I love it when your love of a band is born from a chance meeting. I didn’t know having my teeth cleaned was going to lead to long-lasting love of Gwar, but as my dental hygienist was making small talk, we somehow, SOMEHOW, came to the topic of music and she highly...

WHO: Jon Spencer WHAT: Sick of Being Sick WHY: Maybe Spencer’s last two solo albums have lacked a little oomph, but Sick of Being Sick hopefully is a course correction. Maybe that’s a bit extreme, but in just 8 songs, this EP delivers the raw energy, weirdness, and...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the I Planted, Apollos Watered, But God Kept Making It Grow LP by the crushedvelvets. Not every reader of this review will have experienced any kind of skepticism at the current health and validity of rock music, but they can...

I had an MRI on my knee this week. If you’ve never had one, it is a very noisy procedure. Clicks and raps and something that sounds like a muffled jackhammer assault your ears for fifteen to twenty minutes or more, while medical technologists create an image of your...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into Scott Collins’ Purple Pain LP. There aren’t many artists making music right now who are capable of introducing themselves as clearly having both their heart on their sleeve as well as a chip clearly on their...

OSEES have no right being as good as they are. They’re simply remarkable. They put out an album a year (sometimes more). There are certainly hits and misses among them, but I’d gladly play the “worst” OSEES album instead of 99% of music that gets put out...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into Bass Drum Of Death’s “Live… And Let Die” LP. Even on first glance at the cover of “Live… And Let Die“, I began to get excited. The cover of the album reminded me of so many other live albums...

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How do you even define Billy Bragg’s music anymore? Nowadays it almost sounds like easy listening, but with a leftist political leaning. The man has always worn his heart on his sleeve and although his political songs can seem a little too on the nose and simplistic,...

Civil War The only thing better than Civil War is the press tour Kirsten Dunst did for it. Not that anything she said was controversial, but because she came across as a cool-headed actress with perspective and confidence. She spoke out against genocide (wow!),...

Dog Party Dangerous Good things come to those who wait, and for me, that’s the new Dog Party record “Dangerous.” Listening to Dog Party brought back some sweet memories from my college days. Days when I first starting getting into the Ramones. I had...

WHO: X WHAT: Smoke & Fiction WHY: Let’s round up the week with more X, shall we? It’s easy to point at bands that are still going and overstaying their welcome, but X certainly isn’t that. On Smoke & Fiction, the band shows they can still create inspiring...