A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the A Broken Heart is an Open Heart LP/2CD set by Louise Lemon. As intellectually evasive as music genre names have the capacity to be (dig into music history, and you’ll realize how silly sub-genre names get – take post-hardcore or “screamo” for just two examples), there’s no question that Death Gospel (or Doom Gospel – depending upon the press release that one reads) chanteuse Louise Lemon has hit upon something truly...
Iggy and the StoogesRare Power Iggy Pop and the Stooges are a primary source, no matter how you look at it. If you look at punk rock and modern rock in general, you can hear and even taste some of the Stooges. They were true originators. Every person who makes or hears music needs to learn about the Stooges at some point. You don’t have to own their albums, you don’t have to memorize songs, you just have to hear...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Constellate LP by Tensei.Over the last few years, The Flaming Lips have really come a long way from being the LSD-dipped and surrealist punk band that they were when they emerged from the wilds of Oklahoma in 1983. Since then, the hard left musical turns that they were perceived to have taken have become streamlined and the group has developed a greater sonic palette with which they’ve been able to compose...
J DillaDonuts(photo: turntablelab.com) I never saw the appeal in rap music after the 90s. It just seemed too bombastic and show-offy and trying to be bigger than itself to really connect with me. More style than substance, you know? That is, until I got turned onto the more indie stuff like Aesop Rock, El-P, Mos Def, and Talib Kweli. THAT’S where it was at for me. The songs just felt more grounded. More than all that rap singing about Bentleys,...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Holger Danske LP by The Old Firm Casuals. After a solid amount of time up on blocks (the band’s debut album was released in 2014 and, while there have been a couple of splits and a couple of EPs, demands for something more substantial have gone unanswered), a recent reissue campaign renewed interest in The Old Firm Casuals (a.k.a. Singer/guitarist Lars Frederiksen’s “other” band, beyond Rancid) and so they’ve answered that...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the White Stuff LP by Royal Trux. Listening to White Stuff (Royal Trux’ first album of new material since 2000’s Pound For Pound), I simply could not stop thinking about and drawing comparisons between it and Danny Boyle’s film T2 Trainspotting. In the film, all of the characters who survived the events which played out in Trainspotting have found life after heroin addiction and discovered new fascinations – be it crime, working...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Finally Free LP by Daniel Romano. After first appearing in front of a hardcore band about fourteen years ago, Daniel Romano has taken personal delight in jumping from music genre to music genre with an impunity which proved to be incredibly infectious. From hardcore to folk to country to rock and innumerable hybrids of all those sounds, Romano has proven to have a golden touch almost as pure as David Bowie’s...
Norm MacDonaldHitler’s Dog, Gossip and Trickery According to SNL alum, one of the questions Lorne Michaels asks you when you’re auditioning is which cast of the show did you grow up on. Who were your guys? Mine was the Will Ferrell/Cheri Oteri/Norm Macdonald cast, so he was my guy for Weekend Update and it became obvious very quickly that either you got Norm Macdonald or you didn’t. On the one hand, he never became a superstar like Molly Shannon or...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Bela Sessions 12” reissue by Bauhaus. In order to really appreciate just exactly how radical Bauhaus was in the early stages of their career, one must recognize what they did seemingly as a matter of course – how different it was from everything else, and how boldly the band did it from day one. The group’s first release, the “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” single, is an ideal illustration of that difference; in...
A Quiet Place Original Score Marco Baltrami (Mondo Tees) I love rooting for the little guy and so should you. Though A Quiet Place isn’t exactly a sleeper hit, it did start out from humble beginnings. Sure, a $17 million budget sounds like a lot, but it made twenty times that in the box office. Compare it to Black Panther and Avengers Infinity War which were the big hits of the year and cost $200 and $300 million, and that...