New Music Alert

Since I sometimes don't play nearly as much poker as I'd like to play, nor as much as many of the other bloggers play, it's time to expand ye olde wee blog a bit. Other than poker, music is far and away my most passionate recreational avocation, so yeah, let's talk about the rawk.

I know it's awfully early in the year, and a lot of new music is likely to find its way onto folks' playlists this year, but I'd like to submit for consideration a record released about six weeks ago, as one of the coolest things any of you may ever hear in quite a while:

The band is Graham Day and the Gaolers, and the album is Soundtrack to the Daily Grind. It's probably very unlikely that poker bloggers have ever heard of Graham Day. However, he's long known to afficionados of garage rock and the Medway sound as one of the original members of The Prisoners, one of my favorite bands from the original garage rock revival days, and part of the same scene as Billy Childish, Thee Headcoats, Thee Milkshakes, etc.

At any rate, the new Gaolers record is awash in perfect raw pop masterpiece writing, the sounds of Medway guitar, sitar, organ, and wonderful rhythmic goodness supplied by Dan Electro and Buzz Hagstrom, who some may better know as the rhythm section of The Woggles (my absolute favorite live band, and the band I was most jazzed to ever get to share a bill with).

Obviously, this sound isn't for everyone. If your idea of the pinnacle of entertaining rock is corporate crap, then Graham Day & the Gaolers are probably not to your taste. However, if you're at all familiar with anything this guy might play on his show, then you owe it to yourself to give it a listen.

In other news, my former D.C. band The Jet Age, is on the verge of releasing their second album, to be titled, "What Did You Do During the War, Daddy?" I'm really excited for them. Of all the bands I've ever played with, they were, objectively, the best, and other than Jealous Lover Targets, the most difficult to leave. Of course, as usual, it will probably go over well with the reviewers at Pitchfork and Magnet, but only sell a few hundred copies -- such is life in indie rock when you're not a flavor of the month.

Happy listening.