Scarred But Smarter

2.24.81

Another birthday is upon me. In the middle ages, firmly, and these individual years ticking by mark nothing. Just meaningless mile markers on the longest stretch of highway. Of course if I learn that I’m dying or something I’ll likely change my tune. For now, who care? Well, I do, a tiny bit. I’m not celebratory by nature. I’m usually more of a worrier, a fretter. At the moment, life’s in upheaval. Everything’s lying in front of me, waiting to be sorted. And even with all the uncertainty staring me down, I’m extremely hopeful. There’s this whole piece of my personality that’s been locked in the basement and forgotten, that’s free to bathe in the sunlight again. I’m soon to return to my old neighborhood. I never wanted to move back there, but now that it’s a reality, it’s a sort of homecoming. A source of comfort. So here I am, learning to embrace myself in ways that I never have before. Trying to crack the code on accepting happiness.

There’ll be change coming to this Substack as well. In the near future I’ll be adding a paid option. The final details are almost sorted but not ready for print. I know it’ll include a weekly playlist. So think of this as a taste test of things to come, free for now. I’ll never go majority paid posts, though. I’d much rather give it all away than try to milk pennies out of my audience. Let’s get into this birthday playlist that very few are likely to hear on my actual birthday.

---

Fastbacks - It’s Your Birthday, my new Birthday standard song. A teen Duff on drums. Way cooler than Happy Birthday.

The Magnolias - When I’m Not, I remember turning up a copy of their first LP at Flipville for a few measle-y bucks. Great score cuz it’s a great record top to bottom. Kinda like The Replacements if they leaned heavily into 60’s garage. Eventually, digging further down the Magnolias road, there’s a real consistency in ‘em. Not sure why, but this song’s on multiple albums. This is a later version, and while these scenarios tend to siphon the guts out of re-recorded tunes, it’s the vastly superior take. The lines about dropping plans always struck me as being really plainly clever. A nice mid-tempo jangler.

Moving Targets - Separate Hearts, way underrated band. Most certainly not a hardcore band, but there’s this underlying toughness in their music that gives it an edge over other melodic punk bands. The bass intro makes you think you may be wading into post punk territory, very Peter Hook. But it settles nicely into a driving punk vibe. Sad lyrics. A real sigh and cry. Start with the first two LP’s. If those grab ya, go wild! Even the post reunion albums have been highly listenable.

Jones Very - Ideas New Tomorrow, as much as I’m annoyed by Vic Bondi’s dismissal of hardcore’s continuance in the Chicago Punk doc (yes decades later I hold that grudge), I can’t discount his musical offerings. AOF get the accolades, but man, this Jones Very EP is a stunning display. Kinda post punk-y and dissonant, but with a solid gut punch. This one’s up there with anything Bondi has done.

American Music Club - The Dead Part of You, this one’s about AIDS, right? I read that somewhere, I swear I’m not being crass. Or was that “Sick Of Food?” Back to back killers on the Everclear album. American Music Club is quite the spectacle in how they can write some truly spectacular songs and then turn around and come up with something stupendously boring, sometimes within the same side of a record. But when they hit, it’s some of the best shit ever.

Die Kreuzen - Slow, go buy the Die Kreuzen book already! Sahan’s one of my favorite people and he really did the band justice with his work. Here’s an under the radar favorite offa my least favorite of their albums, Century Days.

Neon Hearts - Get So Many Pains, a bit of a jarring vibe change with this one. One of the truly solid early-ish Brit Punk bands. No one talks about ‘em and I suppose that’s fine. Makes me look like an obscurist know-it-all, which I’m all about leaning into.

Wire - Love Ain’t Polite, from that somewhat recent Wire demos and rarities comp that I don’t own because it’s always prohibitively expensive. The punker side of one of the more innovative punk associated bands. Do I really need to talk about Wire? Probably not.

Phantom Tollbooth - Jack of All Phobias, looking through the Homestead Records discography, Phantom Tollbooth stood out as a blind spot. So I threw the first EP on and holy shit. I was expecting vaguely punk college rock and this song jumps out of the speakers in an almost proto-Screamo ramshackle. The whole EP is great, but this is other worldly! And it’s still get-able for cheap.

Swell Maps - Loin of the Surf, I heard this as a CD bonus track on A Trip To Marineville. Liked it so much I named my old blog after it. No need to worry, all those posts are tacked onto the front end of this here Substack, so you can enjoy my hopeless/hapless 20’s without spending time inside my head. Has a proto-Sun City Girls vibe that I never noticed before.

The Mice - Rescue You Too, nice to see that Scat’s done a reissue of some Mice vinyl. Whether it’s power poppy rockers or acoustic folkers, Bill Fox is the master.

Come On - Disneyland, I know nothing. I stumbled onto this one recently and was moderately amused and it’s got enough Talking Heads vs No Wave power struggle that I’m intrigued.

The Embarrassment - Two-Week Vacation, knew “Sex Drive” from the Bloodstains Across The Midwest comp, but it’s not on the same vibe as this one. First heard it buried on Homestead’s Human Music 2xLP comp (that I regret selling). Off kilter art jangle.

Empire - New Emotion, let’s pat my back and talk about how in the early 2000’s there was almost no internet presence for Empire, so I took it upon myself to whip up a MySpace page. Eventually Derwood got into the fold and it could have been considered their official web presence. He gave me an updated version of “Hot Seat” to post. The fact that I was writing regularly with the guy who wrote “Dancing With Myself” is still significant. That song hit hard in my early years glued to MTV.

The Fall-Outs - Bring It On Home, as a teen I grabbed the self titled Fall-Outs album based on the fact that Steve Turner from Mudhoney was in the ranks. As the years passed I slowly amassed all the Fall-Outs material except the demo tape, but Hex Enduction Records went ahead and pressed it onto vinyl to put my mind at ease.

The Savages - The World Ain’t Round It’s Square, first heard on the Crypt Records comp of the same name. Possibly my favorite 60’s garage tune. That whole Teenage Shutdown series is top notch, maybe even scaling to higher heights than the Back From The Grave series. Can’t go wrong with either, though.