Dream Covers #3425: The Del Shannon Dream Tribute Album.

Shearwater will cover Tim Buckley’s “Phantasmagoria in Two.” Tim Buckley – Phantasmagoria in Two Cat Power will cover “Thinkin’ It Over” by Charles Westover, better known as Del Shannon, who dropped one album under the name his parents gave him, in 1968, entitled The Further Adventures of Charles Westhover.Del Shannon/Charles Westover – “Thinkin’ It Over” […]

…and They’re Marching Through Georgia

I am not watching college basketball. I am a lifelong Knick fan, and the Knicks, this year, have turned me off to the entire sport, pro or college-pro. Today’s New York Times greets its 30-40 year old arts&leisure demographic with a piece focused on REM’s new album Accelerate, whose title refers to tempos rather than […]

The Hyphen Across the Ocean

Always metal. Always. Despite that like-able new Shearwater song (look “Rooks”) which laudably distills their longer excursions into single form, I’ve reached one of those twice-yearly attacks of a fetishistic need for metal, especially on earphones. I have theories, one being that metal delivers right away, as a genre, for time-pressed or attention-span-challenged listeners. I […]

Third Time’s a Paranoid Masterpiece

Most reviews of Portishead’s upcoming and now leaked Third will lead with we’ve waited ten years for this or some such lazy claptrap. Many will be written by those too young to know pain, or waiting, or the pain of waiting. They’ll be only partially right, since we’ve been waiting for this album for 14 […]

Tiresome Music Journalism Strikes Again

Who’s to blame: Ben Sisario, for selling an overworked arts&leisure NY Times editor on a tired concept — the easily-written “Here’s the new Scene!” article — or said editor, who didn’t notice the article was a boring, unsurprising retread of Brooklyn? Didn’t they write this article a year or so ago, with Deerhoof at the […]

New and Coming Release Roundup

The Long Blondes – CouplesI’m still waiting for the day I’ll hear the Long Blondes blasting from some frat-girl’s Hyundai on the Garden State Parkway. Last album it was “New Girl,” this time my vote goes to “Guilt,” the best Madonna single since “Material Girl” in a world of needless Madonna singles, including her own. […]