New episode of my podcast 'Known Associates' featuring the rad Amanda Petrusich is up now, LIVE FROM DALLAS! We drink Lone Star beer, discuss her amazing work at the New Yorker, ponder the future of criticism and discuss why hoarding just might be underrated! Go!! southwestreview.com/known-associ...

‘They crowded up to Lenin…’ 🎶

Over at my periodic Substack 'Please Take My Advice,' I went deep on the Kinks' 'Muswell Hillbillies' 55th anniversary. Topics include style of paranoia, Ray Davies' endless elegance, encroaching techno-feudalism, diet fads and shapes of things to come. theparanoidstyle.substack.com/p/but-in-her...

Made a tape of this off a friend's record in collage. The album sides were marked L and R instead of 1 and 2. I recorded side R first for some reason. Listened to it that way for years. Finally bought the CD and was super confused when the first song was "Harborcoat" instead of "Second Guessing".

“Little America,” relevant as ever. The consul, a horse.

It might be the only album where each of the ten tracks has been, at some time or other, my favorite on the record. Also, in Bill Berry’s long career of being a secret weapon, it’s his secret weapon masterpiece.

Just made me think of playing "Pilgrimage" real loud on my way out of town for a summer roadtrip with my best friend to the mountains out west when I was 20.

Ten tracks which simultaneously brighten the corners of ‘Murmur’ and deepen the mystery of their Whitman-like mainline into America's subconscious, REM’s ‘Reckoning’ is a miracle of pure melody and cosmic truths, muttered from halfway across a rehearsal room. Perfect. www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oC6...

Had the Clash only been a cover band, they'd still be world historic. Their versions of “Police On My Back”, “Armagiden Time”, “Look Here” and “Brand New Cadillac” opened up worlds to me that might have stayed a secret. Their great legacy is as cultural code-breakers. www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3A8...

An act of pure ecstatic grief, Bob Dylan’s “Mississippi” reimagines the itinerant thousand mile stare of "Tangled Up In Blue" as a spiritual cleansing by ordeal. In the end you're not on the road for love or cash or fame. You're on the road because you can't get home. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xaw-...

This is absolutely spellbinding. Can’t recommend more highly.

Known Associates, the latest LP from @paranoiacs.bsky.social is available now on @barnonerecords.bsky.social via @bandcamp.com and today is #bandcampfriday, check it out! theparanoidstyle.bandcamp.com/album/known-...

Very much enjoyed @paranoiacs.bsky.social’s interview with Graham Parker. Can’t argue with the top albums, but I was glad that Struck By Lightning got a mention. It’s one of those records that just hit me at exactly the right moment and was on repeat for a long time. And it shook me.

Maybe my favourite Neil song. With Levon Helm and Rick Danko laying down an absolute groove, it can’t be beat

Love this song.

Should have done a whole record with the Helm/Danko rhythm section!

I have something similar.

Said evil psycho groove notably & expertly aided by Rick Danko & Levon Helm

10 million dune buggies comin' down the mountain…

this is an absolutely stupendous song and if you somehow haven’t heard it, click the link for a treat

Four minutes of psycho groove flipping over the rock of 60’s utopianism to reveal the infestation below, Neil Young’s ‘Revolution Blues’ recasts Laurel Canyon as a condemned hellscape of privilege and naiveté. Famous stars and bloody fountains. California here I come. www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yK5...

Did I used Elizabeth’s ranking today while used CD shopping? Yes, yes I did.

A great colloquy with many sparks squeezed between @paranoiacs.bsky.social and the incomparable Graham Parker. Just like in travel brochures! www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2026/04/im-a...

May be up your street @collettwriter.bsky.social ? Elizabeth is an excellent writer & communicator, always worth lending an ear.

Nice the hear this interview. Here’s that tribute album to Mr Parker.

This is utterly delightful! From someone who really does not like podcasts.

Podcasts (no matter how famous or recommended) always sound like two guys bullshitting in a basement to me. Now… if those two guys are @paranoiacs.bsky.social and songwriting all-timer Graham Parker? I'm in, baby! #betweenyouandme

Dropped everything to listen to this conversation this morning and it did not disappoint.

Over at my Known Associates podcast, my guest is a personal hero: the legendary Graham Parker! Topics include opening for Bob Dylan and meeting Lowell George, recording with Nick Lowe and Mutt Lange and the 50th anniversary of his masterful debut 'Howlin' Wind.' southwestreview.com/known-associ...

'69 Love Songs' is the Magnetic Fields' LP justifiably lionized as a big conceptual swing, but 1995's New Order-On-A-Fostex-4-Track 'Get Lost' is the great LP of theirs that I turn to most often. A counter-factual history rock where Roxy Music replaces rock. A prayer. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7AC...

Farewell to Dave Mason, a founding member of Traffic who wrote the immortal “Feelin’ Alright.” My obituary for Rolling Stone.

Fair. And of course JR sings about his love of Stop and Shop, which one imagines may be the kernel of the idea.

Two sides of the suburban capitalist dream. The romanticism of Jonathan Richman juxtaposed against the cynical realism of Joe Strummer.

Your new album is excellent, BTW.

The Only Band That Matters

I went to the market to realize my soul, cause what I need I just don’t have. I’m all lost in the supermarket, I can no longer shop happily. Every cheap hood makes a bargain with the world, ends up making payments on a sofa or a girl. TFW everyone in your band is turning 27.

❤️

Connecting Lost to Roadrunner. Damn that’s good! Smart as always.

The Clash’s ‘Lost In The Supermarket’ recasts the giddy highs of the Modern Lover's ‘Roadrunner’ as a dehumanized forced march through suburban hellscapes and special offers. Maybe the best song written about the acute, paradoxical loneliness of the high consumer age. www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZw2...

The conjurer's trick of Pavement's 'Slanted & Enchanted' is the illusion that songs so great were arrived at by accident rather than Malkmus's Stalin-esque 50-year-plan for world domination. As he concedes on 'Zurich Is Stained': "You think it's easy/ but your wrong". www.youtube.com/watch?v=x74e...

Over at the Wall Street Journal, I reviewed Scott Meslow's excellent new 'Twin Peaks' survey "A Place Both Wonderful And Strange", which narrates the show's amazing journey from midseason network replacement to canonical instance of uniquely American art. Gift link below. www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

Elizabeth is so right on about this song and its homage to "St. James Infirmary Blues" and McTell's "Dying Crapshooter's Blues"

Six scary minutes chronicling a five thousand year continuum of human oppression from the dawn of man to the Mississippi Delta, Bob Dylan's "Blind Willie McTell" is the saddest song written about America's failed promise. This land is our land. This land is condemned. www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AIR...

I mentioned once that one of my most disappointing concerts was Little Feat in 1978 when George was in such bad shape they had to pull him offstage after a couple of songs and Craig Fuller, who had opened with the Fuller-Kaz Band, had to come out and sing his parts the rest of the show.

van dyke parks opened me up to lowell and little feat. always a champion for his old pal

From the archives, @paranoiacs.bsky.social on Lowell George for @oxfordamerican.bsky.social on the occasion of his birthday today. #MusicSky #LittleFeat

Happy birthday to Lowell George, whose wandering spirit and slanted and enchanted imagination enlivens us more with each passing day, even as we lament his tragic absence. A few years back I wrote about Lowell and Little Feat for Oxford American. I'm still willing. oxfordamerican.org/magazine/iss...

Lowell George in Eight and a Half Songs By Elizabeth Nelson via @paranoiacs.bsky.social oxfordamerican.org/magazine/iss...

I still don't know quite how to think about Lowell George, and I was a young man in his proper heyday. All I know is that @paranoiacs.bsky.social's Oxford American piece convinced me that he still deserves extended contemplation.

BOTD Lowell George!! See Jackson Browne's "Of Missing Persons" ➡️ Zevon's lament: When I die, Jackson is going to write a song More @paranoiacs.bsky.social: oxfordamerican.org/magazine/iss... @themaxb.bsky.social: www.loudersound.com/features/rem... Here among friends: www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwfB...