Superchunk with Jenny and Johnny and Versus – Trocadero (Philadelphia) – September 22, 2010
Please see my full review here.
Superchunk – Majesty Shredding (Merge)
This is growing on me to the point where I think it’s not only one of my top albums of the year, but perhaps the best full-length release Superchunk have ever put out. At the very least, songs like “My Gap Feels Weird” and “Crossed Wires” are future classics that stand toe-to-toe with anything in their catalog. Mac MacCaughan‘s voice is as good as ever, the tunes have hooks most bands would kill for and Jon Wurster remains one of the best drummers in all of indie rock.
Superchunk – “Digging for Something” EP (Merge)
The titular A-side is on Majesty Shredding while its B-side, “February Punx” is (in usual Superchunk fashion) an excellent non-Lp track.
Drop Dead – Drop Dead (Armageddon)
A volatile, aggressive, angry molotov cocktail of a record, this Providence, RI’s debut full-length from 1993 is still a beast to be reckoned with. This is, in some ways, a record for those who like really raw hardcore punk but who don’t really like the extreme “power violence,” “grind” or “crust” type stuff too much.
LCD Soundsystem with Sleigh Bells – Navy Yard (Philadelphia) – September 24, 2010
Please see my full review here.
The Vaselines – “Whitechapel” EP (Sub Pop)
The A-side is a demo version of a song on their new album Sex with an X. The B-side is “Picked a Cherry”, another song that’s strong enough to have made the album but somehow didn’t.
The Gerunds – 4 song demo (self-released)
The first official release by the Philadelphia-based Gerunds is a 4 song demo comprised of re-recorded versions of songs on their initial demo Hitsville PA. Unlike that one, though, these are full-band versions that my ears, sound a lot better and are, not surprisingly, much closer to how these songs are played live. Particularly good is “Prick Up Your Ears”, though the new versions of “Our Man in Havana,” “Gill” and “The Grasshopper Lies Heavy” are great, too.
Teenage Fanclub – Shadows (Merge)
Chris Salewicz – Billy Bragg: Midnights in Moscow (Omnibus, 1988)
The first part of this book is a biography of Bragg’s early life leading up to the start of his solo career along with a short chronology of his career up to that point. The second part, and the part that gives the book its name, is a travelogue of Bragg’s 3rd trip to the former Soviet Union in the late ’80s, just when Glasnost and Perestroika was in effect and the state of the USSR was precarious. Given the history that’s happened since then, reading this late Cold War-era book feels like science fiction at times, but it’s fascinating nonetheless.
Jenny and Johnny – I’m Having Fun Now (Warner Brothers)
Although this isn’t a great album like Rilo Kiley‘s More Adventurous or Jenny Lewis’ first solo album Rabbit Fur Coat, I honestly have taken to this one much more so than her last solo album Acid Tongue. It’s fun power-pop musically with slight country twinges, but the lyrics are uniformly dark. Of particular note is the single “Big Wave”, a song about the financial crisis that’s the catchiest and most enjoyable thing on here.
