PSF new issue is up- Feb/March 09 edition

Along with PSF, some other items that might interest you:

- See videos of Mike Watt's New Year's day tour of San Pedro:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=384F9D8926A6F668

- We have a Last.fm station set up, featuring music from artists featured in PSF now:
http://www.last.fm/user/jgrossnas/library/playlists/2gvrr_psf_feb-march_2009

- Please see my Twitter page for PSF news, music news, band finds and other things having to do with... music!:
http://twitter.com/jgrossnas


And of course... in the latest issue of Perfect Sound Forever http://www.perfectsoundforever.com, you'll find (among other things):


LESTER BANGS
- A good role model?
"Lester Bangs, like many deceased luminaries in their respective fields of criticism, haunts everyone who, against all odds, decided they want to become a rock critic. I had mildly dabbled in pop music criticism before I first read Main Lines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste (quickly followed by Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung and a slew of internet scooping). Like many critics before me, I immediately tried to follow in Bangs’ lead in my own writing. And like a playwright who’s just discovered David Mamet, the results could be disastrous."

THE DONNAS
Still Rock and Roll machines: interview
"The ABC’s of punk rock have been learned and demonstrated by four women who are not an overnight success in the music industry. The Donnas are a group of four women (they are older than twenty-one, a fact that inspired the title for their fourth CD) who have been playing together for over ten years. Palo Alto, California claims them as their own--as well they should. Three elements usually appear in their music: alcohol, boys, and covers."

KENWARD ELMSLIE
- Poet turned theater man
"In the 1950's Kenward Elmslie was the protege of the well-known lyricist John Latouche, who had worked with Duke Ellington and many others. Elmslie, at times uncredited, helped Latouche with such chores as writing a lyric for Leonard Bernstein's theme to the movie On the Waterfront, and songs for on and off-Broadway revues. Elmslie even had a jukebox hit (or, per Elmslie, 'hitlet') in 1959: "Love-Wise," sung by Nat King Cole"

THOMAS HANSEN
- Portrait of concert pianist
"Striding across the stage in a determined and focused manner, Thomas Hansen seats himself in front of the piano. He's all business. After adjusting the piano bench, he is ready to perform. Hansen has been performing for a quarter-century. Born in Massachusetts, near Boston, in 1956, he started exploring the piano at age four. "

HARD PLACE
- Nerdy-pervy hairy MOR
"Hard Place is a joke: like all good jokes, they contain an ugly truth and a joyful shell. The joyful shell is their
nerdy-pervy quality- their combination of low-budget videos, costume and rock and roll scholarship. The specific brand of rock n roll they work within is the mass culture of the 70's and 80's- 'Labrynth' era Bowie, hair metal, MOR bands like Journey and Fleetwood Mac and 80's synthpop. They treat all of these with loving respect and distance"

MAGIC MAGICIANS
- Alt-rock mysteries
"As I began searching for information about The Magic Magicians online, and I discovered that while their music is widely available for purchase that it was difficult to find writings on the band itself. Google searches for 'The Magic Magicians' & 'Review' yielded less than 95 results—to be exact—most of it comprised of scant biographies, about a dozen or so album reviews, some with mixed reactions (some of them with negative reactions, and a lone black-and-white promotional band photo."

RECORD FAIRS
- Their psycho-geography, by Johan Kugelberg (Ugly Things), intro by Jon Savage
"Does it matter what time you get in to the record fair? Whether you get in at four o' clock for an extra 20 bucks, or if you arrive with the average Joe at six o' clock? Or for that matter, if you chum up to a dealer and procure a coveted pass in the guise of being his... helper. What records are found during those first two hours? What records are found during load-in? Rifling through a half-open boxes as the dealer subdues his cardiac-arrest in mid-shlep..."

THE RUTS
- Early UK punk gone dub: interview
"Out of the four albums that were released while the band was still a going concern, it's the last of these, a dub album called Rhythm Collision, which I've gone back to the most. Released in 1982 on the band's own label, it was the result of a band set free from major label shackles, laying back, letting go and enjoying themselves. It came at the tail end of a long period of turmoil including heroin addiction and the subsequent death of lead singer Malcolm Owen in 1980, and a failed third rock album for Virgin without him in 1981, by which time the band had appended their name with DC."

SOUNDSCAPE
- Lost NYC music venues (part 3)
"A sparsely appointed West Side loft dedicated to the presentation of improvisational and global music, Soundscape was the spiritual predecessor to such contemporary NYC venues as the Knitting Factory and The Stone. Soundscape was founded by Verna Gillis, a City College graduate who earned her PH.D in ethnomusicology from Union Graduate School in 1975. Verna did extensive field recording in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Surinam, Peru, and Ghana; 25 albums of her material were released on the Lyrichord and Smithsonian Folkways labels."

TELEVISION
- Their early years
"... Television walked on, four tall skinny lads with military-erect postures. Drummer Billy Ficca dressed simply in T-shirt and jeans, but his bandmates' clothes flashed despite their thrift-shop shabbiness. Positioned center-stage: guitarist Tom Verlaine, a hollow-eyed blonde scarecrow, sported a delinquent's black Banlon-knit shirt. Bassist Richard Hell grinned behind a baggy wrinkled suit and a tab-collar shirt, his rectangular sunglasses and teased-out hair completing a sardonic 1965 Bob Dylan look. Soupbowl-blonde guitarist Richard Lloyd wore a brazen black T-shirt that bore the crimson legend 'PLEASE KILL ME.'"

TRUE TEMPERAMENT
- Guitars in different, 'strange' scales
"True Temperament's guitar necks look as if they have been haphazardly constructed. But the construction of the seemingly warped frets gives them a sound very much in tune. Anders Thidell, the man behind the company, tells his story about the invention and demonstrates how they are produced."

TRANCE MUSIC
- Its dizzying history- from Africa to techno
"Trance music staged a takeover of the world's clubs sometime in the early 1990's; its steady, pulsating beat dominating the drug-addled dance floors that had once been the domain of Disco and Synth-Pop. It stripped away the flashy adornments of earlier dance musics and placed it emphasis squarely on dance's 'trance inducing' qualities."

VAN HALEN
- The misunderstood Hagar years
"The Cinderella tale begins in the sterile year of 1986 - before Guns n' Roses rebooted history - and the choice of Sammy Hagar, perennial minor-leaguer, adopted favorite son of St. Louis' KSHE-95 for chrissakes, was obdurate, at best. Following 1984's close scrape with #1, millions of dollars rode on the risk. That's a lot of lines. Of course, Eddie Van Halen wanted his hereditary spotlight back from the perpetually usurping David Lee Roth, but, what the f---, puppy-faced "I Can't Drive 55" Hagar was, huh, Ted Nugent without charisma."


VINYL ANACHRONIST
- Turntable alternatives
"Why do we talk about Rega and Technics as if they are the only game in town? If you read these forums regularly, you'll know that many analog fans also own 'tables from Music Hall and Pro-Ject, two companies that are also very competitive in the sub-$1000 turntable market. Yet the debate always becomes heated when you compare the virtues and sins of a particular Japanese mass-market direct-drive 'table with that of a particular English belt-drive turntable."


PLUS rememberences of Ron Asheton (Stooges) and Mark Price (from his Tin Huey band mates) and a list of the staff's favorite music of 2008.

We're always looking for good writers and/or ideas so let us know if you have anything to share.