You been swearing to god, now maybe if you'd ask...

The expanded edition of this legendary band's somewhat maligned final record from 1990.  Despite what many have opined it ranks as my fourth favorite by them.

**Please do not reveal artist in comments!**

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January Re-ups, Part 2

My apologies for the absence of new posts this past week. I was (and still am sick).  In the meantime here's the latest tranche of re-ups, with more to come.  

The Figgs - Rejects 
TSAR - King of School & SBN session
Popealopes - An Adder's Tale and Kerosene 
Geek - Herasure tape
Seething Grey - Big Table demo
Diamond Fist Werny - tape
Confuse a Cat - Ankles tape
Joey Sweeney - Barely and By Default tape 
Popular Front - This is the Rubicon tape
V/A - Neapolitan Metropolitan 
V/A - Groin Thunder: Troggs tribute
Nashville Ramblers - The Trains 7" - MP3 or FLAC
The Waking Hours - 7"
Trotsky Icepick/Vena Cava - split 7"
Teeny Records - 7"
Potential Frenzy - 7"
Naked Soul - tape
Lusting After Mary - 7"
Frontier Salesman - 7"
Band of Susans - Blessing and Curse ep
Bitter Sons - 7"
Drive - SST tribute 7"
Pods - It's a Bummer About Bourbie 7" ep
Polvo/Erectus Monotone split 7" 
The Drones - Red 7"
Jigsaw Seen - Shortcut Through Clown Alley
Pitchfork - Needle in a Haystack tape
V/A - Echos From the Nation's Capital
Sometimes Sweet Susan - The Coming Lights
Black-eyed Susans - s/t
Lifeboys - The Living Class ep
Bevil Web/3 Dream Bag - split 7"
Stems - sampler
Curtain Society - tape
Holiday Slides - Ornate Coalmine
Timco - Friction Tape 
 

Is it better to be up in the air or flat on the ground?

Hey.  You've got power pop in my indie rock!  You've got indie rock in my power pop!  From 2015.

**Please do not reveal artist in comments!**

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January Re-ups, Part 1

hiya,  I have way more re-ups to attend to, which I'll try to get to next week - as many as I can.  Really flooded with requests at the moment, so please hold off with any more for another week or so.  Much appreciated!

The dB's - 1983-84 demos
Haircut 100 - Blue Day
The Square Root of Now - Bent Around Corners 
Beauty Constant - Like the Enemy
Squirrel Bait - demo
Beulah - Yoko demos
Phantom Tollbooth - demo 
Smart Opera - Beauty on the Interstate
Muler - The State of Play
Alerta - In the Land...
Dimestore Darlings - What is My...? tape & Senior Prom tape
Figgs/Prisonshake - split 7"
V/A - Hear No Evil
Giant Mums - demo & single
Poster Children/Thin White Rope - split 7"
Putters - singles
New Radiant Storm King - Rival Time & 7"
Love American Style - Undo
Lost Luggage - Chateau Relaxeau
The Terrible Parade - Where Were You When the Lights Went Out
Sugarplastic - Polly Brown ep 
Splatcats - tape
Blown - Forever
Raymond Break - Piles of Dirty Winters
Nice Strong Arm - Stress City, Mind Furnace, Cloud Machine ep
V/A - Parade of Homes
V/A - I-5 Killers
Frogpond - 2% Tape
Dissonant Blue - tape
Pot Valiant - Transaudio
Popealopes - Cavalcade
Stand GT/Potbelly - Nils tribute 7"
Sugar Drive - One Time 7"

Nice Strong Arm - Reality Bath (1987, Homestead)

And so I present you with the final piece of the Nice Strong Arm puzzle, their debut, Reality Bath.  I've featured their subsequent platters Mind Furnace and Stress City eons ago, and a convenient thing that since both were extractable from CDs.  Reality Bath, on the other hand, was a vinyl/tape-only proposition.  Those in the know about these angsty New Yorkers, fronted by one Kevin Thomson, will no doubt boast their noisenik credentials, and rightfully so I suppose, but these folks were emanating from points of catharsis and artful sensibility, not so much full bore aggression. 

On second thought, it's damn near impossible to deny that Reality Bath isn't chockablock with raging, dissonant notions and eardrum-frying sprawl.  Even relatively likeminded contemporaries Live Skull and Red Temple Spirits couldn't quite compete with NSA's near-disorienting sonic alchemy that often fell just shy of surreal.  No, taking this proverbial Bath won't be of Calgon proportions in the least, and dare I say there's not much here that's "fun," but despite it's miles-deep layers of sinewy latticework, the going rarely gets difficult.  Furthermore there’s more guttural, emo pathos at play here than Rites of Spring ever thought to fling in our direction.  If you're looking for some comparatively melodic respites, you may want to dive in at "When Truth Comes Around," "Minds Lie," and "Free At Last."  This one's an acquired taste that's well worth acquiring, and check out NSA's second and third records linked above

01. Life of the Party
02. Date of Birth
03. Copperhead
04. Disenchanted
05. When Truth Comes Around
06. Life is So Cool
07. Minds Lie
08. Free at Last
09. Notes From a Gut
10. Dying Skin

https://www19.zippyshare.com/v/3Pz2GmIz/file.html

Rescue me or here I'll stay, a traffic island castaway.

A handy 17-cut roundup of virtually every song that mattered by these Clash-y Brit post-punks.

**Please do not reveal artist in comments!**

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Smashing Orange/The Sunflowers - split 7" (1992, Clawfist)

In the early '90s British-based Clawfist Records was responsible for a spate of split singles featuring (mostly) indie band covering one another on the same piece of wax.  Way back, I featured one of their 1991 specimens, Poster Children/Thin White Rope, and some ten years later I'm sharing another in the Clawfist series.  Smashing Orange (not to be confused with you-know-who) were one of my small-of-famers back in the day.  A fantastically noisome blur of manicured noise and dream pop ethos who responsible for handfuo of eps and two albums, The Glass Bead Game being the foremost of the pair.  On this split 45 they cover The Sunflowers, a combo I'd never really investigated before.  Per Discogs the band only released a few singles, and ironically the tune Smashing Orange take to task here, "Something You Said" didn't materialize on any of them.  Nonetheless, it's glorious noise-pop overdrive if I've ever such a thing.  The Sunflowers return the favor by doing a rendition of one of my go-to Smashing Orange songs, "Collide" nailing it quite capably at that.

A. Smashing Orange - Something You Said
B. The Sunflowers - Collide

https://www17.zippyshare.com/v/cXowiKJp/file.html

A slight case of underblogging - Best of the blog mix 2019.

It's cherry picking season again.  Here's my annual postmortem assemblage of the creme de la creme of what I just offered you a year prior.  A taster, or sampler if you will.  I'm really not sure if these yearly distillations are really hitting their desired audience (neophytes, stragglers, etc) or if I'm merely preaching to the choir.  At any rate, I've plucked 23 of the most succulent feathers from the wild array that was 2019.  As was the case in 2018, I've grown increasingly slack in the amount of shared content, and as such offered even less in the past year.  Turns out though that a decent chunk of what I managed to get up '19 was of particularly high caliber.

Thing was, I presented such a haphazard pastiche of styles and genres that it made sequencing this mix a bit of a bitch, but I think I pulled it off, beginning with a cluster of acts that loosely skewed to the power pop end of the spectrum.  Midway, I sort of hit a downcast stride with the emphasis on post-punk, but managed to conclude this playlist on a surprising note of levity.  I don't have an adequate amount of time to elaborate on individual cuts, though I plan on attaching links to the original artist entries later this weekend.  Included are three additional, previously unshared kernels that are noted with an asterisk.  One item not to be overlooked is that of a virtually unknown and unsearchable quantity, La Voix Celeste (circa 1983) who deliver the melancholic, minimalist wave piece "Phases," which doesn't just strive for mood, but a sublime hook as well.  This whole package concludes with one of my most listened to songs of the past couple years, a sleeper if there ever was one that you can read more about here.  Enjoy.

01. White Flag & Kim Shattuck - Dont Give It Away
02. NoNames - 1 2 3 Go!
03. X-Teens - All Day Long
04. Giddy'Up Einstein - Wasteland
05. Beat Feet - She's on Time
06. Start - Where I Want to Be
07. Signal Thirty - Wild With Me
08. The Big Picture - Poison Town
09. Honour Society - Ambition
10. Matt Finish - Fade Away
11. Monkey 101 - French Feelings
12. Popdefect - Can't Catch Up
13. The Necessaries - Back to You
14. Tirez Tirez - Razorblade
15. B Team - Right
16. DUSTdevils - Life Guarder
17. Actuel - Just Imagine
18. The Howl - Red is Red
19. La Voix Celeste - Phases*
20. Unity Station - History
21. Rarefaction - All the Broken Seams
22. The Expression - With Closed Eyes
23. Episode 1 - Maggie
24. The Dugites - Mama Didn't Warn Me
25. Koo De Tah - Body Talk*
26. Maria Takeuchi - Plastic Love*

https://www117.zippyshare.com/v/FWJpH3Wg/file.html