Leap Year and Other Really Annoying Bullshit

So this is the year we get an extra day of February.
Hoo-fucking-ray.

But there is more. With this post I will have (if this thing hasn't been shut down by the Man at some point in between) queued up a new post over a full year ahead of time.
It's 3:49am on the 26th of February, 2019 as of this particular sentence.

So like some weary musical ghost ship on autopilot this meandering hulk of half assed bullshit can continue on without any fresh input from me for one entire journey around the sun. Four full seasons (more or less) will have come and gone before I need to add to the pile.

Hopefully I used that year constructively. (My hope is to use it to make my own terrible music and digitize and preserve the umpteen volumes of cassettes dating back to 1988 I've made which I'm not going to put up here. You're welcome.)

This day is also a year and a day (though for me currently still a couple of days off) since I had the opportunity to see the Chills for a second time since a truly memorable and top ten experience seeing them in 1990 in the 7th St Entry after "Submarine Bells" was released and the last show they were sharing on the tour with Blake Babies (who I vaguely knew back in Boston since I'd worked with their first bass player, Seth.)

Which leads me to this post.
I feel like I want to do something kind of special with it

Secret Box (2001)

So today in honor of my upcoming (as of this typing) chance to see the Chills after a number of decades I'm posting the limited, had to buy it directly from Martin himself in 2001, three disc set of Chills rarities and live tracks with umpteen tracks that were never recorded in studio.

My physical copy is in the other room, but it's one of the initial signed numbered ones. I sent Martin a check for something like fifty US dollars and a while later it arrived in all its glory. 

People are also asking absolutely ridiculous prices for it on Discogs right now. 

If I were asked by Numero Group to spearhead some reissues this would likely be my second pick right after the Dolly Mixture "Everything and More" triple disc set that came and went in a heartbeat. (and I missed). That'd be huge.

But nobody asks me.

At that time in 1990 they also did a short in-store performance at Oarfolkjokeopus. It was a lovely low key affair. At one point Martin was at a loss as to what to play next. I offered "Green Eyed Owl", but that version of the band didn't know it. It's still my favorite Chills song....

I'm Not a Fan of February.

It's the shortest and the longest month. It's the point in the year where I'm generally just completely over being cold and it being Winter and it just keeps on snowing and snowing.
Made even worse this year since it's a Leap Year and there's a whole extra day of the scourge that is the second month.

This calls for happy pop music and a few moments of blissful forgetfulness that I may be called on to shovel a foot of wet miserable winter off the driveway at any moment....

Here Comes Everybody (1993)

This is sweet harmonic pop music. Joyous and happy.
Very unlike my mood.
but it helps.

They put out three full lengths and a handful of singles in their existence and are almost entirely unknown.

Probably because they named themselves "Me" which doesn't make it any easier to look them up on the internet.

That and it's the very sort of harmony filled pop that would get entirely lost in the shuffle of everything else that was going on at the time competing for people's attention.

Let it wash over your weary soul.

Easy Peazy Lemon Squeezy (1990)

You have to appreciate a record that when it starts out you wonder if you've got it actually at the right speed. The first song on this ep by Strawberry Story is just that. Very fast, lo-fi and buzzy.

So with nothing else to stop us... One, Two Three, Four Strawberry's Let's Go!

Rock Along the Hudson

Albany. New York.

Probably not a place you think of very often unless you live in the area or need it for a crossword puzzle or something.

Here's fourteen inches of reason to think about it.

Screaming (1981)

How much do I like this fucking record?

I included pictures of the insert.

That's how much.

One guitar, a drummer and vocals. Named after a cannibalistic death cult.
It doesn't get any more badass than that.

"Screaming" was covered by Sweden's favorite garage band the Nomads in 1999.

You can take that as about as fine a recommendation as any I could ever give you.

She Wasn't Home (1983)

Probably sharing a stage at some point with Leopard Society were the Lumpen Proles.

They had a song on the "Live at 288" compilation from last August.

They're named after a Marxist concept of the unthinking underclass who are exploited by reactionary and counter-revolutionary forces. (In today's America they can be easily identified by their distinctive MAGA hats.)


Let that be your guide, comrade.

Stuck in the Middle

After a couple of Bi-Coastal posts we pause for a moment and wonder:

"What about the fly over country? What was going on there?"

I have an answer

Certain Death (1983)

Killing Children were from Columbus, Indiana.
Accept no substitutes or alternate Columbuses.
This is the only one.

It's nice to add some straight up punk rock to this mix now and again.
Keeps life interesting

and speaking of interesting

Learn Greek in Greece (1980)

Otto Kentrol is the nom de saxophone of one Bill Ylitalo who went on to play with a shit load of other bands including Appliances SFB & God is my Co-Pilot who I've posted before. (I'm pretty sure I did anyway. You look and tell me...)

This is fractured weirdness that tickles my fancy like a fancy French tickler in my earholes.

Damn it. Now my ears are itchy.

Volume 2

It's the day before Valentine's Day.

Suck it romance.

Ils Sont Fous Ces Gaulois! - Vol. 2 Le Retour! 

Here's the second volume as a companion to the previous volume I posted last month.

It's more of the same only there's even a band from the Belgian Congo.

Upend this record and let it flow over your beleaguered mind like so much absinthe over a sugar cube.

You'll hate yourself in the morning

But probably not much more than you already do.