Labyrinthitis

School's out, and current faves the Linda Lindas are in action again.  This post of a 22-minute performance and interview for KCRW radio in Santa Monica has given me great joy as they sound tighter and harder than ever ("Talking To Myself" and "Too Many Things" sounded like filler in their recorded versions - here they sound near-essential, with an almost Husker Du-like bridge.  And for any wag who wants to say they probably never heard Husker Du ... I suspect you are wrong).  More importantly, zip forward to 2:40 for one the greatest bits of audience appreciation ever.  I wonder what Beatrice's band will sound like... Meanwhile the world's other great teenage rock and roll band, Yee Loi, have announced the release of their first on-a-label single for August 24.  So stay tuned. More profound thoughts on these and other matters to come...

I'm trying to keep this blahg directed more towards newer artists, over old faves.  But the mind goes where it goes and lately I'm happy to rediscover an old fave I hadn't paid much attention to in recent years, Richard Thompson. Thompson used to be one of my main men, but it tapered off somewhere in the mid 00's and never quite picked up again, though I did keep up with all his releases as they came out.  I was disappointed in Front Parlour Ballads , the last one I actually bought a physical copy of, and since then just picked individual strong tracks as they appeared, eventually compiling them into a couple of collections.  Both of which left me unsatisfied. I do a lot of compilation CD's.  Very draconian selections by artists.  Obviously, they are highly subjective.  And there is a music-geekery part of me that says its unfair.  After all, these guys put their heart and soul into a full-length album, and I go and trash 90% of it?  Who the hell do I think I am? We

I was aiming for early July, honest!  Anyway... Kim Logan is a young artist from FL by way of Nashville and now, I guess, Glasgow - or perhaps France - her online presence is slightly out of date and a little erratic - who's been kicking around for a decade-plus now and deserves to be a lot more famous.  Like a lot more. A petite, feisty redhead with a voice that can range from angelic to apocalytpic and a bad rock and roll girl attitude, she parlayed childhood indoctrination into classical music, country and blues (first concert, she says - Bonnie Raitt) into a career as an opera singer in Sarasota before selling her soul to rock-and-roll.  She also was apparently part of the estimable Low Cut Connie for awhile, and that's a badge of honor in my book. Her recording has been prolific but scattered as well; a debut album, Kim Logan in 2012, singles "Neighborhood" (2014),  "Peaches and Cream (Live at Third Man Records)" (2015), "Better Way" (2016),