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It's easy to dismiss 'Vitalogy' as the time when a major artist went artistically loopy, unable to handle the fame, adulation and mainstream acceptance. After a few plays, there is a great urge to skip past the filler material once the novelty feeling was lost, why couldn't it had been edited better? But delve past the frustrating filler tracks (Bugs, Stupid Mop anyone?) and you have amongst the band's most accomplished and durable songs (Better Man, Corduroy) of their distinguished career. From the poignant introspections (Immortality) to the straight forward punk (Spin The Black Circle) Vitalogy delivers a telling snapshot of Pearl Jam at a critical and highly creative stage of their career. Considering to call it a day in the aftermath of Kurt Cobain's suicide, the Grungsters pulled through when others would become disillusioned and split up.

Damien Dempsey has a phenomenal voice. He is one of Ireland's leading singer-songwriters. Damien's previous album "Seize The Day" was a double platinum success in 2004. This new collection "Shots" is beautifully produced and retains Damien's heartfelt lyrics and confrontational lyrical style. Damien Dempsey's songs are a social commentary of life in Ireland in 2005.
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Damien Dempsey is a 28 year old singer/songwriter whose body of work to date is an intricate, hard-hitting social commentary born of the streets of Dublin and coloured by his experiences in New York and London. His third album, Shots includes standout tracks "Party On", "St. Patrick's Day" and the Brian Eno-assisted "Sing All Our Cares Away". There's also an updated version of "Colony", which appeared on Dempsey's long-since deleted debut, They Don't Teach This Shit In School.

Damien Dempsey is from Donaghmede on Dublin's Northside.

His earliest musical influences were the post-pub singsongs that his parents used to have at their home when he was a toddler. Good, bad or indifferent, everyone had to sing. Today his unique sound reflects the influence of traditional Sean-Nós as well as his musical heroes: Bob Marley and Elvis Presley.

After completing his secondary education Damien went on to the Ballyfermot "Rock School" for 2 years where he studied musical performance as well as the practical side of the music industry. The school had its own small record label and star students were awarded a release on the label. Damien was chosen for that honour and the EP, "The Contender", was released in 1995.

In 1997 "Dublin Town", Damien's first commercial single, reached No. 18 in the Irish charts. Ireland's HOT PRESS remarked that it was "..an underground anthem for disaffected youth and closet balladeer alike". A re-recorded version of the song appeared on Damien's first album; "They Don't Teach This Shit In School" released in 2000.

His next release, the "Negative Vibes EP", (2002) featured Sinéad O'Connor on the title track and led to an invitation to support Sinéad on her 2002/2003 Irish, UK and European tour.

Damien's second album, "Seize the Day", was released May 2003 in Ireland on Clear Records via Sony and entered the charts first week of release at No. 5. It has since achieved double-platinum sales. Released in May 2004 in the UK on IRL, the album was awarded "CD of the Week" in the Sunday Times and received enthusiastic reviews in the National and music press.

Nominated in 4 categories in the 2004 Irish Meteor Awards, Damien walked away with two, the only 2004 double winner.

A documentary, "It's All Good: The Damien Dempsey Story" by independent filmmaker Dara McCluskey, that followed Damien's career progression up to the release of "Seize the Day", was broadcast on Ireland's national TV station RTE and shown at film festivals in Ireland and New York.

During 2004 Damien toured extensively headlining his own shows as well as supporting Bob Dylan during the Irish leg of his European tour and making his debut appearances at The Fleadh and Womad.

Damien has earned the passionate support of his peers, one of whom is Morrissey who invited Damien to support him on various UK and Irish dates as well as his autumn 2004 US tour. Morrissey went on to sign Damien to his Attack label, and "Seize the Day" had its U.S. release in October 2004.

His third album, "Shots", simultaneously released in Ireland and the UK in March 2005 entered the Irish album charts at Number 1.
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"...whip-smart lyrical tours de force...his songwriter's eye for detail astounds.." - HOT PRESS (Shots)
"A phenomenal voice..." - Sunday Times (Seize the Day)
"...Dempsey's arrow-true voice has a liquid quality...this is bold, compelling stuff" - Mojo (Shots)
"...not for the faint hearted...extraordinary" - Q (Shots )
"This is a hearty, fraternal embrace of an album" - Telegraph (Shots)

A one-man voice for the struggles of the Irish working classes and the pain of noble but downtrodden Ireland in general, Damien Dempsey can count Sinead O'Connor among his fans - but also, less obviously, Brian Eno, who guests on his third album.
Never one to use a metaphor when the grindingly literal will do, Dempsey sings as if from a pulpit and crafts lyrics that manage to be bothcrass and clumsy. Worst here is the risibly hamfisted anti-drugs song Party On, which offers no hint of the charisma Dempsey can muster live, when his righteous anger frequently catches fire.

There are, however, glimpses of grace - most potently in the album's closing minutes, as Oscar Wilde's assertion that "we are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars" is sung repeatedly, like a mantra. There's an obvious irony that one of this record's loveliest moments is a quotation - but it will no doubt warm the cockles of Morrissey, famous Wilde acolyte and Dempsey's number one fan.

Hip Hop producer Prefuse 73 has collaborated with The Books to create an 8 track EP to be released this Summer.
The EP is entitled Prefuse 73 Reads The Books and will be release through Warp Records on July 12th.
Both artists have released their own albums this year - Surrounded By Silence by Prefuse 73 and Lost And Safe by The Books.
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Prefuse73 release the ‘Prefuse 73 Reads The Books’ EP on 11th July. As the title implies, the EP is a result of a collaboration with The Books that started with the perfect "Pagina Dos" track on the lastest Prefuse album "Surrounded by Silence".

After reaching instant-classic status with their second album "The Lemon Of Pink", and further solidifying this reputation with "Lost and Safe", Massachusetts’s The Books have been lauded across the globe for the astronomical quality of their carefully crafted songs complimented with the mysterious, withdrawn personas.

"Reads The Books" continues the evolution of Scott Herren into one of the most versatile and visionary producers in the world. The clash of The Books’ cellos, banjos, clavinets and other traditional instrumentation with the digital clatter of Prefuse’s MPC and synths creates the feeling of a musical lover’s quarrel.

Personnel: John Zorn (alto saxophone); Yamatsuka Eye (vocals); Wayne Horvitz (keyboards); Bill Frisell (guitar); Fred Frith (bass); Joey Baron (drums). This record is an exercise in beautiful, torturous, perfect anarchy. Naked City, the early '80s project of super-experimentalist John Zorn, was a band that consisted of New York downtown avant giants Bill Frisell, Wayne Horvitz, Fred Frith and Joey Baron. With Zorn's elastic sax blazing the trail, and occasional guest vocals by Yamatsuka Eye (whose style bears no slight resemblance to the Tasmanian Devil of Warner Brothers cartoon fame), Naked City literally seem as if they can do anything. Rock, jazz, heavy metal, film music, swing, country, surf noir and sheer sonic assault are deconstructed, jumbled, spliced and spit back backwards with style, finesse, aggression and virtuosity. The group's originals range from jump-cut collage to splatter-core noise, but what their aesthetic lacks in coherency it makes up for in imagination and execution. Particularly noteworthy are the band's many covers, which include treatments of Ennio Morricone, Henry Mancini, Johnny Mandel, John Barry and a mind-blowing cover of Ornette Coleman's "Lonely Woman" (Coleman is an enormous influence on Zorn). Zorn and Naked City take the meaning of punk to a new level: mixing its attitude with intelligence and pan-genre sampling to create music of the highest and most challenging order.
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review:

Rolling Stone (6/28/90) - 3.5 Stars - Very Good "Catch your breath when you can." Mojo (p.48) - Ranked #45 in Mojo's "The 50 Most Out There Albums Of All Time" - "NAKED CITY's debut saw him squeeze jazz, country, film music and eight under-50-second blasts of Jap-noise into his musical meat grinder." Option - "...a dream band of jazz and new music luminaries.
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It's hard to find a contemporary musician more eclectic than alto saxophonist John Zorn. Whether investigating the affinity between traditional Jewish music and jazz with his band Masada, or performing soundtrack music for Japanese porno films, Zorn has consistently proven himself a fearless seeker of new frontiers. On Naked City, Zorn combines covers of such movie themes as Ennio Morricone's "The Sicilian Clan," Jerry Goldsmith's "Chinatown," John Barry's "James Bond Theme," and Johnny Mandel's "I Want to Live" with his own noir-inflected originals, and a "Peter Gunn"-like cover of Ornette Coleman's "Lonely Woman" is thrown in for good measure. The results are like a trip to the drive-in for a bad double-feature--if the drive-in is on Mars. The band, which features Zorn stalwarts Bill Frisell on guitar, Wayne Horvitz on keyboards, Fred Frith on bass, and Joey Baron on drums, is remarkably confident and wide-ranging.

Full title - Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues. From the PBS series produced by filmmaker Martin Scorsese, this release features 16 tracks including a brand new song released here for the first time 'Peace Of Mind'.

Arriving just months after the folk-rock call to arms of their brilliant debut, the Byrds' second album closely follows the same formula, but what a formula: durable American folksongs (from Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, and even Stephen Foster) and their own strong originals are laced with the band's keening vocal harmonies and chiming guitars in a mix since institutionalized as a perennial rock dialect. With Seeger's classic title song, the Byrds brought Ecclesiastes onto the charts, importing the urban folk movement's social and political consciousness to the pop mainstream. If the album couldn't repeat the revelatory impact of its predecessor, it's still an earful, from Gene Clark's urgent, ardent "It Won't Be Wrong" to Dylan's contemplative "Lay Down Your Weary Tune." Meticulously remastered, this restored version also boasts unreleased tracks and B-sides, including "She Don't Care About Time," noteworthy for a 12-string solo lifted from Bach.

Implicit within the redemptive qualities commonly ascribed to rock'n'roll is the metaphor of the band/musician as leaders in a spiritual search. The hyperbole that typically ensues from such metaphors is entirely appropriate in reference to The Band, the seminal folk/country/rock group whose recordings, made from 1968 to 1978, psychically imprinted an entire generation. That a predominantly Canadian group should have been so transfixed by, and subsequently successful at, articulating deeply rooted American themes is just one of the seeming paradoxes that Hoskyns explores in this first major study. Borrowing heavily from both previously documented and self-conducted interviews, Hoskyns connects the dots that link The Band with Ronnie Hawkins, Bob Dylan, Woodstock, and the concert film The Last Waltz (1978). Cumulatively, the effect of this treatment is ponderous; Greil Marcus's classic essay "The Band: Pilgrims' Progress" in Mystery Train, from which Hoskyns liberally borrows, is more revelatory. Still, this solid treatment of an influential group belongs in most popular music collections.
--Barry X. Miller, Library Journal, 1993
British journalist Hoskyns (Vogue, Spin, etc.) wends his way through 60's mythology and the mystique of the remarkable rock group known as ``The Band'' to deliver a nicely readable, straightforward bit of pop-music history. The compelling irony of The Band's career, Hoskyns shows, is that they achieved their greatest celebrity by breaking up: Martin Scorsese's film of their final concert, The Last Waltz (1978), ``transcended the limitations of the genre and...caught both the sweep of the band's history and the edgy reality of live performance.'' The four Canadian members of The Band (Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, and Garth Hudson) and their Arkansan drummer, Levon Helm, had backed singer Ronnie Hawkins as the ``Hawks'' since the late 1950's, when most of them were still in their teens. Their striking out from the domineering and limited Hawkins--plus guitarist Robertson's strong desire to be part of ``something more vital...than a travelling alcoholic freakshow''- -led these talented musicians (each played a variety of instruments, and most sang) to a historic hookup with Bob Dylan and to his switch from acoustic folk to electrified rock. The first year with Dylan was a frenetic mix of world travel, often hostile audiences, drugs, and mayhem in the midst of an explosion of creativity that ``was pop...rock 'n' roll...and R&B...fused with an avant-garde, anti-mainstream sensibility.'' The release, in 1968, of The Band's Music from Big Pink album offered down-home, gut- bucket country blues--a notable departure from the hard-and-acid rock of the day. As Hoskyns says, the group's very name was ``born of a beguiling mixture of humility and arrogance. They were just `the band' but they were THE band.'' Though relying heavily on others' material, a well-written, enjoyable account of a 60's legend.
--Kirkus Reviews, 1993

The new edition of Hoskyns turns out to be a complete waste of money. As far as I can see the text, discographies and references have not been revised, all that's been done is tack on the 1998 Levon interview and the 1999 Rick Danko obituary (rather sour it was, too). Even that ongoing sore, the miscredited Port Dover photo of The Hawks by Serge (Daniloff) remains credited to "Courtesy Larry van Acker" as in the original edition. If it was an honest error, then now was the time to correct it. How you can put "Revised 2003" on a book that fails to mention the remasters, or the new The Last Waltz remaster beats me. I read the prologue and postcripts and will check the text later, but it looks like a rip off for those who have the first edition. Check before purchase! It doesn't even reference Jan's site in "sources" which is shameful, not because I'm suggesting that he used it without credit, but shameful because he appears to have put out a new edition without bothering to check theband.hiof.no which is mind-boggling.
--Peter Viney, July 2003

One of the most important albums of the 1970's taught pop kids a lesson: you can actually strike it easier with the 'difficult' third album.
As an impressionable 3-year-old back in 1974, I cowered into the sofa when seeing the Maels debut on Top of the Pops with 'This Town Ain't Big Enough For Both Of Us'. 14 years later as an impressionable teenager I bought the album and was hooked on it for months afterwards.
After two failed albums that trifled with 60's British psychedelia with sophomoric UCLA student musos, the Maels shifted to the UK to come up with a curious blending of staccato baroque riffs on a Fender Rhodes together with a tough, piledriving wall of tumbling guitars and reverbating bass that took the charts by storm. Terrorizing children with Ron Mael's Dickensian scowls and stares every time the cameras pointed to him and Russell's androgynous hybrid of Jim Morrison and Johnny Rotten, they took everything that waas taboo and sacred asbout youth culture and defaced them with a perverse sense of humour such as complaining up-the-duff girlfriends ("Complaints"), masturbation ("Amateur Hour"), the out-crowd ("Thank God It's Not Christmas"), and making fun of family orientated clout ("In My Family"). Critics raved about the album including a young Morrissey who got his first bite of the pop cherry in the NME by citing it the 'album of the year'.
30 years later, it still sounds disturbingly excellent - although it is doubtful that you'll ever get picked for 'Pop Idol' by using "This Town Ain't Big Enough" as your rehearsal number. Ah, what fools we have for the public!
After leaving the UK in 1975 to dabble with punk, MOR, disco, teen pop and electronic orchestral pop, Sparks have never attempted returning to their Brit-rock roots, but to listen to lyrics about klix growing tops to go topless in and shooing strangers away from Albert Einstein still makes a bunch of 40+ malcontents feel like they'd never left the first year of art school that sumer of '74.

Three years after the scattered Embrya, new-soul prodigy Maxwell returns with Now, his most fully realized disc yet. While not as ambitious as D'Angelo or just plain flippin'-off-the-wall as Macy Gray, the singer-songwriter does claim a stance: acoustic-guitar-based, near-tone poems ("Sympton Unknown") and Kate Bush covers ("This Woman's Work") are hardly the stuff of your average pop-R&B love man. Maxwell's lush thickets of overdubbed vocals could stand as a fine listen on their own; the varied textures of the instrumental tracks make the flow that much more inviting. Steel guitar subtly fires "W/As My Girl," while a rock-influenced beat gives "Temporary Nite" a groove both choppy and slippery. Now's unity of feel and often pensive tone bring it a cohesive air. Even the potentially throwaway last track, "Now/At the Party," works as more than just an exercise in '70s-party groove. If the many brokenhearted plaints here were telling a story, it would provide a suitably happy ending.

Debut Album from the Samba Funk's New Comer, Seu Jorge. 'carolina' Has Been Named Album of the Year in Brazil for 2002. Co-produced with Mario Caldato Producer of Hip-hop Groups Like the Beastie Boys and Brazilian Band Planet Hemp.
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This is a great album by a very talented man. I found out about this album after seeing the movie that Seu Jorge starred in "Cidade de Deus" ("City of God" - where he played "Mané Galinha" aka "Handsome Ned"). After seeing the movie I bought the soundtrack which he sung the title song to ("Convite Para Vida"). I was so impressed that I thought I would give his album a try and it was well worth it! All his songs are funky and upbeat and very reminiscent of the funk/soul inspired sound of the 70's, with of course a modern twist to it. All the meanwhile he still stays true to his samba roots and is very proud to be Brazilian and showcases this well in his music. The title song "Carolina" is truly addictive! I can't stop playing it.

A worthy follow up to Death By Chocolate, Natural Fake is another winning collection of funky beats and confirms European wunderkind Pit Baumgartner's reputation as a leading songwriter/producer in the popular urban groove movement. Eclipsing repetitive drum and bass infinities droning away elsewhere, strong melodies with smart lyrics (e.g. Garbo Goodbye) are enabled by singers and musicians copping cool lounge-jazz licks on demand. While fat latin dance rhythms hold the party crowd at bay, De Phazz sneak out behind the car park to a gloomy swamp zoned for gospel moaning and cut loose on Stumble and Backstreets Of My Mind. Occasional dashes of rap and dub are also factored into this set, but these raunchy excursions standout, sampling notwithstanding.