Re-up: Calico Ghost Town - demo

Re-up, 2025: I guess the link broke at some point, but Tracy very kindly checked in with a comment below requesting a re-up AND providing a clarification. Pretty cool to hear from old buds back east. Please disregard any references to Stephen Brodsky or Cave-In b/c, as Tracy notes, that was a different project all together. Still a great demo, and Tracy remains a super rad human!

Calico Ghost Town was a project band created by Tracy Wilson (ex-Dahlia Seed) and Stephen Brodsky (Cave In), where in they tape traded ideas and 4-track demos over the course of half a decade. While they never got an official release (not even artwork), they did get hosted on the Dahlia Seed website (sadly defunct now) for at least a couple years, where I very happily acquired them.

While most folks would probably snag these based on their Brodsky association, I held onto them because Tracy was always such a kind heart to me. I was working my first buying job back in the late 90s, and Tracy was my Caroline Distribution rep, so we'd end up chopping it up and talking about hardcore and emo. She was the cool older cousin who'd make me the occasional mixtape and make sure I got good promos, even though the chain I worked for never ever did any co-op with Caroline. Even a quarter century after the fact, it's still inspiration to share when I can.

Click here to download.

various artists - Take Your Medicine::A Heavy Dose Of Sonic Overload

I do a fair amount of my writing on Sundays while I'm doing laujndry adn avoiding more focus-intensive chores. The trade-off here is that Mrs. Mummy plays one of her numerous YouTube playlists, comprised of the outer edges of international popular music. It pushes me back to the familiar; not that I don't love NewJeans or whatever Mexican pop princess she's playing, but I does force me consider what I'm going to share, and why.

Take this 1996 compulation from Boston's Wonderdrug Records. I was familiar with a few of the names on this comp when I snagged it online for a $1 a few months ago: Scissorfight, Slughog, and Honkeyball, to name a few. I knew the label itself was of the same area, temporally and geographically, as Big Wheel Recreation and Tortuga Recordings, although they covered a different piece of the heavy music world. This is more stoner rock/desert rock/acid punk than I listened to back then. While most of these bands wouldn't be out of place on an Eyehategod or Nebula bill, I'm still not sure it holds my interest so far after the fact as bands that came out on AmRep or Man's Ruin during the same time.

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - The Giant Rock 'n' Roll Swindle

I always thought Shepard Fairey's whole deal was a bit cringey. But I can think of a lot worse things that a youngster could have walked out of Hot Topic with back in '02. This one serves as half label sampler for Boston's Fork In Hand Records, half "here's what's cool in edgy rock" comp, all wrapped inside Fairey's post-Giant/pre-Hope aesthetic. There's a Hives song and an Icarus Line song and, honestly, even the songs I don't like aren't bad, per se. It's just not always my thing. And far be it for me to gate keep.regarding a 22-year-old compilation. You do you, boo.

Sometimes, I don't even know what I'm talking about.

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - Topshelf Records 2012 Summer Sampler

Another day, another time I forgot to write something. Selah.

We'll keep this short and sweet. This was the state of the union in 2012. Just a step up from basement DIY, featuring a pretty decent mix of emo, hardcore, indie, shoegaze, post-hardcore, and probably some other subgenres I can't remember. A lot of these folks played the Art Space that summer. If a generation in punk lasts three years, then I was probably five generations past what was appropriate for attending these shows in 2012. No bother: I had a good time working the front door and cracking wise to a bunch of kids.

The Slingshot Dakota track is an all-time banger, Pianos Become The Teeth still rip, and I found a Code Orange CD for $2 at the thrift store the other day.

I gotta go; I just encountered a Busch Light commercial with Sarah McLachlan appearing in it. I think it's time to call it a day.

Discogs

Click here to download

Mission Of Burma - Mission Of Burma

My first exposure to Mission Of Burma was via Rhino's "Faster & Louder" series back in 1993, which might as well just serve as my Rosetta Stone for the music I'd obsess over during next three decades. The first volume remains imprinted in my brain; it's the mixtape from the older brother I never had. It's hard to overstate the impact of hearing "Pay To Cum", "Dicks Hate The Police", "Get It Away", and, yes, "That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate" all in the same place. Add in the cover art by Gary Panter, the photos by Ed Colver, Jenny Lens, and Glen Friedman, and suddenly I had a checklist of things to look for when I went to a record store, or when I started exploring modern art.

My second exposure to Mission Of Burma came a couple years later, when I turned up a cherry copy of Ryko's "Mission Of Burma" double LP for some stupidly-low amount of money at one of the numerous record stores that used to dot Fells Point. Maybe I paid $12 for a copy that didn't look like it'd ever been played and still had the obi strip on it. Ryko was still a couple years away from their comprehensive remastering program, and all that Ace of Hearts material from the 80s was out of print, so I snagged this, alongside a copy of "London Calling" and "Q: Are We Not Men?" for less than it'd cost to get a newly-pressed copy today.

There's been a couple rounds of reissues since then; the aforementioned 1997 Rykodisc remastering campaign, and Matador's consolidation of most of the Burma catalog in 2008. Matador has kept those records in print in really nice editions on vinyl, including a really sick copy of "Signals, Calls, And Marches" on orange wax that they released with Newbury a few years back. But this, comprised of their contemporary material released before their 1983 breakup, as well as a pair of live cuts and unreleased cuts, still lives near and dear to my heart. When I saw a seller who I was ordering another record from had it for a few bucks on CD, well, I knew what to do...

Discogs

Click here to download.

The Unband - The Unband aka Chung Wayne Lo Mein

Do you like Thin Lizzy and the Dwarves? Do you like underappreciated bands? It's Friday, let's party. As the Unband sang, "We Like To Drink And Rock And Roll".

Bassist Michael Ruffino wrote a pretty great book about the history of the band called "Gentlemanly Ripose" which, if you like music books, is pretty much a must read/own. I deeply appreciate everything this Boston trio did, if only so it never needs to be repeated.

Discogs

Click here to download.

The Mighty Mighty Bosstones - So Far - So Good

My tastes during the third wave of ska ran a lot more 2-Tone-influenced or JA-style than the Mighty Mighty Bosstones' ska-core style. I got a kick out of seeing them out at Charles Town during Lollapalooza '95, and it was wild having them show up in "Clueless". But I felt like the Pietasters, or the Toasters, or Hepcat should have led that 3rd wave charge into the mainstream. What do I know? I should have been able to guess that the Bosstones would have been able to piggyback from the greater acceptance of punk in the mainstream to become one of the biggest bands of 1997.

I got this six-song sampler a few weeks before I got my promo copy of "Let's Face It". None of the kids who'd hang out at the radio show would let a night pass without me playing "The Impression That I Get" once. It drove me crazy; I was right at the tail end of my indie label orthodoxy, and here was a really great song from a band on MERCURY RECORDS! What would Tim Yo say? I gave the people what they wanted...at least until HFS put it in heavy rotation.

The sampler has one cut from the second through fifth Mighty Mighty Bosstones albums, as well as a pair of covers. I can only assume that I held onto this after 1998 for the KISS cover of "Detroit Rock City", from the cleverly-titled "KISS My Ass" tribute compilation. I hadn't thought about it since the early aughts until I turned it up in a box full of slimline CD case releases. I've been revisiting a lot of ska from the mid to late 90s over the past year, and this, surprisingly enough, holds up really well. So, let's take this last opportunity before Election Day to skank it up, Clinton-era style.

Discogs

Click here to download.

Daniel Striped Tiger - Certain Stuff

When my now ex-wife and I split up after San Diego ComicCon in 2009, I moved back in with my best friend and former roommate, and immediately reconnected with old friends at Charm City Art Space. While there were plenty of bands that I'd kept up with during my marriage, I'd somehow missed out on screamo becoming skramz, and this whole scene of kids of playing freaked-out post-hardcore with such abandon and heart. I'm not sure why it grabbed me so hard as I neared 30, but I think it had something to do with the sincerity I saw onstage and heard on records.

Somehow, I'd missed seeing Daniel Striped Tiger each time they played the Art Space. I was fully aware of who they were: one of those Clean Plate bands that'd come down from Massachusetts or New Hampshire, blaze through for 25 minutes, eat a plate of food, then blow through, only to return three months later. I just took it for granted that they'd be back. And, of course, they didn't. Because disappointment was something I was at peace with, and the cosmos knew I could hang.

"Certain Stuff" collects all the non-LP releases from DST in one handy-dandy 5" optical media disc for their 2009 tour of Australia. At the time, it was the only way to get the tracks from their split with Teenage Cool Kids. I got a rip of this in 2011 from a fellow Art Space member. I've probably listened to "The Great Bust On Antarctica" and "Never In A Million Years" 200 times since getting this. It slaps. It's a shame these folks didn't last another few years, or record for labels that lasted until the Bandcamp era. Bands like Daniel Striped Tiger run the risk of falling into the cracks, being lost to all but the few with deep Discogs pockets. They were fucking magic. Maybe magic should fade away...

Fun fact: one of the guys from DST is in Parquet Courts. I learned this trivia in the course of writing this post, and I...well, I don't feel any more compelled to listen to Parquet Courts.

Discogs

Click here to download.

Karate - Sever (1993-2005)

Let's be clear: this isn't mine, but it's really good, so I think it's worth reposting.

Boston's Karate was a big favorite of mine after hearing "The Last Wars" on the Southern Tree & Polyvinyl Fall/Winter 1998 Compilation back in...you guessed it, 1998. I really fell in love with this jazzy indie trio; "The Bed Is In The Ocean" remains in my top ten from 1998 and was an early bonding point between Mrs. Mummy and I. They played a total of 695 shows over 12 years, put out six full-lengths and a live record, and toured the globe. If they'd come along five years later, they probably could have had a Death Cab For Cutie-style career arc.

During the Great Blog Bloom of the late aughts, I came across the folks at Baistophe. Their hook was homemade Best Of collections, with bespoke artwork and comp lengths to fit onto a CD-R. It's worth digging through their archives, in spite of their having called it a day in July 2011. I'd been checking up on them regularly for several months when, for their last post in November 2009, they posted up ABO #306: Karate - "Sever (1993-2005)"; 17 tracks of fried gold. The mysterious S.F.P. wrote:

Karate is a band unlike anything you've ever heard. That, actually, was what made a small number of people praise their unique sound but also the curse which kept them from having the success they deserved. Hastily labeled slocore, emo or indie jazz/blues, they were their own breed with Geoff Farina's awesome guitar playing (reminescent of jazz and blues but not just that) and his clear vocals. These two elements, coupled with a precise and skilled rhythm section, defined Karate's sonic identity, one that will evolve throughout their career while still remaining true to their roots. 

Not the kind of band to use sonic fireworks, Karate is, above everything else, a songwriting marvel. 6 studio albums, a live album and a bunch of Ep's and split singles later, Karate called it quits probably because too few people cared. A real shame if you ask me. 

Fortunately, the music remains. Initially, I wanted to do a double disc before changing my mind and packing a 79 minutes set that will either serve as an introduction for those who don't know them yet or a reminder for the others. Be curious, embark on the Karate baistophe, I'm sure you will not be disappointed.

And I wasn't, even though I'd already heard most of what was on this comp. This remains my go-to whenever a friend who loves music hasn't heard Karate. We're all living in a lot more solitude now; this is a fine soundtrack for these times.

Original post here.

Click here to download.