New Frisco Freakout poster!

Heads up! Another AQ New Arrivals coming this week!!

Look out! Even though we just sent out our biweekly New Arrivals list last Friday night, we're doing it again just a week later, this Friday October 9th. We realized this past weekend that we'd better jump the list up again to get in back on its previous schedule. Remember, we did two lists two weeks in a row back in August, 'cause Allan had to go somewhere the next week when there would have been a list? Well if we didn't adjust our list schedule again, we'd have to be sending one out on Christmas Day, which might be inconvenient. And while WE might find it relaxing to fix the problem by pushing the list back a week instead of moving it up a week, we didn't feel that most of our customers, eagerly waiting for each installment of our list to find out about all the cool new music we have in stock, would think that was such a good idea. So, anyway, please get ready for another exciting list this Friday. Thank you for your attention!

New Arrivals #329

Click here, now, to read the new list!

Records Of The Week:

Teenage Filmstars "Rocket Charms / Buy Our Record Support Our Sickness / Bring Back The Cartel: The Epiphany Triptych" (Artpop! / Cherry Red) 2cd $16.98
A long overdue, eagerly anticipated, utterly essential reissue. From these genius UK pop freeks, a double cd featuring not one, not two, but three albums from this band we always argue should have been bigger than My Bloody Valentine. We made the reissue of Star a Record Of The Week last year, and two of the albums included on this new reish (1993's Rocket Charms and 1997's Buy Our Record Support Our Sickness) are as good or BETTER. Can't recommend it enough. THIS is why we have a "Record Of The Week" award. Get it!!!
Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions "Through The Devil Softly" (Nettwerk) cd $12.98
It's been worth the wait, this mysterious chanteuse formerly of Mazzy Star delivers a chilling and beautiful hazy pop record that all her fans here are absolutely swooning over.

Frisco Freakout II

Hey remember the awesome time you had at the first Frisco Freakout last year? All the loud rad California psych bands, organic eats, and good vibes? Ah, it's like the sixties, if you can remember, you probably weren't even there. Anyway, this happenin' is happening again, real soon. And once again we're pleased to be a co-sponsor, along with Arthur Magazine and KUSF. Also once again the Frisco Freakout is a benefit for Creativity Explored, one of our favorite things in the Mission.

Here's some details about when/where/who/what:

The Second Annual Frisco Freakout Psychedelic Dance Party

Heavy Hills
Lumerians
Powell St. John and the Aliens
Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound
Liquorball with Steve MacKay
Wooden Shjips
Citay
3 Leafs
Magic Lantern
Sun Araw
Barn Owl

Thee Parkside, San Francisco, OCTOBER 10, 2009 2PM-2AM Doors 1:30
$15 ALL AGES!!! ALL DAY!!!

Mark your calendars! Don't miss it!

Kudos to Cope

Thought we'd mention that Julian Cope, over at his Head Heritage website, has picked an oldie but a goodie as his "Album Of The Month" for September. How much of an oldie? A record that was originally released in 1953! And it's a fave of ours too, Tom Lehrer's "Songs Of Tom Lehrer". (Cope also writes about Lehrer's second album, "An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer", discussing them together in his review.)

Definitely the only Julian Cope approved artist that my dad also likes!

Cope's essay (which manages to work a reference to Iggy & The Stooges into one of its footnotes) certainly made us realize just how subversive the lyrics to Lehrer's comic ditties really must have been, back then. In fact, his humor was so disturbing that it actually quite upset a young Julian Cope when he figured out (with the aid of a dictionary) what Lehrer meant when he introduced one number by saying "The next song is about a young necrophiliac who achieves his childhood ambition by becoming coroner."

These Lehrer records are available together on a Rhino cd entitled "Songs & More Songs By Tom Lehrer" which - horrors - isn't listed on our website! Whoops, we do actually often stock in in the store, but never thought to review it. Anyway, we recommend it too.

New Arrivals #328

It's that time again. You'll find it here!

Records Of The Week:

Sunny Day Real Estate "Diary" (Sub Pop) cd/2lp $11.98/$16.98
Sunny Day Real Estate "LP2" (Sub Pop) cd/2lp $11.98/$14.98
Two reissues on cd and vinyl from this seminal '90s indie rock act, the second wave emo of their first couple crucial albums.
V/A "Shadow Music Of Thailand" (Sublime Frequencies) cd $16.98
Now on cd, one of our Sublime Frequencies faves, the twanging guitars of super enchanting groovy garage pop from the '60s Thai scene.
Yo La Tengo "Popular Songs" (Matador) cd/2lp $13.98/$25.00
A new masterpiece from a band that has never disappointed us, the indie rock royalty of Hoboken New Jersey, YLT!

Blog Special - Vulture Club!

Ok, here's something we've been meaning to do ever since we started this blog. Use it to announce special sale items, things that we REALLY LIKE but for some reason maybe have surplus of in stock. Such as, for our first Blog Special, the awesome Utech cd release by Vulture Club, one of our (inexplicably overlooked by many AQ customers) dronedoomdirge faves from a couple years ago.

Here's our review of the Vulture Club "Live Young, Die Fast And Leave An Exquisite Corpse" cd:

The first Vulture Club cd-r was the ultimate man vs. machine battle royale, with the machine winning. A record where the instruments called the shots, an army of guitars and amplifiers, marching across a blackened bloody battlefield littered with the corpses of musicians, the masters now bone and blood, the guitars and amps allowed to ring out, reverberate, to unfurl epic swaths of rumbling, crumbling feedback flecked drone. And we loved it!
The ultimate doomdrone sound, no riffs, no rhythms, just the sound of steel strings vibrating, amplified, played back at incredible volume, in turn causing the strings to vibrate, and the cycle continued... Another one of those sounds that is practically perfect unadorned, we could listen to an E chord ringing out through a wall of Marshall stacks FOREVER. But at some point, the amps and guitars that make up Vulture Club, decided more could be done with their buzz and drone, so they did the unthinkable, they recruited players, musicians, they chose not to give up their freedom, but to work together with their former masters, to create a new world of sound, a world where the guitars and the amplifiers were still in control, but the musicians were able to coax certain sounds from the guitars, to gently bend necks, stretch strings, fret certain notes, and thus, we have Live Young, Die Fast And Leave An Exquisite Corpse. The sound is still dronedirgedoomsludge but just like the debut, that sound is stretched to its absolute limit, a soundworld where notes and chords mean less than timbre and tone, melody is supplanted by power, you can feel the sound more than hear it. BUT, for this new disc (a real cd this time), the action ante has been upped just a bit. Instead of letting the guitars just buzz endlessly, the droning distortion is more dynamic, with percussive attacks, and extended decays, notes and chords barely visible in their flatlined form, the sound pulsates and throbs, creating unintentional rhythms, guitars unleash simple tones which are wrapped in layer after layer of distortion, and allowed to slowly crumble to bits, revealing all the secret tonal color inside. It's all very subtle, this still sounds like a room full of amps cranked to ten, with guitars run through distortion pedals and leaned up against the amps, the sound a glorious low end cacophony, but repeated listening, deep listening, reveals an amazing amount of subtle sonic variation beneath the glacial whirs and buzzing blur. Vulture Club is the sound of SUNNO)))'s and Earth's colliding, the music of black holes, the sound of guitar and amplifier joined in the unholiest of unions, an absolutely glorious sound indeed!

This disc normally retails for $14.98, but if you order it from our website and mention "VULTURE CLUB $5 OFF BLOG SPECIAL" in the comments field of the order form, we'll let you have it for only $9.98 - five dollars off! While supplies last, of course.

Though this disc is so good, if you choose to pay full price for it you wouldn't be disappointed either...