Albums I Like: Volume One

About two years ago, I made a list of my 100 favorite albums. You can still probably find it buried somewhere in my MySpace blog, but I'm not sure that it's worth the effort. It's woefully out of date, but I still really like most of the albums I talked about. But, in the order I listed? I dunno. My listening habits are at the mercy of my moods and other circumstances: some albums I only like late at night, some I only like when I don't feel well, and there are even a batch of albums I won't play unless it's cold outside. And what with RetroLowFi shutting it's doors, I do have to admit that I've missed talking about albums that I've enjoyed. You know... I wrote a lot of negative reviews for that site as well, but it wasn't something I really relished doing. I wrote about what people sent us, and sometimes I didn't like it. Thanks to our policy of reviewing, well, everything we were sent, I had to wade through some steaming piles of mediocrity from time to time.

But I've found a solution. I can instead just use my existing resources to tell you about albums that I enjoy. Not necessarily things that I think are unbelievable "get out of the way and duck" masterpieces, but moreso records that make me happy while they are playing. I'll release this list in increments, and I'll make a downloadable mix for you of key tracks from each of the ten albums I've discussed. Maybe you'll hear something you really love.

If you are an artist that doesn't want your stuff distributed in the interest of garnering new fans and potentially selling records through this medium... I suggest you shutting the fuck up, taking a look at the world in which we live, and then choosing another line of work. (I'm kidding. Contact me, and I'll take it down. In most cases, I wouldn't be distributing your most popular tracks anyways.)

Without any further ado, I present:

1000 Albums That Marc With a C Really Likes: Volume One.

1. Napoleon XIV - They're Coming To Take Me Away Ha-Haaaa! (1966):

I'd be very, very surprised if you hadn't heard the title track of this album. Not only is it easily the greatest novelty single of all time, but it's possibly among the catchiest pop songs with little to no melody. (Think "88 Lines About 44 Women" by The Nailz). It's the one with the handclaps, the tambourine and the pitch-shifted vocals that detail a man losing his mind. He's being drug to "the happy home where life is beautiful all the time". And it sounds like some girl really did a number on him... but it's actually a dog that drove him mad. Or so one would think. (I won't spoil the surprise you'll get if you take the album in as a whole.)

That song is a modern fucking wonder. If you get bored, find an interview where Napoleon XIV (aka: Jerry Samuels) details how he recorded the song. Prepare to have your mind blown.
But the rest of the album? Oh my god. It hardly even clocks in at thirty minutes, but disturbs me worse than nearly anything else on the planet. In a good way, though. You know, the way a good tongue-in-cheek horror flick oughta shake you. Samuels makes light of the mentally ill from every conceivable angle, and while it's done from a novelty standpoint, he occasionally sounds almost furious at those that have behavioral issues. He's also usually singing from the viewpoint of the "crazy person", and only on "Bats In My Belfry" does he ever seem to take pity on those with such afflictions, stating "Who is there among us / To say who is normal".

They say that the truly insane will never actually realize it, but in that way, Samuels pulls a double mindfuck on you: is he so busy making fun of people with unfortunate emotional issues that he is actually covering up his own? Well folks, I'd like to tell you for sure, but I actually called him up once - seriously. Tried to get him to do a RetroLowFi interview. As soon as I said I was a fan of Napoleon XIV, he all but hung up on me, and would offer no comments.

This album has been out of print for nearly 40 years now, and has been the subject of much controversy. It fetches up to a hundred smackers on eBay now, but you can get all of it's tracks on Rhino's bowdlerized The Second Coming compilation. However, the extra unreleased tracks don't offer much, but one has to wonder what would have occured if his second album "For God's Sake, Stop The Feces" had ever actually been released. What if this guy had actually had a *career* doing shit this disturbing?

And if you're sitting on a vinyl copy of the original, contact me immediately. I will make it worth your while.

2. Meat Puppets - Rise To Your Knees (2007):

Okay, so it's not my favorite Meat Puppets album. Not even in the top five. But do I really like it? I sure do, and it took a long time. It's not a reunion, since Derrick Bostrom isn't playing drums. It's not a return to the early material, as all of the instruments and vocals are nicely in tune with each other. And yeah... I'll admit that this album rarely rises above the pace of slug sex. It's pretty slow and monolithic, and probably not the best soundtrack to heading down to "your favorite swimming ground".

What this album offers is mood. A full hour of atmospherics. Curt Kirkwood's guitar heroics are mostly used to fill up the frequency range here instead of doing the "look at how big my indie rock dick is" thing he's so well known for. That's just as well, because those tones when pushed to the forefront would sound marvelously dated. But the harmonies of the Kirkwood brothers is a welcome sound for me any day of the week, especially when reigned in this tightly.

It's a slow, lurching rock record that doesn't make much sense. And really, who beyond some seriously die-hard Pups freaks were clamoring for a reunion album in 2007? If I'm being totally honest, I don't even reach for Rise To Your Knees all that often. But when I do put it in the player? I'm really glad that it's on, for the entire hour of it's duration. It doesn't make me think, but it feels quite nice filling up the space in my house. That's all I ask, really.

3. Yes - Going For The One (1977):

Okay, there's not a single mention of wizards, wishing wells, magic spells or slaying dragons on this album. However... to me, it sounds like the very definition of "wizard rock". Maybe it was Rick Wakemen's penchant for wearing big sequined-coated robes back in the day, or the fact that his synthesizers actually *sounded* like the magical rays shooting from some off the wall Dungeons and Dragon characters fingers.

If you want an easy-to-listen-to album void of pretense... move along. No, seriously. Avoid Yes altogether, in that case. Because, I swear to fucking God, even though I'm a bigger closet Yess geek than I'll ever fully admit, there are times where their music is so complex and dense that it's pretty much *daring* me to try and listen to an entire song... let alone like it.

Another good reason to avoid Yes is this: this band is crazy about filling up the midrange frequency range. Aaaannd... that's about it. The bass is often mixed way upfront, but is tweaked to sound like a heavily effected guitar. And while we're doing disclaimers, I hate to say it, but there are times where it almost sounds like these five guys are playing completely different songs from one another, but they just happen to sync up enough that they were able to call it a "composition".

I feel guilty when I play this album. And then I stop being a pretentious dickweed, enjoy the musicianship that I could never hope to replicate, and dirft off to some other realm. One that invokes science fiction, fantasy... and more music theory than I could ever hope to pay attention to.

However... the song "Turn Of The Century" does bore the ever-living shit out of me. It's the other four songs that I'm so wild about. Try on the title track for size.

4. Dr. Dooom - First Come, First Served (1999):

Okay, try and follow me here: Kool Keith was in the highly influential rap group known as Ultramagnetic MC's. He took on the persona of Dr. Octagon in the mid-nineties, which completely redesigned the idea of the MC as the world at large knew it. And then in 1999, he became Dr. Dooom... and shot Dr. Octagon dead in the first 30 seonds of this album. Literally. Bunch of gunshots and everything.

Kool Keith is a lyrical genius... if you like him. If it isn't your thing, you're going to get really annoyed at the samey beats, his stream-of-consciousness lyrics, and his ability to shock through both subject matter and unexpected rhymes. On First Come, First Served, Keith spends his time killing people, telling you not to come over, using body bags to decorate his apartment and... it's fucking twisted. If the following couplets appeal to you, you may have a new favorite hip hop record:

"With blood on my fingers I blast a CD by the Staple Singers / The cops told me to turn it down, they like my shoes from Buster Brown"

"Dangerous Action, I'm the movie, I'm the main attraction / Fuck up your front lawn with M&M's, Jiffy Popcorn / Piss in your mailbox, throw shitty Pampers every two blocks"

"You couldn't rap with me if we was twins stuck together / You be the deformed one, catchin the warm one / I pay a crackhead five dollars to fuck up your million dollar marketing plan / with a brand new sub-machine gun / and a hot dog, on a Yankee Stadium bun"

For my money, while Dr. Octagon was important, this album is unequivocally superior in both lyrics and music. Kool Keith had something to prove at this point: that he could do absolutely anything. Between 1995-2000, he did nearly everything that hadn't been done in hip hop, improved on existing formulas, and changed personas like pajamas. Which may have a bit to do with the fact that he's certifiably insane... or that he is the greatest and most important hip hop artist of all time.

5. The Free Design - One By One (1972):

If you do any research on The Free Design, you'll often see essay after essay devoted to the notion that this band should have been absolutely fucking huge in their day.

I do not agree. I think that they had the proper amount of success, frankly. They were so out of touch and outdated by the year of One By One's release that I have to wonder how in the hell they even kept Enoch Light's interest for this long.

Now, let me explain: I love The Free Design. If I had to choose between losing a toe and never getting to hear them again... well, I'd keep my fucking toe, but I'd really miss this band's easy breezy baroque pop.

The musical climate of 1972 was intense: David Bowie busted out with Ziggy Stardust, Lou Reed had his Transformer, The Stones were blowing minds with Exile... people, this was the year of fucking *"Smoke On The Water"*. I don't know that I've ever owned an album as out-of-step with itself as One By One.

To those unfamiliar with the Design, the group consisted of the Dedrick clan: brothers and sisters that sang in such hushed harmonies that it would make James Taylor call them a bunch of wusses. Add in the heavily orchestrated (and seemingly ever present) string sections, and you've got an album that even your mom would have considered out of style should you have brought it home on the day of it's release.

So why do I like it so much? Hell, I don't even know. There's nothing as instantly memorbale here as their epochal "Kites Are Fun", nothing quite as self-aware as "2002-A Hit Song", and nothing nearly as infectious as "Bubbles". Other than a few tracks that occasionally work up a bit of a fire - a very clinical elevator music fire, of course - this thing is just... wonderfully pleasant. I suppose if I had to sum the record up in one word, it'd be *polite*. This thing puts itself back into the package afterwards, thanks the turntable for spending time with it, and dusts itself before climbing back into place on your shelf. It also goes into the closet to fart, but thinks it would be inappropriate to discuss such things in public.

I dunno. I'm actually at a loss for words on this one. It's a record that I really love, and I can't come up with a single reason for it. I can't even analyze it. Nothing makes sense here, it didn't make sense in the past, and it will never run the risk of being considered ahead of it's time. It's just a very, very likeable thirty-eight minute album.

6. Pete Townshend - Who Came First (1972):

Let's stick with 1972 for a moment so that we may talk about my favorite songwriter of all-time - Pete Townshend.

This was Pete's first solo album, and it's a real oddball. By '72, Pete was deeply entrenched in the teachings of his spiritual guru, Meher Baba. Now, lots of artists go through that phase, and it normall yaffects their music in really, really unflattering ways. Anyone remember those late seventies Dylan records? But in Pete's case... fuck, the guy wrote Tommy based on some of those spiritual leanings. And the stuff that eventually came out on Who's Next. That's enough to make any songwriter want to jump headlong into some weird middle Eastern philosophy, right there.

Pete contributed a ton of songs to Meher Baba's fundraising albums, and those songs were widely bootlegged. In an effort to keep the money going where it oughta go, Mr. Townshend released this nine song meditation... and promptly blew the mind of anyone lucky enough to know of it's existence at the time - as this wasn't the most heavily publicized release he'd ever made.

Alright, so imagine this... it's 1972. You know Pete Townshend as the guy behind "My Generation" and "Won't Get Fooled Again". You know him as the guy who breaks guitars onstage with The Who. The guy beats up both hippies and cops in front of huge audiences. So, you rush out to your local record shop, plunk down the cash for Pete's first solo statement in the dead center of his "voice of a generation" years. You expect to hear some loud, crashing rock and roll... and instead, you hear stuff like the seven-minute ode to heaven - "O'Parvardigar" - and relatively quiet odes to the one chord that could save everyone on earth - "Pure & Easy". You're confused as to why he's not even singing on "Forever's No Time At All". I wouldn't have blamed you for tossing this album aside and never thinking about it again... at the time.

But now? We've got perspective, and you can plainly hear that this was Pete's true calling and voice. He was done singing of clenched fists and teenage wasteland... instead concentrating on the things that saved him from those types of dreadful endings. Turned out that his voice was much easier - and honest - than Roger Daltrey could ever muster when interpreting Pete's writings. And his guitar playing? Totally restrained and nuanced. He made a really beautiful and inspiring solo record... *out of whatever was lying around*.

This is one of the few albums I'd recommend that you seek out on compact disc and not vinyl. Sure, the original issue is a masterpiece in it's own right, but the bonus tracks? Holy fuck! I seriously don't know how songs as brilliant as "Sleeping Dog" and "Day Of Silence" weren't good enough to make the final cut. The original album rightfully should have been a double disc set, and it could have stood up quite well over time, never once being accused of sounding bloated or looking overinflated.

Who Came First? Beauty be thy name.

7. The Dead Milkmen - Not Richard, But Dick (1993):

When I'm in the mood for some sloppy and irreverent college pop, there's simply no substitute for some Dead Milkmen. While it was impossible to avoid them on the college radio and modern rock radio stations that I tended towards as a kid, I didn't really dive into their catalog headfirst until about... ninth grade? Prior to that, I'd only owned their seminal Big Lizard In My Backyard cassette, and while I liked it, I couldn't really claim to *understand* what the fuck they were doing.

But this album? This is the one where everything totally clicked for me. When the band was doing one of their trademark lyrical rants, they were laugh out loud funny. I mean, c'mon... if you can't find some humor in "I Dream Of Jesus", you're probably some type of hardcore fundamentalist, but the rest of you have no excuse. And even I got a bit offended by "Let's Get The Baby High", but once I started looking at it as social commentary, I lightened up a bit. I seriously doubt that Rodney Anonymous was blowing pot smoke up the noses of infants.

There's hooks here that you wouldn't believe, too. It's impossible to get "Leggo My Ego" out of your head after the first listen, but... the real gem here is "Not Crazy". And especially in the light of bassist Dave "Blood" Schulthise's suicide, lines like "I'm not crazy, I'm merely entertaining the thought / Of going insane". The song was always the best on the album, but now it's downright chilling.

Many people accused the Milkmen of selling out with this record and it's predecessor, Soul Rotation, simply because they were signed with Hollywood Records at the time. My judgemental high school ass did it too. But this album is every bit as good as their earlier work, and probably miles above it in many aspects. The only real reason to hate Hollywood Records involvement with the Milkmen is because... they have a tight stranglehold on this album and refuse to re-release it in any form. This album was practically out of print by the time anyone knew it existed. Hollywood wouldn't even let the band lease the best tracks for their greatest hits album. (Said label has also pretty much disowned and removed the brilliant Blake Babies albums and early Gwenmars catalog from circulation, and it's a fucking crime against humanity).
So yes. Fun, irreverent, disturbing, and wayyyyy better than we ever gave it credit for being, Not Richard, But Dick might be The Dead Milkmen's silent masterpiece. I dare you to give it a spin today, totally taken out of it's original context and argue aginst this work in any way. You simply can't do it. It's a true lost classic.

8. Existential Hero - The Great Sublime Melancholy (2008):

In the interest of full disclosure, Steven Ray Morris - the sole proprietor of the Existential Hero empire - is probably more familiar with my musical catalog than I am with his. That's due only to the fact that I listen to a *lot* of records, and he makes more than I can keep up with. This year, he's released roughly... six albums? I think? I can't keep up. This album, The Great Sublime Melancholy, is part of his "New Zealand trilogy", which adds up to almost three hours of music. It was a lot to digest.

While I enjoyed all three of the "New Zealand" albums, this one is my heads and tails favorite. Every which way you look, you're gonna run into some interesting tones - dig those horns on "The Cherry Orchard"! - and he's come a long way from the guy-with-a-stringed-instrument feel of the last few releases I absorbed of his. I'd even go as far as saying that the title track might be among the best album openers I've heard all year.

And despite the seemingly sad overtones of the title, there is an undercurrent of "hey, it's all gonna work out" in most of these tunes. I mean, no one has ever penned such an ode to the end-times like "Until The Very Last Moment", a track that doesn't ponder what to do with your last day, but reminds you that it's all of the days prior that really count. Another great thing here is that Morris knows how to sequence an album within an inch of it's life. Shorter tracks that seem to pass right by, like the sonic feast heard in the twenty-nine second "Piano Bashing", actually do wonders for the fully fleshed out tracks. It doesn't so much beat you over the head with songs, but it creates the exact mood that the author intended, and it oftens plays as one really long track that just has different movements... and if you blink, you're gonna miss a lot.

The most likable thing about Steven Ray Morris is as follows: he's making records that he'd like to hear. Albums that he'd still make for his own amusement, even if no one bothered to listen. For this reason, he sits in the company of folks like Robert Pollard, Kool Keith, The Capstan Shafts and R. Stevie Moore. With one major difference...: Steven Ray Morris is completely unpredictable, and he never sounds less than earnest. You can hear that this guy means every single tone that he places on a record.

And those tones bounce between heavily effected pop, gloomy downbeat meanderings, sound collages and a few voice- and-stringed-instrument goodies. This album is the best of the three that he released on the same day to these ears, but man... much like the artists I listed earlier, can you imagine if he were to condense all of the best bits into a single disc offering? Morris would seriously blow some minds. As it stands, he's already well on his way.

9. Robby Roadsteamer - The Cryin', The Niche, And The Stronghold (2008):

Here's a fearless prediction: it will take me longer to write about this album than it will to actually listen to it right now.

I first ran across Robby Roadsteamer via his YouTube clip for "Heart Of A Rhino". At the time, he was leading a harder-edged band that was intensely serious about being as non-serious as possible. They took every single rock cliche imaginable, smashed it, and usually namechecked Duck Hunt in the process. Mr. Roadsteamer wore a big fake wig and a silly oversized moustache... and then the band broke up. I don't know why. I could probably figure it out if I dug deep enough, but I'm actually happier with the records he's making now in his "sensitive acoustic guy" phase. Which is a joke, too. Or it isn't.

What you should know about Robby's output circa 2008 is as follows: he's releasing albums faster than Robert Pollard and The Capstan Shafts combined, he sometimes sings in his overemphasized "rock guy" voice of yore but occasionally dips into what I think his actual singing voice, he has very little regard for rhythm, and his lyrics are funnier than all get out.

And seriously, those lyrics are why you're going to love Robby Roadsteamer. Whether he's singing about telling his dad about his new job at Staples, watching Mulholland Dr. on mushrooms or mourning the loss of the aforementioned band (because he'll now have to settle for "normal guy pussy"), you're alternately going to be wiping the tears of laughter out of your eyes, wondering why the hell you've never heard of him, getting offended by every third sentence that comes out of his mouth and then wanting to give him a high five for referencing something that you thought was your little secret.

The more music Robby puts out, the more interesting his stories get. And of course, the unabashed Who fanatic in me was flabbergasted when he parodied "Christmas" from Tommy as... "Fat Kids At Best Buy". I highly recommend this and all of Robby's albums... and if you're offended by his stuff at some point? I'd say that it's a sign that you need to lighten the fuck up.

10. The Pixies - Bossanova (1990):

Some would have you believe that this is the album where the Pixies began to "lose the plot". For the record, that's an absolute load of rubbish. Even if the bandmembers didn't think much of each other at the time - or ever, reportedly - they worked astoundingly well together. Everything these guys touched turned to gold, period. There is no bad record, no truly terrible song in their catalog, and even on their best days... the countless imitators have only scraped the surface of the magic that thse four individuals were capable of.

Now, that being said, make no mistake... by this time Black Francis was running the show. But you can't tell me that the surfy elements of "Cecillia Ann" and "Ana" didn't give slight hints as to where Kim Deal would go just years later on some wildly popular Breeders records. But under Black Francis's guiding hand, the Pixies explored surf, space and the loudQUIETloud dynamics they were known for beautifully on Bossanova.

All of the expected elements are here, yes. The "scream it like you hate the bitch" vocals of "Rock Music", the boy-girl harmonies accentuating the chorus of "Dig For Fire", the heavenly falsettos in "The Happening", and the word play that gave Pixies fanatics tons to pour over - the lyrics to "Ana" are an acrostic, you know. Everything is perfectly paced on Bossanova.

And every great once in awhile, you might run across a track that doesn't seem to stand up to the others. That's because it was there for the sake of the albums flow. This was a band that knew that weird, unexpected segues were the key ingredients to classic albums. So yeah, maybe you don't always wanna hear, say, "Havalina". But as an album closer? It's utterly breathtaking.
Screw the naysayers. There aren't a ton of "Monkey Gone To Heaven" rewrites on this record, and thank the stars for that. If you wanna hear Doolittle... go listen to Doolittle. This is Bossanova, one of the five Pixies masterpieces, each as important to their legacy as the last. It takes you into the stratosphere with stuff like "Allison" and tucks you into bed with the last two tracks. I'll even go on record as saying this: "Velouria" *is* the very sound of the butterflies and mystery surrounding the early stages of falling in love. Sonically, of course. I don't usually equate "lemur skin" with puppy love, but your mileage may vary.

Here, have a mix featuring highlights from all of these albums! You can download it from http://sharebee.com/b293daf2 and the tracklist is:

01. Robby Roadsteamer "I Got Construction Boots"
02. Napoleon XIV "Dr. Psyche, The Cut Rate Head Shrinker"
03. The Dead Milkmen "Not Crazy"
04. Existential Hero "The Great Sublime Melancholy"
05. The Meat Puppets "Stone Eyes"
06. The Pixies "The Happening"
07. Dr. Dooom "I Run Rap"
08. The Free Design "Light My Fire"
09. Yes "Going For The One"
10. Pete Townshend "Parvardigar"

See you all in ten albums!