Music for the messes since 2012. Into the obscure, the underground, and the other stuff. Clean Nice Quiet is on KPISS.FM every Saturday from 5 to 7 PM EST and 8K.NZ every Wednesday at Midnight EST (Tuesday 11P Central, 4P NZT)!
Oh man, I love Halloween novelty songs. Monsters are up to all sorts of monkeyshines. Here's a new one I found this season, courtesy WFMU's Rock'n'Soul Ichiban:
Googling that song I also found this different Witches Brew:
Hey girls, you know those sexy occupation costumes (sexy cop/sexy terrorist/sexy Mr. Peanut)? Let's get back to monsters, I say. Monsters can still be sexy! Elvira, to wit. A very sexy monster. Monstress. This song was written by Holly Knight, who wrote Tina Turner's "Better Be Good To Me," Heart's "Never," and a lot of other stuff for big names. She also co-wrote Pat Benetar's "Love Is A Battlefield" and Animotion's "Obsession," AND my favorite Aerosmith song, "Rag Doll," which she co-wrote with Aerosmith. Whoa. I had no idea.
From a great album:
My buddy turned me on to this cheesy Canadian goodness. It's not really a Halloween novelty song but I've been meaning to share it:
Youtube suggested this to me based on that Thor video - "Bewitched" definitely fits the Halloween theme, but it's not really a novelty song per se (though it is hysterical):
Happy Halloween. On a sorta related note because the cover is kinda Halloweeny and it's scary how good the album is, don't forget to listen to Run the Jewels 2. The Internet is hailing it as the end of the beginning for hip-hop ya know and I dunno if it's 100% that apocalyptic; it's easy to get caught up in joy over a great album and declare nothing else can come after it. But I'll agree that it is next level bonkers and it's fun to have a new favorite thing. The wife and I love it. I've had it on non-stop for the past two days.
I like this metal from NY. You can pre-order of Dispossession for six and change USD, get a Bandcamp track and the full album when it's released tomorrow, 10.28.14.
New Finnish punk to the max!
From Twistworthy Records down in Austin:
Sludgy Noise-core from somewhere in the U.S.:
This releases Dec. 15 from Trabuc Records up in Michigan. This is rad:
"Alfonso is known as “El Mero Leon de la Sierra” or “the distinguished silver-headed living legend” among Tejano music fans...In 1998, Alfonso was inducted into the Tejano Music Awards Hall of Fame. In 2002, (he) was inducted into the Tejano R.O.O.T.S. Hall of Fame."
El Sonsonete was the B-side to El Silencio de la Noche. Both songs were on the 1973 Capri Records album, La Unica Mujer. This 45 is catalog #CA-265. The address on the 45 label is in McKinney, Texas. Cool.
The 45 label identifies the A-side as a Ranchera song, written by Mexican music legend José Alfredo Jiménez. El Sonsonete has the initials "D.A.R." where the songwriter credit usually is. Not sure what that means, maybe it's a traditional? The 45 label identifies El Sonsonete as cumbia.
Listen to Alfonso Ramos and His Orchestra play El Sonsonete:
If the embedded player above doesn't work for you, try this link: El Sonsonete
Besides the McKinney address on the label, I couldn't find any info about Capri except that they also put out some Latin psych-funk back in '72 from Tony Hernandez & The Latin Liners. The Hernandez LP is called La Voz Encantadora. Back in '12, the guys at latinfunk.org posted the track featured in the Youtube video below, as well as the song Jo Tex, plus some biographical info about Hernandez. Gotta find me some Tony Hernandez.
Not-so-humble brag dept: Rockin' it to that new Sleater-Kinney box set. Each record is a different colored vinyl, the whole thing looks and sounds great. They're sold out of the colored vinyl (it was limited to 3,000 copies), but they're going to press some black vinyl that will be ready in December, per the Sub Pop webstore. Check out this treasure I found on Youtube:
Listened to the new Neil Diamond "Melody Road" today on google play, his first on Capitol Records. I dig it the most - it was a totally emotional journey down Melody Road, y'all. Classic Diamond, for sure - all original material. Here's a good Business Insider article and interview by Edouard Guihaire, writing for the AFP, and here's the Billboard review of the album, which also features a recap of his Reddit AMA. He's too cool. I sung Sweet Caroline at karaoke the other week.
I tried to get through the new Iceage today, Plowing Into the Fields of Love, put out by Matador. The only point of reference I have for this is that it's Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds-ish. It was interesting but I dunno if I can really relate to it, though full disclosure I clicked it off at the 5th song. He was singing something about a horse, or horses. They may have been running in a field.
Pitchfork gave the album an 8.5, and loyal readers may remember I think Pitchfork is mediocre so I imagine I'm on the right track by suspecting "Plowing Into the Fields of Love" may be art, but it falls short of being rock'n'roll. Where did I steal that line from? Seems like it was in a song I heard recently. Thanks, whoever I stole that from. Here is Iceage's single. I do like this one.
Buck Biloxi and the Fucks released a new batch of 14 songs on Bandcamp today called Culture Demanufacturer. I've listened to it three times today. On first listen, I thought it did not achieve the, uhm, primacy, or immediacy, of the first EP on Bandcamp, Live At Saturn Bar. But then I listened to it again on the ride home, and came to terms that it was more a recorded thing than a live thing. At home after a couple of scotch and waters, I'm pretty sure, Culture Demanufacturer is everything rock'n'roll turned out to be:
I learned about Buck and the Fucks just the other day from the excellent podcast, Dynamite Hemorrhage, who already has a new show out. Sweet. I was impressed with the first one I'd heard, last week's episode. Can't wait to listen tomorrow at work.
Here's another Buck Biloxi and the Fucks song I found:
There's another 12" coming out in a few months from HoZa Records.
I also listened to Terrorizer for the first time and realized the type of metal I'm into is grindcore. This album is important. Our descendents, robots, aliens, and a mix thereof will listen to this and think WTF. But ya know, in a good way:
I listened to Dynamite Hemorrhage's podcast for the first time today, and I was blown away. Great stuff. I learned about Buck Biloxi and the Fucks from it. Listen to this:
I listened to half of Best Table In Hell, will listen to the other half tomorrow. Man it's just as solid as ever.
I picked this punk 45 up at Half-Price Books in Dallas for five bucks. It was one of the first ones I bought when I started my little 45 collection, back in '12. I had never heard of Bastards before, I just liked the cover. But today is the first time I've actually listened to this record. I am a spoiled child, buying toys and then not playing with them. Well, I finally got around to it, anyway.
Hailing from Minnesota, Bastards were Anthony Martin on bass and vocals, Joachim Breuer on guitar and vocals, and Tommy Rey on drums, though it looks like a cat named Dave Wieland played drums on Who Cares and Shit for Brains. Bastards rocked something one Youtube commenter called "hatecore" and another called "dirt rock" in the late 80s and early 90s. Looks like they released just three 7"s, one EP, and an album called Monticello that was produced by pre-Nirvana Butch Vig (There's also a CD that combines Monticello and the EP).
This 45 and Monticello were both put out on Treehouse Records, which also released some stuff by big names like Pagans, Babes In Toyland, and Unsane.
It was produced at Salmagundi Studios, in Northfield, MN, by the band and Mark Trehaus, the owner of the Treehouse label. Back in 2007, the sadly defunct music blog The Last Days of Man on Earth wrote a post that talked a little about Treehouse, and weirdly enough, in the comments section, there's a comment from TODAY on it, posted not 30 minutes before this writing, from the very same Mark Trehaus of Treehouse Records. The Joe he's referring to is the writer of The Last Days of Man on Earth. Here's Trehaus' comment:
highwatereverywhere says:
October 18, 2014 at 6:56 pm
just met joe in my store today, and he hipped me to his site. not much to say about my old treehouse label, except that i don’t know what the hell i was thinking at the time. who in their right mind would think it would be a healthy thing to try and stay clean while starting a label with a guy i met in a drug treatment center, and then begin signing up a bunch of bands largely full of (and surrounded by) ungrateful, dysfunctional, juvenile brats…talk about a recipe for disaster! and a disaster it was.
to correct joe: treehouse records (the label) was formed out of oar folkjokeopus, the store i managed for 17 years prior to taking it over and renaming the store treehouse records (after much urging) in 2001. the label was ahead of its time, as opposed to being some sorta amphetamine reptile wannabee…check the timelines if you think i’m spewin’ sour grapes. anyway, amphetamine reptile ended up getting better ink, more money, and a few other scale-tipping factors which caused them to ultimately reap the notoriety and financial paydays. i’m not bitter about it; i have my sanity intact, which i almost lost about 20 years ago, and i wouldn’t want to be any of those guys for all the gold in china.
----
How serendipitous is that!? I wonder if the guys in Bastards were some of those brats...
There are two releases of this 7". The first was a limited silk-screened, hand-numbered edition of 200, with art by Fred Hagstrom. I'll be. The second, the one I have, is a repro of that original, in pink and black.
The band went on to do other stuff. Anthony Martin founded Boomba Records in Germany, released some Turbonegro albums over there. Joachim Breuer went on to form Janitor Joe with Hole bassist Kristen Pfaff. If the guys in Bastards are out there, this stuff y'all were doing a quarter of a century ago was awesome. Glad I finally listened to this 45. Today I found a vinyl copy of Monticello on ebay and ordered it immediately. It's post-punk, kinda bluesy, kinda metal. I dig it the most.
A lot of the songs off Monticello and the EP are available on Youtube, but I couldn't find Who Cares anywhere, so I thought I'd share it. Bastards seems to have a bit of a cult following, as is evidenced by various Youtube comments on the tracks shared on there. One guy says Bastards played a show with frozen mice hanging from their instruments. Here's a cool 2004 review of Monticello.
Today was my first visit to Shake Rag Music in Dallas. Among a whole bunch of other cool stuff the wife and I picked up, I found two 45s with labels written in Arabic. They were pretty scratched but for 75 cents a pop I could afford to take a chance on them. Bottom feedin'!
So I snagged these two 45s, each a different label, but both have text only in Arabic. Wild! The song presented below is the only one that plays without a skip, even after I cleaned them up. I still think they're neat.
UPDATE: I had guessed this was North African from the 1960s, but I was wrong. Thanks to the cool folks on the facebook page I follow, The Art of the 45 RPM Label, I am told this is Iranian pop by a performer named Aref Arefkia, on the Monogram label. Aref was a popular performer in Iran in the 60s and 70s, and left the country after the Revolution in '79. He lived in London for a while and now lives in Los Angeles. He's still performing after 50 years, check out his web page. I'm still not sure what the name of the song is, but I'll update once I figure it out.
From the Grave Mistake Records update, both of these bands are out of Richmond, VA. I liked both of these so much I went ahead and bought the 7"s. $5 a pop, the True Crime is grey vinyl and the Asylum is pink:
The Sorry State newsletter is chock-full of awesome stuff, like this wild sound from the U.K.:
...and this post-punk from Melbourne:
Indie power-psych (I just made that up) from Brooklyn and Old Flame Records, available as a cassette:
