Money Mark — Push the Button

• Artist: Money Mark
• Title: Push the Button
• Year: 1998
• Format: CD
• Rating (1-10): 10
• Owner: Tracy
• Acquired: 1998 – Advance copy?
• Keeper: Yes

Genius! Genius I tell you! More Money Mark greatness today. This record is deep! Somehow this disk is even better than the first. I don’t know where or how I got this advance copy of Push the Button but it’s good to have friends that know what’s going on. This record has a lot more vocals and that’s just more to love. Mark’s lyrics are brilliant and at times poignant. His voice is perfect for his unique style of music. Noise, techno, electronic, gospel, soul, funk, rock and jazz are all in the mix.

I have played Push the Button for countless people over the years and I have never met anyone who didn’t love it. And if there are people out there who don’t dig it I doubt I want to meet them.

Push the button
Push the button
Open the door and let me come innnnnn…

Money Mark at MySpace
Proper cover art for Push the Button at Wikipedia
Clips and review at AllMusic

Band Members Wanted!

Just trying to help a brother out. Any 10 to 13 year olds out there ready to rock? Contact Mars.

Money Mark — Mark’s Keyboard Repair

• Artist: Money Mark
• Title: Mark’s Keyboard Repair
• Year: 1995
• Format: CD
• Rating (1-10): 10
• Owner: Tracy
• Acquired: 1995 – Dunno where
• Keeper: Yes

Money Mark is the greatest. He’s played with everyone from Beck to the Beastie Boys, but the truth is, even though I love those artists, I play his music much more often. Mark’s Keyboard Repair has 30 tracks. You’re probably thinking “that’s too much” but I assure after one listen you’ll start thinking “I want more.” Some folks describe this recording as demo quality, but I disagree. It’s free and loose but the sound is perfect. Many of the songs are only about a minute long. In some ways it feels less like a typical album and more like the cue track to your favorite unmade movie. Give it a spin and pretend you’re the star.

Gimme more Money Mark…
MoneyMark.com
Money Mark at Wikipedia

Jeffrey Lee Pierce — Flamingo

• Artist: Jeffrey Lee Pierce
• Title: Flamingo
• Year: 1985
• Format: Vinyl 12 in.
• Rating (1-10): 4
• Owner: Tracy
• Acquired: No idea

Arty doesn’t always equate to interesting and noise is no substitute for real intensity. I was big fan of Gun Club, but this solo EP from Jeffrey Lee Pierce just doesn’t cut it. By the third track Mary mentioned “he’s doing a little bit of everything.” I wish he had focused on music like “Love & Desparation” from the second side instead. That’s a great song, but most of this is annoying noodling around that shouldn’t even qualify as B-side filler.

New Order — Shellshock 12 inch

• Artist: New Order
• Title: Shellshock
• Year: 1986
• Format: Vinyl 12 in.
• Rating (1-10): 7
• Owner: Mary
• Acquired: 1987? – Plan 9

We seem to have an endless supply of 12 inches. Almost all of them are Mary’s; she’s quite the completist collector. Here is another piece of pop art from New Order. This version of “Shellshock” is almost 10 minutes long. “Original version appears on the original picture soundtrack Pretty in Pink” is printed on the typically minimalist back cover. The flip side has an instrumental version of “Thieves Like Us.” Why do we keep these things? Is my wife leading a secret second life as a DJ for ’80s dance parties?

More data

Masters of Reality — Masters of Reality

• Artist: Masters of Reality
• Title: Masters of Reality
• Year: 1988
• Format: Vinyl 12 in.
• Rating (1-10): 7
• Owner: Tracy
• Acquired: 1988
• Keeper: Yes

I was thinking this record was on the Delicious Vinyl label, but this is the original release which came out on Rick Rubin’s Def American. Turns out Delicious signed Masters of Reality and re-released their eponymous debut a couple years later. It’s better than I remember. There’s a weird vintage rock and roll vibe, but that’s how it sounded 20 years ago when it was new. It reminds me of Cream with a dash of Queens of The Stone Age. And there are in fact real connections to those bands. Ginger Baker would later play with the group, and singer Chris Goss has a side band with Queens front man Josh Homme.

Delicious Vinyl has one of the coolest logos of all time, but I dig the industrial looking Def American graphic on the liner pictured below.

More about Masters of Reality.

The Leaving Trains — Fuck

• Artist: The Leaving Trains
• Title: Fuck
• Year: 1987
• Format: Vinyl 12 in.
• Rating (1-10): 6
• Owner: Tracy
• Acquired: 1987 – Promo at Mother’s Records
• Keeper: Maybe

I apologize. And with that out the way let’s talk about the only record I have by The Leaving Trains that I didn’t buy. This one must have been a promo we got when I worked at a chain record store in a shopping mall. You can see from the last pic that the label, SST, ran a display contest. “Win a Plane Trip to a Trains Show.” I guess back in 1987 that would have motivated some folks, but there is no way a chain store in the mall was going cover a wall with record cover reprints, or “flats” as they were called, of an album titled Fuck that just happened to have “FUCK” printed big and bold on the front.

A couple decades later a title like that seems more like a cheap attention-getting gimmick than it did to me at the time. It might work now, but I’m pretty certain this did nothing to help them sell records then. It’s not my favorite of the three LT records I have, but there are some great garage-punk-rock, body-moving songs on this album.

Are The Leaving Trains still making music? I can’t tell.

Elastica — Connection

• Artist: Elastica
• Title: Connection
• Year: 1995
• Format: CD
• Rating (1-10): 9
• Owner: Tracy
• Acquired: 1995? – Promo from…
• Keeper: Yes

I think I got this from Bob Schick when I was visiting Richmond. He was (is?) a buyer at Plan 9 Records (now “Music”) and always had more promo stuff than you can imagine. Anyhow, this is a fantastic single. When it was new I was turned off by the retro vibe, but I’m over that now. Bring the retro back! Make it double retro… or something like that. This is the only Elastica music I own, and it’s only two minutes long.

Tip: Elastica makes a great starting point for your next Jango station.

Jerry Van Rooyen — At 250 Miles Per Hour

Jerry Van Rooyen -- At 250 Miles Per Hour

• Artist: Jerry Van Rooyen
• Title: At 250 Miles Per Hour
• Year: 1996?
• Format: Vinyl 12 in.
• Rating (1-10): 8
• Owner: Tracy
• Acquired: Amazon? – 1998
• Keeper: Yes

At 250 Miles Per Hour was put out by a German label with a seriously painful name, Crippled Dick Hot Wax. Jerry Van Rooyen had a habit of writing original scores for strange late ’60s movies that were either horror or soft porn, and sometimes both. Maybe even weirder than that is the fact that this sub-sub-genre of swinging music has a solid cult following.

How did I hear about it? No, mom, I wasn’t watching “The Castle of Bloody Lust” when Mr. Van Rooyen’s grooving jazz caught my attention. It was a comedy from 1998 that featured William Shatner called Free Enterprise. The producers, wisely, chose to re-use Rooyen’s kicking number “The Great Train Robbery” to open the movie. I recommend the movie and the tunes. I play this CD all the time, all the time.

My favorite song is the exquisitely short “Fabienne Is Going Wild.” It’s barely over one minute and it’s the best strip music I’ve ever heard. If it were any longer people’s clothes would start flying. Check out the clips.

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion — Orange

• Artist: The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
• Title: Orange
• Year: 1994
• Format: Vinyl 12 in.
• Rating (1-10): 9
• Owner: Tracy
• Acquired: 1994 – Maybe Plan 9 in Richmond, VA
• Keeper: Yes

“The Blues is number one. The Blues… is number one.”

Oh man I love this record. I can thank Bob Schick for turning me on to Orange. He told me to listen to the “fast violins” in the extended intro to “Bell Bottoms.” And the violins do indeed make it special. It sounds like an intense orchestral score in lockstep with a minimalist art rock blues trio, complete with some chanting, shouting gang vocals near the end. That’s how the album opens and I can’t imagine it being any better, but my favorite song on the record is the second one, “Ditch.” It has a great guitar hook that makes me want to get down in the ditch with them and start digging.

The band shortened their name to just Blues Explosion a few years ago, but I keep this record under “S.” Jon Spencer’s earlier band Pussy Galore did nothing for me, and to some degree I’m still surprised that the smart-ass vibe of JSBX doesn’t take the steam out of music. But believe me it doesn’t.

Check out some songs from The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion at their MySpace, especially “Bell Bottoms.”