Marc Fagel's Blog: Jittery White Guy Music: The Blog, page 130

Grateful Dead: Infrared Exits (Live 1995 Jams)

[Updated: Discs 1 & 2 Now Uploaded!]

As my conversion to the Dead didn't come until the mid/late '80s, partway through college, most of the Dead shows I saw were in the band's twilight years. And let's face it, their '90s performances could be pretty grim. Jerry's voice was shot, if he could even remember the lyrics; their increased reliance on MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) technology, giving an inorganic sound to much of the music, was at best divisive; and a lot of the newer mate...

The Jazz Butcher: The Highest In The Land (2022)

I've loved the Jazz Butcher for the longest time, enchanted by their unique blend of jangly guitar pop and humorous British whimsy, so it was particularly sad when band alter-ego Pat Fish passed away last year. Fortunately, he left behind a final posthumous release, and it's a real treat. As with Bowie's final album a few years back, there's a sadness to the record, which may or may not be right there in the music but is inescapable with the knowledge of Fish's untimely demise. Many of the songs...

Robert Fripp: God Save The Queen (1980)

One of the strangest music purchases I made as a kid--simultaneously disappointing and exhilarating--was Robert Fripp's 1981 experimental recording Let The Power Fall. I'd recently gotten into King Crimson (largely via an appearance of the band on the short-lived SNL imitation Fridays--and was just getting into Brian Eno, whose work sometimes featured Fripp's guitars. And by then I was also deeply devoted to Bowie, who'd also worked with Fripp.

So when I saw a cassette copy of Power at the local ...

The Dream Syndicate: Out Of The Grey (1986)

Like its predecessor, the excellent Medicine Show , Dream Syndicate's third album from their original '80s run retains the band's slightly-psychedelic post-punk edge while filtering it through a sturdy classic rock veneer. The result is another alternatingly dark and jangly record that feels laden with gravitas, college radio music well-informed by history. (The band's definitive covers of both Clapton's "Let It Rain" and Young's "Cinnamon Girl," appended to the CD edition, give some insight to t...

Love & Rockets: Express (1986)

Do I listen to Love & Rockets much these days? No, can't say I do. But damn, this one was a big part of my 1986, and I do love to take it out for an occasional ride. Sounds terrific.

I wasn't terribly interested in the band at first. They were made up of 3/4 of Bauhaus (all but frontman Peter Murphy), and I wasn't a huge fan of Bauhaus' dark, creepy glam-goth (and I'm still not, though I like a little bit of their work on rare occasion). But Express, L&R's second album, had a few songs that were ...

Meat Loaf: Bat Out Of Hell (1977)

The esteemed Mr. Loaf recently passed away. He'd suffered from myriad health problems over the years; at least one news outlet reports that the cause of death was Covid, but this hasn't been confirmed. (Loaf was a conservative social media poster, and expressed some general opposition to mask and vaccine requirements; he shared his support for Van Morrison & Eric Clapton, though didn't seem to be quite as nuts as them. No word on his vaccination status.)

Anyway, can't say I listen to his music, t...

East Of Venus: Memory Box (2016)

I've frequently proclaimed my undying love for Winter Hours, one of my favorite jangle-pop bands of the 1980s. Sadly, that short-lived band's music is all long out-of-print and for the most part doesn't stream, making it hard to turn people on to their magic; and the passing of heavenly-voiced singer Joe Marques at a young age meant they'd never return.

However, a quarter-century after that band's demise, guitarist Michael Carlucci assembled an indie rock supergroup of sorts, recording an album's...

Helium: The Magic City (1997)

Bit of a stretch today. I can't say it's an album I listen to very often, but it has some fantastic songs, and the whole thing is just so damn... weird... that I just have to respect it.

Helium's 1995 debut, The Dirt of Luck, combined mid-90s guitar-driven post-punk with a heavier (dare I say grunge?) sound. And while I liked frontwoman Mary Timony's vocal style (a casual semi-spoken delivery akin to Liz Phair), and the album includes "Pat's Trick" (one of my favorite indie songs of the era), I'v...

Elvis Costello: The Boy Named If (2022)

Every year or two, I'll pick up the latest Elvis Costello. Some track will strike me, and I'll momentarily consider the album to be, finally, at long last, a return to form. And then I'll put the album aside and go back to listening to that amazing run of Elvis albums from the late 70s and 80s (or, to a lesser extent, some of his solid enough 90s work).

But I'm gonna go out on a limb and say, this time I mean it! Certainly, it's the first EC album in memory where I listened all the way through in...

Mott The Hoople: S/T (1969)

Mott The Hoople's 1969 debut is a far cry from the Bowie-abetted glam sound of their later work. Instead, it's a bit of a schizophrenic affair, half Bob Dylan imitation and half Rolling Stones imitation. And while it's a bit undercooked, with a number of covers (frontman Ian Hunter had apparently only joined the band shortly before its recording), there's a low-key, intimate vibe to it that I've always enjoyed.

The album opens with three straight covers. After a somewhat perfunctory instrumental ...