I Don't Need No Oceans When I Got Industry

Here's something of mild interest that I picked up for cheap today at RRR Records in Lowell, instead of chasing around bogus "Black Friday Record Store Day" crap. Apparently at one point Devo had set off a major bidding war, inducing wetness in the usual scene-hopping trendies (Bowie, Eno, etc.) and causing people to squint an eye in the direction of Akron Ohio and wonder "hey, what else is going on there?"... hence this sampler. Despite some disparaging stuff that'd been written about this compilation before ("only one or two tracks of interest, nothing special" -- Dave Fricke or some asshole), once I got it home and plopped it down on the turntable, I found it to contain some fairly neat things, especially on the a-side. The Bizarros track is a total Stooges cop, Tin Huey is sort of Beefheart-ian which makes me wish now that I hadn't skipped over all their dollar records at Brass City back when I was 20, and even The Waitresses contribute a tuff-sounding track ("The Comb", which recently got the remix/reissue treatment and sounds even better now). Supposedly the scratch n sniff cover smells like burning rubber tires -- I dunno, old record jackets all kinda smell like mold to me -- and there's even a backwards "Hotel California" soundbite at the beginning of the first side, which made me chortle a bit and think back to when everybody hated The Eagles. Do people still hate The Eagles?


The Bizarros -

"Nova"

The Waitresses -

"The Comb"

Tin Huey -

"Chinese Circus"

Rubber City Rebels -

"Rubber City Rebels"

Maybe My Life Isn't Perfect But My Hair Is

This is a mix that I posted the other day on Tumblr, which is where I hang out all day now instead of doing something useful. It took me a while before I remembered that I also have a music blog -- although that's a bit of a stretch, as it means you have to count a readership of .001 per day as "having a music blog" -- and so I decided to post it over here as well. This isn't a mix of mostly new tracks, more like just a batch of songs that I've been listening to in the car lately that I thought fit well together, so I made a mix out of them just for ha-ha's. There's even a hidden message involved, although it's probably not that important and besides I totally just forgot what it was anyway.

1. Judas Priest - Delivering The Goods
2. Nasal Boys - Hot Love
3. Bloody Knives - Broken
4. Triage - Triage Theme
5. Chlorine - Power
6. BÄDDAT FÖR TRUBBEL - Inte Varit Sü Tuff
7. Randy Newman - Gone Dead Train
8. Daddy Maxfield - Rave ‘n Rock
9. Thank You Mr. Keating - Gentle Jesus and Drugs
10. Dead at 24 - When Delirium Comes
11. Boulders - Her Taste

Din Wanna Take Out Mix.zip

I Am Extremely Big And I Fail Constantly

I got picked for MRR's Monday Photo Blog the other week, which was kinda cool. It's actually the second time I've been picked, so I'm practically my own category on the MRR website now (this isn't true, I'm just making it up to be a jerk). You can scope 'em out by clicking on the links here:


Monday Photo Blog: Dave Brushback (2)

(Zipperhead, Ausmuteants, Protomartyr, Downtown Boys, Waste Management, Boston Strangler)

Monday Photo Blog: Dave Brushback (1)

(Fuckheads, Salvation, Rational Animals, Warning//Warning, Lushlife)


You guys like The Speedies, right? You'd fucking better.

The Speedies -

"Let Me Take Your Photo"

Seeming To Do Is Not Doing

Bold Beginnings - An Incomplete Collection of Louisville Punk, 1978-1983 (Noise Pollution, 2007)

A really great comp that came out on Noise Pollution about five or six years ago. The guy who put it out sent me a copy a long time ago and I’m still not sure why, because I really don’t do reviews on this blog. None that are any good, at least. Maybe he was just hoping for a mention. Anyway, this comp was one of the few places where you could hear some of the killer Endtables 7" tracks (Joe Stumble's "Last Days" blog was one of the the other places), before the re-issue 12" that came out on Drag City a couple of years ago. Another amazing band on this comp is No Fun, which features Tara Key and a couple of future members of Circle X. Their tracks (from '78) are all unreleased stuff rescued from cassettes and so forth, and are kinda like if Dangerhouse put out a band that would end up sounding like The Terminals or something. Pretty fuckin' excellent, if you ask me. So, after all these years, here’s a mention.



No Fun -

"She"

"Evasive Measures"

Crate-Diggin' As A Useless Hobby

I picked up a handful of 45s while I was driving around in the sticks today, though nothing great mind you. I've heard tons of stories of people digging up tons of 'quality raers' at thrift stores and such, but whenever I walk into a Salvation Army or Goodwill store myself, all I manage to come up with are the usual moldy Herb Alpert and Connie Francis LPs, stuff that's not even worth touching with your bare hands. Except today I stopped by an antique store that sold mostly knick-knacks and shit and made out with a few pennies' worth of actual rock n roll 45s at least: stuff like Greg Khin, The Sweet (nothing really all that good, just their one big U.S. hit -- stupid dumb Americans), The Raiders, Grand Funk, and even an old Bee Gees 45 from when they were still actually sorta decent (yes, trust me, it happened once). The only one that still had a picture sleeve was the Grand Funk single, and most of the rest were even missing their factory sleeves, meaning they're basically unplayable junk and I bought 'em just for laughs anyway. There was also this scorcher, which I'm presenting to you with clicks intact, because we didn't care back when we were stacking 10 of these at a time on our parents' automatic-drop record players, so why should you:


Pat Travers -

"Boom Boom (Out Go The Lights)"

Hate Us Or Love Us We Don't Give A Fuck

When a copy of this crawled its way into Redscroll a while ago I quickly snagged it, even though the sound quality is pretty iffy (bootleg-quality live tracks from '77), because I'd rather have a shitty-sounding Crime record than a good-sounding record by one of those bands that you like, Title Fight or whatever. Besides, it was through a cruddy-sounding live tape (of "She's a Cadaver") that I first discovered the Pagans, back in '84 or whenever, so don't be afraid to pass those shitty tapes around, you never know when some good might come out of it. This was originally a bootleg called "Terminal Boredom" which Planet Pimp then 'officially' re-issued, so that more people could own the same crappy-sounding Crime record I guess.




Crime -

"Dillinger's Brain"

"Terminal Boredom"

I Can Think Of Other Things To Do

NRBQ have recorded some stuff with as much busted-down cred and who-gives-a-wang as anything LX ever did, although to most people they're the old-timers outfit with only one original member that shows up to play the county fair and Toad's Place every year, and that's true too. At their peak, which "At Yankee Stadium" most likely is, NRBQ was stacked with three ace songwriters, with Tom Ardolino always trailing a half-step behind the beat Charlie Watts-style as literally one of the greatest, most understated drummers of all time. "I Want You Bad" and "Ridin' In My Car" both rank alongside "September Gurls" as some of my favorite pop/rock songs ever, although in an odd twist "Ridin' In My Car" (their non-hit single from 3 years earlier) was appended to the first pressing of "At Yankee Stadium" by the record label for whatever reason and didn't appear on any subsequent pressings. "Get Rhythm" is a Johnny Cash cover, by the way, and it smokes like just about everything else on this album. The indirect joke behind the album's title (besides the main visual gag) is that it isn't a live album and it wasn't recorded at Yankee Stadium either, one of those guess-you-had-to-be-there type references (see: Foghat, Peter Frampton, Blue Öyster Cult, Black Oak Arkansas, Ted Nugent, etc etc) which, as anyone can tell you, is always the best kind of humor.




NRBQ -

"Green Lights"

"I Want You Bad"

"Get Rhythm"

"It Comes To Me Naturally"

"Ridin' In My Car"

I've Been Here Far Too Long

I don't expect any of you to give two shits about this record, just like I wouldn't give two shits about this record either if it weren't for the Alex Chilton connection: The Yankees' Jon Tiven produced and played guitar on AC's "Bach's Bottom"/"Singer Not The Song", while Alex co-wrote one of the songs here and sings back-ups as well. Parts of this record rise above some of the '70s pop-rock that was happening at the time (what exactly was "happening" in 1979? "My Sharona"? "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy"? "We've Got Tonight"? Randy Vanwarmer?), although that statement is open to interpretation. "Take It Like a Man" almost sounds like shitty Wilco, or shitty Wilco almost sounds like it, one or the other; the vocals are mixed louder than on all the other tracks on the album, so I guess they were hoping that this one would be the "hit". "Everyday I Have To Cry" steals the chord progression from "Free Again", which I guess is okay because Tiven co-wrote that one, too.

Google says that Jon Tiven was originally from New Haven (where he had a fanzine called "New Haven Rock Press" that Tosches, Meltzer, and a bunch of guys wrote for), and a few New Haven-area musicians that you might recognize appear on this record, such as Christine Ohlman and Roger C. Reale. Also the album jacket makes me think of NRBQ, for some reason.




The Yankees -

"Take It Like a Man"

"Everyday I Have To Cry"

"Take Me Home & Make Me Like It"

I'm Stupid Anyway

Three best American punk bands: Crime, Pagans, Weirdos, though not necessarily in that order... I was never lucky enough to actually own any Crime records, but I ended up being just lucky enough to find "Piss On Your Turntable", a bootleg CD that collects just about every piece of Crime vinyl in one place. A good chunk of the CD is the "San Francisco's Doomed" LP, a semi-legit release from about 20 years ago, half of which was a studio demo recorded in early '78, the other half being a rehearsal recording from '79. The '78 stuff fucking rips-- heavy drums and loud guitars all over the place, just a classic piece of rock... there's also a 12-page booklet of lyrics and stuff, but I'm not gonna scan the whole thing because nobody ever reads that shit... anyway, here's a couple of tracks from the '78 recording, plus the whole thing all at once, which I'll take down sooner than eventually...

Crime -





For a short time, here's a .zip file with all 11 tracks from the '78 recording:

Crime - San Francisco's Doomed (1978 demo)

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"

I Don't Even Like You All That Much

My three favorite punk bands (meaning pre-1980) are probably Crime, Pagans, and the Australian X, so I'm gonna go ahead and write this up anyway, even though the copy I have is all beat to shit. It didn't bother me as much when I bought it, because I got it for practically nothing, but now that I'm trying to post it for the blog I'm wishing that I had a better copy.

Anyway, this is the first re-issue of the Australian X's "Aspirations" LP, which is really one of the best records ever made. The rips I made aren't worth downloading, but I'll post them as listen-only samples anyway, so you can at least check out what are two of my favorite parts on the record: the fake spit at the beginning of "Dipstick", which is so ridiculous that it almost makes me laugh every time I hear it, and the absolutely murderous way that the drums and bass kick-start the beginning of "Present". (Don't bother listening to the rest of the files, it's not worth it.) The drums and bass on this record sound so bad-ass, it's friggin' unbelievable.

If you haven't heard this record before, then you should hunt it down right away. You can hear the whole thing here, on the ever-loving Biannual Haircut (you should also grab X's "Home is Where The Floor Is" EP while you're there, it's almost as excellent), and then besides a couple of CD re-issues-- one of them on AmRep-- there's also the newest vinyl re-issue of "X-Aspiriations" which came out last year, if you can find it and feel like dropping 25 bucks on it.




X (Australia) -

It's Either That Or They Hit You

When I first started buying actual punk records around '84 or so, instead of the usual chain-store shit, there was a lot of trial and error involved. One of the things that I figured out early on, thanks to Lyres "On Fyre" and the first few Mission of Burma records, was that Ace of Hearts had an asthetic that I really liked, and so from then on I latched onto pretty much anything I could find that had an Ace of Hearts logo on it. This was back when you could still find stuff like "Trem Two" and "Academy Fight Song" fairly reasonably, besides being able to buy all the copies you could want of "Signals Calls and Marches" at the original $6.98 list price or whatever it was.

One of the first Ace of Hearts singles that I bought was The Neighborhoods. The copy I found at Brass City Records came without the sleeve (the two pictures you see here are from a Google image search), and for the longest time I didn't even know there was a sleeve, so I never knew that they'd snuck a nekkid lady on the front, or that the back looked totally goofy. I still don't think much of "Prettiest Girl", though I'm including it here anyway. "No Place Like Home" has a lot more zip to it, so I liked it a lot more, even throwing it onto a mix tape that I made for Bill Callahan once (this would've been back in '85), probably because we were both acting ticked off about still living at home with our parents or something with a really deep meaning like that.




The Neighborhoods -

"No Place Like Home"

"Prettiest Girl"

It's Hanging To The Floor

The Endtables stuff from 1979 was as ripe as anything else for re-issue, I guess, which is what Drag City did earlier this year, although Noise Pollution already did a pretty good job in releasing half of the songs on their "Bold Beginnings" compilation a few years ago. I'd never even heard of The Endtables until the Noise Pollution comp came out and Joe Stumble started talking them up on his blog, Last Days of Man on Earth (a totally excellent blog for "unheard" punk, by the way). Or, actually, that's when I found out that I had heard of The Endtables before; I'd seen David Grubbs do a cover of "Circumcision" at the very first Bastro show at CBGB's back around '87 or so, only Dave mumbled when he announced that the song was by The Endtables, so I thought he'd said Antietam. Well, at least I had the city right.

The six songs on this 12" represent the entirety of The Endtables' studio output; the CD version has a bunch of extra live songs on it, although I think Drag City is out of the CDs right now. Anyone who thinks a '79 punk band from Kentucky (with a six and a half foot cross-dressing lead singer, no less) couldn't possibly sound tough enough should buy this record and listen to the bludgeoning outro to "The Defectors", it'll change your mind.




The Endtables -

"White Glove Test"

I Fell Down To My Feet And I Saw They'd Bled

I've been digging Ol' Butch's cover of "Jumpin' Jack Flash" a lot lately, so much so that I figured I'd share. I love the Iggy-ish proto-punk snarl to the vocals on this one, plus Alex's stuff always sounded much better when he had a good drummer behind him. Like with a lot of the covers on "1970" and "Flies On Sherbert", Alex really knew how to crawl into the pocket of a song and roll around until he was filthy with it, something that was missing from his later solo stuff.


Alex Chilton -

"Jumpin' Jack Flash"

He Took The Skin Right Off My Nose

Jay Hinman already wrote about this record a while ago on his (defunct) Detailed Twang blog, and since he's so much better at this stuff than I am, I'm gonna let him talk first:

This "Rat Bait" song from 1979 by the Swimming Pool Q's is so gnarly I need to make sure as many good Americans & residents of the globe hear it as possible. Built around a wicked secret-agent spy riff & enough throbbing blues guitar to sink a pirated Saudi tanker off the coast of Somalia... it's subsequently been comped onto an early one of Hyped2Death’s "Homework" compilations, and it’s pretty much my favorite Dixie-fried bluesy spy punk song of all time.

I don't think Jay owned the actual single, though (his post included a much-quieter mp3 file taken from the SPQ's web site), but as luck would have it I found this in a used bin once for $2, so I've got a copy of my own. The Swimming Pool Q's are better known for stuff that's a lot wimpier than this (in fact, the b-side is a jangly B-52's type thing that I can't really hang with), but like Jay said, "Rat Bait" is totally smokin', sounding like Jon Spencer Blues Explosion playing around with an old Jerry Reed riff, with some hilariously out-of-place female backing vocals thrown in for good measure. Give this one a listen-- it's one of the truly great oddities of the new wave era, I'd reckon.




Swimming Pool Q's -

"Rat Bait"

(this file is now listen-only)