// Category Archive for: Current Faves

Melody Walker, Gold Rush Goddess

By Kai Shuart

In the interest of full journalistic disclosure, I have to say that I know Melody Walker—the artist behind this CD—personally; I had the privilege of playing with her many times when we were both attending Humboldt State University and seeing her talent grow from her early days playing at Muddy Waters. We remain great friends to this day.

However, that does not diminish the fact that this is an outstanding record. The opening title track, “Gold Rush Goddess” intertwines the earthy images of dynamited mountains and the lusty image of a woman dancing for money and melds them into a cohesive allegory for exploitation, as evidenced in the lyric “Come down off that mountain/come down all you men/but don’t you come knockin’ without money in your hand.”
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Peggy Sue, Acrobats

By J Howell

The concept of the “sophomore slump” may be a tired old critical cliché, but it’s applicable often enough that when a band with a great debut gets around to that second record, one may find oneself a bit nervous. Thankfully, Peggy Sue—whose Fossils and Other Phantoms was likely the best debut album of last year—have not only avoided the second record hex, they’ve completely obliterated it. It’s difficult to recall another sophomore effort that so masterfully retained the best of its creators’ aesthetic while expounding upon it by orders of magnitude; the example that springs to mind is Castanets’ First Light’s Freeze, and like that record, Acrobats may well stand as a modern classic.
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X: The Unheard Music: The Silver Anniversary Edition DVD

By Chelsea Spear

To the layperson in the early ‘80s, punk rock was an atonal mess of a sound made by destructive adolescent boys with an all-consuming hunger for amphetamines and an allergy to shirts. In the documentary X: The Unheard Music, director W.T. Morgan and the punk band X challenge these stereotypes by focusing on the creative process and the day-to-day experiences of a working band trying to find their audience.
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Thomas Dolby, A Map Of The Floating City

By Jemiah Jefferson

It’s somewhat startling to realize that this is Thomas Dolby’s first album in twenty years. Since the 1992 non-success of Astronauts & Heretics, his last album of originals, Dolby busied himself in Silicon Valley, inventing and patenting applications involved in ring tone technology. This is the sort of thing that the cerebral, nay—pointy-headed—Dolby would do when the music industry started to bore him. But what happened after the man created his patents, got rich, got bored (again), and went home?

Once a musician, always a musician. Dolby began touring again, solo, several years ago, and to his audiences, dropped teasing hints that he was working on new music. A Map of the Floating City, in all its forms, is the result of that lengthy process, revealing painstaking perfectionism that occasionally gets in the way, but mostly creates a multilayered experience that develops in complexity with every revisit.
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Portlandia, Season One DVD

By Danny R. Phillips

It seems that in some circle, including my own, cracking on hipsters has become somewhat of a sport. With their tragic coolness, bland color scheme in housing and clothes, poor music choices (does anyone REALLY like Bon Iver?), black eyeglasses, and Zach Galifianakis facial hair, the genus Hipsteris toocoolius has become a prime target for sarcasm and satire. And no show does it better than IFC’s Portlandia.
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The Jesus Lizard, CLUB DVD

By Ann Clarke

Filmed in Nashville in July of 2009, this DVD is a one-night glimpse into what was a reunion-ish tour that I really wish I’d had a chance at seeing (no shows came anywhere near me). But luckily someone had the sense to capture it (and capture it well, I might add!)

I had seen Jesus Lizard live footage before, but regrettably I have never seen them live. I had a good idea of what to expect, and what is captured on this DVD lives up to my expectations.
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The Smile Sessions

By Paul Casey

As Paul Williams said in 1997—prematurely as it turns out—upon the release of 30 minutes of the SMiLE music on the Good Vibrations box set, SMiLE is Done. The release of The Smile Sessions by EMI and Capitol Records on November 1, 2011, is the end of a long strange journey. You can read my thoughts on the phenomenon of SMiLE in my other article, but this one is purely about the music.

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The Explorers Club, The Carolinian Suite EP

By Cait Brennan

The Grand Hotel is still under construction . . . but your complimentary suite is ready.

It’s been three years since Charleston, South Carolina’s pop revivalists The Explorers Club released Freedom Wind, a peach of a debut record that sounded for all the world like a Great Lost Beach Boys masterpiece. I’ll never forget the first time I heard that album’s “Last Kiss”—speeding down the 101 through Hollywood, right as the Capitol Records tower came into full view, all sunshine and blue skies and ocean breezes. The perfect soundtrack to a perfect day. Somewhere, Brian Wilson was smiling.
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Blinded By Library Science: Michael J. Epstein Memorial Library/Nervous But Excited

By Chelsea Spear

Club Passim, Cambridge MA
November 6, 2011

Photo © Kelly Davidson

What has 18 legs, 15 instruments, eight pairs of cat-eye glasses, and one handlebar mustache? No, it’s not the latest electronic edition of Paste or the next Diablo Cody movie, but rather the Michael J. Epstein Memorial Library.

Boston music wunderkind Michael J. Epstein has assembled a chamber ensemble to perform his opulent, melodic cache of tunes. Live performances by the MJEML take the “memorial library” concept to its logical extreme by populating the stage with eight comely lasses in red, black, white, and bifocals, shushing a talkative audience in unison and reminding their listeners that “You might get a ticket for speeding . . . but you won’t get a ticket for reading.”
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John Cale, Extra Playful EP

By Emily Carney

Before the passing of Serge Gainsbourg in 1991, it was said that the French singer-songwriter-total badass didn’t need to die before he achieved immortality. John Cale—of the Velvet Underground and solo fame—is one of those artists as well (although John will hopefully be with us for a very long time).

John Cale was already a legend prior to turning 30; now, his legend has extended into myth. At age 69, he shows no signs of stopping with his new EP, appropriately titled Extra Playful. The man showed up to his Order of the British Empire award ceremony dressed like a dustbin man with rooster-red hair. What is not to love about Cale? Oh, yes, there is plenty to love, as this new selection of songs shows.
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