Indie Vinyl

Pontiak "Maker" LP out April 7 on Thrill Jockey: heh, heh, funny how I said it would be awhile til I blogged again, here's the third post of the day. Geez....this has been a real good day listening to stuff. Pontiak's sophmore full-length is stunning. Track three is called "Wax Worship", something we're all too familiar with around here. The song itself is like if you took a bent-up Math Rock song, and then straighened it out again. I love this record. This LP is limited to 1000 copies in true Thrill Jockey fashion (remember Califone?) and this might be the one to make Pontiak pop with the masses. BUY IT EARLY to avoid missing out!

FANTASTIC British Psych that is contemporary, perhaps sounds a bit like Caribou. You can tell from the mp3s that this will sound great on vinyl. Check it here:

http://www.myspace.com/thesoundcarriers

...if you want it. Digging for records, finding cool records, listening to records, buying & selling records. Yeah, "I got a One Track Mind" (thanx Johnny Thunders). See sidebar for the link to my Twitter. I'm back from vacation, digging out right now. I'll be back soon at the blog, I'll probably twitter b4 I blog again.

Die Kreuzen's "Die Kreuzen" & "October File" LPs are really meant to be enjoyed on VINYL. These two LPs, 25 and 23 years old respectively, have been unavailable on vinyl for 11+ years, and are important touchstones at the dawn of American Indie Rock. Milwaukee's Die Kreuzen were an unclassifiable and fantastic live band who never sold out to the major labels as their post-hardcore peers (The Replacements, X, Sonic Youth) did, and stuck with the mighty Touch & Go Records label. This band was clearly five years head of their time when these were recorded, especially when considering the Seattle Grunge scene of the late 1980s. Touch & Go reissued these on LP late last year, they include mp3 coupons, and are less expensive than almost anything else out there.

Michael Hurley hung around and wrote songs for arguably the first pair of great "underground" bands, The Fugs and The Holy Modal Rounders, both having roots in (gasp) early sixties NYC. His rag-tag songs are endearing, and his record production can be a slap-dash affair at times, but his work from the early seventies has stood the test of time. Only problem was finding the records, and I certainly tried doing so in the Midwest for over the past ten years with no luck. Even Ed Sanders' (another NYC underground pioneer) records could be found at used record shops- check out his "Beer Cans on the Moon"LP - but I never stumbled across any of Hurley's LPs. I got to meet the man about seven years ago, he was cantankerous, yet willing to autograph a CD after I handed him some cash for the item's purchase. "Armchair Boogie", the LP recently reissued on Mississippi Records, is perhaps his best LP, right up there with "Snockgrass" & "Have Moicy!" This LP is a perfect mix of underground D.I.Y. attitude with down-home musical arrangement. Less polished than most early seventies singer-songwriter LPs by a longshot, it is a true original. Cat Power revently covered Hurley, now is your chance to check out the man himself.