VIA PRESS RELEASE | To celebrate Frank Black’s landmark solo album, Teenager Of The Year turning 30, 4AD release a one-time vinyl pressing on 17th January, to accompany a tour of North America plus Paris and London, where Frank Black and the original band will be performing the album in its entirety.

This special vinyl tour edition of Teenager Of The Year, has been remastered for the first time from its original analogue studio tapes. Sounding as essential as the day it was released, the limited 30th Anniversary Tour Edition is cut at 45 rpm for optimum playback and is being pressed on double gold vinyl. The album also comes in a gatefold sleeve with liner notes by both Frank Black and producer Eric Drew Feldman. A 24-bit digital version is being released on the same day.

Originally recorded amid a rich songwriting vein, just as the Pixies had been placed on hold, Frank Black’s ambitious double album Teenager Of The Year came out in May 1994, just one year after his fantastic self-titled solo debut. Recorded with scene legend Eric Drew Feldman (Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band, Pere Ubu, The Residents), Teenager Of The Year, is now widely regarded as the defining statement of his solo career and the best album the Pixies never made.

“Sometime in the early 80s, I’d have to look up the date, I matriculated high school. This school held an awards banquet for some of the departing students at the school. I received an award called the Teenager Of The Year award; my brother received the same award the following year. Our award was a 50 dollar credit for textbooks, a Teenager Of The Year medallion (my mother still has this), and also the banquet hall dinner, soup to nuts. My brother and I had no complaint about the award (it was given for being all-around-good-guy as best as we could determine). But for such a grand title to be given as Teenager Of The Year, I felt the glory had not been amplified enough.

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Celebrating Art Garfunkel in advance of his 83rd birthday tomorrow. —Ed.

It was blasted dastardly, the way Paul Simon gave poor Art Garfunkel the old heave-ho. Absolutely duplicitous. So duplicitous in fact that I coined a shiny new word for the sad fate that befell the kinky-haired half of the famous duo—he got Garfunkeled. The word is slowing entering the popular lexicon, and I plan to patent it and thereby grow filthy rich.

Because it’s the ideal word for all manner of occasions. Say your boyfriend should, without due warning, terminate your relationship. And say said abrupt news should fall upon your heart like a ton of Mick Jagger solo albums. You are left with two alternatives. You can shed bitter tears of the sort that wilt flowers. Or better by far, you can run to your friends and cry, “The sleazy bastard just Garfunkeled me!”

In any event, having been Garfunkeled following 1970’s Bridge over Troubled Water, Art of the magic golden Jewfro found himself at loose ends. I like to imagine, although it doesn’t fit the historical time line, that he spent many a dour hour sunk in the funk at the home of Jim Messina, the poor fellow who got Garfunkeled by Kenny Loggins. In reality Garfunkel did some acting, released 1973’s Angel Clare (for which he took much abuse for his treacly version of Randy Newman’s “Old Man”), and then followed Angel Clare with 1975’s Breakaway.

Breakaway is Garfunkel’s most successful LP and a soft rock classic. Garfunkel’s choirboy vocals can rankle, but on Breakaway he gathered up a bunch of songs that made effective use of those inimitable tenor pipes of his. He also dragooned every crack studio musician in the known world, to say nothing of such folks as David Crosby, Bill Payne, Graham Nash, Toni Tennille, and (erk!) Andrew Gold. Why even Garfunkeler-in-Chief Paul Simon reunited with the Garfunkeled one on “My Little Town.”

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Here’s a question for you. You have a really vivid nightmare about the end of the world. Upon waking do you a) hit the bong, b) give it a lousy Rotten Tomatoes score because the special effects were abysmally low budget or c) form a band that has made music so alien (literally!) they had to come up with a whole new genre to put it in (Zeuhl) featuring lyrics sung (or often spoken) in a language (Kobaïan) which literally nobody on the planet can understand because, hey, you just made it up on the spot?

Franch composer/singer/drummer Christian Vander went for the last option, and he went whole hog, forming a band called Magma in 1969 that came complete with its own mythology (mankind sets off from ravaged Planet Earth to Kobaïa, a planet where you can’t even hear Foghat, which sounds like hell to me). The death of John Coltrane also played a part in Vander’s existential crisis, and Vander (a modest fellow) figured he was the guy to fill the void Coltrane left behind. The result was Magma’s 1970 self-titled debut, which hardly fills the Coltrane hole but is bona fide listenable if very mechanistic jazz fusion with some truly wild playing. And some really annoying singing.

After that, however, things began to get truly weird. Magma’s 1971 follow-up 1001° Centigrades was a far less listener-friendly affair, with the jazz fusion slowly giving away to what sounds to me like bad intergalactic musical theater—less off-Broadway than off-Jupiter. Zeuhl is generally defined as a melting pot of jazz fusion, symphonic rock, and neoclassical music, but the jazz fusion was rapidly taking a back seat to Vander’s operatic pretensions. He had a grander vision than making Magma Kobaïa’s equivalent of Weather Report. He had Wagner (although oddly enough I’ve never heard the old anti-Semite cited as an influence) in his sights.

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We’ve outgrown our space, and since these records don’t move themselves, we’re closing the HQ to transition to our new, larger office from where we’ll continue to publish the latest in record store recon.

While we’re away, why not fire up our Record Store Locator app and visit one of your local indie record stores? Perhaps there’s an interview, review, or feature you might have missed? Catch up and we’ll see you back here on Monday, 11/4.

LAS VEGAS, NV | When We Were Young Festival returned to the Las Vegas Fairgrounds for the third year, inviting emos of all ages to a weekend of their favorite bands. With five stages (four that rotated for virtually non-stop performances) and over 60 bands, it’s no wonder the organizers added a second day for the die-hards to get the full experience. The hook this year? Band reunions, surprise guests, and full album play-throughs including My Chemical Romance playing The Black Parade in its entirety for the first time in 17 years!

In order to make this work, the organizers opened the gates at 10:30AM and had the music kick off promptly at 10:40AM as the queue outside only seemed to grow longer. Kudos to the festival team for keeping the crowds moving as fans bolted to either the barricade to set up for their favorite band(s) or the merch line which never seemed to wane as long as the band merch was available. And in spite of a blustery Friday and a few raindrops earlier in the day, the Saturday weather proved perfect for a long day in the sun.

From the get-go it became clear that the album play-through format was going to introduce certain challenges for some bands. In some cases the album was longer than the band’s assigned slot forcing them to drop tracks. In other cases the set felt rushed as the band tried to cram it all in. And while it was certainly amazing for fans to hear these seminal records that put bands on the map including rarely played tracks, many of those albums came with some true stinkers that only resonated with the hardcore fans. Bands took it all in stride and delivered, but special kudus must go out to Bayside for breaking it all down in an easy to read bumper sticker format, “HONK LOUDER! I’M BLASTING THE 2005 EMO MASTERPIECE BAYSIDE BY THE BAND BAYSIDE, FROM BAYSIDE, QUEENS, NEW YORK. ALL HITS. NO SKIPS. LFG.”

This year the buzz outside the festival gates was the 2025 return of the Vans Warped Tour, announced only days earlier. Hard to miss were the fistfuls of leaflets being passed out and the ads on massive hotel screens which overlooked the festival grounds; the media blitz quite ironic given it was happening around the festival that literally stepped in to fill the gaping hole left when VWT ended in 2019

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LAS VEGAS, NV | This past weekend Emos from all over the world descended upon Las Vegas for what has become an annual pilgrimage featuring a who’s-who of sad singalong favorites. Not to be missed, of course, are the epic WWWY sideshows featuring festival performers in a much more intimate setting.

One popular option on Friday night was a sold-out performance at the Fountainebleau Resort featuring an absolutely stacked lineup punctuated by a headlining performance by The Used. With the show kicking off early, folks were still waiting in line as Taylor Acorn kicked things off at 6:30PM, but the room quickly filled up by the time emo supergroup L.S. Dunes took the stage for a ripping 30-minute set that had the fans singing along.

From there, Taking Back Sunday picked up the baton and blasted through their “152 Tour” setlist with aplomb, frontman Adam Lazzara making full use of the expansive stage as he whipped his mic around, the rest of the band well-aware to keep their distance or else suffer a likely strike. Rather than using the gig as an opportunity to hone their play-through of Tell All Your Friends planned for the following day, TBS stuck with their “152 Tour” setlist, which featured a healthy dose of the new material.

The crew made quick work of the changeover, revealing a remarkable transformation from the stark TBS set to one of chain link and steel when the skrim finally dropped. This band is truly a force of nature and the energy in the room peaked both onstage and off as the room sang along and crowd surfers poured over the barricade in a steady stream. But when Bert entered the general admission floor during “I Caught Fire,” people completely lost their minds.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Christmas will come early for fans of The Darkness this year as the legends of rock will unleash unreleased songs from their forthcoming album Dreams On Toast live for the first time at a series of intimate instore performances across the UK in December.

The Darkness will perform at London’s Rough Trade East on December 10th, Rough Trade Nottingham (11th), and Rough Trade Liverpool (12th), giving fans a chance to see the band playing live in very small venues, ahead of their huge arena tour in 2025. Tickets go on sale at 10am Friday 25th October via Dice and all fans will receive a signed tour poster.

The band will be performing a very special set comprising brand new songs from next year’s album Dreams On Toast, out March 2025 via Cooking Vinyl. It will be the very first chance fans have to get a taste of the wonders in store for them, and tickets are expected to sell out in super quick time.

The Darkness announced Dreams On Toast last month along with the release of brand new single “The Longest Kiss,” an upbeat pop classic which tips its hat to the ’70s pop genius of both Queen and Paul McCartney and finds The Darkness dance across jaunty piano keys among frolicking guitar licks in irresistible top form.

Following their short run of up-close-and-personal Rough Trade shows this year, The Darkness will hit the road again in March on a much larger scale. The Dreams On Toast UK headline tour will see them play 17 shows across the country finishing at London’s OVO Wembley Arena on March 29th. Support comes from Northern Irish indie-rock heroes Ash, who first supported The Darkness on their legendary Permission To Land Tour over 20 years ago. Tickets are on sale now.

Brit Nick Lowe was one of the most beloved, talented, and versatile figures of the punk/new wave explosion of the late-’70s. Oddly, he really wasn’t punk or new wave, but an artist who emerged during that scene in the wake of the pub rock, post-’60s scene in England as a member of Brinsley Schwarz (with Schwarz, Ian Gomm, Billy Rankin, and Bob Andrews).

Lowe was a roots rocker at heart who occasionally dipped his toe into psychedelia, but was most at home with pure pop, even naming the American version of his solo debut album Pure Pop For Now People, released in 1978. Lowe was also and still is an accomplished record producer, most notably for Elvis Costello and The Pretenders. He was part of the group Rockpile (with Dave Edmunds, Billy Bremner, and Terry Williams) while simultaneously producing and releasing solo albums. Later he would be in another supergroup, Little Village (with John Hiatt, Ry Cooder, and Jim Keltner). He is also a prolific songwriter.

Lowe’s last solo album was The Old Magic released in 2011. He released a holiday album, Quality Street: A Seasonal Selection for All the Family, in 2013. That resume barely scratches the surface and doesn’t even mention the other singles, EPs, live albums, and contributions he’s made to other people’s work and appearances on a plethora of tribute albums. Indoor Safari is his second with Los Straightjackets, the mysterious, Tennessee-based instrumental band, after their debut together Walkabout in 2020. It’s filled with the kind of rootsy simplicity and charm we’ve come to expect from Lowe.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | 20th Anniversary Edition of the 2004 metalcore classic, making its vinyl debut at American retail.

The title of this 2004 classic is an apt one; Of Malice and the Magnum Heart brought melody and emotion to the metalcore genre like few albums before and since, particularly on the devastating “The Year Summer Ended in June,” which commemorates the deaths of Jordan Wodehouse and Daniel Langlois of the Misery Signals precursor band Compromise, killed by a drunk driver in Heflin, Alabama.

For its 20th anniversary, and for its first release on vinyl at American retail, we’re pressing this one in “orange crush” vinyl, complete with a lyric insert. Complex time signatures, complementary dual guitar parts, and experimental interludes (e.g. the instrumental “Worlds & Dreams”) make for a thinking and feeling man’s metal album… recommended!

Body Meπa is a powerhouse ensemble that’s lacking in a weak link. Their sound has some affinities with post-rock but the band prefers to describe their thing as “New York City body music.” While conducive to the movement of torsos and limbs, the collective energies soar from a rock framework, thoroughly unburdened by cliché. Available October 25 on vinyl (limited clear with a green tint, unlimited black), compact disc, and digital via Hausu Mountain, Body Meπa’s second full-length Prayer in Dub takes its place amongst the best records of 2024.

Body Meπa features Grey McMurray (Sō Percussion, Tyondai Braxton, John Cale, Colin Stetson) and Sasha Frere-Jones (UI, Loren Mazzacane Connors, Calvinist) on guitars, Melvin Gibbs (Defunkt, Power Tools, Rollins Band, Harriet Tubman) on bass, and Greg Fox (Teeth Mountain, Guardian Alien, Fox Millions Duo, Colin Stetson).

While many balk at the usage of term outside of the late 1960s-early ’70s, supergroup is a fitting way to describe Body Meπa. In short, supergroups were/are aggregations formed by individuals already well-known, and in many cases renowned for their output, and most likely in a band context. The original supergroup impulse was essentially doomed by general arrogance and individual egos; notorious as one-and-done affairs when cutting records, supergroups are often scorned as part of a larger takedown of the rockist impulse.

And so it makes sense that some contemporary listeners would disdain the supergroup concept and that pertinent bands on the current scene might seek distance from the descriptor. It would be no surprise if this was the case with Body Meπa, as their ensemble thrust is unfettered by the drag downs of ego, and Prayer in Dub extends and expands upon the quality of their debut, The Work Is Slow, released in 2021, also by Hausu Mountain.

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