various artists - Amphetamine Reptile Records 1993 Sampler

It never gets old to me, the idea that someone at Atlantic Records thought that the rest of the AmRep catalog might cross over to mainstream popularity, in the same way that Helmet did. "Sure," I believe the thinking went, "the kids will go ga-ga over Today Is The Day and Hammerhead!"

Was cocaine involved? I have to assume the answer is "yes". It's the music business!

Anyway, this one came delivered to your door with your mailorder from Haze's bunker in Minneapolis. What a grand way to get a sniff of Chokebore, Helios Creed, Cosmic Psychos, and Cows. It's the sort of scuzz that'll twist out a 15-year-old, make them turn away from Pearl Jam records and start trekking out to dark corners of their towns. Haze's artwork on the cover seals the deal. This one warps brains and perverts the heart. Obviously, it's a classic.

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - Screwed (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

I'll never quite wrap my head around Atlantic distributing Amphetamine Reptile back in the mid-90s, and this record is evidence I'll present to support my argument. Sure, Helmet made some serious inroads with the kids of 1995, but I'm not sure who thought Hammerhead or Cows were a fit alongside Aretha Franklin, Led Zeppelin, and Foreigner. It's so perverse; I kind of love it.

And speaking of perversity: here's the soundtrack to a documentary on New York publisher and pornographer Al Goldstein entitled "Screwed". It makes sense to have a bunch of AmRep luminaries provide the score to such a downer of a movie. Halo of Kitten (a collaboration between Halo of Flies and Free Kitten) and the Melvins offer alternate views on porn: one likes it, the other hates it. There's tracks from Guv'ner and Big Chief and Boss Hog and the almighty Mudhoney, all XXX-themed and just rightly written to play behind a view of a porn king's crumbling empire.

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - Amphetamine Reptile • Peel Sessions

It seemed like a glaring omission when I saw that I didn't already own a copy of this (currently). So of course I spent the $1.99 to rescue this from a clearance rack last month, along with a Lou Reed "best of" and Boss Hog's "Girl Plus" EP. Because money comes and money goes, but one should never let a sweet deal for noise rock pass them by.

In my humble, stupid opinion, Helmet and Tar still have the standout tracks here. And that tracks with my taste, since both bands are ones that I keyed onto Back In The Day (TM) and spent my hard earned Taco Bell wages on. No $2 CDs back then, I can tell you. But I should not pay short shrift to Cows (I preferred the Heroine Sheiks) and Surgery, who had already dissolved in the wake of Sean McDonnell's death by the time I would have otherwise become aware of them.

This is one that is well worth a listen, as well as a limited edition reissue with all new Haze XXL art.

Discogs

Click here to download.

various artists - Dope-Guns-'N-Fucking In The Streets Volumes 8-11

I had oriignally planned to post this a couple weeks ago, as I reached my 46th birthday. I serendipitously found this in a box of CDs due to be put in storage, and, somehow, it wasn't on my hard drive. Boom: a perfect share. But, then, life got in the way. So here I am, prepping for a colonoscopy tomorrow, my stomach empty except for lemon-lime Gatorade Zero. Why regret not having posted for two weeks? Take a little time on the toilet, dash this one off in a jiffy,

DGF remains a foundational series of (initially) eleven 7"s, released between 1988 and 1998, by the eternally cool, maximally abrasive Amphetamine Reptile Records. If you're a yoot born in the past 25 years, not yet familiar with the world of noise rock in which I grew up, you could use the series as a pretty good checklist. Hell, I did.

I single this out, not just because I found the CD the other day, but because these were the 7" releases I was actually around for and hunting down in the record bins of Roanoke and Baltimore. This was some of my first exposures to Superchunk, Jawbox, RFTC, and Braniac; all bands whose recorded outputs I've collected fervently in the interim. The likes of Guzzard and Bailter Space don't exactly rev my engine, but they're no slouches in this lineup. Today is the Day, Gaunt, Bordeoms: their cuts here rank amongst my favorites by each band.

I hope that, when you listen to this, you'll consider the joys of taking a fiber optic camera up the ass in the interest of GI health. I'd like to think it's what Mr. Hazelmyer had in mind whilst compiling it.

Discogs

Click here to download.