Popsheep

I started writing this entry on May 2nd (!) after seeing Final Fantasy open for the Arcade Fire at a neat old theatre in Toronto. Now that I'm laid up with conjunctivitis and a sinus infection I'm feeling just hot enough to actually get the tracks up. I'll even eke out a promise to post regularly and write actual entries.

Final Fantasy is Owen Pallett who plays in more than a few bands. Thankfully, not too long ago, he released a mostly solo album showcasing his very neat project of marrying his violin to a looping pedal.


The CN Tower Belongs to the Dead
The Chronicles of Sarnia

Final Fantasy photo by Sarah Ruba @ cellointhebasement.

Both of these songs are from bands that I thought were going to go on to release a series of classic albums that would eventually become part of the indie-rock canon. In both cases, I purchased their debut EPs and was immediately blown away by the songs. They seemed to be doing everything I wanted rock bands to do. But, for both bands, album after album failed to meet the expectations of the EP and I continued to hope that they would go back to playing what made them so good in the first place.

North of America - Killed in the Ratings
The 8 song EP Elements of an Incomplete Map sounded like everything that was good about indie rock in 1995. That might turn some people off right away, but for me its sort of music I've been waiting for bands to start playing again. I hear a lot of Archers of Loaf in this song, but mostly I hear awesomeness. Later on they started doing some kind of math-rock thing that really didn't work for me. They also ditched the Malkmus-style singer for someone else, which sucked.
[Buy the EP from Matlock Records]

764-Hero - Sunburnt
During my Modest Mouse worship phase, I was looking for any band that was doing something similar. On the We're Solids EP, the unfortunately named 764-Hero managed to perfectly capture the depressing, stripped down pop-song thing I was into. Later on they found a bass player (they were originally a 2-piece) and got way more poppy. Not bad, necessarily, but each successive album started to sound more and more the same.
[Buy the EP from Suicide Squeeze Records]

Shape singing or fasola sounds like no other. Created as simple method to teach music, it only utilizes the fa-so-la-mi part of do-re-mi-fa-so-la. It caught on in the Southern part of America through a series of songs books titled the Sacred Harp. The songs are mostly religious in nature, and would be sung at all day singings where the participants would sit in a square and follow a new leader for every songs. The reasoning behind the square and the change of leadership is the philosophy that it is a participatory activity not a performance. These session would last up to 10 hours straight, which amounted singing until they were hoarse.

This recording is from the 1959 United Sacred Harp Musical Convention in Fyffe, Alabama. It is part of of the Alan Lomax collection being Issued by Rounder records, which in my lifetime I intend to own in completion.

From Southern Journey Vol.9 / Harp of a Thousand Strings

Hallelujah


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The Hand sewn image is by Ethel Wright Mohamed

I realize that MP3 bloggers everywhere probably posted about Pavement's Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain reissue back in October when it was first released, but I wasn't reading MP3 blogs then so I'll just pretend that they didn't. Then again, it's probably not all that important what I post given that I'm not really blogging for any particular reason other than to have a conversation of sorts about music with Jay and a few other friends. To tell you the truth, it's actually kind of shocking how many people read the blog every day and I'm starting to feel kind of self-conscious about it.

Pavement - All My Friends
This song gave me an opportunity to remember why I started liking Pavement so much in the first place. I'd heard snippets of it from the Stuff up the Cracks bootleg and the Gold Soundz EP, but recorded properly and as a whole the song seems even better than I thought it would. It's at least as good as anything on the actual Crooked Rain album. I wasn't too surprised that Pavement would be one of the few bands that would actually be able to pull off reissuing a bunch of old albums that everyone already owns without having to fill the second disc with songs that went unreleased in the first place for a very good reason (see: Elvis Costello). As I've said before, Pavement b-sides have always been as good (or better) than the album cuts.

Bring on the Wowee Zowee reissue!

Did someone say Joe Tex? I can't resist. Here is a great Joe Tex song Skinny Legs And All, which is great on so many levels. The most amazing part is that it sounds like there is a party in the studio. And talk about bass lines.



Skinny Legs and All

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PS Sorry for the lack of posts I've been busy listening to the Casiotone album over and over again...And today it was wonderfully sunny and I went sailing!

June is proving to be an exceptional month for my alt.country collection. Below are songs from two very promising artists that manage to breathe some life into a genre that I find can often get a bit stale.

Jon-Rae and the River - Goodbye
It's been only a few weeks since I've posted about Jon-Rae Fletcher, but I just got my hands on his new album Old Songs for the New Town and I feel the need to inform the world of its awesomeness. On the surface, it might seem that Jon-Rae plays some pretty straight up folk/country songs (albeit with much more passion and intensity than the average alt.country singer). But the cover-songs on the new album, which range from Shellac to Townes Van Zandt to Joy Division, suggest that Jon-Rae's tastes are quite a bit more diverse than just country or folk. As the numerous transitions in this particular song attest, hints of Townes Van Zandt, Joy Division and Shellac can often show up within a single song. As a whole, the album's fantastic and should give Jon-Rae and the river some well needed exposure. Think Palace Music's Viva Last Blues as a good point of reference. If you live in any of the major centres in Western Canada or Ontario, check here for tour dates throughout July. If you're in Toronto, check out his solo show Friday night at Rancho Relaxo.
[Buy the album from Permafrost Records. Do it!]

Phosphorescent - Joe Tex, These Taming Blues
As with Jon-Rae and the River, Phosphorescent manage to breathe some life into the country formula by bringing some disparate influences into the mix. This song somehow manages to succeed in channelling Motown via Nashville through the medium of a tunefully grizzled chain-smoker poet. The horns and pedal-steel are excellent throughout the song, but it's the voice that really does it for me. I think that singers who need to struggle a bit more to hit those notes manage add some sincerity to their songs that conventionally "good" singers can't usually acheive. As David Berman wisely said, "All my favorite singers couldn't sing."
[Buy the album Aw Come Aw Wry from Misra Records. Seriously, do it!]

As happens every summer, my music tastes have recently veered dramatically away from the usual sad-guy-with-guitar or pretentious-nerd-rock that I generally listen to. In their place are songs that promote "dancing", "singing" or "happiness", all things I generally try my best to avoid so as to maintain my scene cred. And, even despite Toronto's "extreme heat alerts" and "smog warnings", my lapse into summer music has pretty much been in full effect for a few weeks now. The following are all songs that I listened to way too much last summer and are now considered "essential" around my apartment.

Neil Michael Haggerty - Firebase Ripcord
If there was any justice, this song would have been number one on the charts for the past three years rather than just being on an (excellent) album that nobody seemed to notice. It still makes me dance around the house every time I hear it and I listen to it almost every day. Ok, every other day.
[From the Album Howling Hex]

The Softies - Me and the Bees
I know, the chorus of "In a cyclone of falling leaves" is probably a good indication that this song is describing a fall day rather than a summer one, but when I listen to it all I can think of is sunshine, insects, mid-afternoon, and sleeping on the lawn.
[From the album Holiday in Rhode Island]

The Blow - What Tom Said About Girls
All the lame dance-punk bands could learn some lessons from this song. All the good dance-punk bands probably could too. BTW, this song is not dance-punk.
[From th Album The Concussive Caress]

The Clean - Tally Ho
This song might actually be the very definition of "upbeat". It kind of reminds me of a peppy half-cousin to Redd Kross's "Linda Blair" (or, as I like to call it, the best song ever).
[From the album Anthology]


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On a different note, you should check out the crazy agro vibe on the Black Mountain message board during the past few weeks. Who knew Coldplay could evoke so much anger?

Owen Ashworth is Casiotone for the Painfully alone. Last night I saw him perform an amazing show at Blim. The night started off interesting when the elevator broke down while Owen, his pulpit and seven other people were still inside. His pulpit was a key element in a well thought out visual performance. I typically find it boring to watch an electronic artist perform, yet I was engrossed in Owen's performance. He had a stack of five or six guitar amps that he piped his assortment of little keyboards, drum machines and pedals through. The lack of a laptop also made the show interesting. Rather than simply hitting the play button and playing minesweep, he was constantly moving about adjusting his machines.

The music is good, but it is the lyrics that are making me play this album on repeat. Owen has a gift of creating beautiful vignettes that are detailed yet cryptic enough to be interesting. Rather than isolated poetics his songs suggest larger stories and deeper characters.

I am so excited about this album, I hope you are too. You can go find out more about it a Tom Lab.


It Wasn't The Same Somehow

Roberta C.

A Few summers ago Spencer Krug and I tried to burn a copy of some songs he made under the name Sunset Rubdown. My computer was being cranky and we kept on getting burning errors. We did manage to get the first four songs burnt. He told me that the songs weren't very good and that I shouldn't expect much. When I finally heard the songs it was clear that he was was being modest.

The four songs became a hit around the house that I was living in at the time. I think that may have something to do with how I lost that CD-R. I've been meaning to get a copy of the whole album ever since. Now thanks to Global Symphonic it is available for purchase with cover art and all.

This recording should not be confused with a Wolf Parade album, it is much more experimental and wide in its scope. That said Wold Parade fans will find it interesting to hear what Spencer was working on prior to the band whilst he was still a member of Frog Eyes. Some of the songs definitely do foreshadow Wolf Parade though. Such as "I'll Believe in Anything You'll Believe in Anything" which Wolf Parade covered in their CBC Radio 3 sessions.
Other songs like "Stadiums And Shrines" give me the sensation of being heavily dosed with horse tranquilizers and watching the band play in slow motion with no sound.


"I'll Believe in Anything You'll Believe in Anything" Wolf Parade playing a Sunset Rubdown song on CBC Radio 3


"Stadiums And Shrines" From Snake's Got a Leg

Probably like many of you out there, I've felt kind of let down by post- Soft Bulletin Flaming Lips albums and post- Sophtware Slump Grandaddy efforts. For me, both of those albums seemed to be almost perfect in their melancholy reflections on the lost potential of 21st century post-industrial urban life. (Did I actually just write that crap?) On both albums, the bands sound as though they're trying to squeeze out every drop of organic sound and texture from electronic instruments, looking for ways to incorporate them into a standard rock song formula without making the music sound electronic and sterile. Also, using the advantages of modern recording technology, both bands manage to make lush and grandiose arrangements (that don't sound cheesy or overwrought) without having to hire the London Symphony Orchestra. Unfortunately, the epic qualities that were so central to both of these albums seemed to have been lost in later materials, with both bands moving away from the types of songs that made the albums work so well. (Not to say that I didn't like later efforts, but they were not good in the same way.)

When I first heard the song "Popstar Researching Oblivion" by the British band Flotation Toy Warning, I was immediately struck by it. Whatever it is that makes me long for sequels to the Sophtware Slump and the Soft Bulletin seems to be there in abundance. Maybe it has less to do with recording or instrumentation, and more to do with an attitude towards song writing. Whatever it is, this is a great song.

Floatation Toy Warning - Popstar Researching Oblivion

I haven't had the band's debut album - Bluffer's Guide to the Flight Deck - for long, but the rest of the songs seem to be very much in this vein and are quite enjoyable. If I could just stop playing this particular song over and over again I would actually get around to listening to the last half of the album in one sitting. The CD is being released in the US on August 16 by Misra Records, so watch your local record store for it.

I've recently stumbled upon the blog Strange Reaction, and they've totally made my day with a series of posts about the "lost" sophmore Bad Religion album Into the Unknown. For starters, the album was clearly "lost" for very good reason. I actually kind of like some Bad Religion albums, but I'm not sure that I can ever take them seriously again after this. Consisting of badly done new wave (at least I assume that's the genre they're butchering) that ends up sounding more like cheesy rockers Starship or Europe than it does XTC, the album is absolutely embarrasing. The album cover seems to say it all.



I highly recommend that you listen to the track Time and Disregard. It is either the best or worst song I have ever heard. It almost sounds like teenagers trying to play a Emerson, Lake and Palmer cover for the school talent show, which is in a way kind of awesome. The songs posted here, here or here are also stellar.

Perhaps I'm a decade and a half too late to be entering into the great Fall vs. Pavement debate - if such a thing ever actually existed - but I figure that one more volley into the critical abyss can't do any real harm. There are some good grounds for seeing Pavement (at least in their pre-Wowee Zowee period) as ripping off the Fall: their cover art is suspiciously similar to that of the early Fall albums, both bands share a similar kind of sloppy haphazardness, and early Pavement albums have a quite a bit of the speaking/singing/shouting dynamic that Mark E. Smith is so well known for. While all this is true, I'm of the opinion that it's truly impossible to rip-off the Fall without merely lapsing into a parody of Smith's ranting poetry or signature vocal ticks ("ehks-mus-uhhhh" as "x-mas", for instance). The same is also true of Pavement. Most bands that try to rip them off end up sounding like a bad Malkmus parody and are pretty hard to take seriously.

Which brings me to these two versions of the Fall song "The Classical". Both versions are truly awesome in their own right, but the Pavement version can't help but be a lot more poppy and melodic, ultimately sounding more like a Pavement song than it does like the Fall original (barring a few moments of failed Mark E. Smith vocal impersonation). The Fall version is so fantastic that Pavement must have realized that you can't just do a straight cover and manage to do any justice to the original. I mean, singing the "Hey there fuckface(uh), hey there fuckface(uh)!" part without laughing might actually be impossible.

The Fall - The Classical

Pavement - The Classical

The Fall album that this song is from, Hex Enduction Hour, is a must own and I think has recently been re-released in North America. The Pavement song is from the Major Leagues EP which, if you can still find it at your local music store, is one of their best. And that's saying a lot given that their EPs tracks are often better than the album cuts.

Sorry for the lack of posts, Ian is out of town and I have been extremely busy. I did however do a suburb trip this weekend, which resulted in some record finds. I'd Like to post those now but I'm too lazy to record the vinyl right now. You can look forward to some vinyl goodness in the next week.

This will be the latest installment in the unplanned underappreciated Subpop bands series. Although this record is not current, Six Finger Satellite's Severe Exposure is almost more timely now than when it was released in 1995.

Noisy with angular guitar and a steady beat! How 2005!


Parlour Games

Sliding into my ears like a sweet caress, the finger picked intro of The David Nzomo Trio's "Nzembelukye" is soon joined by harmonized male and female vocals. The recording was made in Kenya in the 1950's in the Kikamba language. It was created in a climate where 0.007% of the population had political control and access to Kenya's prime highlands so it is not surprising that it is a protest album.

The Sweet Soul of Kenya is on the Latitude label which is an imprint of Locust Records who also deal with more modern artists such as Josephine Foster. The record is nicely packaged with a silkscreened cover. The only part that disappoints me is the lack of liner notes.

Nzembelukye


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I can't get enough of "The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth" by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah which Dan posted over at StG.

When I was a child I loved Simon and Garfunkel... but I really didn't like Paul Simon's solo work. I continued to have this opinion for some time, then I fell in love with Paul Simon's early Solo work, specifically 1972's Paul Simon. I adore this album, much more than I adore any Simon and Garfunkel album in fact. Soon after I discovered my admiration for his first solo album I fell for his second, There Goes Rhymin' Simon, with the glorious song "Kodachrome". This is where my interest waned, I couldn't apreciate any of the album he produced after this time period.

When I finally succumbed to Graceland I started to develop a theory that as I get older the more and more I appreciate later and later Paul Simon. He is just ahead of me, knowing what I'll like years before I do. Today's post is about 1997's Songs from Capeman, the album from Simon's failed musical. Though the musical may have been a failure, this album is really great.

The musical is based on the story of the 16 year old Salvador Argon who, in 1959 stabbed two other teenagers to death. At the time he was wearing a cape and thus became known as the "capeman". He was the youngest person ever to be put on death row in New York State's history. The name of his gang was the Vampires.


The Vampires

As my last post before I go on a well deserved vacation to Montreal for the next week or so, I thought that I would draw everyone's attention back to Micah P. Hinson, an artist whose self titled album I haven't been able to stop listening to. He's someone I've already briefly posted about, but it was buried amist a load of bad, pretentious writing and, according to the site stats, seems to have understandably been overlooked by most people.

This song is outstanding and made me extremely happy when I first heard it. I still kind of get excited whenever it comes on. The best thing about it, though, is that every other song on the album is at least as great.

Micah P. Hinson and the Gospel of Progress - the Possibilities

The debut release from legendary Fugazi founder Ian MacKaye's new band, the Evens, seems to have came and went without making much of a dent on the indie music press. Which is kind of typical. Fugazi, arguably one of the best bands of all time, has seen little fanfare from music critics over their last few releases, despite each of them being amazingly solid albums that continuously take the band's sound to new levels. But I guess all this is beside the point. Fugazi fans are legion and are extremely dedicated, so what the music press doesn't do is really beside the point.

The Evens is a two piece, with MacKaye on baritone guitar and Amy Farina of the Warmers on drums. The sound is partially what you'd expect from MacKaye and, at the same kind, something totally different from earlier projects. It is a kind of quasi-urban folk music, but not of the hairy person with acoustic guitar variety. Instead, the songs are mainly punk rock ballads stripped down to the actual bare minimum, without the use of distortion or excessive volume, but still with the occasional sharp political commentary mixed in with a steady beat and great lyrics about daily life in the city. And MacKaye and Farina do some beautiful harmonies. Basically what I'm saying is that it's really a good album, and deserves more attention than it has.

This song is the album's opening track, and seems to perfectly describe how my days have been feeling lately.

The Evens - Shelter Two

I have posted about Thanksgiving before, and to tie in with Ian's Phil Elvrum I'd like to introduce Kyle Field aka Little Wings. If Elvrum is the musical leader of the trio and Thanksgiving the youthful energy, Kyle is the philosphoical leader. Hailing from the beach town of San Luis Obispo California he exudes a contagious "mellow" of his happy go lucky surfer lifestyle. His music is just that mellow modern surfer music. His songs are often about wonder and beauty presented with many a clever turn of phrase.

"The Shredder" is a song that succeeds in being funny and sad at the same time. Growing up as a skateboarder there was always a shredder type character around. The old guy who still skated and hung out with 14 year olds.

I think I witnessed one of the first performances of the song "Uncle Kyle Says". At the time I was certain that he was making it up on the spot in a moment of pure brilliance. He might just have been.

I love "The Way I Duex".


Shredder Sequel From

Uncle Kyle Says from Magic Wand

The Way I Duex from Light Green Leaves




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Little Wings play tonight in vancouver with P:ano at the lampligher. He also has a new cd out "Grow", That I'll surely buy tonight.

Destroyer's first CD, We'll Build Them a Golden Bridge, was actually released before the Ideas for Songs cassette that I posted about earlier. And it sounds like it. If Ideas was endearingly amateurish, Golden Bridge is just downright sloppy. Most of the songs aren't really all that listenable because they combine the aesthetic of a noise band with the instrumentation of a small child. Painfully distorted casio keyboards, bad found sounds, and hopelessly out of tune singing and guitars characterize most of the songs. It seems to be one of those releases that would have seemed kind of funny at the time but that, in hindsight, ended up just being kind of embarrassing.

That's not to say that its not an interesting album or that there aren't some good songs. One of the great things about Golden Bridge is that you can hear Bejar trying to find his voice, although most people achieve this in a less public way. Any of you who owned the New Pornographers' Mass Romantic will recognize the song "Whistlin' Dixie".I think this version is actually an improvement on Carl Newman's overwrought rendition. "I, As McCarthy" is one of the few songs on the album where the amateurish shambles thing actually succeeds. And it's even one of my favorite destroyer songs.

Destroyer - Whistlin' Dixie (She Shoots)

Destroyer - I, As McCarthy

The song "You Can't Go Home Again" is from a really obscure cassette compilation on Granted Passage Records which also had songs from great British Columbian bands such as Vote Robot and French Paddleboat. It sounds like it was recorded around the same time as Ideas For Songs, with the same fourtracked sloppiness. It's also filled with ridiculous lines like: "A true director can say/I've seen the rushes, the director's cut sucks." Classic Destroyer.

Destroyer - You Can't Go Home Again

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That's the last of the early Destroyer songs series for now. If people can convince me that they're intereted, maybe in a few weeks I'll post some more Destroyer songs as well as songs from other bands that Bejar has played in.

Regardless of whether or not you like Phil Elvrum's musical output in bands such as the Microphones or Mount Eerie, this news will convince you that he is, at the very least, a great guy. Seeing that North Americans were paying ridiculous sums for copies of an Australian tour only EP, Elvrum decided to release the album to the wilds of the internets, free to anyone who wants it. Here's the blurb on the Internet Archive where the album is posted.

Seven songs recorded for the July 2004 tour of Australia by Mount Eerie. They were recorded "Nowhere" in Anacortes, Washington in the months of May and June 2004. The release was in an edition of 196 CDRs and sold out on tour. Somehow people in North America found out about it and thought they really wanted it because of the low quantity. Now it is available forever for free. No more romance!

This album brings back a lot of great memories for me, as I was lucky enough to see Phil perform most of these songs about a half dozen times over the course of my final year living in Vancouver. The best show was probably the one where Phil played solo in Jay's empty living room to about 30 people huddled close together, with the sun shining in through an open window, and with various street sounds accompanying the unamplified songs. I think the recording kind of captures the warm atmosphere of this show, in some ways.

You can download the album in a number of different formats here. Below are two sample songs from the EP, but I recommend that you download the whole thing.

Mount Eerie - Wooly Mammoth's Absence

Mount Eerie - With My Hands Out

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For those of you waiting patiently for the next instalment in the Early Destroyer Songs series, it should be up in the next day or two.

Although Victoria's Frog eyes are not a jam band they share something in common with the Grateful Dead. They are one of those bands that really needs to be seen live to truly appreciate. That is not say that their albums are bad, it is just that they are so amazing in a live context. They induce deadhead like tendencies where I want to follow them around marveling at Carey Mercer's insanity every stop along the way. These recordings were made at Miss T's cabaret; the grandparents rec room decor circa 1970 Drag Queen bar turned sometimes venue which sadly burnt down last summer. I love Carey's inbetween song rants, they make me wonder if he stays up at night thinking about this stuff. I've also wondered if he prepares his banter in advance, which I doubt as he comes up with equally entertaining comments in regular conversation. The quality of these recordings are really high for a live concert, they were made by a fellow named Josh. I don't think these have been available anywhere until now, enjoy.

The Fox Speaks to His Wife Who Is Not Quite Sure --- From the Bloody Hand

Steamboats ---Unreleased I think, and I just made up the name


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Now for some fun, would you like a Cd-r of the whole show? Then post a comment on this post in the next 7 days, and I will somehow randomly select a winner and send you a copy in the mail.

Also I noticed at the global symphonic website that when you buy the bloody hand cd for $10 CND post paid you get the Blue Pine cd free. What a great deal! do it now

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Also Black Mountain opening for Coldplay? Eh? Hoax? Read more at GoldKixx

Before Dan Bejar began wooing nerdy music lovers worldwide with his witty self-referential lyrics and musical homages to various periods of unpopular music, the man behind Destroyer was releasing amazing cassettes of sloppy basement four-track recordings. The tape Ideas for Songs, for instance, was released in 1997 on Granted Passage Records and was the first Destroyer album that I'd purchased. Consisting of 16 homemade recordings, and adorned by a cover with a vintage oil painting of a male nude that looks frighteningly similar to Bejar himself (sorry, I couldn't find the original tape case to post an image, although its probably for the best), the album is very much like it's name suggests: songs poorly recorded with all kinds of mistakes left in, filled with out-of-sync drums and tape hiss to spare. But the primitiveness of the recordings and the sloppiness of the musicianship really only hide what are actually a bunch of great songs that, if recorded better, could easily hold their own against anything on City of Daughters or Thief. But I actually find the sloppy recordings, doubled up vocals, and primitive instrumentation to be great in their own right. Until the outstanding Streethawk: A Seduction had been released, I was even starting to wish that Bejar would move back to his four-track, indie rock roots. But I've recently started to realize that each album is a tribute to a different genre of bad music, and should be taken for what it is. Like the last few Leonard Cohen albums, Bejar's gift is making great songs in spite of his musical accompaniment.

One the whole, Ideas for Songs is a mixture of solo-acoustic numbers and more layered tracks that usually have a single snare drum, a dying casio keyboard, and a plucked lead guitar line. I chose these two songs because they show how this early cassette fits in with the larger evolution of Destroyer. In both these songs you can see a definite similarity to bands like the Silver Jews or Pavement, with lyrics consisting of throwaway lines like "a language with curves, girlfriended and giddy", misused cliches, and no real narrative structure. But at the same time you see that the songs are built on the same catchy pop/folk-song structures that made City of Daughters or Streethawk so great.

Destroyer - The Terror Serves a Purpose

Destroyer - Why Banacek Doesn't Love

In the next day or two, I'll also do a post about the first Destroyer CD release, We'll Build Them a Golden Bridge, so stay tuned. Also, I apologise for the poor sound quality. The originals are pretty sketchy already, but I think the ancient walkman I used to rip these songs onto my computer (which I only recently realized was the only tape playback device in my apartment) probably further degraded the songs. Oh well. I hope you enjoy them anyway. I have a feeling that these songs will probably never be released again, but I hope that I'm wrong for all of your sakes.