various artists - Hairspray (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

It's dawned on me that I probably underrate "Hairspray" as a movie, almost certainly on account of what it became. I still can't believe that there was a successful musical adaptation of a John Waters movie, yet here we are. I think my niece auditioned for Traci Trunblad last year. It's a weird world. Thankfully.

The musical makes me mad because there isn't nearly enough Toussaint McCall or Gene Pitney or Barbara Lynn. There are a bunch of theatre kids singing about acceptance, I guess. Which is all well and good, but nothing equivalent to "The Bug".

John Waters soundtracks are the shit, is what I'm saying. I like this one so much, I own copies on vinyl, CD, and cassette. And I'd probably buy it on 8-track if it'd come out in that format.

Discogs

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various artists - Art Of The Underground 2005 Sampler

It's 2005, and your faithful servant is a newlywed, trying and failing to make a go as an indie promoter in Baltimore and, in retrospect, in the throes of a major depressive episode that would wax and wane but never really go away until the start of Obama's first term. I was listening to a lot of what Alex Kerns was putting out on Art of the Underground. First amongst equals was the Buffalo trio Lemuria, formed by Alex with Sheena and Doug, with only a demo and 7" to their names but already grabbing my attention with their tuneful Superchunk-style punk. I also loved Out of Vogue and Robot Has Werewolf Hand, a pair of Buffalo local weirdo hardcore bands with 7"s out on the label.

All three appear on this sampler, a survey of the first dozen or so releases on AotU. They're joined by Erik Petersen, who made folk punk par excellence out of Philly, and Albany's Kitty Little, who had a pair of dudes from John Brown's Army making super fun indie rock. The rest of this didn't make much of an impact on me back then, but 20 years distance has refreshed my taste for mid-aughts DIY indie. I spun this one a few times after recently re-ripping it and thought, "yeah, this one's worth sharing."

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various artists - The Thing That Ate Floyd

I got a couple hundred words into writing this one last week, then forgot to hit post. By the time I came back to it, the sentiments I shared had passed. It was time for a rewrite.

When I was a kid, I'd hear folks in my southwestern Virginia town talk about being anywhere than where they were. "I wish I lived in Seattle/Athens/Chapel Hill/Minneapolis/DC/London." All completely understandable sentiments, when you're 16 and the closest college town is an hour plus away. It felt like there was so much coolness going on...just not where we lived.

For me, along with DC, the Bay Area was the place I dreamed of. It was where Lookout Records was, 924 Gilman (even tho Jello Biafra got beat up there), Epicenter, Maximum Rock 'n' Roll, Amoeba, Bottom of the Hill. So much coolness, and what a mix! Neurosis and Operation Ivy and Jawbreaker and Steel Pole Bathtub and Tribe 8 and the Mr. T Experience! Sometimes playing together!! This wasn't the 60s, when San Francisco was one of THE big stops for every band worth seeing. This was the 90s, right before punk broke, and the freaks had carved out their little niche.

"The Thing That Ate Floyd" captures the front end of that wave. A proper monster of a comp, assembled by Lookout co-operator David Hayes and recorded in large part by Alex Sergay, Lookout! No. 11 is an amazing scene report. The iconic artwork by Hayes immediately evokes for me Crimpshrine tapes and punk rock dorkiness. There are some hall of famers present: OpIv, Neurosis, Crimpshrine, MTX, and SPBT all provide tracks from early in their respective catalogs. A number of folks who would later record for Lookout and Very Small also make early appearances. The comp wasn't limited to bands from the Bay Area, either; Fresno, Chico, Chula Vista, Stockton, San Jose were the places they came from, all trekking into the big city to make a little noise to sympathetic conspirators.

I'm pleased to be able to direct folks over to Lavasocks Records, who brought this one back into print in 2021 with a handsome repress with a wonderful yellow cover and one of four colors of wax. If you download this one and dig it, pay them a visit over on Bandcamp and kick them some bux.

Discogs

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Masshysteri - Vår Del Av Stan

I popped into one of the many record stores that have popped up in the north Seattle suburbs in the past couple years today. I didn't know what I wanted; only that I wanted to hang out for a while, have a beer or two (it's a record bar, duh), and buy something based on someone else's taste.

It didn't quite work out that way. While my bartender and I discussed the finer points of late 90s power violence and I shared my opinions on Coalesce, my record tenders couldn't quite point me in the direction of something I didn't already own. They DID suggest Lip Cream's "Kill Ugly Pop", an Abrasive Wheels compilation, some Sleep records. All good recommendations; all recordings I already own.

In the end, I picked up a copy of World Burns To Death's "The Sucking Of The Missile Cock", a Portland crust classic, the Hardcore Holocaust release of which I probably sold in the mid-aughts to make a mortgage payment. This led me down the path of talking about records that Sonarize had reissued in recent years, which took me to Scandanavian hardcore, which brought me to Masshysteri, one of the most perfect punk bands of the past 20 years. This is their first of two full lengths, released by Feral Ward here in the States and by Ny Våg in their native Sweden. Masshysteri was the continuation of a line that includes the Vicious, Regulations, the (International) Noise Conspiracy, Insurgent Kid, and INVSN. Hell, one of their members used to be in Doughnuts, a Victory Records band that I actively ignored in the 90s but keep thinking I'll finally check out one of these days if I can just find a copy of their full length in the dollar bin.

ANYWAY...

Masshysteri: good-ass band. It's hardcore kids playing power pop, which is my favorite performance style of power pop.

Discogs

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various artists - Spin This Six

'Twas about two months ago when I shared the fifth volume in the Spin This series, and reaction seemed about as positive as I could hope for a 31-year-old alternative music sample. So here's Volume Six, or VI, as the Latin speakers at Spin put it. This one's a bit less girthy than the previous volume. But it has Archers of Loaf, Goops, and Knapsack, all of whose records populate my regular listening in this year of our Lord Twenty Twenty Five. For less punky sounds, tune in for Morphine, KMFDM, Belly, and the Wolfgang Press. Very few duds here, truth be told. And, daddio, that's all I ever want from free curated listening; something that doesn't exist to reinforce my taste, but to broaden it.

Discogs

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various artists - Pop Romantique: French Pop Classics

Record Store Day was this past weekend, and, if you're like me, you avoided it like the plague. The way that it's buggered up capacity, driven up prices on new releases, and generally caused folks to further fetishize vinyl really bums me out. Because I loves a good party. But people...man, do I hate people.

Apropos of nothing, here are a bunch of indie bands covering chansons from the 60s and 70s. Françoise Hardy and Kevin Ayers both pop up for guest appearances. OF COURSE there are Elephant 6 members involved. You get an AIR track, a Heavenly cover, a Stephen Merritt performance. This was a spur of the moment penny bid, based on the cover alone, that 100% panned out for me. I fucking love it like I hate Record Store Day.

Discogs

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bis - The New Transistor Heroes

I've been listening to a bunch of bis in recent months. One of those hyperbolic "it's what got me through the winter"-type statements doesn't apply here, but it sure was nice (re)discovering a band at 47 that I'd written off as unworthy of my attention at 20. I mean, of course I like them now, now that I've had a quarter century's seasoning, listening to Los Campesinos and Eugenius and Another Sunny Day, getting a sense of what came after, what existed during, and what led into this.

It's just punk kids making pop sounds, which is really all I need at this late date. Sure, I just loaded the Faith/Void split back on my phone, and spent March alternating in "Madvillainy" between listens of these Glaswegians. Give me this for a buck and I'm happy as a clam.

This is the US CD version of the record, released on Grand Royal. Willja handled honors in the UK, and Steven from bis reissued this in an expanded version in 2024 on Do Yourself In. Regardless of how you get it, get it, cuz it's good, you know? Hell, if you can get out of the country, go see them on their home turf; they're playing shows all year long!

Discogs

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various artists - Good Vibrations: A Record Shop, A Label, A Film Soundtrack

It's a quiet Sunday, the first weekend of April, here in the PNW, a bit rainy and grey. A wonderful day for laundry, the Criterion Channel, and a bit of light blogging. We're back in the saddle again, picking up where we left off with this, the soundtrack to a documentary about one of the all-time great shops/labels/institutions, Belfast's Good Vibrations. And while I've not seen the doc, this is one I couldn't leave behind on the Central Coast last winter when it crossed my path at $7.

Is it nitpicky to ask why Protex isn't here? Yeah, it is, but "Don't Ring Me Up" was G.V.'s sixth release. Its absence seems a bit pointed. But I can't find any fault with what was compiled here. A mix of Good Vibrations releases ("Teenage Kicks", "Big Time", "Just Another Teenage Rebel"), inspirations (Bert Jansch, Bowie, Niney The Observer, the Shangri-Las), and contemporaries (S.L.F., the Saints, Suicide) make for a really great record of what made the shop so special in its relatively short life.

Discogs

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various artists - Blues Masters, Volume 6: Blues Originals

Thorw away post: my joints are sore and I'm phlegmy and I haven't recovered from the visit from Mother Mummy. So you get some more blues masters, a perfectly apt title for something that includes Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Robert Johnson, and Elmore James.

I sent this one to my 11-year-old niece in a box of CDs for her to check out. Gotta turn the youth onto the goods, right?

Discogs

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various artists - Mojo Presents: Africa Rising (Essential Mindblowing Summer Grooves)

It's been a month away, moving about 20 miles closer to the Canadian border, concurrent with my country taking a sprint right into fascism, and the best most anyone near me can offer is "it is what it is." Were it a drinking game, I'd be dead or pickled.

But I cannot lose hope, because thre[s still worlds of music to uncover, and uncover it, I shall.

My mom came in from the East Coast to lend a hand on the unpack, and I played this for her as we headed north from the airport. She liked the Farka Tourés, felt ambivalent about the rest of it, but said it was nice to hear something she'd never heard before. "You have such interesting taste in music," said the woman who played me Smokey Robinson, Juice Newton, and Pink Floyd as a kid.

My point is, it doesn't have to be what it is. Spring is coming, and we will be renewed.

Discogs

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various artists - The Man Machine: Mojo Presents The Electronic Revolution

It's a jolly good giveaway, this comp. Chock full of synthesized sounds ranging from the ambient to the caustic. There's even something that was written to be played whilst you run with your iPod attached to your bicep. Thanks, Nike.

Looking back at 2009, I wouldn't have given this a second thought. OMD and the Orb were artists I just skipped over on my way from Oasis to Oxes. I fucked with LCD Soundsystem, but most of those dudes had been in punk bands in the 90s, so they couldn't be all bad, could they? Sometime around then, Kraftwerk did some dates in NYC, and a dude offered me a ticket and a ride. I shrugged.

Now? Now this is all I really want to listen to. I want to fall into a K-hole with Tangerine Dream as the soundtrack. I'll buy all the Ultravox vinyl I find abandoned at a thrift store. I'm going to track down all those Flying Lotus productions, using the Discogs production tab as my lodestone. This is the future, circa 2009. Filled you with hope back then, dinnit?

Discogs

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