Friday, May 29, 2009

Idle Times

Two singles on two cool labels, Woodsist and Hozac. Collect them all, etc.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Idle Times.

Get Your Feet Off The Ground b/w Driving You Sad (Woodsist)
1. Get Your Feet Off The Ground
2. Driving You Sad




















Million Miles Away b/w Whatever Works For You (Hozac)
1. Million Miles Away
2. Whatever Works For You

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Predator Vision

I love how many bands these dudes are in together. Why not?

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Predator Vision.

Predator Vision (Future Sounds)
1. Brotherhood Of Man
2. Spirit In Flesh




















Predator Vision II (Future Sounds)
1. Eyes Of The Demon
2. The City's A Jungle

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

White Magic

It is hilarious to me that Tylenol thought that this would actually be a good way to sell analgesic. I certainly didn't buy any as a result of acquiring this complimentary compact disc.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, White Magic.

Songs Of Hurt And Healing (Tylenol)
1. Day
2. Twilight
3. Night

Monday, May 25, 2009

Earth

I picked this up back when I used to work at Midnight Records. We had several copies for some reason (this was before the reissue came out so it was not a common item), so I purchased all of them and gave them out to friends.

If only everybody had sold their CD players to buy presents for me that I couldn't use, then it could have been a real Gift of the Magi type situation.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Earth.

Extra-Capsular Extraction (Sub Pop)
1. A Bureaucratic Desire For Revenge (Part 1)
2. A Bureaucratic Desire For Revenge (Part 2)
3. Ouroboros Is Broken

Friday, May 22, 2009

Almendra

As I am currently en route to Monterrey, Mexico I thought I might share some psychedelic music sung in Spanish.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Almendra.

Almendra (BMG Argentina)
1. Tema De Pototo
2. El Mundo Entre Las Manos
3. Hoy Todo El Hielo En La Ciudad
4. Campos Verdes
5. Gabinetes Espaciales
6. Final
7. Muchacha (Ojos De Papel)
8. Color Humano
9. Figuracion
10. Ana No Duerme
11. Fermin
12. Plegaria Para Un Niño Dormido
13. A Estos Hombres Tristes
14. Que El Viento Borro Tus Manos
15. Laura Va
16. Hermano Perro
17. Mestizo
18. Toma El Tren Hacia El Sur
19. Jingle
20. Rutas Argentinas

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Carcinogen Static Carnival

 If you ever stop by my buddy Sto's gallery Cinders in Williamsburg, you will probably find a bunch of weird cassettes and compact discs recordable. If you were to pick one at random, there is a good chance it would feature or Tom or Colin (or both) from (the already missed) USAisamonster.

This one features Colin.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Carcinogen Static Carnival.

Live At Zebulon (Self)
1. Psychadelic Woman
2. Prog Funk
3. Funkadelic
4. Herbie

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Sonic Youth

I purchased this compact disc in Simi Valley, CA as a teenager. It is the only copy I have ever seen.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Sonic Youth.

Sonic Death: Early Sonic 1981-83 (SST)
1. Side One
2. Side Two

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Gowns

"Back one million years ago (ok 4 years ago, but that’s one million mid-20s years, right?), Ezra and I were going to go on our first west coast tour. We had only been a band for like, a month. But Ezra’s old friend Peter B. was coming to the west coast and asked Ezra to go on tour with him, and then Ezra asked me to come with. We were barely a band but said yes. I remember Peter and Seve hanging out in our Highland Park apartment (which was very small), and going out on the steps and into the little backyard. This eventually got us evicted. I mean, they only hung out for a few days, but the fact that we would even be associated with such suspicious characters was enough to make our landlady decide we needed to GO. During that time, Peter and Seve made some CDRs for their band Sejayno to take on the road. Merch, man. 'Merch' is the only way to make touring money for the brokeass noise crew. What, you think you get a guarantee?
 
shasta stop on gowns tour 05 with sejayno

So Ezra and I decided to follow suit.  We had some little demos we had each made individually, and someone had recently recorded a show of ours at a little gallery (David Kendall?). I thought the live recording was cool and wanted to put it on a CDR to sell.  Ezra was firmly against it. He tried to warn me by saying, 'you know, once you put something out into the world, it’s out there forever.' and I was like, 'yeah whatever, who gives a shit? NO ONE WILL EVER LISTEN TO THIS ANYWAY!!!'

Last week BJ Rubin, who runs the Pukekos blog, got in touch with me. From Brooklyn. Apparently his friend, who used to work at Kill Rock Stars had a really old CDR or ours that he had brought from Olympia to New York, and could he post it on his blog? There were like 35 of these made TOPS. Could be more like 20. There were probably 5 people at the Olympia show we played. The fact that this poor little CDR survived 4 years and 3000 miles is pretty remarkable. And a good lesson to us all that once you put something out in the world, it never goes away. Make it good."

 
playing in a PDX living room w. sejayno and smegma one million years ago



Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Gowns.

Gowns (Pukekos)
1. Johnny
2. Experts
3. Rope
4. Ghost Merry Ribbon
5. Town
6. Quick + Pure + Bright
7. Nobody Home
8. Heaven
9. Paper
10. Feathers
11. Rope
12. Shaved





Monday, May 18, 2009

The Coathangers

Shake Shake b/w Dreamboat was a gift from my friend Anna. Thanks!

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, The Coathangers.

Never Wanted You (Die Slaughterhaus)
1. Minstrel Cycle/Never Wanted You
2. Spider Hands
3. Tripod Machine
4. Don't Touch My Shit


















Shake Shake b/w Dreamboat (Suicide Squeeze)
1. Shake Shake
2. Dreamboat

Friday, May 15, 2009

Religious Girls

Hand-sewn packaging is always a plus.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Religious Girls.

Religious Girls (Self)
1. Destroy Tokyo
2. Millionaire Parents
3. Delora
4. White Mage

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Yellow Fever

I have seen this band several times now, it features Jennifer from The Carrots and they are fantastic. "Cats And Rats" gets stuck in my head all the time, and I bet it does yours too.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Yellow Fever.

Yellow Fever EP (Self)
1. Katcatcher
2. Cutest
3. Donovan
4. Donald
5. Alice
6. Psychedelic
7. iMac















Cats And Rats (Self)
1. Cats And Rats
2. Alice
3. Metable
4. Donald
5. Hellfire

















Culver City b/w Joe Brown (Hugpatch)
1. Culver City
2. Joe Brown

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Ean Eraser

This single sure is mysterious.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Ean Eraser.

Illegitimate Love (Self)
1. Illegitimate Love
2. It Does Not Matter To Me

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Tubeway Army

My first non-college email address was valeriun@hotmail.com because Gary Numan was credited on this record as Valeriun. This was the first of many hard to spell (or pronounce) names that I have chosen for myself.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Tubeway Army.

Back 2 (Beggars Banquet)
1. That's Too Bad
2. Oh! I Didn't Say
3. Bombers
4. Blue Eyes
5. OD Receiver

Monday, May 11, 2009

Husker Du

This was the first Husker Du song I ever heard. I used to watch 120 Minutes every weekend (as a teenager it was one of the only ways I knew to find out about new music, the early 90s really were a different era), but as my mother wouldn't let me stay up until midnight I would tape it and then wake up super early (around 5am usually) on Monday morning to watch it. One night they showed the video for "Makes No Sense At All" and I went out and purchased Flip Your Wig (from the Record Outlet in Thousand Oaks, CA where I grew up) that week.

All it took was one catchy song to make their entire catalog more accessible. How good is Husker Du?

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Husker Du.

Makes No Sense At All b/w Love Is All Around (SST)
1. Makes No Sense At All
2. Love Is All Around

Friday, May 8, 2009

Brilliant Colors

These records are fantastic.

Yes, that is a cat hair on the scan of the cover of Highly Evolved b/w Take So Little. I have a cat (Smokestack Lightning), and she is insane. She loves rubbing up against the turntable when I am listening to records, and she especially loves walking on my scanner when it is in use. Everything in my apartment has cat hair on it, records being no exception.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Brilliant Colors.

Brilliant Colors EP (Make A Mess)
1. Should I Tell You
2. I'm Sixteen
3. Not This One
4. Over There



















Highly Evolved b/w Takes So Little (Captured Tracks)
1. Highly Evolved
2. Takes So Little

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Hot Girls Cool Guys

The packaging is pretty elaborate for a compact disc recordable, and I totally approve.

I am starting to think that while you might not be able to judge a book by its cover, you can certainly tell which books are more likely to be worth reading.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Hot Girls Cool Guys.

Paradise (Kaleidoscope Gang)
1. Rapriest
2. Get Religious
3. Poisonous Animals
4. Faith Like Lions
5. Ritual Male
6. Untitled

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Spirit Photography

Sacred Bones is a label that I have become quite impressed with as of late. Caleb obviously puts a tremendous amount of time and effort into the packaging, particularly on the limited editions (which I subscribe to now, essentially). This record features a silkscreen on the front and back as well as a transparency overlay. I very much appreciate this sort of attention to detail.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Spirit Photography.

Time Is Racing b/w Into The Heart Of (Sacred Bones)
1. Time Is Racing
2. Into The Heart Of

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Girls

I picked up this single for fun. I quite enjoy purchasing records I've never heard before and then listening to them for the first time on my own turntable. It just sounds better that way.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Girls.

Lust For Life b/w Morninglight (True Panther)
1. Lust For Life
2. Morninglight

Monday, May 4, 2009

Nuzzle

George Chen is a big fan of Nuzzle and had this to say about them:

"I first saw Nuzzle live sometime in 1994. Can't recall the specific show, but I'd heard them on a tape comp that the SeeSaw kids put out. Speak Youth also had a track by Tummyache, which was started by my Megaweapon bandmate Michelle Arias at the time so I credit that discovery indirectly to her. The lo-fi mess, the guitar tone and yelping abandon stuck with me and I sought them out when they would come play in SF. At the time Nuzzle and Fisticuffs Bluff were the Santa Cruz contingent of what seemed like the underground youth movement, post-Nation of Ulysses backpack wearing kids, but that painfully diminishes the impact of those bands into an emo cliche.

They had become somewhat legendary for their erratic absences and last-minute cancellations (none of them managed to live in the same town for very long), but it only made the prospect of seeing them play all the more dramatic and event-worthy: playing with Bikini Kill at a July 4th show, at USF essentially headlining a punk bill, other spots of olde like Epicenter. Shows happened so quickly that one was left with fragments to decipher their charisma - Andrew's tippy-toed and hand-tucked spastic dancing, that genetic advantage/parlor trick of brothers sharing vocals twining upwards, the propulsive bass of Sam and Ric's nuanced drumming that still hit hard. Nate's innate melodic powers, weird Latin phrases peppered the lyrics and references to Planet of the Apes or wholly sampling Ewok songs put them in a geek/cool kid Venn Diagram that I aspired to step into even as an outsider.

Their early singles were probably where most of the juice lies - the Mollycoddle one and the Anchors Astreigh weigh as favorites, succinct bursts. The first album, Follow, For Now held such odd moments of beauty and was so difficult to find in stores that it inspired me to start a record label to put it out on CD. This (Junk of Myth) ended up taking two years or so from conception to completion, and in that time frame they asked me if I wanted to do a 7" to tide things over, which came from these Stanford sessions with Andy Radin.

As the story goes, these recordings were meant for release on a biggish label at the time and somehow political shortsightedness lead to their rejection. It was sort of absurd as the band circa '97 had the sort of word of mouth and support that could have lead to something bigger, but part of the charm and frustration of Nuzzle was this Bad News Bears 'can't catch a break' or 'could've been a contender' aura. It was frustrating because us circle of believers knew that this was rough gold and it was the inherent lack of polish that kept it from being Modest Mouse-sized.

These Stanford recordings ended up being re-recorded for the Troubleman album, San Lorenzo's Blues, which stands up fine as a transition between what Nuzzle was and what the Dying Californian became, but the live sense of the band comes across best on these Stanford recordings, a band always on the cusp; of imploding, of post-grunge hype, of promising a transcendence with melodies that were too graceful for the moshpit but shy of Mersh appeal.

Giving all this context actually seems counterintuitive in a way to my Nuzzle experience. I don't expect everyone to like this - that was never the point. These songs hold up beyond the 'you had to be there' nostalgic tone of my description. You didn't have to be there to find something in this music, and that was really what sets this most apart from the class of bands they palled around with."

The first time I heard this recording was in my car on the way to Yo-Yo A Go-Go in 1997. Andy Radin gave us a tape with that on one side and the (then unreleased) new record by The Audience on the other as he worked on both of them. It occurred to me as we listened to it that our days of seeing them play in basements might be coming to an end.

I recently got back in touch with Andy Radin and one of the first things I asked him was if he still had a copy of that tape. Not only did he digitize it for me, but he said that he would discuss those sessions as well:

"I had seen Nuzzle a bunch at shows in Santa Cruz. I was, and still am, in love with the song 'The Sorting That Evens Things Out'. I think that has one of the best and most lasting riffs of the entire mid-nineties emo/whatever scene. Of course their big problem was that every recording suffered from the worst possible boombox-demo quality. That has its own charm to be sure, but live, they had a big fluid energy and crispness that you'd never get from their early records. I was working at the Stanford CCRMA studio as an undergraduate, and realized that no one was using the studio late at night. So I started approaching bands at shows and offering them a free or really cheap recording, the catch being it had to happen between 10pm and dawn. Nuzzle was the third or fourth band I recorded there, and I had big hopes of making their first decent sounding record.

I'm not sure how seriously they took it at first - Nate showed up with an awful sounding practice amp, not the big tube amp he used at shows, worn out heads on the drums, etc. I think they were expecting a garage operation, not the expansive marble lobby of the CCRMA building, the fluid-gimbal-mounted isolation rooms, and seriously high end equipment of a major university music department. We recorded to 16 tracks of Tascam DA-88, something like 8 tracks of drums, bass (direct and miked), and guitar (two mics) live to tape, one guitar overdub. Vocals are pretty straight, only a few doubled backing tracks in parts (for instance 'Unsighted Unguided') though we did play with recording a few of Nate's harmony tracks from way back in the live room, and in the echoey stone lobby. My clearest memory was that Andrew did the same tippy-toe writhing motions in the studio as he did live, and I swear to god he would grab a handful of underwear behind his back, and give himself an atomic wedgie while singing... Mixdown was pretty simple, a little 'verb, a little LA2A here and there, a good bit of compression on the vocals. Couldn't do much with the worn out drum heads, which is my biggest regret of the whole session. The whole thing took two graveyard shift nights as I recall.

I think they were going to shop the session around and come back for a more lengthy mixdown later (which never happened), which is why I labeled my cassette copy 'Nuzzle rough mixes.' The band had two DATs from that mix, which I heard third-hand had been lost. So it may be that my cassette is the only remaining copy (other than my original unmixed DA88 tapes). I cleaned it up a bit, didn't play with noise reduction as it's a first generation dub from a full-digital mix, not much noise to worry about. I remember a little more sparkle in the drum overheads but that's about all that's missing. The Troubleman sessions are definitely great, considerably more produced, but I think there's a nice snapshot of Nuzzle's live sound here, and more of the plaintive urgency in the vocals that I liked so much about them. I hope that people get to enjoy this as much as I have over the years!"

Sam Fabela played bass in Nuzzle, and had this to say about it:

"Nuzzle officially became Nuzzle in 1992, prior to that we'd toyed with using the name Porridge for a while. Andy brought up the name Nuzzle and I'm pretty sure the rest of us weren't too stoked about it at the time, I know I wasn't, but it stuck and it looked kind of cool because it had those two z's right in the middle of it. So in 1992 we recorded a split 7" with a friends band called My Friend Chopper (Ricardo was drumming in MFC and moonlighting in Nuzzle at the time but we soon stole him away to come play in Nuzzle exclusively) and once we put the name Nuzzle to that recording it was done. Nuzzle was born and that was the first thing we'd committed to wax, releasing it ourselves, our song was called Bencht.

At the time we were playing mostly house parties, back yards, coffee houses and all ages show anywhere & everywhere around Los Angeles. One coffee house in Pamona called The Cup of J couldn't get rid of us, and that's where we met and became friends with so many other bands and especially touring bands. After high school one by one we all slowly ended up migrating north to Santa Cruz and Nuzzle really hit its stride.

It was in Santa Cruz that we really started playing a lot locally and helping out touring bands that were coming through the Bay Area looking for someplace to play before or after their San Francisco show. In late 1993 or early 1994 we drove down to San Diego to record 8 songs with Matt Anderson at Gravity Records. We decided to to split the 8 songs into two 7"s , four songs each, the first one was self titled and put out jointly between two labels Mollycoddle Records and Whaleboy Records. This first 7" was on super fancy blue vinyl and had a couple different hand made covers. We screened about half the covers ourselves using the Island of the Blue Dolphin girl on the front of the sleeve. Someone else made the other half of the covers with these crazy tissue paper sleeves, that looked incredible and were probably a pain the ass to make but more than likely got destroyed before you even got home from the record store. Later that year we released the other 4 songs on the Anchors Astreigh 7" put out by Youth Strike Chord Records. We recorded a Minutemen song for a tribute comp called Our Band Could Be Your Life - A Tribute to D Boon and the Minutemen, that was released on Little Brother Records in 1994 as well.

We played a whole bunch in 1994 up and down the west coast and in 1995 we did the same except this time we teamed up with a friends band for the summer (The Fisticuffs Bluff) and set out on our first official full US tour. It was killer. No sooner had we returned from tour we found out that Youth Strike Chord was willing to put out our first full length album, the only catch was they needed everything from us in roughly a week. I think we had like 6 or 7 days to get everything done because Drew Gilbert, who ran YSC, was leaving the country in a week and had to have everything shipped off to pressing plants and all that before he left. So off we went to record the songs and get artwork done on the fly. We ended up recording and mixing with a friend in two days and handing everything over to Drew on the day he left, our first full length was in the can and titled Follow, For Now. We played as much as we could in 1995 and had one live track included on a KXLU Los Angeles Live Comp for that radio station. In 1996 we had another live track included on a Yo-Yo A Go-Go comp from the Olympia festival we had played the year prior, that was the year we also released a 7" called No Más on Zum.

We had recorded an entire batch of new songs mid 1996 up at Stanford that we were supposed to give to a small off shoot label of Sub Pop called Die Young Stay Pretty. I believe DYSP had put out one official release with a few bands on deck, Nuzzle being one of them, when Sub Pop pulled the plug on the label. We weren't super stoked on the recordings at the time and had intended them to be just demos but ended up giving George at ZUM two songs for the No Más 7" with plans to re-record this batch of tunes later. It's kinda funny, that entire Stanford session was lost until quite recently. None of us had heard it in nearly 10 years and listening to them now we actually really like the recordings, they really captured what Nuzzle was like live back then - good energy and sincere with just the right amount of looseness. If i remember correctly we recorded all the music live in one day with vocals being done in a few hours the following day.

This is where things start getting a little fuzzy for me. We hit a little bit of a lull around 97/98 but kept playing live up and down the west coast and managed to re-recorded that batch of songs with Jeff Pinn from Zilla/Hyde Street Studios in an abandoned half-way house that was supposedly haunted . That became San Lorenzo's Blues and was released in 1999 on Troubleman Unlimited. We decided to hit the road again for this release and do another full month long US tour this time doing the tour in winter, which we'd never done before, and it was quite an adventure. It was also this California Boy's first experience with the midwest and east coast in February....good lord. It was an amazing tour though and we had some greats shows playing with Bonnie Prince Billy and Wesley Willis! I can honestly say that i was the proud recipient of a Wesley Willis head-butt. Somewhere not too long after this our good friend George over at Zum offered to put out a Nuzzle anthology compiling all of the out of print vinyl, remastered, along with unreleased odds and ends from the early days. Junk of Myth was the final release."

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Nuzzle.



Nuzzle Rough Mixes (Pukekos)
1. Daedelus And Us
2. No Más
3. Unbreakable You
4. We Almost Lost Del Mar
5. The Word #2
6. Unsighted, Unguided
7. If Left To My Own Devices
8. No Love Like That

Friday, May 1, 2009

Matt Berry

When Love Of Diagrams were in town some years ago (2005 I believe), Luke turned me on to a cool show from England called Nathan Barley (make sure not only to check that out but everything else Chris Morris has been involved with, especially Jam). I fell in love immediately (as it is an amazing show), and started researching the people involved. This led me to The Mighty Boosh, which I then showed to just about every person who stepped foot in our house (and we have a lot of bands stay with us). I am glad to see that it is now airing on American television, and I like to think that in some small way I am responsible for that (I do love to get the word out about cool stuff and I did show it to a lot of people!).

Matt Berry was in the first series of The Mighty Boosh, so I also watched him in Garth Marenghi's Darkplace (awesome) and Snuff Box (totally weird and rad). He also wrote a musical about the birth of Jesus called AD/BC which I like to watch every year around the holidays.

I very much enjoy checking out people's entire body of work.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, Matt Berry.

Opium (Rille)
1. Introduction
2. Reach For The Ground
3. Love Is A Fool
4. Lay Your Love On Me
5. White Hood
6. Opium
7. The Hangman
8. Hot Dog
9. Jet Setter
10. Love Is A Fool (Again)
11. One More Hit