NIXPIX

1. "Moby Grape" by Moby Grape - While you've hopefully still got Alexander "Skip" Spence on your noodle, you might as well go buy (or more likely steal) this album. It's a total 60's San. Fran. pop album. The Grape were hyped to hell and back and had five singles released at once. This ham-fisted marketing scheme put the first in their not-so-far-off coffin. But this album is a fantastic rave up of guitar rock and beautiful harmonies. On "Hey Grandma," they three part the word Robitussin, "makes me feel so fine". It's a good album for sunny day burn-rides through the back country.

2. "High Land, Hard Rain" by Aztec Camera - Roddy Frame was a boy wonder with a deal on Scotland's Postcard records. He eventually got the big label bump and put out this 80's power-pop gem. It's got a bit of sheen to it, but the swagger in the songcraft more than makes up for it. "Oblivious" is too big a pop hit to be slept on all these years. "Walk out to Winter" is the type of song where each part can be mistaken for the chorus, until it bursts in to one of the biggest choruses you've ever heard. Sounds like kin.

Nic