So last month I get a really strange typo-ridden email from someone at a PR firm. It seems that they read my blog and thought that I would like to review a copy of the WKRP In Cincinnati Season 1 DVD. How did they come to this determination? I think it was because I mentioned WKRP’s Howard Hesseman in a blog post a few months earlier. I guess they went through every single Blogger site that mentioned him and sent emails out. Nevermind that this is an MP3 blog and I rarely review anything but whatever.

Anyways, I had already heard that WKRP was coming to DVD, and I already decided that I wasn’t going to buy it because the selfish cockmongers at Fox decided that they didn’t want to shell out the money needed to get the rights to the original music in the show. Instead of hearing classics like ‘Hot Blooded’ and Pink Floyd’s ‘Dogs’ there would be generic stock music instead. Adding insult to injury was that several episodes would have cut scenes or pathetically redubbed dialog to remove music that couldn’t be easily replaced. But I never miss the opportunity for free stuff so I gladly replied and said I’d like a copy. Besides, I wanted to see how bad the edits were for myself.

Now, I never got to see WKRP the first time around, since it premiered a year before I was born. But even I noticed the awful edits and audio redubs. They completely ruin the feel and flow of the show. Jokes are removed, there are sudden cuts and the whole thing just feels funky (and not in the good George Clinton kind of way). I was so distracting and annoying that I couldn’t get all the way through the first disc. Fuck this weak shit.

If you’re a fan of the show do yourself a favor and avoid this shitstorm of a DVD like the plague. The worthless pricks at Fox didn’t even try to make this shit watchable for the show’s hardcore fanbase (which is large and vocal) and they don’t even cop up to the fact that the episodes are edited. There’s a disclaimer saying that some of the music had been replaced, but nothing is mentioned about the missing footage. How can they get away with calling this “The Complete First Season”? Complete pile of bullshit is more like it.

If this third-term abortion of a DVD release somehow sells enough to warrant a 2nd season release it ought to be very interesting. The second season of WKRP had a very powerful episode about The Who concert tragedy that featured music by The Who. Removing that music would be a disgrace and would destroy a powerful episode. Of course, that’s probably not going to happen because no one is going to buy this enema-bag of a box set.

If you really love WKRP and want to see the show as it should be, uncut and unedited then look online. You can get bootlegs of the entire series for the same price as this Season One set. And while the quality may not be picture perfect, at least you’ll be seeing the real shit. You know that’s the set that Johnny Rocket would buy.

On a slightly related note I doubt that I’ll be getting any more emails from Fox PR reps asking me if I want to review their product.

Richard Wright – Wet Dreams
In memory of WKRP I wanted to put up some ’70s rock tonight. I’m a pretty big fan of The Pink Floyd and was happy when I scored this debut record from their keyboardist. Originally released in 1978 (the same year WKRP first aired) it garnered no hit singles and quickly sank into obscurity, like most of the other solo albums by the members of Pink Floyd, but it’s actually pretty good and sounds more like Pink Floyd than Pink Floyd did at the time. With all the recent hubbub surrounding the band I’m surprised it hasn’t been re-released. I don’t put up full albums that much, but this sucker is OOP and I’ve seen it online for over a hundred bucks. That’s fucked up.

An estrogen-filled post tonight peppered with testosterone-filled sexist comments by yours truly. I am a pig and I apologize in advance.

Eurythmics
I Need A Man (Macho Mix)
Beethoven (I Love To Listen To) (Dance Mix)
These are off the 12” single for ‘I Need A Man.’ I’m sure I head these songs when they first came out (my mom was a pretty big Eurythmics fan) but I just recently rediscovered them when I picked up the single this week. These are two completely spectacular dance tunes that rank right up their ‘Would I Lie To you’ and ‘Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of These)’ in the pantheon of Eurythmics songs. I especially dig ‘I Need A Man.’ It isn’t a song about love, romance or even desire – this tune is about straight-up fucking. Annie Lennox’s scream of “I need a maaaaaaaaaaaan!” is a pure libido-driven exclamation of pure unrestrained lust. It’s like all the emotion she bottled up when recording her monotone vocals for ‘Sweet Dreams’ suddenly rushed out of some deep recess of her mind, erupting in a joyous explosion of panty-wetting orgasmic delight. That’s some hot shit. If the song doesn’t do it for you then check out the video. Holy shit where did that cleavage come from!

Kylie Minogue
Come Into My World (Robbie Rivera’s Hard & Sexy Mix)
Come Into My World (Fischerspooner Mix)
Come Into My World (Ash Mix)
In my perfect pop fantasy world Kylie Minogue is singing ‘I Need A Man’…to me. Shut up, it’s my fantasy. Until that dream comes true I guess I have to survive with these remixes of her big hit which were taken off of a 12” single.

Pink
Trouble (Hyper Remix)
Trouble (Adam Freeland Mix)
I love Pink, but I refuse to spell her name “P!ink” because that’s a case of unneeded punctuation. I don’t think is Pink as sexy as Kylie Minogue or Annie Lennox were in their prime, but I bet she’d be a much better person to talk to about music and shit. Isn’t she dating/married to some motorcross dude? I’m probably not her type anyway (like I’m totally Kylie or Annie’s type – I’m totally sure that pop divas get off on four-eyed music geeks). These are off of 12” promo.

Debbie Harry
Sweet And Low (Sweet House Mix)
Sweet And Low (Swing Low Mix)
Sweet And Low (Sweet Chariot Mix)
I’ve been consistently disappointed by every Debbie Harry 12” I’ve bought, but there are a few die-hard Debbie fans that visit this blog and I hate to disappoint. These are off the 12” for ‘Sweet And Low’.

I’ve had a shitty week and I’m feeling exceptionally vitriolic tonight so watch out.

The Police
Don’t Stand So Close To Me ’86 (Dance Remix)
Don’t Stand So Close To Me (Live)
Tea In The Sahara (Live)
Someone To Talk To
Message In The Bottle (Live)
The Police are back together and on tour, and they suck (says Stewart Copeland). Thanks for saving me $125 bucks Stu! How the fuck can they get off on charging that much for tickets? It’s not like The Police are struggling for money. I think it should be a law that once your band sells 30 million records worldwide tickets can’t cost more than $25. Fucking whores.

Regardless I still like their music though and I thought I’d share some B-sides I picked up last month. The dance remix of their remake of ‘Don’t Stand So Close To Me’ and the live version of the same song are off of the song’s 12” single. The live take of ‘Tea In The Sahara’ is the B-side to ‘King Of Pain’, and the final two tracks are on the on the ‘Message In The Bottle’ 12” single.

U2
Boomerang I
Boomerang II
Touch
11 O’Clock Tick Tock (Pride Single Version)
Dancing Barefoot
When Love Comes To Town (With B.B. King – Live From The Kingdom Mix)
Yeah sure Bono is a saint and he’s trying to save the world everyone loves him yada yada yada. He’s also in a band that charges well over one hundred bucks for tickets to one of their shows. How can you preach the end of world poverty in one breathe and then ask your devoted fans to shell out an arm and a leg to see them live? What a hypocritical former mullet-headed prick.

They also dicked over their fans by making their B-sides collections only available for one week, and tacked on to their Greatest Hits compilations’ which are filled with songs that every U2 fan already owns. Last year they worked with Green Day to record an awesome version of The Skids’ classic ‘The Saints Are Coming’ but then shoved it onto another greatest hits compilation and didn’t even let fans download it separately on iTunes! That should have been a charity single. Speaking of iTunes, don’t even get me going on the fact that if you want all their rarities and unreleased tracks you can’t download them individually but instead you have to shell out $150 for the ‘digital box set’.

These vinyl rips off of two of their singles sound better than the DRM-fucked iTunes tracks that you can’t buy individually. Enjoy.

R.E.M.
Radio Song (Tower Of Luv Bug Mix)
Love Is All Around (Live)
Belong (Live)
Man, don’t get me started on R.E.M.! Michael Stipe is such a….I mean Peter Buck is a complete…Shit, I got nothing to say about R.E.M. I like them, except for the whole ‘Shiny Happy People’ thing. This sweet mix and live cuts are off of the ‘Radio Song’ 12”.

All electronic music today. Artists on this post start out “high-brow” and get progressively stupider. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking stupid music, but I don’t think anyone is every going to call Tricky “silly dance music.” Inversely speaking, no one is every going to claim that Apollo 440’s ‘Stop The Rock’ was a deep and meaningful song.

Tricky
Aftermath (Hip Hop Blues)
Aftermath (I Could Be Looking For People Remix)
Aftermath (Version 1)
On my senior skip day I went to go see The Fifth Element (yeah, I was one of the cool kids). I remember watching it and being generally impressed with it overall. Then out of the middle of nowhere Tricky shows up and starts acting all bad-ass. 10 minutes later Gary Oldman blows him up. Man, that was a fucked up movie. These are remixes from Tricky’s first single, taken from a 12”.

Meat Beat Manifesto
Psyche-Out (Version 1)
Psyche-Out (Version 2)
Psyche-Out (Dub)
Psyche-Out (Sex Skank Stripdown)
Psyche-Out (Sex Skank Mix)
Best bad band name ever. I’ve always thought these guys should have gone on tour with The Circle Jerks.

Prodigy
More Girls
Under My Wheels (Original Mix)
Remember when these guys had the number one album in America? Man, 1997 was fucking weird. Anyways, these two tracks are off of the ‘Girls’ 12” single. ‘Girls’ originally appeared on Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned and album that I liked and no one else in the world did.

Apollo 440
Stop The Rock (@44 Extended Mix)
Stop The Rock (Mint Royale Mix)
Stop The Rock (Gigolo ‘Stop The Jocks’ Remix)
Stop The Rock (T-Total Remix)
Something I read once called Apollo 440 “electronic music for frat boys”. While I wouldn’t call Apollo 440 proponents of Intelligent Dance Music I think that criticism may be just a bit harsh. I dug some of their tunes aside from this one, which was their big hit single. Their remix of the theme to Lost In Space was definitely the best thing to come out of that ungodly shitstorm of a movie. Anyways, these mixes are off of a 12” single.

I previously said I wasn’t going to do theme posts. Well, I lied. This post isn’t a themed one but the next couple…few…dozen will be simply because it’ll give me an excuse to clear out some crap that probably couldn’t stand on it’s own. Expect a lot of mid-90s techno this week. This post is kind of a warm-up for that.

Lords Of Acid
I Sit On Acid 2000 (Soulwax Remix)
Scrood Bi U (Hush Scroo All Ya’ll Mix)
These are the last two Lords Of Acid tracks I’ll be posting for a while, meaning that my mom will no longer have to worry about accidentally downloading something she’s not old enough to hear.

Erasure
I Love Saturday (Beatmasters Dub Mix)
I Love Saturday (Beatmasters Club Mix)
I need to unload my Erasure, it’s gathering on my hard drive like some…big…gay…thing (I’m tired and out of similes. Expect an all-Erasure post in the near future.

INXS
Disappear (Extended 12” Mix)
Middle Beast
What You Need (Coldcut Force Mix)
My favorite INXS song hands down in ‘Disappear.’ In case anyone is wondering my second-favorite INXS song is ‘Need You Tonight/Mediate’ and my third is ‘Elegantly Wasted’ which is off of their criminally underlooked album of the same name. ‘Middle Beast’ is an instrumental track that happens to have a hilariously appropriate title considering the state of the world right now. The mix to ‘What You Need’ is the weakest of the three, with too many ‘ooh yeahs’ getting thrown in for no good reason. All of these are off of the 12” single for ‘Disappear.’

Lunatic Calm
Leave You Far Behind (Rollercoaster Mix)
Metropol (Lunatics Soundscape Mix)
Today marked the first time that I properly spelled Lunatic Calm on my first try. I always want to type their name out as ‘Lunatic Clam.’ And while I bet that is the name of some awesome porno movie about a bipolar hooker (or the worst nautical horror movie ever), it’s not the name of the band. I know nothing about these guys other than the fact that ‘Far Behind’ was on The Matrix Soundtrack. This remix of it is almost like a dub mix and I don’t think the “I want to leave you far behind” hook is ever mentioned. Both these remixes are off of some white-label promo that I bought for a buck at Half Price Books.

Argh. I totally finished this post like night but got distracted by a shiny object or something because I never hit that little ‘Publish Post’ button. Expect another post in a couple of hours, which will be the one I was planning on doing tonight anyways.

Beck
Richard’s Hairpiece (Devil’s Haircut Remix by Aphex Twim)
Electric Music And The Summer People
I spend so much time digging through crates of records that I forget that I also have a substantial amount of CD singles. These two Beck rarities serve as an example of that. Both of these are from a maxi-single of ‘Devil’s Haircut.’ Aphex Twin’s remix is surprisingly normal for one of his, you can actually recognize the original song. I have some more rare Beck that I’ll get around to posting sometime.

Erasure
I Love Saturday (JX Remix)
I Love Saturday (Flower Mix)
The new Erasure album is good, go buy it. These two remixes are off of a white label promo 12” single. Two more from this one next post.

Lords Of Acid
Pussy (Disco D’s Ultra Buff Luv Muff Mix)
Pussy (DJ Assault’s Hit It Hard Hit It Quick Mix)
Pussy (I Love Pussy Mix)
One of the stupidest songs ever written, oh I love it so. I have some sick fantasy of taking a girl home, getting her in the mood for loving and then right when we start to get it on have this track blare out of my stereo. I wonder if anyone’s actually ever fucked to ‘Pussy’? It’s probably a better song to strip to, I hope and pray that there is a strip club somewhere in the world that just has this song on constant repeat. This was one of those songs I was exposed to during the halcyon days of Napster and college dorm file sharing. T’was a glorious time, filled with mislabeled ID tags (what do you mean ‘Cats In The Cradle’ isn’t by Bob Dylan?) and hard drives filled with random tracks like this and the techno remix of the theme to Das Boot. Anyways, these remixes of this opus to…um…kitty cats, is off of a 12” single. I’ll post the B-sides next time.

I previously said I wasn’t going to do theme posts. Well, I lied. This post isn’t a themed one but the next couple…few…dozen will be simply because it’ll give me an excuse to clear out some crap that probably couldn’t stand on it’s own. Expect a lot of mid-90s techno this week. This post is kind of a warm-up for that.

Lords Of Acid
I Sit On Acid 2000 (Soulwax Remix)
Scrood Bi U (Hush Scroo All Ya’ll Mix)
These are the last two Lords Of Acid tracks I’ll be posting for a while, meaning that my mom will no longer have to worry about accidentally downloading something she’s not old enough to hear.

Erasure
I Love Saturday (Beatmasters Dub Mix)
I Love Saturday (Beatmasters Club Mix)
I need to unload my Erasure, it’s gathering on my hard drive like some…big…gay…thing (I’m tired and out of similes. Expect an all-Erasure post in the near future.

INXS
Disappear (Extended 12” Mix)
Middle Beast
What You Need (Coldcut Force Mix)
My favorite INXS song hands down in ‘Disappear.’ In case anyone is wondering my second-favorite INXS song is ‘Need You Tonight/Mediate’ and my third is ‘Elegantly Wasted’ which is off of their criminally underlooked album of the same name. ‘Middle Beast’ is an instrumental track that happens to have a hilariously appropriate title considering the state of the world right now. The mix to ‘What You Need’ is the weakest of the three, with too many ‘ooh yeahs’ getting thrown in for no good reason. All of these are off of the 12” single for ‘Disappear.’

Lunatic Calm
Leave You Far Behind (Rollercoaster Mix)
Metropol (Lunatics Soundscape Mix)
Today marked the first time that I properly spelled Lunatic Calm on my first try. I always want to type their name out as ‘Lunatic Clam.’ And while I bet that is the name of some awesome porno movie about a bipolar hooker (or the worst nautical horror movie ever), it’s not the name of the band. I know nothing about these guys other than the fact that ‘Far Behind’ was on The Matrix Soundtrack. This remix of it is almost like a dub mix and I don’t think the “I want to leave you far behind” hook is ever mentioned. Both these remixes are off of some white-label promo that I bought for a buck at Half Price Books.

This hastily-written post with little text and mediocre songs was brought to you by insomnia! Insomnia: Disrupting sleeping habits and stunting creativity since the dawn of man!â„¢

Erasure
True Love Wars (Omni Plus)
Stay With Me (Guitar Mix)
The last two tracks from the 12” single for ‘Stay With Me’. Only 20-30 more Erasure songs to go and I’ll have featured my entire collection. Oy.

Fleetwood Mac
Landslide (Remix)
Landslide (String Mix)
Landslide (Analog Mix)
I’m sure that the last time you heard ‘Landslide’ you thought “You know what, what this dark introspective song about a dissolving relationship is great, but what it really needs is an up-tempo backbeat and a string section!” I’m usually a big fan of remixes and re-interpretations of songs but ‘Landslide’ is a song that was perfect the way it was. These three remixes were taken off of a promo single that was released to promote Fleetwood Mac’s reunion album/concert The Dance. I’m posting them mostly for the sake of just posting them, they are kind of interesting to hear but really just want to make you listen to the original version. It’s not as bad as the remix to ‘Big Love’ though, eek.

I’ve lived in Pittsburgh for about three years now and I love the place. One of the best things about this town are the surprising amount of quality record stores they have. I’ve mentioned the awesomeness of Jerry’s Records several times over by now, so I thought in this post I’d take the chance to single out some other retail outlets in the Pittsburgh area, some good, some not-so-good.

R.E.M.
Finest Worksong (Lengthy Club Mix)
Finest Worksong (Other Mix)
Time After Time (Live)
I got this single at Half-Price Books, which is a semi-national chain that sells used books, VHS tapes, DVDs, CDs, computer software and LPs. It’s a great place to buy stuff but a lousy place to sell. A while ago I was trying to unload my laserdisc collection and there only offered me 4 dollars for 40 laserdiscs. Not four bucks a disc, but four bucks total. I was able to get around 30 bucks for them at an Exchange down the street. Thankfully they’re idiots when it comes to selling stuff too, because I was able to get some great singles there for less than a dollar. I also picked up a rare Mindless Self Indulgence promo for a buck. These are three tracks taken off of the 12” single of ‘Finest Worksong’ that I got from them a few weeks ago. The two remixes are excellent and the live version of ‘Time After Time’ is actually a medley of a few different songs, including Peter Gabriel’s ‘Red Rain’. This track was a little scratchy and I did what I could to fix it, but it doesn’t sound that great. Sorry about that.

Erasure
Stay With Me (NY Mix)
Stay With Me (Flow Mix)
If I don’t start posting Erasure more often my backlog of semi-gay dance tunes is going to become overwhelming. I got their latest on order at Dave’s Music Mine, a quality CD store that shares space with Jerry’s Records. It’s a good store, but is a little unorganized and disheveled. I’m willing to credit that to the fact that they’ve only been in that location for a few months though and they are still trying to figure out how to use the space. They have a ton of great used CDs and sometimes get some pretty oddball stuff that’s not easy to find new, like the Depeche Mode box sets. Check them out if you are ever in Pittsburgh – they get The Lost Turntable Seal Of Approval. These Erasure remixes are off of the single for ‘Stay With Me’ more from it later in the week.

Garbage
Bleed Like Me (Kupper’s Klub Extravaganza)
My collection of Garbage singles is severely lacking. In fact this is the only one I have, and the B-side instrumental was so fucking scratched I couldn’t record it. I got this one at Eide’s Entertainment, another locally-owned store here in Pittsburgh. I have mixed feelings about Eide’s. On the plus side they have a ton of stuff and it’s an absolutely huge place. Throughout their three floors you can buy comic books, new and used CDs, VHS tapes, laserdiscs, DVDs and books. They also have a decent selection of LPs and 45s as well. Just don’t expect to get much cheap there. A record I could buy for 10 bucks at Dave’s or Jerry’s would probably run twice as much at Eides. They sell a lot of bootleg videos of out-of-print and rare stuff, which is cool, but the quality of them usually sucks. I swear their copy of Urgh! was taken off of the same video that’s at my local video store. Most importantly, the people that work there can really be a bunch of assholes. They have a no cell phone policy there, which I kind of understand (trying to ring someone up while they blabber on their phone is amazingly annoying) but if you’re going to run a store that is so massively huge that people could easily spend hours in it, it’s unrealistic to expect them to not get any phone calls during that time. The clerks constantly bitch and moan in front of the customers and kind of go out of their way not to help you. Finally, the owner seems to have some ill-advised grudge against the local Exchange. Two years ago one of his employees stole a few thousand dollars of stuff from his store and sold it to the Exchange. After he found out he expected The Exchange to just give him the stuff back. It sucks that his stuff got stolen, but he shouldn’t expect The Exchange to take a two-grand loss just because he’s not good at screening his employees. I only go here when I have to.

I’m really bummed out that my gigantic Howard The Duck post didn’t get a bigger response. Sometimes the internet confuses me. I’m never surprised when I get a lot of hits. It probably sounds pretentious of me, but since I think everything I post is totally awesome (if it wasn’t I wouldn’t post it) I just kind of assume that everyone else will agree and flock here bask in my super-neato-keen-awesomeness. It’s cool either way though, but to those of you who do think I’m consistently amazing, please spread the word about the Howard The Duck post, because I’m really proud of that one for some strange reason!

And while your at it, recommend this post about the first electronic album ever made.
And this one which features a brilliantly hokey all-Moog album.

Sorry for the shameless self-promotion.

Lords Of Acid
Lover Boy / Lover Girl (b[Eat] Me Up Mix by Ming & FS)
Lover Boy / Lover Girl (Special Blend Mix)
Lucky’s Fucking Sky (Weed Don’ Need No Fucking Sky Kompressor Mix by NYTQ)
Lucky’s Fucking Sky (John And Paul Tell It All Mix)
Whenever I hear a really good Lords Of Acid song I just picture all of them sitting in the studio humping the recording equipment. That would probably ruin the mixers, but whatever. I’ve always been a fan of sleazy, disgusting hardcore music like Mindless Self Indulgence and Peaches, and I guess Lords Of Acid helped to invent the style back in the 90s, so it only makes sense that I’d dig them the most. The awesomely titled ‘b[Eat] Me Up Mix by Ming & FS’ is a little bit of a let down, but the ‘Special Blend Mix’ more than makes up for it with its pounding guitars and beats. It’ll probably make you wanna fuck the person closest to you or beat the fucking shit out of them…or both if you’re into that kind of thing (don’t forget the safe word).

Pet Shop Boys
In Private (Tomcraft Club Mix)
In Private (Tomcraft 7 Inch Mix)
I’m trying to space out my Pet Shop Boys, Erasure and Depeche Mode stuff. If I just went through and only posted their songs until I was done it would get old after a week or two. Here are two remixes off of a 12” promo single I got.

The Cure
In Between Days (Extended Mix)
Stop Dead
Just when I thought he couldn’t sink any lower after his collaborations with Blink-182 and, most recently, Korn I read somewhere that Robert Smith is going to work with Ashlee Simpson on her new album. Someone needs to grab that boy by the hair…which should be pretty easy, and beat his pale goth ass. In the meantime, here are two tracks off of the 12” single for ‘In Between Days’. I’m sure both of these are on CD somewhere.