Small Business Saturday Mix

Here's another DJ set, this one from Small Business Saturday. Don't forget to support small business this holiday season.

Small Business Saturday - IN YOUR EAR - 2014 by Pete Bilderback on Mixcloud

Tracklist:
Mudhoney - I Like It Small
Led Zeppelin - Trampled Under Foot
Tyrannosaurus Rex - Deboraarobed
Ty Segall - It's Over
White Reaper - Conspirator
The Flamin' Groovies - Slow Death
The Stooges - Down In The Street
David Bowie - Cactus
Adam Ant - Desperate But Not Serious
The Flying Lizards - Money (That's What I Want)
Big Audio Dynamite - V. Thirteen [Extended Remix]
The Jimmy Castor Bunch - Troglodyte (Cave Man)
ESG - UFO
Tom Tom Club - Wordy Rappinghood [Special 12" Version]
Blondie - Rip Her To Shreds
Family Fodder - Debbie Harry
The Marvelettes - Beechwood 4-5789
The Stroke Band - Son Of Sam
Game Theory - Nine Lives To Rigel Five
The Three O'Clock - On My Own (With Strings)
The Teardrop Explodes - Reward
Echo & the Bunnymen - Angels And Devils

Record Store Day 2014: Mudhoney - On Top!

This is one Record Store Day release that I can guarantee you I am going to get by any means necessary, up to (and possibly including) felony offenses. Back in July Mudhoney played live on top of the Seattle's famed Space Needle to celebrate legendary indie-label Sub-Pop's 25th anniversary. KEXP recorded it, and now Sub-Pop is making the audio available via a limited edition LP.

You may have questions about this release: "Was the LP cut from an analog source? Did the mastering engineer maintain a 100% pure analog signal throughout the cutting process? Is the LP pressed on 180 gram virgin vinyl?" Fortunately, I have an answer for all those questions and more: "Shut up! This is Mudhoney. Live. On the Space Needle. Buy it!"

Mudhoney live on the Space Needle photo by Morgen Schuler.

Record Store Day 2013: Sub-Pop

Sub Pop has announced its releases for Record Store Day 2013. These will include a limited edition, various artists compilation entitled Sub Pop 1000. This release very much takes the label back to it's roots, harkening back to compilations like Sub Pop 100 and 200. Like those now collectable releases, Sub Pop 1000 will be limited to a pressing of 5,000 copies on vinyl.

The label will also release a collaborative 7" single from Shearwater and one of my favorite young artists, Sharon Van Etten. The single will feature a cover of the Stevie Nicks/Tom Petty duet "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" b/w "A Wake for the Minotaur."


Sharon Van Etten and Shearwater cover “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around”

The label will also release a free (!) CD sampler entitled, Terminal Sales, Vol. 6: The Silver Ticket, featuring new and "occasionally rare" tracks from Mudhoney, Low, Shabazz Palaces, Father John Misty, Still Corners, Pissed Jeans, and 13 others. Free is good.

Girl, You'll Be Drinking A Coca-Cola Soon (Neil Diamond Coke Jingles)

I remember a long time time ago, when such things seemed really important to me, having a debate with a friend of mine over whether there there was some objective criteria for calling music "good" or "bad." My friend's opinion was that there were objective grounds for making such statements, even if he lacked the ability to articulate the criteria explicitly. He pointed to music that appeared in commercials as an example of music that is "objectively bad." My own take was that there was no defensible objective criteria for judging music. In my view, there was only power. I argued that those with access to power have historically been able to subject their notions of "good" and "bad" on those with less access to power. "Taste" in my view was nothing more than an instrument of social control, and I viewed championing music judged to be in "poor taste" as a heroic act of resistance against a repressive society. (You see, I couldn't just like Cat Butt and Mudhoney because they rocked out righteously, there had to be some deeper reason.)

In retrospect I can see that both arguments are hopelessly naïve. But I also think a better rejoinder to my friend would have been to play these Coca-Cola jingles by Neil Diamond, because they're awesome.

Mudhoney - Head On The Curb (New LP Only Release)

I just put in an order for this because, well, how could I not?

This vinyl-only release is Mid-period Mudhoney at its RAWEST. Original Bass Player Matt Lukin is in top form, as is the rest of the classic line-up, blasting out songs and ideas, some of which went on to be studio-fied for their Warner Bros debut PIECE OF CAKE, while others got lost to the dark crevices of time…UNTIL NOW. Besides the cover of SCTV classic I HATE THE BLOODY QUEEN, these recordings have NEVER been released, and represent a sonic assault that is pure Mudhoney. Raw, unabashed, and sometimes down-right no-fi. HEAD ON THE CURB writes a new chapter into Mudhoney’s legendary past.

Side A
1. Ritzville
2. I Want To Live
3. King Sandbox
4. 13th Floor Opening
5. Living Wreck
6. Acetone

Side B
1. No End In Sight
2. Underide
3. Fun And Games
4. Confusion
5. When In Rome
6. I Hate The Bloody Queen

All Songs By Mudhoney except for I HATE THE BLOODY QUEEN by The Queen Haters. Recorded in various garages, studios and caves in remote parts of Seattle, WA during the last decade of the 20th century. Photos by Charles Peterson

Wow! That is a lot of CAPS for an archival release, but dare I say it sounds like something worth SHOUTING about. I know Nirvana is the grunge band that everyone worships, but Mudhoney will always be my favorite. It's $18 shipped from Birdman Records. I'll report back when my copy arrives.

Update: I got my copy and can heartily recommend this release to any Mudhoney fan with a turntable. Don't buy it thinking you'll get one of those MP3 download cards--you won't. Sound quality is good enough not to detract from how great the music is. Mudhoney were not exactly known for burying their albums in studio gloss, but there is still something refreshing about hearing these songs in such a raw and direct way. The cover of "I Hate The Bloody Queen" is particularly brilliant.

My Favorite Albums of 2008

Here are my ten favorite albums of 2008. As I mentioned before, I really have no business compiling a "Best of 2008" list considering how much I haven't heard (still haven't heard Fleet Foxes, although I at least have the album on order). So this is just a list of some stuff I happened to dig this year.

1. Teddy Thompson - A Piece of What You Need
Last year I was the only blogger to list Teddy Thompson's Up Front And Down Low on their year-end "best of" list. So what does the usually non-prolific Teddy do? He releases an even better album in 2008. A Piece Of What You Need finds Teddy in about as upbeat a mood as you can imagine from the young man for whom "End Of The Rainbow" was written. Producer Marius de Vries (Bjork, Madonna) adds enough pop flourishes (handclaps!) to keep things bright, even if he can't stop Teddy from turning the gun on himself. A Piece Of What You Need is simply a brilliant album that takes Teddy out of his famous parents' shadows once and for all (Richard & Linda who?).

2. Duffy - Rockferry
My wife likes to listen to our local pop music station in the mornings. Because I'm a good husband I only complain about this semi-incessantly. One morning something really weird happened. I actually liked a song they were playing. This was a good song. No, actually it was great. "Who is this?" I asked (they never say who they're playing on pop radio, you're just supposed to know). Soon enough I figured out it was a young British woman known as Duffy. I picked up the CD at Starbucks that very day (remember when Starbucks used to sell music?). Later I picked it up on LP too, not because the CD sounded bad, but because the music was so good I just wanted to own it on LP. As I noted in a previous post, Rockferry (on CD or LP) has lots of dynamic range relative to most contemporary productions, proving that an album can be massively successful in 2008 without having every last bit of life compressed out of it.

3. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
I don't think I need to say much about Vampire Weekend. This will be on every other blogger's list. This might be the most over-hyped album of the year, but that doesn't mean it isn't also good.

4. Mudcrutch - Mudcrutch
Mudcrutch's debut album was already the subject of much discussion on this blog.

It's an iconic story. A rock band torn apart by external forces over thirty years ago reunites to see if they can recapture the old magic. Against all odds they do, and the now middle-aged rockers find their belated debut album on the bestseller charts. It's a story that would carry the force of Greek Mythology were it not for the inconvenient fact that one of the members (a guy named Tom Petty) has a day job as one of the world's most successful rock-stars, and two others (Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench) punch the clock as members of his long-running backing band the Heartbreakers. Guitarist Tom Leadon and drummer Randall Marsh haven't kept quite as high a profile over the past thirty odd years, but from the sounds of the album they have lost none of their considerable chops.

If you can still find a copy, it's worth the extra money to pick up the LP with bonus "uncompressed" CD.

5. Neil Diamond - Home Before Dark
Neil Diamond has never made music to impress rock critics, and in return rock critics have never been very impressed by Neil Diamond. But Home Before Dark sounds like a different kind of Neil Diamond album. No, it doesn't sound like it was made with the approval of rock critics in mind (heaven forbid), but it does seem to be an attempt to make a "serious" album in the way that even his previous collaboration with super-producer Rick Rubin, 12 Songs, did not. It's a quiet album intended for intimate listening. I don't see how these songs reach the back rows at a Neil Diamond show. Nevertheless, the songs are full of the kind of drama and showmanship that characterizes Diamond's best work, it's just a quieter, more subtle kind of drama than we're used to from Neil. Unlike Rick Rubin's other big production this year, this album is emphatically not a victim of the "loudness wars." There's oodles of dynamic range on this album, and those shifts in dynamic range really are an essential ingredient in allowing the drama inherent in the songwriting to unfold. Congrats to Neil on the first number one album (and perhaps the best studio album) of his career.

6. Beck - Modern Guilt
This is another album I wrote a bit about already. At the time I was more interested in writing about the novelty of the album being offered on LP with an MP3 download sourced from vinyl than the music itself. Now I'd like to say a few words about the music: it's terrific. (I realize that technically this statement only counts as a few words if you consider the contraction "it's" as two words, but I believe it is legitimate to do so.)

7. She & Him - Volume One
I do not care that "She" is a pretty actress. I do not care that "Him" is M. Ward. This is very enjoyable classic pop music. If you've ever found yourself with a lump in your throat while listening to The Stone Poneys' "Different Drum" you need to add this album in your collection.

8. Orchestra Baobab - Made In Dakar
Hey kids, are you interested in checking out the roots of Vampire Weekend's Afro-Pop influenced sounds? Well, you won't find them here (for that check out Paul Simon's Graceland). Senegal's Orchestra Baobab came roaring back to life in 2002 with the release of Specialist In All Styles, and Made In Dakar suggests they are back to stay. Orchestra Baobab present a potent mix of Afro-Pop and Afro-Cuban sounds. Honestly, I'm not knowledgeable about this kind of music to say anything intelligent about it (that never stopped me before), but I really enjoyed this skillfully played and passionate album.

9. Mudhoney - The Lucky Ones
Twenty years into their career and Mudhoney are still the loudest thing going on. The secret to their longevity? Clean living. Mudhoney doesn't offer anything groundbreaking with their latest album; maybe their primal fuzz sounds a little wiser with age ("the lucky ones have already gone down"), but never sounds grown up. Mudhoney still offers retrograde, knuckle-dragging, loud fun. When Mudhoney debuted twenty years ago, few would have predicted they'd still be going strong in 2008. Even fewer would have predicted the long playing record album would still be going strong as well. But here it is 2008 and I bought Mudhoney's new album on LP with a code for a free MP3 download and a bonus 7" single that includes covers of Pere Ubu's "Street Waves" and The Troggs' "Gonna Make You." This is almost as much fun as collecting limited-edition, colored vinyl Sub-Pop 7" singles circa 1989.

10. R.E.M. - Accelerate
R.E.M.'s most exciting music in years was definitely a victim of the "loudness wars." On CD Accelerate sounds like total crap. Eric Zimmerman at REMring diagnosed the problem with this album quite effectively. The expensive 45 RPM double LP sounds better than the CD, but the relative lack of dynamic range (while made worse by CD mastering) seems to have been a choice made at the recording and mixing stage of this production. Pity, because there are some really good songs here. Personally, I think they would have sounded better with a little more room to breathe.

The Freewheelin' Mark Arm

Mudhoney didn't really get political until their 2006 album, Under A Billion Suns, but this 1990 Sub-Pop single by Mark Arm made it clear where he was coming from politically.

The A-side is an entirely earnest cover of Bob Dylan's righteous rant against the military industrial complex. If anything Arm sounds even more pissed than Dylan did in 1963. With corporations like Halliburton and Blackwater transparently setting U.S. foreign policy, there's even more reason to be pissed today.

The B-side is a twisted Bo Diddley tribute with lyrics about calcium deficiency (among other things). It's just further proof that Bo Diddley invented grunge (in addition to rock and roll, rap, R&B, heavy metal, garage rock, and pretty much every thing else). All hail Bo Diddley.

You Make Me Die (More Mud)

In my last post, I didn't include "You Make Me Die," the third song on Mudhoney's "You're Gone" single, because I mistakenly thought it was included on the March To The Fuzz compilation. It's not, so here it is. The backing track was provided by Mudhoney, while the vocals were recorded separately "somewhere in England" by garage rock primitivist Billy Childish. For no reason in particular I've also included the original recording of the song by one of Billy's many bands, Thee Mighty Caesars, as well as another version of it by Mudhoney recorded for the BBC, this time with vocals by Mark Arm.

But that's not all you get today folks. I'm also re-posting a song that I posted a while back. It's "Itchy Itchy" by Professor Morrison's Lollipop. Why? Because in my mind I've always been able to hear Mudhoney covering this song. Can't you hear Mark Arm singing "I've got an itchy itchy lady bee buzzing all over me now"? If any of my readers happen to have a Mudhoney connection, please recommend they cover this song--it would make a pretty cool B-side.

Happy Memorial Day.

Mudhoney - You're Gone

It's kind of amazing to me that it's taken me this long to get around to posting something on Mudhoney. That might be because, despite the fact that they are one of my all time favorite bands, I have very little interesting to say about Mudhoney.

Mudhoney rocks. Hard.

Probably I should just leave it at that, because really what more do you need to know? I will say this much though--I've seen a lot of great live rock bands, and nothing, nothing in rock music ever brought me as close to a pure ecstatic experience as hearing Mudhoney live. Nirvana didn't do it. Sonic Youth didn't do it. Soul Asylum didn't do it. Bob Dylan didn't do it. The Grateful Dead certainly didn't do it. But Mudhoney did. Mudhoney brought me to a place that I can only describe as somewhere outside of myself.

For me, Mudhoney live was something like a religious experience. But not the kind of religious experience I was familiar with from the Episcopal Church in which I was raised. No, it was more like what I imagine people go through in the kind of church where they handle snakes and speak in tongues. It was a totally primal experience, which is exactly why I find it so difficult to write about it. It's not the kind of experience that easily lends itself to critical analysis.

Maybe that's just another way of saying Mudhoney rocks hard, but I don't think so. Anyone who knows me well will tell you I am not the kind of person who loses control of himself easily. At shows I was much more likely to be the guy with his hands in his pockets nodding slowly than the one trying to get a mosh pit going. I liked to keep my cool.

But the noise Mudhoney made live was just too awesome--and I mean that in the true sense of the word--to be denied. I can remember New Year's Eve, 1991 at Maxwell's in Hoboken trying to stage dive while Mudhoney was playing. Unfortunately, somebody grabbed the back of my jeans and prevented me from leaping off the stage. I'm not sure why they bothered. The stage at Maxwell's was all of 4 feet high. How much damage could I have done? But that's not the point. I simply wasn't a stage diving kind of guy. I think that was the only time I even tried to do it. Mudhoney's music just took control of me and I had to obey. I wasn't under my own command.

Anyhow, Mudhoney have a new album, Lucky Ones, out today. It's been getting some good reviews. I'm looking forward to hearing it. I imagine I'll opt for the vinyl with free MP3 download. They also released a 20th anniversary deluxe edition of their first EP, Superfuzz Bigmuff, along with some early singles and live stuff. This makes me feel old.

As for these tracks, they come from a 7" that was released in 1990 in advance of Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge. "Thorn" appeared in a different version on that album, but "You're Gone" did not. Somehow it got left off of their best of/rarities set, March To The Fuzz, as well. That's a real oversight, because the song absolutely shreds. Enjoy with caution.

Free tracks from Sub-Pop:

I'm Now [right click to download]

(from The Lucky Ones)

In 'n' Out Of Grace (live) [right click to download]

(from Superfuzz Bigmuff Deluxe Edition)