Open Water

pre-taped tonight, so’s I can go see the LCDs in Santa Barbara. you understand. more cuts from great albums featured on last week’s show, plus a double shot of Sloan (that’s what 27 years gets you. better than a fountain pen.)

Wreckless Eric is back — and in good form. Omni gives us a new jangle, Pill get their early stuff reissued on wax, and we spend 10 infectious minutes with a Scottish charity album. all in a day’s.

show 100 is a please-give-us-your-money affair, but who doesn’t love a pledge drive? we pay it back in advance, with newness from Sloan (27 years & going strong), A Place to Bury Strangers, Bush Tetras, Hinds, and more of that amazing Amazing. pay the fare and get onboard.

I coulda stopped with the balls-out rock-a-rolla of BAMBARA & The Sueves. I coulda pulled back after I laid some of The Amazing on you. I coulda left you to slip into the deep haze of Holy Wave. but I upped the ante with new RBCF, Bodega and more. oh, and the MC5 are back when we need them most. are you ready to testify?!

the only thing reliable in a world of uncertainty is a new GBV album. and so it is. we celebrate Failure new & old, bask in the madness of The Garden, enjoy 3 minutes of Italian rock, and lend 10 minutes to the man Neil Young. time well spent.

two sweet hours tonight for you to bask in the warm, iridescent glow of the open water. we kick off with as infectious an ode to depression as one could ask for, courtesy of the restless guys in Preoccupations. add in some classic Wire, and new stuff from the Bees, Spirit Night, Dusk and more. oh, and San Clemente H.S. musician Logan Robert Dunnwald stops in to discuss his music and working with the Laguna Tots. keep it local!

they asked if I wanted to see the Bowie exhibit in Brooklyn, so I went. wouldn’t you? show is a priority, but the Thin White Duke is a bigger one. so all the dialogue sounds like, say, someone was sitting in a crappy business center in a downtown hotel, huddled over an iPhone, before being kicked out by German businessmen. like that. new INVSN, Oneida, Hot Snakes, and something homegrown from LRD. go see Laguna Tots!

some things go on for two hours. this show is one of them. all the better to fit in some anniversary records from the likes of Britpoppers Supergrass, The House of Love & Gomez. and noisy new stuff from Lithics, FRIGS, Moaning, The Lovely Eggs and more. rest in peace and lockstep time, Chalo.

once again, there is a ghost in the machine — tracks that won’t load, and the human error that prompted a re-record on some of the vocal breaks. but you didn’t come for the disclaimers; you came for the Parquet Courts 2-in-1, the Scott Kannberg reissues, the evocative stirrings of Kronos Quartet & Laurie Anderson, and the new double-bass incarnation of Melvins. you chose wisely.

FRIGS have my heart, but Mean Jeans bring the commercial jingles. how can one choose?