Gene Clark: Two Sides To Every Story (High Moon Records/2013)

The late, great Ex-Byrd Gene Clark never quite had the record sales to reflect the quality of his work. The soulfulness of his material was nearly without equal and the depth of feeling of his voice is truly exceptional. Recorded in 1976 on Clark's own dime, and originally released on RSO Records in 1977, on his fifth solo album Two Sides To Every Story, even if his muse seems to come and go, Clark is fine form.

The album's best original songs; "Silent Crusade", "Past Addresses", "Kansas City Southern", "Home Run King" - the album's lone single -  and "Lonely Saturday" all plainly lay bare Clark's greatest strengths. His ability to simplify his lyrics and still be somehow amazingly poetic are over these tracks. The covers of "Give My Love To Marie" and "In The Pines" are well-executed.

Clark is aided by plenty of country rock luminaries; Emmylou Harris, Doug Dillard and Jeff "Skunk" Baxter are all well-accounted for. The album was produced by Thomas Jefferson Kaye who produced Clark's previous album, the legendary No Other album. However, whereas No Other was wonderfully excessive, Two Sides To Every Story is a fairly scaled-back affair.

Reissued in 2013 on High Moon Records for Record Store Day in a limited-numbered pressing of 5,000 copies. It comes with a beautiful twenty-four page booklet and an MP3 download card twenty-one bonus tracks including a full set from 1975 and a twelve-minute promotional interview from 1974. However, it does not contain the album itself, only the twenty-one bonus tracks.

A beautiful package and a must have for fans of The Byrds, Gene Clark or classic country rock from he 1970's.

Here's the video review:

Off!: The First Four EPs (Vice Records/2010)

Off! is a Los Angeles hardcore punk rock supergroup. Formed by Keith Morris of Black Flag and Circle Jerks and Steve McDonald of Redd Kross, Mario Rubalcaba of Rocket From The Crypt and Dimitri Coats from Burning Brides in 2009. The band recorded and released The First Four Eps 7” box set in 2010 on Vice Records.

The First Four EPs box set contains four 7" EP records, a very nice booklet with artwork from Raymond Pettibon and a download code. Produced by Coates and engineered by McDonald, the release is sixteen songs in just eighteen minutes. The package itself is beautiful. The tracks themselves are uniformly excellent. The music is simultaneously simple yet challenging. It's simply a must-have release for fans of classic punk rock.

Very most highly recommended. 

Here's the video review:

Teenage Fanclub: Bowery Ballroom, New York, NY (10/15/2016)

Scotland's Teenage Fanclub have just released their tenth studio album, Here. Their tour stopped at New York's Bowery Ballroom and I eagerly attended the show. It was my sixth time seeing TFC and second time seeing them at Bowery Ballroom. I'd first seen the band in 1993 at CBGB's. Their sound has changed considerably since then - with each album the band seems to ditch the Big Star/Jesus And Mary Chain influence more and more and they've become closer to being Crosby, Stills & Nashesque.

Norman Blake, Gerard Love & Raymond McGinley still deliver the goods. The band were in good form and their twenty-song set contained plenty of old favorites (including "Star Sign", "The Concept", "Radio" and "About You"). The band started the set off appropriately enough with "Start Again" and closed with their epic debut single "Everything Flows". In between the band played newish and genuinely new material (including the fine new single "I'm In Love").

The subtlety of the band's material is a something of a strength unto-itself, and the understatedness of the songs reveal themselves over-time. Which, if you're unfamiliar with, may not reveal themselves immediately, especially in a live setting. Thankfully for me, I knew all of these songs very well and wasn't clinging to a hope that the band was going to break out into a loud medley of material from their Bandwagonesque album. I was however disappointed that they didn't play "What You Do To Me", "Hang On" and even "Sparky's Dream", but I'll get over this some day.