SEBADOH- HARMACY

This is a great album if given the appropriate amount of time. Sebadoh are not well-liked by my friends and they are of the opinion that Lou was better off in Dinosaur Jr. than fronting his own band. Pure nonsense if you ask me. I love Dinosaur Jr. for Mascis' awesome playing and You're Living All Over Me is one of the most perfect albums ever written but everything else is very hit-or-miss and later on Mascis began to write songs that sounded like hazy afterthoughts meant to pay his bills. Sebadoh, in my opinion, is all fire and expression. Unlike Jay, I don't feel like Lou ever stopped trying to be a better writer or rested on his laurels... at least in terms of Sebadoh. Lou never made an album as good as You're Living All Over Me but he did make three albums that are better than any other Dino album.

Out of those three, Harmacy gets the least attention. III is all lo-fi mysticism, hopeless ballads and scrappy-charm. Bakesale is the well-produced, amps-on-11 surprise party. So what is Harmacy? Something in between Bakesale and III. More angst and balladry than Bakesale but far too much rock to sound anything like III. The thing that shines here is Lou's voice, songs and melodies. It's really just a messy pop album hidden under some slacker-tendencies that, much like Sebadoh as a whole, loses out on the acclaim it deserves due to Lou's unfortunate reputation as permanent second-fiddle. If you like rooting for the underdog then maybe give Sebadoh a try!

HERE

NUCLEAR FAMILY- S/T

This is some great punk right here. Nuclear Family broke up and finding info on them is tough because, at least according to Discogs, there are seven other bands by the same name and I'll bet at least one of them plays punk. To help distinguish this I will say that it has super melodic female vocals that remind me of Kathleen Hanna's singing (not screaming) and that really nice not-quite-distorted-but-still-dirty-sounding guitar sound that colors every good punk record released between 77-79. LOTS of minor chords! It's only eight tracks and they all rule. This might be hard to find on file sites but it's available for cheap from the label's Discogs page!!!

BUY


STEAL

Ampere / Funeral Diner Split

High res album art of this is elusive, so here's a photo of the record because it's badass.

Two crushing songs from Ampere on the A side, total 90 seconds. Ampere is a really fast and violent band that has Will Killingsworth from Orchid in it, these songs are two of their best. I've always found it odd that I prefer only hearing about a minute of music from a band that fast, you'd think you'd be hungry for more but no.

The other side of this is one of my favourite songs, though it's pretty teenage in hindsight. It's called I Was The Sword by Funeral Diner, a band that broke up in summer 08 as I recall. Sounds like it's a song about Seth Babb's ex girlfriend, but it's spiced up with that tragic hero mythological bullshit that you find in emo music. I mean I like it, but maybe you know what I'm talking about. Seth Babb is the singer of Funeral Diner.

Download HERE

Ghostlimb / Fischer Split

Ghostlimb is a pretty popular (I think) band from LA. They're made of the living singer of Graf Orlock and 2 other guys. Super good emo/hardcore type stuff, their half of this split is good. The reason I'm posting this, however, is Fischer. They don't seem to have much material, in fact the dark side of this record is the most they have in one place.

Basically Fischer is a 2 piece emo band. They have really good guitar playing with some melodies, but the singing is the angsty shouting I like. Think Tiny Hawks but less noodly guitars and less screaming, or 1994! kinda. One of those two piece bands that you don't realize is only two guys and then when you do you go WHOAAAA.

Download HERE

Tempest - Passages

Cruuuuushing local (Vancouver) blackened crusty doomy sludgey metal... I'm not well versed in metal sub-genres or culture or whatever but I'm sure Cam or probably anyone else on the blog would be able to give you a better (or more concise) classification of their sound. I've posted this with permission from their singer Roger, a great dude. There are only 13 more copies of their LP left (according to their bandcamp) which you can order through that site. I think. Snatch them up before they tour Europe (!!!)

My favorite jam is Hierarchy of Greed.

Download!

BIG BLACK- RICH MAN'S EIGHT TRACK TAPE

If you are like me and came of age in the late 90's or early 2000's then you no doubt bought CD's when shopping for music. Why wouldn't you? They were fairly cheap (depending on how dedicated you were to buying music and looking for good deals) and basically the only way to obtain the majority of releases. I never gave much thought about why CD's had replaced vinyl or cassettes and my naive little brain was quick to assume that it must be because CD's sounded better than vinyl!

So fast forward to about 2005: I was finding that a lot of music I wanted to buy was either not available unless I got it specially ordered and if it was available, it was really expensive. Black Sabbath CD's were only $7.99 but other bands' albums (like Big Black's) were as much as $20... I bought the Rich Man's Eight Track Tape on CD for $22.99 because I had only heard Jordan Minnesota and knew this was a band I needed to know inside-out. Keep in mind, this was before I could just go online and find a download of any album in about two minutes. When I got home and removed the shrink wrap and the annoying-as-fuck security stickers Touch-and-Go loved to put on their jewel cases I popped it into my stereo and was instantly pleased. I began reading the love-letter to CD's Steve Albini had penned inside the insert:

"THIS COMPACT DISC, COMPILED TO EXPLOIT THOSE OF YOU GULLIBLE ENOUGH TO OWN THE BASTARDLY FIRST-GENERATION DIGITAL HOME MUSIC SYSTEM, CONTAINS ALL-ANALOG MASTERS. COMPACT DISCS ARE QUITE DURABLE, THIS BEING THEIR ONLY ADVANTAGE OVER REAL MUSIC MEDIA, YOU SHOULD TAKE EVERY OPPORTUNITY TO SCRATCH THEM, FINGERPRINT THEM AND EAT EGG AND BACON SANDWICHES OFF THEM. DON'T WORRY ABOUT THEIR LONGEVITY AS PHILLIPS WILL PRONOUNCE THEM OBSOLETE WHEN THE NEXT PHASE OF THE MARKET-SQUEEZING TECHNOLOGY BONANZA BEGINS."

All analog? Real music media? By now I was not only interested in the mind behind this writing but what he was getting at. I was introduced to the mind and music of Steve Albini from there on. Needless to say, it changed the way I viewed the music industry, music production and obviously, music media. And oh yeah, the music was punishing, fucked up and really catchy.

HERE

OUTBREAK- YOU MAKE US SICK

Sometimes you just wanna listen to some pissed-off, breakdown-obsessed hardcore that doesn't do anything fancy, doesn't change anything you already love about hardcore and is just catchy as shit. This is perfect for that!


HERE

GROUNDHOGS- THANK CHRIST FOR THE BOMB

Groundhogs are one of the few lost classic rock bands that actually deserved to be remembered and aren't just some hyped up record-nerd bullshit. A power-trio in the very traditional sense, the songs are composed of fast, bluesy rhythms with tons of jamming, the occasional sabbathy heavy section and oh yeah, killer solos! I'm a douche so I can tell he's using single-coils and sometimes the guitar sounds a lot thinner than is appropriate for the songs, but when it clicks, it does so in the perfect way. The third track is as good as anything Cream ever did.

HERE

SATANIC THREAT- IN TO HELL

This is one of those rare examples of a joke record that ended up being completely awesome in its own right!
Members of Nunslaughter and Midnight come together to record songs based around Minor Threat riffs but change all the lyrics to be about hating christianity! The thing is, these guys prove to be infinitely better at 80's HC worship than a good 75% of the bands out there that are actually trying to do this. Every song is a killer and it's all catchy as hell. Enjoy!


HERE

MODEST MOUSE DOCUMENTARY '97

If you remember Modest Mouse as an amazingly-promising indie-ROCK band and not the major-label snooze-fest they became, then this is the documentary for you! We can talk all day about this band being a prime example of selling out (because yes, they are!) OR we can remember them for what they were, one of the best bands making music from 94-99.

This documentary follows Isaac around during the recording of The Lonesome Crowded West LP and it's about as candid as you can get. Eating subway in the studio, walking around Olympia, going to a corner store to carefully select a good forty and driving around in the band's van just shooting the breeze. Aside from that you get interviews with Elliott Smith, Doug Martsch and Calvin Johnson (who was producing the aforementioned  LP at Dub Narcotic!) A great snapshot of a band and songwriter at the peak of their creative powers.

HERE

ERIC'S TRIP CBC DOCUMENTARY

This is a wonderful little documentary the CBC did on Eric's Trip in 1993. The bulk of the film is just Rick White and Julie Doiron sitting and talking about the band in a very cute and rambling way (which I eventually found pointless and frustrating)... anyways, lots of amazing footage, good songs, cool interviews, some original versions of well-known songs PLUS a very funny commercial that was left on the tape! Enjoy some great 90's Canadiana. It's only about twenty minutes long


HERE
and...
HERE

Boston Strangler - Primitive

It's been awhile since my last post, I've got some things queued up but I  can't find the means to turn vinyl/tapes to mp3 yet.

In the meantime here's a hype band: Boston Strangler.
Members of Mind Eraser and Social Circkle and sounds like combination of both of those bands (omg.)
Imagine Negative FX with a grind influence, or a much better recorded SSD. You can't lose here! This is their debut LP, Primitive.

"MAKE LIKE A TREE, AND GET OUT OF HERE"

Download!

ALEX CHILTON- LIKE FLIES ON SHERBERT

Alex Chilton is awesome. If you enjoy plain old rock music or some really amazing songwriting then you owe it to yourself to get into this man and his odd body of work. The back story that everyone is maybe familiar with goes something like this:

A teenage Chilton somehow lands himself a job as the guitar player in the 60's one-hit-wonders The Box Tops and ends up singing on their biggest hit, that band splits and Chilton befriends fellow songwriter Chris Bell. After awhile they gather two other musicians and form the now legendary Big Star. They write and record two of the greatest and most influential power-pop albums of all time but no one hears them and no one who does seems to care enough. The band splits sometime in the early 70's, Chris Bell becomes a junkie and ends up killing himself while Chilton spends the rest of the decade in a permanent state of depression and intoxication. He regroups with a former Big Star bandmate to record some songs for a new album as The Sister Lovers (the two of them were dating a set of sisters) but it ends up being released as a Big Star album entitled Third, which the label thinks will yield more interest for the album. It doesn't and the album flops, which is no surprise to Chilton at this point. It would go on to be the most lauded and influential of The Big Star LP's but at the time it was just another failure in an ever-expanding list. Shortly after that, Chilton went back to getting fucked up on a permanent basis and somewhere in the haze decided to do his first solo album, Like Flies on Sherbert. A few years later, Chilton became an in-demand producer for new-wave and punk bands and finally earned the long-overdue praise for the material he penned with Big Star. An untouchable cult-figure from the mid 80's on, Chilton enjoyed critical success and unwavering support from the independent music community until his death a few years ago...

But this album... oh boy. One critic said it was the worst album ever made. People hated it's amateurish production and incredibly sloppy playing but listening to it now, you get to hear a power-pop album that predates lo-fi, indie-rock and alt-country by about twelve years. I think it's great and so did Chilton. He said it was made during the worst period of his life but it somehow managed to be a fun reminder of that time instead of the drug-addled mess everyone made it out to be. Decide for yourself I guess.

HERE

City of Caterpillar

City of Caterpillar was a band from Richmond Virginia that had some guys from pg. 99, and some of them went on to form Ghastly City Sleep and Pygmy Lush. I'm not going to pretend to know what was going on in a scene from 10 years ago and 3000 miles away, I'll just talk about the music.

It's maybe my favourite album. I think I've listened to this one hundreds of times, or maybe just one hundred of times if that's a more realistic figure. If you've ever heard an "emo" album that sounded like Explosions in the Sky but with a teenager screaming in the background and ruining it, well you know what to expect I guess. This is the finest example of that sound I've ever heard. It's honest, dynamic, got good musicianship, takes you on a journey, is badass, etc. Everything good I could possibly describe about a hardcore album with 8 minute songs is in here. What they mostly sound like is the Japanese band Envy, except without that quality that Japanese bands have. You know, where they've perfected a sound but it's kind of devoid of emotion, like maybe they sound like that because that's how it should sound? These guys sound like this because it's what's inside 'em.

My favourite song is the second one. It's also the shortest so maybe if you decide you hate this you won't waste much time, but I hope you all like it. I dunno how to buy this album anymore else I'd share a link to that.

DOWNLOAD

Warning - Electric Eyes

There's a lot that can be said for camp, some people hate it, because it demands that what you like is silly and in turn must mean you're silly too and some people just can't stand the idea of being perceived as silly human beings.

Then there's Warning, who are campy but so fucking awesome that you can forgive them. This record is the second their releases and it's probably the most epic thing you'll hear all day. Like Italo Disco/ early Electro? Like Disco Kitsch bands like ROCKETS or SPACE from France? Like a dude pretending to be a german Cookie Monster/ Evil Robot? Like your electro to be manned up with some guitar at times? You got Warning. If any of these things grab you, you'll probably dig this.

There's not much else to say about this record, it's pretty ridiculous but you can tell that the dudes who recorded this thought it was the best shit ever, I mean they modeled their image off of this record cover. I'm in no position to argue how fucking awesome these guys are. Listen to this right after and don't even flinch. Turn your house into a bacchanalia and don't look back, YOU CAN NEVER LOOK BACK.

GET IT

NO TREND- TEEN LOVE 7"

No Trend are my preferred proponents of that ugly, arty branch of 80's hardcore. This 7" is so fucking weird and so fucking angry but not in a macho way. More in a school shooting way. Apparently the band were very weird kids and basically hated everything... I dig.


HERE

WITCHFINDER GENERAL- DEATH PENALTY

File this band under Party-Doom, a genre that doesn't exist but chances are you totally get what that would imply if you enjoy Pentagram's faster numbers. Bitchin' riffs, solos that pierce the haze, stupid lyrics about drinking shroom tea and oh yeah, the implied rape of the album cover because... well, they were moronic thugs who, when it comes down to it, are the Venom of doom in terms of musicianship. Dig it if you dare...

HERE

BREADWINNER- THE BURNER

This is some weird shit. Not weird in a Sun City Girls or Portal way. Just weird I guess. It sounds like stoned guys with a lot of technical ability who were compelled to create a mix of what was then math-rock and really dissonant thrash... Somehow it comes off as more arty than heavy... it was on Merge when they were doing cool stuff so you know it's at least worth hearing.

HERE

BEAK> - S/T

Oh hey, I'm Geoff Barrow, I produce Portishead, play drums for no wave princess Anika and play fucking everything. Here's a Krautrock record I made in my spare time in 2009 with two other talented dudes. It sounds like nothing that happened in 2009.

While it's inexplicably tied to the past, it's in the best way possible. Not like those PYT's that dress like cute little mountain men and long for a time when you could milk a fucking cow yourself but not really, Beak is more about being like: "I wonder what it would sound like to make a Krautrock record RIGHT NOW?!?! LIKE RIGHT FUCKIN NOW?!?" The Answer? Not different at all.

Not necessarily a rocking record, there are a few jams on there that will elicit minor bangs ( " I Know", "Iron Acton") but nothing to crank to 11. Think of it as "working on shit late at night music" or " This party is getting good but hasn't quite exploded music"

Take it or leave it, I loved it.

BOOM

VON- SATANIC BLOOD

About two years ago I was single and feeling especially desperate so I made a habit of looking for ads that piqued my interest in the singles section of my local craigslist. One night when browsing through the ads I found a twenty-something who's ad essentially read like this:

" Looking for someone who wants to come over, get stoned, turn of the lights and listen to VON really loud "

Obviously I was interested, only because it wasn't like the hundreds of other ads I'd read in self-defeating disappointment. I paused and considered the possibilities but ultimately thought " This is a pothead satanist who wants to fuck someone while slitting the throat of a hog-tied goat"

I never replied to the ad, but I still listen to Satanic Blood and imagine what could have been.

HERE

CONFLICT- THE UNGOVERNABLE FORCE

 

Poor Conflict. No doubt there are thousands of punks out there right now with a Conflict patch on their vest or maybe a copy of one of their records but in comparison to CRASS and Discharge, Conflict are sort of an afterthought to most people. However, I think Conflict are musically so much better than both of those bands. They combine the tendencies of CRASS's avant-garde fixations with Discharge's rawness without forgetting that they're a punk-rock band. Every Conflict recording I've heard has been pretty damn good, ESPECIALLY the Serenade is Dead EP, but in terms of meaty full lengths, this is the one to hear!

HERE

update

-DM3 doesn't even have their own wikipedia page.

-I just remembered a funny story pertaining to the Victoria emo post:
a nameless member of a certain band from that city once went to a Frog Eyes show in a bootleg Republic of    Freedom Fighters shirt, got sloshed, and walked up to Casey Mercer after the show and told him how much  ROFF meant to him. Casey looked confused and told him that that band wasn't very good and that he was only a teenager when he played with them. Then he walked away and talked to some girls.

DM3-Dig It the Most

Criminally under-appreciated Australian power pop. At least I think they're underrated. Every Australian I've ever asked about them doesn't seem to remember any of their music. I could be wrong though, they were all under 25. and I've only ever spoken to three Australians.

Regardless, enjoy!

DOWNLOAD





PS: Apparently a band from Bellingham called So Adult covered "1x2x Devastated". That band rules. 90's style indie (college rock?) featuring members of Shook Ones.  Here's one of their music videos

Cluster - Zuckerzeit

So here's a perfect record. What I generally define perfection as is not necessarily that all the songs are good, or all the parts all have meaning all of the time to everyone who will ever hear this, but that the package operates as a whole of it's parts, not off of one or two singles and the rest of the chaff just holding it together like glue on a model plane. This is some serious genius stuff right here, I don't even know what to compare it to in terms of the same time. It definitely has a quality that artists like Boards of Canada would have found very attractive in building their aesthetic. This record kind of jams with some of the more spaced Can stuff but it's still in a league of it's own. The album lead in, 'Hollywood' is probably one of my favorite pieces of music and also a indicator if this is going to be your jam or not. I hope it is, you will not be sorry.

PLAY ME

THE FREEZE- GUILTY FACE

Just some vintage midwest hardcore. Super fast and snotty but in typical midwest fashion, there are vocals that sound like your highschool gym teacher trying to scream while being choked to death.


HERE

THE APPLESEED CAST - THE END OF THE RING WARS

If you ever are curious about midwestern emo and maybe you don't know anything, let this album be the one you hear. It pretty much sums up all the high points, and is my favourite. Jimmy Eat World's Clarity might be the other primary example of this sound, but this album's better. In terms of recommendations, there's probably a lot more and I'm sure you'll hear them from me. For now, grab a beer or put on some coffee and peep this one.

e: This music needs more talking about, so here we go. The case with a lot of music like this is either there's too much raw emotion going on and it just sounds amateurish, or the band has become scientifically exact at creating the one sound but the emotion is lost. This is a really happy medium, it sounds like pretty darn good songwriting for say, post rock, but the people making it are about to cry. They're playing really hard and it shows. The Appleseed Cast made some bad albums but then re-emerged as a pretty decent post rock band. They were able to channel their raw emotion into a more polished form, and as a good post rock album should their music now conjures moods and leaves more to the listener's imagination. So this sounds like punk-post rock. It's nothing like post-punk though I guess it literally is that.

LINK

DANZIG- S/T

Before being a washed-up goth dad, an overly cocky tough-guy, a prima donna rockstar with demands of french onion soup and all the other hilariously pathetic stories we'll probably never hear, Danzig was fucking rad. Obviously he was in the fucking Misfits when they were actually good but he was also asked by Lyle Preslar and Brian Baker of fucking MINOR THREAT to start a band after both bands had called it quits. As if that wasn't enough to convince you this guy was fucking cool, there he is on the cover of fucking Thrasher in 86' when it was probably the coolest fucking magazine in existence. Gradually his ego was fed and well... shit happens. Some people just end up shitty and I guess Ziggy is one of them but hey, he was cranking out decent shit from 78' to 92', which is not a bad run if you ask most people. Scoff all you want but this, his first solo LP, is the fucking jam.

HERE