This is the intro to Scar Sighted, Leviathan’s 2015 album, a fearsome black metal album. Leviathan is the solo band of Jef Whitehead, who is also notable for starting one of the premier metal labels around, Profound Lore. This track is really just a build up to the start of the of the record, so I guess we’ll tackle it properly next time it comes up, along with maybe the controversy surrounding him.
[Read More]This merger of King’s blues guitar with the Stax horns, with funk folded in, is just delightful. I need to find some more shit like this. You can add blues to the long list of music that I fundamentally know jack squat about. I’m starting to think I’m not qualified to write a music blog at all!
If you’re going to combine ska and punk, you can’t half-ass it. Full tempo punk with horns, hell yeah! Yeah, this shit’s a laughingstock, but I don’t care. It’s fun! Screw y’all!
[Read More]How sweet is that Memphis sound? This is a song from late in the Atlantic run for Stax/Volt, from 1967. That’s a tasty break in this song! Jeanne and the Darlings just ended up recording four singles in their career, so there isn’t a lot of followup to this tune.
There have been times in my life when I’ve bought a record that was intimidating, when I wasn’t really sure what I was getting into. Buying this album, Strategies Against Architecture II, was one of those moments. I had heard of the band, in mostly hushed tones, and I wasn’t really sure I was up for it. So strange! So noisy! So German! I didn’t honestly know if I was up for it. And the album was, indeed, something pretty far beyond what I could have expected. But I certainly liked it!
[Read More]Early stars on Stax, Sam & Dave are always super enjoyable to listen to, and this song is of course no exception.
Knxwledge’s solo album, Hud Dreems, is all instrumental and most of the tracks are on the short side. In a lot of ways, it sounds like a portfolio rather than a proper album, with Knxwledge presenting his skill in making beats as an audition. It’s perfectly pleasant, but as with most abstract hip-hop, not super memorable.
[Read More]Confidential to Megan: there’s a playlist on Plexasaurus Rex for today! For the rest of you, you have to first put up with my crap for about 25 years, and then you can have a private playlist. In the mean time, you can at least get the YouTube-ized version.
There are lots of moments, especially on Dial ‘M’ for Motherfucker, where Pussy Galore presented the vision which Jon Spencer would bring to full fruition with the Jon Spencer Blue Explosion. There’s a pretty straight line from this song to the tunes on the first JSBX album, for instance. Those are also invariably the most interesting Pussy Galore songs.
[Read More]“Anarchist” is always kind of an interesting descriptor when applied to a band. For whatever reason, there are some bands where that’s called out for them, and I’m sitting here thinking that I’ve pretty much liked every band I’ve ever encountered that has been described as anarchist. The Dog Faced Hermans, for instace. I’m looking at this list of anarchist-punk bands from Wikipedia (of course there’s a list on Wikipedia), and it’s pretty bitchin’, even if I question the inclusion of some bands. Black Flag! The Dead Kennedys! Napalm Death! NoMeansNo! Propagandhi! That’s some good shit, y’all.
[Read More]Hey, y’all! I’m going to be in Vancouver this weekend for SHUX! If you happen to be going, say hi!
Criminal Minded is at the root of so much of New York rap. It’s really one of the foundational documents of the East Coast scene. There are so many echoes of this album in so many other records that it’s almost hard to even pick them out. At this point, the original sounds like a cliche, which is unfair, as this record is where all that stuff comes from.
[Read More]Good one today! Well, if you ignore that we have a rap skit.
The closer for De La Soul Is Dead, the final skit that imagines some bullies discovering stealing the album and deciding it blows. De La Soul was clearly reflecting on a break they were attempting from the first album, of trying to shed their image as rap’s flower children. While De La Soul Is Dead contains plenty of shimmery, bouncy, light tunes, it also features darker material like “My Brother’s a Basehead” and (especially) “Millie Pulled A Pistol On Santa”, a tragic tale we’ll talk about when it comes up.
[Read More]Welcome to Five Songs, where we have six songs for you!
A repeat! Since there’s not much to say about it exactly, I’ll instead mention that Kid Koala did the score for the video game Floor Kids, which I haven’t tried yet, but will.
Listen to the space on those drums. They sound so live! Awesome.
Leading force behind Norwegian black metal legends Emperor, whose In The Nightside Eclipse is one of the touchstones of the genre, Ihsahn has continued forward as a vital force in metal over the decades since. His solo work has tended more towards the progressive and symphonic end of things rather than the black metal grime of his earlier career, but he’s shown a pretty wide range in general.
[Read More]Garage rock revivalists Mono Men, from Bellingham, WA, were dedicated to the proposition that back-to-basics rock was all anybody really needed. They were sufficiently dedicated to the idea that not only did they put out a ton of albums on their own, but they formed Estrus Records to put out records by like-minded bands (like The Mortals). In one of the bummers of indie rock, the building where they kept the masters for all of the Estrus records releases burned down, although I suppose that matters less in the digital age than it might have in previous eras.
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