Thursday, May 31, 2012

"OG Simpson"

Totally forgot about this, but a few months ago (possibly on Super Bowl day) we uploaded Moistboyz' "OG Simpson" onto Soundcloud...

"Sweet Texas Fire"

This is unfortunately STILL the best quality version of this song available on the internet in any form... We have a copy of the "Piss Up A Rope" 7-inch and could probably upload a much better quality version at some point, but we will probably be too lazy to ever get around to it.

"Seconds"

We're not gonna lie... We've never heard this song before 10 minutes ago, but that's the great thing about Ween... They have so many non-album tracks that it (almost) doesn't matter that they've split up, because there's so many dozens of hidden gems all over the place that it shouldn't be too difficult to locate some unheard freshness...

"Skycruiser"

Once upon a time, "Skycruiser" was praised on a few Ween fan-websites as being one of their best songs, if not THE best.. Not sure if any of these fan-sites still exist, but for a year or so, it was the fabled unheard jam. Our dubbed rarities boxed-set that we received in 1998 did include both sides of the "Skycruiser" single (along with its trippier twin-brother b-side "Cruise Control") and that third or fourth listen was the true revelation. "Skycruiser" is not an immediate triumph, but it doesn't take long to warm up.

"Cornbread Red"

We incorrectly assumed this was a 12 Golden Country Greats outtake, but it turns out this was pulled from the White Pepper sessions...

"Homo Rainbow"

The Chef Aid episode of South Park was viewed in a college dorm room along with fans of virtually every alt-band who appeared in the episode, and none of us had any warning that they would be appearing. "Holy fuck, what Rancid song is that?" "Dude, Primus was just on TV."

The episode's 5-second teaser of "Homo Rainbow" (also known as "The Rainbow") kinda blew minds apart, and waiting those few weeks for the CD to be released seemed like an eternity.

"I Smoke Some Grass" "Mr. Mocha" & "Tastes Good On Th' Bun"

The first Ween we ever heard was "I Smoke Some Grass," placed on a mixtape from a friend, which is originally from the CD single of "Push Th' Little Daisies." We had no idea this was a b-side until years later, and since we've discovered the full song title is actually "I Smoke Some Grass (And Get Really Really High)." Being 14 in 1994 with no money and no internet access, the song seemed like a new world of weirdness that was pretty much exactly what was needed in our lives at the time... We desperately needed to hear more, and so Pure Guava was ordered on cassette from the BMG catalog not long afterwards, and for a couple years, this was our only Ween.

Pure Guava outtakes are always among the most special ones for us. The sound of their LP's are all somewhat specific, and we're always willing to welcome a few unheard tracks from around the same time...

"Close My Eyes Forever"

November '98 was when we received a big box of tapes in the mail... 7 or 8 tapes containing Ween music that we had never heard before, acquired from some crazy internet dude who was nice enough to dub all of it for us. (Today, most of these are easily available on Youtube, but at the time this was a huge deal...)

The tape labelled "Pod Sessions" was easily the most intimidating out of all of these... Both sides of a 90-minute tape are filled with unfamiliar murky lofi haze.. lots of tape hiss and generally lower songwriting quality than the songs that were chosen for The Pod. An early version of "Push Th' Little Daisies" appears at the very end...

Not long afterwards, one of our associates reported being impressed by an mp3 of "Close My Eyes Forever." We took another look, and there it was, right in the middle of Side A. Not long afterwards, we figured out this was a cover of Ozzy Osbourne and Lita Ford.

ween non-album tracks

We've gone through some phases in life... During a couple of these phases, we became somewhat obsessed with collecting every song Ween has ever recorded or released in any form, including non-album tracks, side projects, live covers and interesting alternate versions. Over time, we've figured out that they probably have twice as many of these as they do songs on the officially released LP's. (So if there's 9 Ween albums, they probably could've released more than 20 without repeating songs, plus the Z-Rock Hawaii LP and the 5 Moistboyz records.)

In 2005, 12 of these songs that we had (mostly) never heard before were remixed/remastered and packaged as Shinola Volume 1, which has earned its place amongst their best late-period releases. (We heard a bad-quality version of their Thin Lizzy tribute "Gabrielle" a year earlier.. The remixed version blows it away, obviously.) Now that decisions regarding Ween releases have kinda been pushed aside, it's sadly looking like there will never be a Volume 2, 3 or 4, even though they probably could've kept it going for 10 more of these.

So yeah, let's post a bunch of em.... That's our plan. Not necessarily our ideal "Shinola Volume 2" playlist.. But just some favorites from over the years....

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Ween splittin up

We are saddened to report what was recently confirmed from Ween's message board and RollingStone.Com, that Gene and Dean Ween have parted and gone their separate ways. We've been hearing stories about their drifting apart over the past few years, leading to increasingly sporadic releases and the uncompleted "Shinola" series which unfortunately never made it past Volume 1. Either way, they were a big part of what made the 90's exciting and adventurous and strange, and we'll likely be posting Ween videos for the rest of the week..........

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Nickelodeon's "Fifteen"

(If you don't judge, skip the literature and simply scroll down to the amazing videos posted below. Also, don't read it.)

NOTE: The following preface is an attempt to justify our placement outside of the hipster-friendly 90's-Nickelodeon-nostalgia universe of which we are not interested in joining.

We'd like to hereby state a perspective of understanding the true distinction between "nostalgia" and "viewing from a fresh viewpoint."

Let's quickly describe the difference...

You probably know what nostalgia is... But for the sake of simple explanation, it's the evocation of reliving a sentimental feeling which is sparked after experiencing a sensation. Sometimes it happens after viewing a youtube clip, or hearing a song, or maybe even after eating some weird candy or something that you haven't eaten since you were a kid, or something... (Lots of people say that smells evoke nostalgia, but this only happens for us occasionally.) And often times, even if you initially experienced these sensations under troubled or even miserable circumstances, one may be reminded of these specific feelings with a "rose-colored-glasses" perspective, leading many to (incorrectly) wish they could relive those periods of life.

"Viewing from a fresh viewpoint" entails knowing the difference, and mostly takes place once you don't care about nostalgia anymore, which is pretty much where we're at.

So yeah, nostalgia is bullshit and boring. We're not really into the whole "80's/90's nostalgia" thing... We were at one point, but we're kinda done with it now, as you all should be as well. If you're not over it yet, enjoy nostalgia for a little while longer, and get it the fuck out of your system as quickly as you can. (An important point to note: Nostalgia has very little, if anything, to do with our decisions to post relatively enormous features regarding our favorite 80's songs and our favorite 90's songs.)

Once upon a time, we were 19, and the internet was fresh.. One of the first things we enjoyed locating were old themesongs from Nickelodeon that we hadn't heard in 8 or 9 years.. Danger Mouse and all that fun stuff.. But that was like 12 years ago. It was fun, and now we're over it.

At the time, it wasn't as common to witness such vast nostalgia.

In the 90's, Generation X'ers who grew up in the 70's may have enjoyed an album called Schoolhouse Rock Rocks which was comprised of bands like Blind Melon, Better Than Ezra and Deluxx Folk Implosion covering those ultra-annoying songs that were shown on ABC Saturday mornings in the 70's and early-80's.

In the early 2000's, the internet was younger, but it wasn't uncommon to see message board subjects such as "what are the greatest TV episodes of all time" and witness answers such as "The 'Capture the Flag' Episode of Salute Your Shorts". (P.S. While it's amusingly silly, the 2012-perspective of Salute Your Shorts can pretty much only be enjoyed for nostalgic qualities. Outside of that, it's pretty awful.)

Around 2009/2010, a shit-ton of chillwave bands and reverb-heavy indie-rock bands emerged with names like Ducktales, Golden Girls and Reading Rainbow, seemingly trying their hardest to cash-in on a newly marketable hipster-version of nostalgia.

And it's only gotten worse since then. It's 2012 and so now everyone's opinion matters, and the loudest generation is clearly the ones whose nostalgia is the loudest, that being the kids who used to watch All That, Alex Mack and Legends of the Hidden Temple... Yeah, that's real great.. we get it, you miss being a kid in the 90's. It was so fucking cool, right guys?

The 90's are over, and you're not a child anymore. Grow the fuck up.

With that said, we never really got to watch Pete & Pete during the 90's... For some reason, we missed out on it, and just caught up on its first season throughout the past year. And we're happy to confidently state, without any nostalgic context, that this was a very well written and really fucking funny show. No, really.

All nostalgic context aside, believe it or not, a LOT of these shows were actually really good. Take Ren & Stimpy for instance, a one-of-a-kind landmark in the history of animation with nothing else truly like it before or since... We just took it for granted at the time, but it makes sense to view some of the more inspired current series on Nick and Cartoon Network (such as Flapjack, Adventure Time and Regular Show) and note a lineage that built to this point.

IN THE EXTREME OPPOSITE DIRECTION, our collective cultural viewpoint has grown far more self-aware. Irony and meta-irony are more extreme than ever, which is probably a good thing, because it probably means we're collectively getting smarter. There was a time (not too far from the present) when people seemed more afraid to laugh at themselves, and we are currently FAR removed from that...

AND THAT BRINGS US TO THE WHOLE POINT OF TODAY'S ENTRY.

Unaware naivety is something that can rarely be faked convincingly. When it's obviously fake, nothing could be lamer. But when it's real, its potential for being immensely compelling is unparalleled, with some of the best recent cases being memes such as "Chocolate Rain" and "Friday."

This wasn't uncommon in the 90's either. It made sense for college students to understand what made shows like the syndicated series Saved By The Bell a required daily viewing ritual.

This is partially why we're surprised that no one has made a bigger deal out of FIFTEEN, a show that we viewed in the early 90's which we've recently re-discovered on Youtube in time to review without any special nostalgic context to cloud our viewpoint.

No fucking around here, people... It's pretty outstanding. We're not entirely sure how it hasn't sourced dozens of internet memes. Honestly, it's not even that funny as much as it's amazing it ever got made.

Whatever, it's actually not that great... But we just wrote that intro for 20 minutes and don't feel like erasing it.... These are the first 2 episodes of Fifteen. They're fucking awful and amazing:


Monday, May 21, 2012

minutemen movie

Probably a sad movie

You better beleive we're settn mad fires this week

The bigness of tomorrow has the potential to free ourselves from the shackles and receive the JUST ONE HIT that FINAL HIT that ends it all, and you can continue with your life without relapse. When he told me spacemen over the hill, cabs all along the truck, better than caboose, a beaker leader, and cash that in before they suspect any drama. Wall patterns started it up again.. old man in the corner started just pointing his face out of the wall. Let's get a closer look. It wasn't the same dark waterfalls. "I'm just gazing at you." It was confusing. Opportunity dissappears. It's there, and it rules, and then I fuck it up. One in a million.

We are like SOOoooooooooooo 12 days late to pretty much every party ever. Thisi s the kind if artist who you mention to friends who are cooler than you and they're like 'Yeah, uh huh, uh sooo what this was a big deal on my news face totally back on like May 8th, you can't be for real right now.


SPIN's greatest guitar players of all time presenteed some opportunity for tarnish. #5 D.Boom:

Sunday, May 20, 2012

the forger

One of the guys in Meat Beat Manifesto started doing these things...

Saturday, May 19, 2012

saturday party

Big night...

new shit news: "FOREIGN SHIT" / New JPNDRDS / indie whatever / Odd Future tour

new Flocka June 12th... the beat on the new single is like Ohmishit Got Damn. this song deserves to blow up:


We went way too overboard on "The House That Heaven Built" so we had no choice but to peruse Youtube for another song that we can get pumped about.. "Fire's Highway" is doing a nice job of this. Celebration Rock has been pulled forward a week, so it should be out next week:


This song is cool:


And a video about the Odd Future tour:

Friday, May 18, 2012

"Sinful Nature" video

Here at our headquarters.. Waiting for the liquid to spark itself. Our staff wants a raise so we told them to fuck off. No time for this shit. Tomorrow's a big day, and so we've ingested the goods. The club DOES still exist. That fucking button better stop moving around or I'm gonna gut it with my fucking crowbar n shit.

Speaking of Crowbar, that can be our second video for this post. Existence IS Punishment. They did not lie. The buttons are still moving fuck you.


Yes, it's Crowbar. They're always taking a dump. "I GAVE MY HAAAAAAART AND SOUL TO YOU"

i wish i had two dicks

pics from back in like 2010... oh shit, you know what this means

Saturday, May 12, 2012

we don't want you to read this

Now that we're seeing that people have been actually reading this website, it's making us just a bit uncomfortable.

We may consider a new direction at some point in the near future.

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

t.scene newsletter may 2012 (part 1)

-TOP STORIES-

Since there was no April newsletter we'll just make up for it by doing 2 May newsletters, which works out fine since we're prolly going to forget to mention something important anyway...

Got damn, too much news.
Our slutty little comp SLUT LIFE has officially made it onto da bandcamp profile.... We figured cassettes are a somewhat polarizing format for a comp. (About half of our friends love cassettes to death, while the other half would prefer to never see them again.) And for this reason, a bandcamp upload was deemed necessary....

In other news, SPEEDY ORTIZ played a buncha bigass shows.....
Speedy plans to slow it down throughout May and June while gearing up for summer tour, although the weekend of May 31st will include a string of shows intended as "SPORTS E.P. RELEASE WEEK." Here's what the schedule looks like...
  • Tuesday, May 22 at Babetown (Amherst, MA) w/ CALIFORNIA X, LIFE IN VACUUM, PEACE BE STILL and YOU'LL LIVE
  • Wednesday, May 30th at O'Brien's (Allston, MA) w/ GRASS IS GREEN, YOUNG ADULTS and ARVID NOE
  • Friday, June 1st at Heirloom Arts Theater (Danbury, CT) w/ ESTROGEN HIGHS, OVLOV, DISCO DOOM and EASTWOOD
  • Saturday, June 2nd at Shea Stadium (Brooklyn, NY) w/ DISCO DOOM and a debut performance from CENSUS featuring members of buzz band CULTS

  • T.SCENE is proud to announce that we will be joining forces with HIDDEN TEMPLE TAPES for the limited edition cassette release of Sports E.P.. More info on that coming soon...

    Just last week, HIDDEN TEMPLE released their 10th cassette, a split by RAISED RANCH and SAM GAS CAN which can now be downloaded from their website along with the rest of the Hidden Temple catalog.

    On the fateful evening of Monday, April 23rd, HIDDEN TEMPLE stopped by the studios of WXCI for a specially programmed evening of music, which also included a live performance from T.Scene affiliates EMPTY WOMB, a band who has more than likely already changed their name twice since that broadcast... The band features members of OVLOV, DEAD WIVES and THE SCREW-UPS. Pictures and a playlist from that broadcast is available at our sister blog Late Night Noise.

    And speaking of OVLOV, their recent hiatus has happily come to a close! They've begun gearing up for the summer with sporadic local performances... Check Ovlov's facebook page for more info.

    DEAD WIVES has announced a few shows as well... Check Dead Wives' twitter for more info...

    That's all for this hour... More announcements should be arriving within a couple weeks!

    Friday, May 4, 2012

    Wednesday, May 2, 2012

    Best LP Records of 2011

    Whoops, looks like it happened again.. Our "best albums" list from a few months back has been sitting here unposted.. This whole time we thought we had posted it, but guess not.... Well hey, better late than nothin...

    31 Lil B "The Silent President"
    30 Various Artists “Drive Soundtrack”
    29 Cloud Nothings “Cloud Nothings”
    28 Action Bronson “Bon Appitite Bitch”
    27 Iceage “New Brigade”
    26 The Men “Leave Home”
    25 Ty Segall "Singles 2007-2010"
    24 Rival Schools “Pedals”
    23 Jay-Z & Kanye West “Watch the Throne”
    22 Big KRIT “Return of 4EVA”
    21 Low “C’mon”

    20 Cymbals Eat Guitars “Lenses Alien”
    19 Mr. Dream “Trash Hit”
    18 Cave “Neverendless”
    17 Wet Hair “In Vogue Spirit”
    16 Big Freedia “Hitz Vol. 1 1999-2010”
    15 Wild Flag “Wild Flag”
    14 Death Grips “Ex-Military”
    13 DJ Quik “Book of David”
    12 Milk Music “Beyond Living”
    11 PJ Harvey “Let England Shake”

    10 Katy B “On A Mission”
    09 Fucked Up “David Comes To Life”
    08 Radiohead “The King of Limbs”
    07 Yuck “Yuck”
    06 Broken Water “Peripheral Star”
    05 The Weeknd “House of Balloons”
    04 Neon Indian “Era Extrana”
    03 Ringo Deathstarr “Color Trip”
    02 Frank Ocean “Nostalgia/Ultra
    01 Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats “Blood Lust”

    Tuesday, May 1, 2012