#457 - "And Don't The Kids Just Love It" - Television Personalities

Released on Rough Trade, 1981

Before shambling/C86, there was Television Personalities, the first stable full-length by Daniel Treacy as his soon-to-be-permanent nom-de-rock.  Recorded on 4-track tape machines at the dawn of the generation, it fully spelled out what lo-fi would mean for every poor hip rock band to follow, as well as the future career of Art Brut.  The album is also quintessentially British.  "Jackanory Stories" named for a popular BBC children's show of the time, may as well be the bowler-hatted, Micheal Caine-looking geezer on the cover.  "I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives" is as sweet and addled as the man himself.  It was still essentially three-chord punk, but rooted firmly in the aesthetic of the Merseybeat.  Later, Treacy would release a number of albums that sold fairly well in Europe, develop a rather bad habit, and spend six years in another curiously Anglo construct, a prison ship.  This whole entry may as well be drinking tea right now.

This rather delightful article also posits that Treacy might be the shadowy brains behind another all-too-English band.

Where You'd Know It From:  You live in England, and/or you're a fan of obscure British rock bands.

Track Listing:

1.  This Angry Silence (2:39)

2.  The Glittering Prizes (3:01)

3.  World Of Pauline Lewis (2:38)

4.  A Family Affair (2:36)

5.  Silly Girl (2:49)

6.  Diary Of A Young Man (3:59)

7.  Geoffrey Ingram (2:15)

8.  I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives (2:34)

9.  Jackanory Stories (3:04)

10.  Parties In Chelsea (1:41)

11.  La Grande Illusion (3:33)

12.  A Picture Of Dorian Gray (2:13)

13.  The Crying Room (1:59)

14.  Look Back In Anger (2:40)

("This Angry Silence")

("I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives")

("Geoffrey Ingram")

OK....

Yeah, so Weezer uploaded a video of them doing Paranoid Android to YouTube...and it's - get this - NOT terrible.  I know, right?  That's the complete opposite reaction that I had expected myself to have, too.  That being said, it's pretty much note-for-note.  You can't ask for too much from Weezer, though.  They've been riding the mediocrity train for years now.

#458 - "Blues For The Red Sun" - Kyuss

Released On:  Dali Records, 1992

Before trademarking "Desert-Fried Stoner Rock" as the brains behind hard-rock standard bearers Queens Of The Stone Age, Josh Homme was tuning his guitar down two full steps and routing it through a bass amp.  The result was best exemplified on the classic hazy sludge of Blues For The Red Sun, where various aspects of acid psychedelic rock and doom metal meet inside acres of molasses-textured molten guitar.  This is one of those albums that needs to be played LOUD, and doing so will reward you with enough headbanging riffery that you'll likely develop whiplash by the end of it.  Pack one beforehand, though.  Sludge like this deserves it's own hazy shade of green.  Not green like money, though.  It did only sell 39 000 copies, after all, which only goes to prove that even in the early 90s you were all dirty pirates.

Where You'd Know It From:  Long-haired stoners in the parking lots of high schools across North America. 

Track Listing:

1.  Thumb (4:41)

2.  Green Machine (3:38)

3.  Molten Universe (2:49)

4.  50 Million Year Trip (Downside Up)  (5:52)

5.  Thong Song (3:47)

6.  Apothecaries' Weight (5:21)

7.  Caterpillar March (1:56)

8.  Freedom Run (7:37)

9.  800 (1:34)

10.  Writhe (3:42)

11.  Capsized (0:55)

12.  Allen's Wrench (2:44)

13.  Mondo Generator (6:15)

14.  Yeah (0:04)

("Green Machine")

("50 Million Year Trip (Downside Up))"

("Mondo Generator")

#459 - "& Yet & Yet" - Do Make Say Think

Released On:  Constellation Records, 2002

Constellation Records is a post-rock institution, giving support to Efrim Menuck (Godspeed! You Black Emperor, Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and Blah Blah Blah) as well as a host of like-minded bands.  Of those bands not given guiding light by Efrim, Do Make Say Think are the best of the pile:  they have the same wide-ranging sense of ambition that informs the best Godspeed suites, but they exercise a heady sense of restraint coupled with a funky sense of rhythmic backbone.  It sounds like the results of a divinely inspired jam session, and, with the album being recorded in Justin Small's house, that may be exactly what it is.  Mandatory for anyone who's ever liked a post-rock album and wants more.

Where You'd Know It From:  Much like drone/doom, post-rock is enjoyed by intellectual hipster stoners.  So, if you are one or know any such, you'll probably know this one.  Also, "Chinatown" was used in Syriana.

Track Listing:

1.  Classic Noodlanding (5:26)

2.  End Of Music (6:51)

3.  White Light Of (6:56)

4.  Chinatown (5:33)

5.  Reitschule (9:15)

6.  Soul And Onward (5:29)

7.  Anything For Now (9:14)

("Chinatown")

("End Of Music")

("Soul And Onward")

#460 - "Sleeping With The Enemy" - Paris

Released On:  Scarface Records, 1992

Before the L.A. riots, there was "Coffee, Donuts, And Death", a brutal screed advocating cop-killing as a cure for the brutality and corruption endemic amongst those who policed the poor communities across America.  And that's not even the most controversial song on the album:  that prize goes to "Bush Killa", the President Bush Sr. assassination fantasy that caused Warner Bros. to cancel the album's release (the date of which neatly coincided with the lead-up to the 1992 U.S. Presidential election).  What else would you expect from an album that opens up with nearly two minutes of sirens and heavy machine-gun fire titled "The Enema (Live At The White House)".  It wasn't just about the political firebrand lyrics, however; the production is tight and funky, with crisp bass and an adventurous sense of sampling.  None of this is surprising, of course, considering a very young DJ Shadow handles a lot of the production here.  One of the fiercest hip-hop albums to ever make the white establishment really, really uncomfortable.

Where You'd Know It From:  Hip-Hop History 101?  That dreadlocked kid in your class who found the album during Bush Jr.'s reign and thought it was soooo timely?  

Track Listing:

1.  The Enema (Live At The White House) (1:53)

2.  Make Way For A Panther (2:30)

3.  Sleeping With The Enemy (2:40)

4.  House Niggas Bleed Too (1:31)

5.  Bush Killa (4:51)

6.  Coffee, Donuts, And Death (3:52)

7.  Thinka 'Bout It (4:26)

8.  Guerrillas In The Mist (3:11)

9.  The Days Of Old (4:19)

10.  Long Hot Summer (1:42)

11.  Conspiracy Of Silence (3:42)

12.  Funky Lil' Party (2:49)

13.  Check It Out Ch'All (3:27)

14.  Rise (1:12)

15.  Assata's Song (5:01)

("Bush Killa")

("Coffee, Donuts & Death")

("Guerrillas In The Mist")

#461 - "Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me" - The Cure

Released On:  Fiction Records, 1987

Equal parts mystery, anguish, and passion, Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me was the album that broke the British goth-pop band Stateside.  The stormy love song "Just Like Heaven" entered the band into the Billboard Top 40 and into every sensitive boy's "Hey-I'm-Into-You" mixtape for the rest of time.  "Catch" was whimsical, wistful, and sad all at the same time, the culmination of all of the poppy instincts Robert Smith had finally stopped suppressing.  Twin singles "Why Can't I Be You" and "Hot Hot Hot!" were upbeat pop-funk numbers far removed from the depressed goth-psych of Pornography.  It wasn't all alterna-boy smiles and sunshine, though:  the opening lines to the album, several minutes into a tortured scrawl of guitar noise, were "Kiss me kiss me kiss me / your tongue is like poison / so swollen it fills up my mouth" and follows it up with a wail of "I never wanted any of this / I wish you were dead".  So, while it was definitively still the same band of downers, it was a far hookier band of downers than had ever existed before.

Where You'd Know It From:  "Just Like Heaven" has - and I'm serious here - been on every mixtape ever created, ever.  That lame 2005 rom-com was named after it, ferchrissakes.  Plus, it's the Cure.  Was there ever a band that more exemplified the 80s than The Cure?

Track Listing:
1.  The Kiss (6:17)
2.  Catch (2:42)
3.  Torture (4:13)
4.  If Only Tonight We Could Sleep (4:50)
5.  Why Can't I Be You? (3:11)
6.  How Beautiful You Are (5:10)
7.  Snakepit (6:56)
8.  Hey You! (2:22)
9.  Just Like Heaven (3:30)
10.  All I Want (5:18)
11.  Hot Hot Hot! (3:32)
12.  One More Time (4:29)
13.  Like Cockatoos (3:38)
14.  Icing Sugar (3:48)
15.  The Perfect Girl (2:34)
16.  A Thousand Hours (3:21)
17.  Shiver And Shake (3:26)
18.  Fight (4:27)

("Just Like Heaven")



("Catch") - May I just take a moment to curse WMG here?  The official music video is the first listing for the song on You Tube...but the good folks at Warner Music Group cut the sound out of it.  These dinosaurs actually seem to think that kids are going on You Tube to listen to music to avoid buying records.  Instead of, say, downloading it.  I'm sure you vestigal fucking remnants are losing your pristine Italian suits over some You Tube videos that were freely watchable on MTV in the late 80s.




("Why Can't I Be You?")

#462 - "The White Birch" - Codeine

Released On:  Sub Pop, 1994

Codeine sounded just like the name implied:  slow and dreamlike.  Their final album was a culmination of every element that formed the band.  The guitars chimed in slow motion, with chords ringing in long spaces and arpeggiated figures stretching out into infinity.  The dynamic-shifting crunch was much more pronounced this time around, with tracks like the opener "Sea" and "Loss Leader" achieving moments of almost grunge-like zen.  If you're ever in need of an album to illustrate empty white spaces, or to soundtrack the howling sadness of long winters, this is the one.  One of the defining albums of "slowcore"

Where You'd Know It From:  Rather obscure, although if you've ever wandered alone through a blizzard, it sounds a lot like that.

Track Listing:
1.  Sea (7:21)
2.  Loss Leader (4:18)
3.  Vacancy (3:37)
4.  Kitchen Light (3:36)
5.  Washed Up (4:40)
6.  Tom (5:02)
7.  Ides (5:07)
8.  Wird (6:05)
9.  Smoking Room (3:18)

("Sea")

("Washed Up")





("Smoking Room")