Compact music commentary about artifacts new and old: I enthuse, I don t accuse, but I do refuse--to review anything lukewarm or colder!
YOU WANT PUNK AND ROLL? We got it!!! YOU WANT 5-STAR, A-GRADE, 9- or 10-OUTTA-10 REKKIDS? We got SIX of ‘em? YOU WANT THAT GOOD ‘OL (NEW) HIP-HOP AND R B? We got it! YOU WANT SOME WICKED, DIRECT, TRUE, SPECIFIC LYRICS THAT AREN’T WHISPERED? We got ‘em! YOU NEED SOME MORE GARY STEWART MA Continue reading BOUNTY! The Most Striking New Records I Discovered in July (Only Some Were That New, Though)
We made it through a half-year of this* (well…some of us were fortunate to have). Music sure helped. I’m doin’ things a mite different this month: below are my 50 favorite releases and 10 favorite excavations of 2026, rather than my usual cumulative list of all the really good ones I’ve hunted down. See my Continue reading June, Moon, Spoon—Goons: Living to Listen’s Midyear Sanity-Inducing,…
I’m lagging a day behind, and that ain’t cool in the blogosphere, so I’ll cut the oddservational chase: Great, great, great month for free and improvised music if you can dig it. I know that you can, I know that I do. Yeah, that’s physical media down there (I picked up the ancient copy of Mofungo’s “End Continue reading Then Came the Last Day of May—And I Missed It: Favorite Slabs of Music from…
Yes, Virginia, there has been some good—some GREAT—music released this year! It’s not like “music” is collapsing, too! Uh huh, I know about AI, but music is looking for its slingshot. I will not overtax your time here and get to the very notables: Anthony Joseph’s on a run of four consecutive terrific poetry-with-rhythm recordings, Continue reading Glittering Up The Darkness: April s Offerings to…
The national dumpster fire is raging so hot that The Delines’ sobering but skillful portraits and tales (hit the link below) sound like Sly and The Family Stone’s Greatest Hits in comparison. I hope you all are getting out in the street or otherwise making your presence felt—if you’re hostile to the notion that there’s Continue reading Things Are Unhinged, but Members of The Earth, Do Not Bend to…
Yep, from 1999 (I think) to 2005 (I think), I was the webmaster as well as the pseudonymal host of The First Church of Holy Rock and Roll, which faded from consistent view in the early 2010s but still can (usually partially) be seen via The Wayback Machine or (as I just discovered) at its Continue reading Special Surprize Throwback Post: The Reverend Wayne Coomers Gives Guilty Pleasure Advice to…
This month: I’ve begun my very basic asterisky rating system, now that most of the following records have had a chance to sink in, plus I’m continuing to share my lists of carelessly forgotten, underappreciated, or simply “new to me” records from January-November 2025 (December’s children are being counted as ‘26ers since they barely had Continue reading An Aural Portal to Here: Preferred Albums,…
I retreated into music and books this month. The books I chose to help me find answers and a path forward; the music I explored to stay connected. As usual with Januaries past, new so-called pop (and semi-pop) music oozed out slowly. Jazz, as is its wont, continued to issue forth like a live Sonny Continue reading A Moment of Silence for January 2026—Then Let It Blast! Some Records (and Books)…
It’s New Year’s noonish, and I have to come to a conclusion about the records that got me through this growing mess. 2026 ain’t gonna be much better, I’m afraid—maybe in the music universe, but not on the ground, so to speak. I may have short-changed December; if you didn’t see my December 1st long-list, Continue reading It Will Not End Here: My 25 Favorite Records of 2025 (if you don’t give me…
I listened to almost 40 records last month that passed muster many did so in splendid style. A huge chunk of my time was taken up by a new studio (!) album by the forceful, imaginative, and focused jazz improvisers known as [ahmed] (a double set that requires very close attention and replaying) and Corbett vs. Continue reading A HOLIDAY MONTH’S MEAL AND A FEW WEEKS OF LUSCIOUS LEFTOVERS: MY…