I know. I know. It’s only April. Way too early to be making predictions about Album of the Year. Plus, it’s a metal record we’re talkin’ about and few will believe that a metal record–even a really catchy, accessible metal record–could ever be, you know, the record. (Those who already worship this album should just go check out the most genius thing on the Internet.)

But it must be said, just so I can say, I told you so: Torche’s Meanderthal, which came out on Tuesday, is this year’s album to beat. Even with its inappropriate title, Where the Wild Things Are cover art, and Heavy Metal Parking Lot lyrics (on “Across the Shield, Steve Brooks sings, “Impalin’ every born knight/Raidin’, pierced the hole, rite”), this album does more, aesthetically, and does it better than anything else I’ve heard this year, or last year.

Seriously.

You can hear Meanderthal here.

The Nationals are requesting your votes for “7th Inning Stretch Song,” “Home Run Song,” and “Victory Song.” As pointed out in this Idolator post, there’s only one local choice in there, Chuck Brown’s “Bustin Loose” (my personal theme music for overeating) and the rest are pretty crappy (though I do get goosebumps whenever I hear U2’s “Beautiful Day”).

You’d think that, instead of Blur’s Fugazi rip-off “Song 2,” we could get an actual Fugazi song. Luckily, there’s a write-in function.

A friend just sent me a link to a PopMatters post about the demise of Silver Spring’s Harp Magazine. I asked a colleague who would know and I was told that it is indeed true.

Looks like the issue with Dain Bramage’s Dave Grohl on the cover might be the magazine’s swan song.

There’s an odd poetry to Bob Mould’s latest blog post, in which he piles on links to the latest interviews related to his new album, District Line:

Bob Mould finds happiness.

Bob Mould walks the line.

Bob Mould hasn’t quite mellowed.

So, yeah, he’s cooled off a bit; nobody who loves New Day Rising (or even Copper Blue) is going to get as excited about District Line, but it’s not a wussed-out “maturity” move either. (And speaking as the editor of his former column, an easygoing personality does make one’s job a lot easier; I doubt I’d have a whole lot of patience for a writer who was forever in “Everything Falls Apart” mode.) Mould’s band plays the 9:30 Club on Saturday, followed by Blowoff, his monthly dance party with Richard Morel.

It’s a big weekend for locals at 9:30 Club: Interscope signee and Seinfeld aficionado Wale plays there Sunday. Cocaine Blunts has more info and MP3 links.

DC music writer Marc Masters‘ No Wave book has been out for a couple months now. The Village Voice reviewed it last November. And Washington City Paper’s Mark Athitakis reviewed it and interviewed Masters back in January.

I didn’t write about it when it came out for a lot of boring reasons, but I wanted to blog about the book a bit on a personal level. Masters is a friend and when he contacted me about using some of the No Wave-related interviews that I conducted in the late ‘90s I was more than happy to dig through my archives. This is less glamorous than it sounds. It involves moving my cat’s litter box, as well as numerous suitcases and various paint buckets and such.

The reason I had this material in the first place is because, when I first acquired and became enamored with the Brian Eno-produced No New York compilation album—the central document in the noisy No Wave movement—I decided to write an article about it. I did this not because I was looking for something to write, but because I was curious and it didn’t seem like anyone had ever tackled the subject of this 1978 album—or at least not retrospectively.

Basically, what I was looking for was Masters’ book. It is every bit as exhaustive as I wanted my article about the No New York album to be but wasn’t. The New York-based post-punk movement called No Wave didn’t last long and didn’t leave many recordings behind (the big bands are MARS, DNA, and the Contortions). So, every 7-inch takes on the importance of an album—or even a sub-genre. This might smack of nerdy obsessiveness, but you just can’t cover the subject at length without getting into that level of detail.

Masters contributes to the forward-pushing British magazine The Wire, a publication that panned his book, saying that it’s too academic. It’s an odd charge coming from a review that’s much drier than the book itself. The main bone of contention seems to be the footnotes at the end of each chapter. I guess Masters could’ve included the attributions in the text, but he did so much research for this thing that it might’ve just bogged down the prose. Besides, Lester Bangs already dealt with this stuff, critically, in his usual blurtin’ fashion. A more thorough journalistic approach was overdue–and that’s just what Masters provides.

OK, to get this out of the way: The Pogues at 9:30 last night was the best show I have ever seen in my life. It was fucking religious. And although I’ve no idea how Shane MacGowan has kept his liver from sliding down his pantleg after all these years, he has and he was upright and it was enough.

Some highlights:

1. MacGowan still sounds just as he did on studio albums cut in the ’80s. It’s the same chewing-on-a-driveway/smooth as cream voice, even more remarkable considering that, true to legend, he actually could not speak—the only semi-intelligble words I heard were, “Hello Wasssshhhton.” He dropped his mike, missed his mouth with a bottle of mystery booze kept at his feet; he looked pasty and near-death and when he occasionally walked offstage, he came back even more shattered. Yet after 25 years, after breakups and canceled shows, after the death of Joe Strummer and guitarist Phillip Chevron’s recent bout with cancer, MacGowan and his long-suffering bandmates brought it, firing through a near-perfect setlist. It wasn’t groundbreaking—starting with “Stream of Whiskey” and ending, after two encores, with “Fiesta”—but it contained gems both rocking and nostalgic: “If I Should Fall from the Grace of God,” “A Pair of Brown Eyes,” “The Body of an American,” “Dirty Old Town,” “Sunnyside of the Street,” “Bottle of Smoke,” “Sick Bed of Cuchulainn,” and, a personal fave, “Rainy Night in SoHo.”

2. Founding member and tin whistler Spider Stacy took the lead on a couple of songs, including his “Tuesday Morning.” In a word: lovely. The band, with him at the helm, will likely live on (again) after MacGowan.

3. MacGowan, in an old tradition he borrowed from Stacy, beat his head with a beer tray at the end of “Fiesta.” And did not fall down.

4. This was after his on-pitch screaming during several spirited numbers.

5. And a number of cigarettes onstage. If the drink hasn’t killed him, I don’t think D.C. law can really touch him.

6. The opening act, London’s Urban Voodoo Machine—with its two drummers, multiple antics, and obvious Tom Waits inspiration—was a great tone-setter. They’re opening tonight, too, and playing the Red and the Black on Tuesday. Definitely worth a look.

7. Up on the second tier, I watched the superfans pogo at the front of the stage and sing every word and, although not a superfan, I felt what they felt. Growing up vaguely a Mick, seeing the Pogues together and hearing them sounding so great was like going home, or at least for me, it was like channeling my life 15 years ago—a college apartment, a couple of roommates from Ireland, a boombox, and the Pogues turned up very, very loud.

There are a few tickets on Craigslist for tonight’s show, some of them reasonably priced. I can’t think MacGowan is going to be around for many more tours, if any, and this one is limited. If you can, go.

Baltimore’s Human Bell—seen here performing at the Adams Morgan record store Crooked Beat—just announced a national tour with Japan’s Boredoms, a band that Washington City Paper’s Aaron Leitko described as the most bizarre “ever to have graced the roster of a major label.”

Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band might dispute that claim, but I can say for certain that the Boredoms are one of the top-five best live acts I’ve ever seen (Brown’s Island, in 1994, with Sonic Youth and Superchunk).

Human Bell is Dave Heumann, frontman of Arbouretum, and Nathan Bell, best known as bassist for Lungfish. According to both bands’ label, Thrill Jockey, the Boredoms “handpicked” them for this tour.

Here are the dates. Alas, no DC:

Mon Mar 10 Lousiville, KY Ear X-Tacy (in-store)
Wed Mar 12 Dallas, TX Good Records (in-store) w/ Kid Dakota
Thur Mar 13 Marfa, TX TBA
Sat Mar 15 San Diego, CA Canes w/Boredoms
Sun Mar 16 Los Angeles, CA Family (in-store)
Sun Mar 16 Los Angeles, CA Henry Fonda Theater w/Boredoms
Mon Mar 17 San Luis Obispo, CA Boo Boo Records (in-store)
Tue Mar 18 San Francisco, CA The Fillmore Auditorium w/Boredoms
Thu Mar 20 Portland, OR Crystal Ballroom w/Boredoms
Fri Mar 21 Seattle, WA Neumos w/Boredoms
Sat Mar 22 Anacortes, WA Department of Safety w/ Mt. Eerie, Photosynthesis
Mon Mar 23 Missoula, MT The Palace (Badlander downstairs, free show)
Tue Mar 25 Minneapolis, MN First Avenue w/Boredoms
Wed Mar 26 Chicago, IL Congress Theater w/Boredoms, Soft Circle
Thu Mar 27 Chicago, IL AV-Erie

The Boredoms will be at the 9:30 Club on April 3rd

Back in the mid-’90s, I briefly worked at the Library of Congress, where Polvo guitarist Dave Brylawski’s uncle was one of my supervisors. At the time, his nephew’s North Carolina alt-rock outfit was one of my favorite bands.

(I spent a week last month listening to Polvo’s entire catalogue–every skronky aside, every Dinosaur Jr.-worthy hook, every Indian-sounding riff–going to and from work. Know what? It sounds every bit as great as it did back in the band’s early-to-late-’90s heyday.)

So, when I discovered that the Brylawski I worked for was related to the Brylawski in Polvo, I began a regular ritual of asking the uncle for news about the band. I remember, at one point, getting kinda PO’d when I saw a new EP, 1995’s This Eclipse, at Vinyl Ink in Silver Spring. Why didn’t the uncle tell me about this?!?

Anyway, I used to go see Polvo whenever they would come to the Black Cat, which, according to Pitchfork, is where the band is scheduled to play its first show on an All Tomorrow’s Parties-inspired reunion tour.

If it’s anything like the show or two I saw during my Library of Congress stint, the May 9th set will involve equipment malfunctions, tuning problems, and a sleepy-looking Ash Bowie. Can’t wait.

The interactive/online project Capitol of Punk of late 2006 was one of the most interesting histories of the harDCore scene. It featured a series of maps, guided tour stops, and videos for every stop, and could either be viewed on the Internet or downloaded to your video iPod for walking, much like a 21st-century version of DC’s heritage trails. Viewers can learn about venues past (d.c. space) and present (Fort Reno), plus hear Ian MacKaye’s adoration of Marion Barry and Ian Svenonius‘ assertion that D.C.’s landmarks were deliberately plotted in the shape of a pentagram. Oh, Ians!

But if you don’t have a video iPod, or you just like seeing your films on a big screen, tonight you might want to head down to the Black Cat. Capitol of Punk: Places and Stories of Hardcore in DC will be screened at the Backstage from 9 to 11. And for free! All ages, even! The scene lives on.

In Dischord news, “Medications are soldiering on as a duo and have a show booked in March in Washington at DC9.”We know that drummer Andrew Becker has left the band. But Dischord doesn’t say what form the duo will take. Both of the remaining members, Devin Ocampo and Chad Molter, excel on multiple instruments.

Here’s what Medications’ Web site has to say: “we have yet to work the kinks out. please come out as it will be interesting if only to see us fail miserably.”