Friday afternoon music

[Crash]

Analog, baby!

 

[Crash]

I remember the Sears Roebuck catalogs as big as a New York City phone book that sold everything from skis, water and snow, golf clubs, lawn mowers to guitars and amps. Everything was categorized as Good, Better or Best. A teenagers dream book long before the internet. Sears Silvertone band instruments were good stuff back then. What was the Montgomery Wards equivalent? Airline?

 

[Cruisertrash]

I remember the Sear Roebuck catalogs as big as a New York City phone book that sold everything from skis, water and snow, golf clubs, lawn mowers to guitars and amps. Everything was categorized as Good, Better or Best. A teenagers dream book long before the internet. Sears Silvertone band instruments were good stuff back then. What was the Montgomery Wards equivalent? Airline?

Yep, Montgomery Wards and various places had the Valco stuff. Valco was the manufacturer and they made guitars and amps that were branded as: Supro, Airline (sold at Wards), Oahu, National, some limited Danelectro & Gretsch stuff, and various other brands. I LOVE the old cheap stuff, nothing sounds like it. Some people call it crappy, but I call it unique. I’ve owned a number of Valco & Silvertone pieces over the years, but only have a few right now.

Here’s a circa 1949 Airline PA amplifier I have that needs a new output transformer. It still has the original tubes! This will be converted to a tiny guitar amp one day.

 

[Crash]

Yep, Montgomery Wards and various places had the Valco stuff. Valco was the manufacturer and they made guitars and amps that were branded as: Supro, Airline (sold at Wards), Oahu, National, some limited Danelectro & Gretsch stuff, and various other brands. I LOVE the old cheap stuff, nothing sounds like it. Some people call it crappy, but I call it unique. I’ve owned a number of Valco & Silvertone pieces over the years, but only have a few right now.

Here’s a circa 1949 Airline PA amplifier I have that needs a new output transformer. It still has the original tubes! This will be converted to a tiny guitar amp one day.

View attachment 111842

Very nice! Now I know we need to go to the Vintage Voltage Expo coming up soon.

 

[DaveInDenver]

For fans of dirtbag garage trash and or punk.

If you’re looking for pristine fidelity, it’s not there. If “garage rock” as a genre is something you like, you’ll understand.

Hell yeah, bring forth the rock. Give me a shit recording of a band who's got something to say over pristine audio of vapidity every day of the week.

 

[mcgaskins]

We saw The National last year put on an incredible show in Dillon. One of my favs:


View: https://youtu.be/5FQtSn_vak0

 

[DaveInDenver]

Thank you @Cruisertrash for introducing your band!

You mention Dead Moon as an influence (RIP Fred Cole). I can't say I'm super familiar but I do know of them for a couple of reasons. One is that I got a Gits bootleg (Seattle show in 1993 about a month before Mia was murdered, the tape of which goo'd up when I tried to digitize it. Sadness) many years ago and it happened to be a show they opened for Dead Moon, so I got a bonus.

Plus @Hulk's favorite-est band of all Pearl Jam covers a Dead Moon often.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoBSXYpqeMg


In any case, Jim often talks about garage rock, punk, whatever. So I was thinking we have a lot of diverse tastes and many supremely knowledgeable musical peeps. How about a sub-topic? Post a song that you'd say is an absolute example of its time and place. Perhaps it could only exist there and while good can't really breath outside it's moment or maybe it's stood the test of time but yet truly exemplifies its era.

One I was thinking of one, a 90s song, that I think probably could only really exist in a Friends sort of reality. RIP Jim Ellison (their lead singer/guitarist died by suicide in 1996).


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS5oa5IPSX0


Man, what a depressing post now that I think about it. But, man seriously, on the flip side the club scene is going to be hella good.

 

[Yota_addict]

@Cruisertrash that album artwork and the garage style of music reminds me of some guys I grew up with in Albuquerque


View: https://youtu.be/fSg5REcuU-c

 

[Cruisertrash]

@Cruisertrash that album artwork and the garage style of music reminds me of some guys I grew up with in Albuquerque


View: https://youtu.be/fSg5REcuU-c

Holy shit. Our artwork is … exactly the same. That’s no good. The bass player’s twin brother is a graphic designer and he did the cover art mock up. He’s obsessed with all things campy, exploitation films, 50s C-grade monster films, etc. A lot of his work is highly referential to that visual vocabulary but this … this is a straight copy. It makes me wonder if the Drags took that from elsewhere too though. I sent some texts to the band and to the designer this morning to dig in a little more.

That album is great though. Definitely saving that one.

@DaveInDenver Bummer about that Gits tape. I had a similar one - not live, but a mix somebody made for me around 2004. One side was part of a June of 44 record and part of a Codeine record, the other side I think was Charles Bronson (the hardcore band) with maybe a bit of The Rachels. It was my intro to ALL of that and held a special place in my heart. I wore it out and it finally snapped. Fixed it and it snapped again. It was done.

Also - great thread idea.I’ll have to think about what songs I can come up with for that “time & place” idea.

Speaking of band members that have passed away, I often wonder what Toody Cole and Poison Ivy are up to. Both played in bands with their husbands, and both Fred Cole & Lux Interior passed on. Are they just done with music?

 

[Cruisertrash]

@Crash I’m surprised you haven’t said anything about my monitors set up on milk crates for recording haha. Less than ideal set up, but hey, it’s only rock n roll. FYI those are electronically phase-aligned and concentric drivers. Best monitors out there for under $500/pair, which fits my budget. Very little phase smear unless I push my console EQs too far … but that’s not the fault of the monitors.

 

[Crash]

Milk crates are perfect for the job in your setting, Jim. If you were going for Steely Dan (vapid enough for you @DiD?) high fidelity then I might have said something but you have things in balance: guitars, amps, cassette etc. As for the cover art imitation is the highest form of flattery.
Oh yeah, for the record ha I love The Dan!

 

[Cruisertrash]

@Crash Don’t forget Steely Dan was my first concert - my parents took me when I was 8 years old. As much as I love trashy rock n roll, I will forever love The Dan.

 

[DaveInDenver]

I don't understand Steely Dan, just doesn't pull me in. That only means I'm outta step with a lot of people.

As Steve knows I am definitely not a high functioning audiophile. I mean, geez, I buy 16-bit encoded music intentionally when in my assessment the information contained upon is worth it and it's played through a CS4398 DAC with a very plain JAN5670 gain stage using a tube pulled from an AN/URR-35. Matched? Ha, I just yanked the 5670s and 5654s that weren't broken before tossing the chassis. Most of the tubes are gone via eBay years ago now. Seems people loved them for headphone amps. And the phono amp...all solid state (2xOPA2132 stages, OPA826 final). Yikes!

 

[DaveInDenver]

@Cruisertrash

Thought of another song that would be perfect for a This Is The 90s! Time-Life CD boxed set. I think it probably was actually in a Friends episode. Could it be any more derivative? And just to be clear I do like the Lemonheads and Material Issue and a lot of alt.pop.whatever but I also acknowledge that it's totally appropriate for GenX oldies radio.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWQfLmhrEYg

 

[Cruisertrash]

@DaveInDenver Love everything on It’s a Shame About Ray. This song though … not my favorite. Definitely a period piece at this point.

 

[DaveInDenver]

@DaveInDenver Love everything on It’s a Shame About Ray. This song though … not my favorite. Definitely a period piece at this point.

You may not know, it's not their original. It was written by Robyn St. Clare of an Australian group called Love Positions in 1990, three years before the Lemonheads covered it. It showed up on the album after It's a Shame About Ray called Come On Feel The Lemonheads.


View: https://youtu.be/9D7wXD1XeQs

 

[Hulk]

You may not know, it's not their original. It was written by Robyn St. Clare of an Australian group called Love Positions in 1990, three years before the Lemonheads covered it.[/I]

I hope Robyn St. Clare made bank when Dando covered it. He made it into a hit.

In May 2019, I finally saw The Lemonheads. They were playing the Bluebird. It was the same night that Garbage was playing the Summit on Black Street and I already had tickets, but I always wanted to see The Lemonheads. I sold my Garbage tickets on the street and bought tickets at the front door to the non-sold-out Lemonheads show. I'd heard for years that their shows were widely variable based on the drug/booze intake of Evan Dando, but he must have cleaned up a bit because they were great that night.

Here's Evan Dando at his best:

 

[DaveInDenver]

@DaveInDenver Bummer about that Gits tape. I had a similar one - not live, but a mix somebody made for me around 2004. One side was part of a June of 44 record and part of a Codeine record, the other side I think was Charles Bronson (the hardcore band) with maybe a bit of The Rachels. It was my intro to ALL of that and held a special place in my heart. I wore it out and it finally snapped. Fixed it and it snapped again. It was done.

I wasn't too broken up over the tape since a show on this tour was recorded professionally and pressed by a label called Punk Floyd (no relation that I can tell to Dirk McQuickly) in Spain. Sounds better than my crowd recorded bootleg did anyway. This was recorded just a couple of weeks before she died. :-(

 

[DaveInDenver]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT1gVFP7Srk


Rita d'Albert-era Pandoras. Rita would go on to Human Drama within a year of this record and then Lucha VaVoom, a Mexican wrestling extravaganza! The band was started by Paula Pierce and Kim Shattuck. Paula died in 1991 of a brain aneurysm and Kim then went on to perhaps more fame with The Muffs and a short stint in the Pixies. The Pandoras had a chaotic existence, ending with that eventual tragedy but were influential being at the pointy end of the Grrrl Riot movement.

 

[Cruisertrash]

Always loved this tune. Admittedly I don’t know much about the Pandoras other than Kim Shattuck was in the band. This is a rippin two and a half minutes.