We’ve had this one before.
One of the more memorable tunes from 69 Love Songs, probably due to the vocals, but I do like the guitar part on it as well.
Ah, Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard. Say it soft, and it’s almost like praying. Say it loud, and there’s stoner metal playing. Anyway, here’s ten minutes of fuzz, enjoy!
[Read More]1962, baby!
I really enjoy the sax blowing while he’s rhyming, it really sets things off, and makes my ears kind of ping back and forth between what sounds like competing leads. That tension really provides a lot interest in the tune.
Chaos Rules: Live at the Trocadero is sort of a live career retrospective by the Dead Milkmen, but I gotta say, it’s hard to recommend it. The live renditions don’t add a ton, and the sound quality isn’t great. Uh, as you can hear.
[Read More]God only knows how I heard about this, which is the debut from Boogie but was self-released. Therefore it’s a surprise that it found its way to my old, out-of-touch ass. It’s good, though, kind of sunny with the beats and with contemplative lyrics.
I think this is a record that a friend told me about, maybe they knew someone in it? I’m having trouble recalling, but they’re from Philly, so it’s a decent bet. Anyway, assuming that that’s correct, you all should get this!
[Read More]A while back, I wrote some code to pull data from Discogs for my collection to see what year albums were released for another project that I was working on. That project might still see the light of day! But I’m wondering if there’s some way I could pull data for genres. Discogs doesn’t have genre tags in their structured data, but I could scrape the band description for specific words, I suppose. It would be neat to see what percentage of my collection is, say, punk.
[Read More]Even over the course of just a few years (this is from 1962), the Motown sound evolved very rapidly. That’s not to say anything wrong with this, it’s delightful, but Motown moved really fast, and by 1965 they would be in a pretty different place. I mean, “Nowhere to Run” is from 1965.
Man, Revolver was really revolutionary! (For the record, this is from 1966, after that Martha & the Vandellas ripper.)
[Read More]Eh.
The New Bomb Turks arrived on Epitaph with Scared Straight, and immediately things got more professional. And that’s not a good thing when you’re dealing with this sort of thing. Listen to this - it’s certainly not bad, but there’s a certain theatrical edge here that really cuts against the proper energy of the band. I just don’t think we need the Jerry Lee Lewis thing going on. Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy this record, it’s just not as much fun as the earlier stuff.
[Read More]Silence is a Dangerous Sound: A Tribute to Fugazi is a huge comp, featuring a bunch of bands each doing one Fugazi tune. The interpretations range from pretty faithful to pretty decomposed, as is de rigueur for this sort of thing. I think you have to be a pretty big Fugazi dork to enjoy something like this, but I am one of the biggest, so it’s fun. Most of the pleasure is in doing the Leonardo DeCaprio pointing meme at the songs (metaphorically speaking), but whatever, stupid fun is still fun.
[Read More]If you’re thinking to yourself “this damn thing sounds like it was recorded in a basement”, congratulate yourself on your fine ears. It was recorded in a basement, proudly, using vintage equipment. Plenty of bands are out there trying to recreate Black Sabbath, but few go to quite these same lengths. Do you need to actually listen to this instead of just listening to Sabbath? What’s the point of ce n’est pas Black Sabbath? Man, I dunno, sometimes I just like my noise to be different.
[Read More]This song sounds weird in only one earbud.
nimrod. is the Green Day album I listen to the least. It’s not because of the songs that break out of the pop punk mold, but because the punk songs on it just sound kind of worn out. This song, for instance, sounds like a third-generation xerox of a thing from Dookie. Even on their final record, American Idiot, they brought more energy to the tunes.
[Read More]Flavor Flav belting out “cancer!” in the first verse always kills me. Also, I always appreciate it when rappers Remember A Guy, with Nick Van Exel getting name checked here.
I’m pretty sure that I’ve lamented this before, but it’s a real shame that the Grifters managed to get to Sub Pop, the relative big time, and only released one record there before breaking up. I suppose they didn’t exactly fit into the general grunge aesthetic (grunty guitars and gruntier singers), but they at least fit pretty well alongside both Pond and the Afghan Whigs, both of whom made the majors. Well, anyway, all five of the Grifters records are worthwhile, with this one being the most polished of the bunch.
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