We're Trapped Inside The Song Where The Nights Are So Long: Clicky Clicky Speaks To Krill's Jonah Furman About Deep Shit Like Divisions Of The Self And The Beast Within

[Images by Jonah Furman and Noah Furman] Time And Relative Dimension In Space is a mouthful of words, which is why it is almost always acronymed, but it has some bearing here, so please indulge the introductory tangent. It's a fictional thing from a teevee series and series of books, the TARDIS is, and on the outside it appears to be a large phone booth (it's not a proper phone booth, but most of our readers are American, so let's just go with "phone booth"). The important thing to know for now is that while this time-traveling, spaceship thingo appears to be the size of a phone booth on the outside, it is (as a result of unspecified extraterrestrial magic/technology) impossibly larger on the inside. Which is a lot like the music of Krill, the Boston-based post-punk trio whose music angularly jangles and thumps while the fronter, the titular Jonah Furman whose name you see above, sings about bugs and fear and loathing and psychological mutineering and negating the self and Dostoevsky -- the harder you listen, the bigger (and deeper) it all gets. Which is, coincidentally, a lot like what we experienced when we cobbled the interview together.

Cards on the table: this was conceived as a bit of a perfunctory exercise. We're friends with the fine people at The Ash Gray Proclamation blog, who are hosting a benefit show this Saturday for Toys For Tots down in Plymouth, MA. So we thought, hey, let's see if we can help promote the cause by running a timely feature with one of the bands. Synergy! Shake your groove thing! Having vibrated heavily to Krill's 2013 LP Lucky Leaves [review here], the choice of who we wanted to interview was easy. However, the incredibly forthright and thoughtful responses below from Mr. Furman -- who is quick to emphasize he is but one of three dudes who comprise Krill, and that Krill is not "his" band -- exceeded our expectations for the feature many times over, and it became clear very quickly that this interview was going to outsize the convenient excuse upon which it was premised. Indeed, the exchange below prompts that jarring realization that, at least for Furman, the music of Krill is not as much about self-expression as it is a framework used to explore big ideas about philosophy and life. The ideas Furman spit-balls in response to our clumsy interrogation are so large and pure they potentially seep into everything, their ontological protoplasm sliming and absorbing by (our own excited) extrapolation things as far-flung as Bad Brains' I Against I and Silver Jews' Starlight Walker, not to mention works by David Foster Wallace and Dostoevsky, and on and on and on. The ideas extend, we are told infra, to Krill's forthcoming EP, Steve Hears Pile In Malden And Bursts Into Tears, which was formally announced today over at the Gum de Stereo. We're grateful to Jonah for the generous gift of his time and the focus and attention he brought to our exchange. As we mentioned supra, Krill performs this Saturday at the New World Cafe in Plymouth, MA as part of For All Good Kids, The Ash Gray Proclamation's Toys For Tots benefit show that also features Hallelujah The Hills, Guillermo Sexo and a special opening set from The Hush Now's Noel Kelly. The show will rage and all the details are right here. Now, on to the interview with Krill's Jonah Furman.

Clicky Clicky: 2013 was probably something of a mindfuck for Krill. Early in the year the band was confronted with the prospect of Lucky leaving, the band's future was uncertain, you lived in a mansion and then you didn't live in a mansion. Now, at the other end of the year, the LP is out to not-insignificant acclaim and you are signed to Exploding In Sound and presumably you are not homeless. If Present Day Jonah could pull some sort of tesseract move right now and go back in time to talk to Endless Winter 2013 Jonah, would you tell yourself "everything is going to work out?" Would that have been the most important thing for the band to know?

Jonah Furman: man, knuckle deep on the first one, good. yeah well hm, let's see. the whole story of krill's history is so tangled as to be boring and i always have trouble answering the q of "when did the band start?" but september/october 2012 was definitely our first tour and the first time that krill was our main thing. i was broke as hell and depressed and my girlfriend had just moved to siberia and i started reading a lot of dostoevsky that december, and listening to [Fat History Month's] fucking despair and thinking about will, commitment, suffering, weakness, and krill. i was constantly talking about breaking up the band and that was months before luke got into grad school. 'theme from krill' was [a] half painful cynical thing about the band breaking up, the twisted bug in me that tends to self-destruction, and then it was beautifully reinforced by 'lucky leaving,' which he announced in february. the other half i guess is the hopeful side, saying 'tho it's over this moment will be tattooed in time forever' and alluding to how we did sort of create a whole universe of meaning for ourselves, thus the self-reference (which i could go on and on about). anyhow i'm not really answering your question am i. what happened? so luke said he was splitting & at first we were thinking that'd mean a 'hiatus' but aaron and i didn't want to do that so we decided either we'd break up or we'd find a new drummer and then ian came along and moved out to boston and the engine churned on. without getting too personal about stuff, life is surprisingly, shockingly the same between November 2013 and November 2012 ~~ living in the Whitehaus (a different sort of mansion) with no heat (same as last winter) with USD $11 in my bank account, feelin sorry for myself like a chump. More blogs have written about the band and we play more and better shows now, and, yeah, like i said, the engine churns. So it's not like we're livin it up by any means, but yeah, I guess the external validation has helped a bit? How do I not sound like a whiner? But also what I wanted to say (god this answer is too long) is that the suffering and the is-krill-gonna-break-up thing was crucial to the whole thing, and for a while (to our detriment, in trying to get labels to release it) we called LL a concept album about our band breaking up. & truth be told, the next thing, Steve Hears Pile etc...., is also about breaking up ~~ so who knows? Good thing i can't teserract, i'd fuck it all up.

CC: In "Theme From Krill" we learned there is a bug inside the narrator. Lucky Leaves was initially sold as a USB lodged in a cheeseball. And the forthcoming EP is about two dudes who are apparently inside a Pile song, at least in a manner of speaking. All of which makes me think of the Silver Jews song "New Orleans," where in the coda Mssrs. Malkmus and Berman chant "we're trapped inside the song" over and over. That would be a great song for Krill to cover, incidentally. But it also makes me think about how Krill likes to think about things that are in other things, sometimes hiding, sometimes revealing. So far this is a pretty terrible question, right?

JF: this question rules. actually asking about like 'what are your songs about?' which is pretty crucial for a band that writes songs that mostly are about stuff. i don't know that Silver Jews song, I'm gonna listen to it now.

OK i got distracted and wasted 30 minutes on the internet. where were we. ah, yeah. that's a great question. i mean, maybe it's not a great question but it's talking about actual interests and yeah i'd say krill lyrics are deeply concerned with stuff 'in' other stuff, mostly split versus whole selves, being torn or being unified, which just today i was thinking about how maybe that'll be the next krill full-length theoretical scaffolding -- r.d. laing's 'the divided self', f.m. dostoevsky's raskolnikov, d.f. wallace's lane dean jr., drew beckmore's 'everything unseen'. i could go on and on but maybe won't. i'll talk krill theories all day long though, helps me figure out what they actually are. incidentally you got me back on one of my favorite songs, silkworm's 'couldn't you wait.'

CC: Before we jump topics, what else can you tell me about Steve Hears Pile In Malden And Bursts Into Tears? We know it's an EP, we roughly know the larger concept at work, and we know it will be released on vinyl and digital. Did anything surprise you about the EP, after you had recorded it and were able to sit back and listen to it straight through?

JF: i can tell you lots of things about the EP, way more than you'd care to hear. first to answer your q: i'm sick of the fuckin thing by now and can't really stand to listen to it anymore after mixing, mastering, all that. it's to some extent an artifact, being Luke's Final Act before he left the band. i don't think it's all that cohesive as a 'concept album' and there are 1 or 2 tracks that didn't make the cut that would've fleshed out the concept but basically... I ripped the title from this weird academic exegetical essay called "Dostoevsky Reads Hegel in Siberia and Bursts Into Tears" by F. Laszlo Foldenyi (sp.?) that basically talks about how Hegel said history doesn't happen in Siberia and how Dost likely encountered that bit of Hegel while he himself was in fact in Siberia and the idea is that Malden is Siberia to Allston's Germany and Steve and Mouth are these two kids who live together in Malden and want to form a band and be friends with Pile but are so deeply in their own way and so outside of the 'scene' and 'conversation.' I mean it goes quite a bit deeper than that, and more tangled, in that the character's names and basic positions are ripped from a Pile song, "Steve's Mouth," in which there's this great line: "Steve woke up sitting on his own head, sobbing, couldn't breathe. He had a dream that Mouth died because Steve had to eat." -- which, yeah, again is about self-destruction, divisions of the self, your Mouth separating and being treated as a whole full entity... I don't know, the idea was that Steve is this infinite outwardness, wanting to form this band and go on tour with Pile but feels crushed by the external world, like he can't possibly match up, and Mouth is this infinite negativity, wanting to kill himself or leave boston or basically just abandon all dreams. which, you know, are two factors krill dealt with and deals with a lot... i don't know. it's not really a cohesive thing, like i said, but it's sort of about krill, pile, dostoevsky, boston, and depression, in five disjointed tracks.

[Here comes the worst segue you will ever read in an interview published in this or any publication in the post-Gutenberg-era -- Ed.]

CC: So you're playing this Toys For Tots benefit show Saturday. Can you remember as a kid having an obsession with a particular toy? In your experience, with regards to toys or otherwise, have you ever gotten something you wanted badly, and then realized that wanting it was actually more satisfying than having it?

JF: used to play a lot of magic cards as a kid. one time i bought a pack and told my parents, after the fact, that i didn't really want it and they asked why i bought it and i made up an excuse about how maybe one of the cards could be valuable and i could sell it and then my dad sort of tore me a new one about how gambling works and i remember him taking out a pair of dice and showing me what an idiot i was. what you say about wanting is more resonant, of course, and maybe a shitty thing for me to talk about as a person who comes from a privileged suburban background, the mechanics of wanting, but yeah, makes me think about DFW's thing about how there is no reciprocal feeling of success to match the aching desire of fame, addiction, achievement, progression, ascent. but fuck, jay, probably not cool to tell the tots the toys will solve nothing, that the beast is yourself and you cannot be sated, right?

CC: Clicky Clicky can magically turn you into Oprah. If we did, in fact, turn you into Oprah, and you were able to give a single gift, any gift at all, to an entire studio audience of deserving kids in need, what would you pick for them?

JF: funny how quickly, when ian asked me the other day what i want for hannukah, i blurted "$5k" and how deeply that resonated with all three of us. capitalism (or current dearth of capital to my name) has maybe temporarily sullied my capacity for appreciating/remembering the wonders of the gift economy but i really do think that's one of the Ways Out of the dilemma of the split, self-negating self. fuck am i talking about. crayons & paper should be enough.

CC: I'm intrigued by your speculation, or at least optimistic positation, which is surely not a real word, that the gift economy, or the wonders thereof, is a potential solution to the split, self-negating self. Because I think this is important. Do you think the solution for peace in the house of the divided self is... kindness? altruism? Or, I guess to stay more true to the line of your response, having the capacity to appreciate/recognize kindness or altruism?

JF: At the end of college i was working on this thesis that i abandoned, sort of about a lot of things, many threads of which have surfaced in krill stuff over the past couple years. I guess the idea, most broadly, was an investigation (but more navel gazing) into the move from ends to means, or "the eclipse of ends" (which is how I saw it put in a book just yesterday (this stuff still, as you can see, deeply occupies me)). so it was this elaborate thing about how economic/cultural/ethical/communicative translations have fucked up our relationship to any sense of value, and the next step would be to see maybe how one could maybe traverse these occluded paths to value w/o being naive or regressive. Or maybe by being naive/regressive, not sure, I'm still totally fuzzy on it. But the cheesy and simplest example i came up with is how currency translates objects into a commensurable value (exchange-value), overpowering the sense of the object as the thing that it is -- a chair = $ instead of a thing to sit on, yknow? All this stuff is hamfisted and overly academic, and part of my whole problem with the thesis itself was that what I'm interested in is mostly the human experience of these shifts (if they're even valid at all) rather than their intellectual history. Anyhow, through some twists and turns, largely centered on the totemic figure of David Foster Wallace (but other stuff in moral philosophy and elsewhere) i got hooked on the now-a-little-played-out idea that if you have a system of means that swallows all, the only way to destroy or overcome that system (w/o being naive or regressive) would be to turn it against itself; thus people talking confusingly about dfw 'ironizing irony' (& the other example that comes to mind is this metaethics thing that would take slightly longer to explain) and also, in my opinion, ideas about self-hate, self-incrimination, knowing-you-are-fucked, because your only tool against your fucked self is your fucked self, the self having eclipsed all other things.

Ultimately, tho, I'd say that dfw (and levinas and Dostoevsky and other important people i feel namedroppy for bringing up) resorts to something that maybe is naive or regressive but somehow i don't think it quite is ---- because it still is the form of self-negation, just reformulated, turned inside out, into other-affirmation, through love, god, 'the other,' communitarianism. i guess maybe the next thing, for me, would be that once you've revived this loving muscle and can flex it a bit, maybe maybe there is some place in the deep distance where the golden rule can be flipped, once you've already loved yr neighbor as yourself (and get over the embarrassment of typing that) you can turn it around and love yourself as your neighbor. So: eventually the split self becomes a way to come back to a liveable self-love (or at least non-self-hatred).

Oh, how we enjoyed doing this interview. There are a number of other questions we'd like to put to Jonah (1. there is an underlying presumption here that a divided self is necessarily a bad thing, and a thing that needs to be remedied -- what if it is the natural state of being? Is there a way that it can not be a negative? 2.) Where does religious faith fall in the mechanics of remedying the divided self -- which, again, we are not sure is something that necessarily is unnatural and needs to be remedied? Is using religious faith "naive" or "regressive?"). But we'll save those for another day. Steve Hears Pile In Malden And Bursts Into Tears has five songs and will be released by Exploding In Sound as a vinyl 10" and digital download Feb. 18; you can pre-order the short stack (as well as a couple rad t-shirt designs) via Krill's Bandcamp dojo right here. The blazing, punky title track was loosed to the wilds of the Internerds today as a preview, and for now you can hear it over at that big web site. Krill has a number of other confirmed shows on the horizon beyond Saturday's engagement at The New World Tavern in Plymouth, which of course you should go to, because we said so. For example, the trio is also part of Allston Pudding/EIS's cataclysmic New Year's Eve bill in Boston over at Pizzeria Regina in Allston, which also features Grass Is Green, Kal Marks and Two Inch Astronaut.

Today's Hotness: Age Rings, Manorlady, Tungs/Heavy Midgets

>> Boston institution Midriff Records will release next week Age Rings' AM/PM EP, a companion piece to last year's best-of-2011 long-player Black Honey. The EP is comprised of songs resected from the Boston-based indie rockers' original, two-disc version of the acclaimed long-player it issued to Kickstarter backers a year ago. Midriff's release of AM/PM is no surprise, as it had been the label's plan since releasing its one-disc iteration of Black Honey last November [review] to release the songs it had excised at a later date. And that later date is May 25, when Age Rings plays a release show for the EP on the occasion of this month's installment of the very successful Midriff Records residency at Radio in Somerville, MA -- but more about that early next week. In a sense, AM/PM is a bin of spare arms and legs. But while the EP doesn't explicitly illuminate any heretofore unrevealed aspect of Black Honey (or vice versa), that perhaps speaks to the deftness of Midriff's curation of the portfolio of songs comprising the original, double-disc Black Honey such that the releases are self-contained collections complete in and of themselves. Indeed, the EP is populated with understated but brilliant rock songs showcasing Age Rings fronter Ted Billings' reedy tenor and wry outlook. Standout cuts include the noisier, heavier fist-pumper "Dreaming Forever" and the characteristically uptempo-but-down-in-the-mouth shuffler "Think Myself Sick." It's hard to know what to make of last week's news that Mr. Billings has converted the ongoing sessions for Age Rings' follow-up to Black Honey into sessions for a solo record Billings characterizes as "a bit of a departure from AR." After all, we like Age Rings a lot. But time will tell. In the mean time, rest assured in the knowledge that AM/PM is a known quantity, six tracks of lean, rootsy indie rock.

>> We were feeling a bit of a darkwave trend coming on when we last heard from Charlottesville, VA's Manorlady. We're not sure that has been borne out, particularly due to the apparent dissolution of the Lehigh Valley's best calling card in years, Soars, whose wonderful self-titled set seemed like another important focal point for the misperceived trendlet. But Manorlady soldiers on, thrives even, and the trio's latest collection Ego Oppressor will be self-released by the band June 18. Ego Oppressor will be issued as a CD/DVD combination; the DVD features an album-length, beat-synched video track to accompany the music on the CD. We don't think this will surprise anyone, but according to Manorlady fronter Aaron Baily, "[i]t's really, really, really trippy." The album remains true to the mid-fi and dark recordings from the band's last record, but the intensity level has increased. More aggressive tunes like the first preview track "Lines In The Corner Of Your Face" rock a little harder, while the dreamier, more subdued songs such as the pensive and nearly still "Sea Beast" -- check the Soundcloud embed below -- are more tightly focused. "Sea Beast," in particular, is exceptionally well-composed and the trio's skillful layering of guitar and synth (and even vocal parts) here hints at wide-open songwriting territory the band will find very fertile. Ego Oppressor will eventually be for sale right here, so keep checking back. We reviewed the trio's prior full-length Home a year ago here.



>> We think it is interesting that the term lo-fi has its heaviest associations bound to Guided By Voices' and Sebadoh's respective brands, while things like early Black Flag and Bad Brains recordings don't get discussed the same way (or at least not anymore). From a production standpoint, Richmond-based quartet Tungs has more in common with the Spot school of audio fidelity, at least based on the band's cracking new split release with scenemates Heavy Midgets, Sisters. There is something like a perfect balance to the overdriven productions contained therein; the split was released on vinyl and cassette by Bad Grrrl Records May 13. The music is boxy-sounding, post-punk that bleeds sizzling cymbals, high-hat and red-lined bass fuzz. The recordings practically throw off sparks due to the barely contained energy of the performances, and the rough edges don't detract from the experience; indeed the gritty power of the music on Sisters is the perfect antidote to the hyperclean, antiseptic recordings from the current crop of popular, smooth-pop guitar bands gracing the pages of a lot of music rags these days. But it's not just the everyman production values that make Tungs and Heavy Midgets stand apart: it's that the bands propound songs with character and imagination. Tungs' "Yossarian's Blues" warrants kudos for its vibrant, bristling take on Joy Division-derived punk. But that song seems almost conventional in comparison to "NewDiety," which touts ghostly, under-fi horns and Alice In Chains-indebted vocal yowling, or the pleasantly dubby wandering of "Bad Information." For its part, Heavy Midgets strike gold with its yearning ballad "Oh Susanna," which ends strong with a vast, feedback-flaring guitar lead, and the stuttering pop of anti-anthem "Come Get Me High," each strong enough to anchor a single in their own rights. Buy Sisters from Bad Grrrl right here or buy the digital version right here. Try before you buy via the Bandcamp embeds below.

Today's Hotness: Bad Brains, Meneguar, TGTB&TQ

>> The heaviest thing you are going to see today is this single video for newly rejuvenated hardcore progenitors Bad Brains' two tunes "Give Thanks And Praises" and "Jah Love." The clip was directed by one of the cats in System Of A Down. It's an exciting jumble of quick cuts. The dynamic editing seems like a good idea, because it is apparent from the live footage that comprises the video that HR, Dr. No and the gang don't get around the stage like they used to. Still, there is plenty of enigma there, driven home by the tight shots of H.R. in insect shades murmuring his prayer into the mic. Do check it out. We reviewed Bad Brains' most recent comeback record Build A Nation here last month. [via BrooklynVegan].

>> Yesterday's big Mobius Band news (scroll down) and a couple tech support/music trivia-related phone calls from Clicky Clicky Dad meant that we had to push off until today reportage about the two new Meneguar tracks the Brooklyn quartet posted to its MySpace cabin recently. Through the magic of a certain sort of dubious but very handy web site we were able to snatch the tracks for copious unfettered home listening. What we can tell you is that the cuts "Freshman Thoughts" and "Hurry Up" sound great. Well, actually, the songs are encoded at an unfortunate 96 Kbps, so they sound a little washy and flat -- but we're willing o suffer with lo-fi MP3s until we can get our hands on the real thing. And the songs, man, the songs... A touch more restrained than the bare-knuckled rockers found on I Was Born At Night [review here], the cuts take the Meneguar you know and love and give it a hint -- just a hint -- of a folksy feel. Maybe it's the hollered choruses that sound like they were recorded en masse in a class room. Maybe it is the less distorted guitars. But fear not, there is still plenty of edge, found in places including the derisive-sounding lyric "you single cell, you little know-it-all..." We'll have to hear all of Strangers In Our House to determine whether these tunes are pieces of the masterpiece we feel like Meneguar has in it. Stream the tracks for yourself here. Strangers In Our House will be released domestically in early October on Troubleman Unlimited. We reviewed a recent Meneguar show here.

>> We've told anyone who will listen that the strongest cut on The Good, The Bad & The Queen's self-titled debut is the throbbing, inexorable title track. This places Damon Albarn's quartet in fine company along with acts including Talk Talk and, well, we think there is a thread at ILM about others. Point being, "The Good, The Bad & The Queen" is really phenomenal. And now there is a mesmerizing video to go with it. We must admit the repurposing of footage of Sufis celebrating some aspect of their religion for the purpose of having interesting pictures for your rock video makes us a little uncomfortable. Some sort of odd colonial voyeurism at work or something. That said, the film maker's shtick of timing fits of religious ecstasy to the pounding surf of the song carries a spark of brilliance. Check out the video over at Pitchfork here.

Review: Bad Brains | Build A Nation [MP3]

As "American Hardcore" author Steven Blush stated in his book, "East Coast hardcore begins with Bad Brains." For us, objectively situating the hardcore progenitors' latest comeback record within the continuum of their work is problematic. This is primarily because we possess only passing knowledge of the legendary quartet's spotty '90s output, and the bulk of our affinity for the band is based on the self-titled set, the demo collection Black Dots, and some cuts from the amazingly titled I Against I that made it on to one of the best mix tapes we ever received. So... we can't tell you for a fact that the new set Build A Nation is Bad Brains' best record in 20 years (and might be their most balanced ever, save for perhaps the "Pay To Cum" single, which was backed with the outstanding reggae cut "Stay Close To Me"), but that's our belief. Megaforce Records released Build A Nation June 26.

The new set features visceral and largely glossless production courtesy of Beastie Boys' Adam Yauch. Bad Brains sets the tone right from the opening, with the classic two-chord bludgeoning of "Give Thanks." And the relentless, 104-second title track -- which has three words of lyrics -- slams with an energy that is hard to believe, considering the age of the players involved. And then "Let There Be Angels (Just Like You)" increases that intensity even more. That said, Build A Nation also thrives on variety, as several dubby reggae cuts are also prominently featured. "Roll On" wafts out of headphones with fat bass notes and pulsing organ and guitar lines. H.R. is even more inscrutable than ever; on "Natty Dreadlocks" he name-drops Soul Brains, starts in with something about "rub-a-dub," and, well, we've already lost him. The lyrics are more transparent are when religious themes are the focus. They don't get more obvious than the half blistering thrasher, half spiritual chant "Give Thanks And Praises," an MP3 of which we've posted below.

Also of note is this interview the band did with Spinner's The DL web program, which tantalizes with some live footage from one of the band's recent, curious performances on a cruise ship. Definitely worth watching, although we are disappointed there wasn't more live footage -- the little bit that is there is heavy. The band currently has only two more shows booked in support of Build A Nation; check out the dates here.

Bad Brains -- "Give Thanks And Praises" -- Build A Nation
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[buy Build A Nation from Newbury Comics here]

Bad Brains: InterWeb | MySpace | YouTube | Flickr

Today's Hotness: Up Up Down Down, Bad Brains, The Monkees

>> Aloha readers. Please be advised that we're going to be off-line for the rest of June, as we've got a bit of sun and fun lined up. Don't worry, we won't be totally rock free, as we've got biographies of John Lydon and Frank Zappa already thrown in the suitcase. Expect your :: clicky clicky :: service to resume July 1.

>> We've been spinning Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start's new long player Worst Band Name Ever trying to come up with an angle for a review since it came in the mail. In the meantime, the band has posted two MP3s from the set at its MySpace carport and at the sorta new, sorta not web site for the record here. One of the posted tunes is "I'll Thank You Later," the video of which we already posted here last month. We're more excited that the band has posted "The Red Loop," however, because it is one of our two favorite tracks from the hilariously titled new collection. Murmered, harmonized vocals drift over a bed of pounding toms and hard-panned, dueling acoustic guitars, and as always songwriter Steve Poponi's structurally beautiful simplicity. Two verses, two choruses, two minutes and twenty four seconds. Download both tracks below.

Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start -- "I'll Thank You Later" -- Worst Band Name Ever
Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start -- "The Red Loop" -- Worst Band Name Ever
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[for a boat-load more free MP3s and to order UUDD records, hit this link]

>> Pun Canoes is streaming the title track to hardcore progenitors Bad Brain's forthcoming reunion album Build A Nation. It's pretty one dimensional, but that one dimension is heavy. Stream "Build A Nation" here. Build A Nation was produced by Beastie Boy Adam Yauch and will be released June 26.

>> Things we didn't know or already forgot: Rhino is reissuing double-disc, deluxe editions of The Monkees' Headquarters and Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. If you order them both directly from Rhino you will receive two unreleased tracks from 1967 on a limited edition vinyl single with a picture sleeve. More details here. If you click around you will see that Rhino previously issued similar deluxe editions of The Monkees and More Of The Monkees at some point along the way. Is it true The Monkees outsold The Beatles and The Rolling Stones between 1966 and 1968? Did we read that right?

>> Since we've opened the door on our musical past by mentioning The Monkees above, we may as well also note something else we found very interesting. Fifteen years after releasing the first two parts of its From The Vault series, the Grateful Dead organization has finally seen fit to release the third volume. Three From The Vault streets June 26, and we are sure all of you will throw it right in your shopping carts next to that Bad Brains joint. More information right here. Mrs. Clicky Clicky actually got us a cool DVD featuring the Grateful Dead performing on Tom Snyder's talk show in 1980. The performances were to promote the release of the excellent Dead set Reckoning. The interview portion, which pairs Jerry Garcia with Ken Kesey, was really, really amusing.