Revisiting Old Music

The past year or so I have been an iPod owner and have not paid much attention to my wall o’ CDs. Well, the same songs are popping up just a bit too often during shuffle, and I thought it would be a fresh change of pace if I started popping in a good old CD every now again. To make sure not to miss anything, I decided to pull the CDs down for listening in alphabetical order. I happened to be listening to Big Sandy and the Fly-rite Boys when I made this monumental decision, so that’s where I started.

So here’s where I am so far: There’s the aforementioned Big Sandy CD. It’s listenable yet unremarkable rockabilly stuff. Next, a slew of Blonde Redhead records. The first two CDs, when they had a bassist, are the best. They start to get tiresome up until Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons which is when they start adding electronics and some weirdness to their songs. These were followed by my two Blue Hearts CDs. The first is their U.S. release, Blast Off. It’s a collection of some of their best songs from their first 3 Japan-only albums. Amazing. Next is Bust, Waste, Hip which isn’t nearly as good because the punkishness is toned down quite a bit. Moving on we have The Blue Meanies’ Pave the World featuring fellow Nonagon‘er, Tony on drums. Lots of ska rhythms and horns, without being a ska band. Bomboras, Savage Island is next with lots of organ tinged surf. Pretty good but not their best. Bongwater, The Big Sellout: it’s funny, catchy and psychedelic all at the same time—a very good record. The Boogie Patrol Express La Polyester Fantasy is the only(?) CD from this early 90’s Eugene, Oregon band. Straight-forward, ever-so-mildly ironic disco music, played expertly with real instruments by talented kids. Next, I have two wonderful Boss Hog CDs, Boss hog and Whiteout, both of which are great loud . Finally, we have Brian Brain’s Time Flies When You Are Having Toast—A solo effort by then P.I.L. drummer Martin Atkins. This is a weird CD with lots of late 80’s sounding synths in front of Atkins pounding drums. Some of the tracks would be at home on a childrens’ record. It is about as far from Atkin’s Pigface as you can imagine, but, you know what, I love this CD. It was 99 cents when I got it!

Well, that was shelf unit 1 of my big Ikea CD rack. I will report back when I get through the next section.