Andrew Earles

Thoughts and heart go out to Jay’s family in this unfortunate time. In case I’m unable to deliver it in person, a special gesture goes out to my long-time Memphis/former-Memphis friends who might be suffering a close and personal devastation behind this tragic situation…E. Friedl, A. Trout, Z. Ives,  L. Shutt, Tommy, Justice, A. Brown, G. Cartwright, Bennett, S. Burdett, Chuck V. and there are more…exclusions are purely accidental….

A lack of funds? Somebody pony up.

…and so does the head dawg in Sunn O)))???

Jeff Tweedy? Makes sense…

Well, this answers one question I’ve had since the relapse of Winter ’08. I was going to trade this guy my sealed Gumball covers EP for my favorite Lips album, but someone else traded him money…

So spaketh the afro’d, Army surplus field coat-donning ringleader of mysterious ethnicity. The reassuring words from a consummate expert to one of his minions – a frumpasaurus built like a fire hydrant in a t-shirt depicting a fourteen-point set of antlers without any member of the deer family to call home – loudly proclaimed so the rest of his flock could hear without misinterpreting the downloaded, easily-packaged, spoonfed taste-landscape always cocked and loaded and ready to fire away with meaningless drivel about meaningless footnotes in this era guided by the “tastes” of Generation Creative Bankruptcy. The unexciting woodchuck of a never-woman had eagerly presented the latest Mars Volta 2xLP on colored vinyl, and the title-line phrase that has haunted my days and nights was uttered in reference to the fact that Mars Volta had the audacity to fill an entire side with one song, as if The Steve Miller Band’s 1981 misstep Circle of Love didn’t exist in multiple copies for a dollar or less….wherever quality records are peddled.

“That’s Volta, man, that’s Volta…”

I was digging, of course, in this faux-indie/mini-big-box that has provided a daily stop for the past year or so. I don’t remember the LP’s I held in my hands. Perhaps the new Bison B.C.? No, that’s still sitting up there. It is the only place in town to get any of the Numero Group comps, or any new metal-related releases, for that matter, though I rarely find the urge to part with the jacked sticker-prices unless it’s a sealed orphan currently pulling 2x, 3x, 4x the admission fee. I heard those words and turned to see the aforementioned human irritant and I shit you nada, TEN impressionable Gen-B.C.’ers of both genders, all soon to put their respective paws on titles by Radiohead, Grizzly Bear, Animal Collective, Panda Bear, etc…that they had no intention of buying. A Wolf Eyes LP (Sub Pop, ‘natch) was even granted a few minutes of carry-around, the sounds under the shrink-wrap trying so hard to morph into minor-key drama-pop with upfront pussyman vocals so that the five-year-old date on the price sticker could soon be forgotten, and truism that it really has nothing to do with what the music does when it’s leaving dormroom speakers and everything to do with whether or not “Zach” or “Beckjkah” can remember if Volta-Dawg has this band listed on his Facebook profile. He soon confirmed the quandary by sneaking up behind with a “Fuck yeah…they’re badass. I want the card out of that one if you get it.” Six-year-old LP’s on Sub Pop don’t have DL cards, asshole. And if you can get that shiny and clean coed to listen to that entire album uninterrupted, hats off, sage, hats off.