You're on Your Own This Year

Happy fuckin' New Year.

yea.

I'm all out of Fleshtones Lps to spring on you, so you will have to sort your shit out without me this time.

I will only offer something to ring out and in that I quite enjoy..

Tricia Yates Fanclub (2009)

So I was in Seattle having flown out for a first time opportunity to see the Scientists for likely the only time I'll ever have the chance. They played with Mudhoney. It was awesome. The Airbnb was fucking brilliant. I got to hang out with a dear friend. It was a great time.

While I was there and on our last day, I had to make the trip to the further reaches of the city to find Jigsaw Records (which has since relocated to Portland). It was a slow drizzly Sunday and Chris had been thinking about closing when I showed up and spent a shitload more money than I had intended. But it was well worth it. Chris is really cool and we had a long conversation about our mutual love of all things Velvet Crush, the Fall and of course, Boyracer.

That led to him to pull this Lp out by Tricia Yates Fanclub out with some insistence that I should buy this too. He was not wrong.

This is yet another Stewart Anderson solo side project and as good as it ever gets.
Fast, messy, lo-fi and with plenty of Stewart's distinctive amateurish drumming.
12 songs interspersed with dialog from some English TV program from days long gone.

The very stuff of rock and roll at its finest.

So here you go.

I'd also very much like to encourage you to buy your own copy. Jigsaw (as linked above) has vinyl or 555 Recordings bandcamp page has it along with a plethora of other things you may or may not enjoy for download.

Help fund another Tricia Yates Fanclub lp.
The world could use it.

Box This

Boxing Day.

The Traditions continue, because that's what traditions do.

Elementary Particles (1979)

Mofongo is a Puerto Rican dish made from green plantains that are fried, seasoned, mashed, mixed with fried pork skins and rolled into balls.

Here's a recipe:
Mofongo

Mofungo was a noisy disjointed band that existed in NYC from 1979-1993

Here is an interview with the story:

Mofungo

El Salvador (1982)

A few years later. Still noisy and disjointed.

Like if No Wave had a sense of humor rather than just one of aloof irony.

Try it.

 It's sure to bug the fuck out of somebody you dislike.
I appreciate that in music.

Oh Fuck, It's Christmas.

This can only mean one fucking thing.

I have to dig up some or other fucking novelty Christmas song for your fucking entertainment even though I really really fucking hate Christmas songs.

But then I've been saving this fucking gem for just this fucking occasion.

The Christmas song is actually the worst thing on either record...

Punk Rock Christmas (1977)

The Alan Milman Sect featuring "Punk Rock Christmas"

It's a very tongue in cheek take on both the idea of a "Christmas Novelty song" and "Punk Rock" and which is still a lot more punk rock than fellow New Yorkers Television ever were. (There I said it. Somebody had to. And Blondie were always a fucking Pop band.)

But "Stitches in my Head" is one that's been comped a shitload of times and deservedly so.

Come for the Christmas novelty song and get some actual punk rock in the bargain.

Here's an interview with the man himself in anticipation of a reissue of some of his recorded output

Spankathon (1978)

But wait, there's more!

Essentially the same band. New name. Still smart asses. Still fast loose and dumb just like your mother made you.

"Spankathon" is the hit and one that would go on tapes for friend for years, but the really nice Surf treatment of Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" is something I go back to for myself.

Merry fucking whatever.

Getting Your Mojo Working

I don't know.

I'm feeling kind of cranky and with limited attention but want to crank out a few posts tonight so I get the feeling like I'm actually making headway, though this whole process has turned into a kind of Sisyphean task. (Cranky in two ways, if you will)
I post on a regular schedule, but I acquire more than that regularly and while I work on the new arrivals there's still the vast backlog of the existing collection that needs doing.

Well, that's what hobbies are about then.
If I completed a collection I'd have to find other shit to do.

In This Dream (1984)

Mojo Sect were from Umeå, Sweden.
This appears to be the only thing they ever released.

It's very of the time and quite nice in that ethereal "We have a Chorus pedal and we're going to turn it to 11" kind of way.

Of note is that the drummer and singer would later resurface in the band Komeda who were somewhat a hip flavor of the month back in the tail end of the 90s.


And now, a quick twofer....

 

 Dance With Me (1965)

The Mojo Men. From San Francisco.

This one's a bit of a novelty stomper. Play loud.

Sit Down I Think I Love You (1966)

Way back in the day before the internet and having access to all the information in the world at your fingertips because no matter how interested you are in anything there is always somebody way more obsessed with that shit than you and they'll devote themselves to getting together a website to show the world their authority on said subject, a person had to utilize whatever they could find as a guide.

When I first became interested in 60's garage/punk/psychedelia there was very little by reference other than word of mouth from collectors and a couple of magazines devoted to it.

But first and foremost was the original guidebook, "Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From the First Psychedelic Era" double lp compiled by Lenny Kaye (aka Patti Smith's guitarist). It was a grand introduction to both some of the big names and a number of obscurities.

Once bitten by the garage bug, I tried to hunt down my own personal copy of every item on that album and at one point had virtually succeeded when my interests and disposable income went elsewhere.

All of which is a lot of words to say that this is where I first heard the A side and why I have a copy.

Sunshiney California Pop at its finest.

Two Unrelated Things

Doing up some Lps so I have time to kill while they record.

Here's a quickie.

I Want the Blood of a Civil Servant (1986)

The Monkey Run hail from the Rochdale area of the riot torn streets of Manchester and that's about all there is to say. They featured Morrissey on the cover of their second single as one of what was intended to be a series of "Manchester Greats", unfortunately they didn't get further than that.

Perhaps if they had started with Mark E Smith...

Car Crash (1994)

Milo were from Champaign, IL.
This was their first release of two on the Bus Stop Label.

Indiepop Double Play in Seven Inches

There's too much to unpack and this is the last post for the night, so you're kind of on your own to look up things.

It's Ok, I have full confidence in your ability to utilize a search engine should you find yourself curious.

Bumping Up and Down (1999)

01. B'ehl - Mies Pleez 
02. Kitty Craft - Lo-fi
03. Naysay - Same Old Song
04. Tummybug - Science Fiction
05. Bunnygrunt - I Mock You With My Monkey Pants

I include a scan of the insert to start you off.

The key take away is that Tummybug send Bill Nye a musical love letter but best of all Bunnygrunt toss off a thirty second song called "I Mock You in my Monkey Pants" that is the best thirty seconds you'll experience since the last time you had sex.

In and Out of Love (1997)

Beanpole - Things Turn Out Okay
B'ehl - Compromise
Nerdy Girl - Horse
The Seashell Sea - Midnight


A nice little indiepop compilation on the Japanese Motorway label (1997-2000) that has another B'ehl track which ties the two together quite nicely.

Lo-fi bedroom indiepop is the bees knees.

A Post in a Single Color

I got distracted from what I was originally doing which was looking up whether or not I actually needed to digitize that Look Blue, Go Purple ep that's sitting there. (And the answer is yes. I could stand to upgrade my rip.)

Next thing you know I'm digging through the " SSC To Post" folder and hunting down a link for the Monochrome Set to go with a pair of nice singles I have had in there to post for approximately two years already.

I suppose I was holding out until I could flesh things out with more of their early output.'

I didn't, so today's the day for them to shine.

Eine Symphonie Des Grauens (1979)


This one like the three previous (that I don't have) were on early Rough Trade.
I personally don't need any greater recommendation than that.

Apocalypso (1980)

"Fiasco Bongo" is the kind of dub mix version of the A-side.

The aformentioned link is this:

the Monochrome Set

Drop in and give them a howdy.

Moping

Well, I don't know what to believe.

Turkey (1995)

The fan mail address on the back gives a New Jersey address for this indie rock/pop trio, but the scant info found online places them as a Phillie area band.

Who knows.
Who cares.

They have a singing goddam girl drummer.

Fucking perfect.

Sibling (1995)

An Ep, an album and a collection of rarities and unreleased stuff I haven't found yet and they were done in the space of a couple of years.

Too bad.
This is good stuff.

Any Club That Would Have Me as a Member

Blah Blah Blah

Dead Dog in Port Chalmers (1991)

An Xpressway single.

David Mitchell & Denise Roughan who have a plethora of New Zealand band experience between the two of them but whose musical life intersected most notably with the 3Ds.

3Ds were one of my personal favorite Flying Nun bands and I have a Crowther Audio Hotcake overdrive pedal because I read somewhere that David Mitchell used one. (And rightly so, it's a beast and doesn't lose any of the low end of your guitar signal like your average overdrive pedal.)

This lo-fi excursion is as close as Xpressway got to folk music.

It is for folks after all.

The Ghost Club (1996)

Five years later and they followed the previous up with another one and moving to London where they formed a formed a trio they called Ghost Club like this record who put out two really fucking cool discs that kind of hit the sweet spot for me.



Perfect music for the days gather into a cold semi-permanent gloomy dusk for a few months.

Of Mice and Maps

Yeah, I'm on vacation.

Well, burning up some of the Paid Time Off I've earned and haven't used in the last few years and which I've been accruing at a steady pace.

Didn't go anywhere. Been spending my time doing a few things that require me being awake for normal people daylight  hours.

It's odd, but having time off is nice and I earned it.
I've been able to do some record shopping in brick and mortar stores I wouldn't normally get to.
Found a few things too.

This post isn't any of that stuff.

Winter Ocean Mary Go Round (1987)

This is a sweet bit of 80s neo-psychedelia from the Voxx label.
The "Fan Club" address is for Ontario, California which  is 35 miles outside off Los Angeles according to wikipedia
I can't find anything immediately on a quick google, so I'll leave the mystery to unravel itself.

I'm Talking To You (1979)

So if you've been playing along at home in January of last year I kicked the festivities off with some records by Boston band the Dark. One of the songs on their first record was called "Judy" and it starts with a quote from this record and is about Ms. Judy Grunwald who fronts this band, the Maps.

 It's a great, should have been a hit kind of record.

From what I have gathered after Ms Grunwald left the band to pursue other interests the remainder of the band evolved into Art Yard who unfortunately didn't get to release their single on Propeller Records before it imploded.

It would have been amazing.

Oh the things the were and could have been....

Pitter Panter Pooter

Not to be confused with the Duke Ellington tune "Pitter Panther Patter"

That's a duet between the Duke and his ace bassist Jimmy Blanton.

That goes something like this:

This post is about something very different.

Very.

 Italian Sunglasses Movie (1981)

Gary Panter is better known as an artist and illustrator who is long involved in the Residents/Ralph Records sphere. So it will come as little or no surprise that the Residents ably abet Mr. Panter in this particular seven inches of avant wonderment.

You, dear record enthusiast, may also recognize quite a bit of Panter's commercial album artwork

The other cool as fuck thing about it is that the sleeve is actually a large foldout poster.
(I couldn't find an online picture of the actual poster, but trust me.)
I have plans on getting myself a second copy someday to have one I can frame and hang proudly on my wall. It's of a robot playing a guitar.

 I'd make space for that.

Action (2000)

I suppose if I hadn't wanted to class this place up with a bit of Duke Ellington I could have alternately named this post:

"Panter, Paul & Lara"

that's probably a much better play on words.




 Oh Well.
Choices were made and we must live with them.

As it is, I'm simply biding my time while some bolognese simmers for an appropriate amount of delicious time and random play on the music player thinks this is a good night to sort through the terabytes of material to play multiple tracks by the Brian Jonestown Massacre and Wanda Jackson.

Oh yeah, this single. Hunger has me kind of mentally wandering off into the woods.

It's on Kitteridge records (1999-2006) which was label that I'm looking to pick up everything on because I haven't been disappointed yet.  They've been gone so long all the links on the website point to Myspace. Sad. (though I may have to poke around and see if I can score some NOS titles on the cheap direct from them.)

I also actually have two copies of this because I found a cheap copy and had forgotten I already had one. But at least I have both the green and the blue unreadable covers now.

Apparently this sibling duo also released a full length as Layton.

My wantlist grows one full length compact disc longer.

Three Years Since the World Got a Little Shittier

Indeed. Yes. Indeed.

Back Again (Try...) (1984)

So it was on this date in 2017 that the world lost Tommy Keene.

He's someone that nobody I've ever known had a single bad thing to say about.

The world is a lesser place for his passing.

On this 12" you get a side of what made him a Power Pop icon backed with a couple of live covers. First a reasonable stab at Roxy Music and then a Rolling Stones cover from their last listenable record.

Enjoy and pour a glass of something nice for Tommy.

I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground

A rare triple play because I'm still adding shit at a furious pace and can barely keep up.

You're welcome.

Spend the Future in 1994 (1998)

Vince Mole & his Calcium Orchestra started life as a 4-track project led by Chris Parfitt that began while he was still a member of Apples in Stereo.

Katina (2000)

That being said, you know that there's a strong connection to the Elephant Six Recording Co. and aesthetic.

This one was #4 in the Happy Happy Birthday to Me label's 2000 single of the month club that I kind of randomly picked up.

Kevin Whiskey (2002)

This was the last that they were heard from.

Though if you, as a responsible dabbler in internet musical auditioning, are interested the band offers a "deluxe" version of this particular record on their Bandcamp page.

Be a pal and toddle off and get the extra tracks and make them a buck or two.

There's a good chap.

*

No Talking.

Just posting.

Google is your friend.

The Greatest Time ep (1995)

the Mad Scene

Relentless (1990)

Men & Volts