various artists - Heavy Nuggets Vol. 5

Another year has nearly passed, and what have we discovered? In my case, it's that I'm willing to spend money on Hawkwind and Pink Fairies records. This is neither an expected nor an unwelcome development. I certainly wouldn't have put money down that I would have gathered a deeper appreciation of late 60s/early 70s speed-fueled dirt rock (and their 90s children). Yet here we are, nearing 2026 and me turning this up as loud as the knob will let me.

For what it's worth, that's a cool Who-related helmet on the cover on this card sleeve.

Discogs

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November re-uploads!

Hey, y'all: at the suggestion of some very kind readers, I've switched over to using Workupload. I've gone through the archives, and anything previously hosted on Mediafire that got a copyright strike will be moved over to the new hosting. Here's what I've done so far:

• Augustus Pablo, "East Of The Nile River"
• 101 Strings, "Astro Sounds From Beyond The Year 2000"
• Robert Mitchum, "Calypso - Is Like So..."
• "Deep Throat Anthology, Parts I & II"
• Los Campesinos, "The International Tweexcore Underground"
• "Arts & Crafts Sampler Vol. 4"
• "My Father's Gun" mix

Enjoy! If there's something else you'd like me to repost, drop it into comments below.

various artists - World's Finest Hardcore Volume One

Today is Thanksgiving here in the States, and I remain thankful that long-out-of-print records from punk's and hardcore's past continue to get reissued. The number of reissue labels, be they Radio Raheem, Numero Group, Trust, or Supreme Echo (to name four of my favs), releasing high quality versions of classics from the 70s, 80s, and 90s just blows my mind, even though it makes sense that once some of us got some bread, we definitely would want to bring the likes of SSD back to life for a new generation.

There were a lot less of these back in the 90s; the scene just wasn't nearly as big back then. You could track down fanclub pressings on vinyl, which comparatively cost an arm and leg next to new releases. Or you could beg your local store to let you dig around in the back room. I remember pulling out a $100 bill, putting in a shopowner's hand at one point in my late teens, and saying, "I'm going to spend this somewhere; why don't you let me do it here on the really good records." It's how I got my Flipper 7"s, the Misfits LPs I later traded towards a car, the Minor Threat first press that a realtor tried to steal from me.

Collections on CD, while a great way to get everything together all at once, were pretty rare. So when I came across this for $15 back in 1997, I didn't care about the provenance. I just knew that most, if not all of this, was deep out of print, and even if I found original copies, I wasn't going to be able to afford 'em. It was an easy spend to pick up a compilation of:

• Neos - "Hassibah Gets The Martian Brain Squeeze"
• The Queer Pills - "The Depraved"
• The Clitboys - "We Don't Play The Game"
• Sick Pleasure - "Sick Pleasure"
• Necros - "I.Q. 32"
• The Fartz - "Because This Fucking World Stinks"
• United Mutation - "Fugitive Family"
• Really Red - "New Strings For Old Puppets"

...and I never regretted buying this. Alternative Tentacles would reissue Really Red's complete discography in 2015, and cover the Fartz' pre-reunion catalog in 1998. Supreme Echo's release of Neos recordings in 2021 was probably the best reissue I bought that year; same goes for Radio Raheem's reissue of United Mutation the previous year. As for the Clitboys, Necros, Sick Pleasure, and Queer Pills 7"s: they've yet to get legit reissues, 28+ years on. In each case, it feels like historical malpractice not to have done something by now, even if it's a simple Bandcamp lossless release. It's no different than letting a Phil Ochs recording, a Leadbelly session, a Mahalia Jackson live set be lost to the ages through indifference.

One day, I'll put out Volume 2. Swear to god.

Discogs

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various artists - Mojo Presents: New Harvest (A Compendium Of Modern American Song)

The last seven days have been rather challenging, what with about 90% of a BestFile upload suddenly disappearing, then being diagnosed with pneumonia. When I asked the doc in the box if it was a combination of rockin' pneumonia and the boogy-woogie flu, she grunted and gave me a script for antibiotics. Doctors are no fun.

It's hard to believe this comp, with a cover date of August 2009, is old enough to drive. It reminds me that my wife and I have been around 16 years as well, that there was a time when Father John Misty was just the dude from Fleet Foxes that went solo, and how apeshit the world went over a record named after the outdoor venue that we used to sneak into to watch bigger concerts. "Indie folk" just got bigger around this time; Bill Callahan could tour under his own name, and bands that, a few years before, you used to be able to watch in dingy 60-person barrooms now played the biggest rooms in town. The grandsons of Neil Young were getting their due, and it was a pretty good time in retrospect.

There's a lot here that I'm still messing with, and it kind of surprises me that I didn't get around to ripping this until this past summer, because it's a pretty solid mix, as one should generally expect out of Mojo. It reminds me to go find those Yeasayer records I know are in a box somewhere and give them a spin. If nothing else, this will serve an acceptable substitution.

Discogs

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various artists - O Melhor Da Bossa Nova

Just kinda picked this up on a whim a few months ago, and it's been hanging around my "Share" folder for a while, so, here you go. Three discs of Brazilian bossa nova, liberally salted with songs both performed by and written by ol' Tom Jobim. Enjoy your weekend.

Discogs

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various artists - Fight The World Not Each Other: A Tribute To 7 Seconds

I've been listening to this year's reissue/reimagining of 1986's "New Wind" a lot in recent months; specifically, the "Change In My Head" remastering and resequencing undertaken by Kevin Seconds and Ian MacKaye. It's probably my favorite reissue of the year, and possibly my favorite HC release of 2025. To say I'd given "New Wind" short shrift is to assume I'd ever really given it a go in the first place. And I very clearly blew it, because there are real songs here, a progression that you'd naturally assume out of a band entering its third or fourth full-length these days, but was absolutely unheard of in 1986 when 7 Seconds released "New Wind" on BYO.

It also led me to pull this one back out of the stacks. It was a CD-only release on the Dutch label Reflections Records, coming a mere 13 years after "New Wind", which, at the time, felt like a million years proceeding, but it's been twice as long since this came out. There are no great surprises to be found here, with 7 Seconds' stylistic descendents paying tribute. There were A LOT of bands on the East Coast carrying that banner in '97/'98: Good Clean Fun, H2O, Ray Cappo's Better than a Thousand, and Fast Times all played fast, positive, sing-along hardcore in basements, VFW halls, libraries and wherever else we could carve out a space temporarily. 

Discogs

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various artists - The Meaning Of Within (Mojo's Guide To The Fab Avant-Garde)

The finest Mojo comps should do one of a few things:

1. They'll tie together the disparate threads of a band's catalog: spin off's, influences, predecessors, and the influenced alike;
2. They'll snapshot a time or space: Manchester in the late 70s, the early days of Glastonbury, the blues revival ahead of the rise of Beat;
3. They'll curate an artist's taste. This is one of my favorites, even when the artist is someone I couldn't give a shit about, because seeing someone connect the Specials/Buzzcocks/Joe Meek/et al to their art is a sure-fire way for me to give them another sniff; or,
4. They'll open a doorway into a subject one might have never delved into.

This 13-track collection, cover dated September 2022, is a pitch-perfect example of number 4. Where does one even establish the boundaries of what the avant garde is/was without a guide like this? You can stumble across a Byron Gysin because you read Burroughs in high school; you can watch Ravi Shankar deliver another groovy raga on the "Krusty The Klown" show; you can jump from Refused to Ornette Coleman on the basis of inspiring record titles. But it's all tripping dick first throughout life without the context that something like this compilation provides.

Discogs

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various artists - Beggars Group Spring 2005 AAA Radio Sampler

Two songs each from the National, the Mountain Goats, Stereolab, Natascha Atlas, and Electrelane, with a bonus cut from Scout Niblett. And if you're familiar at all with any of those bands, then you know what you're walking into here.

It's a pretty solid sampling I would have been happy to spin on the AAA radio format I DJ'ed for back in the 90s. I would have been stoked to play Stereolab instead of, I dunno, Dar Williams. And being of dad age, the National and Mountain Goats fit my demographic to a tee.

Discogs

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various artists - Mojo Presents: Heavy Soul

Pardon the terse blogging today. I've had this shit settle into my chest for two weeks now. She's instructing me to hustle off to bed. The missus sez, "you're not a newspaper. You're sick."

So here's a 15-track compendium of funk and soul. Anything that leads off with Betty Davis and Funkadelic should be able help me expectorate the mucus in my lungs. It's time to bust out the funk.

Discogs

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The Mummies Vs. The Wolfmen

Not to sound like I've lived a terrible life, but this year marks the first time that I've carved a pumpkin into a jack-o-lantern. Chalk it up to a childhood where we didn't celebrate Halloween. It's led to a lack of enthusiasm for the holiday requiring active pushback. So bring on the apple bobbing, haunted hayrides, and drive-by eggings!

The firmest Halloween tradition I follow is, of course, the annual Mummies posting. And what better choice than their double 7" split with the Wolfmen. This is one where you can judge the book by its cover, ably craved by Coop himself! Just picked up a zine from him a few weeks ago; his devil girls still pack a punch. Long Gone John has his fingers all over this one, from the colored vinyl to his appearances bookending the mini comic inside the cover. The Mummies drop a pair of deranged covers of Wilson Pickett and Roy Acuff Jr. The Wolfmen present a pair of originals from their limited catalog...can't say I ever really listen to them. Y'all know what I'm here for.

Eat candy / play trashy music / get a venereal disease / make some bad choices. It's Halloween, y'all!

Discogs

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various artists - Future House: Best Of House Music Vol. 4

I wanted to get in a mid-week post ahead of Halloween, which means a really half-assed post is in order, and this title fits the bill to a T. I picked this up a few years ago for a buck, solely on the presence of a Leftfield track and that it was released on Profile. I kinda dug the cover, too; the green-on-purple just really grabs my attention. How could I turn it down?

Someone more involved in this scene in the mid-90s and less involved in their junior year of high school can speak to whether this is an example of truth in advertising. Is this, indeed, the best of house music from 1992-1993? Shit, I barely knew what Maximum Rock 'n Roll or Fugazi were back then, so I am far from qualified to determine what's good. I like it; it's got a good beat, and you can dance to it. Dick Clark gives this a 69.

Discogs

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