1. July 30, 2017, Jane Weaver, Justin Bieber, Starcrawler

This week I’ve been sampling a lot of music. Sampling in the old school sense, that is.

Jane Weaver is a British artist who’s been around in one group or form or whatever for over twenty years. Her recent solo work has become beloved of the psych-folk crowd, the same people I suspect who get giddy over Joanna Newsom, Meg Baird, and whatever. Her new album is World Kosmology. Whoo, there’s a title that any self-respecting punk in 1997 would have called pretentious twaddle. But these are more generous and inclusive times for fans of outsider music. Boris fans may be Margo Price fans may be Kendrick Lamar fans. Weaver combines trippy analog synths, motorik beats (4/4 time, but rigidly mechanical, favored by Krautrockers), chiming electric and strumming acoustic guitars and her own ethereal vocals. It all works because the songwriting is fetching. Give it a chance and it charms. It probably sounds great fucked up on pot, although I haven’t tried that yet.

I hear Justin Bieber has come to Jesus. That is all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXPhANmnAdM (Starcrawler video - they wouldn't let me download directly. Poo.)

Starcrawler rule. Two minute songs. They sound like the Little Killers to me, but with more Rodney-glam influence. They take songs and verses at chugging punk tempos, throw in Thunders-y solos, then throw down a Black Sabs bridge (half-time, nasal, minor sounding). If they aren’t the greatest thing since the Ramones, maybe they’re the greatest thing since the first Broncho album. Fill in your own superlative. Three guys and a girl, Arrow De Wilde (… noms de rock, just like Poison!), who sings with bored assertion in a voice with indeterminate gender. Free to be you and me. Starcrawler are, on the basis of the two songs I’ve heard - “Ants” and “Used to Know” - the greatest rock ’n’ roll band in the world.

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The people have spoken.

EMA is Ericka M. Anderson. Exile in the Outer Ring is her vision of American despair and marginalization. Yup.

When I selected Past Life Martyred Saints as my top album of 2011, Ericka M. Anderson was straight out of the American underground, not an artist widely recognized. EMA, professionally and for short, had released material with two groups, Amps for Christ and the Gowns, but PLMS was her solo debut, and it was on a small label called Souterrain Transmissions. If you want a little background, here’s a link to my original review and my 2011 Top 25: http://stevemahoot.blogspot.com/search?q=past+life+martyred+saints With the 2014 release of The Future’s Void, EMA consolidated her stature as an artist to be reckoned with. After the viscerally powerful PLMS, Void w as a colder, more technocratic vision. Like it’s ambiguous title, the music conveyed a vision of a sterile and oppressive near tomorrow, like something out of a William Gibson novel, humanity struggling with the powers of its own creation, with the alienations of the internet age. Void’s slabs of distorted sounds were...

Better Ed than Dead

Ed Sheeran - He looks like Van Morrison, kinda, huh? Check the tats. Ed Sheeran is the highest paid entertainer on the planet. I think. I don’t know. They say he’s worth 65 million. Anyway, I read that somewhere. God knows he travels light and doesn’t have to share that dough with an orchestra or anything. I saw Ed once. At least that I’m aware of. He opened for the Rolling Stones in 2015 (or was it 16?) at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City. Just me and several thousand of my closest friends. He came out with a guitar in front of that throng and mesmerized the crowd. Okay, not really. Some kids seemed to like him. Old people, eighty percent of the attendees, treated him as a curiosity or mild irritant, not uncommon for a warmup act served up before the Stones’ Lions and Christians, bread and circuses exhibition. Later, he sang “Beast of Burden” with Mick. He was better than Dave Matthews. I see his ruddy little mug and tousled ginger top here and there in the ...

Hard workin', hard rockin' - White Mystery, baby!

At the ripe old age of thirty-two, Chi-town's Miss Alex White has been banging out the rock tunes since she was a teenager. I first encountered her in 2005 with the release of her Miss Alex White and the Red Orchestra album. I reviewed it, for the Kansas City Star, I think. I liked it. It was noisy – brash and bruising, but with a marination in soul music that was refreshing for a bratty kid. Her guitar playing was confident, within its limited range. You know, like Johnny Ramone or somebody. She was cool. And as a singer she already hinted at something special. She was raw, and powerful, but with a touch of sweet, sweet soul. In 2008 (or thereabouts) she formed a duo with her younger brother Francis Scott Key White. Using the name of a Fleer bubble gum flavor, White Mystery, the sibling ensemble was launched. Since 2010 they’ve released an album in April of every year. Each one has some good tunes, each one has some klunkers. The sibs tour relentlessly ...

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