i like year-end lists. i learn a lot from them, oftentimes, and it's fun to hear other people talk about stuff they love instead of the usual bullshit, gossip, and negativity. but i'm just not very good at 'em, cuz 1. i'd hafta write over a period of two weeks or so, constantly revising (like john cusack in 'high fidelity' when he does that top 5 for the paper) to get at anywhere NEAR everything and 2. i have no idea what was released or filmed or recorded or written this past year, nor do i care. i have a decent idea of what i personally found out about, tho', so here's a little list of that, musicwise, in no particular order, done in as much time as it takes to look around my bedroom and type.

pygmy shrews you people can all go straight to hell mocnik grabbed this for me and it's taking its premier spin on the turntable as we speak. more worthy of being on wantage than the egyptian and i think i like it even better than that supremely focused mess. harkens back to the killer house-show days of the mid-'90s while being anything but retro and taking a fair amount of those bands to the cleaners. of course they've now broken up.

primitive calculators the world is fucked one of my fave tracks ever is their weirdo let's-leave-the-vocal-off version of "pumping ugly muscle" on the dogs in space sdtk but man oh man oh man oh man on their very first long player this long-defunct aussie postpunk destruction unit fucking pulls it ALL out. this thing burns like nothing else - the ugly and glorious newer faust stuff even pales in comparison. whitehouse without all the stoopid schlocky hatespeech, and a fair bit of actual chops. recommended for everyone - the world would be a better place if this took avril levigne's place on racks at targets everywhere.

lorde pure heroine of course as with all pop musick i heard "royals" first at a drag show but the story behind this record is as great as the record itself, which balances familiar modern-pop melodies with honest production, heart-on-the-sleeve songwriting and a somewhere-between-indie-and-top-40 vibe. earworms everywhere and nothing so cringe-inducing as to make one run for the needle. beyoncé should've taken note.

nymph new millenium prayer i am now even more pissed that i missed them over 100 years ago at carbar since this lp is nigh-on effin' perfecto. hippie bleeps and bloops trade back and forth with free skronk, both overlayed with yoko wails of the highest caliber; droney jams encompassing riffs on every era since their invention focus and unfocus into a plethora of other modes and styles - but strikingly, nymph never lose their identity. magnificent, beautiful, & inspiring.

anna ranger swimming and crawling over 1000 years ago freddie free gave me a cd of this full-band studio session, and the lp is finally out. the mastering is SUPERB - it may seem like a no-brainer that the vinyl sounds better than a cdr but that's so often not the case, and this one is particularly gorgeous. for those uninitiated, anna ranger mine jangly, morose, dancy territory that wouldn't make them outta place on factory, sarah, or even merge records, but their incredibly sporadic show and release schedule (and now the fact that they live in different towns) keeps them from getting a fraction of the attention they deserve. a truly original take on seemingly threadbare musical and lyrical themes that's so personal at the same time it's so detached…just an all-around beautiful thing. i'm glad we've got 'em, even as rarely as we do.

jessie j "price tag (shux remix)" the album she released this past year is fantastic but it's this older single that spent the most time blasting out of every speaker i had access to. the original is a surprisingly fresh version of an overused modern melody and structure ("umbrella", et al.) with unintentionally ironic lyrics, and is a great song in its own right, but the remix replaces all the duffy-isms with booming mid-range rock drums and brostep wub-wubs and slays everything in its path. cyndi lauper of the now (as if the woman herself isn't).

christian prommer drumlesson zwei some kinda worldwide percussion maestro is our mister christian but hell if i knew that, i just thought this looked interesting for eight bucks at halfprice. and interesting it is. other side of the dawn of midi coin, an acoustic attempt at covering electronic numbers, and whether yr familiar with the originals or not, this is one great listen that's not gonna grow old anytime soon. which brings us to…

dawn of midi dysnomia album of the year. some of the band's talk of leaving rhythmic space to be filled in by yr consciousness or whatever is a little less than fully realised but that doesn't change the fact that a band in fucking 2013 - an IMPROV JAZZ band! - made one of the most crucial, riveting, mind-blowing and mind-numbing compositions OF ALL TIME EVER. more krautrock than krautrock, more minimal than minimal, you couldn't handle this on strong acid. but give it a try.

misfits meet the nutley brass vinyl reissue with two bonus tracks. if you don't know what this one is, what the fuck are you doing here??

the points s/t the real sex bob-omb, the times new viking that's worth listening to for more than a track or two, i'm yet to hear ANYONE shouting about the points outside my own personal bubble but as if that's ever been a condemnation of any particular groop's badassery…

i am the center '80s-centric 3lp comp of mostly independently-produced new age musicks. constance demby was the only person i'd heard of glancing at the tracklisting at the shop (yes, someone bothered to order this in - thanks steve!). excellent in-depth booklet, fantastic sequencing - and tho' i was worried a little that three records would hardly be enough to provide a decent overview of a music that leans so often in an extendo direction (and maybe, indeed it isn't - i can only imagine what else is out there based on other stuff i have that didn't make the cut), i'm incredibly pleased with this comp far above and beyond the fact that anyone would even bother to do it in the first place.

the lees of memory "we are siamese" b/w "open your arms" perhaps they'll just keep writing songs with already-used titles but who gives a toss when they're this fucking crucial. the two guitars in superdrag reconvene to write only shoegaze songs (yes. yes they did.) and the results are STAGGERING. (perhaps you see what i did there.)

puerto rico flowers 2, 4, 7 pretty much the find of the year, bandwise, for me - kevin from pink reason mentioned them in passing and after tracking their stuff down they've rarely left the player. (apologies in advance for the five or six songs i've written that completely rip them off.) proof that the speed of the music doesn't dictate the emotional intensity, and an argument that ripping off cure synth lines can actually sometimes work.

radon picked up the little 45 book at autonomy's house and eventually found my own copy. tracked down the reunion lp and some of the older stuff (on youtube)…damn. DAMN. DAMN DAMN. naked raygun and mid-period gov't issue have an unholy post-embrace/pre-getupkids boychild in gainesville - but the coup here isn't the fine musical line they tread so expertly, it's the way the records, whether you have any history with them whatsoever, provide such a sense of place - it's as if the music itself is hollowed out and filled with indian summer post-show somehow-you-can-gloss-over-all-the-weirdness-and-oof-of-yr-teenage-years-and-just-vibe-on-the-eerie-good-stuff voodoo. somebody KEEP THIS SHIT IN PRINT WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU?

matias aguayo ay, ay, ay totally THE find of my last trip to other music, a predominantly beat-boxed (if you will) "techno" album that's as life-affirming as anything ever cut to wax. "rollerskate" is my track, currently. look it up.

helm silencer ep far less ambient than other stuff i've heard of his, gnarly samples get even more gnarled (reportedly) by a gnarly four-track and loop into oblivion. one of those productions that is so damn gratifying and disorienting that you can't even get jealous about it.

katy perry prism far from perfect, but easily the pop album of the year. weird, big tribal drums all over the first side and EVERYONE else in pop needs to take a page outta katy's book of lyric-writing. miley and the aforementioned beyoncé, we really are listening, it really does matter, and yr shit lyrical content is ruining otherwise-decent records. STEP IT UP OR AT LEAST OVER.

the creatures hai! in which siouxsie and budgie actually make an entirely percussion-based album again, instead of the location-specific jet-set alterna-whatever of the last two. as i always say, if it takes a kodo drummer to make yr music vital again, GET THE KODO DRUMMER…

mary ocher and your government "man v. air" she has but one song so far with this double-drummer project and already i've put it on three mixtapes. keep an eye out for wherever she takes it.

vacation candy waves lp+45 i've come to terms with the differences between vacation's full-body-assault live shows and their sizzly, over-reverbed recordings, tho' it has helped that their records just keep getting better. honestly, though, it doesn't matter how songs this fucking good are presented. special mention to their shellshag cover on the shitty city 7" - a gleaming highlight of their recent live shows.

crooked bangs crooked bangs dunno why a group from austin revels in such spirited gloom or sings in french half the time, nor do i care. best atmospherics this side of…

mother of fire feral children where one song ends and another begins is beside the point, which makes this album's similarity to their last a non-issue. if anything, this one's a little more…unnerving, tho' no-one would ever've accused MoF of being a relaxation aid, all drones aside. a better amalgamation of ease and unsease, rough and smooth, i doubt any of us'll ever find.

and lastly (for now), my long-delayed realisation that st. vincent, regina spektor, & kimbra are totally worth listening to was trumped only by the discovery that a thousand commercials on youtube can't overpower the butterfly-inducing greatness of THIS:

"brave" live in atlanta

• • •

there's other stuff. but gimme two weeks to edit it in. hahahaha…

The Vels 'Velocity' LP + Dub Mixes

inevitably i'm gonna grab any record like this - early '80s copyright//never heard of the band//major label//new wavey artwork//etc - outta the dollarbin and at least throw it on the listening station to see if it's worth the buck; tons o' this type o' stuff gets thrown back but by the third track this one was sounding so much like my good good philly friends SWEATHEART that i had to take it home and give it a real spin. imagine my surprise at finding that these here vels were also from philly! terribly fun and original more-straight-'80s-than-new-wave sounds from 1984 here with no crummy ballads to skip. really shines when both the guy(s) and girl start singin' together. ran across the two singles they released off this rec while in nyc recently so the dubs off those are also included!

you're a treasure chest

54•40 'Selection' & 'Set The Fire'

early in highschool my pal meschel and i useta fully geek out on stuff like "harborcoat" by r.e.m. and "cartoon" by soul asylum and anything else we could find with crazy vocal harmonies. she always tried to sell me on 54•40 but somehow it never stuck. this past week i dug out a mixtape i made back in probably tenth grade with a bunch of my favorite stuff on it (including the aforementioned r.e.m. & soul asylum tunes), which is probably pretty similar to the 9,000,000 tapes i made for her back then, so i started thinkin' about 54•40 and my now-biennial attempt to give a shit about 'em. last time i got what i thought was their first lp (1986's self-titled deal on reprise) in the dollar bin i ignored it for like 18 months so i decided against that route and turned on the computer; SADLY, the internet doesn't seem to care either, but i managed to find some crap mono videos on youtube (not helping, dudes), which thankfully led me to a live film of them doing something called "jamming with lawrence" much earlier in their career (judging from the haircuts). the difference between this embryonic stage of the band and their later-'80s drivin' & cryin' (another fave of meschel's) phase is stunning - it seems like they followed a path not unlike their neighbors here on this blog, dancing hoods. this early stuff (a mini-lp and an lp) is way more bass guitar-driven and shares a whole lot more with early-'80s aussie and athens (GA) stuff than anything else: fantastically repetitive and mesmerizing, but with a decent nod towards big music. i reckon people into stuff like chameleons uk and the sound, as well as NZ stuff like the gordons, will dig this too. this is really blowing my mind, and since it was a little bit of a trial to dig this stuff up, i'm puttin' it here for you.

i can bring on anything from nowhere

The Odd Numbers 'About Time' cassette

back in the late '80s/early '90s we useta watch a few skate videos on full loop and the new deal promo video was one of 'em. like the speed freaks vid, new deal went full "hey is there a label around here that will loan us all their shit?" and ended up with pretty much all 819 productions bands in the vid. thus, a soundtrack composed about 85% of odd numbers tunes. and, just like how we all ran out and bought dinosaur and leaving trains and fIREHOSE tapes after hearing them in santa cruz videos 9000 times, i ended up writing to 819 and getting them to send me the odd numbers tape. still got a rad signed b&w 8x10 too! anyhow, if you haven't seen the new deal video 800 times i'm sorry for you, but i guarantee you'll still be blown away by this tape. mod-revival-revival of the highest order - and this comin' from a guy who couldn't really care less about the jam or the who. clean, catchy-as-hell action pop in a league with the revelers, for serious. and if you're here 'cause you're a greying grom like me, be sure to go checkout the bones brigade video tunes disc elsewhere on this here site.

and now we're oh so happy

Garage Days Pre-Visited

so here's something i've seen attempted - sadly with usually ill results - that i've long-meant to go ahead and put together myself: a comp of original versions of tunes the metallicats covered and (officially) released up thru the 'rubaiyat' comp. one guy threw together some youtube videos, which is neat, sure, and another gal put a buncha 128kbps mp3s in a folder, which is, well, ok, but if indeed yer like me and would like some hi-q mp3s with their volumes matched all ready for your walkman or whatever well here ya go! from the "creeping" 12" to the 'garage' ep to the "harvester" CD5 and the aforementioned 'rubaiyat' comp, ten (or so…) killer originals taken from the best sources i could find - no assy re-recordings, no funky bootleg sound quality. **caveat: for me there's a real line after "stone cold" that i chose to also draw here, so i didn't try to remake the 'inc' record - even tho as always our heroes could sure pick a tune (even if they couldn't do it justice [no pun] there after awhile anymore). even the motörhead stuff - tho cool - has a different vibe since it was a rehearsal and not just them bangin' out an old fave or two for b-sides and eps. a case could be made for the sweet savage tune, but rules is rules for some reason - and that would open up a whole can o' worms where i'd hafta listen to that fucking anti-nowhere league tune, which i'm simply not prepared to do, hahahaha… anyhow, i guess what i'm sayin' is, after 'justice' i just didn't pay much attention to what they were doin', so it's only their covers up thru then that have ever been stuck in my head to the point where i've just gotta hear the original. (tho certainly do yerself a favor and go listen to discharge and mercyful fate, etc, for surely. OH, and WATCH THIS VIDEO, it's the most made-totally-exactly-for-beavis-and-butthead video of all time.)

budgie up yer ass!

"Port Of Suez" Exotic Music From The Middle East

at one point i had literally dozens of '50s cash-in 'exotica' records and tho most of them were either meh or awful (great sleeves across th board, tho) there are a few (like anything by the bizarre belgian surf band the waikikis) that really rise head'n'shoulders™ above th rest, which brings us to this here lp, th only representative of th aforementioned dozens still holding a place in my crates. th reason? about half th tracks sound like fucking sandy bull. no lie. complete with direct-line fusion to yr limbic system, just like j. lethem sez. anyhow th rest of it is great too, as is th proliferous amt of surface noise you'll find on this particular copy. a few words from an exhaustive crown records archivist:

CLP-5085/CST-119 stereo - Port of Suez: Exotic Music of the Middle East - (Artist not identified) [1958] Original stereo copies issued on red vinyl. Another interesting look into the practices of the budget record companies in the late 1950s. Much of this LP also appeared on Coronet 55 (The Music of Port Said credited to Mohammed El-Sulieman & His Oriental Ensemble), Broadway 1027 (East of Suez, artist unidentified), and Pirouette 16 (Music of the Near East credited to Ali Beirut's Orchestra). The Coronet, Broadway, and Pirouette albums play exactly the same. Titles on the Coronet and Broadway LPs are identical (Temptacious/Whirling Sands/Jazz Of Araby/Chifti/Hora//Owo Solo/Hasapiko Bolero/Husson's Rhapsody/International Dance/Cosmopolitan). Although the Pirouette LP plays the same, the song titles differ (Near East/Romance Of The Fiddle/Drums Of The Desert/Call Of The Near East/Desert Dance Madness//Cosmopolitan Whirl/Exotic Dance/Night Love/Temptation Of The Desert Sun And Moon/Whirling Sand). This Crown album has some tracks that are the same and some that are not on the other albums, but they sound like the same orchestra and recording session. Titles on the Crown album, with references in brackets to the songs on the other LPs, are: Stardust At Dawn ["Whirling Sands"/"Romance of the Fiddle"]/Warm Wind [instrumental version of "Hora"/"Desert Dance Madness"]/Dancing Girls [not on the other LPs]/Suez ["Jazz Of Araby"/"Drums Of The Desert"]/Sand Dunes ["Cosmopolitan"/"Whirling Sand"]//Night Madness [instrumental version of "Temptacious"/"Near East"]/Summer Rain ["Hasapiko Bolero"/"Exotic Dance"]/Harem Girls [not on other LPs]/Rebel Camp [not on other LPs]/Desert Caravan ["Owo Solo"/"Cosmopolitan Whirl"].

nigh-on perfect.

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My Summer 'Catch Fire' +

for quite awhile in th mid-aughts i worked sound at a failing off-campus bar that mighta-coulda dug itself outta th hole it had so royally swandived into had th owner not been so addicted to pay-to-play local hiphop showcases and battles of th suburban metal bands, but, those horrors aside, we managed to have quite a few excellent shows that no one showed up to (like city streets, who absolutely killed and, i'm sure, will never, ever visit our town again), and quite a few outta th blue surprises as well (like th time black tie revue showed up to find they were on one of those battles of th bands, as mentioned elsewhere on this here blog). i don't remember how new york's my summer came to play th bar, but they were SO effin' great - ultra chimey strat lines leading choppy, way-catchy tunes that always stayed exquisitely well on th good side of th line between semi-complex pop & wretched emo played by three dudes obviously having th time of their lives and throwing everything they had into it. a cursory google glance reveals that th band is still functional as of this writing and, lo and behold, maintain a bandcamp as well as a facebook page. my summer mine their very own corner of a somewhat well-worn landscape, so tho' they aren't all that reminiscent of anything, if smoking popes, cheap girls, and th post-jawbreaker, pre-get up kids era of forgotten pop-punk like superstar rookie wet yr proverbial panties (and i can't see why they wouldn't), check these dudes out. there's also something vaguely michale graves-y about th sorta crooned vox that i can't ever get enough of. actually th closest thing i can think of would be if you somehow morphed matt and dan from alkaline trio's voices into one.

fact section: file contains an ep (2005) and th following 2006 full-length, 'catch fire'.

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Graves 'Web Of Dharma'

when th new misfits or misfits '95 or whatever you wanna call 'em went on tour th first time i agreed with a friend of mine that we would go but we didn't, so when their record was aboot to come out i was working at this one-stop and it was only like $6 to take it home on wax th friday before it was released so i was like what th hey, we'll see how much it sucks. ONLY IT DIDN'T SUCK. i listened to that lp ('american psycho') a whole hell of a lot that year (at ear-splitting volume, mostly - perhaps to drown out th elliott smith and sublime that my third-floor roommates spun non-stop to th left and right of me) and i've listened to it a whole hell of a lot since - along with their sometimes-it-seems-even-better second lp ('famous monsters') and this disc - th record th singer and drummer (th non-old school members of said misfits) made directly after walking off stage from th caiafa bros in th middle of a set. listening to this record it becomes abundantly clear who th "talent" in th reformed misfits were, and it ain't th aforementioned brothers. unfortunately, on this lp graves (michale, th singer) and chud (dr., th drummer/songwriter) were separated from th third in th talent triangle, producer/recordist/guitar genius daniel rey (tho' this record sounds alright, it's no match for th ultrablast fury of those two misfits recs), and when th dust cleared after a short tour, graves and chud would be separated too. so while i enjoy some of michale's later solo stuff, this is th magick moment, a record that feels like it's october th whole way thru, that doesn't get bogged-down in bad-b-film-pun one-upsmanship, that rises (along with th killer japanese band balzac) so far above th rest of th genre that calls itself horrorpunk that it effectively turns them into th ants (and no, not ants from 'them!') they pretty much are. track down a tune graves and chud did with a band called sardonica called "mommy made luv to an alien" (a chud tune also rejected - like many of these songs were - by jerry only at one point) if you dig what you hear here.

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Black Tie Revue 'Code Fun'

quite simply th best capital-all-th-letters POP record of th last ten years (maybe ever). everything about this is PHENOMENAL. i'm not even gonna tell th completely silly story about how i heard/saw/met these guys th first time at a pay-to-play battle of th bands three hours from where they live or how th only other time i saw them was with maybe seven (pushing it) people and a dying tree in a bar meant only to be visited by neighborhood fishermen, cuz those stories are just complete shit that takes away from th fucking TRIUMPH of GLORY that is their musick (specifically this lp). if you enjoy ice cream and driving REALLY fucking fast (or are human and not a miserable piece of shit - or even if you are, this can probably help), i can't see why you haven't downloaded this yet.

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Unicorn 'Kedamono No Arashi'

once i got a little column in a local paper where i talked aboot some of my fave records. that moment in time is preserved here, if you care to peruse it in its entirety (caveat: it is in some ways a bit of a saab story), but here is th bit which pertains to our post here and now:

kedamono no arashi, unicorn (sony japan, 1990)
akin to spending an hour trying to dial in the best freeform radio station on the planet, maybe skipping between two more unknown yet almost equally fantastic stations in the pursuit. a playful hawaiian number gives way to a soaring ballad with jet planes for a solo; a song with dogs barking the snare hits is one-upped by fifty seconds of thrash that disintegrate into a man quietly counting down from ten under a mournful string section. supposedly the lyrics are great too!

grab this now. no kidding!

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Bones Brigade Video Tunes

this is basically th soundtrack to th first three bones brigade movies ('83-'87). if you grew up watching th shit outta them like i did, i can't imagine you wouldn't think this is th niftiest disc on this green earf. however, even if you don't have a massive flood of intangible emotion associated with these tunes, i'm here to tell you that you still might find a lot to like. first, th major contributor to these pieces/songs is one dennis dragon, whose profile in tape op a few months back failed to mention that - what i'd argue is th most important job he's ever done, and th way most people have heard of him (or at least heard him) - at all, to my utter dismay. anyhow, dennis dragon (coolest name this side of adrian demain) has lived a long and colorful life and th work he did soundtracking for powell is fucking second to none. it's funny how in listening to these tunes all detached from th videos really, um, socks home how cheesy some of it is, but at th same time it's incredibly obvious how well th music captures th vibe of skating - at th time and even now. it's insanely intuitive accompaniment. second, a short list of tracks included herein that should be mandatory listening for anyone interested in fun and badassery: th rodney mullen "yes i'm gonna get a dog" bit ("big dog," by the knight); that sacto song from 'future primitive' where they just yell "ONETWOTHREEFOUR!!" a lot ("one, two, three. four," by los pukes - best band name ever); and of course th oft-occurring background jam "mctwist and shout," found here in its pristine entirety (by johnny rad, of course).

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Waltham

i dunno if it's just hard to search for waltham or if people RILLY don't give a shit - which makes no sense cuz srsly out of all th' why-aren't-they-famous-at-ALL bands i listen to these guys' lack of superstardom confuses me THE MOST - but finding this stuff in some way other than for $1.88 on amazon has been far more difficult than it has any business being so hey as per usual i'm here to help. heard these guys first over at regala's before they got th' ryko deal; JB sez they're rick springfield vs .38 special and that they always make th' right decisions (ex. it would be a VERY BAD idea to add any more .38 special) and i gotta add …IN DROP D. that's their main contribution to th' '80s-revival racket (that exists? -ed.): FUCKING DROP D (and a buncha way-way-WAY-excellent tunes) - and wotta contribution it is! if there's anything catchier than outfield ripoffs played with giant guitars, i dunno at all what it is. without getting too far into bio territory here i do feel it's necessary to mention that basically they recorded this one album three different times and they're all awesome AND THEN THEY MADE AN EP CALLED 'AWESOME' and then they stopped with the existing. only record more unsung (in modern powerpoop circles) than these is that boss samantha 7 disc.

The First Album
Permission To Build
Self-Titled
three covers (Rick Springfield, Oingo Boingo, Rocky IV) and an unreleased track
The Awesome EP (yes it's pretty much itunes only so just pay the five bucks)

note: i am TOTALLY on th lookout for an actual cd copy of the awesome ep so like lemme know if ya see one, alright?

tse tse fly

back in highschool we useta get this catalog called vinyl ink - an exhaustive labour of love that, at the time, also happened to be the only way we knew to track down half the stuff we were getting into. as it happened, the descriptions would often lead us to grab stuff we were unacquainted with as well (which was right in line with my habit of buying at least one thing i'd never fucking heard of every time i went to th' record store); i don't remember if i bought tse tse fly's 'duckweed smuggled home' 10" in this fashion or if my pal bill recommended that i do so, but for sure it came from vinyl ink.

flash forward to now and that 10" is long-gone (who knows why or where) and all i have left to play for anyone who i'm trying to force into caring is a 7" - not bad, mind you, but not as good as 'duckweed' - and for some reason tse tse fly remain one of those bands that NO-ONE seems to want to put on youtube or their blog or whatever. (tho' what a blessed thing that is - when you find that something you know about - something you know is GOOD - has eluded the fucking internet.) and that's just a damned shame cuz outside maybe 18th dye i dunno anyone who rings my fucking early-'90s across-the-pond indie-rock BELLS quite like they do. these cd issues that i finally bought for like 75¢ off amazon (no, REALLY) are nicely mastered but of course lose somewhat that x-factor that helped make the original vinyl releases so god-damn alluringly cryptic (it isn't muddiness, tho' it's not far off - nirvana's 'bleach' and r.e.m.'s 'life's rich pageant' have a similar quality) but at least i can hear this stuff again. fans of bands who don't come right out and bludgeon you with it all the time can't afford to be without this stuff. it'll be holy grail in less than ten years, mark my words.

download includes the comp cd they did ('duckweed', that 7" i mentioned ['fox under diesel'] + a coupla tracks that weren't on it originally & 4 unreleased tunes) as well as their lone lp, 'mudflat joey'.

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Metal Machine Music, remix

now here's something i've been meaning to do for a very long time.

i've been a HUGE fan of this record ever since i first heard it around tenth grade (it may well be my favorite record, if there is such a thing, and of course it inspired the name of this blog), but i always felt like it would be really interesting to slow it down until you could (maybe? hopefully?) identify it as guitar feedback rather than the crazy squalling chipmunk death screeches of glory that it is. recently i read that by slowing it down to 16rpm and listening to either the right channel or left channel independent of the other you could start to make out what's going on, so that's what i did: readjusted the pitch and tempo to roughly 48% of the original and split the tracks into mono files of each channel. unfortunately, that sounded way too slow to me (tho' if you do it without changing th' pitch - just slow the tempo - it does sound pretty great) so i started experimenting with different values, beginning with 75% (seemed appropriate). judging by just kind of an innate sense of how the knocking delay sounds in the left channel of side one "should" sound, i felt like this was too fast so i then tried 70% (still a bit too fast), and then 65% (sounded fucking incredible but something said 'split the difference'), so here ya have it, 67% of the lp tempo. of course keep in mind that i have no idea how much lou sped his multitrack tapes up, if indeed that's what he did - and heck, he could've been messing with the pitch control on the deck the whole time he was recording (…and mixing…and mastering…); this is just something i wanted to hear and i think it sounds fantastic at the same time that it offers insight (well, at least a little) into what the origins of the signals are. this now gives you over three hours of MMM, and taking into account the sad fact that even thurston moore admitted he's never listened to it all the way thru - blasphemy - you can pride yrself on being one of the chosen when you reach the end of this journey!

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THE STORY OF CREATION (VHS, 1992)

hey folks, here's a FIRST fer th' blog, a real, honest-t'-gosh VIDEO TAPE. this silly thing is a remnant of sire's short-lived fascination with the creation label and their (in)ability to make great sacks of loot for 'em over here across th' pond. ya get a few choice vids each from primal scream (at least it has "higher than the sun" on it), my bloody valentine (nothing before "soon", sorry) and ride (criminally missing "like a daydream") and some heartwarming/ridiculous/banal interviews. apart from th' low-level drawbacks listed above, this thing 's a keeper. i mean, i've kept it for 19 years (jeez). lost th' cover tho' (thus th' crummy scan from someazon else).

info

dead link, sorry

Girls Galore 'Weightless'

along with merchandise, girls galore are my favorite band of the past coupla years. i actually broke down and ordered a compact disc (I KNOW) in order to hear their second lp (turns out it's fucking great, and their label sent me a buncha free shit!). anyhow, they've been working on a third record and took a break to remaster their first release, add an extra track, and make it available for free. knock yrselves out!

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Dancing Hoods

before mark linkous was mark he was freddy and before there was sparklehorse there was dancing hoods. he was just th' guitar player in this band tho' and their music bears no resemblance to his later stuff - which is fortunate since after this ep somehow the dancing hoods decided (alongside many of their peers, i must add) to become the del fuegos (or pontiac brothers, or whatever) - but this ep is damned fine, along the lines of what you'd hope for from four dudes trying to make it in the early '80s on the mean streets of nyc, growing up in the midst of luminaries like the feelies and the bush tetras: squeeze-y pop leanings/minimalist beat dance not unlike mid-period fingerprintz/americana closer to let's active than bruce springsteen/&c. "not the only one" even hints at heights bands like the cavedogs (watch these skies!) and odd numbers (ditto!) would commit commercial suicide from in less than a decade's time. my only wish is that these tunes encompassed the flip of an equally great b-side.

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King Louie and the Loose Diamonds

in which king louie musically explains the history and future of all boozy southern rock'n'roll slime-pop in about 40 minutes flat. my favorite record any of these guys have been a part of and that includes those unfuckwithable oblivians lps so you know it's on the stellar side. most of this band is back together with th' addition of one mr. jeff dutton (of action family and barbed wire dolls) as THE FUZZ. includes louie's supreme take on th' lost exploding hearts classic he cowrote, "gypsy switch" (aka "shattered").

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Mark Sultan Mixtapes

some of you may be aware if yr "friends" with him on the internets but from time to time m. bbq sees fit to post a mixtape or two's worth of youtube videos on his page and since they're about 50% shit i love and 50% shit i've never heard before that's very worth hearing of course and since sitting in front of the computer is probably the place i'm least-apt to (wanna) be while listening to music in anything but short bursts i figured i'd dub his "mixes" onto the old ipod. and since he was back at it today i thought i'd post the one from two or so months ago as well as this the new batch here just in case you like me are quite enamored with the tunes he picks. thanks mark!

download the one from march 3rd
download the one from today (june 28)

TILTS

ok so this isn't normally my style. i'm not one fer posting stuff YOU SHOULD TOTALLY BE PAYING for. but th' whole world needs to hear this fucking band by any means necessary. that said, here's th' deal: after starting a new band a few years ago and being a few weeks into it and pretty damned jazzed about what we were doing fucking gene plays this disc by this band SHAME CLUB (coming soon to this blog area) and i suddenly couldn't really give a crap about what we were doing 'cause all the bands on the planet ever just got fucking devastated by this one song "windbag" (no hyperbole). years go by and everyone's brains are so utterly smashed by the simple existence of the shame club that they don't even bother to make those dudes famous and the dudes go their seperate ways. (but stay in town.) (st. lou.) later i learn via some photos posted by their ex-bass player that their (second) drummer and SHIT-HOT LEAD guitarman are in this new act. I FUCKING DOWNLOADED THE SHIT OFF iTUNES. FOR SERIOUS. that's how good these dudes are. and holy asschaps if TILTS aren't even kinda better than shame club in a way. SO MUCH BOOGIE BADASSERY. so well dude who's writing the songs and playing dual leads goes and joins torche (meh.) & moves to hotlanta (rite) but stays in tilts (alls i hafta say is he better) and actually this phenomenon gives way to me actually getting to see tilts since they go on tour with torche so hey alls good that is. anyhow like i said you GOTTA hear this shiz so here's all three o' their eps all junked together by yrs trooly plus whacked-out xmas bonus track and wicked practice space instro demo. PLEASE FIND A WAY TO SEND THEM MONEY OK!!

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