Short Cuts

Several iconic, pop-rockin’, punk-adjacent artists from the late 1970s and early 1980s new-wave era have new albums out now — and there are also a number of encouraging audiophile-oriented reissues as well. For this somewhat thematic Short Cuts installment, Mark Smotroff zeros in on a mixture of both by exploring a pair of fun new releases from The Vapors and Peter Holsapple, plus an AAA reissue of a Violent Femmes album we suspect many of us overlooked at the time of its original 1984 release. . .

When it comes to recordings of the blues, there are different pockets of reissue-related activity that remain of interest to many music enthusiasts these days. Three new recent LP upgrades from three different iconic names span several generations of interest — namely, mid-20th-century icons John Lee Hooker and Memphis Slim along with Furry Lewis, who began recording in 1927. Read Mark Smotroff’s combo Short Cuts review to see if BMG’s new reissue of Hooker’s 1992 Pointblank/Charisma album Boom Boom, along with Craft Recordings’ Bluesville Series reissues of both pianist Memphis Slim’s 1959 Vee-Jay debut At The Gate of Horn and acoustic fingerpicking/slide guitarist Furry Lewis’ 1961 Prestige/Bluesville LP Back on My Feet are all worthy of buying and spinning. . .

Two albums recently reissued as part of Rhino’s esteemed High Fidelity Series could not be further apart stylistically, sonically, and emotionally — but in some ways, these two releases are inevitably connected in time and space. In this special Short Cuts combo review, Mark Smotroff explores the value of picking up the Hi Fi Series versions of these platinum-selling hits from Fleetwood Mac and Sex Pistols, and draws some interesting parallels in the process. . .