Consumer Guide: June, 2025

Speechifying from Springsteen, rockin' on the mechanism from Buck 65, disruptive noise from Lambrini Girls, and words to stay alive for from Ezra Furman.

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Arcade Fire: Pink Elephant (Columbia)

Buck 65: Keep Moving (Handsmade)

Jeff Evans Porkestra: When Pigs Dance (self-released)

Robert Forster: Strawberries (Tapete)

Ms. Ezra Furman: Goodbye Small Head (Bella Union)

Ghost Wolves: Consumer Waste (Saustex)

Girl Scout: Headache (Human Garbage)

Justin Golden: Golden Country: Volume 2 (Vocal Rest)

Lambrini Girls: Who Let the Dogs Out (Slang)

Willie Nelson: Oh What a Beautiful World (Columbia)

Billy Nomates: Metalhorse (Invada)

Eli "Paperboy" Reed: Eli "Paperboy" Reed Sings . . . "Walkin' and Talkin'" (20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition) (Yep Roc)

Bruce Springsteen: Land of Hope & Dreams (Columbia)

Tune-Yards: Better Dreaming (4AD)

Inspirational Stage Patter: Now, there's some very weird, strange, and dangerous shit going on out there right now. In America they are persecuting people for using their right to free speech and voicing their dissent. This is happening now. In America the richest men are taking satisfaction in abandoning the world's poorest children to sickness and death. This is happening now. In my country they're taking sadistic pleasure in the pain that they inflict on loyal American workers. They're rolling back historic civil rights legislation that led to a more just and plural society. They're abandoning our great allies and siding with dictators against those struggling for their freedom. They're defunding American universities that won't bow down to their ideological demands. They're removing residents off American streets and without due process of law are deporting them to foreign detention centers and prisons. This is all happening now. A majority of our elected representatives have failed to protect the American people from the abuses of an unfit president and a rogue government. They have no concern or idea of what it means to be deeply American. The America that I've sung to you about for 50 years is real and regardless of its faults is a great country with a great people. So we'll survive this moment. Now, I have hope because I believe in the truth of what the great American writer James Baldwin said. He said, "In this world there isn't as much humanity as one would like. But there's enough." Let's pray.

And It Don't Stop, June 11, 2025

May 14, 2025

July 10, 2025