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

Click here to download.

various artists - Skankin' 'Round The World: Vol. 1

I took the opportunity a few weeks back, during Discogs' select retailer sale, to snag a cheap copy of this from the good folks at Academy Records, a joint I've tried to visit every time I've gone to NYC in the past twenty years, and a semi-regular haunt when I'm looking to fill in gaps of my Impulse! collection and what not. They're a helluva good spot to find those random records I wanted a quarter century ago,

So it was, in addition to a Benny Carter CD I'd never owned and a pair of Lungfish records I sold off a number of years ago, that I ordered this, one of the earliest looks at the 3rd wave of ska. I'd never been able to lay hands on a copy when I was living that life back in the 90s, but, for nostalgia's sake, I couldn't pass this up. This is all mainstays of that era; the Toasters, Bad Manners, Mr. Review, Skaos, Potato 5, and Bim Skala Bim. I was a bit taken aback from the number of names I didn't recognize. I knew Les Saxas, but didn't know they appeared here under their old name "Saxawhaman", I knew nothing about the Donkey Show, who had a terrible name but a secret weapon in future Slacker/Hepcat Dave Hillyard. The Deltones, Kortatu, Spy Eye, Blue Chateau: it's pretty cool to discover these bands 35 years in the past, coming just a few years after 2-Tone petered out. There's five volumes in this series, and I'm sorely tempted to track them all down, $5 at a time.

I initially planned to post this last week, in honor of Skanksgiving. I'll see myself out.

Discogs

Click here to download.