Just Like Money

Whaddya know, something to love: Up until today, when I learned that former Ride drummer Loz Colbert would be playing with the reunited Jesus and Mary Chain on their US live dates, I hadn’t really been excited about or even concerned with the reunited J&MC. In their day, they put on some pretty shitty shows, […]

Cuidado Cabron!

In Against the Day, Pynchon’s Icelanders season their ‘meat olaf’ with a violently-hot salsa labeled “Cuidado Cabron!” I’m such an easy laugh. Pynchon remains the best example of what a human being can do with launguage, sentence to sentence, and I have a feeling that many of this book’s reviewers may have been too stunned […]

Major Label Monkeys

If you ever doubted that ADA was truly independent of Warner Brothers, here’s proof that ADA’s parent organization sometimes racketeers the unit shifters: The Arctic Monkeys’ new album, Favourite Worst Nightmare, will not be released on Domino Records, as planned, but is now a late inning change to Warner Brothers Records. Translation: Less indie stores […]

Beware Dark Destruction

I’m repairing my washing machine while listening to Jandek’s Glasgow Monday. Jandek is reminding me that some people have it worse. Speaking of disturbed Texans: Since the prez played politics with it first, with his self-serving and needless press conference yesterday, I feel no shame at saying the V-Tech massacre makes me once again furious […]

Hmmmm – What Else Sucks?

Mirrored, forthcoming uber-hyped album by Battles, somewhat underwhelms. Tracks “Snare Hanger” and “Tij” offer head-nodding rhythms and inventive noise sculpture, but other tracks arrive like warmed over Yes outtakes, especially “Race In,” the almost unlistenable intro track. I can think of twelve albums like this, like those made by Ganger in the late nineties and […]

Orphaned by Sky Fires

Amid the mountains of recent weakness, I’m digging Star Destroyer by Alex Delivery, maybe an album and maybe an EP, although I vote for the former, since most tracks are seven to ten minutes long, and so chock full of ideas and peaks and valleys that some deliver an album’s-worth. Few albums, at least lately, […]

Rats Leaving Sinking Ships Sing Beautiful Songs

I have so many things to tell you. Today I offer two. Shearwater has partially re-recorded their (and my) best-of-2006 album Palo Santo, which might strike some as tinkering with something that ain’t broke. From these two tracks, I can’t really tell what their aims are (within the re-recording – the idea of doing it […]

The Subliminal Canon

I’ve suddenly come into so much unreleased music that there’s really only one thing that would delay me from getting some of it to you, good or bad: Seefeel. As mentioned the other day, Seefeel’s Quique is being reissued, and it was one of the best cds I got to review as a young numbskull […]