Smashing Gish

A few years ago I really found an appreciation for The Smashing Pumpkins. I'd been tentatively checking them out around that time, but once I started talking to my friend Sarah about the band, her excitement for them had me tear down any preconceived opinions I had. Going in with an open mind, I was surprised with how much I really enjoyed Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness... but I got so caught up on that one record, and was hesitant to branch out any further. It's like the record was too perfect for me and I feared that listening to any other Smashing Pumpkins album was going to leave me disappointed.

Last year I finally took the leap and bought a copy of Siamese Dream because the vinyl looked so nice. Admittedly, it took me some time to really appreciate that album, but once it clicked, I came to really love it as well.

That left Gish as the only other early Smashing Pumpkins album that I wasn't familiar with. I've heard some people claim that this is their favorite Pumpkins record... and seeing that it was released in 1991, when I'd first checked it in recent years, I'd hoped it had some of that early 90's magic that would immediately draw me in... but it never really held my interest. When I saw that there was a new colored vinyl reissue happening for Gish this year, it brough back memories of my experience with Siamese Dream, and it made me excited to give it another try. I was planning on stopping by the record store last week, so prior to that I started to listen to Gish regularly to see if I really wanted to buy a copy... and very quickly I found that I really enjoyed it.

So when I stopped by Bull Moose to pick up the colored vinyl for Gish, I was surprised that I had another option as well. The metallic foil cover from the 2021 reissue was also in the rack and it looked so good, I suddenly didn't know which one I should buy. I did a quick search and found a few comments that the colored vinyl sound quality wasn't that great, but the foil cover edition seemed to generally get praise for how it sounded... so the metallic foil edition won out.

Motorhead Live 1995

I still check the list of upcoming Record Store Day releases each year, but it is more of an exercise in confirming that the event only releases a bunch of shit that I'm not interested in. When I checked the list this year and saw that there was a new Lost Tapes record from Motorhead, I kind of rolled my eyes at the thought. This would be the 7th in the Lost Tapes series of live recordings from Motorhead in the last 5 years and as someone that isn't usually interested in listening to live recordings, it was starting to feel like it was too much.

Still, at some point I found myself in a Motorhead mood and noticed that this latest of The Lost Tapes was available on Spotify, so for the fuck of it I decided to give it a spin... for science... to just confirm that it was useless. This recording was from Motorhead's live show at the Whisky A Go Go back in 1995... a time period that I'm really not too familiar with for the band. 6 of the 16 songs are from the band's two latest albums at the time, Sacrifice and Bastards... both records that I enjoy, but never really spent much time with... so I was at least interested to see how the live set would feel with a good number of newer songs for that time. Much to my surprise, I loved listening to this. The show was Lemmy's 50th birthday party, and it sounds like they were all having a great time... plus the songs are an absolute blast.

It was a great live recording, but I wasn't set on buying a copy. If I came across one, cool, but I wasn't going to put forth much of an effort. I kind of forgot all about Record Store Day, and found myself in Pennsylvania with some friends for that weekend. When Alex suggested that we check out a record store nearby, I thought it would be fun to check out since the two of us were interested in looking for used DVDs and Blu-rays to grow our newly started collections. I didn't really expect to find any records, but when I walked in and saw the bins for Record Store Day releases, it dawned on me that it was that day. I started flipping through the new records and when I saw the live Motorhead record, I figured that I'd grab it as a nice souvenier of my time in PA that weekend.

Burning Collateral

Last year I picked up the Collateral 7 inch from Scheme Records. I bought it on a whim and was pleasantly surprised. It's a really good straight forward hardcore record, so when I heard it mentioned on the 185 Miles South podcast that Collateral had a new split this year with Burning Lord, I quickly tracked down who was releasing it and preordered it.

Each band does three songs here, two new ones along with each of them doing a cover from the other band's demo. The songs from Collateral are good... a nice continuation of the rough and fast hardcore sound that they were doing with the 7 inch... but Burning Lord really surprised me. I guess that I was expecting it to have a really agressive metallic hardcore sound that leans heavy into the metal, but this is actually good. I can pin down what they sound like... musically maybe they have a bit of Best Wishes era Cro-Mags... I don't know, I just really enjoy these three songs a lot.

Tribe Dream did an exlusive "celtic green" splatter pattern that was limited to 100, so I grabbed that one.

Line Drive

Back in the mid 90's I picked up a 7 inch comp called What Still Holds True. I bought the comp strictly because it had songs from Chokehold and Burst of Silence, but ended up disappointed that those songs ended up on the bands respecive 7 inches that were released around the same time... so the comp 7 inch largely went ignored. At some point years later when I was hungry to discover some 90's hardcore that I'd missed the first time around, I started looking at those old comps for smaller bands that escaped my radar at the time.

Line Drive were a straight edge band out of North Carolina and given the small obsession that I had with collecting Naked Angels years back, discovering that Rob R Rock was also in this band gave me a bit of a thrill. I'm sure that I'd heard the Line Drive name back in the early 90's (outside of the one comp song that I had) through zines or distros, and I know that if I'd seen their first 7 inch, The Few, I would have definitely picked it up... but it somehow never crossed my path at the time. I eventually downloaded the songs and it absolutely fits that early 90's hardcore sound.

The Line Drive stuff has just been hanging out on my iTunes for a while now, and a couple time each year it would catch my eye and I'd hit play... but man, there is something special about just owning the physical record. Since this record arrived in the mail, I've listened to it more in the past couple of months than I have in the past 20 years.

Another Greasy Spoon

After the third Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell album, Keep It Greasy, in 2016, I started to get a bit bored with the band. I really wanted to love their stuff, but I just didn't find myself wanting to return to it very often. I guess that could be said for a number of newer bands that I get hyped up for and then let their records sit untouched and collecting dust on my shelf for years after their release.

So just as I was getting ready to give up on the Admiral, they came along with Very Uncertain Times in 2019, and they hooked me back in. That record was so damn good and it remains my favorite record from the band... still occasionally getting pulled out for a spin every now and then.

It has been seven years since Very Uncertain Times, and I kind of assumed that Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell had packed it in and called it a day... so I was surprised when Sandwell hit me up with a tip that Rise Above had their new album up to order. I was in Jersey at the time for a business meeting, but made sure that I could break away to get my order in for the Die Hard version before it sold out.

No doubt, The Trouble With The Shovell is a good record. It just doesn't have that same swagger and attitude that I loved with Very Uncertain Times. Instead, the new record feels like more a flashback to those earlier albums that were a bit slower and dirtier. It's still good, but it ain't going to be my favorite from the band.

Typical Die Hard pressing with only 100 on clear vinyl, and a bonus 7 inch that has two songs that you won't hear anywhere else.

1996 Novacane

My friend Sarah and I have done a few musical projects together over the past few years. Her taste in music and her song recommendations rewired my brain. Honestly, some of the music I listen to today... The Cure, The Smiths, Life Of Agony, Gulch, Lana Del Rey, etc... I would not appreciate if it wasn't for her. So when she suggested we do a monthly project for 2026 that is more album focused, I was obviously excited to jump in and see what music we could discover together.

We talked back and forth for a bit, trying to come up with a theme, and eventually decided that we would focus on albums from 1996 that were celebrating their 30 year anniversary, and with a couple of exceptions they would be full albums that neither of us was really familiar with. We narrowed it down to twelve and planned to randomly pick from our list at the start of each month, focus and listen to it all month and then follow up to discuss and share our thoughts. We are halfway through the year, and it has been such a fun project so far. We have listened and talked about records from Carcass (January), Modest Mouse (February), Beck (March), Sebadoh (April) and Screaming Trees (May) so far, and each month has been an interesting journey. I'd wanted to pick up a record so that I could commemorate the project here on the blog, and honestly expected that it would be Carcass, so the fact that it ended up being Beck was truly shocking.

When Sarah mentioned including Beck's 1996 album, Odelay, in our project, I kind of groaned inwardly. I had zero interest in anything to do with Beck, and I kind of had this closed minded view that gave "drunk white girl at a wedding reception singing 'two turntables and a microphone' on the dance floor" vibe. It made me cringe... so I had already built obstacles around enjoying this full album.

The first few listens I was surprised to find that I enjoyed hearing a couple of the singles (Devils Haircut and The New Pollution) again, but overall I was kind of tired of the record by the time we got to the end of its 52 minute playing time. One of the pieces of the project is that Sarah and I each have to pick a favorite song from the album so that we can build a playlist from our choices, so I was committed to finding something here that stood out to me, and I kept queuing up every few days to listen again... and the more I listened, the more I enjoyed it. I ended up picking the song Novacane, while Sarah chose Lord Only Knows, and in the end I really came to enjoy the entire album (although I do tend to skip Where It's At each listen). It is such a cool vibe throughout the entire record and I never tire of hearing it months later. Truly a great and unexpected discovery.

I was happy to pick up this great looking colored vinyl edition from 2016. In addition to the "Jackass" sticker, there was also a 12 X 12 art print that was included in the Vinyl Me Please reissue, and it makes for a nice package.

Eyes Of Salt

At some point this year I saw a promo card for a new release from War Records. I don't typically pay much attention to these things, and usually just toss them aside, but for some reason I decided to actually read what this one had to say. It was for a band I'd never heard of before, Eyes Of Salt, and it described them as drawning inspiration from bands like Modern Life Is War, Hope Conspiracy and Incendiary. The list of influences certainly had my attention, but the promo card also said that "Eyes Of Salt makes a politically charged statement that confronts the current social climate" and given my frustration, anger and disgust at most things happening today, this seemed like something that I should check out.

This Eyes Of Salt record fits my mood perfectly. Perfect conduit to channel my anger from the US political climate. So pissed off and urgent. In addition to the list of influences that were listed for Eyes Of Salt, I'm also getting a bit of Verse here... and while I'm not usually excited about guest vocals, hearing dudes from Sinking Ships and Ruiner on a couple of songs was actually pretty cool. It is all just so good.

Given that War Records tends to use the the worst vinyl colors and patterns, I was surprised to find that this Eyes Of Salt record was only pressed on black vinyl. Limited to 275.