Yo La Tengo Is Murdering The Classics is a compilation of Yo La Tengo’s fundraising appearances for WFMU where the band plays whatever songs are requested. You can usually tell when it’s a song they’re more familiar with than others, because they can usually muster more energy in the performance, although they’re game for whatever. Here, they put in a nice run on the Stooges classic.
[Read More]There’s a lot to really like on The Crane Wife, especially the epic songs on it, but this song isn’t really one of the highlights. It’s fine, I don’t mind it, but it’s not one of the songs I would seek out.
Meanwhile, here’s a song that I can easily belt out all the lyrics to without even half thinking about it. Prophylaxis is one of the albums I love the most that nobody has really heard of. Is it available on Spotify? Friends, it is not.
[Read More]I don’t know why I’m surprised at how minimal Lally is willing to get, given how even the most spare Fugazi songs still had a lot going on. But, it’s silly to get surprised by that, as Lally has always clearly been talented, and there’s no reason to believe he’d just make Fugazi Light once on his own.
We’ve discussed many times how J Church has put out a ton of compilations in their time, but when I look at their normal albums, I think Prophylaxis is my favorite of the bunch. It’s hard to pinpoint why exactly, as J Church didn’t really vary their sound much over the years. I suspect some of that is just that it was one of their earliest, so I spent more time with it. When you encounter an album at 19, it makes an impression! But, whatever, it’s my favorite! You can’t take that away!
[Read More]We had a track from Hello Nasty yesterday, today we’ve got a track from the DJ that joined them with that record. Mix Master Mike was a member of the Invisibl Skratch Piklz, the most successful DJ collective around. This is from his solo record, which came out the same year as Hello Nasty, and which at the time, I liked more. Probably wouldn’t be true these days.
[Read More]Next to the bass / turn up the radio!
Cat Food is a quickie album that J Church threw together by recording some songs in a day, adding in a couple compilation tracks, and calling it good. But punk never really suffers from being a little slapdash, and the resulting album is pretty entertaining. Basically, Lance Hahn is good enough that most everything he does is worth listening to. This is how the album opens. It’s good! Listen to that solo!
[Read More]Well, it starts out pretty well.
A little bit ago, when Seattle was pretty snowed in, I trundled in to work, and my travel mug popped open in my bag. Everything was soaked, ruining a nice deck of cards, a notepad, and, oh yeah, my work computer. Most of the IT offices were closed, due to snow, but I found the closest open one and headed down. The three guys in there seemed kind of bored and happy for something to do. I mentioned that I liked what they were listening to, mentioning Boards of Canada by name, and they lit up. Next thing I know, I’m included in their joking around, we’re talking about music, and I had a pleasant little afternoon instead of what could have been a lousy day. Thanks, Board of Canada! You made me seem almost kinda cool for a brief period!
[Read More]I really enjoy tom-heavy drum beats like this. Yeah, I wouldn’t want it for every song, but for the occasional tune, bring it on. Also, this song gets in and out in two minutes. Nice work!
I gotta say, you can count your fingers differently and really change the intent of this title by quite a bit! This isn’t the best song from Martha Reeves, when it comes down to it. It’s pretty predictable and a little too syrupy. Not unpleasant, but not great.
[Read More]While it wasn’t really their debut album, Do You Want More?!!!??! feels like it SHOULD be their debut album. Organix feels more like a practice run or a demo, a band trying to find its voice, and several of its songs appear on the next album in re-worked forms. Anyway, this is the first full song on Do You Want More, and it really sets the template for the album and indeed their first couple albums, with the jazzy groove of the band revolving around Scott Storch’s keyboards and ?uestlove’s drums. I think Black Thought is better on the subsequent albums, but he’s certainly good on this record. Basically, this is where to start with the Roots in exploring their early career.
[Read More]One of the great things that punk is able to do when it’s on is produce a short song that nevertheless is complete and satisfying. This thing clocks in at 1:40 and you’d hardly notice that it’s not the usual three minute pop song. Lance Hahn was able to pull this off time after time, in way that should shame so many people out there writing rock songs.
[Read More]Camels, Spilled Corona, and the Sound of Mariachi Bands is a great name for an album, in this case the first of multiple singles comps that J Church put together. As befits a band as prolific as they were, J Church was constantly putting out songs on 7"s, random comps, splits, and other places. They had the good grace to collect that stuff together periodically, and the comps are really basically on a par with their normal albums.
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