gregpolard wrote:
...but this is def not for the casual fan.
Well....it was advertised as demo, rehearsal, live songs of the band's earliest recordings, many of them unreleased. Besides the 3 Egghunt songs, there aren't many bands that have unreleased songs that sound perfect. I'm pretty sure this wasn't meant for a casual fan, but I could be wrong, I don't know how they got the word around. Had the post here not been started I wouldn't have heard about it when I did.
As for the music, the first record is what you'd expect an early band songs to sound like, a band still looking for their own voice and songs that don't really stand up that well. I did like, or at least enjoy hearing that earlier song Writer's Cramp as it was almost like they were trying to be the Knack or something. I never really cared for the 1st 7" and felt it was odd that they had the slower plodding songs they had on it. I thought there were some really good (live recordings were hit and miss) sounding live songs, Call On Me, the Industrial Grocery Store was pretty cool, Won't Say a Word, Don't Try It (sounds like it could have been on Candy Apple Gray) and Private Hell. As for the Land Speed Record, to me it's kinda like Void (I mean Void is it's own thing) in that some people think it's just a bunch of noise and other's dig just the chaos of it all. If you didn't like Land Speed Record then of course you won't like the same songs played another show. The 2nd 7" has a great song, In A Free Land, it's totally melodic. You don't think you'd listen to that song again? I liked the 2 different recordings of songs that ended up on Everything and then, of course, Everything Falls Apart is a great blend of faster and yet still melodic punk. There are some great songs on there. The live versions of songs from Metal Circus were whatever, I love "Real World" and how raw it sounds.
So overall, it's a bunch of live recordings that are about 35+ years old, some of which sound better than others, but capture a band evolving and finding their own footing etc. Perhaps because I traded live tapes and VHS of so many bands I've just learned to listen to really rough sounding live songs easier.
So, yeah, I guess I agree that if you thought this was all going to be studio recorded unreleased songs from the SST years you'd be in for a bit of a shock. I mean, I don't even know how often I'm going listen to the songs, I'm going cherry-pick the ones I mentioned above and maybe listen to them in a row every once in a while or something. Not have a burned CD to rock out in my car when I'm on the way to Olive Garden or Home Depot.