Vinyl Vednesday 3/16/2011

[Vinyl Vednesday is a weekly feature about three favorite vinyl finds. It’s not meant to be a dick-measuring contest, but usually turns out that way. This week’s entry features three Irish bands in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day. I’m half-Irish and all-ignorant of my cultural identity. Have a Smithwick’s and e-mail pelonej1@gmail.com with your own big finds!]

Records: Flogging Molly’s Drunken Lullabies (2002) on clear green, My Bloody Valentine’s Things Left Behind (2001) on black, and U2’s Boy (1980) on black.

Place of Purchase: Flogging Molly came from Hot Topic (Remember when they sold good vinyl?). MBV from Repo Records. I believe U2 came from Disc World in Conshohocken (R.I.P.), but it could have been Legends from the Plymouth Meeting Mall (also R.I.P…. sigh, I’m getting old).

Thoughts: Flogging Molly gets slagged for rehasing The Pogues Celtic folk + punk formula, but honestly, I always kind of preferred Molly. They just rock a little harder on record, and frontman Dave King has a knack for lyrics that alternate between tear-in-your-beer sadness and all-out glee. And hey, Steve Albini recorded them! That guy did In Utero, so that’s cool. Drunken Lullabies has some of Flogging Molly’s most popular tunes, including “Drunken Lullabies,” “What’s Left of the Flag,” and “Rebels of the Sacred Heart.” Really, I could just type the tracklisting and some people would assume it was a greatest hits package. I plan to blast the complete Flogging Molly discography tomorrow for maximum fun.

Things Left Behind captures My Bloody Valentine before they really became My Bloody Valentine. While regarded by some as the greatest shoegaze band and creators of one on the best albums of the ’90s, MBV started off as a fuzzed out horror-punk band (hence the ’80s horror movie reference in their name). They were never The Misfits, though, so MBV had something of a twee bent to them. You can hear them trying to play like The Jesus & Mary Chain, but they’re not quite there. For a more contemporary reference, they sound like the first Pains of Being Pure at Heart album. A lot. MBV got way better from here, but I like visiting their roots on occasion. Things Left Behind collects some of their earliest EPs, such as Geek! and The New Record by My Bloody Valentine.

With every passing year, it gets harder for me to defend U2. But the band’s records up through 1991’s Achtung Baby are mighty fine [Although Zooropa and All That You Can’t Leave Behind are good too]. My second favorite album of theirs, besides War, is Boy. U2 started out as a Clash-inspired punk band, but by the time they got to Island Records, they skewed more towards post-punk. That phase ended after War, but here they mix jittery angles and passionate yells to great effect. “I Will Follow” is a catchy single, while “An Cat Dubh” reveals the more ethereal places U2 could go when they weren’t obsessed with being the Biggest Band in the World^TM.

Vinyl Vednesday 9/8/2010

[Vinyl Vednesday is a weekly feature about three favorite vinyl finds. It’s not meant to be a dick-measuring contest, but it usually turns out that way. This week’s entry is based around rarities compilations. E-mail pelonej1@gmail.com with your own big finds!]

Records: Crime in Stereo’s Selective Wreckage (2008) on black and white, Jawbreaker’s Etc. (2002) on black, and My Bloody Valentine’s Before Loveless (1991) on black and clear blue.

Place of Purchase: Hot Topic. Repo Records. Grass Roots Music Store in Ocean City, N.J. In that order.

Thoughts: I’m a huge Crime in Stereo fan, and I’m still mourning their break-up, but at least they went out with a solid discography. I can’t say much about Explosives and the Will to Use Them, but The Troubled Stateside, Crime in Stereo is Dead, and I Was Trying to Describe You to Someone are all amazing post-hardcore records. Crime in Stereo has left behind a stellar catalogue. What they haven’t left behind is a whole lot of rarities. B-side collection Selective Wreckage is awfully skimpy – 10 tracks in 23 minutes, and one of ’em is an instrumental intro. While it may have been prematurely released – I’d love to hear what went on during the Describe sessions – it still contains some of my favorite CiS songs, like “When the Women Come Out to Dance,” which jumps from one punishing hook to the next.

Jawbreaker, however, received a thorough rarities collection back in ’02 courtesy of drummer Adam Pfahler. He’s always been protective of Jawbreaker’s legacy, going out of his way to preserve the band’s releases. Etc. is packed with choice cuts, like “Kiss the Bottle,” which is probably one of the most overrated Jawbreaker songs despite being so obscure. Then again, it’s overrated for a reason. “Kiss the Bottle” sums up everything great about JB – being alone even when you’re with someone, drunk as hell, and having only some very dissonant, thundering chords to sum up how that feels. The rest of the collection is great too, delivering a bevy of Dear You outtakes before Pfahler was able to convince Geffin Records to let him re-release that album. “Caroline” is another early gem, as is the cover of R.E.M.’s “Pretty Persuasion.” Fans of the Unfun years are well-fed by this compilation.

My fandom for My Bloody Valentine continuously grows. Loveless is one of my favorite albums of all time, so much so that it’s led me to check out the band’s entire canon. While nothing tops the sheer weight of Loveless, it’s still fun hearing how MBV evolved from a bunch of horror-punks to shoegaze originators. Of the MBV rarities collections available through Lazy Records, Before Loveless is the better overview. It reveals the group’s debt to bands like the Birthday Party and Jesus & Mary Chain in their early years before evolving into a more twee group. By the fourth side, you can hear the waves of Loveless lapping not too far away.

Vinyl Vednesday 3/17/10

[Vinyl Vednesday is a weekly feature about three favorite vinyl finds. It’s not meant to be a dick-measuring contest, but it kinda is. This week’s entry features three Irish bands in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day. I’m half-Irish and all-ignorant of my cultural identity. Have a Smithwick’s and e-mail pelonej1@gmail.com with your own big finds!]

Records: My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless (1991) on black, The Pogues’ Rum Sodomy & the Lash (1985) on black, and U2’s War (1983) on black.

Place of Purchase: Loveless came from Repo Records while Rum was a Siren find. War was the result of some crate-digging at the dearly departed Disc World in Conshohocken.

Thoughts: I tend to overrate Loveless when I talk about it, which some big dumb jerks don’t appreciate (SCREW YOU FOREVER WITH A BRICK, NATE ADAMS*), but it’s hard to talk about the album without hyperbole. It belongs to that rare lexicon of records that is often imitated, never improved upon. I love plenty of bands that capture elements of My Bloody Valentine’s sound – M83, Jesu, Pains of Being Pure at Heart – but ultimately it’s MBV’s Loveless that I turn to most frequently. It sounds great cranked up or turned down low, as wave after wave of synesthesia hits me. There is nothing like it. Loveless is an experimental record that somehow forges guitar noise into a dream pop setting. Some folks sneer at the band’s dependence on effects pedals over dexterity, but the truth is no one else has been able to balance so fine a blend of catchy chaos. Most groups end up either too formless or too mild.

The Pogues’ sound is a lot easier to copy. In fact, there’s a whole subgenre of punk dedicated to recreating their style. While I prefer Flogging Molly, I must pay Shane MacGowan and company their due for updating Irish folk for the punk rock set. I must also confess I was ignorant of the band’s catalog until after college, when I picked up Rum Sodomy & the Lash. I didn’t buy it because it was one of the band’s better reviewed albums, or because Elvis Costello produced it. Rather, I bought it because of Side Two, Track One: “Dirty Old Town.” I’ve loved this song since Ted Leo covered it back in 2003. I’ve seduced my girlfriend many a time by singing the lyrics softly to her in bars and bedrooms (thus creating the impression that I am much more cultured than I really am). For me, covering this standard is the ultimate test of one’s Irish roots. The Pogues came through, though, and their originals were up to snuff as well. It’s funny; on record at least, I don’t think the band strays that far from folk music. They just play it a little bit more enthusiastically, is all.

In true Irish fashion, two-thirds of this post is about bands people love to hate. In My Bloody Valentine’s case, that hate stems from hipsters who think they’re too cool for school. In U2’s case, well… shit. I’m going to say Paul Tsikitas and my dad are the only other people I know who like U2, and we all agree that Bono is kind of, every so slightly, maybe just a little wee bit of a douche bag. But hey, he’s done a ton to fight AIDS and world hunger. War has been my favorite U2 album since I purchased it in high school. Opener “Sunday Bloody Sunday” gets my adrenaline pumping thanks to intense vocals and Larry Mullen’s military drum beat. “Like a Song…” touches on the divide in Ireland. Bono once famously said “Fuck the revolution,” and “Like a Song…” distills rage over the pointlessness of the Protestant/Catholic conflict – aren’t they all Christian? War is passionate throughout, bitter and hopeful in alternate breaths, which is probably why it dominated my entry on U2 for Playlist.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, drunk white people!

*I’m sorry, Nate. It’s the Orangina talking. I loves you, baby girl.

regarding My Bloody Valentine and Weezer

-Head over to The Walrus to download three new old My Bloody Valentine tracks. These demos are remastered; to be honest, I'd have thought they were finished recordings based on how good they sound. My favorite of the bunch is "Cowboy Song."

-Pterodactyl Squad was hosting a Weezer tribute album made using 8-bit video game sounds, but their bandwidth seems to have died, most likely because the comp is flippin' sweet. While a few of the artists involved cheat - Anamanaguchi's "Holiday" cover in particular is basically the original with some blips - for the most part it kicks ass, NES-style. Highlight: Listening to "El Scorcho" while playing the X-Men 2: Clone Wars ROM. Is it possible for my favorite 1996 moment to come from 2009? Check out the comp's blog for clips, at least until someone else starts hosting this beauty. I never thought I'd have to assert the existence of a "definitive version" of "We Are All On Drugs," but Rabato's version rules.