Orange Juice - You Can't Hide Your Love Forever

The first LP released by Orange Juice with the band's original lineup. This album is full of delicious twee/post-punk jams and youthful Glaswegian energy. A nice midpoint between the other bands apart of scene then like: Josef K , The Pastels , and Scars. I dig the rest of the band's and Edwyn Collins' work but this album is the closest to my heart. The keyboards are subdued, if not nonexistent and the guitars are bit more sloppy and jangly. 

Have a listen

Ahh, the old times, when things and people were still classy...

I'm an early bird now?

Bradford Ramone

Dig A Pony

The fact that a song from a band so over saturated in my life and in the culture around me can still make my eyes teary is just amazing. That has to say something about the power that all those individuals together produced. More powerful than selling records and merchandising. More powerful than the opinions of the listeners. It's nice to just shut off my mind and bask in the glow of it. 

Bros

Ghost - Live With Me

I'm really on a Japanese Psychedelic and Metal kick right now. This band is just the tits. Their sound has a little for everyone depending on which album you choose. Anyways, trip out on this song which is the absolute best Rolling Stones cover ever recorded. A triple threat of Engrish, Xylophone and Michio Kurihara's guitar work. 

There's nothing wrong with you....

....it's that mental poisoning .

Boris!

Getting my face melted off again by this band next week!

Romancing The Band

I'm feeling all sappy-like, so this one is going out to all of the couples in bands together, past and present.

Neil Hagerty & Jennifer Herrema ~ Royal Trux

Georgia Hubley & Ira Kaplan ~ Yo La Tengo

Amadeo Pace & Kazu Makino ~ Blonde Redhead

Serge Gainsbourg & Jane Birkin (weren't technically a band but fuck it..)

David Berman & Cassie Berman ~ Silver Jews

Kim Gordon & Thurston Moore ~ Sonic Youth

Damon Krukowski & Naomi Yang ~ Galaxie 500 / Damon and Naomi

Tina Weymouth & Chris Frantz ~ The Talking Heads / Tom Tom Club

Alexei Perry & Dan Boeckner ~ Handsome Furs

Laetitia Sadier & Tim Gane ~ Stereolab

Paul Mccartney & Linda Mccartney ~ Wings

Siouxsie & Budgie ~ Siouxsie & The Banshees / The Creatures

Lux Interior & Poison Ivy ~ The Cramps

Bilinda Butcher & Kevin Shields ~ My Bloody Valentine

John Lennon & Yoko Ono

Neil Halstead & Rachel Goswell ~ Slowdive / Mojave 3

I smell some bad gris-gris on your clothes

Mindless hippies fucking with my flow at the farmers market. 

Feelin' that Halloween spirit

Runner's High

Began jogging today. Yet another thing I've started this year that would have knocked my past self over with giant bolt of disbelief. Feels great...but , ouch I'm sore. 

Madchester Hip Shakers

O.G. Aussie Goodness

"Rock Music in the Seventies was changed by three bands- The Sex Pistols, The Ramones, and The Saints."   Bob Geldof

Not that I give two shits about what Bob Geldof thinks, but he was correct about one thing in that quote: The Saints changed things up. This Australian group refused to be marketed and pinned down by the Punk/ New Wave label that a lot of bands were cast into at the time. And I'm not going to do that to them now in trying to explain their sound. All I'll say is that It's eclectic, good and timeless, just how I like my jams. 

Check out the albums Eternally Yours and Prehistoric Sounds.

Never as tired as when I'm waking up

Why, why, why! has no one invented a silent lawnmower and other power gardening tools? What the fuck science? Catch up with the future so a guy can sleep and still have a prim and proper lawn. 

T-minus two months till the radio station and magazine launches!

Sleepless again.

Burning eyes catch the moon's smug winks through closed blinds

Need cool water. 

Still waiting for kitchen ghosts to make the next move. 

Now that I'm a junkie!

I have a powerful lust for some Dim Sum baked goods or Wienerschnitzel. Damn, I'd even settle for Del Taco.

New gems floating in a flooded landscape

The heavy garage revival of the last and current decade is reaching it's ceiling. With independent bands becoming indistinguishable from each other again. It happens with every headlining genre, in ever period. Those of us able to look beyond all the pretension and hip dribble being shlocked online(ha, ha,) and printed know about this mapping. It's just human nature. And when that's all understood it's much easier to find and enjoy artistic works that actually have some long lasting worth. I consider these three recent albums a part of that class. 

They each have individual spirit:

Thee Oh Sees - Castlemania

Recorded almost entirely by the prolific John Dwyer alone, this album is full of sweet 60's call and response harmonies and sloppy hip shaking anthems.  There's also a nice sense of closeness in John's Surfing Bird on acid vocal style. You can here him counting off time before a song or apologizing to himself, giving the sense that he's performing in your house/bedroom/head just for you. 

King Khan & BBQ Show - Invisible Girl

A bit more polished than their previous albums but just as vulgar. 

Sounds like Frankie Valli huffing mountains of zombie powder and amphetamines. Can't really detail it any better than that. 

Crystal Stilts - In Love With Oblivion

This Brooklyn, NY band hopped right over the sophomore slump with this album. Droney, strummy, good. Most of the tracks flow nicely within the pop formula and make me want to skip around the astral plane. 

Cool as the coconut water that you can't get in America.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor

Ever wondered what the story was behind the Canadian band's name? Apparently the members were fans of this cult classic. Just as the punk movement was being birthed in New York and London in the mid 70's, Japan saw the rise of  the young biker gang, Bosozoku, culture. This 16mm documentary, shot in 1976, follows the Black Emperor gang and their interactions with the law, families and the rest of society. There are a lot of wasted scenes of random conversation and members meandering, but there are a few gem scenes dispersed throughout that make watching worthwhile. The music and overall look are also aesthetically pleasing. There should still be a subtitled version of this flick up on youtube, unless those license enslaved bastards removed it. Check it.

They said that we were too young

Our kind of love is no fun

But our love comes from above.

Do it!

Let's make love.

Track # 3 on the Babymakin' mix for an upcoming themed show on the station.

Monochrome Heroes 2

Sun Ra

Alfred Hitchcock

Akira Kurosawa

Jonny Greenwood

Cornelius

Monty Python

Jack Rabid

Tom Robbins

Hayao Miyazaki

Nikola Tesla (AKA The Electric Jesus)

Quentin Tarantino 

Lux Interior 

The Coen Bros.

Wes Anderson

Sunny bike rides to Thai delicacies and good luck seagull droppings.  Kraken rum induced laughter leading to light excursions in the spirit world led by fungi guides. 

Tetsuo: The Iron Man

Not like Buddha
Not like Vishnu
Life wouldn't rise through him again

The Monochrome Set

I have to give thanks to Bradford Cox and my lovely wife for helping me discover this gem of a band. Formed in 1978 after singer Bid and guitarist Lester Square left their college band The B-Sides, later to become Adam & The Ants, funky! They released a good amount of singles through Rough Trade, which you can find in compilations White Noise: Early Recordings and The Independent Singles Collection, and three solid albums, Strange Boutique, Love Zombies, and Eligible Bachelors. Their music is full of tongue in cheek lyricism, delivered smoothly through Bid's Lou Reed influenced English lilt , and jazzier takes on the then fresh post-punk sound. Class all the way round. A perfect pairing with some scotch and smirking at the current irony enslaved society.