Mundy's Bay - Goodbye

I know in times like this, the whole world looks to me to make sense of this topsy turvy situation and dish out some words of wisdom, hope and solace. But alas, gentile reader, these delicate fingers, for once, don't know what to type. Do not look to me for all the answers. We must find strength in ourselves, and each other. And drugs. Plenty of drugs.

So they can stop us from going outside, but like the Village People sang, nobody can stop the music.

Well, they could shut down the power grid and we'd be stuck with non electric shit like classical and folk music. A fate worse than Coronavirus!

So I just discovered Mundy's Bay via this song the other day. I've watched this video about 15 times already and sent it to a bunch of my friends, in lieu of asking if they're still alive. This is my kind of stuff. Hooky, dancey indie pop. And the chorus, with that slight keyboard flourish, is such an earworm.

The song is great, but it also makes me miss watching music videos. I guess they're going for a cable access/make-a-video-in-the-mall-machine kind of thing. And watching the drummer bounce along to the beat and the guitarist let loose around 1:59 makes me miss seeing live shows. I know it's only been a short while, but I go to a lot of shows. I had 6 shows lined up just until mid April that have been canceled.

But we can continue to bob our heads and dance in our houses to music like this for the time being. And when this is over, I expect you all to fill the music venues, dance clubs and karaoke nights of your cities and remember how music kept you sane during these ___ months. Years?

And keep taking drugs.

Ayguantu!

Tongo - Chop Suey

Yeah, it's old. You're old! And maybe you haven't seen it before. You're welcome, ingrate!

In other news, all old download links are alive with pleasure. So get off Spotify, dust off your Microsoft Zune mp3 player machine and dig some tasty old tunes.

Minor Threat - Out Of Step (Cassette, Remix Version) (Dischord, 1983)

Hopefully this download makes up for my absence. (And hopefully Dischord doesn't take this down, since it is a very non-standard version.)

I feel like all of my posts begin with delay, absence, disappearance, abduction. The aliens returned me in perfect shape though. Bleep Blork.

So there are a few classic punk albums that were released in very alternate forms:
Bad Brains - Rock For Light: The original mix and the much more available Caroline mix, which was sped up.
Circle Jerks - Wild In The Streets: The original mix and the much more available Frontier mix, which was cleaned up a lot, to its detriment in a lot of people's opinion. Well, a lot of old farts' opinion.
Youth Of Today - We're Not In This Alone: 3 versions! The original mix, a "better" mix, but with the drums off and the version with the vocals and something else re-recorded years later. ("Classic" might be a stretch, but I've come to not just think of them as humorless jocks.)
Snuff - Reach: Alternate test press mix. (Yes, I will include Snuff!)

And that brings us to Minor Threat - Out Of Step. I bought both their tapes from Tape World or some mall shop after seeing Another State Of Mind. They were the standouts of the entire movie for me. I listened to those cassettes hundreds of millions of tens of times, often to the chagrin of my parents on long car rides. They were the perfect mix of musicianship, anger, melody, danger and 3 other things. I followed every band the members did after that. I tattooed their name on my forehead. Okay, not that one.

But I grew up with that cassette. And until recently I still threw it on in the car when I went home to visit my parents. I had since replaced it with the Discography CD, but Out Of Step is the highlight for me. Well at some point I noticed that the CD version of the songs didn't quite sound the same. Some different parts, not quite as punchy. What gives?

I only learned a few years ago that there were 2 mixes of Out Of Step. The original mix is on the CD. The remix is on the cassette version I have. I still don't understand it, since the original mix seems to have some weird effects that you would think would come later.

So I've started to digitize some rare cassettes I have, to mixed results. Some sound muddy. Some have annoying warble. But my old ass Out Of Step cassette, maybe my most played cassette ever, sounds great! Now, admittedly, if you don't listen to music on headphones, you might not notice much. But compared to the original mix on the CD and vinyl, I think this sounds brighter, the bass is punchy as fuck, and since it's from cassette, no annoying clicks and pops. I really can't believe that Dischord hasn't released both versions digitally. I'm sure lots of other people grew up with this version and I find it hard to believe that anyone would prefer the other.

Minor Threat - Out Of Step (vbr 0)

Alan Parsons Project - Mammagamma

I admit I'm not familiar with the Alan Parsons Project beyond "Eye In The Sky," which is a jam, and on the same album as this. But damn, this is a smooth ass, funky, electro, Italo Disco style banger.

In other news, I will be updating the site soon and re-upping a bunch, or all, of the old downloads soon. Hang tight!

A couple videos, and excuses

He's back from the dead, with a shaved head

Irish, Boston, Guinness, buck buck ya dead

Is that how it goes? My memory is fading. Almost forgot I had a blog. Bet you did too. But I won't let the haters win! I'm gonna keep on my grind and keep droppin' sick blog posts like this. You can't stop me!

So before I get back to posting some good downloads, here are a few videos with a commonality: the voice. I just heard Bragolin yesterday on the indie (actual) station. Who kind of reminded me of Teleman. Who kind of reminded me of Fischer Z. All in the post punk realm.

Check 'em out.

Bragolin - Into Those Woods

Teleman - Repeater

Fischer Z - So Long

Punk Was So Much Better In The 90's, er 80's

Squarehead - Squarehead (Self-Released, 1992/1993)

I got this album released. You're welcome!

So on a messageboard I frequent, someone posted an album on YouTube by a band called Squarehead. Apparently they had been looking for a different band with the same name and stumbled upon this iteration.

This Squarehead turned out to be a kindred spirit of bands like Leatherface, China Drum, Hooton 3 Car, etc. A few of us pop punk lovers on said board were obviously intrigued, and bewildered how we had never heard of them before. We then embarked on a mad internet dash to learn more about this mystery band.

Google turned up nothing. Faithful ol' Discogs turned up...20 bands with the same name. But I finally happened upon the right one, whose only entry was a cassette tape that made up the final 4 songs of the album on YouTube. Where did the other 4 songs come from (especially the first one)? Why isn't this on CD or vinyl or Soulseek???

Well, I then shared the YouTube find with the appropriate demographic, a music group dedicated to all things Leatherface. Surely they must know something.

Lo and behold, one of the members of Squarehead was either a fellow member or alerted to my post and gave us a little history on the band:

Some info on Squarehead… Based in and around Swindon we were going for a couple of years from '92 to 94. Line up was Dave Ganner - Vocals/Guitar, Fred - Drums, Nick Osman - Bass and myself on Guitar and occasional shouting. The album on youtube is the 2 demos we recorded in 92 and 93 . We didn't do a lot really, played about 30 gigs.. good uns with Rancid, Leatherface, and Guns n Wankers and some shit uns. Dave went on to play with Strain who were excellent and Fred is half of the brilliant 2 Sick Monkeys. I'll sort out a free download thingy for anyone who wants it. Thanks for all the nice words, I'm chuffed to fucking bits!

And as he promised, he shared the album on Bandcamp. Check out the first song and you Leatherface fans will be saying, "Come to papa!"

This entire tale also happened over the course of 4 days. My most satisfying Bandcamp experience since finding the Hunger Farm stuff.

6/24/2019: So the album is gone from Bandcamp for some reason. But here are the mp3s:

Squarehead - Squarehead (vbr 0)