Still Alive Somewhere in your Past

I'm typing this from the great quarantine days of April 2020.
Still alive and kicking as of then.
So you get a few more posts since I don't have a whole lot going on around here otherwise.

Monterey (1999)

The Write to address is Brooklyn, so I'm going with that.

This is the sole proof of the existence of the band that called itself Monterey.

Nice strummy indiepop from the waning days of the 20th Century.

A fine example of the time and genre and vinyl when almost nobody bought it.

I Know a Girl (1995)

Meanwhile and in the same general time period and area, All About Chad concluded their four year run of pop songs about girls with this single ahead of their sole full length "Down in Front"
That's about all I know or feel like I need to know at this juncture.

Nothing and Nothing in Common But Origin

I got nothing in the tank.

Just pictures and a quick link for you tonight.

Forever and Ever (1981)

State of the Art Nu Wave from the UK.

Seems to have been a one off and there's not fuck all of information I turned up.
Not that it's essential to enjoy the record.
It lives in its own space.
You can almost dance there.

Difference of Opinion (1968)

The actual A-side is kind of lame, so I'm marking the flip as the front so I remember why I came.

The Montanas were from Wolverhampton.

Not sure if the "Flower Tower" is something that could actually have been found in Wolverhampton, but apparently it's not about the finding so much as the searching.

But that very short fuzz burst in the bridge does my soul some good.

That is all.

The Sticky Stuff

It's many month ago during the Great Coronavirus Pandemic and Isolation Event.


Hopefully I pulled through at hospital and such.

I suppose it remains to be seen. If the posts stop at a certain point in the near future, just pour one out for your dead homie.

Tennis Racket (1996)

What Google tells me is that "Autocollant" is French for "Self Adhesive".

It also implied that this short lived group were from New York and broke up within a year of forming.

Lo-fi Indie Pop with a trumpet on craptacularly shoddy 90s vinyl pressings.

I still love the fuck out of it.

 

Casa (1997)

I like it enough that I feel compelled to make sure to include a shot of the adorable handstamp on the inner sleeve.

Shelflife Records put out a compact disc compilation of their complete recorded output in 1999.

Keep an eye out for a reasonably priced copy for me, please.

History Repeats Againt Modernity.

This next installment of Boston/LA wasn't intentional.

It just happened because both of them have "Modern" in their name and ended up next to each other in the SSC file folder.

Man in Black ep (1983)

Toxic Shock records. West Coast punk rock circa 1983.

It's everything you hope for and expect from that tidbit of info.

Not the best. Not the worst of the bunch.

If I were Robert Christagau, I might give it a B-/C+

New England (live) (1977)

In the middle 70s the Modern Lovers 2.0 did a jaunt through the Old Country (or "Old World", you might say) and came away with a really sweet live Lp out of the deal.

I picked up all those sweet and goofy Beserkley lp out of the cut-out bin and the Musicsmith at the Hanover Mall sealed for a couple of bucks a pop and treasured them through high school.

It wasn't until I got to college that I finally secured a copy of the first Modern Lovers lp. That was a game changer.

Anyway. Jonathan was trying to move forward from the previous incarnation of the band, but he kept "Roadrunner" as an encore (which was put on the b-side to a different single from the set) He also apparently thought enough of "Astral Plain" to keep it available  and it ended up as the flip to the live version of "New England"

It's a really sweet version too. I have no complaints about it.

Not Quite the Same, But Close Enough

I can't help it.

I like patterns.

So here we are again.

Massachusetts vs. California in the 80s.

Round 3.

 The Spirit's Still There (1984)

Boston. A bit Goth.

These guys were the first local band I ever saw back in high school. Some friends and I hopped into somebody's parent's car and drove into the city for our first ever all ages show at someplace in probably Allston. (I seem to vaguely think it was in an empty storefront somewhere around Commonwealth and Harvard st, but it's more a feeling than a fact.)

I believe I still have a flyer for the show even packed away.
The bill was Primitive Romance, Native Tongue and Boy's Life.

We were young and it was fun and cool to see bands live and up close and approachable and close.

To Know Him is to Love Him (1980)

The Wigs.

San Diego.

Never had the pleasure, but this is a really sweet slice of 60's style dayglo pop.

You can never go wrong with a Farfisa.

A Side is a cover of an early Phil Spector tune originally recorded by the Teddy Bears.

I like this better.

Deja Vu All Over Again

When I was in the process of typing out the "labels" while setting this post set up I realized that I was repeating a Boston/LA post from approximately the same years.

Small world.

Love is the Lesson (1982)

Monad.

From Boston. Some seriously frantic art damaged wonderful weirdness.

I scanned the inner sleeve.
You know what that means.

You should want this.

Beak (1979)

Monitor.

From Los Angeles. Some seriously art damaged wonderful weirdness.

There wasn't an inner sleeve.
Just a postcard of James Mason that seemed nonessential.

You should want this.

4 Sides. No Shit.

As per usual I'm typing this up months and months previous to it posting.

I might not normally even be doing this tonight but unfortunately for me the television I would otherwise be occupying my time with wasting my life playing some worthless video game on suddenly crapped out on me in the middle of watching something on Netflix. (Well, not exactly "watching" so much as it was on while I fiddled around with a guitar which is my personal form of "practice")

So here we are. I have to wait it out until such time as I can get to a store and replace the fucking thing that I probably depend too much on for my personal entertainment.

In the meantime I've decided that for the sake of my own personal karma I'd drop a post of the most wonderful old school punk rock shit I had in the SSC folder.

Here's some fucking lemonade.

Achin' (1981)

The Plugz.

I could blather on about the importance of this band in terms of who they were and what they accomplished and became and all that crap. But you can read up on the Wiki if you need. I don't really care.

What I do care about is how fucking great a song "Achin'" is.

And that's really all that matters.
Trust me.

The flip is a nod to their Hispanic heritage and where they fit in as young punks and thus perfect in its own way.

This was a present to myself for working some long ass overtime. It wasn't exactly cheap for what I usually am willing to spend, but I have zero regrets.

The band would later rerecord a version of "Achin" for their second Lp "Better Luck" but it really lacks the raw immediateness and passion of the original.

Accept no substitutes.

White Stains (1979)

The Molls.

I'm pretty sure this has been comped multiple upon multiple times. Deservedly so.

They were from Boston and were led by Tristam Lozaw who would go onto lead Someone and the Somebodies that I posted a while back.

This is much better.

It's loud, crass, funny and punk fucking rock.

The flip on this is a song about the famous 70s exotic dancer known as Chesty Morgan who was endowed with an extremely large bosom. (And if you're wondering is still in fact alive as far as the internet tells me.)

Also fortunately for me, I didn't have to pay a premium for this one. I got it for a couple of bucks in the 90s because it was from Boston and Peter Prescott from Mission of Burma played drums on it.

New Hampshire Reporting In

Check another box in your fifty states card.
New Hampshire

Wishing Well (1993)

The various bios I skimmed say that they eventually moved to NYC, but for our purposes, we'll just label this harder rockin' female fronted quartet as a New Hampshire band.

What makes this single entirely worth the hard earned dollar I spent on it is the b side "Narrow Canal" which is a sad tale of big dick problems from the woman's point of view.

Not necessarily having experienced this as an issue from either side, I must live vicariously through song.

Bats (1995)

Mid-90s. Seven inch single. Dame Darcy illustration. Seems about right. It's a perfect snapshot of the time and what it sounded and looked like in certain corners of the musicsphere. 

This is the second single that preceded two full lengths I haven't pulled the trigger on. They're on the list, but merely await copies that can be bundled with other purchases to maximize shipping. Let that be your guide.