1980s New Wave on ukulele and occasional kazoo, on a grainy old webcam in 4:3. Bow to the viewer, play.
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I ran the Perth indie record charts, from 1989 to 1991. Corruption! Manipulation! Propaganda!
An excuse to get Perth bands into a published record chart, so they’d get some publicity and could use it in their marketing. And to propagandise Australian indie to the masses. Includes THE HITS OF 1989!
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Records: The Rolling Stones, Deerful, Benjamin Shaw (2016, 2018).
A party that everyone’s been looking forward to for weeks. They seem to be having a wonderful time.
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Lords of Acid: Pretty In Kink (2018).
Everyone’s familiar with Lords of Acid at a basic level, right? Dark electronic erotica? Techno songs about fucking? It’s all very nineties. Pretty in Kink was released in May 2018 but still puts out the oldschool LoA vibe.
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Blacklab: Under The Strawberry Moon 2.0 (2018).
Hey, are you interested in letting a couple of women from Osaka just completely melt your fucking brain? If so I have found the album for you.
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The Twinkles: We Come Along (2018).
A 10 song album that is everything you’ve been looking for if you’re sad that The Vandals haven’t had a full length release since 2004.
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Links: EBM is trendy, managing the Rolling Stones, Swiss modernist post punk, egregious YouTube content filtering.
Post-punk albums in the style of 1960s Penguin nonfiction paperbacks.
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Reviews: Aboleth, Zanias (2016, 2018).
Writing about music is the most ridiculous notion, and the review pile is only getting larger. So I’ll give just embedding players and mumbling something a go. This works for me, and that’s the important thing.
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Links: Spotify metadata, VU meters, songwriting camps, Disney defends fair use, the history of Smash Hits.
Twenty deadly diseases.
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Pastoratet: THLM (2018).
A nice combo of hardcore and surf punk, it’s got a mellow, melodic feel that edges toward pop-punk but brings in just a tiny bit of metal to keep an edge to the sound.
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Links: Why the Rolling Stones suck, “fake artists,” ’80s remixes of current pop, ABBA, Philip Glass and S-Express, YouTube Music.
The Rolling Stones piece certainly answers for me the question “why could I never get into this stuff?”
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Vortex #3, March 1987: Triffids, Ed Kuepper, Greg Dear, Kno Matter, White Cross, OMD, Paul Weller.
Yes, I finally got Vortex #3 cleaned up and online.
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Reviews: Marsy, Dot Dash (2018).
Yeah, putting a Bandcamp embed into reviews is clearly the right thing.
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Links: eMusic can’t pay its bills, nobody buys CDs, catalogue prices, majors upset Spotify not rolling out the red carpet.
Welcome to the music industry! Here’s your accordion.
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eMusic releases its blockchain ICO plan! … it’s not very good.
eMusic’s plan: 1. Collect a large pile of money. 2. Write an all-new music platform that does everything! 3. Pay people in eMusic magic beans.
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Links: Windowing is passé, piracy lawyers go to jail, MP3 “restoration,” Damo Suzuki.
I blame the delay on blockchain. Taking a while between confirmations.
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Interview: Gina Cimmelli — My Little Lies (2018).
A brilliant five-track indie pop EP. And my first musician interview in a couple of decades.
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Streaming links: 24,000 new tracks a day, Spotify as label, streaming pays better than radio.
And foreshadowing of Monday’s long-form post.
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Links: World In Motion, pirates, kids listen to Swans, Irmin Schmidt.
“If there’s one group who can capture the spirit of bitter infighting that typifies being in a World Cup squad …”
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Limb: Saboteurs of the Sun (2018).
Excellent fare for people who really enjoy Tolkein. A supernatural tone and a solid pounding that most anyone who likes heavy prog will appreciate.
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rosewater: Love Bomb, rosewater AKA (2018).
Both little works have great songs on them but Love Bomb is mind-blowingly perfect. Clark and Brooke’s voices and guitars blend into a sweet, grungy, fun sound.
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Reripping the CDs, as you do.
Here’s to cdparanoia and EAC, to turn the music trapped in the silver abominations back into the pure data they were meant to be.
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Richard Syrett on Theodor Adorno, the Beatles, conspiracy theorists and … me.
Did you know that Frankfurt School philosopher Theodor Adorno wrote all the Beatles songs? I sure didn’t! In fact, I still don’t.
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DENY: Parasite Paradise (2018).
Barely intelligible lyrics, fast, simple-guitar lines, and overwhelming drums.
Just as God intended, damnit.
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YouTube Music: your move, Spotify.
Good thing I eventually got that Spotify article done, hey.
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Stelliferous: Canine Familiar (2018).
Ugh, it’s actually irritating how much I like this record. It’s like a white noise machine for ADHD.
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Links: Albini on In Utero (again), the inbox flood, Level Music, blockchains (again).
“We’ll save music on the blockchain!” Ethereum can’t scale up to cat pictures.
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Shezoo: Agony Of Doubt (2018).
Agony of Doubt is a fun, fantastic, big-hair-eighties-style metal album that goes hard and fast but stays fun the whole way through.
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How to make Spotify suck less than YouTube for streaming.
I actively try to use Spotify, because I like the idea that the artist will get at least a penny shaving. So why do I keep just using YouTube? Because it’s not a goddamn pain in the arse.
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Mark Rye: Inside Looking Out: More Rock’n’Roll tales from inside the British music business (2017).
First-hand tales from the people down in the engine room.
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