One of my favorite bands this weekend and from an earlier incarnation. Mazzy Star, although probably not a household name with a lot of people, is nonetheless one of the more influential bands to come along in some time. With the other-worldly voice of Hope Sandoval, Mazzy Star have maintained an avid fan base for quite a while. Although not officially broken up, but in various states of hiatus, allowing Sandoval to loan her ethereal talents to the likes of Massive Attack, Mazzy Star are rumored to have reconvened and are slated to tour sometime next year. Nothing firm and no confirmations, but wonderful news if that's true.

But in the meantime, here is a concert Mazzy Star did in Chicago, recorded on December 11, 1994.

In lieu of actually catching them live, this is the next best thing and hopefully will cause you to eye tickets when the time comes next year. Should be a great concert, just like this one.

Enjoy.

Just finishing up a tour of Europe and getting ready to head to Los Angeles to start up a West Coast tour on December 2nd, Other Lives is not having a bad year by any stretch of the imagination. Having gone down extremely well with audiences in the UK, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium and France (where this weekend's recording comes from), they are gearing up to be the opening act for Radiohead when their tour starts up in March of next year. Life is very good.

If you're on the West Coast you'll get a chance to catch them starting in December. But while you're waiting, here is an in-studio concert they did for the always amazing French Radio Channel Le Mouv from November 3rd (a few days ago).

Great concert, enthusiastic audience, wonderful mix - and as always - great band.

Enjoy the weekend.

Update: Ending up the first week of our emergency drive still halfway there. Absolutely grateful beyond description for the donations in the past few hours. You got us to the 50% mark, and that's a hopeful sign. I know it's a pain, hearing about this with every post, but I can't stress how much I need your help. At it stands, there is a very good chance of losing the Archive, which will mean all the recordings you've been hearing and would hear will be gone. When that happens there's no point in continuing with Newstalgia, as the whole reason for having this website was to make those recordings available to you, for free, for learning, for broadening your horizons. If you feel that's worth a buck or two (or as much as you can), please consider making a donation in order to keep this site up and keep the archives a vital source of history at your disposal. We can do it - I swear we can.

Keeping going with our spotlight on the homegrown; tonight it's The Pixies and a session they recorded for John Peel at the BBC Maida Vale Studios in 1988.

Here's the rundown from that session, recorded on October 9, 1988:

1. Dead
2. There goes My Gun
3. Manta Ray

And it officially starts the weekend!

As long as we're in a Singer-Songwriter vein this week, I thought I would toss some PJ Harvey into the mix. Harvey hasn't captured the mainstream market, and its doubtful she ever will. Her material is too unflinching and visceral to be neatly tied into a convenient package. And that's a good thing, because she's been influential to a number of up-and-comers in recent years who have borrowed liberally from her in many different ways. But PJ Harvey is an original, and however you feel about her, you don't feel ambivalence.

Tonight it's a session she recorded for John Peel at The BBC on November 10, 2000.

Here's the track lineup:

1. This Wicked Tongue
2. Somebody's Down, Somebody's Name
3. Beautiful Feeling
4. Nickel Under The Foot.

Music that screams "Don't Blend In." So don't.

In case Anti-Road Rage Wednesday isn't quite up your street tonight, and the charming-soothing sounds of Chabrier just aren't you - here's a taste of the 80's tonight, by way of Siouxsie & The Banshees from 1983.

Their version of the Lennon-McCartney classic, Dear Prudence.

You can play it loud. Honest.

I don't think many people remember this band, or ever heard them before, especially in the States where I don't think any of their material was released. Blow Up were part of that flood of bands to come out of the UK Indie/Alternative genre and probably, like a lot of them, got lost in the shuffle somewhere.

Blow Up were together from 1986 until their demise in 1991. Between that time they released six singles/ep's and three albums.

Tonight it's their last single, World, which came out in 1991.

Not a particularly immortal song, but a good song. One that deserved some recognition the first time around.

Well, there's always discovering them the second time around.

One of my favorites this week. The Flaming Lips, recorded in session at The BBC for the John Peel Program on October 13, 1992.

As one of the truly pioneering Experimental/Alternative bands to come out of the U.S. in the 90's, Flaming Lips have, fortunately, never really been embraced by the mainstream. Thank God.

And probably for that reason their music has maintained a vitality and freshness in the 20+ years they've been together. As is evidenced by this session, recorded 20 years ago.

There are bands you know will be discovered for years and decades to come, and their music will be played and wondered about and examined and dissected for its sheer uniqueness and unbending point of view. The Flaming Lips are one of those bands. I predict. You heard it here first. Check back here in fifty years and see if I was right.

But for now - here's the lineup:

The Flaming Lips - BBC John Peel Session - October 13, 1992

1. Hit Me Like You Did The First Time
2. Jets Pt. 2 (My 2 Days As An Ambulance Driver)
3. The Sun
4. Life On Mars

One of the bands very much on the ground floor of the Madchester movement in the late '80's/early 90's was The Charlatans (or known as Charlatans UK over here due to something contractual).

Tonight it's a session they recorded for the John Peel Program at The BBC on March 20, 1990.

Here's what they play:

1.Then
2.Always In Mind
3.You Can Talk To Me
4.Polar Bear

LINE UP
Tim Burgess (Vocals)
Rob Collins (Organ)
Jon Day (Bass)
Jonathan Brookes (Drums)
John Day (Guitar)

Luckily, they are still around (but with personnel changes), still recording and touring. Still fresh as ever.

I haven't really hard much about Echo & The Bunnymen lately, even though the band has stayed together (with numerous personnel changes) the better part of 30 years. Founding member Ian McCulloch has consistently stayed with the band. I remember hearing them in the early 80's when the music scene shifted into Post-Punk before splintering into Alternative, Indie, New Wave, New Romantic and on and on and on. Echo & The Bunnymen were one of the first to dive into the new genre, and in doing so influenced a number of bands who came on the scene after them.

It wasn't until the mid-80's that Echo & The Bunnymen gathered momentum in the mainstream. Prior to that they had good press and word-of-mouth status and they were much better known in their native UK than they were here. But they persisted and did quite well before hitting some snags and dissolving, and eventually resurfacing with new personnel and some direction changes.

Tonight it's a session they recorded in 1980, their 3rd for the John Peel Program at The BBC, on November 4, 1980.

Here's what they play.

1. It's Heaven Up Here
2. That Golden Smile
3. Turquoise Days
4. All My Colours Turn To Cloud

Kicking off the weekend with a revisit to the 80's.

Another stumbled-upon discovery via Soundcloud. Real Estate are from New Jersey and are practitioners of a delightful blend of post-surf/post-punk/Indie/Alternative/Psych and they do it really well.

Tonights track is Beach Comber and it comes from 2009, just before the band underwent personnel changes.

It's a simple, non-hysterical, highly evocative tune that got repeated plays from me when I first heard it.

Dead of Winter - only seems fitting to run something with a quasi-Surf motif to it, right?

It may not apply to L.A. but I'm sure it scores points on the East Coast right about now.