The Bumble Bees - "Maybe Someday" + 2 7"

The Bumble Bees – “Maybe Someday” + 2 7”
Op Art, 1999
Acquired: Love Garden, Used, 2007
Price: $1

Nuggets-y pop from the Netherlands circa…1966? The label reads “Op Art Sound ’66 Serie” which I GUESS means it’s from 1966. It certainly SOUNDS like it’s from 1966. Upon further inspection (read: I quickly looked on the internet so as to not interrupt my fantasy football mock draft) this combines two separate 45s from 1966 and 1967 and is really awesome in that way that those psych-tinged pop bands from that era are all awesome in a ubiquitous sort of way. More like a standard of quality. The tender ballad-esque “Day by Day” is the real knock-out here. Just pure fucking loveliness all around with these harmonies that just kill. It’s like a great Tobin Sprout song buried in the middle of one of GBV’s more classic albums (editor’s note: I really need to figure out how many times I reference Guided by Voices in posts NOT even remotely about Guided by Voices, like this post…and the last post). The melody is subtle, the kind that creeps up on you (but not in a creepy way). The A-Side is pretty good, notably “Maybe Someday” which is mostly good because it’s kind of weird. It has a creepy horn in it that reminds me of the soundtrack from The Wicker Man. Pagan Ritual Horn? Is that a thing? I don’t know, it creeps me, but I enjoy being creeped by it. Also Creepy: There’s a dude in this band that looks exactly like me. Take a look for yourself. AM I A TIME TRAVELLING GHOST!?! I never knew!

A Bullet for Fidel - "Don't Want Momma to Know" 7"

A Bullet for Fidel – “Don’t Want Momma To Know” 7”
Scat, 1994
Acquired: Love Garden Shotgun Room, Used, 2007
Price: $.25

This sounds like the solo acoustic project of a former punk rock singer. Oh would you look at that! It is! It is exactly that! Erie, PA’s Brian DiPlacido has a definite Roky Erickson jones at play here, and though the songwriting isn’t great, there’s something charismatic about his singing and the fact that this single is pretty much buried in the dark recesses of time that makes this kind of fascinating. There’s a really out of place but again, kind of awesome crappy guitar solo towards the end of “Don’t Want Momma To Know.” I love the pre-internet 90s. When if you wanted to record a song, you had to know someone and then if you did, or sent your song out to a bunch of people, someone would eventually press it to wax. Even though these songs aren’t great, they’re good enough. They exist on a tangible medium, which is more than you can say for the masses making music and putting it up on the internet (present company included) with only the slimmest hope of ever having their songs pressed to vinyl. This record is MOST interesting to me because it directly precedes Guided by Voices Bee Thousand in Scat Records’ discography. 

Here's a track from A Bullet for Fidel's LP Cold Before Morning. It is MUCH better than the two songs on this 7", but still maintains that kind of uber-ramshackle quality I was talking about. The writing is a little better here, though (but the vocals still yearn for a second take, but again, who the fuck am I to criticize anyone's vocals I can't sing for shit either and I still do it so forget that crack about re-recording vocals).

Bulkhead - "Psychic" 7"

Bulkhead – “Psychic” 7”
Rockville, 1992
Acquired: Love Garden Shotgun Room, Used, 2007
Price: $.25

I love writing up these 7”s I got from the Shotgun Room five years ago. I typically start by googling the band, then the individual members, then the producers and engineers, all in an effort to put together the band’s family tree. Bulkhead’s only seems to be connected to Boston hardcore outfit SSD via drummer Chris Foley. Chris Foley is also the contact person listed on the insert, for some reason. I wonder if his phone number still works? Probably not, but I could always call and find out! More research reveals that Bulkhead released one album—Gas Giants—for Shimmy Disc in 1994. Based on the strength of “Psychic,” I’m gonna have to track the full-length down. It’s precisely the sort of song I hoped to find when I bought an armload of 7”s. Uncut, pharmaceutical grade college rock. It is unpretentious with aspirations probably not extending beyond the greater Boston metro area. It’s jangly like R.E.M. but Bulkhead bring their own energy to the table, and it’s sad that this 7” has gone through THREE different record shelving units in the past five years and gone unheard. The b-side tracks “Saw Ya” and the Roxy Music cover “Virginia Plain” are really good, but “Psychic” is the track I’m gonna save if the house is burning down (assuming I can only save one, and I have to choose between these three songs). The clear vinyl is fun too, and if I were giving this album a score Olympic gymnastics style, I’d probably bump my rating a percentage because I just plain fucking LOVE colored vinyl. ESPECIALLY if it is see-through. This is an artifact from a simpler time, when bands were content to just rock out and make whatever they wanted without having to worry about being extra-innovative or incorporating tape loops or children’s choirs whatever. Just good old-fashioned indie rock with heart and hooks.

Note: Jenny just said “this kinda sounds like the Pixies” and I was like “OF COURSE! THE BOSTON THING!” so there’s that.

I wish I could share "Psychic," but there are like four videos of Bulkhead on Youtube and they're all live and I don't have one of those line-in turntables (and then you get into the issue of using other people's music for your own personal use without their permission etc). But here's a live version of "Virginia Plain." They also have a song called "A Dong Market," the title of which cracks me up.

The Smiths - Strangeways, Here We Come

The Smiths – Strangeways, Here We Come

Sire, 1987
Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2012
Price: $4

Is there some common understanding that Strangeways is the Smiths weakest record? Because if so, they must have had one hell of a discography. Strangeways Here We Come is a gem. It has “A Rush and a Push and the Land that we Stand on is Ours,” “I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish” and “Girlfriend in a Coma” and that’s just on the first side! I think maybe I made that whole thing about this being a substandard album up. I really appreciate great bands who can exist in five albums or less. It makes everything so much easier. Not that easy is always (or ever) the way to go, but the simplicity of falling in love is that much simpler (see also: Pavement). With the Smiths, it was sometime in high school when I found Louder Than Bombs on Napster and, despite seeming totally unpunk, I was drawn like moth-to-porchlight to Morrissey’s funny, self-deprecating, sad, and occasionally profoundly moving lyrics and Johnny Marr’s guitars, which sounded unlike any guitars I’d ever heard and really gave the Smiths a sound that many bands have tried to replicate but just can’t nail down the gorgeous complexity of it all. THESE were the cool guys. They somehow seemed so legit to me when I was eighteen, driving to school with the windows down and “Panic” or “Ask” playing on a mix CD. 

I didn’t get to the proper albums until college. I still haven’t listened to Meat is Murder all the way through more than once, but I do have a great affinity for The Queen is Dead and “Still Ill” from the self-titled debut has a special place in my heart because until Danny played a cover of it for me at band practice one day I’d A.) Realized I’d never really listened to the self-titled debut either and B.) That song kind of nutshelled every complex relationship-related emotion I ever had and C.) Thought Danny (who is an incredible songwriter in his own right and now has a band signed to Sub-Pop’s Hardly Art label) had written it himself and I was like “Holy shit that is fantastic.” But Strangeways didn’t come into the picture until Destroyer’s magnificent Destroyer’s Rubies came out in 2008, the quasi-title track of which features the line “Typical me, typical me, I throw my cargo to the sea…” Being the nerd I am—particularly with Destroyer songs and the other songs they reference—I rooted around and found the source to be “I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish.”

I think my favorite thing about music is the way the things I like are all kind of daisy-chained together. Bands discovered and fallen in love with because of off-hand references made by other beloved bands. It’s a beautiful, organic sort of thing that I wholly appreciate. Something that really boils down the essence of what it is to be a psychotic music person. Wanting to take in everything but only having a finite amount of time and having certain tastes and such built up over the years. That feeling of discovering a new favorite band, it’s better than just about anything. It’s on the same wavelength as love (thus, better than sex, natch). You don’t even need to know WHY you love an album; it’s practically irrelevant as long as it is getting through. Anyway, the Smiths hit that wavelength and still do. I think Morrissey is a total weirdo, but he seems like a totally genuine weirdo who really is obsessed with his art and politics. My kind of weirdo indeed. This listen through gave me the gorgeous closer "I Won't Share You." The melody is subtle but oh god does it cut right through you butter-like. And then it's just like, autoharp and bass guitar. That's all it needs! And it just ends! No wrap up or anything, just kind of fades away. The last track on the last album of one of maybe the greatest English band's career. I know you've got the Beatles and the Clash and Radiohead and all that, there's just something about the Smiths that feels raw and real and more emotionally resonant than anything produced by those other three bands.

Green on Red - Gas Food Lodging

Green on Red – Gas Food Lodging

Enigma, 1985

Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2011
Price: $3

The reason I grabbed this is because I knew I heard/read Jeff Tweedy talk/write about Green on Red once and I was like o_O. Jeff Tweedy likes this? I must investigate. I love Jeff Tweedy. And regardless, I’ve really been diggin this record for the last six months or so. I put it on every now and then to do the write-up and can’t ever think of the right thing to write. I’ll start by saying I always get a tingly feeling when I write-up an album from the year I was born, because if I’m feeling old, that means the dudes that made the record must be WAY old. And at the same time it doesn’t sound THAT old. But that’s because I’m getting older, and really I’m sure older dudes probably think I’m pathetic thinking I’m getting older at 26 (and I certainly now it, I feel like I meet dudes in their mid 30s all the time and I like to think I’m as grisled as they are but no fucking way). But I still like good old fashioned alt-country before it was alt-country. Rootsy jams from AZ in this case. There are all sorts of weird influences floating around on this one. At first I thought REM (but less boring) and then there’s the rollicking aspect that suggests that alt-country tinge, like Uncle Tupelo’s rowdier numbers, but OH YEAH Uncle Tupelo doesn’t release their debut for five years SO. And then there are the offhand references to the Paisley Underground in the Wikipedia entry for Green on Red SO. OOO. I’m out of my depth. There’s a lot going on here in terms of influences that’s just really cutting edge for the time that I am absolutely unfit to talk about…until I read the Allmusic page about this album and Green on Red and wow look at that technology! From what I’ve read this is a sort of shape-of-things-to-come record for Green on Red in re alt-country, but the references to “their friends” the Dream Syndicate have my interest way peaked and remind me I need to thoroughly drown in the Paisley Underground like I said I would years ago because of my ongoing love affair with Jangle Pop and wanting to know my roots, etc. But all that shit aside, this I’ve been diggin on this album for a while as I said and I’m still diggin on it. “Sixteen Ways” is my favorite tune on the record. It’s like this thin-voiced murder ballad that has this really awesome, carnivalesque organ running through it. It’s seedy and sinister and awesome. And then it’s followed by ANOTHER fucking murder ballad in “The Drifter,” which is about a drifter…going from town to town…killing people. Feels like singer Dan Stuart exorcising some awesome demons.

Yuck - Yuck

Yuck – Yuck

Fat Possum, 2011
Acquired: Christmas present, New, 2011
Price: $0

This was my favorite album from the last year. It may not have been the most artistically daring or genre defining album, but it was easily the most enjoyable and the one I listened to the most. There’s gotta be an equation for how many times you can listen to an album before it wears out, and how that solution verifies the worth of the music. In the case of Yuck, I made sure to avoid wearing it out by swapping it out with something else every week. I did this because the album was special, something that had grown near and dear to me. I didn’t expect to fall for this album as hard as I did, and when it happened, I made sure not to fuck it up.

Relationships with albums are a lot like relationships with girls. There’s a delicate balance that must be kept, otherwise you run the risk of being overbearing, smothering, and well there goes that. But you’ve also gotta give’em attention too. A lot of attention (BUT NOT TOO MUCH). If all goes well, you can nurture this relationship for years. Relationships with albums (like girls, natch) often start off passionate and wild. You just can’t get enough of each other. She…er, the album will be in your CD player for days and all you wanna do is shout from the rooftops “HOLY SHIT I LOVE THIS RECORD SO MUCH.” And then after a couple weeks, well, the honeymoon is over. You’ve gotta…see other…albums. But, ok, ending that analogy right now. But you get my point, right? There is always such a thing as too much of a good thing. No album, I don’t care who you are if you say so you’re lying, is unwearoutable. Every album has a breaing point. I mean, what if you were a huge Beatles fan and got stuck on a desert island with only Rubber Soul in your walkman? You would eventually get sick of it. You’d never wanna listen to Rubber Soul for as long as you lived and probably be like “Man, I wish I brought the White Album because at least that one has all sorts of fucked up weird shit to analyze.” Back to Yuck though, Yuck didn’t wear out. It really, really could have but I planned ahead and avoided it, but it could have. However, it would have taken a very long time because this album rules.

It rules because it feels geared to the type of music nerd I am. It’s like some lost gem dug up from some 1990s basement. It’s the sum of the band’s influences, and that sum ends up being something surprisingly fresh and honest and real. There are no bones made about the inspiration. No attempt to cover up the Yo La Tengo or the Lemonheads or the Sebadoh. All the energy this band would spend on posturing trying to pretend they weren’t inspired by so and so is instead put into crafting a set of songs that just slay. It’s like a guided tour of indie rock, from simplistic upbeat punk-tinged jams like “The Wall” and break-your-heart indie power ballads like “Shook Down” and “Suck” and pure indie-pop bliss in “Georgia.” Then there are the songs that sneak up on you after like 10 listens like “Operation.” And the way the guitars sound on this album, holy shit. And how I namedropped three bands up there but really, this album draws from 80s and 90s indie rock as a whole, and it blends everything together pretty seamlessly despite the surprising sonic diversity and the rawness of the sound.

Every song is great. Or I love every song. Either/or. Even the B-Sides are great (oh yeah, the album comes with a whole separate disc with six b-sides) because they are straight-up b-sides. They don’t really fit on the album, but on their own they shine. Like “Coconut Bible,” holy fuck. What a jam. It’s such a nice, refreshing treat to have these new jams after absorbing the old ones so thoroughly.


And since there's a bonus album, here's what a true b-side sounds like!

Guided by Voices - Alien Lanes

Guided by Voices – Alien Lanes
Matador, 1995
Acquired: Love Garden, New, 2012
Price: $14

I feel like I’ve already written about this album on this blog. I mean, do I really need to express how I feel about Alien Lanes? It’s like one of my built in personality traits. Ian is tallish, shy, and Guided by Voices. No even loves Guided by Voices. It’s just there. In my blood and stuff. I’m one of those people. If you ask me to make you a mix CD I’ll make you three, and then outline why the way I’ve ordered the songs is optimal for your listening experience. “The later stuff is full of great pop hooks, but it gets very hit or miss in the absence of Tobin Sprout who really kept Bob Pollard in check on those great albums. The holy trinity, Bee Thousand, Alien Lanes, and Under the Bushes Under the Stars.” The thing about GBV is that they so warrant obsession. It’s like perfect tornado conditions or something. A massive discography (Pollard apparently has over 1,000 songs registered in his name with BMI) that you can only do your best to listen to all of, great songs buried on albums laced with tape hiss and cast offs barely worth the magnetic strip they’re occupying but they’re there anyway. It’s so pure and unfiltered, and seeing the bad songs helps you appreciate the great ones that much more. It’s like the whole process of the band is documented from day one. Like there wasn’t a single idea they didn’t record. Sure, it makes for some hit or miss, but good lord the hits are some of the most potent pop songs of all time. Maybe that’s overexaggerating, or is it? I mean, I think Guided By Voices are better than the Beatles, but that’s just me. The Stones? Please. Pollard and Sprout over Jagger and Richards any fucking day. Especially with the classic line-up.

Alien Lanes is just as good as Bee Thousand, if not better. I don’t subscribe to one being superior, but the parallel theory. That some sort of metaphysical anomaly occurred in Dayton, OH in 1994-1995 that changed the game. The thing about Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes is how far superior they are to every other record in GBV’s discography. They are perfect. There are fillery songs, but they’re there to accent the real cream. Just look at how “(I Wanna Be a) Dumbcharger” brings you into a brown haze and then that beautiful bring A power chord hits and you’re suddenly in the most perfect minute and thirty-three seconds of your life. “Game of Pricks.” I didn’t even have to look up the running time, that’s the kind of GBV obsessive I am. And the thing is, ALL GBV obsessives are like this. It’s cultish, really, but I think that’s the point.

I know I said that Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes are parallel, but I should clarify one thing: Bee Thousand is the better album (sequencing, clarity of vision, etc) whereas Alien Lanes has better songs. Surefire hits like “A Good Flying Bird,” “Game of Pricks” (easily the crown jewel of GBV’s expansive (understatement) discography), “As We Go Up We Go Down,” “Blimps Go 90,” “My Valuable Hunting Knife,” “Motor Away” and under the radar stunners like “King and Caroline,” “Ex-Supermodel,” “Alright,” and that magnificent drinking anthem opener “A Salty Salute.” The hits are just so much hotter on Alien Lanes. And the thing is, all the best songs are under two minutes long. That’s a beautiful tactical manouever if there ever was one. Crafting these glorious hooks, playing them out JUST long enough and never banking in repeating the chorus for five minutes like modern pop music. It leaves you wanting more. Makes the songs practically infinitely repeatable. I’m not much of an American. Not really. But Guided by Voices is one of those things that reminds me that America has the potential to be absolutely great. I mean, we produced the greatest band of all time, didn’t we? Look at those American Flag chucks Pollard is wearing on the back of the sleeve! That’s America right there! These five schulbby dudes hanging out in a cluttered basement, either before or after or during the process of making an unfuckwithable masterpiece. It’s not even something that can be argued. I’m a pretty even-handed dude, always willing to see things from someone else’s point of view and to quick to admit I’m wrong when I’m wrong. However, if you dismiss Guided by Voices, I will probably think less of you. I don’t want to be this way, but I can’t help it. Maybe that’s hyperbole, I won’t think less of you, I just won’t understand you. I know it tanked at least one potential relationship in college when I found out this girl “just didn’t really get why this band was supposed to be so great.” I tried to show her the way, I made like two mix CDs and wrote out a listening guide but after that, I knew it was toast. Maybe that just helped me realize that the compatibility issues were deeper than I could see because I just wanted a girlfriend. Jenny loved Guided by Voices though, and when we got married, she knew she was marrying my obsession and was OK with that and downright supportive. She came with me to see them in Minneapolis on the Classic Line-Up tour and thought it was awesome. I think that’s when I realized I was going to propose to her as soon as I had enough cash to buy a ring. It seems downright baseless to judge someone because they don’t like some silly band, but to me GBV ISN’T just a silly band. It’s my favorite band, something I’ve spent the last eight years internalizing and to hear a dismissal of the band to my face is like a personal insult. There’s something about a bunch of dudes in their 30s getting together and deciding to be rock stars. Not with lofty ambitions (ok, Pollard maybe), but just for their own personal wellbeing. For fun. Dudes with families and day jobs and mortgages. That’s the human spirit right there, and I want to live my life like that. To just say fuck it, let’s get drunk and record music in the garage.

Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes

Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes

Sub-Pop, 2008

Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2012
Price: $5

This is a beautiful record that I only very recently fell in love with. I had some issues with this album when it came out, and they were the worst kind of issues. The kind you internalize when you’re Music Director at a college radio station and you overthink everything to the point where you can’t even enjoy music like a regular person anymore. My problem wasn’t the band itself, not by any means. I loved their sound so much. The songs were beautiful, just the epitome of loveliness. I saw them open for Blitzen Trapper a little bit before this album came out (I think, or they were touring in support of it) and I remember seeing Robin Pecknold walking down the street as I left with a massive headache halfway through Blitzen Trapper’s set and I told him how fantastic his band sounded and how they were the epitome of loveliness and he just seemed like the sort of dude who was new at receiving compliments about his music and was really very sweet and like thanks! That still resonates with me, how just flat out fucking nice that guy was. I’m sure he still is that nice, and really, listen to this music, how could people that made music with this much beauty and passion be dicks? I mean, I know it happens but I choose to ignore it and just live in my blissfully ignorant world where everyone is cool. So anyway, my problem with the record was all the insane press it got like this was the second coming. Like Fleet Foxes were single handedly saving music. And I thought that was just way off. I thought the music was so gorgeous and sounded like it was straight out of mid-century Appalacia or something but that was just it, it sounded old and I have a hard time really rewarding stuff that is basically doing a magnificent job at doing something that has already been done. It’s the same way I get annoyed when every actor up for the best actor/actress Oscar is getting nominated for a biopic. There just seems to be so much more in doing something new. But now that doesn’t matter, not with this album. It’s just so achingly lovely that all of that critical mumbo jumbo can be left at the curb for the garbage man (assuming it’s under 50 pounds, otherwise you’re gonna have to haul it to the dump yourself). There’s a purity to this album that I didn’t see the first time around. There’s so much joy in it, and though it is fiercely controlled, it never feels restrained. It’s wild and free and all that. A testament to capital F Folk music. It’s not art, it just is, and really I think that’s more important and an answer to why I can put this record on any time, any place, and dig on it.

Squeeze - Singles: 45s & Under

Squeeze – Singles: 45s and Under
A&M, 1982
Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2011
Price: $1.50

Someone put this on at work one day and the second I heard “Up the Junction” I was like “I must have this.” And I found out it was Squeeze’s singles collection on vinyl that very day and was like “yes please.” And man oh man, I’m always really on the fence about new wave but this stuff is just so genuine and well, just really good. Not earth shattering but true and kind of pure. “Pulling Mussels (From the Shell)” has a goofy title but it’s like some weird kindred spirit of Elvis Costello. “Tempted” is on this record too, which is great because when it comes on, I think I have cable television and there’s a commercial playing. Overall, this is a nice album to pull out and put on at random when people are over or you’re making dinner and just need something good in the background with a couple hits thrown in for “oh yeah this song! I love this song!”

Bob Dylan - Oh Mercy

Bob Dylan – Oh Mercy
Columbia, 1989
Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2012           
Price: $2.50

 This is a great late Dylan record, somewhere after all the Jesus stuff and those two really shitty albums he made and before he started making all of those blues records or whatever those albums from the 90s were. I bought this record because it has “Most of the Time” on it, which was featured in the movie High Fidelity and featured on the soundtrack and a staple for one of the pretty rocky breakup years back. I’ve never listened to the religious albums or the shitty ones that came after, but this does sound like a return to form record. It’s solid. Sounds like Bob Dylan run through the ringer. Most of the songs suffer from that electronic 80s production, but it’s not nearly as obtrusive as it is on, say, Leonard Cohen’s 80s albums. “Ring Them Bells” is a beautiful, somber tune buried in the tracklist. It totally caught me off guard, and kind of led to this idea that “Oh, this is Bob Dylan now.” He’s moving forward, aging gracefully. His voice hasn’t aged as well as you might have thought it would, but that’s kind of the beauty of it. It just gets more weathered and will keep wearing down until he’s in the ground. I remember Sufjan Stevens covered that song on the I’m Not There soundtrack and I thought it was overlong and weird and then I thought it was kind of awesome when I heard the original. When the tunes are spare and lovely, they succeed greatly. When they’re angsty and bitter like “Political World” and “Everything is Broken,” they get a little too dated. I’d definitely love to hear a version of this album stripped down to just Bobby D and a guitar because you know the songs would sound great (that’s just how the man rolls), and I know Daniel Lanois production and I’m just some upstart coming in being all “oh boo hoo the 80s” but that’s just how I call it. On an unrelated note, the teriffic “Shooting Star” sounds like the balladesque songs Craig Finn has been writing lately. 

Since it's like impossible to find an original Bob Dylan tune on YouTube, here's that Sufjan Stevens version of "Ring Them Bells"