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...
Double DragonCollector’s Edition – Blu-Ray Let me take you back to a time when movies based on video games was the hot new idea. This was the 90s. Thinking back on it, it’s surprising that it was such a trend because it wasn’t particularly a good one. None of those movies did very well, except maybe for Mortal Kombat. Maybe they were going for name recognition alone, or something kids would drag their parents to see. Remember Street...
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...
Makaya McCravenUniversal Beings(photo: turntablelab.com) I’m not afraid to admit that I don’t get jazz. In a weird way, I’m sort of proud of it. The reason I’m so attracted to punk rock is because it’s a less heady kind of music. That’s not to say that I don’t know what I like. Maybe I don’t get jazz but I can appreciate Thelonious Monk’s Underground, Miles Davis’ Birth of the Cool, and John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme even if it’s only...
Stringer: A Reporter’s Journey in the Congoby Anjan Sundaram I have to keep looking at the cover of Stringer to make sure it’s not a novel. That’s the kind of vivid engrossing story Anjan Sundaram tells in this book. I took a chance on Stringer after seeing Sundaram on the Daily Show many years ago. I was captivated by his story so I thought I’d check out his book. I appreciate a good novel as much as anyone, but I...
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...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into Rancid’s self-titled 7” EP. At this stage of their career, it’s almost impossible to envision Rancid as anything other than the four-piece ska/punk powerhouse which has been responsible for songs like “Roots Radicals,” “Ruby Soho,” “Bloodclot,” “Fall Back Down” and “Last One To Die”; they are that punk-identified pop institution. At this point in their career, the band is inextricably linked with the sound of Tim Armstrong’s cracked vocal rasp, Matt...
Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back)Jeff Tweedy I came late to the Wilco game. Maybe it’s because I associated them with an old girlfriend who tried getting me into them. I was just too engaged in punk rock to really care. I remember us driving from San Diego to Portland Oregon and her playing Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in the car trying to impress me. Hoping it would get through to me. It wasn’t happening. On that trip she also...
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...