Goodbye

Dear readers of this blog,
The end is not just in sight, the end is here. I regret to inform you all that I will not be posting here in the near future. It's been a pleasure to share my favorite music with all of you - thank you for the comments; special thanks to those who linked to my blog. I hope you found at least something here worth your time.
I will continue to maintain the links. If you find a dead link, leave me a comment, and I will fix it.

And for now, I will grab my iPod and my kalashnikov and wander off to the desert.

Loud, Fast and Out of Control - The Wild Sounds of 50s Rock

A great box set from Rhino, this compilation sets out to prove that 50's rock was dangerous and full of attitude. The message is in the title, in the cover art that shows a cartoonish greaser roughing up a square, in the liner notes illustrated with the pulpy 50s paperbacks about gangs, loose women, and reefer. And of course the message is in the music, a great set of manic, greasy, frothy-mouthed tunes - rock-n-roll, R&B, jump blues, and rockabilly.


Loud, Fast and Out of Control - The Wild Sounds of 50s Rock
Two independent archives on 4shared
First
Second

Track list is in the comments.

Songs The Cramps Taught Us Vol. 1 and 2

The Cramps' spiritual leader and guitarist Poison Ivy is also well known as a collector and connosieur of rare rockabilly and garage-rock singles. These two CDs collect the 50's and 60's obscurities covered, touted, or quoted by The Cramps.





Songs The Cramps Taught Us: Vol. 1 (104 mb, 192 kbps) and Vol. 2 (99 mb, mostly 192 kbps) on megaupload.

There is also a third volume that I don't have, I will appreciate any leads on that. Marcel in the comments pointed me to the Wild Wild Party blog that has the third volume - along with a ton of other great stuff!
The track list is in the comments.

P.S. A lot of the same material is covered on the Born Bad series.

Oranj Symphonette Plays Mancini

If musicians who are good enough to play anything get together, what would they play? If you ever wondered about that, now you can find out. Oranj Symphonette is a side project of five accomplished studio musicians: Matt Brubeck (cello/bass), Joe Gore (guitar), Ralph Carney (horns), Scott Amendola (drums) and Rob Burger (keys). Their list of credentials is too long to relate here, and you can see it at the Rykodisc site; I will just say that Brubeck, Joe Gore, and Carney met at the sessions for Tom Waits' late 80s - early 90s albums.
They could have selected any material to elaborate upon. I am guessing two reasons behind the choice of Mancini tunes: one, they are familiar to most listeners, and two, they do not confine the performer to a certain genre the way Smoke on the Water or Girl From Ipanema would. And Oranj Symphonette uses this freedom very well, effortlessly traveling from easy listening to hard rock to free jazz with any number of scenic detours in between.


Oranj Symphonette Plays Mancini
REUP: mediafire
200VBR, 64 mb
1. A Shot In The Dark
2. Experiment In Terror
3. The Pink Panther Theme
4. Lujon
5. The Inspector Clouseau Theme
6. Moon River
7. Charade
8. The Day Of Wine And Roses
9. Mr. Yunioshi
10. Mr. Lucky
11. March Of The Cue Balls
12. Baby Elephant Gunn (Baby Elephant Walk And Peter Gunn)

PS I will be gone next week, there will be no updates until Monday after.

Aavikko - Derek! + The Desert EP

Another Aavikko share, here's the first one. An excellent Finnish trio. They've been called "electro-surf" - a lo-fi synth sound with a surf music sensiblity: short, punchy, dirty instrumentals with a lot of hooks.
This disc combines two releases: #14 through 21 is their first recording, an EP titled Aavikko (which is finnish for Desert). It was released on a russian label and therefore the title itself is in russian (Пустыня), and so are the song titles.
#1 through 13 is their first full-length, Derek! I like Derek! a lot better. I don't know whether it's the producer, the equipment or what, but the EP sounds too harsh and abrasive for my taste. Derek!, on the other hand, has a near perfect balance between the melodic songs and the noisy, grimy arrangements.


Aavikko - Derek! + The Desert EP
200VBR, 73 mb
megaupload
mediafire
1. El Cebo
2. Galaktus
3. Baltic Sea
4. Derek
5. Cloun
6. Panama
7. Bolek Bolek
8. Manolito's Day off
9. Kazimbalis
10. Pink Service
11. Elsku Mau Mau
12. $3000
13. Cipetown
14. Vniz Po Volge (Down the Volga River)
15. Sredi Samoedov (Among the Eskimos)
16. Luga Krakova (Krakov's Fields)
17. Moroz V 5 Gradusov (-5 degrees C)
18. Pustynya (The Desert)
19. Podruga (Girlfriend)
20. Transsibirskaya Zheleznaya Doroga (Trans-siberian Railway)
21. Dux Oblomova (Oblomov's Spirit)