THE REPORT: 6/13/25
PARTYING WITH LAS MIL AMORES
Quick Note: Longtime John’s Music Blog affiliate F.G.S. recently reissued her great 2024 record, Tinker Bell’s Cough, on the London label Scenic Route. For readers in New York City, there will be a release show this Saturday at Cassette in Ridgewood, Queens. Embaci and Fernette are also playing. More information and tickets here. For Los Angeles readers, a release show happens on Thursday, June 26th at Silverlake Lounge. Sam Buck and Angels In America on that bill. Information and tickets here. Alright, back to The Report…
Las Mil Amores "I like to Party"
“Don’t hate me ‘cuz I’m cute / If you want to hate me / I will put you on mute.” It would be impossible to overstate the influence that Chicano culture has had on the history of Los Angeles rave music. For proof, scope the Map Pointz Project archive. Here, the singers and social media poets Las Mil Amores drop a tune that combines banging hard house with deadpan spoken word. It’s as crucial to the city’s DNA as any bacon-wrapped hot dog.
Liltae2 x MG Sleepy “New Wave”
At the moment, the Columbus rappers Liltae2 and MG Sleepy are making some of the most playful music in the Midwest. “New Wave” doesn’t sound like Devo, but it does have blown 808s and a Chipmunk-pitched sample, which works well with the duo’s back-to-back rhyme slapstick. Need more Bustown madness? Check out the Liltae2 and Tse e2 collab “Oprah.”
Graham Hunt “Frog In The Shower”
Graham Hunt’s new record came out today. As expected, it's a doozy. I’ve pretty much written the following sentence before, but it bears repeating, at least once more: Timeless World Forever is the final in a trilogy of breakbeat-aware power pop albums that hit like Beck or The Beta Band transported to the Upper Midwest and forced to listen to The Replacements for a year. Each album has a flavor of its own, especially on the lyrical side, but the final one seems to put it all together. “Frog In The Shower” is an outlier, a perfect pop rock song that goes light on the electronica and steps on the gas a bit.
Napalm Death and Thurston Moore “Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue”
Napalm Death and Thurston Moore covering a Ramones classic… It’s a bit of a novelty play, sure, but when it comes to this thing that we call John’s Music Blog, sometimes that is exactly what the doctor ordered. Unrelated, but also sort of related: I’m not trying to be a contrarian here, but I’m kind of fucking with that insane new Lil Wayne song produced by Lin-Manuel Miranda. It sounds like a reverse engineered TikTok mash-up.
We are always spotty with the RIP business at The Report. Brian Wilson and Sly Stone in the same week, though? Two true masters of American psychedelic pop. “Don’t Worry Baby” has always calmed me down when I’m freaking out, which is often. “Runnin’ Away”—the same thing.
2000s NOISE TAPE OF THE WEEK: Regional Sewer District Regional Sewer District
If you want to confuse your cat, put on some Regional Sewer District. The tape’s corroded tones will make its head dart around like a giant mouse is scurrying in its periphery. The project is a collaboration between John Olson of Wolf Eyes and Mike Connelly of Hair Police (and, for a time, Wolf Eyes as well). The duo's one and only release, from 2006, is emblematic of the kind of tossed-off punishment that was flooding the zone in the 2000s.