Welcome back! https://trouserpress.com/forum/index.php Thu, 21 May 2026 16:19:54 -0500 Phorum 5.2.23 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71276,71276#msg-71276 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71276,71276#msg-71276 Blow Your Cool is severely warped. I looked on ebay today to shop for a replacement. There are a number of options that are reasonably priced, but there is also one for $3,399.00!!! It has to be some kind of mistake...it's just a standard item, nothing special about. Anyway, the listing allows for making an offer, so I submitted one for $8. We'll see how it goes.]]> zoo Trouser Press Thu, 21 May 2026 14:24:47 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71271,71271#msg-71271 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71271,71271#msg-71271
Cowboys International - The Original Sin
Methinks I grabbed this out of a used bin, thanks to an endorsement from somebody here on the board. (I'm not inclined to do any sort of search on the forum, to find out who recommended it. Come on, man, I'm too busy listening to records.) Great stuff that fits in with the sound of 1980, in all the best ways. A bit like the Boomtown Rats, with a hint (just a hint) of Springsteen on tracks like "Pointy Shoes." Really not a weak song on the whole album. Yeah, this one's definitely a keeper.

Cutting Crew - Broadcast
Frankly, I don't have any memory of ever hearing the whole album. I certainly remember "I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight," because adult contemporary radio has never let anyone forget it. I'm sure I married into this one. The band and its producer hewed faithfully to the audio template of the times. No drum sound is so big that it shouldn't be bigger; make sure the additional percussion tracks all sound unmistakably synthetic; if you have an effect for the guitar, then by all means, use it. If you have any effects left over that you didn't use on the guitar, be sure to use them on the singer's voice. Spray the whole thing with synthesizer polish and buff to a gleam. It all adds up to "that execrable '80s sound" that we've discussed on this board. (The producer, Terry Brown, made his name working with Rush on their first nine studio albums. In the Beyond the Lighted Stage documentary, one of the reasons Brown gives for parting ways with Rush is because the trio wanted to apply more synths to their music, and he just wasn't interested. Three years later, I guess he had bills to pay.) A few good songs manage to fight their way to the surface, but mostly, the production just smothers everything. The smarmy saxophone that colors a few of the songs on side two becomes the last straw. I didn't make it through the whole LP.

Dead Boys - Night of the Living Dead Boys
A German pressing of the legendary punk band performing at CBGB, or so the sleeve says. This is actually the first Dead Boys recording I purchased. Ira wrote the liner notes, but the printers included them in green ink on top of a very busy photo montage, making them damn near impossible to read. (I learned that Ira saw the Dead Boys only once. Sorry, Ira, but after the first sentence, it was just too much eye strain for me.) This one is a hit & miss affair, with very little bottom end (since they apparently didn't have a bassist at this point in their career) and a mix that veers between Stiv's blaring vocals and Cheetah and Zero's blaring guitars. The stage patter adds either entertainment value or a squirm factor, depending on your proclivities. (They greet the crowd with "We're the wonderful Dead Boys! Who wants to give us head?" The rest of their stage talk is less refined.) The TP review calls this "a punk documentary of some merit," but I think I'll stick to the two studio albums.

Dead or Alive - Youthquake
Another album that I'm sure I married into. (I do have some great memories of being on a dance floor with a beautiful girl -- an honest-to-goodness ballerina -- while "You Spin Me Right Round" was playing. But those memories still weren't great enough to compel me to buy the record.) "You Spin Me" still holds up, but taken as a whole, this album seems like an example of how to use the grooves and beats to pummel the listener. A few songs start off sounding a bit like New Order, and a few others start off sounding a little like Visage ... but on every track, the Stock-Aitken-Waterman team shows their determination to blow up those qualities to gargantuan size. (Motörhead may have coined the slogan "Everything louder than everything else," but in practice, S-A-W beat Lemmy & the guys to it.) I don't see myself wanting to listen to this one again in ten years.

De La Soul - 3 Feet High and Rising
This is one I bought after hearing some of its tracks played between sets at a Drivin' n' Cryin' concert in Birmingham. The music I heard charmed me enough to compel me to seek the record out the following week. And I guess I didn't play it all that many times after buying it, because the vinyl is still pretty darn shiny. This album remains one of hip-hop's most fun spot-the-sample playgrounds, and the raps have an unforced quality that keeps them more listenable than I tend to find in hip-hop. The overall groove, however, takes a while to get moving -- most of side one, in fact. Truthfully? I'm on the fence with this one. But hey, I was disappointed by Bouncing Off the Satellites, only to catch myself humming tunes from it the following day. So anything's possible.]]> Delvin Trouser Press Thu, 21 May 2026 00:10:00 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71263,71263#msg-71263 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71263,71263#msg-71263 The Joy Formidable
Miracle Theatre, Washington DC, May 16, 2026
(Rescheduled from March)

The two principals of the Welsh indie band The Joy Formidable, Rhiannon (Ritzy) Bryan and Rhydian Dafydd, have been pretty quiet for some years. They were really busy during the Obama administration (I saw them two times in 2012-2013) and immediately afterward, when their full-length 2011 debut The Big Roar was one of those rare, stomping rock albums of the 21st century that will absolutely hold up for listens well into the future. I loved that record unreservedly, and really liked 2013’s Wolf’s Law too, but they really seemed to skid a bit with AAARTH, their 2018 record, a challenging Welsh shoegaze-prog-thing that was decidedly short on hooks.

So I haven’t seen them in some years, but I love those early albums, and I’ve enjoyed some of their online releases, including Welsh-language versions of the early singles like “Chwyrlio,” the Welsh version of A Balloon Called Moaning and The Big Roar’s “Whirring” — the band has really leaned into its Welsh heritage.

This was a duo show in large part: Bryan and Dafydd playing acoustic and electric guitar over some prerecorded backing tracks. The band joked about the need to recruit a new drummer, “preferably one without a crim record,” according to Ritzy, but the songs held up very well in the format, which helped showcase Ritzy’s vocals and the band’s lyrics.

Their set opened with "The Everychanging Spectrum of a Lie” and “The Greatest Light Is the Greatest Shade,” two of the massive slow-burning ragers from The Big Roar. When I saw The Joy Formidable at their shows in the Obama administration, a lifetime ago, these shows were arena-scaled, lighting up the proverbial skyline like fireworks. They were not at this point a band that knew how to moderate its power or energy; everything was full throttle and heavily amplified. Since then, they've gotten older and they've also gotten better at modulating their sound.

There was still abundant energy and drive in the performance, mostly from the prerecorded beats and loops. But unlike the previous sets I’ve seen from The Joy Formidable, which were stomping arena-scale alternative rock of a sort not widely seen since the heyday of Smashing Pumpkins, this was a more contemplative affair.

The Miracle Theatre is blessedly a seated venue, as I had been very underslept and dealing with some medical issues. But despite the seated venue and the quieter setting, the show built a good sense of energy and momentum. But there was a casual sensibility of a couple bantering jokingly on stage, which led to several extended digressions and chatter amongst the band members, including a lengthy discussion about rescuing a cat the prior night, and Bryan’s apparent magnetic attraction for animals in need of rescue. (I saw their Instagram post; it is truly a really awesome looking cat whose name is Arno. I hope he finds a good home soon.)

In addition to Joy Formidable material, both Bryan and Dafydd have been doing their own solo work. Bryan did “Hugger,” the title track from a solo record, and Dafydd did “Make the Sign,” from one of his own records. One thing this set specifically did was showcase him as a composer and singer; in the electric band settings his prominence tends to fade behind Bryan as the frontwoman, but the work holds up well in the tradition of outer-British Isles songwriters like Glen Hansard, Gruff Rhys, and Damien Rice. He’s a fluid guitarist and a soulful lead singer as well.

The opening set from Bryan and Dafydd ended with a song I didn’t know, from Into the Blue, the 2022 record that kinda escaped me following their weird detour with AAARTH. With Dafydd on keyboards, they did “Interval,” a song that maybe foreshadowed the breakup of their band and departure of their drummer Matt Thomas, and the retreat from touring and albums that followed. I don’t really know Into the Blue but based on “Interval” and the title track, I should acquaint myself.

In the second set, Dafydd and Bryan were joined by a Utahn (but with Welsh ancestry!), Byron Owens, who contributed a hodgepodge of percussion and sound effects, including playing the musical saw and singing harmonies.

Surprisingly, they did Wolf’s Law’s “Maw Maw Song,” which I always found grating and clangorous, on the floor of the stage, purely acoustic and singing unamplified in campfire style with mandolin and acoustic guitar and tambourine. And you know, now I appreciate that song a lot more. Also from Wolf’s Law, “Little Blimp” was regrettably interrupted by Bryan’s coughing fit and a lengthy discussion of bodily fluids. They were never going to skip “Whirring,” their most popular song, or among their earliest hits, “Cradle,” in the set. But along with “The Leopard and the Lung,” the highlight of the second set was a surprisingly moving cover of the Kinks’ “Strangers,” from Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Pt. 1. I like the Kinks a lot — but I don’t listen to Lola often. So I had a moment of confusion, with the clear sense that I knew this song, before Dave Davies’ sweetly empathetic chorus answered the question.

T-shirts on display:
Bloc Party
Peter Hook and the Light
TJF x many, including some in Welsh
The Refused
Vampire Weekend
The Killers]]> zwirnm Trouser Press Mon, 18 May 2026 20:25:45 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71253,71253#msg-71253 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71253,71253#msg-71253
"Modern Times" - Code Blue
"Attitude" [live] - The Kinks
"Let Down" - Radiohead (by request)
"Gepetto" - Belly (by request)

"Alice's House" - The Psychedelic Furs
"Selling the Drama" - Live (by request)
"Unlearn This Hatred" - New Order (for bassist Tom Chapman's birthday)

"Switchboard Susan" - Nick Lowe (by request)
"Every Planet We Reach Is Dead" - Gorillaz (by request)
"Don't Take My Car Out Tonight" - The Hooters

"Virginia Plain" - Roxy Music
"The Three Sunrises" - U2
"The Heart's Filthy Lesson" - David Bowie
"Sat'day Night in the City of the Dead" - Ultravox

"Third Uncle" - Bauhaus
"America Is Waiting" - Brian Eno and David Byrne
"Space Junk" - Devo
"King's Lead Hat" - Brian Eno (by request)

"Words Fail Me" - The Sound
"Knife in the Marathon" - Breaking Circus
"Seeing Red" - Linda from Work (by request)
"Return the Gift" - Gang of Four

"Sweet Bird of Truth" - The The (by request)
"Good Intentions" - Toad the Wet Sprocket (by request)
"Stone Cold Sober" - Rod Stewart

"All I Did Was Dream of You" - Beabadoobee (by request)
"Wouldn't It Be Good" - Nik Kershaw (by request)
"Soho" - Brand X
"Tomorrow Never Knows" - Monsoon (by request)]]> Delvin Trouser Press Tue, 19 May 2026 14:41:22 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71252,71252#msg-71252 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71252,71252#msg-71252 a link to my latest episode, traversing indie pop/rock, rap and Cabaret Voltaire's one new song.

The Hobknobs-“Easier Listening”
Miaow-“When It All Comes Down”
The Tubs-“Fade To Black”
My Best Unbeaten Brother-“The Cracks and Creases and The Mistakes”
Paloma Morphy & EMJay-“qué ves en mi?”
Nwakke featuring Aloisius, Darkmarik & abi asia-“I Need U In A Positive Way”
Serebii featuring KAJJA-“Bends Not Breaks”
Miharu Koshi-“Santaman No Mori de”
Moderator-“Dark Art”
Isaiah Rashad-“Act Normal”
Kehlani featuring Clipse-“No Such Thing”
PS Hitsquad featuring Cristale-“Popeye”
Khmeii-“BPD (Best Pussy Disorder)”
Cypress Hill & Mellow Man Ace-“Campeones”
Leak Bros-“See Thru”
Fatboi Sharif & Child Actor-“How to Disinfect a Live Grenade”
Onna Kodomo-“Aoi Hata”
U. S. Steel Cello Ensemble-“Sound of Nothing”
Delphine Dora & Jerome Bouvet-“Montfarville V”
The Sea Plus-“Hawksbill Sea Turtle”
Boards of Canada-“Tape 05”
Alabaster De Plume-“Glass”
Vic Bang-“Curva”
Tyler Friedman-“Jlaljar”
Cabaret Voltaire-“Tinsley Viaduct (live)”
Mahavishnu Orchestra-“One Word”]]> steevee Trouser Press Sat, 16 May 2026 00:19:09 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71249,71249#msg-71249 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71249,71249#msg-71249 Heavenly
Black Cat, Washington, DC, April 16, 2026

Heavenly were a band that I always admired more than I loved, but there were certain moments that I did deeply love, most of which appeared on a single EP in the year 1993.

It's now 2026, and somehow, the band is not only returning to American audiences, but in some ways has an visibility that it never enjoyed back in the middle 1990s, when it was always very much a niche taste.

Heavenly is the band that was the textbook definition of twee, and twee was never cool. Twee was derided as sexless and childish and naïve, in an era where the prevailing trend in alternative rock was one of assertive masculinity or sultry femininity, cynicism, and worldliness. Heavenly’s weirdly wholesome alternative — vaguely androgynous boys and Amelia Fletcher in her winsome tomboy haircut, singing seemingly simple paeans to connections and friendships — seemed somehow punk in its naïveté. It was undeniably punk in its business models, for sure: friends and mutual admirers in places as far-flung as Cambridge, UK, Olympia, Washington, and Sydney, Australia somehow making a transnational microscene in the era of zines and tape trading and primitive Usenet groups. It wasn’t my scene, to be sure. I never had a scene, I am too square and detached and analytical, and boringly hetero. But I admired it.

The songs that I loved from Heavenly appeared mostly on a single five-song CD EP, which to my great dismay, I discarded at one point when it seemed like physical media were less needed once I put the songs on my iPod. The 1993 K Records EP not only had “P.U.N.K. Girl,” but the utterly unforgettable “Hearts and Crosses,” in which a teenage girl’s dream of romance and intimacy is cruelly crushed in a violent date-rape, all sung to an irresistibly sing-song melody. It also had the rippling early single, “Atta Girl,” among others. Man, I miss that little five-song CD with its smiling cover art badly.

Anyway, despite my love for that particular EP, I didn’t listen to other Heavenly music much; I owned Le Jardin de Heavenly and maybe another, but that was it. But over the course of some decades, I developed a weird, asynchronous, unrequited, parasocial fondness for Amelia Fletcher as I learned more about her, the sad fate that befell Heavenly with the suicide of her brother and bandmate Mathew, her prolific recording career, and her amazing alter-ego: She has one of the most fascinating resumes in indie music, an economics faculty member at University of Anglia, recognized as a Commander of the British Empire for her contributions to UK labor and public sector economics research. You have to read her interview in the Oxford Student about these two remarkable careers. Seriously, I have some weird crush at this point for a woman I’ve only spoken to in passing twice, at two of her own bands’ shows.

I actually have listened to a lot more of Fletcher’s non-Heavenly work in recent years: Her first band, Talulah Gosh, the great Marine Research one-off record from 1999, the pandemic-era Catenary Wires duo with husband Rob Pursey, and the brattily sardonic Swansea Sound project with Hue Williams of Pooh Sticks, which toured near DC in 2024. But I didn’t think I was ever going to get to see Heavenly in concert, until bizarrely, “P.UN.K. Girl” became a source of a TikTok microtrend a few years ago, which Fletcher and Rub Pursey’s daughter had to call to their attention. (As someone who literally has never used TikTok, I was actually fascinated just now to see how many people repurposed the song into everything from lesbian melodrama to Japanese anime to video game footage. There are thousands of these things. And then the same thing happened with “Me and My Madness,” from The Decline and Fall of Heavenly.)

So Heavenly is back! Or, in the British usage, I guess you would say that Heavenly are back. This year’s Highway to Heavenly (truly, a genius album title from a band with many good ones) has a lot of great, bittersweet songs; many of them are in their sing-songy twee style but looking at their lives as grown men and women in their sixties rather than precocious teens and twenty-somethings. “Portland Town” was their first single in decades and it’s about exactly what you’d think: their fondness for Portland, Oregon, as a city that cherished art and music and individuality in self-expression. If that sounds like a Portlandia episode that’s not wrong. I lived in Portland for five years in the early 2000s and saw many likeminded music acts there during those years, and the video is a rush of nostalgia.

At the Black Cat, the band started their set with “Portland Town,” in a show that was very heavy on new material — much of it very good! “Scene Stealer,” “Deflicted” (a made-up word, but a very good song), and their tribute to their own record label, “Skep Wax,” were all really fine songs — punchy pop with a lyrical bite that hits you like vodka in a syrupy mixed drink. Amelia Fletcher shared lead vocals with Cathy Rogers, also on keyboards. Fletcher (with her Ramones-themed guitar, with stickers spelling out HEY HO LET’S GO) clearly is the band frontwoman, but the dual-lead vocals added extra punch to the lyrics, especially on leads ing-ponging between the two women.

Despite the emphasis on new songs, one could sense the band’s audience was there to hear the older songs — and the audience was wild. There was an actual member of Bratmobile, wearing a Tallulah Gosh t-shirt. There were 50s riot grrl moms in tattoos with their teenage daughters holding handmade Heavenly posters. There were aging indie kids like me. I am pretty sure that several members of Fugazi and the old Dischord crowd were in attendance. Fletcher jokingly asked who had been in attendance at the old 9:30 Club on F Street when Heavenly last toured in the mid-1990s, and more than a few people shouted out their enthusiastic approval, but a lot of the audience wouldn’t have been born then.

(This is a throwback to the joke made by Swansea Sound’s Hue Williams when I saw the band in 2024: “This was clearly a Swansea Sound show, since at a Heavenly show all the audience members are 16.”)

Amidst the new material the crowd reacted in a big way to older material — “Hearts and Crosses” was amazing, as I would have guessed, and the audience also loved the sardonic “Sperm Meets Egg, So What?” (dedicated to a pregnant member of the audience) and “Me and My Madness.” I actually didn’t know a lot of the songs, and I never understood the appeal of “Space Manatee,” but people seemed to dig it. But there was no surprise that the energy of the show was building toward “P.U.N.K. Girl,” which closed the main set, and in the mini-encore, “Atta Girl” and “C is the Heavenly Option.”

“C is the Heavenly Option” is a truly odd song and I don’t really like it, but it was the closer. This is the song that cemented the weird Oxford-Olympia transatlantic twee alliance between Sarah Records and K Records, and it’s the one with Calvin Johnson of Beat Happening sharing the vocal in a weird quiz-game-format lyric. With no Calvin Johnson in attendance, Fletcher dueted with Stephen Stec, the male member of opening band, Lightheaded, who adopted a deliberately basso profundo voice to imitate Johnson’s vocal. It was fine, I guess, but I still prefer the stuff with just Fletcher and Rogers singing.

Full Heavenly setlist: https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/heavenly/2026/black-cat-washington-dc-5b766bf8.html

Because it’s economical to have an opening band share labor with the headline act (and one member is indeed a labor economist), Swansea Sound did the first of two opening acts. Hue Williams of Pooh Sticks was in the fore and Fletcher seemed happy to stay more in the background for the Swansea Sound set, much of which was new material from when I saw their show in 2024. The Swansea Sound aesthetic and subject matter remains similar to what I witnessed a few years back: sardonic left-wing commentary on the music industry and economics of consumption and commoditization of art. Most of the Swansea Sound set was new material, about toxic tech bros, “Oasis versus Blur,” and commentary about the streaming economy.

Lightheaded, which was the middle act on the set, is almost purely a Sarah Records (and its ilk) tribute act, down to one of their song titles — “Me and Amelia Fletcher,” a track which they wrote years before they met Amelia Fletcher and toured with Heavenly. Their Bandcamp bio says it all; they’re “nj girls n boys power poppin their way through 8 toe tappers.” They’re on Slumberland Records, which has the home of the twee and indie-pop revival since 1989. Slumberland puts out a lot of fun records, most of them fairly slight and inconsequential but charming in their way. (Allo Darlin’ has their comeback album on Slumberland, for instance.) Lightheaded were pleasant-enough boy-girl pop, but there was just bit of a weird visual because Stephen Stec, the guy in Lightheaded, is a big dude, accompanied by some very small feminine women singing sweetly naïve indie songs. In an interview, the members of Lightheaded cite the Pastels, the Aislers Set, and similarly anachronistic pop exemplars as their inspirations, and I guess that’s the niche lineage in which they aim to establish themselves.]]> zwirnm Trouser Press Fri, 15 May 2026 15:46:04 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71246,71246#msg-71246 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71246,71246#msg-71246 zwirnm Trouser Press Mon, 18 May 2026 09:11:26 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71237,71237#msg-71237 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71237,71237#msg-71237 STEVE Trouser Press Fri, 15 May 2026 10:09:01 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71234,71234#msg-71234 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71234,71234#msg-71234 breno Trouser Press Thu, 14 May 2026 20:37:58 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71226,71226#msg-71226 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71226,71226#msg-71226 Snatching it Back: The Best of Clarence Carter is highly recommended.)]]> belfast Trouser Press Thu, 14 May 2026 14:09:46 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71225,71225#msg-71225 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71225,71225#msg-71225
FWIW the group plays pretty regularly in Chicago, which I didn't realize until recently.]]> belfast Trouser Press Sat, 16 May 2026 15:57:36 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71210,71210#msg-71210 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71210,71210#msg-71210
Black Pearl
I had heard this band's song "Forget It" on one of Rhino's single-LP Nuggets compilations. When I saw their album in the used bin, I decided to snap it up. A quick visit to Wikipedia says that Black Pearl was formed by three former members of The Barbarians (whom I knew from another album in the Rhino series, featuring their song "Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl"). Most of this album is hard-driving rock 'n' roll with touches of soul and R&B, with a three-guitar attack and a Wall of Sound approach that you don't usually hear in garage bands. Bernie "B.B." Fieldings is often more of an exhorter than a singer, but he makes that work with the grooves here. (And that aforementioned Wikipedia page says that he was Janis Joplin's squeeze for a while, so perhaps she influenced his style.) For me, it all hits fine & true until the last song, "Reach Up," where they slow things down and apply more soft-loud dynamics to the sound. Nice to hear them changing things up a bit, until the singer goes into Reverend Bernie mode. Still, this album scored enough points with me to end up being returned to my shelf, instead of being consigned to the next used bin I encounter.

Brand X - X Trax
I must've married into this one. Honestly, I didn't remember having any Brand X in my collection. I know I've played them on my show in recent months, but I think I must've found downloads of a song or two. I don't usually get into prog, but this album hit the pleasure spots quite well for me. I'm also not usually into Phil Collins, but his vocal appearances on a few tracks worked well for me here too. Great sound quality, and the overall flow of the album was better than one usually anticipates for a single LP whose tracks are cherry-picked from eight different albums.

Breaking Circus - The Very Long Fuse
I think I bought this one as the result of a review that lumped this Minneapolis band together with Naked Raygun and a few other then-nascent punk bands in the Midwest. Their debut, a 12-inch with eight songs at 45 rpm, has plenty of hot guitar, some unusual chord progressions, but precious little melody across its eight songs. I like the back cover illustration, showing a percussion section of demon imps inside a rhythm machine. Still, I think this one is bound for the used bin. So sad, but there's just not enough to these tunes to sustain my interest for repeated listens.

Code Blue
I know I've played this band on my show in recent years, as part of a birthday tribute to bassist Gary Tibbs (who's also been in Roxy Music, The Vibrators, The Fixx, Adam & the Ants -- even mentioned by name in "Ant Rap"). But I'm sure I must've played a Code Blue song off a comp, as part of such a tribute ... because I simply can't believe I haven't played this LP more frequently. The TP review says the band had "some decent material," but IMO, that assessment falls way short. The album has plenty of great rockin' tunes in the power pop vein, and producer Nigel Gray brings a similar touch to the proceedings to the one he brought to The Police's first three albums (their best work, IMO). The instruments sound tight and crisp, and the overall production includes plenty of space for the instruments to move and grow and echo, rather than trying to fill every frequency. And the singer, Dean Chamberlain (formerly of The Motels), has a good voice. Definitely a keeper.

The Colour Field - Virgins and Philistines
I married into this band's debut EP, but apparently found this LP in a used bin and picked it up. (And looking at the price tag on the cover, I'm glad I got it at a good price, because this copy is pretty scuffed up.) As much as I've always loved The Specials, Terry Hall's voice was never my favorite element in that band. I think his voice is better suited to The Colour Field's more open-ended pop approach. Plenty of variety to this album, from the rollicking opener "Can't Get Enough of You Baby" and the rockin' "Pushing Up Daisies" to more pop- and even samba-oriented stylings. Not bad. Makes me wish I'd found a better copy.]]> Delvin Trouser Press Tue, 19 May 2026 19:32:20 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71209,71209#msg-71209 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71209,71209#msg-71209 Details.]]> Michael Toland Trouser Press Wed, 13 May 2026 16:04:27 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71199,71199#msg-71199 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71199,71199#msg-71199 lineup. Will we see John Lydon singing back up on 'Hot Girls in Love'? Or Peter Hook jammin' on 'Sister Christian'? The mind boggles. One interesting thing to note is that Plimsouls are billed with Peter Case. I didn't know he was going to start them up again.]]> Heff Trouser Press Mon, 18 May 2026 08:24:37 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71193,71193#msg-71193 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71193,71193#msg-71193 five crazy German post-punk ladies, and were a huge influence on European electronic and industrial music and by extension the American branches of those genres, but don't get the credit they deserve.

They kind of remind me of Polyrock, if Polyrock had lost their damn minds and were five hot West Berlin mädchen instead of buttoned-up New Yorkers.

[www.youtube.com]

[www.youtube.com]

[www.youtube.com]

Anyhow, in a better world, Bettina's passing would've been big enough news that I wouldn't just stumble across it almost two months late.]]> breno Trouser Press Sun, 10 May 2026 20:52:28 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71191,71191#msg-71191 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71191,71191#msg-71191
I was born in ‘66 so was too young for their heyday. I knew them from FM rock radio, and ‘who are you’ came when I was 12, but truthfully I knew Pete’s ‘empty glass’ much better… it was ‘mine’.

TP69 featured an imagined compilation of Who tracks, written by Ira. This article and the listed songs were my real gateway to The Who. I liked it because it didn’t just dwell on their big hits… it went deeper. I searched for these tracks in the vinyl bins!

I have a few songs I’d like to add to volume 2.

“Blue Red and Gray” and “Imagine a man”, both from ‘who by numbers’. Really nice introspective tracks. Better lp than I thought.

“I’m One” from Quadrophenia. Again, the whole album plays better than I remember. Songs like “the dirty jobs” surprisingly strong. Maybe my ears are maturing….

What Who tracks would you add?]]> Bip Trouser Press Tue, 12 May 2026 11:56:22 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71187,71187#msg-71187 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71187,71187#msg-71187 Sugar
Webster Hall, New York NY, May 4, 2026

When Bob Mould’s mid-1990s power trio Sugar announced its reunion tour, initially limited to shows in New York and London, I made the immediate decision to buy a ticket even before I knew that the shows would be extended to a full US reunion. I’m glad, too. Seeing Sugar in a venue the size of Webster Hall felt appropriate, but I fear their upcoming appearance at the Anthem in Washington DC will see their power and controlled vitriol sublimated into the cavernous atmosphere of venue, too large for most of its bands.

Sugar meant a great deal for me when I was in college, in Minnesota, close to Bob Mould‘s homebase, but never able to see the band in concert. I may even still own a folded Rykodisc poster of the Copper Blue album art. And while I’ve seen Bob Mould numerous times in the intervening decades, including performing many of the songs from Copper Blue, it seemed worthwhile to see the band in its original incarnation.

At Webster Hall, the crowd was thick with people who looked a lot like Bob Mould now does: balding white guys with beards and T-shirts, and a relative paucity of women in their 40s and 50s. Unlike some of the Mould shows I’ve seen, there seem to be fewer members of the bear community, but there were certainly some of them in attendance as well.

On night three of their residency at Webster Hall, there was no opening act, and they had celebrity DJs playing songs as the crowd gathered. On Monday, it was comedian and actor David Cross. (I was disappointed that I had missed Michael Azerrad on Saturday.) Cross played a mix of garage rock, 90s alt rock classics from the Beasties and Breeder and Public Enemy/Anthrax, and obscure psychedelic and punk tracks. But the audience was there to see the band, and given our ages and the band members’ ages, it’s a good thing that the show got off to a relatively prompt start.

I made a concerted effort not to look at the playlist from the first two nights, which apparently were replicated for every show. I wanted to be surprised. Sugar has one of the most impressive back catalogues of any band that existed for only two proper albums, plus an EP and an ambitious collection of b-sides. I could probably have thought offhand of 30 songs that I hoped to hear, and I did hear the vast majority of them, although there were always a few choice nuggets that went missing.

First things first, the band looks good. Bob Mould has carried off a transition into his stocky, bearded, sweating, avuncular self, and David Barbe is amazingly well preserved and equipped on both bass guitar and vocals. The only sign of the band’s age was drummer Malcolm Harris. Apparently, on the first night of the sets, he collapsed and fell backwards due to dehydration or exhaustion, but he seemed to hold up just fine for the show on Monday night.

Unsurprisingly, the set list hit most of the high points of Copper Blue, as well as File Under: Easy Listening, but there was an abundance of rarities, including B-sides, songs recorded only on their live album The Joke Is Always On Us, Sometimes, and a notable number of songs on which Barbe sang lead. It’s my understanding that the Sugar fanbase always had a strong sense of affection for his lead vocals, but he simply doesn’t have the charisma that Bob Mould brings to his lead vocals.

That said, the show was 90 minutes of almost unabating power pop amplified to a near-excruciating degree. Every Sugar album has hooks in abundance, with pummeling volume and an immense sense of Mould’s vindictive, self-abnegating, or desperate pleas for connection and affection. It was unsurprising that the crowd reacted with the greatest sense of excitement to the singles from Copper Blue, like “Hoover Dam,” and “A Good Idea”. But many of the b-sides and the tracks from FU:EL also got a ripping response. (They actually did more b-sides and Beaster tracks than they did from FU:EL.) I particularly was enthralled by how they did “After All the Roads Have Led to Nowhere” and “Where Diamonds Are Halos."

While this was a band show, and Barbe had a good number of lead vocals, there is no doubt that this is Mould’s band. He ravaged the stage, running back and forth and shredding on the guitar when not yelling himself hoarse on lead vocals. It was a fierce display and an exhausting one merely to witness.

I was up almost at the front of the stage, technically one line of people from the divider to protect the band and the photographers in the pit. And it was loud. As I have said before, one of the loudest shows I ever saw was Bob Mould at First Ave in Minneapolis, solo. The man likes volume. The sound was mostly good but the high whine of Mould’s guitar got painful after a time, and I bet the balance was better toward the middle or back of the audience.

There were three surprise guests on the final numbers: Patterson Hood, Craig Finn, and Jason Narducy. Hood absolutely ripped it up on Beaster’s “JC Auto” but I was a bit disappointed honestly by Craig Finn’s lead vocals on “Helpless” especially since he seemed to be reading the lyrics off a sheet. I’m also just not much of a fan of the Hold Steady. Narducy, whom I’ve seen play with Mould before, was fine on his performance of “If I Can’t Change Your Mind,” but it did cost the show a bit in terms of momentum to see Mould turn over the microphone to guests in what would otherwise be the big-finish encore. I think Hood/Finn/Narducy were there largely as devoted fans and admirers, but also to spare Bob Mould's vocal cords a bit — three nights of this kind of performance would risk shredding anyone’s throat, especially someone in his 60s like Mould. I think this also explains the surprising number of Barbe’s songs in the set.

The set was pure Sugar: no Hüsker Dü material, no solo Mould, and no covers (that meant no “Armenia City in the Sky”). Despite the substantial set, the show went by in a ninety minute blur, a blistering pace with barely any between-set banter, except when Mould introduced his guests and thanked the audience for sticking with him for so long.

A few of the songs I wish I had heard: “Needle Hits E,” “Changes,” “The Slick,” “Man on the Moon,” “Believe What You’re Saying …” wow, Sugar had a lot of great songs for such a brief discography.

Full setlist: Sugar Concert Setlist at Webster Hall, New York on May 4, 2026

In the audience I noted that lots of people seem to have come from DC, or Philly, or even flown in when this NY and London were only shows listed. I was next to folks who came up from the DC suburbs, and others (like me) who alluded to scheduling work trips around the show.

This was one of the best nights for t-shirts I’ve ever had. I guess if you’re attending a reunion tour of a 90s rock band, it’s your excuse to break out your collection of concert t-shirts. Here are a few I noticed:

Bangles
David Byrne
Bikini Kill
Sugar x many
Mould x 3
Hüsker Dü
Tori Amos (OK, that was me)
Marah
Social Distortion x 2
Shonen Knife
Nirvana x 4
Circle Jerks
ZZ Top
Voxtrot
Marty Stuart
The Clash
New Order x 2
Amy Rigby (not a shirt, an awesome tote bag)]]> zwirnm Trouser Press Sun, 10 May 2026 10:23:58 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71186,71186#msg-71186 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71186,71186#msg-71186 "Been a Son" - Nirvana (by request)
"Say It Ain't So" - Weezer (by request)
"Condolences" - Micah & the Mirrors

"See Ya Later" - The Boys
"Rock 'n' Roll Music" - Sniff 'n' the Tears (by request)
"Christo's Ghost" - Chico Detour
"Century City" - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers (by request)

"You're On!" - The Blue Unknown
"Halo and Grain" - Failure (by request)
"Dystopian" - Analog Dream
"Sister Jack" - Spoon

"Impossible Weight" - Deep Sea Diver w/Sharon Van Etten (by request)
"Detox Mansion" - Warren Zevon (by request)
"Venus in Furs" – The Velvet Underground (by request)
"Perfect Day" - The Saints of Swag

"Love for Sale" - Talking Heads (for Chris Frantz' birthday)
"Atomic Punk" - Van Halen (for Alex's birthday)
"Charmless Man" - Blur (for Dave Rowntree's birthday)
"20th Century Boy" - T. Rex (for Bill Legend's birthday)

"I Wish You Would" - David Bowie (for Yardbirds bassist Paul Samwell-Smith's birthday)
"God and Country" - Blue Rodeo
"Junebug" - The B-52's (by request)

"Dancin' Fool" - Frank Zappa (by request)
"Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Part 1" - The Flaming Lips (by request)
"Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand" - Primitive Radio Gods (by request)

"We Got the Neutron Bomb" - Weirdos
"Sugarlight" - X
"Teenage Jerk Off" - The A's
"Lo Batt" - Man or Astro-Man?
"Cool Manchu" - Supersuckers]]> Delvin Trouser Press Mon, 11 May 2026 14:12:23 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71181,71181#msg-71181 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71181,71181#msg-71181 " the grunge bands were too depressing, didn't put enough fun and sex into their music, looked and dressed as if they rolled out of bed and put whatever dirty laundry they could find on the floor back on."

I read that, and thought: Damn, sounds like what me and my friends said about grunge! Tho we didn't get into Garth Brooks - we (and many others) moved into Golden Age hip-hop and, to a lesser degree, electronica and New Jack Swing. And it absolutely WAS fun, sexy, stylish and - important for us single fellas on the prowl - danceable. Girls liked it.

Hip-hop /electro-dance in the '80s was pretty niche, very much an underground scene, apart from the occasional breakout RunDMC hit. So why was there such an explosion by the '90s? Well, apart from the decline of the hair-farmers, we've talked about how by the late '80s, college rock seemed to be losing its sizzle. Grunge was no fun, "country" was crap. So thousands hit the dance floor, shouting "Push it! Wiggle It! Everybody JUMP!" Sure, it could be silly fun, but the alt crowd could dig it, because sonically it was pretty avant-garde, it was racially/culturally diverse with many female performers, and (some knucklehead rappers notwithstanding) often free of the dumb sexism of '80s poodle-heads.

By the '90s, rapping was evolving from strictly partytime rhymes to a more proactive, rebellious attitude that us former punks could relate to a lot more than disco-y early hip-hop. We easily moved from "Rise Above!" to "Fight The Power!" A lot of grunge seemed like it wasn't about rebelling against the system, but just giving up. Nirvana admitted they were greatly inspired by bands like The Pixies and Husker Du, but those bands covered a whole gamut of emotions. Funny, positive, romantic songs would be mixed in with the darker ones. Grunge, however, left out those lighter emotions far too often, leaving it feeling thematically lop-sided. Hip-hop seemed more well-rounded.

Hip-hop and electro rave stuff used many of the same sonic tools, so fans of one were often fans of the other. They both fed off of each other. If you were a white British guy who loved hip-hop, you probably wisely decided "Er, maybe I shouldn't rap about ghetto life. Or rap at all." But you could still get in on the action with instrumentals/turntablism/sampling. And lo! electronica exploded. For the first time, you could walk into a record store, and the "electronic" section wasn't just a lonely bin in the back with old Wendy Carlos and Tangerine Dream albums, but up front, boasting so, so many new artists and releases. There was a lot of excitement for it in youth/pop culture. Yes, there was way too much sound-alike (thump-thump-thump) techno, but at its best, the likes of MARRS, 808 State, Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim, The KLF (and its various spin-offs), Coldcut, etc brought a fresh energy that many found missing from the ol' four-white-guys-with-electric-guitars routine.

So,...does Digital Underground have Pearl Jam to thank for everyone doin the Humpty Dance?]]> MrFab Trouser Press Fri, 08 May 2026 00:23:53 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71160,71160#msg-71160 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71160,71160#msg-71160 "The Modern Age" - The Strokes
"I Don't Know You" - Julez & the Rollerz
"Time Coast" - Robyn Hitchcock

"The Nile Song" - Pink Floyd (by request)
"Whenever You're On My Mind" - Marshall Crenshaw (by request)
"Perfect" - Smashing Pumpkins (for Darcy Wretsky's birthday)
"Steady As She Goes" - The Raconteurs

"Upon the My-Oh-My" - Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band (by request)
"Looking at You" - MC5
"Something's Got a Hold of My Toe" - Traffic (R.I.P. Dave Mason)
"Numbers" - Will & the Bushmen (for Will Kimbrough's birthday)

"In a Big Country" - Big Country (by request)
"Welcome to Burning-by-Sea" - Joe Jackson
"The Killing Moon" - Echo & the Bunnymen (by request)

"Waiting for Lorraine" - The Distractions
"Doncha Hesitate" [demo] - Kiss
"Avenue You" - Coral Grief
"Nothing to Fear (But Fear Itself)" - Oingo Boingo

"Train Round the Bend" - True Believers (R.I.P. Jon Dee Graham)
"The Metro" - Berlin (by request)
"Dance Along the Edge" - Concrete Blonde (by request)
"Gary Gilmore's Eyes" - The Adverts

"Metal Mickey" - Suede (for guitarist Bernard Butler's birthday)
"Smalltown Boy" - Bronski Beat (by request)
"Am I Wrong" - Love Spit Love (by request)
"Yesterday's Gone" - The Pietasters

"Keep It Clean" - The Vibrators
"Look Back in Love Not in Anger" - The Yachts
"A New Day" - Olivia Tremor Control
"All for the Love of Rock 'n' Roll" [live] - Tuff Darts]]> Delvin Trouser Press Sun, 03 May 2026 09:22:36 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71156,71156#msg-71156 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71156,71156#msg-71156 This show starts off with country, takes a left turn into metal and several further turns from there.

Ashley McBryde-“Arkansas Mud”
Adeem the Artist-“Heritage of Arrogance”
Emmylou Harris-“Before Believing”
Ashley Monroe-“Steal”
Andrew Sa-“Under You”
H. C. McEntire-“Quartz In the Valley”
Deafkids-“Circatrizes”
My Heart, An Inverted Flame-“This Has Always Been The Disappearing Floor”
Warning-“Stations”
Soulless-“Lore Of The Unspoken Realm”
Bekor Qilish-“Emptiness-Wrought Cognition”
Emaciate –“Global Cataclysm”
DJ Massive 100% Dynamite, MC Lipex-“Piano Do Mal”
Marta Sanchez-“Inward Loop”
OOIOO-“The Horizon”
Aster-“Stepping
Mui zyu-“Parallelisme”
Little Annie-“10 Killer Hertz More”
Anne Clark-“Poem For a Nuclear Romance”
Yasmine Hamdan-“Mor Club (remix)”
Takkak Takkak-“Abu”
Last Poets-“Reflections”
Tyshawn Sorey-“Abstrusions”]]> steevee Trouser Press Mon, 04 May 2026 13:53:15 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71153,71153#msg-71153 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71153,71153#msg-71153
New York City band Bite the Wax Godhead released its complete remastered catalogue on Bandcamp today at https://bitethewaxgodhead.bandcamp.com/, with all proceeds going to the Glioblastoma Research Organization. Because the release lands on a Bandcamp Friday, when Bandcamp waives its revenue share, 100% of sales revenue will go directly to the charity. Today is BTWG's first-ever streaming release.

Bite the Wax Godhead was an indie pop/rock/rap band based in Manhattan, with Brooklyn as a second home base. The band's core was a couple: Cynthia Harden, a neurologist/keyboardist/singer-songwriter, and her boyfriend-turned-husband Alec Cumming, a TV producer/bassist/guitarist/singer-songwriter. Together with guitarist Larry Horowitz, who played a significant role through the first half of the band's 1989–1998 run, they became regulars at CBGB and other Manhattan clubs and a fixture of the "Brooklyn Beat" scene, appearing on several Brooklyn Beat compilations long before the borough became an indie-rock mecca.

BTWG was defiantly unique and relentlessly tuneful, with a quirky mixture of pop, dance, rock and rap styles inspired by acts as disparate as They Might Be Giants, Salt-N-Pepa, Electronic, Neneh Cherry, Talking Heads, Young MC, Happy Mondays, De La Soul and The Beach Boys. The band wanted to break down the walls between the dance music and indie rock of the era; Cynthia's sardonic, Delicious Vinyl-inspired feminist raps sat alongside Alec's more psychedelic pop concoctions. Musicians Exchange wrote that "BTWG is summer in a bottle; breezy, stylish, sexy, hooky, but above all, FUNKY pop, as indebted to Earth, Wind, and Fire as Burt Bacharach." Alternative Press said the band "tiptoes through a tulip garden of genres, gently moshing New Wave, rap, tango and breezy '60s pop into a musical mulch from which mighty songs may grow."

BTWG's only full-length CD, Radio Stuyvesant, was released in 1994. Today's Bandcamp release covers the full span of the band's recorded work, including four previously unreleased tracks from a 1998 session.

The timing also coincides with the May 5 premiere of Before It Was Cool: The Brooklyn Beat at Lauterbach's, a new documentary chronicling the scene which features clips of the band and interviews with Cumming and other musicians from that era. One of the unreleased Godhead songs, "A Million Dollars," appears on Brooklyn Beat — Evolution Now, the scene's eighth compilation album and its first in 34 years, which goes live on streaming platforms the same day.

Alec and Cynthia's daughter Julia Cumming is the bassist and lead vocalist for the indie-rock band Sunflower Bean and recently released her critically acclaimed debut solo album Julia on Partisan Records.
Alec, Cynthia and Julia all strongly support the Glioblastoma Research Organization, which advances global awareness of this aggressive and fast-growing brain cancer and raises funds toward a cure.

For more information, and for a panoply of sweetly ingenious songs, visit [bitethewaxgodhead.bandcamp.com].]]> ira Trouser Press Tue, 05 May 2026 12:52:07 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71142,71142#msg-71142 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71142,71142#msg-71142 an article about the increasing difficulty of keeping an indie label going: competition from major labels, inflated costs, decreasing vinyl sales.]]> steevee Trouser Press Fri, 01 May 2026 09:16:16 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71139,71139#msg-71139 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71139,71139#msg-71139
The best things he produced were his kids, Alt-country songbird Tanya Montana Coe, and Tyler Mahan Coe, the creator of Cocaine and Rhinestones, the best music podcast out there on the vanishingly rare occasions he gets around to doing it.]]> breno Trouser Press Fri, 01 May 2026 12:24:37 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71135,71135#msg-71135 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71135,71135#msg-71135 breno Trouser Press Wed, 29 Apr 2026 16:15:27 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71134,71134#msg-71134 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71134,71134#msg-71134 Courtney Marie Andrews
The Atlantis, Washington D.C., April 24, 2026

One of those names that was vaguely in the back of my head, but which rarely penetrated my active thoughts, Courtney Marie Andrews has now been doing indie country-influenced songwriting for almost 20 years, but I’ve never listened closely to her music before I randomly won a ticket to see her last week at the Atlantis in Washington.

Andrews, touring for a new album called Valentine, is an immensely poised songwriter who also plays Wurlitzer keyboard, acoustic and electric guitar, and flute in concert. Her instrumental chops are not insignificant, but her vocals are truly eye-opening. On “Pendulum Swing,” the opening track on the record, which she performed in order on Thursday night, she suddenly segues in the first verse from a middle register to a piercing soprano. She manages to do this multiple times throughout her songs, in a way that is showy, but never seems extraneous to the compositions themselves.

Maybe it’s indicative of my lack of background knowledge, but I saw threads of Andrews’ show connecting her with the murmured intimacies of Jessica Pratt and the Southern gothic romantic turmoil of Skylar Gudasz, but I gather that throughout her career, she has been compared most to Linda Ronstadt in terms of pure vocal firepower. I get it, too; Andrews has a marvelously supple and powerful voice, put to good use on songs of exquisite longing and loneliness like “Cons and Clowns” (which also showcased her flute solos).

The set of the show was spare. There were a few, deliberately sad-looking, heart-shaped balloons floating above the stage. Andrews switched between Wurlitzer and various guitars, and memorably, sometimes played flute with a guitar hanging around her neck (honestly, way more impressive than a harmonica). She was elegantly dressed and made up, and was backed, as is every female songwriter I see, by a group of homely bearded dudes recruited for their instrumental chops rather than stage presence. The songs always edged in the direction of country — tonally, in their instrumental accompaniment, and frequently in the narrative settings — without ever feeling like they hewed remotely close to Nashville trope.

The setlist for the show is not online, but since Andrews did all of Valentine in order to open the set, it wasn’t hard to figure out the bulk of the show. And since the ticket I won included a copy of the record on LP (“a vinyl,” as the person at the merch desk said), I expect I’ll take a close listen to this album in the coming weeks.

Opening for Andrews was a genuinely impressive young woman whose set I only saw part of: the unusually named Aubory Bugg. Not a stage name; it seems too weird to be anything other than authentic. She’s based in Nashville, but spoke about growing up in the memorably specific Granite City, Illinois. Performing solo on an acoustic guitar, which she fingerpicked with casual expertise, she told self-deprecating stories and sang with gripping earnestness about romantic relationships, doomed flirtations with straight friends, and kind elder relatives whose good works outlive them. She reminded me most of early Lucy Dacus, whom I saw before her career blew up, but maybe I conflate queer Southern women. For a starting point, “friends?” with its deliberate ambiguity in the title, is a good one.]]> zwirnm Trouser Press Tue, 28 Apr 2026 21:17:24 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71122,71122#msg-71122 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71122,71122#msg-71122 www.reddit.com]]]> BCE Trouser Press Mon, 27 Apr 2026 08:57:54 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71116,71116#msg-71116 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71116,71116#msg-71116 he's reaching out to you to do this, then you make it happen!" So yeah, I told him, I'm in.

These days, the touring/performing unit consists of the three singers, plus their backing band. Keith Strickland opted to retire from touring a few years ago. But they've kept this version of the band together for some time now. (Drummer Sterling Campbell has been on board for over twenty years; bassist Tracy Wormworth, more than thirty.) Kate Pierson is still a force of nature, with that range ... and Fred Schneider, well, he's still "just Fred," as he once named a solo album. He sounds no different than he did from the beginning. Cindy Wilson is the weak point, as anyone who's seen the band in recent years knows. The best I can say is, she has her lower register and her higher register, but no bridge between them. This was especially evident during "Give Me Back My Man" — long a showcase number for Cindy. With half the lines in the song, her voice dropped out altogether for a measure or two, as she shifted from lower voice to higher. (Oh well, you can't accuse her of lip-syncing.)

But overall, the concert was a blast for us. My brother was stoked enough just for us to hang together for a few days, just to chat and really get up to speed with each other. We both had watched the Las Vegas episode of Somebody Feed Phil, so we had some restaurants and other things to check out. The Gritz Café and Milpà both were outstanding, and the Meow Wolf exhibit was a hoot and a half. And it was nice to travel with someone who appreciates some chill-out time, rather than someone who strives to fill the schedule with as much as possible.

In a way, it was sort of like seeing Brian Wilson a few years ago. That was a marvelous show, with a great setlist full of classics ... but all through the show, Brian was seated at the piano, center stage, seeming to drift in and out of awareness. (Since then, I've occasionally wondered whether that piano was real, or just a prop. He had two other keyboardists on stage.) Still, my wife and I agreed, we didn't feel as if we'd been taken. It felt more like we were participating in a fond farewell ... saying, "We love you, Brian; thank you for all the great music." (Then again, sometimes, you tell yourself what you have to.)

Seeing The B-52's was a little like that. Granted, no one in the band seemed to be at any loss for why they were onstage ... but I can't imagine any of them is kidding themselves, about how many years are behind them. But when I think of how much this band has meant over the years to me and to both of my siblings — when I remember seeing them on Saturday Night Live, and how they turned my musical outlook (and the rest of my outlook as well) from black & white to full panoramic color — then the show in Vegas can easily be seen as a way for us to say, "Kate, Cindy, Fred, we love you; thank you for all the great music, and for everything else."

SETLIST:
Cosmic Thing
Mesopotamia
Give Me Back My Man
Private Idaho
Lava
Dirty Back Road
52 Girls
Roam
Party Out of Bounds
Dance This Mess Around
Is That You, Mo-Deen?
Good Stuff
6060-842
Love Shack

ENCORE:
Planet Claire
Rock Lobster]]> Delvin Trouser Press Tue, 28 Apr 2026 19:32:08 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71106,71106#msg-71106 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71106,71106#msg-71106 "6060-842" - The B-52's
"King's Lead Hat" - Brian Eno
"Antmusic" - Adam & the Ants

"Rockaway Beach" - The Ramones
"Dragula" - Rob Zombie
"Warm Leatherette" - The Normal
"DJ" - David Bowie

"From Out of Nowhere" - Faith No More (for Billy Gould's birthday)
"Shadowplay" - Joy Division
"Union City Blue" - Blondie (for Nigel Harrison's birthday)
"Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way?" - Chequered Past (see above)

"Trucks and Trains" - Alkaline Trio (for drummer Derek Grant's birthday)
"The Groover" - T. Rex
"Wherever You Take Me" - The Moberlys
"Get It Out" - Jim Basnight

"The History of the World, Part 1" - The Damned (for Captain Sensible's birthday)
"There Are More Snakes Than Ladders" - Captain Sensible (what I said)
"I'm Shakin'" - The Blasters
"Get Downtown" [live] - Drive-By Truckers (for drummer Brad Morgan's birthday)

"Derecho Domenico" - Jack White (by request)
"The Girl from Baltimore" - The Fleshtones
"Take to the Streets" - D.B. Stewart
"Long As I Can See the Light" - Creedence Clearwater Revival (for drummer Doug Clifford's birthday)

"Lagartija Nick" - Bauhaus (for David J's birthday)
"Life in Laralay" - Love and Rockets (likewise)
"Homosapien" - Pete Shelley
"A Dip in the Ocean" - Fountains of Wayne

"Crawling Kingsnake" - Elvin Bishop (by request)
"Secret Agent Man" - Devo
"Won't Get Fooled Again" [live] - Pete Townshend with John Williams (for John's birthday)]]> Delvin Trouser Press Sat, 25 Apr 2026 08:50:46 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71101,71101#msg-71101 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71101,71101#msg-71101 Iceland Airwaves
Songbyrd, Washington DC, April 23, 2026

I've been fortunate enough to attend the free Icelandic shows in Washington for several years now; it’s been something of a cultural soft-power export from the Icelandic embassy for awhile, and the shows have been periodically startling (GROÁ’s feminist punk) and even star-making (Laufey's utterly poised piano-pop, a year before she became the cultural phenomenon she now is). And of course, there’s always the small chance that your raffle ticket is drawn and you win a free vacation in Iceland. (I have yet to do so.)

This year, the headliner was Inspector Spacetime, with support from someone or something called Róshildur. And of course there was the now-typical raffles for Icelandic goodie bags and a DJ whose sign warns that he plays only Icelandic music, even when told not to.

Róshildur, to me, was a revelation. Her official bio reads, “Róshildur is the musical project of Icelandic-Danish producer, songwriter, and performer Anna Róshildur. Her music blends intimacy and scale, exploring companionship, doubt, and quiet emotional tension through carefully crafted lyrics.”

This is accurate if incomplete. First off, Róshildur does sing entirely in Icelandic, so the impact of her lyrics is likely lost on the American audience. Secondly, and more pressingly, the bio omits the key method of her singing and presentation: Anna Róshildur is basically a loops and vocals artist, whose ethereal sing-songy vocals are frequently looped back over themselves, with thumping unsettling beats intruding over the sweetly murmured Icelandic lyrics. It reminded me of what could happen if spare Tricky beats from early Bristol trip-hop were superimposed on a Julianna Barwick set. One real winner was “Samferða,” which she described as being about an Icelandic term of two or more people agreeing to travel to the same place together, for mutual safety and reassurance as well as companionship. And she did a song about a dangerous Icelandic bird, “Kría,” and it’s another stunner, especially because she switches mics between one that is run through heavily processed and electronic loops to another that shares her vocals in their natural sweetness and warmth.

And she was both delightful and personable; I spoke with her a few minutes after her set and she was exceedingly gracious and eager for the release of her upcoming full-length album; her releases so far are all singles or EPs in digital format only. Anyway, a strong endorsement.

By contrast, Inspector Spacetime was an utterly, joyously, inanely silly dance pop band. Indeed, Inspector Spacetime might be the answer to a question no one bothered to ask. What if Black Eyed Peas were … Icelandic? I know, no one asked.

Every Inspector Spacetime song included shouted choruses, ineptly enthusiastic rapping, dance music exhortations, and three extremely Scandinavian people (two guys; one woman) doing their best to recreate a chaotic drunken disco scene in a quiet Thursday night in front of the Icelandic diplomatic corps. I won’t deny, some of the songs were genuinely, dumbly hooky in the way of Icona Pop’s “I Love It” or the hits of Ke$ha on the early 2000s. ״Party at My House” gives the subject matter away with the title. This isn’t going to be Nick Drake. Not everything was deliberately imbecilic; they had a track with a chorus “What’s your pleasure / more pressure” that was genuinely well-crafted.

Not surprisingly none of these setlists appear to be online.]]> zwirnm Trouser Press Sat, 25 Apr 2026 09:48:32 -0500