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Wilfully Obscure
power pop * punk * emo * indie rock * shoegazer
Sunday, July 21, 2024
...pick me up by breaking down.
Red Wedding - Up and Down the Aisle ep (1982, Bemisbrain)
Just about all of this record and plenty more is available on a posthumous collection over at Bandcamp. I've also cut and pasted a brief backgrounder below, while the link in the first paragraph will lend itself to a considerably more exhaustive history.
Red Wedding was a Los Angeles band from 1981 thru 1985. All the founding members of the band were openly gay. Michael Ely and Spider Taylor were life-long soulmates for over 43 years until Spider passed away from liver cancer in 2015. Michael now lives in Tucson, AZ. Both Marc O and John Tagliavia died from AIDS in the early 90's. Red Wedding was house band at Brave Dog, appeared twice on New Wave Theatre, and played the first Theoretical Party (Sunday afternoon band performances for gay friendly audiences). Over the years, Red Wedding played all the top clubs in L.A. and San Diego and shared bills with Killing Joke, X, Romeo Void, Suburban Lawns, The Bangs (early incarnation of The Bangles), Psi Com (early incarnation of Jane's Addiction), Gun Club, Bow Wow Wow, 45 Grave and many other bands.
Wednesday, July 17, 2024
Intro to Airlift - The Music of... 7" (1997, In All Directions)
It turns out this defunct Bloomington, IL trio would have been of enormous interest to me all this time - even if the only thing they ever committed to tape was the song "Ed is on No Side," a clangy, 138-second morsel of ringing guitars, dissonant instrumentation, and a melodic acuity that impresses me as one of the finest tunes to ever bear a 1997 copyright date. Intro's relatively lo-fi disposition is what really turns the key here, with an overall effect not far removed from Ted Leo's pre-Pharmacists combo Chisel. Toss in some faint, droney proclivities and you've got an absolute keeper on your hands. The second A-side, "Too Easy" finagles with some mod seasoning, while the flip "Because You're New" boasts a DIY semblance of ramshackle post-punk aplomb. If you enjoy what you hear, the vast majority of Intro's slim catalog, including a live tape and an album's worth of predominantly unreleased material can be had (for a price) on Bandcamp, so consider throwing your support behind these gents, posthumously as that endeavor may seem. The three tracks here were taken from my own rip of the record.
Sunday, July 14, 2024
July 14th - Till We Meet Again (1988, Greasy Pop)
Saturday, July 13, 2024
God's Eye 7" (1991, 20/20)
Sunday, July 7, 2024
Murder or rape your king's English...
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Hear
VA - New Wave Hell: Double Digit Inflation Pop V.2
Friday, July 5, 2024
Daddy-O - Paris on the Prairie tape (1989)
Sunday, June 30, 2024
Johnny if you want to survive, you got to play your part to stay alive.
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Hear
Saturday, June 29, 2024
Marginal Man - s/t (1988)
Friday, June 28, 2024
Painted Willie - Live From Van Nuys ep (1986, SST)
Wednesday, June 26, 2024
Reviews you can use: The Mosquitos, Falling Stairs and sparkle*jets u.k.
In case you haven't noticed I'm way overdue for some reviews of current releases and reissues, and I'm going to try to address that over the course of the next few paragraphs. I appreciate everyone that has been gracious enough to set up vinyl and CDs. Being provided with physical media is more of a luxury than ever, and if I haven't been thoughtful enough to those who go to the trouble your generosity is appreciated. More critiques to come in the near-future, I might add.
Spandex. Breakdancing. Mullets. And just about dayglo-everything. For better or worse this is the world in which Long Island's Mosquitos were forced to toil and contend with. But guess what? They weren't having a lick of it. In fact, it would seem like this quintet hadn't gotten the bat signal that the world had evolved past say, 1966. Stuck in their own time-warp, not unlike similarly bespoke San Diego brethren The Nashville Ramblers, this quintet carved out a small niche within the environs of New York's power pop circuit alongside contemporaries The Bongos and Fleshtones, yet their antecedents were entirely steeped in British Invasion and Merseybeat pop, with nary an inclination to the present day - and you can take that literally. Their discography consisted of a well received 1985 ep, (That Was Then, This is Now), and if you want to get technical a few demo tapes, but that lone record was essentially all that was made available for public consumption - until 2023, which saw the release of the double CD This Then Are the Mosquitos, and the more concisely consolidated vinyl incarnation, In the Shadows.Sunday, June 23, 2024
I got a ringing in one ear and reason whispering in the other...
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Hear
Saturday, June 22, 2024
The Great Divide - s/t ep (1987, Big Fish)
Monday, June 17, 2024
Alter Boys - Counter Intelligence (1995, Ng)
01. Gashound
02. Hold Me Up
03. Let's End
04. Nothball
05. Ironlung
06. Cry a Little Bit
07. C'n Opn'r
08. If You're So Smart
09. Sundown
10. Diesel Down
11. How Long, Far?
12. Another Lonely Weekend
Sunday, June 16, 2024
I get ripped apart, pick it up and take it home again.
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Hear
The High Five - Working For the Man 7" (1984, Big Village)
Over the years I've featured titles that are bona fide classics (some far more renown than others) that have more than earned their installation in the echelons of indie/alt rock glory. I'm afraid the single I'm offering today isn't quite of that lofty caliber...though it's still certainly commendable. The hard scrabble, stick-it-to-the-man, ethos laid out on the comic strip gracing the sleeve of this 45 does indeed lend itself to the modus operandi of Liverpool's The High Five, albeit this quartet's delivery system wasn't particularly punk, pub, wave or the like. That doesn't render the band any less anthemic however, with these gents loosely conveying themselves as a kinder, gentler Big Country or Alarm. A full length, Down in the No-Go, followed in 1986, and I'm curious to lay ears on it to gauge what their inevitable progression yielded.
Sunday, June 9, 2024
Jules Shear - Demo-itis (1986, Enigma)
That being said, I'm not sure why I opted to take the plunge with Demo-itis, which technically isn't even a proper album, rather as it's title makes obvious, prototypes of songs to be pursued and perfected at a later date. Oddly enough, the vast majority of these songs (save for "If She Knew What She Wants" and "She's in Love Again") didn't make the cut for his bona fide solo records. As Demo's compiler, Sam Franklin is wont to point out in the liner notes, that's not so much a byproduct of these tunes being throwaways, rather the exact opposite - Jules Shear was so prolific and substantive that this collection exists as a means of salvaging many primo compositions that would have otherwise languished on the shelf.
I'm not sure exactly how many of this baker's dozen tracklist were actually sold or given to other artists to make their own, perhaps for two well known exception, "If She Knew..." which went to the Bangles for 1985's Different Light, and of course, the considerably more veritable hit "All Through the Night" which Cyndi Lauper ballad-ized and took to the bank. Jules' early incarnations of both future-hits sound a tad stiff held up to the more famous versions, yet somehow more earnest than the ones the general public became acquainted with. Elsewhere, there are plenty more invigorating guitar-pop salvos, including "Deliver Love," "Chain Within a Chain," and the aforementioned "She's in Love" which would have held up to just about anything on the first two Marshall Crenshaw albums. The driving "Trained For Glory" sports a rollicking, Dylan-esque air, "Eligible For Parole" wields Rockpile-ish punch galore, and the synth-endebted "Take The Risk" indulges in some mild concessions to the new wave era. Not bad for a record of glorified outtakes!
Sunday, June 2, 2024
Don’t say I’ve got no heart. What I put together, I can take apart.
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Hear
Saturday, June 1, 2024
Bastro - Rode Hard and Put Up Wet ep (1988, Homestead)
Friday, May 31, 2024
Coral - Pillowtalk (1994, Fistpuppet)
Coral, much like Honor Role themselves, entailed a certain amount of concerted observation - probably too much so for someone like myself, circa 1994, who was besotted with the likes of The Posies and Jawbreaker. Time marches on, tastes become more refined, and the need for instant gratification wanes...and as such, a reassessment of the band in question was in order. The post-rock inch evidenced in H/R may not stretch a mile or even a kilometer in the guise of Coral, but I'll be damned if what I'm encountering on Pillowtalk isn't considerably more breathable, simultaneous to this band's frequent penchant for all things dissonant. Schick's sung/spoken patois blends in well with Coral's finagling of first generation-emo sonic leanings, yet never concedes to anything wrought or exaggerated. You'll certainly not unfurl any twee or precious niceties here, but this quartet falls well short of the abrasiveness of say, Fugazi or any of that legend's fill-in-the-blank Dischord Records stablemates. A torrent of incongruent minor chords goes a long way in coloring-in the tense, cerebral, and all-around obliqueness of Pillowtalk, an album that challenges and ever-so-subtly provokes. As I've said in reference to a copious amount of unrelated artists on these pages, this one is an acquired taste well worth acquiring.
Sunday, May 26, 2024
Red Lorry Yellow Lorry - World's Collide (aka "Black Tracks" ep) (2004)
News dropped earlier this year of an impending (and final) Red Lorry Yellow Lorry LP, Strange Kind of Paradise, to surface in the near-future along with some potentially accompanying eps to boot. To tide you over, check out a live 1992 concert that was made available via BandcampBandcamp a couple of years ago, bonus-ized with some modern-era studio tracks.