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About once a year I will come across a band that at first listen I don’t love, but I keep goiing back to, then I try to resist buying the album because I am not sure I like it, but then I just bite the bullet and get it anyway. The next thing I know I am waking up with the songs in my head although I may not have listened to it for a while. Then the love affair truly begins. This year’s album that has had that effect on me is Bad Lucky by The Magnificent.
Looking at the album cover I can’t help but be reminded of The Ramones self titled debut album. Then I am reminded of a quote from The Magnificent’s webpage that said ” If you are American, the music sounds English. If you are English, you have never heard of this band.” From there I can’t help but think that just as The Ramones’ debut introduced the world to the now legendary group, it would be nice if Bad Lucky were able to do the same type of thing for The Magnificent.
At times the last statement may seem like wishful thinking, but when I listen I start to think that maybe it is not so far fetched. Bad Lucky has everything that allows punk albums to endure for generations. Not only does it contain slick guitar driven melodies and sing along choruses, the lyrics speak to a generation that doesn’t quite know how to make it’s way in the world. All qualities which allow music to trascend time.
Now only time will tell if this particular album will be considered great 30 + years later (plus they may need to become known in their homeland first too), but if you take the time to listen, it will be something that you keep coming back to for some time to come.
Edgy/Indie suits Bay area outfit, Lemon Party quite nicely. The band has a new EP, Trash City out now. The EP features four tracks of past-era garage-fi melancholy, garage-fi angst, and plate reverb. (I don’t know if they actually used a big ol’ plate reverb unit or not, but the spacey echoing makes me think so. … What am I am engineer?) At any rate, there are four tracks on a recording that immediately reminds me of Dinosaur Jr. and things I can’t quite place at the moment.
Back in the early 80s when the first tide of Punk gave way to a New Wave, a couple new styles started to coalesce. On one side there was the move back to basics, picking up chicks style rock and roll that paved the way to all so much hair metal. On the other end there was the more cerebral college shoe gazing rock that found its way to the masses as indie or alternative.
This is my first crack at a book review and the book and I have chosen the book I have because from what I have read the book hasn’t been very well received by fans of the series it belongs to. The book that I am alluding to is The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor, the first in a series of novels that explore the origins of characters in the series. I am a recent convert to the graphic novel genre and an even newer fan of The Walking Dead and before buying the book I hadn’t read up to where The Governor is introduced (I did read Book 3 before I read the novel). So I wanted to look up who he was and I read a little bit about the book and I read some reviews prior to reading to book. 
