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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The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Singles, Sessions and Remixes

Here's a huge collection of the less obvious Blues Explosion stuff, including various singles not included on the "Jukebox Explosion" compilation or recent album reissues, tons of remixes, a few radio sessions and other odds and sods. There's more than four full CD's of stuff here, so if you're a fan, knock yourself out!

Track listing:

Disc One:

1. Implosion (3:35)
2. Maureen (4:44)
3. Alex (3:50)
4. Point of View (4:31)
5. Like a Bat (4:24)
6. Then Again I Will (2:52)
7. All Shook Up (2:00)
8. Kawasaki ZII750 Rock'n'Roll (3:12)
9. Meet Me in the City (4:03)
10. The Devil Got My Woman (live) (1:50)
11. Special Rider Blues (3:49)
12. Cold Cold Eyes (Demo Version) (3:11)
13. Grinding (3:05)
14. The Funky Gremlin (3:05)
15. Rattling (Live on Jonesy's Jukebox) (3:48)
16. Black Betty (2:39)
17. I Wanna Make It All Right (Radio Live) (6:24)
18. Andre Williams & Hit Squad (4:07)
19. Coldcut & Jon Spencer - Everything Is Under Control (3:36)
20. Jon Spencer and the Elegant Too - Here Come the Fuzz (3:52)
21. Bomb the Bass & Jon Spencer - Fuzz Box (5:26)

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Disc Two:

1. Welcome (Daytrotter Session) (0:36)
2. Get Your Pants On (Daytrotter Session) (2:39)
3. Shirt Jac (Daytrotter Session) (1:03)
4. My War (Daytrotter Session) (2:53)
5. No Reservations (Daytrotter Session) (1:14)
6. Texas Blues (Daytrotter Session) (4:01)
7. Intro (KEXP Session) (0:14)
8. No Expectations - Tell Me That You Love Me (KEXP Session) (2:14)
9. My War (KEXP Session) (1:53)
10. Get Your Pants On (KEXP Session) (2:36)
11. Interview (KEXP Session) (2:12)
12. Black Thoughts (KEXP Session) (3:32)
13. Not Clear Still (KEXP Session) (2:07)
14. Interview (KEXP Session) (3:43)
15. Chicken Dog (KEXP Session) (3:45)
16. Interview (KEXP Session) (0:39)
17. Strange Baby - Happy Birthday Elvis (KEXP Session) (2:35)
18. Interview (KEXP Session) (0:44)
19. Outro (KEXP Session) (0:26)
20. Intro (VPRO Session) (1:52)
21. Wriggle & Move - Vacuum of Loneliness (VPRO Session) (3:14)
22. Mo' Chicken - Let's Get Funky (VPRO Session) (2:09)
23. Watermain (VPRO Session) (0:49)
24. Full Grown (VPRO Session) (2:31)
25. Bent (VPRO Session) (2:06)
26. Shirt Jac (VPRO Session) (0:43)
27. Soul Typecast (VPRO Session) (2:00)
28. Very Rare (VPRO Session) (5:49)
29. Curfew Blues (VPRO Session) (2:55)
30. Flavor (VPRO Session) (3:21)
31. Frustrate - Woman Love (VPRO Session) (4:36)
32. Seventeen (VPRO Session) (3:04)
33. Curfew Blues (VPRO Session) (2:32)
34. Jon Spencer & Solex - Complication (2:33)

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Disc Three:

1. Burn It Off (FD Acoustic Session) (3:32)
2. Rock Hard (FD Acoustic Session) (2:08)
3. Honey Bee (FD Acoustic Session) (2:34)
4. Blues X Man (FD Acoustic Session) (3:44)
5. unknown (VPRO Live 2004) (2:59)
6. Help These Blues (VPRO Live 2004) (4:14)
7. Burn It Off (VPRO Live 2004) (2:43)
8. Cold Cold Eyes (VPRO Live 2004) (3:16)
9. Blowing My Mind (VPRO Live 2004) (3:21)
10. Grinding (VPRO Live 2004) (3:09)
11. Rivals (VPRO Live 2004) (2:03)
12. You Been My Baby (VPRO Live 2004) (3:13)
13. Bellbottoms (VPRO Live 2004) (4:18)
14. Sweet 'n' Sour (VPRO Live 2004) (2:41)
15. unknown (VPRO Live 2004) (4:06)
16. She Said (VPRO Live 2004) (1:54)
17. Wail (VPRO Live 2004) (1:45)
18. Greyhound (VPRO Live 2004) (2:36)
19. Money Rock'n'Roll (VPRO Live 2004) (4:59)
20. Blues X Man (live) (4:02)
21. High Gear (live) (1:44)
22. Talk About the Blues (live) (6:43)
23. Point of View (live) (5:32)
24. Shakin' Rock'n'Roll Tonight (live) (2:43)

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Disc Four:

1. Talk About the Blues (Poll A Rock Remix) (3:15)
2. Crunchy (Solex 'Bounce' Remix) (3:00)
3. Bacon (Dub) (4:26)
4. Heavy (SD50 Mix) (3:13)
5. Hot Gossip (Jay Braun Remix) (2:51)
6. Money Rock'n'Roll (Sub Species Mix) (4:20)
7. Not Yet (Sci-Fi Mix) (3:47)
8. 2 Kindsa Love (Duck Rock 105.9 FM Remix) (5:01)
9. Over and Over (Barry Adamson Mix) (5:15)
10. I Wanna Make It All Right (Zebra Ranch) (3:49)
11. She Said (The Tremelo Beer Gut Mix) (2:43)
12. Crunchy (TMJ (!!!) Remix) (6:03)
13. Help These Blues (Poll A Rock Remix) (3:27)
14. Do You Wanna Get Heavy (Duck Rock Hip'N'Bass Remix) (5:55)
15. Hot Gossip (!!! Remix) (4:08)
16. Not Yet (Splatter Mix) (5:06)
17. Over and Over (Techno Animal Remix) (4:08)
18. Hot Gossip (TMJ (!!!) Remix) (5:31)
19. Jon Spencer & Haze XXL - Inbred Vampire - Techno Car Chase (3:21)

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Disc Five:

1. Mars, Arizona (DFA Remix) (10:45)
2. Einstürzende Neubauten - Ende Neu (Spez. Gomez Mix by Jon Spencer) (4:45)
3. Princess Superstar - Do It Like a Robot (Jon Spencer Remix) (4:01)

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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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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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