Taken from the new various-artists compilation My Greatest Revenge: Flamenco Recordings, 1904-1938, the track “It Was Because I Didn’t Feel Like It” by vocalist Juanito Mojama is a poignant audio document of both autochthonic-folk music—in this case, flamenco—as well as a mysterious Spanish musician whose career has been barely tracked in other similar compilations and a handful of academic essays. …
The Beatles’ “Now and Then” is a Wistful Curiosity, 45 Years in the Making
Let’s get the most obvious critique out of the way first: “Now and Then,” the song billed as The Beatles‘ final single, can’t possibly live up to “Let It Be,” “Strawberry Fields Forever” or whatever happens to serve as your personal favorite Beatles song. The song began as a modest demo — just John Lennon, recording on a boombox at …
‘Stop Time,’ A Crucial Archival Release of Barry Altschul, David Izenzon and Perry Robinson Live Performance Documents a Peak Moment of NYC Free Jazz
Formidable but wholly invitational, Stop Time is an impressive time capsule of high-potency NYC free jazz. On the track “Untitled III,” the trio of drummer Barry Altschul, double bassist David Izenzon and clarinetist Perry Robinson bring the goods and then some on this 1978 previously unreleased live performance. The players were progenitors of the ’60s free jazz and ‘70s loft …
Violent Femmes Self-Titled Debut Gets 40th Anniversary Reissue
Pioneering folk-punks Violent Femmes will reissue their self-titled debut with planned digital Deluxe edition release in December and a box-set edition in February. The reissue features numerous b-sides, alternative takes and never-before-heard live performances by the core Midwest trio. The group recently shared the first single from the special anniversary reissue, a live take of the spunky lovesick classic “Gone …
‘Fountain,’ Beloved Album By Duval Indie Rockers Common Thread Gets 30th Anniversary Reissue
Thirty years ago, the Northeast Florida independent music community was many things and, even devoid of nostalgia from any surviving participants, boasted its own kind of low magick. Like much of America, Jacksonville and the surrounding environs benefited from the 1970s punk rock scene that tore down the walls of popular music. Most crucially, in the 1980s, underground musicians made …
New Max Roach Documentary on PBS Highlights the Music and Life of Pioneering Jazz Drummer
When Max Roach died in 2007 at age 83, the iconoclastic musician had truly lived a life that beat to the tune of a different drum. Roach seemed to move upstream, regardless of the tides. He was an early adherent to the DIY indie-ethos. While still in his twenties, in 1952 Roach and Charles Mingus founded Debut Records, after the …
Five Crucial Salsa Albums from the Genre’s Golden Age
This Latinx Heritage Month, NPR Music member stations are celebrating the music of a wide array of artists from all corners of Latinidad. Salsa was not originally a genre, per se. Instead, it was a word used to describe when things got hot and saucy during a performance. The music is a collection of various Afro-Cuban and Caribbean rhythms, and …
Cue Up These 5 Breeders’ Songs in Celebration of the 30th Anniversary of the Band’s Breakthrough Album, ‘Last Splash’
When it comes to the confused emotions of ‘90s underground rock as it rose (or was pulled) up into the mainstream, never mind Nirvana: it was arguably The Breeders that truly expressed the confusion, joy, snark, resignation and expectations of a pre-internet Generation X. Thirty years have passed since The Breeders’ breakthrough release, Last Splash, and the album’s sound and …
Do the Reissue Creators Have a Master Plan for Forthcoming Pharoah Sanders Box Set?
On September 15, label Luaka Bop is issuing a deluxe 2LP box set of the 1977 album Pharoah by Pharoah Sanders. Originally released by the India Navigations label, the new collection includes the album’s original three tracks as well as two unreleased live versions of the song “Harvest Time,” a 24-page booklet containing rarely seen photographs, essays and an interview …
Head East with Forthcoming Bob Dylan Box Set That Reframes the Rock Bard’s Live Seventies Release
In 1978, Bob Dylan was in an untenable position. Rock fans still looked to the de facto troubadour to guide youth culture toward the next step to the ‘60s promised land. After all, Elvis Presley had recently died in August 1977. And John Lennon was content to stay at home, apparently baking bread. Disco was still spinning the vapid hits …
Five Jimmy Buffett Ballads you Shouldn’t Ignore
Like so many Florida kids, I came of age to a steady calypso-influenced soundtrack of “Boat Drinks” and “Changes In Latitudes, Changes In Attitudes.” I was heartbroken to wake up on Saturday morning to the news that, after having battled skin cancer for the past four years, Jimmy Buffett has died. He was 76. Growing up here in Jacksonville, I …
Double Space is the Place | New Compilation Celebrates the Intergalactic Verse of Sun Ra
When tracking the enigmatic creative life of Sun Ra, it truly depends on which orbit you traverse. Over the course of his 79 years on this planet, Sun Ra worked with blues artist Wynonie Harris and big band Fletcher Henderson, later to and rub shoulders with esoteric-roots rockers NRBQ and guitar-throttlers Sonic Youth. Sun Ra released more than 100 albums …
Daptone Records Drops a Heady Reggae Collab Between Sugar Minott and Victor Axelrod
For lovers of reggae music, Sugar Minott was a veritable force of nature. When he died at age 54 in 2010, he left behind an impressive body of work. While still in his teens in the late ‘60s, Minott cofounded the African Brothers, a band savvy at blending R&B and soul with a strong Rastafari vibe. In the subsequent decades …
Posthumous Jazz Is Dead Release Reinforces the Legacy of Influential Drummer, the Late, Great Tony Allen
When drummer Tony Allen passed away in April 2020, he left behind a musical legacy both pronounced and subtle. As the longtime main drummer for Fela Kuti’s Afrobeat ensemble, including a truly searing album where he played stick-to-stick with UK (ex-Cream) drummer Ginger Baker, Allen introduced a jazz-funk style of playing that pointed back to Africa while also directing contemporary …
The Sunset of Sonic Youth | An oral history of the band’s final U.S. show
No one knew Sonic Youth was making its last stand — not even Sonic Youth itself. “It was a period of regrouping. But in spite of some personal problems, it was still business as normal: ‘We’re going out to do a summer show in our hometown,’ ” admits co-founder Lee Ranaldo from his New York apartment. This cycle was not …
Neil Young’s “Powderfinger,” from the Newly Unveiled Lost Album ‘Chrome Dreams,’ Reveals a Singer-Songwriter at the Height of His Powers
In the ‘70s, while his peers Bob Dylan and Van Morrison exuded personae of mystery or moodiness, Neil Young was capricious to the point of possible self-immolation when it came to the arc of his career. At the end of the decade he was winding down from the deliberate “anti-popularity” of “The Ditch Trilogy.” In the liner notes of his …
New Book from Alan Paul Tells the Epic Story of the Allman Brothers Band’s 1970s Era
Fifty years ago to the day, a few rock fans were arguably still coming down, reeling, rocking and neurologically smoldering, from attending the Watkins Glen Summer Jam. Held on Saturday, July 28, 1973 at the Watkins Glen International grand prix race track in central New York, the one-day festival featured performances from three of the biggest names in rock: The …
The Kids Are Alright in Weirdly Fun Comp of 20th-Century French School House Rock
The recently released compilation from French label Born Bad Records is a kind of object lesson in true musical innocence, primitivism and an innately non-pretentious DIY that adds up to one of the more unique releases barreling across the Jacksonville Music Experience radar. Recorded from 1962-1982, the compilation Prends Le Temps D’Ecouter – Musique d’expression libre dans les classes Freinet …
Paul McCartney’s Photos of Early Beatlemania are in a Book and on Display in London
Updated June 13, 2023 at 10:38 AM ET This famous moment in music history is now visible from a different angle. Any capsule history of rock music, or pop music, or the 1960’s will include the Beatles’ arrival in the United States in early 1964. The images are all familiar — young men with bowl haircuts (that they’d later grow …
Record Store Day 2023 | Here’s What To Expect on RSD in Jax
Vinyl is (has been) back. And it’s arguably here to stay. For the last two years, sales of vinyl records easily outpaced those of CDs. And purchases weren’t confined to ultra-hip indie music shops. Big-box retailers like Target and Walmart are now big-time players, selling re-pressings of classic albums, as well as new drops from some of the world’s most …
This Record Changed My Life
JME Contributors on the albums that turned them on their ears
For those of us old enough to remember when music discovery was widely a person-to-person interaction — whether via friend, older sibling or pretentious record store clerk — its easy to feel nostalgic for a time when “I’ll make you a mix” signified something a bit more laborious than the few-dozen click-and-drags it takes to create a streaming-service playlist. Still, …
Crate Diggin’ | Re: Reissues
The JME team proudly explores the least pretentious of music purchases: the vinyl reissue.
Original pressings. You know, those sonic talismans capable of bestowing impenetrable cool on whomever has the (substantial) means to remove them from whence they are displayed –– proudly on a shelf behind the counter at most record stores. But, as a wise man once said: Cool is for corpses. Or, in this case, record collectors with disposable income. For most crate …
Crate Diggin’ | Birth-year records
What classic album dropped the year you were born?
Exile on Main St., The Rolling Stones (1972) My favorite release of 1972 was dropped on March 21 of that year, nine wailing, placenta-sealed pounds, gruntingly pressed in a limited edition of one. My second favorite release is arguably Exile on Main St. The Stones’ double LP is mired in as much pharmacological lore as it is filled with viscerally …
Hot Off the (Re)Press | Joni Mitchell at Carnegie and R.E.M. at their peak
Two great re-pressings from iconic artists
‘Hot Off the (Re)Press’ is a semi-regular column highlighting reissues of seminal, classic and groundbreaking works. The Jacksonville Music Experience team is made of vinyl enthusiasts. Read more about our love affair with the medium via JME’s Crate Diggin’ features. Live at Carnegie Hall-1969, Joni Mitchell Joni Mitchell, one of the most-celebrated songwriters of her generation, has arguably been one of the …
Hot Off the (Re)Press | John Prine’s 2005 masterwork and ‘Jazz is Dead 001’
Two great albums get a vinyl reissue this week
‘Hot Off the (Re)Press’ is a semi-regular column highlighting reissues of seminal, classic and groundbreaking works. The Jacksonville Music Experience team is made of vinyl enthusiasts. Read more about our love affair with the medium via JME’s Crate Diggin’ features. Fair & Square, John Prine (2005) During the height of Covid-initiated quarantines and lockdowns, as people were spending inordinate amounts …
Crate Diggin’ | Spin it Live
JME Contributors wax on their favorite live albums of all time
Just when we thought it was safe to get back out there, the delta variant once again threatens the viability of live music. On that note, JME contributors dug through their vinyl collections to pull out their favorite live recordings of all time. We made it through more than a year without shows. And the music kept playing. We’ll keep …
Crate Diggin’ | Guilty Pleasures
JME contributors own up to their embarrassing listening habits
In the age of streaming, music listeners have become increasingly genre agnostic. If one wants to put Sylvan Esso’s “Coffee” on the same playlist as Black Flag’s “Black Coffee,” and title the playlist “Espresso Blend,” one would be well within their rights to do so (and arguably very clever!). Yet, while we may no longer silo ourselves based on our …
Crate Diggin’ | Remote Work Rotation
When working from home, these are the records JME contributors like to spin
In the year of the pandemic, working remotely went from a perk limited to those employed by forward-thinking companies to simply the way in which we all work. But judging by the sheer volume of ink spilled on think-pieces related to this paradigm shift, working from home doesn’t exactly work for everyone. For our JME contributors, many of whom stack …
Crate Diggin’ | Record Store Day Drops
Here’s what local record shops are rolling out for June’s RSD.
With hundreds of reissues, previously unreleased live recordings, unique box sets and eclectic compilations on offer for June’s RSD drop, even the most fervent vinyl fiends are likely to be overwhelmed.
Crate Diggin’ | Unsung Summer Albums
Here’s what JME contributors are spinning this summer.
In Northeast Florida, seasonality is loosely defined. There’s no snow (the flurry of ‘89, notwithstanding). But, unlike our tropical neighbors a few ticks south, we don’t quite enjoy an endless summer. There are some positives to this negotiation, of course––we can spend more time outdoors, largely avoiding moon-tans and Seasonal Affective Disorders. For music lovers, the changes in weather, temperature …
