Tamarindo / U.S. Saucer / Geezer rock / Revisiting old recordings

We had a work potluck. My coworker brought more tamarindo than we could consume, so I brought a bunch home and gave it to the boy.

"Is it spicy?" he asked. No, it's not spicy. It's more like Kool-Aid. Blank stare. Uh, kind of like Capri-Sun? He pauses and tries a sip. "Oh! It's like an aguafresca!" Of course I should have led with that.

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All three of U.S. Saucer's albums are great (as is their odds-and-ends collection), but the wintry dark vibes of Tender Places Come from Nothing are where I'm at right now. I listened to it while making soup. Just gorgeous. I've listened to this a million times and, given the right solsticey soup-making environment, it is a beautiful clear pool to fall into.

 

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Speaking of limpid moments from the past: A bit of a guilty pleasure, but Fleetwood Mac's Future Games. "Woman of a Thousand Years" isn't so dissimilar from the song above, and the title track is pretty awesome even if its lyrics and delivery are a little whoa-man. It sounds good along with the dim light at mid-day.

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Speaking of limpid moments from the past: I was talking to another coworker about my love for the DOD Punkifier effects pedal. One thing led to another and soon I was listening to some old unreleased recordings from Yuma Nora, a band for whom I played guitar and "specialty sounds" back in the mid-aughts. I'll have to escort those recordings into the world at some point, since in many ways they are farther out and better than what was actually released. But for now, here's a track from 2005 that you can listen to.

70s 80s 90s updates

70s:

This crazed glove commercial from 1975. The disembodied green-screen gloves banging at a parking meter, the weirdly dispassionate narration saying "A fine gift," the library disco with horns.

80s:

A DJ on xray.fm played the Meat Puppets' "Up on the Sun" yesterday and that got it stuck in my head tonight, so I was singing it for my boy. He kind of flipped trying to figure out what it meant to sing "I turned to myself and said you are my daughter." "How is there an ocean up on the sun where the wind never blows?" he asked. Good question.

Those first three albums of theirs (bought second-hand in high school) find a way to sneak into my rotation every so often. Unlike a lot of things I've listened to a million times, they are still pretty fresh.

90s:

I found my old copy of Nice's self-titled album (well, technically I found my old iPud with a lot of old mp3s on it). This track always get me:

Incredibly, we were able to get this Australian trio out to my college in the early 90s. I remember being too prudish and poor to pick up one of their "Mobile Orgy" shirts. They had some sweet Casio bass pedals that I have never seen since. I remember not being able to figure out their interpersonal dynamics but liking their performance. Regretting not recording it on my Recording Walkman.

This Slovenly 7" from 1991-ish. (I had just unlocked access to the college radio station and spent hours there going through stuff from the Trouser Press guide. Magic.) Sometimes Steve Anderson's vocals kind of sat on top of their instrumentation, but here he digs in hard.