na: the shivvers and more!
A couple of great new arrivals — beyond Selected & Collected, of course, that are worthy of mention!
PICK HIT:
The Shivvers, Lost Hits from Milwaukee’s First Family of Power Pop: As the title indicates, The Shivvers were a power pop band from Milwaukee in the 80s, fronted by the charismatic and spirited Jill Kossoris. The groups was a sure-shot for success: the Raspberries’ Eric Carmen was a fan, and was making hard bids to produce the group’s first record. Their singles shot up the local radio charts, and they were the hit of the local club scene. So, WTF happened? The usual stalled deals and fizzled momentum snubbed out the Shivvers before the rest of the world could catch on. Thank god, then, for Hyped to Death, which snapped up the group’s full battery of singles for this totally fucking awesome compilation. For serious. This is the point where punk met new wave, and fans of, say, early Blondie, Let’s Active, early Go-Gos, will love this. At the very least, download: “Teenline,” “No Substitute,” and “Please Stand By.”
AND OTHERS:
Various Artists, Senegal 70: Musical Effervescence: This came in yesterday, but absolutely should be pointed out: the unbeatable Syllart label has compiled two discs of absolutely amazing Afro-funk and jazz, sure to thrill lovers of the genre. All vintage, all gold — highly recommended.
Alemayehu Eshete, Ethiopiques Vol. 22: What more can we say about Alemayehu Eshete? Beautiful, snakelike, haunting and mystic Ethiopian jazz, just as perfect and entrancing as you might imagine.
Marbles, Pyramid Landing & Other Favorites: Early recordings by Rob Schneider from the Apples in Stereo — not to be confused with the Rob Schneider for whom I have designed 150,000 movie plots. Remind me to tell you about Running From Office some time. Or Lincoln Blogs. Or Warren Peace.
The Apples in Stereo, The Discover of a World Inside the Moone: Fourth Apples in Stereo record — I remember liking this a lot when it first came out, but I haven’t heard it in ages.
Ladytron, 604 Remixes: As the title implies — a collection of remixes of songs from Ladytron’s 604 album.
Various Artists, A Tribute to Bob Marley: I know we’ve all been trained that any album title that begins with “A Tribute To…” is to be avoided, but this compilation is actually good. The lineup includes Johnny Clarke, Jackie Edwards and Delroy Wilson, and the songs are vintage one-drop. Give it a try.
Also worth mentioning is the advance of Charles Spearin’s (of Broken Social Scene & Do Make Say Think) “The Happiness Project” which is jazz (methinks) based on speech patterns of conversations of several of his neighbors on the topic of happiness. A fascinating listen.
The new David S. Ware looks great, haven’t gotten to listen yet but that was my personal highlight from the day’s releases
More on Lincoln Blogs pls
As a Milwaukee-based Emusicphile of a certain vintage, I am psyched about the Shivvers.
Wow, great to see hyped2death here, they have a great catalog of ancient punk, new wave and power pop.
It would be great to see more Hyped 2 Death releases on eMusic.
Higgy, do you remember the Shemps or the Ama-Dots?
Warren Peace, huh? Way to rip off Ryan Adams, Yancey!
oops. I mean JOE!
So I have to say, I’m not certain we’re going to be getting any other Hyped to Death releases. The Shivvers — and this is all guesswork — is a rare case where I’d imagine the rights were easy to obtain. But for the comps, like Messthetics or Homework, I can’t imagine there’s any way they’d be able to get the digital rights for all of those.
I am a huge, huge fan of that label, and I’ve interviewed Chuck Warner a few times — unbelievably nice guy who loves what he does. I’d highly recommend supporting him with your dollar!
OOPS LOOKIT I FOUND SOMETHIN:
http://pop.idolator.com/319060/2007-in-the-mix-j-edward-keyes
Oh, Shivvers. Very cool.
Speaking of multiple consonants, will we get Wavves on eMu?
Jonder, I do remember Shemps and Ama-Dots. My getting to know the scene really came in the mid-’80s, so I only really knew of The Shivvers in retrospect, though I did meet Jim Eannelli when he was in a later band. I would urge the curious to download Teenline, if nothing else, which is a really fine power pop single.
Unfortunately I don’t have enough d/ls left this month to get The Shivvers record from eMusic. So instead I went right to the Hyped To Death website and ordered a CD.
For those that like freebies (it’s my favorite price) I’d like to point out Free Emusic from Mars. It’s a happy little make out album in the vein of Enigma. And it’s free. And good for making out. What more need be said?
Also Relay the Fallback which is a nice little electronic collection. Which may also be useful in for the making out.
Also if having your indie in English is not a requirement check out the heartfelt and powerful release from Lemoine. Half English and Half French and all very listenable. A hint of Bright Eyes and perhaps Smog, I really like this. I have a thing for great voices.
Downloaded two tracks from Senegal 70 already–great stuff. And looking forward to the Ethiopiques. I have this terrible feeling that sometime in the future they’ll actually run out of awesome Ethiopian music to compile, and what will we do then?