Lambchop

Judy and the Loadies, “I’m Not Drunk”

I am, Judy and the Loadies!

Lambchop, “Steve McQueen”

I’ve poked fun at some artists for cloying strings, but somehow Lambchop’s syrupy approach to same never bothers me. I suppose the reliably languid pace of things probably makes it feel better, but I think they’re just good at making them seem organic to the song and not just bolted on.

The Meters, “Stormy”

The Meters taking it slow on their first album, albeit without any strings involved. As always, the Meters rule, you should listen to them.

Bricks, “History of Lies”

I think this might be a repeat, but I’m gonna be honest - it’s a little hard to tell with Bricks songs. Let’s check.

OH MY GOD, this is the fourth time this song has come up! And we’ve never had another Bricks song from this record. This is the first tune, so that feeds into my pet theory that the Plex randomizer prefers the first track of albums.

Lambchop, “Up With People”

A difficult question to answer is “what is the best Lambchop record?” Part of the problem here is that they’ve evolved gently over their existence, but don’t really have recognizable periods where one could really say that that style is your favorite. Another problem is their consistency, where the albums are pretty uniformly excellent, but there’s not really noticeable jumps and dips. It’s all a big, good plateau.

Bedhead, “Haywire”

Bedhead is the musical equivalent of a weighted blanket.

Lambchop, “The Gusher”

Lambchop is, uh, a velvet smoking jacket, a faded photo of your grandparents, a mostly empty bottle of rye, and a ticket stub for a concert that you can’t actually tell who it was for but you know it was an excellent concert.

PIG, “Valley of the Ignorant”

PIG, meanwhile, is what you get when it’s J.G. Thirlwell who was trapped in amber and they weren’t preoccupied enough with whether they should.

Lambchop, “The New Cobweb Summer”

Aw, I just want to enjoy this. I’m not going to say anything!

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, “She Said”

Plastic Fang is an album that feels a little bit unfocused to me. They’re experimenting with tweaks to their formula in a few different ways on the album, and I’m not sure it all totally works out. But that said, Spencer still writes some bangers on it, and this is one of the highlights of the record. Just a roaring groove in the mold of Orange.

STS, “All I Wanted Was A Caddy”

I’ve sung the praises of this record, but the STS and RJD2 colab from 2015 is such a gas. RJD2 is in great form, and STS is able to really bring it home on that platform. A really delightful record.

Sharon Jones, “Got a Thing On My Mind”

Hell yeah!

Lambchop, “The Daily Growl”

Lambchop’s Nixon was something of a breakthrough, gaining a lot of press attention and elevating the profile of the band. Their arrangements had been getting more and more elaborate, and Nixon is pretty busy (as Lambchop goes). So the question was, on their followup, would they keep going in that direction? No, as it turns out. Is A Woman is something of a retrenchment. The songs are pretty languid, and it’s clear at this point that Lambchop was going to just blaze their own path through music, being impossible to categorize but recognizable as just being themselves. From this album forward, Lambchop albums pretty much just always sound like Lambchop albums, and not a whole lot else.

Modest Mouse, “Tundra/Desert”

Before what I consider their breakthrough, The Lonesome Crowded West, Modest Mouse was making jagged, interesting music that sometimes was too much of a mess to really be great. But, I have to say, the older I get, the more I appreciate the early stuff. This is from Interstate 8, released in 1996, which is an “EP” because it’s just five new studio tracks. But, there are also six live tracks, so it’s also kind of a full album’s worth of music. Anyway, if you haven’t really listened to their pre-fame catalog, it’s worth your time.

Slapstick, “She Doesn’t Love Me”

Yesterday, I mentioned I don’t listen to Pegboy much any more, and it’s largely because I’ve stepped away from most of the melodic punk I used to listen to. When I put on a punk record, I usually go for something a little more upbeat and poppy these days. Something like this! And of course, Slapstick had horns, the other thing from yesterday. And sure enough, I actually have listened to this record recently.

Bad Brains, “Re-Ignition”

Greatest hardcore band during the 80s has been a common argument through the years. A lot of the time, it comes down to a preference between the east coast (Minor Threat), the west coast (Black Flag or the Dead Kennedys), or the midwest (Hüsker Dü). I know I first encountered this argument on Usenet in 1991, and it hasn’t really stopped. But if you asked for the best hardcore album, there was often an extra one that people would mention. I Against I didn’t exactly fit the mold of those other bands, and given how many other genres get blended in here, I’m not sure it totally qualifies as a hardcore album. Kind of the same way I’m not sure that the Minutemen qualify. Nevertheless, it’s a hell of an album, and I can understand why people put it in the company of so many other classics from the 80s.

Autoclave, “Bulls Eye”

Before Mary Timony formed the brilliant Helium (and Wild Flag and Ex Hex!), she was in Autoclave, who put out a couple of EPs for Dischord Records which were later collected on a single comp. It’s an interesting piece of history, and for Timony fans, I do think it’s worth picking up, but it’s not on the same level as her later work. It IS extremely early 90s Dischord, though.