Today’s trippy episode starts with with dreams. Dream Syndicate is here with the new album. Then Matthew and Doris Melton are Living The Dream again with Dream Machine. Shivas are back with another new single. Our good friends from Australia City of Cool are back with brand new record, but for the firs time, they perform under their given names, David Craven & Jon S Williams and the band name seems to be retired. Big Hogg from Glasgow have a new trippy single as well. Kikagaku Moyo is a five piece from Japan and we feature them for the firs time. Tommy and The Ohs is a project for Thomas Oliverio and Pretty Lightning is the new band from Germany.
Endless Boogie – Jim Tully;
The Dream Syndicate – Every Time You Come Around;
Dream Machine – Dreamin it Over;
Dream Machine – Back To You;
Fernando Perdomo – Dream State;
Mr. Airplane Man – Worry;
Kikagaku Moyo – Cardboard Pile;
The Shivas – Doom Revolver;
Action & Tension & Space – Tellus;
Tommy And The Ohs – California Holiday;
Pretty Lightning – Gewgaw For Beginners;
Marc Ribott’s Cheramic Dog – They Met in the Middle;
Big Hogg – Willow’s Song;
Big Hogg – Caxton Wood;
David Craven & Jon S Williams – Reunion;
Endless Boogie – Jim Tully (coda).
The highlight of today’s show is interview with Doris and Matthew Melton of Dream Machine. I decided to inspect their interesting histories. You can find out where they come from, how they got together, what got them to switch from love songs to more abstract themes, what equipment they use to make records and what in the world it all has to do with Yugoslav 70s rock. But that’s the second part of the show. The firs part introduces new music from Sick Thoughts, Bad Sports and Platinum Boys. From Greece, we hear the new tunes of their legendary band The Last Drive. Ty Segall, the most productive rock musician ever just finished yet another album this year and it’s one of those cover albums. Today we check out his cover of Dils’ Class War.
Thin White Rope – Hunter’s Moon;
Sick Thoughts – Black Leather Glove;
Bad Sports – Don’t Deserve Love;
Mission of Burma – Class War;
Dils – Class War;
Ty Segall – Class War;
The Last Drive – The Wave;
The Last Drive – Gone Gone Gone;
Andy G and The Roller Kings – Bad Indian;
Bare Wires – Psychic Wind;
Warm Soda – Tell Me Your Story;
Dream Machine – Lose My Place In Time;
Maja De Rado i Porodicna manufaktura crnog hleba – Nesto;
S vremena na vreme – Cudno drvo
Dream Machine – Run of The Mill;
Platinum Boys – We Don’t Dance (Anymore).
We continue our list of best albums in 2017, this time with top 14 albums. This year was full of albums that will surely stay and I will definitely keep coming back to these many times in my life. Chris Church has came up with with a power pop album that can stand next to all the classics from that disarming genre that only seems effortless on the surface. Big Hogg offered us their extremely playful version of modern day prog rock. If you think Alien Lanes are a classic record, you should definitely look into Stevens and their album Good. Similar albums with great melodies, low fi and clever segues were always in the top of my albums in the past years. Matthew Melton and his wife Doris started a new project Dream Machine and The Illusion definitely made a mark, even politically (although unwittingly). Hayley Thompson-King and her concept record about the biblical woman is truly a deep album that goes from country over garage rock and ends up in opera. Tin Foil are newcomers from Detroit with an addictive set of songs on their album without a title. Pink Tiles return with a record that definitely puts them on a map of serious bands with fun content. David Nance comes from Omaha and has created an album sounds so well crafted, as if he was putting albums for a really long time. Americans on I’ll Be Yours reach depths and territories that were only visited by House of Freaks in the past. Emmett Kelly and his Cairo Gang continue with a series of truly timeless albums with Untouchable. Harlan T. Bobo’s new album came out only a month ago, and there was not enough time to come back to it many times, but it definitely made me rearrange my playlist and put him up on the high third place. It might be his strongest yet. On the top we have Sweet Apple and Bash & Pop. There’s a lot in common to these albums. Both are genre defying and disarmingly playful works of rock’s veteran warriors who know exactly where the sources of this music is. It was a good year for rock.
01 Bash & Pop - Anything Could Happen
02 Sweet Apple - Sing The Night In Sorrow
03 Harlan T. Bobo - Hector, A History of Violence
04 The Cairo Gang - Untouchable
05 The Americans - I'll Be Yours
06 David Nance - Negative Boogie
07 The Pink Tiles - #1 Fan
08 The Stevens - Good
09 Dream Machine - The Illusion
10 Hayley Thompson-King - Psychotic Melancholia
11 Tin Foil
12 Tall Juan - Olden Goldies
13 Big Hogg - Gargoyles
14 Chris Church - Limitations of Source Tape
Chris Church – Fall Into Me;
Big Hogg – Gold and Silver;
Tall Juan – Cuida Coaches
Tin Foil – Shapes of Savannah;
Hayley Thompson-King – Teratoma;
Dream Machine – Diamond In The Rough;
The Stevens – Grandstands;
The Pink Tiles – Writer’s Block;
David Nance – Ambulance;
The Americans – Stowaway;
The Cairo Gang – Real Enough To Believe;
Harlan T. Bobo – Storied;
Sweet Apple – You Don’t Belong To Me;
Bash & Pop – Breathing Room;
Bash & Pop – Anybody Else;
Bash & Pop – Never Wanted To Know;
Sweet Apple – Everybody’s Leaving.
The Little Lighthouse presents best albums in 2017. A good way to usher the new year is to put together a list of best albums in the previous one. We’ve been doing this for a long time with more or less discipline, but the criteria is always personal and the lists simply collects albums that I’ve kept coming back to most frequently. This time we cover positions 35-15 and tune in next week for the top 14. Today we cover one of four albums that was put together by the productive and controversial Matthew Melton (Warm Soda), heavier rock records from The Obsessed, Elder, Motorpsycho All The Witches and Ruby The Hatchet show a modern approach to head banging, twisted Americana of Ethan Daniel Davidson, Yawpers and My Buddy Moose represent a fresh approach to a genre that needs reinvention badly. Strong lyrical works from Daniel Romano and John Wesley Coleman III are the best to enjoy while reading and musing on the inner sleeves. Bully, Lost Balloons, Sheer Mag, Needles//Pins show that indie rock still has something to say. Beautiful vocals of Dead Rock West are to admire. Ty Segall had an album of his career. Baby Shakes simply have short and fun record that makes you wanna play on and on. Newcomers Improbables and experienced Golden Boys hail from their garages with high octane garage rock and of all experiments from King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard, their Microtonal Banana was the most fun.
15 Baby Shakes - Turn It Up
16 Daniel Romano - Modern Pressure
17 John Wesley Coleman III - Microwave Dream
18 Ty Segall
19 Lost Balloons - Hey Summer
20 The Improbables - Object To Be Destroyed
21 All Them Witches - Sleeping Through The War
22 The Obsessed - Sacred
23 Motorpsycho - The Tower
24 Golden Boys - Better Than Good Times
25 The Yawpers - Boy in a Well
26 Elder - Reflections of a Floating World
27 My Buddy Moose - IV
28 Dead Rock West - More Love
29 Needles//Pins - Good Night, Tomorrow
30 King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Flying Microtonal Banana
31 Warm Soda - I Don't Wanna Grow Up
32 Ruby The Hatchet - Planetary Space Child
33 Sheer Mag - Need To Feel Your Love
34 Ethan Daniel Davidson - Crows
35 Bully - Losing
Bully – Either Way;
Ethan Daniel Davidson – Beast;
Sheer Mag – Just Can’t Get Enough;
Ruby The Hatchet – Killer;
Warm Soda – To Be With Ramona;
King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard – Melting;
Needles//Pins – Time and Tide;
Dead Rock West – Boundless Fearless Love;
My Buddy Moose – After The Feeling Has Gone;
Elder – Thousand Hands;
Yawpers – Reunion;
The Golden Boys – So Cowboy;
Motorpsycho – The Maypole;
The Obsessed – Be The Night;
All Them Witches – Don’t Bring Me Coffe;
The Improbables – Crawl With Me;
Lost Baloons – Not My Time;
Ty Segall – Freedom;
John Wesley Coleman – Shovel;
Daniel Romano – Dancing With The Lady In The Moon;
Baby Shakes – Baby Blue.
What a year for Matthew Melton. He put out four albums, one with Warm Soda, two with Dream Machine and one new solo. His lovely Yugoslavian wife Doris got unjustly accused for fascism, Castle Face them both out of their label and then they relocated from Austin to Netherlands. And one of those Dream Machine albums is also new. We check that out in today’s show and wish them better luck with the new label. We also have new music from The Golden Boys (also from Austin) and Steelism. We also introduce The Hooten Hallers. But the biggest new album this week is the brand new one from Harlan T. Bobo. It’s called Hector, The History of Violence, and it’s perfect. At the end of this episode, we say goodbye to Johnny Hallyday who passed away last week after a long battle with colon cancer.
Bash & Pop – Saturday;
The Hooten Hallers – Garlic Dream;
The Golden Boys – Dear Work;
The Golden Boys – We Are Young;
Tall Juan – Another Juan;
Harlan T. Bobo – Drank;
Harlan T. Bobo – Nadien;
Steelism – Eno Nothing;
David Nance – A Cruel Kind of Love;
Chris Bell – I Don’t Know;
Matthew Melton – Afraid Of Myself (Without You);
Dream Machine – Lost in the Thrill;
Warm Soda – To Be with Ramona;
Shocking Blue – Hot Sand;
Tin Foil – Can’t Stay Here;
Bully – Hate And Control;
Johnny Hallyday – Mal (Hush);
Johnny Hallyday – A Tout Casser.
Warm Soda are lead by Matthew Melton from Austin TX. Symbolic Dream is their third album already, although somehow I missed the previous two records. That shouldn’t be too surprising, after the initial local success with Someone For You in 2012, the second album Young Reckless Hearts did not sound the way Melton really wanted, so it received an abysmal support. This year, Warm Soda returned with Symbolic Dream and certainly won my heart with an incredibly catchy collection of 12 songs engraved into a 12″ 45 RPM vinyl clocking barely over the 26 minute time mark.
Well, sometime less is more if it’s self contained and if it’s a finished statement. Symbolic Dream is even more than that. It’s not easy to find a more consistent and more fun album in the entire history of bubble gum rock. What’s nice about a short record, it’ll make you want to come back for more, so hitting that reply button, or putting the needle back to Side A with this album makes a great pleasure.
Podcasting from Cleveland, Ohio. Broadcasting on Radio Kragujevac, every Sunday from 4-5pm (Central European Time). Streaming on Rock XS every Thursday at Midnight (Eastern European Time).