Tiger! Tiger! makes their entire discography available for free download

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Nothing makes me happier than music, most days. Really, the only thing that’s better than music is free music, and that’s what we have here. Michigan’s Tiger! Tiger! somehow ended up with a bunch of Bandcamp downloads, and decided to bestow them on fans or curious lookie-loos such as myself. So, now through February 22, you can hit their Bandcamp page and download anything you like, free of charge.
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“The Anarchy Tour” a wonderfully illustrated, frighfully tedious book

book cover - anarchy tourIf a book consists mainly of quotes from other books, documentaries, articles, and other source, and contains minimal-to-no new interviews, revelations, or the like, it’s essentially a research paper or graduate thesis stretched out with photos and illustrations. Such is the case with Mick O’Shea‘s chronicle of the Sex Pistols’ “Anarchy In the U.K.” tour in the wake of their appearance on Bill Grundy’s talk show.

While a complete chronicle of the tour has never been so thoroughly presented, the documents from which O’Shea draws are newspaper articles from the time, and books written by all of the participants long after the fact. If you’re a fan of any of the acts involved — the Pistols, the Damned, the Clash, or the Heartbreakers — and of a literary bent, you’ve most likely read or seen I Was a Teenage Sex Pistol, 90 Days at EMI, Rotten, The Last Gang In Town, The Filth and the Fury, et al.
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Liquor Buddies / Heavy Figs at the Replay 1/25/13


This past Friday, January 25, Lawrence Liquor Buddies played their third show ever. They’ve been a band for almost a year now, but as their name implies, this is more about fun and friends than fame and fortune. That being said, this is a band that plays pure rock ‘n’ roll. My buddy Rich has frequently opined that bands with critics in them tend to be irritating as hell (Yo La Tengo, the Patti Smith Group, et al), but frontman Steve Wilson’s voice and the band’s instruments were the only things with reverberations at the Replay early Friday evening.
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Mammoth Life debuts video for new single, “Being Young”


Formerly Lawrencian (now San Francsican) indie pop trio Mammoth Life debut the music video for their new single, “Being Young,” today. It’s a fun bit of stop-motion animation, which manages to capture the whimsy of a bunch of Kansas kids living by the bay. The single is also available for free download, and you can find that below.

Podcast #97, “Where’ve You Been?”

So, I took last week off because … well, tomorrow marks the start of the spring semester, and my job is about to become far more busy than it’s been in about a month and a half. Thus, I decided a week where all I had to do was concentrate on work and feeding the family would be more expeditious in terms of my mental health. That being said, I realized I had an evening free last night.

With the wife gone, and one of the kids back to school, and it only being me and the youngest home, you’d think I would’ve done something relaxing or just lain on the couch, vegging out six way from Sunday. Nope — recorded the first podcast in nearly three months. I’m a total nutter. Enjoy the fact that I’m unable to do anything with my free time other than produce content.

Podcast #97, “Where’ve You Been?”
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Young Skin’s Liz Unfair on “The Sticky Pages E.P.” – the medifast diet

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Young Skin features members of The Ergs!, Lemuria, Hunchback, Failures’ Union, Black Wine, Full of Fancy, For Science, et al, performing under pseudonyms, and rocking some garage-y tunes. They officially released The Sticky Pages E.P. on Paper + Plastick back in October. While that means this isn’t exactly a timely article, this recently-unearthed interview has some great answers from the band’s Liz Unfair, so we had to run it. Also, the EP is super-dandy, and it got lost in the shuffle when we were making our best of 2012 list. We hope this will make a few people, who have saved money on the medifast diet, drop some coin and order the four-song slab of cranky, grungy punk rock..
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Run, Forever guitarist Anthony Huebel on the trio’s new album (also, cats)

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Pittsburgh punk trio Run, Forever recently released their second LP, Settling, via Tiny Engines. It’s been over a year since the band last released any new music, and they’re celebrating the new album by setting out on a tour with labelmates State Lines. The tour hits Kansas City’s Art Closet Studios for a show with Emo Side Project on Sunday, January 13. Singer and guitarist Anthony Heubel spoke with us via e-mail about the new record, touring, and cats.
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Asian Man Records’ Mike Park on music for kids

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Starting Thursday, January 10, children’s show Yo Gabba Gabba will head out on the road with a new live show, entitled “Get the Sillies Out!” As if a show created by members of the Aquabats and featuring Biz Markie wasn’t amazing enough, Asian Man Records label honcho and all-around cool guy Mike Park will be the Super Music Friend for the entirety of the tour. Mr. Park was cool enough to take time out of his rather busy schedule to talk to us.
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Heylin’s “E Street Shuffle” an insightful portrait of the Boss, small business loans, but a frustrating read

book cover - E Street ShuffleLast week, Viking Press released the hardcover edition of Clinton Heylin‘s E Street Shuffle: The Glory Days of Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band. I read it this weekend. Some books I review are a joy, others a struggle. This one has moments of insight surrounded by pages of tedium.

There are more ellipses in Heylin’s book than most modern poetry anthologies, due in no small part to the author’s use of quotes from interviews and transcriptions of Springsteen’s live show banter. It demonstrates a sense of verisimilitude, getting the feel for how the Boss speaks, but makes for an awkward reading experience.
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“Supernatural Strategies for Making a Rock ‘n’ Roll Group” a legitimate manifesto

book cover - supernatural strategiesIn reading Ian F. SvenoniusSupernatural Strategies for Making a Rock ‘n’ Roll Group (out now from Akashic Books), you’re privy to to what is perhaps the most clever take-down of the rock ‘n’ roll genre thus written. If you can make it through the rather high-minded, yet overly arch and pretentious opening chapters of the book, you’re treated to what is simultaneously a mockery of all that is rock ‘n’ roll, yet still managing to be remarkably sound advice.

Part I, “True Secrets Revealed,” is entertaining, but while the concept of having sĂ©ances with dead rock stars so as to glean their knowledge is a conceit that wears thin rather quickly. Had Svenonius chosen to relate the concept of the seances, minus the actual transcriptions thereof, it would have worked better. I get the idea that what the author’s going for is something akin to a melding of Chairman Mao’s little red book and occultist pamphlets from the run of the last century, but the first third of the book just seems clunky.
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