It’s kind of hard to understand how nuts this record was when it was recorded. Amateurism in popular music certainly existed before this record but it wasn’t a thing that most people were seeking out when their were professional records on offer. And it’s not like amateurism by itself is necessarily some kind of virtue …
Tag: Garage Rock
The “Angry” Young Them (1965)
When I was younger, I was really into British R&B. But the older I get the less essential it seems to me: it’s not the genuine article and so much of it sounds the same. 55-60 years later, do we really care about British interpretations of American music? I mean, it made sense at the …
Joan Jett aka Bad Reputation (1980)
Joan Jett was pretty young when she made this record – only 19 or 20 – but it sounds like it was made by someone 10 years her senior. That’s often a compliment but it’s not here: like so many punk-adjacent albums of the late ’70s and early ’80s, this one is obsessed with the …
Here Are The Sonics!!! (1965)
If you know anything about this record you know the hagiography is really strong. It’s only through actually listening to the music of 1965 and before a lot (as I have and do) that you can maybe see through the canonization of this band as “punk before punk” and see the real band, a band …
Eternally Yours (1978) by The Saints
The major innovation of The Saints’ second album is the presence of the horn section on some tracks. Basically we can trace the “punk with horns” thing back to this album.
Easter Everywhere (1967) by The 13th Floor Elevators
The 13th Floor Elevators’ debut album is viewed as a trailblazing psychedelic masterpiece by people who have apparently never heard Revolver but I can’t say I’ve ever been that impressed by it; vaguely psychedelic folk rock to my ears, significantly abetted in its psychedelic vibes by that electric jug, an utterly unique instrument, but only …
The Amboy Dukes (1967)
In some circles this record has a reputation as a bit of a lost classic as there is a certain type of person who just loves this kind of vaguely psychedelic rock music from the late ’60s.
Like a Mother Fucker (1977) by Heartbreakers
Aka L.A.M.F. and these Heartbreakers are not to be confused by Tom Petty’s band of the same name. Recorded in the UK, this record still sounds extremely “New York.” In fact, the central feature of this record and the thing that I struggle with while listening to it is its huge resemblance to the New …
The 2017 Wolfe Island Music Festival
After a year’s hiatus, the Wolfe Island Music Festival returned and I resumed my annual pilgrimage to the one and only music festival I go to. I think that, with one major exception, there was a general feeling among our group that this edition was better than the 2015 edition.