Be Excellent To Each Other

I'm enjoying Discover Weekly on Spotify a lot at the moment. It's recommending all sorts of stuff that's not only new, but I also like.

Such as, "A Good Idea" by Sugar, who were completely new to me and very Pixies-ish. I was surprised I hadn't heard of them. I looked them up and discovered they feature Bob Mould. I was doubly surprised I hadn't heard of them. But I'm sure plenty of people here knew them.

So, what album were you bang into when you were younger, still love today, but is largely forgotten? i.e. if you missed it then, you're not going to come across it now?

Couple from me:

Stellastarr*: their eponymous and (I think) only album was a lovely slice of guitar-driven new-wave pop.

Mull Historical Society: the debut Loss seemed to soundtrack many of the losses filling my early 20s. Much more upbeat than that sounds, and again, some brilliant pop.

Crashland: a band with fairly crumby lyrics, but a brilliant ear for a tune. Their debut Glued was great and probably derided at the time by idiots.

That whole album from Sugar, Copper Blue is an absolute belter.

I still sometimes listen to loads of defunct old nonsense from BITD. Swervedriver, Alice Donut, Agent Orange, Operation Ivy, Snuff, SNFU spring to mind.

Nah, you guys are just making these names up now.

Can't beat a bit of Op Ivy or Swervedriver, tbh.

Operation Ivy were the only exception to the rule that ska-punk is utterly dreadful.

Random Hand disagrees (just as one example).

Perhaps there are others but everything else I ever heard described as ska punk was really cringeworthy.

Alice Donut in case you aren't familiar:

Things I still play a lot from way back (and that Mark hasn't already mentioned)

New Fast Automatic Daffodils - Pigeonhole and Body Exit Mind (missed the big time due to stone roses and happy Monday's grabbing it all)

Leatherface - Gruff but very tuneful punk from Geordieland

The Cramps, Minor Threat, Fugazi...

Things I still play a lot from way back (and that Mark hasn't already mentioned)

New Fast Automatic Daffodils - Pigeonhole and Body Exit Mind (missed the big time due to stone roses and happy Monday's grabbing it all)

Leatherface - Gruff but very tuneful punk from Geordieland

The Cramps, Minor Threat, Fugazi...

Heh 'Repeater' post

What about the Clash? They are ska punk.

Less than Jake, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, No Doubt, Fishbone, The Offspring, Sublime... I'm livid, Mark.

Yeah, you're hitting shit there. Fishbone were ok.

REEL BIG FISH

Stop.

It's not my fault your knowledge of music went out with the 70s

Would you describe Fishbone as ska punk? I dunno I always thought of them at the time as being more like the Chili Peppers with the funky type bass and whatnot.

It's not our fault that you were a child who got sold weak derivatives of all the decent music.

Yeah, shut it, Linkin Pork.

STRAW MAN! I SEE A STRAW MAN!

Like?

How am I supposed to know? But I do know that when we were twenty you were a little kid and therefore really uncool and you liked crap music.

Don't tell him any more of our cool stuff!

To be fair, he's been uncool and liked crap music his whole life.

All right, mate. Sorry the bands I like don't wear enough tweed jackets for your liking.

Maybe one day you'll be hipster enough to like good music.

Nothing wrong with tweed jackets.

They're certainly MaliCool.

I always say that i'll never spit on my past when it comes to musical tastes, but i'll make an exception for ska. Even Operation Ivy sounds utterly stupid to me now.

The only band from that genre that i could probably still listen to an entire cd nowadays would be Less Than Jake, but i still have lots of better things to do.

Ska punk wise I still listen to Mad Caddies and think they're great.

Procol Harum - A Salty Dog. 1969. Prog rock at its finest.

I didn't have a copy of my own and when I went looking for it, couldn't find any shop with it in stock. I saw it advertised from Virgin by mail order, but they refunded my money a few weeks after I ordered it, saying that they couldn't source it because Regal Zonophone deleted it from their catalogue. I had all of my 6th form friends keeping an eye open for it and someone spotted a copy in a shop a few miles away. He bought it, and was going to sell it to me, but then told me he was thinking of keeping it for himself, but then relented and sold it to me. I eventually got a CD copy, when that new and innovative technology appeared.

There was a similar problem years later, when my vinyl copy of Broken Barricades had been played to death. It was the only album from their back catalogue that their record company never released on CD. Eventually, Gary Brooker released it on his own label, mail order only.

Here Endeth this chapter of the Prog Rock Encyclopedia.