good afternoons, people! today we’re going all the way back to the 80’s for this comp known as c81. c81 was compiled by nme journalist roy carr and rough trade pr dude christopher rose for the 5th anniversary of independent label movement in the uk and of course to show off rough trades wares. more info can be found here, via wikipedia. there’s some real awesome stuff here, there are a few turds too. but of course what might be pure shite to may, may be golden to you. so its all subjective.

1. the sweetest girl - scritti politti

2. twist & crawl dub - the beat

3. misery goats - pere ubu

4. 7000 names of wah - wah! heat

5. blue boy - orange juice

6. raising the count - cabaret voltaire

7. kebab traume live - d.a.f.

8. bare pork - furious pork

9. racquel - the specials

10. i look alone - the buzzcocks

11. fanfare in the garden - essential logic

12. born again cretin - robert wyatt

13. shouting out loud - the raincoats

14. endless soul - josef k

15. low profile - blue orchids

16. red nettles - virgin prunes

17. we could send letters - aztec camera

18. milkmaid - red krayola

19. dont get in my way - linx

20. the day my pad went mad - the massed carnaby st john copper clarkes

21. jazz is the teacher, funk is the preacher - james blood ulmer

22. close to home - iam drury

23. greener grass - gist

24. parallel lines - subway sect

22. 81 minutes - john cooper clarke

enjoy…

i dont know how or where i got the builders and the butchers’ self titled 07 release. somehow it just showed up on the ol’ ipod one day, like its always been there. anyway, if you are anything like me and dig waits inspired old timey tent revival type stuff played on junkyard instruments then you will definitely dig these guys.

the night pt 1

when it rains

the builders and the butchers myspace

here is a very cool and lovely sounding ryan adams show from the fez in nyc on 10.2.2000.

1. gimme sunshine

2. amy

3. idiots rule the world

4. oh my sweet carolina

5. to be young

6. sweet lil gal

7. call me on your way back home

8. valentine

9. damn sam

10. winding wheel

11. dont ask for the water

12. rescue blues

13. god bless the week

14. just like a whore

15. come pick me up

16. hey there mrs. lovely

17. i want it that way

18. in my time of need

photo by brennan cavanaugh

sup peoples? i am so far behind on my uncle bob news/music its kinda pathetic. for some reason i have been selfish with my listening habits as of late and i barely listened to standard gargoyle decisions and coast to coast carpet of love. i hear they’re great but i think i may have od’d on everything bob/gbv for the better part of 15 years that i had to cease to care for a while in order to maintain the relationship. anywho, i didn’t know that he split with merge to form his own label which he has respectfully and lovingly called guided by voices inc. the second release, first being the 3 song ep weatherman and skin goddess, on his new label will be robert pollard is off to business which was produced by tim tobias and comes in at a scant 10 songs (gasp!) maybe he’s coming to grips with that inner editor he desperately needs from time to time. here be the first single and some other stuff to cozy up to.

gratification to concrete off robert pollard is off to business

love your spaceman off superman was a rocker

current desperation off coast to coast carpet of love

pill gone girl off standard gargoyle decisions

circle saw boys club off silverfish trivia

death of a party off keene brother’s blues and boogie shoes

official ironman rally song (demo) off gbv’s under the bushes under stars

there are about 10-15 more mp3’s on his site.

in other bob news (taken verbatim - see copy and pasted from his site)

On August 6, Robert Pollard will release Town Of Mirrors: The Reassembled Imagery Of Robert Pollard, the first ever collection of his artwork. This 144-page tome will collect more than 180 collages that Pollard has created throughout the years, including several made exclusively for this collection. The full-color, coffee table-ready book, which will be published by Fantagraphics, includes an introduction by author Rick Moody, who performed similar honors for 2004’s self-explanatory The Wilco Book. No stranger to the art world, Pollard created most of the surreal album covers for Guided By Voices and his solo albums, and his work has been exhibited in Michael Imperioli’s Studio Dante in New York and the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in his native Ohio. order it here.

i had worked all night - see about 3 hours - on a longish write up on travel by sea’s sophomore disc, days of my escape and after re-reading it a few times i began to realize it was just lots of nonsensical gushing. if you haven’t noticed by now, i come from the 75 or less school of musical critique. cause after about that amount of words i start to lose focus, and i am sure you do to.

if i were to ever finish an album, it would probably sound like days of my escape, but with a lot less restraint and a lot more shitty. kraft and kersten have created one of the warmest records i have heard, probably ever. its truly hard to that these two gents have only met once (read the interview for more info), and yet have a musical chemistry/vision that goes way beyond shlubbing gear to some shitty practice space 4 times a week for years. musical brethren, they may very well be. one of the great things about days of my escape, lies underneath. its not until you don a pair of headphones that you realize that it is awash in an blanket of white noise that only adds to its appeal. kraft has done a masterful job at weaving his sonic landscape around kersten’s breathy/salt of the earth delivery and lyrics. i cant recommend days of my escape enough.

truth was off days of my escape

split second time off days of my escape

i wont let you down off shadows rise

complete shakeup off shadows rise

here are some questions i threw at the men. btw, i wanted to thank either kyle or brian for cleaning up the punctuation and making everything look respectable for publication. apparently they didn’t like the fact that i dont use capital letters, ever and am inconsistent with said punctuation.

ME: If you could be so kind and give us a little history behind “Travel by Sea”: who you are, how you met, influences, pant size, etc?

KK: I’m Kyle (Kersten) and I write and sing the songs and play below-average guitar.

Brian (Kraft) is the mastermind behind the sound of Travel by Sea and plays a multitude of instruments (guitar, keys, drums, bass, and other crap).

BK: I also do the mixing and producing on the songs. Our partnership is kind of like– if you can imagine a cheerleading pair– Kyle’s the girl and I’m the guy. I get to throw Kyle up in the air and look under his dress. And he gets to scream all high pitched with his pom-poms. There’s a certain synchronicity between us like that.

KK: We started in 2005 after meeting through a band’s message board. Our first album, Shadows Rise, was recorded without ever meeting. In fact we only spoke on the phone one or two times. Our communication was all through IM and email. A lot less bickering that way. We send the tracks by FTP to each other since we live over 1000 miles apart. I’m in Tustin, CA and Brian is Denver, CO.

We just finished recording our second full length album, Days of My Escape, which is out on Autumn Tone Records. You can purchase the album at autumn tone.

It’s also on Itunes, E-music, Amazon….etc. Oh and at the moment I’m currently rocking a 34-35″ waist, depending on how many Sierra Nevadas I’ve had that day. Length is sadly a 32.

BK: Hmm… I think I’m doing 34/32 myself, but they seem to fall down a lot. And this belt I just bought ain’t helping. I stupidly got one that’s too big. I need to drive a spike through it and cinch that puppy up, before the neighbors start talking.

Some of our influences include: Will Johnson, Richard Buckner, Tim Bluhm, Jeff Tweedy, Elephant Micah, Jay Farrar, Jim James, M Ward…..

ME: Did you make any attempts to actually get together and record “Days of My Escape” or is that not really an option at this point?

KK: We did meet for the first time in June of 2007 (in SoCal) during the recording of “Days of My Escape” but we didn’t have any plans to record. We basically only had time to play a few shows in LA and then Brian had to head back home. Recording together really hasn’t even been brought up. I highly doubt that will change either. The distance is just too hard especially since we both have full time jobs.

ME: You got to work with Dan from The Broken West and Pink Nasty for “Days of My Escape”, which is very cool. How did that come about? Did you actually meet/work with them face to face or did they just send you their parts?

BK: We got hooked up with Sara Beck (Pink Nasty) and Dan Iead (The Broken West’s guitarist) through Justin Gage (aka Aquarium Drunkard). Their parts were all done separately too. I chatted with Sara on the phone a few times and by email to communicate her parts to her. She sent them by FTP too. She did a really awesome job.

KK: And I ended up picking up a cd of Dan’s pedal steel parts off his front porch. He gave me directions up to his house in the LA hills and explained the cd was sitting on top of a B3 hammond organ on his porch. Sure enough it was there. We both really appreciate them adding their talents to the album.

ME: I know you have a family, job, etc. which i can only assume makes touring a wee bit difficult, but do you foresee any kind of touring in travel by sea’s future?

KK: We’re working on putting together a few short tours for the summer. Most likely there will be one in LA, one in Denver, and maybe one up in the SF area.

ME: Would you rather make a decent living making music, or stay in your current gig and make three times as much?

KK: Tough question. Being that we seem to be so far from making a decent living with Travel by Sea, I can’t imagine music as my main job. The idea of it is definitely exciting. Just being able to make music is good enough for me. Especially when others enjoy it and can relate to the songs. So I guess I’ll take 3x a decent living for now.

BK: The idea of it does sound nice… except touring… long tours would be a drag, I think. The thing is– I love what I do for a living. Actually a portion of it is from playing music– with small kids. It’s a company my wife started.

It’s awesome to help enrich these kids’ lives with music. My main gig though is as a photographer and I totally love it.

top of the morning, peoples. any of you see iron man this weekend? i did and it was every bit as awesome, if not more, than the trailer led me to believe it was going to be. i also happened to watch a little documentary called the king of kong: fistful of quarters. it helped me develop an even greater hatred for billy mitchell, who if you dont know is the only person to get a perfect score on pac man and btw he is a fucking asshole douchebag. i definitely recommend checking out both flicks, both for obviously different reasons.

hey, will oldham and his bonnie prince billy moniker has a new record, lie down in the light, coming out shortly on drag city. you can pre-order it here. here’s a demo of “so, everyone” which is on lie down in the light.

so, everyone (demo)

will oldham myspace

i really dug the first two clinic records, internal wrangler and walking with thee, but havent listened to anything since. mostly due to the fact that i heard they were crap. they got a new one coming out shortly entitled do it and i am really liking the single so i may have to check it out. anyone hear it as of yet?

the witch

clinic site / myspace

as far as i am concerned there have been only two supergroups worth the weight of their collective egos. the first and probably the greatest being the traveling wilburys and second are these fine collection of men, golden smog. as i sit here i am trying to think of other supergroups and for the life of me, cant. probably better off that way. i know there has to be more, though. wasnt their some metal supergroup in the late 80’s that don dokken may have been apart of? lets not forget about the ted nugent and tommy shaw collaborative, damn yankees. yeah..

here they are, golden smog, @ cat’s cradle on 4. 18.96

1. intro

2. v

3. ill fated

4. glad and sorry

5. yesterday cried

6. walk where he walked

7. signed d.c. (love)

8. backstreet girl (rolling stones)

9. nowhere bound

10. (what’s so funny ’bout) peace, love and understanding (nick lowe)

11. he’s a dick

12. pecan pie

13. friend

14. hanging on the telephone (blondie)

15. the most beautiful girl (charlie rich)

16. won’t be coming home

17. love and mercy (brian wilson)

18. red headed stepchild

19. radio king

20. she dont have to see you (bobby patterson)

21. five years (bowie)

22. powderfinger (neil young)

23. i dont care

peteetong! need sleep… i got a bunch of shit coming later today, but until i wake myself from the slumber to come here is an awesome shellac show recorded live in tokyo in november of 1993. this was originally released in japan back in 94 but in a very very limited pressing. here is wee bit more info, if you care.

1. the guy who invented fire

2. rambler song

3. the admiral

4. my black ass

5. song of the minerals

6. billiard player song

7. dog and pony show

8. il porno star

9. doris

10. wingwalker

11. boche’s dick

12. crow

watch song off 1000 hurts

the admiral off at action park

steve deals w/ a heckler and “my black ass”

before i forget, i wanted to mention, and this guy kicks all kinds of ass, but p.w. long’s god bless drunkards dog is finally being released on cd on 5.27 after being a vinyl only release for a while. he’s kinda hard to describe but if you took the likes of richard buckner, william elliot whitmore and the black crowes and forced them into some freaky sausage fest with rich robinson somehow giving birth, it would probably sound like p.w. long. definitely worth your time.

nogales rose

p.w. long site