Besides Asides

Born in a Cent are an indie rock band in the best way possible - a band that actually rocks (instead of a meandering sense of self-importance set to notes and chords) with a strong D.I.Y. ethic. A good point of reference would be Ted Leo's output, they combine elements of punk rock, folk, soul and even a little ska. They wrap all that up with some nifty dudette/duder vocals and a sweet overtly lefty political stance. I had the chance to catch them at Fest this year as well and they are some really nice folks and put on a quite charming live show. If this sounds like your bag (and why wouldn't it be?) you can download their lovely 2010 album Who Called This Beautiful? from their bandcamp page on a PWYC basis including free. Check it out:

http://borninacent.bandcamp.com/

Jeff Ott's Fifteen was always more about the message than how that message was delivered. Fifteen took the gruff pop punk of his previous band Crimpshrine but stripped away much of the nuance and rhetorical devices of the lyrics but also tightened up the playing an the melodies. If this means nothing to you think of a musical love child between early Green Day and Propagandhi. One of my favourite releases from Fifteen is the There's No Place like Home (Good Night) EP. The record opens up with the exclusive song "Sun Song" which starts off with a laundry list of brand name products and how the speaker of the song needs said product when strung together like this it has a wonderful effect of highlighting the ridiculous nature of consumerism. What follows as the bulk of the CD was split into two 7" singles, Ooze and Ain't Life A Drag. Both 7" are out of print as well which is criminal as they contain some of Fifteen's best songs from their mid-90's period which in my opinion is their strongest, but it does allow me to post this EP guilt free. The rest of the exclusive stuff is an audio zine by Jeff Ott that runs about a half hour dealing with addiction and it is quite gripping. The record ends with an acoustic version of "Welcome To Berkeley" which also appears in another form on the Lucky LP, but this version is so heartbreaking it is not to be overlooked. Enough jabbering, here is the album:

Cheap Girls continue with each successive release to become one of my favourite bands and each time I see them perform cement their place as a "must see" live act. They don't do it with any drastic ssong-writing changes or special tricks and gimmicks, they do it by simply writing some of the best pop rock being made today. I've collected all of their compilation and 7" material spanning 2008 - 2010, except for their first EP of which only 100 copies were made and I sadly do not own it. If you've never heard the band this should serve as a good introduction as it features music recorded in and around both their LPs. Enjoy!:

I just got back from Fest in Gainesville and it was by far one of the best weekends of my life. One of the bands I only got to somewhat see at Fest was Bars of Gold. How did I somewhat see a band? I was half passed out due to exhaustion during their set. Bars of Gold feature the singer and drummer of a band I miss dearly - Bear Vs. Shark. Those looking toward Bars of Gold for the manic energy or startling originality of BvS might be a bit disappointed but that isn't to say the two bands don't have their similarities. Yet, it is hard to deny that Bars of Gold have their own unique sound and aren't enjoyable in their own right. Anyways, the band has a bootleg of their very first show so I thought I'd share it in case there is any BvS fans out there that didn't know about them or anyone just looking for some good new music, they recently put out a 12" so you all should check it out. The sound quality here is far from the greatest but I tried to do some minor touch ups and it should give you an idea of what the band is about:

While breaking a bit from the Fest theme I had going I thought I'd bring in some seasonal flavour in the from of the M*sfits (Jerry Only owns the rights to the band name so I can't print it here~~~~:D). 12 Hits from Hell was recorded in 1980, intended to be the first official M*sfits LP after the band failed to release the Static Age LP they recorded in 1978. It seems as though the fates were not kind to the 'fits and 12 Hits from Hell was scrapped as well. The reason it was scrapped was guitarist Bobby Steele was kicked out of the band in favour of bassist Jerry Only's brother Doyle who also recorded guitar tracks for most of the songs. Caroline Records went back to the masters for the recordings in 2001 to remaster and remix them to finally be released, in doing so the album has an interesting effect of having both Bobby and Doyle's guitar parts. However, the story goes Jerry was unhappy with Bobby Steele's guitar tracks being included and the album was once again shelved. All but one of the songs has been scattered across various compilation releases but this is the way the songs were meant to be heard. For me this is the definitive M*sfits album and a real crying shame it was never put out as it should be the album people think of when they think of the band. Enjoy!:

Keeping with the Fest formula and the Florida theme of the Freedom or Sort Of feature thus far, I bring you some donation/free music from Gainesville's own Kadets. Their sound is kind of like a mix between modern melodic punk forms of post-hardcore/pop punk with a distinct 90's indie/alterna rock/power pop flavour, I mean they unashamedly cover a Gin Blossoms tune. The vocal melodies and delivery are what really set the band apart from me on their recent EP/demo dealy, Get Up Get Down. It is available for donations as low as free on the great digital label Death To False Hope Records. Enjoy:

http://www.deathtofalsehoperecords.com/downloads/dtfh051.html

Given that Fest 9 happens in Gainesville is this week and I shall be attending, I figured I'd upload something for a band that is playing Fest this year with an out-of-print record from Smoke or Fire. When Smoke or Fire started out in 1998 they were known as Jericho and were located in Boston, in 2000 they released their debut When the Battery Dies. A few years later 80's Christian rock act Jericho forced them to change their name to Jericho RVA, and right around that time the band signed with Fat Wreck Chords. They further changed their name to Smoke or Fire because of mounting pressure from religious nuts or something. During this time the material they recorded as Jericho had largely gone out-of-print due to legal wrangling with their name, this includes When the Battery Dies. Red Scare Industries then announced they were going to issue a collection of the band's pre-Fat years but that idea was ultimately shelved when more legal troubles came up. So here you have it, a slice of blaspheme, the band sounds much different here, with Joe's voice being higher and the music having an early 2000's emo vibe in a few spots. Still a pretty neat record, wish I had the cover:

I was contacted with a request to remove the Brian Fallon collection I posted up because apparently he was off-put by it and collections like it because he intends to release a solo album in the future with some of those songs. When I posted it however Brian's "official" word was that he didn't want to do a solo album anymore and didn't want to be one of "those guys" so I thought they might be lost to the sands of time and deserved to be heard. So I've removed the post even though the request didn't come from him or his people, just a concerned citizen. I did it because I think Brian is a nice guy and I want people to go pick up those songs when he puts them out. $5 on the songs being completely different recordings when he releases them though thus eliminating the need for him to be offput by me posting them. Whatever, plenty more great music out there that would otherwise be left to languish in obscurity, Gaslight have a legions of adoring fans (read: a strong label, big management and a good PR firm) to prevent that.

I want to take the time now to thank bands that have said and done positive things on the interwebs about the blog like The Ergs! and cub who realize what I'm doing is out of sheer fandom not some greasy bootlegger desires.

This update was originally supposed to be a Dinosaur Jr. update but their b-side collection is so large it was taking me too much time to edit/make sure I had everything. Instead I bring you another band that walks the line between indie and punk except with a lot more cute and pop - Buffalo's Lemuria. I normally like to only do b-sides collections when a band is broken up that way the chances of them releasing something else to make my hard work incomplete less likely, but Lemuria just signed to hardcore label Bridge 9 Records so I figured it was time to close on a chapter of sorts. Lemuria has already released The First Collection which collects most of the band's non-LP material since their inception but there was one glaring exception: their split 7" with The Ergs!. That split is arguably some of each band's best work. That is the starting point from which I put this together. I did not include the band's Ozzy 7" because while it fits the era I think you'd agree that it really is a self-contained release not sounding a whole lot like that that came before it. So this is a small collection tying up loose ends with demos, unreleased stuff and live material making up the majority of what we have here. Enjoy!:

There are a lot of Hot Water Music boots floating around on the internet but I chose this one because it is a great setlist and the sound quality is great. It captures the band right before their jump to Epitaph Records right when they were in their prime. There is some funny banter about people comparing them to Avail and references to other shows on the same tour. This is a really essential live document for anyone that considers themselves a HWM fan. enjoy!:

I may be accused of hyperbole but Parasites are one of the most perfect pop-punk bands to ever grace the scene. With a million bands aping The Ramones currently out there and over the years, it is a good feeling when you can go and listen to a band that is definitely punk but who's melodies could give the Beach Boys in their prime a run for their money. Nikki Parasite has been doing this for 20 plus years and these statements can still apply to his songwriting today, as last year's wonderful Solitary proves. What I have here today is a completely different mix of the entire Solitary LP. I enjoy this way more than the retail version as it's grittiness reminds me a lot more of the band's 90's material. Anyways, here it is, no cover:

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In our ongoing effort to bring you fine folks on the internet fresh content we've decided to add a new feature to the blog in the form of Freedom or Sort Of. The object of Freedom or Sort Of will be to highlight new (or not so new) quality music that is provided either free from the artist or provided at a non-fixed donation price (including free).

Toronto's Deadly Snakes evolved from a fairly standard garage rock/punk band to a diverse well rounded unit, demonstrating a love of tradition folk, country, 60's pop and soul music in their lo-fi tunes. They called it a day in 2006 after the release of Porcella -or- A Bird in the Hand Is Worthless, an album who's medium very much plays into how much one will enjoy it. You see the band released a standard 13 track album on the CD/iTunes release but the vinyl was a whopping 20 track double LP. The vinyl is a much different and arguably much better beast but for some reason it is out of print. So I've gone ahead and ripped my copy of the 12", I warn you now this is an inherently lo-fi production and my ripping is not without it's flaws and skips but I cleaned it up as best I could and it is still amazing to hear like this. Re-recording 4 LP sides until it came out just perfect was not an option. So here it is in all it's glory, do yourself a favour though if you find a copy at your local record shop or on ebay for a good price scoop it up and hear one of the best album of the last decade as it was meant to be heard!

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At the time Main Source's debut album Breaking Atoms wasn't seen as the groundbreaking near flawless piece of hip-hop that it is today. Sadly, like many great acts the New York/Toronto group never managed to recapture the magic of that album due in part to MC/Producer Large Professor leaving the group in 1992. Many casual hip-hop fans might not recognize the name Main Source off the top of their heads but you will probably recognize their sound as Large Professor was one of the two main architects behind the production on Nas' undeniably classic Illmatic. Although, Large Professor left the group they had already started working on a follow-up to Breaking Atoms entitled The Science but it was never finished or released and Mikey D replaced Large Pro on the mic for the official follow-up which was shelved. So what I've collected here is all the non-LP material from Main Source while Large Pro was still in the group including songs that were intended for the unreleased The Science LP. Enjoy:

So it appears like some house keeping needed to be done, because I messed up a bunch of stuff during my last update that was supposed to fix problems around the blog. First of all the Leatherface b-side collection link is fixed with a dl link including all the material, and I fixed the broken links to the Bayonettes discography and Weakerthans b-sides collection as well. It also appeared I left a song or two off of the Weakerthans collection that I intended to put on but I guess couldn't find a good quality source for them at the time so I've included them in the re-up. I also removed several old posts from the archive from the very beginning of the blog before Pants started helping me and before I had figured out exactly what I wanted to do with the blog. I'll probably be re-posting some of the content again in a more uniform format.

In Weakerthans related ish I was going to post a Weakerthans bootleg that a friend of mine recorded from a set they played this year in the basement of a record shop that sounds amazing BUT my copy of the recording was full of skips so I couldn't. Hopefully, I'll be able to visit him in the next month or so and get a new copy made to share with you fine people. With school starting up I assume some slow down will commence in feature updates, distance makes the heart grow fonder or something.

If anyone has any comments or suggestions, feel free to drop them here or send me an email.

My favourite "era" of Toronto's ever controversial Fucked Up was probably around the time of their first LP, Hidden World, and it's associated singles. This BBC session was recorded in May of 2007 in support of that record and showcases three fantastic renditions of songs from that LP as well as the b-side "Black Hats". My personal favourite is this version of "Manqueller Man" as Ben Cook's fantastic backup vocals give this version a little extra "something", Ben would go on to join the band as a third guitarist and play on future studio recordings by the band. I've been sitting on this for a few years and it doesn't seem to have much internet presence,although I did find it on one blog but the quality doesn't appear to be as good as this version and it doesn't have the great artwork made for it :). Enjoy!:

I'm happy to bring to you a new "feature" of the blog called Get In Where You Fit In or GIWYFI as the kids are calling it. Essentially while coming up with content to post I found there was certain things that didn't really fall into the category of b-sides collection, live/radio/studio session bootleg or out-of-print album and that is where Get In Where You Fit In comes into play.

What I have for you today is a group of demos that Dear Landlord recorded prior to their excellent Dream Homes LP and even their early splits with Chinese Telephones and Off With Their Heads. A good chunk of these are demo versions of songs that would end up on Dream Homes and the their 7" stuff. The songs are essentially the same with the only difference being the recordings, there maybe some slight differences in the lyrics and playing but nothing significant enough for me to notice. I just that you might enjoy hearing some great songs in a different way. Here they are:

Today's post once again comes out of the Pacific Northwest, this time from Tacoma, Washington's Seaweed. Coming out of that region in the late 80's/early 90's with a Sub Pop connection, Seaweed was often lumped into the grunge movement but they aren't really a grunge band. I don't hear a great deal in common with Nirvana or Alice In Chains or Pearl Jam in their sound, their arrangements are less direct, they have a more clear debt to hardcore punk and a pop sensibility that differed greatly for those bands. I'd say Seaweed has more in common with DC post-hardcore and bay area bands like Fuel, Jawbreaker and Samiam.

Anyways, like many bands during the grunge explosion of the 90's, Seaweed was picked up by a major label. Their sole release for Hollywood Records was 1995's Spanaway. The rest of the band's catalog while fluctuating in and out of print is available for purchase today via iTunes, but Spanaway which (in this blogger's humble opinion) is their best release remains out of print in relative obscurity. So instead of forcing you to head down to your local used record shop to pick up a copy I thought I'd add it to the blog. If you like it, go out and pick up one of their Sub Pop albums or their Merge release. This is one of my favourite albums, so I really hope you enjoy it:

cub was an indie rock/punk band from Vancouver, British Columbia, and boy were they cute. I mean the term "cuddle core" was invented for them. They have a sound similar to Beat Happening or Go Sailor or Beatnik Termites. They are the kind of band with a huge discography but only a few major releases with the rest of it spread out amongst 7" and compilation albums. In 1997, a year after their demise they compiled a number of those miscellaneous songs into a collection called Mauler. If you are a cub fan you will find Mauler extremely disappointing in that it was extremely incomplete and it even included songs from their full-length releases. To add insult to injury Mauler eventually went out of print so these songs were once again doomed to a life of obscurity. So I've gone back and taken all the non-LP material from Mauler and done my best to go out and find all the other 7" and compilation songs the band recorded for Mauler Revisited. Sadly, I've been working on this collection for a few years and there is a few songs even I haven't been able to locate. They are their contribution to Lance Hahn of J Church's Honey Bear Record's Not Exactly Happy: A Tribute To The Smiths, "Maneaters" from the Green Light Go! compilation, and as well as "Eyes of a Stranger" from For Sher: A Tribute To The Valley Girl Soundtrack. I'm also missing a few tape releases that I'm not sure if they have exclusive songs or not. If anyone has any of these and they'd be kind enough to hook me up I'd appreciate it. Anyways for better or worse this is as definitive a collection as I could make.

Sorry for the late update.

In the fall of 2007, freshly reunited 90's pop punk/hardcore act Lifetime did a tour of Japan. Somewhere in there they played a short acoustic set in a record shop in the Shibuya district of Tokyo. Someone filmed four of those songs, and I've ripped the audio from them in surprisingly good quality. It is a real treat to hear these classics and one new song re-arranged. I hope you enjoy this:

J Church might not have been the best band in the world but they were the most important to me. Lance Hahn wrote songs that told stories of that spanned the gamut of human experience, with vivid characters. While the songs weren't always overt or straightforward in their politics they lived and breathed a beautiful anti-oppression narrative. Whether they were hardcore or pop punk or something in between, they are songs that helped us remember to enjoy life.

Of all the various side projects and associated acts to come from Hot Water Music, Rumbleseat still remains my favourite. Chances is are if you you are a HWM fan but you've never actually picked up a Rumbleseat record you've heard them before as Chuck Ragan covers their song "California Burritos" both live and on his first album. If you haven't heard them at all before what can you expect? Well essentially they sound like stripped down Hot Water Music songs with leanings towards traditional folk, blues and country music. They recorded a bunch of songs from summer '98 to sometime in '99 with Rob McGregor and proceeded to release a handful of singles as well as appearing various compilations. The band's lineup was Chuck Ragan and Chris Wollard on acoustic guitars and vocals and Samantha Jones (of Bitchin') on acoustic bass and vocals with Rob McGregor helping out on the harmonica. Before long they called it quits but not before they tried their hand at going electric, augmenting the existing lineup with Bill Clower of Radon on drums.

Rumbleseat didn't have that lengthy a recording history so No Idea announced they would be releasing a collection entitled Discography And Then Some in 2004. Well 2004 came and went and there was still no sign of the album when finally in 2005 it was released with an altered tracklist and the title changed to Is Dead. So I've gone and collected all the band's odds n ends that were left off of Is Dead, including 8 studio tracks only one of which saw commercial release, 6 electric band demos and 8 rough live recordings. For me the most interesting aspect of these songs is that on two of the studio recordings Samantha Jones takes lead vocal duties - something she didn't do on any of the commercially available songs. As a nice little bonus I've even included the artwork that was originally intended for Discography And Then Some as the cover for this collection:

I'm not too sure what to say about Lawrence Kansas' Kill Creek other than they are one of my favourite bands. Although they are from the other Kansas, you likely wouldn't have had bands like The Casket Lottery or The Get Up Kids without them. They have that muscular and melodic sound that the 90's seemed to produce in spades with bands like Jawbreaker and Seaweed but softer country/folk and pop moments that recall the Weakerthans or Jets To Brazil. Anyways, this is the only live material I was able to find of theirs and it is quite good quality, the first half of it is taken from a live in studio acoustic session and the second half is taken from a full band awards show performance.

The radio show set is rather cute with with renditions of "Twinkle, Twinkle" one including guest vocals by guitarist/vocalist Scott Born's son Alex. There is one really sad part to the set where Scott dedicates the final song to his daughter who passed away as she was being born just a few days prior and you can hear his voice crack up. Here you go:

With the recent announcement that Hot Water Music is going to be heading into the studio to record their first reunion LP, I thought it would be great to have some HWM related posts. This "Besides" installment focuses on Chuck Ragan's 7" and compilation appearances not including his single series/Blueprint Sessions stuff. This marks the first post on Besides Asides where Pants did almost all of the collecting and sequencing of the contents of the mix as well as the cover. Hope you enjoy it:

The story goes that Dan and Brian from Screeching Weasel formed Sludgeworth as a side project to SW in 1989, and then decided to make Sludgeworth their full-time gig only to break up in 1992. They recorded a single LP entitled What's This? for Johann's Face Records as well as a few 7" releases before splitting. If you are expecting Sludgeworth to sound like Screeching Weasel or The Riverdales or The Ramones guess again. Sludgeworth sounds a lot more mature, with more accurate points of reference being Pegboy, Jawbreaker and Face to Face.

In 1995 Lookout! released Losers Of The Year, which was a number of songs from their LP and other random songs they recorded over their three year existence. For some reason much like Operation Ivy's Discography, Losers Of The Year is frustratingly incomplete as it is missing about 5 songs from What's This?. Due to Lookout!'s inactivity, both Losers Of The Year and What's This? are out of print. So I uploaded Losers of The Year for you tacked on 5 extra songs that were left of the original for some insane reason. Enjoy!:




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The Ergs! were a lot of things to a lot of people. To me they were a passionate and nerdy punk band that moved between standard pop punk, 80's hardcore punk, country and back again. Like J Church and Sicko before them they gave the listener a glimpse inside the complex framework of American Underground music. A few years ago they called it quits leaving behind a couple of LPs, several EPs and one odds and ends collection: Hindsight is 20/20, My Friend. A little "Vol. 1" was tacked on to the end but we've yet to see a second volume surface commercially. I decided I wouldn't sit on my butt and I'd make one myself.Only 10 of these 36 songs was released in some commercial nature. A good chunk of these songs come from a demo/bootleg called The Milwilly Tape which was is alternate recordings of songs that would eventually end up on Upstairs/Downstairs and singles from around the same time. Another big chunk of these songs are unreleased songs recorded for abandoned projects. A few of the songs - the demos - aren't Ergs! songs exactly but the band released material like it under the Ergs! name before so why not? The rest of the songs are made up of 7" and comp appearances the band had after the release of the first Hindsight. So at this point this seems to contain the final word on the band.

Hope you enjoy this:

Listen

This is a great quality recording of Tom Gabel of Against Me! playing solo at Generation Records in New York. Even if you don't care for his solo material you will still probably dig this set, it is floating around out there but this is likely the best bitrate/version you are going to find. Both the vocals and music are at a good volume, and there is also decent crowd participation. Enjoy:

I went back and fixed a few of the things that weren't working around the site and added additional material as well. I fixed the links to the Leatherface collection, Snoop Doggy Dogg's Doggystyle II and the Fucked Up collection. I amended material in the Fucked Up, Dillinger Four & Tegan and Sara collections adding a few songs here and there. I've also removed the Ergs! compilation and will be reposting with lots more unreleased goodies.

To me the Descendents were the essential punk band. They knew how to have fun, they knew their way around a good pop song and can crank out a short and fast hardcore tune should the need arise. There is so much more I can't even put into words. I only wished their was more of their music to listen to, well I guess there is always ALL. Anyhow I went and collected all of b-sides and rarities I know to exist all in one place. Some of these songs have been floating around on bootlegs for awhile but they were bootleg quality. I on the otherhad took these songs from their original compilation and single sources. I also went and cleaned up the audio on the demos/unreleased stuff as best I could for an added bonus. Here is Rareage!, enjoy:

During the 90's major labels seemed to be signing bands who came from the punk and general American Underground left and right. These bands took their indie spirit and married it to bigger budgets, wider promotion and better production. These bands became what is wildly known "alternative" bands, over time bands in the mainstream started to copy these bands watering down their sound more and more and therefore what was the "alternative" became the mainstream.

While technically still on an indie The Gaslight Anthem's blend of Springsteen roots rock, 80's new wave and college rock and 90's New Jersey punk rock reminds me a lot of what those so-called alternative bands were doing in the 90's. Along with Against Me! they could be spearheading a push for credible rock bands gaining a more prominent presence in the mainstream market. I for one am all for it if it means more people get exposed to better music than Nickelback or Three Days Grace or whatever the fuck they play on alternative radio nowadays. In honour of Gaslight's new album American Slang being released this past week I went and collected songs from all the band's acoustic radio sessions and the like that they made while supporting their last album The '59 Sound. I went for the best sounding version of each song as they did a lot of sessions those two years and certain songs had plenty of versions. Sadly, the band didn't record every song from the album acoustically so there is 8 songs from that album, a slew of covers and a few songs from other projects. So, here is The '59 Sound Acoustic Sessions:

It is common knowledge that before John K. Samson formed The Weakerthans he was in the socially conscious punk rock band Propagandhi. The few songs he performed vocals on in that band as well as his solo demo tape were good indications of what The Weakerthans were to sound like on their debut. Prior to the release of Fallow, Samson had also released a split CD with fellow Winnipegers Painted Thin. Painted Thin at this time also featured future Weakerthans guitarist Stephen Caroll and drummer Jason Tait. Painted Thin's sound that combined elements of the melodic punk rock of Fifteen and Propagandhi with the sounds of contemporary Canadian indie rock was an even better indication of where the Weakerthans were headed.

Rightfully or wrongfully I've always viewed ska punk as thing of youth. Go to any random ska punk show today and you will likely see the fresh acne filled faces of 14 - 19 year olds, and not much else. It is fun music to sing along and dance to with generally positive vibes. When i was 16 or so I was first getting into punk, street punk and ska punk were my gateways. Over the years I've sort of grew out of listening to it and a lot of the local bands that played that style of music have either broke up or changed their sound. One of the bands that falls into the latter category is current Fat Wreck Chords band The Flatliners. Their shows were some of the first I went to and any knowledge I had of a Southern Ontario punk scene came from those early slam and skank sessions. While the Flats have been able to admirably progress their sound to a sophisticated mix of melodic punk with slight hints of ska, there is something that still draws me to the blistering ska punk of their debut full-length, Destroy To Create. That, Suicide Machines' Destruction By Definition and Operation Ivy's discography are the three ska punk albums that hold up best against the test of time.

Feeling nostalgic I went and collected all the band's odds and ends into a single collection, Rebuild. A good chunk of this is pre-Destroy To Create and maintains the band's nervous ska punk fury. Anyways, enjoy: