various artists - Amphetamine Reptile Records 1993 Sampler

It never gets old to me, the idea that someone at Atlantic Records thought that the rest of the AmRep catalog might cross over to mainstream popularity, in the same way that Helmet did. "Sure," I believe the thinking went, "the kids will go ga-ga over Today Is The Day and Hammerhead!"

Was cocaine involved? I have to assume the answer is "yes". It's the music business!

Anyway, this one came delivered to your door with your mailorder from Haze's bunker in Minneapolis. What a grand way to get a sniff of Chokebore, Helios Creed, Cosmic Psychos, and Cows. It's the sort of scuzz that'll twist out a 15-year-old, make them turn away from Pearl Jam records and start trekking out to dark corners of their towns. Haze's artwork on the cover seals the deal. This one warps brains and perverts the heart. Obviously, it's a classic.

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various artists - Keep The Pressure On: Contemporary Traditional Ska!

I preordered a copy of Trust Records' reissue of Hepcat's second LP, "Scientific", along with the attendant Scientist dub version, within minutes of it being announced. I knew it'd make a killer gift for Mrs. Mummy, who's a huge Hepcat fan as well, and I figured that dub 12" would be a tough one to track down after the fact. Turns out I was correct; darn thing's already sold out.

Needless to say, the gift was a hit.

It reminded me of this comp, an early release from the short-lived but high-quality Minneapolis label Kingpin Records. Both records are led off by "Country Time", just a killer opening track by one of the bands from the third wave that still holds up well. But I suppose that applies to everyone here, even for the bands with cutesy-pie names or puns that were bad immediately after being ginned up. Every great band drawing from the JA wellspring of ska from this era is here. The Slackers, Let's Go Bowling, Skavoovie & the Epitones, the Allstonians; all bands that, within a span of two years, made records that still get regular play. Quite frankly, if you like JA music, but haven't checked out "Mr. Twist" or "The Allston Beat" in a while, you ought to come back to them.

But, for me, it's the non-Moon Ska bands that continue to feel relivatory. Like, how did Ocean 11 only get a handful of comp appearances and a single CD? Jump With Joey cut a live version of "Summer Come Lovin" with Rolando Alphonso, Ernest Ranglin, and Eddie Thornton that they contributed. Even the locals in the Siren Six! and the Jinkies are worth revisiting, reminding me of that time when I got really stoked by the music the band nerds made after high school.

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various artists - Screwed (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

I'll never quite wrap my head around Atlantic distributing Amphetamine Reptile back in the mid-90s, and this record is evidence I'll present to support my argument. Sure, Helmet made some serious inroads with the kids of 1995, but I'm not sure who thought Hammerhead or Cows were a fit alongside Aretha Franklin, Led Zeppelin, and Foreigner. It's so perverse; I kind of love it.

And speaking of perversity: here's the soundtrack to a documentary on New York publisher and pornographer Al Goldstein entitled "Screwed". It makes sense to have a bunch of AmRep luminaries provide the score to such a downer of a movie. Halo of Kitten (a collaboration between Halo of Flies and Free Kitten) and the Melvins offer alternate views on porn: one likes it, the other hates it. There's tracks from Guv'ner and Big Chief and Boss Hog and the almighty Mudhoney, all XXX-themed and just rightly written to play behind a view of a porn king's crumbling empire.

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various artists - Amphetamine Reptile • Peel Sessions

It seemed like a glaring omission when I saw that I didn't already own a copy of this (currently). So of course I spent the $1.99 to rescue this from a clearance rack last month, along with a Lou Reed "best of" and Boss Hog's "Girl Plus" EP. Because money comes and money goes, but one should never let a sweet deal for noise rock pass them by.

In my humble, stupid opinion, Helmet and Tar still have the standout tracks here. And that tracks with my taste, since both bands are ones that I keyed onto Back In The Day (TM) and spent my hard earned Taco Bell wages on. No $2 CDs back then, I can tell you. But I should not pay short shrift to Cows (I preferred the Heroine Sheiks) and Surgery, who had already dissolved in the wake of Sean McDonnell's death by the time I would have otherwise become aware of them.

This is one that is well worth a listen, as well as a limited edition reissue with all new Haze XXL art.

Discogs

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various artists - Dope-Guns-'N-Fucking In The Streets Volumes 8-11

I had oriignally planned to post this a couple weeks ago, as I reached my 46th birthday. I serendipitously found this in a box of CDs due to be put in storage, and, somehow, it wasn't on my hard drive. Boom: a perfect share. But, then, life got in the way. So here I am, prepping for a colonoscopy tomorrow, my stomach empty except for lemon-lime Gatorade Zero. Why regret not having posted for two weeks? Take a little time on the toilet, dash this one off in a jiffy,

DGF remains a foundational series of (initially) eleven 7"s, released between 1988 and 1998, by the eternally cool, maximally abrasive Amphetamine Reptile Records. If you're a yoot born in the past 25 years, not yet familiar with the world of noise rock in which I grew up, you could use the series as a pretty good checklist. Hell, I did.

I single this out, not just because I found the CD the other day, but because these were the 7" releases I was actually around for and hunting down in the record bins of Roanoke and Baltimore. This was some of my first exposures to Superchunk, Jawbox, RFTC, and Braniac; all bands whose recorded outputs I've collected fervently in the interim. The likes of Guzzard and Bailter Space don't exactly rev my engine, but they're no slouches in this lineup. Today is the Day, Gaunt, Bordeoms: their cuts here rank amongst my favorites by each band.

I hope that, when you listen to this, you'll consider the joys of taking a fiber optic camera up the ass in the interest of GI health. I'd like to think it's what Mr. Hazelmyer had in mind whilst compiling it.

Discogs

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Hüsker Dü - live at First Avenue, 28 August 1985

This is another that I share courtesy of the always-outstanding [shiny grey monotone], whose link has expired, so hopefully they won't be too salty about me reposting. Their original post came two days after Grant Hart died. It's something I've wanted to bootleg ever since. Too bad I've been beat to the punch, like, a million times.

This is Hüsker Dü, playing on their own home turf of First Avenue in Minneapolis, August 1985, right before the release of "Flip Your Wig". The track list reflects this: leading off with the first three tracks from "Flip", then a mix of new cuts and tracks from "Zen Arcade" and "New Day Rising". Not bad at all. It was originally recorded/broadcast for Spin Radio. Volcano Suns and Bad Trip opened.

While I still prefer to listen to "New Day Rising", "Flip Your Wig" was my first ever Dü record, purchased on cassette from the back of a video store in Harford County circa 1994. So I have some very strong feels whenever I hear anything off the LP, remembering bombing around in my mom's Merkur after school, singing along with "Makes No Sense At All", smoking Jacks cigarettes I bought from the Wawa down the road from the house (99 cents a pack!), hating so much of my life even though I probably should have known it was all going to be ok.

Original post here.

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Re-up: Lifter Puller - Fiestas + Fiascos

Photo from the Village Voice

(Notes: I originally wrote this 11 years ago, almost to the day. There was a discography released as part of the "Vs. The End Of" book. I couldn't tell you where to find one, but I haven't exactly been looking. I have no idea what I was thinking selling my copy on vinyl of this, but I still have the CD. I still hold very fond memories of seeing their penultimate show at Brownie's in NYC, circa 2000, and just of that general time when we were all young, dumb, full of cum, and thought the world was our bitch.

This is a very not good piece of writing. Of course I stand by it.)

I can't exactly pinpoint when I was hipped to Lifter Puller, which is weird, because there's generally that "Wow!" moment with those bands that I've carried with me since I heard them. Maybe it was the guys from Dillinger 4 talking about playing with Lifter Puller on a riverboat in Punk Planet, or a mixtape from Bachman featuring the Rhymesayers crew dropping LP lyrics into 16 bars. I can tell you it wasn't an immediate thing; I think I had this CD for a month, occasionally listening, before I got it. But I DID get it.

Even though I know Craig Finn was telling stories, there is something unsavory and sordid about Fiestas + Fiascos. Even today it feels hyper-real...a codeine-laced mix of Nighthawks, Jim Carroll and Joe Strummer. This record makes copping dope sound sexy, and deals gone bad sound fun. You want to dance all night at the Nice Nice, then go home to your mattress laid out on the floor and drink shitty booze until 2 in the afternoon. This is the sound of bad choices.

Supposedly there's a Lifter Puller documentary and discography en route. It's not impossible to find F+F or Soft Rock out in eBay land. But enjoy this one while you wait.

Discogs

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Dillinger Four - First Avenue Live

Paddy Costello of Dillinger Four by Rebecca Reed

It was rare that I'd get drunker or have a better time than at a Dillinger Four show. As soundtracks to your twenties go, they were a good one. D4 played Baltimore once on my birthday, and, as you might imagine, if you're familiar with them, it was a total piss-up. I started drinking before doors opened, and didn't stop with kamikazes and Jameson until last call. Or so I've been told.

This was recorded at the height of the band's powers. As the story goes, Bad Brains was scheduled to play upstairs at First Avenue in Minneapolis the same night that Dillinger Four was playing downstairs at 7th St. Entry. H.R. called the club a few hours before doors and left a message stating that Bad Brains wouldn't be playing that night. That left a well-liquored D4 to entertain the hometown crowd. And entertain they did, ripping through 15 songs with some of my favorite stage banter ever.

I don't want to give anything away, but you will hear the H.R. message in its entirety. That's worth the price of admission.

Discogs

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Enemymine / Vaz

If it feels like a bit of a letdown, after a week of really good records, you're not alone. But trust me: this is a good one, too.

I bought this because of Vaz.  I didn't know anything about Hammerhead when they were active, but Reptilian had put out Vaz's first 7", and I was stoked on how heavy it was. So, you know, why not buy? It turns out that "Blocked By Satellites" became one of my go-to mix tape cuts for the next few years. It's out of step with what I'd experience when I finally saw them a few years later. I wasn't prepared for how much of a goddamned racket they'd be, with trash can lids for crash cymbals and every song like a dive-bomber attacking, even though it was only two fellas playing. I like the way the vocals are recorded here; Apollo Liftoff sounds a little more...romantic crooning, compared to the recording two years later on "Demonstrations In Micronesia". 

This was my first experience with Enemymine, Mike Kunka's short-lived, post-godheadSilo/pre-Dead Low Tide trio from WA state. I honestly don't remember playing this side of the record until a couple years later, but I like it now. It just builds and builds and crashes down on your head in that noisy PNW way that's not quite metal, not quite post-hardcore, not quite math rock.

A shout out while everyone's paying attention to Olympia's Thin the Herd Records, purveyors of this fine slab o' wax. For a label that only existed for three years and a baker's dozen worth of releases, they put out some real solid jams. They released the initial vinyl for the first Vaz full-length, the first Tracy & The Plastics LP, a Teen Cthulhu 7" that I really like, and a weird-ass one-sided Sunn 0))) 12". Sure, this is all some turn-of-the-century PNW weirdness, but everything they put out is well worth tracking down and jamming out to.

Discogs

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