Desmond Dekker has died. I’m unprepared to offer a track. Whatever I own is all on vinyl anyway, and Emusic only has Dekker’s Stiff Records stuff, on which the Rumour (yes, them) almost destroyed ska and reggae forever. In the spirit of the Martin Hannett-focused post from the other day, Lost Whenever Friday will today […]

There was a recent article in Business Week Online (thanks to the swell blog The Rich Girls are Weeping) that weakly attempts to diagnose music writing’s current (permanent?) sickness of overblowing milquetoast, Pottery Barn-ready stuff like Aimee Mann or Wilco. The article is so poorly written that it makes me reconsider my current laziness when […]

You want to love it. You want to be surprised. You don’t want to think that Mission of Burma, for all their musical prescience, for all their political consistency, and for all their anti-commerical power, are old hat. Their new album, Obliterati, doesn’t surpass anything they’ve done, and neither is it worse; unfortunately, it causes […]

New York City. Where the Bluetooth has you wondering who’s the crazy guy and who’s not. Aside from the swell vinyl Long Blondes 12″ I bought last Friday, I also snagged Zero: A Martin Hannett Story 1977 -1991, a compilation of choice cuts produced by the man who made his name by crafting Joy Division’s […]

What’s the point of dumb lost 80s Friday or whatever if all my previous posts are pretty much the same theme? A man who can’t change his mind has a mind made of biscuit, goes some such quote by Capote or whomever. Let’s just make Friday Lost Friday. 80s, 90s, whenever, just something in need […]

Wolfmother: makers of hype-victims. Godawful horse vomit I thought died with Billy Corgan. There can only be one Led Zeppelin, and I don’t even like Led Zeppelin. Gnarls Barkely: a single from a waste of an album. Beirut: interesting & skilled but overrated — so far. Might just be too young. He should take a […]

Before his rare, over-30 indie triumph, LCD Soundsystem and DFA agitator James Murphy was the drummer for a brief thing known as Speedking, a one release wonder gone defunct soon after The Fist and the Laurels dropped in 1995. I have this on vinyl, bought from a dunderhead for nothing, and it’s otherwise somewhat rare; […]

I’m suddenly unable to listen to alt-country. This is a real problem, because although I don’t miss Wilco, for example, I do miss liking Uncle Tupelo. I just can’t stand it right now. And forget new stuff. Maybe the Sadies, but they’re stumbling lately, and maybe Neko Case, but I think she’s left alt-country for […]

I’ll tell you one thing – start a music blog, slag some fave bands, earn some good activity in the comments section. But write about books? Holy catshit. And I’m not complaining, but wow. The comments section comes alive like Kiss. And I haven’t yet written: David Mitchell’s Black Swan Green? quality. Eliot Perlman’s Seven […]

Today I’m feeling Deerhoof, makers of wig-out rock, daunting in the description department but here goes with: 10-year-old boy vocals by Japanese woman, small kit bellows big beat, munchabunch guitar, bounce bass. Dance if you’re dusted on the dark shit, the no peace and love shit. Imagine Led Zeppelin if they were good, and listened […]