various artists - Chunklet Issue #12: The Money Shot!

I hold Mrs. Mummy responsible for my most recent missed deadline. She was the one who kept my attention focused on laundry and food preparation; she shook her most bodacious ta-tas, flicked her eyelashes, wiggled her bum in a most enticing way. What was I to do? Blogging was farthest from my mind! Who amongst you could be strong under such circumstances?

Today's treat: the giveaway that came with issue #12 of esteemed Athens/Atlanta zine Chunklet, published & compiled by close, personal pal Henry O. Owings. H2O was, in his early days, a proto-shitposter extraordinaire. He gave the likes of yours truly a mentor and role model to emulate; be clever and funny and talk mad shit and support great music and play the occasional round of Whirlyball. Amongst the 22 tracks contained herein are contributions from Arcwelder, Elf Power, Man or Astro-man?, Six Finger Satellite, and Harvey Milk. It's a veritable "who's who" of late 90s indie rock, with nary a superstar to be found.

It's the kind of shit I can still sop up with a biscuit.

Discogs

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various artists - Macro Dub Infection Volume One

Before I fanboyed out of Lee Perry and King Tubby and Scientist, this was what I thought of when I thought of dub. Less associated in my brain with reggae at that time than as a confluence of many branches of electronic music, I was more familiar with Bill Laswell and Spring Heel Jack at that time. And "Macro Dub Infection Volume One", which I first encounted in the back pages of my buddy's CaseLogic binder, is the key reason why.

I love how broadly defined dub is here. This is a distinctly British endeavor, featuring names like Mad Professor, Laika, 4hero, and the Disciples. The Yanks make a couple of appearances: it's the first time I ever heard Tortoise, and Laswell performs under his illbient Automaton banner. This was also probably the first time I had come across Tricky. "Maxinquaye", "Nearly God", and "Pre-Millenial Tension" were such huge records for me in the late 90s, and this was my first exposure to his genius. There are even surface outliers like COIL and Scorn present, though a dive into their tracks provides the context that, yeah, they belong here.

Released on Virgin in the UK and Caroline in the States, it was nice turning up a copy for $3 at Value Village over the summer and nudging me to really dig back into my mid-90s electronic collection. And apologies for any stray tagging here; I would have gone back and corrected with a fresh upload, but I also downgraded my copy on my hard drive to a 128kbps version and stored the CDs. And most folks I know would trade incomplete tagging for a high sample rate.

Discogs

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various artists - Slightest Indication Of Change

Rabbit rabbit, as the kids have said from time to time. It's the first of the month, so get your check and get up.

"Slightest Indication Of Change" is the seventh release from Slowdance Records, a perfectly cromulent label from San Diego whose six year output covered a pretty wide swath of what was going on in the world of independent rock back at the turn of the millenium. Their first release was a Boilermaker/Three Mile Pilot split 7" that still gets the occasional spin on the turntable at Ape Central; they also did a tour split with my buddy Ben and Braid vocalist Bob Nanna that I've never managed to lay my hands on.

So it was that I snagged a copy of this shortly after its release in 2000, mainly b/c it had a Kind Of Like Spitting cut on it I didn't own, plus anything from Piebald and Small Brown Bike at that time was going to pique my interest and get my money. I'd heard Jejune and No Knife before, via splits with other bands I'd liked, and even the likes of the Casket Lottery and the Six Parts Seven weren't completely unknown to me back then. This was, and remains, a great snapshot of the more tuneful part of the touring scene pre-9/11, where the boundaries of genre remained blurred and everyone still played basements and dive bars and hadn't gotten publicists yet.

Discogs

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various artists - A Slice Of Lemon

There's a dude in my NAMI Connection group who started attenting a couple of sessions ago. And of course I noticed him because dude showed up in a denim vest with no less than 40 metal pins and patches affixed. This is not Maryland Death Fest, bullet belt, crusty/grind/doom vest either; it's a pretty straightforward reckoning of the past 40 or so years of metal. Everything from Nuclear Assault and Venom to Motorhead (fuck it, I'm not looking up the hotkey for umlats) and Anthrax. Nothing super cvlt, which I respect.

So, of course, we've started chatting a bit about music, and I think I want to bring him a flash drive with Void and Septic Death and Excel and Hirax on it, just so he can get where I'm coming from. In the course, he asked me what I was listening to recently. So I told him about this.

In short, "A Slice Of Lemon" was a two-disc compilation co-released by Kill Rock Stars and Lookout! Records back in '95. I'm pretty certain I snagged it in my first mailorder from KRS, along with "Pussy Whipped" and (maybe) "These Monsters Are Real". If you want a sample of where things were on the West Coast of North America (with some exceptions, obvs), then look right here. The stand outs on this back when I got it were my first exposures to Elliott Smith, Pansy Division, Excuse 17, and the Peechees; all of which I still listen to 27 (!) years later. There are a few cool one-offs here, too. Gashly Snub is a Melvins spin-off band featuring Dale Crover. Shaken 69 is 3/4 of Operation Ivy along with members of Skankin' Pickle and the Uptones. Even the most obscure bands contribute memorable cuts.

To be perfectly honest, I typically skip the Mary Lou Lord track at the end of disc 2. She just never did much for me.

Discogs

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Nero - Untitled (Dune Concept Record)

I'm sharing this early Temporary Residence release to celebrate today's official release of "Dune", which almost certainly will be the first film I'll watch in a theatre in more than 2 years. I remember very little about this record, except I discovered it in the CD drawers at WMUC during one of the early morning DJ shifts I had my year at University of Maryland. I think Nero was from Louisville; they were half of the first record on Temporary Residence, and, as you can tell by the title of this post, they did a record about "Dune". That's literally all I remember about this. Well, that, and I liked this enough to rip it almost 20 years ago AND save the CD in my stacks. Sometimes, an interesting concept is enough to earn you a place in history.

"Dune" is one of my favorite books. It's definitely my most watched David Lynch movie. I'll probably watch the shit out of Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides, no matter what the reviews are. I'm hyped. And thus I have shared far too much.

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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The Out_Circuit - Burn Your Scripts, Boys (unmastered)

Nathan Burke is the Out_Circuit

I honestly couldn't even tell you the "when I saw them" part of when I saw the Out_Circuit. I would guess it was the Ottobar, 2002, even though I haven't the faintest idea who else played with them. Such was the impression they left on me that night. It was what I heard when I listened to Smart Went Crazy, to Karate, to Juno; the influence of ambient music, jazz, post-hardcore, presented live in a way I hadn't heard often. I listened to "Burn Your Scripts, Boys" like it was going out of style. I assumed they'd end up doing the record with Magic Bullet or Lovitt or DeSoto. Yet it took over two years for a label to pick this up, finally releasing in 2004 as a split between D.C.'s Lujo Records and the UK's Autoclave Records on the CD, and Austin's Arclight Records on the vinyl. I was pretty boggled at the delay. Even going 15 years since my last listen, I'm still amazed that more people haven't discovered this.

This is ripped from the initial, limited to 250 units CD-R that I picked up from Nathan that night at the Ottobar. Recorded by Ken Olden and Brian McTernan in DC, it would later be mastered by Chad Clark for the actual release. I hear more distortion on the bass end of this unmastered release. It's never been an unappealing thing to me; I like hearing things in progress. I discovered that Nathan Burke now lives out here in Seattle, and put out a new Out_Circuit record in 2018. I'll be picking that one up this Friday for Bandcamp Friday.

Discogs

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Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Live at All Tomorrow's Parties, 8 April 2000

I'll set aside the poetry for my second GSY!BE post. Am I feeling more hopeful? Only, perhaps, that the inevitable class war will kick off in the next six weeks or so.

What I remember about the first All Tomorrow's Parties was that it was one of the first Wire reunions, Shellac and Sigur Rós were playing, and that I was otherwise unthrilled by the lineup. ATP seemed like a good idea, though; let's go to a resort and watch a bunch of bands booked by another band play with 1,000 like-minded souls. Even if you're only hyped on 1 out of 4 bands, you'll probably get stoked on a few more, meet some folks, make out, drink, eat some weird pills, make some memories.

Within a couple years, friends would end up traveling to the UK every spring. The second-hand reports of Mission of Burma playing live, or watching Iggy & the Stooges play on the Queen Mary were mind-blowing. Who would have ever thought you'd get to actually see these bands grown up listening to? Even better was discovering the taste of some of your favorite artists. Yes, it's fun to see who My Bloody Valentine, or Matt Groening, or Belle and Sebastian would want to put into a lineup. Coachella's vibe was always a little more mercenary; this was fantasy camp for indie rock dorks.

So here's Godspeed from the first ATP. I really enjoy that they're not on the "offical" flier. They bookended the original festival series, playing the first and final shows, as well as seven others across the 12 year, four continent series. Any of the shows they played would have been a ripper, although I'll admit to wishing I'd seen them in 2011 in London, when they played in a lineup alongside Portishead, Swans, Beach House, and an Alan Moore/Stephen O'Malley performance. Dope show.

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Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Hung Over As The Queen In Maida Vale

Photo by J.M Giordano

What will we do
when it feels like the future is past?

Will a song still lift our spirits
boil our blood
lead us to search for something greater than us?

We ask ourselves
"Is the job worth doing?
"Who will protect me?
"Will I see tomorrow?"
when we suspect the answers are
"No."
"No one."
"No."

Let us
answer with conviction
let us
accept the flame and the gas and the rod
our backs are straight and our words pure

We have nothing but ourselves.

Click here to download.