What do you get if you put together walls of banjos and one of the great figures in left wing pseudo proto-Yippie, pseudo-Beatnik, psychedelic weirdo brilliant figures in modern pop? You get Better Than Expected, a brilliant mix of improv and song as community singalong… with the promise of giving us the same thing in 2015 for fiddles.
Numbskull – Wesley Wolfe – Art pop masterpiece about dealing with lowered expectations and doing it yourself and really not compromising too much on the road to eternity.Maybe a coming of age or maybe a dealing with it.
the dfifference between this album and Bottle cap albums like 2004’s The Jig Is Up, is not the banjos as such but that this is even wollier, coolier, friskier and friendlier. It is the strangest of albums, a series of jams in various keys which adds itself to a vision of a world that doesn’t exist now
I really love the new Peter Stampfel album and I am kicking myself for the opportunity to catch the great man at Mercury Lounge last week. Better Than Expected might not have lived up to its name but that’s mostly because expectations are so high.
Text Me In The Morning – Neon Trees – This defines the bands main problem, they have life and they have an idea, but they don’t have a strong and they miss out on the execution – C+
Jason Molina, the late singer songwriter, completely passed me by at the time, but he was something special if this sprawling somewhat epic album. A benefit covers album by alt and indie bands headed by Jim James, whose two tracks are outstanding. The title track and the other, with Bro. Stephen, the breathtaking “Almost Was Good Enough”. But there is a lot more as well, not least the other members of his band, Memorial Electric Co. ALBUM OF THE WEEK – A-
At 75 years of age, Peter Stampfel’s latest song, on cooler than we are Don Giovanni Records, “NSA Man” finds the former hippie violinist folkie as great as ever. The new album is gonna kill it, I promise and the opportunity to see him in the cramped Mercury Lounge on Thursday is a huge huge thrill.
Peter Stampfel’s full frontal attack on the NSA is funny as hell, “Studies everything you post on twitter, who is drawn to watch you on the shitter…” , is sure ths ong of the week, though close runners up Elbow and Young Money are bringing up the rear nicely. Still, after two stupendous week of new releases, this is the week that fell to earth.
Mushroom Gods – Scraps – More spacey than acidic, it might be a relation to Lorde only the world of sound has less attiude and more roominess. I got a call in the midle of tnight and I feel that spacey disjointed tiredness thing going and and this is the sound my head is making – B+
Peter is signed to New Brunswick’s finest (who seem to expanded with every passing day) Better Than Expected the debut album from the Peter Stamfel And The Brooklyn And Lower East Side Banjo Squadron, will be released by Don Giovanni records on April 22nd and the record release party will be two days later
