Al Green "Let's stay together "

For my money there is nothing smoother than an #algreen album.  His angelic reedy croon over the lush subdued production of Willie Mitchell is simply divine.  It's a staple around here on sundays.  "Let's stay together" is on my top ten list of greatest songs. May even make top 5.  I've heard the song my whole life, it came to the forefront in my mind when I saw Pulp Fiction in the theater in 1994.  The kahuna burger in that movie had put to rest my dabbling in vegetarianism.  I had already owned and loved the soundtrack from "reservoir dogs" and the soundtrack to this Tarantino movie was just as powerful. But I digress.
In a rare instance of theistic tolerance I even enjoy Mr. Green's  gospel leanings.  The romantic fiction of god seems to slide seamlessly into these soothing songs.  Luckily these moments are pretty non existent on this album which puts it in the highest favor of his awesome discography.  Tinkling guitars, honey thick bass lines and tasteful horns abound here. I'm staunchly pro-CD and while I concede that the album art size on vinyl is enviable I just really enjoy the convenience and fidelity of my beloved discs.  This is one album you can argue may be a better experience on vinyl : the soothing vintage crackle and having to flip sides.  It makes you more physically present during listening.  Being physical with an Al Green album seems a foregone conclusion though.

The Geto Boys "s/t"

My first year of college I lived in a dorm style apartment building.  There were 5 bedrooms on our floor with shared kitchen and living areas.  One of the guys that lived there was on a basketball scholarship.  Because of the tight living quarters we became friends.  Some of the other players from the team would hang out in our communal living room and our floormate would lug his stereo out there and they would all laugh, argue and listen to rap.  I was reluctant to hang out with them, my past experiences with jock culture weren't very favorable.   But they were all cool with me and I won them over by drawing them as they lounged on the cheap sofas.   One of them used to bring clippers and shave elaborate designs in their tightly cropped hair and like some rite of initiation they shaved tribal - like designs under my mop of curly hair (it's true, I was had hair).  I came home after a long night of washing dishes at an Italian restaurant and the were all huddled around the stereo bobbing their heads and periodically grunting sounds of approval as they listened to the debut #getoboys album.  The album had just come out that year and one of the guys had a tape of it they were given by a friend.  I enjoyed it alot and had the guy dub me a second generation copy.  I eventually lost that tape but years later I heard "mind of a lunatic" on a mix tape in a friend's car and soon after bought myself a proper CD of the release. It was 1990 all over again.  I immediately liked the Geto Boys because they were like the death metal of rap. Vicious cartoonish lyrics that would turn off most people.  I was sold.
  Though I'd like to listen to this right now I'm going to be a typical dad and wait until my little parroting children aren't around. These personal censorships still kind of surprise me. But then I don't need Noah reciting "let a ho be a ho" on his first day of school next week.

Creedance Clearwater Revival "willy and the poor boys"

I have vivid memories of staring at the cut stone walls of the 33 as my mom shuffled us from our house in the suburbs to my grandparent's house on the west side of buffalo. It was the mid '70s and we buzzed down the highway in my mom's VW bug (I can still smell the vinyl interior and the chirp of the motor behind us).  We made that drive often and the tinny sound of AM radio was always present. It seems like Creedance was always on the radio during that decade.  This memory is triggered every time I hear "down on the corner " by #creedanceclearwaterrevival .  Later in life I bought CCR's greatest hits and always had an affinity for those swampy pop hits. It was many years before I considered grabbing their proper full-length albums.  This was the first CD I grabbed because it not only contained "...on the corner" but also "fortunate song" (a blue collar family's theme song) and "the midnight special" (forever haunts me from it's inclusion in "American werewolf in London" which terrified me as a kid).  As I kind of expected I liked all the non-single tracks a whole bunch and it was like re-discovering the band.  It's been the same for their entire discography,  they have a sound and a feel unique to them and it bleeds into all of their songs.
It's not often I'm a passenger on the 33 anymore and I can't stare at the textured stone walls that it has carved towards the city.  These days I'm shuffling my children from the lower west side of Buffalo to the suburban  trappings that it's well worn pavement leads to.  Think I'll play this album today as we make the drive to karate class as a torch passing of back seat commutes.

Edit: "bad moon rising" was in "American werewolf in London".  "The midnight special" was in the twilight zone movie with Dan Akroyd.

The Promise Ring "30° everywhere"

I reviewed #thepromisering first 7" for a 'zine.  I loved the off-key cater walling and interesting dynamic instrumentation.  I saw their full length debut at my favorite indie record store on it's release in 1996.  The disc is emo with a home made charm, strained vocals and melodic arpeggio guitars. I was a fan boy and cheerleader for the band, many of these songs were making it on my mix tapes that season. "A picture postcard " was my secret weapon transition song for years.  The band became a pop powerhouse ob subsequent releases but on this first record they had a raw edge and held on to some post-punk leanings.
I've been racking my brain for a personal angle story for this cd.  I listened to it obsessively the year of its release and even went to NYC to catch them live (with Kerosene 454, Texas is the reason and burning airlines on two consecutive nights at Brownies and the Coney Island)  it can't be that nothing happened in 1996, I was in no less than three bands, I guess I'm just feeling the pressure of this blog.
I can write that this is one of my desert island CDs.

Iron Maiden "powerslave"

It cannot be overstated the impact that both #ironmaiden and #derekriggs had on my life. Derek Riggs was my first artistic love, he was the first artist to make me consider a person's body of work.  I loving recreated every single Iron Maiden album and single covers. I drew them on folders, lined paper and eventually skin.  Today I'm putting the finishing touches on a "killers" tattoo and I've been looking forward to it all week.
    Iron Maiden were the first band that I hunted down their discography. I bought any singles and imports I could find.  I discovered the "b-side" through them. Which as an avid music collector is really a monumental moment.  "Powerslave" was the first new release album during my fandom and it will always be special to me because I remember thinking: "I'm hearing this before some other fan somewhere is!"  It is arguably their best album as well (though that argument is rarely won with such a large and influential canon).  It was 1984, I was twelve and had already been wearing a "piece of mind" back patch on my treasured denim jacket for months, I was hoping to grow my hair long (I hadn't yet started that battle with my parents). That jacket was my freak flag in junior high and I flew it proudly.  I got in fist fights with former co-football players. I was angry and headbanger culture made me feel threatening, the inverse of my home life.  It was powerful stuff.  I caught the band live again this past winter in Canada, thirty years almost to the day since the first time I saw them perform at the Aud in Buffalo for this album.  It brought tears to my eyes, how good they still were and all the shit in my life they had been a soundtrack too and here they were: still around and still important to me.  I often long for stability in life, things that remain constant. Maiden had done that for me.  #uptheirons

Mineral "the power of failing"

I was tattooing a friend who has started an emo cover band and we were discussing what that genre meant to us.  I love the first and second waves if emo and was delighted a few years ago when there was a renaissance of that sound with new bands forming and carrying the torch and the original bands doing reunions.  This sad, angsty genre became the butt of many jokes.  You have to be a romantic and a little self absorbed to appreciate the album's offered up.  If you like The Smiths you can make the transition to emo very easily.  I bought this cd in 1995 because of 'zine reviews and also because I loved the album title.  #mineral had taken the dynamic bombast that Sunny Day Real Estate had started and put their Midwest isolation stamp on it.
I became the butt of many jokes at work and at my apartment because this melodramatic music amplified my dour persona.  I was bummed out at the time and I really felt that this music intimately belonged to me.  The song "slower" off this album was a dangerous thing in my headphones.  I would completely lose myself, reality would melt away from around me and I would become the star of a sad, angry music video.  I'm sure more than one motorist was amused by the off-key howling pedestrian they just passed walking down Elmwood ave. I still love driving to that song.  It made my trip to the Philidelphia tattoo convention a few years ago a lot shorter as I clutched the air above the steering wheel singing in disharmony unity with the band.  It's powerful stuff once you let it envelope you.  I really hope to catch my friend's band and maybe relive some of this stuff.

Ghost "meliora"

My four year old son requests songs off of this CD every time we are in the car.  Last winter we introduced him to music videos, well his older brother was instrumental in this as well as he was already looking videos up on the Internet.  My wife and I were already #ghost fans and had seen them live the previous year.   Upon hearing about a video for their new single "cirice" we watched it as a family.  It really struck a chord with the middle child, the video features a child in Papa Emeritus garb leading the band at a talent show.  Kind of an over used concept but a striking video and great song none the less.  Our little guy wanted to watch it over and over again and began requesting the song in the car: "play rock and roll ghost dad!"   He quickly figured out how to use the YouTube app on our t.v. (despite not being able to read which shows how  nefariously effective the design of these addictive social and media devices are) and found more Ghost videos (and his other two favorites: Gorillaz and Katy Perry, whom he adorably calls "Kerry Perry")  He will occasionally ask to watch videos and I hope it's the lead off to a love of music. I speculate sometimes that Ghost might be his Kiss. The make-up clad rockers who started me on my path to fandom. Only time will tell.
My wife and I caught the band in their last tour and bought the boys some Nameless Ghouls masks to which we received a pouty "but I wanna be Papa"

The Clash "combat rock"

When we were teenagers a couple times a summer there would be a C.Y.O. dance held at a church hall.  My friends and I would go to them to chase skirts and fill the void of suburbia.  We would somehow manage to procure a bottle of whiskey,  sometimes stolen though most times it was the prize of begging someone's unsavory older relative that was cool with promoting delinquency to buy it for us.  We would sit on the railroad tracks near the church hall and take turns pulling from the bottle.  Word would get out and other bad kids would show up and help us drink and ceremoniously smash the bottle on the rails when we were done.  We would then stuff our mouths with Big Red gum to mask the odor of cheap whiskey. Like wobbly cinnamon chipmunks we would file into the dance.  Those nights were blurry and had all the separatist social trappings of a teen event: social cliques holding up separate walls and painfully self aware.  We were a loud and obnoxious set.  We played our "rebel without a cause" cards proudly and danced with girls outside of our social strata and draped our arms over our female friends as jocks prowled nearby.  I don't remember the music that was played at the dances but I do know we brought the whole event to a halt as our request to hear "should I stay or should I go" was denied.  Our group defiantly sat in the middle of the dance floor until the dj relented and played the track.  We jumped up and gleefully pogoed and swung each other around.  We were the kings and queens of all we surveyed! 
If you don't know this seminal album by #theclash you probably aren't interested in this blog anyway.

Shining "halmstad (Niklas angaende niklas)

A friend whose career in chemistry led him abroad to Europe has been my liason to the rich metal community thriving on that continent. When he visits I love hearing his stories of European culture and his unique perspective of the characters in his life.  I am envious of his access to many of the exotic metal bands in my cd collection, a great deal of them he introduced to me.
     This CD by #shining was one of those game changing albums that he introduced me to. It also introduced the sub-genre of Depressive Suicidal Black Metal (dsbm). A dumb title, but the accepted one.  Basically these are black metal bands with often slower tempos, unintelligible lyrics about depression and suicide (duh) and many times folk instrumentation is folded in.  I quickly fell in love with this style of music, it's as if many of my beloved slowcore bands became blindly misanthropic and started using their music to assault instead of sulk.  Well that's the way I fantasize anyway. This Shining disc is the encapsulation of all of that self-loathing musical experience. It's actually pretty breath taking if you give yourself up to the experience (an obvious intention I suppose given the title of the sub-genre)
My chemist friend has caught the band live a few times across the pond. He's tantalized me with stories of the band's self-mutilating performances.  Blood, spit and alcohol, by his accounts loads of blood, the vocalist is infamous for savagely cutting himself onstage and tossing razor blades into the crowd. In all honesty I'm pretty squeamish about that stuff, but I cannot disregard the emotional impact that this artistic statement of nihilism has.  I'm sure I'd be in the audience, I'm also sure I'd be very uncomfortable.  It's the same romanticism that has drawn me to greek tragedies, Hesse's "steppenwolf" and Shakespeareian teen suicides. Man this stuff is dark.  This album is a window into that hopelessness.  Morbid fascination I suppose, but they say that we feel most alive in the face of death.  This album is a staredown.

Deep Purple "fireball"

My dad died before I reached my second birthday.  He was drunk on his motorcycle so it was his own fault, no tragedy just negligence.  I have a boatload of emotional issues from never having known him.  As an adult I often wonder what parts of me are sctually him peeking through my genetic code.  I've heard second hand accounts of him and as I've gotten older those stories aren't always rose colored, but that's the stuff that gets me excited because those blemished tales lead me to a truer picture of him.  It feels weird to admit it, but often I miss him.  Like on a molecular level.
One of the things I learned about him is that he loved #deeppurple .  It fits in with his love of motorcycles.  I bought this cd because the album was released a year before my birth so it stands to reason he would have listened to it.  I was born the year they released "machine head" and while I love the romanticism of him rocking me rocking out to that monster of an album this one seems more likely.   I've listened to this disc quite a few times over the years and I often get dragged into a notion of nostalgia.  Wondering if he ever sat like I did absorbing these rollicking proto - metal riffs. I often wonder if music would have been some sort of passionate bridge during my angsty teenage years.  In turn this leads me to thinking about my sons.  Every time they show interest in music I get filled with hope that they will enjoy it as much as I do, that it will give us a language to communicate with when our generational dialects get too distant.   I wonder if they'll ever listen to this album and wonder about the grandfather they never met.

Death "scream bloody gore"

From the slap-your-forehead-can't-believe-noone-thought-of-this-before band moniker to the incredible Ed Repka album cover this was an album no metal head passed over. The debut "scream bloody gore" by #death is a feast of hesher delights.  It was released in 1987 on the heels of the Greatest Metal Year.  I had been enjoying the birth and perfection of thrash metal and my new found love of skate punk and hardcore, while we were very close to the birth of Death Metal this release was harbinger of what was to come.
I was lucky enough to have been paying attention to all this music at the time. I was still occasionally hanging with my old guard of headbanger friends cruising for pot and drinking in fields and was spending more time with my punk crew of friends skateboarding and drinking on drainage embankments.  Both groups loved hard fast music and I could personally cross pollinate the friends with the music of the dudes they'd never met.  I remember on this trip to a record store with my metal comrades I showed the other two guys this cassette and we all bought a copy unheard  (one of my friends bought the vinyl and if he still has that pressing should visit ebay).  We played it in the car on the drive back to our neighborhood and by the second track "zombie ritual" we were all exalting the album's virtues.
I thought with the tempos and frantic guitar my skateboarding brethren would really enjoy this tape as well but they were all turned off by the vocals, which kind of puzzles me to this day because they weren't melodramatic in an operatic way or any sort of gutteral grunt. The vocals were in fact not unlike a bunch of the crossover hardcore bands at the time (corrosion of conformity comes to mind).  It's when I began to realise  (and parade) that my musical tastes transcended social lines.  I felt it a shame that they would be bigoted to cool music just because of a clique mentality, but at the same time I relished in new music of all sorts (I was big into dire straits and Bruce Springsteen at this time too but those are other stories).  My path to obsessive collector was already paved.
If the horse you lead to water isn't drinking then just put headphones on

GBH "midnight madness and beyond"

This #gbh CD contains the "oh no, it's GBH again!" ep as bonus material. I originally bought the ep on cassette at the record store in the Eastern Hills Mall in 1988.  It was a covert operation because I was banned from that mall. As mohawked teens in suburbia in the late '80s we were an easy mark to spot so it was a pretty guerilla operation to infiltrate the mall.  It involved disguises and diversions.  The record store and video game arcade in the mall were worth the effort.  We would don hats to hide our 'dos and turn our various offensive t-shirts inside out, stash our skateboards in shrubs and split up and enter the mall in two different entrances.  It seemed to us that the security guards there loved to apprehend us, they would periodically comb the arcade and we would need a lookout to warn us to dance among the beeping circuited obelisks.  All this cloak and dagger stuff started because we were caught skateboarding through the mall and in our attempted escape one of us ran into (and demolished) one of those "tell your weight and fortune" machines.  It disintegrated like a probe Droid on hoth.  Later that year I got a job at the Friendly's restaurant in the mall and had to use their service entrance to circumvent my banning.
In any event this was a successful mission getting to the record store and I bought the ep.
After escaping the mall and collecting our skateboards for our parking lot rendezvous I was looking at the cover of the tape and not the pavement.  I caught a stone or something with a wheel and flew forward and road rashed my shoulder and side of my shorn head pretty good.  I sat up to assess the damage and realized I was at the feet of two cheerleader type girls with large '80s hair. They sneered at me in disgust as warm blood trickled into my ear. I frantically searched for the cassette, found it unharmed and hurriedly cavemaned back onto my board and skated away from those girls to catch up to my friends.  One of them yelled after me: "see you next fall!"
It's rather amazing to me how much my life could have been written into some sort of John Hughes movie. The song "malice in Wonderland"would have been a perfect score for this scene.

https://youtu.be/it-Y121oJZM

Jesus Jones "doubt"

Every once in a while a CD collection needs pruning.  Things you've bought on a whim that didn't pan out to your tastes, gifts you've stubbornly held on to for sentimental reasons, etc. Honing your collection until it's bulletproof,  no fluff.  After all, there's only so much room on the wall of shelves.
I have traded in and later re-purchased this #jesusjones disc no less than four times. I originally bought the album upon it's 1991 release based on the great single "right here, right now".   The first time I remember letting it go was at a desperate time in my life where I needed cash I didn't have and I traded in a box of CDs and comic books. I also remember a time I got super snobby about my rebuilt collection and traded in a bunch of major label discs (so young and idealistic, and dumb). A third time was during a simple impulsive pruning and the fourth instance was to jettison a bunch of weight before a move.  After each and every one of these instances of abandonment I later found the CD in a bargain bin and repurchased it.  The constant appearance in $1 cases at record stores illustrates I wasn't the only one pawning off this disc.  I often wonder how many other music aficionados have repurchased it as well.
It's a great pop record. Admittingly it's very early '90s sounding. Lots of clubby drum machine patterns, infectious positive vibe vocals and sample/synth manipulation at every turn.  A few of the songs have enough teeth to appeal to the post - nine inch nails crowd (me).  It's actually a really good album.  It's just not a "cool" CD. 
For me the "$1.00" sticker on it's cover is a reminder to me not to give up on this little under valued guy.  And I HATE price stickers left on jewel cases.

Pallbearer "sorrow and extinction"

#pallbearer have a 100% "turn on" rate.  Every person I introduce to this band end up digging them.  It's a little baffling because they are, after all, doom metal.  All the trappings of the genre are present: slow as molasses tempos, long songs (none under 7 minutes) and depressing as a suicide note lyrics.  So why does this band appeal to the "what is doom metal?" crowd?  I'm not sure.  I mean the vocalist sings in the ozzy register, maybe it's the lack of death growls or Gothic operatic vocals that litter the genre that are appealing. The production of the album is pristine, the guitar distortion is warm and organic.  There's no razor like tones or thin sounding drums to put casual listeners off.  I don't know.  I do know this debut full length is a modern doom metal classic.
The band is performing tonight at a club a few blocks from my house and I'm almost as excited to people watch the crowd as I am to catch the group's set.  I'm curious if their appeal is as diverse as I've found or if it'll be another room of bearded dudes with "dopesmoker" t-shirts on (nary a girl in sight).  However that pans out I'm going to have an awesome soundtrack.

The Black Heart Procession "2"

Today is a rare rainy morning this summer.  I forget how much I like wet weather and this summer has been an awful drought. Sitting on my porch I can almost smell autumn, and I'm enjoying this music-noir CD by #theblackheartprocession .  This album is darkly cinematic with its slow tempos and grand instrumentation.  It feels eastern European at times like gypsy witchcraft.  I've loved it's lonely scope ever since I found the album.
I'm pretty sure I purchased it based on the band's moniker back in 1999 and the fact that the label Touch And Go was a trustworthy stalwart. 
A couple weeks ago we saw a raincloud dumping it's contents from a distance, we pointed it out to our sons and thought it was pretty novel seeing it from that perspective. The grey drape curving away under the darker grey awning, it made you appreciate the journey of the raindrops and could see that their path wasn't a straight freefall.  Music like this demands that same examination, that the notes aren't always direct and build context for each other.  That a cursory listen doesn't reveal the scope of the song.  I love when albums pull you in deeper with each consecutive listen. And with the sound of the rain hitting my porch as ambiance I'm enjoying this cd even more again.

Candlemass "nightfall"

I'm going to wave my "doom metal" flag here.  I bought this seminal album upon it's release in 1987.  To be fair, at the time I didn't know "doom metal" was a thing, and after purchasing it I still didn't.   The great thing about being angry and young was that I didn't like following "rules", so while I was a skateboarder with a mohawk I could still get into whatever music I wanted, even #candlemass . 
I bought this album solely because of it's bad ass album cover.  It's appropriation of a Thomas Cole painting drips with sorrow and loneliness.  The music the cover contains is every bit as sorrowful.  It's Black Sabbathian dirge offset by the melodramatic operatic vocals of Messiah Marcolin. 
My friend's all hated this album, so it turned into an appropriately solitary listen.  It's slow songs with Gothic narratives suited me.  I would hide in my bedroom away from my step father and pour over the lyric sheet as these masterful riffs set to glacial tempos drifted me into almost out-of-body distraction.  I still know all the lyrics and all the theatrical vocal swoops of the chubby Messiah.  That was another thing I liked about the record: they were not a pretty band.  While the liner notes had an array of band photography I felt as if they were part of my "not gonna get laid" set.
This album was in stark contrast to the thrash and crossover metal bands I had been listening to at the time and reminded me of the roots of mystical menace that had drawn me to metal in the first place. In my personal history with music I can see with hindsight just how important this album was in shaping my later tastes.
Tune low play slow.

Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings "100 days, 100 nights"

In 2007 I walked into New World Record's last location before closing (miss that place) and this #sharonjonesandthedapkings album was playing. It immediately grabbed my attention with it's pulsing rhythms, vintage sound and Sharon Jones velvety and brash vocals.  I had fallen in love with Amy Winehouse's "back to black" album and this sounded like the precursor.   Turned out I was half right, the dap kings played on Winehouse's album but this record was a new release a year later.  Interestingly the label it was put out on was sort of a Brooklyn collective that was releasing and reviving a stable of vintage sounding soul music. To this day it's a label that I buy their new releases sight unseen and am never disappointed.  Do yourself a favor and catch any of them live.  Incredible.
I've liked soul music for a while, I would add to my cd collection occasionally if I found used stuff by artists I already liked.  Always enjoyed hearing deep album cuts from artists who I was singles-friendly with but was naive to the wealth of the genre. Discovering this disc and the record label that put it out ignited a love for this style of music that lead me to research the genre in a workmanlike way.  Reading online articles and purchasing books about soul and R&B music. I started quickly amassing a formidable collection of soul gems.  When I get obsessive like this over styles of music I tend to collect first, usually giving each album a cursory listen and then going back methodically and rediscovering the discs I've purchased.  Sharon Jones and the dap kings CDs immediately live with me for a while, they ride shotgun in the car, they get ripped to my beloved MP3 player (still have 2 functioning Zunes) and they get played many consecutive Sunday mornings.  Just like today.

Gang Green "you got it"

Summers were long when I was a teenager.  In the years before cell phones and Internet access you had a lot more time to kill.  Many of our days were spent wandering around passive aggressively searching for friends/stuff to do.  You'd make a phone call in the morning and if you didn't reach anyone you headed out to likely meeting spots and waited to see if anyone else arrived.  While I don't resent this age of technological immediacy I do sometimes miss the simpler times because often on those wandering days you discovered adventure.
In 1988 if I wanted to see my friends I headed to one of our suburban skate spots. Sometimes I'd carry a boom box and often that summer it would be playing #ganggreen .  I was 17 years old and my friends and I loved drinking as much as we loved skating.  Gang Green provided a great soundtrack for both of those endeavors.  At this point in their career they played a melodic and heavy brand of skate-punk.  With anthemic songs like "LDSB (let's drink some beer)" we ate this shit up.
One day I was waiting around the steps to the junior high where we used to no-comply and acid drop off the ledges. Some of my other friend's turned up soon after and we lazily skated in the heat.  A shitty car pulled up and out stepped a punk rock goddess with a silver fluffy mohawk and asked us what was up.  This legendary creature (who became known in reverence as "Punk Rock Jen") had seen us skating, heard the music and decided we were cool and stopped to talk to us.  She was a few years older than us and had a car.  She was worshipped by my whole crew.  On this, our first meeting, she asked who was playing on the radio, I told her and she said she liked it.  I yanked the cassette out of it's saddle and eagerly offered it to her. She flashed a smile that would have snapped my tony hawk deck in half.  She drove us around looking for our other friends listening to this album.  We found everyone and ended up drinking on "the dykes" (a concrete drainage embankment) and Punk Rock Jen pierced my ear with a filthy safety pin from her clothes.  Those were the days.

Nico "Chelsea girl"

In 1991 I was working as a dishwasher in an Italian restaurant as I attended college.  The job paid shit but I could eat all I wanted so it was a trade off I could live with.  The head chef was a bohemian who loved Bob Dylan, the Velvet Underground and surrealist art.  We hit it off and became friends, I'm pretty sure he liked to live vicariously through my youthful enthusiasm for anything subversive. Some nights after work I would skateboard to the house he rented with his wife and child and we would sit in his living room and paint and draw.  He would buy me cheap bottles of Wild Irish Rose (jack kerouack's poison) and he'd disappear to his driveway to smoke weed.  He'd play records and whistle out of tune to vocal lines.  One of his favorites was the first Velvet Underground album, it was sort of like hearing punk or metal for the first time again. A style of music that was unique to itself.
There was a head shop in that small town that resembled a small flea market.  Amongst the incense and bongs they also sold comic books out of boxes and used records and CDs.  One day I was digging through the boxes of discs and recognized Nico's name from that VU album.  I snagged it for a couple of bucks (all I had ) and brought it with me to the Chef's house that night after work.  He was unfamiliar with it and we listened to the album as we pushed paint around on some plywood he found in his basement.  The record is a strange melancholy affair and #nico germanic deep vocals washed over us. We played the cd too loud and were scolded by his wife.  We played it a second time immediately so he could tape the album for himself.
Ten years later a couple of these songs turned up in the soundtrack for the movie "The Royal Tenebaums". I remember I had to rewind the movie because hearing the songs brought me deep into a nostalgic trance.  Sure wish I had saved some of the paintings I had done with chef at that time.  They were experimental and free from self-conscious editing, and it was also when I began to really search music out and listen to unique things that my peers didn't know.  Like this gem of a sad album.

Jets To Brazil "orange rhyming dictionary :

I never got to see Jawbreaker live.  Always bums me out when I think about that.  I heard the singer/guitarist Blake had a new band and we're playing their debut gig in NYC so I purchased a train ticket and headed east.  The new band #jetstobrazil sounded amazing and pretty much where his old band had left off.  Not long after the show the band released this debut in 1998.
While I've always absolutely hated this fucking album cover and "orange rhyming dictionary " is such a forced wordsmith title, the actual music it contains is really great.  Plenty of guitar hooks and a rock solid rhythm section.  It's the sort of album that pundits would refer to as "mature" coming from the band's punk roots. Dashes of accent keyboards precede the instruments more central role on the band's later releases, but here it is still regulated to flavoring the songs rather than carrying them.
I got to see this band again on this tour cycle as the played Discovery Records in a suburb of Buffalo.  I had brought a demo cd of the band I played in and wanted to give it to Blake.  I didn't want to give it to him with any motives of "helping my band" I just wanted him to hear some music that his work helped inspire. Pay it back sort of thing.  I mean if he wrote me and said he loved it I would have been super into that, but honestly I just wanted him to have it. Even if he never listened to it I got to stammer a quick "thanks for all your inspiration" and know he received the cd because I handed it to him.  I do wonder if he ever popped it into a player, or if it got trampled in their van. The secret life of that cd.

Zombi "cosmos"

I just finished binge watching the show "Stranger Things".  I loved the '80s set piece and it made me feel very nostalgic for a pre-cell phone world. One of my favorite aesthetic parts is the series opening credit sequence graphics and music.  It reminded me alot of those old Goblin scored movies on vhs in my youth, which in turn reminded me of the contemporary band #zombi .  Zombi are a two piece instrumental band originally from Romero country. They play progressive rock that is based on vintage synthesizers and polyrhythms. I remember going to check the band out at a small defunct Buffalo venue called Soundlab in 2009.  I was amazed that the band replicated their songs live. The two multi instrumentalists calmly performed these long dynamic songs building dynamic tension and dissolving them masterfully, it really was something to behold.  The vintage keyboards give the songs a very eerie quality that they owe to all the sci fi/horror soundtracks of the '80s which created that tonal perspective. It's really cool how the band straddles the line of vintage/contemporary sound and this stuff is interesting enough where it doesn't relegate itself to "background" music (no small feat for instrumental outfits)
If any of the producers of the show #StrangerThings stumbled across this blog I would implore them to have the band score future episodes. And to use a colloquial ism of the period:  Man, that would be radical.

No thesaurus was harmed during the making of this blog.  I pride myself on vocabulary.

16 "curves that kick"

In the early nineties I joined the Pushead fan club.  Pushead is probably the single biggest influence on my art ( @hyperstoic ) when I first saw the metallica t-shirt for "damage inc." It was like a bell tolled in my head.  Poetics aside it really changed my life, it was like an even scarier Derek Riggs (the dude who did all those awesome Iron Maiden illustrations )  as a member of pushead's fan club I received all kinds of prints, stickers and vinyl.  The 10" for the band #16  "curves that kick" was actually one of the few bands I liked on his Bacteria Sour record label.  The album cover is pure Pushead awesomeness (through its a bit obvious he didn't want to draw the figure's hands or feet)  the music is  a rhythmic sludgefest with barked vocals.  This record was released in 1993 and is akin to the stuff bands like Crowbar and Eyehategod were doing at the time.  There's some cool use of effects pedals to add some flavor to din.  I ordered the cd from his label directly since I didn't have reliable access to a record player, I still have both copies.  I've remained loyal to their career over the years and they have continued to their path of hazy sludge.  They re-released this album a few years ago with inferior non-pushead artwork, but the remastered disc does sound a lot better.

Elvis Costello "spike"

Waiting for coffee to brew after a stressful and embarrassing morning.  I put this CD on for cormfort.  #elviscostello silky smooth croon and the lush arrangements on this album have always soothed my mood.

You know what?  Fuck it.  The joy was sucked from this today and instead of writing a scathing blog today I'm going to just skip it.

No thesaurus was harmed in the making of this blog.

Mayhem "deathcrush"

I read the book "lords of chaos" in 2004.  It a biographical look at the birth of the modern black metal culture. The book recounts all the music, murder, arson and misanthropy of the culture.  I was fascinated.  Here was the culmination of what our parents feared about heavy metal.  It's extreme almost cartoonish end game. I started avidly buying black metal CDs  while reading the book.  A huge chunk of the book is dedicated to the band #mayhem and it's circus of murderous arsonist members.  I ordered the "deathcrush" mini lp online since I couldn't find it at any local record stores (man, how I miss Home of the Hits). At first listen I was a little disappointed, the legend of the release was already so infamous that it was a real tall order to fulfill my expectations.  I was immediately impressed by the diversity of the tribal drum intro and the spooky keyboard passages.  The problem was I was listening to this album 17 years after it's 1987 release.  Music had gotten much more extreme.  Once I found that perspective I grew to love this release.  If I had heard this in high school I would have been enamored instantly.
I was hooked on the black metal. I approached it in an archival manner.  I was determined to listen to all of its essential releases and find the new strains of grimness.  In an event of pure synchronicity I walked into Record Theatre around this time and someone had traded in their black metal collection. It was a dark treasure trove.  I begged the staff member I was familiar with to save the CDs for me and I returned with more money than I should have spent.  The quest that had begun with the book and this disc was now in full insatiable swing.

The Dismemberment Plan "emergency & i"

September 11, 2001.  It's an infamous day for Americans.  Ask anyone where they were on that exact date and they can tell you. It was a horrifically sad event.
September 12, 2001. A handful of us wandered to the Mohawk Place in a daze to see the band #thedismembermentplan .  Everyone there was reeling, we were talking about trying to reach friends in NYC. We were all talking about the tragedy and the pending count of human life lost. Really none of it had settled in yet, we were all in shock.  There weren't many of us at the music club. But those of us there knew each other and it was comforting to see familiar faces.  The band took the stage solemnly.  The vocalist talked about the need for us to be together. The need to cope and heal. The roles music and art have in such a dire time. They launched into their set and played all the the thoughtful indie rock I wanted to hear from this terrific album.  For a little while that small room filled with loud music was all that existed, it was a welcome reprieve.  The show ended, we hugged each other,  thanked the band and wished them well on the remainder of their tour.  On the way home that night the car I was in hit and flipped an ambulance onto it's side. Such a surreal couple of days.
This cd is an eclectic indie rock affair. Guitars and keyboards intertwine in syncopated rhythms. The singers nasal warble paints intimate pictures of belonging and longing. It's a great disc (it's also out of print but worth shelling out a little extra moolah for it)
Check out the song "you are invited" a dynamic welcoming gem.

Husker Du "candy apple grey"

This #huskerdu album was my premeditated breakup album before I really ever had a girlfriend. Another gem introduced to me by the drummer in my first punk band, this isn't Husker Du's best album but it is my favorite.
We all envision our lives as movies from time to time, I think the detachment can help us cope with difficulty and help us magnify our joys. We all know the really good movies have really great soundtracks. Seasonal songs, love songs, driving songs and yes... breakup songs.  This cd contains a batch of great indie boy/girl "don't need you anymore but I'm too depressed to get off the couch" tracks.  As a teenager I was developing quickly into a romantic, I fumbled through crushes and botched interest from the fairer gender while searching for some movie - like romance.  I always wanted to be one of those John Cusack roles (while I was actually closer to one of those Anthony Michael Hall characters )
This album was an awesome feeling-sorry-for-myself set up. I languished alongside the band even if I had to live vicariously through their music.
Skip the first caustic track "crystal" on your first listen.  I have always felt this would have made a better cathartic album closer.
If you don't include "don't want to know if you're lonely" on your next breakup mix I will eat my hat.

Bouncing Souls "maniacal laughter"

In the mid-'90s I was the art director for a punk t.v. show called "Punk Uprisings".  I got the gig because the producer had seen my art in some fanzines and had tracked me down. The show was videos and interviews with punk bands and was played during infomercial time slots.  I got to do a bunch of art for the show and became a contact for bands.  I was informed that the #bouncingsouls had written the theme song for the show and she was sending my a copy of it. I had already been a fan of the band's debut album so I was excited to hear it.  I received a package from their bass player "Papillion ", it contained a cassette with the theme song on it and this cd. I briefly corresponded with "Papillion" (who turned out to be Bryan). Bryan also did the art for the band and he layer became an awesome tattoo artist. I wish I had kept up with that penpal.
The Bouncing Souls play romantic punk music. That's not to say all the songs are about girls (though a bunch seem to be) they are romantic about being punk.  They convey what it is to find the treasures in a day to day life, they can turn mundane experiences into adventures. They can write songs about how cool it would be to have a BMX bicycle.
The band just released a new album and I'm anxious to pick it up. It's kind of like catching up with old estranged friends.

Pedro The Lion "winners never quit"

With the election looming this fall I was reminded of this concept album by #pedrothelion "winners never quit".  I love concept albums.  It probably started when I discovered the story behind Pink Floyd's "the wall" as a young teen.  The fact that each song was a chapter in an album length story was extremely novel to me (oh joyous play on words). It's very cinematic and adds delicious layers to the abstractions of music.  It's not that this disc is great at delivering an acute tale, it's doesn't.  It's about as loose and foggy as a concept album can be while still being called such.  Though I think the strength here is in the poetic rather than literal lyrics. It's more like a story board album. Snapshots from a bigger picture.  The story I get from all this is a brother's ascent and fall in politics with mariticide, alcoholism, parental favoritism and blind faith in God's reward all playing roles. The lyricist David Bazan let's you connect dots he's mapped out and it makes for a fun thoughtful listen.
This record revolves in my playing list coinciding with presidential terms in office. Every four years I'm reminded how much I like this cd and I'm reminded how much I generally think politicians are sleazy egomaniacs.

Alcest "ecailles de lune"

In 2009 my ex wife and I separated for divorce. Through a friend I was able to procure an awesome apartment in the lower west side of buffalo. The place was two floors in an old brick house and was much more room than I was looking for, I had fantasized about a spartan studio apartment for my lonely guy lifestyle but for the "friends only" rent I couldn't turn the place down.  It had taken me a while to get used to the new underfurnished surroundings, but it was exciting none the less to steadily reacquire all the trappings of modern life.
I remember standing in my kitchen one morning watching my coffee brewer doing its job and since a tattooer doesn't start til the crack of noon an early bird like me had plenty of staring time. I had discovered this album and played it often at that time.
#alcest play an ethereal shoe gaze strain of black metal, and as the band has evolved there has been less and less metal in their releases leaving them in a dream pop sort of territory.  On this cd though they retained some screamed vocal passages and staccato picked guitars to sharpen the edges of the wistful dreamy parts. The lyrics are sung in french so as a non-speaker they become vocal abstractions which adds nuance without distracting imagery.  I would stand in my kitchen during those dark late winter mornings in a fume of brewing coffee half wondering what the vocalist was getting at but not really caring.  I didn't want to hear someone else's sad story I just wanted a sad comforting song bird as a distraction.  Alcest were a comfort during that time.
The band has just announced their new album to be released this fall, it's a perfect time for one of their discs and I'm excited for it's release.

Jesu "s/t"

In 2005 I was roasting coffee in a factory on Buffalo's east side. I had gotten into roasting coffee as a craftsman. I worked in a specialty coffee store where the work was creative and diverse but I was lured away to the factory where the salary was higher but the work was soul suckingly routine. I had been doing in for a couple of years and my mp3 player and headphones were the one thing that kept my sanity during those endless days of same.
For many years I had been a Godflesh fan, so when I heard that Justin Broadrick had a new project I bought it sight unseen.  I loved the cd on first listen. It's heavy, slow and melodic melancholy shoe gaze music. It's sad and beautiful compositions that slowly envelope you with effects drenched guitars that sound unlike guitars (much in a My Bloody Valentine way). His slow subdued croon was hinted at on the last Godflesh album "hymns", and even though it's heavily processed in #jesu the vocals relate a very dream state human condition.  It all really fit in with my factory experience.  I listened to this album constantly during that period, and I have bought every subsequent release unquestioning. His sizeable  discography has gotten more melodic and has maybe sacrificed some of the "heavy" in later releases but I still really love these albums.
He has since resurrected Godflesh and I was fearful that jesu would fall to the wayside but he remains amazingly prolific and releases this flavor of his art under the moniker still.