Paul Westerberg - 54 Minutes of Your Time Life (2008)

Hey.  It's going to be at least another 24 hours until I can get something more formal up on these pages, but to tide you over, here is a download of Paul Westerberg's internet only demos collage from 2008.  It was dubbed 49:00, and it was exactly that length, showcasing 24 unreleased songs all smooshed into one MP3 that was available very temporarily from Amazon downloads.  It's been available to stream on YouTube, and I believe even Soundcloud since then, but here's your chance to grab it for your MP3 emitting device or computer, phone, whatever, and you won't have to worry about eating up your monthly 4G allotment.  Hot on the heels of 49:00 came the companion 505, offering a mere five minutes (or so) of music, and that's included in the folder as well.

The full tracklist and spiel is available here.

Hear

Crying all my life. This straight jacket fits alright.

Released in 1995 and consisting of singles and non-LP treasures from '92 to '93.  Few bands have donned the indie rock crown this gracefully since.

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Hangtime - Invictus Melodius (2017) - A brief review

Will wonders never cease?  Toronto denizens Hangtime slipped off my radar entirely since they dropped their debut Plug In, way back in the 2010.  That record impressed my punk-pop sensibilities aplenty, signaling the band's (and my) mutual affection for the likes of the Doughboys and All.  In fact, it's a love affair that stated for them in the mid-90s via their predecesor band who I've also featured on these pages, Shortfall.  The front-man contingent of Hangtime features Shortfall alum Warren Gregson and Rock Burns, carrying over from Plug In.  And speaking of things carrying over to their belated follow-up, Invictus Melodious (loosely translated from Latin to: melodically invincible) the same spirit and verve is largely intact, despite the seven year layover.

Their aptitude not only reflects the comparisons I rattled off above, but to a certain extent the stable of powerful yet tuneful combos that graced the rosters of such renown labels as Epitaph and Fat, specifically those active during the Clinton-era.  Hangtime don't go out of their way to reinvent the wheel, but they very well may have tweaked a spoke or three on the roiling opener "Let It Be," sounding like the best thing Goo Goo Dolls haven't churned out in a good twenty-years.  It's an intimidating act to follow, and often, Invictus... doesn't really feel like it's heated up to full boil until mid-album, but once addictive slammers like "Trust In Me" and "Alone" careen into your ear canal there's no going back.  They even save the best for last on the concluding "Lost," which I'm willing to declare as their finest three-and-a-half minute salvo to date.

Invictus Melodious is yours to have, hold and listen to over at Hangtime's Bandcamp outpost where a physical CD is available in addition to download, plus you have your usual digital vendors iTunes and Amazon. 

The Odd Numbers - "Holiday" 7" (1996, Side1)

In the mid '90s Odd Numbers' singles and compilation appearances were ubiquitous, especially if you frequented indie retailers.  Not only were their records common, but at the time my ears found the Odd Numbers as a sort of by-the-numbers proposition, whose riff-heavy power pop wasn't too dissimilar to the likes of the Smugglers, and to a lesser degree, the Fastbacks.  In short, my fickle ears weren't having it, at least not at the time anyway.  Fast forward a couple decades, when a bargain priced copy of their 1996 wax, "Holiday" made it into my shopping bag on one of my music plundering excursions. Truth be told, it was their spin on the Buzzcocks "Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't Have?") went a long way in getting me through the door here, and I'm glad I stepped foot inside, because the Numbers were significantly more worthy than I recalled.  Hard to believe I was so dismissive of them, because both original composition on this 45, "Holiday" and "If I Only Had You," are kinetic and inspired as-all-get-out.  These tunes sort of exist in a nexus between their fellow colleagues the Figgs and Parasites, and that's phenomenal company to be in.  I'm going to have to get caught up on this trio at some point in the very near future.

BTW, the Odd Numbers reconvened last year with a new album and single to show for it.

A. Holiday
B1. If I Only Had You
B2. Ever Fallen in Love?

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Wooden Igloo - s/t (1989, Broken)

The rather panic-y visage adorning this album jacket belies a tamer and often romantically thoughtful modus operandi from this long-departed New Hampshire crew.  Wooden Igloo had something a little fuzzier than punk rock in mind, both in terms of their sonic palette and overarching sentiments.  It wouldn't be too far of a leap to speculate the band had warmed-up to the strains of then contemporaries, the Replacements, but this Igloo was constructed via sparser and humbler DIY means.  Faint resemblances to New Zealand pop-niks Toy Love and Yankee indie scenesters like the Magnolias and Junk Monkeys might make themselves evident here, but are likely sheer coincidence.  Something of a slow buildup, Wooden Igloo's finer moments predominantly seem to occupy side two, but "You're My Girl" is a cheeky tale of a fellow who's grateful for his better half's financial support.

01. You're My Girl
02. Turning Gray
03. When I'm With You
04. Night Time
05. My Marie
06. Walk Away
07. Save Me
08. Lost Weekend

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Well, Thomas the imposter, he lived a lie, but it mattered not 'cos that was his way.

From 1978, by a "supergroup" of sorts. 

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Loomis - How Much is Too Much (1999, Sun, Sea, Sky)

This one is a tad belated.  Make that eight years belated.  Then again, demand for Loomis has been limited as best, even when they were active in the mid/late '90s.  I'm following up on an entry I did for them in 2009 for the first and only proper album, You're No Tiger, Meow, Meow, Meow which dates back to 1996.  Back in the day, those who took notice of these Madison, WI gents were treated to the quartet's sobering, but muscular brand of thoughtful indie rock, that really did bring the rock on most occasions.  Well, in addition to that seemingly "lone" LP was this exhaustive 34 song compendium of singles and mostly unreleased material, damn near three albums worth to be exact.  The brief sleeve notes fail to provide recording dates, but it's safe to say that some of their earliest recordings are situated at the beginning of disk two.  Loomis apparently began life as pop-punk aficionados, and during this phase of their tenure, they came up with raw, Husker Du and Doughboys informed assaults like "Boxspring," "Spoke" and "Beige."

In my earlier piece on Loomis, I observed sonic similarities to their Chapel Hill, NC contemporaries Small 23.  That same observations applies to much of the remainder of How Much..., but these guys tinged the brunt of their handiwork with bittersweet inflections, stopping far shy of gloomy or maudlin.  It's a formula that worked well to their advantage on the relatively subdued "Twinkle Toes" and "Liberace."  Regardless of what mode the band chose to revel in, the real beauty of How Much is Too Much, is the sheer quantity and quality of material offered.  Before you make room for this on your hard drive, you can sample all of it on Bandcamp (who for some reason aren't offering HMITM as a download).  If you're brand new to these guys, do check out the aforementioned You're No Tiger... LP as well.

Disk 1
01. pillow
02. liberace
03. beige
04. two inches deep
05. down
06. elo
07. lunch tuck
08. paper mache
09. she moves like a lazy susan
10. home/a piece of resistence
11. secret asian man
12. when i move
13. win!
14. hookers
15. twinkle toes
16. butterbean
17. i'm a reader

Disk 2
01. girl of your choice
02. spoke
03. wait inside
04. chop suey
05. names and words
06. boxspring
07. rototiller
08. chunks
09. twerp
10. clerk
11. ballad of a handgun
12. untitled number one  
13. train
14. iriwn am
15. hi-tech swimpsuit
16. i don't speak porpoise
17. untitled number two

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The Pterodactyls - We've Done it Now ep (1987, Meltdown)

I feel like a bit of a scavenger when I usurp a piece of music from, say, a file sharing platform, and share it without being in possession of a physical copy myself.  Then again, I'm usually getting it for free, and passing it along to you likewise, so maybe I'm just...blathering.  The Pterodactyls ep is a case in point, so I'd be remiss if I didn't thank whomever went to the trouble of digitizing this utterly scarce record.  The tiny label responsible for it, Meltdown, was based in Palmerston North, on the northern island of New Zealand.

This clangy, post-punk quartet tracked their entire ep in one day in 1987 in Auckland.  It sounds like some degree of local cross-pollination was at hand here, and it wouldn't be unwise to suspect the Pterodactyls may have been keen on the Bats and Tall Dwarfs, not to mention some other winged clergy on the Flying Nun roster.  It would have been really interesting to see where these lads might have taken things on subsequent releases, but I think this was their sole outing.  Brief as their catalog was, you'd be wise to console yourself with the poignantly melodic "Germs," We've Done It Now's should-have-been greatest hit.

BTW, Meltdown Records was home to a couple of other bands whose records (or at the very least, MP3s) I'm anxious to get a hold of.  If anyone can tip me off to such long lost Kiwis as Three Leaning Men and the Remarkables, by all means get in touch!  You'll be rewarded handsomely for your efforts.

01. Cockroaches
02. Ode
03. Germs
04. Gravel Pit
05. Born Again

Hear

And will the whole damned world fall down...

A comprehensive two disk round-up from a dapper, '80s Brit contingent that managed to keep a relatively low profile. 

Hear

A Witness - Sacred Cow Heart (1986, Twilight/Ron Johnson)

1986 was a doubly good year to be a fan of The Fall - but even die hard acolytes may have been out of the loop.  That year, not only did the band release Bend Sinister, but an unrelated cabal of Fall protegees from Manchester, A Witness, dropped an LP of their own, specifically this one.  Mere footnotes to Mark E. Smith and Co., A Witness nonetheless bore an uncanny resemblance to their inspiration antecedents - right down to the vocals and oblique lyrical motifs in fact.  Sacred Cow Heart (released in the UK as I Am John's Pancreas) is a challenging, but thankfully not altogether off-putting piece of avant rock.  Beefheart-ian monikerd, post-punk salvos like "Smelt Like a Pedestrian" and "Nodding Dog Moustache" weren't exactly grist for the pop radio mill, but the latter for example, boasts a near-irresistible groove and swagger.  And the Fall had precious little in their teaming oeuvre that satisfied as instantly as Witness' "Raw Patch" and "Red Snake."  Even a couple of failed experiments on Sacred Cow don't diminish it's overall effectiveness, though like the Fall,  A Witness' prevailing tenor won't be for everyone.

01. Smelt Like a Pedestrian
02. Red Snake
03. Dipping Bird
04. Sharpened Stick
05. The Loudhailer Song
06. Faglane Morris Wind
07. Nodding Dog Moustache
08. Raw Patch
09. Legs Be Sturdy
10. Hard Days Love

Hear

Blue Peter - Up to You ep (1982, Ready)

Not to be confused with the cartoon of the same name, Blue Peter were a Toronto pop/wave export who in the '80s made waves in their home country, albeit registering mere ripples in the States.   Up to You was one of their later releases, but not a bad place to start if you're getting your feet wet.  The EP is bookended by it's title track, and a variation thereof for the finale.  I really dislike flaunty, trumpet-laced dance rock, which "Up to You" is sadly steeped in, but the four songs ensconced in between, range anywhere from good to excellent.  One of their signature titles, "Chinese Graffiti" brandishes an irresistible power-pop hook.  Unpredictably, "Graffiti" segues into the comparatively dark and "Guilty Secret," an edgy number reminiscent of the Comsat Angels.  And "The World Stops Here" illustrates that Blue Peter's reach should have extended far beyond Canada, and I'm sure for awhile it probably looked like that scenario could have transpired.

As goes heavy ringwear on the jacket, so goes the fidelity of the record, and this one is no exception.  I did my level best to tamp down some of the surface noise, but plenty of crackle is evident.  If it's an unblemished listen you desire you can check out Blue Peter aplenty over at their Soundcloud hovel. 

01. Up to You
02. Chinese Graffiti
03. Guilty Secret
04. Around You
05. The World Stops Here
06. Up to U

Hear

Drink me like a case of wine...

From 1993.  If this record isn't conducive to the icy throes of winter I don't know what is.

Here

V/A - Propeller tape (1981, Propeller)

The tale of the tape - and a tricky one at that.  Let's see...well, I only learnt of this comp some three decades after it was released.  Found it browsing on Ebay, at a pretty reasonable price I might add.  The Neats were absolutely the draw for me.  And much like the Neats, every other participant on here was based in Boston (or thereabouts).  I wasn't familiar with anybody else on Propeller, but the concept of cassette-only compilations is as precious to me today as it was in the '80s.  So, I went ahead and did the buy-it-now thing.  Picked it up at the P.O. box a week or so later and had my way with it - or at least I assumed I would.   Propeller lifted off with a bang by way of a delightfully serrated punk-pop salvo, "The Law" by Art Yard. Catchy as all-get-out I thought to myself, and I hadn't even gotten to the first Neats tune ("Do the Things") yet.  I did a few minutes later and accompanying it was a discernibly squeaky noise, which only made itself more evident and aggravating as the tape progressed.  After having similar results in the other well of my cassette deck and even my car stereo, I chalked the problem up to being a worn-out tape.  I never asked for a refund because I had no desire to return it.  It was still a great little curio.

As it turns out, I learned this week that all copies of Propeller suffered from the identical defect as mine.  Per comments on Discogs:

Yes, all copies are defective, but it's not damage, per se, it has to do with a flaw in the binder between the magnetic surface and the backing. Even if you can play the first couple of songs, eventually the surface starts peeling away from the backing and you get this screeching noise.

It goes onto mention that the master tapes were lost in a fire...but someone must have made a backup, because a corrected version of the entire album recently found it's way online from an unknown source.  It was my original intention to share Propeller with you many years ago, but the faulty condition of my tape would have made that impossible.  Now that it's thankfully been remedied, not so much.

Ironically, the band I mentioned a few paragraphs back, Art Yard, were the least artsiest of the bunch here.  Nonetheless, idiosyncratic and art-damaged post-punk reigns on Propeller - some dissonant and tuneless (CCCP TV and Wild Stares), but elsewhere, V: and Dangerous Birds exude comparatively warmer hues.  As for the Neats tunes, "Do the Things" and the live "Another Broken Dream" are fairly nascent and formative, but if you enjoyed their albums on Ace of Heart Records I wouldn't hesitate to partake in these tracks.

01 Art Yard - The Law
02 People In Stores - Cat and Mouse
03 Neats - Do The Things
04 Chinese Girlfriends - Let's Be Creative
05 CCCP-TV - Follow It Through
06 V: - Ich Liebe
07 White Women - Midge
08 Wild Stares - No Escape
09 Lori Green - Town Without Pity
10 V: - In The Suburbs Of The City Of Pain
11 Wild Stares - China Song
12 CCCP-TV - Downtown Address
13 Dangerous Birds - Catholic Boy
14 Lori Green - She Won't Hear You_Pink Dress
15 People In Stores - Cheap Detective
16 Art Yard - Something In Your Eyes
17 Neats - Another Broken Dream

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A slight case of overblogging - Best of the blog mix 2017.

2017 was probably my least prolific year on these pages, and quite frankly, on many occasions I felt a self-inflicted flogging was in order (metaphorically, of course).  Yet after assembling this compendium of highlights, not only is it my opportunity to offer you a "shortcut" or a taster, or whatever, it became apparent that the past year wasn't quite as fruitless as I was wont to convince myself.  In fact, despite 2017's relative deficiency of content, this 25 song exercise turned out to be one of my most cohesive and gratifying collections to date, bejeweled with some pretty seismic left-off-the-dial nuggets.  There's a bevy of tunes from excellent one-album-wonder outfits like the Casual T's, Holiday Slides, Suburban Sprawl, Cement Trampoline, Plasterscene Replicas and the Fingers that were worth tuning in for alone.  And how about not one, but two paeans to the nation of Canada, courtesy of the Ceedee's and Macchu Picchu?

You're also getting perfect tens from the likes of Fire Town, Chixdiggit, The Fingers, and Fudge, not to mention true-blue obscuros Red Buckets, Squirrels From Hell, Our American Cousins, and The Clamheads.  As has been tradition, I'm tacking on a handful of tunes that haven't been made available previously.  Real beauts too, like a primo, non-LP prize from the Pezband, and a vintage, unreleased kernel from Guided By Voices.  And lend an ear to Rebel Waltz, a bygone Wisconsin punk-pop quartet, whose glorious Rubber Walls LP has been reissued digitally.

01. The Reels - Prefab Heart
02. Macchu Picchu - Canada
03. Pezband - Waiting in Line*
04. Cement Trampoline - Pushing the Panic Button
05. Soup - Hangin' Out With Myself
06. Chixdiggit - Best Hung Carrot in the Fridge
07. Rebel Waltz - Highway of Doom*
08. Our American Cousins - Ice 9
09. Side Effects - French Forest
10. Squirrels From Hell - Cinderella Girl
11. Holiday Slides - The Fall of Rome
12. Glass Penguins - Out of the Rain
13. Seven Simons - Lavendar Bubbles
14. The Pony - Broken Kites
15. Suburban Sprawl - Serious
16. Casual T's - Rose Colored World
17. One Plus Two - Much More
18. Red Buckets - Palm Sunday
19. Plasterscene Replicas - What Could Be Incomplete
20. Fudge - Patty Hearst Machine Gun
21. Fire Town - She Reminds Me of You
22. The Clamheads - Everybody Loves Me Cept You
23. Fingers - Too Young
24. Ceedees - Patriotic Song
25. GBV - Tell Me*

* = Appearing for the first time.

Hear

Night was her best companion I've heard it told.

A debut album that turns 28 this year.

Here

The Ocean Blue - first album & Cerulean live @ Lincoln Hall, Chicago 3/19/16

This was a serious contender for one of my Chanukah shares a couple weeks back.  I didn't want to wait until next December to post this, so here it is, an extra ninth night so to speak.  It was just last year in fact that I delved into The Ocean Blue, by way of a clutch of demos and comp tracks recorded prior to their 1989 self-tiled album.  There's not much more I can extol regarding this long-running Hershey, PA combo that I didn't address previously.  Chiming guitar pop may not have been their name, per se, but it certainly was their game, and they won people over like myself with a thoughtful predilection that persuaded both collegiate rock audiences and comparatively straight and narrow types. 

The concept for the Ocean Blue's concert at Lincoln Hall in Chicago last spring was pretty straightforward - performances of their first two albums (1989's Ocean Blue and 1991's Cerulean in their entirety.  This is an above average audience recording with a meager amount of crowd noise.  The reproductions here compared to the studio incarnations aren't dramatically different, but when it comes to their ilk, it wouldn't make much sense to improvise or go on a tangent.  All the classics are present and accounted for - "Between Something and Nothing," "Drifting Falling," "Ballerina Out of Control," and the strummy "Vanity Fair."  We even get a Pet Shop Boys cover to close things out.  Full tracklists are as follows, and these sets are available in both in MP3 and lossless FLAC.

Lincoln Hall, Chicago, IL, March 19, 2016

Set 1 - 0:50:22 - Cerulean  MP3  or  FLAC
-----------------------
01. The Ocean (by U2 - Intro Music)
02. Breezing Up
03. Cerulean
04. Marigold
05. A Seperate Reality
06. Mercury
07. Questions of Travel
08. When Life Was Easy
09. The Planetarium Scene
10. Falling Through The Ice
11. Ballerina Out of Control
12. Hurricane Amore
13. I've Sung One Too Many Songs For a Crowd That Didn't Want To Hear

Set 2 -1:08:07 - The Ocean Blue  MP3  or  FLAC
-----------------------
01. Intro
02. Between Something and Nothing
03. Vanity Fair
04. Drifting, Falling
05. Circus Animals
06. Frigid Winter Days
07. Just Let Me Know
08. Love Song
09. Ask Me Jon
10. Awaking To a Dream
11. Office of a Busy Man
12. Myron
13. Familiar Face - A
14. offstage
15. Big Ideas
16. It's a Lovely Game Louise
17. West End Girl (Pet Shop Boys Cover)

Cypress, Mine! - Exit Trashtown, In Pieces (1987/2017, Pretty Olivia) - a brief review

For every successful upstart in the British isles (circa mid-80s) that extricated themselves from the frenetic, indie-pop cocoon to mainstream acceptance (e.g. The Smiths, Housemartins, Primal Scream) there were scores of others who barely breached the confines of the teaming lower rungs, as it were.  Now the subject of anthologies, reissues and even box sets, the sub-rosa Brit pop scene is coming to light, and it's a great time for those of us who were absent for that small-scale Thatcher-era eruption to catch up - even if it's been a solid three decades after the fact.

Problem was, for Cypress, Mine!, they weren't really part and parcel of the "scene," if only by the arbitrary circumstances of location.  Being somewhat cut off in their native Cork, Ireland, I have a hunch this pre-web quartet weren't exactly hounded by the likes of NME and Melody Maker.  Nonetheless, that didn't prevent C/M from absorbing a healthy dollop of their equally inspired contemporaries - Orange Juice, Bodines, June Brides, and perhaps even a small contingent of the Flying Nun Records roster as well.  Exit Trashtown, a recently issued double LP compendium of Cypress' lone 1987 album of the same name, along with singles and unreleased goodies, makes the case that these gents deserved a far more successful fate.

For established customers of any of my aforementioned references, Cypress, Mine may not exactly wave the banner of innovation.  In an era when oodles of like-minded hopefuls were playing the field, they very well might have been squeezed out by other jangly colleagues who were desperately competing for a piece of John Peel's coveted attention and airtime.  Despite the flooded marketplace C/M were in fact something of a revelation if only in terms of sprite and lovingly wry songs.  The smart yet pensive romantic observations raised on "Justine" and the brisk "Phone Call From Heaven" are tethered to a sonic penchant that would have fit like a glove on the now legendary C86 compilation.  Even more exciting than the Trashtown album material proper, the (mostly) previously unreleased In Pieces quotient of this reissue reveals that C/M were headed in an even bolder direction on the guitar-sy "Crawl," the driving "These Days," and the spry, left-of-the-dial bent of "Sounds Like Rain."

There's a trove of magnificent, and tragically almost lost music to feast on here, but don't take my word for it, preview Exit Trashtown on Bandcamp where you can purchase a digital version, or spring for the 2xLP import version, which is your best option for epitomizing the very sweet album sleeve.  You can also buy a physical copy from Pretty Olivia Records Big Cartel page.

Merry not-so-Mystery Monday Xmas edition.

Given the holiday, I didn't want to do a straight-up Mystery Monday...so I decided to take the mystery out of it, with the caveat being that these ten files won't be around forever.  Perhaps more than 48 hours, or even a week, but when they're gone, they're gone.  And most of them haven't appeared on Wilfully before.  Click on the title to be taken straight to the download link.  Special thanks to those of you who may have ripped a couple of these.

Dreams So Real - Fathers House
Turning Curious - Soul Light Season
The Soft Boys - Wading Through a Ventilator ep
The Bats (U.S.) - How Pop Can You Get?
The Gun Club - Fire of Love
XTC - Beeswax
Pavement - live 1994
Pointed Sticks - Part of the Noise
Snake Corps - Flesh on Flesh

The Finders - Demos (1980)

They never were the pinnacle of the power pop heap, nor were they praised by the hipster cognoscenti of their era, but San Fran's Finders had the chops and songs to warrant a seat at the big boys table.  Of course, a discography limited to a couple of locally released singles in the pre-internet era didn't exactly behoove this foursome in regards to publicity and such.  Nonetheless, the last ten years have witnessed some bona fide canonizing of the Finders oeuvre, with a pair of retrospectives, including the Finders Keepers collection.  With a sound vaguely recalling early Plimsouls, and perhaps a gutsier Raspberries, they were off to a decent, if not particularly innovative start.  And you can experience that "start" for yourselves with this (presumably) band sanctioned set of four-track demos tracked in 1980.  Lo-fidelity is the watchword here, featuring an albums worth of raw, analog-soaked tunes including their signature piece "Calling Dr. Howard," as well as assertive keepers like "Don't Let It" and "Standin' in the Rain."

01. Don't Let It
02. Hold Tight
03. It All Worked Out
04. Summer Love
05. Let's Go Home Tonight
06. Think I'll Ask Her
07. You're So Rogue
08. Ain't No Use in Tryin'
09. Calling Dr. Howard
10. On and Off
11. I've Had It
12. Keep Your Hands Off Of My Baby
13. Which Way
14. Bad Food
15. Standin' in the Rain
16. It's So Insane
17. The Way It Goes

Hear

Some singles: B-Lovers, Red Buckets, Cosmopolitans, Soup, Motion City Soundtrack.

For the past two years I've offered a bundle of seven singles for one of the eight nights of Chanukah.  I'm truncating that a bit this year.  In fact, I've put together a rather idiosyncratic hodge podge of stuff, of which you might only be interested with two or three things.  Some titles I've inserted are more for historical use than anything else, but read on. I've been deficient on sharing singles in 2017, so maybe I'll try to put more emphasis on them next year.  For now, here's what I've set the table with.  The download link at the end is for a bundle folder of all five records.  Please note, for the Soup ep I only have MP3s available.

Motion City Soundtrack - Promenade/Carolina 7" (1999)

This is the most apparent anomaly of the bunch.  I have written about MCS on several occasions, but this is likely to be the last given they dissolved in 2016.  Not quite punk...or emo...or indie rock, Justin Pierre and Co. were nonetheless the most gratifying thing to come out of the Twin Cities since the Mats and Husker Du.  And, yes, that's saying an awful lot.  This record preceded their first album I Am The Movie by a good three years, and even if it's not thoroughly representative (e.g., no keyboards were employed for this incarnation of MCS) structurally things began to take shape here  The A-side, "Promenade" concerns a boy who struggles to muster up the courage to ask a classmate to go with him to, you guessed it, the high school prom.  A dilemma that has plagued men from time immemorial...

Soup - Cruel and Unusual ep (1989, rec. 1986-87, Very Small)

I had posted this title to a want list I shared many years back.  Still haven't found an affordable physical copy, but I do have quality audio files to offer.  Soup were Berkeley, CA basement punks
who eschewed hardcore in favor of a mellower modus operandi, but characteristically rambunctious and informal.  Doggedly DIY and lo-fi, the band had an especially unique microphone fiend in Chris Giese.  After Cruel... was cut, an equally appealing Soup spinoff band, Buggerall existed, but details and recordings are woefully scant.  Alumni from both groups participated in Samiam, Wynona Riders and Sweet Baby  Cruel and Unusual is a small-of-fame favorite of mine, and if you like what you hear there's also this.

The Cosmopolitans - "(How to Keep) Your Husband Happy" + 2 7" (1980, Shake)

A Mitch Easter (yep, him again) production credit lured me to this single, not so much the attention grabbing picture sleeve.  The Cosmos (that's how I'm referring to them) were a kitschy female duo comprised of Jamie Sims and Nel Moore who briefly managed to ingratiate themselves into New York's wave movement.  This single, featuring their signature number "(How to Keep) Your Husband Happy" is novelty as they come, and strikingly dissonant on top of that.  The tune in question features prominent dialogue aimed at any and all wives within earshot on how to sustain marital bliss.  The effect is similar to what Nada Surf employed on their alterna-hit "Popular," but I can't quite ascertain if the Nada guys took inspiration from the Cosmos.  Wouldn't surprise me though.  The dancy, B-52s-ish "Wild Moose Party" is the stronger of the two flips, but there isn't an iota of tuneage on this record that would suggest Easter provided any creative involvement or insight.  BTW, Faye Hunter of Mitch Easter's Let's Active is credited with backing vocals.

Red Buckets - Palm Sunday/Xacto Knife 7" (1982, Burn Potential)

This one had been on my want list for a spell.  And speaking of spells, I was under that exactly upon hearing Red Bucket's contribution, "Something Else Again" to the I'd Rather Be in Philadelphia compilation.  That song portended an intoxicating and edgy merger of post-punk and power pop.  This single, the Bucket's lone proper release, was a must have, and low and behold this year I was fortunate enough to track it down.  The two songs here skew more to the post-punk side of the spectrum, not instantly memorable perhaps, but more rewarding on subsequent rotations.  Recorded as a trio, the Buckets appended a fourth member, Michael Carlucci who did double duty in Winter Hours.  As a quartet, R/B seemed to embrace a more melodic penchant.  This development yielded a sound more in keeping with The Feelies, whom the band also had ties to.  You can read a much more exhaustive history on the Buckets over at tapewrecks blog, who are also hosting a handful of the combo's excellent unreleased demos.

B-Lovers - Ok...Go! 7" (1982, Sabine)

And last but not least, a pit-stop to Champaign, IL for the B-Lovers one and only wax artifact.  I've been an enthusiast for a wilfully obscure chestnut of an indie-jangle masterpiece titled Soul Light Season, a 1985 ep made responsible by none other than Turning Curious.  Only six songs that one, and nothing more in the archives, so when I discovered that T/C began life as B-Lovers, and released a 7" no less, I jumped on it like white on rice, as they say.  The three compositions adorning this rare lacquer aren't as sophisticated as their future Turning Curious endeavors, but the creative germ was firmly in place and still fairly delightful.  Singer and frontman Nick Rudd would eventually concoct music in the latter half of the '80s and beyond in aggregations like The Arms of Someone New, The Big Maybe and Weird Summer.

Download everything in one fell swoop in your choice of  MP3  or  FLAC

Three EPs that time forgot: Macchu Picchu, The Fingers and Rocking Shapes.

On average I purchase anywhere from 25 to 50 vinyl EPs a year from bygone indie artists that were only active in the late twentieth century.  Here are some of the better catches from my fishing net, including two acts who haven't shown their faces on these pages before.

Macchu Picchu - s/t ep (1987)

Their name may conjure up a locale that's high and mighty, but Macchu Picchu's aesthetic was considerably more down to earth.  A co-ed New Jersey six-piece, these guys (and gal) settled on a new-wavish hue that's wasn't overfilled with dominating snyths, or dominating anything for that matter, save for some par excellence melodies.  While certainly a tangible product of their era, M/P were hardly slaves thereof.  Some highlights?  "Canada" is laden with a veritable bouquet of clever, praiseworthy couplets about are allies to the north, and packs a pulsating rhythmic aplomb to boot.  The "my fave" award goes to the next track in, the Julie Holland-sung "Hologram," which is as they say, undeniably catchy.

01. Canada
02. Hologram
03. Joe
04. Sex Police
05. Sound of Love

MP3  or  FLAC

The Fingers - Fingers on the Radio ep (1980, Smart Fun)

Not to confused with another band of the same moniker I featured some years ago, these forty digits belonged to a quartet with a Coronado, CA correspondence address.  The Fingers are something of a nightmare when it comes to relevant search engine queries, but an utter dream come true for aficionados of power pop's golden era, circa late '70s/early '80s. Golden throat Joey Harris bears an inflection strikingly akin to that of Elvis Costello, but his cohorts are considerably more subtle in tact.  "Too Young" is worth the price of admission alone, boasting warm reverb and pristine chorus harmonies to die for, with the rest of the record following in close pursuit.  Devastating.

01. Too Young
02. New Girl
03. Blow Me Away
04. Kathy Come Back

MP3  or  FLAC

The Rocking Shapes - Shout! ep (1983, Home Wrecords)

This one is so killer, Devo stole it's title for their lackluster 1984 album.  I introduced you to Rocking Shapes in 2014, by way of a subsequent, proto-indie rock single that I dug just as much as this five-song ep, which is sadly the closest this Lafayette, LA troupe would come to issuing an album. The rather off-kilter, homegrown record sleeve to your left is slyly reflective of the Shapes sonic palette, who seemed to have one foot steeped in Television and the Dream Syndicate, while forecasting '80s off-the-radar scenesters like the Libertines and Pedaljets.  This blurb alone surely can't convey what I'm feebly attempting to illustrate, so I hereby invite you to draw your own conclusions.  Enjoy (you will).

01. The Mirror
02. Caught in the Radar
03. The Umbrella Man
04. Normandy
05. Girls Like You

MP3  or  FLAC

Plasterscene Replicas ‎- Glow (1988, Raining)

It seems every year I come across a seriously Chaunkah-worthy indie pop relic from the Reagan-era (or in the case of these Canucks, the Mulroney era) that was entirely unfamiliar to me the year prior.  So how did Toronto's Plasterscene Replicas make my much belated radar?

I believe I encountered their name in the "thank you" credits in a Change of Heart album, and by coincidence, not long after, I found PR's Glow while browsing at a record store up north.  Truth be told, I've presented a lot of bands like the Replicas over the years - forward thinking guitar rock with mildly oblique lyrics and a dash of melancholia.  Sonically, they fit the bill as well - sweet, echoing guitars that are simultaneously crunchy yet jangly, backed by a tight, spotless rhythm section.  In short, a shoo-in for the college radio circuit, though I'm not certain how much traction PR had south of the Canadian boarder.  And almost everything here is golden - "What Could Be Incomplete," "All I See," and the sprite, assertive opener "We Can Walk" to name but three.  Glow often emanates the feel of a vintage Don Dixon or Mitch Easter production, and while there are traces of Game Theory and early Dreams So Real, there are beefier angularities that point to the likes of early Northern Pikes, Big Country (less obviously), and the Replica's Irish contemporaries Cactus World News.  I'm lovin' this one mightily.

PR co-guitarist/frontman Charlie Salmon passed on in 2013.  An article on Toronto's Now magazine site offers some background details on him and the Plasterscene Replicas is general.

01. We Can Walk
02. Things You Hold
03. Doldrums
04. What Could Be Incomplete
05. Trains
06. Pull Out
07. All I See
08. Hot Sand
09. Holler
10. Town Crier
11. Falling Down the Stairs
12. You've Got the Way

MP3  or  FLAC

Off Broadway (USA) - Live in studio 1980, and unreleased.

I thought this would be an appropriate follow-up to last nights Cheap Trick indulgence.  Let's see.  I don't think I've talked up Off Broadway (USA) before on here, but like Trick, they also hailed from the environs of Chicago, and like it or not, were lumped in the power pop ghetto.

Like contemporaries Shoes, Off Broadway were airtight and economical, but throaty frontman Cliff Johnson lent the band a sturdy, muscular forte.  The quintet's linear but groove-savvy attack was perfectly evidenced on their debut, 1979's On, featuring a bevy of dynamite signature pieces like "Bad Indication," "Stay in Time," and "Full Moon Turn My Head Around."  On's wall-to-wall cavalcade of hooks was so potent it may as well have been a greatest hits album unto itself, and in another years time they delivered another knockout, Quick Turns.  Collectively, neither album generated a Top-40 entry, although "Stay in Time" did respectfully on regional radio outlets.  By 1983 it was over.

Short of sharing those two albums (were have been made available again) I at the very least have a couple of less common items, or quite frankly, bootlegs.  First is a live performance cut in-studio for WIBA, a Madison, WI FM station in May of '80.  A small but appreciative crowd is present for fourteen right and tight tracks, including a preview of several songs that would comprise the Quick Turns LP.  You won't find much deviation between O/B's live and studio delivery of their repertoire, but Johnson's inter-song banter is amusing.

Next up is a collection of studio tracks I have insufficient amount of pertinent info on, but from what I'm able to glean it's material that was intended for a third studio record, circa 1983.  The first half of these tunes were largely in keeping with the vibe of On and Turns, while the rest varies.  I can only offer these in a relatively meager birate.  Apologies in advance.  Ironically, Off Broadway reunited in the mid '90s for a proper studio record, Fallin' In, though the songs here don't overlap.  Enjoy.

Live In The Studio 10/29/80, WIBA FM, Madison, WI -  MP3  or  FLAC
01 - Bad Indication
02 - Bad Girl 
03 - Bully Bully 
04 - Automatic 
05 - US Girls 
06 - Oh Boy! 
07 - Showdown 
08 - Quick Turns 
09 - Are You Alone 
10 - Boys Must Be Strong 
11 - Eddie's Pals 
12 - Stay In Time 
13 - Hang On For Love 
14 - Full Moon Turn My Head Around

Unreleased (1983?)  MP3
01. 1, 2, 3
02. Everybody Loves A Winner
03. My Soul
04. Take a Holiday
05. Any Kind of Love
06. Getting There is Half the Fun
07. instrumental
08. Battle of the Bands
09. Bring on the Band
10. Hello Aloha
11. Lifeline
12. You've Got Style

Cheap Trick - One on One and Next Position Please session outtakes, alt versions (1982-83)

I'm going to go out on a limb here are say something that many of you may find to the contrary, yet I know in my heart of hearts I'm correct.  Cheap Trick haven't made a great, thoroughly consistent album since roughly 1983.  I said it, and I'm sticking by that assertion.  Then again some critics would go as far to say that the band started to lose it all the way back to the Dream Police era.

It didn't help that the follow-up to Dream Police, the ill fated, George Martin-produced All Shook Up, was an unmemorable and unrepresentative misstep, but Robin Zander and the boys recovered on their sixth and seventh platters One on One and Next Position Please.  Granted, neither of those records saw the band regaining their once idiosyncratic footing of their initial trifecta of masterpieces (Cheap Trick, In Color and Heaven Tonight), but One on One, and especially the Todd Rundgren commandeered Next Position... proved to genuinely satisfying pop-rock jewels, that at their infrequent worst were a tad frivolous.  Even more remarkably, the band cut these disks without the involvement of longtime bassist Tom Peterson.  

Amidst this 21-song set of alternate takes and works-in-progress for the aforementioned 1982/83 disks, we don't get to hear variations of some of their best songs from this era - "She's Tight," "I Can't Take It," and "Next Position Please" to name a few which are sadly AWOL here.  What we are treated to are refreshingly raw romps through equally stimulating salvos like "Lookin' Out for Number One," "Love's Got a Hold On Me," and "You Talk Too Much." Other cuts are represented in their instrumental versions ("Play By the Rules," "Invaders of the Heart").  Fun, but it helps to familiarize yourself with the album versions first if you haven't done so already.  There are no less than three distinctive versions of Trick's power ballad "If You Want My Love," plus an outtake of "I Want Be Man."  If you recall, the vocals on that particular One on One monstrosity were gratingly mechanized, but on this alternate incarnation, not to so much.  The entirely unreleased "Fool Yourself," vaguely angles back to their earlier stuff, and we even get another exclusive number in the guise of "Tell Me What to Do."

An enormous amount can be said about Cheap Trick's post-Next Position Please era, the vast majority of which is quite unflattering, at least speaking in terms of recorded material.  They hit a colossal low in 1987 with Lap of Luxury, the album that generated the fluffy, antiseptic monster ballad, "The Flame." It would be another twenty years for them to approach anything resembling greatness.  For what it's worth, their 2006 set, Rockford is deserving of any Trick fan's time and dinero.

One on One-era:
Fool Yourself/I Want Be Man/I Want You/If You Want My Love (three vers)/I'm Hot (inst)/Looking Out For Number One/Oh La La/Saturday at Midnight (two vers)/Tell Me What to Do/Twisted Heart/Whatcha Gonna Do About It/Your Love's Got a Hold on Me

Next Position Please-era:
Don't Hit Me With Love/Don't Make Our Love a Crime/Invaders of the Heart (inst)/Play By the Rules/Y.O.Y.O.Y./You Talk Too Much

Hear

Hüsker Dü - Celebrated Summer Winter Pt. 2: radio interviews, Candy Apple Grey demos, and unavailable b-sides.

Hope you're enjoying a happy and heart second night of the festival of lights.  Last night we partook in a couple of primo Hüsker concerts, shrouding ourselves in the full bore roar of Minneapolis unlikely geniuses.  Now it's time to cut a beeline to the studio...and believe it or not, the phone lines.

Chances are Bob, Grant and Greg partook in scores of phone and live-to-air left-of-the-radio station interviews, but the number of which that were captured on tape from those keeping score at home may only number in the low dozens, if that.  Submitted for your approval are two fairly complete exchanges, which to a certain extent may not count as fully representative considering Bob was the only party involved.   The briefer of these two conversations, the May '85 WREK interview is probably ranks as merely good, where as the one conducted with Minneapolis community outlet, KFAI is far more insightful.  There are two reasons for this.  First, Bob himself fields a bevy of unscreened questions from locally call-in listeners.  Secondly, in this comparatively docile context, you get a better understanding of the man himself who is extricated from the stage and his trio's attendant concussive maelstrom.  No egos or airs in the least on his end, and he even engages the DJ regarding his affinity for professional wrestling.  In the interview portion of the download, you'll also find a Bob Mould soundcheck, which was contributed to Vol. 10 of the Tellus cassette zine, circa 1985.  Today, we would likely refer to such an endeavor as a podcast, but I digress.

Next up, the demos for H/D's major label debut Candy Apple Grey may not exude any out-and-out revelations, but anything unreleased by these guys, even if they are just in-progress incarnations, will no doubt fascinate die-hard acolytes.  Many tracks appear in rough, instrumental sketches, whereas "Don't Want to Know if You Are Lonely" and "Dead Set on Destruction" are reasonable blueprints for what would become the finished versions.  We're even treated to some thoroughly unreleased cuts that never made it past the demo stage - "Misty Modern Days" and "Just Be," which granted, are instrumentals - but that latter one kinda cranks.

And finally, I've cobbled together the vast majority of Hüsker Dü's Warner Bros era flipsides.  Like it or not, every band has 'em, and if anything else the band knew what songs to prioritize for the album.  Unbeknownst to a lot of fans, the band would occasionally preform acoustic, and we're treated to live, stripped down takes of the typically shredding "Celebrated Summer" and "Flexible Flyer," from a 1986 Hollywood Roxy show.  "Fattie" is an imposing, Metal Machine Music style piece, the lengthy and underwritten "All Work and No Play" is a strangely alluring slice of naval-gazing rock, while the sprite basher, "Everytime" features the lead vocals of none other than bassist Greg Norton!

A big round of applause goes out to any and all of you that hooked me up with much of this material, in some cases decades ago.  And on behalf of a grateful nation, let's all thank the original three architects of these wondrous and timeless songs.  R.I.P. Grant Hart.

Interviews - MP3  or  FLAC
WREK Atlanta, 5/29/85
KFAI Minneapolis, Jan. 1986
Bob Mould 1985 soundcheck on Tellus #10 cassette zine

Candy Apple Grey demos - MP3  or  FLAC
01. Don't Want To Know If You Are Lonely
02. Crystal (instrumental)
03. Sorry Somehow
04. I Don't Know For Sure (instrumental)
05. Hardly Getting Over It
06. All Work And No Play (instrumental)
07. Dead Set On Destruction
08. Eiffel Tower High
09. Misty Modern Day (instrumental)
10. All This I've Done For You
11. Just Be (instrumental)
12. Hardly Getting Over It (instrumental)
13. I Don't Know For Sure (mix)

B-sides (1986-87)  MP3
01. All Work And No Play (b-side, Don't Want to Know...)
02. Helter Skelter (b-side, Don't Want to Know...)
03. Celebrated Summer [Live Acoustic] (b-side, Sorry Somehow)
04. Flexible Flier [Live Acoustic] (b-side, Sorry Somehow)
05. Fattie
06. Everytime (b-side, Could You Be the One?)
07. Gotta Lotta (b-side, Ice Cold Ice)
08. Christmas Greetings (We Wish You A Merry Christmas) (WB promo cassette)