Ass Pennies For Confidence.

I doubt this will make sense without video, but if you're as into the Upright Citizens Brigade as I am, you might remember the episode "Mogomra vs. The Fart Monster" that opened with a sketch of an aerobics class devoted to "Japa-Noi Tretching", where people beat the shit out of each other to the sounds of a Japanese punk band. Anyway, the Japanese punk band in question is Peelander-Z & they're going to be in Northampton this weekend.

Sunday, March 30th
Peelander-Z
Hot Black
The Probates
The Uncomfortables
at the Elevens (140 Pleasant Street) in Northampton
10pm, 21+

I don't know how much it costs, but I encourage you to pay your way in with ass pennies.

Smitten.

Monday was truly a special day, for the powers that be finally unleashed the Love & Circuits 2xCD compilation, courtesy of Cardboard Records (run by Dan Friel of the way-awesome Parts & Labor), upon the WMUA dungeon. I know this had been eagerly awaited by at least myself & Eric, although probably not anyone else. Look at this line-up & play "spot the number of times that I've foamed at the mouth over a ridiculous number of these bands on the blog":

DISC ONE:
1. Aa - Who's The Boss
2. Action Beat - More Hookie
3. Best Fwends - Skate Or Live
4. Big Bear - 19
5. Bilge Pump - Rise And Fall Of The Alpha Male
6. Bipolar Bear - Gaza Striptease
7. Books On Tape - Orphann
8. Collin Mel - Bump In My Throat
9. Craig Colorusso - #43 Greg McCarthy
10. Crime In Choir - Broken Before A Frozen God
11. Crito & Doily - Magpies
12. Double Dagger - Ruby
13. Dynamite Arrows - Systems
14. Ecstatic Sunshine - Crystal In The Sky
15. Fat Day - I Smell Poop Gub
16. Fathers Day - I Have So Much Respect For Women
17. Flying - Minors
18. Fuck Buttons - Ribs Out
19. Golden Error - Hunted
20. The Good Good - Look Hello
21. Gowns - What If Not You
22. High Places - Canary
23. Ho-ag - Handsome
24. Hunting Lodge - (k)Palixio, Nature Wyzered
25. Insect Factory - Meditation (With Wind)
26. Japanther - Charlie Hustle (Free Pete Rose)
27. Jerk - Cobra
28. Justice Yeldham - 062 Tienen 080304
29. Leaders - Lightheart

DISC TWO:
1. Lovid - 40 Winks
2. Lucky Dragons - Where's Adam
3. Maps And Atlases - Songs For Ghosts To Haunt To
4. Matt And Kim - Silver Tiles
5. Monster Dudes - No New School
6. Mr. Baby - A Death In The Family
7. Necking - Swinging Ear
8. Neptune (feat. Can't) - 23
9. Numbers - Can't Remember
10. The Oh Sees - The Killer
11. Oneida - Winter Mind
12. Parts & Labor - No Night
13. Pope - Milk Faced Whitey
14. Pterodactyl - 5 Minutes In 2 Minutes
15. Raccoo-oo-oon - Garden Suns
16. Shooting Spires - Sailin' On
17. The Show Is The Rainbow - How Do You Spell Success?
18. Shy Child - Down On Yourself
19. These Are Powers - The South Angel
20. Trey Told 'Em - All Of The Other Songs Remixed
21. Tunnel Of Love - P.T.K.
22. Tuxedo Killers - Don't Get Me Started
23. The USA Is A Monster - Okeepa Ceremony Acoustic
24. Vaz - Birth Of The Universe
25. Voltage - Phil Taylor
26. When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth - It's Not The Heat It's The Humidity
27. Wilderness - Beautiful Alarms (Live In Slovenia)
28. ZS - In My Dream I Shot A Monk

Fun facts: 77.2% of these songs are exclusive to the compilation & the ones that aren't exclusive are good enough that it won't hurt to have them in a second format, if you're concerned about overlap. Also, 77.2% of these bands are probably from Brooklyn & the ones that aren't are probably from Boston or Austin, or as I like to call them, Bizarro Brooklyns. If you're at all into the art-damaged noise rock thing, you could do a lot worse than to shell out fifteen bucks for this little beast, because I'm hard pressed to think of many worthy bands in that whole scene who aren't represented here. I'm still working on digesting the whole thing, but the Shooting Spires cover of Bad Brains' "Sailin' On" is particularly hot.

Pop Rocks.

I don't talk about pop-punk nearly enough on this blog. I've spent the better part of the afternoon listening to a loosely Valentine's Day-themed mixtape someone made me recently & the Descendents/Lemonheads/Smoking Popes combination kind of gave me the shake I needed to correct the pop-punk imbalance that results from me always posting about Thurston Moore or David Yow on here. The Smoking Popes actually have a new album coming out in May, apparently & while I'm skeptical about whether or not that's a good thing (see: way, WAY too many bands getting back together), I had kind of forgotten how awesome they were circa like 1995.

The Smoking Popes - "Rubella"


Note that I intentionally didn't post the video for "Need You Around", which while a great song, probably does not need any further exposure after the law in the mid-90's that ordered it appear on the soundtrack to accompany every movie with the slightest connection to alterna-teens.

Obligatory J Mascis Post.

I'm here today to do my duty as a member of an Amherst-based independent music outlet & give you a "J Mascis performance" alert.

Thursday, March 20th (that's tonight, if you're paying attention)
Witch
Graveyard (from Sweden)
at the Elevens (140 Pleasant Street), Northampton, MA
10pm, 21+

The new Witch album on Teepee Records also came out this week. I haven't heard it yet, so I can't really vouch for it, but maybe when it finally turns up in the over-cluttered stacks of the WMUA library, I can get back to you with a more informed analysis. Or you could just buy it yourself.

Lou vs. Jay.

Seeing as this is Western Mass, all of you obnoxious hippies out there probably have your own plans for April 20th, or the big 4-20, but fear not, because the rest of us have two options for something far less lame & probably far less saturated with patchouli.


First, there's Jay Reatard at Harper's Ferry in Boston (or Allston, whatever), with Cheap Time. Maybe you'll even get the chance to hook up with a Cat Power/Belle & Sebastian-listening asshole, or get one of those soon-to-be-Ebay-bait Jay Reatard singles, whichever you prefer.





It's no secret that the WMUA blog loves Jay Reatard, but if your devotion doesn't extend to making the trip to Boston for a set that will at most clock in at twenty minutes, or if you happen to have fifty dollars that you can't possibly figure out how to spend, might I suggest seeing Mister Lou Reed in Northampton at the Calvin Theater that night? I'll be the first one to admit that I haven't exactly kept up with Lou Reed's output from, oh, the past twenty-five years or so, but I'd say it's almost worth it to go see him just because I'm kind of amazed that he's still alive at this point. I know I can't be alone on this, right?

1995 Called & They Want Their Records Back.

I went on a big (well, bigger than usual) '90s indie rock nostalgia binge on my show this week, so I figured I'd make another post of nostalgic visual accompaniment. I'm getting paid to sit here at work & watch Robert Pollard do high kicks on the internet, so why not? The following looks suspiciously like one of the dozens of mixtapes of songs that I would have taped off the local college radio station when I was in the seventh grade.

Superchunk - "Precision Auto"


Sonic Youth - "Bull In The Heather" (with Kathleen Hanna!)


Guided By Voices - "My Valuable Hunting Knife"


The Halo Benders - "Don't Touch My Bikini"

Mega-Impatience.

Did y'all know about this? My usually razor-sharp Jay Reatard radar must be severely fucked up, because I don't know how this one slipped by me.

"After months of public speculation, late night phone calls and a fascinating thread on a bulletin board other than our own, we’re pleased to announce Matador will be releasing six limited edition singles in 2008 by the wildly prolific Jay Reatard.

Manufactured quantities of each single will diminish with each successive release. We’ve not figured out the exact scheme yet, but given our commitment to the customer-always-being-angry, rest assured the numbers will be lower than you’d like.

For those not nearly hung up on the collector skum scenery, all 6 7″’s will be compiled for a subsequent CD and LP release."

Now that I think about it, I do remember one-time WMUA blog comrade Bryan telling me about this when I ran into him on the bus one night, but to be honest, I thought he was fucking with me. Jay Reatard, on Matador? Whatever, dude. At any rate, it's actually upon us soon. Between this, last year's way-hot Love of Diagrams record & that new Times New Viking album, Matador actually knows what's up consistently for the first time since like 1997. How worried should I be that I'm going to have to battle it out with a bunch of Cat Power/Belle & Sebastian-listening assholes to get my hands on these singles?

Mistakes On The Lake.

I just got back from the greater Cleveland/Akron area, where I was stranded for three days longer than I anticipated due to the ridiculous two feet of snow that sabotaged the fair state of Ohio while I happened to be inside it. Apparently Hair Police met the same fate that I did & ended up cancelling the show they had slated at the Red Barn tomorrow night after wrecking their car in the blizzard. But seeing as I didn't even know about the show until Eric told me about it tonight, I'm guessing this is another classic case of Valley Underpromotion & very few of you are likely affected by this change of plans.

Perhaps even more frustrating than getting snowed in was yet again talking to my parents about the pride of Akron, the almighty Devo, members of whom they both went to school with (but of whom they were perpetually unaware). The fact that my Dad was at Kent State when the first Devo show happened but was probably too busy hanging out at a pool hall or something is a tremendous source of secret shame for me. Regardless of my folks' oversight, I fucking love Devo, so here's some "Jocko Homo" for you.

Classy Abortion

One of the many great ATL hometown bands around now, The Coathangers have a video out for "Tanya Harding" off their self-titled out on Rob's House Records.

This Is An Exercise.

One more in an ever-growing series of show posts (this one a bit of an early warning), only because I don't know if I'll be around a computer again before this one happens. For the record, Smith College seems to have taken over Hampshire College's title as "The Worst At Properly Promoting Events On Campus".

Tuesday, March 4th
Anna Oxygen (on Kill Rock Stars)
Telepathe
Smith College Campus Center (Carrol Room)
8pm-10:30pm
Free!

If you ever wanted to see Anna Oxygen cover "I Shall Be Released" by Bob Dylan, it's your lucky day.

Boner City.

Tomorrow!


Sunday, March 2nd
Saturday Looks Good To Me
The Novels
The Double-Stops
Iron Horse Music Hall, Northampton, MA
8:30 PM
Adv: $8.00 - Door: $10.00

I have a serious boner for everything that Fred Thomas of Saturday Looks Good To Me has been involved with. Special shout-out to the criminally overlooked Lovesick, although his attempts at trying to be Jonathan Richman on his solo albums are nothing to sneeze at, either. The new SLGTM album on K Records is pretty swell & I'm also really happy that they finally escaped from the clutches of mediocre indie/emo hell known as Polyvinyl Records. You know you're in bad company when your roster-mates include the likes of Mates of State & side projects from members of the Promise Ring.