Label: Red Car Records (available through Cd baby) Released: 2004 I picked this one up for $5 after hearing a Charms track (not from this album) on Little Steven’s Underground Garage. I’m guessing the track I heard was newer and that the band has grown a good bit since this one was released. The first thing that struck me about… Read more »
Label: Roadrunner Released: July 25, 2006 You can draw a lot of parellels between the New York Dolls and the Rolling Stones. Both were more about swagger than technical talent. Both were kind of based in loose, sloppy blues. Both tried to present a dangerous sexuality, relying to some extent on androgyny. However, until last year, you couldn’t say that… Read more »
That last post reminds me of another really cool record buying experience that I had. When the first Beatles Anthology came out in 1995, I contacted a local record store called Music Machine to pre-order the double LP. They took the order, no problem. Then I waited for the release. A few days before the release, the owner of Music… Read more »
I’ve always loved ordering music directly from labels and I try to do that whenever I can. By and large, my experiences have been very good. About 12 years ago, I had a particularly good experience ordering some records from Sub Pop. At the time, I was pretty strapped for cash, but I really wanted Mudhoney’s My Brother the Cow…. Read more »
I’ve been reading Metal Mark’s countdown of the best metal albums of 1986 lately and it has me thinking about crossover. During the mid 80s, speed metal was the result of hardcore’s influence on a group of young metal bands looking for something new on one side and young hardcore bands looking to tighten up their sound on the other…. Read more »
It’s probably cheating to write this, but I’m trying to get back into the swing of posting, so I thought I’d try something easy and accessible. There’s no question that Zeppelin is one of the greatest rock bands of all time. Standing alone, with no thought given to influence, these records stand up today. On top of that their influence… Read more »
November 8, 2006, The Ottobar, Baltimore, MD I caught this show the other night with a friend. I’d heard of the last three bands and heard random tracks, but I wasn’t particularly familiar with anyone on the bill that night. The theme of the night was formula, which bands used one and who did it well and who did it… Read more »
Label: Dischord Released: October 10, 2006 Joe Lally’s first solo release is largely an album of rhythms. Although there is occasionally other instrumentation, most of the songs are bass, percussion and vocals (and even the vocals are more rhythmic than melodic). In most cases, this would make for a pretty dull album of self-indulgent fluff, but not so on There… Read more »
Label: Important RecordsReleased: August 3, 2004 Listening to Barbez is like sitting in a smokey French cafe in the middle of…the Twilight Zone. They play a strange mix of styles that draws primarily on indie rock and cabaret with subtle hints of non-Western styles (a little Asian influence hear and a touch of Middle Eastern there). They’ve mastered the great… Read more »
In the hopes of reinvigorationg my blogging efforts, I’m going to try something new. I’m going to do a review of a band’s entire (studio) discography. I recently spent a few days listening to the Talking Heads albums from first to last, so I’m going to start with them. Perhaps no other band from that mid-70s NYC/CBGB scene had a… Read more »