37 Targets - Another Day (1986, JA! Music)

Until I get the opportunity to rip some more vinyl (which should be very soon) I thought I'd share another album I obtained from the late, great Feelin Kinda Froggy blog. My firsthand knowledge of 37 Targets is pretty nil.  They hailed from Chatanooga, TN, and in addition to recording Another Day with renown producer Don Dixon, they had a video that received a spin or two on MTV, back when that station wasn't so petrified of bands signed to small indie labels (and for that matter when MTV played music videos period).  Nothing particularly fascinating here, just you're standard synth/guitar rock of the era, packing a dose of that all so crucial "edge" with mainstream potential aplenty.  Could this be Tommy Keene moonlighting with The Truth (anyone remember them)?  Or how about Dreams So Real had they gone more commercial?  Apparently, Another Day was released on a German record label, but I'll be damned if I know the story on that. BTW, thumbs down on the Johnny Cash cover.

01. Trains of Richmond
02. Ring of Fire
03. Buddah's Hand
04. Another Day
05. Rumor's Mill
06. Crisis
07. Bett Rebels
08. Water From the Moon

Hear

Singles Going Single #132 - The Hang Ups (1995, Grimsby)

The Hangs Ups were a '90s indie pop troupe from Minneapolis, who bore a sound resembling The Gigolo Aunts a whole lot more than celebrated hometown predecessors Husker Du and Soul Asylum.  The A-side here, "Top of Morning," is about as quintessential and delectable as their genre of choice had to offer in the mid-90s, while the acoustic flip, "Wishin' I Was a Plane" is notably more intimate.  If this is to your liking, I'd also recommend their So We Go cd, which you can get directly from the label that minted it (Clean/Twin Tone), or for a bargain basement price through Amazon.  There's a bio on the Hangs Up here, and a Wiki entry as well.   

A. Top of Morning

B. Wishin' I Was a Plane

Hear

The Piersons - Appleberry Wine (1997, ¡Epiphany!)

Here’s another pleasant surprise from the FYE 25 cent bin (r.i.p.). The Piersons were a highly competent three-piece rock and roll set from Arizona. Keep in mind I’m basing my opinion on them strictly on this disk, but would love to know if there's anything else out there. Given it's year of issue, there's nary any info to be found online pertaining to Appleberry Wine, but as for what you'll have in store think Titanic Love Affair, The Figgs, Grand Champeen, and even circa 1989 Replacements. Some truly inspired moments here, including but not limited to "Waitress?" and "Just Like Now."

01. Sometimes, Sometimes
02. Just Like Now
03. Tease
04. Lightnin' Speed
05. Waitress?
06. India
07. California Eyes
08. Got It Made
09. Something Strange
10. I Could Never Tell
11. Insecurity
12. untitled

Hear

Built By Animals - a brief evaluation

If Brooklyn, NY isn’t ground zero for upstart indie bands these days, then I’ve got a certain bridge to sell you. Unlike the bulk of their borough brethren however, I can’t picture Built By Animals tripping over themselves to be the next poster children for online tastemakers. Hipsters? Shmipsters I say. Not that I second guess their ambitions of course, but this trio are vying for something a little larger then their collective ego and a choice slot at SXSW.

BBA exude the type of songcraft that sounds like the product of a band with twice the personnel. More significantly their songs have a tendency to transition between near-cinematic grandeur to something, well, a bit more lackadaisical. This lends a slanted and enchanted irony to a selection like, say “Return to the Power Kingdom,” though said irony is in all likelihood unintentional. Built By Animals sonic aspirations are generally rooted in the same crooked headspace as recent Radiohead and Built to Spill, and that coveted strain of savviness alone has the potential to lure in scores of refined eardrums. On their eponymous ep, flourishes of limber, arpeggiated guitar licks abound – a facet not anomalous amongst their contemporaries, but the placement sounds wholly appropriate. Unfortunately, Built By Animals catalog at present is a slim one, but physical copies of their ep are easily obtainable from the band, and all four songs can be streamed on their website and Myspace page.

Singles Going Single #131 - The Bomb Bassets - Please Don't Die 7" (1995, Lookout!)

Though it was a pure coincidence, just as this Bomb Bassets wax was hitting shelves (at least a few shelves anyway), I had just familiarized myself with frontman Dallas Denery's previous endeavor, Sweet Baby (formally known as Sweet Baby Jesus).  Sweet Baby's one and only official album, It's a Girl, initially saw the light of day on Slash/Ruby Records in 1989, and sank without a trace until it was resuscitated by Lookout! Records in 1996.  The East Bay quartet melded an unshakable beat-band awareness to a considerably more hep punk-pop aesthetic, delivering such succinct yet indelible two-minute salvos as "Andorra," and "Baby Baby Baby Baby Baby Baby Baby I Love You." (no typos).  By the mid-90s, Denery caught the music bug again, and forged the Bomb Bassets with the enlistment of Mr. T Exerperience luminary Dr. Frank, renown Bay Area punk producer Kevin Army (who's numerous credits can be browsed by clicking the link), and Dallas' younger brother, John Denery (formally of Brent's TV). The Bassets charted a similar, retro-fitted course as Sweet Baby (generally sounding like one and the same), with a little more of a garage rock scrappiness for good measure.  This single/ep was followed up by a 1997 album, Take a Trip With the Bomb Bassets, also courtesy of the ever insolvent Lookout! Records.  Perhaps more to come from Sweet Baby on Wilfully Obscure in the coming months.

01. Please Don't Die
02. Million Dollars and a Cadillac
03. Just a Thing of Love
04. She's All Mine

Hear

The Mutts - s/t ep (1985, Shanghai)

Earlier this month I shared an LP from a long-defunct L.A. band called The Mutts.  That full length, Stinko's Ranch was preceded by this six-song ep, some six years earlier.  If you cared at all for the aforementioned disk, you'll likely want this. At this stage in their career (a poorly documented one unfortunately) The Mutts hadn't quite absorbed enough Replacements yet for Paul Westerberg & Co. to be a prevalent influence, but a panache for muscular power-pop had nonetheless permeated the quintet's collective DNA.  "Boys of One Side (Girls on the Other Side)" gleams with shades of Tommy Keane, and while the remainder of the ep doesn't necessarily follow suit, it's fairly compelling (though if they had nixed the ghoulish, rockabilly-inflected "Just Another Halloween," this platter would've been just as effective, perhaps even more so).  Kick out this jam.

01. Boys of One Side (Girls on the Other Side)
02. Little Shoes
03. Just Another Halloween
04. TV Time
05. It's a Jungle Out There
06. Ms. Riley's Been Fired

Hear

The Chant - Two Car Mirage & Three Sheets to the Wind (1989/85, Safety Net)

Despite their namesake, there's nary a cadence to be encountered on this Florida by way of Atlanta, GA conglomerate's two albums.  No gimmicks at all in fact, just a robust serving of twangy cum jangly guitar rawk with nods to the likes of such disparate forbearers as REM, Dream Syndicate, and Uncle Tupelo.  For those of you who need this quotient broken down a little further, The Chant were a little bit country, but way more rock and roll.  A relatively thorough bio can be procured on The Chant's modest Myspace hovel (linked above), and per usual, the online incarnation of the Trouser Press record guide leaves no stone unturned when it comes to these Dixie-based chaps.  The compact disk version of Two Car Mirage appends the bulk of the band's debut LP, Three Sheets to the Wind, in fact leaving merely one of it's nine tracks to languish on the turntable.  Lead guitarist Gregory Dean Smalley succumbed to complications due to AIDS in 1996, making the possibility of a Chant reunion a non-starter.

Two Car Mirage
01. Wild Blue Yonder
02. Change
03. I Don't Ask for Much
04. Clear Light Shuffle
05. I'm Still Waiting
06. Coat 'o Many Colors
07. 7:20
08. Through My Eyes
09. Get Along This Time
10. Lubbock Lights

Three Sheets to the Wind
11. All Behind Me
12. Small House
13. Turned Inside Out
14. Drive Away
15. Jonesboro
16. ...For You
17. Little Black Egg
18. Perfect World

Hear

Silent Guests - In My Secret Garden (1981, TW)

The $17 I paid for this was worth it for the leadoff song alone.  The irresistible "Desperate Measures" strikes a balance between the indelible, hook-laden acumen of The Records, and the edgy incisiveness of the Rich Kids without being overly derivative of either.  Oddly enough, as the stylus winds it’s way through In My Secret Garden, the Silent Guests slowly segue themselves onto an icy, post-punk strata by album's end.  If you were to buy the opinion regarding this album expressed on Infected by Records blog you'd no doubt go away with the impression that the Guests were purveyors of  Joy Division-informed "darkwave."  Not true, at least not to this set of ears (although they may be onto something with the Church comparison).  There's a little 154-era Wire wafting it's way through some of side two, but as a whole, Secret Garden isn't overtly bleak albeit it's chilliness in spots.  I would like to give credit to Deadbeats & No Ones for turning me onto this captivating British trio.

01. Desperate Measures
02. Drawn to Water
03. Imaginary Lines
04. Mannequin Parade
05. Leading Me On
06. Gravity
07. The Guests Have Arrived
08. Fictional Girl
09. Hide and Seek
10. The Guillotine
11. In My Secret Garden

Hear

Cinnamon - Cream Soda (1996, Nation Underground/FRE)

Someone once floated the notion that Vancouver's Cinnamon were Canada's answer to Redd Kross...but was that comparison valid?  Guess you'll have to let the music do the talking.  If anyone has the specifics on this defunct quartet, beyond the the blurb on Allmusic linked above, comment to your hearts content. 

01. Cream Soda
02. Judgement Day (In the Sun)
03. Super Hi-fi Love Song
04. Crazy
05. 1970
06. Valerie & Kim
07. I'll Never Know
08. Raygun
09. Swim or Shine
10. Veronica
11. America
12. Jenny Falls Apart

Hear

Cockeyed Ghost - Karaoke tape (1994)

For roughly fifteen years now, I've been charting, or more literally, enjoying the steady musical output put forth by one Adam Marsland.  Truly one of the last great hopes for genuine singer/songwriter talent around these days, Marsland graced his way onto my radar with his band Cockeyed Ghost's debut CD, Keep Yourself Amused, which came courtesy of the sorely missed Big Deal Records imprint.  That was in 1996, and as Marsland and his rotating cast of Ghosts would perfect their pummeling yet profoundly sentient brand of power pop on 1997's Neverest, and The Scapegoat Factory two years later, even greater things were to come.  In fact, I'm just as much a fan of his subsequent solo releases (which I'll discuss in further detail in a moment), but those early C/G albums exuded an unparalleled amount of visceral fun.  When I learned that the group's Karaoke tape from 1994 was still available, I jumped at the chance to see what I had missed.  Though it was preceded by another cassette, 4-13-94, Karaoke was their first set of recordings in earnest.  It contains demo incarnations of three Neverest cuts, "Dirty Bastard" which would soon appear on Amused, and another cut that would eventually find a home on a C/G rarities album.  Ultimately the album versions of these songs surpass those on Karaoke, but as wordsmith for the group, the seeds of Marsland's wit, angst and passion were firmly sewn into place on this potent batch of five tunes.  A killer knack for melody didn't hurt either.

Adam Marsland built his audience the old fashioned way - one listener at a time, and when Cockeyed Ghost were put to pasture around the turn of the millennium, his followers were more than happy to stick around.  2009 marked the release of his second solo studio album, Go West, an expansive two disc undertaking wherein our man takes such capricious forays into soulful piano rock, house music (wtf?) and even a relatively obscure Damned cover, “Stranger on the Town.”  Amidst all of these disparate detours, there's still plenty of his more traditional three-chord pop 'n roll.  More recently, unleashed this January in fact, was an originally very limited edition CD called Hello Cleveland, which has fortunately enjoyed wider release on Amazon.  Recorded on the fly in a single day while Adam and his Chaos band were on tour in the Midwest, Hello Cleveland was a spontaneously written album containing fourteen new songs that at first blush are seemingly (and deliberately) frivolous, but upon repeat listens are actually quite revelatory and substantive, not to mention oodles of fun.  Enjoy the tape.

01. Dirty Bastard
02. The Third Wheel
03. Get Me Out of Here
04. Koreatown
05. Asian Hero Worship

Hear

Singles Going Single #130 - The Terrifying Experience 7" (1998, Southern)

Any Guided By Voices devotee, even of the casual variety, will attest that the core nuclei of Dayton, OH's boys done good consisted of Robert Pollard and Tobin Sprout, at least on such particularly legendary albums as Propeller, Bee Thousand, and Alien Lanes.  Another piece of the puzzle during GBV's '90s halcyon years was a gentlemen named Mitch Mitchell (not to be confused with the deceased skin pounder for Jimi Hendrix who went by the exact same name).  During his tenure with GBV, which actually stretches back to the mid-80s, Mitchell not only served as a guitarist and bassist, but co-songwriting conspirator with Pollard on many songs, outlined per the gloriously anal retentive GBVDB. In 1996, he assembled a band of his own, dubbed Mitch Mitchell's Terrifying Experience, or more simply the Terrifying Experience.  If you're expecting a low-rent variation on GBV's lo-fi aesthetics and esoteric musings, this single is not likely to comply with your assumptions, though middle-of-the-road it ain't.  "One After the End" beats the flipside hands down, but take a listen for yourself.  More text can be found on the remainder of the Terrifying Experience's discography over here.

A. One After the End
B. Hollis Put His Hands Around My Neck

Hear

Finger - 20th Century Masters: The Singles Collection (1991-93)

In the annals of North Carolina indie rock histroy, circa the 1990s, much has been discussed about such Tar Heel luminaries as Superchunk, Polvo, Archers of Loaf, and for that matter Ben Folds Five, yet one of the states finest exports from Raleigh, Finger, rarely materialize in the conversation.  Hopefully this worthy, but perhaps none-too-urgent matter is about to be rectified with the release of a Finger anthology cd, Still in Boxes, issued this spring on Second Motion Records.  A crackling quartet that fit in with just about any of the aforementioned success stories, Finger's brand of punky, crunch-ridden guitar rawk offered an earnestness their hipster contemporaries couldn't hold a candle to.  Furthermore, Finger genuinely sounded like they were a product of the south, due largely in part to a noticeable dialect and a smidgen of twang that put them more in league with say, Snatches of Pink.  To cut to the long and short of it all, between 1990-94, a self-titled album, a clutch of singles and compilation appearances (one documented on these very pages) were unleashed to an indifferent public, save for local aficionados. 

While the a-sides to these three 45s make an appearance on Still in Boxes, the b-sides (including a snarling Dead Boys cover) do not. Once again, Wilfully Obscure comes to the rescue.  To the uninitiated, let these seven tracks serve as an introduction to Finger, and moreover an incentive to investigate some of the band's equally, if not more potent material on their new retrospective album.  BTW, guitarist/windpipe Brad Rice has since gone on to record and/or tour with The Accelerators, Backsliders, Ryan Adams, Tift Merritt, Son Volt, and more currently Keith Urban.  For further info on Finger, head over to We're an American Blog for a nice write-up.  

01. Another State of Mind

02. Rotting in a Cage

03. Hey Benny

04. Ship Full of Holes

05. Al l This and More

06. Wedding Boots

07. Do It Feel
08. Gravitatin' Home
09. Needle in a Haystack
10. John Genzales Blues (Johnny Thunders medley: Chinese Rocks/Personality Crisis/Blame it on Mom)

Note 1/28/15: Tracks 8-10 just added today!

1-3 from Moist Records 7" (1991)

4 & 5 from Jettison Records 7" (199?)

6 & 7 from Third Sister Records 7" (1993)

8-10 from Radiation Records 7" (1993)

Hear

Various - Loud Ugly Pop (1993, FATbeat)

Here's an after-dinner mint of sorts to the Horace Pinker cd I shared yesterday.  Loud Ugly Pop is a three-band compilation featuring the aforementioned Horace, as well as two fellow Arizona pop-punk cabals, Man Dingo and Six. You're definitely going to encounter some overlap with the H/P songs here in relationship to the tracklist of their Power Tools album, but by and large, I'm really posting this as an excuse to get more Man Dingo tuneage out there.  I've already dedicated two posts to them in recent years, and if you've partaken in any of them, you might notice they bear a strong resemblance to Big Drill Car.  Loud Ugly Pop features two non-LP/EP tracks by them, "Madame Pleaser" and "Roots."  Can't speak highly enough of them.  As for Six, my knowledge of them begins and ends with their four contributions here, some of which are frankly a bit sketchy, but "Only Yesterday" is relatively redeeming. 

01. Six - All In My Mind
02. Horace Pinker - First Everything
03. Man Dingo - Jones
04. Six - Yes (Oh Yes)
05. Horace Pinker - Sucker
06. Man Dingo - I Said
07. Horace Pinker - Knives
08. Six - Only Yesterday
09. Man Dingo - Roots
10. Horace Pinker - Punker Than GBH
11. Man Dingo - Madame Pleaser
12. Six - I Wanna Have Sex WIth That Girl

Hear

Horace Pinker - Power Tools (1994, Earwax)

My fixation for revisiting arcane, mid-90s punk continues, with the addition of the debut platter from Tempe, AZ's Horace Pinker.  Taking their name from the villain in that lame ass horror flick, Shocker, it would take a few years for the trio to perfect their breakneck strain of semi-melodic power punk (they arguablyly peaked on their second album, Burn Tempe to the Ground) but Power Tools is a smart and robust opening salvo.  Face to Face and Avail followers can't go wrong with these guys.  Amidst roughly a dozen originals on Power Tools, the boys put their spin on a classic, "Our Lips Our Sealed," and a far more obscure favorite of mine, the Rhythm Pig's "Can't Change the World."  Here's a few words regarding this album straight from the band's website:

our first effort at a full length album saw the rehashing of many of our older songs from our first two seven inches. we re-recorded some songs and simply put the extant recordings of 'knives, guns, and ammo' into the mix. this became a pattern that was hard to break, as we wanted to put our favorite songs on our full length albums, yet many had already appeared on seven inches and comps. alright, so get over it, some of our songs appear on many of our various releases. power tools in many ways is our most diverse and our most representative album, starting with speedy pop punk and going on to some harder-edged 'emo' songs. my favorites are probably 'no thoughts' and 'sixty-seven cents' but the best thing about the album is that there's a song on there for everyone, even a go-gos cover. if you can find it, buy it, the label (justice) went out of business. -scott

 01. First Everything
02. Punker Than GBH
03. Sixty-seven Cents
04. Bryan's Song
05. Sucker
06. Rescue Me
07. Bottom Line
08. No Thoughts
09. Switch
10. Can't Change the World
11. Six East
12. Power Tools
13. Vinyl Seats
14. Our Lips Are Sealed

This has been Bandcamp'd.

Splitting the Difference #38 - Zoinks!/Narcissistic Freds 7" (1994, Satan's Pimp)

Quite simply, Reno, Nevada's Zoinks! were one of my top-ten favorite bands of the '90s.  An ace popcore trio, Zoinks! were leveled with numerous comparisons to Green Day, and while the similarities were considerable, they beat Billie Joe and Co. at their own game, in colossal fashion I might add.  Though they recorded only one proper album with vocalist Zac Damon (1995's Bad Move Space Cadet) there was also a batch of singles and splits committed to vinyl, this being one of them.  Their two contributions here, "False Face," and "New Shoes," both shining examples of their slow/fast/slow dynamic agility are only the tip of the iceberg of an extremely consistent, albeit brief recorded catalog.  In addition to Space Cadet, the "Zac Years"are further accounted for on the crucial Stranger Anxiety singles comp, featuring the aforementioned cuts amidst a bevy of other songs that raise the pop-punk bar to it's highest echelons.  I specify the "Zac Years" as such, due to Mr. Damon's departure from the band around '96.  The Zoinks! catalog can be obtained through the band's official page (linked above), as well as online outlets including Emusic, itunes, and so forth.  You can sample more music on their obligatory Myspace page.  As for the rest of the band's history, hit their bio up for all the juicy details.

The other band occupying this 7", the Carson City-based Narcissistic Fred's were impressive in their own right, dishing out a trio of dizzying delights, including a crème de la crème hook-fest titled "Fix," that closes out their side of this wax in superb fashion.  Another Freds 7" is for the taking at One-sided War blog, though it's sleeve is a bit daft.  Enjoy.

Zoinks!

01. False Face

02. New Shoes

Narcissistic Freds

01. Invisible Man

02. Pacifier

03. Fix

Hear

Singles Going Single #129 - Tunstin Gat 7" (1994, 702)

Thought this would be an appropriate follow-up to my Unherd post from last night.  The little spoken of Tunstin Gat consisted of three hardcore youngsters hailing from the Bay Area, and their locale and period of existence couldn't have been more fitting for the music inscribed on this wax.  Think Unfun-era Jawbreaker, but with a singer who swapped Blake Schwarzenbach's raspiness for the punk-as-fuck intonation of Tim Armstrong (Operation Ivy/Rancid).  Vigorous and highly potent stuff, but a hell of a lotta fun.  This is sure to make y'all misty-eyed for "the pit." 

01. Love Song
02. Too Young For You
03. Letter to Rumeli
04. For Tomorrow
05. Twice

Hear

Unherd - s/t (1993, Assorted Porkchops)

Ok, time to kick into a little punk rock...er, I mean hardcore...or perhaps old school-emocore might be a better categorization.  Nah.  How about we call Unherd a little bit of each and leave it at that, because when you lay your ears on this I think you'll discover that this bygone Columbia, SC trio had their collective fingers in all three pies.  Upon a 1994 visit to Epicenter Zone Records (R.I.P.) in San Francisco, one in-store spin was all it took to get me jazzed about this disk.  Unfortunately they didn't actually have extra copies for sale, so I ended up mailordering it from Assorted Porkchops. It was worth the wait though.  Unherd definitely exuded a '90s Gilman St. vibe, with some gnarly Rites of Spring maneuvers thrown in for good measure, and yes, they were even able to carry a tune when they opted to do so.  Track seven is a Soup cover, if that means anything to you.

01. Blue
02. Shitter
03. 20
04. Raincore
05. Dusk
06. Bulk Rate Male
07. Take a Day
08. Dripping
09. Prayers
10. Pow
11. Fluff
12. Nude
13. Pemex

Now on Bandcamp. Name yer price!

Mudhoney - On Tour Now live promo (1993, WB)

Here's a fairly scarce Mudhoney promo CD dished out to those lucky folks in the alt-radio biz back in the heyday of the Northwest grunge fracas.  Seven songs (discounting the banter track "Fashion Forecast) from a hometown Seattle performance, dated 2/10/93, and a decent track selection at that considering it's brevity. The last two tracks are Angry Samoans and Fang covers respectively, the latter also a regular addition in Nirvana's live sets at the time.  Nice.

01. Suck You Dry
02. Make It Now
03. Fashion Forecast
04. Dead Love
05. No End in Sight
06. You Got It
07. You Stupid Asshole
08. The Money Will Roll Right In

Hear

The Mutts - Stinko's Ranch (1992, Loud)

Here's a sparkling lil' gem I became acquainted with just a few months ago, despite it having been floating around for a good eighteen years.  A presumably L.A. based quartet (pared-down on this album from a five piece on their debut ep) The Mutts had a rock solid penchant for muscular, if not a tad but  goofy riff rock with sizable hooks, occasionally evoking Sire Records-era Replacements and the Doughboys.  Stinko's Ranch is damn consistent, not to mention damn good, boasting such exemplary offerings like "John Hughes Movie (Not Quite Like A)," "Cricket," and "Funnest Girl." Look for a rip of that aforementioned Mutts ep in the not-too-distant future.

01. Cricket
02. Emilyn
03. Say You Don’t Care
04. John Hughes Movie (Not Quite Like a)
05. San Diego
06. Nature of the Beast
07. Conversational Jazz
08. I Live With a Cat
09. Just What I Was Afraid Of
10. Wants to Belong
11. Shooting Star
12. Stinko’s Ranch
13. Funnest Girl

Hear

speaking of slack...

Posts are going to be very sporadic over the next few days, but will try to add some new links to the blogroll later tonight to keep you entertained.

Pavement - Stack o' Slack

By now everyone and their landscaper are aware that Pavement have reunited for some select tour dates (and a fat wad of bills I might add) this year. Their next performance is slated for Toronto's Olympic Island June 19th. With guests like Broken Social Scene and Band of Horses preceding Stockton, CA's finest, you might say this gig promises to be a big fucking deal. Future North American and European tour dates can be found over yonder. Thus far, I've dedicated only one post to Pavement on these pages, namely a promo single to coincide with the deluxe reissue of Wowee Zowee back in 2006. Over the years I've been collecting an assortment of non-lp Pavement material, and although there aren't many studio goodies that haven't been featured on Matador Records exemplary double CD reissues of Pavement's catalog (I'm assuming we'll see a tricked out version of Terror Twilight before the year is out), there are some live odds and ends and even some pre-Pavement endeavors I've been lucky enough top find on such file trading portals as Soulseek. Behold, twenty-four songs comprising a hasty, haphazard, homemade hash that kicks rhyme and reason straight to the curb like this weeks recycling. Several covers abound here, some courtesy of the full band, others just by Stephen Malkmus himself. Speaking of Mr. Malkmus, we visit two bands he was in prior to Pavement, Lakespeed and Bag-o-Bones. Some miscellaneous stuff is strewn about as well including a Peel Session cut from '99, plus a studio track so rare and golden that I purposely left it off the tracklist below. So here it is, in no particular order and at various bitrates. Do enjoy (or not).

Alaska (Malkmus llive)
Black Walls (Stray Slack boot)
Bob Nastanovich readin' poetry
Cadillac Darling (Lakespeed, Malkmus pre-Pavement)
Canada (Silver Jews Cover)
Carl The Clod (live)
Coming Close To Being Born (Bag-o-Bones, Malkmus pre-Pavement)
Debris Slide (live)
Disorder (Joy Division Cover live 10-7-99)
Federal Dust (Silver Jews Cover)
Golden Boys
I Want Candy (Malkmus live)
In Between Days (Malkmus live)
Kitten In Porterville (live CCR cover)
Lithium (live Nirvana cover)
Robyn Turns 26 (At Home With the Groovebox comp track)
Sebadoh~Helen Stones (6-20-93 Copenhagen, SUTC boot)
September
Shaky Brow (Lakespeed, Malkmus pre-Pavement)
Sprite Drinker (live)
The Hexx (1999 Peel Session)
unknown live track
What Goes On (live Velvet Underground cover)

Everything's ending hear.

Singles Going Single #128 - palomar sky survey - are we heading south? 7" (2000, Fizzle & Pop)

Nostalgia is a damn fine thing, even the short-term variety. Seems like only a few months ago that Buffalo's Palomar Sky Survey were slated for a gig at Mohawk Place, but that's purely a figment of my imagination. A co-ed trio helmed by Joel Menter and Val Pimento, backed up by Renee on the drum kit, PSS had their aesthetics rooted in the fertile indie-pop epoch of the '90s. Shades of Versus, Eric's Trip, and The Spinanes modestly imbue both sides of are we heading south?, which to my knowledge was Palomar's first wide-scale release. A classic Elvis Costello cover melds in nicely with the originals. For the full scoop on PSS, click the link above to their Myspace page that features a thorough bio and even more songs.

A. Nouns Like Rock
B1. Cartouche
B2. Hand in Hand

Hear