Audrey Gallagher was vocalist for my favorite 4AD-signed band, Scheer. I’d say Scheer is in my top 3 favorite bands ever, with Skinny Puppy and ALL. They rocked and woke me up after a long time searching for good tunes. I was fortunate to “meet” Audrey via MySpace in the mid-late-2000s when I was living in Japan. She was very gracious to my messages and genuinely a kind person when we also connected on Facebook. After Scheer, she was briefly involved in a project called Lima, and then started adding her vocal talent to a number of electro/techno tracks by various artists. It’s gratifying to know that she’s still singing and still involved with music in a much more accessible way.
So Audrey’s started a radio show called VIVA VOCE (“With Living Voice”) and new episodes drop the 3rd Thursday of each month.
Here’s the first episode:
Another cool find from my first trip to Toxic Beauty Records in Yellow Springs:
A signed copy of Lightning Strikes by LOUDNESS!
LOUDNESS is a Japanese hair-metal band. I got into them by finding Thunder in the East (1985), Lightning Strikes (1986), and Hurricane Eyes (1987) at the library when I was in high school. Some great stuff, lyrics all in English.
The edges of the sleeve are all chewed to hell, so whoever owned this must have listened to it a lot, or at least moved it around a bunch. But the signatures made it worth the $5 I dropped on it.
Vinyl does have a certain satisfaction and allure to it that nothing else quite approaches. I have been really excited to find stuff by (for example) Scheer on CD because there were so many 4AD singles when that band was active, but it’s not quite the same. Still, sometimes buying brand new music on vinyl almost feels kind of like a posture. It’s very weird. Reissues feel kind of fake. 
But I listened to Lightning Strikes on vinyl for the 4 weeks I had it, and then played my cassette copy over and over for about 3 years. Fun stuff. If you’re into Poison, Motley Crue, Dokken, and that ilk, and you’re looking for something “new,” this could be a nice discovery for your collection.
An aside: I lived in Japan in Nara prefecture for 5 years from 2006-2011. Apparently, the drummer Higuchi Munetaka (RIP, 2008 liver cancer) has family (a grandmother, I believe) from the next village up from where I lived. When I was in Fukuoka, I went to Jackie’s Bar, and the owner was friends with the members of LOUDNESS. Very cool that I was able to relate to people about this band while I was there, and to have their autographs is very cool.
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