Acquired: 1987 – Promo when I worked at Mother’s Records in Hampton, VA
Keeper: Yes
The Bags put the rawk in punk rock, and there’s a trace of Motorhead-style metal in there too. There is a great review excerpt of Rock Starve from Playboy at Wikipedia. This is the only Bags record I have, but I also have a record by them under the name Swamp Oaf. I got this one as a promo and it included something like a media kit, really just a copy of a few articles about the band.
I never got to see The Bags live but I’m sure they tear the roof off at every show. The good news is, despite some extended breaks, the band still exists. I just came across their page at MySpace. Lyrically, they seem to have moved more in the direction of Spinal Tap and I can’t say I like the new songs quite as much as the now 20 years old Rock Starve, but they’re still rocking it. I like all of the songs on this record but my favorite is “Spread It Around.”
I’m gonna pass it on to strangers
And give it to my friends
Lay low for a little while
Until it comes my way again
Why-y-y-y-y-y should I keep it to myself
When I could be sharing it with someone else
I have had Gogol Bordello’s “Start Wearing Purple” stuck in my head for months. For a few reasons, I haven’t gotten around to buying the album to review it, but I can no longer in good conscience keep them a secret from my millions of devoted readers. If you haven’t already heard of them, this is your lucky day. If you act now, you get the song with the video included for free. Just click the player below. For a limited time, as an added bonus you can also hear all the songs from their new album Super Taranta. Operators are standing by.
Acquired: 1986 – Probably at Mother’s Records in Hampton, VA
Keeper: Yes
No camera can capture the intense greenness of this album cover. I enjoyed The Blasting Concept Volume II more than I expected. I forgot how metal-sounding, a high compliment, some of these bands were back then. I have records by most of the bands on here, but it’s worth keeping for the few good songs I don’t have, like “Watch the Tractor” by Gone. My favorite is the Minutemen’s punkish cover of Van Halen’s “Ain’t Talking About Love.” I’ve never heard a bad version of that song, even from the garage band I played drums for in junior high.
Marginal Man was pretty inventive on Identity while still sounding like hardcore. I like the music and the playing, the sound is great too, but, and I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, the vocals just don’t do it for me. It sounds like I’m singing or something. Anyhow, Mary got it at a show and we’re keeping it for nostalgia if nothing else.
Live from Alexandria, VA. More specifically, from the home of our good friends and generous hosts the Brokamps. Robert is sitting next to me typing on his laptop about retirement, and I’m typing about old records.
I’ve said this before: Most records by The Damned are pretty inconsistent. I love the songs “Stranger on the Town” and “Dozen Girls”, but not much else on Strawberries. I probably didn’t give it a fair listen since I was trying to jam in some records before we hit the road. It just doesn’t grab my attention, unlike the cool cover.
Uh, well, more old school comedy punk from The Vandals. When in Rome Do as The Vandals came out in 1984 and it wasn’t exactly old school then, but it sounded more like early punk instead of hardcore, which had already been around for a while. The first song “Ladykiller” is an anomaly. That ditty sounds more like a bad, comic version of the early Red Hot Chili Peppers. It was probably fun then.
It’s two-fer Tuesday! I don’t know why, but I love this album cover. There’s just something about it. When I first got Put@’s Fever I thought Mano Negra sounded like a more punk, more Latin (even though they’re French) version of the awesome French band Les Negresses Vertes. It still sounds like that to me. It’s French and energetic, with a lot brass. What else do you need to know?
(Note: I later edited the titles using the @ symbol because the correct spelling of “Put@s” was attracting a lot of the wrong kind of traffic.)
I’ve been busy making the doughnuts so it’s taken me a while to give this record a proper listen. And The Jam’s This is the Modern World deserves a proper listen, or a few. You get your money’s worth with a total of 13 songs. All of them are exquisitely naked, mod, and short. There’s only one song over three minutes, and there’s one cover, a mod-punked out version of Wilson Pickett’s “In the Midnight Hour.” Looks like I disagree with The Jam critics, historians and maybe even Paul Weller himself, again.
Hey! I’ve already posted this album, except it was a different. This version of The Black Album by The Damned doesn’t have the gatefold cover, the front is much simpler (boring), and there is no second LP with the live stuff. Anything else I could say I’ve already said. I did play it again, in case you’re wondering, because that’s the deal. Everything gets played, at least one more time.
Acquired: 1987? — Maybe when I was working at Mother’s Records in Hampton, VA
Keeper: Maybe
Christmas has made me so slack. We’re on the road now, but I played a buncha records and loaded up the pics right before we left. This one is Naked Raygun’s “Vanilla Blue.” For no particular reason I never really got into this band, but I like this song. I’m not sure how to describe it other than to say it’s interesting. The flipside is called “Slim” and it’s not so interesting. I think it’s just some samples of Slim Pickens from some old movies with some silly music backing it up. That’s three somes in one sentence y’all. Check out that sweet colored vinyl!
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