Ultimate Fakebook – “Wrestling Leap Year”
Ah, sweet power pop. Here we have some well crafted guitar chord bashing and vocal hooks that owe as much to Nirvana as to Cheap Trick. Ultimate Fakebook made a lot of noise for a three piece band from Manhattan, Kansas operating during the darkest days of the music industry. Here’s another neglected gem. In 2009 I have found and posted a bunch of ‘em here. Have a surf around, it beats the heck outta the your local corporate poo radio station, I guarantee you that much. But wait, Dorothy, there’s a Manhattan in Kansas? Now we know.
Ultimate Fakebook
“Wrestling Leap Year” (mp3)
from “Open Up and Say Awesome”
(Initial Records)
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Excellent, trashy indie rock with a waltz beat from North Carolina’s own Spider Bags. This recording sounds as unpretentious and natural as a few guys bursting into song at a bar, but it’s also meticulously arranged and well performed. I love the talky-singy approach here, and the lyrics are superb. It’s a perfect marriage of professionalism and reckless abandon. And the chorus is glorious.
Spider Bags
“Que viva el rocanroll” (download mp3)
from “Goodbye Cruel World, Hello Crueler World”
(Birdman Records)
“Que viva el Rocanroll“ (play)
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There can be little doubt what his Mikeyness is talking about here. Backed by fab cartoon sound effects, a tight roots dancehall groove, and lush, blissful female harmony vocals, the gr8 Mikey Dread kicks some herbal wisdom for four minutes and twenty seconds. Well, actually it’s 3:22 but one does lose track of time, doesn’t one? An impeccably produced track with a lot of joy and humor. Smoke this mp3.
Mikey Dread
“Pound a Weed” (download mp3)
from “Life is a Stage”
(Dread at the Controls)
“Pound a Weed“ (play)
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