BLAHA “The Art of Not” 2017, Wet Bridge Records. BLAHA is one of the side projects of The Blind Shake’s and Shadow in the Cracks’ prolific Mike Blaha. We caught the band on Friday night at Acme Records in Milwaukee (along with local bands Fox Face and The Pukes) and picked up the new LP at the show, so this is the first listen. It has a similar dark intensity with touches of surf-psych like The Blind Shake (especially on “Home-a-less” and “Delicate Foreigner”) but with less density and speed. The instrumental “High Tide, Omaha Beach” is haunting and sparse, the title track “The Art of Not” is menacing with a hypnotic tribal beat while “Loneliness, I Love You” and “Gone Again” have flavors of indie shoe gaze meets alt-country honky tonk. The show was more raucous than this LP; I think many of the songs BLAHA performed were from their new cassette 499-456 (Kind Turkey Records) which we also purchased at the show and haven’t gotten a chance to listen to yet (I don’t trust our cassette players to not munch up the tape, so will probably do the download soon).

The post BLAHA “The Art of Not” appeared first on Vinyl From The Vault.

The Pukes “The Revenge of The Pukes” 2016, limited edition pink vinyl. Tire Fire Records/Good Land Records. These local Milwaukee snotty poppy surf-punks played at Acme Records in Bay View on Friday night, opening for BLAHA (from Minneapolis). I also saw them this past September at the Bay View Bash and while their Ramones-meets-Ronettes music is definitely meant more for naughty summer fun than cold March evenings, The Pukes performed a tight, irreverent set that warmed the crowd. They pulled mostly from their debut record The Revenge of the Pukes, including “Execution” and “They’ll Never Find You.” They did not play their signature single “Murder;” instead they brought in a crew of adorably young AV geeks (who were ridiculously polite) to shoot a video of three “Brewtown Beauties” (I think that is the group they were from) lip-synching to the track. The women, who looked similar to the album cover minus the blank-eyed skeleton faces, did a perfectly sloppy job matching the band’s attitude, if not looks: the singer/guitarist with his moppy Beatles-bowl cut and horn-rims, the drummer resembles a mathlete but look closer and there is a large Germs circle tattooed on his inner forearm and the bassist wears a G.G. Allin jacket complete with the words “Drink-Fight-Fuck” (and blue underwear, sorry about that).

Fortunately no feces-flinging occurred a the show, though I did have a wall of well-fed Milwaukee flesh to shield me for part of the evening if that were to transpire. (As a particular short-statured person, this is unfortunately my view at many concerts.)

The post The Pukes “The Revenge of The Pukes” appeared first on Vinyl From The Vault.

Joe went to see Shadow in the Cracks last week at Acme Records (I didn’t go: too tired and had to stay home with Vault-boy). At the in-store concert he picked up this record, got it autographed while chatting with the guys and took a few snapshots of the show. The Blind Shake will be playing at the Cactus Club later this month and that one I do plan to attend.

The post Shadow in the Cracks “Shadow in the Cracks” appeared first on Vinyl From The Vault.

The 101ers, fronted by Joe Strummer, only released one pub rock single (”Keys to Your Heart”), the rest of this 2 record release is a compilation of demo sessions, BBC recordings and live performance featuring many cover tracks (”Gloria,” “Maybelline,” “Don’t Let Go”) as well as originals (”Letsagetabitarockin,” “Steamgauge 99″). Classic Strummer delivery backed by a 50′s/60′s rhythm and blues beat.

This album was the only exclusive Record Store Day purchase this year, though we did drop a nice chunk of change at our neighborhood indie record stores, Acme Records and Rush Mor Records after battling the vinyl hordes that descended upon Bay View this past weekend.

The post The 101ers “Elgin Avenue Breakdown (revisited)” appeared first on Vinyl From The Vault.

The Record Store Day 2015 scene at Acme Records (cannot even get to the record bins) and Rush Mor Records, Milwaukee WI.

The post Record Store Day 2015 appeared first on Vinyl From The Vault.