Super groups more often than not end up being stupor groups (Electronic: Johnny Marr, Bernard Sumner, Neil Tennant) or stupid groups (Audioslave) but Publicist is a Super Group I can get behind. Publicist is the drummer from Trans Am with Ian Svenious (Make*Up, Nation of Ulysses, Scene Creamers, Weird War, etc), on vocals. [As a side note, I have been keeping up with the many and consistently great Ian Svenious bands starting with Nation of Ulysses. I think I am in very rare company in being able to claim to have seen every band Ian has been in including the short lived Cupid Car Club and his current Chain and the Gang.] Anyway, this side project, Publicist with its electronic bent is a large departure from Ian’s typically 60’s agit funk/soul sound but is a vein that suits him exceptionally well as this track bears out.

As a further digression, my buddy and international operative, Jbird were discussing last year who we would vote for as a recipient of a Macarther Fellowship (the genius grant). After having seen Chain and the Gang recently as well as picking up Ian Svenious’s book on American music history and communist philosophy, The Soviet Reader, I am now convinced that there are few more vital, and with his large body of work in differing media, and there are few more deserving of a ‘genius’ grant than Ian Svenious. How cool would that be start out of your punk DIY career as the “Sassiest Man in America”, as deemed by, at the time, the very influential teen mag, Sassy and then go on to win a genius grant? MacArthur voters out there, I have made my case. Use this knowledge wisely.

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Download: Publicist – Stoneage (Live)