90's Nostalgia: UNWOUND!

Wednesday I had a great ride. No wrecks, no mechanical problems. I rode the Tass with the 2.1 Nevegal in the front. The bike carved up Cherokee park. No movement in the front. I sucked it up and re-rode the last place I crashed. I stopped, turned back and rode it again. I actually rode "stripped down", no Camelbak, no baggies. I WAS NUDE!!! I think I prefer it without all the excess weight. The bike seems to accelerate on its own power. I'd hate to get rid of it, but I think I'm going to get something with short travel in the back.

This is the one I couldn't wait to put up. Unwound (or as Jason would say, "un-wound", as in undoing a cut) is still one of my favorite bands. I never got to see them when they were around. I think they played here once at the Rocket House. This band has it all. Power, noise, and style. Check them out.

This one was from a live show in London. The song originally appears on Fake Train part of a weird medley. Here's Kantina : http://www.mediafire.com/?3akovxbqgpi

Nothing to Say: http://www.mediafire.com/?2dt2ghlymis

Go Cards!!!!

Dial-up IS Dead!!!!!!!!!

To paraphrase a Seinfeld quote, everyone around me has been lighting matches while I've been rubbing two sticks together. Today we got rid of dial-up. I may never leave my computer seat again. Saddle time in danger? No.

(BREAK OUT THE DUST PANS, NAME DROP ALERT!). My old friends Mark and Craig have an album that "drops" today. Go check it out or their web site http://www.myspace.com/vhsorbeta . Bring on the Comets is the name of the album.

Years ago I was in band with them called, the Foriegn Film Stars. We were drunk on sonic noise at the time. We were a mix of Dinosaur Jr, Sonic Youth, Blonde Redhead, Unwound, etc.....

In honor of the release, here are some songs we recorded on a 4-Track with no vocals. We recorded them in an old grocery store on College Street. It was a large open space that gave a distinctive sound. There was another band called The Loved that shared the space at the time. Their EP on Temporary Residence (http://www.temporaryresidence.com/ ) was recorded at the same space and has the same sound. Only a few of the songs had names and the others I just named after things we joked about at the time. Here's just a taste of what we were up to at the time. (BTW Jason A. played drums on the recording )

Making Faces: http://www.mediafire.com/?czbnyxb5z5w

I Love Sports : http://www.mediafire.com/?dtjbmxbgbuk

The Monkey House : http://www.mediafire.com/?6unj3j02luh

Long Weekend

Saturday night I was at the Paurhous to see Vrktm. The other bands were The Final Run Ins, Boxmaker, and Rude Weirdo. I didn't know who was who besides Vrktm. It was old-school night evidently. There were lots of people I hadn't seen together in 15 years. My brothers old friend John, affectionately nicknamed "Atskoo" was playing drums in the first band that I saw. They played some old school punk, heavy on the thumpty-thump w/ chanting. I liked their energy. I knew the guys second band, Ben and Matt. They tried to do some driving speed-punk. 12 years ago those guys were "too cool" for the punk they embracing now. I like Ben, but those guys always struck me as which-way-is-the-wind-blowing-? type of guys. Lets just leave it at that. Vrktm was great as usual. Their new stuff is really tight. They have yet another guy in the band.................

I had a good ride on Sunday at Otter. I met up with Scopes Monkey, Randy, Yellow Y (framed bike) and Brian T. Brian and YY had bike problems off the bat. YY had a rear triangle crack and Brian had shifting problems. Brian bailed out first when we couldn't fix it the shifting problems. Yellow Y's crack (on the bike) a gotten larger during the coarse of the top loop so he bailed as well. During our run to the creek I got a flat. We had a hard time getting the tire off the rim. After it was on, the tube wouldn't inflate because we punctured the new as well. My ride was over and walked the bike back to my car. A guy passed me in his car (carrying a MTB). I was a bit pissed because he didn't stop to see if I needed help. I know people have the right to not help but COME ON, common courtesy!?! He came up to me later and tried to apologize for not picking me up because his car was full. I told him that he could have at least let me borrow his pump. He walked by as if he didn't even hear me! I don't know, I don't think I was wrong. But it really pissed me off.

I had been a bit burned out about riding lately. Maybe because I had been having bad luck on each ride lately. I was having a good ride until the flat really bummed me out. Here's to turning this around:

Queen: Bicycle Race
http://www.mediafire.com/?fxmdcwnoy0u

Pink Floyd: Bike
http://www.mediafire.com/?1bosykn3nxo

90's Single Nostalgia

The car is back. But something else is wrong with it. I don't want to get into it.

I realized that most of this stuff I post on here you could get yourself. iTunes probably has most of this stuff on there. Why come on here then? So from now on, I'll try to put non-iTunes stuff on here for Nostalgia Day. I forgot that I have a pretty good 7-inch collection, bootlegs, and practice tapes that should last me for a while. Here's Nothing Special by Louisville's own Bastro. It was on a split with My Dad is Dead. Each covered the other's song. (Try to find this one on the web!)

http://www.mediafire.com/?bgt0qzmn5pz

The next is a 45 by the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Train#3 was on a 45 series and this track was the best one. I think this is their best song and really documents their transition form the Pussy Galore days.....

http://www.mediafire.com/?4krvutkj8qd

Cars Suck

Here's a quick hit. Wasn't able to attend the kymba ride today due to car trouble. Almost made it but my car may be dead. I had to get my car towed to the shop, but I had my bike with me. I was getting ready to shove off when I noticed the end of my quick release skewer was off the front tire. What else could go wrong? Looks like i'll be a cyclist for a couple a days. Here's to misery of car trouble (no time for Adam and the Ants)!
In the end of the 90s Blonde Redhead was one of my favorite bands. I even went to see them open up for the Foo Fighters and the Red hHot Chili Peppers at Freedom Hall. I went to the bathroom after their set and the rednecks were talking about how they were the worst band they have ever seen. Funny....


Bipolar : http://www.mediafire.com/?efyd20nroje
Distilled: http://www.mediafire.com/?02l0yf24nnz

WERE BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry about the abscence folks. Last week I had lost high-speed access so I was unable to load songs. I figured out the problem and we're back.......And I was a bit lazy last week.

Last Wednesday's Kymba ride was a better experience. I think the racers thought we were too slow and the newbies thought we were too fast. So this week was a new group, apart from myself and Dulin. I got there early and hooked up with Rico and Marv. Marv ducked out and Rico and I did the golf coarse loop. At the bottom of the loop I endoed. It was super slow-mo. I'm lucky that I wasn't knocked out. Then on the way back, a crackarm came off the bike, still attached to my foot. Rico jokingly thought that I should have called it a day after that. I decided to press on. Even with the heat, I still had fun. I think that I need to to a road ride next...for the hell of it.

Friday night I played a song with Sarden Wells, a band featuring Drew Sellars. Drew weaved many musicians in and out, me playing on Fugazi's Repeater. The set featured Neil Young's Cortez the Killer to the closer: Oh La La by the Faces. Drew's style seems still in development. His originals went from country to Flaming Lips to Nick Drake. Not bad styles at all. I have always said that every artist needs two albums-worth of material till they start finding their own voice. (BTW, that's us in the pic if you didn't already guess)

Heres some hip-hop to get the gears turnin!:

Eric B and Rakim, Microphone Fiend :

http://www.mediafire.com/?7lz9zfpht2x

Divine Styler, Before Mecca :

http://www.mediafire.com/?330y2vzhcwp

90's Nostalgia Friday

Time for your next installment of 90s nostalgia. If you have request please add to the comments. Today we have a mix of east coast, west coast and the local in-between. First up is a ball cracking lead off by the indie legends Drive Like Jehu. How many bands put DLJ as an influence? I know that we tried to do the fucked-up-changes-from-nowhere in some of our tunes. Drive Like Jehu were the San Diego sound. I never got to see them because they never toured in our area. Matt said that this song , Caress, (http://www.mediafire.com/?5eimmemwv4h ) makes him want to run through a wall.
Moving west I'm giving you Liquid (Live) ( http://www.mediafire.com/?1ardyzq3max) by the original lineup of Evergreen. Here in Louisville, when this band played, it was an event. I remember that they once had a pimp contest at the Machine. This is from the tape-only release Go Cart Ride. This incarnation was more Minutemen/reggae/funk influence. Listen for the rubber band bass!
Lastly we have my favorite song off of one of my favorite albums: The Breeders' Pod . The album sucks you in with the Albini production. The guitars, drums, and vocals are prefectly engineered. I like the buildup of Iris ( http://www.mediafire.com/?b3nxz1uxbmd ) . I starts out like a bad hangover. Then it explodes with drum thunder. I love it.

CAN!!!

Yesterday was the first Kymba Wednsday group ride in a long time. I hadn't ridden in a week and I was dreading the heat once again. We met at the Seneca tennis courts and realized the ride organizer was MIA. A guy showed up without his helmet. Luckily I have three in the car. I thought I was hydrated and warmed up, but ten minutes into the ride I was dying. I just can't ride in the 90 degree heat. I don't think I will race this Saturday in this heat. It's just not fun in this heat. None at all. I think that I had too much weight and a heavy bike to boot. (Excuses Excuses)

I hope that this isn't your introduction to Can. But if it is, it will be a wonderful suprise. This band is the shit. If you are looking for a pop band with 4 minute songs then this is not your band. Supposedly most of the recordings are jams that when the tape happened to be running.
These are short tastes for what this band is about. I encourage everyone to at least buy one of the first 5 albums and take a listen. Ege Bamyasi is the one that everyone has on their must list. I'm partial to Future days. Enjoy!

Turtles Have Short Legs

http://www.mediafire.com/?9gkdqieulvr

Connection

http://www.mediafire.com/?brd1kuzo4jm

Moonshake

http://www.mediafire.com/?7xbkodim2vy

I'm Just Eatin Some Rocks and Listnin to Some Jazz

Jazz? On the trail? I'm sure you have Chuck Mangione and the melody of Feels So Good in your head. Listen, I'm not the biggest fan of standard jazz unless you are one of the greats. I guess my problem is that I love drums. Elvin Jones has got to be playing if it's one of the standards.
I encountered a jazz teacher from either UL or Bellarmine once at a party. I remarked to him that I liked the jazz-funk fusion type of stuff. You'd think that I pissed on John Lennon's grave with the look he gave me. I wanted to shove an alto-sax up his pretentious ass. What a dick.
My friend Ben and I were in a band together. (SARCASM ALERT) We thought that you always let the interviewer or the audience know that you've been listening to jazz to get your indie merit badges (SARCASM OVER).
So back to the jazz that I do like. I like the crooner stuff like Chet Baker. As stated earlier I like the early jazz-funk fusion, latin/bossanova-jazz fusion (Getz), and rhythmic jazz. The following song is what really got me on a jazz tear. It is Let The Music Take Your Mind by Grant Green on Alive!.

http://www.mediafire.com/?0yic2udyhgk


The other song offering is Orientation by the Don Ellis Orchestra. I don't know much about the group at all. I heard this on NPR one night and sat in the car until is was over. I just had to hear the title and the artist. This song moves with a great groove until it gets to the 9:27 mark with the big pay off. The whole group coaleses into a heathing mass of rhythms and horn shrieks. Unbelieveable!

http://www.mediafire.com/?ajmffwm9eli

Track 1 Rockers

It's all about the first track. The first song on a great album sucks you in on the opening bar. The song will never get old for you even though you hear it the most. If you can't open an album well, than why am I listening? Here are two great openers from two great albums.
Most people know Genesis as the band that brought you I Can't Dance and Land of Confusion. Few know that they were an avant garde prog rock band in their inseption. Who knew that years later we'd be punished in the 80's by Rutherford's In the Living Years ? Even fewer people know that Peter Gabriel was their singer at the time. Gabriel made a name for himself on MTV and songs in movies (Project X and Say Anything).

This highpoint of this line-up was the album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. The title track kicks you in the arse right away and pulls you in. The themes and melodies in this track are revisted again and again throughout the album. Track 1 (The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway):

http://www.mediafire.com/?dfuz32jgvmm

And if you haven't already heard this one, you haven't lived. (Iggy and) The Stooges album Funhouse eventually made its way to the CD player at every party I went to from '95-*97. For some reason the next album, Raw Power got more press. For the money the production on this album is on my top 10.

The album starts out with Down On the Street. The song isn't particularly hard or fast. It carves out a groove that lets you know right away that these guys are badasses.

http://www.mediafire.com/?2tmmxdmyncm

All Is Right With The World

Dinosaur Jr. reunited a year ago and recorded a new album Beyond. The
album shows that those guys could come back t form right away, picking up
where they left off. If these guys reunite, anything is possible. Mid-east
peace perhaps? Just goes to show that band chemistry may be more important
than the talent of each musician. In the book This Band Could Be Your Life,
Barlow describes the incident when band tensions came to a had. Barlow was
sitting on the stage making noise on his bass rather than following everyone
else playing a song. Mascis, frustrated went over and punched him. A clip of '
can been seen in the Sonic Youth video, Teenage Riot (at the 2:37 mark,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rgBPMMJtIg )

Here is DSJ in live in Boston performing the hit, Feel the Pain:

http://www.mediafire.com/?4yja2hqerx9

90's Nostalgia Friday

I'm going to make this a Friday thing. "Nostalgia" doesn't really rhyme with the other days of the week. My formitive musical years were 91-99, when I think most of the great music was created ( in my lifetime). I think that a third of my music collection came from this period.

The Archers of Loaf came to my attention after my brother went to the Working Holiday festival in '92 (?). To me they have that anthem rock vibe mixed up with a Polvoish-Sonic Youth dissonance.Vs. The Greatest Hits of All Time burned up my Sony CD player. Audiowhore basically describes my friends at the time. We were name-dropping, indie rock, art-f*g, music-snob, a-holes.

http://www.mediafire.com/?65rsdvnmwoe

Songs For the Trail

To an old school punk rocker, listening to the Bad Brains is like standing on hallowed ground for a soldier. This band was the pinnacle of hardcore and they injected groove into a speed driven sound. H.R., Daryl Jennifer, Earl Hudson, and Dr. Know comprised the legendary D.C. band. If Pay to Cum doesn't get your juices flowing you might have to start doubting you own existance. This song will get you to spin a cadence not thought possible.

http://www.mediafire.com/?b7yzb2vnv2y

This a cool song by the Jellydots called Bicycle. Nice little indie tune to rock you through the trees. It probably would have made me feel better yesterday at Youngers.

http://www.mediafire.com/?5z2ma2nytxz

IT"S FRIGGIN HOT AT YOUNGERS!!!!!

Went out to Younger's Creek today at 5PM. I figured it would be empty because everyone was training for Waverly. I did not make it up any of the switchbacks. I maybe tried one. I couldn't even give it the old college try. It was just too hot and it just drains me. I had some ice cold water in the pack but I tried to conserve it for the long ride.
The terrain at Youngers was a bit more gravelly then I remember (is that a word?). I had a hard time pushing my speed (and confidence) on the turns. I tried to enjoy myself but I kept imaging my girlfriend and a search party finding my dried up corpse after a few days. Around the creek crossing the sensor of my computer snapped off and I have no clue where it went. Anyway, I rode all the trails and went back out the front. All and all I had fun, it was just I had to leave by 6:45 to make a dinner date in Louisville.


The political season is well underway and it's time to read the news, listen to the debates, and read the political blogs. I was thinking about if the country is more political or I do I just notice it more? I think I have narrowed my choice to two candidates. Now if they don't do or say anything stupid for a year, they may have my vote. So maybe I'll reveal my choices at a later time. Who knows?

There has been a big change that happened to kymba maybe almost a year ago. Call me naive but I think it was for the best. Locally we have reopened Cherokee and added more trail to Waverly. I think all that has happened just a few months is remarkable.


All that said, Melissa and I were in the car and the James Brown song, Get Up, Get Into It, Get Involved came on the ipod. After a few minutes we both remarked how "on another level" that tune is to everything else. There were some serious musicians in that group that knew how to groove. The song musically to me is a cross between James Brown's Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine, Pt. 1 and The Grunt pt 1, by the JBs. MAN CAN THOSE GUYS JAM!!!!!

http://www.mediafire.com/?d2n0nhj2vqh