Time out for some good clean literary fun:

Look, I liked High Fidelity as much as the next guy, but Nick Hornby is clearly out of control. Not content with being a pop novelist with a musical inclination, he's got it in his head that he's a bona fide music critic. Problem is, he's both a stultifying aesthetic dullard and a dangerously reactionary/neo-conservative polemicist. His recent piece in the Times was just too much to bear, so I was delighted to see it gleefully dissected by the estimable Sasha Frere-Jones on his blog. Not to be a spoiler, but my personal favorite moment is: "if you're looking for someone who can't confront or discern the present moment, there is no greater spokesbaldy than Nick "Mojo Magazine Invented Me In a Diabolical Laboratory And Now They Can't Kill Me" Hornby. "

You'll laugh, you'll cry, etc.

http://sfj.abstractdynamics.org/archives/002997.html#more

(sorry, I don't think I can make html links here, just paste the address into your browser)

OK, continuing with my hit-and-run roundup of new arrivals:

Rip Rig & Panic - I Am Cold

I don't know why more of a fuss isn't made over this band, what with the early-'80s revival and all. They were a UK group that mixed avant-garde jazz, funk, pop, and post-punk in an extremely distinctive and exciting melange. Neneh Cherry was the singer and her dad Don dropped in now and then to play some trumpet. Imagine a cross between ESG and the Art Ensemble of Chicago, with one crucial thing a lot of funky post-punk types lacked: a sense of humor.

60,000,000 Buffalo - Nevada Jukebox

Despite having one of the all-time great band names and a great singer, these guys don't do much for me. I picked it up because the singer/co-songwriter was Judy Roderick, who made a fantastic acoustic folk-blues album in the '60s, Woman Blue, the kind of thing that prefigures not only Lucinda Williams but Bonnie Raitt. If I remember right, she died young, and I don't THINK she made another solo album, but apparently she was a member of this group in the early '70s. Other than the godawful drummer (I believe it was Robert Christgau who said that good drummers were hard to find in the hippie era), the band is good, and the songs hold up pretty well, but stylistically it's just too blues-rock for me, I can't hang with that kind of thing. I was hoping it would be a little more countryish or something.

Andy Kim - Rainbow Ride

Props to my man Bill Z for turning me on to this one (and finding a one-dollar copy for me!). Andy Kim is a Montreal-born singer and songwriter who came to the States to be a tunesmith, and he co-wrote "Sugar Sugar" with Jeff Barry, as well as a few songs for the Monkees and others. He had a couple of AM pop hits on own in the late-'60s/early '70s (though the only thing on his Greatest Hits album that i recognize by name is the rather icky "Rock Me Gently"). HOWEVER....somewhere along the way (1969 to be exact), he made his "heavy" album. Now those who've read this blog diligently know how much I love records where mainstream pop artists get all groovy and psychedelic, so on that score alone this would be a no-brainer for me. The thing is, even beyond that, there's just some really great stuff on here. The songs move from soft-psych ballads to catchy pop-rockers, and there are even a couple of grittier, heavier tracks. Both the songwriting (Barry lends a hand) and the singing are on point, and the requisite psychedelic effects are judiciously sprinkled throughout. Hands-down winner though, is "Nobody's Ever Going Anywhere," a mid-tempo folk-rock tune that's sort of like Dylan in a really bad mood, or Leonard Cohen with a bug up his ass. It's a mordant, existential ballad that sarcastically bemoans both the political climate and our place in the universe. Against all odds, it's pithy, (intentionally) funny, and downright catchy. Jeez, I might have to cover this thing.