A Very Chrome Sunday Mixtape

I got to see Chrome last night at The Redwood downtown. Well, I saw Helios Creed playing Chrome songs…Damon died like fifteen years ago and I’m pretty sure the other guys were hired guns: Aleph on drums, Lux on bass, and the keyboard player who I see all over town who kind of looks like Eddie Izzard. I’m going to go ahead an say it was Chrome. Maybe you fuckers who saw the band in its early incarnation can really say you saw Chrome, but going to shows is a lot like playing baseball. What? Yeah, I said that. In that sport, when batters swing and nub the ball three feet in front of home plate but beat the throw to first, teammates will say, “It’ll be a line-drive in the box score tomorrow” meaning that a hit is a hit no matter how hard one hits the ball. Likewise, a concert is a concert no matter who’s in the band. So I saw Chrome just like you old fuckers saw Chrome. The same holds true for all bands, like Mike Love’s Beach Boys (ouch!) and Old Skull*. By the way, speaking of old fuckers, the audience last night was made up almost entirely of people who I recognized from work and old punks. I felt slightly out of place if only because I had a full head of hair. No offense, old guys, I mean that in the sense that I wish more people my age respected Chrome. Eh…I guess they played Part Time Punks a few years ago. That has to count for something.

RULES for uninitiated noobs: With roughly 100MB of web space, I give birth to a weekly Mix Tape to be deposited on your iPods or Zunes or Kingklangs or whatever the industry is currently pushing on you. Sometimes there will be themes that link all the songs together, other times I’ll just throw songs at a wall (not literally) and see what sticks. This week is all about Chrome. Well, Chrome is highlighted, but you’ll find some like-minded groups scattered about, as well as some new things I’m digging. The goal of this endeavor, as always, is to pique your interest in these artists so you’ll support the artists and buy their albums.

Suday Mix Tape Number 189
A Very Chrome-y Mix Tape

01. Chrome – Tribes

02. Samsara Blues Experiment – Singata Mystic Queen – Ian told me to seek out this album last week. I’ve listened to it twice, and although I’m not totally sold on it, there are a few cool moments that have kept me interested. I don’t know, what do you think? Am I missing something? Is Ian missing something? (buy from Amazon.com)

03. The Residents – Birth – My Residents record collection is filling out quite nicely, and I’ve added six great LPs to my collection in the past year. Including a beautiful original, white vinyl pressing of Eskimo, which has earned itself many a spin on my turntable. Blame its excellence for my beginning to wear out this record. (buy from Amazon.com)

04. Throbbing Gristle – Zyklon B Zombie – Mark gave me a spare copy of this record and I’ve gotten some good use out of it. What a totally fucked up band. (buy from Amazon.com)

05. Six Finger Satellite – Laughing Larry – Jet turned me onto SFS back in the day. It was one of the reasons I kept her around as a friend, I guess…seeing as how she’s a really horrible person who let me crash on her couch multiple times during cross-country adventures, fixes broken guitar pedals for me, introduces me to a ton of amazing musicians in Chicago and a slew of bands I had no idea existed, and generally kicks at at life. I don’t know if The Pigeon Is The Most Popular Bird or Paranormalized is my favorite album of theirs. (buy from Amazon.com)

06. Tuxedomoon – Fifth Column – Weird…I don’t think I’ve listened to Tuxedomoon in…five years? How long has it been since I started compiling these mix taps? It’s been about that long, I guess. (buy from Amazon.com)

07. Claude Barthelemey – Cigarillos – Found on some blog sometime in the past two weeks. I don’t remember how, where or why. Thanks, forgettable music blog!

08. Chrome – Gehanna To Canaan

09. Fushitsusha – In an Instant, Vanished, the First Echo – Just when I thought I wasn’t going to be able to find a translation for this track title (written in Japanese on the album), “An Unofficial Keiji Haino Discography” comes along and translates everything for me. I know for a while I was heavily culling from these Fushitsusha albums, but it’s been a while so I figured, “Why not start again? Maybe everyone has forgotten by now…” (buy from Amazon.com)

10. Supreme Dicks – Synaesthesia – The guy I met from Supreme Dicks came into my place of work a couple weeks ago and we talked about Michael Hurley records. I meant to ask him about the Supreme Dicks catalog, and whether or not any of their records were going to be issued on vinyl in the near future. Maybe next time I won’t have such a retarded brain fart. Love this band, love these albums…why aren’t you out here with me yet? There’s room enough for at least one more person on the Supreme Dicks train. (buy from Amazon.com)

11. Sunwatcher – Untitled – From the self-titled cassette tape released by Mark McGuire (again, not that Mark McGuire) through his Wagon Records and Tapes label. Totally-blissed-out awesomeness. (Wagon, 2008)

12. Melvins – Love Canal

13. Melvins – Someday

14. Skyramps – Skyramping – From the Days Of Thunder album released by Mark McGuire through his Wagon label. Ian told me to check this out, too. If you haven’t noticed, this mix tape is very…palindromic? It starts and ends with Chrome, the second and penultimate tracks were recommended by Ian, there are two tracks on the Wagon label bookending two tracks from the same Melvin’s 5″ record…see, I put some thought into this shit. I swear I do. (Wagon, 2009)

15. Chrome – Open Up (Locust Door) – By the way, all of these Chrome tracks appear on the Raining Milk (Revisited) album. It’s a tough one to find. Good luck.