London-born-and-raised musician and producer Eaves Wilder presents her second single, “Morning Rain,” via her new label, Secretly Canadian. Wilder fuses “indie rock tropes with pop to create a raucous yet melodic sound” (Clash). While her first single, “I Stole Your Jumper,” was described as “cool and vengeful” (Brooklyn Vegan), “Morning Rain” airs more on the melancholic side. It finds the 19 year old toying with the struggle of returning to school. Growing up, Eaves spent more time doodling pianos in her workbooks than paying attention to her teachers. Frustrated with having to allow another person to take control of her day, she’d long to be at home, writing music in her bedroom. “For me, school was something that postponed life from starting. I spent the entire time trying to get out of it. You spend 18 years memorizing so much information and then they turn around and expect you to know who you are and what you want, but you’re not given a chance to really figure that out.”
Eaves Wilder began songwriting around the age of eight, harnessing an early obsession with ‘60s Motown records and the left-field pop of Lily Allen. She plastered pictures of her idols on her bedroom wall, but realized in her mid-teens that it was lacking any women. From then on, she made an active effort to get into more female musicians, coming across the riot grrl movement, a discovery that completely changed her life.
She began filing her own teenage obsessions into her collection and while doing so, uncovered the ugly sides of the music world, but also empowerment in the punk feminist fanbase; how artists took ownership in male dominated spaces, and what a powerful tool community could be. Online, and in real life at shows, Eaves saw these elements in the contemporary fan bases of the bands she loved. She became captivated by the idea of reclaiming the worth of the fan girl (which she considers herself to be) and how one can be hyper-feminine without the baggage that comes with it.
Since that self-realization, Wilder has been recording, producing and releasing her own music since the age of 16. Her honest and deceptively cutting lyrics have earned widespread praise from UK tastemakers, including The Sunday Times, NME, Clash, DIY, Dork and The Line of Best Fit, which hailed Eaves as “a star on the rise” (The Line of Best Fit). Signing to Secretly Canadian in 2021, something she waited until she was 18 to do because she thought it would be “uncool” to have her mom sign her record deal for her, Eaves has now swapped her bedroom for the studio, spending 2022 co-producing a run of new music with Andy Savours (Arctic Monkeys / Black Country, New Road / Rina Sawayama).
The Salt Shed, the newest venue from 16” on Center, the team behind the Empty Bottle, Thalia Hall, Evanston SPACE, Beauty Bar, and The Promontory, today announces The Shed, the indoor performance space at the historic Morton Salt Building, and unveils its first wave of shows, the first of which is Friday,February 17. The Shed’s initial announcement features The Flaming Lips celebrating the 20th anniversary of Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Bikini Kill’s first Chicago show since reuniting in 2019, a three night King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard residency, Guatemalan-American house producer/DJ Gordo, and the “Godfather of Punk,” Iggy Pop. A full schedule, also including The Roots, The Hold Steady, The Mountain Goats, Tove Lo,Third Eye Blind, Fever Ray, Viagra Boys, Boy Pablo, and more, is below.
Tickets will go on sale on Friday, November 18 at 10am CST on The Salt Shed website.More shows are to be announced.
“One of the things that really excites me about this project is continuing to work with the artists we’ve grown up with,” says Bruce Finkelman, Managing Partner of 16” on Center.“These are musicians that started at the Empty Bottle, grew to Thalia Hall, and we now look forward to hosting at the Salt Shed. I remember the Flaming Lips at the Empty Bottle way back in 1994, stopping their show mid-set to walk across a sea of fans and play a solo set on a rinky dink piano that I think came with the bar. I have never experienced a crowd so captivated, and it’s a moment that reminds me why I have the best job in the world. It’s just one of the many stories of live music magic that make our places so special.”
Following this past summer’s launch of the outdoor Fairgrounds space, the newly renovated indoor Shed will feature multi-level grandstand seating, premium experiences with access to balcony opera boxes, custom bars, and expedited entry. Quality of sound at the Salt Shed, for both audience and artist, is prioritized. The venue will feature an L-Acoustics sound system designed specifically for the space to give fans throughout the venue the same great sound experience as the world’s leading tours and festivals. Alongside concerts, the Shed will eventually host a comprehensive food, beverage, and retail experience, with plans to incorporate indoor markets and other creative events that celebrate Chicago’s artistic community into the programming.
“I have spent most of my professional life doing two things,” says Craig Golden, President of Blue Star Properties and partner at 16” on Center. “One, renovating and repurposing some of Chicago’s obsolete and historic buildings; and two, collaborating and creating a number of music venues and restaurants throughout the city. Having the opportunity to combine both passions in the presentation of this iconic Salt Shed, turned music and events venue, is truly a dream.”
As both indoor-Shed and outdoor-Fairgrounds performances continue in 2023, the Salt Shed is excited to welcome key partners into the fold: Grassroots, the official cannabis partner of the Salt Shed, will help bring an educational and forward-thinking cannabis experience to both artists and guests in 2023. Wintrust, the Salt Shed’s exclusive Banking Partner, is bringing a spotlight to local charities and nonprofits by way of customized, uniquely illustrated murals. Living on the exterior wall of the Salt Shed, this fixture aims to positively impact and bring awareness to many in the Chicago community.
Motörhead, the iconic Godfathers of heavy metal, released their 23rd (and final) studio album Bad Magic in 2015. Instantly hailed as one of the best the beloved trio had recorded in many years, Bad Magic: SERIOUSLY BAD MAGIC enjoys a bonus-packed refresh, adding two previously unreleased tracks from those furious sessions:
“Bullet in Your Brain”and “Greedy Bastards” as well as a snarling, fangs-out live performance from that subsequent tour at the giant MtFuji Festival in Japan in 2015. Fans will also get “War, Love, Death and Injustice”, an audio interview with Lemmy conducted by Motörhead expert Robert Kiewik during the tour, and should the desire to have a chat with Lem or anyone beyond this mortal coil arise, the box-set will exclusively contain a MURDER ONE ouija board (complete with the Ace of Spades planchette to spell out the conversation).
A new video for “Bullet In Your Brain”, featuring exclusive, never before seen footage of Motörhead in the studio for the Bad Magic sessions, is available right now. A foot-down, fist-pumping, Lemmy-bass-driven stomper with a deliciously dirty Campbell riff, and Dee-driven dynamics, both the song and footage are a tremendous treat for fans who have craved new Motörmaterial.
At the time of its release back in 2015, Bad Magic arrived as a massive kick in the teeth for anyone who believed Motörhead were going to amble along into a peaceful little pasture containing fluffy little lambs, folk music and perhaps the odd medieval lute here and there. Big-rig head crushers such as “Thunder & Lightning” and “Teach Them How To Bleed” brought such people to their knees begging for forgiveness, as the album unfurled into their toughest, leanest, meanest and most uncompromising album in aeons. Much of this came down to long-time producer Cameron Webb getting the band to record live at NRG North Hollywood, Maple Studios and Grandmaster in California together for the first time in the Kilmister/Campbell/Dee era, and from the crackling punk energy of “Electricity” to Brian May of Queen’s scintillating guest-appearance on “The Devil”, a vast wealth of aggression, attitude, and excellent songwriting was cultivated in that furious working environment. Phil Campbell didn’t just record possibly his finest guitars, he threw down most certainly his best solos for decades, while Mikkey Dee’s drumming found new tribal resonance with the Motörhead sound he had helped nurture. There was also one of Lemmy‘s rawest lyrical life reflections on “Till The End”, and a cover of TheRolling Stones’ “Sympathy For The Devil” which made the song feel like one of their own. One of the hidden gold-dust additions to Bad Magic: SERIOUSLY BAD MAGIC, is Motörhead’s famous, and internationally acclaimed, version of David Bowie’s classic “Heroes”. Originally slated for inclusion on the last release only to be withdrawn at the last minute, it was a cover version which Lemmy had a great affection for, and as such its inclusion here is both fitting and just.
Bad Magic: SERIOUSLY BAD MAGIC will be released on Double 12” Vinyl, CD Digipak with Bonus Disc, Limited Edition Boxset, Digital Download and Streaming. The Limited Edition Boxset will contain the CD Digipak with Bonus Disc, Double 12” Vinyl, exclusive Lemmy War, Love, Death and Injustice audio interview on 12” vinyl and exclusive edition Motörhead – MURDER ONE Ouija Board and Planchette. Pre-order all formats at this location
Bad Magic: SERIOUSLY BAD MAGIC Track List:
1. Victory Or Die
2. Thunder & Lightning
3. Fire Storm Hotel
4. Shoot Out All of Your Lights
5. The Devil
6. Electricity
7. Evil Eye
8. Teach Them How To Bleed
9. Till The End
10. Tell Me Who To Kill
11. Choking On Your Screams
12. When The Sky Comes Looking For You
13. Sympathy For The Devil
14. Heroes
15. Bullet In Your Brain
16. Greedy Bastards
Live at Mt Fuji Rock Festival 2015 – Sayonara Folks! Track List:
1. We Are Motörhead
2. Damage Case
3. Stay Clean
4. Metropolis
5. Over the Top
6. String Theory
7. The Chase is Better Than the Catch
8. Rock It
9. Lost Woman Blues
10. Doctor Rock
11. Just ‘Cos You Got the Power
12. Going to Brazil
13. Ace of Spades
14. Overkill
Keep your mind open.
[It might be seriously bad magic if you don’t subscribe.]
Located in the Tlaquepaque Shopping Center in Sedona, Arizona, Alt Books and Records is a neat little find amongst all the art galleries, high-end gift stores, and eateries. It’s on the second floor and has a neat collection of books and rare vinyl.
This is the first thing you see when you walk in the door.And then there’s all the vinyl.
The place has plenty of stuff to intrigue you. The store’s owner was playing The Jam‘s Setting Sons album at a good, loud volume while I was there. He has plenty of collectible records for you hardcore collectors, too.
The B-52’s debut album signed by Fred Schneider, no less.A promo copy of a rare Flamin’ Groovies album!This seems like a steal, even for that price.
Not into vinyl? How about high-quality prints of Dr. Seuss art? Yes, they have those as well.
And don’t forget about the books. They range on all different topics, from books on the Sedona vortices to ones on shamanism, world history, and, yes, fiction.
Failure, the Los Angeles trio of Ken Andrews, Greg Edwards and Kellii Scott, have announced their first ever streaming concert film: “We Are Hallucinations.”
The concert film features a set list that spans the band’s six albums and captures the magic of Failure’s live performance.
The one-time only event debuts on Dec. 15 at 12:00 pm pacific/3:00 pm eastern/8:00 pm UK/9:00 pm EU, and remains available through Dec.18. Viewers have three full days from the time of purchase to watch the film at any time, and as often, as they would like. Tickets as well as a limited-edition commemorative poster, newly released vinyl variants for each of the band’s six albums, as well as various merch items, are available now via linktr.ee/failureband.
“This film is comprised of performances from our Summer 2022 Wild Type Droid tour of North America,” explains Greg Edwards. “It’s crazy that we have never made a concert film before, but I think this will really stand as a definitive document of the dynamic between the three of us on stage and the connection we have with our fans.”
The Black Angels don’t get enough credit for the design of their album covers. The artwork is always mind-bending on them. Take, for instance, the cover of their newest record, Wilderness of Mirrors. It looks like a bunch of repeating right angles in various patterns, like a gigantic maze you can neither enter or exit. You feel like something is there, however. Then, you look at it just right, or look at it while you move it one way or another, and the message in the art reveals itself.
It’s the same with their music. Their songs are often multi-layered or have things you seem to hear only when in certain states of mind, in certain environments, or during certain types of weather.
“With a Trace” starts sounding muted and then bursts forth with hypnotizing fuzz. “History of the Future” has both a wonderful title (a meditation on how something will be perceived before it even exists) and some of the heaviest guitar riffs and drums on the record. It’s difficult at times to determine if Stephanie Bailey‘s beats or Christian Bland‘s guitars are dominating the song because they swing back and forth like Godzilla fighting King Kong.
“We can watch it all go to hell,” Alex Maas sings on “Empires Falling” – a song about the rage and cries for justice (“Our country’s bleeding from street to bloody street.”). It swirls and roars, serving as both a call to action and a warning. “El Jardín” is a psych-rock love song, the kind that The Black Angels do so well – a tale of love, mystery, probably death, and acceptance of whatever outcome the universe has planned.
On “La Pared (Govt. Wall Blues),” they sing about the impermanence of things that seem indestructible at first, and the rage they felt at a border wall being built in their home state of Texas (“You can build this wall of hate, but we’ll never separate.”). “Firefly” includes sexy French vocals in another song about lost love. “Make It Known” and “The River” are cool psych-drifts, the latter of which names Syd Barrett, Roky Erickson, and other psychedelic legends.
The title track has a dangerous swagger to it and sounds like it belongs in an A24 Studios horror film. “I’ve been trying to warn you, here and now, and always,” Maas sings on “Here & Now” – a dire warning about what we’re doing to Mother Earth. “100 Flowers of Paracusia” has an ethereal feel to it that floats back down to Earth with Morricone-like guitar chords.
“A Walk on the Outside” is a lyrical riff on Lou Reed‘s “Walk on the Wild Side,” and the heavy bass and wild synths spin around you like a kitten chasing a shoestring held by a little kid. “Vermillion Eyes” lifts you off the ground and lets you float there without worry. The soaring guitars on “Icon” then send you into outer space as Maas mentions Nico and The Velvet Underground (from whom the band get their name, in case you weren’t aware) and you’re soon lost in a neat state of being that’s difficult to describe. The album ends with “Suffocation,” an interesting name for a final track on an album about facing what’s within us (whether we want to or not) and breaking free of illusion. The track isn’t suffocating at all. It’s uplifting by the end. The Black Angels leave us with hope that we can remove our metaphorical masks and walk out of the wilderness we’ve created into something real and meaningful.
It’s their best album in a while – and that’s saying something since they’ve yet to release a bad record.
Midnight Oil are the 29th act to throw support behind Support Act’s Roadies Fund through the Australian Road Crew Association (ARCA)’s awesome Desk Tape Series.
The Series was created by ARCA to raise funds to provide financial, health, counselling and well-being services for roadies and crew in crisis.
The recordings are made off the sound desk by a crew member. MIDNIGHT OIL LIVE at the OLD LION, Adelaide 1982 was recorded by Mark Woods, and is another fantastic tribute to the great sounds engineers produced for the early Aussie pub rock scene. This live tape is released on ARCA’s Black Box Records through MGM Distribution and on all major streaming services.
THE BAND
Peter Garrett – lead vocals Peter Gifford – bass, vocals Rob Hirst – drums, vocals Jim Moginie – guitars, keyboards Martin Rotsey – guitars
CREW
Mark Woods (sound) Michael Lippold (stage/ production manager) Ron “Wormy” James (lights)
TRACK LISTING
1 Written In The Heart 2 Brave Faces 3 Armistice Day 4 I’m The Cure 5 Bus To Bondi 6 Quinella Holiday 7 No Time For Games 8 Burnie 9 Cold Cold Change 10 Powderworks 11 Koala Sprint 12 Back On The Borderline 13 Don’t Wanna Be The One 14 Wedding Cake Island 15 Stand In Line 16 No Reaction
The MIDNIGHT OIL LIVE at the OLD LION Adelaide 1982 live tape and all the ARCA Desk Tape Series recordings are available through Black Box Records – ARCA (australianroadcrew.com.au) and the following: Amazon, Anghami, Apple Music / iTunes, Boomplay, Black Box Records, Deezer, MGM, Pandora, Shazam, Spotify, TenCent, Tidal, TikTok, YouTube Music.
The Old Lion show on Friday March 26, 1982 was part of a two-week run through Victoria and South Australia. At that stage, the band were doing 180 shows a year, and firing on all eight cylinders.
Rob Hirst admits: “I’m exhausted listening back to the tape, it’s relentless! We were, excuse the pun, a well-oiled machine, angry young men against the world.”
Mark Woods, who filled in as sound engineer on the run, called it the “Speed and Dust Tour.” It was hot and the tour moved at a frantic pace. Woods had just finished a run with Men At Work, with two weeks off before MAW’s first US visit. When the Oils’ run ended in Whyalla in regional South Australia, he drove 14 hours overnight without sleep back to Melbourne, in time for the Los Angeles flight with Men At Work.
Woods didn’t mind: he was a massive fan. “I thought they were the best band in the world. On this run they were at their absolute peak. Much of the set was from Place Without A Postcard, which was just released four months before, so the songs sounded fresh. It wasn’t that they were loud, it was the power. They weren’t ‘screamy’ or harsh listening, they just had a very full solid big fat sound.”
“They were all red hot players”, Woods recalls, citing how Jim Moginie and Martin Rotsey’s guitars intertwined, and how the Peter Gifford/ Rob Hirst rhythm section locked in.
“I loved Giffo’s playing, he was the perfect bass player for them and at his best on this tour. There was something about his beat which worked well with Rob’s drums, they were right on the beat, really driving it forward.”
Gifford left a few years later to become a businessman in Byron Bay. Michael Lippold spent as much time on stage as the band, unravelling Pete’s mic leads from the guitarists’ legs as he danced manically about. Hirst’s drum kit had to be nailed down. Not only did he attack them with exuberance, breaking pedals and sticks, but he’d also jump into the air off his stool for greater power when he landed.
Listening to the Old Lion tape, Hirst chuckles, “It reminds me of the breakneck speeds we used to play those songs! The album versions chugged along but the live versions were 30% to 40% faster, if not faster. It’s almost as if we couldn’t wait to get to the (hire cars) and fishtail out of there!”
Also giving him a buzz on the tape were how the guitars sounded so distinctive and Garrett’s onstage patter recalling which politician or issue was irritating him in 1982. The tape shows how the Oils were starting to musically move around at that time. In 1981 when famed English producer Glyn Johns (Stones, Who) saw an Oils show at Selinas in Sydney, he invited them back to England to record in his new studio in Surrey.
“It was supposed to be our big break,” Hirst relates. “It wasn’t.” Hirst says Johns expected them to arrive with 12 fully formed songs, but he and Moginie, as the Oils’ main writers, had been unable to write songs due to the band’s hectic touring schedule. Even worse, Johns failed to capture the Oils’ live roar on the record.
Hirst: “The creativity and the song writing was getting stronger. But we were frustrated with the sound on the albums so far. They didn’t grab you by the throat and wrestle you to the ground. It was only working with Nick Launay (in 1982, on the 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 album) and disassembling the Midnight Oil live sound in the studio and starting again that we started to understand studio craft.”
Johns had a deal with A&M Records in America to release his productions. A&M wanted the Oils to go back to the studio and cut a single for the American market. The Australians gave them a two-finger salute and returned to Sydney.
The Old Lion tape captures how some of Postcard songs should have sounded. “Armistice Day” was an example of their new found song writing depth.
“I’ve always been obsessed with my family’s military history,” the drummer explains. “Songs like ‘Forgotten Years’ were about my father and grandfather’s military service. We knew as soon as we recorded ‘Armistice Day’ that no matter what happened to the rest of the album, it was going to be the lead track.”
“I Don’t Wanna Be The One” was in the spotlight when the Oils were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2006.
LIVE At The Old Lion Adelaide 1982 is the latest initiative by the Oils to support roadies and crews in crisis. Hirst readily admits that the members relied heavily on their crew, “we had the best sound and lighting guys in the business. It is the crew that helps with any band’s success.”
On their farewell tour in 2022, Hirst’s drum tech for nine years, Clem Ryan, wanted to sit it out. Rob rang him, “I’m not doing this tour until you’re doing this tour.” Long-time front of house Colin Ellis wanted to retire before the run. They talked him out of it. “Retire? You’re younger than us!”
LIVE At The Old Lion Adelaide 1982 also highlights how dedicated the fans were.
Woods recalls: “Big lads, well charged up, a happy blokey crowd which sang along, boisterous, rowdy but never unpleasant.”
“Raw” might be the best way for me to describe The Anomalys‘ newest record, Glitch.
Hailing from Amsterdam and touring around the world, The Anomalys have a simple mission – to rock your socks off and maybe frighten you a bit while doing it (in a good way, like a classic Universal Studios monster film).
Rémi Pablo‘s opening drum salvo on “Smart Patrol” gets things off to a roaring start, and then Looch Vibrato and lead singer Bone unleash guitar fury. “Trooper” has a growl throughout it and bounces around like a hopping rhinoceros in your living room. “Anomalys Rise” is a fierce instrumental, which I always appreciate. It blends their love of surf with goth / monster rock.
“Dead Friends” is a lament to those who have gone on before us and wondering when we’ll all be able to have another drink together. “Panic” is a straight-up shot of surf without a chaser. Just hold on for dear life and hope you don’t get crushed by it. “Everything’s gonna be okay,” Bone sings on “Ready to Die” – a swaggering, groovy cut. Speaking of cuts, “Bleed for Me” is dangerous with its snarling guitars and vocals.
You can practically hear Vibrato and Bone’s guitars protesting in “Far Ahead” as they seem to bend them like professional wrestlers trying to make them tap out. “Steppin’ Out” isn’t a Joe Jackson cover (although that would be wild), but rather a jagged, punchy track to send the album out on a sweaty note.
Last month, Weeping Icon returned after a nearly three year absence to announce their Ocelli EP (out this Friday on Fire Talk). The EP was announced with a single called “Pigs, Shit & Trash“, their first new music since the 2019 release of their thrilling self-titled debut, which generated considerable excitement, earning praise from outlets like FADER, Stereogum, FLOOD, BrooklynVegan and Revolver, who made comparison to Sonic Youth while describing the track as “so sick“.
Today, Weeping Icon are sharing a second track from the three track EP ahead of its Friday release, a single entitled “Two Ways.”
“‘Two Ways’ is about people who want to appear virtuous in their public facing personality, but live a contradictory shadow life in which they do whatever they please, no matter how harmful their actions are to others,” explains Sara Fantry. “It’s told through the voice of a man named Todd (yes, that’s his real name!) who I encountered a few years back. He used a harmful term towards a woman he was angry with, then accepted a long explanatory talk from me, appeared to reflect, enthusiastically told me he’d appreciated me taking the time to educate him and agreed to change his behavior, and then immediately found that same woman and started calling her harmful sexist names without a moment between. I was truly in shock at how comfortable he was with his personality being stratified into two layers – the outward-facing kind, modern man, looking to learn from the necessarily rapid changes in society – and the sinister, selfish sadist beneath who believes in his own entitlement to act with impunity.”
“The video we made (directed by Rafeal Joson & Mike Andretti, all editing and effects by MikeVideopunk) explores the stratified personality of the daytime talkshow host, who wants to appear kind, empathetic and sincere to his viewers, while goading his guests into salacious fights for his own profit, regardless of the personal and public damage done to those guests. With some humor in there, we hope to hold a conversation around the shadow of nefarious intent that lurks below so many supposedly ethical personalities in our world.”
To mark the release of the EP the band will be playing at Alphaville this Friday, November 18th. Tickets can be purchased here.
One of three albums released by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizardin the same month (and four albums released this year), Laminated Denim consists of just two tracks – each fifteen minutes in length. The songs were recorded so they could be played during intermissions of their epic three-hour live sets at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado, but they’re not the original tracks made for those sets.
Those tracks were recorded and released on the half-hour, two-track album Made in Timeland released earlier this year. The Made in Timeland tracks were never played during the Red Rocks intermissions because those 2019 shows never happened due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The tracks sat unused for nearly three years before the band, know for their endless energy and prolific output, decided to release Made in Timeland at a three-hour hometown gig.
The problem that then arose was, “What do we play at the upcoming Red Rocks intermissions now?” The answer to that was to record two new long tracks, and thus Laminated Denim (an anagram of “Made in Timeland”) was born.
The first track, “The Land Before Timeland,” gets off to a quiet start that builds into a lengthy jam session of happy guitars over soft jazz drums. Ambrose Kenny-Smith‘s harmonica weaves in and out of the song quite well.
“Hypertension” brings in some of the microtonal elements that KGATLW are known to love. It’s a faster jam that the previous track, probably designed that way to slowly build the audience’s anticipation for what’s to come after intermission.
These two tracks pick you up, carry you away, and let you drift along with them for a nice half-hour jaunt.
