I've Been Obsessing Again

 

For tonight I'm doing up more records while I type.

I've been obsessing over Duke Ellington radio transcription bootlegs of programs from the 40s.
Some fucking brilliant stuff. Lots of hits of the day that didn't get recorded otherwise as well as great performances in front of a live audience.

So in the past month or so I've picked up about another dozen.
It's like the Duke was recorded almost as much as the fucking Dead. (But I can listen to him without wanting to punch a hippie in the throat so I enjoy it much more.)

I even went so far as to pick up an extra shift with an extremely desperate bonus for picking up just so I could justify spending a shit ton of money getting a hard copy of the 24 disc Ellington Centennial Collection of his complete recordings for RCA Victor.

You can never have enough Duke Ellington. Never.

So that's where my head's at lately and at some point may end up here.

But in the meantime have some Punk/New Wave nonsense...

Chronic Alkie (1981)

Wilma & the Wilbers. From Minneapolis, MN (or maybe St. Paul, I don't know)

A blink and you missed it band that really should have been comped more.

"Chronic Alkie" is a fine tune but the other two are also worthy.

Tiger Beat (1982)

Yeah, this one's even better.

The hit for me is "I Like It Thick" about a girl's love for milkshakes. 

She likes them thick when she's hot and wet on a summer's night.

Absolutely about milkshakes.Nothing else implied. No sir. She just loves those cold dairy products. Yep yep yep. Milkshakes.

This too needs to have been comped more.

I Don't Know What to Do with Splits pt 2

[brief rant removed]

Castaway Stones/Dearly (1998)

Castaway Stones were from Washington DC and one of the hundreds of really great bands that involved Pam Berry (Black Tambourine).
Add it to the list.

Dearly were from Minneapolis. That's about all I know. Maybe it's all I need to.

Test Pilot Meets Origami (2000)



Another fine release on Kittridge.

About a year ago I tracked down the dude who ran the label and completed the label discography. He also sent me a Cdr of the unreleased Going Stagg cd (he played guitar in the that band) which is fucking wonderful stuff that at some point blah blah blah...

Which is kind of besides the point of this single, but information is very slim about the origins of both of these bands. This being the only vinyl appearance for both. (though Test Pilot did release a number of cassettes)

Two more contenders for the Indiepop compilation...

I scanned the insert.

More Mor Mor's

I'm doing other records.

Don't expect much.

3D Sound (1982)

Seriously there's not fucking diddly squat I could find about this band in a short search. Moroccos appear to be from Philadelphia and everybody was in a couple of other bands.

A side is some seriously nice catchy danceable Nu Wave. B side is an instrumental.

Does it matter?
Fuck No.

Is it good?
Hell Yes.

Suburbanite (1981)

The Morons were from Albany, NY.

This and a compilation appearance are the only evidence of their existence except in memories.


And today, a special bonus.
Just because...

The Girl Next Door (1979)

Another blink and you missed it Minneapolis group that cluttered up the Break'er Records catalog. Kind of almost Power Pop. Probably considered a "punk" band at the time.

I think I have actually less than a dollar invested in this one if I remember correctly.
Total score on my end.

Still Local-ish and for Completions

I got nothing.
Not exactly my favorites, but needed to hit some blank spots in discographies that I'm working on.

Happy Ain't Coming Home (1992)

The acoustic pop on Bus Stop from the Leatherwoods.

Discogs says they originated in Lawrence, KS and subsequently moved to Minneapolis.

I'll accept them as from around here.

It's one of my less favorite of the Bus Stop singles but it fills a spot.
The sort of stuff that would absolutely kill at an open mic night.

They eventually made a full Lp on which Paul Westerberg played under a pseudonym.
You can use that as some sort of a recommendation if you will.

I Want to Function with You (1980)

Magnetic Head Cleaners.

More outright weirdness from your friends at Break'er Records.

It just is.

I Just Woke Up

I haven't had my second cup of coffee yet.

Lover Boy (1978)

Gonna keep it real. Going local.

The Jets. Power Pop from the Twin Cities.

It's on Twin Tone.

I really like the flip "Paper Girl"

Enough said.

Climbing Vine (1990)

Liquid Pink were from Milwukee, WI.

It's some swirling psychedelicate pop in that weird zone between pop and the lost era of undefined sounds that was the end of the 80s. It's really a musical gray area.

The flip "Pretty Lizard" is a rousing rocker about an actual lizard. Even reptiles need songs now and again.

One has to wonder how many times they played with Plasticland.

Jesters and Jokers

I'm not going to work too hard on this post.
I don't usually work that hard, but I'm going to just go with it.

The quality of the music itself is more than anything I might add to it

Jesters of Newport (1965)

Yeah, I paid the princely sum of twenty bucks for this monster back in the middle 80s.
Currently you would not be so lucky.
Even so.
Worth every fucking penny.

Jokers Wild (1967)

From Minneapolis, MN. Both sides are great stuff.

Custodians

Let's clean things up a bit....

Zix Cuts '81 (1981)

J'nitors United C.O.D. were a Dutch band.

They're an odd mix of elements that I'm too hungry to go into.
You listen. I've been carting this thing around for decades now.
Let that be a warning.

H'mong Today, Hung Tomorrow (1992)

Janitor Joe were from Minneapolis, MN.

If they have any renown outside of the Twin Cities it would be because the bass player is the one who ended up in Hole playing for Courtney Love and subsequently died a few months after Kurt Cobain did and for which there still swirl a certain amount of conspiracy theories about them and that.

I'm not going to speculate on any of it, but I'm not ruling anything out at this point....

Also Janitor Joe were a better band than Hole.
And that's not a conspiracy theory. That's a natural fact.

The Good and Bad and Things Reconsidered

It's another day. The next day from the previous post and I've still got a head cold.
Bear that in mind.

Matt Allison (1989)

I hadn't actually listened to this in quite a long time until now. I must have been having a bad time when I first played it because I'm totally reassessing my my original opinion. First off the a-side has the core of the Velvet Crush (Rick Menck & Paul Chastain) backing Matt Allison up to pretty sweet pop effect. The flip is all Matt Allison in his home studio.

Oh, and it's on the Bus Stop Label so if you've enjoyed anything else I've posted on that label, this is going to be right up your alley.

As for Matt Allison himself, it looks like he's been making his living on the other side of the recording booth with his own Atlas Studios in Chicago if you're in need of some recording done.

Neo Bar & Grill (1979)

I'd thought that I'd posted the second single by the D'gadband a long ass time ago, so this was supposed to be a simple follow up of a less interesting single for the sake of completeness, but alas, I hadn't posted the original. (or I just can't find the post. Holy shit I've done a lot of this crap...)

So anyway, we'll start with the first single from Minneapolis unknowns the D'gadband. And I'll preface it with a simple that it's not particularly good. It's the exact kind of Midwest 70's bar band noodling you might expect of the leather vest, mustache and bad hair on the band members on the back of the sleeve. It's competently done, but really really not my scene.

No Money, No Future (1980)

But what a difference a year makes.

It seems like the gents had ditched the 70's soft country rock sounds and found a bit more of an edge. Perhaps they just put the bong down for a little bit. It's not like the holy grail of lost punk rock records, but "No Money, No Future" is a start lyrically and in intent which hopefully scored them more gigs in the big city and maybe some coke.

The next year before the waters of obscurity swallowed them again they were on the "12x8" compilation that' on here somewhere if you search for it. It' compilation so check the 13th. That has some good trcks on it, but the boy in this band had obviously picked the bong back up for  tune they called "Mini Spliff". Don't let that deter you...

Let's Top Off the Month

Quickly. I got shit to do.

Frenesi (1998)

Here it is the very thing you never actually knew your life had been missing for so long.

Modern Japanese neo-bossa nova.

It's like something straight out of the Katamari video game soundtrack. (Which is pretty fucking awesome in itself. I seriously bought a four disc version of that soundtrack and I'm the person who normally mutes the music as the first thing I do when setting up to play a new game...)

You're welcome.

Long Goodbye (1999)

Here's the final single by the Hang-Ups since I got it and I needed something else to post today and I've already posted everything else I had by them last year sometime. (Do a search. I'm not your Google.) It's more of the same and will have to tide us all over until they record new material.

Which may actually happen. For an anniversary deal last year they played an in-store at the Electric Fetus with more new songs than I wanted to hear at the time. So perhaps they will reappear in another form in the near future.

Not Feeling It

So it was months ago, but yesterday to me.
But I found someone shitting on my posts and the rips and I just kind of feel kind of like crap about it today.

The upshot of which is this:

If you don't like what I'm doing or think that these direct from the vinyl rips are shitty then just fuck right off. If you don't think I've done your long forgotten recording project justice, then tell me and I'll delete it and then see former advice.

That is all.

Here are Bomb Pops

Paler (1993)

This is the studio product of Minneapolis producer Bryan Hanna. It's the sweet pop.

Girl Daredevil (1994)

This one is on Turntable Friend from Germany who always put time and care and quality in their releases. I pick up their releases on sight.

I'd say more, but I don't feel much like it.

The Snake Eats Itself

I did the math and it wasn't pretty.

Dü Hüskers - The Twin Cities Replay Zen Arcade (1993)

Holy crap. This is just over a quarter of a century old. It's like vintage old. It's so old it predates what even currently passes for old school kind of old.

What we have here is a bunch of Minneapolis bands doing the even older Hüsker Dü double album "Zen Arcade" song by song. Version by version.

"Zen Arcade" was pretty monumental in its day. It was even touted by fussy old people magazine Rolling Stone as #31 of the best 100 albums of the 80s.

So a decade later or so, a couple dozen fresh faced Minneapolis/St Paul bands took it upon themselves to remake the record. 

And that's what we have here.

the end.

Things are a Just Fine

We continue where we left off earlier.

Scan (1981)

Here's the follow up 12" Elongated Player to the previous post by Fine Art.
Everything I said previously still holds though with fewer fuzz guitar solos and some evolution of sound as things push into the 1980s. There's a saxophone. It's gotten a little weirder. More flange and phase.
These are all positives.

It's Only a Matter of Time

I'm going to make a snack or breakfast or whatever after I bang this post out. Probably brush my teeth while I'm at it. Dental Hygiene is important too. The only thing on the agenda for the rest of the day is maybe a trip to the Asian grocery for a few non-essential things that are nice to have around the house but it's not a deal breaker for the day. Otherwise I'm going to just sit here and try and get a bit caught up with posts. If I work at this hard enough I will eventually be a year out in the queue and can ignore it for a good long while.
It's good to have goals.

Fine Art (1978)

If you've been playing along at home for the past few years or have spent considerable time trolling through past posts you may remember the 12x8 compilation from a couple of years back. It's a record of various local Minneapolis/St. Paul bands that aren't Husker Du or the Replacements from the year of 1981. Lots of good stuff on there including the subject of this particular post, Fine Art.

This is their self titled self released Lp from 1978. It's one of those records that is just sitting there waiting for Numero Group to discover for some kind of deluxe reissue that will make the hipsters squeal and drive the price of this record into ridiculous realms. It's certainly deserving of rediscovery. It's a record that I probably would never have come across if it wasn't local to me. I mean, I scored a sealed copy from Electric Fetus for like twelve bucks. I call that a win.

The sound is a particularly interesting crossroads between underground threads and the passing of the torch between the tail end of the garage psychedelia underground ("Freezing Down") and the impending punk rock/new wave tsunami ("My Brain Hurts").  See Virginia, you can have it both ways. Synthesizers and fuzz guitar solos. Everybody's a winner.

As it is the Fine Art lp just sits biding its time. Waiting.
Take a second and sit with it.
Get in on the ground floor so you can yawn when it gets namechecked

Houses. Keeping and Breaking

So, as I type this it's approximately six months ago it's the middle of April.
I'm pretty far ahead of myself as far as this silly thing goes. But that's neither here nor there.
What is here.
Now.
Six months ago for you, but right fucking now for me.

It's a motherfucking Spring blizzard and eight inches of motherfucking snow.
The entire city is shut down for the weekend.

I'm housebound and still in need of a haircut that is unlikely to happen for the foreseeable future.

At least eight volumes of semi-bootleg Duke Ellington radio broadcasts from 1945-6 arrived yesterday, so I have something to listen to. (Maybe I'll post some of those sometime. It's a different animal hearing that band live...)

the Housekeepers (1981)



This is yet another Clone Records record. This appears to be a one off by the Housekeepers which seems to be another band  led by Bob Pfeifer and has another version of his song "I Gotta Know" which he'd originally recorded with Human Switchboard (and which will appear here shortly)



Pretty damn good Farfisa driven garage rock. It's the staff of musical life.

Housebreaker/Helva split (1995)

A mere 14 years later Housebreaker and Helva split seven inches between them for some guitar driven garage rock. Housebreaker was the brainchild of Brian Herb (as truly fine a human being as there ever was or will be) as part of his ill spent youth. When he is not trotting the globe tending to the guitars and metaphysical needs of famous touring bands he is known to front hastily put together versions of Outstanding Achievements in the Field of Excellence that are just about the only thing that I will leave the house for.


Helva were according to their Bandcamp page:

Helva was a ska/punk/metal/swing/reggae band from Minneapolis from 1994-2001. The band started in Western WI and ended up touring all over.

I assume they were also fine people too. One would expect nothing less.