Album Review- The Damned

 The Damned are probably one of my favorite bands. They famously take credit of being the first punk band (“New Rose” predating “Anarchy in the UK”). 1977s debut album Damned Damned Damned is as good as any punk album, produced by Nick “Basher” Lowe showcases four great personalities- Dave Vanian, Captain Sensible, Rat Scabies and Brian James.

The best distributed compilation of the Damned was 1987s The Light at the End of the Tunnel. I bought it twice! It’s 28 fantastic tracks.

I have a soft spot for 1985s “Phantasmagoria” a near contemporary album of when I first heard them. The mid 80s meant punk was fading, so artists like the Ramones, TSOL and Iggy Pop were leaning into metal, but the Damned went for goth and it’s a quite good album.

1986s Anything is really the end of the bands classic album run. But the band continued and I saw them live twice in the late 90s or early 00s with Vanian, Sensoble and Patricia Morrison and they were great. To the point, I don’t think one could see them and not wonder (with so many other reunions going on) if they had one last great album in them.

I bought three Damned albums in this time frame and played them quite a bit. The band does have quite a few options out there. 1987s Mindless Directionless Energy is what it is - a live recording of a 1981 concert. It doesn’t sound great but as a fan, I wasn’t disappointed about adding it to the collection. (And it includes the bands ribald take on Ballroom Blitz)

1989s Final Damnation is a collection of live material some with the original lineup recorded the year prior and is a fantastic glance at what a great band they are in concert (plus added charming concert conversation with the Captain) The ramshackle band evolving into a tight unit.

1993s Sessions of the Damned could be a functional greatest hits compilation. It is what it says on the cover- songs over the years recorded for John Peel radio sessions

The band had three studio albums between 1986 and 2018 and from what I recall, none of them made a ton of noise even if they hopefully were going to relaunch the bands career.

The one I am most familiar with is 1995s Not of this Earth which I know as 2002s I’m Alright Jack and the Beanstalk. It is an album the band disowns and it truly is a terrible album with no redeeming qualities. Although this is the nadir of the band’s career, on paper - the lineup should have worked - Vanian, Kris Dollimore (the Godfathers), Moose (New Model Army) and Scabies- it most certainly didn’t.

The one I am least familiar with is 2001s Grave Disorder which I either didn’t hear or didn’t click with me, but by all accounts is a decent album. It’s an interesting twist in the bands story as they signed with Nitro Records a label ran by The Offspring’s Dexter Holland and would play a lot of US punk festivals. Nothing wrong with that, but Nitro (and these festivals) seemed to be more focused on American punk bands and the waves that came after the Damned like classic US punk bands like TSOL and the Vandals and newer bands like AFI

These wilderness years finally end in 2018 with Evil Spirits. By this time, many of the band’s contemporaries had made that strong late career album or two - The Buzzcocks, Joe Strummer, the Stranglers, the Specials and so on. And Evil Spirits delivered to the fans with the opener “Standing at the Edge of Tomorrow” a goth anthem on par with their Phantasmagoria record.

With time and perspective (and I probably knew it sooner) I think it is safe to say Evil Spirits isn’t a great album. It is a very good album and as a fan, I am more than happy about it. It undoubtedly benefits from producer Tony Visconti and while I have no major complaints, I also know that my enthusiasm for it probably wouldn’t carry over to a casual fan

What’s good is that 2023s Darkadelic is a step in the right direction. It sounds like a continuation and certainly an improvement on its predecessor.

I don’t notice too much different in the credits except Paul Gray appearing in the songwriting credits (bassist Gray was with the band for the Black Album and Strawberries albums and previously with Eddie and the Hot Rods)

The songs as a whole are a better batch of songs with Captain Sensible writing some of the most pointed lyrics - Leader of the Gang about Gary Glitter and Beware of the Clown presumably about Boris Johnson and just about any other politician. The band veers into Stranglers territory often with the heavy synths, though the nod is there in the albums name and the Gray-era Damned who loved a bit of the Psychedelic stuff.

I still love the Visconti production (this album has Thomas Mitchener (Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes) at the helm but I do think the Damned finally managed to create that remarkable late career disc

Album Review- PJ Harvey

 Every new PJ Harvey album is an event.

I anticipated that after the 1-2 punch of Dry and Rid of Me that her career would follow most every musical artist who comes on the scene with a burst of energy. That there was no way it could be topped and like almost everyone else, it would be diminishing returns

In 2000, her fifth album Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea felt like a masterpiece. I have heard Harvey herself isn’t fond of it, but it feels like once the music press got it right- it was a top work of art.

23 years later, I no longer just consider Harvey a great artist. Like peers, Radiohead, Arcade Fire or the Killers, every album release is an event, but Harvey is on another level now.

Not only is it worth checking out any new material, you never quite know what direction she is heading. Like Nick Cave or Tom Waits, there’s a sense of constant reinvention. There are no “better” albums, just “different” albums.

While I didn’t rank 04’s Uh Huh Her and 07’s White Chalk so highly at the time, they have really held up.

I did indeed love 11s Let England Shake and 16s Hope Six Demolition Project. Closely related to Patti Smith and Nick Cave at their most raucous, the subsequently released Demos drew from all time great artists like Eddie Cochran and Niney the Observer

The new album I Inside The Old Year Dying is certainly a different beast. It is a very atmospheric album. Harvey has clearly made music like that before, but it’s been awhile.

I admit it didn’t grab me on first listen but I was never going to give up on Harvey that easily and it didn’t take too many spins to grab me. This ambient electronic style of Harvey’s seems to work best as (her work often does) as a singular piece of art and not a collection of singles.

Album Review- Metal Marty: Greatest Hits

 One of my favorite 90s bands is the Supersuckers. They were part of Sub Pops

second wave of fantastic mostly non- Grunge artists like The Spinanes, Eric’s Trip, Sebadoh, and the Rev Horton Heat among others.

Supersuckers played regular music, just in the fastest most profane way possible. It seemed that in some alternate universe, they were huge stars in the lineage of AC/DC, Cheap Trick, the Ramones and KISS - a blend of the furious punk bands mixed with the noise of 70s hard rock and metal.

Unexpectedly, the band’s frontman, Eddie Spaghetti has churned out a quite enjoyable solo career - the songs are every bit colorful and tasteless as the covers of the album they come in. Now, the contents are more “Outlaw Country” than Rock, but are surprisingly good listens.

Metal Marty’s Greatest Hits is his debut album. That’s the joke. Metal Marty Chandler has been the Supersuckers guitarist officially since 2014 and this certainly feels like a Supersuckers record since the lineup is the same, and Spaghetti produced and co-wrote it

That said, that is intended as more of a draw than a warning. If you like the Supersuckers, this is a pretty fun album.

The press kit makes comparisons to Steve Earle and Iggy Pop, and this definitely has an Earle feel (Earle has collaborated with the ‘Suckers in the past) - rowdy and rousing bar rock infused with country and blues.

But like his band, also kind of ridiculous. The songs form a theme around Magic City, Idaho and some melodies are cribbed unashamedly from pop standards like “She’s a Lady” and “Rock and Roll (Part 2)”

It might be hard to review an album that is so blatantly what it purports to be, but it’s a surprisingly solid record that offers a few surprises and doesn’t wear out it’s welcome.

Sinead O'Conner- An Appreciation

 I have to write about Sinead O’Conner and as I sit down, I realize I had an unusual relationship with her music.

I bought her second album when it came out. At the time, I made a habit of buying what I thought were the most “important” record of the day. I wasn’t necessarily that excited about it and when I got it, I didn’t listen to it very often. As a huge Smiths fan, I was particularly excited that Andy Rourke played bass on the album.

It wasn’t exactly the same case as the Sugarcubes, who had a drop in quality after their debut. I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got is unquestionably a good album. It’s just not like the raw early singles i hears and I dug like “Mandinka” It’s just a different vibe

No one could have anticipated that Sinéad would end up having the biggest song in the world. I wonder if I would have treated her second album any differently had it not.

After that, the focus really wasn’t on the music, and that isn’t fair to the artist but it was reality. I returned to her for her fourth album Universal Mother

The single Fire on Babylon was a tour de force. Part Bob Marley part John Lydon. The album was a mixed bag - a true cult album and again I didn’t spend a ton of time with it - but that single was powerful.

Sinead played a few dates on the one Lollapalooza I do attend and I think that (hazy memories many decades later) that we picked Yo La Tengo on the second stage to concentrate on instead. (Given YLTs resume, I doubt you can give me too much grief for this).

I picked up her 1997 Greatest Hits compilation So Far which collected some essential things that I didn’t have.

She had at least one more great single which unfortunately was too late for her compilation -2000s No Man’s Woman (off Faith and Courage)

Sinead sort of fell out of the spotlight, continuing to release albums. I crossed paths with her once more picking up what will be her tenth and final studio album released while she was alive -2014s I’m Not Bossy, I’m the Boss

Looking back now, you can see her massive influence and how those who came after- Tori Amos, the Cranberries, Beth Orton, even Alannis Morrissette and Lilith Fair to name a few.

I know I’m the early 90s, if asked I likely would have said she is one of my favorite artists. I haven’t really thought of her that way in awhile, but I do realize that I don’t have too many artists that I have four albums of. She was a really interesting artist and we are poorer without her on the Earth.

Sons music- Scooter

When writing about the music of my life, I have always meant to make some mention of rave music, which was a part of my mid teens. First things first, I lived in a small town so it’s not like we had separate groups for metalheads and punks and goths and ravers and new wavers and what not- it was quite simply “outsiders” and we bonded together The next is that electronic music and especially rave doesn’t get a lot respect with music critics. It’s not that it doesn’t have fans or gets seriously studied; but at the same time- the stuff that I consider of that era can be broken down into Acid House, Breakbeat, Techno, and so on and it's generally a bit marginalized in music journalism This breaking of music down into boxes means that they sometimes get put in bigger unrelated boxes. I am probably even misusing terms in calling it "rave music" and not techno or EDM or another more appropriate musical term but I guess that is how I have it labeled in my head What I am trying to say is some of the biggest rave hits don’t get treated with the same respect as the wider alternative genre. Rave often had the same aspects as new wave synth pop and I will detail some of the post 90s breakdown a little bit later as well So Rave sat adjacent to those sounds, but I am no means an expert. My experience of the genre is the music of that day and I mostly experienced it from big budget compilation albums like SBK Record's Rave Til Dawn and others (the eternal way of defining music. They’re “playlists” now) and the songs I heard in those years as I occasionally ventured to the bigger city to go dancing at gay bars and dance clubs. I would also add that I made an acquaintance that was a hardcore raver who introduced me to stuff I would otherwise not would have been exposed to then. Maybe Rave to me was what didn’t get covered elsewhere. Rave sat apart from Madchester, the real rave music beginnings. Maybe it wasn’t that I was into rave but that it was slowly exposed to me. Again, don’t focus on the label, focus what I am trying to say was the music in my ears in those days. Nitzer Ebb both predated and defined that time for me. The Jesus and Mary Chain also somehow doesn’t fit my definition and was everything to me at that time. Similarly, KMFDM probably check more industrial boxes than techno, but was definitely a favorite of everyone I knew and was still in that element of breaking through from the Underground. (Maybe these are stories for another time). There are of course pop and industrial elements in the stuff I am talking about, even R&B, rap and hip hop elements. (Lest we forget The Movement's "Jump" perhaps the forgotten third of the 1992 trilogy- House of Pain "Jump Around" and Kriss Kross's "Jump") So maybe I should define this all as the larger category of EDM as some do. Since we are talking about what I was personally listening to- it seems appropriate. Also scholarly, that’s important- though again some of the most important music of that genre never made it to the radio or even those big aforementioned “various artists” compilations. Moby of course did go into the 90s and 00s a big Alt-rock (and even Top 40) star. Eyes backwards, we look at bands like The Prodigy, Lords of Acid and Messiah that could draw alt rock and even metal/hard rock fans I tie so many of these bands together to a certain time and yet - am I miscategorizing them or am I wrong to categorize them at all. Do the KLF, 2 Unlimited, and the Orb exist in that same space? What I do know is it felt like an explosion and that explosion had ripple effects. Some bands walked a tight wire of success and acclaim like the Chemical Brothers and Fatboy Slim. Some burned brightly as the next big thing and then either were or weren’t with various degrees of success- everyone from the Underworld to the Klaxons to Atari Teen Riot. I could go all day and I still haven’t touched on all the roads the genre of electronic music has traveled - ambient and trance and grime and whatnot. Anyway, this is a conversation that I always wanted to write up and strangely what got me here was wanting to talk about my #sonsmusic When I think of the bands I listened to in the early 90s and what came from them- I generally look at two paths One is the commercial path. The 90s radio was full with European dance music. Artists like Real McCoy, La Bouche, Culture Beat, Rozalla, Ace of Base, KWS, Cascada, Amber, Haddaway and Robyn (and many many others) dominated dance floors and charts into the early 00s. These for me are guilty pleasure pop songs. These bands provide a direct road to where artists like Lady Gaga and the Backstreet Boys would pop up and go on. I have to admit that I don’t love a lot of modern pop music but DJ culture is a dominant force in it (Tiesto, Major Lazer, Diplo, Afrojack, DJ Snake, Steve Aoki, David Guetta, Aviccii and many many more). But there’s also the side that blends in the goth, industrial and new wave influences that had a boom in the early 00s and given names like "darkwave" or "futurepop" and featured bands like VNV Nation, Apoptygma Berzerk and Assemblage 23.. And I am telling you all this to get to Scooter. Scooter is a popular German band that is what you get when you blend my paragraphs above into an industrial-strength mixer and then feed it steroids My sons grew to love Scooter from a local hockey game where the song plays when a goal is scored. They are, no doubt, the perfect soundtrack for adrenaline and excitement and I suppose, violence I am not sure Scooter is very popular in the US, though if you have heard them, it’s likely either the preposterous “How Much is the Fish?” or the energetic cover of Supertramp (what?)’s “Logical Song” (double what?) Scooter has unleashed a string of hit singles in their home country of Germany. But they definitely fall into that category with Aqua, Rednex and Vengaboys of being ridiculously over the top. Ask me if I love or hate them and I am not quite sure what I will answer.

Sons Music - "Narco"

#sonsmusic Part 4 Not everyone loves sports and certainly many of my closest friends do not. But I love sports. It’s true a lot of liberal minded people aren’t sports fans, but there are exceptions. Steve Earle is a huge baseball fan. Hunter S Thompson spent his final years writing for ESPN and of course, famously talked football with Jack Kemp Most people love their local teams as a rule. There is a set of people who pick their favorite team in their preteen years and never leave them. I spoke to someone like that just last weekend who loves the Oakland As- a team that dominated in the late 80s and though famously saved for many years by Moneyball seem to be beyond hope. For me it is the New York Mets a team that wouldn’t have even been on my radar. Another hopelessly lost team that had no chances until a change of ownership and General Manager fielded a competitive team which was led by the two most exciting young players of the time- Dwight Gooden and Daryl Strawberry Gooden and Strawberry infamously had (and still have) personal issues that largely sank the promise of their careers. But I stayed a Mets fan when WOR came into my house and television screen The Mets have had highs and lows- mostly lows with a nice early-Aughts wave. They were back on the uptick last year when they found an owner with endlessly deep pockets The highlight of last years team was relief pitcher Edwin Diaz who would pitch the ninth inning with seemingly invincibility Depending on how much you know about baseball, the “closer” is one of the more dramatic parts of the game. The best to ever do it had memorable music and they came out -most famously “Enter Sandman” “Hells Bells” and “Welcome to the Jungle” and probably eclipsing all those “Wild Thing” from Major League which probably is the grand daddy of them all Most of these songs have been fairly well known when repurposed (a couple more fairly memorable ones are “California Love” and “Shipping Up to Boston”) but the Mets Edwin Diaz put “Narco” on the map The Dutch house duo Blasterjaxx teamed up with Australian musician Timmy Trumpet. I’m not really familiar with Timmy but he’s apparently a big deal and his niche is adding trumpet (and jazz) to electronic dance music. So while I didn’t know him, it looks like he has done quite well

Sons' Music- The HU

My seven year old's favorite song at the moment is one he heard at a sporting event. I am familiar with the band (at least by name) from their constant touring but the choice surprises me. Mongolian throat singing is a very unique sound. I doubt many people in the US were aware of it until the 90s when a few bands, preeminently Yat-Kha got some attention The HU has taken that form and blended it with modern metal music to achieve more commercial success. Their songs have broken into rock radio as they collaborate with Nu metal artists from bands like Papa Roach, System of a Down and Halestorm.

Sons Music- Parry Gripp

 Today in #sonsmusic

Kids love novelty songs. I loved Weird Al Yankovic and bought all his albums until I was 19. Country radio played in my house and I also bought Ray Stevens albums. I also know several of my generation that grew up on Dr Demento

So I get that my kids love jokey music. Joke music, viral music, meme my. There may not be a better joke music artist than Parry Gripp. Gripp has given us classics like “Raining Tacos”, "Riding on a Llama" “Hug a Turtle” and “Baby Yoda”.

Now there’s plenty of adults who like what gets termed “nerd rock” or “geek rock” and there are massive fan bases for artists like Jonathan Coulton, Paul and Storm, MC Frontalot , and I Fight Dragons. Music is such a hard thing to box in that it’s sometimes hard to decide where the genre starts and stops. Throw anything from Nerdcore rap to video game inspired music.

Parry Gripp interestingly is his real name and he came to fame as singer for the band Nerf Herder

Now, if you are looking for a path for this genre - there’s Weird Al and They Might Be Giants, but it goes back as far as Tom Lehrer, Stan Freeberg, and Allan Sherman and lest we forget, Monty Python. Do you count Zappa and Devo and numerous New Wave and Prog bands that led to 80s bands like Ween, the Dead Milkmen and Violent Femmes. Canada had a mini boom in the late 80s that includes bands (many that became stars in the 90s in the US) like Barenaked Ladies, Moxy Fruvous and Crash Test Dummies.

I bring this up because Nerf Herder was part of what became the 90s wave that rode the Alt rock explosion- Bowling for Soup, Fountains of Wayne, Ben Folds Five, Wheatus, and probably the biggest example Weezer.

For whatever reason, Nerf Herder never quite hit that one big hit those other bands enjoyed. “Van Halen” was an alt rock hit and they got press in CMJ and Spin. Yet it’s sort of a forgotten song, while the others mentioned above had at least one evergreen single.

And Nerf Herder never really went away. They performed the theme for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and then would go a bit viral in 2016 with the autobiographical “We Opened for Weezer”.

Now, Gripp has viral hits about food, animals, and for someone who was in a band named after the Princess Leia quote "you stuck up, half-witted, scruffy looking nerf herder" from Empire Strikes Back, songs about Jawas, Admiral Ackbar and Grogu.

So maybe Parry did when the long game- millions of songs streamed and a cult audience that loves his band and him.

2013 - Parry Gripp/Oglio

Concert Review- JAWNY

I spoke recently of how I had hoped to be seeing more concerts than I had been. Part of that of course is a mix of seeing old favorites and bands that are new to me.

A friend suggested we see JAWNY so we did. I was not familiar with the Philly- based artist who clearly is more famous than I

I couldn’t find much in terms of why on his Wikipedia although it did mention he dated Doja Cat. I could not tell you a Doja Cat song but I know she is one of the biggest stars in music now.

I also could tell you that at least by Spotify numbers, he eclipses any of my indie heroes like Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo, and Pavement, even more than Violent Femmes or the Velvet Underground.

I do know that by the old trademark, that I do have at least two friends that were fans. I also knew the cliche is to “cram” in a band’s discography before seeing them perform

It would not have been hard to do- he has a new album and maybe another two albums or so of material. Nor do I think anything is wrong with that, but I wanted to come in and experience with little preconceptions.

I did spend some time with his song “Take It Back” which is a collaboration with Beck. In fact my first impression from this song and snippets of others is that JAWNY was a bit of a similar polymath.

My thoughts of the concert start with opener 18 year old Adan Diaz, who comes across as the new generation of musicians-more bedrooms and computers, less garages and amps.

I am struck by some probably obvious things.


First, the crowd was probably the largest and most energetic that I have seen in some time (from the perspective of I really only attend mid size or smaller venues in a Top 75 sized market - comparable to say Salt Lake City or Tallahassee or Little Rock, so not large).

But the crowd was young and excited. Certainly a better response than at shows of bands who had made their name on 30-40 years of performing.

JAWNY still perplexes me so I went back to the internet with the only clue being that one of his songs broke out as a Spotify Fresh Find

I feel 100 years old but I suspect the youth has word of mouth and shared media, and there probably wouldn’t be much difference to an outsider attending a Depeche Mode concert in the late 80s

JAWNY is a heck of an energetic performer. He plays guitar and is accompanied by a bassist and drummer, and surely something electronic in the background. I can’t find any faults in his frontman ship.

Musically, he wasn’t my taste though I wouldn’t have guessed why.

The clues were in his intro (Killers’ “Mr Brightside, his Shawn Mendes jokes and his choice of a Taylor Swift cover.

JAWNY might not be my favorite but I can see why he has won over a legion of fans. He’s good at what he does.

Just what he does is way more poppier than i expected. I had seen a lot of Strokes references on his reviews in the NME and the Guardian, but it would be more accurate to say he sounds like the latter day descendents who took the sound more mainstream and had way more chart success- band like Glass Animals and Neon Trees.

The second thing that struck me had to do with the songs. As a white middle class Gen Xer, my generation “discovered” rap. Aerosmith and Run DMC of course, but more importantly also a class that was as likely to listen to NWA or Tupac as it was Pearl Jam or Aerosmith. Gen Y combined genres even more with the popularity of Nu Metal.

But both artists- the opener and JAWNY - a more seasoned 27 year old- are indicative of a generation that doesn’t think about genres. Rock, hip hop, dance, pop- all fluidly blend together.

I like JAWNY at his best when he is playing the more new wave-y stuff. I can picture him touring with Cheap Trick in the 70s or an 80s glam band. I hear Oughts hopefuls Rooney and modern day chart toppers AJR.

JAWNY seems much more in line with the poppier alternative bands of the last 20 years - Foster the People, lovelytheband. The energetic “Take it Back” is a highlight, so they do a second version to close the show.

Critical fanfare or commercial success? Both show high probability in JAWNYs future. 

Sons Music- Darude

 It was such a fun time writing about Mom’s records (and I’m not done) and it occurred to me I probably ought to write about #sonsmusic too.

I have a 7 and 9 year old. It is one of the most rewarding things in my life. The seven year old especially loves music and wants to be a DJ when he grows up. As my first (and often favorite) music memories are around 8 and 9 (with vague recollections of earlier years), it strikes me how these are going to be those years for them.

As mentioned elsewhere, satellite radio is something we have in my wife’s car. This sounds unhip, but it cannot be understated how KidzBop is so influential and is inescapable. Of course, there’s always been something like that, but this is the current iteration of music marketed to kids. It’s not the worst thing in the world as my kid does keep me current with pop music.

Another route is the sporting events we go to. These are generally their favorite songs and why not- energetic and uplifting, not complicated.

I don’t try to foist my tastes on my kids. Ok, not often. I have found negative feedback for 60s Rock (Yardbirds, Screaming Lord Sutch) and positive feedback when I played Sham 69 (which follows the same template as the sports songs above)

My seven year old does love some of my favorite bands like Soft Cell and New Order along with most of the popular music of the day. He occasionally will go on wild searches that bring in every thing from SoundCloud rap to doom metal.

My nine year old is quite scattered and less traditional. The Trans Siberian Orchestra is a favorite. He likes a variety among other things of Catholic hymns, the Cello Guys, assorted kids music and soundtracks. He loves a lot of instrumental music that probably would be labeled trance or ambient (like Robert Miles “Children”, and Astronomia” by Vicetone )

It is probably a internet meme. It might be THE internet meme if Rick Ashley didn’t exist, but I think my son's favorite song might be Sandstorm by Darude

Both kids do love it, and hey, who can hate it? With evidence like this, maybe it is the best song ever.

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What I'm Listening To: Reigning Sound

I have to admit that I pretty much missed the 90s garage rock revival. Now, I did have a couple of friends who were a bit more knowledgeable and the other part of that is that it was a pretty underground phenomenon. I am talking that (mostly) late 90s (mostly) Memphis based garage punk scene that was on labels like Crypt and Sympathy for the Record Company, whose only real means of advertising were word of mouth and zines. Bands that come to my mind are the Oblivians, New Bomb Turks, the Reatards, Nine Pound Hammer, the Dirtbombs, and the Gories and then you could (depending on how you want to define the scene) broaden it out to what became the early 00s garage rock scene and eventually broke through in terms of bands like the White Stripes and Black Keys. (Bands like Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, the Supersuckers and Rocket from the Crypt with larger label support and audiences generally don’t get grouped in but aren’t that much different) So I missed a lot of the scene at the time and to a certain extent, didn’t really find the bands that would come out of it until much later- King Khan, the Detroit Cobras, Black Lips and so on I didn’t even revisit the Oblivains until the year 2000 album Crystal Gazing Luck Amazing by the Compulsive Gamblers- a band formed by two thirds of the Oblivians - Greg and Jack (and actually predating the Oblivians) Whereas the Oblivians were primal frantic rock n roll birthed of the Stooges and Cramps, the Compulsive Gamblers were certainly less wild, but retained some of the same elements and sort of skipped around elements of the Nuggets style garage bands Greg “Oblivian” Cartwright went on to from Reigning Sound. Upon releasing the live album “Memphis in June” last year, Greg announced the bands break up I was bummed as I really enjoyed 2021s “A Little More Time with”. I was consoled by the fact that I doubt Cartwright will go idle. In a vein of the Gamblers, the Reigning Sound is a mix of garage rock with a bit of soul and Americana. On the “A Little More Time” album, they slow it into Flying Burrito Brothers territory at times. It almost sounds radio friendly but Americana stations seem to be few and far between. “Memphis in June” is of course being a live album- strongly focused on the most recent albums with a couple of greatest hits thrown in. It is missing probably their finest moment - a fast paced cover of the Gants “Stormy Weather”- the original from an underappreciated lost mid-1960s Beatles influenced Mississippi garage band, and you have to go to the band's excellent second album, 2002's Time Bomb High School 

2002 - In the Red Records

Moms Music- Queen

One of my mom’s favorite bands is Queen. I acquired three of Mom’s records, a fact that I mainly bring up because prior I only had one Queen album on vinyl and that was Hot Space (everything else on CD) It’s always interesting to me how tastes change. Classic bands like Queen, Led Zeppelin, the Doors, the Who and so on seem to ebb and flow with cultural tides Clearly the Freddie Mercury biopic put Queen back on the map. More recently, Brian May was named the best Guitarist of all time in a March poll. This was a big controversial conversation starter on social media. But seriously, May was incredibly humble and any ranking of art is going to be subjective I don’t have anything I can say about Queen that hasn’t already been said. They aren’t necessarily at the top of the list of my favorite bands but I do like and enjoy them and listen to them still quite a bit. They have transcended generations and my sons listen to them. I am not sure I even have a favorite album - Queen 2 and Night at the Opera are generally regarded in conversations of the best. But I do love plenty of their songs. The Three Albums from #momsrecords were A Day At the Races, Live Killers and Greatest Hits I think I actually place “A Day..” with the two more popular platters mentioned above. I don’t find any of them perfect but they are all great listens with a mix of memorable songs and some filler. Live Killers similarly is slated as “less than”, but I find it a wonderfully sounding document of the Queen live show. The general consensus is that one of the problems is that Freddie’s voice isn’t as strong here as say, contemporaries like Robert Plant or Roger Daltrey. Yet, for me, the energy really does it- capturing at least a bit of what made Queen great. On the singalong of “Now I’m Here”, you get a glimpse of Freddie the showman, vocal criticism is secondary. Some don’t like the Medley format that gets used like Killer Queen with Bicycle Race, though I think it helps bring out the uniqueness of the band in concert I am not sure if they ended up releasing a better live album (in that, this is the only one I have spent time with). I know there are several other choices now from various points in their career- Wiki lists 10 proper live Queen albums - but I believe this was the only live Queen reord released in the US until the early 90s 1981s Greatest Hits is like ChangesBowie, an essential compilation that came out while the artist was still vital. In the CD and cassette age- it got the 1992 makeover. This was important timing to coordinate with the success of “Bohemian Rhapsody” re-entering the charts. The newer version removed Under Pressure, Flash and Keep Yourself Alive and added Body Language, Seven Seas of Rhye, Now I’m Here, Save and, Don’t Stop Me Now, Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy and I Want to Break Free Though I think mainly that was to move those to a second disc, add everything from the 80s and release an album in the States called Classic Queen that added all the 80s hits that had yet to be recorded before the original greatest hits and added some important omissions like Stone Cold Crazy and Tie Your Mother Down. The label also moved Bohemian Rhapsody to this disc to make both albums necessary purchases to complete an essential collection. (At least in the US, where both discs were a success and made a completed pair. The UK had a Greatest Hits 2 instead)

Moms Music- The Beatles

I have likely already told you all this before but I can’t talk about #momsrecords without talking about the Beatles. I was relieved to find all her Beatles records in the mess that was her garage. I think she had a couple of “Tony Sheridan” records she sold but everything else was intact So here is the rundown -Paul McCartney and the Lennons - John and Julian were radio stars when I was a kid and lest we forget Stars on 4(# 1 in 1981) and Beatles Movie Medley (# 12 in 1982) -One Beatles song is on the short list of my favorite songs of the preteen years - but it’s not an usual cjoice - it’s Ringo’s “With a Little Help from my Friends” -My first real immersion like others was a compilation- in this case in high school driving around town with a friend listening to eight-track tapes of the “Red” and “Blue” albums -Listening to Revolver and Rubber Soul were a revelation. At the time, Sgt Pepper’s seemed to be the unassailable “best album ever” - that’s changed but I didn’t know what I was getting with those “middle” albums. I also vividly recall buying Revolver on CD my sophomore year in high school. - Similarly, I bought the White Album in college, the favorite Beatles record of both Morrissey and Marr. It might be (depending on the day) my favorite too. The eccentric mix of songs anticipated “college rock” - In my preteen years, I watched the Magical Mystery Tour movie. In those years, every movie watched has some kind of impression and MMT is truly a weird movie to begin with. It would be easy to categorize it watching it now for what it was, but it was just an unorganized film with some striking moments otherwise. - When push comes (and I’m not sure if related to the above or not), I really do believe the Magical Mystery Tour is my favorite Beatles albums. Sgt Peppers has some great songs. Revolver is such an amazing beginning to end listen. Rubber Soul is probably a shade lesser than Revolver, but covers a lot of musical ground. White Album of course is great and the last “two” albums are not personal favorites. I am of course talking about the American version of Magical Mystery Tour which is on one side - the British EP of songs from the movie and on side 2- five strong singles from 1967. In my estimation, if you’re picking 5 songs from a year by a single band you could do worse. .