The curse of the "Volume 1" (or "Part 1") is all too real, especially in the world of rock. When an artist releases an album with "Volume 1" or "Part 1" in the title, they're making a promise to themselves and the world to follow it up with something -- ANYTHING. But all too often, the wait never ends.
Lil Peep's Come Over When I'm Sober, Pt 1 was arguably the most tragic. (He died 3 months later. Pt 2 was compiled by his estate and released posthumously.)
George Michael had one of these -- Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1. Who knows what happened with the follow up?
The Hall & Oates hits collection Rock 'n Soul Part 1 never had an official follow up either.
There's probably a lot more, but those are the first ones that come to mind.
Ween's Shinola Vol. 1 (2005) is probably our favorite of these -- a collection of re-recordings and remixes pulled throughout Ween's dauntingly extensive back catalog of unreleased demo collections and fan-only cassettes (like 1999's Craters Of The Sac or 2011's Caesar.)
We were largely immersed in the lore of Ween enough that by 2005, we realized that even with file-sharing services and a multitude of fan resources, it was pretty much impossible to locate at least 100 of their non-album-tracks in files that did not sound like garbage.
So with this in mind, we hugely respect that Ween opted to go deeper than simply re-packaging stuff like "Mango Woman" and "Skycruiser."
In the summer of 2004, someone tipped us on "Gabrielle." At the time, it was a 56kbps Chocolate and Cheese era mp3, but we could tell it would sound huge in hifi. And then we forgot about it. We also forgot about most of Craters Of The Sac.
We recall not having a whole lot of prior notification that they were working on the Shinola series. It just kinda showed up on the Chocodog website one day, in the midst of a zone of spontaneous self-released Ween collections like All Request Live.
We're pretty sure it arrived in the mail less than a week after we ordered it -- a day or two earlier than its release date, on a Friday afternoon. We had to leave the house at 7:30AM the next day to play a wedding in upstate NY so we grabbed our new Ween CD and packed a huge bowl for the ride. We spent most of the next 36 hours in an absolute haze and somehow ended up spending the night in Montreal. The border patrol uncharacteristically let us through in both directions without passports although we have almost no memory of this happening. Shinola is a great memories album for moments when our memory was not working so well.
We also recently noted Emily Lazar's mastering credit, who we now recognize among the mastering legends of the 2000s. At the time, her most popular credits included Destiny's Child's Christmas album and David Bowie's Heathen. So this helps explains why this version of "Tastes Good On Th' Bun" sounds like the Godzilla of Pure Guava demos.
Anyway, the point of this post is: Ween people stopped holding their breath for Shinola Vol. 2 years ago and will frequently share their dream tracklistings, which too often include tracks that have already seen an official release like the outstanding "The Beacon Light" from the soundtrack of The X-Files movie or the instantly classic "The Rainbow" from South Park's "Chef Aid" comp. We love these tracks, but we feel like their inclusion breaks the rules just a bit. In other instances, fans will go just a bit hog wild on track selection, filling up a double or triple CD set worth of music.
The thing we appreciated the most about Shinola was that it wasn't an easy "greatest hits of the non-album-tracks." It was so much more than this - a carefully curated entirely fresh hifi Ween experience. Again, we were tipped on "Gabrielle," but it didn't sound quite like this version.
I don't think we tried this before, but we're gonna have a go at our dream Shinola follow-up using the parameters laid out for volume 1:
No b-sides or soundtrack songs
Pulled from fan-only tapes and unreleased demos
Enough music for a 1 LP vinyl
In our version, both sides are a few minutes too long for vinyl, so we should probably remove two songs, but it's too hard to choose right now.
Side A (27:31)
1. "Mr. Mocha" (2:16)
2. "Makin' Love In The Gravy" (3:15)
3. "She'll Just Get You" (4:41)
4. "Put Your Boobs On" (2:14)
5. "Koko" (3:30)
6. "Cornbread Red" (4:02)
7. "Love Will Conquer All" (4:30)
8. "Shalom Absalom" (2:56)
Side B (27:59)
9. "I Was Nothing" (4:30)
10. "Hello Johnny" (3:56)
11. "Kim Smoltz" (4:43)
12. "Ambrosia Parsley" (4:38)
13. "That Man (From The Flatland)" (4:59)
14. "Does It Turn You On?" (5:15)
Ween - The B-Sides (1992-2005)
1. I'm Fat (1992)
2. Ode To Rene (1993)
3. I Smoke Some Grass (Really Really High) (1993)
4. Mango Woman (1993)
5. Puertorican Power (Part 1 and 2) (1993)
6. Skycruiser (1993)
7. Cover It With Gas And Set It On Fire (1993)
8. Now I'm Freaking Out (1994)
9. Bakersfield (1994)
10. There's A Pig (1995)
11. Vallejo (1995)
12. I'll Miss You (1996)
13. Sweet Texas Fire (1996)
14. So Long Jerry (1996)
15. The Beacon Light (1998)
16. The Rainbow (1998)
17. Cornbread Red (2000)
18. Who Dat? (2000)
19. Mountains And Buffalo (2003)
20. Dirty Money (2005)
Focusing on the positives, right? Is that what we're supposed to be doing?
We'll probably whip up a Hot Mix 2020 sometime soon, but New Shit Radars are faster so let's just do this instead.
This month's New Shit Radar is sponsored by the 2020 blockbuster Money Plane starring Kelsey Grammar, Joey Lawrance, and Edge -- who incidentally also won the 2021 Royal Rumble. Incidentally, Kelsey Grammar's character in Money Plane (for unknown reasons) refers to himself as "The Rumble," which means that Edge conquered The Rumble twice in the past year, which is probably a first in the history of humanity. So we supposed it's been a good few months for Edge.
Sedona Loves The Sea Machine
Before Sedona rebranded as a band, her ultra-earwormy cosplay of Madonna's first album was almost definitely one of the best songs from the past 24 months that seemingly no one has heard or talked about.
This horrible trend of dope music getting buried by music writers is beyond old. But that Phoebe Bridgers tho -- her bland unmemorable "rock" is entirely worth encompassing an entire halfweek of CIA-planted Twitter debate. Totally worthy.
We're happy to report that Sedona's new track is dope as fuck, and if the intro is any indication, she apparently loves the Sea Machine pedal as much as we do.
Heele Will Drop New Heat Next Week
The new track is called "A New Friend" and it's coming your way a week from today! In the meantime, enjoy their latest:
Phife Dawg Lives On, New Album Coming Soon
Posthumous Phife Dawg album will be arriving later this Spring. We kinda love the new track "Nutshell Part 2" -- although whenever we hear Busta Rhymes' old-guy-swag, it gives us the same feeling we had watching Keanu in Bill and Ted 3. Try to smile a little bit more in your middle age, fellas. It's not that bad.
Potty Mouth Is Back With Some Non-Album-Track Fire
"Let Go" is their latest. We like the weird synths in this one.
We Like A Non-Weezer Song That's Currently Charting On Billboard Alt Rock Radio Airplay
This is actually huge news since we hated every song that placed in the Billboard Alternative Songs Year End chart with the exception of the admittedly decent "Bloody Valentine" by Machine Gun Kelly. (And if we were forced to choose another at gunpoint, "If You're Too Shy (Let Me Know)" by The 1975 isn't the most unfortunate thing we've ever heard although that's really pushing it.)
The non-Weezer single that we like is from the unfortunately named I Don't Know How But They Found Me, a two-piece led by the guitarist who replaced Ryan Ross when he left Panic At The Disco in 2009. Accordingly, it reminds us of a bunch of hi-fi alternative radio songs from 2008-2009 -- the era of La Roux's "Bulletproof" and Passion Pit and 3Oh!3 and MGMT and that band who wasn't bad but for some bizarre reason decided it would be a good idea to name themselves Black Kids.
Due to its odd 2009-non-throwback nature, it helped us realize that label consolidation and Youtube and SiriusXM and Spotify and poptimism and American Idol and "music journalists having the final say on the revised canon" have done wonders as far as guiding music to the point where literally nothing is willing to change and charting music sounds exactly the same as it did in the late 2000s. By early 2001, the world was already fully immersed in the first era of "80s nostalgia capitalism," and nothing remotely close to that equivalent is occurring in 2021. Because nothing has changed at all -- long term or short term. Four months from now, the same songs will be charting in roughly the same positions. Four years from now, the same artists will be charting with different songs in the same positions. And yea, this is obviously unsustainable, unless the music business wants to die. In which case, they're doing a tremendous job of self-sabotage.
Anyway, we'll probably place this one somewhere in the Hot Mix 2020 and we can complain more when the time arrives. We're just surprised that labels and promoters are still willing to invest in singles that are actually memorable upon the first listen. And hey, they even have a Bandcamp:
Melvins Have A Weird New Song Called "Fuck You" And Jon Anderson From Yes Has A New Song Called "Go Screw Yourself"
Songs like these are the ones that make the most sense right now. We're happy anyone else gets it.
New Teenage Wrist Album Is Good
We were hoping they would continue sounding like Live's Throwing Copper LP (see 2016's "Stoned Alone") but they have upgraded their sound n stuff and it's good.
After Hours Top 20 Most Played -- Week Of February 8th
For once, here's a chart that doesn't entirely suck. Tell your friends all about it:
also known as "The Big Wood Ikea Shelf Of Vertically Stacked 2020 Flapjacks."
2020 was many things to many people, but one thing that it was not was "good."
Albums were still good though. We're positive that every album on this list is "murder," and we're positive that there's lots of murder albums from 2020 that we didn't get to hear yet. But one thing that we're not sure of is the order, which is bad because a thing that we learned over the past few years is that people really lose their shit over "the order" of listicles, as if they're all intended as some sort of contest with olympic medals.
After spending a whopping 30 seconds scrolling through a listicle on a big boy bloggo: "I liked this album so it should have been #1 and it's not. And then one placement higher they have an album by some asshole who I've never heard so I guess I'm just gonna go rage tweet in all caps about it."
Perhaps one day they'll find a listicle that matches their interests, and then they'll finally get it and wonder "hey since I like a lot of this, maybe the stuff I haven't yet experienced is also good." And then they'll invest some time using that list for recommendations, starting with stuff that placed higher up.
Yeah sure, like that will ever happen. Countdowns and lists used to be fun until they were ruined by entitled stans and Twitter loudos and journalism majors. What a shock.
So this 2020 albums list is ordered ok, but we already know that it's not 100% right on. We tried. We're figuring that one day we'll look back on this moment and !
! (We tried to html tag the word "laugh" so that it blinks but it's not working.)
And then we'll say "you know, these placements aren't so hot, but this is probably because it was 2020 and there was all this shit goin on with a buncha damn hippies."
62. Omerta Hyperviolence February 20, 2020 // Houston, Texas, USA (Self-released) "My favorite band." - Brandon Boyd, Incubus
61. Emily Montes Emily Rose May 27, 2020 // Unknown Origin, USA (Sunligh) Mysterious and unexplained. Let's keep it that way. Brain: "But why was this removed from Bandcamp?" jk No spoilers plz. Let some Vice writer figure it out in like 6 years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qRKBQU8j3E
60. Denzel Curry & Kenny Beats Unlocked February 7, 2020 // Carol City, Florida, USA (Loma Vista) Achievement unlocked.
59. P.H.F. New Metal October 2, 2020 // Aukland, New Zealand (Danger Collective) Huge discovery: The lyrics are not actually "Don't give a fuck if I'm cumming or bleeding."
58. The Gagmen The Gagmen November 13, 2020 // Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA (iDEAL) Get to the gag.
57. P22 Human Snake April 3, 2020 // Los Angeles, California, USA (Post Present Medium) The voice of Kaa The Snake was provided by Sterling Holloway who also voiced Pooh Bear, while the great Paul Winchell voiced Tigger, Gargamel, and Dick Dastardly. (For years, we were certain that Sterling Holloway was the priest in Poltergeist 2 but this was actually Julien Beck.)
56. Run the Jewels RTJ4 June 3, 2020 // Brooklyn, New York, USA (Jewel Runner / BMG) Close your eyes and count to shit
55. Ritual Clearing Ritual Clearing April 24, 2020 // New Haven, Connecticut, USA (Eternal Death) This tape is sharper than any exacto knife. And if you act now, we'll upgrade your order to the Little Giant Extreme - a $299.99 value - absolutely free!
53. Lil B Hoop Life 2 November 30, 2020 // Concord, California, USA (Basedworld) "Droppin these hits. Droppin classics. Watch and listen. It's all visual. It's forever." - Lil B
52. Psychology Machine Never Trust Anyone With More Money Than You September 16, 2020 // Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (Self-released) Red Lobster gift cards are ok tho
51. Gum Country Somewhere June 19, 2020 // Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (Kingfisher Bluez) Juicy Fruit: the taste the taste the taste is gonna move ya
50. Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever Sideways to New Italy June 5, 2020 // Melbourne, Australia (Sub Pop) If you can't find the best fresh mozz, just keep looking (somewhere in the Bronx on Arthur Ave)
49. Deftones Ohms September 25,2020 // Sacramento, California, USA (Reprise) How it started: Chino coked up scream-singing Blue Album deep cuts w pants pulled down. How it's going: same but with more coke
48. Cro-Mags In The Beginning June 19, 2020 // NYC, New York, USA (Arising Empire / Mission Two) Breaking news at this hour: Marvel has signed John Joseph as the new Tony Stark. More on this after headlines. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4PpQUZZnAU
47. Turnstile x Mall Grab Share a View January 7, 2020 // Baltimore, Maryland, USA (Looking For Trouble) Congratulations on winning Nickelodeon's "Super Toy Run" contest, aka run to the KayBee videogame aisle and load up the entire cart with Sega Genesis and SNES games on our tab.
46. DaBaby Blame It On Baby (Deluxe Edition) August 4, 2020 // Charlotte, North Carolina, USA (Interscope) No you.
45. The Chats High Risk Behaviour March 27, 2020 // Sunshine Coast, Australia (Bargain Bin) "Crikey, looks like the boys are having one of their little discussions." - Monterey Jack (not to be confused with Captain Monterey Jack)
44. Machine Girl U-Void Synthesizer February 26, 2020 // Pittsburgh, PA, USA (Self-released) Breathe in. Breathe out.
43. Three Knee Deep Three Knee Deep March 27, 2020 // Tampa, Florida, USA (Triple B) Biochemists by day. Arbitration lawyers by night.
42. Oneohtrix Point Never Magic Oneohtrix Point Never October 30, 2020 // Brooklyn, New York, USA (Warp) "Magician's Secrets Explained" on the next Geraldo.
41. Lil B Bruno Wit Da Pruno August 7, 2020 // Concord, California, USA (Basedworld) "A lot of the style gurus in Austria are saying like Osama Bin Laden is THE best dressed guy, do you think so?" - Bruno
40. Steve Hartlett Molting December 4, 2020 // Newtown, Connecticut, USA (Self-released) I'll stop the world and molt with you
39. Neil Young Homegrown 1975 (Issued June 19, 2020) // Toronto, Ontario, Canada (Reprise) We know this is an unfair choice, but you have to choose only one:
Plaid flannel grunge Neil or Leather jacket grunge Neil
It's unfair but you can only choose one.
We saw the band Homegrown in 2001. Actually we showed up late just in time to hear Reel Big Fish and Goldfinger play lots of shitty covers. True story.
38. Mr. Bungle The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny Demo October 30, 2020 // San Francisco, California, USA (Ipecac) Do these guys still cover "Wicked Game?"
37. Oceanator Things I Never Said August 28, 2020 // Brooklyn, New York, USA (Self-released) This band would nail a "Never Said" cover.
36. Mindforce Swingin Swords, Choppin Lords April 29, 2020 // Poughkeepsie, New York, USA (Triple B) Mindforce cut off the heads of 131 lords for the Shogun.
35. No Age Goons Be Gone June 5, 2020 // Los Angeles, California, USA (Drag City) *KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK* Who IS it? Goons. Who? Hired goons.
34. Supercrush SODO Pop October 9, 2020 // Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (Don Giovanni) Crush is now available in Orange, Diet Orange, Cream Soda, Diet Cream Soda, Grape, and Lime nationwide*; and Strawberry, Pineapple*, and Birch Beer* in some provinces.
33. Disheveled Cuss Disheveled Cuss June 12, 2020 // Los Angeles, California, USA (Sargeant House) If The Flintstones has taught us anything, it’s that pelicans can be used to mix cement.
32. Supermilk Death Is The Best Thing For You Now March 27, 2020 // London, UK (Keroleen) Dethklok goes Devo. It was Murderface's idea.
31. Saigan Terror Anatomy Of Saigan January 10, 2020 // Tokyo, Japan (Triple B) This album has a song called "Uncle Murder" but in Japanese it sounds much nicer.
30. Sharhabil Ahmed The King Of Sudanese Jazz July 10, 2020 // Omdurman, Sudan (Habibi Funk) We knew it would take a while to get to the front of the line at the DMV so we set up the PA and blasted the fuck out of the Sharhabil Ahmed reissue. No one was yelling "ayo shut the fuck up" but instead they were just nodding their heads like "yo mmm yea oh oooh mmmm."
29. Somerset Thrower Paint My Memory November 13, 2020 // Long Island, New York, USA (Dehd Broke / Triple B) Can't believe someone would just leave that sharp lookin TV on the side of the road like that. We certainly hope Somerset Thrower picked it up and found it a good loving home.
28. Kevin Krauter Full Hand February 28, 2020 // Bloomington, Indiana, USA (Bayonet) "Have mercy." - Hermes "Jesse" Katsopolis
27. Fire-Toolz Rainbow Bridge May 8, 2020 // Chicago, Illinois, USA (Hausu Mountain) Music from the Motion Picture The Weather Channel: The Movie
26. Eric Copeland Dumb It Down September 18, 2020 // New York, NY, USA (Post Present Medium) No u
25. Nnamdi Brat April 3, 2020 // Chicago, Illinois, USA (Sooper) Sup Nnamdi
24. CCR Headcleaner Street Riffs September 4, 2020 // San Francisco, California, USA (Self-released) Who's ready to get their head fuckin cleaned yo?
23. Surface To Air Missive Shelly's Gone January 1, 2020 // Athens, Georgia, USA (Self-released) "I swear I'm gonna kill you Stan." - Shelly
22. Maalem Mahmoud Gania Aicha Late '90s (Reissued October 9, 2020) // Essaouira, Morocco (Hive Mind) Open the pit
21. Pop Smoke Meet The Woo 2 February 7, 2020 // Brooklyn, New York, USA (Republic) RIP Pop Smoke, we hardly knew the woo
20. Thundercat It Is What It Is April 3, 2020 // Los Angeles, California, USA (Brainfeeder) "Long Bass" Album Of The Year
19. Revenge Strike.Smother.Dehumanize May 22, 2020 // Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (Season Of Mist) No John, don't do it...
18. Sorry 925 March 27, 2020 // London, UK (Domino) Not as sorry as you're gonna be.
17. Nnamdi Black Plight June 5, 2020 // Chicago, Illinois, USA (Sooper) Fuck that 12. Fuck em right where it hurts. His sack. His wrinkly lil sack.
16. Tkay Maidza Last Year Was Weird, Vol 2 August 7, 2020 // Adelaide, Australia (Self-released) Earthbound came out in 1995 so that year was ok.
15. Playboi Carti Whole Lotta Red December 24, 2020 // Atlanta, Georgia, USA (Interscope) Slash is back. You're in the jungle baby - you're gonna die
14. Otis Houston Jr America 2006 (Reissued March 6, 2020) // NYC, New York, USA (Post Present Medium) Today's R&B and Classic Soul on 107.5 WBLS New York
13. Flo Milli Ho Why Is You Here? July 24, 2020 // Mobile, Alabama, USA (Self-released) My mom made me.
12. Drakeo The Ruler & JoogSZN Thank You For Using GTL June 5, 2020 // Los Angeles, California, USA (Self-released) Steel Clink Alcatraz
11. Dua Lipa Future Nostalgia March 27, 2020 // Westminster, UK (Warner) "Turn this shit the fuck up." - Barack Hussein Obama
10. KeiyaA Forever, Ya Girl March 27, 2020 // Chicago, Illinois, USA (Self-released) noice
9. Xibalba Años en Infierno May 29, 2020 // Los Angeles, California, USA (Southern Lord) brb I left my gun at the merch table.
8. Charli XCX How I'm Feeling Now May 15, 2020 // London, UK (Asylum) Another lonely Christmas, Charlie...
7. Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou May Our Chambers Be Full October 30, 2020 // Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA (Sacred Bones) God's death sludge.
6. Disclosure Energy August 28, 2020 // Croydon, UK (Island) "Government, let me tell y’all motherfuckers something. I don’t know what the fuck this Y2K is about. I ain’t even gonna front. A bitch is scared. You know what I’m saying? Like, shit got me panicking. Y2K. This shit is gettin' real." - Cardi B
5. Thiago Nassif Mente July 3, 2020 // São Paulo, Brazil (Gearbox) President Bolsonaro's favorite album of 2020. He likes to nod his head on the downbeats while igniting the Amazon with his blowtorch.
4. Gulch Impenetrable Cerebral Fortress July 24, 2020 // Santa Cruz, California, USA (Closed Casket Activities) That sure is a sharp lookin' blood fountain.
3. Ringo Deathstarr Ringo Deathstarr March 27, 2020 // Austin, Texas, USA (Club AC30) "I find your lack of faith disturbing." - Pete Best
2. David Nance Staunch Honey November 13, 2020 // Omaha, Nebraska, USA (Trouble In Mind) We finally caught Honeyland the other day. The best known honey bee is the western honey bee (Apis mellifera), which has been domesticated for honey production and crop pollination; the only other domesticated bee is the eastern honey bee (Apis cerana), which occurs in South Asia. Some other types of related bees produce and store honey, and have been kept by humans for that purpose, including the stingless bees, but only members of the genus Apis are true honey bees.
1. Hum Inlet June 23, 2020 // Champagne, Illinois, USA (Earth Analog) "And the Chicago Bears are heading to The Super Bowl!" - Jim Nantz, 2022
TASTE MY KIDS is a digital newsletter compiling recommendations for a happier and healthier existence, most often in the form of "best-of" lists, youtube posts, album or movie reviews, and various scribblings. We lived on Geocities starting in August 2000. In January 2009, times got tough and posts were on hiatus until a new host could be located. Geocities eventually died anyway, and now we live on blogspot. True story.
