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.

All these house singles are cluttering up my…um…house. So here’s a house clearing house.

Human Resource
Dominator (World Domination Re-Remix)
Dominator (Unknown Remix)
Dominator (Mental Speed Mix)
Dominator (Soulwax Edit – Human Resource vs. 808 State)
One of my all-time, never-get-sick-off, holy-shit-I-wanna-fucking-dance-till-my-head-falls-off house tracks, even if it has one of the stupidest nonsensical lines in the history of house music (“I wanna kiss myself!” wait..what?) I had no idea who did this tune though until recently when I bought Soulwax’s remix collection, the full title of which is:

Most of the remixes we’ve made for other people over the years except for the one for Einstürzende Neubauten because we lost it and a few we didn’t think sounded good enough or just didn’t fit in length-wise, but including some that are hard to find because either people forgot about them or simply because they haven’t been released yet, a few we really love, one we think is just ok, some we did for free, some we did for money, some for ourselves without permission and some for friends as swaps but never on time and always at our studio in Ghent.

Yeah, that’s stupid but since Soulwax are responsible for some of the greatest remixes of all-time I’m going to let it fly. I’m included their remix of “Dominator” from that ridiculously-named compilation, which takes the classic hardcore house tune and mashes it together with another legendary house track, 808 State’s “Cubik” and in the end create massive awesome for all. Wait for an awesome part near the end where they take both tracks, tear them to shreds and then reanimate them Frankenstein-style into an unholy beast of glorious glitch. The other remixes of “Dominator” are from a 12” single I got called Dominator Re-Remixes. If you want more Dominator go here. They got more than me.

808 State
Timebomb (Fon Mix)
Since I was already kind-of-sorta posting an 808 track I figured I’d put this remix of “Timebomb” up as well that I took from a 12”. It’s a little scratchy in the beginning, but it gets over it pretty quick.

A Guy Called Gerald
FX (Mayday Mix)
FX (Elevation Mix)
Specific Hate
Humanity (Funkstorung Remix)
Humanity (Ian Simmonds Remix)
Humanity (Borngraber & Struver Remix)
And since I’ve already posted one-and-a-half 808 State tracks here’s a bunch from Gerald Simpson, one of the members of the house pioneers. These remixes (and one original track) were taken from 12” singles. Anyone notice that “FX” uses the same vocal sample that Moby’s Go did? Weird. On an unrelated note, “Humanity” might be one of the most beautiful drum ‘n’ bass songs ever made. If you only get one of these remixes I recommend the Funkstorung one, the breakbeats on that one are intense.

More house later this week. Possibly later today if I get sick of spring cleaning my house (my actual house…not the house music…oh nevermind.)

I have a request.

I am a big Def Leppard fan and I want to buy their new album but the whole Tim McGraw thing is really getting to me, especially since I like the track with him…except when he opens his cowboy hat, lower-class pandering mouth.

I did learn however, that on the Japanese release of their new CD there is a bonus track which is “Nine Lives” without that country cocksucker.

If anyone can get me a copy of that track I would be eternally grateful and be in your debt. Anyone who gets me that one song would be on the positive end on of the most lopsided trade in MP3 history, as I’ll give you nearly as much as you want from my collection.

EDIT 05/03: I’ll explain this again since some people can’t figure it out. I am looking for the version of Nine Lives WITHOUT Tim McGraw. It’s only on the Japanese version of the album. Get It? I’ve already had two people send me the regular version of the song with Tim McGraw thinking they were hot shit.

Sigh.

And if you get it, email me (it’s on the side) don’t put it in the comments.

Q Lazzarus
Goodbye Horses
My full-on for GTA continues with this post of the one of the greatest tracks that nearly everyone has heard but almost no one knows anything about. I’m sure most people that visit this blog know this tune. First it was featured in “Silence Of The Lambs” during the infamous tucking scene, and then it reappeared a short time later in Married To The Mob and a long time later in Clerks 2, being used in a scene that parodies The Silence Of The Lambs. Now it’s reappeared once again in GTAIV on the classic rock station (which features Iggy Pop as a DJ – ‘natch.) Despite all of this Q Lazzarus has vanished into obscurity. She never even released an album. Someone should track that chick down.

On a related note, electronic-rock band Psyche does a great cover of it.

Boy George
The Crying Game (Digitfunky String Mix)
The Crying Game (Third Floor Trance Mix)
The Crying Game (DJ EFX’s Tribal as a Mofo Mix)
From a sound in a movie about a psycho killer who wants to be a transsexual to a song from a movie about an actual transsexual…performed by a…um….Boy George (I’m hesitant to label him as anything). These remixes are from a 12” single and occasionally get a little scratchy. I cleaned them as best I could. The remix titles are shockingly accurate by the way. The String Mix has strings, The Trance Mix is very trance-like and the Tribal as a Mofo Mix is…Tribal as a Mofo.

Enough “politics” for now. I do love though how someone thought I shouldn’t talk about events like that because this is a “music blog.” Let’s get one thing straight, while this is a music blog, it is first and foremost MY blog. If you don’t like it you can a) close your browser and not come back or b) suck it.

M.I.A.
Paper Planes (DFA Remix)
Paper Planes (Blaqstarr Remix ft. Rye Rye & Afrkian Boy)
Paper Planes (Remix For The Children by Adrock)
Paper Planes (Diplo Street Remix ft. Bun B & Rich Boy)
Paper Planes (Scottie B. Remix)
Proving that I have the attention-span of a speed-addicted lemur, the remixes to this tune have replaced The Fever’s cover of “Glamorous Life” as my new favorite song of the moment. All of these mixes are great, strangely though the DFA one is the worst, as it takes out the instantly recognizable gunshot and cash register sounds and replaces them with generic beeps and boops. The rest of them keep the implied violence and rampant capitalism in tact.

EMF
Unbelievable (Cin City Sex Mix)
Unbelievable (Boot Lane Mix)
Unbelievable (House Mix)
Unbelievable (Hip Hop Mix)
EMF (Live)
MIA and then EMF, you see what I did there? I’m a fucking genius. Everyone knows that Unbelievable is built off a sample from an Andrew Dice Clay concert, making it the sole good thing that no-talent hack ever contributed to the world. The first two remixes of the song are pretty similar, but the latter two are very different, and both live up to their parathesized names, the Hip-Hop Mix even features a guest rapper. The live version of “EMF” (I love it when a band has a song named after themselves – Bad Company I’m totally GLARING in your direction) proves that their name had nothing to do with Epsom Mad Funkers and more to do with Ecstasy…MotherFuckers.