asks "Friday's Music already?"

well, the releases are still coming - these will finally be out!

FROM THE PIT

Friends, the seasonal slowdown is upon us. While we prepare for RECORD STORE DAY-BLACK FRIDAY, there are still choice singles and newly re-released fare to come. Without a doubt, 2023 has been the year the single/pre-release barrage finally took hold. The release of one song entirely on its own has always been the best method for it to stand out. We humbly question the habits of some of the major artists who simply drop everything and let the fans pick what should “become” the radio single. While it is admirable, wouldn’t it happen anyway?

Jack Antonoff's recent comments in the wake of the “surprise” success of Taylor Swift’s “Cruel Summer” from “Lover” (her best album, in our opinion) made us think. If Antonoff, Swift, and her crew truly thought it was their “favorite song” - why didn’t they lobby the label to make it a single? After all - Taylor has possessed that level of power for years now.

Case in point: Gerry Rafferty. After Stealers Wheel (with Joe Egan) disbanded due to legal acrimony, Rafferty was forced to sit out three years without releasing any new recordings. With the exception of Stealers’ transatlantic Top 10 smash “Stuck In The Middle With You,” Rafferty’s career was years of promise with no payoff. In 1977, finally free from this silence, he turned in his album “City to City” to United Artists. The label lobbied for the title track to appear as the first single, which it did to zero impact. With the album’s release coming in January 1978, Rafferty pushed hard for “Baker Street.” On February 3, 1978, Rafferty’s wishes were followed. You know what happened next.

While the input from fans is vital to a record’s life, comments like those of Antonoff seem to indicate that the singles chart now better reflects what people are listening to. Yes, that is true. However, some skillfully written song from a poorly marketed, long-suffering artist is out there lying in wait to break into today’s charts which are now too often dominated by songs that while just as good - may have been in rotation too long.

In close, take this into account. “Baker Street” was #2 for six weeks in the US as Andy Gibb’s “Shadow Dancing” ruled the airwaves in the Summer of 1978. (Maybe it has 18 million streams today on Spotify, “Baker Street” is over 200 million.) Overseas in the UK, Rafferty only hit #3 because of these two tracks:

M(H)AOL - Attachment Styles [RED SPLATTER LP/CD](Merge/AMPED)

Where is danger in music today? Even the most clanky, noisy Industrial or grinding, gritty Metal is honestly playing it safe as it tries to tick the boxes of what will (mostly) keep it corraled in their chosen subgenre. Girl Band became Gilla Band and muted their attack. So a real “girl band” has stepped up from Dublin. M(H)AOL (pronounced “Male” - ha ha) is like next-generation Young Marble Giants on their abrasive but weirdly catchy second album. Finally seeing an American release (originally on Tulle) from Merge, “Attachment Styles” is beautiful in its brutality (“Bored of Men”) and primal in its forceful musical communication of generational angst (“Bisexual Anxiety.”) All the clattering drums, loping bass, and squelchy non-guitar sounds are both enticing and repellent. The guitar tapping and atonal strums on “Nice Guys” are designed to outlast. In the middle, M(H)AOL actually temporarily loses their rhythm and it is only that they immediately lock back in following the chaos that keeps you going. Every sound here is inventive. “Therapy” is a Stooges-meets-Pere Ubu destroyer that links Detroit to Cleveland in the Seventies like a lost Ur-Punk band. Bassist Jamie Hyland’s spartan production keeps everyone framed perfectly in the sonic image, never sounding too black & white (the blistering repetition of “No One Ever Talks To Us”) or blunting their visceral impact (the seductive thrill of “Cowboy Honey” - especially its long denouement.) While the band is bashing away at grief, confusion, and being invisible in a mostly superficial world, singer Róisín Nic Ghearailt gives a bravura performance that may singlehandedly bring back Sprechgesang for another round. Her mixture of overt sexuality, maddening swells of emotion, and quick withdrawal is a manic thrill throughout. Even multiple listens fail to reveal the magic of their ability to draw you close and then twist the knife in surprising ways.

DUSTER - Remote Echoes [CLEAR/SEA BLUE LP/CD/CS](Numero/AMPED)

After making a blip on the screen during their original Nineties (criminally ignored in the wave of Alternative splintering in every direction,) San Jose’s Duster has experienced quite a second life as a Slowcore band. With a catalog is bursting with creative explorations of Space Rock and more, it is fitting that in this period of rediscovery (spurred on by the excellent “Capsule Losing Contact”) the last ten years of demos would illustrate exactly how far Clay Parton and Canaan Amber can reach with their languid beauties. What is so heartening about “Remote Echoes” is how it both compares to previous tracks (“Gold Dust” as the almost GbV-ish “Darby”) and strays away from them (the SynthPop wonder “Testphase.”) Those wobbly Modest Mouse-isms on “Me and The Birds” from 2000’s “Contemporary Movement” peak so eloquently and briefly that it resonates inside you. The same can be said for over-before-you-know-it cuts like “I Know I Won’t” and the Galaxie 500-ish “Glue.” However, listening to the rumbling bass on “Lost Time, ” the Acetone-ish midtempo swirl of “Moon in Aries,” and the Sebadoh-meets-Sparklehorse overdriven low-level buzz of “The Weed Supreme” are enough to sell you on everything they made. Within the limitations of their trusty four-track at Low Earth Orbit, Duster continues to make music that defies categorization and will hopefully not take 20 years to find its audience.

IN ADDITION…

When you are finished imbibing the Duster releases, check out the mammoth 11LP ACETONE boxset “I’m Still Waiting” (New West/Redeye) which gathers all their Nineties output into one package and adds seven unreleased songs. The demo of “No Need Swim” is so crisp and uses that familiar cassette waver so well, that we breathlessly are waiting for the newly mastered records and the other six finds.

UNIVERSITY - Title Track EP [LP soon?](Transgressive)

While it is not fair to say that Black Midi have not quite lived up to the stratospheric rush of their debut “Schlagenheim,” their continuing evolution has reduced some of their hair-raising ability to slice through all the other Math/Art/Noise Rockers. Meet University. “Title Track” is a wild, glaringly noisy, chaotic slice of post-Black Midi experimental RAWK. These five tracks are in a word - fearless. “EDY” kicks it off with an MC5-ish declaration drowning in a ball of noise. The punky compression of their recording makes the guitar and bass sound monolithic. “Egypt Tune” grinds out like a King Crimson song as played by Black Flag. The verbal howling, ferocious drum fills, and that Middle Eastern muscular riff are the ones to establish them as a 21st Century Shred-zoid Band. After bashing away on it for a good two minutes, they find the slower Reggae-ish undercurrent (not like Turnstile) and somehow make it heavier. “King Size Slim” is a chimy-odd-time AmerIndie-style buzzsaw that echoes Squirrel Bait and the uncharted Eighties Midwest. The switches that University makes are as on-a-dime as classic Punk. While precision is not the pursuit (it seems to be strictly the ongoing rush of raising your hair,) when they scramble up the Dinosaur Jr-ish lick in “Notre Dame Made of Flesh” is only to set up the next movement where they literally wail into the abyss. Finally, the tapping/thunder closer “History of Iron Maiden, Pt.2” may not have enough sixteenth-note basslines in it for Steve Harris, but it finds a head-bobbing groove midsong that could be the either NWOBHM or Emo. A fascinating debut that only gets better the further they drive it off the rails.

T-BONES Records and Cafe is a full-service fast-casual restaurant and record store in Hattiesburg, MS. We are a Coalition of Independent Music Stores member. We are the longest-running record store in the state of Mississippi. If you have questions - we have answers … and probably a lot more information just waiting for you at:

tbone@tbonescafe.com

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