Tag: new-music

What’re You Listening To?

by KevinLeave a Comment on What’re You Listening To?

A few thoughts on friction and a buncha fresh tracks.

I am finally getting around to going through a box of 45s my mom gave me. Ostensibly, this was “payment” for helping her downsize her house a few years ago. Really, I think it was just a face-saving exercise for her.

Wherever you fall on the friction spectrum, 45s sit at the far end.

Friction and intentionality are all the rage these days—I’m as guilty of yapping about this as anyone. I’m also a fan of it. I spend my entire workweek splitting my attention and keeping multiple plates in the air. Sitting down to do nothing but listen to a record is a great way to recover. There are, of course, all the other sensory experiences that come along with it: the smell of the vinyl…reading the liner notes…appreciating the art—all the tactile things.

Still, 45s feel like a bridge too far. I like friction, but not this much. My turntable is on one side of the room. Playing 45s means no couch; it means sitting right in front of the sound machine. That’s partly why it’s taken me so long to get around to this. Real life gets in the way, of course, but it also takes some work to get through a box of these things.

The upside is that going through a small collection like this lets my mind wander a bit. Everyone’s collection says a bit about who they are, and in my case, I’ve known this person my entire life—but I know very little about the almost one-third of her life before I showed up. These little slabs of wax help fill in the blanks a bit, but they raise almost as many questions as they answer.

I know the story behind my own 45s. Each of them tells its own little story, a plotline I can recite: where I was in life when I picked them up—literally—what buses I took to get there, and so on.

Did my mom find these on her own, or did someone else tell her she “had to hear this”? If she found them herself, the likely source would have been the radio. What station was she listening to? I know the house she lived in, but I also know it wasn’t close to any stores. Did she ride the bus to get these? I can pick up the story, but only from the midway point.

The station I remember playing constantly in the house has since become a talk-radio station. That’s a rant for another day.

Also, while I know why everyone put address labels on their records, it still strikes me as strange. Today, we live in a world where everything is collectible, and Lord help you if there’s a 1 mm crease on a corner. They were betting the other way. Records weren’t meant to be preserved; they were meant to be played, even if that meant someone changing things up every two or three minutes.

Maybe that’s the best takeaway here: treating records—or any physical media, really—purely as an investment vehicle is a weird choice. Of course, you should take care of them. Putting them in sleeves and storing them in the right place is the way to go. But ultimately, their place is on the turntable, spinning around and delivering sound.

On to the music…

This week, we’ve got killer tracks from all corners of the music universe. There’s a ripper from Wristwatch, one of my favorite Madison bands—it’s a long list—and one from Maritime, one of my favorites from just down the road in Milwaukee. Our pal Jodaki also sent us one he thought I might like. He was right.

There’s some Lungfish, because of course there is. Indy-based indie darlings Wishy keep their streak of great singles going, and the latest from Afghan Whigs is finally out. It’s been a long time coming, but it was worth the wait.

Catacroma from Riviera Gaz also dropped, and if you like the sort of stuff Winged Wheel—or Lungfish, for that matter—puts out, this is for you. This is also a Steve Shelley side project; he’s having quite the year.

Last but not least, there’s a track each from ORR favorites Wussy and The Paranoid Style. Lisa Walker and Elizabeth Nelson are pairing up for a series of upcoming house shows, and, well, if your favorite baseball team is in the NL Central, gas up the car and make a plan to get out and see them. There are a couple of East Coast dates, too.

KA—

The Playlist:

Other sources: | Apple | Qobuz | YouTube Music| Tidal (NEW) |

I’m trying Tidal out after getting a couple of requests for it. We’ll see how it goes! Mostly, I’d like to slowly move away from Spotify and make sure we’ve got as many bases covered as possible.

Now it’s your turn.

What’s been exciting you lately? Any releases or shows you’re looking forward to? Whatcha got? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

by KevinLeave a Comment on Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

Good morning!

Hello from Lake Michigan.

I’m writing this from somewhere called South Beach (no, not that one): a dispatch from nowhere that somehow feels like everything. One of the best things about Portland was its proximity to the coast. In the span of ~75 miles (and 60-ish minutes, if you timed it right and kept a sharp eye out for cops), you could go from strip-mall Babylon to the state line along the shore of the Pacific. You could foolishly attempt that same pace on a run to Mt. Hood, but the police in Sandy are undefeated. We can make the same run to the Midwestern equivalent of a coast run. It’s not the same, but it sure feels like it sometimes.

Looming over this beach is a massive power plant. Its presence surely makes sense, but it honestly reminds me of something out of The Simpsons. Or something you might see if you took the longer route to the coast via Highway 30, where the now-gone Trojan nuclear plant loomed, dominating the skyline and seeming very much both in and out of place.

WTF does any of this have to do with music, you may be asking? My point is that I always find it fascinating how one thing reminds you of another, and how transportive those flashes can be.

An offhand conversation about the band ALL this week led to mentioning a shared love of Big Drill Car, which led to me dusting off CD Type Thing and landing right back in the early ’90s. Which led to some Bettie Serveert and Happy Mondays. A short YouTube documentary on Sugar reminded me of being at Tower to grab one of their midnight releases. And why can I remember exactly what the terrazzo floors looked like but need help remembering what I had for lunch yesterday?

We lost John Douglas of Trashcan Sinatras this week, and it felt mandatory to include a couple of their better-known tracks. I’d also highly encourage new listeners to burrow into their deep cuts. It’s well worth the trip.

And that power plant I’m sitting in the shadow of? Well, it reminds me of Pink Floyd and the picture of Battersea Power Station on Animals. The only things flying between the stacks here are frisbees, but still…

KA—

On to the music:

Besides the tracks noted above, we’ve got some killer sounds from Cola, Bad Bad Hats, and Boscomoestas, Jason Singer (Michigander), The Veldt, and close things out with something from our pal Matty C’s Harborcoat.

Side A is tracks 1-13. Side B is tracks 14-27.

The Playlist:

Other sources: | Apple | Qobuz | YouTube Music| Tidal (NEW) |

Note: Trying Tidal out after getting a couple of requests for it. We’ll see how it goes! Mostly, I’d like to slowly move away from Spotify, and want to make sure we’ve got as many bases covered as possible.

Now it’s your turn.

What’s been exciting you lately? Any shows you’re looking forward to? Maybe one with an early start? Whatcha got? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

by KevinLeave a Comment on Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

Good morning!

This week I spent a good deal of time listening to the earlier part of Heart’s catalog. As I noted last week, my better half came home from a garage sale with quite a haul, and, well, those records weren’t going to play themselves, you know? No one needs to know my take on Bebe Le Strange (“Even It Up” is a top-five track from them), Private Audition (you can probably skip this one), or the deep cuts on Dog & Butterfly and Dreamboat Annie. I’ll just say I’m always surprised at how well these hold up. Even the glossy-era stuff has its high marks. I’m never mad about hearing “Never” in the store. I’m slow to praise anything from Seattle, but credit where credit’s due.

At any rate, this week I’ve been feeding my ears with quite a bit of stuff that’s held up. The Veldt are a band I found in high school, and if Instagram is anything to go by, people are still finding them. The kids are alright! We’ve got two of them here. A few years ago, our pal Keith R. Higgons did a great interview with the band’s Daniel Chavis that’s also well worth checking out.

Similarly, Watershed is an Ohio band that had a brief moment in the ’90s, then faded from the spotlight, but, lucky for us, never really stopped making records. Their new one’s on here, and they’re doing a short regional tour. If you’re in the upper Midwest, you’re in luck. Also, shoutout for most of these shows starting early. Related: I’m old. They’re also playing with Madison’s Shazy Hade.

There’s some Yo La Tengo, because of course there is, and a couple from the Stones, Pink Floyd, and Eddie Vedder (see above: never beating the old-guy allegations).

Going the other way, we’ve also got brand-new killer sounds from Joel Cusumano , Philly-based Mesh—who sound old in all the best ways—and Young Friend.

Also a new one from THAO that’ll likely still be stuck in your head midweek (sorry!), a double dose of new music from Outer World, and a banger from Swedish House Mafia ft. Lykke Li.

In other words, something for everyone. This is an all ages show. Get in!

KA—

Side A is tracks 1-13. Side B is tracks 14-27.

The Playlist:

Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

by KevinLeave a Comment on Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

Good morning!

Late last week, I was in a meeting when my wife walked in and quietly set a stack of (new to us) records down. That by itself was cool. What made it eve better was the how excited she was that she’d found them. She’d been at a garage sale, and they had brought them out while she was there. Right place, right time and all that.

I’ve mentioned it before, but garage sales up here usually follow a specific template:

In Wisconsin specifically, you’re bound to find cross-country skis and…a lot of beer steins (seriously, why do people buy these?!). There’s also a 110% chance that there will be at least one giveaway shirt from a Bucks game. At this point, I am convinced that Gruber Law is single-handedly keeping several T-shirt companies afloat. IYKYK.

Records are a rarer commodity, though judging by the sales I hit, it’s clear that owning at least two Ray Conniff records was a state law at one point. Maybe they came with the beer steins…I dunno. When you find them, they’re not always in the best shape and look/smell exactly how you’d expect them to after spending the last twenty years in a Midwest basement next to a pair of cross-country skis.

No one will consider the records she grabbed for us holy grails. That doesn’t make ‘em any less cool, or dampen the excitement. We’ve been playing ‘em all weekend.

It’s easy for “music people” like all of us here to get lost in things like the Geese discourse, whether or not Madonna’s new record is up to par (it is), and the ongoing saga of curation vs. critique. And who gets to make those calls? Ask 10 people, and you’ll get 11 opinions.

In the end, no matter one’s taste, we’re all chasing that same north star- the electricity you feel when a record finds you at just the right time- even if it happens to be a release from Ray Conniff.

KA—

On to the music…

On to the music. No Madge this week, but her debut record turns 43 today. Oof. I’d put it up there in her top 3. Maybe you have some thoughts? In the what’s old is new crate, we’ve got a track from the latest Rolling Stones record, Teenage Fanclub, The Strokes, and Pete Yorn. There’s also some deep cuts from Heart, and Jet Stream Heart from Temples. Also one from Sioux Falls SD-based Off Contact, and another from Liz Hogg. There’s also some Yo La tengo because, of course, there is (and stay tuned for more on them later this week).

Best of all, we’ve got a brand new one from our pal Brian K. Pagels with Lilly Hiatt (Lilly Hiatt!). If that’s not exciting, I don’t know what it is.

Side A is tracks 1-12. Side B is tracks 13-27.

Other sources: | Apple | Qobuz | YouTube Music |

Now it’s your turn.

What’s been exciting you lately? Any new releases or shows you’re looking forward to? Whatcha got? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

by KevinLeave a Comment on Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

Good morning!

This past Friday I went to a political rally lightly disguised as a stop on a book tour. It was a Q&A with Ben Wikler and Pete Buttigieg, and a couple of other local/state politicians and activists. I was really there to see “Mayor Pete” (I’m an unrepentant infrastructure geek), but if I’m honest, it was far more engaging and entertaining than I thought it might’ve been.

I’m terminally online and far too plugged into the WI political landscape for my own good. It’s easy to get jaded and check out, but this was a great antidote; a bulwark against the tsunami of political ads that are about to swamp every channel.

One of the points made was a quote: Hope is not the cause of action. Hope is the consequence of action.

I admit it’s a touch pithy—something very much at home on a Successories poster—but I also couldn’t help but frame it in terms of records, writing, and any creative pursuit. People take their time, treasure, and talent and put something out in the world. They hope people like it, of course, but that’s an aftereffect.

The TL;DR of the evening was that success comes when we (collectively) decide to tear down existing models and speak truth to power. Those walls come down slowly at first and then all at once. It starts with a conversation, or making a single phone call. Or making a small ask of someone (in my organizing days we would call these pressure tests, and the equivalent might be asking them to sign an A-card). You do this over and over—you put in these reps—and eventually something new and better emerges.

On the way there, we drove by what was once Smart Studios, and as each person spoke, I couldn’t help but map their points to the past and current music landscape.

Writing about the building a few years ago, I noted:

Today, Smart Studios stands stoically on the corner as the world rushes by. Boarded up and on the market, it stands sentinel over an era long past, but whose legacy lives on.

In the ’90s, people took existing models and bent them to their will…or they just tore them down altogether and built something novel.

And we did it together. People collaborated long before your Instagram timeline was polluted with spammy “DM to collab” comments from bots. It felt like everyone was in a band. And if you weren’t playing, you were writing. And if you were writing or making a ’zine, you were doing art for record covers or T-shirts.

When people took to the streets in PDX, it wasn’t performative or for the ’gram. The crowds built a person at a time. One person asking another to join them. And another. And then another.

It was a fantastic time. And it was the result of small steps adding up to something much larger.

No wonder it gave us so many good sounds.

On to the music…

This week, I’ve been listening to a ton of The Church. Ditto R.E.M. and Yo La Tengo (some of you may have seen that those are the two frontrunners for which discography Sam Colt and I work through next- stay tuned for the results!). There’s also some INXS and Shonen Knife, the latter of whom used to soundtrack a lot of my drives into the city for shows, We also lost L7 bassist Jennifer Finch late Saturday. L7 of course recorded at Smart Studios. Fuck cancer.

I promise this isn’t a nostalgia account; I might be an 80s/90s kid, but the music of 23026 gives me just as much hope as those records did back in the day. This week we’ve got some killer new sounds from Sweeping promises, Ceylon Sailor, Inland Years, and many more.

Side A is tracks 1-14. Side B is tracks 15-27.

The Playlist:

Other sources: | Apple | Qobuz | YouTube Music |

Now it’s your turn.

What’s been in heavy rotation in your world? Any new releases or shows you’re looking forward to? Whatcha got? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

by KevinLeave a Comment on Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

This past week, I was on vacation. When asked, the easy answer would be “I didn’t go anywhere,” but that’s not entirely true. We went all over the place; we just never left the state.

I’ve mentioned it previously, but even after living here for over 20 years, I still don’t have to go too far to feel like I’m in another country (and depending on how “red” it is, another universe). Go far enough afield and even the radio stations can feel foreign in their own way.

Even where we were, there were plenty of choices, including one that seemed purpose-built for Parrot Heads that got lost on the way to living their best (salt) life and wound up on Lake Michigan instead. I like Buffett, but man, I heard more than my share.

You would also be (pick one: horrified/surprised/delighted) to know that Bon Jovi is still in heavy rotation in some spots.

Miss the Slippery When Wet era? NE Wisconsin’s for you!

But!

In an era of automated playlists and robo-DJs, these stations feel anachronistic…and like sweet relief. Yes, even the ones that are, in theory, talk radio, but in reality just an angry guy shouting into the void from the antenna on the horizon. No matter how much iHeartRadio (or Brendan Carr) tries to tell you otherwise, the airwaves still belong to the people, and there’s still some people-powered stations, too.

Stations like this are the last stand against the Telecommunications Act of 1996. These over-the-air Alamos holding the line against automation and misinformation are usually found on the left side of your dial, and traveling through their range is all the better because of ‘em—even when they play “Livin’ on a Prayer.”

KA—

On to the music…

No Bon Jovi, but this week’s human-powered playlist features brand new tracks from Hazel English, Office Dog, The Tubs, Wishy, and more. Wisconsin’s well represented (in a good way!) with sounds from Red Pants and Heavy Looks. Our friends Tamara Casey and Patrick Fellows are also here with “Bad Decisions” and “Seen it All” respectively.

In other words, everything you need for your morning commute or for when you’re getting nothin’ but static.

Side A is tracks 1-17. Side B is tracks 18-35.

Other sources: Apple | Qobuz | YouTube Music |

Now it’s your turn.

Any new releases or shows you’re looking forward to? Whatcha got? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

by KevinLeave a Comment on Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

A Monthy Python castmate, Elvis, and several world cup soccer players all walk into a $100 million cage…

It sounds like the start of a bad joke, doesn’t it?

If I told you they were there to play in a 3v3 8-team single elimination goal tournament, all to the sounds of a (then) 34-year-old song remade by a Dutch artist best known for working on Tomb Raider, it’d just get weird, right?

But24 years ago, that’s exactly what happened. Henry, Ronaldo, Scholes; they were all there, and they were all there to sell shoes.

Or, more specifically, Nike shoes.

The Scorpion KO tournament was part of an award-winning ad campaign, with star players competing in a secret tournament onboard a ghost ship.

Former Manchester United Star Eric Cantona was more emcee than referee, and the entire thing was directed by Monty Python’s Terry Gilliam.

That tournament spawned local versions worldwide, with an estimated 1–2 million kids participating worldwide.

The campaign was a huge success, with Nike president Mark Parker commenting, “This spring’s integrated football marketing initiative was the most comprehensive and successful global campaign ever executed by Nike.”

The game might’ve come easy, but the soundtrack? Not so much.

“The music was a real monkey wrench. We just could not land the right track to pull it together. If you turn the audio off and try to follow this thing, it’s pretty hectic beyond the colours of the jerseys. There was just no obvious tone or tenor. We tried rock, metal — dark, intense stuff — but it didn’t really underscore what we were seeing.

“We talked to all sorts of music producers, contracted a band, some hot producers. They brought in stuff to play, and we were very polite, but I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God, this is a disaster’.

Somehow it all worked out in the end, with the song’s remix charted in dozens of countries, hitting #1 in several.

The song? JXL’s remake of Elvis Presley’s “A Little Less Conversation” originally released in 1968.

The official theme song was actually by… (checks notes) Vangelis, but no matter. For all intents and purposes, this was it.

Note: It will surprise absolutely no one, that for my money, this is the best World Cup song of all time.

Do you remember this commercial (or the 2002 World Cup)? Who ya got for this tourney?

KA—

On to the music…

This week what’s old is new again with a killer remix of New Order’s “Spooky.” We’ve also got some (actually) brand new tracks from Wishy, Vienna, The Mountain Goats, and Boston’s Good June. A great setlist to either liven up your commute, play on a road trip or soundtrack your next soccer tournament.

Side A is tracks 1-14. Side B is tracks 15-29.

Other sources: Apple | Qobuz | YouTube Music |

Now it’s your turn.

Any new releases or shows you’re looking forward to? Whatcha got? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

by KevinLeave a Comment on Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

In All Things Must Pass, the bittersweet post-mortem of Tower Records, they eventually come to the part of the story when the wheels really started to fall off.

The part where the banks come in and decide they know what’s best — that they know more than those who spent their lives building the chain.

Like every other takeover of a sinking ship, a few of the wrong things got tossed overboard. Things that are deemed superfluous, but mean a lot to a lot of people.

In aviation, that usually means outsourcing the ground handling or ticket counters. In the case of Tower Records, it was the scrapping of their in-house Pulse magazine. A magazine my music nerd friends and I used to ride our bikes across town to get copies of. A magazine whose every word we’d pore over.

Why am I writing an elegy for a long-gone magazine?

Because one of the best parts of Pulse was its Desert Island Discs feature. In each issue, they’d ask people to imagine being marooned, and what they’d want the soundtrack to be. We’d read every word in the magazine, but only after skipping to this first. Every list either confirmed that someone had the best taste ever or that they were a heretic. In those days, there was no middle ground.

And maybe that’s the allure of these sorts of exercises. The rush of confirmation or incredulity is tough to resist. To paraphrase Rick James: judgment is a helluva drug.

But so too is making these lists. The decision…The indecision… Did I make the right picks? Is this really what I’d want? What would the people back home think? Did I bring something that’ll make me sing loud enough to get the attention of a passing trawler? How does a record player work in a place with no power?

Tell me, what do you think?

KA—

On to the music…

A couple of my choices are on here, but I also love the idea that my next pick could be right around the corner. I know it sounds a bit silly, but to me that’s exciting.

Side A is tracks 1-19. Side B is tracks 20-39.

Other sources: Apple | Qobuz | YouTube Music|

Now it’s your turn.

Any new releases or shows you’re looking forward to? Whatcha got? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

by KevinLeave a Comment on Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

The longest-running parlor game for music fans might be arguing about which era of Van Halen is the best.

A close second: what song defines your generation?

The answers are almost always a tell: Boomers might point to The Beatles, The Stones, or Dylan. Gen X often lands on something like “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Millennials, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha…well, the answer gets fuzzier. That’s probably also a tell. (Spoiler: I’m old.)

Writing for NPR recently, Hazel Cills flipped the question a little, asking instead: Can an entire generation be defined by one song?

To me, a definitive millennial song can’t just be a song that failed to reach listeners beyond my specific generation (those born between the years of 1981 to 1996, to pick one of the possible date ranges demarcating the cohort). It also can’t simply be a hit that was popular with a huge swath of millennials. For a song to be definitively millennial, it also has to speak to the millennial identity. Millennials have been saddled with many of those simplistic stereotypes listed above, but also a lot of harsh realities….The music culture that defined our coming of age, from the early 2000s to the mid-2010s, went through its own massive disruptions that influenced not just listeners but also artists: the rise of illegal downloading and the streaming culture that came after, social media platforms like Youtube and Myspace that birthed a new generation of stars, the invention of MP3 players like the iPod and the explosion of festival culture. Millennial music, regardless of genre, embodies the collision of these realities.

One can make the same case with supporting arguments for whichever cohort you choose, and while I have my own ideas on what “Has” to be the song of my people, I don’t know if an entire generation can be distilled down to one track. It’s a fun exercise, and for GenX there’s certainly no shortage of 5-star candidates, but it also encompasses a group born between 1965 and 1980. Can you paint an entire generation with a broad brush? Probably not, but it doesn’t stop us from trying.

Still, it’s a fun exercise—and maybe that’s the point. While we’ll likely never reach a consensus or land on a definitive answer, the conversation itself tells us something about how we hear music and how we see ourselves.

Tell me, what do you think?

KA—

P.S. The answer to Q1 is always the DLR era.

P.P.S. Huge shout to friend of the newsletter Chris B RRT for sending over this link to Shakedown’s ‘Heat It Up’ record, featuring one Rollo Steele.

On to the music…

It will not surprise you to read that this playlist is extremely Gen X-coded, with tracks from Sonic Youth, Luscious Jackson, and more. There’s also a nod to older cohorts with George Harrison and Lindsey Buckingham in the mix, and of course a ton of brand new tracks from the likes of The Maureens, Van Chamberlain and Long Relief.


Side A is tracks 1-14 (ends with “Greensburg”). Side B is tracks 15-27.

Other sources: Apple | Qobuz | YouTube Music |
Note: Both YT & Qobuz are missing a couple of tracks this week.

Now it’s your turn.

Any new releases or shows you’re looking forward to? Whatcha got? Share your thoughts in the comments!

What’re You Listening To?

by KevinLeave a Comment on What’re You Listening To?

Happy Memorial Day to everyone here in the US, and happy Monday to our international friends! Whether, you’re home today or just kicking off your work week, I hope you’ve had a chance to rest easy and spin some great records. If you’re in the latter camp, maybe this’ll make the commute just a bit more enjoyable?

I shared this anecdote in the chat over the weekend, but wanted to share it again with the group as a whole.

A few weeks ago, Gabbie, who writes the fantastic New Music For Old heads, asked readers to name the last band or record they found without the internet. It’s one of those fun questions that seems easy at first, but before you know it, you have a page full of crossed-out options and are wracking your brain. For better or worse, these days we find stuff online.

Obviously, it’s fun to find cool records through cool people (cough cough), but it seems wild to me that what was once a pretty straightforward question is now anything but.

And if you’ll allow me to share, I now have a pretty rad answer…sort of. I received a music submission via email from a local act. That in itself is not unusual (and yeah, email counts as internet), but then my kid asked me if the artist had been in touch. This is absolutely not normal. Turns out he had a makeup exam last week, and one of the musicians was the proctor. Once everything was completed and turned in, they were talking, and his music label came up, which led my son to mention this place, and everything came full circle. Not entirely analog, but still pretty cool (to me, anyway), so I’m counting it.

That duo is here (dargan hester), as is one of my fave shoegaze bands, Cheatahs. I found them via terrestrial radio (thank you, WSUM!), and they’ve never really left my rotation since. Squeeze showed up via the early days of MTV.

It’s not the record featured here, but one of my greatest analog finds was when a friend passed me a copy of Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense while on a field trip. It’s not hyperbolic to say that moment changed the trajectory of my music diet forever.

What’s the last record you discovered without going online? Share your story!

KA—

P.S. Speaking of radio, when you’re done here, make sure to check out the final lap of Inhailer Radio’s Indie 500!

Side A is tracks 1-19 (ends with “Narco Polo”). Side B is tracks 20-39.

On to the music…

KA—

Other sources: Apple | Qobuz | YouTube Music|


Now it’s your turn.

Any new releases or shows you’re looking forward to? Whatcha got? Share your thoughts in the comments!