You say you don't want it

Black Flag - Slip it In
The background female vocals, performed by seventeen year old Suzi Gardner, later to join L7, in the title track laid the groundwork for Kim Gordon's vacant stare sexuality in Sonic Youth. I know one is supposed to prefer the earlier caveman Black Flag, but this is the record of theirs that always got me. maybe because its the only one I had, but I love that dismantled SST take on art punk mixed with straight up AC/DC rock on this record. I just found out that SST founder/pariah and Black Flag guitarist Greg Ginn played a barely advertised show in Lafayette last week that I would have liked to see, possibly to just have had seen it down the line, but I'd still wish I went.

Saccharine Trust - We Become Snakes
This is what I'm really talking about. Joe Baiza was more adept at fleshing out the nether regions between jazz and punk, something that John Zorn mastered and exploded into cosmic proportions. Baiza's hipster strut is perfect in this record, adding a libidinousness that was largely obscurred in the similarly swinging Minutemen.

My editor Paul at outsideleft.com got to sit at the big table with Baiza at some semi-recent Congress Of shows in LA, and details the conversation in his lovely understated way here.

Shearwater - Rook
3X to finally review it. This is my favorite album of 2008 so far. - but back to the skronk

Marc Ribot - Yo! I Killed Your God
Now that's an album title! The normally (but not always) mild-mannered Ribot serves a wild salad of poetry, erratic guitar and downtown-licious power dynamics.

Speaking of killing off God or vice-versa, I just got an email about a website that allows you to send messages to your sinner friends on your blessed behalf after the Rapture. I'm just saying, its a sad time for the crazy Jesus types if Gabriel's trumpet is manifesting itself as a trio of freelancers hopefully checking their email regularly.

John Zorn - Asmodeus: The Book of Angels, Vol. 7
Slicing open his Masada songbook with the sharp end of an electric guitar, this set opens on Marc Ribot mid solo, as if you have been dropped into a continuum of struggle, which, I mean, I guess is true for all of us. He gives up some flawless hard rock, metal and blues licks on this highly accessible record. There are tunes on here that would not be completely out of place, sticking out only because of their lack of all-encompassing corniness, on the jukebox of the blues bar down the street from me.