I must not have gotten enough sleep last night. Go-Kart Mozart came up on the pocket music shuffler a moment ago and I had to stop and think: Did they come before or after Mozart Estate?

Here are some photographs of The Smashing Times and Taste from last night's fun show at the Make-Out Room.

Did I forget to tell you about the return of Mawkish Twaddle? It's just one week away!

The Times coins a new word--take note, OED--documents the dawning of Red Scare II--take note from hell, Roy Cohn--and touts the joys of potato salad--take note and shudder, starchophobes. And they say Saturday's a slow news day!

🇨🇦🇨🇦 A fun time with Cootie Catcher at Sans Backup Plan Records in Nevada City this summer evening. Preceding the Toronto quartet: Loose Choir from Sacramento, also first rate. #cancon 🇨🇦🇨🇦

I’ll be back on the radio starting July 12! The name of the program? Mawkish Twaddle! It’ll be happening every Sunday from 8 AM to 10 AM Pacific time. (It’s the perfect listening time for those of you in the free world across the sea.) You’ll be able to hear it at kvmrx.org or at 105.7 FM in GV/NC!

At long last.

Early Saturday, late June, unseasonably cool outside. We're listening to this Stella Kola album from early '23, just pressed anew. A recently unwrapped rubber squeak toy, bright orange and porcine in form, holds Foxy in thrall.

Just seeing now the news of the demise of the constipation-rock pioneer. So long, DCT. You were no Al Kooper, that’s for sure.

Of all of Slade's intentionally misspelled song titles, "Take Me Bak ‘Ome” is by far the most annoying.

Solstice sightseeing from here to Auburn and back again.

Hey, barista! I ordered the American Flag Blue™ latte!

Here are some sights seen during Juneteenth sightseeing in Chico, CA, the City of Roses*. * Chico seems to have had this official nickname longer than any U.S. city other than Little Rock. Isn't that fascinating?

One more scratched off the list.

Thinking.

These four LPs entered the record room for the first time between Thursday and today. The Piccioni is spinning right now. Foxy seems to think it's the perfect backscratching soundtrack.

The three faces of Foxy. Photos taken one minute ago.

Wednesday night to Friday morning.

I was catching up on the news a few minutes ago and read about the demise of Bob Packwood. The first thing that came to mind, of course, was this gem from the early 21st century.

My favorite overpass in the Bay Area these days. This is what I saw when I passed underneath that very bridge, on Highway 24 in Lafayette, CA, in late January 2026.

This past Monday afternoon, just hanging out.

The first LP from Glasgow-based Radhika, out a week now, is, for me, one of the top releases of '26. For one thing, it includes the first appearance on physical media of "Future Me," one of my faves of '24.

We're listening to the just-out first solo LP from Lawrence Kim, a New Yorker and one-time member of BMX Bandits. I ordered this copy while the eight-and-a-half-minute-long "Rodeo" -- one of this year's most appealing tracks -- was playing on Irwin Chusid's WFMU show seven weeks ago.

Until five minutes ago, it had been quite some time since I'd heard anything from this Sebastian Cabot album on the radio. And you know what? It sounds better than ever! I’m surprised I didn’t hear any in the lead-up to yesterday’s Zimmerman octogintiquinquennial.

While driving home after consuming a brûlée-ish coffee drink at a cafe that I just discovered today -- it's in the back of a furniture store! -- it occurred to me that the perfect world would be one in which "Don't Stop Believin'" is replaced with "Get Up And Use Me" by Fire Engines.

Dinner any minute now, right?

Listening now to Duglas Stewart's Frankenstein, an album released on CD under that very title 30 years ago. But as the liner note from DTS on this new issue on Precious Recordings of London states, "it is a BMX Bandits album ... not a solo album."

Mid-May Sunday afternoon, windy and cool here in the foothills, listening to that new second Spatulas album. If you thought you knew The Spatulas, you probably do. This one is reminding me a little of Mecca Normal in spots. When was the last time you thought about them?

Is a three-LP set too much Bevis Frond in a post-White Numbers world? Not at all. The quality of Nick Saloman’s work remains at the highest level a decade into his Fire Records era. In fact, it seems to get better with each album.

This new Kelley Stoltz album, which both of us are listening to now, is something like his 19th or 20th LP. The release schedule has slowed a bit from the Pollardian pace of 2017-20, when 7 records came forth. These days it seems to be a new one every two years. Pick hit so far: "Repercussions."

Right around New Year's Day 2002, I perused John Peel’s just-issued Festive Fifty for 2001 and first learned of Camera Obscura. “Eighties Fan” ended up at #8 in that list, higher than anything by The Fall or even HMHB. I immediately found the song on one of the P2P platforms I was using then.

We're listening to the new Cindy record -- you know, the one with the Linda Smith cover sticker blurb. And as I do on occasion, I wonder why Bay Area music players like Cindy (and Taste, and the RPPs, etc.) are only being released on UK labels. That isn't a bad thing, just pricey for some of us.

Ben Cook followed pretty much exactly the same path before him, Kai Slater after. The second LP from Alex Edkins in his Weird Nightmare guise, like the first, is much closer to (Young) Guv territory than it is to Sharp Pins. Its best moments rival the peak selections from those two acts.

Orbit, if you happen to read this today (you won’t), let me take a few minutes to acknowledge what would have been Lesley Gore’s entrée into octogenarianism. I can imagine you’d dig a tune that goes a little something like this. youtu.be/BW4ca5IVWKE?...

Friday evening begins with a listen to Parallel Stride, Doug Gillard's new thing with a hook. Quite a few hooks, actually, some rivalling or maybe surpassing "Ready For Death" and "Come Out And Show Me," the high points of DG's last solo long player (released a dozen years ago).

After all these years, my collection of phonograph records finally includes Air Supply, John Denver, Anne Murray, and Don McLean, all thanks to this latest compilation from the great Bob Stanley. I'll admit that even though I'm something of a Stanley comp completist, this one gave me some pause.

I've been a fan of Elinor Blake's music since the days of The Pussywillows nearly 40 years ago. So of course I had to get a copy of her new LP. Like the last two, it was an RSD release. So far, a few songs into side one, I like it more than the last one but not quite as much as 2021's In Cinerama.

Did I read anything about this Dagmar Zuniga album after it hit Bandcamp and YouTube at the start of last year? I don't remember, but I certainly know about its recent appearance in the PVC format, as these photographs clearly demonstrate.

Did I queue up at the very-nearby record shop for you-know-what on this 120th anniversary of the second-largest recorded temblor on the San Andreas Fault? No! Instead, we walked over to Condon Park for what turned out to be maybe the quintessential springtime perambulation.

Tonight we're listening to the long awaited reissue of The Fall's 24th studio LP, and a soon-to-be-released album from a California-based bloke who played on The Fall's 25th studio LP. Coincidentally, both arrived in yesterday's post.

i feel bad for our country but this is tremendous content

We were listening to the first track on the new album from the band My New Band Believe when the earthquake alert flashed onto the screen of my pocket computer. We immediately ran outside. Now I'll forever associate this record with seismic activity.

Foxy contemplating what she might read next.

May Victor Orbán simply be the first in a string of countries engaging in overdue housecleaning by kicking their authoritarian leaders to the curb.

The people of this nation should not have to wake every weekend to terrifying announcements from the President of the United States. Trump is a madman who is making our country—& the entire world—less safe & less prosperous. Congress needs to be in DC to impeach & remove him immediately.

As vowed earlier today, I’m now listening to the (so far) only LP by Renovator’s Delight. This 2022 release from Brisbane’s Madeleine Keinonen—you know her from the combo Dumb Things—was one of my favorite albums of that year. I picked uo this copy at Repressed Records in Sydney in ’23.

Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk. Decency and democracy win BIG! Trump/Vance/Rubio big LOSERS. Hurray Hungary!!

more seriously congrats to the hungarian people for kicking that asshole out

Unsettlingly summery weather has given way to thunderous downpours and a lingering chill, as if April were March. The new LP from The Leaf Library suits this Sunday morning, sounding like the product of walks along the heavily forested paths of Hampstead Heath that The Clientele fear to tread.

Thin loin pork chops spotted at the local grocery this morning. Three possibilities: (1) the date-stamping machine is out of whack; (2) pork simply stays fresh longer that it used to; or (3) I entered a time warp when I walked into the meat section (looking forward to my Diamond Princess cruise!).