| Captain Beefheart | Trout Mask Replica | Yee haw, this is a fun album. Perfect for kids and pets! Bring the family! I think Tom Waits listens to this album each time he sits down to write a song. |
| Perrey & Kingsley | The Essential Perrey & Kingsley | I had never heard of these guys, just took a chance, and I'm glad I did. This CD contains both their records. Great Moog music, some easy listening covers, some spacey music. It's kinda like Esquivel, except it's good. |
| Wendy Carlos | Tales of Heaven and Hell | This is a moderately interesting album from the transsexual that brought you Switched On Bach. This is an enhanced CD, and has a brief biography of Carlos on the disc, brief enough to omit a little operation from '79 or '80... |
| Suicide | The Second Album + The First Rehearsal Tapes | A good two-CD import from merry ol' England. Nice keyboard-based pop from Martin Rev with singer Alan Vega spazzing out on top. I think I like this more than their first record. Good stuff. |
| Soundtrack | Taxi Driver | I picked this up used. I have always liked this melodramatic score by Bernard Herrman. A few quibbles, though. Some of the editing of the music is a bit odd. Also, some dialogue of Travis Bickle on the soundtrack has the swearwords edited out! Jesus F***ng Christ! |
| Tom Verlaine | The Miller's Tale | This is a great two-CD compilation of the career of the main guy from Television. A lot of lovely pop, lots of lovely guitar playing. |
| Lambchop | What Another Man Spills | This Nashville band refuses to disappoint me! A lot of really nice songs, a little more mellower than their last, Thriller. My favorite is "The Saturday Option." Suh-weet! |
| Kahimi Karie | K.K.K.K.K. | There are some good pop songs on the album (the best ones courtesy of Momus), but GOD, it certainly is hard to get used to the breathy off-key voice that is Kahimi Karie. I think I'd like this album better if Bjork sang it, somebody else, anyway. |
| Beck | Odelay | I must be deficient in the Beck-loving gene that is so common among the stinky animal that is the professional rock critic. This stuff is okay, but by no means great. I just don't get it. |
| Michael Jackson | Off The Wall | Got this from the budget bin. Sure, Michael Jackson is the creepiest person in the world, but hey, this is pre-creepiness (well, at least before his public creepiness). Either way, this album is rocking! Play "Don't Stop 'Til You Got Enough" at full blast and repeat as necessary (Don't forget to boogie, for God's sakes). |
| Gang of Four | Entertainment! | If you want the proverbial punk record, this is for you. You might want to set your CD player to Repeat on the second track, "Natural's Not In It." Ah, just put the whole album on Repeat. |
| Funkadelic | Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow | Boy, I wish the production on this album didn't suck hot beans! Maybe it's just the particular CD I picked up. The sound quality is awful! Ten times worse than White Light/White Heat! Twenty times worse than Led Zeppelin III! What really sucks is I can tell the damn songs are great, but the production really spoils it for me. |
| Various Artists | Duke Reid's Treasure Chest | This is a two-CD compilation of 60's reggae songs from Duke Reid's Treasure Isle label. Some really nice stuff, kind of a mix of doo-wop, Motown and reggae, with a smidgen of ska. The original version of "The Tide Is High" (which Blondie later covered) is one of the songs on the comp. |
| The 6ths | Wasps' Nests | This is a nice album by Stephin Merritt (of Magnetic Fields fame). He does all the music and has guest vocalists sing the songs. Georgia Hubley of Yo La Tengo sings a nice tune, "Movies In My Head," as does Luna's Dean Wareham, "Falling Out of Love (With You)". |
| Various Artists | The Quill Records Story - The Best of Chicago Garage Bands | A mostly mediocre collection of mid 60's Chicago bands taking their stab at Troggs-hood. On the cover is a dapper band named The Exceptions.
Wait a minute! Who is that lad with the chili bowl haircut? Why it's |
Stay tuned for more irrelevant peeks into my spending habits!