Playground - Bent, Lost or Broken (1994, Habit)

Though I have little to no background info on the Davis, CA based Playground, this album is nonetheless a more than noteworthy footnote in Cali punk-pop history.  Now that I think about it, there was mention of them in a blog entry from last year, namely the Misfit Heartbeat double 7" compilation they contributed to, circa the early/mid-90s.  Playground's formula was linear and lean roaring guitar rock, set to a reliable mid-tempo pace.  Aficionados of the Boston's Moving Targets will discover some more than striking similarities on Bent, Lost or Broken, but given Playground's locale of a modest town in northern California, something a little more obvious likely rubbed off on them, say like Husker Du or Sugar.  There's definitely some Mould-ian sensibilities running through these eleven tracks, but nothing too overt to signal any wholesale derivativeness.  Playground had at least two singles that I know of, which will likely be the subject of a forthcoming post.  Until then, enjoy (or not). 

01. Exhaust
02. Paradise Lost
03. Madrone
04. When Everything is Said and Done
05. Something Has to Give
06. Gravity
07. Just Once
08. Miles Away
09. Drift
10. Maim
11. A Game

Now on Bandcamp with a bunch of other releases.

Playground - pair 'o singles (1993-94)

This is a follow up to my entry from about a month ago for Playground's Bent, Lost or Broken album.  A long put-to-pasture trio from the college town of Davis, CA, Playground were prodigiously inspired by Husker Du and Sugar, and as far as I'm concerned adopted a similar tact to Overwhelming Colorfast, Big Drill Car, and the Moving Targets as well.  In a phrase, their music was humble yet poignantly riveting at the same time.  Whether you grabbed the Bent, Lost or Broken CD or not, lay your ears on these four tracks, all culled from two flawless 45s.  So great.  For shame there are so few bands of Playground's caliber around today.  If anyone in the band is scrolling over these pithy words, by all means post a comment!

01. Slide

02. When Everything is Said and Done

03. If You Were Me

04. Anything

1 & 2 from Take a Day Records 7" (1993)
3 & 4 from Habit Records/Pop Kids Records 7" (1994)

Hear

Playground - Last Stop ep (1995)

Recently, one of our readers was kind enough to share a disk by a group I featured on here circa 2010, Davis, CA's Playground.  At the time, when I posted their Bent, Lost or Broken cd and a pair of stellar 45's I thought those recordings comprised the sum total of their output.  I was pleasantly surprised not more than two weeks ago when said reader provided a download link to a 1995 ep (a 7" I believe) that I was none the wiser of theretofore - and I'm sharing it with you today.

Outside of their renown Cali college town, I think the only exposure the outside world had to Playground was via reviews and/or ads in Maximum Rock n Roll during the mid '90s.  Their utter dearth of visibility was a travesty, because this trio's crunchy, gratifying stripe of riff-pop could have really filled the vacancy left by the likes of Husker Du and the Moving Targets.  Not unlike San Fran contemporaries Overwhelming Colorfast, these guys really filled a certain sweet spot.  Amazingly, the five-cut Last Stop even outdoes some of their aforementioned earlier efforts, if not in terms of aggressiveness surely the melodious smarts they excelled at from the get go.  Really glorious stuff here.  A big round of applause to whomever (I don't recall seeing your name in the comments) put this file together for us. Check out the links above for access to the remainder of the Playground songbook.  I think a proper reissue is in order!

01. Fear
02. Miles Away
03. Can't Tell Me Anything
04. How Long
05. Ten Tons

Hear

V/A - Misfit Heartbeat 2X7" (199?, Take A Day/Iteration)

Why Misfit Heartbeat? Because we're all misfits at heart. This was a double 7" compilation that came out in either 1993 or '94, as a split release between two San Fran area labels, Take a Day and Iteration. It functions as an utterly concise, as well as convincing snapshot of California's indie-punk scene of the era, starring Pinhead Gunpowder (who's lineup included Billie Joe of Green Day renown, and Crimpshrine's Aaron Cometbus) as the most established and recognizable participants here. Their contribution, "I Wanna" also turned up on their crucial Jump Salty singles compilation (incidentally, no home should be without this record).

Davis, CA's finest sons, Playground offer up a stunning slice of melodicore punk, "Brighter Days," a la Moving Targets. More by them to come on Wilfully Obscure. Quickly following this up are the Wynona Riders with their spin on the Kim Wilde classic "Kids in America." This is a different version than that which appeared on the Wynona's J.D. Salinger LP (also an album everyone needs). Other highlights include aggro pop-punks Rhythm Collision, the quasi-riot grrrl assault of Bitchcraft, and the strangely dynamic angst of Pot Valiant.

 

01. Pinhead Gunpowder - I Wanna

02. Playground - Brighter Days

03. Wynona Riders - Kids in America

04. Jerrymite - Brother

05. Delightful Little Nothings - Like-minded Soul

06. Pot Valiant - Long Dark

07. Rhythm Collision - How Do You Know

08. Bitchcraft - I Never Faked It

 

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Salem 66 - 1983-1987, Your Soul is Mine, Fork it Over (1987, Homestead)

It was the early '90s when I happened upon Salem 66's Frequency and Urgency album in a dollar cassette rack at Camelot Records.  Impressed by their Homestead Records pedigree (and an endearing album title) I thought, how could I go wrong?  After all, they shared the same hallowed imprint as Naked Raygun, Big Black and Squirrel Bait.  Well, when tape met tape deck, I was unmoved, due in large part to my general indifference at the time with female singers, of which Salem boasted two, Judy Grunwald and Beth Kaplan. 

Fast forward roughly twenty years to 2011, which is when I had the opportunity to reevaluate Salem 66 at a price I couldn't refuse - free.  Your Soul is Mine, Fork It Over is a summation of the band's first four years of operation, and it proved to be a more impressive introduction than my random tape grab of Frequency..., when at that time what I was really hankering for was the next Dinosaur Jr. or Nirvana.  For whatever the reason it took a good two decades of left-of-the-dial schooling for me to truly appreciate Grunwald and Kaplan's sweet, clangy fretboard runs and lovingly awkward vocal interplay.  Blending the Feelies subtle reverb with a more modest variation on REM's early aesthetic, Salem 66 weren't innovators, but luckily the worst I can say about these Massachusetts denizens was that their schtick tended to be too unidimensional for their own good.  Culling together eighteen songs from their first ep, a single ("Across the Sea") and a generous swath of A Ripping Spin and the aforementioned Frequency LPs, the long out of print Your Soul is Mine... is your only ticket for hearing these tracks in a digital, surface noise-free realm.  The brunt of this hardly knocks me dead, but Salem 66 deserved far more than the cursory listen I accorded them before I wised up.

01. Sleep on Flowers

02. Pony Song

03. Lemon Rind

04. Across the Sea

05. Playground

06. Ancient Eyes

07. Chinchilla

08. The Well

09. Postcard

10. Holiday

11. Bad News

12. Grunezella Daze

13. Wanderlust

14. Broken Bottles

15. People Express

16. Blue

17. Desk Clerk

18. Widow's Walk

Hear

The Gladstones - Jeremy (1990, Tall)

What little has been spoken of Lincoln, NE's Gladstones is the band's connection to local contemporaries, For Against. Initially dubbed Playground, when the Gladstones were put to pasture in the early '90s, guitarist Stephen Hinrichs eventually migrated to For Against, joining Jeffery Runnings and Co. for four of the groups most effortlessly pristine albums, Aperture (1993), Mason's California Lunchroom (1995), Shelf Life (1997) and Coalesced (2002). Hinrichs' sublimely chiming chords that utterly defined those flawless records were already in fine form during his Gladstones tenure, as evidenced wherever you queue the needle on Jeremy, their lone album. A tad less austere than For Against, the Gladstones nevertheless indulged their flair for atmospheric indie pop and heightened melodic structures. "Mary I," "Top of the World" and "Hurting In," are quite frankly far beyond excellent, making Jeremy every bit as recommendable as the aforementioned For Against albums I just rattled off. This is an absolutely stunning find, but you'd hardly go away with that opinion if you read Trouser Press' assessment of the album before hearing it for yourself:

This Nebraska quartet offers the exact elements that people who used the term "college rock" as a pejorative by the mid-to-late-'80s were thinking of: jangly, arpeggiated guitar lines lifted directly from Murmur, a hint of Morrissey in the vocals, a toothless rhythm section. The Gladstones are painfully earnest even at their most obtuse, and their material sounds like songs the Connells threw away because they weren't catchy enough. They occasionally come up with a neat atmospheric bit, like the vocal harmonies on "Garden," but the material is so slight that it absolutely disappears when the tone arm moves back to the rest position. The fact that they were peddling this long-since-clichéd sound as late as 1990 is probably at the top of the fairly long list of reasons they were ignored.

 

An amusing argument I suppose, but an inaccurate and delusionary one at best. I think you'll agree on first listen, there's no reason not to love the Gladstones. Bon appetit.

01. Garden

02. Oludvai

03. Energy

04. Top of the World

05. Ten Times a Minute

06. Mary I

07. Hurting In

08. Gallery Key

09. Horns of a Dilemma

Hear

Restored links.

Here you go.  More than thirty files rejuvenated and revived, based on your requests and my whims.  Select the artist to be taken to the original entry and/or the title to the direct download link.

Diodes - Survivors
Spoon - b-sides
Mysteries of Life - Going Through the Motions 7"
Breathers - Rain Down ep
Serious Young Insects - Housebreaking
Times Beach - Love and Politics
Screaming Broccoli - s/t LP
Senseless Things - Empire of the Senseless
For Squirrels - Baypath Rd. and 1993 demo
Playground - singles
VA - Misfit Heartbeat ep
Honest Injun - The Rosenthal Effect
Chris Sievey - Big Record
White Sisters - tape
No Knife - singles
The Texas Instruments - Crammed Into Infinity
Ropers/Tribbles - split 7"
The Hang-Ups/Vertigo - split 7"
The Hang-Ups - Top of Morning 7"
Misstakes - National Passtime
Squalls - Rebel Shoes
Cinnamon Imperials - I Hope No One Finds Out 7" ep
Finger - singles collection
Wool - singles collection
Ben Grim - retro
High Speed Scene - s/t ep MP3 or FLAC
Parallel 5th - s/t ep
Mockers - Culprit and the King
Other Bright Colors - Endlessly Rocks the Cradle
Salem 66 - Your Soul is Mine...
Sheer Thursday - Expecting the Grass

Repaired links.

Thirty links or so revived from the dead.  Some of these were requests, others were items that may have been neglected or passed over when I initially posted them.  As usual, click on the artist to refer back to the original entry, while the titles will steer you directly to the download link.

Straitjacket Fits - Down in Splendour ep 
Incomplete Monday - I Am
Billy James - Sixes and Sevens
Pavement - Black Out 7"
Dambuilders - God Dambuilders Bless America  
Mad Turks of Istanbul - Toast and Cafe Istanbul
Mood Paint (pre-Pond) - demo
Playground - singles
The Fumes - singles
Touchables - More Than a Glimpse ep
Delusions of Grandeur - Picture Perfect Martyr
Chris Sievey (Freshies) - Big Record
Stiffs, Inc. - Nix Naught Nothing
Numbers - Add Up
Hot Tip - Stop All Motion
Classic Ruins - Ruins Cafe
Ups and Downs - singles & Rash ep
Naomi's Hair - Tara
Field Trip - Beautiful
Downsiders - s/t LP & All My Friends Are Fish
Jo Broadbery and the Standouts - s/t LP & House of Love
Local Operator - singles
Green on Red - Rev. Luther ep
Popular Front - This is the Rubicon
Mod Lang - Where Your Heart ep
Those French Girls - s/t LP
3 1/2 Minutes - Peep ep and Bleed Me Dry ep

Heavens to Betsy - singles and demos (1992-94)

Olympia' Washington's Heavens to Betsy will always be remembered as the band Corin Tucker had her riot grrrl antecedents in prior to forming Sleater-Kinney, but H2B's merits are considerable, if a little unheralded. An economically efficient duo with Tucker on guitar and Tracy Sawyer flailing away on the skins, H2B convincingly and palpably bore the exfoliated nerve of societal repression and abuse (particularly as it pertained to young women). Perhaps it was Hole and Bikini Kill that gave the riot grrrl movement international prominence, but despite Tucker and Sawyer's sonically minimal delivery, H2B drove their point home just as loud and clear, if only to a more meager audience.

The 1994 Calculated lp on Kill Rock Stars was H2B's most accessible release, at least in terms of retail attainability, the releases leading up to it were in my opinion even more remarkable. A self-titled 1992 demo tape went a long way not only in laying out the blueprint for H2B future recordings, but functioned as a gut-check of sorts to anyone in earshot that could relate to the sentiments laid out in "Stay Dead," and "My Secret." These songs, among more to follow, concerned the post-traumatic aftermath of domestic and/or child abuse.

Heavens to Betsy's first official vinyl offering was a four-cut 7" ep, These Monsters Are Real, on the esteemed Kill Rock Stars imprint. It found Sawyer and Tucker delving into more melodic terrain, while fully retaining the cathartic energy. The Calculated lp that was soon to follow was hardly anything it's title would suggest. Surprisingly, much of it was not as substantive as the demos and Monsters 7" would suggest. It's still required listening for anyone who's devoured their lesser known recordings, but with such a heavy emphasis on sung/screamed dynamics, the songs tend to get lost in the process.

Their final recording, 1994's Direction ep made up for Calculated's foibles, showcasing H2B at their most poised and focused, and once again, wrought as ever. It features one of the duo's crowning achievements, "Get Out of My Head." You'd be hard pressed to find music of any stripe or genre more genuine than Heavens to Betsy's brief catalog of justifiable, post-adolsecent angst

Tracks:

1992 demo

01. Good Food

02. Factory

03. Seek & Hide

04. Stay Dead

05. My Red Self

06. Ain't Never Goin' Back

07. Baby Gone

08. My Secret

These Monsters Are Real ep

01. Me & Her

02. Monsters

03. Playground

04. Firefly

Direction ep

01. Direction

02. Get Out of My Head

03. The ONes

04. Driving Song

 

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