Putting a price on happiness

Spotted in the Phoenix, AZ convention center.  Along with a lot of other shit.

Reading the prog distributor's new releases email...

I think I'll just make this a regular series. Some of the quotes come from press releases...unfortunately one person doesn't write all of this.

"about 3/5ths instrumental and 2/5ths vocal"

"possibly provides an answer to the question, 'Why didn't he join the Genesis reunion tour?'"

"This is for folks who like groups like Morglbl...but with an even crunchier vibe."

"a triple album telling in 22 songs and 30 instrumentals Darwin's life, concepts and works"

"a 34 minute suite of impassioned ferocity"

"Are you ready for Kalabalik!?!"

"although Fripp is not physically present on this recording"

"the aye-aye, the blue-footed booby, the magnapinna squid, the blobfish, the elephant shrew, the anglerfish, the solenodon, and the tardigrade"

"a daxophone, the glass armonica, the theremin, the stylophone, the claviola, and the League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots."

"glowering, sepulchral brass undertows"

"If you like symphonic progressive, you probably will feel undernourished with this album"

"As Hot Casa explains"

"Force them to use only original instruments as mellotron, minimoog, hammond, theremin, fender rhodes."

"Everybody except Hildegard, who watches over Can and its work like the dragon over the gold of the Nibelungen and doesn’t allow forgetting."

"Each LP comes with a demon mask..."

Number one

 

From Sweden despite appearances

And then the strings come in

The Liverbirds

I seriously only checked the band out because I laughed so hard at a description that began "The Liverbirds (sometimes spelled Liver Birds)..."

Those teenagers look a little off because on account of they're German.

Germany 1981

I figured it looked and sounded like this

Put another foot up

"scenes of The Cramps show in the Napa State Mental Hospital"

The Hep Stars

The cute one

The girl

Steve Gunn

The herps

The drummer

 "The chances are that, had ABBA never come along making Benny Andersson (and his three partners in the group) into an international pop-rock star, no one outside of Sweden would ever have heard of the Hep Stars. They were the hottest rock band of the middle-to-late '60s in Sweden, however, considered by some to be that country's answer to the Beatles. The Hep Stars also charted 20 singles in their own country and had hits in the Netherlands, as well as building a following in Germany — and their CDs are exported around the world as a result of the ABBA connection."

Have I Sinned?

 

I love the dance at the end of this one:  

 

From just a few years earlier (I wish time still moved this quickly):  

 

He's from Glenwillard Pennsylvania  

 

and The Tammys were his back-up group (as you can hear in Have I Sinned)  

We Love Our Queen

Thanks, Stormy, for inspiration.  

Reading the prog distributor's new releases email...

...is one of my favorite activities


"this is pretty great for fans of drummerless chamber rock"

"this would have blown my mind had I actually heard it in 1981"

"It's a heady mixture of pub rock..."

"Included here are Aqua, Epsilon In Malaysian Pale, Ages, Stuntman and Pinnacles plus..."

"The Minimoog playing of Benoit Widemann is what really makes this for me"

"shuttling between jazz and rock with furious instrumentals with lots of flute and violin"

"pretty utterly fantastic big band Zeuhl album"

"In Kabbalah the samech represents the infinite power of the Ein Sof, G-d’s infinite light."

"this is not a skronk disc"

"sometimes festive and sometimes tortured"

"Think of the great, under-recognized early 70s trio Back Door brought completely and utterly up to date as a jazz/rock outfit."

"terminally unhip but great stringed instruments"

"an amusing undercurrent of reggae and rock rhythms"

"the song St Pancake uses a local press report about the appearance of the Virgin Mary in a pancake!"

"Romantic ballads, ambient soundscapes and hardcore intensity!"

"Some really great synthesizer work here, plus it's nice to see Kaske not abandon the flute"

And yes, I'm buying some of these albums. The seller really knows his clientele.