Complaining About Perfection: Top Ten Seven Inch Gripes

December 29, 2010 at 11:53 pm | Posted in 7 inch, Good-hearted Complaining, Lists, Music, Vinyl | 9 Comments

I think the seven inch single may be my favorite medium for music.  It’s perfect for the short attention span, with one song per side, and the A-side supposedly being the best the band has to offer. It is meant to hold your attention for about 2 minutes and 45 seconds.  It also is highly interactive.  Every three minutes your switching records, so while one plays your searching for the next one to put on.  The seven inch single is nearly perfect.  Or is it?  As I was filing away records the other night I started to think about what bugs me about them.  Most of these are minor gripes, but as I started to compile the list in my head I thought it would be fun to share it and see what other minor annoyances you might have with vinyl in general and the seven inch specifically.  Here is my list of grievances.

10. Both songs are on the album

Ok, the A-side of the single comes from the album I can live with that, but under no circumstances should the B-side ever be found anywhere else. It’s a B-side fer chrissakes, that’s where it belongs, not on the album, and not on some compilation.  Well, I guess it would be all right to put it on a compilation, but not for at least five years after which I’ll have forgotten all about it and be excited to hear it again, only this time on CD.

9. No plastic sleeve and/or no inner paper sleeve

Kramer (the Seinfeld one not the Shimmy Disc one) once said: “My boys need a home” and that applies to my singles.  I don’t need both plastic sleeve to protect the cover and a paper one for the actual record, but I need at least one of them.  Dust (along with direct sun and heat) is the enemy of records and cleanliness is next to perfect sound forever as you’re gonna get.  I know that singles that come housed in both paper and plastic (I double bag at the grocery store) have come from a good home.

8. Free 7″  with the purchase of some ephemeral object

This seems to be a more frequent occurrence and it sucks.  No matter how much I like your band I am not going to buy an expensive pair of headphones, jeans, sneakers or cologne  to get your new single.  If it’s really come to this, I will download it illegally.

7. Split Singles

I actually love split singles. but how in the hell do you file them?  Do you pick your favorite band? Your favorite song on the single? What if you love both sides?  Do you buy two and file one with each band?  I file them all haphazardly as split singles then have to flip through all of them to find the one I’m looking for.

6. No indication of speed and/or no indication of A-side vs. the B-side

Really, how hard is it to label the record?  If it’s 45 rpm I’m cool with no label indicating that, as I assume that all seven inch singles are 45, but if you dare make it a 33 1/3, you damn well better label it as such. And how hard is it to indicate what the A-side is?  There are lots of ways to do it: A-side, Side 1, This Side/That Side, and song titles to name a few popular ones.  I can’t believe the number of times I’ve had to try to read the engraving in the run-out groove to figure out what side of the record is playing.

5. $9 dollar singles & higher prices in general

I know releasing a single is probably a money losing proposition but anything over $6 is too much.  If you’re going to charge more than that, then don’t press it.  My prediction is that vinyl will become so costly one day that only rich collector types will be able to afford it and the rest of us will be buying the mp3′s. Hope I’m a rich collector type one day.

4. Color vinyl vs. black vinyl

I like both black and color, but what I hate is never being able to get a definitive answer as to whether or not black vinyl is superior to colored.  I’ve heard that it sounds superior, and that it doesn’t wear out as quickly, but it’s always conjecture.  For once I would like to see some scientific evidence one way or the other, I don’t care which.  And for what it’s worth, I think clear vinyl sounds the best.

3. Large hole vs. small hole records

This should have been settled long ago like VHS vs Beta or Blu-Ray vs HD DVD but the battle seems like it will go on forever.  Probably because most record players come with the 45 adapter, but it’s still a minor hassle to have to use it, especially if you you’ve misplaced yours.  Have you ever lost your adapter and  tried to perfectly place a large hole’d seven inch on your turntable?  I never get it perfect and the needle always looks like it’s walking like a duck on the record.

2. The center hole is too small and will not fit over the spindle

What do you do?  You force it down over the spindle of course,  which is fine until you have to remove it.  Then you have to coax it off, slowly see-sawing it back and forth off the spindle  all the while hoping that you don’t snap the record in two.

1. 33 1/3 rpm (also One side pressed at 33 1/3 and the other at 45 rpm)

This annoys me to no end, especially now that I have one of those industrial turntables where you can’t change the speed at the flick of a switch.  I have lost patience more than once when incorrectly guessing the wrong speed of a record that gives no indication about how fast it should be spun and taken it off the turntable without being arsed to change the speed and finding a record that will play at 45 rpm.  The seven inch record is formatted for fast play that means 45 rpm, not 33.  Also, It’s not supposed to have two songs crammed on each side at 33 1/3 rpm. If the song is too long to fit on the 7″ at 45 speed, either edit it for the single or put it on a twelve inch, just don’t make me have to switch the speed of my turntable to the speed used for albums.  The 7″ is not an album, it’s a single.

2010: My Year In Records

December 21, 2010 at 11:49 pm | Posted in Albums, Best of, Lists, Music | 11 Comments
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Looking at the lists from the indie cognoscenti this year my eyes tend to get heavy and it becomes hard to stay awake. I’m beginning to see why my grandfather wasn’t able to stay awake when he watched the Dukes of Hazzard with me when I was a kid. I’m not quite to that point yet, as I was able to keep myself lucid long enough to compile my top 25 albums of the year. Have at it.

1. Eddy Current Suppression Ring – Rush To Relax (Goner)
Some long-time fans have quipped that Rush To Relax isn’t as good as its predecessor Primary Colors, but for me this was the year of Eddy Current Suppression Ring.  Finding Rush to Relax in the used bin for 99 cents was the start.  Next Anxiety whacked me on the head with its brute force, then their longer jams like Turning Out and Second Guessing bowled me over, and if that wasn’t enough they beguiled with the heartfelt politeness of I Can Be a Jerk and Gentleman.  Finally their status was cemented by their live show at Vera Project.  In a dry house following two hardcore punk bands, the band put on a clinic on how to rock out with their solid rhythm section, slicing guitars and unique gloved front man. Nobody came close to Eddy Current Suppression Ring this year.

mp3: Anxiety

2. Intelligence – Males (In The Red)
Well, the Intelligence came kinda close.  Lars and company pumped up the fidelity on record number six and came out all the better for it.  For the first time ever this was a full band and the claustrophobic weirdness that permeates all previous Intelligence records was stretched, torn and punctured to create new sounds.  Fidelity aside,  this batch of songs with the likes of Tuned to Puke, Like Like Like…, The Beetles and Estate Sales may be the strongest yet.

mp3: Tuned to Puke

3. Edwyn Collins – Losing Sleep (Heavenly)
After suffering a stroke, Edwyn Collins may not have his guitar playing skills back yet, but his songwriting and singing skills are have returned fully intact.  Losing Sleep sees Collins enlisting the help of friends like Johnny Marr, The Cribs, Franz Ferdinand, Roddy Frame, Drums to name a few.  At first it was kind of a surprise to hear Collins duet with so many of his guests, but the album’s sound is so cohesive it doesn’t distract because you can tell that Ryan Jarmin, Alex Kapranos, Romeo Stodart and Jonathon Pierce are such Collins fans.

mp3: Losing Sleep

4. Les Cox Sportifs – Scheiss Mit Reis (Sea)
Les Cox Sportifs caught my imagination, and no it wasn’t their name that did it.  Their sparsly played rhythmic songs and odd lyrics put them defiantly in the weird corner and that’s a corner I gravitate to.  Their combining of Bo Diddly, the Fall, Modern Lovers, Yummy Fur and Country Dick Montana was a soup that I kept lapping up all year long.

mp3: John E Millais

5. Kellies – Kellies (Rastrillo/Crang)
The self-titled third album from this Argentinian all girl band was part post punk, part art school, and should have come with a warning label because every song contains a deadly hook.  Why have you not heard of these ladies you may ask.  That’s a damn good question, and if you’ve been around these parts much, you probably have.

mp3: Hit It Off

6. Eternal Summers – Silver (Kanine)
Roanoak, Virginia’s Eternal Summers are  the simple combination of guitar and drums, but are most certainly more than the sum of their parts and  a good reason for that is Nicole Yun’s big confident voice. First single Pogo was big and catchy and the immediacy of Disciplinarian and the moodiness and beauty of songs like Salty and Bully In Disguise keep you firmly planted.

mp3: Pogo

7. Race Horses – Goodbye Falkenburg (FantasticPlastic)
Formerly known as Radio Luxembourg, Race Horses broke out of the gate this year with their first album Goodbye Faulkenberg.  Being from Wales you might guess they have a psychedelic leaning the same as Super Furry Animals and Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci and you would be right but they carve out their own  niche of strange beguiling pop too. Actually it’s more like a wide swath that ranges from Love, Dexy’s, Can, Mahler, Gilber & Sullivan, Scott Walker and Os Mutantes to name a few of the records they list on the inner sleeve as influences on this album.

mp3: Cake

8. Kelley Stoltz – To Dreamers (Sub Pop)
Seems like every year Kelley Stoltz puts out a record it ends up as one of my favorites.  I write something about how he conjours the past with songs that evoke the likes of the Kinks, Harry Nilson and Fred Neil.  With To Dreamers Stoltz does it again with seeming ease, but he incorporates more lush orchestration this time,  does a little krautrock, and includes a cover of Big Boy Pete’s 1965 lost classic Baby I Got News for You even doing some sleuthing to pull in Pete Miller to play on it. I keep expecting the well to run dry for Stoltz, but it looks like he’s in no danger of that.

mp3: I Remember, You Were Wild

9. Sourpatch – Crushin’ (Happy Happy Birthday To Me)
San Jose’s Sourpatch probably at some point  have made a pilgrimage to Sacramento to pay tribute to Tiger Trap and Rocketship.  After doing so they came back home and made this record.  Their ability to conjure that sound from that time might be called nostalgic by some but these kids are way too young to hold any nostalgia for the 90′s.  Crushin’ is just some kids from San Jose making beautiful twee racket.

mp3: Crushin’

10. Weekend – Sports (Slumberland)
Sports begins with an unassuming jangle. Soon an eerie howl is heard in the distance and then it becomes more prominent.  At about a minute and a half in, the jangle turns into a buzz-saw and the howl to piercing growl.  Weekend don’t lift their collective boot from your neck over the next 45 minutes.  Sports pummels but like someone that doesn’t know what’s good for them I keep coming back for more.

mp3: Coma Summer

11. Wounded Lion – Wounded Lion (In the Red)
Wounded Lion are probably a little too weird to ever go mainstream, that’s why they’re on this list.  Jokes aside, Wounded Lion killer modern day Modern Lovers fueled rock brings it.  No filler here: The one-two punch of Hungry? and Creatures In the Cave is hard to resist. Degobah System must have been unjustly cut from Star Wars Episode IV and Pony People (having been on a now out of print S-S seven inch) Those are only a few reasons I love this record.

mp3: Hungry

12. Young Sinclairs – Chimeys (Chimney Sweep)
The Young Sinclairs are the vehicle of Sam Lunsford who over the last four years has self-released loads of cd-r’s and tapes. Last year Kindercore put out an LP that cherry picked the best tracks from those releases giving them a little larger audience.  Finally the band endeavored to release and album on the Chimney Sweep label on vinyl this year.  Chimey’s is psychedelia done so well it will make you think of so many bands like them that have gone before.  It will also have you searching through your closet for those paisley shirts you hope you never threw out.

mp3: Future Man

13. Frankie Rose & the Outs - Frankie Rose And The Outs (Slumberland)
I must say that after seeing Frankie Rose and the Outs at SXSW this year I wasn’t really looking forward to her album.  Everything was drenched in reverb to the point of barely being able to make out the songs. There is no such problem with this album.  It is a sublime record that eschews the ramshackle garage sound of her former band and goes for a more classic sound and totally succeeds.

mp3: Candy

14. Boston Spaceships – Our Cubehouse Still Rocks (GBVI)
Funny how my interest in Robert Pollard ebbs and flows.  There was a high point in the 90′s and then it dipped in 00′s. Now that we’re in the 10′s Pollard is back in my good graces and Our Cubehouse Still Rocks is a prime example as to why.  While everyone was running around talking about the Guided By Voices reunion, this album was released and criminally ignored. It rivals and surpasses the last five GBV albums.

mp3: Track Star

15. Cinema Red & Blue – Cinema Red & Blue (What’s Your Rupture)
I hesitate to call this a supergroup, but it’s a pretty damn good one.  David Feck of Comet Gain, comes over to New York and gets some Crystal Stilts, Ladybug Transistors and one Amy Linton to help out on this album. Apparently it was recorded in a week, but it has warmth and familiarity like these old friends have been playing together for years.

mp3: Ballad Of A Bus Stop

16. Allow Darlin’ – Allo Darlin’ (Fortuna Pop)
Allo Darlin’ sealed the deal with their rousing show at the Jewelbox Theatre in Seattle this fall. Their slightly twee, slightly country ukulele driven songs have a sweet niavty to them that makes you want them to take them under your wing and give them a good home.  My copy has found one on my stereo and it’s even muscled out a few lesser records from the cd player.

mp3: The Polaroid Song

17. Standard Fare – Noyelle Beat (Melodic/Bar None)
This and Allo Darlin were like sister records for me this year.  I couldn’t think about one without the other popping into my head.  Standard Fare packed a little more muscle, but it was coming from the same place. Well maybe not the exact same place when you consider their song 15 is about falling for a teenager.  Not your typical indiepop.

mp3: Fifteen

18. Art Museums – Rough Frame (Woodsist)
This record was a pleasant surprise, evoking the Television Personalities and early Creation records. It’s short at only nine songs, but it left a lasting impression on me.  The songs are done in low key, lo-fi way.  The steely guitars and programmed drums provide a synthetic psychedelic feel.  The vocals strain to reach the high notes, but the songs are warm, fuzzy and earnest which makes these part-time punks’ debut hard not to like.

mp3: Sculpture Gardens

19. Fresh & Onlys – Play It Strange (In the Red)
The Fresh & Onlys are still way too prolific for their own good.  I feel like we’ve seen them grow up before our eyes.  Where some bands hold back releasing songs, choosing to keep a stash in case of writer’s block, the Fresh & Onlys lay it all on the line putting everything out for better of for worse.  After two diluted albums last year, the band chose to only release one album this year and are the better for it.  Every song is autumnal intoxication and their secret weapon guitarist Wymond Miles astounds throughout with his leads.

mp3: Waterfall

20. The Lights – Failed Graves (Wantage)
The Lights have been trolling around the seedy side Seattle for quite a while.  Ten years on and Failed Graves is only the band’s third album but my favorite so far.  There were more than a couple times this year when I was standing either in the Funhouse or the Sunset watching them storm through a set thinking that they were the best live band going in Seattle right now.  Craig Chambers in a suit looking like a huckster that plays a mean guitar, Jeff Albertson firecly clutching his well worn bass while PJ Rogalski wailed on the drums.  The intensity on Failed Graves nearly replicates their live show.  Dissonant guitars, pummeling rhythm section come at you through the speakers and the needle threatens to fly from the record.

mp3: Famous Gunshots

21. Gigi – Maintenant (Tomlab)
After this album I am convinced that Nick Krgovich of No Kids is a pop maestro.  How else could he write and orchestrate an album like this.   The songs have a 60′s Phil Spector feel crossed with Cole Porter, putting him in a league with Stephen Merrit’s Sixths albums.  There are too many highlights to list here, but the Rose Melberg sung Alone At the Pier, Karl Blau doing The Old Graveyard and Zac Pennington’s Dreams of Romance are already classics in my house.

mp3: The Old Graveyard

22. Deerhunter – Halcyon Digest (4AD)
4AD does not carry the cache that it once did, but Earthquake the first song on Halcyon Digest totally evokes that label’s heyday, sounding like Dif Juz, Cocteau Twins and This Mortal Coil all at once.  Bradford Cox is up to his old shoegaze tricks on Halcyon digest, but it’s Locket Pundt’s songs that lifted this album to the top of the stack this time.  Desire Lines and Fountain Stairs offer hazy bursts of sunshine to Cox’s Halcyon gauze.

mp3: Desire Lines

23. The Limiñanas – The Limiñanas (Trouble In Mind)
Je Ne Puis Pas Trés Drogué.  Well I am after this record.  The Limiñanas is full of hallucinogens, twelve doses to be precise. I hope their record label doesn’t get arrested for sending these things via the US Postal Service.  It could be a real scandal. I can see the headlines now: American Label implicated in French drug trafficking.  Giant hits of acid found in the form of 33 rpm records.  I ordered 10 copies.

mp3: Down Underground

24. Super Wild Horses – Fifteen (Hozac)
At first glance you might say Australia’s Super Wild Horses take their cue from the riot grrrl movement of the early 90′s, but their sound and style goes a little further harking back to that movement’s predecessors like the Breeders and Scrawl.  The grrrl duo switch off  between minimal drums and minimal guitar to deliver short sharp shocks trading off vocals and harmonizing on songs that transcend their primal beginnings. Not sure how much Mikey Young of Eddy Current Suppression Ring who twiddled the knobs on this record had to do with the magic that Fifteen conjures, but if I were a betting man I would say not very much.

mp3: Goldentown

25. Ty Segall – Melted (Goner)
Like the Fresh & Onlys, Ty Segall came of age in 2010, albeit at a much younger age.  Melted is where Segall got off the garage bus and tripped onto the magic buss.  Don’t get me wrong, he still rocks out, but it’s in full technicolor instead of the previous black and white.  Songs like Bees are meaty beaty big and bouncy and Sad Fuzz rains down on you like he’s finally gotten to the point of being able to incorporate those top shelf influences into his songs. Listening to Melted you can  see that Segall freed his mind and the possibilities are endless.

mp3: Caesar

Honorable Mentions:
Magic Bullets – Magic Bullets (Mon Amie) / Lawrence Arabia – Chant Darling (Bella Union) / Wild Nothing – Gemini (Captured Tracks) / Rose Elinor Dougall – Whithout Why (Scarlett) / Idle Times – Idle Times (Hozac) /  Radio Dept. – Clinging To a Scheme (Labrador) / Seinking Ships – Museum Quality Capture (S-curve) / Dum Dum Girls – I Will Be (Sub Pop) / Splinters – Kick (Double Negative) / Math and Physics Club – I Shouldn’t Look As Good As I Do (Matinee) / Katerine – Phillippe Katerine (Barclay) / The Fall – Your Future Our Clutter (Domino) / White Wires – WWII (Dirtnap) / Dead Ghosts – Dead Ghosts (Florida’s Dying) / Harlem – Hippies (Matador) / Vic Godard – & Subway Sect – We Come As Aliens (Overground)

Everybody Needs a Holiday

December 19, 2010 at 10:59 pm | Posted in Holidays, Music, X-mas | Leave a comment
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I need to take a break from this list making business. What better way to do that than with some mulled wine.  Since you can’t download spirits, how about some holiday music? Matinée records down in Southtown (ie. Santa Barbara) have gotten into the festivities. After decorating their coastal live oaks, and hanging their wet suits out to dry they’ve put together a five song holiday ep containing original Christmas songs by the likes of Math and Physics Club, Northern Portrait, Champagne Riot, Bubblegum Lemonade and Strawberry Whiplash.  New traditions are always a good thing, so why not try out these brand new holiday songs?

mp3: Strawberry Whiplash – Santa Needs a Holiday (from The Matinée Holiday Soirée CD)

If the eggnog isn’t doing it for you and one mp3 isn’t enough to help you shed the holiday blues, then here are a few extra holiday songs of the cover variety to help you through. Math & Physics Club have offered up their version of Marshmallow World.  Up here in Seattle, it hardly ever snows so we have to invent ways of making it a white Christmas by OD’ing on sugar.

mp3: Math & Physics Club – A Marshmallow World

Moving a little ways down the coast to Oxnard, Catwalk are busy getting ready for the holidays with their best Alvin and the Chipmunks impersonation.  Wonder if there’s a way to play and mp3 at 45 rpm to really make it sound like the Chipmunks?

Singles of the Year Countdown: 10-1

December 15, 2010 at 11:02 pm | Posted in 7 inch, Lists, Music, Singles, Vinyl | Leave a comment
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We’ve made it to the fat on top, or the fruit at the bottom, in other words the top ten…I bought way too many seven inch singles this year. I’m not trying to brag. It’s a problem really. The seven inch is like crack to the record geek, a fleeting moment of pop perfection and then it’s off to either flip the record or put on another one. This was a daunting task this year and I feel like I left out a lot of stuff, but a top 60 would have been too much and limiting it to 40 makes you have to really decide, what were your favorite singles of the year. Without any further ado, here are numbers 10-1.

1. Unnatural Helpers – Sunshine/Pretty Girls (Hardly Art)

Here’s what I said back in April when this record came out: I can state unequivocally that the A-side Sunshine / Pretty Girls is the best Unnatural Helpers song I’ve heard, and it could very well be the anti-summer jam of the erm, summer, though it’s a bit early to predict those kinds of things.

Back to present, it turns out it was the anti-summer jam of the summer and the year for that matter at least for me.  At a minute and 55 seconds, Sunshine/Pretty Girls is over before you know what hit you, and it has you jumping up from the chair to pick up the needle and put it back down again in a futile attempt to keep the euphoric endorphins induced by this song flowing.  This is everything a great pop record should be, a pummeling guitar riff, second guitar diving in, strained words through gritted teeth, girl singing backing harmonies, lyrics about smoking and drinking till you die and a killer sleeve by CMRTYZ.

mp3: Sunshine / Pretty Girls


2. Tender Trap – Do You Want a Boyfriend? (Slumberland)

I said it succinctly back in June and don’t think I can improve on my description of this near perfect single: Oh my (Talula) Gosh, The new single from Amelia Fletcher’s Tender Trap is Heavenly.  Not only that, Do You Want a Boyfriend? is smart, cute (does he have to like the Jesus & Mary Chain?  Yeah, that would be heaven!), packed full of harmonies and sees the band swinging back towards a more guitar oriented blast of sound reminiscent of Fletcher’s two earlier bands.

mp3: Do You Want a Boyfriend?


3. The Limiñanas – I’m Dead (Hozac)

The Liminnanas suddenly appeared on the scene with singles on both Trouble In Mind and Hozac, a posthumous release of their former band Les Bellas and then an album on TIM all within a few months. It was like they had been stockpiling songs getting ready for a barrage.  I’m Dead was the opening salvo and turned heads with its Spectoresque garage coupled a hint of Morricone.  It rode a sparse echo filled groove and penetrated the dark side for three minutes of eerie pop bliss that was hard to forget.

mp3: I’m Dead


4. Outdoor Miners – Twelve Hundred Dollars (Pop Echo)

With slicing angular guitars and lazy slacker vocals Edmunton, Alberta’s Outdoor Miners on their debut single evoke a time not too long ago when it took way too long to download a web page so an entire album was out of the question. You still went to the record store on Tuesday’s to pick up the new releases, and seeing Pavement on daytime MTV was an amazing thing.  In other words 90′s indie guitar rock is back!

mp3: Twelve Hundred Dollars


5. Myron and E with the Soul Investigators – It’s A Shame (Now Again)

Brought to my attention by Fire Escape Talking, I was unsure if this was not some lost soul record that he normally posts.  No, Myron and E hale from California and they get together somehow with Finland’s Soul Investigators to make records that don’t sound of this time.  It’s a Shame is a stone cold classic, right down to its Shoo bee-doo-wah’s.

mp3: It’s a Shame


6. Frankie & The Heartstrings – Fragile (Pop Sex Ltd.)

Edwyn Collins tweeted at some point this year that he’d seen the future and it was Frankie and the Heartstrings.  If the future is big sounding heart on the sleeve pop then Frankie and the Heartstrings are it.  Fragile with its quiet versus and bombastic chorus is everything an A-side could ever hope to be in the past, present or future.

mp3: Fragile


7. Catwalk – (Please) Don’t Break Me (Captured Tracks)

Will 2011 be the year that indiepop broke?  With likes of Wild Nothing, Sea Pony and now Catwalk getting so much positive attention this year, anything is possible.  Catwalk’s previous two singles on Yay! were beauties and the streak continues onto Captured Tracks.  This sunny yet sad 60′s inspired pop song could have fit on the  Bus Stop Label’s Peppermint Stick Parade from 1995.  As it is, it stands on its own quite nicely at the number seven spot.

mp3: (Please) Don’t Break Me


8. Liechtenstein – Passion For Water (Fraction)

Sweden’s Liechtenstein besides having a Passion For Water, have an evident passion for Dolly Mixture, bouncy bass lines, wonderful horns and angelic oohh’s.  The band have put out some excellent singles to date, but I think this may be the best one yet.

mp3: Passion For Water


9. German Measles – Color Vibration (Wild World)

German Measles are the epitome of ramshackle, their songs seem like they hang from within an inch of collapse.  Live,  even more so.  Color Vibration is an ode to getting high off one’s sense of vision.  It rumbles along threatening to collapse at any moment, only to see our heroes preserver almost to very end when the song ends with an explosion.

mp3: Color Vibration


10. Felt Letters – 600,000 Bands (M’lady)

With 600,000 Bands Felt Letters summarize with pinpoint accuracy and humor the craziness that is today’s music landscape.  Former Nation of Ulysses singer Ian Svenonius delivers his spot on observations over a musty gin joint backing  provided by Brendan Canty of Fugazi and Tom Bunnell.  “Everybody wants you to listen to theirs, but you can’t right now because you’re listening to this.”

mp3: 600,000 Bands

[40-31] [30-21] [20-11] [10-1]

Singles of the Year Countdown: 20-11

December 15, 2010 at 12:01 am | Posted in 7 inch, Lists, Music, Singles, Vinyl | 2 Comments
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The tension builds…I bought way too many seven inch singles this year. I’m not trying to brag. It’s a problem really. The seven inch is like crack to the record geek, a fleeting moment of pop perfection and then it’s off to either flip the record or put on another one. This was a daunting task this year and I feel like I left out a lot of stuff, but a top 60 would have been too much and limiting it to 40 makes you have to really decide, what were your favorite singles of the year. Here are numbers 20-11.

11. Crystal Stilts – Shake the Shackles (Slumberland)

I think we all knew how good Crystal Stilts were, but Shake the Shackles ups the ante.  It lets tiny rays of brightness peak into their dark gloomy sound without any integrity compromise.  The addition of the organ provides a new dimension and Brad Hargett almost sounds like he hasn’t lost all hope for mankind.

mp3: Shake the Shackles


12. Bubblegum Lemonade – Caroline’s Radio (Matinée)

There’s just something about a Rickenbacker and the way it hum and buzzes, and when you add into the mix a killer song, the combination is undeniable.  Caroline’s Radio takes you back to another time when all three Kennedys were still alive and when you lived for the radio, and would lie in bed with the transistor to your head and of course Roger McGinn’s 12 string Rickenbacker.  Of course it’s not 1964 anymore and the Jesus and Mary Chain came along  at some point, and then there was Bubblegum Lemonade.

mp3: Caroline’s Radio


13. Veronica Falls – Found Love in a Graveyard (Captured Tracks)

Found Love In a Graveyard has been floating around since 2009, but didn’t get slapped onto a seven inch until this year.  That it’s still in this year’s top 40 is a testament to its longevity.  Judging by its title you might think it’s good old fashioned goth stomp, but instead it’s a classic bone rattler with jangling guitars and boy-girl vocals that I’m always a sucker for.  It’s 2010 now and Veronica Falls have a song Right Side of My Brain floating around, look for it in next year’s top 40.

mp3: Found Love in a Graveyard


14. Seapony – Dreaming (Double Denim)

Sometimes you find the best things in your own back yard.  That was the case with Seapony who started as a Trasmittens side project, but with all the attention that Seapony are getting I bet it’s no longer a side project.  Dreaming is decidedly Twee, with a sugar vein so deep and wide that it is pretty much guaranteed to induce a rush, or at least a smile.

mp3: Dreaming


15. The Babies – Meet Me In The City (Make A Mess)

Sometimes the sum is more than the parts, and that is the case with the Babies.  Cassie from Vivian Girls and Kevin from Woods combine to form babies (not real ones, a band) and their two singles from this year were easy favorites.  Meet Me in the City is a rollicking good time that sounds like it was recorded down in some remote holler in Queens.

mp3: Meet Me In the City


16. Total Control – Paranoid Video (Smart Guy)

Another Eddy Current Suppression Ring related band (they’re hard to avoid around here), this one featuring guitarist Mikey Young and quite a departure from what you might expect from ECSR.  Paranoid races down the autobahn, darting in and out of lanes, cutting you off, and flashing it’s high beams at you to get out of the way.  Motorik!

mp3: Total Control – Paranoid Video


17. Weed Hounds – Skating Away From The Cops (Iron Pier)

The Weed Hounds present another case of the B-side usurping the single’s  A-side.  Beach Bummed is pleasant enough, but the band start scaling great heights on Skating Away From the Cops.  I’m talking heights not reached since the Pale Saints.

mp3: Skating Away From the Cops

18. The Tartans – West of La Brea (Yay!)
What’s west of La Bbrea?  West Hollywood? Beverly Hills? The 405? The Pacific Ocean? A job? The Tartans turn all suave and sophisticated for their third single and come up smelling like roses.  I’d go West of La Brea for this, not even knowing what is there.

mp3: West of La Brea

19. Wounded Lion – Pointed Sticks (Trouble In Mind)
Wounded Lion doctorin up their best Gary Glitter impersonation.  Scuzzy guitars, handclaps and muppet babies on the b-side?  There are far too many ‘serious’ bands around these days and Wounded Lion are definitely not one of them.

mp3: Pointed Sticks

20. Comet Gain – I Never Happened (What’s Your Rupture)
Comet Gain seem to ebb and flow.  their hasn’t been an album since 2005′ s City of Fallen Leaves, but singles compilations and side projects seem to appear from nowhere at unpredictable times to lighten up my turntable.  I Never happened is a sad introspective song that sees David Feck’s love unrequited and rendering him nonexistent.  Heavy.

mp3: I Never Happened

[40-31] [30-21] [20-11] [10-1]

Singles of the Year Countdown: 30-21

December 13, 2010 at 11:46 pm | Posted in 7 inch, Lists, Music, Singles | 6 Comments
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I bought way too many seven inch singles this year. I’m not trying to brag. It’s a problem really. The seven inch is like crack to the record geek, a fleeting moment of pop perfection and then it’s off to either flip the record or put on another one. This was a daunting task this year and I feel like I left out a lot of stuff, but a top 60 would have been too much and limiting it to 40 makes you have to really decide, what were your favorite singles of the year. Here are numbers 30-21.


21. Cave Weddings – Never Never Know (Bachelor)

Sadly this will be the last time the Cave Wedding appear in the countdown.  Prior to releasing this single they called it quits and wiped their MySpace page from existence.  Fortunately we have this single and last year’s Hozac one to remember them.  Powerpop is rarely done this well and Never Never Know ranks up there with Nerves and the Beat.

mp3: Never Never Know


22. Dum Dum Girls – Stiff Little Fingers (Hell Yes!)

I’m not sure why this Dum Dum Girls single won out over Bang Bang I’m a Burnout or Jail La La, because surely both of those singles are worthy.  Maybe I’m capricious.  Maybe I just like being a contrarian.  Maybe it was because the melody cut like ice.  Maybe it was the overt reference to the Stiff Little Fingers…

mp3: Stiff Little Fingers


23. Boomgates – Bright Idea (RIP Society)

Those Eddy Current guys are busy dudes and side projects seem to pop up from the Supression Ring like dandelions in green grass.  If not for the like-minded blog the Creative Intersection I would have most certainly missed this record.  Bright Idea doesn’t tread too far from ECSR, but on the B-Side the Boomgates get their Comet Gain on.  Jeez, they had me at the A-side.

mp3: Bright Idea


24. The Knocks - Make It Better (Neon Golden)

Everyone has their guilty pleasures and the Knocks’ Make It Better is mine.  Otherwise known as the rump shaker in this year’s list.  Yes, my ears have been ruined over the years with too much shoegaze and garage, but  they’re not totally gone and this song makes them prick up whenever it comes up on shuffle or on some playlist I’ve made. Bust out the disco ball.

mp3: Make It Better


25. Fresh & Onlys – Vanishing Cream (Plastic Spoons)

As I kid I always was sending off for stuff from the advertisements in the backs of comic books.  I got a pair of x-ray specs that didn’t work, and some invisible ointment that was a bust.  If the Fresh and Onlys would provide an address I would send off for this Vanishing Cream of which they speak, as it is I just send them money for records.

mp3: Vanishing Cream


26. Magic Bullets – Lying Around (Mon Amie)

San Francisco’s Magic Bullets know their 80′s as in General Public, Haircut 100 and Orange Juice.  I said it before and I’ll say it again Lying Around is like a button and I can’t stop pushing it.

mp3: Lying Around


27. Times New Viking – No Room to Live (Self-Released)

So it finally happened, Times New Viking turned down the distortion and let us hear the melody.  Did they get tired of their bleeding in the red sound?  Is this just a dalliance?  Will they be playing their drums with brushes and using a ukulele in the future?  Only time will tell, but for now there is this tender Beth sung A-side.

mp3: No Room To Live


28. Mind Spiders – Worlds Destroyed (Dirtnap)

I love how the cover of this single evokes some kind of nerdy rockabilly goth image in my head.  Worlds Destroyed with its watery Morricone intro quickly transitions to a punk rock ballad for punks that wear eyeliner and go to rodeos.  I’m not in that category, but could easily be swayed.

mp3: Worlds Destroyed


29. Electric Bunnies – Pretty Joanna (Sacred Bones)

No countdown is worth its salt without a Spacemen 3 inspired single on it.  Lucky for us the Electric Bunnies chose that style for their only outing this year.  Buzzing, hissing  guitars plunge the depths of the earth.  These guys may not be from Caerbannog, but they are killer bunnies nonetheless.

mp3: Pretty Joanna


30. Internet Forever – Break Bones (Art Fag)

So this is what it’s come to, eh?  Bands naming themselves after the internet.  I haven’t looked lately, is there a band named Hootie and the Wikis yet?  Internet Forever’s Break Bones is good enough to overcome their unfortunate band name.  This song has been floating around on the afore mentioned internet since sometime last year, and fortunately Art Fag saw fit to put it on a slab of wax.  I said back in August of 2009 that they evoke the beauty of the much underrated It’s Jo and Danny.  I hope they don’t wallow in obscurity like Jo and Danny.  A few more singles of this quality and maybe they won’t.

mp3: Break Bones

[40-31] [30-21] [20-11] [10-1]

Singles of the Year Countdown: 40-31

December 12, 2010 at 10:19 pm | Posted in 7 inch, Lists, mp3, Music, Singles | 2 Comments
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I bought way too many seven inch singles this year. I’m not trying to brag. It’s a problem really. The seven inch is like crack to the record geek, a fleeting moment of pop perfection and then it’s off to either flip the record or put on another one. This was a daunting task this year and I feel like I left out a lot of stuff, but a top 60 would have been too much and limiting it to 40 makes you have to really decide, what were your favorite singles of the year. Here are numbers 40-31.

31. Mirah – Don’t! (Mississippi)

I admit that I hadn’t paid much attention to Mirah in recent years, but I do pay quite a lot of attention to Mississippi Records, so that led me to buying this record.  The song Don’t appeared on the compilation The Old Days Feeling in a different version, but that version didn’t prepare me for this Patsy Cline inspired beauty.  It has a warmth that you might not have thought that records could have any more and the b-side The Tears That Fall with its strings and horns is no slouch either. This record makes me pray that she’s planning a whole album in this style.

mp3: Don’t


32. Sourpatch – Deli Dream (Happy Happy Birthday To Me)

San Jose’s Sourpatch owned my record player for a good part of the year and just as I had properly killed their album Crushin’ they go and release this single to take over my record player again.  They called the sides to the single This side and Other side, but I call them Tiger Trap side and Small Factory Side.  In my little corner of the basement where the record player sits that is as close to perfection as it gets.

mp3: Deli Dream


33. Aias – Aias (Captured Tracks)

Every band should have a self-titled theme song and Barcelona’s Aias do just that with their horn laden song Aias.  These ladies put a twist on the girl group, C-86 phenomenon by singing in Catalan.  Note to old people who always say it’s a lovely tune but I can’t understand what their saying: Uh, yeah.

mp3: Aias


34. Yuck – Georgia (Fat Possum)

More 90′s sounds in this year’s countdown, you will quickly figure out that this is a recurring theme.  Georgia first appeared on the split record Yuck did with Cleveland’s Herzog on the Transparent label.  Fat Possum  new a good thing when they heard it and smartly released it as an A-side themselves.   The guitars remind me of Teenage Fanclub from their Bandwagonesque heyday, but Teenage Fanclub never had the secret weapon of  girl harmonies.

mp3: Georgia


35. For Ex-Lovers Only – Coffin (Magic Marker)

This Orlando, Florida band lay down a slab of white noise in Coffin.  A melody carefully buried underneath six feet of squalling guitars that does their namesakes proud.  I wonder if the Magic Kingdom has a Black Tambourine ride yet?

mp3: Coffin


36. Heavy Times – No Planes (Hozac)

For a second I thought BOAT picked up and moved back to Chicago.  No, it seems that Heavy Times just mine the same vein of sloppy, but friendly sounding pop.  Like BOAT, Heavy Times’ sound is steeped in the 90′s and these two songs will make you nostalgic for Hale Bopp, Boris Yeltsin, the Wonderbra and umm, Grunge.

mp3: No Planes


37. Talbot Adams – Jack and Jesse (Douchemaster)

Guided By Voices with Beach Boys Ooohh’s is probably all that needs to be said about this former Black and Whites front man who became a dad and turned down the volume and intensity.  What he left out in those two areas, he more than made up for in pop hooks.  This single contains four songs all under the two minute mark. It’s  like a cliffs notes for pop songs. Who said taking  the shortcut never paid off?

mp3: Life is Good When Cinematic


38. Math And Physics Club – Jimmy Had A Polaroid (Matinée)

Math & Physics Club don’t get out much but when they do they make the most of it.  Jimmy Had a Polaroid was the first single from the band’s second album and not a huge departure from their previous output, but when you’ve got a timeless sound and the ability to evoke bygone nostalgia that makes you ache for those days of really awful photos that faded to nothing a week later, then why mess with a good thing.

mp3: Jimmy Had a Polaroid


39. Fungi Girls – Doldrums (Hozac)

Sometimes it’s not the A-side of a single that grabs you, hell the Smiths’ How Soon Is Now? was a b-side.  Doldrums tucked away on the flip side of Turquoise Hotel has this great little riff that gets stuck in your head like glue.  These youngsters from Cleburne, Texas have quickly learned the art of seduction and Doldrums is prime evidence.  Looking forward to full swoon when album number two comes sometime next year.

mp3: Doldrums


40. Proper Ornaments – Recalling (Make a Mess)

Named after a Free Design song, the Proper Ornaments make warm, plaintive and fuzzy psychedelia.  The Ornaments are two dudes who are no strangers to the seven inch single having been in the Sexy Kids and currently also in Veronica Falls.  This is quiet and seductive music that is like a warm blanket on a cold night.

mp3: Recalling

[40-31] [30-21] [20-11] [10-1]

White Laces Getting Their Game On

December 7, 2010 at 10:27 pm | Posted in mp3, Music, Old Dominioin, Prog, Shoegaze | Leave a comment
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Bombastic music from Richmond, Virginia has got me putting off my list making another night.  Use to be that this sort of music didn’t get made on this side of the Atlantic, but the world turned upside down  a few years ago and now Americans are making big sounding shoegaze music.  White Laces seem to have an innate ability to meld the hazy sounds of Seam with the prog grandiose of iLiKETRAiNS and the muscle of Swervedriver. This is big music that chimes, pummels, wrenches and soars.

After a couple sold-out cassette releases the four-piece band have unleashed a slab of wax.  It’s a five song EP that you can order from their Bandcamp page.  You may have to wait for the mailman to get your vinyl but the band provide an immediate download of the songs if you don’t have anything against the mp3 format.

mp3: White Laces – Sick of Summer

Paranoid?

December 6, 2010 at 10:37 pm | Posted in 7 inch, Australia, Music | Leave a comment
Tags: , , ,


image snagged from 62Stockon *

If you are the type who goes all Tron for Kraftwerk, Gary Numan and Berlin‘s Riding on the Metro, you should probably get on this.  The first batch of Total Control‘s third single sold out pretty quickly, but as luck would have it Smart Guy Records has seen fit to press up another run of the 7 inch, only this time on sterile white vinyl.

Total Control are Mikey Young and Daniel Stewart both of the UV Race. Young may be better known as the guitarist in the Eddy Current Suppression Ring, but the guy is in so many bands that I lost count at 17.  He can be in 30 bands for all I care, if all them crank out singles like this one.

mp3: Total Control – Paranoid Video


Order one up from Smart Guy before they’re gone (again).

Tunabunny: Swimming, No Hopping In the Face of Fashion

December 5, 2010 at 10:22 pm | Posted in mp3, Music | 1 Comment
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Portrait by Julia Kay

Being an old curmudgeon, if I don’t like a band’s name I won’t give them a chance.  After all musical taste is all about aesthetics and if I don’t like the name, chances are I’m not going to like the music. There are tons of bands that reinforce that rule:  Crash Test Dummys, Vampire Weekend, Hoobastank, Deathcab for Cutie, Gay Dad, Dogs Die In Hot Cars, and the Cherry Poppin’ Daddys to name but a few.  Of course there are exceptions to the rule like Cats On Fire, Weedhounds, Prefab Sprout, and The The.  I would like to propose adding Tunabunny to my list of exceptions.

The Athens, Georgia band have just recently released their first album on their hometown label Happy Happy Birthday To Me. At first listen it was a dissonant and difficult record, but like the grumpy old guy in the movies, after you get know him, he turns out to be a sweetheart, well a sweetheart with thorns and burrs hidden about him.  What I’m trying to say is that it’s a grower.  Once you get used to the treble overload the songs begin to seep in.   Sometimes they kind of sound like hometown heroes Pylon at their most raunchy, or tender and scary like a Helium song, or freaked out in distortion like Boyracer, or just plane weird like little known LA pop freaks Charles Brown Superstar. It’s never obvious and you won’t immediately be in rapture, but if you give it a chance, the onion will peel which could result in stinging tears, something tasty, or both.


mp3: Tunabunny – Gasmasks

Order up a copy of the album on vinyl or cassette (what is this 1982 again?) from Happy Happy Birthday To Me.

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