Archive for September, 2011

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The Nevermind 20th Anniversary Release: Anatomy of a Disaster

Wednesday, September 28th, 2011

Yesterday marked the release of the 20th Anniversary Editions of Nevermind. It should have been a joyous occasion for aging grunge rockers like myself, but leave it to corporate greed, shitty marketing, and bad audio engineering to fuck it all up.

First of all, instead of just releasing one great edition they opted to release three different ones, creating needless confusion. Here are the differences between them:

Standard Edition
One disc, no thrills. You can get this everywhere.

Deluxe Edition
Available in both 2CD and 4LP flavors. Includes the original album, B-sides, BBC recordings, rehearsal tapes and the alternate “Devonshire” mix of the album. You can…kind of get this everywhere (more on that in a bit). You can also get a 4 LP picture disc edition at Nirvana’s website, which is limited to 500 copies in America and 1991 copies worldwide.

Super Deluxe Edition
Everything in the Deluxe Edition, plus a CD and DVD of the Live At Paramount show. No Blu-ray though, that’s separate (and also a Best Buy exclusive).

 

Okay, got all that? Good. The Super Deluxe Edition has the most content, so that was the version I was intent on buying. But I had my doubts. I had read this morning that the new remaster was a victim of “The Loudness War.” I borrowed a copy from a friend online *cough* *cough* and had a look for myself.

Here’s a before and after comparison of “Stay Away.” The top is from the original CD release, the bottom from the new remaster:

Yup, it’s too fucking loud. The defining album of my generation has been shat upon by lazy audio engineers and brain-dead studio execes. No thank you.

I wasn’t going to pay $100+ for that. So instead I opted for the vinyl release.

It is physically impossible for vinyl to be loud enough to create clipping. The grooves can’t be cut that deep. Although this doesn’t mean that the vinyl version sounds better. Labels will often just use the shit digital master for their vinyl release;  it still has the same problems, even if it looks quieter. But sometimes we get lucky and the vinyl version gets its own master, so with my fingers crossed for a miracle  I headed to Best Buy to pick it up. I figured since they were the exclusive retailer for the Super Deluxe and Blu-ray releases, then they might have the vinyl version as well.

Nope. As it turns out it’s not in stock at any Best Buy. That’s because it doesn’t come out until next week, even though Best Buy’s website lists the release date for the vinyl version as 9/26. In fact, they’re even using the vinyl edition artwork to advertise the Super Deluxe package:

Good job guys!

The record industry loves to blame illegal downloading for their plummeting sales. And while I’m sure that’s a part of it, let’s just take a look at this situation here.

I was prepared to spend $110 bucks on an album, but I didn’t because they mastered it wrong and it sounds like shit. Then I was prepared to spend $79.98 on the LP version just on the chance that it might sound good, but I can’t even do that until next week. And when I do, I’ll buy it from Amazon (the 4LP version is NOT a Best Buy exclusive, despite what that lying graphic says) for ten bucks less. DGC screwed themselves out of an additional $40, and Best Buy screwed themselves out of all my money.

Fuck Best Buy. Most specifically, fuck their “exclusive” lies. It’s bullshit in more ways than one.

First of all, any exclusive release is a crock. They screw over independent retailers and help drive up prices by eliminating competition. Secondly, making Nevermind a store exclusive pretty much goes against everything that band stood for.

Thirdly, it’s not even a real exclusive. It’s just a “timed” exclusive. After a certain number of weeks the Super Deluxe version and the Paramount Blu-ray will be available at all retail outlets, big and small. Of course, no one at Best Buy is going to tell you that.

I’ll let you know how the 4LP version sounds when I buy it, and until we all find out how that one sounds I would highly recommend NOT buying the Super Deluxe edition if you value audio quality and artistic integrity. If the 4LP version does sound just as shitty as the CD version, then I can only recommend you steal the album online. Because if DGC is willing to fuck up a classic that bad, then we should fuck them right back.

You know who showed real respect to Nirvana and their legacy? The bootleggers. In the mid-90s, a girth of rare Nirvana recordings made their way onto a bootleg series called Outcesticide (a play on the Nirvana compilation Incesticide). The five Outcesticide releases feature a stellar collection of rare tracks and live recordings. They’re so comprehensive that many suspect that members of Nirvana or Kurt’s friends must have somehow been involved in their creation.

Here are some highlights from the Outcesticide albums that have yet to see an official release.

Nirvana
Sappy (1988 Home Recording)
There are countless versions of “Sappy.” Different recordings appear on With the Lights Out; the  Bleach 20th Anniversary Edition; Sliver: Best Of The Box; and on the new Nevermind re-issue. It was a song that Kurt tinkered with for years, going back before even the release of Bleach. Here’s one of the earliest known recordings of the tune, with just Kurt and a guitar. It’s rough around the edges and it sounds like shit, but it has an intensity and power that he never re-created on any of the other versions.

Radio Friendly Unit Shifter/My Sharona
My Best Friend’s Girl
Kurt may be remembered for his addiction and depression, but he had a wicked sense of humor, something that occasionally manifested itself on stage. These two bootleg recordings show that Kurt was willing to have fun sometimes, even when he probably felt that his world was collapsing around him (the “Best Friend’s Girl” cover is taken from the last Nirvana concert – he would be dead two months later).

Smells Like Teen Spirit (Live with Flea on Trumpet)
Flea on trumpet! I think that description says it all!

Scentless Apprentice (Live)
A lot of people like to hypothesize about what would have happened if Kurt hadn’t killed himself, and what direction Nirvana would have gone in. I like to think that they would have gotten really weird. The group had already thrown away most of the shackles of grunge rock by the time they got around to recording Nevermind, and with In Utero Kurt seemed intent on taking things even further. Who knows how crazy things would have gotten. Maybe this extended, feedback-heavy live version of Scentless Apprentice gives us a taste what might have been.

Excerpts Of Band / Audience Bulls*!##ing & Rantings Available
Let’s end on a happy note. This collection of random concert banter by the band is from the vinyl edition of The Muddy Banks of the Wishkah. Listen to it and learn what Krist thinks of white boy funk.

Update 9/30/11
To those who have emailed me and asked, I will be getting both the 4LP version and the picture disc versions of the Deluxe Edition (because I’m an idiot). I will report on their sound quality when I get them. The 4LP version is due on the  4th, and I should be getting the picture disc version near the end of the month.

Update 10/02/11
Think I’m full of shit? Read this first. 

Update 10/06/11
The vinyl is in! Guess what? It sucks!  Also, Bob Ludwig wants you to know you don’t count.

Posted in bootlegs, live, Nirvana, rant | 19 Comments »

Random 80s Night and AWESOME NEW TURNTABLE

Monday, September 26th, 2011

Let’s take a flashback to the far away time of four days ago, when I posited this question to my readers:

“Anyone care to recommend a good direct-drive turntable? I’m finding more and more problems with my Audio Techinca. Any advice would be appreciated.”

The sole comment in reply said:

“Search far and wide for used Technics turntables. There’s really no substitute.”

I already knew that, of course, but it’s nice to get independent verification.

What’s even better to get, however, is a used Technics SL-1210 MK2 for $200.

 

Woot!

I saw the post on Craigslist and agreed to buy it on sight. I didn’t even need to see if it worked. Thankfully, it does work. It works wonderfully in fact.

My old turntable was an Audio-Technica ATLP-120. It was decent enough, but had some substantial problems. The most noteworthy being that its anti-skate was literally worthless, leaving the turntable prone to skips. This doesn’t have that problem. It has no problems. It’s an amazing, epic piece of hardware that I highly doubt I will ever replace.

I also bought this on Amazon the same day:

That is a an ART V2 USB Phono Plus DJ Preamp. It’s an all in one USB soundcard and phono preamp. It delivers amazing sound, especially considering that you can currently get it at Amazon for about $80. If you plan on hooking up a turntable to a computer, this is THE way to go.

Between the two I have noticed a sharp increase in quality in my recordings. No more hum and no more radio interference. The stereo seperation is much finally even, and many of the minor distortion problems I was battling in the past have been nearly eliminated. It’s happy times in Lost Turntable land.

That being said, I already had a hefty backlog of recordings from on old turntable, and they sound perfectly serviceable. So it might be a few days or weeks before you all get to reap the rewards of my new equipment. I’ll let you know.

Also, when I do start posting stuff recorded with this new set-up, don’t expect perfection. Most of the record I record from are used 12″ singles, many are not gently used, and even the best-quality 12″ single from the 80s isn’t a very well-made record.

Until then, here’s some random 80s wackiness to start your week.

Dan Hartman
I Can Dream About You (Extended Mix)
This classic piece of light-rock 80s glory is from the Streets of Fire soundtrack. I’ve never seen Streets of Fire, which makes me a bad 80s fanboy.  I heard it has a fight that involves giant railroad hammers – I really have to Netflix that puppy.

This extended mix is not the version from the soundtrack and not the version from Dan Hartman’s album, it’s exclusive to the 12″ single. It belongs on your 7th grade mixtape.

Prince
La, La, La, He, He, Hee (Highly Explosive)
This is a song about a dog and a cat getting it on. No metaphor. It’s literally about a dog and a cat engaging in some cross-species freaky-deaky.

Prince is weird.

There are actually two versions of this song. The shorter three-minute version is on Prince’s Hits/B-sides collection. This crazy-long (over 10 minutes!) version is exclusive to the 12″ single and I’m fairly certain that it has never been released on any legal CD in America or Europe.

Aztec Camera
All I Need Is Everything (Remix)
I am not anything close to an authority on Aztec Camera (unlike my friend and hardcore Aztec Camera fan Anna Hegedus, for whom I share this track) but I’m going to venture to say that this is my favorite track by them that I’ve heard that doesn’t feature Mick Jones or a remix by Fatboy Slim. This is from a 12″ single.

Hohokam
King (Long Version)
The American Way
King (Short Version)
Bought this in a flea market for a buck. With it I know own everything Hohokam ever released, an easy feat considering that they only put out three singles and nothing else. They were on Gary Numan’s extremely short-lived Numa label. Not suprisingly, they are somewhat derivative of Numan’s work at the time. Still, they’re not bad, pity that these dudes never got the chance to release a proper album. It could have been interesting.

 

Posted in Aztec Camera, B-sides, Dan Hartman, Prince, remixes | 6 Comments »

Proof that England is Better than America

Friday, September 23rd, 2011

Tonight’s post is fucking awesome. More awesome than me even, and I’m pretty fucking awesome.

The Cure
Lullaby (Remix)
Primary (Red Mix)  
I’m consistently amazed/befuddled as to what previously rare and hard-to-find tracks get a digital re-release and which don’t. For example, damn near everything associated with Disintigration (“THE BEST ALBUM EVER!” – Kyle from South Park) has been remastered and re-released a dozen times over by now, but as far as I can tell this remix remains a bit harder to find. It’s a shame too, because I think it’s actually better than the original. It removes a lot of the instrumentation, stripping most of it down to nothing more than bass, drums and a very sparse guitar riff. It fits the ethereal delivery of the vocals by Robert Smith so much more than the original. I found it on a 12″ promo only release.

I am far too uninformed to make such a statement regarding “Primary (Red Mix),” though. I don’t own Faith, the album from which the original version is from (look, I can’t own everything…yet). I do know that it is not the 12″ version however. That version is only five and a half minutes long, this one is over seven minutes in length. I got it from the CD single for “Close To Me.”

Visage
Fade To Grey (Dance Mix)
There are some songs that I can just listen to overa nd over again everyday and not get sick of them. Midge Ure was at least partially responsible for at least two of them, this amazing track from Visage’s first album, and Ultravox’s “Vienna.”

Finding this extended dance mix has been a little tricky. There are many, many remixes of “Fade To Grey” but as far as I can tell this is the only official extended mix ever to be released. It has been released on CD on various versions of the band’s self-titled debut, but that’s not where I got it. I found it on a 12″ EP that was also self-titled. It also featured an amazingly ridiculous cover. Dude looks like he was about to rock a pirate party, but got sidetracked in the land of The Neverending Story.

Erasure
Run To The Sun (Beatmasters Outergalactic Mix)
Run To The Sun (Beatmasters Galactic Mix)
Run To The Sun (The Simon & Diamond Bhangra Remix)
Run To The Sun (The Diss-Cuss Mix)
The last bit of Erasure that I’ll probably feature in quite some time. I’m actually running out of rare Erasure to share, thanks to the recent re-availability of their singles collections.

I love this damn song, and these remixes are just fab. The “Beatmasters Galactic Mix” especially just makes me want to dance like a spastic monkey for hours on end.

The Blur
There’s No Other Way (Red Sleeve mix)
There’s No Other Way (Rock Mix)
Explain
So in tonight’s post I’ve proven I don’t own at least one seminal album by The Cure and I also barely know anything about Visage. I might as well make it a hat trick and confess that I don’t own any Blur before Parklife. Shut up. It’s not my fault I was born in America. I’ll get there one day I promise.

I love these mixes of “There’s No Other Way” the Red Sleeve one especially, it spaces out the track even more, so much that it almost resembles something off the first Stone Roses album. Baggy indeed. “Explain” is a solid B-side as well. I got all of these off of the 12″ single.

Posted in B-sides, Blur, Erasure, remixes, The Cure, Visage | 4 Comments »

Dual Divas

Wednesday, September 21st, 2011

Anyone care to recommend a good direct-drive turntable? I’m finding more and more problems with my Audio Techinca. Any advice would be appreciated.

Madonna
The Power of Good-Bye (Fabian’s Good God Mix)
The Power of Good-Bye (Slater’s Filtered Mix)
The Power of Good-Bye (Slater’s Super Luper Mix)
The Power of Good-Bye (Dallas Austin Low End Mix)
Of the 12″ Madonna singles I picked up in San Francisco last month, this one was my favorite and remains the only one I regularly listen to still.  It’s a great example as to why I love 12″ singles so much. One song. Four remixes. Each drastically different.

“Fabian’s Good God Mix” is a beat-heavy dance mix made for the dance floor, as is “Slater’s Filtered Mix” but while the “Good God” mix is a pretty straightforward 12″ mix, the “Filtered” mix changes the song radically. It transforms it into a crazy hardcore rave track with distorted vocals and a non-stop throbbing beat. But it’s not even the weirdest mix on the record. That would be “Slater’s Super Luper Mix,” which is nothing more than the lyric “freedom come” looped over and over again until it looses all meaning and devolves into unintelligible noise. It’s over eight minutes long though, and that one trick really wears thin after the first four minutes or so. Finally, there’s the “Dallas Austin Low End Mix” which is a sparse mix that is, not surprisingly, heavy on the bass. I enjoy that one as well.

Janet Jackson
Together Again (Tony Moran 12″ Club Mix)
Together Again (Tony Humphries Club Mix)
Together Again (Jimmy Jam Extended Deep Club Mix)
Together Again (DJ Premier Just Tha Bass)
According to Wikipedia, “Together Again” is one of the best-selling singles of all time, an ironic feat considering that the album it came off of, The Velvet Rope, was considered to be something of a commercial disappointment. I haven’t heard that album in its entirety in ages, but it does have two of my favorite Janet Jackson singles on it, this track and the excellent Joni Mitchell-sampling ” Got ’til It’s Gone.” For the record, my favorite Janet Jackson single is “Black Cat.” I need to re-record that 12″ single and put it back up here sometime.

The Tony Moran and and Tony Humphries mixes are good, but relatively standard as dance mixes go. The other two mixes are more interesting, especially since they feature entirely different vocals by Janet that slow the song down tremendously. I don’t know if I like them as much as the more upbeat dance versions, but they certainly match the bittersweet theme of the song better than the poppy, happy, delivery on the original version.

Posted in Janet Jackson, Madonna, remixes | 3 Comments »

Arthur Russell’s Disco Dinosaur

Monday, September 19th, 2011

Not much tonight, just a quick shot of disco to get your workweek going.

Dinosaur (Arthur Russell) 
Kiss Me Again
Kiss Me Again (Edit)
I bought this record because I thought it was by the group who successfully pressured Dinosaur Jr. to change their name from Dinosaur. I was wrong. Turns out this is a disco tune, and a damn good one. I had never heard of a disco act called Dinosaur though, and so I went off to Google to discover just what the hell I had, and I fell into a musical discovery rabbit hole that ate up most of my Saturday afternoon.

Turns out Dinosaur is Arthur Russell. If you don’t know who he is don’t feel bad, I didn’t.

Arthur Russell was an avant-garde musician in New York City during the late 70s and early 80s. I’m not going to give his life story/discography here, since I would just be cribbing from his Wiki page. If you’re interesting in reading about him I suggest you go there to get caught up. Short version: Dude was crazy prolific, diverse and fairly awesome.

Russell died in 1992, but recently his work has fallen into favor with the hipsters, leading to much of it being re-issued. But even with that renewed interest, this track, his very first single, still has yet to see a CD or digital release. Which would probably explain why it goes for $30-$60 online.

I bought it for $4 by the way. Yeah, I rock.

I’m not that big into disco, but like I said before, this is a pretty solid tune. It has a great groove to it, and combines killer synthesized beats with some great live instrumentation and vocals. It would fit great on a mix between something entirely electronic, like “I Feel Love” and something entirely live, such as Ian Dury’s “Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick.”

I also appreciate that the “edited” version of the song is still nearly seven minutes in length. Fuck radio friendly running times!

Posted in Arthur Russell | 6 Comments »

American Life Wasted

Saturday, September 17th, 2011

Hey, everyone is awesome!

I ask for help procuring the Driver: Sounds of San Francisco vinyl and one of you helps me out!

Then I ask for help finding I Scream You Scream’s Me Too and one of you come through on that too!

Are there any awesome people out there looking for a freelance music reporter? Because I’m totally available.

Madonna
American Life (Missy Elliot American Dream Remix)
American Life (Oakenfold Downtempo Remix)
American Life (Peter Raunhofer’s American Anthem Part 1)
American Life (Felix Da Housecat’s Devin Dazzle Club Mix)
American Life (Peter Raunhofer’s American Anthem Part 2)
Die Another Day (Calderone & Quayle Afterlife Mix)
Weezer’s 1996 album Pinkerton was aggressively reviled by both audiences and critics when it came out. Now it’s seen as a classic that helped paved the way for modern rock in the 21st century.

Bowie’s Low and Lodger were both poor sellers that received mixed reviews at best when they were released, but now Low is considered and classic and many believe Lodger to be just as influential and important.

Everyone hated Marvin Gaye’s Hear My Dear at first, but in the decades that have passed, many critics say that the introspective and experimental album is Gaye’s best work.

Sometimes art takes time to take hold. Often, a piece of art can be so ahead of its time that audiences of its era can’t understand it, causing them to lash out against it. Other times it may simply not fit in with the current cultural landscape, a victim of bad-timing more than anything else. Or sometimes a negative view of the artist themselves can cause backlash against a record, whether its deserved or not

None of those things are true with “American Life.”

This song sucked in 2003. It sucks now. And it’s going to suck 100 years from now. It will forever be known as a disaster. A colossal  misfire of epic proportions the likes of which the world rarely sees. It’s such a hideously bad song by such an amazingly talented and popular artist that it’s almost impossible to find another song or piece of creative work to compare it to.

So why do I own it and why am I posting it?

Well, I own it simply because I want to own every Madonna 12″ single, and this happens to be one of them.

I’m posting it because I’m sure someone out there loves this song (I actually know someone who does – and I’m still friends with them in spite of this fact) and they’ll be more than happy to find these remixes. Not all of them are…that bad. The Felix Da Housecat mix is actually pretty listenable, and I’ll even go as far to say that I actually like the second Raunhofer’s mix, most likely because it strips out the stupid rap. Conversly speaking, the Missy Elliot remix actually focuses on the rap (Missy even adds her own parts) and it, in turn, is probably the worst song I have ever put on my blog.

And hey, the b-side is a pretty awesome remix of “Die Another Day,” so it has that going for it, which is nice.

(Disclaimer: If any rabid Madonna fans are reading this, please don’t attack me for my opinion. It is just that, an opinion. If you like this song, good for you! There’s nothing wrong with liking it. I mean, it’s not like it’s a Fergie song or something. Everyone is entitled to their own unpopular opinions. Shit, I own Howard The Duck on laser disc, who am I to criticize anyone?)

Posted in Madonna, remixes | 3 Comments »

Junior Senior and an Ominous Madonna Warning

Tuesday, September 13th, 2011

Sleepy.

Madonna
Nothing Really Matters (Club 69 Vocal Club Mix)
Nothing Really Matters (Club 69 Future Mix) – as per evidence of this LP being evil, this MP3 is fucked up and I had to take it down
Nothing Really Matters (Club 69 Radio Mix)
Nothing Really Matters (Club 69 Phunk Mix)
Nothing Really Matters (Vikram Radio Remix)
Nothing Really Matters (Club 69 Future Dub)
Nothing Really Matters (Kruder & Dorfmeister Remix)
Man, that’s a whole lot of “Nothing”. I used to like this song, but this 2×12″ single was a pain in the goddamn ass. It skipped, needed to be cleaned repeatedly and then my recording of it got corrupt so I had to do it again. I still kind of like the song, but I fucking hate the record its on.

More Madonna later this week. You’ve been warned (trust me…you’ll see).

Junior Senior
Move Your Feet (Rascal Madness Mix)
Move Your Feet (Rascal Beats)
Move Your Feet (Rascal Edit)
Move Your Feet (Rascal Extended Club Mix)
Move Your Feet (Rascal Bonus Mix)
Perfect dance song? Perfect dance song.

What have Junior Senior been up to since the break up? Well Jeppe Laursen (Senior) did what every talented gay man in the music biz will eventually do, he went to go work with Lady Gaga. How could the man partially responsibly for the above track of epic awesomeness also somehow be the co-writer and producer for the Madonatrocity that is “Born This Way”? Ugh.

So we know what happened to Senior, but what about Junior (Jepper Mortensen)? Well, he released an amazing single called “Trust Tissue” (which was originally an unreleased Junior Senior song) under the name I Scream Ice Cream and then…I have no idea. According to Wikipedia he released an album as well, a record with three tracks that were 25, 35 and 45 minutes long. However, I cannot find any release information on it. Can anyone confirm this? I would love to hear that sure-to-be dance epic.

These “Rascal” mixes are from a 12″ single. In case you were wondering, “Rascal” is Albert Caberra, a very prolific remixer and producer.

Posted in Junior Senior, Madonna, remixes | 5 Comments »

Praga to God that I Khan get this record

Monday, September 12th, 2011

Damn video games.

Allow me to elaborate.

Last week I purchased Driver San Francisco. It’s a shockingly great game and return to form for a series that I thought went to the shitter ages ago. I highly suggest picking it up.

I didn’t preorder the game when it came out, but the dude working the Gamestop still gave me the preorder bonus, a perfectly nice travel mug with the Driver logo on it. Kind of stupid, but whatever, I like free crap.

I was content with that, until I found out that UK retailers got their own pre-order bonus for the game: a freaking 180g yellow vinyl LP with selections from the game’s (amazing) soundtrack! Goddammit! That’s the second time us Americans have been screwed out of awesome video game vinyl! But hey, I was able to get that record thanks to an awesome person who reads this blog.

So…are you an awesome person who reads this blog? Can you get a copy of this vinyl and mail it to me? If so, I will repay you in cash and in MP3s.

My email is on the sidebar to the right, if you think you can hook me up please drop me a line.

Short post today. Bigger post tomorrow.

Praga Khan
My Mind Is My Enemy (A Mind Is a Dangerous Thing Mix)
My Mind Is My Enemy (Quick Frontal Mix)
Luv u Still (Our Love Is Eternal Mix)
Praga Khan has an album called Pragamatic and another called Khantastic. I respect that level of commitment to such a stupid alias.

I’m not that familiar with Khan’s solo work, although I notice that much of it seems to be of the EBM/industrial-dance variety,dark songs about how much he hates humanity; how much humanity hates him; or how much relationships suck.

This is of course in stark contrast with his work with Lords of Acid, a band whose catalog almost solely consists of songs about crotches and what people do with them.

They recently got back together (with a different lineup) and have just released their first single; “My Little Rabbit.” It’s about a big plastic vibrator. Nice to see that some things never change I guess.

Honestly, that song sounds pretty damn horrible. These tracks, however, are not. You should listen to them. Then, if you dig the remix to “Luv U Still” then I suggest you check out the album version – that track is one of the best acid house songs ever, no question.

Posted in Praga Khan, remixes | 1 Comment »

Modes of Depeche

Wednesday, September 7th, 2011

If you guess the theme to tonight’s post then congrats, you can read.

Dave Gahan
I Need You (Gabriel & Dresden Unplugged Mix)
I Need You (Ladytron Detoxxmixx)
I Need You (Jay’s Summerdub)
I Need You (Gabriel & Dresden Plugged Dub)
Dirty Sticky Floors (Lexicon Avenue Dirty Sticky Dub)
I Need You (Ladytron Detoxxmixx Instrumental)
I have the 12″ singles for “I Need You” and “Dirty Sticky Floors.” I also have the Hourglass Remixes EP. I do not, however, own either of Dave Gahan’s proper solo albums. It amazes me how often I do bass-ackwards shit like that. My brain is always like “An album I can easily get for a few bucks? Fuck that. I want the rare and hard-to-find 12″ single that is beaten up and scratched so bad that will will take me two hours to record and restore.”

Of these mixes, I prefer the Ladytron one. Not only does it Depeche Mode it up with extra synths and drum machines, but it’s also a scant four minutes long. The rest of these remixes are ridiculously lengthy. Don’t get me wrong, I could listen to Gahan’s seductive voice all day and night (and I have sometimes) but one can only take so much of “You’ll always need me much more than I need you” being repeated ad nauseum.

Depeche Mode
The Darkest Star (Holden Remix)
The Darkest Star (Holden Dub)
I Feel Loved (Danny Tenaglia’s Labor of Love Radio Edit)
My Depeche Mode singles count is in the 50s now, so I’m shocked when I find one I don’t own. And between the six singles box sets and the two massive remix collections, I am even more shocked when I find a Depeche Mode remix from a single that is a genuine, out-of-print rarity. That’s the case for all three of these mixes though, which I picked up from 12″ singles I bought at Amoeba. These mixes for “The Darkest Star” are great, although the odd scratchy noise (which is intentional and NOT a defect of my record) on the “Holden Mix” is kind of grating at first. In a rarity for me, I actually like this dub mix way more. It’s intense, fast-paced and crazy weird. The “I Feel Loved” mix is great, but I’m not a big fan of that song in the first place.

Posted in Dave Gahan, Depeche Mode, remixes | 4 Comments »

Pop Will Eat Prodigy

Monday, September 5th, 2011

I recently did something I swore I would never do, and that’s buy a cassette tape deck.

I am not a fan of cassettes. I hate the hiss. I hate how they get worn down and you can start to hear the track on the other side in reverse. But more than anything else, I hate the shitty artwork. I guess size matters for me when it comes to a physical release, I want to see the artwork and linear notes in all their glory, I practically need a magnifying glass to read cassette linear notes.

Anyways, I got one because I promised a friend I’d record some mixtapes out of her own collection. So now it’s hooked up to my soundsystem, junking up the joint. I figured I’d make the most of it though and ask you all, are there any cassette-only releases/remixes/B-sides from 80s/90s artists that you know of? Or any special cassette mixes of albums that are worth listening to? I know there’s a Polyrock album that was released on cassette only, but that thing is near-impossible to find.

Well, enough about a horrible antiquated format that sounds like shit. Here are some tracks taken from CDs.

Yes, that was an intentional little joke on my part.

Pop Will Eat Itself
Get The Girl! Kill The Baddies!
Can U Dig It?
Urban Futuristic
Wise Up! Sucker
Like many American teens at the time, I discovered PWEI in 1996, when their songs were featured on the PS1 game Loaded. That game was an orgy of violence and death, so PWEI’s tracks “RSVP” and “Kick To Kill” fit perfectly on it. I remember being so impressed with their tracks on the soundtrack that I sought out a copy of their only album that I could find in American stores, Dos Dedos Mis Amigos.

I didn’t discover their earlier stuff until I started buying vinyl, and I still can’t believe all these releases are by the same band. Their early Box Frenzy-era stuff is kind of hideous white-boy rap that’s barely listenable today. But This Is The Day…This Is The Hour…This Is This! is actually more than little bit brilliant. It holds up better than anything the band did before or after, with amazing tracks like “Can U Dig It?” still sounding fresh some 20 years later.

PWEI (kinda) got back together recently, and most of their albums are getting the 2CD deluxe treatment to celebrate the event. Even though I have most of the non-album rarities on vinyl, I’ll definitely be picking up the deluxe version of This Is The Day… when it comes out, and I suggest you do the same.

Oddly enough, none of the re-issues feature these live tracks, which are from the Get The Girl! Kill The Baddies! EP that came out in 1992. I think that speaks less of the deluxe editions, however, and more to the fact that there were so many B-sides and live tracks from this era that something had to get cut.

The re-issue of Now For a Feast will have their cover of “Love Missle F1-11” though, which is good enough a reason to buy it.

The Prodigy
Out Of Space (Underworld’s Millennium Mix)
Out Of Space (Celestial Bodies Mix)
Jericho (Live Version)
There are two variations of the CD single for “Out Of Space.” One is a four-track version with the single edit and “Techno Underworld Remix” versions of the title track, as well as “Ruff In The Jungle Bizness (Uplifting Vibes Remix)” and a live version of “Music Reach (1,2,3,4).”

The other is a six-track version, which includes the previously mentioned remixes and a live version of “Jericho.” The live version of “Music Reach (1,2,3,4)” is not included. The four-track version is on Amazon’s MP3 store, but the tracks exclusive to the six-track version are not. So that’s why I only included those tracks, which are out of print, and not the others, which are easily available.

Goddamn import singles make everyone’s life more difficult.

Posted in live, Pop Will Eat Itself, remixes, The Prodigy | 7 Comments »

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