From The Vault: The Plastic Cloud - “The Plastic Cloud” (1968)

The Plastic Cloud have much going for them, so considering the band just one of so many softer rock outfits from the mid 60’s would be a mistake. With but a solitary album for the group to be remembered by, they gracefully bridged that gap between folk rock, garage and psychedelic far better than The Byrds, whom they were deeply influenced by.

Coming From Reality -- A Sixto Rodriguez Interview

Sixto Rodriguez’s amazing story was brought to the world’s attention in the 2012 Oscar-winning documentary Searching For Sugar Man. This talented musician, whose two sublime early ‘70s psychedelic folk albums--Cold Fact, and Coming From Reality--failed to make him a household name in America, stopped making music professionally and spent the next several decades of his life doing intense manual labor in Detroit, Michigan.

Astrodome - “II” (2018) review

Astrodome - II (YaYa Yeah, 2018)

https://yayayeah.bandcamp.com/album/ii

Astrodome is a four piece instrumental band from Porto, Portugal. I really loved their debut and have been waiting quite a long time for this one to arrive. The vinyl is still not out (a long story) but the digital version and cassettes are!

Marc Jonson interview

For the uninitiated, Marc Jonson is a hugely gifted US singer, instrumentalist, producer and performer originating from the town of Merrick, New York, and whose 1972 album for Vanguard, Years, whilst having remained a secret listening experience across decades for the few who knew of its existence, has proven to be something of an undiscovered beauty, or as I should now say a rediscovered beauty.

Vymethoxy Redspiders

“My own theatre”

Vymethoxy Redspiders released a black hole new age 7” on Lexi Disques.

Joel Jeronimo and Jim Cabeza De Vaca - “Atlantis Airport 1982” premiere

Atlantis Airport 1982 is an album that synthesizes realism and fantasy. Written and recorded in Los Angeles on analog and digital instruments it tells the story of a city that paralleled ours. “Atlantis”, the first track, introduces us to the atmospheres of Atlantis and the second track, “Airport”, merges our worlds. The third and final track, “1982”, is the soundtrack to a video game based on the story of Romeo and Juliette, or as it is known in Atlantis, Jeromeo and Juliette.

From The Vault: Friend & Lover - “Reach Out of the Darkness” (1968)

The year was 1968, incense was burning in every teen’s bedroom and even those such as me, who couldn’t play a musical note, carried around a green tambourine (acquaint yourself with the song “Green Tambourine” by The Lemon Pipers). AM radio still had their ‘standards & practices’ clauses, so when the folk duo Friend & Love delivered this sonically harmonic song, a number as enticing as Scott McKenzie’s “San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair)”, they jumped on it, pushing the song to the number ten Billboard slot that year.

Tashi Dorji - “but a night that ends, as all nights end, when the sun rises”

Tashi Dorji is a celebrated free-form/improvisational guitarist. Born and raised in Bhutan, but transplanted to Ashville, NC in the early 2000’s. He is a musical force that is in a caliber of his own. The amount of originality in his playing could have only been summoned when one is forced to confront limitations and raise a big middle finger to the ‘status quo’.

Bror Gunnar Jansson: Blues Tradition for the 21st Century

One of the rarely lauded treats of mass media is that different cultural genres can be explored and experienced simultaneously. Watching the T.V. series Damnation I was struck by the song ‘Ain’t No Grave (Gonna Keep My Body Down)’: must be 50s blues or a modern souped-up version by such as The North Mississippi Allstars, maybe even Tame Impala? Nope. Gander my shock when I found it was by…a Swedish one-man band living in Paris! Of course, most of us well know that Scandinavia generally has much at the cutting edge of cross-cultural music, but also a one-man band sounding part Tom Waits, Capt. Beefheart, and John Lee Hooker sharing amps with Canned Heat!

From The Vault: Spacemen 3 - “Sound of Confusion” (1986)

For me, the cover says it all, what could be more psychedelic then the entire band looking off into the distance and one member turning just as the picture is being taken, to look you right in your dialated eyes ... as if knowing that you were looking [listening] was more important than what was drawing the band’s attention.

3 Of The Most Influential Deceased Rock Artists

The rock genre is one of the most interesting ones in music history because it stretches over so many decades and involves so many different characters, bands, and different takes on the genre. When a single genre of music forms an umbrella under which you can rightly put Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix at the same time, you’re working with a lot of material. And sadly, rock has been around long enough that some of its most prominent contributors have long since passed - most of them well before their time. In this piece I want to take a look at a few of those rock stars, and specifically at the ones who’ve proven to have lasting influence over the genre even after death.