So apologies for the extended hiatus. I’m just back from a weeklong vacation that took me from New Haven to New York to Delaware to Philly, from attending a pair of killer Archers gigs* to surfcasting (ineffectually) on the Atlantic to touring America’s eleventh largest craft brewery to checking out an old friend’s new digs. I’m left now with a souvenir t-shirt, several overpriced used records, and a week and a half’s worth of face mane that I’ve promised myself will remain ’til at least  Sunday next. Anyhoo, for today’s post, I thought I’d throw up a few songs off one of the aforementioned just-acquired, overpriced used records, namely Giant Sand’s stellar 1992 release “Center of the Universe.” I was only vaguely familiar with Giant Sand, mostly because of the band’s subsequent and better known offshoots, Friends of Dean Martinez and Calexico, whose avant-jazz meets southwestern surf instrumentals I’ve always enjoyed. Like Calexico, Giant Sand purveyed a brand of twangy indie rock, only far heavier on the distortion and featuring only the finest abstract, half-drunk speak singing, like some desert-fried version of the Meat Puppets. Pepper in cockeyed pop numbers like “Milkshake Girl” that’d give even Mercury Rev a run for their money as well as a pair of tailor-made road warriors in “Pathfinder” and “Off Ramp Man,” and you have a stone cold classic for the highway drive between here and there (five points for Pavement reference)—and worth, trust me on this, three to four times the ten bucks I dropped on it….

*Check 9:10 in this vid to see random dominatrix grab me from behind and starkly command “BOOST.” I love how Matt makes literally no move to keep her up when she subsequently stage dives onto his head.