various artists - Cheapo Crypt Sampler

There was a time in my capricious youth where I balked at paying $7 for a sampler of preivously-released songs. And, thankfully, there was someone there to help me pull my head out of my spacious rectum.

You see, this one has gotten a ton of play in the approximately 20-some-odd years since I nabbed my first copy of it. When I first encountered it, I only knew the JSBE and Thee Headcoats, both via some late night MTV encounters and Spin magazine backpages. But the Oblivians and Gories, a pair of Memphis creeps if ever there were such a duo, were what held onto me, with "Nitroglycerine" and "Sunday You Need Love" making their way onto a few turn of the millenium mixtapes.

While my initial copy eventually disappeared in one of the periodic cleansings I conducted back then (I miss my old tape collection), it was one of the first things I downloaded when I got my first iPod and high speed internet connection. Which long-dead blog did I find this on? Who was the keeper of sleazy punk that provided me with a digital copy in gleaming 128kbps? The name and place has been lost to the ages, but whenever I needed a fair swath of 90s underground rock, I'd turn to this, and turn it up loud.

A few months ago, I was trawling eBay for inexpensively priced CDs (as is my habit). A seller in Ohio had a stack of sixteen Crypt CDs for $100 for sale. It was a pretty fair price for a bunch of records I owned digitally, but no longer held physical copies of. I saved it, and a few days later came an offer to pick it up for $80, I couldn't turn it down. Both New Bomb Turks full-lengths, both Gories LPs, the Raunch Hands, Pagans, and a pair of Lazy Cowgirls CDs? How could I pass? I'm not made of stone. And to cap it off, a copy of "Cheapo Crypt Sampler", here to be re-ripped at 320kbps and shared with y'all.

I didn't even have to pay $7 this time around. How's that for a good time?

Discogs

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The Geraldine Fibbers - Live At The Bottom Of The Hill

I'm not sure how some 90s A&R at Virgin heard the Geraldine Fibbers and imagined a future where they'd top the charts, or even appeal to a larger audience. But I dig it...the same way I dig the Gun Club and Flesh Eaters. And maybe (almost definitely) that "cowpunk" tag is technically incorrect, but fiddle songs for us art-damaged weirdos should fit under that nebulous subgenre.

This here was an American promo-only release, coming on the heels of the G.F.'s 1996 album, Lost Somewhere Between The Earth And My Home. Recorded live at San Francisco's The Bottom Of The Hill, this never got a retail version, which is a shame, because while the recording feels flat at times, it was the recording that finally broke through to me on behalf of Ms. Bozulich and co.

It didn't help me avoid run-on sentences, though.

Discogs

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various artists - Keats Rides A Harley

Nothing big going on today, right?

I went out to pick up food, prescriptions, and #0 mailers yesterday, and made a quick lil stop at a thrift store along the way. It's rare that I don't find something cool there, and this visit was no exception. There was a copy of this live U2 fan club release, a copy of the "Stand Alone Complex" soundtrack, and a couple of other things I'll end up putting up for sale online. Not a bad haul for $2 a CD.

But the find...THE FIND...was a reissue of one of those early 80s comps I've heard about for years and years, but never seen in real life until yesterday. "Keats Rides A Harley" originally came out in 1981 on the Urinals' Happy Squid Records. Hell of a lineup for 1981: the Gun Club, the Meat Puppets, Leaving Trains, 100 Flowers, and Toxic Shock (who became Slovenly) all appeared on this comp of SoCal (and one AZ) outsiders. It's not a particularly rare record; in the liner notes for the reissue, it's said that 2,000 12"s were pressed. But I'd never come across the LP or the CD reissue until now.

The reissue came a quarter century later, courtesy of Warning Label in Massachusetts. It was a wide expansion of the original record, with a second cut from each band on the original comp, as well as the first ever reissue of 1980's "The Happy Squid Sampler". This addition is cool for its additional Urinals song, an early iteration of Trotsky Icepick, and this really weird synth cut by Phil Bedel. It is, as one of my British friends would say, "a mad curious sitch". I appreciate its strong weirdo punk vibe; so different from what I'd anticipate hearing if I was handed another punk record from 1981.

This is the part of the blog where I'd tie everything I've just written with what's happening in the world today. All I have to say is, if you're an American and registered to do so, go vote today. Stand in line for a few hours. Tilt at the windmill that is our political system. Do it because it's one of the few choices you still have left. Like Ms. Apple once said, "This world is bullshit." Go with yourself. Be a goddamned oddball and make something happen, even if the results aren't immediate. Who knows? Maybe forty years later, someone will write about the little thing you did that had a real impact. Like a record, like a vote.

Discogs

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various artists - We Never Learn: The Gunk Punk Undergut, 1988-2001

I am a sucker for a good book about rock 'n' roll, and "We Never Learn" is exactly that.

Much like Legs McNeil's "Please Kill Me", this here's an embed from right in the middle of the action, courtesy of Eric Davidson from New Bomb Turks. The Turks were probably my entre into this world of grimy yet tuneful punk rock 'n' roll, having first heard them on their third LP, "Scared Straight". Along with the noisy stuff coming out on AmRep and Man's Ruin, this is what I heard every weekend when I'd drive into Baltimore to visit Reptilian Records to buy music. It was so different from the mall punk then playing on the radio, and the crust and political hardcore my friends and I had been listening to.

The book itself is such a wonderful survey of those years leading up to 9/11, when, simultaneous with America losing her shit, people started paying attention to stripped down rock again. It pays proper homage to Tim Warren and Crypt Records. As much as anyone/thing, they served as the key influence to so many bands from this scene. It's also one of the first times I remember seeing anyone discuss and interview an (inter)national scene. While you could argue that the garage rock revival sprung from the Midwest, by 2000, you listen to similar bands from Osaka to Fagersta to Memphis.

Now what's disappointing is that there isn't a 10th anniversary edition releasing this year, putting this wonderful tome back in print. AbeBooks and eBay show copies running around $125.00, original publisher Backbeat Books is still cranking out music tomes, and Eric Davidson has continued writing entertaining, insightful articles and reviews for a wide range of publications and websites. It should be in print!

Anyhow, please enjoy the downloadable comp that came with the first printing. There aren't many names missing that I would have added, and an awful lot that, if you've never heard them before, you should check out. I'd never really listened to Oblivians, Clone Defects or Thee Headcoats before buying this; now it's some of my favorite stuff.

eBay

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