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
http://www29.zippyshare.com/v/sVF7Ry45/file.html
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.
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.
From 1978, by a "supergroup" of sorts. 
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.
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.
From 1993. If this record isn't conducive to the icy throes of winter I don't know what is.
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?
01. The Reels - Prefab Heart
