Rarebird's Rock and Roll Nest

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...