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Post by petrolino on Dec 31, 2021 2:16:49 GMT
Happy Christmas to all the staff, artists and musicians working in such dedicated fashion around the clock to power 4AD, and to all the fans out there who are helping enlarge the lifespan of this very unique record label ...
Throwing Muses present 'Santa Claus' [Alternate Mix]
And all the very best to everybody for the New Year ... keep on keepin' on ...
Kristin Hersh performs 'Christmas Underground'
Season's Greetings!!
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Post by petrolino on Nov 27, 2022 2:24:50 GMT
Tanya Donelly : 'Guitarslinger'
Tanya Donelly's stepped in and out of Throwing Muses and toured with a reformed Belly but she's had plenty more on the go in recent years. She contributed vocals to multi-instrumentalist Tracy Bonham's album 'Modern Burdens' (2017), on which Bonham revisits songs she recorded for her debut album 'The Burdens Of Being Upright' (1996). It's about as good a revisit as I think I've heard from any rock 'n' roll artist, helped by Bonham's skills as a multi-instrumentalist. Bonham's joined by another talented friend and contemporary from the Boston rock scene in Kay Hanley of Letters To Cleo.
'Sharks Can't Sleep' - Tracy Bonham & Tanya Donelly
Perhaps Donelly's most high profile offering of late has been a covers album she recorded with the Parkington Sisters, 'Tanya Donelly And The Parkington Sisters' (2020), on which they take on songs by a range of artists, including a couple of my all-time favourites, 'Automatic' by the Go-Go's and 'You Will Be Loved Again' by Mary Margaret O'Hara.
'Girl With The Black Tights' - Dylan In The Movies ft. Tanya Donelly
And then there's a new project for 2022. Donelly has started a band called the Loyal Seas with multi-instrumentalist Brian Sullivan of Dylan In The Movies. Also involved is bassist Scott Janowitz who played on Bonham's album 'Modern Burdens'; Janowitz is the brother of guitarist Tom Janowitz (Buffalo Tom). At their best, the Loyal Seas create layered waves of lush, candy-crush pop. Check out their debut album 'Strange Mornings In The Garden' (2022) if you're a fan of either artist.
"I met Brian (Sullivan) when he started interning at Fort Apache [Studios] after he graduated from Emerson, and then he became a full-time employee. Fort Apache had a brief imprint label for a while, and he went from interning to becoming one of the label managers there. [He’s] one of those people that you meet and you’re instantly comfortable with. Within a couple of months, we were family. It was maybe a year or so after he started working at the Fort that I became aware of what a strong songwriter he is. I became a fan of his project, Dylan In The Movies. At dinner parties, we would start writing together. That evolved into guesting on each other’s projects. And then we just decided, “Let’s just take this impulse to co-write and turn it into something full-length.” A lot of that [dreamier sound] is coming from Brian. The initial musical bed was him for all of [the tracks]. And he’s just dreamy. That’s his aesthetic. That’s his heart, to be honest. That’s who he is. All the sound of this album is my dear friend, it’s who he is. And I just love it. It’s perfect for his voice, which is just this deep, rich, beautiful thing. His voice to me is my favorite instrument on the album. It’s like a cello. When you play live, I can feel him in my feet and my legs like he’s a cello. When he sings, my body vibrates. Everything on stage kind of starts moving a little bit. It’s just how the landscape of who he is is really why the song sound like they do."
- Tanya Donelly, Stereogum (article published May 11, 2022)
'Mary Magdalene In The Great Sky' - The Loyal Seas
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Post by petrolino on Jan 21, 2023 21:36:03 GMT
In Memory of Gary Smith (1958 - 2023)
"A friend who used to bring Birds of Paradise to the studio every morning passed away last night … today these flowers are everywhere I look ... ⭐️"
- Kristin Hersh, Twitter (17 January, 2023)
"So much to say (but can’t today)💔 I ✨love✨you, G"
- Tanya Donelly, Twitter (17 January, 2023)
'This Is Fort Apache'
'Originally calling themselves Pixies in Panoply, they quickly shortened their name to Pixies. The name came to Joey Santiago who sometimes still sometimes struggled with English and referred to the dictionary to look up certain words. One day he was flipping through the dictionary and came across the word Pixies whose definition read “mischievous little elves”. The Pixies booked their first live gig in September 1986 at a club in Cambridge. While their first couple of gigs were a little rough, by the late summer and early fall of that year, they started earning a name for themselves in the Boston club scene. A bulk of the band’s set lists for those shows consisted of their first 2 records. The band also stood out for the way they advertised their gigs, using posters that read “Death to the Pixies” with a naked Charles Thompson on the ad. Julie Farman booked local gigs for Boston bands and told Spin, “The big local bands were Mission of Burma, the Neats, the Lyres, and the Del Fuegos. There was this hierarchy in the Boston scene. These were the bands who played locally and came up through the clubs and really worked it and earned it and hung out. The Pixies were not part of that scene. They came out of nowhere.” At the time, there were a lot of bands in the Boston scene that were derivative of whatever was popular at the time. So while bands like the Smiths were popular in the ’80s, there would be a Boston version of the Smiths. The Pixies didn’t fit into that mould and sounded like nobody else. One Boston musician recalled to Spin, “Man if this sh*t takes off, my career is over.” The Pixies caught the attention of a local producer while opening for Throwing Muses in December 1986. It was the first time both bands were on the same bill. At that gig was a local producer and Fort Apache Studio owner named Gary Smith who saw the Pixies for the first time and was blown away. Thompson’s father financed a 17-track demo, known to fans as The Purple Tape, at a cost of about $1,000 at Smith’s recording studio. The tape was recorded over the course of 3 days during the winter of 1987.'
- Rock N' Roll True Stories
'Pod' ~ The Breeders [Demo Tape] { : Guitar - Kim Deal / Guitar - Tanya Donelly / Bass - Ray Halliday / Drums - Mickey Bones, Carl Haarer & David Narcizo : }
01: Rave On 0:00 02: Only In 3's 2:50 03: Glorious 4:43 04: Fortunately Gone 7:41 05: Doe 9:11 06: Drivin' On 9 11:20 07: Silver 14:25 08: When I Was A Painter 17:13 09: Overcome 18:54 10: You Always Hang Around 21:45 11: Limehouse 24:34
"While Gary (Smith) was an accomplished guitarist and songwriter, he found his calling outside the spotlight at Fort Apache, a scrappy recording studio that he built into a clubhouse for young musicians and a global force in alternative rock. Gary's ears were impeccable. His work ethic, matchless. His deal-making was the stuff of major-label dreams. As a producer and manager, Gary shepherded the careers of some of the era's most influential artists, among them Pixies, Throwing Muses, Tanya Donelly, Juliana Hatfield, and Natalie Merchant. But his impact transcended the realm of records and contracts. Gary brought people together, cultivating a sense of family that sustained him and the many outsiders, misfits, and dreamers fortunate enough to travel in his orbit."
- Joan Anderman, Legacy
'Star' ~ Belly [Demo Tape] { : Guitar - Tanya Donelly / Lap Steel Guitar - Joe Harvard / Guitar on 'White Belly' & 'Feed The Tree' - Kim Deal : }
"They were originally meant to be the second Breeders album, so Kim plays on a couple. She plays the high solo on White Belly and the counter-lead stuff on Feed the Tree. That's what I recall. White Belly was co-written with Fred Abong, but for some reason he didn't play on it. I think possibly because it was intended for the Breeders, and we weren't planning to start a post-Muses band together at that time. It wasn't long after these demos were recorded that I decided to start my own thing and form Belly, and Fred came along. To be honest, I'm very fuzzy on my own chronology and some details. Some of the vocals are oddly low -- I think that was my taste at the time, which is too bad. And I was very self-conscious about my voice, sometimes justifiably. And it is all extremely spare, mostly just electric guitar and vocal. But I think in general, these are pretty good, and at least interesting if you liked Star. Re: Slow Dog -- Mariah Carey hadn't surfaced yet when I wrote this song. This is a very old song that I sat on for a while. The first time I heard her name was when a couple of the Pavement guys (who got the demo from someone who worked at 4ad at the time) said they liked the song I wrote about Mariah Carey. So Mariah became Maria. I always missed Mariah." "So there was a point where ‘the deal’ was that she would write the first album and then I would write the second. In fact, all of the demos for Star are all labeled 'The Breeders' and she [Kim] played them with me. Those songs were originally going to be the second Breeders album."
- Tanya Donelly on recording the first demo tape for 'Star', Youtube
1. Someone To Die For 0:00 2. White Belly 02:18 3. Feed The Tree 5:47 4. Witch 8:09 5. Sad Dress 9:51 6. Angel 13:06 7. Star 15:55 8. Slow Dog 18:16 9. Dusted 21:47 10. Every Word 24:00
R.I.P.
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