Lo-Fi Christmas with Urusei Yatsura

Here's something special for you all from Santa Freedom. I won't write much, other than to wish you all a Happy Christmas and all the best for 2017. Take care of yourselves, and enjoy this bumper post of three (count 'em) Urusei Yatsura 7"s, kings (and queen) of the coloured vinyl single.

Plastic Ashtray b/w Got The Sun
Kewpies Like Watermelon b/w Majesty
Strategic Hamlets b/w Down Home Kitty and Kozee Heart (Luxury Pave-Style)

If you like this lot, please take a look at this link, which is a collection of session tracks, and I can assure you it is worth buying.

I hope you enjoy the 7"s. See you next year.

The Amps - Tipp City (CDS)

This is good stuff. I didn't know much about this little bit of Deal history, but it's the one single off the one album by the band that Kim Deal formed between the early and late periods of The Breeders. It's a nicely chaotic tune, as is the first b-side (clocking in at a mammoth 1:14 - can see why they played with Guided By Voices). The sound and feel fits in very nicely with her other work, I really like it. It's kind of The Breeders but more nuts.

And a lot less polished, particularly the third track, which is great, if shouty and 110% distorted.

All good stuff, and interesting to hear if you're as poorly informed about The Amps as I was.

1. Tipp City
2. Just Like A Briar
3. Empty Glasses (Kim's Basement 4-track Version)

Here you go.

Cud - Rich & Strange CDS

Hit after hit after hit, this blog, I tell you. I've got a lot of time for Cud, which I think is probably 40% nostalgia and 60% quality. Ned's Atomic Dustbin is 60/40 the other way. The Family Cat is 90% fondness through quality. I could go on. (Catch me at the right time with the right beer and I will.)

This is great. A bona fide pop hit, smashing its way to number 24 in the charts. Number 24! Imagine. And that was 24 years ago. Imagine.

Thing with Cud is that on record they sound great, I really like the sparing sound, little guitar noodling and bass wandering around the place. Always nice to listen to. Live, I don't remember from the time, as it was a long time back I saw them at the Anson Rooms in Bristol, but I saw their reformed show in London a while back and they sounded bad. Fun, but bad. Just kind of weedy.

Anyway, the b-sides of this one are both good, so I hope you enjoy them. Track 3 has a particularly good chorus.

1. Rich And Strange
2. Do It Again
3. A Song Called That

It's right here for your very much enjoyment.

Superchunk - Tower 7" EP

Another from the big 7"s box of (mostly) junk, but one of the few gems. If not financially helpful ones. This is from Superchunk in 1990, on an Australian label called Messiah Complex. It says there were 1000 only, 200 on green vinyl, 800 on purple. Mine is on yellow, which suggests repress I suppose.

The a-side is great. The Chunk at their raucous best, particularly on Fishing, which sounds like it was recorded live apart from the lack of crowd noise. Both killer tunes.

Side B has a Shangri-Las cover, which is less good. Interesting as a fan, but I can't imagine I'll be rushing back to it. 'What Do I' is great, though. Both the b-side tracks were off the 1989 'Chunk' EP on Merge, the a-sides were recorded in 1990.

H'ya.

1. Fishing
2. Tower
3. Train From Kansas City
4. What Do I

Mudhoney / Melvins split - H.I.V. Groupie Hits-Pack! 7"

I bought a load of 7"s of some guy on eBay ages ago, in the hope that there might be some gems in the collection. To be honest I did it also in the hope there might be, say, a load of early Smiths singles or something, and I could make some cash. Needless to say, most of the 300+ in the collection was 2000s-era indie dross.

This is the only record which is worth anything (and only a tenner), but it's a happy exception in quality terms too.

It's a weird record, in terms of content and labelling. The sleeve gets the bands right, but all the songs are labelled wrong, at least partly. The centre label of the record not only gets the songs at least partly wrong, but the names of the bands wrong too; Mudhoney are The Psycho Surgeons, The Melvins are The Professors.

Anyhew, the songs are pretty cool all round. Side a has three Mudhoney tracks, the first two are demos, and the third a kind of murky live recording, but it's good. Side b is one Melvins track, which is labelled as one thing (Just Sixteen) on the sleeve, another (The Sails of Charon) on the label, but is actually a KISS cover.

1. Here Comes Sickness (Mudhoney)

2. Sweet Young Thing Ain't Sweet No More (Mudhoney)

3. Chain That Door (Mudhoney)

4. Going Blind (The Melvins)

There. I've done the working out for you. Enjoy the record.

Oh, also I've changed to Mega for storage, so that (hopefully) stuff stays available for longer and I don't have to keep putting the Teenage Fanclub Scotland on Sunday CD up.

Beck - The New Pollution CDS

You all know the a-side, I'm sure. It's a good one of his, for sure, off the awesome 'Odelay' LP. However the big interest in this single is the b-side, which is an Aphex Twin remix of 'Devil's Haircut', and as you'd expect is fairly strange. I particularly like the section somewhere in the middle where the vocal sample bears no resemblance to the rhythm of the track. Good stuff.

Track three seems like a home-recorded kind of thing, and doesn't have the Dust Brothers credited as producers. Maybe not quite to the standard of the album, but it's a good track still. Sounds like it might have been fun to make.

1. The New Pollution
2. Richard's Hairpeice (remix by Aphex Twin)
3. Electric Music and The Summer People

Here you are now, entertain you.

Ben Folds Five - Army CDS

Here's a great tune from BFF, as most of them are (until, in the way of these things, they reformed and weren't so good). I like this track a lot, as I do the whole of the LP it's taken from.

Track two is from the Godzilla soundtrack. Not the immediate band who'd spring to mind for a Godzilla movie, but I guess it fitted. I vaguely recall going to see the film at the time, and thinking it was shit. But I also seem to recall a lot of Godzilla films at one time or another, so perhaps the one this is from was amazing. The track is really good, very BFF of this period.

Number three is a really good instrumental, the sound of three excellent musicians at their peak, and I don't know anything more about it. Apparently it was on the Australian version of the LP, but I'd never heard it before. There was, apparently, no film/TV show/medical documentary with this name. So there. Enjoy it.

I'm back in Birmingham for a short trip next week, so hopefully will get another chance to scour the shelves at Swordfish for more good stuff.

1. Army
2. Air
3. Theme From "Dr Pyser"

Here you are.

The Wedding Present - Dalliance CDS

Happy New Year everyone, and apologies for the remarkable gap between postings. Somehow July to January has passed in something of a blur, but all is back to normal. So you can expect to wait only 2-3 months between postings.

Right. Are you sitting comfortably? Ready to feel old? Good. This came out 25 years ago.

Brilliant a-side, lovely Lou Reed cover on the b-side, which apparently was a Velvet Underground track originally and then a solo one, but I don't think I've heard the VU version. Anyway, this is great. 'Niagra' is also really good, with some bizarre time changes, and a massive snare drum. Enjoy.

1. Dalliance

2. She's My Best Friend

3. Niagra

It's right here.