Albums for Eternity with Bottle, the Curmudgeon

I legitimately forgot how good Tragic Kingdom is. I didn't forget it's awesome, I forgot how awesome. Come for the bass lines, stay for the overt feminism, be surprised by the Sitar on Hey You, and the Bluesy Circus outro to side A, The Climb. I'll allow not caring about No Doubt after this 3rd album, or Gwen Steffani's solo career, but Tragic Kingdom is a masterpiece of Ska-Punk-Blues-Funk-Disco. You know the singles, but the deep cuts are all the more fantastic for not being pop-radio friendly.  We've gotta find another way to make the world go 'round. 30 years later and that lyric rings deafening loud, doesn't it? I demand a transfer to the dimension where we followed this album instead of this one, because whether you like Gwen Steffani or not, this Tragic Kingdom we're living in right now is B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

There's a chicken Surfing in the sky, He'd like to come and meet us, But he's still a little shy... I will always eventually shamelessly plug my friend Steven Stark, and his latest melodic-electronic project is Fuchsia Chicken's debut album A Surfin' Bird. It lies somewhere on the spectrum between Yacht Rock and dentist office adjacent Vaporwave, and I couldn't be happier.  For one thing, I'd rather follow an intergalactic surfing chicken than some of the leaders we have down here on terra firma. For another, it's nice to hear something not very serious for a change. I know, I know, it's still musically serious, the chord changes and orchestration will twist your brain into a deliciously salty pretzel, and the concept reminds me of a cross between Ziggy Stardust and Bluebird from Nektar's Remember The Future, but it's easy on the central processing unit without being over the top ridiculous like The Electric Cow Goes Moooooog!  Give it a try,...

How come Everclear's 6th album, Slow Motion Daydream, gets no love? As far as my ears can tell it's only because it was released in 2003, and we just assumed Art swam out past the breakers and watched the world die already. I mean, sure, you can hear some of the songs as cringe, and not everybody likes strings and accordions in their Alternative Rock like I do, but it's unmistakably Everclear, and not every song is supposed to be on the radio.  The album is a daydream, I thought that was pretty obvious, but people have this bizarre habit of forgetting how irony and sarcasm worked back then. You aren't required to agree with every thought presented to you, or even every thought your own brain invents, but you are required to make some reasonable attempt to understand it. The two songs in question here are Volvo Driving Soccer Mom and New York Times. Everything else, whether it suits your taste or not, is just a passing scene in the meandering daydream. Those two songs, h...

 "Rudimentary mathcore from the state ranked 49th in education." Don't let the self deprecating humor fool you, OKC's Thross will absolutely turn your brains to scrambled eggs, and direct you to the National Domestic Abuse Hotline in the process. I can't do Gross Human Index, their 4-track debut EP, justice with my sloppy copy writing, you'll just have to go get screamed at for yourself over at https://thross.bandcamp.com/album/gross-human-index-ep I've got two copies here at the shop ( https://bottlesmusic.com/shop/records/metal/thross-gross-human-index-ep-cassette/ ), but do us all a favor and buy the other 98 copies of this limited run cassette straight from the band first.

Bottle's Music will get a much needed infusion of new stuff later this week, so I thought I'd take a moment to tell you about the biz. Firstly, I'm just a guy who loves listening to records. I love all sorts of music, but I prefer albums. Real albums, collections of songs or pieces that add up to a unique and coherent experience; Album as Art. So, I started a record store and named it after a fictional character called Bottle the Curmudgeon. There's a whole big back story, but that's not important right now.  Lots of things I don't like about the music industry, but as a human what I really don't like is going to a crummy marketplace and sifting through thousands of drop-shipper listings. I'd much rather walk into a real record store and sift through the bins to find something intriguing. I want to buy records from a real person, not some random giant corporate vampire. There's a place and a purpose for huge corporations, but demanding i buy a franch...

Crowbar's 3rd album, Time Heals Nothing, doesn't get nearly the love it deserves. First of all, The Only Factor doesn't sound like the start of a new album, it sounds like you've just listened to the first two albums and Kirk merely changed the subject. Second, it sounds like you're listening to it through cheese cloth, or with a blanket over your head; production wise it sounds like acid washed jeans, and that's a tough sell if you don't already adore Crowbar and/or have the ability to physically recalibrate your ears to enjoy the synesthesic sound of TV static. The good news is that it is unmistakably Crowbar under all that asbestos blanketed high end, but that kind of makes it even more obvious you're hearing it through a dirty window instead of punching a boody fist through that window to let the audio sludge ooze out into the alley. The engineering/production sucks, is the bush I'm beating around.  I was so surprised I had to throw on their self...

I mean, really, it's the only appropriate soundtrack for a second Trump presidency... ... if you didn't know, the concept is specifically "what would an album made by fascist clowns sound like?"