#

Meat Puppets

II

1984

Arizona's finest (shut-up Sun City Girls, I'll get to you later). At times rockabillied, some Talking Heads speak, lots of neat guitar and swiftly paced. Fried in southwestern suns. Bro on bro action. Strange that I've never heard another Meat Pup album.

Z

Yellow Magic Orchestra

Zoshoku

1980

Zoshoku: Japanese for "Xoo Multiples". Gives off the smell of 80's Bowie or maybe a whiff of Eno/Roxy. Has that goofball aesthetic that Japan specializes in, with Nintendoughy admen non-sensing on interludes. Dance to it.

Y

Henry Flynt

You Are My Everlovin'/Celestial Power

1980/1981

Drone alert! Flynt rocked the 4 string neck guitar, aka the violin. Jacked up and whacked out. Hillbilly drone, its called, often devolving into a hoedown feel. 2 cd long tracks on this future philosopher's reissue. "Everlovin'" is 40+ mins of intense Indian-ish drone, "Celestial" the more jaunty of the two.

X

!!!XXX!!!

Various Artists

Hey Drag City

1994

A grab bag from "can you say Chi-city"'s finest label. Stray slay tracks from a few forgotten/unknown/one no-hit wonder bands: "Ike" by Fruitcake, "Funky Future Train" by King Kong. The prize: misplaced songs by Smog, Silver Jews, Pavement, Trux. "If it sounds good in my car, it must be a hit".

W

White Heaven

Out

1991

Michio Kurihara - he's been playing the same fucking solo for the past 2+ decades, apparently. Over solo affairs, Damon+Naomi hookups, double teams with Boris and, of course of course, Ghost. I wouldn't any other way. Wacked out solos and that hilarious effect of You Ishihara singing Engrish. Throwing the hammer down from word:one and ain't not letting up. Another classique like Raphael Saadiq, care of PSF Records.

V

The Velvet Underground

Bootleg Series Volume 1: The Quine Tapes

1969

Uncle Lou is back and worse than ever, teeming with Metallica in the worst disaster since the Hindenburg knocked down the Twin Towers on Pearl Harbor Day. Or so I've heard. If you agree with all those criticks, perhaps dabble in this 3cd set of live, sinewy, hissed VU deliciousness. The fat has been seperated and discarded and Louie Louie can stretch out, taking classics like Sister Ray or Follow the Leader on extended drives thru the Midwest and West Coast. Do you have an hour or three to spend with this asshole? Sure you do.

U

Un

s/t

1996

Un-findable by googly searches. I know Tara from Fur Saxa was a prelim partner in the squad. Ya know what that means... Droney, children alone in their bedrooms w/out dinner type proclamations. A cool lo-fied Siltbreezed tuneage, can Tom Lax do no wrong?

T

Thurston Moore

Psychic Hearts

1995

Psychic Hearts has a perfect conglomeration of Thurston's traits: the goofball, the reserved feminist, the raging psuedo-lunatic, the tape waster. So many hits for squares on his best solo outing (disclaimer: singer/songwriter, pop).

S

Sleater-Kinney

Call the Doctor

1996

Fierce. "They want to socialize you. They want to purify you". I don't think S-K was ever as socio-politico as on "Call the Doctor". I miss the girls. Not a "not a classic" in the discography. They made essentially 5 or 6 or 7 albums of the same formulation: bassed riff guitar, sinewy guitar solo-y and drum chunkiness, all with that patent pending vibro-champ/paul pierced, frothy vocal mixture. Center point on the graph of phat riot grrrl tunage; see Excuse 17 and Heavens to Betsy.

No money down:

Call the Doctor, Taking Me Home, I wanna be yr Joey Ramone, Little Mouth

R

Terry Riley

A Rainbow In Curved Air

1967

Man, I love me some minimal composition and studious idea musique or a violin drone and a bowed table leg. Riley made graph compositions like "In C", which I'm assuming means structured mathematical ideas, not sure. "Rainbows..." cover art, up there, with its smeared colored arc, lets us know that he's outside the lines here, improvising a lil more. I love it, sweet organ stabs and what sounds like sax, probably taped up and dropped like its hot. I spit hot fire over this 'ish. As an aside: The Who are th-th-th-thieves.

Q

Matmos

Quasi-Objects

1998

A relative, of sorts to that Oval post two reverse alpha-bit-ical letters ago. Gimmick electronic band. Oval is down with fucking up the physical components of music. Matmos is a "building blocks" duo, gathering sources of sounds from the human realm. There's this album of theirs that uses sounds of surgical procedures to concoct song. "Quasi-Objects"'s scam-ola: screwed samples of instruments and whoopie cushions. Uhhhh, ok.

P

Plastic People of the Universe

Egon Bondy's Happy Hearts Club Banned

1978

Fight the power! Czech rock collective, steeped in psych and Zappa-esque excursions, arrested/condemned/"silenced" by the communist regime of Czechoslovakia. This is a studio album, their first. If you happen upon any live records grab them immediately. Some folks did a series of reissues about a decade ago. I've lost all those over the years. 96 tears.

O

Oval

Systemisch

1994

The originator. Markus Popp is a cool dude, added electronics to fresh co-ops like Gastr del Sol and Bjork. What would be called IDM, nice structured slit and glitched CDs being the component number one of his early work.

N

Nurse With Wound

Chance Meeting on a Dissecting Table of a Sewing Machine and an Umbrella

1979

I hate cassettes and I'm certain that the recent cassette fetishist revival blog-o-scene has faded into memory. No? Oh. But I love this tape, I never ended up possessing the CD/LP. Birth year album, so y'all know its hype. The most psychedelic of NWW albums, guess cuz of the gratuitous "commercial guitar" plopped on top.

M

MF DOOM

Since You Asked Kindly MIX

1999-2009

The Madvillian himself, all caps: A smattering of classic DOOM, METAL FACE. Definitely my favorite MC of forever. "Curses! He's truly the worst-est. With more rhymes to spread throughout the boundless universes."

A

Beef Rap, Fazers, Back End, Gazzillion Ear, Dead Bent, Raid, Let Me Watch, One Beer, Dope Skill, Absolutely, Hoe Cakes, Accordian, Vaudeville Villain, Go with the Flow, Rapp Snitch Knishes

B

Cellz, Rhymes Like Dimes, I Hear Voices, Gas Drawls, Angelz, Meat Grinder, It Ain't Nuthin', Lickupon, Fancy Clown, Kon Queso, Money Folder, Modern Day Mugging, Sorcerers, Great Day, That's That

L

Fuzzhead

LSD

1993

An old Twisted Village LP found Goodwill birddogging, in the lowest quality cardboard sleeve I've ever seen. And it sounds like what? Take all the really fab parts of Country Joe or Jefferson Airplane, wipe the rest of the slate clean, jam out on the choice leftovers. Yummy, and a Can cover for dessert.

K

Kaneko Jutok

Endless Ruins

2001

From the ranks of Kousokuya, guitar heavy psychedelia japanese style now! Kind of like Fushitsusha/Haino on Focusyn, the knots are tied a little bit tighter. While I'm privy to Haino's discipline, this is mighty fine in its own right.

J

Jeru The Damaja

Foundation MIX 2

1994/1996

S'more DJ Premier produced Hip Hop. This is real, anti-corporate rap.

A

Scientifical Madness, Playin' Ya Self, Me or the Papes, D. Original, The Frustrated Nigga

B

Not the Average, Mental Stamina, Revenge of the Prophet (Part 5), Da Bitchez, Statik, Me and the Papes (remix)

I

Starfuckers

Infrantumi

1998

Italo reconstructive "dub" "rock". A lot of negative space around the instruments, songs just mosey along, the vocalist whispers fettucine alfredo recipes, dot matrix printers exploding, high pitched microphone feedbacks are broken tubed televisions to annoy the canines among us . This was one of those rare dollar bin CDs I picked up on name only and its wonderful. Impossibly unheard music, and NO they are not that crappy dance band. Their bio states, paraphrasically: Lou Reed's "Metal Machine Music" was the album that killed Rock. "Infrantumi" is the first Rock album since. They go by the name Sinistri nowadays.

H

Bill Hicks

Shock and Awe

2003

Live standup from the Angry Mullet, circa the L.A. Riots. Bill riffs in front of a British crowd and rips into the Bush administration, snooker & English hooligans, American apathy and so on. What a dead grumpy bastard.

G

Gang Starr

Foundation MIX

1992-2003

It really blows that DJ Premier and Guru had a falling out (and a passing away) cuz I'd love a few more Gang Starr albums. Nothing satisfies my Hip Hop urges like Primo's beats by the pound and Guru getting wild with the monotone style.

A

Full Clip, Work, Soliloquy of Chaos, I'm the Man, Skills, Speak Ya Clout, Take it Personal, DWYCK

B

The Militia, Mass Appeal, No Shame In My Game, B.Y.S., Mostly tha Voice, My Advice 2 You, F.A.L.A., Zonin', Rep Grows Bigger

F

Can

Future Days

1973

My favorite. The most cohesive Can album. Not Krautrock but more like dance music to me. I start shimmying the shoulders and puckering the waist. Then its on, Studio 54 style.

E

Earth

Earth 2

1993

I think you can consider albums like Sleep's "Jerusalem" or Electric Wizard's "Dopethrone" to be pop albums. This doom laden album is not. Take one riff and call me in 72 minutes. Avoid drums and ride the delay pedal. Working the graveyard shift at the mini-mart was fun, but it was even more so when I'd crank this album after the bars closed at 2 a.m. and the lushes would stumble in. Contempt was at an all time high.

D

Smog

Dongs of Sevotion

2000

Remember RealPlayer? And dial-up internet? Cat Power aroused my Bill Smog senses with her neat cover of "Bathysphere" on "What Would The Community Think". Trying to queue up Smog tracks on RealPlayer back in 1998 was an effort in ultra-lo-fi futility, rendering Bill's early work even more brittle and kinda whiny. So I shunned Smog for the longest time, until browsing the 2nd floor Barnes and Nobles music section at their awesome Colonie, NY location. That "Knock Knock" cover was too rad, scooped it up and was sold. The next weekend I'm raping the Tower Records and Newberry Comics in Boston for his entire discography and later eBay-ing an original cassette of "Tired Tape Machine" for a ridunkulous $152! Still not sure if it was worth it. "Dongs" was the first newly released Smog album after my obsession began. I swore it was a typo, reading that foolish title on the webz. Yet, at work on a Sunday, my boy Andy comes in with two copies of freshness. Perhaps a double "Dongs"?

Songs of Devotion:

Justice Aversion, Bloodflow, Strayed, Nineteen, Distance, etc...

C

Christian Marclay

Records 1981-1989

1997

All that needs to be said can be by CM's performance on "Night Music"

B

Beach House

Devotion

2008

When people reference "dream pop" I think of this, 2nd Beach House album. A hazy late night album. Not as dynamic as "Teen Dream", but I like that orange glow lit from slippery guitars and warm organs and cheap preset beats. Bonus points: Victoria on the mic, daughter of Michael Legrand, composer for so many Godard films.

Album en onze tableaux:

Wedding Bell, You Came To Me, Gila, Holy Dances, Heart of Chambers

A

Thela

Argentina

1996

Some would visit New Zealand for LOTR. Me, fantastic rock music. Here's another great one. A gentle instumental piece, improvisational, loose rock rock music. A clean Dead C perhaps.

#

The Byrds

Fifth Dimension

1966

This album is gold. I'd searched many a record bin for a guitar that mimics the six string shards of U.S. Maple. Who knew 30-40 years ago the Byrds were fucking the guitar up on Columbia records, splattering all over "I See You", one of the raddest raps ever.

Hey Mr. Talisman:

Eight Miles High, 5D, I See You

Z

Neil Young

Zuma

1975

I love how NY is just a step above Ron Asheton in the category of single-note guitar fuckery. "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere" is another great album to rummage in. This rec right here stumbles along with a heaping handful of wank-age.

Canadian, eh?

Danger Bird, Cortez the Killer, Lookin' For Love

Y

Yo La Tengo

Electr-O-Pura

1995

Hoboken's finest. Another great "ball and chain" band. Big time Mets fans. YLT is always a great live show, so if they straggle thru yr town I suggest you ride the tiger.

What's that, Mr. Met?

Flying Lesson (Hot Chicken #1), Tom Courtenay, Pablo and Andrea

X

MMXI

I

II

III

IV

V

Jackin' for beats. Most pleasurable: 2011.

W

Gate

The Wisher Table

1999

I remember copping this disc at ATP 2002 in Hollyweird. The Ciccone Youth curated one, so many fucking bands from my CD changer. Still have my t-shirt sewn from the gaudiest of orange. But this is the shit. The final installment of Mike Morley's trilogy: (1) Dew Line (2) Monolake (3) Wisher Table. Really crude, misshapen loops yet ironically one of the tightest Dead C related discs.

Precious Metals

V

Vajra

Mandala Cat Last

2002

Kan Mikami & Keiji Haino, mano e mano. An interesting blend of the two most distinctive voices in Japanese Rock. Haino exercises surprising restraint, throwing lil tantrums here and there. Helps make those inevitable guitar orgasms that serious "o-face".

Japanese Cola Is Sweet!

U

Juana Molina

Un Dia

2008

An electronic pop album en espanol, considerably organic. An ex-magician, by the way.

They're not tricks, they're illusions, Michael:

Un Dia, Que Dificil Quien?