Scene: it’s autumn. Route 1 along the North Shore (title case) of Massachusetts—rather, “Old Route 1,” to distinguish it from the stretch with strip clubs and furniture outlets and orange dinosaurs. The scenic portion with private schools and shuttered restaurants and blind intersections that almost kill you (truth).

Radio: on. “Fire” by the Crazy World of Arthur Brown plays and I—driver, father—beam due to my passenger’s—my daughter’s—clear enjoyment of the song, feet tapping (the first place I look), head bobbing. “You like this?” “Yeah!” Right on! “It’s great, isn’t it?” I am the best parent and the world deserves to know.

Next: oh no. The cursed variety of SiriusXM’s Spectrum counters with Counting Crows and goddamn “Mr. Jones.” The feet, the head, etc. “You… like this?” “Yeah! Even more.”

Fantasy: I pull to the side of the road, the marshy part that sometimes floods Old Route 1. I reach across and open her door. “Run! You’re free now!” You fight hard and you save and earn… for this??

Tastes change, due sometimes to growing older but, as likely, to exposure to the unfamiliar. I trust that if G. likes the fifty-five-year-old “Fire” at the age of eleven she will probably always have a place for it. “Mr. Jones,” though, is the kind of bullshit that comes and goes with each season’s brand of earnest asshole. Replaceable, forgettable and certainly not (for example) Peter Brötzmann. It’s her problem if she likes Counting Crows in 2048.

Tastes do change. Remember when? It took until the eleventh volume (actually the twelfth, starting from zero) to dive into the data—I guess it makes sense because number ten appended a Best of Me and eleven needed a new idea. (Twelve needed another so I jumped ship to WordPress. Blogger, somehow, survives.) Fastidious checkmarking ever since has kept me on my toes and so Biffy® Creamy® reevaluations are acted upon only when conscience is at stake. I do not take this lightly—certainly not so lightly as its origin story, upchucked days before a season-ending loss to the Jets in Foxborough. Drag.

What began as a check-in, a talk-versus-walk, basically walked off a cliff into an ocean of bloated, echo-chamber satisfaction that songs and albums were good and, goddammit, they still are! Specifically, in May June 2023, how does this retconned list of retconned Creamys hold up? I don’t know, what day is it? (Excellent foreshadowing.) Despite recent roster adjustments, are my supposed “favorite albums of each year [since] 1964 1960” represented fairly among the annual playlist blather, signaling confirmation of their achievement? And if not, why? Remember when??

The volume Zero
The title What Are the Hours?
The year 2005
The duration 41 minutes (11 songs)
The blather 155 words
The Biffy Stooges – Fun House (1970)
The song Stooges – Fun House

You know you’re stuck in a rut when the title track of what might be your favorite album of all time is the first elected representative. “Blow, Steeeve!”

The volume One
The title James Brown Is Dead
The year 2007
The duration 1 hour 50 minutes (24 songs)
The blather 1,220 words
The Biffy N/A
The song N/A

And then follow it up with an oh-fer. As much time as I put in compiling and sequencing these things, Volume 1 is laborious, self-conscious and, aside from the solid “On Language”/“Fixed Income”/“Pass the Hatchet, I Think I’m Goodkind” run, might as well be on shuffle. The bonus EP (!) that overdrew the original eighty-minute “CD” does a lot of the lifting—thus its inclusion. “I saw the midget car crash, said life ain’t funnyyy anymore!”

The volume Two
The title These Are the Problems I Create for Myself
The year 2010
The duration 3 hours 15 minutes
The blather 6,010 words
The Biffys Groundhogs – Split (1971) Madvillain – Madvillainy (2004)
The songs Groundhogs – Split (Part 2) Madvillain – Strange Ways

Talk about laborious. This took months to assemble, everything from the playlist to the essay to the artwork. “Volume 2 is when I stopped being polite and started getting real.” The forty-eight-song/three-and-a-quarter-hour benchmark is introduced here—you’re goddamn right. Split remains 1971’s greatest and, years later, Madvillainy takes over the 2004 spot from Comets on Fire’s Blue Cathedral. I blame September’s Discord and Rhyme episode.

The volume Three
The title Beauty and Perfection Are Mine
The year 2011
The duration 3 hours 12 minutes
The blather 6,780 words
The Biffys Monks – Black Monk Time (1966) Flaming Lips – Embryonic (2006)
The songs Monks – Monk Time Flaming Lips – Worm Mountain
The bonus Stooges – 1970 (Take 1) (from The Complete Fun House Sessions)

Another pair, unchanged. “At least Fun House echoes from Volume 0 to contribute an early take of ‘1970,’ courtesy of the most aptly named and realized boxed set in history.”

The volume Four
The title The Evolution of the Foot Eater
The year 2012
The duration 3 hours 14 minutes
The blather 4,345 words
The Biffys Deltron 3030 (2000) Fugazi – The Argument (2001)
The songs Deltron 3030 – Memory Loss Fugazi – (The) Argument

And another.

The volume Five
The title I See You
The year 2013
The duration 3 hours 15 minutes
The blather 5,605 words
The Biffys Pretty Things – SF Sorrow (1968) Chrome – Half Machine Lip Moves (1979)
The songs Pretty Things – Old Man Going Chrome – March of the Chrome Police (A Cold Clamey Bombing)

And another. I wasn’t exactly bowling over the Lower Galactic Biffy Council early on.

The volume Six
The title Wizard Observes Slam Dunk
The year 2014
The duration 3 hours 15 minutes
The blather 6,760 words
The Biffys The Jesus Lizard – Liar (1992) The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – Orange (1994) Six Finger Satellite – Severe Exposure (1995) Mr. Lif – I Phantom (2002) Sleater-Kinney – The Woods (2005) Off! (2012)
The songs The Jesus Lizard – Slave Ship The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – Flavor Six Finger Satellite – Simian Fever Mr. Lif – Status Sleater-Kinney – Let’s Call It Love Off! – Man From Nowhere
The hit Sleater-Kinney – Let’s Call It Love

Six for Volume 6… this thing writes itself! “Let’s Call It Love” marks the first 10 Dynamic Hits! appearance, which checks out because it’s the greatest song ever.

The volume Seven
The title Congratulations, It’s a Yak!
The year 2015
The duration 2 hours 45 minutes (36 songs)
The blather 3,950 words
The Biffys Kiss – Hotter Than Hell (1974) DJ Shadow – Endtroducing….. (1996) Yo La Tengo – I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One (1997) Shellac – Dude Incredible (2014)
The songs Kiss – Strange Ways DJ Shadow – Napalm Brain/Scatter Brain Yo La Tengo – Deeper Into Movies Shellac – Dude Incredible
The hit Shellac – Dude Incredible

G. was three and a half so that likely explains the lazy cutbacks. The mix itself is beautiful, though Kiss is hanging on by a thread and almost got kicked out the club by American jazz ensemble the Pyramids. Keep an eye on this one. Hotter Than Hell won’t go down easy though—just ask Peter Criss!

The volume Eight
The title From Out the Space to Yours
The year 2016
The duration 3 hours 17 minutes
The blather 6,375 words
The Biffys Fuzz – Fuzz II (2015) Ty Segall – Emotional Mugger (2016)
The songs Fuzz – Say Hello Ty Segall – The Magazine
The hit Ty Segall – The Magazine

Two again. Despite full Ty Segall participation, we’re headed in the wrong direction.

The volume Nine
The title Instead of Small-Minded Arrogant Fools
The year 2017
The duration 2 hours 27 minutes (36 songs)
The blather 4,285 words
The Biffy N/A
The song N/A

It’s no coincidence that another “short” playlist (G. now five and a half—yupper) produced zero champions. Bad politics, baby, on the heels of a shameful American 2016.

The volume Ten
The title Where Are They? Did They Ever Exist?
The year 2018
The duration 3 hours 36 minutes
The blather 6,490 words (including 10 Dynamic Hits!)
The Biffys Bad Brains – Rock for Light (1983) Metallica – Ride the Lightning (1984) Wu-Tang Clan – Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) (1993) Six Finger Satellite – Law of Ruins (1998) Oh Sees – Orc
The songs Bad Brains – Right Brigade Metallica – The Call of Ktulu Wu-Tang Clan – Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthing ta Fuck Wit Six Finger Satellite – Sea of Tranquility (Part 1) Oh Sees – Animated Violence

We’re back on the trolley, not only with fair representation but also with forty-eight songs. I’ll not stray from that threshold again. Ride the Lightning turned out to be redundant when factoring in the Nomar Day re-revisitation but I’ll always make room for instrumentals—besides, I had more shit to say about HP Lovecraft following an excellent Trout Mask Replica diversion. And Rock for Light sounds even better with the ORG Music non-remixed reissue—proper pitch ain’t nuthing ta fuck wit!

The volume Eleven
The title Cynical Parties Tarnish and Retreat
The year 2019
The duration 3 hours 23 minutes
The blather 4,915 words
The Biffys Beatles – A Hard Day’s Night (1964) The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Are You Experienced (1967) Curtis Mayfield – Superfly (1972) Hawkwind – Space Ritual (1973) The Damned – Damned Damned Damned (1977) AC/DC – Powerage (1978) Motörhead – Ace of Spades (1980) Mission of Burma – The Horrible Truth About Burma (1985) Dead Kennedys – Bedtime for Democracy (1986) Big Black – Songs About Fucking (1987) Public Enemy – Fear of a Black Planet (1990) Black Sheep – A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing (1991) Make-Up – Save Yourself (1999) White Stripes – Elephant (2003) Jay Reatard – Blood Visions (2006) Dungen – Tio Bitar (2007) Black Mountain – In the Future (2008) Dead Meadow – Three Kings (2010) Oh Sees – Smote Reverser (2018)
The songs Beatles – You Can’t Do That The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Love or Confusion Curtis Mayfield – Little Child Runnin’ Wild Hawkwind – Time We Left This World Today (Live) The Damned – New Rose AC/DC – Sin City Motörhead – (We Are) the Road Crew Mission of Burma – He Is, She Is (Live) Dead Kennedys – Chickenshit Conformist Big Black – The Power of Independent Trucking Public Enemy – B-Side Wins Again Black Sheep – Pass the 40 Make-Up – Save Yourself White Stripes – Girl, You Have No Faith in Medicine Jay Reatard – Waiting for Something Dungen – Introduktion Black Mountain – Wucan Dead Meadow – That Old Temple Oh Sees – Last Peace

You can see that I had to do something—my hit/miss ratio was an insult to the entire blogging community. And boy, did I do something! Nineteen songs! (An even twenty had George Brigman’s Jungle Rot held onto 1975. I will not rewrite the 50^th Anniversary Super-Biffy Spectacular but Brigman’s distortion can continue to defend my flank against all comers, please and thank you.) I hadn’t yet extended the timeframe from ’64 to ’60 but this batshit production covered all but four homeless motherfuckers. It’s a wonder what can be accomplished when you set the bar incredibly low.

The volume Twelve
The title There Are Too Many Fuckers in the Streets
The year 2020
The duration 3 hours 27 minutes
The blather 4,135 words
The Biffys Creamys: Black Flag – Damaged (1981) The Fall – Hex Enduction Hour (1982) Mudhoney (1989) Thee Oh Sees – Carrion Crawler/The Dream (2011) Ty Segall – First Taste (2019)
The songs Black Flag – TV Party The Fall – Hip Priest Mudhoney – When Tomorrow Hits Thee Oh Sees – Contraption/Soul Desert Ty Segall – Taste

Blogger’s Biffys become WordPress’s Creamys. You’re welcome! Four leftovers, plus 2019. We are caught up!

The volume Thirteen
The title Everything Is Wide Open
The year 2021
The duration 3 hours 30 minutes
The blather 5,430 words
The Creamys Charles Mingus – Town Hall Concert (1962) Osees – Protean Threat (2020)
The songs Charles Mingus – Freedom (Live) Osees – If I Had My Way

So I went and rewound to 1960, then I went and doubled up Charles Mingus at Bob Dylan’s expense. I’ve got a lot of nerve.

The volume Fourteen
The title On the Eve of Brain Fever
The year 2022
The duration 3 hours 23 minutes
The blather 6,055 words
The Creamys Witch – Lazy Bones!! (1975) John Dwyer – Moon-Drenched (2021)
The songs Witch – Motherless Child John Dwyer – The War Clock

2022 discovery Witch, a.k.a. the Witch, a.k.a. WITCH (“We Intend to Cause Havoc”—excellent) joins 2021 champion John Dwyer et al. I’m not going to do all that math shit from four years ago but some Creamys fall outside of the annual playlist blather:

1960	Miles Davis – Sketches of Spain
1961	John Coltrane – Olé Coltrane
1963	Charles Mingus – The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady
1965	John Coltrane – A Love Supreme
1969	Led Zeppelin
1976	Ramones
1988	Public Enemy – It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
2013	Thee Oh Sees – Floating Coffin
2022	Off! – Free LSD

Sketches of Spain (“Solea”) and Olé Coltrane (“Olé”) covered for Trevor Lawrence and the Jaguars during the 2021 draft. A Love Supreme got the supreme love but, sure, no specific playlist representation. I consider it resolved even if formal acknowledgement—har! har!—is lacking. The self-titled Zeppelin (“How Many More Times”) and Ramones (“Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World”) albums plus It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (“Terminator X to the Edge of Panic”) were revisited along with Nomar Garciaparra a dozen years ago. This leaves The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady, Floating Coffin and Free LSD—how about them? Let’s see.

One interesting quirk to address first: six albums were represented twice across all fifteen (plus one) volumes over the years.

Byrds – Fifth Dimension (1966) Volume 2 – Eight Miles High Volume 8 – John Riley

Blue Cheer – Vincebus Eruptum (1968) Volume 0 – Out of Focus Volume 8 – Doctor Please

Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band – Trout Mask Replica (1969) Volume 3 – Veteran’s Day Poppy Volume 11 – Moonlight on Vermont

Jack Bruce – Songs for a Tailor (1969) Volume 7 – Boston Ball Game, 1967 Volume 10 – To Isengard

Dr. Octagon – Dr. Octagonecologyst (1997) Volume 0 – 1977 Volume 12 – Blue Flowers

C Average (1998) Volume 3 – Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers Volume 10 – Dark Harbour/Green Mountain Airways/Illgagaard Forever

No comment, necessarily. These are not my favorite albums of their respective years… though Vincebus Eruptum and Trout Mask Replica are formulating arguments. I have one tattoo and it reads VINCEBUS ERUPTUM; I wrote twelve thousand words about one subject and it was Trout Mask Replica. What are we doing?

---

1. Placebo – Balek
Placebo, eh?

A feud between Limp Bizkit and Placebo began at a show Fred Durst was hosting at Irving Plaza in December 1998. A side stage spat with Brian Molko led to Durst asking the crowd to chant “Placebo sucks!” prior to Placebo’s performance. Molko later commented that nobody had told him Durst would be hosting and that Placebo would have to follow opening act Kid Rock.

Yeah. Different Placebo.

Marc Moulin formed the band Placebo with his close friend, guitar player Philip Catherine. They recorded three albums and one 45-RPM single from 1973 until the group split up in 1976.

Neater and much better. As if the “alternative rock/glam rock” model could ever pull off our lead instrumental.

2. The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – Black Mold
My man Jon was on yellow journalist Vish Khanna’s Kreative Kontrol podcast a little over a year ago to promote various projects, tell entertaining stories and basically be Jon Motherfuckin Spencer for an hour. Vish, of course, pestered the guy in a way only he can about the Blues Explosion getting back together until Jon said they can’t because Judah Bauer has health problems that prevent him from traveling. To paraphrase Vish’s response: “Ah, that makes sense. I appreciate that. But… might you give some thought to becoming a studio-only band?” Ladies and gentleman, Vish Khanna! The Man Who Won’t Let It Go! Grab a slice of Canadian pizza on your way out. Anyway, “Black Mold” got pushed out of some other playlist years ago and I’m reclaiming that shit—how would you follow a proggy Belgian instrumental from 1973? I know how. Choose something with a bridge where the lead singer is namechecking rock & roll, rhythm & blues and jazz heroes throughout history… while the backup singer simultaneously shouts what I presume to be various strands (?) and conditions of mold:

Art Blakey—neurospora crassa— Ornette Coleman—Milton Babbitt—aspergillus nidulans—Magic Sam—Randy Newman—sclerontina borealis—Lonnie Smith—Grant Green—stachybotrys chartarum— the explosive Little Richard—Little Walter— pythium root rot—Shakey Horton—Jerry McCain—claviceps sativas.

Rotting—rotting—and growing—growing—around, around—around—around, around—around—around, around—around—around, around—around!

3. Americans in France – Nose Job
“You say you want a nose job?” Americans in France provide an opportunity to discuss Europeans who visit America and wear shorts. You know when you end up plowing through three or four House Hunters International episodes at night because you can’t find the CONTINUE WATCHING [series you’ve devoted hours to] button and it’s too late to start a movie? Wherever these people go—Amsterdam, Lima, Brisbane—none of the damn locals are wearing shorts. Trousers, skirts, wetsuits—they’re barely even wearing jeans. Transplanted Americans stick out because we generally wear shorts for comfort and don’t give a shit about fitting in with “outsider” customs. And then? And then! Encounter stateside European tourists at, say, the Boston Marathon or during the summer months as they clog entire sidewalks and queue up at Starbucks and McDonald’s—they’re always wearing fucking shorts. Mothers, fathers, kids… shorts! Why not do this in Europe and elsewhere when the weather allows? Is it “too American”? Does our relaxed culture—relaxed? mass shootings??—grant them permission to pack and dress lightly? Just do it at home already if that’s what you want—worrying too much about what others think of your preferences, so long as they’re, you know, not hate-based, is for the birds. It’s hard not to be hard on yourself, and even if I wear jeans and continue to judge you (I will), who cares? Who am I? You’re not even reading this.

4. Kaleidoscope – Chocolate Whale
Again with the names—this is the Californian Kaleidoscope and not the English (“A Dream for Julie”), Puerto Rican (“Let Me Try”) or undoubtedly countless other global psych-adjacent groups unaffiliated with the Mighty Kaleidettes (!).

Kaleidoscope’s fourth and final album from their Epic Records era, Bernice, featured more electric guitar work than the earlier albums, and more country influence.

It also featured the best hard H—“Chocolate Hh-whale”—since Benny Joy’s “No-hh-where.”

5. Thee Oh Sees – Strawberries ✔️
Thee Oh Sees’ 2013 album Floating Coffin unseated Ty Segall’s Sleeper on… hh-when? On Christmas day, sir! Today, the former’s “Strawberries” (technically “Strawberries 1+2”, a distinction I recognize in its composition and then ignore) swipes the checkmark from the latter’s title track (technically “Sleeper 1,” assuming his later “And, Goodnight” is “Sleeper 2”). Unrelated—probably—I tested positive for COVID on December 26. Segall’s is a merciless revenge.

6. Demon Fuzz – Past, Present and Future
“And the award for Most Intense Album Cover of 1970 goes to…”

7. Joy Division – No Love Lost
Joy Division is one of those plodding, mopey English bands I never liked. Atmosphere (no pun intended) can only take you so far and sparseness might as well be lifelessness in their case—it took Girls Against Boys (“She’s Lost Control”), Kustomized (“Dead Souls”) and the Icelandic Jonestown Massacre (“the banal chorus of ‘We were strangers before we met’ plods on” and mimics “I Remember Nothing” in a polite nod toward the band’s existence) to get the blood flowing. And then? And then! Discord and Rhyme discussed the Fall’s This Nation’s Saving Grace and suggested that “Gut of the Quantifier” borrowed (more to come on that) from “No Love Lost” by, yes, the revered and boring Joy Division. (To me, the purloined riff seems closer to the Doors’ “The Changeling,” which itself is heavily influenced by Jr. Walker’s “Shotgun”—connections that were also made by the D&S crew. Whatever.) This led me to An Ideal for Living, the excellent debut EP recorded for £400 and released in 1978 right into my wheelhouse. I’m so goddamn predictable. Now get outta here with the “Love Will Tear Us Apart” bullshit.

8. Beastie Boys – The Maestro
My favorite chapter of Beastie Boys Book (audiobook version) was “Well, Back in My Day,” where Adrock described the physical music age of lugging around backpacks full of mixtapes and buying and assembling furniture to store and display one’s music collection. It was an absurd way of life that no longer burdens (most of) us. His appreciation for the disappearance of physical media as a musical format…

I can tell you from experience, and with a professional’s opinion, the cassette-vs-vinyl-vs-CD-vs-MP3 argument is boring. If I made you a mixtape with “Pass the Peas,” the song would be just as fucking awesome if I emailed you an MP3 instead. “Yeah, but, MP3s sound terrible!” Who cares?

…is welcome in this age of expensive vinyl reissues, costly production resources and delays, delays, delays. Bandcamp recently let slip the upcoming Osees album Intercepted Message in full ahead of its proper August release date, long enough for me to preorder the digital version and listen to it all the way through but not long enough to download it. Drag. The point, though, is that this album is finished and stored already on some Bandcamp server, so what’s the holdup? I’ll tell you what’s the holdup. They’re probably queued alongside hundreds of bands ranging from, like, Dave Matthews to Anal Cunt waiting for child labor to mine the depths of Jon Spencer’s virgin black mold, and then waiting for space on the production schedule at Earth’s lone record-pressing plant at the top of Kilimanjaro. Because “vinyl is making a comeback,” even though it never left. Good riddance. My second-favorite chapter and favorite individual anecdote is “Yo, Paul, This Is Allen.” “Ask for Janice” from Paul’s Boutique is an eleven-second commercial for the real Paul’s Boutique:

The best in men’s clothing… call Paul’s Boutique, ask for Janice, and the number is, uh, 718-498, ten, forty-three. That’s Paul’s Boutique, and they’re in Brooklyn.

Simple, right? Neat breather before the closing “B-Boy Bouillabaisse” medley. That phone number though, 718-498-1043? That was a real number, and Adrock (via Bette Midler) (!), relates that he’d recorded the ad off the radio and everyone liked it enough to include it on the album, and then name the fucking album after it. The namesake shop closed down soon after Paul’s Boutique’s release, and MCA (always my favorite Beastie, and everyone else’s) paid a fee to take ownership of the number, then hooked up an answering machine and listened to recorded messages every now and then for a laugh. One of these stood out and he shared it with Adrock and Mike D:

Yo, Paul, this is Allen, you can kiss my ass. I ain’t interested in you anyhow. I’m just interested in the B-Boys, so fuck you, my man!

“It turns out,” Adrock (Midler) concludes, “when you put a phone number on a record that half a million people own, there’s gonna be more than a few that decide to call it up.” I’ve always loved “The Maestro” even if it’s an Adrock/Mike D show—maybe MCA hogs the bridge asking after people’s favorite TV detectives?—and found its introduction amusing, but this backstory is next level, improving the song thirty damn years after the fact. RIP MCA.

9. Viagra Boys – Girls and Boys
I had every intention of putting the band’s “Not Nice” on last year’s mix. Welfare Jazz played it cool had other plans for this year: “Dogs: the only real friends that I got. Trips: bleh-bleh-bleh-bleh-bleh-blub-blub, bleh-bleh-blub.”

10. Apple – Photograph
My work friend Ignacio and I sometimes collaborate on playlists when we’re the only people in the office on Fridays. I once remarked that I have the musical taste of a seventy-year-old man and that he, in turn, has a fourteen-year-old girl’s. He generally doesn’t hate my contributions (whereas I… generally don’t hate my contributions either) and even digs most of Volume 15. “Photograph,” of all songs, was too much for him—not Kaleidoscope, not Demon Fuzz, but a perfect slice of Welsh psychedelia from 1969. “Can’t handle it.”

Apple released An Apple a Day in 1969. The album was a commercial failure and the band ceased to exist shortly after its release.

Hmm, maybe he’s onto something.

However, during the subsequent years several tracks from the LP were dubbed classics of British psychedelic rock by critics, making An Apple a Day one of the most sought-after British psychedelic rarities.

Redundant phrasing aside, maybe he’s way the fuck off.

11. Os Brazões – Espiral
Brazil’s Os Brazões join Nigeria’s Ofege with their own spin on the “Hey Jude”/“Oh! Sweet Nuthin’”/“Dear Mr. Fantasy” vibe and might be the most successful of the bunch. Minimal (Portuguese) lyrics and tight (universal) horns for the win.

12. Ty Segall – Hello, Hi
My favorite song of 2022, though the Hello, Hi album was never in Creamy contention. I’ll put Ty’s heavy stuff against anyone, as his electric set blew away the water-treading acoustic numbers at the Royale last year. There is hope.

13. The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band – Give Me Your Lovething
I’m feeling guilty about my enjoyment of “Give Me Your Lovething” (chanted sixteen times, and I wouldn’t even call it a chorus), given the wonderfully titled album’s context:

Where’s My Daddy? is the fifth album by the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. It is a concept album about a young homeless girl named Poor Patty and her journey through Los Angeles after the Summer of Love. It begins innocently–

That’s enough. No wonder it’s not on Spotify.

14. Gene Clark – I Found You
From Gene Clark With the Gosdin Brothers. Who the fuck are the Gosdin Brothers?

The folk/country vocal duo the Gosdin Brothers added backing vocals, and subsequently received co-billing.

Great. Who the fuck are the Gosdin Brothers?

15. Mmoss – Hands
There’s nothing like a fun-fact exercise to make you feel boring, less than human, untouched by grace. My go-to story of unusual interest—playing Linus in a middle-school production of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown—is so desperate that I’ve never actually used it, even during my Zoom-y introduction to a couple hundred coworkers at my new job a year and a half ago. (Humbly, I stole the fucking show in ’87. Applause for miles.) I didn’t yet own my prized DAGOBAH NATIONAL PARK shirt or my YOUR FAVORITE BAND SUCKS pint glass, so instead… well, let’s go to the transcript:

Hi, my name is Jarrod. [Paraphrased information dump: “I joined team X to design this and that. Previously, I worked somewhere else for quite some time.”] For a fun fact [gestures behind him], I hung these curtains over the weekend, which I think look pretty sharp.

“Which I think look pretty sharp.” That’s certainly something. Other new-joiner fun facts that day featured people who:

Completed the Marathon des Sables, a two-hundred-fifty-kilometer footrace across the Sahara Desert.

Was once a professional belly dancer and Turkish folk dancer who participated in international competitions.

Visits and ranks beaches from Block Island to Dubai in both directions.

Is training for her first marathon – “Can anyone recommend a flat course?”

Scuba dives for pleasure.

Has a “machine learning side project.”

Plays bass in a rock band.

Is preparing for a half-marathon, “which doesn’t seem that impressive anymore.”

Not impressive? Did you hear the curtains guy? And I wasn’t done yet, here’s another grueling personal achievement:

I’m also a fan of sixties and seventies psychedelic music, so if anybody wants to talk Hawkwind or Blue Cheer then look me up.

Someone did look me up afterward to recommend the New Hampshire-based Mmoss, and here we are. Now where’s my blanket!

16. Brainiac – Charles (Demo)
The surviving members of Brainiac have been busy cleaning out their closets, basements and, yes, attics to package rarities, demos and a full concert for those of us who still love the band… even if it took awhile to show it. 2021’s Attic Tapes and the essential From Dayton Ohio were followed earlier this year by the Predator Nominate EP, which I’m guessing will close the book due to its sub-fifteen-minute runtime. Draag. (Frankly I’m interested in more live stuff than demos anyway, so here’s hoping.) “Charles,” circa 1994 from Attic Tapes, is another my man had to skip: “You lost me.” It bears no relation to the new king—talk about a demo! That guy’s waited decades for his big break.

17. Handsome Boy Modeling School – The Projects (P Jays)
18. Donovan – Goo Goo Barabajagal (Love Is Hot)
“Smoke Stack Lightning” is dead, long live “Smoke Stack Lightning”! Trugoy the Dove and Jeff Beck, respectively, guest from beyond the grave to improve two songs that couldn’t possibly be improved. “But you wouldn’t understand it: truth is mol-tuhhhnnn!” RIP.

19. Mudhoney – Move Under
Steve Turner: “If anybody is grunge, we are. It doesn’t bother me. I’m not going to go, ‘We’re so much more than grunge.’” Mark Arm: “I’d actually argue that we’re less than grunge.”

20. The Fall – I Am Damo Suzuki ✔️
“The music is heavily influenced by the 1971 Can song ‘Oh Yeah,’ but also contains elements of other Can tracks such as ‘Bel Air,’ ‘Gomorrah’ and ‘Midnight Men.’” Heavily influenced? The Fall?

21. Man… or Astro-Man? – Spectrograph Reading of the Varying Phantom Frequencies of Chronic, Incurable Tinnitus
“…Phantom…” is all that remains of an abusively long set “celebrating” The Phantom of the Opera, which we traveled to New York to see in February.

1. Halo Benders – Phantom Power
2. Camera Obscura – Lloyd, I’m Ready to Be Heartbroken
3. The Lightmen Plus One – The Phantom
4. Iron Maiden – Phantom of the Opera
5. Man… or Astro-Man? – Spectrograph Reading of the Varying Phantom Frequencies of Chronic, Incurable Tinnitus 🤘
6. Hawkwind – Mirror of Illusion
7. Dirtbombs – Phantoms in a Lesser Crystalline Sphere
8. Miles Davis – Masqualero
9. The Olivia Tremor Control – The Opera House
10. Elvis Costello & the Attractions – Crimes of Paris
11. Metallica – Phantom Lord
12. Mr. Lif – Phantom 🤘

Missing only are Pink Floyd’s “Echoes,” André–Firmin Overdrive’s “Nearly, but No,” GA5L1T3R’s “Look What You Made Me Do!” and every rational audience member’s “I’m Team Raoul Because This Phantom Is Fucking Bonkers.”

22. John Coltrane – Naima (Take 2)
Side two of 1960’s Giant Steps foretold doom for ongoing Coltrane relationships. He and Naima would divorce in 1963; Syeeda left with her mother; and bassist Paul Chambers jumped ship ahead of My Favorite Things. (Bad idea.) Still, “Naima” and “Mr. PC” persevered as live standards recorded all over the world and that’s a nice a legacy. “Take 2,” featuring my preferred classic quartet to Coltrane’s earlier revolving door of sidemen, was released a few years ago on Blue World, a collection of songs recorded in 1964 for the soundtrack to Gilles Groulx’s Le Chat Dans le Sac. Groulx shelved the material and Coltrane managed to pull himself together and produce A Love Supreme, The John Coltrane Quartet Plays, Kulu Sé Mama, Ascension, Meditations and what would posthumously become Transition, Sun Ship, First Meditations and Om in the next eighteen months. “Le Chat Dans le Sac,” by the way, is French for “Canadians Don’t Know Shit About Jazz.”

23. Earth & Fire – Seasons
I think I smell a rat! In my dreams, Earth & Fire’s Jerney Kaagman and Shocking Blue’s Mariska Veres (hier en daar) meet in some Dutch tavern or café once a year to talk shit about Grace Slick.

24. Jardine – Masochists of Strangulation
Theme song from a 1969 documentary about future generations’ fascination with unresolvable murder podcasts.

25. King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard – Mars for the Rich
I got into King Gizzard a year or so ago (not early enough to include them in contemporary playlist blather) and, similar to Ty Segall and the Osees before them, I dove headfirst into their overwhelming discography. Let me tell you: it’s fucking crazy to hear 2019’s Infest the Rats’ Nest for the first time after COVID settled into something to be feared only by the unvaccinated. “Superbug”? Are you kidding me? Fans must have been losing their shit in 2020. Maybe we should take “Planet B,” “Mars for the Rich” and “Organ Farmer” seriously as wealthy and impoverished Republicans alike target Earth with malice. Ugly.

26. RZA – NYC Everything
NYC is everything, as we confirmed during our Phantom-centered visit. We got dinner in Hell’s Kitchen after the show and, upon leaving the restaurant a bit before eleven at night, G. looked up at the sky and observed “It’s still light out!” No, you crazy kid, it’s just the extrasensory pollution of Times Square. Jesus Christ. I wish RZA and Method Man didn’t repeat verses here but I didn’t complain about “Give Me Your Lovething” earlier so I should get over it fast. “Like my sandwich ain’t a sandwich without Miracle Whip… like my sandwich ain’t a sandwich without Miracle Whip.” Well goddamn. It is twice as nice.

27. Bobby Bland – I’ll Take Care of You
Singer Bobby “Blue” Bland, wrote resident Guardian obituary-man Tony Russell…

…was among the great storytellers of blues and soul music. He created tempestuous arias of love, betrayal and resignation, set against roiling, dramatic orchestrations, and left the listener drained but awed.

Tony. “Tempestuous arias of love”? Get the fuck out of here. Yours appears to be a music-industry rut since label executive Chris Strachwitz is your latest subject. Are you still at war with the language arts?

“‘Arhoolie’ is an African-American word for a field holler, a worker’s message despatched from field to sky.

I don’t like where this is going at all.

It rises, hovers in the air and is gone. But when, in 1960, Chris Strachwitz named his new company Arhoolie Records, he upended the word’s meaning.

Oh good, Germans are upending Black American culture.

In recording these sounds from the borders of society, he was ensuring that they were captured for all time…

Don’t do it!

…fugitive no more.

And just as sure as one and one is two, Tony Russell is a goddamn foo’.

28. Sonny Sharrock – Blind Willy
Summer of Soul showcases the Harlem Cultural Festival with great footage of some of my favorite artists in Sly & the Family Stone, Nina Simone and the Chambers Brothers. It wasn’t “…bigger than Woodstock, who even talks about that anymore?” the way one (white) coworker insisted during an office Black History Month viewing of the film as I bit my tongue against bragging about my fortieth- and fiftieth-anniversary boxed sets. But what happened at Mt. Morris Park was clearly a big deal that I knew nothing about. Touching modern-day interviews with members of the 5th Dimension and others were wonderful but I’ll tell you who stole the soul:

Warren Harding “Sonny” Sharrock…

Warren Harding!

…was an American jazz guitarist. One of only a few prominent guitarists who participated in the first wave of free jazz during the 1960s, Sharrock was known for his heavily chorded attack, highly amplified bursts of feedback and use of aggressive sustain to achieve saxophone-like lines on guitar.

Emphasis mine, motherfucker! Volume 16 won’t know what hit it.

29. Jay Reatard – Night of Broken Glass
It’s not the first misappropriation of tragic events for a punk rock lyric and it’s not the last.

30. Bulldog Breed – Reborn
Formed: 1969. Disbanded: 1969. Genre: freakbeat/heavy psych. Vocal style: bitter/nihilistic/disdainful. Chef’s: kiss.

31. Pixies – Tony’s Theme
April vacation week’s first (for G. and me) viewing of the original West Side Story was a pleasant surprise, and that’s an understatement. What took me so long? “Tony’s Theme” beats out everything from the reissued Leonard Bernstein/Stephen Sondheim soundtrack:

1. Iron Butterfly – Iron Butterfly Theme
2. Guitar Wolf – Jet Generation
3. The Tony Williams Lifetime – Something Spiritual
4. Pavement – We Dance
5. Monks – Drunken Maria
6. Doors – L’America
7. Spinal Tap – Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight
8. The Pharcyde – Officer
9. Gong – Pretty Miss Titty
10. Black Sabbath – Hand of Doom
11. Charlie Haden – El Quinto Regimiento
12. Old Time Relijun – Dagger
13. Chrome Cranks – Dead Cool
14. Cypress Hill – I Ain’t Goin’ Out Like That
15. Bikini Kill – Finale

RIP Tony.

32. Happenings – Don’t You Think It’s Time
Top three lines from Hunter S. Thompson’s uneven but enjoyable The Curse of Lono:

• Page 7: “The time has come to kick ass, Ralph.”
• Page 56: “The time has come for vengeance. The time came yesterday in fact.”
• Page 12: “Jesus. You’re right. I am a doctor.”

33. Jefferson Airplane – Other Side to This Life (Live)
Jefferson Airplane joins the Band in the act of covering a song, acknowledging its origin and rewriting the goddamn title. Marvin Gaye’s “Baby Don’t You Do It” became “Don’t Do It” there and Fred Neil’s “Other Side to This Life” becomes “The Other Side of This Life” here. Drunks and junkies, they’ll fuck your art all over! Let’s return the favor and give this ridiculous band the attention they crave, the attention I generally reserve for occasional NFL Drafts and, perhaps one day, The Ten Commandments. Oh, Moses!

0:02
Back to Yasgur’s farm: “Alright, friends, you have seen the heavy groups, now you will see morning maniac music. Believe me, yeah.” You know someone who follows a statement with “believe me” can be trusted to never drunkenly grope audience members.

0:09
“It’s a new dawn.” This dawn will last one hundred eleven days until “Woodstock West,” a.k.a. the Altamont Free Concert, when my man Marty Balin got knocked the fuck out by the Hells Angels. Some say the sixties died that day. Those people can’t read a calendar.

0:13
“The regular guys… and Nicky Hopkins!” Because a six-person band isn’t big enough??

0:24
I like Spencer Dryden’s drumming throughout but I’m not sure he can hear the rest of the band. It’s sloppy, manic and somehow right in the pocket.

0:31
“Good morning, people!” I had every intention of including the version from Bless Its Pointed Little Head, recorded ten months earlier, but I’ve got to hand it to these assholes: the Woodstock take is a killer, thanks mainly to Hopkins, Dryden and especially guitarist Jorma Kaukonen.

2:28
“Would you liiike to know a seeecret?” Paul Kantner—“as anonymous as ever”—kicks off the vocal and almost sinks the ship. Bill Fritsch is not amused.

2:41
Balin wrests control and all is well.

3:38
Grace Slick of “Shut up, Grace!” fame plays the role of Robert Plant by wailing and skatting away in the background, unsure of what to do with herself in a band with three (!) lead singers and, at the time, zero songs about building cities on (adult-oriented) rock & roll.

4:41
This must be when Kaukonen’s guitar turned into Carlos Santana’s cobra.

5:28
I haven’t mentioned bassist Jack Casady yet. “Bark outtake ‘The Man (The Bludgeon of the Bluecoat)’ was recorded with Little Richard on piano, much to the consternation of Casady, who felt that his presence was stylistically inappropriate.” Sure, we’re just going to let fucking Jack Casady criticize Little Richard.

6:15
Kantner inexplicably namechecks “Fred Neil!” in the middle of Balin’s verse. Why don’t more people do this? “Louie, Louie, ohhh nooo, yeah, we gotta go. Richard Berry & the Pharaohs! Yeah, yeah, yeah-yeah-yeah!” Oh, Paul, that’s why.

6:15
Blast off! I’m guessing Chip Monck killed the mics because there’s no way Grace Slick shuts up on purpose for the final two minutes.

8:18
Such a tight, reserved ending for supposed morning maniac music. Let’s get seven cups of coffee up here! Or… what’s that there? Orange acid? Whatever works.

34. Stooges – Heavy Liquid (Live)
“Hammered home in the live Georgia Peaches set included with this [Raw Power] reissue is the fact that piano player Scott Thurston might be the most farcical backup singer ever.” Its “Heavy Liquid” is your proof of concept, when Iggy’s mic drops out and future decades-long Heartbreaker Thurston showcases that rich parody and/or baritone. I find this fascinating and hilarious. Also, heard at the end of the track before Iggy introduces “Cock in My Pocket”:

Female concert-goer: Ohh, wasn’t he great??

Male companion: I didn’t really like it.

Female concert-goer: OK!!

35. Schoolly D – Saturday Night
Some things don’t age well, like cringy eighties rap that glamorizes misogyny, homophobia and violence to the point that the Washington Post (!) proclaimed it “artless… little more than a beat accompanying foul-mouthed, ill-tempered rants.” Saturday Night Live, on the other hand, doesn’t age well to the point that Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller wrote a six-hundred-page oral history about Lorne Michaels and his legacy of “Do the thing!” comedy. The show’s run with Dana Carvey, Nora Dunn, Phil Hartman, Jan Hooks, Victoria Jackson, John Lovitz, Dennis Miller and Kevin Nealon is my era, the one I’ll choose over any other, though I enjoyed renting The Best of Dan Aykroyd on VHS, mixing Snapple-based cocktails in time for Matt Foley and recognizing—live—that “Get off the shed!” would keep me watching for years. Today, having not seen a single minute since late 2016 (Dave Chappell and a Tribe Called Quest), what I remember more than any imperfect ninety minutes was a story Norm Macdonald told at the Comedy Connection shortly before he was fired. Some dude once recognized him on the street:

Dude: Hey, aren’t you that guy on SNL?

Norm: I am!

Dude: Man, that show is shit.

Now forgive me for bookmarking every Toonces skit on YouTube, OK?

36. Superchunk – Tower
“She climbs the tower, gun in hand!” An early nineties preview of The Dark Tower VIII: Imaginary Lipstick Men? Even my rewrite of book seven, though, didn’t leave much room for a sequel. Hmm. “The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed. And then Debra Winger.”

37. Pierre Didy Tchakounte – Ma Fou Fou
Taken from the Cameroon Garage Funk compilation, which might feature my man Pierre on the cover. Google auto-detects French and translates “Ma Fou Fou” into a senseless “My Mad Mad,” so instead I’ll go with something I picked up in Kwei Quartey’s (mediocre) Ghana-based thriller The Missing American:

Fufu (or fufuo, foofoo, foufou) is a pounded meal found in West African cuisine. It is a Twi word that originates from the Akans in Ghana. The word, however, has been expanded to include several variations of the pounded meal found in other African countries including Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia, Cote D’Ivoire, Benin, Togo, Nigeria, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo, Angola and Gabon.

That’s a big chunk of the planet! What is this popular mystery food?

Before Portuguese traders introduced cassava to Africa from Brazil in the sixteenth century, fufu was mainly made from cocoyam, plantain and yams.

Meal-based. Not meat-based. OK.

The traditional method of eating fufu is to pinch some of it off in one’s right-hand fingers and form it into an easily ingested round ball. The ball is then dipped in the soup before being eaten.

Hell, it still sounds better than tofu.

38. The Factory – Path Through the Forest
I was excited to finally read Diane Cook’s The New Wilderness, though Beatrice and Agnes’s adventures through the Wilderness State were less satisfying than the stories in her Man V. Nature. The author’s own five-star Goodreads review disagrees.

Even better than Man V. Nature.

Simple and to the point—the best kind of writing. And you have to admire the chutzpah! As for 1968’s stellar “Path Through the Forest”:

The distorted, megaphone-style vocals were a common affectation of the era, but combined with the careful blend of simple, droning rhythm and soaring lead guitars, a magical, otherworldly mood is created, transporting the listener to a place amid the light and shadow of the trees.

I seem to be OK with flowery writing when limited to Nuggets II liner notes.

39. Yo La Tengo – Sinatra Drive Breakdown
It’s been a long time since I read Pitchfork—I wonder what they have to say about my favorite album of 2023 (so far), and if they still rate music on an absurd zero-to-ten scale, out to one decimal.

This Stupid World – Yo La Tengo – 2023
8.5 / BEST NEW MUSIC

Here we go.

To fully dig the manifold charms of This Stupid World–

I’m out.

40. Death – Can You Give Me a Thrill???
41. PJ Harvey – Silence
What I like about Goodreads is the paper trail—har! har!—that helps you remember. “Ashley Audrain has a new book out… that’s a familiar name, have I read her before? Oh, The Push, right, that was really good. I should read this new one.” Etc. It’s a pleasant social media space versus all the others because, by definition, its members are literate, even if they rate David Baldacci’s The Winner, Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things and Sandra Boynton’s Pajama Time! four fucking stars out of five. Shudder. They also give away a shitload of Kindle and print books every day—the odds get steep and there’s a lot of garbage to navigate but some capsule descriptions are intriguing. I managed to win seven times so far and, to me, the results aren’t great:

Omar Fink – Rhodium Pirates ⭐
Bruce McCandless (III) – Wonders All Around: The Incredible True Story of Astronaut Bruce McCandless (II) and the First Untethered Flight in Space ⭐⭐⭐
Paul Ilett – Exposé ⭐⭐⭐
S. Alexander O’Keefe – Phantom Money ⭐⭐⭐
Jefferson Flanders – Herald Square ⭐⭐
Doug Chamberlain – Bury Him: A Memoir of the Vietnam War ⭐
Marcel M. Du Plessis – The Silent Symphony ⭐

That averages out to an even two stars—we’re talking Underground Airlines territory, Emma Cline’s Daddy territory. Cthulhu weeps for free-book authors—for example, here are a series of notes I jotted down while reading Bury Him as quickly as possible:

The author is listed as “Captain” Doug Chamberlain on the cover. Red flag.

Chamberlain defends using the G word for historical accuracy. It appears twenty-eight times in the book, which might not sound like a lot until they bunch up in a single paragraph and suddenly Captain Koons is going on about Butch’s father’s gold watch.

Chamberlain has a weird habit of putting common phrases in quotation marks: my “roots” near the Rocky Mountains, the “ripe old age” of 102, unmarried teacher was a “knockout.” IT’S VERY TRUMPY.

Most of the text in the climactic chapter “The Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth” is bolded for emphasis. Nothing screams truth like bold text, and nothing de-emphasizes emphasis like entire passages of it. The chapter reeks of paranoia, conspiracy and the author’s (ahem) own research.

On the topic of hard facts, Chamberlain rails against “nine million people” who falsely claim to have served in Vietnam and says those who refused to serve “should be apologizing publicly for their actions.” I’m willing to bet he still voted for Trump twice.

An enlightening chapter about PTSD devolves into concern about “the possible denial of Second Amendment rights.”

All this motherfucker wants is to be thanked for his service. Is it so difficult for the rest of us to appreciate?? While the trauma that has surrounded me through the years could have made me forget, I do not remember being thanked by my parents, any of my siblings or my children for my service in South Vietnam. I do not recall any of them saying that they were proud of my military service to our Country. Again, while I may have forgotten, I also do not remember any member of my immediate family wishing me Happy Veteran’s Day. Sure, though, we liberals are the snowflakes—thank you for crying, already. And that Trumpy capitalized “Country” is another red flag.

Chamberlain used a Black soldier’s funeral as an opportunity to a acknowledge that racism is “alive and well” in America—those quotation marks are his, see what I’m talking about?—because it’s generally thought to be an overblown media invention or something. Bill Sheridan and I attended Jim Meyer’s burial service at Arlington National Cemetery in 2014, and we were the only white people there. In fairness to everyone, we were not made to feel welcome by others in attendance, but I was glad I was able to honor my friend. Cool. Not quite empathy—“in fairness to everyone”?—but he keeps things in perspective. After the service, all of us went to Fort Meyer, adjacent to the Cemetery, and had lunch. Unbeknownst to Jim’s other friends and relatives, I paid for their meals and left for the airport to return to Wyoming. Maybe I’ve got this guy all wrong. Naive, but generous, you know? He cared about honoring his friend and– I hope they appreciated my gesture. And there it is, the right-wing impulse to fault Black people for not recognizing our nation of privileged white saviors. The reddest flag.

Most recently I killed off The Silent Symphony and couldn’t be bothered to document another bout of misery and regret. Goodreads to the rescue:

Cassius Wortham leaves all he knows behind to make it as a writer in the City, a nameless, walled metropolis at the crossroads of the world. But things are not as they seem. His roommate might have mob connections, his artist friend has addiction issues and the waitress at the poetry club has political aspirations. Not to mention the invisible spirit of history that follows them around waiting to chronicle a looming catastrophe. An overseas turmoil brings tides of refugees to the walls of the City. Ambitious leaders play at social engineering. The loudest voices are drowned in the growing silence. Only Cas, his friends and their ghostly tagalong hold the key to the future, for in the end the silent will decide the fate of the City. Listen… and you too may hear the instruments of the Silent Symphony.

This shit show would be a hundred pages shorter without the fucking “ghostly tagalong” narrator. Pointless, like much of the story and its character arcs. Anyway, Du Plessis had the nerve to rate his own book five stars with the earnestness of a misunderstood sophomore—if you’re going to do this, at least be hilarious like Diane Cook.

This book took everything I have. Hopefully this is the “worst” I’ll ever do. Hopefully this story—or at least one of the characters—talk to you.

Hopefully you’ll study up on noun/verb agreement. I’ll take the one-star hit and continue to enter giveaway after giveaway, wishing for improved results—Goodreads, please, can you give me a thrill???

42. Beatles – Long, Long, Long
“The ending of ‘Long, Long, Long’ was a fortuitous accident, as George Martin’s assistant Chris Thomas later recalled.”

There’s a sound near the end of the song which is a bottle of Blue Nun wine rattling away on top of a Leslie speaker cabinet. It just happened. Paul hit a certain note and the bottle started vibrating. We thought it was so good that we set the mikes up and did it again.

Once again I call bullshit. That’s George with a mean Tiny Tim impression on the 1968 Christmas record and that’s George wailing away here before Ringo slams it shut. Delicious again, Peter.

43. Equals – The Skies Above
Google Books, “because I read Project Hail Mary,” recommended Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and I figured, sure, I’ve got all this Google Opinion Rewards credit burning a hole in my Google Wallet. It’s a book I’d seen everywhere but knew nothing about, to the point that in my head I often mixed it up with The Anarchist Cookbook. It makes no sense but it kind of does, right? Anyway, “H2G2” was fine (three stars) and taught me little about blowing shit up, but how it’s become an international multi-media phenomenon is beyond me. It reads like a bunch of semi-related skits thrown together and, what do you know, that’s how it was written! “Look, would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now?” Yes, Arthur, it would, but first tell your creator to credit Hawkwind for “Don’t panic,” for crying out loud. Use those seconds sensibly or you will inevitably die.

44. Servotron – Red Robot Refund (The Ballad of R5-D4)
More sci-fi please, in the form of a non-LP “Special Live Anti-Traffic Report Version” from the I Sing! the Body Cybernetic EP. Say what you will about the Star Wars franchise since The Force Awakens (I’m here for the whole ex-prequel product) but rewarding long-time fandom by, for example, repairing R5-D4’s blown motivator and deputizing him in service to the Mandolorian is the gift millennial Darth Maul stans will never receive. In other robot news, Servotron’s Z4-OBX and 00zX1 make their second Volume 15 appearance following Man… or Astro-Man? ninety minutes ago (as Birdstuff and Dexter X, respectively) and, along with the rest of the band, never broke character when I saw them at the Middle East Upstairs in ’97 or ’98. They exist to be perfect.

45. Zelda – Pitch Darkness (One Day’s Scene)
Aquarium Drunkard called this “something close to post-punk perfection” and I have to agree, as someone with no special affection for post-punk or, you know, eighties rock.

Vocalist Sayoko Takahashi moves in acrobatic idiosyncrasy across the track’s chugging rhythm, and makes way for unexpected but delightfully dizzying lines of saxophone mystique.

Writers are the worst.

46. Mdou Moctar – Layla
I love that Nigerian Mdou Moctar, or any person of color, reclaimed the Layla name from overrated career lowlife Eric Clapton. RIP Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker forever and ever.

47. Charles Mingus – Stop! Look! and Listen, Sinner Jim Whitney! ✔️
a.k.a. “Solo Dancer.” I’ll admit it: I originally awarded 1963 to The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan because I didn’t want to be the guy who went back to ’60 just so he could fill it with jazz. I also didn’t like the resulting two-fer of Mingus’s Town Hall Concert and The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady, my favorite ’63 album since wondering “What’s my favorite ’63 album?” Instead, I went back to ’60 and happened to fill it with jazz. There’s a difference. And though The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, Jungle Rot, Blue Cathedral, Sleeper and others may be out of cream, they will never be out of our hearts.

48. Off! – Death Trip on the Party Train
2022’s Creamy® Free LSD is eighty-sixed with no good reason other than I love this Wasted Years highlight, so Off! gets the last word. “Third Fifteenth time’s a charm, right into the grave!” What an ending!

---

Three hours twelve minutes, nine thousand thirty words: we’ve got one song from the fifties; fourteen from the sixties (eight—eight!—from ’69); nine from the seventies (four from ’70); four from the eighties (you got time to duck?); six from the nineties; four from the aughts; five from the teens; and five from the twenties (two from ’23). Bless you, daughter. I caught you banging your head to Iron Maiden last week.

More furious madness
Volume 0 | Volume 1 | Volume 2 | Volume 3 | Volume 4 | Volume 5 | Volume 6 | Volume 7 | Volume 8 | Volume 9 | Volume 10 | Volume 11 | Volume 12 | Volume 13 | Volume 14