Marc Fagel's Blog: Jittery White Guy Music: The Blog, page 170

The Lucy Show: Mania (1986)

Hey, kids, time for more of that mid-'80s college radio jangly guitar pop that rocks my world.  Unlike most purveyors of the sound, the Lucy Show hail from London, but the album still fits in well alongside the likes of R.E.M. and the Connells and Guadalcanal Diary and the like.

The band's earlier debut had a much darker sound, with shades of Cure-styled goth.  Most of that is left behind on their second and final album, which is brighter and poppier, but still retains traces of...

Cat Stevens: Tea For The Tillerman (1970)

It's been a life-long rollercoaster: How am I supposed to feel about Cat Stevens?  Is he up, or is he down?

As a kid, Stevens was the perennial campfire song fixture; at overnight camp in the midwest, back in the seventies, we'd invariably end up with one of the counselors pulling out an acoustic guitar for a mandatory "Moonshadow" sing-along.  Indeed, pretty much anyone with an acoustic guitar was required to know a few Cat Stevens songs.  In my family, that was my cousin Jeff,...

Nikki And The Corvettes: S/T (1980)

Here's some Detroit-based girl-band punk-pop from 1980 that was (not entirely unfairly) overshadowed by the likes of the Go-Go's at the time, wallowing in obscurity but getting a second chance when later reissued twenty years later.  This is hardly world-changing music, but if you're going a little stir crazy in the midst of a pandemic, this is light, joyful, three-chord pop music that is guaranteed to provide a brief reprieve.

Nikki and her band are a bit of a mash-up of the Ramones,...

The Seeing Eye Gods: Self-Titled EP (1985)

Shout-out to all the Seeing Eye Gods fanatics out there!  Woo-hoo to all you SEG-Heads!

Ok, fine, nobody has heard this fucking record.  Which is a damn shame.

I remember the vinyl EP showing up at the radio station during my college DJ days, a headache-inducing green & pink paisley-patterned picture disc inside a gaudy purple and blue sleeve.  Very little info, the songs attributed to recurring Kurt Vonnegut character Billy Pilgrim (with help from Ripped Van Winkle). ...

The Smiths: Louder Than Bombs (1987)

Sorry, I'm just not a big Smiths fan. I realize this is blasphemy to many of my fellow music lovers. But as much as I like a lot of their songs, and the overall Johnny Marr guitar vibe, I rarely make it through an entire Smiths LP, finding most of the greatest hits collections out there are more than adequate. If pressed to pick a "proper" album, I fall back on Louder Than Bombs, which of course is NOT a proper album, but rather a somewhat haphazard collection of singles and b-sides and...

Anthony Phillips: The Geese & The Ghost (1977)

A brief return to my prog vice... though this owes a lot more to British folk traditions than to prog.

Anthony Phillips was the founding guitarist of Genesis, though he left the band after 1970's Trespass due to illness and stage fright.  His first solo album didn't arrive until some seven years later, but I think it remains his best, and is relatively essential for fans of early Gabriel-era Genesis.

Most of the album highlights Phillips' excellent 12-string guitar work (joined by Genesis'...

The Best of 2019 (Final Mixdown)

Obviously there's no upside in being compelled to shelter-in-place during a pandemic as the world collapses around us... BUT that said, it did force me to get off my lazy ass and finish burning my annual best-of collection.  (I'd put together the single-CD highlights disc at the end of the year, but it always takes me a little longer to compile the 2-CD Deluxe Edition.)  But it's finally done, and now I can start planning for 2020... 

And yes, I still burn these as CDs, largely...

Beachwood Sparks: S/T (2000)

While I enjoy Gram Parsons' music, and greatly respect his legacy, I've always been a little disappointed with his self-proclaimed tag as a purveyor of "cosmic American music."  Parsons made country music.  Freed of the thematic baggage and musical tropes of much country music, sure, but there was nothing terribly cosmic about it.

L.A.'s Beachwood Sparks put the cosmic back in cosmic American music.  Yeah, it's unabashed Parsons-like modern country twang, firmly fitting into the...

Wilco: Roadcase 9 (2012)

I was supposed to be seeing Wilco next week but... not so much. Damn you, pandemic! So I'll have to be content with spending some time cranking my extensive collection of Wilco live recordings.  Fortunately, they're one of the few non-jam bands who make a lot of their shows (at least since 2012) available for download.  (For their first few decades, I've got some kick-ass bootlegs, so those'll do.)  

At least sitting here today, you can download most of the official ...

The School: Loveless Unbeliever (2010)

Sometimes, when you're holed up at home due to, say, a raging pandemic, all you want to hear is something light and fluffy and joyous.  So I pulled out The School. 

Don't know much about them.  They're Welsh, and a woman named Liz Hunt who used to be in a band called The Loves leads them, and beyond that I suppose I could do some research but, really, just wanna spin the thing for a bit, ok?

Their 2010 debut is a nice mix of 60s girl-group pop and more contemporary takes on the...