A MIX OF TAPES

 I try to post compilations on Fridays just because routine can be healthy sometimes. Gonna pump things up a bit because it's Thursday and post a few tapes that were kicking around with no covers...

SHUT THE FUCK UP!
The Arkansas SHUT THE FUCK UP! The bass/drums/vocals SHUT THE FUCK UP! I posted their (other?) demo a few years ago and the link is still live. This one is just on a commercial blank with a hand written label, but the sound is unmistakable. Thirteen songs here...might be a tape of the EP, might also not be a tape of the EP. Too many tapes too early in the morning to bust it out and check and besides, that band was amazing so there's nothing wrong with having the songs twice, you know?

GREG INGRAHAM
One of the coolest artifacts from Pat's immense collection, four instrumentals recorded by AVENGERS guitarist Greg Ingraham in 1984/85. Serious WIPERS vibes on the opening cut, then veering into laid back rock with a(n almost) Fahey bent before the gorgeous closer "Moon All Alone." Someone should re/issue this. 

20•4 AUGUST
No idea where this came from - just a loose cassette with a handwritten label that reads 20•4 August. Some metal, some prog, some punk, some outsider sounds - an excellent hour of sound with no track listing to guide you. And it's a mix tape...so I'm staying within my self imposed parameters. 

SOUP
More legendary (early) East Bay punk. Karoline told me that the kids in Milwaukee and Madison were all obsessed with this tape, and freaked out when the bass player rolled through their scene on a road trip. I get it, but it doesn't really to anything special for me - I like it as an place in time more than as a sonic experience (the tape is an original and well partied - I wouldn't mind if someone could scan me a copy of the cover, just saying). You can absolutely hear the (later) East Bay sound formulating here though, and that bass player drew the cover for Dookie. 

THE SKINFLUTES
Low key legendary Bay Area band, probably most famous as Sarah Kirsch's first outfit. Later became SAWHORSE (an equally weird but objectively better moniker) and had a killer EP on Ebullition. I posted some of (more of?) these tracks a few years ago too, but you might have missed it...and this is a different tape. 

CORRUPT YOUTH
There's an OP IVY cover, but most of this demo has a harder, sloppier edge. I feel like I'm inside Mission Records on a sweltering Saturday afternoon in 2001 and I'm watching some band from Missouri playing like their life depends on it. 

LASSIE
Not to be confused with the German LASSIE, the New Orleans LASSIE are a demented, soulful and angular punk experience - like TELEVISION reborn in the midst of the NWI punk scene of the early 2010s. My tape has a classy and stylish handwritten label but no song titles or anything....if this post demonstrates anything, it demonstrates that a little mystery keeps things interesting.