Sebadoh

A rare double clueless day!

Radiohead, “We Suck Young Blood”

1. A carefully placed comma makes this song title pretty funny.
2. Handclaps are bitchin'.
3. The recording on this is beautiful.

Summerlands, “Lost My Mind”

Power metal, as a genre, usually features lethal amounts of cheese. By and large, I don’t mind some cheese with my music every now and again, but it has to be a rare treat, and I usually don’t myself craving it. But beyond the inherent corniness of the genre, the songs usually don’t appeal to me that much, being kind of heavy on wailing (both from the singer and lead guitarist). As a result, I mostly tend to avoid power metal. So, I’m not sure how I ended up with this. I must have read a good review somewhere? Or sometimes, I like to sample records from genres that I don’t love just to see if maybe my tastes have changed.

I dunno, feels like we’ve had a good mix recently. Today is no different.

Sebadoh, “New Worship”

Sebadoh’s Sub Pop debut, Smash Your Head On The Punk Rock, would prove to be a transitional album. Taking the sprawling, brilliant mess of III and at least partially taming it, the focus and professionalism that Sebadoh started exhibiting here would eventually result in much more coherent albums. This period is my favorite one of the band, as I like a little chaos in my music, so when they mostly worked that stuff out of their sound, I stopped paying as much attention. So, the three album stretch from III through Bubble and Scrape is where I mostly listen.

Skip track 3.

NoMeansNo, “You’re Not One”

I was just listening to Wrong today, and was reminded of how awesome it was. Folks, check it out! In the meantime, here’s NoMeansNo kicking off the In The Fishtank project, which was a project where an independant label invited bands to record an album in just two days in the studio. Occasionally a couple bands at the same time! NoMeansNo are pros, so of course it sounds great.

This was so close to being great today.

Sam & Dave, “I Thank You”

I was wondering when we’d get Sam & Dave, one of the top acts from Stax and reliable hitmakers for the label. The drought is over! This comes to us from 1968, an Isaac Hayes song, and goddamn, listen to that.

Martha Reeves & the Vandellas, “Heat Wave”

Hell yes, shuffle, keep it going!

For a long time, I’ve always thought that at some point, the rats in one of the Muppet movies sang a little bit of this song. Well, my memory was only a little right, the scene had just a little echo of this song.

Look, they can’t all be winners.

Sebadoh, “Red Riding Good”

Just the other day, we had a pointless bonus track from the reissue of III. Well, here’s another one.

Merle Haggard, “If We Make It Through December”

I should play Down Every Road for the kids. I think they might enjoy it.

Pigs, “Bet It All On Black”

I wonder what the longest period of time we’ve gone around here without some kind of noise rock? Not long. I wonder if it’s longer or shorter than the time between ska?

Full on rock today.

Descendents, “I Wanna Be A Bear”

There’s only so much one can say about a 40 second hardcore song.

New Pornographers, “Champions of Red Wine”

From the New Pornographers’ sixth album, Brill Bruisers, this album felt like something of a return to form for the band. I don’t think Challengers or Together were bad, but they didn’t really seem to have quite the same energy as their previous records. This song isn’t a barn burner, but the record overall is quite good.

Hey, let’s do another roundup! This time, it’s an aggregation of different metal lists. Useful! And, of course, some music for today.

Pegboy, “Spaghetti Western”

Yup, more or less hit the wall on things to say about Pegboy. It’s still the usual melodic punk sound that is perfectly pleasant to listen to. That’s more dismissive than I intend it to be.

Sebadoh, “Mean Distance”

This comes from Smash Your Head On The Punk Rock, the first album from Sebadoh to be released on Sub Pop, as they made the leap from the minor leagues to…well, the bigger minor leagues. But Sub Pop in the early 90s was a pretty big deal, and it was news that the slacker kings of low fi were making their way to the home of grunge. This album is itself a compilation of sorts, with bits and pieces of previous releases collected into an incoherent record. But all Sebadoh records were incoherent, mostly due to the three different song writers and how they approched things. This song is itself a bit of a microcosm of that, as it’s credited to all three and goes bananas with a minute left in the track.

Really happy to get more Neubauten in here, that’s some good working music.

Foetus, “Mighty Whity”

This song, from 1995’s Gash, makes me wonder exactly how you get Sony to distribute a song about killing whity, all set to a grinding slice of noise and a jaunty trumpet line. But thank goodness somebody figured it out! The whole album is very good, by the way.

Freestyle Fellowship, “Dedications”

Just a little interstitial track in the middle of To Whom It May Concern…, over a Delfonics sample. Good record, though.

I’m going to see The Wedding Present tonight! I’m super excited, I haven’t been to a show in a bit, and they’ve been a favorite band for a long time. I’m super tempted to break my own rules to have them come up, but no, I’ll behave! If you’re behaving, you’ll throw on some tunes! Kick out the jams, Google! (Google has never kicked out any jams.)

RJD2, “The Horror”

Here we encounter another artist that is probably most famous for something other than their albums. In this case RJD2 composed the theme for “Mad Men”, which isn’t a bad encapsulation of his style. The track here is the opening from his outstanding debut album Deadringer, which is mostly instrumental tracks but does have some songs with guests rhyming on them. As opposed to DJ Vadim’s that we just heard, there’s personality on every track here, with a variety of moods, lots of great samples, and fun twists throughout. Too often, DJ albums can end up kind of self-indulgent, but this is one of the great ones.