Retro Hound » Alternative

The Hoodoo Gurus – Blow Your Cool

Robert Lindsey — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 01:01:00 +0000

The Hoodoo Gurus, Blow Your Cool, Elektra 60728-1. 1987.

This Australian band is one of my favorite 80s alternative groups and I’ve always loved this cover and this one comes with a slip of paper with band info inside and a generic Elekta insert/cover. Known for their hits “I Want You Back” and “Come Anytime,” they were a staple on many college radio stations.

Blow Your Cool MP3
Amazon Hoodoo Gurus Page

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Caifanes La Negra Tomasa EP

Robert Lindsey — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 17:38:58 +0000

Caifanes, La Negra Tomasa, RCA SL-7184. 1988. I bought this disk in Monterrey, Mexico. We were at a store buying water and I was thumbing through some albums when I saw this one. This was back when I had spare cash to buy an album based solely on the cover or the band name. And I did that quite a bit. I picked this one up and it’s really quite good. I just listened to it again recently and it has held up well. According to Wikipedia, Caifanes was one of the first Mexican rock bands to sing in Spanish. This disk is not listed in the discography there, so someone should add it if they know how.

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Free Music Online – 3 Legal Sources

Robert Lindsey — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:18:17 +0000

I love music. I’m a music omnivore. There are lots of places to get music online, but my tree favorites are Wolfgang’s Vault, The Internet Archive, and The Retro Cocktail Hour.

“Wolfgang” is famed concert promoter Bill Graham. He was a German immigrant and changed his name. He started the Filmore (AKA Filmore West) and Filmore East, as in The Allman Brothers at Fillmore East. He kept an amazing amount of memorabilia and recorded concerts like mad. Wolfgang’s Vault is making it available. 1960s through 1980s, mostly Classic Rock. You can listen to full concerts from acts as diverse as The Band, Black Sabbath, Elvis Costello, Jimi Hendrix, Journey, Jimmy Buffett, MC5, The Police, The Rolling Stones, U2, Frank Zappa, Van Halen, or Van Morrison. They have two concerts from my favorite band, The Call. You can buy and download some of the concerts as well as purchase rock memorabilia such as posters, tickets, t-shirts, old Rolling Stone Magazines, etc.

These next guys don’t have graphics that are easy to use.

The Internet Archive (home of the Wayback Machine where you can see what web sites used to look like) has a huge section of free concerts and music. They have the Live Music Archive with 62,320 concerts as of this writing. A lot of bands you won’t have heard of, but a lot have very strong followings. While Classic Rock is at Wolfgan’s Vault, the LMA is mostly Alternative music. The Rainmakers are one one of my favorites. Some of the acts here include …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, Billy Bragg, Blues Traveler, Bob Walkenhorst (lead singer and songwriter of the Rainmakers), Butthole Surfers, Camper Van Beethoven, Country Joe McDonald, Cowboy Junkies, Cracker, Death Cab for Cutie, Dream Syndicate, Drive-By Truckers, fIREHOSE, Fishbone, Fugazi, Gin Blossoms, Harvey Danger, Local H, Los Lonely Boys, Maroon5, the Minutemen, Mission of Burma, My Morning Jacket, New Riders of the Purple Sage, the Radiators, Seven Mary Three, Smashing Pumpkins, Soft Boys, Soul Coughing, Southern Culture On The Skids, Stockholm Syndrome, String Cheese Incident, The Animators, The Decemberists, Throwing Muses, Toad The Wet Sprocket, just to name a few.

One caution with IMA is that the formats are not all easily listened to. Some of the people putting up the concerts are puristis and MP3 just isn’t good enough quality for them.

Live Music Archive, goto browse, Audio Archive where you can do a search for something like “blues.” Mostly older recordings off 78s, or newer stuff from people you’ve never heard of.

The last is the Retro Cocktail Hour from the NPR station in Lawrence Kansas, home of the University of Kansas. If you like lounge music, this is the place for you. Les Baxter, Henry Mancini, Esquivel, Toots Thielemans, Xavier Cugat, stuff like that. I used to listen to this every Saturday night, but we live too far away now. They have a CD givaway also. Check it out. Similar Posts:

Green On Red – No Free Lunch Album Cover

Robert Lindsey — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 20:11:00 +0000

Green on Red, No Free Lunch, Mercury / PolyGram 1985. This is a promotional copy, stamped on the back. Almost an EP, with 4 songs on one side and 3 songs on the other. Quite a bit of “dead wax.” Nice full color cover. Green on Red is one of the top post-punk/alternative bands of the 1980s. Not well known, but those who like them are quite loyal.

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The Cure Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me

Robert Lindsey — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 15:50:00 +0000

Wow this is a great double album. The Cure, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. This is a Near Mint album, except the cover has some black rub wear on the top front which makes it VG+. My photos are a little yellow – from the light I guess – I’ll try to get better photos because The Cure deserves it. They vinyl is in fantastic shape. It really is NM. I listened to this the other day after not listening to it in a long time, and man it sounds good. I doubt a CD would sound any better.

Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me is one of my all-time favorite covers. I just love it. It was quite outstanding in its day, nothing else really like it. When this album came out I remember many Cure fans bemoaning the “Led Zepplin” sound with all the guitars. HA! Those people don’t know Led Zepplin for one thing. For another, I never really liked The Cure before this, but this album is freakin’ fantastic. A bit psychedelic at places, though I doubt they would call it that, and a great variety of styles.

I like the lips and eyes on the vinyl labels. The inner sleeves repeat the lips and eyes. It’s all just so cool. This extra artwork, plus the size of an album are what makes collecting albums so much more fun than collecting CDs.

If you just want the music though, here are a couple from Amazon.com. The more expensive one has extra tracks.

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