LATEST ADDITIONS

Album Reviews
The Dresden Doll's Doll Strums and Sings
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 01, 2010

What possessed Amanda Palmer to cover Radiohead playing her "magic ukelele"? Who knows? Did this inspire Eddie Vedder to issue a ukelele-based record? What would Arthur Godfrey think of all of this (look him up if you're too young to know who he is)?

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Album Reviews
Taj's Second Album With Bonus Tracks
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 01, 2010

Henry Saint Clair Fredericks A/K/A Taj Mahal grew up in Harlem, spent time as a teenager on a Massachusetts dairy farm, attended U of M, gigged around and finally headed west and built a musical career first in Los Angeles and later in the Bay area. The life influences come through in his music: a mix of urban and country blues mixed with world music.

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Album Reviews
Jenny Lewis Has a Boyfriend
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 01, 2010

 Jenny Lewis and Johnathan Rice were a couple when they made this REM indebted pop/rock album a few years ago. For all I know they are still a couple. I sure hope so because they make exquisite folk/rock music together, with both sharing guitar and bass playing.

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Album Reviews
Decade Old Collection Gets Vinyl Release
Michael Fremer  |  Oct 01, 2010

This is a vinyl reissue of lo-fi home recording genius and underground hero Ariel Pink. These sometimes tuneful lo-fi experiments from a decade ago are interesting and probably very influential but there's no real reason to have them on double 180 gram vinyl given the lo-tech origins of the material.

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Album Reviews
Sony Makes the Case For Physical Media
Michael Fremer  |  Sep 15, 2010

How fast was Miles Davis moving in 1970? Listen to the title track on the double LP recorded late summer 1969 and released the next April and then play the version on the bonus live at Tanglewood CD recorded August 1970. 

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News
Fall Tour For Van Dyke Parks and Clare and the Reasons
Michael Fremer  |  Sep 06, 2010  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969
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News
Another Glitch
Michael Fremer  |  Sep 03, 2010  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969
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News
Please Stand By
Michael Fremer  |  Sep 01, 2010  |  First Published: Dec 31, 1969
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Album Reviews
Blues Classic Better Than Ever
Mark Schlack  |  Sep 01, 2010

It was 1965 and Junior Wells was no longer the precocious teenager who had gotten the likes of Muddy Waters, Elmore James and Otis Spann to back him up on his 1953 and 1954 hit singles. Now 30, he was a fixture of that generation of electric Chicago bluesmen. He toured, and worked regularly at Theresa’s on the South Side. And he was about to make an album that has long been a staple of any modern blues collection.

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Album Reviews
Two Sought After 70's Albums Surface In Box Set
Michael Fremer  |  Sep 01, 2010

Chris Darrow may not be a name familiar to you, nor might Kaleidoscope, the ‘60s psych/folk band on Epic of which he was part. That band passed me by back then. Maybe I didn’t like the cover art, or thought Epic wasn’t in the same solid A&R league as was Elektra for instance, so I didn’t want to chance it. I never heard them on the radio and Epic probably did a crappy job promoting them.

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