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Issue 13 was all set to be a big, happy, bursting at the seams with fun
issue of fakejazz with reviews of lots of hot and exciting new
releases from February sweeps like
Tortoise and
The New Year.
However, God needed a guitar player, it seems, and any vim and vigor we
had been working up were lost. John Fahey died on Thursday February 22nd,
2001, due to kidney failure. The loss has touched us all. In tribute to
Fahey, we are dedicating this issue to him, and our writer John Fail has
written an article
on what Fahey's life and work have meant to him. As Fail points out,
"we have lost not just another great musician, but a true cultural
treasure."
February sweeps did not totally pass us by, however. We have reviews of
all the important, new, and/or exciting releases from February, and there
were quite a few of them. Last year, the release of Shellac's third
album 1000
Hurts was such a major event for us that we had six different
writers review the album and give their impressions. Touch and Go has
recently released another album that could be deemed "a major event" for
us, The New Year's Newness
Ends. For those who don't know, The New Year is the new band from the
Kadane brothers, formerly of Bedhead. Opinions in our office on this
album varied quite widely (read: there were a couple cat fights and quite
a few hissy fits), so we had four different writers give us a review to settle
the score and, hopefully, try to lead to some sort of concensus or democratic
majority on whether the album is great or horrible.
Also in this issue is an interview with the great post/prog-rock band
Analogue
from North Carolina. Analogue's 2nd album Rock Proper was named best
of 2000 by writer Jim Steed and is a truly great album, filled with enough
odd time signatures and sudden changes in structure to be interesting and
enough neat sounds and heavy riffs to be fun. Analogue's story is
quite interesting as well, signing with label Sonic Bubblegum and releasing
their first album AAD after a fan raved about them on the internet,
then when Rock Proper was to be released, finding
Sonic Bubblegum neither wanting to release any records nor wanting to
let anyone else release their record. Did they persevere? Read and find out.
We are also continuing our new series of articles
devoted to great bands of yore who seem to have
fallen off the radar screen since their demise. The series is named
Cooler Than
You, as in, you may have never heard of these bands,
but they are definitely cooler than you. The second band covered is
the late 70s/early 80s post-punk band The
Pop Group.
Let us know if you have any comments, either
send us an email or leave a note on our message board. We heart feedback.
Look for our next issue on March 25th. Thanks for reading.
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The New Year-
Tortoise -