Snobbin: Beautiful Trash in the Pop Culture Gutter

La Costa Perdida, the first Camper Van Beethoven album in nine years isn't quite as ambitious as 2004's stellar, yet under appreciated concept album, New Roman Times . More of a continuation of later Cracker albums; its lengthy tracks call to mind the sprawling Greenland or the California-centric Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey. "Too High for the Love-in" is a lengthy and weighty bridge between the last days of CVB and latter day Cracker. It's becoming harder to tell the songs apart. Most could as easily have fit on a Cracker album, despite their more exotic instrumentation. Evident proof that the band can still write a catchy hook., the song's eastern-tinged intro is reminiscent of early albums. Female vocals ba ba beneath a catchy guitar line before David Lowery's cracked and knowing vocals come in, singing "I was too high for the love-in./ I woke in my car at the drive in./ And there was a bird in my kitchen when I got home." Once ...

When I was younger, I used to love snow. I would go skiing regularly, barely feeling the cold. I would push myself over hills competing in an imaginary race. If my dad was with me, I would try to beat him even though he could ski much faster. I spent hours training on the kiddie hills trying to master the wishbone technique for climbing difficult hills. I soon realized that the faster I could go, the easier it would be to climb the next hill.  The snowy pine trees and flitting chickadees were a welcoming sight five miles down the ski trail after a difficult run. Although I get envious when I see an older skate skier zoom by and leave me in the lurch. My younger body cannot compete with these octogenarians who ski daily, their arms and legs purely muscled. I still feel like a skinny kid, although I am much bigger, older, and out of shape. I would ski more if there was more snow. Each year we get less and less, the trails are practically bare here. Muddy ruts -- they resemble d...

A few years ago while skimming the thrift store bins, I stumbled across several Ampex snapcase cassettes from the Sixties. I had never seen anything like them aside from a Joan Baez cassette, One Day at a Time , with a similar slipcase, also manufactured by Ampex. Even after a bit of internet research, I have not found much information on them, except that they seem to be prime finds. I found two Velvet Underground cassettes and a Vanilla Fudge. Each is well-worn in a black case with a pasted on cover. Of course, the Velvet Underground cassettes were more interesting, but none of them plays very well, so they are only useful as audio artifacts. Each was manufactured by Ampex in Elk Grove Village, IL. and belonged to J.R. Kregenow, who wrote on them for easy identification. The cover art is not very clear or and the titles are listed below as there is no back cover. The Vanilla Fudge cassette, Near the Beginning, only contains four tracks including a cover of Jr. Walker's "Sho...

The first 8-track I ever purchased was The Clash's underrated Give 'Em Enough Rope from a dusty shelf at my hometown thrift store in the mid 1990s. It was quite a musical find, and has, perhaps, led to a lifetime of scanning such shelves for musical esoterica. The Give 'Em Enough Rope 8-track is an unassuming wonder; it does not even have the iconic font of other early issues. The band's name is in the block capital print of the early U.S. pressings; I'm not sure how many of these were even manufactured. The later U.S. pressings had a fake oriental font that was later replaced by the UK design. The iconic cover adds another level to the Clash's cowboy/rebel mythology. Indeed, the final mastering was done in the United States under the eye of Sandy Pearlman, best known for his work with Blue Oyster Cult. A great account of these sessions and others is found in Pat Gilbert's superlative biography, Passion is a Fashion: The Real Story of the Clash. Th...

 Years Leave Us  Another rough year has come and reluctantly bitten the dust. We sit complacent, or, perhaps, angered. There is too much tension in our bones -- we sit sprung, ready to snap, compromised. We can barely meet eyes, mostly because I am insufferable. I pay for my mistakes often before I make them. The anger that wells inside needs an outlet. Where will it go? I hope it dissipates soon. Gremlins I lack patience with electronics. I will toss, throw, or break into shards any that come near me. I blame it on the Gremlins, but it is my own uneasy, impatient nature that fills the junkyards with instant rubble. My heart tells me no, but I break things anyway. They say patience is a virtue, but that doesn't help us. We want it now, an instantaneous MTV generation gobbling up internet bandwidth. We can't stop; we eat cellphones for breakfast, overload mp3 players, trip every electronic switch into the red. Why you ask? Because we can. Roughhousing the Environmen...

1. Sebadoh - Secret Sebadoh never rests on their laurels. The kings of indie rock have created another album of astonishing depth in just the span of five songs. "Keep the Boy Alive" is a Lou Barlow paen to growing old and retaining one's love. "My Drugs" is a Loewenstein rocker about needing drugs: the line "can't hang with sober people they scare the shit right out of me" says it all. "Arbitrary High" recalls "Skull," sounding like a Bakesale outtake. "I Don't Mind" is a country weeper that might have found a nice place on the new Dinosaur Jr. record, yet easily trumps anything on that underwhelming platter. Loewenstein remains the hidden secret in Sebadoh, writing understated songs that often overshadow Barlow's more obvious offerings. Barlow's "All Kinds" is a short, sweet coda to a great, but all to short EP. I'm looking forward to a new full-length.  http://sebadoh.bandcamp.com/album/s...

10. Two Gallants - The Bloom and the Blight (ATO) Aptly titled, The Bloom and the Bligh t restores Two Gallants to the levels they had reached with their 2007 self-titled release. Faster than that album, and certainly less ponderous than the somber What the Toll Tells , the album rages. More rockers and less slow songs, it recalls their excellent first platter, The Throes , in mood, temperament, and tempo. Two Gallants bring a lot of sound for a two piece, much like the better known Black Keys, but they are more rooted in traditional folk. Here they strip it back. Adam Stephens' vocals are more cracked, but more capable. The guitar and drums appear little more than a call-to-arms. There is little room for tenderness, Two Gallants are here to rock. Their new take on folk traditions spells it out. Dylan isn't doing anything like this in 2012. If you don't like it, go somewhere else. 9. Off! - S/T (Vice) Punk rock super groups don't often work. Yet Of...