Don Chicharrón - Valle 7" - Brown/Green Translucent Vinyl

Snappy Little Numbers / Don Cheech Discos (2020)

First off, I should immediately point out that all proceeds from this fine little 7" benefit Casa de Paz & Metro Denver Sanctuary Coalition.  These are organizations dedicated to helping struggling immigrant and that is a cause I can definitely get behind. Especially considering how completely batshit insane things are in this country right now.

Now onto Don Chicharrón.  A side "Valle" is an upbeat instrumental propelled by punch and rhythmic drums.  On top of that is blast of surfy guitar riffing that mixes in perfectly with the salsa-esque beat that drives the song forward.  It's the kind of song that feels cinematic in nature and I can easily imagine it providing the soundtrack to key scene in a movie.  Definitely one where tension is building.

On the B side is "En La Gruta Del Rey De La Montaña."  Another instrumental, this is a cover of a piece of music hat is sometimes also called "In the Hall of the Mountain King" or "I Dovregubbens hall."  You may not know those by name, I sure didn't and had to look them up.  But I assure you that you will know the melody of this piece.  If for no other reason than it's been utilized as cartoon soundtrack music since the beginning of time.  Chicharrón's version ups the frantic nature of this song and once again blasts in some effect laden surfy guitar work.  It's a ton of fun and was a welcome surprise once I hit that side of the record.

Don Chicharrón - Valle 7":
https://snappylittlenumbers.bandcamp.com/album/valle-b-w-en-la-gruta-del-rey-de-la-montan-a

Built to Spill - Plays the Songs of Daniel Johnston LP - Clear w/ Yellow & Blue Splatter (/500)

Ernest Jennings (2020)

I love Built to Spill and have for twenty five years or so.  Sure, I tend to favor their records from the 90s, but I've never heard a Built to Spill record that I haven't liked.  They are all just varying degrees of excellent and I tend to rank There's Nothing Wrong With Love and Keep It Like a Secret as the most excellent of the bunch.

However, when we get to their latest, an album of Daniel Johnston cover songs, it's difficult for me to get very excited.  To be blunt, while there's absolutely nothing bad about the album, it's kind of boring.  I'm not sure if that's because of Daniel Johnston's songs or if the execution is simply not very inspiring.  No matter the cause, you just kind of cruise through this light and airy record which has a habit of fading into background noise when you're listening to it.

I am admittedly not particularly familiar with Daniel Johnston's output, so I'm not going to compare these BTS covers to his originals.  All I can do is judge the album in front of me on its own merits and I just keep coming back to the fact that it isn't very exciting.  They just come across as paint by numbers jangle pop songs.  And while I like them, I can't fathom a time where I would look at my Built to Spill records and decide that this is the one I'm going to listen to when all of the others are significantly more interesting.

Built to Spill - Plays the Songs of Daniel Johnston:
https://built-to-spill.bandcamp.com/album/built-to-spill-plays-the-songs-of-daniel-johnston

Boogie Down Productions - Edutainment LP

Jive (1990)

Every Wednesday, in honor of Ed Lover Dance Day from Yo MTV Raps, I take a break from rock and roll to write a little bit about hip hop. In the late 80s and early 90s hip hop ruled my musical life. During this often called 'Golden Era' I discovered so much incredible music. As I am slowly replacing the CDs I've had for twenty-five plus years with vinyl copies, I'm going to talk about some albums that had a really important impact on me during some very formative years.

Edutainment was the most recent Boogie Down Productions full length album that was out when I first started listening to them.  It's never been the album that I tend to go to the most.  I like most of the others better, but I think because of that it always sounds fresh and exciting every time I put it on.

I was never the biggest fan of the album's main single, "Love's Gonna Get'cha," and I think that might be the reason I wasn't as drawn to the album as a whole when I was younger.  But today, when I put on the album and spin through classics like "Blackman in Effect," "Ya Know The Rules" or "The Racist" you get that incredible mix of killer beats with intelligent and well composed lyrics that dominates just about every BDP album.

So maybe this is the least successful of the 5 BDP albums for me, but when you are comparing it to some of the most incredible and well regarded albums in the history of hip hop, you may come up a little short here and there.  That's not to say that Edutainment isn't a classic in its own right, it's just probably not the album I would direct a new fan to first.

Boogie Down Productions - Edutainment (Youtube full album steam):
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_niBt3FGQ7FGaec2AvItUXIQ5-YIuPkHA0

The Blues Brothers Movie & Soundtrack - 40 Years Old

This past Saturday, June 20th, marked 40 years since the release of my favorite movie of all time, The Blues Brothers.  As best as I can tell, it's also the 40th anniversary of the release of its accompanying soundtrack.  I figured that it would be interesting to take a picture of the 2 versions of the soundtrack that I have along with the various singles that I've collected over the past few years.  Even I was a little surprised of just how many there were when I took this picture.  I have already shared this picture on Twitter and Instagram and the like, but I wanted to take a moment to write a little bit more about it here.

I've had the soundtrack since I was a little kid and absolutely played it to death.  Songs like "She Caught the Caty," "Sweet Home Chicago" and Gimme Some Lovin'" have always been perennial favorites of mine.  Couple that with Aretha Franklin's tremendous rendition of "Think" and Ray Charles' "Shake a Tailfeather" and you've got the makings of something pretty special.

The only things that ever bothered me about this soundtrack are the things that aren't there.  The Blues Brothers' version of "Stand By Your Man" and John Lee Hooker's "Boom Boom Boom Boom" are super obvious omissions as is some of the non-Blues Brothers songs played in the background during the movie.  I think that a few contributions from Elmore James and Louis Jordan would only enhance the overall experience of the album.

But the thing that has always bugged me the most is that the version fo "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love" is different than what is played in the movie.  The unnecessary addition of backing vocals to the album version has always been a pet peeve of mine.  But despite these grumbles and the wish that this could be a double LP of music, I will always cherish this album along with the movie.  They are both hugely important to me and I have a hard time imagining how my life would have turned out without them.

The Midnight Vein - Till It Explodes 7"

Swimming Faith (2020)

First off, kudos on the artwork.  The see through artwork combined with the yellow insert brushed with wildflower seeds is quite the interesting set up.  This 7" immediately jumped out at me when it came in the mail and enticed me to give it a spin right away.

As far as the music, I quite liked the a side "Till It Explodes."  It's a soft and somewhat dreamy song, but reminded me a little bit of The Beta Band in the way the song just builds up, adding layers of instrumentation as if move forward. Also the vocal melody makes me want to compare this to that And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead song "Source Tags and Code" (The song called that, not the entire album).  Maybe not my typical cup of tea, but I definitely like this.

B side "Run From The Light" doesn't grab me the same way.  It's way too long and doesn't lean on poppier melodies the same way the A side does.  This one's a bit more experimental with effects on the vocals and a repetitive beat structure.  I actually know a lot of people from my college radio days that would love this side of the record, but I'm more interested to see if the band has any more tunes like "Till It Explodes."

The Midnight Vein - Till It Explodes 7"
https://themidnightvein.bandcamp.com/album/till-it-explodes

King Geedorah - Take Me To Your Leader 2xLP - Red Vinyl

Big Dada (2016, Reissue)

Every Wednesday, in honor of Ed Lover Dance Day from Yo MTV Raps, I take a break from rock and roll to write a little bit about hip hop. In the late 80s and early 90s hip hop ruled my musical life. During this often called 'Golden Era' I discovered so much incredible music. As I am slowly replacing the CDs I've had for twenty-five plus years with vinyl copies, I'm going to talk about some albums that had a really important impact on me during some very formative years.

I thought that this album would be an appropriate follow up to last weeks KMD record.  King Geedorah came out originally in 2003 and was after the former Zev Love X had reemerged as MF Doom.  King Geedorah was another alter ego, this time building an album focused on imagery and sounds from 1960's Toho monster movies.  I'm not above admitting that the only reason I really went out of my way to listen to this in 2003 was because of the Godzilla references.

Luckily, my allegiance to kaiju was rewarded as Take Me To Your Leader ranks up amongst my very favorite 'newer' hop hop releases.  Yes, I realize calling a seventeen year old record 'new' is a bit of a stretch, but as I've mentioned, pretty much any hip hop record that catches my interest after 1994 feels like a newer record to me.  The beats are very innovated and mix in kitschy sound effects with lush strings and beats.  In some ways it reminds me of another favorite, Beauty and the Beat by Edan in the way the beats are constructed.  But Take Me To Your Leader has the advantage of dialog from Xilien Controller.

I don't like everything the MF Doom churns out.  I've heard plenty that doesn't catch my ear for one reason or another. For me, King Geedorah ranks just under KMD if I'm ranking these related projects.  It's a totally different animal than KMD, but succeeds due to its excellent premise and flawless execution.  I'd sure like a follow up release at some point.

King Geedorah - Take Me To Your Leader (Youtube full album playlist):
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nUjTozCumC1dqxQcj64pziIlVTlEYJvVk

Facility Men - It's Fun To Disappear LP

Big Neck (2019)

This is another album that's been sitting around far too long waiting for me to give it a spin.  As I've mentioned, the current situation of the world and the lack of spare cash I have to spend on records is having the slightly positive benefit of helping me clear out the backlog.  This album came out in mid 2019, but I don't think I've been sitting on it for a whole year.  Either that or I've completely lost rack of time.

I've actually heard Facility Men before.  Back in 2016, I wrote about their demo tape that came out on More Power tapes.  I had written then that I was a little disappointed as the music was good, but I wasn't that into the vocals.  For their debut full length on Big Neck, the vocals are massively improved.  This time out I'm reminded a bit of The Estranged in how the vocals mix with the angular, almost Unwound-esque guitar attack.

Facility Men have shown so much growth since their tape from a few years ago.  My lukewarm reaction to that cassette is one of the things that kept me putting this LP on the back burner. Well, that was pretty dumb.  There's a lot to like about It's Fun To Disappear and it makes me eager to see where the band goes next.

Facility Men - It's Fun To Disappear:
https://bigneckrecords1.bandcamp.com/album/facility-men-its-fun-to-dissapear

KMD - Mr. Hood 2xLP

Traffic/Elektra (2004, Reissue)

Every Wednesday, in honor of Ed Lover Dance Day from Yo MTV Raps, I take a break from rock and roll to write a little bit about hip hop. In the late 80s and early 90s hip hop ruled my musical life. During this often called 'Golden Era' I discovered so much incredible music. As I am slowly replacing the CDs I've had for twenty-five plus years with vinyl copies, I'm going to talk about some albums that had a really important impact on me during some very formative years.

The first time I had heard of KMD was when Zev Love X made a guest appearance on the 3rd Bass song Gas Face.  I can't say that the first KMD full length, Mr. Hood, was on may radar as soon as it came out, but in the intervening years, I've become a really huge fan of this album.  Zev Love X made a far bigger splash in the hip hop community when he disappeared and reemerged as MF Doom, but for me, the KMD albums records are the cream of his crop.

The thing that I like best about Mr. Hood is the storytelling aspect as the songs are strung together with dialogue between KMD and the fictional Mr. Hood, which is primarily strung together using samples from some woefully out of date children's storytelling records and some English language instructional records.  While skits on hop hop records are not always my favorite, these serve a greater narrative purpose than the randomly tossed in comedy skit.

The beats on this record are bouncy and upbeat, a perfect slice of golden era hip hop production.  Combine that in with stellar rhymes and the aforementioned narrative and you've got yourself a real classic.  It is criminally under appreciated despite the relative success and notoriety that MF Doom has achieved.  KMD had one other album called Black Bastards that was pulled by Elektra prior to release.  It floated around bootleg circles for years until finally getting a proper reissue.  That one is still on my list of vinyl to pick up once finances allow for the purchase of more records.

KMD - Mr. Hood (Youtube full album playlist):
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mrQgcU0xVDKBGCL88NEKZQHl2FA63iMrU

BOAT - Tread Lightly LP - Pink Vinyl

Magic Marker (2020)

It was really nice to get the new BOAT album in the middle of all of the pandemic lockdown stuff.  It was a brief respite from the never ending stream of bad news and felt like a small piece of normalcy had returned.  It's been a while since the last Boat (I'm not going to capitalize BOAT every single time) record and while they never said they had broken up, I wasn't sure we'd see another one.  Especially as members were involved in other projects over the past few years.

Luckily they did put out another album, and it's a stellar one to boot.  Tread Lightly fits perfectly into their catalog showcasing their ability to write 90s sounding indie rock songs that beg you to ignore the alphabet and put their albums on your record shelf right next to Pavement.  Right in the midst of  their casual sounding guitar riffs and song structures, they also sneak in lyrical genius.  I for one really appreciate songs about getting old and the life that follows.

It's weird watching myself and other people my age get older without having done a lot of growing up and it's nice to have that sort of thing articulated by people who are a lot smarter than I am.  What it boils down to is this album speaks to me.  I'm so happy that there is a band that not only can capture the sounds of one of my favorite eras of music, but can also use those vibes to put into words some of the oddness I feel as a forty three year old who still worries about missing out on action figure preorders.  And no, that specific topic is not one covered on this album.  Maybe next time.

Boat - Tread Lightly:
https://boat.bandcamp.com/album/tread-lightly

Mammals - This Sound 7"

Lamont (2017)

When Mammals sent over their most recent 7", Look Around You, they were kind enough to toss in their first two singles as well.  This Sound is the first of the two and is another example of some really great, straightforward jangle guitar pop songwriting.

A side "This Sound" certainly has a 60s vibe to it with its repetitive guitar riff and thunderous kick drum.  There's no reinvention of the wheel going on here, but that isn't to insinuate that Mammals are trapped in a decade from over half a century ago.  For me, what it does is showcase the fact that songs don't need to have overly complicate structures or other pyrotechnics to stand out.  There's something compelling about a back to the basics simple and catchy song.

But then things pick up even more with the B side "No Easy Way."  And while I oddly hear similarities to a few songs from the 2003 Sean Na Na album My Majesty (a sorely overlooked pop gem, by the way), it's impossible not to get caught up in the song's punchy verses and big hook of a chorus.  Of the two songs, it's my favorite.  I'll write something up about the last 7" I have of there's in the upcoming weeks.

Mammals - This Sound 7"
https://mammals.bandcamp.com/album/this-sound-2

Ice Cube - Amerikkkas Most Wanted LP

Priority (1990)

Every Wednesday, in honor of Ed Lover Dance Day from Yo MTV Raps, I take a break from rock and roll to write a little bit about hip hop. In the late 80s and early 90s hip hop ruled my musical life. During this often called 'Golden Era' I discovered so much incredible music. As I am slowly replacing the CDs I've had for twenty-five plus years with vinyl copies, I'm going to talk about some albums that had a really important impact on me during some very formative years.

This seemed like a somewhat appropriate record with all of the insane bullshit going on right now, though maybe it isn't and I'm being completely tone deaf.  Apologies if that's the case.  I'm not going to pretend that I have anything enlightening or profoundly deep to say, but I can say that it's a really depressing time to be in America right now.  One of the things that really jumps out at me about this record is that it came out in 1990, which is thirty years ago.  How things haven't gotten better is a real downer.

Ice Cube's debut is one of the more celebrated debuts in the history of hip hop.  Even if he never put out another record after the equally excellent Death Certificate, that album and this one would have been plenty to cement Cube's legacy.  Lyrically, not everything has aged well, though you could say that about plenty of albums from the 80s and 90s, but when Ice Cube gets political and tells stories about day to day living, he paints a hell of a picture.

The beats were primarily done by the Bomb Squad, mostly known for their work with Public Enemy.  They captured the perfect blend of hard hitting east coast beats to complement Ice Cube's west coast delivery.  It bridged a gap and you could argue that it was one of the only albums of the era that couldn't easily be pinned down to the geographic region of the artist.

I'm not entirely sure what version of this LP I bought.  Per Discogs, the catalog number, barcode and all that matches the original 1990 pressing, but it's in way too good condition to actually be that old.  There must have been a repress at some point that wasn't tied into the Respect The Classics series and I assume this is one of those, but I'm not entirely positive.

Ice Cube - Amerikka's Most Wanted LP (YouTube full album playlist):
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mw1wDF2C9nSXalVkOUSctNOtsUC91Ikuk