Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

I Like the Cover Better: Don't Call Me White

This might be the first NOFX song I ever heard. It's also my favorite, closely followed by "Brews."



I got that on a punk mix CD (Probably from the Give 'Em The Boot series from Epitaph) and put it on a mix tape with a bunch of songs by The Offspring (Jennifer Lost the War), The Ramones (extras from the end of the All the Stuff series), Rancid 45s (Hyena, I Wanna Riot), and Down By Law.

Later, though, Rancid and NOFX did a split CD covering each other, and Rancid just destroyed the original for me. Here is Matt Freeman on a bass-and-deep-voiced-vocals version of Don't Call Me White.



And yeah, I like their cover of Brews better, too. But that's another post.

Thursday, June 4, 2015

Wire - Map Ref. 41N 93W

The is my favorite song by Wire. I happened to turn on WFMU just in time to catch it on Fabio's show, Strength Through Failure.

"Map Ref. 41N 93W"



I especially love that they introduce the chorus by saying, "Chorus!"

I must have worn out the section of audiotape where I had that song back in the mid-90s. That's when I discovered Wire and a lot of other UK punk I'd missed when I was younger - Wire, the Stiff Little Fingers, the Undertones, Poly Styrene and X-Ray Specs, Infrariot, Television, and more. Some bands I'd heard of, but never heard - some neither. Some I knew the catalog backward and forward - Sex Pistols, The Clash, Buzzcocks. Wire was a "neither." This song just blew me away . . . and I hadn't listened to it in years. Time to pull out all my Wire stuff and re-listen. They're touring the NY area right now, but work means I won't see them. Maybe someday.