Hey Junky,Awright, I can't make dis long – since ol' fi' dollar Billy went onn'is honeymoon, I ben trying ta keep myself occupied an' – how wid'e say it? – "pursue other avenues." Anyway, I'm a little slower than usual when it comes ta bein' onna run, so I gotta make dis quick. I nabbed a coupla primo songs fo'ya, n' I wis gonna throw 'em inna full-lentgh SWAG Report, but I ain't got time so dis is gonna hafta...

Oh, before I go,I always thought it was kind of weird how, when folks get married, there's all this gift-giving, but those who couldn't make the party don't get anything. That doesn't seem right to me, so I've commandeered the SWAG Report again to offer you fine readers a little celebratory wedding gift: a bunch of free music! Not only that, but it's a pretty sweet deal too; you're getting some fine new Americana, some other bits and pieces and...

Dearest readers, It is with great joy that I make this announcement: I'm getting married. That's right, my five-year squeeze Heather has agreed to walk down the aisle with me. While I've long maintained that I don't need some expensive jewelry or a piece of paper to know when I'm committed to someone and she has held a firm stance of "never, not ever again," we figured neither of us was going anywhere and it seemed like as good a...

One always has to wonder what wavelength some musicians are on – and that fact always comes to a head each time they're asked to contribute an endorsement of another group. You've seen these things before; on the front of Grandpaboy's Dead Man Shake, Paul Westerberg likened the sound of the guitar to “a knife fight in a phone booth” (which is kind of funny, given Westerberg is Grandpaboy) and Tom Waits has likened John Hammond's voice to the sound...

For as many bands who have come along and changed the face of rock n' roll over the years, there have been an equal or greater number of equally deserving groups who came close, but fell just short of the level they should have achieved. The perfect tragedy of the matter is, while some bands break and become household names and leave an expansive and fantastic crater in the place where they impacted rock n' roll, some other great bands...

Someone, somewhere has to be wondering how this EP didn't get made sooner. For the last sixteen years, Me First and The Gimme Gimmes have been raiding/defacing the vaults of pop history and churning out their own versions of what they find in the spirit of punk rock karaoke – so it's surprising to think that no one considered taking a crack at some bands from Japan; the birthplace of karaoke. It must have finally dawned on someone in the...

Hey junkie,I know I say dis a bunch but, wow, are you a lucky little buncha punks'is week. I nabbedja some pure, white hot-an'-addictive gold! Ann'it ain't no small amount neither! I nabbed new tunes from Asa, Chuck Ragan an' Cuff The Duke fer starters, ann'at ain't all bitch! As Im' sure y'ev heard, Wilco's gotta new reckid comin' out this month annis time, the band has gone old school: it's gonna be released onn'eir own label called dbpm an'...

Hungarian journalist/novelist Arthur Koestler once said that the real moment of truth or “the sudden emergence of a new insight, is an act of intuition. Such intuitions give the appearance of miraculous flushes, or short-circuits of reasoning.” Such an impartial explanation of moments and events which prove to have remarkable significance is wildly romantic and attractive and, now in 2011, Jesse “Boots Electric” Hughes has reached his moment of truth with the release of Honkey Kong – the singer's first...

"You can yell out "Afghani Sands," we just won't be able to play it!" Give me the ten-dollar punk show any day. Yes I know, you prefer the production value, the lights and the pyrotechnics of a world class arena concert, but to experience a sweaty loud punk band in a sweaty loud bar, well the idea itself makes me giddy with anticipation. The Great Scott is quickly becoming my favorite music venue (not that I'm incredibly experienced with the...

How does a fantastic but small band try to get big in a hurry and fill its new-found stature? That's precisely the question Slow Club tries to answer on Paradise, their sophomore full-length. When Yeah So, Slow Club's debut LP, came out two years ago (last year in the US), it's likely that no one was more shocked than the band itself as a series of licensing deals got them a foothold in several foreign markets (in Canada, “When I...