Today's newsletter reviews 5 Albums You Need To Hear by bassist Dr. Emma Dayhuff, trumpeter Josh Lawrence, power trio Orcutt Shelley Miller, producer Adrian Sherwood, and my drum 'n' bass buddy Submerged: burningambulance.substack.com/p/five-album...

There's an amazing review of my Cecil Taylor biography out this morning, pairing it with J. Hoberman's book on the 1960s NYC avant-garde. (I haven't read his book, but maybe I should.) clereviewofbooks.com/now-what-on-...

There are some celebrities who are so old (OK, it's Willie Nelson, I am talking about Willie Nelson) that whenever a news organization posts a photo of them on social media, for any reason, the photo should be watermarked with the text "STILL ALIVE" until, you know, that's no longer the case.

Again I come back to what I thought about this last week, which is that it is 2025. I couldn't watch local TV news if I fucking wanted to. My "TV" is basically a monitor I use to watch Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, occasionally YouTube, and Blu-Rays.

As I said over the weekend, Lemmy died just two weeks earlier, on 12/28/15, so you could argue that it all started going downhill then.

Big announcement coming this week re: the label side of operations. Keep an eye on our Bandcamp page...

Sunday morning work: a collage of new sketchbook pages (all ink on paper).

Writing something about Motörhead's final album and remembering that it was released five months before David Bowie's Blackstar (8/28/15; 1/8/16) and that Lemmy and Bowie died two weeks apart (12/28/15; 1/10/16). (FYI, the photo of the two of them together that circulated at the time is a fake.)

I have long said that common enemies are key to a strong relationship, and that's easier than ever these days.

A lot of old men (by which I mean men my age) are raving about Wednesday this week. I didn't like this kind of music in the 90s, and seeing old men getting excited about such a nakedly retro version now just makes me sad. Have some goddamn self-respect, dads. www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8cK...

SUPERMAN: much like the 1978 movie, it will make you say "Wow, this is some corny-ass bullshit" and mean it as a compliment.

Today in Things Phil Should Not Be Burning Money On: the 5CD/Blu-Ray "Super Deluxe Edition" of Deep Purple's already self-indulgent as fuck Made In Japan. And yet...

I'm cited well over 400 times but do not have my own Wikipedia page. Which is fine! I don't wanna be in their crappy club for jerks anyway!

🚨🚨🚨NEW ANAL STABWOUND🚨🚨🚨 newstandardelite.bandcamp.com/album/anal-s...

Friday morning listening: Albert Collins, Frostbite. Stinging Texas blues from 1980. Don't know why I never listened to Collins before now, I always used to see his albums around, but I am definitely into his stuff. Available on Bandcamp, too! albertcollins.bandcamp.com/album/frostb...

Today's BA newsletter looks at three duo albums, with very different partners, by saxophonist Ivo Perelman. And if you're a paying subscriber, there's some very cool shit behind the paywall, so why not become one? burningambulance.substack.com/p/ivo-perelm...

Nothing has made me feel younger than reading all the calls for people to boycott TV channels over Jimmy Kimmel. Like... you watch TV? *TV* TV? In 2025? Fuuuuuck, I had no idea there were so many 80-year-olds around these parts.

Afternoon listening: Iggy Pop, Beat 'Em Up, which is worse than I remembered.

When you're an 80-year-old reality TV performer who somehow has some other job now, what late-night talk show hosts are saying about you is the most important thing in the world.

Oh, Cathedral are releasing a 30-minute song? How exciting. Every Cathedral song I ever tried to listen to felt 30 minutes long.

Is it bad that when I read the latest article about Why Men Don’t Read Fiction (it’s actually just a review of several new novels) my immediate response is, “Well, who the fuck would want to read *that*?” www.vulture.com/article/jord...

"Why'd they make that one muppet out of leather?"

Turning off the first Masada album so I can dial into a Zoom call for work. Your sympathy is noted and appreciated.

Just remembered that Kali Malone is married to Sunn O))) guitarist Stephen O'Malley, making her... Kali O'Malley.

Working on my new sketchbook with acrylic ink.

My current favorite album: Kali Malone’s The Sacrificial Code, a 3CD set of solo pipe organ music.

Asked my local pharmacy about covid shots and was told “Yes, we have them, and we have a list of underlying conditions you can say you have”. #montana

This is the greatest fucking thing I've ever heard.

Unless you were totally unfamiliar with the work of both men, I cannot imagine why you might need to read Ta-Nehisi Coates' thoughts on Charlie Kirk. And if you *were* totally unfamiliar with the work of both men, what would make you *want* to read such an essay?

G without a moment's hesitation. (Those who say different have never had a bandeja paisa.)

I was in SF last month and found all the driverless taxis downtown creepy as hell.

And now the news that the crime novelist Thomas Perry has died. He wrote a lot of books, but five novels he published annually between 2016 and 2020 were AMAZING: Forty Thieves, The Old Man (the basis for the TV show with Jeff Bridges), The Bomb Maker, The Burglar, A Small Town.

Dez Cadena of Black Flag's phrase "Anarchy for me, fascism for you" feels more and more appropriate with each passing day.

And in the "destined to be overshadowed" file, RIP Tomas Lindberg, one of the most important metal vocalists Sweden ever produced.

Today's newsletter takes a 10th anniversary look back at guitarist Mary Halvorson's Meltframe, her first and to date only solo album: burningambulance.substack.com/p/mary-halvo...

Trying to decide if I need an upgrade from my old DVD copy of ALTERED STATES. www.criterion.com/films/29506-...

I love that this exists mostly because it proves that Steven Wilson will take ANYBODY's phone call. www.thesdeshop.com/products/fra...

Once again, scanning the track titles on an upcoming metal album forces me to ask, "Are they chuds or just dumbasses?" Given the members' average age, it's a toss-up for sure.

Battle doomscrolling by posting 5 small pleasures in life: 1. Bacon cheeseburger 2. Dipping your hand in a cold, fast-moving stream 3. Petrichor (the smell after it rains) 4. When a dog, not your own, recognizes you 5. Those little desktop figurines that wave their arms when exposed to sunlight

Life in the mountains — there is always a spellbinding cloud overhead.

It's kind of incredible how careerist the new Sanguisugabogg album is. Kurt Ballou production, a slew of guest vocalists, big-ass Cannibal Corpse riffs... we get it, guys, you want to be on the main stage. (It's a good album, mind you. But the only thing missing is a song with a clean chorus.)

RIP Hermeto Pascoal. I interviewed him (with his keyboardist as translator) a couple of years ago: daily.bandcamp.com/features/her...

Isis Hitler

I really don't understand the claim that the new Spike Lee movie is too exposition-heavy in its first hour. There's like two, three lines of superfluous dialogue; everything else is key, and comes at you fast.

If you hate Robert Christgau's writing as much as I do, you'll want to read this piece. (I don't hate Robert Christgau, because we've had only one in-person interaction; he asked me where the men's room was, and I pointed.) It makes other good points, too. jude-doyle.ghost.io/po/

I'm not sure whether it happened in the last 10 years or slightly before, but CDs hold between 82-84 minutes of music now and sound noticeably better than earlier CDs.

When you see that one particular critic only gave the new Spinal Tap movie 2 1/2 stars, you know it's gotta SUUUUUCK.

The Ava Mendoza/gabby fluke-mogul/Carolina Pérez album MAMA KILLA has gotten a slew of brilliant reviews since coming out in July. I gathered them in today's newsletter for a kind of "For Your Consideration" ad, as year-end list season commences: burningambulance.substack.com/p/mama-killa...

Trying to remember the name of a band I worked with when I was at Roadrunner Records who released a bootleg T-shirt featuring all the characters from The Lion King. Don't know why that memory popped into my head tonight, but the look on their A&R guy's face was all-time hilarious.

There is a review of the new Sabrina Carpenter album in the latest New Yorker. It’s a little over 1300 words long. I count 60 of those words devoted to what the music sounds like, and most of those are vague adjectives, frequently delivered in pairs (“bright, effervescent”; “twangy, ribald”).