Mighty Mighty Bosstones

Dead Kennedys, “Soup Is Good Food”

This is the song that let me finally crack the Dead Kennedys. I think there’s an adjustment, for me at least, as music gets faster and more challenging to find something you can pick out that lets you understand it. This song, as a relatively slow one and one where it’s easy to understand what Jello is singing, is the one that let me kind of get what they were up to. And from there, now that I had a rosetta stone for the band, I was able to catch up to the rest of their catalog.

The Afghan Whigs, “The Spell”

After a sixteen year hiatus, the Afghan Whigs got back together, meaning Greg Dulli decided to start recording music under that moniker. I think there are some shared folks with 1965 besides him, hard to tell from Discogs. Anyway, the music post-hiatus seems like it continues on a straight line from where they left off, but as if they kept making albums in the meantime. If that makes sense? That is, if there were four albums missing in-between and they kept evolving in the same direction, you’d end up where they are now.

WE’RE BACK, BABY! The historical record of this blog won’t show anything, but for the record: on the 18th, I blew this damn thing up so thoroughly trying to update it that I had to re-install it from scratch, and then remember all the custom modifications I did to get a music player in here. It was a mess, but we’re back. And we have a new logo! Kick off the tunes, Plexasaurus Rex!

The Coup, “Get Up”

The Coup got together with one of their peers on this one, Dead Prez, combining two of the most political acts in hip hop at the time for one great track. I don’t know what else there is to say, they’re both bringing their A-game. Also, I love it when rappers imitate sirens, always a good move.

The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, “Where’d You Go?”

This is the first Bosstones song I ever heard, when I saw it on 120 Mintes back in probably summer of 1992. I really enjoyed it as a total change of pace from what I was listening to at the time, but didn’t go back and visit the band under later, after I’d found the Specials, and started teaching myself about ska. It’s still a charming little tune, it’s hard to resist the big horns.

The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, “Simmer Down”

Ska-Core, The Devil & More is an EP with mostly covers released in 1993, notably primarily for this nice cover of a Marley tune. Other than this, it’s far from an essential release.

Uncle Tupelo, “Sandusky”

March 16-20, 1992 might be the Uncle Tupelo album that has aged the best. I’m not sure it’s my favorite, I don’t think it’ll ever displace No Depression. But the stripped down, acoustic production suits the material so well, and the traditional songs they picked to go with their originals all mesh so well. I truly wish we could have gotten a few more of these before things fell apart.

The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, “Cowboy Coffee”

The Bosstones’ second album, More Noise and Other Disturbances, is really where the band hit their stride. The ska and punk were really in balance on this album, with plenty of both livening things up.

The Game, “Intro to the Documentary”

Yup, that’s an intro.

Two Inch Astronaut, “At Risk Student”

Last time they came up, I thought to myself: dang, this is a good song. And I’m pleased to say that I picked up another record from them in the interim, including this song. Still good! Put one in the win column for Five Songs!

Mighty Mighty Bosstones, “Hell of a Hat”

Let’s Face It is the album that broke through for the Bosstones, but I think their previous record (Question the Answers) is easily their best. The songwriting is both sharper and rougher, which suits them well. Take this song, for instance. The “sharpest motherfucker” stuff leading into the chorus is great, they aren’t afraid of some huge guitars during the chorus, they have a noisy breakdown to conclude things, and this song that could have just been a smirk is actually much more interesting than it initially seemed.

SIX SONGS TODAY

Mix Master Mike, “Supa Wyde Laces”

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.

Some bonus tunes today!

Morcheeba, “Blindfold”

We’ve had several trip-hop acts around here in the past, and here’s one of the lesser known bands from that scene. Morcheeba, like all of the trip-hop bands that hung around for a while, pretty quickly expanded beyond just straight trip-hop. For example, beyond the drums and a little bit of scratching, this is more jazz than trip-hop. At any rate, this album (Big Calm) is very good.

Well, we here at Five Songs Amalgamated managed to go two entire months without missing an entry! Not bad! Our ones of listener/readers must be pleased! Here’s today, and here’s to another complete month!

The Housemartins, “There Is Always Something There To Remind Me”

You know, the Housemartins should really be on my regular rotation of bands to listen to when I’ve got the kids around. I wish I wouldn’t forget this right after I finish this article.