Weezer - Pork And Beans 7" - 2008

I'll give you warning now. These links won't stay live for long. Weezer is pretty mainstream and a big moneymaker for their label, so I'm just going to assume that if the links stay up, I'll have problems.

I have to say, I have been a Weezer fan since the beginning. A few weeks after "The Sweater Song" broke I saw Weezer open for Lush. There were about 40 people in the club, but they rocked the house. I went to see Lush, but came away from that concert loving Weezer. I only knew that first single, but during their songs were so catchy and fun I was instantly hooked from that performance.

The band has had its high points and not so high points. I won't say low points because I don't think there really is a bad Weezer record. This last year they have been on fire releasing 3 records in the span of about a year, Ratitude, Hurley and most recently Death To False Metal. Rivers is truly gifted with writing catchy hooks. They never cease to be fun.

This song Pork and Beans is a classic. It was from the moment it hit the airwaves. I've been at several events where this song has been on and people just start singing along. I picked up both versions of the 7" when it came out because of the 2 B-sides. I love the Psychedelic Furs and so I had to hear "Love My Way" and I was almost as excited to hear their version of R.E.M.'s "Oddfellows Local 151. Document is one of my favorite R.E.M. records. I think it may have been the first R.E.M. CD I owned. So for a short time only check these ditties out.

Enjoy!

01 Pork And Beans.m4a
02 Love My Way.m4a
02 Oddfellows Local 151.m4a

As an added bonus, here is some video of my son a couple years ago performing "Pork And Beans" at a high school battle of the bands performance. I was pretty proud of him. He and his friend Brett really got the crowd going.

SAP Music Christmas Mix 2010

Every year, no matter how early I think I am starting on the Christmas mix, in the end it feels rushed. Life just seems to get busier in the fall and finding the time to work on the mix is hard. When I do get a Saturday afternoon, it is never enough.

Every year I also feel like the Christmas mix isn't as good as the Halloween Mix, because I get to do so much fun stuff on the Halloween mix. This year I was sampling songs and making loops. I was pulling audio from movies and spoken word records. I spent so much time on that thing making something original. Doing that for the Christmas mix is probably possible, but I think it requires more digging and research, both of which require time and as mentioned before I'm always short on time by the time the Christmas mix rolls around. I'm not selling this mix too well am I? Sorry. Actually the mix is fun and I think there are some good selections that may surprise and delight you.

Enjoy!

SAP Music Christmas Mix 2010 - 128K.zip

Click on the images to read the track listings. Sorry for being such a pain. The less songs I list, the less chance I have of anyone complaining and that way the link can remain active.

You can download a nice high res version of this CD insert here.

Salt-N-Pepa - Expression 12" - 1989

This past weekend I was further unpacking some boxes of records. I moved this past summer and there were some records that were still in boxes because I didn't have a shelf for them. So I got the additional shelf and began unpacking what I thought was going to be classical, Christmas and Hawaiian records. To my surprise there was a handful of other types of records. 12" dance singles, jazz and blues records, R&B and funk. Some were ones I remembered buying and some I think were given to me. There was about 20-30 records in there that look like they may be great future records for the blog. I still have a lot of work to do to get them on here, so don't get too excited yet. I still have to actually listen to a bunch of them.

One record is Fred Flintstone and Barney rubble and the songs of Mary Poppins. There is a story to go along with it, but the highlight is Fred singing versions of Mary Poppins song with a crumby out of tune guitar. Can't wait to share that.

The other discover was a record by Roger Troutman AKA Roger. It is his first solo record called "The Many Facets Of Roger" and it is amazing. 1981 electro funk. That jam rocked the house hard last night and on into today. So I don't have that record to post yet, but I thought something in the hip hop/funk flavor would be nice.

This was a hit for Salt-N-Pepa back in the day. Another good reason to tie in Salt-N-Pepa to this blog is that they were briefly a mascot to Team SAP. When they had their first hit with "Push It" that song was all over the radio. I remember heading up to Milwaukee to a skate park with a bunch of Team SAP members. We thought the group was called Salt And Pepper, which has the initials S A P. So on that trip that song was like our theme song because of the mistaken interpretation of the name. Anyways, Salt-N-Pepa will always have their place in Team SAP history, which makes them a great addition to this blog. Of course to everyone who has no idea what I'm talking about with regard to Team SAP, this means nothing. So just enjoy the music.

This will probably be the last post before I kick out the Christmas mix later this week after Thanksgiving.
Enjoy!

01 Expression (Half Step).mp3
02 Expression (No Shorts).mp3
03 Expression (acappella).mp3
04 Expression (Instrumental.mp3
05 Expression (Bonus Beats).mp3
06 Clubhouse (Vocal).mp3
07 Clubhouse (Instrumental).mp3

Depeche Mode - Strangelove - 1988

I have an interesting history with Depeche Mode. The first time I heard them was at a party circa 84 or 85. I remember some girl having a tape and telling the host of the party that he needed to play the tape. The band was great. I didn't catch the name, but I remembered the track. It was People Are People. I remember loving it, but I was too shy to ask this older pretty girl who the band was. She was in high school and I wasn't. Anyway, my close friends and I were into heavy metal so I really didn't have anyone to talk to about the song, but I remembered it.

A couple years after that when I was in High School Depeche Mode got huge in the US. Somehow by that point I had connected the dots that People Are People was done by them, but my impression of the band was that they were just some good looking girlie band. So I wasn't into them at all. I just wrote them off as pop fluff.

Skip ahead to the later half of the decade I had a girlfriend (future wife) who loved Depeche Mode. So of course I got to hear more of them. What I discovered was that they were nothing like I thought they were. They had a dark side, I mean a really dark and twisted side. The album Black celebration was a revelation.

This single (again from my friend) is a good example of that dark twisted side of Depeche Mode. The record has couple good mixes and some b-side mixes of "Nothing". I have double checked, but I'm sure all these mixes have been made available on CD. A few years ago the band released a series of CD's releasing just about every mix or remix of anything they ever released. So if you want cleaner versions of these you can find them on CD.

Enjoy!

01 Strangelove (Highjack Remix).m4a

02 Strangelove (Remix Edit).m4a

03 Nothing (Zip-Hop Mix).m4a

04 Nothing (Dub).m4a

B-Movie - Remembrance Day 12" - 1987

Here is number two from that stack of records my friend recently gave me. I just finished digitizing them this last weekend and doing all the labels and artwork and such so you should be seeing a more steady stream of them. They are mostly all from 1987-1989 and are of the synth pop variety.

Before getting this record I wasn't really familiar with B-Movie. However the songs "Remembrance Day" and "Nowhere Girl" have become instant faves on the ipod. It is one of those cases where I don't know if it is a case of the song being so good that I'm humming and singing along or that I actually have heard these tracks somewhere in the past and so I do have some connection to them. It is almost like I knew these songs from somewhere else, but I don't know where. Well whatever the story, I've been digging on them a lot the past week or so.

Enjoy!

01 Remembrance Day.m4a

02 Marilyn Dreams.m4a

03 Nowhere Girl.m4a

Kix - Kix - 1981

Just wanted to get something up post Halloween. Yes, I know I was extremely lazy all October, just posting reposts. I can report that I did spend time in October working on the Christmas mix for the year.

This record was a bit of a surprise to me. I picked this up mostly because of the cheeseball photos, and I thought the music would be kind of cheesy. However I was pleasantly pleased to find that the album actually rocked quite well. It wasn't so much the hairband rock of the late 80's which I wasn't really into, but had a little more new wave influence than I was expecting. Listen to Heartache and you'll hear what I mean. Has a little bit of a powerpop vibe going on. Some songs rock a little harder, and there is the requisite heavy metal falsetto. For instance, take a song like "Kix Are For Kids". This is more in line with say Krokus. "The Kid" is a pretty catchy rocker and "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah" is also infectious and closes the album well.

And lastly I'd like to say that even though I've given the music a B+ as far as quality I still stand by my opinion that the album photos are cheeseball.

Enjoy!

01 Atomic Bombs.m4a
02 Love At First Sight.m4a
03 Heartache.m4a
04 Poison.m4a
05 The Itch.m4a
06 Kix Are For Kids.m4a
07 Contrary Mary.m4a
08 The Kid.m4a
09 Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.m4a

Kix Side 1.zip
Kix Side 2.zip