Mike Jurkovic – Poop 2014


if we had all died in a Koch-ian fossil fuck in twentyfourteen, here’s what I woulda been singin’ or listenin’ to when the flashpoint came.



Buy Bob Dylan and The Band – The Basement Tapes Complete New or Used via Amazon    Buy New or Used via Amazon           Rent via iTunes [?]
1) Bob Dylan and The Band – The Basement Tapes Complete Collectors, myself included, have had these dark, surreal cosmic jokes and murder ballads in bootleg form for, oh I dunno, eight hundred years? To have them all in one place, with thirty newly discovered tracks from a tape Garth Hudson sold off is just bonus.



Buy Zoe Muth and The Lost High Rollers – World of Strangers New or Used via Amazon    Buy New or Used via Amazon
2) Zoe Muth and The Lost High Rollers – World of Strangers I’ve said it here before and I’m going to keep on saying it: Zoe Muth is the best real time songwriter working today. Laconic, revelatory, hard scrabblin’ tales of single moms and waitresses making it go in the new recession. Add that slacker Emmylou twang and Muth is the real deal.



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3) Lake Street Dive – Bad Self Portraits Rachel Price is a fierce, old school, Australian soul shouter who has teamed up with the unlikely Brooklyn trio of upright bass virtuoso Bridget Kearney, drummer Mike Calabrese, and guitar/trumpeter Mike Olson. BSP is just their newest explosion of kinetic creativity. You owe yourselves to check LSD out.



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4) Charles Mingus – The Jazz Workshop Concerts 1964-65 Five concerts from NY, Amsterdam, Monterey, and Minneapolis. Another goldmine of spontaneous discipline with Jaki Byard (piano), Johnny Coles (trumpet), Eric Dolphy (sax/flutes), Clifford Jordan (sax), Dannie Richmond (drums), and, of course, Mingus on bass, iron-willed to get his music across.



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5) The Chick Corea Trio – Trilogy Now in his 70’s, Corea continues setting stages afire with bassist Christine McBride and drummer Brian Blade. Subtle, airy, vital, fervent, masterful, and very, very live!



Buy First Aid Kit – Stay Gold  New or Used via Amazon    Buy New or Used via Amazon           Rent via iTunes [?]
6) First Aid Kit – Stay Gold Two sisters from Sweden blending high flying vocals, folk/country stirrings, sepia Americana, and textured strings. It doesn’t get much better. Guess Americans are too busy watching The Voice to notice that, as usual, those from the old world are beating us at our own game.



Buy Miles Davis – Miles at The Fillmore 1970 Bootleg Series Vol. 3 New or Used via Amazon    Buy New or Used via Amazon           Rent via iTunes [?]
7) Miles Davis – Miles at The Fillmore 1970 Bootleg Series Vol. 3 America was a very dark place circa 1970, and Miles, never afraid to stare down darkness and reflect it back to his audience, does just that. Sinister, intense stuff. Did I mention the band? Oh yea. Dave Holland (bass), Keith Jarrett (organ), Chick Corea (electric piano) Steve Grossman (sax) and Airto Moreira (percussion).



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8) Frank Turner – Tape Deck Heart Those familiar with Brit agit/pop folkie Billy Bragg will take Turner to heart immediately, but those who have no clue who I’m talking about should too. Hilarious, concise, righteously pissed and swearing to high heaven, this disc, like predecessors Love Ire Song, England Keep My Bones, and Sleep Is For the Weak are just gems to listen to repeatedly.



Buy Esbjorn Svensson Trio – E.S.T. Live in Hamburg New or Used via Amazon    Buy New or Used via Amazon           Rent via iTunes [?]
9) Esbjorn Svensson Trio – E.S.T. Live in Hamburg Pianist Svensson died in a scuba diving accident in 2008, but this electrifying recording from 2006 engraves his name and talent in stone, never to be forgotten. Mashing rock, electronics and a scarifying understanding of improvisatory recklessness, Svensson, bassist Dan Bergland and drummer Magnus Ostrum, strut a high, high wire few can imagine walking.



Buy Gandalf Murphy & The Slambovian Circus of Dreams - A Box of Everything New or Used via Amazon    Buy New or Used via Amazon
10) Gandalf Murphy & The Slambovian Circus of Dreams – A Box of Everything The Hudson Highlands own finally signs with a major label imprint (Sony’s Red River) and delivers an extra expansive compilation of greatest hits that sadly, too few have heard. But Joziah, Sharkey, Tink, Eric and all Slambovians, persevere


11) Stevie Ray Vaughn & Double Trouble – The Complete Epic Recordings Collection These twelve discs are the bomb that was SRV when he exploded nationally in ’83 with the fully realized Texas Flood. There have arguably been later guitar gods in his wake, but none have left the blazing riffs across the coal dusted skies like him.

12) Hiromi – Alive Since 2003, pianist Hiromi Uehara has been blowing away her listeners, and the muscular, seething, Alive is no exception. Hiromi’s music is the bursting of ideas from her head to ours. As it has been since 2011, the Trio Project – sinewy drummer Simon Phillips and serpentine contra-bassist Anthony Jackson – propel her impassioned improvs with the same demonic integrity and force as the composer.

13) Robert Plant – lullaby and . . . The Ceaseless Roar Zeppelin encompassed and accomplished everything except graceful aging. But that’s not true of Plant who has reached a pinnacle with this dark, imposing sonic roar. Galloping, Appalachian elegies; departures, arrivals; stoicism and resolve. What was the name of his other band again?

14) Kinks – Anthology – To finally get the Kinks kurated korrectly instead of the chop shop methodology that was their early years is a treat n a hoot n a holler of a listen. five discs of the Ray Davies Reality show 64-71. Apeman is still my all time fave.


concerts: nice stuff in albany – bruce’s show was a true bender, tossing the setlist to the wind and dancing w/old ladies and kids. macca’s comeback from that mysterious illness
was a lesson in spontaneity for mr. stick-to-the setlist w/amarriage proposal and all. Lake Street Dive @ Bearsville was a soul revue supreme. Willie Nile @ the Crier was a refresher course in the truth of two guitars, bass n drums. of course the slambovians in whatever incarnation are always a hoot. . . naomi klein’s this changes everything, well, changes everything. . . see you when the smoke clears, if it ever does . . . mj15