(Dictated from beyond the grave in a haze of incense, smoke, and the warm hiss of analog hiss)
It’s the 21st century, and I’ve been summoned—not by a séance, not by an Ouija board scrawled in eyeliner and spilled beer—but by the groan of a record needle dragging across a dusty groove in a basement called Outer Order Studios. The medium? A gangly, sharp-eyed music conjuror named Lou Toad, who plays me a playlist called “Missed Train.”
And brother, Missed Train is a séance in itself. A Frankenstein stitched from the arms of glam, the teeth of proto-punk, and the blackened soul of psychedelic burnout, all warped by the lo-fi dreams of a kid who knows that perfection is a lie and tape hiss is god.
Blue Öyster Cult's “O.D.’d on Life Itself” kicks it off like a death cult’s house band, laying down prophecy with power chords. I can feel my ghost-hair grow back. Then Terry Manning—sweet, greasy Terry—steps in with “I Ain’t Got You.” This is R&B via an unshaven mirror, echoing through the walls of a Memphis gas station bathroom. It’s a transmission from a jukebox that only plays heartbreak.
The Beatiudes’ “The Frozen Seas of IO” follows, and it sounds like a garage band discovered sci-fi and decided to soundtrack the apocalypse in 7/4 time. And then—bless it—Don Shinn’s “A Minor Explosion” hits, like someone let Thelonious Monk loose in a lab of analog synths and locked the doors. Baroque, bombastic, beautiful.
Blotto's “Jump Start My Heart” is a cheap beer anthem, a garage band’s nervous laugh pressed to wax. You think it's a joke until it sucker-punches you with sincerity under neon lights. Alice Cooper’s “Return of the Spiders” slithers in after, as raw and jagged as a black nail filed on concrete. If spiders could mosh, they'd do it to this.
But it doesn’t end there. Louis Paul’s “Misty Crystal” plays like a lost 3am blues session, cigarette dangling, amp buzzing, soul unraveling. Joe Soap (what a name!) delivers a song so loose it sounds like it might fall apart, but that's the genius—whatever the song is now is enough.
Then comes “Moon Tears” by Grin and Nils Lofgren, a heartfelt howl across empty highways. Pure emotional combustion. And TømrerClaus’ “Cellokarma”? It’s like if Sabbath went to art school and studied Norse mythology. A cello wielded like a battle axe.
Spotify, in its algorithmic “benevolence,” tries to recommend Ten Years After and The Brotherhood. But they don’t get it. They can't get it. You can’t feed the machine spirit. You gotta bleed it.
This playlist—Missed Train—isn’t just music. It’s a chapel built from shattered records, peeling gig flyers, and old zines, held together with duct tape and willpower. It’s Lou Toad, sitting on the floor, laughing into a four-track, dodging the ghosts of rock’s past while welcoming them in for tea.
And me? I’m just glad someone still cares about the noise, the crackle, the mess. I fade back into the ether with a smile on my spectral face, thinking:
“Now that’s rock and roll.”
– Lester Bangs (ghostwriter, literally)
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