Chron Gen: Chronic Generation

Chron Gen: Chronic Generation

1982

Secret Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Lies  2. Jet Boy Jet Girl  3. Hounds Of The Night  4. LSD  5. You Make Me Spew  6. Chronic Generation  7. Mindless  8. You'll Never Change Me  9. Rocka'Bill  10. Friends Tell Me Lies  11. Reality  12. Living Next Door to Alice


This is why early punk is one of my favorite genres...Even when you start digging thru the C and D-list artists, you'll still find lots of good stuff...Like this record! I doubt it'll change your life or anything (unless it's the first punk album you ever heard...then it might), but it's pretty solid...They seem to alternate between stomping oi and melodic Gen X-style punk, which are two subsets I like...

The first 3/4ths of the album spends most of its time in solid oi territory, "Chronic Generation" being the anthemic highlight. That's one thing I always have to give early 80's punk bands...They always wrote themselves great theme songs...The real highlight of the first section of the album is a cleaned up version of  "Jet Boy Jet Girl" (the "he gives me head" line sounds like it's been changed to "'e gives me 'ell..."), which is the English counterpart to the ever-popular "Ça plane pour moi"...Just try to get this shit out of your head once you hear it...

But suddenly around track ten the whole thing softens a bit with "Friends Tell Me Lies"...Then there's the song "Reality" which seems like another chunk of yobbish ponk until suddenly the most unexpectedly great chorus comes out of nowhere...Again, I can only explain it as oi Gen X...Then comes an awesomely ripping version of "Living Next Door to Alice," which was apparently some weepy 70's pop tune I had never heard...I had to look it up and found out the song has a very convoluted history, eventually becoming a popular profane novelty tune due to some incident where a DJ cursed over a playing of the record...Huh? Well, here's a moment where Chron Gen pulls ahead of the pack because their version of "Living Next Door to Alice" starts with all kinds of cursing...

All in all, good fun stuff if you're into early punk. If you can overlook a groaner or two ("You Make Me Spew") there's much to love and side two is golden...Probably one of my favorite punk records to listen to when I'm piss-ass drunk...

A Buncha CD's from Joe Part One

Michigan people? Is it true? Big Bear is gone?! Discontinued? I was just planning out my 40th birthday party where I was going to import some exotic 40's for the festivities and found out you couldn't buy it anymore! Bummer! My day is ruined! 

Well, maybe I 'll go check ye olde mailbox...A big stack of bills and disconnection notices oughta cheer me up...

 WHAT?! YES!!!  A package of CD's from my old friend, Joe! Score! I haven't got a chance to listen to all of them yet, but I have made it thru most...Here's what was in there...

Ryan Adams III/IV. I looooooved this...I'm a huge fan of the more rocking side of Ryan Adams and a lot of my favorite songs on the legendary Joe Mix Cd's are on here..."Dear Candy" has rocketed to the top of my favorite Ryan Adams tracks since I heard it...This stuff makes me feel so warm and nostalgic even though I've never heard most of it before...Like listening to the radio as a kid and hearing great rock song after great rock song...I had the same visceral reaction towards his 2014 self-titled album, but III/IV feels a lot more contemporary, as opposed to the throwback 80's Tom Petty vibe of self-titled...

Nada Surf: You Know Who You Are. I am and always will be a frothing Guided by Voices addict. I was talking to Joe a few years ago and he hepped me to the fact that none other than Doug Gillard was playing guitar for Nada Surf...I went out and bought "The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy" and loved the shit out of it...It probably became one of my most listened to albums that year, as the guitars brought back sweet memories of GBV's "Isolation Drills" and "Speak Kindly of Your Volunteer Fire Department"..."You Know Who You Are" sounds like another good one...On first listen, it seems a little softer and the instrumentation a little more diverse than the standard guitar/drums/bass indie rock lineup, but manoman are there some thumping good pop songs on the second half of this thing...Looking forward to wearing this one out too,..

Red Fang. YES! Just what I needed to prop up the sagging final hour at work...Some stripped down, fuzzy, heavy shit...I'm very happy with the current heavy metal landscape...I talk about this a lot, but for the longest time it seemed metal had become irredeemable...With all the rappers, wrestlers, and cookie monsters that characterized the '95-'09 era it had become nothing but a big joke...I viewed it in the same way I view country and rap..A good artist here and there, but for the most part, a creatively bankrupt genre that really needed to be put to sleep...But then around 2009, there were great new metal records coming out left and right...I'm hoping punk goes through a similar resurgence soon...

Jesse Malin: New York Before the War. I picked up Jesse Malin's "Fine Art of Self Destruction" yeaaars ago and enjoyed his classic singer/songwriting style...A good mix of grit and slick and he continues that style here...There's maybe a bit more straightforward pop and some punk in it, but it's still characterized by a twinkly, latenight vibe...I always like his stuff...

And there are three more CD's in the package! Thank you so much, Joe!  I'll continue this listening session later...

Cathedral: The Ethereal Mirror

Cathedral: The Ethereal Mirror

1993

Earache Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Violet Vortex (Intro)  2. Ride  3. Enter the Worms  4. Midnight Mountain  5. Fountain of Innocence 6. Grim Luxuria  7. Jaded Entity  8. Ashes You Leave  9. Phantasmagoria  10. Imprisoned in Flesh


Ahhh, man...Cathedral...I band I used to love, but then kinda forgot about for a decade or so...I believe my introduction to them came as a young Napalm Death fan who heard Lee Dorian (ND's ex-singer (?). Is that the right word?) had a new band...I read reviews of "Forest of Equilibrium" but couldn't find a copy of the album (Hale Drug wasn't that hip!). But one day I caught the video for "Ride" on Headbanger's Ball or maybe one of those old Rock Video Monthly things...

And then I remember immediately getting the Soul Sacrifice EP on cassette...

Oh, man...So many good memories of Earache Records cassettes...Especially the Columbia/Earache era...I don't give a fuck what stuck in the mud death metal fans think...There was something exciting about the marriage of extreme metal and commerce...For a few minutes in the 90's it seemed totally feasible that Napalm Death and Carcass were going to be the puking their guts out on FM radio dials everywhere...Like we were going to hear Entombed next to Pearl Jam...My palms get sweaty even thinking about it...But come to think of it, Sepultura did pretty good during this time period...I can recall hearing "Territory" getting some mild airplay back then...So maybe it wasn't such a far out dream...Who knows...

I should point out the vocal metamorphosis that Lee Dorian had undergone at this point..he went from the quintessential death metal growler in Napalm Death, to the guttural, doomed soul on "Forest of Equilibrium" to the smiley faced party monster on "The Ethereal Mirror." I still think his vocals might be an acquired taste, but once you get past the eccentricities you almost can't imagine it being performed any other way...

Alright, let me capture what made "Ride" and those early Cathedral albums stand out for me...I think it was the first time I heard what would later become codified as "Stoner Metal." "The Ethereal Mirror" was heavy as hell, no doubt about it...All crushing,  massively downtuned guitars and trudging tempos but there was a 70's grooviness somewhere in its DNA...The clouds of dense fog that enveloped their first album had parted somewhat and what looked to be doleful ghosts writhing in the mists turned out to be filthy hippies shaking their thangs and you suddenly realize all that murk was emanating from the world's most massive, malevolent bong...

So I think what we end up with is good-time doom...Tons of Sabbath  ("Fountain of Innocence" was recorded in the same watery universe as "Planet Caravan" and you can hear the "Sweet Leaf" riff attempting to escape at around the 4:15 mark on "Ashes You Leave"), lots of 70's muscle-car rock and a bit of funk (man, check out the heavy, heaving dance party that is "Midnight Mountain.") I think the best moment on the album (and also the moment that sums up the entire project) occurs on "Midnight Mountain" where after a wild flurry of funky wah wah guitar Lee shouts, "DYNOMIIIIITE!" and the the whole thing gets Earthshakingly heavy...I swear to the Dark Lord himself, it's hands down the most transcendent moments in 90's metal...

And there's still some good, (relatively) straight doom on here too, with "Phantasmagoria" (where there's even a death metal growl in that catchy-ass break) and "Jaded Entity" where the lyric "death is death" gets repeated over and over like they haven't quite come to terms with the concept yet...Or maybe they're trying to get it to sink into our thick skulls...Is this what all the fun is about?

I can't believe I almost forgot how great this album is...I went through a hefty Cathedral phase circa 92-93 and then I almost totally forgot about them until I was doing a Sabbath trawl on youtube one night and ran across them again...Just as I did back in '92, I went right out and bought one of their records and it feels so good to get buried underneath all the heaviness once again...

Here's "Midnight Mountain" by Cathedral...This video is awesome and hilarious...Especially the Chef Guitarist...Enjoy...

Calypso Season

Calypso Season

1989

Mango Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

1. Baron: Somebody  2. Bali: Maxi Dub  3. Tambu: Free Up  4. Ronnie McIntosh: Shaking It  5. Roaring Lion: Jail Them  6. All Rounder: Innocent Jimmy  7. Mighty Sparrow: Congo Man  8. Duke:
Yah  9. David Rudder: One More Officer  10. Desperados: Somebody 








Ahhhhhhgh! So sick of being sick...When you're on yr 7th day of a cold/flu and there's still no end in sight...

Relentless cough... Brutal headaches...Bloody noses...

Undone chores piling up...I wish I felt better...I wish I was on a beach somewhere in the Caribbean...Drinking fruity rum drinks...

Maybe some music will cheer me up...Ah, howabout this "Calypso Season" record?

Alright, here's some backstory... A few years back I picked up an intriguing old record by Mighty Sparrow and instantly fell in love with his bawdy, political calypso. One day at the record store, I spotted this album and decided to check out what else the genre had to offer...I had no idea that the calypso genre was still alive by the late 80's  (and thriving to the point you could put together a compilation of new material by various artists) and I had to know what the genre sounded like by this point....

And what does Calypso circa '89 sound like? (drumroll) Like the fluffiest, most lightweight Soca 80's movie soundtrack music possible! Imagine an 80's movie where John Candy goes to Carnival. Or maybe the most booty-shakin' Carnival Cruise Line commercial imaginable. This would be an awesome soundtrack to such a thing. Drummachines, dancehall chants, bustling percussion, relentlessly sunny disposition. How exactly would someone listen to "Free Up" by Tambu and not break out into a spirited one-man conga line. Oh yea! And All Rounder's "Innocent Jimmy" sounds like a nasally, Calypso version of Culture! Score!  

And while all the good time Soca is nice, the stuff I really love on here is the legit Calypso stuff...When Roaring Lion's "Jail Them" comes on it almost makes your head spin 360 degrees...A quiet, angry acoustic calypso that sounds as old as time itself. Is this from the 80's? Is it some archival recording meant to show the roots of Calypso? Who knows. There's zero information on the record sleeve about anything, so your guess is as good as mine...Beautiful stuff, though...

And then we have THEE MIGHTY SPARROW!!! When I got this record, it only said "Sparrow" so I had a feeling it might be Mighty Sparrow, but I wasn't sure. But then it came on and then I heard that voice, (relaxed, rapidly rising and falling) and those lyrics, so quintessentially Mighty Sparrow-ish:

"Dis is a story ladies and gentlemen about two lovely white women,
 Traveling all de way to Africa
Found themselves deep in the heart of the Baluba
In de congo.
In de hands of my big brother Umba,
and if is me ah woulda taken dem back to dey husband,
But brother was hungry, hungry, hungry!"

And sure enough Umba goes on to graphically devour the white women! My God! Unsurprisingly, this turned out to be a controversial song, but it's also a great one. Consider this...The other Mighty Sparrow stuff I have is from the 50's and this song from the late 80's is not only immediately recognizable as his, but it's every bit as good (if not better) than the super classic stuff...Now that's a career! 

The album ends with "Somebody" by the Desperados, which I can only explain as a steeldrum inferno. A phalanx of sweet clankety clank. It sounds like the greatest "Girls Gone Wild" video ever made!  

  
Here's a pretty fascinating video of the band playing it live...If you're interested in percussion in general or steel drums in particular it's definitely worth checking out..

Y'know, what? I am feeling slightly better...Maybe I'll do some of those dishes now...See? The healing power of soca...Let's hear some more...

Here's ""Congo Man" by Mighty Sparrow...Enjoy...

John Cale: Honi Soit

John Cale: Honi Soit

1981

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Dead or Alive  2. Strange Times in Casablanca  3. Fighter Pilot  4. Wilson Joliet  5. Streets of Laredo  6. Honi Soit (La Première Leçon de Français)  7. Riverbank  8. Russian Roulette  9. Magic & Lies


Apparently, this was John Cale's only charting album...

 "Heeyyy...This is Casey Kasem...As a young man in Wales, our next artist worked at a gas station pumping gasoline for customers. One day, a jewel-encrusted Cadillac pulled up. A mysterious figure rolled down the tinted windows, a woman on each arm,  and asked the young man fill up the tank...Ultra-Premium...After all nothing was too good for Elvis Presley. The kid filled up the car and as the Cadillac drove away,  the young man told himself that one day he would be the one driving the fancy car filled with beautiful women...And the name of that young man? None other than John Cale...And at number #154 on the charts this week is his album "Honi Soit" featuring the hot new hit "Wilson Joilet" which drops the N-Bomb a wonderful 7 times...HONI SOIT?!?! WHAT THE FUCK IS HONI SOIT? SOME STUPID IRISH NAMES THAT DON'T MEAN FUCKEDYSQUAT!!!!!"

I have no idea what caused this particular John Cale album to hit the charts...It's as idiosyncratic as any other John Cale album I own...Featuring head-scratchers like "Streets of Laredo" which plods in and out of time while John lays out a doomy cowboy tale that dissolves into ghostly guitar jangle and a wildly erratic clock..."Strange Times in Casablanca" has a swooshing sound that swallows up the entire track at various intervals...Everything here is similarly bent or dissolving...With John's earnest vocals being the only constant in the meltdown...

Still, unlike a lot of avant garde stuff that can be unlistenable or alienating, John usually has a clear melody or direction in mind and when stuff starts to get a bit too weird, he'll bust out an aching ballad like "Riverbank" that hits you right in the heart...Or the french horn pop-rocker"Dead or Alive" that lures you into the trap in the first place...The whole thing even ends with "Magic & Lies" sounding like bleak musical theater...

It's just a solid record, diverse and full of nice melodies, new ideas and bizarre touches...Lots of war and death. Lots of tenderness and heartache. Lots of top-secret double agents and smoky, French cafes. What more could you want from a John Cale record, really? Weird, dark fun...

Here's "Russian Roulette" by John Cale...Enjoy...

Bullet LaVolta: The Gift

Bullet LaVolta: The Gift

1989

Taang! Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. X-Fire  2. Little Tiny Pieces  3. Mother Messiah  4.Chalkdust  5.Sneer  6. Off Kilter  7. Underground Well  8. The Gift  9. One Room Down  10. Birth Of Death  11. Trapdoor



 This is a band that I always read about in beat-up issues of Thrasher and RIP magazine, but never got around to actually listening to...

I remember they had a pretty intense buzz going during the early 90's ( think someone from the Lenmonheads was in this band) but you don't really hear anything at all about them these days...

I was at Eastside Records about a year ago and there was a big crate of discounted $2.00 punk albums, so I was like, "Ah, well...Pretty cover...Maybe it's time to finally check these guys out" and brought it home...And it turns out it's a record I probably would have flipped out over back in '89-'92...It's oddly dated now, but I can't hold the slow, cruel passage of time against it...It's definitely punk-metal but not of a species that manged to survive and pass on its genes... The sound is midtempo Hardcore punk but with an odd hair-metal strut...So imagine if Fugazi busted out some George Lynch shredding from time to time with "VI"-era Keith Morris on the mic...Depending on where your allegiances lie, that description is either going to sound amazing to you or it's going to make you feel a bit queasy...

The only time the shred becomes redonkulous is on"Mother Messiah" where it just overwhelms any and all good-taste...But on the moody "Sneer" it manages to raise a fairly intriguing fog, so a little hairmetal isn't necessarily an inherently bad trait...The title track is a pretty catchy and cool hair-rocker for sure...The band is at its best though when they roll up their dang sleeves and lay down some brawny, melodic hardcore/hard rock..."X-Fire" and "Off Kilter" are just the sort of flat-out rocking that I was looking for as a teenager...God, can I have a Taang! order sent back to 1991, please? It really takes me back to a time when cool punk/metal releases were coming out left and right...

"I'm going to listen to punk/metal my whole life! Even when I'm a 40-year old man!"

Yea, literally the exact same ones because that genre either doesn't exist anymore or it looks like this...

Oh yea, be sure to check out the song "Underground Well," which has that particular brand of 80's "whoa oh ohhhh" punk that always gives me shivers...Gah! So good...

Yea, I'm totally on board with the early 90's critics here...This was some cool stuff...It took me at least one listen to make heads or tails of it, but on each subsequent spin it gets cooler and cooler...They do get a point deducted for the death metal belch on "Birth of Death," though...But if you're a punk who can stomach metal then this is going to make your day...However, if you're allergic to a little shred you might want to skip it...Shred away, I say...Shred, shred, shred away...

Here's  "Underground Well" by Bullet LaVolta...Enjoy...

Boston Spaceships: Our Cubehouse Still Rocks

Boston Spaceships: Our Cubehouse Still Rocks

2010

Guided by Voices Inc.

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Track Star  2. John The Dwarf Wants To Become An Angel  3. I See You Coming  4. Fly Away (Terry Sez)  5. Trick Of The Telekinetic Newlyweds  6. Saints Don't Lie  7. The British And The French  8. Unshaven Bird  9. Come On Baby Grace  10. Freedom Rings  11. Stunted  12. Bombadine  13. Airwaves  14. Dunkirk Is Frozen  15. King Green Stamp  16. In The Bathroom (Up 1/2 The Night)


It's too my eternal shame as a GBV fanatic that I had initially missed out on Boston Spaceships. I have been a lifelong Pollard worshiper, unquestioningly  buying every new release but right around "Superman Was a Rocker" and "Elephant Jokes," I started questioning my wisdom. These were a couple releases that I was lukewarm on, so I decided to hold off and read reviews first before jumping into future Robert Pollard releases.

Man, what a mistake. Every post-"Bee Thousand" review appears to be some sort of agricultural report, more concerned with "Wheat" and "Chaff" than about the music contained within...



I tend to attribute this critical reaction to the fact that it takes an abnormally long time to process a Robert Pollard album for some reason...It usually takes me quite a few listens to finally come to a final opinion on almost any of his works. He rarely puts out albums that I flip out over immediately (except for the prerequisite 1 or 2 "IMMEDIATELY THE GREATEST SONG I EVER HEARD!!!" tracks that he puts on every record to keep you hooked) and the ones that do strike me immediately usually tend to be the ones that fade into the back of my go-to Pollard albums in the long run...

I could never get a clear picture of what the Boston Spaceships were, so I played it safe and skipped their albums..So where do the Boston Spaceships fit into the GBV discography?  Well, short answer is they're a sorta indie rock supergroup, featuring Robert Pollard and Chris Slusarenko from Guided By Voices and John Moen from the Decemberists. What do they sound like? Imagine this and try not to drool...They take the poppiest, chewiest, Who-iest, Cheap Trick-iest aspects of Guided by Voices and turn it into ultra-consistent POP-ROCK!!!! My God, this was what I wanted all along. To be honest, I consider any of the Boston Spaceship albums I own (I'm still missing a few) to be the equal or possibly even surpass any Guided by Voices record. That's right. I consider "Let it Beard" and "Our Cubehouse Still Rocks" to be roughly as enjoyable as "Bee Thousand" or "Under the Bushes, Under the Stars"...Maybe not in my favorite top-five GBV records, but in the top 15 Pollard records for sure (which sounds like a bad ranking, but Pollard is so prolific that "in the top 15" means it's the cream of the crop)...

Again, imagine this... A Robert Pollard album where every single track is a heavenly slice of perfect pop designed to burrow itself into the pleasure center of your brain. And if you're into the more oddball aspects of his work, don't despair, it's on display here too, but used to create eccentric pop like "The British and the French" and "Bombadine" which are just as catchy as the more straightforward tracks. These Boston Spaceship albums have also become a repository for "Suitcase" tracks that have been spit-shined into gleaming singles. This album's entry is "Shaved Bird" which is transformed from a melancholy, guitar and vocal fragment into the full-blown arena rock anthem implied in the original.

The best track though has to be "Baby Grace" which rocks so fucking much that I cannot conceive of a single good reason why this isn't blasting from every rock radio station in the world...It's just Pollard at his absolute best; Crunchy guitars, a crystal-clear hook, and vivid abstract imagery. One of is best, be sure not to miss it.

Super highly recommended. I can't think of another GBV-related album that has so few "lesser" tracks. The only song I'm not head-over-heels in love with is "Airwaves" which isn't even bad (it just has a sorta bland melody)...Again, let that sink in...A Pollard album with only one lesser track. I'd find this immediately if I were you...Don't make the same mistake I made and ignore this...