***"Throughout her illustrious career, Barbara Manning has sung about a wide array of topics—baseball, arson, pies and of course love, in all its splendored and not so splendored ways. Whatever the subject, her voice betrays a good deal of warmth, passion and gravity. The same feeling that recreates Pittsburgh Pirate Dock Ellis’ acid-based no hitter is the same one that delivers chills with the heartbreaking chorus line, 'I’m still crying for you.'So it should come as no surprise that Manning could write a captivating song about German mathematician Georg Cantor. It also should be expected that she can describe his whole life in three concise verses. What might come as a surprise is how much the song rocks. Aside from her work in the 1990s with the Go-Luckys!, 'Cantor’s Mind Was Rockin’' might be one of the heaviest pieces in her extensive catalog. Before Manning even steps up to the mic, the guitars roar out of the speakers, as if to make sure attention is directed their way.'Better By Bounds,' the single’s B-side, appeared on 2023’s Charm of Yesterday… Convenience of Tomorrow but it comes in a new version here."
7" $12.00
08/08/2025
Maybe everything has been going to such shit lately because Barbara Manning has been hibernating. A Matador Records mainstay and pivotal indie-rock pioneer of the nineties, Manning has continually written material that matches the quality of the many songs she covers. Both as a performer and a listener, Barbara Manning is a passionate lifer. While her music is compact and succinct, it is steeped in multitudes of genre periods and styles. From SF Seals to her work with Stuart Moxham (Young Marble Giants) to The Go-Luckys, every collaboration carries her genius melodies and lyricism. In a four minute catchy song, Manning can communicate what others require novels to express. Her fans include Yo La Tengo, The Clean, Sonic Youth, Tall Dwarfs, Pavement, Calexico, The Replacements, and even Faust (don’t forget her prolific work as half of free-sound stalwarts Glands Of External Secretion.) With an upcoming tour joining Codeine, Manning felt the time was right for something new. Thus, Charm Of Yesterday…Convenience Of Tomorrow. It compiles a few different periods. Chico Daze is a song cycle that absorbed the dark times and experiences she had in Northern California through the 2010s. The Porch Series cover songs were Manning’s antidote to pandemic madness, and features the music of Elliott Smith, Edgar Winter, Richard & Linda Thompson, Galaxie 500, Bob Dylan and The Handsome Family. Now situated near Los Angeles, where she works as a drama teacher, Manning has been playing live again and recording, channeling her innate sense of theatricality and dynamics...
CD $9.50
12/08/2023
MP3 $9.90
12/08/2023
FLAC $11.99
12/08/2023
LP $7.35
01/08/2001
CD $11.00
01/08/2001