Shudder to Think

Shudder to Think, “Baby Drop”

Your Choice Records was a DIY label that mostly (entirely?) released live records by established bands. I’ve got several of them, and they’re all very good records. Here, Shudder to Think is in fine form, and this album almost functions like a greatest hits record.

Colossus, “Tsunami”

Colossus is a collaboration betweeen Ayatollah and Widowmaker, with an instrumental hip-hop record coming out of the partnership, which was created using Kickstarter. The compositions are pretty big, and they feel more like full songs, not just beat demos. It’s a nice one to check out if you like this track.

The Pietasters, “Crying Over You”

I’m of the opinion that the Pietasters really fell off hard after Oolooloo, driven among other things by Stephen Jackson’s vocals getting much more gruff and the band really starting to emphasize rock more and more. That said, there are still some fun tunes on their later records, such as this one from Awesome Mix Tape #6.

Nine Inch Nails, “The Big Come Down”

The Downward Spiral was a leap forward in complexity for Nine Inch Nails, as Trent Reznor really made use of a much broader set of tools. But I don’t think it’s his best record. I think that goes to The Fragile, the eventual follow-up that emerged as a double record and again makes another leap ahead. If nothing else, there’s more of it, and when the quality is this high, that matters. He wouldn’t ever quite hit these heights again, although there are plenty of excellent albums in the future.

Gorillaz, “New Genious (Brother)”

Gorillaz, the band featuring Damon Albarn (Blur) and Dan “The Automator” Nakamura (Dr. Octagon, Deltron 3030, others), is one of the weirder success stories in popular music. The icy, detached compositions don’t scream out “radio success”, and the big radio hit of “Clint Eastwood” was a particularly strange song to get huge. This song is a typical example of what you find on the record, which is interesting primarily by managing to not really sound like anything else.

The Magnetic Fields, “Two Kinds of People”

There are two kinds of people: those with the patience to pick through 69 Love Songs to find the good bits, and those who cannot be bothered.

The Skatalites, “Woman A Come”

The Skatalites didn’t often have a vocalist working with them, but pretty much every case I can think of, it’s delightful. This comes from the Foundation Ska collection, which is the best single spot to get on the Skatalites train. And everybody should be on that train.

I really like this set a lot.

Live Human, “Quick Eleven”

We just had DJ Logic a few days ago, and Live Human is a similar premise: a trio of a bassist, drummer, and DJ. There’s the same kind of loose, jazzy, improvisational feel to the proceedings. DJ Logic tends to be more towards the jazz end than the hip-hop end compared to Live Human, but they’re really very similar bands.

Shudder To Think, “Rag”

Goddamn, listen to that song. Shudder to Think, where have you gone? (looks) Apparently Craig Wedren did some soundtracks, cool.

Happy Birthday, Megan! Today’s just about giving her songs that will make her happy. It’s super difficult to just limit this to five songs, for the record.

Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, “Orange”

From one of the albums that we played the most after we first met, it’s difficult to pick just one song from the record. It’s really best enjoyed as an entire album, but I went with the title track mostly because I love the breakdown in the middle of the song so much. This marks the first appearance of the JSBX in this thing, but I’ll talk more about them during a non-special blog. Also, the version of this song I picked is not great quality, but fuck it, it’s still plenty filthy.

I don’t know about anybody else, but I still haven’t adjusted to new releases being on Fridays. For a long, long period of my life, Tuesdays were just a little more exciting than other weekdays, because it was when new music came out. I miss that. I’m old. But I have music for you!

Craw, “Days in the Gutter/Nights in the Gutter”

Craw was an underground rock band from Cleveland playing music in the vein of bands like the Jesus Lizard, Bitch Magnet, etc. Note my delicate avoidance of the “post-hardcore” label! Note, also, that I still managed to get it in there. At any rate, despite being very plugged into that scene at the time, and even living not far away in Pittsburgh, I managed to completely miss them. However, thanks to a Kickstarter project, their three albums got reissued, and it’s great stuff. It really was a pleasure discovering a new band from that scene and suddenly having three albums of material to listen to. There’s a strong Steve Albini vibe to this track, which is OK by me!