Note: Part of my ongoing #AudioMemoir series reviewing author-read memoirs. Previous: Neko Case, Cameron Crowe. and Evan Dando. Coming: Larry Charles.

The late Brother Wayne Kramer's narration of his life was a liminal listening experience for me. Hearing his voice made him alive, even though I knew he wasn't. The back-from-the-grave narration started with a Michigan youth and ended in L.A. as a father and Punk icon.

Kramer laid bare addictions, crimes, and failures while celebrating resilience as a guitar gunslinger. The MC5 saga was covered, as was prison time with Jazz musician Red Rodney, and too much junkie business with Johnny Thunders. His reflections on being a roofer and woodworker balanced the Rock 'n' Roll excess.

Listen to it.

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Note: Part of my ongoing #AudioMemoir series reviewing author-read memoirs. Previous: Neko Case, Cameron Crowe. Coming: Wayne Kramer, Larry Charles.

The 100 Word Review of The Lemonheads' new album, Love Chant

Funny, honest, and soulful, Dando takes an unflinching look at his life as a teen punk of privilege, alterna-hunk, and dope fiend.

Examining his Boston upbringing, 120 Minutes indie rock era, and the burdens of being hot, Dando ambles through life dedicated to art and deconstruction. Stories of Gibby Haynes, Courtney Love, Keith Richards, and others intermingle with harrowing tales of the House of Shock crack den and breakdowns in Australia. 

He owns it all. No big sobriety arc or 12-step apology tour. He knows he’s hurt people and wasted time, but his warmth and talent shine.

Listen to it.

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Note: This is part of a series on memoirs read by their authors. #AudioMemoir

Previously in this series: Neko Case

Coming soon: Wayne Kramer, Evan Dando, Larry Charles

Listening to Crowe’s warm narration as he mines his teen music journalism years for laughs and tears, it felt like Almost Famous: Writer's Cut. 

A love letter to the 1970s, with Rock Stars galore, from Lou Reed to Dicky Betts. Tales of long tours, late nights, and chance encounters. All guided by mentor Lester Bangs. 

Light on movie career, but has choice Fast Times stories. Even winning an Oscar is quick business. 

Not the box set of his life, rather a double album. But in the end, it is a story about a family in San Diego.

Listen to it.

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I am a Kurt Vile-O'phile. Classic Love is quintessential Vile. Warm. Weird. Funny.

A collaboration with Luke Roberts centers the EP. They team up on a version of Roberts's title tune, and KV takes a solo pass on another version of the song. Two versions? Both work.

They co-wrote “Hit of the High Life,” which sounds like a lost song off Neil Young's On The Beach LP. It's confessional, raw, and angsty about the world, macro and micro.

Mix in a Beach House cover, an updated catalog song, and you’ve entered the creative playground Vile calls home.

Stream/Buy it.

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Hailing from the enchanted lands of Seattle, Who Is She? is a supergroup of Indie Rockers from bands I don’t know. What I do know is that this platter is a cauldron-brewed mix of jangle pop, sing-songy vocals, and lo-fi production. 

What separates this from typical retro la-la-las is sassy, funny lyrics, with songs about witchiness overload, a defense of Anne Hathaway, nostalgia for Movie Pass, and an ode to Marianne Williamson. 

The record doesn’t even clock in at 30 minutes. Do you dig labels like Teen Beat, hyper-aware cultural references, and build altars to the divine feminine? Stream it.

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58 Second Song opens The Lemonheads' first album of new material in nearly twenty years. It's three minutes and twenty-two seconds. Typical.

Love Chant is as shambling, warm, and weird as their one consistent but mercurial member, Evan Dando. I'm a lifetime member of the Dando Apologists Club, so I'm already lost, but this is a fun, fuzzy batch of '90s Guitar Rock. 

The back half of the record swings more than the first, and begins soaring when Juliana Hatfield and Erin Rae harmonize their way into the chorus of Cell Phone Blues. 

Reminiscent of the Lovey album. Stream it.

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Most will start this expecting Neko's tales of Rock & Roll, only to read a memoir about poverty, family pain, and generational trauma. Case presents a stark look at growing up poor and neglected in North America.

There are some music business bits, but they feel like addenda to her rich story. Music helped save her, but it's only part of her narrative. Her quest to find her Slavic heritage resonated with me, from horse-riding women warriors to lady wrestlers to The Muffs.

Her writing crackles with verve. She dashes off analogies, deploying wordplay with a songwriter's touch. Listen to it.

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An inventive and funny movie about a band. Parts documentary, narrative, and musical. The alchemy of farce, myth, and sentimentality is authentic to Pavement; even the parody is believable. 

I searched my Human Intelligence for a comp, and the best I could find was Nathan Fielder. Both use absurdity to find truth.

I cried watching. Was it nostalgia and middle age? Was it watching with my teen daughter? Was it ignoring societal suffocation to revel in the community of the film’s third act? Was it the lyrics divorced from 90s cynicism by musical theater? Who knows, I did. Watch It.

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A 100-word review of a new album by a singer-songwriter who packs in 100 words into a verse? Let's go.  NTFTS is a dense soup of hickster literary tradition, echoes of Giant Sand, and easter egg cultural ephemera references.

Davis spins musical yarns that unravel and recombine with rustic-cosmic magical realism. Every listen reveals new sounds, turns o'phrase, and fuzzes out those deeper thoughts that have me screaming and begging for revolution from a barstool.

Only real heads will follow the Faulkner-esque Mutilation Springs/Falls song duology, so hang in there, recent converts to the 11-minute story-song.

Listen to it.

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