I suggest the Archers of Loaf's "Wrong" or the entirety of The Speed of Cattle.

Zapp's first, self-titled record still jams, light-up dancefloor style.

Conversely, "Siberian Khatru" by Yes will make your nipples tight, especially the opening riff.

And it doesn't get better than this picture of Yanni.

If there is a more radical hard rock album than Boris' Pink all year, I will be very surprised. It's not Sunn 0))) redux (which could be good or bad), but some masterful thrash and doomy metal. Reminds me of Minor Threat as dropouts huffing gas.

Are people really convinced by this Matisyahu character?

Does anyone want to start a band and only play "I Only Want You" by the Eagles of Death Metal? I'm singing.

Cannonball Coming

It’s a transitory moment – coming right at the opening section after Kim Deal sings “Check Check, Ah Oooh Oooh” that seems to announce something new, something very exciting. The simple hi hat is played as tight as possible making tons of room for the fat, slip-slide bass, cleansing the palette and making room for the minutes that follow of pop perfection. That greasy clean guitar plays star gazer, while an undercurrent of powerchords keep things moving, and the clincher line that gets me glad every time “Spitting in a wishing well/Going to hell/Crash on the last splash.” But that chorus, with the chuh-chuh-chuh-chuh-chuh “Will you, (Indecpherible)! In the shade, in the sha-ade.” This isn’t nostalgia, it’s a blast.

I've been gone for a long time, mostly because I've hit a rut in writing and listening. For a while there I couldn't really enjoy anything that I put on. Maybe I was sick of my music or my work life bled over into private time, but a recent trip to San Francisco (for work, ya) again renewed my interest and faith in the human forces of life and love. Funny how a simple change of scenery can get the blood flowing again.

My first day was spent travelling. I woke at 6:45 for an 8:00 flight, first word out of my mouth being "f---". I threw everything I hadn't packed into a bag and ran downstairs to find a cab to take me to the airport. Luckily, everything worked out, I made my flight and even had a chance to grab a sandwich for the miserable 6-hour flight to San Fran. I didn't listen much to my iPod as I had planned, mostly because I realized I needed to make the juice last for the whole weekend. I forgot the charger. I did listen to the Boredoms' Vision Creaton Newsun (missed 20 minutes in the middle for some shut eye) and some of the new Destroyer, but I read pretty much everything I could get my hands on.

Once I landed in San Francisco my plans were only about an hour of work, setting up our booth for a convention. I did that and got my chance to go to Amoeba records in the Haight-Ashbury section. It's a grand store, huge and has everything I've ever really wanted to find. I got a few things: Fela Kuti's Expensive Shit (awesome), Boredoms' Super Ae, Love Is All's Nine Times the Same Song (eh), Green Milk From the Planet Orange's City Calls Revolution, Om's Variations On A Theme, and Smog's Red Apple Falls. I did have a chance to flip through these records a bit back in my wonderful hotel room (TV in the bathroom!), but the real pleasure was elsewhere.

What other city has such great people? I mean, nearly everyone is nice and doesn't suffer from that big-city aversion to conversation with strangers. Maybe it's a California thing, but everyone seems willing to talk about their past, their future, whatever. That first day was the best, talking to Russian cabbies, hipster goofballs in Amoeba, the Palestinian guy. It's such a romantic city, perfect for walking and smiling at complete strangers. It sounds hippy, but it's a great tonic for getting back into living, man. Sometimes I get so shut off, it's good to throw yourself out there and experience rather than wait for it to come to you.

‘I Was Just Another West-Coast Maximalist, Exploring the Blues…’

Some things I listened to recently:

The Microphones, The Glow Pt. 2: There’s something astoundingly breathtaking about this record in how it almost silently devastates you. The yawning gaps in this record that practically make your hair stand on end waiting for Phil Elvrum’s innocent voice and messy guitar to penetrate the expansive soundscapes. Not to mention, there never has been a record as well produced in lo-fidelity. Listen to this spot on headphones and you’ll be completely incapacitated for the duration, especially by those ominous foghorns.

Another thing too, I’ve never listened to this record in when it was light outside. Something about the night makes the perfect setting for tales of the infinite.


Destroyer, Destroyer’s Rubies: I’m not going to say that I know what the hell Dan Bejar, Destroyer’s head honcho/New Pornographers mainstay, is saying, but the wordsmith is pretty convincing. I have a sneaking suspicion that this is going to be one of those records that just completely takes over my life like The Dismemberment Plan’s Emergency & I or Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Now keep in mind, I’ve only heard this once, but near everything sounded perfect to these ears (except for the last track). The music is really well-recorded indie music, ornate on some tracks, stripped down on others, with lots of intricate instrumentation and those quivery yipped vocals that are popular these days, but not by proximity, only by coincidence. I can’t wait to unravel this one.


Smog’s “Held” at 7:30 this morning, on the incline press: Somehow it’s really nice to feel feminine in the morning (‘For the first time in my life/I let myself be held/Like a big old baby’). Even while trying to meat up.


The Sword, Age of Winters: Not much to say about this. They’re certainly not rewriting the book on Metal, but it’s not awful either. You’ve heard it before, the re-re-recycled Sabbath riffs that crush and smoke, the D&D lyrics, the double bass drum. Yes, all awesome, all necessary.

But something makes me want to listen to High On Fire, Dead Meadow or Kyuss/Queens of the Stone Age. Speaking of, has anyone listened to Dave Grohl’s drumming on QOTSA’s Songs For The Deaf? Whew…

I Wanna Pee On You...

I can't remember if i wrote about this before, so pardon me if I have, but something made me think of it. And yes, I know I'm late to this party...

I was just flipping through iTunes looking for something to listen to and I saw R. Kelly. My wonderful lovebird gave me Kells' TP3 Reloaded for Christmas. (By the way, best artwork of the year. Standing on a mountaintop with your shirt mostly open? Correct choice.) Like most people, I was intrigued by the "Trapped in the Closet" suite. The record didn't come with every chapter, only 1 through 5, but plenty to give you a good idea about it and a DVD of those first 5 "episodes".

I flipped in the DVD to check it out and was, like most people, flabbergasted. That initial shock eventually gave way to laughter which quickly gave way to rapture. By the end of chapter 5, I had tears in my eyes, on the verge of losing it.

Really? Crying to music by a man who wrote the lyric, "Girl I'm ready to toss your salad/When I'm making love, I'll be feasting/Girl you're in the kitchen/Sweating up a storm/The oven's on 500/So you know the kitchen's warm."?

Yes. It's seriously that good.

I finally got my iTunes back up and working after a delay, so that's the main reason for lack of posts this week as I typically type and listen to music here on one thing. Problem is, every time I install the new version from the Apple site, Big Brother, Mr. Norton Antivirus, decides that its not safe enough for me to listen to my music through iTunes. Who does this dill think he is?

Anyways, I travel to NYC to visit friends on Friday so I should have something enjoyable and substantial for you to read by this weekend as I'll be keeping my ear to the ground during the commute.

For now:

• Blood On The Wall, "Stoner Jam" -- Real nice Sonic Youth-type rock that I (appropriately) first heard on the way back from heady Vermont on Sirius. These boys and grrrl are from NYC and the fashionably gritty coolness factor shows. The rest of their Awesomer record ain't that bad either.
• Boredoms, Vision Creation Newsun -- I haven't fully digested this one, but it's some tribal, prog-heavy and unbelievably ecstatic stuff made by the real Pro-Lifers. Praise God!
• Acid Mothers Temple & the Cosmic Inferno, IAO CHANT -- Come on. Just check out that name. How cool are the Japenese? More crazy psychedelic explosions from the maximalists. Also a more accessible place to start with this group, but only if you can sit still for the 50 minute run time.
• James Taylor is no better than a post-buffalo-wing poo. Fire and rain.