Moog Memories

My first paying job was working for the Troy School District as a theater technician. The Performing Arts Center at our high school was rented to local organizations for events; it was a very nice facility, and as theatre kids we were trained on the lights, sound, pinrail, and other technical aspects of the theater. (I even helped Dr. Ruth Westheimer up on a podium while working there).

At one variety show, I was moving musical equipment on and off stage. This was circa 1983 or so, and I recall vividly a synthesizer rig being wheeled out on stage. It was a Memorymoog. Someone tripped over the cord and the thing got unplugged; all the patches had to be re-programmed before the act could go on.

Happy Dad

Marti sent this great snap of her and my Dad in Utah--Brenda took it with her iPhone. My dad was supposed to be toiling away on a case in DC, but it looks like it's postponed.

I wasn't the only one to tell him that he should get his bucket on a plane to Park City. Here he is enjoying some great Spring skiing with Marti.

Awesome.

As for me, my 1:30 meeting was canceled, so I am headed over to the Fitness Center.

>What a great day we had yesterday, including watching the
>"Pond Skimming" where 85 people in weird costumes skied
>over a pond (most didn't make it), an apres-ski concert by
>the Whalers (Bob Marley's band), dinner at a new Israeli
>restaurant, and a concert by Rory Block. It was made all
>the sweeter by the fact that Jim being able to come out
>was an unexpected surprise.
>
>Love,
>Marti

------------------------

These pictures just made my day!

Um, and it's "Wailers" not "Whalers." Tee hee hee.

Reggae band:
http://www.wailers.com/band/

Fishing vessel:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaler

Love,
SR

A Band In My Head

I'm not very creative. Some people push back at me when I say this, but it's essentially true. I've been in bands and done creative things, but I don't write songs, poems, or anything like that. Just the past few days a sound has been coming into my head. And George gave me an electric guitar yesterday. I think I have everything I need to make a record.

I like lots of bands and sounds and types of music, and that's a big part of my problem. What would I want to do? Also, I feel like there is more good music out there than I will ever get a chance to hear. Why would I make more, especially since it probably won't be very good?

I like these two bands a lot lately:

http://www.myspace.com/televisionroom

http://www.myspace.com/amanset

Both great names. So I discovered American Analog Set back in 2005 when I made my Black Postcards mix (still listen to that thing--boy how failure inspires you!). Love that sound: soft, brushy drums, acoustic guitars, clean electrics, breathy harmonies. I love the refrain on "Aaron and Maria" when the sweet harmony goes "'Cause no one gives a fuck about us."

I've been in band with names like:

• Diatribe
• Housequake
• Trancemitter
• The Clamdiggers
• George Washington
• The Frenzy Brothers

When we were forming Diatribe, I lobbied hard for the name "Gifts and Lamps." I am glad I didn't win. I got the name from a section of the Meijer store. I also wanted to start a funk/techno band called "Real Live Band." It could have been "RLB" for short. You can see why naming the band was never left to me.

I wonder if I could think of original band names--there are more names out there than you can imagine. Lots of cool ones taken. Here's a band name maker. Brainstorm:

• Rip a name from a Brian Eno lyric (worked for A Certain Ratio)


• Rip a name from a Talking Heads song (worked for Radiohead)


• Be creative.

Yamaha DX7 immortalized

http://www.vintagesynth.com/yamaha/dx7.php

Took the kids to see Monsters v. Aliens this weekend, and it's funny. There's a great sequence when the President (played by Stephen Colbert) ascends a giant staircase to address an alien spaceship. Built into his presidential podium is a Yamaha DX7--very clearly identified as such; in fact, the machine is rendered in loving detail with many close ups of the buttons.

President/Colbert begins fumbling with the melody used to communicate with aliens at Devil's Tower in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (be botches it); and then goes right into the funny "Axel F" melody from Beverly Hills Cop. Both of these gags are references to a funny popcult thing--the fact that most everybody who gets near an electronic keyboard attempts to noodle out these melodies (I recall a stupid episode of Friends when a flashback shows Ross playing "Axel F" on his Casio).

[as noted here, however, the DX7 did not have preset drum patterns--they made fun of it as though it were an old Casio! This blog author hates the DX7; it's not a cool, retro synth, but it certainly was a roadworthy bar band tool.]

At any rate, the DX7 sequence in Monsters v. Aliens was really cool. And, on the serious side, that was a major piece of 1980s gear--cheap enough for most folks to use in a band setting. It might be the most deployed synth in history. I was in 3 bands where the DX7 was a mainstay.

Fr. George Gave Me A Guitar!

He really did! He had two of these, and this one had a crack in the neck. He took it to Elderly and had Steve Olson fix it--Steve and I used to be in a band together. I've never been an electric guitar player, but this one will be fun to play with.





I haven't owned an electric guitar since I was 20 years old! Back then, I had a Squier strat copy, and if I were buying one for myself I'd get a strat-style guitar with 3 single-coil pickups. Or I'd get some kind of jazz archtop; this Hamer is more like a Les Paul/Les Paul Jr. Gibson-type; big frets, dual humbuckers.

I just pulled this Radiohead out of my head and threw it up here. Thanks for the guitar, George!

NOTE: I went back and listened to "Airbag" and wow! I think I nailed that. Pretty sure it's the same key and everything. I rush it a little bit, but that is essentially the sound. Playing with this guitar will be fun; I've never really tried to play electric guitar. This thing has a pretty nice clean sound, too--maybe I could get some jazz guitar videos and learn Barney Kessell type stuff. But it might also be fun to learn enough rock and roll stuff to start making tunes in GarageBand or something. I never really have been a songwriter.

Jim's Farewell Mix

Pals at work asked me to make a gift mixtape for a co-worker who is retiring. He's a Motown freak, so it was easy. I started with my Boomerang! mix as a base and moved things in and out. I think he'll like it.

Destination Anywhere: A Farewell Mixtape for Jim Leonard

“When the rain turn to snow
And it's 90 below
That's when I'll come back to you!”

This mix has a gag opener. It’s a separate track so it can be easily skipped or removed. Bob & Doug McKenzie kick it off: “Good Day, welcome to school... How's it goin', eh?” There just had to be a cheap-shot Canada joke here. We'll get to the Motown, but we start off with Sam Cooke's “I'll Come Running Back To You,” the 1957 B-Side to “You Send Me.” The mix gets its title from the next track, “Destination Anywhere” by the Marvelettes; this is as good a Motown song as you'll ever hear, coming at the height of that organization's magic. We know that Jim isn't leaving heartbroken with no care for his destination, but this song captures a sense of the ambivalence he must feel about moving on. We stick with Motown for the moment and hear Junior Walker's “Do The Boomerang,” because like the Aboriginal hunting tool, we wish Jim would turn around and come back to us. Jim, be sure to heed Junior's direction when he sings “Do your own little thing, now!” Next and also Motown is “Farewell Is A Lonely Sound” by Jimmy Ruffin; Ruffin's kid brother was one of the lead singers in the Temptations. Sticking with “goodbyes” as a theme and Motown as a source, we hear a 13-year-old Michael Jackson drop the 1971 hit “Never Can Say Goodbye” by The Jackson 5. We're pulling out of Motown now, and we'll get pretty far away, but the first transition is pretty smoothly led by Al Green whose 1973 “Call Me” reminds Jim to stay in touch with us. From here, a couple of white rock/blues tracks fit really nicely: Jefferson Airplane doing the traditional blues “Come Back Baby,” arranged by Jorma Kaukonen while Grace Slick sits out; next is “She'll Come Back” from the last Turtles record entitled Wooden Head. We promise not to be as devastated by your departure as the narrator of this track appears to be. In an attempt to get Jim to stay, however, we pull out the big guns and play “Come Back to Me” from Roy Orbison's 1961 Lonely and Blue. When that doesn't work, dejected, we head back to Motown and listen to Eddie Kendricks sing “It's So Hard for Me To Say Goodbye.” Resigned, we put the Ink Spots on and spin the incomparable lament “When the Swallows Come Back To Capistrano.” Because the guitar intro of this track almost certainly inspired the Sam Cooke song that started this whole mix, we are ready to be done and need someone to put it all in perspective. Who better than Louis Armstrong, who tells it like it is to his wife Lil Hardin in this 1927 Frank Biggs masterpiece “That’s When I’ll Come Back To You.” Satchmo says it: “Baby, you lost a gold mine when you lost me!” True enough. Enjoy retirement, Jim!

Playlist

1. School Bell Gag Opener / Bob & Doug McKenzie
2. I'll Come Running Back To You / Sam Cooke
3. Destination Anywhere / The Marvelettes
4. Do The Boomerang / Junior Walker and the All Stars
5. Farewell Is A Lonely Sound / Jimmy Ruffin
6. Never Can Say Goodbye / Jackson 5
7. Call Me / Al Green
8. Come Back Baby / Jefferson Airplane
9. She'll Come Back / The Turtles
10. Come Back To Me (My Love) / Roy Orbison
11. It's So Hard For Me To Say Goodbye / Eddie Kendricks
12. When The Swallows Come Back To Capistrano / Ink Spots
13. That's When I'll Come Back To You / Louie Armstrong and His Hot Seven

A Strange And Stupid Idea

... I get them sometimes.

This one came to me driving to my mother's funeral. I was thinking about how amazing it is that children grow new teeth. I have a cracked tooth right now, and loose tooth is a sensation I have not felt since I was a child. And then the idea came to me:

Q. What if there are developmental stages in humans that have never appeared because we just haven't lived long enough for them to happen?

Think about it for a second. If our genetic code has some provision to grow new lungs or a third set of teeth at age 125 or something, we wouldn't know about it yet. But we might as medical science prolongs our lives. Something about the design (intelligent or random, it matters not) of humans allows for a second set of teeth. I wonder if any animals grow new organs in old age. Certainly some grow new organs during life (salamanders, etc.). Ah, the stuff I think about.

This is stupid and implausible. But interesting. The small child in me disparately wishes my mother could have grown a new pair of lungs. Maybe that's on the horizon.

A sub-set of this odd thought is meditation on redundant pairs of organs in our body. Redundant might not be the right word: eyes, ears, lungs, kidneys... all these things come in pairs and you can live with only one. I think your life is significantly diminished without a working pair, but loss of one is certainly survivable.

Still One of the Best Mixes on 8tracks

"If I only knew your name, I'd go from door to door."

It really is one of the best mixes out there:



Not the greatest title, but this is a masterful creation. Love every song; most were new to me. Some wonderful things.

The mixer/dj/whatever-you-call-it is anotherlatenight. Kind of an interesting account--he/she has almost no information posted there and is following no other accounts.

annotated playlist for
Embarrassing, but the Ben Folds track inspired this mix.
8tracks mix by anotherlatenight

1. Mixtapes for Girls / My Legendary Girlfriend
2. You Don't Know Me (featuring Regina Spektor) / Ben Folds
3. Bag of Hammers / Thao Nguyen & The Get Down Stay Down
4. Lottery Winners on Acid / The Crimea
5. Sipping on the Sweet Nextar (Utlracity Vocal Dub) / Jens Lekman
6. Coffee Houses / Television Room
7. Young Love / Mystery Jets (featuring Laura Marling)
8. Pack Up Your Suitcase / Camera-Head Shark
9. Hot Mess / Sam Sparro
10. No You Didn't, No You Don't / The Courteeners
11. Roboxulla / The Jealous Girlfriends
12. Magnificent (featuring Kardinal Offishall) / Estelle
13. Lolita / Throw Me The Statue
14. Punched / Camera-Head Shark
15. Birthday Girl / The Roots

(I did all the Googling for you--links to Myspace or Wiki pages on all artists)

Radio Mix

Turn off the radio!
Turn off that bullshit!
(Radio programming ain't a figure of speech)

There are enough people on 8tracks now to enable a quick mix of other people's tunage. Here's my first one--a work in progress that should grow as people comment. Radio Songs!




I had to hack the embed code to use the old player. The new player has album art but no skip track button. I like the old one.

"Stick a funky tape in it!"

Initial Playlist

1. Radio Freq / Dead Prez
2. My Radio / Solvent*
3. On My Radio / The Selecter
4. Rock and Roll / The Velvet Underground
5. Roadrunner / The Modern Lovers
6. Video Killed The Radio Star / The Buggles
7. Radio Free Europe / REM
8. This Is Radio Clash / The Clash
   
9. Radio Silence / Thomas Dolby
10. On The Radio / The Concretes*
    
11. Radio, Radio / Elvis Costello and the Attractions
12. Caravan / Van Morrison
13. Radios In Motion / XTC*
14. Radio Interrupt / Wired For Mono*
    
15. Turn Off That Radio / Ice Cube*
    

* uploaded to 8tracks by G-Fab

Thoughts on Radio as a Symbol in Pop Music

I think there are many uses of radio as a metaphor in popular song. Here you'll find a mix of the two major types: radio as oppression, and radio as liberation. More about this when I can give a shit. For the time being, let Elvis, XTC and Dead Prez explain the dark side of the airwaves; JoJo, The Velvets, and Van Morrison will show you the light.

NOTE: I love the Jerry Harrison organ part on "Roadrunner." I think that Stereolab got most of their sound from what Jerry is doing here. Jonathan Richman's "Roadrunner" is runner up for G-Fab's best rock and roll song of all time. (What's #1? Why "Not Fade Away" by Buddy Holly, of course!).

Crank up 'yo speakers!
'Yo woofas and 'yo tweeters!
Turn up 'yo receivers!
We bangin' off the meter!

Diagnosing Notmyitis: A Cure for the Common Coldness

A clinical paper by Dr. G-Fab*

We've all had a touch of it before. Perhaps you've felt a bit overwhelmed in your work. Requests are coming at you from left and right. Everyone seems to expect miracles from you. Your help is requested on matters that, to you, seem distant and far removed from your immediate responsibilities. You feel bossed around by people other than your supervisor. You find yourself using phrases such as "it's not my problem," "that's not my job," or "you're not my boss." Sound familiar? Once a patient presents with these types of symptoms, the diagnosis is clear: this is a case of notmyitis.

No one is immune from this common organizational ailment. We pass it back and forth freely as part of our daily worklife. Notmyitis can have a chilling impact on the workplace, as it distances people from pressing issues that are unlikely to go away on their own. This is why notmyitis has been informally labeled “the common coldness.” The bad news is that cases of notmyitis are very much on the rise in our constantly changing, fast-paced work environment. The good news is that the condition is treatable. Some recent experiences of mine have led me to develop what I believe to be a 100% effective treatment.

Emerging Research on Effective Notmyitis Therapies

My treatment for notmyitis is to prescribe heavy doses of probative strategic questions. Linguistic research in discourse analysis has shown questions to be the most powerful utterances in any language. In early clinical studies, the simple act of asking a set of powerful questions when a notmyitis symptom presents has resulted in a near 100% recovery. The table below outlines effective treatment regimens for the three major types of notmyitis, which are sub-classified as notmyproblem, notmyjob, and notmyboss.

[click on the table below to examine symptoms, treatments, and clinical discussion].

Participate in a Clinical Trial

Because I can specifically recall times in my career when I have been plagued with the symptoms of notmyitis, I have begun a clinical trial of the above treatment plans in my own worklife. I plan to follow the prescriptions above when I feel the onset of symptoms. This is an open clinical trial, and any willing candidates are eligible to participate. Please report your results to me so we may document our findings in the appropriate journals.

* G-Fab is not a medical doctor.

Driving & Details

The Analog Mix has been paused for several days due to the death of the author's mother. As a result, the thematic content here might drift toward death and dying, but all posts should conform to the editorial policy of being random, trite, and inconsequential. As can be imagined, there are aspects of death and loss that are mundane, uninteresting, and unremarkable. I'll write about those here.

After my mother died on Monday, I described what would become the rest of my week as "driving and details." This was an accurate forecast. I will probably write about many of those details here. I also have some ideas for posts, including "G-Fab's Guide To Scattering Cremains." Right now, though, I am happy to be home and looking forward to a boring, normal day of life here in Grand Blanc tomorrow.

As you know, I was out of the office last week due to the illness and death of my mother, Sharon [xxxxx]. My mother died of Acute Interstitial Pneumonitis (AIP), a rare and untreatable lung disease with no known cause; she was 63 years old. I was with my mother when she died, and my younger sister was able to come in from Sweden with her infant son for a small family ceremony. Yesterday, we scattered my mother's ashes in the ocean on Cape Hatteras, where she has lived for the past several years. I wish to thank [xxxxx] for her understanding and flexibility during my mother's illness. I also wish to thank [xxxxx] and [xxxxx] for keeping our department afloat during my absence. Thank you all for your kind words and thoughts. I am back in the office starting tomorrow, March 16, 2008.

Speaker Re-Foam Test

So, Todd came to visit and we had a blast. He met the new dog, ate Thai food, and helped me help Owen with his homework. We went to the basement to do some A/B comparisons on some bookshelf speakers. In addition to being one of my oldest pals in the world (and 33% of the readership of this blog), Todd shares my love for the Baby Advent II loudspeaker. Don't buy new bookshelf speakers when you can grab a pair of these Babies on eBay for $40!!

Todd and I recently re-foamed the woofers on pairs of Baby Advent IIs. Mine went better than his, mostly because I had a better kit to work with. We listened to the two re-foamed pairs and determined mine the winner. Then we had a contest between mine and a totally-mint-condition-and-great-sounding pair of Baby Advent IIs he purchased recently. Todd's minty pair beat out mine, but it was close.

It was fun. I miss hanging around with Todd. Cool guy.

Oh, and it was a great excuse to spin some vinyl. We listened to Speaking in Tongues (pictured), a newish LCD Soundsystem 12" single, Buzzcocks, Pete Shelley's very odd 1981 solo record Homosapien, Lennon's Plastic Ono Band (brilliant!), and Bill Evans' Sunday At The Village Vanguard.

Todd also hooked his iPhone to the thing and played Arctic Monkeys for me--they are great!

Diatribe Cover Mix

Paper Thin: A Diatribe Cover Mix



I love covers. Anyone who's been in a band knows the drill: until you write a bunch of your own songs, you need to learn a bunch of covers to play at gigs. The most successful band (not very) I was in was Diatribe: bass, drums, guitar, organ/accordion. We did reggae, zydeco, R&B, rock, and Afro-Caribbean dance stuff; all of our covers were inflected with these, sometimes with very tuneful and hilarious results. It wasn't uncommon for me to be laughing my ass off as we played.

I talked to Steve Olson today; he works at the Elderly Instruments (referred to here as "The Store") repair shop. Talking with Steve made me think of some of the covers we used to play in Diatribe. I'm making a 14-track mix of the covers we used to play. These all came back to my memory in the 10 minutes after we talked; we played lots more.

The funny thing about this list is that most of the covers were funky re-interpretations of the songs. Some of them even got us in trouble. Some rock dudes actually got angry with us over our cover of Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love." We did a jerky, speedy, no-wave version of that tune. It was irreverent, disrespectful, and fun as hell! We did a funk version of "Trampled Under Foot" by Zeppelin (major Bootsy Collins funk bassline on that one). We also did funny medley-type mashups of pairs: we joined "She's About A Mover" and "What'd I Say"; we joined "Workin' In A Coal Mine" and "Canary In A Coal Mine." I can't remember what we mashed up with "Magic Carpet Ride," but playing that song is a highlight of musical memory for me: I used to set my rig right next to Mike's Leslie speaker and stand in front of it. I can still feel the wind rushing off the bass rotors in that Leslie on my sweaty neck! (Hamilton Street Pub in Saginaw!!!).

Playlist

1. Live Wire / The Meters
2. She's About A Mover / The Sir Douglas Quintet
3. The Cutter / Echo and the Bunnymen*
4. Mystery Dance / Elvis Costello*
5. The Weight / The Band
6. Got Me Under Pressure / ZZ Top
7. Haven't Done Nothin' / Stevie Wonder
8. Magic Carpet Ride / Steppenwolf
9. Monkey Man / The Rolling Stones
10. Paper Thin / John Haitt
11. Sunshine Of Your Love / Cream
12. Front Line / Stevie Wonder
13. Life During Wartime / Talking Heads
14. Trampled Under Foot / Led Zeppelin

*G-Fab on lead vox.

Gigs & Fliers

D. Boon and Mike Watt--brilliant econo punk pioneers--had a saying about life when they were The Minutemen. Life could be divided into two categories: gigs and fliers. Gigs were doing the thing; fliers was prepping to do the thing. Ain't that true?

Here are some old Diatribe fliers I made when we were gigging in East Lansing circa 1990.

My Mom Doing Better

The handful of you guys who check in on me know my mom is in ICU in Norfolk; I was there for 6 days. We had a somewhat-hopeful diagnosis (crptogenic interstitial pneumonitis). It's going to take a while for her lungs to recover, but she has been off the ventilator for 6 hours now. Excellent news.

Fantasy Bass Rig Shopping

Okay, here's the scenario. Buy one bass and one bass rig (amp, cab, cables, effects) in 30 minutes online--no price limit. Goal is not to spend as much as you can, but you need not consider price. No fair buying super expensive stuff to sell later and get more gear. You must play this stuff. No real money is being spent--just a game. Time starts now. Go.

Okay, I shopped for two rigs: one at Sweetwater, the other at Musician's Friend.

Sweetwater

• Trace Eliot AH-600 head ($1,099)
  
• 2 Trace Eliot 1518 1x15 cabs ($1,119)
  
• Fender American Vintage '62 Re-Issue Jazz Bass ($1,959)*
• TOTAL PRICE: $4,179.96

*why don't they just charge $1,962 for that '62 Re-Issue?

Musician's Friend

• Ampeg SVT 400w head ($749)
• Ampeg SVT 6x10 cab ($999)
• Music Man Stingray 4-string ($1,365)
• TOTAL PRICE: $3,114
  

Commentary:

The Fender/Trace Eliot rig is comfortable territory. You need the 2 15" cabs to compensate for the J-Bass. The Music Man / Ampeg rig is going to be bright and loud! The humbucker will be low, but the maple neck will be super bright. With either of these rigs, you'd better hope there's a P-Bass around. These are both GIANT rigs.

In the "Get Real" department, I was able to put together a great rig for under $1,500:

• Fender Deluxe P-Bass Special (P/J setup with Jazz Bass neck): $649
• Gallien-Kruger Backline 600 head: $299
• Gallien-Kruger 2x10 cabinet: $199
• Gallien-Kruger 1x15 cabinet: $299
• TOTAL: $1,373.98
  

Diabolical Bass Plans

Well, I've been playing that Squier 60s Vibe for a while. I think it might have the makings of a perfect gig bass. A perfect gig bass:

1. Is worth less than $500.
2. Would not induce stomach pains or tears if it were stolen, broken, etc.
3. Takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'.
4. Plays great.
5. Sounds great.
6. Looks great.
   

I'm going to toy with the thing just for giggles. Maybe refinish the neck and put the older decal on (I purchased a decal just like the one on my '64, which was also not original to the instrument). I'll knock down the finish on the chrome parts with circuit board etching. Maybe sand down the poly on the body. Poly might even be a better finish for a gig bass, except it might be heavy.

Opinion: anyone who tells you that the finish (i.e. nitro vs. poly) makes a tonal difference on an electric guitar is full of it. Nitro is cooler, no question--but that's not about tone.

Phase II will be to make it the perfect gig bass. That means USED LeoQuann Badass II bridge (going rate seems to be $60 or so on eBay), and used P/J EMG pickups. I'll need to make a custom pickguard and rout the wells for the pickups.

The P/J thing is something I would never have done to my '64--that's another quality of a gig bass--no fear of making mods.

Post Punk Harvest 2009

"I've got all the answers!"
--Buzzcocks

MOVING THIS LIST TO THE TOP. Recently, a guy on Amazon did his top 25.

Gonna make a list of my top 50 favourite UK post-punk records from 1978-1983. Why? Well, why not? This is a working list. Rule: no more than 2 records per artist. That's going to make for some difficult choices. Still, given the 5-year time span, it should be doable.

UPDATE: So, I went trolling through my old e-mail to find the 2005 party invite for the post-punk mix I made back then. I found another e-mail message to Larry. Guess what time frame I put forth for the mix: 1978-1983! That's just weird.

Here's the list so far:

1. A Different Kind of Tension / Buzzcocks [1979]
2. White Music / XTC [1978]
3. Kilimanjaro / The Teardrop Explodes [1980]
4. Entertainment! / Gang of Four [1979]
5. Crocodiles / Echo and the Bunnymen [1980]
6. Drums & Wires / XTC [1979]
7. Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret / Soft Cell [1981]
8. The Pleasure Principle / Gary Newman [1979]
9. Depeche Mode / Speak and Spell [1981]
10. Argybargy / Squeeze [1980]
11. Quiet Life / Japan [1980]
12. Unknown Pleasures / Joy Division [1979]
    
13. Closer / Joy Division [1980]
14. Dazzle Ships / OMD [1983]
    

One reason to make this list is to make sure I have the records. I am sure I have tracks from most if not all--but I just listened to The Buzzcock's A Different Kind of Tension from beginning to end. We are missing a lot by not listening to entire records these days.


Here's a second list. Records that fit this description that you didn't own or listen to much. Now you are re-educating yourself. Cool!

1. Real Life / Magazine [1978]
2. Perverted By Language / The Fall [1983]
3. Public Image Ltd. / PiL [