Mixtapes for Mason- Satan- 80s Metal!

The second 'side' of the mixtape series. This one's 80s metal oriented. The metal I grew up on. None of this silly 'growl vs. screech' stuff with the quadruple kick drum. We're talking dudes with bleached moussed bouffant hair and a bondage-dude's leather vest with studs, ripped jeans with a codpiece and knee-high high-heel boots. We're talking dueling FLYING V GUITAR SOLOS in which the two guitarists stand back to back and lean their sweaty shoulders against each other as they shred, two-hand-tapping toward the sky.

As I put this together I realized just how awesome these bands actually were.

I'd intended a mix that was a little silly, but most of these songs kick total ass regardless of context or irony or the hypothetical and probably mythical greater sophistication of today's music listeners. Fuck the haters. This music was powerful and fun enough to have earned its own self-aggrandizement. After all, it is indeed a long way to the top if you wanna rock and roll. (and how did I make this mix without AC-DC? What was I thinking?)

That doesn't mean I can ever entirely forgive & forget. There was a time when the obligatory guitar solo ruled rock. And rock suffered as a result, in ways that are easy to forget nowadays, when rock's biggest threat is total airwave irrelevance... and the previous Worst Thing was fake-sensitive manly men with bad goatees and tanning salon tans, making gruff moany sounds on shitty power ballads.

Wait a minute, you're telling me the Post-Grunge Fake-Sincerity Die-Off of the 90s was directly descended from the worst elements of hair metal?

That, in fact, wimpy fakeness is the same in all genres?

My head just imploded. Better make the devil-horn gesture and go back to headbanging.

OK, that's better.

Obligatory Note (in case you can't be bothered to read the previous post):

These mixes were originally put together for a teenager, so the content is designed to do a little educatin' and a little mind-blowin'.

They were formatted to fit on cassette, so each 'side' will be around 42 minutes.

Most of them are genre-specific, and sort of strike a balance between trying to cover the bases in that genre (i.e. reflecting the 'great artists' in the canon), and reflecting my taste (which is erratic, mystically-oriented, and limited by ignorance), and fitting well together. Occasionally this leads to odd results. But I think they're good listening.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/jyzkjzcizrm/VA- Satan- 80s Metal for Mason.zip

Up next: blues.

Mixtapes for Mason- Was Once An Angel- 80s Goth

A few months ago I embarked on an ambitious mixtape-making project for a teenage friend (Maze-On New), after being encouraged by his bad-influence uncle Ry Toast. I began small, but quickly spiraled out of control and wound up making a LOT of CDs worth of music. I'm going to post them here. This is the first of many-- the series will take us well into September...

it's the Goth I grew up on.

Kids today, they don't understand the real 80s... I'm gonna teach and preach.

Actually, a couple of these songs aren't quite 80s goth in one way or another. The style itself, like metal or most any other defensive subculture, was constantly redefining folks in and out. Who can keep track? Musicians themselves don't wanna be pigeonholed. Hell, neither Bauhaus nor Joy Division, the Two Most Goth Bands In The Universe, considered themselves goth (Hmmm. I didn't include any Joy Division. That's lame). And my own experience with the genre didn't really kick in until 1990 or so... I was more a Depeche Mode Black Celebration vs. Echo & the Bunnymen Lips Like Sugar kind of kid before then. Are they more or less goth than Sisters of Mercy? And... who cares?

So, like all mixes, this has some compromise. Still, it's got the flavor of clove cigarettes and the footprint of Creepers, with some Manic Panic in the hair. Hope you enjoy it.

Mmm. Clove cigarettes...

Note: these mixes were formatted to fit on cassette, so each 'side' will be around 42 minutes. Most of them are genre-specific, and sort of strike a balance between trying to cover the bases in that genre (i.e. reflecting the 'great artists' in the canon), and reflecting my taste (which is erratic, mystically-oriented, and limited by ignorance), and fitting well together. Occasionally this leads to odd results. But I think they're good listening.

Enjoy!

http://www.mediafire.com/file/ayejddmiz3t/VA- Was Once An Angel- 80s Goth for Mason.zip

Up next, the flip side of this 'tape': 80s metal.

Is Guava A Donut?

I've had this since I was a kid, got it on vinyl when I was 15 or so. I doubt that I've listened to it all the way through more than 3 or 4 times. But I'm really glad it exists, because this is hands-down the weirdest music I've ever heard.

Every now & again the songs slip momentarily into a recognizable form-- perhaps in a 'quirky geeks trying to out-clever the Residents' sort of mode. But then the insane gibbering insects start their choral music again and the wolf spiders crawl all over your face and the moon starts beating its big plastic drum overhead and everything goes fractal grid, and it goes back to bearing no relation whatsoever to any known variety of human music.

Interestingly, this is completely non-electronic, instruments are all tweaked objects and modified sound sources. You can't get this particular kind of bizarreness from oscillators.

Enjoy, Meltmaster!

http://www.mediafire.com/file/ovzbmmijytm/Renaldo and the Loaf- Songs for Swinging Larvae.zip

I Can Hear Sweet Music Playing

One of the most lovely, joyful records ever. I've been listening to this for at least 15 years, and will hopefully be listening to it for the rest of my life. Exemplifies the 'sing joy out of pain' blues aesthetic, and, though it's archetypally, fundamentally, roots reggae, sounds and feels more like a serenely tough Otis Redding album... or maybe some form of perfect secular gospel. Hell, even the covers of "Louie Louie" and "Country Roads" rock. The title track, "Funky Kingston", is reggae's answer to James Brown. The album's a treasure start to finish.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/vdjjjnanzoj/Toots and the Maytals- Funky Kingston.zip

Release the Bats!

A mix made last month for my pre-teen niece Kaitlin, who likes vampires. It was her birthday.

Suzanne thinks I shouldn't have included the song by The Birthday Party, which includes a lot of gibbering about "bat sex". She may be right. Hopefully it won't scar her for life. (Nick Cave can do that to a person).

Yes... this mix does contain "Bela Lugosi's Dead". Thanks for asking.

Also some Rasputina, Jonathan Richman, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Daniel Johnston, Harry Nilsson, and Roky Erickson.

Among others.

Drink some red wine while listening to this. (Unless you never drink... wine.)

Su & I made cool hand-drawn cover art (and I mean "cool" as in 'hand-drawn picture of a vampire chick rocking an electric guitar, and lettered with calligraphic script, all done up in ink and colored pencil') but we mailed it off without copying or scanning it. So google image search digital art will have to suffice.

In two parts due to filesize restrictions- just unzip into one folder. Enjoy, my bloodthirsty friends.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/e4qmkwedtwf/Various Artists- Vampire Music.zip

http://www.mediafire.com/file/m4nhjtlqnln/Various Artists- Vampire Music 2.zip

I Was Never Traveling Alone

A mix CD I prepared for Ry Toast (aka Ray De Luz) in April of 2008. New cover art since the original was hand-scribbled and lost. On this CD we have an energetic, if occasionally melancholy, blend of the following:

• 60s hard rock
• afro-jazz
• boogaloo
• percussion from a favorite NYC subway performer
• gospelly free jazz
• roots reggae
• classic country
• '00s country-rock
• old-timey folk
• acoustic roots blues
• ambient instrumental guitar
• fragmented electronic collage
• medieval lute
• Malian blues
• 70s country-rock angst
• Bahamian folk guitar
• vintage country cornball

In other words, this is pretty much the contents of this blog, in a microcosm, in a blender.

File's in two pieces due to upload restrictions, unzip 'em into one folder and proceed as usual. Enjoy!

http://www.mediafire.com/file/t0mnyfodgf2/Various Artists- Wolves And Tigers Dont Git Weary.zip

http://www.mediafire.com/file/yukjiknottx/Various Artists- Wolves And Tigers Dont Git Weary 2.zip

Prime Evil Seekers

Possibly the finest hour of 1990s psychedelia.

(I'm pretty sure Meltmaster just read this and shouted "Bullshit! Insert Album Title Here was the finest hour of 1990s psychedelia!" And thus, a contest for who-can-upload-the-trippier-album-from-our-undergrad-years begins).

Crazed upstate-New York updates of Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd, featuring densely packed flute and guitar feedback freakouts, quaalude interludes and incessant half-fractured sarcasm and lysergic spazz.

I remember playing this in 1994 or so for a friend who only listened to Floyd and the Dead, and who dismissed all modern music as uninteresting. We were smoking thick joints of home-grown weed, and he got The Fear something fierce. Around the end of 'Very Sleepy Rivers' he suddenly got up and ran to the door and disappeared.

Be forewarned that Mercury Rev never really sounded like this again. The followup, Boces, is also manic and cruel, but with something indefineable missing (perhaps that subtle joy of doing something for the first time). After that they became gentler, more detached, more prog. Much less psychedelic despite the intricacy. That's not to say later albums weren't good, Deserter's Songs is a particular favorite for its melancholy and melodies. But this album is pretty unique.

Fans of Dave Fridmann's production style (Flaming Lips, Sleater-Kinney's The Woods, recent Low, etc.) will be interested in how it all began: in 1991, under the influence of professor Tony Conrad, recording to filmstrip in a campus studio, on a massive group acid trip.)

Interesting details abound online, most of them seemingly untrustworthy (did they really meet in a mental hospital? did Jonathan Donahue really try to gouge out Grasshopper's eye with a spoon on an airplane?). Super Hacker X and I saw them play a wierd demo set at a tiny new performance space downtown last year, and the band was nutty and spaced enough that some of these rumors sound credible. (Let's just say I've seen some acid casualties in my time, and these guys struck me as some of the more, um, fried specimens.)

http://www.mediafire.com/file/tmm0yzdzqzj/Mercury Rev- Yerself Is Steam.zip

It's Cold In Outer-Space: Stereolab

For a long time I was stuck.

I didn't shop at record stores, department stores or mega-stores. The internet wasn't the shopping/swapping/discovery paradise that we now know it to be.

I pretty much bought everything, including music, at thrift stores. I have to say it was really great, and I stumbled my way into a good musical education. But my ears were as dusty as Farberware and rusty as a dinette chair (to paraphrase Jonathan Richman).

Then, back in 1996, on the way out to San Diego, I stopped off in Chicago to see my little brother. He was finishing up his BS at the University of Chicago, and was living in a big old house with several roommates. They held a party the night I was there, and someone popped in a CD towards the end of the evening.

Emperor Tomato Ketchup, by Stereolab.

It blew my mind, like the first time you see HDTV. Or taste a really good Cabernet. Or go from dial-up to cable.

Cold and warm; distant and intimate; borrowing from the past but creating the future.

Velvets. Astrud. Nico. Kraftwerk. I could hear it, but it was all in crazy technicolor. (OK, I know you can't actually hear colors.)

Anyway, I copied that thing onto a C-90 the next morning and listened to it over and over, driving through the desert on the way to the coast.

"The Noise of Carpet":



And from Mars Audiac Quintet (1994), "Wow and Flutter":

I Ain't Saying I Beat the Devil... But I Drank His Beer For Nothin'

My absolute favorite Johnny Cash album.

Home digitized from thrift-store and oft-played vinyl, and thus kinda scratchy.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/nz4wqqdtenz/Hello Im Johnny Cash.zip

Blues In The Night

Jimmy Smith was a fierce motherfucker.

Here he's perfectly matched by Lalo Schifrin's orchestration, all nonstop spikes and yikes. It's a great combination: surging, roiling, strafing orchestration in combat mode, with the muscle-bound champ wrestling the huge dragon-like B3 to the floor in the center of the soundstage.

It's a knife brawl in musical form. In case I'm not being clear: this is not relaxation jazz.

Home-digitized, from a well-loved record. Apologies for fuzz and/or crackle.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/zmdkezjmmkw/Jimmy Smith- The Cat.zip

If this was home- Ashkhabad

If this was home I would attend every wedding and every event these lunatics were playing at. I love this music. If this was home I would be a groupie, or learn the frame drum and join thier band.....



I have been listening to the same disc for the past ten years and it never bores me. I don't know if this is anarchic traditional music from Turkmenistan or the just the traditional sounds from that region. But the leader sounds as beautiful as he is crazy- not in the way screaming Jay was.....by the way I have to find the clips the very first time I saw Scramin' Jay; it was on David Sandborn's "Night Music" show from the 1980s. He performed with Bob Weir and the members of bands called Bong Water and Pussy Willow.
Anyways, back in the days when I would grab anything by the Real World label - thank you Peter Gabriel - this was the first or second disc I bought just because of the label. It's been love ever since.
Move your tables and create a dance floor with a few bottles of vodka near by. Get ready to dance to the funkiest band west of Moscow (or is it south east...).....My goodness... get ready. Put on your Cossack boots, red coats, and get ready to boogie - Ashkhabadian style....

http://www.mediafire.com/?kz1mjyzdgrm

Support the cause and buy the CD!

I had to look up the clips.....wow....the second clip begins at 2:00 after the Bob Weir interview....Bongwater then covers a song (so say the comments) by Roky Ericson who I think you are a fan of......I'll never forget when I saw this show - and this was the first episode I had ever seen of Night Music. I was laughing, and confused. Speel bound and quiet - I was entranced. And became addicted to this show that mixed together the greatest and craziest acts together in - no doubt- the greatest musical show of all time. And this is proof of the pure genius of David Sandborn.......big statement indeed - but these clips really inspried me...which is why I have to share them with you (everyone)...

Underneath the Sticks and Stones are Lots of Little Demons

The Kinks were always contrary-- when everybody else was playing psychedelic rebel, they made a record celebrating 'donald duck, vaudeville, and variety'. Richly painted portrait-and-landscape songs, nostalgic and adventurous and worth coming back to again and again. There's a recent remastered extended edition release which is probably worth buying (I once heard a vocal-less version of 'Phenomenal Cat' on the radio and nearly cried with joy)-- but this is the normal version, for your delectation.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/itymdmcogcy/Kinks- The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society.zip

President Reagan Can Shove It

A short bit of music today, since you may still be recovering from recent megaposting madness.

A clued-in buddy in my high school art class, knowing I was into Wire and the Sex Pistols and Black Flag but that I knew nothing else about punk, made me several excellent cassettes full of great stuff. Wish I still had them.

This was on one of those cassettes, along with the Weathered Statues EP (if anyone wants, I can upload that too-- it shows more of a development toward goth/metal), and misc Minor Threat, 7 Seconds, and Fugazi's 13 Songs (another truly timeless classic).

There's something lovely about the compressed fury here. Eventually TSOL became sort of a sloppy metal band; I remember in 1990 or so picking up a live cassette and being outraged at the groupie-baiting guitar-solo wanking metalness of it all. And I think they've been releasing stuff pretty consistently over the decades, following their own particular Southern-California punk vision. But at this early stage they were pure densely maniacal punk punk punk, buzzsaw guitars and galloping drums and anti-nuclear-war lyrics, all spit out in a sort of not-in-time-but-on-time perfection.

I'd almost forgot about this record until Scarah New gave me her much-loved copy last year, along with a host of other wonderful vinyls. Here it is.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/zzxdaihkvtv/True Sounds of Liberty- The Black EP.zip

Zhu Zonglu: music for when your Xanax runs out

I really hope you like this one. When I'm in other countries I try to pick up a few CDs at random, and this is probably one of the best; I picked it up in a Beijing superstore in 2007 when I did the tranmongolian-siberian. There were so many CDs of traditional music--I had only about half an hour for browsing. I liked this guy's face so it was fate. "Chinese Original Ecosystem Folk Song," it says on the CD cover, by the China Record Company. There's actually some extensive liner notes, and a fairly decent translation too, which is nice. But the music speaks for itself. It is ancient, rural music, performed by one of the most incredible singers I've ever heard. It is mostly composed of vocal acapella performances, a few with some flute, and a couple of orchestra tracks. In all seriousness, when I'm feeling serious existential despair, this stuff puts it all in perspective.

The ethnic minority he belongs to seems to be "Hua'er." His style thankfully survived the cultural revolution. According to the liner notes it was regarded as "Poisonous Grass," by the Cultural Revolution leaders. So this is precious stuff. It is to me.

As the professor, Wang Jie, in the liner notes states: "Let's salute to our Hua'er artist Mr. Zhu Zhonglu."

http://www.mediafire.com/?vdwja3jz3ww

If anyone is really interested, I can type up the list of track names. Well, I'll give you a taste:
Track Listing

1. Climb up the high mountain to oversee the plain (Primary Song of Herzhou)
2. Telescope hidden in the sleeve (Song of Bao' an)
3. Hot pepper and garlic with boiling oil (Tertiary Song of Herzhou)

(I'll finish the list if there is a request. And while we're on the subject of requests: SubHino: you made me a mix-CD of some rockin stuff from India. There was a vintage quasi-psychedelic tune on there I really love. Anything of that sort I would love. And to Erroneous: Renaldo and the Loaf.)

Hot Mocking Bird

Gently gorgeous twang and cheese. A broad harmonic imagination and sensuous attention to tone. Not just for guitar geeks and recording nerds, though certainly anyone who's stroked some frets or mounted a microphone will get extra pleasure from it.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/memghltjnxm/Chet Atkins - Chet Atkins' Workshop.zip

Hang Up Your Hang Ups

I like to listen to Herbie Hancock when I run. Nice and intricate, and it makes my butt shake. If I shake my butt in a straight line, I can put some miles on, for sure.

Anyway, I was out with an old friend the other night, and she is in a period where she is reexamining her beliefs.

"Hang Up Your Hang Ups", indeed.

This cut is from Man Child (1975), but this video is cleverly done and merits some discussion.

Made by a fan, it starts out like some TV cop drama from the 70's, nicely aping the musical theme. As the song develops, so does the video. It stretches out to incorporate some stock footage of NYC and then splices in some movie clips that feel just as gritty. The three I spot (love it if you can spot any more -- leave a comment) are Midnight Cowboy (1969), the French Connection (1971) and Taxi Driver (1976); these three films allow the setting, NYC, to become another character that imposes its will on the others. All in all, the creator of the video uses them to great effect in conveying the schizophrenic feeling of post-modern urban life.

What's more, the mid-70's were an interesting period for the US and NYC. Notice the big cars, modernist architecture, public works projects and urban squalor.

This video nicely documents the last hurrah of American-dominated business. Japan's "Just In Time" production methods and flexible distribution would shake the pillars of American commerce in just a few short years, and OPEC's production cuts would signal the beginning of the end of Detroit's dominance.

For New York City, the mid-70's were spent dealing with the aftermath of Robert Moses' horrible "urban renewal" system that ruined neighborhoods, displaced people and served to further segregate the population. Bankers wouldn't lend to African American neighborhoods, landlords could make more by burning their properties and collecting insurance, and the disenfranchised were the ones that suffered in that city for about the next 20 years.

Anyway, this song is about as funky as you can get without someone named "Bootsy" involved. Enjoy it.

That's It Kid, Analyze the Lyric

Originally posted at the excellent Oh Word blog (http://www.ohword.com/blog/624/50-incredible-rap-songs-you-need-to-hear-right-now-1-10), which also has excellent song-by-song commentary: reposted here because I spend a lot of time listening to it and can present it in easier-to-download form.

This is about as good an overview of the rap universe as one could ask for. Also, just a lot of amazing songs. And, even the ones I don't like on the first ten listens, sound great on the eleventh. The shit is real. As they say.

There aren't 50 though, despite the compilation name: there are 71. These fit into, approximately, 7 uploadable files, which should be unzipped to some sort of directory on your computer, and then snorted into your nose in whatever fashion you prefer.

Alternate titles for this post include "Visions of the Crystal City Made This Brother Trip", "Let Loose the Lingo, Let it Go and Let it Flow" and "This Fucking Shit Is Real".

http://www.mediafire.com/file/cn2zognhnmx/50 Rap Songs You Need to Hear Right Now 1.zip

http://www.mediafire.com/file/mninikz0jmt/50 Rap Songs You Need to Hear Right Now 2.zip

http://www.mediafire.com/file/h4gnyqonmym/50 Rap Songs You Need to Hear Right Now 3.zip

http://www.mediafire.com/file/uo3yzgzmhmd/50 Rap Songs You Need to Hear Right Now 4.zip

http://www.mediafire.com/file/jidjjxzmlmz/50 Rap Songs You Need to Hear Right Now 5.zip

http://www.mediafire.com/file/dhzzdznqqwh/50 Rap Songs You Need to Hear Right Now 6.zip

http://www.mediafire.com/file/koyiihzmjmo/50 Rap Songs You Need to Hear Right Now 7.zip

I Hold the Sting... and Make it Sing

I bought this as a youngster from the local dread emporium, in a middle/working class neighborhood of Sandy Eggo across the street from the Safeway where my bike got stolen a couple years previous, where built into a garage and beside a similarly tiny shoestore, the shop wafted incense smoke and dub bass into the brains of impressionable youth like myself. I was terrified of the shop, scared that I'd get instantly stoned, and scared that I'd be outed as the redneck-heritage dweeb I was, by the impassive and mountainous Rasta who stood guard over the tiny shop (perhaps 5' by 10' inside). Of course, no one but myself cared whether I was there or not. Probably the dude was mildly amused at worst. More likely he was stoked to make a sale no matter who it was making the purchase.

I came to this shop a handful of times as a teen; I bought Black Uhuru cassettes, incense and a 'Free South Africa' T-shirt that I didn't really fully understand (well, I was 14, and my intentions were good); outside, I got hit on by an older white businessman who talked to me about how reggae was 'happy music'. This cassette is surely not happy music, though like any music worth its name it contains seeds of joy. But it also contains the word 'blood' hundreds and hundreds of time, in nearly every song. Violence and suffering pervade the album.

I'd read this sentence in the Rolling Stone Record guide review:

"Proof positive of poetry's power".

That was enough for me; I had to hear it.

What I heard when I got that cassette into my walkman wasn't poetry of the kind they teach in school-- this is pure dub propaganda, filled with blood, blood, blood, more blood, and calls for revolution. But endless subtleties pervade: LKJ was not a simple-minded advocate of violence or even peaceful revolt, but an observer of injustice all around and a caller to strength via activism. He sees the hurt in the community as a whole, when "there are wicked men sitting in the seats of judgement; there are people waging war in the heat and hunger of the streets".

I actually don't know anything at all about the unrest or oppression in England that occasioned this album, which makes for an odd listen, as this was clearly meant to be very specific to its time and place; but I know great music when I hear it. And this is some of the tightest, deepest, funkiest dub of all time. The band are among the greats and they prove their worth, with LKJ's coolly impassive baritone riding over the top of the beats.

In this case as in many others, art aimed specifically at a time & place yields true universality.

"All we have is bottles and bricks and fists".

http://www.mediafire.com/file/dikddz1imxj/Linton Kwesi Johnson- Dread Beat And Blood.zip

Don't miss "Song of Blood" sung by Junior Murvin, the toughest falsetto singer in all recorded history.

Quit Mumbling... And Talk Like A Man

The precise spot where blues and proto-R&B meet punk rock. Also hints of acid rock and rap. In other words, this album contains a lot of the half-century of music that followed it's release.

More importantly, it's a lot of fun.

Home-digitized from scratchy vinyl; apologies for fuzziness.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/njyyqwrggzm/Bo Diddley- Have Guitar Will Travel.zip