“This is a story about a parent who never supported or understood you, its about allowing yourself to move on from the loss of what could have been one of the most important relationships of your life, and giving yourself permission to be proud of the person you have become, even if the person who raised you never will be.” – Cody Fitzgerald
Stolen Jars will release their new album A Reminder via NYC label AntiFragile Music (Other Lives, James Taylor, J. Roddy Walston & The Business) on October 11th. A Reminder is the follow up to their sophomore LP Kept, which garnered praise from The Village Voice, Stereogum, and NPR Music among others. Today they share the new single “Ghost Towns” ahead of national tour kicking off September 5th in Philadelphia. “A sweet, lilting tapestry of sound, ‘Ghost Towns’ dazzles through stirring indie folk and poignant personal imagery,” writes Atwood Magazine.
On A Reminder, feelings never disappear — they refract, bounce back, return as part of a new whole. The same can be said of Stolen Jars, a band Cody Fitzgerald has guided through multiple permutations, from a high-school bedroom project in Montclair, NJ to a fixture of the Brooklyn indie rock scene. All while composing feature-length scores for The Rewrite (2014), Hard Sell (2016), and Disney’s forthcoming Christmas movie Noelle.
A Reminder finds Stolen Jars deepening their arrangements, sharpening their lyrics, and expanding the band’s palette with powerful vocal melodies from Sarah Coffey. The album is a detailed meditation on love, loss, and healing, its songs reach deep into memory and return with striking nuance, in both lyrics and melody. “Winona” documents a mutation in a friendship that continues over distance, while “Interstate” laments a high school friendship grown apart. Fitzgerald’s compositions have long been carefully structured and delicately composed, and on A Reminder he channels that energy more clearly than ever before, focusing on small moments of heightened feeling.
Throughout A Reminder, Fitzgerald swaps pronouns from “me” to “you” between the first and second choruses, breaking apart points of view. Coffey and Magda Bermudez lend vocal melodies across the record, bringing light out of the darkest corners of each song. Coffey sings co-lead on nearly every song, her voice cascading through each refrain, and Bermudez backs her and Fitzgerald up on “Oh West.”
The record excels through the connection between Fitzgerald and his collaborators. Matt Marsico’s virtuoso drumming carries the band to its most anthemic heights. Eli Crews (Tune-Yards, Deerhoof, Why?) the album’s mixer and engineer, was involved from the onset of the project, helping shape the sonic palette of the record. Fitzgerald brings them all together in lush harmony on A Reminder.
This fall, Stolen Jars will embark upon their first full tour of the United States. The band consists of guitarist and vocalist Cody Fitzgerald, vocalist Sarah Coffey, guitarist Peter Enriquez, keyboardist Grant Meyer, and drummer Matt Marsico. Guitarist Elias-Spector Zabusky and drummer Isaiah Hazzard will also be part of the touring ensemble.
Members of White Zombie, Queens Of The Stone Age, Primus, Ministry and More Expose Truths in New Tell-All Documentary About 90s Alternative Rock
“A film that captures and preserves a time in music that will forever be felt in sound, style, and inspiration…the ups and downs of the industry, and recognition to some talented bands and musicians who should have been heard.”
Joey Castillo – Queens Of The Stone Age / Danzig
After winning the Audience Choice award for his killer short Sleeping in Blood City, the Sydney Underground Film Festival will be presenting the world premiere, next month, for Shaun Katz’s debut feature documentary Underground Inc. The film tells the blistering story of the rise and fall of the alternative rock scene, in the wake of Nirvana’s unprecedented success. Starting with its roots in the 80s underground punk, witness alt-rock’s meteoric rise to mainstream dominance and how it all came crashing down against a world of excess and greed. Told by the artists who pioneered a sonic sub-culture themselves, including members of White Zombie, Queens Of The Stone Age, Bad Religion, Ministry, Helmet, Stone Sour, Steve Albini and many more, this rollicking doc relives the triumphs, tragedies and raucous energy of the time. This is the story is the music business colliding with some of the most important and overlooked musicians of the period – a must see for all serious music lovers!
UNDERGROUND INC screens at the Sydney Underground Film Festival on Friday September the 13th at 8:30 pm
On Thursday the 19th of September UNDERGROUND INC will have it’s International Premiere at the Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg. Reeperbahn is one of the three largest music and digital media festivals in Europe. Reeperbahn Festival has described UNDERGROUND INC as “A fantastic view of musicians and the music business”.
UNDERGROUND INC.is directed by award-winning Writer/DirectorShaun Katz(Sleeping In Blood City). Having produced many music videos and short films, his short film won four international and local awards throughout Australia and North America.
UNDERGROUND INC.‘s original music is composed by Grammy nominated record producer Alex Newport (The Mars Volta, Bloc Party, Death Cab For Cutie) and Mark Bradridge.
Following the recent news that he had suffered a heart attack on Tuesday, August 13, 2019, PETER MURPHY has been given an excellent prognosis. Dr. Akshai Bhandary, Director of the Cardiac Care Unit at Lenox Hill Hospital, has issued the following statement:
“Mr. Peter Murphy was admitted to the Lenox Hill Hospital Cardiac Care Unit on August 13, 2019 after having suffered a heart attack. He underwent emergent angioplasty and received two stents to his right coronary artery. Since then, Mr. Murphy has done excellent and is expected to make a full recovery. We wish Peter and his family the absolute best.”
Relieved and optimistic that he will be back on his feet and in action, Peter himself has issued the following message:
“Following my recent episode in New York City with my heart attack and being admitted into Lenox Hill Hospital and seeing myself go through the rigors of intensive care, I am very happy to say that I have made a full recovery. Thanks to the superb team of doctors, specialists, nurses and care staff. I am so glad to say I am up and running again.
My tour manager Brian Lowe and my assistant Chantal Thomas were directly instrumental in saving my life and to whom I cannot thank enough. I also want to thank every single friend and fan who has been supporting me throughout this ordeal. I remain grateful especially to my Bauhaus band mates .” xxx Peter.
On Tuesday, August 13, 2019, Peter suffered a heart attack during his twelve date residency at New York City’s Le Poisson Rouge. Unable to take the stage for that evening’s show, he was rushed to Lenox Hill Hospital where he was diagnosed and received life-saving angioplasty.
SILVERTOMB will release its debut album, “Edge Of Existence”, on November 1 via the German independent label Long Branch Records/SPV. The first single from the disc, “Love You Without No Lies”, can be heard above.
SILVERTOMB is the latest musical endeavor of guitarist-vocalist Kenny Hickey (TYPE O NEGATIVE, SEVENTH VOID), drummer Johnny Kelly (TYPE O NEGATIVE, DANZIG), bassist Hank Hell (SEVENTH VOID, INHUMAN), New York City hardcore veteran Joseph James (AGNOSTIC FRONT, INHUMAN) on guitar and Aaron Joos (AWAKEN THE SHADOW, EMPYREON) on keyboards, guitar, and backing vocals.
Hickey comments: “The first song written for the record ‘Edge Of Existence’, ‘Love You Without No Lies’ was conceived before keyboardist Aaron Joos was added to the lineup. Keyboard was then retrofitted into the song. The piano intro was originally a guitar intro played by Joe James and distorted keys were added to the verses and Hammond organs to the choruses. The lyrics question whether love is possible without some degree of conscious concealment or dishonesty.”
“Edge Of Existence” explores Hickey’s personal struggles with addiction, love, and suicide, and the death of his singer and frontman Peter Steele in 2010 and subsequent disbandment of TYPE O NEGATIVE. The album cover art was conceived by James and Hickey. The idea was to capture the classic black light, sci-fi poster art popular in the 1970s. The central skeletal figure on the front cover was modeled after the famous images of the ascension of Christ, with Hickey posing for the image and the artist Rodrigo Canteras sketching the image of the robed skeleton over his proportions.
SILVERTOMB combines the musical styles of bands such as PINK FLOYD and BLACK SABBATH with a bone-crushing, mind-blowing sonic experience.
Kelly told Antihero about SILVERTOMB’s sound: “There’s elements of what we were doing with SEVENTH VOID. It seems like it’s a continuation from that, but the songs and the song structures really took a life of its own. It’s more layered and textured — not to the extent that we would do in TYPE O NEGATIVE, but it has a little bit of that flavor to it. It doesn’t sound like TYPE O, but, obviously, you have two guys from TYPE O NEGATIVE in the band. It’s going to have resemblance. It’s still a more rock-oriented approach than the slow-paced, doomy aspect that TYPE O had. Now that we’ve added a keyboard player, there’s a lot more layers and textures to it than what SEVENTH VOID was.”
Regarding how SILVERTOMB started, Kelly said: “With SEVENTH VOID, the record that we put out, that came out on 2009. It’s been eight years. There were points in time where there really wasn’t anything going on. The last couple years, things started moving a little bit. We got a solid lineup. We had the guys that we knew that were going to be in the band and stuff. It started moving along a little bit. Some of these songs were written quite a while ago. Once we added a keyboard player… he’s been in the band almost a year. That kind of changed everything. The music that we were writing was starting to go more towards that kind of stuff, and then we were revisiting songs that were written a while ago that didn’t have keyboards in them, then we started adding stuff to that too. It’s, like, ‘Oh, wow.’ Now it’s really becoming something you can… more special to us.”
“Love You Without No Lies” is is taken from the Silvertomb album “Edge Of Existence”, coming November 1st via Long Branch Records.
Video by: Joel Lopez. Featuring: Chris Connelly (Ministry / Revolting Cocks). Marcus Eliopulos (Stabbing Westward). James Scott (She Rides Tigers). Jeff Harris (Mary’s Window). Dave Suycott (Machines Of Loving Grace). Dan Milligan (Drownbeat). Matt Clark (Mary’s Window). Ania Tarnowska (I Ya Toyah).
The big one. The (really filthy) Godfather of rock books. If you only ever read one rockstar biography in your life, make it this one. Recently immortalised in a long-awaited Netflix feature film, The Dirt is so gob-smackingly scandalous you’ll frequently question whether it actually happened as you read.
Read in shock and awe as Nikki Sixx and co. rise from smalltime LA to the Sunset Strip and the biggest stages in the world – smoking, shagging and shooting up all things, both thinkable and unthinkable. VIEW DEAL
From surfboards to singer-songwriters, from Svengalis to satanic cults, this multigenerational round-up of the LA Music scene reads like a well-written novel.
All the legendary characters are represented – Jim Morrison, Frank Zappa, Gram Parsons – but it’s often the lesser-known names such as Van Dyke Parks and Lou Adler who offer the most interesting insights. A story of excess, eccentricity and enduring musical splendour. VIEW DEAL
Another justifiably popular big fish that’s been by turns revered, criticised and reissued since its first publication in 1985. Journalist Stephen Davis travelled through America with Led Zeppelin for two weeks in 1975, as their tour there was kicking off.
For better or worse, his chief source for this unauthorized biography was Richard Cole, Zeppelin’s sometime tour manager/roadie. On the one hand, the band have publicly refuted its accuracy. On the other hand, its juicy, funny, shocking stories have been poured over greedily by thousands. VIEW DEAL
One of the most enlightening pictures of the rock revolution of the 60s that you’re ever likely to read, The True Adventures Of The Rolling Stones is also a no-holds-barred insider view of the rise of the Rolling Stones.
A huge part of its appeal lies in its writer. By the time Booth met Mick and Keef and co. he’d already drunk “Scotch with BB King for breakfast” and watched “Otis Redding teach Steve Cropper The Dock Of The Bay”. That same zeal is captured here, one hugely engaging triumph, pitfall and brush with the law after another. VIEW DEAL
Veteran PR Mick Houghton’s disarmingly honest and ego-free memoir of his time working with some of the more challenging and off-piste acts of the 80s and 90s – Echo & The Bunnymen, Julian Cope, KLF – thrills in its insight and pragmatism.
On the KLF’s notorious burning of £1million: “I was never that shocked… in music-business terms £1million is nothing… The House Of Love blew £800,000 in less than a year.” VIEW DEAL
In death as in life, Warren Zevon remains a cult figure. Fortunately his ex-wife Crystal ensured that his legacy hasn’t been totally forgotten. I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead is no fawning hagiography; this is a blackly comic oral history that depicts Zevon as equal parts genius and asshole.
Family, collaborators and superstar friends (Stephen King, Bruce Springsteen) praise and crucify a man who lived life with a mix of relish and spite. That a dying Zevon gave it his blessing says much about the man. VIEW DEAL
Never one for group-think, Hepworth’s persuasive defence of his proposition that 1971 was rock’s greatest year casts a broad cultural net woven with acute and original thinking.
With monumental releases by Zeppelin, David Bowie, the Stones, Pink Floyd and more that year, it’s less the postulation that matters, rather his exhilarating analysis bolstered by impeccable research and flair. The appendix listing 100 albums from 1971 is an expert witness in itself. VIEW DEAL
How the fuck Keith Richards is still alive is one of science’s more unfathomable mysteries.
After you’ve read this engaging autobiography (assisted by journalist James Fox) you won’t be any the wiser, but you will have an incisive view of Keef’s world of riffs, rock, drugs, women, arrests and more, from his childhood in Kent to the 21st century.
Late Scottish novelist Iain Banks’s fictional love letter to classic rock, Espedair Street is a thinly veiled retelling of the Fleetwood Mac myth, from the perspective of hulking bassist Daniel ‘Weird’ Weir, a character inspired by ex-Marillion singer Fish.
Romantic rivalries, tragic mid-air deaths, suicide attempts, triumphant comebacks… every rock’n’roll cliché is gleefully ramped up to fever pitch, and it’s all the better for it. It’s amazing that they haven’t made it into a movie. VIEW DEAL
“The writer has made one promise, to show the reader his mind,” Bruce Springsteen writes in his autobiography. And in his trademark plain-spoken but poetic way, he does just that.
Whether detailing his uneasy relationship with his father, the sexual perks of superstardom or his struggles with depression, Bruce is frank and funny. Ultimately, you sense that he’s writing not only to share his experiences but also to better understand them. VIEW DEAL
As guitarist with 70s punks The Slits – an all-female band in an overwhelmingly male-dominated scene – Viv Albertine has had a compelling perspective of rock’n’roll.
Since then, as this book thoughtfully documents, she’s moved into film, been through divorce, IVF, illness and got back into making music, all which she discusses with evocative attention to detail. VIEW DEAL
Jim Morrison was being deified before his body was even cold, but No One Here Gets Out Alive elevated him to Immortal Godhead.
It helped that former Doors manager and Morrison confidante Sugarman had a ringside seat for the iconic singer’s rise, fall and posthumous resurrection – as a portrait of a doomed talent this book is fantastic, but it’s as an exercise in myth-making where it truly excels. VIEW DEAL
You can’t really talk about the rise of rock journalism without mentioning Lester Bangs. Tragically, although perhaps unsurprisingly, he was not long for this world – he died at 33 of an accidental overdose.
Philip Seymour Hoffman played him in the film Almost Famous, and this posthumous collection by Greil Marcus (Bangs’s first editor at Rolling Stone, in 1969) reminds us of his enduring position as one of the most distinctive, thrillingly unpredictable voices in American writing. VIEW DEAL
Something of a revelation on its publication, with few expecting the enigmatic Bob Dylan to sidestep his usual obfuscation and ellipsis and cut straight to the quick.
While not wholly innocent of the former, Chronicle examines three points in his career (1961, ’70, ’89) with piercing clarity and an insightful artistic remove. Full of taut one-liners, folksy idioms and no little humour, at its best the book is on a par with his greatest songs. VIEW DEAL
Just when it seemed like there was nothing left to say about The Beatles, ex-NME writer MacDonald drilled down into the one aspect of their career that hadn’t been strip-mined: the songs.
Revolution In The Head set out to analyse every track the band recorded. It sidesteps dull trainspottery, thanks to MacDonald’s insight and cantankerous outbursts: he loved The Beatles but, by God, he wasn’t afraid to put the boot in when needed. Often imitated but never bettered – just like its subject. VIEW DEAL
An hilarious trawl through the byways of the 80s hair metal milieu, through the dispossessed rural hick-filter of Klosterman’s North Dakota childhood.
By turns sociologically astute, self-deprecatingly knowing and piercingly on-point musically, Klosterman argues that the bouffant bad boys of the day – Poison, Ratt, Warrant et al – merit equal cultural weighting as The Beatles and their peers. Nonsense, obviously, but you suspect he knows that. VIEW DEAL
Aside from making progressive noises with Welsh rockers Man, Deke Leonard (who passed away in 2017) had a zingy, infectious way with words.
He wrote several books, all of which are worth checking out, but if you pick one it should be this one, which mixes standard rock’n’roll excess with all the weirder tales of the Man world. A riotous read, whether you’re a Man fan or not. VIEW DEAL
Written during Mott The Hoople’s American tour in 1972, this book details the buzz (playing a sold-out show in Memphis) and the boredom (endless Holiday Inns) of a journeyman musician. Amid musings and travelogue observations are walk-ons by artists including Chuck Berry and Bryan Ferry.
Like his songwriting, Hunter’s prose exhibits an eye for the truth: “The rock business is a dirty business, full stop.” VIEW DEAL
A book about a legendary groupie may sound terribly un-PC in the post-MeToo age, but Des Barres’s salacious, sharp, witty account of life with the classic rock glitterati of the 60s and 70s (including affairs with Mick Jagger, Jimmy Page, Keith Moon, Jim Morrison and many more) feels warm and celebratory – and certainly not like the words of a victim. VIEW DEAL
This definitive history of grunge, published 20 years to the month after Nirvana released Nevermind, is the story of a place as much as it is of a scene – a scrappy underdog of a city that never really wanted the attention and couldn’t really handle it when it got it.
All the key surviving participants look back with a mixture of pride and bafflement at what they lived through, although there’s a tang of sadness for all those who didn’t make it. VIEW DEAL
Memorably described by music writer Charles Shaar Murray as coming on like a cross between Abbie Hoffman and Charles Manson, Farren’s full immersion in 60s/70s UK counterculture bridges beatniks to bollocks with a gleeful jaundice.
Full of anecdote and wit, it reads like both social document and autobiography, told by a possibly unreliable narrator who’s no stranger to the excesses of the day himself. VIEW DEALS
