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!

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!

Folk Implosion - Palm Of My Hand

#75. Starting to see some real disparity in the stacks of "dead" and "to do". This thing is on the downslope. Damn. I'll refrain from making comparisons with life as I prepare myself mentally and physically to hit year 40.

Lou Barlow and his many bands have been appearing here about as often as the snow these days. Folk Implosion is probably his best known Sebadoh side project in that they made it big with the "Kids" film soundtrack.

All of his side projects are interesting; there's no mistaking who is at the center of them, but they're all just different enough. Folk Implosion is more lo-fi than late-era Sebadoh, not nearly as raw or unpredictable as the Sentridoh stuff, but it lacks the dark humor of Beltbuckle. Folk Implosion fills some strange gap between all of these bands in some way, comprising some middle ground.

One of the last purchases in this collection, as this came out in1995. Sticker says Newbury Comics, I'm guessing the Amherst one, which would have been fairly new at the time.

A: Palm Of My Hand
B: Mood Swing
Enjoy!

Sebadoh - Not Too Amused

Jason gets an A-side with this track that appeared on Bakesale. This is the album where he really started contributing songs that were just as good as Lou's, and it's a solid choice for a single.

The B-side is really, really strange. It's got some of the early Sebadoh Lo-Fi quality to it, but they add bongos, cackling laughter, discordant guitar and Hank Williams playing on a radio. They also throw a slower version of "Not Too Amused" in there. Some of the weirder stuff they did without Eric Gaffney in the band.

Looks like we've got a storm on tap, might get myself caught up on Wednesday.

A: Not Too Amused
B: Hank Williams
Enjoy!

Belly - Now They'll Sleep

Another band I saw live. They played the Iron Horse in Northampton, and I happened to be living across the street. That's about as easy as it gets. It was a good enough show, though the setting was...odd. Playing in what is normally a jazz club while people sit and eat must be strange. It's strange enough being at one of the tables trying to see a show while people munch on nachos.

Somehow, my high school's resident metalhead turned me on to Throwing Muses way back in high school. "Yeah, they're like, local, and they're pretty good. No one's playing anything like this.You'll like it. Here." With that, he handed me a tape of the first Throwing Muses album. He was right of course, they were unique, and I did like the tape. I picked that album up on vinyl later on. No clue how he got into them, I'm still baffled by that one. I'm pretty sure Guns N' Roses was blaring when he gave me the cassette. Anyway, I managed to see them a couple of times in Amherst/Northampton.

I'm not sure if Belly was a side-project or post Throwing Muses at this point. They were kind of winding down, and Tanya Donelly was having some success with The Breeders around then, too. Either way, living across the street, liking her previous stuff, it was kind of a no-brainer to go. Being a friend of a friend of J Mascis was somehow good enough to get me and my girlfriend "backstage" (standards are low in W. MA, I guess), which was really just a hallway and a tiny room. I admit to being a bit starstruck meeting her and at a loss for any words worth saying or remembering. She's very doll-like in person. Tiny.

This is a single from their last album. They were done right after this, might even be why I picked it up. It's less jangly than their early stuff.

A: Now They'll Sleep
B: Thief
Enjoy!

The Holez / The Monkeywrench - Germs split single

OK, this wasn't selected at random. I couldn't resist the temptation of following Courtney Love with, well, Courtney Love. This is the first of many split singles, with different bands on each side. This one features a couple of grunge era/punk rock supergroups. The Holez is Courtney Love's Hole with Pat Smear (who also recorded/toured with Nirvana around this time) of the Germs added to the lineup. The Monkeywrench is Mark Arm and Steve Turner of Mudhoney, along with Tim Kerr (Big Boys, Poison 13) Thom Price from Seattle legends Gas Huffer and Martin Bland (Lubricated Goat) on drums.

Both bands are playing Germs covers, so having the actual Germs guitarist on hand for one song seems like a good idea, and they copped the Germs album art with the black cover/blue circle. I was pretty excited when I saw this (in Main St Records, Northampton, apparently, the price tag is still on it) it had all the makings of something great. Interesting lineups, and some fun early, messy US punk that you could really do something with.

It's not bad, but it didn't meet my outrageously high expectations. I guess there's something about the Germs that only the Germs should do their material. How do you take on Darby Crash's vocals? Should you? Hearing Courtney Love sing "I'm Dar-by Craaash!" on "Circle One" just seems...wrong. Her voice is really flat, too. Say what you want about the unintelligible vocal stylings of Mr. Crash, but he brought some serious psychotic energy to everything he did. Musically, it's perfectly fine, nothing special though. The original is one of the Germs' best, too. Oh, what might have been.

"Shut Down" isn't one of the Germs' best. The original is a sloppy, rambling directionless nine minute long punk song (a contradiction in terms if there ever was one), and The Monkeywrench do a nice job tightening up the music from the original with Tim Kerr adding a bluesy slide guitar to it, but unlike Courtney Love, Mark Arm goes over the top with his Crash vocal impression. It ends abruptly, as if they ran out of tape. At least that kept it under nine minutes. I did say that I like the experimental nature of the 7" record, and I live by that, but that means you've got to die by it sometimes too. The Monkeywrench cut one really fun LP, "Clean As a Broke Dick Dog", which I also have on vinyl. I'll have to rip that some time.

This was apparently released in late 1995, despite being recorded in 1992, and these songs appeared on a Germs tribute album. This is probably one of the last things I purchased in this collection.

A: The Holez - "Circle One"
B: The Monkeywrench - "Shut Down"

Enjoy!