various artists - Jetset In-Flight Entertainment

I couldn't quit y'all.

Jetset Records came to my attention in 1997 with their release of a Jesus Lizard 10" and the American version of Mogwai's first LP, along with a collection of their earlier recordings. TJL was a known quantity, although on the back end of their original run as kings of noise rock. And one of my best friends, an Anglophile who'd been buying a bunch of Chemikal Underground records back then, swore by Mogwai.

So that sets the scene for me getting a copy of this sampler in 1999. Mogwai's moved on to Matador here in the States, releasing "Come On Die Young" and blowing many minds. I'm familiar with who the Go-Betweens, Macha, and Firewater are, even though I haven't heard them then. I'm tickled by a band going by Prolapse, and the rest are brand new to me.

In retrospect, this is one of those perfect samplers. It's a comp built for me, the young indie rock enthusiast with a fistful of expendable income. I'm pretty sure that, with the exception of Tomorrow's World and Kid Silver, I bought every record represented here. "Bedhead Loved Macha", "The Lost Album", "England Made Me": all recordings released around this time that I still revisit on the regs.

My copy came in this clear, round clamshell, while Discogs says this came in a generic cardboard sleeve. For whatever that's worth to ya.

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 - Spin: 100% Original

The words "Ocean Pacific" pops out at me, one of those brands of my youth, up there with Airwalk, Vans, Stüssy, Jncos, Bones Brigade, and Sex Wax as signifiers of teenage fashion of a certain era. Not that I could afford any of the above, nor did I have the cool uncle/aunt/older sibling who'd plunk down money on them so I could feel cool. As a result, I'm not particularly driven towards tracking down any fluorescent shorts or skin-tight monochromatic tees from early adolescence. Thank g_d for Mom & Dad's cheapness for avoiding that particular nostalgic curse.

This promo, sampling the contemporary Atlantic Records roster of 1999, is the sort of thing I would have tossed immediately back then, but happily share with you today. Just do yourself a favor; avoid track 4. Nothing good comes of listening to Bob Ritchie nowadays.

On the other hand: Fountains of Wayne, Fat Joe, Bad Religion, and Latin Playboys all provide no worse than decent cuts from their then-current records. There's a Collective Soul track, a sampling from the swing revival, and a few others that I cannot be arsed to revisit. Also sponsored by Spin Magazine, although I couldn't say if this was a giveaway with Spin, an OP purchase, or a mailaway. I'd think this was attached to a Spin subscription; otherwise, how would I have ended up with a copy?

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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David Axelrod - 1968 To 1970: An Anthology

I wrote about David Axelrod last year, a nifty little piece of writing that I'm pretty happy with. So there's no need to revisit how I got to my fandom; just some words to talk about where it's going.

This is the first anthology Stateside put out, back in 1999. Like its successor, it covers Axelrod's three solo records for Capitol, along with tracks from Lou Rawls and Cannonball Adderly. The difference here are a pair of cuts Axelrod produced for South African singer Letta Mbutu, someone who I'd never heard before and whose music probably bears the least amount of production fingerprint on it. There are also two songs from the Electric Prunes, who once had too much to dream last night, but here contribute from their final record on Reprise, 1968's "Release Of An Oath". It's bonkers how great these cuts are; psychedelic liturgies from Christian and Jewish traditions. It's holy music like Coltrane's finest; imaginative, cutting edge, totally unlike anything else happening at the same time.

What can I say? I like it. It never leaves my phone.

Discogs

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various artists - Capitol Radio

Wabbit wabbit, dear reader.

I miss playing records on the radio. I miss having ime to play records on the radio. The key here is that I wouldn't necessarily sacrifice the time and energy that it'd take to play records on the radio in 2024; I'm ure I could probably find a once-a-week slot at some left of the dial, 200 watt station around here.

Or maybe that's just ego talking.

The details behind this comp are a bit hazy, and I put it into a box after re-ripping it at 320kbps, so maybe one of my few readers who also lived in Delmarva around the turn of the millenium can fill in the blanks. At the same time I was blasting out punk, hardcore, and ska up near the PA border, there were a few dudes down around DC doing the same. They had much more juice than I; I believe Kent Stax was somehow involved in their show. So when it comes to members of Scream participating in your radio show, they had a 1-nil lead.

This 1999 comp bears their mark. There are a few familiar faces in the liner notes; dudes who you'd see at shows and record stores and the occasional Orioles game. And the bands harken back to an age I find particularly golden. It was a wonderful clash of sub genre; '77 punk next to org-core alongside third wave ska and Dischord post punk, all bounded by Chicago-style pop punk and . 1998 and 1999 were very good times, friends. The wave had just barely started building, and it felt like your friends wouldn't have to starve while they went out on tour.

And that was all a quarter century ago. Fuck, I'm getting old.

Discogs

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various artists - This Is Bad Taste Vol. 3

When I bought this a few months ago, I swore I was picking up a Burning Heart-related sampler of early 90s Ümea hardcore. This, instead, is what some of those X'ed up yoots moved on to when they graduated university. Lest you get it twisted, I'm not unhappy with this. There's a fair amount of snotty-nosed punk rock (Satanic Surfers, Chixdiggit, Trigger Happy), more serious political rock (Weakerthans), and, yes, a smattering of mid-90's hardcore (Within Reach, Misconduct).

But what really matters is there's a Hard Ons track. Who doesn't love a little Ray Ahn? Amirite, or amirite?

Postscript: Bad Taste eventually grew up, quit putting out records, and became a management company, splitting time between Santa Monica and Stockholm. It's a classic story, really.

Discogs

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various artists - 1999 Teen-Beat Sampler (A Compilation Album)

It seems strange to me that I haven't written more about being a big dork for Arlington, VA's Teen-Beat Records. After all, it's not like I just got into them last week. The Mark Robinson-led label has been a part of my life ever since I moved to Baltimore in '94, having copped Unrest's "Perfect Teeth" shortly after landing there. Here was a sonically different fellow traveler to my beloved Dischord, a place that melded pop influences with DIY ethics and a postmodern visual aesthetic. Along with what was coming out of K Records in the PNW, it was a place where Madonna and Enya could meld with Crispy Ambulance and Cath Carroll into something that was distinct and familiar to this 17-year-old boy.

This is the fourth in the Teen-Beat Annual Sampler Series, and it's a pretty good one, a proper sampling of both the current label roster as well as a smattering of some super deep cuts from the catalog. The Rondells' record was one that I listened to nearly to death in 1999, and their cover of "Like A Prayer" got played a lot on my radio show. There was something familiar about True Love Always' "Faust"; it would be years later that I'd connect that it originated from de Palma's "Phantom Of The Paradise". Versus, Flin Flon, Tel Aviv: their songs from their then-current records laid out a indie pop present very different from what was playing on the radio at the end of the millenium, but just as danceable and worthy of singing along.

Discogs / Teen-Beat

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various artists - Quannum Spectrum

When it came to choosing sides in the great hip-hop wars of the 90s, I chose the backpackers, the crate diggers, the beat snatchers. "Entroducing..." came out at a perfect time for me, so it was no surprise that I fucked with the Solesides/Quannum crew in a big way. They were one of a million reasons why I wanted to be in the Bay Area at the turn of the millenium. Fuck tech; I just wanted to see Spazz and Del and Dead And Gone and Lyrics Born.

I loved how intertwined this crew was with London's Mo Wax and Tokyo's Toy Factory, a pair of import labels whose releases are well represented in my collection. This release comes as Solesides became Quannum Projects, and continued to turn dorks like me onto the bleeding edge of what hip-hop was in 2000. Drop-in's from the like of El-P, Souls of Mischief, and Jurassic 5 make this one of my favorite snapshots from this time.

Discogs

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various artists - X-Ray Music: A Blood And Fire Dub Directory

The summer is coming to an end, which, for me, means really stepping up the amount of reggae I listen to. Starlit nights call for a righteous dub to tear down Babylon. And this, a 1999 sampler from the late, lamented Blood & Fire label, is almost purpose-built for such a need. Headlined by a quintet of King Tubby dubs, along with productions from Scientist, Lee Perry, and Prince Jammy, this is a pretty irie CD.

Did I use "irie" correctly?

Discogs

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various artists - Mailorder Is Still Fun!

 Oh sweet zombie Jesus...I forgot to write anything over the weekend. Time to bust out a quick 50-100 words on a 24-year-old label sampler.

"Mailorder Is Still Fun!"...and it still is, really. Asian Man always came correct with a package full of stickers and fliers and every once in a while a 1" pin or tow. It was most welcome getting a shit ton of swag on top of an Alkaline Trio LP or a Link 80 CD.

Extra tracks appended to the end, courtesy of Tomato Head Records, if the ol' noggin recalls correctly. This would have been the place I would have heard Big D and the Kids Table for the first time.

And done with 4 minutes to spare!

Discogs

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various artists - Hi Records - The Early Years Vols. 1 + 2

I grabbed this off a shelf at Value Village a number of years ago b/c I'll check out anything that came out of Memphis. And while this has no more in common with the likes of Al Green and Willie Mitchell than a record label and city, this was a pretty rad find, chock full of sounds that I wouldn't typically check out.

Ace Cannon is the one name I was familiar with going in, making an early appearance backed by Bill Black's Combo. Along with Bill Black's Combo, there are other names to look deeper into here: Gene Simmons, Tommy Tucker, Jerry Jaye, and Jay B. Loyd all turn in multiple cuts from Hi's first round of singles, released over the first couple years of the label's existence.

If you're into the depths of early rock 'n' roll, this is a good one to tune into.

Discogs

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various artists - Chico, CA

A few years before they put out the early works of the Decemberists, and long before working with the likes of Jon Brion, Team Dresch, or John Cameron Mitchell, Jealous Butcher Records was just a Portland label I knew for making limited edition records with really great handcrafted covers. I learned about them the first time I saw Kind Of Like Spitting, who were on tour with Braid, and they had this comp with a folded cardboard wrap cover tied with a twist-tie in the upper right corner. I snagged this and a copy of "You Secretly Want Me Dead" that night, meeting Ben for the first time.

The uninitiated probably won't know a blessed soul here, apart from the aforementioned KoLS. Beltline, Rally Boy, and Captain vs. Crew all made singles and full-lengths for Jealous Butcher in the years around 2000, Jeff London is probably the most prolific artist here, having cut records for J.B.R. and fellow Rose City travelers HUSH over the years. Jeff did a pretty great digital-only album in 2020 that's right in that indie folk niche that I (and other NPR-contributors) love.

If I hadn't heard Poison Idea before, I would have assumed everything from Portland sounded like this until I moved out west, thanks to recordings like this.

Discogs

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PS: There's a good chance that I screwed up the artist naming on the download. Check the Discogs listing for the correct listing.

Rocky Votolato - s/t

The first solo record from Seattle's Rocky Votolato. He's a man who, in this day and age, will come to your living room and play to your closest friends and strangest strangers, all whilst you quaff a glass of wine and hum along to "White Daisy Passing". I've seen him/booked him about a half dozen times over the years, and never been disappointed.

It's worth noting (to me, at least) that this was initially co-released by Henry's Finest Recordings. I live about 10 minutes from Henry's Finest's mailing address. The universe is immense, yet tiny.

If you come across him, ask Rocky about acting in "The Edge of Quarrel".

Discogs

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The Drags - 45x3

Let's take a dump! There's about 20 records left in my Mediafire, and I want to blow thru them, so don't expect any trenchant insights.

Here's some garage rock from Albuquerque. Odds and sods on Empty. The Drags did three full-lengths on Estrus, just up the road in Bellingham.

This one's a fun comp from the glory days of gunk rock.

Discogs

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Nero - Untitled (Dune Concept Record)

I'm sharing this early Temporary Residence release to celebrate today's official release of "Dune", which almost certainly will be the first film I'll watch in a theatre in more than 2 years. I remember very little about this record, except I discovered it in the CD drawers at WMUC during one of the early morning DJ shifts I had my year at University of Maryland. I think Nero was from Louisville; they were half of the first record on Temporary Residence, and, as you can tell by the title of this post, they did a record about "Dune". That's literally all I remember about this. Well, that, and I liked this enough to rip it almost 20 years ago AND save the CD in my stacks. Sometimes, an interesting concept is enough to earn you a place in history.

"Dune" is one of my favorite books. It's definitely my most watched David Lynch movie. I'll probably watch the shit out of Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides, no matter what the reviews are. I'm hyped. And thus I have shared far too much.

Discogs

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American Steel - Rogue's March

Now here's a record that I was completely smitten with when it came out, and somehow managed to set aside for nearly 20 years afterwards.

Like most collectors in 2021, I have a list of wants on Discogs. Nothing too fancy (excepting some Septic Death releases that'll cost me my stimulus check), but a lot of $5 to $50 records, CDs, and tapes that I want to own a copy of. Every few weeks, when the ol' Paypal account grows thick, or I've paid all the home bills and have a few shekels left over, I'll go through the list looking for deals. So it was that I ended up a seller's list that had a couple of items from said wantlist for sale. They were asking a price too dear for the specific Devo reissue I wanted, but they also had a couple of Lookout! releases for cheap that caught my eye. I also saw this here 5" aluminum slab, cried foul that it didn't even live on my hard drive, much less that I still owned a hard copy, and plunked down a mere $4 for a pre-owned copy. A week later, it was in my hands again.

Much of my music listening takes place digitally these days. I don't stream, per se; I load up my phone with a few hundred interesting records from my collection, or play directly off my hard drive. But when "Rogue's March" came in, I made an excuse to go for a drive, to pick up coffee and lunch for the missus and I, and slid it into the CD player in the car. It remains a really powerful, maybe under-heard, punk rock record from the end of the century. American Steel's second LP, like Hot Water Music's "No Division" and Small Brown Bike's "Our Own Wars" from the same year, plays like heartfelt punk rock from the Stiff Little Fingers/Leatherface tradition, adding in the intensity of growing up in a scene where grindcore bands played on the same bill as pop punk and anarcho punx. At first blush, it might seem weird that Lookout put this one out; their run as the home to American pop punk royalty was ending, and their embrace of punk-rooted indie rock would lead to their last hurrah over the following 5 years. This was a vanguard for the likes of Ted Leo and Pretty Girls Make Graves within the next couple of years.

Is this still good? All I can say is, I still remembered every word from "Every New Morning" and the title track the minute they came on, and I hollered them like I was 21 all over again. Felt good, dude.

Discogs

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Devoid Of Faith/Voorhees - Network Of Friends 5

Sunday circle pit, y'all. Join the Bedroom Dancer's Union Internationale, dive off the dresser onto the bed. You don't need a live band. All you need is a pair of bands from Albany, New York and Durham, England, a 22-year-old split LP, and a set of loud speakers.

I say - follow your dreams. Even if they're about a giant spider with your father's head and he keeps stealing your penis!

Discogs

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Unwound - live at the Breakroom, 1999-10-26

Unwound (photo by J. Winterberg)

Back before it was Chop Suey, but after it was an auto parts store, 1325 E. Madison St. in Seattle was known as the Breakroom. I never went there, seeing as how I lived on the opposite coast, but I heard many a tale of it, since I booked a lot of WA state bands who played there. And when they'd play a show at the Ottobar or Talking Head, they'd inevitably bring up this spot that held around 200 people that they loved playing.

Unwound headlined there in the fall of 1999, supported by the relatively obscure (but well worth tracking down) Yind and the less obscure Hovercraft. Unwound was a year off the release of "Challenge For A Civilized World", and just starting to debut tracks that would appear on their final studio LP, "Leaves Turn You Inside Out". "Off This Century", "October All Over", and "Summer Freeze" pop up here, not fully fleshed out, but showing the powerful songwriting that'd be developed by the time "Leaves" came out 18 months later. "Laszlo" also turns up here; it wouldn't get its wax debut until Numero Group put the "Empire" retrospective until 2015.

All in all, a pretty great Unwound set. I dunno how you feel about them, but I've always thought they were pretty underrated, truth be told. Check for yourself.

Click here to download.

Sailor Moon & The Scouts - Lunarock

Here's another shameless grab at clicks and downloads, featuring the late-90s voice talent from the English language "Sailor Moon". It should not surprise you in the least that this is a North American-only release; no Japanese company would record and release something like this.

I'm no great expert on anime soundtracks or video game music, but I come across a fair amount of it in discount bins and thrift stores around these parts, so I guess I have a greater than average familiarity, because I'll be damned if I can pass it up. I think it's great that the best in that industry have gained worldwide recognition in the past two decades, thus negating the need for a market specific release like this. It never ceases to amaze me how content providers will underestimate the tastes of their audience, dumbing it down while localizing while neglecting what makes an IP interesting in the first place.

Anyhow, here's the second North American market Sailor Moon release. It's a far cry from the Takanori Arisawa composed and arranged from the original Bishōjo Senshi Sērā Mūn series, but it worth remembering, I suppose. But it does combine English language music recorded for DIC's localization with Japanese songs from idol group DALI and vocalist Yoko Ishida. It gives it this weird mix of second-rate Stan Bush vibes with the occasional Harajuku outburst.

Hell of a week to misplace my main hard drive, is really what I'm getting at.

Discogs

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