Check out how I opened a cabinet door I never ever open and inside was a big pile of records I’d forgot belonged to me or existed. Thanks to various helpful people I now have usable needles for my turntables so I dumped a few into this thing. Contents include Australians, ironhided old men, famous local promotions figures and Angelyne of the boobs-on-a-billboard fame from her 1982 new wave picture disc. Kept it short for ease of use.

DEAD MOON “THE WAY IT IS”
True lovers Fred and Toody Cole—Fred was on Nuggets as a young man, and puts out records under some name or another every year or so, most recently as Pierced Arrows—on a kinda love song sung from a sinking battleship. “Raw” gets used too much for food and music both but they cut this on the same exact machine that did the Sonics’ original records (or Kingsmen? Some northwest cavers, anyway) so the adjective comes rightly earned.

X “MOVIN’ ON”
X from Australia, who were as good as ours and equipped with a backstory as unreconstructed, too. First album Aspirations is punishing antipodean rhythm section and a guitar born wailing and wet into an unprepared guitarist’s hands, but this is eight years later and it’s a tiny bit more mellow for them. I put this on because the middle flip-out suggests much about the 1979 X. From At Home With You, a very good album.

THE MEKONS “HEAVEN AND BACK”
I ran this in too hot but it’s because I was so shocked to discover the string section—I haven’t heard this on anything but flattened mp3 for years. Mekons were always glowing with soul and this is one of their best and one of my favorites. Righteous lyrics by Mekon Jon, launched in 1989 and landing now:

she had been misplaced by the government
our old friends are under attack
they crossed over the border
(but) i have been to heaven and back
i’ve been to heaven and back
right in front of my eyes
things have a habit of happening to me
it’s no surprise
some of the people they stayed behind
now they’re all in prison or dead
i’m looking up at the mountain
i have been to heaven and back

GREEN ON RED “GAS FOOD LODGING”
Alt. version from Arizona’s ex-pat punker-paisleys that contends for excellence in first-person tour story, and also for excellence in telling lawyers and law-abiders both to move immediately aside. Album version had a fang pulled but it’s a cool band.

ANGELYNE “KISS ME, L.A.”
Not sure what uncomfortable decision this one fell out of but it’s the girl from the Billboard making some ambitiously fake Blondie. I put up a cute song and not a cruel one. The graphics on here will eat an inch off your hair: spilling out of pink-and-black leather on one, wrapped up in her own blondeness and nothing else on the other. A treasure whether you like it or not.

Tags: angelyne, blondie, check out these records, dead moon, green on red, mekons, nuggets, podcast, sonics, X