Happy Cinco de Mayonnaise, dorks. Today’s awesome, ya’llz.  It seems like this blog has been reviewing records left and right that have a May 5th release date. Turns out that, yes, today’s a big day. We at the Decibel Tolls support these artists and encourage you to pick these jam hives up from your preferred record store or distributor. If you don’t have the cheese, you can always CHARGE IT 2 DA GAME like Silkk the Shocker do! Stimulate the economy!

Tara Jane O’Neil – A Ways Away
Akron/Family – Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free
The Vaselines – Enter the Vaselines
Magik Markers – Balf Quarry
Acid Mothers Temple – Lord of the Underground: Vishnu and the Magic Elixir

There’s also a new Marmoset record coming out this month courtesy of Joyful Noise, but no specific date has been confirmed (or at least I haven’t been able to find one). Shout at me if you know anything about Tea Tornado – tryin’ to see about it!

MP3 :::
Akron/Family – Sun Will Shine
Tara Jane O’Neil – The Drowning Electric
Marmoset – I Love My Things

Derby’s a strange scene in Louisville. There are limos driving all up and down Bardstown Road. It’s totally strange and possibly stupid. Guess it’s good for the local economy. One of my best friends is in town taking photos of Paris Hilton’s party at the toolbox known as Fourth Street Live. No photos are allowed of her, though – which is kind of an odd thought considering her entire existence is contingent on hangin’ out and dudes being stoked on that. One of my coworkers told me that there’s a pretty swank Derby gala right up the street from Bloggins Base Camp on Cherokee Road in the Highlands. Supposedly O.J. Simpson tried to get in last year and was throw out. When I asked said dude what the Juice did, he said “I dunno, killed a couple people, ya know.” I lol’ed.

Anyway, happy Derby day! Like 75% of Louisville, I’ll probably be rather toasted in a couple of hours. Come meet me and L-Train and friends at the Highland Taproom if’n you’re in town!

MP3 :::
Mahjongg – The Stubborn Horse
Besnard Lakes – Rides the Rails
The Vaselines – The Day I Was a Horse
The Electric Prunes – I Got My Mojo Workin’
The Incredible String Band – Swift as the Wind

A lot of general interest has piqued again for the fascinating genre-jumping Scottish songwriting duo known as The Vaselines. They are hands-down one of my personal favorite artists of all time, so I’m certainly excited, but also a bit disappointed (due to higher expectations that are explained later) with Enter the Vaselines.

The Vaselines lay everyone to waste. From 1987 to about 1990, Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee concocted a seamless amalgamation of shoegaze, psychedelic rock, punk ethos, fuzzed-out twee pop, and folk narrative (such as following the acid trip gone wrong on “The Day I Was a Horse”). Shit, there’s even a fiddle that pops out of nowhere on “Oliver Twisted.” Their range and good sense in pop songwriting would’ve made the Vaselines the shining star of the C86 crop, that is, if they were even invited to that party – which they probably weren’t (how did you sleep on that one, Alan McGee?).

I don’t say lightly that the Vaselines were brilliant, and there’s never been a clearer case of an artist’s artist I can think of. It seems only dudes in bands like The Vaselines, which explains why the were never known during their late ’80s heyday, and not widely recognized now either. But those who do know and love the Vaselines swear by them with religious fervor (as I do). Most appealing to me (and other fans I’m sure) is how the Vaselines were one mighty contradiction – a massive sound crafted by only two people, double entendre lyrics sung with coyness, gritty production and sloppy instrumentation coupled with truly soaring, gorgeous melodies – this duo was a real gem.

Perhaps this is why Sub Pop wants to curate another Vaselines retrospective. After reforming to play some choice music festivals last summer, it seems now is a great opportunity to reintroduce the band to the masses, re-excite the fan base that has built around the Vaselines very, very slowly over the past two decades, and show everyone how lame indie rock has become in the interim when directly compared to the Vaselines.

Enter The Vaselines is a double CD/triple LP collection of the Vaselines catalog, the first issuance of any Vaselines related music since the compilation The Way of The Vaselines: A Complete History dropped in 1992 (also by Sub Pop).  The first disc contains all their recorded and mastered songs, which includes their one and only album Dum-Dum and the materials on their first two EPs.  The second disc features live bootlegs and demos.  Of the three demos featured, “Rosary Job” and “Red Poppy” are the only two songs on the entire 2CD/3LP set that were not already part of The Way of… disc.  That’s what I was talking about earlier when I mentioned being slightly disappointed. Of course, that’s not Sub Pop’s fault at all, the Vaselines didn’t stick long enough to record a lot of material. However, if you’re only vaguely familiar with the group, or if this is your first time hearing them, Enter the Vaselines is a the certainly the best and easiest to find introduction. Actually, the term “introduction” isn’t fair because this is absolutely everything that (as far as we know) they’ve laid to tape. And every one of those songs is absolutely golden.

As an aside, I’d love some reader thoughts on this – groups like The Vaselines, Flipper, Meat Puppets, Sonic Youth, The Melvins, and The Raincoats were hugely influential for Kurt Cobain. So why is it that only douchebag bands are influenced by Nirvana (as cited by the bands themselves)? What is that? Not trying to over-generalize here, but you know what I’m sayin’…

Enter the Vaselines is available May 5, courtesy of Sub Pop. The Way of the Vaselines is also available courtesy of said label, and you can grip that right now.

MP3 :::
The Vaselines – Lovecraft
The Vaselines – Oliver Twisted
The Vaselines – Slushy

This is a special Super Swingin’ Mix… because it might be the last one ever. I threw links in this post like you eat lunch.

As I’ve mentioned before, Swan Fungus is one of my favorite blogs out there (along with WFMU’s and Raven Sings the Blues). With regard to the former, I like the author’s idea of yanking a bunch of news stories together and then posting totally righteous jam hives that may or may not have anything to do with what he’s writing about. I’m going to steal that idea (with attribution of course), but up the ante a bit and try to relate the music to a news story. Anton Newcombe does this a lot on his MySpazzz blog, which is how I accidentally got into an online dork fight with him – a story I’ll save for another day. I take that back – we might all be dead on Wednesday if CERN fucks up their lil’ Big Bang experiment. So maybe you won’t get that story from me. That’s probably the least of your concerns.

All in all, recreating the origin of our universe and all of existence will probably be tits. And I totally administer props to CERN for trying to book Spiritualized to perform in celebration of this experiment. But in the off chance that something gets unequivocally fucked in this decidedly dubious pow-wow, I might not go to work Wednesday. I do not want to die sitting at my desk. I mean, that would be fucking sad. I think I’ll kick it at home, grab some beer technology, and have tons of monumental sex with my girlfriend instead, which is a better power play on apocalypse day. I also don’t plan to write a living will and testament, since not even light can escape the extreme, space-time-continuum-bending gravitational force of a black hole, suggesting that my estate probably won’t stay intact anyhow. So don’t plan on getting my Wii.

If you’re not hip to what CERN’s up to these days, EU and US scientists are totally gonna recreate the state of the universe immediately after the Big Bang, deep below the alps, with the 17-mile long Large Hadron Collider. It’s (supposedly) the most massive experiment ever conducted. But it also is (supposedly) a potential gnarly scene. Sounds rad to me either way. Luckily, even if the jive-like worst case scenario manifests itself, Stephen Colbert’s DNA will be floating in space somewhere for extraterrestrials to clone and manipulate and shit.

Here’s yr. research style, with slammin’ animated GIFs to boot. Theoretical physics rules my life. I wish I had my girlfriend’s copy of Paul Davies’ How to Build a Time Machine with me to shed some additional light, for you dear readers, on the stability of black holes and wormholes… stuff like that. Lest we forget those pesky strangelets, as well. If I had to write a headline, I think I’d title it “Hardcore Celestial Happenstance Harshes Mellows Worldwide.”

But even if Wednesday’s flippin’ of the switch goes as smooth as Michael McDonald, we still have that whole The North Pole Ice Cap is an Island For the First Time in Human History thing going on. I’d like to thank the Baby Boomers for fucking my generation, and future generations, over. Tiiiiiight. Thanks guys!

So to celebrate CERN doin’ it live, I’ve gathered a few pleasant, apocalyptic canticles to provide the perfect soundtrack for either a efficiently swallowed Earth (a la CERN), or a slowly dying Earth (a la mankind’s insolence). I’ve always found Bardo Pond to be pretty fitting end-of-the-world bumper music, so I included a couple tracks from them. I’m super pumped about the songs I chose. Though not every jam specifically addresses an accidental astrophysical clusterfuck – the titles, themes, mood, et al. convey a general things-are-fucked notion. I mean, you can’t argue that Boris and Kites aren’t par for the endtymez course. Catch one Cold War reference and one Revelations allegory, and you’ll win something yet to be determined. Leave a comment below.

So happy Monday, you guyses. Prepare to die lol.

MP3 :::
Bardo Pond – This Time (So Fucked)
Bardo Pond – Night of Frogs
The Warlocks – Come Save Us
Boris – Blackout
Love – The Red Telephone
M83 – God of Thunder
The Besnard Lakes – Devastation
Loop – Black Sun
The Vaselines – No Hope
Kites – Exploded Face
Akron/Family – Don’t Be Afraid, You’re Already Dead