Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#1004 in the Series) is the Hindu Love Gods. There’s something cool about two of your favorite acts coming together on side projects.  That’s exactly what we have here in the Hindu Love Gods.  Who are they? (REM-Michael Stipe) + Warren Zevon = Hindu Love Gods. For those of you that hated Algebra, this would mean… take REM but leave Michael Stipe home, now add Warren Zevon on vocals and you got the idea. OK, now which tunes should they do you “ax?”  Well, they really did hang together enough to do much writing, so like many quickie, one-off side projects, they resort to covering many songs that they just happened to like....

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#970 in the Series) is Jellyfish, Bellybutton. My guess is that a good number of you don’t know this album or even this band. In one word, “you should!” They were one of the best power-pop bands of the early nineties, Jellyfish.  One of those bands that you ask yourself, Why wasn’t this all over radio, why were they not more popular? They definitely had some radio friendly songs, a good look a unique look and a major label.   So it’s hard to say what happened.  They should have had much more success. You can hear a little Squeeze in their sound, a little XTC and a little Beatles. The songs that did...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#905 in the Series) is Matraca Berg, Lying to the Moon (RCA) So many perks, so many cool events, so many goodies and “what-nots.”  When I look back on my days in music distribution, you never knew from which angle the next cool thing was going to hit you.  One of the things I liked best was when one of the labels would bring in someone to perform at our conventions.  That was the way that this lovely songbird’s music would be introduced to me. Yes, it now has been over 20 years. How much did I love this record? Well, like I said, it’s 20 years  later and I’m still playing it,...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#900 in the Series) is The Sundays, Reading Writing and Arithmetic I have never been that big a fan of the MP3 revolution. For one, it put the buying power of music more into “tweens” and teens who for the most part do not have very good taste in music. As a result, the themes in popular music became much less sophisticated. Artists were no longer developed, they were produced because it was no longer albums that mattered but singles. Not to mention, soon shows such as American Idol came along offering to make anyone a “star” as opposed to these people working their way up in the traditional way where you hone and perfect...

Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Thelma” by Paul Simon It boggles the mind how a song this good could have been left in the can, but that was indeed the fate of the Paul Simon outtake “Thelma,” which was originally intended for his 1990 album The Rhythm Of The Saints. (The song would surface three years later on the Paul Simon 1964 – 1993 box set.) By 1988, Simon had to begin thinking about the near impossible task of creating a follow up record to his 1986 Grammy-winning smash hit album Graceland. But how do you follow up a record as dominant and successful as Graceland? For Simon, it meant fashioning a record along the same...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#845 in the Series) is Todd Rundgren, Live In Concert at the Warfield Theater It was 23 years ago today, Todd Rundgren brought his band to play.  Esoteric Recordings presents the Todd Rundgren Archive Series and if this is any indication, this is the start of something good. Todd Rundgren’s 1989 release Nearly Human was a bit of a re-visitation of his Philly Soul/R&B roots. Received to some critical acclaim, the album was recorded with a minimal amount of overdubs and this created a perfect live platform for a big 12-piece band. This recording documents the final show of this tour and has been newly mastered from the original master tapes, making...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#635 in the Series) is The Spanic Boys. Today we are looking at an early 1990s band called The Spanic Boys. They are yet another band from the great state of Wisconsin. I raise that topic because besides looking at The Spanic Boys, I also want to take a look at how underrated the state of Wisconsin is in regards to being a producer of some great music. The all-time patron saint of music in Wisconsin is probably not other than the late Les Paul. That name is about as historic in the world of music as you can get. But even in the last 30 or so years state has produced...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#624 in the Series) is Loey Nelson, Venus Kissed the Moon I’ve wanted to do a piece on this Loey Nelson album almost since I started the website.  What’s always stopped me has been the fact that it’s long been out of print, and it wasn’t available on any of the download nor streaming services. Also, nothing from it was on YouTube. So I could yap until I was New York Giant blue in the face and most likely, no one would have a clue what I was talking about. So I couldn’t really share this absolutely marvelous album without being able to hand out any samples to the class. But alas!...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (# 487 in the Series) is Ride, Nowhere. There have been some ridiculous labels for rock music’s subgenres. Acid rock? Math rock? Proto-punk?  The most ridiculous of all is emo (isn’t almost all rock music “emo”tional?). The late 1980’s and early 1990’s gave us shoegazer rock. Shoegazing got its name from musicians who were not very mobile on stage staring at their instruments. It appeared that they were staring at their shoes. Some of the great bands hatched in this period were Lush, Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, and Ride. Ride was formed in Oxford, England circa 1988. 1990 witnessed the band releasing 3 EP’s before dropping their debut album, Nowhere,...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#477 in the Series) is the first Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band. I’ve always been a huge fan of these Ringo Starr All-Starr tours. I think they are just a fantastic idea. Besides being a fantastic drummer, Ringo’s a smart man. He knows he doesn’t have the body of work, vocally, to front a tour that will allow him access to large venues.  So he fills out his band with well-known musicians and they take the lead also during the show. Great idea, but what makes it even better is the musicians that Mr. Starkey takes on the road with hi. He always picks some really interesting people.  I don’t think...