Swinging Singles Club MN

 Not much.  I took an extra couple of days off this past week with all kinds of intentions that never came to fruition. So here I am in the early morning hours on the day I have to go back to work and trying to cook some shit to eat for lunch and bang out a handful of posts before the well runs dry. (I'm making stuffed peppers, by the way. Then some hummus for her and if I can get her to do  some prep while I sleep I can throw together Tikka Masala when I wake up.)  So yeah, it's a panic at the end.    Chromosomes in Space (2001) Planet Melvin . I don't know much, but Melvin James has been kicking around these parts for decades without really getting his due. It's good Radio Friendly Power Pop Rock. All I really know for sure is that one of my bands shared a bill with them at Lee's Liquor Lounge one long ago Tuesday night to maybe a dozen or fewer patrons and Melvin and crew kicked out the jams pretty good. They left before our set though, but the guy who ...

 So setting up my work week lunches I have an embarrassment of things  made and in process. Still one okonomyaki I can make. Butternut squash soup, fresh wheat bread which I want to use for grilled cheese, a big pot of beef stew simmering and the wife is planning on making the teriyaki burgers she's been craving in the next couple of days.  The pizza I made earlier tonight should be gone though. Such is life. The Glamour is Contagious (2001) Valet This is their first feature length and was named the local album of the year by City Pages for 2001. I don't remember how I felt about that. I probably disagreed.

  I cooked a shit ton of food in the last couple of days. Much more than necessary, but I was on a bit of a roll. So I went with it. Now I'm hungry again. The Early Year (2001) Jan. Janeen Gauthier. Indiepop Smoke + Mirror (2004) I have nothing more to add

 Well, it's later the same night and I finally killed that jug of local gin I'd bought this summer. Twin Town Music Yearbook Volume Four (2001) Tracklist at Discogs Another one where I don't know where to start. So I won't. Just listen already. Suffice it to say that this one has a number of things that have caused me to flip through many a local bin searching for long forgotten goodness and bunch of adds to the old wantlist.

  After living in the same apartment for seventeen years we're going to have to move out because the landlord is retiring and selling the building. We have to move because the building becomes much more sellable if he can come in and spruce up our place which was already in need of a makeover when we moved in. And it needs one a lot more now. (But that's been working to both our advantage over this span since it helped keep our rent and his property taxes down) I'm not mad, but it is going to be a very grand pain in the ass. So the only logical thing for me to do is to queue up a shitload of posts so I can a) get ahead of myself so there's stuff in the pipeline while I'm otherwise occupied and b) to distract myself from the overwhelming task of packing up an entire seventeen year married household and getting it carted to another place. One aspect of going through my mother's estate has been the realization that if I were to suddenly croak I've got a ton of ...

  Beep    2001 - Alligators in the Lobby Pop Rock. Power Pop. I don't know. Indiepop. Alva Star. They existed. Then they didn't. Never saw them. I would have if I'd seen that they were playing. But there's nearly fuck all about them to be uncovered with a fast and nasty google. As near as I can figure it's based around songwriter/producer John Hermanson (who apparently abandoned his website in 2016. Doesn't really matter. There's this disc. And there's a song on it called "Unhappily Yours" which is one of those songs which will come up on random play and require bellowing along and replaying almost immediately. It should have been something. I heard it on Radio K and had stop everything until they said who it was. Which isn't to say that the rest is all chaff. It's quality. "Beautiful" and "Girlfriend" are also worth  the price of admission. But that song. You need to hear that one.

   So I'm still unsteady on my feet and in a perpetual brain fog, but we have a shower stool now, so that's nice. 2001 - Days of Wine and Whiskey Sophomore effort by Superhopper. "Chatter Chatter Goes the Girl" is the should have been hit. It's a lovely song that anybody who's ever worked a service job can relate to. "Pay Day" is a close second. The Minnesota Daily had a would be interview with them from around the time of this release. Lacks some of the fire of the debut, but still is a fine listen.

  New Year's Eve. Good Riddance 2020 Hopefully we're not going to spend 2021 looking back at the Quarantine Year as a wonderful idyllic moment in history compared to the terrible shitshow that is the upcoming year. But I'm a glass empty kind of guy.   2001 - Simon Reverie  This band is an almost complete mystery. And I say "almost" because I did actually see them once. My band at the time played with them one probably Thursday night at Sursumcorda. Probably in late fall or winter. (I seem to remember it was chilly.) The guitar player liked us and gave me this disc which was nice of him. I was too clueless to try and set up more shows with them down the line and they were swallowed by the mists of obscurity very soon after. (My band didn't last much more than a year after that either.) So this disc kind of sat around in my house unnoticed for quite a few number of years until I finally undertook the monumental task of ripping all of my compact discs so I could ...

  We continue...   2001 - City of Flakes    The opener "Concentration" is a killer track. This is not a sophomore slump kind of record. But we never got the chance to hear a next record. Dander soldiered on until around 2007, but never managed to get another record out. They did appear on a local music show, TC Muzique in 2006 with probably some of the most annoying and punchable presenters ever to appear on camera. They're running on about half strength there without an actual audience, but you can hear a few songs that might have made it on a third record as well as the standards of their set. Fast forward through the talking. You'll thank me later. This album just oozes an extreme concentrated sense of frustration. It's wound pretty tight. It's almost uncomfortable, but that gives it an edge that few other things I can think of manage. I'm pretty sure the biggest time I spent with this album was a winter while I was back in school in my 40s. It made pe...

 Seriously.    2001 - My Majesty No seriously, the opening salvo on "My Majesty" is a fucking great song of rejection called "Double Date" that should have been a hit despite the serious darkness of the lyric. But that's one song on an album that should have made Sean Na Na an indie darling.  But the tip of the musical iceberg. I could go track by track, but I won't. This is the sound of band that's fully matured into themselves. Everything done with confidence and chutzpah. Sounds like every song was written and honed on a long ass road trip before being recorded.