Time to dip back into our All Pearls, No Swine series once more, this time to go back in the 80s with a number of fabulous unknown numbers, coming from all over the spectrum. This one doesn't have much of a guiding principle, other than, you know, providing good music, and it does so in all kinds of styles. Just look at the first five tracks: Jonathan Jupersmith opens proceedings with his lost power-pop classic "Pauline", The Freemasons play a strange, echoey version of folk rock, Sunhearth & Friends' "Front Seat, Back Seat" is modern bluegrass, Robert Theobald's "It's Alright" is psychedelic pop and The dB's' "Black And White" is somewhere between highly charged new wave (bordering on punk) and power pop. The dB's are probably also the most known name around here, as almost everyone else is again coming from the ranks of self-publishing and micro-labels.
Later we get some straight up southern country from Dennis Ross and The Axberg Brothers Band, Christian psychedelic rock from Master's Touch, some acoustic finger-picking from Robert Hoke and orchestral dream pop from Carl Schmidt and his "The Phoenix" (while obviously inspiring the cover choice as well). Also noteworthy: Native American Bill Miller and his fabulous folk-rock gem "Whirlwind". And for those that want some heavier guitars, there's Southern rockers Sweet Southern Harmony with "You're The Same". Seriously, you've really got a bit of everything on this collection, though admittedly, power pop has a pretty big place, as we also have Canadian unknowns Peer Pressure asking "When" and Randy Gun apologizing. Alan Dunham's "A Little Bit Longer" loosely fits the genre, but seems to be more inspired by 60's jangle pop.
So, go on a journey through the 80s that doesn't sound anything like the 80s for 65 minutes before DIY ambient musician Daniel Kobialka whisks us off with the extremely lovely "Minddance/Song For Lisa". So, jump on that Phoenix's wings and take off, it's a journey you won't regret...
APNS 13
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OBG, I'm enough of a music geek to like to know when/whence my music derives, so could you tell me where Trax were from and when 'Loved You' came out? I was able to Google everything else I liked on your comp, which had a higher-than-usual (for me) slate of keepers on it.
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Canada, 1985.
DeleteSo C, just out of curiosity, what do you do with the keepers? Throw them all in a different file and retag them? With country of origin and date?
I used to burn CDs, and hope to again some day, when I figure out how to use the external CD burner I got when I switched from a desktop to a laptop. Being an organization freak, I tended to make CDs coherent in theme in some way, so rather than, say, a random collection of punk songs, I'd make CDs of Canadian punk, and Cali punk, and what I call ONG (old new guard) (the original punk and wave folks before punk got so codified), etc. On my spreadsheet, if it's obscure, I have a column for year/country (or state/city/region) because these obscurities will likely end up on a comp with other obscurities (or to flesh out a CD of an artist from the same area and/or era).
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Thanks OBG -- glad to hear this 80s comp doesn't sound like the 80s!
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