L7

Bricks Are Heavy was the third album by L7 originally released in 1992. Produced by Butch Vig Bricks Are Heavy is somewhat poppier with more focused songwriting than their previous LP's and was the bands breakthrough album fueled by the success of the single Pretend We're Dead. L7 was often associated with the then raging Grunge movement (even though they were from L.A.) and it's not hard to see why as the album features abrasive, sledgehammer guitar riffs and plenty of heavy rockers with the songs Wargasm, Slide, and Everglade. The group emphasized their feminist and Riot Grrrl side with This Ain't Pleasure and Diet Pill. First domestic release on vinyl for this early 90s alternative classic.

Step back into our little rock and roll time machine.... don't worry, we're not going TOO far back, let's say how about 25 years? To a time when a younger Kepi Ghoulie rounded up a bunch of guys named John (yes, John Vetter on bass, John Rudgers on guitar, John Sosa on drums) and drove from L.A. to Sacramento to record his FIRST FULL LENGTH recording as the GROOVIE GHOULIES! (recorded by a guy named John, no less!) Recorded in two days (yes TWO DAYS, all musical tracks were laid down on a Saturday, vocals and mixing on Sunday), the band rehearsed and recorded the entire album in the sequence that you hear it on the record, to save time and money and be as prepared as they could! Listen closely and you will hear anywhere from two to five songs connect musically without any interruption whatsoever! A crash course in 80's rock, punk, garage, and underground/indie pop, Appetite For Adrenochrome reflects the urgency of a bunch of young bucks trying to get their message out, and also is a fun little time capsule of the mad, mish-mash of music that was going on in Los Angeles at the time, with bands like Redd Kross, Haunted Garage, Celebrity Skin, and up-and-comers L7 and GWAR... The Groovie Ghoulies played showsand found camaraderie in these like minded, go-all-out, fellow rock bands. This era also found them playing great events, like a Herschell Gordon Lewis (2,000 Maniacs) film fest/lecture, years before Rob Zombie and the Ramones started hosting events in the Hollywood Forever cemetery. The Groovie Ghoulies have always been a bit of Hollywood Outsiders, never quite fitting in to certain genres and pigeon-shaped holes, and with Appetite For Adrenochrome, you can kind of see the evolution of little Kepi taking his home made drum machine recordings out of the basement and to the streets with the first semi-solid, fully electric line up of a musical legacy that lasts until this day! Enjoy!

The dream-rock band Belly blazed a bright trail in the '90s, releasing two albums full of taut, yet wondrous music that was memorable for its rumbling bass lines and insistent drumming as it was for its glittering riffs and airy vocals. Their new album Dove, which was recorded with friend of the band Paul Q. Kolderie, places Belly back on that trail, bridging the gaps between reverbed-out bliss and spaghetti-western drone and muscular, hook-forward pop.

Belly came together in 1991, when vocalist-guitarist Tanya Donelly (Throwing Muses, The Breeders) began playing with brothers (and fellow Rhode Islanders) Tom (guitar) and Chris (drums) Gorman, as well as bassist Fred Abong. He left before the band's 1993 debut Star came out, and Gail Greenwood, then playing around Providence, joined. Star was a hit with critics and listeners alike, spawning the alt-radio and MTV staple "Feed the Tree." The band toured extensively behind the gold-certified album, touring with the likes of Radiohead, the Cranberries, and Pavement and playing a show at the Hippodrome in Paris where they opened for U2 and the Velvet Underground.

Belly opened 1994 with two Grammy nominations, scoring nods for Best Alternative Music Album and Best New Artist at that year's edition of the awards. That summer, the band began work on King, their harder-edged second album. Belly toured behind that 1995 release extensively, opening for R.E.M. in Europe and bringing along Catherine Wheel and Superchunk for the American tour; their last gig was in November 1995, and the band officially dissolved in 1996.

Since then, Belly's members kept busy, with Donelly releasing a string of hailed solo albums and touring with Throwing Muses, Greenwood performing with brash rockers L7 and revved-up punker Bif Naked, and Tom Gorman performing with fellow New England alt-rockers Buffalo Tom and Donelly's Throwing Muses partner Kristin Hersh before launching a photography business in New York with his brother. They had occasionally broached the topic of getting back together in individual settings; Greenwood and Tom Gorman separately collaborated with Donelly on her Swan Song Series omnibus.

The idea of a Belly reunion, though, gained serious traction a few years ago. "We had just gotten to the point where we were just missing each other, and missing the music," says Donelly. "The music I've been doing in the past several years has been very collaborative, which made me kind of homesick for Belly; I missed that sense of having a band."

Early rehearsals showed that Belly was still very much a unit, the years falling away as the quartet went to work on older material. "We immediately fell back into our original relationship and musical dynamics," says Donelly. "Just a lot of laughing-it felt like a real reunion in the best and truest sense from the first practice on. We had a bit of trepidation: 'Is this going to work?' But the first practice really set all our anxiety to rest."

Eventually, though, the band's members, who had collaborated sporadically in the interim, got the itch to bring new songs into their set as a curveball for listeners-and for themselves, too. "You almost want to put yourself in the deep end," says Chris Gorman. "That just seems to be the inclination for creative people-you never just want to feel comfortable. You're always going, 'Well, what's the part of the night that's really going to make me really, really nervous and freaked out?' And that usually is, 'Let's try a new song.' When it works, that's the most the rewarding moment in the night."

Belly previewed some of their new songs, including the prowling "Army of Clay" and the folk-tinged "Human Child," at their early reunion dates to effusive audiences. "The crowds have been amazing," says Donelly. "We've never really operated on a level before where live shows feel genuinely communal. We got such great feedback on the new stuff-people were just as enthusiastic about it," Donelly recalls. That handful of tracks blossomed into Dove, a dozen songs that nod to past glories while also showcasing the four members' growth as songwriters and musicians, adding dramatic flourishes like strings and vibed-out guitars to the group's already widescreen sound.

Belly recorded most of the rhythm tracks for Dove at Stable Sound Studios in Portsmouth, RI, vocals at Greenwood's home studio, and guitars and overdubs in Tom's and Tanya's home studios. The songs spun out of a new songwriting system that was necessitated by the four members' far-flung hometowns. "It required a lot of trust," says Donelly, "because we were sending raw snippets to each other-anything from 30-second pieces to full songs. Tom and Gail and I would send demos back and forth, and then Chris would add drums to whatever snippets he'd heard, and Tom would sew everything together. It would sometimes be a very circuitous route to a song, but it was really fun."

"All three of the songwriters were locked in and working in a way that complemented the others' strengths," says Chris Gorman. "Gail's writing was in top form. Tanya is able to make anybody's song her own-she's got that gift. And Tom has really honed his arrangement and production style."

The shimmering, expansive "Shiny One," which pairs dreamy vocal harmonies with urgent riffing and dramatic string flourishes, is one of the best examples of Belly's new process. "I have a lot of affection for that one," says Donelly. "It was the first completely collaborative song we've ever done-Gail wrote the riff and the chorus, Tom and I wrote the verse and bridge, Chris's parts shaped the direction and vibe. When I hear it, I hear all four of us equally."

While Dove's flight was aided by previews of some new tracks during the band's reunion tour, the band is excited to release the album in full, and to show it off to audiences around the world. "We're all looking forward to presenting these songs in a live setting, and having the opportunity to play together again," says Chris Gorman. "We should be in for a really exciting year."

*Please note that release dates are subject to change.

As for differences between Dead Revolution and its predecessor 17th Street, Cobbett says it's more varied, using different tones. The mainman also thinks it's a darker and heavier effort. If trends and opinions are anything to go by, it would appear Hammers of Misfortune are sliding slowly into, well, darker and heavier territory. 17th Street, by comparison, was fiercer than Fields / Church of Broken Glass. Likewise, Dead Revolution eats its forebear 17th Street for proverbial breakfast. To wit, there's no power ballad ("Summer Tears") on Hammers of Misfortune's newest.

It's a tough call which is the bigger
cult classic, the Tank Girl movie
or its accompanying soundtrack,
but on balance, we'd have to go
for the soundtrack. Yeah, the film
had a cast composed of some of
the most colorful characters (Iggy
Pop, Ann Magnuson) and character
actors (Malcolm McDowell, Ice-T,
and of course the almighty Lori
Petty!) in show biz. And, its
dystopic, resource-starved desert setting, intense action sequences,
and lead female character mark it as a feminist (albeit funnier)
precursor to Mad Max: Fury Road.

But check out the soundtrack's
bona-fides: assembled by Courtney Love herself, it features a Who's
Who of '90s female rock including Hole, Björk, L7, Veruca Salt, and
Belly among others. Plus, it even has tracks that were exclusive to its
release, like a unique version of Devo's "Girl U Want," "Mockingbird
Girl" by The Magnificent Bastards (a side project of the late Scott
Weiland of Stone Temple Pilots), and a duet of "Let's Do It, Let's Fall
in Love" between Joan Jett and The Replacements' Paul Westerberg.
There's one more thing, though, that elevates this particular release
from the mere cultish curio to gotta-have-it collectible: because it
came out in 1995, the Tank Girl soundtrack NEVER came out on LP!

Yup this marks the
first-ever release
of Tank Girl on
vinyl, and if there
ever was a score
that needs to be
on wax, this would
be it. We've done
it right, too, with
a gatefold jacket
featuring the
trademark comic
book art and stills
from the film, and
an aqua blue vinyl
pressing limited to
1000 copies!