This is the overdue follow-up to Lo-Fi? Hi-5!, a mix my buddy Declan and I made when we first discovered how good bad music is. Fortunately for you, my tastes over the years have only veered toward the crummier.
Credit to Cara for suggesting the title. Will transfer this over to a downloadable format ASAP, but I was anxious to put this out already, so for now it's simply a Youtube playlist. For fun, I did the following write-ups as the songs were playing, not allowing myself any more time even to reread them once the track was over, which is why some trail off. I plan to add a couple more tracks in the future, but you know how that goes. So without further delay, for your listening pleasure:
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1. Weed Diamond - Snowmelt: Hailing from the Mile High city, Weed Diamond is one of the more contemporary tracks on this mix. At first I wanted to keep everything pre-2000, but this one was too good to pass up. Which meant I had to include Yussuf Jerusalem, too. One of the more hopeful songs on the mix, Snowmelt
2. Cyclops - Alice: Maybe the desolation and solitude of New Zealand contributed to the Cyclops' seemingly effortless knack for crafting songs of longing. The imagery is consistent not only with itself but also the sound, and ever since I first heard this song on a bus some four years ago I've been humming and singing about a shiny black cat lying on its back.
3. Yussuf Jerusalem - With You in Mind: I like this version better than the original, if only for guitars so rough around the edges you can almost see the guitar strings vibrate. There's a longing and nostal
4. Haunted House - Dramatic Beachouse: Couple years ago a WNUR DJ named Peter had the show before me, and I walked in one day to this song. It immediately caught my attention. The vocals and keys are obnoxious at times, but Haunted House remains unapologetic as they build toward the rapturous ending. Glitter was glued across the face of the CD to spell "Haunted House"; took me years to track down the title
5. Tall Dwarfs - All My Hollowness to You: Many of the songs on this playlist are included because the recording quality is poor (intentionally or not). Bedroom pop takes a whole new meaning here, not only because Chris Knox and Alec Bathgate recorded their early EPs in a bedroom, but also because they used objects from around the house and their bodies as percussion.
6. Red Transistor - Not Bite: No no no no no no no no. Tapping into rock's manic side, they make noisy, low-quality panicked shriek rock that somehow still manages to be listenable.
7. v-3 - Son of Sam Donaldson: Jim Shepard was a lo-fi pioneer. This is one of the stranger tracks on the mix, and I'm not always in the mood for it, but when I am, I listen, and when I do, I'm glad I did.
8. Jandek - Time and Space: Look, I'm not going to pretend that I'm a Jandek fan. Let me rephrase that: I wasn't a fan until I heard this song. Not all of his stuff strikes a chord with me--not that I've heard it all, not even close--but when a track does, it's usually because of the flaws and hiccups, and they are here aplenty. You've got to give it to him: decades of keeping his identity a secret, hundreds of albums available only by mail order? I'd have camped out his PO Box, too.
9. Mike Rep and the Quotas - Windows: The video for this song made me fall in love with it. I'm hoping they broke into that estate to film it, it captures the creepy, voyeuristic vibe perfectly. These guys have a lot of stuff that's way more raucous,
10. Strapping Fieldhands - Now We Have Slipped: This track blew my mind when I first heard it. They just don't seem to give a single crap about anything except playing their horribly out-of-tune instruments in loose relationship to each other. After hearing it a couple times, it has grown on me a lot, although the meandering ending hasn't. Definitely in my top 3 favorites on this mix. [Note: This Youtube video includes a second song which I'm less keen on. It's more melodic, maybe you'll like it.]
11. Silver Jews - SVM F.T. Troops: Remember when Steve Malkmus was in Silver Jews? Me neither. This might be my favorite track on the list. They are in no hurry to get anywhere, or play their instruments well, for that matter. Really bad recording conditions makes bad music so, so good, and Malkmus, who clearly wrote this song, was a genius at writing bad music. At one point he botches a line and just laughs, waits a measure, and tries again. The lyrics, especially toward the end, get really good. [Note: This song is not available on Youtube except on the EP, so to listen,
12. Sun City Girls - The Shining Path: At times, their politics can be distracting for me at times, but when they try a new sound, boy do they commit. Not sure if their recording quality is a choice or not, but it does add a wonderful drowned-in-the-past vaquero vibe.
13. Burzum - Filosofem: This is the only metal inclusion here, but it is a heavy one. This is the Norwegian guy who stabbed his friend-turned-rival twenty times, and after they used to burn down buildings together. You'd think an experience like that would really cement a relationship, but hey. VV (those are his initials, can't remember his name, like Varg Vikernes or something) decided not to use amps at all for this album, instead plugging his guitar and synth directly into the stereo. VV asked a tech for the worst microphone in the studio and found it not crappy enough, so he sang (screamed) into a headset.
14. Sparklehorse - Chaos of the Galaxy / Happy Man: This one wins the Most Earnest Award, hands down. Read about this guy's story, it's heartbreaking. For such uncomfortably honest lyrics the tune bounces along pretty well, but I've included it for the deliberate mixing and obscuring of the sound. The radio-dial artifice is genius, and by the end when it comes full force, well, it's moving. It moved me.
15. Steve Fisk - Demo of an Assist: This one barely made the cut, and that's because it's barely lo-fi. Fisk did provide some of the instrumentation for this track, not everything is sampled, which made me feel comfortable including it. Many of the samples were chosen deliberately because of their raw sound, and if the sample wasn't raw enough, Fisk would tamper with it until it met his high standards. And to think, this guy produced more grunge in the late 80s/early 90s than...well, probably anyone. He had his fingers in everything.
16. Archers of Loaf - Lowest Part is Free: I started and restarted this one so many times that I've run out of time and the song is about to end. Suffice to say, Archers of Loaf will always be one of my favorite bands. They're like a more angry Pavement with tighter drumming.
17. Hasil Adkins - No More Hot Dogs: Wow. There is so much to talk about. I think I read somewhere that someone once asked him how he achieved such a raw sound, and he said it was the only equipment he could afford. His lyrics are often surreal if not downright violent, and he played guitar, sang, kick and high hat, all at the same time.
18. Sebadoh - Limb by Limb: Choosing which Sebadoh track to include was no easy task, but the droopy, grimy feel of this track seemed to mesh with my other choices. Lou Barlow is, as always, his old resentful self. And, of course, the explosive ending
Enjoy!
