Hepcat

Japandroids, “Young Hearts Spark Fire”

This was the song that launched the Japandroids, rattling around enough on blogs to get the band the attention that would make their career. It’s a solid capsule of their sound, all fuzzy guitars, propulsive drumming, and catchy shouting. It’s easy to see how people got excited for this, and the excitement would pay off with Post-Nothing and to a greater extent Celebration Rock.

Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, “Lap Dance”

This comes to us from one of the leftovers records that JSBX put out, this one collecting miscellany from Acme. The leftovers records are actually not bad, generally, even if they are kind of shaggy. The truth is that peak JSBX was just fun to listen to, even if maybe they weren’t doing their best material. Anyway, this record is Xtra-Acme USA, and it’s not something to pick up until you’ve worn out the proper albums, but if you’re a JSBX freak you should absolutely listen to it.

Hepcat, “The Secret”

The first Hepcat record found the band hitting their first-wave ska sounds right out of the gate. They’d keep moving in this direction with later records, growing more assured as they went, and creating lusher arrangements. But all that said, every one of their records is a good one, even if I might go for them in reverse release order. I guess you can compare this to the version from Right On Time to see how they developed.

Gojira, “The Shooting Star”

Technical death band Gojira took a little bit different approach on 2016’s Magma, where they actually slowed it down a little sometimes and have things approaching melody at times. It’s easily their most accessible album, but they’re good enough that simplifying their sound a little doesn’t spoil the proceedings. That’s not to say it’s not a very loud album, but it’s not the same kind of insanity as some of their earlier stuff.

Frisk Frugt, “Solsorte Synger Solen Op”

Frisk Frugt is the alias of Anders Lauge Meldgaard, who makes experimental pop music using modified toy instruments and various homemade instruments. He’s an artist I found through The Quietus, which can be a good source of music out of left field. It’s an interesting album, unlike anything else I really have, and there’s always room for stuff like that in my collection.

Hepcat, “Prison of Love”

You know what else we always have room for around here? Ska. Always! Can’t wait for a fourth wave.

Jesus Jones, “The Devil You Know”

After the enormous success of “Right Here, Right Now” carried Doubt everywhere, Jesus Jones was faced with the prospect of following up a massive hit, a task which has broken many bands. The followup came a couple years later, and Perverse achieved nowhere the same level of success. Partly, those two years hurt. Partly, it was due to the pop music world having moved on to other shiny objects. It certainly didn’t help when one of the biggest bands associated with the scene, the Stone Roses, remained adamantly MIA. But for the last part, it was due to Perverse being not a terribly likable album. The shiny, crowd-pleasing stuff just wasn’t there. It’s very electronics focused, an emphasis on only one half of the Madchester formula, but it winds up feeling imbalanced. It’s really almost trending towards industrial dance, but kind of falls into an uncanny valley.

Hepcat, “Marcus Garvey”

Y’all, it’s ska weather right now in Seattle. It’s still sunny, but not oppressive, and some breezy tunes to go with it is just perfect. I’ve had Hepcat on while making dinner a few times recently, and it’s going down niiiice. Right On Time is my favorite record from them, but Scientific (which provides this song) is excellent as well.

Mudhoney, “Twenty Four”

Mudhoney’s singles were pretty great, kind of across the board. They’d pretty consistently turn in either bruising performances, excellent covers, or fun larks. As a result, March to Fuzz, a collection of those singles, is a very good time. The guitar tone is just all-time on this song.

Sharon Jones, “Make It Good To Me”

Fuck me, listen to that organ. I try and play a decent amount of soul around the kids, because it’s just such amazing music, and with luck, they’ll get the same appreciation of it. I try not to make a big deal about it, but my dad used to do the same thing, and it just kind of seeped into my brain. I’m trying the same approach, as it worked on me!

Great one today!

Run The Jewels, “Early”

Run The Jewels 2 is just perfect. El-P’s beats have never sounded better, Killer Mike’s rhymes have never soudned better, the guests are fantastic. It’s just such a great album, one of the highlights of music this decade.

Hepcat, “The Secret”

It’s a repeat! Still, Hepcat is always welcome around here.

Minutemen, “Martin’s Story”

I always feel like categorizing the Minutemen as a hardcore band is such a bad idea. They get lumped in there because they would occasionally take that tempo, and of course they were labelmates with a bunch of hardcore bands. But they’re so much different, so much more open to experimentation. Just listen to this!

Good set today.

Hepcat, “You And I”

Hepcat could really straddle the line between ska, rocksteady, and even something like soul. This song is just a low-key delight.

Wu-Tang Clan, “Shame On A Nigga”

I love it when rappers deliberately use a bogus word and correct themselves in their rhymes, like Method Man does in his verse. This song, of course, comes from Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), one of the revolutionary records of rap, and one of my very favorites. I listened to this song a second time when I put together the play list. And then YouTube pulled up “Da Mystery Of Chessboxin’”, so I listened to that too.

Nice set today!

James Brown, “The Payback”

Sometimes on this blog, I talk about things that are cool. It’s hard to put your finger on what cool is. It’s the kind of thing that you can’t really define, but can only find the outlines of by looking at examples. Look at enough cool things, and you will finally get a sense of what’s cool. It also helps to have something to center things, a north star of cool to find your bearings.