Without a doubt, one of my all-time favorite DIY bedroom popsters
is Chattanooga Tennessee’s Charles Allison.
From his early quirkpop(Emo Camo.mp3), to the more richly textured stuff (Much Like Van Gogh.mp3), to his
current no-depressiony sound (Next Summer.mp3), Charles consistently delivers the goods. Now, being that he’s a
DIY guy, Charles has decided to unburden himself from the task of keeping his back catalog in
print, and thus has posted all his albums, in their entirety, for FREE. Go download that shit!
And while you’re there, drop a tenner and pick up his latest, Braced In The Beams. It is a Fucking. Great. Record.

Also, that new Sushirobo record has
finally sunk in through my thick skull. I urge ye to check it out if ye haven’t.

You know how sometimes you might find out that that fastfood restaurant chain
that you sometimes swing by at lunchtime, you might find out they, like, support
extremist rightwing groups or righttolife or something dirty like that? And
you’re, like, really against that sort of thing? But still, as much as you’re
against it, the fact remains that that place still can get you a chicken sandwich
for a buck 99 in a minute and a half? So, you kinda feel a little bit guilty about
supporting them, but still, come on…those other chicken sandwiches cost $5 and

it takes an hour to get there.

Anyway, Insound currently has a thing going on where you get an autographed copy of
The Shins’ upcoming Chutes Too Narrow if you’re one of the first 50 people
to pre-order. Being that it’s already #3 on their Top Sellers list, you’re probably
already too late. But you could still sign up to win one of the 10 autographed
copies of Deathcab’s Transatlanticm they’re giving away.

And yes, I did grab a fistful of Casey Spooner’s ass on Saturday, but really, who hasn’t?

Tuesday 10/07/03

D Plan - The People’s History Of The Dismemberment Plan*
Do Make Say Think - Winter Hymn Country
Azure Ray - Hold On Love
Band Of Blacky Ranchette - Still Looking Good To Me
Belle & Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress
Death Cab For Cutie - Transatlanticism**
Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci - Sleep/Holiday
Impossible Shapes - We Like It Wild
Kinski/Acid Mothers Temple - Split***
Manishevitz - City Life
Rachel’s - Systems/Layers
Ted Leo - tell Tell Balgeary, Balgury Is Dead EP
VHS or Beta - Solid Gold (AKA STIFLE #3)

* You can now download Pay For The Piano (Grandmaster Incongruous Mix) and
Academy Award (Cex Mix) (no word yet on the Chex Mix) from the DeSoto site

** Title and Registration was recently added as an MP3 over at Barsuk

*** Year. Of. Limited. Edition. Shit. (500 copies)

And Off Records is finally taking pre-orders for the upcoming Hedwig tribute album,
featuring Robyn Hitchcock, Spoon, the Bens, Jonathan Richman, and others.

Stephin Merritt/The Magnetic Fields/The 6ths will be
releasing the soundtrack for the new film “Pieces Of April” in November on Nonesuch. It features
5 previously released songs, and five new songs. And I think we’re still looking to the first quarter
of ‘04 for the new Magnetic Fields release.

And in case you missed it, Jon gave the heads-up on the
limited-edition-of-2000 release of
the Kevin Shields-y Lost In Translation soundtrack, which should be available right now.

And what do you get when you take Brendan Benson & the Wellfed Boys and turn
their geetars up to 11? You get The Mood Elevator, whose
new record Married Alive just came out on Doppler Records. Here’s an mp3, courtesy of The Magic Bag: