I think it’s their strongest release in years.

I would enjoy time-traveling back to 1969 just to visit the A&M Records promo department and “Well, actually…” the ignoramus responsible for the copy on this picture sleeve.

It was only about 15 minutes long, iirc. During that era, I was pretty good at intuiting what was likely to be uninteresting before I made the mistake of buying it. Kula Shaker was one of my errors. So were Echobelly, Gay Dad, and My Life Story.

I fell for this one, too. (The US version came with an additional CD of uninteresting remixes.)

He might have enjoyed the Bert Lahr version.

The version of Shaker Loops on this album is the only piece by Adams that’s ever done anything for me.

I can count the good things that have come from social media in the last dozen years on maybe three fingers, and Justin and @dicknixon.bsky.social are two of them.

Agreed.

Have you tried buying any records from the UK recently?

The Black Magic Woman album from a year earlier is really good, too.

This fall: action wears a Homburg!

Probably just coincidental, though it’s certainly possible that Lowther heard Unhalfbricking at some point.

A dreamy electric Brit-jazz LP from 1970 that’s in desperate need of a reissue. Henry Lowther was (and still is) a virtuoso trumpeter/violinist, who played Woodstock as a member of the luckless Keef Hartley Band. Next time I DJ out, I’m playing “Trav’lling Song” into Fairport’s “A Sailor’s Life.”

I still use the built-like-a-tank external CD drive I bought in 2006 or so, when having such a thing was a luxury and not a necessity. It’s the size of a copy of Gravity’s Rainbow, made mostly of metal, and weighs five pounds. I ripped a 20 CD boxed set with it just yesterday.

I’ve done it too. My verbatim response to Kaleb’s text was: “It operates at about the level of me in 9th grade writing a book report about something I hadn’t read based entirely upon the back cover copy. (Which is to say: useless.)”

While going through text messages from Kaleb—insert an image of Charlie Brown saying “sigh” here—I found this, from about a year ago. The point he was making applies to all of us.

A farewell to my friend, Kaleb Horton, a great writer who died unexpectedly this past weekend.

While going through text messages from Kaleb—insert an image of Charlie Brown saying “sigh” here—I found this, from about a year ago. The point he was making applies to all of us.

I wouldn’t have understood this as a teenager, but recent losses have convinced me that, metaphorically speaking, you’re a lot better off trying to have Bob Seger’s career than Ian Curtis’s.

In reality, it was probably more like he’d never _knowingly_ heard a Chili Peppers song—he would have been maybe three years old when “Under The Bridge” was a radio hit—but close enough.

A few months ago, I found a t-shirt I bought at a Dylan/Petty concert I took my grandmother to in 1986. I felt certain that the only person capable of appreciating its talismanic qualities was Kaleb, so I gave it to him and he was delighted (or he pretended to be). Anyway: I miss him.

The photo was taken in SV about five weeks _after_ A&Co.

“I’ve seen so much more F Troop than a normal person should see.”

—Kaleb Horton

I never saw the Cramps live, but in 2001 the American Cinematheque in Hollywood screened a new print of Robot Monster—and Lux & Ivy sat next to me. A life highlight.