A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Record Store Day-issued Live At Grimey’s LP by Justin Townes Earle. For some reason, it always feels a little awkward to review the work of a second generation musician. Maybe it’s because the easiest comparison to make (be it positive or negative) is to the artist’s progenitor; like, how easy is it to look at Sean Lennon’s work and not see John Lennon or Yoko Ono in the periphery, and one...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into Johnny Cash’s Record Store Day-issued Koncert V Prague LP. It’s incredible how great a difference ten years can make for a musician, but even more amazing is when it’s actually possible to hear that difference in their performance. In 1968, for example, Johnny Cash recorded his classic Live At Folsom Prison album; at the time, the singer was already developing a pretty serious drug problem (he’d become addicted to pills). It wasn’t...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Citizen Dick RSD-issued Touch Me I’m Dick 7” Freelance journalist and novelist Joshua Foer once opined that “Monotony collapses time; novelty unfolds it. … If you spend your life sitting in a cubicle and passing papers, one day is bound ro blend unmemorably into the next – and disappear.” It might seem unlikely, but Foer’s logic is also applicable to the music industry; to wit, I contend that it I spend...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into Adam and the Ants’ contribution to Record Store Day this year, the “Kings of the Wild Frontier” b/w “Antmusic” reissued single. After the band’s debut album made a splach in 1979 , Adam and the Ants had their work cut out...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into Cassandra Wilson/Billy Holiday’s Record Store Day-issued split single “You Go To My Head” b/w “The Mood That I’m In.” I love the concept of “versus” releases. You know the ones, reader: the releases which pit two artists against each other under fairly limited conditions – be it to reinterpret the opposing artist’s songbook, or simply to compete and see who can make a better, more lasting impression on listeners in a limited...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the The Eco-Terrorist In Me 7” released by Rise Against + Will Potter. At first, it might be easy for the format fetishist who is searching for the great “find” or “must-have” on Record Store Day to overlook Rise Against’s contribution to the festivities. On the surface, it doesn’t really stand out at all; the band put a song from the album that they released last year (The Black Market) up front...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the deluxe reissue LP portion of the Manic Street Preachers’ Holy Bible box set. The problem with the Brit-Pop explosion that happened in the 1990s (well, it was a problem for some people – others ate it up with a spoon) is that it was a really pretty, really clean and really sterile-looking solution to the void left in pop when grunge suddenly lost Kurt Cobain in 1994. Everything just seemed to...