‘Scuse me while I fuck this blog!
Didn’t we just have Steady Ernest? I wonder what the most frequent ska band we’ve had show up here is? Seems like it should be the Slackers, just going off the number of albums I have from them. 22 tracks from the Slackers. Geez. I don’t remember them showing up that much. I guess I’ve been doing this for a while.
[Read More]The Mortals played garage rock, like a lot of the Estrus Records bands, but with a little bit more of a greasy edge to things. The reverb and sneer on the vocals give things a twist from just playing it straight up.
There’s a live-in-studio feel to this tune that suits it well. There’s a presence to the horns, they feel organic, and it works well.
[Read More]Steady Earnest is an all-star band of Boston ska bands, most importantly featuring Dan Vitale of Bim Skala Bim on vocals. Because he fronts it, Bim is the closest comparison, and if you like one band, you’ll like the other for sure.
After complaining about not being able to remember if we’ve had songs before, I can say: we definitely had this one. It’s too distinctive to not remember.
[Read More]At this point in Five Songs’ evolution, we’ve had more than 1500 bands on here, and I honestly cannot recall which ones I’ve introduced properly and which ones I have not. The tags help some - if I haven’t tagged a band, I haven’t introduced them! - but are not perfect. Because sometimes I write random shit instead of talking about the band. This is where a more professional approach here would help. I could go back and look at entries for bands and figure out if I’ve said anything real about them. But let’s be honest: that’s not going to happen.
[Read More]De La Soul launched a Kickstarter in 2015 to record their new album using a new method. Tired of chasing and clearing samples, they decided to bring musicians in to the studio to record them playing a bunch of different things, and then used those sessions as their library of music to sample and construct the tracks. The resulting album, …And The Anonymous Nobody, isn’t one of De La’s best albums, but how could it possibly be? It is very good, though, and clearly a different record from the ones that come before it. If you haven’t listened to anything from De La Soul from after the Prince Paul years, you should listen to…well, Stakes Is High. And then The Grind Date. And then probably this one!
[Read More]Guest Alec Empire here was a big thing for a hot minute back in, what, 1996 or so. Critics feigned interest in his noisy, overdriven form of techno for a while, but that quickly passed. It lasted long enough for him to pop up in a few places, including on the iffiest track on the first Handsome Boy Modeling School album.
So, if he’s going to wear her to the ball, and he wants her to put on a dress, he…wants to wear a dress? I think that’s what we’re looking at here. Go for it, Dan Vitale! Nobody is going to mind!
[Read More]Yes, this is the Bob Marley song. Yes, this song rules. Yes, this cover is probably pushing the tempo too much, but whatever, see point #2 above.
Ghost In The Machine is easily the worst Police album, with neither of the energy and catchiness of the best of their early work, but not yet settled into the progressive pop of Synchronicity. It just doesn’t really hang together well for me, and I basically never listen to it.
[Read More]It occurred to me that I didn’t explain who Plexasaurus Rex is. That’s my music server! As you might have guessed, I’m using Plex, and I have to say: so far, it’s pretty good! Did a good job organizing my music, interface seems solid. No complaints thus far. And, of course, I gave it a dumb name, the same dumb name that every other sad nerd who thinks they’re funny gives their server. Anyway, here’s today’s tunes,, now that we have today’s sad exposition out of the way.
[Read More]Meanwhile, happy birthday to me! I’m going to see what shuffle got me.
From Take It! Take It! TAKE IT!, this is a great horn line in this song. I’m OK with my present so far, shuffle!
We’ve had a couple of Lawsuit songs recently, and now KC Bowman will make more sense. You can really hear the similarity in the songs (Bowman was one of the songwriters of Lawsuit). I do miss the rest of the band, but I’m happy that Bowman made another album.
[Read More]Last time we heard from PJ Harvey, we got “Sheela Na Gig” from Dry. That song smokes, of course. And this is the song right after it on that album! What I’m trying to say here is that this record is amazing.
I think I’ve mentioned this before, but there was a period of time where I bought more or less everything Lookout Records put out. This wasn’t a great policy. Aside from ending up with considerably more pop punk than I needed, there was some pretty low wattage stuff down roster on that label. This album being a good exhibit. This is from a split LP, and as you can hear, this is just straight ahead vintage rock. It’s inoffensive, but also pretty unexciting.
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