Last week our own Michael H. Little hipped you to the new release from Hamell on Trial, The Night Guy at The Apocalypse Profiles of a Rushing Midnight, writing, “Forget about Charles Bukowski; Hamell’s darkly hilarious tall tales of brutal revenge, crimes both small-time and large, dysfunctional love, and drug- and alcohol-fueled mayhem are a million miles away from America’s original barfly’s quotidian tales of ordinary madness.”
“At the Apocalypse people get taken out in some not so very pretty ways, but don’t get too disturbed–they really, and I mean really, have it coming…If you’re smart, you’ll buy this LP and help Hamell the night guy turn out the lights…”
No faint praise, hm? But don’t take it just from us–how about from the Dean of Rock Critics himself, Robert Christgau who also opined via Noisey last week, “Recorded live on his phone in venues hither and yon, these 13 low-life tales are different from all the other low-life tales the barfly with his stage name on the cover has peddled over the years. That’s because they’re enraged rather than merely sardonic, and also because 14 of these low-lifes die, often hideously.
Portland, OR | Tomorrow Records Is a Great New Addition to Portland’s Record Store Scene: A terrific new place to score vinyl has just opened up in inner Southeast Portland: Tomorrow Records is the brand-new shop from Kurt Legler, a longtime Portlander who spent many years at Everyday Music and helped open up the Northeast Sandy branch of that store. Legler has spent recent years in Santa Barbara, California, where he owned and operated the well-regarded Warbler Records shop—still in business—but has returned to his hometown with his wife to raise their two kids. Their return is 
Los Angeles, CA | Stellar Remnant record shop opens in Downtown Los Angeles: A new record shop called Stellar Remnant just opened in Downtown Los Angeles. It’s the project of Ed Vertov and Lena Deen, artists and DJs who relocated from Russia to LA. Vertov came of age in mid-’90s Moscow when techno was a “rebel statement,” he says, before relocating to LA in 1997. He’s since worked at Amoeba Records, Mount Analog and Virgin Megastore and cofounded Pro-Tez records in 2005. Deen, a native of Samara, Russia, threw parties in Moscow as part the of Habits Die crew and moved to LA in 2011…In recent years, Stellar Remnant has operated as a pop-up at various underground events like Acid Camp, and now the store is open 
Interviews with women in the vinyl record scene: Jenn D’Eugenio is a badass record collector, indie label maven, and vinyl industry veteran who now works at the esteemed Furnace Record Pressing company in Virginia. Recently, Jenn started interviewing her peers in the record scene “to empower and highlight the women that are working in the vinyl / music industry to create, preserve, improve and enhance the art of music on vinyl.” Check out Women In Vinyl for interviews with the likes of Katy Clove of Merge Records, Italians Do It Better label president Megan Louise Doyle, audio archivist Amanda McCabe, and designer Kate Koeppel who makes fantastic products for vinyl collectors. “Not enough of the female + vinyl focus is on the women behind the record stores, labels, manufacturers, vinyl accessories, etc. and I hope to change that with interviews and 
Rega, Pro-Ject and Sony take home best turntable Awards. Rega wins another impressive haul of What Hi-Fi? Awards. Who would have thought we’d still be dishing out turntable Awards in 2018? Well, not us back in 1981. “From today, vinyl LP records are dead,” we declared with the launch of CD in the July 1981 issue of What Hi-Fi?. At one point we even stopped having a turntable category, such was the languishing popularity of the format at points in the 80s and 90s. But forget that, vinyl is back. And Rega is no doubt rather pleased about it. Rega takes home three What Hi-Fi? Awards in the turntable category this year, meaning the company has now won… a huge number of turntable Awards (we’ll leave Rega to do the maths). The eagle-eyed will notice the three winning decks took the same honours last year; 
NEW RELEASE PICKS: Alec K. Redfearn and The Eyesores, The Opposite (Cuneiform) After a short hiatus, Silver Spring’s venerable avant-prog-experimental-jazz label is back at it, and along with digitally reissuing prior material by this always interesting Providence, RI-based band, they offer the outfit’s latest on LP and CD. It’s a treat. Over their 20-year existence, Redfearn and cohorts have stood out a bit in Cuneiform’s general scheme (this is their fourth for the label), but upon listening here, they and Steve Feigenbaum’s enduring love of art-rock remain a perfect fit. Redfearn plays accordion, and his knack for keeping it in the forefront of his music while eradicating even a hint of novelty remains impressive. Those keen on ambitiousness in the rock sphere should definitely lend this one some time. A-
Sarah Borges & the Broken Singles, Love’s Middle Name (Blue Corn) Borges has been on the scene for a while, with prior efforts with the Broken Singles and solo in her discography. The sound? It’s been called Americana (she’s won an Americana Music Award, in fact), but it’s important to qualify that hers is an approach well-suited for humid, boozy weekend bars. That means it rocks, and the thrust here is maybe better tagged as country-punk. What distinguishes Borges from some with a similar inclination is the quality of her songs and the strength of her pipes, and on this new one, the smart choice of hooking up with producer Eric Ambel, who also plays lead guitar on the record (as he did in Joan Jett’s Blackhearts). The outcome is that all the elements are in fine balance, with nary a misstep. A-
REISSUE/ARCHIVAL PICKS: The Fall, I Am Kurious Orang (Beggars Arkive) If memory serves, anti-Brix-era sentiment reached something like its apex post-The Franz Experiment in early ’88; certainly, there were some who’d suggested Mark E. Smith was “over with” or had “sold out.” Emerging in the autumn of the same year, this set, created to accompany a ballet by the Michael Clark Company loosely based on the life and “psyche” of William of Orange, made it plain those negative assessments were balderdash. Having listened to this record a ridiculous number of times in the year or so after its release (returning to it intermittently ever since), I know it well, and it hasn’t lost a thing. To my ears, at least half of this is as good as post-Rough Trade Fall gets, and the rest isn’t far behind. That makes it utterly essential. A
The Groundhogs, Blues Obituary (Fire) When it comes to the ’60s wave of Brit blues-rock, I rate The Groundhogs higher than Savoy Brown, Chicken Shack, and even Ten Years After (I’m guessing those nutzo for Alvin Lee will consider this heresy). In fact, I’d rank the ‘hogs as roughly equal to Fleetwood Mac (and another group of readers has just thrown up their hands in disgust). Like the Mac, guitarist Tony TS McPhee, bassist Pete Cruikshank, and drummer Ken Pustelnik moved beyond the blues, and after doing so entered their classic period. But this, the band’s second LP (and trio debut) directly led to that phase. The no-frills punch of the recording, McPhee’s smoking guitar, the air non-reverence combined with good taste, and the sharp trio interaction is a major achievement in itself. A-
