Category: Episodes

666. Satan

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(August 2025) Episode 666 is SATAN. Of the many bands in the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, their distinction was being among the fastest, playing a kind of thrash before that label became popularized in the Bay Area.  Even that is not enough, IMO, to get them close to the top tier of NWOBHM. A lot feels rote, and despite the opportunity provided by the name, they never go full evil on lyrics or imagery. Amidst lineup changes, they also recorded as Blind Fury and Pariah, probably trying to avoid stigma in the satanic panic era. They reformed in 2013 with their original singer for several albums which bored me.

Favourite album: Court in the Act

Favourite song: Trial by Fire

Compared to expectations: ↓

Recommendation: The first two albums (under the Satan name) have a certain vintage.

665. Joan Baez

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(August 2025) Episode 665 is JOAN BAEZ. For too long I shunned her as a stereotype of the shrill, humorless, righteous folk singer. And while that’s not entirely untrue, the mistake is mine. Getting to know her work has been a pleasure. I especially like her in her early 60s prime with just her guitar and her voice. She did broaden out to include a band and other styles in a six-decade recording career, some of it weak but plenty good. Inseparable from her music and her life is the commitment to social justice and peace, which was the event setting of the one time I saw her in person. She was a vital figure in the 1960s folk revival, and is still speaking up as an activist, and deserves a listen I was too late in giving her.

Favorite album: Joan Baez (1960)

Favorite song: Birmingham Sunday

Compared to expectations: ↑

Recommendation: The six, mostly eponymously-named albums between 1960 and 1965.

664. The Electric Prunes

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(August 2025) Episode 664 is THE ELECTRIC PRUNES. After the disappointment of the falsely labeled “psychedelic” music of Episode 662, I needed some OG psychedelia. Thus the Electric Prunes. Their first two albums are quintessential psychedelic garage band material. Their path from there got weird. They were handed over to a producer who had them record a psychedelic Latin Mass, which strangely works, and another religious album released in the band’s name only. They issued one decent late-60s hard rock album before calling it quits. “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)” was Lenny Kaye’s apt choice to lead off his original Nuggets compilation, setting the tone for that landmark box set and for a genre I adore. Some original members came together in the 21st century for four albums which, by the normally very low standards of decades-later regroupings, weren’t that bad.

Favorite album: The Electric Prunes

Favorite song: I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: The first two albums are delicious psychedelic garage rock.

663. Daphne Oram

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(July 2025) Episode 663 is DAPHNE ORAM, an early pioneer in electronic sound creation and composition, and also one of the first women in the field. She got her start making electronic music for the BBC in the 1940s-50s, and her music was used in early James Bond films. She invented an instrument called Oramics, which employed electric receptors to pick up shapes drawn on 35mm film to create variations in pitch, register, volume and vibrato. In the 1940s Oram composed a piece entitled “Still Point,” considered the first work to combine acoustic orchestration with live electronic manipulation. It wasn’t performed until 2016, years after her death.

Favourite album: Oramics

Favourite composition: Pulse Persephone

Compared to expectations: ↑

Recommendation: If, like me, you are into the sounds and tones of early electronic music, this is for you. Oramics provides what you need to know.

662. The High Dials

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(July 2025) Episode 662 is THE HIGH DIALS. This is a good reminder to apply robust skepticism to any contemporary band given the label “psychedelic.” This Canadian outfit’s initial album, A New Devotion, drew me in by offering promise with Beatles/Byrds-style baroque rock songs. But thereafter they descend into that 21st century kind of pop/rock that over-processes voice and instruments into a lush-ness that someone decided to improperly label psychedelic, thereby insulting all the art and artistry of the OG psychedelic aesthetic. “Open Up the Gates” from their third album was good neo-psychedelia, though.

Favorite album: A New Devotion

Favorite song: Oisin, My Bastard Brother

Compared to expectations: ↓

Recommendation: Just that first album. I didn’t enjoy the rest.

661. Elmore James

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(July 2025) Episode 661 is ELMORE JAMES. A blues legend known as “King of the Slide Guitar” and for loud amplification of his guitar. Traveling a well-worn blues trail from Mississippi to Chicago, his recordings were in the 1950s and early 1960s. If not for his early death in 1963, one figures his fame would have exploded in the 1960s blues revival.

Favorite song: Dust My Broom

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: Whose Muddy Shoes and Blues After Hours are good compilations of his songs.

660. Spirit

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(July 2025) Episode 660 is SPIRIT. They’re known for three things: (1) the minor classic rock hit “I Got a Line on You,” (2) the object of the copyright suit claiming Jimmy Page nicked a guitar line for “Stairway to Heaven” (unsuccessful, correctly IMO), and (3) giving us Jay Ferguson, of the yacht rock classic “Thunder Island” and composer of the theme song from The Office (US). Otherwise, their three late-60s albums will be of interest only to deep divers of that period (like me). They are an eclectic mix of rock, psychedelic, prog and jazz, fittingly drawing from the LA scene at the time. For an unknown reason, though, someone kept giving them recording contracts afterwards and through the 1990s.

Favorite album: The Family That Plays Together

Favorite song: I Got A Line On You

Compared to expectations: ↓

Recommendation: The first three albums may be of interest to aficionados of late 60s California rock. But others can skip.

659. Dave Brubeck

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(June 2025) Episode 659 is DAVE BRUBECK. This was a welcome learning experience because I didn’t know him beyond “Take Five” and “Blue Rondo à la Turk.” His music is a rare mix of brainy and popular. These famous songs are representative of his group’s experimentation with unusual time signatures, following a visit to Turkey on a global tour. His West Coast jazz comes off as an urbane version of cool jazz. His playing and compositions often seem to have classical piano as a substrate; in fact he later composed pieces for classical orchestra. He let his style evolve, such as the recordings with his sons in a fusion of jazz, rock, and blues. I enjoyed his late-career solo piano recordings.

Favorite album: Time Out

Favorite song: Take Five*

Compared to expectations: ↑

Recommendation: His quartet years in the late 50s, early 60s, with Paul Desmond on sax, are the classic period, but check out Two Generations of Brubeck for something different.

* written by Paul Desmond

658. Boris

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(June 2025) Episode 658 is BORIS. There isn’t a single term that aptly describes the music of this Japanese trio, although “noise” might be the closest. It’s sludge/stoner metal, drone, noise rock, dream pop metal, or experimental, depending on their phase or the album. They can do long drone noise like their debut, Absolutego, or pick it up into thrash mode, like Akuma No Uta. They also go pop, like on New Album or Attention Please. Vocals are selectively employed, and I’m not a fan of the men’s vocal style used on non-thrash tracks, which I label “dream pop metal.” Their output is voluminous, with an abundance of collaborations, notably Merzbow, so there are plenty of options to choose from.

Favorite album: Pink

Favorite song: Blackout

Favorite album-length song: Absolutego

Compared to expectations: ↑

Recommendation: Best albums for heavy doom and thrash are Akuma No Uta, Pink and NO, as well as the Heavy Rocks trilogy. For drone/sludge try Absolutego, Amplifier Worship and Feedbacker.

657: Etta James

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(June 2025) Episode 657 is ETTA JAMES. One of my favorite voices. Powerful but not overpowering. Gentle, but sometimes coarse and bluesy. She recorded across a range on genres: R&B, gospel, jazz, pop standards, blues, soul. Her best stuff was in the 1960s, starting with trad pop and moving to soul. Substance abuse and financial difficulties affected her career, although she did have some good funky numbers in the 1970s. A comeback in the late 80s finally earned her emerita status and many late-career albums, although they lacked in originality.

Favorite album: Tell Mama

Favorite song: I’d Rather Go Blind

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: Etta James Top Ten compiles her early silky songs; the 1965-68 trio of Queen of Soul, Call My Name and Tell Mama are her best.