Nudeviking & The External Hard Drive of Downloaded MP3s

I don't know if this one will work better for you. The other one still works okay for me so I wonder if it's just some wonky regional rights nonsense.

And yes, this week, for whatever reason, featured a fair number of things that I know for a fact I downloaded off of Napster because I heard the song on the local alt-rock radio station in the late 90s or early 2000s. It's kind of weird how these things shake out. Like one week I'll have multiple songs that I have a hard time finding any sort of shareable link for and then other times it's a mess of bands that were in heavy rotation in MTV's Buzz Bin in 1998.

OK Go were a really fun pop band. I had an album of theirs that I really liked. Though, yeah, I haven't listened to them in a while.

What a song, what an album! A fun thing to do for only me is to tell my kids that We Are Adventuring, We Are Adventurers when we're out for a walk in the woods or something like that.



Yes, FotL are better than Mclusky. Truly a great bunch of lads, all the best. Are you aware that one of their former guitarists does album reviews while out running? It's good stuff:

Holy cow I had a Future of the Left mp3 in ~2003. I must have downloaded it because I was making some themed mix CD and came across the song title, whatever it was. I have not thought of this band since because that song was good enough to download but not enough to investigate.

I like the one Ra Ra Riot song (it was called "Boy" I think) that even vaguely approached "hit" territory - it had a fun fast stuttery bassline and a more obvious hook to it. I think they got a lot of kudos for being probably the only rock band with a cellist on all their songs, which... you know, David Lee Roth was probably onto something with the "music critics look like Elvis Costello" bit, but I think it's maybe truer to say that rock music critics don't like rock music that rocks too hard, because it makes them feel bad about them not being very rocking themselves. I think that's why they got so big into indie rock acts with the stupid disco-flip beat that this song here has, because it's fast and driving without being rocking, if that makes sense.

Does anyone know who the face on the cover of that ...Trail of Dead album is?

I've owned that Trail of Dead album for over 20 years and never even noticed there was a face until now

(In my defence that would have been the era of buying a CD, immediately adding the disc to the Case Logic binder in your car and shelving the CD case until... whenever you got sick of the album and rotated it back out of your binder)

Week 21: 설 특집

새해 福 많이 받으세요! It's Lunar New Year in my neck of the global woods so I've got fuck all to do for the next four days except eat and drink and watch shitty movies on basic cable but before I get to that here are ten more songs chosen at random by the spirits that live in iTunes. Had I had a bit more foresight I would have done like I did at Christmas time and selected thematically appropriate songs for this week's list but I'm a hack and a fraud so I just have ten random-ass songs. You can imagine all these bands in hanbok if you want though.

Mudhoney - "Blindspots" (2006)

I think the last Mudhoney album I bought was that greatest hits/b-sides double album, March to the Fuzz. I don't know why I stopped paying attention to them after that because this song from their 2006 album, Under a Billion Suns sounds like every other Mudhoney song. Sure there are some random horns in the back half but other than that it wouldn't have felt out of place of Superfuzz Bigmuff. Do I think this is the greatest song Mudhoney ever recorded? No, but I'm also probably going to listen to the Mudhoney albums I do own because of it so I guess it did its job.

Rogue Wave - "Every Moment" (2003)

Rogue Wave were a band I confused with like five other bands that I didn't care for all that much which is kind of a shame because I think this song's kind of good. It gets in and gets out before it has a chance to wear out its welcome and that's admirable in an power pop song.

Milemarker - "Sex Jam Two: Insect Incest" (2000)

FUCK YES!!! MILEMARKER BABY!!! You  know how you get me to give a shit about a song? You write a song with a real twinkly, pretty-ass opening bit and then segue to some chunky-ass riff rock with someone clubberin' the shit out of the drums. You want to know how you get me to keep giving a shit about a song? You put some weird-ass sci-fi techno shit in the bridge and then follow that shit up with a dude screaming his lungs out. Close that shit out with someone atonally screamin' "YEAH! OH YEAH!!!" repeatedly and you've got a stew going! This song fuckin' rules and has earned the prestigous Greatest Song of All the Times of the Week Award.

We Were Promised Jetpacks - "It's Thunder and It's Lightning" (2009)

Between the Scottish accent of the dude singing and the tone of the guitar this just makes me want to listen to the Twilight Sad. It sounds just like them only not as good. That's not to say it's bad, a subpar version of the Twilight Sad is still pretty good but I've got the genuine article on this same iTunes machine and can listen to it right now if I wanted to.

P.O.S. - "Terrorish (Feat. Jason Shevchuk)" (2009)

This is great! Jason Shevchuk of Kid Dynamite, None More Black, and probably like 900 other bands shows up to "Woah oh oh!" as is his wont and sing(?) the hook. I need more hip-hop that has this exact vibe.

Six Going On Seven - "How To Sell The Brooklyn Bridge" (1999)

I kind of miss bands that sound like this. They were a dime a dozen in the mid-90s to early-00s, as this deep dive into an old harddrive has proven, but I didn't really give a shit about most of them when they were around and now they don't really exist anymore. This is the only Six Going On Seven song I have in my iTunes. Will I seek out more? Probably not but I'm also not going to delete this song like I have some of the others that have shown up here.

Mineral - "Slower" (1997)

Late 90s emo shit baby! As mentioned in past installments this kind of shit was all I listened to as a college student. Mineral weren't at the same level as shit like Cursive or The Promise Ring or The Get Up Kids in my overall ranking of bands that were probably on Saddle Creek or Doghouse or Jade Tree but they were a perfectly cromulent "I'm a teen boy who does not know how to deal with emotions and shit," band. I think this is one of their better songs overall. I'm a big fan of sloppy-ass feedback guitar solo shit towards the end.

Swearing at Motorists - "Flying Pizza" (2000)

These cats showed up in an earlier installment of this thing. I didn't care much for the song I reviewed earlier and I didn't care much for this one either. I am almost certain that I only bothered downloading this because "Swearing at Motorists" is a funny name for a band.

Alice Donut - "Crawlpappy" (1990)

I'm annoyed that I wasn't more into Alice Donut in my youth because every song of their's I've heard is 100% the sort of thing I would have played a billion times on my shitty GPX Portable Cassette Player while taking the bus to school in 1995. This doesn't hit quite as hard as I know it would have had I heard it when I was 15 years old but it's still pretty terrific.

Skeleton Key - "The Spreading Stain" (1996)

When I was in high school there was show on WSBK (aka "The Boston Channel") called Rage TV. Rage TV was fantastic for a kid living in the suburbs in a pre-internet era. Every Saturday night at like 2:00 in the morning (after ECW finished over on "The Sports Channel") a dude named Eric would play a mess of music videos by punk and industrial and weirdo indie bands that rarely would even get airtime on shit like 120 Minutes or Alternative Nation over on MTV. He'd also sometimes interview a random band that happened to be playing in Boston whenever he filmed his show. This is how I first learned about Skeleton Key. I remember thinking it was the coolest thing ever that they had a guy that was literally playing garbage. Like the dude had a drum kit that was like hubcaps and radiators and shit. This may have also led to the drummer in my shitty high school band having a frying pan attached to a cymbal stand for awhile. As for this song? It's pretty goddamn great. I don't know if the concept of "garbage drums" and heavy riffs can substain my interest for an entire album or discography but this one song ruled all kinds of ass. Good shit~!

I remember saying to myself that a downloaded mp3 played through a tiny laptop speaker at full volume was either the worst way or best way to listen to Sleigh Bells.

For a while back then I thought the line was "swear I'm gonna bit you hard and taste your titty blood" which sounds pretty deranged for a cat.

Week 24

Time for 10 more songs chosen at random for me by iTunes from a random external hard drive I forgot about for more than a decade. Will this week be a treasure trove of riches or ten songs that I am now embarrassed to be associated with? Let's find out!

The Cave-Ins - "Bring It Down" (2001)

I 1,000% downloaded this because the mp3 was listed as Cave-In and I assumed it was the good Cave-In but it's not. Instead of good-ass "core" of some sort The Cave-Ins are slow-ass indie of some sort with vaguely honky tonk sounding guitars and stuff. This was a disappointment because I thought it was going to be something it wasn't and then thing that was wasn't very interesting. Two of the dudes in this band would go on to form Fool's Gold, no not the one from the 70s that my mom liked, the one the 2010s that Pitchfork was briefly into.

No Age - "You're a Target" (2009)

I miss when every band Pitchfork hyped up sounded like this. I have one real requirement for whether or not a song is good and that is "Would this song make you speed if it came on while you were driving a car?" and this song? This song would make you fuckin' speed!

Modest Mouse - "Taking Shit About a Pretty Sunset" (1996)

This song would not make someone speed if it came one while they were driving. On paper I should like Modest Mouse but for whatever reason every time I hear them they do absolutely nothing for me but make me angry that the infitely better (by my sole metric for whether a band is good) band, 764-HERO, did not get famous to the point that there was a Kidz Bop version of one of their songs.

Rancid - "Midnight" (1994)

Thank fuckin' god for Lars & Tim Rancid n' The Boyz! After that fuckin' sadsack bullshit I needed this. Song's dope as hell. It's got that good-ass Rancid bass sound and gang vocals. It gets in, says its piece and then fucks off before anyone even notices. More songs need to be like this. I don't know about Rancid's post-90s output but man alive were they terrific in the 90s.

Versus the Mirror - "Birthed by Architecture" (2006)

Oh shit! Guy who sounds like he's about to vomit screamin' over some dick-fuckin' awesome riffs. This kind of rules. Holy fuck the guitar is this is perfect. Both the gross-ass noise and the real twinkly bullshit. I have no idea who these guys are or why I downloaded this but I fucking love this song.

Lifetime - "I Like You OK" (1995)

Hell yeah! 50 someodd seconds of perfection! Lifetime rule. Everyone should listen to them. More bands should try and copy them.

Abingdon Boys School - "Fre@k $how" (2006)

There's usually one mp3 per week that I just do not understand what caused me to download it. This is this week's "Why?" mp3. They're a Japanese rock band formed by some former J-Pop guy. The song's apparently from some anime. I don't do anime and don't really fuck around with J-Pop or anything so I have no idea what would have caused me to download this. I'm going to assume that it was something that one of those mp3 blogs that would have like themed groups of mp3s uploaded along with some shit I was actually interested in and it just got downloaded and forgotten about for like 17 years or whatever. The song's okay I guess if you want 80s-ass hard rock with some random electronica flourishes. I don't really have much need for such things.

Nelly Furtado - "Maneater" (2006)

Holy fuckin' shit. Nelly "I'm Like a Bird..." Furtado did a weird club banger that borrowed from Hall & Oates? This is both tremendous and hilarous. This is another "Why do I have this mp3?" I am not into either Nelly Furtado, Hall, or Oates and don't have much use for club bangers and yet this was in the same folder as a bunch of random NOFX and Unwound mp3s. As far as songs that borrow liberally from "Maneater" go, I guess "Maneater" is pretty good.

The Dismemberment Plan - "Ice of Boston" (1997)

I don't know if the ice of Boston is any muddier or less ice reflective or slippery than the ice in any other Northeastern city in the United States but appparently the dudes in the Dismemberment Plan found it so amazing that they saw fit to write a song about it. The chorus is fine and the riffs are fine but the verses are that stupid fucking "I'm just a guy doing a spoken word rant about some bullshit while indie rock riffs play behind me," thing I kind of hate.

The Party of Helicopters - "Reduced to Rubble" (1997)

Some good-ass bludgeoning riffs and drum clubbering here. There are a billion bands that sound like this and if you like any of those bands you probably won't have a problem with Party of Helicopters but you also probably won't remember who they are if this song pops up on iTunes when you're shuffling.

I do kind of miss when they were covering artists that no one else really was. Like I don't have a problem with Lady Gaga or Lil Wayne or Carly Rae Jepsen or any of the other mainstream artists they started covering in the mid-2010s but there are countless other places to read about those folks and not really anywhere else that's going to review Save Ferris albums super positively and then pretend like it never happened.

Week 25

Another week another ten songs to throw down upon.

Alkaline Trio - "Private Eye" (2001)

This sure is an Alkaline Trio song. I probably would have loved this at age 16 because of the line about "I won't have to quit doin' fucked up shit," in the chorus. Hell I still kind of dig it because of that line. The riff's not bad either.

Lagwagon - "Razor Burn" (1995)

This sure is a Lagwagon song. I kind of think the concept of the song is funny. I mean it's about a guy growing a "beard of shame" after his girlfriend breaks up with him and people confuse him with Billy Gibbons. I know this is pretty well trodden lyrical territory but Lagwagon manages to keep it fresh by doing a little interpolation of "O Come All Ye Faithful" towards the end.

The Juliana Theory - "We're at the Top of the World (To the Simple Two)" (2000)

Juliana Theory were one of those bands that I never really fucked with in spite them sounding like a billion other bands that I did fuck with. I think it's because they were like a Jesus band or maybe someone just told me they were which was something my friends and I would sometimes do with random bands and unlike some of the really obvious "There's no fuckin' way Clutch is a Jesus band!" type shit nothing about the Juliana Theory made the case that they weren't a Jesus band. Like all their songs could have been about emo band "I like all the girls but they don't like me," bullshit or just as easily been about the awesome love of Christ Jesus. This song is a perfect example of that dichotomy. Maybe this dork's singing about some girl he knew or maybe he's singing about Jesus. Who knows?

Coheed and Cambria - "A Favor House Atlantic" (2003)

This might be the biggest bait and switch single ever released. Shit sounds exactly like all the circa 2002 Warped Tour mall-emo but then like everything else the band ever did was weirdo prog rock nonsense that you need to read comic books to understand the "lore" of and read Guitar Player Magazine to appreciate. It's honestly kind of amazing that there's like a non-zero possibility that some white belt 2003 emo kid started listening to King Crimson because of this song.

Crystal Skulls - "Baby Boy" (2006)

This sounded like mid 2000s Pitchforkmedia dot com nonsense so I decided to head over there and see what folks had to say about this album. There are no reviews of it and the only mentions of the band are in a best of 2006 list where various musicians rate their best albums of 2006. Beck, of "Where It's At" fame said the album this song originated on was the 6th best album of 2006. Based on this particular song I'm going to have to disagree. Maybe the rest of the album spanks and this one song is kind of a misstep but I don't think that's the case.

NOFX - "Three on Speed" (2001)

This sure is a NOFX song. I don't think this is particularly good but at least it's short.

Elliott Smith - "Some Song" (1997)

I was never a huge Elliott Smith guy mostly because I preferred my sadsack bullshit to have a backbeat rather than just the acoustic guitar strumfuckery every Elliott Smith song I ever heard seemed to traffic in. I don't think this is a bad song, it's just very much not my bag.

Rogue Wave - "Endless Shovel" (2004)

Real top riffage during the verses and bridge and the four note guitar solos are the sort of garage band bullshit I love but  I'm less enthralled with the choruses or the singer's voice. Holy shit there's like a two minute outro where the drummer starts going ape shit while guitar guys play terrible four note guitar solos and they're adding more and more noise bullshit as the song fades out. This fuckin' rules!

Mae - "This Time Is The Last Time (Wave Mix)" (2004)

I don't know anything about this band or why I would randomly have a remix of one of their songs downloaded. This reminds me of the Juliana Theory song I listened to earlier and wrote about above. Feel free to speculate as to whether or not Mae is also Jesus rock below.

Witch's Hat - "Glodyany, 1972" (2006)

A man is talk-singing about a sexy lady turning him into a vampire and people coming after him with torches and pitchforks (media dot com). I guess he's the last vampire left. All his vampire buddies got wrecked by vampire hunters and he's very sad about it. The outro is okay but overall I don't think this is a very good song.