Blog: Armagideon Time

I've got something a little different for you tonight, Blonde Night of Twee Pop , a mini-sampler featuring Twee Pop and Twee-related tracks culled from my music archives. Most commonly associated with the legendary C86 NME compilation, Twee Pop centered around jangly Byrds-y melodies and sweet, often childlike vocals. Cloying? In some cases, sure. Listening to an entire Primitives LP in a single sitting is akin to being dipped in honey and rolled in confectionary sugar, but there's something pleasantly refreshing in these songs' breezy 60's inspired pop sweetness and utter lack of pretention. [...]

My copy of Jim Bob Morrison's Goodnight Jim Bob: On the Road With Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine arrived today, and to celebrate the occasion here's some tracks by Jim Bob and Fruitbat's pre-Carter indie pop band, Jamie Wednesday. Jamie Wednesday - We Three Kings of Orient Aren't Jamie Wednesday - Vote For Love Jamie Wednesday - I'll Think I'll Throw a Party For Myself Grebo-pioneers Pop Will Eat Itself [...]

To commemorate a Sunday spent playing videogames, here are a handful of videogame music tracks. Capcom Sound Team - Rival Schools: UBF Opening Theme - This is the song that plays during the opening cinema of the PS1 version of the 3D fighting game . This track does not appear on the Japanese Project Justice (aka Rival Schools ) OST, so I used a XA ripping and conversion program to pull the song off of the game disc. It's a quick slice of melodramatic J-Pop, and non-Japanese speakers should feel free [...]

(Brand new webhost! No more rapidshare! Whoo hoo!) Another day, another cover. Today it's a revved up rendition of Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues" by 80's LA cowpunks Blood on the Saddle , from their 1987 album, Fresh Blood . As a genre, cowpunk -- a manic, usually sloppy, fusion of punk and country & western -- sounded better in theory than in practice. Very rarely did any of the bands manage to achieve a workable balance between the two parent genres. When they were able to pull it off, however, as Blood on [...]

A much-loved track tonight by a much-loved (in this household, at least) artist: Lene Lovich 's cover of Frankie Valli's "The Night", from her 1980 album Flex. Ms. Lovich's colorful public persona and unique vocal stylings (think Marlene Dietrich meets Natasha Fatale meets an exotic jungle bird) made her one of the more fascinating acts of the early New Wave era. Listen to her take Mr. Valli's very 1970's ode to personal and romantic disillusionment and transform it into something hauntingly mysterious and wonderful. [...]

There's something fascinating about cover songs: the process of direct popcult appropriation, claiming a familiar ditty as one's own. At their best, covers can provide new and unique interpretations of the original songs. At their worst, they can provide oodles of pure campy joy. At their most disappointing, they pointlessly mimic the original song, begging the question, "Why bother covering the song in the first place?" The late, lamented UK dance-pop duo, Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine, did several excellent covers over the course of their career. Most of these appeared as "b-sides" on [...]

Armagideon Time's Inagural Week Cover Song Blowout Jamboree continues today with a cover of X-Ray Spex ' punk classic "Germfree Adolescents" by Scottish dance-poppers bis , from the Japanese release of their 1999 album, Social Dancing . This track falls squarely within my previous definition of a mediocre cover song. There's no radical reinterpretation going on here, just a by-the-numbers recreation of the original. I'd have preferred hearing a bis cover of one of X-Ray Spex' punkier, more uptempo songs like "Art-I-Ficial" or "The Day [...]

It's something that I've been thinking for a while now: I should start an mp3 blog. So here it is. I'm still tweaking the template and setting, so pardon the appearance. I still haven't decided on where to host the files, so be prepared to deal with rapidshare for the immediate future. The purpose of this weblog is for me to share some of the more interesting and noteworthy tracks from my [...]