My Vinyl Solution is simple: I’m listening to my records. As my collection has grown, I’ve realized that I’ve been spending too much time amassing lps, to the point that I have no idea of what I even own. Hence, this column . Asia - Alpha When we last left off, I was saying that the Asia album you want is the one with “Heat of the Moment” on it . Well, this is not that album. But from about [...]
Going back to the first time I ever heard Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica , I remember wondering, “What is going on here?” The second thought immediately following this was “Who on Earth would release this?” Even today, Trout Mask Replica stands out as a left-field landmark, an impressive opus that may not sound like a masterpiece upon first listen, but its creative seeds begin to plant themselves immediately afterwards causing each subsequent listen to reveal an additional layer of complete brilliance. So it goes without saying [...]
MP3: Adam Cohen - "What Other Guy" from Like A Man , due April 3 on Decca (UMG). Who would've guessed? I can only thinkf of a handful of good musicians whose parents were famous artists. The Nelson twins? Nope. Wilson Phillips? Nope. Arguments could certainly be made for Jeff Buckley, Rufus Wainright, and Charlotte Gainsbourg. Maybe even Jacob Dylan. But it's rare enough that when the apple falls fairly close to the tree, we notice. Based on "What Other Guy" Adam Cohen seems to have inherited his dad's deadpan delivery of wickedly [...]
Magazine - No Thyself ( Wire-Sound Records ) “I don’t give a fuck about you too,” deadpans Howard Devoto on “Final Analysis Waltz” from the first new Magazine album in something like forever. The reality is that no one retires a band after four records only to reprise it over three decades later. And I don’t care how ambivalent Devoto claims to be; there has to some need to create with his old band members and some desire to connect with those longstanding fans for one last hurrah. [...]
In the end, I guess we’re all just vapor. We dissipate and vanish over time. Some of us linger for a while, like a scent in old clothes, but ultimately we go away. Even the people and things we love the most. Even The Beatles. It was within a couple of hours of his win for Best New Artist that Justin Vernon found himself the subject of an Internet meme. Or rather, his nom de plume, Bon Iver. It probably wasn’t what he had in mind when he clumsily accepted his award but a good portion of the [...]
Let me start with the pre-requisites: 1. It’s sad when people die 2. As music fans, we often attach personal feelings to people we’ve never met but who created something that touched us deeply 3. Whitney Houston was very talented and inspiring to a lot of people That said, I have to be honest: I have never, ever in my life liked Whitney Houston’s music. Actually, that’s me being polite about the dead. Let me try again: I have always fucking hated Whitney Houston’s music. As someone who [...]
The other day at work, I took some time from my mundane duties to each lunch and get a bit of light Yahoo news. You have to be selective when it comes to your “non-business related” surfing time. For example, I clicked on a news link once that brought me to a website that was locally related to the article I was reading. From that website, I noticed another article mentioning how a local resident was caught molesting a farm animal. If you’re a normal, red-blooded American, you can probably guess where my mouse pointed. Of [...]
One year ago for our tenth anniversary, we took a little break . A sabbatical. After six months with nary a peep, we quietly started publishing stuff again. And we've been posting stuff fairly regularly since then. The break was nice. It gave us time to migrate from MovableType to WordPress. We also switched hosts from Hostrocket to Dreamhost. And then switch back to Hostrocket after Dreamhost couldn't power our decade-worth of content with their measly 8MB of PHP memory. Our break also gave us some time to think about why we do this [...]
My Vinyl Solution is simple: I’m listening to my records. As my collection has grown, I’ve realized that I’ve been spending too much time amassing lps, to the point that I have no idea of what I even own. Hence, this column . Asia, Astra So the first thing you may notice if you read my last column post , is that regardless of what kind of writer I am, I clearly don’t have a grasp of the alphabet. Or [...]
Stream: Jack White - "Love Interruption" Wurlitzer electric piano, acoustic guitar, then: I want love to roll me over slowly, stick a knife inside me, and twist it all around. I want love to grab my fingers gently, slam them in a doorway, put my face into the ground. And that's how Jack White introduces his debut solo album, Blunderbuss , due April 24 on Third Man Records/XL Recordings/Columbia. Background vocals from Nashville-based, Ghana-born Ruby Amanfu add a creepy, old-timey [...]
Video: Wilco - "Dawned On Me" I usually hate animated videos but this one was pretty fun. It's apparently "the first hand-drawn Popeye cartoon in more than 30 years." Which is odd, because who knew that there have been any Popeye cartoons made in the past 30 years? Even if you're not impressed by the primitive animation and silly storyline (Olive Oyl picks Tweedy over Popeye and Bluto? Come on!), "Dawned On Me" is one of the highlights of Wilco's The Whole Love . [...]
Until recently, we’ve had a mild winter in the Midwest. There’s been very few days where temperatures fell below freezing and it was the first time in years when there wasn’t snow on the ground during Christmas. It was a challenge not to buy Kate Bush’s new album 50 Words For Snow when it was released last November, but I had to wait. I knew that someone would probably place it under the Christmas tree as a gift for me, as it’s well known around these parts that my love for all [...]
Launching a new column is somewhat daunting, as there’s usually a lot to explain. But an editor of mine once told me to just dispense with the disclaimers and jump right in. The readers will figure it out, he felt. And besides, plotting out all the thinking that went into the thing is somewhat presumptuous isn’t it? After all, you haven’t written shit yet, so laying out a bunch of crap that may or may not come to fruition is like showing people the boxes of parts you’ve ordered for the rusting hulk in the garage. Just shut up and [...]
Launching a new column is somewhat daunting, as there’s usually a lot to explain. But an editor of mine once told me to just dispense with the disclaimers and jump right in. The readers will figure it out, he felt. And besides, plotting out all the thinking that went into the thing is somewhat presumptuous isn’t it? After all, you haven’t written shit yet, so laying out a bunch of crap that may or may not come to fruition is like showing people the boxes of parts you’ve ordered for the rusting hulk in the garage. Just shut up and [...]
Video: Butch Walker And The Black Widows - "Synthesizers" “To commemorate the 20 year anniversary of the filming and inception of this amazing movie,” Butch Walker says , “we brought a little someone from the film back to be the life of the party for our new video for the song ‘Synthesizers.’ The song lyrics really relate to just about anyone who has a hard time moving on with the changes that life throws at you.” This video made my day. Butch Walker's [...]
Let’s put politics aside for a moment and just appreciate that this guy is smooth. Years after Clinton squawking away on a sax and eight arduous years of Bush trying to dance (or whatever that is ), we finally have a President with at least a hint of musical acumen. Making the rounds this week is the President singing some Al Green, which is awesome enough. But it’s not the first time The Crooner in Chief has put his pipes to the test. Dig his repertoire. Barack Obama Sings Al Green [...]
Video: Howlin' Wolf Defines the Blues, "Meet Me In The Bottom" This is something else! Wolf is patiently trying to explain what the Blues really are, while he's repeatedly heckled (off-mic, unfortunately) by an apparently loaded Son House. After not too long Wolf has had enough and rips into House. "You had a chance with your life but you ain't done nothing with it... See now you don't love but one thing and that's some whiskey." You can hear House arguing something to the effect of "I wants [...]
MP3: Cold War Kids - "Minimum Day" I've held a bit of an irrational grudge against the Cold War Kids since 2007 when we ran an interview with them by a new GLONO contributor whose writing read like P.R. copy. We tried to encourage him to put a little more personality in his stuff and he got offended. The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth and for some reason I've taken it out on the Cold War Kids. It's ridiculous, I know, but what can you do? Anyway, [...]
Even though I’ve spent my fair share of time in packed vans and cars driving to shows through snow and ice and overheated engines and speed-traps…I still love to read about other people’s experiences on the road. Throw in a healthy dose of frizzy hair and bell-bottoms and I’m hooked. I stumbled across this gem of a story while watching talkingheads dissect the South Carolina GOP debates and thank God for it. Author Craig Morrison gives a hilarious and detailed account of his “jazz-rock show band’s” trek across Canada in 1974. This isn’t The Song Remains the Same, [...]
When I was a kid—and I mean, when I was eight or nine years old—I told anyone who would listen that if I ever had kids I would name them after The Beatles. And I meant all of The Beatles, even Ringo. But I was a kid and what did I know? I grew up and realized it was ridiculous to name my kids after my favorite band. Paul Weller on the other hand is welcoming his twin sons Bowie and John Paul into the world this week. The 53 year old former frontman of The Jam announced [...]
Glorious Noise
Listen to the Japanese Song that Grimes is Obsessed With
PREVIEW: Hyperbits – Karekare (Original Mix)
Deadmau5 Returns With Techno Track "Monophobia" After Being Absent For Months
Stream: Disclosure – When A Fire Starts To Burn
