Perfect Sound Forever- October 2021 issue now out

[Jason Gross]

Greetings,

In the latest issue of Perfect Sound Forever <http://www.furious.com/perfect/index1021.html>, you'll find (among other things):

FADY ADEL
Egyptian journalist-director speaks- interview by Jason Gross
"Adel's expertise seemed key to understanding the world of MENA music and the issues surrounding it, including religion, censorship, Western influences, COVID's effect on music scenes and more. While his work usually appears in MENA regional publications, he's also written for Bandcamp, among other places. That's not even mentioning his work as a documentary film-maker. As such, his perspective is vital and needs to be heard."


THE BEATMEN
Book excerpt- origins of Czech rock by Dr. Oleg Synieokyi
"The Beatmen were founded in 1964 by two former Jolana members Miro Bedrik and Marian Bednar. By 1965, the "British Invasion" led by The Beatles ruled the whole world, but in Czechoslovakia, with the exception of the Mephisto group, no one had yet dared to rise to the new level of the global House of Progressive Music. Bedrik and Bednar noted this and decided to act."


BLAKE BABIES
Interview- jangly 80's alt-rock by Pete Crigler
"Blake Babies were one of the last major indie bands to make their name known in a pre-Nirvana world. The trio of John Strohm, Freda Love, and Juliana Hatfield made a few amazing records before breaking up at the height of their success so Hatfield could begin her solo career. Strohm and Love went on to start Antenna before going their separate ways. Briefly reemerging in 2001 with a critically acclaimed reunion album, the Blake Babies were able to pick up where they left off. Strohm has continued on a musically adventurous solo career and eventually moved to the other side of the music business to become president of the prestigious Rounder Records."


BOMB
Interview- San Fran arty punks by Pete Crigler
"Michael W. Dean is definitely a man of many facets. Beginning in Charlottesville, VA with the punk band Baby Opaque, he soon shifted gears with the Bay Area based influential band Bomb. When that band broke up, he found himself a successful author, podcaster, filmmaker and more. He was also one of the first musicians I ever interviewed way back in college. With his new project BipTunia and an amazing reissue of Bomb's Hits of Acid, I got in touch with my old friend to get a definitive look at his amazing and D.I.Y. career."


BREAKING THE SOUND BARRIER
Revisiting classic classical music tome by Daniel Barbiero
"How does Battcock's anthology of writings on contemporary music look now, forty years later? It seems to me that it remains a valuable document not only for what it tells of a certain period in the development of Western art music--which was its particular focus--but for what it shows of some of the continuities linking the relatively near past to the present."


MICHAEL FARNETI
Interview- Bizarre '70's soft rock revival by Rabia
"Michael Farneti's debut album, Good Morning Kisses, was self-recorded in South Florida in 1976 and released as a private press. It's a subtly eerie listen today--the sun-bleached sound of a young alt-crooner with everything to prove, finding his voice in lo-fi pop. Every track over the busy half-hour runtime brings new surprises and eccentricities, from disco to bluegrass and a lot of spooky, fairly unclassifiable pop in between. You could call it Florida's unsung answer to the early Scott Walker albums, maybe with shades of the naivete of '70s-era Brian Wilson."


MATS GUSTAFSSON
Interview- mad sax & record collecting by J. Vognsen
"What does the current musical environment mean for our listening? To approach the question, I wanted to reach out to a serious, long-term music collector. Someone used to handling very large amounts of music, physically and listening-wise. I wanted to learn from their practical experience. The first person that came to mind was saxophonist and self-declared discaholic Mats Gustafsson."


JON HASSELL
Tribute- part 2, collaborators interviews by Jason Gross
"In this second part of our tribute to the late Jon Hassell, we follow up with interviews with more of his collabortors, including musicians, producers, managers and label personnel, all to tell his story. In the first part of the tribute, we heard from several other collaborators and now we learn even more about Hassell, including his meticulous methods as a composer and bandleader and the last years of his life and the possiblity of future archival releases."


JACK KEROUAC
Beat's musical influence/trail by Simon Warner
"From Dylan, perhaps most notably, to Tom Waits, maybe most diligently, from the Grateful Dead to the Doors and Van Morrison, David Bowie and Patti Smith to Sonic Youth, 10,000 Maniacs and Death Cab for Cutie to the Hold Steady, the Low Anthem to Fences, there is a potent, genre-vaulting genealogy of composers and groups, major and minor, keen to acknowledge a link or debt to that frenetic Kerouac consciousness, as determined traveller and voluminous documenter of his own picaresque life."


LENINGRAD ROCK CLUB
Venue back in USSR by Daniel Hess
"What if through some strange crossroads of expression and oppression, there was born a venue where rock music could be played and enjoyed, even under the thumb of heavy censorship? Well, in Russia in 1981, such a venue was born called The Leningrad Rock Club, and it gave birth to many eclectic, amazing Russian rock bands that may have never had a chance to perform at all otherwise."


THE NIELDS
Folkie duo feted by Kurt Wildermuth
"here once was an indie folk-pop-rock band from New England called the Nields, and their name involved a grammatical joke. The band's principal members were the sisters Nerissa and Katryna Nields. Nerissa's husband, David, changed his last name from Jones to Nields and played guitar in the band. They called themselves the Nields."


YOKO ONO
Revisiting her Apple years by Kurt Wildermuth
"Ono has been a divisive figure for about the last half century. She might have been divisive before that as well, within the avant-garde art world where she first made her name and career, but it was after her entrance into the mainstream media maelstrom that Ono became the subject of endless debate. Is debate even the right word? To some Ono is an inspiring visionary; to others she is a fraudulent villain. But the point here is not to rehash controversy. It is to accentuate the positive, as Ono has always done."


PLASTIC PEOPLE OF THE UNIVERSE
Book excerpt: Czech rebels rule by Joe Yanosik
"Over the last year, I tracked down and interviewed numerous individuals from around the world who were active participants in the events of the Plastics' history including former band members and managers, close friends of the group including the photographers who took the earliest pictures of the band, and others in the Czech underground music scene which still thrives today. In addition to a plethora of newly available facts, the book includes over 70 fabulous photographs of the band, many never before seen, which the photographers graciously gave me permission to use."


TAKESHI TERAUCHI
Remembering the unique Japanese guitarist by J. Vognsen
"Takeshi Terauchi - premiere exponent of Japanese surf music - celebrated his fiftieth year as a professional musician in 2010. To mark the anniversary he embarked on a tour of Japan with his most popular backing band, Blue Jeans. I had the good fortune of seeing them on November 13th."


VINYL ANACHRONIST
RIP Rocky Mountain Audio Fest by Marc Philips
"The Rocky Mountain Audio Fest is no more. The announcement was made on the 2nd of September, not quite five weeks before this beloved high-end audio show was scheduled to be held in Denver in October. Yes, COVID-19 was the final straw."


We also have a Spotify playlist with most of the artists above here:
<https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5dS3KqGzoF6itf0N5eVazw?si=09ca1dac5e01455e>

We're always looking for good writers and/or ideas so let us know if you have anything to share.

See you online,
Jason