various artists - Shreds Volume 2: American Underground '94

It's a cool idea that I have no clue how to replicate in 2025. Take a sampling of your favorite 7"s from the previous year, pull a song from each, put out a compilation with these vinyl-only tracks. It's like a playlist...except good! Mel Cheplowitz: the original influencer!

This second volume is quite good, led off by recent rediscovery Cub. One of my personal favs, Tugboat Annie, contribute with the A-side from their second Sonic Bubblegum 7". There are cuts by the nascent Plow United, who I thought were a mega-huge band in the pre-internet mid-90s, and by Beatnik Termites, who I knew from the classic PUNK USA comp and now cannot recall if I ever actually saw them play live. Tho it feels like I did.

And there are sixteen other songs here, the sort that, if you have any sort of 7" collection dating from this period, you've played a few times and then let collect dust. They're the sort of songs you feel smart for taking a chance on plucking them from the dollar bin. Punk rock, a dime a dozen, committed first to wax and then to five inches of aluminum.

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various artists - Tromeo & Juliet (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

When I saw the other day that James Gunn had yet another movie open #1 at the box office, I was reminded, yet again, that he made his bones writing "Tromeo & Juliet", Troma's beloved take on Shakespeare. So it led me to bust out this shiny slab of aluminum. I bought it b/c Troma and Unsane, I kept it b/c Motörhead and Superchunk and Meatmen and Wesley Willis. Hell, they even managed to wedge a song from Gunn's band, the Icons, on here.

This is not going to show up on a listical of iconic 90s soundtracks. But I'd suggest that it should be recognized as part of the canon. While there's little here that is exclusive to the soundtrack, it does offer a wide swath of "alternative" rock from the late 90s, from a deep cut from Sublime to music from the Ass Ponys and Supernova. Plus: Brujeria!

Discogs

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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 - 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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various artists - Spin This Six

'Twas about two months ago when I shared the fifth volume in the Spin This series, and reaction seemed about as positive as I could hope for a 31-year-old alternative music sample. So here's Volume Six, or VI, as the Latin speakers at Spin put it. This one's a bit less girthy than the previous volume. But it has Archers of Loaf, Goops, and Knapsack, all of whose records populate my regular listening in this year of our Lord Twenty Twenty Five. For less punky sounds, tune in for Morphine, KMFDM, Belly, and the Wolfgang Press. Very few duds here, truth be told. And, daddio, that's all I ever want from free curated listening; something that doesn't exist to reinforce my taste, but to broaden it.

Discogs

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various artists - Dine Alone Records: Record Store Day 2017 Sampler

A dashed off post to fill my self-imposed minimum of two posts a week?

How dare you accuse me of such flim-flammery! I would never stoop so low.

I'm packing my house, and remembered at 10:20pm Sunday night that, oh yeah, I hadn't reflected on any records for next week. So here we are, talking about a Record Store Day giveaway from 2017. But it's Canadian, and those dudes are pretty mad at us, so credit where credit's due. Thank you for your delightful indie rock, your cold beerm and your reasonable pharmaceutical prices.

I bought this on a whim b/c it had an INVSN song on it, plus the Dandy Warhols and I'd heard of the Dirty Nil, so it seemed like a perfectly fine way to hear stuff from a label I otherwise only knew from putting out Tokyo Police Club records. And you know what? It's not half bad. I wouldn't get up before the crack of dawn to queue up on Record Store Day to get one, but I wouldn't be sore if it ended up in a bag with my purhcases.

Discogs

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various artists - Spin This V

I've been laying pretty low on purchases since the first of the year. But I broke edge a few days ago; a record nerd can't stay out of the thrift store for long. I stumbled across this now-31-year-old sampler from Spin Magazine, and immediately flashed back to seeing the video for "Undone (The Sweater Song" in my neighbor's den for the first time. His folks kept the shades well drawn, so what natural light made it in had this yellow tinge to it. We stopped what we doing at the first beats from Patrick Wilson; it was unlike anything we'd ever heard up 'til then. Fuckin' Weezer, man. Always brings a smile to my face.

Plus: Mazzy Star! Frente! covering New Order! Major label Meat Puppets! Morphine! Guided By Voices! Plus a bunch of stuff that 30 years on I still don't recognize outside of a radio station giveaway bin. Kinda perfect for this space. I can never resist throwing a buck to a animal rescue or a job's program in return for something like this.

Discogs

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various artists - ...Think I'm Getting The Hang Of It

I've been coming across a number of these sort of 90s cardboard-sleeved samplers lately, and this is probably the best of them. A Warner giveaway, moved through The Body Shop, licensed from 4AD. A very clever way to get cool UK-curated music into the hands of American women.

Are they going to enjoy the likes of Liquorice, Air Miami, the Wolfgang Press? Will they experience the subtler qualities of Mojave 3 or Red House Painters? Who can say? Someone at Warner Bros. Records sure thought so.

What I know is this: when I plucked this from a stack of unremarkable CDs at a local thrift store, I found delight. And thus I share it with you.

Discogs

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various artists - CMJ Presents...Phase Five NZ Music Sampler 01

OK, so I have a gap when it comes to music from New Zealand. I know Flying Nun a bit, the Clean, the Dunedin sound. I think I owned a Chris Knox tribute CD long before I had a clue who he was. I am by no means an expert, or even possess intermediate knowledge. Hell, I have Music of New Zealand open on Wikipedia as I write this, just to have a point of reference. Like, I just learned that "How Bizarre" by OMC, a record I've never owned but whose black and white and red cover is burned into my brain by a million dollar bin encounters, is the best-selling New Zealand pop song of all time.

I'm guessing that was the whole point of the Phase Five series, a government-funded collection that ran 12 volumes from 2007 to 2009. This first one was a penny snag on eBay for me several months ago, but I think it fell behind a sofa cushion or something, b/c I only turned it back up this week. The Mint Chicks and the Phoenix Foundation are the big hitters here; both bands are the types of which I would have happily seen time and time again during tihs period. That's not to say that the other artists here are slouches. Pluto, Gasoline Cowboy, and Dimmer don't have great names, but I found their sampling of songs to be perfectly cromulent. Two songs each; if you get the CD, there's videos available also. It's a fitting relic of a pre-YouTube world, and a great use of national cultural funds.

Discogs

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various artists - Mojo Presents: This Is A Call! (15 Brainmelting Dispatches From The Golden Age Of U.S. Alt-Rock)

This is a just a front-to-back KILLER collection of what, indeed, was the Golden Age of U.S. alt-rock. Sure, maybe it kicks off with a lessor Sugar song (if you can deem any Sugar song as a "lesser" effort). But things spring right back in with a run of Superchunk/Sebadoh/Shudder To Think/Lotion/GvsB. That's a Murderer's Row of boys and guitars (apologies to Ms. Ballance). Things take a relative break with contributions from Pond and Madder Rose, a pair of bands I definitely vaguely remember from issues of CMJ and Option, but otherwise own nothing by. Then things pick back up with my favorite Built To Spill song, Bob Pollard, Sunny Day Real Estate, and the god-damn Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. It's all capped off with the Grifters, who I only discovered and appreciated in the last few years, and the Jesus Lizard, who I discovered first of all these, and have loved the longest.

I'm not ignoring Red Red Meat for any good reason; I just typically skip the track, the remnant of a poor impression they left me with when i saw them open for Smashing Pumpkins at the Salem Civic Center on the "Siamese Dream" tour. And remembering that reminds me that it took place 31 years ago, which is just...man, that is a terrible realization.

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 - Main Sounds (15 Tracks Of The Month's Best Music)

I don't typically fuck with Uncut Magazine. And the price I paid for this reflects what I gather is most folks' interest in the content here. One measly cent American, plus a nominal shipping fee, was all it cost. With all apologies to most of the performers herein, there are only a few cuts here worth that copper.

So, who did I like? Those kids in Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever are pretty great, although that wasn't in question before I copped this. Same goes for Sharon Van Etten, whose music I realized I've been casually encountering for a decade and a half. I wasn't familiar with cellist Layla McCalla's background initially, but it's been nice seeking out the catalog of this former member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops. Finally, the Quebecois trio Cola were a nice surprise coming towards the end of the 15 tracks contained herein. They had a real "Tuesday night touring band" vibe coming off their track; with a new record that came out in June, they made my list of Bandcamp Friday pickups for December.

Discogs

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various artists - Back To (Old) School

Confession time: I bought this on account of its cover, which reminded me of the alma mater of one Ms. Rory Gilmore. This is the sort of thing her friend Lane Kim would have made as a mix, had she worked in the radio trade in the mid 90s.

Also, there's a lemur theme throughout the liner notes. Bonus.

I vaguely recall seeing Hits Magazine come into my local college radio station. But I was always more of a CMJ reader, so what Hits was hawking generally passed over my head. No so this compilation. Led off by the beloved Superchunk, who apparently spent money on a radio-friendly mix of "Hyper Enough", this is a shockingly good selection of what was being pushed in 1995. Sure, Semesonic and Toad the Wet Sprocket and poe. are all kind of duds to these ears. But Spacehog and Air Miami still rule; the UK contributions mid-CD are all pretty rad, and Knapsack and Deftones highlight the tail end. There's even a cover of "You Oughta Know" by 1000 Mona Lisas that I remember turning up a few times when hearing it on WHFS.

And now the title holds true, as this all makes up the C playlist of oldies radio around the country. We are all slowly rotting bags of flesh, holding tight to memories of misspent youth.

Discogs

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various artists - The Mojo Machine Turns You On 2018.

I think I probably didn't pay more than a couple of bucks for this Mojo "Best Of" from 2018. Unlike other entries in their "free CD with purchase" gimmick, this one doesn't really stand out as something I'd want to write about, or even listen to more than once or twice.

Courtney Barnett and Rolling Blackouts F.C. are the two entries that I own records by. Ezra Furman, I think I often confuse with MC Paul Barman, simply on the basis of names. But I really enjoyed their songs used in "Sex Education", and their cut here is equally excellent. As far as other songs I come back to:

• Goat Girl's "Cracker Drool" is a pretty solid post punk banger
• Khruangbin offers a pretty awesome Thai psych soul-by-way-of-Houston sample that had me track down their newest record on Dean Oceans
• Unknown Mortal Orchestra serve up some Southern Hemisphere indie psych rock that I'd probably hate watching live, but would dig putting on a mix tape at some point

In conclusion, I went in with very few expectations, and was pleasantly surprised.

Discogs

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various artists - Home Alive: The Art Of Self-Defense

Here's what I remember about when this came out, through the eyes of an 18-year-old who lived on the other side of the country from the circumstances:

• Most of the folks I knew were more interested in this for the unreleased Pearl Jam song, the live Nirvana track, and Joan Jett & Kathleen Hanna performing with the remaining members of the Gits than the genesis why Home Alive was created.
• I had no clue what sort of violence women encountered in the world at the time. I would learn.
• I remember thinking, when the promo copy arrived at the college radio station I volunteered for, that it couldn't possibly be worth listening to, on account of being released by Epic Records.
• That's a point of view that is hilarious in retrospect. How many folks got their first exposure to Tribe 8, Lydia Lunch, or ¡TchKunG! as a result of picking this up? There are so many fiercely independent artists here, not to mention the wide range of spoken word performers and poets present.

This is a pretty iconic benefit comp, all things considered, in celebration of a wonderful human whose time came way too soon. Volume 2 would come five years later on the Seattle/San Francisco label Broken Rekids. Along with a trio of 7"s that came out on local label Crash Rawk Records, it's a resounding body of support that still stands up as well as any benefit.

Discogs

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various artists - Slaves Of New York (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

What do you think it was that lead to pay a penny (plus $1.75 S&H!) to bring this home? I've never seen the Merchant-Ivory film to which this provides the soundtrack. The only artist here I love is Iggy, and I didn't need to snag this to have "Fall In Love With Me". I don't stan P.I.L. or Boy George, and Maxi Priest & Ziggy Marley are low on my list of reggae artists I'm interested in.

That leaves a weird mix of songs that made for a nice surprise. "Buffalo Stance" broughr back memories of my first Walkman, playing the hell out of Neneh Cherry and Public Enemy and DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince before I needed to use deodorant regularly. "Good Life"? Only one of the all-timer house cuts, from one of the Belleville Three. There's a pair of Arto Lindsay tracks here, both derived from the second Ambitious Lovers record. With guest spots from Vernon Reid and John Zorn, these are a duo of pretty awesome mid-80s downtown tracks, the sort of which you'd NEVER see on a major label release these days. The whole thing wraps up with a cut from French new wavers Les Rita Mitsouko, a curiousity the likes of which I found most welcome.

That Dalmatian on the cover looks like it aims to misbehave. What a naughty dog.

Discogs

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various artists - Northcore: The Polar Scene Compilation

Just your run of the mill Swedish punk and hardcore comp from 30 years ago, split between bands I knew already and bands I didn't.until I laid my paws on this eighth release from the esteemed Burning Heart Records.

Yeah, so I know Refused all too well, Randy, Fireside, Doughnuts, and Abhinanda. I feel varying levels of interest in them. But to discover Drift Apart or Breach here was well worth the $2 I think I spent earlier this year. Somebody like Shredhead isn't what I would seek out, what with their proto-nu metal groove thrash, but it's not bad. It's the kind of scene curiousity that existed a lot back in the 90s and seems to have died away as the internet consumes us all.

Discogs

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various artists - CMJ New Music Monthly Volume 25: September 1995

I have been debating when to write about this, what it means to me. Posting a few days before my 47th birthday seems as apropos as any.

As for what to say...well, I've written and deleted about 2,000 words so far. Awfully verbose for an otherwise terse typist, but there's a lot of feeling wrapped up in this freebie from the third year of CMJ New Music Monthly giveaways. It was, indeed, my introduction to Letters to Cleo and Ben Folds Five. That pair of 90s alternative mainstays were key bonding points between the missus and I during our early courting. Urge Overkill and Cracker were getting regular airplay on WHFS, along with Big Audio Dynamite. I'll admit: even at this late date, I still have fond memories of Hagfish's "Stamp", one of the best songs from 1995 about cunnilingus. Even cuts from Folk Implosion and S.C.O.T.S. are stuck in my head 29 years later.

This one's important for track 9. My upbringing exposed me to showtunes, soul music, and country, with a smattering of contemporary pop/rock. But jazz was something I just never encountered until that day in late summer 1995 that I picked up this issue of CMJ. Hearing the second part of "A Love Supreme" was like a lightning bolt from heaven. From those first notes plucked by Jimmy Garrison, I was hooked. I've written a few times about John Coltrane and what his music means to me, Well, this is the Rosetta Stone. This is the thing that unlocked so much; my obsession with Coltrane, my love of free jazz and the avant-garde, my introduction to the vast catalog of Impulse! Records.

Discogs tells me I currently own five copies of "A Love Supreme": cassette and vinyl copies from the mid-80s on MCA Impulse!, a vinyl pressing from 1995, the 2002 Deluxe Edition on 2xCD, and my most recent purchase: the 3xCD "Complete Masters" from 2015. Honestly, that number feels a bit low; I feel like I have to have at least another two CD versions kicking around, and there's a reel to reel that I've been sniffing around about for the past six months. I have a problem; whatever...it's my version of a mid-life crisis.

Anyway, there's Malfunkshun on this, too.

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 - Kids In The Hall: Brain Candy (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Matador put out more than a few soundtracks over the years, and even though I loved this movie and have made a fuckton of references to Death Lurks and "I'm Gay", I hadn't owned this one until this year. It makes sense; I'm pretty sure there are only four original songs from the film here, a few of the Kids' Canadian buds, along with a layer of contemporary Matador sounds from their Atlantic days.

I feel like this should have come out on, I dunno, Sudden Death or Arts & Crafts or Attic? Some established Canadian label, replacing Liz Phair with Sarah McLachlan and GbV with...Cub? Really lean into the Canuckness.

Discogs

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