DBR: November Wrap Up

November was a big month for my personal record buying.  I returned to North Carolina and filled some pretty easy holes in my collection (how did I not own GI?), bought a couple long awaited want-list items (UK punk collection is reaching its limit), and New York City stores really picked up their game.  Mr. Adam Katorga bought some pretty intense records while I was cleaning up the $10 bin at wfmu, and Chris Fan Death's buying slowed down (though the Taco Leg LP he put out is pretty great).  West SS chastised me for not calling him before passing on a couple cool records as well.

Dollar Bin Rippers updates slowed down a little, but the choices are pretty sick.
Here's what we wrote about this month.
Warren Zevon - Werewolves Of London
Knaves Graves single (ATL!)
Meth Mountain - Monotony ep
Shana David's super out-there and mysterious single
Rockpile LPPPPPPP
There were a few others scattered in there, but a few of us were focused on buying too much.  Many more updates to come.

Warren Zevon – “Werewolves Of London” b/w “Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner” – Asylum Records

Warren Zevon might be my favorite rock’n’roll celebrity. Besides putting out a record on his deathbed, writing a song with Mitch Albom, releasing a greatest hits while dying that’s cover was his skull, and being the best guest on Letterman, Warren Zevon wrote the greatest dark-humor songs ever.
This single has two of best examples of Zevon’s fucked up sense of humor, both of which were featured on the 1978 album “Excitable Boy”. Every Warren Zevon single is a dollar bin ripper, but this single is THE RIPPER. “Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner” is a rock ballad the way that every brooding piano player wishes they could write. Not to be out-fucked-up by some other songwriter, Zevon co-wrote a song about a mercenary, with the help of an actual war mercenary. This song is also the last song that Warren Zevon would play before his death on Letterman.
“Werewolves of London” is a party pleasing sing-along. I have more fond memories of this song than maybe any other single. “Excitable Boy” might have been the original hit from this record, but “Werewolves” is the ripper. If I could play piano, I would exclusively play this song until I drove myself to Zevon level of insanity-genius.

I’m including a youtube link for the first on this blog because of how badass this is. Zevo’s last time on Letterman, pretty much his last live performance, and within months of dying (all of which is documented by Billy Bob Thorton of all people):

Knaves Grave – “A.A.R.P. EP” – Army Of Bad Luck

I make no apologies for my love of the musical output of the great city of Atlanta, Georgia. I hung out with a few people from Knaves Grave at a show I played in Atlanta and liked them enough to check out their single. This record is pure hooks. It sounds a little like Golden Triangle, but the guitar parts are undeniably local to Atlanta. The layers and layers of vocals and guitar emit a feeling that you’re listening to B-52’s if Ricky Wilson had been drinking Nyquil and Fred Schneider had been booted. The single, “I Don’t Wanna Be Yr A.A.R.P.” is a riff-monster. It’s impossible to listen to this song and not find yourself singing along to the chorus. The dream-like guitars mix with the crunchy bass and confuse your ears. Are you listening to happy pop music or did Jehu get a lot weirder?
“Shitty Sunrise” is not nearly as successful of a song as “A.A.R.P.” but it’s still great. I’d say that while the song isn’t as memorable as the first side, “Sunrise” sounds GREAT. There are definitely a few parallels between this record and some of the much more popular Brooklyn bands, but the fact that this existed outside of the ____ Girls bubble means that while it’s not hard to connect the dots, this record is so much more interesting than most of what that scene did in 2009. The sheer fact that this record sounds big, but doesn’t sound like it was recorded in an empty swimming pool by a drunk sailor can tell you it’s not from New York.
This record rips. I think that George from Blame Game plays or played with Knaves Grave, but I’m not sure if he’s on this record.

NUKE YORK CITY

Record collectors of the northeast:

This is a pretty gnarly couple of weeks for buying overpriced pieces of pvc discs and I feel like it deserves it's own post.

On Friday, the WFMU record fair opens.  Three days of greasy haired mouthbreathers scouring bin after bin of garbage looking for the elusive gold coins scattered in.  I'll be there Friday and probably Sunday depending on how life goes.

On Monday Rough Trade is opening their first american store, in Williamsburg (disturbingly close to where Academy just closed shop).

The new Academy location (in Greenpoint) is pretty dope, and I've picked quite a few rippers out, though only one or two will qualify for this dollar bin ripper blog.

Captured Tracks store is expensive, but I've found a few kind of awesome scores.  In the coming weeks I'll have posts up from Eddy Current Suppression Ring, GG King, and Brilliant Colors, all bought in their dollar bin.

Heaven Street might not have the most illustrious dollar bin in new york, but their new arrivals have been pretty wonderful recently.  Killing it Adam.

Beyond that, the normal black friday sales I'm sure will happen at all of the solid NYC shops (co-op 87, grouch, academy east village, etc) I'll be in the south, hopefully getting to Lunchbox Records.  If I somehow manage to make a day have more than 24 hours I'll be hauling to the other carolina city, to get to Daniel's new AMAZING LOOKING Sorry State Records store.

Meth Mountain - "Monotony" - Lunchbox/Made In Kansas

Full disclosure: I was in this band when it started, but only played on a demo tape and wasn’t a part of this record at all.
Meth Mountain was about as solid of a local band as you could ask for in a medium sized city. They played fun punk, people “went off”, and were more than good enough to play with any touring bands coming through town. There was a demo before this 7”, and there was a tape after this 7”, but this record is the only thing that exists of this band on wax. “The Regulators”, the first song on this three-song ep is very obviously playing into the well travelled, though rarely executed path of the Swedes. The Vicious and Masshysteri I’m sure were no secret to the guitar player when he was writing the (very good) riffs for both songs on the first side. The title song, “Monotony”, is much more rooted in the “My War B-Side” camp of bands that, while well executed, tend to blend together into one giant ball of Gregg Ginn masturbatory hairball. I think the song is cool, and their use of stereo guitars is pretty great (seeing it live was awesome as well), but big chunks of this long song are completely forgettable. The parts that are good on this song are GREAT. The entire middle section of the song is one of these, and I find myself listening to this side just for that bit of song. The vocals on “Monotony” are awesome, but at the end of the day, I would have much preferred a Robert Pettersson to a Rollins for this record. There are points of the songs where having an actual punk singer instead of a hardcore voice would have made it an entire different record, so maybe I’m happy that they went with Josh instead of trying to find a voice.

Meth Mountain was an awesome band, and this record is a TOTAL FUCKING DOLLAR BIN RIPPER!

Brain Handle – “Brain Handle” – No Way Records

Brain Handle put out two 7”s before this record that were both wonderful snotty hardcore punk rock, then right around the time this LP came out, Iron Lung Records released the “Smiling/Smiling Again” record that blew my mind. This band did what a lot of the fast-punk 2006 hardcore bands did, but their songs were dense and the songs felt like cohesive music instead of sounding like bursts of punk. It feels tense and rushed and a little bit chaotic but there is also a feeling that there are songs smashed under a lot of the periods of frustration.
Where Brain Handle really succeeded was when they stepped out of trying to sound like an a-typical hardcore band. When the guitars played Dick Dale licks or the bass did runs instead of pounding out a note, there was definitely a feeling that this band was different. On the other side of the coin however, is that there are songs that have so unmemorable that it actually diminishes the quality of the record. The first song on the second side is such a genre-standard that I almost feel bad for the second and third songs on that side that are total rippers.



The Brain Handle continued for a few years after this LP, and put out one more 7” that I’ve never seen nor heard, but really this LP is THE record to own. The art is damn near perfect execution of unusual punk record cover, as is the music.

Shana David - "Terminally Bourgeois" (Shrug Records)

Full disclosure: I bought this short-player on the streets of Gainesville when I was in town once. I’m not sure how or why it came to be, but I made a deal for an interesting looking record, and I stand by that decision.
The UK’s Shrug records put out Shana David’s one and only release: four short sappy indie songs consisting solely of a girl’s voice, and a crappy Radio Shack keyboard. The lyrics are corny but cute, and the keyboard sounds like garbage in exactly the right way. This is very stripped down, extremely lo-fi one-person pop in the same way that so many others have tried, but for some reason it works. I know that it’s not very complicated or impressive and there really isn’t much that isn’t dumb on this record, but something about it is awesome. It’s possible that the songs written by a middle schooler, but somehow created and articulated by an adult are really what I’m after, even if it’s not always punk. There are a few points where this record could have been demos for 60’s girl groups, had synthesizers and crappy demos been the norm.
There’s certainly a second where you feel like you’re listening to a one-person version of The Unicorns, or even demos for an unreleased Blow record, but other than that it’s just kind of out-there music for weirdos and people that can laugh at dumb jokes. The last song is a very choice cover song, and I do believe I believe this young lady when she says, “One is the loneliest number…”



Last note: This 7” is hands-down, the heaviest record I own. 90 gram 7” or something like that. Feels like a platter.

Rockpile - Seconds of Pleasure (Columbia Records, 1980)

Rockpile - Seconds of Pleasure (Columbia Records, 1980)
$CHEAP$
If self-deprecation was as sweet as Rockpile, we'd all be buried under mountains of pure pop perfection. This explains why the Astro Crag that is Seconds of Pleasure keeps weighing me down. Rockpile is a super group (not dissimilar to a supergroup in this instance), featuring Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds, both manhandling songwriting duties. "When I Write the Book" is obviously the "hit" here, but if we're being real (we're being real), EVERY GODDAMN SONG on this album is SOLID FUCKING GOLD. There are amphetamine-addled R&B stompers, gut-busting, self-loathing poppers AND a bonus single of choice Everly Brothers cuts all to be found here.

In short, head to the record store (probably any record store in America (seriously)), grab this record, pull out a five spot and wait for the clerk to put two or three one dollar bills back in your hand.
Take the record home, play the record cover-to-cover, lose your shit (mentally and gastrointernally), then send me an email thanking me for delivering the world's most simple instructions for attaining perfect, personal bliss.
You're empty now. Start again.