L7 Bricks Are Heavy (30th Anniversary reissue) LP (Licorice Pizza Records) Looking back on it now, it’s pretty pitiful how unprepared the music industry was for L7. When the band first appeared in 1988 with their debut album, it’s easy enough to understand how nobody noticed; L7’s self-titled debut came out on Epitaph Records (which, at that time, was a really small record label with limited resources – and Bad Religion was the only band of note on their roster)...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Seance! With Zabrecky glow-in-the-dark 12” single by Zabrecky. On the surface, noting that the Seance! With Zabrecky 12” single is a novelty record just goes without saying. Sure – people still indulge in trying to make contact with the deceased, on occasion, and some people even claim to have been successful; but really, it always boils down to how far one is willing to play along with the shtick; as the...
Picard – Season 2 I’ve got my answer locked and loaded when/if someone asks me which Star Trek series is the best. It’s the Original Series, simply because it was my first taste of the franchise, and it will always hold a special place in my heart. However, I know that the correct answer when someone asks which series is the best or where they should start, the answer is probably The Next Generation. I’m currently in the middle of...
I Am Not Spockby Leonard Nimoy What a difference there is between new Star Trek and the old school series where it all started. Any true fan of the show will tell you that Spock is the best, and also a groundbreaking character for TV in general. I don’t quite understand why Leonard Nimoy wasn’t more popular or why he was only ever associated with Spock. It turns out, Leonard Nimoy himself is quite aware of that, which is why...
WHO: Screeching Weasel WHAT: The Awful Disclosures of Screeching Weasel WHY: Sure, Ben Weasel is a divisive figure, but you can’t deny the man can still write perfect pop songs. If you’re a pop punk fan, then Awful Disclosures will scratch that itch you’ve been having since the 90s. This is a tight album, with a familiar formula, that Ben Weasel makes his own. It knows what it wants to be and succeeds in that effort. One of the best...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into The Slackers’ “New York Berlin” b/w “Tell Them No” 12” one-sided single. I confess that, while the two songs which comprise the new Slackers single are good, solid cuts, I do not understand why this single has been pressed the way it has. First, both “New York Berlin” and “Tell Them No” are perfectly average songs in length – one is almost three and a half minutes long and the other is...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Physical Thrills 2LP by Silversun Pickups. In listening to Physical Thrills, the first thing which becomes self-evident is just how great a success 2019’s Widow’s Weeds (Silversun Pickups’ fifth studio album) was, and how great a financial and creative reward it yielded for the band. Clearly emboldened by that success, Physical Thrills represents an enormous departure for Silversun Pickups; where they once made the most of smaller sounds and used a...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into The Great Confrontation 2LP by Chip Kinman. I confess that I had forgotten about The Dils until the opportunity to review the band’s Live! reissue came up. Not that I was unfamiliar with the band before (I remember discovering the band at the same time I came upon The Weirdos, The Bags, The Dickies and Fear in high school), they just sort of escaped my memory until the band’s Live! album got...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Penumbra//Antumbra 12” single by Garbageface. If history has taught us anything about Karol “Garbageface” Orzechowsky, it has taught us that the artist takes a lot of joy in turning expectations that fans may have of him on their collective head – and the emcee’s newest 12” single, Penumbra//Antumbra, upholds that practice with focused intensity. The single effortlessly upends expectations; where convention demands a consistent structure through a song – there needs...
The Lost Boys This is one of those movies that brings a smile to my face. Not just because it’s a recent discovery that has delighted me, but because it was somewhat of a slow burn. The Lost Boys is popular in the punk/goth crowd, so it’s always been on my radar, and it just so happens that the 35th anniversary edition was the right time for me. On a first watch, I though it was decent, but it...