And all I really want to do is tear straight in to you - explode, unload a hail of insults until you finally get it.

A live album recorded in 2005, but not entirely released until last year. One of my favorite live documents of the century so far. 

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

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The Chapter House - From The Other Side...Of The Glass Asylum (1986, Glass Bead)

Not that Chapterhouse, but would you believe another one? Yep, and this combo were from the UK as well. Not dream pop, so much as nuanced wave spliced with an iota of post-punk. A lot of what comprises From the Other Side... is largely anti-climactic, despite Chapter House's aim for achieving some semblance of mystique. Occasionally, washes of vintage Simple Minds and Psych Furs emanate on this platter. Highlights  including "Those Final Words" and "The Proud One" could nearly pass for early Creation Records fare. Perhaps I'm giving them too much credit, so don't take my word for it, download this for yourself. BTW, I don't own a physical copy of From the Other Side... so a big round of applause to whomever took the time and effort to rip this. 

01. The Proud One
02. Reflections
03. Those Final Words
04. The Stillest Hour
05. Order of the Ages
06. Grounds on Fire
07. The World is a Ghost
08. The River Girls Song
09. Of Times Gone By

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VA - Hanging Out at Midnight (1986, Midnight)

Though technically this is a label "sampler," so to speak, Hanging Out at Midnight functions and flows as a proper compilation, rather than an overt or glorified sales pitch. Midnight Records (the now defunct label and store in downtown Manhattan, not to be confused with Midnight Music in Britain) were purveyors of some of the best garage revival acts in the '80s, and also stretched it's tentacles around surrounding music arenas including power pop. There are some relatively known commodities here, including the Fuzztones and Cheepskates, but only the most dedicated scenesters are likely to have much firsthand knowledge of say, The Tryfles primordial stomp and the riff-addled Backbones. The Wind and Woofing Cookies veered in the vicinity of traditional college radio, and not surprisingly are among my favorites here. Perhaps the biggest anomaly amongst the Midnight roster, was Rochester's Absolute Grey, a co-ed troupe charting a noir, post-punk course. The Love Pushers, who entailed in their lineup two budding music journalists, Jim Testa and Jim DeRogatis contribute the excellent indie rock homage "Radio Girl," however when I went to make the digital transfer the song skipped frequently. This may have been more the result of the record pressing itself and not my turntable, and although I may try tracking it again, I'm fortunate to have an alternate source for the tune which I've substituted here. Finally, the Fuzztones gnarly reading of the Sonics "The Witch" has some describable swells of intermittent static I unfortunately wasn't able to compensate for, try as I might.

01. The Mighty Mofos - I Need You
02. The Cavemen - Labor Day
03. Woofing Cookies - Girl Next Door
04. The Wind - Good News, Bad News
05. Absolute Grey - No Man's Land
06. Love Pushers - Radio Girl
07. The Tryfles - No
08. The Cheepskates - About Time
09. The Kingsnakes - So Good
10. The Backbones - The Rain Won't Stop
11. Howard and Tim's Paid Vacation - That Won't Make You Love Me
12. Fuzztones - The Witch

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I can pump my own gas now, I'm crossng the line.

Talk about a guilty pleasure. Not sure what ya'll are going to make of this one, but I've been listening to it non-stop for the past two months and intermittently for years before. The lyrics and concepts presented are as frivolous as they come, but the hooks and arrangements are incisive enough to transcend everything else. For what it's worth, the band in question has largely disowned this album, but whatever.

I didn't have much to offer you last week, but I'll try to compensate with a compilation LP I should have ready to post tomorrow night.

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

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Biff Bang Pow! - A Better Life - Complete Creations 1981-1991 box (2022, Cherry Red) - A peak inside the box.

Lots of bands find themselves in the often precarious position of being on a record label that's larger in stature than they are. Biff Bang Pow! were no different, albeit they had a pretty sweet fallback - they owned the label, or at the very least the band's prime mover, Alan McGee did. If you don't know the label, it's none other than Creation Records, the name a reference to one of McGee's favorites, '60s UK psych-pop purveyors The Creation, and his band itself was dubbed after one of that band's most well known songs. But even if you were a resident of Britain back in the '80s it would have taken more than a pedestrian awareness of Britain's indie circuit to have a consciousness of BBP. Yes, Creation Records was responsible for launching Oasis into the mainstream, but also scores of slightly less visible but equally pivotal acts like Primal Scream, My Bloody Valentine, Felt. The Jesus and Mary Chain, and the House of Love among myriads more. Being Creation's "house band," so to speak brought plenty of perks, but notoriety wasn't necessarily one of them, as BBP didn't have a foothold on mainstream UK charts, and perhaps not surprisingly little to sparse distribution in the U.S. 

McGee was a Glasgow, Scotland transplant who uprooted in London with fellow Glasgowan Andrew Innes in the early '80s. They cut their teeth under the banner of a short-lived group called The Laughing Apple (who I'll address momentarily), but a little further into the decade Biff Bang Pow! came into being, in earnest by 1983, when their first single "Fifty Years of Fun" saw the light of day. A steady stream of releases throughout the Thatcher era saw the band emerging as one of the most prolific focal points in the Brit UK indie scene (of which in no small way they helped to kick off). Though a fairly well guarded secret outside the mainstream, in the lens of history they're regarded as the quintessence of the particular strain of guitar pop they specialized in, and in terms of specific songs, even the gold standard. Cherry Red has boxed and anthologized the entirety of the BBP cannon across the six disk A Better Life - Complete Creations 1981-1991, with expanded versions of all the albums and EPs, offering generous supplemental live and studio material, including that of McGee's precursor bands.

That conveniently leads into the sixth CD in this collection, which might as well be the first since it consists exclusively of material prior to the formation of Biff Bang Pow!  The aforementioned Laughing Apple were a trio McGee formed shortly after arriving in London, who boasted a brief discography to say the least - one ep and a pair of singles, all of which are collected here. L/A were defiantly post-punk brandishing some definite Fall-isms, not to mention what sounds like a consumption of what early (and I mean early) Scritti Politti were responsible for.  Apple were a tad abrasive, but wielded powerful hooks and charm, transforming "I'm Okay," "Participate!" and "Wouldn't You" into edgy delights that demand repeat listens. Some unreleased Apple demos are appended as well as a three song demo tape from Newspeak, McGee's even earlier DIY endeavor from when he was still based in Scotland. The Newspeak version of "Wouldn't You?" is a wonderful lo-fi incarnation, reminiscent of one of their most criminally overlooked contemporaries, The Freshies.  The disk closes out with some interesting but non-essential dabblings accredited to McGee and Swell Maps/Television Personalities bassist Jowe Head.

With the lowdown on McGee's predecessor bands out the way, now the story of Biff Bang Pow! proper can be told (or as least as far as their discography is concerned). Partnered with Richard Green alongside other members of BBP's often fluid lineup, the band's debut full length (technically a mini-LP), Pass The Paintbrush, Honey, leads things out with their fevered, cataclysmic second single "There Must Be a Better Life," brimming with chiming guitars, a propulsive back-beat and headstrong vocals, making for the same visceral introduction that perhaps only the Smiths could equal. It's accompanying seven tracks are a mixed, but usually enticing lot, with the psych-tinged "The Chocolate Elephant Man" and the manicured-noise of "A Day Out With Jeremy Chester" leaving superb impressions. The Laughing Apple's "Wouldn't You" proved to be so damn irrepressible it's reprised here in a new recording. Appended to Paintbrush, is the band's premier single, the urgent "Fifty Years of Fun." "In the Afternoon," better known as a tune done by Revolving Paint Dream, another band that involved McGee and Andrew Innes, makes an appearance here in an early, alternate guise, as do a few demos to round things out. Pass The Paintbrush, may not strike anyone as an un-toppable album (and it ain't) but it's still one of the most satisfying records BBP attached their name to.

A good one year late for the C86 indie movement they were keenly responsible for, McGee & Co's. second LP, The Girl Who Runs The Beat Hotel emerged in 1987. That's a full two years between releases, a veritable epoch in the '80s indie timetable. Of course, McGee was a growing and gathering label mogul, which I'm sure had a tad to do with the layover. The development on ...Beat Hotel is startling, especially in terms of BBP's production advancements. The song-for-song quality control evidenced on Paintbrush is retained if not improved here - and perhaps much of that record's revivalist-psych affectations. Tucked in amidst the band's overarching distortion/jangle splay are some acoustic forays, specifically ...Beat Hotel's title piece, a harbinger of sorts for what later BBP records would entail.  By now, the lineup had increased to accommodate Christine Wanless (another of McGee's co-conspirators in Revolving Paint Dream). Contributing background vocals sporadically, but seizing the mic outright on "If I Die," Wanless puts a proverbial fresh coat of paint on things, to almost jarring effect. In addition to the ten-song album, the appendix of Beat Hotel is particularly generous, starting with six tracks for an abandoned record, Sixteen Velvet Friends, that was to slot between this album and Paintbrush. Half of these songs are heretofore unreleased and demonstrable of BPP's rawer, nascent approach, though not necessarily revelatory. Still, a huge find for established customers. Plenty more booty to be had as well including several above-average b-sides and unreleased alternate takes including a demo of the title track with Christine Wanless on lead vocals. 

To say that Oblivion, the band's second album from 1987 is "the one where it all came together" would be a misstatement. The truth is Biff Bang Pow! always had "it," but up to this point hadn't quite channeled the "it" into something transcendent that might have appealed to folks beyond the hipsters and those with their noses buried deep in the latest issue of Melody Maker.  Even if the album didn't boast the requisite sales numbers to escalate BBP to household name status, it served as an excellent distillation of what they had attempted to create up to that point - and the closest they would come to making a perfect record. Home to one of their most crucial signature songs, "She's Got Diamonds in Her Hair," and several others on the same album side that could vie for a similar spot, Oblivion wasn't merely a showcase of ten songs ranging from good to timeless, but a metaphorical fulcrum in their catalog, not only for it's middle placement in the BBP discography, rather it's seamless balance of grit and polish. Drop the needle anywhere and you're unlikely to find these songs skewing to any particular extreme, as they get by on the sheer viability of their own merits. And whether people took note or not, Oblivion functioned as a fairly accurate precursor to the soon-to-be world-dominating Brit-pop circuit. The A Better Life iteration of the album tacks on a handful of alternate takes, and get this, a full concert from September of '87 tracked in Dortmund, Germany featuring not only a healthy portion of the LP in question, but a bevy of classics.

Love is Forever followed in 1988. Easily Biff's most varied and adventurous platter, though not  surprisingly, still relatively accessible. "Miss California Toothpaste" driving strangle and drumb could pass for a choice Oblivion b-side.  Things take a turn for the Ameri-cousti-rana when the crew whips out a harmonica for "She Haunts" and "Searching For the Pavement," but a little further in they're up to their collective elbows in amp-shredding freakout-mode on the uber-ballsy "Electric Sugar Child," with "Ice Cream Machine" kicking up a fervent yet tidier plume of guitar-laden dust. The penultimate "Startripper" makes for a strummy, contemplative comedown, sans any melancholy notions. Hitched to this wagon is the 1990 mini-album, Songs For the Sad Eyed Girl, a transitional affair of sorts wherein McGee unplugs for seven cuts. It's not quite Darklands, nor are we treated to a Billy Bragg-esque, socio-political ax to grind, rather the man of the hour finds this particular guise a more suitable vehicle for his most plaintive and unencumbered songwriting yet. 

Last but not least, the transition is fully realized on the almost entirely acoustic, go-it-alone outing, Me. I'm sure multiple music scribes before little old me have deemed this album tantamount to an Alan McGee solo record, so for better or worse I'll graft myself to the end of the line. Me is thoroughly lucid and exudes a discernible purity, albeit not consistently memorable. For die-hard BBP devotees only, but there are a couple of earworms worth an honorable mention: "I'm Burned" and "Lovers."  One of the bonus selections, "Long Live Neil Young and All Who Sail in Him" is almost livelier than anything on Me proper, though I don't think anyone will be mistaking this LP for Harvest anytime soon.

A Better Life - Complete Creations 1981-1991 is outstandingly packaged, and naturally, contains hours of music that's been a best-kept secret for far too long. It's available direct from Cherry Red and Amazon as we speak.

A solider in time, knows just what he holds dearly.

Reissue of a 1988 album that coincidentally introduced me to the band. 

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

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86 - Closely Guarded Secret mLP (1985, OHP)

Atlanta, GA was never going to be a post-punk haven, but someone forgot to tell the long departed 86 this. Some of you visited and imbibed their second album, Provocation several years ago on this site, but since then I've come into a possession of their debut. The trio's proposition of dissonant, jagged guitar lines, a heightened percussive acumen, and subversively tuneful delivery melded together if not seamlessly, at the very least, gracefully. There's plenty of wiry tension and sonic mystique ensconced in some of Closely Guarded Secret's best and brightest like "The Prisoner" and "No Answer." By record's end, on "Turn It Over," 86 dabble in the type of rhythmic finesse that Gang of Four and APB made their calling card, with the concluding "Pezz" almost suggesting where Go4 might have taken us next if they hadn't called it a day. 

01. The Prisoner
02. No Answer
03. Stand in Fire
04. Yoth Culture
05. Man Overhead
06. Turn it Over
07. Pezz

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Tree Fort Angst – Tilting At Windmills ep (1995, Bus Stop)

Personal recommendations are powerful and downright essential in getting the word out about new and emerging artists, and although I knew of the existence of Tree Fort Angst in the '90s I failed to get the "message" so to speak. The band's nucleus was Terry Banks, a one-time member of  the much heralded Brit indie outfit St. Christopher. Though based in the U.S. TFA weren't to-the-core Anglophiles, but instead slotted loosely between twee and power pop.  Thoughtful as TFA's themes and winsome as their tunes were, maybe I was initially dissuaded by the band's name more than anything else, as taken literally it purveyed something of a frivolous notion. Nonetheless, better late than never and I consider myself a much belated convert, as least as far as this particular record goes, one of their last from what I understand. The bulk, if not all of their vinyl catalog has since been consolidated across a couple of CD collections, Knee-Deep In The Rococo Excess Of Tree Fort Angst and Last Page in the Book of Love.

01. Tilting at Windmills
02. Save Me
03. This is the Day
04. Why Couldn't You See This Coming?

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Keep in mind I’m the only one listening.

Excellent co-ed indie from 1994 you've likely never encountered. Enjoy. 

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

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Man Sized Action - Five Story Garage (1984, Reflex/Garage D'or) - 30th anniversary edition.

I apologize again for getting delayed in the mountain of dead links I need to restore. Secondly, I haven't been giving you a ton of new content either, but for the time being here's one that's fairly substantial. Though they're rarely mentioned in the same breath as '80s Minneapolis luminaries Husker Du and the Replacements, Man Sized Action had a sizable presence in the Twin Cities indie/punk circuit. Inspired to start a band in part by witnessing enough Husker shows firsthand in the earliest part of the decade, and later winding up on the band's in-house label, Reflex (not to mention having their debut, 1983's Claustrophobia produced by Bob Mould) MSA bore more of a post-punk adherence than hardcore. Never quite subscribing to Husker's noise-pop aesthetic (and certainly doing a 180 from the Replacements topical buffet) the band instead opted for something more subtly melodic, but equally engulfing. 

I'm not sure how much of conscious effort it was on their part, but on Five Story Garage MSA seemed to be taking it's cues from what contemporaries Middle Class and Rifle Sport were angling for. Shades of clangy, echoing guitar sync up perfectly with frontman Pat Wood's rapid-fire spoke/sung prose - a sonic tangent that was approached on the band's first album, but far more thoroughly perfected on FSG. And the whole thing (eight songs) is over within the space of about twenty minutes, but this doesn't feel like you're typical hardcore soiree. There's bona-fide depth here not to mention development in terms of the band's overarching acumen - and sadly this record and MSA in general were predominantly a local phenomenon, one not name-checked alongside the Husker Du's of the world, but for that matter the Mission of Burma's either.

In 2014, Garage D'or Records, a label helmed by the late Terry Katzman (the man who also incidentally produced Five Story...) decided to give the album a second breath of life via a CD reissue, appending practically another album's worth of even newer MSA songs, recorded live in 1986, giving the listener a general idea of what a third hypothetical LP by this five-piece might have amounted to. The whole thing is yours for the downloading below.

01. On the Phone
02. Can't Get Enough
03. Units
04. Start All Over Again
05. Replica
06. Couch Potato
07. Fifty Seven
08. Different Than Now

Live 1986 @ Uptown Bar, Minneapolis
09. Arsenal
10. Better Days
11. Lunch Box
12. Conditoin of Mind
13. The Girl Song
14. Double Negative
15. History
16. Won't Last Forever

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When I wed I will dream in a champagne haze of my first affair.

Reissue of a 1985 album. Word arrived last week that the vocalist for this Irish combo passed away on the 18th. Without giving much more away I can definitively say this - he leaves behind one hell of a legacy.  This LP is a huge component of that. 

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

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La Danza - s/t ep (1983, Frodo)

The somewhat oblique purple and green animal-type-thing occupying this otherwise ebony album jacket belies a record with a half-dozen smart yet accessible post-punk tunes from an Austin unit I can't find a shred of info on, save for a token Discogs entry. La Danza's moniker of choice translated into English is The Dance, the band's ep kick's off with a cut dubbed "Why Do I Disco?," and these guys (and girl) owe more than a wink and a nod to Gang of Four...yet these folks won't necessarily have you cutting a rug. Irony aside, each song on this extended player sports something of it's own personality, with the aforementioned "Disco" tapping into La Danza's emerging counterparts Pylon. Further in, the more melodic "Silhouette of a God" finagles a morsel of U2's sonic aptitude, and "Vouchsafe's" marshal rhythms suggest an appreciation for Wire, without making it too obvious. La Danza may not astound, however it manages to consistently impress. 

01. Why Do I Disco?
02. Italian Song
03. Astrology
04. Silhouette of a God
05. Everything is Mine
06. Vouchsafe

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Lazy - Fire Escape 7" (1997, Elastic)

Lazy (aka The Lazy Music Group) were one of hundreds of '90s indie also-rans that deserved a better fate, granted the sheer amount of competition thrown their way. Sounding like a product of the west coast, but evidently calling Cincinnati home, Lazy were a co-ed, female fronted punk trio, not necessarily cut from the same mold as the Avengers or X, or even contemporaries L7 of Sleater Kinney. There's a keen mid-fidelity aesthetic employed on these three frenetic, not to mention aggressive numbers, with an abundance of bratty pizazz to really drive their proposition home. The Fire Escape 7" was preceded by two albums on Roadrunner Records. 

A. Fire Escape
B1. What You Want
B2. California Screamin'

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You couldn't have stayed in flight forever...

Disk two of a 2003 box set containing 35 b-sides and ep tracks from this band's halcyon era. 

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

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The Secrets - Success Without College (1980, Rio)

It seems as is there are more bands named The Secrets than records made by bands named the Secrets (or even by combos sporting that word's singular incarnation). To be more accurate, these Secrets were Canadian, and were touted as having contained members of the Viletones and The Diodes, but this foursome weren't wholly indebted to punk or even power pop. Though they explore a myriad of tangents within just ten tunes in under a half-hour here, these guys were unabashedly rambunctious rock and rollers.  They play it straight down the middle on "Suzie Peroxide" and "All the Girls in the World," kick up some nervier dust on the aptly dubbed "Rock Music," and propel "New Blood" with an irresistible roots rockin' kick. You'll find a handful of anomalies to boot on Success Without College, namely "Strictly From Cough Syrup," a full fledged dive into the blues, while "Zoom" finds the Secrets pulling off an a capella doo-wop cover (originally by the Collegians) with ease. Finally, their run through Roy Orbison's "Pretty Woman" outdoes Van Halen's wanky take by a longshot.

01. Suzie Peroxide
02. Teenage Rampage
03. Pretty Woman
04. All the Girls in the World
05. Zoom
06. Tatto City
07. Rock Music
08. Strictly From Cough Syrup
09. New Blood
10. Take Another Look

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The Muffs - Really Really Happy (2004/2022, Omnivore) - A brief review

The very fact that The Muffs spent the better part of a decade (that would be the '90s) on a major label is as wholly logical as it is a bit antithetical. Logical in the respect that front-woman/guitarist Kim Shattuck, bass wrangler Ronnie Barnett and drummer Roy McDonald composed a power trio who were of classicist pop stock - so much so that one of the band's most obvious calling cards was built on a foundation of '60s girl group harmonies. The Muffs penchant for songs averaging approximately 150 seconds in length lent even more cred to their accessibility factor. In fact, it was this swift in-and-out brevity that helped ingratiate them with certain contingents of the punk community, even after they made a break in the early-90s for Warner Bros. As for why it was a relatively antithetical, if not ironic choice for the Muffs to hitch themselves to such a corporate behemoth...well, the group's moniker alone probably wasn't a big selling point to suburbanites, despite their charming image. Furthermore, though Kim was able to carry one hell of a tune and dole out devastating hooks, she wasn't what most would call a natural singer. Her incorrigibly sassy and fractured whine (not to mention famous intermittent roars) were immediately endearing to those who enjoyed such savage proclivities, yet they were hardly the kind of affectations the general public were tolerant of - even if they were the same folks responsible for propelling Green Day's Dookie into umpteenth-platinum status. 

Over the course of three dynamite records for the WB (The Muffs, Blonder and Blonder, and Happy Birthday to Me) commercially, the Muffs never really caught a break. And despite a strong emphasis on creative control and no shortage of muscular power chords our protagonists never slotted comfortably with any of the given punk sub-genres of their day, be it grunge, ska, Epitaph/Fat, post-hardcore, etc.  Though I don't know the circumstances surrounding their departure from Warner Bros, such a fate often brought bands of the Muff's stature to their knees - and often to a logical dissolution. They did not in fact split up, but instead soldiered on for their first independent full length, 1999's Alert Today, Alive Tomorrow on Honest Don's Records. It would be another half decade before the world received their next Muffs fix, 2004's Really Really Happy, which has been reissued by Omnivore who've appended a half-dozen rarities from the same sessions, plus a heretofore unreleased disk of Kim's home recordings housed under the title of New Improved Kim Shattuck Demos. 

Free to really let it crank and let their aggro-punk flag fly, ...Really Happy curiously enough finds the trio even more disciplined despite having regained a firm footing in indie-land.  The overarching ambience exuded by the Muffs here is about as composed and linear as they've ever sounded, with leaner guitar tones and an even more economical sonic palette than what they were aiming for a decade prior. When ...Really Happy initially surfaced in 2004 it was heartening to discover the band were definitely not trying to out-heavy or out-punk themselves, but doubly more relieving was that Kim's raw vocal panache was thoroughly intact, sounding as indulgently and utterly human as ever. Not a career-defining record, ...Really Happy was nonetheless phenomenally consistent, brandishing all of the Muffs' telltale facets including no shortage of bubble-gummy overtones permeating numbers like "Everybody Loves You," "A Little Luxury," and "How I Pass the Time."  Simultaneously simple yet somehow flabbergasting in its execution, The Muff's formula never yielded a completely unsatisfactory song. In addition to ...Happy's proper seventeen songs the CD version of this reissue appends three more from foreign variants of the record, along with a handful of outtakes including a primo half-minute salvo, "Just the Beginning," and the promising fragment "I Hate Gym."

Kim Shattuck passed away on October 2, 2019 after a valiant but ultimately fatal battle with ALS. Her diagnosis wasn't disclosed to the public until that time. In the liner notes to the reissue of ...Really Happy, bandmate Ronnie Barnett addresses her directly, stating that her demos were "accomplished works of her own that were truly special."  Barnett was thoroughly on the money, and after hearing the New Improved Kim Shattuck Demos portion of this collection you not only get an inside seat to the makings of the record, but a sense of how strenuous her quality control was. Accompanied by basic percussion tracks, these early incarnations of the songs were largely representative of what the finished product would amount to, albeit presented in a slightly more spartan and streamlined context. We're even treated to a song that never made it past the prototype phase, the subdued "Even Now."

The nicely expanded Really Really Happy is available on double CD and a single LP directly from Omnivore or Amazon.  The Kim Shattuck Demos also saw a stand alone vinyl release this past Record Store Day.

Locked down, shut out, and your smile is just throwing fuel on the fire.

From 2006. I can vouch for the entire album, but more specifically,  tracks 2 through 4 deliver a seismic, melodic k.o.

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

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The Psycho Daisies - Pushin' Up Daisies (1985, Sublapse)

Not as high strung as their moniker suggests, for their debut mini-LP, The Psycho Daisies dealt us a cheeky melange of Americana tinged with lightweight Paisley affectations. Truth is, perhaps with the spaghetti western bent of "Killed or Be Killed" this quartet don't really hit us over the head with anything. Instead, on most of Pushin' Up Daisies, you might pick up on traces of Green on Red or post-Days of Wine and Roses Dream Syndicate, but in the grand scheme of things the Daisies are an earnest bunch in love with guitars-y mid-temp rock and roll, sans the patently bad gimmicks their era was so insistent on accentuating.

01. Did it For Her
02. Kill or Be Killed
03. Blew Me Away
04. Get Off on Your Porch
05. Doesn't Come Around
06. In Doubt
07. Wrap Your Arms Around Me

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Notes on new music: mercvrial and Collider.

It's been about three years since we've heard more from mercival aside from a volley of recent singles, but after soaking in 2019's rewarding the stars, like dust ep, I'm more than ready for a full length. brief algorithms is indeed the long player in question, and for these America-expats (now residing south of the border) the equation hasn't changed that much for the band whose indebtedness to Anglophile rock and post-punk is still very much the the unshakable bedrock they're wont to reside on. Managing to retain an austere poise, but breathable enough to encourage some discernible flexibility, this Mexican quartet balance the precise instincts of forebears For Against with the empathetic fortitude of the Chameleons and Catherine Wheel. They haven't completely shed the more omnipotent dream-pop sensibilities of the aforementioned the stars... ep, but I'll be damned if ....algorithms isn't a much more lucid beast, capably demonstrated on "Dance in the Dark," and the outright stunning "Dark Stars." "Be That Someone" propelled by a volley of ringing guitars is equally hard to resist, while the concluding "Cats of Cavtat" pulses along like late '80s Wire.  mercvrial's overarching sonic aplomb can get a tad formulaic, but they mix things up with a couple of poignant and not-so-obvious covers, namely Pink Floyd's "Matilda Mother," and the early Ultravox chestnut "Hiroshima Mon Amour." Laudable taste for sure, given they've tackled primo signature tunes from the likes of The Chills and Fudge previously. brief algorithms, is available on the UK Crafting Room Records imprint, and can be had on white vinyl or digitally via the increasingly essential Bandcamp. 

In the where-the-hell-did-this-stroke-of-genius-come-out-of-left-field-from? file, we have Washington D.C.'s Collider, who I gratefully happened on just a month ago.  Let everyone else slobber on their Wet Leg and give me a coed troupe like this any day. Some thirty years ago I couldn't get enough of such heavy-handed shoegaze interpreters as Lilys and the Swirlies on my side of the pond who ingeniously tweaked what their comparatively straight-laced prodigies in the UK had bequeathed.  In a nutshell, Collider are exuding a similar vibe, albeit with even more heart and sincerity. Striking a visceral charge from the word go on "Now What," you pretty know what you're in for on Fell, the band's second full length. It never ceases to amaze me what wonders a little flanged guitar and a robust array of effects pedals can do. The truth is most of Collider's nugaze contemporaries are reluctant to go overboard and really indulge, and while this foursome exercises plenty of impulse control, they're not afraid to wield a modicum of "weird" now and again.  The band's creative and dynamic chops are wed to incredible melodic structures, with perhaps their only peers being Amusement Parks on Fire. Younger ears may find Fell to be something of a revelation, whereas Gen X'ers like myself will bask in a gauzy, sonic soup that's at once seemingly bygone and brilliantly refurbished.  Fell can be had for a modest fee here.

Are you sick with a lack of imagination?

A long overdue, not to mention frequently excellent solo album from 2019.

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

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Los Punk Rockers - Los Exitos de Sex Pistols (1978, Nevada/Dial Discos)

If there's anything I've brought you over recent months/years, this one will certainly qualify as a bona fide curiosity at the very least. The Sex Pistols, along with their LP Never Mind the Bollocks and it's attendant singles were a worldwide phenomenon spanning perhaps every continent with the possible exceptions of Africa and Antarctica. Nonetheless, in Spain circa 1978, it must have cost something of a small fortune to license foreign releases, even if the foreign nation was part of the same continent, much less within a few hundred miles as the crow flies. The truth however is that ...Bollocks did see an official release in Spain, ostensibly in limited quantities - and perhaps with a hefty price tag affixed to it. 

For whatever the reason (a few have been speculated here) some enterprising individual in Spain seized on a way to cash in on the "wave," so to speak and orchestrated a bunch of studio musicians accompanied by a snarky unnamed mouthpiece to recreate ...Bollocks note-for-note - or at the very least as similarly as possible.  This is where Los Punk Rockers, a nameless cabal of Hispanic punk interpreters swept in to fill in this perceived void. It's been rumored the perpetrators who ghost-recorded the album consisted of members of Spanish prog-rockers Asfalto.  This which might explain what lends any professional sheen to Los Exitos de Sex Pistols whatsoever. The band's rhythm section is fairly tight, and whomever is mimicking Steve Jones guitar parts doesn't deliver them as robustly as the real McCoy, but close enough I suppose. As for the man they chose to put on the mic, this individual's pipes are questionable at best and demonstrably insufficient at worst. Within the first dozen or so seconds of "Holidays in the Sun" it becomes glaringly apparent that the unaccredited vocalist doesn't possess a mastery of the English language.  Further into the record he seems to emanate some sort of mangled hybrid of English and undecipherable warble, the latter of which could be a dialect of Spanish that I'm unable to discern. I'll give credit where it's due in terms of this dude's overarching sneer, which doesn't quite rival Johnny Rotten's but at times sounds authentic enough.  

Again, this album's sheer existence is a real mystery given that the Pistols Never Mind the Bollocks saw an actual Spanish pressing. Nonetheless, those who've been able to find a copy of Los Exitos de Sex Pistols over the years will attest that it's one of those long lost, "so-bad-it's-good" cult classics. I'm presenting it here, although I don't own an original copy, so a big thanks to whomever ripped it and provided album art.  A more thorough examination of the album came be read here.   

01. Holidays in the Sun
02. Bodies
03. No Feelings
04. Liar
05. God Save the Queen
06. Problems
07. Seventeen
08. Anarchy in the UK
09. Submission
10. Pretty Vacant
11. New York
12. EMI 

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Always blow your kisses you mistake for adulation..

The lone 1991 album from a band gone too soon they neglected to tell you about. Sorry for the lack of content last week folks. Was out of town. Will try to get to restoring some files/requests very soon. 

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

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She stoops to conquer me.

A random two-fer this week. One is a 1992 ep that for some reason felt more like a mini-album, and a 2016 full length that left me wanting even more. 

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The Violets - Athens, GA 1988-1992 (2020, Crooked Beat)

Another year, another Record Store Day (This year being the fifteenth), and to one extent or another I've probably attended a good twelve or thirteen of these increasingly pricey and populated events. As was the case in previous years, I've decided to showcase an album/single released on a prior RSD.  I don't think I encountered The Violets prior to this collection that was anthologized for 500 lucky purchasers in 2020. As it's title capably implies the era this Athens quartet occupied falls right within the realm this site so often articulates. The following blurb wasn't penned by myself but capably addresses the gist of the band's proverbial fifteen minutes of fame:

The Violets were a punk/indie band from Athens, GA, mainly active from 1988-1992. The band was best known for their song 'I Hate The Grateful Dead,” which briefly charted on the College CMJ charts in 1991. That original 7" record is a big collectors item these days and the song has remained quite popular, even among Grateful Dead purists, who view the song as a humorous poke at the obsessive fan culture that still surrounds the Dead. Back in the 1990s Grateful Dead -based merchandise shops were even known to carry the record.

...except the band in question had a lot more going for them than a perceived (and I suppose justifiably so) novelty song. There's certainly a discernible undercurrent of humor to some of the ten songs in this collection, yet the Violets were serious and ostensibly ambitious enough to bring a bevy of thoroughly structured and considered tunes to the table. Sonically I'm hearing plenty of early-ish Soul Asylum pizzazz amidst "Dew Drop Inn," "Corrosion," and "Evolution."  And one of the band's champions was none other then David Barbe (who eventually comprised 1/3 of Sugar), a fellow Georgian whose '80s outfit Mercyland coincidentally or not seemed to inform the Violets overarching bent. The record (my rip, BTW) contains both sides of the "Grateful Dead" 7", tracks from scarce demo tapes, and previously unreleased ditties, making a representative argument that the Violets legacy was more than a fleeting, inside joke. While most of what's here veers towards earnest, Minneapolis-informed punk-pop, the concluding "Forsyth" is a slow, bluesy lament about the reputation that said Georgia County earned for itself in the Jim Crow-south.

01. Dew Drop Inn
02. Corrosion
03. Big Wheel
04. Streetlight Sky
05. David Close
06. Evolution
07. Basement
08. I Hate the Grateful Dead
09. Motorman
10. Forsyth

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I’m trapped inside the body of a 45-year old kid.

From 2010. Smart, assertive and sometimes melancholy indie guitar rock built on a solid singer/songwriter bedrock.

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