Hey, y’all! I’m going to be in Vancouver this weekend for SHUX! If you happen to be going, say hi!

Today’s music!

Boogie Down Productions, “Remix For P Is Free”

Criminal Minded is at the root of so much of New York rap. It’s really one of the foundational documents of the East Coast scene. There are so many echoes of this album in so many other records that it’s almost hard to even pick them out. At this point, the original sounds like a cliche, which is unfair, as this record is where all that stuff comes from.

Fantastic one today!

J-Zone, “Zone For President”

More old shit from J-Zone! I mentioned his persona last time, but here you can really hear the cheapass side of things. Also, dig that circus beat! And the shots at internet losers. All good stuff!

Pond, “Forget”

Pond’s third and final record, Rock Collection, came out on a major label, which probably did it no favors. While Sub Pop would know what to do with a band like this, when Pond didn’t hit it big quickly with this record, Sony basically just forgot that it existed. It’s a shame, because it’s a an excellent album full of rock gems like this, all of them at least a little off-kilter. There’s also some really touching songs on here as well. Overall, a lost gem.

Pretty good one today!

Cop Shoot Cop, “All the Clocks are Broken”

One of the things that set Cop Shoot Cop apart from the other acts they were usually lumped with, often other industrial bands, was that Tod Ashley was never afraid to deploy some genuine emotion in his songs. It wasn’t all just pummelling, fury, noise, and aggression. Songs like this would presage the work that Ashley would later turn in with Firewater.

Barely got this done today.

Sharon Jones, “Natural Born Lover”

Look, I don’t think I’m a great writer, or even a good one, when it comes to music. Hell, I probably don’t really rise to “adequate”. My failing is that a lot of these entries are pretty shallow. I’m also unable to really evoke what it’s like to listen to these folks. Also, my comparisons are not great. And…

…hang on, let’s try this again. I’m saying that these mostly suck, but whatever, listen to this fucking song. Goddammit, this is some great shit.

Good news! No Japanese noise today!

Tribulation, “Cauda Pavonis”

Listen to this track, and think about the other stuff featured on Five Songs in the past. What do you think this band normally sounds like? Some kind of soundtrack-y kind of thing? Something closer to post-rock? Foetus tribute act?

If you look into your heart, you know the correct answer. Something like this? Yeah, it’s metal.

Lambchop, “Jan. 24”

Lambchop chose to release two albums on the same day in 2004, Aw C’mon and No, You C’mon. It’s not entirely clear why they chose to release them as separate records, instead of a double album. There’s not really any distinction between the types of songs on the two albums, and it’s not like one is all b-sides or anything. They just decided to release two records, a bit of an odd decision from a band that has always been a bit odd themselves. At any rate, the world is a better place for more Lambchop songs, so may they release fifty albums on the same day.

Kind of wiplashing around today.

Art Brut, “Formed A Band”

This might be the platonic ideal of the Art Brut song, a song where you legitimately can’t tell if they’re putting you on or not. I think they’re doing both, it’s dead serious as well as an arch joke. Like, it’s many layers of put on that just wraps around itself. Putonception.

They Might Be Giants, “Destroy the Past”

You know, I never actually saw Inception.

Some bonus tunes today!

Morcheeba, “Blindfold”

We’ve had several trip-hop acts around here in the past, and here’s one of the lesser known bands from that scene. Morcheeba, like all of the trip-hop bands that hung around for a while, pretty quickly expanded beyond just straight trip-hop. For example, beyond the drums and a little bit of scratching, this is more jazz than trip-hop. At any rate, this album (Big Calm) is very good.

You know, I didn’t think it could really get more third wave-y around here, but it seems like New Shuffle might be even more fond of the stuff. But, you know, here you go!

Death From Above 1979, “Never Swim Alone”

Pounding drums and bellowing through distortion is a time honored formula that almost always gets me going. Just big, pounding, and shameless. Delightful!

Less Than Jake, “Glumble”

Lots of Less Than Jake recently. This comes from Losers, Kings, And Things We Don’t Understand, a compilation of the various non-album cuts that they produced before and around the time of their first proper album, Pezcore. In these early years, Less Than Jake was really more of a punk band than anything else, but they did a good job with it. As always, it’s more down to the energy and hooks than anything else with pop punk.

Today!

J Church, “Bomb”

Camels, Spilled Corona, and the Sound of Mariachi Bands is a great name for an album, in this case the first of multiple singles comps that J Church put together. As befits a band as prolific as they were, J Church was constantly putting out songs on 7"s, random comps, splits, and other places. They had the good grace to collect that stuff together periodically, and the comps are really basically on a par with their normal albums.

Almost like a Special in here today!

Mr. Lif, “Success”

I feel like I haven’t bought a new concept record in a while. I suppose some of the unintelligable garbled metal I listen to could be concept records, I’d have no real way of knowing. You could tell me basically anything about the lyrics or themes or whatever of some of those slabs and I’d probably believe you. At any rate, many of my favorite concept records are rap records, and I Phantom is one of the very best.