After lengthy negotiations with an acquaintance who prefers to remain anonymous, I have been granted permission to share this heartwarming true-life tale of holiday idiocy with the world.

After lengthy negotiations with an acquaintance who prefers to remain anonymous, I have been granted permission to share this heartwarming true-life tale of holiday idiocy with the world.

Dynaflex vinyl sounds fine. The idea that you need 180 gram or 240 gram vinyl in order to make a good-sounding LP is audiophile snake-oil of the highest caliber. If someone said “your coffee mug that weighs six ounces is inferior because my coffee mug weighs two pounds,” you’d laugh at them.

Listened to a new high-end vinyl reissue—original tapes, analog mastering, good pressing, etc—of a record I’m intimately familiar with. The sound was so hyper-clear and detailed that it ruined the album by stripping away ambience and grain in favor of “you can hear each click of the finger cymbals!”

“Quickly, everyone—into the Time Machine!”

At the most intense part of Window Water Baby Moving--Jane Brakhage is crowning; the baby is slowly emerging--someone in the audience yelled "is there a doctor in the house?" It seemed like a dumb joke...until the film stopped and the house lights came up because an audience member had passed out.

Blood of the Beasts [Le Sang des bêtes] (Franju, 1949)

I was unprepared for the awesomeness of the newest Hawkwind deluxe edition. Three complete live shows from early ‘74 are the primary attractions here—even more kosmiche and krunchy than Space Ritual—and the 2025 mixes do them justice. Inspirational Verse: “Timothy Leary is not dead, Moody Blues.”

Father Cannot Yell, I’ll Meet You Halfway, Gloria, Maggot Brain, Watch That Man.

An album that sounds exactly like its cover suggests. #nowplaying

An album that sounds exactly like its cover suggests. #nowplaying

Last month, a few of us had a Kaleb Horton tribute lunch at the David Lynch Bob’s Big Boy. Food and service were a C-/D+, but I’m having a good time imagining Kaleb cackling at me from the grave because I’ve ended up on the Bob’s Big Boy email list and am now receiving stupid fucking shit like this:

Tepid 1976 yacht-funk with a spoken bridge section intoned by Ned Flanders soundalike: “Yes, man has learned to move, lift, push, pull, divide, to fasten things together in a truly extra-ordinary display of understood technology.” A total banger, obviously.

I am immensely grateful to late-20th-century record distributors, whose speed and efficiency allowed me to acquire an import copy of this album in upstate New York only 48 hours after its release in the UK.

Top 5 movie genres: —Bleak road trip with no score or non-diegetic music. —Dead character actors yell at one other in obsolete New York/New Jersey accents. —Famous historical figures: they’re just like us! —Only ___ minutes remain to stop the terrible thing. —“We almost got away with it.”

Likky is alive. Wow.

Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass at the Dolby Theatre: an unexpectedly emotional celebration of some of the 20th Century’s most popular pop music. The setlist went deep into the TJB’s ‘60s catalog: all the era-defining hits, tons of deep cuts, and a Lani Hall tribute to Sergio Mendes. Olé!

fuck yeah

“Calling All Girls” is one of the most brilliantly over-caffeinated singles of all time. If you’ve never experienced it before, you really should:

When I’m shopping for records, tedious albums with groovy covers are my greatest weakness. (This one is especially dull.)

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.