Today's featured shit

You can double your pleasure and double your fun with this two-CD set. The Trolleyvox have a great name, one that makes me think of Misterogers’ Neighborhood, Ultravox and Tralala. Talk about inflated expectations. For the most part, they are met on “Luzerne” and “Your Secret Safe.” “On the Way Down” is a sweet little [...]

Along the lines of Potshot and Goofy’s Holiday, Emeralds is Japanese punk, but don’t expect another carbon copy of hard driving four-minute songs (although many of the songs are that long). Absent is the harmonizing characteristic of this genre. It actually has a lot more standard rock and roll to it. Sure, it has an [...]

It has a waltz! Jump to “Empty House” and here the ONE-two-three! That’s pretty exciting. Otherwise, this reminds me of a Suddenly, Tammy! knockoff with older, more mature lyrics. Still, how often do you get to hear music with a piano but no guitar? (There is bass.) I got to review a Leerone album before. [...]

What a fun album! Hot Lava, who were known as “Hot Magma” when they were an underground act, delight on all levels with “Lavalogy.” This record has so much pop I want to call it “daddy.” “Apple-Option-Fire” is a great title and a great song too. This must be what all the kids are listening [...]

I couldn’t handle the Troof. There is not a lot of cohesion between the tracks on Hawnay Troof’s “Islands of Ayle.” That doesn’t mean it sucks, but it means you have to plow through the whole album to find what you like. Not all of us have time for that. Some of us are searching [...]

Only Candy Blystone gets to say “Juju” as far as I am concerned. No one ever told DJ Baba James, though. And on “The House of Good Juju” we are treated to a bunch of programmed stuff. That’s fine. I like “Sympathy for the 4/4.” I have sympathy for it too. It’s far too structured [...]

Whee. More Los Angeles grrl rock. Move over Go Betty Go, here comes something cheesier. Actually, come back Go Betty Go, because you’re much poppier than Civet, and that’s what I like. Civet actually sounds more like L7 than, say, The Randies, and unlike 15 years ago, this is refreshing. There’s finally a dearth of [...]

Indigo Girls starlet (there I said it) Amy Ray has released her third solo album, “Didn’t It Feel Kinder,” and her fans couldn’t be happier. Be sure to read the title correctly. She is not talking about copping a feel on some five year olds. Kinder, not kindergartener. There are no real surprises here. You [...]

If I review 100 albums for KSCU 103.3 FM, the Underground Sound, I will get to resurrect my radio career there and have my own show, which, naturally, would be called Joel’s Hit Show. I figure I can do 10 a week. They only need a paragraph, because it has to fit on a printout [...]