various artists - Jon Savage's 50 Pre-Punk Missing Links

I'm writing this blog about 35 minutes before it's scheduled to post. It's less than an hour to Labor Day, so I don't feel particularly obliged to do much more than post something up.

One of the homies over at Twilight Zone originally posted this up last year. Apparently, very early on in Mojo's history, Jon Savage made a list of 50 songs predating punk that led to its explosion. It's a list that runs from 1969 (Gong) to 1977 (Richard Hell & Devo). And it is an incredible playlist. For every "T.V. Eye" or "Final Solution", there are songs like Lucifer's "Fuck You" or George Brigman's "Jungle Rot"; total outsider rock that never made it to the cut-out bin.

My contribution was properly dating each song, attaching the original release it appears on, and adding a genre. Put this on today and tell the boss you ain't coming in.

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various artists - No Alternative

If the blog count is to be believed, this is post #750. Pretty good for an amateur writer with a stuttering memory and shit taste in music. It's a real testament to my "never-say-die, never-think-things-through, never-consider-irrelevance" attitude towards life.

"No Alternative" came out shortly after my 16th birthday and is one of the few Columbia House acquisitions I've managed to hold onto. And why not? It was the first Red Hot benefit I picked up, initially for the Beastie Boys and Nirvana tracks. It was my introduction to Pavement, Uncle Tupelo, and Patti Smith. Who could ever part with such a momentous, influential release?

Now that it's been 30+ years that I've owned this, it's a lot easier to look back and pick up on things I missed as a teenager. I didn't know that Urge Overkill were covering Marvin Gaye or that the Goo Goo Dolls were covering the Stones. I definitely didn't know that Bob Mould was the guy from Sugar back then (I did know that Sugar were good). I hadn't yet put together that the leader of the Breeders used to be married to John Murphy. And could I have imagined that the guy from Buffalo Tom would eventually become a troubadour in Stars Hollow, or that I'd eventually associate the singer of Smashing Pumpkins more with pro wrestling than alt.rock? I know all these things and more now, the benefit of age and a greatly expanded record collection. To think: maybe if I hadn't snagged this one all that time ago, I might not have taken this path to the music and the misery.  And you wouldn't have gotten two hundred ninety-two words about it all.

(Postscript: the Sarah McLachlan and Matthew Sweet tracks still swing.)

Discogs

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various artists - Spin: 100% Original

The words "Ocean Pacific" pops out at me, one of those brands of my youth, up there with Airwalk, Vans, Stüssy, Jncos, Bones Brigade, and Sex Wax as signifiers of teenage fashion of a certain era. Not that I could afford any of the above, nor did I have the cool uncle/aunt/older sibling who'd plunk down money on them so I could feel cool. As a result, I'm not particularly driven towards tracking down any fluorescent shorts or skin-tight monochromatic tees from early adolescence. Thank g_d for Mom & Dad's cheapness for avoiding that particular nostalgic curse.

This promo, sampling the contemporary Atlantic Records roster of 1999, is the sort of thing I would have tossed immediately back then, but happily share with you today. Just do yourself a favor; avoid track 4. Nothing good comes of listening to Bob Ritchie nowadays.

On the other hand: Fountains of Wayne, Fat Joe, Bad Religion, and Latin Playboys all provide no worse than decent cuts from their then-current records. There's a Collective Soul track, a sampling from the swing revival, and a few others that I cannot be arsed to revisit. Also sponsored by Spin Magazine, although I couldn't say if this was a giveaway with Spin, an OP purchase, or a mailaway. I'd think this was attached to a Spin subscription; otherwise, how would I have ended up with a copy?

Discogs

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Masshysteri - Vår Del Av Stan

I popped into one of the many record stores that have popped up in the north Seattle suburbs in the past couple years today. I didn't know what I wanted; only that I wanted to hang out for a while, have a beer or two (it's a record bar, duh), and buy something based on someone else's taste.

It didn't quite work out that way. While my bartender and I discussed the finer points of late 90s power violence and I shared my opinions on Coalesce, my record tenders couldn't quite point me in the direction of something I didn't already own. They DID suggest Lip Cream's "Kill Ugly Pop", an Abrasive Wheels compilation, some Sleep records. All good recommendations; all recordings I already own.

In the end, I picked up a copy of World Burns To Death's "The Sucking Of The Missile Cock", a Portland crust classic, the Hardcore Holocaust release of which I probably sold in the mid-aughts to make a mortgage payment. This led me down the path of talking about records that Sonarize had reissued in recent years, which took me to Scandanavian hardcore, which brought me to Masshysteri, one of the most perfect punk bands of the past 20 years. This is their first of two full lengths, released by Feral Ward here in the States and by Ny Våg in their native Sweden. Masshysteri was the continuation of a line that includes the Vicious, Regulations, the (International) Noise Conspiracy, Insurgent Kid, and INVSN. Hell, one of their members used to be in Doughnuts, a Victory Records band that I actively ignored in the 90s but keep thinking I'll finally check out one of these days if I can just find a copy of their full length in the dollar bin.

ANYWAY...

Masshysteri: good-ass band. It's hardcore kids playing power pop, which is my favorite performance style of power pop.

Discogs

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various artists - Good Vibrations: A Record Shop, A Label, A Film Soundtrack

It's a quiet Sunday, the first weekend of April, here in the PNW, a bit rainy and grey. A wonderful day for laundry, the Criterion Channel, and a bit of light blogging. We're back in the saddle again, picking up where we left off with this, the soundtrack to a documentary about one of the all-time great shops/labels/institutions, Belfast's Good Vibrations. And while I've not seen the doc, this is one I couldn't leave behind on the Central Coast last winter when it crossed my path at $7.

Is it nitpicky to ask why Protex isn't here? Yeah, it is, but "Don't Ring Me Up" was G.V.'s sixth release. Its absence seems a bit pointed. But I can't find any fault with what was compiled here. A mix of Good Vibrations releases ("Teenage Kicks", "Big Time", "Just Another Teenage Rebel"), inspirations (Bert Jansch, Bowie, Niney The Observer, the Shangri-Las), and contemporaries (S.L.F., the Saints, Suicide) make for a really great record of what made the shop so special in its relatively short life.

Discogs

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various artists - Home Alive: The Art Of Self-Defense

Here's what I remember about when this came out, through the eyes of an 18-year-old who lived on the other side of the country from the circumstances:

• Most of the folks I knew were more interested in this for the unreleased Pearl Jam song, the live Nirvana track, and Joan Jett & Kathleen Hanna performing with the remaining members of the Gits than the genesis why Home Alive was created.
• I had no clue what sort of violence women encountered in the world at the time. I would learn.
• I remember thinking, when the promo copy arrived at the college radio station I volunteered for, that it couldn't possibly be worth listening to, on account of being released by Epic Records.
• That's a point of view that is hilarious in retrospect. How many folks got their first exposure to Tribe 8, Lydia Lunch, or ¡TchKunG! as a result of picking this up? There are so many fiercely independent artists here, not to mention the wide range of spoken word performers and poets present.

This is a pretty iconic benefit comp, all things considered, in celebration of a wonderful human whose time came way too soon. Volume 2 would come five years later on the Seattle/San Francisco label Broken Rekids. Along with a trio of 7"s that came out on local label Crash Rawk Records, it's a resounding body of support that still stands up as well as any benefit.

Discogs

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various artists - Steal This Disc 3

In fact, I did not steal this disc. I paid a dollar ninety-nine for it mere weeks ago.

A quick one, as I prepare for a full-day training session on my Sunday. It's fascinating how the music you're introduced to at an early age shapes your entire listening existence. While I didn't own an exact copy of this in the early 90s, my early CD collection was littered with Ryko releases. The Bowie and Zappa reissue series, Hendrix's Radio One sessions and "Live at Winterland" set, "Hardcore Devo" Vols. 1 & 2, and Mission of Burma's Ace of Hearts output all populated my shelves before I graduated high school. They were mostly appointed in the distinctive green Rykodisc jewel cases, making them stand out that much more amongst the other pieces of my slowly-growing collection.

This one broadens my decidedly-narrow view from junior year. There are a trio of Beatles-adjacent tracks from Ringo, Badfinger, and Paul McCartney's brother. Rykodisc really leaned into world music with the likes of 3 Mustaphas 3 and the Oyster Band. I had no clue Jerry Jeff Walker and Evan Johns had put out records on Ryko until I snagged this; Nils Lofgren was less surprising, as was a Henry Kaiser project.

I don't know if it says more about the priorities of the music industry or the tastes of listeners that you just don't get this sort of awesome shotgunning any more. I suspect it's the former; I know that amongst my own aging group of freaks that we're even more likely to acknowledge that we want to listen to Ornette Coleman, Lack Of Interest, Wendy Carlos, and Barbara Dane, often times one right after the other.

The fold-out cover, exhibited below, is just the cherry on top of a collection that still fucking slaps.

Discogs

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various artists - Silver Lake...What A Drag!

This was another dollar find on eBay, purchased mainly for the opportunity to actually hear the Negro Problem for the first time. That's right; it took me 28 years to hear a relatively-unknown band with an edgy name. It was...fine.

This comp, themed around bands from L.A.'s Silver Lake neighborhood (not, as I've thought for years, Silverlake), came out on a short-lived Thump Records sub-label. I knew Snap-Her and Popdefect going into things, and with those exceptions, this sounds like a label showcase at Jabberjaw on a Tuesday night. It's a bunch of bands that are perfectly competent, but nothing that really stands out to me. "Clever" names and a cool neighborhood are all well and good, but...meh.

But what do I know? I was listening to a bunch of records that came out on Victory in 1996.

Discogs

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various artists - Sub Pop: Patient Zero

It's been twenty years since the release of this particular Sub Pop sampler, and if you don't think the gravity of the fact that it's been twenty years since "Our Endless Numbered Days" and "Burned Days" came out isn't weighing on me like so many dozens of boxes full of vinyl being moved from apartment to house to apartment to storage unit then homey you're clearly a boomer or a Zedder.

The fun part is admitting that, at least where this spotlight on Sub Pop's discography is concerned, my taste remains pretty fossilized. Still love the Thermals, iron and Wine, and the Catheters, hate the Shins, feel ambivalent about the rest. But, hey, you might be really into Rogue Wave or the Helio Sequence. And there is a Postal Service remix on this that I didn't previously own, so I guess it was worth the buck plus shipping I paid a few weeks ago.

Discogs

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various artists - CMJ Presents Certain Damage! - Volume 30

When i think of CMJ, the College Music Journal, I think of going to the cool bookstore as a teenager, copping "New Music Monthly", and learning about what the kids a few years older than me were into. I didn't know about publicists or the politics of major labels or the world of college rock; I just knew I was getting drawn into something that didn't play on the radio in southwestern Virginia. It wasn't covered in "Rolling Stone" or "Spin", aside from the occasional 50-word review. And when it did show up on MTV, it was in the "120 Minutes" ghetto, banished to late, late night.

Not that I got cable that far out in the boondocks.

"Certain Damage!" was the precursor to the NMM samplers that I'd swipe out of Borders. I've turned up a few of these recently, all dating from the days before Lollapalooza. Volume 30 here has the last great Replacements song, a Redd Kross cut, the Jane's Addiction song you'd actually hear on the radio in the daytime. There's also a Hank Rollins side project, an appearance by both Fred Firth and Henry Kaiser on the same track, and the first house track I remember hearing (Soho, "Hippychick").

This was what the College Music Journal thought was worth hearing, the month of my 13th birthday.

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 - This One's For The Fellows: A Sonic Salute To The Young Fresh Fellows

One of the things I enjoy about living in the Seattle area is stumbling across the regional releases that I never saw or even heard of back on the East Coast. Rarely are they much money, so it's really easy to stock up on recordings from 15, 20, 30 years ago that I might otherwise not consider picking up. I've ended up with a bunch of releases on C/Z and Up!, all kinds of records from the Murder City Devils family tree...even those bands that might have opened for R.E.M. back in the 90s that I would never have bought at full price.

Case in point: this tribute to the Young Fresh Fellows, released by Visqueen associate Peter Hilgendorf on his BlueDisguise Records, I get power pop a lot more in my 40s than I did in my 20s, so this vein of PNW punky sweetness in literally music to my ears. Hilgendorf assembled a great lineup for this one: YFF contemporaries like Robyn Hitchcock, the Figgs, and the Silos, locals like the Makers, Mono Men, and Presidents of The United States of America, and out of towners like the Groovie Ghoulies and Stephen Malkmus all contribute their takes on a catalog that stretches back to the days of the Paisley Underground. It's pretty good stuff, all told, made all the sweeter that I think I found it for $2 in one of my regular huants.

Discogs

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various artists - No-Fi Trash: A Floppy Cow Records Compilation

I'm not going to say that I have a thing for circa-"turn of the millenium" punk samplers, but I'm not not going to say it, either.

This one came to us from Switzerland, by way of a seller in San Diego, who may have gotten it via Suburban Home Records, then someone who probably received it in some mailorder sometime in the past 20+ years. It has a sampling of the finest names of the era: "Very Emergency"-era Promise Ring, one of my favorite Hot Water Music cuts, the same from the Get Up Kids. There are those who I liked in small does (Sarge, the Anniversary) and those who I avoided wherever I could (Lagwagon, Useless ID). Then there is the vanguard of the early aughts pop punk explosion: New Found Glory, Alister,  and No Motiv.

Truth be told, I dropped the buck on this because there was a Tugboat Annie track that I didn't already own. Totally worth it.

Discogs

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various artists - Blackbox Compilation

Fuck it; let's share another comp.

Blackbox Records lasted for a dozen plus singles over two years in post-unification Germany. This, Blackbox's 14th and final release, offers a pretty decent overview of their output during that time. Their second release was a four-song live 7" by Canadian pop punkers Doughboys, featuring a cover of KISS's "Stole Yer Love" which appears here. Big Drill Car also contributes a live version of Billy Joel's "Big Shot", which originally appeared on their split with Thud! While neither band shows up on this comp, Blackbox also released live 7"s from post-Necros project Big Chief and Grant Hart's band Nova Mob. Both cuts from Pittsburgh garage rockers Heretics were drawn from their 1991 single. There's even an acoustic contribution from Samiam, which showed up Stateside via their "Don't Break Me" 10".

But the reason I kept this were the two songs from Leatherface. It wasn't like I was going to find a copy of the "Eagle" 7" out in the wild back when I laid my paws on this in the mid-90s, so a chance to hear a Frankie Stubbs original, from the period between "Mush" and "Minx"...well, I was going to take that chance. I had no idea that "Eagle" was actually an ABBA song. "Dreaming", the Leatherface original on this single, also showed up on the "Compact & Bijou" EP, another Leatherface release that only existed for me on secondhand dubs until Deranged's reissue of "Discography Part 2" eleven years later.

Discogs

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various artists - Teenage Rebel ... ... Der Sampler - Volume 2

I've turned some fun, inexpensive records this week; very little of which I would post here. But when one finds a cheap copy of "Rumours", or the last Daft Punk record, or the only Yellowman major label release, I suppose one has to pick them up.

I snagged this because it reminded me of all the good things I've downloaded over the years from WhyDoThingsHaveToChange. I started visiting because they'd post up some great bootlegs, as well as some real solid records I'd never taken the time to rip on my own. I keep visiting for the insanely deep selection of European punk, power pop, Oi!, and hardcore they share, very little of which I've ever been exposed to. Just this week, they've paired a Steve Roberts (ex-UK Subs) solo record with a KBD classic from Victim. To keep it 100, today's post is T.S.O.L.'s 1981 deathrock classic "Dance With Me". It's a daily visit for me.

Just like the cover says, this is the second sampler from Düsseldorf's Teenage Rebel Records. The primitive cover was what grabbed me; it made me think of those limited-to-25-copies CDr's with handdrawn covers that you'd encounter on a band's merch table. I flipped it and recognized a few bands: Terrorgrupe, Artless, and Male. Once I ripped it and gave it a spin, I found it quite worth the $3 I paid. It's a small price to pay for 30 tracks of (mostly) German language punk, with a smattering of hardcore and power pop.

It also makes me miss the days before the common market, when I had to try to remember the basic conversion rates for 15 different countries, instead of two. I also enjoyed walking to school in the snow...uphill...both ways.

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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Empire - Expensive Sound

I didn't grow up in DC, per se, but what happened there musically in the 80s and 90s had an outsized influence on my taste. And like any good lil record nerd, I chased every band mentioned in an interview with Ian MacKaye or on a Jawbox flier. As a result, I have a metric fuckton of really obscure, but great, CDs in my collection that go for $5-$15 a piece on Discogs, due to lake of knowledge.

The Empire LP, "Expensive Sound", is one of those rarities, a record notable for its members' lineage and the influence it had on a few key players in the DC hardcore scene. Those members were Mark Laff and Bob Derwood Andrews, late of Generation X before that outfit turned outright into the Billy Idol show. Andrews and Laff both found themselves at odds with Idol's and bassist Tony James' goals to embrace a more mainstream sound and look for the band, and started Empire in London with Simon Bernal from experimental collective MLR.

What they turned out was a post-punk record that one could argue is proto-emo in sound. When I listen to this, I hear exactly where the fellas in Embrace were coming from musically when they made their self-titled record in 1986. That continues throughout the Dischord catalog into the 90s, with bands like Ignition, Soul Side, and 3 wearing the influence on their musical sleeves.

What I'm sharing here comes from the 2003 reissue of "Expensive Sound", expanded with seven unreleased tracks and a quartet of live cuts from 1981. Released by Northern Virginia's Poorly Packaged Products, it was followed up in 2006 with another CD of previously unissued Empire recordings; I've never seen a copy of that one in the wild. The folks at Drastic Plastic in Omaha also put out a really nice vinyl reissue a few years back that is 100% worth snagging at $15.

Discogs

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various artists - Singles: The Great New York Singles Scene

So what we have here is a load of classic record sides from various New York independent bands of the mid- and late-70s, collected on a single cassette, courtesy of the gang at ReachOut International Records, better known to the likes of youse as ROIR. What a great label: the home to the first Bad Brains and Bush Tetras records, the Stimulators tape, Glenn Branca and Suicide and Lee "Scratch" Perry and G.G. Allin and the Raincoats and just a metric fuckton of amazing sounds from downtown when it was still a beautiful shithole where you could get an apartment for $75 a month.

They're all stone cold hits. One could slap the original 1974 cut of "Piss Factory" of Patti Smith on as side A, track 1, fart on a snare drum for the remaining 87 minutes of a C90, and it'd still be worth it. But to then follow up with a pair of Ork Records releases ("Little Johnny Jewel Pt. 1" and a pre-Voivods "Blank Generation"), and you know you're in for sheer excellence. While the remainder of the tape isn't quite as Hall of Fame as those first three, they're all an awesome sampling of pre-Koch DIY NYC. There's the John Cale-produced Model Citizens, and Theoretical Girls, featuring Glenn Branca, both presaging the No Wave scene. Invaders and the Speedies turn out a pair of power pop cuts that, had they come out of L.A. or the Midwest, would have influenced generations of tunesmiths who wanted to be something more than KISS or Cheap Trick. Even the Mumps, playing something akin to post-glam, wouldn't truly get their due for years until after vocalist Lance Loud died.

Despite the last release of this coming in the early 90s, only some of these cuts have gotten collected elsewhere; I'm thinking specifically about Numero Group's awesome "Ork Records: Complete Singles" box set from 2015. Still, with the weather turning a bit cold and a leather jacket becoming climate appropriate, this is a good way to tune into some old stuff that wouldn't otherwise be easy to track down.

Discogs

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The Fall-Outs - s/t

Monday is here, and I need something to start the week off right. So let's kick off with one of the great underappreciated Seattle records. Here's the self-titled Fall-Outs LP.

I wrote about this back in 2009, so I guess it's technically a re-up, but let's pretend it's not, shall we? After all, the writing in that post was straight up garbage, and 11 years have sweetened the taste of this here slab even more. "The Fall-Outs" was just the second release on Steve Turner's (Green River, Mudhoney) Super Electro Sound Recordings, a label chock full of great garage punk and Art Chantry layouts. The Fall-Outs had already been kicking around for seven years when this came out; a tape, a pair of 7"s, and a split all proceeded this release. Guitarist Dave Holmes and drummer Dino Lencioni were joined by Turner here. The result was outstanding.

Of course, I wouldn't experience it for another 8 years. I know I'd heard it in the interim; my buddy Greg, who was a monster Sub Pop fan, stuck in the Baltimore suburbs, had asked me to special order a copy of the 1995 CD issue, and had sung its praises. I wouldn't really hear it, though, until I started working at Reptilian, which kept a copy underneath the counter and played it at least twice a week. It reminded me of the line from "The Simpsons": "Too crazy for Boys Town; too young for Crazy Town." It had a poppier sound than the likes of New Bomb Turks, Mono Men, or the Makers, to name three contemporaries. But it also had an edge to it that ran in the blood of Washington garage bands.

The Fall-Outs were done by the time I got hip to them. They'd made a pair of additional LPs, released a few more singles, and slowly faded into history. Estrus put out their 3rd LP in 2004; I have no clue if it'd been recorded in the previous century, or if they'd reunited for one last run. I still feel like they deserved a lot better. I'd rather listen to this than the Strokes any day.

Discogs

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various artists - Boot Power Vol. 5 - 1970-1979

PYMCA/UIG via Getty Images

We've reached the end of our Boot Power adventure with today's post of Volume 5. By now, you've found a boot's full of new bands to dive further into. My mission is complete.

Standout tracks here? Well, I'm partial to the punk tracks on the comp: Menace, Sham 69, Slaughter & the Dogs, those guys playing "Government Action". I'd never heard the Sensational Alex Harvey Band until downloading this. Now "Next" is a go-to record when making a glam tape. I also think I've mentioned it before; if you haven't checked out the (Hammersmith) Gorillas, do it now.

I'll admit to some real sadness when I come across an awesome blog with dead links. It's doubly bad when I consider a blog like Crazee Kids Sound, where I was aware of it in its heyday, but didn't dive in until they were defunct. So many cool comps and rarities, now lost to time. Enjoy it while you have it, I suppose.

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