SPEW

Jessica Lea Mayfield, of Kent, Ohio, released her first album With Blasphemy so Heartfelt ( produced by Dan Auerbach, fellow Ohioan) at the tender age of nineteen. I missed it. I probably shouldn’t have.   Her second Auerbach (Black Keys) produced record Tell Me arrived in 2011 when she was 22, 23 maybe. I listened to it. I heard talent. But somehow the combination of songs, performance and production didn’t really hook me.   Never bothered with her alleged grunge-rock record, the two previous had been loosely in the roots-rock/Americana idiom, called Make My Head Sing . No Dan Auerbach. I don’t know who produced it, but Mayfield described it loosely as dedicated to one of her favorite artists, Dave Grohl. Not being a huge fan of the Zelig of contemporary rock, that dedication probably soured me on the project. Sorry. For me and Jessica it was a matter of timing. The time is now. And the record is Sorry is Gone. Which is pretty great.   Mayfield and pr...

  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 al...

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,...

The Yawpers are from Denver. Boy in a Well is their third album, and second release on Bloodshot Records, outta Chicago. American stuff.   Guess I must like it. I listen to it quite a bit, despite finding it as curious as all fuck. It’s a ‘concept’ album, but put aside the programmatic nature of the lyrics, don’t be distracted by the 34 pages of illustration (by J.D. Wilkes of the Legendary Shackshakers - accomplished, visceral and NSFW), skip the sincere, but inflated label hype (“ Boy in a Well  is complex; it’s a manically conceived, historically situated, emotionally underscored, plot-driven fictive universe. It’s demented, unpredictable, taboo, ambitious, and yet distinctively cohesive”). And listen to the music. It has a manic intensity that’s hard to resist, way more powerful than the master thesis gymnastics required to perform critical exegesis. Heck, whatever drummer Noah Shomberg lays down here, driving this unconventional, bass-less trio, is more vit...

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...

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 ...

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 ...