Yeah, it’s definitely marked as “collaborative”, so anyone should be able to add to it.
The desktop version. Maybe I’m just having a luddite moment. I’ll keep trying.
Any luck? It doesn’t look like it’s come through in the UK, but I know Spotify has cross-border rights issues.
If not, drop me a message with the album name and I’ll try and add it.
I’ll just throw in the new Essex Green album cuz I love 'em.
Kirian must be off on holiday, so I took the cattle by the horns.
This month, Tender Age’s Becoming Real Forever: a recent album from a very nice shoegazy, psych band from PDX that also must own many Sonic Youth records, which is good. This feels like a great time for a Sonic Youth reappraisal.
I was, and without wifi!
I’ve added the latest album by Let’s Eat Grandma, semi-wyrd leftfield pop. Love it.
Late to the shindig, but I threw in the new Mitski. Cuz who doesn’t love Mitski?!
1986 me. I’m in college. I have been aware of UK punk and even some postpunk, and thanks to my copy of the Trouser Press Record guide, my collection is full up of REM, the Replacements, and Husker Du alongside Clash, Sex Pistols, Stranglers (sorry about that), and Psychedelic Furs records.
In the Trouser Press guide, The Wipers (or Wipers, depending) are recommended unconditionally. Huh. OK. Back in the pre-internet days, you’d read about a band and then…probably go buy a record to actually hear them. Maybe a 7" if you could find one. Broke college kid me figured a way around that system. I called into the local college radio station (where I’d end up working in a year) and asked the disinterested DJ to play something by Wipers. The DJ put on a song. It sounded like crap. Or at least sounded like something I wasn’t interested in.
So…maybe I just heard a bad song. Or maybe Wipers weren’t for my tastes. I resolved to put a pin in them and revisit “soon”.
When Nirvana hit it big 4 years later, Kurt Cobain–when asked about his influences–would give a public relations answer that was easy and simple to digest: “The Pixies”.
When he was talking to music fans, journalists, and zines he thought might understand him, he gave a different answer: “Wipers.” Greg Sage and the Wipers were from Portland, not far from Seattle, really. Their songs were about feeling alienated and isolated and not fitting in. It made sense.
I read that in a long-form article on Nirvana, and thought “I really do need to check out Wipers. I should do that soon.”
Thing is…it was hard to check out Wipers. Wipers creative force Greg Sage is his own breed of cat. Hates publicity. Hates interviews. Hates the trappings of promotion and pretty much anything to do with the business of releasing records. Making records? He loves that. He’s built his own studio – twice – from the ground up. Makes instruments, amps, etc.
But that…sort of willful reclusiveness/eschewing of music biz trappings made finding Wipers records tough. And so my intended discovery of Wipers from circa 1986-87 got pushed back. Again and again. I’d see someone namecheck Sage or his band over the years and think “I really need to go investigate them. Really do.” And yet.
So a few weeks ago, Jack Rabid (who, it turns out, wrote the original Wipers entry for the Trouser Press Guide back in the day) posted a Wipers video to his Facebook page. And I was like “Well, shit. Let’s actually give this a chance now…30 years too late.”
And holy shit.
WHAT THE FUCK.
This is the greatest goddamned thing from the 1980s I’ve heard in … forever? I mean, holy shit. How in the world did I miss this? Or miss it for so long?
I’ve spent the past few weeks learning about Wipers. Or, sadly “The Wipers”, as Spotify has their catalog split into two entries.
But here in September, join me if you like in either discovering also – or rediscovering, or saying “Dude, you’re just NOW getting to this? What the hell is wrong with you? I’ve been listening to them for DECADES” – this amazing band and singular artist.
Cool story. I’ve not heard of them before but out of curiosity did you ever work out what the song was that the disinterested DJ played for you? And if so, do you like it now? :-)
Straight-up indiepop this month…no apologies! Fuck it, I’m twee.
Young Scum are an extremely pleasant, college-educated white kid janglepop band out of Richmond, VA…reminiscent of Pants Yell! or Math & Physics Club.
Excited to try Wipers and Young Scum!
I’ve added the Jon Hopkins entry from the Late Night Tales series. Totally hits the spot.
Oh cool, I’m off to see him later in the year!
Oooh, I like Math and Physics club - can’t wait!
Just catching up to this triggercut selection, a tad late… What a great album!
If you want an infinitely challenging and rewarding music rabbithole to go down, Home is right up there (though far less known) with Guided By Voices, for “Holy shit look at how much stuff they released” having a huge venn overlap with “This is really great stuff.”
Gateway to said rabbithole:
http://screwmusicforever.com/home/
I mean…
Late entry to the month, Not Going Back, the debut EP from Henry Nowhere. Think Radio Dept if they had been raised on a California beach.
I again am unable to add music to the playlist. I can add it to playlists I’ve created by clicking and dragging, but not to the collaborative one. And my username seems to be a random string of numbers that I can’t change. All of my content is there, so it’s my account, but lots of strangeness with spotify at the moment.
Added! No idea why it isn’t working for you, sorry!