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Blown. Forever. Those two words spoken or read in unison suspiciously conjure up something akin to a lascivious fantasy, but I'm sure that wasn't what Blown head honcho Nick Rudd had in mind. With that aside, I haven't mentioned Nick a whole lot on these pages, though I took a liking to his music ages ago, not only by virtue of this record, but primarily through his association with Velvet Crush, and just as significantly, the jangle-rock combo he strummed for in the late '80s, Weird Summer. Particularly on their first two albums, Cry for the Moon and Homer, WS bore the telltale lilt of "new south" aggregations like Let's Active and the dBs, but with a more durable, rootsy hue. That aesthetic carried over to this excellent mini LP, which incidentally was the premiere release for the then fledgling Parasol Records imprint. The Rickenbacker infused ambiance of the Weird Summer albums isn't as dominant on Forever, but it nonetheless could pass for a Mitch Easter or Don Dixon production - and in my world that spells quality. If this turns the key for you, check out a 1996 Weird Summer 7" that I'm also hosting on here. Enjoy (or not)..jpg)
They mail hail from Toronto, but Chain Letters are far more in sync with the Pointed Sticks, not to mention a myriad of bygone Dangerhouse Records alumni, than noisenik homeboy brutes Fucked Up and Metz. Their debut wax ("Bad Reflection" b/w "Boulevard Girls") is sheer adulation of the punk-pop medium in it's most genuine and pure distillation, sans the over-emphasis of either of those key components. Sophia Dilley (formally of Young People With Faces) commandeers her quartet through a pair of mid-tempo, three (or perhaps just two) chord beauties, brandishing just enough of a visceral surge to keep this classic formula rewarding and ripe. Bravo. You can sample "Boulevard Girls" below, and if you dig what you hear, Dead Beat Records has a few copies left in stock. The Chain Letters can be emailed here. I should also tout their Soundcloud stream, which not only makes both songs available for public consumption, but provides a couple dozen more tracks from unrelated but like-minded contemporaries, making for a super sweet mix where you're sure to happen upon some very pleasant surprises. 
What’s in a name?
The moniker of this Wichita, Kansas based entity actually should have
been turned on it’s head and used to refer to the morass of their mainstream, 1980s
contemporaries (dare I mention Night Ranger of Survivor for starters)? Lauded by critics at the time (but generally forgotten about at this stage in the game) the key ingredients of The Embarrassment's nervy, mid-fi concoction consisted of Bill Goffrier's roughewn splay of clangy chords clad to John
Nichols offbeat, albeit slyly melodic approach. Think early Violent Femmes thrown into a blender with Great Plains or Volcano Suns, and you'll have a loose idea as to what the Embarrassment had in store. There was truly a moxie to their endearing madness, and for awhile (particularly the '90s) they were the stuff of cult-classic legend. 
Never the edgiest of the power-pop clique, The Sinceros modus operandi made for a smooth-as-silk proposition for Top 40 playlists, but the mainstream wouldn't have them, at least not in the States. So far as I'm concerned they were too good for the masses. During their lifespan this quartet of Londoners managed to churn out two exemplary, sophisticated pop LPs, 1979's The Sound of Sunbathing and Pet Rock in '81, both of which have been reissued fairly recently. What I'm presenting today are about two dozen demos of mostly unreleased material, presented chronologically, tracing the Sinceros stylistic inclinations.
Here's a group I haven't written about in eons. The Windbreakers
were one of several bands arising from "The New South" indie/jangle-pop
scene in the mid-80s. Like many of their cohorts, including REM, Game
Theory, and Oh-OK, The Windbreakers were taken under the wing of
producer and Let's Active leadman Mitch Easter. The core Windbreakers lineup consisted of Tim Lee and Bobby Sutliff, both talented singer/songwriters who followed solo pursuits, and eventually became power-pop demigods in their own rite.
There was a slight delay with the second and final JF album, Spilt Milk, which tumbled into record shop racks a good three years later. Exponentially more ambitious and gratifying than the band's debut, Spilt Milk was a sophisticated concept LP, which barely made a ripple, even with the Bellybutton crowd from what I recall. Problem was, Jellyfish's paisley ethos ran diametric to a world that had recently embraced flannel and Doc Martens. Not long after the last drop of milk evaporated from the floor, Jellyfish parted
ways, but over the ensuing years, die-hard fans were still clamoring for
more. To quote the liner notes on the back cover, as luck would have it, there is more. The "more" is two very packed CDs of demos and outtakes, one dedicated to each album, and ditto to two more disks of live/radio session material from the accompanying Bellybutton and Spilt Milk tours. While the 80-track Fan Club will be of considerable fascination to established customers, I suggest newcomers would be served better by investigating Jellyfish's two proper albums beforehand. Links to each disk are the track listing headers below. Enjoy responsibly. 
A twenty song summation as to why this Athens, GA quartet mattered so much.
Little Hits was an unrelated music blog that preceded mine, which
largely dealt with left-off-the-dial indie rock obscurities circa the
1980s. It left a substantial impression on me, so much so that I
decided to throw my hat in the ring with Wilfully Obscure. During the past two months I've
shared self-curated compilations
of some of the music I absorbed (or more accurately, downloaded) during
Little Hits 2005-2009 lifespan. I originally promised three installments in this mini-series. Here is the third, and I may extend it to four, since the response has been better than I expected.
There are actually a few relatively well known entities here, including the Feelies, whose cover of Patti Smith's "Dancing Barefoot" is nearly as captivating as the original. It was initially released on a flexi-disk, and later appeared as a b-side on a promo single. East River Pipe also make an appearance with a superb early ep track, "Make a Deal With the City," and 415 Records all-stars Red Rockers dish out their nascent, punky single "Voice of America." Scruffy the Cat are also represented, a band who I never got around to mentioning on these pages, and sadly their frontman Charlie Chesterman is recently deceased. Little Hits were spot-on when it came to distilling an artist down to one key single or signature song, and the robust power pop of Scruffy's "You Dirty Rat" is a sheer hole-in-one. 
Bandables - Levitation
The second and gracefully reflective album from an astute, co-ed D.C. quartet, circa the mid-90s.
The only relevant info I was able to procure on Splendor Head was the following blurb from a distro site that's apparently still carrying unsold copies of Mirth:
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