bread 'n butter

Oh man, oh man, oh man. Just when I felt like Black Tambourine's self-titled career retrospective (released earlier this year on Slumberland) was starting to fall out of my rotation, here comes a FREE DOWNLOAD of early demo versions to remind me just how good these songs really are. Technically, these are just earlier mixes and not different versions of the songs, but hearing them in their rougher, cassette-ready form just reaffirms that the few songs that made up Black Tambourine's complete recordings are pure indie-pop gold.

The time is nigh, folks. I got the test copy of Newer Stations in the mail and it sounds... well, it sounds like the album (which you should have downloaded for FREE by now), but on cassette. Imagine that.

The tapes should be ready to ship out through mail order next week, so get your pre-orders, or regular orders, or whatevers, in now! We only printed 100 tapes. They will also be available at upcoming NYC UFOs shows, which you should not miss.

If you'd like to read some very nice things that some very nice people had to say about Newer Stations, you can do so here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and, in French no less, here.

Everyone remembers Mad Libs. When you were 8 you probably filled in the parts of speech with words like "farts" and "butthead." When you revisited them in high school or college, you most likely made the otherwise innocuous stories sound dirty in a sexual way. Now that you're all grown up, you're ready for Raymond Carver Mad Libs.

Carver's writing has always concentrated on the soul-crushing fatalism of adult relationships. Fill in the blanks with your own depressing verbage... or just put "farts" instead.

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YES. MORE PLEASE. The line "How you doin'? My name is Lil P-Nut. Would you like some tater chips, bubblegum or a freeze cup?" pretty much sums up everything I love about this.

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You can't go wrong in my book with Guided By Voices covers.

Eternal Summers - A Salty Salute (GBV cover)

Stream Superchunk's Majesty Shredding in it's entirety at NPR!

Now can someone please explain that album art to me? Caption writing contest begin's NOW.

Justin Gage runs one of the best music blogs on the internet. Aquarium Drunkard, like any music blog, may not always post exactly what you want to hear, but everything that does make it on the site is always well researched, well written, and just generally well put together.

Last year, AQ posted L.A. Burnout - a mix "made up of the sounds floating around Los Angeles in the late ’60s and ’70s; a faded aural imprint of the canyons, beaches, wildfires, neighborhoods, late-nights and early mornings of a bygone L.A." In the age of .zip file mixes, the Drunkard does it best, and this one is no exception.

The follow-up to L.A. Burnout - L.A. Burnout 2: Still Burnt - carries on the tradition. This is the best possible soundtrack for your Labor Day weekend!

Also, check out Justin's Mondo Boys mixtape collective!

John Kenn's monster drawings on post-it notes.

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Ladies and gentlemen, the long hard wait is over. There will be no more pain and suffering. There will be no more hungry children, no more dropped calls, no more flat sodas, no more not-quite-frozen ice cubes, everyone will be pretty or handsome, Kurt Vonnegut will rise from the motherfucking grave --- because Bread 'n' Butter has a record label! How can I promise that the Real Butter Record Club will cure all humanity's ills? Well, I can't, but I sure hope I'm right. Otherwise, what's the point, ya know?

You can learn more about our first release, Newer Stations by NYC UFOs (formerly Neighbors), right here.

Download Newer Stations in its entirety for FREE at NYC UFOs bandcamp!

Tomorrow will be one year to the day that Navajo Bixby graced us with two incredible, sun-bleached, hypnotic pop songs - "Many Ways" and "Moonlighting".

If you remember, both of these tracks fit precariously under the chill-wave/beach-pop tag, exhibiting an overt grasp on the psychedelic, the tropical, and the repetitiously catchy, while bordering on an entropic atonality that made each track sound a little... weird, and frankly, more interesting than anything else you can call "chill-wave." Well, Navajo Bixby is back, and with one more member to call their own!

"Down Under" picks up where we left off last summer, like a time machine that can only be programmed for summer... the bouncy rhythms are still there, the hooks, the haze, the beach ball, floating waves, sand-in-your-toes spirit... it's all still there. It's like they never left us!

Navajo Bixby - Down Under