TOMORROW ON THE MORNING JOLT: NEW YEAR, NEW MUSIC

Tomorrow morning on SiriusXM OutQ's Morning Jolt with Larry Flick, I'm going to be talking about some music that you may not have heard yet.  Of course, most of it sounds like it's old, even though it's new.  Larry is on the air weekdays from 7 am - 11 am ET, and he hosts a music show Feel The Spin Sundays at 2 pm.  If you don't have a SiriusXM subscription (yet), go here and get a free online trial .


First off, Vintage Trouble.  Even though they are from L.A.'s famed Laurel Canyon, their music isn't available here in the U.S. (although it is available in the U.K.).  I don't know why. They are a classic soul band.  I read about them in Mojo magazine, which is where I discover most of my music.  These guys have an amazing video for "Nancy Lee" (shot on iPhones and featuring one of the Pussycat Dolls). I really think that this band will make a lot of noise in 2012, but I don't care if they do or not: I'm buying their album and telling people about it. The singer, Ty Taylor, has a great voice (apparently, he was a contestant on the show Rock Star, which attempted to find a new lead singer for INXS).

Jonathan Wilson is also from Laurel Canyon, and seems to be the center of the new scene there.  Apparently he has built guitars for the likes of Jackson Browne, and has worked as a studio musician for Elvis Costello, Jenny Lewis and Jonathan Rice. He's also produced records for Dawes.  It's not just that the guy is from Laurel Canyon, he sounds like he's from the Laurel Canyon of the late '60s and early '70s: like he could have been jamming with Jackson Brown and Crosby Stills & Nash back in the day.  I "discovered" him in either Mojo or Uncut. 

Michael Kiwanuka is a British singer (but he's from Uganda).  As much as the two artists above don't sound like they're from this era, MK really doesn't sound like he's from the 2010's.  He sounds like the '60s or '70s.  I don't know how to describe him. He sounds like Bill Withers but also like Otis Redding, if they were making an album like Van Morrison's Moondance.  Another Mojo discovery.  I think he's great, but I don't know if he'll catch on here. But Adele loves him: he opened for her in the U.K.

Gary Clark Jr.  Well, if you've been following me, you know of him.  I talked about him last week on Larry's show, his Bright Lights EP was my 5th favorite release of 2011. I am really looking forward to his full length album that comes out this year.

We may also get to some other new(ish) names tomorrow, if we do, I'll write about them at a later time.

TOMORROW ON THE MORNING JOLT: REISSUES!

Need any last minute gifts for the discerning rock fan in your life?  Well, tune in to SiriusXM OutQ's Morning Jolt with Larry Flick tomorrow at 9 am; we'll be discussing some great reissues that have come out in the past few months that will make great gifts.  (Don't have a SiriusXM subscription?  Go here to learn how to try SiriusXM on a trial basis).

First off is the newly released Jimi Hendrix box set, Winterland. I wrote about this a few months ago: the box set is drawn from six concerts Jimi played at San Francisco's Winterland Ballroom over three nights in October of 1968. It's certainly not where I'd recommend a new fan starts, but it is an incredible collection nonetheless.  There's also a single CD version for those not looking to go the 4 CD box set route.

We're also going to talk about recently reissued Pink Floyd catalog. You can get the entire catalog as a box set for about $180, or get the albums individually.  There's also expanded versions of two of their greatest albums, Dark Side Of The Moon and Wish You Were Here.

Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band recently reissued their two classic live albums, Live Bullet and Nine Tonight. I recently kind of "discovered" the greatness of Bob Seger and I wrote about it earlier tonight.

Earlier this year, I wrote about the first five Queen albums which had recently been reissued. The rest of their albums have since been reissued and I'll talk about those also.

By the way, I'll be in the studio next week as well, talking about my favorite albums of 2011.  It wasn't a great year for music, but it was a good one, and I'm having a hard time narrowing it down.

TOMORROW ON THE MORNING JOLT: REISSUES! U2, NIRVANA, ROLLING STONES, BEACH BOYS, JETHRO TULL

Tomorrow morning I'll be on SiriusXM OutQ's The Morning Jolt with Larry Flick talking about one of my favorite subjects: box sets and reissues.  It's that time of year, they make great gifts!

I've written a lot about U2 lately, and I've also written about the Achtung Baby album and the reissue.  It blew me away when I first heard it in 1991, and I've never gotten tired of it.  The super deluxe version of the box set has lots of great extras (although I balked at the $400+ uber box set, which has the same music, but does have magnets, stickers, Bono shades, etc.  Cute, but for me, not worth the money.  Really, all you need is the album itself, but I really wanted some of the extras.


I've written about the Nirvana Nevermind reissue. Well, a lot has been said about the album lately.  It really was a game changer for music. Yeah, it led to a lot of bands deciding that they had to pretend to be angst ridden, but what are you gonna do?  You can't blame all the hair metal bands on Van Halen, and you can't blame the grunge fakers on Nirvana. I bought the super deluxe version of this also.  Again, for the extras, including a live recording and also Butch Vig's original mixes of the album.  But you'd do fine with the deluxe version.  Or really, just the original, it's so powerful and still holds up today.

I've also written about The Rolling Stones Some Girls reissue. I've mentioned that it's probably my favorite Stones album, and that the outtakes are so good, I think they're better than the Stones' next album, Emotional Rescue. And they're better than most band's albums too.  When Ronnie Wood joined the band, it just worked. It was while the band were still powerful and had their swagger.  I like a lot of what they've done since Some Girls, but nothing came close to matching this LP.  I love Tattoo You and I really like Steel Wheels and A Bigger Bang, none of them come are in their neighborhood.

Jon Moskowitz (@JonMoskow) from the blog Vivoscene was nice enough to do a guest review of The Beach Boys' Smile. I don't really get the album, and I Tweeted a request for someone to guest review it for me, and Jon (who I met at a social media seminar hosted by Sree Sreenivasan aka @sree) said he'd do it.  It turns out, he doesn't really get the album either.  It's not any anti-Beach Boys bias though: we both enjoy Pet Sounds.

Finally, Jethro Tull's Aqualung. People kind of make fun of Jethro Tull, but if you think of them in the context of the time, wow, how different they must have sounded.  Fortunately for them, classic rock radio has played their records for decades.  But that can be a double edged sword.  Songs like "Aqualung" and "Locomotive Breath" and "Cross-Eyed Mary" can lose their edge after years of repetition and being played back to back with lots of the soft rockers that classic rock radio plays so much of. But this is a pretty awesome album.

TOMORROW ON THE MORNING JOLT: GILLIAN, FLORENCE, IMELDA

Tomorrow on SiriusXM OutQ's The Morning Jolt with Larry Flick I'm bringing in some of my favorite albums of 2011, but the theme is that all of these records feature lead vocals by women.


Gillian Welch's The Harrow and The Harvest is definitely one of my favorites of the year. I'm not the only one who feels that way: Mojo magazine gave it a five out of five star rating. Whenever I listen to it, I find it odd that it's just her name on the cover: it seems that her and her partner David Rawlings are equally vital to the music.

Florence + The Machine's Ceremonials is an "epic" album.  That word gets overused these days, but everything -- the songs, the performances, the arrangements -- it's a work of art.

Imelda May's Mayhem came out in Europe last year, but in the U.S. this year. She is really talented: a great singer, very charismatic, great sense of style, and she writes great songs.   You may have heard her singing on Jeff Beck's recent albums Emotion & Commotion and Rock & Roll Party. In fact, if *I* wanted to have a rock and roll party, I'd never be able to afford Jeff Beck, but one day if I'm pretty successful, I might call on Imelda May and her great band to rock my party!

Other records I hope we'll get to: Shelby Lynne's Revelation Road, Allison Moorer's Crows (which actually came out last year), Joss Stone's LP4 and The Tedeschi Trucks Band's Revelator. (That band features married couple Derek Trucks of The Allman Brothers Band and singer-songwriter Susan Tedeschi.) And maybe I'll give another shout out to The Make Out, who have one of my favorite songs of 2011, "I Don't Want Anyone Who Wants Me."

TOMORROW ON THE MORNING JOLT - POP, POP, POP MUSIC

First off: this (very obviously) photoshopped image is from Rolling Stone.

Second: sorry I haven't been posting in the past week.  Things have been busy.

Onward! So tomorrow morning I will be on SiriusXM OutQ's The Morning Jolt with Larry Flick  (and co-host Keith Price) at about 9 am ET. Every so often, I go against type and bring in a bunch of straight up pop records.

Right now, the biggest pop record on earth is the latest from Lady Gaga, Born This Way. I don't have as strong of an opinion on her as everyone else seems to.  I think she is talented, she's written some good songs, and she's a savvy marketer. On the other, I think she goes way out of her way to prove her intelligence, her artsiness and how much of an outsider she is.  I don't buy into her like other people do.  I think her new album is pretty good, but it's about as edgy as a Loverboy or REO Speedwagon album from the '80s.  I do enjoy the fact that she used Clarence Clemons from The E Street Band on two of the songs.  His playing is very '80s: it reminded me of his playing on "Dancing In The Dark" or Aretha's "Freeway Of Love."

I choose a couple of other prominent pop records: a Britney/Ke$ha/Nicki Minaj collab, a Katy Perry/Kanye West collab and some new Beyonce songs.  I have to say, I wasn't really impressed by any of them. Also a newer artist named Christina Perri: she's not my thing, but I can appreciate her a bit.

And also, the artist who I think will be one of the stories of 2011: Adele.  Right now, I bet that 21 will be one of the big Grammy albums, and it may make lots of critics lists also.

And what's that you say?  You don't have a SiriusXM subscription?  Get on that! Get a free online trial and check out what you're missing!

TOMORROW ON OUTQ: 120 MINUTES, REDUX

I recently posted about the return of the 120 Minutes franchise to MTV.  Tomorrow on The Morning Jolt with Larry Flick, I'll be talking about the return of the show, as well as some of the artists who used to appear on the show who have new music out. Radiohead's King Of Limbs, PJ Harvey's Let England Shake,  R.E.M.'s Collapse Into Now, former Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft's United Nations Of Sound and The Twilight Singers' Dynamite Steps (the band is led by former Afghan Whigs frontman Greg Dulli). I may also get to The Kills, the band featuring Alison Mosshart from The Dead Weather, who weren't around for the 120 Minutes era, but were recently featured on the newly launched 120 Seconds.