Don Giovanni Vinyl, CD & Tape 39 Items

On her second full-length record as Waxahatchee, former P.S. Eliot singer Katie Crutchfield’s compelling hyper-personal poetry is continuously crushing. Cerulean Salt follows last January’s American Weekend -- a collection of minimal acoustic-guitar pop written and recorded in a week at her family’s Birmingham home.

On this new record, Crutchfield’s songs continue to be marked by her sharp, hooky songwriting; her striking voice and lyrics that simultaneously seem hyper-personal yet relentlessly relatable, teetering between endearingly nostaglic and depressingly dark. But whereas before the thematic focus of her songcraft was on break ups and passive-aggressive crushing, this record reflects on her family and Alabama upbringing. And whereas American Weekend was mostly just Crutchfield and her guitar, Cerulean Salt is occasionally amped up, with a full band and higher-fi production.

At times, Cerulean Salt creeps closer to the sound of PS Eliot: moody, 90s-inspired rock backed by Keith Spencer and Swearin’ guitarist Kyle Gilbride on drums and bass. The full band means fleshed-out fuzzy lead guitars on “Coast to Coast”, its poppy hook almost masking its dark lyrics. Big distorted guitars and deep steady drums mark songs like “Misery over Dispute” and “Waiting”.

There’s plenty of American Weekend‘s instrospection and minimalism to be found, though. “Blue Pt. II” is stripped down, Crutchfield and her sister Alison (of Swearin’) singing in harmony with deadpan vox. She’s still an open booking, musing on self-doubt versus self-reliance, transience versus permanence. “Peace and Quiet” ebbs and flows from moody, minimal verses to a sing-song chorus. “Swan Dive” tackles nostalgia, transience, indifference, regret — over the a minimal strum of an electric-guitar, the picking at a chirpy riff and the double-time tapping of a muted drum. The album closes with a haunting acoustic-guitar reflection on “You’re Damaged,” possibly the best Waxahatchee song to date.

"They were one of those bands that were a prequel to what the future was becoming. Feminism, human rights, animal rights, environmental protection, gender issues... Spitboy was singing about these issues 30 fucking years ago. I'm so grateful to have witnessed it." -Billie Joe Armstrong "Spitboy are one of the most important punk bands to have ever existed. To me, an angry 20-year-old in London, discovering them felt like the first time I truly identified with a band's politics and agenda. One of my all-time favourite albums (then and now) was Penis Envy by Crass. No lyrics had ever touched me the way this album had--until Spitboy entered my life. My people. My radical feminists. My punk scene. Where I have lived and belonged for over 30 years." -Vique Simba

The bad news is that P.S. ELLIOT have called it a day (though you still have a chance to catch them a couple more times). The good news is that from the ashes of that Alabama band rises the now-Brooklyn-based WAXAHATCHEE, otherwise known as KATIE CRUTCHFIELD who uses 'just guitar, her voice, and a piano to tell stories.' Her debut solo album, entitled American Weekend, will see the light of day on January 10th via Don Giovanni Records who say 'the record is a product of a wintry week in Alabama, literally. The 11 songs were recorded in a span of seven days on an 8-track recorder.

"Some people think this record is unlistenable, while others consider this one of the key documents of the American music underground" - Byron Coley -55th Anniversary edition, one time pressing of 1500 foil numbered 2xLP copies -2 disc collection including original album remastered and Live in 1965 -Half-speed mastered vinyl cut by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios -Live in 1965 (Disc 2) remastered by Ryan Schwabe and available on vinyl for the first time -Comprehensive liner notes by Jesse Jarnow (Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America) and Peter Stampfel The year 1967 proved to be a strong point of the ’60s generation culture and the ever growing New York underground music scene. Steve Weber and Peter Stampfel provided a blithe sendup of musical Americana as they mined this tradition, while introducing outrageous and zany virtuoso turns on acoustic guitar, banjo and violin. Their lyrics and vocals are uniquely their own. Their personalities were profoundly incompatible, like those of Gilbert and Sullivan.

Four decades after releasing the first openly gay country album, Patrick Haggerty & Friends are back with a fresh batch of songs as poignant as ever. Running the gamut from gut-wrenching ballads to rowdy marxist singalongs, Haggerty uses his knack for sharp storytelling to shine a light on institutionalized racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia. The current emergence of fascism and the deep political divisions in American culture are making Lavender Country a critical component of progressive and radical politics. 'Now 74 years old, Haggerty again respects no limits lyrically or musically. Where else can you hear a honky-tonk number about author and activist Clara Fraser, a socialist and radical feminist who died in 1998?' - Country Queer 'The band on the album is both cross-generational, cross-gender, and multi-racial, the kind of Lavender Country community described in the title track of the first album' - Adobe & Teardrops 'The new music blends a striking mix of radical queer and socialist politics, rural aesthetics, and classic country sound. Haggerty examines the risks intimacy, lust, and unconventional values pose to those seeking human connection and purpose in life' - Slate

What began as an occasional recording project designed to allow Mark Palm to indulge his obsession with song-craft and pop sensibility through a series of two-song singles, has developed into a fully functioning band with countless live shows and many tours under it's belt. Although best known for playing in a long lineage of hardcore, punk, and metal groups, Palm began exploring softer sounds in the late aughts as one of the primary songwriters of San Francisco shoegazers Modern Charms before adopting the Supercrush moniker as a vehicle for his pursuit of powerpop preeminence.

The Cycle is the fifth album by Mourning [A] BLKstar. It's the Cleveland-based collective's masterwork -- a double LP spanning 20 songs and three singers, touching on neo-soul, hip-hop, and the cosmic expanse in between/beyond. It is a humble addition to the long legacy of James Baldwin's adage of the artist as witness. It is their song cycle, written in a time that just may need a song or two in support of and in love and power to the living.

Since releasing their first album There Is a Bomb in Gilead in 2012, the road-worn Birmingham, Alabama band has built a reputation as being what NPR calls 'punks revved up by the hot-damn hallelujah of Southern rock' who carry on 'the Friday-night custom of burning down the house,' a raw live sound that they captured with Texas punk producer Tim Kerr on studio albums Dereconstructed (2014) and Youth Detention (2017) before recording a full-on live album at their favorite hometown dive, Live at the Nick (2019). While the Glory Fires have spent a decade propagating what the New York Times calls 'pandemonium with a conscience,' they've long talked about wanting to make a classic record'not a transparent document of their playing live with the occasional embellishment'but a record. So, that's what they did. They contacted Athens, Georgia's David Barbe, whose work with the Drive-By Truckers, Sugar, Son Volt, Vic Chesnutt and countless other artists has earned him a legendary reputation amongst Southern independent rockers, and they agreed to set about bringing this vision to fruition. While tackling such lofty political, historical and philosophical concepts, the album is also the band's most intimate, vulnerable and spiritual to date. The perspective is both outward- and inward-facing, Bains never taking on the persona or experience of others, but rather writing about the way his own limited experience and perspective of the band's place can lift the veils of false narratives, and uncover 'piles of winding stories' through time. In an age characterized by individualism, and at a time when the past seems to be the sole domain of the status quo, Old-Time Folks illustrates the deep, thick, tangled roots of liberation, collectivism, mutuality and solidarity in the Deep South, and where they are flowering and bringing forth fruit today.

In 1954, 12 year old Jerry Williams, then performing under the name Little Jerry Williams, made his first recording for Mechanic Records, a blues stomp with a shockingly mature vocal performance. Through the 60"s Williams' career developed with a number of successful singles, including 'I'm the Lover Man' and 'Baby You're My Everything', as well as writing and producing hits for Dee Dee Warwick, Doris Duke, and Patti LaBelle and the Blue Belles. It was in 1970, however, that the full extent of Williams' eccentric creative genius was unleashed on the world for the first time, with the birth of his musical alter-ego, Swamp Dogg. Created to 'occupy the body while the search party was out looking for Jerry Williams, who was mentally missing in action due to certain pressures, mal-treatments and failure to get paid royalties on over fifty single records,' the Swamp Dogg alias, still in use today, allowed Williams to create music that was bolder, raunchier, and more honest to his creative instincts. The Dogg's cult classic debut 'Total Destruction to Your Mind' struck a powerful blend of Williams classic soulful sensibilities and the blooming psychedelia of the time. Infused in the swirling brew is Swamp's blink-and-you'll-miss-it humor, a number of acid odes, and a heavy dose of sharp political insight. Though the psychedelic strangeness alienated R&B fans of the time, and the authentic R&B infrastructure prevented it from clicking with hippie audiences, it has retroactively received legendary status in cult music circles.Now, 50 years after Total Destruction introduced Swamp Dogg to an unprepared world, and nearly 70 since Little Jerry Williams went into the studio for Mechanic, Williams brings us I Need A Job' So I Can Buy More Autotune. A spiritual successor to 2018"s hit Love, Loss and Autotune, this album continues to push Swamp's sonic exploration of the effect as one of his many creative weapons. In the extended tradition of Total Destruction, Swamp Dogg's 2021 LP neatly balances sleek modern production techniques with that classic Dogg sound that has anchored William's music since the 70s. Subtle yet soulful drumming, skin-tight horn grooves and meandering funk guitar leads create a sonic landscape fitting Swamp Dogg's iconic croon, occasionally drenched in the titular autotune. At 78, Swamp Dogg is as sharp of a singer and songwriter as ever. His raunchy yet charismatic sense of humor takes a more forward role on I Need a Job' So I Can Buy More Autotune, with earnestly delivered lyrics about all day sex and an entire song dedicated to the perils of 'Cheating in the Daylight.' Many of the record's most charming moments emerge from the juxtaposition of Swamp's left field humor with genuine messages of love, such as 'She Got That Fire', which weaves descriptions of imagined sex acts, including but not limited to an encounter involving edible underwear, in between relatively wholesome proclamations like 'she must be an angel on earth,' and 'when she looks at you, it's like sunshine from her eyes'. I Need a Job does more than prove that Swamp's still got it, it proves he's still getting better.

Wheel features strings by Grammy award winning violinist Rob Moose (Bon Iver, Antony And The Johnsons), brass accompaniment from Kelly Pratt (Beirut, Arcade Fire, David Byrne and St. Vincent), and was produced and mixed by Kevin McMahon (Swans, Titus Andronicus, Frightened Rabbit, Real Estate). Laura Stevenson was born and raised on Long Island with music in her blood. Her grandfather Harry Simeone a successful composer ('Little Drummer Boy', 'Do You Hear What I Hear') and her grandmother Margaret McCravy a singer for bandleader Benny Goodman. On Wheel she pours geography and heritage into the record, tackling family dynamics of dependence and support, and the feelings of isolation and insignificance that she has experienced while growing up surrounded by a vast body of water on a planet surrounded by an endlessly expanding universe. The album is also about coming to terms with these relationships and feelings, as well as her own and other's mortality. Many of the lyrics on the album explore these themes before coming back to an understanding and acceptance of our place in the world, the short time we will spend here, and the people we end up sharing it with.

Now available on Hot Pink vinyl! Nc/dc superghouls Bat Fangs pick up where Roky & the Aliens blasted off -- cranking acid-soaked '80s hard rock for the living and the dead. Making heady heavy music for third eyes and stiff upper lips, Betsy Wright (Ex Hex) shreds 'n' howls over Laura King's (Fleshwounds, Speed Stick, The Moaners) deep-thunder drums. Let the Bat Fangs sink in!

The album follows Stevenson's 2019 career milestone The Big Freeze, celebrated for its 'finely detailed, wrenchingly intimate songwriting' (All Songs Considered), and a 2020 NPR Tiny Desk (counted as one of the year's 20 Best). Produced by John Agnello (Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., Kurt Vile,) at The Building in Marlboro, NY, Laura Stevenson is an altogether beautiful record, a sincere portrait of a human heart in all its vibrant colors. More than anything, it is about bearing one's whole self in the face of those you love - uncomfortable, and exposed, but vital, present. Here.

For years Supercrush confined themselves to the limitations of the two-song 7" single format, demonstrating a mastery of hyper efficient song-craft, while leaving their audience wondering if a more expansive work would ever emerge. Sodo Pop answers that question, delivering on the promise of those 7" singles and then some with 36 minutes of guitar pop alchemy. With a full-length album, the band is for the first time afforded the space to stretch out, allowing for explorations into more ambitious song structures, varied compositions, and additional instrumentation. But those who enjoyed the of the brevity of the band's early material needn't worry, there are still plenty of compact two and a half to three minute gems here in the tradition of the group's tried and true superpop formula. Pressed on Orange Vinyl.