Rarebird's Rock and Roll Nest

If you flip through the bins at a used record store -- something I hope you are still able to do in your area -- then it is possible that you may find a few interview albums among the regular LP stock. Interview LP's were sent to radio stations in the '70's and '80's, and were not intended for retail sale (and you will usually see stamps or stickers that say so on the packaging and/or record). Interview albums contained spoken-word statements by recording artists that could be used to make it sound as if the artist was being interviewed at a local radio station. Some interview albums contained full question-and-answer audio, along with sound clips of music from the albums that were being referenced (read: promoted). Other interview albums contained no music, and only the artists' answers to suggested questions. This type of interview album was designed so that the DJ at a local radio station could be made to sound like he or she was interviewing the artist in pe...

Following up on my recent post about the two solo albums by Richard Wright , the late keyboardist of Pink Floyd, I also wanted to point out an obscure side project which Wright recorded while he was temporarily ousted from Pink Floyd. Zee was a duo consisting of Wright and Dave (De) Harris, the singer/guitarist who had fronted the new wave band Fashion on their 1982 album Fabrique (aka Height Of Fashion ). Zee's only album was Identity , released in Europe in 1984. On Identity , Wright and Harris co-produced (with Tim Palmer) and co-wrote all of the songs; both of them are credited with keyboards, percussion, and Fairlight synthesizer (which is used quite prominently). But Identity comes across as being mainly the project of Dave Harris, who wrote the lyrics, sang the lead vocals, and played guitar. Still, the music tends to have a bit more in common with Floyd’s art-rock than with the intense dance-pop of Fashion. Despite the mostly electronic instrumentation, most of the song...

By now, you've probably heard the news that a new Pink Floyd album, titled The Endless River , is set for release this fall. The official press release describes the album, which will be the Floyd's first in 20 years, as "an album of mainly ambient and instrumental music based on the 1993/4 Division Bell sessions which feature David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Richard Wright". The way that the news originally was leaked was by a way that could not have been used the last time the Floyd released an album: via Twitter. On July 5th, Gilmour's wife Polly Samson casually tweeted : "Btw Pink Floyd album out in October is called "The Endless River". Based on 1994 sessions is Rick Wright's swansong and very beautiful." (Update: the album is now scheduled to be released on November 10th). There is at least one word of Samson's tweet that would not quite fit its proper definition. A "swan song" is defined by Merriam-Webster as "the ...

After the unfortunate 1981 demise of the sadly unnoticed Distractions, lead singer Mike Finney worked with a short-lived band called the Secret Seven, who released only one single in the U.K. in 1983. Finney shared vocal duties with Julie Middles, the ex-wife of Manchester music journalist Mick Middles; the Seven also included producer/guitarist Martin Hayles, sometime Distractions drummer Bernard Van Den Berg, a bass player named A.J., percussionist Danny Cummings, and keyboardist Don Garbutt. Their sound bore no resemblance to that of Finney’s former band. Where the Distractions’ educated new wave approach made their 1980 album timeless, the Secret Seven’s 1983 single was clearly a product of its exact time period. Based on the single’s two tracks, The Secret Seven (or Secret 7, as it was spelled on the disc’s center label) played new-wave-era dance pop, certainly slicker and less wistful than the music of the Distractions. At its core, the A-side “Hold On To Love” was born from t...

Tame Impala, the neo-psychedelic Australian band led by Kevin Parker, released a full-length live LP titled Live Versions on Record Store Day in 2014. The LP was limited to 5,000 copies, 500 of which were pressed in translucent green vinyl. Its nine tracks were selected from a 2013 Chicago concert. Most of the songs are drawn from the band's first two full-length studio albums Innerspeaker (2010) and Lonerism (2012). The music of Tame Impala loses none of its dreaminess in the live setting. Listening to Live Versions gives one a feeling of floating in outer space. Tame Impala's sound is at once cosmic and melodic, almost hiding a melancholy pop sense behind an otherworldly wall of psychedelic sound. Tame Impala's studio recordings are usually made by Kevin Parker alone; when the full band plays live, they often add new dimensions to the original songs, augmenting them with extended jams and other effects. The tracks on Live Versions were selected because they feature...

Last week I received the twentieth set of exclusive vinyl items offered to Platinum members of Third Man Records’ Vault service. 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 as well. The Vault service promises to deliver exclusive vinyl-only records (one full-length album and one 7” single) to its Platinum members every three months. According to the postal service, my package was sent on June 2nd. I received it on the 4th. This twentieth set of items includes a vinyl LP edition of White’s 2014 studio album Lazaretto , a 7-inch single containing demo versions of two of its tracks, and a bonus book to supplement the album. First of all, I want to say that I was very excited to receive this package six days before the album’s official release date of June 10th. The album came with a download card so that the member could obtain mp3’s of the tracks,...

What was the first punk rock song? This is a hard question to answer, because there is much debate about where and when punk rock began. Many people hold the belief that the punk rock movement was born in June of 1976 when the Sex Pistols played a legendary "gig that changed the world" in Manchester. Others will argue that the movement's real beginnings stretch back to the late '60's, when such artists as the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, and the MC5 paved the way for future innovators and troublemakers who thumbed their noses at fashion. And others will say that punk rock's seeds were planted a few years earlier still, by the '60's garage-rock bands whose songs were compiled on the Nuggets compilations. In fact, the liner notes written for the original Nuggets double-LP released by Elektra in 1972 contained what is believed to be the first known use of the term "punk-rock". Those notes were written by music-critic-turned-musician Len...

Where does the time go? It has now been 15 years since the day I "went live" with my website, Rarebird's Rock and Roll Rarity Reviews , on May 31st of 1999. The internet and the music world have both changed a great deal since then, but I've tried to keep my website about out-of-print rock and roll albums as simple as it was in the beginning. I never thought I'd say this, but I actually think that my website has grown too large in size. The original idea was for the site to consist of about 10 different artist pages. But ideas just kept coming to me, and so the site came to have over 35 artist pages. Starting in 2003, I began using a different approach by creating pages that spotlighted one album instead of multiple albums by one artist. Again, the idea was to create about ten of those pages -- but now, there are more than twenty. I suppose that having too much inspiration is a good problem for a webmaster to have. However, I don't plan to add many more page...