Total Recall30th Anniversary Edition You kids might not know this, but Arnold Schwarzenegger was a very big deal at one point. His handshake in the movie Predator is that thing you’ve been memming as well. But no, when I was a kid, maybe too young to really appreciate Arnold, I was absolutely transfixed by the man and his movies. It seemed like whenever there was a huge blockbuster, he would be featured in it. I was a little...

Paul Leary Born Stupid (Shimmy-Disc/Joyful Noise) When guitarist Paul Leary suddenly reappeared contributing guitar performances to The Melvins’ twentieth album, Hold It In, as well as contributing some songwriting to the project about six years ago, it felt like a shocking development. Not that Leary had vanished or retired or anything, the guitarist was simply busy with other endeavors; he developed a band or two of his own (Honky was great) as well as doing production work – so his...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Midnight Manor LP by The Nude Party. After seeming to just pour significant step after step on the public over the last two years or so (two singles and an LP, all of which made a hell of a lot of noise, in some circles), the release of Midnight Manor may find some listeners soured by the fact that Midnight Manor feels a little more subdued in tone – but it...

El-PCancer 4 Curephoto: turntablelab.com I remember the moment that the world of Hip Hop was opened to me. Years ago, I was interviewing Dillinger Four at the Trocadero in Philadelphia, talking to their bass player about music. He said something along the lines of mainstream rap being in a deplorable state; to the effect that standards and quality control didn’t exist anymore in his opinion. Lucky for me, I had a rap aficionado friend who immediately approved of this sentiment....

X Alphabetland LP (Fat Possum Records) Alphabetland was one of the most important records of 2020. Let me count the ways. For one it was, just plainly on the surface, a record that did many things and did them well. Compared to both rock and punk music it sounded fresh, yet undeniably familiar. It also managed to be both fun and urgent, and musically it was catchy as hell. Blame that on guitarist Billy Zoom’s rockabilly tendencies matched with the...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Rat-A-Tat-Tat LP by Dale Crover. Listening to Dale Crover’s second solo album apart from The Melvins is a funny/unique experience because, after having made music with the same band (well, “the same musical counterpart,” singer/guitarist Buzz Osborne, anyway) for so many decades, it’s hard to remove that sensibility from the music – or hard to remove it completely, anyway. As one listens to Rat-A-Tat-Tat, for example, it’s easy to imagine Buzz...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the 2LP From Elvis In Nashville set by Elvis Presley. Many detractors may (and have) claimed that the Seventies were a period of decline for Elvis Presley. Over a decade into his career, the singer had already scaled several mountains; Elvis had already broken through and helped to establish rock n’ roll as the dominant musical idiom of the twentieth century, had already written and recorded an enduring songbook of hits, had...

For fear of overstating a tired point, it goes without saying that 2020 was a year unlike any other. Even if one were to overlook the obvious reasons why 2020 successfully put the “eek” in “unique,” any audiophile could tell you that this year was completely unlike any other; innumerable album releases were delayed or just flat-out cancelled...

Back to the Future: The Ultimate Trilogy Can you think of a more iconic, feel good, action packed, gripping and hilarious trilogy than Back to the Future? People like to remind you that Die Hard is a Christmas movie, but I like to remind people that this is a sci fi movie, and perhaps one of the most successful ones. The reason why people forget it’s a sci-fi movie is because Back to the Future has so much...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the clear, colorless 2LP pressing of 5EPs by Dirty Projectors. From the very first instant I heard the music contained on 5EPs by Dirty Projectors, the clear and colorless 2LP set gave me pause. True, I had heard the group’s music before (the first album I heard was Swing Lo Magellan in 2012, and it really won me to the band’s banner), but 5EPs featured a sound so captivating that, the first...