I was in Ocean City, New Jersey with a friend, sitting outside on a deck with a boombox resting between us. It was 1993. On this particular evening, I had something new that I wanted to pop into the tape deck I’d picked up earlier at the Surf Mall, a boardwalk superstore packed with clothing, posters, and other youth-marketed, alterna-junk. It was a cassette of Fugazi ’s latest release, In On The Kill Taker . I didn’t really know what to expect, but I was eager to hear it. In the song “Facet Squared,” frets are gently tapped, a couple sharp notes are plucked, a relatively understated rhythm gains traction and the sounds gradually build. And then all you hear are guitars cycling through a couple of glorious phrases as all other elements go silent. I felt elated when those riffs peaked, as if triumph had beset my ears, offering assurances that I’d found something for me, something that was going to be important to me for the rest of my life. I’m admittedly romanticizing this ex...

As a perpetually bummed out teenager, I’d like to pretend that I wasn’t culling my chosen social identity from MTV’s hit parade, but that wouldn’t be true. I was as tuned in as most of my peers, especially once the channel began to venture beyond the plasticity of pop music and expose us sheltered types to the language, garb, culture, and sounds of the underground. The college set of the late 80s were already up on 120 Minutes , but us budding types were suddenly becoming hip to it as well, a younger generation now fascinated with Seattle’s dirt rockers and a sudden slew of maverick bands whose preceding years of blood and sweat was suddenly paying off. You know the rest. In 1994, the same year Green Day released its major label colossus, Dookie , I pulled the cellophane off of a CD called Stranger Than Fiction , another major label debut but from a veteran band whose origins dated back as far as 80s hardcore. The band was Bad Religion . As the majors continued to hit ...

Boston area label, I Heart Noise , will be reissuing Tommy Bell , a highly obscure indie rock album from Boston's own,  Turkish Delight .  Originally released in 1996, Tommy Bell is certainly of its era, vocalist Leah Callahan stretching each syllable with the necessary resignation and charming disdain characteristic of the decade, a distortion-laden glaze employed for grit.  The band also evoke the experimental guitar harmonics of Sonic Youth  and the abstract funk of bands like Gang of Four , A Certain Ratio , or Pigbag , Turkish Delight's evident fondness for early 80s post-punk and NYC fringe predating the retro-informed spawn from bands like The Strokes , Yeah Yeah Yeahs and, very recently, Naked Lights and Guerilla Toss .  If you grew up plugged into the output of K Records, 4AD, or Matador, Tommy Bell is a fascinating, overlooked artifact worth checking out.  You can check out the video for "Grammy" below.  Tommy Bell will be rel...

"You  had  to be there." It's this phrase that's put out there following an ill-spent attempt at conveying the impact of an experience, the event's resonating effects still mapped throughout your grey matter yet impossible to express verbally to anyone unable to comprehend the time and space of the where and when. I talk about the 90s quite a bit, aware that my era of self-discovery means nothing in the here and now, JUST the where and when, and that articulating these feelings may often yield little or no reaction. Because you had to be there. And, I admit to sometimes missing that decade. I've done my damnedest to look ahead, to never be indoctrinated into that insufferable collection of unmovable mid-lifers content to reside in a state of permanent reminiscence. I try and focus on relevant, i.e. "now," music. But, as this point in time was where I began to understand how I identify musically and where my passions lie, there's a feel...

“Light a Roman candle… And, hold it in your hand.” This line always stood out to me, its bold and sung utterance built atop the gritty stroll of “4th of July,” a song from Soundgarden ’s much acclaimed Superunknown , an album whose existence warped my being with every listen, my adolescent brain smitten with every melodic stanza, every metallic lick. I fed this album into many blank cassettes in the summer of 1994, almost using the task as an excuse to necessitate an uninterrupted hour-plus of listening: “Gotta cut the track right. Gotta press PAUSE just before I run out of tape on side-A.” So essential that album remains to my chronology that I rarely listen to Superunknown as it puts me at a time and place I'd rather not be. It remains an affecting work from Soundgarden, whose primal scream, Chris Cornell , is dead from an apparent suicide. He was 52. Needless to say, since this news was announced, Superunknown has been on rotation, the dust wiped off the jewel case, a Wa...

Disco Inferno In Debt Rocket Girl Originally released: 1992 via Che Records Reissued: 5.5.17 Finding some common ground between The Bomb Squad 's peerless and innovative approach to sampling and the ethereal charge of My Bloody Valentine , Disco Inferno 's 1992 debut LP, In Debt , sounds out of place from when it was originally conceived.  In some ways akin to what Slint had achieved with its 1991 milestone release, Spiderland , the Essex trio's sound is stark and textural, repetitious guitar strokes bordering on pensive while their rhythmic intensity carries most of the band's emotional weight.  Post-punk in the Alt-rock era.   Underappreciated at the time, Disco Inferno has gained some notoriety since dissolving in 1995, prompting the necessity to reissue In Debt .  As this was certainly something I'd missed in 1992, I feel like I'm listening to the proper heirs to Wire 's creative legacy, an experimental rock trio whose capacity for creative gr...

Death Waltz Recording Company/Mondo : Angelo Badalamenti Twin Peaks Originally released: 1989 Reissued: 8.10.16 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me Originally released: 1992 Reissued: 1.25.17 Death Waltz Recording Company Am I a bad fan since I haven't opened either of these yet?  Angelo Badalamenti 's excellent soundtracks for David Lynch 's Twin Peaks series and its accompanying film provided a necessary and magnetic dimension to this tale of murder and this town's cast of weirdos affected by the event.  Truth to be told my hesitation to break these open is for purely geek reasons, most significant of which is that I need to acquire some plastic sleeves so I can safely file them onto my shelves.  Those die cut covers, while well-conceived and beautifully crafted, can be easily damaged. The other reason is that the soundtrack vinyl is no longer for sale . I managed to buy this copy from a seller at Discogs, which was a thankfully quick and painless experi...

In the early 90s, following Nirvana 's rise to fame, the Sub Pop label had enjoyed some notoriety as Seattle's premium Alt-farm for the record industry majors, many of whom were clamoring for the next flannel adorned malcontent with a shitty guitar and an impassioned yell.  Having essentially birthed Seattle's rock scene via Green River , (whose members would later form other seminal acts such as Mudhoney , Mother Love Bone , and Pearl Jam ), Sub Pop was also the label that offered Nirvana and Soundgarden their earliest opportunities as recording artists, a move that eventually led both bands to worldwide acclaim.  As regional devotees, Sub Pop curated and, consequently, informed what would be called the "Seattle Sound." With that said, TAD , whose muddy distorto-rumblings were certainly demonstrative of the scene's penchant for aural grit, I feel gets overlooked.  Started by guitarist/vocalist Tad Doyle in the late 80s, TAD was among the earliest of S...

Something for us old heads nostalgic for an era when music was still an experience people shared... Info courtesy of KEXP.   KEXP Celebrates 25th Anniversary of Nirvana’s Nevermind Listeners Invited To Share Stories at (412) 4-GRUNGE Week of Special Programming Begins Monday, September 19 Seattle – September 19, 2016 In 1988, Kurt Cobain drove to KCMU (now KEXP) to drop off Nirvana’s first single, “Love Buzz”. Anxious to hear it, Kurt tuned in to his car radio all day, finally pulling off to a pay phone to request it himself. He then listened as Nirvana was played on air for the first time. Less than a year later 90.3 was also the first station to play Nirvana’s debut album, Bleach. Three years later, Kurt and Nirvana returned to the station in person to premier the band’s second album, Nevermind . As this classic observes its silver anniversary this month, KEXP celebrates with a week of special programming—and we invite everyone to participate. Beginning Monday, Se...

All those of years of GEN X'ers being ignored or maligned by their babyboomer parents, indifferent and cynical marketers and a media that was more than happy to cater to perceptions of "slacker-dom," and the one bone we're thrown is MTV Classic.  I don't know whether to celebrate or tell Viacom to go fuck themselves because, chances are, this "new" network is probably going to have as much success as VH1 Classic's very lazy attempt at recapturing the so-called magic of a bygone era.  Remember Nick At Nite ?  That's basically what this is, except for the ex-Manic Panic set who insatiably scour Buzzfeed for lists pertaining to topics like "You were a 90s kid if..." and "Things only 90s kids will understand." Sorry, that's my 90s era cynicism kicking in.   You can find an article on the re-branded MTV Classic at Stereogum . I'll probably wind up watching it. Sincerely, Letters From A Tapehead

At the end of September, Blonde Redhead will be releasing Masculin Féminin , a 37-track compilation featuring the band's first two releases ( s/t and La Mia Via Violenta ) along with singles, demos, essays, and unseen photographs.   Masculin Féminin is being released as part of the 200 Line series , a faction of Numero Group's archival endeavors that specializes in the forgotten recorded artifacts from the DIY era.  You can listen to the track below or check out the Black Book article. There's also a trailer announcing the release. Information and links were provided by Force Field PR. Blonde Redhead shares rare early demo via Black Book ahead of Numero Group box set release STREAM: "This is the number of times I said I will but didn't" (4 track demo) - Soundcloud / Black Book VIDEO: Trailer Video - YouTube Teeming with the energy and grit of pre-Giuliani Manhattan, Blonde Redhead's long out-of-print early recordings have finally cr...

July 4th.  If your ears aren't still ringing after lighting up all of your noisemakers in tribute to our independence, enjoy some of my "America" selections. Brian Eno/David Byrne : "America Is Waiting" Yes : "America ( Simon & Garfunkel cover)"   Primus : "American Life"   The Mothers of Invention : "America Drinks and Goes Home"   Black Flag : "American Waste"   R.E.M. : "Little America"   MC5 : "The American Ruse"   Bad Religion : "American Dream"   David Bowie : "I'm Afraid of Americans" Sincerely, Letters From A Tapehead

I haven't written one of these "fond remembrance" type entries lately, having skipped all of 1995.  But, after going through the albums I'd acquired in 1996, my sophomore year in art school, I thought a couple releases would be worth addressing.  Others not so much, but I'll address them anyway. NOFX – Heavy Petting Zoo I first saw NOFX at the Trocadero the year Heavy Petting Zoo was released, the farm-animal-as-fuck-puppet theme of the album further explored via blow-up sheep, ("There's even a hole for your cock!", as I remember singer/bassist Fat Mike excitedly putting it), being volleyed and bounced throughout the audience.  And of course there was the raunchy banner of the greasy-haired 1950s looking dude on the cover in a 69 with a sheep acting as a backdrop for the band's performance.  At the time, sure it was funny.  Now?  Eh, whatever. I can't deny that NOFX was actually a solid live band and that those shows were a lot...