"Thursday of the Dead"
Blank Dogs 7"
The Pizzas 7"
Dan Melchior und Das Menace Christmas For The Crows LP
Hall of Fame First Comes Love, Then Comes The Tree... LP
The Hospitals Hairdryer Peace LP

After about a year of hearing the Grateful Dead here and there my co-worker's resistance is starting to break down. I told him that I had 3.7 days worth of their music on my iPod and he immediately suggested that we listen to them for an entire day. Like I'm gonna say no... today was the day and it was pretty sweet, although it did make us work slower and our focus wasn't so good... kind of like we were high or something... I've got 17 of their official album releases on here and - yikes - at rough count, 22 complete shows. I'm surprised it's only 3.7 days. Got through the new batch from Daggerman Records... the Blank Dogs 7" I had already listened to a couple times and I remain mildly intrigued and mostly indifferent after spin #3... I liked the sound of The Pizzas alright, good playing, revved-up energy, upbeat and melodic, but no hooks, nothing stuck. Let's see, I think one went "Everybody's..." something. Maybe a little too Blood Visions-influenced? Already? Daggerman's new LP by Dan Melchior und Das Menace, on the other hand, has hooks and charm and depth and all kinds of things. He's a British guy who has lived in the USA for awhile, and this album might be something like the 2000s version of Dr. Feelgood, the exact point where pub meets punk, with good songwriting, a lot of minor keys and wanton, winsome bar-room emotions, confidence and swagger but also shade and nuance. A very good LP that gets better as it goes. The Hall of Fame LP was originally released on CD in 1999, their second full-length, their third being the self-titled 2000 release on Siltbreeze. I dug that thing quite a bit, and this sounds similar but not as immediately memorable, with no grabber like that "Waves of Stations" tune jumping out, but certainly plenty to chew on for future listens. The band is/was a very versatile and multidirectional trio - violinist/vocalist/songwriter/engineer/etc. Samara Lubelski, folksinger/filmmaker/etc. Theo Angell, 'new music' percussionist/etc. Dan Brown. Released by Amish Records, limited to 250 copies that each include a CDR of a complete live show from 1998. The Hospitals LP is some seriously weird stuff. Almost zero to do with 'garage rock' or even 'punk' at all even though there certainly seems to be walls and walls of maxed-out guitar on here. I guess something like "acid rock" would be closer... there's a part on Side 2 that actually made me think of Spires in the Sunset Rise for a few seconds, where did that come from, and I also get flashes of the more wiggy song structures of Psychic TV, except with much more electric guitar.