NEW DVD/BLU-RAY: RODRIGUEZ DOC 'SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN' IS IN!

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Mystery is a powerful, sometimes essential weapon in the arsenal of a cult artist. But what happens when great artists’ legacies are so enigmatic that no one seems to know whether they’re dead or alive, retired or making the most important art of their lives in absolute secrecy? What happens when the case grows so cold that even an artist’s most devoted fans are left salivating for the tiniest morsel of information about their idol? Those are some of the questions behind Searching For Sugar Man, a moving documentary about spookily talented Detroit singer-songwriter Sixto Diaz Rodriguez (professionally known simply as Rodriguez), who released two albums of gorgeous, Bob Dylan-esque social commentary and moody, downbeat lyricism to deafening silence in the United States in the early 1970s.

When those albums failed to find an audience, he disappeared from the public eye, amid rumors that he’d killed himself onstage or overdosed. While Rodriguez lingered in obscurity in the States, he rocketed to super-stardom in South Africa, where his anti-establishment rhetoric and soulful defiance resonated with a youth movement in open revolt against the legalized bigotry of Apartheid.

Like its subject’s music, the first half of Searching For Sugar Man can be hauntingly sad, but in its second, the story morphs from tragedy to triumph. Searching For Sugar Man would be worth seeing just for Rodriguez’s unjustly forgotten music, which is affecting in ways that make it hard to believe he could have been ignored in his home country for so long. — The A.V. Club

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THE VINYL WORD: THE RETURN OF A CLASSIC PUNK COMPILATION

V-A - Not So Quiet On The Western Front (1982)PREVIEW/BUY THE VINYL HERE

In 1999, Alternative Tentacles reissued this classic compilation with Jeff Bale (longtime Maximumrocknroll columnist and one of the compilers of this compilation) and his label, Sonic Reducer Records. Originally released in 1982 by MaximumRocknRoll on Alternative Tentacles Records, NOT SO QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT was the first compilation to document the Northern California punk scene (an idea that was subsequently copied in other cities). It contained the first issue of MRR before it was MRR.

Fast forward to 2013 & the 30th anniversary of this compilation. Alternative Tentacles has teamed up again with Jeff Bale and the current crew at Maximumrocknroll to reissue the vinyl version of this classic, complete with the 48 page newsprint booklet printed directly from the 1999 transparencies at the same San Francisco print shop that printed it last time. There’s also a brand new 2013 insert written by Maximumrocknroll. The piece gives a contextual overview of the record and the scenes that existed in 1982, 1999, and now!

And just like the original release, all songs are in the same order, pretty much the same artwork, and it still comes with the first issue of MRR — a.k.a. the 48-page lyric booklet. Unlike the original pressing, this one comes with a free download code!

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BAD RELIGION'S 'TRUE NORTH' AND OTHER NEW RX CD RECOMMENDATIONS

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Despite being too cerebral and too damn fast to ever be truly a mainstream concern, over a 30-something year career Bad Religion have amassed a body of work of sufficient quality to secure its authors a seat at the high table in the American punk rock hall of fame. The truly impressive thing about this most intellectually probing of groups, however, is their refusal to sunbathe on past glories, and the effort and care they bring to taking forward steps.

Chances are that middle-aged fans of this middle-aged group might nominate albums such as 1988’s pivotal Suffer and 1994’s Stranger Than Fiction – fine sets, both – as being Bad Religion’s musical high-water marks. But for listeners still paying close attention the sextet’s movements, their output in the 21st century is of an even higher order.

With its high-minded lyrical concerns, its family-sized choruses and its authors’ buoyant pursuit of what, in lesser hands, could be a restrictive musical form, True North is a superior addition to Bad Religion’s already towering body of work. — BBC

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NEW RELEASE OF THE WEEK: TORO Y MOI'S SHARP 'ANYTHING IN RETURN'

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PREVIEW/BUY THE VINYL HERE

Chaz Bundick, aka Toro y Moi, is one of music’s shape-shifters, a singer-songwriter and bedroom producer who cheerfully hops from genre to genre, mostly to avoid the awful label chillwave slapped on him even before he released his debut album of dreamy yet wayward electronica, Causers of This, in 2010. Since then he’s taken two steps forward into dance music (the EP Freaking Out), one step back into jangly indiepop (the compilation June 2009), and now returns to the disco house party with his sharpest album to date. Opening track “Harm in Change” thrillingly layers clean piano, distorted keyboards, crisp percussive snaps, low-end drum rolls, inarticulate female moans and a vocal that grows more urgent by the minute. “So Many Details” lives up to its title by ploughing melody into melody, drum track into drum track, squiggles into bleeps. So inventive and complex is the music that the lyrics – musing on love and separation, following Bundick’s relocation to California – sound gauche by comparison. — The Guardian

NEW RELEASE TUESDAY 1/22: LISTENING PARTY WITH TORO Y MOI, FREE PIZZA!

toro y moiThe Record Exchange’s New Release Tuesday series continues on Jan. 22 with Toro Y Moi‘s Anything in Return! The album — available on CD and vinyl — will be featured during our weekly listening party at 6 p.m. on real, hold-it-in-your-hands vinyl, then we’ll give it away as our New Release Tuesday raffle prize once we’re done spinning it! RSVP HERE.

Are you a proud owner of a Radio Boise KRBX Card? Bring it in every Tuesday from 6 to 9 p.m. and receive 20% off gift shop items and used CDs, vinyl, DVD/Blu-ray and cassettes (excluding collectibles – individual items $100 and over).

Speaking of our beloved community radio station, their Radio Boise pie holeTuesdays series at Neurolux features local and touring bands as well as a Radio Boise DJ after each show. Radio Boise receives 20% of drink sales from every Radio Boise Tuesday show. You receive the benefit of DRINK SPECIALS at each one. The music kicks off at 7 p.m. — right after you’ve filled your belly with pizza and heard some new music at radio boise tuesdays january 2013the RX!

Check out the Radio Boise Tuesdays performance schedule HERE.

Here’s a quick look at the bright and shiny new releases this week at The Record Exchange:

CD

Toro Y Moi – Anything in Return

Bad Religion – True North

Various Artists – 12-12-12: The Concert For Sandy

Carrie Rodriguez – Give Me All You Got

Ra Ra Riot – Beta Love

Otep – Hydra

Trapt – Reborn (deluxe edition also available)

Guided By Voices – Down By the Racetrack

Camper Van Beethoven – La Costa Perdida

Petra Haden – Petra Goes to the Movies

The Joy Formidable – Wolf’s Law

The Used – Vulnerable (II)

Septic Flesh – Mystic Places of Dawn

Ty Segall and Mikal Cronin – Reverse Shark Attack

Say Anything – All My Friends Are Enemies: Early Rarities

Aaron Neville – My True Story

The Lone Bellow – The Lone Bellow

Gary Allan – Set You Free

Various Artists – 2013 Grammy Nominees

Foxygen – We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic

Widowspeak – Almanac

The Pogues – The Very Best of the Pogues

Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons – Gold Vault of Hits

Frankie Valli and the Four Season – Second Vault of Golden Hits

Billy Joel – She’s Got a Way: Love Songs

Max Gomez – Rule the World

Buck Owens – Honky Tonk Man: Buck Sings Country Classics

Ash Borer – Ash Borer

Roy D. Mercer – Red White and Bruised

Helloween – Straight Out of Hell (deluxe edition also available)

Love and Death – Between Here and Lost

Tyler Bryant and the Shakedowns – Wild Child

Gliss – Langsom Dans

Chris Darrow – Artist Proof

Ex Cops – True Hallucinations

Fidlar – Fidlar

Big Harp – Chain Letter

VINYL

Toro Y Moi – Anything in Return

Bad Religion – True North

A$AP Rocky – Long.Live.A$AP

Guided By Voices – Down By the Racetrack

Various Artists – Not So Quiet on the Western Front (punk compilation)

The Fixx – Beautiful Friction

Chris Darrow – Artist Proof

Ty Segall and Mikal Cronin – Reverse Shark Attack

UV Race and the Eddy Current Suppression Ring – UV Race and the Eddy Current Suppression Ring

The Black Dahlia Murder – Nocturnal

Traditional Fools – Traditional Fools

Cannibal Corpse – Eaten Back to Life

Mugstar – Axis

Nails – Obsence Humanity

Secret – Agnus Dei

DVD/BLU-RAY

Searching for Sugar Man DVD and Blu-ray

Pina DVD and Blu-ray (Criterion Collection)

Blackmore’s Night – Beginning DVD

Tunnel Vision DVD

End of Watch DVD