Groovy Thunder

It's nearly time for the inevitable FTSOTS end of year list, but let's get the finest reissues and archival albums of 2019 out of the way first ok? You'll come alive when the band starts swinging... With stocking stuffing artwork by the almighty Tinca, it's ho ho ho and here we go.

1. Peter Laughner - The Peter Laughner Box
2. Bob Dylan - The Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1975 Live Recordings
3. Jimi Hendrix - Songs For Groovy Children: The Fillmore East Concerts
4. v/a - If You're Not Part Of The Solution: Soul, Politics And Spirituality In Jazz '67-'75
5. Jim Sullivan - If The Evening Were Dawn
6. Neil Young & The Stray Gators - Tuscaloosa
7. Sachiko Kanenobu - Misora
8. Grateful Dead - Dave's Picks Vol. 30: Fillmore East 1970
9. v/a - Black Man's Pride 3: None Shall Escape The Judgement Of The Almighty
10. Tunng - This Is Tunng... Magpie Bites And Other Cuts

Peter Laughner - Fat City Jive

Eye On The Moon

A wonderful present for yesterday's birthday boy: a beautiful box with the collected works of Peter Laughner, the extremely talented but equally self-destructive Cleveland musician, music writer, and scenester from Cleveland who died far too young at only 24 years of age back in '77. The connaisseurs among you may remember him as a co-founder of the seminal Rocket from the Tombs and the mighty Pere Ubu. With a mixture of fine originals and inspired covers, all rather lo-fi but who gives a damn, this 5 disc plus big book labour of love makes you wonder what could have been, and then some... Play on.

Peter Laughner - Cinderella Backstreet
Peter Laughner - (Going To) China

Look Out Cleveland

Yeah, that mid-seventies Cleveland protopunk scene was something special alright. The priceless Pere Ubu and the Dead Boys got out later and would hit the big leagues by way of New York City, but this is the sound of how it all started in the Forest City. "I don't know what I know, but I'd just like to shoot it..." In need of some scenic background? Check here.

Electric Eels - Agitated
Rocket From The Tombs - What Love Is
The Styrenes - Drano In Your Veins
Mirrors - Shirley

From The Tombs

"I found myself set free in a city without weather..." On this day back in '77, Cleveland musician and scenester Peter Laughner died, way too young. Too much fleurs du mal. Play on.

Peter Laughner -  Baudelaire