Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout

Welcome to MB3! So much to review! So little time! So hey ho, let’s go!

• Ramones — Too Tough To Die (Sire) :: Really? • Pitbull — M.I.A.M.I. (TVT) :: This horny Hispanic is so hot to trot, he makes early fishnet Prince look like a Castro castrato. Viva La Assa! • Seymour Glass — Note To Self (FourFiveSix) :: Because this well-produced mélange of melancholy NIN and morose Nirvana actually works, I predict big things for these four lads. But I’ve been wrong before. • Rob Wasserman — Trilogy (Rounder) :: This highbrow reissue of Rob’s three award-winning jazzbo discs is a must-have if only to hear Lou “Velvet Bog” Reed croaking out “One For My Baby.” • Salary Cap Lockout — Lay Down And Die, Goodbye (NHL) :: Ted Lindsay vs. Eddie Shack, winner take all. • Perfect — Once, Twice, Three Times A Maybe (Rykodisc) :: If you can get past the wretched album title, you’ll hear ex-Replacements member Tommy Stinson showing the new kids on the block what tasty power-pop is all about. • Crime — San Francisco’s STILL Doomed (Swami) :: Raw old-fashioned punk music whose period sound is so precise you’d swear it was actually recorded back in 1978 when … oh, it was? • The Break — Handbook For The Hopeless (Ferret) :: Kids, just because you like the vertiginous riff from NIN’s “The Perfect Drug” doesn’t mean you should steal it for the very first song on your debut album, all right? • SIZZLING PLATTER OF THE WEEK: River City Rebels — Hate To Be Loved (Victory) :: Thanks to producer Sylvain Sylvain, these seven rockin’ reprobates (vocals, guitars, bass, traps, trombone and tenor sax) have come up with an album that’s so dissipated ’n’ disheveled it’s more fun than a barrelful of junkies. • Be seeing you!