Tape-Toons recording with Steve Albini!

So my buddy Andrew from Tape-Toons called me the other night to let me know the band is going to Chicago this August to record their new album with none other than the amazing Steve Albini! They're getting the money together right now by playing some shows and selling their debut, Gravel Love, online via BandCamp. This is big news and if you like what you've heard by them, please support them by either purchasing a download of Gravel Love or, if you're in the area, going to see them at any of these upcoming shows:

7/23/11 Rubber City Noise Center, Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio
7/29/11 Stone Tavern, Kent, Ohio

These guys are the real deal and their recording with Albini could be a real game changer, so support 'em now and you can say you heard them first! You can get more info as to their goings on at their Facebook page and get Gravel Love while you're at it. The download is great and only seven dollars, though you really should get a physical copy if you go to one of their shows. The packaging is completely handmade for each individual copy of the album, so every copy is totally unique. Seriously, you'll be sorry if you don't check these guys out soon, they're gonna rock your socks off!




PS - The BandCamp widget thing is a little weird so I wanted to note that you can check out the whole album with it, just click on the little triangle pointing downward next to the song name to choose other songs.

Lucky Pierre - 1978-1988

Okay, I'm to blame for this one. Here's the story...

Sometime back in the nineties, I can't remember exactly when, I lived in a little country town. Down the street from me lived a young woman in her early twenties who was a fellow music lover and told me how she had interned at Alternative Press and worked for the Rock Hall in Cleveland. Her name shall remain unspoken for her privacy. She and I had some great discussions about music and what we did or didn't like in the then current musical landscape. She introduced me to Geggy Tah and played me a tape by some of her friends. Geggy Tah are pretty awesome, though her friends' band sucked, and she told me she appreciated my honesty because she thought they sucked too.

Eventually, as it seemed everyone at that time did, we started talking about Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, Nothing Records and Prick. She asked me if I'd ever heard anything by Lucky Pierre, Kevin McMahon's pre-Prick band, and I answered no, I had only heard the name. She told me she had a tape I should listen to and gave me the aforementioned cassette featured here. I liked it. I liked it a lot!

I asked her about the tape and she told me that her uncle, Dave Zima, had been the drummer for Lucky Pierre and he'd given her the cassette, and because of her relation to Zima she also knew Kevin, Trent, Manson, John Malm and most of the other Nothing-related folks that were based in Ohio. She told me a few things which were certainly none of my business and I'll leave them where they were spoken, but it was pretty clear she wasn't pulling my chain and I really appreciated her honesty and friendliness.

Our friendship was somewhat short-lived as she was off at college and I was stuck in high-school, making no money, driving a car the size of a boat that was older than I was and was a major geek. While everything else has changed, the geek part has remained consistent, and upon my leaving for college I continued to chat with people on message boards and arranged trades for interesting recordings. I can't remember which particular recording I exchanged it for but I met a super-cool guy whose name, once again, will go unspoken, this time for political reasons, and I sent him a copy of the Lucky Pierre tape. A few months later I found that he was trying to find more information about the recordings contained therein and that these were apparently the only Lucky Pierre recordings available anywhere on the net, at least at that time. We started talking frequently and remain friendly to this day.

Somewhere along the way, my friend uploaded images of the front of the cassette that I'd sent him, computer printed track list and everything, and may have traded a copy of the tape somewhere along the line. People started asking about the cassette quite a bit. I can't remember if it was him that uploaded the first rip of the tape or me, but it was a LONG time ago and I can't tell you the first thing about it. I can say that I was listening to a few tracks from another copy of that rip and it sounded like crap, so I decided it was time to re-rip the tape and I should put it up here for all to enjoy.

As this tape is rather old, features lengthy blocks of space between some of the tracks and the whole thing is by no means mastered, I took it upon myself to normalize the tracks individually and clean up those breaks. It sounds better, but don't expect anything terribly professional sounding. It's a rip of copy of a cassette that is probably a copy of another cassette, and the original tape is probably over twenty years old. That said, it doesn't sound terrible, just don't expect any miracles. Also, I do have a lossless copy of this, but I don't see why it's really necessary to be posted. If there are enough requests I can either post the cleaned up version in FLAC or the unedited tape sides, whichever is preferred.

If you're a fan of Prick, Lucky Pierre, Kevin McMahon or any of the other groups tied to their lineage, you absolutely have to visit luckyPRICK, a site run by another friend of mine named Rob, where you will find information about everything Kevin McMahon-related as well as how to purchase Kevin's officially released Lucky Pierre, Prick and associated bands reissues.

I want to give a big thanks to everyone that I've been in touch with regarding this tape over the years and, on the off chance that Kevin is reading this, I hope my posting this music doesn't offend or anger you. If you are in some way put off by my sharing these recordings, please let me know and I'll be more than happy to remove them. I don't want to steal any of your income and, as this tape consists almost entirely of recordings that have never been made officially available, with the ones that have been made available sounding much better on your official releases, I don't think this would hurt your sales in any way. Regardless, if you have any issues with this post please let me know and I'll happily resolve them for you. I know I'm not the only one who loves your music Kevin, we really just want to hear more of it.


Lucky Pierre - 1978-1988

01 Tough (Live)
02 Sock Rockers
03 Florence and Constantine
04 Pi Squared
05 No Fair Fights (Live)
06 Fans & Cameras (Live)
07 Hire A Lover
08 National Rap
09 Man Against The Wall
10 Sonnet 13
11 Actress
12 My Analyst Says (Live)
13 Cadillac
14 Match (Live)
15 Allusshia (Live)
16 Think About You (Live)
17 Take The Pain
18 Communiqué
19 Crack That Mirror
20 Lunar Eclipse

Tape-Toons - Gravel Love in Kent, Ohio

Late in the summer, I paid a visit to my friend Bobby at KSU. We talked music, video, work, etc. and then I mentioned that, at least at that time, I was considering starting a small record label. He asked me if I was looking for talent and I answered that the label would only handle small reissues. He was a little disappointed but then told me I had to hear this band he had been shooting a video for. We went into one of the computer labs and he punched up the myspace page for the Tape-Toons and proceeded to play their song, Mice In The Walls. It was bluesy in a way similar to the Black Keys but the performance was a lot rawer, and I mean that in every instance of the word. The vocals could have been recorded in a professional studio or on a hand-held recorder, the guitars are beautifully rough as though positioned somewhere between Kurt Cobain and a brain-damaged Jimi Hendrix and the percussion keeps you at attention as it gently moves a little off beat only to come back solid as hell. I was excited to say the least!

I asked to hear more, but what Bobby played me sounded like David Yow from the Jesus Lizard singing alongside unmixed, out-of-sync multitracks from a noise band. I wasn't sure what to make of that other than to say I was intrigued. Turns out something must have been wrong with the computer because that's NOTHING like what Tape-Toons sound like, but it didn't turn me off in the least. I asked him to see if he could get me a copy of their album and a week or two later he brought me a fully packaged and mastered CD. The package was actually created from newspaper with a handwritten track list and a giant stamp imprint on the front with the band's name and that of the CD, Gravel Love. I asked if this has been made specifically for me as it looked so unique, to which he explained the band wanted all of the CDs to be unique unto themselves so they had created the stamp, used different inks for each cover and created each case from newspaper themselves. I was impressed, but then I listened to the CD. It fulfilled on the promise of Mice In The Walls, coming across like a personalized performance from the band in your living room. It's by no means overly produced but rather an accurate representation of their sound, loose and beautifully ragged. Tracks like the heavy rave-up of She Drove A Spike, the slowed-down throwback rock of Rush To The Cemetery with it's insane drumming, the grungy depression of CEO Blues, they all got under my skin like so many heartfelt records have before. And then there is their beautiful cover of Pavement's Grounded. By now, I was reconsidering the whole not signing anyone to the label thing. Of course, shortly thereafter I lost my job and the dreams of a label went up in smoke, for the time being at least, but I knew I had to write about how great these guys are.

The Tape-Toons are Andrew Bittaker on guitar and vocals, Allen Bittaker on bass and Dylan Gomez on drums. Their album, Gravel Love, is available for purchase at their live shows with a digital release soon to be issued, and they also have an EP on iTunes named Blah BlaH which features two songs from Gravel Love and four more not on the album. They've got Facebook and MySpace pages they update frequently and are performing live at the Europe Gyro in Kent, Ohio alongside The Lorax Tree and Shank Bone, so you should get yourself there and let these guys blow you away!

And now, for your listening pleasure, with the blessing of Tape-Toons I've got two tracks from Gravel Love for you to check out. I've already posted Mice In The Walls but Rush To The Cemetery is new to these parts so grab 'em and enjoy! When their album becomes available online I'll be sure to post a link for you to check it out. Now go see them Thursday!

Tape-Toons - Mice In The Walls

Tape-Toons - Rush To The Cemetery

Brainiac - superduperseven

The story of Brainiac is pretty sad, but only because it was so promising up until its end. They were from Dayton, Ohio, had released three albums and a number of singles, and were on the verge of a contract with Interscope Records when Tim Taylor, their lead singer, was killed in a bizarre auto accident. From there, no reissues, no posthumous releases, the band simply faded away and the remaining members went on to new projects. Truly sad.

If you're not familiar with Brainiac, they were kind of like a spazzier Devo with a taste for noise. My suggested starting points are the Hissing Prigs In Static Couture album, then check out the Internationale EP, which was produced by Kim Deal, and the Electro-Shock For President EP which is more of an industrial/noise experiment than their previous releases. Their first two albums, Smack Baby Bunny and Bonsai Superstar, are both worth checking out but Hissing Prigs and the two EPs are truly excellent.

There is also an excellent EP/single released on Limited Potential Records called superduperseven, their actual first release, but it's been out of print for years despite fans of the band looking for it feverishly. So, it is with great pleasure that I share with you today a fresh vinyl rip of the excellent superduperseven single/EP/release/thing. It's really a solid release and if you like this, don't hesitate to get Hissing Prigs with the quickness! You can also find more information about the band at their wikipedia reference. Enjoy!


Brainiac - superduperseven

01 Ride
02 superdupersonic
03 Simon Says

Records and Movies and Mixtapes, Oh My!

What a week it's been guys! New music, movies, LOST and more new music! Here is a quick rundown before we get back to new posts.

New stuff: Heard the new MGMT, Jamie Lidell and LCD Soundsystem albums this past week. Here are some condensed reviews:

MGMT - Congratulations: Hilariously great follow up to 2008's Oracular Spectacular! It sounds like MGMT had so much fun making this trippy, directionless gem, what with their excursions into punk, surf, folk and ambient music with goofy songs about Brian Eno and surfing in Russia. Get this now, but don't expect Oracular Part 2. It's better to expect nothing and be pleasantly surprised.

Jamie Lidell - Compass: Beck and friends come on board to help Jamie create a swampy funk of an album while remaining soulful as ever. At times the album sounds like Prince with Beck at the boards, which is actually half true. This drops in May and will be an instant summer party starter with it's low-ass bass and infectious grooves. Make sure you stick around for the end of the album where some gospel and folk vibes shine through. Hell, Big Drift sounds like Jamie is channeling Tom Waits! This album is a must grab!

LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening: This is an excellent album, although you wouldn't be penalized for noting it sounds like previous LCD releases. Nonetheless, James Murphy and company will get you dancing with abandon to these excellent grooves and funny lyrics. An Iggy/Bowie influence can be felt during certain tracks, giving a fun edge to the party as well as a rhythmic vibe similar to Remain In Light-era Talking Heads. Definitely grab this in May, as I know I will, but you can check it out now at the official DFA Records website.


Saturday was Record Store Day and if you missed out I feel so bad for you! I got a ton of great stuff and saw even more I couldn't afford including Devo vinyl reissues, Pantera vinyl reissues, the John Lennon singles pack, the vinyl box of Wilco's Kicking Television and the Beastie Boys' Super Surprise 12" (which my store unfortunately didn't carry) among lots of other great things. As for what I did get:

The Flaming Lips & Stardeath and White Dwarfs - The Dark Side Of The Moon (Seafoam Green Vinyl with a CD of the album included.)

Devo - Fresh 12" (2 new songs from their forthcoming album, Something For Everyone)

The Black Keys - Tighten Up 12" (2 new songs from their forthcoming album, Brothers)

Them Crooked Vultures - Mind Eraser, No Chaser (picture disc 10" with the previously unreleased track HWY 1)

Deftones - Rocket Skates 7"

Ramones - Mania (multi-colored double vinyl reissue)

MGMT - Siberian Breaks (single sided etched 12")

LCD Soundsystem - Pow Pow (single sided 12")

Seasick Steve - Diddley Bo 7"

Court Yard Hounds & Jakob Dylan - Split 7"

Julian Casablancas - 11th Dimension 7" (live version with new b-side)

I also got promo CDs of the new Sadies album and Juan MacLean DJ Kicks mix, so I'm a happy camper! Sadly though, one release I really wanted just wasn't available in the US, and that was Blur's Fool's Day 7", their first new recording in years as the original four-piece line-up. Luckily though, the band has made the single available as a free download via their website in exchange for an e-mail address. It's worth your time to grab this excellent track, but grab the uncompressed .wav version as there are reports that the MP3 is damaged.

Apart from new music and Record Store Day, LOST is as confusingly fabulous as ever, but I'm sure you expected that. I saw Kick-Ass yesterday and it completely lived up to it's name! It's been changed a little from the comics but is still as fantastically over the top in every way. Hit Girl might be the best part of the whole film with her foul mouth and incredible violence. If you like comics and action and are happy to suspend belief for a little while (screw you Ebert) then you'll love this trashy gem of a flick!

Later this week I'm going to repost a few things that I've removed by my own decision as well as some new stuff I'm sure you'll find delightful. Until then though, you can download my April mixtape below, and if you missed Record Store Day you should definitely grab this one, especially if you know about the Akron, Ohio music scene! No track list though, download and find out for yourself! Enjoy!


April 2010 Mixtape


PS - Please forgive me any spelling errors. I wrote this out by hand and then typed it pretty quickly. I'm gonna be working all day tomorrow so I wanted to make sure I got this online.

The First (maybe?) Annual Unheard Music Get Together?

Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm in the VERY EARLY stages of planning an event that I'd like to invite you all to this summer. I don't want to go into too much detail yet but it would be a free event, there would be no cash or donations required or requested, and it would involve music-lovers who have cars. I'm not going to say much else yet because I'm working out details, but I would need a number of people who would like to make a trip to Ohio, with their cars, and hang out for a few hours. We can talk about music, we can share stories and I could play you some stuff that I can't share on the site for certain reasons, but above all we would partake in this unique event. Now, I understand that many of you reading this site probably don't live anywhere near me so if you don't want to make the trip, and I can't blame you if you don't want to, it's totally cool, but if you do live maybe a few hours away and want to do something rather unique (I don't think it's been done since 1996) I'd love to meet you.

As for what I will tell you about this event, it DOES NOT involve sex, drugs or any illicit activities. It is completely music based and I'd love to see between 20 to 40 people show up. Also, the cars are VERY important. I'd have to know certain details about your vehicles (CD players, tape decks, 8-Tracks?) and I would be creating special content for each and every one participating. Folks with boomboxes could also participate. Oh yeah, it'll be LOUD!

If any of this sounds like fun, please leave a comment in this post or send me a private e-mail and I'll tell you more. Beyond that, once I get a little more information about the location for this event, I'll be happy to spill the beans publicly. If this goes off without a hitch, I'd love to turn this into a yearly event, a get-together for fellow music lovers and those who want something totally different to do.

Let me know what you're all thinking and we'll talk more soon. More music next week!



Dave3

kind: The Killer Instinct Never Dies!

So I've mentioned kind here on a few different occasions but haven't gone into great detail. They're a five-piece band from the Akron, Ohio area and sound something like Neil Young & Crazy Horse meeting Sonic Youth with an industrial drummer crushing everything in it's path. In other words, SIMPLY AWESOME!

The first things some people point out about the band is that three of its members were in Dink, an industrial/dance/rock band also formed in the Kent/Akron area in the nineties who grabbed fame with their hit single, Green Mind, and their self-titled debut. They also point out the similarity between band names, kind vs. Dink. Next, many assume there must be a further connection between the bands, as if kind was the logical progression from Dink. They would be wrong though, as the D word is rarely spoken by members of the band and their sound couldn't be further from that of Dink. Gone is the electronic/industrial sheen, replaced by vocalist/guitarist Teresa F. Bosko's hauntingly poetic voice and songs, as she is the primary songwriter. Sean Carlin, on guitar and occasional vocals, brings the noise with Steve Gang, also on guitar and vocals, going off like Pee Wee Herman possessed, all the while backed by Jeff Finn holding it down on bass and Ed VanDerKuil destroying everything in his path via his drum kit.

After hanging with the band at a rehearsal and recording session, I was asked if I wanted to come see the band play live. They didn't need to ask twice, but I couldn't get to their first official show in 2009, so this past Saturday I went down to Akron's Musica for a night of rock. They were joined by opener Collideascope and co-headliner, Full Wave Rectifier, which features ex-Dink vocalist, Jer Herring.

Not to be cruel, but Collideascope were weak. Not much in the way of melodies or changes was displayed by the group, although they had a full-blown merchandise table they didn't even use. On the other hand though, Full Wave Rectifier kicked ass! You can find more about them at their myspace site and I'm definitely grabbing some of their releases very soon. They even went so far as to perform an awesome rendition of Dink's Green Mind with Bob Serpentini samples to boot! Full Wave Rectifier are probably easiest to describe as indie, but their sound is full of pop and punk influences.

kind took the stage around eleven and shook the house with their Cowboy Song, which starts off slow moving to an eventual whiplash pace. I recognized most of the songs from previous hearings, but they seemed to take on a new energy with Ed's percussion being so tight and the band sounding purely on fire. Teresa's vocals are almost like a conversation, as if she's telling you what she's seen and you're her confidant. Her voice reminds me of Tori Amos, not saying that Teresa sounds like Tori though, but rather that she exudes a power and confidence which strikes you without the need to scream or yell, although she sounds just as mighty when she does get loud. For instance, during In The Passing Lane With Neil Young, she sings about what sounds like the final days during the end of the world as we or at least someone knows it. She never forces it down your throat, rather she quietly grabs your attention as the band creates a storm of a performance, though no matter how loud they are you're always focused on what she has to say, and she sounds so sure of every word.

Teresa doesn't completely handle the vocal duties, as Steve takes the mic on three songs. His vocals remind me of Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh on overdrive, or as I mentioned earlier, a darker, crazier Pee Wee Herman. During the Dog/God song he went buckwild about nuns and religion, and Creepy Crawly is like a psycho take on the Velvet Underground's Waiting For My Man. Apart from Steve's jump to front and center, the only other vocals were provided by Sean on the sole holdover from the Dink days, The Heroin Song, now a stompingly angry love/sex letter with a needle in it's vein. The band finished off with Your Favorite Song, featuring a furious vocal from Teresa letting everyone know they shouldn't mistake kind's music for anyone else, although I don't know if anyone could mistake their sound for another band. That's a compliment by the way!

Right now, the only sampling I can provide you of kind's sound is what they have on their myspace page. Sean let me know that these are rough mixes and that more complete mixes have been made since, they just haven't been uploaded yet. Hopefully, if they don't put them on the myspace page, they will be available elsewhere, maybe even here, but for now you should check these versions out ASAP! And if you're liking what you're hearing, drop them a line and let them know, they will appreciate it. Better yet, see them live next time!

Liz Phair - The Girly-Sound Demos

I spent my teenage years in a podunk little town in Lorain County, Ohio named Wellington. Calling Wellington podunk is not really fair, as I've seen much smaller towns with far less to do for young people, but after spending my life thus far in a significantly larger town (some would call it a city), it was a terrible shock. I was never very popular and the kids I went to school with never did anything interesting, unless you consider tractor pulls interesting. The joke, and it's only funny because it's true, is the only thing to do in Wellington was to drink. I never drank, never enjoyed it much and still don't touch alcohol very often to this day, although in retrospect it might have gotten me laid a lot earlier if I had given it a shot, especially after finding good tasting wines and a lot of the girls I liked got loose when they got sloshed! Regardless though, I killed time talking with people online, trading cassette tapes through the mail, taking short trips to Cleveland to shop at once-legendary indie record shops and pestering people in Oberlin. In case you've never heard of Oberlin, it's home to a very large liberal arts college and is about ten minutes away from Wellington. I think it sucks worse than Wellington, because most people there are extremely pretentious and everyone takes everything far too seriously. They used to have courses on Eno's ambient recordings, and while that might sound cool at first, how much you wanna bet the class was filled with self-indulgent douches who thought they were better than Eno and could be the "next big thing"?

Anyway, I digress. Oberlin wasn't a complete wash, as there were a few cool things about it like the Apollo Theatre where they played current films for about two bucks on their single screen (too bad Danny Devito is involved with it now), The Feve where you could get a bad-ass swiss-shroom burger, and the best being the record shop on the second floor of the Co-Op Book Store. I learned more about music there than just about anywhere else I can think of. The main guy who ran the store (whose name I unfortunately can't remember. Maybe it was Keith? Sorry man!) dj'd all kinds of electronic music and knew about stuff I don't think I would have ever heard of otherwise. He told me about punk, funk, metal, hip-hop, noise, pop, the avant garde and anything else you can think of, always with a spot-on recommendation to check out and always prepared to play me a few tracks. With his help, I heard The Pharcyde, Aimee Mann, DJ Shadow, Frank Zappa, Squarepusher and more because he listened to what I said and answered my questions, and that's the best type of record shop employee, the one who is always willing to listen and advise but never shove their own tastes down someone's throat.

Another artist I learned about because of the Co-Op's record shop was an Oberlin legend in her own right, the fabulous Liz Phair, although I became familiar with her as I do with many artists I love, totally backwards. I had borrowed Liz's Whip-Smart from the Elyria Public Library and fell completely in love with it's simple beauty. I didn't know what she was talking about but I felt like it was my soundtrack. When the Juvenalia EP was released, I hot-footed it to the shop and picked up the only copy they had which was open for in-store play. The new songs, Animal Girl and Liz's cover of Turning Japanese, were great, but I found myself entranced with the EP's last five tracks, previously unreleased four-track demos Liz had recorded by herself while a student at Oberlin under the name Girly-Sound. It was just Liz and a guitar, sometimes multi-tracked vocals or layered guitar, but never more than Liz and the guitar. They had a seriously dirty sense of humor (California still doesn't make much sense but is funny as hell!) and sounded like the musings of someone I wish I would have known in high school. I had heard stories that she recorded these songs in her closet, afraid for anyone else to hear what she had written, which while that doesn't seem to be true was enough to grab my youthful interest.

No one I knew seemed to know where to find more of these recordings so they faded from memory, until years later when I heard Exile In Guyville, the album I should have heard first. If you haven't heard Guyville, finish reading this and go buy it immediately, there is still time for you to be saved! (You don't have to be a girl to relate to Fuck and Run, hell, you can still have your virginity! And everything else on the album is just as powerful if not just a hint more subtle, although there isn't much about Guyville that's subtle.) Like hearing Aimee Mann's I'm With Stupid for the first time, I felt the world open up a little and everything seemed a little better. Totally life-affirming.

Let's fast forward a few years to when Napster was starting to fall apart and people were moving to alternatives like Kazaa (GAWD, what an awful service! Anyone else remember those shitty ads they had that would talk to you constantly?), Bear Share (Could they have given that service a more ridiculous name? Sounds like a toy for lonely children!) and Soulseek. Soulseek is still around and doesn't suck in the least, although it's certainly not the easiest way to find what you're looking for these days, but in those days (late nineties, early 2000s?), if you were looking for something kinda rare, Soulseek was, and still is to an extent, the place to look. It's there I finally found more of Liz's Girly-Sound demos in the form of a two-disc compilation that claimed to be complete. The quality of the recordings sucked, but hearing Liz performing these songs that touched me so deeply, as well as tons of equally powerful songs she never re-recorded, in such a spare fashion was like being given the holy grail and then told to drink from it, it just got better and better!

After years of listening to those awful sounding recordings, I started looking again for more information on the origins of these recordings. For awhile there wasn't much to find, but eventually I stumbled upon a page dedicated to the Girly-Sound recordings alone, and it even contained extreme upgrades to the previously circulating versions I had, as well as information on their origins and a forum where people could discuss the tapes. I can't say it's more than I could ask for, because I'd sure love to have the rest of the non-circulating songs, but it's pretty damn close!

So, if you've got a taste for some kinda-folkie, extremely honest songwriting that will touch your inner 16-year-old (and not necessarily just in a friendly way!) you've got to check out these recordings. As the Girly-Sound site contains the two available demo tapes and all other available recordings, I'm not going to share the files here. Instead, just hit the site and grab to your heart's content. It's beautiful stuff! And thanks to the folks running girlysound.com, as you've made me truly happy as I'm sure you have many others as well!


GO TO GIRLYSOUND.COM NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


PS - Hope the slightly NSFW image doesn't offend anyone, but since she had naked pictures of herself in the Guyville packaging and she's never been afraid to show a little skin, I couldn't think of a better image to show of Liz.

Lucky Pierre - "Communiqué"

When you read the post on Prick a few weeks ago, did you follow the link to Kevin McMahon's new site and business venture, Lucky Pierre Music? If not, treat yourself and head over there to get the Lucky Pierre compilation featured there, as well as the other releases up for sale as MP3s, FLACs and CDs. Great stuff and very worthy of your time and attention.

That said, as wonderful a compilation as the Lucky Pierre release is, as it features almost every single released under that banner, all of which are practically impossible to obtain otherwise (at least in good quality), it somehow skips some of Kevin's best-known material. Specifically, the "Communiqué" EP and 7", both of which are completely different from each other and as essential as anything else in the Lucky Pierre or Prick catalogs. Apart from Man Against The Wall, the closing track from the "Communiqué" EP, the other four tracks were all re-recorded as Prick songs and have been left off the Lucky Pierre compilation. One could argue this was because the songs haven't changed that much and the Prick versions may be considered definitive, or that the original versions sound dated, but neither argument holds water. If we're talking about dated sounding recordings, why reissue any of the Lucky Pierre singles? They're mostly from the seventies and early eighties and sound like it. If we're talking about definitive versions, why bother releasing alternate or "inferior" versions in the first place? Kevin has re-recorded Lucky Pierre songs on more occasions that just the first Prick album. Regardless, Kevin should be commended for finally making these records available again, but he should have made them all available, not most of them.

I'm sure no one will be surprised that I have both the "Communiqué" EP and 7" here for you to download and examine for yourselves. As to how they're different from each other, the 7" was released in 1984 and I've copied the text from it's discogs reference for your viewing pleasure:

Limited to 100 copies & came in a plain white sleeve. Features a very early version of "Communiqué" on the A side, recorded in Tom Lash's living room to 4-track w/Kevin McMahon playing pots & pans as drums and singing into a $5 microphone run through a guitar amp. The B side has lyrics etched into it, and plays an approximately 12 second backwards segment of "Communiqué" before hitting a locked groove that plays a short loop over & over.

That description of the 7" is spot-on accurate! As for the EP, it was released in 1988 with the reformed group and sounds very much of it's age. Hell, Trent Reznor even makes an appearance on backing vocals and saxophone. YES! TRENT ON THE SAX!

Unfortunately, that's where the Lucky Pierre story ends until Kevin recorded some LP songs for the second Prick album, The Wreckard, in 2002 and then in 2004 when he released a new album, ThinKing, under the Lucky Pierre name. For me, I'm okay with him not putting new stuff out as Lucky Pierre, the real LP stuff ends in 1988 as far as I'm concerned, I just wish Kevin would release music under any other name more frequently. He's a true talent and, despite what he may fear, he's not remembered solely as a NIN-related project, he's remembered for being himself and writing great songs.

Enjoy the music and remember to visit Lucky Pierre Music for more great music from Kevin and company! Also, if you'd like to see more information on the "Communiqué" EP, follow this link to it's discogs reference.


Lucky Pierre - "Communiqué" 7"

01 "Communiqué"
02 Locked Groove


Lucky Pierre - "Communiqué" EP

01 "Communiqué"
02 Tough
03 Analyst Says
04 I Need To Get To Know
05 Man Against The Wall

Sire Records: Just Say Yesterday

Recently I found myself in the city of Mentor for work. There used to be a decent indie shop named Ultrasound there and I figured, in my spare time, I'd drive by and see if it was still there. Well, I didn't find Ultrasound but I did find a Record Den!

I don't know if Record Den was ever a national chain but it was at least state wide in Ohio and I remember shopping there as a kid. There were plenty of Record Den's in the malls and most had a good selection of records, but this store was incredible! Not since Westlake's dearly departed My Generation have I seen a store as loaded with well-priced CDs that actually represent a diverse collection of music, and the people there knew the answers to my questions! It was awesome! I ended up getting a sealed copy of the Miles Davis On The Corner box as well as the first two Crazy Horse albums!

The coolest find was their ridiculous selection of Warner cut-outs that they purchased en masse from their distributor. Greatest hits collections, deluxe Rhino Records box-sets, all kinds of goodness! I ended up purchasing the Just Say Sire compilation, covering the Sire label's punk and new wave years all the way to it's early nineties releases. It's a very nice package with three CDs and a DVD but, as nice as it is, I didn't feel it did a proper job of telling the story. For one thing, the set ignores the label's existence prior to the late seventies and the DVD has a rather limited selection of videos. None of the songs on the DVD appear on the CDs, and there are several glaring exceptions like M's Pop Muzik, the Pretenders' Brass In Pocket and Aphex Twin's Come To Daddy. On top of that, there are TONS of quotes from artists and people involved with the label, which sounds nice on paper, but there are so many quotes that it seems like they're patting themselves on the back.

Now don't get me wrong, it's a very nice compilation, just maybe a bit self-indulgent. That said, the powers that be at Sire may have done a better job over fifteen years ago, although that attempt was flawed too. In 1992, as volume six of Sire's Just Say Yes sampler series, Just Say Yesterday collected sixteen not-quite classics spanning the years 1977 to 1984. Several of these tracks have become legitimate classics in their own rights since the early nineties, but at the time of this compilation groups like the Normal, Plastic Bertrand and the Rezillos hadn't received their pop culture badges of honor quite yet. Overall, this makes Just Say Yesterday a great overview of early Sire releases that may not have become giant hits but should have been, and it's even better for leaving out the obvious hits that appeared along-side these great not-quites.

As great as this compilation is, it's missing practically any information about the artists and their songs beyond publishing and production info. There isn't even info as to what albums these songs may have been available on, which is odd since, at least until that point, the Just Say Yes comps were overflowing with information about the featured artists and their previous and forthcoming releases. The advent of the internet has made this task so much easier than it ever could have been in 1992, but there really should be no excuse for a label as notoriously diligent to researching their artists and sharing such details as Sire leaving this blank.

Anyway, regardless of the lack of information about the contained artists and releases, this is an awesome compilation and you should download it tout suite! I've also tried to give a little info about everything contained here but please forgive me as that's a lot of research to compile and I can't guarantee it's as complete as I'd like it to be. Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy this post and I want to give a big shout-out to all the artists and people involved in the release of this compilation. It's releases like these that really inspired me to dig deeper in music in my teen years.


Just Say Yesterday: Vol. VI Of Just Say Yes

01 B-Movie - Nowhere Girl
B-Movie only had one album, 1985's Forever Running, but Nowhere Girl could be easily labeled a New Wave staple. With Graham Boffey on drums, Rick Holliday on keyboards, guitarist Paul Statham and singer Steve Hovington, the band formed in 1979, yet that album is the only document of their sound.

02 Tin Tin - Kiss Me
Stephen Duffy was a founding member of Duran Duran but left to go solo as Tin Tin. Odd career move, eh? Great song though, which was followed up with the 1984 album The Ups and Downs.

03 Tim Scott - Swear
I had a lot of difficulty researching Mr. Scott. Apparently his full name is Tim Scott McConnell and Swear later became a hit for Sheena Easton. You can get more info at his official site.

04 Blancmange - Don't Tell Me
Blancmange consisted of singer/guitarist Neil Arthur and keyboardist Stephen Luscombe. Don't Tell Me is from their second album, 1984's Mange Tout.

05 Madness - One Step Beyond...
The nutty boys themselves, Madness were a big name of the early eighties ska revival. One Step Beyond is from the 1979 album of the same name. You've gotta see the video!

06 Plastic Bertrand - Ca Plane Pour Moi (This Life's For Me)
Plastic Bertrand is better known as Roger Jouret. A native of Belgium, he was the drummer for Hubble Bubble. Ca Plane Pour Moi is kind of a cross between the Beach Boys and the Ramones with apparently nonsensical French lyrics. Thoroughly unforgettable, this track eventually appeared on an album of the same name. What's not as widely known is that the backing track is identical to that of Jet Boy, Jet Girl, a song by the band Elton Motello. Jouret was involved with that song's creation, although it's still a bit odd how the backing track went on to be used for a completely new song. It's also worth noting that Jet Boy, Jet Girl had pretty raunchy lyrics about sexual relations between two boys when one leaves the other for a girl.

07 M - Pop Muzik
Robin Scott is M. M is catchy. Not much else to say. See their wikipedia reference if that disappoints you.

08 Specimen - Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Who? What? Here.

09 Dead Boys - Caught With The Meat In Your Mouth
Glam punk snots from Cleveland whose debut album, Young, Loud & Snotty, is appropriately named. Expect sex, bad attitudes and VD and you have a good idea what you're getting into with the Dead Boys. Drugs and death lead to their end, but their debut and it's follow up, We Have Come For Your Children, are worthy of your attention.

10 Patti Smith - Piss Factory
I respect Patti Smith's works and give her credit for what she has done, especially in regards to Horses, but she's not a favorite of mine. Suffice it to say I'm probably a little prejudiced here as I get the impression most people know everything they need to know about Ms. Smith already, especially if they've heard Gloria, but if you're unfamiliar, be prepared for some slightly pretentious poetry reading and angry tone. Nice piano though which I'm assuming gets credited to Lenny Kaye's production. Okay, let's move away from Ms. Smith. Slowly, slowly...

11 The Rezillos - Somebody's Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonight
The Rezillos might be better known for their hit Top Of The Pops, but Kicked is just as memorable and also appeared on their album Can't Stand The Rezillos. Their style varied from song to song so don't expect them to sound as mean the next time you hear one of their jams. They broke up in 1978 but the album is still available and still a lot of fun.

12 Aztec Camera - Jump
Roddy Frame is essentially Aztec Camera. His songwriting has been compared to Elvis Costello but I don't know about the sound. Jump is a cover of the Van Halen classic. Yes, that Van Halen. It's VERY mellow compared to the original, so it might seem like a bit of a novelty, but it's actually a rather pretty take on the original.

13 The Bluebelles - Cath
Consisting of guitarist Robert "Bobby Bluebell" Hodgens, singer Kenneth McClusky, drummer Dave McClusky, guitarist Russell Irvin and bassist Lawrence Donegan, the Bluebelles were from Scotland and formed in 1980. They only had one full-length release, 1984's Sisters.

14 The Undertones - Teenage Kicks
Noted by John Peel as his all time favorite song, the Undertones' Teenage Kicks is a certifiable classic! The band originated from Northern Ireland and released their eponymous debut in 1979. Definitely worth looking into a little further, that album and a career spanning compilation are still available.

15 Silicon Teens - Memphis Tennessee
Daniel Miller is the founder of Mute Records. Apart from that, he is probably best known for producing early Mute releases for bands like Depeche Mode, but he had his own musical intentions in the late seventies. The Silicon Teens were marketed as a group who covered a number of early rock n' roll records, but in reality is was purely Mr. Miller. They released one album, Music For Parties, which is a lot of fun.

16 The Normal - Warm Leatherette
Once again, Daniel Miller provides us with a minimal electronic classic, although this one is notably darker than his work as Silicon Teens. This was the A-Side of the Normal's only release, the Warm Leatherette single, which contained T.V.O.D. on the B-Side.

Elton John & Billy Joel - Live In Cleveland 5/23/09

First things first, man is that an old photo! They look NOTHING like that anymore! Now back to the regularly scheduled program already in progess.

Oh boy, do I feel lazy. I know I don't post everyday like some blogs to but if I don't post every other day I feel like I'm a real schmuck. That said, I don't post every other day either so I already feel a little schmuckish to begin with, but until this becomes my job, which I'm sadly certain it won't, there will be long breaks and short breaks between posts, although the long breaks are probably not all that long be regular internet standards. Anyway, there will be another post this coming weekend about an album very dear to me and my woman which has never seen release. Pretty damn convenient since that's what this blog is all about, eh?

Since I'm beating myself up for not posting regularly, I'm giving a little gift tonight that I posted for some friends at another site. This is Elton John and Billy Joel's show from this past Saturday. I was at this show in what would normally be called the nosebleed seats, although they were more like the aneurysm seats due to the position of the stage in regards to my location. That said, we had a very good screen and the sound was great so I didn't miss too much.

I've seen Billy Joel several times over my life, dating all the way back to 1984 at the Richfield Coliseum. I've always loved his music and I don't give a damn what elitists have to say about his pop-music career, he's a great songwriter and doesn't get the credit he deserves. He's also a great entertainer and makes it a habit to talk to the audience and keep them involved. I can't say the same for Elton John though, as he barely spoke to the audience, didn't introduce his band, played a number of songs that only die-hard Eltonites would know and took many of his songs to an attention breaking point by making them last forever. I like Rocket Man as much as the next person but it doesn't need to last nearly fifteen minutes. I'm sure you can tell which part of the show I enjoyed more, although I must note that when Billy and Elton shared the stage and vocal duties on each others hits, they were amazing. The finale of Candle In The Wind and Piano Man was simply beautiful.

I know this isn't much of a review but I'm tired and I've been working all day. That said, I am pleased to present to you the complete show and hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Also, unlike my Wilco post, while this show is split into multiple files, these ones are independent of each other, which is to say you can unzip each on it's own. So, please feel free to indulge yourself in this wonderful show.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5