I’m proud to say I brought RiFF RAFF’s music to public radio — via NPR affiliate station KPCC. Oh, and How to Dress Well’s latest too. Check out this 2014 Take Two “Tuesday Reviewsday” heater.
Category: Music Review
Take Two: Parquet Courts and Fucked Up
This week, the radio-unfriendly Fucked Up’s Glass Boys, and Parquet Courts’ Sunbathing Animal.
Take Two: Swans and Walter Martin
In which I bring the glorious din of Swans to KPCC’s unsuspecting listeners. Walt Martin too.
Take Two: Broken Bells and Marissa Nadler
The first Take Two session of 2014, and I might actually dig Shirley Halperin’s picks a lil better than my own. She’s got Uncle Tupelo and Band of Horses. Me? Broken Bells and Marissa Nadler.
Old Stuff Starts Here…
This site was relaunched in November of 2015, but the blog’s been around since April of 2009. It’s been through many changes, so what lies beyond is almost certainly not formatted properly and often (yuck) written in third person. It’s also incomplete. I’m still filling in my two-plus years as a SPIN staffer, and moving even older posts over to this site. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Review: Nude Beach’s ‘II’ – Angry Young Men Navel-Gaze from the American Heartland
The headline kinda says it all, but if you’d like to read an 803-word version of it, may we suggest the full-length SPIN review of the new album II by the new band Nude Beach? You can read that yon, and an excerpt right here:
Brooklyn doesn’t always breed bands like Nude Beach — bands without DJ nights or vintage synth gear or famous friends or food blogs. But though this power trio(!) calls the big borough home, BK didn’t breed them. No, Chuck, Ryan, and Jimmy are Long Island boys, children of a village called Northport, the kind of place that only winds up on the news when enough of its manhole covers are jacked for scrap to make it a national concern. And the kind of place that held onto its Reagan-era heartland rock well into the Clinton age. Which is to say, through the formative years of Misters Betz, Naideau, and Shelto, respectively. The three played Rancid-inspired punk together as teens, but after recording a fun but messy self-titled tape in 2008, they’ve returned with II, an album that excises the oi! in favor of those other influences, of songs with easy-rolling guitar solos and keywords like “baby,” “radio,” and “dreams.”
140 or Less: TNGHT, Shawn Lee, thenewno2, and Ice Choir are Reviewed! (via Twitter, via SPIN)
We’ve joined SPIN’s Twitter reviews team. Watch us completely dismiss or irresponsibly champion an album in 140 characters or less! In all (well, some) seriousness, we’re pretty sure there’s an art to this–like a haiku for assholes who like the sound of their own quickly jotted words ricocheting off of the intensely labored-over musical works of our time. Anyway, check these out:
- TNGHT, TNGHT EP [honestly, 9/10]
- Shawn Lee, Synthesizers in Space
- thenewno2, thefearofmissingout
- Ice Choir, Afar [tPoBPaT spinoff]
Review: The Hives Kick Us in Our Chilljuevos
This one’s been out for a minute, but we never got around to sharing our SPIN review of Lex Hives. There’s an excerpt (below). And here’s the rest of it.
A fresh album [is just] 12 excuses to get the band back out on the road so they can deliver what live guitar music needs in the Chillwave Era: a hearty kick to the mid-pelvis, to that spot where balls go when they’re not being used.
140 or Less: A Ton of Twitter Reviews for SPIN, pt. 2
We’ve joined SPIN’s Twitter reviews team. Watch us completely dismiss or irresponsibly champion an album in 140 characters or less! In all (well, some) seriousness, we’re pretty sure there’s an art to this–like a haiku for assholes who like the sound of their own quickly jotted words ricocheting off of the intensely labored-over musical works of our time. Anyway, we’re behind on updates, so here’s a boat-load for your brief enjoyment, via the SPIN site. (See part one.)
- Drop The Lime, Enter the Night
- UMA, Drop Your Soul EP
- Bonde Do Role, Tropical/Bacanal
- Portable Sunsets, Mercy
- The Shrine, Primitive Blast
- Hot Panda, Go Outside
- JJAMZ, Suicide Pact
- Slug Guts, Playin’ in Time with the Deadbeat
- MoZella, The Brian Holland Sessions
- Grasscut, Unearth
140 or Less: A Ton of Twitter Reviews for SPIN, pt. 1
We’ve joined SPIN’s Twitter reviews team. Watch us completely dismiss or irresponsibly champion an album in 140 characters or less! In all (well, some) seriousness, we’re pretty sure there’s an art to this–like a haiku for assholes who like the sound of their own quickly jotted words ricocheting off of the intensely labored-over musical works of our time. Anyway, we’re behind on updates, so here’s a fuck-shit stack for your brief enjoyment (via the SPIN site).
- Phon.o, Black Boulder
- Sonnymoon, Sonnymoon
- Riverboat Gamblers, The Wolf You Feed
- Public Image Ltd, This is PiL
- Crocodiles, Endless Flowers
- Bobby Brown, The Masterpiece
- POP ETC, POP ETC
- Jaill, Traps
- 2:54, 2:54
- Lorn, Ask the Dust







