Marc Fagel's Blog: Jittery White Guy Music: The Blog, page 137

The Minus 5: Let The War Against Music Begin (2001)

Indie rock living legend Scott McCaughey had a birthday this week, and in a weird coincidence I logged into Bandcamp this morning to discover that some of his very best work is finally, finally, getting a re-release as of TODAY. Of all the albums he's played on with his myriad bands (Young Fresh Fellows, the Minus 5, the Baseball Project, Filthy Friends, the No Ones, etc., not to mention being a utility player for everyone from R.E.M. to Robyn Hitchcock), this is among my favorites. It was origi...

Chris Spedding: Backwood Progression (1970)

Guitarist Chris Spedding, like pianist Nicky Hopkins, is the epitome of the rock & roll session man: hardly a household name in his own right, yet collaborating with pretty much everyone over the years (Paul McCartney, the Pretenders, the Sex Pistols, Roxy Music, Elton John, Nilsson, etc.). He's also released a variety of solo albums, mostly well below the radar screen (at least here in the States). I'm partial to his mid/late 70s stuff, as well as his later elder-statesman period, when his root...

The Galileo 7: There Is Only Now (2019)

British 60s revivalists The Galileo 7 add a modern power pop energy to classic mod/freakbeat riffs, coming across like The Who circa Quick One/Sell Out (not to mention the Small Faces and the Action), maybe some light psychedelic touches of Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd, as performed by, say Material Issue or Sloan, only very, very British. At times their playful but reverent reinterpretations of late 60s psych-pop stylings call to mind XTC's work as the Dukes of Stratosphear.

Which is a long, name-...

The Connells: Still Life (1998)

Been listening to a lot of the Connells lately. Well, that's not entirely true--as one of my favorite Southern jangle pop bands arosing in the college radio 80s, I've never NOT listened to a lot of Connells; they've always been one of my go-to bands. But after a 20 year break (at least as a recording unit), they've recently regrouped, playing a few Covid-era webcasts in preparation for their upcoming reunion album, Steadman's Wake, which you can pre-order over on Bandcamp. (The first two songs t...

Continental Drifters: Vermillion (1998)

Continental Drifters were a sort of jangly Americana-pop super-group, a band that never got a lot of national attention even though one spin of this will have you scratching your head and wondering how that could be.

They started out as a bluegrass-flavored country rock band in LA (Los Angeles, but later Louisiana), but following an unreleased initial album (finally seeing daylight) much later, they shifted gears by adding three interesting players to the mix: Peter Holsapple of the dB's, his the...

Jay Gonzalez: The Bitter Suite EP (2015)

Singer/multi-instrumentalist Jay Gonzalez has been playing with the Drive-By Truckers since 2008. But you'd never know it from the smattering of solo releases he's issued over the past decade, which sound nothing like the Truckers' darkly uplifting, progressive-minded Southern Americana. Instead, Gonzalez embraces the Brian Wilson-indebted sunshine power pop of artists like the Wondermints and Linus of Hollywood, buoyant melodies and lush, McCartneyesque production.

He's got a new one that just c...

Summers & Fripp: I Advance Masked (1982)

When this instrumental gem came out back in 1982, I was in the midst of my high school prog fixation, while still deeply enmeshed in the new wave pop music of the day. So this collaboration hit my sweet spot, blending the hypnotic guitar loops of King Crimson's Robert Fripp with the more contemporary synth-treated guitar textures of the Police's Andy Summers. It bears some of the hallmarks of Fripp's 70s collaborations with Brian Eno, with the trance-inducing ambient atmospherics one would expec...

Brian Eno: Music For Sleeping

As I've noted previously (and written about in my book), I've had chronic insomnia all my life. It kinda sucks. And I'm coming off a couple rough nights.

I previously shared my Music for Insomniacs mix. That mix includes a number of tracks from Brian Eno, whose sedate, ambient tracks are among my go-to selections when I need some music to either help me sleep or keep me relaxed when that's just not gonna happen. Today's mix, though, is exclusively Eno--both instrumental and vocal tracks ideal for...

Elton John: Regimental Sgt. Zippo (1968/2021)

Like his occasional performing partner Billy Joel, Elton John underwent a few ill-fated recording attempts before latching onto the style that would launch his long-lasting commercial success. In 1968, shortly after teaming up with lyricist Bernie Taupin, John recorded songs for his debut album... which were promptly shelved by the record company. Astoundingly, given what a cash cow John has been over the intervening decades, the aborted debut hasn't seen an official (ish) release until this yea...

The Black Watch: 31 Years of Obscurity (1988-2019)

I usually avoid greatest hits compilations on this blog; I'm still an advocate of the LP as an art form and prefer to talk about music in its original presentation rather than as a mere collection of songs (even if an over-large record collection and limited time means I often condense artists down to home-made compilations for personal listening).

But I'm still trying to get my arms around the Black Watch, a long-running and incredibly prolific act I've only recently discovered, whose intimidati...