Thursday Random Eight (04/30/2009)

The Replacements - Hangin' Downtown: From the first full length release, Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out The Trash, this is sometimes a fun fallback for me to hear the roots of the greatest band in the world ever and ever. For a first album from an, at the time, rough punk band, this is really a great release.

Chris Stamey / Peter Holsapple - Taken: For a very long time, Mavericks was my favorite album ever. Post dB's, Chris and Peter got together for a first collaborative release in many years. The tracks range from quietly psychedelic to downright mellow, but mostly they are very enjoyable.

Tom Waits - The Black Rider: One of the sillier purchases I ever made was a small metal banner advertising Tom Waits' Black Rider Broadway show. Silly in that it was fairly expensive given it is just a small piece of metal, but neat in that it is a great picture of Tom looking all painted and weird(er). For the music, the Black Rider is entertaining enough, albeit not really on the level of most of his releases at the time.

The Replacements - I.O.U.: I'm liking the iPod's mood today. From Pleased to Meet Me, this is much tighter from the band than the previous shuffle play song, but equally as good.

Cranium - You Pretend That You Depend But Now You Are, Are You Visible: If you want to talk about strange bands, this is the one for you. I forget who I saw them open for years ago, but they were just wacky and I couldn't pass up buying the CD. There is a song somewhere in all the frantic noisy playing, and you can try explaining that to your neighbors when they complain and tell you to turn it down.

The Dead Milkmen - Smokin' Banana Peels: If you buy the EP of this song, the liner notes give very detailed directions as how to spoke banana peels...just FYI.

Hum - Dreamboat: I started chatting with a college radio DJ on IM about this album, Downward is Heavenward, when he played a tune from the CD recently. I was talking about seeing the geek-band on this tour and how they had purchased so many lights for the tour that, rumor has it, they couldn't fit all their gear into the tour van. He, in turned, remembered hearing this, what he called, one of the best indie releases ever when he was something like 12 years old and very innocently pointed out how old I must be to have seen Hum live. I'm not sure I made the connection; this is the last release I ever bought for my Victrola, since then it has been all 8-Tracks.

The Byrds - Here Without You: Interesting closure to the random eight as it was this song, covered by Chris Stamey and Peter Holsapple on the Mavericks CD discussed above, that played a big part in me purchasing old Byrds music trying to like the grey hippies.