Charlie Dold

A few pretty early releases for the Bus Stop label.



These sound like home 4-track recordings so at 1991 they'd be really early to that party which wouldn't really start being a thing for at least a couple more years, if my powers of recall are anything. I don't even think the concept of Lo-fi even existed. But then I wouldn't reall consider these to be Lo-fi. Maybe Mid-fi.

1991 - Sins on my Shoulders

I'm not totally sure how I feel about Charlie Dold. I like the songs for the most part, but his voice isn't really my cup of tea/poison. It seems like he's trying just a bit too hard and pushing his voice into a range and keys that don't quite suit it. But he sounds like he means it. I don't doubt that he was a copy shop dude.

 

1991 - Any Poet's Dream

I think the title track here is one of those love songs that likely didn't get him laid. It's a bit much. But the other two tracks settle in for some good times. He's learned to work the 4-track better. We're on the right track.

 

1992 - Waiting on Mercury

An actual band at last.  Earnest Midwest pop rocking.

 

April Fools

Meh. I got nothing.

Have a couple from the great state of New Zealand

 1991 - Bill Direen & the Builders

Bill Direen is hard to describe. He's been making interesting music since the dawn of time along with theater and writing and god knows what else. He's one stop art shopping. And he seems like the kind of guy who just does it all and doesn't give a fuck if anybody pays attention or not. He's just going to do it anyway.
On this one he does a redux of "Alien" from his "Six Impossible Things" 7" (of which 100 were pressed I have been told) with Chris Knox and Mike Dooley who were together in the seminal NZ bands Toy Love & the Enemy. The band trees of all three participants are long and complicated and I'm hungry. You can investigate that shit on your own dime. It's worth it.

On the other side the song is "Skulls" and he's joined by Alan Meek who was in a few incarnations of the Bilders/Builders as well as the Victor Dimisich Band and the Vacuum. (You have some googling to do, my friend.)

 

1995 - Dimmer

This is Shayne Carter post-Straitjacket Fits and in his youth a member of the Doublehappys. It's instrumental. It's on SubPop. Let that be your guide.

A Wicked Good Redux

Volume Two

Because I can and it's my blog and I'll cry if I want to.

1982 - A Wicked Good Time Vol 2

When last we convened we had the first venerable lp of a small percentage of Boston's alternative music scene to consider. It was followed up a while later with this second volume of more of the same. Somebody still thought Boy's Life and Someone and the Somebodies were worth recording but balanced it out with the Freeze and the first appearance of cold wave dance music by November Group. In some ways this one is both more and less successful than the previous volume, but I find less chaff overall. They didn't make another one.

A Wicked Good Time

After a marathon session slaving over a hot turntable and a pair of laptops I'm ready for a fresh round of homemade postings with oodles of sarcastic gravy. Loosen your belt, and strap on your feedbag.

Compilation Lps. Can't live with 'em. Can't do without 'em. Always a mixed bag. But the good ones balance out the duff tracks with stuff of such wonder you tend to forget that you wasted four minutes of your life on some terrible crap waiting for the good stuff to happen again.

Case in point:

1981 - A Wicked Good Time

In the heady days before Newbury Comics was the beloved Boston institution that it has become it was a scrappy little hole in the wall on Newbury st that had a selection of otherwise hard to find punk and new wave records in the front and comic books in the back. Either of  which, if you'd been a more savvy consumer at the time could be worth a small fortune now. I wasn't, but I did buy records from a young Aimee Mann. I have that going for me.

 So here Newbury Comics teamed up with WBCN (in those heady pre-Clear Channel days when radio stations could play stuff not chosen by middle managers) to put out a compilation of local alternative bands (from when "alternative" meant an actual alternative to mainstream AOR rather than a marketing term used by mainstream AOR to sell you other shitty music). 

This was the result.

It's not perfect. It does have some chaff and an inexplicable double dose of Bound & Gagged, but I defy you  not to come away from a listen without humming "Psycho Blonde" at some point in your day.  Other highlights are the Outlets good and fast punk rocking, the Vacuumheads snarky "Preppie Girls" which my friend Jim and I thought was hilarious in high school. And the recorded debut of Young Snakes featuring the previously mentioned Aimee Mann being all angular and new wavey. (The actual ep they'd release a bit later is fucking genius). All in all a solid compilation of a small fraction of what was actually going on in town. Omissions galore but they were starting a record label an had an agenda. I'm ok with it.

A bit of an orphan

I was doing up a few 12" records and did this one. It's worth posting and is the last thing left in the pile to be posted. I've got a whole other pile of crap I'm working on finishing up and I've added a new hard drive to my old laptop which I'm going to see about making my dedicated music machine. With that in mind, I'm just going to throw this out there and let it fly.

Slip a tab under your tongue and let it wash over you.

1983 - True West