The Year In Reissues: The 2014 Gold Bonus Disc Awards

Welcome to The Second Disc’s Fifth Annual Gold Bonus Disc Awards!

As with every year’s awards, our goals are simple: to recognize as many of the year’s most essential reissues and catalogue titles as possible, and to celebrate as many of those labels, producers and artists who make these releases happen in an increasingly-challenging retail landscape.  The labels you’ll read about below have, by and large, bucked the trends to prove that there’s still a demand for physical catalogue music that you can purchase in brick-and-mortar stores.  And from our vantage point, there’s still great strength and health in our corner of the music industry.  By my estimate, The Second Disc covered roughly 500 compact disc releases in 2014 – and we have no reason to believe that number will decrease in the year ahead.  We dedicate The Gold Bonus Disc Awards to the creators of the music and releases we cover, to the dedicated retailers who continue to support catalogue titles, and most importantly, to you, our readers.  After all, your interest is ultimately what keeps great music of the past – this site’s raison d’etre – alive and well.

Which releases take home the gold this year? Hit the jump below to find out!

Review: Pugwash, “A Rose in a Garden of Weeds” (Or: The Best Band You Never Heard?)

Pugwash is currently wrapping up its first-ever U.S. tour with two more performances scheduled in Los Angeles: this Sunday, October 19, on a bill alongside Wings’ great guitarist Laurence Juber and Now Sounds’ musical guru and all-around renaissance man Steve Stanley; and next Friday, October 24, with Love Revisited!  If you’re in the area, you just might want to check the lads out!

The first track on the first-ever North American release by Irish band Pugwash implores “Take Me Away,” but where to? A Rose in a Garden of Weeds: A Preamble Through the History of Pugwash, Omnivore Recordings’ new 17-track anthology drawn from five studio releases and one single originally issued between 1999 and 2011, will take you away to a world of jangly guitars, rich harmonies, unabashedly catchy melodies, bright productions, and vibrant colors, all delivered in a voice eerily reminiscent of Electric Light Orchestra hero Jeff Lynne. That voice belongs to Thomas Walsh, who much as Lynne did for ELO, wrote, sang, produced and played multiple instruments for Pugwash. A Rose in a Garden of Weeds, however, transcends pastiche – which, let’s face it, takes a great deal of skill to do well, anyway. It’s best experienced as a continuation of the story begun by The Beatles and continued by bands from ELO to XTC – as well as a number of other groups with more than three letters in their names.  Pugwash fits squarely in this tradition of smart, polished and exuberant guitar-pop practitioners unafraid to utilize the studio and all of the instruments it can house, among them organ, mellotron, sleigh bells, woodblock, harpsichord, strings, horns, vibes, glockenspiel, kazoo, and enough guitars and keyboards to sate even the most gargantuan musical appetite.

If “Take Me Away” is pitch-perfect ELO by way of The Byrds with a SMiLE-era Beach Boys interlude (and adding to the verisimilitude, Nelson Bragg of The Brian Wilson Band and The Now People plays on the track), the sounds in this Garden are, in truth, a rather diverse lot. This is in no small part due to the varied personnel. Sonic auteur Walsh is joined by a rotating cast on these tracks; Keith Farrell is the second most constant presence on a variety of instruments including Moog, Hammond organ and bass. The current band-line up with Tosh Flood (guitar/keyboards), Shaun McGee (bass) and Joe Fitzgerald (drums) is also represented. Andy Partridge and Dave Gregory of XTC drop by for good measure, and Jason Falkner of Jellyfish and TV Eyes adds various instruments to a number of tracks.

Falkner’s VOX Continental organ rides a cascade of acoustic and electric guitars, including Stephen Farrell’s George Harrison-esque inspired slide, on “Keep Movin’ On,” a wonderfully anthemic power-pop ode to perseverance. Another Beatle, John Lennon, is called to mind on the sincere, aching “Finer Things in Life,” on which Geoff Woods’ cello and strings add subtle elegance. Walsh has a knack for rhythmic yet attractive ballads, such as the yearning, vulnerable “Here” and the title track. The Section Quartet adds the baroque string ornamentation worthy of George Martin to both of those songs. (The liner notes tell us that the strings for “Rose” were recorded in Abbey Road 38 years to the day after “Tomorrow Never Knows.” Something was definitely in the air.) “Fall Down,” tinged with pretty melancholy, and the dynamic “Answers on a Postcard” – perhaps the most wonderfully realized production on this collection – pick up right where the Fab Four and ELO left off, and that’s intended as a high compliment, indeed. “Answers” incorporates some fleeting Brian Wilson-esque touches, too, and the master’s sonic approach is echoed, but not strictly recreated, on the effervescent, blissfully childlike “It’s Nice to Be Nice.”

Don’t miss a thing – hit the jump to keep reading!

Release Round-Up: Week of September 23

George Harrison, The Apple Years 1968-1975 (Apple/Universal, 2014) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Here, at last, are George Harrison’s complete albums for Apple Records, all beautifully remastered and featuring select bonus material.  These six albums are available in a deluxe box set with a bonus DVD or as individual reissues:

Wonderwall Music (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Electronic Music (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

All Things Must Pass  (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Living in the Material World  (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Dark Horse (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Extra Texture (Read All About It)  (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

David Bowie, Sound + Vision  (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

In case you missed it the last time around, here’s a slimmed-down reissue of the 2003 iteration of Bowie’s box set covering the chameleonic rock star’s career through 1997 on four CDs.

John Coltrane, Offering: Live at Temple University (Impulse!/Resonance) (Amazon U.S. /Amazon U.K.)

Here, at last, is the famous concert in which John Coltrane put down his saxophone and sang – or at least vocalized in an intense, some might say inexplicable, manner.  Ashley Kahn puts this remarkable, and remarkably inscrutable, 1966 Philadelphia performance in perspective in the deluxe 24-page booklet that accompanies this 2-CD release.

Hollies, Fifty at 50 (Parlophone/Rhino) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. )

This new 3-CD Hollies anthology, marking the harmony purveyors’ 50th year of recording, arrives in the U.K. today with a U.S. edition to follow next month.

Jerry Lee Lewis, The Knox Phillips Sessions: The Unreleased Recordings (Saguaro Road) (Amazon U.S. /Amazon U.K. )

In the mid-1970s, Jerry Lee Lewis returned to Sun Studios with Sam Phillips’ son Knox now running the show; Knox recorded the piano pounder on country, pop and gospel classics from “Beautiful Dreamer” to “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.”  Ten tracks from the Knox Phillips sessions are included on this single-disc release.

Pugwash, A Rose in a Garden of Weeds (Omnivore) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. )

Omnivore has a “preamble through the history of Pugwash,” the Irish band described by the label as a “mix of The Beach Boys meets ELO meets XTC.”  This 17-track collection spans the period between 1999’s Almond Tea As Served By… through 2011’s The Olympus Sound and should serve as a perfect introduction to an underrated group.

Edwin Starr, Soul Master: Expanded Edition / Involved: Expanded Edition (Big Break)

Big Break dips back into the Motown vault for two generously expanded editions of albums from “War” hero Edwin Starr including his 1968 Motown LP debut Soul Master with a whopping 17 bonus tracks, and 1971’s Involved (featuring “War’) with 13 bonuses!

Soul Master: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Involved: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.

Leonard Cohen, Popular Problems (Columbia) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

The poet and troubadour celebrates his 80th birthday with the release of a new album featuring nine new songs.

Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga, Cheek to Cheek (Interscope/Columbia) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Also not a reissue, but certainly of interest – the 88-years young jazz vocal great teams with the audacious pop superstar for a set of swinging standards.  Available in standard and deluxe editions, as well as Target, iTunes and HSN exclusives with extra material.