There's a danger in looking backwards too much. That said, it can be fun. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I revisited the reverse chronological order thing that I did back in January. In that episode, I played songs from 2025 to 1994 and this time around, I picked up where I left off and went from 1993 to 1964. It was a blast and there was nary a hot tub time machine in sight.
Come on in, the water's fine:
Hour 1: 1993-1979
Artist - Song/Album
Fugazi - Rend It/In On the Kill Taker
Faith No More - Midlife Crisis/Angel Dust
Teenage Fanclub - Star Sign/Bandwagonesque
Jane's Addiction - No One's Leaving/Ritual de lo Habitual
Big Audio Dynamite - Contact/Megatop Phoenix
Public Enemy - Night of the Living Baseheads/It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
Prince - U Got the Look/Sign O' the Times
Peter Gabriel - Big Time/So
R.E.M. - Can't Get There From Here/Fables of the Reconstruction
Husker Du - Pink Turns to Blue/Zen Arcade
The Fixx - The Sign of Fire/Reach the Beach
Bad Brains - Sailin' On/Bad Brains
Van Halen - Mean Street/Fair Warning
The Pretenders - The Wait/Pretenders
Joe Jackson - Friday/I'm the Man
Hour 2: 1978-1964
The Rolling Stones - Respectable/Some Girls
AC/DC - Dog Eat Dog/Let There Be Rock
Rush - Something for Nothing/2112
Parliament - Ride On/Chocolate City
David Bowie - 1984/Diamond Dogs
Alice Cooper - No More Mr. Nice Guy/Billion Dollar Babies
T. Rex - Buick Mackane/Slider
Isaac Hayes - Theme from Shaft/Shaft soundtrack
Black Sabbath - N.I.B./Black Sabbath
MC5 - Come Together/Kick Out the Jams
The Kinks - Do You Remember Walter?/The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society
The Who - I Can See for Miles/The Who Sell Out
The Remains - Don't Look Back/The Remains
Bob Dylan - Maggie's Farm/Bringing It All Back Home
Chuck Berry - You Never Can Tell/St. Louis to Liverpool
Part 2 of my conversation with guest Jay Breitling about our favorite music of 2025 so far. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").
Show notes:
Counting down our favorite albums
Breitling's #6: Dan Bejar with another well-done Destroyer album
"Slacker Sinatra" singing about aging
Kumar's #6: Striking solo effort from Tunde Adebimpe
Breitling's #5: Shoegaze goodness from NJ's High
Kumar's #5: Dax Riggs with fuzz-laden goth grunge
Breitling's #4: Digging the Estonian dream pop from mariin k.
Kumar's #3: Impressive 15th solo album from Bob Mould plays to his strengths
Still kicking ass into his mid-60s
Breitling's #3: Boston trio with a dumb name and a great album, (T-T)b
Kumar's #2: Mclusky returns after 21 years with a razor-sharp ripper
Breitling's #2 and Kumar's #4: Surprise return to thunderous form from The Men
Kumar's #1: PUP's fifth album finds them exploring more mature themes while still kicking ass
Breitling's #1 and Kumar's #7: The four-album magnum opus from Hallelujah the Hills exceeds expectations
Many guest appearances among the 54 songs
Looking forward to new releases from the Lemonheads, Sloan, Superchunk, Pile, Wednesday
Completely Conspicuous is available through Apple Podcasts. Subscribe and write a review!
The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.
Nothing strikes more fear in the hearts of partygoers than when some jamoke breaks out an acoustic guitar. Nine times out of 10, it's a total cringe-inducing moment. But in the hands of a professional, the acoustic guitar can be used for good, not evil. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played new music from Superchunk, Allo Darlin' and the Jeanines in hour 1 and quality acoustic jams in hour 2. They're the bomb!
MacGruber, we've only got 30 seconds left:
Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Superchunk - Is It Making You Feel Something/Songs in the Key of Yikes
The Bug Club - How to Be a Confidante/Very Human Features
Lifeguard - A Tightwire/Ripped and Torn
Hotline TNT - Julia's War/Raspberry Moon
Hallelujah the Hills - Gimme Midnight (Ace of Diamonds)/DECK: Diamonds
Queens of the Stone Age - Running Joke/Paper Machete /Alive in the Catacombs
Model/Actriz - Poppy/Pirouette
Allo Darlin' - Stars/Bright Nights
Jeanines - You Can't Get It Back/How Long Can It Last
Part 1 of my conversation with guest Jay Breitling about our favorite music of 2025 so far. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").
Show notes:
Drinking some Italian beer
Rock is dead commercially
Billboard album chart contains nearly no rock
Fleetwood Mac's Rumours still riding high for some reason
Festival cancellations: Bonnaroo, Boston Calling next year, Lollapalooza
Too many festivals, high ticket prices
Black Sabbath farewell show
Lots of big rock deaths: Brian Wilson, Sly Stone, David Johansen, Marianne Faithfull, etc.
We saw Hallelujah the Hills recently and it was glorious
Kumar saw some shows: Frank Black, Shannon/Narducy, Gang of Four, Bob Mould
Breitling will see Oasis in Mexico, as one does
Who's the Who's drummer?
Breitling's bubbling under albums: Whirr, Winter, Lunchbox, Pink Floyd reissue, Rough Francis, The Get Quick, Autocamper, Viagra Boys, Thalia Zedek Band
Kumar's list: Kinski, Ty Segall, Civic, Cameron Keiber, Dean Wareham, Pulp, Psychedelic Porn Crumpets, The Bug Club, Turnstile, The Tubs, Kestrels, Lifeguard, Hotline TNT
Breitling's #10: An electronic collab between Mark Pritchard and Thom Yorke
Kumar's #10: Sophomore release from Horsegirl explores mellower sounds
So much music to listen to these days
Breitling's #9: Ambient situation delivered by William Tyler
Of Bills Frisell and Laswell
Kumar's #9: Post-punk ripper from Charm School
Kurt Loder is still with us
Kumar's #8: Heavy Spoon influence on the new album from The Convenience
Breitling's #7: Dean Wareham is still bringing it
To be continued
Completely Conspicuous is available through Apple Podcasts. Subscribe and write a review!
The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.
There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to rock music. Just because your album has a title doesn't mean it needs to have a title track. Still, there are plenty of great title tracks out there and I played some of them this week in hour 2 of Stuck In Thee Garage (in addition to great new stuff from Lifeguard, Hotline TNT and Tropical Fuck Storm in hour 1). Still waiting to find out what the secret word of the day is...
It's the first day of summer, which means the bugs are back in force. I know nature has a purpose for everything, but some bugs are really annoying. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played new music from Sloan, Hallelujah the Hills, the Bug Club (appropriately enough) and Subsonic Eye in hour 1 and songs about bugs in hour 2. It makes a great soundtrack to that spider infestation in your basement.
The spraylist:
Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Sloan - Live Forever/Based on the Best Seller
Hallelujah the Hills - Failure's My Fuel (9 of Clubs)/DECK: CLUBS
Subsonic Eye - Aku Cemas/Singapore Dreaming
The Bug Club - Twirling in the Middle/Very Human Features
Momma - Bottle Blonde/Welcome to My Blue Sky
Shark? - (Livin' On) Borrowed Time/A Simple Life
Turnstile - Never Enough/Never Enough
Frankie and the Witch Fingers - T.V. Baby/Trash Classic
On one hand, 2015 doesn't seem that long ago and on another, it feels like FOREVER ago. So much crazy shit has happened in the last decade. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played songs from 2015 in hour 2, after first paying tribute to lost icons Brian Wilson and Sly Stone and new hotness from Turnstile, Illuminati Hotties and Frankie and the Witch Fingers in hour 1. It'll hack your mainframe or some shit.
Domo arigoto, Mr. Roboto:
Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
The Beach Boys - Heroes and Villains/The Smile Sessions
Sly & the Family Stone - Luv N' Haight/There's a Riot Going On
Sly & the Family Stone - Family Affair/There's a Riot Going On
Turnstile - I Care/Never Enough
Illuminati Hotties - Wreck My Life (feat. PUP)/Nickel on the Fountain Floor EP
Frankie and the Witch Fingers - Fucksake/Trash Classic
Pulp - Grown Ups/More
Stereolab - If You Remember I Forgot How to Dream Pt. 1/Instant Holograms on Metal Film
Savak - Casual Cruelty/SQUAWK!
Civic - Trick Pony/Chrome Dipped
TVOD - Alcohol/Party Time
The Tubs - One More Day/Cotton Crown
Ty Segall - Another California Song/Possession
Thalia Zedek Band - Circus/The Boat Outside Your Window
The Convenience - 2022/Like Cartoon Vampires
Hour 2: 2015
METZ - Spit You Out/II
Pile - #2 Hit Single/You're Better Than This
Faith No More - Sunny Side Up/Sol Invictus
Courtney Barnett - Elevator Operator/Sometimes I Sit and Think, Sometimes I Just Sit
Colleen Green - TV/I Want to Grow Up
Speedy Ortiz - Raising the Skate/Foil Deer
Palehound - Molly/Dry Food
Jeff Rosenstock - Nausea/We Cool?
Titus Andronicus - Dimed Out/The Most Lamentable Tragedy
Mikal Cronin - Made My Mind Up/MCIII
Sleater-Kinney - Bury Our Friends/No Cities to Love
Sometimes it's good not to have a plan. Just wing it. Get behind the wheel and drive. This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I played new indie rock from the likes of Civic, The Tubs, Tchotchke and King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard in hour 1 and a bunch of cool stuff I've been digging lately in hour 2. But you have nothing to worry about. I'm a professional.
Step on it:
Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
Civic - The Fool/Chrome Dipped
The Tubs - Chain Reaction/Cotton Crown
Savak - Talk to Some People/SQUAWK!
Tchotchke - Did You Hear?/Single
Ty Segall - Shoplifter/Possession
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Deadstick/Phantom Island
Unsung is a feature in which I take a look at a pop culture phenomenon (be it music, TV, literary, whatever) that has been forgotten or underappreciated. In this installment, I look at the cultural cachet of the band t-shirt.
The t-shirt has been a staple of North American fashion for as long as I can remember. Which is a pretty long time, because I'm old. Growing up in the '70s and '80s, t-shirts were a vital part of my wardrobe and they remain that way, 50+ years later. But a particularly prized subset of my vast collection of t-shirts is the band shirt.
T-shirts have apparently been around since the late '30s, when they were primarily white cotton shirts, they really became popular after the release of 1951's A Streetcar Named Desire, when Marlon Brando wore one. A few years later, Elvis Presley began selling Elvis-branded merch, including t-shirts. When Beatlemania hit the U.S. in 1964, concert t-shirts became a huge seller. In the early '70s, legendary concert promoter Bill Graham formed the first music merchandising company and started selling concert shirts that featured the band's logo on the front and their current touring schedule on the back.
Band became known by their iconic logos: the Rolling Stones with the tongue, Led Zeppelin, the Grateful Dead, AC/DC, Van Halen, Pink Floyd with a number of designs and on and on. While band shirts were ideally purchased at a concert, you could also buy them in stores. My first rock band shirt was a Led Zeppelin one purchased in 1980; I bought it at the local mall. Even though the band was broken up by then, they were my favorite and I was excited to get a shirt. It was a prized item; I didn't wear it too often because I didn't want the decal to fade.
I was still too young to go to concerts at that point, but a few years later, I remember getting an Iron Maiden jersey shirt at a store when I was up in Toronto for a visit after we had moved to the U.S. Then in July 1984, I went to my first concert, which was a festival show at the Kingston, NH, Fairgrounds with Cheap Trick, Ratt, Twisted Sister and Lita Ford. I loved Cheap Trick, but Ratt was on the rise at that time and I picked up a "Ratt 'n Roll" jersey from that show. Concert shirts were still pretty inexpensive at that time, so I would get them at most shows I attended: Rush, Dio, Peter Gabriel, U2, Genesis. Occasionally, I would get a cheap bootleg shirt in the parking lot; I picked up a $5 Van Halen shirt in the lot after a show at the Portland Civic Center in 1986 (Van Hagar era). I remember buying a Black Sabbath Born Again shirt featuring a devil baby, but I don't think I ever wore it because it would have freaked my religious mom out.
As I got into more indie and alternative bands in the '90s, I would see more shows at clubs and the shirts I purchased at those remain some of my prized possessions. I still have shirts purchased at Pavement, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Sloan, the Tragically Hip and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion shows in the early '90s. Some shirts have been tossed because of wear and tear, but I have most of them still. One time I wore a Bad Religion shirt to work, only to have an older co-worker (probably in her late 50s or early 60s at the time) ask me which religion was the bad one. I explained it was a band, but I should have told her, "All of them."
As with everything else, shirt prices have gone up over the years, so I don't buy as many shirts. If a shirt costs more than $25, I probably won't buy it. But as other revenue sources for artists dry up, I might get one to support a band. I've also picked up or been gifted shirts in recent years of bands I love but have never seen: the Clash, Joy Division, Zep, Black Sabbath, Bad Brains.
I've been working from home since the COVID pandemic hit in March 2020, so most days I'm wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants or shorts (if I have to be on camera, I might wear a button-down shirt or a sweater). I go to the gym on most days and I've noticed a lot of people work out in band shirts, which I would never do; I wouldn't want to get them all sweaty.
Another trend that's emerged in the last few years is the ubiquity of the Nirvana shirt. I see a lot of young people (and some older ones) wearing shirts and hoodies featuring the Nirvana logo and smiley face with x'd out eyes, including the pre-teen daughter of one of our neighbors. I'm willing to bet most of these folks have no idea who the band is, and indeed, a little research reveals that Nirvana merch has become part of the uniform, another logo shirt like UnderArmour, Nike or Vineyard Vines. Even as rock music has declined in popularity, rock shirts are booming. You can find them in stores like Target, Old Navy or Wal-mart, as well as specialty shops like Newbury Comics.
It may have started with celebrities, as most trends do. A decade ago, Justin Bieber wore a Nirvana shirt to the American Music Awards. And even before that, you could find pop stars like Miley Cyrus or celebs like Kim Kardashian wearing Iron Maiden and other rock shirts ironically. Even if the bands aren't as cool anymore, wearing their merch is. Indeed, vintage rock shirts sell for thousands online.
Of course, this will get rock purists all worked up when they see a 12-year-old girl wearing a Nirvana shirt. "Name three songs!" they will bleat self-righteously. I find it interesting more than anything. I bought my younger daughter a Nirvana shirt a few years ago, but she actually is into the band, along with many others that I like. But for those kids who are clueless about the name on their shirt, what are you going to do? There are many more important things to get outraged about these days. A cool shirt is a cool shirt, man.
This week on Stuck In Thee Garage, I'm seeing double with songs about twins in hour 2, in addition to new hotness from the Lemonheads, Pile, the Thalia Zedek Band and Pulp in hour 1. Just like on Breaking Bad, be patient and the job will come to you.
Sharpen your axe:
Hour 1
Artist - Song/Album
The Lemonheads - Deep End/Single
Pile - Born at Night/Sunshine and Balance Beams
Thalia Zedek Band - Disarm/The Boat Outside Your Window
Stereolab - Vermona F Transistor/Instant Holograms on Metal Film
Pulp - Got to Have Love/More
Preoccupations - Panic/Ill at Ease
(T-T_b - Julian/Beautiful Extension Cord
Car Seat Headrest - The Catastrophe (Good Luck with That, Man)/The Scholars
TVOD - Mud/Party Time
Pretty Rude - The Caller/Ripe
Psychedelic Porn Crumpets - Weird World Awoke/Carpe Diem, Moonman
Momma - Last Kiss/Welcome to My Blue Sky
The Convenience - Never Became a Dancer/Like Cartoon Vampires
Viagra Boys - Dirty Boyz/Viagr Aboys
Hour 2: Twins
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Twins/Perfect Right Now: A Slumberland Collection 2008-2010
The Cure - Siamese Twins/Pornography
Smashing Pumpkins - Geek USA/Siamese Dream
Pinecones - Apocalypse Twin/Sings for You Now
Deerhoof - Twin Killers/The Runners Four
Melkbelly - Twin Lookin Motherfucker/Nothing Valley
Metric - Clone/Synthetica
Faye Webster - Vanishing Twin/Good Music to Avert the Collapse of American Democracy, Vol. 2
Parliament - Children of Production (live)/Tear the Roof Off 1974-1980
The Futureheads - Jekyll/POWERS
Mclusky - Day of Deadringers/Mclusky Do Dallas
Fu Manchu - Clone of the Universe/Clone of the Universe
Elvis Costello - My Science Fiction Twin/Brutal Youth
Wyatt Blair - Alter Ego/Point of No Return
Bread Pilot - Twin Lakes/New to You
Marnie Stern - Clone Cycle/This is It and I Am It and You Are It and So Is That and He Is It and She Is It and It Is It and That Is That
Unsung is a feature in which I take a look at a pop culture phenomenon (be it music, TV, literary, whatever) that has been forgotten or underappreciated. In this installment, I look at the compact disc and its rollercoaster ride from dominant music format to obsolescence.
A few weeks ago, I wrote in this space about the audio cassette and its interesting journey over the decades. Today I'm doing the same with the compact disc, which emerged in the early '80s and by the end of that decade was the dominant music format before MP3s came along.
Vinyl and cassettes were the big formats throughout the '60s and '70s, but in 1970, American inventor James T. Russell was granted a patent for the first system to record digital media on a photosensitive plate. Sony and Philips both developed prototypes in the late '70s for a disc that is read using a laser. The LaserDisc was introduced in 1978 by Philips, Pioneer and movie studio MCA under the amazing name DiscoVision for movies and other video presentations like concert recordings; somehow, DiscoVision didn't stick as a name but LaserDisc did. The discs themselves were the size of 12-inch vinyl records and offered superior video quality, but the VHS, which was introduced two years earlier, was the video format that caught on with consumers. It was less expensive and the videocassette recorder (VCR) made it easy to record TV programs.
Meanwhile, Sony and Phillips designed a new digital audio disc using the LaserDisc technology. The compact disc was introduced in 1982 and was marketed as the height of audio for consumers who wanted a better listening experience than the record or cassette could offer. It was also much smaller than a record and initially touted as resistant to scratches or breaking, although both of those were false claims
It took a few years to catch on. When I got to college in the fall of 1985, most of us were still listening to records and/or cassettes. My RA still had an 8-track player in his room. But my friend Rob was the first person I knew to have a CD player. And he remained the only one all the way through college.
I was hesitant to start buying another format that required another player, so I stuck with buying new vinyl and taping them onto cassettes for the time being.
But CDs were definitely making headway. I remember a lot of noise in 1987 when the Beatles began reissuing their albums on CD with remastered audio. People started to replace albums they already owned with CDs. When I graduated from college in 1989, my dad gave me my first CD player as well as some huge-ass speakers to go with them. The first CDs I bought were appropriately random: Joe Jackson's I'm the Man, The Cult's Sonic Temple and the soundtrack to the Who's The Kids Are Alright.
I was still buying vinyl, but I could see that CDs were starting to take over. I had been using my dad's old turntable to that point, but I decided to get a new one while they were still around and affordable.
CDs were still more expensive than the other formats at that point, so I would look for sales. I had started working in Peabody, Mass., after graduation and there was a little video store that also sold CDs for $8 a pop, so I would pick up stuff there. And the now-defunct department store Lechmere would also have good deals. In 1990, I discovered stores like Rockit Records in Saugus and the Record Exchange in Salem that would sell used CDs for cheaper prices; they were also good places to find hard-to-find promo discs and imports that radio DJs would unload.
Eventually, I just started buying only CDs. Although the cars I drove still only had cassette decks, so I would continue my habit of taping albums for use in the car and in a Walkman. Sony developed a portable CD player called the Discman in 1984, although it didn't really catch on in the U.S. until the '90s; with a cassette converter, you could use the Discman in the car. Another development was the advent of the CD burner, which allowed you to duplicate CDs or make mixes using blank CD-Rs.
The CD had a stronghold on music media sales throughout the '90s until the emergence of MP3 file sharing in 1999, when Napster and other peer-to-peer service sprung up on the internet and allowed music fans to share (or steal, depending on your point of view) vast amounts of music from like-minded folks who had figured out how to rip the songs from their CDs into MP3 files. Sure, the audio quality was often shitty (or at least not as good as CDs) and the files were often mislabeled, but it introduced an entire generation (since a lot of Napster users were often college campuses, where they could take advantage of high-speed internet to enable faster downloading) to the joys of not paying for music. The record labels sued and eventually got Napster and its ilk shut down, but by the time this happened, the digital genie was out of the bottle. Sales of recorded music (mostly CDs) dropped by 50% from 1999 to 2009. Apple introduced the iTunes store and the iPod in the early '00s as a way to get music fans enthused about legal MP3s, but that didn't help CD sales.
But the real death knell for the CD came via audio streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music, which allowed users to access to a huge catalog of music using their phone wherever and whenever they wanted, thanks to the prevalence of high-speed internet and Wifi. Vinyl has made a comeback with hipsters and fans of huge artists like Taylor Swift and Adele, who offer special vinyl editions of their albums with bonus tracks. You can still find CDs at music stores, but the selection is much smaller than it used to be.
CD players are also pretty scarce. When I was putting together an old-school component stereo system for my daughter Lily a few years ago, the CD player I bought her was a $30 DVD player that also plays CDs (I had to ask a clerk at Best Buy to find me one; it was located in a tiny corner of the store and barely noticeable). And the CD player I use is an old 5-disc DVD player that we used to have in our living room.
One thing that has diminished since CDs declined in popularity was the album. The CD was the last dominant album format; indeed, there are certain albums that only make sense on CD (see Steven Hyden's great post on this topic). There are more albums released than ever thanks to the ease of the internet, but many music fans rarely listen to albums in their entirety now. Streaming allows them to pick and choose their favorite songs and skip or ignore the ones they don't like or care about. It's so easy to make playlists that you can only hear the songs you want to hear at any given time.
As I mentioned in the cassette post, I primarily listen to music on MP3 because I use them to put together my weekly radio show. I'll still occasionally buy vinyl, but rarely anything new since those tend to be overpriced. It's the same with CDs. I'll usually only get them if I'm in a record store with a good used CD section and I find something I don't have for under $10. I've also revisited something I was doing several years, which is going to my local library to borrow CDs I don't have. You can also find cheap CDs on Amazon.
When we have long road trips in the car, I'll often break out a selection of CDs for the ride. I still have just about all the CDs I've purchased over the years, so it can be fun to revisit things I haven't listened to in a long time. The CD wasn't perfect, but it has gotten a bum rap over the years. There's also something to having physical media that won't disappear at the whim of a record company or studio conglomerate.
