THE VOICE OF ROCK 

2016 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductee. Vocalist / bass guitarist / songwriter, Glenn Hughes, is a true original. No other rock musician has carved such a distinctive style.

Redd Kross have always been too good, too perfect, too true, to believe. Mythic. Could this tuneful hardcore punk EP really be the work of a brother band with the 15-year-old on vocals and guitar and the 11-year-old on bass? Did Redd Kross really open for Black Flag? Could Jeff and Steve really have been born and raised in the Beach Boys’ hometown of Hawthorne, California, and did Jeff really see the Beatles live in 1966? Did one of them, dressed in Gene Simmons makeup, really kill a Bruce Springsteen impersonator onstage? Is that really their hair? Could Researching the Blues, their first studio album in 15 years, be not just the hottest thing since Cher went solo but the best start-to-finish Redd Kross record ever?

Somehow, the answer to all the above is improbably, wonderfully, beautifully YES. Long have Redd Kross rocked, and long have critics, devoted fans, Rodney Bingenheimer and fellow musicians from Seattle (Nirvana) to New York (Sonic Youth) to Driftwood, Texas (Butthole Surfers) to Hollywood (everybody) bowed before the Kross and their self-aware pre-spandex Glam bubblegum garage psychedelic Cheap Trick/Kiss/Revolver post-Kim Fowley rock and roll. Degenerate, sweet: tongues in cheek, song-long winks.

Commercial success may never have been theirs (if time and space had been aligned correctly, they’d have been blitzing ballrooms in the early ’70s instead of opening for Stone Temple Pilots in the early ’90s), but Redd Kross have endured and endeared because they’ve always had the best possible attitude: smarts, smiles, and total commitment to live hair-spinning showmanship.

Like fellow legendary Great American John Waters, they’ve devoted their career to making subversive entertainment in a high pop celebrity style, reintroducing in their especially golden late ’80s/early-’90s period such forbidden classic-rock tropes as melodies, harmonies, ripping musicianship, and primary colors-stuff that had (largely) been ditched in the underground rock’s post-punk, No Wave, hardcore, and sensitive-egghead scenes. Redd Kross then spent the ’90s making one great misunderstood record after another until enough shit had caked the fan that in 1997 they pretty much called it quits.

But you never quit being brothers. And so here’s the next Redd Kross album-produced and mixed by younger brother Steve earlier this year after it was mostly written by older brother Jeff in 2007-08, and recorded in that same period with the band’s current lineup, who’ve re-engaged in live performance since being lured back into action by an excitable Spanish promoter.

They’re too nice to say so themselves, but attention must be paid to this band, to this great album, Researching the Blues, which, like a pair of great pants, is tight and the perfect length. By the time you’re two minutes and 51 seconds into the second song, “Stay Away From Downtown,” and the band is breaking into the sha-la-las, you will be running around the room with your hands in the air. As the fourth song, the Brian Wilsonian “Dracula’s Daughters,” ends and the dynamic mid-’60s Beatles jingle “Meet Frankenstein” launches into its first chorus, you will be mass-texting all of your friends with the good news. By the final four songs-”The Nu Temptations” (Stooges-worthy riffs! Cowsills counter-harmonies! And more!), the “Surrender”/Noel ‘n’ Liam rockers “Choose to Play” and “Winter Blues,” and the stunning summer psychedelic power pop that is the closing “Hazel Eyes”-you will know the truth. You tried the rest-but now you’ve had the best. The McDonalds were educated at Rock ‘n’ Roll High, and they’ve stayed true to their school. Here’s to their beautiful reunion! Redd Kross Forever!

 Living Colour is an American rock band from New York City, formed in 1984. Led by guitarist Vernon Reid, the band's lineup solidified in the mid-80's w/ Corey Glover (vocals), Will Calhoun (drums) and Muzz Skillings (bass). Stylistically, the band's music is a creative fusion influenced by free jazz, funk, hard rock and heavy metal. Their lyrics range from the personal to the political, in some of the latter cases attacking Eurocentrism and racism in America.

The band’s debut album, “Vivid,” was released in 1988 on Epic Records. The album reached #6 on the Billboard 200 Albums chart and was later certified double platinum by the RIAA. It featured “Cult of Personality,” a #13 hit on the Billboard 200 Singles chart as well as the Top 40 hit, “Glamour Boys.” “Cult of Personality” went on to earn the band their first Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance.

In 1990 the band's second full-length album, “Time's Up,” was released and reached #13 on the Billboard 200 while certifying gold. It won a Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Album and featured guest appearances by Queen Latifah, Little Richard, Doug E. Fresh, Maceo Parker and James Earl Jones.

Due to creative differences, Skillings left the band in the summer of 1992, only to be replaced by session veteran and SugarHill Gang bass player Doug Wimbish.

“Stain,” their third studio album, was released in 1993 by Epic. Reaching #26 on the Billboard 200, the album had a much heavier and aggressive sound, containing elements of thrash metal and industrial music while receiving a Grammy nomination for 'Leave It Alone'.

After a split in 1995, Living Colour returned in the Dec 2000 and began recording “Collideøscope” in late 2002. Released in 2003, the album featured aggressive lyrics, with many of the songs about the September 11 attacks. It also contained cover versions of AC/DC's “Back in Black” and The Beatles' “Tomorrow Never Knows.”

Their first release on Megaforce Records, “The Chair in the Doorway,” was issued in 2009 and reached #159 on the Billboard 200 charged by the single 'Behind The Sun'

In 2013, the band celebrated the 25th anniversary of 'Vivid' w/ a world tour crossing North and South Americas, Europe, and Japan including the Soundwave festival in Australia.

The root of Living Colour's next album, came from a performance of Robert Johnson's "Preachin' Blues" at the 100th Anniversary Birthday celebration at the Apollo in New York City. To be released in the fall of 2016, ‘Shade’ is the sound of a band coming to terms with its shadows and light,” says founder Vernon Reid. “From the blue pulpit of Robert Johnson to the mean red streets of Brooklyn to the golden lure of Hollywood, ‘Shade’ is the next chapter of a unique American journey.”

Welcome to the Covered Records SoundCloud page!

Formed in 2007, Dinosaur Pile-Up are an English alternative rock band who broke out of the thriving Leeds rock scene of the time and instantly drew favourable comparisons to the cream of 90s US college rock. Founded originally as a solo project by songwriter and frontman Matt Bigland, the line up is completed by drummer Mike Sheils and bassist Jim Cratchley. Named after Matt saw the scene in Peter Jackson’s remake of King Kong where a stampede of dinosaurs pile up at the foot of a mountain, “DPU” put out their first official release, The Most Powerful E.P In The Universe, in 2009 and have gone on to record two studio albums, 2010’s Growing Pains and 2013’s Nature Nurture. 

The project was initially a handful of demos that Bigland had recorded on an 8-track recorder in his basement and at Leeds' Brudenell Social Club, performing and recording the drums, guitars, bass and vocals himself. These demos were hosted on a Myspace profile named 'Dinosaur Pile-Up' and quickly gained interest from the local scene and soon the UK music press. Due to offers for shows Bigland enlisted the help of friends in a 'revolving door' policy and began touring in late 2007. Since then DPU have toured extensively through the UK, Europe and the USA supporting acts such as Pixies, Cage The Elephant, Feeder, Twin Atlantic, You Me At Six and Middle Class Rut. In 2010 Mike Sheils officially joined DPU on drums, after meeting Matt on tour and famously bonding over Weezer's blue album. In late 2013 long standing friend Jim Cratchley officially joined DPU on bass after his previous band Tribes disbanded.

Speaking of the band’s first EP, which was initially recorded as an experiment, Bigland said "I wanted to go into a studio and see if I could record something that actually sounded like an album, and not just some sh**ty 8-track demo's I'd recorded in my basement. I knew how I worked best and what I wanted to create, but I didn't know if I was competent enough to record an entire album, so I used recording the E.P as kind of an experiment and didn't take it too seriously, thus the stupid name." Upon successful recording and release of the 'Most Powerful E.P...' recorded with local Leeds producer James Kenosha, Bigland went in to the studio again to record DPU's debut full length album "Growing Pains", again performing all instruments and vocals himself and again produced by James Kenosha. Growing Pains was recorded over a period of a month and a half and upon its release in October 2010 received widespread critical acclaim and radio support including UK Radio 1 taste maker Zane Lowe who has continued to support the band ever since. Between 2011 and 2013 DPU toured extensively in the UK and Europe, taking in many festivals including Leeds and Reading Festival, Oxygen Festival and T In The Park. After two years solid touring Bigland went in to studio again, this time with producers Ian Davenport and Tom Dalgety to record DPU's second full length album. Again Bigland recorded all the instruments himself split between Rockfield Studios in Wales and Courtyard Studios in Oxford. The album took two months to record but what he emerged with was one of the brightest, most bruising rock records of 2013 “Nature Nurture” which was described by Zane Lowe on its release as “Nature, nurture, two of the greatest words in existence, now neatly compacted together for an album that could be one of the greatest albums ever in existence”.

Nature Nurture proved to be the band’s first inroad into the American market where their sound proved to be a perfect fit for US radio on its release in early 2014, leading to several tours including their biggest to date supporting Brand New.  With the album set to be released in Japan and the Far-East in 2014, world domination is still on the cards.


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