Marc Fagel's Blog: Jittery White Guy Music: The Blog, page 140

The Peacers: Blexxed Rec (2021)

One of my favorite new albums this year, the Peacers' third album sounds like a mash-up of the Beatles' White Album and Pavement's Wowee Zowee as performed by Guided by Voices' Robert Pollard. It's ragged and strange, alternatingly electric and acoustic, but ultimately tethered to infectious (if subtle) pop hooks. 

The band's Mike Donovan started out with post-punk act Sic Alps, a band I found a little too challenging and stand-offish, but the Peacers add more of a pop sensibility to the mix (wit...

Pink Floyd: Animals (1977)

Back during my middle school/high school classic rock obsession, the Who and Pink Floyd were my personal passions. And while I still love both bands (totally into the recent Who Sell Out reissue right now), I don't pull out the Floyd nearly as often as I used to. When I do, I largely stick with the early stuff, from the Syd Barrett era up through 1971's Meddle . The string of classic rock/concept album touchstones beginning with Dark Side of the Moon through their Final Cut swan-song get played a...

The Quarter After: S/T (2005)

Like Paisley Underground bands such as the Rain Parade and the Things 20 years earlier, L.A.'s Quarter After mine late 60s psychedelia, and quite effectively at that. Their 2005 self-titled debut has all the Byrdsy Rickenbackers and trippy riffs and wah-wah effects you'd hope for, with terrific melodies to boot, making it as much a power pop album as a modern psych reworking, with shades of R.E.M. flitting about as well.

Most of the songs are sweetly melodic, simple enough but for the psych shadi...

Dr. Barnes: Are The Village Green Reinterpretation Society (2020)

Been taking a break this week, putzing around, capitalizing on life just slowly emerging from pandemic lockdown. Doesn't mean I haven't been killing time checking out new music, of course. I still go down those Bandcamp rabbit holes, checking out some band, following links, and next thing you know I've found a dozen records I just need to own.

I'm a big fan of Futureman Records, a label specializing in indie power pop bands, and stumbled across this humble little gem. Now, the last thing the worl...

The Who: Who's For Tennis? (1968)

In the pantheon of Great Lost Albums--Neil Young's Chrome Dreams, The Beach Boys' Smile , the Velvet Underground's 4th Album--the unreleased/imaginary Who's For Tennis is mostly a small blip, certainly eclipsed by the band's other lost opus, Lifehouse (most of which was salvaged for Who's Next , with the balance of tracks on the outtakes collection Odds & Sods ). But with the recent deluxe edition edition of the majestic The Who Sell Out and its oodles of bonus tracks, it seemed like a good time to...

Drug Cabin: Yard Work (2015)

As noted previously, one of my favorite albums of the past 20 years was the 2004 debut from NYC indie rockers Ambulance Ltd., a surprisingly solid and varied collection that was an impossible-to-pigeonhole blend of Britpop and indie rock and the Velvet Underground, packed with great songs. Sadly, aside from a couple EPs, the band almost immediately splintered, leaving them essentially one of indie music's great one "hit" wonders.

Some time later, after trying to carry on with a new iteration of t...

Grateful Dead: Anthem Of The Sun (1968)

I've written previously about how my initial antipathy towards the Dead switched in the blink of an eye to a lifelong passion for the band. (An excerpt from my book talking about my Dead epiphany can be found here.) One factor in my initial disdain for the band stemmed from my disappointment at the almost straightforward normalcy of their music. When I first heard about the band as a pre-teen first discovering rock music, I'd understood them to be a DRUG BAND, and while I didn't know exactly wha...

Tashaki Miyaki: The Dream (2017)

Tashaki Miyaki are a dream pop band from L.A.; they've got a new album coming out this summer, so in anticipation I've gone back to this little baby from 2017, and I'm reminded how much I love it. Atmospheric film noir torch songs, reminiscent of Mazzy Star and Julee Cruise, but with shoegaze flourishes, intermittent bursts of trippy guitar feedback from the My Bloody Valentine playbook that give the gentle ambience an infusion of riveting electricity.

"City," the opening track after a brief prel...

The Best of the Elephant 6 Collective

For the past couple years, I've been sharing artist Top 10 lists & overviews on the Toppermost website. (There's a running list of my submissions to date on my home page.) This week, I broke from the standard Toppermost single-artist format and published a selection of 10 great songs from 10 different bands in the Elephant 6, a loose collective of affiliated 90s-era indie pop bands (including the Apples in Stereo, Olivia Tremor Control, Neutral Milk Hotel, Beulah, Dressy Bessy, Of Montreal, etc....

Triptides: Alter Echoes (2021)

Fantastic new release for y'all today. Triptides are an L.A. trio that update jangly 60s psychedelia, a new twist on some of the 80s Paisley Underground bands like Rain Parade and the Things. I know I invoke Byrds comparisons a lot in these here parts, but it's particularly apt here, a few tunes working that classic Rickenbacker sound for excellent effect--though these guys clearly have a lot of Pink Floyd and Zombies in their vinyl collections as well. 

The first handful of tracks are all straig...