The great thing about having this blog is the ability to get the big important news out there straight away. No waiting around for a radio show on Sunday to deliver a message that’s yawningly out of date.
So the plan was to get the new Lou Barlow record, Goodnight Unknown (on Merge in the US and Domino everywhere else) on the day of release and do a kind of real-time review as I listened to it for the first time. What a grand, exciting and innovative plan, hmm? I was pretty pleased with it. It was going to be great.
Then, the Monday it was released, it didn’t half rain. It’s a 20 minute walk to my local HMV, and frankly, I would have got soaked. No-one wants that.
Then the next day I had some other stuff to do, and the whole week got busy somehow, so I eventually bought it last weekend.
I bet the sodding reviews desk at the NME doesn’t have that problem, although I do recall the story of Steve Lamacq, while seconded to LA in 1993 as the NME’s West Coast correspondent, driving through the middle of a forest fire in order to get his hands on a limited-edition (of 16,000) Echobelly 7″ from Union Jack’s Brit Wax Emporium, LA’s most popular anglophile record store*. He’s made of sterner stuff than me.
Anyway, the new Lou Barlow album is great. A hugely prolific songwriter, his work with Dinosaur Jr, Sebadoh, Folk Implosion, his myriad Sentridoh releases, and a fantastic website are all testament to his abilities.
Steve Show Posse 