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No. 8 - Jessica Lea Mayfield - Sorry is Gone (ATO) - The SPEW countdown continues for the best of 2017.

Here we are, at No. 8. I first fell for this album on a drive home from Topeka on Stull road on a rather crisp, but sunny and lovely Saturday afternoon. I don't hate Topeka. Not at all. I don't live there either. They do have a Barnes & Noble, where you can buy magazines no longer available in dear old Lawrence.

But enough about that. Here's the review I wrote shortly after that invigorating drive. Sorry is Gone wore well as the year wore on. And I stand by my comments from this October review.

Enjoy! 



https://spewrocks.blogspot.com/2017/10/jessica-lea-mayfields-unapologetic.html


Comments

The people have spoken.

The Dream Syndicate make a pretty awesome new album. Let us now praise not all that famous men (and a woman) ...

  Let’s talk about the Dream Syndicate. They have a new album on Anti-Epitaph. You know, what gradually became viewed as Steve Wynn’s band. Until it was, well, Steve Wynn’s band and he had a solo career. Sigh. The guy has never made a shitty record. Some are better than others, but so are your mornings. Anyway, let’s talk about the Velvet Underground. You know you want to. Everybody does. They were great. Yup. They made a mindfuck of a debut album that set the template for everything left of center since. But damn it, in 2017 people get to have a variety of opinion about which of their four ( VU being almost a fifth, the others being live records) being the best Velvets album.  Among the tiny brain trust of alternative media, no such discussion is allowed when it comes to the Dream Syndicate. Nope, they made a revelatory debut (and their debut is most like the VU’s debut - not insignificant, since the Velvets were an acknowledged inspiration to the DS) - then it all went do

Cancer Rising, Goodnight Grant, So Long Jessi

A few weeks back my urologist cut something out of my bladder. A papillary carcinoma, I think it is called. One more box to tick off on my Medical History, one more reason I’ll never buy life insurance: Cancer. Oh, I’m alright. Doc’s pretty sure they “got it.” Of course, having a cam and a cutter crammed up my prick may be a little more frequent feature of my life. But, so it goes. It goes, that is, until you’re gone. Grant Hart is gone. 56, cancer. Jessi Zazu is gone. 28, cancer. I scroll through my Facebook friends – Jesus, lots of gone ones. Most gone to cancer. Devin, Greg – hell, so many. Shit’s in my family, too. My in-laws and my sister-in-law have had their battles with the stuff. My mom was lost to cancer, at 73. She’d be 100 in October. My dad followed her three years later; he was 87. He would have been 109 yesterday if he was from the Caucasus Mountains and ate lots of yogurt. Cancer? Nope. Heartbreak. It happens. Saul Bellow understood. Oh,

John Murry, gutter Gothic poet from Tupelo.

A call went out from central casting for a singer-songwriter. A particular sort. The call out read as thus: Wanted, man in black type figure, roots in the Deep South, profound experience with drugs and heartbreak, think Flannery O’Connor protagonist who time warps into a Lou Reed fan. John Murry applied. He got the job. All other interviews were canceled. Based on his previous solo recording The Graceless Age , his previous work with Memphis legend/recluse Bob Frank, and his resemblance to Hazel Motes … well, it was no contest. The first thing I had to get over about John Murry was how fucking much he sounds like his friend Chuck Prophet. I think they must share a larynx.  The second thing I had to get over about John Murry was how close in sensibility he is to Nick Cave. The American South and Australia have a lot in common. Most of it ugly, but damned if it doesn’t make for great lore.  Okay, I’m over it, whatever it is. A Short History of Decay is  a collection that ins