Essential EleganceVarious Artists, Just Like Heav-en: a Tribute to the Cure, Ameri-can Laundromat Records [1/27/09] After Dinosaur Jr. sunk their substantial chops into "Just Like Heaven," they rendered all subsequent Cure covers superfluous. It's not that Robert Smith's lipstick-smeared combo crafted ridi-culously complex songs. On the contrary, admirers tend to em-bellish them needlessly, instead of finding a way to preserve their essential elegance. J. Mascis, Murph, et al got the balance right. Of the 16 tracks on Just Like Heaven, Dean & Britta and the Wedding Present provide the finest. Respectively: a drowsy "Fri-day I'm in Love" and rambun

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Revved UpI first heard Mercury Rev's Yerself Is Steam while volunteeringat KCMU in 1991. My first thought: Wow. Pop-psych nirvana (small"n"). Tracks like "Chasing a Bee," "Coney Island Cyclone"—I loved 'emall...even if I had no idea what David Baker was going on about. Itdidn't matter. It was the era of the Flaming Lips and the Spacemen 3, and the vibe was king. Even the hazy neon-green packaging was cool. Click here for the non-LP track video, "Car Wash Hair"Then came 1993's Boces, and I wondered if I hadn't overeacted to the Buffalo's band's first record. Goofy cover aside, I didn't think their follow-up was bad; just that it was, by comparison, und

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The Piano Tuners of Strange Imagery: An Interview with the Brothers QuayFrom time to time, I'll be excavating unedited versions of interviews that aren't otherwise available online. To that end, here's the first draft of my conversation with the Brothers Quay. Because I was unable to record our call, there aren't many direct or in-depth quotations, but I took as many notes as I possibly could. The finished edition appears in the 4/07 issue of Resonance, which ceased publication in 2/08. ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****Welcome to a shadow world where plastic dolls walk, stuffed rab-bits juggle, and dead opera singers return t

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November ReviewsThese are the reviews and interviews I'm working on this month.Amazon CDs: Calexico - Carried to Dust, The Dirtbombs -We Have You Surrounded, Frightened Rabbit - The Midnight Organ Fight, James Hunter - The Hard Way, Jenny Lewis - Acid Tongue, M83 - Saturdays = Youth, Mercury Rev - Snowflake Midnight, Shearwater - Rook, and Vivian Girls - Vivian Girls.Amazon DVDs: The L Word - The Complete Fifth Season and Up the Yangtze (excellent doc from Canada's Yung Chang).Amazon Theatricals: Milk (Gus Van Sant directs Sean Penn),Breakfast with Scot (gay parenting with Ed's Tom Cavanagh),and Let the Right One In (preteen Swedish vampires are go).S

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