What is the essence of rock and roll? Let’s begin with the agreed-upon narrative: It was laced into the hard stops between Jimmy Rogers’ shrieking guitar licks and Muddy Waters’ growling pronouncements of his manhood when they performed “Mannish Boy” back in 1955. It launched from there into clubs in Chicago and Hamburg. It reached […]
Read more "Never Heard of ‘Em #22 – Cy Dune"What am I supposed to do? I am attracted to guys who are built like chicks and I am into bands who sound like Animal Collective; so obviously I am into Nico Haag who is guilty on both counts. And just because he has a slender frame, it doesn’t mean he isn’t manly. He is. He […]
Read more "Never Heard of ‘Em? #20: Bleeklino"cozy body the mineral girls Self Aware Records, 2015 The mineral girls show up in my itunes in between The Microphones and The Minutemen and that feels just about right. (note: They actually show up in between Miles Davis and Missy Elliot, but I am ignoring that fact because that is not how the alphabet […]
Read more "From Mineral Girls to Mineral Women"by Matt Meade I think I am having some kind of existential crisis. I am lying on the floor of my bedroom with my headphones on, staring at the ceiling, like I am some highschooler. I am typing this review into my phone as one super long text. My thumbs are like manic ping-pong flippers […]
Read more "Never Heard of ‘Em? #17 – Battle Ave."I feel that enunciation is overrated (I’m talking to you Harvey Keitel. Why do you articulate every frigging syllable even when you are playing a prison hardened street tough? How about an apostrophe or two? There’s not a “gonna’” or a “haveta” to be found in the man’s entire oevre.) Being too articulate, or […]
Read more "Never Heard of ‘Em? #16 – Forever Cult"something forever the mineral girls self-released, 2014 by Matt Meade I hate when anything is all lowercase. It drives me nuts. It feels like some kind of clever marketing gimmick to me. I hate marketing, I hate clever, and I hate gimmicks. I used to love it, of course. I came of age in the […]
Read more "nothing lasts forever"by Matt Meade The Canoes are a schlubby band from Evanston Illinois. How schlubby are they? Well, the cover of the “American English” single is a paunchy guy failing to spin a basketball on his finger. I ask you, what is more schlubby than that? The band sounds like a sloppy and invigored Sebadoh if Lou […]
Read more "Never Heard of ‘Em? #13 – The Canoes"Heccra by Matt Meade I like to experience music in a way that may be uncommon. I am typically sitting alone in a dark room, digesting all the constituent parts, the YouTube video, the band website, the viral marketing campaign, like it is all a part of some pastiched, multi-faceted found-footage film. Each song, each […]
Read more "Never Heard of ‘Em? #12 – Heccra"yesper by Matt Meade “Cannibal King” isn’t what you think. It’s not a cookie monster vocalist gutteralizing all over a thrash metal track at 220 BPM. It’s a delicate, gentle song by a talented singer-songwriter borrowing phrasing from The Flaming Lips’ “Waiting for a Superman,” and making coy references to “the quiet strength of the Carpenter’s house…” Not […]
Read more "Never Heard of ‘Em? #8 – yesper"by Matt Meade Mineral Girls – I almost hesitate to tell you about this band. They’re that good. It would not be a stretch to say that they are one of the reasons the “Never Heard of ‘Em?” series exists. I needed a forum for talking about bands like this one. I needed a place […]
Read more "Never Heard of ‘Em? #7 – The Mineral Girls"by Matt Meade The Sad Bastard Book Club – It’s not just the name of the band that I love so much. It’s the sparse hellfire of the lyrics. It’s the warning label length song titles. It’s the minor key guitar noodling. It’s the Gregorian chant back up vocals. And, yeah Ok, it’s the name […]
Read more "Never Heard of ‘Em? #4"
OLD SCHOOL RECORD REVIEW 