The Allstonians, “Mikey Dee”

After the collapse of Moon Ska Records left a smoking crater in the scene, it took some bands a while to get back on track. The Allstonians were one of them, with a gap of 6 years between The Allston Beat and Bottoms Up!. The time didn’t really do them any favors - it’s a decent album, but it doesn’t really have the same energy or charm as the first two, which are some of my favorites from the third wave.

Dr. Ring-Ding & The Senior Allstars, “Call Di Doctor”

Just a reminder: this is a white dude from Germany.

Sly & the Family Stone, “Poet”

Sly & the Family Stone’s 1971 record There’s A Riot Goin’ On is a landmark of soul, rock, and funk, even as it’s essentially impossible to put into any of those categories. The band’s optimism on previous records had essentially evaporated, and this record also marked the point at which Sly Stone’s drug issues and interpersonal problems starting affecting the music. The album was recorded with overdubs in the studio, with Sly handling most of the playing, instead of the rest of the band playing it directly. It’s murky, dark, and often strange, and it’s completely compelling.

Swans, “Stay Here”

Filth is maybe the best named album ever made. Belching forth from the no-wave scene in New York City, it’s just 36 minutes of pure punishment. Grinding, scraping, the nihilism is palpable on every part of the record. From Roli Mossimann’s relentless pounding on the drums, to Norman Westberg’s doom-laden guitar work, and especially Michael Gira’s howling vocals, the Swans are operating in a primal mode here that would inspire countless other noise bands. They would tune their attack, add in a lot more variation and complexity, and would end up as one of the most majestic bands ever. But when they started? They were the avatars of everything murky and gross.

Gaunt, “Different Drum Machine”

Every time Gaunt comes up, I say more or less the same thing. But, dammit, I’m write. Gaunt should have been huge! This song is such a beast.

Snuff, “The Damage Is Done”

A minute and a half of just pure punk rock, this is plenty enjoyable. Just going to rip through five tunes today apparently!

The Cinematic Orchestra, “Man With The Movie Camera”

Or not! The Cinematic Orchestra are a jazz/orchestra that married cinematic tunes with, uh, jazz and some of the rhythms of dance music. It sounds like a soundtrack as created by a Ninja Tune band, which is pretty much exactly what it is. Very cool stuff.

Obits, “Spun Out”

Who is making music with this kind of reverbed out surf guitar these days? Honest question, I have no idea, and I like it a lot. Comment down below! Or don’t! I’m not the boss of you.

People Under The Stairs, “Montego Slay”

This song is actually assembled out of a bunch of micro samples of music from commercials for Jamaican tourism, which is pretty impressive given how coherent it all sounds. This sort of careful, detailed assembling is something that always impresses the hell out of me.

Modest Mouse, “Fire It Up”

I really need to go back and re-evaluate this record. Given how much I like the previous three albums from them (and the various EPs), it wasn’t really fair to kind of dismiss the record after only a couple listens. Sometimes it’s easy to just move on when a record doesn’t click right away, especially for a band that you love, because you expect to love it right away.

They Might Be Giants, “Put Your Hand Inside The Puppet Head”

While the first TMBG album certainly sounds primitive compared to where they’d end up, there are still plenty of their hallmarks present even with this early song. They were capable of writing catchy tunes from the beginning, they had the clever lyrics, and the charm was certianly present. The first album has too many incidents of wackiness, too many throwaways to be really great, but there are some fine tunes on it.

Bathory, “Song To Hall Up High”

Black metal pioneer Bathory (which was pretty much just Quorthon) pivoted away from the pure black metal of their earlier albums towards Viking metal, more or less establishing that genre too. Hammerheart is one of the key albums of that genre, and if you wanted more bombast in your black metal, Bathory can help you out.

Nine Inch Nails, “Gave Up”

After Pretty Hate Machine, there wasn’t any new music from NiN for several years, due to label disputes. When the dry spell lifted, it brought a six-song EP (not counting the two bonus tracks that weren’t really connected) of fury. Broken sounded to my ears like a totally new direction for the band, which was actually OK with me, as I had really moved away from industrial dance. It really was a preview of what The Downward Spiral was, and is just an excellent set of tunes.

Helmet, “Better”

Helmet’s debut album on Amphetamine Reptile Records was a savage and self-assured record, and they backed it up by touring heavily and blowing people away. Then, Nirvana blew up huge and the major labels started looking for heavy rock acts to sign to satisfy a market suddenly hungry for them. Every single one of them landed on Helmet, and a ferocious bidding war erupted. Interscope were the winners, signing Helmet to a million dollar deal and sending them into the studio. As a teaser, they released a CD single with three of the songs from the upcoming album (including this one) along with one live track, and I got to see what Helmet would sound like with serious dollars behind them. The answer? Helmet!

Son Volt, “Back Into Your World”

Can I talk about some of the strange artifacts that my music collection has accumulated over the years? Oh, that’s right, you can’t stop me! The process of ripping CDs (often with dodgy info databases), matching via iTunes and Amazon Music, storing and then re-downloading from Amazon Music, moving from computer to computer, and a bunch of other things have caused mutations in a lot of this stuff. It’s mostly harmless, but every now and again a tic is interesting or odd. This album has one of those mutations: the album name is recorded as Straightaways (Warner Bros) for some reason, suggesting that someone once input it that way into a database and these tracks picked it up. And you may think, well, did they release this album on multiple labels? Nope, every version in Discogs is from Warner Bros. Somebody apparently just annotated all their album names with labels for some goblin reason, and it got swept up into some aggregated database, and now it’s here perplexing me.