Dear Jonnie,

I have listened to your new album many-many times, but I can’t write about it too much words, just this: perfect. (Dear reader, please click the play button below, and listen to fine Scotch electro-pop music. Owing to its mood I call it Trip Pop.) Recently I edited a playlist from new releases, and wanted to play one of your new songs, which can arouse the listeners’ curiosity. The task was no easy one, however this is a good album. (BBC6 also played songs from it.) And there are lots of added useful thing. Birnam Wood, the Hangman’s Tree and the little sculptures of characters of Beatrix Potter’s animal tales have come to my knowledge. And I have decided to read my first Shakespeare. Thanks indirectly to your new album. But I can’t enthuse over it. But there is your first album Master of None, happy happy joy joy.

Cheers,

szabo

ps: There’s an interlude, a woman leaves a message on your answering machine. She talks about a hedgehog, starts in English after switchs over to German and finally to Dutch – at least for my ears. I don’t understand. What’s the matter with that hedgehog?

Jonnie Common – Trapped in Amber, album on Song, By Toad Records (Scotland)

Jonathan Kingsley Seilman, musician, arranger and producer from Nantes, known for his previous project, This Melodramatic Sauna, and its collaborations with The Patriotic Sunday, Birds Are Alive, and Sieur & Dame, etc. His brand new band is Le Feu, a collaboration with My Name Is Nobody, Binidu and Fordamage members. The most simple phrase is: indie pop, but French, because I like it better

Is This Love?

from the album Playgrounds and Battlefields

There’s an American experimental-rock duo Ahleuchastistas, which named himself from a Charlie Parker song, and a Swiss musician Antoine Lang, who works with human voice and electronic devices. They together are the Blind Thorns. Heavy listening

self-titled album on Cheap Satanism (Belgium), Tandori (France), Offset (Italy) and New Atlantis Records (US)

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Pastilla, Mexican guitar pop from Los Angeles

„Sentidos Saturados” cassette EP on Burger (US)

SLUMBERLAND RECORDS (US)

Joanna Gruesome and Perfect Pussy release split single. Each band does one original song and one cover, and the single comes with a 24-page comic by Phil McAndrew. Listen to Joanna Gruesome’s Psykick Espionage. Order.

Allo Darlin’ release third LP. „We Come From The Same Place” is made up of smart, beautiful pop music, with lyrics that resonate with experience and melodies that chime, echo and soar. Have a listen to three songs from the album. Order. Also on Fortuna POP.

The Mantles new single. The Bay Area’s garage-pop greats The Mantles are back with a tweaked line-up featuring the swirling keyboards of Carly Putnam and the rock-solid bass of Matt Bullimore. „Memory” is an upbeat song that recalls some of the finest of the Paisley Underground bands.Listen to Memory. Order. Euro tour now.

The June Brides return with new EP. English pop legends The June Brides are back with their second single since re-forming back in 2011. The June Brides are true indie innovators, whose classic 80s records influenced everyone from The Smith/Morrissey to The Wedding Present and Belle & Sebastian. Smart, punk-influenced pop is the order of the day, bristling with jangly guitars, marvelous melodies and top-notch song-writing. Listen to Being There. Order.

Terry Malts have been exploring the murky area where hope meets disgust, an area populated with anger, hatred, exhaustion, delusion, seclusion, consumption, life, death, breathing, eating and a host of other conflicting and confusing ideas. Their records to date have a been a refreshing blast of catchy punk, pop-influenced but also chaotic, noisy, shredding. The Insides EP might be their most „pop” record yet, but don’t let that make you believe that they’ve given up on the blazing, verge-of-feedback guitars or pummeling rhythms. Listen to Let You In. Order.

The Aislers Set reissue their back catalog. Slumberland Records and Suicide Squeeze Records re-release all three albums from seminal indie-pop band The Aislers Set. The albums have been re-mastered. The band’s third album, „How I Learned To Write Backwards,” is available from Suicide Squeeze. Listen to songs from all three albums. Order.

SLOVENLY RECORDS (US)

GINO & THE GOONS – SHAKE IT (LP)
Gino and the Goons are the most unlikely band to have gotten any attention in the current shitpool of rock’n’roll posecrap. This is the album you wanted to be budget rock. This is the album you wanted to be dumb as fuck. This is the album that fails on both levels. This is the album that proves that Ramones worship doesn’t have to be predictable or generic. This is the album that proves that rock’N’roll doesn’t have a fashion, and that musical style rules supreme. PLAY LOUD cuz, cause you’re not likely to get this action for many years to come. R.I.P. Joey, Dee Dee, Johnny and Tommy! Preview on Bandcamp and order

SICK THOUGHTS – Fat Kid (10″ EP)
Have you ever been to Hanover, PA? I’ve spent time there, and It’s WEIRD. Hanover is lousy with mongoloids /Juggalos and slack jawed farm people. Drew Owen, otherwise known as SICK THOUGHTS, was born there, and through the benevolent seer abilities of his dad was fortunate enough to escape to Baltimore, MD, currently ranked in the top 30 most dangerous cities in the USA. 17 years old Drew Owen has vinyl releases on labels from Italy (Goodbye Boozy), Sweden (Ken Rock), Zaxxon (Canada), and a few American imprints, including an upcoming single on Goner Records. Sick Thoughts channels GG and the Jabbers and Japanese noise with heavy negatory spirit on each track – a sonically screwed and
puberty drenched hatful of hateful punk rock sputum. Preview on Bandcamp and order

OVERGROUND RECORDS (UK)

The debut album from Steve Ignorant‘s new project Slice of Life, it’s very different from what you’d associate him with, but it’s a mighty fine album.
On the way home from the Australian & New Zealand Last Supper Tour in 2011; Carol, Pete and Steve Ignorant found themselves stranded due to the Chile ash cloud. During the long night gazing at the lights of Sydney reflecting on life while drinking beers, Slice Of Life was born. A far cry from the aggression of Crass maybe, with the songs in an acoustic setting of: piano, acoustic guitar and upright bass, Impossible to categorise, Slice Of Life’s first album is up-front and soul-baringly personal. It’s a mixture of songs and spoken word. Order

SINDERLYN RELEASES (US)

GIRL TEARS – TENSION (LP/CD/Cass). True to the spirit of punk, LA trio Girl Tears breathe life back into the genre of the one-minute song. Armed with a voice after David Johansen’s own heart, Kam Andresen’s vocals harmonize seamlessly with razor-sharp riffs on signature blink-and-you’ll-miss-it length tracks. Listen Here   Order

HOMESHAKE is the solo project of Montreal-based Peter Sagar. Having previously recorded with Mac DeMarco, Sagar debuts with In the Shower. The special edition of this soothing album, with its smooth bass and groovy, jazz undertones, is pressed on blue vinyl and includes alternate silk-screened cover. Listen Here  Order

ANTIQUATED FUTURE RECORDS (US)

Tucker Theodore – „Kill and Dress” LP – Demons being exorcised and caught on tape. Pop melodies covered with layers of grit. Bedroom classic rock, experimental folk, tape machine noise. An Inanambulance Recordings/Antiquated Future Records split release. Listen.  Order

The Felines, Danish girl trio, twangy, little noisy, punky, doo-wop indie guitar pop

„Want” LP on Soundflat (Germany), cassette on Burger Records (US)

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One from our saint rock’n’roll madman: Timmy Vulgar from Human Eye. Now with his Organism. Like some Butthole Surfers

Timmy’s Organism – „Singles & Unreleased Tracks” 2xLP on Hozac Records (US)

Joanna Gruesome is among the best indie rock band. The Welsh group combines garage punk with indie pop in a very unique style. There will be released two split records soon. And in both case Joanna Gruesome is the much better. Maybe there are some tactics on one side. The first split is a 12″ EP with lo-fi indie pop band Trust Fund from Bristol

vinyl & digital on Reeks of Effort (UK) and vinyl on  HHBTM Records (US)

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I very like Total Punk Records, not just for their releases, but also for their name. Because it’s absolutely enough to write that Golden Pelicans‘ debut album by Total Punk, and everything is clear

lo-fi, minimal, but real bed- & bathroom pop with 3 eggs
by Tomorrows Tulips

„Baby” & „Glued to You” from the album „When”

Strange Yonder (AUS, Sept 22) – Ayo Silver (EU, Sept 27) – Burger Recs (US, Oct 7)

They have written that their new album shows the band’s evolution through a blend of pop sensibilities with post punk and noise rock. OK, but every music after punk is post punk. And compared to this, every rock is noise.

Euro tour in Oct

Susan from LA. Indie guitar pop with garage rock taste. Quite like a band from the better ones on Slumberland Records. Sometimes so good like the Breeders. Drummer from Texan garage rock band Cowabunga Babes, and its garage punk side project The Vomettes.

Debut 7″ on Volar Records (US)

+ cassette with 2 more songs on Burger Records (US)

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The Canadian quartet New Swears play Black Lips-like garage rock’n’roll while they name the infamous, hyper dirty ultra sexual rap gang, 2 Live Crew as influence. I think no need to say more:

„Junkfood Forever, Bedtime Whatever” LP on Bachelor Records (Austria)

They’re on Euro Tour Now!

Abridged version of John Schooley’s legend

„Details of the early life of John Schooley are sketchy. Various sources place his birth either in Columbus, Ohio or Vancouver, British Columbia. We do know that his family moved to the rural enclave of Niangua, Missouri when he was still quite young. His parents were sharecroppers, barely scratching out a living from the rocky soil of the Ozark Mountains. The youngest of eight or possibly nine siblings, John Schooley did not take to farming, or, apparently, work of any kind. He could be found, often as not, shirking his chores to hunch over his guitar. He would stomp his foot on a board or on the front porch, frequently scaring the cows.  The family Victrola was stocked with any 78″s that could be found, mostly by Jimmie Rodgers, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Doctor Ross, and Don Van Vliet. Most evenings the family tuned to radio station KWTO out of Springfield, to hear the “Carter Sisters and Mother Maybelle with Chet Atkins and his Famous Guitar” perform as part of the syndicated “RadiOzark” network.

School was never to his liking and Schooley quit after graduating the fifth grade. Chafing at the dreary small town life of Niangua, Schooley left never to return. He rambled north to Columbia, Missouri. First trying to put together a hot-jazz combo along the lines of the then-popular Django Reinhart, but he was unable to find suitable musicians. Then, billing himself as “John Schooley and His One Man Band”, he rigged up a kick drum and hi-hat and began performing at “house frolics” and on the sidewalk in front of local record store Whizz Records. He met with minimal success. He was frequently chased away by the proprietor with a broom shortly after setting up. Being unwilling (or perhaps unable) to learn pop hits of the day, Schooley tried to force his listeners to dance to his own frequently atonal blend of blues and country, again with minimal success.

The musical scene in Columbia was so stagnant that when it was announced that bluegrass stars The Oblivians were coming to town, Schooley was able to secure the opening slot even though he had no band together at the time.” He founded the guitar, drum, and vocal trio The Revelators. Surprising success. „When the record, titled “We Told You Not To Cross Us” was released it caused a sensation in at least three Missouri counties and parts of Arkansas and Illinois. The Revelators were immediately rushed off to a whirlwind tour of Europe, which included performances for the as-yet not-dead Princess Diana and Archduke Ferdinand.”

After the break-up he went to Texas „and took whatever work he could find, from oil roughneck to hotel elevator operator. He eventually started another musical combo, the Hard Feelings” while he continued performing as one man band. He added harmonica, snare drum, and washboard to his kick and hi-hat apparatus and recorded some songs.  „Voodoo Rhythm recently uncovered the tapes of these songs, long presumed lost, in an oil drum outside of Lockhart, Texas.” Album preview

„The Man Who Rode The Mule Around The World” LP, CD
on Voodoo Rhythm Records (CH)

Euro tour with Urban Junior in Sept-Oct.

A missing moment of his legend: toured as an additional guitar player for the blues legend R.L. Burnside.

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The Family Fodder is among the funniest British bands ever. Since the mid-70s they have been playing really indie pop music, but literally! It’s independent from everything. So the best. Now here is a vinyl-only collection of 11 love songs, that have never before been released on vinyl. Alig Fodder says about it: „We collected all the love songs together without all the annoying instrumentals, dubs and solos.”

„Just Love Songs” LP on Staubgold Records (France)

You can find some music videos in reference to this album on their site.

12th item of the series

Tim Presley (= White Fence) sings a very Velvet Underground-like song about Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (37-68) who was the emperor of Roman Empire as Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (54-68) and committed suicide with the aid of his secretary. The imperator’s bust is on the cover. In accordance with order of the series the A-side artist suggests a band to the B-side. Presley picked the tour guitarist of White Fence, Jack Name (aka Muzz, Fictional Boys and John Webster Johns).

100% of the digital proceeds going to VH1 Save the Music program.

It will be released on 2 Sept > pre-order   /  the recently released White Fence album

PC Worship is a Brooklyn base band. The main figure is Justin Frye who played with psychedelic rock group Guardian Alien and punk band Gary War. No wave noise punk chaos and cacaphony by a bunch of musician. It’s like a mix of Butthole Surfers, Lydia Lunch and Foetus (aka Clint Ruin).

„Social Rust” LP, CD, digital  on Northern Spy Records

+ free „Dead Rust” cassette with pre-order!

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Easy Philly guitar pop with some 80s feeling  on Slumberland sure.

Literature – „Chorus” LP, CD, digital