Category: Episodes

637. Billie Holiday

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(March 2025) Episode 637 is BILLIE HOLIDAY. One of the most distinctive American voices. She widened the aperture of jazz with the instrumentality of her voice (from horn players she admired like Louis Armstrong) and bringing in lived experience to her songs (from blues singers she admired like Bessie Smith) (also maybe why I liked her “Strange Fruit”). Personally, this style of jazz isn’t my cup of tea, but her signature voice sells it.

Favorite album: Lady Sings the Blues

Favorite song: Strange Fruit

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: The mid-50s recordings on Verve and Clef

636. UFO

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(March 2025) Episode 636 is UFO. There’s a category of rock bands that start out with interesting/innovative stuff in the late 60s/early 70s but then descend to decades of boring, rote hard rock. Think Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Status Quo … and UFO. Their first two albums were consummate space rock, followed by two good albums of heavy 70s rock, which was their commercial peak. But then their output flattened out into album after album of the most banal hard rock. I assume this is evidence such pablum sells, but not to me. That part was a slog (I listen so you don’t have to). However, UFO is cited as paving the way for the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, which is why I did this episode. The only song I recognized from classic rock radio was “Too Hot to Handle,” a cock rock gem.

Favourite album: UFO 2: Flying

Favourite song: Flying

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: The first four albums, especially the first two space rock ones.

635. Chad & Jeremy

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(February 2025) Episode 635 is CHAD & JEREMY. Coincident with the first wave of the British Invasion, Chad Stuart and Jeremy Clyde offered light-pop/folk rock songs. “Yesterday’s Gone” puts them in the Merseybeat mode, while their most famous piece, “A Summer Song,” is in the vein of Simon and Garfunkel and the Everly Brothers. This approach characterized their 1963-66 recordings, which is fine, but put them out of step with the emergent R&B bands. Chad & Jeremy regrouped with 2 ½ psychedelic albums, a sound that I personally favor, although not it’s representative of what they were known for.

Favourite album: The Ark

Favourite song: A Summer Song  

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: Albums: A best-of is fine. But those who dig 60s psychedelia should check out their baroque-pop stylings on Of Cabbages and Kings and The Ark.

634. Parquet Courts

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(February 2025) Episode 634 is PARQUET COURTS. Take equal parts 80s college rock, 90s indie/alt, 00s angular rock, add a pinch of 60s Velvet Underground, and you have Parquet Courts. They were a very welcome find, running counter to my general disappointment/lack of interest in 21st century ‘rock’ bands. Their music is creatively quirky, with clever or snarky lyrics. Their 2018 album Wide Awake! is their most accessible, but that signaled an incorporation of electronic beats that dominated 2021’s disappointing Sympathy for Life. I prefer the off-kilter simplicity of earlier albums.

Favorite album: Light Up Gold

Favorite song: Stoned and Starving

Compared to expectations: ↑

Recommendation: Albums: Light Up Gold, Sunbathing Animal, Human Peformance and Wide Awake!

633. Elliott Carter

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(February 2025) Episode 633 is ELLIOTT CARTER, one of the most notable American composers of the late 20th century. His early works are neoclassical but evolved to modern and “ultra-modern” styles, and he became known for his rhythmic complexity. He used conventional formats and did not go experimental (such as to electronic or mixed media), but it is still challenging to the ear. I really like his stuff. His legacy is enhanced by his longevity; he composed some 20 pieces after he turned 100 years of age. It’s a shame he is not better known compared with other American composers (looking at you Gershwin).

Favorite piece: Symphonia: sum fluxae pretium spei

Favorite chamber piece: String Quartet No. 3

Compared to expectations: ↑

Recommendation: Try my favorite pieces and if you like, move into the symphonies, concertante and chamber pieces.

Composer Elliott Carter at the piano in 1989.

632. The Marvelettes

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(February 2025) Episode 632 is THE MARVELETTES, one of the earliest successful Motown acts. “Please Mr. Postman” is their most popular song and representative of their early 1960s pop-oriented girl group sound. Their second phase commenced in 1967 as they shrunk to a trio and adopted a more soulful sound per the trends within Motown. Not among the top girl groups for me, but they had some enjoyable songs.

Favorite album: The Marvelettes (pink album)

Favorite song: The Day You Take One (You Have To Take The Other)

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: A greatest hits will do. I prefer the four albums in their second phase (1967-70)

631. Sourvein

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(February 2025) Episode 631 is SOURVEIN, a band out of the North Carolina sludge metal scene. By the time of their first full album they had evolved into a solid stoner/doom metal sound with low slow guitars and backgrounded screeching vocals. Key contributor to that approach was guitarist Liz Buckingham who later went on to join my favorite band in the doom genre: Electric Wizard. As I always say with sludge/stoner/doom metal, it’s not for everyone but I love it.

Favorite album: Black Fangs

Favorite song: Fangs

Compared to expectations: ↑

Recommendation: Try Will to Mangle or Black Fangs

630. Bobby Womack

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Episode 630 is BOBBY WOMACK, a significant contributor to soul music as a songwriter, guitarist and solo artist. He got his start in a group called the VALENTINOS (also covered here) with his brothers, and then as guitarist for Sam Cooke and other famous artists before recording on his own in 1969. His early 70s albums are high quality soul and funk material, accentuated by his gritty voice. He had a revival in the 1980s but the tone of the soul music from that decade is not to my tastes.

Favorite album: Understanding

Favorite song: Everything’s Gonna Be Alright

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: Fly Me to the Moon (1969), Understanding (1972), Facts of Life (1973),

I Don’t Know What the World Is Coming To (1975)

629. The Mops

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(January 2025) Episode 629 is THE MOPS. I recall my parents telling me when they went to Japan in the mid-1960s they heard a bunch of bands singing Beatles songs, aptly reproducing the words even though they likely didn’t know the meaning. I thought of that when I heard The Mops’ first album, Psychedelic Sounds in Japan, which includes a number of covers of classic mid-60s songs. They are known as the “first psychedelic band in Japan,” although it’s more garage rock than hippy. I first heard them via their contribution to the Nuggets II collection, the quirky “I Am Just A Mops.” They recorded through the early 1970s with a similar heavy and fuzzy sound to rock music coming out of the US and UK at the time. They deliver with a manic energy, but overall, the most interesting thing is that they were making this music in Japan and singing mostly in Japanese. On their own the covers are meh and the originals are just OK.

Favorite album: Psychedelic Sounds in Japan

Favorite song: Iijanaika

Compared to expectations: ↓

Recommendation: The compilation album The Mops: 1969-1973 isn’t bad.

628. Testament

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(January 2025) Episode 628 is TESTAMENT. Superlative thrash metal. They’re not listed among the “Big Four” bands because they’re categorized in the second wave. But for sound and skill, I would put them up near the top. Lots in common with fellow Bay Area mates Metallica — vocalist Chuck Billy is close in style to James Hetfield, as well as technical prowess and powerful execution. Their first three albums were classic thrash. In the early 90s they adopted a more alt/groove metal sound, consistent with the time, but by 1999 (and since) they returned to pure thrash form.

Favorite album: The Gathering

Favorite song: Down for Life

Compared to expectations:  ↑

Recommendation: All the albums are good, even that middle period. Try 1988’s The New Order, 1999’s The Gathering and 2016’s Brotherhood of the Snake.

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