My two favorite groups in high school, Hum and Girls Against Boys, represented a vast stylistic divide in 1990s alternative rock. Hum’s space-rock gazes longingly at the stars; Girls Against Boys’ bass-driven post-punk aims straight for the gut (if not lower). Hum represented the Midwest’s particular brand of introspective guitar rock; Girls Against Boys pulled a lineage of DC punk and hardcore into the postmodern affectations of New York City. Whereas Hum’s lyrical depth and emotional resonance appealed to the core principles of my musical tastes at the time, Girls Against Boys felt like the exception to those rules.

Substance? Girls Against Boys’ style is their substance. Unlike so many other groups dependent upon style, GVSB subvert any noticeable rock clichés through equal doses of brute force, postmodern ironic detachment, and electrifying urgency. Scott McCloud’s raspy charisma winks at any lyric that’s too neat, any setting that’s too clean. Out of context—hell, often in context—individual lyrics sound like mistranslated non sequiturs, come-ons from lounge crooner wannabes, or slurred threats from the menacing guy at the end of the bar. Yet somehow they make perfect sense in the moment of McCloud’s delivery, drawing you into the group’s precise, bass-heavy throb.

There are a few other notable two-bass line-ups from the 1990s—Ned’s Atomic Dustbin’s Grebo Brit-rock, Dianogah’s bass-only instrumentals, Ganger’s Krautrock-influenced post-rock—but Girls Against Boys’ post-hardcore style gels perfectly with Johnny Temple and Eli Janney’s low-end thrusts. Janney alternates between a sampler keyboard and his custom metal bass, and in both situations, his lines add melody and depth to Temple’s solid foundation. Alexis Fleisig’s floor-tom-heavy drumming combines equal parts power and precision, throttling each fill without going overboard or detracting from the group’s focus. It’s rare that a group’s guitarist can be overshadowed by its rhythm section, but McCloud made due, adding texture to the top of the mix, ducking into the lower registers for bonus rumble, and strafing the bassists with razor-wire riffs. Math-rock time-signature fetishists look elsewhere; Girls Against Boys songs locked into their savage grooves and pummeled them into submission.

Many critics now herald Girls Against Boys’ 1993 LP Venus Luxure #1 Baby as a classic of 1990s indie/alternative rock and dismiss the rest of their catalog as dry runs or pale imitation. I can’t disagree with the first part—Venus Luxure is their best record by a fair margin and among my top ten albums of the decade—what propelled me into obsession was the depth of GVSB’s catalog. Sure, their first two releases showed growing pains and Freak*on*ica was a major-label disaster, but even those albums have their rewards. Their Touch and Go years were remarkably fruitful for LPs, EPs, and singles. I’ve chosen to select songs from each major release and a few additional highlights, which means Venus Luxure and its Touch and Go brethren are sorely underrepresented, but you should go out and buy those three albums if you don’t already own them. I’ve included MP3s for the rarer material and YouTube links whenever possible.

“Stay in the Car” – For the start of the group and the Eighties half of this EP, DC-area producer Eli Janney joined Fugazi drummer Brendan Canty and Soulside singer Scott McCloud for some regrettable synth-/sample-heavy industrial post-punk. I view the Nineties half of this EP as the group’s true beginning, since Girls Against Boys immediately hit their stride once McCloud’s former Soulside band mates, drummer Alexis Fleisig and bassist Johnny Temple, joined the fold. “Stay in the Car” starts off with Janney’s shuddering sampler bass, but soon enough Fleisig’s forceful, swinging beat, Temple’s deep bass line, and Scott McCloud’s howling guitar create the first signature GVSB groove. The vague lyrics—“Step one / Stay in the car,” “A pat on the back from the president,” “We need some gun control / We need the Marlboro Man”—might not sound like much on paper, but combined with the group’s locked-down rhythmic drive, these stray phrases evoke an urgent, action movie dreamscape.

“Matching Wits with Flaming Frank” – Girls Against Boys reconvened for their 1992 debut LP, Tropic of Scorpio, but like its EP predecessor, it’s a mixed affair. Between lounge-flavored songs like the “Everything I Do Seems to Cost Me $20” and the noisy experimentation of “Plush,” there’s a lack of focus and consistency antithetical to their Touch and Go output, even if they’re intriguing diversions. Thankfully, the first three songs bridge the gap between this loose approach and the intensity of their later work. “Matching Wits with Flaming Frank” isn’t as dynamic as “My Night of Pleasure (with the Mudjacking Contractors)” or as catchy as “Wow Wow Wow,” but a powerhouse performance from Alexis Fleisig and Scott McCloud’s raspy delivery of “I had to burst into flames” and “Who loves you?” make it the highlight of Tropic of Scorpio.

“Bulletproof Cupid” –The best Girls Against Boys songs add a palpable sense of danger to Scott McCloud’s hedonistic domain, a point perfectly illustrated by the descent into chaos in “Bulletproof Cupid.” Setting the scene with another nighttime, sex-fueled car ride (“Stop the machine / If you see something you could like”) driven by McCloud’s cruise-control-at-85-mph guitar figure, “Bulletproof Cupid” escalates the tension with chants of “It’s a lot more physical right now” and “X-x-x-press it now” above the menacing rumble of Temple’s bass and Janney’s droning keyboard. Soon enough, it heightens to “It’s gonna paralyze you / By the shine of your head” before McCloud slurs “Paralyze you / Til I’m fuckin’ dead.” With that violent end-game on the table, the car veers off the road. Alexis Fleisig pummels everything in sight amidst Janney’s panicked yells of “Lies! Lies!” before the song jerks back into control. It’s a mesmerizing transition cemented by McCloud’s brutal dose of black humor: “Nobody’s perfect.” Anyone could get sucked into this chase for carnal physicality, anyone could veer off course into an unforeseen, violent end. Nobody’s perfect.

“Learned It” – There’s no heavier bass sound in Girls Against Boys’ discography than the initial sucker punch of “Learned It,” a murderous combination of Temple’s bass guitar and Janney’s sampler bass. The doubled bass line reloads its massive, two-note pattern with higher register runs at the end of each phrase, but it never loses its potency. The guitar line? Entirely irrelevant, but McCloud’s “I got one shot” is the perfect refrain for this beat-down. As much as I love this bass sound, I do enjoy this alternate live-in-studio take of the song from their Eight Rounds split EP with Guided by Voices that chooses clean piano over Janney’s usual distorted bass keyboard sound.

I could easily gone with any number of other V-Lux highlights, like the confident charm of “In Like Flynn” (“Say you like that you’re gonna love this”), the woozy pop of “Go Be Delighted,” the straight-ahead chug of “Let Me Come Back” (later turned into a cover of “Boogie Wonderland” for the group’s appearance as a bar band in 200 Cigarettes), or the dream-like calm of “Bug House,” but I’ll reluctantly move on.

“Tucked In” – Not just the opening track for Cruise Yourself, “Tucked In” is its public address announcement. “Is everybody tucked in / Is everybody tucked in / Now that’s what I like to see” posits Scott McCloud as steward on GVSB Comfort Air, hitting New York, Chicago (Chicago Chicago), and Los Angeles. The lyrical repetition is mirrored in the off-kilter, looped bass line and Fleisig’s tom-heavy pattern of the verses, the latter of which finally opens up with the chorus’s carefully controlled feedback and Janney’s panned “Comfort air / Comfort ride / Comfort flex / Comfort zone” backing vocals. Yet “opening up” is misleading—after all, “Way into the trance thing” is the dominant phrase—since the song eschews the chance for a Venus Luxure fever pitch in favor of a melancholic second half showing the wear and tear of the Cruise Yourself lifestyle. McCloud finds “No room to swing” in this new routine and the song ends with a vastly different intonation of the “Is everybody tucked in” mantra. The album switches gears to the double-bass body blow of “Cruise Your New Baby Fly Self,” but it’s telling that GVSB didn’t choose to start the album with “One more time with feeling / One more time with style.” “Tucked In” may not have the head-nodding, ass-shaking grooves of “Kill the Sexplayer,” the desperation of lead single “[I] Don’t Got a Place,” or lurid depths of “Explicitly Yours,” but its idea of GVSB as lifestyle runs through all of Cruise Yourself.

“Magattraction” – When I first saw Girls Against Boys at Mercury Lounge in New York City in the spring of 1998, I’d already picked up virtually everything they’d put out, so hearing them launch into a unfamiliar song was a huge surprise. “Magattraction” was the lead track on the 1994 Jabberjaw: Good to the Last Drop compilation, which also featured Unwound, Jawbox, and the loathed Hole, but it had been extracted as a b-side for the recent “Psycho Future” single. Presumably recorded during the 1993 recording sessions for the superb Venus Luxure #1 Baby, “Magattraction” matches the quality of that record, if not the atmosphere. “Magattraction” teases with ironic catharsis like “Got no rhythm, got no soul,” but with palm-muted pulses, a rumbling bass war, and a shouted climax of “Shake it / Shoot it,” hedonism wins out in the end.

Other Girls Against Boys rarities worth checking out include the lo-fi rocker “Red Bar,” which first appeared on the 1993 Enragez Vous! compilation and was later included as a one-sided single accompanying the initial vinyl pressing of Cruise Yourself, and their cover of Joy Division’s “She’s Lost Control” from the 1995 A Means to an End tribute album. Their CD singles aren’t rare by any means, but do feature some solid tracks, especially pre-Cruise Yourself single “Sexy Sam.” It’s the only other non-album cut that rivals “Magattraction.”

“Super-Fire” – Thanks to its light-bulb-smashing video appearing on 120 Minutes, Super-Fire” was the first GVSB song I heard. Between Scott McCloud’s nearly indecipherable phrases (“When you got nothing in the lemon,” “X-head is x-vibe”), Eli Janney’s wah’ed out bass, and the bizarre background noise/vocals in the chorus, it’s a great litmus test for the group’s allure. Not everything is so oblique: that rapid-fire, note-bending guitar lead is killer, the bass groove is seductive, and “Nothing satisfies” could easily be the title of a GVSB bio-pic. McCloud even throws in “Can you decide what the fuck is going on?” as a potentially self-referential lyric. It trades the danger of V-Lux for an endlessly listenable sheen, perfect for the lead single and track from their second-best LP. If memory serves, Girls Against Boys signed with Geffen under the agreement that House of GVSB would be their Touch & Go swansong. Missing out on the polish and poise of House must’ve been a thorn in the side of Geffen and a last laugh for Touch & Go, especially given the quality of what Geffen did release.

“Park Avenue” I’ll offer up a startling admission: I enjoyed Freak*on*ica when it came out. Sure, I missed the Ted Niceley production values, but as a seventeen-year-old participant on the group’s listserv (which netted me a vinyl copy of Freak*on*ica and a now ratty t-shirt from the resident Geffen rep), it was easy to get swept up in the rush of a new album. Did I think it was their best record yet? Of course not, but I sure played a lot of Top Gear on the Super Nintendo with Freak*on*ica as the soundtrack. These songs also sound much better in their set lists than on record, a point that initially made me like this record more. See, these songs aren’t that much different from their previous records! That view soon changed to a recognition that I’d rather listen to albums that don’t sound like Pitchshifter b-sides.

Despite not listening to Freak*on*ica in years, lead single “Park Avenue” recently crept into my workout mix. Scott McCloud’s opening line “Check your lifespan” was spat back in GVSB’s face by countless reviewers (ha ha, no, you check your lifespan, Girls Against Boys), but “Park Avenue” is still the best song from the record. Janney’s pulsating keyboard build-up, a doubled-up riff from Temple and McCloud, and a solid (if unspectacular) foundation from Fleisig push things forward with polished, mechanical efficiency. The issue with “Park Avenue,” and Freak*on*ica as a whole, is how Nick Launey’s production neuters GVSB’s style. Its predecessor, House of GVSB, was a well-oiled machine, but there were dark places on that album (“Life in Pink,” “Zodiac Love Team”), varied aesthetics, back-alley dealings. McCloud had a smokiness to his voice, like he’d been in the corner booth of a dive bar for the last week and a half. Launey pulled their aesthetic into prime-time, into the safe glitz of the new Times Square the band calls out on “One Firecracker.” Janney’s keyboards become the driving element, turning GVSB into another industrial-lite band. Stray effects clutter the mix, instantly dating the album. McCloud’s vocals are embarrassingly processed, smoothed down to a cartoonish whine. If the best GVSB songs are predicated upon the threat of danger, the worst songs eliminate this possibility entirely. Consider Freak*on*ica their PG record.

“One Dose of Truth” – Given a chance to switch up their routine, Girls Against Boys wrote their most new wave–inspired track for the soundtrack to Series 7: The Contenders, a reality television satire from 2001. Recalling Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” one of the few non-GVSB songs in the film, “One Dose of Truth” combines plaintive synth-orchestra lines, atypically melodic guitar arpeggios, and Eli Janney’s soothing background vocals with some of the group’s most direct, Geffen-taunting hooks. Scott McCloud’s lyrical bent has skewered corrupt popular culture since House of GVSB, so the refrain of “All we need from you / Is one dose of truth” echoes throughout much of their catalog, especially their final album, 2002’s You Can’t Fight What You Can’t See. There’s also an alternate take on this melody on the soundtrack, the short instrumental “I Knew Her…,” which adds some acoustic guitar to nice effect.

“The Come Down” – Tipped off by "One Dose of Truth," Girls Against Boys’ final album completes the switch in Scott McCloud’s lyrics from creating and living in his own private, hyper-cool metropolitan universe to explicitly critiquing the quality of actual popular culture. While the lyrical approach may have changed, You Can’t Fight What You Can’t See returns to the musical template of those Touch and Go albums, loaded with sharp hooks and tight structures. “The Come Down” ventures closest to their old haunts, with McCloud opining “Around here night goes on too long” over a polished keyboard hook from Janney. The spaced-out bridge provides some rarified space for McCloud’s curious serenade of “Like a landslide / Through your mind / I like your style” before closing out with the elliptical guitar riff setting off one final round. “The Come Down” and the album-ending slow-jam “Let It Breathe” form such an evocative combination of bang and whimper that it seems fitting that they haven’t recorded a follow-up.

Postscript – Although they’re officially on hiatus, GVSB still occasionally play shows, usually in Europe (they hit up Poland and Russia this spring). If they ever decide to properly tour the States again, I’ll have to fight the urge to stalk them up and down the East Coast. Scott McCloud released his first LP as Paramount Styles last year, an acoustically oriented project with Alexis Fleisig in tow. Fleisig replaced Damon Che as the drummer of Bellini, who released The Precious Prize of Gravity in May. Eli Janney still produces bands. Johnny Temple runs Akashic Books. If you want go backwards, you can check out Soulside’s Soon Come Happy for a taste of Scott, Johnny, and Alexis’s days in the DC hardcore scene, early Edsel singles for Eli’s falsetto background vocals and sampler, and New Wet Kojak for late-night moisture.

67. Isis – Wavering Radiant 2LP – Ipecac, 2009 – $25

Ever since I learned my lesson about blind-buying $20 LPs with The Arcade Fire’s hugely disappointing Neon Bible, I’ve made a habit of giving a few spins to any recent releases before purchasing them new. (My used LP buying habits more than make up for this lack of unfamiliar ground.) Isis’s Wavering Radiant is a slight exception, since I’d listened to and enjoyed a few songs from it since the record first leaked, but I hadn’t given it a full listen. It’s not a matter of me not enjoying those songs—“Ghost Key” matches the highlights from In the Absence of Truth, “Holy Tears” and “Garden of Light”—but I just haven’t been in the mood to listen to a whole Isis album. Panopticon and Oceanic are absorbing, consistent LPs, but they’re also draining experiences. I’m still willing to drop a steep $25 on the double LP, however, trusting their consistent output a bit more than The Arcade Fire (even if In the Absence of Truth was a notch below Panopticon).

It’s unfortunate that Isis strayed from their usual fall release schedule, since the group’s oppressive post-metal begs for dark evenings and creeping frost. Judging from my scattered listens, Wavering Radiant returns to some of the pre-Oceanic riffs and aggression without losing those drifting, devastating instrumental passages (the bridge of “20 Minutes / 40 Years” certainly counts). There’s no shortage of chorus-laden, Peter Hook-style bass leads, atmospheric keyboards, or Aaron Turner’s vocals, but those guitar riffs keep things centered. I would prefer smaller doses of Turner’s guttural screams and Tool-informed singing voice, but the balance between those two approaches seems to be better than In the Absence of Truth, which relied too much on the melodic vocals. Check in with me in November to see how this album’s holding up.

It’s not the mammoth Record Store Day purchase that unnerves me with regard to my purchasing control, since I’d budgeted that one. It’s the return trip to Newbury Comics to pick up a few of the stragglers that had grown on me since the big event that makes me worry about whether this meme is a document of an uncontrollable addiction. I’d only planned to pick up the Fucked Up EP and the Obits LP, but finding that Smiths single suckered me into another buy. Just one more hit!

64. Fucked Up – Year of the Pig – Matador, 2008 – $10

I doubt I’d given Fucked Up more than a dismissive skim before heading out to Seattle in March to interview the members of Juno. Both Arlie Carstens and Gabe Carter raved about the group (I can’t remember if Jason Guyer or Greg Ferguson did, so I’ll have to consult the tape), which prompted Jon to pick up a CD copy of their 2006 album Hidden World at Jive Time Records (from a former member of the band, no less). Damian Abraham’s (Pink Eyes) vocals immediately turned me off, all gruff shouting without enough melody, and I assumed that they weren’t for me. That is, of course, until I found out they had an eighteen-minute-long song.

“Year of the Pig” is a loose, pulsing epic, switching between soothing female vocals and Abraham’s guttural incantations. Piano, strings, and bongos all make appearances, but the song keeps pushing forward, even when it’s coming apart at the seams. Matador has released three different single edits for the song, which could sound like drastically different songs depending on the tempo for that four-minute chunk, but I’d rather stick with the eighteen-minute version. The flip is “The Black Hats,” a more traditional, guitar-heavy punk rock song.

I’ve since gotten into their 2008 LP The Chemistry of Common Life, or at least “Son the Father,” “Black Albino Bones,” and the title track. I was about to buy it at Newbury Comics when I’d noticed that it had jumped from $17.99 to $27.99. I’m sure I’ll pick it up sometime this year, but not at that price.

65. The Smiths – “The Headmaster Ritual” b/w “Oscillate Wildly” – Sire, 2009 – $7

Call me a sucker for limited edition wares, but when I found this Record Store Day exclusive a few weeks after the big event, I quickly snapped it up. This single sold out at the Newbury Street location I visited on Record Store Day within the first ten minutes, so I’m a bit amazed that copies were floating around. This Newbury Comics location also had a few extra copies of the Pavement live LP, so either demand wasn’t as high as anticipated, particular locations had some additional stock after the event, or the “exclusive” and “limited edition” tags were designed purely to sucker me in to buying a reissue single I don’t need. Score one up for the record industry.

Perhaps the more astonishing aspect of this single is that even at seven dollars, it’s still cheaper than the other Smiths reissue singles currently available. Those sell for a whopping $11 apiece and I don’t think they were even pressed on 100% celibate vinyl. You could buy a box set of all twelve of those singles, not including this one, for around $100 (a steal!), but for the same price you could purchase the majority of the singles/best-of compilations the Smiths issued during or after their existence (Hatful of Hollow, Louder than Bombs, The World Won’t Listen, Singles, etc.) on compact disc. Choose wisely.

66. Obits – I Blame You LP – Sub Pop, 2009 – $15

I blame The Night Marchers for the delay in my purchase of Obits’ debut full-length. The Night Marchers, helmed by Rick Froberg’s former partner in post-hardcore crime, John Reis, stumbled out of the gate with See You in Magic. Even Reis’s charisma couldn’t make up for the fact that the album has at most three memorable tracks, one of which they didn’t play at their concert last May. An auspicious beginning for his post-Hot Snakes career. Despite my relative fondness for Obits’ first single (“One Cross Apiece” b/w “Put It in Writing”), I was poised to be underwhelmed by I Blame You and the lack of Froberg’s signature throat-shredding screams.

Without the serrated edge of Drive Like Jehu or Hot Snakes, the surf-rock informed interplay between Froberg and former Edsel frontman Sohrab Habibion doesn’t pack the same immediate impact of Froberg’s past work or the coolly melodic touch of Edsel, but I Blame You proved to be a grower, especially once I put the LP on the turntable. The key track is the cover of Kokomo Arnold’s blues classic “Milk Cow Blues,” which incorporates a downright nasty rhythm guitar riff midway through the song. Once “Milk Cow Blues” sunk its claws in, the opening track, “Widow of My Dreams” and a number of other excellent album tracks clicked as well, like Sohrab Habibion’s excellent vocal contribution on “Run.” Closer “Back and Forth” starts out with a great, low-key 60s pop feel before ratcheting the energy up for the chorus, and I’d love a few more songs with that flavor.

It’s clear from my nearly non-existent concert photography feed that I’ve cut down greatly on the number of shows I see each year, but it’s hard for me to pass up seeing one of Allen Epley’s bands. Between Shiner (eleven times) and The Life and Times (eight times), I’ve seen Epley nineteen total times in eight different cities (St. Louis, Chicago, Champaign, Indianapolis, Newport, KY, Kansas City, New York, Boston). The biggest difference between this concert and their opening slot for the Hum reunion show in January was my familiarity with their new album, Tragic Boogie, and the highlights of that record sounded great. Still no “Mea Culpa” or “A Chorus of Crickets,” but they’ve got to plug the new wares, which I discuss at length below. Short take: behind Lula Divinia, The Egg, and Suburban Hymns, but still worth checking out.

I was running late the night of this concert and missed Constants, whose excellent “Passage” was leaking out onto Harvard Ave. as I entered Great Scott. Unfortunately, it was the last song of their set. I was looking forward to hearing some material from their upcoming album The Foundation, The Machine, The Ascension, but I’ll have to wait for the 3LP release on Mylene Sheath, which ships in late June. Six feet of artwork and two choices of vinyl color for pre-orders, so get in line.

I did get to hear the excellent Deleted Scenes for the first time, and damned if they didn’t put on a great show. Hard to pin them down to a single sub-genre, but the Dismemberment Plan, Talking Heads, indie pop, and even some math-rock came up during the set, never as a singular influence. Singer Dan Scheuerman has a captivating stage presence and their songs are even better live. I wouldn’t be surprised if their next record pushes them into headlining slots across the country, but I grabbed their debut full-length, Birdseed Shirt, and talked to Scheuerman after the show.

63. Deleted Scenes – Birdseed Shirt CD – What Delicate, 2009 – $8

Deleted Scenes put on such a convincing performance that I had no choice but to pick up their debut full-length, Birdseed Shirt, on the loathed compact disc format. (It does not look like an LP is in the works, but my purchase of an album on CD almost assures it an eventual vinyl pressing.) Does Birdseed Shirt measure up to their live set? No, but it’s still a compelling album. There’s a considerable amount of production depth on these songs, but I’d argue that a few of the tricks (keeping vocals on one channel, for example), detract from the power of the songwriting. I keep meaning to give this album a few front-to-back spins, but I usually get stuck on highlights like the abrasive “Mortal Sin,” the gliding, melodic “Ithaca,” and the dourly triumphant “Turn to Sand.” They’ll be at TT the Bear’s on July 3rd, and I might just have to use that concert as an excuse to leave the house. Those live YouTubes are whetting my appetite.

64. The Life and Times – Tragic Boogie LP – Hawthorne Street, 2009 – $10

My fondness for Allen Epley’s massive, math-rock-influenced rock can admittedly affect my ability to assess his groups’ albums immediately after release, so excuse this long build-up to the discussion of Tragic Boogie. I remember claiming that Shiner’s Starless (2000) was an improvement upon Lula Divinia (1997) in a Signal Drench review, an opinion motivated by the initial surge of new music from one of my favorite groups and the desire to cement Shiner as one of the groups the magazine got behind, especially in light of a vicious Pitchfork review (which is now gone from the site). In hindsight, Starless was an occasionally awkward transitional record, suffering from too much deference from Epley’s guitar and Paul Malinowski’s bass to the second guitar being added by Joel Hamilton and Josh Newton. Whereas Lula Divinia felt mammoth with just three members, Starless feels strangely thin at points with four. The album felt less challenging than Lula as well, with both Epley’s songwriting and new drummer Jason Gerkin taking a more straightforward approach. I know there was a version floating around—either demos or an early studio cut—with Tim Dow still in the group, but I’ve never come close to hearing it, so it may very well be an urban legend. I doubt a change in drummers would have made “Too Much of Not Enough” a better song, however.

Starless took a full three years after Lula to come out, in part due to label changes. The record was originally slated for the New York label Zero Hour, who’d put out Swervedriver’s 99th Dream and a few other semi-notable records, but they folded and left Shiner in the lurch. Was there major label interest in the group during this time as well? Who knows, but I suspect Epley, a music lifer, would not have minded some financial security. Starless ended up being released on Owned & Operated, run by Descendents/All drummer Bill Stevenson, but they didn’t feel a part of O&O like they did on DeSoto. It felt like a stopgap solution, much like Starless now feels like a stopgap record.

Thankfully their follow-up record, 2001’s The Egg rectified all of these concerns. Back on DeSoto Records, Shiner seemed dead set on pushing themselves to the fullest on The Egg, making a nastier (“Surgery”), more technically challenging (“The Egg”), more inspired album (“The Simple Truth”) than Starless. Jason Gerkin’s syncopated drumming on the title track seemed like a direct response to any fans who longed for Tim Dow’s deft work on “My Life as a Housewife.” I’d seen the group enough times leading up to the CD’s release to know that those songs would hold up. Eight years later, The Egg is essentially a 1B option to Lula Divinia’s 1A, since the latter feels a little more natural, less forced. The set list for their final show backs me up. Three songs from Splay, five songs for Starless, seven from The Egg (including Japanese bonus track “Dirty Jazz”), and seven from Lula Divinia (eight if you include “Sleep It Off”). Maybe the presence of original drummer Tim Dow at the show encouraged more Lula songs, but I trust Epley’s ability to assess the strength of his own material in the live setting.

Shiner’s farewell concert was a bittersweet send-off, but I never questioned why they broke up—The Egg pushed that group as far, as hard as it would go and there was no logical follow-up. Bringing in new collaborators and starting again made sense; so much sense Epley did it twice with The Life and Times. The John Meredith / Mike Myers line-up only lasted for The Flat End of the Earth EP, but the Eric Abert / Chris Metcalf line-up has now released two full-lengths and two EPs on four different labels. I discussed Suburban Hymns and The Magician when I picked them up on vinyl back in January, but it’s been three long years since the latter came out, stretched out by an extended label search. Sound like a familiar situation?

According to the painstaking liner notes, Tragic Boogie was initially conceived in April 2007 after a tour with the Appleseed Cast. That group’s Low Level Owl albums must’ve inspired the Life and Times’ home-recording impulse, since without a label footing the bill, only a home studio would allow Epley and company enough time to equal the Appleseed Cast’s experimentation-laden three weeks in the studio for that double-disc affair. After building a home studio and convening for several big sessions, they’d finished mastering the record in April of 2008. It took a year of label-searching before the record was released on the New York-based Arena Rock Recording Company. I’d like to think that two months is enough time to let Tragic Boogie sink in, so here goes.

Tragic Boogie is undoubtedly a home-recorded album, but not for the reason you might expect. No, it doesn’t sound thin in comparison to Suburban Hymns (recorded primarily at Matt Talbott’s Great Western Record Recorders by J. Robbins and Paul Malinowski) or The Magician (recorded at the Magpie Cage by J. Robbins). In fact, it sounds remarkably full, filled with bells and whistles like textural guitar overdubs, vintage keyboards, swirling background vocals. Epley states that they were aiming to make “the larger-than-life record we’d been hearing in our heads” and there’s no doubt that they succeeded in that aim. Tragic Boogie passes on the traditional rock template used for Suburban Hymns songs like “Running Red Lights,” “Coat of Arms,” and “Charlotte St” in favor of the explorative shoegaze approach of “Thrill Ride” and “My Last Hostage.” But how it comes through as a home-recorded album (much like compatriots National Skyline’s Bliss & Death) is in the dominance of this aesthetic shift over the base songwriting on a number of songs. Give a band enough time to tinker with guitar textures, drum sounds, and additional instrumentation, and there’s a definite risk that those elements will define the record. It’s far less likely that a home studio will cause a group to reevaluate their songwriting practices, Unwound’s Leaves Turn Inside You being a rare example.

The relatively positive Pitchfork review of Tragic Boogie states that the first half of the album trumps a weaker second half on the merit of this massive, shoegaze-influenced aesthetic, but I’ll argue the opposite. The stretch of “The Lucid Dream,” “Tragic Boogie,” and “The Politics of Driving” is as strong as anything The Life and Times has done, since the meta-level storytelling feeds off of those echoing layers of guitar. “The Lucid Dream” is a woozy, My Bloody Valentine-esque (I don’t use the comparison lightly; they’ve earned it here) fever dream, drifting with violence, regret, and oblique perspectives on Epley’s continuing musical pursuits. The title track pulls things back into the light, connecting images of doomed astronauts to both the suburban lifestyle and the group’s ongoing difficulties in finding a label and a larger audience (“We’re floating in space in search of a home, with no radio”). The two-chord signal, the rubbery, expressive bass line, and the forceful drum fills propel this story onward. “The Politics of Driving” is the album’s highlight, giving enough space to the blend of Epley’s delay-heavy rhythm guitar, Metcalf’s keyboards, and Abert’s baritone guitar leads before kicking into gear with an ascendant, cathartic rush. The song sheds some insight into Epley’s desire to keep going in the face of those label difficulties, those personal changes, with lines like “But victory would fade / The winners felt their days had no meaning / And so they’d kneel and pray / For something new to chase / Into the deep blue sea” and “But we love them even more when they don’t return” recognizing the uncontrollable impulse to press forward, even if it means certain doom. Epley’s never shied away from meta-level songwriting—“The Situationist” has “I loved the time when a little clumsy rhyming could put the crown on your head,” “The Egg” is clearly about nurturing Shiner and pushing it forward, even as things break down—and these songs add to that ongoing, cross-band commentary.

Perhaps it’s my preference for Epley’s meta-commentary on his bands or his dark character studies (Shiner’s “Sleep It Off,” The Life and Times’ “Muscle Cars”), but my issue with the first half of the record is that a few of the songs seem content with vague imagistic lyrics without much meat to them. The first three songs are strong enough; “Que Sera Sera” works well as an equally triumphant and foreboding lead-off track; “The Fall of Angry Clowns” hits a rewarding chorus of “Strange feeling, growing older”; “Let It Eat” charges forward with aquatic vocals, “Regretting all the lost days… in a future world,” establishing a thematic consistency. But “Old Souls” wastes a nice vocal performance of “You wait for me and I will pick you up right here” with too many vocal effects on the other lines, “Dull Knives” loves/hates love with trite lines like “Push and shove, they fuck the pain away / They kiss the hurt away,” and “Confetti” is more memorable for its (admittedly awesome) descending guitar lead and acoustic outro than any of the lyrics. Add two solid instrumentals (“The Pain Don’t Hurt” and the album-closing “Li’l 4 Notes”) and a reasonably good song dating back to 2003 (“Catching Crumbs”) and I’m left wanting more to chew on. The three bonus tracks from the Japanese release—two remixes and the instrumental “Life Is Pleasure”—aren’t any help.

I’ve listened to Tragic Boogie a number of times and I’m still hearing new sonic touches, new overdubs, new vocal harmonies, so if you’re more interested in how the record sounds, it trumps anything else The Life and Times has released. Yet only half of the record has stayed with me from a lyrical perspective. I half-expected this change in musical priorities after the aesthetic-first approach for some of The Magician, but a large part of what appeals to me about Allen Epley’s music is how Shiner’s mammoth riffs and The Life and Times’ layered compositions interact with the lyrics. Epley’s three best records—Lula Divinia, The Egg, and Suburban Hymns—rely on this combination. Tragic Boogie, however, is only 75% there. I still rank it well above Starless, but it does remind me of the eventual disappointment over that record. Maybe I’m being too hard on one of my favorite musicians, but I personally hope The Life and Times will re-enter their home studio less enamored with the tricks of the trade and more comfortable thanks to a stabilized label situation, and with the critical insight of an external producer like Robbins or Malinowki, produce another album that ranks among Epley’s finest, not slightly below them. The aesthetic blueprint drafted here is ready and waiting.

I’d looked forward to the second annual Record Store Day for months, holding off on a few purchases because of the inevitable sale on vinyl. Last year I rushed from the Harvard Square location to the Newbury Street store in the hopes of crossing as many key titles off my list, but this year I opted to bring that list to the bigger location and press my luck.

What makes Record Store Day special for me? It’s not the throngs of people in the store at opening on a Saturday. It’s not the live performances spread across the chain’s various locations. It might be the countless vinyl exclusives, but as I found out later, they’re not as exclusive as I anticipated. Here’s the biggest treat: I had to get a basket. I can think of only one other scenario, which I’ve yet to discuss in full, where I’ve had to grab a basket for record shopping. Even with my list in hand, I still went through every record, pulling out every single option and adding to the bulk of my haul. Perhaps the best part was deciding which albums to buy and which albums to pass up at the end, since yes, I did have a budget, and yes, I managed to stay within that budget (even though I also picked up used copies of The Dark Knight and Mad Men Season One on Blu-Ray). There’s something profoundly satisfying about leaving a record store with a heavy bag sagging at the handles.

While I stayed focused on the albums, Record Store Day definitely seemed like more of an event this year. I got to the store at 10:07 am and a few of the exclusives were already snapped up. The range of people at the store was refreshing—thirteen year-old kids excited about buying Iggy and the Stooges vinyl, fifty-year-old guys with their wives picking out all of those grossly overpriced audiophile reissue pressings (“Hey do you want What’s Going On?” “Yes! Pull that one for me!”), and plenty of twenty-somethings like myself. The best moment came when I was standing next to a father with a stroller who was flipping through the T section and came across a 13th Floor Elevators LP. He made an unintelligible grunt of excitement before pulling the LP out and putting it on top of the stroller. That is what I hope everyone gets out of record shopping and Record Store Day reminds people that those moments occur, all the better.

46. Obits – “I Can’t Lose” b/w “Military Madness” 7” – Sub Pop, 2009 – $5.59

I opted to buy these two exclusive songs from Obits instead of their full-length for a number of questionable reasons—the LP was more expensive, it hadn’t fully clicked with me, maybe these songs are better than the album cuts, hello, they are exclusives. Both songs sound like the 50s/60s rock of I Blame You’s “Back and Forth,” with the flip side having a very good reason for it, being a cover from Graham Nash’s 1971 solo debut. Both songs are good, but wouldn’t quite fit on the LP, and if I’m going to choose one cover to appear on that record, it’s the completely badass version of “Milk Cow Blues” that’s on it. I wouldn’t mind an EP of this style of material from Obits, however, since Rick Froberg’s voice is so eerily perfect for retro-rock.

Of course, I bought the full-length a few weeks later. I still need to track down the “One Cross Apiece” single, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a copy of it and it appears to be out of print, so I may be out of luck on that one.

47. Flight of the Conchords – “Pencils in the Wind” b/w “Albi the Racist Dragon” 7” – Sub Pop, 2009 – $5.59

After a lackluster second season, the Flight of the Conchords television series appears to be coming to a close. The biggest drop-off between seasons was the songs, since the first season benefited from their existing catalog of road-tested smirk-fests, even if the songs occasionally felt shoehorned into the plot of an episode, whereas the second season relied on freshly penned songs designed to fit into the context of the episode’s plot. Maybe they needed more time in between seasons to write songs, maybe they used up their most potent stylistic touchstones, maybe the novelty of a novelty group was wearing off, but by the end of the season I felt comfortable with a FOTC-less future, at least on HBO.

Still, I enjoy the first season’s dry humor quite a bit, enough to pick up these two leftovers from those episodes. “Pencils in the Wind” and “Albi the Racist Dragon” weren’t quite memorable enough to make the group’s self-titled Sub Pop debut, but I gladly picked up this single when I saw it by the register after initially checked out with my big Record Store Day haul. I blame the RSD exclusivity for this purchase, since I haven’t even picked up the album and that would have been a better use of my money, even though “Pencils in the Wind” is an enjoyably trite anti-racism ode.

48. Low – Songs for a Dead Pilot LP – Kranky, 1997 – $10.39

I made the mistake of trying to get into Low with their 2005 Sub Pop debut, The Great Destroyer, which starts off with a few atypically rocking songs, one of which (“Monkey”) reminds me a lot of Peter Gabriel—a reference point that works for TV on the Radio’s Young Liars, but not Low. I later checked out a few of their other releases, but the only one I actually own is a free remix single from their 2007 album Drums and Guns, which I’ve never list. My friend Scott encouraged me to give Low another shot, especially with vinyl reissues of their Kranky releases, and given his stellar track record with recommendations, I obliged. Songs for a Dead Pilot features one hell of an album cover and a song (“Landlord”) that Pinebender covered as a bonus track for the vinyl pressing of Things Are About to Get Weird, so it won out over their Kranky full-lengths. Dead Pilot is definitely closer to the standard Kranky aesthetic, taking some of Labradford’s skeletal songwriting approach and merging it with their existing slowcore style. Songs like “Landlord” and “Condescend” are commanding even with minimal arrangements. I’ll put their other Kranky releases (and their first few albums on Vernon Yard) on my want list, but those Sub Pop albums will have to wait a while.

49. Enablers – End Note LP – MidMarch, 2004 – $12.88

It’s rare that I’ll find something I wasn’t expecting to see at Newbury Comics, but this import copy of Enablers’ 2004 debut LP certainly qualifies as a surprise. I got sucked in foreboding atmosphere of their 2008 album, Tundra, after Arlie Carstens of Juno/Ghost Wars recommended it, but I haven’t seen that album anywhere, so I was thrilled to pick up End Note. There isn’t a huge stylistic difference between the records—both set intense spoken word stories to jarring June of 44-esque rock, but End Note has more raw energy and Tundra has more delicate corners. You won’t go wrong with either album.

I’d love to see the band in concert, but their summer tour schedule is all in Europe with June of 44 drummer Doug Scharin sitting in on the skins. They should also have an EP out later this year with some new material, but going with the group’s tradition, it looks like the vinyl will be import only. Just another reason for a US tour, Enablers.

50. Bill Callahan – Woke on a Whaleheart LP – Drag City, 2007 – $10

Chalk this one up to completist urges. Woke on a Whaleheart features a few of Bill Callahan’s usual highlights on his first album not utilizing some version of the Smog moniker, but as an album it’s a strange lull after its exceptional predecessor, Smog’s A River Ain’t Too Much to Love. Whereas that record left behind some of Callahan’s typical strife for a measured perspective on his life, Woke on a Whaleheart feels lighter because of Callahan’s ostensible happiness. Giving Royal Trux’s Neil Haggerty control of the arrangements results in some ’70s AM radio moments and makes Whaleheart feel less like a Smog album and more like a new chapter, but the distracting arrangements of “The Wheel,” “Footprints,” and “Diamond Dancer” make me long for a “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” ethos. It’s still strange that his first “solo” album sounds less like himself than those countless Smog releases, but the follow-up to Whaleheart thankfully corrects this concern.

51. Bill Callahan – Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle LP – Drag City, 2009 – $13.59

After the letdown of Woke on a Whaleheart’s influx of 1970s AM pop/folk, Bill Callahan returns to form with the excellent, highly personal Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle. Calling it “highly personal” puts it in a strange realm for Smog/Callahan. I remember reading an interview in which Callahan stated that he was writing new standards—songs that would survive as times and tastes changed—a task he felt his contemporaries were not pursuing. It’s easy to hear a song like “River Guard,” “Say Valley Maker,” and “I Could Drive Forever” and understand his point; his songwriting tackles universal themes from the perspective of characters who’d understand those themes best. This approach allows other singers to perform these songs (think of Cat Power covering “Bathysphere” and “Red Apples”) without having to pantomime Callahan’s personality in order to retain the songs’ power. Yet Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle has some strikingly unique moments in which Callahan’s recent break-up with harpstress Joanna Newsom shows through. It’s not a traditional break-up album by any means, but it’s hard to imagine the billowing tension of “All Thoughts Are Prey to Some Beast,” especially the refrain “Sweet desire and soft thoughts return to me,” coming from anyone else.

There are admittedly a few Smog/Callahan records that I need to spend more time with, namely Dongs of Sevotion and Wild Love, but this new LP already ranks among existing favorites Knock Knock, Red Apple Falls, and A River Ain’t Too Much to Love.

52. Tim Hecker – An Imaginary Country 2LP – Kranky, 2009 – $15.19

I don’t read nearly as many record reviews as I did a decade ago, but I’ll make an exception for Dusted Magazine. Their aggregate taste is admittedly more avant-garde than mine, but the writing is still approachable. (Unless it’s Andrew Beckerman, whose reviews too often barter with the watered-down cultural criticism Pop Matters cranks out.) So when Michael Ardaiolo damned An Imaginary Country with faint praise, calling it a solid but underwhelming record that doesn’t challenge the listener like Hecker’s previous efforts, I had to give the album another spin before picking up the vinyl. His criticism came too close to my initial positive take on An Imaginary Country.

When I first heard An Imaginary Country, I was pleasantly surprised by the absence of the abrasive noise that occasionally came up during his last full-length, 2006’s excellent Harmony in Ultraviolet. In search of another background album to join the ranks of Stars of the Lid and the Dead Texan in my reading soundtrack pile, the swirling layers of Hecker’s latest seemed perfectly suited for this task. But Ardaiolo is right: An Imaginary Country is not as challenging as its predecessors, even if it’s more inviting. Thanks to dynamic tracks like “Stags, Aircraft, Kings and Secretaries” and “Whitecaps of White Noise I,” the placid valleys of “Blood Rainbow” and “Chimeras” seem more rewarding on Harmony. In contrast, An Imaginary Country comes across as one cohesive piece, existing within a narrower landscape. Does that make it a bad album? No. I’ve already listened to it more times than Harmony in Ultraviolet (which just got repressed on vinyl), and it is an excellent addition to my reading pile. What Ardaiolo’s review did, however, is give me a renewed appreciation for Hecker’s earlier albums, especially Harmony in Ultraviolet.

53. Nas – Illmatic LP – Columbia, 1994 – $8

Illmatic was another long overdue purchase of a stone classic from a non-rock genre. I’d previously listened to it a few times on MP3 and there simply wasn’t anything that made me think “Wait, this is a classic?” There’s a stunning lack of fat: no filler skits, only one guest appearance, lean arrangements that never sound thin. How many rap albums only have ten tracks? Without any nitpicking to be found, I’m left with only agreeing with overwhelming consensus, a practice that I don’t find much fun.

I’m sure this is a major reason why it takes me so long to pick up great rap, jazz, and classical records. If I pick up the classic album from a major artist, I’m likely just to join the chorus on praising it. If I go for their lesser work, such contrarianism might spoil the artist’s greatness. If I abstain entirely, I’m missing out on a key artist. In most cases, I’ll either end up buying a cheaper copy of a lesser work used or eventually purchasing the classic after countless false starts. Maybe “New Artillery Suffers through the Classics” will be next year’s dominant meme. (Goodbye credibility, if that happens.)

So, Illmatic. It’s really good. “Represent” and “Memory Lane (Sittin' in Da Park)” are instant favorites. Yep.

54. Hüsker Dü– Flip Your Wig LP – SST, 1985 – $8

If there’s a logical way to get into Hüsker Dü’s catalog, it’s their double album Zen Arcade, which everyone and their crazy uncle heralds as one of the finest albums of the 1980s. I tried to take this route by including Zen Arcade in a round of iPod Chicanery, but the Hüskers’ mammoth beast doesn’t work when put on random with a thousand other songs. (“Oh, ‘Reoccuring Dreams.’ I wonder what this one’s like.”) In lieu of this obvious course, I’ve chosen an entirely different, largely illogical path. Having been indoctrinated to Bob Mould with Sugar and some his less dour solo material, I opted to go backwards from there and pick up Hüsker Dü’s swansong, the mixed Warehouse: Songs and Stories on a whim. Now I’ve jumped past their other Warner Brothers full-length, Candy Apple Gray, in part because of its lower critical reception, in part because their SST albums are cheaper on vinyl, and in part because Ghost Wars did an acoustic cover of “Divide and Conquer,” and moved onto Flip Your Wig. Chronological order is for suckers!

Aside from a few Grant Hart stinkers (Mark Prindle nails how awful “The Baby Song” is), Flip Your Wig is a solid album, considerably better and more consistent than Warehouse. The aforementioned “Divide and Conquer” is a clear highlight, along with “Green Eyes,” “Games,” and the closing instrumental “Don’t Know Yet.” Perhaps the biggest improvement over the earlier Hüsker Dü albums I’ve heard is in Mould’s guitar tone, no longer a trebly razor-wire shred without recognition of the mid-range knob on his amp. I’ll spend some time with this album before retrying New Day Rising or, perhaps, Zen Arcade.

56. Pavement – Live in Germany LP – Matador, 2009 – $12.79

Matador didn’t do themselves any favors by issuing this Pavement live LP with the same cover image—but in orange!—as the live LP included with preorders for the two-disc reissue of Brighten the Corners. Granted, both LPs are from their 1997 European tour, but since they’re both marketed to the limited-edition-seeking collector scum demographic, I’d expect more variety. I nearly second-guessed myself on whether I should purchase it before remembering that the other live LP had piss-takes on the band members’ names and song titles.

My other nitpick about these LPs is why they didn’t include this one with the BTC reissue, since it includes six Brighten the Corners songs and a rockin’ version of “And Then,” which popped up a few times in the bonus tracks for the reissue. (Not that I’m complaining; these rollicking, enthusiastic early takes on “The Hexx” allows me to avoid the dour version on Terror Twilight.) Still, they’re reasonably good live documents for a notoriously inconsistent live band, one I never saw, so I’m glad to own them.

57. Patton Oswalt – Feelin’ Kinda Patton LP – Stand Up, 2004 – $13.88

It’s rare that I’ll purchase a comedy DVD and rarer still that I’ll pick up a comedy album. Usually one or more of the following apply: the performance isn’t replayable; the performance discourages me from seeing the comedian live because that act will be all too familiar; the album suffers from missing visual cues; or the subject matter loses potency as it ages. Patton Oswalt’s managed to avoid most of these downfalls on Feelin’ Kinda Patton, the Patton Oswalt vs. Zach Galifianakis vs. Alcohol EP, and Werewolves and Lollipops, all of which I’ve listened to a few times, but the last caveat still applies here.

So much of the comedic fodder—whether shock, bewilderment, or ire—for the last eight years came from George W. Bush’s presidency. Oswalt may not rely on Bush for material as much as fellow alt-comic David Cross or spoken-word stand-up Henry Rollins, but the first few bits on this album still cover the absurdities of the Bush administration. Was this material hilariously cathartic during his administrations? Sure. Does it hold up? Not really. I’d rather hear about gay retards, the follies of 1980s metal videos, or Carvel cakes.

58. Swell Maps – International Rescue LP – Alive, [1999] – $11.19

I received and read Rob Jovanovic’s Perfect Sound Forever: The Story of Pavement this past Christmas. It’s a somewhat underwhelming history of Malkmus and company, floating by on too many readily available anecdotes and asking too few incisive questions into the group’s internal workings, but the zine extracts were a nice dose of nostalgia. One of the best cribbed pages was a list of Malkmus and Spiral Stairs’ favorite artists/records, most of which I’d already known about (you mean they like The Fall?), but seeing Swell Maps on that list reminded me that I still needed to give them a listen beyond the surf-rock instrumental “Loin of the Surf” from A Trip to Marinesville. I haven’t gotten that album or their other full length, Jane from Occupied Europe because those reissues are $25 apiece.

This Pitchfork review convinced me to try out International Rescue, a more recently compilation of their material that comes at half the price of their full-lengths. I’ve listened through it once and skipped around another time, but it’s hard to pull out highlights since a number of songs last little more than a minute, causing the album to blur together. (“Spitfire Parade,” “Vertical Slum”… I’m sure there are more.) Viewing Pavement as a pure conglomeration of their influences, the spontaneity of their early records is drawn from Swell Maps’ self-sabotaging approach to structure and momentum. A number of these songs sound like inspired piss-takes on punk-rock’s early days, a strange complement to Wire’s art-punk editing process. International Rescue isn’t going to supplant Pink Flag in my listening pile or encourage me to spend $50 on the reissues of their full lengths, but its slapdash approach is strangely endearing.

59. Wipers – Over the Edge LP – Jackpot, 1983 – $15.19

After picking up Youth of America on last year’s Record Store Day, I decided to grab the most recent Wipers reissue LP from Jackpot, 1983’s excellent Over the Edge for this year’s occasion. I’d been eyeing original copies on eBay for a few months, but eventually I realized that the record would earn a reissue, much like Is This Real? and Youth of America before it, and it thankfully hit stores in time for the big day. Next year I suppose I have to pick up Is This Real? to keep the tradition going, even if it doesn’t have enough post- in its punk for my liking.

It’s not difficult to separate Over the Edge from Youth of America; the songs are shorter, there’s more upfront intensity , there’s no dreamlike cloud hanging over the record, the guitar tones are more varied, and the rhythm section still takes a distant third to Sage’s guitar and emotional vocals. I still prefer Youth of America because of that dreamlike haze, but songs like the hard-charging title track, the desperate “So Young,” the downright mean “Romeo,” and the heartbreaking “No One Wants an Alien” and “The Lonely One” make a strong argument for Over the Edge. You won’t go wrong with either of them. The same can’t be said about their later records, but I’ll still pick up any LP copies I see in my travels.

60. Great Northern – “Houses” b/w “For Weeks” 7”– Eeenie Meenie, 2009 – $0

Part of the draw of Record Store Day is the free stuff, but unlike last year when I picked up a free Wye Oak/Destroyer split single, this year’s lot is slim pickings. (The Elvis Costello pint glass was a better grab than any of these free records.) I imagine the labels came to their senses and realized they could make actual money off of these vinyl exclusives. I wish this was a single from A Northern Chorus, the recently disbanded Canadian group. Sadly, Great Northern don’t barter in A Northern Chorus’s layered folk-rock, opting instead for very familiar female fronted alt-rock on the a-side “Houses,” sounding ready for a car commercial, and ghostly atmospherics on the flip, “For Weeks.” The latter is interesting enough, perhaps because it doesn’t feature the pseudo-U2 rush of “Houses,” but it didn’t increase the odds that I check out the album these songs came from, 2009’s Remind Me Where the Light Is. Their Wikipedia entry reveals that guitarist Solon Bixler has spent time in both indie poppers Earlimart and Jared Leto’s suck-rock 30 Seconds to Mars, which is a strange combination for a guy now contributing songs to the Grey’s Anatomy playlist.

61. Paper Route / Barcelona– Split Single 7” – Universal, 2009 – $0

I picked this seven-inch off the free table because I mistakenly thought Barcelona was major-label slow-core act Spain. It was free so I didn’t give it a second, fact-checking thought, so as penance I have to sit through this major label “indie” split. I’m rocking the scare quotes because both of these bands sound vaguely like recent indie rock trends, polished up for modern rock radio. Paper Route’s “Wish” (from their 2009 album Absence) starts off with some 1980s Brit-rock drums and chiming guitars, making me think I might get a New Order clone, but once the vocals kick in the “American Coldplay” comparison comes to mind. Note to self: instead of relying on the lazy journalism of calling up-and-coming bands “the American Radiohead,” flip that around and call groups things like “the English Nickelback” or “Israel’s answer to Creed.”

Flipping the single over isn’t any better. Barcelona waters down Death Cab for Cutie’s recent sound even further, thereby eliminating anything interesting from the mix. I can’t remember a damn thing about this song and it just finished playing.

62. Various Artists – Record Store Day 2009 – Sony, 2009 – $0

Last year’s Record Store Day compilation LP featured one side of modern rock and one side of (alt-) country with an embarrassing hit/miss ratio (three country songs were passable, all of the modern rock was decrepit). Letting the above seven-inches take over for the unknown modern rock market this year, this giveaway compilation features a strange array of semi-popular acts promoting their recent Sony albums with a few head-scratchers thrown in for good measure.

Side A is primarily comprised of relatively successful indie-informed rock—not just the album tracks, mind you, but extended remixes or alternate takes! Yes! My favorite! Glasvegas’s live on radio version of “Daddy’s Gone” still sounds like the Jesus and Mary Chain, snooze. Raphael Saadiq’s stylish but unaffecting modern soul is an outlier in this string of WFNX stand-bys, but “100 Yard Dash” is remixed just in case anyone questions its inclusion. Justice remixes MGMT’s “Electric Feel” but it still sounds like any other MGMT song. I haven’t heard the supposedly dance-oriented Tonight: Franz Ferdinand, but this remix of “No You Girls” is straight disco. None of these songs even remotely memorable, but I now look back at them fondly because…

…Black Kids’ “Look at Me (When I Rock Wichoo) (Kid Gloves Remix)” is the most annoying song I’ve heard in months. It makes me long for the soothing, unobtrusive sounds of Radio Disney. In comparison, Living Things’ tepid “Let It Rain” sounds downright palatable, at least until I saw that Robert Christgau compared them to Fugazi. Combine anger at George W. Bush with a little guitar feedback and the Village Voice thinks you’re Fugazi.

Side B leaves behind this slew of remixed rock. Q-Tip’s joyous rap-fusion “Even If It Is So” is pulled from his still unreleased 2001 album Kamaal the Abstract (the liner notes crediting his “Forthcoming… 2001 album” gets a painful laugh). It’s a welcome, surprising inclusion, since CD promos for the album have been floating around for years. Tiempo Libre’s Afro-Cuban Latin-jazz is an enthusiastic next track, but without the liner notes I wouldn’t have guessed “Tu Conga Bach” is from a concept record pulling melodies and harmonies from Johann Sebastian Bach called Bach in Havana. In spite of embarrassing companions like Black Kids and Glasvegas, Charles Mingus classes up the compilation with the yearning “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” from the 50th anniversary reissue of Mingus Ah Um. (I’ll stick with the old LP pressing I bought at RRRecords, thanks.) Mingus’s presence allows me to site this embarrassing line from the Pitchfork review of the album—“ I’m sure I’m not versed enough in jazz to assess what it is that makes Mingus Mingus”—which flabbergasts me on why Pitchfork and Mike Powell opted to review it in the first place. I’m embarrassed to admit things like that on this site; imagine if I had an audience!

After three different shades of jazz to start side B, what’s a more logical fourth track than… Willie Nelson? The stripped-down re-mastering job on Nelson’s “Sunday Morning Coming Down” is both endearing and a blatant cash grab, removing the layers of unnecessary production from the original version for the new Naked Willie compilation, but how it fits in with this side is beyond me. Cage the Elephant’s “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” closes the side with some wretched country-inspired rock, sounding like Kid Rock’s understudies. No thanks.

Let’s recap: one great Q-Tip song, a fine Mingus song I already own, an intriguing exercise in Latin jazz, a handful of forgettable rock remixes, a Willie Nelson song, and two profoundly awful tracks. Better than I expected!

Against the wishes of my team of advisers, I’ve decided to start a record-reviewing Twitter account. Given that this site has become ridiculously verbose—my Record Store Day post for The Haul is nearly 3000 words and I still need to finish discussing a few records before posting it—limiting myself to 140 characters (including artist name, album name, and release year) should be a nice change of pace. Its updates soon be crammed into the sidebar, but feel free to follow me and talk trash about the twenty words I use per album.

As penance for joining Twitter at this stage of its life cycle, here is the first shots from Polvo’s upcoming In Prism album, set for release in September on Merge. “Beggar’s Banquet” juxtaposes a dreamy guitar loop with some unusually upfront, fierce riffage, suggesting that Ash Bowie and Dave Brylawski have been taking the cream and the clear since 1997’s Shapes. Those riffs might be a holdover from Brylawski’s Black Taj albums, but the song’s polish is strangely unfamiliar to the creaky, mid-fi confines of Today’s Active Lifestyles. Bowie must’ve been saving up this ballsy vocal performance for years. Its ultimate build-up doesn't sound like Polvo, but I'd listen to whatever band it does sound like. (Edit: the other site switched over to "Beggar's Banquet.") The jury’s still out on this song, but I’m still looking forward reviewing In Prism on Twitter.

I hadn’t hit up this Looney Tunes location in months, in part because I’d stopped going to this area of Cambridge on a weekly basis and in part because I didn’t anticipate a sudden surge in great stock. Encountering a big “Store Closing” sign outside the store wasn’t a huge surprise or a tremendous personal disappointment, but I’m bummed whenever any independent record store closes, especially one that allows me to shoot the breeze with Mission of Burma drummer Peter Prescott. I usually found one or two things of interest in their just-in bin, like the vinyl pressing of Crappin’ You Negative by the Grifters, but the regular stock was worn out. There are too many used vinyl stores with that feeling of “Most of these LPs have been sitting here since 1989” (Record Swap in Urbana, please stand up) and it’s hard for me to justify regular trips to keep tabs on their new stock. The other Looney Tunes location in Boston by Berklee may not have a post-punk legend behind the counter (and when I talked with him, Prescott seemed excited about the end of his record-slinging days), but I usually find something good in their regular stock. Plus it has a better, bigger location. That also helps.

Everything in the store was 50% off, but even with the discount I couldn’t bring myself to purchase stragglers like David Grubbs’ The Thicket or This Mortal Coil’s Filigree and Shadow. I’ve been tempted by the latter because of the cover of Colin Newman’s “Alone,” but if I’m stocking up on early 1980s 4AD vinyl, I’d rather it be with Cocteau Twins LPs.

42. Bitch Magnet – Ben Hur LP+7” – Communion, 1990 – $5

Considering that I already own both Bitch Magnet CDs (Ben Hur and the combo disc of Umber + Star Booty) and the single for “Mesentery” and never listen to any of them, I wasn’t exactly chomping at the bit to buy a vinyl copy of Ben Hur. Judging from how long the LP sat at the back of the B bin at Looney Tunes, I’m not alone in that sentiment. I considered buying it a number of times for the bonus single, but a Misfits cover doesn’t hold a candle to 50% off.

Bitch Magnet featured a number of indie rock notables, including guitarist David Grubbs of Squirrel Bait / Bastro / Gastr Del Sol and drummer Orestes Morfin of Walt Mink, but it’s the presence of bassist/vocalist Sooyoung Park that piqued my interest. I’d already gotten into Seam by the time I’d picked up Umber + Star Booty, so maybe my perspective on the two bands is skewed, but to say that Park was more suited to Seam’s fuzzed-out indie rock with whispered vocals than the Big Black-derived aggression of Bitch Magnet is an understatement. (Choice burn from Trouser Press: “Little Black.”) Morfin is a great, powerful drummer, but Ben Hur’s songwriting wanders off course on a regular basis, just like my attention. Even after I revisited Ben Hur with renewed interest from Built on a Weak Spot giving it some glowing praise, I’d still rather listen to Big Black or Seam, not a strange conglomeration of the two.

43. Kerosene 454 – Situation at Hand – Art Monk Construction, 1995 – $4

Perhaps because they weren’t on Dischord or DeSoto, Kerosene 454 isn’t mentioned in the same breath as the top tier DC acts of the mid 1990s like Fugazi, Jawbox, and Shudder to Think, or even the next set of solid groups like Dismemberment Plan, Smart Went Crazy, The Make-Up, Bluetip, and even Lungfish. It’s a common issue for DC bands, since anything not personally vouched for by Ian MacKaye or Kim Coletta could be misconstrued as a lesser light of the scene or an outcast from the typical sound. A few groups became respected on their own accord—Trans Am’s stylized future-rock found a home on Thrill Jockey; Pitchblende got critical acclaim, if not a lasting legacy for their art-punk with releases on Cargo and Jade Tree—but there’s a definite tendency for non-Dischord/DeSoto DC groups to get lost in the shuffle, like Durian’s excellent self-released Sometimes You Scare Me and Bald Rapunzel’s Resin-released Diazepam. I don’t hold anything against MacKaye for Dischord’s stated aim to document the history of the DC scene—imagine if more cities had the benefit of a long-term enabler and historian—but it’s important to remember that there are plenty of great bands and memorable records outside of its roster.

Kerosene 454 released three full-lengths and a number of singles, but prior to grabbing Situation at Hand, I only had Two for Flinching, their debut slab of wax from 1993. In the two years leading up to Situation at Hand, drummer Darren Zentek (now throttling his kit in Channels and Report Suspicious Activity) joined up and gave the group a centerpiece performer. I might’ve listened to Two for Flinching once and filed it away in the “mediocre DC post-hardcore” pile, but with Zentek in the fold, Kerosene 454 has a focused, muscular charge, utilizing some of the brutal force typical to early 1990s Touch and Go albums. Once I hit the fake-out feedback ending halfway through opener “Greener,” I knew I’d waited too long to get into this group. The epic closer “Year in Rails” clocks in at eight and a half minutes, pushing and pulling until fracturing into knotty strings of feedback. Vocals switch between the melodic arcs of “Rideout Health” and “June” and the strained bellow of “Pointer Ridge” and “Intro,” but there aren’t a lot of hooks lingering after Situation’s over. I suspect that their final two albums, 1996’s Came by to Kill Me and 1998’s At Zero, feature more polished vocals and crisper guitar hooks, but the raw energy of Situation at Hand is no mere dry run for future success.

Situation at Hand came out on Art Monk Construction, a now defunct Pennsylvania label focusing on post-hardcore and emo records, and was later reissued with the group’s early singles as Race on Polyvinyl Records. Came by to Kill Me was a split release from Slowdime, a label eventually co-run by K454 bassist John Wall, and Dischord, but those split releases aren’t Dischord canon. (Kerosene 454 and other split-release groups aren’t listed on the label’s own roster, but you can buy their last two records through the label’s online store.) At Zero went back to Slowdime exclusively. From an outsider’s perspective, associated or distributed labels like Slowdime feel like the DC minor leagues*, and it’s a shame I waited so long to check Kerosene 454 out because of this perception.

*One final note: I don’t mean to slight Slowdime, Resin, or Durian’s Diver City, but instead I’d like to thank them for putting out records I still enjoy. Running small indie labels is a particularly thankless job, especially in monetary compensation, but virtually every one I’ve dealt with continues because of their unwavering belief in the music they’re releasing. Not having the same profile as Dischord, Matador, or Kill Rock Stars doesn’t mean that belief is unfounded.

44. Camper Van Beethoven – Telephone Free Landslide Victory – Independent Project, 1985 – $5

Camper Van Beethoven has benefitted from the “When it rains, it pours” philosophy to record shopping (cf. 1980s Wire LPs, Cocteau Twins LPs). I bought their third album, 1986’s Camper Van Beethoven, and their fourth album, 1988’s Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart, last fall, but ended up listening more to my downloaded copy of II and III on my iPod than either of those physical pressings. I’d planned on spending time with those two albums before picking up their earlier work or 1989’s Key Lime Pie, but finding their debut Telephone Free Landslide Victory and the aforementioned II and III for 50% off was too good to pass up. (Their 1987 collaboration with eccentric free jazz protest singer Eugene Chadbourne, appropriately named Camper Van Chadbourne, wasn’t tempting enough to justify a trifecta.) Getting their first four LPs for approximately $25 total is a coup, but it’s a lot of CVB to digest.

Telephone Free Landslide Victory is far more accomplished debut than I anticipated. I’d expected their early records to demonstrate a variety of influences and styles, but not the songwriting needed to merge them into a cohesive album, but that’s not the case. For every Russian folk instrumental led by Jonathan Segel’s violin or short blast of Southwestern-influenced ska, there’s a bitingly sarcastic college rocker with those (and countless other) styles bleeding in on the edges. “Take the Skinheads Bowling,” “Opie Rides Again – Club Med Sucks” (which features the brilliant chorus “Club Med sucks / Authority sucks / I hate golf / I don’t wanna play lacrosse”), and “Where the Hell Is Bill?” provide plenty of incisive laughs and the requisite melodies to keep them from being mere novelty songs. (“Take the Skinheads Bowling” would have made for a great split single with the Dead Milkmen’s “Takin’ Retards to the Zoo.”) The countrified cover of Black Flag’s “Wasted” is another piss-take on the reigning youth culture, something Black Flag did in their own songs, but not to their own songs. Telephone Free Landslide Victory strikes a great balance between humor and stylistic exploration, like a collegiate version of the Dead Milkmen’s junior high shenanigans.

45. Camper Van Beethoven – II and III – Pitch-a-tent, 1986 – $6

Camper Van Beethoven’s second album, the semi-appropriately titled II and III, takes a different approach to humor than its predecessor. Few, if any, of these songs are as openly jokey as “Take the Skinheads Bowling” or “Opie Rides Again – Club Med Sucks,” opting instead for a comparably subtler approach like naming an instrumental “ZZ Top Goes to Egypt,” reversing the vocals on “Circles,” or filling a song called “No More Bullshit” with plenty of bullshit classic rock noodling. Part of me misses the open humor (the part that listened to the Dead Milkmen obsessively in junior high), but II and III improves upon almost all other aspects of their debut. More interesting and varied instrumentals, more affecting songs (especially the plaintive country of “Sad Lovers Waltz”), and better pacing help the nineteen tracks (23 if you bought the 2004 Cooking Vinyl reissue CD) fly by. Still, nothing stood out quite as much as those two Telephone Free songs I mentioned earlier, meaning that II and III is a better album, but Telephone Free has better mix tape selections.

You may have noticed that I’ve been busy lately catching up on some months-old record shopping tales in The Haul. I’m still behind in that department, having gone to town on Record Store Day, but I’d like to map out a terrifying agenda for the next few months.

The Haul: No record shopping until I’ve caught up. (My wife rejoices.) Maybe a trip to the dollar bin if I’m going through withdrawal. This process slowed down after realizing that it’s a lot easier to write about these albums after listening to them, which, amazingly enough, takes time. Unfortunately, I realized that after missing a few big entries, meaning that I have a handful of completed posts waiting for chronological order.

Record Collection Reconciliation: I’ve selected 45 LPs and ten bonus seven-inch singles to tackle this summer. Expect new entries soon.

Compulsive List Making: I have about 30 unfinished top ten lists (J. Robbins songs, songs that sound like J Robbins songs, Rodan family tree songs, etc.) and I may very well finish a few of them.

Reading List: I’m formulating my summer reading list at the moment and hope to tackle at least ten novels this summer, several of the “it’s completely embarrassing that you’ve never read this book before” variety.

Feel free to encourage one meme over another.

I made it to the actual Jive Time Records in Fremont on Sunday, but aside from some overpriced items in the just-in section, there wasn’t much that piqued my interest. I recall a similar experience visiting this store the last time I was in Seattle; that time I went to the Sonic Boom vinyl annex down the street, this time I went across the street to the Vintage Mall with an impressive stockpile of cheaper vinyl. I probably would have picked up a few more albums (the Reach the Rock soundtrack, for one) if I wasn’t concerned about the impending problem of bringing all of my recent scores back to Boston. Definitely go to the Jive Time Annexes before the main store, especially if you’re not consumed with finding a mint copy of a given album.

41. No Knife – Fire in the City of Automatons LP – Dim Mak Japan, 1999 – $5

I first heard this album when searching for “Academy Fight Song” on SoulSeek; I downloaded a No Knife track by that name expecting a Mission of Burma cover and got a mislabeled homage (“Academy Flight Song”) from Fire in the City of Automatons. The combination of stop-start rhythms, racing guitar lines, and melodic vocals make a strong argument with me, so I grabbed the recent of the album and enjoyed it a great deal. No Knife is too smooth and too melodic to fit in with the post-hardcore crowd, but has too much depth to be written off as alternative rock, which I imagine caused some difficulties when they were trying to fit in with their native San Diego scene. I have their debut album, Drunk on the Moon, which isn’t as catchy or tight as this one, and I’ve heard their last album, 2002’s Riot for Romance!, which has some excellent moments (the title track, the lilting “Feathers and Furs”) that match anything found here, but Fire in the City of Automatons has always been my favorite of their albums, so finding the Japanese LP pressing was quite a coup. No Knife recently played their first shows since 2003 in support of Jimmy Eat World’s Clarity anniversary tour, so a new album or a longer tour may be forthcoming.

Having an iPhone with the Yelp app at my side is a huge boon to my record shopping impulses, since I can wander around a city far more effectively now. I’d searched for stores near Neumos and found a record-selling thrift store around the corner, but I never got over there. Instead I was sucked into the Jive Time Records annex in Atlas Clothing, a trove of vinyl that felt less picked over than some of the other used records stores I’d visited here. The bins of $.99 and $3.00 LPs consisted of well-worn favorites, but the regular-priced lots had some finds amid the complete discography of Steely Dan. Like any number of other record-collector oriented spots, these records had a tendency to be a touch overpriced, like the Afghan Whigs’ Turn on the Water 12” going for $15, but I was happy with the price of the two albums I picked up.

39. Steve Reich – Tehillim LP – ECM, 1982 – $8

Aside from a copy of Different Trains / Electric Counterpoint, I’ve had a hard time finding Steve Reich LPs. Record stores switch between lumping him and his peers (Glass, Riley) in with traditional classical music, putting them in a contemporary composers section, or slotting them in an experimental bin. If I manage to find that location, it’s typically comprised of Philip Glass’s Glassworks and Songs from Liquid Days (his collaboration with pop songwriters like Paul Simon, Suzanne Vega, David Byrne, and Lori Anderson), not Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians or Octet – Music for a Large Ensemble – Violin Phase. Those Glass records are the popular entry point to this style of repetitive minimalism, so it’s hardly a surprise that there are more of them floating around (and that people are more likely to get rid of them). When Jon pulled a copy of Tehillim, a 1982 composition inspired by Hebrew psalms, out of the contemporary composers section, I gladly snapped it up. Would I have been more excited with one of those aforementioned LPs? Of course, but beggars can’t be choosers.

40. Table – Table LP – Humble, 1995 – $6

Having found one of Table’s singles at Mystery Train last summer, I figured that I might finally stumble across their long out-of-print full-length album after years of searching. I just didn’t expect it to be in Seattle. There’s a certain logic in finding a Chicago math-rock LP on the other side of the country after striking out numerous times in Chicago—Chicagoans are more likely to grab it when they see it, since they know what it is, even though there are more copies floating around in that area—but my instincts are always to look for local acts like Joel R. L. Phelps or Kilmer, not Midwestern rarities. The flip side of this equation is how many Live Skull LPs I saw in all four record stores; I thought that they were relegated to the northeast.