The Toasters

No Age, “Turned To String”

Long running punk duo No Age fill out their sound by using the occasional sample, which helps keep things a little fresher than the formula might otherwise result in. At this point, six albums in, they’re really getting by on the strength of their strongwriting, but that songwriting is keeping up. This is from their 2020 album Goons Be Gone.

The Toasters, “Thrill Me Up”

The Toasters were one of the key bands of the third wave, as they not only got things rolling very early and blazed a trail for other bands in New York City to follow, but they ran the most important label of the third wave, Moon Ska. Early on, the Toasters didn’t have as much punk in their sound, as this track from 1988 demonstrates.

Another year-end roundup, this time from Heavy Blog. I love this time of year. And here’s today’s music.

Outkast, “Infatuation (Interlude)”

A skit from Idlewild, a shaggy album that has some highlights, but is a mess and is the worst of Outkast’s career.

Public Enemy, “Son Of A Bush”

Somehow, anti-George W. Bush songs sound quaint these days. And he was a deeply terrible president! This is a track from Revolverlution, another later album from a Hall of Fame rap group that is also a mess.

The intro to this series has been pushed off the page, so a brief mention might be in order. I’m writing about five random songs from my collection on a daily-ish basis, and giving everybody a link to listen along. Here’s the intro to the series, and here’s the link to today’s songs.

Prefuse 73, “Tel Aviv’s Gravel Toothbrush”

Prefuse 73 is one of the names that Scott Herren records under, mixing up hip-hop influences with electronic music. He’s at his best when you’ve got stuttering bits and pieces of recognizable hip-hop running through, but broken up in strange ways. When he wanders too far from that into pure electronic stuff, he gets less interesting to me. This is a short piece from Extinguished, which is outtakes from his excellent One Word Extinguisher album. On the whole, you can see why he left this material off the main album, so this record is for completists only. Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives and One Word Extinguisher remain the pick of the litter for him.

It’s my birthday! Hooray! Let’s listen to some music (you can listen along here)!

Spawn of Possession, “Spiritual Deception”

Metal, as a broad genre, is one that I’ve always been perpetually coming to grips with. Despite having embraced plenty of other extreme genres - noise, hardcore, lots of experimental music of all forms - I had always held metal at arms’ length. I certainly listened to a few carefully selected bands, but I never really explored things fully. I mostly looked at many of the ridiculous trappings and endless subgenres, and kind of gave it a miss.