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!

Mudhoney - Blinding Sun

This is a promo release of Mudhoney's second big label single, and is from the Piece of Cake album. The album title apparently refers to how easy it all seemed, and they didn't exactly take their big label debut all that seriously, admitting that the album was "Half-baked".

It was the beginning of a long, slow decline phase for a once great band. The album lacked the attitude of the early singles and the consistency of "Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge" and they slowly slipped into irrelevance. Kind of like Nomar after the wrist injury.

"Blinding Sun" is at least one of the more well-baked songs on the album, and was a solid choice for a single release. "King Sandbox" plays on the "piece of cake" theme in the lyrics, and also comes across as one of the more half-baked efforts.

A: Blinding Sun
B: King Sandbox
Enjoy!

Heavens To Betsy/Bratmobile Split

Running a bit behind today, battling basement flooding. Fun stuff.

OK, so I thought I was done with the box of Riot Grrrl stuff. Wrong. Found one more. This is it.  

Both of these songs sound like they were recorded underwater, and "Cool Schmool" suffers from that wandering rhythm section problem. The songs themselves are fine.

A: Heavens to Betsy - My Secret
B: Bratmobile - Cool Schmool
Enjoy!

Various Artists - Radio Tokyo Tapes Vol. 3

This is a real mixed bag of stuff that I found for $4.39 at In Your Ear Records. It's a test pressing, too, which is kind of cool. It would be much cooler if I liked the album more, I think.

Anyway, It's an acoustic themed album of local LA artists. Radio Tokyo was a studio that put these compilations out every so often in the early-mid 80's. There's a wide range of styles here, going way outside of my usual comfort zone. Folky stuff from Phranc to a D. Boon-less Minutemen track.

Also, the cartoon album cover with two chicks in their underwear talking about the bands in their really stilted and forced dialogue is just creepy and weird. 

Some highlights:
The Knitters were 3 members of X with a different guitarist doing country/roots music. Ironic in that X guitarist Billy Zoom was the country influenced guy. It's a nice medley of two different country songs that were hits around the same time, and one was a counterpoint to the other.

Henry Rollins treats us to his parricidal fantasies over a tuneless acoustic guitar track. This is one of the reasons I bought this record. It's really not that good. Cringeworthy, even, but my friends Mitch and Paul at UMass had a copy of this from somewhere, and they would make fun of how Hank says "trachea" quite a bit. They also burned "2/13/61" into the cieling of their dorm room with zippos.

Chris D. of the The Flesh Eaters has a good song on here, and I'll listen to anything of his, even though his vocals are an acquired taste. Go get yourself a copy of A Minute to Pray, A Second to Die if you haven't heard that yet.

The Balancing Act song is solid.

The Minutemen cover Richard Hell's "Time". It's strange to hear Watt sing with such a high-pitched voice, he sounds a lot different now. 

Enjoy!

Unrest - A Factory Record

March 1991 Sub Pop Single

Unrest plays a bunch of covers of UK post-punk acts from the Factory label (hence the name)  like Crispy Ambulance and Crawling Chaos. It's a little strange and disjointed, which makes sense when you're covering 4 different bands. Despite that, I like this little record. No memories of playing it, though I'm sure I did at least once. It's on marbled lilac vinyl, which is quite pretty.

A: Deaf (Crispy Ambulance), UFO (ESG)
B: Sex Machine (Crawling Chaos), When It All Comes Down (Miaow)
Enjoy!

Spitboy - The Threat

I guess a lot of people check this from work or something. Traffic ground to a halt when an album titled "Porn" got put up. Very funny.

There's something a little twisted about following up an album titled "Porn Vol. 4" with this band. I think this is the last album of the ex's stuff, and probably the most hardcore feminist one of the bunch. Also the most hardcore in terms of the music.

Strangely, while very Riot Grrrly, this another band that is specifically not associated with that particular movement. These women were all a bunch of anarchists from San Francisco.

The ex bought this at a Newbury Comics. Cambridge, I think.

A: The Threat, Sexism Impressed
B: Ultimate Violations
Enjoy, you male pig!

Boss Hog/Cows - Porn Vol. 4

The last in a four-part 7" series, this was supposed to be the soundtrack to a documentary on the porn industry named, fittingly, "PORN". The film was later retitled as "Screwed", and the compilation of these 7" was released under that name instead. I never did get parts 1-3, and those look pretty good, with Mudhoney and The Melvins on there. The series was made up of bands associated with Am Rep in some way, so you know what you're going to get. Throw in the topic, and you get some very noisy, raunchy songs.

$3.39 at Main St. Records in Northampton. Still got the orange price sticker on the back. I vaguely remember buying this, only because the notion of taking a record with "PORN" in huge letters home to my Womens' Studies minor girlfriend seemed a little daunting.

A: Boss Hog - Black Throat
B: Cows - The Pictorial
Enjoy!

7 Year Bitch - Lorna

Another one from the ex-GF. Straight up "Girl Grunge" from a Seattle all-girl band. Apparently not a Riot Grrrl band, so I'm making that distinction.

Anyway, 7 Year Bitch endured their share of trials and tribulations, including the OD of their guitarist Stefanie Sargent, and the brutal murder of their good friend (and C/Z labelmate) Mia Zapata of The Gits. Valerie Agnew, 7 Year Bitches' drummer went on to co-found anti-violence non-profit group Home Alive after Zapata's death, which is a pretty cool and constructive way to deal with something horrific like that.

Despite all of this, they had a 7 year run and cut 3 LPs. Not sure what they sounded like later, as this is their first single, but they're definitely on the heavier side and a bit unpolished.

A: Lorna, No Fuckin' War
B: You Smell Lonely
Enjoy!

Sebadoh/Azalia Snail - Split

Lo-Fi royalty share a 7". Sounds good. But...

Sebadoh, still in the Eric era, gets real lo-fi for this one. Unfortunately, it's not that exciting. "Toledo" is the best track here, but it's been done before, it's a snippet of Lou's first lo-fi stuff from Dinosaur Jr's great You're Living All Over Me album, only it was named "Poledo" then. That's followed by a strangely named (and mislabeled) noodling instrumental, which is then followed by "Pete" a typical Sebadoh lo-fi noisefest that, like the original "Poledo" ends with roaring ocean like sounds.

Azalia Snail, "The Queen of Lo-Fi", gets things back on track with her two songs. "St. Nowhere" is the song most going somewhere on this album. U.M.O. is a recorded phone message over some sludgy bass.

Overall, a nice little early 90's Lo-Fi artifact, but a bit of a disappointment when it comes to the Sebadoh stuff. Bought at a Newbury Comics, it seems. Not one I played that often.

A: Sebadoh - Toledo, Gondwanaland / No Compass, Pete
B: Azalia Snail - St. Nowhere, U.M.O.
Enjoy!