i hate the sound of guitars

Artist of the Week: Fugazi
I listened to Chunklet’s entire 45-minute assemblage of Fugazi stage patter. It seems to be drawn mostly from the Fugazi shows available to download from archive.org, but it has most of the classic bits, wrapping up, of course, with “ice cream-eating motherfucker.”
Things that it made me think:

Fugazi has long been dogged [...]

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Artist of the Week: Voice of the Beehive
I blame this on my going on a Voivod kick a few weeks back, I think I saw the Voice of the Beehive discs, and the thought of wanting to hear them gradually wormed into the brain, with the the idea of answering two questions:

Was the first record [...]

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It was just about a month ago that I became aware of the self-described “pop music cult” Hussalonia, and since then I’ve listened to Hussalonia songs about 350 times. Even more surprising, I’m showing no signs of getting sick of them.
Partly this is because Hussalonia is really good*, partly it’s because they (mostly just he [...]

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One of the reasons I never turned into a “real” music writer is that sometimes I get stuck, especially when a piece of music really hits me hard. I want to write about it badly, but because I lack clarity and objectivity, it takes a long time to come up with anything worth reading [...]

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The lead single from Please and Thank You manges to be simultaneously sweet, creepy, and poignant in a character portrait of uncommon economy. The song’s narrator is moving in with his sweetie. If we take him at his word, he’s literally drooling at the thought of a live-in friend-with-privileges, which is at least a [...]

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I show no signs of getting tired of bands that worship at the temple of The Fall’s early days: ungainly lurch, quirky lyrics, atonal-but-strangely-catchy — I can’t get enough. S-S-S-Spectres’ “Witches vs. Wolves” might sound like a runner-up in a fake Fall album/song-title contest, but it made me say “what the heck?” in the its [...]

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Friday’s performance was just the tonic for folks who’ve seen Robyn Hitchcock numerous times in the past. The setlist was primarily drawn from his magnificent first (mostly) acoustic album, 1984’s I Often Dream of Trains. He was accompanied by recent frequent accomplice Tim Keegan on guitar and vocals, and (former member of The [...]

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Back in April, I wrote this about Big Dipper:
But if they pull a “Mission of Burma”-style return to active duty (and I hope they do), I would love to see/hear them again when they have another few shows under their belt, hopefully in a better-sounding room, and when I’ve had a chance to rein in [...]

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Velocity Girl
The Kirby Grips
This week, “Restraining Order” was the best song ever

Henry’s Dress
The Manhattan Love Suicides
Yoko Ono
Wilco
Bunnygrunt
Kraftwerk
Deerhoof
Tie: The Aisler’s Set, The Eames Era, Hangman’s Alphabet, The Penny Dreadfuls, Maria Taylor, Visqueen

143 artists, 455 tracks.

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Breaking all kindsa rules: I haven’t even listened to this record all the way through once, and it’s already one of my favorites of the year. It’s got me bouncing around in my seat so much, I just have to tell someone about it right now!!! Manhattan Love Suicides (from Leeds; the name is [...]

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