Eight years ago tonight, I saw Peter Perrett play the comeback gig of the century in Camden, after which I returned to my hotel room and watched old Bullseye episodes on TV for three hours. A triumphant evening.

Farewell, Joseph Byrd.

A few days ago, I spent five hours in a vinyl bar in San Diego playing more than a hundred 7-inch singles for a remarkably tolerant and generous audience. I am certain that my best segue of the evening was “Mind Train” —> “Fingleheimer Stomp.”

Each issue of Maggot Brain is a reliably good read from cover to cover, but Andy's column is what prodded me into finally subscribing, and this piece was a highlight. Well deserved!

Honored and elated to have won a 2025 ASCAP Foundation Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Award for “Extinctophonics: The Game Of Jim” in Maggot Brain #18. Hugest gratitude to @mikemcgonigal.bsky.social and Mairead Case for giving it a home. MB remains analog-only, but you can read the piece here:

Soft Cell were the first group whose preferred mode of expression was not the album or the 45 but the 12-inch single, and this compilation is one of the half-dozen or so greatest releases of the ‘80s. #daveball

Even after 20 years of obsessive listening and talmudic scholarship, I keep finding new things to love about The Fiery Furnaces’ Blueberry Boat. The anniversary edition sounds better than any previous LP or CD and adds a worthwhile unreleased track. They only made 500 copies; get one if you can.

Best, and most relatable, sign at No Kings today: “Agoraphobes For Democracy.”

I got covid for the first time ten days ago. (I’m fine now.) Two important takeaways: 1) mRNA vaccines and paxlovid are fucking awesome. 2) At some point in the last few years, saltines, which I crave whenever I get sick, became borderline-inedible squares made of some sort of caulking material.

I would enjoy time-traveling back to 1969 just to visit the A&M Records promo department and “Well, actually…” the ignoramus responsible for the copy on this picture sleeve.

I can count the good things that have come from social media in the last dozen years on maybe three fingers, and Justin and @dicknixon.bsky.social are two of them.

This fall: action wears a Homburg!

A dreamy electric Brit-jazz LP from 1970 that’s in desperate need of a reissue. Henry Lowther was (and still is) a virtuoso trumpeter/violinist, who played Woodstock as a member of the luckless Keef Hartley Band. Next time I DJ out, I’m playing “Trav’lling Song” into Fairport’s “A Sailor’s Life.”

While going through text messages from Kaleb—insert an image of Charlie Brown saying “sigh” here—I found this, from about a year ago. The point he was making applies to all of us.

A farewell to my friend, Kaleb Horton, a great writer who died unexpectedly this past weekend.

While going through text messages from Kaleb—insert an image of Charlie Brown saying “sigh” here—I found this, from about a year ago. The point he was making applies to all of us.

I wouldn’t have understood this as a teenager, but recent losses have convinced me that, metaphorically speaking, you’re a lot better off trying to have Bob Seger’s career than Ian Curtis’s.

A few months ago, I found a t-shirt I bought at a Dylan/Petty concert I took my grandmother to in 1986. I felt certain that the only person capable of appreciating its talismanic qualities was Kaleb, so I gave it to him and he was delighted (or he pretended to be). Anyway: I miss him.

“I’ve seen so much more F Troop than a normal person should see.” —Kaleb Horton

An eloquent requiem for a psychedelic warlord who has disappeared in smoke.

This arrived just in time for #CDfriday. If you’ve never experienced “Looking From A Hilltop (Megamix)”—the best thing Factory ever released that wasn’t by Joy Division or New Order—I would implore you to drop whatever you’re doing for the next eight minutes and listen to it.

It might only be the seventh or eighth greatest at this point. #nowplaying

I still haven’t read Donald Westlake’s final book for exactly this reason.

Post-script: after an hour of being surrounded by beefy, heat-radiating drunks in Meshuggah jerseys who talked through the entire first set, we left at the break and went home to watch Big Brother.

Used to be, I’d go to a prog show and I’d be surrounded by prog dudes. In 2025, if I go to a prog show, I’m surrounded by prog-metal dudes.There is—trust me on this—a big difference.

You ever just want to walk inside an album cover photo and hang out for a while?

Neither.

One of those records that, each time I hear it, possesses the luminous and magical quality of being exponentially more terrible than I remember.

As soon as someone invents time travel, I’m going to London in 1974 to check out the action at Mr. Muffty’s.

Edition Release News. Please Share. lisajanepersky.bigcartel.com Debbie Harry, Goddess In The Hair-Light Moon Offered for the 1st time. Taken by Persky in the "Blondie loft." Signed, numbered edition of 10. From the original b&w negative, lovingly digitized and colored by LJP ©Lisa Jane Persky 1975

I played a stack of 12-inch singles from the ‘80s. Thoughts: 1) No pop act of the era made better/smarter use of the 12-inch format than Soft Cell. 2) “More More More” has a sleeve illustration by Serge Clerc that makes the actual song about 300% better. 3) “Buffalo Gals” has not aged well.

No shortage of prior examples of album-as-statement; Gordon Jenkins’ “Manhattan Tower” (1946) might be the earliest on vinyl or shellac; Sinatra’s 1950s conceptual albums were hugely important, too. (The seeds of the idea were likely inspired by 19th century program music.)

Few albums have created as clear a dividing line between “before this” and “after this.” Happy 60th.

Keep manifesting.

Lou Reed—playing a thinly-disguised version of CBS Records prez Walter Yetnikoff—in One Trick Pony.

Reflections while being serenaded by a playlist of [artists redacted] at the garden store just now: For 30 years we’ve had a strain of indie rock that sounds like Neil Young fronting an incompetent high school orchestra, and the verdict of history, when it comes, will be merciless and unforgiving.

I realize that in the early ‘70s Warner/Reprise was too busy selling millions of James Taylor and Black Sabbath and Neil Young records to bother attempting to market the albums their ex-VU A&R guy was making, but it’s hilarious that Paris 1919 never got a single release and Academy In Peril did.

Thread 👇

Someone asked me to burn them a “Best of Chicago” CD-R twenty years ago, and I guess I forgot to give it to them. Just rediscovered it outside in the garage and I feel certain that it represents my finest achievement as a provider-of-titles-for-compilation-albums.

I wouldn’t call it a panacea or anything, but playing “Truck Train Tractor” two or three times in a row can really improve the quality of your morning.

Happy 56th anniversary to this all-time banger headline.

Cc: @drewdaniel.bsky.social

Some amazingly terrible verbiage by a RockWrite 1.0 dude, published by Rolling Stone’s book imprint in 1972.

1. Remove album from protective mailer. 2. Place colored splatter vinyl LP in MoFi inner sleeve. 3. Insert empty Stoughton jacket, bonus poster, limited 7-inch single, and LP into polypropylene outer sleeve. 4. File album away and never look at it again. 5. If needed, play the Bandcamp download.

Mitochondrial dna analysis won’t give you as much information about a person as learning that they purchased an 8-track cartridge of CSNY’s American Dream album in 1988 will.

This excellent new Marianne Faithfull ‘64-‘69 box arrived just in time for #CDfriday.

I sent a copy of the Christensen & Tartaglia album from 1969 to @andrewmale.bsky.social recently, and then realized that "Spires," a track I've been obsessed with for decades--it's like a lost Leonard Nimoy/David Axelrod collaboration--wasn't on YouTube. I have now rectified this. You're welcome.

The justly-celebrated 1979 Osmonds/Gibb whoosh-disco collab (“I, I, I”) goes hard. The other nine tracks won’t hurt you. #butnoDonny

Went out to hear some jazz this evening, and during the percussion interlude in Caravan-with-a-drum-solo (iykyk), I watched the pianist take out his iPhone and check his text messages. #2025