His performing career cut short in a traffic accident at age 35, his back catalogue entombed in legal wrangles, Nic Jones enjoys the legend of a musician more often spoken of than heard. Jones’s final album, 1980’s Penguin Eggs, is one of the small handful of true masterpieces of the English folk revival, a maritime journey through traditional song driven by Jones’s percussive, slapping fingerstyle guitar and curlicued vocal melodies. It’s also the only one of his records that’s stayed more or less in print since its release, meaning that it has completely overshadowed the rest of his catalogue (outside those collectors with the cash or pluck to track down the increasingly pricy original editions anyway).
As a listener who has obsessed over Penguin Eggs for years, I was shocked to find an unpriced copy of 1977’s The Noah’s Ark Trap in a local shop and, after some haggling with the good-natured proprietor, walked out with it for a song. I’d heard it a few times back in my music blog .rar downloading days and I recall liking it, but since I’ve had an actual copy for my table it’s steadily grown in my estimation to the point I’d rank it the near-equal of its more celebrated younger sibling. The LP contains a similar mixture of lengthy story songs (“The Golden Glove”), bawdy cautionary tales (ode to cum “The Wanton Seed”), blazing fiddle reels (“Miles Weatherhill”), and aching ballads (“Ten Thousand Miles,” perhaps the most moving thing he ever recorded). As on Penguin Eggs, Jones plays with minimal accompaniment (six of ten tracks are solo endeavours), giving the music a lonely grandeur, like a bard narrating the sunset of an age. These are songs of ancient heritage, and while Jones’s style bears the marks of the contemporary revival (and particularly the influence of Martin Carthy) he makes no concessions to pop. There is only this man with his pure and earnest voice, the guitar he’s poured the work of a lifetime into mastering, and visions of forests and green pastures that will endure till the rocks melt and the seas burn.
There Have Been Few Guitarists That Inspire Fury & Passion Like Yngwie Malmsteen, And The Signature Stratocaster Is No Different. Check Out The Review.
Ok. This fucking kid. Matteo Mancuso. He's so young, he doesn't know what he doesn't know, or that he's not supposed to be this fucking good at his age!
Look him up, he's done other stuff. I think he just sees the guitar differently than us mere mortals.
LIVE REVIEW: Santana Oneness Summer Tour 2024 with Counting Crows
LIVE REVIEW: Santana Oneness Summer Tour 2024 with Counting Crows, At PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, NJ on July 19, 2024. #santana #countingcrows @SantanaCarlos @CountingCrows
At PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, NJ on July 19, 2024
GRAMMY-winning Rock and Roll Hall of Fame guitarist Carlos Santana alongside GRAMMY and Academy Award-nominated rock band Counting Crows are on the road together for the Oneness Tour 2024 this summer. On July 19th they came to New Jersey to perform at PNC Bank Arts Center. Fans from across the state braved the dreaded Friday evening shore…
Jeff Beck’s Guitar Shop by Jeff Beck
Epic
1989
Blues-Rock / Fusion / Pop-Rock / Alternative Rock / Instrumental Rock / Guitar Virtuoso / Hard Rock / Jazz-Rock / Experimental Rock
Orianthi was absolutely magnificent!! Her talents are immeasurable!! You might know her as a guitar goddess, but she is so much more! Her lyrics, vocals, and live performance are outstanding. I strongly encourage you to catch one of her shows. You will be blown away 🔥🔥
You can check out my review and full gallery on www.soundchecksf.com
Dive into the soul-stirring world of Draken Asher, the prodigy behind acid folk. 🎶✨ Catch his exclusive interview and performance this Thursday at 7 pm. #DrakenAsher #AcidFolk #LiveMusic
Join us for an intimate session with Draken Asher, the emerging virtuoso of acid folk music. At just 18, Draken has captivated audiences with his intricate guitar skills, soulful vocals, and a unique blend of genres that he calls “acid folk.” Starting his musical journey at a young age, Draken has evolved into a multi-instrumentalist with a deep, eclectic repertoire. In this segment, we dive into…
307: Gulââb // Ritt durch den Hades: Musikalische Dokumentation einer phantastichen Reise
Ritt durch den Hades
Gulââb
1979, House Producion (Bandcamp)
Gulââb’s rare 1979 cassette Ritt durch den Hades: Musikalische Dokumentation einer phantastichen Reise (Rode Through Hades: Musical Documentation of a Fantastic Journey) seems primed for rediscovery by the weirdo prog/Krautrock set: Mononymous, pseudonymous German guitar virtuoso debarks for the mountains of Nepal in the early 1970s, where he devotes himself to exploring the spirit realm and honing his gifts for “one thousand and one nights.” (Though a less mystically-inclined biographer might summarize this period as “spent three years bumming around until he got a job playing music in a luxury restaurant.”) Upon his return to Germany, Gulââb records a blistering mostly instrumental solo album that lands somewhere between early music, Baroque classical, and Krautrock. The album has a suitably berserk storyline, following a soul through life (condensed, hilariously, into a single movement called Karrierestress, or Career Stress), death, and then a pastiche of the afterlife that includes multiple Olympian gods and Sufism before achieving reincarnation. Unable to find (or indifferent to finding) an interested label, Gulââb releases Ritt durch den Hades himself on cassette, to little apparent response. He continues his low-key music career composing for small theatre companies and collaborating with a children’s book author, and self-releasing a bunch of tapes and CDs in the ‘90s before going mostly silent in the decades that followed.
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That resume alone would perk the ears of most collectors, and the contents of Ritt durch den Hades more than hold up their end. Gothic, psychedelic, and impossible to precisely categorize, it’s also fairly diverse within its narrow guitar-only remit: he dabbles in Nordic folk but also in Mediterranean flamenco and rebetiko sounds, using a few pedals and production tricks to imitate the sounds of sitars and lutes. It’s like a tour of Europe’s raddest graveyards, from a pyre on the moor to a brooding cathedral to a Spaghetti western desert full of bleached wooden crosses. It’s difficult to imagine a fan of Comus or chill Krautrock or ‘70s horror soundtracks or the Pagan neo-folk records black metal bands started putting out in the ‘90s not getting off on this.
The original cassette insert.
That may have been the thinking over at Merlins Nose Records, the first (and so far only label) to track Gulââb down and put together a vinyl and CD reissue of Hades. Rather than simply adapting the stylishly minimal black backdrop/white Art Nouveau-looking typeface Gulââb chose for the original cassette insert, we get something that looks like an off-brand Children of Bodom cover. While my girlfriend insists it looks cool, she is terminally poisoned by Zoomer ‘90s cringe reappropriation aesthetics and should be ignored in this matter. I’m here to tell you the cover sucks, and probably made at least a few grim aesthetes write the thing off at the shop. But that would be a mistake! If you have any skeleton tattoos (I have three) you should own this.