by SHANE SINNOTT

Hey folks, we’re going to do it the old-fashioned way this week: links to good music, sans commentary on the current state of affairs re: music downloading, artist compensation and the rest. So, lately, I’ve been having a ton of fun listening to Sonic Chicken 4. They’re from somewhere-that’s-not-Paris in France, and play a highly derivative type of fuzzed-out rock that you’ll like if you like the Velvet Underground or King Khan. The record is extremely lo-fi, sounding more or less like it was recorded at a house party—it makes the Black Lips’ Los Valientes del Mundo Nuevo sound produced. With songs like “Sexiest,” at tinyurl.com/ytmc43, the band cuts to the quick, and with “Shalalalove,” they do their best ’60s girl-group impression (complete with girl vocals). Hear that one at tinyurl.com/24kwyc. All of which is to say that it isn’t the most original stuff in the world, but it’s fun, and while I like something striving to be different as much as the next guy, there’s only so much Frog Eyes I can listen to before I want a melody.

Now, remember when I mentioned the Velvet Underground a few sentences ago? I did that to prepare you for this: a bootleg has surfaced in the past two weeks featuring the only available live recordings from 1967, the debut performance of “Sister Ray,” and—get this—a never before heard song called “I’m Not a Young Man Anymore.” Good God, friends, this is a big fucking deal. It’s live from the Gymnasium, NYC, and you can download the full thing at tinyurl.com/296b29. I’m not a huge bootleg person, but any new song from the VU is worth tracking down, as the band famously left much of their material unrecorded. The new song is great, on a par with anything from ’67, and it’s a reminder of how effortlessly creative this band was. The version of “Sister Ray,” the band’s defining and peerless noise opus, is a godsend as well. It bears a closer relation to the noisy fury of the album version than the version available on The Quine Tapes, released a few years ago. Dig it.