Wow. Since I started this blog in May I was averaging about 1,000 individual hits a month – and I thought that was totally awesome. But now, thanks to blogs like Lost In The 80s, A Closet Of Curiosities, and most notably Totally Fuzzy, I’m getting more than 1,000 hits a day! Hits from all over the world too – I finally got a long-awaited hit from Finland, that makes me happy for some reason. Anyways, I’d like to welcome all of my new visitors, and hope you stick around (and maybe start posting some more comments people)! Let’s see how long it takes for me to alienate all of you because of technological problems/overly obscure music/offensive rants.

Oh, and one more thing, if you’re reading this Jamey, email me, I got some questions for you. (my email is on the sidebar, I don’t link to it as to avoid spambots).

School Of Fish – Live In L.A.
I never heard of School Of Fish until about two days ago – a day after I bought this record. I only picked up because of its interesting choice of covers (Father Figure and Takin’ Care Of Business!) and was pleasantly surprised with how good the whole thing was. After doing some quick Googling I was bummed to see that the band broke up after two albums. I was even more bummed to see that Josh Clayton-Felt, their lead singer/guitar player, died at age of 32 from testicular cancer. I now desperately want to seek out the two solo albums he recorded before his way-too-soon death.

This live EP was labeled at the record store as a ‘promo import’ and I don’t think anything on it is available on CD. If I’m wrong, or if any of you have any additional info on these guys please let me know.

School Of Fish – Live In L.A.
1. Father Figure
2. That’s All Right Mama
3. Takin’ Care Of Business
4. King Of The Dollar
5. Talk Like Strangers
3. Deep End

Aerosmith – Once Is Enough
Yeah, they suck now but they used to be the rock! ‘Dream On’? ‘Mama Kin’? ‘Toys In The Attic’? Totally make you rock out with your cock out. This blues-tinged rocker is seriously groovin’ and its relegation to the B-side to the vastly inferior ‘Dude (Looks Like A Lady)’ is utterly confounding.

Steve Stevens – Warm Female
For some reason my memory of seeing Billy Idol for the first time is crystal clear. I was watching MTV and the video for ‘Born To Be A Lover’ came on (if you want to see it you got a computer, you got YouTube, don’t be so damn lazy). I was probably eight at the time and for some reason I was more captivated by his freaky guitar player than either Billy’s scary sneer or the song itself. I think he was the first person I ever saw that had massively huge hair – seriously it was like someone killed a poodle and put it on his head. Anyways, as most of you probably know that walking cosmetic disaster was Steve Stevens – a stellar guitar player who also worked with Michael Jackson, Rick Ocasek and lots of other people. In addition to all that he’s also released some solo records that are surprisingly good. This track was the B-side to his first single ‘Atomic Playboys’ (God, how 80s is that) and was co-written by Iggy Pop.

Nothing but complete records today. I’m also experimenting with a different way of listing the tracks, so bear with me.

New Order – Round & Round (12′ Single)
This is the 80 bagillionth New Order single I’ve featured on this blog. It’s not my fault that they are just that awesome. The B-Side to this single, ‘Best And March’ is a great instrumental – and its a shame its never gotten a wide release.

Round & Round (12′ Single)
1. Round & Round (12′ Version)
2. Round & Round (Club Mix)
3. Round & Round (12′ Remix)
4. Best And March

Electronic – Get The Message
Electronic is the on-again/off-agan side project of New Order’s Bernard Summer and The Smiths’ Johnny Marr. When you consider that, the band isn’t nearly as good or as popular as it should be. Still, they released some pretty solid singles, including this one from 1991.

Get The Message (12′ Single)
1. Get The Message (Extended Mix)
2. Free Will (Extended Mix)
3. Get The Message (DNA Groove Mix)
4. Get The Message (DNA Sin Mix)

Living Colour – Live at TT The Bear
No one from Living Colour is British, but they spell their name like they are. That’s very confusing to me, of course I’m easily confused. I’m also easily distracted…I remember this one time when I was walking down the street and this…dammit, see what I mean? Anyways, when Living Colour first burst onto the scene in 1988 they earned a lot of critical acclaim, and needless comparisons to Jimi Hendrix. Has there ever been a rock group fronted by a black dude that hasn’t been compared to Hendrix? Shit, I’ve heard people compare fucking Sevendust to Jimi Hendrix, and they have about as much in common with Hendrix as Suzanne Vega does. Living Colour sounds like Living Colour, and not many other bands. These live tracks were taken off of a 12′ promo single for ‘Cult Of Personality.’ Strangely, it has no live cut of that song. Don’t let that stop you from checking this four-track set out though – their cover of Tracy Chapman’s ‘Talkin’ Bout A Revolution’ alone makes it worth the download.

Living Colour – Live At TT The Bear
1. Talkin’ Bout A Revolution
2. Glamour Boys
3. Open Letter (To A Landlord)
4. Middle Man

Okay, I fucked up again and put the wrong YMO songs up a few days ago. It’s been fixed now. If you ever find that a file you’ve downloaded is wrong, skips alot or is otherwise fucked (oh, and it happens…A LOT) let me know, and you’ll get a free cookie.

I hope all of you had a delightfully disturbing Halloween. I spent my Halloween having my mind fucked at a Negativland concert. Negativland, for those of you who don’t know, are a highly influential sound collage/experimental music band from San Francisco who have been releasing revolutionary recordings since the early 80s. They helped lay the groundwork for mash-ups, intelligent dance music, glitch-pop and countless other experimental music movements since then – and I haven’t even mentioned their work fighting copyrights and intellectual property issues. Check out their site and their wiki for more info. If they’re coming to your town I highly recommend checking them out.

Since Negativland has burnt me out my need to listen and share obscuro records for the moment, so I’ve decided to post some stuff people actually might be looking for. But don’t worry, I have a compilation of radio news broadcasts from 1983 that I’ll be uploading very soon.

I’m not kidding.

The Raconteurs
Hands (Live)
It’ Ain’t Easy
The lack of Raconteurs B-sides makes me very sad. Jack White is a fucking workhorse, I do not believe that the band only recorded the10 songs that are on their album. Come on you Detroit bastard, get with the import singles already! What’s an obsessive music geek to do? All I got are these live tracks from the ‘Hands’ single. Their cover of ‘It Ain’t Easy’ is pretty good.

Arctic Monkeys
Stickin’ To The Floor
7
I posted an Arctic Monkeys B-side before, so why not again? Both of these are off of the import single to ‘When The Sun Goes Down.’ Semi-random comment: I love this guy’s voice.

Beck – Halo Of Gold
The B-side to ‘Tropicalia’, the first 45 I ever bought.

Franz Ferdinand
Get Away
The Fallen (Acoustic)
Sure, they may be redundant, overrated and more than a little bit gay, but I still love them. ‘Get Away’ is the B-side to ‘Do You Want To’ and is very ’60s mod. Their acoustic take on ‘The Fallen’ is excellent and watch a motherfucker to record (it skipped like crazy) so download it and enjoy.

Kate Bush – Sexual Healing
Okay, so she doesn’t blend with The Raconteurs, Franz Ferdinand and so on, but I like her nonetheless. This is the b-side to ‘King Of The Mountain’ her first single off her underheard 2005 album ‘Aerial.’ Unfortunately, it’s off a picture disc, so the quality is kind of meh.