I have a lot of little jobs which add up to almost having a real job (but not really). One of my gigs is reviewing CDs. I like it. I get to listen to and write about new music, which is fun, and I get oodles of free CDs and shit (which is the real reason why anyone reviews CDs). I’ve been doing it for a few years now and I’ve discovered a few great bands that I would have otherwise never heard of otherwise. Vaux (who broke up because no one fucking listened to them) and The Klaxons are both amazing bands that I might not have discovered unless I was assigned their CDs. Other groups, like The Grates and The Trucks aren’t as good, but I’m still happy I heard their music and I’m looking forward to hearing what they’ll do next.

Unfortunately groups like them are the minority. For every original metal band like Vaux there are thirty shit emo fuckers like Boys Like Girls. For every great electronic/rock hybrid like The Klaxons there’s substandard boring shit like OHN, and intelligent and fun groups like The Grates And The Trucks are buried under derivative bullshit acts like Temposhark.

However, last week I was forced to listen to what had to be the worst album I’ve ever had the the displeasure of being exposed to.

The band: Tokio Hotel
The album: Scream

Okay, look at this fucker.

Seriously, look at him.

Yeah, the band’s appearance shouldn’t have an influence in how I feel about their music but when you give me something like that how can it not effect my views on the music? Also, since Tokio Hotel is so incredibly obviously a pre-manufactured hodgepodge of everything “emo” they’re leaving themselves open to attacks and judgments based on their appearance. That stupid little fucker looks like a cross between Sanjaya, Yahoo Serious and what came out of my ass this morning. That’s about what he sounds like too in case you were wondering.

I can’t think of an album that made me as angry as this one has. It’s a perfect storm of shit music, shit appearance and horribly transparent marketing (nothing pisses me off more than corporate-designed “edge”) to the lowest common denominator of sad, pathetic teenagers . What makes me even more angry is that it seems to be working, since stupid teenage girls are gobbling it up.

I’m sure I’ll be criticized for that comment so let me elaborate. It’s not like guys don’t like shitty music. Guys with bad taste in music and anger issues have kept much of the metal scene going since 1982. However, guys very rarely dig a band just because of how they look. Sure, we may like T.a.T.u and shit like that, but once the thrill of seeing two hot Russian chicks do it gets old we just go back to our porno and call it a day.

These stupid little girls on the other hand (note: not ALL girls are like this, just a very vocal portion of them are) see a group like this and fall head-over-fucking-heels in love with them for no good goddamn reason other than the fact that they think the boys are cute. They buy all their shit CDs, go to all their lousy concerts and post all about them on their stupid fucking MySpace pages. These are the same girls that fell in love with boy bands when they were younger, their hopelessly pathetic devotion to pretty boys hasn’t changed, only the genre has.

People always go off on how children are exposed to too much sex and violence. Fuck that. Sex and violence are a part of life and both are awesome. Kids are exposed to shit like this far too much; corporate-designed piles of shit forced down teenagers throats until they don’t know shitty from not-shitty. There ought to be a law that says before anyone under the age of 18 buys an album from a band like Tokio Hotel that they have to listen to a Siouxsie And The Banshees, Talking Heads (hey, look below!) or Ramones album to show that a group can be image-conscious without sounding/looking like a bunch of dickholes.

Okay, I’m done now.

And in case you’re wondering my review of the album isn’t online yet. I’ll link to it once it is.

Oh, and I really hope all these mentions of Tokio Hotel brings fans of them here – I love making emo kids’ make-up run.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Y Control (Faint Remix)
Y Control (Thre Majesty Remix)
Y Control (Tommie Sunshine’s Brooklyn Fire Retouch)
Karen O. totally stole my wardrobe.

Talking Heads
Blind (Extended Remix)
Blind (Deaf Dub and Blind Mix)
Blind (Vocal Mix)
I usually don’t put up dub mixes but the name of that one was so good I couldn’t resist. These come from a 12” single.

Luscious Jackson
Here (Explosion Mix)
Bam Bam (Live)
Here (Squirrel Mix)
Queen Of Bliss
Surprise (Live)
Here (Love/Hate)
I wasn’t going to post this but since I had a whole New York thing going with the first two groups I figured why the hell now. These tracks came from a nifty white vinyl 12” single.

I’m in a shit mood, and if you’ve been reading my blog on a regular basis throughout the years you know that means one thing; industrial music – actually tonight it’s more like hardcore techno/rave but whatever, it’s still not happy music. If you want to know why I’m in a shit mood read on, but if you just want to get to the music and don’t give a shit about the trials and tribulations of an angry twentysomething in Pittsburgh, then just scroll down for a bit.

This shit is vulgar. You’ve been warned.

So in February by Xbox360 broke. It didn’t get the dreaded “Red Ring Of Death” (RRoD) instead it just started giving me disc read errors. I had just bought Mass Effect so it was a real pain in the ass. I called tech support (lovely Indian people) and explained the problem. They told me that since my Xbox was 3 months past warranty it would cost me a hundred bucks to get it fixed. I was pissed, and I was even more pissed because I knew that if my 360 had gotten the RRoD it would have still been covered under warranty. My Xbox broke the “wrong” way it seemed and I was fucked.

I bitched and complained to various people, eventually getting an American (shocking!) and that condescending little prick said that he could knock down the cost to 50 bucks and that was all he could do. I reluctantly agreed, knowing that it was the best deal I could get. I sent the system out, waited a few weeks, and it eventually came back in full working order.

Or so I thought. That was a little over three months ago and my system has broken AGAIN. This time I’m getting a “general system error” still not an RRoD but the end result is the same, my 360 is a giant paperweight. When my system broke the first time I told the shithead pricks that I had read that disc read errors were indicative of another problem, and he said they weren’t. Well, now look where we are three months later. Now I have to send my fucking 360 out again to their “repair” facility, where I’m assuming retarded monkeys fling feces at broken Xbox systems all day.

What a bunch of shitfaced cocksucking motherfuckers. Microsoft literally ripped me off for 50 bucks. I paid to get it fixed and they didn’t fix it. I asked for a refund of my 50 bucks, since their original repair really didn’t do much of anything and they told me in as many words to get fucked. Of course, my story isn’t unique, thousands of Xbox users have had the same problem, and yet Microsoft still says that their is no widespread system problem other than the RRoDs.

Fuck that shit. Fuck Microsoft. Fucking assholes are a bunch of cheapskate cockmongers who cut costs on an overpriced piece of shit video game system so they could increase their margins. Their neverending desire to break it off and stick in their collective customer base seems to have paid off, as the fucking pricks just finally managed to turn a profit on that giant white turd this year.

I’d love to track down Bill Gates and jam my broken Xbox up his ass.

Buy a Wii.

Ah, that felt good.

The Prodigy
Hot Ride (El Batori Mix 1)
Hot Ride (El Batori Mix 2)
To be honest when The Prodigy was popular the first time around I pretty much hated their guts. I don’t know why. Yeah, they’re kind of stupid, repetitive and lacking real artistic merit but so was every other Big Beat act at the time and I loved most of them (my love affair with Fatboy Slim is still ongoing actually) so maybe I was just in a real shit mood when I first heard Firestarter. More likely I was just real sick of that damn song after a while and took it out on the rest of them. I didn’t actually start to like the band until I borrowed their Greatest Hits from a friend after hearing this track (which features Strange Days star Juliette Lewis). Since then I’ve becoming much more tolerant of them. These two remixes come from a 12” white label promo. The song itself probably features the strangest sample of a Fifth Dimension song ever. This isn’t their best track with Juliette though, if you like her voice I highly suggest checking out Spitfire, a bad-ass techno track that’ll leave you wanting to punch in some heads.

Sheep On Drugs
Motorbike (12” Version)
Track X (12” Version)
Acid Test (12” Version)
Drug Music (12” Version)
I would have gone for the name Ovides On Ludes, but that’s just me.

This is stupid techno. They sound kind of like My Life With The TKK if they took away all the sex references and replaced them with drug ones. It’s kind of charming in a sad, 40-year-old stoner kind of way. These guys look like total douchenozzles (and the guy on the left looks strangely like one of my old roommates).

Killing Joke
Pandemonium (Waxworth Industries Mix)
Pandemonium (Cybersank Extended Remix)
Pandemonium (Dragonfly Mix)
Pandemonium (Nu-clear Shredded Fibres Mix)
I never have anything to say about these guys other than the fact that I like them. Enjoy.

After managing to maintain some sort of focus for a week and put up nothing but soundtracks my ADD has returned and I am once again just posting some random crap that I recently bought.

BT & Tori Amos
Blue Skies (Paul van Dyk’s Blauer Himmel Mix)
Blue Skies (Deep Dish Blue Phunk Mix)
Blue Skies (Paul van Dyk’s Erinern Mix)
Blue Skies (Deep Dish Blue Phunk Dub)
Tori Amos and BT on one track? This is some 90s shit right here. BT frustrates the fuck out of me. One second he’s recording a brilliant track like “Blue Skies” or the haunting score to Monster, and the next he’s recording something utterly retarded like “Somnambulist” (and what the fuck does that mean anyways). Meh, I guess you gotta pay the bills anyway you can. These great remixes are from a 12” single.

Spandau Ballet
Round And Round (The Long Version)
True (Live Version)
Gold (Live Version)
My three favorite Spandau Ballet tracks all on one magical 12” single! The live versions are pretty good, and listen to the crowd reaction when the band starts up “True” it’s five billion teenage girl’s exploding at once. I previously criticized Spandau Ballet’s categorization as a soul band, but I think “Round And Round” accurately fits that category. I guess they’re as soul as a bunch of 20 something white British kids from the 80s could be. If The Everly Brothers were “blue-eyed soul” and Bowie did “Plastic Soul” then Spandau Ballet was “plastic blue eyed soul.”

Local Boy
Thriller medly with Owner Of A Lonely Heart
I’m a huge fan of mash-up/bootleg/bastard pop mixes and I’m always on a quest to find early examples of the semi-illegitimate genre. This 1984 track from a DJ promo 12” has to be one of the earliest. The vocals from “Owner Of A Lonely Heart” fit perfectly over the Michael Jackson track, it’s creepy. I don’t know who Local Boy is and if he/she/they ever did anything else, but this track hits the jackpot. I apologize for the early scratches, this vinyl looks like someone took a brillo pad covered in asbestos to it.

Strange Days – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Strange Days came out in October of 1995, made about five bucks and then vanished forever. It was directed by Kathryn Bigelow, (Near Dark, Point Break) and written by her ex-husband James Cameron (yea, that James Cameron – she’s wife number three of five). As much as I love Near Dark and Point Break I’d have to say that Strange Days is Bigelow’s best film to date. I also think that it’s the best thing Cameron’s ever written as well, it’s sure as fuck better than Titanic.

I love this movie. I was one of four people that saw it in the theater and have loved it ever since. I love everything about it. The cast (Ralph Finnes, Angela Bassett and Juliette Lewis) do an amazing job. The script is incredible. The set design, costumes, editing, it’s all amazing. I own the movie on laserdisc for fuck’s sake. In my version of the 1995 Oscars, Strange Days beat Braveheart for Best Picture and Best Director, Ralph Finnes scored a stunning upset and beat Nic Cage for Best Actor, and he was joined on stage with Angela Bassett as Best Actress and Juliette Lewis winning Best Supporting Actress (Kevin Spacey is still Best Supporting Actor – he was really good in The Usual Suspects). The movie also would have picked up statues for art direction, set design, editing, screenplay and costumes.

However, as I hinted to before though, the movie didn’t exactly set the world on fire. Critics weren’t especially kind to it (although Ebert loved it) and it sunk quickly and quietly in the theaters. Time hasn’t been very kind to it either, as it’s instantly dated by the fact that it’s set in the then-future of 1999 – where people wore special headsets that allowed people to record their experiences for others to play back, on MiniDiscs even!

However, while its setting may be dated, and the technology never happened, its story is actually more relevant than ever. Police brutality, media control and alternate media sources, high gas prices, corrupt governments…all sounds pretty familiar doesn’t it? This movie is ripe for rediscovery and so is it’s great soundtrack -which not surprisingly is out of print.

I actually discovered a lot of music from the Strange Days soundtrack, and it influenced much of my musical tastes in the following years. Through Strange Days I discovered Lords Of Acid, Tricky and Skunk Anansie. And through enjoying their music I found out about countless other bands including much of the British trip-hop and techno scene, including Faithless, Massive Attack and Portishead. From there I got into deep house, IDM and industrial…the list goes on.

Most of the movie’s great soundtrack is unavailable elsewhere, the exceptions being “Overcome” by Tricky, “The Real Thing” by Lords Of Acid and Skunk Anansie’s “Selling Jesus”. All of those are in-print on each band’s respective albums (which are all great and you should buy), so I’m not including them here. However, for the rest of them…

Deep Forest – Coral Lounge
Deep Forest has always kind of annoyed me. They bill themselves as “world music” but they are really just two dudes from France with an affinity for African beats and foreign sounding vocals. They must have fans though, as they’ve been around for a long time. Even though they get on my nerves I like this song a lot, very tribal/trance. If I meditated I would listen to it while doing so.

Strange Fruit – No White Clouds
These guys are one of the few bands you actually see performing in Strange Days and they’re probably the most abrasive group on the soundtrack. They got some weird jazz/rap hybrid going on and it’s really fucking aggressive. There’s a rap group out now called The Strange Fruit Collective but they aren’t the same group as far as I can tell. I can’t find anything out about these guys.

Juliette Lewis – Hardly Wait
This is a cover of a PJ Harvey song. Back in 1995 when Strange Days came out Lewis was not known as a singer and many mocked her for her effort. Many are assholes. I’ve always liked Juliette Lewis as both an actress and a singer and I’m a fan of her punk band Juliette & The Licks. Last year they played Lollapalooza and she really delivered with an amazing and energetic set which included an awesome cover of the disco classic “Hot Stuff.” Not every actor who goes into music sucks you know (look at Milla Jovovich.) In the movie she also covers “Rid Of Me” but that song isn’t on the soundtrack.

Me PHI Me – hereWEcome
I have no idea if this dude is still recording, great song though. It was the hit single by the film’s rapper Jeriko One, who’s murder is the starting point for the story. I like that the fire of a shotgun serves as the backbeat. Mean.

Skunk Anansie – Feed
Great great great great great band. Skin is my goddess heroine and she could kick my ass anytime. She appears briefly in the movie decked out like she is in the video for “Selling Jesus,” ripped to all hell with a white cross painted on her bald, black face. Skunk Anansie never broke through in America, but they had a few small hits in Europe. Skin now has a semi-successful solo career in the UK. Skunk Anansie was a band that really made the rounds on the soundtrack circuit, so if you watch enough movies you’ve probably heard them at one point. They got tunes in Mission: Impossible and Hollow Man. They’re most prominently featured in Cruel Intentions, where their beautiful ballad “Secretly” plays over the end credits. I might feature some more Skunk later sometime.

Prong – Strange Days
This is a great cover of The Doors song and that really means something from me since I can’t stand The Doors and I’m not the world’s biggest Prong fan either.

Satchel – Walk In Freedom
This is an excellent trippy electronic rock track. But I have no idea who Satchel is or what ever became of them. They aren’t an easy band to search for on the internet.

Kate Gibson – Dance Me To The End Of Love
This is a Leonard Cohen song, but I have no idea who Kate Gibson is.

Lori Carson – Fall In The Light
This woman has an absolutely beautiful voice and her lack of exposure is a complete mystery to me. She worked with The Golden Palominos in the past, which was a revolving door group that featured at one point or another John Lydon, Michael Stipe, Don Dixon and Matthew Sweet just to name a few.

Peter Gabriel & Deep Forest – While The Earth Sleeps
Both Deep Forest and Peter Gabriel have long showed an affinity for vague ethnic music, so it only made sense that they would eventually team up. I can’t tell if Gabriel’s lyrics are nonsense or if he’s actually speaking another language. Pretty song though, it closed out the movie.

Less soundtracks, more remixes next time.

The Wraith
When compared to other movies I’ve featured here, The Wraith isn’t that obscure. It has a pretty big cast, including Charlie Sheen as the title character, Nick Cassavetes, Randy Quaid and the only motherfucker uglier than Quaid, Clint Howard. When I was a kid I loved this damn movie and all its stupidity, from the gasoline-drinking sidekick to Sheen’s awesome super-duper ghost car. I recently picked it up on DVD used but I’m afraid to watch it in fear that my childhood memories of the film have been tainted with the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia.

When digging around the internets trying to find funny little tidbits about the movie and all I could find was that Mike Marvin, the director of The Wraith, previously wrote the screenplay to Hot Dog…The Movie and the followed that up by directing Hamburger: The Motion Picture. I guess he never got around to Pizza: The Mini-Series.

Tim Feehan – Where’s The Fire
Feehan is a Canadian rocker who apparently achieved some level of success in his homeland of the great white north. This track is straight-up 80s Adult Top 40 rock, complete with gratuitous synth solo and vaguely motivational lyrics.

Honeymoon Suite – Those Were The Days
More Canadians! More generic 80 metal! These guys sound like an up-north version of Great White (with an exceptionally good guitar player). This song is on their anthology release, which is not only in-print, but dirt cheap, so I’m not putting the track up.

Stan Bush – Hearts vs. Heads
That’s right, Stan “You Got The Touch” Bush. I bet you thought all he did was the song from Transformers? You’re totally wrong! This song is like a romantic version of “The Touch.” Interesting side-note about Stan Bush, he won an Emmy for a song in Guiding Light, and according to his bio page he’s “the ultimate rock singer.” He’s also very modest.

LaMarca – Hold On Blue Eyes
I have no idea who this is. Sounds like Richard Marx’s less talented little-brother. He has a MySpace though (of course he does) so go nuts if you want to find out more about the dude.

Jill Michaels – Young Love, Hot Love
Excellent guitar work on a track that otherwise sounds like a Lita Ford B-side.

Ozzy Osbourne – Secret Loser
You can get this track on Ozzy’s 1986 album The Ultimate Sin. That album is supposedly out of print, but it’s not exactly hard to find. Also, this track sucks in a non-ironic/funny way so it’s not really worth the effort anyways.

Lion – Never Surrender
More “dude, you’re so totally awesome, you can totally get the girl/win the karate tournament/pass your LSAT” rock, which really seemed to be the rage in the 80s. It’s kind of vanished now and that’s a shame. What does the current generation listen while doing push-ups? Where’s their “Eye Of The Tiger?”

James House – Bad Mistake
This song is so dreadfully generic I’m not going to even Google this bastard’s name to find out more about him. You do it, I’m tired.

Ian Hunter – Wake Up Call
The former lead singer of Mott The Hoople contributed this track, which hasn’t appeared anywhere else since. I’ve always thought that all Ian Hunter songs should be credited to “Ian Hunter And His Hair.”

Bonnie Tyler – Matter Of The Heart
I love Bonnie Tyler’s voice, and since she sang two of the best power-ballads of the 80s (“I Need A Hero” and “Total Eclipse Of The Heart”) she gets a lifetime pass from ridicule from me. She gives a good vocal on this track, but only so much can be done to a generic wannabe Jim Steinman pop song.

It’s my mom’s birthday. Everyone say Happy Birthday!

See, I am nice to some people.

Band Of The Hand
Okay, this is a cavalcade of weird so hang on tightly. And I also have a surprisingly large amount of stuff to say about this movie. But at least this time the music is actually pretty good.

Band Of The Hand came out in 1986 and was produced by Michael Mann. As you may know Michael Mann is an Academy-Award nominated Director who brought us such classics as Heat, The Last Of The Mohicans, The Insider and Ali. In 1986 however, Michael Mann had only directed two movies; Thief, a criminally-underseen surrealist crime epic starring James Caan and James Belushi, and The Keep – a shitacular WWII supernatural thriller. He was, however, the producer of Miami Vice, a television show that forever changed the look of TV. In 1986 it looked like he began using the influence that undoubtedly came with such a popular TV show and started other projects. There was Crime Story, another TV crime series that my dad still swears by as the best TV show in the history of all things, and there was the awesomely intense Manhunter, the first ever film to feature Hannibal Lector (as portrayed by Brian Cox).

He also produced Band Of The Hand, a strange little movie that has faded into obscurity about five minutes after it came out. According to the IMDB it was originally the pilot to a TV series that was only released theatrically after it failed to get picked up. I don’t know if I can believe that, but it wouldn’t completely surprise me. However, even if that is true it’s not the weirdest thing about this movie.

Firstly there’s the director. Band Of The Hand was directed by Paul Michael Glaser, AKA Starsky of Starsky And Hutch. It was his first theatrical movie, but it wasn’t his last, as he went on to direct The Running Man (!!!), The Air Up There and the Shaqulle O’Neal epic Kazaam (or as I like to call it, “Hey audience, FUCK YOU.”)

It gets better. The cast includes early appearances by Lauren Holly, Laurence Fishbourne and most surprisingly, John Cameron Mitchell, who would later go on to big gay fame with Hedwig And The Angry Inch.

The movie itself is some kids-stuck-in-wilderness story with a hint of Miami Vice-esque crime thrown in for good measure and is supposedly pretty forgettable. I’ve never seen it so I’ll withhold judgment. In doing research for this I learned that some people think Kevin Smith made fun of the movie in Chasing Amy when Jay tells Holden to dump his girlfriend and rely on “the band of the hand.” Well, some people are idiots because that masturbation joke has nothing to do with this movie.

Now, onto what you all really care about; the soundtrack

Bob Dylan & The Heartbreakers – Band Of the Hand
Bob really popped up in some weird places in the 80s. This time he’s signing the title song with the help of Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers. Petty himself is nowhere to be found on the song, but he did produce it. Not a bad song, and it’s probably one of the better songs that he recorded that year. It’s never been released on any other album, putting it up there with the Hearts Of Fire tracks in terms of obscurity.

Shriekback – Faded Flowers
Made up by former members of Gang Of Four and XTC, Shriekback was nowhere near as popular as those bands, but Michael Mann sure loved them, because their songs are featured in both Band Of The Hand and Manhunter. You can get this song on one of their albums, but since you’re not likely to find that CD anywhere I’m leaving it on here.

The Reds
Turn It On
Hold On
Mission
The Boar Chase
Waiting For You
Great name for a Cold War-era band, The Reds were an Aussie New Wave band, and their 1979 self-titled record is fucking amazing if you can find it. They also contributed songs to Manhunter. Half of these tracks are instrumental score pieces, while the other half are more traditional rock tunes. Kind of spotty but overall very good. They got a great creepy vibe.

Andy Summers – Carry Me Back Home
Bob Dylan was obviously slumming it with “Band Of The Hand” but The Police’s Andy Summers was kicking ass and taking names with this amazing and menacing track which is hands-down the highlight of the record. Great creepy synths and sparse drums are used to superbly on this one, which oddly features little guitar from the well-known guitar player. According to the IMDB Summers was Glaser’s roommate once, which explains how he got on here. This song has never been released on any other album, which is a damn shame since…if you haven’t gotten the hint yet… it’s freakin’ great. Download it now and make love to its sweetness.

Tiger Tiger – All Comes Together Again
Native American rockers. Apparently they are still at it.

Michael Rubini – Theme From Joe’s Death
Apparently someone named Joe dies in the movie. Rubini is another alum from Manhunter. This is ambient film score stuff, not bad but not at all memorable.

Breakin 2: Electric Boogaloo – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Link Now Working
Best. Movie title. Ever. I think that’s a well known fact though. People seem to forget though that the movie starred the equally awesomely-named “Shabba Doo.” People don’t seem to forget that the movie is a huge pile of shit though. Great 80s soundtrack though.

Sometimes I don’t post stuff necessarily because I like it, but for the good of all mankind. this is one of those times. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Electric Boogaloo, but the main reason I’m putting this up here is because the CD of this goes for 80 bucks on Amazon! I don’t think Breakin’ 2 made 80 bucks in the theaters!

So I’m basically posting this soundtrack to thwart price gouging/a capitalist economy run amok. That’s right, it’s 80s electro for a socialist cause! Boogie down comrade motherfuckers.

Wicked Mix Classics
Zap – Doo Wa Ditty (Remix – By David Meyer)
Debbie Deb – When I Hear Music (Remix – By Edwin Bautista)
West Street Mob – Break Dance/Electric Boogie (Remix – By David Meyer)
Yaz – Situation (Remix – By Edwin Bautista)
Kraftwerk – Tour De France (Remix – By Edwin Bautista)
All these tracks came off of one of those “DJ Only” remix compilations that were the rage in the 80s (and still today I think). These are some great remixes of some tunes you probably know, “Situation,” “Tour De France,” as well as some you don’t. The first half is hardcore 80s electro – prime cuts to lay down a sheet of cardboard to and just rock out Shabba-Do style. The Yaz and Kraftwerk tracks, while not really electro per-say, are heavily remixed here and in result are very pop-and-lock worthy. I don’t think any of these remixes were ever made available anywhere else.

Enough with the house music. I got some more I’ll put up some other time. But I need to feel something a bit more real right now. How about two albums of exceedingly rare recordings by one of the greatest British labels of all-time? Yeah, that should it.

Stiff Records was (is) awesome and since their history is wide and varied (and since I’m writing this at 3AM) I’m not going to go into why they rock so hard. If you want to know more about them check out their page.

A Bunch Of Stiffs
In 1977 Stiff Records released this compilation of their first ten singles. Much of it is available on other albums, but some have remained rare some 20-plus years later. I’m not putting up the stuff you can get on CD easily, just the harder-to-find stuff which is only available on old vinyl LPs and some hard-to-find box sets and best-of sets.

Here are those tunes:

Magic Michael
Little By Little
No idea who this dude is. Very 70s rock and not bad.

Stones Masonry
Jump For Joy
Excellent bluesy instrumental. Some of the members of this band were in Chilli Willi. This track is produced by Nick Lowe.

Jill Read
Maybe
This is a cover of the classic doo-wop song that was originally performed by The Chantels and later by The Shangi-Las and Janis Joplin (and John Frusciante?!?!) This version is absolutely stunning and makes me wonder who the hell Jill Read is and what happened to her. Turns out I’m the only one wondering about her, this is what it says on the album sleeve about “Maybe.”

Little is known of this Welsh song bird.

Cut in 1969 at Rockfield Studios.

Backing band: Dave Edmunds

Produced by: Dave Edmunds

Jill, if you’re out there write to us for your royalties.

That might just be some marketing gimmick (Stiff was really good at those) but I can’t find anything on this babe other than the fact that she totally owns this song 20 times over.

The Tyla Gang
The Young Lords
Never heard of these dudes. It’s pretty damn obvious though that they really like Bruce Springsteen. They re-recorded this for their debut album.

The Takeaways
Food
This is fucking retarded. Someone must have thought they had a good Bob Dylan impression going on and got some other guys together to record this oddity. The singer is uncredited (the linear notes lead you to believe it’s Bob Dylan) but the rest of the band is made up of Sean Tyla (of The Tyla Gang), Larry Wallis, Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds. It was produced by “Stan Francisco (we have a winner for the worst pun of 1977!)

In case you’re wondering, the full tracklisting for A Bunch Of Stiffs is:
1. I Love My Label – Nick Lowe
2. (I’d Go) The Whole Wide World – Wreckless Eric (this track made it’s first appearance here)
3. Motorhead(!!!) – White Line Fever (sticking out like Lemmy’s Mole)
4. Less Than Zero – Elvis Costello
5. Little By Little – Magic Michael
6. Back To Schooldays – Graham Parker (a hidden track)
7. Jump For Joy – Stones Masonry
8. Maybe – Jill Read
9. Jo Jo Gunne – Dave Edmunds (this Chuck Berry cover is fucking insane!)
10. The Young Lords – The Tyla Gang
11. Food – The Takeaways
If you want a second opinion or a bit more information on this album check out this site.

Live Stiffs
And now for the real good shit. In the late 70s Stiff Records put on a traveling show of their greatest acts called “5 Stiffs Live.” After it was all said and done they released the highlights of that tour on this criminally short LP (which is also known as Stiff’s Live Stiffs and 5 Live Stiffs), which if there was any justice in the world would have been re-released on an extended CD by now. As it now stands it’s out of print and goes for 60 bucks on Amazon. Fuck that jazz, here’s the whole thing.

The above link is the entire album, but here’s a quick track-by-track rundown so you know what you’re getting. The Mp3s I made include full band credits in the information part of the ID3 tag in case you area really hardcore about that kind of thing.

Nick Lowe’s Last Chick In The Shop
I Knew The Bride
Let’s Eat
Nick’s backing band includes Dave Edmunds.

Wreckless Eric & The New Rockets
Semaphore Signals
Reconnez Cherie
No live “Whole Wide World”, but this will have to do. I’ve never seen Wreckless Eric credited with a band before, but The New Rockets include Ian Dury.

Larry Wallis’ Psychedelic Rowdies
Police Car
Awesome band name. Nick Lowe is one of the previously mentioned Rowdies.

Elvis Costello & The Attractions
I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself
Miracle Man
No introduction or information needed. Great live version of the Bachrach song.

Ian Dury & The Blockheads
Wake Me Up & Make Love To Me
Billericay Dickie
“Dickie” is no “Rhythm Stick,” but it’ll do I guess. “Wake Me Up” is a great Ian song though.

Stiff All-Stars
Sex Drugs Rock & Roll & Chaos
This is everyone helping out Ian for the finale. Totally awesome. They have like a billion drummers for this one.

This post is full of so much generic house music from 12” singles that all it’s missing is an overused sample from Willy Wonka and that annoying MC guy yelling “We love house music!”

Faithless
Salva Mea (Epic Mix)
Salva Mea (Tuff Mix)
Faithless’ very first single and still probably one of the greatest dance tracks of all time. The Epic Mix hardly features any vocals, but is insane high energy. The Tuff Mix is much more faithful (no pun intended) to the original, complete with vocals by Dido (at least I think that’s Dido.) Regardless they are both must haves for house/techno fans.

Leftfield
Song Of Life (Extended Mix)
Dub Of Life
Fanfare Of Life
The only song on The Lost Turntable to be featured as a soundtrack to a British television documentary. How’s that kind of shit happen? Great track, although not one of my favorites from Leftfield, I’m rather partial to “Open Up” mainly because it combines two of my favorite things, house music and whiny vocals from Johnny Rotten.

Radioactive Goldfish
L.S.D. Is The Bomb (Video Remix)
Electrode (Extended Remix)
I can’t decide if that’s one of the greatest band names of all time or one of the worst. It’s pretty obvious that these guys really liked drugs. Good stuff (the music not the drugs…I think).

Euphoria
Euphoria
Euphoria (Remix)
Naming your single after yourself, how generic can you be? I know nothing about this person/group/whatever because it’s impossible to Google the fucker. You can’t just search for “Euphoria”, that’s way to broad. And if since the sensation of euphoria is an effect of ecstasy (the house music drug of choice) you can’t even search for “Euphoria house music” and get a result. This shit is stupid but really high-energy and a lot of fun.

Quadrophonia
Quadrophonia
Quadrophonia (Remix)
Yet another band/song name combo! At least this name is unique (if amazingly stupid). More house music that features that awesome, high-drama keyboard sound. What is that sound? It’s on every dance track from 1988 to 2004. Is it a sample or just a really effective yet generic tone? The rapping in this song is 20 ways retarded, but the beat is killer.