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, […]

FRIGS have my heart, but Mean Jeans bring the commercial jingles.  how can one choose? FRIGS — Solid State  /  Caroline Rose — Bikini  /  Painted Doll — Painted Doll  /  Everett Bird — Paranoid  /  Car Seat Headrest — High to Death  /  Mean Jeans — Kinkos  /  Vundabar — Diver  /  Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks — Middle America  /  Superchunk — All for You  /  Ought — New Calm, Pt. 2  /  Runaway Brother — Bully  /  Goon — Slab Roller (edit)  /  The Blow — Afterparty  /  Kraus — Reach

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. Superchunk — Reagan Youth  /  Greta Van Fleet — The Jean Genie  /  Frank Turner — 1933  /  Ought — Disaffectation  /  Ought — The Weather Song  /  American Pleasure Club — This Is Heaven & Id […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. SAVAK — Relax, It’s the Holidays  /  Animal Collective — Floridada (live)  /  Jeff […]