. Her two musical partners, Daniel, and Federico supply no lack of expert musicianship to make the album what it is, one to pay attention to and to enjoy. There’s not a whole lot of bands like them out there.
Rainbow Melodies is an excellent album. After 20 years, it’s clear that Mellonta Tauta is destined to be together. With its bold blending of jazz, neo-classical music, electric psychedelia, and heavenly voices, sometimes all in the same song (“Rainbow Melodies”), this album is one to be enjoyed. So, call the music what you want – Shoegaze, Darkwave, Dreampop. I’m going to call it refreshing and worth my time.
Release Date: April 16, 2013 Label: Projekt Records, Twilight Records Website Availability: CD, DD
Last week, we asked the question (and discussed) whether too many songs on an album encourages the failure of an album, or discourages the inclination for a listener to buy a copy of the complete set as opposed to farming for a song. I suggested that the band (or artist) could concentrate more artistically on a smaller set of songs for inclusion on an album so as to make for a more compelling set.
The discussion was interesting, and, as usual, with arguments for both sides of the coin. One thing that I got from the thread was an interesting one, that many previous bands and artists had plenty of “filler” in their album.
The term “filler” can be construed as a strong word to an artist, who likely considers everything they’ve recorded as worthy of the wax, aluminum, and bits they take resident on and within. Nevertheless, many bands in the history of Rock and Roll (and before) made albums with a few strong songs (or some with every song bad), and the rest less interesting.
It could also be said that the songs are strong but some overshadow the acceptance of the rest. How would a song follow “Black Dog”", “Rock and Roll”, and “Stairway To Heaven” on IV? Well, the answer to that is from a purist’s standpoint, the album was solid beginning to end. But to the other less tolerant listeners, the rest were filler to some degree or another. (I know, bad choice as an illustration, but…!)
So, to continue the thread that we started, I thought I would ask the inevitable question, and see what popular albums out there had “filler” inside. Since there are so many to choose from, feel free to add as many examples and declarations as you feel you should.
I have always made the classic argument that Bruce Springsteen created a 2LP hopeful with The River (right, Bill B? ;- )). I have always felt that for The River to become classic through and through, like its predecessors, the unbeatable Born To Run, and the perfect Darkness On The Edge Of Town, it needed to become a single LP. (Now, this is just an example for the sake of this article as I’ve long been beaten to internet pulp too many times to want to go through this again as a stand-alone topic.)
I have others. And so do you. Let us hear your selection of albums with “filler”, and check to see if the mass agree.
