Swinging Singles Club MN

 Less is Less. Stealing June (1999) This is the kind of stuff that gets lost in time. The little disc that couldn't and nobody cared and got put into a dollar bin and eventually might find it's way to the landfill, lost and forgotten. Or that sits in a box in the closet of the bass player for twenty years before they clear it out. It's the kind of middling pop rock that every town has. You can rest easy knowing that if you play this you are likely the only person on this entire planet who is doing so on any given night. They won't know, but they'd appreciate it.

 This should tide me over until I can give this some thought. Raise High the Roof Beam (1999) So the second (and as far as I know) final album by the band that called itself Fuzzbuster has a title taken from a JD Salinger short story. I never really cared for JD Salinger's stuff very much, but then I didn't read "Catcher in the Rye" until I was in my 20's and rather than relating to Holden Caufield as an angsty teen found him to be a pompous, self involved, annoying twat. So there's that. It didn't exactly inspire me to read more. Plus the pretentious fanboys for his work kind of turned me off of it. But I think they also were just as enamored of the mystery Salinger made of himself. I couldn't care less. The writing didn't do much for me. Also there's this album.

 So yeah, I have diddly to say.  It's winter. There's fuck all to do except sleep, cook and play video games. Still buying more music than I have time to listen to, but I get some satisfaction in just looking at the wall of music, so it's a bit of a push, I guess. At least I'm picking stuff up cheaply as imaginable since for the most part I'm buying singles and compact discs and everybody else is still fetishizing vinyl.  But hey, if spending more money than necessary because the format makes your nipples hard I say have at it. You'll listen to the download and the record will mostly sit on a shelf collecting dust. Good for you. Present General Conditions (1996) So Dwindle . It's the indie rock/pop from the end of the 20th Century Minnesota style. The link gives the background on this release.    Days Away (1999) Their sophomore effort. These two things have been kind of languishing in the "to post" file for a couple of years now on the thought tha...

 Here we go again. I really need to reconfigure this room a bit. For whatever reason ever since we moved, I've developed a huge never ending knot is my left shoulder. I thought it was the new chair, but it's still here after switching back to the old chair. I just may be getting too old to sit for hours on end in front of a computer and type anymore.... Twin Town High Music Yearbook Volume Two (1999) Volume Two tracklist at Discogs Highlights: Lifter Puller with an obscure track of theirs a version of which appeared on "Soft Rock" Katastrophy Wife is a post-Babes in Toyland band with Kat Bjelland Love-Cars do " Even The Animals Have Realized That We Are Not Alone In This World" which is a personal favorite of theirs And another Lily Liver song is always welcome. A shout out also for the sole issued song by Roast Beast. That's one I forget about.

  I bought a really huge Athena melon the other day and cut it up tonight. Now all I can smell while I sit here is the rinds in the trash. It's a bit distracting. I guess I'm going to have to eat some when I'm done. I'm Friends with All Stars (1999) It's Love-Cars again. One thing that comes up when you google "Love-Cars band" is the Wiki page for band member James Diers which quotes the Washington Post as saying "He is known for writing literate, thought-provoking lyrics in a modern indie rock context". I just kind of hope that he's not the one behind his own Wiki.  I'd be too embarrassed to toot my own horn with that kind of quote. But then I tend to avoid provoking too thoughts in my writing here or in my musical compositions.  If people do have them I trust them to keep those to themselves.

 Last time I got coffee beans via the local coffee shop/roaster for the espresso machine I don't think they were right. Espresso is supposed to be a blend of beans to get the flavor and the rich crema that forms on top when it's poured. I think maybe that the beans weren't mixed very well or somebody forgot the Robusta beans that create the crema in the batch. We got two pounds and three weeks without any crema and generally not living our best espresso life. So new day. New beans. Time to start fresh. You can start fresh with this Dead End Expressway (1999) If you're the kind of person who likes their Rock of the Punk variety, but preferably of the Pop version then I have an album that you may enjoy. The Misfires don't set out to reinvent the wheel here. They know what they do and they do it to the best of their abilities for a solid effort. It would also seem that over time the core of the Misfires added and subtracted people to morph into a completely different b...

 She's still really wary of the new place. But I think once we've got it established and there's more open space for her to run around she'll like it a lot more. I'm still buying time. Have a compilation.   Minnesota Electric (1999) It was the end of the century. Pulse of the Twin Cities was a weekly paper that ran down the happenings around town. They existed for a few years as competition for City Pages, but didn't last long. They did however manage to finance a few compact discs in their run. This is actually the second on. The first is much more AOR fare, so I haven't got it. This one is a bit more my speed. It's rock and roll with a splatter of hip hop. Some names will be familiar or become familiar eventually and some never released anything else. Discogs can give you the run down . I'm hungry and cold chinese takeout is calling my name

  Yeah so we should still be unpacking and figuring out where to put everything in less space. There's a lot of art and stuff to hang and we'll need to figure out the best method with the picture rails and fishing line. We're probably pretty freaking busy. The nice thing is that I also got some time off coming this month that I took back when whether or not we were moving was still a little bit up in the air. So I'll have three weeks in the middle of the month to get acclimated to the new place. So that will be nice. In the meantime Mollycuddle Mollycuddle/Pilot Light split (1998) Here's a split single with the unknown entity called Pilot Light. There's almost no useful information about Pilot Light on the sleeve or that I could find. They releasd an album on Bandcamp in 2011. Based on a couple of the names there, I'm going to assume they're also a local entity. Go and give them some love. The primary reason for this posting is of course the Mollycuddle...

  Yeah. So. It happened. I got COVID. Had to have happened at work because I didn't start to feel like shit until the few days after my 6 out of 7 day work week. Ended up in the hospital for five days and you can just go ahead and write off the entire month of December off as a loss. Sickest I've ever been and my case was pretty fucking mild. Wear your mask, kids, and stay the fuck away from each other. You don't want this bullshit I also realized that I was rapidly approaching the day where my queued posts on this blog were coming to an end. So here I have risen from my convalescing bed to bang out a start for the new year. So here's your introduction to Superhopper.  1999 - Music for Downtowns Superhopper .  I came by them a few years into their run when one of my bands played a couple of shows with them. Fucking hell they were monsters live. Seriously, on like a winter Tuesday night to a couple dozen people who wandered into the Turf Club and they're ripping it u...

  The wonder of working in an ICU during a fucking deadly pandemic is that you spend an awful lot of time paying close attention to how you feel. You sneeze or cough and immediately you're thinking about where can you get tested and mentally making out your Last Will and Testament. It's fun. I mean, I'm careful as I can be and wear all my PPE at work and a mask, avoid humanity and don't touch my face otherwise, but it's always there at the back of your mind when you're being slammed with extra sick patients in the ICU. We're all going to get PTSD.... 1999 - Titty Bar Mitzvah Dander.  So yeah. The title here is a joke. The cover is a joke. It's the sort of thing that probably was really hilarious at like three in the morning when you're really tired and punchy. It makes it seem like the album enclosed is some kind of morning zoo comedy record. At least that's what I thought it was when I first started coming across it in the Cheapos bins. But it...

  The cat's hungry.  I'll make this brief.   1999 - Eggshells for Paperbacks    The second and final album by American Paint in which the boys have taken and expanded their sonic horizons past their roots rock origins into something else.  I like it.  I mean, it's all still there in spades. There's an obvious debt owed to the Byrds in "Lu" but "Yellow Cadillac" takes them in a different direction which kind of makes it the stand out track for me. That is to say that this album has some deeper flavor to it. More interesting arrangements. Horns and shit. That is to say that this album is a big improvement over the first one. It feels like they started hitting a stride and figured out what they were doing and capable of. It would have been interesting to hear what a next album might have sounded like. That is to say that this album is actually pretty good and worth a listen. That is all. I'm going to feed the cat now.

  I'm lumping them onto one post because I can and they're all from about the same time.     1999 - Sean Na Na/Lucky Jeremy A nice split with Lucky Jeremy (aka Jeremy Allen) who wrote "My Old France" which Sean Na-Na closed out the split with Mary Lou Lord with. He also played keys in Sean na na. So there's that too.   1999 - Mezcal More bittersweet pop songs pressed onto seven inches of black vinyl. The cover has unicorns on it. That's some symbolism. 2000 - Sean Tillman is a Fucking Star Here's a little bonus. It's a rare solo bit by Sean Tillman as himself. Lo-fi piano based for the A-side. B-side is an acapella rendition of a Boyz II Men tune . Consider yourself warned. But which could be the first inkling of his forthcoming R&B ambitions that would become Har Mar Superstar.  

  So those blueberry corn muffins came out pretty nice. Not as sweet in the end than the batter would have suggested, but tasty as fuck. So I take that as a win. I also hope that you kids out there in the interwebs have noticed that I've staggered the posts here with the regular flavor SSC so that there's essentially something new every couple days between the two. I have way too much music... Which leads us to today. This is a personal favorite that I have no shame in saying is a personal favorite. The biggest struggle I've had tonight is figuring out how to split these things up.  I kind of settled on seven posts. This is the first.   1998 - ...And his Baby Blue   This is where the wonderfully named Sean Na Na story starts.   This being the first thing released by Sean Tillman following the disillusion of his previous band Calvin Krime .   Now where Calvin Krime was more of a punk rock screamo type outfit, the new guise as Sean Na-Na is all about bitter p...

  I'm getting hungry and ready to try one of those blueberry corn muffins that I was yapping about last post. Let me turn the espresso machine back on. BRB 1999 - Recommended for Diversion Seekers Bomb Pops A couple of years back I posted the three singles on two consecutive posts. Here's the compilation that collects those and other recordings into one neat little digital package. Everything recorded between 1992-1994. Jangly, wistful indiepop FTW

 I'm also busy cleaning our espresso machine.  Well, letting the citric acid sit in the tank to help clear out the scale from the tap water. Keep your Keurig shit. Coffee always tastes weak and stale. Getting a legit espresso machine (not some cheap ass Target thirty dollar one) and a really good burr grinder was a big fucking game changer. Fifteen years and never looked back... I recommend it heartily. Get a Hustle (1999) This band existed from approximately 1997-2002. Years ago when one band was shopping for a local studio to do some recording we were given a disc of best things recorded at Albatross Studios in 2002. Their track didn't stick with me, but we did end up recording there. (and made the 2003 demo cd.) Cut to a couple of years ago and I'm looking around on Discogs for stuff to bulk up a five dollar for the entire order shipping package and find a sealed copy for cheap and add it. Good decision. This is loud fast and precise and hits all the right pleasure poin...