Perfect Sound Forever magazine- April 2021 issue out now

[Jason Gross]

Greetings,

In the latest issue of Perfect Sound Forever <http://www.furious.com/perfect/index0421.html>, you'll find (among other things):

ANRIMEAL
Computer folkie by Michael Freerix
"With her sketchy, dreamlike songwriting, Ana Rita de Melo Alves, who calls herself Anrimeal, travels on a highway that in the past has been defined by songwriters like Elliott Smith and Syd Barrett. Alves writes songs and sings to herself, in front of a fragile background of violin, guitar, piano, flutes, and percussion. She somehow reflects the silence around her, but gives it a special kind of air."

ANTHRAX
'90's & '00's shrinkage by Peter Crigler
"When the '90's began, thrash metal had asserted its dominance. While they were nowhere as massive as hair metal and its ilk, thrash had become huge nevertheless, selling tons of records and tickets. Of course, the behemoth of them all was Metallica, but it would be impossible for any other band to overtake them. These bands and dozens of others were perfectly content with their spot in the metal world and kept on, despite diminishing sales throughout the decade, amid a heavier reliance on grunge and indie rock. Some of these bands kept persevering and making records. Others sat out the nineties for the most part. Then there's Anthrax."

BLUE WICKS
Southern indie fiction by Jim Rader
"I told Ronnie about my recently deceased father, once a 1940's big band clarinetist. The mayjus told me about his own father―a successful classical pianist, a nondrinker, quite a different picture. While my ex-musician dad casually encouraged his son's guitar playing, Ronnie's dad "bled music," demanding a severe daily regimen from his heir ("Jim, he virtually chained me to the goddamn piano, made me practice two hours, twice a day. I had no social life until college"). My God, forget acid―the mayjus had had a harder life than mine despite his apparently privileged background."

JOANNA CONNOR
Modern Chicago blues queen by Bob Gersztyn
"Over the past thirty two years Connor has released fourteen studio albums, including her latest release, 4801 South Indiana Avenue. The album was named after the address of the Chicago blues landmark Theresa's Lounge, which operated from the early 1950's until the mid-1980's, when Theresa lost her lease. Joanna actually played at the venue a few times in its last days when she first arrived in the Windy City. It was a primary meeting place for Chicago blues musicians."

DUTCH CASSETTES
'80's indie history/hatred by Frans de Waard
"Author Frans de Waard recently collected four volumes of his 'Dutch Cassette Catalog,' chronicling his research into this fascinating indie cassette culture from 1983 to 1987. The new book includes not only his extensive listings but also flyers (which are both historic and beautifully designed), articles and even (as you'll see here) some hate mail."

FIELD RECORDINGS
Via composers & highway rest stops by Daniel Barbiero
"Listening to a field recording of a place like an airport or highway rest stop reminds us that it's very difficult to identify a place on the basis of its sounds alone. The languages in which some of these conversations, announcements, and other verbal transactions are conducted may provide some clue as to their whereabouts but, particularly at those crossroads of international travel or trade, this will not necessarily produce a positive identification."

FREEDOM SINGERS
Interview- Civil Rights' music by Jason Gross
"The excellent recent PBS documentary The Black Church covered not only the obvious racial and religious aspects of the church but also its vital political and musical aspects, with the latter two coming together in the Civil Rights Movement. In the early '60s, as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) looked to gather members and momentum, one of the crucial ways to spread the word was through song, and one of their chief messengers was a vocal group called the Freedom Singers."

MAINSTREAM ROCK RADIO
The problem at its core by Peter Crigler
"The concept of Mainstream Rock radio is quite confusing, particularly if you look at the format's history. It started out as essentially what we now call Classic Rock, before transforming into a juggernaut that included outdated bands like Seether, Five Finger Death Punch, Breaking Benjamin, and Three Days Grace. The fact that bands like these are still achieving success when other, better bands are struggling highlights how kind of irrelevant this whole format has become."

FRED NEIL
'60's folk archive find by Tony Ruiz
"'38 McDougal,; the latest Fred Neil official release comes from Mark Linn''s Delmore Recording Society label, brings us "the singer-songwriter of the singer-songwriters," recorded in between the difficult Bleecker And McDougal sessions (Elektra, 1965). Unleashed first in November 2020 on clear vinyl format and now on CD and digital formats, '38 McDougal' contains eight songs from a reel to reel tape stored for decades by guitarist Pete Childs."

SEPTEMBER 67
Femme indie folk rockers by Kurt Wildermuth
"September 67 wasn't the beginning of fall after the so-called summer of love. It was a pop-rock duo, whose one album, 'Lucky Shoe,' was released on CD and LP in 1996. And you most likely don't remember the duo or the album unless you collect indie-rock trivia."

SEX PISTOLS
The case for Steve Jones by Cyrus Manasseh
"Jones's secret to the success of his simple cutthroat style of guitar playing was that it was always executed perfectly, even though much of what he played came from the frustration of not knowing how to play. Inspired by Mott the Hoople, the Small Faces, and Roxy Music's performance of "Virginia Plain" on the British TV music show Top of the Pops, and a style that had been embedded in a long tradition from Link Wray's "Rumble" in 1958 to the Kingsmen's "Louie Louie" in 1963, Jones—reacting against much that had been exemplified in the music by classic rock dinosaurs."

SONIC PHANTOMS
Book excerpt- repetition in the (arty) music by Barbara Ellison and Thomas Bey William Bailey
"In our new book, Sonic Phantoms, we aim at uniquely advancing the literature on sonic experimentation dealing with the sublime act of "listening to listening." From at least the mid-point of the twentieth century, there has been a well-documented interest in reconfiguring the listener as a sound producer or creator, and our work -- affirmed by a number of neuro-scientific discoveries -- similarly springs from the rejection of listening as a purely passive exercise. We submit that one of the key realizations provided upon rejecting the "passive" nature of audio experience is the degree to which we, as humans, ascribe meaning to the apparently meaningless. "

STIFF LITTLE FINGERS
Interview- inflammable Irish punks by David DiPietro
"Along with the Clash, Belfast's Stiff Little Fingers were amongst the first punk bands to dive into social and personal issues, other than Anarchy in the U.K. Coming together in 1977, SLF was co-founded by guitarist Henry Cluney. Most of the early songs were written by singer/guitarist Jake Burns and co-manager Gordon Ogilvie but Cluney had a few songs on the first album (1979's Inflammable Material), which became the first indie record to chart in the UK. SLF became part of the small but nascent Irish punk scene and known for their lyrics reflecting the British occupation/war there. "

MCCOY TYNER
Jazz legend does Bacharach by Kurt Wildermuth
"When the great jazz pianist McCoy Tyner died in 2020, he was best remembered for his work with the toweringly influential jazz saxophonist John Coltrane, and rightly so. From 1960 to 1965, mainly in a quartet with bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones, in concert and on such classic recordings where Tyner and Coltrane hammered out a multidimensional kind of bop. Saluted in Tyner's obituaries but without quite the same reverence was the work Tyner did as a sideman and a leader (with some six dozen albums to his name). Completely lost in the shuffle was an interesting excursion, 'What the World Needs Now: The Music of Burt Bacharach' (1997)."

VINYL ANACHRONIST
Got hum in your stereo? by Marc Phillips
"There are plenty of things that can cause a ground loop hum in your hi-fi system, especially when you play LPs on a turntable. Loose wire connections, unshielded components near magnetic fields, and faulty wiring can all get things a-hummin'. In many cases, it's a simple mismatch somewhere in the component chain."

WFHS
Baltimore radio remembered by Daniel Hess
"For so many in Baltimore, WHFS had become a staple of alternative rock and a discovery source for emerging artists. Steve Khuon recounted a memory from his time listening to the station. "I bought my first Audioslave album after hearing ‘Like a Stone' on the station." The sudden loss of WHFS was a huge blow to the music scene in Baltimore, but what made the station so special?"



We also have a Spotify playlist with most of the artists above here:
<https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1KHRBeUJOlru6LHCs35JHc?si=otWUTqxPRcKsJUp-XxtZ9A>

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

See you online,
Jason