Following Up and Bitching and Closing Out the Year

 
So I'm pretty invested in Discogs if you haven't already gotten that impression.
It's been my pandemic lifeline for obsessive collecting/hoarding that I've been doing for the last few years now. I have my collection marked off on there as well and that's saved me quite a bit of money not buying things I've already got that I forgot about.

Then I have the other Minnesota based version of this shit show and I'm always prowling around town now that things have opened up a bit for fodder for that one. Quite frequently I end up finding some tiny self released item that isn't on Discogs which being the good Do-bee that I am I dutifully type out and add to the database.

Now despite the haphazard way I type out these posts I do try and follow basic rules when adding things on Discogs. Decent scans and band credits as best I can. I also follow the "Elements of Style" concept of capitalization. First and last words, but not "a", "and", "the" and conjunctions and the like. Basic English 101 type shit.

Discogs guidelines prefers every word to be capitalized. 

And I ignore them because the guidelines are wrong. 

I capitalize the way God, Strunk and White intended. I also use "your" and "you're" correctly, know the difference between "it's" and "its", and defend the Oxford comma.

Meanwhile there is one anal retentive "guidelines are rules" mod on there who has made it their mission to harass me about not capitalizing everything. They sent me 33 Dms about this on things I've uploaded in the last few months just the other day.

I troll him back, but it still really irks me that this bozo gets a credit on things I've found and uploaded for simply changing a few stray prepositions to capitals.

That's my bitch for the night.

Dark Park Creeping (1980)

The Mo-dettes.
Somewhere previously the other singles got posted here. Here's the one that I didn't have at the time. It's quite possibly my favorite now that I do have it.
Now's your chance.

Kingdom of Jones (1991)

Geesh, We have to all the way back to concurrent posts in 2017 to find the other stuff this is following up. The Grifters. A band I liked, but got kind of the short end of the Indie stick it seems.

Boxing Day 2021

 

Yeah....

 

 Screens (2009)

Let's put the season to bed with a follow up.

the Mint Chicks.

Fuck yeah.

Hey You!

 

What are you doing trolling the internet?

Man up and get back in there and deal with your family, for fuck's sake.

 

 Merry Christmas Baby (1995)

Southern Culture on the Skids are always a great show if you ever get the chance.

Not Even a Mouse...

 

Yeah. Christmas eve and shit.

I worked Thanksgiving, so I have tonight off.

Lucky me.

It just means I'll wake up in the morning and there won't be anything open.

Blue Things (1966)

So a number of years back I sold off a bunch of Lps at a weekend flea market thing set up in the back parking lot of Grumpy's Bar and Grill when one still existed on Washington ave. It was great fun. I split a table with a good friend who had lots of stock left over from his defunct record store which missed the resurgence in vinyl by just a few years.

I chose things I knew were worth a bit of scratch but didn't have any particular attachment to having a physical dust collector for or which was big enough a thing that there were always reissues of reissues to be had and if someone wanted to blow a few hundred bucks on a copy I've had forever and bought for twenty bucks, I'd be Ok with that.

So I sold off a bunch of things. But not everything. The boxes with those records kind of sat in my closet untouched for a few years. Then we moved and I've been going back through them to see what's left and if I still want to keep it.

This is one of those records.

The Blue Things eponymous Lp from 1966. A really nice stereo copy that I think I picked up for like ten bucks in the latter half of the 80s. Pretty prime Folk Rock of the period which I really didn't bond with back in the day. But there were a few tracks I liked enough that I kept it around.

So I pulled it out of the box for reconsideration and digitized it and it's reclaimed a place in the regular collection once again and order is restored to the universe once more.

There's still quite a few in there too. Who knows what will come up next time I delve...

Here's Something Else From Iowa

 

I just took a shower. I start my 76 hour work week tomorrow and feel like I didn't manage half of what I wanted on my off week.And later on tonight I will be roasting a whole chicken stuffed with some of the leftover bread I've made lately.

 So anyways...

I've been having a bit a conundrum. Am I posting lots of stuff here because I'm on a neverending hoarding situation buying music to expand my bloated collection now that I am finally in a place where I have some folding money or am I buying lots and lots of stuff because I fear that despite having thousands of individual items I will somehow run out of things to post because it's something that gives me a tiny bit endorphin boost to my fragile being?

Either way you come out on top usually with a years long tradition of top quality music posts amidst subpar ramblings and run on sentences that are hardly ever proofread or edited for quality. I mean, I even have barely enough time to listen to the stuff I've been hoarding. It's scary.


But lo!

Here comes one of those aforementioned "top quality posts" e'en now!
Away to it then, good sir.

Skeletal Emotions (1985)

So I was looking back on the Mediafire thing I've been using for this for the duration of its existence and saw that in the seven and a half years I've been doing this nonsense I've posted almost thirteen hundred files going back to August of 2014. That's a lot of stuff.

And on occasion I have had cause to make a point of noting when there's something especially worth the time of your average listener. (Which is obviously not you, of course. You're obviously a person of considerable discretion and taste.)

This is one of those.

On July 13 of 2021 the offering was the creatively titled compilation of Iowa based bands, "The Iowa Compilation" which had the track "Heat Ray" by the Shy Strangers.

Now I offer up the rest of their recorded output.
Starting with the inaugural single when they were still just the Shy.

Once again if I were to be able to helm a series of compilations of jangly skinny tie wearing pop songs from years gone past the song "Skeletal Emotions" would figure highly on the first volume.

That is a recommendation of the highest order.

 

Indian Name (1986)

So while the single above seems to be getting a bit pricier over time the follow up elongated player is still available new and sealed direct from Pravda Records via Discogs at a fraction of the cost.
And it has "Skeletal Emotions" on it as well as other songs that aren't quite as inspired, but you're not going to regret the purchase.

Entirely worth it.

For Better Visibility

 Yeah. Here we go.

It's fucking Winter and I never see the sun or any daylight.

It's dark when I leave for work. It's still dark on the trip home and I'm asleep before it gets fully light. Rinse and repeat until Spring.

But the night shift differential is too much to walk away from...

Anyway here's something I quite like

She's All the Rage (2000)

Moneypenny.

I really ought to be posting this on the other Minnesota based blog I do, but this one has a little more visibility and this is an album that I feel like deserves a little bit more of a highlight than a half dozen local people who will be interested in it simply for its localness.

By my estimation this is a Great Lost Indiepop album that needs to be appreciated by a larger audience who know and love this sort of music like I do.

It was produced by Bryan Hanna (Bomb Pops) and Jason Orris at Terrarium.

It's clean and polished, shiny, dreamy and hummable girl fronted Indiepop on par with any other of the genre that you can think of.

What I'm trying to convey here is that I think this is a lost classic.

Ok? 

Have I steered you wrong before?

Check out "What a Great Day for Some Sort of Thing" or "The Annoying Inconvenience of Love" and tell me different.

This is a wonderful album.

Apply the Labels (1998)

Preceding the full length there existed a sweet little four song Ep.

I bought this blind for a buck at Roadrunner Records off the shelf of one dollar discs out of curiosity and as fodder for the Minnesota based SSC. I was really kind of blown away and wondered why I had never heard of these guys before. I would have at the very least sought out to play some shows with them and the band I was in at the time.

This is the less studio polished version of the album, but it still shines by its own light.

And here we are.

It set off a year's long search for a copy of "She's All the Rage".
I spent more than I wanted, but not an unreasonable amount and regret nothing

The odd thing is that the band existed for at least two years or more and has left absolutely not trace that I can find on the interwebs.

And I'm Ok with that.

It stands on its own.

Nearly Lost in the Shuffle

I'm hungry and I've reached my goal of the twentieth seven inch on the turntable being digitized.

That seems like a convenient stopping point for this tonight.

I have some tikka masala I made earlier that's calling my name.

Plus I'm ever so very close to finishing Borderlands 3.

Priorities as ever.

Roller Skates (1995)

Not to brag or anything but I accomplished some real actual adult things this week. As a personal reward for achieving the bare minimum of functioning adulthood I naturally ordered a few records off Discogs from The Bert Dax Cavalcade of Stars label because I deserve more Bunnygrunt.

With that in mind, the obvious thing is to spread the Bunnygrunt around for everyone starting with this one on their very own Silly Moo label featuring them and other St. Louis & Columbia, MO bands.

Pop Goes the World (1997)

This other one is on the Love Me Not label is just kind of mysterious and is probably better for it. It's got a Bunnygrunt song on it, so that's all I really care about.

It was nearly lost too because for whatever reason it didn't quite make it into the proper SSC folder and I had to hunt it down in the regular collection as a companion piece to this post.

You're welcome.

More of the Same Decision

 

Blah Blah.

I'm out of things to say.

 

Fedora (1998)

More Sweet William.

It's kind of annoying that for some reason I can't seem to get the pictures to sit side by side anymore.

Lovely Norman (1998)

Wracked by Indecision

 

I'm having another night here where I'm doing singles up while at the same time trying to throw together a few posts. So everything is disjointed and being done in approximately three and a half minute intervals so that I get distracted and lost from sentence to sentence sometimes in the middle of  everything.

I also am having trouble deciding what I feel like posting and/or typing about. There's a plethora of things in the folders, but nothing leaping out at me or it's things that would require a series of posts that I just don't feel particularly up to the task of doing right now.

I made a choice anyway.

And we're off....

Dutch Mother (1998)

Sweet William. From Adelaide, Australia.

Ambiguous (1998)

But what do they sound like?

First they call themselves Sweet William.

Second their sophomore release here is on a label called "Twee Kitten"

That explanatory enough for you?

Getting Back to the Roots

  So it's been kind of an eventful fucking year and I still haven't fully gotten the apartment up to snuff or even gotten the Lp collection unpacked and back in place. I'm kind of just going through the boxes of Lps that need to be digitized and putting them away as they get done.

We'll likely be moving to another place before I get even part way done at that rate.

But between that and the ungodly amount of compact discs that I've been purchasing at cut rate prices because they're available and nobody buys them I've been kind of neglecting the backlog of seven inches that have been sitting around and filling out other online music orders. It's really been my coping mechanism for a stressful year and a half.

So tonight I'm doing even more singles to add to the glut of nearly 20Gs of shit in the "In Process" folder. The goal tonight is to get 20 digitized in total and at some point the ripping, scanning and tagging process will begin and go on which is going to be like an eight hour process. There's shit in there that goes back to last January when I was recovering from COVID and that was about all I was physically capable of.

So let's get back to our blogging roots and throw some seven inches up in this bitch..

Watercolor Sunset (1994)

A collaboration between James Rao best known as Orange Cake Mix on multiple labels and Joey Maddalena from a band called Names for Pebbles who had a record on Blackbean and Placenta Tape Club which also put out some Orange Cake Mix stuff.

This record is however on Sunday Records which means you as a devout follower of the SSC already have an inkling of the pleasant pop music that it contains.

Three Sixty Degrees (1999)

Southend-on-Sea band called the Windmills. Formed in 1987 and which survived until the third year of the 21st Century. This is the only thing I have by them. 

So far.

Piling Up

     Ok, We're getting a bit off course here, but it's bound to happen.

At one point this year I'd considered making another blog centering around all the indiepop stuff I'd been collecting and listening to. It didn't materialize, but by that time I'd already sequestered a large alternative folder of material for this potential other blog.

A big feature of the 90s/early 00s world of indiepop centered around compilations. There's thousands of them. Which means I have lots and now they're cluttering up things in a volume that the number of 13ths of the month cannot reasonably sustain.

So here's a nice one right fucking now.

Indie Aid Abroad: A Little Help For East Timor (2000)

The background in the reason this benefit compilation exists is to be found on Wikipedia.

the TL/DR was Indonesia annexed East Timor in 1975. In 1998 it was proposed that East Timor gain its independence which pissed off pro-Indonesia folks in East Timor and shit got violent which brought in the UN with Australia taking point.to keep peace. Meanwhile the people of East Timor were having some tough times because of the unrest.

Discogs has a tracklist

Many names will be familiar here.
It's a joint venture of Australian label Library Records and Drive In from Grand Rapids, Michigan. So bands from both stables are represented some of whom have been previously posted and others yet to come.

I really need to get back to doing seven inches again soon....

Ahead of the Game

 

I don't know.
I went a bit overboard with a somewhat expected windfall and spent a shit ton ordering things online in the past month. It's kind of ridiculous really.
I have more music than I think I'll ever really have the time to listen to and the pile just keeps growing and growing.

Then I rip it and eventually trickle out some of it here and there and you face a similar situation except without the scarcity of shelf space and filing issues that I have.

I mean, I have like nine plus days worth of Duke Ellington music. That's just fucking crazy to me. But here we are....

I need a drink.

Girlish (1995)

Discogs tells me that Racecar at one point went by the name Paint for a track on a compilation called "10 Cent Fix". Duly Noted. It's probably for the best that they changed the name. there's also a track by Racecar on the "Pop American Style" compilation that I'm pretty sure I already posted. (But I'm too lazy to check on that right now) 

All relevant links to the band have long since gone dark, so this is about all we have to know. It's enough. The music has to stand on its own some day.

It's middle 90s indie/power pop with female vocals that was the perfect thing to pop onto a compilation cassette as part of ye olde pre-Tinder dating rituals when the youth roamed the pre-internet wastelands looking for love and affection.

Unfortunately for today's on the go youth they won't be able to share any of this album on a Spotify playlist for a potential mate. It's going to be here or nowhere.

Good luck.

If this helps even person get laid it will have been worth it.

A Late Entry

 

 More of the same but different

If I Had a Shovel (2009)

It feels odd to me to be typing out posts for things this deep into the 21st Century. It all seems way too recent except that 2009 was a dozen years ago and I'm even more middle aged than I was then.

But here we are. It 2021.

And we have for your consideration Mytty Archer.

Yet another band featuring favorite son and human jukebox, Stewart Anderson, his lovely wife Jen Turrell and one Annah Whitfield. 

With that cast of characters in mind it should be pretty easy to deduce what you might be getting yourself into here. You won't be wrong, but also pleasantly surprised as well. It's quality stuff.

Visit them at Emotional Response and buy stuff to finance more recordings. It's the right thing to do.

Broken Tooth

 I broke a tooth a short while back. It wasn't bothering me and I had shit going on and was planning on making a dentist appointment anyway since it's been a pandemic since I went and I still have a temporary crown in from before I got COVID so I kind of  left it for a bit.

Then I finally made the dreaded call and appointment. Soonest was three and a half weeks out that fit my needs. (Life's different when you work nights) But I had one.

Naturally almost immediately after that it all hit the fan and it's not very fun trying to eat anything that requires chewing.

I called tonight and made a new appointment. It's five days out.
I'm probably gonna lose some of that post-COVID weight now...

Today It's You (1999)

The band is Marmoset

The sound is kind of angular pop music. 

My best guess is that one or more of them are fans of Mayo Thompson and all who sail with him. At least that's me. I get plenty of hints of Red Krayola here and I'm entirely fine with that.

This album hung out on my phone for quite a long time before I took it off to make room for new things. Always a pleasant surprise when random play threw a track into my sonic pathway.

Probably not going to change anybody's world, but certainly a worthy distraction from the inevitability of death.

I Had a Spare Buck to Spare

 

Still got nothing.

 

 

Central Services (2006)

2006. Getting up there. Time is catching up. Still fifteen years ago, but damn, I'm still a bit weirded out typing up dates on here in the 21st Century.

Anyway. This was about a buck. I got it based on a Youtube to max out postage because if it's any amount of things for a set amount, I'm going to try and bulk the shit out of that if I can to make it worthwhile.

So here we are with Central Services who were apparently at least popular enough or seeming like they might break through enough that NPR did a short blurb about them.

I didn't see it at the time. Not much info to otherwise be had, but it's some nice indiepop to brighten your day. Everybody needs that now and again.

K-Tel Memories

 I got nothing

 

20 Explosive Dynamic Super Smash Hit Explosions (1991)

A compilation on Pravda Records of various 90s artists doing covers of 70s songs.

Come for Smashing Pumpkins prefame stab at the Ozark Mountain Daredevil's "Jackie Blue" but stay for the majesty of Mojo Nixon taking on "I Just Dropped In (to See What Condition my Condition was In)"

Full list on Discogs.

Another Follow Up

 I'm hungry.

Gonna make two quickies and have a snack.

Counter Clockwise (1997)

A while back I put up a few stray singles by Melbourne, Australia's Autohaze.

Here's their third full length. I suppose as I get around to filling in the rest of the discography I'll follow up this post up later on.

But for now. Be content with the Pop and the Rock in equal measures.

Maybe cough up a buck or two on their bandcamp so somebody can get a cup of coffee.

It's the polite thing to do.

It's November Now

 

So a while back I kind of toyed with the idea of doing another couple of blogs. 

That obviously didn't happen. But in the meantime I'd set up one very large folder specifically for the stuff I intended for one.
Not likely to happen at this point. I lack the will, energy and desire.

So with that in mind I'm going to start plundering that folder for more posting fodder.

And since the backlog continues to grow at an alarming rate try and be a bit more discriminating in which things do get tossed up into this salad like a wayward spider among the red leaf lettuce.

Here's some flexis that I did a while back before I got the restoration software in all their low fidelity hissy glory.

Heaven flexi (1991)

Flexi discs. Something we all hate to love and love to hate.

Shitty sound, but cheap to make and all over the fucking place in the early 90s with so much otherwise unavailable things that you were forced to get them.

So here's a couple released by Sunday Records in the long ago days.

This first one has the Fat Tulips and a band called Confetti.

Sunday flexi (1992)

This one has Po!, Balloon Farm (a different one not to be confused with the 60s "Question of Temperature" one), former Sarah Records stalwarts St. Christopher and Applicants.

It's Sunday Records. It's pop.

Sweet Home and the Fifty States

 Alabama.

You can put a check mark next to it now.

 Primitons (1985)

Not a lot of things I can say about Alabama. I tend not to think about it much unless it comes up in an article of some sort which usually isn't painting the state in the best of lights. 

Or it's about college football.

But there's also the Primitons.

I picked this up for a few bucks primarily because it's on Throbbing Lobster which put out a bunch of Boston records I quite like. 

Worth it.

Jangly earnest 80s pop rock for the discriminating listener.

This is their debut release and the rest are naturally on my list.
Enough said and/or implied.

So October Pulls to a Close

 

We're a couple of days away from Halloween.
I'd thought about cranking out a special post for the day, but didn't get the single I wanted for it.

It's out there, but was never in good enough condition with a decent price whenever I looked.
So there's that. 

Maybe next year.

Long Night (1996)

This time out it's a double 7" on Siltbreeze. Of note is that for the second record Roy Montgomery is joined with the ever elusive and fabulous artist Bill Direen (who Chris Knox told me one time is crazy. Chris Knox said someone was a bit nuts. Let that sink in for a minute...) and on the flip by the Barbara Manning who deserves reconsideration, but that's me.

Just Melancholy (1996)

So Roy Montgomery went on to record and release a whole lot more stuff as the decade went on, but my focus shifted and this seems to be the last thing I picked up at the time. Seems apt.

Go and have a pumpkin spice something and gaze absently out the window into the gathering dusk and consider the fleeting impermanence of life and happiness.

At Odds with the Room

 So I've had a coffee. I'm full of meatloaf.
And most importantly I've decided that tomorrow is going to be the day when I get off my ass and start the long and tedious process of scanning, converting and tagging the 12G of .wavs I've got sitting around in the Vinyl folder.
It's going to be a solid eight or nine hour grind.
Not my favorite activity, but a necessary one.

But in the meantime, I'm throwing a few more into the fire as it were with some more 40s Big Band stuff picked up recently for dirt fucking cheap. The price was good, but the dude who owned them must have been a heavy smoker with greasy fingers judging by the shape of the vinyl. But I can't really complain too much, I suppose, for a couple of bucks or less apiece. Not a great market for 40s radio transcriptions these days, so this is the only way I'll get to experience some of this.

It's just a bit at odds with these few posts, it being decidedly happy upbeat numbers.

Life's like that sometimes.

Submerged and Colourful (1994)

So Roy Montgomery. Veteran of quite a few of the more talked about than heard of New Zealand bands. Dadamah got a good airing out here a while back. The Pin Group records are wonderful if you can find the reissues or have deeper pockets than I do to hunt down original issues.

When not crafting atmospheric ambient soundscapes on a 4-track cassette recorder the ever busy Roy would also craft moody dark songs sung with a sonorous baritone.

Something Else Again (1995)

And he was certainly a busy and sought after artist in the early/middle 90s churning out two full lengths and a handful of singles in a very short time on a variety of labels in a very short amount of time.

Zabriskie Point (parts 1 & 2) (1996)

Here's a few of them now.
Let them sink in and wash slowly over your mind like absinthe over a sugarcube.

Now if you'll excuse me, the processing software has cleaned up the first side of Brick Fleagle and Rex Stewart "Previously Unissued" and I have to chop it up into individual songs before flipping it. Good stuff.

Just in Time

 Phew!

I've been a bit lazy this week and we were very nearly facing an expected day without a post here on the Swinging Singles Club. So just in the nick of time I'm going to vomit out a few to get us through until another time I have time off be it a week from now or a month or something.

It's also rapidly approaching the cut off point before I start deleting things to free up space. There's like a Gig left to go. I'll probably do a couple of months at a time and free up 3 or 4Gs of space then rinse and repeat as necessary.

Scenes from the South Island (1995)

It seems kind of fitting as the Northern Hemisphere slowly sinks into the darkness with the shortening of days to throw some Roy Montgomery into the mix here.

This is a moody atmospheric instrumental album done on a home 4-track if memory serves. (The Porta-One was a fucking game changer, kids.)

Great music for brooding in a darkening room watching a gray day slowly sink into darkness without being all Goth about it. It's a lot more actual existential dread than "existential dread" but with black nail polish.

But Christchurch really does seem to pump out the melancholy.

I Gotta Work Tonight

 No Time.

Twice (2003)

The Tyde. Ric Menck on drums. Is very good. Yes.

Compiling Seven Inch Compilations or Try to Act Surprised

 Blah Blah Blah

This is the fifth post I'm queuing up tonight.

I have nothing left I want to say currently

Here's some records 

Acousticky (1996)

This may come as some shock to long time followers of my drivel, but here's a nice seven inch compilation on the Sticky Records label from 1996 that has...hold onto your hats...a contribution by Boyracer. Funny how often that happened.

As suggested by the punny title these are all acoustic tracks.

 

 

 

4 Track 4 Track (1997)

 A collection on the Slampt label of some of their best low fidelity all-stars making noises into 4 track machines. The addition of tape hiss only makes them more precious.

If you've ever wondered what a band that would call itself Delicate Vomit sounded like, this is your chance. The answer might surprise you.

It did me.

 

This One. You Need This One.

 As per usual, I'm hungry again.

I should finish up some Chinese leftovers after I post this one by the Mint Chicks.

Crazy? Yes! Dumb? No! (2006)

Look, I'll be straight with you. This is by my meager and humble estimate one of the most criminally overlooked releases of the second decade of this century at least in the US.

It very deservedly won a bunch of homegrown awards in New Zealand.
Album and Single of the Decade no less for the title track. 

But nobody paid it any attention in the States.

It probably didn't help that it was only released here on a small weird label that specializes in soundtracks and then two years after its initial release. 

But still...

This is one you ought to hear. Trust me. I would not steer you wrong.

(I mean, if you went down that YT rabbit hole after the first post, you already know.)

 Here's your chance before the hipsters find it and ruin it like they did Neutral Milk Hotel when they "discover" it in a couple of years if they ever do at all.