LWA Blog

Welcome back. The world is absolute chaos but hopefully you're focusing on the things you can control and settling into the year as best you can. This week, the Randomizer serves up a bit of old school, Steely Dan's The Royal Scam. This is the copy that'll be on my turntable. It's a record club pressing, if you remember Columbia House. In the lockdown summer of 2020, I made it my mission to pick up every Steely Dan release from the 70s/80s and not pay more than $10 each. Took me about a month or month and a half. They're out...

It's time for Record of the Week, so pull up your chairs, kids. This week, the Randomizer serves us Holy Diver, the 1983 debut from Dio. This is the copy that'll be on my turntable, a 2013 RSD reissue. Prior to this era, Ronnie James Dio came up with Elf, Rainbow and Black Sabbath. After some disagreements in 1982, Ronnie James Dio and Vinny Appice left Black Sabbath to form Dio. The first Dio album, Holy Diver showed up in 1983 like the Kool Aid man running through a wall. It's a fantastic album from start to finish. And that cover art,...

Are you still stumbling into the new year and trying to find your footing? Record of the Week is here to help you sit and spend a little time with yourself and take a break from negotiating the horrors of the world outside. This week, the Randomizer is suggesting you take some comfort in a stone cold classic, Tom Waits' Nighthawks at the Diner (1975). I'm spinning this lovely red copy that I was able to pick up when ANTI Records posted when an intern apparently "found" a box of them hidden away somewhere. This album has been in my...

Happy new year and welcome to the New Year's Day edition of ROTW. This week, the Randomizer serves up Chelsea Wolfe's Live at Roadburn. This set was recorded in 2012, and the album was released in 2018. This gorgeous violet disc is the copy I'll be playing. Roadburn is a festival started up in 1999, in Tilburg, Netherlands. I've never been but I've read about it here and there. I think they mainly focus on metal/doom/heavy rock. Chelsea Wolfe is a perfect fit. Opening up the album with Halfsleeper pretty much sets the tone for this set. Haunting and heavy. The...

Welcome back to ROTW, hope your holidays were cool. This week, the Randomizer serves up Asobi Seksu's 2006 gem, Citrus. This is the copy I'll be playing today. I love this album so much, it checks all the boxes for me. I remember hearing the lead single, Strawberries, and just instantly fell for it. I think the album came out a month later, around the start of June. I swear I listened to the album every day for the rest of the year (and probably into a good chunk of 2007). What a blast of an album. Pop hooks for...