#the clean

5/18/26.

I was bummed out the other day when my neighbor dropped this bombshell: the Bottom of the Hill was closing. This longtime music venue in San Francisco first opened in 1991 and I've been lucky enough to catch many shows there over the years (The Clean and Richard Davies stick out as most memorable).

I went inside to look at the calendar of shows, and saw that Ted Leo & The Pharmacists would be doing a 3 night string of shows from July 9th to July 11th. Leo said that the venue contacted him about doing some shows in honor of their imminent closure. The show on the 9th will feature "The Tyranny of Distance", the 10th "Hearts of Oak" and the 11th "Shake the Sheets". I love these albums. Each is essential, each has its own sound, each is perfect (at least to me).

Once I saw the shows, I went on a Ted Leo/Pharmacists binge, which eventually took me to Bandcamp, where I found this digital single. Yes, this kind of breaks a rule of mine - there is no physical copy of this particular release, but there are tons of physical releases from Leo. He is currently touring with Gang of Four, and states that might explain how these songs are more in the "post-punk" realm. I think they're squarely in the Ted Leo realm, with a dash of Gang of Four (and maybe Green Day?).

David Kilgour - No, No, No (1994)

Daggerzine recently posted a list of their top 10 (pre-2000) David Kilgour songs. So I thought I'd post the fantastic opening number on his second LP Sugarmouth.

most listened to albums of june '26 ‧₊˚♪ 𝄞₊˚⊹

The Clean - Lincoln Hall, Chicago, Illinois, August 18, 2014

I pretty much devoured In the Dreamlife You Need a Rubber Soul, Richard Langston's new biography/oral history of The Clean. Everything a fan could want — and more! Of course, it's sent me on a Clean listening bender, digging back into the early classics and the late-period masterworks. And live stuff, too, including a fantastic Aadam Jacobs tape at Lincoln Hall in Chicago from what I believe was the band's last US tour in 2014.

"By 2014, nothing was straightforward in terms of how we approached the songs," said bassist Robert Scott. "The stranger the better, that was Hamish's approach."

And yeah, things do get strange on this recording — strange and awesome! The Clean kicks it off with a 13+-minute "Point That Thing Somewhere Else" that feels at first like the trio hasn't quite decided which song they're playing or how they're going to play it. But once they lock in, it's a truly glorious "Thing." The rest of the set follows suit, as Scott and the Brothers Kilgour turn their tunes inside out, whether on a ramblingly gorgeous "Crazy" or a celebratory "Anything Could Happen." The show ends in beautiful chaos with the crowd overtaking the stage for "Tally Ho!"

And speaking of which, I'm going to also point you in the direction of another 2014 Clean performance at camp a low hum in Wainuiomata, NZ. In the surviving video, it looks like an extremely soggy festival — but also maybe the best festival ever? As The Clean launch into "Tally Ho!" and "Oddity," the dripping-wet audience invades, dancing, singing, embracing (even stage diving) ... expressing pure joy in a way that might just bring a tear to your eye. It still makes me sad to think of Hamish's passing a few years back. But I'm going to try to remember him as he is here, thwacking out that elemental beat, slowly obscured by the fans, eventually disappearing from view, safe in the rain.

New Zealand legends The Bats have their 11th album in the pipeline and it's set for an October release on Flying Nun. They released the "Loline" single some months back, and here is the 2nd single from the album, Corner Coming Up.

The band (same lineup since their inception in 1982) Robert Scott, Kaye Woodward, Paul Kean, and Malcolm Grant, have done it again with another lovely pop tune that you can't help but love on the first listen. 

Dreamy, bucolic, and a bit hypnotic, and if you want even more hypnotic, then check out the trippy video (filmed across the globe) posted below.

I've been a huge fan since about 1987 or so, and I don't see that ever changing.

David Kilgour, "Tape Machine" (1987?)