Okkervil River’s Will Sheff posted a fantastic essay on his “very-favorite-ever cinematic document of a rock and roll band” which happens to be “a 10-dollar import DVD of Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show doing a live-for-German-TV performance sometime in 1974.” It’s interesting timing, because just a couple months ago GLONO co-founder Derek Phillips, who [...]

John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John – This Christmas (Universal) The pairing is complete nostalgia. There is no other reason that John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John are together for a Christmas album aside from the fact that they were both cast together in a small little movie musical called Grease over thirty years ago. Grease has [...]

Cat Power – Sun (Matador) The story goes that when Chan Marshall set off to begin the follow up to the very hard to follow up The Greatest, she presented her progress to a friend. She could tell that the new material didn’t grab her friend in quite the manner that she hoped, and after [...]

Video: The Mountain Goats – “Cry for Judas” Looks like Merge Records gave the Mountain Goats a video budget! Peter Hughes plays the dad and he has two daughters, one with a bloody nose and one who worships Satan. His wife apparently once cheated on him in the garage with Jon Wurster, the very same [...]

Joyce Manor – Of All The Things I Will Soon Grow Tired (Asian Man) I guess I’m supposed to ignore the fact that Joyce Manor do little more than deliver a very competent blend of late 20th Century punk rock and praise them for their “honesty” and “DIY ethos.” There’s a place for that, particularly [...]

Husky – Forever So (Sub Pop) Our favorite Seattle label is now making its way down under to find the next big thing up here. Husky represents their first signing from Melbourne, with the moniker actually the first name of the band’s guitar and vocalist. The only “Husky” I knew growing up was the name [...]

Christian Mistress – Possession (Relapse) If memory serves, Girlschool was the only band of The New Wave of British Heavy Metal that featured women in the line-up. I bring this up because you cannot get away from the fact that Olympia, Washington’s Christian Mistress conjures up the exact kind of feel that is reserved for [...]

Video: Sex Pistols – “Holidays in the Sun” It’s easy to write off the Sex Pistols as being an overrated, manufactured novelty group. These days anybody who knows anything about the history of rock and roll acknowledges that the Pistols did not invent punk rock. That (dis)honor would belong to any number of American bands [...]

Testament – Dark Roots Of Earth (Nuclear Blast) To be honest, I would rather see Testament included in the “Big 4” line-up than Anthrax. The lineage is there and, most importantly, the band has parlayed its third decade into an example that even headliners Metallica should have considered well before the submission that was Death [...]

The Chuck Dukowski Sextet – Haunted (Org Music) OFF! – Off! (Vice) The importance of L.A.’s punk pioneers Black Flag cannot be understated. Even if history only confirms one album, Damaged, as the band’s crowning achievement, you have to consider the band beyond anything committed to magnetic tape. From their grueling tour schedule, to the [...]