Testimonial #1: This record was the first outside project released on the imprint started by Kepi and Roach from punk-popsters Groovie Ghoulies. Testimonial #2: Dusty Wakeman and the Maddog crew provided support for three of the album’s eleven tracks. Testimonial #3: I like it (yes, this would probably be the least significant of the three). [...]

Listening to Mark Lanegan on a bright, shimmering Saturday afternoon just seems so…wrong. Better to wait until you’re half shot-out at 2 a.m. the following Sunday morning and let the guy’s somber aura just wash over you. But since my days don’t regularly bleed into mornings, and I live in California, bright and sunny it [...]

My wife’s loathing and crummy winter weather notwithstanding, I miss Philadelphia. There’s a number of reasons why, but the five songwriters represented on this collective project attest to the musical motives. All of these guys front electric bands, but on this disc, each takes an acoustic crack at two original compositions and one cover. And [...]

It’s easy to imagine that while the neighborhood kids were playing cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians or any other such sociologically or politically incorrect children’s games, Chris and Rich Robinson had Faces and Stones record jackets littered randomly on the bedroom floor while they were posing and lip-syncing to “Ooh La La” or [...]

“Nothing here is unfamiliar, but everything is remarkably new.” Or so reads the accompanying label-penned hype for the newest disc from Midwestern popsters Mysteries Of Life. Indeed: About six months ago, RCA sent out advance CDs of what was then intended to be Come Clean. But that version never made it to the stores. Hence [...]

While not necessarily triggering any specific imagery, the album title says it all. Though I’m still unsure of exactly what the intended conveyance is, it’s nonetheless one hell of a metaphor. And one hell of a lyric. And it’s just one example of the allusive wordplay Josh Rouse employs throughout his very impressive out-of-nowhere debut. [...]