The Mother Hips

One of the first lessons they teach you in film school is that you sometimes have to “kill your darlings”. It’s a term that means no matter how much you love a scene you shot; if it doesn’t fit in the film, it ends up on the cutting room floor. In 2009, The Mother Hips rescued a short stack of 2-inch analog tapes from a Los Angeles basement and started picking through hours of material, most of it recorded around the era that produced 1995’s Part Timer Goes Full and ‘96’s Shootout. They were thrilled with what they heard. In fact the band was so prolific during this period that literally dozens of top-notch songs were shelved and never saw the light of day as the group continued to spit out new material with machine gun rapidity. Now the band has compiled the cream of this lost crop into this eleven-song treasure trove titled Chronicle Man.

The Mother Hips, the center of which is the duo of Tim Bluhm (vocals/guitar) and Greg Loiacono (guitar/vocals), have spent over two decades writing, recording and performing songs, and die-hard fans who still talk about their “first Hips show,” have hung on every word and have enabled The Mother Hips to become a bona fide cottage industry. The band was even able to lay claim to a rock subgenre, “California Soul” (aptly arrived upon) so solidified that brands like Sierra Nevada Brewery crafted a beer “Hips Helles” based on the bands’ sound, not to mention, spearhead a longstanding music and arts festival, The Hipnic, (now in its sixth year) slated for May 9-11 in Big Sur.

But most of all, what comes through loud and clear is that The Hips have already left us with an incredible legacy of music, from their stunning 1993 debut Back To The Grotto to 2013’s Behind Beyond (their eighth studio album). 2011 saw a four (!) CD retrospective compilation of all previously unreleased material called Days of Sun and Grass-- a special treat to their fans for all their support over the years. And the fans aren’t alone in their admiration of the impressive catalog. The Mother Hips have garnered critical acclaim from the likes of The New Yorker, Mojo, Relix, Rolling Stone and Pitchfork, among many other outlets, over the years.

The album kicks off with the dark ramble of “Desert Song,” for years a forgotten and oftwhispered about mythic ode to sojourners of the West. Next up is “El Pancho Villa,” a one-time live show favorite that takes the early Bee Gees and rides them hard over a fuzzy, shambolic groove. “St. Andrew,” with its' historical lesson and downer country vibes, is the Hip’s feel in a nutshell. From the jackhammer hard rock of the title track to the organ-laden blues raunch of “Headache To Headache,” Chronicle Man’s reintroduction of these unearthed gems will satisfy old fans and newcomers alike. Please step up and give it some of your time and attention.

Jerry Joseph and The Jackmormons

Jerry Joseph has worn a lot of hats over more than three decades in the music trenches – righteous rocker, hyper-observant cultural observer, spiritual & political firebrand, force of nature live performer – but the bedrock of what he does has always been songwriting of the highest caliber. Joseph is a kindred tunesmith to sharp, craftsmanship minded pros like Elvis Costello, Warren Zevon and Nick Lowe, where the resoundingly sturdy bones inside their compositions shape things no matter what's draped over them. It's a dedication to fundamentals and classic singer-songwriter standards that's increasingly rare and welcome in a music environment that emphasizes texture and mood over substance. While Joseph has made acoustic albums in the past his new self-titled record (available 10/31/13 on Cosmo Sex School) is his most exposed studio effort to date, the man, his guitar and songs standing in the spotlight with an open invitation for listeners to sit at his heel as he explores some of the strongest, finest reaches of his rich catalog.

"It was hard to do," says Joseph. "It's like that dream where you're naked at school except I'm naked in a circle with my favorite songwriters. Nick Cave, Aimee Mann and Robert Wyatt are there and say, 'You play one, Jerry.' What the fuck do I play? Well, I play 'War at the End of the World,' 'Cochise' or 'Spy' and hope they don't laugh me off the stage. In the end, the point of this album is to get in that circle and show what I've got."

With clear, pleasantly immediate production from longtime collaborator Gregg Williams (Blitzen Trapper, Dandy Warhols), Jerry Joseph draws out hidden gems from his writing for Stockholm Syndrome, The Denmark Veseys and earlier overlooked solo releases to explore the soul floating inside his work. It's an intimate, passionately delivered, patiently rendered portrait of a serious songsmith laid bare akin to Chris Whitley's Weeds, Joni Mitchell's Blue, Michael Hedges' Watching My Life Go By, Tim Bluhm's California Way, and Patty Griffin's Living With Ghosts. It's an album that sighs and laughs in real time, the emotional core lifted to the surface, the truths inside the songs as shiningly visible as their creator in this special setting.

"We recorded about 30 songs chosen carefully from the whole catalogue though consciously less from more recent records," says Joseph. "What ended up on this album represent, to me, pretty good songwriting presented in a super intimate, completely unaffected way. We tried for perfect takes early on and figured out quickly that we just needed to let the tape roll and let each performance be as honest as possible."

"They're not my children, but I feel like I owe it to the songs to explore possibilities and reflect on them in a different light," says Joseph. "With this record we wanted to leave every verse in, let the songs breathe a bit like early Dylan albums – clean, recorded with really good mics, versions that mean something."

Joseph first came to prominence in the mid-1980s with still-beloved cult band Little Women, a reggae-rock proto-jam band that dominated the Rocky Mountain club scene for nearly a decade, and notably helped break jam giants Widespread Panic, who looked up to Joseph and opened for his band before rising to prominence. To this day, many of Panic's favorite concert staples were written by Jerry Joseph, including such blazing epics as "North," "Chainsaw City" and "Climb to Safety." Today, Joseph neatly describes Little Women as "a mash-up of Burning Spear and the Grateful Dead dressed up like the New York Dolls."