Sugar - Helpless

Check me out - two posts in the same month! Albeit with 29 days between them. More from Warminster, and the first of a Sugar double-bill. I actually picked these up before the re-release of Copper Blue and the rest, which include all these tracks on their extra CDs and so on. Anyhow, if (like me) you haven't got around to getting the remastered ones you might not have heard these songs.

This, as always, is an absolute killer tune. Is it sacrilege to say I prefer Sugar to Husker Du? Particularly Copper Blue, but probably Beaster too. I know, but I'm an indie-pop kid at heart (I say kid...)

The b-sides of this one are all great. First one wouldn't have been out of place on the LP. It sounds like REM, actually, but more rock. Next up is the "solo mix" of 'If I Can't Change Your Mind', which is maybe the LP version with only acoustic guitar? 'Try Again' is another one I hadn't heard before, which maybe isn't as good as 'Needle Hits E', but worth an ear. Might be a cover? I don't know, but sounds a bit different.

1. Helpless
2. Needle Hits E
3. If I Can't Change Your Mind (Solo Mix)
4. Try Again

Hear.

Elliot Smith - Waltz #2 (XO)

This is another one from the Warminster secondhand shop, which I picked up because he's one of those singers I've liked for a long time, but never really owned very much. I have a friend who is really into him, and lent me some stuff a while back, and I recognise this single as being off one of those albums. It's really good, and you might either know it or recognise it. Strikes me as one that you'd know again if you'd only heard it once.

The b-sides are both listed as being unreleased, so I hope that if you like Elliot Smith already they'll be of interest. If you don't know a lot, like me, then you can enjoy them purely as good tracks, which they surely are. First is an instrumental, and a very good one (kind of has a vocal tune, if you know what I mean). Second is a rocky number, very good, if not as catchy as the a-side.

Hope you like it.

1. Waltz #2 (XO)
2. Our Thing
3. How To Take A Fall

Here it is.