Rarebird's Rock and Roll Nest

For Record Store Day Black Friday 2022. a limited edition 7-inch vinyl single was issued featuring Juliana Hatfield and Emma Swift covering two Neil Young songs. The single was limited to 1,500 copies, and one dollar from the sale of each record was donated to Casting for Recovery, a fly-fishing retreat program for women with breast cancer. For the A-side, American indie-rock veteran Hatfield covered Young's 1978 song "Lotta Love", which is best remembered for becoming a Top 10 hit for the late Nicolette Larson during that same year. Hatfield's version is based more on Young's original -- which is not a bad idea, although I would have liked to hear Hatfield render the song in the same style as her Olivia Newton-John covers album from 2018. However, Hatfield's rendition does not have the gentle folk sound of the original version which Young recorded with Crazy Horse. Instead, it's loaded with the type of electric guitar distortion that is more typical of

The 54th set of exclusive vinyl items offered to members of Third Man Records’ Vault service was mailed out to the members in December of 2022. For those who are unaware, Third Man Records is the label owned by Jack White, who is the leader of the White Stripes, the Raconteurs, and the Dead Weather, and is now a solo artist. The Vault service promises to deliver exclusive vinyl-only records (usually one full-length album and one 7” single) to its members every three months. The 54th Vault package contained a 3-LP live album from Jack White recorded in 2022, and a 7-inch single featuring two different versions of the song "A Tip From You To Me". The 3-LP set Live /// The Supply Chain Issues Tour contains numerous recordings from White's 2022 tour in support of the two studio albums he released that year. Those two albums showed two different sides of White's craft. The first of those albums, Fear Of The Dawn , was the work of Jack White the futuristic alternative

As we approach the end of the year in which Kate Bush's 1985 song "Running Up That Hill" became a surprise worldwide smash hit 37 years after it was first released (thanks to its use in the Netflix series Stranger Things ), let's take a look at two Christmas-themed Kate Bush creations from long ago: a TV Christmas special which aired on British television in late 1979, and a non-album Christmas single released in 1980. On December 22, 1979, Bush starred in a BBC-TV Christmas special broadcast in the U.K. Simply titled Kate , the surreal 44-minute program featured Bush performing songs mostly drawn from her first three albums, as well as a new holiday song called "December Will Be Magic Again". That song was released as a non-album Christmas single in Europe and Australia the following year, in remixed form. First off, here is that 1979 Christmas special, which includes the original 1979 mix of the song "December Will Be Magic Again", and featur

For Record Store Day Black Friday 2022, an LP containing the Jefferson Airplane's full live set at 1967's Monterey International Pop Festival will be issued in a 2,500-copy limited edition, on the Monterey International Pop Festival Foundation imprint (catalogue number MIPF 1967-8). The LP was remastered from the original analog tape and pressed in "blue-smoke" colored vinyl. The Record Store Day website states: "In 1992, part of this set was released on a Rhino box set, on CD and cassette. This RSD Black Friday release marks the first appearance of this set on vinyl". First off, the "Rhino box set" they are referring to is the 4-CD (or 4-cassette) various artists set titled The Monterey International Pop Festival (Rhino 70596), which contained five of the eight songs from the Airplane's set at the festival. Secondly, while it may be true that the Airplane's Monterey set has never before been officially issued on vinyl in the U.S.

It's hard to believe that Van Halen's 2012 album A Different Kind of Truth , which was the long-awaited studio album resulting from the band's reunion with original frontman David Lee Roth, is already 10 years old. But what's even harder to believe is that the album has recently become commercially unavailable. As of late 2022, the album seems to be unavailable for purchase in physical or digital formats. This seems especially odd two years after the death of guitarist and co-founder Eddie Van Halen, and after the recent success of bassist Wolfgang Van Halen's project known as Mammoth WVH. A Different Kind of Truth was Van Halen's first studio release in 14 years, following the inauspicious 1998 album Van Halen III recorded with former Extreme singer Gary Cherone. After parting ways with Cherone , Van Halen suffered through nearly a decade of invisibility, punctuated by a disastrous 2004 reunion tour with second vocalist Sammy Hagar, and by Eddie Van Halen&

On Record Store Day Black Friday 2022, Omnivore Records will issue the first official release of a long-circulated bootleg recording. This recording, known as the "Typewriter Tape", was informally recorded in 1964 by a pre-fame, pre-hippie duo of Janis Joplin and Jorma Kaukonen. The Legendary Typewriter Tape: 6/25/64 Jorma's House will be limited to 3,500 vinyl LP copies, with liner notes by Kaukonen and sound restoration by engineer Michael Graves. The album will be released digitally and on CD on December 2nd. The Legendary Typewriter Tape was recorded on reel-to-reel tape at the then-23-year-old Kaukonen's house in Santa Clara, California, as the guitarist-to-be of the Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna was rehearsing blues covers with the 21-year-old Joplin, before she joined Big Brother And The Holding Company. The title refers to the occasional background noise made by a typewriter, which was being used by Kaukonen's late wife Marguereta to write a personal

In 2012, punk icon Iggy Pop released an album titled Après only in France. Why was it only released in France? Because it was rejected by his American record label. Why? Because it was too wild and uncommercial? No. Because it was too mellow and uncommercial. Après was a covers album, featuring Iggy covering songs that you wouldn't imagine him covering, many of them romantic jazz ballads -- some of them sung in French! Certainly, Après would seem to be a radical departure for the former Stooges frontman, although it was similar to some of the tracks on his 2009 album Preliminaires , on which he also crooned some jazz tunes and a few French-language ballads. Even insolent punks grow up sometimes, provided that they live long enough. And besides, what better way was there for a 60-something-year-old Iggy to go against the grain than to record an album that was about as far away from punk rock as you can get? The Après album is finally about to see the light of day in the U.S.

The 53rd set of exclusive vinyl items offered by Third Man Records’ Vault service was mailed out to the members in September of 2022. For those who are unaware, Third Man Records is the label owned by Jack White, who is the leader of the White Stripes, the Raconteurs, and the Dead Weather, and is now a solo artist. The  Vault service  promises to deliver exclusive vinyl-only records (usually one full-length album and one 7” single) to its subscribers every three months. The 53rd Vault package contained a boxed set of six 7-inch singles from the '90's alternative band Primus, titled The Revenant Juke: A Collection Of Fables And Farce . This marked the first time that this California-based, bass-dominated band had ever issued their music on 7-inch vinyl singles. Each single contained two tracks from one of Primus' '90's studio albums. All 12 tracks were previously released and are currently available in other media formats. Each single was pressed in vinyl of a dif

Timothy B. Schmit is best known for having been the bass player and sometime lead vocalist of two successful country rock bands from the '70's. He was first a member of Poco, replacing Randy Meisner in that band in 1969. At the end of the '70's, Schmit went on to even greater success with the late-career (and later the reunited) Eagles -- again replacing Randy Meisner, strangely enough. But in his pre-Poco teens, Schmit was the lead singer and bass player for a Sacramento, California quartet who were first known as The New Breed, and then as Glad. This band achieved local success in West Coast markets, but failed to break through to a national audience. After Schmit left his early band to join Poco, its other members -- Ron Floegel (rhythm guitar), Tom Phillips (lead guitar), and George Hullin (drums) -- formed a separate country rock band called Redwing, who recorded five albums between 1971 and 1975. Mr. Schmit currently continues to be active as both a member of the

A shocking death occurred in the rock world earlier this month. Gord Lewis, the guitarist for the Canadian band Teenage Head, was found dead in his Hamilton, Ontario apartment on August 7th, at the age of 65. Authorities said that Lewis was a victim of homicide, and his 41-year-old son has been charged with second-degree murder. Teenage Head began as a punk rock band. Their self-titled 1979 album had a sound that resembled those of the Ramones and the Stooges, and the band gained notoriety in 1980 when a riot broke out at a concert in Toronto. However, their music did not possess the usual rage of punk rock. Instead, they played fun, lighthearted songs about cars, girls, and parties. The five albums the band recorded in the '80's generally had more polished sounds than their debut, and the band became prominent in Canada. Much like the Flamin' Groovies, from whose 1971 album they took their name, Teenage Head covered numerous rockabilly songs from the '50's and &#

The 52nd set of exclusive vinyl items offered to Platinum members of Third Man Records’ Vault service was mailed out to the members in July of 2022. For those who are unaware, Third Man Records is the label owned by Jack White, who is the leader of the White Stripes, the Raconteurs, and the Dead Weather, and is now a solo artist. The  Vault service  promises to deliver exclusive vinyl-only records (usually one full-length album and one 7” single) to its Platinum members every three months. The 52nd Vault package contained a quadruple-LP version of a studio album from the stoner-metal band Sleep, titled Dopesmoker , also consisting of a 7-inch single containing edited versions of two of the album’s parts. The LP’s in this set were pressed in “green kush” colored vinyl, in keeping with the band’s stoner motif. Sleep are a California trio who recorded three albums in the 1990’s. The trio’s latest studio album  The Sciences , their first full-length in 15 years, was released by Third

You have probably heard the sad news that Olivia Newton-John, the British-born, Australian-raised singer and actress, has died at age 73 after a decades-long battle with breast cancer. Ms. Newton-John famously evolved from a wholesome country music star of the mid-‘70’s into a sexier post-disco pop star of the early-’80’s. Somewhere around the midpoint of that transformation, she co-starred in the forever-popular 1978 movie musical Grease , and she sang vocals on five of the tracks on that movie’s mega-selling soundtrack album. But the singer’s career actually stretches back further in time than most people realize. She recorded her very first single way back in 1966, five years before the release of her 1971 debut album If Not For You . That debut single was released on Decca Records in the U.K. in 1966, and was recorded during a trip to Great Britain which she had won as a prize in a talent competition on the Australian TV show Sing, Sing, Sing . The single’s A-side was a cover o

For the Record Store Day drop date of June 18, 2022, the indie rock band My Morning Jacket issued an EP titled Live From RCA Studio A , which was actually a solo recording of band leader Jim James performing seven live-in-the-studio selections from the band's self-titled 2021 album. The 12-inch, 45 rpm vinyl EP was limited to 5,000 copies. James performed these tracks alone at the Nashville studio on August 31, 2021, using only an acoustic guitar. This was not an off-the-wall concept, considering that the My Morning Jacket album often took on a more down-to-earth alt-country sound than many of the band's other albums. But the album did still have the type of dreamy reverb that often distinguishes the band's work. In many ways, the album sounds like a "grown up" variation of their 2003 indie classic It Still Moves . But there's certainly no such reverb to be found on Live From RCA Studio A , as James tones everything down to the barest acoustic ethos. Alth

For the Record Store Day Drop Date in October of 2020, Rhino Records released a live double-album by Alice Cooper, recorded in Scotland in 1982 during Cooper’s Special Forces tour. Live At The Apollo Theatre, Glasgow 19.02.82 was limited to 7,000 vinyl copies. The Special Forces Band which backed Cooper for this show included two musicians from his 1981 Special Forces album: guitarist Mike Pinera and bassist Erik Scott. The other three players were blues-rock guitarist John Nitzinger, keyboardist Wayne Cook (who had previously played with Player and Steppenwolf), and drummer Jan Uvena (who went on to play with Alcatrazz). This concert was performed during a bad and bizarre time in the shock-rock legend’s long career. This show took place several years after the original Alice Cooper band had broken up, and frontman Vincent Furnier effectively became a solo artist named Alice Cooper. The man called Alice continued to achieve commercial success during the remainder of the '70&

When I watch a rock documentary about a certain artist, I wait to see if some attention is given to a forgotten rarity that the artist once recorded, even if it only gets a few seconds of screen time. Imagine my disappointment, then, when I watched Sheryl , the Showtime network’s new documentary about Sheryl Crow, and I didn’t hear one word mentioned about the real first album Crow recorded in the early ‘90’s – which was never released. It certainly seemed odd for the program to not acknowledge this event in Crow's life at all. Then again, the main purpose of Sheryl seems to be to raise the singer's current profile, and to boost sales and streaming of her music, particularly the new tie-in compilation Sheryl: Music From The Feature Documentary . So, from the documentary filmmakers' point of view, it apparently made no sense to inform the audience about a Crow album which has never been commercially available. After Crow began her career in the late '80's as a ba

The 51st set of exclusive vinyl items offered to members of Third Man Records’ Vault service was mailed out to the members in April of 2022. For those who are unaware, Third Man Records is the label owned by Jack White, who is the leader of the White Stripes, the Raconteurs, and the Dead Weather, and is now a solo artist. The Vault service promises to deliver exclusive vinyl-only records (usually one full-length album and one 7” single) to its members every three months. The 51st Vault package featured a 2-LP live album from jazz-pop legend Carole King titled Home Again: Live From The Great Lawn, Central Park, New York City, May 26, 1973 , pressed in brick-red-colored vinyl. The package also contained a DVD documenting the same concert, and a 7-inch single containing covers of two King songs recorded by contemporary singer-songwriter Lucy Dacus. The concert documented on Home Again took place two years after the release of King’s landmark 1971 Tapestry album. King performed the

One month after the influential 1967 Velvet Underground And Nico album turned 55 years of age, special releases by Lou Reed and Nico were issued on Record Store Day 2022. Lou Reed was the co-founder and the creative force behind the Velvet Underground. The RSD release I’m So Free: The 1971 RCA Demos was a vinyl LP containing 13 demo tracks recorded by Reed in October of ’71 at RCA Recording Studios in New York. This was Reed’s first recording session after he departed from the Velvet Underground in 1970, beginning his long solo career which continued until his death in 2013. This LP was limited to 7,550 copies. Apparently, this album was briefly released digitally on Apple Music in Europe just before Christmas 2021, with four additional tracks, but was quickly removed within days. As of this writing, plans for future releases of the album are unknown. These recordings were demos of songs which turned up in finished form on the solo albums Reed recorded for RCA between 1972 and 19