While still too ill to do much of anything other than watch tv and go to work, I managed to get the links cleaned up. Got rid of a bunch of sites that no longer update, added some other stuff, and generally tried to add some better mp3 blogs. This’ll be ongoing throughout the afternoon, so stay tuned.
There will be no posts until I recover from being sick.
No, it’s not swine flu.
I’ll be recovering by sitting in bed and watching cartoons.
No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to separate Alison Mosshart from the Kills from the Alison Mosshart that fronted Discount. Personally, I blame Mitch Clem. The running gag in Nothing Nice to Say where Fletcher is in love with Alison and gets her name tattoo’d on his arm pretty much locked that image into my mind.
Anyhow, I saw the Kills and the Horrors at the Bottleneck last night. The review’s over at Wayward Blog (my first review for the Pitch, meaning I have now fulfilled a dream I’ve had since I was 15).
the Horrors - “Sea With A Sea” (from Primary Colours)
The Gaslight Anthem plays the Beaumont Club in Kansas City on Saturday. I did an interview with the band’s drummer, Benny, and… well… it didn’t go all that well. Not anything to do with Benny, just that somebody forgot to put the interview on their itinerary for the day, and so he was doing the interview from the parking lot of their hotel. Lots of vehicles passing by, which you can hear on the interview. Plus, Benny’s cell died at one point during our call. It was fucking rough, and while I tried to turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse, the back half of the interview (wherein we discuss record collecting) is the better part.
Download my interview with Benny of the Gaslight Anthem
Here’s the audio version of my review for Bomb the Music Industry’s Scrambles. It was a last-minute fill-in piece for As Heard From the Hill at the end of February. It’s a little different than the piece that I put up here, plus there are music samples. Nothing special, but it’s a nice change of pace for me. Download the mp3.
Oh, hey - I’m also selling a ton of stuff on eBay. Check out my auctions. Really, my basement and shelving will appreciate your help in ridding my home of these items. If you buy a bunch, I’ll cut you a deal on shipping.
KU lecturer in English Iain Ellis recently released his book Rebels Wit Attitude: Subversive Rock Humorists. I sat down and did an interview with him for KJHK’s news magazine, As Heard From the Hill, back at the end of November. I believe I’ve mentioned this before. Anyhow, since it appears that PopMatters never put it up, and since As Heard From the Hill is reairing the interview tonight, here it is.
The best part about this book is that I’ve probably been hearing about it for the past four or five years. Every time I’d run into Iain at the Replay, I’d talk to him about crazy rock ‘n’ roll, like the Macc Lads or Splodgenessabounds. The book ended up losing any parts about English artists, however. To tighten the focus, Ellis aimed his lens at just American artists (and even then, I gave him hell for not including the Tubes).
The book is excellent, and if you’d like to get a copy, Ellis will be signing copies of Rebels Wit Attitude tomorrow, Thursday, April 23 as part of Oread Books‘ Birthday Celebration week. Ellis will appear from 1:00 - 2:30 PM on Thursday, April 23, and give a brief talk at the beginning of the event.
Pretty much stolen wholesale from a thread on the Pop Punk Message Bored, here are scads of free albums available for download.
* Every single Hickey, Fuckboyz, Yogurt, etc. recording ever made featuring Matty Luv is available here. It’s a lot of punk rock. I hope you don’t have a bandwidth cap.
* All of Defiance, Ohio’s records are available on their discography page. You get the option of using BitTorrent, or getting them via links to Archive.org, where you can download their amazingly catchy folk punk in mp3 or ogg vorbis.
* Andrew Jackson Jihad might not have their “official” albums available, but you can get the duo’s demos on their discography page. They’re rather similar to Defiance, Ohio, but they’re less crazy. More akin to straight folk, less “huge group.”
I’ll be back to “real” posts tomorrow. Today’s a fucking bear.
Various Artists - “Up End Atom: A Tribute to Atom & His Package”
(Hartless Hind Records)
Wow. That showed up fast. Hartless Hind presents a tribute to the man, the sequencer, the legend, Atom & His Package. The comp features two nerdcore rappers (mcchris and MC Lars), a synth-driven power pop band (Zolof the Rock & Roll Destroyer), a punk-metal new wave act (the Emotron), and assorted others, including Atom himself, singing with his friends the Zombonis on a rendition of “Goalie” (he’s not that into himself, it’s just that they’re his good friends).
The tracks are a mixed bag. I found that the artists I wasn’t familiar with actually did a better job on the tunes than the artists I did know. I love Zolof, but they make every song sound pretty much the same (that was sort of the curse the last time they tackled covers on their Duet All Night split with Reel Big Fish).
mcchris doing “Punk Rock Academy” sounded like a dream come true, and I’m glad his track came second, or I would’ve had to skip ahead. I’m glad I didn’t, because it was pretty much a disappointment. I thought this would be a match made in heaven - two high-voiced geeks meeting in a glorious explosion. Nope. mcchris pretty much phones this in, sounding bored. He might as well have had just read it off a lyric sheet.
The real winners here are Locas In Love. They do a folk punk take on “I am Downright Amazed at What I Can Destroy With Just a Hammer” that keeps the humor of the original, but takes it in an acoustic direction, eschewing keys or sequencers or beatboxes for strummed guitars. This could be a campfire sing-along, and I’m definitely going to hit up their website and download their albums. Their albums appear to be in German, as is their entire website, but I gather that they are doing what is called a “Download Reissue Series” for their records.
Up End Atom does a good job, in that four bucks of every CD purchase goes to the American Diabetes Association, so it goes to a good cause. The downside is that every Atom song is like two, two and a half minutes long, so this disc clocks in at under thirty minutes with just 11 tunes. That’s why every Atom record has like, twenty songs. So, figure that you’re paying seven bucks for an EP, and donating to a good cause.
Atom & His Package - “I am Downright Amazed at What I Can Destroy With Just a Hammer” (from Attention! Blah Blah Blah)
Tomorrow is the second Record Store Day. It is, essentially, (at least according to the web site) a “celebration of the unique culture surrounding over 700 independently owned record stores in the USA, and hundreds of similar stores internationally. This is the one day that all of the independently owned record stores come together with artists to celebrate the art of music.”
What that really means is that it’s a way to get people to go, “Oh, there are still independently owned and operated stores other than Best Buy where I can buy music other than what’s played on the local top 40 station? Huh. I’ll be damned.” There are scads of exclusive releases that will come out on Record Store Day. Some are b-side exclusives, some are represses, some are live - really, while cool and all, it’s not like any label or artist is bringing their “A” game and putting out a new album that day.
It’s a lot like Free Comic Book Day, except there’s less free shit. There’s some free shit, but the focus isn’t on the free stuff. The idea is to get people into stores for the exclusives, and they’ll hopefully drop more cash on regular stock. I ended up buying something like $80 worth of tunes last year, and this year looks to be no different. Most participating stores have sales and live music and cool stuff like that, so check the website to see who’s participating near you.
the Supersuckers - “Rock-n-Roll Records (Ain’t Selling This Year)” (from Live at the Magic Bag)
Oh, man, I totally slept on this. The Accelerators‘ debut full-length came out last month on Stardumb, and I totally flaked on getting it. Now, granted, the label is based out of Rotterdam, so it’s not like your average record store is going to carrying their releases. Although, really - they should. Some of the best pop-punk in the world - kind of like a Dutch version of Lookout! before they went downhill.
The Accelerators’ve got that Ramones look that every good pop-punk act seems to sport: leather jackets, jeans, Converse, and with that Joe Queer twist of a ball cap - they are carrying that pop-punk banner and flying it high.
Anyhow, the Accelerators’ My Baby Is An Undertaker that came out on Squinty Joe is one of my favorite 7″s of the past few years, and I probably overplayed the songs of it in the weeks after it showed up. All the songs are snotty, awesome, and “1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4″ pogo crazy. The full-length also features “The Rain,” which was the jam from the 7″.
So, I will be dropping large amounts of money on music from overseas, it seems. On the bright side, Stardumb has a lot of other really great releases (Groovie Ghoulies, the Apers), and when the mail comes, it’ll have a postmark from the Netherlands, which is kind of a bonus, if you think about it.
In the words of Lavar Burton, you don’t have to take my word for it. Here are some reviews:
* Punk Rock Reviews
* Asice
The Internal Revenue Service would like me to remind you that you need to have your taxes (or an extension) filed by midnight tonight. It is April 15, and if you’re an adult and don’t know what that means, you probably deserve to be audited.
Being as how the wife and I are poor, and count on our tax return to pay off bills and get a little ahead, we tend to file our taxes right around the first of February. Home ownership, kids, and a small(ish) combined income makes for a large return that tends to make the rest of the year run on rails, financially.
But, for those of you who have totally spaced on this, and have no idea what to do, and just hope you can scoot under the radar of various government agencies (in a recession? bitch, please) and just skip on paying your taxes this one time, I’ve got a song for you. No - it’s not “Taxman” by the Beatles. I could go the rest of my life without hearing that at this time of year. No, it’s the Nimrods‘ “Runnin’ From the IRS,” off the Back Asswards compilation on Interbang Records. The song is a catchy little pop-punk number about (surprise) running from the IRS.
Actually, this could be the start of a pretty good comp. Toss in the Pinkerton Thugs‘ “Murdered By the FBI” and Anti-Flag’s “I’m Being Watched By the CIA” and you’re off and running. It’d probably be heartily embraced by folks like those sponsoring the Tax Day Tea Parties. They aim to “expose the bankrupt liberal agenda of the White House Administration and Congress. Specifically, the flawed “Stimulus Bill” and pork filled budget.” As near as I can tell, these “tea parties” are just another set of protests, but at least the name’s catchy.
the Nimrods - “Runnin’ From the IRS” (from Back Asswards)