Library of Congress – Selected Writings on the Human Condition

The Library of Congress are no longer a band anymore, but they once hailed from the wonderful town of Glen Rock, New Jersey. Before bands like Titus Andronicus, Real Estate, and Ducktails (all from NJ), the Library of Congress had formed while all the band members of those bands were still enjoying their days in high school together. The line-up for the Library of Congress consisted of Andrew Cedermark on guitar and lead vocals, Kyle Cedermark on drums, Martin Courtney IV on bass guitar and vocals, Patrick Stickles on guitar and vocals, Sarim Al-Rawi on guitar, and Matt Miller on keyboards. Some of these names might be strikingly familiar to you, mainly because they’re the members of the bands that have been getting all the attention lately. Martin Courtney IV is now the lead singer and guitarist of Real Estate, while Patrick Stickles is the lead singer and guitarist of Titus Andronicus. Andrew Cedermark also spent some time playing in Titus Andronicus, and he also releases solo material on the Underwater Peoples label, check him out here.

As far as this release from the Library of Congress goes, I don’t really have any information on it. ~~I’m not even sure if the name of the album is “Pure White Love”, I’m just using that for blog-writing purposes.~~ [ EDIT: I have been informed that the name of this album is “Selected Writings on the Human Condition”. Thought you might like to know that. ] The most I can tell you is that their name was once “Seizing Elian”, and throughout their time as a band, Andrew Cedermark was the lead singer. I don’t know what year the album was released, what label put it out, or where you can buy it, but I can tell you that it is worth your time, especially if you’re even the slightest fan of any of those bands I listed earlier. It gives you insight to their earlier days of music before they’re bigger, more popular bands emerged, and it shows you how each band went in their own, unique direction. Real Estate took the more polished poppy psychedelic route while Titus Andronicus took the rugged dirt path to ramshackle punk rock. If there is anything worth telling you readers, it’s the fact that there is a song on this album called “Albert Camus” which is an earlier version of Titus Andronicus’ album closer from “The Airing of Grievances”. Exciting!

My Rating: 9/10
Genre/ Tags: Indie Rock, Alternative, Rock
Selected Writings on the Human Condition: Tracklist
1.) Pure White Love
2.) Internal Citations
3.) Doctor Faustus
4.) Fire Extinguisher
5.) Lustful Monk
6.) Second Quarter Transcript
7.) Snow
8.) Albert Camus
9.) Latin for All Occasions, Pt. 1
10.) Have a Nice Summer

The Library of Congress on Myspace
Selected Writings on the Human Condition: TRY (download link)
A compilation album featuring a song from the Library of Congress: BUY
Stuff by Andrew Cedermark and Underwater Peoples: BUY

Volcano Suns – The Bright Orange Years

My Rating: 9/10
Genre/ Tags: Post-Punk, Alternative, Rock

The 1980’s were a fun time, with musical outfits such as U2, R.E.M., David Bowie, Michael Jackson, and Madonna dominating the scene. Alongside of that, the 1980’s were also heavily influenced with the emergence of synthpop and electronic music, with songs like this one right here. This was one of the best selling songs at the time, and it played a huge role in the constantly growing genre of electronic music during the 80’s. Now while all of this was going on, three dudes from Boston, Massachusetts decided to completely ditch the synthesizers and go with a style of music that was certainly not as popular as all the emerging synthpop, and I must commend them for this.

The Volcano Suns initially formed in 1984 after the break up of Mission of Burma in their already mentioned hometown of Boston, Massachusetts. For most of their early years, the band was a three piece consisting of Peter Prescott on drums, Jeff Weigand on bass guitar, and Jon Williams on guitar, with Prescott being the only member to remain in the band until it’s break up in 1991. This original three piece line-up would play together for the first two releases of the Volcano Suns discography – their debut in 1985, “The Bright Orange Years”, and 1986’s “All Night Lotus Party”.

Today I have their debut LP for you to listen and love, and love it you shall. The album is bursting with raw energy, with just about every song forcing you to somehow tap along and keep the beat, and at times while listening, I actually recall similarities to the band White Denim. The recording quality of the music also does wonders for their sound; that being said, I don’t think I would favor them as much if it was overproduced. If you have never heard these guys, please do yourself a favor and HEAR THEM. I was going to go through and name which songs stand out before the rest, but then I noticed I was just listing the tracklist from the album. Be sure to be on the lookout for more Volcano Suns in the near future.

The Bright Orange Years: Tracklist
1.) Jak
2.) Descent into Hell
3.) Truth is Stranger than Fishing
4.) Balancing Act
5.) Promise Me
6.) (I’m Gonna) Make You Mine
7.) Cover
8.) The Mouth that Roared
9.) Cornfield
10.) Animals
11.) It’s Stewtime
12.) Silvertone

Volcano Suns on Myspace
The Bright Orange Years (and more): BUY

My Bloody Valentine – Loom (Live in Vancouver)

My Rating: 9/10
Genre/ Tags: Live, Shoegaze, Alternative

The other day on the discussion board in our Last.fm group, a user who goes by the name of “perturbantecoi” suggested that some material from the catalog of My Bloody Valentine be put up on the blog. With much consideration, I came across quite a tremendous live recording of My Bloody Valentine from back in their days after releasing the LP we all know and cherish, “Loveless”. This recording took place on July 4th, 1992 in the city of Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada. I think I speak for us all when I say “Damn, I wish I was there.” This recording is phenomenal, and it’s loaded with tracks from various releases by the band, but most notably their already mentioned album “Loveless”. Three tracks from their first LP “Isn’t Anything” are included in the show, as well as a few tracks from their extensive collection of EP’s. Whether you’re the most avid My Bloody Valentine fan (which probably means you already have this), or you’re just looking for some new MBV material, look no further. The final track of the show, “You Made Me Realise”, would be worth downloading all on it’s own. It’s over 17 minutes long, and it starts as you would expect, but about two minutes in they stop everything and let the instruments feedback for over 10 minutes, before suddenly coming back to life to finish off the remaining two minutes of the song. Oh. So. Super.

It’s a long download, but you’ll be glad you waited. You should head on over to the Last.fm group and join up in the meantime, and maybe do some chatting! You could even put up another suggestion for posting here on the blog, because that’s what today’s entry was. A suggestion! So please, suggest away! Thanks!

Loom (Live in Vancouver) Tracklist:
1.) When You Sleep
2.) I Only Said
3.) Only Shallow
4.) Slow
5.) Nothing Much to Lose
6.) [noise]
7.) You Never Should
8.) Feed Me With Your Kiss
9.) Soon
10.) To Here Knows When
11.) Honey Power
12.) You Made Me Realise

Loom (Live in Vancouver): TRY
MBV on Myspace
MBV Official Website (Who the hell is pretending to be Bilinda Butcher?)

Soul Coughing – Ruby Vroom

My Rating: 7/10
Genre/ Tags: Alternative, Jazz, Rock

Soul Coughing formed in New York City back in 1992, and they remained active until 2000 when they broke up over disputes about songwriting credits and things of that matter. It’s a shame when a band dies off due to arguments, but hey, that’s how the cookie crumbles. Before breaking up in 2000, the band released three different studio albums, and they managed to gain moderate mainstream success. Their first album “Ruby Vroom” was released back in 1994, and it is the album I have here with me today. A lot of the songs found on the album are dominated by heavy, jazzy bass lines and lead singer Mike Doughtys crazy “stream-of-consciousness” poetry, which many times leaves you thinking, “What did he just say?” If you’re listening carefully enough, you will also notice that he is constantly making references to things in his lyrics. The song that first comes to mind would be the opening track “Is Chicago, Is Not Chicago”. It’s almost like it’s his goal to name as many places as he can while he sings, because he mentions Chicago, Saskatoon, Palmyra, New York, Washington, Pyongyang, and Cairo. There is probably even a few I missed, or possibly some I’m not even aware of. Either way, you should make an effort to check out the funky goodness that is Soul Coughing. Be sure to check out songs like “Sugar Free Jazz” with it’s beachy sound effects, “Casiotone Nation” which is chock-full of more references, “Blueeyed Devil”, “Supra Genious” and “Screenwriter’s Blues”. Enjoy!

Ruby Vroom: Tracklist
1.) Is Chicago, Is Not Chicago
2.) Sugar Free Jazz
3.) Casiotone Nation
4.) Blueeyed Devil
5.) Bus to Beelzebub
6.) True Dreams of Wichita
7.) Screenwriter’s Blues
8.) Moonsammy
9.) Supra Genius
10.) City of Motors
11.) Uh, Zoom Zip
12.) Down to This
13.) Mr. Bitterness
14.) Janine

Unofficial Website – Soul Coughing
Ruby Vroom: BUY

Pavement – Stray Slack

Back in September, some very exciting news was announced that many people had been waiting to hear for nearly 10 years. This exciting news was the confirmation that the band PAVEMENT would reunite in 2010 to play their first shows together in over 10 years. Woo! Since the big announcement, they have booked shows all across the globe, in places like Australia and Japan, they are headlining a few (1, 2) different festivals in 2010, and now they have even announced a new “Best-Of” compilation that will simultaneously be released with some of the first shows on the Pavement world tour (March 9th to be exact). Along with the “Best-Of” compilation, which is cleverly titled “Quarantine the Past: The Best of Pavement”, the record label Matador is holding a contest to see if anybody can correctly guess the track listing for the new compilation. More details on that contest and the compilation right here.

So 2010 is definitely looking to be the year of Pavement…but putting all of this reunion stuff aside for a second…

Today I have an album for you that could be considered a bootleg before anything else. It’s a mostly-live album from Pavement that probably came out sometime back in 1993 before “Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain” was ever released. This bootleg rules, and the best part is I found it for a $1.00 at the Punk Rock Flea Market in Philadelphia. The album contains 22 songs, with most of them being from the “Slanted and Enchanted” days of Pavement, but songs from other earlier releases are found on this bootleg as well. Don’t waste any more time…check it out right here!

While you wait for the album to download, please take a minute to view the new “Band of the Week” feature here at the Styrofoam Drone. Each day of the week, I will add a new song from the said band, so be sure to check back daily!

Stray Slack: Tracklist
1.) Conduit For Sale
2.) Fame Throwa
3.) Home
4.) Perfume – V
5.) Summer Babe
6.) Frontwards
7.) Angel Carver Blues / Mellow Jazz Docent
8.) Two States
9.) No Life Singed Her
10.) So Stark, You’re A Skyscraper
11.) Box Elder
12.) Baby, Yeah
13.) In the Mouth A Desert
14.) Greenlander
15.) Here
16.) Trigger Cut
17.) Black Walls
18.) Texas Never Whispers
19.) Teenage Piss Party
20.) Zurich Is Stained
21.) Kentucky Cocktail
22.) Feed Them to the Lions

Pavement: Official Website
Stray Slack: TRY
Stray Slack: Can’t really find a place to buy this one. Here is an auction for the album on vinyl > BUY

The Wounded Knees – All Rise EP

Alright, here we go. For today’s entry, I am going to cover the Wounded Knees, hailing from Dublin, Ireland by Troy, New York. This band is led by the man known as Jimi Shields who has also been a part of other bands such as Rollerskate Skinny and Lotus Crown. Jimi is also the brother of the guitarist from My Bloody Valentine, and you might already know him as Kevin Shields. As far as music goes, the band hasn’t released much yet. I know they have one EP up to this point. This EP came out back in 2008 on the NY-PA label Specific Recordings. It is still available over on that website if you’re interested. They only pressed 200 of them, and it’s on colored brown vinyl with screen printed jackets. I have a copy of it sitting right here as I type, and I must say it is a beautiful record. The EP has 5 songs, all original in their own way, and it clocks in at just over 20 minutes worth of music. One highlight I can’t help but mention is the epic track “Dirty (Exploding Sonic Dogfight)“. If you’re listening to the album from the beginning, by the time you get to this track, you would already know that the band has a flute player, ex-Mercury Rev flautist Suzanne Thorpe. What you may not have known, is that she can totally TEAR SHIT UP. LISTEN TO THAT FLUTE! Okay, okay, so the flute action is good. When you’re done listening to the flute, move your concentration over to the guitar work of J Mascis from Dinosaur Jr. This, my friends, is also COLOSSAL. Adding this flute along with the guitar is a recipe for complete destruction. Unfortunately this is the only track featuring Mascis, but this song will keep you coming back for more, as well as every song from the EP. This EP is certainly worth hearing, so don’t waste any more time…check it out with the link below.

The Wounded Knees on Myspace

All Rise EP: Tracklist
1.) Mainstream Hate School
2.) All Rise
3.) Dirty (Exploding Sonic Dogfight)
4.) Surf the Urge (To Explode)
5.) Sonny Payne

All Rise EP: BUY