Pat Thomas - I Ain't Buying It

(This review first appeared in issue #85 of Shindig! magazine.)

On first listen the second solo LP from Cool Ghoul bassist Pat Thomas channels a lineage of quirky Californian eccentricity that runs way back to Brian Wilson and SMiLE. For example 'Are You OK' has a goofy playground melody and comes adorned with bells, whistles, car-horn honks and dog barks. Then there's 'New Star-Ell' which celebrates living within walking distance of a liquor store. The thread of cartoon comedy is even there on the vinyl edition's label, which spoofs the Looney Tunes "That's All Folks" logo.

Deeper listening reveals a more serious intent along with serious musicianship. Much of Thomas' lyrics contain messages about personal freedom and call for fairer distribution of wealth, land and power, best evidenced on the album's tour-de-force closer 'Give The Land To The People'. The music draws from vintage soul, soft sunshine-psych and free jazz and gives persuasive power to the album's underlying alternative manifesto.

Ace Of Cups - Ace Of Cups

First studio album from San Francisco's legendary all-female rock band! Featuring stellar guest appearances!

There's a school of thought that claims band reunions are always something of a let down, as anyone waiting for half-decent new songs from the Stone Roses must surely agree. But once in a while there's a comeback that bucks the trend. Ace Of Cups formed in San Francisco in 1967 and for the next five years were an integral fixture on the city's music scene, highly regarded by audiences and peers alike. Despite regular high profile gigs and support slots with acts such as the Grateful Dead and the Jimi Hendrix Experience the band never got around to recording a studio album. Until now.

Though the band folded in 1972, the four founding members would continue to make music individually and perform collectively when opportunities arose. A performance at Wavy Gravy's 75^th birthday party brought the band to the attention of High Moon Records. The label had originally planned to release some Ace Of Cups archive material but a new plot was hatched to make an album featuring new songs along with newly recorded versions of their '60 songs. The newly invigorated Ace Of Cups were able to call on old friends to come and join them on the record, hence guest appearances by Taj Mahal, Bob Weir, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Jack Casady and Charlie Musselwhite, amongst others.

The resulting album is impressive. Not least because the core band can still really play, sing, and write. A bumper collection of top notch songs many of which posses a unashamed spirituality. There are celebrations of family and new life alongside heartfelt remembrances, simple homilies and calls for more tenderness. Love and peace ideals that are as relevant and needed today as they were in the late '60s. With music that ranges from bluesy and folksy, to psychedelic rock to an occasional in-the-garage blast, there's a warmth that permeates the whole album, not least due to the band's vocal harmonies and obvious belief in the material. Ace Of Cups is an album of charming modern Americana that honours the band's '60s legacy and begins a new chapter for the band. If that weren't enough a second volume is set for release next year. For more on Ace Of Cups check out the mini-documentary video below.

Click here for Ace Of Cups' website.
Click here for Ace Of Cups on Facebook.
Click here for Ace Of Cups on Twitter.

Click here for High Moon Records.

The Outta Sorts - The Outta Sorts EP / The Trouble With Love EP

 

(This review first appeared in issue #69 of Shindig! magazine.)

The first two releases from this San Francisco garage-punk trio compensate for their lack of subtlety with speed, attitude and spirited enthusiasm. The eponymous debut has two tracks of '77 style melodic punk on the A-side - 'Good With Bad Habits' and 'Hot Ticket' both setting the scuzz factor high. The flip-side has two tracks featuring the band's more twangy, dark rockabilly side with plenty of Bigsby tremolo action on the guitar solo of 'Feeling Difficult' and some Scotty Moore-style moves on 'Party In The Sky'.

Follow-up The Trouble With Love EP contains a format-stretching five songs, the title track channelling early Kinks via both melody and the ripped speaker sound. Then a couple of short punky blasts before 'Snow Covered Dreams' with its folk-punk Nuggets feel. Also of note is the should-I-stay-or-go homesick love-letter to Georgia in 'San Francisco Is An Iceberg'. It won't change your life but is pretty good fun.

The Starlights' Sound - Out Over Nothing

Music to daydream to. An ambient mix of shoegaze, deftly fingerpicked acoustic folk, and synthy soundscapes.

It's always a good day when the postman delivers a piece of vinyl to Harmonic Distortion HQ. A couple of weeks back this LP by The Starlights' Sound arrived unexpectedly. I must admit the name wasn't familiar and the sleeve held no clues to what kind of music lay within its grooves. Which is fine by me! So with an open mind and open heart I placed it on the turntable and lifted the needle into place...

What followed was most welcome; eight tracks of mostly instrumental, meditative music, somewhere between shoegaze, deftly fingerpicked acoustic folk, soundscapes and ambient music. A little digging on the web led to their Facebook page where they've described the record as “a collection of sonic environments designed to promote relaxation, visualization and lucid dreaming.” Which is pretty much spot on.

The project (that feels more apt than band) is based in San Francisco and was put together by Steve Perrone and Doug Hilsinger. Instrumentation includes guitar, bass, drums, organ and synths, but it's the addition of violin and cello that adds a reflective, melancholy edge to certain tracks. Listening to Out Over Nothing is like taking a peak into someone's private notebook. The tracks have an open-ended sketch-like quality to them as if they've been jotted down in a daydream to capture a mood rather than any specific thought. An album with a sphinx-like mystery attached to it, and all the more welcome and likable for that.

The album is available on vinyl (which is recommended!) or via the Bandcamp/Soundcloud links below. Interestingly The Starlights' Sound have made a video to accompany 'Pictures', a track from the album. I've placed the link below, find a quiet moment, shut out any distractions and enjoy.

Click here for The Starlights' Sound on Facebook.

Click here for The Starlights' Sound on Bandcamp.

Click here for The Starlights' Sound on Soundcloud.

Click here for Planet Seven Recordings.

Wild Eyes - Above Becomes Below

Luv 'n' Haight! Rock 'n' Roll! Second album of heavy acid-rock from Janiece and the boys.

San Francisco is already a city with a reputation for brain-bending, female-fronted, acid-rock. Think of Janis Joplin fronting Big Brother And The Holding Company back in the late '60s. That reputation is further renewed by the release of Above Becomes Below, the second album by SF-based rockers Wild Eyes, featuring vocals by Janiece Gonzalez, surely the inheritor of Joplin's untamed queen of rock crown.

This is no Luv'n'Haight hippy trip though, it's something altogether wilder, trashier and rockier, much more 21^st century rock and roll, yet informed by the heavy '70s, trash-punk '80s, funk-rock '90s and the back-to-basics new rock revolution of the noughties. There's a road-hardened edge to all the psychedelic rock riffage and unhinged guitar solos, one that evokes wild nights, fast-living and outsider status.

Like any power trio worth their salt, the dudes in the band make rock with a groove, and allow plenty of space for Janiece to do her wild woman vocals over the top. After the initial bluster and bombast of opening track Stiff Nites, the album settles into its groove. With no weak links in the chain Wild Eyes are equally at ease with the slinky, slithering, shape shifting funkiness deployed on seven minute opus The Freak, as they are with the Led Zeppelin style riffs of Alabaster Dream and mystic dreaminess of Hewn Runes. Another artistically successful release for Italy's Heavy Psych Sounds Records, and one which raises the freak flag high. To paraphrase Davis Crosby – you might even grow your hair!

Wild Eyes are -

Janiece Gonzalez – Vocals

Carson Binks - Bass

Chris Corona - Guitar

Ben Richardson - Drums

Click here for more on Wild Eyes.

Click here for Heavy Psych Sounds Records.