I think I previously mentioned that my favorite Long Fin Killie EP is Buttergut, which I orignally scored on vinyl; lucky for y’all I remembered my cd copy, picked up long ago for the ludicrous price of $1. Their first recording, from 1994, it includes the soon-to-be-on Houdini “Lamberton Lamplighter,” a nice narrative sung by […]

The new Sloan single is floating around out there. It’ll make your afternoon, but little else. And because I’m fully 25% Swedish, with living relatives there (can I please visit?), and she’s touring with my daughter’s fave, Jens Lekman, here’s something freshly delivered to J Frank’s gmail from Secretly Canadian: Frida Hyvonen — You Never […]

Even without Rita Lee, I’m excited about seeing Os Mutantes this Friday. And courtesy of Mr. Tapeworm, I will be doubling my live music pleasure in the next two weeks. He of the stomach parasite has scored entry to the Long Blondes show at the Knitting Factory next week, which is swell for two reasons […]

Let’s open the mail! Before that: J Frank apologizes to the rest of the (hotter) world for complaining about today’s heat, but the Big Apple threatens to hit 100 today, which means 125 if you’ll soon be standing on a breezeless corner near a backhoe lifting metal plates from the street. He is Off Kilter. […]

First off, excitement: Electrelane is releasing a b-sides etc comp in August. Run, don’t walk, simply for their b-side cover of Roxy Music’s “More Than This.” Scored it on vinyl, almost wore the grooves away. Second off:Lost Oughts! Lost Oughts! I’m so sorry to be happening to you right now. I’m sour today. So we’re […]

Out Hud has broken up. Funtime Ok has tracks. I’m not so crushed, although I did enjoy a live performance I caught at the Knitting Factory, right after S.T.R.E.E.T. D.A.D., a likeable and unclassifiable dub-punk must-have. But Let Us Never Speak of It Again was tinny sounding and too infrequently anything other than a boring […]

Ah, sweet, sweet Trenchfork, you get something so right, but yet you forsake any hint of having cujones with your 6.0 rating of the dismissable Cansei De Ser Sexy album. Your rating doubles what the album deserves. Kow-towing to CDSS’s considerable bloghype will not engender editorial respect. Be an individual. A secular inhumanist, if you […]

Yeah, I watched a little of the MLB all-star game. So what. Ever consider that Joe Buck looks like a slightly larger Thomas Dolby?

Syd Barrett died today. Reports say he was suffering from diabetes, which probably means heroin. Atari Teenage Riot – Deutschland (has got to die) And on the subject of outsider art, or, to get wordy, the Art of Unintentional Beauty, this past weekend I was reminded of a favorite pasttime of mine, a sort of […]

Had I been musically prepared for my return to Manhattan today, I might’ve posted some Einsturzende Neubauten. Vacation: took kid to inlaws, swam, visited zoo. Cracked toenail in half. Watched Sarah Silverman’s Jesus is Magic (funny, eventually tiresome). Pulled significant muscle during the Organized Physical Activity on Friday night after sitting in an airplane all […]