The Severed Cortex

Record stores are virtually extinct. Independent record stores are even harder to come by, mostly due to the iPod age. Still, one of my favorite things to do is 'dig through the crates' searching for a bargain. Luckily here in St. Louis we have Vintage Vinyl. Normally I can't get out of a record store without spending $100 dollars and it was readily apparent in my Visa bill back when I lived just a mere 13 blocks down the street from the record store heaven known as Vintage Vinyl. But now that I live in suburbia and spend the majority of my music dollars on iTunes, rummaging through the record store seems somewhat passe. When the occasion arises, the only thing I'm interested in is anything that might be cheaper than I can buy it on iTunes. I've grown accustomed to not having liner notes, so to get a cheaper price than iTunes and get liner notes seems a bit like stealing. Here's a list of the ones I recently stole.

Face The Truth by Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks

More jangly noise from the brains of Pavement. Clearly not as good as Pig Lib. Much closer to Pavement outtakes than anything else. Baby C'mon is a great tune and it sounds sort of out of place compared to the bulk of the other songs, which are mostly filler. Still, I find this obscure brand of rock and roll to my liking. I'm not alone either. There's tons of Pavement fans out there and most of them will probably say this Malkmus CD is an extension of that. Pig Lib probably not so much. It's way more accessible than this release ever hoped to be. Really this is only for the hardcore Malkmus fan.

Menos el Oso by Minus The Bear

Heavily produced prog rock. Great technical musicianship, solid arrangements, decent lyrics, and enough little subtle hooks that one or two them will dislodge in the back of your head when you least expect it. The release starts out unbelievably strong,then fizzles somewhere near the halfway point. The lead four tracks are certainly stellar ones though. Really, really good. Too bad the back half of the release doesn't have quite the same fire. I can appreciate musical technicality, and the drummer of this band has it in spades, but normally I tend to shy away from the prog rock guys. Minus the Bear manages to get plenty of technical and still not come off as the musical equivalent of your high school AV club members like most prog rock bands do. If you're interested in more, KEXP has an in-studio of these guys that is outstanding. They were on their A game so much it made the host Cheryl Waters cry from the smoking vibe in the room. I have to admit I became a big fan after listening to it.

Skittish/Rockity Roll by Mike Doughty

Early solo releases from the frontman of Soul Coughing. I really, really like Haughty Melodic and there are some early indications of the greatness found in that release in this double CD packaged deal. There's not as many though. Plus the production on both of these is not the greatest. You wouldn't expect that from something released in 1996 as Skittish was, but the 2004 Rockity Roll doesn't have very good production quality either. I think I prefer the earlier, more acoustic Skittish more than I like the louder Rockity Roll, but both contain really similar material. On Rockity Roll you can really tell where Doughty is starting to experiment with layering on additional tracks, a trick he refines heavily on Haughty Melodic. Both these CD's have a couple of real gems and both have a couple of stinkers on them. All in all though, if you can look past Mike Doughty's odd voice, you'll find a lot a simple pop goodness here.

Let It Blast by The Bellrays

Had Ike succeeded in beating Tina Turner to death, I would swear her soul and voice had been reincarnated in the form of The Bellrays lead singer Lisa Kekaula. Kekaula belts out rock and soul songs like Tina did in the vintage Ike days. And then there's the guitar riffmeister Tony Fate, who has all the coolest licks down pat. In most bands he'd be the star. In this band he's a distant 2nd. Kekaula steals the show and Fate throws in his signature where he can. This release is raucous and loud, but the production on it is terrible, probably because they recorded it in their 15x15 practice room. Struggling bands have to do what they have to do. I'm sure they wished they had better equipment to record it on. This release seems to be more rock and roll slash punk than the more rockin' soul that The Red, White & Black was. I prefer The RT&B to this one. It just seems way more polished. I know loud music like this isn't supposed to sound polished, but it doesn't have to sound like it was recorded on a Tascam 4 track. Actually the liner notes say it was recorded on a 6-track cassette recorder, so technically they didn't record it on the worst thing ever. That's the biggest knock I have against this CD. The songs are solid, Kekaula's voice is incredible, and Fate's guitar stays right where it's supposed to be.