Day Whatever - Flipper, Album Generic Flipper

Written by guest editor, John Edge.

Subterranean Records ■ SUB 25

Released in April, 1982

Produced by Gary Krimon

Side One:	Side Two:
"Ever" (Loose) - 2:56 "Life Is Cheap" (Loose) - 3:55 "Shed No Tears" (Shatter) - 4:26 "(I Saw You) Shine" (Shatter) - 8:31	"The Way of the World" (Shatter) - 4:23  "Life" (Shatter) - 4:44 "Nothing" (Loose) - 2:18 "Living for the Depression" (Ant/Loose) - 1:23 "Sex Bomb" (Shatter) - 7:48

Or perhaps the album title is Album and the band name is Generic Flipper.  Who cares?

Anyway, RC roped me into writing these dopey record reviews which I really don't have time for.  I've got a full time job, a kid, and all kinds of other shit begging for my time.  But whatever, I've had a particularly hard day at work and have about five brain cells to work on, so now's the perfect time to write a review. 

This is one of those great punk albums I really cut my teeth on as a teenager.  The sludginess, the depressing/uplifting lyrics, the general us vs them attitude all made me think I wasn't the only one who thought and felt that way.  Seem cliche?  Give me a break, we were all teenagers once and I was a damn good one.  Anyway, this album still stands lyrically as the closest to my personal worldview as any other I've ever heard in the intervening years.  

A little background on Flipper (the band, not the insufferable show): In the early eighties, punk rock bands and especially the offshoot hardcore groups were ratcheting up tempos and honing their sound to razor sharp clarity and tonality, Flipper hazily veered off in the complete opposite direction.  Their sound is mired in a drug fueled stupor. Flipper's songs take the breakneck hardcore of Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, and Minor Threat and slow it to a slug's pace.  Maybe they loved Sabbath?  Maybe they were just not good enough to play fast?  Or maybe they were just the perfect foil to Minor Threat: slow, sludgy, long songs, gleefully drunk and fucked up on all sorts of chemical entertainments.  They have two bassists.  That's all you really need to know.  

Various Artists - Dope-Guns-'N-Fucking in the Streets Volumes 8-11 (1997)

  Amphetamine Reptile Records ■ 9 25194-1

Released April 22, 1997

Technical Credits Unknown, Likely Varied

Side One (Vol. 8 & 9):	Side Two (Vol 10 & 11):
Superchunk - "Basement Life" Guzzard - "Bites" Jawbox - "Low Strung" godheadSilo - "Lotion Pocket" Bordeoms - "Pukuri" Supernova - "Sugar Coated Stucco" Chokebore - "Brittle & Depressing" Love 666 - "You Sold Me Out #2"	Bailter Space - "Glimmer Dot" Steelpolebathtub - "A Washed Out Monkey Star Halo" Chrome Cranks - "Dead Man's Suit" Brainiac - "Cookie Doesn't Sing" Today Is the Day - "Execution Style" Rocket from the Crypt - "Tiger Mask" Calvin Krime - "Fight Song" Gaunt - "Kiss Destroyer" Servotron - "Matrix of Perfection"

I'm often wary, wandering into any record store for the first time. There's no real guarantee of what anyone has or will carry, and in a used store it becomes even more complicated, as they can only carry what records they've acquired to sell. And that, then, depends on the locals. The first time I walked into Dead Wax Records, I wasn't sure what to think. Between the place I now live and the places I work, there's not a lot of music to be found. Even the oft-ignored (for financially justifiable reasons) FYE and similar "TWEC" (TransWorld Entertainment Company, who owns FYE, Coconuts, etc) stores make no appearances. There's a Best Buy, a Wal-Mart, a Target--certainly nowhere you'd find vinyl (beyond the semi-kitschy '7" with a t-shirt' thing Target is doing--but I owned most of the ones that looked interesting to me, or saw no reason to get the 7"), and nowhere you'd find a good chunk of my music collection, vinyl or otherwise.

I found a small used record and used/new CD store about fifteen miles away and had a very strange experience there, locating both upstate New York's Immolation's third album and some Split Enz albums I was looking for on CD. I found some Throbbing Gristle material, too, which is only appropriate for this particular entry--well, parts of it. I couldn't really make heads or tails of the place, though I've intended to go back a few times (never managing). When I started my current job just a bit further out, though, someone there mentioned a local record store, which piqued my interest immediately. I swung by after work that day, only to find it was closed on Mondays, deciding to come back the next. That next day, I wandered in and found it comfortably cozy and close, as you'd expect from a fledgling (only a few months old!) record store. However, its walls were papered with posters and fliers for bands I knew well--but knew well from my forays into music in the last few odd years more than anything else. Snapcase. Gluecifer. The Murder City Devils. The Supersuckers. Turbonegro. Mudhoney. All the sorts of things I'd tried (sometimes successfully) to push on a very picky person I know.

Day Forty-Nine - Needle-Scratch: Dan Friel - Total Folkore

Thrill Jockey Records ■ THRILL 324

Released February 19, 2013

Recorded by Dan Friel

Side One:	Side Two:
Ulysses Windmills Valedictorian Intermission #1 Velocipede	Scavengers Intermission #2 Thumper Landslide Intermission #3 Swarm Badlands

My last blog was actually named for a song by the band Parts & Labor, about whom I eventually wrote there,  and this was partly in the interest of a title that implied the aim I had, and partly as a result of my overriding love of the band, particularly the album Mapmaker. After they released the follow-up to that one, though (Receivers) I actually caught them live with my friend (and former manager) Gerald who had introduced me to them with that lasting and evocative phrase, "Music to melt your brain". At that show, I expanded my awareness of their work by picking up BJ Warshaw's Shooting Spires album (by his side/solo project, Shooting Spires, of course) as well as Dan Friel's then-exclusive release (barring an extremely limited EP I am FAR too late for), Sunburn. Sunburn was a quick little release, 7 tracks and less than 20 minutes, and released on what could've been a 3" CD but was instead a neat little partially clear one. It was the noisiest, strangest, most experimental side of Parts & Labor distilled, devoid of vocals, yet still imbued with hooks.