Tiny Idols: Transmissions from the Indie Underground 1991-1995 vol. III

Small Factory, "What to Want" (DOWNLOAD)
Radon, "Kibbles and Bits" (DOWNLOAD)
Kicking Giant, "Satellite" (DOWNLOAD)

I get a lot of e-mails from people about things they want me to write about and think I would like, and it's really cool that people do that & I am really very appreciative (even though I don't write about everything that I'm e-mailed about, I do my best to listen to all of it), but usually the things I enjoy listening to the most are things that I find out about completely incidentally, with no "please write about this" attached to it.

On Monday afternoon I came home to a stack of packages -- some 7"s and CDs from Jigsaw (really, really, I cannot say enough good things about what Chris is doing with his corner of the internet -- he has an amazing selection of indie rock and pop, the prices are good, and the shipping is expedient. It's everything you could ever want (and more!) from mail order), some Jordan Crane comics, and a mysterious package wrapped in plain brown paper.

The mystery package turned out to be a very generous and surprising piece of mail from Tae Won Yu. I'm quite a fan of Tae's art and music, and was nothing short of blown away to find this on my doorstep. One of the things in the package was a copy of Tiny Idols: Transmissions from the Indie Underground 1991-1995, vol. III. I took a quick look at the track listing & realized that I didn't recognize any of the bands (other than Tae's band, Kicking Giant), which made me even more excited to listen to the collection. So, I raced through lunch & then walked back to work, sat down at my desk, & plugged in my headphones.

& you know what? It's really, truly stunning. Mark from Snowglobe Records has curated a truly beautiful comp. There are 22 tracks and each of them brings something unique to the overall collection. It's hard to pick out favorites when each of the tracks are so strong (and so new to me!), but Small Factory, The Hazeltones, Witch Hazel, and Radon are definitely bands that I'll be looking to dig up some more on. The Tiny Idols series functions almost as an indie rock and pop Nuggets, collecting tracks from "lesser-known and underappreciated artists from the era who deserve reappraisal."

What I really love about Tiny Idols, aside from the music, is the care and attention that went into the compilation. The CD is accompanied by a beautiful, twenty page booklet that includes a bio of each of the 22 featured bands. A lot of information is packed into the bios, including a brief history of the band, major/notable recordings, band members, related projects, etc. It's not often that I come across a compilation so purposefully thought out & thoughtfully put together.

So often, independent music exists in tiny pieces of ephemera. It's easy to forget bands as old concert bills get crumpled and cassette tapes disintegrate. Scenes are packed away in boxes in closets and emerge later to be resold on eBay. Last month, Patton Oswalt had an article about geek culture on Wired where he said that the internet has changed the act of collecting knowledge -- that as we move towards an increasingly digital culture, we get closer and closer to "everything that ever was, available forever," and with it, instant, downloadable expertise. It's clear that the internet has changed the way that music is not only shared, but preserved, especially with regard to music that has been produced independently. It may not be possible to find a physical copy of a 7" limited to 200 copies or a tape limited to 75, but technology allows people to digitally transfer & instantly share these releases with each other (I won't lie, though, I'll always prefer a physical product to a download.) I like Tiny Idols because it's a compilation that seems to speak both to and against the concept of "everything that ever was, available forever." Tiny Idols gives you fragments of a scene, letting you peek into the windows to hear bits and pieces, but gently reminding you that the Big Picture, the experience of being there, is something that cannot be recreated. As our cultural products become increasingly digital (and everlasting), I think it's important to be reminded of the ephemeral and to recognize the importance of something that can't be perfectly preserved or recreated.

Volumes 1-3 of the Tiny Idols series are $10 each from Snowglobe Records, you can order online here. If the third compilation in the Tiny Idols series is this strong, I can't imagine how good 1 & 2 must be. Mike also has a Tiny Idols blog, though it's light on content and hasn't been updated for awhile.

Complete Track Listing

1. "I'll Be Around" - Sardina
2. "What to Want" - Small Factory
3. "Sugar Juice" - Vacation Bible School
4. Delirious" - The Hazeltones
5. "2,000" - Coctails
6. "Send" - It Thing
7. "Loon" - Poole
8. "Too Close" - The Christines
9. "Endure Me" - Honeybunch
10. "Just Don't Try" - Witch Hazel
11. "Today is a Fine Day to Die" - Apollonia Heck
12. "Kibbles and Bits" - Radon
13. "No Surprise" - Glue
14. "Bruce Jenner" - Honda
15. "Balboa's Canyon" - Zoom
16. "Crazy Steven" - Zen Frisbee
17. "The Girl with 10,000 Holes" - Baldo Rec
18. "Satellite" - Kicking Giant
19. "Pedal" - Crayon
20. "Ultra Crush" - Her Tears
21. "Girlwish" - Fudge
22. "Senile Felines" - Aleka's Attic

Old News is Good News: Free to Fight Comp

Various Artists, Free to Fight (DOWNLOAD)

Two things:

1. So, the other day I was watching videos of Team Dresch on YouTube and I was watching a performance of "Freewheel" from a few years ago and there was this really sweet (as in heartwarming) moment where Jody Bleyle pumped her fist in the air at the point in the song where everyone shouts "Freewheel!"

2. I was reading this post on Tobi Vail's blog Jigsaw Underground where she poses some really interesting questions about the "meaning" of being in a band/being an artist. The question that really caught my attention was: is it really enough to make a cool sounding record? Was it ever?

I don't think that all art has to be political in intent, and I suppose it doesn't have to become political in interpretation, but I do think that over the years, I've become the kind of person who is unable to depoliticize their media consumption. In response to Tobi's question, I don't think it's "really enough to make a cool sounding record." BUT, as a consumer of cultural products, I think that people on the consuming end have the same opportunity to politicize a cultural product as the producer does and, in my opinion, I think that the consumer is invested with more power than the producer when it comes to acknowledging/interpreting/acting on political messages that may or may not be encoded into cultural products.

So, Tobi's question, for me, intersected with that moment of watching Jody Bleyle pump her first in the air & I was brought back to my early teens and listening to a copy of Jody's Free to Fight compilation dubbed onto cassette. Free to Fight was released on Jody's label, Candy Ass Records, in 1995 on double-CD and double-LP. The songs on Free to Fight mingled seamlessly with spoken word tracks featuring self defense tips. The compilation was accompanied by a 72 page booklet featuring work by feminist theorists, writers, and artists (if only I had a .pdf of the booklet to share with this!)

I'm not the kind of person who says things like "punk rock saved my life," but I am the kind of person who can sincerely say that Free to Fight helped me learn not just how to take steps toward better defending myself, but (more importantly) that I had the right to defend myself. As a young person, I saw and heard Free to Fight in the most immediate of senses: I was experiencing violence and needed help in learning how to respond -- now, I'm able to step back and consider (outside of the violence I experienced as a young person) the systemic issues that facilitated the need for a compilation like Free to Fight. I'm able to think about the fact that, in many ways, creating Free to Fight and touring behind it was an innovative way for artists to educate themselves and their communities about violence against women, how women can respond to acts of violence in the moment, how women can work with each other to address violence in their communities, etc.

Free to Fight is a cool sounding album, yeah, but it also speaks to a larger need. I don't think that every artist is obligated to do what Jody and the artists featured on Free to Fight did, but I do think that art can be made more meaningful and interesting when artists and listeners seek to engage politically, whether that engagement is direct or indirect*.

Trigger Warning The songs/self defense tips/spoken word on Free to Fight may be triggering for survivors of assault. Listen with caution.

Track List

1. Sarah Rides the Greyhound (spoken word)
2. Monster Snack - The Third Sex
3. Definition of Self Defense (self defense strategy)
4. Song for Anne Bannon - Team Dresch
5. Sleep'n wit' the Enemy - Mizzery
6. Violence is Violence (self defense strategy)
7. Killing Your Clone is Still Murder - Sue P. Fox
8. Carnation Red - Rebecca Gates
9. Body Language (self defense strategy)
10. Don't - Fifth Column
11. Yelling (self defense strategy)
12. Real Defense - 151
13. Make a Scene (self defense strategy)
14. The Martyr - Containe
15. Assertiveness Practice (self defense strategy)
16. New Terror Story - Nikki, Jen, Rueben
17. St. What's Her Name - The Lois
18. Alice's Story (spoken word)
19. Primary Targets (self defense strategy)
20. Target Practice (self defense strategy/song)
21. Striking (self defense strategy)
22. Disgracias - Cheesecake
23. Laura Sister Nobody Crosses the Street (spoken word)
24. Daddy's Crazy - Azteca X
25. Get Out of My Head - Heaven's to Betsy
26. Sylvia Gets Fancy (spoken word)
27. Forever Fired - Excuse Seventeen
28. Lucky One - Nikki McClure

Various Artists, Free to Fight (DOWNLOAD)

* I'm definitely interested in thinking more about music that is political, but that doesn't share a direct political message. I think Tobi's review of Grass Widow's Past Time speaks pretty eloquently about this.

Old News: The Poop Alley Tapes

Various Artists, The Poop Alley Tapes (DOWNLOAD)

Last night, Drew woke me up at like one in the morning because he was losing his mind over the fact that the deluxe edition of Weezer's Pinkerton had leaked. My initial thoughts on the matter: I really don't think that I give a fuck about this. Of course, it's almost 12 hours later and I'm listening to the DE at my desk at work. Some of these songs are still great ("Tired of Sex," definitely still great, "I Just Threw Out the Love of My Dreams" (b-side featuring Anna Waronker from that dog., still great.) The best songs on Pinkerton would have fit perfectly on The Poop Alley Tapes, a 2 CD compilation of L.A. bands who had recorded at Tom Grimley's Poop Alley Studios (though not featured on this comp, Madigan and Jen from Tattle Tale both recorded at Poop Alley.)

Anyway, the high notes on this comp are HIGH. "California" by the Rentals is amazing (it's only about a hundred thousand times better than the tweaked version, "Barcelona," that showed up on Seven More Minutes), "Adam in June" by June Blake is another winner. Like any comp, this has its share of forgettable songs, but the good ones are so good that you totally forget the bad ones.

If nothing else, The Poop Alley Tapes is an artifact of a mostly lost scene & the only place you'll hear most of these bands. Which is a real shame, because I could listen to album after album by June Blake or The Strawberry Jams.

DISC ONE:

1. The Rentals - "California"
2. Benett - "Love On The Rocks"
3. Recess - "Study No. 1 For Symphony No. 1"
4. Josh Haden - "Ten Nights"
5. Jackknife - "Teenage Blues"
6. that dog. - "Ridiculous"
7. Too Much Girl - "Fascinating Girl"
8. Radies Man - "Honky Tonky Woman"
9. The Strawberry Jams - "Kinda Sorta Maybe"
10. Rump - "Alan's Got An Axe To Grind"
11. Crib - "Sty"
12. Fleabag - "Fading Fast"
13. The Haves - "Nevadaesque"
14. The Neptunas - "Hot Custom Long Board"
15. Bobby & The Magic Pacer - "Drinking Dogs"
16. Waldo The Dog Faced Boy - "Turkey's Lament"
17. Speculum Fight - "Hello There Chico"
18. Rod Poole - "Excerpt From The Composition"

DISC TWO:

1. Polar Goldie Cats - "Reverb Wa Doko"
2. Geraldine Fibbers - "He Stopped Loving Her Today"
3. Beck - "Girl Of My Dreams"
4. June Blake - "Adam In June"
5. Lowercase - "My Shame Your Shame"
6. Kryptonite Nixon - "Whiffle Ball"
7. Charles Brown Superstar - "Solid Gold"
8. Shady Ladies Of The Mother Lode - "Moistened"
9. Danny Frankel - "Rainbow Wig On Haight St."
10. Brown Cow - "Out?"
11. Nastassya Filippovna - "Ungodly Purple Watt"
12. Vector 3Niner - "The Deep Complexity Of Quotidian Chaos (Let's Vector)"
13. Slug - "Silver Man"

Both discs are included in the same .zip file.

Various Artists, The Poop Alley Tapes (DOWNLOAD)

Old News: Ragazza Pop Compilation

Various Artists, Ragazza Pop (DOWNLOAD)

Earlier this summer, Mirah released a 7" on Mississippi Records. The a-side, "Don't!" just happened to be one of my favorite Mirah songs. A sixties girl group inspired number with a pounding piano and backing vocals from The Blow's Khaela Maricich. "Don't!" was featured on Modern Radio's Mirah rarities collection, The Old Days Feeling, but first appeared on Ragazza Pop, an amazing pop compilation with contributions from Mirah, Moe Tucker, The Shermans, and more.

Initially released in 2003, the comp is certainly old news, but if you missed it the first time around, it's certainly worth hearing. If you're a fan of "Don't!" you can pick the newly pressed 7" up for $6 at the K Records online shop.

The tracklist is as follows:

1. "Pop Conversation (Main Titles)"
2. "At the Airport #a" - Instant Café Records
3. "Her Words Hang In The Air" - The Ladybug Transistor
4. "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" - Moe Tucker
5. "The Girl from U.N.C.L.E." - The Four Corners
6. "Loud and Laughing" - The Shermans
7. "Comme D'habitude" - Souvenir
8. "Star Watcher's Song" - Instant Café Records
9. "Flashin' Light (Some Girls Like to Disco) [Cocosuma remix]" - Valvola
10. "London" - Noonday Underground
11. "Liebe Auf Dem Land" - Die Moulinettes
12. "White Drops" - Plus-Tech Squeeze Box
13. "Mon Ange Gardien" - April March
14. "To Know Him Is To Love Him" - Moe Tucker
15. "Fine Day" - Three Berry Icecream
16. "The Sun Keeps Shining On Me" - Fonda
17. "Free" - The Mondo Crescendo
18. "Hey Lover" - The Aislers Set
19. "Don't" - Mirah
20. "Let Drive at Him" - Instant Café Records
21. "Summertime" - The Faraway Places
22. "I Wanna" - Moe Tucker
23. "Pop Conversation (End Titles)"

Various Artists, Ragazza Pop (DOWNLOAD)

Tullycraft (Well, Tullycraft-related)

So, who do you love? I certainly hope the answer is Tullycraft. I still remember the first Tullycraft song I ever heard -- the inimitable "Pop Songs Your New Boyfriend's Too Stupid To Know About" (link goes to a YouTube video) -- it was everything I wanted in a song, sweet (but a little snobby, just like me!), an instant mix tape staple, and an index of new bands to check out.

The other day I found out about an exciting project -- a proposed tribute album to Tullycraft, whose list of participating artists is just as fabulous as the artists listed off in "Pop Songs..." Wish I'd Kept A Scrabpook is the project's tentative title & you can expect it to feature tracks by Rose Melberg, The Smittens, Bunnygrunt, Math and Physics Club, and more.

So, what's the catch? In order to move forward with the comp, Lee needs to raise $1,000. There's a kickstarter.com page where you can read more about the project and, if you're feeling generous, make a donation. Kickstarter requires a minimum donation of $1 & your donation is only deducted from your account if the project meets its fundraising goal by the predetermined deadline. Donations will be open for Wish I'd Kept A Scrapbook until May 15th. The good news is, Lee has already raised $400 for the project! If you check out the donations page you'll see that depending on how much you donate, you can receive goodies like free mp3s, stickers, t-shirts, even getting your name in the liner notes!

If you're a Tullycraft fan, I really encourage you to support this project by making a donation.

If you're new to Tullycraft, you can check out their official site which happens to feature a totally boss daily mp3 blog.

What I Bought

fIREHOSE, "Riddle of the Eighties" (Download)
fIREHOSE, "In My Mind" (Download)
Samson & the Philistines (Talk About the Passion)
J-Church, "(Don't Go Back To) Rockville" (Download)

Yesterday Drew and I went in search of a birthday present for his dad and I picked up two used CDs along the way, fIREHOSE's fROMOHIO ($5) and Surprise Your Pig: A Tribute to REM ($4) featuring Band of Susan's, Jawbreaker, and a few other notable types. Plus, I got a Tattle Tale 7" in the mail today (the "Alder-Wood Mall"/"Loose Lips" one on Chou-Chou). (Speaking of Tattle Tale, I also pre-ordered Jen Wood's new album Finds You in Love, which finally got a physical release on New Grenada Records.)

Anyway, first things first. fIREHOSE. After reading Our Band Could Be Your Life, watching the fantastic Minutemen documentary, We Jam Econo, and spending a little too much time watching this YouTube video (taken from the aforementioned We Jam Econo) and (sometimes) crying, I became a pretty big Minutemen fan -- but I never really checked out anything that Mike Watt and George Hurley worked on after D. Boon's passing.

I knew that Watt and Hurley were in a post-Minutemen group called fIREHOSE, but had never heard any fIREHOSE songs. I spotted this CD while browsing through the used bin (where most of my CDs come from) and initially picked it up because I recognized the band name, but ended up buying it because it was called fROMOHIO and was recorded at Suma, a recording studio about 15 miles away from the house I grew up in.

Drew and I listened to about half of the album on the way home and then I listened to the full album this morning while eating breakfast and folding laundry. My favorite songs are the ones that sound vaguely country (you know, in that mid-to-late-eighties college radio sort of way.) "Riddle of the Eighties," "In My Mind," and "Time With You" are especially strong, I think. I really love listening to this and thinking about the band driving around Painesville, Ohio's semi-post-industrial, semi-country landscape.

I've uploaded the album's first two tracks, you can get your own copy direct from SST (CD $13, LP $9).

As you'd probably expect, Surprise You Pig is a mixed bag. A few tracks lend a hardcore perspective to REM, some are instrumental drone type things. I'm definitely not an REM purist, but I did notice that I seemed to prefer the songs that stuck a little closer to the originals in sound. Sam & the Philistines contributed a nice foreign language take on "Talk About The Passion" & I really liked J-Church's version of "(Don't Go Back To) Rockville" (a song that I've always been particularly partial to.) Other highlights: Jawbreaker's version of "Pretty Persuasion", the Mr. T Experience's "Can't Get There from Here," the Punchline's "Bandwagon," and Vic Chestnutt's "It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)."

fIREHOSE, "Riddle of the Eighties" (Download)
fIREHOSE, "In My Mind" (Download)
Samson & the Philistines (Talk About the Passion)
J-Church, "(Don't Go Back To) Rockville" (Download)

What I Bought

"It's Love (Live)," The Softies (Download)

Friday is Drew's day off (normally he works until 9PM), so after work we head over to the Blue Arrow and Music Saves in Collinwood to do some record shopping. I don't usually buy much (I buy most of my records via mail order and I'm also usually too worried about saving to spend extra money on music), but every once in awhile I treat myself to something.

This weekend I picked up (on sale!) the Magic Marker comp, A House Full of Friends. The comp is a 2-CD set of Magic Marker artists and though the majority of the songs are previously released album tracks, it's nice to have them all in one place. Featured artists include: The Thermals, Dear Nora, Dressy Bessy, The All Girl Summer Fun Band, Dennis Driscoll, & a bunch of others.

The real winner on this is the last track on CD 2, a beautiful live version of "It's Love" by the Softies. (Drew would probably make a case for the Shins' cover of T-Rex's "Baby Boomerang" being the best track on here, but he's wrong. It's definitely Rose and Jen.) I listened to this track 5 or 6 times in a row in the car the other day & it's just wonderful. It makes me wish that I was in someone's living room somewhere listening to Rose Melberg play.

"It's Love (Live)," The Softies (Download)

Other purchases: a $2 used copy of The Old Record by the Dancehall Crashers & a $3 donation to P.S. Eliot for their cover of Hop Along's "Bruno is Orange." If you'd like to download the P.S. Eliot track, head over to their blog to make a donation.

Move Into the Villa Villakula

Move Into the Villa Villakula, various artists (zip)

I think (and write) a lot about music that I loved when I spent a lot of time lying in bed with a discman (or walkman) & it's no secret that certain bands dominated those years. Move Into the Villa Villakula is my teenage life in a nutshell: sad songs, spoken word, girl-centric, cut and paste, Pippi Longstocking.

From the liner notes by Evelyn McDonnell: I'm trying to cultivate toughness. It's easy to seem hard and aloof -- women who stand up for themselves are quickly dykes and bitches -- but it's hard to be tough on the inside, to keep the kicks from damaging internal organs even when you're smiling in the prick's face.

Sleater-Kinney's cover of "More Than A Feeling'" was one of the most majestic things I had ever heard at that age. Kaia's "Peyton vs. Your Boyfriend" and "Off" were too much & I've already rambled on about Tattle Tale's "Erica." Normally I don't post full albums, but Move In... is long out of print & whenever it comes up it's always tremendously expensive, so...

Complete Tracklist

01. You Ain't It - Sleater-Kinney
02. Write Me Back Fucker - Sleater-Kinney
03. More Than A Feeling - Sleater-Kinney
04. Peyton vs. Your Boyfriend - Kaia
05. Off - Kaia
06. Memorial - Eileen Myles
07. I Always Put My Pussy - Eileen Myles
08. Warrior - Eileen Myles
09. Rape - Eileen Myles
10. Debate With A Glove - Eileen Myles
11. Take 10 - Tattle Tale
12. Erica - Tattle Tale
13. Spanish Olive - Ruby Falls
14. The Way of Colleen - Ruby Falls
15. Possibly - Azalia Snail
16. Vitriolic Feeling - Azalia Snail
17. Fantastic Castle - Led Byrd (members of Helium)
18. Embrace - Kore
19. Cry - Kore
20. Miss Unknown - Denise Monahan
21. Knoxville Girl - DQE
22. Treat Her - DQE

You can read more about this comp & Villa Villakula Records here. I'm not 100%, but I think a majority of these artists are no longer recording (at least, not in these incarnations), but Kaia's most recent album, Godmakesmonkeys, is available through InSound.

Move Into the Villa Villakula, various artists (zip)

Pretending to See the Future

"Secret" (Laura Watling)
"If You Leave" (Free Loan Investments)
"Tesla Girls" (F.K.A. Oedipusaurus Rex)

I bought Pretending to See the Future on a whim about 5 years ago when Shelflife Records had a moving sale (almost all CDs just one dollar! who could say no?) & while some tracks were certainly misses, there were others that were total hits.

Laura Watling's "Secret" has a soft, ethereal sound. Her vocals are sweet but unassuming & accented nicely by the little bleeps and bloops in each chorus. Shelflife has sold out of all their Laura stuff, but you can still get a few comps that Laura contributed to from Tonevendor. If you're a fan of Rose Melberg's solo stuff, I would recommend searching out Laura's full-length Early Morning Walk (actually, if anyone's looking for it, I have a second copy.)

The Free Loan Investments' version of "If You Leave" is sublime! The first time I heard it, I thought it was a touch too cutesy (I think because of the vocals), but the more I hear it, the more I love it. It's energetic and definitely brings a different kind of life to the song. Free Loan Investments have a couple of releases still available through Shelflife: The Last Dance 7" and Ever Been to Mexico? CD EP.

Full disclosure: I don't know a whole lot (read: anything) about F.K.A. Oedipusaurus Rex, but I do love their cover of "Tesla Girls." I'm not intimately familiar with OMD's back-catalogue, but in my mind, this is one of the songs on Pretending to See the Future that seems to stick a little closer to the original. F.K.A. Oedipusaurus Rex does have a MySpace where you can hear some more of their songs.

Pretending to See the Future is out of print and no longer available from Shelflife, but there are a few used copies lurking around on Amazon.

"Secret" (Laura Watling)
"If You Leave" (Free Loan Investments)
"Tesla Girls" (F.K.A. Oedipusaurus Rex)

Yuletunes

"3 Wise Men and a Baby (Xmas Song)" (The Cavedogs)
"Piece for Christmas" (Big People)

I'm not exactly 100% crazy about Christmas or Christmas music & neither is my family & neither is my partner, & really, the only Christmas music I recall hearing my parents play is the Beach Boys' Christmas Album, my mom's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" 45" & a 1991 comp called Yuletunes: A Collection of Alternative Pop Christmas Songs which is -- surprisingly -- stunning. While I more or less dread hearing Christmas classics & original Christmas type songs recorded by popular artists, there are a few notable exceptions: the aforementioned Beach Boys' Christmas Album, the Pretenders' "2,000 Miles," & the majority of the songs on Yuletunes.

"3 Wise Men and a Baby (Xmas Song)" by the Cavedogs is weird -- it skips around genres, has a few "sound collage" elements and sometimes I forget why I profess to like it so much -- but right around 2 minutes and 45 seconds in, it gets really, really beautiful. the band incorporates some sound clips from Capra's It's A Wonderful Life, which sounds like a cheesy and terrible move until you hear it for yourself & the whole song enters into this really gorgeous, blissed out space that I absolutely love.

"Piece for Christmas" by Big People reminds me a bit of Tullycraft recording a Christmas song (probably because of the lead singer's voice). I love the opening lines: I saw you in a parking lot/Where they used to sell pumpkins and Elvis paintings/You were buying a Christmas tree/I recognized you but you could not place me." (As an aside: this group is not the same Big People that featured the late Benjamin Orr. Sorry Cars fans.) Whenever I hear this, I feel impossibly, explodingly happy, even though it's a little bit goofy.

Yuletunes is not out of print & though used copies crop up from time to time on Amazon, they typically sell for a bit more than I would recommend paying. If anyone's interested in hearing the rest of the album I'm happy to upload it, just ask in the comments.

"3 Wise Men and a Baby (Xmas Song)" (The Cavedogs)
"Piece for Christmas" (Big People)

Rocket or Chiritori

Vacation by Rocket or Chiritori

God, what is not to love about this girl? In some ways, I believe that the internet's tendency to hook me up with music that I would have loved when I was fourteen and had no friends is its only true redeeming talent.

I have always loved things that feel private, like they happened in isolation. I love spare sounding music that seems like it was recorded in someone's bedroom while they were hiding from their parents or trying to occupy the hours spent not attending a party they weren't invited to anyway. I love things that sound sad, but in that beautiful way, like when you're a teenager and you think there's something really brilliant and tragic and misunderstood about never having anywhere to go except, maybe, the convenience store to buy something to drink and maybe run into the older cooler kids who are trying to get frustrated adults to buy beer for them.

It takes literally NO IMAGINATION for me to picture myself as a teenager lying face down on my bed listening to "Vacation" on repeat, losing myself in the sound of Satako's tentative and perfect strumming.

(This version of "Vacation" appears on the Darla Records comp Little Darla has a Treat for You vol. 9.)

Vacation by Rocket or Chiritori

Tattle Tale

Erica (.mp3, Mediafire)

It's been something like 10 or 11 years since a penpal told me about Tattle Tale and those nights I spent lying in a too-small twin bed listening to a cassette tape that concluded with an incomplete version of "Erica" seem so far away and so close at the same time -- I can still remember the streetlight coming in through the window, the sound of the train racing by a few blocks away, feel the hum of the tape turning in the walkman (I always set it to rest on my chest, just beneath my collarbone, because I liked the weight of it).

"Erica" is, at least, as far as I can figure, the last song that Tattle Tale released together. And it's certainly the one that hit me the hardest -- it's all too easy for me to picture my teenage self scribbling the lyrics down in my diary thinking, as teenagers do, "Oh my god, you don't even understand, it's like this song is my life! Etc., etc.!" The thing, I think, that I really loved (and still love) about Tattle Tale is the use of both space and dissonance in their songs -- I felt like there were gaps there, gaps that I could fit into. Something about the moments of emptiness followed by the intense collision of vocals and cello and guitar and drums drew me in and kept me there.

"Erica" appeared on a compilation album called Move Into the Villa Villakula which you can read more about here. It was released on both vinyl and CD and is certainly getting hard to come by, but if you can track it down, it's worth it. Tattle Tale contributes two beautiful songs and I'm also exceptionally fond of Sleater Kinney's contribution (a cover of Boston's "More Than A Feeling.")

Erica (.mp3, Mediafire)

Sonido Uzumaki

Sonido Uzumaki (compilation, Mediafire)

It's hard to find music that I can listen to in the office -- most of my office mates are more or less okay with a bit of noise, but there's just one who's opposed to people listening to music at their desks. Sonido Uzumaki is a great compromise -- just poppy enough to keep my attention, but generally subdued so that no one in the office has a complaint. Which -- I guess -- means it might be in the vein of elevator music? Maybe not. It's definitely more enjoyable than most elevator music.

Via Music Related:

sonido uzumaki is a joint project between visual artists Friends With You, Mumbleboy, GAGA Inc., and Music Related. we put togeather a sound track for their group artshow ‘Aqui Uzumaki. Sonido Uzumaki compiles a wide range of musical styles, and collection of known, and unknow groups. original songs from groups within the music related, and audio dregs camp. plus songs from artist from around the world, never heard before. acoustic pop, to glitched out electronic romps. songs by, phofo, yacht, lem jay, ymck, marxy, kiiiiiii!, e*rock, shugo tokumaru, pandacrash, red colour cat, messer fur frau muller, dim dim, digiki, crusher, midori hamada, mikimi tablets, and lullatone, round out this eclectic collection of songs.

A quick look around the internet turns up copies of Sonido Uzumaki at ToneVendor for $9.99, so if you like what you hear, definitely pick it up!

Sonido Uzumaki (compilation, Mediafire)