No bridge too far...

From 2009. Rich, deftly crafted indie rock with melodic smarts for miles, and a keen singer/songwriter flair.

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Steppin' Razor - Studio Junkies (1982, QL)

This was a nice find, even if it isn't particularly rare.  My understanding is that at the time of this recording Steppin' Razor were a Florida duo consisting of Mike Rogers and Kenny Lyon. You'd be forgiven if you mistook their moniker as Studio Junkies given how the album jacket graphics are portrayed, but anyway. You can file this one loosely under 'new wave,' although the lead-off number, "Follow the Leader" is a delectably catchy slice of ska-pop with an indelible staccato syncopation. There's precious little more of where this came from at least as Studio Junkies is concerned, but more regarding that after the jump. The remainder of the album traverses more traditional terrain, with whirring keyboards being a dominant factor yet not overpowering. Some of the comparatively introspective pieces ("Another Way to Live") never quite manage to climax, and further along, "I Really Wanna Dance With You" is just too vacant for my tastes. Steppin' Razor redeem themselves on the livelier "Ready to Break," while "Yellow Lights" dips back into the white-boy Rasta bag 'o tricks, but at five minutes is too lengthy for it's own good.

Shortly after Studio Junkies was issued, the duo of Rogers/Lyon made a break for L.A., teamed up with a rhythm section and rechristened themselves Steppin' Lazer. They took and ran with the ska-bent of the aforementioned "Follow the Leader," and cooked up one hell of an ep, Plain Wrap in '83, which included a rerecording of that song and another Junkies number, "Seeing What I Ain't Got." Per a blurb I read on YouTube, frontman Rogers has sadly passed on.

01. Follow the Leader
02. Seein' What I ain't Got
03. Another Pretty Face
04. You Don't Approve of Me
05. Another Way to Live
06. I Can't Afford it
07. I Really Wanna Dance with You
08. Ready to Break
09. Yellow Lights
10. Für Elise

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She had a full pack of smokes, I had cash from my folks...

From 1995. Even the "weakest" link in their catalog of stellar albums was superior to their competition's greatest work.

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Red Rain Coat - s/t (1990, Blue In)

Sometimes when I receive a request for a band I'm wholly unfamiliar with it can lead down a pretty rewarding rabbit hole.  Much as I dig the new find, sadly, after doing what little research I could, I wasn't able to find out many pertinent details regarding the long defunct Red Rain Coat, presumably an indie quartet that possibly called Switzerland home. In terms of what imbued their music however RRC's collective gaze seemed to be fixed on Ireland, particularly taking a page or two from the likes of Power of Dreams, Cactus World News, and early(ish) U2. For their debut LP they decided to give fans and the world at large nearly two albums worth of material, and judging from just an initial, listen I'm grateful they were so generous. Preceding the LP was a 1987 single that spoke even more relevantly to their post-punk bona fides, the video of which you can view here. Enjoy.

01. Facade
02. Mother
03. Lokomotion
04. Running Round
05. Avalanche
06. She Likes Rain
07. Runes 2
08. Small Place
09. Footsteps
10. Wonderland
11. Spaghetti
12. Look For Somebody Else
13. Love or Hate
14. Wasteland
15. Past
16. Sometimes
17. Love Will Break My Mind
18. Runes 2

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Breck & Scott - Dream You Away + The Orbits (rec. 1976-88)

The tale of fellow Wisconsinites Breck Burns and Scott Krueger began when the two met in the early '70s as teenagers, but the world (or at least the country...or maybe just the state) at large didn't pull them up on radar until their first serious band, The Orbits made inroads in the power-pop circuit via their brilliant 1980 7" "Make the Rules," which I'll get to a bit later. Almost simultaneous to The Orbits, the duo alongside Scott's girlfriend Jill Kossoris would become part and parcel of one of Milwaukee's most renown unsigned bands, the Shivvers.  The Shivvers. and their incendiary 45, "Teenline" (another crucial 45 blast from '80) were quite literally a story and phenomenon unto themselves. 

The real meat and potatoes of this post concerns Breck and Scott's work post-Orbits/Shivvers, which was well hidden until the Hyped to Death folks did more of their crucial excavation efforts, yielding this cd-r album in the mid '00s. Still residing in WI throughout most of the '80s the duo in question had no good excuse not to continue collaborating, even if they kept their recordings to themselves, which they did for almost a couple of decades. Per the liner notes, they never bothered to field tapes to labels, and from what I've been able to glean never played out. The high strung, punky power-pop of the Orbits and Shivvers was largely phased out by the mid '80s when Breck & Scott's commenced recording sessions semi-informally in their spare time. With a more mature and seasoned acumen in hand, and best of all, no record label or management hovering over their shoulders, our protagonists weren't informed by any pretensions or even the prevailing trends of the era. Oddly enough, with a lack of supervision (so to speak) the boys sounded doubly more disciplined on Dream You Away's dozen or so tracks, most of which exude surprisingly clean and measured tones, without sapping any of the songs' natural energy.  The overall effect isn't quite as charming as say, Big Star or Velvet Crush, but not entirely removed thereof either.  A more accurate comparison might be Butch Vig's pre-stardom outfit, Fire Town. The strummy "Without a Sound," the gritty and muscular "Day Into Night" not to mention the wistful ballad "Let Me Know" are all immaculate keepers...and there's more gold where that came from. 

Dream You Away thoughtfully, and for that matter, crucially appends The Orbits aforementioned lone single, two frenetic power pop bangers, laced with the same mid-fidelity aptitude that worked wonders for the Shoes on their contemporary platter Black Vinyl Shoes, and maybe to a less obvious extent what the Plimsouls were up to around the same juncture. If you're hungry for more than just a pair of two-minute Orbits tunes (and who wouldn't be) four unreleased demos are graciously tacked on.

Breck and Scott
01. Dream You Away
02. On My Roof
03. Look What You've Done to Me
04. You're in Love
05. She Won't Change
06. Alone
07. Without a Sound
08. Frank Lloyd Wright
09. Day Into Night
10. Pine Circle
11. Here and Now
12. Let Me Know
13. Day Into Night (live)

The Orbits
14. Phenomenal World
15. Make the Rules
16. Having Fun
17. Smart Suit, Shirt &Tie
18. Until the Word Gets Out
19. The Waiting Game

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She had to take it to the majors, couldn't keep it on the down low.

From 2009. I make no apologies if I already shared this LP a few years ago. I've had so many songs from it lodged in my head over the past few weeks it almost feels like an omen compelling me to put this out there. As a bonus, I'm including a companion ep to the album, which I'm pretty sure I haven't given you already. Sorry I didn't post anything over the past week. I should be remedying that tomorrow. 

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I always needed a plan to dislocate.

Quality power pop coupled with rich Britpop resonance from 2008.

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Otto No 7" (1987, Permanent Rave)

Two young men, one young woman. What could possibly go wrong?  Sounds like the setup to some teenage comedy flick, right?  Guess again. It's a cold case weekend here on Wilfully Obscure, and what better way to spend it than with a coed wave trio dubbed Otto No?  Ostensibly hailing from New Jersey, this threesome manage to sidestep synths but boast virtually none of the cool cache of say, Let's Active or Pylon. To the contrary, Otto No strike me as Top-40 hopefuls on a razor thin budget, with Karla Crowley managing to salvage the day with a Bangles-esque chorus hook propelling "Getting Married," wherein she readily admits the couple in question "don't know each other very well." Okay, so that happened I guess, leaving one to wonder how that situation played out. As for the flip, "Looking Through Your Eyes," Joe Crowley seizes the mic, but not quite the anthem-atic grasp he seems to be striving for.  

A. Getting Married
B. Looking Through Your Eyes

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Sextet - s/t ep (1986, National Trust)

As the band's name suggests, Sextet were a six-piece, but aside from the music I can't tell you much of anything else. For synth-popsters they had some decidedly more aggressive label-mates, including but not limited to the Vandals, Fang and M.I.A. For what it's worth, this half-dozen posse didn't see to be particularly tainted by superficial '80s production techniques and better yet, they had a decent handful of tunes going for them. The Thompson Twins and Erasure Sextet were definitely not, rather you'd swear this crew was occasionally skewing more towards Aztec Camera and the Armoury Show.  I don't have much more to opine on this one, but if anyone wishes to spill some more pertinent details feel free to comment away.  Btw, the sixth track, a remix of "Plants and Animals" is unlisted, and unfortunately may have a skip around the 21-second mark.

01. I Lie in Wait
02. Captuered
03. Side By Side
04. Tight
05. Plants and Animals
06. Plants and Animals (remix)

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Try to cover it over...now it's over my head.

From 1993. Everyone seems to celebrate this band's 1980s output. So far as I'm concerned they really excelled a decade later. Recommended if you have a thing for Husker Du or Overwhelming Colorfast. 

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Perfect Vision - Tongues Out mLP (1986, Backs)

The Perfect Vision ep I shared last year seemed to illicit a positive reaction, so here's another feast for your retinas, if not your eardrums. There isn't an abundance of difference between the two records. This Cambridge, England flock were still not exactly a radio-friendly fit by the time they got around to sticking their Tongues Out, so to speak. Still, Perfect Vision sport a wry accessibility at times, whether they were conscious of it or not thanks to no small amount of rhythmical agility.  The post-punk undercurrents buttressing so much of 1984's Broken Crown ep are evident on Tongues, "Damnation," but stylistically it's clear this quartet were content to have their fingers in a myriad of pies.  From what I can tell these fellows doggedly stuck to indie labels to disseminate their recordings, and while they would have probably gone further had they been taken under the wing of say, Rupert Hine, I'm grateful they prioritized keeping their credibility intact. 

01. Hole in the Soul
02. Scratch & Howl
03. Engines
04. Kick
05. Impossible Blue
06. Damnation
07. ...Like Engines

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I'm sleeping on top of the world.

From 1997.

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Mick & the Maelstroms - Privates (1989, Rivet)

On what could be their lone LP, Mick & Co. don't stir up a Maelstrom, or even much cacophonous noise, but ironically enough, simply a batch of respectable pop rockers.  While they didn't necessarily blow up college radio playlists, the New York-area trio in question hardly blended in with the AOR types of their era either.  Even if Mick & the Maelstroms weren't intent on seizing the sound of anyone in particular they did boast a modicum or two of appeal amidst the boppy power-pop of the title track, plus the bittersweet "Not So Long Ago" and "Strange Things Start to Happen," a sturdy, melodic bar rocker. "Sous Quelle Etoile Suis-Je Ne?" is a cover, but I couldn't tell you squat about the original version.

01. Privates
02. Difficult
03. Levitation
04. When I Get My Car
05. Not So Long Ago
06. Strange Things Start to Happen
07. In the Bath
08. Leave Her Alone
09. Sous Quelle Etoile Suis-Je Ne?
10. Nothing to Fear 

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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.

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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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