Anything On Your Mind?
I have to say, at some point, we’re going to enter fuzzy territory for my recollection of things. I’ll probably wrap up this walk backwards in 1986, for reasons that will probably become clear once we get there. But, in the meantime, we’ve reached 1992, my freshman/sophomore year of college. The end of my freshman year is when I decided to get involved with the mighty WRCT, upon discovery of the fact that they let basically anybody do it, not just people studying radio or media or whatever. At the time, they didn’t provide any shows to freshmen due to limited hours, but I could help around the station, learn the ropes, and get ready for doing a show. So that’s what I did, getting myself into position to be the worst DJ on the roster. I had also located all the good record stores in Pittsburgh by this point along with which buses would take me to them, setting up my regular Tuesday ritual of heading to Paul’s Records to check out the new releases. I learned so much about underground bands and especially labels this year, cementing my lifelong pursuit of music that was off the beaten path.
Socially, I had met a group of friends who were mostly people I went to shows with, which was certainly nice, but we didn’t do a lot together in addition other than kind of hang out. And that’s fine, but it wasn’t totally what I was looking for. I’d also started volunteering with the student theater, where I worked assembling sets and doing run crew stuff during performances. That was also a lot of fun, and actors are an entertaining bunch to hang out with for sure. But like with my other friends, I did feel like something of an outsider with them, despite the best efforts of my buddy Alex to get me integrated into the group. I did enjoy my days for sure, but I didn’t feel quite the same connection to these folks as I would with people I’d meet in the coming couple years (some of whom I’m still friends with).
Another fun thing I started doing this year was trading tapes with people on the internet. In these days, MP3s weren’t a thing yet, and trying to transfer music over the Internet would have been largely hopeless anyway given the bandwidth most people had. So if you wanted to trade music with people, you made tapes. It was easy, and everybody had cassette players. So I found myself sending tapes with songs I really liked on them to strangers, who would also send me stuff. It was a nice way for me to catch up on older punk bands, as I was still pretty young in those days, and I could send out whatever rancid garbage I was listening to. This did gradually taper off in college as I met more people, but it was a great way to have an exciting treat in the mail.
So I suppose this was a year of “finding myself”, which I think mostly was finding that I was a huge music dork in addition to being a gaming dork. Although that part of my personality was slumbering a bit. As far as the RYM chart for the year, I have 11 of these releases, which makes some sense. I wasn’t quite fully up to speed on the underground yet, but I was getting there.
What Are You Listening To From 1992, Josh?
A sampling of albums that I’m playing regularly, whether older ones or newer ones. Just the things that I think are worth highlighting, and maybe you’d enjoy.
My guess, before looking at my 1992 collection, is that I’ll find some of my all-time favorites in this list, what with being 17 most of the year. You just form emotional attachments to music at that age. Looking at the 1992 records in my library, there are for sure some of those (Pavement’s first record, the Afghan Whigs’ Congregation, Check Your Head, the Jesus Lizard’s Liar, Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde, Superchunk’s On The Mouth, some of the records below), but maybe not quite as many as I would have guessed. Since I’ve looked at 1993 and 1994 already, I’d say those years live larger in my memory.
Cunning Stunts, The Cows
While Into the Vortex is my favorite Amphetamine Reptile release, the band with the best run of records on AmRep is the Cows. They put out eight LPs with AmRep, and while the early stuff is pretty chaotic, this album was the start of a five album run that absolutely rips. I’m choosing to highlight it because it’s the first record I encountered from them, and it’s the one that really got me paying serious attention to basically everything AmRep put out. (My first AmRep record will have to wait until next time.) What the Cows did on this record was let enough of the songs emerge from the murk to really understand what was going on. It’s somewhere between cowpunk and noise rock, but it’s all Cows. If you like this, first of all: ONE OF US. But you can confidently move forward in the Cows’ discography from here and you’ll like everything else. Moving backwards is trickier - those records are pretty inconsistently available. What is available is Old Gold, a comp where they pulled tracks from the previous three albums into a single record. I’m still kicking myself for losing my copies of their first records. I’m especially missing the CD AmRep issued with Peacetika and Daddy Has A Tail on one CD. Somewhere along the way I lost them. I should see if I can track them down.
Pure, Godflesh
When I arrived at college, I was listening to a lot of industrial and its variations. Some research led me to people saying Godflesh was making incredible industrial metal (although at the time, people didn’t use the term that much). I went out, picked up Streetcleaner, and I was NOT ready for it, it was two slow for my tastes at the time which were shaped by stuff like Ministry. I actually sold the record. When Pure came out, people again were raving over it. Well, I thought, I’m capable of acknowledging a mistake, and I picked up Pure. I was still not ready for it. But, I would periodically put it in and try it out, and eventually, yeah, I was ready for it. I wanted to see what others saw, and eventually I did.
Godflesh is fundamentally just really bleak. It’s slow, pounding, plodding, downbeat, and when the vocals emerge, they just feed into that whole downcast thing as well. I saw them open up for Skinny Puppy once and they were just crushing (they also had uncoordinated strobe lights on stage that were deeply unpleasant). It’s just bummer music. And sometimes you need bummer music. Sometimes, you listen to something like this, and it gets the bummer out of you. It’s a bummer sponge.
I’m sorry for that.
Justin Broadrick, by virtue of being a contributor to Napalm Death’s genre-defining Scum, his work with Godflesh setting a standard for industrial metal, and then becoming one of the standard setters of post-metal with Jesu, is one of the most influential metal musicians ever.
Dayglo, Love Battery
I’ve mentioned this record plenty over the years, but it’s worth repeating here that this is one of the very best records to come out of the grunge scene. Love Battery was comprised of scene veterans, including members who spent time in such legendary bands as Green River, the U-Men, Skin Yard, and other elemental bands of the Pacific Northwest. That experience would result in them being pretty polished out of the gate, and Between the Eyes is a very good record. But they took it up a notch for their second LP, the first for Sub Pop. It’s full of psychedelic riffs and layers of fuzz set against a great rhythm section. Endlessly catchy stuff.
Let’s Talk More 1992
Lots of records to talk about from this year!
Plays Pretty For Baby, The Nation of Ulysses
Man, if the Nation of Ulysses had come out today, people would love them. The band combined far-left politics, bonkers live shows, and a cracked take on punk rock to make an irresistible mix. Featuring Ian Svenonious’s inimitable vocals and Brenty Canty’s (Rites of Spring, Fugazi, The Messthetics) little brother James on drums, their first record was very good and this, their second, was unstoppable. They would break up not too long after this record, and most of the band would end up in The Make-Up next, who were also excellent, but I do think this is the peak for these folks. Also, cool, their third record (which I never found a physical release of!) is on Bandcamp!
Overwhelming Colorfast, Overwhelming Colorfast
Do you like Hüsker Dü? Because Overwhelming Colorfast certainly does. And, look, it’s not subtle. But Hüsker Dü rules, and a credible imitation is certainly worth spinning. Thanks to a truly ugly album cover (back when that mattered) and the, uh, depth of the homage, this record got quickly rejected by the underground. And I think that’s unfair, it’s a really catchy set of tunes riding that power pop/punk line. It it breaking new ground? Are you not paying attention? No, obviously not. But it’s still plenty fun.
Watery, Domestic, Pavement
I’m not going to write about Slanted & Enchanted, because you all know about it, I’m sure. But I’ll just mention briefly here that, pound-for-pound, this is the best Pavement record. I know, nobody listens to it in this form any more because these songs got pulled into some re-release or comp or something, but dammit, this is how they should be listened to.
Burning Stone, Ruins
You ready for some weirdos? Ruins are a Japanese duo, on bass, drums, and gibberish. And that’s not me just not understanding Japanese! No, this is intentionally gibberish. I don’t really know how to describe this, honestly. There will be funky grooves, washes of noise, metal stretches, operatic wailing, prog noodling, straightforward rock parts, just everything. Authentically strange stuff.
Billy, Samiam
Well, let’s have something straightforward after that thing. Samiam play melodic punk, and you can look at that phrase and guess what this sounds like. And yeah, you’re right. But I love this record, probably because I first listened to it when I was 17, so I’m sharing it anyway.
Burning Hell, Brainbombs
Oh hell, one more, quickly. Sweden’s Brainbombs started out here, with a record that is some mix of lo-fi punk and noise rock, and kind of never stopped. I’ll admit to not staying on top of this band, so I can really only recommend this record, but it’s a lovely, primitive, ugly thing. We had this record at WRCT, but I never found a copy for myself, and I was delighted when it showed up on Bandcamp (and was mentioned in one of the newsletters from the footer, but I don’t remember which one).
Five Random Songs
Yes, it’s the “classic” five random songs format. It’s been told before on this blog many times, but basically, on an old forum, people would post the last five songs their shuffle pulled up. I liked it, so I made it into a blog. And now, here we are.
“Our Lawyer Made Us Change The Name of This Song So We Wouldn’t Get Sued”, Fall Out Boy
Having a lawyer isn’t very punk rock, Fall Out Boy.
“Making Do”, Lake Street Dive
I should probably listen to this band more than I do. For someone who likes, say, Amy Winehouse as much as I do, it seems natural. But I’ve only got this record, and I haven’t listened to it that much. I should probably sit with it some and decide what I think.
“Kool & The Gang”, Curren$y & The Alchemist
What a tune, the Alchemist’s track here is gorgeous.
“Outro”, media puzzle
I wrote about this record recently, so you can check that out. This isn’t the last track on the record, despite being named “Outro”. But it is kind of outro-ish.
“Faces”, Holy Scum
Everybody likes no wave, right? Right?
Josh, What Are You Doing Here?
I’m just writing about music. A structure like this blog helps me get my thoughts out, and it’s a way for me to explore my own music collection through various lenses. My sincere hope is that some folks out there find some new music they love. That’s all I’m up to. Sincere thanks to everybody who sends me feedback, with news that they’ve found a new favorite especially fun for me. There’s no monetization, no metrics, no ads, no promos, no nothing. Just some static web pages, some links, and my scribbling. If you want to support it, just shoot me a note! Thanks for reading.
Some Better Places To Learn About Music
Check these folks out, you’ll learn more for sure. In no particular order: To The Teeth, Wolf’s Week/Plague Rages, The Devil’s Mouth, Burning Ambulance, Lamniformes Cuneiform, Hex Records, See/Saw, Starkweather, Treble Magazine, The Quietus, Stereogum.