various artists - Live From The Masque: Forming

I recently ordered this online along with a Christ On A Crutch live record from a fella down in San Diego. The price was right, I had a little fun money to spend, and I've been wanted to complete the "Live At The Masque" trifecta here on the blog. The package arrives a week or so later. I open it up, only to discover that the cover for "Forming" had been swapped with that of "Wewecancandodowhatwhatwewe Wanna Do". It's a great shot of Exene, but I don't need a second booklet. I contacted the seller, asked if they could track down the errant booklet, even mentioned they could throw it in with my next order. I've heard nothing since.

So, dear reader, what do I do? I've sent a follow up, but it's been two weeks. Do I leave it in feedback? Do I charge it to the game, let it slide?

The worst part is, it's stolen my enthusiasm for live Germs/Bags/Weirdos/Skulls from 1978, recorded by Geza X, in a room that's now known as the MacArthur. Now I'm just "meh" about what should be a very cool snapshot of L.A. punk.

Discogs

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various artists - Mojo Presents: Songs The Beatles Taught Us

The subtitle says it all: "15 tracks covered by John, Paul, George & Ringo." No Oxford comma required. Nor do you need any trenchant insights about what you'll find contained herein. Not all blog posts need to be more than a hundred words; sometimes, Dr. Freud, a cigar is just a cigar. And no matter how you feel about the Beatles, they sure did cover some good songs.

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Les Baxter-101 Strings - Que Mango!

We're in the final stretch of Scamp releases, a project I started way back on January 8, 2021. Simpler times?

Following Mel Henke on the release schedule were a pair of 101 Strings reissues. The first, "Astro Sounds From Beyond The Year 2000", is an all-timer that I wrote about as the second blog on this series. The second was one of their two 1970 LPs arranged and conducted by Les Baxter. Baxter's work here was the last of his original compositions outside of film scoring. And it's that what makes this interesting to me. It's fascinating to hear what a talented composer, who wrote the score to "The Dunwich Horror" the same year, can do with such a massive cast of performers. The fact that this, unlike most of his previous works, was released as a budget format also stands out to me. What a difference a few years makes; this is endlessly cool music that had fallen desperately out of style during the heyday of psych rock, jazz-funk, and proto-electronic music.

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various artists - Intended Play 2005: Wrongs Of Spring

It's pretty much the direct opposite of spring here in the PNW. But, as I often say, there's never a bad time for a spring sampler, and Matador's 2005 entry in their long-running Intended Play series fits the bill. It leads off with one of my all-time favorite Interpol cuts, contributes a Yo La Tengo demo, and samples Mission Of Burma's digital-only, post-reunion live record, "Snapshot". Dead Meadow brings the neo-psych rock; the deeply-underrated Early Man supply "Fight!" from their pre-Matador EP released on Baltimore's Monitor Records. Matador giants Stephen Malkmus and Cat Power appear alongside one-off appearances from Laura Cantrell and the Double.

Play this one and remember April showers.

Discogs

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various artists - Salvation! Original Soundtrack

It was a great week last week for crate digging. Things kicked off after a rare work-from-the-office day when I stopped by one of my regular haunts before coming home. I had seen a picture of their Monday night restock, showing two bookshelves full of CDs and cassettes. I knew there was quality to be found; I was proven correct when I walked out with 25 CDs at $2 a piece. Yesterday, I stopped in my local Value Village, and found copies of Can's "Ege Bamyasi" and "Soundtracks", along with a copy of "Foreign Affairs", all three of which I shared with the homeys over at Twilight Zone. But the finest find of all came courtesy of Half Price Books' clearance section, where I found this lil 5" piece of aluminum.

1987's "Salvation!" was No Wave director Beth B.'s first solo feature. I've never seen it, but it stars Steven McHattie as a televangelist who cheats with an impressionable girl (played by Dominique Davalos), who it turn becomes a rock star. It costars Viggo Mortensen and Exene Cervenka. New Order received the music credit. And that's why we're here.

The five New Order tracks appearing herein are DEEP cuts, having only been reissued in 2024 as part of the Definitive Edition reissue of "Brotherhood". Cabaret Voltaire also provides a pair of cuts, neither of which appear to have been reissued. Arthur Baker, who had been remixing New Order to great results since 1983, chips in a quartet of songs, with three of those being co-written with and performed by NYC club promoter John Hood. In all, this feels like the last moments before club sounds shifted from New York to Manchester, from Danceteria to the Factory. The Factory-adjacent label Les Disques du Crépuscle handled the physical media, with the Dutch East India imprint Giant putting it out here in the States. 

The Blu-ray is available on Kino Lorber, which means I'll be looking for a copy to see just how this all fits together. It's been a good listen and a very good find.

Discogs

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The Mummies - Double Dumb Ass...In The Face

Here at Primitive Offerings, LLC, you can count on a few things. There'll always be a fair amount of justified shit talk, I rarely take time off (unless we do), and I'm going to post Mummies records on Halloween until I run out. Here is the 1996 double 7" "Double Dumb Ass...In The Face", a reissue by Estrus of the first two, self-released singles by the Mummies. I know that I bought a copy of this from Hex Induction a couple of years ago, and it'll bum me out to no end if it was lost in my last move or placed inside a poorly labeled box by a mover. It's a humdinger, I tell ya. But you can almost certainly decide for yourself with just a few clicks of the trackpad.

Discogs

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various artists - Babe, You're No. 1

As mid-90s rock radio promos go, this one is pretty good. It's hard to beat a lineup that leads off with Foo Fighters/Ben Folds 5/Buffalo Tom/Edwyn Collins. Add in some British indie from Teenage Fanclub, the Verve, and Sleeper, a pair of covers by Circle Jerks and Tricky, and a contribution by the tragically-underheard China Drum, and I'm left thinking, "I'd listen to this radio station RIGHT NOW!"

I've started fantasizing about DJing a once-a-week radio show recently. Nothing big like our own KEXP, with thousands of online listeners. Just a thousand watts, late at night on a Wednesday or Thursday, just like I did it 30 years ago, spinning records and talking shit. Is all this (waves hands around, gesturing wildly at Blogland) the modern equivalent of college radio in the 90s? Am I already doing it, just with less steps?

Discogs

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various artists - Bright Ambassadors Of Morning: Mojo Presents 12 Cosmic Echoes From The Psychedelic Universe

The summer is officially over, here in the deep south of Alaska. It is wet again, and 50 degrees, and it looks like the sun is always rising or setting. For a few weeks, it will be golden hour all day long, and it has both glory and sadness in its coming.

I loaded this into my phone when I was rebuilding the Workupload folder, having forgotten I picked it up as part of a lot of CDs. It makes for a pretty good score for this time of year, as well as serving as a good example of where Mojo is at their best. I was only familiar with a handful of the artists contained herein: the Flaming Lips, Todd Rundgren, Phil Manzanera, and Agitation Free. The rest might as well have never existed before I heard them here, the sort of music that I would know to discover otherwise. Does the algorithm exist to get Jon Hassell on your radar, even if you're already listening to EG releases from the 80s? How does one get to Natural Information Society if you're not already juiced into the contemporary progressive indie scene? Not of this is a gripe, mind you; it's a weird "thank you" for providing a means to encounter something trustworthy and new.

Discogs

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Mel Henke - La Dolce Henke

Mel Henke's "La Dolce Henke" (subtitled "The Mad Musical World of Mel Henke") is the deepest cut in the Scamp catalog. No less than the avant-garde musician and critic Eugene Chadbourne had this to say about Henke:

Coming up in a variety of Chicago bands in the '40s, this pianist had an unusual career that included recording downright weird tunes such as "Shock Treatment," "Cocky Coo-Coo Clock," and "Frenzied Flight," as well as creating what might be one of the masterpieces in the genre of lounge music, although experts in this style have been a bit relaxed about establishing an exact opinion. Henke shows up in the rhythm section on some Louis Armstrong records, and meanwhile over in Nashville, he once successfully placed a song with Conway Twitty. Henke was trained to please in writing ad copy, an influence that has been considered both a pro and con factor in his recorded works. Perhaps Henke's greatest influence as a musician was in the advertising field itself, as he was innovative in mixing music and sound effects as an attention-grabbing factor in the commercials of the '60s.

...In 1955 he went to work for Disney's television department, writing material for a great deal of the studio's commercials as well as incidental music for the Disneyland television series. Henke ran his own production company as well, and was known for experimenting with sound effects and the concept of mixing dialogue into musical passages. Inevitably, he created a series of albums combining these techniques with full-length musical performances and instrumental skullduggery. "La Dolce Henke", worth hunting down for its title alone, is considered his masterpiece.

"La Dolce Henke" is one of two records Henke released on Warner Bros. in 1962, and it wouldn't be inappropriate to call it "zany". Henke's trademark was to combine jazzy composition with sound effects and voiceover, something he used to great effect in his later TV commercial. Here, it can be a little grating, while novel. I chalk that up to this working best when delivered in small doses. This reissue lives on my shelves next to Carl Stalling, Raymond Scott, and Spike Jones; all bandleaders who weren't afraid to get mega weird and wild. 

Discogs

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various artists - Requiem By Rough Trade

A brief update: I've reuploaded the rest of the missing 2026 posts. I'm debating what from 2025 or before I'm going to reupload, but, as is still the fashion online, please feel free to drop a comment asking for a fresh upload.

This also came from the estate sale where I obtained Monday's "Cohen Covered" blog. And, boy howdy!, does it check a lot of boxes for me:

• It's a compilation.
• It's a Japanese pressing.
• It was released only two years after the introduction of the compact disc.
• It's a sampler of Rough Trade artists.
• It was a buck.

When I'm out in the world, this is EXACTLY the sort of thing I'm looking for. It's not that the music is especially rare; Lord knows how many times I've heard that Smiths track. But the selections here generally aren't drawn from the songs I would have expected. The Wire cut comes from the "Our Swimmer" 7", and there are two Weekend tracks (instead of Young Marble Giants). Robert Wyatt also contributes a pair of songs, including the rousing "Red Flag", which I love, but is no one's idea of a hit. There's also a Dome side, coming from the Gilbert/Lewis side project that I didn't know existed until I picked this up.

It's a very cool compilation, and, clearly, I'm a fan of cool compilations.

Discogs

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various artists - Cohen Covered: Mojo Presents His Greatest Songs

Mojo has released two Leonard Cohen tributes to date. I wrote about the second release, 2012s "The Songs Of Leonard Cohen Covered", last September. People seemed to like it; my Blogger stats say that around 250 people read the post, so I'd guess around 300 folks downloaded the comp before I nuked my Workupload last week.

So the timing was good to share the first volume, which came out in 2008 while the master songwriter still stalked the earth. I pulled this from an estate sale a few weeks back, bringing it home along with a pair of Tom of Finland prints, some Patrick Cowley 12"s, a Pedro Almodóvar DVD box set, and numerous other rad things that I was thrilled to give a new home to. Now that I've listened to both Mojo/Cohen releases, I will say that I prefer this one.

I'd never heard Dion's and Claudine Longet's versions of "Sisters Of Mercy" and "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye", and they, alone, were worth the buck that I paid for this. The Bad Seeds cover "Avalanche" from "Songs Of Love And Hate". Martha Wainwright singing "Tower of Song" reminded me how much I love "I'm Your Man" and pushed me to throw it back on my phone. There are also contributions from Linda Thompson, Eyeless In Gaza, Ian McCulloch, and even a live rendition of "Song For Bernadette" from Judy Collins. This tribute led me to enjoy a Judy Collins performance. If that's not a bright endorsement of the quality, I don't know what could be.

Discogs

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