Lilys - Which Studies The Past?

(Sub Pop, 1996)

The first Lilys 7” I ever plunked down for, and still top o’ the heap after all these years. Criminal that these two songs, released as a one-off for Sub Pop, aren’t available elsewhere, as they’re easily as good as, heck, not only anything on the stylistically-similar Better Can’t Make Your Life Better, but ANYTHING ELSE Lilys ever put out. The smashingly-titled “Welfare Murder Plot” covers a lotta ground in little time, lurching back and forth from slithery croon to chunky garage-pop before ending with a smooth-rockin’ coda. Nothing finer than the ultra-catchy B, though, a tight Nuggets-y head-shaker called “Baby’s a Dealer” that might be – yup! – the apex of this phase of the band’s existence. So why in tarnation is it buried on the flip of an obscure 7”?? Mysteries abound in this life of ours!

Jesus & Mary Chain - Birthday

(Sub Pop, 1998)

As part of the Sub Pop Singles Club, “Birthday” is a “limited” blue-vinyl pressing of 2,000 (snort) made near-pointless by featuring as its A-side a track pulled straight from Munki, the Jesus & Mary Chain’s terminally-dull swan song. The band sleepwalks through the track (and, heck, most of that LP), faking all the old “rock” moves that are pure rote by this point, and the result is essentially a dispiriting zombie-take on the Darklands era. The intimate “Hide Myself” at least has some soul to it, sounding as it does a bit like an outtake from the more homey, rootsy Stoned and Dethroned record; not bad. Still, the song was also made available on the UK “Cracking Up” single at the time, so there’s absolutely no reason to ever have bought this collector-freak 7”, unless the tasteless artwork (naked lady plus “happy toilet” caption) has a spot reserved on your dorm-room Wall O’ Sexism. This record is lifeless and sad in almost every way, and is clearly the end of the road for the JAMC. Trash, this! TRASH!

Jessamine - Your Head Is So Small It's Like A Little Light

(Sub Pop, 1994)

Exciting stuff here for people who enjoy the spacier corners of the 1990s post-rock ghetto. It’s easy to hear the influence of bands like Spectrum (with whom the group collaborated), Silver Apples, and various shoegazers in these records – and, in turn, Jessamine’s hypnotic, semi-Kraut groove is unmistakable in the work of later acts such as the American Analog Set, all of which hopefully paints a decent picture of what these guys were about. And those cumbersome song titles? Pure Azusa Plane! Like “Your Head is so Small It’s Like a Little Light,” whose mix of rhythmic repetition, sleepiness, and synths approximates Sonic Boom working with Damon & Naomi. Or “Soon the World of Fashion Will Take an Interest in These Proceedings,” which reaches back to the late ’60s to go for a Meddle-era Floyd creepiness. Long songs both, but good’uns. Plus: The elaborate packaging for this single requires a flathead to access the vinyl, so all you record nerds – if not handy, tool-owning grown-ups already – better hoof it down to the hardware store if you want to take a listen. Or I guess you could just drop a few dollars on Another Fictionalized History, a singles comp that includes both songs and, niftily, manages to trump the band’s “regular” albums as the all-around strongest example of Jessamine’s oft-overlooked music.