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.

It's a compilation day

Why Do You Think They Call it Pop (1994)

01. Sleepyhead - Hot Stuff
02. Dambuilders, The - Pennsylvania
03. Small Factory - Yeah!
04. Versus - Sunburned (Life's a Beach)
05. Polvo - Colonial Arms
06. Monsterland - Sunburn
07. Wingtip Sloat - Leap Into My Velvet Arms
08. Helium - In a Little Box
09. Ruby Falls - Let Me Go
10. Twig - Airplane
11. Greenhorn - 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover
12. Kudgel - Friction~Ali Baba
13. Grifters - Black Fuel Incinerator

Home and Hombres

This is another post.

I have business to take care of.

It will be short.

Home and Garden (1986)

"By 1982, Pere Ubu, a band that had blazed a trail of influence (if not outright commercial success) through the punk/new wave scene, had broken up. Scott Krauss, Ubu's founding drummer, who had left a year before the band's dissolution, was already exploring new musical avenues when he was joined by Ubu bass player Tony Maimone. Together they entered the recording studio as Home and Garden" 

That should be enough to start you off. The last update from their site is from 2012. So there you go.

Let It Out (1967)

The Hombres. Garage. The A-side is a classic. B-Side is a lost classic. Let it all hang out, baby.

The End.

The last of the singles by the Grifters that I currently have.

Wicked Thing (1997)



It exists. It's the Grifters. It's on Sub Pop. I'd say that's about as descriptive as I really need to get if I was keep a running tally of the talking points I might make in regards to this particular seven inch slap of vinyl.

Don't you think?

Gutterball (1993)


Gutterball were an indie super group or some such nonsense formed around former Dream Syndicate head honcho Steve Wynn in the early 90s. This is one of their singles. There are two songs on it. One on each side. I am done typing now.

The Movie

There was a movie made of the Grifters based on the original novel by pulp crime novelist Jim Thompson

Stream (1995)


The film adaptation of The Grifters starred Anjelica Huston, Annette Bening and John Cusack and was directed by Stephen Frears who has made some really quality cinema over the years including My Beautiful Launderette & High Fidelity. You'd be well advised to give his body of work the once over and watch a few of the lesser known ones. He does quality work.

Slipknot (1996)

The beauty of the modern world is that if you really want to watch the entire movie it is currently up on Youtube in its entirety. There are worse things you could do with a couple of hours. If you need somebody else's opinion it has a pretty credible score on Rotten Tomatoes and I suspect that following doing all this posting I may in fact revisit this one because I really don't remember much about it besides that I really rather enjoyed it quite a bit.

You may too.

The Book

 Bronze Cast (1994)

The Grifters is a novel by Jim Thompson.

He wrote a lot of really good pulp crime novels. I read as many of them back in the day as I could find. This was one of the best of them.

Queen of the Table Waters (1994)

I'd also recommend "Killer Inside Me" and "Pop. 1280" as among his best novels and worth spending the time to devour in a single sitting. You'll be glad you did.

#14 on the list, #300 on the blog

Once upon a time in 2012 there appeared on a fledgling Instagram (before it became the go-to app for young women to post selfies and pictures of their food) a photo from some hipster indie record store of something entitled "Do Not Buy Ever List" of cd's not to be purchased for resale.

The Grifters were #14.

I like the Grifters.

Soda Pop (1992)

They pumped out quite a bit of music in their tenure and got signed to Sub Pop and nothing ever seemed to happen for them.

At least the music remains.

Holmes (1993)

They were from Memphis where Elvis lived. They have a Facebook page.

It's messy and distorted.
I don't have much else to say.
I'll leave it that.