Perfect Sound Forever- December 2022 edition is now out

[Jason Gross]

Greetings,

In the latest issue of Perfect Sound Forever <https://www.furious.com/perfect/index1222.html>, you'll find (among other things):


BRIAN AUGER
Interview- jazz/soul organist extraordinaire, by Robin Cook
"Standing at the crossroads of psychedelia and R&B, Brian Auger, Julie Driscoll, and the Trinity became stars in Britain and abroad in the late 1960's. Their signature song, "This Wheel's On Fire," became a top 10 hit in the UK. The band's eclectic legacy is now being celebrated with a new boxed set. Brian Auger himself was on hand to delve into the band's evolution and his own musical beginnings."


HARRY BELAFONTE
Chronicling the essentials of the Calypso superstar, by Kurt Wildermuth
"If you've been paying attention during your years on Earth, you have a sense of Belafonte as a historically important actor, activist, and humanitarian. You may know him as a musical performer. You may think of him foremost as a Black man. Whatever your sense of Belafonte, I don't have information to add to that portrait. I'm here to help spread the good news that as a singer--I mean simply in terms of vocal and interpretive ability--and as a recording artist he is extraordinary."


EARLE BROWN
The poltergeist composer in the machine, by Daniel Barbiero
"It might seem curious that Earle Brown, a composer best known for open-form, essentially improvisational graphic works like the classic "December 1952," would have been concerned with serial music. But in 1965, Brown addressed topics in that paradigmatically closed-form style of music when he published an article titled 'Serial Music Today.'"


WENDY CARLOS
What the synth pioneer's bio tells us, by Julian George
"The soundtrack of my Wonder Bread years, and a hot topic of conversation, Switched-On, in suburban salons across the nation. Never mind 'authenticity' or 'original performance' -- were the 'Smart People' listening to Switched-On? Was it 'in' with 'The In-Crowd'? Was it chic, or was it crass? And if crass, whatever next, Bach on a Strat? A kazoo? QED, PDQ. Ah, but they'd say one thing and do another, the grown-ups, switching on Switched-On soon as they got home, they couldn't get enough of that Lutheran rag, so elegant, so intelligent."


BISHU CHATTOPADHYAY
Jazz Bassist, Composer, Band Leader, Border Explorer, by Kurt Wildermuth
"In the music of the New York City jazz bassist and composer Bishu Chattopadhyay, that part of the battle is won, decisively, by Chattopadhyay's side. That's a fanciful way of saying that his pieces differ from one another formally, and each time the decisions feel just right. The compositional shapes match the subjects--the content--and the playing fills in those shapes, creating a journey within prescribed limits. Chattopadhyay's music knows its boundaries, but it also knows that within borders exist areas of exploration."


LED ZEPPELIN FANTASIA
Reliving their live legacy via bootlegs, by Jim Hayes
"The critic aided by a hypersensitive recording device. Wish you were here. For a while, the whole world seemed deathly silent and then the sound came back all at once. Is this machine recording? The tapes inch along like a snail on the edge of a cutting room razor. This is my dream; this is my nightmare. But of course, the recently unearthed Zeppelin recordings are not tapes. They're publicly streamed files. There's no privacy for those recorded surreptitiously. Paid under the table, Venice Beach slang. After that Blanksville; I passed out cold. Sick Again!"


ROY MONTGOMERY
Kiwi guitar god appeciated, by Brett Abrahamsen
"In a just and fair world, Roy Montgomery would stand next to Beethoven, Mozart, Zappa and Coltrane in the pantheon of great composers. Lennon and McCartney would be relegated to the realm of Abba and Spice Girls, and books would be written about Montgomery's greatness and daring. It is indeed a symptom of Western society's ignorance that Montgomery is not widely hailed as a compositional genius. Even "serious" music critics tend to focus on the catchy refrain - not, unfortunately, on artistic value."


MUD MORGANFIELD
Interview- #1 Son Who's Also A Blues Original, by Jason Gross
"Having a famous dad can be a blessing and a curse- you start off with an advantage and a great heritage but you also live in their shadow. When the dad happens to be Muddy Waters, one of the most towering figures in the blues, and all of 20th century music, that can be an additional challenge. Luckily, Mud Morganfield, his first son, was up for the challenge. Originally a soul fan growing up in the '50's and '60's, young Mud wasn't really enamored of his dad's style intially and it was only after Waters' death in 1983 that he finally decided to follow the same path."


PHAROAH SANDERS
RIP the celestial jazz legend, by Fabio Rojas
"I can tell you immediately if Pharoah Sanders is on a recording. Most jazz fans can. Sanders' main mode of expression was the tenor saxophone and the horn breathed fire in his hands. It was an unmistakable flame that was his alone. But what exactly was that sound, that wail into the void? It had layers. At the foundation was a rich bluesy open tone, common to jazz saxophonists of the era. All the great tenors had it. Coleman Hawkins had it. Sonny Rollins had it and so did Lester Young. And, of course, John Coltrane had it."


SEVENTH SONS
'60's raga rock pioneers, Part II by Tony Ruiz
"'When we first got together as The Seventh Sons, adding Max Ochs on guitar, we went up to upstate New York to a polluted lake and a lodge that had been renamed Paradox Lost... We plugged in our amps from a power outlet and practiced like crazy. It was totally deserted up there so we could make all the noise we wanted. We had some terrific sessions (at least they seemed so at the time) but almost starved to death. At the end of our stay, we were pretty well bonded as musicians and could finally play quite well together.'"


TOURING NO MORE?
How indie, avant artists say they'll manage, by J. Vognsen
"Pandemics, war and climate change at least challenge the idea of touring, raising a number of questions: Will international travel remain as safe and convenient? Will it remain as affordable? Can all this burning of fossil fuel even be justified? In that spirit, we asked several artists 'what if live music again became primarily a much more local phenomenon? How would you adapt financially and creatively?'"


THE TRIP
Fiction- Athens GA wanna-be's encounter Pylon and early R.E.M., by Jim Rader
"By the spring of '82, I was fed up with the New York band scene and relocated to Atlanta. My main connection there was Del Morgan, whom I'd met in New York in '79. After graduating Pratt Institute, Del returned to his hometown Atlanta. Del lived with his young bottle-blonde wife Sherri in Atlanta suburb Stone Mountain, a split-level house. My first night there, Del introduced me to a band that rehearsed in a spare room: paunchy young bassist Marshall, trim thirtyish drummer Stanley (Del's boyhood pal) and guitarist/singer Sam, a shy guy who looked a bit like Mark Twain. We came in on a fairly catchy song called "Contradiction," penned by Sam."


IKE TURNER
Interview- the Irredeemable R&B Legend, by Bob Gersztyn
"Back in July 2002, Turner appeared at the "Waterfront Blues Festival" in Portland, Oregon. His fourteenth wife, Audrey Madison Turner, who he married in 2006 was a member of the band at the time. A couple of months later, I managed to get a phone interview with Turner where I questioned him about his genesis and some of the people that he helped on their way to stardom."


VINYL ANACHRONIST
2022, Year of No Noise, by Marc Phillips
"It was the lovely little country of Denmark where I stirred up some renewed enthusiasm for high-end audio, thanks to an innovative company called Audio Group Denmark and their three brands of gear: Borresen speakers, Aavik amplifiers and Ansuz cabling and accessories. I won't get into too much detail and tech here--I'll be finishing up reviews on all the gear they sent me through most of 2023. Suffice it to say that AGD has such a unique approach to audio, and they're starting to get a lot of attention for it."


THE VIRGIN PRUNES
Irish performance art, not goth..., by Brian F. Cousins
"It is hard to describe the Dublin and Ireland of the late '70's/early '80's that produced the Virgin Prunes and which they reacted so forcefully against. This was a society with a stagnant economy, national low self-esteem and still dominated by the morality and control of the Catholic Church. The Prunes as they were always called, were the complete antithesis of the pervading mores of "dear old dirty Dublin." In many ways, Ireland had yet to transform itself in the modern, international, fully functioning democracy it is today and was still as provincial and compromised as James Joyce had described 80 years previously."



We also have a Spotify playlist with most of the artists above here:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6NjlYM6fBZtx5t2lOsWlnL?si=61d858d9c84242ad


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

See you online,
Jason