The glass bottom boat of the cultural press
Sometimes you’ve got to look back several decades to discover fresh “new” music. And this week, Christopher Long stumbles accidentally upon a true vinyl treasure — a clean copy of Eli and the Thirteenth Confession, the critically acclaimed 1968 sophomore set from Laura Nyro — for only three bucks!
This week, Christopher Long travels with the GF to a used record joint down in Vero Beach, Florida, and discovers a TRUE gem in a Dollar Box: a MINT-condition vinyl copy of The Rose, the platinum-selling 1979 movie soundtrack album from Bette Midler.
In this installment, Christopher Long receives a massive love gift from his nail tech: a ravaged original vinyl pressing of the classic 1971 Alice Cooper LP, Killer, for free.
A sweet time capsule of the days when we kept our music on audio cassettes.
Detroit Stories (Earmusic). Review by Bob Pomeroy.
Seance (Fullertone Records). Review by Scott Adams.
Sound Salvation is resurrected with a howlingly good Halloween playlist that will weak the dead at your All Hallow’s Eve bash.
Sound City (Burger Records). Review by Bob Pomeroy.
Are You One Of Jay’s Kids?: The Complete Bizarre Sessions 1991-1994 (Manifesto Records). Review by Bob Pomeroy.
Founder relates the ups and downs of the long-running metal label.
Raw video documentation of the Plasmatics evolution from buzzy punk band at CBGB’s to pyrotechnic madness at Bond’s Casino.
Delusions of Grandeur (Red Eye Records). Review by Carl F Gauze.
Detroit in the 1960’s was a hard city going through hard times. The music that come out of Detroit was incubated at the Grande Ballroom. Wayne Kramer (MC5), Ted Nugent and many others remember the wild times.
Once upon a time, long ago, KISS was a rock band. This story recounts how four unlikely guys from New York first came together during the early 1970s and literally changed the face of rock and roll.
The Dwarves Are Born Again (MVD Entertainment Group). Review by Carl F Gauze.
Carl F Gauze is overwhelmed by Rob Roth’s glossy, artsy rock and roll promotion obscurities.
Lords of Acid allows the return to Orlando’s classic ’90s rave club, and all we can muster is two lousy glow sticks?
Reimaginator. Review by Joe Frietze.
This collection of anecdotes and reveries of the infamous New York Dolls from their bassist, Arthur “Killer” Kane, has Carl F Gauze thinking better of getting the old band back together.
Along Came A Spider (Steamhammer / SPV ). Review by Matt Parish.
A former convict returns to London to avenge his former enemies and save his daughter. Carl F. Gauze reviews the Theater West End production of Sweeney Todd.
This week, cuddly curmudgeon Christopher Long finds himself feeling even older as he hobbles through a Florida flea market in pursuit of vinyl copies of the four infamous KISS solo albums — just in time to commemorate the set’s milestone 45th anniversary.
Starting with small-time jobs, two gangsters take over all the crime in Marseilles in this well-paced and entertaining French film. Carl F. Gauze reviews the freshly released Arrow Video Blu-ray edition of Borsalino (1970).
Aaron Tanner delivers 400 pages of visual delights from the ever-enigmatic band, The Residents, in The Residents Visual History Book: A Sight for Sore Eyes, Vol. 2.
Two teenage boys build a sexy computer girlfriend with an 8-bit computer… you know the story. Carl F. Gauze reviews Weird Science (1985), in a new 4K UHD Blu-ray release from Arrow Films.
Cauldron Films’ new UHD/Blu-ray release of Lucio Fulci’s City of the Living Dead (1980) preserves one of the best Italian horror films, according to Phil Bailey.
Marleen Gorris’s first theatrical feature is a potent feminist look at the easily disposable lives of sex workers in Amsterdam. Phil Bailey reviews Broken Mirrors.