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.

I Have Gin

 

Summer's winding down.
I have one fewer days off this week and Fall Back is looming and I haven't checked if I'm working that weekend or not. An extra hour of work on a twelve hour shift is kind of shit.

And now it occurs to me that I still have the gin that I got when it was still blistering hot out.

It's less hot outside, but the gin is still delicious.

Here's more Mint Chicks

Fuck the Golden Youth (2005)

Here we go. First full length. "Fat Gut Strut", "Licking Letters" "Take It, I Don't Want It", "You're Bored Because You're Boring"

Quality. Fuck the Golden Youth, indeed.

Do Yourself a Favor

 

My attention is so split right now I'm not even sure what I'm supposed to be focusing on.

Ellington live at the Click Restaurant in Philadelphia from November 1948 is blaring in the room, but I'm supposed to also be thinking about this.

Octagon Octagon (2003)

Holy shit. 2003. That seems so recent but it's already been 18 years.

The Mint Chicks were part of like the third wave of outstanding New Zealand bands on Flying Nun and I don't even know what to say about them.

They're noisy and spastic and all over the map, but everything always has a deeply embedded nugget of pop sensibility in it that no matter where it goes you can hum along somehow.

Anti-Tiger (2004)

So yeah. They sound like you might expect from the sleeve art.

Seriously though you could certainly do worse than to spend a couple of hours going down the YouTube hole for the Mint Chicks and watching some live footage.

Here's a good place to start. See you in a couple of days....