Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (2005)purchase this album The critical consensus I’m hearing seems to point to this as 2005’s Album of the Year….
Various Artists – Our New Orleans: A Benefit Album for the Gulf Coast (2005)purchase this albumVarious Artists – Higher Ground Hurricane Benefit Relief Concert (2005)purchase this album Disaster. Relief album….
Now here’s a band we haven’t discussed yet — Squeeze. Today’s Bootleg City consists of live cuts from 1980 and 1981, the period leading up to and around East Side…
Beckley-Lamm-Wilson – Like A Brother (2000) purchase this album One of the commenters on our look at Dennis Wilson’s Bamboo mentioned Beckley-Lamm-Wilson’s Like A Brother, and it got me to…
The BoDeans – Joe Dirt Car (1995) purchase this album They seemed poised to make the jump on several occasions, but Waukesha’s finest (otherwise known as The BoDeans) never quite…
When last we left Nick Lowe Á¢€” at the end of Part One last week Á¢€” he was mired in a sales slump and battling the bottle. After the commercial…
To many people, they’ve never been more than a hokey novelty act, but I am in no way ashamed to admit that I fell in love with the gritty, deep-fried,…
Radney Foster – See What You Want to See (1999)purchase this album As the bespectacled half of the late-’80s country duo Foster & Lloyd, Radney Foster was the logical choice…
One of Thomas DolbyÁ¢€â„¢s earliest singles (even before THAT song, I believe) was the incredible Á¢€Å“Airwaves,Á¢€ a song I think was tough for him to equal Á¢€” itÁ¢€â„¢s mellow and…
“Rollercoaster” was the b-side of the Bunnymen’s most aggressive stab for a U.S. hit, the immortal “Lips Like Sugar”. While the a-side was an instant alternative classic, the b-side….welllllll… With…
Doesn’t look like the godfather of punk, does he? Well. Maybe not the godfather, but perhaps a kindly uncle. Either way, Nick Lowe’s footprint on punk — hell, on all…
One of the joys of scrounging through sorely neglected vinyl bins in used record shops is stumbling across something that you didnÁ¢€â„¢t even know you were looking for. Such is…
Nicole Krauss, The History of Love (2005)purchase this book The grass was slippery with mud. In the distance I could see a rowboat tied to the dock. I looked out…
Dennis Wilson – Bamboo Here it is, as promised: Dennis Wilson’s second and final solo album, the unreleased Bamboo. And actually, if you want to get right down to it,…
Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham – Moments from This Theater (1999) purchase this album Spring, 1999: I’m at Slim’s, in San Francisco, making a rare visit to the city in…
Tommy Keene – Ten Years After (1996)purchase this album Power pop: It’s a genre close to my heart, and yet one not often discussed here. This is mostly because, as…
Scott Stapp – The Great Divide (2005)purchase this album Fight Song (download)You Will Soar (download)
Okay, IÁ¢€â„¢m a bad music blogger. No update since November?? Awful. IÁ¢€â„¢m here to make up for that today, with not one, not two, but three Lost in the 80s…
Last week’s installment in our Hall & Oates Guide got big love from Stereogum and Entertainment Weekly, among others, forcing me to further question my belief that the blogosphere is…
Dan Chaon – You Remind Me Of Me (2005)purchase this book The baby’s large eyes settled on him, and though this had been one of his happiest nights in his…
‘Tis the season for downloading! Even though I don’t really care about Christmas per se, and fully sympathize with the pain Christmas music causes most people, I have a perverse…
John Mayer Trio – Try! (2005) purchase this album The name “John Mayer” has become synonymous with the sort of lazy, disingenuously sensitive pop that female college freshmen love and…
The Guide subjects here fall into roughly three camps, I think: Artists who I periodically enjoy and think are interesting; artists who I think are important in some way; and…
Greetings, friends, and welcome back from what I hope was a deeply enjoyable, tryptophan-enhanced food coma. As I mentioned previously, the Jefitos celebrate Thanksgetting — it’s the day after Thanksgiving…
There was a discussion over at Silence Is a Rhythm (scroll down about half a page) about the recent Human League reissues and how EMI have done an okay job…
I realize that many of you think I sit around listening to Toto and Big Country all day, but it ain’t so. Well, not that I don’t listen to those…
Get your turkey on, bitches! For a variety of reasons I shan’t explain, me and mine actually celebrate the day after Thanksgiving — it’s called Thanksgetting, and it’s sweeping the…
Great Big Sea – The Hard and the Easy (2005)purchase this album Given that Great Big Sea’s music is divided between modern pop-folk and traditional songs from their native Newfoundland,…
Fatlip – The Loneliest Punk (2005)purchase this album I talked a couple of weeks ago about how eagerly I’ve been anticipating this album since hearing “What’s Up Fatlip?” waaaaaaaaayyy back…
Ralston – Carwreck Conversations (2004)purchase this album This is a debut record? I confess, I’d never heard of Ralston (nee Bowles) prior to him e-mailing me and asking me to…