V/A - From Twisted Minds Come

Label: Noiseville
Year: 1990

Label sampler that featured exclusive tracks (to my knowledge...which is always suspect, and only correct 30-40% of the time). Outsider music for those on the outside of pretty much anything that anybody else likes.

Action Swingers - blown out to the max rock damage (featuring an impressive cast of "ex-members, as well as being notoriously litigious about their music being posted on low rent music blogs [we shall see how long this one lasts])
Unholy Swill - you wanted to hear an SST sludge version of Ice T's "Colors", right? (featuring ex-Breakdown, Killing Time, Raw Deal's Rich McLoughlin, and label boss Jim Gibson [who was one half of Blackout Records when they put out NYHC Where The Wild Things Are compilation])
Bench - very 90's trudging ugly grunge thud.
Bootbeast - probably a "had to have been there" kinda band. Sort of a alternative metal thing that doesn't usually bode well. (featuring Mike Doskocil of Drunks With Guns, Bullets For Pussy)
Surgery - a live, warped, drenched in feedback, version of "Knockin On Heavens Door". Why not?
Bullets For Pussy - find a riff and drive that fucker straight for up the gut. (featuring the aforementioned Mike Doskocil, as well as Malcolm Bliss, also of Drunks With Guns)
Pocket Fishrmen (sic) - texas weird, you know? Catchy, but ultimately fucked up.
ST-37 - continuing the texan freakout train, this one rattles down the tracks in a psychedelic haze of punk punch that never settles in.
Coz The Shroom - tense and jittery punk, also originating from the sunburned bar-b-que badlands of Texas.(Lisa Suckdog collaborator, and self proclaimed "first punk in Alamo").
Jarmed Enecy - your basic "freeform poetry over bleep-blorp nerd-noise"...I mean, you've heard this a million times I'm certain. Plus, added bonus, the ole lock groove trick at the end to prolong the...pleasure?

DL

Desert Sessions - Volume Five - Poetry For The Masses (Sea Shed Shithead By The She Sore)

Label: Man's Ruin
Year: 1999

Recorded in the same (desert) session as the previously posted Volume Six, this five song compendium of weather baked brain burn covers a few different versions of the Coachella Valley riff weirdness brought into clarion anti-focus by the Queens Of The Stone Age. Rarely linear for long, the good ship Fun Time navigates the world's seas, docking in Punk, Space Psych, Boogie, Stoner Jam, and Robot Rock.
Always essential.

The personnel on this one are:
Josh Homme - Kyuss, Queens Of The Stone Age, Eagles Of Death Metal, Them Crooked Vultures
Brant Bjork - Kyuss, Fu Manchu, L'ab, Fatso Jetson, Che, Mondo Generator, Vista Chino
Mario Lalli - Fatso Jetson, Queens Of The Stone Age, Yawning Man, Darkside, Ten East, The Perfect Rat
Fred Drake - Earthlings?
Dave Catching - Eagles Of Death Metal, Earthlings?, Queens Of The Stone Age, Mondo Generator
Blag Jesus (Dahlia) - Dwarves,
Pierre Pressure (Nick Oliveri) - Queens Of The Stone Age, Dwarves, Kyuss, Mondo Generator, B'Last!, River City Rapists
Gene Troutman - Queens Of The Stone Age, Eagles Of Death Metal, Earthlings?
Mathias Schneeberger - Earthlings?
Adam Maples - Earthlings?, Sea Hags, Legal Weapon
Tony Mason - 12th Planet
Teddy Quinn - High Desert Lo-Fi

DL

Unsane - Blood Run

Label: Relapse
Year: 2005

Safe to say they are less a "band", and more an "institution" at this point. Unsane have consistently, doggedly, and thanklessly delivered the proverbial "goods" since 1988. Just can't fuck with what Chris Spencer and co. do on a regular basis. It's catharsis on a level wholly devoid of guilt or repentance.  Attack always, otherwise life wins. And fuck life. Eat death.

This version of the band has Vinnie Signorelli on drums (Swans, Foetus, Lubricated Goat, Of Cabbages And Kings, A Storm Of Light, etc.) and Dave Curran on bass (JJ Paradise Players Club, Pigs, Porn, Cutthroats 9, etc.) keeping Chris Spencer in line.

DL

Dead Meadow - Got Live If You Want It

Label: Bomp / The Committee To Keep Music Evil
Year: 2002

Where I am in the world right now, today, both geographically and...how you say...cosmically, I'm really in just the right spot for Dead Meadow. The weather is warm and sunny, and there's a breeze blowing across my front porch (for once, not a euphemism) as I relax with my feet up. Kids are out of the house doing...who cares. Got my errands and exercise out of the way already. Found a previously unaccounted for box of Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies in the freezer, and I've got the laid back psychedelic stoner haze of Dead Meadow washing over my earholes.

Sunday afternoon, on the cusp of Spring in Atlanta, Georgia. Dead Meadow. Feeling about right.

Can I teach my dog to fetch a Tecate?

DL

Tad - 8-Way Santa

Label: Sub Pop
Year: 1991

You have this album already. Probably. Or at least, in my brain, that is the case. But sometimes my brain forgets that some people were just getting around to getting born in 1991, and so records like this one are just kinda..."oldies" and shit. And with everything wonderful happening now in the world, those people ("youngsters", let's say) would be excused for not having had the time to go back in time and waste away their time on every dusty old record that "old people" ramble on about.
I get it.
I am talking directly to you, "youngsters", and hoping that you can make some time in your busy day to take in the lumbering, ogre-grunge thud rock that Tad trafficked in (with all due respect to King Snake Roost, who was also dealing in this same caveman stomp a couple years prior, but...that was in Australia, and that's somewhere that's not in America, so...). I think that you will really enjoy it. A lot of people up to this point in history have, and those people can't all be wrong, right?

DL

Cave In - God City Demos

Label: Bootleg
Year: 2001

Long time, no see. Sorry about that, but...you know...stuff.

Back to blogging (has a a worse sentence ever been uttered?), and coming in hot with potentially controversial pick. Controversial only in the sense that nerds might either deride any Cave In that isn't the Slayer-spazz Converge first version of the band, or nerds who deride Cave In as a band only knuckle heads would love, or nerds who are simply nerds, but not in a "good nerd" way. You know the type.
Myself (absolutely not a nerd, in any way. Ask anybody, they'll tell you), I was not a fan of Cave In in their original incarnation. Just not my cup of tea (I'm very refined). It wasn't until they came through San Diego in 1999 with Isis, who I wanted to see, that I heard the second version of Cave In. The 'Creative Eclipses' version, and on that night it clicked. It was still heavy, but no longer relied on throwing a million heavy metal riffs at the wall. There was space involved. Atmosphere and tension and a more nuanced song writing. That 'Creative Eclipses' 7" stayed in pretty heavy rotation until the 'Jupiter' album came out, and then that one took over the stereo. I was even on board with all the side projects, I was in to the entire thing. I still think Stephen Brodsky is an immensely talented musician, and I applaud that he is willing to stretch out and take risks (and I'm sure he appreciates me saying so).
Well, then Cave In did "the unthinkable" and signed to a major label (a weird one at that...RCA? Who does that?), and released 'Antenna', a record that didn't have the immediate hooks or appeal it's predecessor did. It felt flat. At least at first.
But, given time, I've gone back to that record a lot over the years and have found a lot that I like about it, the balance of big rock swings with the Failure influenced space-pop. It's good.
The songs being shared here are demo versions of some of those Antenna tracks, but being recorded at God City with Kurt Ballou means there is nothing "demo" about them. They sound phenomenal. Big, warm, and rich. The other tracks are versions of songs that wound up on the 'Tides Of Tomorrow' and 'Epicenter' eps, And a Nirvana cover for whatever reason.

If you like rock music...

Members on this record were also involved in: Old Man Gloom, Zozobra, Pet Genius, Doomriders, Goatsnake (for a minute), Nomad Stones, 27, Kid Kilowatt, Clouds, New Idea Society, and Mutoid Man.

DL