Albums by SWRM, Zabus, Spaceface, Insomniac, Go Kurosawa, Late Again, Nate Smith and Orsak:Oslo made the cut on my list of great, overlooked psychedelic albums released in summer 2025, in my first quarterly column on the genre for Treble.
8 Great Psych LPs From Summer 2025 by SWRM, Zabus, Spaceface, Insomniac
Posted in Album Reviews, Lists, Reviews with tags Go Kurosawa, Insomniac, Late Again, Nate Smith, Orsak:Oslo, Spaceface, SWRM, Zabus on 10/02/2025 by Kurt OrzeckSong Premiere: Strawberry Alarm Clock’s ‘Monsters’
Posted in Exclusives with tags psych-rock, Strawberry Alarm Clock on 10/02/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
For all the love and attention that psych-rock is getting these days – mostly courtesy of and directed toward newish bands like King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Osees and Ty Segall – there’s still a dearth of appreciation and respect for some of the bands that established the heady, colorful sound in the first place. They include 13th Street Elevators, Love, Captain Beefheart and – perhaps more than all the rest – Strawberry Alarm Clock.
The band that formed in 1966 in Glendale, California, is perhaps best known for its prime placement in the über-cult 1970 classic movie Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, directed by sexploitation pioneer Russ Meyer and written by Roger Ebert based off a bizarre and beyond-campy story they both wrote. Strawberry Alarm Clock’s best-known song remains “Incense and Peppermints.”
Strawberry Alarm Clock has undergone lineup changes and breakups over the years but is roaring back with a new single, “Monsters.” The song sees an official release tomorrow with the B-side “White Light,” and The Bad Penny couldn’t be more proud to premiere both a day early. The record release of “Monsters” marks the first time a Strawberry Alarm Clock song has appeared on vinyl since the band’s initial stretch from 1966 to 1971.
Continue readingBlack Heart Procession’s ‘Hearts & Tanks’ EP: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags the Black Heart Procession, Three Mile Pilot on 10/01/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Although it only contains four songs, Black Heart Procession’s Hearts & Tanks EP captured the essence of the circumspect band. With drummer Joe Plummer (Modest Mouse, Cold War Kids) and accordion player Matt Resovich (The Album Leaf, Mung) in tow, Black Heart Procession crafted and recorded the four songs in 72 hours. That may seem rushed, but as writers will tell you, stream-of-consciousness exercises in which revisions are forbidden often result in works of unadorned honesty. Read my full review on Spectrum Culture.
On Tyranny: Donald Trump Is More Insane Than the Craziest Musicians Ever, From Elvis to Kanye
Posted in Essays, Features, Lists, On Tyranny, On Tyranny with tags Captain Beefheart, Daniel Johnston, Donald Trump, Elvis, GG Allin, Kanye West, Keith Moon, Lil Wayne, Roky Erickson, Syd Barrett on 10/01/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Consider the following:
1. Michael “Pras” Michel, one-third of the Fugees, was convicted in April 2023 on 10 counts related to falsifying business records. Donald Trump was convicted in May 2024 on 34 counts of falsifying business records.
2. Syd Barrett, guitarist and co-founder of Pink Floyd, allegedly took LSD every morning and locked his girlfriend in a room for three days. Donald is allegedly sending individuals who may or may not be documented U.S. citizens to gulags in El Salvador and is publicly urging Americans to not take Tylenol.
3. Keith Moon, drummer of The Who, admitted to accidentally running over his friend and bodyguard with his car. Moon, who was allegedly drunk at the time of the incident, publicly apologized for the tragedy. Donald Trump proudly and remorselessly declared that he “could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters.”
Continue readingFrom the Vault: Top 20 Reasons Why Monterey Pop Was Better Than Today’s Music Festivals
Posted in Concert Reviews, Essays, Reviews with tags Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Mayhem Festival, Monterey Pop Festival on 10/01/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
[This article was originally published in 2009 on IndiePit.]
So IndiePit will be at the Mayhem festival this weekend. Yeah, yeah, keep snickering, buster. Look, we all have guilty pleasures, and one of ours happens to be Mushroomhead, OK? Kidding, kidding … but Job for a Cowboy, Behemoth and Slayer? Not a terrible way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Sure beats mowing lawns.
Obviously, Mayhem is only one of about a gazillion festivals, hootenannies, throwdowns, hoedowns, showdowns and mow-downs (?) happening this “summer,” that wacky, wet and wild season that began oh, some 18 days ago and will last until September 22. At that point, autumn will swoop in, wrest the reins from its rival season and pulverize it into oblivion … for nine months or so, anyway.
Getting a little off-topic, are we? Oh, yes. Music. Sweet music. Since it is the summer and all, attention naturally gravitates toward festivals, those bastions of sweat-soaked sods, misplaced mods, knuckle-dragging clods, Christopher Dodds and other odds and ends.
They can be fun — if you’ve got buckets of patience, nary a phobia and an active-enough imagination to keep you distracted from all the dirt, heat, smoke and slick flesh sliding up against yours. But they can also be torturous and confining, like being helplessly strapped to a chair, at the mercy of a dentist from hell.
Continue readingBest New Music Videos (September 2025): clipping., Automatic, Pupil Slicer, Smokey Brights
Posted in Lists, Videos with tags Automatic, Big Bill, clipping., Duna Aurora, Kinneret, Monte Booker, Peter McPoland, Pupil Slicer, Smokey Brights, Today Is the Day on 09/30/2025 by Kurt OrzeckWe hear ya here at The Bad Penny: We cover too much metal, not enough metal, etc. One common denominator across all genres is that artists are capable of creating captivating, innovative, original, hilarious and harrowing music videos regardless of genre. With that in mind, here are the clips we enjoyed the most in the month of September, two thousand whatever.
1. Peter McPoland’s “Last Looks”
From the Vault: Inside The Label – Prosthetic Records
Posted in Features, Inside The Label with tags All That Remains, Beneath the Massacre, Lamb of God, Prosthetic, Scale the Summit, Skeletonwitch, The Acacia Strain on 09/30/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
As far as the music industry is concerned, the Apocalypse has arrived. All that remains of major labels is their smoldering, blackened skeletons; elsewhere, chaos reigns, with only the very fittest gritting out a way to survive.
But across this bloody battlefield, Prosthetic Records is one of the few labels standing tall. Some way, some how, metal is continuing to sell in this chilly climate: Mastodon and Killswitch Engage, for example, recently cracked the Billboard 200 top 10 with ease. Chalk it up to loyal fans, to kids who want to invest in more than just an invisible file – or maybe to knuckle-draggers who scratch their head at the word “torrent.”
Continue readingTitanic’s ‘Hagen’: Two Cent Album Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Titanic on 09/30/2025 by Kurt OrzeckTitanic wasn’t all that big when it made its debut in October 2023 with Vidrio meekly introduced the project birthed by pianist/guitarist i.la Católica. Something of a cross between a bedroom recording and a hushed session in an after-hours jazz speakeasy, the modest affair featured only three additional guest players, who contributed carefully measured amounts of vocals, cello, saxophone and drums to its eight songs. The follow-up LP, Hagen, does a far better job living up to the Titanic moniker with which Católica christened her project. Read my review on Spectrum Culture.
