Tag Archives: Compact Disc

Week 12: Absinthe Blind – Music for Security

29 May

Hey there, folks. This week I’m going to bring you another treat. This one isn’t quite something that I found in a thrift store, but it’s a great album none the less. I am, of course, talking about Absinthe Blind’s fantastic 2000 shoegaze album, Music for Security. Image

In late 1999, my Internet access almost solely consisted of what I could scrape together at work. That ended up with me spending some hours after work and on weekends, surfing for lack of anything better to do. It was a weird time in my life. Anyway, in my adventures, I found mp3.com. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the site, mp3.com was something of an open marketplace for independent artists, allowing them to post samples of their music and offer CDs (or the rare digital downloads) for sale through the site. Some great music died when the site went down – they got a little too big for their britches and decided to implement a system whereby you could put your CD into a PC, their servers would recognize the CD, and serve you their files. Pretty cutting-edge stuff for 1999/2000, but WAY too early and the labels killed it in its crib.

Anyway, some fairly big names built their fanbase on MP3.com, the unfortunate Linkin Park being the biggest among them. I could cruise the site for hours, picking among the refuse to find the gems. Absinthe Blind was one of my earliest finds. They grabbed hold of me right away, and I had to have their then-current album, Solarshift. I became a steadfast fan despite the fact that they rarely played outside of Illinois at the time. When Music for Security came out, I had to have it, and thus, I am now sharing it with you.

Describing Absinthe Blind’s music is kind of tricky. They’re clearly influenced by shoegaze bands like Ride, My Bloody Valentine, and Spiritualized, but they put their own twist on it, featuring a little more melody than some of those groups. How about I just give you a sample instead? Here’s Vanity Calls, which offers a pretty good idea of what you can expect:

If you’re at all into the shoegaze sound, you owe it to yourself to check out this great band. Sadly, they broke up in 2003 with no sign of a reunion, but it was a great run while it lasted.

  • Label: Hammerhead Records
  • Year: 2000
  • Found: Arlington, VA
  • Notes: N/A
  • Filesize: 73MB
Track List:
  1. Small
  2. Breathe the Screen
  3. Don’t Lose the Image
  4. Lifelike
  5. Standing with Knives
  6. If You Move On
  7. Three Hours Later
  8. Phoenix
  9. Invisible One
  10. Sandpaper Straight
  11. Giving up the Crown
  12. No Sound
  13. Man After You
Get tracks 1-7 here.

Get tracks 8-13 here.

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Week 9: Nobodys – I’ve Been Everywhere

7 May Image

As predicted, I missed last week – deepest apologies for that handful of readers who check this blog weekly. As a plus, Vegas was nice? I never did get the time to hit up a thrift store out there, as I had hoped, but there’s plenty of music to last us through the rest of this year. That said, let’s dig into this week’s offering: a covers album by Denver punk band Nobodys.

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I can hear some people rolling their eyes already. “Great, another album full of ironic punk covers’. I thought the same thing when I broke the shrink wrap and realized what I had, but nothing of the sort. This album is instead a love letter to the bands they’ve toured with – including bands such as the Queers, Chixdiggit, and Guttermouth. The jacket even features pictures of members of the Nobodys with the bands that they cover here. It’s such a damned cool idea that I’m surprised I’ve never seen anything like it before. See the tracklisting below for the bands associated with each song, and a warning, some people might find the song “I like young girls” a bit offensive removed from the context of being performed by a band called the Queers. Otherwise, this is all pretty straightforward punk rock (of course the usual language warnings apply), and very well done. I’m surprised the Nobodys never really made it, but they might have come along a little too late for the sound.

As for the band itself, here is their description from their Myspace site, last touched in 2007:

Let’s face it. There are a lot of nobodys in the music scene today. But there is only one NOBODYS! Mixing four-chord Ramones-inspired rock anthems with an unadulterated pornography fixation, the Nobodys have sprung forth from the fertile grounds of Colorado Springs to become the reigning Ron Jeremys of the punk rock world! ALL HAIL THE NEW HEDGEHOGS OF ROCK!!

They might still be out there performing, for all I know. The MySpace has a few people commenting on the site in 2011, referencing a show the night before, but they haven’t released an album since 2001. Some fans say they’re still together, they just very rarely play together. Apparently lead singer JJ Nobody is manager and part owner of Three Nickles bar in Colorado and drummer  Justin Disease occasionally plays with the Queers (covered here).  Anyway, if you like punk, this is definitely worth giving a listen. I enjoyed the hell out of it.

  • Year: 2000
  • Label: Suburban Home Records
  • Found: Harrisonburg, VA
  • Notes: The track “Hidden Track” is a cover of Johnny Cash’s “I’ve Been Everywhere”.
  • Filesize: 37MB
Track List:
  1. No Wonder (Sick N Tired)
  2. I Like Young Girls (The Queers)
  3. Leaving Home (Digger)
  4. Double Fisted (Gotohells)
  5. C-Biscuit (Jugheads Revenge)
  6. Tonight (Automatics)
  7. Six Down (Pinhead Circus)
  8. Best Hung Carrot (Chixdiggit)
  9. Monster Zero (Queers)
  10. Die Tonight (Gotohells)
  11. High Balls (Guttermouth)
  12. I’ve Been Everywhere (Johnny Cash)

Get tracks 1-6 here.
Get tracks 7-12 here.

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Week 8: 90s-Style EPS – Skiploader and Inward Eye

23 Apr Image

It’s EP week again, kiddies! I figured it was only fair to give you a couple of different options since there’s a good chance I won’t be able to update next week (trip to Las Vegas – wedding – long story). Thankfully, these are both pretty good EPs.

Let’s start with Inward Eye. I discovered these guys after my close friend and best man, Rob, saw them in concert a few years back. This EP has been kicking around my collection ever since, and I recently rediscovered it. I know, strictly speaking, this doesn’t fit the site’s normal profile, but it – and the band – need a lot more attention, as this is a quality EP. If you’re wondering what they sound like, especially since the album cover below suggests a punk band, instead think Our Lady Peace meets Spacehog. The Our Lady Peace comparisons seem especially apt, as the band hails from Vancouver, Canada (OLP is from Toronto). This EP has a very 90s sound, but in the best possible way.

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The first track, Blind Paranoia, especially channels Our Lady Peace, but every song features the lead singer’s borderline falsetto/Robin Zander-styled vocals. The last track, You Know I Know, shows the band expanding a little into Jellyfish/Cheap Trick sounds. I don’t know, just check this thing out. It’s great, and SHOULD make you want to buy the full-length album, available here. Do it!

  • Year: 2009
  • Label: N/A
  • Notes: The label’s website is still up at http://inwardeye.com. There’s not a whole lot more information on the band there, but I can share that they’re currently working on a new album and will be touring again very soon.
  • Filesize: 24MB
Track List:
  1. Blind Paranoia
  2. Shame
  3. Times They Aren’t A-Changin’
  4. You Know I Know

Get the Inward Eye EP here.

Our second EP comes from major label Geffen Records but is way, way out of print, so I have no qualms sharing it. We’re talking about Skiploader.

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I first discovered the band back in 1994 through a record store compilation long lost in the mists of time. I could have sworn they were on the DGC Rarities CD, but that seems to have been incorrect. I do, however, know that the song I heard was N2O and it made me want their Anxious.Restless EP – which was nigh-impossible to find even then, despite being on a major label. Eventually, Skiploader passed from my consciousness, an oddity from the past.

Until January of this year, when I stumbled across a copy of Anxious.Restless at a thrift store in Rockville, Maryland. I jumped at the opportunity to finally hear the whole thing, and it didn’t disappoint me. The EP leads off with N2O, and I wasn’t surprised to find that it’s the strongest song on the EP. After all, why not put the strongest track on a compilation?

Otherwise, though, it’s quite a strong EP with tracks reminiscent of a softer Helmet, 90s band Dig, and hints of the Afghan Whigs. Again, another album with strong 90s overtones, but highly recommended.

  • Year: 1994
  • Label: Geffen Records
  • Notes: The band could last be found on Myspace, but appears not to have logged in since 2009. I can’t seem to find much more information than that, so I can only surmise that the band broke up in 2009. You can see the N2O video at YouTube.
  • Filesize: 20MB
Track List:
  1. N2O
  2. All Smiles
  3. Trademark
  4. 12-5-92
  5. Stunt Double

Get the Anxious and Restless EP here.

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Week 7: Shockwave Rider – The Shining

16 Apr Image

Note: This is not that Shockwave Riders – besides, that band is just that, Shockwave RiderS. This is an entirely different band.

Hey, kids! Do you like Big Star? How about Guided by Voices? Maybe Spoon, or Hum? If so, I have a treat for you this week. We’re featuring the defunct Virginia band Shockwave Rider, who kind of fit all of and none of those descriptions.

Shockwave Rider’s The Shining is a big, crunchy, fuzzy bit of rock that never fails to excite me, even with repeated listens. I am a huge Guided by Voices/Bob Pollard fan, and I can’t help but hear their influence most clearly on this album; especially in the first track, King Corduroy, which sounds like it could be an outtake from that band’s 1995 LP Alien Lanes.

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The album doesn’t let up there, though, and the GBV influence remains strong throughout. The second track, Shooting Off Sparks, has a slightly harder guitar feel than you might hear from GBV (more Soundgarden than indie), with some nice atmospherics that wouldn’t feel too out of place in a latter-day shoegaze album. The third track, The Ballad of Mr. X, belongs in the same class with some of GBV’s slower work, maybe a lo-fi Hold on Hope.

Oh, did I mention lo-fi? This album manages to capture the lo-fi sound brilliantly while also featuring layered instrumentation. The space in the songs are great with a good pair of headphones, something that even GBV never quite managed to get right.

My favorite tracks are probably King Corduroy, Shooting off Sparks, Never Let Me Down (an acoustic, Beatles-tinged take), Some Girls, She Falls (seriously love that one), and Burn Bright, but honestly, I don’t think there’s a weak track on the whole thing. Sad that we’ll never see more of this band, but I’m glad to be able to share this with you.

  • Year: 2006
  • Label: Tired Orbit Records
  • Found: Rockville, MD
  • Notes: The label’s website is still up, though defunct, at http://www.thetiredorbit.com/. You can get more information on the band there.

Get The Shining here.

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Week 6: Outrageous Cherry – Out There in the Dark

9 Apr Image

This week I’m pretty excited because I get to share an exciting band with you. Okay, I know, I get to do that a lot, but this is a really cool band if you’re into the whole retro-neo-60s sound thing. The band is Outrageous Cherry, and the album is Out There in the Dark, from 1999.

I first discovered the band when my all-time favorite band The New Pornographers covered their song Georgie, Don’t You Know for a bonus track on their “Togetherness” EP. The cover really made me sit up and pay attention, because it was a slight departure for the band. They also covered another song called “Togetherness”, though that sounded a little more in the band’s wheelhouse and stayed under my radar for longer. A little research, and I learned that the “Georgie…” song was by a band called Outrageous Cherry. Well, who the hell was that? Not a clue, so time to do some digging.

Well…it turns out there’s not much out there on the band. They’re from Detroit, and started as a vehicle for singer-songwriter Matthew Smith. This guy:

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As far as I can tell, the band is still together and going strong. Here’s their bio from last.fm:

Named after a brilliant red hair dye, Detroit’s Outrageous Cherry explores the sunnier side of droning, fuzzy indie rock. The band started as a recording project in 1992 but blossomed into a full-fledged group when singer/guitarist/producer Matthew Smith, bassist Chad Gilchrist, guitarist Larry Ray, and drummer Deb Agnolli began performing live in 1993. Outrageous Cherry’s wistful noise-pop debuted with a limited-edition 7” of “Pale, Frail Lovely One” on the local Third Gear label. The song’s deceptively simple, garagey sound formed the template for the group’s style: on albums like 1994’s Outrageous Cherry and 1997’s Nothing’s Gonna Cheer You Up, Smith’s and Ray’s alternately jangly and feedback-laced guitars and Agnolli’s minimalist, floor tom-and-snare drumming combine with sweet vocals for a sound that falls between nostalgic and experimental.

Along with his duties in Outrageous Cherry, Smith also performs in the country-tinged Volebeats and often collaborates with His Name Is Alive’s Warren Defever on producing and recording projects, as does Gilchrist, doubling as Outrageous Cherry and His Name Is Alive’s bassist. In 1999, Aran Ruth replaced Gilchrist on bass, and the group released its first album for Del-Fi’s new music imprint, DF2K, Out There in the Dark. The group also contributed a version of “Keep Everything Under Your Hat” for that year’s Skip Spence tribute, More Oar. The band moved to Alan McGee’s new label, Poptones, for their next album, 2001’s prog- and space rock-influenced The Book of Spectral Projections, which was reissued the following year by Rainbow Quartz.

Anyway, I was fortunate enough to stumble across a promo copy of this album about a month after I discovered the band. Quite timely, considering that the CD was going for a decent amount on Amazon and eBay at the time (it’s since come down, but $5 for a used CD tells you something about the rarity).  If you’re a big fan of 60s music, especially Donovan, the Byrds, or the Velvet Underground or more recently The Shazam, The Coral, Scott Bomar, or Bobby Rush, I think you’d like it.

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  • Year: 1999
  • Label: Del-Fi Records
  • Found: Bethesda, MD
  • Notes: Rip of Promotional Copy
Track list:

  1.   Georgie Don’t You Know
  2. Togetherness
  3. Where Do I Go When You Dream?
  4. Corruptable
  5. Eclipsed
  6. Easy Come, Uneasy Glow
  7. Tracy
  8. Only The Easy Way Down
  9. Song For Inoshiro Honda
  10. A Bad Movie
  11. It’s Always Never
  12. Out There In The Dark
  13. There’s No Escape From The Infinite

Part 1 of Out There in the Dark can be found here.

Part 2 is here.

You can also hear that New Pornographers cover of “Georgie Don’t You Know” here.

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Week 4 – This Side Up and Presence

26 Mar Image

Welcome back for another week of Found Music. Wow, I never expected to be where I am now, but my collection has grown to the point of possibly needing two posts a week. It shouldn’t be too much of a problem to get them up; I’ll probably do one post on Friday and one post on Monday, but we’ll see how that all shakes out.

This week, in the interest of both variety and giving you the same number of tracks as last week, I’ve decided to feature two EPs from a couple of very different artists. One is a fairly polished sounding rap-rock band, the other a very raw girl band.  What I’m saying is that I’m trying to offer you options here. OPTIONS!

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Let’s start with the rap-rock. Presence was a Tallahassee, FL-based outfit that appears to have gotten to the point of releasing an album on Curb Records, a Nashville-based album label. The odd thing about that album’s release is that it’s only available via a CD-R pressing option on Amazon. I have no idea if this is a standard thing for some indie labels, but it strikes me as a bit odd. I normally try to go for out-of-print obscure stuff here, but this fact alone made me feel okay with presenting this EP here. Obviously, the standard caveats apply – if the label or artist requests that it be pulled, it will be gone.

Okay, that said, these guys very obviously worship at the altar of Rage Against the Machine. That’s not a band thing necessarily, but the sound is very…well, not derivative, but clearly comes from that inspiration. If that’s not your thing, definitely move on. I find the EP okay. I might give it a couple more listens to see if it grabs me, but I’m sure some folks will love this.

One more note – the unedited tracks DO feature cursing, so if this is a problem, you might only want to listen to the (Clean) versions that were included on the EP, likely for radio play. There. Sorted!

  • Year: 2003
  • Label: Curb Records
  • Found: Rockville, MD
  • Notes: Promotional EP
Track list:
  1. Soundcheck
  2. Soundcheck (Clean)
  3. Hold Up
  4. Hold Up (Clean)
  5. Tonz of Fun
  6. Tonz of Fun (Clean)

You can get the Mic Check EP here.

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Our second EP is from what appears to be a Harrisonburg, VA-based band with an absolutely horrifying logo. I’m fairly sure they’re from that area, as I recognize some of the locations in the liner note photos. Unfortunately, I don’t think the band got very far past recording this album. At the time this thing was recorded, the youngest member was 15, and they had only been together for 2 years, at least 1 of which was spent learning their respective instruments. Yes, it shows, but it’s surprisingly catchy for such a raw group. I’d argue that at least one member of the band had some actual talent, and I hope that she’s continued to pursue music. I think she’d be about 27 now, but I’m not going to chase her down like some wild stalker (if the band was still together it would be a different story).

The music itself sounds like a very raw Michelle Branch/Juliana Hatfield fusion, with maybe a touch of the Go-Gos thrown in. Based on the handmade cover I had some major misgivings going in, but I ended up enjoying it despite myself. Maybe you’ll like it too. Just don’t expect anything in the league of what I’ve featured here so far.

  • Year: 2000
  • Label: Self-Published
  • Found: Harrisonburg, VA
  • Notes: Pressed on CD-R
Track list:
  1. Say Goodbye
  2. Don’t Leave Me Hangin’
  3. Is There Anybody With Me?
  4. With Or Without You

You can get the Is There Anybody With Me? EP here.

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Week 3: Thirteen O’Clock – Ready Fire Aim

19 Mar Image

We have an interesting one for you this week, folks. Remember the big swing revival of the 90s? You couldn’t throw a stone without hitting a Big Bad Voodoo Daddy or Royal Crown Revue. I have to admit that I enjoyed it a lot, and was somewhat disappointed when the whole thing fizzled out. Don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t listen to the stuff 24/7, but every now and then I enjoyed putting on a neo-swing CD. By this year, I’d almost forgotten the whole thing existed. It seems almost like a fever dream, only you sometimes stumble across the relics of that era.

This album is one such relic. Falling squarely in the middle of the revival, Columbus, Ohio’s 13 o’Clock fuses swing, rockabilly, and surf in an infectious blend that had me hooked from the very first song right on through to the end.

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I just wish I could tell you more about the band. I can tell you this album was recorded in “Mom’s basement”. I’m pretty certain it was a self-released album, so there’s that, too. I can tell you that it’s not quite an easy find, still commanding a fairly decent price for a 13-year-old CD. And that’s really all I can tell you. The band doesn’t seem to have left a trace on the Internet, and without even so much as a band website to go on, I can’t even check Archive.org. For now, I guess I can only exhort you to enjoy the music.

Oh, and this one came from a thrift store in Harrisonburg, VA which seemed to have enjoyed an airdrop of rare indie CDs in the last few weeks. We’ll see a lot more coming out of that thrift store.

Downloads here:

Tracks 1-5

Tracks 6-10

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Week 2: SmartBomb – …Here Comes the Slapback

12 Mar Image

Thinking about this blog over the weekend, I realized that I’ve defined what this blog is, but I haven’t said what it is not. Here’s a short list:

  • It is not about major label music.
  • It is not about stars.
  • It is not about ripping off artists.

In short, I’ve set a few guidelines. One is that the music cannot be from a major label, obviously. Another is that the artist has to be relatively obscure. The third is that the album cannot be commercially available. I found a few that I thought might be in the clear this past weekend, but the artists have them up on sites as MP3s or are selling them as CDs. That’s a clear no-go, though I plan to mention them in the future.

Bottom line, this is the opposite of trying to take away sales from artists who need them; I’m trying to get people excited about these artists. This also means that if an artist asks me to pull the music, I’ll do it in a flash, but I’ll be happy to let them promote here, as well. I haven’t seen many blogs undertaking projects like this and I thought there might be some room for it. We’ll see.

This week I’m excited to bring you a chunk of pop punk/power pop goodness from Fairfax, VA band SmartBomb. I’ve known about SmartBomb from the early 00s, probably 00 or 01, when I stumbled across them thanks to friend Bryan Smith of the bands ebo, American Giant, and the Vicious Martinis. I don’t remember exactly how Bryan was tied to this – ebo might have played a show with them, I’m not sure, as they ran in the same circles. But I ended up picking up their fairly wide release, Yeah Well Anyway. I liked it, but was a little baffled that it didn’t contain  the songs that I had heard from them.

Well, turns out they had a much smaller, limited indie release, “Here Comes the Slapback”.

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Yes, those are Street Fighter action figures.

Unfortunately, I don’t think the band is together anymore, and this album is just barely available on Amazon, second-hand. Always sad to see a promising band expire.

I found this in a thrift store in Rockville, Maryland about a year ago and have had it sitting around waiting for…something. I didn’t know what. Turns out it was this blog, and a chance to share the band with a larger audience. I particularly recommend the tracks Tank Farm Free, Plain White Milk, and Japanese Boy.

Track List:

  1. Bridges Down
  2. Tank Farm Free
  3. Plain White Milk
  4. Lip Service
  5. Grey Coffee
  6. Japanese Boy
  7. Sputnik
  8. Star
  9. Exhibit A
  10. Torch Song
  11. Hollow
  12. Hey Babe

Zip File (Tracks 1-6): Click Here

Zip Filet (Tracks 7-12): Click Here

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