Metallica - Garage Inc. Disc II.

Why did you start to suck so badly? Fuck you, Bob Rock.

Last night I threw the new vinyl reissue of The Clean's Modern Rock on the turntable, for the first time. It was remastered by their sound guy Tex Huston, from the original tapes. If this album had been put out by Bad Boy Records with a picture of P. Diddy on the cover, holding baby oil and gesturing to his junk, I would have still bought it--that's how much I like this music. To be honest, though . . . while this had always been my favorite full-length by the band (once I'd heard them all), not having listened to it in its entirety for a while, I was almost skeptical of this opinion at first. I mean, people say a lot of things about a lot of things, and sometimes it's good to interrogate one's own views. But the thing was . . . as the record played on, it kept building, getting better and better. Credit here is due to multi-instrumentalist Alan Starrett, who added a lot of fine dynamic production elements, but this is a great outing by the trio. Something about it remains hard to pin down. It's not entirely "indie rock." To call it sixties-influenced "neo-psychedlia" doesn't quite capture it either. "Post-punk" is inadequate as well. All I can say is that it's a very colorful record, pleasant to listen to, with ebbs and flows, lots of hook-y dynamic numbers, never boring and not innocuous. HAVE YOU HEARD THIS BAND? Recently? The record still holds up. And the new pressing/mastering is ace.

One of my favorite albums of all time.

REM - out of time

Have not thought about this record in years, but losing my religion was playing in the supermarket, so I listened to the album on the way home. Lots of slow and thoughtful lyrics (low is a particularly great song), unfortunately marred by shiny happy people…

Government Issue - You

This rules so hard.

Flotsam & Jetsam Doomsday for the Deceiver

In a metal mood. Jason Newsted rules all over this album. “Flotzilla” is a ripper.

Manix - "Voyager"

Pretty good for eighties afro-pop kinda stuff.

The Janka Nabay album Luaka Bop put out is sort of an update of a track like this.

I don't think I've ever seen anyone play a doubleneck like this but it makes more sense than the "normal" way