Some FEATURED ARTISTS on this week’s Stronger Than Dirt (Saturday, January 11, 8-10pm) include Eno, Snatch (Judy Nylon), XTC, Henry Badowski, Embarrassment, Primal Scream, Go! Team, and Wax Idols, lots of new music as well as the weekly Dusty Diamond.
COVER ART OF THE WEEK: Ismatic Guru is a music project of Buffalo New Yorkers John Toohill and Brian Schlia. They have released four cassettes since 2021 of, in their own words, “wildly dense and completely off-leash scrambled egg, idiot prog punk, freaked out new wave/post punk littered with psychedelic flashes.” Spot on, really. These four cassettes have been compiled along with five new tracks on the “An Incredible Amount of Overwhelming Information” vinyl LP and just recently released on the Swimming Faith label. It features beautiful artwork on the cover and lyric inserts by Toohill.
DUSTY DIAMOND OF THE WEEK (a vintage gem from the STD vaults): Polysics are a high energy electro pogo punk band from Tokyo. Formed in 1997 they continue to perform live and released an album as recently as 2019. “New Wave Jacket” is a classic Polysics song, super catchy with irregular rhythms delivered at a frenetic pace and includes a torrid guitar break for good measure. Intense, but in a good way. It appeared first in 2001 on the “Eno” album on Ki/oon Records and then again in 2004 on the “Polysics or Die!!!!” collection on the same label as well as a single on Sur Le Plage. On a personal note, their early 00s SXSW performance was one of my all-time favorite live shows. View the brilliant official video for “New Wave Jacket” here:
Promo art from Henry Badowski’s 1981 “Life Is a Grand” album on I.R.S. Records. Original design by Michael Ross with cover treatment by Roy Snell and photo by Andrew Douglas.