Rarebird's Rock and Roll Nest

Robert Hunter, the songwriter best known as the lyricist for the Grateful Dead, passed away in September 2019 at the age of 78. Hunter, who was a longtime friend of the Dead’s Jerry Garcia, never became a member of the San Francisco jam band, understandably not wanting to be a constant part of their touring rock band lifestyle. However, Hunter wrote the lyrics for most of the Dead’s well-known songs. Hunter was deservedly inducted with the band into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 1994, and with Garcia into the Songwriters Hall Of Fame in 2015. Although Hunter saw himself more as a writer than as a musician, he released 11 albums of his own between 1974 and 1993. Among these were a compilation album ( Promontory Rider ), two live albums ( Live 85 and A Box Of Rain ), and two spoken word poetry albums, one of which ( Flight Of The Marie Helena ) featured musical accompaniment while the other ( Sentinel ) did not. As of this writing, all of Hunter’s albums have been out of print f...

The 41st set of exclusive vinyl items offered to Platinum members of Third Man Records’ Vault service was mailed out to the members in September of 2019. 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 41st Vault package was centered on the 1999 debut album from The Go, the Detroit-based indie rock band which then included Jack White in its lineup. Formally known as Whatcha Doin’ 20th Anniversary Remix Redux , the set contained a 12-inch vinyl LP featuring a newly remastered version of The Go’s Whatcha Doin’ album, on which White played lead guitar. Also, it contained another 12-inch vinyl LP with previously unreleased home-recorded demos of the album tracks. The package also contained a...

In 1997, two members of Def Leppard – vocalist Joe Elliott and guitarist Phil Collen – joined forces with two former members of David Bowie’s Spiders From Mars band – bassist Trevor Bolder and drummer Woody Woodmansey – to pay tribute to ex-Spiders guitarist Mick Ronson, who died from cancer in 1993. They did so by forming a Bowie cover band called Cybernauts, which also featured a keyboardist named Dick Decent. The band’s name presumably came from a quote by Mr. Decent, who had this to say about the first rehearsal: "The instant that first guitar riff came sidewinding out of Mr. Collen's awesome slack, and the rhythm section to end all rock rhythm sections came in like a cybernaut from the next galaxy, any idea in my head other than the pure joy of playing with these guys was crashed into oblivion. Then big bad Joe opened up his formidable throat and the rest is history...". The band went on a mini-tour performing five shows in the U.K., and their very rare CD was re...

On Record Store Day 2019, Mumford & Sons issued a limited edition 10-inch vinyl picture disc, limited to 3,500 copies, titled Delta Acoustic Sessions: Live From Electric Lady 26.07.18 . This disc contained live acoustic performances of four songs from the 2018 studio album Delta , recorded at Electric Lady Studio in New York on July 26, 2018. The 2018 studio album Delta had a mellow ambient nature that was notably different from the English band’s early banjo-driven folk rock, which they have been moving away from during the last half-decade. The four acoustic live-in-the-studio tracks on the Delta Acoustic Sessions EP are similarly mellow with spare arrangements that sound earthier than the album’s synth ambience. A banjo is noticeable, but only part of the time, and it is never dominant; acoustic guitar and piano seem to play the bigger parts here. The resulting EP sits on a sort of middle ground between the band’s early work and their newer sound. The picture disc is hands...

In June of 2019, Radiohead made available a mother lode of mostly unreleased recordings for only 18 days on Bandcamp, consisting of nearly 18 hours of private recordings from the OK Computer era. Recorded between 1995 and 1998, these recordings consisted of countless demos, outtakes, alternate versions, unreleased songs, live cuts, and other curiosities which were mostly related to the English alternative band’s 1997 masterwork. Why did they do this? On the band’s official website, guitarist/keyboardist Jonny Greenwood explained it like this: “We got hacked last week – someone stole Thom (Yorke)’s minidisc archive from around the time of OK Computer, and reportedly demanded $150,000 on threat of releasing it. So instead of complaining – much – or ignoring it, we’re releasing all 18 hours on bandcamp in aid of Extinction Rebellion. Just for the next 18 days. So for £18 you can find out if we should have paid that ransom. Never intended for public consumption (though some clips did re...

The 40th set of exclusive vinyl items offered to Platinum members of Third Man Records’ Vault service was mailed out to the members in June of 2019. 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 40th Vault package contained an exclusive vinyl edition of the Raconteurs’ 2019 studio album Help Us Stranger , and a 7-inch single containing early demo versions of two of the album’s songs. The 180-gram Vault edition of Help Us Stranger was pressed in green vinyl with black and copper swirls, and was packaged with moving-image lenticular cover art. The album was the Raconteurs’ first studio album in eleven years, and is their third studio album to date. The album’s title continues the tra...

Twenty years! Yes, it has been 20 years since my website Rarebird's Rock and Roll Rarity Reviews first went live on May 31, 1999. It was hard enough to believe when my site reached its ten-year mark. In my 10-year anniversary post in 2009 , I said that I hoped to keep the site up and running for another ten years. Well, hooray for me! Mission accomplished. Since their name resembles the Roman numeral XX, I will enlist the band called the xx to provide the background music for this post: So, now that I have succeeded in my long-term goal of keeping my site online for two whole decades, the next question is: What now? I honestly don't know how much longer I will be keeping the site online, at least in its traditional form. As proud as I am of the site, it is getting more expensive to preserve its online presence. I recently renewed both the domain and the storage, so it will at least stay online until next Spring of 2020. But beyond that, the site's future is uncertai...

For Record Store Day 2019, the Detroit soul label Revilot Records issued a 10-inch EP with six tracks from The Parliaments, the George Clinton-led ‘60’s doo wop quintet which later evolved into Clinton’s ‘70’s funk collectives known as Parliament and Funkadelic (among other variations). The EP, titled Baby I Owe You Something Good , was limited to 2,000 copies. Side A contained three tracks taken from the group’s ‘60’s doo wop singles, all of which were later redone by Clinton’s ‘70’s variations of the Parliaments. These tracks are decidedly more straightforward and more innocent soul recordings than Clinton’s later psychedelic funk experiments, but they are good early displays of his unique talents. “All Your Goodies Are Gone” was originally released as a single in 1967 (Revilot RV 211); it was later rerecorded by Parliament for their 1974 album Up For The Down Stroke . Although this earlier doo wop version is less stylized, it has the edge in terms of real emotion. It’s an excell...