Live Albums: I know our GM, Lee Madison, probably won’t
sign my paycheck unless I start this out with the new 2 CD Live
on the Black Hand Side by Danzig on Restless. You know this
one rocks, right? The live album I’ve been listening to
the most is Radiohead’s I Might Be Wrong on Capitol. The
7 songs are mostly taken from Kid A and Amnesiac. I wouldn’t
have thought of Radiohead as a “live album” band,
but this works pretty well. While not quite as textured as the
studio albums, the band plays around with the arrangements quite
a bit and has some fun with them, while others are stripped
down quite a bit, focusing on the vocals more. Echo And The
Bunnymen are back (Did they ever really leave?) and they have
released Live At Lipa on Spinart with 17 tracks recorded on
August 17th and 18th, 2001 in Liverpool. I’m not sure why
it took so long to get the CD documenting 1999’s Yo Yo
A Go Go fest in Olympia, WA out but that’s OK. It’s
still cool with tracks from a bunch of the band who played there
including C Average, Mirah, Mecca Normal, Sleater-Kinney, Bratmobile,
The Tight Bros. From Way Back When, The Crabs and lots more.
Next up is Les Claypool’s Frog Brigade doing a complete
live performance of Pink Floyd’s Animals on Live Frogs
Set 2 on Primus’ own Prawn Song Records. There Is No Future
on Trojan Recordings is a live Sex Pistols disc with some demo
versions of Anarchy In The UK thrown in for good measure. Classic
stuff you fuck. No Use For A Name has logged more roadtime than
just about five other bands you can think of and Live In A Dive
is their live disc on Fat Wreck of course. It’s got some
cool comic book graphics and if you’re really lucky you’ll
track down the full length comic book they put out with it.
Corrosion Of Conformity has a live disc out with 77 minutes
of pure live Corrosion on Sanctuary Records. Fuck yeah, COC!
Daft Punk fans should be stoked on Alive 1997 on Virgin, with
45’ 30” of tuneage recorded in Birmingham on 11-9-97.
Music Videos: MVD is a new company that’s releasing a lot
of cool music videos on both DVD and VHS. Unless noted, all
of the following are from MVD. My favorite vid was Songs For
Cassavetes, a documentary the DIY punk and underground rock
scene of the 1990’s. Shot on 16mm black and white film,
this vid has a cool, arty feel and is shot and edited with a
creative eye. The audio on the live performances isn’t
all that great which renders that section of the vid a little
less interesting, but it’s the interviews that hold the
most interest. Bands like Sleater-Kinney, The Make-Up, Unwound
and Calvin Johnson of K Records and Dub Narcotic Sound System
provide a detailed, insightful history of the scene. This vid
is worth tracking down for sure. (Be sure to also check out
the Cassavetes CD on Better Looking Records) Also really cool,
but focusing more on the early years of punk rock is Rage, 20
Years of Punk Rock West Coast Style. A bit like a more realistic
Behind the Music, this vid interviews pivotal figures like Jello
Biafra (Dead Kennedys), Jack Grisham (TSOL), Duane Peters (US
Bombs), Keith Morris (Circle Jerks), Gitane Demone (Christian
Death) and Don Bolles (Germs). Like Cassavetes the musical performances
are even more lo-fi, but nonetheless historical. As it’s
repeatedly pointed out, nobody in this scene really expected
it to reach the importance it has, they were just having fun.
The VH-1 camera crews were still in diapers at that point. Some
of the other vids will probably only interest hard-core fans.
Teen Spirit, The Tribute To Kurt Cobain, has some interesting
moments but seems pretty incomplete compared to the recent Charles
Cross bio of Cobain. Nonetheless interviews with photog Charles
Peterson, Grant Alden (No Depression editor, formerly with The
Rocket) and Nils Bernstein of Sub Pop provide some insight into
the Cobain legend. Dead Kennedys the Early Years Live has some
good footage of early performances that makes clear how punk
rock used to be about weirdoes, not jocks. There’s also
some interesting interviews with Jello Biafra when he was running
for San Francisco’s Mayor. Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers
chronicles the only available film of this legendary punk rocker.
There’s also some “backstage” footage but it
seemed pretty staged. And finally, Punk Broadcasting Service
(PBS) is a comp DVD with 22 vids from some of today’s best
punk bands like Refused, The Vandals, MXPX, Pennywise, Horace
Pinker, Snapcase, International Noise Conspiracy, Flogging Molly,
Dwarves, One Man Army, Descendents, and lots more.
Tributes: The Timeless tribute to Hank Williams on Lost Highway
is X-tra cool! Hank’s the man and if you didn’t already
know that you can be sure that Bob Dylan, Beck, Tom Petty, Keith
Richards, Ryan Adams, Johnny Cash, and lots of other folks on
this CD know this to be a fact. Check out Hank’s grandson
Hank III doing his gramps proud on I’m A Long Gone Daddy.
Twisted Forever is the Twisted Sister comp on Koch and if you
think you can take it, there’s tracks from Lit, Motorhead,
Nashville Pussy, Chuck D, Anthrax, Fu Manchu, Joan Jett, Sevendust,
Sebastian Bach and lots more. The tribute to The Real 101 on
Triple Crown has tracks from Agnostic Front, Dropkick Murphys,
Oxymoron, Sick of It All, and lots more. Give The People What
They Want is a tribute to the first great pop punk band, the
Kinks on Sub Pop with tracks from Young Fresh Fellows, Mark
Lanegan, Mudhoney, The Murder City Devils and lots more cool
bands. I’m usually not that into tribute comps, but Many
Miles Away, a Police tribute on Solarmanite Records is very
good. I’ve never heard of any of the bands except the Ed
Kemper Trio, but each interprets and adds something cool to
each song.
Comps: The 2 CD Troubleman Mix Tape comp is one of the cooler
comps I’ve heard in a while. Just like you used to make
mix tapes for your friends, Troubleman’s Mike Simonetti
made two CDs for you. This is all over the place but in a good
way. Just a few of the bands on it include Blonde Redhead, The
Hex, !!!, The Fucking Champs, Sean Na Na, Outhud, Unwound and
lots more. The Plea For Peace comp on Sub City follows in the
wake of the most worthy (Now more than ever) tour of the same
name. Contributing bands include Alkaline Trio, Hot Water Music,
Cave In, AFI, Swingin’ Utters, The Eyeliners, Atom And
His Package, At The Drive In, Dillenger Escape Plan, Grade,
Good Riddance, Suicide Machines, The Ataris, TSOL, Bratmobile,
International Noise Conspiracy, Seam and lots more. Damn!! Buy
this and put your money into a good cause as well as getting
a killer comp. Dublabs presents Freeways on Emperor Norton is
a very cool (mostly) electronic and (mostly) instrumental comp
of artists that I’ve never heard of, but I liked most of
them. This has a cool experimental vibe throughout and is pretty
consistent. This reminds me of some of the early Editions EG
comps. The Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 comp on Maverick isn’t
breaking any musical new ground with tracks from NOFX, Sum 41,
Alien Ant Farm, Pennywise, Oukast, Papa Roach, millencolin,
Deftones and more, but besides the music there’s tons of
cool stuff on the bonus CD inluding lots of video of Tony skating,
in his house and doing a 900. Definitely work a peek. The Official
TRL Christmas Album on Atlantic/MTV has your favorite bands
like Blink 182 singing I Won’t be Home For Christmas, Weezer
doing The Christmas Song, TLC singing Sleigh Ride and lots more
from NSYNC, Christina Aguilera, Sugar Ray, P.O.D., Smash Mouth,
Jimmy Fallon and lots more. Just right for caroling your neighbors
with your blaster or fitted out car stereo. Tough Enough is
the comp from the WWF hit series on Dreamworks and has tough
as shit tracks from bands like Drowning Pool, Alien Ant Farm,
Godsmack, Powerman 5000, Papa Roach, Deftones, Buckcherry, and
more. ARGGGH!! Punk Chartbusters Vol. 4 on SPV is the 4th installment
of this series with two cds of punk bands covering mostly pretty
drecky radio pop hits like Starship’s We Built This City
(on Rock And Roll). DIY-Fest on DHR is both spoken word and
music from DiY’ers like Dillenger Escape Plan w/ Nic Endo
of Atari Teenage Riot, Mystic of Hieroglyphics, Hanin Elias
and Alec Empire of ATR, Jello Biafra, Ani DiFranco, Howard Zinn
and lots more. Check out diyfest.com for more info. The Heavy
Metal Geomatrix comp on Sanctuary has tracks from heavy metal
bands like Megadeth, Biohazard, Rollins Band, Halford, COC,
WASP, Motorhead and more.
Label Comps: Another Year On The Streets Volume 2 is the Vagrant
Records comp with lots of great tracks from their great bands
like The Alkaline Trio, The Anniversary, Face To Face, Get Up
Kids, No Motiv, Rocket From The Crypt and lots more. The Honest
Dons comp is called Dirty Dishes and has tracks from Nerf Herder,
Fabulous Disaster, Citizen Fish, Dance Hall Crashers, J-Church,
Big In Japan, Teen Idols, Limp and lots more. Punkzilla, the
Nitro Records comp is a low priced comp with 20 songs by bands
like AFI, The Dammed, The Vandals, The Offspring, Guttermouth,
TSOL and lots more. Some of these tracks are previously unreleased
and there’s AFI and Bodyjar videos as well. This Changes
Everything is the Second Nature comp and has tracks from bands
like Kid Kilowatt, The Casket Lottery, Coalesce, Euclid, Grade,
Waxwing, Reggie and the Full Effect, Isis, Sharks Keep Moving
and more. Greetings is the Lobster Records comp and has tracks
from bands like Whippersnapper, Buck Wild, Yellowcard, Jargon
and lots more bands from the punk rock label with the biggest
claws. Epitaph is back with their low priced Punkorama Vol 6
with 23 tracks from their bands including, but not limited to,
Guttermouth, NOFX, Millencolin, Hot Water Music, Pennywise w/
Exene, Rancid, Descendants, All, Union 13 and lots more. Also
pretty punk is the Theologian comp, Bits & Pieces, with
tracks from Pennywise, F.Y.P., Deviates, The Goods, 98 Mute,
Prop 13 and more. Deep Elm has not one but two new comps. Sound
Spirit Fury Fire is their third sampler with tracks from their
bands like Benton Falls, Brandtson, Slowride, Starmarket and
more. The Silence in My Heart is chapter six of their popular
Emo Diaries. Re Direction is the Polyvinyl sampler with tracks
from Aloha, Radio Flyer, Rainer Maria, Matt Pond PA, Pele, Kerosene
454 and more. Skins & Pins is a comp from GMM Records with
tracks from Patriot, Anti-Heroes, Dropkick Murphys, Bombshell
Rocks and lots more. The Initial Records comp has tracks from
Automatic, Botch, Boy Sets Fire, Dillenger Escape Plan, The
Get Up Kids, Hot Water Music, The Jazz June, No Motiv and lots
more. Punch Drunk (It’s Better Than A Kick In The Head)
is the TKO Records comp with tracks from The Beltones, The Generators,
Reducers SF, US Bombs, Electric Frankenstein and lots more.
Lookout Freakout episode 2 is the 2001 Lookout Comp with tracks
from The Donnas, Ann Beretta, Ted Leo, The Mr. T Experience,
The Eyeliners, Bratmobile, Alkaline Trio, Common Rider, Bis,
and lots more. O.L.C. is the Rah Rah comp with some cool underground
hip-hop from The Beat Junkies, Shaydie 3rd Degree, Kontaijuss,
Freestyle Fellowship, Left and more. Don’t Be Scared is
the Fearless Records comp with tracks from Dynamite Boy, At
The Drive In, Big Wig, Lonely Kings, The Aquabats and lots more.
From Santa Cruz’s own Sessions Records is their comp SnoiSes
vol. 1 with tracks from Fury 66, The Missing 23rd, Sloe, Mock
and more. The Resurrection A.D 2001 sampler has tracks from
E-Town, Arson, Spitvalves, Sacto’s own Pocket Change and
more.
Soundtracks: I’m gonna start the soundtracks off with The
Princess + The Warrior OST by Pale 3 on Trauma. These three
guys are the folks who did the excellent OSTs to the excellent
films Run Lola Run and Winter Sleepers. On this disc they’re
joined by artists like Skin, Franka Potente, Alison Goldfrapp,
12 rounds and Michael Brook. The OST to Orange County on Columbia
is your pretty typical “Modern Rock” affair, but maybe
Jack “Tenacious D” Black’s presence in the film
kept the music a little better than most of the OST’s like
this with tracks from Cake, Creeper Lagoon, The Offspring, Social
Distortion, Foo Fighters, Brian Wilson, Phantom Planet, Pete
Yorn and more. The Royal Tannenbaums OST on Hollywood is also
pretty cool with original music by Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo
fame as well as tracks from Nico, Bob Dylan, The Clash, The
Ramones, Elliot Smith, Nick Drake, Vince Guaraldi, the Velvet
Underground and more. Also pretty good is Cameron Crowe’s
Vanilla Sky OST on Reprise with new songs by REM and Paul McCartney
along with tracks from Radiohead, Peter Gabriel, The Monkees,
Looper, Red House Painters, Josh Rouse, Sigur Ros, Jeff Buckley,
Bob Dylan, The Chemical Brother’s, Crowe’s wife and
former Heart guitarist Nancy Wilson and more. The Out Cold OST
on RCA is more by the numbers with tracks from Eve 6, Sum 41,
Foo Fighters, Lit, Andrew WK, Jimmy Eat World and more. The
Scratch OST on Transparent Music is pretty rad with tracks from
some of the best DJs around right now like Mixmaster Mike, The
X-Ecutioners, Rob Swift, DJ Krush, Invisibl Skratch Piklz, Afrika
Bambaataa and more. Makes me want to see the flick.
The Fashion TV Spring-Summer 2001 Collection on V2 is pretty
much electronic stuff by artists like Laurent Garnier, <<Rinocerose>>,
Sumo, Moby, The Money Penny Project, and more. The OST to Dean
Quixote on Spin Art is pretty cool. The directors explain that
it started as a mix tape of songs that inspired them to make
the movie. Several are in the film and several others were written
for the film. Cool stuff with tracks from The Olivia Tremor
Control, The Minders, Guided By Voices, The Apples in Stereo,
Bevis Frond, Bettie Serveert and lots more good bands. The OST
to The Wash on Interscope starring Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg is
obviously gonna be on the hip-hop tip and this doesn’t
disappoint with tracks from Snoop, Dre, Bilal, Busta Rhymes,
Daks and lots more. The OST to MT’s Hip-Hopera Carmen on
Sony, has tracks from Da Brat, Destiny’s Child, Rah Digga,
Mos Def, Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliot and more.
Re-Issues & Greatest Hits: How stoked was I when the two
CD Essential Johnny Cash on Legacy/Columbia showed up in the
mail? Very, very stoked. This release celebrates Mr. Cash’s
70th birthday!! Give it up to the man in black. The other hot
ticket this month is Big Boi & Dre Present Outkast on Arista.
16 tracks from their last four CDs plus a few new tunes proves
why Outkast is at the top of the hip-hop game right now. Eudora
from the Get Up Kids on Vagrant is pretty cool too, with a bunch
of seven inch, comp tracks and a few unreleased things including
some cool covers of tunes by David Bowie, Robert Smith, New
Order, Paul Westerberg, The Pixies and Motley Crue. Out on Initial
Records are two reissues from The Jazz June: The Boom, The Motion
and The Music and They Love Those Who Make The Music. Two re-issues
I’ve been listening to a lot are It’s Hard To Find
A Friend and The Only Reason I Feel Secure, both by Pedro The
Lion and both on Jade Tree. I recently saw this band live and
I think that they’re one of the better bands around right
now and that David Bazan, their singer is a really good songwriter.
Both of these are brand new mixes of earlier recordings (3 total)
and they sound great. Get this if you like good songs. Bluetip
is one of my favorite bands on Dischord records and Post Mortem
Anthem collects a bunch of their previously obscure comp tracks
plus five new songs. Hopefully the title doesn’t refer
to the status of the band. The Smashing Pumpkins Greatest Hits
on Virgin is a nicely packaged two CD set from this very influential
band with not only the hits, but some b-sides and rarities including
a half a dozen un-released tracks. Sure to please fans or someone
looking for a retrospective intro to the band. I got the Alice
In Chains Box set sent to me and even though I like this band,
I couldn’t really listen to a whole CD. Too much information,
thanks. I just don’t need to hear every demo a band does.
Their recently released Greatest Hits on Columbia is much more
succinct and pretty fun to listen to when you want to hear some
90s’ butt-rock, flannel style. Green Day is huge just in
case you still thought they were a little punk band that used
to play Gilman. Just in case you thought that, they have released
International Superhits! on Reprise. Congrats guys. Karp was
a band from Olympia, WA and Action Chemistry on Punk In My Vitamins
collects all their singles, comp tracks, cover and etc. onto
one CD. Anton Barbeau is a great songwriter from right here
in Sacramento who if life was fair, would have a record deal
and you would already know who he is, but life’s not fair.
This disc of outtakes only hints at how good he is, but you’ll
get the picture despite a few filler tracks. The liner notes
are from no less a pop genius himself, Nick Saloman of the Bevis
Frond. The first time I heard De La Soul’s Three Feet High
and Rising it was a revelation of sorts and it rarely escaped
very far from my CD player until it got ripped off with a bunch
of other shit from my house. Who ever it was only took my hip
hop CDs, but I’ve managed to replace most of them except
Three Feet High for some reason. So now I’m stoked that
it’s been re-issued as a completely remastered two CD set
on Tommy Boy with lots of bonus tracks and alternate mixes,
versions, etc. An all time classic of any genre, period. In
the continuing re-issues from the classic 80’s label 4AD
comes Everything is Beautiful (a retrospective 1983-1995) from
The Wolfgang Press. Early dabblers in electronics in a pop context,
this was a band before it’s time. Their cover of Respect
(Otis Redding; made famous by Aretha Franklin) with Elisabeth
Fraser and Robin Guthrie of the Cocteau Twins is worth the price
of admission. The Best Of Roxy Music on Virgin compiles 18 songs
from the art rock band that gave the world Love Is The Drug
and introduced us to Bryan Ferry and Brian Eno. Meaty, Beaty,
Shitty Sounding is a retrospective on Honey Bear with ‘singles
and shit’ from ‘96 ot ‘00 from J. Church. Cool
title. Progressive History X (Ten Years Of Fluke) is Fluke’s
greatest hit CD on Astralwerks. Just arrived the day before
deadline 2 issues ago, but that column got misplaced: Coolio:
Fantastic Voyage: The Greatest Hits on Tommy Boy. It’s
a Gangsta’s Paradise. The Essential Radio Birdman (1974-1978)
on Sub Pop collects out of print material from this early Australian
punk band. Ok, that’s it for this month. We’ll see
you next and every month.-JB
