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!