213 days into this stupid project, and well on my way to getting through all of my CDs in jewel cases within a year. At this point I'm sick of listening to music 8 hours a day, but I'm still finding things I forgot how much I enjoyed that I wouldn't normally choose to listen to.
(*) asterisks note things that are burned copies and not an original release. CDRs without asterisks behind them were originally issued as CDRs.
Day #207
OUT OF FOCUS - "Not Too Late" CD (Recorded during their last session, then abandoned, then unearthed decades later. It's easily as good as the three albums they released while they were still active.)
OUT OF FOCUS - "Rat Roads" CD (This one was recorded during the same sessions as "Four Letter Monday Afternoon", but wasn't released until decades later. A tremendous amount of music was recorded for that album, apparently. Like the second CD of that album, this sounds as if it was all improvised and takes on an even stronger jazz feel than anything else they've released. The majority of this is left instrumental, too, and sounds somewhat unfinished, which it probably it. It's a great CD, though, with long jams from a fantastic band.)
OUT OF FOCUS - "Wake Up" CD (This, their first album, rocks harder, is less jazzy, more bluesy and more psychedelic. From their very first release they were great. They were one of the best German progressive rock bands. Compare this to other albums released in 1970 and it's pretty incredible. All of these songs are great, but the two longest songs, "Hey John" and "Dark, Darker", really show what these guys are capable of.)
OUTO - "Discography" CDR (I bought this bootleg ages ago. It's since gotten a legit reissue. The first 7" on here is some of the greatest HC recorded, but they got less interesting with each release. Some bands are just better when they suck. I couldn't care less about the Outo at the end of this disc. They should have recorded more songs like "Frog Song" and "I Like Cola". That would have been awesome.)
OVERKILL - "Taking Over" CD (One of my favorite Overkill albums. At one point I owned this on LP, cassette and CD. Blitz's vocals took some getting used to, but I can dig them now. That Megaforce crunch is in full effect on this album. Seeing them live was one of the best, most fun shows I've been to. There are some terribly cheesy songs on this one, on all Overkill albums, really, but they only serve to make it more endearing. How could you not get behind a song like "In Union We Stand"?)
OVERKILL - "Under the Influence" CD (The first Overkill album I heard, still one of my favorites. If you can look past the goofy lyrics and the abysmal "Hello From the Gutter", this is a great thrash metal album with an even crunchier sound than the previous album. Everything's faster and heavier, with the exception of "Drunken Wisdom" which might be the most brutal song they've ever written. I never realized how much "The End of the Line" sounds like Iron Maiden until today. Awesome. This album kills.)
OXIDIZED RAZOR / AUTOPHAGIA - split CD (I don't think I ever cared for these kind of gurgling septic tank vocals outside of Gut and maybe Regurgitate. Sometimes I hate Gut for inspiring so many shitty goregrind bands. These kind of vocals are so fucking stupid and lazy. I might have felt differently at one point, but they're especially irritating today. The alternative is worse, though, a bunch of comfortable fuckers screaming and pretending to be angry. I don't know what the answer is, really. I just know if you're going to take the easy way out of writing lyrics and doing proper vocals, there better be something special going on with your music to rescue it from complete mediocrity. Such is the case with Autophagia, a one man project from Greece. Unlike Oxidized Razor who sound as if they made this shit up as they went, Autophagia wrote short and fast songs with with multiple changes, dual vocals (still really silly) and manage to retain that rehearsed old-school grindcore sound mixing elements of HC and death metal properly. The production leaves a lot to be desired, but manages to sound live and energetic. Oxidized Razor should take notes.)
PANDEMONIUM - "Sex, Drugs, Stocks and an Old Man Talking to Himself" 2CD (Noisy Dutch HC from the 80s. These guys get compared often to Lärm, enough so for someone to do a Pandemonium / Lärm - split bootleg, but they really don't sound all that similar. Their fastest material sounds somewhat similar to Lärm's slowest, I guess, but only if you force the comparison. The LP on here is amazing and the 7"s before and after it, but it takes a while for this collection to get going. Once it does, though, it's great. The second disc is all live. It's okay, I guess. I wouldn't have bought it separately if it weren't included in this set. Years ago I bought CDR bootlegs of this stuff and the Lärm split among other stuff from a famous grindcore celebrity, but I had no idea they were burned CDs when I bought them from him. He made no distinction at all, even though he's quick to point out bootleggers himself, especially of his band's material. Once when I sent him a burned CD as part of a trade he mailed it back and said if I did it again that would be the end of our partnership. All of those "CDs" I bought from him have gone tits up since then and are worthless now because of the sticker labels he used on them. He was a real boner, but his band fucking ruled.)
PANTALONES ABAJO MARINERO - "Communicacion del Infierno" CDR (I think this is a promo of some sort, but not sure what for. I'm sure not many exist, though. There's a chance this material will resurface on a 7 band compilation, "Incident at Ape Canyon", but I doubt I'll ever get around to putting that together seeing as I'm hopeless. This shit rules. I'm taking the easy route and saying if you liked P.A.M.'s older stuff, you'll like this too. Sorry, Miguel.)
PARACOCCIDIOIDOMICOSISPROCTITISSARCOMUCOSIS / BUTCHER ABC - split CD (Mexican gore/grind with the longest and stupidest name ever. Unlike Oxidised Razor, also from Mexico, these guys are pretty entertaining. They still kind of suck, but in a good way that has nothing to do with being a Gut clone. The vocals are really dumb, but funny at the same time. I've never heard anyone "sing" like this before, it's awesome. The music is a primitive mid-paced death metal that occasionally speeds up, but never too fast. The intros before the songs are way too long, too. Still, they're so damn unique sounding it's hard to dismiss them completely. Butcher ABC's stuff on here is is from a 1995 studio session, maybe their first recordings? I read somewhere that they started out as a noisecore band. I don't know if I could call this noisecore. More like 30 second blasts of goregrind. I'm not sure I've listened to this before today. You'd be surprised at how many CDs I have I've never listened to.)
Day #208
PARADE OF THE LIFELESS - "Anatomy of a People's Bondage" CD (I like this CD, but it's miles away from where they started. It's easy to see why the singer, Derrick, parted ways with them. He just wanted to be in a metal band and they drifted pretty far away from the Cryptopsy influenced grind band they started out as. I've known Derrick years before POTL came into existence through his noisecore band Soiled. I liked POTL enough to release both of their 7"s. I love all of their releases, but that split with Noisear is my favorite. They kept adding more and more changes and weird shit until the riffs just disappeared. There's loads of people into that sort of ultra-technical mathcore type stuff, but it's always just confused me and given me a headache. These guys really knew how to tackle their instruments, though. There's no question about that.)
PARADISE LOST - "Lost Paradise" + "Live Liverpool 3/18/89" CDR* (I've always really liked this dude's vocals. They're perfect for this kind of music. I've heard a couple other Paradise Lost albums and this is the only one I like. They were pretty much a straight up doom/death metal band at this point, before the goth influence moved in. Comparing this to early Cathedral wouldn't be too far off. There's an excellent soundboard recording of a very early live set filling out the disc. Too bad they didn't record more stuff like this.)
MACEO PARKER - "Life on Planet Groove" CD (I found this at a pawn shop for $3, figured it had to be at least $3 good. Maceo is a saxophonist, best known for his work with James Brown and George Clinton, but he's had a long solo career, too. This is the only solo album I've heard and it's a live album from 1992. It's pretty similar to the stuff he recorded in the early 70s with James Brown under the JB's moniker, in fact, there's three lengthy James Brown songs on this 74 minute CD. He describes their style as "2% jazz and 98% funk". This is pretty good, better than I expected it to be, actually. I'd be into finding more of his albums cheap like this.)
PARLAMENTARISK SODOMI - "Har Du Sagt "A" Får Du Si "Nal"" CD (Blasting one man grindcore assault from Norway. The calibre of some of these one man projects amazes me. Very few are doing it right, but these guys, all of Magnus' projects, Wadge, Patisserie and Autophagia fucking nail it. Super thick production, well crafted old school grindcore song writing and powerful vocals on this CD. I'm not impressed by much in grindcore today, but this stuff sits with me just fine. Apparently this is two of the band's demos collected. Fucking crazy... The guy behind this seems really cool, too.)
PARLIAMENT - "Chocolate City" CD (This is one of my favorite Parliament albums. I've always been way more into the Funkadelic side of P-Funk, but the early Parliament albums are great funky fun. After a certain point, though, it took on too many disco characteristics for my tastes, too slick and processed. This one has a more organic, "human" sound to it and is great because of it. The bass sound on this album is crazy, sicker than on any of their other albums. Recorded before they adopted the interplanetary funk concept, this is just a bunch of great stand alone tracks that make up a great album.)
PARLIAMENT - "The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein" CD (The "P-Funk Earth Tour" live album was my first exposure to Parliament and it was touring this album, so I know these songs really well and find myself singing along with it without even realizing it. Super cheesy + lots of fun. It's the songs I didn't know from the live album that are my favorites, though. My friend Derek in High School was hugely into P-Funk, but hated all the attention they were getting because of sampling, specifically Dr. Dre's "The Chronic" album. If it weren't for Derek, to this day I probably wouldn't have any idea who they were. Funk wasn't on the radar for me, I had to be indoctrinated. We exchanged a few emails earlier this year after a 10 year hiatus. Not surprisingly, P-Funk dominated most of our conversation.)
PARLIAMENT - "First Thangs" CD (I don't remember the full story of this album, but it was released under the name Parliament due to some copyright issue with Funkadelic, who came to be because of a copyright issue with The Parliaments. The history of this shit's pretty confusing sometimes. Anyway, this sounds more like Funkadelic's "America Eats It's Young" 2LP than anything Parliament recorded. It's one of my favorite releases because of that. I didn't hear this one until years after the others. I didn't even know it existed when I saw it at Best Buy or even what it was.)
PARLIAMENT - "Funkentelechy Vs. the Placebo Syndrome" CD (It's right about here in their catalog that I lose interest. It's a stupid thing to complain about when listening to dance music, but so many of these songs are just one part repeated at length for 7 or more minutes, no changes. That might be fine for dancing, but not so good for sitting with headphones on paying attention to what's playing. I'm still on board with most of this album, but I hardly ever listen to it. There's too many other Clinton jams I would reach for first.)
PARLIAMENT - "Live: P-Funk Earth Tour" CD (As I said above, this was the first Parliament album I heard. I'm not totally sure I enjoyed or understood it at first, but it was Derek's passion for it that made me give more attention to it than I would have normally. I'm glad I stuck it out. The set list is made up mostly of songs from "Mothership Connection" and "Clones of Dr. Funkenstein" with a couple Funkadelic songs tossed in. There's a studio track and a promo on here as well, but the cassette version had another studio track this is missing, I think.)
Day #209
PARLIAMENT - "Mothership Connection" CD (When I think of Parliament, this is what comes to mind, not only conceptually, but musically. This is a great album, but I can't think of a thing to say about it right now.)
PARLIAMENT - "Motor Booty Affair" CD (I think I might like this one a little more than "Funkentelechy", though I don't listen to it very often, either. This is the last Parliament album I bought. After being underwhelmed by this one and and the previous one I wasn't interested enough to investigate further. I'm enjoying it this morning, though, more than I expected to, but probably because I've listened to it less often than the others and it's still somewhat new to me as a result.)
PARLIAMENT - "Up For the Down Stroke" CD (Released 4 years after their debut, George Clinton dusted off the Parliament moniker for a more commercial version of what he was already doing with Funkadelic. I've always considered this to be their first album as it's the first to fit in the big picture of what Parliament were to be known for. 3 songs from their doo-wop days as The Parliaments get a style update for this release and are barely recognizable when compared to the originals. This is probably my favorite of their albums and I always listen to this and "Chocolate City" when I'm in the mood to listen to them, sometimes never getting past CC. My funk tangents always include these first two albums and the first 5 or 6 Funkadelic albums. If I'm still into it, I'll venture out further in both bands' releases and add Bootsy's Rubber Band in the mix.)
THE PARLIAMENTS - "I Wanna Testify" CD (I spent $22 on this fucking CD because the price tag said it was an import and a double CD. It wasn't, and when I took it back to the Record Collector on a return visit to complain about it they looked at me like I was retarded. Fucking smug record store pricks. It took me years to fully appreciate this CD. I was initially bummed it didn't sound more like Parliament, then bummed about the crummy archival sound quality, but I overcame both and was able to enjoy it for what it is. We get an early snapshot of Clinton's musical ability, his knack for arrangement and his trademark lyric style. The Parliaments were started in the back of a New Jersey barbershop in the late 50s. There were singles going as far back as 1959, but sadly they weren't included here. Collected on this CD are 16 tracks culled from late 60s singles on the Revilot label written while Clinton was employed by Motown Records as a songwriter. Some of these songs were recorded later as Funkadelic, some on Parliament's "Up For the Down Stroke" album. The version of "Good Ole Music" on here isn't too different than the re-recorded version.)
PASADENA NAPALM DIVISION - "P.N.D. EP" MCD (I picked this up the last time I saw D.R.I. play live. It's Kurt from D.R.I. with a couple of the guys from Dead Horse doing metallic crossover stuff. It's not as good as either of those bands, but it's better than I thought it would be. When I got this I listened to it 20 or more times before shelving it. If they released another album I'd probably go out of my way to pick it up. That's a pretty good endorsement.)
PATARENI - "D.I.Y. - R.Y." CDR (I bought this from their guitarist Davor ages ago. The bulk of it comes from the "Back to the Roots" LP, re-recordings of their oldest material. Patareni are one of the greatest HC/grindcore band's ever, and one of the oldest forming in 1983. I think they did their first demo in 1986, or something crazy like that. Loads of complex changes, tons of parts, tons of noise blasts and, from what I can tell, a healthy sense of humor. They were pioneers in both grindcore and noisecore and from such an unlikely place, Yugoslavia. Unlike a lot of those old first wave grind bands who are still around today, most of their releases are still fucking great. Nothing but respect and appreciation for Patareni. The material on this CDR is great and the sound quality is awesome. There's some Buka tracks on here as well, deliciously noisy and retarded. This exact same Buka recording shows up on several Patareni splits, though.)
PATARENI - "Never Healed" CD (... and the same Patareni recordings show up on different releases, too, sometimes more than once on the same release. There's a lot of overlap between this one and the CD above, but that's okay as this is a CD release and the other is a limited CDR. Like the last disc, these recordings come from the early 90s and mix HC, thrash, noise and grind. There's a few more recent tracks Guilio from Cripple Bastards sings on, too. This shit rules, but I can't figure out why the same fucking recordings are on this disc in different order and with different titles. It's so fucking stupid and confusing. Maybe they thought people would see it had 81 tracks on it and buy it because it was a good deal? It would be a great deal at 40 tracks and the repeated songs left off, too.)
PATARENI -"Nezadovoljstvo je Energija" CD (First 3 tracks on this CD are the exact same recording as the last 3 tracks on the previous disc, and they appeared twice on that disc, not just once. I don't know what kind of shit they tried to pull with these CDs (they were released within months of each other), but it's fucking stupid. We move into some different stuff after that, then some live tracks. The live stuff is awesome. The vocals are three times as loud as the music and sound totally brutal and obnoxious. After the live stuff, the first half of the disc repeats itself, including those same 3 fucking songs for the 4th time in two CDs. At this point I'm thinking Patareni are a bunch of fuckheads for doing this and am tempted to call them "rip-offs" for misleading their fans into thinking their CDs have more material than they actually do. They probably could have condensed this CD and "Never Healed" to one CD had they not repeated the material on both discs, instead they decided to play games with their fans. I don't think this makes them rip-offs, but it's still a stupid fucking decision and these CDs suffer because of it.)
Day #210
PATARENI - "Obrade: A Tribute to Patareni" CDR (Another one I got from their guitarist years ago. The track listing is exactly the same as the LP I have, but the CD reissue done a few years ago has added material. I didn't bother buying the CD, I don't need it 3 times. This should probably be filed away with my compilations, but it's not. Lots of great bands on here: W.B.I., Scrawl, Rot, Cripple Bastards, Beyond Description, Sterbehilfe, Violent Headache, Necrophiliacs, Ruido De Odio and a bunch of others I hadn't heard of outside of this compilation.)
PATARENI - "Same" CD (Recorded at some point in the late 90s, not released until a great deal later. The band claim they didn't sanction this release and consider it to be a bootleg. They were probably just mad it was released without repeating the material at least once on the CD. This isn't anywhere near as fast, noisy or interesting as their other material. It's more metal sounding and precise. It sounds like the drums were programmed on a drum machine instead of someone actually playing them and like they have a different vocalist, too. I'm not digging this one too much.)
PATARENI - " Tko ne Pamti Iznova Proživljava" CD (This is my favorite Patareni stuff, from the oldest split 7"s dating back to the late 80s. "Deadland Massacre" is one of the most extreme pieces of music ever, I couldn't imagine hearing it when it was released. That very first split 7" with Buka with the pitch shifted vocals is total insanity. I was fortunate to pick up most of this stuff on vinyl when it was still around. I'm still missing a few of the 7"s, at least 3-4.)
Day #211
PATARENI / BUKA - "Empathy With Them / It's a Mockery" CD (There's a lot of overlap between this CD and "Never Healed", at least on the Patareni stuff. I'm not sure about the Buka stuff without checking. Within this CD, though, there are no repeated tracks. I probably listen to this one more often than the others.)
PATERNOSTER - s/t CD (Doomy German rock from 1971, their only release, I believe. The singer sounds as if he might start crying at any point during these songs. Joy Division has nothing on these guys. This album sounds like they recorded it as a suicide note, a final plea for help before ending it all. The vocals sort of sound like Dave Thomas from Pere Ubu, but deeper. It's a strange sound that probably takes some getting used to. This doesn't "rock" at all. The droning organ fills every song setting the mood appropriate for a funeral and it never gets faster than a snail's pace. The lyrics to "Blind Children" are really bizarre. This is a weird album, I can't think of anything else that sounds like it.)
PEGGIO PUNX - "Discography" 2CD (Peggio Punx were a pretty good Italian HC band from the early 80s. These discography CDs are great for stuff like this. I probably would never have had the chance to hear them if not for this. There's a good deal of melody in their music, certainly not as harsh as some other Italian HC bands from that era. There's even some funk worked into their music, but not to the extent Big Boys used funk. Like most of the original HC bands, they didn't play HC very long and moved on to other things. Even the slower tracks are interesting, though. It's better than what happened to SSD when they stopped playing punk. I had a few of these for sale for years. I ended up keeping one for myself because I had a single copy for the longest time that wouldn't sell.)
PELICAN - s/t EP CD (I saw Pelican with High on Fire and Floor when this was their only release. I hadn't heard of them before that, but they killed that night. I bought this CD and a shirt and went to see them every chance I had after that. Sometime after "Australasia" was released they stopped playing "Mammoth" live, no matter how many times I called out for them to play it. On my 5th time seeing them I talked to one of the members at their merch table and asked if they were going to play "Mammoth" that night and he said "We've outgrown that first EP and don't want to be remembered for that stuff anymore. We've moved on to better things." I told them it was my favorite song and thought the EP was great. They then told me if I spent $100 at their merch table that night they would play it. There was no smile on his face, he was dead serious.That was the exact point I lost interest in Pelican, completely and forever. At that point I owned all of their albums, EPs, the DVD, etc and I felt like a fucking fool giving them and their label my money, for driving hours to see them play, etc. I won't waste a second describing their music, but thought I should relate this story.)
PELICAN - "Australasia" CD (see above)
PELICAN - "The Fire in Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw" CD (see above)
PELICAN - "March Into the Sea" CD (see above)
Day #212
PENTAGRAM - "First Daze Here (The Vintage Collection)" CD (I had no idea I owned this. When I pulled it from the shelf to rip it to my iPod I was confused. I had a burned CDR copy of it at one point, I remember that, but I don't remember buying this and replacing that burned copy. Weird... Relapse is really good with their reissues. There aren't too many band's in their current roster I care about, but their reissues are usually worth picking up. This is the only Pentagram stuff I've heard, and then it was only because of a friend's persistence, but it's pretty good mid-70s proto-metal, Sabbath influenced rock. It's okay, not great. I see a bunch of fuckers at shows now with Pentagram back patches and shit, no idea if there's a direct correlation between this reissue and their new crop of fans, but I don't remember anyone ever talking about them before this CD. Even still, I don't see how anyone could be so into this band that they'd walk around with a Pentagram back patch. I assume it has more to do with the giant pentagram symbol underneath the logo and people being fucking stupid.)
PERE UBU - "Dub Housing" CD (Pere Ubu are another one of those bands that are difficult to describe, hard to pin down to a genre and are great because of it. Jon Ezell from Green Beret taped me the first couple of discs from the "Datapanik..." set back in the 90s and after repeated listens I found myself on-board. Their old 7"s and first album are my favorites. This album is a lot more mellow than that early stuff, but still really weird. There's nothing accessible about their music. Their success is really puzzling to me.)
PERE UBU - "The Modern Dance" CD (There's still elements of their punk rock past on this album, but only barely. Almost everything from Rocket From the Tombs is gone. While this is still guitar oriented music, it's miles away from rock. Dave Thomas' vocals take a long time to get used to, and once you get past them there's the obstacles of weird electronic noise over almost every song, instrumental passages that don't really work all that well and the occasional skronking saxophone to deal with. As I said above, these guys are great because of these things, but it's something you have to get accustomed to first. This album is loaded with strange shit, and it's probably the straightest of their albums I've heard.)
PERE UBU - "New Picnic Time" CD (Their third album. I haven't listened to this one as often as the others. Sounds pretty consistent, though.)
PERE UBU - "The Shape of Things" CD (I can remember picking this up at some tiny record store while I was out of state, but I can't remember where I was or who I was with. It might have been in North Carolina, but I'm not sure. This is a live CD recorded on cassette tape in 1976 during the band's first month of existence. The sound quality leaves a lot to be desired, but you can make out all of the instruments okay. Unlike those live Numslaughter albums, I'm okay with archival recordings with shitty sound like this being released as long as people know what they're getting into and they happen after the fact. The cover warned the sound was lousy, so I was expecting something along these lines. The set list is made up of all of those old 7"s that were collected on the "Terminal Tower" CD plus a couple I haven't heard outside of this CD.)
PESTILENCE - "Consuming Impulse" CD (This is a great death metal album, one of my favorites from my teenage years. I still have the cassette tape I bought then, with the stupid fucking perforated J-card that's fallen apart from reading the lyrics too many times. I bought this during that great period in my life in which every death metal album I heard was great, or at least interesting somehow. I either had a lucky streak or, more likely, because I was only hearing albums released by labels I like, they acted as a filter to weed out shit that probably sucked. Either way, this album is great, Martin's vocals were unique and the recording is perfect.)
PESTILENCE - "Maleus Maleficarum" CD (Their first album reissued with both demos tacked on the end. I didn't acquire this one until 2000 or so. I looked for it as a teenager without ever finding a copy. It didn't disappoint. It sounds like Pestilence, but thrashier than their second album. The demo tracks are great, but sound kind of muddy after listening to the album.)
PHANTASM - "Wreckage" CD (Katon's band after Hirax called it quits the first time, with Metallica's first bass player, Ron McGovney, and Gene Hogland on drums. This CD has their only demo (great!) and a live show with thin sound (not so great). It doesn't sound too different from Hirax, though not quite as good.)
Day #213
DAVE PHILLIPS - "Hermeneutics of Fear of God" CD (Cut up, reassembled and reconfigured Fear of God songs by one of the original members. Somehow this stuff manages to be even harsher than originally. I have the 12", too, but bought this on CD because it has tons of bonus stuff on it. The fucking Brazilian glue holding the tray to the digipack gave out before I even had it in my possession.)
PHLEGM - "Mr. Hoo-Ha Visits the Non-Stop Pissing Circus" CD (I'm not sure what to make of this. I remember seeing this in the Relapse catalog years ago and the description made me want to buy it, but not for $20. I saw it a few years ago at Half Price Books (?!?), saw that it was on Dr. Jim's Records and bought it because their releases are usually pretty good. The closest thing I can compare this too would be Faxed Head. There aren't really any songs. It just sounds like a bunch of fucking around in the studio. I've only listened to it once or twice and I'm not enjoying it today. This might be going in the sell pile if it doesn't get any better.)
PHOBIA - "22 Random Acts of Violence" CD (Phobia have always seemed terribly average to me, not deserving of the attention they get. I don't know how I acquired this CD, but I'm sure I didn't buy it. Are there really people who think songs like "Beer, Bitches and Bulletbelts" are cool? Fight the system, guys....)
PINK FAIRIES - "Kings of Oblivion" CD (Pink Fairies were a great rock band. They came from the wreckage of The Deviants. Their singer didn't like the direction they were going in, accused them of trying to be Led Zeppelin, rockstars, so The Deviants broke up and the rest of the band formed Pink Fairies. This was their third album. Guitarist Larry Wallis was in the original Motörhead line up and they re-recorded "City Kids" from this album. "I Wish I Was a Girl" is the best track on this album, 10 minutes of epic rock splendor.)
PINK FAIRIES - "Never Never Land" CD ("Do It" is one of those definitive rock anthems, right up there with "Kick Out the Jams". Perhaps better sequencing would have made the rest of this album sound better, but everything else sounds tame after that monster of an opening number. There's plenty of great, powerful songs on this album, but none that match the intensity of "Do It". "War Girl" is great and sounds like something you'd hear on a Funkadelic album from that time period. "The Snake" appears as a bonus track and is another highlight of this CD. I'm so glad I picked these up, all three at the same time without ever hearing them before. It was a gamble, but with a huge pay off.)
PINK FAIRIES - "What a Bunch of Sweeties" CD (This one isn't as good as the other two, but it's in no way bad. It doesn't even sound like the same band, really. There must be some personnel differences on this one.)
PINK FLOYD - "1967: The First Three Singles" CD (These early songs are great. They're even poppier and more psychedelic than their first album. Pink Floyd with and without Syd really can't be compared. They sound completely different. Most of these songs appeared on the "Relics" collection, maybe all of them.)
PINK FLOYD - "Atom Heart Mother" CD (This one of my favorite Pink Floyd albums. It really stands out in their catalog and there's nothing else that really sounds like it. Side one's "Atom Heart Mother Suite" is one long 23 minute track with a haunting reoccurring theme in the horn arrangement that gives me goosebumps whenever it shows up. "If" sounds like a Greg Lake ballad you'd hear on the first King Crimson album. The whole second side sounds like that, actually, until we get to "Allan's Psychedelic Breakfast" which sounds like bits of unfinished songs strung together by the sounds of breakfast. It's a bit silly, really, but the rest of this album is great.)
PINK FLOYD - "London '66-'67" CD (Two songs from a film soundtrack. The original 18 minute version of "Interstellar Overdrive" and the 12 minute "Nick's Boogie" which is exclusive to this release. These are the oldest PF recordings available for purchase, I guess, recorded before they were signed to EMI. Both songs are instrumental, spacey and fairly noisy. I'd like to see the film someday. Time to fire up YouTube...)
PINK FLOYD - "Meddle" CD (This might be my favorite Pink Floyd album. Its the one I heard, after much protest, that changed my mind about them. My friend Ace was a big Pink Floyd fan and talked about them often, but I always considered it to be hippie shit. Hearing "Echoes" turned all of that around for me. The section of bass on "One of These Days" with the gapper never fails to give me chills when I hear it. Listening to this album will always make me think of summer trips to Denver to see my friends.)
PINK FLOYD - "More" CD (Their third album, another film soundtrack, mixes acoustic, spacier psychedelic songs and a couple of uncharacteristically heavy songs. Most of this is great.)
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