Weekly digest #74

Featuring PJ Harvey, Bad Nerves, MIcky Dolenz, Chelsea Wolfe, Die Spitz and more

📷 PJ Harvey by Steve Gullick

After almost five days in San Diego for a brief trip (and more on that on Wednesday) I’m back in the UK. During my time there I managed to carve out some time for a spot of record shopping, including hitting a cool second-hand record shop in Barrio Logan.

One of the CDs (my poison of choice) I picked up was Here No Evil, a 1992 tribute album to The Monkees. In truth, it was the inclusion of poppy indie rockers Magnapop (whose debut album was partially produced by Michael Stipe, and its follow-up produced by Bob Mould) that sold me on it. Having one of the covers by Mitch Easter was a nice addition, even though I only know him for his R.E.M. production work, ditto R.E.M. session man Peter Holsapple, who also has a track on the album.

Coincidentally, there’s an R.E.M. connection to the Mickey Dolenz story below, as the former Monkee put out an entire R.E.M. covers EP three years ago. At the time it garnered fulsome praise from the band, but didn’t click with me. However, I’ve been listening to the Beach Boys Smile boxset recently and its whimsical, psychedelic pop seems to have oriented my ears in just the right way to reevaluate Dolenz’s version of ‘Shiny Happy People’.

Rounding out the R.E.M. connection to my recent travels was USA 1989, a German bootleg of the band’s Green tour and another of my San Diego purchases. Proof positive that sometimes you don’t need to know if you already have a recording before you buy it.

Anyway, the links are mainly taken from my social media feeds, so if you want more of this sort of thing than you can follow me on Facebook, Threads, Bluesky and Mastodon (I’m also on Instagram).

Headlines

PJ Harvey releases new track, ‘Voyager’ (The Quietus)

Tom Verlaine’s massive personal record collection to go on sale (Consequence of Sound)

The Killers’ Brandon Flowers goes country-western on lead Thrasher single ‘Plans’ (Brooklyn Vegan)

Billy Corgan promises “two LPs” of unreleased Zwan songs on the way – with 60 unheard tracks in the vault (NME)

Beck unveils duet version of ‘Ride Lonesome’ with Sierra Ferrell (Consequence of Sound)

New releases

Bad Nerves batter the ears on new single (Spin)

Fiddlehead to release new EP, share ‘Baby I’ll Change’ video (Punk News)

Search engine unfriendly Philly psych-folk duo @ sign to 4AD for new album Autosmile (Pitchfork)

Johanna Samuels continues Weezer debate, releasing ‘Blue Vs. Pinkerton’ (Stereogum)

Uh Huh Her share first new song In 12 years (Stereogum)

Listen/watch

Hear Micky Dolenz cover a lost Paul Westerberg song for upcoming Monkees anniversary EP (Rolling Stone)

New box set collects 16 Joy Division live albums - hear ‘Transmission’ captured at Paris’ Les Bains Douches in 1979 (The Quietus)

Chelsea Wolfe releases two new songs (Punk News)

Watch Angine de Poitrine perform ‘Fabienk’ on Jools Holland (Pitchfork)

Pup release video for ‘Concrete’ and share b-side ‘If This Is It’ (Punk News)

Long reads

Die Spitz are moving fast (Stereogum)

How Violet Grohl unearthed a Squirrel Bait classic (Spin)

‘Elon Musk is dangerous and crazy. And I kind of used to like him’: Interpol on their political awakening – and making their masterpiece (The Guardian)

Bounty Hunter‘s Zach Salyer discusses growing up in the hardcore scene and the Salt Lake City band’s new EP (No Echo)

5 albums I can’t live without: Kira Roessler, formerly of Dos and Black Flag (Spin)

Elsewhere on Substack

She’s played with Modest Mouse and The Decemberists. Now, Lisa Molinaro is going solo.

And finally…

"We have nothing to do with this." That new Fugazi x Vans trainers collection that's all over social media has no connection with the Washington DC post-hardcore band (Louder)

Do you have a Substack article, news tip or other piece of writing you’d like to be considered for the digest? Send it to tangleofwires@gmail.com (same goes for press releases etc.)