A-Z PROJECT: 170-176

176 days ago I started listening to all of my CDs in alphabetic order to see if I could do it. I found myself bored with what I was listening to and spending more and more time deciding on what to listen to. I realized I had a lot of CDs I never listened to, stuff I never had the urge to put on, and decided to just listen to all of them in order instead. My goal was to listen to everything in a year, or at least to see how long it would take me to accomplish this. I’ve been tracking my progress on Facebook by posting daily playlists and giving my immediate thoughts on what I was listening to as I was listening to it. I de-activated my Facebook page last week and thought I’d post my progress here instead since I need to make more use of this Blog site anyway. I don’t consider myself to be a writer, a music critic or an authority on music. This is simply a way to alleviate boredom at a job in which very little is expected out of me. I’m also not posting these playlists to brag about my music collection and I’m not burning copies of this stuff for people, so don’t ask.

(*) asterisks note things that are burned copies and not an original release. CDRs without asterisks behind them were originally issued as CDRs.

Day #170
MANÌAS / SALÈ SANGRE - "Identity Crisis" CD (I don't think the two band name thing was ever explained to me. The same members are in both bands and both bands sound almost identical, but there's two names on both releases I own of theirs. I'm still not sure if its one band or two. We played with these guys in Albequerque when C3L toured in 1999. One of the members gave me a demo after the show, it too was a split with both bands. A year or so later they did this split CD. The demo was better (as is usually the case), but this CD is great. It's a mystery to me why these guys didn't get more attention than they did. As far as technical grindcore goes, this is as good or better than a lot of the bands that made their mark in the scene. I suppose comparing them to Cephalic Carnage wouldn't be out of line, and of the two (three?) if I had to pick Manìas would win out. Bands don't get noticed because of their talent alone, though, and the demo I got from these guys at their show didn't even have a cover, so maybe they were just unorganized or didn't care if they had any fans outside of New Mexico? Either way, with the exception of a few instances of spoken passages about weed, this is a terrific grindcore CD with loads of fretboard gymnastics, blastbeats and dual vocal insanity. Bands really need to stop writing songs about marijuana, though. Seriously.)

CHARLES MANSON - "LIE: The Love and Terror Cult" CD (I don't think Charlie had the pleasure of releasing an album while he was on the outside, so I'm guessing this is a bootleg CD of a bootleg LP. I know he recorded some demos at the Beach Boys' studio, maybe that's where these tracks came from? The Beach Boys even re-recorded one of these songs for one of their albums. Plain and simple, this is hippy shit, but what else would you expect? Demented, sloppy and noisy folk music with nonsensical lyrics. At times it sounds like an old Red Crayola album, especially on "Mechanical Man". "Garbage Dump" sounds like it could have been lifted from one of David Allan Coe's records. It's hard to say if anyone would be interested in this stuff today had Charlie not ordered his family to kill, but I'm guessing this stuff is odd enough that people would still be trading mp3s of this today anyway. By no means is this "good", but it is "weird" and weird will always have an audience.)

BOB MARLEY & THE WAILERS - "Gold" 2CD (I found 6 Bob Marley CDs at the pawn shop once, all in mint condition. I've never liked any of his stuff before then, but I had been listening to a bunch of first wave ska stuff I had downloaded at the time and thought maybe I would like it now. If not, I wouldn't have any problem unloading them on someone else. I ended up giving all but two of them to the teacher who's classroom I worked in. We talked a lot about blues and jazz and she'd loaned me piles of LPs to rip for myself over the years, so I thought it would be a nice gesture to give them to her. She was very appreciative of them, so I rescued them from an eternity in a pawn shop and gave them a good home. I kept this set because it was a "best of" and thought I should have at least one career retrospective in my collection. I just finished reading Keith Richards' book "Life" and he talked about living in Jamaica before reggae took off and he said the people he knew down there, local musicians (some who came to fame later on), said Bob Marley was a pretty boy, didn't even have dreads, and was busy trying to be the Temptations before he saw there was money to be made in reggae and climbed aboard the bandwagon. Keith went on to say that Marley was pretty lousy when he started out, but got his shit together quickly. Wether there is truth to any of this, I couldn't say. As for me, I'm still on the fence with this stuff and with most reggae, I reckon. Two or three songs and I've reached my fill. I remembered while listening to this that when I was in junior high school we kept getting phone calls to my house from the Army recruitment office wanting to speak to Bob Marley. My parents had no interest in music, still don't, so they had no idea who Bob Marley was. They just assumed they had the wrong number. They called several times for Bob Marley and once my stepfather was irritated enough he said to them, "Look, god dammit, there's no Bob Marley living here. I don't know where you got this number, but stop calling here!" My older brother, Jaime, was in the room and broke out in nervous laughter after the receiver was slammed down. It was the first time any of us had heard who they were calling for. It turned out the recruiters talked to all the kids in his class at school and passed out info cards for those that were interested to fill out and return. Jaime filled out a card for Bob Marley with our phone number on it. I'm not sure what the resolution was, but I remember my stepfather trying to scare Jaime into thinking he would be enlisted anyway, prank or not.)

BOB MARLEY & THE WAILERS - "Talkin' Blues" CD (This CD is pretty good. It was recorded live on the radio in 1973 with a stripped down band and rougher sound than on their studio albums. The songs are broken up with interview clips, which is kind of a drag because not only does it interrupt the flow of the music, the patois is so thick it's nearly impossible to make out what's being said.)

JACKIE MARTLING - "The Joke Man" CD (One time head writer of the Howard Stern Show, one of his stand up CDs I bought from his 1-800 number while I was in high school. I listened to this CD so much then I know all of the punchlines now. That's the problem with comedy albums, they're not too good for repeat listens.)

MASACRE - "Cancer De Nuestros Dias" CD (Raw and noisy death/black metal from Columbia. This CD contains their demos from 1989 and 1990 plus a Sarcofago cover. This reissue came out on Obliteration Records, Naru gave me a copy when I met him in Tokyo years ago. I had never heard the band before and haven't heard anything else since. This sort of sloppy death metal stuff is always great, especially so when it comes from South America. There's something great about a band playing as extreme and fast as they can and falling short of being able to pull it off. A proper recording and better playing would kill the charm these demos have, that's why I've never looked into any of their full-lengths. These two demos are great.)

MC5 - "Kick Out the Jams" CD (Loud and dirty arena rock from Detroit. There's nothing I could say about this that hasn't been said before. I'm sure term papers have been written about the MC5 and why Detroit, of all places, had such a huge explosion of crushing rock and roll music back then. Sadly, I've never heard anything they've recorded that comes close to matching the greatness of this live album, but right now, this shit is too good to ruin it by writing about it.)

Day #171
BOBBY McFERRIN - "Simple Pleasures" CD (This was Bobby's breakthrough album, the one with "Don't Worry" on it. I found this used at BJ's in Iowa City for $5.98 sometime in the 90s. I liked it enough to buy two more of his CDs at full retail price. He's probably the only "full body" singer out there and I've always wondered if he has red marks and bruises on his body after one of his performances. This particular CD is all vocal with him doing multiple vocal tracks to simulate instrumental backing to an amazing effect. I remember hearing "Don't Worry" in elementary school and thinking It was a full band. This is a fun album.)

BOBBY McFERRIN - "Spontaneous Inventions" CD (This CD is made up of different live recordings, I'm guessing some of this stuff was improvised or done without rehearsal, thus the title. There's some additional instrumentation on some of the tracks; piano on one track, trumpet on another, cover versions of The Beatles, Cream (?!) and a vocal duet with Robin Williams of all people, but it's the solo tracks like "I Hear Music" in which Bobby shines on this CD. Give him a microphone and an empty stage and listen to him create magic. It's amazing. This stuff is fun, original, complex all at the same time. I probably listen to this one the most of the three CDs I own.)

BOBBY McFERRIN & CHICK COREA - "Play" CD (Chick is a great piano player with an extensive discography and decades of experience playing with loads of jazz legends, including Miles Davis in the 60s. This CD was recorded live and was the first glimpse I had at what a serious musician McFerrin is. He pulls off stuff on this album I hadn't heard on the others I own. Having to follow a pianist grounds him somewhat, but only slightly. There's still lots of free improvisation on this album, same sense of humor, but it's balanced out with more serious performances as well.)

M.D.C. - "Corpses of the Ultimate Dominators" CD (I've been a fan since 1989 or so after hearing "Metal Devil Cokes" in 8th grade, but didn't get the chance to see them live until they toured this album. I didn't know it until after the show in which I bought this CD, but the original M.D.C. line up were touring that year and recorded this album. Ex-con Ron hadn't played with them since 1985, so I caught them at a good time, I guess. Unfortunately, at this point I had lost interest in hearing new M.D.C. material. I went to hear and scream along with the old songs, and they delivered in spades playing almost all of their first album. I picked up this CD anyway, swept up with excitement after the show, hoping it would be good. It is good, about as good as you'd expect a bunch of 50 year olds to be playing punk rock to be. Dave's voice isn't anywhere near as angry as it once was, but he holds his own on this. Had I heard this in high school I probably would have been all over it, but it doesn't move me like the old stuff does. Oh well... My friend, Crow, went to take a leak when we saw them play this show and he walked in on Dave Dictor taking a shit with the door wide open before their set.)

M.D.C. - "Hey Cop!!! If I Had a Face Like Yours..." CD (This is a great album. I didn't know until just a few minutes ago that the guitarist from Fang played on this album and wrote all of the music. I love Fang, and I've always loved this album, so that makes sense. The bassist for Rancid played on this too, but who gives a shit about them? This was a return to a more HC sound for M.D.C. after experimenting around with different styles for a while. The riffs and guitar sounds are scuzzy and mean and Dave still sounds plenty pissed on this one. I had this on cassette at one point, might still have it somewhere.)

M.D.C. - "Metal Devil Cokes" CD (I heard this album first. Had I heard it later I might not have liked it as much, but when in your life you hear an album plays a big part in how much you like it. Just listening to this makes me think of junior high, squeezing zits and trading tapes with the 3-4 other punk / metalheads I knew back then. There's a lot of rock stuff on here, some goofy stuff and a few blistering HC tracks that sound sort of out of place amongst the rest of this album. This is a good album, but it's not going to convert anyone that isn't already a fan.)

M.D.C. - "Millions of Damn Christians" CD (aka "This Blood's for You". Some of their best songs are on this LP, in fact the whole first side is fucking great. They really pushed the boundaries of what punk was on this release, showcased just how great of musicians they were including a lengthy Spanish guitar intro before "Chock Full of Shit", a sample filled, feedback drenched dance experiment and a cover of Cream's "Politician". I can imagine a lot of their old HC fans jumped ship with this release, but I think it's one of their best. I picked up a picture disc LP of this album before I even had a record player, then bought this CD more than 10 years later. This was the second album I heard of theirs and because of that,to me this is the classic era of M.D.C..)

M.D.C. - "Millions of Dead Cops / More Dead Cops" CD (Their first full length paired with a collection of singles. Raging, angry, full-blown HC intensity and one of the finest examples of the hardcore genre. Dave's vocals are venomous and running at top speed for the majority of this stuff and the band would never play this fast again. It took huge balls to be a Texas punk band in the late 70s, I'm sure, especially singing songs like "John Wayne Was a Nazi". Their conviction is apparent on these recordings.)

M.D.C. - "Now More Than Ever" CD (This is a cool compilation spanning their entire career up to that point, but by no means essential. There's a couple unreleased live tracks on here, but the bulk of this is available elsewhere. Still, the track listing is pretty close to what I would choose if I was to pick it. It's nice to have some of the tracks from the "Smoke Signals" LP on CD. I only have it on vinyl and haven't seen it available on CD anywhere before.)

M.D.C. - "Shades of Brown" CD (I've probably spent more time listening to this album than any of the others. Chris Wilder of Stikky fame takes over on guitar and brings loads of metal licks and his weird synthetic guitar sound with him. He also does backing vocals over most of the album and takes over lead vocals on an animal rights rap song. Sonically this is a strange album because of his guitar sound, but the songs are great and this album isn't as uneven as some of their previous were. Only a couple of these songs seem like filler this time around. I would have loved to have seen this line up on stage, but it was short lived.)

MEAT PUPPETS - s/t CD (I can't think of one other album that sounds like this one, including the rest of the Puppets catalog. This first album is a mixture of punk, country, noise, hippy shit with bursts of thrash throughout. All this with some of the most throat-shredding vocals ever recorded, especially considering how old this stuff is. It's a real head-scratcher, proof that weird/great shit comes from isolated pockets all over the place. Arizona had their share of punk bands, but nothing of this sort. This reissue on Rykodisc has their godly "In a Car" 7" (proto-thrash if such a thing exists, to be sure) and loads of other stuff, including a Grateful Dead cover, as bonus tracks. I've heard other Puppets stuff, but didn't like any of it, just this album. It's a shame they didn't record more stuff like this, but I suppose they accomplished what they wanted to with this one and moved on.)

Day #172
MEAT SHITS - "7" Collection Vol. 1" CDR* (Meat Shits are one of my favorite bands. I own all of their 7"s, and most of them were impossible to find downloads of online, so I ripped all of my records and burned them to CDR. It's impossible to know exactly which order they were released in, but I tried to put them in chronological order from oldest to newest the best I could. I shared these collections online via Soulseek which eventually led to Robert Deathrage getting ahold of me, but that's a story for later. Say what you will about Meat Shits, but they were pioneers in the noisecore genre here in America and later with their usage of samples in their music. The oldest stuff was pure noisecore, short bursts of noise interrupted occasionally with samples from porno films and stupid 80s films. By the time they started releasing vinyl they replaced the drum machine with a "real" band and added some structure, but their earliest records are super noisy and among the greatest noisecore records ever released. It wasn't long before the guys from Plutocracy got involved (including Hirax Max Ward who at one point denied ever being in Meat Shits) and moved them one step closer to becoming a death metal band, stripping away the charm of their oldest recordings. This second phase of the band is great, too, but nowhere near as fun as the Scruff Muff-era. The "Bowel Rot" 2x7" will probably always be my favorite release.)

MEAT SHITS - "7" Collection Vol. 2" CDR* (This one picks up with the Plutocracy-era stuff and moves into the more death metal sounding line-up that recorded the "Ecstasy of Death" LP. I heard this line-up first and like it for what it is, but this is my least favorite Meat Shits stuff. So, Robert Deathrage downloaded my rips of these 7"s from Soulseek, then sent me a message thanking me for doing them and after talking a while he asked if I was interested in releasing them on Mortville. At that point my label was on the downslide into obscurity, so I declined. I mailed him CDRs with wav files of all of the material, instead. He offered to send me a shirt in trade and I accepted ( I never did get that shirt), then asked me a few times if I could scan all of the artwork. Not just the cover art, but the front, back, inside and center label artwork for every record. I told him I would do it when I had the chance, but I never got around to doing it. He released my rips as "Whoreible Vol. 1" sometime later. More on that later...)

MEAT SHITS - "7" Collection Vol.3" + "Menstrual Samples" demo + "Meet the Shits" demo CDR* (Finishing up the stuff with the "Ecstasy of Death" line-up, including the split w/ Catatonic Existence, which was the first Meat Shits stuff I heard. I had room leftover on the disc, so I ripped a couple of their old demos to fill out the space. "Meet the Shits", their first demo, is essentially the same 2 second song repeated hundreds of times.)

MEAT SHITS - "Ecstasy of Death" CD (71 minutes of meathead misogynist porno-death metal, a real endurance test to listen to now, but when I bought this in 1995 or so I listened to it enough to have most of it memorized now. There was some bad blood between the band and the label over this album because Robert allegedly used the label's money allotted to record this album to also record additional material to be used for other releases. Odin wasn't happy finding out he was footing the bill for other labels' recordings, so some mud-slinging occurred as a result, including rumors that Robert Deathrage was gay, had rectal cancer and AIDS. This bad blood carried over to affect future Meat Shits releases on Moribund, but more on that later...)

MEAT SHITS - "For Those About to Shit..." CD (One of their rarest releases, I somehow stumbled upon a copy in someone's distro from Czech Republic at some point in the late 90s at regular price. This is a "best of the early years" release covering material from all of the demo tapes up to, and including, the material with the Plutocracy line-up.)

MEAT SHITS - "Fuck Frenzy" CD (With this CD I've reached my saturation point with Meat Shits for the day. My ears feel like they've been smashed with a hammer. This was this first full-length album, but it was only released on cassette. It wasn't released on CD until several years later. This CD has different cover art than the cassette and more songs. Recorded during the Plutocracy line up, the first half is made up of longer, more structured death metal songs with doomy parts and pitch-shifted vocals. The second half is a return to form with shorter songs, blasts of noise and more samples. This album sounds great.)

MEAT SHITS - "Give Hate a Chance" CD (I've had a dubbed copy of this album on cassette since the mid-90s along with some other stuff recorded at the same time, some of it still unreleased. This is Meat Shits' "brown metal" phase, the stuff with the guys from Infester as his backing band. I know it's cool to hate this band, but this CD is great. When it comes to their death metal stuff, this is the best line-up. The music is tighter and faster than it's ever been, Robert's vocals sound angrier than usual and the addition of keyboards adds some interesting textures and atmosphere that didn't exist before. I prefer this stuff over the Plutocracy-era, even. There's some live bonus tracks tacked on the end from an even newer, but sloppier line-up.)

Day #173
MEAT SHITS - "Gorenography" CD (This CD is pretty lousy. The sound is wrecked and sounds like it came from a 6th generation cassette dub played slower than usual. The songs are mostly two minute long movie samples followed by a three second noise song. For die-hard fans only, this one stinks.)

MEAT SHITS - "Sniper at the Fag Parade" CD (Another album recorded with the Infester line-up. This was originally released as "Second Degree of Torture" on Guilli Records in Germany with different artwork and better sound (I assume, I was never able to track that CD down). I'm not sure what the resolution was between the band and Moribund Records regarding their feud, but 3 more Meat Shits albums were released on Moribund after the "Ecstasy of Death" fiasco (this one, "Gorenography" and "Violence Against...") and all have wrecked sound quality. I've had cassette dubs of some of this material since the mid-90s and the sound on my cassettes is way better than what ended up on these CDs. Robert claims Moribund sabotaged these releases by fucking with the sound to make him look bad. That might be true, but Robert also told me he lost/misplaced the masters for all of his releases over the years, that's why he used my vinyl rips for "Whoreible Vol. 1" CD, so maybe he lost the master for these releases, too, and only had a cassette dub to work with? I don't suppose anyone will ever know for sure.)

MEAT SHITS - "Violence Against Feminist Cunts" CD (The advance dub of this I got in the 90s was titled "Vicious Act of Machismo". Like the above two CDs, the sound on this CD is wrecked and sounds like it came from a cassette dub. This came from the same recording session as the above album. This is a great album, one of their best, even though some of this material overlaps "Give Hate a Chance".)

MEAT SHITS - "Whoreible Vol. 1" CD (This is a collection of 7" material, all from the death metal years. I was browsing records on eBay and came across this, didn't even know it had been released before then. I messaged the seller, asked if it was Robert, it was and he mailed me a copy for free. Turns out Robert used the vinyl rips and cover scans I sent him for this release, but I wasn't credited anywhere in the liner notes. Maybe I expect too much thinking I should have gotten credit, but the masters were lost and he didn't even have copies of his own records. This CD exists because I spent the time hunting these records down, paid a couple hundred dollars acquiring them, took the time to rip them and sent him a copy of the wav files. I did get a free copy, but only after I messaged him about it. Anyway, he pulled a "George Lucas" and fucked with some of the songs, but made no mention of doing so in the liner notes. Some of the intros have been replaced with new intros, some additional samples were added to songs, some were deleted completely and one was flipped so it played backwards. It's his material to do with as he wants, but it's sort of misleading to release this as a collection of 7"s when the 7"s aren't on here in their original form. I will say that most of the changes were subtle and took me a while to notice, but it's a bummer he didn't just leave them as is. I'm glad this stuff is available again, though. These records fetch huge money on eBay and a lot of people missed out on these when they were released originally.)

MEAT SHITS / CATATONIC EXISTENCE - split CD (All signs point to this being a bootleg, right down to the poorly done cover art. I don't think Meat Shits would have chosen to use a picture of Peter North as their cover art. This different than the split 7". All of these songs were released later on the "Give Hate a Chance" CD. Catatonic Existence are pretty terrible. It sounds exactly like those dancey techno songs the Meat Shits do, but without ever speeding up. I have a full Catatonic Existence 7" that I never listen to, not sure why I bought it. I'm sure Robert Deathrage has something to do with this project, but not sure how. It's too similar for there not to be some connection.

MEATMEN - "Cover the Earth" CD (Tesco Vee was selling these 5 CD + 1 DVD lots of Meatmen stuff on eBay for $30.00. It was too good of a deal to pass up, so I tool that opportunity to stock up on stuff I hadn't heard before. This was the newest album, cover versions of all styles of music. Once you get over the fact that the Meatmen will never be as great as they were during the Touch & Go years, you're free to enjoy their other releases. This is a fun CD, but probably not something I'll listen to often. I'd rather hear them doing their own thing, instead. I'm always open to hearing Black Randy songs, though. They were a pleasant surprise when I first listened to this.)

Day #174
MEATMEN - "Pope on a Rope" CD (I suppose this is their heavy metal album. The year they released this they played the Milwaukee Metalfest and it's certainly the heaviest of all their releases. There are cover versions of Gang Green, Deep Purple and the theme from Green Acres on this as well. Like most of the later Meatmen albums, this is pretty uneven, but there's lots of choice cuts on this album and it's worth picking up for cheap like I did.)

Day #176
MEATMEN - "Rock 'n' Roll Juggernaut" CD* (Once I realized this was a piss-take and not an attempt at selling-out, I warmed up to it. All of those great HC bands from the 80s wound up playing cheesy rock music, but I'm almost certain they recorded this as a spoof making fun of bands like Gang Green and SSD, even though I'm sure they loved those bands. "Centurions of Rome" is just too stupid and epic for it to be serious. I could be way off, I guess. Either way, this is one of their best albums, a cock-rock masterpiece with well written, memorable songs with funny lyrics and powerful vocals like only Tesco can deliver.)

MEATMEN - "Stud Powercock: The Touch & Go Years 1981-1984" CD (This collects all of the hardcore releases from the very beginning demo days in Michigan to the move to D.C. and the great "Dutch Hercules" 12". This is the one I grab when I have the urge to listen to the Meatmen, but I've heard this stuff so often it's been burned into my brain since youth. Tesco's vocals sound like they'd be really painful to do after a few songs, I don't know how he does it. The music certainly isn't as tight or as fast as other bands from that scene at the time (Negative Approach, Necros, Minor Threat, etc.), but they made up for it in pure sleaze and humor. This stuff is great, the majority of these songs are classics and dominate their set lists 30 years later, but the "Dutch Hercules" EP is the real gem on here. It's a glimpse of the cheesy rock to come, but still tough as nails. I don't think it gets the appreciation it deserves.)

MEATMEN - "Toilet Slave" CD (This album kinda sucks, but then again, I can't think of one punk rock album released in 1994 I liked. I really think that Tesco formed the Meatmen because he loves punk rock and wanted to be involved in it somehow. The band was a natural extension from doing the zine and running a label. I'm sure he tours because he likes doing it, not because he needs the money, unlike some other punk rock dinosaurs. This was probably released as an excuse to tour. It's pretty crummy either way.)

MEATMEN - "War of the Superbikes II" CD (This is a reissue of the "War of the Superbikes" album with loads of bonus stuff added. It was their first album after leaving Touch &Go and it's one of their better albums. A couple of the guys from Minor Threat played on this, and like "Rock 'n' Roll Juggernaut", it's full of sleazy, cheesy cock-rock anthems. The newly recorded bonus tracks on this re-release are great, too. Fast, heavy, powerful, fun and better than anything they've recorded since "... Juggernaut" with the exception of the album directly below this one...)

MEATMEN - "We're the Meatmen... and You Still Suck!!!" CD (I had the original release of this CD years ago, but I have no clue what happened to it. I looked all over for it thinking I just misplaced it, but it never turned up. I'm happy it was re-released, because this is probably their best album after the Touch & Go stuff. It's a fake live album with crowd noise overdubbed in post-production, but the song selection and the performances are excellent, the recording is terrific and Tesco's snarling rants between songs pull everything together nicely. This stuff is top-shelf and would probably be the best introduction to the band for those not in the know. This reissue includes the Tesco Vee With White Flag EP as bonus tracks.)

MEDIEVAL - "All Knobs to the Right" Demo, s/t 12" + "Medieval Kills" LP CDR* (Medieval were a heavy 80s band from Michigan, I believe. I say "heavy" because they don't fit neatly into any genre. Their earliest stuff has punk rock elements to it as well as straight-up rock and heavy metal. Towards the end they started working in some speed metal, but they also dabbled in doomy Sabbath-like riffing. They're a great band that I came to love even more with age. I've had their LP since the 90s, but the 12" took me a while to find. Both have been reissued with three bonus tracks on one CD by their label, New Renaissance, recently. I'm tempted to pick it up, but I can't justify the expense seeing that I already have the vinyl. These guys were great, one of the best unknown metal bands from the 80s.)

MEGADETH - "Killing is My Business... And Business is Good" CD (There's really nothing I could say about Megadeth that hasn't been said before, and anyone reading this is well aware of what they sound like, have formulated their own opinion of the band and what their cut-off album is. I think their first two albums are great, third is pretty mediocre and fourth is pretty great, too. That's all I can muster up to say about them at this point. Oh, I have one old the old CDs with the Nancy Sinatra cover on it.)

MEGADETH - "Peace Sells... but Who's Buying?" CD (This is my favorite Megadeth album, I think most people would agree it's their best.)

MEGADETH - "So Far, So Good... So What! CD (The drumming on this, their third album, is pretty shitty. The songs aren't anywhere near as good as on the previous two albums, either, but there's still some good stuff on here. It's still a good album, but a bit of a disappointment after the other two. That Sex Pistols cover is an abomination, though.)