OH, MAMA, MAMA LOOK THERE...

Christmas 1981 I hoped Santa would bring me two things: cassette copies of Wild Gift by X and Sandinista! by The Clash.

Starting in the first week of December, I would spend afternoons rooting around my mom's closet, fearless because I was a latchkey kid. One day, I lifted the lid on a hatbox that was pushed to the back behind some heavy wool coats, and there they were-- lovely stacked plastic rectangles, with price tags removed. I retrieved a knife from the kitchen, and slit the brittle wrapping just enough so that I could work open the hinges of the cases and pull out the cassettes.

Each day for the next couple of weeks I would come home from school, pull out the cassettes, listen until 5:30 or so, and then put them back. I made a pantomime of surprise on Christmas morning...

Of course what strikes me now is that my teenage passions had motivated a 48-year-old widow weaned on classical music and WQXR to go into a record store and buy X and Clash cassettes. I am on the edge of tears just considering it.

So thanks for the punk rock, mom! (And, um, sorry again about that Sex Pistols bumper sticker I put on the Maverick...)

WHY DO YOU LEAVE ME SO CONFUSED?

Just dropped by to let you know that I haven't gotten any smarter...

Haha Sound by Broadcast was released back in August of 2003. It was one of my favorite albums of that late summer, and remained in heavy rotation through the fall and winter and on into spring.

It has a place to this day in my ever-changing all-time top 10 list, sometimes ranking as high as fourth.

Now here's where the stupid comes in...

All these years, I admit that I've been somewhat baffled by the album's title. The mood-- as with most things Broadcast-- would not typically be qualified as "haha" funny, so I could never quite figure if the title was meant to be ironic.

Well, the other day I was reading an article on the group, which pointed out that "haha" means "mother" in Japanese. Which of course makes "Haha Sound" an absolutely perfect title for the album.

I'm hardly fluent in Japanese, but I know enough about the language to know that "haha" means mother. I just never made the connection.

I told all this to Taeko across the breakfast table the other day, with excitement in my voice and wonder in my eyes. Let's just say that she was filled with a bit less excitement and wonder...

SOMETIMES IT IS HALF FULL

Goddam, I've been going through an extended period where nothing new is clicking for me.

I spent the last six months of 2012 kind of obsessing over the Animal Collective catalog, but that has since abated.

So I've taken the opportunity to go back and visit some of the far corners of my Broadcast and Stereolab collections. A couple of discoveries:

• Over the years, the two singles from The Noise Made By People (Come On Let's Go and Paper Cuts) have kind of obscured the rest of the album for me, but I'm realizing now just how much I like it.

• Much to my surprise, I've also discovered that I kind of love Chemical Chords. I think I listened to it for a week or so when it came out back in '08, and my provisional opinion was that Stereolab were running on fumes at that point. The group's subsequent announcement of a "hiatus/sabbatical/pause/intermission/breather" in early '09 seemed to confirm that notion, and was not met by me with any rending of garments. It was time. But when all is said and done, I can see Chemical Chords settling in comfortably near the top of second-tier Lab albums. Valley Hi! indeed...

SOUND OF THE BREAKERS

Trouser Press, August 1983

Insect Surfers, Barricade Beach

The Source, Workin' on a Dream

This is the last of my full-color Trouser Press flexi discs, and we're going out on a somewhat obscure note.

It's a split affair, containing a track each by Insect Surfers and The Source.

The Source were from Akron/Cleveland. Not sure if they knew Pere Ubu or Devo growing up, but they were definitely on a similar post-punk tip.

I can't find a copy of the song featured on this flexi, but see below for a video of the excellent Keypunch Operator. These guys were Gang of Fouring the Gang of Four before Franz Ferdidand ever soiled a nappie.

Insect Surfers started in DC back in the summer of 1979, and are still around today (!)-- they bill themselves now as “Planet Earth's longest running modern surf band.”

Their track on this lemon-yellow disk is called “Barricade Beach” and it's kind of redolent of Blotto. Except for the fact that you don't feel the overwhelming urge to punch Insect Surfers in the head, which was the only sane and reasoned response to Blotto...