DO NOTHING

When in doubt
Do nothing.

COMMON DEFINED

The definition of common
Is a common
Definition.

SPEED OF LIGHT

The speed of light is
35 miles per hour.

October 2022: News, Views and Perspectives
The biggest news this month is that there is nothing going on.  Strange, because the same was true last month.  And the month before that.  And the month before that...  One of the most interesting CD box sets I've heard lately is My World Fell Apart: The John Carter Story.  John Carter was/is one of those amazing British guys who most folks don't know by name...but have probably heard in one form or another over the years.  This four disc overview sheds light on a hugely talented fellow who chose to make music from the sidelines.  I'm getting a major kick out of the British Band More Kicks who have a new album out entitled Punch Drunk.  Released on Rotterdam's Stardumb Records and Dirtnap Records in the U.S.A., the album is a nice hard hitting collection of gripping and smart guitar-driven gems supported by some great throbbing rhythms.  Athens, Georgia-based label Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records (HHBTM) continues releasing and promoting some of the best underground pop/rock in the U.S.A.  The label has just put out three exceptional vinyl releases:  (1) The Wedding Present - Locked Down and Stripped Back: Volume Two; (2) My Favorite - Tender Is the Nightshift: Part 1; and (3) Katie Lass - Hypnopomp.  All three of these include free download codes, so you get everything you want...and more.  Brisbane, Australia's Montear has a new album out entitled The Hunt on Deep Elm Records.  Seven cool tracks.  Good solid smart rock with a difference.  I lost interest in Paul McCartney's music decades ago even though I was seriously into the songs he recorded very early in his solo career.  I recently came across the double CD release of Wings - Wild Life.  Criticized by many when it originally came out, for me the album was an instant favorite.  So how does Wild Life sound in 2022?  Not surprisingly, it has held up extremely well and, unlike many of Paul's other albums, it does not sound dated.  It also doesn't have any clunkers, almost every song has something genuine to offer.  Over the past couple of decades many have completely discounted Paul McCartney's music.  But Wild Life and Ram are excellent reminders of what a good solid songwriter this fellow was once upon a time.  Linda McCartney's voice still sounds fantastic on these early recordings.  Perhaps it was her influence that made these two albums so interesting and timeless.

TOTALLY OBSCURE UNDERGROUND RECORDINGS FROM THE 1970s.
This is about as underground and obscure as it gets.  Although they will be of little or no interest to anyone other than myself, I have finally digitized all of my peculiar cassette recording projects from the 1970s.  These were basically short-lived one-man-bands I invented while in Junior and Senior High School in an attempt to maintain my sanity.  At that point I was recording stuff on cassettes, giving each tape its own band name, title, cover and label...and then loaning them out to anyone who might listen.  These early rough homemade cassettes were never duplicated, so the only ones that exist are the ones I have.  It's so long ago now that I can barely even remember making these, but I can tell you that some of this stuff is downright strange.  A good deal of it falls into the category of sound experiments.  While other kids in my school were involved with sports and playing covers of songs by Lynyrd Skynyrd and Bachman Turner Overdrive, I was recording offbeat audio stuff on my crummy portable cassette recorder.  It didn't take long for me to begin overdubbing, using two crummy portable cassette recorders simultaneously.  I did not have real instruments in Junior High (although I was trying real hard to play a beaten up old acoustic guitar), so I invented instruments using rubber bands and boxes and made sound using anything else I could get my hands on (slinkys, bottles, tupperware, glass, abusing a Radio Shack table radio, you name it).  I had probably never heard the phrase modern classical way back then, but some of this stuff would probably be in the vein of John Cage or someone like that.  Almost all of the 'compositions' (term used loosely) were originals, but I did record one cassette of cover songs.  One of the stranger items is my horribly juvenile cover of "The Captain's Fat Theresa Shoes" by The G.T.O.'s, recorded when I was 13 or 14.  I also did covers of "Rock On" and "Lean Woman Blues" by T. Rex that are so painfully bad that they are funny.  And a distinctly horrible take on David Bowie's "Suffragette City" that will make anyone who ever loved the song cringe.
So in closing...some of these recordings will be made public over the coming months / years, but I will carefully select what I think others might find interesting or laughable rather than release all of it.  Alas, most of the material is pathetic and virtually unlistenable.  But there are some genuinely odd nuggets scattered amidst the rubbish that I believe some folks will enjoy.  The two most interesting cassette albums created during this time are The Beast of the West (an album/project created for an 8th grade class called The Real American West -- which I hated, and the songs reflect that) and One More Time, the final album by my experimental band Glimpse.  I may have been a shitty little kid way back then...but I was a creative shitty little kid.

Raw mixes from elemen opee elpee uncovered.
While creating digital files of other stuff, I came across a cassette containing raw mixes of nine tracks from the 1986 album elemen opee elpee.  These were provided by the sound engineer to give me ideas on how to flesh out the final mixes.  These raw mixes will eventually be released in some format or at least posted for streaming because many of them sound better than the finished tracks on the vinyl LP.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

TRAVEL

Travel is
The art of going
Nowhere.

NEXT TO NOTHING

The thing that is
Next to nothing is
Something.

POPULAR

Popular means
Bad.

JUPITER SUPPORT

Support planets
That are less stupid
Than Jupiter.

Lions & Ghosts - Velvet Kiss Lick of the Lime (reissue, Sparkle Plenty / Deko Entertainment).  Jeremiah Johnson - Hi-Fi Drive By (Ruf Records).  Ryan Traster - Low Mirada (Blackbird).  Electric Beauty - Electric Beauty.  Jenna McSwain - Enjoy Your Space EP.  John Modena - Toi & Moi (Bolderline Music).  Aline Mayne - Aline Mayne.  La Grande Bleue - Musiques Imaginaires De La Mediterranee (reissue, Soundohm).  James Keelaghan - Second Hand (Borealis Records).  The Strange Flowers - Crossing A Wasteland (Onde Italiane / Rubber Soul Records).  Sir Robert Orange Peel - On The Game (Metal Postcard Records).  The Greyboy Allstars - A Town Called Earth (Calabro Music Media).  Jellyfox - Holy Moly (Kool Kat Musik).  Jeremie and the Delicious Hounds - Cruel.  Stellan Wahlstrom Drift Band - As Real As In A Dream (Belpid Records).  Versa - A Voyage / A Destination.  Josh Hoyer & Soul Colossal - Green Light.  Kiji Suedo - Riot (Hobbes Music).  Dorothy Bird - Belonging.  Siouxsie and the Banshees - All Souls.  PJ Harvey - B-Sides, Demos and Rarities (UMe/Island).  The Issue - Wasted Life EP.  Sam Hollander - Flopping My Way To The Top Of The Charts (book, Benbella Books).  Early Gray - Aluminum Overcast.  Damn Tall Buildings - Sleeping Dogs.  Sugar Lime Blue - The Blackbird Sessions.  Freedy Johnston - Back on the Road to You (Forty Below Records).  Tim Motzer - Live at Sellersville Theater (1K Recordings).  Tim Motzer - Live at Kennett Flash (1K Recordings).  Jeen - Tracer.  Quarrington and Adams - Secret Garden (Sonic Peach).  Quarrington and Adams - Christmas Dream (Sonic Peach).  Jon Spencer and the Hitmakers - Spencer Gets It Lit!  Bass Drum of Death - Say I Won't (Fat Possum Records).  Dar Williams - How To Write a Song That Matters (book, Hachette Books).  Let's Get Rocked - A Tribute to Def Leppard (FnA Records).  36? and Laura Hickli - Both Feet in the World, At Least I Can Stand / Naturally (North Pole Records).  Blasphemous Putrefaction - Festering Plagues EP (Crawling Chaos).  The Intelligence - lil' Peril (Mt.St.Mtn.).  Bluebirds - Fortified Whines EP.  Andy Thorn - Songs of the Sunrise Fox.  JazzPhil - New Delights.  The Last Siren - Stranded Here Alone (Criminal Records).  Miles Brown - The Gateway (Death Waltz).  Brasilla Laptop Orchestra - 10 yEars aLive (Public Eyesore)  James Houlahan - Beyond the Borders (Gumbo Luvah Music)  The Wedding Present - Locked Down and Stripped Back: Volume Two (Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records).  My Favorite - Tender Is The Nightshift: Part 1 (Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records). Katie Lass - Hypnopomp (Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records).  This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio - Volume 5 (Kool Kat Musik).  Emi Jeen - Why So Serious EP.  Die Robo Sapiens - Die Robo Sapiens (Alfa Matrix Records).  Doctor Explosion - Superioridad Moral (Slovenly Recordings).  Montear - The Hunt (Deep Elm Records).  Casket Robbery - Rituals of Death (Blood Blast Distribution).  Shotgun Tori - It's Gonna Be Fine EP.  My Pleasure - Dopamine.  The Company Stores - The Family Album.  Matthew O'Neill - Songs of Connection.  Tim Burgess - Typical Music (Bella Union / Pias).  Amon Tobin - A Living Room.  Kalila Bidali - Panacea EP.  Silvermannen - Om Du Vill EP.  Marc Jonson & Ramirez Exposure - Turning On The Century Vol. 1 (Kool Kat Musik).
[This section only includes full-length releases and EPs.]

   

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