Victory & Associates - Party Savior

One of the coolest things about turntable.fm is that you meet people who like music. Really, really like music. People on that site play music, make music, talk about music, write about music, collect music, live and even eat music. I met Conan Neutron there, and I think he does all of those things, all at the same time somehow. I'm not quite sure how he does it.

Anyway, I managed to talk him into sending me one of his bands' 7" with my order of his Victory & Associates full length LP. What a blast these two records are. Good ol' fashioned Indie RAWK (LOUD, not like that wimpy current Indie stuff) is timeless; and Victory & Associates fits in with a lot of this blogs' stuff from 20 years ago, yet still manages to sound all fresh and new at the same time.

A: Party Savior
B: Thousandaire
Enjoy!
(and please- go buy the LP, it's cheap, and it's worth it for "You Can't Eat Prestige" alone)

Update

Lots of traffic lately thanks to Everett True. The blog has been on a bit of a hiatus, (busy lately) but I will get some fresh material up here soon. Really!

Babes in Toyland - House

Lots of work road trips have cut into blogging and ripping time. I've  accumulated about a dozen 7" to rip over the last 2 months, and they're just gathering dust while I'm in Ohio or Michigan for work. I'll see if I can get moving on these.

I'm marching slowly but steadily towards the goal of getting the whole Singles Club Part 1 together. Of course that first single might not happen, it's a bit rare, but I'll get the rest of them in place.

As for this band- they weren't really a part of Riot Grrrl, they actually pre-date it. I guess they're sort of a girl grunge band, and they sound the part on this single. The vocals take some getting used to; Kat Bjelland is all over the place. She screeches, howls and screams her way through both tracks.

A: House
B: Arriba
Enjoy!

Nervous Eaters - No More Idols

On the road a lot the last few weeks. Falling behind; I've got plenty of 7" to rip still, I just haven't gotten around to it.

Breaking out of the steady stream of Sub Pop that I've been on lately. The Nervous Eaters were Boston legends in the 70's and 80's, with local hits "When I Talk To Loretta" (recently covered by Neko Case) and "Just Head"

So I was pretty excited to find a cheap 7" of theirs recently. This was some early 2000's effort of theirs put out on some Spanish label (my first foray into this century!). It rocks-a-plenty, but it doesn't live up to their 70's stuff. Their early stuff was riding at the forefront of the whole punk thing, and had a wild, unpredictable energy to it. Hard to keep that going for 30 years, I suppose.

A: No More Idols
B: Today and Tomorrow
Enjoy!

Snow Bud and the Flower People- Killer Bud plus Third Shelf

Sub Pop Singles Club, August 1993

Look, if you can't figure it out from the Mad Magazine like artwork, the band name, or the album title, this is music for and by stoners.

"Killer Bud" is a long, slow jam with 60's-ish fuzzy guitar sounds, accompanied by a mellow, lazy sounding vocal track. It's everything you'd expect and oh, so much more.

"Third Shelf" is a bit more aggressive. The early 70's rock sounds are still there, but Snow Bud sings like a man who can't find his stash, and the song drifts into some crazy prog-rock thing for a moment.

A: Killer Bud
B: Third Shelf
Enjoy!

Didjits - Dear Junkie

November 1993 Sub Pop Singles Club

Straight up Chicago punk rock, noisy and fast. The B-sides are live tracks, which shows off some of their stage banter, something they had a reputation for.

By the way, I've been DJing a bit over at turntable.fm under the entirely predictable name of Daily 7 lately. I usually throw a song or two from the blog up while I'm there, so check it out if you get the chance.

A: Dear Junkie
B: Skull Baby, Fire in the Hole
Enjoy!

Big Chief - Chrome Helmet

Sub Pop Singles Club March 1990

Big Chief formed out of the ashes of the Laughing Hyenas and the Necros. Sub Pop signed them before they recorded anything based on their pedigree. This was an early venture outside of Seattle by Sub Pop. If the car reference (or the Necros reference) doesn't give it away, they're from Michigan. They cut three albums, one for SubPop before packing it in.

Both songs rock. Chrome Helmet seems a bit dated, I think it's the vocals, but it's still good.

A: Chrome Helmet
B: Blowout Kit
Enjoy!

Alice Cooper - School's Out

My other purchase last month in Columbus Ohio at Magnolia Thunderpussy.

This is a mid to late 80's re-issue of the "School's Out" single, with "I'm Eighteen" on the b-side replacing the original "Gutter Cat". I had a hard time finding a lot of information about this particular release. I figured due to the popularity of the Alice Cooper tribute 7", it seemed like a natural fit. And I might as well play School's Out before school starts up again. Both songs are classics, and rightfully so. Queue them up, crank the volume, and have a good time. 

A: School's Out
B: I'm Eighteen

Pigface - Empathy

By request again...October 1993 Sub Pop Single.

I was sort of surprised by the first track. I thought it would be some sort of face-melting industrial assault. It's a little more laid back with sitar riffs. Very interesting, and I liked it far more than I thought I would.

Steamroller is more of what I had in mind; an all-out sonic assault.

A: Empathy
B: Steamroller
Enjoy!

Severin - Beagles! Beagles!

June 1993 Sub Pop Singles Club, and by request!

I mentioned earlier that I liked the one song I had by these guys, and wished I'd found more by them. I also implied that they disappeared, and was quickly corrected by a few readers who pointed out that they had this among other things in their catalog.

Anyway, this is a great single. Very much in the DC post-hardcore vein, particularly the A-side. The B-side extends out into some very Dinosaur Jr-esque Indie-rock sounds, complete with wah pedals.

A: Waste of Time
B: Power Play
Enjoy!

David Bowie - Rock 'n' Roll Suicide

Picked up what looks like a late 70's/early 80's re-release of this vintage single (1974) in Columbus, OH at Magnolia Thunderpussy while traveling for work. It's the last track off of one of my favorite albums of all time, and probably the most important album in terms of forging some sort of taste in music in a young me. My mother owned a copy of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars and I played it a lot when I was maybe 10 or 11. It's really never grown old to me either; it's an album that I go back to almost annually, and I've never tired of it, unlike some of the other albums I've loved obsessively through the years. Anyway, this single was released 2 full years after The Rise and Fall... came out, as the label was trying to milk it for everything it could while waiting for Bowie to release something new.

The A-side is a classic, starting with an acoustic guitar and a simply sung opening and it builds into this massive, over the top crescendo with strings and horns and desperate vocals. It's a hell of a way to cap off a great album, and it works on its own too.

The B-side was pulled from 1971's Hunky Dory, and was recorded about a year and a half before "Suicide". Bowie went with the same acoustic-to-electric-to-orchestra approach back then, with the volume and drama slowly rising. It's not bad, but he clearly perfected the technique a little later with the A-side.

1/11/2016 update. David Bowie has left us.

A: Rock N' Roll Suicide
B: Quicksand
Enjoy!

Update

Not dead yet, just busy. Been on the road a lot for work the last few weeks, traveling all over the midwest. Haven't had much time for fun stuff, though I did find a great record store in Columbus OH  called Magnolia Thunderpussy. Grabbed some 70's  7" (Bowie and an Alice Cooper) there as well as a Black Flag t-shirt for a friend and for myself. Also got a few more old Sub Pop singles to rip, just haven't had the time. A couple more weeks of this and things will settle down and I'll start ripping stuff again.

Swamp Oaf

The Bags' alter-ego band, a mythical rock-monster band along the lines of Spinal Tap, according to Trouser Press. It's meant to be a bit more more psychedelic and experimental than the normal Bags stuff, so it's a little all over the place. It's sort of a Stooges meets Sabbath mish-mash, both in good and not-so-good ways. Some tracks venture into the ridiculous "Mama Swine", noodly jazz/rock instrumental, "Brain Masseuse" and others into straightforward heavy-duty-rock-n-roll "Steamroller", "(Howl at) The Moon".
 
Extremely rare, I've been looking for this album for years, and bought myself a copy online for my birthday last month. Had to buy it from someone in Denmark, so I'm happy to welcome the album home to the Boston area.

Definitely worth a listen. Most of these tracks are great, and this lends some credence to my earlier statement that this band could have and should have been big, or at least much bigger than they were.

While I'm on this Bags kick, I may just have to rip "Rock Starve" even though I already have it in digital format.

Enjoy!

The Bags - L. Frank Baum

Local legends. I got into these guys in the late 80's, by the mid 90's they had fizzled out. Which is too bad, had they been from Seattle or something, they might have made it big. I've heard that their career has been resuscitated by Guitar Hero, which is pretty cool, and they have released a few new albums in last four years or so.

This single isn't exactly their usual fare, which is sludgy rock stuff. This is some sort of send-up of metal acts at the time, turning The Wizard of Oz into a heavy metal rock-opera. It's genius.

"Max Roach" is an instrumental that's bit more in their style. It's not like it's a long drum solo or something you might expect from the title. My guess is that it was a play on Mission of Burma's instrumental B-side "Max Ernst" but who knows.

I managed to track down a copy of their Swamp Oaf album, and have ripped it, but haven't cut up the tracks. I'll get that up here sooner or later. It's worth a listen.

A: L. Frank Baum
B: Max Roach

Enjoy!

Rodney & The Tube Tops - I Hate The 90's

By Request! Sorry it took so long.

It has the makings of something truly great. Thurston Moore, Eric Erlandson (Hole's guitarist) and KROQ's punk/Indie-friendly L.A. DJ Rodney Bingenheimer all conspiring to put out some sort of cool album. (Rodney is the guy in between Moore and Erlandson, looking like a really nice and polite version of Iggy Pop)

Eh. Not quite what I was hoping for. Sometimes we wish too hard. While it does make fun of the 90's, which deserved it, (and yes, I got tattooed during that time...) it could have been better. Rodney's delivery kinda brings it down. I guess that's why he became a radio DJ instead of a singer, just as my jumbled fingers on my SG's fretboard have me (poorly) typing this now instead of playing in some club tonight.

A: I Hate The 90's
B: Tube Tops Forever/Cell Phone Madness
Enjoy!

Big Black - He's A Whore

Big Black's last single features an unlikely mix of covers. The A-side is an early, obscure Cheap Trick song, the B-side is a Kraftwerk song. As you'd expect, they nail them both in their own way. I prefer these versions to the originals. "He's A Whore" is a fairly obscure Cheap Trick song. It's fantastic. Cheap Trick really had a sense of humor, and I think the obscurity and nasty bit of comedy of this song made it a perfect cover for these guys.

As always, it's impeccably recorded, (it ripped incredibly well) and the album art can't be beat, with Big Black miming the covers from the original bands' albums. They really nail Cheap Trick's (and Kraftwerk's on the B-side) look.

A: He's A Whore
B: The Model
Enjoy!

Sebadoh - Special Elitist Mail-Order Single

Picked this up a while ago, but forgot that I hadn't posted it yet.

Released right before Harmacy, Sebadoh seemed to be making fun of Sub Pop with this one. Despite the name, it was not part of any Sub Pop Singles Club, or anything like that.

It's a strange release. Not much Lou, really. Two Jason songs, and unusual covers on the B-Side. Jason's "Princess" is quite good, one of his best songs. The B-side is all covers of surrealist/experimentalist 70's New Orleans band The Residents. They're strange. "Act Of Being Polite" has some sort of quirky cool thing that fits with Sebadoh's sound.

A: Princess, 1/2 Undressed
B: Act of Being Polite, Moisture, Suburban Bathers

Enjoy!

Not quite dead...

It's been a while since I've posted. Busy these days. Lots of long hours at work, and I'm trying to get in shape for a road race later this summer for charity. Running is great, but man, it takes up a lot of time. Driving is so much easier.

Anyway, there is some new stuff on the way. Check back next week, I'll have fulfilled another request (Rodney & The Tube Tops) and should have a full-length album by a legendary Boston band ready to go. I've also added to my Sebadoh 7" collection.

The Unband - Chung Wayne Lo Mein

I had always intended for this to be a vinyl-only enterprise. But something very unexpected made me change my mind. While I was away, it seems that Anthony Bourdain did a "No Reservations" show about the grittier, working class side of Boston, which we DVR'd while we were away and just got around to watching last night. Tony ate and drank his way through Southie with Mike Ruffino. "Who is Mike Ruffino?" you're probably asking. In fact my wife asked me. And I knew I that I knew that name from somewhere...

He played bass in The Unband, and wrote a book about their wild, excessive, yet low-rent not-quite-rock-star life. These guys were huge in Northampton when I was there in the early 90's, famous for playing (and trashing) the Bay State regularly. I caught them playing at a party in some apartment above Main St. once. Great show. Of course, the cops came and ended it. I think that's how a lot of their shows ended.

Anyway, I picked this up when it appeared in local shops in 1994. The internet will tell you it came out in 1996, but the internet is wrong. It came out on some tiny NoHo label in 1994 before a moderately larger indie label from W. Mass picked it up later. It's incredibly obscure, long out of print and hard to find, and it's one hell of a fun CD. Full of mindless loud fun like "Drop Out!" and "ABCDEFUCK" and of course, their mantra,  "We Like to Drink and We Like to Play Rock n' Roll". So, inspired by that show, and remembering what a little gem this CD is, I figured I'd break my vinyl only rule, and make sure a few more people know who Mike Ruffino is and who the Unband were.

Enjoy!

STP - Smoke 'Em

By request.

I want to thank biopunk for the recommendation. This rocks. An all girl band started by a former member of Pussy Galore, and produced/managed by Don Fleming and Kim Gordon. Could be great, could be crap, right? It's really good. "Hey Bastard" is a kick ass 1 minute long song that doesn't fuck around. Certainly worth a listen. Sadly, other than a couple of compilation tracks, this is it for their recorded material. They fell apart immediately.

Also, the singer is a dead ringer for my ex-girlfriend, the one with all of the Riot Grrrl stuff that appeared in this blog. Very strange. The resemblance is eerie.

Anyway, starting to get back to normal now that I'm home, but I'm running out of good material. I've got to go record shopping soon. Keep the requests coming. It's been fun to find these obscure bands and throw them up here. Anyway, things will be slow for a while while I restock.

Also, I've been given something quite unusual to rip for a friend- it's way outside of the normal scope of this blog, but will be fun to rip anyway, and I don't think he'll mind if I throw it up here. If anyone has anything to donate to this blog, let me know. I'll send it back!

A: Hey Bastard, Walkin
B: 25 Miles/Safer
Enjoy!

Brief Hiatus - back from Germany

Only in Germany will you see stuff like this...

I'll get back on track over the weekend. Was in Germany for a couple of weeks (my last couple of posts were on autopilot), and now that I'm home, I keep falling asleep before I can post. I've got a 7" from STP by request (No, not Stone Temple Pilots...) to rip and get up here.

I missed out on that very cool looking shop loaded with vinyl in Munich, which I'm kicking myself over. Just didn't have time, and the place was closed on Monday, and opened too late on Tuesday for me to get in there. Oh well.

Alice Donut - Nadine

Another 90's band that I never got too much into back then (hard to find their stuff where I was for some reason), but after re-discovering them, I find I like them. This seems to go against the grain, as a lot of people think they haven't aged well. I find them to be a bit in the Butthole Surfers vein of throwing some odd stuff into their songs, or writing about some strange things, but they were a bit more mainstream about it. Nothing wrong with that.

A: Nadine
B: The Chicken Door, Empty Streets

Enjoy!

Moby - That's When I Reach For My Revolver

Hey, why not, right? I was never into electronic music, but Moby covering Mission Of Burma and Devo on a 7" sounds too good to pass up.

The MOB cover is straight up, not all that much different from the original. A little more crunch on the guitars, but that's about it. The Devo cover is hilarious.

A: That's When I Reach For My Revolver
B: Whip It (Death Metal Version)
Enjoy!

Nirvana/The Fluid - Split Single

January 1991 Singles Club. I joined a few days too late to get this one way back when. I picked this up online. Needless to say, it cost a bit more now.

It's a decent live version of "Molly's Lips". They'd become well known for this song after a Peel Session recording of it showed up on Incesticide. I admit that I did investigate The Vaselines after realizing how much Cobain was into them, and I have their anthology CD around here somewhere.

The Fluid's guitarist Rick Kulwicki died recently. I'm not sure how these guys didn't make it bigger when the whole Seattle scene was under a microscope. Roadmouth is a solid rock album.

A: Nirvana - "Molly's Lips"

B: The Fluid - "Candy"

Enjoy!

The Specials - More Specials

Another one from the trunk! I thought I had this in digital format, and on closer inspection, I was wrong. So I ripped it and thought I'd put this up. This isn't as good as that first album, which is truly great, but the follow-up has its moments.

They definitely tried to stretch themselves a bit musically on this record, drawing on American Soul, Morricone soundtracks, 40's pop songs, and so on. It does make the album seem a bit scattershot compared the focused all-ska sound of the debut. "Enjoy Yourself" is a 40's song, and is a fun album opener (and closer, the reprise is sung with the Go-Gos, believe it or not...)  and "Man at C & A" is an outstanding psychedelic ska cold war song.

Anyway, a fun album, and certainly worth a listen. Throw it on at a party some time, it would fit right in.

Enjoy!

The Black Keys - The Moan

I first heard about these guys on NPR right when Rubber Factory came out. This was during my nearly music-free days, and I figured I should get off my ass check these guys out. I was hooked.

I guess Dan and Patrick want to cash in on the recent vinyl craze, because this 7" is a recent release of two songs they recorded in 2002. They're fun, high energy blues-garage tracks. The B-side is a solid cover of Richard Berry's 1959 song "Have Love Will Travel", which was also famously covered by garage pioneers The Sonics.

A: The Moan
B: Have Love Will Travel
Enjoy!

The Vivians - I Fear

By request. If I can find it at a reasonable price, sure, why not? Vinyl only though.

I managed to track an unopened copy down fairly cheap with some internet sleuthing.Unopened vinyl rips like a dream.

As for this, I can see why someone might fondly remember it. They seem like a pretty decent local act out of Cleveland in the early 90's, doing their version of the girl-grunge thing. They're heavier than I thought they would be. My only gripe is that they're a little weak on the lyrics. I tried to dig up something on this band and the only thing I could find was that the singer died a few years ago.

Hope you like it, panzan, whoever you are.

Enjoy!

The Stooges - 1969

OK, so I'm free from the burden of the trunk, but that just means I have no excuse now for my taste. No blaming me from 20 years ago for liking something terrible. Anything I post after that Shellac/Mule single had better be good, right?

This was a 2009 record store day re-release from Rhino/Elektra. It's hard to believe this stuff is over 40 years old. You just don't associate "menacing" with 60's music. "1969" is solid, with its Bo-Diddley beat backing up Iggy's boredom, but I'd really love to track down a 7" of  their "1970". That song rocks. They had a theme going. Rhino re-released that recently too, by the look of things. Hmmm. Might have to track that down.

"Real Cool Time" was written and recorded in an evening after the label told the Stooges that their planned debut record was too short. It's a filler track soaked in wah pedal.

A: 1969
B: Real Cool Time
Enjoy!

Big Boys - Lullabies Help The Brain Grow

When I ended the original portion of this blog, I mentioned that it would be strange not putting records from the old trunk up here. And that's true to some extent. But I'm also freed from the constraints of the trunk now too. I feel like a train that's been let off the rails, free to go wherever I want. I can go backward or forward in time at will now, exploring the recordings that led to the contents of that trunk, and the stuff that followed after it.

So, with that, here's the Big Boys' 1983 album  Lullabies Help The Brain Grow. I snagged a demo copy off eBay a while back. It's a strange mish-mash of early hardcore and funk. There are bits and pieces throughout this record that bring to mind the Minutemen, Dead Kennedys and Gang of Four. Songs meander from straight up speed ("Lesson") to stuff with horns ("Funk Off"), to ballady indie rock ("Sound on Sound") and back again.

The Big Boys played shows with the Dicks quite a bit. Their split live LP "Live at Raul's" is considered a classic. I'm trying to hunt that one down, but it's tough to get.

Enjoy!

Royal Trux - Steal Yr Face

First of all, a big thanks to Chunklet and Buzzgrinder for the friendly tweets/comments. I really appreciate it.

So, this is the April 1993 Sub Pop Singles club pick. The first one I missed out on by letting my subscription lapse. What a dumbass I was. Though in my defense, I was pretty damn broke around then. Luckily, I'm not totally broke now and can track this stuff down through the miracle of the internet. It costs more now though...

I missed out on these guys somehow, which is a shame. Total noise-rock roots, with Neil Hagerty coming from Pussy Galore, where he teamed up with Jon Spencer. Hagerty's apparently the genius in that band who came up with the idea of the track-for-track remake of Exile on Main St., My friend Pete gave me a copy of that some time ago. Lots of fun.

You can see why those two were in a band together, there's some common thread in the sound buried in there somewhere, though Hagerty took a much more slacker sounding low-energy approach to his bluesy riffs and vocals than Spencer did. Heroin will do that. They're also similar in that they both left Pussy Galore to start bands with their hot girlfriends.

It's on amazingly purple vinyl. Really cool to look at.

A: Steal Yr Face
B: Gett Off
Enjoy!

The Dicks - Hate the Police

Well, we're into day one of the not-so-daily format, where I go and track down stuff that seems relevant to the rest of this blog and see what I can do with it. Thanks for the kind comments as I wrapped up chapter one, I appreciate it.

This is an early 90's bootleg of a 1980 Austin TX punk rock classic. I first heard this song from Mudhoney, of course, who covered it. This is one of those songs that if you're a fan of punk rock in any form, you should hear it. It stomps, all while painting a scathing picture of Texas cop culture.

It took me years and the wonder of the internet to even hear the original version. I figured I'd track down a few more songs by this legendary band, but their recorded stuff is so rare, it gets really pricey. The original non-bootleg 7" goes for about $700. I snagged this for much much less. The quality of the recording could be better, much better, really, but oh well. Next time I have $700 to spare... The other songs are solid and worth listening to, but not quite in the same stratosphere as "Hate The Police".

Frontman Gary Floyd  is quite the character. True punk rock, in that he really didn't give a shit about what others thought of him. A cross-dressing openly gay lead singer was a liability in the early days of hardcore, which was just as macho a culture as, well...the police.

A: Hate The Police
B: Lifetime Problems, All Night Fever
Removed by request...

Shellac / Mule Split

This is it. The last 7".

The purpose of this blog was to chronicle the process of turning this trunk of old vinyl I had sitting in a corner unopened for nearly 15 years into a more modern and convenient format. I had almost all of my LPs as MP3s already. The 7" records, however, were an untapped gold mine of cool and strange stuff that you just couldn't find anywhere else, and I thought it would be great to have access to these songs anytime, anywhere.

This blog gave the conversion process some structure; just rip a record a day and write something, anything, about it. And I pretty much did this, every day for last few months. Entirely self-inflicted, of course, but I needed that discipline to get through the pile of vinyl. Along the way, a lot of old memories got shaken loose, and I enjoyed dumping those out into the void of the internet. That added some semblance of meaning to this whole exercise, I suppose. Anyway, it was a lot of fun. But now the trunk sits, empty.

I'll admit that I enjoyed it so much that I've been dreading the end, and I've been thinking, "Well, I could rip newer stuff, track other old stuff down from back then and rip that..." and while I think I will do that once or twice a week, it won't quite be the same. They won't be from the trunk. I'll just be writing about other peoples' music, not my music that followed me from apartment to apartment across this state and back again a few times. But I'll give it a shot. Look for something this weekend.

This 7" is the last thing I bought and put into the trunk.It's from the spring of 1997. I have no memories of this one, which pretty much sums up my final days in the Valley. Luckily, there's a price tag on it, so I have some clues. If I had to guess, I'd say I was killing time before work and I wandered into the relatively new Newbury Comics in Amherst. I bought this hoping to go back in time, to 1991 or so, when I was buying lots of these little records and the Valley was still new and fresh and full of promise. Things had changed by 1997, and I was desperate to start my life all over again, and within a few weeks of buying this, I packed my shit into my beat up old Buick and moved back to Gloucester, even though it nearly killed me to do it. My lack of memories here just confirms that while it's mostly been fun reconnecting with my 20 years ago self, the present day is truly where I belong.

A: Shellac, "The Rambler Song"
B: Mule, "Beauteous"
Enjoy!

The final tally: (because I like numbers)
441 songs, 20.7 hours of music
811 listens in iTunes (doesn't include listens during rip)

Shortest song: G.I. "I'm James Dean" - 0:17
Longest song: Lydia Lunch "Three Kings" - 7:25
Most songs (not including LPs):  Sebadoh - 15 

Top 5 (my picks, off the top of my head):
1. Big Black - Heartbeat
2. Dinosaur Jr - Just Like Heaven
3. Urge Overkill - Now That's The Barclords
4. Sebadoh - Gimme Indie Rock
5. Unrest - A Factory Record

Worst:
Bewitched - Hey White Homey

Most Popular according to you: (as of 3/23)
1. V/A - Alice Cooper Tribute (incredible since its only been up for a few days)
2. Big Black - Heartbeat
3. V/A - Smells Like Smoked Sausages EP
4 (Tie). Breeders- Head to Toe
4 (Tie). Mudhoney - You're Gone
4 (Tie). Sonic Youth/Mudhony Split 

If you have any comments on this whole thing, I'd love to hear them. You can also email me at mprescottm -at- yahoo -dot- com

Thanks again for reading, stick around for the next chapter, whatever that may be.
Matt

Sebadoh - Soul and Fire

We're getting to the end, folks. But of course, there's got to be at least one more Sebadoh/Lou Barlow item stashed in here somewhere.

This was from the Bubble and Scrape album, the end of the Eric Gaffney era. Like their other 7" records, there's a lot of material on here, and it's all over the place.

"Soul and Fire" is one of those heartbroken Lou songs. While he's got a ton of them, to the point where he even makes fun of himself for it, this one is particularly well written.

My favorite track here is a cover of the Necros "Reject". Sebadoh manages to take a 90 second long hardcore tune, slow it down, and breathe a bit more emotion and depth into it.

The B-sides are for Jason ("Sister") and Eric ("Bouquet...") to do their thing, but Jason hadn't fully arrived as a songwriter yet (that happened a year later on Bakesale) and Eric's over the top maniacal shtick was on the way out.

Going to see these guys in Boston tomorrow night with a friend. Should be a lot of fun.

A: Soul and Fire, Reject
B: Sister, Bouquet For a Siren
Enjoy!

Tomorrow: The end of the Daily 7, at least the daily part, anyway.

Nirvana - Sliver

Picked this up at Newbury Comics in Cambridge. I knew they had released a full length album on Sub Pop, and the label had big aspirations for them. They were described in the Sub Pop mail order catalog as "They're young, have their own van and are gonna make us rich."

I still hadn't heard anything by them, but shelling out $3 for a 7" seemed reasonable, and I noticed that Mudhoney's drummer appeared on one of the tracks. Sold! It's on black vinyl, unfortunately, I know lots of blue ones to match the cover were made. It's still got the Singles Club sign up card from 1990 in there.

Most people have heard the songs, as they were later released on Insesticide, but most people probably have not heard the phone call between Jon Poneman of Sub Pop and a confused/hungover Krist Novoselic that appeared after this version of "Sliver". I'd even forgotten about it, cutting the recording until I realized the record was still playing. I split it out as a separate track.

A: Sliver, Phone Call
B: Dive
Enjoy!

Queer - David Soul

Pretty sure I bought this after seeing these guys open for someone. A fairly intense Post-Hardcore act out of Cambridge MA, they released two other singles and disappeared. Their name probably didn't help them too much. I can't even find any sign of this single anywhere on line, not even on the label's crappy little website, which seems strange.

A: David Soul, Benign
B: Transplant, Malevolent
Enjoy!

Various Artists - Alice Cooper Tribute

Sub Pop Singles Club, June/July1991.

It's not an LP Sunday, but you do get a 2x7" tribute to Alice Cooper, which is pretty damned cool. This Sub Pop release got me to look a little deeper into the Cooper catalog besides the FM-radio staples like "No More Mr. Nice Guy" and "School's Out", and I'm glad for that.

There's a pretty high profile series of bands/artists on this one too. Everyone knows Sonic Youth. Gumball had a couple of good albums, and the band included well-known producer Don Fleming. Laughing Hyenas formed out of the remnants of a lot of early Midwestern hardcore acts like Negative Approach and the Necros. These Immortal Souls emerged from the wreckage of Nick Cave's former band, The Birthday Party. Standouts here are Gumball's "Under My Wheels" and Laughing Hyenas' "Public Animal #9"


A: These Immortal Souls - Luney Tune
B: Gumball - Under My Wheels
C: Sonic Youth - Is It My Body?
D: Laughing Hyenas - Public Animal #9
Enjoy!

Dinosaur (Jr) - Repulsion

This is off of their first album, back when they were just "Dinosaur". The Jr was added after they started to become popular due to the threat of a lawsuit.

The first album isn't their best, but I absolutely love this 7". The B-side wasn't originally released anywhere else (though it now leads off the Merge 2005 re-issue of the first album), and it was worth owning this just for that. It's got all of the early Dino Jr elements, Lou's screaming background vocals, a great line, "I want to crumble, but instead I sit", and a noisy guitar solo. I'd forgotten all about this song, and I think I've listened to it about 8 times tonight.

A:Repulsion
B: Bulbs of Passion
Enjoy!

Various Artists - Wheel

Another one of the Simple Machines records. Not as good as the other one.

This one has some spoken word by Juliana Leucking, a song by The Holy Rollers, and a collaboration between the two.

Juliana's stuff is about the trashy side of Baltimore and bullying. The Roller's "Moment of Impact" is pretty cool, and the noisy guitar sounds break up the music-less talking.

A: Juliana Experience- "So Fuckin' Perfec", Holy Rollers w/Juliana "Swallowing My Swallow"
B: Juliana Experience - "The Chase", Holy Rollers "Moment Before Impact"
Enjoy!

The Pogues - Poguetry In Motion

I saw these guys just last week. Shane looks terrible, but he keeps plugging along. He actually looked and sounded better than he did on last years' annual mid-March trip through Boston. And he didn't wander around the stage with a whisky bottle even once this time.

It's a strange show to see in Boston. As my wife said, "There's not a lot of diversity in the room here. And your shiny bald head doesn't stand out like it normally does." It really is a room full of pasty white guys from their 20's to their 40's who identify themselves as Irish in some way.

I'm amazed at how The Pogues have been passed along to a younger generation. They're not exactly getting any airplay, and they don't have any real recent material to speak of except an anthology of stuff they did in the 80's and 90's, so someone is handing their copies of Rum, Sodomy & The Lash off to their younger brothers, cousins, and maybe even sons. There was a guy in his early 20's in a Celtics jacket shouting along to every word of every song. How did that happen?

They played the first three tracks off of this EP, which I thought was interesting, because I think it's a fairly obscure album by them.

A: London Girl, A Rainy Night In Soho
B: The Body Of An American, Planxty Noel Hill
Enjoy!

Buffalo Tom - Tangerine

I'm pretty sure these guys were one of the opening acts at that Bullet LaVolta show I mentioned earlier, though I'm not 100% certain. I do know that I saw these guys pretty early on, once in Western MA and once in Boston.

I hadn't bought anything by them in a while when I spotted this. They'd sort of slipped off my radar, but I was drawn in by the novelty of this single, Unfortunately, I never got to listen to it.

This record is actually a 5" (in tangerine color!). Sounds cool, but my turntable didn't like it. It never has, this is the first time I've played this. The arm picks up too early, usually within the first seconds as this is far too close to the center for my turntable to start playing anything. I know how to fix it, but am too lazy. Rather than open the whole thing up to reset a screw buried inside the thing, I grabbed John H's borrowed turntable, which worked. Thanks!

It's pretty much what you'd expect from mid-90's Buffalo Tom. Solid Alt rock.

A: Tangerine
B: Breathe
Enjoy!

Thee Headcoats - Time Will Tell

More Billy Childish, seems like he was just here yesterday, too. Also, I guess it's fitting to have the guy from Thee Mighty Caesars here on this day. I didn't plan this, either. Fate. It was meant to be.

The King of UK Garage Rock, with a list of releases a mile long. Even with a catalog that long, you can start anywhere with Billy Childish. It's sort of all the same, but in a good way. It's straight up, stripped down, no-frills garage rock. It's also timeless. These songs sound like they could have been recorded in 1966 or 2006.

I found a copy of this in Boston after Mudhoney's "You're Gone" single introduced me to this guy.

A: Time Will Tell
B: Davey Crockett (Gabba Hay!)
Enjoy!

Mudhoney / Halo Of Flies - Mod Showdown!

Another split single of obscure cover songs featuring Mudhoney. This is a good one too.

Mudhoney covers Billy Childish (again), this time it's Billy's first band, the Milkshakes, with "She's Just Fifteen". You don't see too many songs celebrating pedophilia out there these days, do you?

Halo Of Flies covers mods/psychedelic pioneers John's Children, famous for having Marc Bolan of T.Rex in the band briefly. It's a sped-up noise-rock reinterpretation of a  60's classic. Good cover.

A: Mudhoney - She's Just Fifteen
B: Halo Of Flies - Jagged Time Lapse
Enjoy!

Bullet LaVolta - Bullet LaVolta EP

Spring ahead. In the words of a friend of mine,  "It's the one day all year where it's OK not to know where the hell you were between 2 and 3 AM."

This was not part of the original late 80's-early 90's collection, at least not on vinyl. I burned thorough multiple copies of this EP on cassette though. It's not easy to find this stuff in any kind of digital format, so I tracked down a vinyl copy not too long ago. I think this is the future direction of this blog as my original 7" collection winds down. I'll dig up vinyl copies for all of the stuff I had on cassette, and the stuff I always meant to pick up but never got around to buying way back when. If anyone has any suggestions for more local/obscure stuff that I'm missing out on from this era, let me know.

This came out right in the middle of my Boston-band obsessive phase where I got into The Volcano Suns, Lemonheads, and Big Dipper. The 17-year old me loved this. It rocked. It had elements of hardcore and metal thrown in, as mentioned here. The black and white welder is a great image. "Baggage" is one ass-kicking song. With some 20 years to look back and reflect, I think it's fine, but not as great as I remembered it. "Baggage" still kicks ass, but the rest of the album seems to have lost some of its luster. Nothing else really lives up to the opening track. The band never quite lived up to it again, either. Their later full length LPs never captured the energy on this 12" 45, and by the time they got a big label deal a few years later, they pretty much sucked.

I decided to see these guys at the Paradise in Boston when I was 18. I had no one to go with me for some reason, but I figured what the hell, I like doing things by myself, and I hopped a commuter train into Boston on a December evening. Of course the band went on later than I thought they would due to a slew of opening acts. Since I had to catch a midnight train home, I left before they finished their set. Unfortunately, the green line train shut down and dumped me out at Govt. Center at 11:55, instead of continuing on to North Station, and I missed the train. This was during an incredible cold snap, and it was about 6 degrees out. While wandering aimlessly and pondering my extremely limited options, I found another guy wandering through the brick wasteland of City Hall Plaza. He wanted to split cab fare back to Allston, as he'd missed the final green line train (they actually used to shut those down at midnight...crazy). We were both freezing and stranded, so striking a deal was pretty easy. I offered up half the cab fare in exchange for letting me crash on his couch. Once the cab pulled up in front of his place, he pulled the "I don't have any money, you'll have to pay the whole fare" trick on me. And I did, (what choice did I have at that point?) leaving me with about $2. It was an uneasy night on a nasty, dingy couch, as I tried to figure out how I was going to get home the next day on no money. This guy's rowdy drunk housemates and friends came and went at all hours, and someone even brought a tiny mewing kitten into the house in the middle of the night. Things finally quieted down by 3:00.

I woke from my light, anxiety ridden sleep at 5AM to the sound of something repeatedly smacking against the couch. It was the kitten, batting around a balled up $20. I scooped up the bill and bolted off the couch. I grabbed my coat, thanked the little cat for letting me take his toy, and got the hell out of there.

A: Baggage, Circuits, Autopilot
B: Dead Wrong, Because You're Mine, Over The Shoulder
Enjoy!

Shellac - The Finger Is The Most Popular Bird

Happy 7th birthday to my sweet little boy. Not sure if an album titled "The Finger Is the Most Popular Bird" is appropriate, but these things happen and we move on.

My favorite 7" when it comes to packaging/design. Shellac really has this down. Their album art is always impeccable. This one is particularly brilliant. The front cover shows the band's rehearsal space. Behind the photo is a numbered illustration, and inside is the guide to the whole space. I've posted images below.

The back cover is even better. It's a design work-up with all sorts of off-the-wall instructions on what they want the cover to be. "Dan: have somebody cast a Shellac logo in brass, this size...mount on blue-grey granite..." Very "meta" approach here. Even the label on the disc is white, with handwritten instructions. My favorite: "Dan- Do NOT put your shitty logo on the label!"

"The Admiral" appeared on At Action Park. Apparently, it's a reference to a Chicago strip club. Anyway, this is an instrumental version. It's good and all, but I like the version with vocals better. XVI is another instrumental which apparently evolved into "Pull The Cup", also on At Action Park.

A: The Admiral
B: XVI
Enjoy!

Urge Overkill - Sister Havana

Saw ducks on the pond outside the house yesterday morning, so Spring is officially here. Soon beachy summer stuff will follow like the picture over there.

Also, spent a few minutes in Northampton and Amherst today, and noticed that pretty much all of the record stores where I bought these things no longer exist. Oh well.

UO's first major label single. I think I was hoping it would be as interesting as their Sub Pop one, but that was not to be. It's two years later, and they continue to chase that bombastic arena-rock thing, (as well as mega-stardom) like on the other single, but lost the noise-rock influence by this point. They're left with this bombastic mellow-ness, which might as well be Journey, or some shit like that. There's a ray of hope on the B-side though.

I'm amazed that this single charted in the top 10, and never even realized that until now.

A: Sister Havana
B: Woman 2 Woman
Enjoy!

Poison Idea - Taken By Surprise

Sub Pop Singles Club - November 1990. I picked this up used for $6 somewhere- there's a hand written sticker still on it. About twice what a Sub Pop Singles Club Single would normally cost if you had the subscription, but totally worth it.

First of all, these guys give TAD a run for their money when it comes to ugly bands. Jesus. I included both the cartoon front cover version and the back cover, which shows that the artist wasn't too far off in his less than flattering portrayal of the band.

"Taken By Surprise" is a stomping, shouting sort of thing. It's fine, but it's not the main attraction. This is another 7" with a far more well-known B-side. It's a raucous treatment of the Go-Go's "We Got The Beat". The singer's voice is sort of reminiscent of The Meatmen's Tesco Vee , which just adds to the enjoyment of this treatment of early 80's girl-pop.

A: Taken By Surprise
B: We got The Beat
Enjoy!

Sebadoh - Skull

Well, if I've learned one thing so far, it's that I bought a lot of Sebadoh stuff way back when. Excited to see them in a few weeks. The last time I saw them was on their Harmacy tour.

Unlike yesterday's pick, which had a band on the decline, this is a band at it's peak. Or at least one of two peaks during their lineup shuffles. "Skull" was a single off of Bakesale, which, to me anyway, holds up as one of the best albums of the era.

Everyone's heard "Skull". No big deal. Not their best song on the album, (or even close, there's a handful I like more) but probably the most accessible, so I can see why this was put out as a single. The B-sides are good. "Punching Myself" is a solid, shuffling Jason Lowenstein song. "Sing Something/Plate O' Hatred" is filled with clever wordplay, and is a throwback into some earlier Barlow Lo-Fi stuff, only far less crappy sounding. It's still clearly lo-fi, but it just sounds a million times better than the earlier stuff. Audiophile quality lo-fi?

A: Skull
B: Punching Myself, Sing Something/Plate O' Hatred
Enjoy!