something i never believed i would say: My Bloody Valentine Put Out A New Record

having now listened to My Bloody Valentine's new album 3 times since downloading i am still not sure exactly how i feel about the record.
music sends people into fits of hyperbole like nothing else really...and so it should be no shocker that when one of the most influential bands of the last 30 years releases their first album in over 2 decades that people are going to take some extreme sides about the fucking thing. i've already seen people declaring it BETTER THAN LOVELESS and also BORING BULLSHIT. the first time i listened to the album myself, my first thought was "these songs all sound like outtakes or throwaways from when they were making Isn't Anything". the album actually made me feel kind of cold... a sort of a nothingness. like, yeah...these songs are fine...but nothing is dynamic and nothing is blowing me away. but the more i listened the more it grew. this is in no way a disaster of a follow up like that horrifying Stooges reunion album or GN'R's Chinese Democracy. no, this is a good album. something that you would be happy to call part of their discography.  i mean, the best thing i can say about m b v is that it sounds like a fucking My Bloody Valentine album that the band could have just as easily released in 1995. there are no weird curveballs or stylistic departures. shit still sounds like whales singing underwater with some reverb and feedback. my bloody valentine are still writing music for you to fuck to. they haven't lost their way. but at the same time, it's hard to listen and not think...why did this take so goddamned long to make?
mostly if i have a strong feeling it is that of disbelief. like i can't fucking believe that it is an actual thing that exists in the universe that we can hear and whenever those records get shipped out we will hold. we will hold it and we will think about things like babies that were born after Loveless came out are now old enough to buy beer. and we will hope to fucking hell that Kevin Shields will not take another 22 goddamned years to release another record. anyways, i am just glad this exists. welcome back guys. we missed you.

new-ish music worth checking out: State Champion's album Deep Shit

State Champion's album Deep Shit just dropped onto my radar and goddamn if it ain't a hell of a good record. it's pure hillbilly garage rock n roll that's drunk as hell and has a lot of shit it wants to get off it's chest. these are some Kentucky boys that just wanna play you some sad ole' country songs but they can't help it if their amps are stuck on Dinosaur Jr. Deep Shit reminds me of a time when Americana didn't automatically equal boring as fuck indie rock with some slide guitar added in for effect. if you are a fan of Uncle Tupelo, Whiskeytown, Steve Earle, The Replacements, and good honest American Rock n Roll then this is a record for you.

New Turf War music video

Atlanta Garage rock boys TURF WAR made a video for their song “Cheers To The Years”.

give it a watch. it contains smoke machines, beer, things being broken, ridiculousness, and Atlanta Braves hats.

Directed & Edited by Jason Travis.
Additional camerawork by Justin Weaver.

and if you are at SXSW this year then check out one of their sets:

3/15 Masquerade ATL/Founders Entertainment @ Beauty Bar - 1pm
3/15 East End Management “Treehouse” @ Cheers’ Shot Bar - 3:30pm
3/17 Rollo & Grady @ Side Bar - 2:35pm
3/17 The Studio by HGTV (304 W 4th St) - 10pm

My Favorite Albums Of 2011

2011 was a lot like 2010 for me in that i didn’t really seek out a lot of new music and was more excited about albums i already own getting deluxe reissues than anything current. call it a product of aging. call it a product of laziness. call it being overwhelmed by just how easy it is to find and hear new music and doing to my best to just avoid shit. so i don’t consider this list to be the Best Records of the Year. but these were my personal favorite Albums Of 2011.

Davila 666- Tan Bajo

maybe i should’ve paid more attention in Spanish class in 10th grade cuz then i might know what the fuck these Puerto Rican garage rockers were singing about. regardless of language barriers this was easily one of my favorite albums of this or any year. Menudo On Drugs (as they call themselves) making a caterwaul of glorious rock n roll noise channeling The Stooges Fun House by way of Guided By Voices being sung by your wasted punk rock friends from high school. Rock N Roll is alive and well, it just doesn’t speak English anymore.

Turf War- Years Of Living Dangerously

it’s hard for me not to be hyperbolic when i talk about how much i love this fucking record. the story of 1000 nights of bad choices and worse luck fueled by booze and self destruction. every song sounds like an anthem for the lovable losers.

The Horrors- Skying

England’s funniest haricuts drop their My Bloody Valentine obsession and replace it with a fuckton of Psychedelic Furs and Echo and The Bunnymen producing the best album to sit in your room and space out to in 2011.

Minks- By The Hedge

kids influenced by C86 and Head On The Door era Cure (and probably a little Belle & Sebastian too) make gothy dreampop twee masterpiece. let’s wear all black every single day and hate the world together forever.

Ty Segall- Goodbye Bread & Ty Rex

the current king of fuzz pop mellows out and dropped his best fucking record yet on our asses and just for kicks he did an EP of T.Rex covers too.

M83- Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming

as a general rule i am not a fan of double albums. it’s probably because i’ve always believed less is more and also i’ve never really listened to any double album that i didn’t think could’ve been a better record minus about 5 songs and i feel the same way about this record. i also don’t think it’s nearly a good as Saturdays = Youth but M83 still does a better job than anyone of combining my love of Shoegaze and New Wave and turning it into a fake soundtrack for a French adaptation of a John Hughes movie.

The Icarus Line- Wildlife

i’m stuck inside of Los Angeles With The Punk Rock Blues Again.

Black Lips- Arabia Mountain

they might be one of the biggest indie rock bands around but they’ll always just be the kids who i booked at the 40 Watt that got banned for trying to burn their drum set on stage. this year they hooked up with Mark Ronson and took their sloppy garage punk sound and turned it into slick polished pop. a dance party for the end of the world. plus a song about Spiderman being molested as a little kid ends up being one of the best jams of the year. weird. disturbing. awesome.

Grape Soda- Form A Sign
The best band in Athens, GA make the most danceable party album of the year with nothing but spaced out organ and drums. Heavily energetic dub influenced indie pop. Joyous. Catchy. Fun.

Jacuzzi Boys- Glazin’

another solid album by one of the best power pop bands around. Plus they inspired some teenage girls to make the greatest NSFW music video in the history of the universe. Singing vaginas and it isn't even dirty.

Smith Westerns- Dye It Blonde

Chicago brats making pure glam pop. this album is the sound of my nuggets boxed set getting in a fight with my Smiths records. The songs Dance Away and All Die Young were two of the my songs of the year.

Kurt Vile- Smoke Ring For My Halo

every year needs some good sad bastard music. Kurt makes the saddest and it isn't in some weakass Bon Iver bullshit wa.

There were other notable artists who had a good song or two like Crystal Stilts reverbed out "through the floor" or Peaking Lights total fucking jam "All The Sun That Shines". Some other good music by Dead Ghosts, Woven Bones, Real Estate, Wild Nothing, Jeff The Brotherhood, Total Babes, Surf City, and Nobunny is worth checking out. If you have a Spotify then I recommend giving all these a listen. If you love rock n roll then there is still cool shit out there worth finding. Hell even the Black Keys, a band I think makes boring dad rock, put out an album that ain't half bad this year.


goodbye 2011. since the world is gonna end next year lets hope their are some fucking awesome albums in 2012.

New Music i am down with this week: The Icarus Line's Wildlife

the Icarus Line’s new long delayed album Wildlife is out finally. the Icarus Line were one of my favorite contemporary bands back in the early part of the 2000s. they came out of the late 90s Noise Rock/Post-Hardcore scene and turned from a Jesus Lizard soundalike into one of the best bands around by combining Fun House era Stooges, Psychocandy white noise, Spacemen 3 drone, and GN’R sleaze into a perfect hardrock blender with their 2003 record Penance Soiree. unfortunately no one was paying attention and the album went mostly unnoticed. they followed up that with the pretty solid Black Lives At The Golden Coast which was more eclectic and also was pretty off most critics radar.

and now 4 years later we have Wildlife. while not as instantly satisfying (but what really is?) as the previous records it’s still got some solid gems for fans. “King Baby” is a pretty good opener with just enough T.Rex stomp & groove, “Sin Man Sick Blues” is totally channeling the motherfucking Dead Boys, the single “We Sick” is a nasty little slab of punk blues, and my personal favorite is title track “Wildlife” which sounds like pure Lust For Life era Iggy. a few of the 13 songs feel like filler and i wish there were less mid tempo tracks and more rippers like Sick Blues…but still if you love your rock n roll strungout and in the gutter then The Icarus Line aren’t gonna let you down. recommended.

HEY HEY IT'S THE HORRORS

i enjoy the Horrors even in spite of their Tim Burton/Edward Gorey goth teen outfits and haircuts...i mean a good band needs a good schtick sometimes. i can appreciate that. some of the greatest bands of alltime dressed like cartoons and had silly made up names. besides, isn't it the music that matters?

and as far as that goes i thought their debut album of Cramps and Gruesomes inspired garage was mostly forgettable with a few good singles, but then they dropped Primary Colours outta nowhere and did such a good job aping 90s shoegaze and Pornography era Cure that i was totally sold from then on. now in 2011 they return with Skying which drops most of the My Bloody Valentine-ish elements of their previous effort and replaces it with a pretty healthy dose of The Psychedelic Furs. like A LOT of Psychedelic Furs. like a FUCK TON of Psychedelic Furs...like maybe that's the only tape they had in their van for a whole month. there's some Chameleons in there too and some dreampop and lots of other shit that i enjoy. and yeah i know it's lazy to say this band's new record sounds like X, Y, and Z...but i am a lazy fucking person.

anyways it's in no way as immediately satisfying a record as Primary Colours but i still think anyone who was a fan of that record is gonna dig Skying too. i'd recommend it.

new music i'd recommend to people who still listen to new music

one of my favorite discoveries last year was the Minks single “funeral song” which reminded me of all the things i enjoy about gothy pop music. the Minks are def big fans of Head On The Door era Cure, c86, and probably Belle & Sebastian too. this is a solid debut record and i won’t be surprised if it ends up on a lot of year end lists for ‘11.

other than "Funeral Song" which has been a jam of mind for a while, my favorite songs are “Our Ritual”, “Cemetery Rain”, and “Kusmi”. check it out.

music for the drunk and lonely. the best kind.

another Walkmen album. another record to get me through the winter. the most consistent band of the early 2000s New York indie boom has put out Lisbon today, probably their best album since Bows & Arrows (although to be honest i love all of them about the same). how these guys haven’t been more successful has always been of one of the great mysteries of the last decade. the Walkmen have done nothing to fuck up their young Dylan fronting a british post-punk band sound because smart bands don’t fuck with what works. if you are a fan then you will like it. if you aren’t a fan...well what the fuck is wrong with you?

Dum Dum Girls new video

Harlem "Hippies" = my favorite album of 2010...so far.

At the end of the year when all the magazines and blogs come out with their "best of" lists, you can be sure the tops of said lists will be full of records that are either considered ground breaking or new or what the fuck ever. But I'm just too old to care about such nonsense.

I like rock music. Well I like all kindsa music, but I REALLY like rock and roll. Be it punk, garage, lo fi, shoegaze, metal, or japanese noise prog...I enjoy the sound that is rock and fucking roll...and so at the end of the day all I'm really looking for in a new album is for it be something that rocks to me. And without a doubt the record that has rocked me most this year (so far) is Harlem's Hippies. Combing elements of sloppy garage punk like the Black Lips with catching song writing of your typical indie pop band, Harlem is sorta a mishmash of all the things we love about electric white boy blues. a solid little rhythm section that always feels near the edge of falling apart, tuneful yet tuneless vocals that remind you ANYONE can fucking sing in a band, and the fact that all you need to have a good song is a chorus everyone can remember.

When I listen to this record it's hard not to imagine that you're part of a drunken house party with a bunch of guys plowing through a set of oldies covers played slightly out of key and with the lyrics slurred and half remembered. It's the kinda house party you'll remember for the rest of your life if you hadn't been too fucking drunk and blacked it out. Still you get little flashes now and again and you remember, "GOD DAMN! That was fucking rad."

Does that even explain to you what kind of album Hippies is? Do I even care? Just listen.

It ain't rocket science, it's rock and roll. And Harlem knows this better than most.

M.I.A. "Born Free" = Best Video of the Year....just kidding

This video is kind of silly if you watch it more than once. THIS is some bullshit Rage would make. It's all so 90s, beating me over the head with it's preachiness. Goddamn it. Let me be apathetic to the plight of the opressed peoples of the world. fuck M.I.A.

New Music That Doesn't Suck: Beach Fossils

Beach Fossils "Daydream" = best new band/song i've heard in a while. i'm sure every music blog has already written about these guys but i am just now hearing them and think it's a pretty killer jam. looking forward to hearing the full length. you can download this single on itunes.

New Agenda Demos

new Agenda demos we recorded last week.

if you give a fuck here's a link here to download.

Julian Casablancas - 11th Dimension

so the Strokes frontman is set to drop his 1st solo album next month. this is the first single. it's okay...sort of new wave/dancey. it sounds kinda like if Julian was singing over a mid-80s New Order (think "True Faith") track. it'll be tough for him to top Albert Hammond Jr.'s surprisingly enjoyable solo records.

i think the Horrors really DO think they're My Bloody Valentine now, or something

their new video for "Mirror's Image" is pretty neo-psychedelic. i can dig.

The Dead Weather "Treat Me Like Your Mother"

this video is all kinds of rad. i'm not much of a fan of the song.

2 new RADIOHEAD songs, thanks internets

"These Are My Twisted Words" possibly the song they recorded for the new Twilight movie.


"Harry Patch (In Memory Of)" is a tribute to England's last surviving soldier of WWI (he recently died at the age of 111).



you can download it here.

New Spoon EP is out 2day

Got Nuffin - Spoon

i really fucking like that new Horrors record a lot

the video for "Sea Within A Sea"...Kevin Shields is either pissed or pleased

New Music That Doesn't Suck - Japandroids