The Ledge #694: New Releases Pt. 1
Here we are in the final month of the year, and we are still able to do a multi-episode new release series. Decades ago, this would have been impossible. With the exception of a title or two, all superstar releases were out by Thanksgiving (not that this fact would effect The Ledge). Not only did the physical media have to be prepared weeks or months in advance, but all publicity (press, videos, TV) had to be scheduled to coincde with the date the material was coming out. Obviously, non-superstar releases always had difficulties even getting noticed back then, and this fact was amplified in the run-up to the holiday season. If they were released without a label putting up comparable publicty dollars, they were usually buried. More often than not, records of this sort were just postponed until the new year. Because of all that, the record companies basically took December off. It was the month of schmozzing (and I’m sure quite a “pile” of substances). The stores had their stock, radio stations were certainly not adding many new songs during this period, and record stores were just praying that they could restock what they sold. Yes, it was a […]
The Ledge #566: Twofers
Tonight unveils a new sort of theme for a Ledge episode – Twofers! Everybody loves a twofer deal at the bar, so why not transfer the idea to rock and roll. (Yeah yeah yeah, I know radio stations have done this for decades. But it’s new to The Ledge!) The inspiration was a handful of great records that I’ve been paying a lot of attention to in the last few days. Last Saturday, for Record Store Day Sioux Falls (soon to be) legends Off Contact put out a few advance copies of their upcoming debut album, Pearls Before Swine. Of course I had to air some tracks off it! And then two days ago I received what may be my second-favorite power pop album of the year. Paint Fumes new record, Real Romancer, is chock full of great hooks accompanied by the sort of noisy guitars that everyone knows I love so much. Of course, I couldn’t resist airing tracks from the brand new albums of original punkers The Damned and former Sex Pistols bassist Glen Matlock. But it’s not all twofers on the show. There’s a “four-fer” of selections from the Record Store Day release of previously unreleased live Husker Du […]
