various artists - Pop Romantique: French Pop Classics

Record Store Day was this past weekend, and, if you're like me, you avoided it like the plague. The way that it's buggered up capacity, driven up prices on new releases, and generally caused folks to further fetishize vinyl really bums me out. Because I loves a good party. But people...man, do I hate people.

Apropos of nothing, here are a bunch of indie bands covering chansons from the 60s and 70s. Françoise Hardy and Kevin Ayers both pop up for guest appearances. OF COURSE there are Elephant 6 members involved. You get an AIR track, a Heavenly cover, a Stephen Merritt performance. This was a spur of the moment penny bid, based on the cover alone, that 100% panned out for me. I fucking love it like I hate Record Store Day.

Discogs

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bis - The New Transistor Heroes

I've been listening to a bunch of bis in recent months. One of those hyperbolic "it's what got me through the winter"-type statements doesn't apply here, but it sure was nice (re)discovering a band at 47 that I'd written off as unworthy of my attention at 20. I mean, of course I like them now, now that I've had a quarter century's seasoning, listening to Los Campesinos and Eugenius and Another Sunny Day, getting a sense of what came after, what existed during, and what led into this.

It's just punk kids making pop sounds, which is really all I need at this late date. Sure, I just loaded the Faith/Void split back on my phone, and spent March alternating in "Madvillainy" between listens of these Glaswegians. Give me this for a buck and I'm happy as a clam.

This is the US CD version of the record, released on Grand Royal. Willja handled honors in the UK, and Steven from bis reissued this in an expanded version in 2024 on Do Yourself In. Regardless of how you get it, get it, cuz it's good, you know? Hell, if you can get out of the country, go see them on their home turf; they're playing shows all year long!

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 - 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 - How Soon Is Now? (Mojo Presents 15 Tracks Of Modern Independent Music...)

This is all I want from any free-with-purchase compilation. There's some old (the Fall, Lush), some new (Hooton Tennis Club, Let's Eat Grandma), some borrowed (Ian William Craig), and some blue (Destroyer). It's a marriage of the familiar and the unfamiliar; a little reference to something to pick up on Bandcamp Friday. Toss in some old colleagues from the hardcore scene (White Lung) and back home in Baltimore (Beach House) and, bah Gawd, this is a heck of a stew to sample, even eight years on.

Discogs

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various artists - 1999 Teen-Beat Sampler (A Compilation Album)

It seems strange to me that I haven't written more about being a big dork for Arlington, VA's Teen-Beat Records. After all, it's not like I just got into them last week. The Mark Robinson-led label has been a part of my life ever since I moved to Baltimore in '94, having copped Unrest's "Perfect Teeth" shortly after landing there. Here was a sonically different fellow traveler to my beloved Dischord, a place that melded pop influences with DIY ethics and a postmodern visual aesthetic. Along with what was coming out of K Records in the PNW, it was a place where Madonna and Enya could meld with Crispy Ambulance and Cath Carroll into something that was distinct and familiar to this 17-year-old boy.

This is the fourth in the Teen-Beat Annual Sampler Series, and it's a pretty good one, a proper sampling of both the current label roster as well as a smattering of some super deep cuts from the catalog. The Rondells' record was one that I listened to nearly to death in 1999, and their cover of "Like A Prayer" got played a lot on my radio show. There was something familiar about True Love Always' "Faust"; it would be years later that I'd connect that it originated from de Palma's "Phantom Of The Paradise". Versus, Flin Flon, Tel Aviv: their songs from their then-current records laid out a indie pop present very different from what was playing on the radio at the end of the millenium, but just as danceable and worthy of singing along.

Discogs / Teen-Beat

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various artists - Throw (The Yoyo Studio Compilation)

Originally posted September 23, 2020. Reuploaded with a new rip of a previously mint-in-shrink copy.

I've been wanting to share my collection of Yoyo Recordings comps for a while, but I think I never got around to ripping the later releases. I've always liked the way that Pat Maley's recordings have sounded, and appreciated what he's contributed to the 90s Western Washington sound (if there is such a thing). If you got stoked on it, he probably recorded it: Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, Unwound, Beat Happening, and Team Dresch all came into YoYo Studios and made records now considered classics. He's always seemed like the perfect person for a band to make their first recordings with.

It seems to be dormant since 2011, but the 30-some-odd releases on Yoyo from 1992 on still hold up really well. Pat released five comps during that period, capturing both a sample of songs he recorded and released. The first is "Throw - The Yoyo Studio Compilation", released on both CD and vinyl. I grabbed this years ago because it had songs from the above bands, but I think it's worth coming back to for songs from the lesser-known bands. Whether it's the lead-off song from Olympia's Kicking Giant, channelling the K/53rd & 3rd vibe of late 80s indie pop, or Anacortes' Gravel, going grungier, these songs just stick in my brain. The standout for me remains one of the earliest artifacts from Heavens to Betsy. Corin Tucker's voice is SO big on this track; even if I had heard it before I heard "Calculated", I still would have thought that she would have become a big deal.

Discogs

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various artists - KJET Alternative CD Sampler #3 Summer '88

1988 was the year I first remember choosing to listen to the radio.

Before that, it was whatever Mom or Dad had playing in the car, or in the living room. Sometimes it was tapes, sometimes it was whatever MOR nonsense that was playing in the mid 90s on the FM dial.

But I got a boombox and a half dozen blank tapes on my 10th birthday, and by the following year, I had locked in on 96 Rock and 99.1 in Atlanta. I was too young to know about WREK, still in its heyday down at Tech; I'm not sure now that it would have had the signal to make it out to north Cobb County. So it was Todd Rundgren and Skid Row and LL Cool J and Public Enemy coursing through my ears into my brain. Not a bad time to start hearing music.

I did not get exposed to anything like this CD. Compiled by a trade magazine called The Hard Report, this "sampler" was a custom job on behalf of short-lived Seattle alternative radio station KJET 1590 AM. And compared to the rest of the Hard Report's samplers, this one's pretty good. The highlights for me are appearances from Wire (from their second post-reunion album), the Sugarcubes ("Deus" off their debut "Life's Too Good") and Dag Nasty, the pride of WDC. It's up there in quality alongside the couple of Borders CD samplers I got in the mid-90s; an interesting snapshot of what qualified as noteworthy back before I was old enough to use deodorant.

Postscript: reader Todd pointed out that this is a labeled as "KROQ - 106.7 FM Alternative CD Sampler #3 Summer '88" on the download. "What's the big idea?" I can hear him screaming (I project sometimes). Well, when I originally ripped my copy and uploaded it to Kraken, it was before I had snapped photos of the cover or added it to Discogs. I thought I was going to write about it sooner. I was incorrect. I should have re-tagged and added new pics, etc., etc.

Todd, your No-Prize is in the mail.

Discogs

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various artists - Yoyo A Go Go

It's been a few years since I last posted anything from Pat Maley's Yoyo Recordings. But it's been thirty years since the first Yoyo A Go Go, and since I'm less than 80 miles away, as opposed to the 2,800 or so that I was back then, I thought it was time to pay this one a visit, and share it with you fine peep-holes.

Let me tell you what I recollect about this time. I was listening to my cassette of International Piop Underground Convention a lot in the spring of 1994, so when I heard that something similar was going to take place that summer...well, I didn't give it a ton of thought, because how was I going to go from Boones Mill, Virginia to magical Olympia? Especially since I found out a few weeks before school ended that we were leaving the sticks for suburban Baltimore,

But it was definitely intriguing. And, in retrospect, a little bit gumption could have gotten me out there on a four-day Greyhound with more than a few of my hard-earned Taco Bell dollars in my pocket. And who would I have seen? Unwound, Heavens to Betsy, Excuse 17, and Team Dresch remain the big names for me, even this far down the line. How cool would it have been to see Codeine, or Cub, or two thirds of Yo La Tengo, or Neutral Milk Hotel? Would I have even been into it back then? Or would it have been one of those moments I would have only appreciated in retrospect?

I suppose it's better to regret something you have done, rather than somehing you haven't done. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get up in someone's face and scream "SATAN!" over and over again.

Discogs

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various artists - Ask The Sky

I bought this 30-year-old comp from a Half Price Books clearance shelf for $2 because it had Redd Kross on it. I figured, hell, if the "Phaseshifter"-era McDonald brothers are batting lead-off, then the rest of the lineup can't be too bad. And I was right. This one's a mix of UK & US early 90s indie and Japanese indie pop. The Penelopes' two songs are great, and Samantha's Favourite is a band I'll be keeping an eye out for. This one probably should be on I Hate The 90s, but I never heard back about contributing there, so here you go.

Discogs

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various artists - Get Up Kids Last Tour Sampler

This one's pretty straightforward, like a handshake from an Elk.

Back in the good ol' days of 2005, the Get Up Kids decided to call it a day.

They went out on a final tour (as was the custom at the time), taking some of their buds from Kansas out on the road with them.

The gang at Blue Collar Press put together this sampler, featuring each band on the tour plus Matt Pryor's new band for kids.

I presume this ended up in my collection as a result of Mrs. Mummy having attended at least one or two of those shows.

I've been listening to a fair amount of GUK's more contemporary work, so it made sense to me to share this with y'all.

See? Straightforward. Like the answer to the riddle "Would you eat the moon if it were made of spareribs?".

Discogs

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various artists - Teen-Beat 50

This record will turn 30 years old in a few weeks. This millenial of a compilation is still paying off its student loans, has probably delayed getting married, might have moved back into their mom's place.

A split release between DC's Teen-Beat and NYC's Matador, Teen-Beat 50, as the story goes, was originally scheduled to come out in 1990. which would have made this one of the first ten recordings on the now-indie titan. I'd guess it'd slot into that same space now filled by New York Eye And Ear Control. Teen-Beat was well known for split releases, working with Homstead, No. 6, Ajax, and a host of others; all to get some of the best bedroom indie of the late 80s and early 90s off of cassette and onto wax/CD.

Your listening experience runs the gamut, from Dischord contemporaries Circus Lupus and Autoclave, to goof-assin' from Sexual Milkshake, to an early Carl Newman track from his pre-New Pornographers band Superconductor. A shitton of Teen-Beat luminaries perform: Unrest with 3 appearances, Butch Willis, Jonny Cohen, Andrew Beaujon (on four tracks). This here's the CD release, which has 11 more recordings than the LP version.

I'd held off writing about this b/c I wanted to talk a bit about what Teen-Beat means to me as a counterpoint to Dischord in DC music history, but I never could pull my shit together well enough to make a solid enough essay. Let me say that I feel very lucky haven't been turned onto Fugazi and Unrest almost simultaneously, and to become aware of both frontperson's labels. To discover that sense of possibility, that you could follow your own path and have folks glom onto it...it stuck with me. Clearly.

Discogs / Teen-Beat

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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

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Manifesto - Manifesto

I had kept an eye open for a physical copy of this one for, oh, I dunno, probably 25 years when I finally found one for $3 on a shelf in the record store my wife grew up visiting on California's Central Coast. I knew Manifesto as the post-punk band led by Mike Hampton (Faith, Embrace, One Last Wish) and backed by longtime collaborator Ivor Hanson (S.O.A., Faith, Embrace) and Bert Queiroz (Youth Brigade, Double-O, Rain). If the tattered edges of my memory still tell the truth, I remember Johnny Riggs talking them up on 'HFS the year I moved to Baltimore, even though a 1993 copyright date on the tray card doesn't quite align with my arrival to Charm City. Regardless, here was an early 90s curiosity, featuring Dischord royalty on a major label, that'd I'd wanted to hear for a very long time.

It...doesn't hold up. On my first listen, my takeaway was, "Who is this for?" I tried to put myself in the shoes of a music listener in 1991/92. This came out on Fire Records the same year as Pulp's "Separations" and Television Personalities' "Closer to God", as well as Eugenius's "Oomalama". There's a sort of cool joy present in all three of those records that doesn't exist here. If I didn't know better, it's like a band decided to make a British-sounding record operating off assumptions of what British audiences would like, without having actually listened to any contemporary British music. Does that make any sense?

I will say that, when Manifesto sounds have come up on shuffle over the past few months, that I like the songs by themselves, removed from the context of a single full-length. So, maybe, in that respect, this is a release far ahead of its time, better suited for addition to a playlist than a CD player. I guess I'm not at all bummed out that I bought this; Lord knows I've spent more money on worse records.

Postscript: It's dawned on me in the space of writing this that I've been mixing Michael Hampton up with his contemporary Mike Fellows (of Rites Of Spring, Miighty Flashlight, Silver Jews), thinking they were the same person, all this time, which may account why this record rattled around my head for so long.

Discogs

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various artists - Arts & Crafts Sampler Vol. 4

Today, we look back to the heyday of blogs and the explosion of publicist-driven indie rock with this, the fourth volume in Arts & Crafts Sampler series. I came across this on the 50 cent shelf at one of my local go-to thrift stores and said, "Fuck it. It's 50 cents." And away we went.

It's totally worth owning just for the two Los Campesinos! tracks, both of which appear on their A&C EP "Sticking Fingers Into Sockets" and are total bangers. Do I already own that record? Sure I do. Has it been ripped to a hard drive for at least 10 years? Of course it was. But did I have access to these songs right that moment? Reader, I did not. So, again, away we went. Beep beep!

(That's me beeping an imaginary car horn as I drive away. Just making you're still following me.)

I'm not sure if any of the other tracks here particularly hold up for me. I never had anything for or against Broken Social Scene or Stars, the two "biggest" bands here, and nothing about their four collected tracks here change that. I liked the two New Buffalo cuts; the rest were kind of "meh". But I suppose there's room in life for taking a four-bit bet to see if there was something worth hearing for the first time.

And now I've shared it with you.

Postscript: let the record show there is an alternate version of this sampler, featuring a pair of Feist tracks and a different Apostle Of Hustle song. So, you know...there you go.

Discogs

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various artists - Oh, Merge: A Merge Records 10 Year Anniversary Compilation

I got this for the Rocket From The Crypt song (an outtake from "RFTC") (and it was cheap). I kept it because it has a bunch of unreleased and rare indie rock from the late 90s. It's a pretty good lineup: the Karl Hendricks Trio, Magnetic Fields, Neutral Milk Hotel, Rock*A*Teens, Seaweed, and Superchunk (of course). And that's all the insight I can offer here.

Sorry, they can't all be deep dives into my mediocre history. /emoji shrug

Discogs

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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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Crimson Wave - 2013 demo

Crimson Wave (photo by Jeffrey Lash)

There was this wave of bands in Baltimore in 2012 and 2013 that came up all at the same time which, while they may have had dissimilar sounds, all fit together really well. There was Denny Bowen's post-Double Dagger band, Roomrunner. Angie from CCAS joined with Ian from Give to start Big Mouth. Wildhoney came out swinging with a demo and 7" that evoked some of my favorite indie records from the early 90s. But then Sophie, who'd been singing for Wildhoney, left the band to start something new with her friends, and it became one of my favorites.

Crimson Wave was fairly short lived; maybe they were around for two years. But in that time, I'd be hard pressed to miss one of their gigs in Baltimore. It fit well into that nebulous C86 world that's comprised of indie pop, twee, shoegaze, dream pop, and a million other micro-genres from the 80s that got revisited over the past 10 years. Had they been a thing in the 90s, it's a near certainty that their demo would have come out on K Records. Instead, it got a fairly limited release on Rainbow Bridge, which was based in Baltimore at the time. CW would put out a 7" in 2014 with Sean Grey's Accidental Guest Recordings, then call it a day shortly after I moved away from Baltimore.

Why bring it up now? I'd like to say it was a roundabout plug from Sam from Crimson Wave's current band, All Hits, whose new LP is out on Iron Lung. But I was really feeling dirgy today, and this is great, guitar driven, funereal music from a group of women who I miss very deeply.

Discogs

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The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Say No To Love

Just a quick one today; I have therapy and a virtual doctor's visit and I have shop for a new healthcare plan and honestly it's just so overwhelming. So I threw on a Donnie Yen wuxia and figured I'd bang one out.

I love Love LOVE The Pains of Being Pure at Heart's first few years of releases. They were just a brilliant, modern version of that Darla/Velocity Girl/53rd and 3rd vibe that I got into as it wound down in the 90s. Their singles were perfect lil slices of pop goodness; their first two LPs still get a ton of play around these parts. Even though I hadn't followed them as closely once they left Slumberland, I was kind of bummed out to hear they'd dissolved in 2019.

The "Say No To Love" single was a capstone to their first album cycle, despite having artwork thematically in line with their upcoming "Belong" release and the singles from that record. The artwork is my favorite thing about this release; all of Winston Chmielinski's painting build around "Belong" are beautiful. It's a nice non-album single release that you just never see anymore. These would pop up on the Japanese release of their debut album in 2012 as bonus tracks, but you shouldn't have to pay $40 to hear them, right?

Discogs

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This Song Is A Mess But So Am I - Church Point, LA

I haven't thought about this record in 15 years, but I saw it between This Mortal Coil and Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments in my iTunes, so I gave it a whirl. It helped me recall a few things about this period: I booked Freddy on a bill that included Dan Deacon's first club show in Baltimore; I got super into experimental pop after hearing this record; I'd ride my bike up Calvert St. at 3 in the morning listening to this on my last Walkman, watching the sex workers on each corner fidget and adjust themselves between propositions.

This is an unpleasant, unhappy recording that, performed live, proved to be gripping. There's so much sadness and pain here that it feels like the room got darker as I listened to it. It's also painfully honest and young, which may be why I enjoyed it as much as I did, and why I dug revisiting it. "Church Point, LA" is an interesting synthesis of industrial/EBM, pop, and emo that would be representative of that whole Not Not Fun Records scene from the early aughts. I recommend a spin.

Discogs

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