various artists - Mojo Presents: Music Is Love! (15 Tracks That Changed The World)

I'm dubious of the conceit that these are fifteen songs that changed the world. By my count, maybe a third of these would make my top 100 compositions of popular music. But, hey, I've never been invited to assemble a Mojo compilation before, whereas Dave Henderson has been doing it for more than 20 years. So what the hell do I know?

None of this is to say this is a bad compilation at all. It's actually really good, a nice one to play from start to finish. It takes real brass to lead off with the Edgar Broughton Band covering Captain Beefheart on a comp that purports world change, but it works. Then it's on to the Dream Syndicate playing Neil Young, and Willie Nelson (& Family!) covering Hank Sr. I'm going to shout out any time the Gun Club makes an appearance; "John Hardy" is a fine contribution. There's a reggae performance of Radiohead's "Airbag", an arrangement for strings of Kraftwerk's "Autobahn", and Laibach caps it all off with their version of "Sympathy For The Devil".

I would have constantly returned to this comp had it crossed my path during a time when we still made mixtapes for each other. That's not only because you have tracks like Siouxsie & The Banshees playing Billie Holiday and Al Green performing the Beatles, but because it serves as a guide for things to explore. It's not like anyone around me was playing Robyn Hitchcock when I was younger, but hearing him perform "Like A Rolling Stone" would drive me to check him out. Likewise with Penetration playing Patti Smith and Madeline Peyroux interpreting Joni Mitchell. That's the goal of things like this, innit? To inspire the listener to dig deeper, to explore 100 years plus of recorded sound. You should know Donny Hathaway and Big Star and the Doors and Minnie Riperton and Nina Simone

Discogs

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various artists - Saddle Creek 2007 Sampler

John Davis, formerly of Q And Not U and Corm, has a new book out about the history of DC fanzines. "Keep Your Ear To The Ground" is like catnip to folks like us; those who want to preserve the old days, warts and all, and see value in the things that many others might view as trash. John's zine Held Like Sound still holds a special place in my heart. It was my contemporary look at DC when I first moved to the DMV in 1994. I thought I was moving to the DC suburbs; it turned out to be the direct opposite side of Baltimore. Instead of Positive Force, I got the Loft and Reptilian Records. It was all for the better, but I still wonder what might have changed if I had ended up in Arlington, Sterling, or Laurel.

John was also one half of Georgie James, whose sole full-length came out on Omaha's Saddle Creek in 2007, and who are represented by two tracks on this sampler. Saddle Creek's luminaries also show up; Bright Eyes' "Cassadega" and the Good Life's "Help Wanted Nights" both came out that year. Within a year, Conor Oberst would be out on the campaign trail, playing Obama rallies with Bruce Springsteen. It was a weird time. The twelve tracks are rounded out by two each from ex-Azure Ray artists Art In Manila & Maria Taylor, and S.F. folky duo Two Gallants, who I'm pretty sure I booked on their first show in Baltimore around this time. This is all a stretch to suggest y'all check out Davis's book, but I think I got us there.

Discogs

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various artists - Mojo Presents: Love Will Tear You Apart (15 Hand-Picked Tracks Of Hurt, Pain & Despair)

This is my ideal Mojo comp. a mix of old and new, originals and covers, artists I've known for years and folks that are brand new to me. Every song is listenable, with a track like "Marie", performed by Townes van Zandt and Willie Nelson, leaving me wondering how I'm only hearing this for the first time now. Jim Reid of the JAMC covering the Saints was a pleasant surprise. Hearing Jon Auer's "Green Eyes" had me reaching for the first three Posies records, while I never need a reminder to dive back into the catalogs of Nina Simone or Jarvis Cocker.

Yeah, I fucked up the title in the tagging. Please kick this ass of a man.

Discogs

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various artists - Mojo Presents: Stooges Jukebox

I have nothing clever or interesting to offer regarding this comp, compiled by Iggy Pop himself and offered up by Mojo back in Twenty Aught Seven. It's just good shit, and I missed a deadliine a couple days ago on account of exhaustion and a binge on Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, so I know I need to bring the good shit.

Discogs

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various artists - Let's Do It For Lance! J Church Tribute

We live in a world where a wonderful, kind Hawaiian man who had an encyclopedic knowledge of the 80s UK anarcho-punk and who wrote some of the finest, most literate punk rock songs of all time has been dead for 16 years, Yet Donald Trump still darkens the planet. It hardly seems fair.

Lance Hahn was always a dude I deeply admired. He made great music, released some great art from his friends, shared his knowledge freely. J Church remains incredibly underrated. Cringer is barely a blip on the modern radars of music listeners.  But his successors are legion, filling up Gainesville's venues every Halloween, treading the boards in punk house basements and on stages in tiny clubs from San Pedro to the Lehigh Valley to Manchester to Sendai.

A bunch of labels put together this record to aid Lance's healing back in '07. It's a suitable monument to his songcraft, as well as those he inspired. It has some pretty great bands turning in pretty great versions of the man's cuts. It's a great sing-along record. The organizers got Ben Snakepit to do the illustrations. If you see this one on a rack for $5, I say, grab it quick.

Discogs

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various artists - Discos Matador: Intended Play 2007

Initially, I thought I'd do an unexplained list, ranking each year's Matador releases from inception through today. But CHRIST, that's 33 years of records, man. That's a long way to go for a bit.

Let's just say that 2007 was a pretty decent year. I like that Ponys record an awful lot. Matador released a great Times New Viking 7" ahead of the following year's drop of "Rip It Off". The Cave Singers put out their first full length. Shearwater joined the label with a deluxe reissue of 2006's "Palo Santo", and Lavendar Diamond & Love Of Diagrams dropped their first Matador records.

The big one for 2007 was the New Pornographers' "Challengers". Is it represented on this sampler? No, dear reader, it is not. But there's a cut off Cat Power's "Jukebox", which ended up coming out the following year. You get a live Mission of Burma track, a Yo La Tengo track, and, most importantly to me, a pair of Earles & Jensen prank calls. That's right, gang. Bleachy is BACK in town. He's going down to the Checkers to get himself a grip of Big Bufords, y'all!

Also present: a 22-year-old Pavement cut, if you're into that sort of thing.

Discogs

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various artists - Mojo Presents: Cigarettes And Alcohol

Today's commentary, brought to you in the form of two screencaps:

and:

Why waste words, when The Simpsons have already done it for you?

Discogs

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Post #400: Double Dagger - Ragged Rubble

It took from May to August 2000 to go from 100 to 200 posts. Then I hit 300 posts two days before Christmas 2000. And now I'm here, another 100 posts down the road. Sorry for the delay. I've been busy. On the other hand, a pace of approximately one post every two days, especially when you get THIS MUCH SUPERIOR CONTENT isn't a bad one at all.

This one came out during the marriage years, or, as I have been known to call it, "my time in the suburbs". So a lot of what happened initially for me with "Ragged Rubble" was viewed from the sidelines, so to speak.

Dubin left Double Dagger sometime after the split with Economist to go teach English outside Osaka, and Denny took over on drums. Denny sang and played guitar in Economist, who at some point became Yukon, and DD started playing less with the Charm City Art Space crowd and more with the Wham City kids, who'd started moving to town a few years before and making a hell of a racket. There was a lot more strut to this second grouping of songs. Whereas the self-titled record was jittery, "Ragged Rubble" was bold. It's centerpiece is DD's most well-known song, "Luxury Condos For The Poor", an incredibly danceable song that anticipated oligarchs laundering their money in pied a terres and generally fucking up living for everyone. In spite of it being the one record I wasn't really around for the release of, RR ends up being the one that I listen to the most. It's the record of a young band finding their footing and smashing that second record curse.

This is one of the few Double Dagger records that isn't up on their Bandcamp, so I feel fairly safe in sharing it here. Thanks for coming through for 400 posts; I'll see if I can come back for at least another 100.

Discogs

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various artists - Blood On The Flat Track: Soundtrack From The Documentary

I was futzing about immediately following an interview (the first in-person one I've had in eight years) when two things happened. I got an e-mail from a prospective employer, telling me that I would not be hired for a gig I've interviewed for three times. It really bummed me out. I got out of the car and strolled into the chain thrift store, hoping to take my mind off the disappointment of a small rejection. And then the second thing happened.

I stumbled across a small vein of WA state indie CD and weird hip-hop on the shelf. Any time I do so is guaranteed to cheer me up immensely. The hip-hop was a bust; none of the CDs had the right discs in them, so I wouldn't be bringing home those Rhymesayers or Rawkus releases. But there was a bit of gold sitting up there, in the form of the soundtrack to "Blood on The Flat Track". I didn't even know a soundtrack had been released, but there it was, in all its physical glory. It looked to be a CD Baby pressing; a CDr with a barcode, a basic layout, some artwork...just a step up from what you could do with a home computer.

"But the sounds, man, tell me about the sounds!", I hear you hollerin'. There's five Dirtbombs tracks here, compiled from a wide range of sources. That, right there, is worth the price of admission, especially when that price is just a buck ninety-nine. The Kent 3, Bellingham garage rockers of some renown from 20+ years ago, also a quartet of tracks from their catalog. A Frames did a record from Sub Pop about 15 years ago that I remember digging; they contribute a pair of cuts. All in all, there's 18 tracks here, all of which are pretty great, standing proudly alongside any comp of PNW punk rock that Estrus, Dirtnap, Super Electro, or Empty released in the past 20 years.

Whoever put this together provided a pretty great soundtrack to an equally great documentary about roller derby. And whoever dropped this off at the Everett Value Village has my thanks, because it's what I've been listening to for the past few days.

Discogs

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various artists - A Date With John Waters

As a teaser to the next Criterion Collection preview, I present to you one of the finest outings you can undertake: A Date With John Waters. I remain a huge fan of Towson's own, a man whose impeccable taste in music neatly pairs with his delightfully trashy aesthetic. His soundtracks have always been these cool collections of outsider music, whether it's been the collection of 50s rhythm & blues and rockabilly in "Pink Flamingos", the foundations of soul present in "Hairspray", or the Locust and Meatjack alongside Liberace and DJ Class in "Cecil B. Demented". It's all a young punk ever needed.

"A Date" came out a few years after John's final theatrical release, "A Dirty Shame", and, yeah, it's a fucking tragedy the man can't get $5-$10 million from a studio to knock out another film or two, his way. But if the reward for us is his published output since 2004, yearly spoken word appearances around the world, an emeritus position amongst exploitation filmmakers and a regular source of inspiration for all us perverts...well, it's a fine consolation prize for me. I could go for another curated collection of music where Dreamlanders Edith Massey and Mink Stole get slotted alongside Ike & Tina, Elton Motello, Josie Cotton, and Ray Charles. This will have to suffice.

Discogs

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various artists - Arts & Crafts Sampler Vol. 4

Today, we look back to the heyday of blogs and the explosion of publicist-driven indie rock with this, the fourth volume in Arts & Crafts Sampler series. I came across this on the 50 cent shelf at one of my local go-to thrift stores and said, "Fuck it. It's 50 cents." And away we went.

It's totally worth owning just for the two Los Campesinos! tracks, both of which appear on their A&C EP "Sticking Fingers Into Sockets" and are total bangers. Do I already own that record? Sure I do. Has it been ripped to a hard drive for at least 10 years? Of course it was. But did I have access to these songs right that moment? Reader, I did not. So, again, away we went. Beep beep!

(That's me beeping an imaginary car horn as I drive away. Just making you're still following me.)

I'm not sure if any of the other tracks here particularly hold up for me. I never had anything for or against Broken Social Scene or Stars, the two "biggest" bands here, and nothing about their four collected tracks here change that. I liked the two New Buffalo cuts; the rest were kind of "meh". But I suppose there's room in life for taking a four-bit bet to see if there was something worth hearing for the first time.

And now I've shared it with you.

Postscript: let the record show there is an alternate version of this sampler, featuring a pair of Feist tracks and a different Apostle Of Hustle song. So, you know...there you go.

Discogs

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Planes Mistaken For Stars ‎– We Ride To Fight! (The First Four Years)

Let us remember our honored dead.

I had been a fan of Planes Mistaken For Stars going back to their records on Deep Elm. But I fell in love with them on "Fuck With Fire", this ridiculous blend of hardcore and 70s rock. It felt like everything I loved about Hot Water Music and Leatherface, but just a bit more Molly Hatchet, Black Sabbath, James Gang. Just this groove, this sexiness that most bands I was listening to didn't possess. You couldn't pigeonhole them into one scene; they'd fit just as well on a bill with Converge as they would with Braid or Life's Halt or Oxes or Dillinger Four.

I talked to Gared about it all in Detroit in 2002. PMFS was playing Michigan Fest, we'd been introduced by mutual pals in Cross My Heart a couple years back, so I dragged a six-pack and my tape recorder out to their van and away we went, just chopping it up about music and being in our mid-20s without any greater goal than to share honest art with an increasingly commercial world. They were playing in the early afternoon on the second day of a three-day festival, on a bill with Death Cab For Cutie, in what even then seemed like the last gasp of that little bit of DIY culture. Everything was on the cusp of being driven by blogs and publicists and the collapse of the physical media market. Planes were fucking great that day, just heavy and loud and raucous and everything a group of 30 or so fuzzy cheeked fellas, drunk on cheap beer and being far from home, could ask for. It was the best of times; it was the blurst of times.

Where was I? Yeah, Gared. I saw him a year later, pulling up with the band for an afternoon show at the Ottobar. While we didn't get to hang out quite as hard as we did in Detroit, it was nice to get to share a smoke and a drink after their set, to talk about the new songs that would come out the following year as "Up in Them Guts" (a terrible, wonderful name for a record) and share another moment in time. Things would move fast from then; I had my first panic attack at a Converge show a few months later, got fired from the bar, had to find a real job. I quit booking shows and fell away for a while. Got married, then divorced. By then, PMFS had broken up. Gared put together Hawks & Doves, but I wasn't really interested in hearing anyone cover Springsteen, no matter how great they'd been on other records.

I'm not sure what I'm trying to say here. Really. I'm not feeling nostalgic, a desire to go back to those they, because while they were good, they're done. But I sure as shit wish I had gotten to have another beer in the 18 years between that show in 2003 and Gared passing away last November, because the value in those sort of moments is priceless, and they are what make this life, so painful so often, worth living.

Discogs

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Binky Griptite's GhettoFunkPowerHour

Uggh. It's been a tough week to sit down and write. An eff ton of admin will really dampen your desire to hop on a computer. But here I am; sitting up in the middle of the night, ready to kick you some jams.

"Binky Griptite's GhettoFunkPowerHour" made its way to me via my copy of Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings' "100 Days, 100 Nights". I wasn't expecting an extra dose of soul, but far be it for me to turn down 58 minutes and 2 seconds of mixtape goodness taken from the Daptone Records catalog. Slapped together by Dap-King/Antibalas/Amy Winehouse guitarist Binky Griptite, this is the sort of thing that I'll always welcome as a bonus. Or, hell, just post one up once a year on Bandcamp or something.

Discogs

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Drive - Discography 1988-1993

British punk bands were excellent examples of never judging a book (or record) by its cover. Case in point: Drive, an early 90s punk-pop band from Birkenhead, up by Liverpool, in the northwest of the United Kingdom.

Take a look at that cover below. Or look at promo photos of Ned's Atomic Dustin. Or Mega City 4. Or Snuff. Or any number of DIY punk bands from all over the U.K. who flew below the radar of the weekly press and got nary a mention in the States amongst any but the die-hard. If all you knew was how they looked, you might blow them off completely, because how the fuck could they be any good?

BUT, if I told you that Drive could be favorably compared to the likes of ALL or Big Drill Car or even Warner Bros.-era Hüsker Dü, you'd give that a listen, right? Because we all love some fast, melodic, youthful pre-Green Day, radio friendish punk rock.

I learned about these cats courtesy of the Can't Say boys, who borrowed a bit of their sound and the name of their follow-up project from Drive.

Here's your reminder to always pay special attention to the weird-looking ones. They always have the best sounds.

Discogs

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Regulations - Different Needs E.P.

Here's the final Regulations 7", and the penultimate recording of, arguably, my favorite Umeå band (you heard me!). Released on Havoc in three pressings here in the States, and co-released by Ny Våg Records and P. Trash Records in Europe, this came out around the time of Regulations' second U.S. tour. Which was the tits. It's a bloody shame that the hard drive holding all the pictures I took at that show has disappeared.

Have you not checked out the other two Regulations posts? Have you no clue what to expect? Imagine, if you will, a melding of late 70s Swedish punk rock, the Dils/Weirdos/Randoms portions of Dangerhouse, and an aggressive sprinkling of 90s skate culture. Now distill it through Euro leftism and youth culture, and you have the "Different Needs" E.P.

And if you don't get any of those references, then, I dunno, short, snotty, and fast punk rock songs?

I am constitutionally obliged to point out that the 3rd and final pressing of this record is available for one measly dollar via Felix von Havoc's eponymous label, which, honestly, is 20% of what I happily paid for a copy back in 2007. There's a part of me that wants to order 10 and send them out at random to folks who have never heard this record; that's how strongly I feel about the band.

Discogs

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Iron Lung // Hatred Surge - Broken: A Collaboration

I wish that I'd gotten into Iron Lung sooner. There's really no excuse; I was aware of them back when they did a split with Teen Cthulhu in 2001. But it literally took me moving to their stomping grounds in the Pacific Northwest for me to revisit any of their records I'd picked up over the years. And that's a shame, because their entire catalog is brutal.

"Broken" was a collaboration between Jensen & Jon from Iron Lung and Alex from Austin's Hatred Surge. This isn't pleasant, easy going music.. If Basil Poledouris had grown up listening to Napalm Death, he probably would have written music like this for his score to "Conan the Barbarian". It's snakecult slaying music, the soundtrack to a wasteland ride towards glory. It's the opposite of yacht rock. And I'll never get to bang my head to it live. C'est la vie.

There were only around 1,300 of these made; 101 in a Chaos in Tejas press, 1000 on purple, and a third pressing of 170 on red. It's not particularly expensive, unless you're looking for one of those Chaos pressings. I would, however, suggest spending the $3 for a digital copy from Iron Lung Records. It's cheap at thrice the price.

Bandcamp

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Best Friends Forever - Special Limited Edition 2007 Tour EP

I'm a sucker for an interesting cover and a low price. You know this because you're already on the lookout for posts with the meet me in the dollar bin label. So even though I knew nothing about Best Friends Forever, I had to pick this up last year when I found it at a Goodwill wedged between a pair of Laserlight classical releases. This Minneapolis trio made records for 11 years, a number of them for Plan-It-X, yet I'd never heard of them. I feel like I would have booked these folks at some point on either side of my first marriage.

This was a very pleasant surprise. I want to avoid using terms like "sweet" or "naive" to describe this, although it wouldn't be a stretch to use either. You could power a small town with the energy and joy on these tracks. There's a through line from the Shaggs and Beat Happening to Best Friends Forever. This is, very literally (if you're to believe the press on BFF), the sound of best friends making primitive pop music together. You get three tracks from a 2007 radio session, and the two songs from BFF's 2003 split with Everybell and Whistle, all burnt onto a limited-to-150-copies CDr. Enjoy!

Discogs

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Grand Archives - demo

Another quick shot as we close out the month of November. Having booked his previous band, Carissa's Wierd, twice before their breakup, I had very high hopes for Mat Brooke's post-Band of Horses project. Chances are you're reading this in the process of completing your collection, so you've formed your own opinions of Grand Archives. I like it alright; in fact, I'd say I like the production and arrangement on these demos more than the finished product on The Grand Archives. However, kinda like Band of Horses (IMHO), the total output doesn't match the sum of the parts.

You're the judge...I'm merely the executioner.










Grand Archives - demo

RIYL: falling leaves, 40 beats per minute, ice cracking under foot