Swinging Singles Club MN

  So we're gonna have to move in a couple months.  It's kind of long overdue, but we've been here like 17 years or something and there's a lot more shit in this place than there was or needs to be. So tonight I started going through the dustier parts of my office record room. I need a second shower, but I found a bunch of shit I forgot I had. In the end I made a small pile of shirts I haven't worn in years and don't think I'll have much cause to in the future as well as cleared out some shelf space and started a heavy trash bag of junk which is only going to get worse once I hit the desk drawers. I'm hoping that if I devote a couple hours a few days a week I can cut the clutter down before the boxing and have the process well in hand by moving day. I'm an optimist. This is of course has nothing to do with the title of today's post. Today I had intended to talk about the problem I have with not having complete discographies for some of the local c

   I kind of don't know what to do with myself. Maybe I should  have some whiskey. That's doing something That's drinking whiskey. 1996 - Couch Potato Ok. I have some whiskey. I'm gonna level with you. This disc is really terrible.  But, hold on. Hold on. Hear me out. It's bad in a really good kind of way, sort of. If you think back to all of those great 60s garage band compilations the hits are always the rawest, most amateurish songs that stand out. This is that, but thirty years later. Dav enport positively reeks of a quartet of high school kids who got together in somebody's parent's basement in a cloud of ditch weed and formed a band to amuse their friends and quite possibly get laid.  Songs like "Kevin Sleeps with Everyone" and "Drop Everything, It's Nikki Taylor" sound like inside jokes and it's all the better that we get to play along at home. The sound is like a perfect snapshot of hormonal youth in a studio with shiny ne

  So as I have whinged about before, I have more stuff that I want to post than I can possibly put up on any given blog. I rip and tag and fill up file folders with things and then queue things up months in advance. It gets hard to keep motivated to continue knowing that you can slack for six months if you want, but in the meantime that last foot of shelf space you had is already filled with another huge pile of stuff you've yet to process waiting to be done and it starts getting a bit overwhelming until you want to scream and start considering your options. I mean, there's currently like over forty singles I've picked up in the last four months in a pile in front of my turntable waiting for their turn in the digital spotlight. Which is all one long run-on sentence to say that I'm actually considering starting a third fucking blog . How completely ridiculous is that shit? This would be one where all the indiepop stuff goes. SSC MN will retain its specific focus and regu

  One of the things that I occasionally have difficulty with is deciding what to post on any given day. I have a large folder of stuff set aside and I can sit and scroll up and down it paralyzed by indecision about which thing is what I'm going to write snarky bullshit about and if I want to overcome some personal animosity towards somebody who put out a decent album but was pointlessly a real asshole towards me or other people I know and post it anyway. Today is not that day.   All the Pancakes You Can Eat (1986) This is the actually the 1993 compact disc reissue of this forgotten Minneapolis classic with bonus material. I used to have an original copy a long time ago, but it got sold somewhere along the line. I have regrets. We all do. I'd purchased a used copy at Nuggets in Kenmore Square probably in 1986 based solely on the homemade paint splatter covers (as illustrated above) and some of the more interesting song titles. I had no idea what was inside, but intrigued enough

  I got some big packages of music in the mail this week. Lots of cheap compact discs and plenty more 7"s to add to the ever growing pile in front of the turntable that I will get back to some day. Midwinter doldrums hit hard, my friend. In the meantime while I rip a large stack of Cds in another window have a compilation of what the fuck was happening in Minneapolis in and around 1995.     Minnesota Modern Rock: the Pachyderm Sessions (1995) Discogs has the track list because I'm too lazy to type it out. But if you look at the picture there are some names you should recognize if you're into that sort of thing from that time. Less familiar names may or may not be forthcoming in future posts. And some already had stuff posted on regular flavor Swinging Singles Club if you want to hunt around for your favorites. There's plenty to love from Big Star aficionados Rex Daisy to Milk to Big Red Ball. But the one thing that links the recordings here as released by long gone al

  This is a follow up from the previous post from four days ago...     Blood, Smut and Tears (1993) The first full length by the band that was called Smut who were not big fans of the Oxford comma. My initial reaction when someone says Smut (besides a lascivious grin and an appreciation of the use of such an obsolete grandmotherly word) is to think of the great Tom Lehrer   But the band Smut are/were no joke. They rocked. They played hard. They looked better in dresses onstage than a young Bob Stinson did. They are also, at least as far as my experience goes, very nice people that you could introduce to your grandparents. They just happened to make loud rock music. They put out one more full length "Secret Center" in 1996 as a trio but that one has been eluding me for a little bit. In the first part of this century it was small "grunge" releases that didn't sell were the most likely to hit the dumpster behind your local record store when they didn't sell in

  It seems like a whole lot of my blogging seems to revolve around food as much as music. I also seem to get the urge to type when I'm hungry. Or typing makes me hungry. Or maybe, I just snack a lot when I'm home as opposed to work. Who knows. Who cares.  Have some Smut Wall of Hate (1991) I don't know if it could be construed as irony or synchronicity that I end up posting the band known as Smut on the same day that Larry Flynt shuffles off this mortal coil. But here we are anyway. It should really come as no surprise that Minneapolis like most of the rest of the US at the time had it's fair share of bands that would get lumped in with what was being called "Grunge" by people who had previously never seen a local band before in their life. It should also not come as a surprise that the same place that gave rise to Babes in Toyland might have a few other female powered rock bands around.   Goodness No Grief (1993)    It also shouldn't be a surprise that

  I just remembered I have leftover al pastor tacos in the fridge.  I should get on with this. I type, I eat, I play video games until morning. It's the cycle of life on my days off. I also remember I have whisky which should be interesting since I haven't had so much as a drop of liquor in months. This could turn out to be a swell night. 1995 -Sissy Bar The solo work of Matt Olson of Balloon Guy that was concurrent to that band. It's kind of an extension of that but lesser fi and perhaps even looser. I don't know. It's likely he simply was writing and recording material faster than a regular band could accomodate. I don't know. It's certainly in the same general sonic universe. If you liked the previous. You should enjoy this buzzing ball of angular nonsense as well. Here's a bonus just so I don't have to toss it onto another unrelated post later and to get it on here before this delicious Irish Whisky makes it harder to type coherent sentences in m