Post by pauledwardwagemann on Jun 20, 2006 11:21:30 GMT -5
I was a dust bin junkie throughout most of the 80s and then on into the 90s. There was no bigger thrill for me than spending 99 cents on a unheard of album that ended up being great. Or even having one or two great cuts. It was about as exiciting as being 8 years old, spending your weekly allowance on 3 packs of baseball cards and getting a Pete Rose or Cesar Geronimo...
Over the years I've valued these unknown classics, lugging them off to college in heavyass milk crates each year, piling them in my trunk everytime I got kicked out of an apartment in the early 90s--realizing I could probablly sell them all off and pay for two or three months more rent, suffering the heartache of having one scratched or worbled bythe sun or ripped off by a vengeful ex-girlfriend--and then frantically scouring the record shops trying to replace it.
Perhaps because of their rarity, they sound better. Or perhaps it its Rock snobbery "Look at me, I know all about this secret little masterpiece and no one else does, Nanny-nanny boo-booo"
Whatever the case, I think its time we share our Unknown Classics with each other.
I'll start off with a band called OddManOut who released their album Havana in 1990 on Frigid Air records out of Chicago. There are at least 5 of the 8 songs on this album (total running time is a bit under 36 minutes) that are good to very good, to damn near great. Only one song is a throw away, and two others I have to be in the right mood for.
None of the band members are listed anywhere on the album. The liner notes simply read all songs arranged by Odd Man Out and produced by Phil Bonnet and Perry Bax. The cover has a green and white close-up photo of a merry-go round horse with a look on its face as if it just got a horse dick stuck up its ass. The music is typical of the atypical college rock radio of the late 80's. Theres more than a few hints of U2, the Fall and Echo and the Bunnymen, especially in the lead singer's voice and phrasings. Theres also some cool jangly guitar riffs popping in and out all over the place and unexpected harmonica or keyboard layers weaved in. Most of the songs are dancible to, and could seamlessly have been inserted into any mid to late 80s Teen movie Prom scene, possibly staring Nicolas Cage or Robert Downey Jr. The main problem I have with the couple songs that I dont like are that they overdue the melodrama on the synthesizer a tad bit.
Still I regard this as a great album that nobody seems to know about.
Heres the first cut off the album called "Any Picture in Ages":
www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=4DE0C3FB1656E050
Over the years I've valued these unknown classics, lugging them off to college in heavyass milk crates each year, piling them in my trunk everytime I got kicked out of an apartment in the early 90s--realizing I could probablly sell them all off and pay for two or three months more rent, suffering the heartache of having one scratched or worbled bythe sun or ripped off by a vengeful ex-girlfriend--and then frantically scouring the record shops trying to replace it.
Perhaps because of their rarity, they sound better. Or perhaps it its Rock snobbery "Look at me, I know all about this secret little masterpiece and no one else does, Nanny-nanny boo-booo"
Whatever the case, I think its time we share our Unknown Classics with each other.
I'll start off with a band called OddManOut who released their album Havana in 1990 on Frigid Air records out of Chicago. There are at least 5 of the 8 songs on this album (total running time is a bit under 36 minutes) that are good to very good, to damn near great. Only one song is a throw away, and two others I have to be in the right mood for.
None of the band members are listed anywhere on the album. The liner notes simply read all songs arranged by Odd Man Out and produced by Phil Bonnet and Perry Bax. The cover has a green and white close-up photo of a merry-go round horse with a look on its face as if it just got a horse dick stuck up its ass. The music is typical of the atypical college rock radio of the late 80's. Theres more than a few hints of U2, the Fall and Echo and the Bunnymen, especially in the lead singer's voice and phrasings. Theres also some cool jangly guitar riffs popping in and out all over the place and unexpected harmonica or keyboard layers weaved in. Most of the songs are dancible to, and could seamlessly have been inserted into any mid to late 80s Teen movie Prom scene, possibly staring Nicolas Cage or Robert Downey Jr. The main problem I have with the couple songs that I dont like are that they overdue the melodrama on the synthesizer a tad bit.
Still I regard this as a great album that nobody seems to know about.
Heres the first cut off the album called "Any Picture in Ages":
www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=4DE0C3FB1656E050
