Girls Against Boys "cruise yourself"

All the guys at the tattoo shop like listening to second tier grunge music.  I despised that stuff when it came out and therefore have no nostalgic connection to it.  As far as I'm concerned it all still sucks.  In 1994 at the peak of second tier grunge I was spending all my time with releases on Dischord records out of D.C. and Touch and Go records out of Chicago. My attotude was: fuck Seattle and all the vowel crooning douchery.  I couldn't understand  (and still don't ) how someone could prefer Bush over #girlsagainstboys .  GVB were darker, sexier and used two bass guitars.  McCloud's raspy drawl invites you in with "is everybody tucked in?" Then the band throbs for the better part of an hour.  The rhythmic delivery always gave me reason to think this band was the ego to their label mates The Jesus Lizard's id.  The friend who always got the girls while the other raved lunacy at the bar.  The two bands were really a big part of my listening habits back then and are great counterpoints.  So I've snuck this CD on at the tattoo shop thinking one of them would ask "who is this? I like it." Then I'd get to be a music snob in shining armor and turn the young 'uns on to some sweet mid '90s music that wasn't grunge shit.  Noone said a damn thing.  It really blows my mind.  If I wasn't so stubborn it might shake my confidence in my taste in music.  But I'm pretty stubborn.  You can lead a horse to water and all that.

W.A.S.P. "the last command"

When i began collecting music I was a desperate dude. On rare occasions I would accompany someone to a mall and have to be torn out of the record stores there.  Overwhelmed, I would examine every album i could touch.  Racks of mystical lps; each one a silent tome.  I couldn't even guess what most of them would sound like but I just wanted to hear them all.  In 1985 I was thirteen years old.  My money income came from a small allowance I had for doing chores at home ($5/week).  I would double that buy mowing our elderly neighbors lawn.  This would allow me to buy one cassette tape a week.  I would pedal my BMX bike a couple of miles to the Hills department store.  The only place I had reasonable access to that sold music (the Kmart in the other direction didn't have as big of a selection and frankly I just liked the smell of Hills better)  buying music at a retail store meant that my options were limited.  I'd comb the racks looking for some fantastical evil album cover. (I had started buying Iron Maiden cassettes this way)  I picked up this #wasp tape and the wicked looking guy with a scowl holding a vaguely militants flag looked really enticing so I flipped the tape over and read the song titles: "ballcrusher", "widowmaker" and "sex drive" sold me.  Bought the tape and an Icee slushie and pedaled home to listen to the new acquisition.   I loved Blackie Lawless's raspy vocals right from the get go.  It was a grittier, tougher sounding version of Motley Crue's "shout at the devil".  I tried convincing some of my burgeoning metal heads that it was a better release but no one else agreed.  It was my own little treasure that no one else wanted to share.  Years and years later when I guiltily bought this on cd in a used bin I popped it on expecting to be disappointed by nostalgia warped memory of the album.  I wasn't.   I remembered every lyric (it sometimes concerns me that these hedonistic poems remain in my subconscious but I have no recall of any of the Herman Hesse books I read in my early twenties)  it's a dumb fun album and u still sing it's praises.
Turns out Lawless has become some kind of evangical Christian or something. A road I cannot imagine.

Shudder To Think "pony express record"

A long time friend turned me on to #shuddertothink back in 1994 upon the release of this CD.  The album and band are growers not showers.  This is richly textured post-punk prog rock.  Mind bending time signatures and changes with obtuse and awesome lyrics sung in a falsetto vibrato. (Man I am on an adjective roll here). Upon first listen I wasn't sure what I was listening to but the song "x-french tee shirt" rides a single chord and is a catchy as hell intro point.  I listened to the song over and over again eventually spreading out into the rest of the disc.  Now 22 years after it's release it's still a favorite of mine.  My buddy and I caught the band on their tour for the album, they played at the showplace theatre.  We were psyched!  They took the stage and I remember them kicking ass.  During a break between songs the singer/guitarist Craig singled out my friend and I remarking about how if we changed places the show would be different.  It was arty and unsettling to me.  I was a very self-conscious 22 year old and it kind of freaked me out.  I slowly melted back into the crowd to avoid further interaction.  Now as a 44 year old grizzled music fan I am so embarassed and regretful of not embracing that night and the performance-as-art experience.  The band was on their creative peak at that time and would break up after releasing a rather shocking follow up album.  It seems so funny to me now after going to hundreds of shows and performing in dozens that this interaction would have messed with me so much.  It could have been such a cool thing had I embraced it.  It's rare now that live music really entrances me the way it used to, there are still shows I've attended recently that whisk me away into the experience but they seem rarer and rarer. 
The other thing I've noticed about this record is that Rush fans love it. The inverse isn't necessarily true though.  Take that how you like.

Doris Duke "I'm a loser"

I've stated in these writings many times that I love sad and melancholic music. Slow core, sad indie, doom metal, depressive black metal,country, goth, etc. Soul music might be the most consistent genre I find comfort in.  The self depreciating lyrics of loss set to funky drums and remarkable bass players always strikes a chord with me.  I found this #dorisduke cd by reading a soul music blog.  The review struck me but really the album title had sold me sight unseen.  If I had seen this disc on a rack randomly it would have come home with me.  Doris duke veers into screaming jay hawkins-esque melodrama which is cool by me.  Songs about drinking after being jilted set to some tasty bass playing.  I spent many Sunday mornings drinking coffee and playing this loudly in my apartment on the lower west side of Buffalo.  I had gone through a divorce and this album was my solitary gospel.  Most of my friends and co-workers weren't really into this type of stuff, and really it's not the kind of cd you play around other people.  But it suited me. Living alone in a large empty apartment with this music bouncing off the under-furnished floors, walls and tall ceilings.  Songs like "I don't care anymore", "divorce decree" and "ghost of myself" accentuated the open empty spaces of those rooms.  It was a great location and soundtrack for a head bobbing pity party.  Re listening to this this morning I get to watch my 1-year old shake his little butt and smile and sway to the grooves in my cluttered and warm family home.  It's a great contrast and I get to focus on the musicality of the cd instead of the grim narratives.  Giving the cd a second life, much like my own second life.  It's a good morning.  The little guy just stumbled past me trailing the vapor of a dirty diaper and I'm thankful to be here to change it.

Palomar Sky Survey "the nightlife"

This cd is really hard to write about but seems weird to avoid it.  It's existence is rife with personal stories and experiences. #palomarskysurvey was an indie rock band I played in from 1998-2002ish.  We released a 7", were featured on a comp cd and released this full length.  I spent a lot of time with those girls in the rehearsal room, in the tour van, in the recording studio, at amy's place diner and sloppily drunk at the mohawk place.  Relistening to this cd for the first time in years triggers so many memories it's overwhelming.  I'm also surprised at how those memories are almost entirely positive.  Usually with these endeavours there is all kinds of negative stories and experiences.  I really don't remember too many bad times (maybe because those bad times were usually triggered by me being drunk and therefore have limited recall).  We were pretty singular in purpose, writing sappy sad pop songs in a smarmy arty indie rock way.  We really liked what we were doing.  Some of these songs have aged well to me but really I can't listen to anything on here objectively.  I often wonder what it sounds like to someone removed from it.  One of my favorite people in the world recorded this for us.  I brought it up to him recently at a hockey game. I told him I had revisited the disc and he remarked that he remembers it being cool though admittingly he couldn't really remember it.  It's novel to me that this disc was at the center of my universe at one point. It was my crowning achievement.   Now it's in a mental "where are they now?" bin.  There was a while after we broke up where I was embarassed of my vocals on the album.  They're pretty bad and I'm not sure even now why the girls encouraged me then.  Listening to them now I'm not embarassed.  It's a time capsule of my state of mind at the time: mopey and faux poetic (though cringe worthy in their off-key mimic of vocalists I wished I was).  I'm not ready to play this stuff for my kids.  I know they won't like it and that'll sting.  Man though... those were salad days.

Cepheide "respire"

I've been having a hard time falling asleep lately.  This political climate has me all wound up in knots. I am dog tired but when I lay down my mind races with apocalyptic fear.  To distract myself I listen to music wearing headphones and wait for slumber to wrestle me down.   Lately my lullaby has been atmospheric black metal.  It's one of those lifelong anomalies.  I always fall asleep to blistering music.  Many of my past roommates have laughed at my choices of bedtime playlists.  The steady fast chugging of death metal riffs have always been a favorite of mine, the blurry rhythms relax me.  Familiar '80s hardcore does by he trick too.  If I'm anxious when I lay down the familiarity of that stuff will knock me out. Lately the stuff to do the trick is atmospheric black metal.  I suspect I find this grim brand of psychedelic music a fitting end times lullaby due to it's wall of droning staccato guitars and buried howls as soundtrack to my inner turmoil. Angst made darkly sonic.  This #cepheide album "respire" fits that bill to a tee.  Long passages of churning guitars broken up by half time drums and atonal howls buried in the mix that sound like a lost soul struggling to break into our Astral plane. The stuff is epic. I drift along the long songs eventually listening in a half awake dream state and when I realise that experience is happening I half try to sustain it, to keep the trance going.  Eventually I lose the battle and pass into unconciousness.  At some point later in the night I partially rouse to rip the headphones off my head and return to the needed slumber.  Thankful for the reprieve this french duo have afforded my senses.

Dead Kennedys "frankenchrist"

It's been hard for me to want to do much of anything after this election.  I'm ashamed of my country. I am fearful for my children and their future.  I wish I was just waxing poetic about political dogmas, but I am genuinely afraid of our future. I never really thought much about socio-politics until I heard the #deadkennedys .  Jello's paranoid lyrics struck a chord in my brain. After discovering them I scoured record stores for their releases and quickly obtained their discography.  This album "frankenchrist" was always my favorite.  They slowed the music a bit allowing it to contribute to moods more and the lyrical webs made are acute and insightful.  If you've ever listened to this album and spent time with it I find it very hard to believe you vote any direction away from liberal.
I've listened to this this morning and it reads like a current event even though this record was released in 1985. It's Orwellian view of our government and society is as poignant and resonating even more now than in the Reagan era it was recorded in.  It's kind of terrifying in it's accuracy.  Songs like "stars and stripes of corruption", "this could be anywhere" and "soup is good food" all rattle my cage still.  If you weren't filled with enough anxiety over our future and our government's intentions than give this disc a spin.  It'll really put an edge on that despair.