Jawbox, “Static”

With Novelty, Jawbox added a second guitarist to the lineup and the fuller sound really brought them to another level. While I like Grippe, this is the album where Jawbox became Jawbox. “Static” is one of my favorite songs on the album, with my fondness bolstered by the fun novelty 7" they put out as a split with Tar, where each band covered the other band’s song named “Static”.

Floor, “Downed Star”

There’s a longing feel to a lot of Floor, an almost wistful tint to the vocal style. When it’s married to the thrumming music, it’s a fun combination.

Beastie Boys, “5-Piece Chicken Dinner”

I love Paul’s Boutique, but this is just a goof out-of-context. OK, it’s a goof in-context also, but it makes sense with the album sequence.

Pyrrhon, “Goat Mockery Ritual”

Oh hell yeah. One of my favorite metal bands, Pyrrhon takes death metal and adds so much dissonance and spastic experimentation that it can sometimes seem overwhelming. I think at some point, it’s gone so far that my expectations are just shot. I don’t know what’s coming next, so I can just relax and revel in the twitchy glory of this whole thing. It’s hard to pick a favorite album from them, you can’t go wrong with any of the three most recent LPs.

Non Phixion, “Legacy”

This is from the comp Fat Beats Compilation, Volume 1, a nice release from 2001 of a bunch of cats going mostly pretty old-school. Yes, there are multiple DJ Premier tracks on the comp. It’s a fun record, worth just settling back and nodding your head along to.

Death Cab For Cutie, “Grapevine Fires”

As always, I can’t really tell Death Cab records apart, other than Transatlanticism. This is not that record, so I dunno, it’s from Photos About Narrow Voting Plans or whatever. It’s fine, I enjoy this just fine! I’m just going to forget it shortly. This is probably a me problem.

The Mooney Suzuki, “Oh Sweet Susanna”

Sometimes, we get a band on here that I just want to describe as “rock”. Just rock. This is a rock band, playing a rock song. Rock. You want rock? Have rock.

Yautja, “A Killing Joke”

Yautja is most frequently described as a combination of sludge and grindcore, which are two genres that don’t sit very naturally together in my head. There’s a monomaniacal relentlessness to grindcore, a commitment to aggression above all else, that doesn’t marry to sludge’s necessity for timing being key and the flexibility to stretch or compress things. But Yautja makes it work, and it’s a unique sound they’ve assembled. This is from last year’s The Lurch, and I recommend it.

Hepcat, “The Secret”

The first Hepcat record found the band hitting their first-wave ska sounds right out of the gate. They’d keep moving in this direction with later records, growing more assured as they went, and creating lusher arrangements. But all that said, every one of their records is a good one, even if I might go for them in reverse release order. I guess you can compare this to the version from Right On Time to see how they developed.

They Might Be Giants, “I Love You For Psychological Reasons”

Another tune from the big Dial-a-Song year of 2015, when they revived the old service and kept it going every week. Most of those songs got retooled a bit and re-recorded for a later record, with this one later appearing on Phone Power. It’s a classic bouncy Linnell tune, the sort of song that I’ll never get tired of.

Duke Ellington, “Sophisticated Lady”

As I wrote down the title of this song here, I had a memory of someone with a deep voice singing “soooooo-phisticated” that I couldn’t immediately place. Took me a bit to figure out it was Mike Watt, and then a little bit after that to recall that it’s from fIREHOSE’s cover of Public Enemy’s “Sophisticated Bitch” from their Live Totem Pole EP. So, you know, that’s what Duke Ellington brings to mind for me.

The Dramatics, “In the Rain”

A repeat, but happy to listen to it again.

Dirty Three, “Last Horse on the Sand”

Dirty Three are an instrumental post-rock band out of Australia, distinguished primarily by being led by a violinist. I’m actually more into this sort of sound than I was in the late 90s when this album came out, so maybe it’s worth sitting with the band some more. They certainly have a lot of records out there.

The Garbage & The Flowers, “Carousel”

This is from a comp from the Twisted Village label (Deep Funnels of Entry) featuring a bunch of the psych rock bands the label had. I don’t even know who was the most famous of these bands - maybe the Crystalized Movements? The answer is “none of them”, I guess. I bought this because I really liked Crystalized Movements, and the rest of the comp didn’t really turn up any new favorites for me.

Can, “Mushroom”

Can is the sort of band that intolerable rock dorks will never shut up about, but frustratingly, they’re also right about them. Tago Mago is a double-album, stuffed full of hypnotic rhythms, oddball sounds, plenty of shout-singing, and stretched out compositions. This is one of the founding documents of Krautrock, but that’s not really an argument for the album as Krautrock itself was mostly an influence on other things. So don’t focus on that, focus on the fact that the album is still a great listen. Sometimes even rock docks are worth listening to.

Zeke, “Runnin’ Shine”

I’m not going to egghead this for you.

Lifesavas, “Soldierfied”

That beat is structural, you could build an office building on that thing and it would be bomb proof.

Czarface & Ghostface Killah, “Masked Superstars”

This beat is fine, but I’m not quite as excited about it as I was the last one. I kind of feel like Czarface is good, but doesn’t stand out particularly. It’s sort of the shelf-filler of the Wu-Tang supermarket.