Stubborn All-Stars

Stone Temple Pilots, “Big Empty”

I was going to say that this is the only STP track in my library, their contribution to The Crow: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack which I bought because it had a new track from Nine Inch Nails and Helmet. Anyway, I was wrong: they also contributed to a Led Zeppelin tribute album, a covers album notable mostly for David Yow getting together with Helmet for a fun “Custard Pie” and not a lot else. Anyway, STP are and always were boring, flannel wallpaper for people who thought that the only thing that the old hard rock hegemony on raido needed was more grunting.

Stubborn All-Stars, “Lieutenant”

The first Stubborn All-Stars record definitely had their laid-back ska groove going, but I think they took it up a notch on the next record. That said, if you’re looking for something pretty traditional, bordering on rocksteady, you can do a lot worse.

The New Bomb Turks, “Never Will”

After an absolutely raging debut record, the New Bomb Turks followed it up the next year with another ripper full of garage punk. It’s pure adrenaline, with sawtooth guitars and snotty vocals leading the way. Alas, they’d land on Epitaph for their subsequent records, and the cleaned up version of the band isn’t quite as fun.

Flop, “Anne”

If you’re a longtime reader/listener of Five Songs, first, I deeply apologize. But second, you’re probably tired of me moaning about how Flop was unfairly ignored when they were active. Well, guess what? They were! I’ll keep saying it, because dammit, the world needs to know.

Also, I thought the name of this album was & the Fall of the Mousesqueezer for a really long time until someone on Usenet corrected me.

Floor, “Find Away”

In some ways, there’s some real similarities between My Bloody Valentine and Floor. Both use a ton of guitar to sometimes disorienting effect, but leaven them with vocals that are kind of at odds with the overall tone. MBV uses dream-like vocals, and Floor uses clean singing (which is unexpected in something this heavy), but it results in a dual thing that gives them a really interesting feel.

Y’all, I’ve listened to that Hello, Summer album three times since it popped up randomly here, and folks: it’s good. Real good! I love that my own blog is teaching me about music…from my own collection.

Less Than Jake, “She’s Gonna Break Soon”

What makes late model Less Than Jake work is that, yeah, it’s more or less just standard pop punk with horns. But it’s catchy, cheerful, energetic, and just the musical equivalent of comfort food. It’s not exactly ambitious, but there’s space in my world for well-crafted music like this.

I’ve made the decision to try and just embed Bandcamp stuff directly here, in cases where the track isn’t easily available on YouTube. I could upload it, but since Bandcamp embeds well, I think this will work fine. Let me know if that’s too big a hassle! Your playlist today (but note, Kröwnn is down below!)

Kröwnn, “For the Throne of Fire”

Any metal track that begins with a quote from the Conan movie is really leaning into the camp. And this track sounds exactly like you’d expect a metal track starting with a Conan quote to sound. It’s pretty much just overt Black Sabbath worship. I mean, come on, the band is called “Kröwnn”. The proper place to be writing about this band is on the side of a van. I mean, look at that album cover! There’s a wizard on it!