Having been declared by the New York Times as, “The hardest working band,” front-runners of the Athens, GA scene, the Black Lips, have received their fair share of hungry press ogling these past few years. Now, with universal acclaim (minus India) and immense pressure for their new full-length 200 Million Thousand, the world seems to be calling on them to become the rock stars they’ve pretended to be since their days of high school rebellion. The result is an album that’s been appropriately steeped in paranoia before revisiting the usual themes of drug use, growing up, and of course, bromance.
200 Million manages to be their most stylistically-diverse album to date while paying homage to all their previous efforts, and I’m relieved to hear that most of the production quality remains loyally sub-par to industry standard. “I’ll Be With You,” is a goofy declaration of friendship that references the jangly end of summer vibe put forth on 2005’s Let It Bloom. One of the few occasions where they sound kinda sterile, “Short Fuse,” proves them to be self-aware of their burdening “garage revival” tag by evoking the likes of classic rock weirdos the 13th Floor Elevators. The drumming is much more succinct, and the song structure, complete with bright acoustic harmonies, is more obvious than ever. Continue reading ‘The Black Lips – 200 Million Thousand’
At some point in the past 10 years I stopped listening to albums and started listening to songs. It began innocently enough with mix tapes. These were purely labors of love with hours spent winding and rewinding tape, scattering CDs across the floor and avoiding the ultimate mix tape sin – having the tape run out in the middle of a song. But with the constant evolution from CD changers to MP3 players, the ability to instantly call up an obscure cut from your library of thousands of files (formerly known as “songs”) became universally available.
A calmer and more genial 
Anton and the latest (seventh perhaps?) incarnation of the Brian Jonestown Massacre are touring.
Finally, it looks like the Chicago Sun Times’ Roger Ebert has, indeed, acquired a prescription for medical marijuana. His Feb. 8 entry 
The Lime Spiders crawled up out of the Sydney scene during the era but had the punk edge of Radio Birdman or The Scientists rather than the poppy frat-friendly lilt of the Go-Betweens. Steeped in psychedelic influences, the band started out doing covers of hits by groups like The Litter, Cream, The Haunted and The Liberty Bell. After years of touring, 1987 finally brought the debut full-length release of The Cave Comes Alive. Behind the strength of singles like “My Favourite Room” the album ran up the college charts in the US and prompted typical rock critic categorizations like, “the Sex Pistols on acid.”
