Curtis Mayfield: Curtis/Live! (1971)

I struggled to think of what the first live album I wanted to cover this week. What album gets across the thing I want to get out of a live release? I’ve never been one for perfect sonic replication: I can listen to the studio albums for that. I want to be inside the recording; I want to feel like I’m there – in the crowd, in the club. And it hit me: the first live release I bought when I re-kicked off my vinyl collection was Curtis/Live! the intimate, smoke and booze soaked live document from the man himself, Curtis Mayfield soon after leaving The Impressions and starting his solo career. Despite its lukewarm reception at the time (Rolling Stone continuing to prove itself the pulse of nothing), I’ve come to think of it as one of the best live albums ever, and potentially my favorite album from Mayfield.

ChrisMarch 31, 2025March 31, 20251 Comment

Playlists

(Un)Focused Definition Ep. 43: This One Went to 11…

Work is a disaster, the world gets even more impossibly (except the reality shows it is in fact entirely possible) insane, and I just can’t keep up. I’m working on the theme for April (it’s gonna be live music all month), prepping for a vacation and for more work insanity as the first quarter ends and the second one begins. It’s like the universe knew I needed heavy music to pound my brain, so this week’s playlist is – almost – all new and heavy music. Dig into the metal below:

ChrisMarch 29, 2025March 29, 2025Leave a comment

Vinyl

Accept: Balls To The Wall (1983)

I wasn’t planning on writing today. I had made a decision to cut back a bit due to work and general world-in-flames anxiety. But then it was 5:30am, the third time I had gotten up in the night, and I knew I wasn’t falling back asleep. I thought about what album to listen to there it was: a butch, hairy thigh. A gnarled, vein-popped hand holding a ball. Udo called, and I replied. And so despite only coming around to Accept in my 40s, Balls To The Wall became a fast, fun pleasure in a way it never did when I heard then band and that song as a kid.

ChrisMarch 28, 2025March 27, 2025Leave a comment

Dead Brain Cells: Universe (1989)

Sometimes you hear something – usually at a certain age – and it becomes the cornerstone of how you define something. Whenever I thought about my favorite kind of metal music, I always thought musically of Universe, the sophomore and final album by Canadian technical thrash band Dead Brain Cells, more commonly referred to as DBC. It was that aggressive, intricate and twisted guitar work that recalled a more diabolical Fates Warning, and even if my brain wasn’t focused on a particular song, it was focused on the overall vibe, the execution. This, my brain would say to no one in particular, was how I conceived of metal.

ChrisMarch 27, 2025March 27, 20251 Comment

W.A.S.P.: The Headless Children (1989)

80s metal week continues with The Headless Children, the first album from W.A.S.P. to actually make me consider them as more than a 80s metal shock-rock hybrid of KISS and Alice Cooper. I got the provocation and tongue-in-cheek of songs like “Animal (F— Like A Beast)” and the saw blade gauntlets Blackie Lawless adorned on the cover of The Last Command. But the music didn’t grab me at all until the theatrics were put aside (or at least toned down) to make way for Lawless’s songwriting and real inspiration. You want to think this band was in the band for the aforementioned artists, but if anything The Headless Children takes its cue and bows before the feet of prime, classic The Who.

ChrisMarch 26, 2025March 25, 2025Leave a comment

Cassette

Satan: Suspended Sentence (1987)

Everything about Suspended Sentence, the sophomore album from the UK NWOBHM pioneers Satan is a little rougher than their stellar debut four years earlier. The artwork feels a little rushed, the logo almost an afterthought. The production sounds muted, compressed and thin in sections, maybe overcompensating for songs that didn’t quite catch the fire Court In The Act did. And perhaps the most glaring change if you’re a fan: Brian Ross is missing on vocals, replaced for this one album by Michael Jackson (not “that” Michael Jackson) of Pariah. It overall makes for a more rough and tumble album, but though it doesn’t come up for listens that often, I still find moments of excitement in the way Satan build out their riffs and songs, so to kick off 80s metal week and close out March 2025 let’s dig in and see what’s behind the bones.

ChrisMarch 25, 2025March 25, 2025Leave a comment

Consuming the Tangible

We are what we consume

Month: March 2025