Hot Dolphin on Negative Fun Records singles club

Hot Dolphin is the stuff they accidentally catch while net fishing for Hot Tuna. Don't be stupid, they're a rock four piece from Richmond Virginia with a massively blown out sound that's fuzzy, punk and hardcore. So maybe it is that stuff - no wonder people are pissed. It's the best part.

A-Side's "Body Snatcher" launches a heavy snare explosion right into a springy bass sound, like the stuff on Shellac records but the whole thing comes on with a freakish speed, overdriven many times into the red. I also thought this was playing at the wrong speed with her deep throaty vocals from Lindsey. It's clearly printed 45 and this hyper fuzz would be at an unplayable speed. I don't think I truly understood the level of peaked out fuzz until they pause at the end of a riff, winding up for the next chord and you hear that magnetic tape just giving up. These aren't effects it's the attempt to capture a sound that is beyond comprehension. Just like those guys that go into haunted houses with Infrared goggles and weird UV devices, they're only ever going to get hints at this bigger picture. I don't mind this thin horizontal slice, it's just going to make the live show that much more essential.
B-Side's "Cat Sweaters" is locked into the horrendously (awesome) blown out guitars which are smashed right into the top of things, the drums are splintering those sticks into splinters and managing to be heard under the crunchy thick groove of blanket distortion. Almost taking their time on this one, there's a feedback harmonic hum making up the pauses between verses sound like Low Fat Getting High covering Bikini Kill. Lindsey screams "You're dead to me!" over and over, must be because of the sweaters. "Paint Dry" finds Lindsey's lower creak vocal with a high tempo track about paint drying. You can't say they don't have a sense of humor, managing to get this fully between the limits of the recording device but not the speed. This might be the perfect metaphor for these guys though, if this is the sound of them watching paint dry then everyone else in the world is practically standing still.

Get this from Negative Fun Records direct. Or the whole damn set.

Singles club - Issue two - Small Sur

The thing I appreciate about Singles Club is being introduced to an artist through not just a single, the way that I discovered new music pre-internet, but with a digital zine and an interview with the artist on the B-Side. The articles are sprawling and really nicely put together that give you a complete picture of, in this case Small Sur and the track on the record itself. The artifact doesn't mean a thing without that personal connection. Sometimes a complete mystery can be a powerful thing for record you found in the dollar bin but the picture that Joseph F Conway paints describing Bob Keal and his dog Goose is going to become a part of the record. That's what I've tried to do with 7inches; tell that story about the music and something about the band which is the only way to make that tiny piece of plastic worth paying attention to.

A-Side's "Wild Geese" opens with rising sustained guitar tones, overlapping in harmony and the thing that makes this interesting right away is in the rhythm; Small Sur creates this strummed rolling tide feel, perfect for a summer evening by the way, the kind of thing that is cleanly produced with this crisp edge emphasized by an organ and backwards rounded envelopes. His vocal is strong and in front of this. Powerful narrative stuff like Song: Ohia or Band of Horses; a laid back powerful epic performance is at work. Changing hearts and minds with a single side it manages to become bigger and bigger while not raising it's voice essentially. Lots of lyrics about natural things reminding me of The Bowerbirds with a bit of Sufjan's Age of Adz production. A masterful touch on the engineering side, perfectly balanced floors slide in and he rides this wave forever, it creeps in not really breaking moving towards shore to simply lose speed and settle back underwater but it was huge, unrideable and no one is going to believe you.

Subscriptions still available from the Singles Club. Check out Issue 2 and listen to Wild Geese over here.

These tracks are from a recent self released full length I've been checking out this morning:

Singles Club Series - Kickstarter

Kickstarter gets a lot of shit for giant projects that take forever to come to fruition like videogames or physical tech and it's not even their fault, but it's the perfect platform for bands getting their fans together to fund a record that otherwise wouldn't be released. Killing the Vibe was a perfect example (shit you could have had Matt play your livingroom for $500 bucks!) of how this could work. The price of a record is pretty constant, you either make enough to pay yourself and the pressing plant or you don't. The same should apply to a record label and in the case of The Singles Club, Chris, who's a designer at Kickstarter and a musician himself, is looking for a couple more bucks more to fund a quarterly seven inch series. I'm a huge fan of Daniel Bachman (above) and that's the first single up in the series along with a digital journal I'm guessing that has something to do with Daniel and his music along with a case for the four singles.
The tracks will be exclusive to the project (only 250 pressed) and the B-Side's of these are going to be 'narrative compositions' with the artists, probably interviews but they left it open for insanity. The other singles up are Small Sur, Woodsman and Wisdom Tooth.

Three more days to get in on this.

La-Ti-Da Records - Singles Club 2013

Just a quick post today about the new singles club from La-Ti-Da Records...especially that Needles//Pins contribution that's going to be a part of this series, I love those guys...and it looks like they put out a Fist City single previously as well. Lots of garage-y punk, reverb and springy out time tube amps, coming your way. I don't know most of these guys but the tiny amount I've sampled has me looking forward to another Hozac type situation.

La-Ti-Da Records is thrilled to announce our singles line up for the first half of 2013. Six singles in total. Marching them out two by two throughout the spring and summer: hurrah hurrah!

Without further ado:
LTD014: The Wild Ones (Santa Cruz, CA)
LTD015: Maniac (Los Angeles, CA)
LTD016: The Ballantynes (Vancouver, BC)
LTD017: The Jay Vons (Brooklyn, NY)
LTD018: Needles//Pins (Vancouver, BC)
LTD019: Steve Adamyk Band (Ottawa, ON)

Take advantage of our singles club: for $33 (post-paid, Canada & USA), you'll get color vinyl editions of all six singles mailed out in three heats over the coming months. Or, if there's a couple titles you missed the first round, we have a $40 option (post-paid, Canada & USA) where we can kick things off right away with a pair of catalogue titles of your choice. Get stoked.

Get it and forget it.

Check out this sample of the Ballantynes and their echo chamber outer space soul, reminding me of that Neighbors single that Darren put in his year end list.

Just messing around taping singles off the stereo speakers for a year end round up Darren from VOS and I did about  week ago...talking about our top ten's for the '11's when this email came in from Matador about their singles club they're launching for the new year with bi-monthly exclusive releases from the OBN III's and the Jicks?
I'm in.
Early xmas present.

Launching in January will be the Matador Records singles club, Singles Going Home Alone, featuring six new 7" singles over the duration of 2012. The first of these bi-monthly releases featuresStephen Malkmus & The Jicks and L.A. Guns, with the former covering the latter's "Wheels Of Fire" and Tracii & Co. tackling "Gorgeous George" by The Jicks. Following this, releases are set to come from OBN III's (March) and The Men from New York City (May), with more acts to be confirmed for later in the year.
The annual subscription includes free shipping, a free Matador tote bag, a 10% discount on the Matador store all year long and a secret bonus item. The following subscription options are available:
$45 US
$55 Canada
$70 rest of world
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks

L.A. Guns

OBN III's

The Men

The Give it Ups / Santa Monica Swim and Dive Club split on the Odd Box Records singles club

Odd Box Records is based out of London, England and in addition to already putting out a bunch of releases from a bunch of diverse sounds they believe in, they recently launched this 7 inch singles club, I picked this one from the pile, The Give it Ups and The Santa Monica Swim and Dive Club, which is an actual organization who have to be scratching their heads at some of the google results that feature this Saturday Looks Good to Me offshoot project. Using the swim meet as a metaphor in "False Start" they girl guy harmonize in that classic indiepop combination with the help of an understated organ melody. The kind of thing that on the surface has this bubbly sweetness of completely joyous pop, but of course is dealing with an unrequited love, and failure. The sort of track for loveable losers who can't get a break. You've been there of course, and this will make you pick yourself up try again...not a bad soundtrack for Monday morning. It's going to get better, learn from those mistakes...or just keep doing what you're doing, what are you getting all worked up about? Put it on after the Besties, Bearsuit or The Shout Out Louds and get over it!
The Give it Ups blast their guitar ramshackle pop with a bit of post-punk couple of tracks, and "Why won't you go out with me?" yells insults at that guy's girlfriend this lead singer is clearly into. A little echo on the begging frustrated vocal, reminding me of Love is All or even Poly Styrene, with a sort of stripped down minimal jangle guitar. The straight forward beat and deceptively sweet melody is broken by this maniac and her inside voice yelling (let's hope). It doesn't help her that the backup vocal is delivered in a Shangri-La's '60s girl group harmony. She's going after them next.

I love this kind of attitude combined with a Beat Happening raw instrumentation. Like getting a cupcake tatoo, bad ass and not at the same time. "Knives Chau", is a Scott Pilgrim homage track to the character, sung from her point of view by one of the guy members in The Give it Ups, which is delivered in a voice cracking, just out of range vocal. It literally goes through her and Scott's history, also an unrequited love, with catchy harmonies, all working background to this up front gender bending unpretentious pop. I could see Eddie Argos loving this one all the more because it's on a seven inch. I would agree.

All 6 records are still available from Odd Box, everything from The Ketamines to the Gold Bears coming up next, for the very reasonable £24, which will make those shipping changes to the US go down easier. But who wouldn't want these exclusive tracks, from a this variety of completely different bands if the two I know are any indication. I'm not a fan of compilation LP's, it seems to defeat the purpose of listening to an album, but you throw these six records on and you'll have the Odd Box compilation split into singles...which I am totally fine with. It makes no sense... I know.

Jay Reatard club - Shattered records

From Jayreatard.com

I wanted to do something special for the real superfans out there, the ones that have supported me since the beginning, and the ones who are into all my shit. With Shattered Records now running again, we decided to create a Shattered Club, and create lots of exclusive stuff just for Shattered Club members. So with each subscription, you’re gonna get this:
- my next album on Matador album, digitally and LP/CD (your choice)
- a Shattered Club exclusive brand-new 7″
- a Shattered Club exclusive live single 7”
- a Shattered Club exclusive t-shirt
- all the 2009 Shattered 7″ singles (see more info here) (mp3)
- a 25-song version of Greatest Messes, the Shattered Club Edition (mp3)
- my first album The Reatards - Teenage Hate, never available before digitally and hard to find otherwise (mp3)
- and more shit that I come up with through the year, all exclusive to Shattered Club members only So that’s three albums, two 7″s, a t-shirt, six digital singles, and a lot lot more - most of which you can ONLY get if you join the 2009 Shattered Club.

This is one of those things that is going to haunt me in my sleep if I miss it...Jay has started his own label with an insane club. (I think this label existed before? For his early releases?)
I didn't know it existed in the first place to be honest.
Blood Visions is easily one of my favorite albums. The nights spent coming home from work and just playing it over and over. Tiny... concise, I mean I can't believe how short and perfect every track is. It's easily one of my all time favorite albums...and I had to come around, I didn't love it immediately. I really didn't know where to place it at first...it was kind of punk, but really bubblegum pop...but lyrically it was serial killer dark. It always picks me up if I'm trying to push through and I'm tired...just put on Jay and it's over before I know it.
It's amazing how prolific he's been, and I'm getting into all the side projects, Final Solutions, Terror Visions...he's been rocking since he was 15...and I don't think I haven't like a single minute so far. The new album is going to be amazing. It's something I would happily line up for. But everyone has an opinion, and I swear sometimes people have nothing else to say on the message boards except to bitch. That's the internet for you, faceless bitching, and fight starting.

From Terminal Boredom (Jay responds to the haters):
And for any of you dicks that think I priced this unfairly let me enlighten you s bit
lp = $20.00
single (non ebay prices) $6.50
single 2 (non ebay prices) $6.50
t shirt $15.00
ok so this is just the physical things you "know" you are getting so that $48.00 retail add in the $15.00 it cost me in services charges for the interface to email out the mp3' process your order etc.. And that's $63.00 bucks.. So mp3s for my full length, teenage hate,and six singles is costing you $7.00 .. Which is a fraction of the money that I'm losing/gonna lose doing the vinyl versions (so far lost $150.00 on the novak single) Oh and the "extras" are gonna be much cooler than a fucking sticker or a few cassettes of shitty nose acts but yeah oh well if you don't like it don't buy it .. Or just sit around and bitch about me when the single cos $100.00 bucks on the bay cause his time it wont be my fucking fault ..

Jay seems pretty angry...I mean he's trying to do something super cool for the hardcore fans, and it's extra work, I'm sure he feels responsible not to have sucky shit. I love the dig about noise cassettes. It's funny those weird divisions in the underground.
I only wish there was more vinyl here...that's the only thing stopping me from paypaling .....for about another hour.

Just a note about the podcast...forgot it's friday and just got back from some time away...didn't have time...just in case anyone cares.

Bug House records + Podcast #21

Heard about this on terminal boredom and people were wondering about ordering and what singles they received, and I checkout out the website.

Singles Club: For 35.00 a year you will receive at least 12 Bug House Releases. Patches, buttons, cdr's, and other promotional items also included.
To join: simply send a secure payment of 35 dollars via paypal or send a money order to my p.o. box. (bughouserecords (at) gmail.com)

I emailed Chris to ask what singles were out already, what ones he had in the works and how it could be so cheap! He emailed me back:

I don't know how it can be so cheap. I'm not realy putting much of a markup on the records....the labels are hand stamped...they're single sided with an etching. I'm basically just trying to break even.
People have been putting up with alot of crap from me too, I think I sent out 4 or 5 records about 8 or 9 months ago or longer, but the rest of the records have just been sitting on my floor gathering dust....To my credit thow, if anyone gets tired of waiting, I'm more than happy to refund thier money. So yeah, that about sums it up.
I'm a very poor business man/salesman...that's how the records are so cheap. Everyday I wake up hoping that today will be the day I get my label in order, and I sincerely believe that it will be soon...probably this week.
But that's what I've been telling myself for awhile now.

Just to be clear 4 or 5 of the singles in the series have gone out to subscribers.
But let's send Chris some emails, he sounds depressed.
This is a fellow 7" fan who is struggling with his label...not making any money, willing to refund people's entire cost....let's hope this is the week.

Podcast Episode 21: Matts still here, we play the box elders 7", Turbo Fruits, Iggy and the Stooges....before we were even born...wtf. Nirvana is classic rock? Yes.