Saturday, August 6, 2011

New Mix: Exercise Your Face (and Smile)

Summer has come again - and I am still trying to get this blog back to normal. 2 large relocations in one year, though, will take it out of you. I made this mix for the annual Waxidermy mix-swap, and it's the usual brew of late nite AOR steamers, and fried college folk. Hope everyone is doing A-OK, and that when I finally get settled down (again) we can get some better locomotion going here... the records are piling up! Yargh! Dig it...

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Metz on Lone Starr

Hello friends! Long time no see! Well, you'll be pleased to know I've been living it up in the beautiful state of Texas... sort of a revelation moving to the deep south, soaking in the heat, enjoying the musical bounty of one of the weirdest regions on the planet! You know it! Up for the taste today is a beguiling piece of the METZ puzzle, the 7" counterpart to the world's rarest glammy hard rock MDMA git-down LP - known only in the most luxurious THC-drenched NOLA bachelor pad circles, and Dallas thrift-store crack-ups! Literally one known copy of the big disc, and not sure there's another one in sight of the record pictured above... wild! So what's the joint? On the Universe / New Life split, Senor Metz pilots the ship into rockier waters and pummels one of the best 70s hard rock assaults I have witnessed - hand's down - drops the sisters and shoots for the blisters... beautiful, beautiful wasted hard rock and only made more beguiling by the Chrome / Lone label swap and mutual Houston pressing matrix. Who were you Metz?! What black-light puke-encrusted disco ball alternate reality do you cling for dear life to? Would LOVE to know more about this massive obscurity - so get in touch! Blessings and godspeed from Tejas -- watch out Raven, enjoy this blast!








New Life








Universe

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Jack Wilcox - A Marriage of Clocks and Highways

Let me preface this post by apologizing for my total lag in time-space the past 2 months. Strangely, though, this record ties into the unexpected move I made in January from the Northwest to Southern Texas. Jack Wilcox was introduced to me by a good friend as a buried regional LP from my neck of the woods, maybe 3 years ago... a lost loner folk record that sounded like it was recorded by the angry son of a logger, trapped in Northern Idaho, a wayward intellectual youth washed out into the resignation of beer-can spray and icy roads of the soul... I liked the LP then, and still find something very appealing about it now. Allegedly recorded in an empty bar, Wilcox's voice is fragile but coarse, and his songs exude the dull ache of blue collar America's trappings and smoke filled particle board interiors. The whole trip may seem a little flat at first but I found a subtle edge to it all that only grew on me over time. For folk fans, it is most certainly something worth checking out. When the record was first brought to my attention I tried quite hard to find Jack, but was met with a series of dead-end phone numbers and addresses. Having spent a fair amount of time digging for records in Idaho as well, I figured that finding a copy in the wild was inevitable, but still after 3 years of sporadic road trips across the state I had nothing to show and was no closer to finding Jack himself. Having taken note of one of Jack's prophetic song titles, "Don't Ever Fall in Love With a Poet," nearly 3 years ago itself, I did the exact opposite of his prosaic advice and made a life with my lover, a lady so gifted with the pen that I wove my words around her for as long as I could. We parted ways after the holidays this year, though having taken our last Christmas vacation together in Southern Idaho, and my fate still completely unbeknownst to me - I found a beautiful copy of this very record at a thrift store along the way! An eerie capstone to a wonderful chapter in my life, something I'm proud to have been apart of. Jack, if you're out there, drop me a line... I'd love to buy you a beer someday and talk about the tallest pine trees devised by man. Texas dispatches next time... Adio!

The Poet Reclines

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Video of the Month: Walking the Floor Over You



From York, PA, it's James "Rebel" O'Leary with the Ernest Tubb staple. Stand back!

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Ron Cornelius Interview

Sorry for the slow slurf here lately... Have been dealing with a number of real-world issues in my life. I feel alot like the guy in the above photograph, the bottom in sight, how to climb back out? The man in question is Ron Cornelius, who's cult-classic mid-70s folk-rock LP Tin Luck has grown in stature over the years after being almost universally canned by Polydor at it's release. Uncompromising, jagged, and absolutely gorgeous - you need to track one down! I had the pleasure of sitting down with Ron and talking about the LP and his career as a prominent session musician in Nashville and Los Angeles. You can check it out at Waxidermy.com. Be well, and I'll get back to the boards before you know it. Luego...