The Bags (Boston)
self-titled LP
Stanton Park Records, 1990

This is an album that doesn't work too well in the cold sober sunlight of the day but turns into a totally different beast once the moon comes up and the party materials come out (and no, the Vinyl Mine only tolerates legal party materials- like those conical party hats and noisemakers).

The Bags were a mid-80s / early-90s Boston 3-piece that mostly played music as if stuck in a pre-Sex Pistols rock'n'roll timewarp. At times, they were sort of an MC-5/Stooges version of Spinal Tap (not to say that both bands didn't have their Spinal Tap moments). Foghat and Kiss also spring to mind when listening to some of their songs. At other times, pretty thoughtful and original and even somewhat eclectic (one of the cuts, "Superpower" would have been right at home on a Boston hardcore compilation). I once saw them play in DC and they were the type of band where both the bassist and guitarist wore their guitars down at crotch level and had the same type of hair as Slash that they shook around as they played. They almost looked like a Peter Bagge (forgive the coincidence of their names) comic strip if it wasn't for the non-heroin chic babyfat and acne (well, maybe the acne).

Side 1 is what I would call The Stupid Side. With songs like "Atomic Coconuts" (because electronic coconuts just don't cut it) and "The Beauty of the Bud" (a tribute to the devil weed), you can't help but getting good and stupid. This is a great side for preparing to go out. And it's just not for single hipsters. The Ohio Playersish "Atomic Coconuts" is stupid enough for the kids, too and I dare you not to dance to it.

The second side is perhaps more thoughtful. The afore-mentioned "Superpower", their take on foreign policy that makes as much sense as, say, Noam Chomsky or Bill Kristol (which is to say, it makes no sense) and the almost wistful "Closer Then," a nostalgic recollection of an old friendship that might bring a tear to yer bloodshot eyes. This is the side you put on when you get back home. While the only "chilling out" I do is when I sleep, this does kind of set the stage for it.

The Songs:

"The Beauty of The Bud"
"Atomic Coconuts"
"Closer Then"


Band Members:
Crispin Wood, guitar, vocals
Jim Janota, drums, vocals
Jon Hardy, bass, vocals

Links/Factoids:

• The Boston Rock and Roll Museum's The Bags page with biography and discography
• Guitarist/Singer Crispin Wood's hilarious Rock School website (Jim Janota and Jon Hardy provide voices to his animations)
  
• Trouser Press's review (and yes, I made the Spinal Tap and MC5 connection before reading this_
  
• The Bags reformed in a limited manner last year and put out a two-song live record on their old label, Stanton Park Records (who provided this promo, lo so many years ago). This record appears to be out of print (although I'm willing to be corrected) although Stanton Park offers some Bags rarities.
  
• Aram Heller is the executive producer. Here's my previous review of his World of Distortion single.
• Boston sound genius Lou Giordano shares engineering and producing duties with Carl Plaster (an unsung sound guy from Boston - worked with Come and Juliana Hatfield)
  
• The photograph details used above are from the album and credited to Mim Michelove
• Not to be confused upon penalty of a Jay Hinman takedown with the L.A. Bags
• A Peter Bagge band drawing (although its rather smallish)
  

The fine print: All MP3 tracks are provided to stimulate discussion and further research and education into the arcane world of (mostly) independent music. Mp3 files are removed after roughly two weeks or at the request of the artist/copyright holder.

Black Helicopter

I once wrote a song using the often psychotic dialogue that came from a phone "action line' that a newspaper had set up (I think I even posted it here several weeks ago). Black Helicopter takes it one step further:

Black Helicopter take their lyrics almost verbatim from the twisted ramblings of a sociopath who used to loiter at the "Clerks" style convenience store owned by the father of drummer M. Nicholas. Secretly recorded on a boom box, tapes of this warped, misogynistic, unemployed Teamsters' ranting serve as the inspiration for Black Helicopter’s lyrics. The subject matter is loathsome, yet steeped in a realism that cannot be manufactured.

The so-called sociopath (I think they've misdiagnosed him but whatever) says a lot of offensive things such as in "Good Times" where he rants about the ignomy of someone supposedly naming a boat after that "negro" TV show or in "Bitch Move" where he fantasizes about taking out a female newscaster. By doing this, the band can take a step away from responsibility and yet still shock the audience (and perhaps get people to talk about them). They also can't be blamed if their songs don't make a lot of sense or go anywhere although for the most part they do - at least the ones I've selected below. Still, its a concept that might work best as a side-project and not the focus of fulltime band. Another ethical question arises - should they compensate their lyricist or tell him that they've used his words or is it just a found object?

The music is not at all shocking, though, a bit of sludgey, sober Flipper crossed with a looser Mission of Burma. Since their members came from Kudgel and Green Magnet School, respectively, I guess that's no surprise. There's also a lot that reminds me of Killdozer and Big Black. They often use repetition and layering of noise and this can be mesmerizing - for instance in the latter half of "King of Wormtown" - this supports the delusional patter of the lyrics quite appropriately. At other times, the lack of a real lyrical structure forces the music to be built around the words rather than vice versa and this leads to some interesting song decision such as in "Mousemeat" - sometimes it works and other times ("Little Davey Bowditch") it doesn't.

If you're in the area, they are opening for Mission of Burma next Thursday (Jan 13) in Northhampton, MA. Their record label should be commended for putting up a generous amount of MP3s. A few of them are worth a spin if this is your type of music and I've ranked them from my favorite to least (there are more at the website below). If your not into this type of music and just curious about how the concept works, I'd download "Mousemeat" and if you like that check out the others:

Mousemeat
King of Wormtown
The Good Times
Bootstraps

Links:
- Black Helicopter Website (the photo above came from this website although its rehosted via Hello)
- You can download all the Black Helicopter MP3s that are offered by the Traktor 7 Record Label

Throw Rag

In this age of lo-fi and joycore, it's nice to know that some indie bands can still be dangerous, scary and offensive (or at least purposely obnoxious and annoying)! From Shauna Farnell's Vail Daily News review of a Rev. Horton Heat show in which they opened:

Throw Rag, which defines its sound as "sailor rock," unleashed screeching, yet oddly harmonious vocals reminiscent of the Joykiller and punchy, power-chord laden guitar choruses not unlike The Sex Pistols. The singer, who was a deadringer for that old man with the toothless underbite and wide-eyed stare you see on postcards, wailed under his yachting cap and strutted across the edge of the stage like a lounge singer throughout the show. It was less scary to have him amble across the stage than his half-naked back-up vocalist, whose bare gut wobbled threateningly along with every King-Kong-like thump he delivered onto the instrument hanging around his neck. That instrument, ironically, was a washboard that he played with a spoon, complete with a cowbell attached for that well-timed clank between riffs.

Early on, when the guy - who had clearly gotten into glue or some other significantly mind-altering substance before the show - grabbed some girl in the front row and shoved her head into his crotch, I decided it was time to take a couple steps away from the stage. After the microphone disappeared inside his pants, I hoped, for the Rev's sake, that all the equipment would be changed out if not disinfected before Reverend Horton Heat took the stage. Regardless of this nastiness, Throw Rag put on a great show.

• The Throw Rags website (above photo is courtesy of this website)
• Download their Dickies vs. Sex Pistols (via BYO Records) cut entitled "Hang Up"

Blog Off: The Lounge Lizard Edition

Blog Off is a semi-regular round-up of downloads and postings that I found interesting...


We're all inspired this week by Rev Purvis's Vinyl Orphanage's Talent Show featuring the The Glickmans that we've invited them to the Vinyl Mine lounge to play a few. The Rev describes them thusly:

If you have ever seen the recurring Saturday Night Live Skit with Will Ferrell and Ana Gasteyer as a couple of elementary school music teachers who moonlight as lounge singers, you will have a pretty good idea of what is represented in this recording.

Check out the vocal stylings and the synthesized oboe in "Send In the Clowns." I'm tapping my toes to "Fame" and is that an art-lounge version of "The Gambler"I hear?! Go ahead, put something in the tip jar and make a request for "Feelings" at your own peril. Whew, glad that's over, you know what I mean.

But now the lights have gone dark and man in black shambles onto the stage. Is that... Johnny... no wait, it's that Trent dude. Here's "Hurt (Take 1)". Sorry, Trent, Johnny Cash ate your breakfast a few years ago. Mr. K of Totally Fuzzy productions booked him (check there for link to main site).

Now the lights are back up and that Silence is a Rhythm guy is putting coins in the jukebox. Is that a remix of Scissor Sister's supposed cover of "Comfortably Numb" blasting on the jukebox. Hmmm... so that's what all the fuss is about. Doesn't sound at all like Pink Floyd. I think I'll go to the men's room.

Now that other guy with a faint deluded smile is selecting Bridget Bardot doing her classy hit, "Je danse donc je sui" - whoa, what's next, Dusty Springfield?

A word of warning, watch out for those ladies sitting alone at the bar who ask whether they can go up to your room and "use your phone".

And what lounge night would be complete without a version of "Begin the Beguine" courtesy of that guy from Locust Street. Hell, let's hear the original and drink a martini to the late band leader.

And while we're at it, let's drink a round of Scotch for the guy in the corner with the mask.

Green River: Rehab Doll

Subpop, 1988

Not really punk, not really metal, perhaps the closest touchpoints is a less blues-heavy update of Alvin Lee's Ten Years After merged with the minor chord devil boogie of Blue Oyster Cult. This was their swansong LP, the long-awaited record that was recorded through the latter part of 1987 and released after they had broken up. Its a good, though not great, record and probably would have worked better as an EP. I always thought Green River had some of the greatest song beginnings - as in fact almost all of these songs do - they just didn't always deliver the song. I would have consigned "Rehab Doll", "Together We'll Never", "Smiling and Dyin" and even "One More Stitch" to the eventual CD w/unreleased tracks and called this release the Swallow My Pride EP (after the best song on the record). It would have stood proudly with Dry as a Bone as a fine example of pre-grunge Seattle misericore.

There aren't that many reviews on the Interweb that I could find but one was All Music Guide (AMG)'s site in which they complained about the recording. I don't understand All Music Guide's problems with the sound. Departing from their previous, ah, production values to Bruce Calder's sonic embrace was in retrospect a good idea. I found the sound to be one of the great things about the record, in fact. Maybe the CD version was remastered poorly, I dunno, but the LP version is fine.

AMG also complains that Mark Arm's vocals sound "like he's singing from across the room." Um, that's the idea of reverb vocals, dooshbags and I think it was very intentional - Arm's vocals, in this manner, work but (there's always a but) I think Arm "sells" his pain and misery a bit too much and it sounds a bit contrived, almost amateurish, at times. That's only made more painfully obvious when he moans in full room reverb. As for the other players: Gossard, Ament and Fairweather do a great job - for a pretty youngish band, they inherently understand each other's limitations and complement into a coherent whole - yielding some mighty decent riffage. They also contribute (via Calder's engineering) some pretty wild background vox which you notice after several listens.

The lyrics and the whole gist of this LP is pretty miserable - not bad miserable but truly utterly despairing miserable. Their subject matter being stuff like girlfriend with AIDS, mutual suicide pacts, self-destruction, you get the idea. Some of it is pulled off with aplomb but unlike Kurt Cobains' obtuse but deeply felt puh-ain, I'm not so sure that Mark Arm really has this badness in his life -- it just doesn't always ring true - ok, I'll say it: poser, dude, yer a poser.

And while there are some very worthy poetic passages in the songs, there are also some lines that sound like they were ripped out of his 8th Grade notebook (you know right next to the pix of pentagrams and big boobs) - I mean "the river in the city gets pumped with sewage/the river in the city runs brown" and "my love she's a party in Hell... only you make the gray sky black" (from "Rehab Doll" and "Smiling & Dyin'", respectively). I think what's missing is a sense of humor -- maybe he just didn't like his bandmates and the direction they wanted to go with the band (his pal Steve Turner having already left the group to "go to school") Whatever the tension that was in this band is reflected in these songs, I think. Mark Arm is not a depressed or depressing guy if Mudhoney and his other projects are evidence. And early Green River had its happy happy moments - the first EP was rollicking party longhair music for serial killers and demongirls. I say this because "Swallow My Pride," which is included here (and was on Come on Down EP), was one of the first songs they wrote. If you listen and read the lyrics, its a hilarious song about falling for a Reaganite chick and going through all sorts of 20-something liberal angst over it and then concluding that, well, "I wouldn't mind / if you swallowed my pride / make me feel alright." It ends with a seemingly spontaneous prolonged sendup of BOC's "This Ain't The Summer of Love" which I don't remember being on the demo version or Come on Down (confirmed!). Although the Summer of Love thing is done somewhat in jest, its probably indicative of my notion that Rehab Doll couldn't even take a funny (albeit self-hating) song without adding some downer elements into it.

There's also "Porkfist" which sounds pretty much influenced by Big Black about the guy who swings the big hammer in the slaughterpen and the alpha-pig that's about to go up against him. hmmm... sounds like every rocker promising that if they sell out, they'll somehow survive the carnage. Instead, I'm thinking that the alpha-pig got a boot to the head and a big hammer to the skull. Incidentally, I can imagine it was a song like this that inspired Chuck Eddy to (derisively) come up with the term Pigfuck for describing this genre (Killdozer being the kings of Pigfuck) and while Green River is constantly being touted as the progentors of grunge (I'm not totally sold on that but I will take Mudhoney for $1000, Alex), maybe they and Albini are really the fathers of Pigfuck, eh? (note: GR toured with Big Black in '85).

Finally, I like "Forever Means", the opening cut, even if it is the most overtly metal song here. It just has a riff that doesn't quit and its so good I'm willing to forgive Mark Arm's vocal excesses here and there. Even the downer lyrics are kinda okay since they are a pretty punk snarl about how "their" world (y'know, the squares) has nothing for the singer: "what you get is what you see/lookout, i don't aim to please")

The fact that Gossard and Ament went onto one of the biggest groups in the '90s (Pearl Jam if you didn't already know) has probably kept this record in print. You can buy it in multiple outlets along with the predecessor EP. Check froogle for best prices.


Songs:
When the sad day comes that I hit my 20 Gigs on my iPod, and that day will surely come, some of this Green Riverage will have to go. But these are the three songs that will remain:

"Forever Means" (metal, yes, but truly sonic - dig the background vox)
"Swallow my Pride" (with "sonic moans" by Kim Gordon)
"Porkfist" (a Pigfuck song if there ever was one)

Fine print: All recordings come off of vinyl that I own that is recorded off a cheap turntable. They are offered for research and historical purposes only and are removed within two weeks of the date of this posting. If the copyright holder, blah blah blah... etc. ad nauseum.

Links:

Despite all the hype around the band, there's relatively few fansites of note. Most of the better documentation on the band comes from Mudhoney fans. For some reason Pearl Jam fans take little note of the Green River years.

• An incomplete attempt to put together a Green River tour book with some notes from interviews with band members including this illuminating account (from Jeff Ament) of working for Corey Rusk in Detroit, '85:

And then...and then, went up to get paid afterwards...after, you know, after probably the most humbling experience ever, and, Corey Rusk, who, he was in The Necros at that point, I was really excited to meet him, 'cause I loved The Necros, and runs Touch and Go now. He was the promoter for the show, we were supposed to make like a hundred bucks, which was a huge payday for us at that point. He's paying Danzig like $12,000, or whatever he was making that show. And I put my hand out, and he goes 'Man, I thought you guys sucked, I'm only giving you 25.' I just put my head down, and I'm like, I gotta to back and tell the band that we only made 25 bucks."

• From the same site, a seemingly complete Green River discography
• A faux-academic history of grunge and Green River's relationship to it
• AMG's review of "Rehab Doll"
• Byron Coley's obituary in Trouser Press" (as always, I'm humbled by The Man)
• A Stone Gossard interview from 1998 in which he talks about what Green River & Mother Love Bone were trying to do:

Well, we were trying to be Ten Minute Warning and Tales of Terror and Iggy Pop. Some combination of that and probably, in somebody's mind, SSD Control, and something else...but ah... Yeah, there were a lot of bands around at that time, the U Men and bands that were totally, in our minds, "the rock stars." We just went out there and we had some bad heavy metal riffs and we liked punk rock too, so we put them together and that's kind of what we came up with.

My Jerry Springer parting thoughts:

Green River broke up, reportedly, over the notion of "selling out" - Gossard and Ament wanted to make a good living playing music and put together Pearl Jam with Eddie Vedder. Mark Arm wanted to stay true to the punk ideals and along with former Green Riverite Steve Turner went off to form Mudhoney. They've released about 8 original albums - the most recent being 2002's "since we became tranluscent." Earlier this year, Arm replaced Evan Dando to complete the MC5 reunion tour to great acclaim. Meanwhile, Stone Gossard has released a solo LP, to little acclaim and reviews that will always compare his work in the context of Pearl Jam. Jeff Ament is apparently spending his time doing endorsement deals. And Pearl Jam haven't released a notable record since 1993. Pearl Jam itself went into seclusion after their massive popularity pretty much made every personal thing they did the subject of media gossip and paparazzi snapshots. To some, the old adage, "be careful what you ask for, you just might get it" rings true.

Lou Reed all'italiana!

Welcome and grazie to The Ancient Art of MP3 Blogging, a new Italian music blog who linked to MusicbOOm.it's Lou Reed tribute album, Boomsongs for Velvet (the Google translated link is here). You can download the entire album as a Zip file (192 kbps) or as separate files (they come in two different bit rate formats - 192 and 320 kbps).

There's a lot of good cuts here, only a few clunkers. I like tribute album songs that don't just do a cover but bring a bit of personality and insight into the song.

Some highlights: Check out Zen Circus' psychotic jam version of "The Gift" as a great example of doing a tribute that's out there. For more stoner songs, check out Encode's "All Tomorrow's Parties"... Cantu, Ciappini, Iriondo's "Black Angel's Death Song" is also a notable trippy cut.

Only one song is repeated twice and its a surprise that they're both pretty good: Sebastian's "Caroline Says" (stick with the song, it gets better), Studiodavoli's version of the "Caroline" is better, though...

However, I'll nominate Lorenzo Bianchi's Lorbi w/ Odette di Maio and their empyreal update on Lou and Nico's "I'll Be Your Mirror" as the best of the bunch - one of those rare tribute album cuts that bests the original. Perhaps its Nico's European connection that inspired it.

(All my links are to the 192 kbps versions - the web page has links to all the bands' websites)

Saved Rounds:

• A not so legal download of the original "I'll Be Your Mirror" for comparison purposes.
• A review of a 1984 performance of "The Gift"
• quicklook listing of all bands and songs from the CD back cover

Soundtrack to a New Year's Eve Dream

I found myself running through a decaying building, I think it was a gym, that looked like the set from Alien onto the grungey part of 14th Street (in Washington DC). I was once again being pursued by Prince Olaf and his nameless brother, my reoccuring green and ugly nightmare gnomes, and we all realized that something even worse, a dark giant, was pursuing all of us. The giant shadow thing smashed Prince Olaf's brother into an unrecognizable smear on the macadam... we called a truce and ducked into a bar where an HDTV screen was showing Harry Dean Stanton performing a retrospective of all his greatest characters... Bud the Repo Man, the lonelyheart detective from Wild At Heart, the broken father from Pretty in Pink and that's when I woke up.



Coridda - Lindows (Poland)
Destroy That Boy - Boonaraas (Germany)
Making Enemies - Lied (Malaysia)
Dla Mnie To Cos - Freez (Poland)
Coup de Ska (live) - Beat Soup (USA)
Conspiracy Theory - Steve Earle (USA)
I've Got News - The Murg Masalam Blues Band (Malaysia)
Transducer - Dusk (Malaysia)

Get in the Car - The Giraffes (USA)
Behold the Cucumber - Carrion Dust (Malaysia)
Silent Movie - This Body Broken (Malaysia)
Close Your Eyes - Her Reverie (Malaysia)

Fine print: All tracks deemed "legal"... hi bit-rate... my apologies as many of the songs do not have proper ID3 tags and may need some "repair" after you download...report bad links, please

Links: Harry Dean's IMDB (he also appeared in Alien which I hadn't remembered)

Coffee and Cigarettes: Sinnerman Mix

A 5-act mini-opera about sinnin' and dyin'...

"Taneytown" - Steve Earle - Referring page*
"Big Iron" - Steve Owens
"I'm Not Like Everybody Else" - The Chocolate Watchband - Referring page*
"Sinnerman" - Nina Simone - Referring page*
"Dream" - Damn Dirty Apes

*All songs notated with an asterix are of questionable legality.

Gray Matter
Food for Thought LP
R&B Records, 1985

If you tried to draw a straight line from predeccesor band Iron Cross to Gray Matter's second record, the emo classic Take it Back, you'd be hard pressed to find this album on that line. If I had heard this without knowing their priors -- Guitarist Mark Haggerty and drummer Dante Ferrando played in Cross, suburban DC contemporaries of Minor Threat and Void -- I'd have signed them up to Bomp! instead of Dischord.* With the exception of the more forgettable tunes "Oscar's Eye" and "Gray Matter", these songs recall '60s-'70's garage punk over the more trad. Dischord straight-edge of that period, that, say Dag Nasty were fronting at the time. I mean, snotty vocals from a "Dischord band"? Voxx-style reverb guitar? Beatles covers??? Perhaps that's why the opening song is called "RETROspect"?

But it kinda makes sense in a way. The intersection of Bomp! and Dischord is teenage alienation and disillusionment and these songs are full of it. But unlike a lot of the suburban NoVa (Northern Virginia) punk music of the time there's a rare sense of humor and some cultural references minus the usual straight-edge snobbiness and prudery. They cover "I Am the Walrus" without their tongues in their cheeks (at least its not noticable). "Phobias" deal with, among other things, the fear of Roger Moore - so that's kinda funny and cultural, right, I mean he was James Bond at the time - can't hear the rest of the lyrics (no lyrics sheet, arrgggh!), are they saying their afraid of discourse and grass? And "Caffeine Blues" deals with the whole straight-edge gateway drug pretty nicely - I got a kick out of hearing the old Coffee Generation commercial (with ELO playing "Hold Onto Your Dreams") playing at the beginning, donchu?

There are three exceptional garage punk songs here that still hold up - "Flash in Time", "Give Me A Clue" and "Retrospect." I'm less enamored with "Fill a Void." The recording itself is kinda disappointing (remembering my previous problems with the Ignition EP), at least in comparison with Take it Back. I'm wondering if they did a remix for the CD release. Another piece of evidence that the Ian and Don Z team improved by leaps and bounds through the Winter of 84-85. Oh, I also think the cover is pretty crappy but in a high school kinda way its oddly appropriate.

I've only heard one song from the band's early 90's reunion album, Thog, and it was a cover of Lennon/McCartney's "I've Just Seen a Face" and, besides the fact that its probably their first and only song about girls, it sounded like they had successfully integrated the g-punk of Food with the emo of Take it Back.

Songs:

"Give Me A Clue"
"I Am The Walrus"
"Caffeine Blues"

Fine Print: Songs are all from the Food for Thought LP (although its kind of a mini-LP), recorded from vinyl and digitized accordingly. These songs are not out of print and retain all the original copyright bullshit intact. They are made available for a short period of time (~two weeks) to faccilitate discussion and research and Fair Use ... but if the artists or one of the copyright holders objects, they will be removed promptly.

*To be accurate, this was not originally a Dischord release, although it was later packaged with their follow-up EP into a single CD available from the Dischord website.

Links/Notes
Gray Matter Dischord home page
Southern.com does "bio & begats" for this band


Alternative Reviews:

• Flex provides a take that suggests they didn't listen to the record: "Wonderful melodic DC style hardcore, a classic."
• Skaters review the CD at Amazon.com: "This cd is one of the sickest cds ive ever heard. If you skate and you need some music to get you amped listen to Gray Matter. Trust me."

The Ever-So Interesting Where Are They Now? Section That Shows on the Screen At The End of the Teen Coming of Age Drama-Comedy

• Steve Niles is now a horror comix writer - one of his stories is being produced into a movie by Sam Raimi. He names his characters after his old bandmates. An interview about his Gray Matter days is up at his website (although it oddly credits Jeff Nelson as being in Gray Matter - he was in Three with Haggerty, Turner and Jeff Nelson, ex-Minor Threat).
• Dante Ferrando runs two of my favorite DC spaces: Black Cat and... Food for Thought where he fights calls from straight-edgers to ban drinking and smoking.
• Jeff Turner (vox, guitar) is aka Geoff Turner. According to Niles' interview he lives in LA, and plays in sleaze-skronk dance band New Wet Kojak - their website is either here or here or both. The latter has a link to two MP3s that would be perfect for a gallery opening as hosted by Dieter of Sprockets. He also ran the WGNS Studios Cassette label (now defunct) and recorded (and played on) some of Dave Grohl's solo songs while he was in Nirvana.
• Mark Haggerty, according to the Steve Niles interview, lives in San Fran and plays in a band called Shanty - I couldn't find any reference to them anywhere. Anyone got info?

Awww.... Mp3 bloggers get some end-of-year love...

Jimmy Aquino writes in SF Bay Area's Metroactive: COMMERCIAL RADIO DJs can't be trusted anymore—ever since they let themselves become the palm-greasing promoter's bitch. So in 2004, the music geek nation turned its lonely eyes to the MP3 bloggers—those self-important desktop DJs who push music snobbery to its geekiest by putting streaming MP3s on their site. As a result, '04 was the year I bought more singles than albums. I love how iTunes gives you the option of buying individual songs rather than the whole kit and caboodle. Good lookin' out, iTunes!

Read the entire piece here - Movie soundtrack fans take note: Jimmy's Fistful of Soundtracks webcast is carried via live365.com (also available via iTunes radio button)

Sam Kinison
Louder Than Hell
WG, 1986

To shake myself out of that certain Christmas sentimentality, I pulled this tape out of the pile.

So to perhaps get you over that Christmas sugar-ridden malaise, here's a dose of political incorrectness from the late Sam Kinison, the most hated and loved comedian of our time.

No topic - Jesus, World Hunger and the Tate-Bianca murders - was beyond Kinison's acid anquish. Although Side 1 is way too personal (and hateful) to be funny, Side 2 is a keeper.

"I'm glad you fuckers can handle your high"...

"Manson" - Sam Kinison

Furniture hail out of the burgeoning English speaking Malay-Chinese indie scene. They were formerly known as R.U.S.H. Their music tends towards longish explorations of the intersection of noise and pop. But they'd be right at home opening for bands like TV on the Radio and Deathcab for Cutie.

"I am Ying" - Furniture - meanwhile, in another universe, Postal Service and Can meets Dave Ball of Soft Cell in a huge abandonded warehouse and quietly jam into the midnight hours
"Please" - Furniture - remembers Galaxie 500 as a much louder band with a hornier synth and bells

("legal" downloads - the website streams these songs, I'm merely providing the source MP3)

Band website has links to other bands that are worth exploring. Here's their apparent label.

Relative to others, Malaysia did not suffer much (so far 60 reported dead) in the Christmas Tsunami but if you want to help out the affected countries or just get links to information about it, see SE Asia Earthquake and Tsunami blogspot.

Love is the Reason for the Season

Here's hoping you're all snuggled up with your favorite people, animals and iPod and that the fire is roaring and life is good for you in this and the coming year.

"Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming" - Kathleen Battle (160 kbps, 4 Mb)













Notes:

• Historical notes on hymm
• I do get a bit schmalzty and pseudo-religious around this time of the year but only this week, so forgive me
  
• Mitigating coolness factor: Kathleen Battle is featured on the soundtrack to "House of Flying Daggers" (iTunes link) where she sings "Lovers (Title Song)" - made me stay in my seat during the credits.
  
• Rose photo courtesy SeanHfoto on Flickr.com
• I am 43 years on this planet as of 1:10 AM this morning - loo for updates in a couple days.
  

The first minutemen drummer

I don't know if anyone noticed but Corndogs.org, a minutemen live music archive (among other things), recently updated and is now offering the entire georgeless EP released by Forced Exposure about 10 years ago. It's from a 1980 recording and in MP3 and FLAC formats.

Songs:

1. On the Front MP3 FLAC
2. Big Man Business MP3 FLAC
3. CCCP MP3 FLAC
4. Studio of the Lawns MP3 FLAC
5. Joe McCarthy's Ghost MP3 FLAC

Liner notes included:

THE STORY OF THE FIRST MINUTEMEN DRUMMER: the reactionaries formed in dec. '78 with d.boon on guitar, mike watt on bass, george hurley on drums, and martin tamburovich on singing. they broke up in jun. 79. d.boon and mike watt started the minutemen themselves in jan. '80. george hurley had already joined new wave band hey taxi! so they asked welder and fellow homeboy frank tonche (TAWN-CHEE, just out of the polish eagle polka band) to play drums. in apr. - may '80 the minutemen played their first two gigs. greg ginn saw them and asked them to record for sst records. frank tonche became afraid of punk rock after the second gig and quit the band. and with only one month to go before recording. luckily, george hurley quit hey taxi! and rejoined boon & watt. the "paranoid time "ep (sst 002) was recorded july 20, 1980.

the songs on this record (except for "joe mccarthy's ghost") have never been released in any version until now. george hurley never learned them so only these frank tonche versions exist.

-- liner notes from the 7"

Photo from a 1984 show by Murray Bowles

Ponderosa via Memphis: Falco, Chilton and Burnside

Tav Falco's Panther Burns
Blow Your Top (4 song EP)
rough trade (1982)

If any old time TV character was in need of "A Very Special Episode", it was probably ol' Pa Cartwright, the rageaholic patriarch of the popular TV Western Bonanza who would Blow His Top at the drop of a cowboy hat. He never could take Lil' Joe or Hoss's word on anything and try as they might, they couldn't do the right thing without breaking a few rules. But Adam, the first son, was a pure suck-up, always pointing out when Joe or Hoss broke the rules and thereby further enraging his tightly coiled father. Despite this, Enabler Adam was kind of okay - after all, he dressed the best and would always show up in the end with a well-aimed shot at whatever varmit was trying to do bad. He always seemed to be silently snickering when Pa went hog wild.

Lorne Greene became more touchy-feely in later years by appearing in dogfood commercials and Wild Kingdom. I always watched the dogfood commercials thinking that there were probably a couple dozen outtakes with Greene strangling the dog, spitting out the caterer's coffee and kicking the director's ass around the set. The rumor that an alligator had bitten off one of Greene's nipples during a Wild Kingdom filming only makes us wonder if something like this happened. Unlike the Bingster or Joan Crawford (or Michael Landon!), no child has stepped up to characterize Greene as anything but a kindly old man prone to writing poetry and displaying a deep love for animals. But come to think of it, Lorne's other big character was the patriarch of the roving tribe of Battlestar Gallactica, another character who would occasionally go into irrational rages. Despite attempts to portray him as contrary, he just seemed like a bitter old fuck no matter how you cast him.

But back to the Ponderosa sons. I know its a stretch but Tav is kind of like Adam here, mostly pure suck-up to the original chord progressions and rules of Memphis Sun Studio rock and roll. Here he covers four semi-obscure rockabilly songs. There's nothing wrong with them - perhaps the recording could have been cleaner - but its a bit traditional for my taste. Why not just track down the original tracks is what I'm saying? Not to say, there's not a little contemporary sound embedded in the songs (listen to the guitar in beginning of "I'm on This Rocket", the background vox in "Bertha Lou" or Falco's scat-vox in the middle of "Pantherman"). But it's like Adam wearing black and looking hip as compared to Lil' Joe's rube hat or Hoss's baggy brown pants. He still a bit of a jerk and Joe and Hoss are the guys you wanna hang out with (well, maybe just Hoss).

While the comparisons others have made with The Cramps may make sense with Falco's other releases in this period, this EP has more in common with the Texas Playboys than Lux and Ivy. It's more swing than psycho, more Sun studios than Swampabilly crunch. Considering Falco was the toast of the No Wave scene, it's either endearing to think that he didn't bother to incorporate any of their influences or just frustrating that we had to wait for another record or for Jon Spencer to do so. At any rate, Tav Falco is what he is and just like Adam you can't really make the dog do a new trick if he doesn't want to.

And if Tav is Adam, then surely his pal and discovery Alex Chilton is Lil' Joe, much more adventurous and willing to take a chance albeit a teenybopper at heart. Falco, who started out as a film/video maker first ran across Chilton in Memphis and they became fast friends. Chilton encourage Falco to pursue music and collaborated with him on Panther Burns and solo projects. Their mutual friendship was helpful for both and while its possible that Chilton, former Box Tops singer and Big Star, would have been re-discovereddiscovered without Falco's help, it's unclear where and when that would have happened given that Memphis was a big place with lots of similar songwriters. When they worked together, they worked best for Falco at least. Not surprisingly, Chilton is nowhere to be found on this record even while he is credited with starting Panther Burns (by Jim Duckworth in his memorium linked below).

Finally, we have to give Falco props for also making R. L. Burnside into the known entity he is today, plucking him from obscurity and a probable early anonymous death by making a film about him in the '70s. You would hate me if I extended my loathsome Bonanza metaphor and labeled Burnside as our Hoss but there is some of Dan Blocker's sadness in Burnside's voice (or vice versa), though I would hardly call him the comic relief of music.

At any rate, Chilton and Burnside have successfully synthesized the Memphis sound into something uniquely their own, something different and exciting and Falco, at least at the time this was released, was still only an Adam, looking good in black, precise in his shooting but still a relative musical straight arrow, pretty much following through on the book written by Elvis, Jerry Lee and Carl so long ago.

Adam Cartwright tries to impresses Pa with his rock and roll expertise in:

"I'm On This Rocket" (160 kbps, 3.1 Mb)
"Pantherman" (160 kbps, 3.1 Mb)
"Love Is My Business" (160 kbps, 2.6 Mb)
"Bertha Lou" (160 kbps, 3 Mb)

"Oogum Boogum" - Alex Chilton. Imagine Michael Landon doing the Teen Beat thing in the '60s releasing a single and then singing it on the Andy Williams show, black shirt open to the naval, Ray-bans and, of course, cowboy hat, boots and buckle.
Note this is a legal download but bypasses the silly Epitonic Black Box nonsense. If you insist on going through Epitonic, here's the referring page.

"Bad Luck City" - R. L. Burnside reimagined as Hoss coming back from a bad time at the gambling table.

Again this is legal but bypasses all the Amazon.com nonsense you have to go through to download it. Amazon's MP3 download page (search on "burnside").

"Hardtime Killing Floor" - R.L. Burnside (also courtesy Amazon.com). Imagine if Pa, Adam and Joe were massacred by the Virginia City folks (whom I always thought were portrayed as rotten city-dwelling parasites). Well, Hoss might have sung this while he drank a barrel of whisky.

Notes/Links:

• Trouser Press Panther Burns page
• A Tav Falco fan page of note
• Vinyl Mine hero and NextBigThing's Pa, Lindsay Hutton, explains the origin of Panther Burns' name and reviews their first EP here way back in 1981
  
• Tav reportedly lives in Paris and is rumored to be a dance instructor. His own label (Frenzi) is supposedly still releasing his records. Here's another fan page that has news about it on their discography page.
• Blow Your Top was combined with the Panther Burns' first album Behind the Magnolia Curtain and re-released as a CD by Triple X Records in 1994. It is currently out of print and searches on Froogle and Amazon have been fruitless - checked e-Bay as well and no joy. That said, his collaboration with Alex Chilton, World We Knew was a masterpiece creating a whole new sound for Falco. It can be found at Gemm on vinyl and begs for a CD re-release.
• Bob Willis and The Texas Playboys home page.
• Where are they now:
• Jim Duckworth played guitar with Panther Burns. He was another Alex Chilton pal and no doubt was introduced to Tav. He went on to play in the Gun Club
• Drummer Jim Sclavunos stuck with the formula of playing with a frontman and is now drummer for Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds
• I've been unable to track down anything recent from Ron Miller who played Bass fiddle on this record.

And finally, in loving memory of Lorne, Michael and Dan:


(img courtesy bonanzaworld.net)

Saved Rounds:
- So does all this make Hasil Adkins Hop Sing, the offensive rockabilly stereotype? Answer: No but it does call into question The Stray Cats.
- Jason from Mystery and Misery has Vinyl Mine in some good company in his Top 10 Music Blogs of 2004. Jason's blog links to free and legal cuts with the awesomeist of discretion because he actually listens to the cuts beforehand! He's also one of my early supporters - giving me advice and encouragement earlier this year. I can't say how many times I've stopped cold in the street and pulled out my iPod to figure out what was playing only to discover its a song I downloaded via M&M.
- Bonus Mp3!

Arcade Fire

I read some newspaper article recently that purported to tell people how to publish the most successful blogs. One of the rules is your postings must be easily read within 15 seconds and the other is to post three times a day. I just found that funny since its not exactly the rules I adhere to (then again, I'm not claiming to be "successful").

Courtesy of Bradley's Alamac is the Arcade Fire live show at TT Bears and a wonderfully detailed review (Bradley's obviously not adhering to the 15 second rule either..) with links to songs from the show - "Neighborhood #3/Rebellion" is my choice for best cut because it seems to weld together the Shins with U2 and the Talking Heads) - not the best sound quality but you can certainly get the point about Bradley's enthuasiastic review of the show and the crowd reaction.

Above picture is from the CD - if you actually bought the package - its the lyric sheet in the form of a program that you might receive at a funeral. Unlikely, that this band will be dying anytime soon, though.

UPDATE: Come to think of it, the unifying theme of this post is that Arcade Fire also likes to break rules - changin tempos and melodies on a dime, referencing "uncool" bands.

Wipers
Alien Boy 12" EP


So, if I was one of those anonymous MacArthur Fellows award (the so-called "genius" awards) nominators, I'd be pretty fucking embarrassed at their 20-some year track record when it comes to music. As it is, almost all the awards have gone to avant gardist, classical musicians and composers and jazzmen. And while I don't dispute the selections - I'm too dumb or izzit middlebrow to know enough about the avant gardists and academics and I agree that Ornette and Max Roach are pretty fucking genius - I do think they are overlooking some "potential" (which is the operative word for the awards) by not scrounging around a bit on the fringes. Maybe they need to assign one of us ordinary bloggers to bring in some nominations? I can just see Fluxblog nominating Mousse T. But if they acksed me, um, right off the top of my head, I'd say there were two living people who could use that no-strings-attached $500k and probably do something quite worthy for, y'know, society, with it. The first being Mark E. "Fucking Rowche Rumble" Smith and the second being the subject of this post, the guy that Kurt Cobain called a "romantic, quiet visionary" and that be Greg "Fucking Deemension Seven" Sage.

Lord knows Greg has been around long enough. Following in the flukeish and odd tradition of other contemporary rock guitarists (Bob Mould, Rifle Sport's Boissey) there's first that professional wrestling connection. One of Sage's first recordings was with the outlandish PacNorthwest wrestler known as Beauregarde. Greg was a 17-year-old and the wrestler, at the height of his popularity, wanted to take some of his money and put out a record. Told that Greg plays like fellow NorWester Jimi Hendrix, Beauregarde snapped him up in what has been described as a muscular 70s rawkout. Sage has somehow gotten his hands on the record and remastered it if you want to own this chunk of history. At this point, my anonymous MacArthur nominator is probably shuddering at the mere mention of professional wrestling. I know, I know, I'm not a big fan of seeing grown men in tights throw each other around a stage but bear with me as I'm getting to the whole potential genius thing.

So... interesting fact: Sage grew up with a record lathe in his room that was picked up for a song when a radio station divested itself of it. He used to cut records for his friends and became obsessed with the grooves, putting them under microscopes and learning all he could about the transfer of music to medium. It became a lifelong obsession - trying to duplicate the sound that he heard in his ears to a medium that could preserve it. He likens records to statues and wants to create something that will stand for a long time. Not surprisingly, he eschews live shows - probably because he can't control the sound and the results are ephemeral. So, back to the short history lesson - after playing around, Sage forms the Wipers who as it turned out were pretty much excavating the same terrain as Gizmos and Ramones. In fact, Sage said he had to laugh when he went to a Ramones show in the late '70s since he felt they were pretty much doing the same time of stuff. However, unlike the Ramones, he didn't see music as an excuse to play three chords and then go home and watch TV. He instead continues to explore his idee fixe with sound and decided against the tide that the old style was the better sound even if the equipment was more fragile and heavier to lug around (quoting from TapeOP):

People would laugh when I talked about vacuum tubes because solid state was the only thing out there. Even professionals, other studios, and engineers would just laugh and call me prehistoric. Because I saw value in vacuum tubes. I just started learning all that I could about it, it was kind of a lost art form during the 70s. Tubes were basically cast out. Even the old equipment that would be revered these days, people would laugh at.

In 1980 or so, the Wipers released their first album, Is This Real, and the answer was a slap-on-the-table YES. The sound being so immediate that its rare even today to hear someone who has come close. His uniquely sounding guitar with its controlled feedback and fuzz echo and the meticulous mic'ing of the drums are what you first notice. For a first self-produced record, very few of the common recording mistakes are made. It makes it more amazing to learn that it was recorded on a 4-track. I might quibble with some of his new wave-ish vocal styling but this has certainly improved over the years. Anyway, "Alien Boy" was a standout cut from Is This Real and released as part of a 4-song EP and then some German company came along and re-released it as a 12" with a different cover (I've put the original cover art into the MP3s, though). The three fairly short songs ("Image of Man", "Telepathic Love" and "Voices in the Rain") on the B-side didn't appear on Is This Real and were recorded at a different "studio" from "Alien Boy". Was this a "real" studio or some other version of Sage's 4-track set-up? I dunno. There is a slightly different, more paranoid feeling with these songs I guess. SubPop later re-released Is This Real as a CD and stuck these three songs on it. And then Greg Sage put out a box set of his first three record for a shockingly low $17 (available on his website, link below - great Christmas gift for your indie pals).

Geniuses can be cited as starting whole new schools of thought or study. In Greg's case, we can go no further than Kurt Cobain who wrote that the Wipers "started Seattle grunge rock in Portland, 1977" and his band Nirvana covered two Wipers songs to boot. His wife, Ms. Love never to be one not to follow a trend, also covered a Wipers song with Hole. Every time I hear Foo Fighters I can't help but think that they've somehow channeled the Wipers into a pop-friendly construct. Sage has also recorded Soundgarden and The Melvins. But it doesn't stop there. Sage's minimalist techniques in the studio so inspired Beat Happening that they asked him to produce their record. And while I'm not a big fan of this record (as previously explained), I can't quibble with the singular and cozy sound. I don't back down from my argument that this record started the modern Lo-Fi movement so we can credit Sage with a hand in that as well. So that's two major genres that Sage has helped mid-wife. And while I wouldn't go so far as to say that he fathered the great Northwest Hardcore movement, he produced songs from Poison Idea (who play on his tribute record) and the pre-Steve Fisk Pell Mell. So that's three genres that have been greatly influenced by our man. Hmmmm... seem to remember that whole father of a genre being the argument for Max Roach and Ornette Coleman - their roles in be-bop, cool jazz and the like. And although I mention his obsession above with sound above, did I mention that he fucking well did something about it? I mean I haven't even begun to mention that Sage builds his own pre-amps, has designed a unique (all wood) studio in Arizona to get the sound he wants and has pretty much been a leading innovator in his field even if the snooty major studios won't acknowledge it (TapeOp interview covers this well).

Finally, we forgive geniuses for their somewhat weird theories. We understand that often these odd beliefs keep them going towards their unique vision and breakthroughs so even if we have to look away, it's worth humoring them. I'm thinking of folks like Tesla and Issac Newton. Interviews with Greg and his lyrics suggest that he has some strange beliefs. In the Smokebox interview (undated but probably 2000), for example, Sage says:

I also think, well, it’s a crazy theory of mine, but that everybody is subconsciously clairvoyant, and that maybe since your subconscious has no communication with your conscious, that maybe people foresee the future being so different that they remove themselves from it, consciously, but without being aware of it.

This isn't a new idea for Sage - "Telepathic Love" seems to echo this notion if ya listen up to the lyrics. His approach to finding inspirations for songs is also, shall we say, somewhat unique as well:

As with every Wipers LP I would spend many months observing people and their situations to get ideas of what was in their mind and their motivations. This was always where the inspiration would come from for our songs. I would get a glimpse of the future by doing this and it was easy to write songs that would make sense 10 years from then. (from In Music We Trust, Sept 2004):

So if you're ever in Arizona and some cadaverous gray-haired vaguely punkish guy in a bandana starts following you around, just ignore 'im and check out his next album because you might be in it. This notion of "telepathy" is a common theme in his songs -- "Telepathic Love" of course being one literal example. Come to think of it, aliens are also a common theme in Sage songs although usually to describe differentness from the conformists. But who knows, he may also believe in UFOs.

So if you are one of those mysterious MacArthur folks, fucking ay get to it and go visit Zeno studios in Arizona. Who knows you might end up being responsible for the next piece of cool recording gear getting invented or a whole new Phoenix-based musical genre being founded. Next October I wanna open up my newspaper and see you're cutting the check for him (and Mark E. Smith for fucks sake).

"Alien Boy" - Wipers (192 kbps, 4.7 Mb, digitally enhanced to remove surface noise)
"Voices in the Rain" - Wipers (218 kbps VBR, 2.2 Mb, straight from EP)
"Telepathic Love" - Wipers (217 kbps VBR, 2.4 Mb, recorded with no digital enhancements)

Cuts are provided under Fair Use provisions. I do not make or intend to make a penny off this website. They are recorded from vinyl with all its so-called imperfections. All cuts are removed after two weeks or at the request of the copyright holder.


Saved Rounds:

Personal story - I first discovered Greg Sage as a cut on the Enigma Variations I compilation in the mid-80s (vastly superior to II and a great collection even if the label owners turned out to the the biggest asshats of that era) so I'm a poser when it comes to being able to say I was there from the start you know rockin' in my flannel shirt - hell, I've almost never been to Portland (there was that drunken episode people tell me occurred during the '99 Rose festival but I don't wanna talk about it). In my defense, after hearing just this one song - an acoustic piece to boot - I went out and bought as much Wipers I could find including this EP.

Favorite Wipers LP: Over the Edge.

Favorite cut: "D-7" although I still like "Straight Ahead" in the quieter moments.

Credits: The photo above is from the back cover of the German reissue I have. I should also mention that we had Dave Koupal on bass and Sam Henry playing drums. Originally release on Park Ave., 1980 - Reissued by Weird Systems 1987.

Condition of my record: The album cover is torn at the top (thanks to my cat) but vinyl is in fairly good condition.


Links/Factoids:

• The Wipers official web site is annoyingly designed but is worth browsing
• Zeno Record Store (it is set up so you enter it by declaring whether you are using credit card, paypal or check/money order so a direct link to the box set CD is hard)
• Smokebox interview with Sage (talks about his last interaction with Cobain)
• TapeOp interview
• In Music We Trust Interview
• Phoenix New Times Article and Interview (appears to be based on the Smokebox interview; recounts how Tim/Kerr records screwed him over)
• Cobain on Greg Sage via Nirvana Club:

"THE Wipers were a Portland punk band who were started in the late Seventies by Greg Sage and released maybe four or five albums. The first were totally classic, and influenced The Melvins and all the other punk rock bands. They're another band I tried to assimilate. Their songs were so good.

"Greg Sage was pretty much the romantic, quiet, visionary kind of guy. What more can I say about them? They started Seattle grunge rock in Portland, 1977."

• The MacArthur Fellows (scroll down for the Music fellows) and Overview of the program
• Trouser Press Wipers Article
• Blogcritics review of Is This Real
  
• Sam Henry who was the first Wipers drummer now plays with Johnny Trudell (the son of John "Blind Man's Penis" Trudell?) for Morgan Grace, a kind of Betty Page goth. Website here.
• On the overuse of the word "genius"
• Beauregarde's Wrestling Career
• Eric of Something I Learned reviews Sage's 10/29/79 Portland Punk live compilation and still has some cuts up
• "Telepathic Love" was covered by Nation of Ulysses in Cobain's tribute project.
<>The cover art of the German (Weird System) reissue of the Alien Boy EP was by Steve Doughton who later made a movie with The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black's Kembra Pfahler, another indie rocker with a pro-wrestling connection. Here's a clip from Dougton's cover:

Quicktime Movie/Music Blog

I have turned my movie blog into a sort of variant on an MP3 blog.

Instead of talking strictly music, I am covering music in movies and provide temporary links to clips I have created in Quicktime (MPEG1) format.

My first post in this new format is up here.

Has anyone else tried this? It was fun picking out the clips. Let me know what you think or if you know of any other similar blogs and I'll link them.

Coffee & Cigarettes Little Steven Mix 7

If you don't regularly check out Little Steven's Underground Garage radio show, you're missing out not only on some of the greatest old and new garage-punk-classic-indie rock in the world but some entertaining monologues from Little Steven. I put it on and do my household chores. Here's the playlist from the most recent show. Dig his spoken word birthday tribute to Old Blue Eyes in the beginning.

This Coffee and Cigarettes set is inspired by the Dec 12th show. If you've seen this before, I always try to throw one or two songs that doesn't entirely fit but sorta do anyway. I think you'll be able to quickly figure it out just by looking at the set.

Of the bands Steven played, I'm most interested in hearing more Tegan & Sara but maybe that's just the latent wimp in me - they seem to straddle the boundaries from garage rock into, well I'm not sure what, Cat Power-land? Guided By Voices? - they have a number of MP3s available for download - my only regrets are this is at 55 kbps - but it still sounds pretty good.

UPDATE: On second thought, I'm digging Highschool Sweethearts even more than T&S.

("Legal" unless otherwise noted)

"Chicks Dig" - Highschool Sweethearts** (Myspace site)
"Walking With A Ghost"* - Tegan & Sara**
"I Don't Believe" - Reigning Sound**
"The Last Time"* - Grateful Dead (3/9/93 - Stones cover - legal? - archive)
"Why Don't We Talk About Something Else"* - Outrageous Cherry**
"Our Sensation" - Link

* Songs actually played on the show
** Bands played on the show

Notes

• Frank Sinatra picture from Will Bragg's photo site at Flickr
• Past Coffee and Cigarette mixes

well, my mind is goin' thru them changes

Whew... that was relatively painless. I hope you like the new look - with the new year coming, I thought it was time for a housecleaning.

I'll be adding more to my blogroll - right now I have all the folks I know about that have linked to me. If you roll your cursor over the links you can see some little descriptions I thought up of each of the links.

I'm going to add the "best of the rest" next and bring back my local links as well for all you DC-Baltimore folks.

The template was adapted from Martijn ten Napel - I wanted it to be a bit different from the blogger.com set of templates and I love the colors. He's got some more there. I also used Chami.com to improve some of my html skillz.

Once this is done, I'll get back to some groovin' music including some Wipers, Gray Matter, Panther Burns and R.L. Burnside. I've been listening to it all night.