Summer is here, and it is high time to ensure your porch has at least one pollinator friendly plant on it. Find a pollinator friendly plant here, or go talk to a real human being at your local plant nursery. No bees means no hops, and that mean no more porch beers. So please do your part to keep this thing alive.
Your Crossword
Crossword Competitions
Every year the Marriott hotel in Stamford, Connecticut draws nearly 800 word nerds from across the country to try their hand at solving some of the hardest crosswords as fast as possible at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. Aside from the heated competition, it’s a wonderful geek fest for all ages. There’s even a (nearly 20-year-old) documentary about it.
The conference room, yellow privacy folders, and eccentrics in attendance haven’t changed a bit since. I made the journey for my second time and managed to eke out a 287th place finish. This was a huge improvement over my bottom 50% finish last year after I failed to put even a small dent in Sam Ezersky’s brutal puzzle 5. This time around I did crack the infamously devious puzzle with the clock hitting zero as I fudged the last couple of fills (gold medalist Al OERTER, the 2nd B.C. TEUTON tribe, and designer IKE Behar.)
The ACPT tourney on the east coast used to be the only one around, but now the Pacific coast has Westwords and the great lakes states are debuting their own Midwest Crossword Tournament in Chicago. Might be time to start sorting out a Rocky Mountain tourney to corner this lucrative market. You, dear reader, will be the first to know if that ever comes to fruition.
On Rotation
Justice and Tame Impala and an Oscilloscope music vid? Almost too good to be true.
The stank nasty synths on Muscle Memory are an easy second favorite off this killer new album from the legendary French duo.
Earlier this year I had the pleasure of seeing the French cosmic-metal trio SLIFT melt faces at a packed venue in Copenhagen. Thankfully, I get to relive that show whenever since Levitation captured the lightning-in-a-bottle that is a live SLIFT show - filming the band for over an hour in a cavernous nanoparticle research facility. The entire set, especially its epic 18-minute epilogue, fuckin’ rip.
Merle Haggard interview but make it a 7-minute dub track featuring steel guitar, horns, and plenty of reverb. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Another summer, another set of warm afternoons to bop along to some Alvvays. Coming up on 10 years with this immaculate debut LP.
Julia Holter’s latest release is a decadent, haunting, operatic sound bath, and I still haven’t gotten tired of it after a month or so of weekly listens.
Recently Announced
Coco Bryce | 5/11/2024 | Black Box - Old Skool Jungle, PlayStation 1, Breakbeat
camping in Alaska | 5/18/2024 | 7th Circle - Everything is NOT alright, man
Squirrel Flower // Pedro the Lion | 6/19/2024 | Bluebird - Ethel Cain a la shoegaze
QUEEF JERKY | 6/21/2024 | Marquis - Pure literary genius
Thoughts like a boomerang, they always come back to me
I am a big shark, Bohemian Rhapsody, more like Bohemian Crap-sody
Nikki Nair | 6/22/2024 | Black Box - Punchy acid techno, scathing DnB
Cortex | 7/6/2024 | Cervantes - Oft-sampled 70s jazz quintet
Etran de L'Air | 7/16/2024 | Marquis - Saharan desert rock, infinitely groovy
Quasi // Jeffrey Lewis | 7/18/2024 | Marquis - What a bunch of lunatics!
Neil Young | 7/31/2024 | Fiddlers - Stalwart folk legend.
Neil recorded the making of Harvest in 1971 and finally released all of that footage 50 years later. It’s him recording live in a northern California barn, visiting the record pressing plant, and smokin’ doobies with Crosby, Stills and Nash. I cannot, for the life of me, find it anywhere online in its entirety. I may end up having to shell out the $80 for the deluxe repressing that it was released with just to watch this thing.
Killer Mike | 8/7/2024 | Denver - Socially conscious hip-hop
Orville Peck | 8/8/2024 | Fillmore - Y’allternative, recently released this on-the-nose track with Willie Nelson
The Marias // Automatic | 8/16/2024 | Mission - Dreamy Bilingual Indie // Nonstop bops
Kurt Vile | 8/29/2024 | Levitt - Rambling psych folk
Dana and Alden | 9/20/2024 | Lost Lake - TIGHT soft jazz pop, tiktok goofball
Seriously, he’s too dang wholesome.
I like comforts… soft beds, silk sheets, mac & cheese (gluten free)
The Symposium | 10/1/2024 | Gothic - The Strokes, with a dash more psych
BORIS: AMPLIFIER WORSHIP | 10/6/2024 | Bluebird - This church goes to 11
Mildlife | 10/9/2024 | Meow wolf - oh we’re groovin groovin’
Crumb | 10/9/2024 | Mission - Smoky jazz bars, noir films, careening basslines
Of the trees // Halogenix // Posij | 11/8 | Red Rocks - Fresh experimental DnB
The Lemon Twigs | 11/8/2024 | Globe - Charming, odd, harmonious
You cannot convince me Brian Wilson wasn’t in the studio to produce this track.
The Month Ahead
Helado Negro | 5/3/2024 | Globe
Mythm | 5/3/2024 | Black Box
Mannequin Pussy // Soul Glo | 5/4/2024 | Bluebird
LTJ Bukem | 5/4/2024 | Ophelia's
Blondie | 5/8/2024 | Mission
Ty Segall | 5/9/2024 | Gothic
Bombay Bicycle Club | 5/9/2024 | Ogden
Hippo Campus // MJ Lenderman | 5/9/2024 | Red Rocks
Belle and Sebastian | 5/10/2024 | Fillmore
Pachiko | 5/10/2024 | Summit
Water From Your Eyes | 5/10/2024 | hi Dive
CSS | 5/11/2024 | Marquis
Pond | 5/11/2024 | Ogden
Joy again | 5/11/2024 | Larimer
Wine Lips | 5/11/2024 | Hi Dive
Coco Bryce | 5/11/2024 | Black Box
Melt-banana | 5/12/2024 | Meow Wolf
The Garden | 5/15/2024 | Fillmore
IDLES | 5/18/2024 | Mission
camping in Alaska | 5/18/2024 | 7th Circle
Knocked Loose | 5/19/2024 | Mission
Mount Kimbie | 5/21/2024 | Meow Wolf
Psychedelic Porn Crumpets | 5/21/2024 | Gothic
warpaint | 5/22/2024 | Summit
Wednesday | 5/28/2024 | Gothic
Glass Beams | 5/29/2024 | Cervantes
Sondino Gallo Negro | 5/29/2024 | Marquis
Outside Lands - Thundercat | 6/1/2024 | Civic Center Park
Buckethead | 6/1/2024 | Ogden
Outside Lands - Fleet Foxes | 6/2/2024 | Civic Center Park
April was pretty hectic, thanks for sticking around. Next month I’ll geek out on Listening Bars. Did I mention I took 287th at ACPT?