various artists - Particle Theory (A Compendium Of Lightspeed Incursions And Semiotic Weapons From Warner/Reprise)

Ah, yes; the rare place to find Elvis Costello, Boredoms, Sven Väth, and Julee Cruise all in one place.

The Warner family of labels, circa 1993, was a pretty rad assembleage. There was big daddy Warner Bros. Records, who released "The Juliet Papers" that year, a weird concept for 16-year-old me to wrap my brain around. Elvis Costello with a string quartet? Don't worry; I get it now. They'd also put out records from the Flaming Lips and Goo Goo Dolls, which actually got daytime airplay on the one rock station in town. Then there was Ms. Cruise, who, at the time, I wasn't actually aware had worked with David Lynch on the Twin Peaks soundtrack.

Reprise was still flogging Mudhoney's first major label record, put out a Boredoms record in the States, which tickles me to no end, and were still trying to break Babes In Toyland big. Their release slate in 1993 was a bit mixed in quality, but I like how weird a mix it is. You just don't see folks throwing around major label advances on odd shit anymore.

There were also co-releases from Sire, 4AD, Giant, Blanco Y Negro, and American Recordings, all bearing either the WB shield or lower-case R. "Alternative" was a pretty big tent back in 1993, and the majors hadn't had a chance to cock it all up yet. For me and many other future college radio DJs, it was a good time to catch a shotgun's blast worth of genre music and absorb it all, even if you weren't totally into it right away. And, hey, this one could have turned out worse. Candlebox put out a record on Sire in 1993 that sold a metric fuckton and very well could have been represented here. The compilers got it right on this one.

Discogs

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various artists - Amphetamine Reptile Records 1993 Sampler

It never gets old to me, the idea that someone at Atlantic Records thought that the rest of the AmRep catalog might cross over to mainstream popularity, in the same way that Helmet did. "Sure," I believe the thinking went, "the kids will go ga-ga over Today Is The Day and Hammerhead!"

Was cocaine involved? I have to assume the answer is "yes". It's the music business!

Anyway, this one came delivered to your door with your mailorder from Haze's bunker in Minneapolis. What a grand way to get a sniff of Chokebore, Helios Creed, Cosmic Psychos, and Cows. It's the sort of scuzz that'll twist out a 15-year-old, make them turn away from Pearl Jam records and start trekking out to dark corners of their towns. Haze's artwork on the cover seals the deal. This one warps brains and perverts the heart. Obviously, it's a classic.

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 - Love & Napalm

I picked this up at a record store on California's Central Coast over the holidays, from the guy who used to sell Mrs. Ape Mummy her teenage 7"s and weed to her uncle. I love his store; he's constantly playing stoner rock and doom metal at levels far too loud to be appropriate, and everything always smells like nag champa. He will tell tales about how old timers on the police force still ask him about his head shop. The aged masters of record stores are almost all retired or dead, but a few still keep the flame alive, and are willing to share a look at their Sabbath bootlegs should you seem "cool".

King Coffey's Trance Syndicate put this one out, headlined by the almighty Cherubs and backed capably by the likes of Ed Hall, Crust, and Drain. I'm not exactly sure why I was intimidated by a bunch of acid-soaked Texans back in 1993. When our paths have crossed since then, they've always seemed like such nice fellas; real salt of the earth.

Have a little loving clamor for your ears on Valentine's Day, whether you're solo, paired, or in a throuple.

Discogs

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various artists - Only The Strong MCMXCIII

Considering I've been listening to hardcore for 31 years is warping my brain a little bit. Which may be why I'm willing to consider a release on Victory Records, a label that Mark McCoy once sang "sucks" in an all-timer from Charles Bronson. But this comp, the tenth release on the now-notrious Chicago label, decidedly does not suck. It's led off by Warzone, one of the few bands still live and kicking from the seccond wave of HC.Then it's a pretty great lineup of bands that felt super huge to me when I was 16: Resurrection from New Jersey, Snapcase and Zero Tolerance from Buffalo, L.A.'s Strife, Louisville's Endpoint, and Black Train Jack from NYC.

In a time long before the internet, Warped Tour, or reunion package tours, or even when you could find many punk/HC records at your local record store, this was an audio flier for bands you could actually see play live. You could be that kid on the cover. You could drive to Blacksburg or Charlottesville or even all the way to DC to see someone like Bloodline play. It was the damndest game of telephone: reading zine reviews and fliers and thank you lists and distro pamphlets to discover what was available and currently happening. Resurrection was how I got into Lifetime; Endpoint led me to Slamdek Records; Warzone had me ordering records every three months from Revelation Records, newly relocated from Connecticut to Southern California.

The best part of this? I probably hadn't listened to this since the late 90s when I pulled this out of a box a bit ago. But the music still sounds vital, the lyrics no less strident than they did three decades ago. This still fucking rips.

Discogs

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various artists - D.U.M.B. Rock: The Hollywood Tapes

Focusing one's attention on cheap comps allows one to take some risks and discover sounds you would have never encountered otherwise, Case in point: this 1993 compilation of NYC sounds, featuring liner notes from contemporary Maximum Rock 'n' Roll columnist George Tabb, whose writing I took a liking to in my first years of punk rock discovery.

This one came out on Celluloid, a label I've always found curious for the breadth of their releases. Their early US releases were a who's who of Downtown sounds: Bill Laswell, Alan Vega, Phase2, and Grandmixer D.ST. They put out a few Fela Kuti records in the 80s; I think the first things I owned on Celluloid were "Hustlers Convention" and "This Is Madness". By 1993, Celluloid was on its last legs, having been sold for a dollar in 1989, and mostly existing as a catalog label by this point. I can only speculate, but Vital Music, who'd released the other "Dumbrock" comps, probably piggybacked on Celluloid's transcontinental distribution reach in order to get this one in as many hands as possible.

"But is it any good?" you ask. Good question; you be the judge. I don't feel like it was a buck poorly spent on my part. And that's all the insight I'm willing to spend on this one.

Discogs

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various artists - The 2 Tone Collection: A Checkered Past

This is an all-timer of a comp, a collection of every released A-side on 2 Tone, and just about every double AA-side as well. And what a set of performers and songs these are: the Specials, Madness, the Beat, the Selecter, the Bodysnatchers, Rico Rodriguez. It's clearly not full encompassing everything from the second wave of ska, but this is the sort of thing that, 30 years ago, you would have put into your younger sibling's hands so they had something great to listen to.

I did not have an older brother or sister to get this from. Truth be told, I can't even remember my first exposure to the Specials. It would have come around this time, that period of later in high school when one crosses over from mainstream radio into the underground out of curiosity or provocation or some combination of the two. But i can say there was rarely an episode of my radio show where I didn't play something off this collection. It was as intrinsic to my identity as Fugazi or Issac Hayes or Public Enemy.

So it kinda freaked me out when, at some point last year, I went to put it on my phone and I couldn't find my copy. Not ripped to digital, not present in physicality. Many of these songs were present elsewhere in my collection, but I really wanted to listen to the Bodysnatchers, having been inspired by Belle Stars' 7"s I had downloaded from a TwilightZone! post. No cobbled-together playlist would do, and I wasn't going to give in to Spotify for this. I dashed off to Discogs and, within a week, I could scratch my itch.

I had been sitting on this download for a minute, just waiting for the right moment to share some thoughts. It's springtime now, when my JA tastes always shift from dub to ska. This is a good soundtrack for this time of year, when the grey disappears from the sky and good things seem imminently possible.

Discogs

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various artists - Ask The Sky

I bought this 30-year-old comp from a Half Price Books clearance shelf for $2 because it had Redd Kross on it. I figured, hell, if the "Phaseshifter"-era McDonald brothers are batting lead-off, then the rest of the lineup can't be too bad. And I was right. This one's a mix of UK & US early 90s indie and Japanese indie pop. The Penelopes' two songs are great, and Samantha's Favourite is a band I'll be keeping an eye out for. This one probably should be on I Hate The 90s, but I never heard back about contributing there, so here you go.

Discogs

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The Mummies / Supercharger - Live At Cafe The Pit's

Once you reach the fourth year in a row, you're kinda obliged to keep a thing going.

So Happy Halloween, you maniacs. Thanks for stopping by, downloading some jams, and occasionally leaving a comment. It's the Mummies...LIVE, along with fellow garage enthusiasts Supercharger, in a Belgian club you can still visit.

Discogs

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various artists - Teen-Beat 50

This record will turn 30 years old in a few weeks. This millenial of a compilation is still paying off its student loans, has probably delayed getting married, might have moved back into their mom's place.

A split release between DC's Teen-Beat and NYC's Matador, Teen-Beat 50, as the story goes, was originally scheduled to come out in 1990. which would have made this one of the first ten recordings on the now-indie titan. I'd guess it'd slot into that same space now filled by New York Eye And Ear Control. Teen-Beat was well known for split releases, working with Homstead, No. 6, Ajax, and a host of others; all to get some of the best bedroom indie of the late 80s and early 90s off of cassette and onto wax/CD.

Your listening experience runs the gamut, from Dischord contemporaries Circus Lupus and Autoclave, to goof-assin' from Sexual Milkshake, to an early Carl Newman track from his pre-New Pornographers band Superconductor. A shitton of Teen-Beat luminaries perform: Unrest with 3 appearances, Butch Willis, Jonny Cohen, Andrew Beaujon (on four tracks). This here's the CD release, which has 11 more recordings than the LP version.

I'd held off writing about this b/c I wanted to talk a bit about what Teen-Beat means to me as a counterpoint to Dischord in DC music history, but I never could pull my shit together well enough to make a solid enough essay. Let me say that I feel very lucky haven't been turned onto Fugazi and Unrest almost simultaneously, and to become aware of both frontperson's labels. To discover that sense of possibility, that you could follow your own path and have folks glom onto it...it stuck with me. Clearly.

Discogs / Teen-Beat

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various artists - Blues Masters, Volume 15: Slide Guitar Classics

Look, you really shouldn't need a reason to download this, populated, as it is, with some sick Chicago Blues, early rock & roll, and a couple of random blues rarities, none of which are younger than 35 years old.

But if you do need a reason, do it because it has Blind Willie Jefferson's "Dark Was The Night - Cold Was The Ground", a song so exemplary that Jack White regards it as the finest example of slide guitar to be recorded, and one of a handful of musical pieces to make it onto the Voyager Golden Record, wedged between pieces by Kesarbai Kerkar and Beethoven. Fine company, to be sure.

Discogs

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various artists - Ren & Stimpy: You Eediot!

I told them I would shoot, but they didn't believe me.

Why didn't they believe me?

Discogs

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various artists - Blues Masters, Volume 9: Postmodern Blues

Some random anecdotes about some of the artists on this here comp:

• My dad loved Stevie Ray Vaughan. Along with Clapton and Spanky & Our Gang and Little Feat, SRV & Double Trouble was one of those groups I'll always associate with tooling around the north Atlanta suburbs in my pop's white Audi diesel, windows down, a cold can of beer in the old man's crotch, sweating in the Southern heat as this Texas white boy wailed on the blues.
• I get this flash, every time I think of Albert King, of building out a Stax/Fantasy dump bin in the first record store I worked in. I wasn't ready to hear anything from him until years later; a crucial mistake for how sick some of those Stax sides are. I really missed out on grabbing a master of 60s Memphis blues at 50% off $12.99.
• There was a radio station in Atlanta during the late 80s that would do a Friday wind-down/celebration and would play George Thorogood & the Destroyers' version of "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer" on occasion. Pre-teen me thought it was the coolest shit, even though I didn't ever connect that it was, at that time, a 40+ year old blues song from Amos Milburn until years later. I just thought it sounded cool.
• I really don't dig on B.B. King, although I had a few good times over the years at his BBQ restaurant in NYC.

The entire "Blues Masters" series, released by Rhino across 18 volumes from 1992 to 1998, is worth snagging piecemeal whenever you see it. Like so many Rhino releases from this era, they make up a great starting point to check out a genre or era or label. And these, when you do see them, rarely go for over $5.

Discogs

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various artists - Northwest Ungrunge

Let's kick off 2023 in earnest with a real slice of garbage.

I jest, of course...partially...at least. It's easy, in retrospect, to pick on a comp featuring the likes of Sweaty Nipples, Rubberneck, and Village Idiot. The Cherry Poppin' Daddies are the leading light here, a few years ahead of their 1997 breakout into the mainstream with "Zoot Suit Riot". The rest of this 11-song compilation serves as home to a wide variety of PNW ska, funk, alternative, and metal bands, the likes of which you'd read about in the back of CMJ or your local music tabloid in the early 90s. I lived through it, and it's wild to me to what sort of big tent held "college radio" back in the day.

I dunno...I own worse records; I've paid a lot of money for worse records.

Discogs

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various artists - The Beach Boys Classics

1/13/23: UPDATED WITH NEW DL LINK

It's the early hours of December 25th as I write, and, yeah, I oughta go to bed, otherwise Santa won't come. But Santa never really comes, does he? The Amazon delivery driver is probably the closest modern version, and that poor bastard works a hell of a lot more for a lot less reward than the adoration of the world's children. Besides, I ate half a share-a-bag of M&Ms and chased 'em with a half gallon of zero calorie sweet tea, all in a quest to vibrate into the 6th dimension.

I've been reading a lot of Luke O'Neil lately. Can you tell?

There's a pretty interesting series that Tokyo's P-Vine Records did approximately 30 years ago. The "Classics" series took a famous group (in this case, the Beach Boys), and pulled together a compilation of songs either covered by the group or influencing the group. This one has a great mix of girl groups, early rock 'n' roll, a bit of surf and beach music, and a lot of late 50s/early 60s pop. I think it's a pretty rad concept, the creative sort that Rhino was also really good at coming up with around the same time period.

Old time music makes staying up late a bit easier. Sorry, Saint Nick.

Discogs

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various artists - International Hip Swing

Happy holidays, you animals. I've been helping the newest member of our family recuperate from a spaying over the past week, which should explain why Friday's post was missed.

Don't worry; I'm not dead in a ditch.

"International Hip Swing" compiles tracks from 20 different participants in K Records' International Pop Underground series, now entering its 36th year. That seems almost insane, unreal to me, especially when I realized that the Real Distractions record I bought earlier this year is the latest entry in the series.

What's even more wild to me is the possibility that I could learn something new about this record, which has lived in my collection for at least a decade, and, more likely, probably closer to a quarter century. Tonight, I learned track 7, performed by Brief Weeds, a cut I've probably skipped over more times than I care to think about, is the product of Mssrs. Picciotto & Canty, along with their collaborators Hampton & Janney, all of whom previous made up Rites of Spring, One Last Wish, and Happy Go Licky. The track doesn't sound anything like those other bands, but not even knowing that they'd collaborated on two 7"s for K back in the mid 90s seems like a big gap in my knowledge. Can I even consider myself an unhealthy record nerd having not known this?

Tiger Trap, Fifth Column, Seaweed, Beat Happening, Teenage Fanclub, Unrest, and Heavenly also appear; all wonderful bands providing superior cuts. Don't want to overlook the songs I've listened to and loved for years for the one I just rediscovered.

Discogs

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various artists - Power Flush: San Francisco, Seattle & You

The rare "two cities' scenes" compilation, spread between Seattle and San Francisco, courtesy of Broken Rekids in San Francisco, and the Emerald City's Rathouse Records. There are some strong contributions here, provided by the Gits, 7 Year Bitch, and Alcohol Funnycar from up this way, and J Church, Naked Aggression, and Bedlam Rovers from the land of the Golden Gate. There are a pair of contributions from S.F.'s Mudwimin, including a collab with Steel Pole Bath Tub. Mudwimin were one of those mysterious bands that my riot grrrlfriend had dubbed tapes of, but I had no recollection of ever hearing. 

If there's one thing that comes to mind while I was listening to this, it was, "god DAMN I'm getting old!" I'm sure I could find distro lists from Broken inside 7"s I've owned for a quarter century without even really looking. Just about every band on this list was someone whose records I priced and shelved before the year 2000. It doesn't feel that long ago, but that copyright date doesn't lie. This came out 29 years ago.

The fact that I published "Power Flush" less than 12 hours after most people consumed mass quantities of food during Thanksgiving is mere coincidence, I assure you.

Discogs

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The Mummies - Uncontrollable Urge b/w Girl U Want

Far be it, no matter the current status of my digital music collection, for me to let a Halloween pass without a Mummies post.

The Mummies. Covering two crucial Devo tracks. On a bootleg "Sub Pop" 45.

It's perfect.

Howl at the moon tonight.

Discogs

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various artists - Cyborgasm - XXX Erotica In 3-D Sound

I have a vague remembrance of audio porn being a thing in the early/mid-90s. Not ASMR, but sex-positive folks reading dirty stories backed by ambient tracks.

Was it hot? I have no recollection.

Where did 15-year-old me learn about this? Probably some zine, or maybe Raygun or Option or one of the edgier American music rags.

Anyway...

I think I bought this last year because Susie Bright and Annie Sprinkle were on it, and they both rule. I'm 99% certain this came out of San Francisco, which, if you remember S.F. in the 90s, makes a fuck ton of sense. Discogs says the original long box release came with a condom inside.

Feel free to fap. Just don't listen to this at, I dunno, work. Or church.

Discogs

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various artists - The U.S. Of Oi! (+6 Bonus Tracks)

I found this one sitting in the midst of a clearance section in a Half Price Books a few years back, and actually debated for a minute spending the $2.99 it would cost me. B/c, to be fair, Oi! in the late 80s could lean a bit dodgy. But I'm glad I snagged it, and generally surprised this has never had a more recent reissue, shitty cover and all.

This is the 1993 CD reissue on Step-1, featuring the original 1988 Link tracks, as well as six additional cuts. What's on it? "U.S. of Oi!" starts with a classic Warzone track, then follows it up with Atlanta's Moonstomp. There's three songs from Youth Defense League, all coming from the same time period as their track on "New York City Hardcore - The Way It Is". Anti-Heros and the Kicker Boys, also coming out of Atlanta (Oi!-lanta?), contribute tracks from their 1988 LPs on Link, while the Uprise, Immoral Discipline, and the Bootboys all chime in with bops from their respective demos and 7"s from the time. The bonus tracks include tracks from Uprise-related bands the Mad Hatters and Boneshakers, as well as Detroit's Grievance Committee.

It's 21 boot blasts total, lager fueled and an under-heard classic. If you're a student of the mid- to late-80s American Oi! scene, you probably already own this, or the source material for a lot of these tracks. But it you're like me, someone who's curious what was happening in DC at the same time as Revolution Summer, or alongside the youth crew revival in NYC, this is a record worth checking out.

Discogs

Click here to download.