This little bit of news made my day today. King Tuff is returning to deliver us another record, this time courtesy of Sub Pop.

King Tuff released a brilliant (and eccentric) hippy powerpop/fuzzrock LP a couple years back on Colonel Records which was quickly snapped up shortly after by Burger Records for a cassette tape edition. The cover blared out of the record bin with a hot pink, 70s-inspired ink drawing of a long-haired thing set against a full-jacket fluorescent green background. It was awesome – inside and out.

Later the man would reappear with a full band in tow as the outfit Happy Birthday with a stunning, lush, ramshackle garage pop record on Sub Pop Records. Now it would seem he’s heading back to the ol’ lo-fi grit and fuzz-guitar rock’n'roll from a few years previous and pulling back into his master-of-oblivious-cool King Tuff persona. I absolutely loved the starry-eyed sunshine pop of Happy Birthday, but King Tuff will knock ‘em outta the kiddie pool every time.

I can’t wait for this record. Sadly, we’ve got until late May to sit and stew on it.

Coming in right under the wire here! Monday almost slipped right past me. Not really sure how that happened. I remember my morning coffee, then another coffee or two and the rest is a blur. We’re going to start this off with a link to a review since this album is criminally not streaming anywhere…

The Men – Open Your Heart (Sacred Bones) via Pitchfork.

Magnetic Fields – Love At The Bottom Of The Sea (Merge) via NPR.

Bowerbirds – The Clearing (Dead Oceans) via Stereogum.

Nite Jewel – One Second Of Love (Secretly Canadian) via GvB.

Ceremony – Zoo (Matador) via Spin.

Wes Coleman is a special dude. He is in fact one of my very favorite special dudes and he seems to leave behind him in every town a wake of beer cans and new best friends as he goes. This is his newest LP, The Last Donkey Show, on Goner Records.

John Wesley Coleman – A Clown Gave You a Baby

Even to say he’s one of my favorite garage songwriters – next to the likes of Dan McGee (Spider Bags) – wouldn’t get the point across hard enough. It’s as if he’s found the perfect point of existence between Gram Parsons and Nikki Sudden, or better yet and more locale-appropriate, Townes Van Zandt and Roky Erickson. John Wesley Coleman III is an enigma true to its core and exists in a perpetually falling-apart, sunny-day world he’s constructed for himself where it seems his only hope of staying connected to reality exists in the songs he never stops writing.

His songs blast through from wild-eyed, rollickin’, fuzzed swagger-stompers on down to bleary-eyed, organ-drenched, tearjerk ballads. Though still wine-drunk and loose as always, the tracks on Last Donkey Show are surprisingly more focused and direct. I might venture to say it’s my favorite JWC III yet. If you’re a fan of twangy, loose rock’n'roll, this is for you. There’s undeniably something both so wrong and so right in the water of Austin, TX.

RECOMMENDED IF YOU LIKE: Spider Bags, Golden Boys, Strange Boys, Reigning Sound, Roky Erickson, a countrified Tom Verlaine, good music.

STUFF TO DO: John Wesley Coleman will be appearing at the Duke Brickside Fest (3/23) both solo and with his band, The Golden Boys. See ya there!

Let’s see what’s in store for this lovely weekend, shall we? It appears we’re not gonna get too much sun outside, but we can certainly hole up inside and scare up a few good times with a couple of these…

New Stock & Restocks…

Acid Baby Jesus – Acid Baby Jesus LP
Ryan Adams – Ashes & Fire CD
Bad Sports – Kings of the Weekend LP
Masaki Batoh – Brain Pulse Music LP
Beach Boys – Smile Sessions 2LP
The Beets – Let the Poison Out LP
Black Lips – Good Bad Not Evil LP
Bon Iver – Bon Iver, Bon Iver LP
Bonnie Prince Billy – The B-Sides to Time to Be Clear 7″
Bonnie Prince Billy – I See a Darkness LP
Brutal Knights – Blown 2 Completion LP
Bill Callahan – Rough Travel for a Rare Thing 2LP
Bill Callahan – Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle LP
Carolina Chocolate Drops – Leaving Eden CD
CAVE – Neverendless LP
Alex Chilton – Free Again: The 1970 Sessions CD/LP
John Wesley Coleman III – Last Donkey Show CD/LP
Todd Congelliere – Clown Sounds LP
Consumers – All My Friends Are Dead CD/LP
Corrosion of Conformity – Corrosion of Conformity CD
Des Ark – Don’t Rock the Boat, Sink the Fucker LP
Dillinger Four – This Shit is Genius LP
Dirty Three – Toward the Low Sun CD/LP
Divorced – Separation Anxiety LP
Electric Eels – (I’m So) Agitated 7″
The Ergs – Dork Rock Cork Rod LP
Exploding Hearts – Guitar Romantic LP
Fang – Landshark/Where The Wild Things Are CD
Fresh & Onlys – Play It Strange LP
Fugazi – Repeater LP
Laura Gibson – La Grande CD/LP
Guided By Voices – Let’s Go Eat the Factory LP
Happy Birthday – Happy Birthday LP
Heavy Times – Jacker LP
House Boat – Thorns of Life LP
Household – Items LP
Hunx – Hairdresser Blues CD/LP
Iceage – New Brigade LP
Jawbreaker – Dear You 2LP
Jawbreaker – Unfun LP
Johnny Ill Band – Ask All the Doctors LP
Abner Jay – Folk Song Stylist LP
Abner Jay – The True Story of… LP
Damien Jurado – Maraqopa CD/LP
King Lollipop – Woodland Whoopee Songs LP
Sophia Knapp – Into the Waves LP
Lifetime – Hello Bastards LP
Los Llamarada – Gone Gone Cold LP
Marked Men – Fix My Brain LP
J Mascis – Several Shades of Why LP
Memoryhouse – The Slideshow CD/LP
The Mentally Ill – Gacy’s Place CD
Metallica – Master of Puppets LP
Mind Spiders – Meltdown CD/LP
Mind Spiders – Mind Spiders LP
Mickey Newbury – Frisco Mabel Joy LP
OBN IIIs – The One and Only LP
Jakob Olausson – Morning and Sunrise LP
Jim O’Rourke – Bad Timing LP
Jim O’Rourke – Halfway To a Threeway 12″
Jim O’Rourke – The Visitor LP
Personal & The Pizzas – Raw Pie LP
Pygmy Shrews – The Egyptian LP
Radio Birdman – The Essential Radio Birdman CD
Radio Birdman – Radios Appear LP
Real Estate – Days CD/LP
Reigning Sound – Too Much Guitar LP
The Replacements – Tim LP
School of Seven Bells – Ghostory LP
Screaming Females – Baby Teeth LP
Screaming Females – Castle Talk LP
Screaming Females – Power Move LP
Ty Segall – Singles 2007-2010 2LP
Shabazz Palaces – Black Up LP
Shannon & The Clams – Sleep Talk LP
Sonic Avenues – Television Youth LP
Spider Bags – Celebration of Hunger LP
The Spits – Spits IV LP
Sun Araw – Ancient Romans 2LP
Swell Maps – A Trip to Marineville LP
Tallest Man on Earth – Sometimes the Blues… 12″
Terry Malts – Killing Time LP
Tindersticks – The Something Rain LP
Total Control – Henge Beat LP
Underground Railroad to Candyland – Knows Your Sins LP
V/A – Bamabara Mystic Soul 2LP
Void – Sessions ’81-’83 LP
White Wires – WWII LP
Women – Public Strain LP
YaHoWha 13 – Magnificence in the Memory LP

Thanks for reading!

The sun is out, the temperature is just shy of 80 degrees and a breeze is pulling down Hillsborough Road right in front of the shop. If this day doesn’t warrant a little Turkish Rock’N'Psych, I don’t know what does…

Erkin Koray – Meçhul

Erkin Koray was reportedly the first man to bring rock’n'roll to Turkey in 1957. This LP on Sublime Frequencies collects some of his rarer work from 1970-1977 pieced together from his own records and tapes. Koray is a master at cutting blissed out Turkish-minded melodies into US/UK-inspired psychedelic rock. Just listen to them guitar tones…

RECOMMENDED IF YOU LIKE: Turkish psych compilations…and honestly, who doesn’t.

Back in 1995, In the Red Records released a limited run LP of this buried 8-track demo recording from 1977. The records quickly disappeared and it wasn’t seen again until a CD version was put out by In the Red again in 2002. Thanks to the vinyl revival, it’s been repressed and we have got a chance once again to snag this one for the collection.

The Consumers – Media Ogre

Born as a screaming only-child punk band in a city teaming with 70s mustache-rock cover bands, Phoenix, AZ’s The Consumers quickly came to the conclusion that their grimy, over-charged, flailing rock’n'roll couldn’t last in their hometown environment. So they picked up and booked it to LA where they landed smack in the middle of the scene revolving around the great Masque circa 1978. They burned fast, bright and violently, imploding only a few months after they had really just started going. Luckily this recording was left behind as hard proof of a great band.

Their brand of rock is fast and angry existing in that hard Midwestern space where dark, dank bars and pavement-cracked empty parking lots somehow birthed agitated hybrids of hard garage and punk. Boredom, adolescence and records can sometimes have the best results. Here, it’s as if their record collections were made up entirely of a couple Sex Pistols 7″s, Stooges LPs, MC5 LPs and a Damned record or two. I’d also imagine lots of beer was involved. Lots. It’s a great record and I’m pretty psyched to see it available once again.

RECOMMENDED IF YOU LIKE: Zero Boys, The Gizmos, The Damned, The Bags, Fang, The Dictators, Dead Boys, etc.

NERDERY: One of the members went on to be in 45 Grave and briefly the Dream Syndicate.

I would like to give you two reasons today why you should care about the weirdos over at Drag City Records. Take a second out of your night and watch these short videos as they will undoubtedly prove some huge importance or inspire some curious intrigue to anyone who gives them some time.

A glimpse of Dirty Three’s live brilliance circa 2006.

Brain Pulse Music Promotional Video.

Both of these albums were released today via the same label. They’re extremely close to being opposites, but there exists a strange, though common, outsider vibe which stands to unite anything championed by the eccentric label. One of these is a classic band revisiting their classic, frantic sound and charging it into overdrive, while the other is an experimental approach to music-making through brainwaves, wires and a funny-looking helmet.

This is the Dirty Three and Ghost’s Masaki Batoh. And they’re both brilliant.

Monday Stream Day! There are a handful of great releases coming out tomorrow, but I unfortunately was only able to track down a couple streams for them. If I can find more tracks/clips from others, I’ll throw them up over the course of the day!

Dirty Three – Toward The Low Sun (Drag City) via NPR.

Memoryhouse – The Slideshow Effect (Sub Pop) via Spin.

Thanks!

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 25TH @ La Salamandra, Durham, NC.
2bucks. 9pm. (restaurant info)

Bull City Records & The Layabout Present…
An Event Sponsored By WXDU…
In Conjunction With Kym Register’s Birthday…

DES ARK (Pittsboro, NC | Lovitt Records)
MAPLE STAVE (Durham/Chapel Hill/DC | self-release)
MINOR STARS (Durham/Chapel Hill, NC | self-release)

Thanks to the mighty airwave rulers WXDU (88.7, Durham), this show is set at only 2 bucks per person…and 0 bucks per person if you have a Duke ID. Des