Here's a pencil pad, I'm gonna spread some information.
Lest you think there's only one great thing (go to just shy of the exact middle of the clip) associated with the word "shuggie", fucking check Inspiration Information the fuck out. Shuggie Otis--the psych-blues Doogie Howser of the '70s--delivers his last studio album, replete with Stevie Wonder soft funk, keyboard preset soul jams, Debarge vocals, and a 1970s future-vision hypothesis that's so intimate and perfect it will make you hate the actual, crummy future that much more. The Luaka Bop cd reissue from a couple years back even includes a few tracks from Freedom Flight (best album cover since Never Say Die!, or ever) to sweeten the already sweet deal. A happier, snappier endless Shuggie(/black metal/No Age/yeh yeh/Goblins) summer 2007 awaits, and I'm ready to dive/cannonball in.

Shuggie Otis - "Inspiration Information" (from Inspiration Information)
Shuggie Otis - "Island Letter" (from Inspiration Information)
Shuggie Otis - "XL-30" (from Inspiration Information)
Shuggie Otis - "Pling!" (from Inspiration Information)

Videos!!!!!! Danzig as performed by Legion of Rock Stars. Vincent Collins' hallucinogenic cartoons. Bat For Lashes' horror movie bikes. A tan Lukas Haas at Andre 3000's pretend wedding. Song!!!!!!! An epic (15 minutes!), moving Vothana track from Hoang Gia that he probably doesn't want you to hear, or me to post. Seriously, if you can't get down with horribly anti-semitic (I think?), Vietnamese black metal, you're more than likely a fucking PANTYWAIST.

Coach tought me to sing, he couldn't teach me to love.
The initial plan for my junior prom was this: My friend Andrew and I--the only two dateless wonders within our crews and sub-crews of friends, as I recall, and maybe less than chuffed about it--would dress up and tag along with a few of those romantic winners for the usual pre-prom dinner and limo riding, and then drop the loving couples at the prom itself, hijack (not literally) the limo, and watch crappy soft porn videos while everyone else made treasured memories inside the Newark High School gymnasium. Out of context that sounds kind of creepy and pervy, but classic Skinemax films were pretty de rigeur for junior year hang-out sessions at our friend Joanna's house, and I can attest that they were watched strictly for laughs, devoid of any and all steaminess and/or mid-90s eroticism. Of course they were also generally watched in big groups, which might be why the idea of just us two dudes watching soft porn quickly lost its appeal--it would have run contrary to the spirit in which those films needed to be watched and wound up some weird conceptual joke that neither of us really felt like making (not to mention the two films selected for us were an episode of Red Shoe Diaries starring Ally Sheedy and a movie that's probably still too hardcore for me now, called Auto Erotica). So we dropped the facade and hit up the prom proper. I danced awkwardly with a girl I wasn't into, goofed around, checked out everyone all gussied up, and had a pretty good time. The night wore on, and a bunch of us bailed on the gym, went to the now-defunct Perkins, and wound up staying at our friend Laura's house, where I fell asleep watching strange movies on the USA Network.

The following day my parents let me drive them up to Borders in Henrietta (I had a driving test coming up), and I forced them to listen to Devo's Greatest Hits all the way there. My dad got a kick out of "Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA", but I think they were happy once they were able to get out of the car. I didn't have my P&C job yet, so I don't know how I had any money, but I managed to pick up Pavement's Brighten the Corners--kind of the End Hits and Steady Diet of their oeuvre, all in one--and it became my ultimate record of the summer (much to the chagrin of both my mom, who got freaked out when I played the creepy part in "Transport Is Arranged" while driving through a cemetary on the way back from dinner at our local Country Club, and Jason Wetmore who, on a separate occassion, said "I don't like this!" from the back of my overcrowded van once "Date With Ikea" started), at least until I purchased Minor Threat's Complete Discography from that same Borders a couple months later and got set off on an entirely different trajectory. Still, Corners resonated with me so much that even while I was devolving into a cheesy Fat Wreck Chords mess and trading in all of my Sonic Youth cds, I was still listening to it (and whatever other Pavement records I could get my hands on) exhaustively, exalting it to the top of all mental lists, littering mix tapes with "Stereo" and "Shady Lane" and possibly "Old To Begin", and accidentally memorizing every word of the only record I know all the words to.

Pavement - "Shady Lane/J vs. S"
Pavement - "Transport Is Arranged"
Pavement - "Old To Begin"
Devo - "Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA"

So much more to talk about! Unreleased Nation of Ulysses demos, depressing answering machine tape (submitted by Jason Yawn Factory) at Chunklet. No Age video at here. Songs of the day, like "Into The Hollow" (or anything from Era Vulgaris) and "Stuck On An Island". Songs of the Memorial Day (aka Take Back the Center Street Day) weekend, like some Favela Funk--1, 2. RIP Charles Nelson Reilly, long live Match Game.

You get me in a crowd of high class people and then you act real rude to me.
Songs of the week for...I don't know, like the last 10 days. And begin:

The Isley Brothers - "Voyage to Atlantis" (from Go For Your Guns)
Bill Withers - "Use Me" (from Still Bill)
The first time I heard this Isley Brothers song was the other day on my way home from work, and I wound up hearing it again as soon as I got in my car the following morning. This was probably just a coincidence (and/or a wake-up call for Sirius channel 53 to add more songs to their library), but what if it wasn't?? Anyway, it's a good song with sweet guitar work. Plus I don't know what's more awesome--the idea that the song might actually be about going on a voyage to Atlantis sung from the point-of-view of a former inhabitant, or the idea of "going on a voyage to Atlantis" as a euphemism for fucking. Meanwhile, Bill Withers shrugs off a dysfunctional relationship because he's the nicest guy on earth. I was a little creeped out that the guy from Gym Class Heroes had "Use Me" AND an Isley Brothers song on some list he did for Nylon Guy, but we do both have a Geneva connection (just as creepy - ed.).

UGK featuring Outkast - "International Players' Anthem" (from UGK Underground Kings)
I finally heard this song in its entirety yesterday after weeks of catching the last 5 seconds of it, and shit is good. Not great, but good. Andre 3000's verse at the beginning is decent, Big Boi's verse at the end is fucking fantastic, and the beat (I think courtesy of Three Six Mafia) is beautiful.

Monks - "Boys Are Boys and Girls Are Choice", "Love Came Tumblin' Down" (from Black Monk Time)
Black Monk Time gets better every year, and makes me both proud of myself for being inexplicably obsessed with finding a copy when I was in high school and mad at myself for not picking up everything else in the short-lived Infinite Zero catalog. For those not up on the Monks story, check here. These are just random picks that have been stuck in my head lately, especially the guitar solo in "Boys Are Boys...". Also, something about "Love Came Tumblin' Down" (the repetitive-ness? the chunky-ness?) makes me think of Shellac.

Galaxie 500 - "Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste" (from Peel Sessions)
Songs like this are the reason I don't flinch or recoil or barf when people use the term "indie rock". In fact, this--a loud, amazing rock version of a Jonathan Richman song--is almost note for note what comes to mind when that term gets thrown around, even though I get the feeling this isn't what people are talking about anymore.

Jacques Dutronc - "L'Espace d'Une Fille", "On Nous Cache Tout, On Nous Dit Rien" (from Les Playboys)
My obsession with Dutronc continues! Like the Monks picks, these are sort of random selections (this time from the first disc of a 3-disc mid-to-late-60s era Dutronc set) that I can't get out of my head. The only bummer about "On Nous Cache Tout..." is that it's mixed differently here than it is on the original Les Play Boys EP, and the awesome drum fills at the end of every line in each verse section--the ones that totally make the whole song!--got brought way down. Sacre bleu (sp?)!

The Beatles - "You Never Give Me Your Money" (from Abbey Road)
Harvey Milk - "War" (from Special Wishes)
I had a dream the other night that I picked up the cd single for "War", which included two unreleased live tracks and came with a bonus action figure of a tree that had a face and two branches/arms--sort of what trees always look like whenever they come to life. "You Never Give Me Your Money" will be on repeat in my mind probably for the rest of my life. I don't know why I paired these up.

Elliott Smith - "Whatever (Folk Tune in C)", "New Disaster", "Either/Or", "Pretty Mary K (other version)" (from New Moon)
I had a hard time figuring out which songs to spotlight, but I finally narrowed it down to a quarter of New Moon's second disc. Every song on both discs is a no-brainer classic, though, and from my favorite era of his ('94-'97), when everything was, for the most part, super raw. But yeah, these songs are all from the 2nd disc, and, with the exception of "Whatever...", are all Either/Or outtakes that leave most people's shining moments in the fucking dust.

Gary Wilson - "Soul Travel", "Rhythm In Your Eyes", "New York Surf" (from Forgotten Lovers)
Every Gary Wilson song starts out sounding like the best song I've ever heard and then usually veers into bizarre territory or just kind of hangs out and winds up sounding like the most pretty good song I've ever heard. But some of them are the best songs I've ever heard, and here's three of them. Forgotten Lovers may even be better than Mary Had Brown Hair, but not better than the cover of Mary Had Brown Hair.

Song that's also on the list but not listed is No Age's "Great Faces". Video is Amps For Christ on Practice Space. Also, I'm taking up a weekly post routine for at least the summer, if not the remainder of eternity, and I might throw in a podcast somewhere down the line, which will probably be called "Rappin' Ronnie Reagan Tape".

I probably forgot more than you'll ever need.
Objectively I don't know how In Cold Blood stacks up against the 100,000 million Johnny Thunders albums, bootlegs, collections, or bootleg album collections since it's the only Thunders record I've listened to in its entirety (I've also listened to, I think, five minutes of Hurt Me). But I do know that my dub of Nick MacLaren's dub (which only included the first five, in-studio recordings), squeezed onto the end of a 120-minute tape immediately following Black Flag, went missing sometime after being listened to on a chartered bus to Washington, DC in the fall of 1997, sending a small part of me into a severe panic. If there was a way for me to have filed a missing persons report for a tape, I would have. But eventually I realized there was this thing called the internet and I managed to track down a copy of it--released on cd by Dojo Limited in '95, but originally released on LP by New Rose in '83, I think--thus ressurecting another of my high school-era favorites from the high school-era graveyard (props to finding my Wookiee tape a couple weeks ago, as well!), sort of. So yeah, the hazy haze of nostalgia is probably making some non-essential, crappy New York punk/drunk rock outtakes sound much more revolutionary than they really are, but I'm going to stand by these songs (the first five songs, anyway; the live set tacked on the end will have to fend for itself). They're catchy and sleazy and, in the case of "Diary of a Lover", terrible, but they're SINCERELY catchy, sleazy, and terrible, and that goes a long way. Plus the version of "Green Onions" is dirty as hell and kind of sacrilegious, and all the studio tracks were produced dutifully by sometime Stones producer Jimmy Miller.

Johnny Thunders - "In Cold Blood" (from In Cold Blood)
Johnny Thunders - "Green Onions" (from In Cold Blood)
Johnny Thunders - "Diary of a Lover" (from In Cold Blood)

Brighten the Corners song of the day is "Blue Hawaiian", runner-up is "Type Slowly". In On The Kill Taker demos song of the day is "23 Beats Off", but keep it hush-hush. Video of the day is...yikes, Black Oak Arkansas' "Hot & Nasty" (or absolutely anything listed in this WFMU post). Remember when VH1 Classic used to play videos?

D as in Denison, E as in Enison.
While I'm waiting for my Denison Kimball Trio 7" to arrive on my doorstep, I figured I'd talk a little about Duane Denison and his work with The Jesus Lizard. I'm not really a historian on Denison, though (I'm not familiar with the works of Firewater or Tomahawk), and I'm only a novice Lizard dude. But I can still say that his guitar work is fucking great--adding so much terrifying color, just-slightly-off-from-each-other layered guitar lines that give you that squirmy/mind split open feeling (like Joey Santiago does with his one note bend-ups, but in greater numbers), and a sense of restraint and tastefulness in all the right places ON TOP of his and the rest of the band's great pummelling math blues attacks. As much as the band wouldn't be what it is/was without David Yow's raving derelict vocals and should rightfully be remembered for just that, it's Denison's experimental, almost jazz approach to the dirty rock game that really does it for me--the moments when his guitar alone seems to blow open the entire song ("If You Had Lips", "Boilermaker"), or when his guitar without a doubt, definitely does blow open the entire song ("Monkey Trick").

The Jesus Lizard - "If You Had Lips" (from Head)
The Jesus Lizard - "Pastoral" (from Head)
The Jesus Lizard - "Boilermaker" (from Liar)
The Jesus Lizard - "Monkey Trick" (from Goat)

Mad decent songs are The Free Design's "Bubbles" and Pavement's "Zurich is Stained". The former was in my head all weekend, the latter all day today. Videos are Them and the Huskers on TV (not at the same time).

It's affecting you and me, subliminally.
Hey, check it out--the songs of the week ca. April 23-30, 2007, with a little bit of talk about them!:

Boys Life - "Sleeping Off Summer" (from Departures and Landfalls)
That echo-y thing that pops up just after the start of every line in the verse parts of this song is one of my favorite sounds ever, but what the hell is it?! A whistle maybe? A keyboard? I have no idea. Also, the second half of this album (which this song starts off) really, really destroys.

Spacemen 3 - "Take Me To The Other Side", "That's Just Fine" (from The Perfect Prescription)
Deerhunter - ""Like New" (from Fluorescent Grey)
Two bands cut from similar, drug-soaked cloths. Spacemen 3 are more 60s rock and Deerhunter are more shoe-gaze, but both space the fuck out with nice results. They also both work best for me in small doses (read: Cryptograms is too fucking long).

Lil' Kim - "Queen Bitch" (from Hard Core)
Say what you will about Lil' Kim being a progressively more gross-looking hyper-slut perjurer(sp?), but I've never disliked any of her songs. I just heard this one randomly while driving by Cayuga Lake yesterday and it sounded really good. It even has a quick, awesome line from Biggie tucked in there. I also thought it would be funny if it somehow played off the Bowie song of the same name, but it doesn't at all. That's the only real bummer here.

The Rapture - "Love Is All" (from Echoes)
Not sure why I decided to break this record out, but it was a decent listen several years removed from the unrelenting hype surrounding its release. This song really stuck out to me since it's not a dance song at all. It's more of a ramshackle, mellow rocker, with some nice reverb-y, almost Rolling Stones guitar in it. The way they work in the warped vocals/sounds at the end is pretty nice, too.

Deerhoof - "Giga Dance" (from Milk Man)
I never paid much attention to this song (or this album, really), but goddamn. Deerhoof takes three sections that don't go together at all and puts them together first to accentuate their differences, then manages to find common elements among them. Maybe I'm crazy, but I think that's what's happening here. And then there's the lyrics. This song is really insane the more I think about it.

Make Up - "Blue Is Beautiful", "Have U Heard the Tapes?", "Substance Abuse" (from I Want Some)
I should post every song on this singles comp., but I'll stick to just these three for now. I don't usually fuck with the latter half of this cd and I have no clue why. I guess I thought it was too rough, wasn't as groovy and clean as the first half ("I Am If...", "Born On The Floor", "Walking On The Dune", etc.) and that was apparently a bad thing?? Something stupid like that. But I'm a changed man now. I M a believer.

Video of the day is this Replacements interview. Regular album talk will probably resume tomorrow. Oh and Beck isn't peforming in Canandaigua this summer as previously reported, but this guy is.

Full of thoughts already written.
So yeah, The Gentle Rain. More soul/funk/jazz instrumental stuff from yesteryear, which is really all I want to hear right now (in between Bone Awl records, '60s freakbeat shit, and Abbey Road), with a nice bit of '70s light FM going on, ie. jazz flute, synths, horns, shag carpet, good times, Good Times, etc. The original hits by not the original artists, including reinterpretations of Stevie Wonder, Carole King, and the Beatles a few times over (including yet another take on "Fool On The Hill"--what's the deal with that song?) brought to you by Nick Ingman and friends, and eventually the good folks at Sunbeam and Anthology. Writing this off as dentist office Muzak would be a mistake, but having a little shindig and gettin' a little loose to this would definitely not be.

Moody - "You Are The Sunshine Of My Life" (from The Gentle Rain)
Moody - "Across The Universe" (from The Gentle Rain)
Moody - "Gonna Make You An Offer You Can't Refuse" (from The Gentle Rain)

Song of the day is "Rabbit Hop" in honor of Leah Daniels and her being 23, I think. Runner-up is "Happy Bunny Goes Fluff-Fluff Along" (WARNING: not really a fun song). Non-Leah song of the day is "Melbourne".

The Late Skip Moonlight.
I should really be talking about The Gentle Rain, but I want to round out the very slapdash Beck/Mix Tape double-theme week I started over a week ago, so here are a few random Beck tracks from compilations (which are basically mix tapes, albeit the most unsatisfying mix tapes imaginable, generally speaking). First is Beck's take on Skip Spence's "Halo of Gold", from More Oar: A Tribute To The Skip Spence Album, sounding like a decent/bizarre Odelay b-side. Don't know much about Spence or the Oar record (I'm blanking on what they said in the Rock Snob's Dictionary), so I can't compare and contrast, but I will say my interest is piqued, KIND OF. Next up is a take on Daniel Johnston's "True Love Will Find You In The End", from the Late Great Daniel Johnston tribute comp. Its a pretty standard pairing of Johnston's lo-fi production and Beck's Sea Change voice, and not quite as killer as the original (or any of the original versions, I should say), but it's not bad by any means. And then finally a couple old blues numbers from the soundtrack to Steve Hanft's film Kill the Moonlight--"Leave Me On the Moon" and "Last Night I Traded My Soul's Innermost For Some Pickled Fish". I think I'm going to see Beck with my parents sometime this summer, in Ganandaigua.

Beck - "Halo Of Gold" (from More Oar)
Beck - "True Love Will Find You in the End" (from The Late Great Daniel Johnston)
Beck - "Leave Me On The Moon" (from the Kill The Moonlight OST)
Beck - "Last Night I Traded..." (from the Kill the Moonlight OST)

Beach Boys songs of the day for Saturday morning were "Little Pad" and "Can't Wait Too Long". Beauty Pill song of the day for yesterday (Monday) was "Nancy Medley, Girl Genius, Age 15". Incidentally, check out the blog at Beauty Pill's myspace spot for some free music school. Oh and you can listen to the Clutchy Hopkins-related radio show courtesy of An Aquarium Drunkard--check out the download alone or sign up for their regular podcast. Like it says in the recap, there was barely any talking and TONS of random, good soul/funk stuff for two magically fantastical hours. Run, don't walk...uh, over to that site.

Flying through the air with grace!
Yeah, so let's talk Beck singles ca. 1994. The Steve Threw Up single was the Holy Grail '96 for me, maybe until I found the Jimmy Castor Bunch E-Man Groovin' record but probably even after that, and just like the real Holy Grail, it had to be returned to my friend Andrew since the copy I had been listening to ad nauseum (ba dump bump!) technically belonged to him. But what a song--three and a half minutes of what exactly Steve threw up (falafel, tequila, bagels, catfish, granola, pickles, etc.) while on acid at the top of a ferris wheel. Beck's knack for absurdity and perfect folk songs reaches its zenith at both ends with some help from the gals of That Dog., before devolving into his patented lite Wolf Eyes noise mania (a trick that even found its way onto Sea Change). Luckily I had the presence of mind to be in Washington, DC some eight or nine years later and to bring $8 (kind of steep) with me so I could own my own grail, FINALLY. Also of note, the B side has a slightly longer version of "Mutherfuker" than the one featured on Mellow Gold. I'll try to post that up someday.

Beck - "Steve Threw Up" (from the Steve Thew Up 7")
Beck - "Mutherfuker" (from Mellow Gold)

Not to be outdone, the Loser single bosts four unreleased songs that trump most of what actually made the cut on Mellow Gold. That record has its moments and everything, but I've always been more insane about these fucking B-side gems. Well, not so much "Corvette Bummer", but check out the alternate take of "Soul-Suckin' Jerk". Fucking genius. And again, Beck's savant-like folk mastery is all over "Alcohol". And then there's "Fume", which is whatever for a couple minutes and has some funny lines ("smokin' broken pencils and beatin' up kids"), but then drops major heavy loads all over the place for the last two minutes. It also reminds me of my friend Andrew and his tales of doing nitrous while visiting his brother in Houston. I think I even saw a diary he tried to keep while getting insanely fucked up down there and it was pretty great.

Beck - "Corvette Bummer" (from the Loser single)
Beck - "Alcohol" (from the Loser single)
Beck - "Soul Suckin' Jerk (Reject)" (from the Loser single)
Beck - "Fume" (from the Loser single)

Song of the day is Husker Du's "Makes No Sense At All" because its so good. It also, like "Steve Threw Up", comes courtesy of disc 2 of the Matt Werts Goes to Pittsburgh mix compiled by Tyler Robert Farren. Both come with bonus Carnage clips. Video of the day is some much-needed Dutronc.

A void we filled with death and noise.
The good news is that the forgotten mystery tape from Stoney Way, Spring 2005 opens with a classic clip from a Forever Leather infomercial, and has some surprise picks/decent transitions on side B--ie. Morphine's "Whisper" into Fugazi's "Pink Frosty" into Gordon Lightfoot's "Beautiful", and then later Beck's "Earthquake Weather" (the best song off the worst Beck record?) into Black Dice's "Schwip Schwap" into Nels Cline's "The Ringing Hand". The bad news is the forgotten mystery tape from Racquet Club, Spring 2000(?) is mostly humiliating with very few exceptions--ie. "Broken Face", Beck's "Cyanide Breath Mint" (the best song on the best Beck record?), Boys Life's "All of the Negatives". Best to just avoid personal mixes altogether (are you really trying to impress yourself??). Plus, who has the time?

News of the day is this Clutchy Hopkins shit! Songs of the day are the Misfits' "Green Hell" and Bikini Kill's "Rebel Girl (single version)", but they have to be played one right after the other as you're pulling into work. PS--this is clearly the video of the day (probably NSFW).

Nobody can hear the missing.
Welcome to another week of barely posting anything! I assure you (both of you) my lack of writing things is warranted and that I'll get back to the usual three-scattered-posts-a-week routine shortly. In the meantime, here's a two-fer post. First up is Gonzales' Solo Piano, recently issued in the USA after being a mostly non-USA only record, from what I understand. There isn't much I can say about it that isn't spelled out in the name of the record, but the guy from Aquarium Drunkard called it a kind of "musical palate cleanser", and he's dead on. I would also say it's extremely simple and good, makes a perfect soundtrack for driving slowly through the decaying streets of Geneva, and fulfills my current need to hear anything even vaguely foreign.

Gonzales - "Manifesto" (from Solo Piano)
Gonzales - "Armellodie" (from Solo Piano)
Gonzales - "CM Blues" (from Solo Piano)

Second up is Townes Van Zandt's Townes Van Zandt. I was listening to this a lot last week, but I caught part of Be Here to Love Me last night and it got me thinking about what I had been thinking about. I don't know if its maybe uncouth or retarded to relate Townes to someone like John Denver, but that's who he first reminded me of. Like a John Denver who doesn't immediately make me think of muppets (although I have nothing but absolute adoring love for A Christmas Together), I should say. Like a John Denver who is also Gram Parsons who is also [insert old bluesman]. But anyway, Townes Van Zandt is my record of choice so far, until I go headlong into the rest of the Texas Troubadour set. Lots of classics, maybe nothing but classics. Plus "(Quicksilver Daydreams Of) Maria" reminds me of that thing Ray Charles said about how if you want to write a great song, you've got to praise a woman. I don't know if that's completely true (I don't know if it explains Black Flag), but the last thing I want to do is argue with Ray Charles.

Townes Van Zandt - "(Quicksilver Daydreams Of) Maria" (from Townes Van Zandt)
Townes Van Zandt - "Waiting Around to Die" (from Townes Van Zandt)
Townes Van Zandt - "Columbine" (from Townes Van Zandt)

Songs of the day are Earth's "Miami Morning Coming Down" , from the new Hibernaculum joint, and the Aliens' "R:18" from their upcoming anthology. Video of the millenium is Lumidee and Tony Sunshine's take on "She's Like The Wind". Holy lord.

My cyber impulse was uneven.
I thought writing about Miho Hatori's record from last year, Ecdysis, would be easy, but I've been re-reading all of her lyrics from the record while listening to Flowers-Corsano Duo and Bone Awl, and now my brain is completely scrambled. Suffice it to say, Ecdysis is way more impressive than you think it is, sometimes because its melodies and arrangements are so mellow and subtle that they don't always register, and sometimes because the most brilliant or most crushing lyrics are sung in a language you don't understand ("A Song For Kids" slips this by you: "I found a key to the dream island, I'll be back/I'll give you a code between us, it's secret/Only we know, even mom and dad don't know/I will find the place like this, when I become an adult"). It's a record that reads both willfully child-like and unexpectedly heavy ("I live near the river/In the forest of the deer/I release my arrows/To the sense of your fear") , and often sounds like it's being played from both the future and the past, like a bossanova jazz record re-interpreted by a wistful, time-travelling dream warrioress. Think something like "Sugar Water" with quieter beats or Bjork when she's not singing the shit out of everything or Joanna Newsom's subject matter done right, and you'll be part-way there. Tons of ideas done with care is always a good thing.

Miho Hatori - "A Song For Kids" (from Ecdysis)
Miho Hatori - "The Spirit of Juliet" (from Ecdysis)
Miho Hatori - "Walking City" (from Ecdysis)

Guitar solo of the day comes courtesy of the song of the day ("Rainbow"), which comes courtesy of Boris and Michio Kurihara's record of the same name. Video of the day is this making of "Peg" clip, but I also like this Camera Obscura video.

Baby baby, are you down?
Before I go to a show that promises to be 10% great stuff and 90% stuff that needs to fucking go away, let's talk about some music that has fucking gone away. With its lounge-y, vaguely hip-hop inspired rock thing going on, Butter 08's lone release is very much a mid-90s NYC time capsule record. Weirdly, it's taken me about 10 years to really get into it and not just go along with it based on personnel (Blues Explosion's Russell Simins and Cibo Mato's Yuka Honda and Miho Hatori, along with future Thumbsucker director Mike Mills, and a guy from Skeleton Key (the band)) or enjoy it strictly as late night, I-can't-sleep music. Most of it seemed like a very well-produced joke at the time of its release, but now it feels like a bunch of extremely well-versed cool kids fucking around and making an admittedly schizo, but still for-real album. And as it turns out, being a bunch of fun weirdos is pretty eternal, even if the music feels extremely dated. I'm pretty sure Grand Royal Direct doesn't even carry this anymore, so you may have to check eBay or Gemm, and also the cd came out in both a mock-LP sleeve and a jewel case (not at the same time obviously). Somehow I wound up with both.

Butter 08 - "Dick Serious"
Butter 08 - "How Do I Relax"
Butter 08 - "What Are You Wearing"
Butter 08 - "Sex Symbol"

Song of the day is definitely "Deacon Blues" or anything off Aja, video of the day is this Bobby Conn video that I forgot about.

"I would like to call certain people murderers."

I don't really have an album to talk about today. You should definitely own Meat Puppets II ("Aurora Borealis", "Teenager(S)") and Bjork's first record is incredible, but mainly you need, NEED to watch Dream Deceivers: The Story of James Vance & Judas Priest, the documentary on the Judas Priest suicide/subliminal messages trial back in 1986. It's not widely available, so this is probably the only chance you'll have to see it. Fans of Preacher's Arse-face, take extreme note. Shit is CRAZY. Major appreciation to WFMU's Beware of the Blog for being so fucking great.

I feel so glotious when I fly in my bonahr.
I'm gonna finish up "Essentials" week by talking about Men's Recovery Project as best as I can, and I guess specifically about The Very Best of Men's Recovery Project. The easiest way to sum them up would be to say that--with their synthesizers, stage theatrics, and songs that seemed to be about humans sung from the point of view of another species--they were to the hardcore scene of the mid-90s what Devo must have been to the rock (or punk or new wave) worlds of the late 70s/early 80s, and even recalled the kind of bizzaro material found on Devo's Hardcore collections. But I would argue that they they were possibly more surreal (and less structured) than even Devo was at their most uninhibited, and maybe even funnier. There's also something cheaper about MRP that's really endearing, and that feeling that they were genuinely in another fucking universe (just listen to "Bleeding Gash"!) all the time, and that nobody will ever be able to recreate what it must have been like to be in that universe. Their Very Best of... compilation is a perfect sampling of the aural absurdity Sam McPheeters, Neil Burke and their occassional guests had to offer, and draws from (probably?) everything they ever released, even the record I'm still not sure they really put out, 2001's Night Pirate LP. I'd also highly recommend The Golden Triumph of Naked Hostility, which compiles a bunch, maybe all of their 7"s (Normal Man, Botanica Mysteria, Immense Ovary Reject, et al.), if you can find it. Oh and Million Man March.

Men's Recovery Project - "Bleeding Gash"
Men's Recovery Project - "Get The Fuck Out of My Office"
Men's Recovery Project - "Avoid Pregnancy During Alcohol"
Men's Recovery Project - "Sexual Pervert"

Song of the day is Gonzales' "Gogol". Yeah, I've never heard of him either. Other song of the day is Ghostface's "Chunky".

The sun just went behind a cloud.
Although its maybe been surpassed in my mind by his brilliant 1971 concept-debut Yesterday's Wine, Willie Nelson's 2003 collection of assorted early/mid-'60s demo recordings, Crazy: The Demo Sessions, has a lock on my heart and stands as the starting point for my unstoppable love and appreciation for Shotgun Willie. I remember randomly catching an NPR review of the, at the time, recently-released demo set and being completely floored by the first thirty seconds of "Opportunity To Cry", which sounded to me like he'd recorded it live in a cabin in the middle of nowhere at some ungodly hour, at the absolute lowest point of his entire life. There's a lot of that feeling on this record, so if you're into the spare, the depressing, and the beautifully-written, you'll probably love this. There's also some great full-band, up-tempo stuff ("Things to Remember", "I Gotta Get Drunk"), lots of previously unissued versions of major classics, and some top-secret unlisted bonus songs at the end. I don't know if I can stress enough how badly you can't go wrong with this record. Seriously, we're talking, like, Harvey Milk essential.

Willie Nelson - "Opportunity To Cry"
Willie Nelson - "Darkness On The Face Of The Earth"
Willie Nelson - "I Gotta Get Drunk"
Willie Nelson - "Something To Think About"

Today's song of the day is The Expressions' "These Moments". Yesterday's other song of the day was Servotron's "Theme For An Ultimate and Inevitable Victory", in honor of Kurt Werts getting elected (AGAIN) as Village Trustee. Video of the day is one of the Professor Brothers episodes ("Late Date"), because it's fucking funny. An extreme thank you to Jessica Hopper for posting some of these on her blog.

Get it up and also get it on.
(sigh)....Harvey Milk's long out-of-print 1998 album The Pleaser was on my ultimate Christmas wishlist last year, a list that included mostly impossible, impratical gifts that I had no intention of receiving in my lifetime, and which I anticipated my children or my children's children might devote their whole lives to tracking down, a la the movie National Treasure. But lo and behold, here it is! It's a St. Patrick's Day Christmas miracle! On their last recorded effort before disbanding for several years, the Milk dudes trade their sludgey, white-spaceness ("musical chinese water torture to the uninitiated", as Henry H. Owings describes it) for some unbelievable KISS/Zeppelin/ZZ Top shit, albeit KISS/Zeppelin/ZZ Top shit that's obviously being played by Harvey Milk. It was also apparently done as an attempt to kill indie rock, which basically exalts this record to someplace higher than what my assessment of higher could be, someplace (like everything else they've done) beyond essential.

Harvey Milk - "Misery" (from The Pleaser)
Harvey Milk - "Shame"(from The Pleaser)
Harvey Milk - "Rock & Roll Party Tonite" (from The Pleaser)

Song of the day is Andy Kim's 1974 hit, "Rock Me Gently". I had a weird thing for the snippet of this song that was featured in an ad for a Hits of the '70s compilation that ran in the fall of 1996. It's got a certain Neil Diamond, good-time feel, and I can't say no to Neil Diamond good times.

"They're gonna turn the power off...on your very lives."
Alright! Harriet the Spy Week continues...and ends. Whoops. But we've got some doozies. First off: two tracks from their very out of print, one-sided, limited tour 7", issued just in time for their summer 1998 tour. I've seen copies of this record with funny things etched on the blank B side, but my copy is just blank. Also of note: these are the last recordings they ever did, and were "recorded with haste, May 1998 in our home". "Synthetic Synthesis" is kind of long and pretty depressing on all fronts but with great lines like "let's be pieces of shit together", while "So Called Reality" is also pretty depressing but with some outstanding guitar notes towards the end. Meanwhile, the Live 1998 split with the Party of Helicopters finds them raging through two songs at the More Than Music Carnival in Columbus, OH. Very lively and awesome versions of "The Forgettable Fire" and "When Will Gentlemen Rule the World?", and precisely the kind of stage banter I dream about. Why was this wasn't expanded into an entire album I will never fully understand.

Harriet the Spy - "Synthetic Synthesis" (from the Summer 1998 Tour 7")
Harriet the Spy - "So Called Reality" (from the Summer 1998 Tour 7")
Harriet the Spy - "The Forgettable Fire" (from the Live 1998 7")
Harriet the Spy - "When Will Gentlemen Rule the World?" (from the Live 1998 7")

Song of the day is the Nation of Ulysses' "N.O.U. Cooking With Gas!", from one of those Kill Rock Stars compilations, maybe the first one. Its a jazz jam similar to their cut on the Feer of Smell comp, or like those couple songs on Plays Pretty For Baby. Video of the day is THIS!

Peanut butter on my pants.
I'm going to pause the Harriet the Spy talk and talk real quick about the Kids Soundtrack (maybe this should've been talked about last week?) because I got thinking about it today. I know when I first saw that movie I had to rewind the first part over and over again just so I could hear that Deluxx Folk Implosion song, "Daddy Never Understood". Did anyone else do that? How fucking awesome is that song? When that mellotron part (or whatever it is) kicks in? Fuck. I don't even remember what else happened in that movie. Who cares? That song and that soundtrack (which also includes a bunch of "regular" Folk Implosion songs, Slint's absolute destroyer "Good Morning Captain", and a couple Daniel Johnston songs that are more tolerable 10+ years later) wound up providing the soundtrack (literally) for summer '96 in Newark, NY--which included long stretches of not having my parents around, Drivers Ed classes, and repeated viewings of 1991: The Year Punk Broke--and probably ranks in my top five favorite soundtracks of all time. If you have this, the Take a Look Inside... record, the Pole Position single, and the DFI 7", you're totally set for life as far as Folk Implosion stuff goes.

Deluxx Folk Implosion - "Daddy Never Understood" (from Kids: OST)
Folk Implosion - "Jenny's Theme" (from Kids: OST)
Folk Implosion - "Raise the Bells" (from Kids: OST)
Folk Implosion - "Summer's Over" (from the Pole Position single)

Song of the day is Ennio Morricone's "Una Pistola Per Ringo". Video of the day is Prince KILLING SHIT at the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame a few years ago (go to the 3:30 mark).

Who axed you anyway?
There's a chance this could turn into "Harriet the Spy Week" if Tyler will allow me to beat up his free time a little. But even if it doesn't let's just take this opportunity to talk about the Harriet side of their split 7" with Fat Day anyway. So here we have a couple more vinyl-only jams that didn't make the cut on Anthology of Selected Recordings, though probably because they weren't released until after that collection came out (either that, or they were as hated/mis-placed by the band as their impeccably named demo tapes). While not their strongest showing production-wise, "When Will Gentlemen Rule the World?" and "How We Got On Kill Rock Stars" are still worth a damn for their unrivaled guitar work, propulsive/sloppy/intricate punk rock, and brilliant off-hand blunt hatred ("I'll say anything to never have to talk to you")--all Harriet the Spy trademarks. The version of "How We Got On..." from the Troubleman Mix Tape is better, but its nice to hear alternate versions sometimes (ie. "Cum Stomache" from Unfuckwithable vs. "Cum Stomache" from Anthology...; everybody wins!).

Harriet the Spy - "When Will Gentlemen Rule the World?" (from the Fat Day/Harriet the Spy 7")
Harriet the Spy - "How We Got On Kill Rock Stars" (from the Fat Day/Harriet the Spy 7")
Harriet the Spy - "How We Got On Kill Rock Stars" (from the Troubleman Mix Tape comp.)

Song of the day is Elvis Costello and the Attractions' "Beyond Belief", off Imperial Bedroom. Full credit goes to Chad Clark for piquing my interest. Video of the day is Boston's "More Than A Feeling", in memory of Brad Delp (RIP). Only in the last year have I realized how much I geniunely love Boston. Don't even try to fuck with them.