A HUGE batch of Helen Love singles (rips n' scans) were donated to MRML by the amazing Bristolboy from the world-rocking blog, My Life's A Jigsaw.
Helen Love (more HERE) and friends wish you the best for the New Year, as do we here at MRML!
1 The School – Kiss You In The Snow 2 Caitlin And Shauna Love (Helen Love) – Joey Ramone Snowman 3 Corazón – El Regalo 4 My Little Airport – 阿波馬草結婚了 (Por And Macho Got Married)
I have a thing for bands who refuse to quit in the face of indifference and another thing for tribute songs, which makes '77 era Scottish punk vets, The Zips latest single, "The Road to Strummerville", released as a benefit for the the Strummerville charity, a touching find. (via the Clash Blog)
As I said in the Albums of the Year post (see HERE), this list cannot claim much omniscience but rather it just offers my perspective on the kind of undervalued but ferociously alive releases that the big name lists tend to ignore.
Our second BotY list covers all those EP's and singles not applicable for that "Best Underappreciated Albums That Rocked 2012" (see HERE). As usual, this list is heavy on the punk and pop-punk heavy 'cuz punk bands have always had a thing for short, explosive releases.
(All artist name links go directly to a homepage - or some such place - for your further listening pleasure.)
1. Channel 3 - Land of the Free EP
A viscous comeback by Cerritos, California's CH3 (more HERE), who have kept at it for thirty years just for the love of loud n' fast rock and anthemic song-wring!
2. Max Levine Ensemble - Elephant in the Room EP
Washington D.C.'S Max Levine Ensemble (more HERE), a quirky loud-guitar band beloved in the pop-punk community, put out what might be their best single this year.
3. Japandroids - House that Heaven Built 7" Celebration Rock by Vancouver's Japandroids was huge on indie-rock-based lists, which is fitting because with songs like 'The House that Heaven Built', a loud, fuzzy anthem, they deserved some damn accolades.
4. Kurt Baker - Want You Around EP
Portland power-pop-punk Kurt Baker (more HERE) keeps racking up the hits (his album Brand New Beat would've been on my Albums of the Year list if I'd had more room).
5. Will Hoge - Modern American Protest Songs EP
A rough country-rock attack on American indifference by Nashville misfit, Will Hoge (more HERE).
6. The Street Dogs - G.O.P. 7"
A sing-along street-punk attack on the Grand Old Party (courtesy of British Oi! band, Menace) by The Street Dogs (more HERE), a Boston-based off-shoot of the Dropkick Murphys.
7. Dead Ending - Self-Titled EP
Some might call Dead Ending (more HERE), featuring Rise Against bassist Joe Principe, Alkaline Trio drummer Derek Grant,
The Bomb and Noise By Numbers guitarist Jeff Dean and Articles of Faith
singer Vic Bondi,
a Chicago punk super group but judging from
this furious E.P, they're really more of a celebration of the joy of rage.
8. Capitalist Kids - Sarah/Ayn 7"
T'was a big year for political singles and Austin, Texas's Capitalist Kids (more HERE) knew they had to go big and consequently went after two movement conservative babes, Sarah Palin and Ayn Rand who's influence in right wing circles subsequently declined - COINCIDENCE?
9. Big Eyes - Back From the Moon 7"
On this single, Seattle punk/pop band Big Eyes (more HERE) puts
the hooks and the crunch together just so, in a decidedly Fastbacks-ian manner
10. Teenage Bottlerocket - Joy Division 7"
Wyoming pop-punkers Teenage Bottlerocket (more HERE) branch out by effectively covering two less-known tracks by Manchester's favourite doom merchants, Joy Division.
11. The Dahlmanns - Dumb Me Down 7"
Norway's Lords of Punk-Powereed-Pop, The Dahlmanns (more HERE) just go from strength to strength!
12. House Boat - 21st Century Breakroom 10"
This concept 10" jumps from brilliant idea to brilliant idea to dizzying effect - far and away their best release (more HERE)
13. The Swingin' Utters - The Librarians are Hiding Something
Punk rock + librarians = Utter perfection (more on San Francisco's Swingin' Utters HERE)
14. TV Smith - Dangerous Playground EP
Just when this four-song'er, recorded to accompany a German play, threatens to be a minor entry in Englishman TV Smith's (more HERE) catalog along comes the anthemic "The Rock n' Roll" to blow you away.
15. The Mockers: Man of la Mancha EP
Long-running Virginia band The Mockers (more HERE) are a straight-up power-pop with a weakness for show tunes and political satire.
While I'm sure I missed some great little releases, that covers almost everything - EXCEPT YOUR VOICE!
Did you hear anything you liked on this list? What wold make your list of best singles/E.P's of 2012? LET US KNOWIN THE COMMENTS SECTION!!
I can't kvetch much about 2012; pop radio's song-writing improved a bit, some indie-rock got spikier, pop-punk kept its 21st century momentum, dub-step gave us all a genre to crack-wise about and, Hell, I even found a hip-hop album to love. As usual, I make no bones about the narrowness of this old geezer's listening regime, and hence this list reflects my taste for hard-hitting albums that didn't dominate the big name 'Best of the Year' lists.
(All artist name links go directly to a homepage - or some such place - for your listening pleasure.)
1. Masked Intruder: Self-Titled
Wisconsin's Masked Intruder (more HERE) breathe fresh life into pop-punk not only by writing killer songs but also by taking it's favoured lyrical stance to its most extreme conclusion:
2. Jake Bugg: Self-Titled
Bob
Dylan-Lonnie Donnegan-Donovan-Oasis-Tallest Man on Earth. Fill in the
dashes and you've got every review ever written about this young
song-writer from Nottingham, the year's winner of my annual "Dylan-Was-a-Punk' Award.
3. OFF! - Self-Titled L.A.H.C. - fuck, yeah!
4. Undecided by Default: Totally Undecided
Australian indie-surf-punk-garage-pop group were heralded by The Un-herd Music (and not many others), despite stand-out songs like, "Way Too Cool": Undecided by Default - "Way Too Cool"
5. Graham Parker and the Rumour: Three Chords Good Three Chords Good is a cool, confident comeback from England's Graham Parker and The Rumour (more HERE), who've been estranged for thirty years.
6. Duncan Reid: Little Big Head
Duncan "Kid" Reid from London's seventies pop-punks, The Boys, put out a solo album that expertly re-assembles all the pop, glam and punk elements that made his band so original.
7. Chuck Prophet: Temple Beautiful
San Francisco singer-songwriter-rocker, Chuck Prophet (more HERE), formerly of eighties alt-rockers Green on Red, has been quietly releasing albums full of incredibly well-written songs for years to way-too-little acclaim.
8. The Coup: Sorry to Bother You
Incendiary, rapier-witted but still catchy, Sorry to Bother You by Oakland's The Coup (more HERE) proves that this group's in it for the long haul.
9. Teenage Bottlerocket: Freak Out
Despite being devout members of the Church of the Ramones, Wyoming's Teenage Bottlerocket (more HERE) are always up for a few heretical ideas - sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse - which keeps their albums inspirational.
10. Gentleman Jesse: Leaving Atalanta
Former Atlantan Gentleman Jesse (more HERE) delivers his finest set of driving rock n' roll songs.
11. Futureheads: Rant
Scottish art-punks The Futureheads (more HERE) go A Capella to stunning effect.
12. Terry Malts: Self-Titled
As I said about this California band recently (see HERE), "maybe the ever-fickle British press will get Terry Malts synthesis of
various strains of independent guitar rock of the last thirty years
(c86, indie-pop, new wave, pop-punk et al) and anoint them the next
Kaiser Chiefs."
13. Dan Vapid and The Cheats: Self-Titled
After an ignoble end to their long partnership, Ben Weasel kept the Screeching Weasel moniker for his shitty Carnival of Schadenfreude EP, while Chicagoan Dan Vapid (more HERE) got down to putting out this sing-long, pop-punk barn-burner. Dan Vapid - Torture Chamber
14. John K. Sampson: Provincial Winnipeg's John K. Sampson(more HERE), also of The Weakerthans (more HERE), returned to working solo on this record, which was full of his usual mix of wistful longing, local history and electric-folk.
15. The Dahlmanns: All Dahled Up For our 'Anachronism of the Year', the one album from last year that whipped past our porous defenses, it's the a-fuckin'-mazing debut by Norway's Lords of Punk-Powereed-Pop, The Dahlmann's (more HERE) - one of my most listened to albums of the year.
While I'm sure I missed some great albums, that covers almost everything...
Did you hear anything you dug on this list? Did we miss
something that might've fit? Let us know in the COMMENTS section!
Not only do I enjoy and appreciate the works of Blink 182 but I also think that their smash albums were miles better then then early work. Sometimes the radio gets it right. While I'm not particularly engaged with their current comeback attempt, this folk-song-with-a-beat, "Boxing Day", at least proves the band is trying to do more than re-capture old glories.
Truth be known, I still prefer their earlier attempt at a seasonal standard, the crude-but-catchy, "I Won't be Home for Christmas":
While Chi Pig, the hard-living front man of Edmonton's S.N.F.U., lives, one of his inspirations, Jack Klugman,who played a medical examiner on the seventies TV show Quincy, has died at the age of 90.
Despite the incredible idiocy of that infamous 'punk' episode of Quincy, Klugman was a fantastic actor (watch his Twilight Zone episodes, Twelve Angry Men or even The Odd Couple as proof) and his passing deserves note, even on a blog that deals mostly with music.
Single info
"Xmas may have been X’ed back in September when Self Entitled dropped, but given that this is the last Christmas, we thought we should spoil you with one last NOFX limited edition vinyl release. It’s the third single of the year from NOFX, and a double A-side at that: Xmas Has Been X’ed / New Year’s Revolution. The A-side is classic NOFX, a true punk rock Christmas anthem to be filed right next to Fear’s Fuck Christmas. And in typical NOFX fashion, it’s a Christmas story wherein the Jews come out on top. Shocker. Now flip the record over to the AA-side and you’ve got your “New Year’s Revolution,” an outtake from the Self Entitled sessions, followed by a new recording of the much-loved but overlooked gem “Wore out the Soles of My Party Boots.”"
Tracklist:
1. Xmas Has Been X’ed
2. New Year’s Revolution
3. Wore Out the Soles of My Party Boots
Hardcore, roots-rock, synth-pop, alternative rock, blatant novelties - I defy anyone to love (or hate!) the entirety of this weird, never-repressed platter that only the early eighties could have produced! (Xmas cheer to Hypernihl for the rip!)
Tracklist
A1 SSD – Jolly Old Saint Nicholas 2:45
A2 Jeff & Jane – Jingle Bells 2:54
A3 Christmas – O Holy Night 2:28
B1 Sonny Columbus & His Del Fuegos – That Punchbowl Full Of Joy 3:30
B2 Native Tongue – Do You Hear What I Hear? 3:50
Remember the punk re-issue CD boom of the nineties? Even if you remember it all TOO well, you may have missed this now long out-of-print example of the themed compilation sub-set of that explosion. Some diamonds, some coal in this safety-pinned stocking but I'll let you decide which is which! And don't forget to send a Christmas card to Bastardos for the rip n' scans!
1 The Ravers - (It's Gonna Be A) Punk Rock Christmas 3:35
2 The Dickies - Silent Night 2:20
3 Sloppy Seconds - Hooray For Santa Claus (Theme From "Santa Claus Conquers The Martians") 1:43
4 Fear - Fuck Christmas 0:47
5 The Greedies - A Merry Jingle 3:08
6 The Damned - There Ain't No Sanity Claus 2:31
7 Pansy Division - Homo Christmas 2:33
8 Bouquet Of Veal - It's Christmas 1:23
9 The Celibate Rifles - Merry Xmas Blues 3:55
10 Ramones - Merry Christmas (I Don't Wanna Fight Ronight) (UK Single Version) 2:38
11 Metal Mike, Alison & Julia - Deck The Halls 1:22
12 El Vez - Feliz Navinada 2:58
13 Humpers - Run, Run Rudolph 3:25
14 TVTV$ - Daddy Drank Our Xmas Money 2:47
15 The Frogs - H.C.S.P. 2:56
16 Mojo Nixon - Christmas Christmas 3:14
17 D.I. - Mr. Grinch 3:53
18 Stiff Little Fingers - White Christmas 2:02
Roberto's Rarities Re-Upped: An irregular
MRML series powered by the wild generosity of our reader, Roberto:
Enjoy and don't forget to leave our benefactor a thank-you comment.
"Hi Jeffen, here is the long time out-of-print Yobs (a.k.a. The Boys) Xmas II from
1991.Yes, it's stupid and childish (take a look at the lyric sheet...)
and full of stinkers ("Yob Rap" and "Xmas Guantanamera" are particularly
appalling) but at its best it's a great Pistols-Swindle-era sound-alike for us aging old punks..."
So let us know what you think of the offense-for-offense's sake style of The Yobs in the COMMENTS section.
"Sock it to me Santa with a baseball bat!" screams head Lazy Cowgirl Pat Todd as the song rushes toward the end of its raucous night. Damn this band never gets the respect it deserves. Give this single a shot if you love rock n' roll at the highest setting, then if you want to hear more Cowgirls after the Christmas onslaught subsides, LET US KNOW IN THE COMMENTS SECTION!
Legendary English lo-fi fuck-up Wreckless Eric (more HERE) sends out his ramshackle Christmas wishes to all his faithful listeners
Tracklist
A Christmas
B1 Hawaiian Christmas
Credits
Guitar [Hawaiian Steel, Lead], Percussion, Vocals – Martin Stone
Vocals, Guitar, Bass, Percussion – Wreckless Eric
Xylophone, Bells [Jingle Bells] – Lo De Bodinat
This little three song'er will have to kick off my dis-contiguous series
of Christmas posts. This wildly-tacky looking 2003 single is a benefit
featuring TV Smith (The Adverts), Captain Sensible (The Damned), Charlie
Harper (UK Subs) and Martin Newell (the Cleaners from Venus) which
slags the pop charts in a pop chart-friendly kinda way. The song bears
the Captain's theatrical absurdity ("Say Captain, Say Wot") and is
pretty fun, as his re-make of the old Damned obscurity "There Ain't No Sanity Clause".
The big ticket item under this dead tree, however, is TV Smith's
"Christmas, Bloody, Christmas" a broadside aimed squarely at the big man
in the red suit's symbolic fat ass. While it attacks all that is ridiculous
about the season, it's not terribly mean spirited, it just demands more
of the season while being a virulent ear-worm (ask my eldest child and
his none-too-pleased mother if you don't believe me!)
For more video of this TV Smith/UK Subs show from yesterday, go visit the ever-excellent Aural Sculptures.
The discography of The Police and Charles Schulz's fifty-year 'Peanuts' run are two things that I believe endure. Hence why this series of mash-up is so intriguing, as was the Bad Brains/Peanuts video seen HERE. This trilogy still makes heavy use of the familiar scenes from "A Charlie Brown Christmas" but also make very skillful use of other specials such as "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown".
While we're talking about radical musicians like The Weavers (see HERE), let us stop topraise veteran hip-hop revolutionaries, The Coup*. In my sole previous hip-hop centered post, I confessed "MRML can't apologize for being a mostly white-punks-on-guitars blog.
It's not deliberate; it's just what we know!" Regardless of my own musical limitation, when I hear drug-war scouring, kazoo-dominated, Anti-Flag-borrowing, shout-along ska-rap, like "You Parent's Cocaine" I get moving.
Between their supposed communist-leaning [!], their longevity [20 years strong] and their signing to Brett Geurewitz's [of Bad Religion/Epitath Records fame] Anti Records the band clearly has a different kind of cred from the mainstream of hip-hop. It's a little like how Anti put out records by country artists like Merle Haggard and Porter Waggoner who'd fallen out of the mainstream of their own chosen genre. Like those two legends, The Coup keep it real, whether means playing as a full band or giving respect to the old school (which in this case might include The Bay City Rollers and Wilson Pickett):
There's plenty of other precedents for The Coup's work; you'll hear traces of Sly and The Family Stone, The Jungle Brothers, Fishbone The Roots and dozen others I'm nowhere near cool enough to recognize.
*Imagine The Weavers' Peter Seeger singing the chorus of the "The
Guillotine" to Bob Dylan when he threatened to cut the power cables
backstage at Newport in '65!
The following bands and artists were name-dropped over the course of this post: The Weavers, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Bad Religion, Anti-Flag, Merle Haggard, The Bay City Rollers, Wilson Pickett, Porter Waggoner, Sly and The Family Stone, The Jungle Brothers, Fishbone and The Roots. Ridiculous!!
Broken dreams and promises
These are the things they have and hold,
In a country that even persecuted the Weavers.
Did you ever see the Weavers? "Home of the Brave", Naked Raygun, 1985
My own obsession with music history may all come down to one desperate pledge drive by the North Dakota PBS station back in 1982. To reel in a few generations, the station played both 'The Compleat Beatles' and 'The Weavers: Wasn't that a Time'. Fortunately, the family's new behemoth of a VCR had recently been semi-mastered (though it did indeed blink 12:00, 12:00, 12:00 till its demise) and so these movies were etched onto tape (in the slp setting, of course) and available for re-watching over and over! Yes, at one time the trapping of a few waves on magnetic tape housed in a plastic rectangle offered a sort of sustenance. (Sometimes when talking about the cultural scarcity of the eighties, I start sounding a bit like my Grandmother describing The Great Depression.) So does the film still have value in a era where everything ever created is available instantly? Yes.
Five Reasons to Watch 'The Weavers: Wasn't That a Time'?
2. Lee Hayes' Raging Against the Dying of the Light
As a genre, folk music, like the blues, has never had a fear of age. In this film you see Lee Hayes refusing to die quietly. Only months away from his death, Hayes prepares to to perform one last time. During the preparation, the wheel-chair bound man waxes eloquent and cracks wise about his life displaying little fear or regret, only stoic bravery.
3.The Lacerating Self-Deprecation
These "Four decrepit folk
singers", in Ronnie Gilbert's words, are eager to take the piss out of
themselves rather then be seen as a museum piece. Of course, it's central figure Hays who gets in all the
best shots. As he's watching some early fifties footage of the band he
spits out the following "Would you look at that; a Barbie Doll
and three stuffed dummies! ...If we'd know how witless we looked we
would have given up music on the spot and turned to something socially
useful, like chicken plucking!"
4. It's Cinematic Influence
Some rock docs go the narrator route as 'The Compleat Beatle's did, some go more Cinéma vérité as Bob Dylan's 'Don't Look Back' did but by splitting the difference and having band lynchpin Hays spin the tale, "Wasn't That a Time' charts a different course. The film's most telling modern influence, would be its being a direct inspiration for Christopher Guest's 'A Mighty Wind' (see this wonderful deleted scene for comparison).
5. It's Musical Influence
Condescension towards fifties folk and it's British cousin, skiffle, is common amongst rock fans despite the significant influence of the repertoire popularized by The Weavers on The Rock Pantheon; Bob Dylan, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Van Morrison The Grateful Dead et al.
And now, here it is in its entirety, The Weavers: Wasn't That a Time:
Virginia's The Mockers are a rare beast, a power-pop band with a lyrical edge or as they call it "Powerpop with a twist of bitters." Thirty years into their career, such as it is, and The Mockers refuse to stand pat, evidenced by how they've stuffed their new E.P with show-tunes, Christmas carols and political broadsides like "Republican Girl".
To celebrate Graham Parker and The Rumour's Big Year (more details HERE)
MRML's been digging into the 'GP stuff' folder, to bring you
wide-ranging section of rarities, bootlegs and out-of-print wonders.
We've covered Chairman Parker (avec et sans Rumour) extensively before (see HERE) and will continue to do so....
Graham Parker and The Rumour
Calderone Concert Hall
Hempstead, NY
June 6, 1979
WLIR FM Radio Broadcast
Setlist:
01 Discovering Japan
02 Local Girls
03 Protection
04 Don't Get Excited
05 Back To Schooldays
06 Passion Is No Ordinary Word
07 Howling Wind
08 Heat Treatment
09 Stick To Me
10 Mercury Poisoning
11 You Can't Be Too Strong
12 Love Gets You Twisted
13 I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down
14 Don't Ask Me Questions
15 Saturday Nite Is Dead
16 Nobody Hurts You
17 Soul Shoes
18 encore applause
19 I Want You Back (Alive)
20 New York Shuffle
GP fans - what do you make of this '79 era bootleg? Do you wanna hear more Parker rarities? Let us know in the COMMENTS section
A mellow-but-biting single from Graham Parker's (more HERE) long out-of-print 1989 album, "Human Soul".
Graham Parker "Big Man On Paper" promo CD single (9114-2-RDJ).
1. big man on paper 4:07 2. green monkeys 8:40 3. everything goes 2:20 4. sugar gives you energy 1:40 5. daddy's a postman 2:25 6. green monkeys 1:51 7. everything goes reprise :24
GP
fans - what do you think of "Human Soul? Let
us know in the COMMENTS section!
There are no end of plausible explanations as to why Mitt Romney was so soundly trounced by Barrack Obama. Some say Romney lost because of demographics (by which they mean his alienating of minorities, women and the young), others say the whole campaign was blinded by their own self-serving media (a.k.a. 'epistemic closure'), some say Romney conned his big donors others claim it was Romney who was conned by his own consultants. The validity of many of those points underscores how it was not one single factor that sunk Romney.
But the power of that video must be accounted for.
While millions of ballots are, scandalously, still uncounted, Romney's total percentage of the popular vote is plummeting towards the 47% figure he so cruelly delineated in that private speech to his big donors. It will be a fitting finally tally in light of what was the key moment of the 2012 campaign; Romney laying bare the depth of his hatred for the very people he was seeking to lead. That tape revels so many of the losing facets of that campaign; the mass conning, the minority-bashing, the vulnerable-demonizing, the reality-defying and, of course, the vaulting hubris of Willard Romney.
That speech was the firewall. No matter the millions he spent on false advertising, no matter the roadblocks to voting his allies threw up, no matter the bait-and-switch trick he tried at the first debate, Romney could not make people forget how nakedly he had extolled class warfare. Once he'd revealed the truth to the American people, they knew he was not fit to serve and they were not going to let anything stop them from voting their interests.
When those results came in that showed districts with next-to-no Romney votes, unskewed Republicans cried 'fraud', and I just thought 'the 47% strike back!' I like to think a piece of that secret video was playing in the mind of tens of millions of voters when they stepped in the voting booth to sweep Mitt into the dustbin of history.
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