Blog: Shake Your Fist

A post on Swen?s Blog led me to Koolarrow Records , a fascinating label run by former Faith No More bassist Billy Gould. Gould signs artists who represent "real world music??Spanish hip-hop, Danish experimental pop, Mexican death metal?as well as some curious hybrids . Koolarrow?s also got a few more predictable acts like Seattle-based Hog Molly, the current home of Tad Doyle, who some of you might remember as leadman for early Sub Pop act Tad . The site?s full of free downloads. Here?s a couple of my faves: [...]

Train From Kansas City (mp3) ? The Shangri-Las I came across a Shangri-Las collection (for the can?t-pass-up price of $6.99 at Laurie's Planet of Sound ?home of the nicest record store employees in Chicago) this weekend and just had to highlight a single from this fabulous 60s girl group. A quick synopsis from Allmusic : [...]

Andrew Earles is a rock critic who writes, among other things, a hilarious column for Magnet, livening up what might otherwise be a pretty dull mag. What separates him from a lot of music scribes is that he's both discriminating (definitely not a fanboy and in fact refers to himself as a "hater") and passionate about what he loves. By that I mean he doesn't resort to irony and general snarkiness as emotional distancing devices. Earles has a blog, where he recently posted something that should make [...]

The New York Post ran a story yesterday (picked up by Yahoo News) on the whole indie yuppie thing. I particularly love the quote from the self-identifier gushing "Oh my God! That's me!" Honey, you're a marketer's wet dream. And no doubt you're a yuppie. But clearly you were in the fitting room at Urban Outfitters when someone explained the aesthetic and ideological underpinnings of "indie rock culture"--whatever the fuck that is anyway. You have to subscribe to the Post to read [...]

A start-of-the-summer mix with a little new, a little old, a little in-between. </ style="FONT-FAMILY: arial" Most neo-new wave bands these days are plundering the vaults of the Buzzcocks, Gang of Four and New Order. But San Francisco?s Boyskout has clearly got an affinity for West Coast new wavers like Missing Persons and Romeo Void. Back to Bed takes me back to my twelve-year-old self, vacationing in L.A., begging my parents to turn up KROQ on the car [...]

Friend and colleague, Daniel Padgett sings and plays guitar for Chicago-based Outlaw Family Band . They've recently released their first full-length album CD. Given their regular appearances at local clubs like Schubas Tavern , Metro , and Double Door , I admit I wondered how their well-honed live act would translate to the studio. But with ex-Wilco impresario Jay Bennett [...]

Dear Stephen, So you have a new album coming out next Tuesday. Do I care? I do not. Like any indie rock freak over 30, I spent years worshipping you?paying to see half-assed Pavement shows, penning pathetic, adoring love letters (you never got em cuz I never sent em), asking ?what would Malkmus do?? whenever a situation called for ironic detachment and calculated ambivalence. Naturally I had (have) all the Pavement albums and a lot of the singles, [...]

It's All In My Mind (mp3) ? Teenage Fanclub This week?s No Hits selection was entirely too easy. This is practically the only thing I?ve been listening to for the last five days?over and over and over again. Teenage Fanclub?s been around for a while?16 years according to the year-by-year history on it?s Web site . I?m sure they?ve done better in Britain (the guys hail from Glasgow), but they never really [...]

You Ain't No Picasso has found the holy grail, or something close. That fine blog's got two video clips of Jeff Mangum (Neutral Milk Hotel) performing in Athens, GA in 1997 and 1998. I saw NMH play Lounge Ax (RIP) in the spring of 1998 and it practically changed my life. We're talking transcendent, religious conversion powerful. So if you never got it before, here's your chance. (Disclaimer: I understand this is the kind of talk that sent Mangum into early retirement [...]

No Hits is a new weekly item here at Shake Your Fist. Named after our first selection, No Hits will feature a song that's on heavy iPod rotation. No Hits (mp3) - Black Mountain From the debut album Black Mountain on Jagjaguwar Records . Black Mountain is, [...]

The next generation of video game consoles (to be released in 2005 and 2006) are so powerful that the cost of writing code that takes proper advantage (spray of blood particle physics engines; 17 million polygon cleavage wireframes; photo-realistic zombie entrail rendering) is skyrocketing. Math isn't just hard, kids, it's also expensive. As a result, the only titles getting greenlighted are sequels of successful games or licenses of popular films . Sequels, licensing and special effects... somehow, George Lucas must be to blame for this. And there's no Tom Stoppard re-write on the horizon. [...]

Ask and you shall receive, Amy. All you eproctophilics bored with Planet Hollywood should start saving your frequent flier miles for a trip to Taipei. Josh Rubin's excellent Cool Hunting has photos of the latest in Taiwanese "concept" dining: the toilet-themed restaurant . No, really. It apparently sports "...toilet chairs, urinal sconces, and even commode shaped serving pieces." Hey, what smells like kimchi?

Less than a week in and this blog is in serious jeopardy of becoming Amy's Mp3 Blog. Come on teammates! Anyway, I was browsing Amazon the other day and was disappointed to see Barbara Manning's One Perfect Green Blanket is now out of print. If you don't know her (and you should), Manning is a San Francisco musician/songwriter who belonged to 28 Days and World of Pooh in the late 80s and in the 90s recorded [...]