Open Water

Superchunk are back, Ride are back again, Fugazi are kinda back, Greta does Bowie, and it’s a double-Ought shot. and if there’s anything a free-market economy has taught us, there is typically collusion.

the day after Love Day, it’s all back to relative normal. Uranium Club cough one up from the obligatory live rekkid, plus we get some South Korean surf from Say Sue Me, some lush demands from MGMT, and one very, very good tribute to the late irate Mark E. Smith. love means never having to say, “don’t p panic”

a happy early couples day to y’all — courtesy of Bat Fangs, Hookworms, Mind Spiders and the whole menagerie. Royal Trux are back (almost). Khruangbin are sellin’ out all over, so let’s pretend like this show is the only place you can really hear ‘em. oh, and turns out it’s great Carolina punk that can take down white supremacists — just ask the ISS.

why do I buy tickets to shows I’ll probably never go to? it’s a character flaw. Ty Segall played the Dirty Bird, and it’s like that high school party where everybody else was there. no matter. two days later I give you an hourlong set of equal greatness, kicked off by the man his damn self.

Mark E. Smith would not have wanted us to eulogize him, but we’ll do it anyway. his spirit is as alive in the early-‘80s experimental pop of Laughing Clowns, as it is in the acerbic attitudes of Mudhoney, Flat Worms & Razorbumps. if the transitions are a bit frought, blame it on the fact that my hearing is still on its way back from the Ty Segall show the night before.

it’s a 2-hr ’stravaganza, as the new year (finally) gets into swing w/ some new stuff (Shame, Shopping, Preoccupations, Ought), but we take great consolation in finding garage rock from the back of the 2017 garage, and use that to mortar the rest of it. oh, and Dr. Demento gets his due. we should all be so lucky.

sometimes it’s my list. sometimes it’s a list comprised of other people’s lists. nothing is original, don’tchaknow. not since everybody stole the blues and called it something else anyway. quite unlike my food, I don’t care where it comes from. long as it eventually lands on my plate. I wanna see Flat Worms play the men’s room at a rest stop in northern Cal. and Shame in a basement at some dead-end high school party. and I just want ISS to stand in the back making fun of everybody.

hey, it’s a new year. that can only mean a January that starts with scant new records, the obligatory live album, reissues, some stuff that got bumped out of last year, and even-yet-still-more King Gizzard. and trust — that’s all a very good thing.

we close out the year in grand fashion, leading with the only sensible voices this year, and ending with some minimalist post-punk. as the gods would have it. in-between is a melange of inspiration, and an assurance that it’s all gonna be ok if we just sink our nails into the dashboard, close our eyes and listen to the music. (but maybe get someone else to steer.) this is the on-hour version; if you’re a glutton (or lived the year under a rock), go for the 4-hr one you also see before you.

2 solid hours to give you the last new goods and to clear out the closet a bit, and accommodate all the good stuff that got bumped last few months. if Stephin Merritt can write 50 songs to chronicle his life in one album, I can do this.