Junk The Morgue

2006-08-12T20:06:00.000-07:00

Lee Hazlewood: "Hey Cowboy"

Since getting Cowboy in Sweden in 1999, which was reissued by Smells Like Records (a whole mess of Hazlewood albums came out around the same time), I went through a period of frequent listening...then it gathered dust for years and years.

Today I pulled out Cowboy in Sweden and gave it a listen. So glad I did. Everybody's going through a Johnny Cash phase lately -- myself included, a bit -- so some symphonic cowboy music is a good complement to Cash's renegade country.

This is "Hey Cowboy," a duet with Nina Lizell.

2006-08-11T12:41:00.000-07:00

Mew: "Why Are You Looking Grave"

Melodo-indie-prog-rock-xylophones-distortion-pianos-shoegazer- vocals-sometimes-metal-usually-in-less-than-four-minute-songs...or whatever it's called this month.

Mew. Wow. Mew's Mew And The Glass Handed Kites is one of the freshest, most unexpected blasts of rock I've heard this year.

Gotta listen from start to finish. Don't dare put it on shuffle or throw a song in a playlist. First to last, that's the only way to enjoy this. (Sorry, I won't post the entire album, and yes, I understand that by posting this song I'm breaking my own rule.)

2006-08-05T12:36:00.000-07:00

The Whigs: "Technology"
The Whigs: "Violet Furs"

Since I saw The Whigs a few weeks ago I've been loving their 2005 album Give 'Em All A Big Fat Lip. A lot of bands in their peer group have lost the bass player (a la White Stripes, Black Keys) but The Whigs benefit from having a full bass-drums rhythm section. Not only does it allow the band to romp and gallop through their roots-based songs, but it allows guitarist and singer Parker Gispet the room to noodle and bash out chords without fearing the song will unravel.

2006-07-25T16:36:00.000-07:00

Josh Rouse & Kurt Wagner: "65"

Nothing against Josh Rouse, but I'm not a huge fan. But put Kurt Wagner (of Lambchop) in the mix and it gets a a lot better. "65" is from the pair's 1999 EP Chester.

2006-07-22T15:16:00.000-07:00

The Godfathers: "How Low Is Low"

I could have been obvious and posted "Birth, School, Work, Death," but how about something else from this sadly forgotten band?

2006-07-21T17:04:00.000-07:00

Hawkwind: "Lord of Light"

The world needs more Hawkwind, plain and simple. In most circles, those outside of the older record collector, Mojo-reading crowd, the band has got a bad reputation...or not much of a reputation at all. To many, Hawkwind is some corny new age band that old people listen to.

Rather than name drop Hawkwind, a music critic will go to the typical stable of artists when reviewing an album with tones of early '70s rock. If it's a spacey, pscyche album Pink Floyd/Syd Barret will get mentioned. If it's more teutonic, krautrock legends Can will be mentioned. Never fails. It's hard to get a reference to early Tangerine Dream although half the experimental rock bands I've run across in the last decade bear a resemblance.

But I hear Hawkwind all over the place, in stoner rock bands and in more indie post-rock bands. The droning. The extended freak outs. The prog-metal riffs that repeat and build to an explosive climax.

"Lord of Light" is from the album Doremi Fasol Latido, which is a fine album but hardly their best. I like Space Ritual Live the best.

2006-07-18T20:34:00.000-07:00

The Kooks: "Be Mine"

With all the American blogger hype over one undeserved band after another, it's easy for a person to almost completely miss out on the buzz going on in the UK about whatever new band is hot at the moment. Actually, it's probably for the best. Having no hype to live up to means my first listen is with a pretty clean slate. I have no expectations. I don't know if the members are saints or assholes. I don't know if somebody in the band is dating a model or jamming a needle in his arm too often. I can just listen to the music.

That was the set up for The Kooks, a band from England that I knew only slightly be reputation and chart ranking. When I first listened to the "Naive" single I thought it was a pretty solid song, as was the b-side, "Be Mine." Kinda reminded me of how Supergrass amassed a record collection worth of impeccable rock 'n' roll influences and created something that sounded fresh. Not brand new, but fresh, and with vitality. And unlike a lot of buzz bands, I can tell these cats can play their instruments.

It's so damn hard for a band to build a new mousetrap these days. I'll take good 'n' rockin' any day of the week.

"Naive" is found on their album Inside In/Inside Out, but "Be Mine" isn't. Inside In/Inside Out will be out in the States later this year.

2006-07-17T13:45:00.000-07:00

The Grates: "Inside Outside"

Fun fun fun! The Grates' Gravity Won't Get You High is a very good debut album and this is one of the best songs on it. After seeing the band's fun live set I wondered how the songs would come across in the studio. Well, it worked. The album is just as fun as the live show, and it has enough hooks and lyrical twists to reward repeated listening.

This album marks a departure from my general feeling that bass-less bands are missing something. The songs usually have no oomph and not much rhythm. But The Grates don't have that problem. Their songs pack plenty of punch.

2006-07-12T21:13:00.000-07:00

Allen Ginsberg & Paul McCartney: "The Ballad of the Skeletons"

I've kept this CD single for years, not because I think much of the song -- it's good...it sounds like a beat poet crossed with Lou Reed urban storytelling and a hint of John Fogerty swamp blues -- but because it's Allen Ginsberg and it features Paul McCartney.

The song is the title track from the (currently out of print) 1996 single.

Paul McCartney plays guitar, organs and drums. Philip Glass plays keyboards. Lenny Kaye performs bass. You don't get that every day.

2006-07-10T10:56:00.000-07:00

Teenage Fanclub and De La Soul: "Fallin'"

From the Judgment Night soundtrack, which paired rock and hip hop bands four years before the Spawn soundtrack did it, and well before rock bands added DJs and terrorized the airwaves with their horrible hybrids.

What's interesting to me about this song is that it's a very loose cover of Tom Petty's "Freefalling" and Petty's voice is sampled (just the word "fallin'"), which were enough to get him a songwriting credit. Teenage Fanclub strums along to the chord changes "Freelfalling." The beats are very loose as well, not a lot of oomph. De La Soul's presence is obvious. Without the band's name on the CD, who would know Teenage Fanclub is even on the song?

2006-07-08T22:23:00.000-07:00

Hovercraft: "De-Orbit Burn" Scanner remix

Here's another one kind of randomly picked from the CD collection. I haven't listened to this song in quite a while, and shame on me. Hovercraft never thrilled too many, though they could put on a pretty great live show. They went about things pretty quietly. Somehow the Scanner Remixes single is my favorite release by the band, even though it has only two songs. Combining the instrumental indie-psyche-post rock of Hovercraft with electronic architect Scanner just makes such perfect sense.

2006-07-06T13:48:00.000-07:00

Das Damen: "Bug"

I ran across this 3" CD (remeber those?) of Marshmellow Conspiracy EP while going through my CD collection the other day. Wow, the things you find when you're cleaning house. Anyway, it was jammed inside the inside sleeve of a digipak and it fell out when I picked up the other CD.

Das Damen were never my favorite band, and they ony had a few highlights, but they represented some good SST years and, besides, 3" CD singles are cool. They were sloppy, noisy and a bit grungy...kinda like Dinosaur Jr without the hooks or the ability to keep it together.

Released in 1988, Marshmellow Conspiracy was originally a four-song EP, but the band ran into legal trouble when it was discovered that one of the songs, ""Song for Michael Jackson to $ell," a commentary on Jackson's purchase of the Beatles' song catalog, was actually "Magic Mystery Tour." The song was removed and the single was re-released with only three songs.

To no surprise, there's no Das Damen currently in print in the U.S. and iTunes doesn't have a single song.

2006-07-03T21:07:00.000-07:00

Love: "The Red Telephone"

On the heels of the Arthur Lee benefit show at NYC's Town Hall, here's a post with an amazing version of "The Red Telephone" from the Love album Forever Changes Live (Amazon.com link). The album was recorded on the tour Love did with a string section during which they played the entire Forever Changes album start to finish.

The tour was billed as Love With Arthur Lee, as were all the tours that featured Arthur Lee backed by the L.A. band Baby Lemonade. Nearly 30 years after the original was recorded, Lee still has the voice and the charisma to put on a mesmerizing performance.

In the few times I've seen Love in recent years, "The Red Telephone" has always been one of the highlights of the show.

2006-07-02T15:53:00.000-07:00

Seefeel: "Plainsong"

Originally I wanted to create an MP3 blog just to post songs from out-of-print albums. Junk The Morgue won't deal only with out-of-print songs, but they'll come up pretty often.

One fantastic band that doesn't have a single CD currently in print in the U.S. is Seefeel. (One album, Quique, is available at iTunes and other online stores, though.) It's a shame. With shoegaze coming back in the last year or two, this is a band that deserves recognition.

Seefeel was especially innovative and great because it combined the dreamy shoegazer sounds of the day with electronic music. (Too Pure released the first record, then Warp, then Rephlex. ) Most songs foreshadow the instrumental laptop electronic music that would arrive years later.

I took "Plainsong" from the "Pure, Impure" EP (AllMusic.com link), released in 1993. It's also on 1994's Polyfusia (AllMusic.com link), which contains the "Pure, Impure" EP in its entirity. Neither are currently available domestically.

2006-07-01T11:03:00.000-07:00

Suede: Brass In Pocket

Years ago I found a copy of the NME Ruby Trax three-CD collection in the used bin at a record store. It's a collection put out in 1992 by NME magazine with three CDs of then-hot artists covering former UK #1 singles. Silly college town clerks wouldn't have known a valuable CD if it jumped on top of them. It was priced for around $5 -- an incredible bargain. This was late '92 or maybe '93. That was a steal back then. I would have paid $20 easily.

Suede's cover of The Pretenders' "Brass In Pocket" is one of my favorite tracks on the album, and I think it shows how good Suede could be. They transformed the song. The original has Chrissie Hynde's sass all over it. The cover is a slower, sexier remake. Bernard Butler lies in the shadows while Brett Anderson's soft crooning dominates.

If only all covers could be so good. A lot are note-for-note tributes that don't add anything new or show off the band's personality. This cover of "Brass In Pocket" is unmistakeably Suede.

2006-07-01T10:33:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Junk the Morgue. Yeah, one more MP3 blog. Who doesn't have an MP3 blog these days, right? One more won't hurt, I promise.

The goal here is to expose some rare and out-of-print tracks from my collection, to share songs that I think are interesting for one reason or another. Occasionally there will be a new song from a new band, but you can find that stuff at nearly every other MP3 blog.

This one is for the crate diggers, collectors and people who want something beyond Pitchfork favorites and the Insound best sellers.

Until I get a file hosting plan, please wait through the free file hosting services I'll be using.