Monthly Archives: April 2012

The week of Record Store Day is finally upon us! While that means our 10 Weeks of Record Store Day Vinyl Giveaways will soon be coming to an end, fear not—there’s still some great vinyl left to win. Today we have a copy of Ben Kweller’s newest album, Go Fly a Kite, to give to one lucky TVD reader.

Go Fly a Kite, which hit shelves in February, is the debut release on Kweller’s own record label, The Noise Company. The singer-songwriter’s fifth studio album doesn’t stray too far from the infectious power-pop, indie-rock sound featured on its predecessors. This is definitely a good thing. Paste describes the record as “lively and cheerful,” going on to note that Go Fly a Kite is “pretty exciting; Kweller should be pleased with how it turned out. It’s spirited, energetic and competent power-pop.”

Go Fly a Kite also sounds like it was strongly influenced by the likes of Ben Folds Five, the Beatles, and Weezer, among others. Consequence of Sound writes, “He clearly isn’t trying to hide his influences or affection for classic artists, but he possesses enough wit and prowess to take something great and recreate it without sounding like a rip-off artist.”

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This week we’re taking a look at a few select reissues slated for Record Store Day 2012. —Ed.

While Jon Spencer is most celebrated for his front-man duties with the Blues Explosion, in some ways his role in divisive ‘80s noisesters Pussy Galore is his most interesting gig. That band’s discography is getting an overdue reissue treatment on vinyl starting this Record Store Day with their 7-inch debut Feel Good About Your Body, and anybody desiring to be bombarded with malevolent cacophony need look no further.

To this day, many people persist in considering Pussy Galore as a mere provocation instead of a smartly conceived conceptual unit. From their earliest moments the band specialized in making many listeners unhappy, mainly because their music was drenched in calculated immaturity and brazen racket that connected with about as much subtlety as a brick to the head.

If a large segment of the late-‘80s punk community was wrapped up in positivity, Jon Spencer, Julia Cafritz, and a revolving door of additional members were having none of that. The dividing line was between those who found Pussy Galore to be regressive, deliberately antagonistic snots and those who thought their pummeling, anti-social din to be a needed breath of noxious air. If punk rock had initially redefined the standards of musicianship away from virtuosity and polish, by the time Feel Good About Your Body first hit racks in 1985, the u-ground punk scene had somewhat unconsciously reestablished a paradigm of expectations regarding appropriate musical behavior.

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This week we’re taking a look at a few select reissues slated for Record Store Day 2012. —Ed.

Mississippi John Hurt is one of the few bluesmen whose talents endured undiminished over the often cruel span of time. He never made an album that was less than superb and his Last Sessions, freshly reissued for Record Store Day, presents the possibility that recording technology captured only a portion of his relaxed and always approachable style.

Simply put, Mississippi John Hurt is a treasure of the blues. His absolutely mandatory 1928 recordings for the OKeh label not only provide an ample survey of an assured artist captured in the music industry’s wild early days, but their enduring brilliance additionally served as the impetus for his ‘60s rediscovery, where he held court like a benevolent giant. Those OKeh sides present a musician initially dealt a bum hand by the circumstances of history; if record companies of the era would record just about anything in hopes of a hit, they also weren’t very invested in artist development. If his first release was successful enough to get him to New York City on OKeh’s dime for another session, his subsequent five 78s didn’t capture the public’s interest in a manner acceptable to the label, and no more recordings were made.

Hurt might’ve easily found another company willing to issue his music, but as a farmer he essentially looked upon the blues as a sideline. Unlike many of his notable contemporaries, Hurt wasn’t a restless soul easily adaptable to the rough and tumble lifestyle of the transient musician. Instead, as the quiet, unperturbed nature of his work attests, he desired little more than to make an honest living in the comfortable environment of the town where he was born. And if his unconflicted personality greatly reduced the likelihood for further recording opportunities, the harsh realities of the Great Depression essentially put the kibosh on them outright. Any record company not driven out of the business was suddenly much more cautious over what they released, and since the blues theoretically appealed to poor people its frequency on disc was greatly diminished. If Hurt hadn’t uttered the line “Avalon my hometown, always on my mind” in his “Avalon Blues,” it’s very likely his rediscovery would’ve never happened.

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