Girls Against Boys - Park Avenue

I have decided to forgo the traditional Mojo Monday this time around to share something that I've had on vinyl since it came out, and something I just acquired a promo of in the past couple of weeks. I also have a lot of two dozen Mojo comps coming in the mail this week, which will cover us into 2027. So here we are with a break in habit.

Girls Against Boys was a good example of what happened to hardcore kids when they "outgrew punk" in the 90s. Made up of 3/4 of the beloved DCHC band Soulside, GvsB released a trio of records for Touch & Go before getting signed by DGC Records in 1997. As far as major label signings go, it made sense. GvsB made the sort of music that fit well on the shelf with Helmet, latter-day New Order, Soul Coughing, and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. When "Freak*On*Ica" came out in 1998, I remember it having a listening station at work, very cool point of purchase gear, and a design aesthetic that read more downtempo than indie rock. Our record department, located in the back of a suburban Baltimore bookstore, ended up not selling a single copy and returning all 30 copies six months later to the distributor.

It turns out pop & nu-metal just fucking buried records like this. There was no one championing this indie darling's experimental fifth record. "Park Avenue" wasn't going to outplay "Flagpole Sitta" or "Sex And Candy" on the radio; not even GvsB's hometown station WHFS gave this more than a few spins. If this had come out of Bristol or Manchester, or come out on Creation, Melody Maker or the NME probably would have given this single massive coverage. And it would have been able to draft that into greater acclaim in the States.

I got the Akashic 7" of this a few weeks after it came out via Dischord Direct. I loved the B-side, a dancy remix of "American Black Hole". But this was firmly in my past until a few weeks ago, when I found this 4-track promo CD in a dollar bin. It was so cool to find two additional remixes that I hadn't heard before. Plus remembering how much I enjoyed the 7". I had to share it with you.

Discogs

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various artists - Bloodclot

I have no clue how I ended up with this compilation.

Was it the name? Did I misidentify this as a mid-70s roots reggae comp? Or a tribute to Cro Mags' vocalist John Joseph? The cover is giving me mid-90s SoCal punk graphic design. The cover photo reminds me of the kind I'd have taken outside a showspace I went to in Baltimore back around this time. Maybe that's it...maybe, whenever I nabbed this one, I took a wag because maybe I thought it had some deepish cut Orange County tracks, the kind that I've been enjoying digging because I couldn't bother listening to it when it was new.

This is not that. This has two of the most ubiquitous songs of 1998 on it, with "The Rockefeller Skank" and "One Week" both popping up on the front end of this HITS radio sampler. The selections from K's Choice and Spacehog are not the songs that played everywhere. I didn't own either of these records, so it was interesting hearing what their respective labels were positioning as singles. Truth be told: the most interesting songs come on the back half of the CD, with Rufus Wainwright, Emm Gryner, and Dimitri From Paris all making appearances. It's capped off with that one MxPx song that I remember the video from, a pretty solid pop punk track from a band that hailed a ferry ride away from my current home base.

Discogs

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various artists - Spin This V

I've been laying pretty low on purchases since the first of the year. But I broke edge a few days ago; a record nerd can't stay out of the thrift store for long. I stumbled across this now-31-year-old sampler from Spin Magazine, and immediately flashed back to seeing the video for "Undone (The Sweater Song" in my neighbor's den for the first time. His folks kept the shades well drawn, so what natural light made it in had this yellow tinge to it. We stopped what we doing at the first beats from Patrick Wilson; it was unlike anything we'd ever heard up 'til then. Fuckin' Weezer, man. Always brings a smile to my face.

Plus: Mazzy Star! Frente! covering New Order! Major label Meat Puppets! Morphine! Guided By Voices! Plus a bunch of stuff that 30 years on I still don't recognize outside of a radio station giveaway bin. Kinda perfect for this space. I can never resist throwing a buck to a animal rescue or a job's program in return for something like this.

Discogs

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various artists - Uncut: Main Sounds (15 Tracks Of The Month's Best Music)

I don't typically fuck with Uncut Magazine. And the price I paid for this reflects what I gather is most folks' interest in the content here. One measly cent American, plus a nominal shipping fee, was all it cost. With all apologies to most of the performers herein, there are only a few cuts here worth that copper.

So, who did I like? Those kids in Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever are pretty great, although that wasn't in question before I copped this. Same goes for Sharon Van Etten, whose music I realized I've been casually encountering for a decade and a half. I wasn't familiar with cellist Layla McCalla's background initially, but it's been nice seeking out the catalog of this former member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops. Finally, the Quebecois trio Cola were a nice surprise coming towards the end of the 15 tracks contained herein. They had a real "Tuesday night touring band" vibe coming off their track; with a new record that came out in June, they made my list of Bandcamp Friday pickups for December.

Discogs

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various artists - Back To (Old) School

Confession time: I bought this on account of its cover, which reminded me of the alma mater of one Ms. Rory Gilmore. This is the sort of thing her friend Lane Kim would have made as a mix, had she worked in the radio trade in the mid 90s.

Also, there's a lemur theme throughout the liner notes. Bonus.

I vaguely recall seeing Hits Magazine come into my local college radio station. But I was always more of a CMJ reader, so what Hits was hawking generally passed over my head. No so this compilation. Led off by the beloved Superchunk, who apparently spent money on a radio-friendly mix of "Hyper Enough", this is a shockingly good selection of what was being pushed in 1995. Sure, Semesonic and Toad the Wet Sprocket and poe. are all kind of duds to these ears. But Spacehog and Air Miami still rule; the UK contributions mid-CD are all pretty rad, and Knapsack and Deftones highlight the tail end. There's even a cover of "You Oughta Know" by 1000 Mona Lisas that I remember turning up a few times when hearing it on WHFS.

And now the title holds true, as this all makes up the C playlist of oldies radio around the country. We are all slowly rotting bags of flesh, holding tight to memories of misspent youth.

Discogs

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various artists - Total Blam Blam! (A Brilliant Batch Of Bowie-Inspired Rockers)

This is the platonic ideal of any dollar bin purchase. There were zero expectations going into this one. Hell, I didn't recognize a single name amongst the 16 bands appearing herein. This seems more like an unsigned band comp than it does a "Bowie-inspired" collection. And viewed through that prism (listened to through those headphones?), this is pretty good. I wouldn't be bummed out at all to encounter any of these folks as the second of four bands on a Thursday night.

Not that I'm out on Thursday nights, listening to garage rock or punk glam along with 30-50 other locals.

Anyway, this is a much better comp than I would have expected from the likes of Classic Rock Magazine, the Mojo for boomers who nod sagely when they hear a band from their youth sold their catalog to Hipgnosis.

(I'm just mad that Maximum Rock 'n' Roll hasn't been in print in years.)

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 - Discos Matador: Intended Play 2007

Initially, I thought I'd do an unexplained list, ranking each year's Matador releases from inception through today. But CHRIST, that's 33 years of records, man. That's a long way to go for a bit.

Let's just say that 2007 was a pretty decent year. I like that Ponys record an awful lot. Matador released a great Times New Viking 7" ahead of the following year's drop of "Rip It Off". The Cave Singers put out their first full length. Shearwater joined the label with a deluxe reissue of 2006's "Palo Santo", and Lavendar Diamond & Love Of Diagrams dropped their first Matador records.

The big one for 2007 was the New Pornographers' "Challengers". Is it represented on this sampler? No, dear reader, it is not. But there's a cut off Cat Power's "Jukebox", which ended up coming out the following year. You get a live Mission of Burma track, a Yo La Tengo track, and, most importantly to me, a pair of Earles & Jensen prank calls. That's right, gang. Bleachy is BACK in town. He's going down to the Checkers to get himself a grip of Big Bufords, y'all!

Also present: a 22-year-old Pavement cut, if you're into that sort of thing.

Discogs

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various artists - You've Just HEARD The Movie, Now Hear This...Hype!

This one had been sitting in a box for about 22 years before I finally whipped it out and ripped it. A promo-only sampler, timed to release in alongside the VHS of Doug Prey's "Hype!", it's five recent cuts from Sub Pop artists. I probably snagged it for the Murder City Devils track; I held onto it for the cover, the simplicity of which still really appeals to me. Not being able to say much about the other four artists on this 5" disc, I guess I should throw this onto my phone and give it a spin in the car.

The sale of this piece is prohibited.

Discogs

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