The summer between — I think — 11th and 12th grade? My high school days are pretty hazy, but this is one story I’ll never forget. Me, my brother, my friend Jeff who lived down the street, and some other, now-long forgotten proximity friends wandered into the woods one afternoon behind our Florida cul-de-sac neighborhood. We soon discovered a large lake, with what looked like a campground on the other side. It was hot, so we swam across. It took ten or fifteen minutes to reach the other side, I recall, where we found what seemed like an abandoned boy scout camp site. We fooled around a bit, as teenage boys are wont to do, and then swam back across the lake. It was a perfect day. A few nights later we snuck out of our houses and went back to the woods to hang out there. But this time, as we gazed upon the moonlit water, we saw these small white circles. Yes, they were eyes, alligator eyes to be exact. We swam back and forth across a lake where the boy scouts abandoned their camp because the lake was filled with alligators.

I now see my high school adventure was on the 55-acre Lake Chautauqua, which, like the entire “Countryside” area of Clearwater, Florida, has seen much development since 1984. I lived in Shady Oak Farms, on the map below. And while the new park that is now open on the site boasts that “the trails were originally built for horses and equestrian rider[s],” AI now warns, “You should not swim in Lake Chautauqua in Clearwater, Florida. While the lake is part of a nature preserve with scenic trails and a picnic area, there are alligators and other wildlife in the water.” Now they tell me.

Indeed, this 2023 story from a Tampa television station has local law enforcement adding to the alligator population in the lake. “A Clearwater police officer wrangled a 5-and-a-half-foot gator that was hanging in the backyard pool of a Countryside area home,” WTSP reported. “Officer Kyle Bingham captured the gator and later released it into the nearby Lake Chautauqua.”

-30-

Respond

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John Hodgman recently wrote, “Everything is miserable. The massacres abroad, the ICE kidnappings at home, and the general shrugging off of these crimes by editors and politicians who think the real story is interest rates. And on top of it, now there’s the gutting of NPR/PBS, plus the non-constitutional surrender of congressional power to the executive that gutting represents, PLUS the cancellation of Colbert just days after he mocked Paramount for kneeling before Zod…”

He’s not wrong. The despair is strong these days, and must be fought with whatever means. Perhaps a new song will cheer change your frame of mind? Music can be a helpful distraction or a soothing relief. But what to choose? Sometimes, you can troll through critics year-end — and in this case half-year-end — lists and find some information relevant to you. This critic likes X and Y, so you might like Z. You might not agree with everything in someone’s list, but you might get one or two ideas. Here are some Substack-centric 2025 Half-Year in Review lists, with links to the full versions, the Bandcamp pages, the YouTube videos, and more.

Below that, a deep catalog of music released so far this year from Hudson Valley-based musicians.

And, finally, some summer beach reading on the subject of music.

Tune in!

Turn On The News Top 10 For 2025 So Far

1. Matthew Shipp’s latest album, and this radio-centric song, both live up to their titles as otherworldly trips using a language both familiar and entirely new. Tune in “The Cosmic Piano” and these “Radio Signals from Jazz Keys.

2. Natural Information Society and Bitchin Bajas "Clock no Clock"

3. Florist, “Jellywish”

4. Irreversible Entanglements, “Fireworks”

5. Matmos, “Metallic Life Review”

6. BASIC “Dream City”

7. Lia Kohl, “(850) 457-4142

8. Tortoise, “Oganesson”

9. Lucricia Dalt, “Divina” single from forthcoming “A Danger to Ourselves” album.

   10. The “I Lied to You” scene in “Sinners” is the best movie experience of the year so far, and a great song.

   ---

TOP 2025 LISTS FROM OTHERS

Zen Sounds

1. Eliana Glass – E (Shelter Press)

2. Bad Bunny – Debí Tirar Más Fotos (Rimas)

3. Mark Ernestus’ Ndagga Rhythm Force – Khadim (Ndagga)

4. Whatever The Weather – Whatever The Weather II (Ghostly)

5. PremRock – Did You Enjoy Your Time Here? (backwoodz)

6. Duval Timothy – wishful thinking (Carrying Colour)

7. Lippard Arkbro Lindwall – How do I know if my cat likes me? (Blank Editions)

8. Jefre Cantu-Ledesma – Gift Songs (Mexican Summer)

9. Macie Stewart – When The Distance Is Blue (International Anthem)

10. billy woods – GOLLIWOG (backwoodz)

FULL 2025 TOP 20 HERE.

Burning Ambulance

Yazz Ahmed, A Paradise In The Hold.

Ancient Death, Ego Dissolution.

Benediction, Ravage Of Empires.

Bombardement, Dans La Fournaise.

Peter Brötzmann, The Quartet.

Chaos Magick, Through The Looking Glass.

Chris Cheek, Keepers Of The Eastern Door.

Isaiah Collier/William Parker/William Hooker, The Ancients.

Ensemble Nist-Nah, Spilla.

Sullivan Fortner, Southern Nights.

FULL TOP 50 OF 2025 HERE.

AnEarful

Florist, Jellywish

Car Seat Headrest, The Scholars.

The Beverage Station, Little Grey Cells.

Melissa Mary Ahern, Kerosene.

Hamilton Leithauser, This Side Of The Island

Bakudi Scream, Prey

Richard Aufrichtig, Everybody On The Breeze.

Stephen Vitiello with Brendan Candy and Hahn Rowe, Second.

Horsegirl, Phonetics On And On.

Daughter Of Swords, Alex.

FULL TOP 25 ALBUMS OF 2025 HERE.

Lamniformes Cuneiform

Fusilier, Ambush

Mei Semones, Animaru

Phoebe Rings, Aseurai

Aesop Rock, Black Hole Superette

caroline, caroline

Stander, Collapsing

Weeping Sores, The Convalescence Agonies

Squid, Cowards

Bad Bunny, Debí Tirar Más Fotos

Previous Industries, Evergreen Plaza

FULL 2025 TOP 30 ALBUMS HERE.

New Bands For Old Heads

1. BRKN LOVE - The Program

2. The Convenience - Like Cartoon Vampires

3. Deep Sea Diver - Billboard Heart

4. McKinley Dixon - Magic, Alive!

5. Low Healer - hold music (EP)

6. Pastel - Souls in Motion

7. Ribbon Skirt - Bite Down

8. SHAGGO - Chores

9. Smerz - Big city life

10. Teen Mortgage - Devil Ultrasonic Dream

FULL 2025 TOP 10 HERE.

Good Everything Forever

Good Everything Forever

The Best Albums of 2025 (So Far)

One of the great gifts of my life is that, last year, I moved into an apartment suspiciously close to my work (and, for that matter, my gym and my grocery store). It’s so close. Like, I really should walk. Have you ever been to Tennessee in the summer, though? It’s like being inside a Komodo dragon’s mouth (where I presume it is very humid). So I drive…

Read more

10 months ago · 4 likes · Raleigh McCool

1. Lorde, Virgin

2. Momma, Welcome to My Blue Sky

3. Oklou, choke enough

4. Sleigh Bells, Bunky Becky Birthday Boy

5. FKA twigs, EUSEXUA

6. Bad Bunny, DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS

7. Spiritbox, Tsunami Sea

8. Blondshell, If You Asked For A Picture

9. billy woods, GOLLIWOG

10. Addison Rae, Addison

FULL 2025 TOP 10 HERE.

No Expectations

No Expectations

The 40 Best Albums of 2025 So Far

No Expectations hits inboxes on Thursdays at 9am cst. Reader mailbag email: Noexpectationsnewsletter@gmail.com. Daily Chicagoan, the local news newsletter I produce at my day job with WTTW News (PBS Chicago), can be found here. Long newsletter today. You will have to click the link in your email to read the whole thing…

Read more

a year ago · 616 likes · 52 comments · josh terry

Ale Hop and Titi Bakorta, Mapambazuko

Ben Hackett, Songs for Sleeping Dogs

Brown Horse, All The Right Weaknesses

Cash Langdon, Dogs

Colin Miller, Losin’

The Convenience, Like Cartoon Vampires

cutouts, Snakeskin

Dead Gowns, It's Summer, I Love You, and I'm Surrounded by Snow

Dutch Interior, Moneyball

Echolalia, Echolalia

FULL 2025 TOP 40 HERE.

Matt Mannino's Substack

1. Jane Remover - Revengeseekerz

2. McKinley Dixon - Magic, Alive!

3. Caroline - Caroline 2

4. Annahstasia - Tether

5. Deafheaven - Lonely People with Power

6. Billy Woods - GOLLIWOG

7. Swans - Birthing

8. DjRUM - Under Tangled Silence

9. Honningbarna - Soft Spot

10. Backxwash - Only Dust Remains

FULL TOP 25 TOP 10 LIST HERE.

The Music Week

Oklou - choke enough

Hesse Kassel - La Brea

Rebecca Black - SALVATION

Jane Remover - revengeseekerz

Saya Gray - SAYA

Japanese Breakfast - For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)

Marina Sena - Coisas Naturais

FULL SEVEN UNDERRATED ALBUMS OF 2025 HERE.

Sounds, songs, and stories from 2025 from Hudson Valley musicians.

Catskill-based Gary’s Dream released their full debut album “Pretty Blue” (above) on Feb. 27 via miserymother with a performance at Colony Woodstock. They write about the collection of songs: “Gary’s Dream has spent the past few years tending to the earth on a farm in Catskill, NY, while quietly writing their sparkling and hypnotic debut record, “Pretty Blue.” Founded by Vive Tilson and Ryan Surrano, and joined by Wesley Harper and Shelby Surrano, they consider the album to be a ‘draining of the wound.’”

There are several bands from the Northeast represented on this compilation with proceeds going to the Gaza Soup Kitchen. Mountain Movers (from New Haven), Parishi (from Albany), and Pat Murano (No-Neck Blues Band, Decimus) and Wednesday Knudsen (of Austerlitz-based Pigeons), are among the localish acts here.

In January, Columbia County-based percussionist Bobby Previte released this collection with Knox Chandler on electronic guitar, and upright and electric bass. They explain this album: “Previte employs an expanded conception of the modern drum set, a circularity that suggests rather than shows, using the powerful orchestrational might of the drum set to create form and meaning. Chandler uses his guitar as a tone generator (there are no synthesizers) to create ‘Sound Ribbons’ - sonic fabrics made in real time that create a way of deconstructing and then enveloping and weaving together any series of individual pieces of music or film.”

Kendra McKinley has been releasing all sorts of new material lately including this, from Feb. 17. “I wrote this song (above) as a pep talk performed live at The Bunker Recordings (Catskill, NY), recorded by Mike Dwyer.” She has released two other videos this year, below. The Kendra McKinley Soul Trio performs Thu., Feb. 27 at the Race Brook Lodge in Western Mass.

Hudson Valley-based bassist Michael Bisio and reedist Joe McPhee with pianist Eunhye Jeong and drummer Jay Rosen on a March ESP release.

Bisio has another new album, out since Feb. 14, called “NuMBq” (below) with Melanie Dyer on viola, Marianne Osiel on English horn, and Jay Rosen on percussion.

McPhee, 85 and from Poughkeepsie, also released this delightful album, “I’m Just Say’m,” performing with his voice and poetry and Mats Gustafsson, who takes on baritone and bass sax, flutes, piano mate, piano harp, organ, Fender Rhodes, and live electronics.

March 7 split 2xCD from Capitol Region-ish noise acts Parashi (Mike Griffin) and Rambutan (Eric Hardiman, also of Sky Furrows), this release “finds the two pushing and pulling apart their own sonic templates with different methods and instrumentation. Parashi's disc veers from noisily evolving synth pieces to sprawling "songs" rooted in Griffin's improvised guitar and 6-string bass/tapes jams. Rambutan's offering finds Hardiman utilizing synth, guitar, and turntables among other devices to construct a series of towering designs.”

Released March 1, “'SOVT' is an album containing one 55-minute piece, written for piano by Sarah Hennies in 2017. SOVT stands for Semi-Occluded Vocal Tract which refers to vocal exercises that strengthens the voice by helping the vocal cords vibrate more efficiently. One may practice SOVT exercises by singing with a straw in the mouth which regulates air pressure and reduces strain on the vocal folds. Hennies encountered these exercises in a class on so-called ‘voice feminization’ for transgender women which also inspired her other works ‘Falsetto” and “Contralto.’ Almost all the strings of the piano in this piece are muted with Blu-Tack poster putty and this along with the rhythmic language of the piece results in a sound that is a hybrid piano/percussion-like sound. By connecting all the strings with putty, a dramatically rich sympathetic vibration occurs throughout the piano similar to the way in which one feels increased vibration in the mouth and throat by singing through a straw. SOVT was originally commissioned by R. Andrew Lee and for this recording was performed by richard valitutto, who recorded the work at the Bard College studio in the spring of 2024 with Hennies engineering.”

Kingston-based band Lodo have a record release show March 18 at Tubby’s with Kim Anderson. Below, is the single the band put out last year.

Anderson released this album last year:

Catskill-based band Of the Atlas released their album “The Spirits of Water Street” last week on most of the streaming platforms, with “Teleputer” single out at the beginning of the year. The band is Jay Woodruff on vocals, guitar, and bass, and Kenny Rowe on drums.

This is Hudson Valley-based guitarist/keyboardist Sal Cataldi’s offshoot of his long-running, ‘Spaghetti Eastern Music,’ released March 7.

A March 28 release from the New York-based, “Hannah Cohen’s fourth full-length album ‘Earthstar Mountain,’ is a keepsake of Cohen's time in the Catskills, built over the course of 2020-2024, as blurred, shimmering memories come into focus to produce a collage of echoes and sonic souvenirs. Featuring contributions from Sufjan Stevens, Clairo, Sean Mullins, Liam Kazar, Oliver Hill and more, ‘Earthstar Mountain’ is a love letter to the Catskills and in the interconnectedness of all things.”

Hashishen is a Palestinian American Saxophonist/Music Producer born and raised in New York, and now based in Poughkeepsie. “Hashishen” is a historical religious sect known as the “Order of Assassins.” Sometimes he will DJ aka DJ Akbar https://soundcloud.com/Hashishen

Florist, based in Greene County up the mountains, have another delightful new collection of quiet, forceful sounds. Try the title song first if you are new to them, and then enjoy the entire record.

Composer and percussionist Sarah Hennies and composer and bassist Tristan Kasten-Krause collaborate on this May 2 release. Hennies also teaches at Bard College. There is an album release show at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn on April 30.

Photay used to live in Woodstock (see interview below), and just released another excellent electronic experiment.

Saapato is the music project of upstate-New York based sound artist Brendan Principato. His work focuses on the intersection of ecology and music, with manipulated field recordings and electronics. Here, he collaborates with Nailah Hunter, Early Fern, Green-House, Patricia Wolf, and Diatom Deli, among others.

Locals Allie Young was just interviewed on Radio Kingston. Below, she recently posted a “snippet of a new song I’m working on that I’ll be performing on Tuesday April 22.”

This Schuylerville-based garage-rock band releases “frequencies” April 24 at No Fun in Troy with Catskill’s Of The Atlas also on the bill. The Shortwave RadioBand has already put out this video for “Crash Site.”

The imminent arrival of a new album from Troy-based Jason “Wolfman” Martin is the biggest news in Hudson Valley music this month. Martin specializes in snappy, weird pop songs, makes entrancing low-fi experimental analog videos, and often wears hybrid wolf-human costumes in his “Power Animal System” project. So far, all we have is a social media-shared track list of the forthcoming album.

RAMBUTAN

This one from Albany’s Eric Hardiman (Sky Furrows, Tape Drift label) was recorded live during brunch at the Low Beat in Albany, NY. on Sept. 18, 2016.

CAMP SAINT HELENE

Three new songs from Camp Saint Helene with Elizabeth Ibarra singing; Dylan Nowik on vocals, electric guitar, percussion, and saw; Wesley Harper playing acoustic guitars, organ, and effects; and Alex Wernquest on drums.

The Catskill-based band also released an accompanying film, directed by Silken Weinberg, and debuting May 11.

NEW ORTHODOX

Stereogum writes: “Nobody else sounds like Scott Walker, and if someone tells you about something that sounds like Scott Walker, that person should be laughed out of the room. But the Coxsackie, New York musician Nicholas Merz sounds way more like Scott Walker than you might expect anyone to get.” Merz is the only member of New Orthodox, releasing its debut album ‘Bull Market On Corn’ this month, one of the final projects that Steve Albini recorded and mixed before he passed away last year. Merz writes, “The band's ethos leans heavily into minimalist repetition, sonic experimentation, and lyrical insights that give way to live performances and recordings that utilize space and silence to imitate the human experience.”

Buke & Gase

The movie about Hudson-based band Buke & Gase debuted on Apple TV and iTunes on Tuesday, May 9.

LUAH

Luah is a Kingston-based project fronted by Brendan P. Sullivan.

CHRIS PELLNAT

Columbia County-based guitarist releases single with Moroccan singer Catalus.

WILL STRATTON

Beacon-based Will Stratton recorded just about all of this record there, except for a few guest contributions.

Jaded Azurites — Columbia County-based poet Karen Schoemer on voice and Mike Watt from the Minutemen on bass — release their sixth album on June 27. Below, “Inshallah,” is out now, written by schoemer/watt, produced by watt, with train footage by Schoemer, and Gaza footage by Shorouk Mohamed Abu Deeb for the video edited by Schoemer.

MICHAEL BISIO

Hudson Valley-based bassist Michael Bisio on this just reissued 1983 recording with Richard Mandyck on saxes, Ron Soderstrom on trumpet, Beth Chandler on violin, Bob Nell on piano, and John Bishop playing drums.

WORLDSUCKS

This partially-local band is righteous, donating a portion of proceeds to each tour to a different cause. This month’s Worldsucks tour one ends up in Troy.

WILL STRATTON

Beacon-based Will Stratton is off to Europe in July.

G. Lucas Crane

The Hudson Valley-based G. Lucas Crane’s latest is “The Suddering Years” on Artsy Records.

P.G. Six

Copake-based P.G. Six has a massive reissue out in August. “Amish Records is happy to announce an expanded, gatefold 2XLP version of P.G. Six's second album, 'The Well of Memory,’ originally released in 2004. This 2025 expanded edition has beautiful new artwork, reimagined by Meredyth Sparks and comes with a bonus LP titled 'Lost and Live." The LP includes six previously unreleased songs from 'The Well of Memory' sessions and a handful of live versions of songs from the album.”

JADED AZURITES

New Jaded Azurites video featuring, for the first time, the members of Jaded Azurites (Columbia County-based poet Karen Schoemer, and bassist Mike Watt).

SAAPATO

Upstate New York’s Brendan Principato releases another “ambient” album.

Golden Pillbug

Catskill’s Rodney Alan Greenblat has a new project, Golden Pillbug, released on July 4.

Hudson Palace

Hudson Palace is Paula Lucas and Tony Fletcher (local author with a great Substack), with a new song recorded in Hurley with Joe Magistro of Mercury Rev on percussion.

FOGGY OTIS

Catskill’s Foggy Otis just released an off-Spotify album “When life hand you lemons, play the ukulele,” with all songs written by Otis and Tom Gioia, and Dana Newman adding melodica on one track.

SUMMER READING

Click on each story to read.

Best of 2025 roadtrip playlist by Will Hermes

Five Jazz Albums You Need To Hear by Burning Ambulance

Two Great New Experimental Hip-Hop Albums by Stephan Kunze

Sunrise Over Brooklyn by Stephan Kunze

Fugazi and the Divine Masculine by Liina Koivula

SOPHIE is Still The Future by Sam Bodrojan

Five Classical Albums You Need To Hear by Burning Ambulance

When the Politics gets in the way of the Pop. And a dozen great times it did not by Tony Fletcher

Best New Ambient (July 2025) by Stephan Kunze

Air’s 10 000 Hz Legend - where OK Computer met Discovery by Ben Cardew

Was American Hardcore the most rebellious music ever by Tony Fletcher

Eternal Summer: Six Ambient Albums for Blissing Out by Another Thought

A Song For Friday: Lia Kohl & Zander Raymond by Jeremy Shatan

The excellent transmission artist Lia Kohl dials in here on this Moon Glyph Records compilation. The Chicago-based Kohl, also a cellist, also has a new full album out with Whitney Johnson, a viola player. They write about the album, “‘For Translucence’ is a living, breathing meditation in which layers of acoustic strings, synthesizers, field recordings, radio, and sine waves illuminate each other as they twine and grow.

Guitarist Chris Forsyth has almost 20 years of astounding guitar experiments, that are all worth tuning in. Forsyth, here, is joined by Nick Millevoi, on baritone guitar and drum machine, and Mikel Patrick Avery, on percussion and electronics. This is dreamy, psychic stuff, worth repeated plays.

Back to transmission art, with clipping. who follow the metaphors with “Dead Channel Sky,” with the songs “Change the Channel,” “Code,” and “And You Called” following the script. Aesop Rock shows up at the end for “Welcome Home Warrior,” fitting in perfectly on this engaging collection of hip noise hop from rapper Daveed Diggs and producers William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes.

Angel Bat Dawid is an American composer, clarinetist, pianist, vocalist, producer, educator and DJ, with two 2025 releases. Both the recent shorter “Procession of the Equinox” and longer “A Modern Cosmic Apocalyptic Sonic Discourse for The Book of Enoch,” are gospel-influenced jazz. Dawid includes instructions for listening to the latter:

“I encourage you to listen to this soundscape on repeat nine times as there are 108 chapters and the entire track time is 43:20 allowing the music to deepen your connection to each section of the text. Here are some guidelines to enhance your experience:

Read Aloud: As you listen, take the time to read the text of the Book of Enoch aloud. Engaging with the material vocally will deepen your understanding and connection to the intricate narratives.

Take Notes: Equip yourself with pen and paper to jot down your thoughts and reflections on each passage. Allow your personal interpretations and feelings to emerge as you engage with the text and music.

Interpret the Text in Three Ways:
In the Text: Focus on understanding the story itself. Identify characters and cultural storylines by referencing a Bible or the Book of Jasher. Immerse yourself in the narrative.

Behind the Text: Consider the historical context in which this text was written. Research the times of oppression and the apocalyptic literature prevalent during that era. Understanding this backdrop will enrich your interpretation of the text’s themes.

In Front of the Text: Reflect on how cultural elements presented in the text may differ from our contemporary societal norms. Recognise patriarchal dynamics and other social factors inherent to the time of its writing. Explore how these aspects resonate within our current context – drawing parallels to today’s struggles and societal frameworks.

Stay Open-Minded: Keep an open heart and mind as you navigate through the text and sound. Trust your interpretations and feelings; the music serves as a guiding post throughout your exploration.

Noisy guitarist Nels Cline is best known as a hired hand in Wilco, but I always enjoy his more experimental work. Here, Cline is joined by tenor and soprano saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, bassist Chris Lightcap, and drummer Tom Rainey for an incendiary set.

Public Service Broadcasting: “We were delighted when @thekvb said yes to a remix, and especially so when we heard their version of Arabian Flight. It’s out now via all the usual streaming platforms, with more remixes / reworks and news to come.”

“Noble and Godlike in Ruin” comes in the 31st year of Deerhoof, and still sounds fresh and interesting. And timely, with songs such as “Overrated Species Anyhow,” “Disobedience,” and “Immigrant Songs.”

Scott McCaughey‘s The Minus 5 have announced September tour dates in support of their new album, Oar On, Penelope! (out May 30 via Yep Roc). The first single, “Blow in My Bag,” features The Bangles‘ Debbi Peterson and Drive By Truckers‘ Patterson Hood. “I had an idea to do a Nancy Sinatra / Lee Hazlewood duet between me and Debbi, but of course, I only mention that because I typically don’t manage to get close enough to elicit comparisons,” McCaughey, who fronted the Young Fresh Fellows and played with R.E.M., says. “That being said, I’m not sure what the song is about, but Patterson’s vocals at the end convince me that he knows!”

“Revolutionary optimism” indeed, a soundtrack for activism in an age of need.

Respond

Send items, press releases, announcements, letters to the editor, angry responses, gentle praise, images, sound, and more for this column to:

tomroeradio@proton.me

Everyone is also encouraged to make comments on this site. Interact! Please get in touch if you feel something is incorrect. If you like this column, please subscribe. It is free, or there is a special offer right now: if you sign up as a Founding Member for $51 or more, you will get a lifetime subscription. You won’t ever have to pay again. Please consider getting this new multi-media project started with a lifetime subscription. Thank you — Tom Roe.

Thank you!

I would like to thank you all for subscribing, and listening each week. It is an honor for me to have you tuning in “Turn On The News.” There are so many great writers reading here, and so many wonderful souls, and a bunch of folks I do not know. Thank you all for being here, it is inspirational, and wondrous.

Bruce Springsteen has written some excellent songs for others. The Pointer Sisters’ “Fire,” and Patti Smith’s “Because the Night” might be the most obvious, but the entire “Nebraska” album was just supposed to be a demo four-track tape for the E Street Band to cover and flesh out. That was until Springsteen decided that these particular songs sounded better this way, and made more sense together in this pared-down collection.

“State Trooper” could arguably be called the best song on this 1982-released record. But I will go a step or two beyond that and say, of all the rock songs about listening to the radio in a car — and there are many — this is the best. It perfectly captures the paranoia of someone who may or may not have done something wrong, or could just look like they might, driving home, listening to the radio, when they see a police car in their rear view mirror. The single, repetitive guitar strum that opens “State Trooper” echoes the passing yellow lines the protagonist does not need to describe as he thinks aloud, “The only thing that I’ve got / Been bothering me my whole life.”

As the scene continues in the song, the chorus becomes the desperate entreaty, “Mr. State Trooper / Please don’t stop me.” Rock historians trace “State Trooper,” and Springsteen’s general approach on “Nebraska,” to the 1977 punk band Suicide, and this particular song:

In “Frankie Teardrop,” a 20-year-old husband, father, and poor factory worker is driven to insanity and, spoiler alert, murders his wife and child, and commits suicide. Then he journeys into Hell, backed by a simple keyboard riff, drum machine, and Alan Vega's vocals and dark, inhuman screams.

Wikipedia’s entry about this song has this particuarly hilarious and radio-centric story:

The frightening nature of the song gave birth to a recurring segment on comedian Tom Scharpling's long-running weekly call-in radio program “The Best Show,” which is named "The Frankie Teardrop Challenge". Beginning in around 2013, Scharpling challenged fans of the show to listen to the song on headphones as loudly as possible, at nighttime and while alone, in the most creatively terrifying situations that they can think of. Callers regularly phone in to recount their experiences attempting the challenge, with very few listeners completing all 10 minutes and 26 seconds of the song. Scharpling also often works elements of "Frankie Teardrop" into experimental improvisational sound collages that he regularly creates on-air.

I also quite like Drop The Lime’s much more electronic version of “State Trooper” that came out in 2012, and has a touch of Scharpling’s spirit.

I am not as big a fan of the more traditional, or what some call “faithful” versions of “State Trooper” such as by the Cowboy Junkies, Steve Earle, or Steve Wynn. I want to hear something different, as this particular song can be stretched all sorts of way. I was inspired to write this column because of the release this week of this excellent version by Queen Kwong:

I love how the radio reference in the original morphs into Trinitron video monitor static in this update version. The guitar strum becomes a simple programmed beat, but still evokes the yellow lines passing. This version stays utterly true to the original, while sounding all its own, with the electric guitar solo and minimalist synths. Enjoy the paranoia!

We begin this sonic journey with Track 5 above, “Make Me Laugh Make Me Cry.” This one both puts you in the mood, and comes through with so many lyrical phrases that seem relevant this moment. Then follow the tracks below.

“Day for Nights” by Karen Schoemer (Sky Furrows, Jaded Azurites) and guitarist Zak Boerger (These Wonderful Evils) includes longtime Schoemer collaborator/bassist Mike Watt (Minutemen/fIREHOSE), and also drummer Dan Bitney (Tortoise), Benjamin de Kock, Neil Hoffman, and Dan Sullivan. It is a collection of songs with a dramatic narrative: Boerger wrote the guitar parts in the summer of 2022 prior to a cancer diagnosis. That’s when Schoemer then added her flavor of poetry on top, with the other instruments. Her thrown-off observations, dire warnings, and astute perceptions spar with Boerger’s guitar blasts and subtle picking. “Off we go, terminal A to terminal B on the monorail,” is how things start, and soon, “the knob must be grasped to enter that awful room.” Things here are mostly more spare than Schoemer’s Sky Furrows band with Albany-based musicians Phil Donnelly, Mike Griffin, and Eric Hardiman, but that doesn’t mean this music lacks force. There’s a cello-like guitar or bass dueling for attention on “Calendar Pilgrims” with Boerger’s picking and Schoemer’s lamentations. She sounds hopeful there, in a difficult situation, as the album builds momentum. By the time a panda walks into the most famous scene in an ‘80s teen comedy, “asserting asexuality lazily eating bamboo,” you might not know what is going on. That’s OK, because the next song, the epic “Spider Offshoot,” has Schoemer and Boerger trading vocal lines in a mesmerizing trance over some hum-alongable bass melody. And then when the optimistic “Two Related” closes the album with Schoemer saying, “one last breath a vowel expiration,” listeners have gone on a journey with this crew. It is a well-told tale, that, besides a Bandcamp link, is also a beautiful physical CD, with collages by Melissa Oresky and Schoemer, and photographs from Rivka Gorelick and Tom Bruwier. Released September 27, 2024, on Sparrows & Wires.

WHAT YOU CAN DO: Buy the CD or digital files here.

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Read the Raven Sings The Blues review of “Day for Nights” here.

“The record joins contemporary works from Sunburned Hand of the Man, Stella Kola, Modern Nature, and Henry Parker in capturing a spirit of the ‘60s that often gets swept aside in favor of performative psychedelics and pastiche. Yet, this is a psychedelic work. It’s an album that lets the mind wander through hedge mazes of guitar while Schoemer’s words sketch scenes in the cumulus above.”

At the end of therapy today, I repeated a story I had told someone else a few days ago, about the single time my father had a moment with me, where he told me he was proud of me. I was in an art show called “Brooklyn!” at The Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art in southern Florida. Matt Bua, Matt Mikas, and I had a piece called “Of The Bridge” in the entryway to the show full of young artists who could not afford to live in Manhattan. “Of The Bridge” was an audio-video mash-up of the Williamsburg Bridge, which we all lived next to, with samples from Sonny Rollins’ “The Bridge” LP (he rehearsed constantly on the apex of the walking/biking path on the bridge before recording), contact mic and video recordings of the bridge, and other sounds.

I think it was in the early days of email, at least for my parents, who lived, separately, north of Clearwater in the Tampa Bay area. I sent them a message that I was in this art show on the other side off the state, with an opening on a particular day, and did not expect to ever talk to them about it again. But, then, during the hullabaloo of the opening, my father appeared in person. He had driven several hours across the state, and showed up at one of the biggest moments in my life at that point, and said he was proud of me. I could not even stay long and talk, because it was the opening, and I was one of the artists flown in, and I needed to be at the special dinner afterwards with the big funders. I don’t think I ever told him how important that moment was, but I think about it all the time.

These days, I am currently overplaying a 24-hour long playlist of absolute bangers. Any song on it that comes on, and I am not absolutely jazzed about hearing gets removed from the playlist. If I am not doing well, I want a playlist I can trust, no matter what, to come through with some song that I can sing along to, or puts a smile on my face or, at the right moment, gets me dancing.

There are a couple of Buddy Holly songs on the playlist. More than any other single artist, Buddy Holly was my father’s favorite. I think he had most of the albums — there weren’t really too many before Holly’s plane crash — and we definitely watched the 1978 Gary Busey TV movie together. My Dad was also into Chuck Berry and Ray Charles and Fats Domino and The Coasters, and generally had very good taste that stopped when The Beatles invaded. After that, I think Creedence Clearwater Revival was the only band he ever really was into. So when “Well, Alright” comes on my playlist now, it can hit me hard.

Just now I was listening to this playlist — it is called “driving songs,” because that was its utilitarian beginning — and The Everly Brothers’ “All I Have to Do Is Dream” played. It was definitely another song I learned about from driving around with my dad with the oldies station on AM. A few years later, R.E.M. became the first major group I was obsessed with, and they were covering the same song my father liked.

The next song that came on my playlist today was “Cover Me.” In 1984 during the height of Bruce Springsteen mania, my father asked me to explain Springsteen to him. I think I tried to play him some of the more straightforward songs on “The River” to show him the ‘50s rock similarities. My lesson did not take on him as well as his did on me.

That was about the last time my father and I had a serious talk about music. About a year or two later he took a phone call for me from Mike Watt, shortly after The Minutemen ended, but before firehose began. Watt was calling back because I sent him a letter and a copy of the ‘zine I made called “The Termite.” My friends and I were putting together a compilation album of B-sides, odd tracks, and secret experiments, and we asked Watt. He called back and told my Dad that he was in on the project, and was sending a song. My father was confused by Watt, but he did manage to get the message across to me later. A few days or weeks after that — who can remember? — a cassette came in the mail with an early Mike Watt solo version of “The First Cuss” that would be on a firehose album later.

My father died about ten years ago. So this is the closest I can come to having a conversation with him about music. I don’t think the AI chat with the hologram is for me, but perhaps my opinion will change. Since he is not around, I guess I lied with the headline, this one is really for me.

I first saw BASIC June 8 at Tubby’s in Kingston. Well, it was a version of BASIC. Very few folks ever saw the trio that recorded the new album — Chris Forsyth, Nick Millevoi, and Mikel Patrick Avery — play this material. At Tubby’s, Avery and his percussion and electronics were missing. As a longtime Forsyth fan — the Philadelphia-based musician is my favorite guitarist, and always a mesmerizing force live — the new BASIC material was very different, and a bit difficult to get my head around that first night. I think I might have slightly offended him talking after the show about what was next, as he said something like, “No, this is the new thing.”

Fans of Forsyth have to get used to getting used to the new thing. I first met him in Brooklyn when he was playing with the difficult-listening group Peeesseye in 2002. Since then he has released a succession of impressive solo/or with the Solar Motel Band albums. 2014’s “Intensity Ghost” was something of a breakthrough, an eye-popping paean to Television, with his “I Ain’t Waiting” the centerpiece. As a fan, I just wanted to hear more Tom Verlaine-style histrionics after that, but Forsyth always swerves into another lane with each project. “The Rarity of Experience” and “Dreaming in the Non-Dream” each managed to top the previous release, with different impressive guitar technics, style, and songwriting. There were fewer direct Television references, but the influences there and from Richard Thompson and others can be heard. “Have We Mistaken the Bottle for the Whiskey Inside” is my favorite anti-Donald Drumpf song ever, the rare time when Forsyth adds vocals, here with the perfect political metaphor.

The next two albums, 2019’s “All Time Present” and 2022’s “Evolution Here We Come” continued to add to the compelling argument that Forsyth is one of this generation’s greats. “Experimental & Professional,” though instrumental, still seems like the appropriate anthem for me to appropriate for myself. It fucking rocks!

Which brings us to BASIC. The group is named after an obscure record from 1984 put out by underground New York legends, guitarist Robert Quine and drummer Fred Maher. The record was full of programmed drums, ambient drift, and guitar explorations, and completely out-of-step with what was then considered cool. Quine said in 1997, “On Basic, the drums are too loud and this and that but that's the way I wanted it…. If people don't appreciate the damn thing, I have no interest in banging my head against the wall.” You get the feeling Forsyth, Millevoi, and Avery have the same attitude, even if the sound is different.

I saw BASIC again two weeks ago (see video of much of “Nerve Time” above), and the lineup was different again. Millevoi had bailed on the project, and Doug McCombs was sitting in instead. McCombs is another longtime hero of mine. I first saw him in Chicago in 1995, when, after living in Florida 12 years, I bought a thrift store coat and went to see him play bass with Tortoise at the Empty Bottle on a very cold night. Over the last few years, he has been playing often with Forsyth, so I have seen him several times, and here in Queens, at a free show in a park, organized annually by Oneida, they were locked in again. “Nerve Time” is probably my favorite on the new record, but there are points when “For Stars of the Air,” “Positive Halfway,” “Versatile Switch,” or “New Auspicious” are playing, and I have to look up to figure out what I am hearing. Like me, you may not fully understand this album at first, but repeat plays are very rewarding. The Bandcamp page for this album is here.

That’s Rigby’s 2018 song about Petty above. She has a long career that goes back to Petty’s glory days. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Rigby recorded with New York bands such as The Shams and Last Roundup. She was married to Will Rigby from the dBs. I first interviewed her around 1996 for The New York Post when her “Diary of a Mod Housewife” album came out to much acclaim. She later met, and married Wreckless Eric, and moved to Catskill for more than a decade. During the Drumpf years, she wrote two of my all-time favorite political songs, “The President Can’t Read,” and “Vote the Fucker Out” (with Wreckless Eric). Now she is contemplating aging on her new “Hang in There With Me” record.

The collection opens with “Hell-O Sixty.” Like many Rigby songs, it hews close to a much-used songwriting tradition, this one using the turning of her decades to build a dramatic narrative. Twenty “was funny, twenty was tough,“ and then she keeps describing the different difficulties, battles, feelings, and friendships over the ensuing decades, to a rousing melody that explodes into a memorable chorus. The next song, “Too Old to Be Crazy,” is similar. Both have exciting, almost experimental guitar parts and special sounds that elevate the strong songwriting.

”Dylan in Dubuque,” though, might be my favorite. It’s melody is like a more relaxed version of Elvis Costello’s “Tokyo Storm Warning.” It’s not quite as lyrically direct as many Rigby songs, but it is the type of song you sing along with before you really know all the words. “Bangs,” is a sorta-novelty song, with a stop-start style, and a gloriously simple chord progression and unforgettable melody. “The Farewell Tour” and “Bricks” seem to be the album’s singles. The former is an elegiac ballad, with a whisper vocal and an invisible emotional longing. “Bricks” is less about the passing decades, and more about one passing relationship on the journey. “Heart Is A Muscle,” is the end of the album’s quick surprise, ninety-two seconds of pop glory. All in all, this is another solid Amy Rigby album, full of singer-songwriter gems, passion, and memories of a spectacular career.

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I seem to have a deep relationship with Tom Petty. I share this, at the beginnings of this collection of words and sounds, as a way for you to figure out how your musical tastes triangulate with this critic. I don’t always agree with my favorite cultural writers, but I do like to figure out how our interest differs or aligns. So you can do the same here. And, as I am getting my writerly sea legs back, writing about the familiar, and the deeply felt, seems a good way to begin. Above, is the image on my side of a split 7” with A Forma Foma, with two very different versions of Tom Petty’s “Breakdown.” Mine is below. (A Forma Foma is Toma Okana-vox; Damian Leibold-snare, hoots; Christian Dautresme-lead guitar; and Matt Bua-rhythm guitair, suitcase.)

“Breakdown” is the beginning of Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker’s national career, the song on his first album that stood out with its stark minimalism, where you can hear guitarist Mike Campbell’s fingers slide up and down his strings. It was the first Petty song of many where the opening seconds pulled you in right away with something that sounded different. It did not sound like the other punk rock of the time, but it still sounded like authentic rock ‘n’ roll, not like the bloated, egocentric mess the genre had become.

My first memories of Petty are from 1982, when I moved to Florida and was first exposed to cable television and MTV and Petty’s “You Got Lucky” video. It was among the few music videos of the time that had an additional part that did not have the song playing. Instead, there was some strange Benmont Tench-led soundscape. And the band acted out a story rather than just playing a song.

I can remember in high school, the day after the “Long After Dark” tour came to Tampa. All the type of older teens that I did not dig — the ones into Led Zeppelin — were all wearing Tom Petty tour t-shirts. And my punk rock and new wave friends all did not understand what I saw in Tom Petty. After the singer died in 2017, my high school chum Steve Spears mentioned me on his “Stuck in the ‘80s” podcast, in recalling how the goths and new wavers did not see much in him, but I was proselytizing for Petty even then.

OK, I was a bit of an obsessive fan. I did drive down U.S. 441 in nearby Gainesville to see the building where, rumor had it, the “American Girl” in his song jumped to her death. (Petty later denied the theory.) And this is before “The Silence of the Lambs,” when “American Girl” really got cemented into American pop consciousness.

It turns out that song, “American Girl,” so well known through that movie, actually starts from another movie. Petty apparently got the first line of the song from Francis Ford Coppola’s first movie, a no-budget 1963 Roger Corman production called “Dementia 13” (the line is at :37 seconds in). Actor Luana Anders tells her brother-in-law, played by William Campbell, about, “an American Girl. You can tell she’s been raised on promises.” It wouldn’t be Petty’s only swipe, as he also famously took Paul Westerberg’s “rebel without a clue” line, which he heard over and over again as The Replacements opened for him on his 1989 tour, and used it on “Into the Great Wide Open” two years later. (He denied he ever heard their recording of “I’ll Be You.”)

That tour with The Replacements opening was one of four times I saw Petty live in the 1980s. The first was the “Southern Accents” tour, with the infamous confederate flag backdrop. Petty later apologized for that decision. I also saw the “Let Me Up, I’ve Had Enough” show, and that Bob Dylan tour that the Heartbreakers backed up. His successful fight with his record company will forever be an inspiration. I have probably convinced you by now that I am a Tom Petty fan. More than a decade ago, I also made this mash-up of !!!’s skittering post-punk “Intensify” with Petty’s “It Ain’t Nothing to Me.” Enjoy.

Here are most of my favorite Petty songs.

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