The Tunes

Fireballet: Desiree

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 17:48:48 -0400

Fireballet were five guys from New Jersey, who mostly looked like the kind of guys you’d see at a New Jersey Turnpike truck stop (the bass player’s name was Spike, after all), and who played a decidely un-New Jersey kind of progressive rock: upper register vocals and multi-part harmonies, lots of keyboards and strings, tempo changes and musical detours galore. And it all worked, especially on Two, Too..., their second album, from which this track (the most commercial track on it) is taken.

Flue: Sometimes (In Arabia)

Sat, 15 Aug 2009 09:57:13 -0400

Anyone who knows us knows we have a weakness not only for Arabic music but also any of those mid-80s electronic projects (mostly we hesitate to call them bands) that threw in Arabic influences like they were going out of style. Flue were one of them, a relatively anonymous bunch from Holland who released a few singles and one album, and we could listen to this track over and over (as indeed we have), we like it that much.

Enemies: Secret Agent Man

Sat, 15 Aug 2009 09:15:38 -0400

Aaaaand, he’s back. Our old friend !!swanhunter, that is, this time with his 70s-era punk band Enemies, rocking out (in a manner of speaking) with their cover of Secret Agent Man. The band never really went anywhere, but this recording is still here, and now you get to enjoy it, too. Email us if feel you need to know what part !!swanhunter played in all this.

The Avant Gardeners: $30s

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 08:39:14 -0400

More 70s-era punks, England’s Avant Gardeners sometimes played it fairly straight, as here, and sometimes veered off into cartoon-punk land. You’ll have to believe us when we say they were better at the former (although the goofy Strange Gurl In Clothes is something of a minor classic, and worth seeking out for those of you with lots of time and disposable income).

!!swanhunter: Oscillation Runner

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 22:49:09 -0400

OK, we’re cheating a little here, since !!swanhunter is someone very near and dear to us, and this hasn’t been commercially released. !!swanhunter has been making electronic music with his bank of computers (he calls it “laptop terrorism”) for some time now, with a few things available in the wider world if you dig around a bit, and lots of stuff he’s willing to share if you ask him. Oscillation Runner is taken from the near-hit album Cause and Defect.