HEAVY TUNES: Records I Listened to This Week or So, As of July 17, 2020

June 30, 2020

1. Wand, Golem
   Shredder. Right up there with Plum!
2. A Winged Victory for the Sullen, A Winged Victory for the Sullen
   Was I awake during this? Was the band?
3. Explosions in the Sky, The World Is Not a Cold Dead Place
   ...if you say so.
4. Helium, Ends with And
5. Trans Am, Trans Am
6. Windhand, Windhand
7. Bongripper, Glaciers
8. Funkadelic, America Eats Its Young
9. Starcastle, Citadel

July 12, 2020

1. David Bowie, Outside
2. Guns & Roses, Chinese Democracy
3. Wolf Parade, Cry Cry Cry
4. Madvillain, Madvillainy
5. Quasimoto, The Unseen
6. Deltron 3030, The Instrumentals
7. Red Sparowes, Every Heart Shines Toward the Red Sun
   Quick note on this band: I do not think they every recorded a bad note, and I love them. This has been: a quick note on Red Sparowes.
8. Steve Morse, High Tension Wires
9. The Nocturnes, A Year of Spring

I came late to Bowie—or, more accurately, I started late to come to Bowie—there's so much of it, and finding this late-career excellence reminded me that some great figures don't stop being great after people stop paying attention. It's not perfect, track for track, but there are some amazing songs here, and I look forward to learning more.

June 13, 2020

1. Black Sabbath, Live Evil
2. The Palace Brothers, There Is No-One What Will Take Care of You
3. Blood Incantation, Hidden History of the Human Race
4. King Geedorah, Take Me to Your Leader
5. fIREHOSE, "fromohio"
6. Screaming Trees (no, not that one), Beaten with the Ugly Stick (EP)
7. Elvis Costello & the Attractions, My Aim Is True
8. Blue Őyster Cult, On Your Feet or on Your Knees
9. Pelican, City of Echoes
10. Monster Magnet, 25....Tab

July 15, 2020

1. Galaxie 500, This Is Our Music
   Could it be that the only essential Galaxie 500 record is Copenhagen?
2. MF Doom, Born Like This
   This has one of my favorite tracks on one of my favorite CDs Noodles ever made, but I probably won't listen to the album again, b/c I don't need to hear or support "Batty Boyz" again.
3. Sebadoh, Smash Your Head on the Punk Rock
   Man, "Mind Meld" sure holds the fuck up. So good.
4. Spoons, Static in Transmission
   Right around here this week I started to lose my mind and pursue depths of Can(adian)Con(tent) that I am not sure are good for me, exactly.
5. Wolfmother, Wolfmother
   This is bad, and I like it. I don't know what to make of anything anymore.

July 16, 2020

1. Swervedriver, Mezcal head
   "Last Train to Satansville" is a great song title. Shoegaze is just prog with pop vocals, but you aren't ready to have that conversation.
2. Spoons, The Best
   "Nova Heart" rules extremely hard.
3. Kim Mitchell, Akimbo Alogo
   I think I wanted to be in the car, driving fast, again. This record gives a good vibe of that.
4. Max Webster, Universal Juveniles
   I told you the CanCon was getting pretty real around here.
5. Finger Eleven, Finger Eleven
   "Finger eleven" is a fucking sentence.
6. John Carpenter, Anthology: Movie Themes
7. Mike Watt, "Ring Spiel" Tour '95
8. Kiss, Music from "The Elder"
9. Dramarama, Hi-Fi Sci-Fi

July 17, 2020

1. Jesu, Never
2. MF Doom, Vaudeville Villain
3. Hawkwind, Quark, Strangeness and Charm
4. Baroness, The Red Album
5. Miles Davis, Bitches Brew
6. Spoons, Stick Figure Neighborhood
   I like this! Sort of the Joy Division guitar album to the later Spoons' New Order keyboard albums.
7. Lana del Rey, Born to Die
8. Blue Őyster Cult, Blue Őyster Cult
9. Deltron 3030, Event 2

HEAVY TUNES: Records I Listened to The Last Couple Days, as of June 26, 2020

June 21

1. Deltron 3030, Event 2
2. Minutemen, Introducing the Minutemen
3. Bob Dylan, Bringing It All Back Home
4. Phoebe Bridgers, Stranger in the Alps
5. Roger Manning, Roger Manning 2

I bought the Roger Manning album in maybe 244, at Green Noise Records in Portland—same day I bought Situationist Comedy, if I remember right—and have always liked it a lot. I think it's a secret precursor to the Mountain Goats, with percussive abused acoustic guitar and a high voice keening a lot of syllables, but I've never seen it cited as an influence.

Today, these lyrics from 1992 seem as prescient and depressingly still relevant as the scene from Do the Right Thing where a cop kills a Black man with a choke hold and a neighborhood responds by chanting the names of other victims of police violence.

walk the pigs once around the park
they're looking for a fight
don't give it to 'em
don't give 'em anything they want
no more donuts, no more pizza
pigs out of odessa
get your asses off the green grass
and while you're at it
eat all of that horseshit

fuck you have a nice day
fuck you have a nice day
fuck you have a nice day
fuck you

and while you're at
quit your stupid wasteful job
so we can hire back some teachers
and feed old folks in the bronx
and keep the pools open
and keep recycling
and all that shit that's being thrown away
so we pay
you to sit on your
stupid
fascist blue butt
in the park
rehearsing for bigger riots to come
in which you'll get your asses kicked severely
...
fuck you have a nice day
fuck you have a nice day
fuck you have a nice day
fuck the pba

June 22

1. The Paranoid Style, Rolling Disclosure
2. Funkadelic, Funkadelic
3. Wand, Plum
   Another one I listened to a LOT last year.
4. Destroy Boys, Sorry, Mom
   There are people out there still trying to come up with good song titles after Destroy Boys called a song "I Threw Glass At My Friend's Eyes And Now I'm On Probation".
5. Kowloon Walled City, Grievances
6. A Giant Dog, Pile
7. fIREHOSE, flyin' the flannel

June 24

No entry today, as I killed my pen—Bic Crystal, natch—and had to mourn.

June 25

1. Ted Leo, The Brutalist Bricks
2. Hot Snakes, Audit In Progress
3. Future of the Left, The Plot Against Common Sense
4. Solar Halos, Coiled Light
5. Deltron 3030, Event 2
6. El-P, Cancer 4 Cure
7. Windhand, Eternal Return
8. Captain Beyond, Captain Beyond

I don't read a lot about music anymore, but I was really enjoying Event 2, so I thought I'd look up its reviews. I saw one that said, in part, "this hip-hop concept album has bad skits and a plot that is obscure and hard to follow", which I found deeply notable, as it seemed to identify a record using genre descriptors, and then be disappointed when the features of the genre—dumb plot on a concept album, bad skits on a hip-hop record—actually showed up on the record. But whatever: bad skits are bad skits, and can be called out, and it's true that Event 2 is maybe a little shaggy, story-wise. The review also claimed, though, that the song "Nobody Can" was unclear. To be clear: the album is about music saving the world, and the chorus is "Deltron is our hero, if he can't do it nobody can". This ... doesn't seem that complicated. But, hey, nobody asks ME to review records, so what the fuck do I know about anything.

June 26 (apparently at some point today it became 1996?)

1. Russian Circles, Blood Year
2. The Paranoid Style, Rock and Roll Just Can't Recall
3. Alice Donut, Mule
4. Sonic Youth, Washing Machine
5. Radiohead, OK Computer
6. Sneaker Pimps, Becoming X

HEAVY TUNES: Records I Listened to Today, June 1, 2020

history lesson -- part II
...what. It's a really good song.

1. Breeders, Title TK, (2002, 4AD)
   (It took nine years to come up with this?)
2. Iron Maiden, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son (1988, Capitol)
   There are, I gather, certain amongst us who view this as the finest effort from Maiden. If you encounter such a person, smile and nod, smile and nod. Try to avoid eye contact or showing your back or belly.
3. fIREHOSE, if'n (1987, SST)
4. Kate Bush (Top Tracks, Pandora)
   (No frigging "Wuthering Heights", wtf.)
5. Deltron 3030, Deltron 3030 (2000, 75 Ark)
6. MF Doom, Operation: Doomsday (1999, Fondle 'Em)
7. Slade, Rogue's Gallery (1985, RCA)
   One day a bit before high school, I bought this and the Ramones record Leave Home and I don't think anything was really ever the same again. Probably mostly due to the Ramones record, but. But...the giant vocal melodies on the better ones here ("Hey Ho Wish You Well" or "All Join Hands") will stick forever.

Today's theme was escape. But there isn't any escape right now.

Friday's theme was "Get Loud".

1. Future of the Left, Last Night I Saved Her from Vampires (2009, 4AD)
   My second-favorite live Future of the Left album!
2. Body Count, Body Count, (1992, Sire)
   Pusillanimous non-"Cop Killer"-having version, unlike the tape I bought at the time.
3. Public Enemy, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (1988, Def Jam)
4. N.W.A., Straight Outta Compton (1988, Ruthless)
5. El-P, Fantastic Damage (2002, Definitive Jux)
6. Mike Watt, The Secondman's Middle Stand (2004, Columbia)