Welcome back! https://trouserpress.com/forum/index.php Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:41:57 -0500 Phorum 5.2.23 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71464,71464#msg-71464 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71464,71464#msg-71464
"Turn It On" – The Flaming Lips (by request)
"Electric Lash" –. The Church
"Roll Out the Red Carpet" – The Hives (for drummer Chris Dangerous' birthday)
"Gotta Get Some Action Now!" – The Hellacopters (for guitarist Andreas Svensson's birthday)

"Angelica" – Wet Leg (by request)
"The Hardest Button to Button" – The White Stripes
"Sleep's Older Sister" – They Might Be Giants (for John Linnell's birthday)
"Sonic Reducer" – Dead Boys (by request)

"Age of Consent" – New Order (by request)
"Look for Your Mind" – The Lemon Twigs (by request)
"Little Wonder" – David Bowie
"Twin Hometowns" – Beat Rodeo (R.I.P. Steve Almaas)

"High Priest of Rhythmic Noise" – Cheap Trick
"Kind of a Girl" – Tinted Windows
"Do Something Real" – Bun E. Carlos with Robert Pollard
"Good Morning, Good Morning" [live] – Cheap Trick

"Invincible" – OK Go (by request)
"We Outlast Them All" – Guided By Voices (by request)
"At Home, At Work, At Play" – Sparks (R.I.P. Ian Hampton)
"My Dear Watson" – Thee Headcoats

"Change" – Tears for Fears (by request)
"Beyond and Back" – X
"The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead" – XTC (by request)

"Love Crimes" – Dirty Looks
"Gone Daddy Gone" – Violent Femmes (by request)
"Beautiful Couch" – The Moth & the Flame (by request)
"Best One Yet" – Black Flag (for bassist Kira Roessler's birthday)

"Only You" – Yazoo (by request)
"The Passenger" – Siouxsie & the Banshees (by request)
"Meds" – Placebo
"The End Is Not the End" – The Strokes (by request)]]> Delvin Trouser Press Sat, 13 Jun 2026 17:37:22 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71459,71459#msg-71459 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71459,71459#msg-71459 here.

Ian Dury-“Blockheads”
Suicidas-“Cantemos”
Flesh Eaters-“Sleeping Sickness”
Eddy Current Suppression Ring-“Hard To Be Moved”
Downtown Boys-“You’re A Ghost”
Genesis Owusu-“The Worldwide Scourge”
Kaya Conky, Ari Falcao, Christopher Luz & GP DA ZL-“Front”
DNA-“New New (live)”
Bruk Rogers featuring Roberta Silva & Onj-“Lua”
La Rvfleuze-“Parlu”
Myaap-“Reaper”
Trim-“Coconut Water”
DJ Screw featuring The Click-“Tired Of Being Stepped On”
Abstract Tribe Unique-“L. A. Styles Back”
Tierra Whack-“Wax Paper”
Sha Ray X DJ Haram-“Thot Daughter”
Cocanha-“Rememanuech”
Ana Luia Caiano-“Uma Vida E Menos”
Ydrus-“Discarded In Reverse”
Mark Jenkin-“Look At It”
Louise Huebner-“Orgies – A Tool For Witchcraft”
White Heaven-“Strange Bedfellow”
Man-“Many Are Called But Few Get Up (Peel session)”
Jeff Parker ETA IVTet-“Like Swimwear (Part Two) (live)”
Horse Lords-“A City Yet To Come”
Rump State-“The Medusa Price”
Ornette Coleman-“Theme From A Symphony (Variation Two)”]]> steevee Trouser Press Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:04:25 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71442,71442#msg-71442 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71442,71442#msg-71442
Like my first few, these are all TP artists pulled from my vinyl collection. Minimum of 10 years by my estimate since last listen. Only 5 this time. Rated on a 1-10 scale of how much I enjoyed listening this time. After this, I'll move on to my CD collection.

Elvis Costello - Goodbye Cruel World - 8
For some reason, I thought this album was really weak and have avoided it since first listen many years ago. What a pleasant surprise! Definitely not EC's best, but I really enjoyed this. Outside of "Only Flame in Town" I didn't remember any of these songs. That one is very smooth and I thought I remember the rest of the album being in that vein. It doesn't rock like This Year's Model, but it's not the pile of mush that I thought it was. There was really just one song that I hated ("I Wanna Be Loved") but the rest was very good.

Jerry Harrison - The Red and the Black - 7
Another winner! I've always loved "Worlds in Collision" and that's what I remembered before spinning this one again. Oh, and some song where he talks about being in a traffic jam and getting over it. Anyway, there is not a ton of variety here, but what it does it does well. Having Belew on hand doing his thing is always a good thing for this style of music.

Ranking Roger - Radical Departure - 6
This is one that I expected to like better, but it had too many bland moments. But the up-tempo numbers are really good, especially "So Excited." Maybe it's unfair on my part, but I want this style of music to be fun, and there are too many un-fun moments as Roger tries hard to be serious. If that weakens the album for me, then that's probably more my fault. Anyway, I'd still rank this album slightly above average on my scale.

Graham Parker - Squeezing Out Sparks - 7
I bought this at Wax Trax in Denver on a work trip in 2012 or so. I listened once, decided it wasn't for me, and shelved it. Now 14-ish years later, I wonder what was wrong with me back then. I enjoyed the first song, then the second, and then kept telling myself it's going to go to crap any minute now, but that never happened. I enjoyed it from end to end. I also own The Real Macaw, which based on my unreliable memory, I thought I liked better than Squeezing Out Sparks. We'll see.

The Swingers - Counting the Beat - 5
When I first heard the title song about 25 years ago or so, I knew I needed to own this album. I was also on a huge Split Enz kick at the time. Well, you can only listen to that one song so many times. The rest of the album does not live up to its lofty standards, but there are some good moments here, including a pretty cool instrumental. This is mostly fun, high energy music. Phil Judd and Bones Hillman have certainly played on better albums with better bands.]]> zoo Trouser Press Fri, 12 Jun 2026 20:19:06 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71440,71440#msg-71440 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71440,71440#msg-71440 To be sure, the comp cherry picks tracks during this period, but when it's done, the feeling is nothing short of musical splendour.]]> STEVE Trouser Press Wed, 10 Jun 2026 22:16:13 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71438,71438#msg-71438 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71438,71438#msg-71438 Absolutely extraordinary.

I heard Echo and the Bunnymen wanted him at one time, I wonder, did anything ever come from that?]]> STEVE Trouser Press Wed, 10 Jun 2026 21:04:41 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71437,71437#msg-71437 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71437,71437#msg-71437
TMBG - whistling in the dark]]> STEVE Trouser Press Sat, 13 Jun 2026 10:08:00 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71426,71426#msg-71426 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71426,71426#msg-71426 The Flys - Waikiki Beach Refugees
I'm not sure when I got this one, but it must've been from a used bin, judging from the cutout corner. It probably was some time in the Nineties, when The Auto-No would include The Flys' song "Love and a Molotov Cocktail" in their sets. That single doesn't appear on this album, but what does appear is great modish rock 'n' roll, very favorably comparable to The Vapors. It offers a couple of change-ups ranging from Buddy Holly-ish clipped-guitar sounds to a weird take on country-blues. Definitely not front-loaded at all; indeed, in some ways, the second side is tighter than the first, with the songs coming in quick hot succession. Very cool. A serious keeper.

Corey Hart - First Offense
I married into this one. Listening to this album, I remembered the TV series Futureman and the role that Corey Hart's music played in a few of the episodes -- the portion of that goofy sci-fi series that was set in the Eighties. The album's sound is very Eighties, of course, but not on the "execrable" side ... at first. But as Side One moves along, it begins to show more and more of those elements. And after flipping it over, the music and Hart's singing affectations (like his repeated line "N-n-n-n-nooo, nooo ..." in one song) go from execrable to painful. And the songs just seem to get dumber: "Cheatin' in School" might be about a student who's cheating on classwork, or cheating on a lover; it never seems clear in the lyrics. I could dig deeper into those lyrics, if I cared enough about this song. All the worst elements are here, but without the sheer brazen bombast of Dead Or Alive, or the all-in confidence (misplaced though it may have been) of Cutting Crew. And then I remembered that the character in Futureman who appreciated Hart's music so deeply was one who literally had never heard music before. This may have been Corey's first offense, but forty-plus years later it remains pretty offensive.

The Jeff Healey Band - See the Light
I received this as a freebie from our hometown radio station. Generally, I don't get much into blues, but this album maintains much of the appeal it had when I first heard it. "Confidence Man," "Don't Let Your Chance Go By," the instrumental "Nice Problem to Have," "Someday Someway" (not the Marshall Crenshaw song) and the title track all deliver the goods. The ballads drag things down a little, the cover of ZZ Top's "Blue Jean Blues" drags things down a lot more, and the production is too Eighties for its own good (especially on the drums). But overall, it's pretty good. And I enjoyed seeing Healey and his band onstage, so this LP brings back good memories.

The Human League - Hysteria
This is one I got as a gift from a friend, back when it was a new release. She knew I liked Dare a lot (and so did she). I don't recall the two of us ever listening to this album together, but if we did, I'm sure we must've shared puzzled expressions over the drastic drop in quality from the band's preceding LP. The songs on this one seem tuneless, even amateurish -- not the sort of thing anyone would've expected from an album with Hugh Padgham and/or Chris Thomas credited as the producer. Apart from one cover, the songwriting credits are focused on the band members, without any outside help ... same as on Dare, which can't help but make one wonder where their inspiration went. It does include a couple decent songs (the ballad "Louise," the guitar-driven "The Lebanon"), but they're in such shabby company that it's impossible for those songs not to stand out. The title "Don't You Know I Want You" seems like an obvious allusion to their biggest hit; the vocal interplay hints at it too ... but the end result doesn't have anything close to that sort of staying power. And holy jeez, it takes work to make a James Brown cover ("Rock Me Again and Again ...") sound utterly neutered. This is the sort of record that gave Eighties synth-pop a bad name.

Icicle Works
Another album I married into. It opens with the ever-familiar "Whisper to a Scream," but follows it up with quite a few other good tunes. "Chop the Tree," "Factory in the Desert," "In the Cauldron of Love," "Nirvana" (which doesn't sound the least bit grungy) and "Lover's Day," rely rather strongly on the same basic elements that distinguish their big hit: urgent drumming that seems ready to eat up as much of the recording space as it can, yet never seems to do it, guitars that range from brisk strumming to chiming, Edge-y arpeggios, synths coloring the margins, and Ian McNabb's boyish, achingly earnest voice delivering his achingly earnest teenage lyrics. They might come across as a one-trick pony, but they manage to sustain the trick well for the length of an album.]]> Delvin Trouser Press Tue, 09 Jun 2026 19:22:17 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71424,71424#msg-71424 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71424,71424#msg-71424
It's fair to see hearing Are You Glad to Be in America? and Odyssey (purchased at the same time) in the late eighties really changed the way I heard and looked at music. And I bought those due to this.]]> Michael Toland Trouser Press Mon, 08 Jun 2026 14:01:59 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71410,71410#msg-71410 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71410,71410#msg-71410 [wfmu.org]
which I usually don't plug here, but since a number of the tracks were suggested by you good folks*, it seems appropriate. The suggestions were mostly from an ancient thread called something like "When Non-Punks Went Punk."


* many of whom probably haven't been on this board in years, but thanx anyway!]]> MrFab Trouser Press Sun, 07 Jun 2026 11:30:11 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71406,71406#msg-71406 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71406,71406#msg-71406
"Ça Plane Pour Moi" - Plastic Bertrand
"Tristesse" - The Church
"President Gas" - The Psychedelic Furs (for Richard Butler's birthday)

"New Art Riot" - Manic Street Preachers
"Saturday Nite Riot" - The Pink Spiders
"Infra-Riot" - The Soundtrack of Our Lives
"I Predict a Riot" - Kaiser Chiefs

"Half House" - Phoxjaw
"I'm Toast" - Sparks
"Dying to Believe" - The Beths

"Crazy" - The Vapors
"Crazy" - R.E.M.
"Crazy" - Material Issue
"Crazy" - Plumb
"Crazy" - Me First & the Gimme Gimmes

"Clean, Clean" - Buggles
"Mirrors" - Husband
"Hideaway" - Ellen Foley (for Ellen's birthday)
"She's Fine" - The Stems

"The Rainmaker" - Iron Maiden (for Nicko McBrain's birthday)
"Sign of the Times" - Rascalton
"Paper Highways" - Ladytron
"Rats in the Cellar" - Aerosmith

"I Live in the City" - The Humans
"Black City" - Division of Laura Lee
"Fire in the City" - Bob Mould
"It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City" - David Bowie

"Graveyard Rock" - The Joneses
"Pet Sematary" - The Ramones
"See You in the Boneyard" - The Flesh Eaters
"Ghost Town" - The Specials]]> Delvin Trouser Press Sat, 06 Jun 2026 17:45:09 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71400,71400#msg-71400 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71400,71400#msg-71400
And in The Church's case, it's not as if they'd fill arenas with a nostalgia package. The biggest single they ever had only reached #24 on the Billboard pop charts. It didn't get much higher in their homeland; in fact, "Metropolis" was their only Top Twenty single in Australia. The biggest factor, to us — and I'm confident you'll agree — is that The Church has never really been a "singles act." Sure, they've released singles, and a few of them got some attention, but they've never really been defined by their singles. (Except maybe at the beginning of their career: Steve Kilbey told us about a gig in a small town in the Outback, in their early days when "The Unguarded Moment" was getting a lot of steam on Australian radio. He said the audience was so surly and jeering, calling them "poofters" and such, that by the end of the set, he decided he didn't want to play the one song he knew they wanted. This resulted in an ugly mob scene, and their manager taking some physical abuse before he barged into the dressing room and told him, "Steve, whatever they want, you better give it to them.")

Anyway! The show was terrific. With no opening act, The Church played a two hour and 45 minute set (with an intermission), touching on pretty much all the high points, as the setlist attests. The six-piece band sounded great, with a big enveloping sound that still had space for the instruments to move and breathe. They took off on a few psychedelic tangents that started to resemble Sonic Youth at their best. Kilbey was in fine voice throughout (and he looked great), and he had plenty more stories to share between songs, such as the one where he was tripping on acid and hallucinating that his cat was talking to him, asking, "Why'd you cut off my balls, man?" And this "singles set" covered a very wide range, from Of Skins and Heart all the way through their upcoming album, Lacuna.

This was the first night of the tour, so if they're coming near you, it'd be a good choice for a ticket.

SETLIST:
Columbus
Electric Lash
Tear It All Away
The Hypnogogue
The Unguarded Moment
Block
Metropolis
So Easy to Be Sad
The Realm of Minor Angels
Reptile
[intermission]
Almost With You
When You Were Mine
Ripple
Destination
Western
Constant in Opal
Another Century
Already Yesterday
Numbers
Under the Milky Way
Tantalized

ENCORE:
Sacred Echoes Part 2
An Interlude]]> Delvin Trouser Press Mon, 08 Jun 2026 07:10:03 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71399,71399#msg-71399 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71399,71399#msg-71399 breno Trouser Press Sat, 06 Jun 2026 14:40:43 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71398,71398#msg-71398 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71398,71398#msg-71398 Propaganda and Indiscreet. Therefore, a titan.]]> breno Trouser Press Fri, 05 Jun 2026 20:02:24 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71391,71391#msg-71391 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71391,71391#msg-71391 www.theguardian.com]]]> breno Trouser Press Sun, 07 Jun 2026 04:07:15 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71387,71387#msg-71387 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71387,71387#msg-71387
[riotfest.org]]]> belfast Trouser Press Fri, 05 Jun 2026 16:21:32 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71386,71386#msg-71386 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71386,71386#msg-71386
[atagong.com]]]> MrFab Trouser Press Thu, 04 Jun 2026 19:39:55 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71376,71376#msg-71376 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71376,71376#msg-71376
He seems to be the alt-rock Zelig. He's been around forever and would make it into the group shots in the Alt Rock Yearbook if such a thing existed. I guess he's talented and all that, but not so much so that he's ever made much of a mark with any of his own projects - Eleven and Walk the Moon (80s band, not the 21st century hitmakers) don't seem to rate entries on this site. Spinnerette was supposed to be an equal partnership with Brody Dalle, but it was her crotch and ass featured on the album cover - weren't nobody buying the album because of Alain.

He doesn't seem to have ever come up in any discussion on this forum, besides Delvin seeming to have played a cut from one of his many, many, many, many projects on his show once or twice. Hell, we've had entire threads dedicated to Gary Tibbs, and he's a recluse compared to Johannes.

How has a guy managed to seemingly be everywhere but never really get there?]]> breno Trouser Press Sat, 06 Jun 2026 14:42:40 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71370,71370#msg-71370 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71370,71370#msg-71370 Nightdrive Trouser Press Wed, 03 Jun 2026 10:11:05 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71367,71367#msg-71367 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71367,71367#msg-71367 She called to tell me that my grandson Dustin called our home, he seemed a bit shook up about something that happened, and wanted to talk to me.
So, I rang him back and this is what he told me. He said he had just purchased some new lug nuts for his wheel rims and had them put on yesterday. All good.
But on the way home today, travelling about 60-65 mph he noticed a tire pass him to his left, he thought to himself, "What the...hey, that tire looks a lot like mine!" The vehicle went down hard on the driver side but never flipped. He's okay. Before I hung up the phone, I told him I love him.
Then I realized, The Minutemen was still playing.]]> STEVE Trouser Press Wed, 10 Jun 2026 19:45:07 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71363,71363#msg-71363 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71363,71363#msg-71363 Bob Geldof - Deep in the Heart of Nowhere
I'm sure I married into this one; I don't remember it ever spending time on the turntable since we got married. The first solo release by the Boomtown Rats singer sounds like much more of a studio creation than anything I've heard by his band. And he gets some serious big-name help in the studio, from Midge Ure, Brian Setzer, Jools Holland, Maria McKee, Eric Clapton, Dave Stewart, Alison Moyet and others. (Of course, with his profile so high in the wake of Live Aid, they probably all wanted to work with Bob.) Whereas the best recordings by The Boomtown Rats still offer a lot of energy and passion, this album by Bob offers a lot of professionalism. Every arrangement and every track seems perfectly manicured. Well, that sort of professionalism enhances some artists more than others; here, it serves in part to make his vocals sound more amateurish by comparison. Nope. Not a keeper.

Nick Gilder - City Nights
I remember picking this up in the used bin, after "Hot Child in the City" had been a popular single. Wikipedia says that Nick got his start in a Canadian glam band called Sweeney Todd, who had a #1 Canadian single with "Roxy Roller." He left (along with guitarist/songwriting partner James McCulloch) after recording one album with the group; his replacement was a teenager named Bryan Adams. Listening to Gilder's high, feminine singing on City Nights -- and keeping in mind that they'd had a chart-topping hit with Gilder on the mic -- it's a little hard for me to grasp why the band chose the decidedly un-feminine Adams to replace him. Of course, they needed a new writer, not just a new singer. And maybe they saw a new direction to take the group, away from the glam sound. But they didn't get very far in that direction, as Adams left after one album too. Anyway! Gilder & McCulloch's songs are full of stories about hot young girls seeking thrills in the big wicked city, all wrapped in tight arrangements that reflect classic early-Seventies glam, down to the high compressed vocal harmonies and, of course, Gilder's own femme voice. This album comes across as sort of a reflection of Get the Knack, which was released a year later (a predictive reflection?) and also produced by Mike Chapman. Whereas Doug Fieger salivated audibly over the sleaze, though, Gilder comes across more as a voyeur, or at least a semi-detached observer (or chronicler). The songs are good, though; the opener "Got to Get Out" is especially tight. Overall, this album is worth hearing, if you have a Sweet tooth.

Go West
Another album I married into. It's very Eighties, oh yeah ... gated drums that sound synthetic (or synth-drums that sound gated, take your pick), keyboard sounds of all shapes and sizes, all polished to a gleam. (I was surprised to learn that the duo involves a vocalist and guitarist. This ain't Soft Cell or Erasure.) But it's all in the service of some genuinely good songs, with cool chord progressions, good melodies and an excellent vocalist up front. I was surprised to learn that this album produced two Top 40 singles in the UK; taken forty years later, on its own terms, I couldn't tell you which songs hit the charts, because the overall quality level is pretty consistent. ("King of Wishful Thinking" came out a few years later.) From start to finish, this album never plumbs the depths of Cutting Crew, and it's never overblown sky-high like Dead or Alive. I like it.

The Gravedigger V - All Black and Hairy
I picked this up from a used bin somewhere ... and when I slid the vinyl and its inner sleeve out of the cover, something else came out with it: a postcard with a Las Vegas postmark, from 1984, written by some folks named Kari and Mark, and addressed to Greg Shaw! So I instantly knew this would have to be a keeper, no matter what I thought of the grooves. Which is okay, considering that the grooves suit me fine. The band captures the wicked garage-rock sound that makes this seem like a lost classic from the Nuggets dimension. In the TP review, Ira says, "If All Black and Hairy were twenty years old, it would now be a collectors’ item." Well, it's forty-plus years old now, and I'd be surprised if anyone who's into music wouldn't regard it that way, with or without the postcard.

Pearl Harbour - Don't Follow Me, I'm Lost Too
My brother got the one-and-done album from Pearl Harbour & the Explosions as a giveaway from our hometown radio station. So I was familiar with the singer when I found her solo album at a used record store. The record gets off to a hot start, with the chugging groove and spooky sound effects of "Alone in the Dark." From there, it goes from strength to strength: the rockabilly of "Fujiyama Mama" and "You're in Trouble Again," the girl-group vocals and sock-hop sax on "Everybody's Boring But My Baby" and "Do Your Homework," the honky-tonk groove of "Cowboys & Indians," And that's not even all of Side One! And flipping it over, this album ain't front-loaded, I tell ya. The mix is a bit cluttered, with the guitars seeming to have to fight for air. But the pure enthusiasm and passion of Pearl and her musical cohorts is palpable throughout. Like the Code Blue album, it's hard for me to believe I let this great record sit on the shelf for so long.]]> Delvin Trouser Press Thu, 04 Jun 2026 11:39:48 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71357,71357#msg-71357 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71357,71357#msg-71357 very good interview with Olivia Rodrigo on the NYT Podcast — she is a witty and clever interviewee and seemed to really enjoy the experience — and realized that while she is a huge pop star at this point, all her cultural and musical influences are basically straight out of Trouser Press guides over the past decades.

Clearly she is unabashed about these influences — she has a song called “The Cure” and had the Breeders open for her on recent touring — but it goes way deeper than that, as she described in the interview. She talked about piano songwriting influenced by Fiona Apple, Tori Amos, and Amanda Palmer in the Dresden Dolls. She’s a huge new wave listener. She namedropped obvious choices like Depeche Mode and New Order, but it’s clear that she has a deep interest and affection for this tradition of alternative music (Talking Heads, DEVO, Bikini Kill). Anyway, I’m generally pro-Olivia Rodrigo, as a casual listener, and this definitely improved my appreciation for her songwriting. She seems to genuinely acknowledge and value the traditions of the lineage in which her own songwriting emerged. Even though she’s a pure pop artist, that shows through in her songs as well as her visual aesthetic.

This got me thinking about the generations of pop stars who identify with and value their antecedent in alternative music, especially women. I think I would struggle to find any male young pop stars who seem to be driven by the legacy of alternative rock and new wave in the way that Rodrigo, Billie Eilish, Lorde, or a few others clearly are.

And in the broader sense, I started thinking about what differentiates a pop artist from someone in the alternative landscape. Obviously, sales and commercial and label backing are a big piece of it, but it’s always a very grey line. If Rodrigo had not grown up in the Disney universe and instead had released music independently and then put out records like Sour or Guts through Merge or Matador it wouldn’t have been that much different. Rougher around the edges for sure, but I suspect the structure of the songs wouldn’t be much different. Of course, there is a machine in which she writes, records, promotes, and tours, and an artist in the alternative universe would never have access to those resources, notwithstanding the lineages. For instance, Taylor Swift repeatedly talks up mall-punk and emo as formative influences in her writing, but she also comes through the country music machinery, and that’s awfully different.

Anyway, no profound thoughts, but I did enjoy hearing a pop artist speak with such obvious pleasure and appreciation for decades of alternative rock.]]> zwirnm Trouser Press Sat, 13 Jun 2026 04:08:39 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71353,71353#msg-71353 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71353,71353#msg-71353 "Connection" - Elastica (by request)
"Countdown to Shutdown" - The Hives (for singer Howlin' Pelle Almqvist's birthday)
"Radio Silence" - Thomas Dolby

"I Shouldn't Have Tried to Leave Without You" - The Speedways
"Ever Fallen in Love?" - Buzzcocks (by request)
"Space Is the Place" - Dolstad
"Pictures of Matchstick Men" - Status Quo (for guitarist Francis Rossi's birthday)

"Love Is Noise" - The Verve (for bassist Simon Jones' birthday)
"Moonshine" - L7
"Heart in Your Heartbreak" - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (by request)
"In My Head" - Heavy Bloom

"Into Your Arms" - The Lemonheads (by request)
"White Light/White Heat" [BBC archive] - David Bowie
"The Shock of the Lightning" - Oasis (for Noel Gallagher's birthday)

"Generate the Ohno" - Y
"Spoilt Victorian Child" - The Fall (for bassist Greg Hanley's birthday)
"She's a River" - Simple Minds (for drummer Mel Gaynor's birthday)

"Dirty Martini" - Joe Jackson
"Breather" - Chapterhouse (by request)
"Maid in Heaven" - Be Bop Deluxe
"You Can't Turn Away" - Crow

"Your Kind of Love" - The Stems
"Think It Over" - The Neighborhoods
"Outside My Door" - Can (for keyboardist Irmin Schmidt's birthday)
"Twenty Flight Rock" - Robert Gordon and Link Wray

"What Difference Does It Make?" - The Smiths (by request)
"Lady Blue Eyes" - Micah & the Mirrors
"Too Many Creeps" - Bush Tetras
"Goodbye, Goodbye" - Oingo Boingo (for Danny Elfman's birthday)]]> Delvin Trouser Press Mon, 01 Jun 2026 10:47:21 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71351,71351#msg-71351 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71351,71351#msg-71351 this show!

Shiho Yabuki-“Autumn Leaves”
Seefeel-“Until Now”
Nesa Azidkhah-“We Don’t Share The Same Dream”
Bill Orcutt & Mabe Fratti-“Todo puede ser error”
Elina Duni & Rob Luft-“Yumeji’s Theme and Sleep Warm & Safe”
Magic Tuber Stringband-“Where The Place Becomes Forgetting”
Benny Bleu-“I’ve Endured”
Marisa Anderson-“Quodlibet”
Ted Lucas-“You’ve Got the Power”
Ed Askew featuring Sharon van Etten-“Gray Air-o-Plane”
Broselmaschine-“The Old Man’s Song”
Jacqueline and Lindsay-“Night Spinner”
Edwin Starr-“Ball of Confusion”
SLIFT-“A Storm Of Wings”
Fauna-“Frusen Mossa”
Gnoomes-“Foreign Agent”
Saint Just-“You Betta”
LinLin-“Blacc”
Tayna-“Vena”
Juana Rozas-“Botones”
Günier Künier-“Kes”
Soft Cou-“Mystical Flirtation”
Charli XCX-“SS26”
Sonny Rollins-“Alfie’s Theme”
Cecil Taylor-“Little Lees (Louise)”]]> steevee Trouser Press Sun, 31 May 2026 16:51:38 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71346,71346#msg-71346 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71346,71346#msg-71346
He's touring with the same band he's had since the Fast Forward Tour in 2016: Teddy Kumpel on guitar (dressed to kill in a purple double-breasted suit, dark turquoise fedora and bright orange shirt), Doug Yowell on drums (who dressed tastefully in a red brocade vest over a white shirt) and the one & only Graham Maby on bass (who, to be honest, looked rather slovenly by comparison). A fifth musician, Felipe Fournier, is on board this tour to play percussion and vibraphone. They played five songs from Hope and Fury, along with a few other selections from JJ's post-Eighties releases. They also threw in a Bowie cover during the encore. The rest of the set -- nine out of eighteen songs -- were taken from his more famous recordings.

The concert setting brought a lot of energy to the newer songs (which, honestly, sound a bit "closed-in" to my ears, in their studio versions). Not surprisingly, the bulk of the time he spent talking to the crowd, introducing the songs, was devoted to his later songs. He gave a rather long discussion about the song "The End of the Pier," framing how its lyrics are set in two separate eras -- first in the years after the first World War, when the music-hall acts would play at venues situated at the end of the pier in seaside towns, and then a century later, with the piers still there but the venues long since replaced with tourist shops and video arcades. Talking about those bygone days, Joe recited a list of music-hall stars, asserting that those were the finest entertainers of their era.

And as an aside, he joked, "I'm sure Max Champion drew quite a crowd too." It was a reference to his previous album, What a Racket! -- a collection of songs that Joe wrote in the music-hall style, alleging them to have been written by the fictitious character Max Champion. That album is kind of a weird twist on the whole "nostalgia act" concept. And the jokey reference got a pretty good laugh from the crowd.

SETLIST:
Is She Really Going Out with Him? (JJ solo)
It's Different for Girls (JJ and Graham)
Welcome to Burning-by-Sea
I'm Not Sorry
Another World
Fool
When You're Not Around
Fabulous People
Sunday Papers
The Face
Strange Land
Be My Number Two
Real Men
End of the Pier
Target

ENCORE:
Scary Monsters and Super Creeps
You Can't Get What You Want
Hometown (JJ solo)

No opening act.]]> Delvin Trouser Press Fri, 29 May 2026 15:13:13 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71345,71345#msg-71345 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71345,71345#msg-71345
This morning, I had a chat with a close friend, someone I've known since college. He's a fan from way back too, but he's given up paying to see Joe onstage in the past dozen years. His reason: he plays too much new stuff, tour after tour, and not enough of the fan favorites.

I told him that I can't blame JJ for wanting to keep writing & recording songs, and for wanting to play those songs when he goes on tour. To me, that's a big part of what's kept him interesting (and interested). It's a big reason why I've kept going to see him when he comes to town: he can be counted on to keep things fresh. If he didn't do that, he'd just be a nostalgia act.

My friend countered: "I understand the desire to make new music. What he has failed to understand, though, is that he IS a nostalgia act. He hasn't had a hit in this century. A lot of bands will play maybe three songs off their new album and then focus on making the crowd happy. He doesn't."

I didn't counter that, because I didn't have time to continue the discussion. But it was clear by then that my friend hasn't enjoyed Joe's later work as much as he still loves Look Sharp!, I'm the Man, Night and Day or Blaze of Glory. No denying that those albums are classics -- at least to Joe's fans -- but hey, I've found plenty to enjoy in his post-Eighties work. He's definitely not in the same league as, say, The B-52's. (I saw them last month, and I'm super-glad I did, but it's impossible to deny that they're treading the nostalgia circuit ... and doing it to increasingly diminishing returns.) And as for "making the crowd happy"? Well, I sure didn't hear anyone complaining about the show, on my way out of the venue or walking through the crowded Seattle sidewalks, or on the light rail heading back north.

Rush is another band that had been around for a long time, doing their best to produce new music that would measure up to their earlier fan favorites. Their best post-Seventies work may not have drawn huge cheers from the audience, and I have heard at least one longtime fan say, "Just for one night, I wish those guys would go totally retro." But their efforts kept them interested, as well as interesting. (And now, with Geddy and Alex going out on tour as Rush, with a new drummer but no new music? NOW they could be called a nostalgia act.)

So, does a band become a nostalgia act when they stop making the effort (or even going through the motions) to produce new music? Or does its audience decide the band's "fate," based on sheer popularity of their new music?]]> Delvin Trouser Press Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:22:31 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71334,71334#msg-71334 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71334,71334#msg-71334
Devo - Now It Can Be Told: DEVO at the Palace 12/9/88
A three-sided live album recorded a few years after their early '80s peak. It opens with a mostly unplugged rendition of "Jocko Homo," recasting it as a folk song. From there, it goes into songs from Devo's prime era, alongside newer songs from their debut Enigma release Total Devo, and a dismal song called "It Doesn't Matter to Me," all played at drastically slower tempos with distinctly un-Devo-esque arrangements. I mean, forget about their lounge-lizard sets as "Dove, the Band of Love," or their E-Z Listening releases; everyone was in on the joke with those. The sluggish arrangements on Now It Can Be Told just come across as poor ideas. And the self-pitying stage patter doesn't help: "It's not easy to be a Devo fan these days ... A lot of people out there think Devo just isn't cool anymore." (When was that not true?) The spuds drop the mawkishness and pick up the tempos on Sides Two and Three, albeit with some irritating touches, like the false ending imparted to "Jerkin' Back 'n' Forth." (Maybe the sour aftertaste of Side One makes me less amenable to such feints.) And there's just no way for them to dress up the weak songs from Total Devo. Side Four has "Attention spuds! No groove! Do not play!" printed on the label, along with etched cartoons (purportedly) by the band members. The cover of my copy has a cut-out notch, so I couldn't have paid very much for it. Maybe it'll be a collector's item for someone else.

Joe Ely - Live Shots
From the juiced-up bar-room piano that opens "Fingernails" to the mournful climax of "Boxcars," this is much more like it for a live disc. The former Flatlander recorded this album with his band while they were opening for The Clash on a UK tour. (Joe, Mick and Topper appear in the gig photos on the inner sleeve.) The performances are consistently energetic and passionate. The audience's applause gets faded out after almost every track, but it sounds like Joe and his band received a warm response. Definitely a keeper.

French, Frith, Kaiser, Thompson - Live, Love, Larf & Loaf
The first collaborative effort between these four musicians has its weak points, mostly the songs fronted by Fred Frith's nearly tuneless voice. But musically, it's always entertaining and energetic. The whole thing has a Captain Beefheart vibe (not a big surprise, thanks to the participation of Magic Band alumnus John "Drumbo" French), which is something I always appreciate. Most of the selections fronted by Thompson's voice, like "Drowned Dog Black Night," Tir-Nan-Darag" and "A Blind Step Away," would've been standouts on his own albums of the time. And the goofy version of "Surfin' USA" is a hoot. Another keeper.

Face to Face
Face to Face - Confrontation
This Boston band's self-titled album came to me as a freebie from our local radio station; their other album has a cut-out notch in the cover, so I assume I got it at a discount. Not to be confused with the punk band of the same name -- this is an AOR-friendly quintet with a female singer named Laurie Sargent. She's not as consistently commanding a vocal presence as Pat Benatar, but she doesn't descend to the levels that Patty Smyth scraped in Scandal. (Sargent also is a fairly capable rapper on "Under the Gun.") And they add a lot of funky touches that make the overall results a notch more interesting than either. (Arthur Baker is listed as producer on two tracks on the debut, and on most of the second album.) The weakest tracks are the ones fronted by guitarist/singer Angelo Petraglia; he's a much less interesting vocalist. In the end, despite Baker's funky influence and Sargent's consistently impassioned performances, the band can't keep the stench of fake-rock from descending over the proceedings. (Just when I was about to say that it's not as consistently bad as Cutting Crew, a smarmy saxophone crops up to make the comparison more inevitable.)

54-40 - Show Me
Thanks to the geographic advantage, music fans here in Washington tend to be much more familiar with a wide range of Canadian artists than the music lovers further south of the 49th parallel. I don't remember ever hearing people in Colorado talk about Sloan, Metric, The Tragically Hip or 54-40 ... whereas those artists are a big deal here. The third album by this Vancouver quartet has a pretty big production, blending varying measures of heartland rock with U2-ish anthem rock. But it doesn't feel overwrought in that "execrable '80s way." (I thought I heard those cliched synthetic horns on one song, until I read the liner notes and realized one of the members does double on trumpet.) And the musicians know how to use dynamics, which is more than Cutting Crew or Face to Face can say. Yeah, my Washington friends know what they're talking about. Keeper.]]> Delvin Trouser Press Fri, 29 May 2026 08:44:16 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71333,71333#msg-71333 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71333,71333#msg-71333 Tougher Than Tough: The Story Of Jamaican Music box set which he compiled and wrote the liner notes for - he even supervised the mastering, in some cases providing rare records in his own collection as the mastering sources.]]> belfast Trouser Press Thu, 28 May 2026 14:22:24 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71330,71330#msg-71330 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71330,71330#msg-71330
Power To The People Festival: Bruce Springsteen, Foo Fighters, Dave Matthews, Tom Morello, Joan Baez, Jack Black, Dropkick Murphys, Cypress Hill, Killer Mike, Serj Tankian, Brittany Howard, The Linda Lindas, grandson, The Neighborhood Kids

I get the clear sense it won't be a "Springsteen show," but more of a Springsteen guesting with Tom etc. kinda show.]]> zwirnm Trouser Press Thu, 28 May 2026 10:50:58 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71323,71323#msg-71323 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71323,71323#msg-71323
Nor is the fact that Taylor Dayne is on the bill. Sure, her place in the musical food chain never amounted to much more than being a low-calorie Madonna substitute and her career for the last 35 years or so has mostly been filling the Nostalgia stage at Pridefests nationwide, but she doesn't feel out of place on a pseudo-Roxette 40th anniversary tour.

But the third artist announced to be on the tour is...Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets???

How the heck did that come to be? Is it based on Roxette being named after a Dr. Feelgood song, giving them the most tangential connection possible to the pub rock scene that spawned Nick? That's the only possible explanation I can come up with, that apparent pub rock fan Per Gessle specifically invited pub rock's greatest living icon along for the ride. Otherwise, a lineup consisting of Roxette, Taylor Dayne and Nick Lowe is entirely inexplicable.]]> breno Trouser Press Thu, 28 May 2026 21:11:07 -0500 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71320,71320#msg-71320 https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,71320,71320#msg-71320
[stereogum.com]]]> zwirnm Trouser Press Fri, 29 May 2026 23:26:05 -0500