Girls Against Boys

Has-Lo, “Everything Is”

The minimal beat here really works well. Not every song can get by on something like this, but Has-Lo pulls it off.

Girls Against Boys, “(I) Don’t Got A Place”

A thing I sometimes wonder about is the extent to which I contradict myself in the archives here. After writing as many entries for songs and bands, I’m sure I’ve said stuff in the past that can’t be reconciled. And I thought to myself, “hey, this is from the Touch & Go records, the last good ones they made, but this isn’t their best record”. I checked the archive, six articles with them, and you know what? 100% consistent! I call the album before this one my favorite from them, twice, and mention that the last Touch & Go record is their last good record. From this sample of one, I can conclude that I’m totally consistent.

Tar, “G7”

Well, I just mentioned Amphetamine Reptile Records the other day! Here’s one of my favorite bands from that label, but in their post-AmRep days. They put out two albums and an EP on AmRep and then left to put out some tunes for Touch & Go, producing the same amount of music (two albums and an EP). This comes from the first thing they put on Touch & Go, Clincher, the aforementioned EP. The notable thing about it was that the production was less murky than their earlier stuff, which allowed some of the grooviness that got lost to come forward. While on balance, I prefer the AmRep stuff, their final record for Touch & Go (Over and Out) is brilliant stuff. Tar was good! More people than me should remember them! I still have a shirt I bought at a show of theirs in 1992!

Arab Strap, “Flirt”

Folks, the streak of metal is over!

I wonder what proportion of my music library is various genres. I think just plain “rock” probably dominates, but I’d love to know what percentage is metal, rap, soul, ska, or whatever else. I wish I could trust the genre metadata on things.

Superchunk, “100,000 Fireflies”

This b-side comes to us from the “The Question Is How Fast” single. Superchunk took singles seriously from the beginning, all the way down to releasing actual 7" singles at a time when not many bands were doing that. As a result, their b-sides were always pretty good. Happily, they’ve done a good job of collecting these things together (this one makes it to Incidental Music: 91-95).

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.

Naked City, “Bonehead”

I can often write these little blurbs while each song is playing, as most songs give me enough time to bang out a little bit of garbage for you all to read. Naked City, though? Forget it. Should change their name to Pause City!

Girls Against Boys, “Super-Fire”

This is the opening of House of GVSB, the last album from Girls Against Boys for Touch and Go, not to mention their last good album. Their brand of driving, almost danceable post-hardcore was in fine form here, which makes it a shame that they fell off so hard.

Hell yes.

Less Than Jake, “Scott Farcas Takes It On The Chin”

Less Than Jake, especially during their heyday, put out tons of singles and compilation appearances. They’ve collected those on various comps, which are usually worth looking into. This is an alternate take of “Scott Farcas Takes It On The Chin” (which originally appeared on Hello Rockview), this time showing up on the comp Goodbye Blue & White.

Son Volt, “Satellite”

I have an idea that Son Volt’s range is not as wide as Wilco. (Before you say anything: no, you’re not allowed to discuss Son Volt without a comparison to Wilco, it’s part of the Universal Music Critic And Adjacent Commentator Standard Contract and Practices that we all have to sign before we get our blogging license.) Anyway, that notion is probably horseshit, but it’s my horseshit. And now it’s yours?

Seems like we’ve had a lot of new bands recently. That’s cool! Here’s the music for today.

Girls Against Boys, “In Like Flynn”

Early 90s underground rock act Girls Against Boys stood out from the pack for a couple reasons. First, the sound wasn’t just all grim pounding or punk gallop. Instead, Girls Against Boys always sounded like a rock band you could dance to, which was kind of a rarity. The second distinguishing feature probably drove the first, which is that the band had two bassists, a good idea that far too few bands take advantage of. This album, Venus Luxure No. 1 Baby, is probably their best.