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!

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!

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!

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!

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!

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!

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!

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!

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!

Mecca Normal / Kreviss Split 7"

Sub Pop Singles Club, April 1992

Already had one Mecca Normal album in here earlier. I can honestly say that I was not expecting to own another album of theirs, but this came with the Sub Pop subscription, so there you go. It's about what you'd expect, some odd vocals over one guitar.

Kreviss was this massive band, a 9-piece out of Vancouver. Eight girls, one guy. Two drummers, a vocalist, and six others playing various guitars and whatnot. It's pretty good, and I remembered this one immediately even though it's been nearly 20 years since I last played it. They sound kind of like Velocity Girl with much screechier vocals. Not sure why you need 6 guitarists/bassists for this, but whatever works. They released this and another single or two, but that's it.

A: Mecca Normal - You Heard It All, Broken Flowers
B: Kreviss - Going To Hell
Enjoy!

Big Damn Crazy Weight - Might As Well

October 1992 Sub Pop Singles Club

Another Singles club pick that I don't remember playing.

It's very early-90's to me. If you had to create a fictitious early 90's band in a movie, they'd sound like this. There's a chimey guitar harmonics intro to "Might As Well", some heavy sounding starts and stops, indifferent sounding Cobain styled vocals, it's all in there. "Off That Cow" continues the theme with a very Nirvana-esque riff.

A: Might As Well
B: Off That Cow
Enjoy!

Dead Moon - Dirty Noise

Sub Pop Singles Club, March '93.

Fred Cole was probably the oldest guy to record one of these for Sub Pop, he was 45 at the time. You can tell that Cole had been playing in garage bands for 30 years already when he recorded this, it sounds like something that could have been on one of those Nuggets compilations. And yes, he's got a song from 1966 on that, too.

A: Dirty Noise
B: Dark Deception
Enjoy!

Come - Car

Post #100! On pace to wrap up the 7" and most of the 12" I want to rip just before baseball season starts. That's been one of the goals throughout, so I'm glad I've been able to maintain the pace. I'll figure out what to do with this blog after that.

Thalia Zedek was already known in the MA scene by the time this band got going. Come features these long, twisting and winding songs, with Zedek's hoarse vocals layered in between two big-sounding guitars (played by Zedek and Chris Brokaw). This is good stuff. I didn't latch onto this when I got it, but have gained a lot of appreciation for it over the years since.

Note: Chris Brokaw was also the drummer for Codeine.

A: Car
B: Last Mistake
Enjoy!

Green Magnet School - Singed

This has nothing to do with today's record, but some of you may wonder, "What does this guy do for a living?"  Well, I manage the scheduling and production of virtual tours. It's not that exciting, really, unless you're in the trenches, where you can come across some odd people and see some pretty strange shit. Cade Overton used to work in my production crew, but after moving to Texas, we decided to use his outstanding skills behind the camera and turn him into our roving photographer to fill in areas where we need extra coverage. He writes a great behind-the-scenes expose of the life of the roving photographer in his blog this week after we sent him on an extended assignment in San Francisco. It's over there on the right, the "Final Broadcast" blog. Take a moment to read it. It's funny as hell.

On to the business at hand:

Dec 1991 Sub-Pop Singles Club.

Another MA band that Sub Pop signed. These guys from nearby Framingham weren't making stripped-down alt-country like the Scuds though. They were going for some sort of Am Rep noise-rock kind of sound, but were stretching it out way beyond the usual 2-3 minutes or so.

I liked this one enough back in the day, I know I played it a few times. Never did track down their LP though, which was apparently pretty good.

A: Singed
B: Slipper
Enjoy!

Pain Teens - Death Row Eyes

May 1992 Sub Pop single.

Not bad, but a bit derivative. It's pretty clear from the opening guitar sounds on the first track that these guys are into the Butthole Surfers. Very Paul-Leary-esque sound. A bit too much, really.

As for the B-Side, it's also a Surfers' staple; take the audio from a strange or disturbing call into a radio talk-show, and build a song around it.

They're not terrible, (like Wednesday's pick...) it just feels like someone did this kind of thing already.

A: Death Row Eyes
B: The Smell
Enjoy!

Bewitched - Hey White Homey

February 1993 Sub Pop Singles Club release. This is probably the second time I've ever listened to it. There's a reason for that. The song "Hey White Homey" is as cringe-inducing as its title. Troll Doll is far more listenable, though still far from great.

Bob Bert was Sonic Youth's drummer up through the Halloween album. Then he left to do stuff like this. OK, maybe I'm being a bit harsh. Bewitched was a side project in between other post-SY bands, which included noise-rock legends Pussy Galore and Boss Hog (both Jon Spencer acts), that's a pretty good musical legacy, so I guess he redeems himself there. But still...man is this bad.

A: Hey White Homey
B: Troll Doll
Enjoy!

Sister Ray - The King

Among the first batch of Singles Club stuff I managed to find in Newbury Comics. I'd heard about the Singles Club, and was surprised to find some for sale. Throw in that these guys obviously named themselves for the VU  song, and it seemed like a no-brainer.

I have to say, it didn't disappoint. The King sounds a bit like some Hate Your Friends era Lemonheads, which was fine with me. Legends in Ohio, they didn't seem to catch on much beyond there.

A: The King
B: Push Me
Enjoy!