The Good Life - Help Wanted Nights

Help Wanted Nights was the first Good Life album I bought, but was maybe not the introduction to the band I needed at the time. I was (and still am) a big fan of Cursive, so wanted to check out Tim's other work. In 2008 I bought three The Good Life albums between April and December - Album of the Year is my favourite of the three and neither this or Black Out particularly struck me. Both have bars and heartbreak as a common theme, but that could be said about a lot of Tim Kasher's albums (after seeing him play a solo set at Fest whilst blind-drunk does make me believe the stories a bit more).

On the Picket Fence is slow starter, but A Little Bit More pick up the pace and has a nice and memorable chorus. As with almost all of Tim's albums, there's a song I'd skip every time if this was a cd; in this case it's Keely Aimee. As with Album of the Year, the female backing vocals add a lot throughout - even if it's just a whisper like in You Don't Feel Like Home to Me (one of the strongest songs on the album). A lot of the songs finish abruptly - it seems like an intentional device, but I'm not sure to what end. The closer Rest Your Head is another highlight and has some of Tim's best vocals.

I found this copy in Generation Records in New York on my first trip there (my second was two days later). I knew I wanted to hear the band and figured it was as good a place as any to start. Also the exchange rate was ridiculous at the time - for £8 a pop I'd buy pretty much anything. I think it's fair to say I was disappointed when I first played it because it was so far from Cursive, but now I know what the band are like I can see the album in its own right. I obviously enjoyed it enough to get two more albums, although I think that might have been for other reasons - I knew Album of the Year was the most renowned one, and Black Out was £2 for the cd - I clearly bought that because it was so cheap.

Format: 12", insert
Tracks: 10
Cost: £7.59 new
Bought: Generation Records, New York
When: 11/04/08
Colour: White
Etching: none
mp3s: Download code

Hermano - Only a Suggestion

The sticker on the sleeve of this albums said "eight tracks reminiscent of classic Kyuss strained through a Soundgarden at 100 miles an hour", which is a pretty good summary - John Garcia sings, so it sounds a lot like Kyuss and I think everyone can agree that is a good thing. It's definitely a bit faster than Kyuss and I guess I can see the Soundgarden reference - heavy and fast in a way that stoner-rock typically isn't, but Soundgarden often were. Either way, you put a sticker like that on a record and I'm going to buy it.

I'm not sure I knew anything about Hermano when I found this record in Generation Records in New York a decade ago. I used to work with a guy who wore a Hermano t-shirt, so I knew they were a band, and the music makes sense given what I knew about the guy. I bought a lot of records that day, and even more at my next stop in Boulder, so I had quite a stack to work through when I got home. I can't remember the first time I played this, or how long it took me to get to it in amongst all the other purchases.

This is the strange thing: this album is huge, yet I've made no effort to check out the other Hermano albums. It makes me smile so much when The Bottle gets going, Senor Moreno's Plan has such an incredible groove to it and Landetta (Motherload) has a chorus I never want to end, but Only a Suggestion sits alone in my collection as the only Hermano album I've heard, let alone bought. Now part of that is down to the fact I have never ever seen another Hermano record in real life (and I'd definitely buy any others if I found them), but the internet exists so I could find them very easily if I tried. But I haven't.

Ultimately, I guess the reason is that I have all the Kyuss albums and when I want a band who sounds a bit like Kyuss I listen to Kyuss. Sure this album is huge and makes me smile, but the Kyuss albums are even more massive and make me so fucking happy. I love John Garcia's voice - I'd go so far as to say it's one of the main reasons I love Kyuss so much - so I should feel compelled to seek out everything he's sung on, but I'm just not bored of Kyuss yet. If the day ever comes when I do get bored of Kyuss, then working through the many albums he's sung on will be the first thing I do. I'm just not sure that day will ever come.

This might not sound like a very positive review, but this really is a great album. I'm sure John Garcia hates that he can't do anything without people constantly banging on about Kyuss, but I see it as a compliment.

Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 8
Cost: £5.96 new
Bought: Generation records, New York
When: 11/04/08
Colour: Black
Etching: Side A: "Ouch that's hot" Side B: "Ouch that's hot"
mp3s: None

Against Me! - Against Me! as the Eternal Cowboy

I've been playing this record a lot over the last few days. Usually when I'm after a fix of Against Me! I put on Reinventing Axl Rose because it's an incredible record and I know that I'm going to spend the next half an hour singing along to some great songs. The same can be said for this record, but I've only really realised that the last few days.

A friend of mine is a huge fan of Against Me! and put a picture up on Facebook the other day of his iTunes most played songs. These 11 songs made up the top 11 places (each with 80+ plays), with some other Against Me! songs taking up a further seven places of the top 20. I was surprised that there were no Reinventing Axl Rose songs in there, but Matt has been listening to Against Me! for almost as long as I've known him, so he probably played that album to death in 2002. Anyway, it made me think about this record, so I pulled it out of the racks and it's been on the turntable quite a lot since.

I bought this album in Generation Records in New York on my second visit (the first had only been two days before, but I decided I'd seen enough sights and wanted to buy more vinyl). I'd bought the first album about nine months earlier and loved it, so figured it was worth trying another one. I liked it from the start, but somehow I didn't connect with the songs as well as I did with those on Axl Rose, which is probably why I always put that album on instead. For me, the highlights are all on the A-side: T.S.R., Sink, Florida, Sink and Slurring the Rhythms, although Turn Those Clapping Hands... is a good tune too.

So, all in all, another record that I've under-appreciated but hopefully won't any more.


Format: 12", gatefold sleeve
Tracks: 11
Cost: £5.42 new
Bought: Generation Records, New York
When: 13/04/08
Colour: Black
Etching: Side B: "I think ya'll might be accessorizing your lifestyle a little too uniformly"
mp3s: no

The Nation of Ulysses - 13-Point Program to Destroy America

I have no idea how I first came to hear about The Nation of Ulysses, but I think it may have just been a product of clicking links on Wikipedia; I was probably reading about a band, then ended up on the Dischord Records page and found them from there. In my mind, it was because of the book Our Band Could Be Your Life, but the dates don't work out - the band doesn't get mentioned until the Beat Happening chapter, which I read in Colorado, but I bought this in New York two weeks before that. But I also remember Ian Svenonius interviewing some bands on ATP TV the first time I went to the festival and his name sounding familiar. Maybe someone just recommended them to me. I'm annoyed I can't remember, but maybe it'll come back to me.

Anyway, I'm reasonably sure I hadn't actually heard them when I bought this LP. I quite enjoy buying records by bands I've not listened to, and record labels sticking to certain types of bands makes that an often safe bet. I'm pretty sure I knew Nation of Ulysses had a trumpet player, and a combination of my love of Black Eyes (who also enjoyed some brass instruments) and Dischord Records probably convinced me to chance £5.50 on them (what a bargain. Buying records in the US can be dangerously cheap). This is the 2008 repress on orange vinyl, which Discogs tells me was limited to 1000 copies.

If you've not listened to The Nation of Ulysses but like your punk a little different, I strongly recommend them. Musically they drift into jazz, but in a less aggressive way than Black Eyes and it works well. I later got the second album Plays Pretty for Baby (on cd), which I think I enjoy more, but I've also probably played it more often. This one still has it's highlights though, and Spectra Sonic Sound, A Kid Who Tells on Another Kid is a Dead Kid and Love is a Bull Market are all excellent and well worth a spin.


Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 13
Cost: £5.42 new
Bought: Generation Records, New York
When: 11/04/08
Colour: Orange
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Texas is the Reason - Do You Know Who You Are?

A few years ago I read a review of the debut EP by a close friend's band. He was pretty excited that someone who wasn't a friend of the band had even listened to it, let alone given it a good review. The interesting part however was the list of bands in the "For fans of..." section. I think there were four bands listed, three of whom were all bands they were into so were to be expected. The fourth however was Texas is the Reason, a band neither of us, nor the rest of the band, had ever heard of. We found some songs on the internet and gave them a listen; the reviewer had a point, my friends band sounded very much like Texas is the Reason, albeit accidentally.

Sometime later I was in New York visiting a friend. My priorities are rarely straight when in exciting new foreign cities, so before seeing the Statue of Liberty or Central Park I went record shopping and ended up spending hours and a small fortune in Generation Records. I liked it so much I went back again two days later to buy some more records. On the first trip I either hadn't seen, or not remembered the significance of this record, but corrected that and bought it, along with a few other bits. And I'm very glad I did - it's a cracking album. Nine songs of lovely, genuine emo/post-hardcore (before those words came to mean what they mean now). The Drinking Song and Back and to the Left are highlights for me. The instrument title-track is pretty good too.

One of the problems with binge record-shopping is coming with so many records you don't know where to start and albums get neglected or under-appreciated. That happened a bit when I came back from New York (it was also Record Store Day when I was in Colorado on the same trip, so my pile of vinyl was a bit ridiculous - the exchange rate was particularly good). This record got caught up in my hectic return home and ended up being a bit of a slow-burner. That was four years ago now, and over that time the record has had time to shine, and I gradually came to see it for the awesome album it is. The band set up a Twitter account the other day and I'm very hopeful that a reunion will result in at least one UK show (Garrett was due to play some solo shows in April, but they got mysteriously pulled last minute). People are often a bit cynical of reunion shows, but if it means I get to see Texas is the Reason, I'm all for it.


Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 9
Cost: £5.42 new
Bought: Generation Records, New York
When: 13/04/08
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no