Plus: The Return Of The Lawrence Arms, Rockie Fresh’s Chicagoland Influences & Goodbye To The Blue Shadow
1. Uncle Tupelo’s Pivotal Debut No Depression To Be Reissued In January.
“The release will be a special two-disc expanded edition featuring rare and previously unreleased material,” Twang Nation reports.
This is a pretty big move, considering that UT founders Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar apparently haven’t been on speaking terms since the band’s bitter breakup. At the same time, their involvement in the project isn’t clear.
“The reissue will also include bonus tracks that appear on the album’s 2003 reissue; songs taken from their 1983 self-released Live and Otherwise cassette; and five cuts off the band’s 1987 demo Colorblind and Rhymeless.”
American Songwriter reports that “On November 29, Legacy will kick things off with the release exclusive 7″ vinyl single of Uncle Tupelo’s cover of The Stooges’ ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ for Record Store Day’s Back to Black Friday. The B side features the band’s take on Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ‘Commotion.'”
The original recording of the No Depression title track:
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Performed at Lounge Ax with a pre-Bottle Rockets Brian Henneman, 1992:
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In St. Louis, 1994:
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2. Listen To A Song From The First Lawrence Arms Album In Eight Years.
“There’s a lyric on Metropole, the new album from the Lawrence Arms, that goes, ‘I blinked twice and 20 years went by.’ Fortunately, it hasn’t been quite that long but still, the Lawrence Arms, one of punk’s most beloved bands, have not released a new album in nearly eight years,” Noisey/Vice reports.
“For a while there, it looked like there might not ever be another album from the Arms. Guitarist/singer Chris McCaughan moved from Chicago to Portland, drummer Neil Hennessy was active with Smoking Popes and Treasure Fleet, and bassist/singer Brendan Kelly became a dad twice over.
“But then, as if out of nowhere, the members announced that they were writing new songs together, and then recording them, and now, here we are, only a few weeks away from a full-on new release from the band.”
Here’s the early release:
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3. Rockie Fresh: I Have A Dream Job.
Draws from a range of influences, having lived all over Chicago including the suburbs, and finding that genres like alternative rock and EDM touch him more than rap. Also: How his love of sneaker culture lead to a deal with Puma.
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4. Chief Keef All Glowed Up.
After drug rehab, he’s slated to perform community service at an Illinois horse therapy center.
Why?
“I like working with kids, that’s why.”
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5. Remembering Joe Kelley.
“Joe Kelley, who played bass and guitar for the group The Shadows of Knight and was a major blues guitarist in the Chicago area, died after battling cancer,” Vintage Vinyl News reported in September.
We note it now because we just came across this tasty 1966 recording from Kelley’s The Shadows of Knight:
“After performing in and around Chicago’s Northwest suburbs in 1964 and 1965, The Shadows of Knight became the house band at The Cellar in Arlington Heights,” YouTube uploader Freedom writes.
“A performance in support of The Byrds at Chicago’s McCormick Place in early summer 1965 attracted the attention of Dunwich Records record producers Bill Traut and George Badonski. During that show, they performed ‘Gloria’ by Van Morrison’s Northern Irish band Them. The band signed with Dunwich shortly thereafter and recorded ‘Gloria’ as a first effort.
“Released in December 1965, ‘Gloria’ received massive regional airplay. The band had slightly altered the song’s lyrics, replacing Morrison’s original ‘she comes to my room, then she made me feel alright’ with ‘she called out my name, that made me feel alright”‘after influential Chicago station WLS had banned Them’s original version.
“This simple change overcame the prevalent AM radio censorship of the era, and got The Shadows of Knight’s cover version of the song onto the playlist of WLS, which had censored the original.
“The single reached the No. 1 position on the radio station’s countdown, as well as on local rival WCFL. On the Billboard national charts, ‘Gloria’ rose to No. 10. The secondary publication Cashbox ranked ‘Gloria’ as high as No. 7. In Canada the song reached No. 8 on the RPM Magazine charts. ‘Gloria’ sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the R.I.A.A.”
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Also:
“Initially formed in 1964 as simply The Shadows, the band learned in spring 1965 of an existing British group, The Shadows. A friend of theirs, Whiz Winters, who worked for their manager, Paul Sampson in his record shop, came up with the name The Shadows of Knight to tie into the British Invasion in music of that time, and because all four of the band members attended Prospect High School in Mt. Prospect, Illinois, whose sports team had the name The Knights.”
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From Teardrop Records:
“As the 1960s came to a close, Joe Kelley was earning a reputation as one of the hottest blues guitarist in Chicago. Joe honed his guitar and vocal skills on Chicago’s South Side, working with many of the blues greats including Sam Lay. Joe spent many a late night and early morning taking in the wisdom of the great Willie Dixon. Joe has recorded with Wild Child Butler and Long John Hunter.”
His debut solo record: The Blue Shadow.
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Comments welcome.
Posted on November 19, 2013