Broken Hearts Are Blue "truth about love"

In 1997 I bought this #brokenheartsareblue cd because at the time I would have purchased anything called "broken hearts are blue".  This is one of those albums that when I revisit it I am awash with both nostalgia and simultaneously just how fucking good it is.  It's a period piece to be sure. It's post-hardcore/indie/emo when that stuff wasn't yet formulaic and hadn't become a saturated genre of a sound rather than songs.  The band is a relative mystery.  I've checked on the internet over the years looking for more projects by the members in hopes of hearing more of this sincere rock.  In 2015 someone released a remixed/remastered version of this cd on their bandcamp page.  While it's fun to hear this beloved album reexamined I vastly prefer the original form. There's no gloss, no sheen of cliche production. The album sounds like a well done rehearsal recording, everything is audible and seperate. There are some warts on the performances but that only makes it seem more valid and sincere.  There is a bookworm-chic angle at play here that I love too, it's just pretentious enough to feel smart but never comes off as annoyingly vague or condescending.  I was listening to this in my car as I drove our youngest son to my mother-in-law's home in Niagara Falls. It's a cold grey rainy morning and I was pounding my steering wheel to soulful drum fills and howling off-key along to the vocals. It was beautifully melancholic catharsis.  It's a favorite of mine.
I checked amazon to see if there were any reviews or gossip about this out of print release.  I was shocked to see that people are asking $150-$450 for this CD!  It feels even a little more treasured now.
Definitely look this up on bandcamp.

The Geraldine Fibbers "what part of get thee gone don't you understand? "

I have a weird soft spot for '70s and early '80s country music.  As a child my parents both listened to the stuff and for many consecutive summers we attended clam bakes and events at a Rod and Gun Club in Franklinville,NY.  My parents and their friends would drink, eat and drink while their kids and my siblings would hunt for crayfish, skip rocks, play hide and seek and generally just wander around the countryside.  At night they would move their drinking into the club's bar and give us quarters to play the jukebox.  The lot of us kids would twirl and dance to George Jones, Eddie Rabbit and Charley Pride.  I've since gone in to buy those nostalgic CDs but before I did I was turned onto this #thegeraldinefibbers disc.  A co-worker had been playing this in the print shop where we worked.  They cover a bunch of those country standards I had loved as a kid in a loving but avant-garde style.  Weird wobbly musical saws and androgynous vocals brought the songs back to my attention.  I caught this band perform at the Mohawk Place in the late '90s and shortly after bought the rest of their epic and varied discography.

Braid "frame and canvas"

#braid were the band that made me love the tense/release style of post-punk/emo.  It's a very rhythmic way to play which really accentuates time signatures and counter rhythms. I'm a suckered for this stuff.  This cd was in constant rotation in 1998, a time when I was starting to play in a variety of bands.  I was folding in all this stuff I was discovering, pulling influences and trying to write in those sounds.  I ended up playing in goth-folk, shoegaze, indie, stoner rock and doom metal bands.  But in 1999 I wanted to be in a Braid rip-off band. I was able to catch them perform just before they broke up at a weird bar/hall on Buffalo's east side.  They were muscular sounding without being "tough".  They pulsed with precision in a paneled back room that smelled of years of spilled cheap beer and unchanged mop water.  It was one of those "so glad I was there" shows.  I feel like I went on to share stages with every person in that room.  You hear talk of "scenes", and while those are often inflated accounts or misleading cultural adhesives, that night watching these guys in an off the beaten path venue felt intimately special.  I brought a person to the show I was in a fledgling band with.  A year later I quit that band and that dude had weaseled his way into the upper echelon indie rock snob levels.  On more than one occasion I heard him cite this show.  It really was that good.  And this disc is the crowning jewel of their discography.

Curtis Mayfield "superfly"

Some albums are just make you want to pick up a fender jazz bass you haven't touched in years and pluck it in front of your small children.  This is one of those albums.  While doing housework today I put this meaty masterpiece on by #curtismayfield and little butts were shaking while dad was dusting.  It's one of those albums that usually yields  a "why don't I play this more?" revelation.   I was reading the back liner notes while the cd player was loading and I realised this disc was released the year I was born.  I started thinking about how I must have been destined to be a bass player if I was birthed along side this record.  Then I considered how many people were born that year and a higher ratio of bass players born in 1972 is probably unlikely and that sometimes I get carried away with these notions.  The bass playing on this disc though... sheesh.  It's not flashy, it not slap and pop gymnastics... it's tasteful and commanding.  The warm thick tone of the production is like soothing honey to my ears.  It's records like this that make me fall in love with the instrument all over again .  Now I've never cited Mayfield as an influence, the fact is though you're favorite bass player probably really loves this album, so by transitive influence this cd has changed your playing as well.  My betting money is that my favorites Nate Mendel, Joe Lally, Geddy Lee and Josh English all love this album.
One afternoon of listening to this cd two times in a row has me contemplating picking up a small practice amp (the wife would kill me if I fired up the Ampeg).  It's doing what music is supposed to do: inspire.

Snfu "and noone else wanted to play"

One of my skateboarding buddies used to wear this t-shirt.  I held him in high regard so I bought the cassette when he wasn't around so I could listen to it and legitimately hang out alongside that great shirt.  It's great politically incorrect thrash punk from the mid '80s with some sort of cannibalism obsession.  A couple years layer when I had moved to the country after failing to emancipate my ass and losing my teenage job I met the only rural punk rock skateboarder and we instantly became friends and made each other mix tapes.  He put "cannibal cafe" off this album on the tape he made me.  That was another vote of relevance for the album.  If a record keeps appearing in your life you know it's a keeper, so this one has adorned my collection for many years.

Dr. Octagon "s/t"

The #droctagon album is one of those genre defying anomalies.  I always had a harder time getting into rap mainly because my suburban white upbringing didn't coincide with the lyrics of most of the rap I had heard.  I've always enjoyed the deeply rhythm based music but the poetry didn't effect me.  When I heard this CD the weird sci-fi sexual stream of conscience lyrics weren't alienating to me.  I know that sounds weird because I'm not a sex obsessed extraterrestrial.  I just didn't feel fraudulent enjoying the words.  The rapper Kool Keith who adopted the Dr.octagon persona for this release is a well documented anomaly in hip-hop. He's a polarizing character with an immense discography.  This was my first exposure to him and ultimately my favorite.  After years of listening to this (it was released in 1996) I became aware that the real reasons this CD is so damn good is the producer Dan the Automator and turntableist DJ Qbert.  The sci-fi soap opera aural setting for the rap is an alchemistic perfect storm.  Everything is perfect.  Every bloopy-bleep is precisely where it needs to be and every sample - scratch is tasteful and masterfully done.  All you have to do is listen to the instrumental track "bear witness" to hear their masterful and seamless production shine.  The album is a unique listen that has a universal appeal.  That's no small feat.
Oh and it has a Pushead album cover so I would prob own it even if it sucked (I'm looking at you Blitzspeer).

Juno "and this is the way it goes and goes and goes"

I first heard #juno from a 7" I received to review for a fanzine.  The a-side "Venus on 9th street" became a favorite of mine and I included it on a bunch of mix tapes in 1998. So when my band got asked to open for them when they came through town I was pretty pumped.  The show was in a basement in Buffalo's University Heights neighborhood.   All I really remember from the show was that it was comfortably cramped and I played through a borrowed fender bass cabinet that I absolutely hated. The other thing I remember is that Juno had three guitarists and the woven playing was something to behold live.  Recordings often have multiple tracked guitars, so the effect on the album doesn't have the same magnitude, live however it was really remarkable.   It was alot of fun being a part of the music scene in buffalo at that time.  There was a great culture around it, shows got booked at venues and houses, people came out to each other's shows. We made friendships with touring bands and traded shows in other cities. It really felt like it was adding up to something.  To quote Emett Otter's mom: "the fact that it didn't doesn't seem to matter much"  And to quote Penny Lane from the movie "Almost Famous"  "whenever you get lonely you can just go to the record store and visit your friends".