I have a shit ton of 7"s. This is simply an excuse to get off my lazy 21st Century ass and make them more easily listened to as 1's & 0's. I then share. It's a symbiotic relationship. I may even toss in an occasional lp or something.
If it's your OOP record and you don't want it posted, Just let me know. I'll gladly take it down. I'm easy.
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.
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.
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.
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.
But I'm off work and have Duke Ellington live at the Southland Cafe in Boston from January 1940 blasting in the background while I type so there's that.
It's called "Moo" and the title track is some soothing music with the band mooing along with it.
There's also a nice little dance number called "Ghost in a Bikini" that has nothing to do with some of my experience with Sims 4, but I'm not exactly denying it's a possibility.
But best of all they offer some really solid advice to the youth of then and today looking for an identity to hang their self identity on in those/these troubled time. Don't be a Hippie.
Truly powerful stuff.
What I do find irritating is that in the early part of this century the band did release compact disc versions of both these albums along with the singles and eps they also recorded. But apparently in very limited quantities and they currently go for stupid prices for compact discs. I'm not stingy, but I do have some economic sense not to pay ransom money for them, but still. It'd be nice if they'd do another release of the material or somebody like Rhino or Numero Group would take up the cause. I want more Judy's.
Got another large package of compact discs in the mail today plus a couple of records for good measure. I'm ripping those in another couple of windows.
Some of that shit might end up here in a year or two. Or not. I don't know anymore.
Meanwhile I'm going to queue up a few posts since I'm sitting here anyway.
Job's Daughters is a side project from Brendan Kearney of Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 abetted by Greg Freeman and others.
I read a while back on a link I can't relocate that the A side is an Ennio Moriccone track from the soundtrack to low budget Italian film "I Cannibal" The B side was from some odd Asian record of unknown origin, but a lovely song nonetheless.
That's about all I got.
I have some Duke Ellington shit to tag in another window...
A random flexi I acquired many years ago for the above noted fifty cents by Jesus Couldn't Drum. It is unfortunately afflicted with on nasty noisy blurt in the title track (such is the woe of cheap flexis), but is otherwise so wonderfully catchy that I decided to post it anyway.
I want to also go on record as not condoning actual animal cruelty and would like to assume that Jesus Couldn't Drum didn't either.
I'd kind of forgotten about this until it came up in the record box. Now I have the Jesus Couldn't Drum discography in my wantlist.
Jangled and chorus addled pop from Boston in the middle of the 1980s.
Their sole release on Dolphin Records
I saw them probably a number of times, but didn't really connect with it.
The gentle air of nostalgia for the sound makes it more palatable to my middle aged ears though and thus we are here at this moment.
I had a link for a minute or two to an interview with a founding member but I closed it and don't feel like looking it up again. If you're interested feel free to look up info yourself.
This exists as it is encased in amber anyway.
An artifact from a distant time when I didn't understand quite how poor I was and spent way too much time at the Rat, which is where I'm sure I saw them. They probably played with Dumptruck and another band I went specifically to see. Probably O Positive in 1985.
That sounds like a good and actually quite plausible bill.
Ann Arbor.
It exists even if you don't remember that it does.
It exists in the past and the future.
It persists to be despite the overwhelming amount of folks in the world who are completely unaware of its existence.
So back in August of 2018 the record posted on the 13th of that month was "Cruisin' Ann Arbor" a live compilation of various bands from Ann Arbor, Michigan. One of the highlights of which was a band called Map of the World.
There's a single that preceded this that I haven't pulled the trigger on, but this is the first 12" offering of jangly pop. Besides the title track this one includes a decent stab at the Willie Nelson penned, Patsy Cline made famous song "Crazy"
They followed the previous release with this 6 song 12" that may or may not constitute and Lp. The distinction always gets a bit hazy at the six song mark. In my mind it's an elongated Elongated Player. Plus there's a reprise of "Hiroshima Girls" so it's really only five new songs.
Regardless. I like it.
It jangles. It's pop.
There's not much more to be said.
The third compilation of local Boston bands brought to you by the auspices of Throbbing Lobster.
A number of heavy favorites here for me. Chiefly the Turbines who I saw as much as I fucking could and the inaugural vinyl appearance of Classic Ruin's "Geraldine, I Need Money More Than I Need You" which is a song of epic proportions and beauty.
There are also a few bands that released nothing else. So there's that archival value to it as well.
This is just otherwise a nice state of the city map of a small sector of the Boston Music Scene at the time.
As it is, I don't actually have this Lp, though I did make this digitalitization. I ordered a bunch of stuff from a dude on Discogs who fucked my order up and then a week later proceeded to send me somebody else's order on top it. This was in it. But being the upstanding citizen I am I straightened things out and sent the package on its way to the proper purchaser pausing only to make this dub for my trouble and personal enjoyment.
Looks like I went on some kind of nostalgic binge for local Boston area things at around the same time so the SSC to post folder has a bunch of them clustered together from around the same creation date.
O Positive and their particular brand of emotive chorus pedal abuse were a pretty big fucking deal in the area when they first appeared. The women I hung out with were certainly quite enamored of them and their sound. I ended up seeing them more than I really cared to at the time, but I went with my friends and there was beer. I like beer.
It's hard to tell which was the bigger song for them at the time of this release, "With You" was certainly a panty dampener but "Weight of Days" was a pretty normal closer.
All in all this is a very pleasant romp and chock full of weird sense memories of things like the bathroom at Spit/Metro or the smell of the Paradise from days long long gone when I was young and dumb and didn't know enough to appreciate it.
And here we are at a distance looking back with gray hairs not even fully remembering it, just the vague feeling of remembering.
I should probably eat something.
Melancholy nostalgia is usually a sign of low blood sugar.
So, the main hard drive where I had stored my digital files shit the bed.
But on the bright side, since I believe strongly in redundancy the back up was fine and only a couple of months out of date. But since I had all my recent files elsewhere it ended up being not so painful a process as you might expect. Recent rips were on my phone and all the vinyl .wavs are on a different drive. So it ended up being a matter of re-ripping four records that I didn't have otherwise somewhere else and retagging a previous rip of a Cd I got in the last couple of weeks.
So let this be a timely reminder.
Back your shit up, motherfucker!
The files you save may be your own....
I picked this up blind. I had no idea what they might be like, but there were a couple of clues that it might be something I'd be interested in.
1.) The Title made me wonder if they were doing a cover of the Grodes song made more famous by the Chocolate Watchband. (It's not, but I didn't know that until after I bought it.) It's actually an original song.
2.) There's a cover of "The Beat Goes On" by Sonny and Cher
3.) There's a song called "Dead Girls Don't Say No"
I'll admit that #3 was really what sealed the deal. How could I resist?
I could not.
They were apparently from Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Not much info on the internet. Not much needed. It's some pleasant AOR New Wave with some nice old school synth action that probably got them laid now and again so long as the women didn't pay close attention to that song about a serial killing rapist...
According to Popsike.com some poor schmuck shelled out $200 for a copy in 2011. But in 2016 someone else got a bargain at $20. The copies on Discogs currently start at $60 but the median sold price is $35 so who knows what this may or may not be worth. I paid considerably less than any of that so I win, I guess.
You get to hear it for nothing. So in the end we're all better off.
Digging deep again for more from previous entrants because I like completeness when it comes to discographies. I want to have it all. What's the point of having a collection if everything is incomplete?
So back about four whole years ago I posted this Washington DC area based band debut single which some people really seemed to like based on feedback. It's the Acrylix. There's another 12" in between that and this that is perhaps the missing link, but here we have a 12" dance song with an instrumental remix on the flip and a track of nearly two minutes of people clapping and chanting the title for your club mix/roller disco needs.
And now as a palate cleanser a band I have not previously posted crap by.
They called themselves Don't No and they played hardcore.
The record is on Mystic and is from 1985.
You already know what this sounds like without even hearing it.
I'm not sure what kind of test, but it seemed like if I typed that phrase up there as a title then in the time it took me to hit enter and start working on the body of this post I could in that half a second devise some kind of gimmick that would allow that particular title to make sense.
I have failed.
Perhaps that was the test.
I have failed my own test.
(But to be fair, in the midst of typing the above sentences my wife came in and asked me to smell something to tell her if I thought it was spoiled. Having potentially spoiled food thrust under ones nose with very little warning is a bit of a distraction from whatever might otherwise be occupying ones thoughts. Such trains of thought are easily derailed. Especially when accompanied by old food that smells slightly off. That has quite the opposite effect of focusing ones concentration on something completely unrelated to the unwelcome scents of questionable edibles. Of this much you can be assured.)
This was the last of the Lps I purchased by Half Japanese. My interests went elsewhere, but I kept these too. I quite like them.
This one least of all because it has "Firecracker, Firecracker" on it.
The song with the immortal words:
"Boys got the muscles Teachers got the brains Girls got the sexy legs, they win the game Muscles ain't strong Brain's ain't smart But oh, those legs, they won my heart"
So if you've been following along at home, you may vaguely remember a post from a while back of the first two singles by Blackouts. If not you can head on over to that and have a look. I'll wait....
So here's their 1985 swan song on Wax Trax! Half the band would end up joining Ministry around this time and Mr. Al Jourgenson himself took the producer's chair for this release.
I don't know. I'm a bit distracted. The tv is on and I'm barely paying attention to my own typing.
Just listen to it. I was a bit taken aback when I first threw it on the turntable. I would have absolutely hated it in 1985, but I would have been completely off base in my assessment.
So suck it, past me! You pompous music snobby little shit.
My wife likes them. They have a lot of releases. She has some of the cds and I'll probably pick up more of it as I come across it. Make of that as you wish.
It's New Years Eve and time to bid farewell to the stinking pile that was 2016.
Fuck you 2016.
I'm glad that time is for all appearances linear so I can be relatively assured that I will never have to experience your seemingly bottomless abyss of suck again.
So with that in mind we come to the final nail in the posting coffin of 2017.
And it's a simple and straightforward indie pop Lp from Seattle, WA. A half a decade or so before the rest of the world realized it was a real place and that people lived there and had jobs and houses and band and shit like that. Just like real people do.
I picked this up because it was on Green Monkey Records who most famously release the output of the Green Pajamas who did that one song you know because Material Issue covered it for a minor minor hit. (If you're patient it will eventually appear here too. I love that song.)
I didn't know the Elements from a small stack of pancakes when I bought this.
Still don't.
I'd probably have a hard time telling them apart if presented with a police lineup. I'd have to guess based on which was one tasted better with butter and syrup. Even then, it could be dicey.
The album is titled "Honest Enough" and I find it to be an appropriate title. Pleasantly so.
It's as simple, fun and unpretentious as a record could be in 1985 and devoid of any of those terrible sound choices that were rampant then. It exists in a timeless bubble of sound where it could have comfortably been recorded anytime in the past 40 years.
Many many years ago in the depth of the Reagan years I worked briefly with a punk rock chick named Katy. We worked at a sandwich shop and would play homemade mix tapes for our own amusement and the consternation of the customers. On one of her tapes she put a song called "Johnny's Got a Problem" that I took a fancy to. So I bought the album.
I remember Katy as a very sweet girl. One time former television movie critic and gossip columnist Rex Reed came into the restaurant and yelled at her and made her cry. Rex Reed is a dick.
Eventually, Katy went to too many free vegetarian meals as a poor punk rocker and ended up quitting and becoming a Hari Krshna. After that I never ran into her again. I don't listen to this record very often, but when I do I wonder whatever happened to her.
I hope it all worked out for the better.
*Also of note is that the end of Side One has a backwards bit. I tacked the track going forwards at the end of the file here for your enjoyment and erudition. Unfortunately it's not a satanic call for the blood of the newly born, but just some silliness from the band. Apply with caution anyway.
Well, actually this particular 12" was properly released in 1986 but the contents had been released on other records the year previous. It collects a B-side from the "Cruiser's Creek" 12" called "Vixen", the three songs from the Rollin' Dany 12" and adds a bonus track called "Barmy"
All stuff recorded in and around the Fall masterwork "This Nation's Saving Grace".
It also introduced the Fall as a covers band with their version of Gene Vincent's "Rollin' Danny" which in itself is not necessarily a favorite song of mine in either context. But it was something that moving forward into the blackness of the 80's would eventually bring some more mainstream success for the Fall. This was probably a good thing as it seems that Brix had taken over responsibilities for styling Mark E as his wardrobe seemed to vastly improve around this time. No more sweater vests Nicer slacks and shinier shirts
No, this isn't a post dedicated to the guitarist formerly known as David Howell Evans.
It's been quite a while since I was a simpering teen in need of uplifting anthems to get me through the day because I couldn't get laid mostly due to being a simpering teen.
Instead it's another post of bands with the same name. UK v. US : the Edge.
These guys are Edge (8) on Discogs meaning they weren't the first ones to come up with this clever moniker. It is a solid effort though. Probably more skinny tie than safety pins, this lot. I would certainly spend another fifty cents on other items in their back catalog, if not entire dollars.
These guys are Edge (11). The one sentence bio says that they originated in Cincinnati before moving East to Allston, MA (or Boston if you didn't want to explain it to anybody). The record is pretty Ok. I liked it better this time through than I remembered, so maybe it's a grower. I mostly really appreciate the sleeve. It's an ugly sleeve to be sure, but since those are my old stomping grounds on Harvard Ave between Comm Ave & Brighton and in 1985 when I was actually stomping them.
On the front there's Deli King: bad cafeteria food. In Your Ear records where many a meager paycheck went to die & Riley's Roast Beef. Open late for your bar close hunger and best not sampled sober. Back side has the Store 24 where I'd buy cigarettes and where after some long lysergic nights one could purchase orange juice. Then there's Bunratty's which was the local long haired Rock club that never had anybody I wanted to see play (which was too bad because I lived like three stumbling blocks away. And of course, the ever present Steve's Kitchen where I spent quite a few weekend mornings nursing a hangover and eating greasy gyro & eggs. Steve himself being a burly Greek man whose wife worked the counter and would sometimes sport a shiner. Good times. Bad coffee.
(Not pictured but on the same stretch of Harvard, Blanchard's Liquors (Grab a 40 on the way home) and Mr. Music where Bruce and I split the cost of a $100 cheap as shit short scale bass for home recording.)
The Dentists next couple of ventures in recorded sound were a pair of fine 12" eps with more of the same great sound as the previous records and some more somewhat cryptic titles. Though I think it would have been rather amusing when an audience member might feel the need to yell out a request for a particular favorite song and hear somebody shout "Where's My Chicken, You Bastard"
I have this ep, but these rips come from a 1988 compilation "Beer Bottles and Bannister Symphonies" on Antler Records because the mastering on the original was kind of complete horseshit. You'll thank me later, maybe.
Given the horrible toothache I'm currently having as I load up the post queue here a month or two in advance by banging out a bunch of posts all at once so I can let things fester along without me while I tend to other pressing matters like more whiskey and typing out really long under punctuated run-on sentences and because I've already done up half a dozen Boyracer posts and already had this stuff on the back burner for after since my brain had moved on in the meantime and it seems kind of apropos and it's really good and what I've actually been listening to a lot in the last month anyway and just seems more or less kind of kismet I'm going to break up the current Boyracer deluge by tossing a good overview of the discography of the Dentists into the mix. It's late into Spring and as good a time as any for some jangly Pop.
This is one of those fabulous debuts that are part of the reason I really like singles so much. The A-side s as damn near a perfect bit of jangly paisley infused pop as has ever been committed to vinyl. It's like sonic Pez. All sugary goodness you want to crunch between your teeth. Have to listen to it again. Want more. The flip is more of the same with the song "Doreen" existing nowhere else in the Dentists discography. Rinse repeat and rinse again.
So here's the deal. Be Me. It's 1985. Be in Nuggets Used Records in Kenmore Square in Boston. See this lp. It's, I think $7.99 for an import. The young lads on the cover look like people I'd consider hanging out with. The title is unnecessarily long and there's a song on it with the word "psychedelic" in the title. Know absolutely nothing about them or have the slightest clue what it might sound like. Feeling adventurous with my limited disposable income. Just go ahead and buy the fucker. Get home. Put it on. Made the right choice.
I'm not really sure why nobody seemed to pick up on this when it came out. In hindsight it should have been big or at least be one of those "obscure" records that people reference in their influences that "people in the know" will get. But it wasn't. It isn't. And outside of various readers of the BOB magazine nobody really noticed it in the year that Wham! and Madonna battled it out at the top of the charts. Dark times indeed.
The good news for you is that you can have your very own brand new copies to do with as you please that will probably sound better than these slapdash mp3's I make for my own amusement. The good and tasteful folks at Trouble In Mind records have reissued both of these for the discerning to have and to hold and admire. I suggest that you ought to be one of them. It's always good to have a hard copy back up of such tremendous wonderful.
