Music Library: True Wheel, Trypes, Tuff Darts, Turing Machine, Ike Turner, TV on the Radio, Twangbangers, Twilight Sad, Two Dollar Pistols, Tyvek

True Wheel - True Wheel (1997). Yet another Feelies side project! Sort of! True Wheel features Glenn Mercer on lead guitar and Dave Weckerman on drums (I think), but the guiding force behind this band is a completely different singer/songwriter. Having two Feelies involved does give the songs a Feeliesesque feel, though.

The Trypes - The Explorer's Hold EP (1984) and Music For Neighbors (compilation, 1984-2012). And again with the Feelies side projects! This one was more of a gentle collective than a band, with all of the Feelies slowly joining over time. The Explorer's Hold, which appears in its entirety on Music For Neighbors, includes an early version of "The Undertow," which would eventually pop back up on the third Feelies album, Only Life. Pretty great stuff.




Tuff Darts - Tuff Darts! (1978). These guys are a full also-ran 1970s CBGBs punk band with a pronounced glam/pop side. Although they never made waves like their contemporaries, they deserved to be better known.



Turing Machine - A New Machine For Living (2000). Fantastic krautrocky math-rock band well worth searching out. Not unlike a heavier Polvo.



Ike Turner - Rhythm Rockin' Blues (compilation, 1951-56). Well before he was a druggy guy who beat up his wife, Ike Turner was busy inventing rock and roll. This compilation collects his early singles leading up to "Rocket 88," which is the track where critical consensus holds that rock and roll diverged from the blues as a separate genre of music.



TV on the Radio - OK Calculator (2002), Young Liars EP (2003), Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes (2004), Return To Cookie Mountain (2006), Dear Science (2008), Nine Types of Light (2011). The universal critical acclaim for this band means that I do not really have to try to drum up anything to say about them. OK Calculator, an indie release from when the band had only two members, just sounds like so much screwing around. Young Liars, with the addition of Kyp Malone, ups the ante with some excellent group singing. Desperate Youth brings in more electronic sounds, but Cookie Mountain is where the band hits a peak. The songs and production are all firing together and the album is essential. Dear Science, which took a while to grow on me, manages to improve on the near-perfection of Cookie Mountain. Nine Types Of Light, though, seems a little lackluster.



The Twangbangers - 26 Days On The Road (2002). Bill Kirchen, Redd Volkaert, Dallas Wayne, and some other guys run through a lot of lightning fast rockabilly and country. Volkaert is, of course, the greatest guitarist in Austin and Kirchen was the hotshit guitarist for Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen, so there's a lot of impressive guit-fiddling on this album.



The Twilight Sad - Fourteen Autumns And Fifteen Winters (2007). Indie rock that's both mopey and poppy, the way the lord* intended.

* Lord Morrissey, in this case.



The Two Dollar Pistols - On Down The Track (1997) and The Two Dollar Pistols With Tift Merritt (2000). Honky-tonk from North Carolina led by the incomparable John Howie. The EP with Tift Merritt is the first release with the Starbucks chanteuse on it.



Tyvek - Fast Metabolism (2007). Fast, fun, Wire-ish punk from Detroit.