Embrace: Embrace (1987)

It’s been a long trip since first hearing Minor Threat in the back of a station wagon on the way to school in 1990. That blast of righteous fury was my intro to the DC hardcore scene, my intro to Discord Records, and my intro to the great Ian MacKaye. Since then it’s been a long and wonderful road of discovery; not only through the man’s discography, but through the incredible music the label has been steadily putting out since the early 80s. So today let’s briefly talk about the connective tissue between the early rage of Minor Threat and the more propulsive, moody rush of Fugazi – the self-titled and sole record from Embrace.

ChrisJanuary 28, 20212 Comments

Stormkeep: Galdrum (2020)

Even though my drive for metal – particularly new metal – has been on a significant wane, an ember still burns. It’s become more selective, and when I hear something that registers it can still pull me into that space where I am transported. Black metal has always held place for me; after all, it was the musical language that I used as the foundation of what would grow into whatever Necrolytic Goat Converter is. Over the years I’ve become more picky as to what I listen to within the genre, and it’s heartening to hear a band like Stormkeep keeping the old school flame alive without actually…you know, burning churches or spewing hate. I missed the boat on grabbing their debut Galdrum on vinyl but nabbed a CD because hey: support the bands you love, right?

ChrisJanuary 23, 2021January 23, 2021Leave a comment

Vinyl

Cleveland Eaton: Plenty Good Eaton (1975)

I wasn’t familiar with Cleveland Eaton before seeing this reissue from Real Gone Music when I was looking at grabbing the Kool and the Gang vinyl I discussed a few weeks ago. But the description – a blend of Ramsey Lewis’s soul funk and the swing of Count Basie filtered through the fusion that was riding high in the mid 70s – caught me. The fact that Plenty Good Eaton not only was a fun play on words but was originally on the Black Jazz label was another vote of confidence for a blind buy, so I took the dive…I’m here to report I am now the happier for it.

ChrisJanuary 21, 2021January 19, 2021Leave a comment

Miscellany, Vinyl

Iggy and the Stooges: Raw Power (1973)

Let’s be fair: there’s probably very little I can contribute to the enormity of writing on the righteous rock god status of that street-walking’ cheetah Iggy Pop and the incendiary power of The Stooges. The man and the band are untouchable in the annals of rock, stone cold classic purveyors of the form and I’m not going to dispute that. So instead I want to talk about how Raw Power, that nuclear A-bomb of ripping rock helped me to understand thats much of an album’s power comes from how you listen, as much as what is on it. So let’s get into the Bowie vs. Iggy mix…

ChrisJanuary 19, 2021January 19, 2021Leave a comment

Vinyl

Kool and the Gang: Kool and the Gang (1970)

If we’re re-booting this blog for 2021, I thought I’d start with some of my most recent vinyl acquisitions. I can’t pinpoint when I precisely fell in love with soul and funk music; I’d been exposed to it on the radio in the 70s, but rock and metal took over, and it wasn’t until high school and late nights driving around town with Parliament’s Up For the Down Stroke blasting out the windows (that’s how my friends rolled in upstate New York circa 1990) and obsessing over the wriggle of Isaac Hayes’s Shaft score that I started to identify something that spoke to my DNA. Fast-forward about 30 years and when I got the note that Real Gone Music was reissuing Kool and the Gang’s debut self titled album on yellow vinyl I was all in.

ChrisJanuary 6, 2021January 6, 20211 Comment

Miscellany

How I Consumed Media in The Year of Our Lord (COVID) 2020

Man, it’s been a year, huh? I know I haven’t posted since the end of 2019, but I’ve been writing and keeping busy. I still throw in the occasional review or massive three-part, 10,000 word end-of-year wrap-up for metal, and I’ve also been writing and recording a monthly podcast for my friend Jon’s film blog Cinema Dual. But if I’m being honest, it’s been getting harder and harder to focus when life, the universe, and everything turns into a dumpster fire of global pandemics, racial injustice, and a government that seems hellbent on tearing down the entire country for its own selfish gains.

Makes it hard to write about the latest Ben Folds Five album, you know?

Continue reading “How I Consumed Media in The Year of Our Lord (COVID) 2020”

ChrisJanuary 4, 2021Leave a comment

Consuming the Tangible

We are what we consume

Month: January 2021