The Fabulous Thunderbirds may have celebrated their 50th anniversary last year, but the concert footage that makes up Live in Houston—shot in 2006, shortly after they marked their 40th—is proof that sometimes, time is meaningless.

It was indeed way back in 1974 that vocalist/harmonica player Kim Wilson and guitarist Jimmie Vaughan (brother of Stevie Ray Vaughan) formed the Fabulous Thunderbirds.

They focused on the blues in those days but swiftly broadened their outlook, embracing Cajun, soul, Americana, rock, and more. And in doing so, the Fabulous Thunderbirds long ago established themselves as one of the most visionary and exciting bands around.

The lineup has shifted a lot over the years, with Wilson the only constant. But the Thunderbirds’ approach remains as potent as ever—a status confirmed by the battery of awards Wilson has won, including the Contemporary Male Blues Artist award at the annual Blues Music Awards in 2006.

Wilson summed up his approach in a 2019 interview with BluesBlast.com:
"What I love about Chicago blues, and the records from labels like Duke and Peacock, is how dark most of them were. I’m not here to be telling jokes. I want the mood to be dark. Of course, depending on how you play it, the music can have a sense of humor. But what always attracted me to the music is that it was fucking heavy!"

Live in Houston is certainly that. Reissuing what is already regarded as one of the key Thunderbirds live documents—with famed blues guitarist Kirk Fletcher laying down his signature leads—it’s an energetic romp through some of the Fabulous Thunderbirds' most crucial cuts, rendered even more powerful by the painstaking up-rezzing in preparation for the performance’s first-ever appearance in Blu-ray format.

The result is breathtaking, capturing Kim and company in all their glory as they rip through a smokin’ live set—one that includes their biggest hits as well.

DIGITAL: https://orcd.co/thefabulousthunderbirds_liveinhouston
CD/DVD/BR/VINYL: https://cleorecs.com/search?q=fabulous+thunderbirds

With the Dead Boys’ first all-new album in over 40 years drawing closer every day, Cleopatra Records continue preparing for its release with the latest in a series of deep dives inside the Cleveland punks’ archive… the night that the Dead Boys became, for one show only, the Dead Dolls.
 
With regular drummer Johnny Blitz hospitalized following a murderous street attack, and in desperate need of funds for his medical costs, guitarist Cheetah Chrome conceived a benefit show at the band’s regular hang-out, CBGBs.
 
Swiftly, one concert became a full weekend, as the great and good of the New York punk scene turned out to perform. Blondie, Suicide, the Ramones, the Dictators, Sic Fucks, the Erasers, James Chance and the Contortions, the Student Teachers, the Fleshtones, the Mumps, Helen Robbins, Shrapnel, the Dots, the Rudies, the Senders and Divine and the Neon Women all stepped forward.
 
Even more excitingly, Blitz’s place at the drum kit was filled not only by New York Doll Jerry Nolan, but also Saturday Night Live regular John Belushi, a long time friend of the band’s.
 
“He was really concerned about Blitz,” recalls Cheetah.  “In fact. the doctor who worked on Blitz was one of Belushi’s.”  He was also, the guitarist continues, “into really good meat and potatoes, like a blues drummer.  He was high on the blues from Chicago. He had a studio in his basement, with a full kit set up. We used to go down there and bang around.
 
“He could hold a beat very well, he was very straightforward. For a blues drummer, he was good.”
 
The Dead Boys’ set tonight was split almost equally between their own material and, in tribute to Nolan’s past, the Dolls’.
 
“Me and Blitz grew up on the Dolls,” says Cheetah. “We played a lot of Dolls music while we were fucking around at rehearsals, and the Dead Boys did as well, just jamming on them.
 
“It was a labor of love.  We were rehearsing with Jerry the week before the show, and I remember I was really looking forward to doing the Dolls stuff.”
 
Even Dolls vocalist David Johansen’s love of the harmonica did not prove an obstacle. Dead Boys frontman Stiv Bators, says Cheetah, could already sing anything. It turned out he could play anything as well, or at least make it look that way.
 
“He would do the harmonica parts with his hands. Like on ‘Pills,’ he didn’t have a harmonica to play.  He’d just put his hands up to his mouth and make the noise, and it sounded just like the real thing.”
 
Night of the Living Dead Boys is released on both CD and green and black spattered vinyl.
 
Track listing
1. Looking For A Kiss
2. Bad Girl
3. Tell Me
4. All This And More
5. Trash
6. Calling On You
7. Pills
8. I Need Lunch
9. (There's Gonna Be a) Showdown
10. Sonic Reducer
11. Hey Little Girl
12. Hard Headed Woman
13. It's All Over Now
 
CD/VINYL: https://cleorecs.com/search?q=dead+boys+night+of+the+living+dead+dolls
DIGITAL: https://orcd.co/d1jp6a4
 
Night of the Living Dead Boys is the sixth installment of Cleopatra’s Dead Boys archive collection, following on from the out-takes and live Ignorance In Action (The Rarities), the 1977 concert recording  Live in San Francisco, the Halloween 1986 reunion show Return of the Living Dead Boys, the out-takes collection Younger, Louder And Snottyer and the lost sessions collection Third Generation Nation.

Legendary hard rock guitarist Pat Travers’ acclaimed series of archive live performances has already served up some exhilarating performances. But the latest, Statesboro Blues (Live In Baltimore 1982), is sure to be ranked among the greatest yet, and while we await its April 4 release, the title track peels off as a thrilling new single.
 
Of course Blind Willie McTell blues was long ago proclaimed a classic, with the Allman Brothers having already granted it an incendiary work-up at the dawn of the 70s. It was Travers, however, who made the song his own, and this version illustrates why.
 
SINGLE: https://orcd.co/pattravers_statesboroblues
 
Musically, Travers was truly in his prime.  “I’d added some people to my live band and recording band,” he explains.  “I had a keyboard player and another guy who sang backing vocals so I had a five piece band behind me.  
 
“I was trying to do something a little more sophisticated,” he continues with a laugh, and his then-latest album, Black Pearl, bore that out.  “For me, that was one of my best records with the playing and the production.”  Its opening number, “I La La La Love You” (included here, of course) was a smash even before it was included in the cult movie Valley Girl.
 
By the time this show was recorded, in Baltimore just three weeks before Christmas, Travers and the band had been on the road for most of the year, a back-breaking outing that had long since been aptly nicknamed The Steelworkers Ball.
 
Tonight, however, the line-up welcomed a very special guest as Buck Dharma, guitarist for the Blue Oyster Cult, took the stage first to introduce the band (“some good friends of mine and the Blue Oyster Cult’s”), and then for the final song, an epic take on Cream’s “Sunshine Of Your Love.”  “It was a great version,” muses Travers, but it was also no more than the natural culmination to a show that still blazes in the mind, from the moment the band strikes up the tempest that was their interpretation of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.
 
Black Pearl dominates the set, naturally, but there was plenty of room for the oldies, too - “Life in London,” written and recorded while Travers was living in that city during 1976-1977, and capturing both the mood and the madness of the city as it braced itself for the incoming punk scene; “Snortin’ Whiskey, Drinkin’ Cocaine,” another Travers great that would one day make the movies (Alexander Payne’s 2004 classic Sideways); Little Walter’s blues leviathan “Boom Boom, Out Goes The Lights”; and all leading up to that stunning multi-guitar layered climax.
 
Travers himself is thrilled that this show is finally seeing the light of day. “I had nothing to do with the recording, but I’m glad they did it, as it captures a very interesting time.
 
“It sounds live,” he says. It may be a little rough compared to some of the over-produced and much over dubbed live albums that are out there, but “I’ve found that people often prefer a rougher sounding live mix, even if they don’t know it.  They’re not conscious of it, ‘this one’s too high fidelity’, but when it’s a little trashy, it has more energy and sounds more urgent.  
 
“Rock’n’roll is not supposed to be clean and slick live. It’s got to have an edginess to it, and not be too predictable. There should always be surprises. Especially unintentional ones.”
 
CD/VINYL: https://cleorecs.com/search?q=pat+travers+baltimore
DIGITAL: https://orcd.co/pattravers_liveinbaltimore1982

Cleopatra Records celebrates Record Store Day, April 12, with one of the most anticipated releases in Todd Rundgren’s catalog, a 2 LP live album recorded on the maestro’s 2008 Arena tour.

Titled from his most recent studio album, the tour caught Rundgren accompanied by his usual A-list band of musical wizards, and a track listing that swung between a host of favorites from solo albums past.
 
These include a rare airing for the 1972 single “Couldn’t I Just Tell You,” “Love In Action” (from 1978’s Back To The Bars), “Just One Victory” from the seminal A Wizard, A True Star (1973), the monster hit “I Saw The Light” and more.

Alongside these, the album also includes a mammoth recounting of Arena itself. Eleven of the album’s 13 tracks are included, in a solid swathe that picks up at the end of side one, and lasts deep into side four.
 
Pressed on black/white split vinyl and packaged with informative liner notes by Rundgren biographer Paul Myers, The Arena Tour Live is limited to just 1,000 copies worldwide.

Track List:

LP1 SIDE A
1. Love In Action
2. Black Maria
3. Open My Eyes
4. I Saw The Light
5. Mad
 
LP1 SIDE B
1. Afraid
2. Courage
3. Weakness
4. Pissin
 
LP2 SIDE A
1. Strike
2. Today
3. Bardo
4. Mountaintop
 
LP2 SIDE B
1. Panic
2. Manup
3. Just One Victory
4. Couldn't I Just Tell You

“No Elvis, Beatles or the Rolling Stones,” sang The Clash in 1977 - but that was a long, long time ago. Today, at least two of those names are even bigger than they were back then, and the punks have thoroughly changed their tune.

Last year brought Punk Me Up, a star-studded punk tribute to the Rolling Stones (and the successor to perhaps an even more audacious offering, a punk tribute to Pink Floyd that utterly brutalized the sentiments behind Johnny Rotten’s most famous T-shirt).

Now comes Anarchy on Abbey Road, a 15 track collection that sees another spiky-haired army of punkoid heroes and veterans fold their fists around the Fab Four’s favorite ditties, and breathe a whole new wave of energy into songs we’ve spent our entire lives hearing.

“Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?” demand Peter & The Test Tube Babies, one of the most entertaining of all the bands that flourished in the fury of punk rock’s Oi! diversion.  “I’m Down,” lament Eddie and the Hot Rods - a band that is celebrating its 50th anniversary around now, but still blazes as brilliantly as they did in ’75, when a lot of their set was made up of 60s classics, from the Who and Them, to the Stones and Bob Seger.
 
The legendary 999 tell what happened when “I Saw Her Standing There”; The Members recall their favorite “Daytripper”; and stepping back into the realms of what history refers to as the proto punk years, the Flamin’ Groovies (“Revolution”) and the Pink Fairies (“Get Back”) reflect back upon their own infancy - these aren’t their first Beatles covers, after all. But they’re as good as those they did way back when.
 
And just as Eater’s take on “Something” rewires a softy ballad as a hard-edged rampage, so Skids’ “Eleanor Rigby” leaves tire tracks across the cemetery, and Father McKenzie must be hopping mad. “Eleanor Rigby” is the latest single from this remarkable album - click the link and hear him howl.  And check out the guitar that cuts through the song. Breath-taking.
 
“Eleanor Rigby is a song that has been with me since childhood,” says Skids founder and frontman Richard Jobson. “My Mother sang it in the house and me and my brothers sang with her. It was only later that I realized how tragic the words were. It’s a wonderful example of how the Beatles could mix the serious with the commercial. We’ve tried to give the song a different energy but keep true to the emotion.”
 
SINGLE: https://orcd.co/skids_eleanorrigby
 
Because that’s the trick here. Back in the day, a lot of punk bands chose classic rock covers because they knew it would annoy the Boring Old Farts who loathed this latest twist in rock delivery. And there might still be some of that going on.  But this is no novelty disemboweling of Those We Once Loved.   Rather, if anything, it’s a chance to relive what the Fabs themselves might once have sounded like, if they’d been playing these songs in Hamburg while they were on their way up.
 
And that’s something we all need to hear.
 
CD/VINYL: https://cleorecs.com/search?q=anarchy+on+abbey+road
DIGITAL: https://orcd.co/anarchyonabbeyroad
 
Track listing
1. Back In The U.S.S.R. - D.I.
2. A Hard Day’s Night - Fear
3. Eleanor Rigby - Skids
4. Ticket To Ride - JFA
5. Something - Eater
6. Why Don't We Do It In The Road - Peter & The Test Tube Babies
7. I Saw Her Standing There - 999
8. In My Life - The Queers
9. If You've Got Trouble - MDC
10. Love Me Do - Smash Mouth
11. I'm Down - Eddie & The Hot Rods
12. Get Back - Pink Fairies
13. Day Tripper - The Members
14. Revolution - Flamin' Groovies
15. Twist And Shout - Lemmy Kilmister, Scott Ian & Greg Bissonette

If Janis Joplin had joined Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac…. It might have sounded a lot like this.
 
Eric Gales needs no introduction.  Guitar World’s Best New Talent for 1991, Billboard blues chart-topper, and a 2022 Grammy nominee, Gales is also a Cleopatra Records regular (most recently his 2023 collaboration with Doug Pinnick, covering Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love”), as well as a regular on the official Jimi Hendrix tribute tours. 
 
Mick Jagger is a fan, and so is Joe Bonamassa, who has described him as“one of the best, if not the best, guitar players in the world.” Now he’s playing alongside Swedish born, LA based Linn Holmes, on her Cleopatra Records debut single, spreading molten guitar across an audacious cover of the Allman Brothers’ “Whipping Post.”
 
“He is such a phenomenal guitar player and musician,” says Linn. “I've listened a lot to his previous work. I am beyond honored that he wanted to work with me on this track!
 
VIDEO: https://youtu.be/FxFUtoF-DAY
 
Linn was still a child the first time she heard Gregg Allman’s “Whipping Post” - not on the Allmans’ debut album where it first appeared, but via the southern rockers’ 1971 Fillmore live album, where it consumes one entire side of vinyl.
 
It remains one of her all-time favorite songs, but taking it into the studio with Gales, plus producers Daniel Jakubovic and Rev. Tom Chandler, she adopted an altogether different approach to the number.
 
Condensing the Allmans’ 22 minute epic to less than three-and-one-half minutes, without losing an iota of the energy, was a tall order after all.  But drenching the song even deeper in the blues, Linn’s vocal is spellbinding and Gales’ guitar is electrifying. There’s ears out there that have been listening to the Allmans’ version for over half a century.  But with Gales at his most incendiary, Linn makes it her own regardless.
 
”As a massive Allman Brothers fan, recording ‘Whipping Post’ - I have never had more fun in the studio, getting to pay tribute to one of my favorite bands of all time and to get to create our own take on the song.
 
“I hope the listeners can feel the pure excitement of working on this track, as we are beyond thrilled to share it with you.”

Of course, none of this should come as a surprise.  A long standing stalwart of the LA session scene, Linn’s magnificent voice is familiar too from her work alongside the 12-piece vintage rock group Harry Katz and the Pistachios, with the duo Asteron, Canadian rockers Elderoth and Quiet Riot bassist Chuck Wright’s Ultimate Jam Night all-stars.
 
Her own solo career, too, is exploding. Invited to appear on Fernando Perdomo’s 2025 tribute to Hall & Oates’s epochal War Babies album, Linn turned in what has to be one of the vocal performances of the year.  
 
Two 2024 singles, “Cut Me” and the vivacious “Baby Blue,” meanwhile, set the stage for her debut EP Introducing Linn Holmes, described by The Source as “reflect[ing] Holmes’ deep appreciation for the rich musical heritage of the past while infusing it with a contemporary flair.”  
 
Now Linn has joined the Cleopatra family, and her label debut, accompanied by a captivating video, can only embed her even deeper into the vanguard of modern rock’s most dynamic vocalists.
 
Catch Linn live with an acoustic set at the Foundation Room at the Los Angeles House of Blues, on Saturday May 31.
 
SINGLE: https://orcd.co/linnholmes_whippingpost

In the years since his emergence with 1977’s cult classic You Think You Really Know Me, iconic underground hero Gary Wilson’s outsider pop sensibility has spawned a devout following that includes the likes of Beck (who name-checks Wilson on “Where It’s At”) and hip hop collective Odd Future!
 
Now, with his latest album Come On, Mary due to street on June 13, the Endicott, NY, legend unveils the title track as both his new single and a positively trippy video, both telling the story of Mary herself.
 
And what a story it is! “Mary lived not far from Endicott,” explains Wilson. “In a place called outer space.  In the summer Mary would take the bus and visit me.  I still dream of Mary”.  
 
VIDEO: https://youtu.be/ZA6jMIGqKrE
SINGLE: https://orcd.co/garywilson_comeonmarysingle
 
Come On, Mary itself packs 11 all original new songs, each one furthering Wilson's trademark blurring of the line between the bizarre and the heartfelt, and offering some of his more strangely catchy and emotional songs to date!  
 
And Mary herself is a tangible presence throughout the song cycle, from “Alone in Endicott” to “Mary, Won’t You Dance For Me,” and on to the magnificent finale “I Woke Up Into A Thousand Dreams.”

Track list
1. Lisa Wants To Talk To You
2. Feel The Breeze
3. Alone In Endicott
4. Come On Mary
5. As I Walk In The Night
6. Mary, Won't You Dance For Me
7. Run Through The Woods
8. Study For Three
9. Your Dream Is Not My Scene
10. Sandy
11. I Woke Up Into A Thousand Dreams
 
CD/VINYL: https://cleorecs.com/search?q=gary+wilson+come+on
DIGITAL: https://orcd.co/garywilson_comeonmaryalbum
 
Wilson is already getting ready for the album’s release; on May 2, he played a packed out show at Teragram as a special guest of Ariel Pink; and you can hear him being interviewed by Gianna Geller (https://www.giannagianna.net/) for her radio show on May 24.
 
He’ll also be appearing at a showing of the Case Esparros film The Absence Of Milk In The Mouths Of The Lost” at the Frida Cinema in Santa Anna on May 28. Wilson himself stars in the movie, as the milkman.

In October 1974, Ken Boothe became just the third Jamaican artist ever to top the UK chart (after Desmond Dekker and Dave & Ansel Collins), and the teenaged Jah Wobble was just one of the many who celebrated the achievement.
 
“Growing up in London, in the 60’s and 70’s , Ken Boothe was a household name to me. His chart-topping success with ‘Everything I Own’ and his string of ska classics weren't just hits - they were cultural touchstones that helped shape British music identity. While American soul had its giants, Ken stands shoulder to shoulder with any of them, his emotional delivery and range second to none.”
 
Today Wobble, too, enjoys household name status - Public Image Ltd, Invaders of the Heart and a string of wizard productions including just last year, a phenomenal new album by another reggae great, Horace Andy.
 
Ken Boothe, though, occupies a very special place in Wobble’s heart.
 
“Few voices have stirred the soul like Ken Boothe's. Working alongside this legend has been nothing short of magical. His voice - that unmistakable, warm vibrato - carries decades of musical wisdom yet remains as powerful as when he first graced the Kingston scene.”  
 
And the chance to work alongside him only amplified those emotions.  Previewed today by the lush, luscious single “A Song for You,” the album Old Fashioned Ways already feels like an all-time Boothe classic, up there alongside Boothe Unlimited (1972), Blood Brothers (1976) and, of course, Everything I Own.
 
SINGLE: https://orcd.co/kenboothejahwobble_asongforyou

“What strikes me most is Ken's humility, despite his monumental influence,” says Wobble. “The man who helped shape rocksteady and touched charts worldwide still brings the same passion to the studio as a newcomer with something to prove.”
 
Boothe, too, was thrilled by the experience.  Old Fashioned Ways, he says, at last offered him the opportunity “to sing songs I have loved over the years. Songs like Donny Hathaway and The Temptations, I am happy that I get the chance to sing them.”
 
Barbara Lynn’s "You Left the Water Running,” Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine,” Motown landmarks “My Girl” and “Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)” - these songs are as much a part of our, the listeners’, musical landscape as they are Boothe and Wobble’s, and they shine as bright as they ought to.
 
Then there are Boothe’s own past hits - “Everything I Own,” of course; “Crying Over You,” which he first cut in 1966, “Artibella” (1969) and the title cut of 1970’s immortal Freedom Street album… “The songs I sang long ago,” he says, “are like vintage wine; they only get better over time and lots of people love them. I feel elated doing them again”
 
Wobble continues, “Our recent collaboration breathed new life into those timeless reggae and soul classics. Ken approaches each song not just as a performer, but as a storyteller who's lived every emotion in those lyrics. 
 
“To collaborate with Ken Boothe isn't just to work with a reggae icon - it's to connect with a living piece of our shared musical history. Long may his silver words continue to echo through the hearts of music lovers everywhere.”
 
CD/VINYL: https://cleorecs.com/search?q=ken+boothe
DIGITAL: https://orcd.co/kenboothejahwobble_oldfashionedways
 
1. Is It Because I'm Black
2. Old Fashioned Way
3. Artibella
4. You Left The Water Running
5. Everything I Own
6. A Song For You
7. Ain't No Sunshine
8. Crying Over You
9. Freedom Street
10. Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)
11. My Girl
12. Reggae Christmas