Sunday, August 28, 2011

Put Down The Cigarette And Drop Out Of BU



Evan recently posted "Modern World" by The Modern Lovers over at Swan Fungus, which re-acquainted me with how much I love the song. The file Evan posted is pretty quiet, though-- maybe it was from a CD or something, I don't know-- which spurred me to rip a better-sounding one from my own copy of the LP. The ingeniously lame handclaps and the weird solo towards the end are two of the best things ever. This is probably my third favorite anti-hippie song of all time, after "Dope Smoking Moron" and Poison Idea's "I Hate Reggae".


The Modern Lovers -

"Modern World"


Saturday, August 27, 2011

Another Drag Like Anything Else I Like



Here's an oddity to go along with all the Atlas stuff that I've already posted. Gazzara was one of Sean Sheridan's post-Atlas projects, and this is a demo CD EP that Walt from Brass City Records gave to me around 2000 or so. I was already entering one of my slow periods at the time but still hoping that I was going to finish off the last issue of Brushback (#7), which I had already been fussing with for about 2 or 3 years by that point. Anyway, I thought the demo was great and even sent off a letter to the band-- looking to find out about upcoming shows and maybe do an interview or something-- but I never got an answer back. Just as well, I guess, since I never ended up finishing the zine anyway.

As it happens, "The Shool Bus EP" sounds a lot like Atlas, which isn't naturally a given since Sean's done punk stuff and jazz stuff along the way, among other things. The lead-off track, "Work is a Drag", sorta chugs along nicely, but the song that I've always liked the most is "Dreaming of Ruby", which, much like Blanket of Ash's "Too Messed Up", is one of those great lost Connecticut power-pop gems that no one's ever heard. "Dreaming of Ruby" has no real chorus or bridge-- like any of those early Guided By Voices songs, in a way-- and then just when you're really getting into the hook, it ends all of a sudden, which is such an awesome move. The demo finishes with a great instrumental, the skillfully-named "Anything's Impossible", which has a really tough-sounding riff and isn't surfy or wimpy at all, if that's what you're thinking.

I'm not sure how many copies of this thing circulated, since it looks all hand-made to me (remember when people used to use a labelmaker program to put artwork on their CD-R's? Now all they do is write the band's name on them with a magic marker), but I'm guessing only a handful of these managed to get passed around. So, I'm going to post all three songs here, since they're all pretty neat.




Gazzara -

"Dreaming of Ruby"

"Work Is a Drag"

"Anything's Impossible"


Gazzara used to have a page on iLike, though it's long gone now; I managed to swipe some mp3's from it years ago, before it disappeared. As a bonus, here's one of the songs, "Supergirl", which ends with a nice surging guitar solo and features the line "I'm like Roman Polanski / I'll be hiding here when your father comes to get me"-- one of the greatest lyrics in CT indie rock history.

"Supergirl"





Friday, August 19, 2011

God Peed On All My Enemies



I'd never seen Ultrabunny before, so I was a bit surprised by how hard they can rock out. Not that Bunnybrains were wimpy, or anything like that (is it in poor form to mention Bunnybrains here? It is, isn't it? Oh well, fuck it), just that Ultrabunny are, like, way way rock, like Flipper "Get Away" meets Kilslug type rock. When they played at Popeye's the other week, I was standing off to the left (away from the guitar amps) so that all I could hear was the drumming-- which was loud and direct, the way I like it-- and Malcolm pumping out the Lemmy-like basslines non-stop. It was pretty great, actually. There's plenty of records and tapes to document all of this, of course (Ultrabunny have a new release every week or so, it seems), but none that I've heard match up to STANDING IN FRONT OF THE BASS AMP SO THAT ALL YOU CAN HEAR ARE THE BASS AND DRUMS THE WHOLE TIME. Friggin' awesome.

I bought the "Volume Merchants"/"Unsafe At Any Age" LP when I saw them at Popeyes -- the "Volume Merchants" side has a track listing that goes Small War, Medium War, Large War, and My War-- so here's Large War, all eight minutes and forty nine seconds' worth of it. Put it on and start washing dishes or something, I don't know.


Ultrabunny -

"Large War"











Sunday, August 14, 2011

The People That I Met Taught Me Nothing New



Saw Rank/Xerox last night, what a great band... legit Xpressway/first-wave post-punk type stuff, and why not, there's an actual New Zealander and an Australian in the band (don't ask me to defend that, I'm just making up blanket statements as I go along)... the more I listen to their stuff, the more I'm impressed with how inventive and friggin' precise all of it really is. Great artwork on all their records, too-- they capture something that's really arid-- and then when you go see them live, it becomes even more obvious that they're not interested in recreating anything, and at the most are just maybe running alongside of it while making their own thing... If you do get to see them on this tour, make sure you grab their split tape with Grass Widow, they're selling it for a chintzy three bux and their 5 songs on it (from '09) equal some of the best flat-out rock shit I've ever heard. Their new LP just came out, too, I haven't sat down with the whole thing yet since I just bought it last night, but here's side one, track one...


Rank/Xerox -

"Sterile Regions"








Saturday, August 13, 2011

Fanzines Are Cheap I Know




Issue #1 of Incremental Decrepitude out now

PayPal your address and $0.82 (eighty-two cents) to
rock_in_my_shoe @ yahoo.com

or see me at a show and ask for one


-- sold out (or, given away, most likely) --

Thanks for the kind words:

Giddy as a Titmouse

Incremental Air Strikes







If Everything Goes As Planned



I think I promised that I was going to write about this compilation three years ago, though obviously other things intervened in the meantime, like maybe I was too busy writing about Punchbuggy records or something. Anyway, Popfactory was a pretty ace little indie-pop label from the Tri-State area back in the 90's, prone to fuzzy stuff, and the "Gift From Sing-Sing" compilation was a collection of the label's early 7"-ers, along with some other unreleased stuff. All I have now is the CD version, but this also came out on LP, and that's what I originally reviewed in my zine (Brushback) way back when. The CD might have some extra tracks that aren't on the LP, I sorta forget. I still have some of the original Popfactory 7"-ers that are on this compilation-- Razor 18, Sunhead, Heartworms, and Her Tears of course-- besides the fact that I've already posted Her Tears' "Ultra-Crush" (Popfactory #1) as a vinyl rip from the 7", which now you'll be able to get as a CD track with "superior" CD resolution (arf arf). I'd go on but the compilation's liner notes are pretty extensive, so read those instead.




Sunhead -

"Seasonal"

Razor 18 -

"P Street Beach"

Heartworms -

"If Everything Goes As Planned"

Saturnine -

"Like a Kite"

Her Tears -

"Lady Killer"

"Ultra-Crush"

Blessed Ethel -

"Veronica"


The full CD, which I'll leave up for about a week or so:

A Gift From Sing-Sing CD (Popfactory, 1996).zip