Jazz June: Ornette
Earlier this week I retweeted a link to a Bandcamp article discussing the early career of Sonny Rollins saying that his album Saxophone Colossus was the key that unlocked Jazz for me. I’ll stand by that claim. It really clicked when I spun a few Rollins records for the first time. However, I had snuck over the gate 6 years ago to marvel at something I still don’t fully understand. That foray into the unknown was prompted by the news of Ornette Coleman’s passing which passed across the break room TV screen while I listened to The Ventures Live In Japan ’65 of all things. With some minor ceremony I returned to my desk for a Thursday afternoon slog and cued up the ’59 landmark The Shape of Jazz to Come. In remembrance of Ornette’s passing and that subtly pivotal moment for me as a capital letters music guy I spent the last few days listening to a few records from the avant-garde upstart that I had not heard yet.
By no means is this meant to be a guide through the Saxophonist’s career. These records aren’t cornerstones of Jazz or artistic reinventions for Coleman. They are however, very good.
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I’m probably insane but I had to do it. These are my 100 favorite albums, EPs, singles, splits, and compilations of 2016. 
When I was a little kid we had this old broken guitar, it was some kind of student model electric 
The new year is upon us, but before you start tackling those new years resolutions or detoxing from the holiday season, we want to offer one last rear view glimpse of the past year of music. 2015 brought about the end of a few hiatuses, introduced some new faces and there was a fair bit of self-examination and reinvention. Some great bands really proved why they have endured, some great songwriters stepped out on their own, some bands changed members or solidified lineups and a few debut albums shined bright. Heralding anything as the face of music to come is a pretty pointless exercise these days with tastes fragmenting into smaller and smaller niches, but looking back it’s hard to call 2015 anything but a banner year, at least for our corner of the greater musical landscape. We hope you find something here that inspires you.
“Oh, it’s that record club. The first nine were only a penny. Then they jacked up the price! [breaks down crying] It’s not fair! It’s not fair, I tells ya!” Record Club will be a recurring feature on not just records I love but a love letter to the physical format. Collecting runs deep in my family, so expect to see lots of cool finds here. “I joined a record club. They hounded me for years.”
For my inaugural “Record Club” post it is only fitting that we take a look at the recently reissued And We Washed Our Weapons in the Sea from DC’s seminal Spazzcore/Mech-Core outfit Frodus. It’s my favorite record of all time, for reasons we will get into later in this post, so you can imagine my excitement opening my door to find this package waiting for me. Ironically, the “certified frustration-free packaging” proved harder to open than a typical LP mailer. Go figure.
I drive a lot. I don’t spend a lot of time in the car on a daily basis or anything. I recognize that many people have lengthy commutes and others drive for a living. Some people hate it. I love it. “I Drive a Lot” will be a recurring column covering the places I go and the things I do while I’m away. 
2005 was a big year for me. I graduated from high school and started my first year of college. I got my first girlfriend and even wrecked my car for the first time (and not the last.) Throughout those events, music was a constant. I spent my teenage years in a rural area, so driving down country roads blasting music with the windows down was a regular occurrence. While 2005 was a milestone year as far as life achievements go, it also was the year that I truly began to expand my musical tastes to include more extreme and experimental forms of music.
figureheads ov pop 