various artists - Bloodshot Records Lonely Hearts Valentine's Day Sampler

Another St. Valentine's Day is upon us. And while some of my still-blogging brethren "celebrate" with a sad bastard emo band or a Love Stinks mix, I'm going to go in the opposite direction. Herein, I present to you a free sampler I downloaded from Amazon Music in 2011, compiled by the cheerful folx at Chicago's Bloodshot Records. If you're going to be alone on the corporately-blessed Luv Day, you might all well turn up the honky tonk, pour three fingers of Evan Williams, and belt along to some back catalog from the same gang who also brought us some great Mekons, Sadies, and Lydia Loveless records over the years. It's a time honored tradition, and while we here at Primitive Offerings won't be joining you (we'll be snuggling with the missus, god willing and the creek don't rise), we wouldn't dare mess with tradition. Or Texas. But that's neither here nor there.

Discogs

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various artists - Mojo Presents: The Route To Quadrophenia

I've been exploring more of the original mod & beat sounds this year, hearing these songs through the lens of proto-punk/new wave. So I'm finding myself hearing an awful lot more from the Yardbirds, Small Faces, Kinks, and Who than I have in the past. For some of y'all, that may seem weird. But I'm prejudiced against the dinosaurs of rock, so I just slept on some of these bedrock rock records until this year.

...which ended up being a fun little discovery for me. The stripped-down, amphetimine-fueled rock records of the early 60s that soundtracked the mod movement in the UK fed into the first wave of British punk. So of course I'd feel a collection like this, coming in the issue of Mojo dated October 2011. With an equal balance between the contemporary mod tracks and the early rock, jazz, and R&B that inspired the song in the first place. I love having Slim Harpo and Mose Allison alongside the Creation and the Action. The addition of a new-in-2011 Booker T. song is a bit weird, but, hey, maybe Stax wasn't licensing any MG's songs at a reasonable rate for this project.

Discogs

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various artists - Mojo Presents: Communion (A New Generation Of Songwriters)

When I listened to this for the first time, I thought, "Well, they can't all be winners, can they?"

But who I am to judge? 500,000 Mumford & Sons fans can't be wrong.

I'll be over here, listening to a similarly named Fall best-of.

Discogs

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various artists - Mojo Presents: Panic (15 Tracks Of Riotous '80s Indie Insurrection)

Let the record show that I am quite disgusted with myself.

I hate that I'm posting this late. Sure, it's still Monday when I post this, but I try to keep two or three posts in the queue at all times, and I've been blowing it lately. Such is summer; it's nice here, even as we edge closer and closer to the start of the wet season.

These are the songs your older cousin, the one who spent a semester abroad while you were wrapping up middle school, put on the mixtape she made for your 13th birthday. It reminds me of phrases like "Distributed by the Cartel" or "reviewed in Sounds". It''s not even a typical sampling of what was happening in the mid-80s. Hell, I love that it's a compilation including Robert Wyatt, the Mekons, Billy Bragg AND Girls At Out Best. Brilliant stuff.

Discogs

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various artists - Mojo Presents: Sticky Soul Fingers (A Rolling Stones Tribute)

I came to a decision recently, and it is this: this Mojo release, cover dated January 2012, is pretty indispensible. A soulful recreation of "Sticky Fingers", it's less a simple re-reading of the classic Stones record, 40 years on, and more an expression of how inspiring it was to these artists. Some of the arrangements are far away from the Jagger/Richards compositions, and that's for the best. I've owned too many tribute records where those offering encomium stuck with a straightforward cover not too different from what you'd hear from in the original release. But Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings performing "Wild Horses" is a great example of how to put your own stank on a classic. "Sister Morphine", played here by Ren Harvieu, takes on new meaning when in the hands of someone who's not been chasing the dragon. And the Bamboos tackle my favorite "SF" track, laying some serious funk on "Can't You Hear Me Knocking".

Yeah, it's a proper tribute, this one. Plus, you get a bonus reading of "Angie". Not bad for a freebie.

Discogs

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various artists - Mojo Presents: 1-2-3-4! (The Roots Of The Ramones)

It's coming up on 30 years since the Ramones broke up; we're in the sixth decade of having them on the planet. What a pivot point. Everything that came before was garage rock or proto punk or beat. Everything that came after was punk, the new wave. Knowing what we know now about the interpersonal politics of the band, it's amazing to me that we got more than a couple of singles, much less 22 years of turning a 33rpm world up to 45.

Like most Mojo giveaways from this period, "1-2-3-4!" is pretty well curated, snagging 15 tracks of predecessors and contemporaries. As fellow music psychos, you probably have a number of these tracks already. If you're here reading this blog, you don't need me to tell you that Television, the Shangri-Las, and Love are fucking incredible. Placing Ronnie Spector singing a Joey composition and adding a track from Leslie West's pre-Mountain garage back are nice touches. Does T.Rex fit here for me? I dunno, but maybe you have some insight. It's all led off with a Ramones rarity: the Stones' "Street Fighting Man", performed with ex-Heartbreaker Walter Lure.

Good art doesn't need to be groundbreaking or proficient. It also needs to have heart, be authentic; talent is always a plus, but that's all subjective. And, subjectively, the Ramones distilled their influences and surrounding into something truly great. And this is still a good way to hear what contributed to that greatness.

Discogs

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various artists - Power Corruption & Lies Covered: Mojo Presents New Order;'s 1983 Masterpiece Re-Recorded

When it came time to pick this week's Mojo Monday selection, there was only one inspired choice. Friend o' the blog AJ recently began blogging again over at The Dimension of Imagination. As I told him, I was proper chuffed to see him back in the saddle after what had been an 8-month sabbatical. I think he called me a wanker. He's a proper internet bud.

He posted the 1983 New Order classic, "Power Corruption & Lies" on the same day I found this Mojo comp from 2011, covering the same-said record, plus THE BEST-SELLING 12" OF ALL TIME (TM), "Blue Monday". It was serendipity; one follows another.

The likes of Tarwater, Destroyer, and Fujiya & Miyagi perform yeoman-like work here in reproducing New Order's second record. It's worth listening to a few times, even as it inspires you to pull out that "Blue Monday" 12" for the first time in a while..As someone who was barely alive when "PCL" came out, and whose initial exposure to New Order was through a Frente! cover, I can't claim New Order had some great influence over my life. They've always been there, a living link to things that, at the time, I found more interesting. But you hope that, with age comes wisdom, and I've grown more attached to these Mancunians in recent years. I've been downloading New Order remixes and live records as they've popped on my radar, and, yeah, of course it's all great. A well-earned reputation here.

What this does remind me of is the resilient crew of bloggers, still out there writing, trying to let punk kids and bored teenagers know why a recording is worth hearing. I have a list of the folks I think are worth checking out on the right side of the page there. I stop by every day, paying a visit to see if anything cool is worth commenting on. When someone dips out for a while, it gets a bit scary, like your local coffee shop, bakery, or record store being unexpectedly closed. It's a great feeling when that disappearance ends up being temporary.  These are the little things that make getting online worthwhile. It's while I try my best to be here on Mondays and Thursdays at midnight my time. Gotta open the store, you know?

Discogs

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various artists - Mojo Presents: Roots Of Nirvana (Distorted Sounds From The Punk Underground)

I would have thought there would be no surprises in a "Roots of Nirvana" comp. The tastes of Msr. Cobain and Novoselic are fairly well-documented at this point. So it is that you se a lot of the names and songs you'd expect to see on this sort of comp.

There are the local influences: Melvisn, Beat Happening, Green River covering the Dead Boys. My all-time fav Stooges song in an extended live version pairs nicely with Flipper's "Sex Bomb" at the tail end of the CD. There are a few bands from Kurt's legendary mixtape that he was arrested with: Big Black, Scratch Acid, Young Marble Giants, and Shonen Knife. There are a pair of tracks present that Nirvana would later cover in their Unplugged set. Meat Puppets' "Plateau" and the Vaselines' "Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam" both appear in their original forms.

Two songs shared here weren't on my radar until I heard them here.  Clown Alley's "On The Way Up" was on their single LP for the legendary SF thrash label Alechemy Records. Alchemy would also serve as the initial home for Melvins' "Gluey Porch Treatments", Neurosis' "Pain Of Mind", and Poison Idea's "War All The Time". "On The Way Up" makes me want to drop some coin on the 2009 expanded reissue on Southern Lord. Big Dipper's "You're Not Fancy" appeared initially on a 1987 Homestead Records comp alongside songs from Naked Raygun, Big Black, Death of Samantha, and Dinosaur (Jr); it'd also show up appended to the cassette version of their 1987 "Boo-Boo" 12". All of this would fly below my radar until discovered here. Merge reissued their pre-major label output in 2009 as part of a 3-disc CD set. And this intro is a proper appetizer. To my aging ears, I can hear a band traipsing the same sort of aural ground that would lead Nirvana to become the biggest band in the world a few years later.

Discogs

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Blow Your Head Vol. 2 : Dave Nada Presents Moombahton

I've been known for making some not great choices in life.

Take, for instance, the year I spent at the University of Maryland back around the turn of the millenium. I transferred in, all full of piss and vinegar, ready to "forge my own path" by moving from north of Baltimore to north of DC. I broke up with a girl who I think genuinely loved me, left a town where I could probably be described as a big fish, and moved to a place where I knew no one...all because they had a college radio station where I could DJ at 6 in the morning. In retrospect, it's a miracle I made it 9 months before crawling back to Bel Air.

I did meet a bunch of cool people, though. Like Dave Villegas, who was in a couple of great punk bands when I met him and was as close to a welcome wagon during my time in College Park. We'd run into each other on the regular even after I moved back above Charm City, whether at house shows or at the record store or in clubs in Baltimore. We'd clink beers and share stories and play catch up. Eventually, I'd get married and move back to the suburbs, while I saw Dave getting more into DJing clubs; not just parties, but bona-fide nightclubs, where people came to spend money to dance. He was running with the likes of Diplo, forging his own path with this mix of house music and reggaeton he called moombahton. And then fuckin' Justin Bieber adopted the sound for "Sorry", which, I'M SORRY, is definitely a straight up bop, and a helluva Lydia Loveless cover.

Flash foward to a couple weeks ago, when this came up for bid on the Electronic Bay for a penny, and of course I had to cop it. When it arrived, it had Dave's signature on the front, just above the left boob. It was a nice bonus, a kind reminder that success doesn't elude us all, and the forebearer of some righteous jams.

Discogs

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various artists - I Pee In Pools

Straight out of San Pedro, it's an 11-year-old sampler of one of the most underrated labels around, Recess Records. If you're into the kind of punk rock that Razorcake champions, then you'll probably dig this.

Remember: we don't swim in your toilet, so please don't pee in our pool.

Discogs

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Wymyns Prysyn - Green Ribber

I booked these fellas on the recommendation of the noise merchants from Friend Collector. FC was releasing their first 12", a snappy little platter. And I'd known Donnells for years, so if he and his boys wanted to play a show, then, by Gawd, I was going to put on a show.

This was Hive Bent's second gig (I'll write more about them in the future). I described Drunk Monk as "Baltimore noise agents" on the Facebook event listing, but I seem to recall them playing spacey surf music, like a less punk Man or Astro-Man? And Wymyns Prysyn? Well, thematically, they were right in line with the rest of the lineup. They made a racket that, 20 years before, would have been on AmRep, Trance Syndicate, or, lord help us, Skin Graft. They lived in that same territory as Drunks With Guns, Dazzling Killmen, KARP, or Clockcleaner.

It turns out all three members of Wymyns Prysyn knew/had worked for friend o' the blog and Atlanta/Athens legend Henry Owings. So we had that to chat about. Something like 15 people showed up to the show. We had van beers afterwards, then went our merry ways into the early April night. The songs on this digital-only release originally appeared in a short run demo from 2010, with a bonus track from the "Tres Umbros" demo tape.

Bandcamp

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various artists - SPIN Presents Newermind: A Tribute Album

I don't recall the circumstances of downloading this initially. I'm fairly certain, based on the release date, that I had a subscription to the print edition of Spin. But there's no one artist here that I was a fan of, and a couple people here (coughamandapalmercough) that I downright loathe. I don't recall it being sponcon, or having someone whose blog I read recommending it, or a bud saying, "Hey, that Surfer Blood cover of 'Territorial Pissings' is worth hearing." Nothing about this lines up.

Yet the folder date on the ol' hard drive tells me I downloaded it within a few days of its release on the Spin website. And I see I've listened to it through at least twice. It's an interesting mix of Nirvana contemporaries (Meat Puppets, the Vaselines), direct descendents (JEFF the Brotherhood, Titus Andronicus), and straight up oddness (Butch Walker, Charles Bradley). It's odd to me that Spin never really did more of this sort of online-only release; it would have given them a leg up on the likes of Pitchfork at a time when they were quickly reaching print irrelevance.

Discogs

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Ghostface Killah x Max Tannone - Ghostfunk

I've been fighting a sore shoulder and an ongoing headache for the past two days, which, oddly enough, makes it difficult to put ideas to pixels and talk about music. Forgiveness, please.

This is the chocolate and peanut butter of mash-ups for me. "Ghostfunk" is Ghostface Killah acapellas over afrobeat/highlife music. This shit works because of course it does. I'ma tell you right now that "Dear Psychedelic Woman" is a go-to mixtape track for me. It's a can't miss banger. I've only ever had this as MP3s, although it appears that there have been a few pressings on vinyl over the past nine years. If anyone wants to send me a copy for my upcoming birthday, I wouldn't say "no".

Here's where I point out that you can get "Ghostfunk" as a pay-what-you-want from Max Tannone's Bandcamp, and, reasonably, you should. I'm a big believer in actually paying for music, especially since there are platforms like Bandcamp which allow you to directly buy from the artist, thus ensuring they receive the greatest return on their work. Max's latest release came out in March, benefitting Food Bank for New York City. If you're into mash-ups, particularly remixes of 80s lover's rock, you'll totally be into "Trading WAV Sound System".

Discogs

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Pageninetynine - live at Best Friends Day, RVA, 11 August 2011

Pageninetynine, circa 2002 (from the Pageninetynine Facebook page)

There are two great things that have come from Sterling, Virginia. One is the comedian, writer, actor, and reason to be on Twitter Patton Oswalt. I'm a fan; I celebrate his entire catalog.

The other is the subject of today's post. Their name is Pageninetynine (or Pg. 99, or Page 99), and even if they hadn't blown up among a certain type of punk rock listener in the years after their initial break-up, they'd still be one of my favorite bands I've ever seen. As time passes, I can only recall fragments, like a montage of amazing moments. There was the last show at the old Ottobar, where Blake or Chris got passed amongst the crowd and kicked a hole in the the ceiling that remained even after the Talking Head moved into the location. There was the last Wilson Center show, and the stage flexing under the weight of a hundred kids pulsing to "By the Fireplace In White". There was the night that they and Majority Rule played with Cro-Mags and Most Precious Blood at the "new" Ottobar; every security guy was onsite to ward off a skinhead vs. hipster brawl that never took place. I also seem to recall them opening for Earth Crisis at St. Andrews in College Park, and a bunch of barbeque jokes being made. So many Reptilian shows, and shows where they were the second of six bands on the campus of Johns Hopkins, and sticky basements in the DC suburbs because there was NO WAY the 9:30 Club was going to let these freaky kids play that stage.

Were they really only a band for six years? There's no chance that was the case; it simply cannot be true, no matter what the historical records say. They were just a ubiquitous part of the scene; the guys from NoVA that fit in so well with what was happening in Baltimore at the time. And they played with such heart, such passion, that one couldn't help but become not just a fan, but rabidly so. Then, one day, it was done, splintering into Mannequin and the Malady and Haram and Pygmy Lush.

Do you remember that time, when you were young and before Green Day was on MTV, when you'd see another kid in a Misfits t-shirt or wearing a painted leather jacket and you'd immediately talk to them? Because you had found a kindred spirit, and there weren't a lot of them out there. It's still like that when I wear the old Reptilian "Document #5" t-shirt I got the week the records showed up in the store. I can't really wear it comfortably anymore because I'm probably 100 lbs. heavier than I was then, but when I DO squeeze into it, I occasionally get that native nod, and every once in a great while, I'll make a new friend. There are far too few shibboleths left in the world, riddles that, upon solving, open up something memorable and previously unseen. Pageninetynine was like that for me.

They've reunited now twice, mostly recently in 2018 and 2019 as a series of benefits for local charities in each town they played. Their first reunion, which I regrettably bailed on, saw them play the Black Cat in DC and at Best Friends Day, the annual Richmond outdoor show every year. It occurred to me that the 2020 BFD would be coming up in a few weeks. Here's that Best Friends Day set from 2011. I honestly cannot remember where I got this initially.

Love your friends. Die laughing. Fucking A right.

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