Why I Hate Discogs - OR - Stop Making Me Want Records I Didn't Previously Know Existed

This was originally for the Discogs blog, hence the prominent deprecation of the brand.

I’ve got enough I’m searching out already. I’ve got my hands full — from unknown, forgotten and unheralded discs from the region of my birth (Detroit, MI) spanning all popular musical formats to diving way too deep into local spoken word releases, ethnic Serbian and Croatian songs, Spanish language conjuntos from Mexicantown, Arabic language 78s and everything in between. I will never be able to buy (or even just catalog) all the records that I want and that’s a terrible feeling I still can’t come to grips with.

But every once in a while, I’ll cruise through master release lists on Discogs for titles I’m already quite well in possession of. Started off with the MC5 and the Stooges…a maple leaf on the back cover of Canadian pressings, a size/typeface change, the most minuscule label variations. These things got me pumped. But it’s a tricky game. How far does one go? How different does it have to be for me to care?

There’s no right or wrong answer here, but I can say this compulsion has driven me further than I’d ever anticipated.

Photo by Eilon Paz for Dust & Grooves.

One day last year I was cruising through the master list for Nirvana’s In Utero and was surprised to see an In Utero cassette that originated from Saudi Arabia. Even more surprising was the cover art that completely censored the musculature of the female body depicted on the front cover, almost as if to partially appropriate the chador worn by some Muslim women. Sure, the face, arms, feet and wings were exposed, but everything in between was blacked out.

This FASCINATES me. Just in the same way that the Russian copy of Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nationfascinates me. While said release is unofficial, the fact that the wizards over at Antrop whittled down the double LP to a single LP is shocking. The fact that, rather than depict the Gerhard Richter painting of a candle on the front cover and instead just put a picture of a candle, the cover is absolutely beautiful. In communist Russia, candle lights you! They didn’t have time to try and use the real cover. They just had to make do with the materials they had at hand. I love this approach.

The quest to track down a copy became a mission. With some help, I even had Diogenes_the_Fox on the case. Ultimately, a copy would show up on an eBay auction in March, paired with a Saudi cassette copy of Nirvana’s Nevermind as well. I put in an insane bid immediately. A few days later, I noticed a copy of the Saudi In Utero for sale on Discogs. A little bit cheaper than the starting price on the eBay auction, I figured “what the hell?” and just bought it outright. The auction was soon removed, and I was happy the search had only lasted me about six months.

Photo by Eilon Paz for Dust & Grooves.

Until I did some digging and through saved screen grabs I was able to find out that the Saudi Arabian cassette of Nevermind (which did not have a Discogs entry at the time) actually has a DIAPER drawn on to cover the penis of the baby depicted as swimming on the album artwork.

Shit.

Reached out to my Discogs seller and of course, he was the guy selling on eBay as well. I ended up paying MORE money that had I just gone through with the auction as I bid in the first place, but nevertheless, just shy of a month later I was happily in the possession of these two weird, quasi-unbelievable artifacts of one of my favorite bands and an authoritarian regime that isn’t SO bad as to completely ban or outlaw Western culture — but they’ll be damned if you get to see any naughty bits in the process.

Were it not for Discogs, I would have never even known these records EXISTED, let alone be able to track them down. That is both a blessing and a curse. I accept it happily.

Lost and Found Playlist...

The kind folks at the Detroit Institute of Arts asked me if I could provide a soundtrack to their current Lost and Found exhibit, highlighting vernacular and found photography spanning from the 1860's through the 1970's. I decided to focus on lost and found recordings from the second half of the 20th century. From Detroit. That didn't get flagged by Soundcloud's content management filter.

Enjoy.

The Future of Vinyl Discussion with Anthony Fantano...58 Excruciating Minutes of It

Seems like Fantano "The Internet's Busiest Music Nerd" has a bit of a following. Also seems like I need to figure out whether I need to look at MY picture or HIS picture when speaking on Skype. Apologies for my less-than-crystalline audio quality...no one told me I needed a fancy microphone.

My Recommendations from 20 Years Ago Are Still Rock Solid...

Junior year of high school, Spring of 1998, a classmate named Al told me that he'd found a record store that sold local music. In one of the coolest questions ever asked of me, he said "What should I buy?"

Good thing the store was Car City Records, which basically served as my reason for being back then.

The scan above is the hand-written notes and recommendations I gave him back when I was still sixteen years old.

(Pay no attention to Ass Ponys, Mud Hunnie, Pestiside, Blood Rust, The Reble Rousers, Punk U, My Ass the Vampire, NoFX, KRS-One or Suicide Machines...he must've been getting info from some other punks who's tastes seem to not have aged as well.)

Al posted this on Instagram recently and I was shocked at how much I STILL stand by all of these claims and suggestions twenty years later. Either I'm extremely stunted, incredibly reliable, or a combination of the two.

How A Letter From A Failing Independant Record Label Buoyed The Self-Esteem of a Clueless 15-year-old Virgin and Set Him on a Path of Vinyl Righteousness...

Pulled this one out of the basement recently and was shocked at how responsive, thoughtful and courteous the entire conversation was. When I emailed some of my friends at Sub Pop, their initial response was "Uh oh, how mean a reply was it?"

But this simple letter, along with some "Powered by Sub Pop" stickers, two Eric's Trip pins, something promotional for the Blue Rags (guitar picks? I can't exactly remember) was just the slightest nudge I needed to venture further into the world of independent record labels and mail order. I was 15 years old. I was already asking for classic albums on vinyl. I was salty that the address on the Foo Fighters first album never wrote back to me.  I thought I was clever telling Sub Pop they were "swell."

I can never remind myself enough, but the smallest gesture can sometimes have the largest, most unexpected impact. Deep down inside, I don't think I would be on the exact path I'm on today 21 years later had I not received such a caring letter from a record label I adored.

The Dirtbombs Live, University of Toronto radio, July 31st, 1997

A garage rock time capsule to say the least.

Unheard since 1997, please relish in a time in the not-too-distant past where I was actually not a member of the Dirtbombs. The performance is the EXACT reason why I fell in love with the band and the interview with Mick is revelatory. I could go on and on, but just trust me when I say it's worth the listen. Much respect to Allyson Baker, the then-teenaged CIUT DJ (and now dear friend) who was able to convince these guys to do this performance and was smart enough to tape it! University of Toronto radio...hell yeah.

The Beauty of La Vice and Company's "Two Sisters From Bagdad"

La Vice and Company  happily upload to YouTube if it happens.

La Vice and Company 

Two Sisters from Bagdad

Jazzman reissue, limited to 1000 numbered copies

Behold one of two or three LPs that I would actually pay more than $1000 for. This thing is deep in Detroit record collecting legend. Stories that folks have sent angry emails to Popsike asking them to remove completed auction listings so as not to obscure how rare it may or may not be. That hundreds of copies were destroyed in a basement flood. That it wasn’t really that good of a record.

The main driver behind the demand and apocrypha behind this record is the unparalleled funk of the track “Thoughs Were the Days” (sic). Featured on Numero Group’s “Good God” A Gospel Funk Hynmal” comp from 2006, that’s clearly how most folks became aware of this disc. But with literally no more than a handful of original copies known out there, even just getting to hear the rest of the album was a task, one even I was unable to accomplish until this straight full reissue landed in my lap. 

In the hubbub after the “Freedom at 21” flexi-disc had sold for $4000+ on eBay, I half-jokingly offered up a copy of said flexi as a straight trade for “Two Sisters From Bagdad” on the record nerd site Waxidermy. The response was “A one-tracker for a one-tracker.” Even just last week, a buddy deep and dear to this record said everything on this record except “Thoughs Were the Days” was “soft.”

So with the understated, repetitive opening of “Happy and Blessed” and I couldn’t help but feel frustratingly PISSED that I’d gone so long without hearing this. The variety on the album is wonderfully varied, slightly odd and the EXACT thing I imagine when I cannot sleep at night.

Background: this LP is the soundtrack accompaniment to a play of the same name that ran at Music Hall at Detroit’s Center for the Performing Arts for two weeks in August 1973. The production was a flop and the description below may explain why so few copies sold in the lobby of the performance…

“The play was the story of two sisters who met their earthly demise very early in life and were joined together in Heaven. But there was also a character named Jake, who was an agent from Hell whose job was to recruit people from Heaven because Hell was not getting the people they were used to receiving. Well, Jake got a little frisky with one of the sisters and it appeared that one of the sisters became pregnant and the two were kicked out of Heaven and had to go to Hell. Of course, the Devil took a liking to the other sisters while Jake was wrestling with this thing called LOVE.”

(quote from Ernest Garrison, composer/arranger for the album, brother-in-law to “Bagdad’s” playwright, La Vice Hendricks)

To me, odd, hodgepodge neighborhood productions, something only a couple hundred people ever saw, with no filmed evidence and (seemingly) no extant script…this is what I live for. Such a unique snapshot of a time and place, that no matter how in-depth liner notes may go, no matter how clear they explain the premise of a Hendrick’s “personal commitment to introduce non-racial comedy to a city that has been separated by crime, narcotic and racial differences” highlighted by an all-black ensemble…I will NEVER really know or understand what exactly it was like to witness the performance. It is the absolute definition of ephemeral. And honestly, I feel like the songs legitimately smoke and all those record nerds calling this a “one-tracker” are out of their minds. I STRONGLY urge to give this one a listen, even just to appreciate the industriousness of an endeavor, that while failed during its time, is beautiful and compelling near 45 years after its creation.

Side notes: 

- I think the drive behind my appreciation for this record is the same as my newfound and ever-spiraling appreciation for school band and church records. So many unexplored possibilities! So many flops! You’ll never know or find them all…that makes good collecting.

- My mother-in-law and her younger sister were literally “two sisters from Baghdad” (the production got the spelling wrong) living in Detroit in 1973. I oftentimes play fantastical feats of imagination and conspiracy theorist trying to make them the inspiration for this record.

- My grade school put on a production of a play I recall as named “Let’s Put on a Show” in the mid-Nineties. We did similar productions every year. Equal parts musical and spoken dialogue, I am DYING to know who in the hell actually wrote these things? How did they get into the hands of my music teacher? Was this a profitable endeavor for the composer? I believe my brother has a VHS copy of the entire show and I am DYING to see it, to go back and relive the awkwardness (each production had a token “rap” song that always received HUGE laughs from the largely white and moderately suburban parents that, even as a child, felt misguided). We never put on a production of ANYTHING that I’d heard of/seen ANYWHERE else. No “Annie”, no “Godspell”…just some random rinky-dink thing that I’d never hear/see again in my life…AND IT DRIVES ME CRAZY. I’ve gone on here before about the difficultly of a memory that has no outside corroboration…these things PAIN me. Bro is supposedly working on getting a transfer. I will happily upload to YouTube if it happens.

15 Years Later I Can Reveal...Ben Blackwell is Nick Zinner

     Just shy of 15 years ago, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs did a quick West Coast tour opening for the White Stripes. Towards the end of the trek, Nick of the YYY's was scheduled to do an interview with a magazine about hearse culture called Night Doings. Nick did not want to do the interview. So being up for the challenge, I subbed for him. It was a crackly 2003 cell phone, but even then I felt like the interviewer thought something was up. I clearly remember standing on the loading dock for the RIMAC Arena in San Diego. I also distinctly remember Nick saying to me afterwards something along the lines of "Wow, you really seemed to know what you're talking about."

     For YEARS I never thought this zine ever came out, but bored googling a few years back actually turned up a webpage with a still-active PayPal button that I excitedly clicked on to buy this issue. The publisher wrote back, confused, saying "I don't even know how you were able to send me money." Nevertheless, a copy was dug out and sent my way.

     I only feel slightly bad about this now. I'm still kinda proud of it.

How Michigan is the Fifth Member of the Stooges – OR – A Cultural Cycling Through Three-Hundred Years of Bullshit Historical Anecdotes and Arbitrary Facts to Argue that Geographic Demarcation Can Be Personified as a the Embodiment of a Musician

Regardless of my job, I was asked to write an essay for the "Total Chaos" book with the suggested topic of "How Detroit Was the Fifth Member of the Stooges." I quickly clarified with main author Jeff Gold if I could change "Detroit" to "Michigan", he concurred, and it was with great excitement and sense of accomplishment I completed the piece below. It was the SECOND essay I had published in a book about the Stooges, an honor that is not lost on me.

At the party celebrating the release of the book, Iggy told me two things...

1) That I looked EXACTLY like the guy that threw a bottle (pie?) in his face at some show in Michigan back in the day.

2) That I'm a good writer

That's all I needed to hear. Enjoy.

The borders of Michigan are arbitrary…the survey lines of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, a southeasterly adjustment for a bloodless war with Ohio for the desirable international port of Toledo (the loss of which Michigan got its Upper Peninsula as compensation) and a veritable shit-ton of lakes cut a cute geographic form that can equally be called America’s high-five or America’s hand-job.

Despite this, the entire state of Michigan is incredibly average. There’s nothing of note that really makes it any different from Ohio or Wisconsin or just about any other boring state that doesn’t have mountains or an ocean or hieroglyphs or any sort of cultural accelerant.

So, too, with Ron, Scott, Iggy and Dave. They all came from an entirely average, middle class world. That is the only place from which they could emanate. To be more specific, Michigan is the only place a cultural roundhouse kick like the Stooges could ever be birthed.

As the birthplace to both Domino’s and Little Ceasar’s pizza chains (two of the top four pizza dispensaries in the world, both raking in BILLIONS of dollars every year), it is the unique incubator of Michigan that has a knack for taking what may have been considered low-brow or intended for the edges of society in the mid-1900s and perfecting it, simplifying it (the $5 Hot’n’Ready is marvel of modern economics) and making it understandable for a widespread global audience. As some of the first Western records pressed in the newly opened Russia after the fall of communism in 1991, the hand-illustrated, Cyrillic-bedecked covers of the band’s first two albums are proof positive that this is exactly what Iggy and the Stooges did with their brand of juvenile delinquent-inspired rock and roll. Which coincidentally, goes hand-in-hand with pizza.

And being birthed in Ann Arbor is fitting. With the University of Michigan looming large over the entirety of the town, everything in that city has an air of elitist self-importance. The classic joke goes, “How do you know someone went to the University of Michigan? Let ‘em talk for five seconds...they’ll tell you!” Coupled with the town’s overwhelming left-leaning politics (the Stooges were close friends with folks who bombed a CIA office in the city in 1968) and it’s clear the only place to birth the Stooges, wholly unconcerned with politics or elitism, is a town boiling over in it.

The Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, was educated at U of M, leaving the institution in late 1967. The possibility of him crossing paths with Iggy are nil, but it’s not too big a stretch to correlate that the anarcho-primitivism argued in Industrial Society and Its Future (“The Unabomber Manifesto”) is in some bizarre way in concert with the precisely sparse lyricism and uncluttered instrumentation of the Stooges’ self-titled album. That’s not to say “I Wanna Be Your Dog” is tantamount to serial killing...more like the absolute inverse. As Kaczynski and Iggy are on completely opposite ends of the spectrum, but both so completely laser-focused, so singular, so undistracted by the noise clouding around them that it’s clear the environment had to be somewhat instrumental in fostering those traits.

Jack Kevorkian went to U of M too, but I can’t find the connection there.

This cannot happen in socially-conscious San Francisco of the same era. It would not happen in the fading Village folk scene in NYC as it slowly transformed into glam and punk. Ann Arbor, Michigan, where the rural abuts with the avant-garde on a daily basis, was the only incubator that could birth these bozo geniuses. Michigan is not just where important and relevant moments of this band and its story happened to take place, it is a driving factor and overbearing presence throughout their existence, whatever the locale may be.

You see, Michigan is not a state where anything happens. Outside of Detroit, and a much lesser extent Ann Arbor, it’s all ho-hum humdrum non-descript bullshit. So of course, leave it to Halloween night, 1967, at a house party in Ann Arbor to be the moment this wrecking ball descends into public consciousness. Of course this primitive shit music is taking place at an “invite only” party. Of course John Sinclair and the MC5 (both already important leaders in the countercultural underground of the time) are there. Of course joints are being passed around liberally. Of course it sounded like the Melvins, (as Iggy himself would claim decades later). Of course, of course, of course. Because all roads of all these variables intersect in Michigan.

With the Grande Ballroom in Detroit acting as the de facto Fillmore Midwest, every major rock group of the era stopped in town. Out of sheer stubbornness, dumb luck, or not knowing any better, the Stooges (in tandem with the MC5) were able to act as the unofficial house band for 1968-1969, opening for just about anyone and everyone...Butterfield Blues Band, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Sly and the Family Stone, The Fugs, Blue Cheer, Love, Cream, the James Gang, John Mayall, BB King, The Who, Frank Zappa and on and on and on. No need for U of M, that’s a college education right there. You learn how to perform. Day in, day out. A working band. Imagine that.

Not only did the Stooges figure out how to play, while on stage, in front of a crowd, but also had an almost weekly opportunity to glean from whatever hot-shit or shit shit touring act was coming through town at that moment. The Stooges are not a band that made their bones on tour. They were by no means even “reliable” at home. Old-timers in Detroit took pride in relaying stories of HOW BAD the band actually was saying things like, “we would purposefully show up LATE to the Grande so as to AVOID seeing the Stooges for the umpteenth time.” Only in Michigan would you have the greatest band in the world playing weekly and folks bragging about avoiding it.

So for Iggy to expose his dick (purposefully or not) onstage in Romeo, bumfuck of a town if there ever was one, population just shy of 4,000 back in 1968...it boggles the mind. This is a town known for a Peach Festival and being the home of Kid Rock. Nothing happens there and nothing will continue to happen here until the end of time. It’s the kind of town where someone would make the trip to the police station to let them know the lead singer’s dick is hanging out. Only in Michigan.

The Goose Lake International Music Festival of August 1970 took place in Jackson, Michigan a burg fittingly known for being the longtime home of the state penitentiary and the birthplace of the Republican Party. Before a crowd of upwards of 200,000 people, Dave Alexander fails to play a single note on stage. Be it because of nerves, chemicals, a combination of the two...it’s irrelevant. This would be the biggest crowd the Stooges would see in any iteration (including reunions) and they utterly blew it. Dave was fired, probably rightfully so, but the fact that barely two years prior merely thirty miles down the road these guys were playing their first show in a living room with no prepared material...these guys traversed the entire gamut of a show business career, a musical lifetime, in the span of time it takes to potty-train a child, across a space that’d render as a speck on a map of the United States, Earth or the Universe. All self-contained in Michigan.

Sadness reigns outward from Alexander’s exit. Roadies, also rans and ne’er do wells filter through the ranks, pathetically culminating in a show at Wampler’s Lake Pavilion in Onsted, Michigan, population 555. In an embarrassing adherence to the contractually obligating dictum “the show must go on,” Ron, Scott and Jimmy Recca play the gig without Iggy or James Williamson. A fan (Steve Richards) sings with them for a portion of the night. There are recordings to evidence this. The jams are actually not totally shit. What happens in Onsted doesn’t necessarily need to stay in Onsted.

And Metallic K.O.? What a glorious implosion, swiftly aided by the menacing pressure of local biker gang the Scorpions, at where else...the Michigan Palace, the same spot in Detroit where Henry Ford built his first car back in 1896. It’s captured on tape and does kinda sound like shit. But beer bottles breaking against guitar strings is an apropos sound/image in a coincidental building at a time where the city and region are falling apart, as the domestic auto industry begins its freefall in the thick of the Oil Crisis.

Nigh-on three decades would need to pass for the band to wholly prove themselves to their Michigan brethren. In a way that belied maturity or progress, the Stooges performance at DTE Energy Music Theater (I die a little just from having to type such a bummer of a name) was proof-positive that the band had their shit together. One wouldn’t want them to become cerebral or philosophical and thankfully, the band understood that.

As my first live experience of about half a dozen with the band, it was not only the best performance I’d ever see from the Stooges, it is still the best performance I’ve seen by anyone in my thirty-four plus years. Sure, the show takes place in a huge embarrassingly-named shed, too far out into the exurbs to feel culturally like anything other than a blob of land, with $15 beers (watered down) and $10 parking (clusterfuck), but all the corporate grabby-ness of dollars could not sully the metaphorical boot mark the Stooges imprinted across the entire state of Michigan. America’s high-five has appropriately been met with a swift kick and it’ll never be quite the same.

The Unusual Sound of Chris Crown...

 

Chris Crown

“I Need Lovin” b/w “Hug Me”

Damn. This one is just straight-up odd.

Listening to it yesterday, from one room over, Swank messages and says “This song is scaring me.”

I agree. I just can’t figure out what in the hell is going on here. Feels like some “Grey Gardens”-type shit. Equal-parts long-con, delusion and “Florence Foster Jenkins”

Attached is the only writing I could find about the release, from the Detroit Free Press 1967.  Is it illegal for me to share here? Oh well. Absolutely some of the most bonkers stuff I've ever read. So happy this was recorded and saved for all to hear.

There's also a Christmas (?) single she released that I am absolutely DESPERATE to hear. Will pay top dollar or trade fine and sundry goods in exchange.

Ain’t No Radio Stations Getting Blown Up On My Watch

In remembrance of the legendary Fats Domino, here’s a collage I did a few years back for the Johnny Brewton Kut-Up zine. Utilizing almost exclusively materials that were within immediate reach from the desk in my TMR office, my inspiration for this piece came from the first broadcast of Mick Collins’ Night Train radio show around a decade back.

As the story goes, there was a deranged man repeatedly calling and threatening a radio station. Kept on demanding they play Fats Domino or he was going to bomb the place. There was a big to-do, the offender was tracked down and charged with the appropriate crimes. As Mick tells it, no one ever thought to just play some damn Domino. So with all the determination of a man on a mission, Mick proudly declared “Ain’t no radio stations getting blown up on my watch” and launched in to a half hour of music from the master. This is how he STARTS his public radio career. With style.

It is undoubtedly the favorite radio moment I’ve experienced in my lifetime and I was overjoyed to commemorate it in collage form.

Someone actually bought the original of this for something like $75. Insane.

Record of the Week: Mattiel

Mattiel

self-titled

Burger Records

scum stats: limited quantities on cloudy-clear semi-transparent vinyl, a shit ton on black


I don’t ask much of you folks. I offer up my half-baked opinions here, a link or two and hope it connects with your souls. If not…oh well.

But today, I really, 100% sincerely implore you to put the time and energy into listening to the entire debut album by Mattiel.

I cannot remember the last time I’d discovered a new record that made me feel this good. Personal and the Pizzas Raw Pie? Tyvek’s Fast Metabolism? This is HIGH praise.

The album is flawless. The Jonah Swilley/Randy Michael production team is deadly. Mattiel’s delivery, voice and lyrics are all incredibly inspired and unique and entirely hers. Her confidence is staggering. There is no comparison.

The front album cover photo…it looks badass and imbues an added layer of IMPORTANCE to everything. Someone standing on a horse confers impending greatness in my book. Like an army general ready to conquer an oncoming horde of marauders.

The “Cass Tech” song put me on the verge of tears, everything else crisp, fresh and inviting. I do not peddle in exaggerations. This is truth.

DO NOT SLEEP ON THIS RECORD!

If you at all consider yourself barely a collector, do yourself a favor, buy the colored vinyl now and thank me later.

COLORED VINYL AVAILABLE HERE!

I cannot say enough good things but it feels like I’ve already said too much. Please…on this one, just trust me. It is worth your time.

Record of the Week: The 5.6.7.8's go ska

The 5.6.7.8’s
“Mothra” b/w “Dream Boy”
Time Bomb Records
Limited to 500 copies




Sometimes I marvel when I consider the multiple intersections of my life with the 5.6.7.8’s.

My first serious, in-person conversation with Mick Collins was at a 5.6.7.8’s show at the Magic Stick in Detroit. I was 17, we’d talked on the phone previously about me joining the Dirtbombs, but when talking in person, he asked “Are you in high school? Or college?”

I was in high school, I still got the job.

Five years later, the 5.6.7.8’s are opening for the Dirtbombs at the Magic Stick at the height of “Woohoo” post-Kill Bill exploitation. A LOT of folks in the crowd who’d never seen the Dirtbombs before and would never see us again. In all honesty, we probably should have been opening for the 5.6.7.8’s.

Six years after that, the band is in Nashville, not only recording a live show, a Blue Series single AND a Vault single, but also celebrating Third Man’s reissue of their seminal self-titled LP. Still one of my absolute favorite moments in TMR history is hearing them tear through Ralph Nielsen and the Chancellor’s “Scream” in the Blue Room. There’s no truer distillation of said “Back From the Grave” classic song in my book, not even the original. The 5.6.7.8’s own it.

This is a band that is not of my age, is not from the continent I’m from and can barely speak the only language I am conversant in. By all accounts, we should not be in the same orbit. But we are and I am eternally grateful for it.

I would have a hard time naming a more fully-realized band than the 5.6.7.8’s. Everything about them feels absolutely perfect. Even their first single, slightly off-brand projecting more of a 50’s greaser juvenile delinquent vibe is still so…them. The impeccably dressed, brimming with style Japanese girl-group approach to American surf, garage and (occasionally) rhythm and blues is valhalla. They exist on their own plane. They have no worthy heirs or imitators. They…be.

I became aware of this single way too long after it was released. Probably a year ago? It sat on my Discogs wantlist, ready, available, for nearly a year. I just couldn’t motivate myself to spend $30-ish on the record. I kept on thinking in the back of my mind “There’s got to be a better way.” And for the record, the 5.6.7.8’s are a band that I collect HEAVY.  I’ve got approximately seventeen of their 7-inch singles and that’s a LOT for a band of their vintage (and damn-near every one they’ve released).

Not too long ago it came into my mind that I could just ask their Japanese label, Time Bomb, if they wanted to do a trade. DUH. I was able to include a couple of their LPs I hadn’t grabbed as well and it was as smooth a transaction as possible.

The tracks themselves are an interesting veer from their standard, straightforward garage rock approach. “Mothra”, (originally written as the mightily orchestrated theme song to the 1961 Japanese horror movie in the “Godzilla” vein) echoes with shades of 1960’s ska. Now if I’d read someone else saying that about the 5.6.7.8’s I would immediately mumble “bullshit” under my breath. But when you actually listen to the song, it 100% makes total sense. Just like their foray into traditional Japanese-styled folks songs on their Blue Series single, they’ve made this “ska” approach seem and feel entirely within their wheelhouse.

“Dream Boy”, originally features on the band’s 1996 EP “Bomb the Twist” EP in a more sedate, traditional 50’s R&B doo-wop persuasion. But this song too is presented via the lens of 1960’s ska music. And it’s suited wonderfully.

And now it all makes sense. Taking the pre-existing songs, running them very loosely through a stylistic filter and pairing them together, released in a limited edition of 500 copies through a Japanese record label. Simply beautiful. The continued existence and output of the 5.6.7.8’s puts a smile eternal on my face. Were they ever cease, I would be truly, truly sad.

P.S. the 5.6.7.8’s (in that form) is my favorite band name to type. Every one of those periods pounds out of my keyboard like a foot-stomp along to their tunes

Dissecting the White Stripes First Ever Live Performance...

The White Stripes

“The First Show: Live on Bastille Day”

All of this is from memory. Sometimes memories are false. But anything here is not purposefully false.

I have far more explicit memories of the show the White Stripes would play a month later, their first “full” show with proper setlists and flyers and more than ten folks in attendance.

To me, I remember this as a one-off, as a lark…that Jack and Meg went to the Gold Dollar open mic with little-to-no warning to just test out what it was like being on stage.

As Jack recalls in the Under Great White Northern Lights interview (some of this may be unpublished…you heard it here first!)

Mr. Historian:  What do you guys remember, I wasn’t there, but what do you remember about the first show you played, open mic night at the Gold Dollar?

Jack: Open mic night at the Gold Dollar, I remember there being maybe just a few other people, like 7 or 8 other people there and Neil the owner, and I think all the other bands were from Downriver they were all from Wyandotte or something.  Which is pretty funny they drove all the way to play open mic night in the Cass Corridor.  It was only a three minute ride for us.   We played three songs.

Mr. Historian (Ben):  What three songs?

Jack: I think "Love Potion #9"

Meg: Yeah definitely.

Jack: Which we changed to "Love Potion #10"

Meg: Was it "Screwdriver"?

Jack: Maybe "Moonage Daydream."  "St. James Infirmary" maybe?

Ben: It wasn’t "Moonage Daydream," I want to say maybe "Jimmy the Exploder."

Jack: "Jimmy the Exploder," "Screwdriver," and "Love Potion # 10"?

Ben: Yeah.

Jack: Anyways I remember the band after us did a cover of "Born to be Wild" [laughs].  And after we were so drunk and wasted, I was sitting there with Neil and they started the song, which sounded pretty note perfect, but then the singer says “get your motor running head out on my asshole!”  Which we didn’t seem to understand what he meant by that [laughs]. Not a typical impersonation of "Born to be Wild", maybe Downriver in Detroit, I don’t know [laughs with Meg].

Ben:  So then after that you guys did, like a month later, you guys played two more shows at the Gold Dollar.

Jack: Was it that week we played or a month later?

Ben: So that first show would have been Bastille Day July 14, 1997.

Jack: Ok.

Ben: And then the shows with Rocket 455, and the Henchman were the 14th and 15th of August.

Jack:  Oh I seem to think we went to go do open mic night the week before we went and did those shows

Meg: Yeah I thought so too.

Jack: Because we were worried that we weren’t going to know what we were doing when we got up there.

Jack:  Maybe Bastille Day was our first practice Ben?

Ben: Maybe?

Jack: I can’t remember, but yeah then we booked the show with the Hentchmen outside the Demolition Dollrods show, we had a copy of the album out in front of the Magic Bag and the Hentchmen walked by.  I said hi to them.  That was the first time we met them. 

Meg: That’s right.

Jack: Remember I gave him my upholstery card.  He wasn’t sure about booking us for the show, but he did say he may have some upholstery work for me in his Piermont wagon. 

Then we booked a show with the Hentchmen first.  And then we booked a show with Rocket 455 after that, because we went and saw Kitty Wells (to Meg) remember? Play at that old senior citizen center?

Meg: I don’t think I was with you.

Jack: Went and saw Kitty Wells with Dan and Tracee from Blanche, we were starting Two Star Tabernacle at the time.  Dan, Tracee and I, and Damien Lang who drummed for the (Detroit) Cobras, and then we went and saw Kitty Wells at this senior citizen community center, and we met Jeff Meier from Rocket 455, so we booked a show with Jeff opening up at the Gold Dollar after the Hentchmen, but we actually played with them first, so they both are always laughing and arguing over who we played with first, where our first show was.  But the first three shows were at the Gold Dollar, that’s for certain.  An old... it used to be a drag queen bar in Cass Corridor.

Anyway, folks have said it before, but it cannot be stressed enough…damn-near EVERYTHING that made the White Stripes “THE WHITE STRIPES” exists right here, day one, without waver. Yet they had absolutely NO idea it would ever get this big. From another interview I did with Jack back in 2003…

BB: I remember you saying, when the White Stripes first started playing “Two Star Tabernacle, I can see us getting really huge, the White Stripes, maybe we’ll do a record or two, be some kind of cult band.”  It’s kinda changed since then, don’t you think?

JW: I don’t remember saying that, but I guess it’s just the opposite.  The Two Star 45 is like a cult thing.  The White Stripes have become some insane institution…in some sense.


The idea of a two-piece band, wearing red-and-white, with a childish approach to their art was solidified on this day.
They were childish because of the extent of Meg’s skill on drums and because of Jack's intent on guitar. 

When TMR obtained multi-track masters of a bevy of White Stripes and Jack White-related live performances from the Gold Dollar, this show was, unshockingly, not available. The master of this performance exists as a cassette copy, mixed live by bar owner/sound engineer Neil Yee and handed to Jack immediately after the performance. Important stuff.

From there, this tape was deemed LOST (by me anyway) for a few years. In the pic below (pulled from the legendary White Stripes / Arthur Dottweiler video clips) you can see a big huge metal Coca-Cola sign on top of the refrigerator. That sign was there forever. It wrapped around all three exposed sides of the fridge. Behind THAT was an old-fashioned metal bread box that held all sorts of badass historic tapes. Not gonna lie…the lone complete copy of the Vegetarian Cannibals master was in that box.

Anyway, when the cassette was unearthed (I wanna guess 2002 or 2003) I remember listening to it and Meg not being terribly pleased with her performance. But she had literally been playing drums for no more than four months, and not on some insanely dedicated rehearsal schedule.

To start the whole performance with “Alright, uh, we’ll just bore ya for two or three songs…” is beautiful. What a start, a disclaimer! Jack’s solo after the second verse sounds like he forgot he had to play one at that point. But the way he exits that portion, with some chugga riffing and a sweet descending measure is excellent and would not appear on the rendition one month later in the first full show at the Gold Dollar on August 14th.

Also, THAT show is burned in my brain because Jack let me make a copy of that cassette early on. For the longest time, that was the ONLY recordings of the White Stripes I had to listen to. So the version of “St. James” from that show is primarily what I think of when I imagine that song.

The last verse struggles for a second to find footing amidst what could be a fake false ending. I would’ve liked to hear it play out with just Jack’s vocals and drums, but this boy will be left to dream.

“Jimmy the Exploder” is what I thought was the band’s “hit” single at the time. So much so that I was quite surprised when Jack told me that “Let’s Shake Hands” was going to be the a-side of their first single. They’d barely even played that song at that point. But Jack let me in on the secret, “I think ‘Jimmy’ is too good for the single. We’re saving that for the album.”

The album? “The balls on him” I thought. No one’s around trying to put out a White Stripes album in early 1998. But as is usually the case, he was totally right and exhibiting just the appropriate amount of foresight. This is why I would wallow in the barely-functioning independent rock and roll underground for years before being brought along for the TMR ride back in 2009.

Jimmy heroes about as complicated a drumbeat as Meg would tackle in the first few years and despite starting off rocky, I like the way that she inverts the beat around the 23-second mark (and the 50-second mark) as it is reminiscent of Scott Ashton's badass stutter beat on the Stooges "Dirt" at the 5:03 mark.

As Jack declares at the ending, "Jimmy the Exploder" is about a monkey who explodes things that are the color red. Or is it things that AREN'T red? "Green apples are gonna be exploding now" lyrics throw me off and I realize that in the intervening 20 years I've argued BOTH sides of argument and cannot remember where I'm supposed to end up.

Ending with “Love Potion #9” which for years was my favorite cover the White Stripes did, despite the fact that by 1998 it had all but disappeared from their set. I have a memory of Jack asking his brother Joe if he could borrow a copy of this song (the Coasters version?) on 45, and it seems like it was explicitly to cover it. 

THIS is so pure, so simple, two chords, one additionally thrown in for an accent here and there, Meg’s drums locking on waltz signature, the interplay with the audience, “What he said…one, two, three four!” and NAILING that next note. Wow. If we didn’t have this tape to prove it I would never believe the performance would’ve been so wonderful.

There’s no tangible way to measure how much joy, love, pain, stress and absolute great feelings in my life are ultimately tied to these inauspicious events that happened twenty years ago today. So I’ll just continue to listen, as I have been for the past twenty years, and marvel at what a beautiful sound could be made by two of my favorite people on earth.

Listen here...

The White Stripes The First Show: Live on Bastille Day 7-14-97