Pink Reason - Stork Club, Oakland CA [2007]

Here's a quick set from Pink Reason for ya. I just found this from a google search today, and I don't know where it came from [edit: it's from here], but it's four songs from the reigning king of damaged, self-loathing drug-punk. Includes his cover of Agent Orange's 'Bloodstains,' as well as a "coffehouse version" of the song 'Going Home,' which was featured on one of those World's Lousy with Ideas compilations.

I made up the cover art on GIMP so if you think it sucks that's why ('coz I made it, not 'coz of GIMP). If you liked Shit in the Garden, download this, why don't you?

Shortly after I posted this, the cool fellow over at Drug Punk posted an interview with Kevin from Pink Reason about what he's been up to recently. Check it out!

My train is losing steam

Jay Reatard - Night of Broken Glass [2007]

Here is a sweet little EP by the late great Jimmy Lee Lindsey Jr, aka Jay Reatard. The title track is a freakout ostensibly about the Kristallnacht (heavy shit, man), followed by a bubblegum synth-garage tune in a transition that is disorienting to say the least. The third song, 'All Over Again,' continues in a similar vein, and Jay shows how good he was at such twisted pop. The EP closes with 'Feeling Blank Again,' which is more or less classic Reatard nervous angularity. This record is a great way to spend eight and a half minutes of your life.

This came out on In the Red Records but I can't find a link to order it from them.

Buy it, if you're a collector snob and want to pay $50 for 4 songs
It was the first, but it's not the last

Nerve City - Nerve City: Recordings 2007-2008 [2010]

Somewhere in Virginia, the dude behind Nerve City sits and cranks out well-crafted pop/psych/country-folk tunes and then splashes them with reverb and other such guitar noise. It's home-recorded, and you can tell, but not in such a way that it's obnoxious; these songs speak for themselves. My favorites are probably 'Living Wage,' 'Junkyard,' and 'Mothers.' There's an uneasy sense of death about this record, and some songs, like 'Holy Ghost,' are just scary. I remember one time describing Nerve City to a friend as sounding like "a spaceman-cowboy playing guitar on the moon, in your TV." If that sounds at all appealing to you, then check out this record.

(c) Peter Betancourt

Buy it

Nerve City myspace

Try

Pissed Jeans - Hope For Men [2007]

This band is a work of jeanius. Slow- to mid-tempo hardcore with brilliantly dismal lyrics about the miserable and mundane, from dudes who know their shit. Everyone's favorite thing to mention about this band is how one of them works in an insurance firm or something, and Pissed Jeans' noise does sound pretty much like the impotent rage of the archetypal white-collar American who's aware of a better existence, yet can't quite get there. Highly recommended. The fellow who sold me this LP at Saki was lucky enough to have seen them live. They don't get out to play much, so FFS see them if you get the chance.

Buy Hope for Men on Sub Pop
Try