Wig - Lying Next to You + Just Obscene

Wig were the first band to feature the vocal talents of one Preston W. Long, later of such wonderful bands as Mule and P.W. Long's Reelfoot. They have achieved some notoriety after signing to a major label and releasing two rather OK albums (of which I prefer the first one, "Deliverance"), but that was all post-Preston; the only releases with him in the fold were the independently released mini-LP "Lying Next to You", and the single "Just Obscene". I actually can't quite remember the two albums exactly, don't feel like searching for them for the sake of this post, and amazingly, nothing from them is available on YouTube; however I do remember the next singer having a much less coarse voice than Preston, and everything sounding a good deal more major label-y than these two releases. Now this collection has a lot in common with both Preston's later material with Mule, and with contemporaries The Jesus Lizard; perhaps it's not as great as the benchmark of excellence in noise rock (this being TJL's duo of best albums, "Goat" and "Liar"), but I wouldn't say it's much shoddier than TJL's "Head", either. I don't know why this band isn't more known, at least within the boundaries of the noise rock scene; but it's not for lack of quality, for sure. Hear for yourself if you think this might be up your alley.

Track listing:

1. Coming Up Slow (4:26)
2. John Shaft (2:55)
3. Sweet Francis (3:40)
4. Bullet (3:30)
5. Black Hole White Ring (4:32)
6. Toy Boat (5:15)
7. Lying Next to You (6:59)
8. Just Obscene (4:17)
9. All the Love in the World (3:57)

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Mule - Singles, Outtakes and Live

Picture stolen from this blog.

There used to be a hateful tirade at the start of this post, born of a silly misunderstanding and best forgotten. In its place I would like to express my gratitude to Mr. K.M. for allowing me to share these recordings here.

Here is a great unreleased track, a different version of "Tennessee Hustler", and an hour's worth of mostly excellent-sounding live recordings by the wonderful Mule. The live recordings supposedly originate from Hamburg, but I have no idea whether they all come from a single show, or which order they were played in. I made a playlist by mixing the slower and faster material, and keeping the few poor-sounding tracks at the end, but you are free to sort them in whichever way you see fit. The live version of "To Love Somebody" is supposed to be an outtake from the Tempermill studio (like the two studio recordings, "Tennessee Hustler" and "Tell Me Now" - if that's really the name of the song), but it does have crowd noise at the end - would Mule bother with fake live recordings, and why? I guess we'll never know. It's a beautiful version anyway, well, if you know this band, than you know that the small body of work they left behind is 100% genius, so no surprise there. Enjoy!

Check out what this cool guy does.

Track listing:

Disc One:

1. Tennessee Hustler (2:07)
2. Tell Me Now (2:59)
3. Charger (2:51)
4. The Beauteous (single version) (5:21)
5. To Love Somebody (single version) (4:02)
6. Have a Drink on Me (5:03)
7. Tennessee Hustler (single version) (1:51)
8. Black Bottom (single version) (4:42)
9. To Love Somebody (live) (4:03)

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Disc Two:

1. The Beauteous (live) (7:06)
2. Hayride (live) (4:29)
3. Noodle 1 (live) (0:41)
4. Charger (live) (3:44)
5. Obion (live) (5:47)
6. Mississippi Breaks (live) (4:21)
7. Tennessee Hustler (live) (2:05)
8. I'm Hell (live) (4:11)
9. Noodle 2 (live) (0:36)
10. Nowhere's Back (live) (8:07)
11. X & 29 (live) (6:10)
12. We Know You're Drunk (live) (4:01)
13. The Rope and the Cuckold (live) (6:03)
14. Searchlight - Pent (live) (5:06)

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Various - Sides 1-14

This is a series of 7" singles with AC/DC covers and songs "inspired by" AC/DC, performed by artists such as Shellac, Killdozer, Mule, and other great bands. I have never seen the actual singles, but the pictures found on the Internet show that they are probably beautiful - they are way too expensive for me to ever own them, too, so here's an MP3 compilation of all the songs, featuring the driest production sound ever heard on a Shellac recording (which is saying quite a lot), beautiful acoustic-ballad reconstructions of AC/DC by Mule and Will Oldham (here under the moniker Palace Contribution), and a great song title in Denison/Kimball Trio's "Back in Blanc" (also one of their more listenable recordings, in my opinion - I was never able to get into them, although Duane Denison is without a doubt my favourite guitar player). A nice listen.

Track listing:

1. Shellac - '95 Jailbreak (4:25)
2. Big'N - TNT (3:34)
3. Brise-Glace - Angus Dei Aus Licht (3:29)
4. US Maple - Sin City (5:40)
5. Palace - Big Balls (3:15)
6. Zeni Geva - Let There Be Rock (4:33)
7. Mount Shasta - Whole Lotta Rosie (4:14)
8. Denison-Kimball Trio - Back in Blanc (2:32)
9. Zeek Sheck - Wowy, the Love Song (5:58)
10. Killdozer - Let Me Put My Love into You (4:19)
11. Yowie - Dunderduck (3:09)
12. Colossamite - Anti-Christ Devil Child (5:03)
13. Pre - Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (2:47)
14. Mule - Have a Drink on Me (5:05)

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Mule - Live Athens

Check out the town "Hell" just SE of Lansing. Is that what the song's about?

Here's something not easily found - a great-sounding bootleg of a complete show by the incredible noise-blues-country combo Mule, recorded at the most amazing time of their career, after releasing the self-titled debut LP and its follow-up EP, "Wrung" (I derive this from the setlist - there's no data on when exactly this was recorded, but when you listen to it you'll learn that it was near Christmas, and also that it was bassist Kevin Munro's birthday; probably in 1992 or 1993? I also have no idea whether it was recorded in Athens, Georgia, or Athens, Greece, but I'd go with the former. Should've taught R.E.M. a thing or two!). The playing is excellent, the double vocals of guitarist P.W. Long and bassist Munro are even more drunkenly passionate than on the studio recordings, and the setlist covers most of the debut LP and half of "Wrung" - now, if any loser on the Internet were allowed to give his worthless opinions on songs written by FUCKING MULE, I'd say that maybe they had picked the wrong half of "Wrung" and should have found space for "Now I Truly Understand"; luckily this is not the case, so I'll just shut the fuck up and enjoy this incredible musical artifact.

Track listing:

1. The Rope and the Cuckold (6:17)
2. Mama's Reason to Cry (4:32)
3. Drown (4:33)
4. Mississippi Breaks (4:33)
5. What Every White Nigger Knows (5:00)
6. I'm Hell (4:10)
7. We Know You're Drunk (4:46)
8. Lucky (6:44)
9. Sugarcane Zuzu (5:52)

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