various artists - Working Holiday

Merry Xmas, friends! Let's keep it short and sweet today with this two-disc compilation of (most of) Simple Machines Records' "Working Holiday" 7" series. As per the notes, it's missing the original Bratmobile, Swirlies, and Jonny Cohen tracks, but adds a second disc of live tracks from the Working Holiday festival. There's plenty of good mid-90s indie rock to be found here in the form of Tsunami, Superchunk, Jawbox, Lungfish, Codeine, Versus, and Scrawl. The live disc adds Archers Of Loaf, Rodan, and Crain. I'm a sucker for anything Simple Machines put together, which is why I hope received the requested copy of Tsunami's "Loud As Is" from Santa this year.

Now, get back to your family, your homies, your feasting, your gift opening, a crackling fire, and/or a bottle of brown liquor. As the saying goes, however you keep Christmas is between you and the Lord. I'm taking a few weeks off to enjoy California's Central Coast and my in-laws' famous hospitality. See you sometime in January 2026.

Discogs

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various artists - Mojo Presents: Life Companion (15 Tracks That Shaped Keith Richards)

Well, it's the last Mojo Monday of the year for me. And let's end the year with one from ten years ago, celebrating our Keef. Keef will not be touring in 2026, for reasons yet to be announced publicly. But if you're old enough to have played with half the performers on this selection, then you have the right to stay your ass home and enjoy the rest of your life. After all, the Stones aren't some weekend warrior shit. They're a machine, well worth the four figure tickets for the stadium seats. Better to leave your feet up if you don't have it in you anymore...or for the time being. You're Keith Richards; you shit where you want and you owe nothing to anyone.

Discogs

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various artists - A Matter Of Degrees (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

"A Matter Of Degrees" is the second and final film directed by W.T. Morgan, who is notable for having previously directed "X: The Unheard Music". I've never seen it, probably on account of it having been released before THE YEAR PUNK BROKE, and thus being a bit of a forgotten film. It features a few A+ character actors in the form of Tom Sizemore and Wendall Pierce, with Michael Imperioli making a very early, unnamed appearance. John Doe, Kate Pierson, and Fred Schneider all show up as well, apparently. The plot revolves around a college student refusing to sell out and go to grad school, and rebelling against a corporate takeover of the college radio station. I assure the Gen Z'ers amongst my readers that, yes, this is something we were concerned about in the 90s. It actually mattered.

The soundtrack, however, is best described as "mad solid"...very representative of where the majors were fishing in the pre-Nirvana, post-Replacements college rock pond. fIREHOSE contributes an exclusive track to this soundtrack, as do Yo La Tengo. This, along with the misconception that Lou Reed had something to do with this movie (due to the cover), were the reasons I plunked down a dollar for this. Additionally, you get the Pixies song everyone put on a tape for me in the 90s, a Lemonheads track from their contemporary release, and a Miracle Legion cover of Mission Of Burma that only appeared on the Japanese release of their debut LP. There's a token hip hop track from Schooly-D, and even the great Alex Chilton shows up with "Rock Hard" from his classic 1979 record "Like Flies On Sherbert". Shout out to Jim Dunbar, who was music supervisor on the movie, did A&R for Columbia in the 90s, and also played in Wylde Ratttz for "Velvet Goldmine".

All of this is to say that I'm not going to chase down a copy of "A Matter Of Degrees", but I would probably throw it on one Sunday morning when my wife is still asleep and I'm doing laundry.

Discogs

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various artists - Mojo Presents: Swoons (15 Alternative Pop Gems from the 1980s)

There's a reason why I haven't written about this one by now. It's because it's a very English indie curation by Mojo, full of bands whose legacies generally haven't been discovered by our American cousins 40 years on. I have very little cultural context or listening history with the 15 bands appearing herein. I've been digging into Orange Juice recently; a result of The New Vinyl Villain's ongoing Edwyn Collins 45 series. Sad to say, it hasn't clicked yet. I know Microdisney from Rough Trade, Scritti Politti from "The Sweetest Girl", and Marine Girls from Tracey Thorn, whose voice I still rate alongside Beth Gibbons for my favorite British chanteuse.

Otherwise, it's all Greek to me. I can only imagine what it'd look like if the shoe were on the other foot, and I compiled a bunch of Baltimore punk/HC/indie bands from the aughts and teens for the average Mojo reader. They'd probably find something great in Entrance or Celebration or Double Dagger, but the finer points of a Charm City Suicides, a Tarpit, or an Oranges Band would no doubt be lost in translation. "You had to be there," rings in my ears.

Discogs

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mclusky - To Hell With Good Intentions

It had escaped my attention that the might mclusky, Welsh lords of smartassery and noise rock, had reunited and released a new record in 2025. That is, until the blogging Voltron known as Jokonky mentioned it in their Comeback Special 2025 post a few weeks back. So I dutifully ran out to my local purveyor of new CD's and vinyl, picked up the specially-order K-pop Christmas gift for the missus, and plunked down an additional $14.99 plus tax for the pleasure of mclusky's fourth full-length, "The World Is Still Here And So Are We". If I'd been more patient, I could have waited for Bandcamp Friday and made sure the band/label got all the dollars. But it's a mitzvah to kick your local retailer some bread, especially when they track down a limited edition version of a CD you've already bought your wife twice. You gotta get her that mini figure.

Ahem.

"The World..." is still growing on me, but it was inspiration to then dump my entire mclusky archive onto my phone and get my dick pounded into mush by noise rock over the next week plus. I claim no mega fandom, only a great respect for a band I'm pretty salty I never got to see live. And why not share an out-of-print EP for my friends' listening pleasure? Surely, they also enjoy the occasional genital destruction via rock tuneage. So here's the 4-song "To Hell With Good Intentions", the title track of which appeared on the all-timer "mclusky Does Dallas". The other three songs also appear on the 3-disc limited version of "mcluskyism". I invite you, should you have a spare copy, to send it my way as a Christmas gift, Kwanzaa present, Tet treat, or any other excuse to send me music in the post.

Anyway, go snag that new mclusky record, fam. It's well worth the price of admission.

Discogs

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various artists - Tony Hawk's American Wasteland

It feels weird to realize it's been 20 years since I last bought a Tony Hawk video game. But that fact dawned on me as I started writing up this soundtrack, which is the only thing I remember immediately about playing THAW on my 360. The soundtrack was released by Vagrant Records, and contains fourteen bands you'd associate with that era of mainstream punk rock, playing 14 classic punk and hardcore tracks. It's all very America-focused; the players drawn the the U.S., and the Buzzcocks the only band that didn't originate in the U.S.A.

So, is it any good, twenty years on? Well, there's a bunch of SoCal punk/HC represented: Suicidal Tendencies, Descendents, the Adolescents, Fear, T.S.O.L., and Black Flag all have classic songs from their catalogs appear. And the bands performing those tracks sync up pretty well, with Alkaline Trio playing "Wash Away" and Senses Fail playing "Institutionalized". No surprises here...unless you're surprised that everyone acquits themselves pretty well. I mean, didn't Rise Against perform as Black Flag in a movie around this time?

It's on the less expected cuts that this becomes more than the sort of thing you'd get as a freebie at Warped Tour or a cheap-o sampler at Hot Topic. My Chemical Romance cover the Misfits' "Astro Zombies", which is very on the nose and yet still pretty great. Ditto to Fall Out Boy playing "Start Today" by Gorilla Biscuits, the only post-1986 song on the comp, and very well suited to a group of hardcore lifers who somehow put out #1 records in the aughts. Thrice squeeze two Minor Threat songs into their single track, the Bled (who I barely remember) play a deep cut Bad Trains track from "I Against I", and Thursday contribute the aforementioned Buzzcocks song, a very energetic "Ever Fallen In Love". My favorite remains Hot Snakes' cover of "Time To Escape", a Government Issue track originally released on "Joy Ride". It feels a bit incongruous for Mssrs. Froberg, Reis, Wood, and Rubalcaba to pop up here, just as it's an equally odd contribution catalog-wise, but, for me, it's a highlight. Not to mention it's the last song released by Hot Snakes for nearly 13 years.

To answer my earlier question: yeah, both in the rearview AND today, this is pretty decent. There are a couple of duds here (which I won't call out by name), but swap out the 2005 covers with the originals and it's not too far off from the mixtapes I skated to in 1993. Which seems to be the point of this soundtrack in the first place...to recall those pre-X Games years where you'd tear ass around town to build half pipes and ramps that might only last for a few days before getting torn down, soundtracked by tunes made by kids just like you. 

Discogs

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various artists - Mojo's Festive Fifteen

I feel like I should listen to this more often, because, as Christmas records go, this one is pretty great. Add in that I got it free about 15 years ago, and it's in my top five.

We're probably most familiar with Chuck Berry's "Run Rudolph Run", but I held onto this one for Superchunk's cover of John Cale's "Child's Christmas in Wales". That's a good reminder to keep an eye out for Cale solo records when I'm down in California later this month; they feel like the sort of thing one would find in a Central Coast record store owned by an aging hippie. I am still in the right demographic to be jazzed over a R.E.M. rarity. And, for me, it's worth sitting through the Flaming Lips (yuck!) and Sufjan Stevens (barf!) to get to Joe Tex and Mary Chapin Carpenter. The whole endeavor is capped off with Tony Christie performing a Slade classic. Forgive me if I bust a Christmas cracker a bit early.

Discogs

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Daphne The Painted Lady - s/t

I turned this one up at a Value Village in September, mainly taken in by the handprint on the cover and lack of immediately-identifiable information online. This turned out to be a really fun discovery. This Los Angeles trio dates from around 2005 (aka the Myspace years), and plays a brand of indie pop along the lines of that dog., the Anniversary, or Karmella's Game. There's a few live tracks on YouTube, but, otherwise, the collected work of Emily, Laura, and Joe might be lost to the age, save for this post. So enjoy this one; it's a recording that should be remembered.

Discogs

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various artists - Heavy Nuggets Vol. 5

Another year has nearly passed, and what have we discovered? In my case, it's that I'm willing to spend money on Hawkwind and Pink Fairies records. This is neither an expected nor an unwelcome development. I certainly wouldn't have put money down that I would have gathered a deeper appreciation of late 60s/early 70s speed-fueled dirt rock (and their 90s children). Yet here we are, nearing 2026 and me turning this up as loud as the knob will let me.

For what it's worth, that's a cool Who-related helmet on the cover on this card sleeve.

Discogs

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November re-uploads!

Hey, y'all: at the suggestion of some very kind readers, I've switched over to using Workupload. I've gone through the archives, and anything previously hosted on Mediafire that got a copyright strike will be moved over to the new hosting. Here's what I've done so far:

• Augustus Pablo, "East Of The Nile River"
• 101 Strings, "Astro Sounds From Beyond The Year 2000"
• Robert Mitchum, "Calypso - Is Like So..."
• "Deep Throat Anthology, Parts I & II"
• Los Campesinos, "The International Tweexcore Underground"
• "Arts & Crafts Sampler Vol. 4"
• "My Father's Gun" mix

Enjoy! If there's something else you'd like me to repost, drop it into comments below.

various artists - World's Finest Hardcore Volume One

Today is Thanksgiving here in the States, and I remain thankful that long-out-of-print records from punk's and hardcore's past continue to get reissued. The number of reissue labels, be they Radio Raheem, Numero Group, Trust, or Supreme Echo (to name four of my favs), releasing high quality versions of classics from the 70s, 80s, and 90s just blows my mind, even though it makes sense that once some of us got some bread, we definitely would want to bring the likes of SSD back to life for a new generation.

There were a lot less of these back in the 90s; the scene just wasn't nearly as big back then. You could track down fanclub pressings on vinyl, which comparatively cost an arm and leg next to new releases. Or you could beg your local store to let you dig around in the back room. I remember pulling out a $100 bill, putting in a shopowner's hand at one point in my late teens, and saying, "I'm going to spend this somewhere; why don't you let me do it here on the really good records." It's how I got my Flipper 7"s, the Misfits LPs I later traded towards a car, the Minor Threat first press that a realtor tried to steal from me.

Collections on CD, while a great way to get everything together all at once, were pretty rare. So when I came across this for $15 back in 1997, I didn't care about the provenance. I just knew that most, if not all of this, was deep out of print, and even if I found original copies, I wasn't going to be able to afford 'em. It was an easy spend to pick up a compilation of:

• Neos - "Hassibah Gets The Martian Brain Squeeze"
• The Queer Pills - "The Depraved"
• The Clitboys - "We Don't Play The Game"
• Sick Pleasure - "Sick Pleasure"
• Necros - "I.Q. 32"
• The Fartz - "Because This Fucking World Stinks"
• United Mutation - "Fugitive Family"
• Really Red - "New Strings For Old Puppets"

...and I never regretted buying this. Alternative Tentacles would reissue Really Red's complete discography in 2015, and cover the Fartz' pre-reunion catalog in 1998. Supreme Echo's release of Neos recordings in 2021 was probably the best reissue I bought that year; same goes for Radio Raheem's reissue of United Mutation the previous year. As for the Clitboys, Necros, Sick Pleasure, and Queer Pills 7"s: they've yet to get legit reissues, 28+ years on. In each case, it feels like historical malpractice not to have done something by now, even if it's a simple Bandcamp lossless release. It's no different than letting a Phil Ochs recording, a Leadbelly session, a Mahalia Jackson live set be lost to the ages through indifference.

One day, I'll put out Volume 2. Swear to god.

Discogs

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