Only Life (1988)

The third album from the Feelies in eight years insinuates with a rich and warm sound that unfortunately strains for a gravitas they don't need and never needed, except simply by way of what had been acquired naturally across the years. I found this in the slush pile at an alternative newsweekly where I was freelancing. I think the editor considered repossessing it when he saw my excitement at finding it there. Instead, he made me take the copy of R.E.M.'s major label debut Green too and write about that. I wanted to write about this, not that, so I wrote about both, thrashing through with an incoherent batch of theories about the Byrds and the Velvet Underground. A friend of his from San Francisco called and told him I was full of shit. Hey, I was the one with the album. But as a result the editor wouldn't let me review Lou Reed's New York like he said he would. Fortunately for me, I'd already nicked the promo and he had to go out to a store and expense a copy at the last minute. That's life.

Crazy Rhythms (1980)

The bashful self-consciousness with which these artistes approach the business at hand strays now and then into painful realms. Crying out loud, they can't even manage to push vocals through the microphone with much of anything like confidence. But it doesn't matter. Once they get down to hitting the groove it's easy to forgive them anything. The impossibly fast chording drives the proceedings forward at breakneck pace, and speaking of rhythms, every member of the band gets at least one percussion credit. At the same time it remains under control all the way through, which says to me they know exactly what they're doing here. It operates at a fairly primal level, even though they are white, bashful, and arguably responsible for the genre now known as "indie rock." That's a stretch, but how can you call this "punk" or "new wave," let alone "rock"? But that doesn't matter either. So just turn it up and twitch along.

154 (1979)

Back where I'm from the Wire debate always came down to this album versus Pink Flag, and for me it was never a question -- this one, all the way. No short song conceits, just raw blasts of jagged sound describing and demarcating any number of strange spaces complete with height, width, and depth, big enough to step into, if you wanted. Anxiety remains the order of the day and it didn't help (or should I say hurt) that throughout it's as convincing, incoherent, and overwhelmingly powerful as it is methodical and tidy. Every shred of feedback, every ringing chord, every frog-bass croak from the singer remains numbing, exhilarating, and bone-chilling. It's also tuneful. Art-rock this good should be against the law?

bumrocks

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All things cool (and I mean that in the strictest McLuhanesque sense) converge on super-saturated red planet bumrocks, where techno meets fusion meets soul meets new age meets tropicalia. Don't miss this one if you can. Single tracks available for a limited time.

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Chairs Missing (1978)

Maybe it has something to do with the alphabet, maybe with a general disinclination toward the product of Brits, but a number of good to great albums from the likes of Wire, XTC, and/or Young Marble Giants escaped my attention in their heyday. I missed this one so completely that I was surprised to learn even of its existence a few years ago. The confluence of punk and art continued apace as Wire principals became ever more adept at writing songs, playing their instruments, and maximizing advantages of a recording studio. You can go ahead and envy me my late-arriving encounter -- hearing it at last has been an experience similar to hearing VU in 1985 -- or pity me for missing it so long. If you haven't heard it, don't make the mistake that I did. Trying to help you here.

Pink Flag (1977)

Although in their origins Wire was contemporary with British punk-rock they are actually much more of an art-rock outfit and always have been, as this conceptual debut amply demonstrates. Among the first to exploit the self-consciously short (minute and a half or less) song -- think also Ramones, Vibrators, or Minutemen -- Wire nonetheless pretty much confines that particular exercise to this album alone of theirs. Other features for which they became known are already abundantly in evidence: the crunchy and throbbing attack, with no lack of dead stops and starts, and the proceedings frequently stripped down to basic elements of feedback, yelpy vocals, in-your-face reverb, obdurate lyrical concerns, and/or minor-key tunefulness. Yet no matter how wild it may get a crust of civilization remains always. It's a pretty neat trick.

blowupdoll

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Glamour has never died on this blog, which features best of best from swinging London chicks, mod American girls, flavors of ye ye, and ai yi yi I don't know what all. I scoop it up by the handfuls when I stop by. Don't be jealous. No one else can be him. Single tracks available for a limited time. Pictured above: Chantal Goya.

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Under the Big Black Sun (1982)

X turned out to be one of those bands where each member had something giant to offer, and the sum of the parts exceeded, etc., etc. A situation where people choose favorites (not forgetting the "fifth X," producer/evangelist Ray Manzarek either). For me, it was always Billy Zoom who mattered most, and this is his shining moment, his real life rock 'n' roll guitar ringing over and ruling all that it surveys, which is simply everything. Of course, it doesn't hurt that D.J. Bonebrake's drumming is on the order of Charlie Watts here -- he's hitting hard and right at an astonishing level all the way through. Nor that Exene Cervenka's and John Doe's songwriting and singing collaboration takes several significant steps deeper (particularly Cervenka taking on the death of her sister) into the collaboration that would ultimately burst apart and spit out a poet and a country singer. You don't want to miss this one.

Syd Barrett

005 Syd Barrett
Ah, the travails of the rock mythologist -- this must be where I make my peace with Pink Floyd, not that any of them ever cared a fig for my torments. I can see now, from the Syd Barrett-centric view of matters (generally before my time, or at least, seen only fleetingly in peripheral vision for years), a story parallel to that of Brian Jones, Jonathan Richman, and/or Brian Wilson. Whether for reasons of mental illness, drug abuse, pathological proclivity to daydream, just plain low levels of motivation, or any combination of the above, all have in common that something of great interest flashed around them and then somehow went suddenly seemingly awry. This, then, must be chapters from "The Story of the Piper at the Gates of Dawn."

Pink Floyd, "Astronomy Domine" (1969) The live LP of the double album Ummagumma has always been my favorite more or less album by Pink Floyd. (The studio LP of the set on the other hand is just bad.) Recently, I was disappointed to hear drummer Nick Mason on the radio pronouncing the title with the dead schwa, as in "um" or "gum," which I suppose does make the most sense. For all those decades I had taken the side of the krautish (or so I thought of it, giving it an umlauted/"ü" kind of twist) and used the vowels sounds of "room" or "zoom." Another illusion shattered the more's the pity. (8:29)
Pink Floyd, "Astronomy Domine" (1967) From The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. (4:12)
Pink Floyd, "Julia Dream" (c. 1967) From bootleg All Movement Is Accomplished. (2:21)
Pink Floyd, "Julia Dream" (c. 1967) From bootleg All Movement Is Accomplished. (2:32)
Pink Floyd, "See Emily Play" (c. 1967) From bootleg All Movement Is Accomplished. (2:54)
Syd Barrett, "Dolly Rocker" (c. 1971) From Opel. I like how he sounds offended that he has to explain what the song title means. (3:00)
Syd Barrett, "Effervescing Elephant" (c. 1970) Twee, of course, but the willfully deadpan delivery undercuts that in a weird way. (1:04)
Syd Barrett, "Gigolo Aunt" (c. 1968) Heavy version, my favorite. Bad sound. From Magnesium Proverbs. (4:54)

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Big Rock Candy Mountain

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This blog, whose heart resides in versions of 1946 R&B and C&W somewhere in the U.S. southlands, recently concluded a list of Top 100 Drinking Songs, which featured artists both expected and surprising: Amos Milburn, Loretta Lynn, Wynonie Harris, the Pogues, Louis Jordan, Tom Waits, Gil Scott-Heron, the Replacements, Dean Martin, Merle Haggard, Snoop Dogg, and lots more. Single tracks available for a limited time.

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