Cassette - Minnow Swimmers ep (2006)

With a name like Cassette this has to be lo-fi bedroom pop...right?  Think again. This veritably un-searchable indie rock quantity, evidently based in Austin, Tejas, exuded far more studio finesse than I expected going into this one, and to everyone's benefit this ep's half a dozen tunes were worth laboring over. Sure, Cassette sport tuneful bona fides, but more discernibly there's a real technical proficiency at play here, recalling this quartet's inspirational antecedents No Knife, The Jealous Sound, and even Clairty-era Jimmy Eat World.  Moreover, they pull off mildly downcast and contemplative motifs without resorting to anything too heavy handed or maudlin enough to dodge most, if any, dreaded "emo" accusations.  This is one blind purchase that turned out to be an unexpected delight.

01. Oak & Tunnel
02. New Southern Economy
03. The Anchor
04. Real Live Animals
05. Waking World
06. Every Last Tall Building

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Got us going faster than we've ever gone before.

The bonus disc and only the bonus disc of the 2011 expanded edition of this 1998 masterpiece.

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

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Unaccounted IV ep (1984)

There's not much info, if any to be had on this presumably North Carolina based quartet, whose self-released ep may be their lone surviving artifact. Unaccounted IV's strain of power pop is not so much of three-chord variety, rather a bit more highbrow a la The Motors. There are other subtle Brit Invasion maneuvers baked into the band's proverbial cake, the Zombies among them. What these guys really strive for (and frankly readily achieve) is their penchant for remarkably adept harmonies regardless of how fevered their tunes are executed. I'm mighty impressed. 

01. Room For Three
02. Girl on a String
03. You're Always Alone
04. The Incredible Shrinking Mind
05. Room for Three (Dance Remix)

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Did you ever see something so beautiful, you had to look away?

The (almost) complete discography from a bygone D.C. area band that ran in the same circles as Fugazi and Soul Side...yet sonically gravitated much closer to Van Halen at times. I'll be damned if these guys didn't turn this far-fetched combination into a winning formula.

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

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V/A - WXYC Demolisten Vol. 2 (1991)

This one was scarce enough not to earn a page on Discogs, but whatever.  Coincidentally or not, this cassette compilation was released in tandem with the Chapel Hill, NC indie scene threatening to go national, but truth be told, only a portion of WXYC Demolisten 2's roster was from said college town...but not all that's presented here is traditional indie rock. Casting a wider net than one might guess WXYC's dandy little reel goes so far as to represent world music and metal. Nonetheless, the brunt of what's here largely caters to the Wilfully Obscure set with fine contributions from Dillon Fence, Eight or Nine Feet and Willard.  

I'd be remiss if I didn't note that the purpose of Demolisten is/was to expose fresh and/or unsigned talent, which this tape capably does. By the time this installment in the series rolled out of the tape factory, Superchunk were more or less off to the races, so to speak, but as is the case with any given concert it helps to have a proven headliner.  The inclusion of an acoustic and/or demo version of one of their crucial, early single sides, "Cool" is an easy highlight, though I believe it also wound up on the Aussie Self Mutilation comp from around the same era.  Satellite Boyfriend, a band whom I've intended to raise some awareness of (and likely will in the near future) make an appearance, and tar heel, ska-punk favorites the Pressure Boys close things out with a rendition of "Radar Love."

01. Dillon Fence - Daylight
02. Pure - Senseless
03. Eight or Nine Feet - No Title
04. Mbonda Afrika - Mbele Mbele
05. Johnny Quest - Speed is All You Need
06. Satellite Boyfriend - Break Me Down
07. Superchunk - Cool
08. Willard - As Beautiful
09. The Heydays - Lonesome Jake
10. Annabel Lee - Soul Child
11. Pressure Boys - Radar Love

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Cool enough to cool you down, like a summer vacation...

A compendium of rarities, unreleased tracks, b-sides and other assorted nonsense (literally).

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

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Itensive Care - Assault Down Memory Lane (1989, Fresh Sounds)

Intensive Care were North Carolina denizens yet even though they were a product of the tar heel state in the mid to late '80s, I'm not so sure if they were part and parcel of the so called "Comboland" scene, but no matter. Assault Down Memory Lane sounds like a befitting title for say, a Too Much Joy record, and certainly enough these guys were something of a cheeky bunch. Still, I/C care weren't ones to let a little humor hijack a song so much as enhance it. They weren't hopping on any metaphorical bandwagons either, bearing a rollicking modus operandi featuring an undercurrent of whirring snyths that by and large take a backseat to your usual indie guitar-rock splay. The high-strung "Perfect American" is a punky standout that's virtually worth the price of admission alone, but elsewhere Assault is chockablock with charms of varying tempos and persuasions. If Intensive Care don't bowl you over on first listen, give this one a few subsequent spins, because it's worth the investment. 

01. Assault Down Memory Lane
02. Stirring Up Trouble
03. Song to the FBI
04. Marijuana Past
05. Perfect American
06. Tourist Attraction
07. Middle-aged Cynic
08. Girl Scout Berret
09. Burn it Down
10. When a Lunatic Loves You
11. The Real You
12. All in a Day's Work
13. True Seeker

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You can cry now, or you can cry later…

Last week we received some difficult news that half of the songwriting team of this band passed away. They never made any inroads with the mainstream, but their catalog (predominantly recorded in the '80s) speaks for itself.  This compilation makes the an exceptional case for that.

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

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The Donner Party - UC Davis Coffee House, Davis, CA 4-7-89

Judging by the relative popularity of the Donner Party's two CD anthology I shared almost ten years (and the number of requests I've garnered over that span of time to refresh the download links) I thought it might make sense to post this bootleg seeing as there are few, if any, D/P live shows in circulation. For the uninitiated, San Fran trio in question played whimsical, not to mention sonically humble pop with a bevy of themes often encompassing wives tales, ironically morbid scenarios, character vignettes, and several benign, offhand references to Satan.  Drummer Melanie Clarin would occasionally sing lead vocals and had a penchant for harmonizing with frontman Sam Coones. Post-Donner Party, Coones would achieve some renown via the considerably more visible Quasi in the '90s.

The set presented here is an audience recording of a gig at a college coffee house in the university town of Davis, CA. While you'll encounter selections from D/P's two self-titled records that surfaced in 1987 & '88 there's also an emphasis on then-unreleased material that would have comprised the band's third album. It would be another eleven years for the world at large to finally hear these shelved songs (specifically in studio from) when they were finally presented as part of the aforementioned anthology. This set is a nice companion piece to the regular albums, but it may not be the most ideal introduction to the band. Enjoy (or not)

01 Godlike Porpoise Head of Blue-Eyed Mary
02 Sickness
03 Spiders
04 The Ghost
05 Harold Payne
06 Everyone is a Girl
07 Your Mother
08 Nutty Booty
09 Friendly
10 Kore Cosmu
11 Unfriendly
12 Trepanned
13 The Nixie
14 Birthday Suit
15 Treepig
16 King Chico
17 Irene Goodnight (encore)

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Braille Closet - Voice of Age ep (1988, Fountainhead)

Yet another salvo that would mesh just fine thank you very much with the scores, if not hundreds of collegiate indie rock troupes I've peddled on these pages for as long as I have. Braille Closet were denizens of Orlando, FL, a town which boasted more musical talent than I would've suspected.  The Voice of Age ep preceded a pair of albums and thus far is all that I've heard from them, but to my sensibilities they made a near-flawless first impression.  Among the six tunes here, B/C cook up quintessential left-of-the-dial fare with a strong absorption of then-contemporary Anglophile guitar pop, alongside a sharp awareness of domestic purveyors of the form (specifically R.E.M.). Think intelligent, insightful lyrics plied with lean and clean jangly leads, and you'll have a pretty solid handle of what this four-piece have in store. Dare I say Voice of Age is not dissimilar to what the Ocean Blue would unfurl in a couple of years?  Enjoy.

01. Jane I Sympathize
02. Turn and Face the Strange
03. Quiet Place
04. Seven Times Better
05. Midnight Sun
06. Tomorrow Russo

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You burn like you're bouncing cigarettes on the road

A debut from 2005.  England's answer to Interpol?  Guess I'm not feeling to adventurous this week.  Hope you'll enjoy nonetheless.

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

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Parts Found In Sea – Seat Of The Writing Man ep (1984, Checkmate)

This is the second record I've shared by Ontario quartet, but unlike '87s Every Soul's House, Seat of the Writing man isn't a live document.  Bearing a collegiate indie rock aptitude Parts Found in Sea seem to chart in the same vicinity as a number of bands on the soon-to be emerging Homestead Records (think Nice Strong Arm, Salem 66). There's a cool subterranean charm at play here and Parts play the artful without being artsy shtick to convincing effect. Though lacking immediacy Seat of the Writing Man is an acquired taste that's worth acquiring. 

01. Seat Of The Writing Man
02. Look Through Water
03. Satellite
04. Ghost Train
05. Bird Song
06. Body Sends Us

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Reason lost you out at sea...

From 2014. We might never have it as good from this band again.

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

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Gels! - Quality Time (1991, Tension)

I went into this one a bit blind, but given it's $6 price tag I can't really complain, considering Quality Time has a few redeeming moments.  Gels!  Had no idea who in the hell this band was when I eyed their record at In Your Ear in Boston (sadly soon to shutter, if not already).  All signs point to them as being denizens of San Fran, with a handwritten address (no less) on the back cover that I partially Photoshopped out to assure no one's privacy was violated. And speaking of the rear sleeve, I took an educated guess that these guys might be down with the Descendents, Dino. Jr, or SST in general. I was relatively far off the mark but not completely.  Instead, Gels! seemed to be painstakingly taking cues from early Soul Asylum. Thoroughly loose and rambunctious, albeit not quite punk, plied to bumpkin tendencies a la Meat Puppets minus a healthy quotient of the charm. The better tunes here, "Sitting Still," "Quaker" and perhaps another nugget or two would have composed a pretty dandy ep, but Quality Time just doesn't consistently skew to the tenant of it's title. Gels! homage to Pirner and Co. is obvious to the point of being plagiaristic, however if you dig albums like Made to Be Broken as much as I do, the aforementioned tracks are actually something of a treat. The trio's rendering of the country standard "Good Time Charlie" plays the record out on an irreverent note.  Perhaps a bit too green for a full length when this initially dropped in '91, it would've been intriguing to hear what development they might have made on a follow LP, but for better or worse this disc was the first and final word on Gels.

01. Sitting Still
02. Lovejoy
03. Pinto
04. Flame On
05. Broth
06. mistRBig
07. Quaker
08. Domtar
09. The Shit
10. Good Time Charlie  

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Go ahead and do it, I don’t care anymore...

A two-fer this week from 1990-91. This band's debut album and a compilation of singles that barely preceded it. 

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

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Beer on the Penguin - Hold On (1987, Renaissance)

Another record not actually part and parcel of my collection, but one eternally grateful to have files of thanks to the time and generosity of whomever ripped it. Despite such a unique moniker, little is written about this Michigan quartet.  Beer on the Penguin skewed closer to the left end of the dial but were deft enough to compete on a mainstream level, given the opportunity. I'm honing in on nodes of everyone from Big Country to Crowded House, and the ringing guitar lines smack of Cactus World News, a delightful thing in my book. Though Beer on the Penguin may be a dandy name to you and I it may have not served these fellows well. Anyway, really dug what I heard here and hope you will as well.

01. Looking For You
02. Hold On
03. Pictures
04. Always Seems the Same
05. Better Days
06. Time For Tears
07. She

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Popdefect - Ode to Billie Joe ep (1987, Heart Murmur)

On the strength of an earlier ep, 1983's Playing For Time, I was compelled to investigate this L.A. three-piece further, for a relatively modest financial investment anyway. Though it strikes me as being something of a novelty the apparent "draw" here is a cover of Bobbie Gentry's fatality ballad, "Ode to Billie Joe."  Though the execution of said song is more than satisfactory thanks in part to some irresistibly jangly fretboard runs, it's hard to see how a rendition of such an aging chestnut could woo ears of '80s hipsters, but whatever.  This 10"'s two mildly sardonic flip-sides are more in keeping with what the garage-leaning Popdefect are about, sort of a low-rent  Meat Puppets peppered with glints of early Replacements. Perhaps nothing here could be deemed "crucial" in the canon of vintage indie rock, yet I was still impressed with what I heard to usher these songs into the digital realm.   

A. Ode to Billie Joe
B1. Devil in My Zip Code
B2. Futility Train

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No clue.

Early archival recordings from a veritable Memphis supergroup. 

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

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Eagertones - s/t mLP (1987)

If you like (slightly) spiky '80s power pop sans new wave or snythy frills Seattle's Eagertones fit that bill to a proverbial "T." Roughly in the same vein as the Romantics, Paul Collins Beat, and for the few of that might remember them Philly's A's, these fellas kept the formula pretty simple, but plenty fun, injecting an all important quotient of irony to liven up the proceedings. Probably nothing you haven't encountered before, but standout numbers including "We're Only Kids" and "Shanghai Shanghai'd" make this mini-LP a treat. There's not much out there by the 'tones save for a few songs on hard to come by locally released compilations, that I unfortunately am not fortunate enough to own. By the way, there's a slight jump towards the beginning of "Henry VIII" that at time I'm unable to remedy. I'll offer an updated version, perhaps at a later date.

01. It's Not the Way
02. We're Only Kids
03. Love Song 21
04. Henry VIII
05. Ink & Needle Tattoo
06. Shanghai Shanghai'd
07. Rock Rock (This Must be the Stone Age)

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She weaves with every thought, every thought I never had.

A debut mini-album from 1989, later expanded to a full-length.

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

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Beetkeepers - s/t (1988, No Other)

I haven't ventured many forays into "folk pop," even of the collegiate variety which Columbus, OH long defunct Beetkeepers could rightfully be housed under.  This trio operated above the fray in this often tricky realm, not overdoing it with No Depression seasoning, rather skewing more in the vicinity of R.E.M.'s Reckoning, albeit more economically with sparer sonic heft than Michael Stipe & Co. Frontman/mouthpiece James Olsen was either blessed or cursed (take your pick) with a set of pipes that approximated James Taylor and perhaps less-so Paul Simon, but regardless of your opinion of said icons, this circumstance fortunately doesn't blunt the impact of anything on Beetkeepers. Olsen's prose is deft, and refreshingly a cut above average, managing not to resemble his combo's left-of-the-dial contemporaries, due largely in part to the group's spartan, folky tenor. Several Beetkeepers songs have been disseminated on YouTube if you wish to partake in a sample before diving into the LP in general. 

01. For All Parts East
02. Don't Walk Alone
03. Since He's Been Gone
04. In the Blazes
05. Young One
06. Ghost House
07. Holiday Time
08. National Rose
09. Written in the Dark
10. Talking in Bed
11. What My Childhood Did to Me
12. True Ways

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Maybe there's a river under this one...

From 2012. Almost as enticing as a new Sonic Youth album.  

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

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Green On Red - Gas Food and Lodging demos (1984)

Unfortunately it's been another week of nil activity and shirked responsibilities on my part, but for what it's worth more than complacency was to blame for yet another drought-ful seven days. In fact I didn't have time to digitize any more wax for you, so it's another cut and paste job for you, culled from my ever-expanding archive of torrent downloads.  

Green On Red. To my ears not always the most representative of the Paisley bunch, but who the heck said they were even trying to fit in?  After two self-titled EPs (well, maybe the second qualifying as a mini-LP) which found the band functioning at their most artful and psych-tinged apex, their 1983 long-player Gravity Talks tightened their competence and sonic prowess, finding them transitioning to new environs. That transition to an often saucy melange of edgy guitar rock and plenty of Americana seasoning congealed two years later on 1985's Gas Food and Lodging, often regarded as the quintessential feather in their cap. There are far greater GoR authorities than I, so I'm tempted to wrap my write-up here. I'm able to offer this one to you in your choice of MP3 or FLAC. Hope you enjoy.

01. Gas Food Lodging
02. 16 Ways
03. Old Black River
04. Hair of the Dog
05. This I Know
06. Sea of Cortez (end cuts)

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During therapy nightmares visit me. Flying nails attack the soles of my feet...

From 1996. Bubblegum the punk.

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

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Mables - s/t cassette (1993, Elephant Six)

As soon as I caught wind of the Apples in Stereo circa the mid-90s I was enamored instantly. Between stellar albums like Fun Trick Noisemaker and Tone Soul Evolution and an incredible bevy of early eps and singles (collected on 1996's Science Faire) I was all but wed to the retro-fitted pop splendor of Denver's finest export of the decade. The co-ed, Robert Schneider-led troupe in question toured frequently, and were a prolific bunch at that pumping out a new album or single almost annually. Even in a year that saw the release of the aforementioned Tone Soul Evolution, Apples fans were endowed with another treat, a full length record, Pyramid Landing and Other Favorites, by Schneider's solo spinoff project, Marbles, or so it seemed like a spinoff anyway.

Turns out, Marbles started simultaneous to the Apples themselves - and Pyramid Landing was only their second release. In 1993, a self-titled Marbles cassette was issued on the then nascent Elephant 6 label, presumably in exceedingly limited quantities. Since it was released prior to the World Wide Web really taking root, few knew of Marbles existence, and while it eventually took on the prominence of a collector's item it wasn't representative of what Schneider (and Co.) would have to share in the ensuing years.  With the world's newfound adoption of the Apples circa the Clinton-era, it was no secret that Schneider was a relatively profound acolyte of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys. This is evident on this often scattershot and mercurial tape, with the overall effect being less Smile, and considerably more Smiley Smile. A bevy of lo-fi, bedroom frivolities dominate these ten tunes mingled with an assortment of found sounds and a slyly avant subtext.  The actual "songs" seem to get lost in the ether sometimes, bearing only a fraction of the trademark hooks Schneider would soon make his calling card. Marbles is interesting and occasionally amusing, but hardly essential. Nonetheless, it exists, and I'm sharing it here. As for Marbles' much more recommendable Pyramid Landing collection that album features re-recordings of several songs on that tape, albeit in more melodic and presentable guise. 

I don't have an original copy of this scarce cassette, so thanks to whomever was responsible for digitizing it.

01. Laughing
02. Kite
03. Swimming
04. Head
05. Bottom of the sea
06. Pyramid Laughing
07. Death My Bride
08. Invisible
09. Inverse Gazebo
10. Play Fair

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