It’s the fall, y’all!

As we descend into the perennial void of decomposition and decay, it’s worth asking:

What have Dan and Matt been listening to lately?

Since you absolutely can’t get your autumn on without the answer, we’ve got here a couple of media links! We trust you can click below and from there return to wherever your chosen pit may be!

We figured, if we were going to de-sanctify the video, we ought’n try the same with the audio!

As ever, we have a pretty sick playlist for listening!!

Dan’s Notes

That Demon The Sun – Ghosted (2023)

Dungeon synth/”vampiric Bedroom pop” from Asheville NC, one of many projects by Kelsey (no last name given) released on their label Hadean Holler Records. TDTS play melodic ambient synth music with ethereal vocals recorded to cassette using minimal takes, and “Ghosted” is their first album to feature actual vocals. For those unfamiliar, Dungeon Synth is a genre that kind of follows two streams – one very serious one that initially sprang out of the black metal scene, where artists like Mortiis tried moving away from extreme metal tropes to work in a synth-based take on more orchestral sounds, and a sort of tongue in cheek branch that realizes how ultimately silly some of these attempts at orchestral synth music sound and takes a slightly more tongue in cheek angle on it all, while still creating epic retro-futurist soundscapes suitable for soundtracking your fantasy film or tabletop fantasy RPG campaign. This artist falls firmly in the latter camp, with song titles like “I Ate Your Horses” and “Can I Live In Your Castle?” and hand-drawn images of floating spectres and gloomy castles adorning their cassette releases’ J-cards, with this most recent album adding ethereal vocals to the mix on top of their spooky Moog-ified melodies. This isn’t a genre I really follow normally, but thanks to a friend in a discord server who, like Kelsey of Hadean Holler Records, is also part of the international retro synth enthusiast community and therefore more up on the happenings in that scene, I was turned on to their work and have really been enjoying it since.

Sinead O’Connor

Gone too soon. Holy shit. I don’t know what to say that hasn’t already been said so much since her passing but goddamn what a legend. I would put her at the level of Dylan or Bowie or Cohen in terms of top tier rock deity status. Her initial rise in popularity coincided with a lot of my own initial explorations of so-called “alternative” music, and she quickly became an icon of that scene, even with her Prince cover from her second album becoming such a giant hit in the mainstream. Revisiting her first couple of albums especially since her passing has been a real pleasure, even if the circumstances are not so pleasant for doing so. While mainstream culture tried to punish her for her brave act of protest tearing up a photo of the Pope on SNL, could you expect someone who survived the horrors of Ireland’s church-run Magdalene Laundries to do any less when presented with such a far-reaching platform? Sinews lived her life the way she wanted to and it was not easy and she is gone far too soon and that’s really fucking sucks. I don’t always take the deaths of pop culture figures so hard, but it really hurt to hear off her passing a few weeks ago and I hope she is free from pain wherever she is, and when Matt suggested we turn our focus away from the usual punk rock stuff for an episode there was no way I could not say something about her in my picks for the show this time around.

As Sheriff “Six Ways To The Ace” LP (2023)

Another great find by Jason Flower from Supreme Echo Records. Victoria BC’s As Sheriff formed in 1967 and were one of the flagship bands of the psychedelic rock scene in BC in the late 60’s and early 70’s, playing trippy folky bluesy anthems for the dropout freak out scene of that era, though until this archival LP was released by Supreme Echo earlier this year their sole recorded output was one single released in the early 70’s. Flower became a fan of this single, and tracked down the two,sole surviving members of the band, who led him to these final recordings, a dozen tracks of peace, love, and righteous anger at oppressors and warmongers – the perfect soundtrack to an afternoon of burning your draft card and hitchhiking to the next happening happening or whatever else one did for fun in those days. It’s cool to get to hear this piece of Canadian rock history from the era, especially one with nary a Bachman or Cummings in sight and presenting a grimier groovier side of the era. While not as loud or abrasive as artists like the MC5, they still present a little grittier and close to the front type of take on the era’s counterculture vibes and it’s no surprise to hear that they ended up sharing stages with whatever top cool rockers came through Victoria and Vancouver during their active years, and these twelve songs are a fun little blast from the past to check out of you like your rock a little groove and psychedelic and another solid release from Supreme Echo.

Tyler The Creator – Call Me If You Get Lost (2021)

One of my favorite summery albums of the past few years – a blend of tropicalia, dusty drum loops and Wes Anderson-esque pastel hued imagery overtop of a tug of war between morbid post-breakup introspection and loud-talking id-powered exclamations about how great it is to eat ice cream with supermodels. A loose concept album about trying to get one’s head together after finding themselves as maybe not the hero of the story in the aftermath of a love triangle that had fallen to an ugly end, Tyler’s lyrics veer from introspection to crass excess, with the latter parts highlighted by ad libs from mixtape legend DJ Drama playing the little voice in the back of your head telling you to just say fuck it and have another drink rather than engage in any sort of self-examination. Tyler The Creator is one of those artists that has taken a long time to really for me to click with, I guess you could say. A lot of his Odd Future stuff and early solo albums were on my radar but maybe just not for for me at the time, though as he as a person has grown and matured over the years and shed some of his more edge-lord tendencies, his music has definitely improved in my mind as well. it’s not that I thought his early stuff was low quality or anything, just not my thing a lot of the time. It was around his Flower Boy album a few years ago that I decided to give Tyler another chance, and with Call Me… I think he has probably released his best album yet, even when taken just as a collection of songs and ignoring the subtle throughlines throughout, plus the vibrant tropical grooves that make up a good portion of the album’s instrumentals make it a perfect late summer listen.x

Northern Boys

With so much of the world on fire and/or flooding and/or trying to kill itself and the rest of us at any given time, sometimes I just need a fucking laugh. Novelty songs and comedic music can be hit or miss at the best of times, but the four tracks so far by Sutton Coldfield UK’s Northern Boys have hit that balance of catchiness and absurdity to bring a smile to my face every time I listen to them or watch one of their music videos. Retired teachers Patrick Karneigh Jr and Norman Pain (alongside backup dancer Kev) initially met while working at the same school and then reconnecting years later through collaborations with their Sindhu Sesh Records label mates Pete And Bas and their Snooker Team collective of elderly hip hop artists. While P&B are more concerned with portraying themselves as aged hardmen, The Northern Boys would rather dive into piles of pharmaceuticals and shake their hexagenarian butts while ranting about pansexual dalliances, hallucinating tiny German men named Juergen, and sleeping in the back yard after getting mocked by their spouses. Also so much cocaine. So so much cocaine. The comedic trope of “old person says filthy things” can often feel like low hanging fruit, but these guys just pull it off for me with their mix of ridiculously over the top celebration of all forms of carnal and chemically-fuelled wackiness and debauchery with a sincere love and support of the LGBTQIA community at a times when that community is increasingly targeted by TERFs and fascists in their home country and beyond (“Give It To Me” acts as an unofficial pride anthem with its dedication “….to the gays and the bi’s and the trans and the girls and the big bald men” ). Sure, the joke may get old as time goes on but for now any of their four videos is pretty much guaranteed to bring a smile to my face when needed these days, and there’s not a whole lot more you can ask of your novelty artists than that. 

Addenda and miscellany

Matt’s Notes

OK… so… as per every other time, the delay between recording and production is mine & mine alone.

And!

In addition to whom and whatever I spoke to in the recording, I’m going to vouch for all these additional ones!

It’s my latest “non-Punk” listenings! From the currently-ish played stacks! (Of wax)!!

And those are nothing but the facts, Jack!

Sonny Clark— Cool Struttin’

I literally just finished listening to this after a day and a weekend that were not particularly stressful, but not exactly without stress either!

Let’s just say, I’ve been reading The Gulag Archipelago over the past few days, and it is really hitting me! I’m like: this is naturally interesting to me right now.

When faced with such rampant midlife un-malaise, you have a few options to immediately shake yourself out of it! One of the least self-destructive I’ve found is Blue Note Records artists… of any decade, and any tradition.

It swings! It’s got a working class kick to it! And that’s as far as I’ll go with why I like it… except that swinging, uptempo mid-fifties to mid-sixties jazz… I mean, it’s just hard to go wrong, that’s all!

The Deepest Soul of Otis Redding

Also, in my opinion, you can’t go wrong with 60’s Soul! Atlantic Records, Motown, and a whole host of others… if they put it out, it was worth having!

You might go, isn’t he the Sitting on the Dock of the Bay guy? And the answer to that would be yes. He’s also the I’ve Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now) guy! Which latter track is on this record!

This record is a compilation put together by Volt Records in 2013. The record is blue for reasons being blue music, I suppose! The selection of tracks is, for the uninitiated like myself, a dive into deep cuts… i.e., songs other than the two mentioned previously! What a voice! What a person behind the voice… you can’t imagine it cause it’s so real… and that’s all I’ll try to say on that!

It makes me curious to see more of Volt Records’ roster when I have money to spend on vinyl again which will likely be in the longer term future than the sooner! (Blue) things to look forward to!

Justin Townes Earle— The Saint of Lost Causes

And here’s where we see a guy I consider of my generation… and GOD… he was actually younger than me!

1982-2020. Thirty-eight years. He accomplished a lot. I’m glad there’s still lots of his catalogue I haven’t checked out yet.

I mean, I didn’t know ANYTHING when I was thirty-eight.

Drive-By Truckers— Go-Go Boots

We’re now getting deep into Americana land! I’m into this band enough to want to spend dollars every time I see their records in person. As with JTE, there’s lots of their discography that I have yet to discover. I find a sameness to their albums… call it reliability, durability… you can almost take them for granted for how long they’ve been around and how consistently they’ve been playing in their own league.

I would pay good money to see them live anywhere that I could.

The rock doc The Secret to a Happy Ending is totally worth watching. And it makes me curious, somewhat, to check out Jason Isbell’s records.

This album in particular, I can say for sure, is a DBT album. I throw it on and don’t think about it too much. And it’s outstanding.

Sugar— Copper Blue (LP)…. & Beaster (EP)

This is a total cheat. Definitely I am stretching the “Anything but Punk” theme. Also, I could, and have, and will talk about Bob Mould, Grant Hart, and/or Greg Norton and any and all side projects or collaborations or offshoots or solo records for many, many, many (many!) hours.

And each of these stands righteously on their own. But if you put them together… which is legit, cause Beaster came out within a year of Copper Blue! Although when I throw them on, I put on Beaster first because I remember reading the review in the first copy of Spin Magazine that I bought in grade eight or 9 and the album cover glared out at me. I don’t remember the article! But when I heard Hüsker Dü for the first time in the summer between grade nine and ten, it all made sense… or, rather it didn’t but it was kind of starting to…

We are horrendously thankful you took some of your diminishing allotment of time to check out this pod-thingy!!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

---

Filed under: Uncategorized - @ September 19, 2023 12:38 am