Indie Vinyl

Yo La Tengo "Popular Songs"

Kraftwerk "The Man Machine"

Chooglin' "Sweet Time"

Galaxie 500 "This is Our Music"

White Hills "Heads on Fire"

The Devil Makes Three "Do Wrong Right"

Amon Duul II "Yeti"

Guru Guru "UFO"

Vivian Girls "Everything Goes Wrong"

Mission of Burma "The Sound The Speed The Light"

Beautiful & pastoral (mostly), the new batch of Drag City releases arrived one recent late summer day. Jim O'Rourke's "The Visitor" is nicely acoustic and beautifully arranged. Six Organ of Admittance's "Luminous Night" is sweet, but with a dark creepiness underneath. Helena Espvall and Masaki Batoh's "Overloaded Ark" is dreamy & trancelike, Then along comes Monotonix's "Where Were You When it Happened?" with a kick in the teeth, kick-ass hard rockin' ala Mudhoney. Yeah, hup!

Yo La Tengo's 16th full-length album is a masterpiece, and they continue to remain as interesting as any time in their 25 year history, a feat unmatched by any other group. This is their best album of all. Are they the best band of all time? I'm considering it; this album is the convincing evidence I'll need to make that decision.

"Popular Songs" contains the eclecticism of their last two studio LPs, the maturity of the previous two, and adds a bit more fuzzy psych to up the ante a bit. They couldn't have made a better album to please me at least.The packaging is so eye-poppingly perfect for the vinyl collector; the sound is beautiful.

It is great to see a band you truly love surpass all of their influences, continue to hold on to their obvious passion for music itself, all while keeping their sense of humor.

This is the best album of 2009 hands down, probably the album of the decade.

Genius & Love indeed. 

The Brian Jonestown Massacre have been tough to miss for the past 20 years. Have you ever seen the BJTM in concert or seen the roc-doc film about them called "Dig"?  This San Francisco-based loose-knit group have toured heavily for the past 1

5 years, so they've played your vicinity. The film had legs, esp on DVD. They've been hard to avoid, really.

The Brian Jonestown Massacre may have been the best mirror of Rock n Roll's true spirit we've been given over the past two decades. I've seen friends fly high in ther presence, only to crash & burn afterward. Leader Anton Newcombe is almost scary in his dedication to the true rock n roll embodiment.

This band has actually evolved quite a bit since their inception, and this double-LP record is a reissue of their first full-length, originally released in the mid-1990s. Although this record clearly documents the Shoegaze-y beginnings of the band, their overt Stoogey Stonesishness comes through also.

"Methodrone" on LP is truly a trip. Expensive, but worth it.