Bim Skala Bim enjoyed covering classic rock warhorses over their career, songs which are really kind of ideal targets for this kind of thing. Any dork who will get upset about a cheeky cover of Cream of Pink Floyd is really showing their ass. Anyway, this is fun, sure, why not?
Upon proofreading, I’m leaving the “Cream of Pink Floyd” typo in there, because it’s delightful. Yes, I proofread these, dammit.
[Read More]It wasn’t clear if there would be a follow-up to the masterful Blazing Arrow, but three years later, The Craft showed up. And while it’s not quite as good, that’s an unreasonable expectation. It’s an excellent record, Gift of Gab was a master, and the beats are urgent enough to provide a strong platform and not disappear.
I think last time we had the Presidents of the United States of America on here, I mentioned that Chris Ballew was occupying himself with making kids’ records under the moniker Caspar Babypants. Well, here he is, and it’s a testament to his basic affability and deft hand with a tune that he managed to turn the curdled anthem of canned baseball stadium antics from a rancid abomination to a totally pleasant listen.
[Read More]Yeah, let’s hear it for 90s ska! Hey, what are you doing with that tomato?
Bim Skala Bim’s Bones is the one where they really cemented their sunny sound, sort of a pop/ska approach that they would more or less carry through the rest of their records. I think I’ve listened to their version of “Brain Damage” more than Pink Floyd’s original.
That’s a pretty tough sound for Elf Power! I’d like them better with more of this kind of thing.
[Read More]Corniest song we’ve had on here? Quite possibly!
This is from an early Bim Skala Bim album (Tuba City), from before they kind of settled down into a more traditional groove and started making their best tunes. It’s not a bad album, but it’s one of the last I’d go for from them as well.
Oh my god, that beat absolutely melted my brain. Sorry, can’t type more, it’s hard to see the screen nodding my head this much.
[Read More]This is another one of those songs that has a tremendous sense of place about it in my memory. This came out early in 1995, in my last year of college, and my friend Miranda and I listened to it over and over sitting in the lounge of my dorm. We’d get my roommate’s Super Nintendo with the floppy drive going, and fire up a bootleg copy of Super Bombliss and spend the afternoon blowing each other up. I can picture the crappy TV, the empty pizza boxes, and my shitty toaster in the corner of the lounge. It’s a gift for a piece of music to call up such a vivid memory like that, and I can become Captain Cheap Tetris again, if only for a couple of minutes.
[Read More]A big part of the ska scene in the late 80s and early 90s was an active trade in compilations. It allowed bands to get their music out and prime the audiences for touring, which is where bands built up a following. One series of comps was the Mashin’ Up The Nation series, which this was part of volume 2 of. It’s an unusually raw track for Bim Skala Bim, but a lot of the songs on these comps tended towards the raw, because many of them were low budget or live.
[Read More]Fifteen is the successor band to Crimpshrine, who were one of the seminal bands of the entire Gilman/Lookout scene in California. Crimpshrine splintered, yielding Operation Ivy, the legendary Cometbus zine, and Fifteen. As you can hear, this is very much right in the middle of that Lookout sound, all melodic punk in the vein of Stiff Little Fingers. Quite enjoyable if you’re into this style.
The Shadowy Men would become famous as the band who provided the theme song and much of the music for the Kids in the Hall. But to me, they’ll always remind me of my friends Drew and Alex in college, and specifically Alex’s dorm where I first encountered them. They were really the first instrumental band I fell in love with, and one of the key ways I started broadening my taste. I’m glad that it still sounds great to me, and cherish the ability of this album to transport me back to that time.
[Read More]Five months in a row of a daily updates every single day. I can’t keep this up forever, but I’m hoping the consistency is nice for folks out there. (looks at analytics) Well, a few of you, anyway.
Gauche is a supergroup featuring members of Priests and Downtown Boys, playing new wave music in what sounds like nothing so much as an updated B-52s. I’m not really a huge new wave guy, but it’s hard not to have fun listening to rhythms this infectious.
[Read More]Little Fluffy Clouds was one of the first things that ambient electronic artists The Orb released, and I picked it up as part of a foray into whether I liked electronic music at that time. I knew some folks that were into going to raves and things, and thought, eh, I like industrial enough, maybe I’ll like this too. I never really got into it, though, at least not at that time. Wasn’t too wild about raves either. It wasn’t until I encountered more frantic genres of electronic music that I really got it.
[Read More]DJ Shadow’s third album, The Outsider, is kind of a mess. It was four years after The Private Press and ten after Endtroducing, and all that time apparently created a lot of ideas that all tried to burst out at the same time. That doesn’t let the whole thing hang together as an album, but it does have plenty of fun songs. It’s also an album that I have learned to appreciate more as time has gone on. It turns out that he didn’t need to make another Endtroducing!
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