I don’t care what the neighbors say, I’m gonna read Jeffrey Morgan’s Media Blackout #220 each and every day!

Broadway Calls — Good Views, Bad News (Side One Dummy) :: You know I’ve had my share. Well, my woman left home for a brown-eyed man who plays in a generic teenage angst rock band that should’ve closed out of town on opening night, but I still don’t seem to care.

The Black Crowes — "Torn and Frayed" (Eagle Rock) :: Since my pun was missed two weeks ago, I’ll reiterate for ya: The fact that these Croweroom dummies actually stupe — I say, stupe — to cover this song only proves my point about them being deadass derivatives.

Lee Harvey Osmond — Quiet Evil (Latent) :: I guess "John Wilkes Partridge" was already taken, huh?

Manchester Orchestra — Mean Everything to Nothing (Favorite Gentlemen) :: Early prissy Bowie meets early pensive Reznor backed by early primo Page.

Charles E. Caine — The Mayor of Hell (Warner Bros.) :: James Cagney may be the star of this 1933 prison flick, but who can deny that good old Charlie Caine steals the show as Tommy ‘Stupe’ Gorman?

23 Rainy Days — Wonderful Disaster (Radio Active) :: Their own website describes them as being "Dark Pop Synth Rock" so who am I to argue that they’re wrong — especially when that happens to be an accurate assessment of this exemplary slice of arch ’80s anxiety.

SIZZLING SHOW OF THE WEEK: Jesse James — Jesse James Is a Dead Man (Spike) :: Here’s one dead man who turns me on with a kinetic fury and oddly incongruous laconic Zen-ness that evokes memories of Raw Power and A Gift From a Flower to a Garden being played simultaneously at full volume. This linear ancestor to the pistol-packin’ outlaw may look and sound like David Lynch but the death-defyin’ stunts he pulls off are worthy of Evel Knievel in his outta-mah-head prime. It also adds more fuel to the argumentative fire that Spike is the greatest heavy metal television network casting broads today.