Echo and the Bunnymen - Crocodiles [US Release] (1980)

Sire/Korova Records ■ SRK 6096

Released July 18, 1980

Produced by The Chameleons (Bill Drummond, David Balfie) and Ian Broudie (Tracks A4, B1)
Engineered by Hugh Jones and Rod Houison (Tracks A4, B1)

Side One:	Side Two:
Going Up Do It Clean¹ Stars Are Stars Pride Monkeys Crocodiles	Rescue Villiers Terrace Read It in Books¹ Pictures on My Wall All That Jazz Happy Death Men

¹Not present on original UK release, but included on a bonus 7" with early pressings

While Paul Westerberg's strange "side solo act thing" Grandpaboy is still echoing through my head at the moment, a mild spur toward writing here has convinced me to take up the reins and launch in again, after a good many weeks of just not feeling it and not wanting to half-ass it instead. Of course, that kind of approach can occasionally work, but this is intended to be a joyful thing, not a chore, and everyone I know wasn't even keeping up after I started slipping more toward weekly entries, so it isn't as if I've left a relative gap for anyone paying attention (PS: if I have, you should probably tell me. If someone else is interested, there's far more reason to stick to doing this more regularly!)

When I think of post-punk, my first thought is still pretty consistently of Gang of Four. It's not fair, of course: one of the things I even like most myself is the insane variance of styles and approaches bands that appeals to me most about the genre (and its sometime-close relative, post-hardcore). Echo & the Bunnymen kind of exemplify one of the far bounds of what I think of--mostly because they aren't a sound I think of at all. Much like The Boomtown Rats or the Talking Heads and punk,¹ I'm aware of the classification and even the justifications, but I think of them more as popular, familiar, readily grasp-able bands. Mainstream or pop, even--not in that bizarre, disparaging sense most use those terms in now, just in the sense of more familiar instrumentation and song-writing, even if with a clear identity. I can't pin down what it is that makes my brain draw the lines where it does, except perhaps to say that here I think it's the dominance of Ian "Mac" McCulloch's voice, particularly over Will Sergeant's guitar, but that's just a guess, as it's an instinctive thing.

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: The Cure - Seventeen Seconds

Fiction Records ■ BEG A 65

Released April 18, 1985

Produced by Robert Smith and Mike Hedges

Assistant Production by Chris Parry and M L S

Engineered by Mike Hedges and Mike Dutton

Assistant Engineering by Nigel Green and Andrew Warwick

Side One:	Side Two:
A Reflection Play for Today Secrets In Your House Three	The Final Sound A Forest M At Night Seventeen Seconds

I don't remember now how I found myself listening to The Cure. I think it was finding the video for "Lullaby" (meaning I probably saw it on the same tapes that led me to Marshall Crenshaw and listening to more Elvis Costello), but I'm really not sure. It meant I kept an ear out for Disintegration, but was never sure what to do with the rest of their discography. Someone I know--forgive me, for once, I can't remember who--posted video of a live performance of "Killing an Arab",¹ and I finally found myself asking: what album do I go to next? Pornography was a quick response, and I filed it away mentally--I'd picked up Bloodflowers on somewhat a whim, but had listened to it only a few times, and "Killing an Arab" told me there was something else back there, an entirely different style than what I'd heard so far.

I finally picked up a copy of Pornography, and soon found myself picking up every one of the deluxe-ified Cure remasters I saw (each came with a bonus disc of demos and live material from the time frame surrounding the album in question), Seventeen Seconds and Faith following rapidly behind Pornography, and all of it being settled when I purchased Three Imaginary Boys four months later (about a year ago). My ever-referenced used vinyl haunt last year, Hunky Dory, happened to have a copy of Faith on vinyl, though--the owner mentioned a copy of Pornography waiting in the wings, but, alas, it never appeared when I was there. In a sense, though, that has its benefits: I already really liked Pornography, but had only listened to most of the other albums a few times. That it was Seventeen Seconds and not Faith (they are the two immediate predecessors to Pornography) was even more fortuitous, as that album had stuck with me far better than Faith ever has.

Day Twenty-One: Big Country - The Seer

Mercury/Polygram Records ■ 826 844-1 M-1

Released July 14, 1986

Produced by Robin Millar

Engineered by Will Gosling

Mixed by Walter Turbitt

Side One:	Side Two:
Look Away The Seer The Teacher I Walk the Hill Eiledon	One Great Thing Hold the Heart Remembrance Day The Red Fox The Sailor

I thought, for a moment, that I'd sorted out a pattern to how people vote in the polls. I thought it was a relatively simple matter: choose self-titled albums, choose "biggest" albums--but then that was ruined when someone I know who knows music said he chose The Crossing because it sounded cool. Which is fine with me--my object is not demanding an existing opinion from anyone, but rather to find a way to settle on a release where more than one is available from an artist. "Ooh, that title sounds good," is a perfectly legitimate reason for me, and it can offset the knowledgeable to some extent--whether they push for a "familiar face" or a comparative obscurity. Variety of response is helpful in getting a more complete aggregation of interest--after all, tastes vary wildly. If I didn't poll, I'd be choosing deliberately and people would or could lose interest--it's also like saying directly that I have no interest in some records I own, as well as occasionally (if not always) guaranteeing an avoidance of digging deeper into catalogues I intended to (hence buying the records) but never bothered to (and would, then, continue to fail to acknowledge). This is all a way of leading into the relatively middling response to the poll that led to this particular entry.

Day One: 86 - Provocation

Twilight Records ■ TR010

Released ??, 1986

Produced by George Pappas, Billy Swain and 86

Engineered by George Pappas and Dan Vaganek

Side One: Side Two: New Pair of Eyes The City Seven Weeks and One Day Shade of Black Kings Mountain Eyeless Sonambo [Interlude] Wondering Getaway Inside

86 is a curious band in the entirety of my music collection--barring the handful of CDs (and even a 7") I have acquired from people I actually know in person. In some ways, it's actually even more curious than those items, as it was never issued digitally at all. 86 was a band from Atlanta, GA in the mid-to-late '80s that got around somewhat in the southeast from what I have gathered, but not much farther. Indeed, the only reason I know them is someone I know who lived in Atlanta at the time they were around--from about '83-'89--and asked me to make digital copies of her aged records from those days, some of the last she was keeping around, even past owning a turntable. For some time, all I had was the needle-drops of the two records she passed me (Closely Guarded Secret from '85 and Minutes in a Day from '86) that I of course dutifully sent back when I was finished.