iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Dunno ‘bout you all, but I’m happy the weekend of Discourse about that song saved us from having to have a weekend of Discourse about that book.

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I cannot, in good conscience, recommend watching Ski Party (1965)—an abysmal film—but here’s my ranking of its musical performances from worst to best: 4. The Hondells, on a beach. 3. Lesley Gore, in a bus. 2. James Brown, in a ski lodge. 1. A yodeling polar bear, on skis.

Ski Party (1965) lobby card, featuring a skiing polar bear (who yodels).

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Another of these no-name-on-the-spine boxes arrived yesterday, courtesy of a Very Famous Art Director who should know better.

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Lisa told me that someone on Instagram had written a terrible song about Aloka The Peace Dog (“kinda Christopher Cross-y”) so I made up my own version of what I thought it probably sounded like—“peace-y peaceful peace Ah-LOH-kaaa!”—and now the fake song is stuck in my head and I am in hell.

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Some belated words about Kaleb Horton, who died a year ago today. I was supposed to speak at his memorial last fall, but I got covid and ended up stumbling around my house in a bathrobe instead of trying to say something thoughtful to a roomful of people who felt as grief-stricken as I did.

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Late-breaking entry for that best TV shows of the century list.

I use it the same way Dennis DeYoung had to use his gift

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

The greatest triple album since uh…”Escalator Over The Hill”? “Entropical Paradise”? “Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends — Ladies And Gentlemen, Emerson Lake & Palmer”? Yes.

Sarah Davachi, “The Will Of Tongues” (Late Music, 2026)

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

The only time I’ve ever succeeded in gaining entry to a sold-out show by abject begging.

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

There’s lots to like about “Violent Saturday”—Lee Marvin obsessively huffing a Vicks inhaler! Ernest Borgnine as an Amish guy! Gorgeous long-take CinemaScope compositions!—but the highlight for me was the selection of paperbacks in the town drugstore (including Henry Kane’s “Report For A Corpse”).

The drugstore paperback selection in “Violent Saturday.”

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

I’ve worked with two artists who refused to give up their publishing in the 1960s, saw their careers flatline in the ‘70s and ‘80s, but then earned staggering amounts of money when their work was covered and sampled in the ‘90s and ‘00s. #keepyourpublishing

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Bruce Levenstein @brucelevenstein.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

I buy what Andy tells me. 💿 #tinyeasel

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

I somehow managed to miss out for decades on Jon Hassell’s incredible Eno/Lanois-produced ECM album—spiraling minimalist ethno-chug of the highest order—so I am now urging you not to make the same tragic mistake.

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

What I’ve been doing to distract myself while waiting since 8AM (and still waiting…) for the AT&T repair guy to show up.

Marc Bolan, The Beginning Of Doves; Blegvad/Greaves/Herman, Kew. Rhone.; Charles Mingus, Oh Yeah; Robert Wyatt, Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard; Robert Forster, Songwriters On The Run.

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Fantastic “wow, did they ever get this one right” reissue of the debut Magical Power Mako LP from 1974: it fuses about 17 different strains of past/present/future Japanese psychedelia into a semi-impenetrable whole. Allegedly a full-analog job; sounds fab. Highly recommended to “Faust Tapes” fans!

Magical Power Mako, Magical Power (Polydor/UMG, 1974/2020)

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

This is a great Marsh obit, although the fact that Tom's obsessed-over-as-a-teen copy of the Rolling Stone Record Guide was the second edition--which omits the phrase--and not the first--where it appears hundreds of times--is probably (mercifully) what's kept him from titling it "Now Deleted."

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Okay, okay, fine, I’ll admit it: you’re an even bigger Slapp Happy fan than I am.

A moving pod with “DAGMAR” sprayed on it in huge yellow letters.

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

I only met Dave Marsh once: we were seated next to each other on a post-SXSW flight from Austin to JFK and ended up having a hyper-entertaining four-hour conversation/argument. I’d spent my adolescence disagreeing with his takes, but I walked off the plane thinking “that guy is fucking awesome.”

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

I defy you to find an album with a more on-the-nose set of “Attention, people of the future: this album is from 1973!” track titles than the Richard Davis LP I’m presently listening to.

back cover of Richard Davis Trio, Song For Wounded Knee (1973)

SONG FOR WOUNDED KNEE
WATERGATE
ITT AND ALLENDE
MR. NIXON AND GENERAL THIEU
THE RISE AND FALL OF TRICKY DICK
AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL?
AGNEWISTIC

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

40 years ago this week, my nemesis Bleecker Bob sold me the first copy off the plane from London of this dreadful LP. Unlike all of the other imports that Bleecker Bob mocked me for buying from him during this era, his low opinion of this one was accurate and his mockery was entirely deserved.

Sigue Sigue Sputnik, Flaunt It (deluxe version, 1986)

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

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Chrïs @whiterhinotea.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Peter Hammill is my favourite vocalist of all time. The Hendrix of the voice? Nah. The Olivier. Nobody conveys the range and depth of emotion that he does. Even by his standards this performance is fucking extraordinary. West is Mike & Susie…

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Anthony Newley is one of those strange, hidden-in-plain-sight figures like Lee Hazlewood or Rod McKuen--massively successful, then ignored and/or misunderstood for decades. "The Strange World of Gurney Slade" was at least three or four decades ahead of its time. Now that it's back, don't miss it.

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

“Zoetrope vinyl” will be to the thrift stores of the 2030s what Magic Eye books were to the thrift stores of the aughts.

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Had dinner with my folks at a place with a piano player. The guy launched into an extended Sound Of Music medley, forcing me into an anxiety spiral of: “Please don’t play ‘The Lonely Goatherd,’ please don’t play ‘The Lonely Goatherd.’” (My most-hated song.) Then he played “The Lonely Goatherd.”

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

With Randy Mantooth gone, everyone I watched on TV on Friday nights as a kid is now dead except Kevin Tighe, the Brady kids, and 50% of the Partridge Family.

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

Latest random discovery in the @ajc-project.bsky.social trove of audio wonders: a fantastic 2004 Jon Langford performance of Procol Harum's "Homburg":

dn710700.ca.archive.org

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

The only person whose "I just got off the phone with Mitch McConnell" riff I would enjoy reading is Kaleb Horton.

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

The only person whose "I just got off the phone with Mitch McConnell" riff I would enjoy reading is Kaleb Horton.

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Browsing in fab indie bookstore whose hard-to-argue-with music selection—Lloyd Cole —> Bats —> Close Lobsters —> Galaxie 500 —> Pastels—was suddenly interrupted by Edie Brickell’s “What I Am,” prompting the very 2026 question: blame The Algorithm or an actual human’s regrettable lapse in taste?

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Michael Tanner @michaeltanner.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

Today I learned about the existence of a Kraftwerk boot wherein shoddy AI has rendered all band members as a sort-of techno JD Vance gangbang.

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

In 1976, the DC art department celebrated the bicentennial by attempting to cram as many unrelated graphic elements as possible onto a single comic book cover.

A 1976 issue of Adventure Comics with waaay too much going on.

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

45 seconds of reading about it and I was like “I’m going to try and think about nothing except Takehisa Kosugi and Roland Kayn records for the rest of the weekend.”

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Can’t wait for the latest archival boxed set from the same folks who’ve been doing such a consistent job of botching the sound on all of the artist’s previous archival boxed sets.

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

Are there records that, each time you stumble upon a cheap copy in the wild, you buy to give to friends whose lives you are certain are empty and meaningless without them? This is one of mine.

The umpteenth copy of Dexy’s “Don’t Stand Me Down” that I have liberated from a dollar bin to bestow upon a deserving friend.

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

My finely-honed psychodiscographic super-powers allow me to deduce every detail of a person’s life from the records that I find at their estate sales.

Pentangle, Leo Kottke, John Renbourne, Shankar/Previn, “Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid” soundtrack, as found at an estate sale this morning.

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

In other news, I am pleased to report that Zinc Alloy And The Hidden Riders Of Tomorrow--which I had somehow never listened to in its entirety until yesterday due to its awful title and even worse cover art--is a gorgeous, slept-on T. Rex album which I will be playing the shit out of all summer.

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

Today's Music Discourse Stupidity comes to you from "...a concert junkie and playlist curation expert who likes pushing boundaries in his wide array of music taste." Oh.

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

Beatlesploitation at its finest.

SUMMER LOVE
summer
LOVE
DON'T BE SO SURE...
T HAPPENED TO ME AND IT CAN HAPPEN TO YOU!
THE BEATLES WERE MY
DOWNFALL!

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

1. 45 minute set by critical darling too smacked-out to finish a single one of her songs. 2. Worst goth band of all time opening for New Order in 1983. 3. Passive-aggressive cult hero who refused to perform originals and played a 13-minute “Duke of Earl” to finish his contractually-mandated hour.

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

Cabaret Voltaire audience tonight is at the exact center of the “goth kidz”/“aging hipsters”Venn diagram.

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Andy Zax @andyzax.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

Scott is one of my heroes, and it's beyond great to have him back in peak form. (Also, he was kind enough to send me this piece a few months ago, enabling me to acquire cheap sealed copies of the records I didn't already have before everyone begins rushing to Discogs for Karen Alexander LPs.)

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