picky,picky

Lots of rad bike shots as trade season kicks off.
Courage bikes makes some amazing frames. The SS cross bike is amazing-love the slightly extended seat tube with pass through brake cable and the graduated track ends are a cool touch, but what is up with the leather shoulder pad? After a few races wouldn't this stink worse than Rob Halford's crotch? Do you really want something that collects water snugly wrapped around your STEEL frame? Regardless of this nitpick, it is a rad bike. Courage Cycles.

Colnago doesn't dodge a bullet either. This CX friendly arch looks more like this than something designed to more easily shoulder your bike. If you have the bike wedged onto your shoulder all the way back at the seat post, you are going to have an awful lot of bike hanging in front of you. Can't picture Nys requesting this. The beefier tube sections make it look more like a Stevens.

IF had this classy cool way to run the rear brake cable on a cross bike.
And finally Schlamm's twitter came through with these way to handle the front brake....

Cross on the brain

Double Dagger pretty much rule

Thrill Jockey was always home to a bunch of tedious post-rockers who danced way too close to jazz-fusion lite and world music, so I never really paid much attention to their output. But, as frequently happens, I may have to change my opinion based on the last few releases. Pontiak, Extra-Golden, and now Double Dagger. Hailing from Baltimore, they have a classic arty indie rock sound that brings me back to the early/mid 90s. I never realized how much I missed this classic sound, til I heard it reworked here. Bass driven and melodic. It's got a DC sound, emo in a good way. Wish Dischord put out more records that sounded like this. Made me wistful for bands like Chino Horde-who apparently have a 2lp discography out, but I will save rambling about midwest early 90s emo for a different post. Gonna name check some bands, and I think this is on par with them. Lync, Squirrel Bait, No joke.
This is seriously fucking great and I have not stopped listening to it since I got it. Good at work, good in the car, good working on bikes in the basement. "Camouflage" is the jam and , I wish I got this in May when it came out, cause it would have been album of the summer.
The band even has a documentary??? And a video

Liturgy Renihilation CD

Black Metal is a term that is as abused as "acid-folk". When it comes to
the more traditional kult or orthodox black metal, I would rather just look
at pictures and album art from new bands, while listening to Transylvanian Hunger.
But despite the misuse of the term, black metal is the jump off for some of
the more interesting music hitting my speakers(krallice,nachmystium,bone
awl, etc) and now Liturgy. 20 Buck Spin is the label for the Renihilation
CD.
The my main test for black metal is very simple. Does it make me feel like
I want to ride a horse across a frozen plain as my barbarian horde prepares
to attack a village? Call it the Bathory test, but if it gives me that feeling or
reminds me of Conan, we have a winner. Liturgy passes the first test.
On one hand, this is some furious straight ahead blasting black metal. Vocals
are classic TH era Darkthrone.
On the other, there are some cool noisey-almost sonic youth type parts.
Maybe even some Harvey Milk esque bashing and riffing when it slows down, and
that is all in the first song! The riffing remains furious throughout and
manages to mutate from metal into melodic buzz and back with ease.
This disc shreds. It overcomes the singing interludes, the pretentious lyrical concepts, and the fact that they are from NYC.
I wish I had it when I was gluing my tubulars, this cd and a couple tubes of glue would make for a hell of a night-maybe even River's Edge II.