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One of 2017's best.  Hope to get something new from them in the coming year. **Please do not reveal artist in comments!** Hear

Here's the latest pile.   Some mighty good eatin' here.  Thanks for your requests. Mission of Burma - Electro-acoustic sessions Buzzcocks - Drone Studios session , live 1993-2001 collection , Songs in a Different Time Jason Falkner - Rarer Than Rare Carl Rusk - Blue Period Windbreakers - Electric Landlady Semantics - Powerbill & demos Owsley - live 1999 The Sweat - No More Running Dumptruck - demos Polvo - demos Marshal Fields - s/t mLP Virgin Release - 7" Majesty Crush - Fan ep & Sans Muscles ep Winter Hours - Leaving Time Walt Mink - Listen Little Man & Poll Riders Win Again Fire in the Kitchen - Theory of Everything & singles Customers - Green Bottle Thursday Jamboree - Melt Down ep Sheer Thursday - Expecting the Grass Kilkenny Cats - Hands Down The Mutts - s/t ep & Stinko's Ranch Greenberry Woods - Shorty ep V/A - Never Mind the Jacksons... Velveteens - Tall House ep Voodoo Gearshift - s/t LP Orange Glass - I...

This hasn't been a banner week for content folks, and while I plan on treating you to some long requested uploads in the immediate future, I present to use this festering, surge of guitarsy, art-noise glop.  There's some serious early-Sonic Youth caterwaul-cum-distorto Jr. slurry emanating from the golden throats and calloused fingers of this co-ed, French air-parcel, who had the balls (and ovaries) to affix the unluckiest combo of two numerals to their moniker.  Residing amidst 13th Hole's gooey, fever-dream sensory-overload antics, you'll find traces of discernibly tuneful fretboard maneuvers that for better or worse still fall short of "pretty."  In fairness, "Wave" borders on hummable (in the most relative context possible), and elsewhere we stumble on some shoegazer -y outcroppings that all of you dream-pop noiseniks in the audience should harbor at least some faint appreciation for.  More 13th Hole offerings would ensue, predominantly in the c...

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A must-hear masterwork from 1986.  **Please do not reveal artist in comments!** Hear

Sport of Kings were fortunate to exist at a time when the word "goth" wasn't so liberally applied to music. If anything, the more appropriate tag for this Bay Area duo would more suitably have been post-punk, given their seemingly keen affection for such Anglo conglomerates as Bauhaus and Comsat Angels.  There's a terrifically noir temperament to much of Sing Mary Sing, a record that merges mildly serrated sonic effects within song structures that are if not consistently melodic, at the very least approachable.  Sport of Kings angle for some serious mystique on this platter, albeit never contrived or forced.  And you'll find none of that beefy '80s production shtick here either, which is needless to say always a big plus.  Give this one a spin or two, and pay extra attention to the title track, and the album's enticing bookends, "So Easy" and "We Never Fail." 01. So Easy 02. A Wonderful Time 03. Dark Clouds Moving 04. I See Only You 0...

Crunchy and often shoegazer-y indie rock this way came from the presumably long defunct Starlight Conspiracy .  Apparently hailing from New England (Mass or Vermont I wanna say) this co-ed quartet featured Jan Tofferi, largely dominating on vocals.  Bearing a raw, mid-fi aptitude the Conspiracy had an unwieldy grip on dynamics and an even better handle on distortion.  Downcast but never despondent the band's serious tenor was more substance than angsty theatrics.  Silver Holler is Vaguely analogous to early Velocity Girl, especially on the more melodic bits like "She Waits," and "Just Heavier Words." Kind of wish they stuck around for another record or two. 01. She Waits 02. Don't Leave the Stage 03. Silver Holler 04. Just Heavier Words 05. Switching Lines 06. Airlock 07. Anomaly 08. Calgon 09. Anchored 10. Earth Prime https://www109.zippyshare.com/v/gEzVavzN/file.html

From 1993.  This band's third and potentially final album.  Can't think of a classier way to go out. Hear

Thought this would tie in well with recent events, not to mention what I posted a couple nights back.  This was an easy sell for me back in '92.  First and foremost because it was a Buzzcocks tribute, but almost as appealing was the inclusion of no less than five of my top-tier faves, Big Drill Car , The Doughboys , The Fluid, Didjits and Naked Raygun .  Back then I would've purchased a compilation if it featured any one of them, even if this had been a Patsy Cline tribute.  Overall, Something's Gone Wrong Again is a par for the course covers comp with a few really ill advised choices balancing out the smarter ones.  Of the aforementioned participants, the Doughboys and Didjits take the cake, especially the latter, whose spin on "Sitting Round at Home" smoked the Gorilla Biscuits' rendition from just a few years before.  Electric Love Hogs convey "Boredom" with a Melvins-y thrust, Alice Donut taking on "E.S.P." is a logical pairing, an...

News none of us were quite expecting went out late last week announcing Pete Shelley , frontman for the Buzzcocks (and a solo artist in how own right circa the mid-80s) had died suddenly of a heart attack at 63.  The Buzzcocks initial 1977-81 lifespan was superseded many, many times over since the band reconvened in 1989, and it seemed like they might have well gone on for another ten years or so. Whether they were the founders of "pop-punk," as it were, or not, they certainly had the biggest hand in stirring that much coveted and ultimately lucrative kettle.  Arguably more influential than even the Sex Pistols, certainly hundreds of punters that followed in the Buzzcocks wake professed to be inspired by them, but how many genuinely sounded like Pete Shelley, Steve Diggle and Co.?  Heck, I couldn't even name a Buzzcocks imitator if you put a gun to my head.  Shelley had a singular voice, and a plaintive yet distinctive songwriting acumen to match.  Utterly i...

For this Mystery Monday it's a Chanukah-worthy double CD of demos for this Scottish band's first three albums.  And it's not Teenage Fanclub either.  Will try to leave this up a tad longer than usual. **Please do not reveal artist in comments!** Part 1   &  Part 2

Ok, one last present to finish the holiday off, and a pretty substantial one at that from a band that needs no introduction - at least I would expect that to be the case.  Can you believe it's been ELEVEN YEARS since I dedicated an entry to Material Issue ?  Maybe I just didn't want you to get burned out on them.  Then again this is the trifecta to end all power pop trios we're talking about here - Ted Ansani, Mike Zelenko , and of course the late Jim Ellison .  I guess there isn't much of a burnout factor there, eh? Issues is nothing more than a fan-curated series of bootlegs compiling scarce, unreleased and live stuff from Chicago power-pop demigods, you guessed it, Material Issue .  You'll no doubt notice the header states this is Vol 3.  You might be asking, are there volumes one and two?  Do subsequent chapters in the Issues serial exist?  Yes, and yes.  Currently I don't have all or even most of them, but I might try to work on that...

Every year or so I happen upon a phenomenal yesteryear release that I wasn't on my radar up until that point.  Sometimes I'm a couple years late to the party, others I'm behind the curve by a good three decades, and that was the case with the item I'm debuting tonight.  Just when I think I've plundered and unearthed every last lost '80s treasure from the Kiwi-laden isles of New Zealand a new fuzzy-skinned but succulent fruit appears in my metaphorical basket.  Three Leaning Men (actually a quartet based on the rear album sleeve roster) were not from of their country's epicenters like Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch or even Dunedin, but rather from the smaller city of Palmerston North, located on NZ's North Island.  As you might guess, 3LM were not the least bit impervious to some of the local contingents that surrounded them like The Chills (whom according to Wiki they supported) and The Bats, but they also had their sights set on that more sizable c...

Well, I don't have a string of 7" vinyl queued up for this Chanukah, but how would three records in a slightly lengthier format grab you?  It dawned on me as a I set to type this out that I don't think I've mentioned any of the three following acts on this site before, so you're truly getting something original for a change.  Please make your acquaintance below. Matt Barrett - The Ruse ep (1980, Moonlight) Matt Barrett's back story is quite literally strewn on the rear album cover of The Ruse .  Since I've included a fairly legible jpeg in the folder I'll try not to overlap with it too much.  In 1978, two up and coming scenesters in Chapel Hill, NC, vocalist/guitarist Barrett and accompanying guitar slinger chum Rick Miller had some songs sans a full fledged band.  You know how just about every batch of these annual Chanukah uploads somehow involves Mitch Easter to one extent or another?  Well here he comes into focus again, as Barrett and Miller h...

I've never been much of a hardcore guy.  Punk yes...but hardcore?  I need way more than indiscriminate speed and shouted vocals, regardless of the righteous indignation and moral outrage that might inform that type of music.  No, in order for me to enjoy anything remotely hardcore there has to be at least one other ingredient in the mix.  With Bad Religion (at least in their second iteration starting in the late '80s) it was melody.  Another exception for me might be The Germs, who offered some unique and indigenous tangents that I can't quite convey in the written word.  And the Circle Jerks and Adolescents packed such an irresistible thrust and groove that even I was forced to let my guard down. So where am I going with all this?  Minneapolis' Rifle Sport were a band that could have taken the generic hardcore route with their first album, Voice of Reason , but instead opted for a slightly modified path.  Never heard of them?  Since this ...

So, why haven't I dedicated more space to The Freshies before?  Well, I don't have most of their recordings, and what little I have has been made available again.  In fact the closest I've come to doing a Freshies piece is for frontman Chris Sievey's 1986 solo venture, Big Record .  If you're looking for a quick but fairly thorough bio on the band, Pop Geek Heaven isn't a bad pit-stop, but please indulge me with a few morsels of personal insight.  Based in Manchester, UK, the Freshies incorporated in 1978, just as the first blush of punk was mutating into some, er...different.  Presumably inspired by the Undertones and Buzzcocks, the band's spunky take on power pop leads me to think they may have had a preference for Stateside acts like Cheap Trick and perhaps even Shoes as well.  Their music was genius all the way around, with Sievey guiding his quartet as a capable singer and lyricist, penning cheeky tunes about romance and day-to-day dilemmas. Their i...

I can't tell you much about The Need , but they did evolve into a more visible entity, Divine Weeks later in the '80s.  Functioning on the fringes of L.A.'s Paisley Underground scene, Divine Weeks got noticed when Steve Wynn of the Dream Syndicate approached them after a 1986 gig. About a year later the Weeks issued their debut, Through and Through on Restless, an album I coincidentally featured a few years back.  I recall it having a twangy zest to it, but nothing I was fanatical about.  I did mention however that the springboard for Divine Weeks was a precursor band, specifically the one I'm sharing tonight.  I swear it's a coincidence, but remember the Children of Nuggets box I put up the other night?  By and large, The Need would have been a shoo-in for it.  Obviously Four Believers commences with "Stranger," a biting, two-minute salvo firmly in the garage rawk mold, with sass for miles.  "When the Winter Comes" on the flipside gloriousl...

Can a direct link be derived from power-pop progenitors The Raspberries to all bands and singer/songwriters who subsequently took up the craft?  On the face of it groups like the Rubinoos and even the Pezband have the Cleveland, OH legend's influence steeped all over them, whereas with Teenage Fanclub all the way up to more current practitioners Pugwash, the lines of inspirational genealogy are considerably more blurry.  Good thing for the quartet of Eric Carmen , Wally Bryson , David Smalley and Jim Bonfanti , their reputation is unequivocally and undisputedly sealed, whether they were the collective brainchildren of a musical movement or otherwise.  They may not have been poster-boys for the pop charts, but with four near-perfect albums to their credit the Raspberries legacy is still ripe for discovery for the yet-to-be-converted, and for continued exhalation for those already familiar with their music.  They played in the mold of the Beatles at time when it was...

Happy Chanukah and welcome to night one.  I have a habit of kicking things off with a bang, but this one may not be as much a revelation as from years prior.  Why?  As far as box sets go this one is relatively common for starters (albeit completely out of print, even in the realm of digital vendors).  Secondly, to our ears, this album contains a bevy of relatively household names (key word being relatively ). Nonetheless, I've said to myself and among friends on numerous occasions that Children of Nuggets is likely the gold standard for various artist compilation box sets.  It's consistency is nothing short of staggering, and it's scope encompassing, even though it technically purports to being genre specific(ish).  The back story on Nuggets originates to 1972, when rock scribe Lenny Kaye was commissioned to compile a double albums worth of songs from the first era of rock, representing overlooked artists just shy of surfacing on the mainstream radar....

And here's a few more you might enjoy.  Thanks for the requests. Guided By Voices - Carefree Kitchens Are a Blast , Super Fun Wow Valu Pak , To Trigger a Synapse , Beyond the Bars and Churches , Kit Kat Acoustic Break , Beer Thousand ( MP3 or FLAC ) Breaking Circus - The Very Long Fuse , The Ice Machine , Smokers Paradise The Figgs - Ginger , Rejects , singles Pete Donnelly - Another Day on You Let's Active - Every Dog Has It's Day demos Tommy Keene - Strange Alliance   Pointed Sticks - Raw Power Pop & Out of Luck ep Glide - b-sides 3 1/2 Minutes - two eps 37 Targets - Another Day Just Water - The Riff 30 Amp Fuse - Saturday Night at the Atomic Speedway Punch Wagon (pre-Superdrag) - demo Jef Left - s/t ep   Catherine - 7" Dentists - Naked ep Majesty Crush - P.S. I Love You ep Liquor Giants - Here Fudge - Southside Speedway Lost Luggage - Synchronous Ownership and the Consumption of Cake ep The Cateran - Ache Six of One Half Summers - This ...

Is it Chanukah time already folks?   Feels like we just did this thing eleven months or so ago.  The holiday falls roughly a month earlier this year than it did in '17, in case you were keeping score at home.  Makes no difference, as I intend to spoil you (to the best of my ability) with an eight day barrage of cherished vintage records and extra special bootlegs.  This annual exercise in the elevation of my blood pressure is your potential goldmine. Starting in 2012, I decided to spread the goodies out over the eight nights of Chanukah (check out the preliminary details for 2012 , 2013 , 2014 , 2015 , 2016 and 2017 .  This made sense on a couple of levels.  For one, it gives me a convenient excuse to share several mind-blowing "gifts" instead of just one explosion on Christmas.  Secondly, Chanukah represents personal relevance to me.  We all know you were envious of that boy down the block who had a yarmulke festooned to his head...

Thought I'd post this while it was still relevant to the month.  Boy, from what I was able to scrounge up on this dual-female led Boston troupe I was under the impression they specialized in cold, expressionless dadaist dance music a la Big Black or something.  Yeah, I suppose there's some inherent rigidity to November Group , rhythm-wise if anything, but overall not only is this a lot more breathable than I expected, but outright catchy on repeat spins. Gotta love "Shake it Off" and my favorite, "Pictures of the Homeland." I'm easily picking up on traces of Gang of Four and Pylon, but don't be surprised if your conclusions differ.  This was ripped from a rather dodgy piece of wax, so perhaps a re-rip will be in order if I happen upon a cleaner copy. 01. Shake It Off 02. Flatland 03. Pictures of the Homeland 04. We Dance 05. Popular Front https://www22.zippyshare.com/v/syzU2DhP/file.html  

Originally seeing the light of day in 1995, Amazing Disgrace is the latest in Omnivore's expanded reissue series of the Posies early catalog.  It's gotten the reputation of being a particularly 'difficult' album, if only for the band themselves.  Lacking the comparatively quaint romantic naivety and niceties of their first two installments, Failure and Dear 23, and even to a certain extent the pop braininess infiltrating their breakthrough Frosting on the Beater, Disgrace added more than a modicum of musculature to the mix, albeit not gratuitously.  But how exactly did , that extra oomph and heaviness factor in to the Posies fourth record?  Some speculated that Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow were pressured to compete with the Soundgardens of the world, but if that were the case Bellingham, WA's finest wouldn't have drizzled "Hate Song" and "Song #1" with so much melody one would think their very lives depended on it.  In fact, 'do...