Wax of the Week #101...Rodd Keith and the Raindrops: “October Smiles" 7" (196?)

A sultry, moody crooner ballad from the king of song poems.

Wax of the Week #100...Big Black: Songs About Fucking (1987)

This is one of the records that showed me that “heavy” didn’t have to be metal. There’s some filler, but the good stuff is good.

Wax of the Week #99...Big Black: Headache (1987)

The 12” EP grooves on this are nice and loud. Happy songs concerning child beating, grinding the face of someone who messed with your tools, strike breakers, and racist cops. A “heavy” guitar paired with one that sounds like a big chain smashing against a cyclone fence. Granulating roundwound bass groove. A thumping 808. And a killer Savage Pencil cover illustration.

Wax of the Week #98...Big Black: The Hammer Party (1986)

Comp of their first two EPs from ’82 and ’83. The first one (Lungs) is pretty weird; sounds very homemade (it was a one-man band at this point). There’s not much hint of the fury they’d unleash later on. The second one (Bulldozer) is more aggressive, accentuating the darkness in the lyrical content.

Wax of the Week #97...v/a: Betty Page Danger Girl (1996)

I have no idea what pinup queen Betty Page has to do with the this picture disc other than cynical marketing or a tangential connection to striptease music, but nonetheless it’s a pretty cool collection of short suspense and crime/spy jazz library tracks from the Chappell organization. These records can be difficult to come by, and are usually pretty expensive.

Wax of the Week #96...Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso UFO: In Search of the Lost Divine Arc (2013)

They pump out records, but generally the quality ratio is decent. However, this double LP is mostly filler, with the exception of the epic, side-long head-soaking psych of the title track. These guys can take the classic spaced-out Gong sound and run it through a field of shrooms.

Wax of the Week #95...Bert Lloyd: s/t (c. 1978)

Sappy lounge crooner from parts unknown, wimpy enough to do “Evergreen” and “Weekend in New England.” I did enjoy his versions of ”Copacabana” and “MacArthur Park” (I’ll buy any private lounge record that has this song on it).

Wax of the Week #94...Les Barefoot Boys et Loma: Au Tahiti Village (1966)

Not a lot of records come out of French Polynesia; here’s one that’s mostly traditional, happy Polynesian music that’s pleasant enough, but of no lasting interest personally. But there are three cool, surf-like instrumentals that are nice to hear.

Wax of the Week #93...Bert Kaempfert and His Orchestra: 6 Plus 6 (1972)

One thing I love to hear on easy listening records is plucky electric bass, like it was picked or plucked close to the bridge. It creates a tight foundation for the more airy elements to soar. In general, so many of these LPs have thick, clear, lush production sounds (especially the German ones). Picture yourself in a Kmart in the mid-’70s, munching on popcorn while Mom looks for husky bootcut dungarees for your new school year.

Wax of the Week #92...Bert Kaempfert and His Orchestra: Bert Kaempfert Now! (1971)

Kaempfert, born in Hamburg in 1923, was a songwriter (“Strangers in the Night”) and bandleader whose most famous footnote is probably (while working A&R for Polydor) hiring The Beatles to back English singer Tony Sheridan in 1961. He started releasing LPs in the late ’50s, and some of his material starting a decade later falls nicely into the Now Sound genre (middle-aged, mostly white orchestra leaders covering “hip” rock and pop sounds of the day), with a plucking electric bass underpinning pleasant brass melodies. He died in 1980. The label on this one brags “Recorded in Europe.”

Wax of the Week #91...v/a: Beat of the Traps (1991)

A demented desert island disc in this home. This was the first collection of song poems, short-run records (mostly 45s), the result of the “send us your lyrics” shuck found in gossip magazine ads back in the 1960s and ’70s. The king of this strange corner of the record world was the sad genius Rodd Keith (aka Rod Rogers and many other names), a musical prodigy who met an early demise, the result of drugs and/or mental imbalance. He could bang out multiple one-take songs per day, a lot of them sounding genuinely good and catchy with an air of someone having actual fun at their work, so he’s since had several anthologies of his own. Other singers come across as d-level lounge crooners, and hearing them sing these bizarre poems sent in by suckers who paid money to have a record of their own often results in some strange accidental works of sick inspiration. Released by Byron Coley’s Carnage Press label, which was created for that cool Jim Jones Trading Cards set.

Wax of the Week #90...Beat Happening: You Turn Me On (1992)

Now that someone’s mentioned it, I can definitely hear a bit of The Velvet Underground in this band’s dronier songs, but as if they were raised on soda pop and s’mores and spin-the-bottle instead of slamming smack in humid, dirty alleys with young male prostitutes. And tellingly, Stuart Moxham of Young Marble Giants produced some of this (along with Steve Fisk from the previous record).

Wax of the Week #89...Beat Happening: Dreamy (1991)

Now here’s what they call one of them ironical situations. As a rule I’ve always loathed that whole precious, “cuddle-core” strain of independent rock music that flourished in the 1980s. You know, fey liberal arts majors in sweaters from upper middle class households strumming chimy chord changes, so shy they might just urinate their $100 jeans if you so much as gave them the stinkeye. Surely never grew a callous due to manual labor. I remember, when living in North Carolina in the 1990s, waiting for the buyer in a Chapel Hill used bookstore to raise some spending cash by selling some records, and off to my side was this delicate little creature of a student, singing his mousy little songs to a smug audience of coffee drinkers. It made the blue collar metalhead in me want to go Belushi on the kid.

SOOO, imagine the situation as someone so in contempt of this species of entitled sleeve-wipers to be into a band like Beat Happening. A band from one of the steaming breeding grounds of this musical archetype, Olympia, Washington. A band with two jock-looking normies and a dykey chick right out of Art School Confidential. An intentionally-amateur-sounding band who write songs with two chords and nursery rhyme melodies, and switch instruments to sound “worse.” Does not compute, but there it is. Since their earlier stuff never hit me, I’m thinking it’s the deft touch of producer Steve Fisk who sprinkled the right shades of musical fairy dust on this record that did it. Also, these guys were one of the earlier artists of their generation to reference the non-teen pre-hippy sixties as cultural touchstones (it took me years to realize Calvin Johnson took his whole baritone singing style from Lee Hazlewood). I get nauseous and angry when hearing any other groups that sound like this, but Beat Happening makes me happy. Go figure.

My copy still in shrink with ERL Records price sticker.

Wax of the Week #88...Cliff Jackson & Jellean Delk with the Naturals: “Frank, This Is It” 7” (1964)

Classic “crying” cut, with its instrumental version on the flip. Can’t get over this girl’s sass. One book says this is actually Sun session guitarist Teddy Paige of The Jesters.

Wax of the Week #87:..Aluk Todolo: Voix (2016)

Remarkable instrumental French trio that’s hard to classify. Their roots are in black metal (all three were in Diamatregon), but they play a sort of exploratory (like The Julie Mittens), heavy and rhythmic (like Guapo) propulsion prog (they’ve gigged with Faust and Magma), with touches of dark psychedelia in the washes of guitar (like some of Davis Redford Triad or even Caspar Brotzmann Massaker). Really well done and impressive. When I bitch about how Metallica have petered out and are running on creative fumes, while graybeard metallers shrug and stretch with an apologetic “It’s OK, I guess” at their new music, THIS is the kinda shit I’m trying to draw attention to: new sounds that stretch the boundaries of metal from artists that are following their muses and taking chances, not whipped by management into pretending to care so they can pay for personal chefs and shopping sprees in Paris. Hrmph.

Wax of the Week #86...Bathory: The Return… (1985)

I’ve long had the feeling that Quorthon did the first Bathory recordings on a lark, and, pleasantly surprised by the positive reaction, continued to bang out strong albums with a seemingly offhand effort, tongue slyly in cheek. Many Swedes seem to have this very dry, lightly cynical sense of humor, and I could just imagine this booze/blow/women-loving punk rocker saying, Fuck it, let’s have a go at this metal thing. And without being totally serious about it (though not everyone picked up on this), he cranked out these kickass records, helped define whole genres (black metal, Viking metal), and became a legend in the process. Says a lot about his innate talent. Musically, this was savage thrash metal with grunting Gollum vocals; remember, back in the ’80s black metal was defined more by lyrical content and image, not really by musical qualities (bands like, say, Venom and Mercyful Fate really had little in common). Bathory was not influenced by Bay Area crunch, but more German thrash with an infusion of varsity-level evil juice. Rumors about drum machines have long surrounded this band, and I do wonder if they were used here. Maybe it’s better not to know, and just enjoy the many mysteries of Bathory.

Wax of the Week #85...The Derelicts: Time to Fuck Up 7” (1990)

This Seattle punk band straddled the grunge and hardcore scenes—melodic enough for one, powerful enough for the other. They had a couple of good singles, but I never got around to their sole LP. Anyone rate it? Cover art by Joe Newton.

Wax of the Week #84...The Joyride: “The Crystal Ship” 7” (1967)

 

Dreamy pop psych cover of the Doors classic, backed with a similar sunshine pop psych b-side.

Wax of the Week #83...The Bandido Family: Playing Em’ Our Way (1977)

Also known as Los Bandidos, from a renowned 1972 live LP (well, renowned to lounge collectors, anyway), they were a midwest Native American band with an incredible guitarist who wrangled weird, scratchy noises out of his instrument that sounded like insects, plus a child singer/drummer.

Wax of the Week #82...The Barons: By Request (1972)

The second album I have by this local Texas barband. Cool versions of “Mr. Soul” (with variable-tempo drumming), Teegarden & Van Winkle’s “God, Love and Rock & Roll,” and CCR’s “Hey Tonight,” along with others: Ten Years After, Booker T & the M.G.’s, and Tin Tin (!).