The Repo Zone

[Repo]

'79 Punk: Accidents <NEVER> Happen!

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154 by Wire

Is it merely an accident that the cover reminds me of a Pink Flag being tossed about in the wind? Recombined with other colors as it goes about its way? Nope. Accidents never happen. If you get far enough away, you can see that they're actually set in motion by prior events. Past behaviors. Past conditioning. Simple ballistics from the god's point of view, really. Physics 101. If we had just been paying attention ...

Accident or not, 154 is a post-punk masterpiece. One of the most important & influential albums of the late '70s post-punk era. And actually maybe my favorite of their classic late '70s trilogy. It's clear they've been listening to Another Green World by Eno. But, in turn, it's also clear that bands like The Cure and Love & Rockets would listen to this.

One thing is for sure, in making 154, Wire definitely did NOT care about making some accidents along the way. They did NOT care about fucking up. No. 154 is a creation of wonder. About how far they could push. How far they could stretch. Like the best taffy. It's got some air bubbles in there. Some accidents. But wait! The gods know that accidents don't exist.

Vital af.

Repo Ranking:

My '79 Punk Rankings
1. Wire - 154 <A solid #1! It will take a lot to displace this.>

[Repo]

'24 Albums: i am both big and small

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Iechyd Da by Bill Ryder-Jones

It’s weird. Some albums just feel like they've been with you forever. As if you've packed them in boxes. Taken them from place to place. Shitty apartment to shitty apartment. Unpacked said boxes and arranged them on your inner shelves just so. Before even calling the cable guy. (Ok. Maybe AFTER calling the cable guy. Gotta watch my Celtics! BUT they're definitely out of those moving boxes before that dude ever shows up! > )

Lechyd da is one of thse albums. Somehow it’s an old friend even though it’s barely a year old. By an artist, Bill Ryder-Jones, who I only had cursory knowledge of before. It’s closest relation, as far as I can figure, are those mid-90s Spiritualized albums. The songs seem to pull the trick of doing opposite things at the same time. Making the world feel both big and small. Incredibly beautiful and incurably sad. His voice, so plaintive and pure. Sad but not hopeless. Beaten up but not beaten.

Lechyd Da creates an insular world. A world where you and your fiction-romance soul mate sip hot cocoa under blankies while sharing inside jokes about all the phonies OUT THERE. A world that doesn’t need anyone else because the two of you are the world. And yet deep down, at the same time, you know it’s all just a fever dream. That that world does not exist. Will never exist. Even though it should. It really, really should.

A gamechanger essentially. One of those albums that had me perusing and unpacking Bill Ryder-Jones' entire back catalog. Highly recommended and perhaps my AOTY.

Rating:

My 2024 Album Rankings
1. Bill Ryder-Jones - Lechyd Da

[Repo]

'03 Albums: Would u like some Spiked Mulled Cider? or Sleepytime Tea?

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Quicksand / Cradlesnakes by Califone

One year after Wilco released Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, another Chicago band, named Califone, released a sister album of sorts with Quicksand/Cradlesnakes. It’s a bit artsier. A bit less commercial. BUT, it’s every bit as good. I’d compare it to the warmth that spreads throughout your body while sipping some spiked mulled cider at a Fall bonfire. It’s intimate and casual. Relaxed and friendly. This is the kinda stuff you enjoy with just a few friends. The volume’s not too loud. Nope, it’s just right. And its conversation is not too demanding so that every now & again you can center yourself. Take in the Fall breeze. The crackle-pop of the fire. Bits of its embers floating aloft past the last remnants of your fading & graying garden. What I’m trying to say is that Califone makes the sorta music that can warm your soul. My original title for this little blurb was going to be Sleepytime Tea. Because the music is sleepy & languid, yet like that little bear on the tea jacket, good-spirited & inviting. The kind of music that makes you want to say “hearth” and “heather” if you follow me.

Best yet, I’m going to see them tonight.

Totally check them out if you like stuff like Yo La Tengo's Painful or The Dirty Three's Horse Stories.

Rating:

[Romanelli]

[Repo]

[MadhattanJack]

[Romanelli]

It looks EXACTLY like her. I'm sure it's not...but damn. Would be shit crazy if it was!

I am a bit familiar with Tim Rutilli. I have the album Sharpen Your Teeth by Ugly Casanova, which came out the year before...Rutilli was in that band. I am not familiar with Califone, however...will check this one out! Thanks!
_________________
Musicians play gigs.
Fans go to shows.

[Repo]

'79 Punk: Three Sodden Tracks
aka The Ruts get into a bit of rut

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The Crack by The Ruts

“Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” – Johnny Rotten

“Cheated” is probably too strong. But, dang is it ever something close. You read the reviews which are positively gushing “second coming of The Clash with even more dub” sorta shit, and then you throw it on, and for godsakes it DOES sound like the second coming that was promised. For three sodden tracks. For three sodden tracks, you think you’ve unearthed a lost bloody classic of late 70s English Punk goodness. But then it all turns to mush. Track 4 & Track 5 don’t sound like the Clash at all, do they? More like The Damned. And not even very good Damned at that <who I like A LOT! >. Nope. Generic, boring copies of my beloved Damned. And so it goes for the rest of the album. Just sorta boring, generic late '70s English punk with a bit of a Clash influence. A snooze, really, after those first three brilliant tracks. Add those first three to your favorite punk playlist and scrape the rest of the platter into da bin.

First Three Tracks ("Babylon's Burning", "Dope For Guns", "S.U.S."): <Positively brilliant stuff. It can't be denied! This band had potential!!!>

Album Cover:

The Rest:

The Rankings: So The Crack is well beneath Television’s Adventure since Adventure is a worthy FULL LP and still Television. Adventure may not be Marquee Moon, but Television still had something original to say and say it they did.

My '79 Punk Rankings
1. Wire -154

30-somethings. The Ruts - The Crack

[Repo]

'24 Albums: Don't Listen to Robert. It's NOT All Gone!

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Songs Of A Lost World by The Cure

Ha! Take that all you doubting doubters! The Cure are back with the REAL finishing saga of the long promised Pornography-Disintegration-“X” Trilogy. Don’t tell me it was Bloodflowers. Bloodflowers was great for “more” Cure, but it wasn’t “new” Cure. It was a distillation of their strengths but it was lacking a brilliant cohesive vision and its own unique creative spirit.

Songs Of A Lost World, meanwhile gives us a whole new Cure experience. Pornograpy was the angst-ridden teenage tantrum, Disintegration was the mercurial, ups & downs of being a young adult , and SOALW now skips THREE decades and our Imaginary Boys have gone all <cats are> grey. Matured & introspective. Sitting in an armchair surrounded by various pill bottles, tissue boxes, medicinal tinctures, & half-read books looking back because there’s nothing to look to. “It’s all gone” Robert Smith wails on the appropriately titled “Endsong.” The ironic thing is he’s wrong! Dead wrong! It’s not gone at all. THIS is easily the most alive and fresh they’ve sounded since Disintegration. On SOALW Robert paradoxically spins his personal grief into gold.

My 2024 Album Rankings
1. The cURE - Songs Of A Lost World
2. Bill Ryder-Jones - Lechyd Da

[Repo]

'24 Albums: Millennial Dread
Aka The Future’s NOT so Bright, BUT u Still Gotta Wear Shades

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Big Sigh by Marika Hackman

Being a young adult used to be so exciting. The sky seemed the limit. Songs like "The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades" by Timbuk 3 in 1986 actually resonated. It felt like there was no where to go but UP back in the eighties when I was growing up.

Now with global warming bringing us natural disasters of biblical proportion seemingly by the week, and the “responsible” adults in the room doing nothing about it except continuing to line their already gilded pockets, millennials wonder if they even should have kids. It’s not delusional or paranoid but rational to see that we’re headed to a tipping point where even water will be fought for and scarce. And again, the older adults in the room just don’t care since they only care about getting theirs. It’s enough to just make any millennial sigh in exasperation. What are they supposed to do? How can they plan for a future that quite rationally cannot exist. The world of tomorrow will not be like the world of today. It’s quite as simple as that.

Marika Hackman’s Big Sigh woke me up to how millennials like her must feel about all this. A general malaise and dread that cannot be fully articulated. A malaise and dread that’s just there. That can’t be fought against or rationalized away because it’s both too big and all too real. Too beyond your limited powers to even comprehend as you struggle just to pay the rent and find a little love, a little relief, from a civilization that surely is headed to a tipping point. So she focuses on what she can. What's in her power. Take some vitamins. Avoid caffeine. You know. The basics. And, of course, deliver us the album of the moment. That moment between the past and the future. The moment of millennial dread.

My Rating:

My 2024 Album Rankings
1. The cURE - Songs Of A Lost World
2. Bill Ryder-Jones - Lechyd Da
3. Marika Hackman - Big Sigh