Listen Whitey: The Sounds Of Black Power 1967-74 gets some love from Okayplayer.com - Read the review here and check out the “What’s Inside” video for our Listen Whitey comp below to see what all the fuss is about!
Pick up Listen Whitey: The Sounds Of Black Power on CD or 2xLP at LightInTheAttic.net!
Opened in 1968, the “Cool Aid House” in Vancouver was a home for rambling homeless youth and Hippies. The commune drop-out vibe aside, the Cool Aid House was a non-profit that helped young people get off the street and back on their feet. As a non-profit, they relied heavily on support form donations and the Canadian government–a relationship that was threatened to dissolve by 1970. Come 1969, in steps UBC student John Walsh with an idea to record a benefit album to raise funds to save the house. All of the top bands in the Vancouver area offered to record songs for the benefit album and since the local music scene produced some of the best bands in Canada, the album that resulted is a stunning snapshot of Vancouver’s young music scene.
Mother Tuckers Yellow Duck
A long sought-after collector’s item, The Cool Aid Benefit Album was originally intended as a two-record set, however contractual problems with Capitol Records forced Walsh to drop tracks by Mother Tucker’s Yellow Duck, which with their inclusion now, make this the first reissue as well as the first release as the intended 2xLP. Other cuts include the strange proto-electronic burbles of Mock Duck on ‘As the Bullet Enters Anton’ and ‘Pointillistic Scherzo’, the vicious snarl of Black Snake’s ‘Carousel,’ and the strange Spalding Grey-ish acoustic song/poem ‘The Planet Man.’ Hydro Electric Street Car have left little behind them, but their lovely ‘High Memory’ sounds like a lost Grateful Dead track from their early, dreamy period.
Released by Lion Production in conjunction with Light In The Attic, The Cool Aid Benefit Album: Deluxe Edition is a stunning 2xLP package—limited to 1,000, hand-numbered copies—featuring Vancouver’s top bands of the day: Mother Tucker’s Yellow Duck, Papa Bear’s Medicine Show, Mock Duck, Hydro Electric Streetcar, Route Nine, Blacksnake Blues Band, Nancy, Spring, and Greydon Moore and Leo Jung. Obscure cuts available nowhere else, in a wide variety of styles: weird electronic sounds, heavy garage fuzz guitar freakouts, stoner rock, and acoustic folk.
For more info, audio samples and to pre-order The Cool Aid Benefit Album: Deluxe Edition click here!
The Friday, July 1, 2011 edition of The Guardian features an excellent article by Graeme Thomson about our latest release Our Lives Are Shaped By What We Love: Motown’s Mowest Story 1971-1973. Run out and pick up a copy now! Or…check it out guardian.co.uk!
As featured on Now Again’s Those Shocking Shaking Days compilation, AKA (an acronym of Apotik Kali Asin) started in the early 70s in Indonesia’s second largest city, Surabaya, East Java, and came to be known as one of the nation’s greatest rock bands. Starting off their careers as an infamous local band with notorious crowd pleasing antics, AKA regularly went through repertoires of Steppenwolf, Grand Funk Railroad, James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, Cream and Three Dog Night before finding a significant audience outside their home city. It was soon after that the band signed with a Jakarta based label, Indra Records that they started producing a steady release of albums, including 11 studio LPs and a couple of compilations.
Thanks to the supreme digging efforts of Jason “MoSS” Connoy (who, as you’ll see below, also compiled Those Shocking Shaking Days) our thirst for more heavy psychedelic & progressive funk from Indonesia is whetted with this new release–AKA Hard Beat (CD | 2xLP Strawberry Rain | SR001) available now from Light In The Attic. MoSS was kind enough to take time from his busy schedule to talk with us a bit about his various reissue projects and the new AKA comp.
****DIG THIS****
We will be giving away ONE free copy (either CD or 2xLP) of AKA Hard Beat. Leave your name and email in the comment field below (email is kept private and not shared). We’ll announce the winner on our Facebook and Twitter pages on Friday at 12PM (PST). So be sure to follow us to see if you won!
Tell us about Strawberry Rain? What inspired you to start the label?
I have been helping various labels source reissue material for a few years now. A year or two ago I had the reels to an Iranian band (JOKERS) and while I was listening I started to wonder why I hadn’t tried my hand in the reissue market. I’ve put out releases in other genres of music, so it’s wasn’t a huge learning curve. I ended up putting out JOKERS with a friend of mine named Gholam on a label called Fading Sunshine. When the AKA contracts came about, my friend had other commitments so I decided to start another label named after a song from the group Ellison.
Your first release, the JOKERS album, got a lot of play around here. What was the story behind that project?
Well, a close friend of mine, Gholam, is a notorious psychedelic dealer, and has been for many years. He sourced all the Iranian stuff well before it hit eBay, including the Abbas Mehrpouya and Pari Zangeneh LPs and 1000′s of 45′s. He used to live in Tehran as a teen, and was a heavy rock head back then, which obviously wasn’t common there. He managed to preserve a lot of his collection, and kept contacts over the years. We ended up finding one of the engineers from one of the bigger studios in Iran, and got the reels out of there. Sadly all but one of the Jokers has passed, but the lone member was very happy with the result. We plan to have some other unreleased Iranian music in the future as well; it’s just a matter of timing.
Recently you curated and compiled the excellent Those Shocking Shaking Days comp on Now Again. When I first got that, I was immediately struck by how weirdly similar in vibe the Panbers track “Haai” was to Jane’s Addiction. A few weeks later I heard Henry Rollins play “Haai” on his KCRW show which he preceded with Jane’s Addiction’s “Stop” …he drew the same reference. A really great record.
Those Shocking Shaking Days was a great opportunity for me. Egon at NOWAGAIN and I have traded records over the years, so when he approached me about working on an Indonesian comp with him, it just felt natural. He’s very good on the marketing end of things, as well as discovering music, and sourcing bands. It took us a long time to get it all done, but we’ve had good feedback on it. Indonesia has a pretty interesting scene. I have 1000′s of LPs, tapes and magazines. TSSD was an intro to the scene as a whole, from a Western perspective.
Your new release is the first ever anthology of the Indonesian psych/progressive funk band AKA (also featured on Those Shocking Shaking Days). Tell us about this project.
I have been collecting AKA records for many years now. I discovered them early on when I got into Indonesian music, and really tried to collect all their LPs as quick as I could. Some of their albums are bloody rare and took me years to find. I haven’t seen a single copy in over 10 years. I always saw AKA as a group that had a couple of good songs per LP, and wished they had created a single “rock” album. They actually had one released in Indonesia with most of the songs on this comp, but it was only available on tape in the late 70′s. When we worked on the TSSD contracts, the opportunity came for me to create this record, and here we are.
Tell us about the re-mastering process. It’s a process that we spend a lot of time on and it’s great to hear when others do as well. What was the source material that you had to work with? Vinyl? Master tapes?
There are no master tapes in Indonesia outside of a small number of bands. The majority of the labels would erase the previous session after it was cut to vinyl. They didn’t want to import new reels, so they re-used existing ones. I used M- vinyl copies for all the masters. I can’t stress how long it took to get clean copies of their discography. It was hell. I had VG copies already, but didn’t want to ruin the sound quality from noise restoration. The transfers were done on a very high end turntable/stylus. I didn’t want to lose anything in the transfer itself. When I compare them to the originals, they’re unbelievably close on all fronts. The originals themselves vary in quality depending on label, and who mastered them at the time.
A bit about the design/packaging. The LP release a super nice tip-on sleeve (Stoughton?) and lots of great photos. Were you able to get in touch with the band or their family members for archive photos?
Photos came from old photographers and Rolling Stone Indonesia. The band themselves only had footage of SAS, the group that was formed post AKA. I’m looking into that reissue now, I’m not sure what will happen. I try my best to give customers something that feels good in their hands. I like the heavy sleeves.
What’s next on the horizon for you and Strawberry Rain? Can you divulge any details?
I have some Zambian albums I’m currently sorting out, and I’m also in talks with a few other bands that I need to keep quiet for now. I’m also looking to release another unreleased Iranian album in the next year or so if things work out.
Lastly, a spin on the oft-asked “what’s the first album you ever bought?” question. What’s the first reissue you ever bought or remember having?
I honestly don’t remember. Good question, I just have no clue.
___________________________________________
For more info, audio samples and to order AKA Hard Beat (CD | 2xLP Strawberry Rain | SR001) click HERE!
Interview by Patrick McCarthy. Thanks to LITA’s Josh Wright for setting up the interview. Special thanks to MoSS for doing the interview.
Our turntables have been getting a bit dusty recently since this gem came in. Index were a mid ’60s suburban Detroit band that dipped far into a bizarre, atmosphere–read “druggie”–sound. Black Album + Red Album + Yesterday & Today (from our pals at Lion Productions) collects their two holy grail psychedelic records (from 1967-68) coupled with a disc of recently discovered unreleased material, all from the original tapes.
This 2-CD set is filled with songs full of feedback and fuzzy guitars, hazy guitar riffs and loud rhythms. Hidden amongst the echoing canyons of sound there’s some snotty post-punk attitude wrapped up in that trippy velvet fuzz; a wonderful bleak sound, both droning and murky—the atonal side of late 1960’s rock that would leave the most lasting impression on those who would eventually become punk, post-punk and indie rock artists like Joy Division or the Fall.
Includes a 32-page booklet, written by Index drummer Jim Valice, detailing the band’s rock and roll adventures, replete with photos and lyrics.
Pick up Index Black Album + Red Album + Yesterday & Today HERE!
Here we are, Monday morning and 2011 SXSW is now behind us. I report today with a tinge of regret that I couldn’t make it to Austin this year but alas somebody had to water the plants and feed the interns. But for those of us that couldn’t make it, we thank the excessive (obsessive?) and inebriated blogging/tweeting/etc by all you crazy kids out there living the dream (and those crushing hangovers). Here’s a short list of shows/events that caught our attention across the ether.
1. Third Man Rolling Record Store – Third Man Records
First got wind of this via Pitchfork and it looked like one of the essentials to see/catch this year. Third Man does so much cool stuff and this “Pimp My Ride” style food-truck-looking-record-store surely stole the show. The little promo film about the “Rolling Record Store” reports some scary statistic that 97% of all high schoolers have never been to a record store. Crazy. I’ll say that I was in Amoeba Los Angeles on Saturday (picking up the some new Crass reissues!) and I over heard two teenage girls talking about some record and one of them said “I could probably just order this on-line but I love record stores and want to support them”. Maybe they saw Third Man’s little promo video and got inspired. I hope so.
2. Undefeated documentary screening/deal inking
Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martin’s film Undefeated about underdog Memphis football (The Manassas Tigers) team blows minds and then some bank accounts at SXSW this year. The film was screened last Sunday night and then by the wee hours of Monday morning a six figure deal was signed with The Weinstein Company. Yowzers! LITA’s TV/Film licensing guru Sandy Wilson is the film’s music supervisor so you know soundtrack is gonna kill.
3. Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All – Fader Fort and Thrasher Magazine parties
OK, I get it. OFWGKTA is blogged/hyped to death but I’d write them off sure as shit if their music wasn’t actually good. So it’s no wonder that everyone and their hip grandmother wanted to be at one or all of their shows at SXSW this year. Pitchfork was all over the Fader Fort show (which sounded cool) but the real fun looked to be had at the Thrasher Magazine show, which makes sense considering Odd Future’s skate-thug leanings.
4. OFF! – Vice Late Night party with OFWGKTA and Thee Oh Sees
Los Angeles punk “super group” OFF! took their 18 minute, 30 song set to SXSW this year and all reports confirm that there were some classic Keith Morris rants and ravings mixed in with some truly great punk rock. Shows at Emo’s and the Spin Day party sounded cool but the Vice closing party looked like it was the one to beat. OFF! and Odd Future sharing the same stage? No real reports coming in yet but maybe everyone’s still sleeping off hangovers. Tyler, The Creator and Keith Morris should co-host a talk show, btw.
5, Die Antwoord / Harmony Korine short film Umshini Wam
After signing some crazy $$$ deal with Interscope, you’d think Die Antwoord would’ve played some blow-out hyped shows at SXSW this year. But alas, keeping shit as weird as possible, they instead appeared in Umshini Wam, the short film directed by Harmony Korine in which Die Antwoord’s Yo Landi and Ninja cruise around in wheelchairs like the art thugs they are.
Whew…we’re not cooling down yet!
The Jane Birkin / Serge Gainsbourg classic Je T’aime … Moi, Non Plus has been heatin’ things up for over 30 years and now Pop Matters caught the fever.
In his review, D.M. Edwards says Je T’aime “is unbridled, sophisticated fun [...] a genuine pop classic and one of the best 45s ever released.”
8/10 stars!
Read the full review HERE.
Oxford American is a quarterly literary magazine featuring works of writing by southern authors or works of writing about that grand old place, The South. Even though it originates in Oxford, Mississippi (and we’re trying not to hold that against you), around these parts it’s considered a top notch publication. The most recent issue is there yearly Music Issue, and, aw shucks, gee wilikers, they did some pretty weighty write ups on both Betty Davis and Karen Dalton (giving us a few shout outs in the process). Not only that, but they put songs by Betty, and Ms. Dalton on the accompanying CD.
Oh Oxford American, if only you could see our shit-eating grins.
For you, our fans, the articles:
…this Jamaica to Toronto love.
Seriously folks, we tried to warn you about just how amazing the Jamaica to Toronto show at Pop Montreal was going to be. We talked it up months in advance, implored you to buy plane/bus/train/flying unicorn tickets to get to Club Lambi to see what was sure to be a monumental show. And in truth, the show was, hands-down amazing.
We here at Light In The Attic have literally been sifting through an enormous stack of amazing reviews of this rare show, trying to pick just the clipping to showcase what you missed. We’ve got an entire team of drugged-up interns working 24-hours a day in shifts just to organize it all…
But finally we’ve found it.
There were many, many reasons as to why we here at Light In The Attic felt an empty space in our soul for being unable to attend this year’s seemingly majestic Pop Montreal Festival. At the top of this very, very long list was a Friday night performance by the kings of Canadian reggae, Jamaica to Toronto.
In the words of T’Cha Dunlevy of The Montreal Gazette (read it all HERE):
“It was a “Soul shakedown party” (thanks, Bob), as a crew of old-timer Torontonian reggae-R&B studio session vets showed that they still have the chops to move the dance floor.”
