Marc Fagel's Blog: Jittery White Guy Music: The Blog, page 144

The Bats Top 10

You can find my picks for the Top 10 songs by The Bats (plus a general band overview) posted today on Toppermost. Give it a look!

The Stone Roses: Second Coming (1994)

The trajectory of the legendary Stone Roses is one of the saddest in rock music. And no, I don't mean former lead singer Ian Brown's recent emergence as Twitter's leading anti-mask Covid-denying wackjob, though, yeah, that's pretty freakin' sad.

Following a few brilliant singles, the Roses' self-titled 1989 debut is one of the all-time greats (great debuts, great albums period), a perfect blend of melodic, jangly, retro-psychedelia akin to the American Paisley Underground scene and the emerging p...

The Go-Betweens: 16 Lovers Lane (1988)

Austalian indie rockers The Go-Betweens check off a lot of the right boxes for me--jangly guitars! folk-rock! sweet melodies!--yet for all the reverence I see for the band from like-minded music fans, I've always found them a little tough to truly get into. I'm not sure if it's the artier, more skewed musical elements (particularly on their earlier records), or something about the sound (the Australian-ness of it?), but I find some of their music a little off-putting--I generally like about half...

The Magick Heads: Before We Go Under (1995)

I've written a few times about my enduring love of the Bats, one of the longest-running bands in New Zealand's indie rock scene. (I've got a Bats Top 10 coming out soon on Toppermost; watch this space!) During that band's 10-year sabbatical, frontman Robert Scott--who also does double-duty as bassist and occasional singer for the Clean, another key NZ band, in addition to recording a few solo records--released a couple records with his side project, the Magick Heads. 

The Heads featured Jane Sinn...

Unofficial Soundtrack: San Junipero

[SPOILER ALERT!]

The San Junipero episode of the Black Mirror sci-fi anthology series is probably my favorite single hour of television, bar none. While the series tends to be dour, bleak, and often downright horrifying (and those are the good episodes!), San Junipero was an exception, a fascinating love story that had me in tears by the end. It still makes use of the technology hooks that permeate the series, but here (while some interpret the ending more darkly) the science serves a far more t...

Kiwi Jr.: Cooler Returns (2021)

First 2021 release making an appearance here, and while I still haven't had a chance to fully digest it, this will no doubt be among my most-listened-to new pick-ups this year, so figured I'd get a quick endorsement out into the universe.

Canadian indie rockers Kiwi Jr. had my favorite album of 2020 (though released the prior year in their homeland) -- Football Money deftly combined the shaggy garage band pop of the New Zealand "Kiwi Rock" scene (the source of their band name? dunno), bands like ...

Pink Floyd: Saucerful Of Syds (1968)

Another imaginary album constructed for my own listening pleasure...

Pink Floyd's 1967 debut album Piper at the Gates of Dawn, focused primarily on the acid-drenched pop-art songcraft of band founder Syd Barrett, is unlike anything else in the Floyd catalog (if not unlike anything else, period). As well-documented elsewhere, visionary frontman Barrett succumbed to mental illness, undoubtedly exacerbated by extensive LSD usage, and was replaced by guitarist David Gilmour after its release. The ban...

The Fall: Hex Enduction Hour (1982)

Apparently today is Fall Friday -- not sure why, but woke up to a bunch of Fall-related posts on my Twitter feed, and felt inspired to kick the morning off with some Fall. As noted previously, I'm partial to the band's albums from the mid- and late-80s, when Mark E. Smith's then-wife Brix added a slightly more pop-oriented sound to Mark's bitter miscreant rantings, polishing (slightly) the band's art-damaged post-punk aesthetic. Still, their fourth album, 1982's Hex Enduction Hour, is probably t...

Grateful Dead: Europe '72 (1972)

Looking for the perfect celebratory song on Inauguration Day, I set aside my anger at what's transpired over the past four years -- Hüsker Dü seemed to be an obvious starting point, but I was feeling happy (relieved?), not angry -- and settled on the Dead's timeless "He's Gone" (an allegory of sorts for the slippery departure of their manager, drummer Mickey Hart's father, with a fistful of the band's money). And while it was a steady part of the band's live set since its 1972 debut (meaning cou...

Area: The Perfect Dream (1988)

Here's some fine 80s new wave-tinged dream pop, ambient guitar and synth noodlings over drum machines, highlighted by the lovely, ethereal vocals of Lynn Canfield. The dark, cathedral ambience recalls bands like the Cocteau Twins and This Mortal Coil, though Area hail from downstate Illinois.

The highlight here, "With Louise," is actually a rehash, adapting a song from keyboard/percussionist Steve Jones' earlier band, The Arms of Someone New--I've written about them before and you really ought to...