Vicious DreamsSelf-titled Get ready, dear readers because this is one of the good ones. It’s tough getting music recommendations, because most of the time, people don’t know what they’re talking about. So, when I made up a pile of compelling music to go through my ears perked up when Vicious Dreams came on. I was expecting music that might sound like contenders to put on my heavy rotation, not something that I immediately fell in love with. I had to...
WHO: Former Member WHAT: Manageable Scratches WHY: For those of you who don’t know, Former Member is a punk rock duo consisting of Jason Shevchuk and Will Yip. The former is front man extraordinaire of bands like Kid Dynamite and None More Black. The latter is producer extraordinaire working the controls for bands like Mannequin Pussy and Turnstile. That alone makes this album worth checking out. Together they make up a powerful hard-hitting punk rock combination that sounds like a...
Inglourious Basterds Rewatching it many years later, I’m surprised by how much my opinion of this movie has changed. I used to think it was another masterpiece, but now I’m not so sure. Tarantino had been working on this script for over a decade before he decided to finish it, and he made Kill Bill in the meantime. And the script is quite solid, but what irks me is the casting, or maybe how these actors play the characters....
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into Grade 2’s Graveyard Island: Acoustic Sessions 12” EP. As someone wise once said, “Life is what happens while you’re making other plans,” and no punk band is making the best of a bad situation more than Grade 2 has, lately. The band had to put the promotional efforts behind their Epitaph debut album, 2019’s Graveyard Island, on hold when the CoVid-19 pandemic caused all touring routes to shut down indefinitely a couple...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the “Love I Bring” b/w “My Cat is on Prozac” split 7” single by Sic & Mad and The Slackers. There’s little doubt that this review will sound dismissive – such is the most common byproduct of a release which isn’t very good. Now, it’s true that the governing wisdom in the music industry has always been that, “They can’t all be genius,” and that may be true – but basic quality...
Red Victory: A History of the Russian Civil Warby W. Bruce Lincoln Soviet Russia history is my jam. Particularly the early Bolshevik stuff. The tactics, the politics, drama, it all comes together into an interesting soup that’s as exciting as it is disheartening. But, what I’m not as well-versed on is the Russian Civil war. I’m aware it happened, and was aware of some of the policies involved, but my hopes for this Bruce Lincoln book was that it would...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the “Windowland” / “I Almost Lost You” 12” Digitally-Printed single by The Slackers. It can be fun to write a short review once in a while and, when one addresses The Slackers’ newest single, “Windowland,” it’s impossible to not be brief. Clocking in at less than ten minutes total, the two songs on the single (“I Almost Lost You” is the second cut in the running but, because both songs appear on...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the To Victory EP by Lars Frederiksen. After a career spent tirelessly writing, recording and performing music with a celebrated list of bands on an incredible number of releases (to date, that list includes no fewer than forty-five releases recorded with bands including Rancid, Stomper 98, Old Firm Casuals, The transplants, The Bastards and Oxley’s Midnight Runners), it seems genuinely surprising that, only thirty-eight years after he started, Lars Frederiksen has added...
WHO: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard WHAT: KG / LW WHY: I don’t know if these are meant to be consumed as separate albums, but considering how productive King Gizzard and the Wizard Lizard is, I’m pretty sure this is one album. KG / LW is the best release this band has had in years, combining everything that they do well (psychedelic rock, metal, and prog) into shorter songs following a overarching theme. KG / LW rocks and pulsates...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Digital Age of Rome LP by T. Hardy Morris. It’s weird to think how tumultuous a year 2020 was, and how that tumult was reflected in the music which was released at the time. Even if a band didn’t actually have a political streak in their hair or bone in their body, conflict in the times seemed to appear in the music. Now, 2021 has had its share of rough running...