VIA PRESS RELEASE | “Come my lady/Come-Come my lady/ You’re my butterfly, sugar baby”…If there was a song-track to the turn of the millennium, Crazy Town’s “Butterfly” was it, starting with its appearance on the 1999 album The Gift of Game and winding up with its reign at #1 in the charts in February 2001.

Anchored by a sample of Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Pretty Little Ditty,” it forever defined the term “nu-metal power ballad,” and was a rare-for-the-genre love song to boot! But the album from whence it came didn’t fly as high as it did, with over 2.5 million copies sold, just because of “Butterfly.”

The Gift of Game brings the noise with an all-out alternative metal assault, and the band’s rappers—bolstered by guest appearances from KRS-One and Mad Lion—are markedly better than their rap/metal contemporaries. And then there’s the album art, created by member Shifty Shellshock’s father and uncle, which lends a vivid rendering to the fantasies of every teenage boy listening to “Lollipop Porn.”

In short, this was a freakin’ HUGE record that somehow…somehow!…has NEVER been on vinyl. So how to handle its momentous debut on its 25th anniversary? Well, first, we’ve created an inner sleeve with all of the lyrics (and there are a lot of ‘em).

Our sources also tell us that the very explicit hidden bonus track on the CD release has mysteriously made it on here. But when it comes to the vinyl, given what we anticipate is going to be, ahem, crazy demand, we have pressed the record in two different colors, one in “Red Devil Velvet” vinyl and the other in “Yellow Butterfly” vinyl. Come dance with us and Crazy Town…twice!

Celebrating Gordon Gano, born on this day in 1963. —Ed.

If the 1983 self-titled debut by Violent Femmes is one of the hot half-dozen expressions of Teen Angst American Style ever waxed, then Hallowed Ground, the group’s still divisive second effort from the following year is one of rock music’s core texts in how to successfully flout expectations. It still succeeds greatly as a document of nervy conceptual growth and as a major breakthrough in terms of individual musicianship.

A lingering wisdom about Violent Femmes’ first album is that it inevitably landed squarely in the lap of any ‘80s teen that had grasped just how inescapably miserable was the struggle of growing up; the isolation, the hopelessness, the short highs followed by extended lows, the sexual overload, the distasteful omnipresence of authority. Instead of just internalizing this knowledge many naturally flaunted their alienation over this unrelentingly oppressive environment via haircuts, clothing choices, and most importantly artistic taste.

The strategic reading of Catcher in the Rye on park benches aside, music has proven a startlingly effective way of expressing that unsubtle concept of Not Fitting In. Indeed, music has long been synonymous with youth in revolt, and if circa 1985 one spied a surly, disheveled teen sauntering along the sidewalks of some suburban landscape with a sticker covered backpack and a Walkman, it was a safe bet that they were carrying a cassette copy of Violent Femmes in the pocket of their tattered thrift-store trench coat.

A true rite of passage, it was also an LP so ubiquitous that I have no recollection of hearing it for the first time; once someone was identified as belonging to the great brigade of young non-conformists it was inevitable that a more experienced member of this community would lend a helping hand and expose the newcomer to the alluring strains of Midwestern anxiety.

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When you reach a certain age, you get used to the experience of processing bad news or difficult times in your life. It may be hard to explain the consistency of that behavior as processing trauma is an amorphous experience, sometimes different things heal the wounds that life tosses at us at different times.

Cancer is a particularly dark development in anyone’s life or family, and while medical treatments for the disease have come a long way over the years, there is plenty of sage wisdom out there that says our mindset plays a large role in recovery from the unwanted spectre of cancer.

Donna Lewis is best known for her 1996 megahit, “I Love You Always Forever” which can still be heard frequently on radio dials and while wandering around your local drug store at 11PM. At the time, it was a vivaciously bubbling love pop song with just the right amount of breathy spookiness to infiltrate a post-grunge world ready for new sounds in a new century.

In 2021, Donna hears the diagnosis that no one wants to receive, she had breast cancer and then embarked on a course of treatment that was, thankfully, ultimately successful. However, during days and nights that must have been hauntingly frightening, she found inspiration and therapeutic relief in composing music that illustrated her journey. The result is Rooms With a View which finds Lewis’ signature voice describing her experiences in an incredibly powerful way.

Join Donna and me as we discuss her latest album, her virtual work with producer and musician Holmes Ives, and what’s coming up next in support of this album. As you’ll learn during our chat, the music on Lewis’ new work got her through a tough time, but will most certainly be heard by other folks moving through their own difficult days. Donna may have made this album to help herself through the darkness, but it’s also there to comfort others, too.

Evan Toth is a songwriter, professional musician, educator, radio host, avid record collector, and hi-fi aficionado. Toth hosts and produces The Evan Toth Show and TVD Radar on WFDU, 89.1 FM. Follow him at the usual social media places and visit his website.

What’s the most remarkable thing about Blue Cheer and their 1968 debut Vincebus Eruptum? Not that it led to their being proclaimed the loudest band ever to drive fans from the front of the stage. Or that it may have won them the label as the first heavy metal band (I couldn’t care less). It’s not even the fact that, speaking solely from the standpoint of mastery of their instruments, they make the troglodytes in the Troggs sound like effete prog-rockers, and that you walk away from Vincebus Eruptum with the suspicion that the first time the trio picked up their guitars and what not was two weeks after the album was recorded. Hell, it’s not even the fact that they were managed by a former Hell’s Angel, whose nickname was Gut!

No, what makes Vincebus Eruptum such a special case is that the same album of barely coherent blooze caterwaul that Lester Bangs saw fit to include in a 1981 Village Voice article “A Reasonable Guide to Horrible Noise” (along with EPs by No Wavers DNA and Mars and a 1964 Folkways album of field recordings entitled The Sounds of the Junkyard) somehow managed to climb to Number 11 on the Billboard charts. Can you believe that? Kids ate this shit up! They put it on their stereos and listened to it! When you’d have thought that, given the ineptitude displayed on said LP’s grooves, it would have gone out of print the day BEFORE it was released!

In short, the album is a damn inspiration. It may well be the most triumphant slab of barely coherent music ever recorded. True, the reason the young people of America bought the album was Blue Cheer’s truly barbaric cover of Eddie Cochran’s 1958 hit “Summertime Blues.” The Cheer’s cover made it to Number 14 on the singles charts, which meant that not only did the kids of the world (it went to Number 1 in the Netherlands!) know horrible music when they heard it, they dug it! And the kids are more than just alright, they’re always right! I like to think they loved the rest of the album too, even though it’s remaining songs make “Summertime Blues” sound like it was carefully produced over a period of weeks by George Martin.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Swamp Family Productions announced today that Jesse Lauter’s music documentary Learning To Live Together: The Return of Mad Dogs & Englishmen, can be seen on all Delta flights beginning June 1, will begin streaming on Virgin Atlantic flights starting June 24, and will be added to The Criterion Channel starting July 1.

An electrifying documentary jam-packed with music spotlighting the celebrated “Mad Dogs & Englishmen,” Joe Cocker’s short-lived tour featuring a mammoth thirty-piece band, told through the lens of the reunion of 12 remaining band members, 45 years later, to perform with Grammy Award-winning Tedeschi Trucks at the Lockn’ Festival. The film features archival footage alongside current performances and interviews with Leon Russell, Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi, Rita Coolidge, Chris Robinson (The Black Crowes), Jim Keltner, Dave Mason, Claudia Lennear, Steve Earle and many more.

Filmmaker Jesse Lauter stated, “It’s the highest honor to have my film featured on The Criterion Channel, Delta Air Lines, and Virgin Atlantic. When we were talking about release ideas for the movie several years back, Derek, Susan, Wayne Forte [Executive Producer], and I all agreed that since air travel is prominently featured in the film, we really wanted to see the film on the airlines, particularly Delta since that’s our airline of choice and also because the song “Delta Lady” is a staple of the Mad Dogs canon. It’s a filmmaker’s dream to have Criterion’s seal of approval, and we have the utmost respect for Virgin Atlantic, so having these outlets put out our documentary is a dream come true. We had a fantastic theatrical run in the pandemic and now a wider audience can finally see the film. Thanks for your patience.”

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Celebrating Tom Araya, born on this day in 1961. —Ed.

“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.” —Herman Melville, Moby Dick

Me, I listen to Slayer. And I don’t even much like Slayer. But they sure as hell beat pausing before coffin warehouses, not that I would know where to find a coffin warehouse even if I wanted to. And that goes double for knocking people’s hats off on the street–a bonehead move like that could get you murdered (or worse!) in this day and age, Besides, I wouldn’t like it if somebody knocked my hat off–I might even break down and cry. And as for going a’whaling you can forget about it–I flunked harpoon in high school and those sperm whales have been known to swallow people whole the way drunks swallow goldfish. I don’t know if that’s worse than being chewed up first, and guess what? I don’t want to find out!

So Slayer it is, and not because I’m into all the cartoon satanism either, although I do find it amusing–I’ll betcha the guys in Slayer wouldn’t know Old Scratch from a two-dollar scratch-off card. And is there really anybody out there who takes pentagrams seriously? They’re like peace symbols for knuckleheads with skateboards.

No, I simply like the way Slayer’s thrash metal dissipate the hypos but fast–if this music (sounds like they force feed their songs amphetamines) doesn’t blow all those damp and drizzly November clouds out of your soul I don’t know what will.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | On the evening of March 11, 1979, thousands of people lined up outside of the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House to catch one of the year’s hottest shows. Splashed across the marquee for the sold-out concert was one singular name: Sylvester. It would not only be a pivotal moment in the career of the pioneering singer, songwriter, disco diva, and queer icon, but also a historic moment for the city’s LGBTQ+ community.

Now, for the very first time, Sylvester’s legendary concert can be re-lived in its entirety through Live at the Opera House. Previously only available in heavily edited excerpts (via 1979’s Living Proof), the new album presents over two hours of AAA-mastered audio, including all 13 songs from the performance —“You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” and “Dance (Disco Heat)” among them—plus a recording of the mid-concert ceremony where Sylvester was awarded the Key to San Francisco. The first single from the album, an extended cut of “Body Strong,” is available to stream on digital platforms now.

Live at the Opera House arrives September 6th via Craft Recordings on 3-LP, 2-CD, as well as HD and standard digital. Both the 3-LP edition (which is pressed on purple vinyl and housed in a gatefold jacket) as well as the 2-CD set include recently discovered photographs from the evening, plus new liner notes by Joshua Gamson, author of The Fabulous Sylvester: The Legend, The Music, The Seventies in San Francisco (Henry Holt/Picador, 2005). Click here to pre-order Live at the Opera House.

“I have no real projections except I want to play the San Francisco Opera House. I am—and I’m saying this—I am going to play the opera house! It’s going to be a fabulous show with a full orchestra, lots of costumes, lots of lighting and lots of everything. Lots! And whenever you think you have too much, you should put on more, just to be safe.” —Sylvester, in an October 1977 interview with The Advocate.

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The late Tom Verlaine is most celebrated as vocalist-guitarist for the seminal 1970s New York City rock band Television, though he cut a slew of solo recordings subsequent to Television’s 1978 breakup that remain deserving of more attention. His seventh full-length and first all instrumental recording, Warm and Cool, was released in 1992 and is receiving a vinyl repress June 7 through Real Gone Music as licensed through the Estate of Tom Verlaine. Based in improvisation, it is a loose but well-conceived collection of tuneful excursions and soundscapes with a few moments of raucousness added in.

That Television’s discography was a hard act to follow is quite the understatement. Most of the attention remains focused on the band’s masterful 1977 debut Marquee Moon, but it’s follow-up Adventure from the next year, if underrated, is still generally appreciated by fans as a worthy effort. The two live albums, The Blow Up and Live at the Old Waldorf, are as striking as they are historically vital (both document shows from 1978).

This excludes Television’s eponymous 1992 reunion album (and another live album from that year), mainly because its release roughly coincides with the arrival of Warm and Cool. Verlaine’s prior string of solo releases began with an eponymous set in 1979, followed by Dreamtime in ’81, Words From the Front in ’82, Cover in ’84, Flash Light in ’87, and The Wonder in ’90, an impressive string of albums that found him extending and refining the approach he brought to Television (and without mimicking the band proper, though understandably, there were similarities).

But with Television’s return to activity in 1992 (and perhaps the changing musical landscape of that time), Verlaine shifted gears with Warm and Cool. Obviously, the lack of vocals is a major change, but this isn’t a case of Verlaine writing a bunch of songs and then deciding not to add (or electing to remove) his voice. Instead, it’s intended as a non-vocal small group situation that features Patrick A. Derivaz on bass and his Television bandmate Billy Ficca on drums. For one track, “Harley Quinn,” Patti Smith alumnus Jay Dee Daugherty plays drums and another Television bandmate Fred Smith, plays bass.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Pirates Press Records is proud to re-release Close My Eyes, the 2002 album by NYC ska-reggae legends The Slackers—a complex and nuanced album that shows the band’s versatility and capacity for both commentary and introspection.

It is often said—to the point of cliche—that New York City is a “character” in the work of the city’s most noted filmmakers. A similar statement could be made about the artistic symbiosis between the city and The Slackers. From the Bronx-born accent of lead vocalist Vic Ruggiero to the band’s embrace of cosmopolitan musical traditions from a melting pot of cultural origins, New York defines The Slackers at least as much as the band have contributed to defining the sound of New York for well over 30 years.

Therefore, it bears mentioning that—aside from a 2002 collaborative album by “The Slackers and Friends”—Close My Eyes is the band’s first proper studio LP released after the traumatic terrorist attacks on their home city in 2001, and the band took enough time to process the global fallout of this tragedy.

At first glance, the cover photograph might be mistaken for a mundane domestic slice of life, but upon closer examination, the television screen depicting a mushroom cloud and the newspaper showing explosive carnage speak of a darker world intruding on quiet home life. The lone person in the photo is turned away from both the TV and the newspaper, and, as the album title suggests, she has her eyes closed, but the implication is clear that sometimes the outside world is too big to ignore.

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