New Day For The Dinosaur

Finally got Merge's new Dinosaur Jr. reissues in the mail. Fuckin' hell. I think Bug just destroyed my CD player. Seriously. These tunes changed my whole vision of music when I was in my early teens. One of the first bands (along with Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo) to make me realize that there groups putting out exciting music in the late '80s-early '90s. And if I drove the 40-minutes to Bull Moose in Brunswick (Maine) I could buy it all! Guess that was the beginning of the end. The time when a frightening amount of my affection and funds went to procuring and perusing anything and everything music-related. I owe 'em a hell of a lot. And now I have these reissues to pour over. Mascis plays the guitar like a fucking demon. The mess they kick up on "Don't" could burn a hole through the hardest heads.

YLT at Tonic

Filing a much-delayed post on the sly from the work desk... Caught Yo La Tengo last night at Tonic as part of the series of benefit concerts raising cash to help save the club from eviction. As with the last, and only other, time I saw 'em, YLT were exceptional. Most of the set was played with Ira on piano, Georgia on drums, James on bass and a guest on cello. Near the end, Ira switched to guitar for some explosive string-fuckery. Watching the show, all I could think about was how few bands there are that perform consistently at that level. Sweet bonus: An instrumental jazz-piano cover of The Move's "I Can Hear The Grass Grow."

Freak-folkers (and Vermont residents) Dredd Foole and Matt Valentine opened with some fine outsider picking, though the many of the yuppie-ish crowd didn't know what to make of it. Idiots.

s2n spring

The new Signal to Noise is hitting shelves and mailboxes as I type. This time around, there are features on Genesis P-Orridge, Hood, David S. Ware Quartet and more, plus piles of reviews from all the usual suspects. Good words. If yr local shop doesn't stock the sucker, check it here.

LSD-March

Coming down from a hell workday by trying to get my ears around the new LP from LSD-March. Appropriately acid-surged jams and cosmic Japanese power-ballads. Plus, hands down the only record I own pressed in a "small vinyl edition in a hand-screened cover with quail."
Finally sat down and had a good listen to the new Major Stars LP "4" as well. Picked it up at the WFMU record fair last fall, but it got stuffed in a pile during the move and I only recently dug it out. Wayne Rogers works the wah-wah pedal like he's trying to crush each piece of the thing to dust. Massive drumming, monster riffs, all cloaked in this analog fog. For all the psych-rock babble these days (a good amount of it coming from yrs truly) it's a damn shame these folks aren't getting more attention. People should bow as they walk down the street. Check out their record shop in Beantown.

Sun Age

So I've bitten the bullet and gone digital. Think I'll try this blog nonsense out for a bit and see how it sits. At least struggle along for a few weeks and see if it doesn't entirely humble my arse. Every time I get to thinking I don't completely suck at the Internets along comes something like this to baffle with its parade of 1s and 0s. But yeah, this is it. Mostly what you'll find here will be ramblings about tunes, as that's what I do. If you have an interest in reading more 'official' communications from the sound world, check Dusted. It's as good as you get online. Alright, enough for now. Let's see if this works. Here we go. Here comes the sun age…