A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Choke Cherry Tree LP by Ben Miller Band. The catch, when any band attempts to infuse a time-honored sound and style with new energy and fresh inspiration, is that they often lose sight of all the reasons why and how that form worked in the first place. While the heart and hopes might sound enough, the results often feel as though someone has tried to weld the fins from a ’57...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Loner LP by Caroline Rose. I have to confess that, as soon as I began listening to Loner – the new full-length album by Caroline Rose – I realized that everything I thought I knew and expected from the singer was incorrect. My first contact with Rose was with the song “Yip Yip Yow” from an NPR live performance, and that was enough to get me looking around for other music...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Recreational Hate LP by Lemuria. The coolest thing about the moment after a new album gets released, people begin to find it and it proves to really connect with them in a popular way is that time seems to stop for a minute and everything the band did prior to the release of that album becomes a footnote. From the moment that record breaks the band into the popular consciousness, all...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Meet King Leg LP by King Leg. The beauty of working in a pop culture-identified medium like pop music is that, while the music does initially have finite appeal as ‘new music,’ the basic structures and forms can easily be revisited, re-purposed and re-presented as often as new artists are willing to rediscover them. Any music can be reborn with the power of belief Take King Leg’s new album, Meet King...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Certified edition of Oooooooohhh… On The TLC Tip by TLC. From a historical standpoint, it’s always remarkable to observe how and when a dynasty began. Take TLC, for example; to date, the group comes second only to The Supremes in regards to how far their influence reaches on both musical and cultural levels. That statement is made here with no hyperbole at all, it is just a FACT. The group’s sophomore...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Water Records vinyl reissue of the Album – Generic Flipper LP. In music, as is the case in chemistry, the most important element is the one that ultimately provides the catalyst which sets everything else in motion. In chemistry, for example, the right combination of sulfer, charcoal and saltpeter can still remain perfectly inert but, when a spark gets added to that mix, the results are explosive; the aforementioned chemical compound...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the “Flesh & Bone” 7” single by Dan Rico. On first play through Dan Rico’s “Flesh & Bone” 7” single, many listeners will likely be struck and dazzled by what they hear. They’ll be excited by the tone and tenor of both “Flesh & Bone” and its B-side, “Gold Volvo,” because both tracks sound tightly and classically composed, in the finest tradition of the best power pop records. That is indeed a...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Stuyedeyed/Birds split 7” single, released on Greenway Records. It’s always kind of incredible how great a gamble a split 7” single release can be for the artists involved. Over the years, lots of bands have made great ones, yes, but there have been an equal or greater number of weak or soft efforts which feel lopsided because either one band or one song is far superior to the other. It’s a...
Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001-2011 by Lizzy Goodman I got my start in music in High School in the late 90s. It was a time when we were exposed to western music for the first time in the little Caribbean island I was growing up (no, unfortunately not Jamaica). The interest has stuck ever since and I actually remember the era of music that Goodman covers in her book Meet...
The House of Government: A Saga of the Russian Revolution by Yuri Slezkine The Russian Revolution of 1917 is such a rich vein of cultural and social lessons. The same of course can be said for the soviet experiment. Countless books have been written on the subject from both participants who were there to see things for themselves, and historians who try to uncover new truths as they become available. This year marks 100 years since the revolution and a...