The debut album from New York's flamboyant pop cock rockers. Too creatively versatile for the confines of a specific genre Mother Feather are a compendium of styles....they are glam rock and they are dance pop...they are grunge and they are jangle indie....thundering rock and club funk. They are all that...and more.
Their self titled debut is released May 13th on Metal Blade Records
Some of you may never have heard of them...and for those who may have forgotten,,,,
From the ashes of consequential alt-punk/goth-disco sleaze trash glam squalor they came..and it was a mightier breed of consequential alt-punk/goth-disco sleaze trash glam squalor that did emerge…and the sneering symphonies of chaotic discord they brought were proficiently crafted and remarkably tuneful. This resurrection of sorts…. for The Dogbones were all former members of Daisy Chainsaw and Queenadreena....Nomi Leonard (vocals and guitar) Michael Vakalis (bass) and Johnny Orion (vocals and guitar) were all in Queenadreena...with Johnny also in Daisy Chainsaw alongside drummer Vince Johnson.
Their 2010 self titled debut album was a brilliant converge of gritty rock, dark glamour grunge and muscular garage/punk…..with walls of fuzzy distortion, ragged, grit-edged guitar riffs, solid bass thrum, tribal drumbeats and the schizophrenic vocal style of Nomi Leonard veering from brain shredding grunge power to post-punk howls and unhinged broken harmonies….it was unconventionally beautiful….
Wherever have they gone?
(Original unedited photograph of Nomi Leonard found at http://dollhouse-massacre.tumblr.com)
So much better than the Husker Du original..and is surely the only ballad that contains the line ‘But Ithink I’ll just rape you and kill you instead’. Therapy? make such a brilliant job of this song from beginning to end. Far superior on every level to the original which pales so badly into insignificance it should never have been written first. Andy Cairns expressive vocals plunder the ground between menacing (hey little girl wanna go for a ride) and psychotic (You're the cutest girl I've ever seen in my life/but it's over now with my knife) to echo across the tender string arrangement that drops to an earth scraping bass tone before climbing upwards on bursts of tormented cello staccato. The song is about the abduction and rape of Diane Edwards from a shopping mall in the USA and is sung from the perspective of the abductor which, in this case, is brilliantly voiced with sinister edginess.
The song was written by Husker Du drummer Grant Hart and featured on their Metal Circus EP (1983)
The cover by Therapy? is featured on their 1995 album Infernal Love and was also released as a single by the band on 6th November of that year,
Hey little girl wanna go for a ride ?
There's room and my wagon is parked right outside
We can cruise down Rober Street all night long
But I think I'll just rape you and kill you instead.
Diane Diane Diane
Diane Diane Diane
I hear there's a party at Lake Cove
It'll be much easier if I drove
We could check it out,we can go and see
Come on take a ride with me
Diane Diane Diane
Diane Diane Diane
Lay down together for a while
I'll put all your clothes in a nice neat little pile
You're the cutest girl I've ever seen in my life
But it's over now with my knife
Nobody gets it tighter than the karaoke singer and rightly so. As a member of the crowd it is your responsibility to commence heckling about 30 seconds into the song, regardless of how good or bad they may be, and continue the unprovoked verbal slaughtering with a relentless determination to send the tuneless loon on a humiliating ride aboard the public shame train! But of course by the end of the night, rattling with reckless alcohol-fuelled stupidity, you will make an idiot of yourself by bounding onto the stage beside them, ignoring their attempts to carry on in spite of you trying to wrestle the mic from their grasp mid-song, bringing the entire performance to a sudden end as a scuffle breaks out and the DJ switches everything off!!! As if filling in the request slips all night in other people's names wasn't sabotage enough, eh!
If you're going to be a fucking rock star, go be one.
(Lemmy)
Lemmy might have been fed broken bottles and rusty blades as a child washed down with sulphuric acid and salt water - and that'd be how he got to have the most distinctive vocal growl in rock & roll. Motorhead were, well, Motorhead. A 40 year career dedicated to the art of their craft with no hidden agenda or technological trickery, no cop-out change of direction or carefully edited output...and don't ever look for complexities - there were none of those either. With Motorhead you always got the feeling that you WERE actually getting what you assumed you were....and that's because you always were. With the greatest of respect they were a reliable constant.
Lemmy's death is an end that will always feel too soon, Too soon for goodbyes. Too soon for understanding. Too soon to ever prepare for. It's exactly how he'd have wanted it.
The philosophies of an introspective binge thinker
Essex born singer/songwriter Beans On Toast (real name Jay McAllister) began his career playing acoustic nights as part of the London folk scene in 2005 and, following a Glastonbury slot in 2007, has gone on to build a huge underground following in the UK. His straightforward social commentary with equal measures of jocular wordplay, self deprecation, genuine cynicism and wide-eyed storytelling may seem endearingly impolitic...but it's not....it's cultural anthropology. Though not quite the pissed off outsider he does have opinions and is opinionated enough to express them. Beyond any accurate definition..he's a hip-hop pub rock/social philosophy folk punk/ acoustic indie hippy rant poet.
New album Rolling Up The Hill is his seventh and, in keeping with his own quirky tradition, released it on Dec 1st, his birthday, as he has done every year since debut album Standing On A Chair in 2009. Recorded in Kansas and produced by husband/wife country duo Truckstop Honeymoon who introduce their own distinct brand of sound with the inclusion of a double bass, mandolin and banjo alongside Beans' usual acoustic infrastructure.
It brings a subtle Americana bluesy tinge to the songs, especially so on catchy opener The Mudhills Crew a breezy harmonica driven accolade to nostalgia with fond recollection (Teenage kicks and teenage dreams/ We were the best of friends/And tonight I've been thinking about them) while the cleverly crafted poke at capitalism on Robin Hood Costume is a class conscious political protest rap strung across a simple repetitive beat.
His adoration for girlfriend Lizzie B creates uncomplicated boy/girl love songs like I'm Home When You Hold Me...tender with honesty and beautifully innocent (I know you love the ocean baby/ I know you love the sea/ Well you know that I love you/ And I know that you love me) It's unsophisticated schoolyard chalk heart poetics...and isn't that as it should be...Why should we ever complicate what love makes simple? It's the song of the year for me!
God Is A Cartoonist is a vitriolic swipe at the instigating iconoclastic concepts of religion, conjouring from him his most acidic backbiting volley yet (Every christian, every muslim and every atheist/ Has a god giving right to take the piss/Hallellujah god is good, god is great/God is a terrorist/ while recent jaunts across the USA are chronicled in the foot-tapping travelogue of lead single The Great American Novel, a fond name-check through popular American culture with infectious storytelling enthusiasm in a charming framework of subtle bluegrass music
His songs are a fascinating sojourn through jigsawed pieces of modern culture without wandering too far from the realities of modernity, The witty, observational lyricisms are intoxicating..and there is no evocative metaphors or idiotic unthinkable visions of a better world. This is an album of profound sincerity, genuine reflection and astonishing, spot on, social essaying with heart on sleeve integrity.
Racing through nine songs with the spirited intensity that defines him...this voracious cultural expressionist from within a turbulence of monologues...the skewed artiness of his freewheeling folk punk and true, rough-edged DIY. At times he is, for sure, the charged up narrator of his own frustrations snatching up personal wreckage from the alleyways of emotional squalor in a bombardment of impulsive eulogies. But he is as tender as he is proactive, a deep seated idealist, philosophically subjective enough to not always be ploughing at us with rebellious objection.
Opening song Some Nights is a whirling, hair-trigger of frenzied guitar that clocks in at just under two minutes long....followed by recent EP track Change his glorious homage to contempt through frustration (Is that too much to ask?/ Probably!) he sneers with a backbiting, vitriolic dismissal. The quick/slow/stop/start of Who I've Become nurtures poetic reflection underneath the blustering,hard faced exterior its delivery encourages it to adopt. Lyrically he flits between the wry and the clever, his storytelling narratives creating from the space between thought and expression.
His derisive, post-relationship break up summary The Coast Is Clear rattles with a contentious indifference (I will see you again/ And we'll pretend to be friends) its barely veiled subtleties dashed with realistic cynicism. Further songs include All I've Got, Is It Me?. Noose and a nod to the brilliant Withered Hand with a cover of No Cigarettes.
Recorded one night in April at Edinburgh's Banshee Labyrinth...songs of urban adolescence and prevalent adulthood from the iconic roaming troubadour in the prolific style and resplendent sharpness of instinctive creativity.
Taken from the forthcoming Wendy James album The Price Of The Ticket. It's all in the terminus of the expressiveness and the psychology of the mood. See dogmatic revisionism and resplendent sharpness collide in kaleidoscopic lyrical juxtaposition....That's what I'd say if I were to adopt the manner of a pretentious cunt! But I'm not and I'm not. I haven't heard the entirety of her new album yet,..but I bet it is all the things I just said... with a charming intellectual conceit for a bonus!
Former Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver frontman Scott Weiland died in his sleep on Thursday night while on tour with his current band The Wildabouts. He was 48. The singer was found dead on his tour bus around 9pm, just before he was due on stage at the Medina Entertainment Center with his band.. At the time of writing the cause of death remains unknown though some sources have reported he suffered a "possible cardiac arrest". His death has been confirmed by his wife of just two years, the photographer Jamie Weiland in a brief telephone conversation with a reporter from The Los Angeles Times.
Scott Weiland was best known for his time with grunge band Stone Temple Pilots who rose to fame at the start of the 1990's...their debut album Core has gone eight-times platinum and its follow up Purple achieved platinum status six times. In 2002 he teamed up with former Guns N Roses guitarist Slash to form Velvet Revolver. Their debut album Contraband hit the Number 1 spot on the Billboard 200. He left the band in 2008 to rejoin Stone Temple Pilots but in 2013 the band announced on their website that he'd been fired.
Scott had a long history of substance abuse and struggled with his addictions for many years. In 1995 he was arrested for possessing crack cocaine and, in his 2011 memoirs revealed he also used heroin. He led a troubled life and had many difficulties. His creative spark and unique style shone from him brighter than the sun ever could. Life may have denied him the inner peace he so needed but in death may it find him and keep him safe. RIP.x
I can't think of a better way to cheer a Sunday up than with a Christmas song that lasts just 34 seconds! It's the catchiest half minute you're ever likely to have...so be thankful for it and be filled with joyous luv-buzz happiness.
Glasgow singer/songwriter Jim Diamond has died at the age of 64. The singer, whose hits included I Should Have Known Better, Hi Ho Silver and I Wont Let You Down passed away at his home in London. A spokesman for his family said they were 'deeply shocked by his sudden death' adding 'He was a devoted family man who loved his wife Chrissy and his children Sarah and Lawrence. He will be much missed by everyone who knew him'. His death comes less than a fortnight after announcing his mother Sarah had died.
Jim first made the UK singles chart in 1982 as singer with PhD - the single I Wont Let You Down reaching number three. He went on to gain international acclaim as a solo artist with the hugely successful I Should Have Known Better a UK number one in 1984 and Hi Ho Silver - the theme tune for ITV series Boon which reached number 5 in 1986.
Fans have been leaving tributes on his Facebook page HERE
His official website is HERE
May you rest in peace...Scotland's answer to Ray Charles....we will miss you dearly.
The facile composer of rock and rolls greatest riffs with his first solo album in over two decades
He is the quintessential rock & roll star.The literal definition. A rough edged, hard living vagabond spending almost 50 years on the drugs and booze frontline - this connoisseur of excess and hedonism who has wrong-footed and body swerved his own death so many times he has possibly earned the right to .live forever. As much as his widely documented exploits may have their place in popular culture it's in the formidable Rolling Stones songwriting partnership with Mick Jagger that the sheer magnificence of his greatness truly shines. And in songs like... Jumpin Jack Flash, Brown Sugar, Paint It Black and Satisfaction they have created some of rock musics greatest moments.
His new solo album Crosseyed Heart, the first since 1992's Main Offender, is deeply rooted in the music he is influenced by. It's the essentiality of the man, a compendium of distinction in measured parts of accomplished musicianship from bluesy rock and Americana to jazz, reggae and straight up ballsy rock and roll. Roughly hewed, lovelorn, beautifully crafted and with a passion that sears for an honesty divulged,
Opening with the title track, a gentle eight-bar acoustic blues that clocks in at under two minutes,His rasping vocal, all worn out and life roughened, as he deliberates '(Oh she's sweet but she drives me round the bend/ I go round the corner and find another friend/ I got a crosseyed heart) across the unflinching briefness of its entirety. The Country-tinged lament Robbed Blind is clasped in atmospheric piano and brooding pedal steel guitar. His sleepy, half-spoken vocal rattles with a subdued anguish as he interprets the lyrically tender tale... (the heart you stole was mine) with a profuse vulnerability.
The pre-released single Trouble is trademark Keith Richards, a riff-swaggering rock & roll song with hook laden bluesy-rock guitar chords - his cracked vocal delivery on the chorusing 'Baby, trouble is your middle name' powers its way through the Stonesy-styled grooves. The formula is similar on the melodic, guitar-driven Heartstopper and funky R&B track Substantial Damage.
One of several standout moments is his reggae tinged cover of the Gregory Issac classic Love Overdue complete with horn section and a surprisingly warm and tender Keith Richards vocal delivery that oscillates with a depth and character you would never have believed him to be capable of. Less so the drawn out cover of Leadbelly's Goodnight Irene which fails to justify its place here and becomes the albums only real disappointment.
A collaboration with jazz singer Nora Jones on the yearnful Illusion sees her smoky, deep reaching tone weave tenderly around the reflective mood of his 'Just an illusion that's for sure/Nothing that you've seen before' they sing, sharing lines and switching roles.. while frenetic nod to his Chuck Berry influence Blues In The Morning is an energetic 50's rocker featuring longtime friend and collaborator the late Bobby Keys.
This album is the very best of his solo efforts to date...a snake tangled, liquor drenched, rough diamond rocker with scattershot rural Americana and some sweet little rustic country blues all heaved together brilliantly. Personally I think it's better than anything The Rolling Stones have done since Exile On Main St.....and it's right here that you truly understand the fundamental importance of Keith Richards....right down to that ragged machine of a voice. If, like me, you kinda took him for granted as 'the Rolling Stones guitarist' then listen to this album and have your eyes opened and your opinions re-shuffled. The man is superb.
(PEE RECORDS) Some frenetic rabble rousing fury and nostalgic chaos from the Australian skate punks
Skate punk is a sub-genre that combines the breakneck pace of melodic hardcore with the catchy youthful bounce of pop punk, giving it that very solid wall of guitar riffs and powerful drumming. It's not a new concept of cross-genre music by any means and it's a much used, overcrowded one thanks to the popularity of bands like NOFX, Suicidal Tendencies, Pennywise, Sick Of It All and Lagwagon who, through various personal adaptions of their own interpretation, generated the global reputation of skate punk music and, in turn, inspired a million other bands to follow suit. Some of those bands became really good and some became really not so. Australian band The Decline (with this album being the reference point from where my opinion is based) seem to be of the former.
Things here really couldn't begin any better than they do with the short but powerful opener NEW AGAIN, a song that lasts less than two minutes yet manages to hammer out a formidable entrance, bristling with energy and utter immediacy. It's quickly followed by the effective stop/start/stop guitar work that begins recent single GIVING UP IS A GATEWAY DRUG, a great song with little flourishes of inventive brilliance - with its change in chord pace and sudden vocal dips. It's a showcase for incredible drumming on faster paced THE BLURST OF TIMES pounding a symphony of melodic and frenzied skate punk percussion that ends with a clever guitar solo.
There's a heavier sounding hardcore launch for frenetic CAMBERWELL STREET, the ever restless punk rock urgency is skippered by some well pitched melodic partnering....again that ever present intuitive musicianship gathers things up and brings it together with a slick competence.WRECKING BALL has pace and it punches and snaps its way forward with aggressive punk energy, the crunching guitars and fiery attitude are intermixed with melodic vocal combinations...similarly the malevolent YOU'RE NOT THE WAITRESS and final track START AGAIN.
This may not be the album that will go on to inspire a new direction, but I'm pretty sure that is something this band are well aware of anyway. They seem genuine enough for what they do to ever care for or need such bloated accolades of superficial wank egoism....and it's a pretty good album nonetheless. Awash with neat guitar chords and huge rabble rousing bursts of sound it's kept mostly simple concise and to the absolute point....utilising their skilled musicianship at precise moments to suddenly steer things in a different direction...delightful bodyswerves you didn't see coming that completely change an entire song in that instant. Far from being some copycat fraudsters of a work already made they are a band delivering a perfectly executed homage to their influences with plenty of their own originality on view....just to prove their point.
