"MUSIC TO CREATE CRIME SCENES WITH!"
This is the new one from the band Artichoke. While this one is alot shorter than their last one, it's also alot better. It's the same sound as the first CD, but the songs are just so much more polished and much better written. It also sounds like they use some different instruments here. So if you liked them before, you should definitely check this one out. The packaging of this is quite interesting and original...it's covered in sandpaper (hence the title 20 Grit). Weird, but a good idea. I was a bit confused by the track listing. The CD lists five tracks, but there are actually six. I know you're thinking it's probably a hidden track, but track five, titled "Thomas Robert Malthus" is a ten second backwards message. While track six is a complete song...and probably my favorite song on the album. So, what's this one called, guys? I'd like to know, but I guess it doesn't really matter since this is all so darn good anyway.
I don't even know how to describe this album and in this case, that's a good thing. From the dark-electro intro song (called "Introduction" as fate would have it) to the end of the album, this CD is filled with all sorts of fun moody noise that can go from making you dance to making you go into a corner where you curl up into a ball and weep. I was a little worried when I saw that there were remixes of a couple of the songs on this album, but they don't detract from the overall record at all. If anything, they add more richness to it as if they were reprises in a musical...a scary violent musical, but I think I've made my point. I think my favorite song on this album is "The Shakes", but I enjoyed every single song on this album. You can be sure that I'll be asking them to play on No-Fi "Radio" sometime this year. Oh, and the CD design is really good too. I love when that happens. Get this one for exploring a forest late at night.
Yep. This is still one of my favorite albums of all time. It's the long out of print final album of one of the most influential bands of the last decade, Jawbreaker. I'm not a religious man,Ý but I prayed for years that this would be re-released, since my copy had been played so much that it was starting to skip, and if you wanted to get it you had to pay over 30 bucks on ebay. But, my prayers were finally answered and here it is with new photos inside the booklet and 5 songs that weren't originally on the CD. One of the new pictures is actualy of Kurt Cobain wearing the 'salt girl' Jawbreaker shirt. And the new songs are as follows: "Shirt" "Into You Like A Train"(a Psychadelic Furs cover) "Sister" "Friendly Fire" and a different version of "Boxcar" (but I like the version on 24 Hour Revenge Therapy better). I can't forget to mention all of my favorite songs that were already on this album like "Fireman" and "Accident Prone" and "Million" and "Jet Black" and gosh...all of 'em.Ý After almost ten years I love this album more than ever before. If you already had it, get it again. If you never had it, get it now!! 
I first saw Susan Ramsey of Kitten On The Keys at Exotic World a couple years ago, but didn't see her perform her piano numbers until the Tease-O-Rama festival earlier this year. I was instantly a fan and was very happy when she sent me her latest CD which I am reviewing now. Ok, you all caught up? Good. Well the CD starts well The Sex Pistols' "Anarchy In The UK" in her baby girl voice on her toy piano and it pretty much sets the mood for the rest of the album. You know it's going to be fun and silly and it keeps that mood all throughout (save for her cover of The Cure's "A Forest" I guess). You'll find songs here about being a "Pony Girl" in training, lusting after a certain musical chubby man in lipstick known here as "Bob Smith", fetishes for people in animal costumes, to the funny but honest title track (It's Not A) Pretty Princess Day" where the funniest line has got to be when she realizes that she may need a toupee for her...well,...let's just say that it's a different kind of 'bed head' in the morning. I think at the moment, my favorite song on this CD is a toss up (choice words) between "My Girls Pussy" and the modern drama that is "Grandma Sells My Panties On E-Bay". I guess the only thing lost here is the live performance aspect of these songs. It really is a kick to see her on the piano and I think it would be interesting if she can put out a DVD in the future (heck, I'd love to direct a video for one of her songs) or put a live video file or two in the CD itself. Get this CD for dinner with fun friends.
Hide your brothers and sisters, Morrissey is back and he's got a gun! I've been a Morrissey fan since my uncle gave me a home taped copy of The Smiths' album Meat Is Murder. And just as I caught up by buying their latest album at the time Strangeways Here We Come, they broke up. But Morrissey came back and I was lucky enough to see him on all but a couple of his tours. Now many years after his last album, Morrissey has finally got a new album out on his own sub-label Attack Records and if you are a fan, it is a must have. If you aren't really familiar with Moz, you still should have this album. Every song is filled with the brilliance in song writing that I've come to know from this mopey hero. And that's another thing... This is Morrissey's happiest album yet. Another first is with Morrissey throwing out the S-Word in a couple songs (especially in the song "How Could Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel "). The flow of the album is great, but tracks 3 through 5 (the slowest songs) tend to me the ones I skip on short trips in the car. My favorite tracks at the moment are "First Of The Gang To Die", "All The Lazy Dykes" and the oddly upbeat "I Like You" which reminds me of something that could have come off his album Vauxhall & I, but still like nothing else he's ever done. In fact this album fits perfectly in a triangle made up of Vauxhall & I and Kill Uncle. Now I hope that the omission of the song "In Mexico" which he has played live the last couple years means that we can see it turn up on his next album instead of a single b-side. I can't wait another 7 years for a new Morrissy album. One or Two years at the most. Pleeeeease? Anyway, get this album for a drive through East L.A. or a long bath (...both at the same time if you can figure it out).
First off...cool cover by Mark Ryden! This makes me forgive him for any involvement he had in the film Monkeybone. I've been sitting on this CD for a little too long (actually that is a less complicated way of saying it, but ok). Anyway, be prepared when you put this CD in your stereo because the sounds that scream out of your speakers may make you do weird things. While not the kind of album I'd be into normally, the noisey, yet pretty, guitars would be enough to keep me listening. Luckily the songs are nice too. I definitely appreciate the spooky themed songs on this album, but they really won me over with their ode to No-Fi favorite Crispin Hellion Glover called, of course, "Crispin Glover". Not that it's the best song on the album, but just the fact they took the time to write a song about sharp clean man who once passed me in his old white car in Silverlake (I've heard he lives near our old place there). I'm getting away from the subject at hand here. This is a good album with nice songs and cover art (I'm not a fan of the photos inside though. They aren't bad at all, but the cover art really sets a mood that I think the photos should have continued...plus one of the band members does the same head pose on the two photos next to one another). While I can't see myself returnng to this CD very often, I think it would be a good gift for your Hot Topic shopping girlfriend. I'm not against Hot Topic, by the way. It's marketing of punk culture I do have a problem with, but better that than a million more girls wearing Hillary Duff T-Shirts. Get this album for dancing by candlelight.
Another album by a band that's better than the first. From the opening track "Rich" to the last one "Modern Romance" I was either rocking my head back and forth or dancing in my chair. The hit single off the CD, "Maps" isn't a good example of how this band sounds. It's a pretty sad song and also quite beautiful. The rest of the songs are beautiful in their own way, but they also rock your pants off.Ý Some of it reminds me a little of The International Noise Conspiracy. And Karen O sings like an angel. She sounds a little like Katie Eastburn from Young People on "Modern Romance". Beautiful. Karen even sounds like an angel when she's screaming "Boy you're just a stupid bitch and girl you're just a no good dick." which oddly enough is the only thing I could find that could have given this CD the parental advisory sticker on the cover. That's silly. Thanks,Tipper, for ruining another piece of interesting cover art. SO...I know...The Yeah Yeah Yeahs are all over MTV and most major radio stations, but this is one of those cases where the masses are right. This band's gonna be around a long time. 
I thought the front cover of this CD was great, but that the back cover didn't live up to the artwork set up on the front. Still, I had an idea that with good CD art may come good sounds from within. ...And it totally paid off. The music is nice and different with a hint of the bands that probably inspired them, but not so much that you can instantly figure out who those bands are. Good punkabilly meets garage bar band (that is if you have a bar in your garage) that falls somewere between the Red Aunts and Guitar Wolf. I think it's a safe bet that The Thingsz would be just as good live...something that can't be said about most bands...and in a good way, I mean. All the tracks are good in fact, but "Flem Snopes", "Chicken In A Graveyard", and Picnic Table Massacre" stick out in my head at the moment,...but ask me next week and I'll have picked another three. (Plus they are on the same label as Bladder Bladder Bladder so they get respect for that right away in my book...er..."mag.") Get this for a fast midnight drive in the moonlight.Send Tapes, CDs, or Demos to:
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