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May 5, 2005
 I would like to officially welcome Randy Kim to the world of MP3 blogs with his launch of Joonr. It's treacherous, competitive, ego-stroking but we all stand together like a folk band of brothers and sisters around a bonfire singing CCR. True I am mere pondscum in the scene, krucoff.com is only on 2, 3 at the most, MP3 blogrolls but I've hung out with the Stereogum and Coolfer guys which at least gets me an invite to parties at the Magician or Hi-Fi. Beyond that, all I know is you have to at least read Fluxblog and Largehearted Boy everyday. But let's forget about the other MP3 blogs for a moment, we have our own issues to work out. We've shared the same twirly-whirly trajectory path of musical appreciation since we met in the 4th grade and in the interest of the 10 friends who will be the majority of our traffic I think we need to lay down some ground rules and divvy up our coverage to prevent potentially dangerous overlap. I will attempt judicious delineation first by childhood chronology and then geography and/or label except where it's not logically convenient and I want to bend the rules in my favor. Ready? 1-2-3-4, GO! Begins at Mrs. McClanahan's 4th grade class. No geographical boundaries here. I remember Julie Jaeger bringing in The Cars and Sugar Hill Gang albums for recess. She liked you more than me so you get them. Actually, I should state it right now to get it out of the way: you get ALL hip-hop, rap, all their sub-classifications, anything using drum machines or more than 50% of a song is comprised of instruments beyond the traditional rock-n-roll set-up of guitar-bass-drums with a reasonable allowance for a variety of organs. With this in mind I lay claim to AC/DC and Rush since I got a Bon Scott/Highway to Hell era t-shirt (but red) and Moving Pictures which Joe Grimaldi had appropiately wrapped in aluminum foil for one of my early birthdays. I also pull The Who, Kinks, Doors by association with my brother Peter. Junior high raises the stakes. Did you see Genesis in '82? How about the Pretenders and Springsteen (separately of course) in '84? Maybe the Beach Boys in DC on The Mall for July 4th '85 after your older brother's friends made you shotgun beers in the New Carrolton Metro parking lot at 10am thus causing you to puke and have to be carried to the first aid tent before noon? Oh right, that was me, me, and me. (Thanks for nothing, Mr. Interior Secretary James Watt.) Okay, now I'm just an annoying asshole trying to show off. (I apologize but the worst is yet to come). Hmm, didn't you live in Germany for a year around this time? Yeah, take the kraut rock and everything else associated with popular and classic rock radio stations from these '80-'85 years. I'm well aware this paragraph and the preceding one were a pointless exercise because we're never gonna use any of these songs. File under foundation. Now we get to the core of the hard, men of the meat, the nasty of dag, and hate threats in E minor. Yes, you were skating and into punk long before me but what I lacked in physical coordination I more than caught up when it came to the music. DC punk/hardcore lays at the root of it all; it's what took us past the initial playing of older brothers' Ramones, Sex Pistols and Clash records. This makes it very dicey and I'm gonna get anally granular but here's my stabb at it: you get Government Issue (admit it, the GI reference 3 words before the colon is genius), Scream (except This Side Up), Minor Threat's Salad Days EP, Dag Nasty's Field Day, Beefeater-Fidelity Jones, Meatmen, Jawbox, Fugazi, Marginal Man (Senator Inouye's son, right?), MFD, Egg Hunt, Embrace, Nation of Ulysses's Plays Pretty for Baby, Bluetip, and the entire Simple Machines catalog except Monorchid. This leaves me with the rest of Minor Threat and Dag Nasty, the Scream exception, NOU's 13 Point Program to Destroy America, Rites of Spring, Gray Matter-Three-Senator Flux (basically anything with Jeff Turner on guitar/vocals), Circus Lupus, Soulside, Kingface, and Shudder To Think. We share Bad Brains because they are too important for any one person to horde. Looks like you got kinda screwed here, huh? I make no excuses for these decisions since I still listen to this stuff almost daily while you've moved onto baile funk. If it makes you feel better I concede all of Baltimore-Annapolis-Crofton-Eastern Shore to you. Blank, Rubber Sole, Loveslug, Freak Beans, UOA, The Shit, Hated, Motor Morons, Berserk, Oranges Band, Lee Harvey Keitel Band, Mustard Seed Magic, Roads to Space Travel, Onespot Fringehead, Wrong Button, Mrs. Stanwyck, Chevette...does it ever end?? Now I'm gonna try to go through everything else with less specific band detail except where special considerations are made. Unfortunately I think there will be lots of them. Your majority holdings include all Chapel Hill/Merge, anything out of Virginia except Richmond, Matador (extremely generous of me but I'm keeping Sleater-Kinney, Unwound, New Pornographers, Pavement's Wowee Zowee), Drag City (not smog or Palace's Lost Blues And Other Songs), early 90's Louisville scene (except Slint because you bailed on the reunion show) which then kinda moved/morphed to that mid-late 90's Chicago Tortoise post-rock experimental stuff which I could never quite wrap my head around. That extends to releases on Thrill Jockey and most of Touch and Go. Goes without saying I get Chi-town punk like Screeching Weasel, Naked Raygun, and the Vindictives. Take the entire mass of Seattle, leave me Mudhoney, Fastbacks, Young Fresh Fellows, everything produced by Kurt Bloch. While we're up there, Canada is all you too from Day-Glo Abortions to Doughboys to Arcade Fire. I specifically get everything out of England/Ireland before 1990 (yep, ALL of it right down to football chants for Queens Park Rangers) and anything from past/current that's classified punk ('77, pop, garage, mod, etc). You get everything else except the Madchester material that lasted into and through the 90's which doesn't violate the above traditional instrument clause. I defer all of Scotland which is no small booty. Rationale: This gives you all the techno, dance, and bands like Spiritualized. Includes Radiohead and Beta Band, Blur/Coldplay/whatever you're DJing these days. The only grey area here is shoegaze. Under these rules I get My Bloody Valentine but since you have Scotland I'm sure it will balance out. I also lay stake to all bands formed in New York and Lodi, NJ (Misfits) before 1980 which is self-explanatory. Everything after was that NYHC crap which you can have (but I'm sure won't take) and knock yourself out with any current NYC area band, Strokes and all. As mentioned before, you have Seattle proper but I get Olympia (K Records/Kill Rock Stars, etc) and Bellingham (all the garage released on Estrus, etc), and other Pacific Northwest garage/pop outposts (ex. Empty Records). Moving down the coast, Northern California is without compromise all me except where previous label affiliations conflict (like you still have Pavement via Matador). I know this is touchy but I'm going hardline. It's practically Divine Right which dictates I own all the dorky East Bay pop punk, Lookout catalog, Gilman St mutations and SF pioneers like the Avengers-Crime-Dead Kennedys. It includes as far east as Sacramento but not Modesto which totally blows. You may cry over Sewer Trout, Sweet Baby Jesus, Operation Ivy, Green Day who you got to play a W&L frat party in '93, even Plaid Retina and Schlong but it will do you no good. Here's where I make it up to you. All of SoCal (with just two exceptions) and skate punk the world over (JFA is Phoenix, no?) is my gift to you. I'm conceding Black Flag, Descendents, Agent Orange, Circle Jerks, early Bad Religion, everything on SST to name just a few but it's only right. I'm holding onto X and the Germs. You get San Diego which is tough to let go for RFTC and Drive Like Jehu alone, but I doubt you'll bother with any of the Gravity scene so I may rock some Antioch Arrow and Heroin. Rest of US and world? I want Minneapolis for Husker Du and Replacements but the rest of Midwest (get your Gaunt on Columbus, OH) and scattered labels from Jade Tree to Elephant Six collective that we haven't already covered are a grab bag. I dare you to take Marshmallow Coast! Boston/New England -- Pixies, Gang Green, Lemonheads, Sebadoh, Dinosaur Jr, Taang!, etc -- I leave in your good hands. Italy, I wouldn't think of it cause I know how much you like Negazione but I get Sepultura in Brazil (shit, did we cover any metal? ok, you get none). Everything else is pot-pop-junk-rock-luck and trades are possible. I left out huge gaps in music scenes, genres, and unresolved classifications (like where to put someone like Ted Leo who's on Lookout but has called NJ, DC, NY, farther north home) but for the sake of brevity I've limited this to possible points of contention. OK kids, sing it up... Scream - "I Look When You Walk" (4.03 MB) Krucoff.com powered by Removable Hype. Copyright © 2004 La Otra Página, Inc. All nights observed. Feel free to email "info(at)krucoff.com" for questions, comments, hunting tips, and family gossip. |
