Coming in and out of focus on the 5th of July

Mike Fellows, bassist from Rites of Spring who now records and tours with the likes of Will Oldham and David Berman , composed a great alt-folk album on a Mac Powerbook that Jade Tree released in 2002.

Miighty Flashlight - "Ballet Skool"

UPDATE: If you got here via John Hodgman's email update of THE AREAS OF MY EXPERTISE (3 of 20), then you might to want to re-evaluate your slutty disposition to try any old link within an email. But now that you're here, this is what JH was referring to: Futon Fighters. (That'll learn you to think twice before clicking next time.)

Later Days

T.S.O.L. - "Wash Away"
MP3 no longer available.

TOP Music #4: The Hated - No More We Cry 7"

The Hated were an Annapolis, MD band in the mid/late 80's that started out when the nearby DC punk scene was already evolving beyond "hardcore" and adopting more melodic, mixed-tempo song structures with hyper-expressive lyrics exploring emotions rarely articulated in such a manner under punk before. That, in a nut's hell, was the birth of "emo" with the Rites of Spring leading the way. Good summary of that movement here. The Hated, obviously influenced by what was coming out of DC and Hüsker Dü at the time, released a bunch of great material on demo tapes and records in a four year stretch from 1985 to 1989 that's still sought after by the cult of record collectors.

I knew very little or nothing of the Vermin Scum record label when I bought its second release, The Hated's "No More We Cry" EP at the Annapolis Record & Tape Exchange in the middle of a high school summer. I grew up closer to the state capital than our nation's capital and this purchase marked the first time I was genuinely blown-away by a band so local. I was much too late with this discovery so it's not like I knew them or got to see them live but I soon realized the impact they had on the rest of the Annapolis area bands.

I hope they don't mind I digitized and posted these songs. There's long been a rumor that Troubleman Unlimited is going to re-issue their complete recordings on CD but my shitty turntable set-up produces a sound quality that doesn't come close to being a substitute. With sides labeled "This" & "That" the record has four songs, two which are performed acoustically but no less intensely.

Never said it'd be like this, right?

The Hated "No More We Cry"
This - Hey Mister, Waiting
That - Rubber Bullets, Words Come Back

Related links: A Tribute To The Hated 1985-1989, When did "emo" become emo? [nobulog], Simple Machines Tool Cassette series

The Anthony Kiedis Suite

With a sleep pattern stitched from Slash, I'm back from a 48 hour trip to San Francisco which wasn't anything like the Eddie Murphy movie but I did get a certain Nick Nolte vibe this time around. I stayed with friends at the legendary "rock-n-roll" Phoenix Hotel (like I had any clue of the place when I wrote that Gridskipper post in February) which allowed us to get intimately acquainted with its equally storied neighborhood, the Tenderloin. Looks like there's a re-branding effort to call it (or maybe just part of it?) "Little Saigon" if I read all those street signs correctly. I guess that label works since I was ready to be air-lifted out of that shit-hole in considerably less than 48 hours.

Rancid - "Tenderloin"
MP3 no longer available.

Fucking Up Is Hard To Do

I've posted this before but I plan on making it my theme song for the SF wedding weekend. It's a mood-setting number with Blag Dahlia of the Dwarves going solo and drop-kickin' an entire nation.

Blag Dahlia - Theme from the Vicelords

Wedding Presidio

Leaving Friday after-work for a 48-hour whirlwind wedding weekend in SF where gal-friend and midwest transplant Julie B is getting hitched to low-profile pro skater Karma Tsocheff in one of those storyboard action-romances straight outta the screenshots of Gleaming the Cube. Should be a fun time, the reception is at the San Francisco Motorcycle Club. I'll be wearing leather wristbands.

Samiam, especially this song, has little to do with the occasion at hand but the Bay Area emo-popcore pioneers (a clumsy yet convenient label) are somewhere in my top five bands of all-time. I'll save that discussion for another time.

Samiam - "Sympathy"

It's Just A Jump To The Left Coast

Back with Blatz to rip their home state of California. It's a far superior song than yesterday's which only proves we save the best for the things we love to hate nearest to our hearts.

Blatz - "California"

Blatz To The Future

Weegee (Arthur Fellig) Summer, Lower East Side 1937

Even the Berkeley punks knew something was amiss with the Lower East Side in 1991. Manhattan Transfer was probably splittin' hairs in these parts with his boots around this time too.

Blatz - "Fuk New York"
don't forget the struggle don't for get the streets
you don't have to worry you're such a creep
the lower east side is the place that's true
but it's for fighting cops not for fighting you
mosh it up cause we're bald and dickless
we just might sence we're wittless physically strong morally strait
why don't you all just masturbate?
fuck krishna
fuck green peace
fuck jimmy gestapo
fuck strait and alert
fuck ray of today
fuck matinees
fuck the ritz
fuck new york, fuck new york, fuck new york, yeah.[x2]
[repeat beginning]
fuck boots and braces
fuck shaved for battle
fuck white pride
fuck white power
fuck y.d.l.
fuck the crew
fuck you!
fuck new york, fuck new york, fuck new york, yeah.[x2]

Related: Apocalypse, Now What? [Young Manhattanite]
Previously: Blatz - "Learning How To Smile"

My Pillow Is My Lover

King Face was one of the best post-hardcore DC bands in the mid-late '80s not to release anything on Dischord. I wore the vinyl out of this 6-song 12" EP (not pictured to the right) but these two digitized tracks should be enough to give you the picture even if it's a little washed out. I would go into more detail but Vinyl Mine does it much better than I could. I will say that King Face is not afraid to break into some hard rock guitar (perhaps Van Halen-esque?) from time time. Small doses, I swear. Don't be scared.

"I Don't Want To Be Anything" and "Lull-A-Bye"

Last Point On Lookout

So far I've posted songs from Lookout! releases #2, #3, #4, #5 this week after two earlier posts with Sewer Trout MP3's from #8. To complete the early catalog of single digit 7" releases (#1 was a Lookouts 12" and #6 a Stikky 12"), below are tracks from #7 Plaid Retina (self-titled) and #9 Yeastie Girl "Ovary Action" EP.

It's worth noting that a group of friends and I produced a stirring "performance piece" with a medley of songs that included Plaid Retina's "Sugarfit" (also bits of King Diamond, Megadeth, Boogie Down Productions, and The Living End from SoCal not the newer Aussie band) for our high school lip-synch contest dance in either '88 or '89.

If I remember correctly, a teacher's boyfriend hurt his arm, our class faculty sponsor called one of us a "real asshole," we were disqualified, and I had to make a formal apology the following Monday morning over the school's PA system. The scary part? There's a video of this infamous night buried deep in someone's closet (hopefully) never to be played again until all of us are dead.

As for the Yeastie Girlz stuff, it's just your standard run-of-the-mill white girl rappin' acapella group all about vaginas and shit. Dig the Buzzcocks cover too.

Plaid Retina - "Sugarfit" and Yeastie Girlz - "Talkin' Shit/Orgasm Addict"

Related: Check out former YG Cammie Toloui's Gilman Street photo set. The rest of her site is definitely worth poking around too.

I Grow Up Too Slow, I Don't Wanna Go

One each from Lookout! Records #3 Operation Ivy "Hectic" EP and #4 Crimpshrine "Sleep, What's That?" EP

Operation Ivy - "Junkies Runnin' Dry", Crimpshrine - "Sleep, What's That?"

You're Stewed, Buttwad

I guess I'll keep working through the early Lookout 7"s this week. The Corrupted Morals "Chet" EP was the label's second release and if I'm to believe the red stamped number on the back cover then it appears I own #662 of the first pressing. I believe the collector nerd value of this gem is no different than its original $2.50 price, postpaid.

Corrupted Morals - "The Adventures of Edwin Meese"

The Thing That Ate Floyd the Barber

I've covered my Bay Area/Lookout! Records cheap thoughts before, but there's nothing for me to add about the recent news concerning Green Day and the financial troubles of the label. Heart and head don't always play nice. No one died. The world still turns.

With that gung-ho spirit, here are a couple tracks from Lookout #5 Isocracy - Bedtime For Isocracy digitized from vinyl. I didn't realize all these old 7"s were re-released on CD a couple years ago until today. I'm really on top of this stuff. No matter, I'll keep serving up the inferior sound quality versions. I'm sure you like it rough anyway.

Isocracy - "Rodeo" and "Hippie Man"

Run It Up A Flagpole, See If Someone Dilutes It

The day came, embarrassingly early but also very late, to pack it in and leave this test tube blog to care for itself on semi-autopilot. Gone are the days of clumsily hand-coding a two-column webpage with prosthetic permalinks and artificially inseminated archives. Now we go forward by starting on our backs.

X-Ray Spex - "Art-I-Ficial"

Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3

Old shit to the right. New old shit to follow.

Rites of Spring - "All There Is"