This year has been particularly tough picking my #1 favorite, as I had two very different contenders that blew me away much more than any other record on the list. In the end, I went for the heartwrenching comeback album released by singer-songwriter Nina Nastasia. ‘Riderless Horse’ was her return to music after many years of personal struggles, including divorce and mourning. Pursuing a very back-to-basics approach, she delivered 33 minutes of powerfully poignant tunes for voice and acoustic guitar only. The other contender is amazing in a completely different way: ‘Xaybu: The Unseen’, by Steve...
A SAUCERFUL OF UNVEILED SECRETS
posted by Tony
A few years ago, after seeing both David Gilmour and Roger Waters in concert, I wrote a post commenting about how seeing both shows would give Pink Floyd fans the best of both worlds, as a reunion seems very unlikely. Since then, a new picture entered this frame and turned out to be quite a surprise. I’m talking about Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets, the band put together by Pink Floyd’s drummer Nick Mason to bring out his take on that legendary songbook. I recently saw them live and I was literally blown away. While Gilmour and Waters put up big shows that can generally draw a lot of casual fans, Mason’s act is more of a hardcore...
COULD A BODY TAKE THAT MUCH?
posted by Tony
Sometimes, discovering new music leaves such a big mark you end up remembering a lot of tiny details that for other events you just don’t bother. It was a January morning in the mid ’90’s and I clearly remember the streets all wet, but the rain had already passed by and a pale sun was swaying above the clouds. For some reason, I didn’t go to school and I stopped at my usual record store with nothing but a few coins in my pockets. With such a scant budget my options were pretty limited, so I just started to flip through a clearance bin full of cd singles. As soon as Mark Lanegan’s ‘House A Home’ popped up, I knew that was it. I had never...
2021: MY FAVORITES
posted by Tony
2021 has been another year well-stocked with high quality releases. Not as much as 2020, but still a lot. To avoid the rabbit hole of an endless list, I narrowed the choices down to 15 and I only picked from records I actually bought. The list is at the bottom of this post and, except for the first choice, it’s in alphabetical order. My #1 pick is the latest effort by Canadian (but Brooklyn-based) tenor saxophonist/flutist Anna Webber. ‘Idiom’ is a double album (actually, a double cd, as it’s not available on vinyl) walking the thin line between avant-jazz and contemporary classical music. Anna herself...
THAT JUKEBOX WITH SEPULTURA
posted by Tony
One of my favorite things about summer holidays (besides no school, of course) was jukeboxes. All the beaches I visited with my family as a kid, always had a coffee place with video games, pinball machines, and a jukebox. And this also throughout the 90s, when those machines were actually growing out of fashion. Every morning at the beach I went through the same routine: ice cream, then one or two songs on the jukebox while playing video games or pinball (they had a gorgeous The Who pinball machine at some point. I’d give an arm to play it again). The Who’s pinball machine from the mid 90’s One morning, it was the summer...
2020: MY FAVORITES
posted by Tony
If there’s been something good in this ill-fated 2020, that’s certainly music. I can’t remember another year with so many high quality releases in recent times and that’s great news. I tried to put together a list of my albums of the year, but the draft kept growing. At some point, I just gave up and decided not to narrow it down. If you want to see all the records I considered (about 50), the whole draft list can be found at the end of this post. All of that said, if I had to pick just one, it would be Matt Elliott’s ‘Farewell To All We Know’. It was conceived way before the pandemic, but the title...
MY MISGUIDING ANGEL
posted by Tony
Rewind back to 1993. I had read about 70s hard rock band Angel (you might remember them as those guys all dressed in white) and I got kinda obsessed. I really wanted to hear them, but their records were impossible to find in pre-internet days. I tried to order one at my local record store but...
IS THIS ALANIS OR RO...
posted by Tony
Well, this is not exactly your usual Alanis.You may or may not know that before selling a gazillion copies of ‘Jagged Little Pill’ Alanis Morissette had already released a couple of pop albums, reaching a certain degree of success in her native Canada. To brutally summarize, we...
WORST BOB DYLAN SONG...
posted by Tony
So, a legend, a girl singer, and a British actor walk into a movie set… If it sounds like I’m starting a joke, well, this is definitely a joke, but I promise I’m not the one who started it. The girl singer is Fiona, once married to hair metal producer Beau Hill. She has a...
FELLOW BLOGGERS: GEN...
posted by Tony
We talked about Generation Clash, a blog I’ve been really enjoying, in a post a few months ago. We’re about to cover that topic again because Carmela Carr, the girl behind that webpage, is turning her blogging experience into a book: ‘Journey To Generation Clash’, due...
2019: MY FAVORITES
posted by Tony
Another year is gone and, great news, it’s been another year full of amazing music. As usual, here’s to you my favorite records from the past 12 months. Not enough time to add small descriptions for each one, unfortunately, but I posted about some of them on my Instagram account,...
FELLOW BLOGGERS: GEN...
posted by Tony
As promised, I’m trying to keep this blog as active as it used to be (but if you want more content you can check my instagram, which is updated on a very regular basis). Here’s returning the Fellow Bloggers column and our guest today is Carmela Carr, the girl behind Generation...
ILLEGAL DOWNLOADS BE...
posted by Tony
Home taping is killing music. If you were buying records in the 80’s you’ll certainly remember this slogan printed on countless inner sleeves. Major labels were really freaking out at the time. As odd as it sounds, they were freaking out over technology improvements. Compact...
INTERVIEW ON VINYL S...
posted by Tony
Vinyl Sound Radio, an amazing web radio that only plays vinyl-sourced music, hosted me in their series of interviews to record collectors from all around the world. You can read it clicking on this...
TEST PRESSING WITH A...
posted by Tony
A couple of weeks ago I finally visited this thrift store for the first time. I had been wanting to check it out for a while, but I kept postponing for one reason or the other. The store itself was very nice and well kept, but I can’t say the same about the record selection: tons of...