Owned since: 1986-2018 I think
Genre: Everything
Where I bought it: Various places
Year: Various
Label/pressing: Various
As someone who grew up with hardcore punk, and it being a big part of my vinyl collection, I always hated the 7-inch. I find it useless to switch around the record every 1-6 minutes to a song on the other side, even though I own several 12-inches that clock below 15 minutes, and I just never really got into buying a lot of 7-inches. Not that I didn’t buy them, I used to own around 350, but they were also some of the first items to go when my collection shed a lot of weight in the last 2 years. I think there are still around 50 in my collection, so let’s take a look/listen to ten of them:
We covered Condominium’s sole full length earlier in this series and this is from a bit later. 2013 to be exact. Three songs; two on the A-side and the chugging noise rock of Carl on the B-side that recalls early Pissed Jeans, who were also on Sub Pop when this released. Oh yeah, this is on Sub Pop for some reason. The A-side has the band blasting through two solid hardcore punk songs with heavy d-beat overtones. It doesn’t hold a candle to the full length, but it’s a fun little record.
The sole release besides a great demo of JJ Doll, poorly enough. Fronted by Shiva Addanki, who is in the excellent Kaleidoscope these days, this is an extremely good little EP. Extremely catchy fast moving riot grll laced punk music that is over before you can blink and recalls a band like Blitz in some spots. Anyway great stuff, on the long gone Katorga Works and a free download on Bandcamp these days.
Parenthetical Girls – A Song For Ellie Greenwich
This was a bonus with a full length record (which will get covered later on), the A-side is from when I bought it. What to say, honestly, the Zac Pennington fronted weird art-pop band never made the jump to a bigger stage. I, and several other people, expected them to but they left behind one masterpiece and several great records. This is by far the most poppy song on their brilliant 2008 effort Entanglements, which has arranger Jherek Bischoff’s fingerprints all over it. A neo-classical pop masterpiece. Afterwords is a big blooming ballad full of plucky violins.
Xiu Xiu / Parenthetical Girls – I Am Hated For Loving / Handsome Devil
Oh look, it’s Morrissey covers. Xiu Xiu slaughter in the best way Morrissey’s I Am Hated For Loving and turn it into a minimal, depressed, digital percussion only shout of angst. Parenthetical Girls’ cover of Handsome Devil, on the other hand, just goes out full guns blazing. Loud, fuzzy and with Pennington in full dramatics mode they really ramp up the creepiness of the lyrics a fair bit and pretty much turn it into a stalker song. Absolute great version.
Sebadoh – Limelight
Just look at those covers of this picture 7-inch. The Rush cover sucks and is the same one they did for the AV Undercover ages ago and the B-side is just some soundbites from Trailer Park Boys’s Bubbles who is also on the music picture disc side of this 7-inch talking rush. Neat novelty mostly.
Melvins – A Tribute To The Scientists
A gift from a friend way back, this is from one the 9 Clowns Of The Apocalypse series they did on Amphetamine Reptile Records which is pretty much Everybody Loves Sausages with an extra cover track on the B-side. Love the Scientists, these covers are great. Set It On Fire was on Sausages and Swampland is the exclusive cover both have Mudhoney’s Mark Arm doing lead vocals. They also both rule, Swampland keeps a lot of the orginal’s gritty charm going and Set It On Fire really perfectly captures The Scientists’ acid drenched noise/garagey rock in Melvins fashion.
We will cover Kevin Failure’s odd solo project/band later on, but this second Pink Reason EP is so goddamn great. Lo-fi depressed post-punk stuff in the A-side, The Devil Always Wins is a foot stomping, blues shouting tune and Down on Me is one of the best songs Failure ever wrote. An extremely cold lo-fi effort about feeling miserable.
Pretty much No Faith with Will Killingsworth of Orchid and Ampere on guitar. Ultra-fast, ultra-vile power-violence that feels like throwing yourself against a wall for 5 minutes. Brilliant, so glad I got to witness this live also.
Title Fight – The Last Thing You Forget
Not the compilation CD with the same name, but the original 7-inch. Early Title Fight were still really into the Descendents and other stuff so, well, it sounds like updated Descendents with some shoegaze leanings, pretty much. Ok 7-inch, was way more into this way back.
Cold Pumas – Beat Mystery / Party Drip
If I remember right, I got this with an Upset the Rhythm order as an extra. Anyway, Cold Pumas were a pretty cool band who played this kind of percussion driven throwback post-punk kind of stuff. It’s, well, what’s on the 7-inch. Beat Mystery is like a krautrock/surf instrumental and Party Drip recalls, well, a lot of bands popular around 2010. Would it surprise you these guys played a lot of duo bills with Male Bonding?
I feel like maximum rock ‘n roll now. Back to regular coverage next time I promise.
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