Good morning, class. I was going to open today’s lecture with a long and rambling monologue about the time I burned a casino in Montreux to the ground with a flare gun, but why don’t we just charge into today’s lecture instead. Show of hands if you’ve heard of U.S. Maple. Okay, I see a few. Now, show of hands if you’ve actually listened to U.S. Maple. Kudos to you, woman in the back row wearing the Melt-Banana T-shirt. You get to skip next week’s lecture on The Collected Works of Grand Funk Railroad. Now before we start, does anyone mind if I light up a Marlboro in this clearly marked No Smoking lecture hall? Congratulations, guy in the iconic Kangol hat. I’ll expect a 15-page analysis of No Trend’s Tritonian Nash-Vegas Polyester Complex by next Tuesday.
The rest of you sit back while I tell you about perhaps the most innovative band of the late 20th and early 21st Centuries. On first listen—excuse me while I shake myself up a stiff martini—the now defunct Chicago quartet seemed to be playing a radically skewed improvisational noise rock akin to free jazz. But—and I see Melt-Banana’s shaking her head no—they weren’t, were they? In fact, they were doing just the opposite. Every one of their disjointed songs was meticulously constructed down to the tiniest detail. The problem is they sound wrong. Songs are supposed to have a beginning, middle, and end. But if you listen to a U.S. Maple song, the beginning may be in the middle and the end may be in the beginning and the middle may be in the other room sleeping one off. And to go one step further, parts of the beginning, middle, and end may be incorporated into the middle, end, and beginning. Are you following me? Yes, woman in the “ironic” Toto T-shirt, you may be excused for reasons of vertigo.
Now why would U.S. Maple do such a thing? Out of sheer polymorphous perversity? Because they wanted to be damn sure they never sold more than six albums? No, they were out to destroy rock music as we know it. Yes, you heard me right! The bastards! The pricks! People! Calm down! Stop shaking your fists in impotent rage! I’m as disgusted as you are! But wait; let’s give this quartet of anarchic apostates a chance to explain themselves before we burn them at the sacred stake of Sammy Hagar. According to vocalist Al Johnson, U.S. Maple’s goal was to “to erase Rock and Roll entirely from our collective minds, then set out to devise a working method for reorganizing Rock and Roll], keeping what we [felt were] its most important core elements.”
Adelaide, AU | Clarity Records is expanding into the shop next door: Cult Hindmarsh Square record store Clarity Records is expanding into an empty bricks-and-mortar space next door, and plans on also throwing (sometimes boozy) gigs on weekends. Clarity Records is much more than just a record store. After opening on Pulteney Street in 2010 as a specialist music shop – slinging vinyl, CDs and other music merch to die-hard punk and hardcore fans – it morphed in 2015 when the business launched annual music festival A Day of Clarity. Clarity co-owners Matt (also known as Footy) and Laura Hovarth are deeply embedded within Adelaide’s underground music scene. They both run the festival, record shop and all its affiliated appendages, such as the self-titled record label that manages bands such as Hydromedusa. Unsurprisingly, in 2021, the business needed space to grow. That’s why last year Matt and Laura decided to lease the vacant 100sqm retail space next door 
Warner Music Is Worth a Spin: Record label’s stock has lagged behind even as consumers are paying up for music. The nice thing about being Warner Music these days is that the company still does well even when listeners go old school. Streaming is now the main driver of the music business, accounting for about 83% of the industry’s $12.2 billion in U.S. revenue last year, according to data from the Recording Industry Association of America, or RIAA. But the industry is also seeing a strong uptick in sales of vinyl albums, which generated nearly $620 million in U.S. sales last year—up 29% from the previous year. That is the highest sales figure for the vinyl format in inflation-adjusted dollars since 1988. …But as Tim Nollen of Macquarie put it, Warner is “having it both ways” of late. 
NEW RELEASE PICKS: James McMurtry, The Horses and the Hounds (New West) There isn’t a lot of elbow room in the scene McMurtry inhabits, specifically the country-folk-Americana-roots rock singer-songwriter zone, but frankly very few do it better, with his stature in a crowded field only amplified by a six-year break between releases. How’s he do it? Well, he and his band play bright but rugged, and more importantly, his tunes are consistently strong. That McMurtry, the son of prolific (and recently passed) novelist Larry McMurtry, doesn’t do autobiography (as quoted in a recent Rolling Stone article), certainly helps, though even more crucially, his songs avoid the staleness of creative-writing class cliché. And it makes a big difference that he’s open to taking chances, with none bigger than “Ft. Walton Wake-Up Call,” a sort of talking storyteller ditty where McMurtry flirts with sounding like C.W. McCall but ends up pulling it off, mainly through astute observations; likewise, “Operation Never Mind.” At this stage, I dig the anthemic up-tempo rocker “What’s the Matter” best, but the record doesn’t falter. A-
Thalia Zedek Band, Perfect Vision (Thrill Jockey) Entering her fifth decade making music (having debuted on wax as part of Dangerous Birds in the early ’80s), guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter Zedek’s latest exhibits no signs of creative fatigue. To the contrary, Perfect Vision underscores her adaptability, as it was recorded remotely due to (you guessed it) the pandemic. Operating in this manner allowed for a wide array of guest contributors. There’s Karan Zarkisian on pedal steel, Brian Carpenter on trumpet, and cellist (and Zedek’s labelmate) Alison Chesley aka Helen Money. And of course, there are familiar elements, including her regular collaborator, violist David Michael Curry, plus her bandmate in the outfit E, drummer Gavin McCarthy, but most recognizable is the tough and assured expressiveness of the singing and the distinctive way the songs unwind. Fully capable of writing catchy tunes, Zedek’s focus encompasses the layering of textures, the juxtaposition of timbres and the tension that builds through methodical repetition. In short, it’s another sweet record from Thalia Zedek. A-
REISSUE/ARCHIVAL PICKS: Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Destiny Street (Complete), Destiny Street Remixed, & Destiny Street Demos (Omnivore) The first of these titles is a 2CD set that includes the contents of the second and third, both vinyl sets. In addition, the 2CD opens with a remastered version of the original Destiny Street, the second album by Hell and the Voidoids, a record that’s mix Hell has hated since the album’s release in 1981. It’s followed on the first CD by Destiny Street Repaired, which featured guitarists Bill Frisell, Marc Ribot, and Voidoid Ivan Julian overdubbing guitar in place of original Destiny Street guitarists Robert Quine (who passed in 2004) and Naux (Juan Marciel) (whose death occurred in 2009), with Hell singing the tracks anew. Destiny Street Repaired was made possible by the then recent discovery of the tape holding the original album’s rhythm tracks, while in 2019, three of the four Destiny Street masters, long thought lost, were discovered, allowing Hell (with the aid of Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs) to finally remix the record to his satisfaction.
Sheffield, UK | Record fair set to be held at Sheffield’s Crystal Peaks shopping centre: Music lovers will be getting in a spin as Crystal Peaks hosts its first record fair. Presented by Real Deal Record and CD Fairs, the free event will be held at the award-winning Sheffield shopping centre from 9am to 4pm on Saturday, September 4. “We are very pleased to be bringing this exciting new event to Crystal Peaks,” said centre manager Lee Greenwood. “This is the latest in series of special events for the autumn period and one which 
Bram Stoker’s Dracula Soundtrack Getting Vinyl Release From Mondo: Bram Stokers Dracula was first published in 1897 and, over the past century, the character has been brought to life dozens of times. While some might argue the most defining interpretations of the character came in 1922’s Nosferatu or 1931’s Dracula, acclaimed filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola put his mark on the character with Bram Stoker’s Dracula in 1992, starring Gary Oldman, Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, and Anthony Hopkins. Nearly 30 years later, Mondo is celebrating that seminal horror story by releasing the original motion picture soundtrack on vinyl, with the album slated to go on sale this Wednesday, August 25th at 12 p.m. CT. You can try to snag the record at MondoRecordShop.com. Mondo describes the release, “Deep in the Carpathian Mountains, in the country of Transylvania, lies the castle of one who would have domain over all evil on Earth … and with that 
