3078. V.A.: Not So Quiet on the Western Front
3079. V.A.: American Youth Report Part One - Los Angeles
3080. V.A.: "Cracks in the Sidewalk"
3081. V.A.: Chunks
3082. V.A.: The Blasting Concept
3083. V.A.: Rodney on the ROQ
3084. V.A.: Saturday Night Pogo
3085. V.A.: No New York
3086. V.A.: Live at Target
3087. V.A.: Subterranean Modern
3088. V.A.: Trap Sampler
3089. V.A.: Chartbusters: The Best of Beserkley (1975-1978)
3090. V.A.: Hanging Out at Midnight
3091. V.A.: Battle of the Garages
3092. V.A.: 415 Music
3093. V.A.: The Girls Can't Help It
3094. V.A.: What Surf
3095. V.A.: Ear-Piercing Punk
3096. V.A.: Rollin' the Rock Vol. 3: More California Rockabilly
3097. V.A.: Waves: An Anthology of New Music Vol. 2
3098. V.A.: I.R.S. Greatest Hits Vols. 2 & 3
3099. V.A.: The Enigma Variations 2
3100. V.A.: The Last Pogo
3101. V.A.: No Pedestrians
3102. V.A.: Things Are Still Coming Ashore
Mixworthy: "Praise the Lord & Pass the Ammunition," Impatient Youth, and "New Left,"
MIA, #3078; "Only Gonna Die," Bad Religion, #3079; "Labor Day," Cavemen, and "Girl
Next Door," Woofing Cookies, #3090; "She Ain't No Use to Me," Ugly Ducklings, #3095;
"Baby Hold On," Martians, and "Apologies," Pointed Sticks, #3097; "Ahead," Wire,
#3099.
1-2-3-4! (American/Canadian division)...If there's an American punk and/or new-wave
compilation as well-programmed as Wanna Buy a Bridge? or Streets, I don't know it.
Mine are so haphazard that I've listed songs by the Ugly Ducklings, who go back to
the late '60s (I may have Ear-Piercing Punk misfiled; I always thought it consisted
of a few originals and a lot of no-name covers, but maybe it's just a straight ga-
rage collection with a flashy title), and Wire. The Rhino DIY series, a few of which
I have on CD, covers American power-pop really well, but I don't know if there's any-
thing that collects all the key Amerindie of the '80s in one place--something that
could work as a companion to the Michael Azerrad book--or if anybody managed to docu-
ment California in the late '70s just a little bit better than Rodney on the ROQ or
Saturday Night Pogo. (From what I remember, The Decline of Western Civilization was
pretty iffy too.) Because I had most all of that music already, I never much cared...
MIA's "New Left" runs about 30 seconds, so it found its way onto numerous punk tapes
I compiled over the years. No matter how much I'd already crammed onto whatever it
was I was assembling, there was always room enough at the end for "New Left." Being
the last song on #3078, though, trying to cue it up without the needle lifting off
took some doing...#3080-3082 are all SST. I know there are a lot of Saccharine Trust
collectors who regularly check this site, so here's a rundown: "Hearts & Barbarians"
is on "Cracks in the Sidewalk," Chunks has "A Christmas Cry," and "Emotions and Ana-
tomy" is on The Blasting Concept. The latter also has Würm, SST's less celebrated
umlaut band...My favourite from this lot's small mixworthy list is the Woofing Cook-
ies' "Girl Next Door," which Peter Buck produced the same year he did the Feelies'
The Good Earth. Also from the Midnight sampler, the Love Pushers' "Radio Girl": Jim
Testa, Howard Wuelfing, and Jim DeRogatis, which is one more rock critic than the
Angry Samoans had, and three more than that poor woman in the band (Donna Croughn)
should ever have been subjected to...The Last Pogo was Toronto's Woodstock, Altamont,
and Lollapalooza all rolled into one. Dec 1 and 2, 1978--I would have been there my-
self, but I had a big APBA table-baseball tournament scheduled those nights...If you
haven't figured this out already, I'm kind of grasping at straws here.
________________________________________________________________________________
3103. V.A.: Burning Ambitions: A History of Punk
3104. V.A.: Streets
3105. V.A.: Wanna Buy a Bridge?
3106. V.A.: The Roxy London W.C. 2 (Jan - Apr 77)
3107. V.A.: Live at the Vortex
3108. V.A.: Mutant Pop
3109. V.A.: Business Unusual (The Other Record Collection)
3110. V.A.: Labels Unlimited (The Second Record Collection)
3111. V.A.: 20 of Another Kind
3112. V.A.: 20 of Another Kind Volume Two
3113. V.A.: Vaultage 79
3114. V.A.: Vaultage 80
3115. V.A.: The Class of '81
3116. V.A.: Making Waves
3117. V.A.: Oi! The Album
3118. V.A.: Carry on Oi!!
3119. V.A.: Vertigo-Sampler
3120. V.A.: Goodbye to All That
3121. V.A.: Imminent 5
3122. V.A.: Giant
Mixworthy: "Someone's Gonna Die," Blitz, #3103; "Cranked Up Really High," Slaughter
& the Dogs; "isgodaman," Arthur Comics?; and "Lookalikes," Drones, #3104; "Alterna-
tive Ulster," Stiff Little Fingers; "Part Time Punks," Television Personalities; and
"Read About Seymour," Swell Maps, #3105; "Just Another Teenage Rebel," Outcasts,
#3109; "Ca Plane Pour Moi," Plastic Bertrand, #3111; "Food," Chefs, #3113; "You Do,"
April & the Fools, #3114.
Burning Ambitions is the kind of collection I was talking about below: appearing in
'81 or '82, it was an early attempt (the first I was aware of) to anthologize the his-
tory of British punk. It succeeded up to a point--there are a number of key songs I
haven't listed here because they're already in the alphabetical section--but it's not
the album it could have been. For starters, there's nothing by the Sex Pistols or the
Clash, glaring absences conceded on the back-cover notes. (The annotator also mentions
how the Jam and Siouxsie & the Banshees either declined or were prevented from parti-
cipating by their record companies. "Hong Kong Garden" is a must, I agree; that the
Jam are missing seems like much less of a big deal to me.) Also, I bet because the
compilers believed in the idea that punk must always be primarily about the here and
now, the fourth side is given over to a lot of silly second-generation hardcore and
Oi, plus the even sillier (and not atypical at the time) idea that the best America
had to offer was the Dead Kennedys. Having said that, I used to love Blitz's "Some-
one's Gonna Die," and, judging from LPs #3117 and #3118, it would appear that I was
momentarily under the spell of that nimble skinhead beat myself. Incidentally, one of
the three compilers of Burning Ambitions was named Iain McNay. Have you seen the Sein-
feld where Elaine gets involved with the pompous British guy from the clothing store?
I'm envisioning one of that episode's scenes reenacted with Iain McNay: "Hey, you're
Ian MacKaye from Minor Threat, aren't you?" "It's Iain--Iain McNay"...The here and
now doesn't get any more here or now than Streets and Wanna Buy a Bridge? Both are too
specific to serve as overviews--the latter's confined to one label, the former to a
time-frame that lasted about 23 days--but they're the first two British punk compila-
tions I'd seek out. I've been fascinated by the Slaughter & the Dogs, Arthur Comics?,
and Swell Maps tracks for years; they're the very definition for me of the anonymity
and unfathomable momentum of ground-zero punk that Greil Marcus is always rhapsodiz-
ing about. There's no explanation for why "Cranked Up Really High" suddenly shifts
into its final minute of la-la-las, and there's no word that adequately describes
the emotions conveyed by the voice (Slaughter's, I suppose) that sings them...Some
people might also place The Roxy London record alongside those two--it gets a list-
ing in Marcus's Stranded discography--but, although I've had it for years, I barely
know it. It's a live album--no drum solos, I'm fairly certain, but a live album
nonetheless...The one other record from this lot that I've given a lot of play to
over the years is Vaultage 79. The Chefs' "Food" is the most cheerfully itemized
grocery list you'll ever hear, a minute-and-a-half of it until "This is the end of
the stupid song!" brings everything to a halt, and I could also list the Vandells'
"Bank Holiday" and the two Golinski Brothers tracks. (I'm not sure if SCTV's Schmen-
ge Brothers pre- or post-date the Golinskis.) In the end, all you really need to say
about the two Vaultage collections, or the ten zillion records just like them that
appeared in the late '70s and early '80s, is summed up by a role-call of the bands:
Woody and the Splinters, the Objeks, Dick Damage and the Dilemma, Birds With Ears,
the Red Squares, the Lillettes, the Hollow Men, the Exclusives, the Ammonites, etc.
There's a well-known baseball song by David Frishberg called "Van Lingle Mungo," in
which the lyrics are simply a list of players from the '40s and '50s, some famous,
most obscure. (I've never actually heard the song, although I've read enough about it
that I feel as if I have.) You could do the same kind of thing with the instantly for-
gotten bands that populate most of the albums above.
________________________________________________________________________________
3123. V.A.: Philadelphia Classics
3124. V.A.: Let's Dance! The D.J.'s Collection of Dance Club Classics
3125. V.A.: A Night at Studio 54
3126. V.A.: Disco Gold
3127. V.A.: Disco Hustle
3128. V.A.: Disco Boogie
3129. V.A.: Disco Date
3130. V.A.: Disco Fire
3131. V.A.: Record Shack Presents • Volume One
3132. V.A.: Techno! The New Dance Sound of Detroit
3133. V.A.: House Hallucinates: Pump Up the World, Volume One
3134. V.A.: The House Sound of Chicago
3135. V.A.: Classic Acid - Volume One
3136. V.A.: Sound of the Underground - Volume Two
3137. V.A.: Longsy D's House Sound for the World
3138. V.A.: Hip House
Mixworthy: "I Love Music," O'Jays, #3123; "Born to Be Alive," Patrick Hernandez, and
"Got to Be Real, Cheryl Lynn, #3124; "I Love the Night Life," Alicia Bridges, #3125;
"This Will Be," Natalie Cole, #3129; "Time Marches On," Jungle Wonz, #3133.
I love the sequence of titles beginning at #3126. A few they missed: Disco Conundrum,
Disco Quiche, Disco Recriminations, Disco Haiku, Disco Apostate, and Disco Meritoc-
racy...To repeat something I've said elsewhere--and which was probably made clear as
I worked through the alphabetical section--I'm hardly the world's most passionate
disco lover, but neither am I anywhere close to those people my age who came out of
the '70s with a lifelong vendetta against the genre. (The funniest of which are Q-107
programmers and listeners who I swear remain oblivious to the fact that "Miss You"
and "I Was Made for Lovin' You" and "Another Brick in the Wall" might just have one
or two similarities to disco. Hate on, you crazy diamonds, hate on.) There were cer-
tain songs that sounded great to me then and continue to sound great (Thelma Houston,
Maxine Nightingale, "I Feel Love"), a few masterpieces I only really ever paid atten-
tion to after the fact ("I Love Music," "Good Times"), a lot of famous hits that have
never been here nor there to me, and a small amount of stuff I do loathe, some of it
more now than then--as my first-year roommate once said about I forget what, given
the choice between dancing to "Y.M.C.A." at a staff party and castration, I'd choose
castration. (No one actually forced me to choose at last Christmas's staff party, so
I just quietly remained seated.) I have no memory at all of any special animus to-
wards disco at my own high school, which strikes me as odd, seeing as my school was
as small-town and as lilywhite as it got, and seeing as my years there (1974-1979)
perfectly bracketed disco's heyday. Either the memory's faulty, or we were so behind
the times that the backlash arrived late too--it may have hit Georgetown sometime in
the mid-to-late '80s. Anyway, the collection I'd take first from those listed above
would be Disco Gold ("Ronco Presents..."), which has eight songs I've listed at some
point in this inventory. Disco Hustle's a TeeVee International double I found sealed,
so tucked away somewhere around here I've got a "Disco Hustle Instruction Booklet"
that I do plan to make extensive use of one of these summers...My flirtation with
house lasted one or two nights in the fall of 1988; the kind of housey piano you hear
on Inner City's hits was my favourite sound in the world for a time, but I can barely
remember a single concrete detail from anything listed above. The phrase "House music
all night long" springs to mind, detached from whatever music went along with it.
I've discovered my most serious misfiling thus far: the Longsy D album is the work
of one guy, not a collection. I'm debating whether I can learn to live with this or
if I should just throw it away.
________________________________________________________________________________
3139. V.A.: Street Sounds Edition 8
3140. V.A.: Street Sounds Edition 11
3141. V.A.: Designed for Dancing Volume One
3142. V.A.: Sharp Mixes
3143. V.A.: Hi-Energy
3144. V.A.: Maxi de Luxe Vol. II
3145. V.A.: Best of Europe
3146. V.A.: Euromix
3147. V.A.: U.K. Electro
3148. V.A.: Electro 2
3149. V.A.: Crew Cuts
3150. V.A.: Ny•lon Juice
3151. V.A.: Fuzz Dance
3152. V.A.: FFRR - Gold on Black 1990
3153. V.A.: Paybacks Are Hell - Vendetta's Alternate Mixes - Volume 1
3154. V.A.: Boogie on Broadway•Volume One
3155. V.A.: Crystal City Compilation
Mixworthy: "Hi, How Ya Doin'?" Kenny G, #3139; "Weekend Girl," S.O.S. Band, #3140.
I skipped over "Weekend Girl" in the S.O.S. Band entry, so I I'll list it here--which
makes sense anyway, since the Street Sounds collection was where I first got
to know it. I've been going back and fixing the margins on the first 15 or 20 alpha-
betical entries (and have just barely begun to flip the reverse-numerical-order back
to normal, seeing as it serves no purpose once an entry's archived), and I'm noticing
that I was a little too stringent on the earliest mixworthy lists. For Aerosmith, I
listed "Sweet Emotion" but passed on "Toys in the Attic," something that doesn't make
any sense to me now. (I do understand why I left off "Sick as a Dog"--fantastic for
the first couple of minutes, then it starts to wander.) "Weekend Girl"'s still right
on the fence second time through, but take it away and you've got Kenny G carrying
the whole weight of mid-80s dance music on his shoulders, and I'm just not sure he's
up to the task..."Mid-80s Dance Music" isn't quite an accurate description of this
section: "British People Love to Dance Too( And Housebound Canadian Record Collectors
Love to Sample Their Wares)" is more like it. I bought at least half of this lot--
much of it compiled by Street Sounds magazine (London version, not the one Mike Man-
nix put out in Toronto)--on sale at either Records on Wheels or the Record Peddler
within a very short period of time. Like the house LPs listed below, it was one of
those temporary pockets of enthusiasm that are scattered throughout my collection,
as if immersing myself in a certain style of music would teach me to speak the lan-
guage; buy now, figure out later. (There's one such pocket among my CDs: a few dozen
trip-hop/speed-garage/ambient-whatever compilations that I bought for two or three
dollars each when Indigo absorbed Chapters.) Apparently it didn't take, because 20
years later I still need a translator. On the bright side, the Paybacks Are Hell LP
reminds me that there was a mix of "Seduction's Theme" I used to love, although not
the version found here; also, a shiny black peel-off sticker just fell out of the
FFRR - Gold on Black 1990 album which I may affix to my desk somewhere (or may not--
it likely goes for big money on eBay.) Mmmmmn, shiny.