Anything On Your Mind?
I was poking around for something to watch the other day and came across a YouTube suggestion for a video that was just a series of 15 second snippets of songs from the top songs on RateYourMusic. The idea is that you were supposed to name the song within that 15 seconds. It was an extremely low effort video, I’m sure it’s just automated slop, but dammit, I was entertained. The channel itself is dire, I’m not going to link to it, but if you search for music quizzes on YouTube, there are a bunch of choices, and they’re probably all garbage content. I guess this is an extremely lukewarm endorsement, but I dunno, I wish somebody non-crappy would do something like that. Someone who maybe has a brand around random songs or something? Ah well. One can dream.
What Are You Listening To, 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.
I’ve switched my car playlist to shuffling 1994, and so the records below are from that august year. Yes, I know, I did a 1994 roundup not so long ago, but apparently this is how my brain thinks. So, 1994 redux! Why not!
Heater, Crain
I had forgotten about this band, so score one for shuffle! Crain were out of Louisville, KY, although they don’t actually share any members with the Squirrel Bait family tree. As befits that town of origin, there’s plenty of crunchy goodness going on here. I hear some Bitch Magnet, personally, although it’s hard to tell if I have that Louisville sound on the brain or not. At any rate, what’s interesting is that I would not have called this noise rock back in the day, despite listening to a lot of it at the time. But now, catching up with ears that haven’t heard this in a long time, it reads extremely noise rock to me. It probably doesn’t hurt that Albini recorded it. At any rate, I’ve very much enjoyed catching up. And not only that, but Crain’s first album (which I had heard at WRCT back in the day but had never owned a copy) is available on Bandcamp. But this record isn’t. Ah well!
Demolition Pumpkin Squeeze Musik, DJ Q-Bert
I talked about this record when I was on Breakup Gaming Society, but I’ll bring it up here since shuffle dug it up. A lot of DJ records, particularly from some of the truly elite practitioners, can end up as more skills demonstrations than albums. Truly impressive stuff, but a little hard sometimes to just relax and listen to. Q-Bert is more than capable of lighting up the turntables in a way few other people ever have been, but he doesn’t feel the need to fill this thing with pyrotechnics. Instead, he lets a lot of these classic break records stretch out and breathe. It serves as a second recontextualization of a lot of these records. DJs took the breaks from these albums and crafted them into the bedrock of hip-hop, and now Q-Bert has taken a bunch of them and brought back a lot of the original musicality, but within yet a new frame. It’s a neat trick.
Pirate Prude, Helium
After a couple 7"s, Helium signed to Matador and put out this EP as their debut record. And that’s where I was first introduced to Mary Timony, although I would later go back and listen to Autoclave. I think Helium is my favorite of her bands, although she’s always been great in whatever she’s done. I do kind of wish one of her projects would last more than a couple albums, I guess. Anyway, Helium would only last for a couple albums, a couple EPs, and a handful of singles, but it’s all good stuff. But as the first record I heard from them, this is still my favorite of the bunch.
(NB: this EP does not appear to be on Bandcamp, but some of the songs are on the compilation Ends With And. Which, weirdly, doesn’t have an embed available.)
Let’s Talk New Releases
Records come out every week, and there’s no way to stay on top of them. This isn’t a comprehensive look at everything, just a few things that have caught my ears out of recent releases. Any impressions here are very early!
Common Enemy, Human Target
Say it with me: the hardcore EPs will continue until morale improves!
Burth, Yammer Jaw
Noise Rock Autumn continues with this, the debut album from Nashville’s Yammer Jaw. At least, I think it’s the debut album. They don’t exist on Discogs. That’s always fun when that happens! Anyway, this shares quite a bit with the Bluto record I shared the other day, both in that they come from the Unsane school of noise rock but also in that I found it via Hex Records. Check out the footer, you’ll do better with those people! Anyway, I’m always happy to sit down for a good, solid braining by this kind of thing. Fuck me up, boys!
Real Simple, Retail Simps
This is pure garage rock. No extra descriptors, no modifiers, nothing is post anything else here. Just garage rock. Don’t you want a garage rock EP? I put it on cleaning the kitchen yesterday, and I think I got done in half the time I expected.
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.
“Intro”, The Roots
This is, er, the intro to Illadelph Halflife, the third Roots record (second if you ignore Organix, which a lot of people seem to do), and the last record before the breakthrough of Things Fall Apart (when the Roots became THE ROOTS). This record didn’t change a lot of the formula from the last one, and it’s certainly a pleasant hang, but not as vital as their later, more focused work.
“Tin Cans & Twine”, Tortoise
From the first Tortoise album, where they declared the direction of their approach to post-rock. But I want to talk about the album cover. Everybody has this brown thing that is used for the cover, but my version was green! They chose the worst version of the cover! What were they thinking!
“Ambulance vs. Ambulance”, The Blood Brothers
Seattle band alert! The Blood Brothers played a version of post-hardcore mostly defined by the dual vocals, which consisted mostly of howling. Whether you like this band will largely come down to how you react to said howling. This is from their third record (…Burn, Piano Island, Burn) and the one I still like the best.
“Searching for a New Day”, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings
This is a cut from Soul of a Woman, the final record that Sharon Jones cut before cancer took her life. But despite knowing that her end was near, it’s not a maudlin record. It’s yet another outstanding soul album, full of the rich and lush moments that make her work with the Dap-Kings so vital. She gave us one final gift before departing this world.
“L.G.B.”, Let’s Go Bowling
There’s a kind of odd cluster of imagery around the ska bands of the third wave, or at least some of them. A mix of wised-up urban Rat Pack tough guy, working class hero, and outsider rebel. The kind of thing you would get by mixing up all the things from the movie posters on suburban bedroom walls of 80s kids who thought they were different than everybody else. Self-described “old souls”. As a result of the backwards-looking images of these bands, drawing as they do on music from the 60s and 70s and imagery from the 20s, 30s, and 50s, you’d find the occasional cultural marker that a band would latch onto that might not make that much sense, but which probably meant authenticity to them. Hence things like gas station attendant shirts.
And so, bowling. A sport that clearly says “salt of the earth Midwesterner”, it became part of the personas of Let’s Go Bowling, who had four albums back in the day of workmanlike ska that liberally used bowling imagery. Were they just really big fans of the sport? Were they reaching for social implications here, as a way of signaling their working-class bona fides? Did they just not think about it that much? Hard to say. I believe that they were sincere fans of the sport, if I’m remembering an interview I read with them back in the day. Anyway, I enjoyed these records when they came out, but don’t generally haul them up much any more. Maybe a revisit is in order?
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.