Xetas The Tower How does one begin to describe Xetas? “Powerful,” that’s how. But also sinister, relentless, and exciting. Xetas came to my attention by pure chance. A chance I love to take with 12XU records. More and more they are becoming my primary source for new music exposure. That goes for you as well, dear reader. Listening to the Tower it’s evident that Xetas are not interested in wasting anyone’s time. Yours or their, for that matter. Legend has...
Howlin’ Wolf Best of the Sun Records Sessions Are you serious about music? We are. So much so that we consider it homework. It’s not enough to enjoy the music, but also to understand where it came from: to trace it and pinpoint references. Forget what people say about appropriation: good art is all about combining influences and making something new; it’s all about bottom-up expression. This is why it’s important to go back and understand the sources....
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into Vamos’ 1, 2, 3 LP. The problem with every great music revival is that, as energizing and exciting as it might be, there’s a certain safety and security in knowing that the ideas involved have worked before and can work again in a walk – if enough people believe in it. Such thought processes have worked well several times over in the last twenty-five years, and it would be easy to figure...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the This American Blues LP by Ford Madox Ford. Remember a couple of decades ago when, against some fairly long odds, The Blasters managed to cross-wire punk rock and Americana/roots music? The results were pretty cool – the group actually did manage to break onto the popular radar for a minute (with some help from Quentin Tarantino and the soundtrack from From Dusk Til Dawn), but basically remained pretty niche because punk...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into No Joy / Sonic Boom’s self-titled 12” EP. Ever had one of those moments when you heard or read about a new musical project being entered by a couple of established musicians, got excited as your imagination began to run wild with the possibilities of what may come from the endeavor and then learned that you couldn’t have been more right when you got a taste of the music? It’s gratifying, isn’t...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Suffrage LP by Fucked and Bound. Full disclosure: on my first play through Suffrage, I accidentally had my turntable set to the incorrect speed. Because of that, my first judgement was that the band’s sound was thick, dark, sludgy and imposing – but it definitely piqued my interest and curiosity. I was fascinated by the hulking, demonic voice which dominated the song (“Similar to that of Roger Miret,” I thought) and...
Edge Of Tomorrow – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack LP By Christophe Beck It might be time for us to rehabilitate Tom Cruise. He’s long reigned supreme as America’s favorite weirdo actor celebrity, and it’s his own fault. Who could forget that appearance on Oprah years ago when we all realized just how strange of a bubble the man lives in. That just opened up a pandora’s box of oddness that directly relates to the shady organizations the man associates himself...
The Monsieurs Deux I could go on and talk about the Monsieurs in a historical and topographical context: who their members are, what led them to the Monsieurs or how much they’re contributing to the music scene in Boston. But, I’m not going to do that here. I just want to talk about how much Deux rocks. Because this album is a stand-alone firecracker and should be respected as such. If you didn’t already know, the Monsieurs play loud, snotty,...
Circle Jerks Wonderful I’m ready to make some enemies on this column and I think I can start a significant amount of shit by saying that the Circle Jerks were a better band than Black Flag. I’ve tried for years to find some sort of solidarity along these lines and have come up empty handed every time. It’s not that I don’t like Black Flag – I like them just fine – but there’s something about Circle Jerks...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into Art Bergmann’s The Apostate LP. In Canada, there is simply no musician more criminally underrated and under-appreciated than Art Bergmann. Since first appearing on the Vancouver punk and indie rock scenes in the Eighties, Bergmann has regularly had to fight to get popular notice not because the guitarist needed time to mature artistically, but because he has always been in the wrong place at the wrong time; always on the cusp of...