One can never be
Desolate when petting a
Basket of kittens
Friday, October 23, 2026
Moby Grape by Moby Grape
Another middling 60s psychedelic rock album and one that was surprisingly difficult to find on streaming media. However, what makes this one special, is the Wikipedia history of the band. Their manager, who was fired from Jefferson Airplane, turned out to be one of the most rapacious and litigious agents since Colonel Tom Parker.
The debut album was sabotaged by the record company simultaneously releasing five singles (from a 30 minute album!) thus ensuring that none of them charted and also damaging album sales. Subsequently at least two the band had serious problems from the after effects of taking LSD, leading to one of them smashing a hotel door down with an axe in the middle of a psychotic episode. Yikes.
After that, things didn’t get any better with a decades long legal wrangle over the name and publishing rights, which is probably why they are now just a footnote in rock history.
Thursday, October 22, 2026
The Stooges by The Stooges
The Stooges were discovered in 1968 by a record company scout playing alongside fellow Detroit noisemakers MC5 and sent to New York to record an album. However when they got there and teamed up with producer John Cale they soon realised that they only had three songs ready to record.
They were sent off to a hotel for a weekend to work on some extra ones and this album was the (somewhat mixed) result. The tracks “I wanna be your Dog” and “No Fun” are proto punk classics, however the extended piece “We will Fall” is a bit of an ordeal to listen to with 10 minutes of Cale inspired droning.
On the whole, not their best but a fascinating pointer to where Iggy would go next.
Pop-tastic!
Wednesday, October 21, 2026
Queen of Denmark by John Grant
This album really grabbed me in a way that I wasn’t quite expecting. John Grant certainly has a knack for a catchy lyric and after listening to this three times today I find myself singing along with lines like “I feel just Sigourney Weaver when she had to kill those aliens” and “I wanted to change the world but I could not even change my underwear”
There are lots of deeply personal insights here about John Grant’s experience of growing up as a gay man in the midwest and songs like the title track and “JC Hates Faggots” are devastating in their brutal honesty.
The music is mostly simple piano and synth accompaniments with some arrangements reminding me of Scissor Sisters in places. The only thing that I wasn’t sure about was a hard turn into some discordant Kraftwerk style euro-pop on the last couple of tracks with a cod German accent.
Other than that, this is definitely going into my favourites list.
Tuesday, October 20, 2026
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