R. Stevie Moore has been home-taping pretty much since audio tape became available, and after an uncompromising and idiosyncratic discography that feels like hundreds of distinct geniuses at work together, he has become the undisputed king of the righteous outsiders. Now R. Stevie says he’s past the DIY thing and into the NPR thing, where documentarians and record labels and websites and magazines are fighting to talk to the guy who never gave up the good fight. He has a new very limited 45 out with Ariel Pink, and coincidentally or not Ariel Pink will be DJ-ing the Echo with Black Bananas and Pink Mountaintops on Thursday. This interview by Chris Ziegler.

Things are just exploding through the roof lately. It’s all a blur! There’s so many different ones—every day I wake up there’s a new stunning development with a label or something on vinyl. My most exciting thing is L.A.-related: my recordings with Ariel Pink and Jason Faulkner. A dream come true! We’ve only done three songs so far, but they’re huge mega-smash-hit productions thanks to Faulkner. We’re getting all these labels in competition—bidding wars!
Is this your first bidding war?
We shouldn’t even say that. I’m exaggerating.
We could help you generate one!
OK—you got my approval. I’ve never been so busy in my life. I’m working so hard and I hate to work, but it’s like a locomotive—nonstop. I can’t step back and enjoy the ride cuz there’s so much work to do. And that’s the major story! Forget the DIY thing, the quality of the music and the diversity—it’s starting to become an NPR-style story of this old guy who’s just getting started!
From DIY to NPR?
It’s good to be armed with quality content—it’s not just the style. And I do have to deal with the age issue and today’s youth-driven market … ha ha.
What long-delayed R. Stevie dreams will come true? Will you do an arena tour and guest host with Terry Gross?
There’s so many miniature dreams. There’s no favorite. It’s all about raising awareness—let’s face it! I’m trying my best to promote-promote-promote and be in people’s faces till they bleed! There’s so much desperation because we’re racing the clock at this stage in my life.
That’s some brutal candor.
That’s me! I’ve really had to become somewhat of a personality. Not just the music and the DIY. I’ve having to entertain with my passion and conviction! I can’t stand mediocrity and I can’t understand why the arts have settled so much over the decades. Everything is accepted. There’s nobody doing anything original or even making an effort to twist and turn and try to be distinctive. The tunnel vision, too—the music thing is always so compartmentalized. Since I was a little boy, my life was a mixtape! I wanted to hear every extreme back to back.
You said once that ‘to be a versatile artist is to commit suicide.’ Is that what happens when you’re not sellable?
I guess—the way the internet has taken over the world, I don’t think I have anything to worry about to get into the commercial mainstream. I mean, I hate the commercial mainstream! Let’s face it—that’s the ultimate peak! Seeking acceptance means fame and fortune and all the other crap that goes with it. I’m sick of struggling and I’m so egotistical and into my viewpoint here that I feel I have to battle to get anywhere. It’s not as much suicide as it used to be when you had to worry about record labels and hit singles. I’m just floating on my overall resume and philosophy. I still have a teenage head and I’m approaching 60 years old. … But I gotta be proud of my punk arrogance as well! I’ve been beaten up my whole life, just psychologically—it’s a tough thing! The whole underdog thing. I love it and it keeps me going but I’m also sick of having to knock on doors and compete with generation of generation of new kids, and this year that’s all changing! Everywhere I go I’m treated like royalty! It’s a funny joke, but I gotta admit to it—being this professor, this old philosopher from another planet that used to do home recording before their parents were born!
What happened? Has the world come crawling back to you?
I enjoy going through my rants but that’s not really what I wanna do. I’m a musician and composer. I don’t wanna give speeches on what went wrong with civilization.
What did go wrong in civilization?
Madonna. Madonna. Madonna. Madonna. Madonna. … She’s just the ultimate poster boy for style over content. She was the expert manipulator, so she put herself to the very top. It’s the public I should blame, not her! That’s when it just became a dancefloor sensation, and there’s no songwriting or ability to play an instrument—not that that’s the end all, and if you can do it in a studio with a DJ mixmaster, go for it! There’s nothing wrong with that. I love all music, but that just cemented the teen-pop thing forever. I loved when Nevermind hit cuz that blew the roof off of it, although not for long. Though I am enjoying this twenty-year anniversary. Boy, did I love Cobain! I guess I loved him so much—like other people—that it killed him for me to love him so much. He just wasn’t prepared for all that. To become a spokesman and all that.
You said you’ve been a slave to music since 1955. What records drew you off the simple path and forever prevented you from becoming an investment banker?
I hate dealing with the preponderance of people having ‘favorites’ or ‘firsts.’ I can’t remember! ‘Who’s your favorite?’ I like them all! This isn’t a sporting event with number one, number two and so on. ‘We wanna know the record that was most important to your career.’ Well, I have no idea what that is! It’s all of the above, always. The obvious influences are there—Beatles, Beach Boys, Zappa, Captain Beefheart.
Are those the ‘idea people’ you say rock ‘n’ roll needs more of?
Ideas? Conceptually or musically or …
I’ll take any ideas.
It’s all about being creative. Sometimes it seems like we’ve ‘run out of ideas’ as a race of humans, but that can’t be true. People get dragged into nostalgia, or try to put two or three things together and make that new, and that’s better than not creating at all, and yet … I don’t know. When I hear a record, I want surprise. There’s gotta be a lot of listeners out there that have never heard this kind of stuff as much as I have, so they don’t need surprises. But I’m just desperate for surprises. Very impatient with mediocrity.
Are ideas finite?
Sometimes things come fast, sometimes things come slow. I don’t worry about it being finite. I don’t deal with writer’s block as seriously as I used to. I don’t worry about it. I’m tooting my own horn here, but by this time of my career, I’ve developed an almost automatic King Midas touch! When I do pick up an acoustic guitar, I might not come out with a complete brilliant masterpiece—that’s my main problem, I’m not able to complete things. … But I love my little unfinished shards. They’re all unique. It’s like classical music. You can come up with an impressive unique riff or chord progression and even if it’s incomplete, at least it’s there. There’s no mediocrity. I can’t believe I have this gift of not ever settling. That’s why I get so impatient with a lot of mediocre recording artists over the decades.
Who was this Uncle Harry who got you started? He helped you make that very first record.
He had great ears and he was of the perfect generation—he was ten years older than me. When I was 15, he was 25 and he knew all about the New York music industry and he was in a great progressive acid rock band from Boston. Ford Theatre, named after John Wilkes Booth. They had two albums on ABC Records, and just kinda imploded—they started to build a following, but the label didn’t supply the merchandise in the cities they were playing and blah-blah-blah. It’s great stuff, though—seek it out! He was the exception to the rule because I was stuck in Nashville in this middle-class family upbringing because my father was making all this money doing these amazing Nashville hit record sessions, but we didn’t have any kind of relationship hardly at all. I was just a normal growing-up-in-the-60s school kid, but just blown away by all the music that was happening in that amazing decade. And Uncle Harry was the only one besides myself that shared that, and he was always supportive, and once I started sending him reel-to-reel tapes, he was blown away. … The home recording thing, it used to be such a dilemma. ‘These are fantastic tapes but they sound terrible! There’s nothing I can do with them. I know somebody who’d be great to plug something with, but we’d have to go into a studio.’ And I hardly ever did. I couldn’t afford to, I didn’t know how to coordinate it—ironic, since I’m in the middle of Nashville, Tennessee. I just did the best I could do with what I had, which was tape recorders.
What did people around you think when you showed up one day with 100 copies of your own LP? That was really rare back then.
Friends dug ’em! My only friends were my musical friends. They never did what I did, as far as the creation of songwriting and playing all the instruments. Otherwise, nobody heard about Phonography! It’s only in retrospect now that people have gone back to it and said something about it now. The big break came cuz—and again this was Uncle Harry who knew Ira Robbins, the head of Trouser Press, who reviewed it in 1977. And the rest is history! We never went deep into advertising budgets or promotion—there was just no money.
Did you sneak them into the stacks at the Sam Goody you worked at?
I did that! Sam Goody even carried the HP catalog for a time.
So are uncaring ex-mallrats in New Jersey sitting on rare original pressings of Phonography at this very moment?
I’m sure!
What do you want most and how can we help you get it?
Acknowledgement. Parentheses—bank deposits.

R. STEVIE MOORE AND ARIEL PINK’S STEVIEPINK JAVASCRIPT IS OUT NOW ON PEOPLE IN A POSITION TO KNOW. VISIT R. STEVIE MOORE AT RSTEVIE-MOORE.COM.

I’d only been to Coachella once, in 2004, when the horse-flavored dust was hot enough to scorch my nostrils on its way to my lungs. By the end of the weekend, I was more than glad to leave: as my crew headed for the car on the last night, I got on my knees and pounded my fist in the dirt, screaming “NEVER AGAIN!!!!”

But time changes a lot of things, as does a free VIP wristband and a press pass. And so with a tinge of trepidation, I found myself in the early afternoon hours on Friday in a Coachella parking lot in Indio, California, loaning some of my precious sunscreen to a jeepload of bucking bros, who were slathering their muscular chests and explaining to me how to hide drugs when going through the guard checkpoints: socks could be checked, but probably not sacks. “Just put it in your underwear, next to your balls—last year they rolled down the elastic band of my boxers, but that’s the worst they’re gonna do.”

I headed in, and after two checkpoints, the first being suspiciously more laissez-faire than the final one (where my sack was only slightly brushed during a hearty leg-pat), I found myself within the Coachella grounds, which seemed peppier and less barren than I remembered them seven years before. There were T-shirt stands and help desks and water carts, but also more installation art and domes and carnival rides, extra little structures here and there where skin-saving patches of shade could be savored. It felt like they were making a stronger effort to get every dehydrated kids out of the sun and under a giant metal tarantula. The only thing there was less of was people—was attendance down this year, or had they somehow made progress on getting the lines shorter, the parking easier, and the hassles less hassly?

Excision by Dan Collins

Excision by Lainna Fader

But I didn’t question things as I rushed to the Safari tent to see the last dregs of Excision’s set, which was making the early Coachella crowd go apeshit with dancing, screaming, and adoration straight out of a church. This Canadian’s wobbly-based dubstep, spun from behind a giant desk/platform that would have looked good with Mao Tse Tung behind it, didn’t match the sunniness of the afternoon for me, so I was forced to wash him down with a $9 tequila sunrise at the adjacent VIP rose garden, and an $11 margarita at the VIP tent near the Coachella main stage, where Ozomatli were sounding exactly like what you’d expect them to sound like if you’ve ever heard fourteen seconds of their music at any point in their recorded history.

It was in the VIP lounge that I realized how different the Coachella experience would be with a press pass than how I’d spent it in proletarian misery seven years before. The big VIP area had a fountain, an air-conditioned tent bar, free wifi for the press, delicious Woodfire pizza, and close proximity to the main stage itself! Sure, you were still too far away to see the actual physical performance, but you could hold a drink while not seeing it. And anyway, despite the near-nudity and the “Adamandeve.com” banner being pulled behind a plane in the sky, Coachella is not exactly about the intimate experience.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0BbKAJ9c0I

Warpaint by Dan Collins

Perhaps because of that lack of intimacy, I craved seeing bands I was familiar with. So after a brief interview with YACHT, I headed over to the Outdoor stage, Coachella’s second largest, to see Warpaint. Margaret Wappler from the L.A. Times says they were dressed “like the shipwrecked daughters of a one-eyed pirate captain and Stevie Nicks” but aside from singer Emily Kokal’s amazing Sheila E. coat, the other members actually wore the kind of billowy nineties dresses you’d see models in Sassy wear circa 1992. They were great—Jenny Lee Lindberg on bass danced around and boogied it up with Stella Mozgawa on drums, and Kokal and guitarist Theresa Wayman more or less swapped singing duties every other song. Their pretty, dark wave, shoegazey-chimey-crunch worked great on a blistering spring afternoon, like sprinkles of cold water on your back. And maybe this is what Coachella’s alternate stages are best at—letting bands you’ve only heard on the radio wow you with how good they sound on a big stage, with a roaring crowd, clean vocals, and the natural lighting of the sun!

Ariel Pink by Lainna Fader

Ariel Pink by Lainna Fader

And all that Vitamin D was giving me a delicious energy, which I should have used to watch Cee Lo’s famed meltdown, but instead used to get to Ariel Pink early, at the Gobi stage. Aaah, a shady side tent, where the crowds were small and I could zip right on up to the photographer area in front of the stage. Drummer Aaron Sperske spotted me in my photographer’s perch and gave me a little “sup bro” head nod: it was an isolated moment of connection with a band in a weekend where the barriers between artist and audience were rigidly enforced. And that kind of isolation can lead to trouble—perhaps this is why Ariel Pink stormed off the stage, telling us that we must “hate” him, when in fact we were all really enjoying the souped-up Gary Numanisms on display, vocals and all. Ariel, I’m sure there were no monitors and a whole lot of ‘tude from the sound guy, but maybe you could have just rolled with it?

Same goes for Lauren Hill, who on the main Coachella stage had a tiny little tizzy about the sound that delayed her set uncomfortably close to the “will they pull the plug” threshold. But I liked that she dressed just like I would if I were a woman—hoop earrings, a funky knit hat under a second hat (trés Bartholomew Cubbins), and a stripey dress so big and billowy and protruding in the front that she’s just got to be pregnant again with her sixth kid.

Drunk with the power of my media wristband, I took a first saunter into the very front of the Coachella stage, only to have an authoritative white woman looked at my wristbands and tell me “You don’t have a photo wristband: you have to leave.” I walked out, sullen and confused, but not before I got a good glimpse of Ms. Hill’s hijinks close up, the way they look best. Though the big video screens on the sides of the stage captured her swagger, they did NOT capture her slight figure, her frail, crazed humanity, or the baby bump, which I repeat is DEFINITELY a baby on the way and not a trick of the light or media hyperbole. And it was a good listen: lively versions of Fugee and solo Hill songs bopped, booped, and poked out at us from the stage. Hill had a damned good backing band, with tubas as tight as the bass, and when they closed with “Doo Wop (That Thing),” I felt like maybe it was going to be a pretty cool weekend.

That feeling dissipated later, when I foolishly departed from Interpol’s sunset performance to check out Kele and Sleigh Bells. Really? Is this what the kids are into these days: anthemy showdown music with the most boring guitar punctuation in the history of power chord cheese, and vocals that were 45% just “Whooooaaaaaaaaah?”

Marina and the Diamonds at the Gobi stage were more entertaining. Though some of their actual recordings are rather overproduced (I doubt you’d ever play them in the car for your friends), the band had a real patchwork charm live, like Bjork trying to cover Annie Lennox while dressed in Josie Cotton’s outfits. Principal songwriter/performer Marina Diamandis enticed me with her glitter and Raggedy Ann hair, but she nailed my heartstrings to a fucking cigar box and picked a chord on them them when I realized her earrings were little bananas. And the crowd went a little bananas when she jumped into the hit single “I Am Not a Robot,” her arms outstretched in an unironic Bono pose.

I heard glimpses of Cut Copy and then the Black Keys on my way back to the press tent, but being unable to enjoy any band from the Coachella stage without feeling like I was just at a movie with good surround sound, I headed to the Dome, where I saw the best performance of the night and possibly of the whole weekend: Beardyman, a UK hip hop import who would fit right in on Fake Four or Plug Research. More than that, he was possibly the best beat boxer I’d ever heard, and I’ve seen Doug E. Fresh live. Beardyman clearly had his mouth in the game, and could do great block-rocking beats a capella, but his technique of recording mouth loops on the fly and then manipulating them into Low End Theory-style glitch hop/dubstep beats was more than impressive—it was clever, and soulful, and made me think he was a force to be reckoned with, even if he was playing all the way out here on the furthest outreaches of Coachella (albeit in the most awesomely decorated stage of all Coachella stages, which was adorned with spray-painted tatters of cardboard sculpted into an Avatar-esque tree creature seemingly imbedded in a 1960’s style monkey bar set for giant toddlers).

Leave wanting more, I thought, and since Flying Lotus was scheduled to play at the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs that night, I grabbed Associate Publisher Lainna Fader and headed for the exit. At least, I thought it was the correct exit, but after a wrong turn supplemented by bad instructions from completely clueless guards, we ended up walking for miles against incoming Coachella traffic, taking random lefts and rights around stables and golf-cart garages, each dusty trail leading to more guards who couldn’t direct us to Lot 4 but still wanted to search our bags and beep our wristbands.

At last we found the car, and liberated from the dust, the glow lights, and the Chemical Brothers, we headed to the oasis of the Ace Hotel. After a day in the dirt, I didn’t want to pound my fist in the ground, but it was nice to see a quality DJ spin in an intimate environment. Flying Lotus and friends reminded me that while a desert spectacle can be impressive, music is better when it’s part of a community. Hopefully the next day at Coachella would provide a little of both.

—Dan Collins

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn9ibYDgqJ0

Tiny Creatures was born in May 2006 with its release of Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffitti’s

What made you come out of hibernation? How did you manage to corral all the original tiny creatures?
Janet Kim: The cyclone. I killed the wicked witch of the East.

Who are the artists and performers in the “Big Deal” exhibit?
Big Deal includes artwork by Jason Yates, Coco Yates, Nathanael Luke Walton, Jed Ochmanek, Garrett Cathey, Rachel Detroit Kucsulain, Tall Paull Gellman, Matt Fishbeck with performances by Geneva Jacuzzi, Mecca V.A., Puro Instinct, Nite Jewel, Julia Holter and many more.

How was the exhibit opening night?
The puppet show was great and Don Bolles’ improv soundtrack was definitely taking it there.

Did the girls truly go wild on the winter solstice?
All the performers were great. Your performance was a lot of fun and was the heart of the night. Piper’s band was awesome like blonde mammals running in the haze. Claire Cronin’s voice and poetry was like an old record coming back to life. Beautiful.

Some tiny creatures have gained quite widespread notoriety, and Tiny Creatures itself has got a bit of a reputation—What’s this about an Andy Warhol grant and a book?
The book is called Where Art Belongs by Chris Kraus. It will be released in February with Semiotext(e). The tales are dark and strange, like old memories. It weaves through the myth of what Tiny Creatures was and is and will be.

How has Tiny Creatures evolved since its inception and closing?
Tiny Creatures is. Tiny Creatures was. Tiny Creatures will be.

What’s happening for the closing of “Big Deal” tonight?
Holy Shit is happening. Hedi’s doing awesome projections of Russian Baths and some old French films for Softboiled Eggies. It’s our last show. Andrew Arduini as Vibe Central will do another one of his avant garde narrative fiction music freak outs which I love. Hopefully, he won’t put anyone in a head lock this time.

What’s next for you and Tiny Creatures after Big Deal?
Being a Tiny Creature as a tiny creature is. Ears and eyes. Surfing. Getting back into John Cage, Xenakis. Details. Concocting some sort of new drug. Embracing.

BIG DEAL TINY CREATURES CLOSES TONIGHT SAT., JANUARY 15, AT D.I.Y. GALLERY, 1549 SUNSET BLVD, 90026. PERFORMANCES BY HOLY SHIT!, VIBE CENTRAL, SOFTBOILED EGGIES, RACHEL DETROIT, SAM & ALEX, AND GARY SHULTZ, READINGS BY BOB BRANAMAN AND HEDI EL KHOLTI, PENNY ANTE’S CURATED BOOKSTORE, SCREENINGS BY STUDENTS OF MEXICALI ROSE COMPILED BY MARCO VERA, DJ JIMI HEY 6 PM/$5/ALL AGES. WWW.TINYCREATURES.COM.

Bloody Mess is a new monthly goth party by Diva Dompe and Meghan Edwards. Tonight is their second, taking over Three Clubs in Hollywood with all kinds of gothy dizziness. The above photo is meant as an attire suggestion. Here is a mixtape from Diva to get you in the mood.

Diva’s side: Stretching The Limits A Bit

MP3: Bloody Mixtape “Diva’s Side: Stretching The Limits A Bit”

1. The Echoes Fade – Poeme Electronique
2. To Hold You – Minimal Man
3. Assimilate – Skinny Puppy
4. Lions – Tones On Tail
5. Dancing On Glass – The Creatures
6. Alisa – Ariel Pink
7. I Lost Something In The Hills – Sibylle Baier
8. Pariah – Danielle Dax
9. Nostalgia – Weekend
10. Song To The Siren – This Mortal Coil

Tonight, Jan 6, Bloody Mess at Three Clubs features guest DJ Ariel Pink and performances by Geneva Jacuzzi and La Femme (from France!) Bands start at 9:30. $2 at the door before 10:30, $5 after.

One of collective Dublab‘s founding fathers, a great DJ and L.A. magic maker, Mark “Frosty” McNeil shares his favorite music from local pals in 2010:

Build An Ark — Love Part 2 — Kindred Spirits

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ncbl80YbvVI

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti — Before Today — 4AD

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIjwZecUeaw

Dntel — After Parties — Sub Pop

www.youtube.com/watch?v=adiNP5URl_s

Sun Araw — Off Duty + Boat Trip — Woodsist

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljuB1Qqw6OA

Flying Lotus — Cosmogramma — Warp

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uCyv05SG1g

Teebs — Ardour — Brainfeeder

www.youtube.com/watch?v=v68FploqRt0

yuk. — a d w a — Leaving Records
Download: Yuk. “adept-ationforDev”

Daedelus — Righteous Fists of Harmony — Brainfeeder

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnNk4hOhaWU

Brogan Bentley — Chetter’s Tape (demo)
MP3: Brogan Bentley “Dublab Sprout Session”
(from Dublab Sprout Session)

Gonjasufi — A Sufi And A Killer — Warp

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNZAm5xgaFM

Lucky Dragons — various rad remixes — http://www.hawksandsparrows.org/ + http://soundcloud.com/luckydragons
Download “hawks and sparrows” cd/download project (2003-present)

Julia Holter — “Live Recordings” c54 — NNA Tapes
MP3: Julia Holter “”Live Recordings” c54 (sample)

(from “Live Recordings” c54 on NNA Tapes)

—Drew Denny

Dream come true news of the week: Cha Cha Lounge will be celebrating the launch of shop.chachalounge.com (and Suspect zine!) with a live silkscreening party on Tuesday, Sept. 21, and for one night only you’ll be able to get L.A. RECORD pint glasses! Come by and either buy one of several custom new shirts or bring your own shirts-or hoodies or tableclothes or wedding dresses or anything!-and get them screened while-u-drink! And yes, that is the eagle from the city seal eating a street dog while hanging out on a boom box above the lizard people who live underneath the downtown library.

Since I did pretty good on exclusives last year—Dengue Fever/Chicha Libre split, Sonic Youth/Beck split and This LP Crashes Hard Drives, among others—I thought I would post my shortlist of 2010 Record Store Day exclusives that I’ll be looking for early Saturday morning. The full list is here if you wanna look, and if I actually get some of these, maybe I will splat ‘em down at Big Freak and try them out.

—Chris Ziegler

Budos Band/Sharon Jones & The Dapkings “Day Tripper”/”Money” 7” (Daptone, pressing details unknown)
I already have a few soul 45s that do Beatles songs—actually, “Daytripper” but by the Vontastics—and that’s how I know this will at least be good, and since it’s Sharon, the Dap-Kings and the Budos Band, I know it will actually be great.

Daedelus Righteous Fists of Harmony LP (Brainfeeder, pressing details unknown)
If I do nothing else, I will get everything Brainfeeder puts out on vinyl.

dios “we are dios” 7” (Buddyhead, pressing details unknown)
Been waiting so long! The new dios album is one of the best records I’ve heard for a long long time. Until the whole thing hits vinyl, this will heroically hold the line.

Fela Kuti 10” EP (Knitting Factory/MRI)
Four early Fela tracks—“My Lady Frustration” / “Wayo” / “Lover” / “Eko”—recorded in L.A. in 1969. Good from every possible angle and for every possible situation.

Happy Birthday “Shampoo” b/w “Alien” (Sub Pop, 750 made)
Wild Kyle from King Tuff’s new band. Saw ‘em break amps in Texas and wanna hear more! Sparks / Milk ‘n’ Cookies / Only Ones goof-glam with ambitious falsetto.

John Fahey The Yellow Princess LP (Vanguard)
I need some nice new Fahey, even though he translates pretty well on furry bottom-of-the-new-arrivals-box rescue LPs. But this one will never be left to suffer like that. Guitar how a guitar wants to be played, if you haven’t heard this.

John Lennon 3 x 7” box set (individually numbered, w/3 7” singles, 3 postcards, 24 X 36 poster, and custom 45 adaptor hub; Capitol, 5000 made)
“Mother” b/w Yoko Ono “Why” and “Imagine” b/w “It’s So Hard” and “Watching The Wheels” b/w Yoko Ono “Yes, I’m Your Angel.” Only if this is kinda gently priced, but it’s a nice thing to have hanging around the house.

Mississippi John Hurt Today LP (Vanguard)
Another in the fancy Vanguard reissues series. It’ll be hazed by all the thick scratchy Folkways records filed alongside it.

The Rationals Rationalism 7” (Ace Records, 1000 mades)
Cool early Detroit soul ‘n’ roll. You can play Bob Seger System next to Stax stuff and you can probably work that with the Rationals, too.

Rodriguez “Inner City Blues” (recorded live in the streets of Paris) b/w “I’m Gonna Live Til I Die” (live cover of Frank Sinatra song) 7” (Light In the Attic)
Got into Rodriguez long after he’d had his first moment but before Light In The Attic did the good work of reissuing him, which is why my pre-authorized Rodriguez LP is on vinyl that flops around like a tortilla. Tuff folk from a real sweetheart.

V/A Fragments From A Work In Progress (4AD)
Live Ariel Pink and Haunted Graffiti (“Menopause Man”) plus Gang Gang Dance, Blonde Redhead and unreleased Big Pink and tUnE-yArDs who I should check out, I think.

V/A Radio Galaxia (B-Music / Finders Keepers)
My psychic suspicion to be this year’s This LP Crashes Hard Drives, which was last year’s one-stop for revelatory rippers. (Worth it for Monks and Pisces alone.) Also has the words GASLAMP KILLER on the cover, which in English means BUY THIS RECORD.

Lady Gaga – The Fame

M83 – Saturdays = Youth

Scott Walker – The Drift

MGMT – Oracular Spectacular

Ròisin Murphy – Overpowered

Goldfrapp – Seventh Tree

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Grafitti – The Doldrums

Devendra Banhart – Cripple Crow

David Sylvian – Blemish

Glass Candy - Beatbox

-Paul Beahan