At A Later Date

Here's a gem. Super rare Joy Division, never recorded in studio, not on the "Heart & Soul" box set, and one of their more rockin songs. I met a guy a few months ago who told me he hated Joy Division. I tried to politely explain that perhaps a bit of true angst was necessary in your soul to truly appreciate it. What I should have said was this: "You're fuckin stupid."

Joy Division "At A Later Date"

Always After Christmas, Boring

Worth a repeat listen.

The Sixth Great Lake "Always After Christmas, Boring"

Johnny Cash - "Guest Star"

One of the gems I came across recently is a set of three Johnny Cash appearances, two from a show called "Country Style USA" in 1958 and this one from a show called "Guest Star" in 1959. Apart from being the least scratchy of the three, I especially like the voice of the host, Lou Crosby, on this one. I can't tell if it sounds more like a Phil Hartman Simpson's character or Alec Baldwin's impersonation of Tony Bennett. An unsuccessful search of his picture turned up the fact that he was also an announcer on the Lawrence Welk show, and the father of Cathy Lee Crosby:

The only way you don't remember her is if you're too young, or a girl, because I have a hunch that many guys now in their thirties are like me and watched "That's Incredible" not only for the cool shit, but because Crosby gave you a "special feeling" before you knew what those even were. I didn't even know what I could do with my own body then, much less what it could do to a blonde bombshell who knew things about ghosts and hung out with people who pulled locomotives with their teeth. So, anyways, that's her daddy with the croonin' voice talking to Johnny.

"Now it's a pleasure to present today's guest, a young man who in just a short time has become an outstanding success in the recording industry..."

1 Guest Star intro

2 "Country Boy"

3 chat w/ Johnny

4 "Don't Take Your Guns To Town"

5 "Buy Savings Bonds"

6 "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot"

7 Guest Star outro

The good folks over at Insound (buy indie when you can) have tons of good Johnny Cash stuff!

"Johnny, you're as right as tomorrow morning's sunrise"

The good Memphis

Boyee, I ain't but hardly even done been born yet, and the first mp3 from a label comes streaming into my inbox like Columbus into the Caribbean, completely unaware of its status as seed of indescribable power, mwahaha. To be honest, I probably would have put it up as long as it didn't sound like caca, but I was pleasantly surprised. Swooning and breezy, for some reason this song puts imagery in my head of driving medium-fast through city streets on a cold overcast day. I wonder if these guys from Vancouver have any idea how lame their namesake city in the US really is (sorry, if your town is lamer than mine, it deserves to be said out loud). Regardless, sounds nice, the other songs at their Myspace page aren't too shabby, either. And apparently the lead singer was in the "sweetheart pop group" Stars (Canada, too). Memphis's (wanna fight about the s?) sophomore album "A Little Place in the Wilderness" is available now on import from Amazon from Canada, or you can wait for the US release sometime early next year.

Memphis "I'll Do Whatever You Want"

Live freeform mix

Since I've started torrenting, my CD collection has exploded, mostly pristine live recordings I never imagined I'd own. The premier live music torrent site has got to be Dime A Dozen. Tapers and bootleggers old and new are crawling out of the woodwork and posting their stuff there. If you've got a high-speed connection, you need to get BitTorrent, (or other torrent client/application, although this one's open source) and have patience enough to get an account at Dime (capped at 100,000, always booting those who can't share). I've been downloading a few things for stocking stuffers and decided this would be the perfect time to lay down the freeform gauntlet. I tried to make it so that every single person could find one song they really like, from Diamanda Galas (left) shattering glass alongside Sonny Sharrock to a rare George Strait cover of an old Hank Williams tune.

Last Exit w/ Diamanda Galas "Red Light" (Moers '86)


Ramones "Needles and Pins" (Amsterdam '78)


Sufjan Stevens "The Tallest Man, The Broadest Shoulders" (Portland '06)


Persuasions "Another Night With The Boys" (Upper Darby '74)


George Strait "Jambalya" (Waco '83)

The Joggers

First, a word to other bloggers / podcasters: Steve Albini wrote a famous piece on the problem with the music industry, basically making people crawl through a long pit of caca. That's how I feel after looking for a new file host for the mp3s on this blog. I was going to try and stay all-free and was going with fileden.com, which has now been unaccessible for several days, delaying the two of my one-two punch. I won't often hawk products or services, usually nothing but music, but let me throw a big shout out to Liberated Syndication. After wading through a shit-storm of spam and bad deals and geeks with computers in their bedroom setting up "file hosting", and the inherent problems with anything free (can't just get your money back, heh), I must say the deal these guys have is the best. They specialize in media and podcast hosting, and for five bucks a month you get 100MB a month (that's right - your previous month is archived on a slightly slower server, but kept FOREVER, and you get a NEW 100MB every month) plus UNLIMITED BANDWIDTH! If they can keep this up, it should easily become a favorite hosting spot for mp3 & vid blogs, and again, after weighing a buttload of alternatives, this is one bandwagon I jump on gladly. So basically, I'm going to leave the previous Christmas Mix on fileden.com so it should be the only limited-time offering from this blog. All mp3 links from here on out should work as long as this blog is alive!

And now that I'm all set, if you are one of the three people to still be reading this in the early stages of the blog, let me now at the outset promise I will post at least once a week. No matter what, even if it's just diggin out an old classic or some new bootleg, I will post something (hopefully new to you) every week.

Now, on with the music. I can't promise the music here will always be brand-new, but I can promise it will be good. Usually really good. And in the case of Portland's Joggers, if you pay attention and sometimes give it some time, I can promise that it will be great. It's sometimes hard to pin down favorite bands, but the Joggers' talent is so awe-inspiring, their depth so mind-boggling, their voice so unique yet rocking, that I can say without hesitation that they are my favorite current band. They are simply the band I've been looking for. But don't take my word for it, that's what this blog is for! A lot of mp3s from the two official Joggers releases have appeared on blogs, so I'm only going to put up a song from each of those just in case you're unfamiliar with them and aren't one of the Joggers hounds here for the rarer stuff.

First off is the Cajun Gems, an offshoot of the Joggers featuring singer/guitarist/songwriter Ben Whitesides and bassist Darrell Bourque. It's like a much folkier Joggers, with banjo and pickin', and it is available exclusively from the band for eight bucks. Listen to the two songs here and go to the Cajun Gems site and listen to those as well, and realise that there is a total of 22 of these gems on the disk! This is the one indie DIY recording you absolutely positively have to have in your collection!

Cajun Gems "Forest Park"

Cajun Gems "Japanese Banjo"

The Joggers' first release (not rhino picture, see bottom of post) was self-titled and contained eight songs. It is now completely out of print and very hard to find. Four of these songs later appeared on "Solid Guild" and the song "Devil Wears Earplugs" appeared on the Startime Records comp. I'm putting up two of the unreleased songs, and leaving one to still give completists something to strive for. [edit: see below]

Joggers "Silent Film Laser Show"

Joggers "Reading Degrees"

And here's one from the first and second albums, which again you can cut out the middle man and buy from the band themselves!

Joggers "Hot Autism"

Joggers "Since You're Already Up"

Don't forget to check out their Myspace page for their straight-up cover of the Yes classic "Long Distance Runaround". The Joggers are currently at work on their third album, leaving 0.032% of this country's population in breathless anticipation.

This is hilarious... This post is over two and a half months old, my second ever, and someone just now asks about the whole tracklist that I should have put up to begin with, [see comments] and I suddenly realize what I dumbass I am. I never claimed otherwise, only to be a dumbass with good musical taste! There aren't four songs from the Joggers first s/t album on "Solid Guild", there are only three, therefor there were actually two songs from the s/t album (released in 2002) that I didn't post. I should smoke only after I'm done with posting... anyways, out of sheer embarassment, and out of the realization that I paid a lot for this and even if a copy comes up again you might not win it, and because it's totally out of print, here's the last two remaining tracks, so putting together the three ("3") remaining tracks from "Solid Guild" and the song from the Startime Records comp will let you assemble the whole thing.

Joggers "First Straw"

Joggers "Cabin Fever"

Edit (again): The Joggers first s/t album mentioned above is now for sale exclusively through their website! along with the even rarer Stateside EP, so I'm taking down these songs, but check out the Joggers Merch page for both the LP and EP and even more mp3s.