Burl Veneer’s Music Blog

Rage/Ecstasy = ManBREAK

2008-07-12T15:37:17Z

In my continuing quest to listen to everything, once in a while I happen upon something that I really wish I'd known about when it came out. The latest of these revelations is ManBREAK, a British group often compared to Rage Against the Machine. ...

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More Slab!

2008-07-11T03:33:19Z

The online resurrection of the great Slab! that I blogged about on April 30 continues in fits and starts; the latest development is that two Slab! videos have just been posted to YouTube by Ikon Video. That means I can plug them in right here! ...

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Peter Murphy sings all the hits

2008-07-10T02:21:50Z

A highlight of our trip to Maryland last week was seeing Peter Murphy in Baltimore, though the less said about the club (and the opening act) the better. The last time we saw him as a solo act was at the 9:30 Club in 2004, when he was being force...

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Obscure covers: the Phenomenauts

2008-07-05T01:55:20Z

Casting about for new music to listen to I came across the Phenomenauts, and the description sounded all right (something like "pop-punk with some synths"), and sure enough, they're pretty fun (and unlike so many pop-punk bands, they don't sound l...

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The soothing sounds of the Fender Rhodes

2008-06-26T01:27:53Z

Mrs. V. and I are big fans of Zero 7; that is, of the Zero 7 songs that they did not invite Sia Furler to vandalize with her breathy, pouty, "ghetto twee*" vocal stylings. Verily, she is the Jar Jar Binks of downtempo. We're okay with the other ...

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Gotta wash that snake right out of my head

2008-06-17T00:04:00Z

Why oh why has Whitesnake's "Fool For Your Loving" been running through my head for the last week? It's not that I have any affinity for the lyrics: "A hard-lovin' woman like you just makes a hard-lovin' man." What the hell does that even mean, ...

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UK Skronk part 2

2008-06-13T21:36:52Z

I must stop beginning blog entries with "I must"--there's nothing like seeing identical openings stacked up in an RSS reader to point out a rut. My last UK skronk entry covered Clock DVA and Biting Tongues, both from 1981. Now we'll move on to B...

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UK Skronk part 1

2008-06-10T03:38:11Z

I must come to terms with the fact that a blog entry is not a book, so instead of a definitive history of skronk in the UK, here is a brief survey of it. "Skronk" is a term attributed to Robert Christgau (by Lester Bangs) to refer to a certain ki...

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Filling in the gaps

2008-06-03T02:50:54Z

Having had access to the college radio station record library during the 80s, not to mention the constant stream of new releases that came in, and then spending all my disposable income (plus future income, once I got a credit card) on imported Br...

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Speaking of breakbeat...

2008-05-31T00:13:12Z

or just plain "breaks," as I was last time: The Prodigy is generally considered to be the definitive breaks act, and they have been the most visible, thanks to several videos centered around frontman Keith Flint's evil-clown persona. But Prodigy ...

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