Blog: The Gumshoe Grove

[ Curiosities is a new column designed to highlight freaky shit I come into contact with. There's going to be oddities -- a warning for the timid.] Every day I review music in the hopes of finding that pure moment that makes all the drudgery worthwhile. Sometimes I locate it, sometimes I don't. Today, I've found a deeply tamped treasure the depths of which I'd never dreamed of pluming again: THE JUICY FRUIT SONG . [...]

Mellowdrone - Angry Bear - s-r For Mellowdrone , being dropped from their major-label deal seems to have been a blessing. They're free to do what they want now, and they're taking advantage of the extra space to stretch out and expand. I wish [...]

[ I started this blog in order to hack away at the large stack of CDs on my desk. Since then, my stack has only gotten bigger. In an effort to pare this shit down to reasonable levels I'm instigating a SPEED ROUND REVIEW series, of which this is the first entry. [...]

SYLVESTER ANFANG II 'Satan likt mijn hielen ' [ Before you read this, be absolutely to play the Sylvester Anfang II MP3 sample to your RIGHT, which is FREE almost 8 minutes long, for a true glimpse into the SAII sound without the theatrics. It's invigorating. ] I hate posting videos. I hate it when bloggers post a video, write a short paragraph, and act like they've contributed something to readers [...]

When this first came out I saw it on someone's desk at my college radio station and SNATCHED it up. Then I listened to it maybe once and filed it away without even adding it to the station's library. I knew it was important for whatever reason but I didn't know why and I didn't know when, exactly, it would make its mark. Fast-forward to 2009: I still have the generic radio promo, but I went ahead and splurged on the 2XLP version to [...]

[Starting with this review I am planning on writing MORE posts that get to the point in LESS time. COVERT OP!!! Comment if you have any thoughts on this approach; I figured today's reader wants timeliness over long-windedness.] All Leather is Justin Pearson's latest project -- think Ground Unicorn Horn , Crimson Curse, Fast Forward, The Locust, Some Girls, Holy Molar, etc. -- and it might be a sign that it's finally time for a new Locust record ( in the meantime, check out Pearson on Jerry Springer ; [...]

Okie Dokie : If you've seen them or heard them, they need no introduction. For the rest of you, gnaw on this: Punk has an ugly new face. Okie Dokie are a muddy synthesis of Bad Brains (especially in the vocals, which yelp at the end of a stanza just like H.R.), The Stooges, Jay Reatard, The Buzzcocks, Swell Maps, The Germs, Les Claypool's surreal Dr. John-esque voice-scratch-screech on "Tommy the Cat" and -- aww what the hell -- X-Ray Spex. [...]

Was there any doubt what the sixth installment of my Past Blast series would be? Six Finger Satellite 's legend has endured as a million other bumper-crop bands -- Erase Eratta, Six Finger Satellite via last.fm Numbers, Les Georges Leningrad (though much props to Leningrad) -- have broken up and drifted into obscurity. Of all the groups to employ high, chiming, slurred [...]

I've dug into a lot of crates looking for crusty, brain-stabbing grindcore as intense as Racebannon and came up with middling results (the only real contenders over the years have been those blink-and-you'll-miss-them deals like Daughters, Trencher, Some Girls, Charles Bronson et al). As a result I've continued to write about Racebannon obsessively since discovering them on AudioGalaxy in '98 (who says filesharing didn't help bands out?). Here's another log for the fire; or three, to be precise: A triumvirate of 7-inch split releases [...]

Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of swag, three seven inches to buy instead of (along with?) a bag: Blank Dogs - "Waiting" Is the Blank Dogs singer plugging his nose the way the guy from Wavves does? Was this song actually written in the early '80s? Did it originally come out on Factory Records? [...]

This review took forever and it's another loooong journey but I think it worked out. Props to Phil E. for coming up with something so inspiring. Awe-inspiring, even.

This is not an MP3 blog and never has been; never will be. But when I hear something that blows me away, of course I'm going to share that with you. Lightning Bolt have been a micro-indie battering ram for a decade or more now and I discovered them through a bumper crop of spazz-core groups -- The Locust, Melt-Banana, Racebannon, The Pope (who are fucking amazing), Mikaela's Fiend -- most of whom I don't tend to listen to as much as [...]

I'm sorry to say I have no new posts for you all today. I had to finish up an absolutely epic review of Mt. Eerie's Wind's Poem for Tiny Mix Tapes and spent the rest of the day running around with my little baby friend Penelope. BUT FRET NOT: I have for you today a link to a review I wrote of a band called Sailboats Are White! in 2006. I feel this review is pertinent today because of all the buzz going around about the latest punk surge, groups [...]

I've seen Ozomatli perform a few times. I saw them play the Warped Tour in '97 or '98, back when their ascension to the near-top of the Los Angeles scene seemed a laughable idea. They were decent but nowhere near the machine they are today; they had a guest rapper (it wasn't the guy from Jurassic 5 like on the album) but no real vocal presence that I can remember. [...]

Lord knows WHY I slept on this record for so long. Half the artists I interviewed in 2004 (what a year that was! Remember '01, too? '01 and '04 are my '67 and '69, respectively) mentioned that they were listening to Panda Bear's Young Prayer on a regular basis. All I heard was a sad guy flitting aimlessly up and down his guitar fret. As he fret. What the eff was I thinking? YP sits [...]

Dressy Bessy : From the Elephant Six connections to the sheik indie profile, they've always been a name that you recognize if you've been sitting around the underground campfire for as long as I have (check out some of their music at their super-cool "Records" room ). They're definitely not on the level of peers like Neutral Milk Hotel , Of Montreal or Olivia Tremor Control. After seeing them perform in a live setting -- at Fort Collins, Colorado's New West Fest, which my wife and I turned [...]

blah blah I suck so bad! Your mother eats paste ...

"Jane, ever since I met you I've noticed things I never noticed before: Birds ... singing! Dew, glistening on a newly formed leaf! Stoplights ... " That's a passage from Naked Gun , a flick I've seen upwards of three-dozen times. This quote represents Leslie Nielson's character Frank Drebbin's attempt to win back his lady. He wants her back, see, because she's influenced his life so much he can't imagine going on without her. I feel this way about my wife, but for [...]

At this point Anton Newcombe can do with me what he will. Just Like Kicking Jesus is an ornament on the Christmas tree of my obsession for all-things-BJM, and I would have never accepted a $17 pricetag for what amounts to three songs, two of them previously released on My Bloody Underground (which is Bloody Fantastic, mind you) from anyone else. It's easy to hem and haw about a "raw deal" like this until the music, the GIGANTIC, THROBBING [...]

Dark Was the Night , a comp featuring a who's who of indie talent, was a no-brainer purchase for me. The Books? Grizzly Bear (playing on a ton of tracks no less)? Sufjan Stevens , Blonde Redhead, Riceboy Sleeps, Iron & Wine and Bon Iver ? Yeasayer, Yo La Tengo, Cat Power, Andrew Bird? Conor Oberst ? Ok, I'll let that go ... Besides, that's not even the whole listing; it would take me the rest of tonight [...]