Obligatory post about my girlfriend <3

This post is dedicated to my girlfriend, to prove that she doesn't have to be into any obscure or indie rock bands in order to get a mention here. If anything, she deserves a shout-out on this for getting me into a lot of underground hip-hop that I probably wouldn't've heard otherwise. Extra points for going with me to various shows for bands I like that she's not that into (Sonic Youth, the Melvins, Mudhoney, the Brian Jonestown Massacre are the ones that stand out) and not bitching about how she's not that into them.

If I'd known her when I was younger, I probably would've loaded her up with lots of mixtapes or burnt CDs with songs by these bands that I thought she'd like, to try to "convert" her. I've since realized that there's no good reason to do this. It's better to enjoy the music you like together, discover new stuff together, and try to be open-minded. There's a give-and-take that you learn here that is useful in other parts of the relationship, too.

Early Screamin' Popeyes!*

This was an earlier self-released cassette by the Screamin' Popeyes...

Ah, Squid!

Five songs on one side of the tape. I would have broken it up into tracks, but even in Audacity it's hard to tell just where some songs end, so rather than cut anything off, I'll leave that to your discretion.

1. Ah, Squid
2. Big Squid Boogie
3. Sweet Lucy
4. I Never Knew Your Mother
5. Undersea Overture

There were no dates anywhere on the tape or j-card. I'm estimating this as an older release since the cassette label's handwritten in blue ballpoint. I wish I knew more about this band, but all I have is the music.

If all you've heard are the tracks from Pop-Icon this may not be what you'd expect.

Not a lot of vocals, more experimental. When I first heard this I was reminded of the last few songs on the Mothers' Freak Out! since there's a lot going on at once, but it's not a mess, not bleeding together. This was recorded really well on the original tape...

If I can get a scanner to work, I'll post the j-card art sometime later.

*This post dedicated to waterface, who got a Blogger account just to tell me to do this.

Not much happens...

Tried listing some stuff on Half.com... the no-fee listings seem too good to be true, so I'll see how this goes...

So far, the main thing I've learned about eBay is that it's very nerve-racking waiting for bids as a seller. I've bought enough stuff on there that I should've realized that anyone bidding on my listings would do the same thing I do, which is to wait until as close to the end of auction as possible to start bidding.


Odd things I've noticed about the blogger.com spell-checker:

"Cd" and "CD" are correct, "cd" isn't. For some reason certain contractions keep having the red line underneath them when I type them. "Ebay" shows up wrong, which makes sense since the trademark is "eBay," but then how are you supposed to type it if it begins your sentence? "EBay?" I guess so, since there's no line under that one.

Good news for Cop Shoot Cop fans...

The Dig Dat Hole demos that were taken down from the official website years ago have resurfaced!

Also, the Kneejerk test pressing has been found and made available.

For me, this is a big deal. Cop Shoot Cop has been one of my favorite bands ever since I found a battered copy of Ask Questions Later in the "Budget" section of the local used record shop back in high school. In the years since, I managed to track down most of their other releases. While I never had a chance to see them live (and a reunion tour is out of the question) the two live discs offered here are great!

But I always wondered what they sounded like before... and since the sample tracks were taken down before I got to the site, and even the Internet Archive didn't have them, I thought I was s.o.l.

Now it can be told... Dig Dat Hole sounds pretty much like you'd expect. A noisier, less polished version of Cop Shoot Cop. I'd still like to hear some more live stuff from both bands, though.

Finally took the plunge...

...and listed some of my stuff on eBay. Nothing really rare or exciting that's worth mentioning on here... but I feel good that I was able to follow through with something, for once.

Am I likely to become one of those success stories you hear about, quit my job and do this full-time? I'm not counting on it... but anything's possible, right?

George Carlin was right...

It's all about a place for your stuff. One of the only annoying things about records (other than the inability to play them in your car) is the amount of space they take up once you have a decently sized collection. My parents were not "into music," so the only good LPs I got from them were John Williams' Star Wars soundtrack and my dad's scratched-up copy of Iron Butterfly's In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.

However, one lucky day at a local thrift store meant I got to inherit someone else's parents' record collection. (more on that when I go through them)

One thing I haven't seen yet on anyone else's music-related blog/website is a good way to store records. I've got most of them in two old wooden fruit crates. While milk crates are perfect for books, records are just a bit too tall to fit inside them unless you cut one side off. Besides, the weight of the records will eventually break the other two sides if you try to fill it up.

Battle of the formats.

The good thing about not having a (known) large audience for this is that I don't have to wrack my brain trying to come up with a creative excuse for when this gets away from me, like the past 2 months... No pressure, and I don't have to find a new way to say I've been too busy/too lazy to write on here.

I'm in the laughable position of being a music enthusiast who's hard of hearing. I really can't hear a difference between the same song on CD, record, cassette, or Mp3. I've read the arguments about the "warmer" sound of vinyl, and how compressed formats like Mp3 are supposed to be "lossy" in quality. I'm not calling bullshit on that, but I can't tell, myself.

My main reason for buying stuff on vinyl is either the price is right, or it's out of print on CD. I've got some early Foetus records that were never put out on CD... and the first thing I did after listening to them? Yeah, I ripped the individual tracks and burned 'em to CD-R. It is good to be able to see the cover art clearly, too...

I'll buy cassette tapes, too. My car's got the "premium sound system" from the mid-1990s, which was better speakers and a tape deck with auto reverse! Some of my tapes are kinda old, so I'll rip all those eventually, too.

...More later.