Friday, July 22, 2011

The Sound Guy Is Deaf and Drunk: 16 Bands Recorded Live at John Henry's




By popular demand! Bands recorded live at John Henry's circa '93-'94. A few bands from Eugene, a few from Portland, a few from other places. 19 track download instead of 16 because The Meices and Pop Defect really like to talk to the audience.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

White Sisters - The Kind Words sessions

The White Sisters were Madison, Wisconsin's answer to Postcard-era Aztec Camera. The first two tracks are from their 1st single, the following four are from the cassette that accompanied the single and the last five are unreleased as far as I know. Lead singer/guitarist Jeffrey would go on to Honeybunch and Velvet Crush. This was better, recorded in '86.

1. Misery, Me and You
2. Nothing Out There
3. All Is More
4. Lazy
5. Some Folks Fears (edit)
6. The Tastes That Rule
7. Summit
8. Depthless
9. Highest of Highs
10. Used To
11. Some Folks Fears (full-length)

Monday, January 24, 2011

Mood Paint, Self-Titled cassette - Can you believe these guys became Pond?


Another demo bought in Portland as the 80's came to an end. Well written and produced pop songs. The entire tape is pretty great but for me the standouts are Get What You Want and 25 Years Ago. The band eventually changed drummers, changed their music, and changed their name to Pond; these moves got them signed to Sub-Pop but it also led them far far away from the sound of this tape. I owned the first Pond cd back in the day and can't recall a single song off of it. I remember every song on this tape from pretty much the first chord. Also, becoming Pond made one of the guys in the band think it would be a good idea to wear a hat that looked like Jughead from the Archie comics. I heard that they were embarrassed about this tape after they became Pond. I wonder if today they listen to this, then Pond and think "oops!"

1) Get What You Want
2) Cracks & Swirls
3) 25 Years Ago
4) Florida
5) Everything
6) The Dull Earth



Sunday, January 23, 2011

Evil Twin Brother, Self-Titled cassette, 1990



My personal favorite indie pop cassette ever. Purchased in Portland, Oregon in 1990. Perfect in every way. Imagine if a bunch of kids wrote great songs that were in the lyrical vein of Jonathan Richman but had never actually heard of Jonathan Richman. Later releases by the band would be more indie rockish, but this first release will always be my favorite. Hook oriented guitar pop, totally punk in it's simplicity. I don't think this left my cassette deck for the first 6 months I owned the tape. If you think I've overhyped it, you're wrong and I'm not. Lead singer/guitarist Bryan later went on to form Pep Squad and The Denominators.

Track Listing:

  1. Hammer For Nail
  2. The Dark Side of Me
  3. Wicked Ways
  4. Skin & Bones
  5. Wood Eating Insects
  6. Dirt Claude
  7. First Time Groovy
  8. Your Confections
  9. The Talking Skull
  10. Bar Mitzvah Dance

http://rapidshare.com/files/444225375/Evil_Twin_Brother_s_t.zip

Let's Sea, K Records cassette only compilation 1988


One of at least three cassette only compilations released by K in the late 80's, all compiled by Calvin Johnson. At one point I owned all three (the others being Let's Kiss and Let's Together) but as the tapes are now over 20 years old, I'm lucky I held onto even one. There is something to love and hate for almost anyone here. Personal favorites are the White Sisters, who seemed to be America's answer to early (i.e. good) Aztec Camera, the Fastbacks, Screaming Trees, and Snakepit. The Steve Fisk track will make you glad that in the digital age you can just click "next track" and not even have to wait for the tape to fast forward to the end. The end of the tape had a brief audio clip of radio dj's talking about Beat Happening, one of whom was Toby Vail. I included it for the sake of completeness although it's value is so marginal that it couldn't possibly be measured. Anyone out there have the other two K compilations? I wasn't able to turn up anything when I searched so if you do, please start a blog and post the link to them in the comments. Seriously, I'd really like to hear the Volume 3 song on Let's Kiss again...


bunny summer, the one about las vegas 7" e.p.

bunny summer - the one about las vegas e.p. (Spin-Art)
Recorded in 1992, released by Spin-Art in 1995

bunny summer were an acoustic indie pop band from Eugene, Oregon in the early 90's and this is their only single although a demo cassette exists too (I'll get around to it). Rachel Blumberg (later of The Decemberists) plays on this one. Fans of Small Factory may appreciate it for a moment before they realize they'd rather be listening to Small Factory. The first three songs are originals, the last one is a db's cover. This is crisp, clean pop with mostly acoustic guitars. Crush could almost be bunnygrunt and someone in this band can seriously play guitar.

1) the one about las vegas
2) the one about holly
3) crush
4) black and white