Vol. 2, Episode 7

Here is my 1973 play list:

Artist Alice Cooper Bachman - Turner Overdrive Billy Joel Creedence Clearwater Revival David Bowie Grand Funk Iggy & The Stooges Janis Joplin Led Zeppelin Little Feat Paul McCartney & Wings Steely Dan

Album Billion Dollar Babies II Piano Man More Creedence Gold Aladin Sane We're An American Band Raw Power Janis Joplin's Greatest Gits Houses of The Holy Dixie Chicken Band On The Run Countdown To Ecstasy

Song Billion Dollar Babies Takin' Care of Business Piano Man Hey Tonight Let's Spend The Night Together We're An American Band Search and Destroy Me & Bobby McGee Dancing Days Walkin' All Night Band On The Run Bodhisattva

I recently went crazy with all the stuff that I could get my hands on form the group The Pains of Being Pure At Heart. I am going to list and review everything that I could get my hands on right here right now. I know that I have already talked about their first self titled album but I may still go over it a little bit more lightly. I will also be talking about some of the singles from that album so I will try not to be redundant.

The first single released from the band that I was able to find information about was The Pains of Being Pure At Heart EP. I did talk about this one already. I only have a demo copy of this album at the moment at a low bit rate. This EP was released in limited quantity in 2007. I will be very lucky if I can find a physical copy, let alone a vinyl copy, but I can buy a download from what ever online company I wish. This is a good EP but it does show that they were just starting out, especially with the non LP tracks on this EP.

They also did a split 7” with a group called The Parallelograms. This is another one that I will probably never find. I am also not sure that I would be willing to spend more than 20 bucks for a single track on vinyl from the group. I did spend a dollar and 7 cents on the track from iTunes. The name of the track is Kurt Cobain's Cardigan. It is a little tongue in cheek, I know, but it has bee long enough that this should be OK to make a joke about now. This track was put out in 2008. This is also a simple track and shows how they wrote in the beginning. It still shows off their love of noise pop/shoegaze sounds.

After these two releases they started putting out singles in support of the first LP that was to be released. The first single is for the song Everything With You. I had said in a previous post that I really wanted this single. I still would love to have it but there is no need to get it because the A side is from the album and the B side is from their first EP. The only reason that I want it is that the vinyl is colored blue. I love colored vinyl.

The next single is Young Adult Friction, put out in 2009. This is the first single that I ordered. Unfortunately it was not directly from Slumberland Records (SLR). I ended up getting it from a small record company through Gemm.com. It came in a plastic 7” sleeve. I was very happy with that. I haven’t cleaned any of these records yet either by the way. I started the first side and was taken aback. I assumed that all of these records would be at 33. I was completely wrong. Every one of the records that I purchased from this group except for the LP is pressed at 45 RPMs. I was excited to say the least. Also this record was pressed in a beautiful opaque red with a splash of white. I am sure that the white was unintentional, just mixed in to get the right color red. Any way, I started to play the first side and was blown away with the opening drums and the rest of the song was just as good. Having these songs pressed at 45 RPMs really makes a difference. The B side of the record is a down tempo track called Ramona. It is a good track and not a sad track. I see it more as a mellow track. I like it.

The next single is Come Saturday, put out in 2009. This one has a green cover so you could have guessed that the vinyl was green too. It is a pretty clear mint green too. As I said earlier this is also a 7” 45 RPM recording. The A side is from the full length LP as well. It is a poppy happy song about getting together and having fun on a Saturday, no worries. When I opened the box with all the stuff from SLR I was excited to see that the rest of the 7” records were shipped with plastic outer 7” sleeves as well. I had a lot of respect for SLR from that day alone. They were a good company that loved what they did even if they were a week late in shipping the product. It was not that big of a deal. The B side on this 7” is called Side Ponytail. It is a cute song about the 80s trend of putting a ponytail on the side of a girls head. It is fun nostalgic indie rock. I like it a lot.

The next release I have already talked about. It is the Higher Than The Stars EP, released in 2009. The Higher Than The Stars EP does not have an LP track on it. Let me be clear. It does not support the LP. It is a stand alone project. There are some really great gems on this EP though and it does stand up on its own, even if it is only four tracks long. There is a fifth track on the CD EP version. I bought the vinyl EP because I could get that fifth remix track on the additional 12” remix LP. The third track I really like the best. My assumption is that they are saying, don’t touch me, because, the person that they are singing about can’t control themselves because they love the person they are singing about so much. I am naturally a romantic and this is how I view things typically.

Now on to that remix LP. It was put out in 2009 at the same time as the Higher Than The Stars EP to support this EP. There are only 3 songs on the record. The first is the last song on the CDEP for Higher Than The Stars EP. This is why I did not buy the CDEP. I wanted all of the remixes that were put out. Since I got the four track vinyl I had to get the remix LP anyway. The first track is really smooth, spacey and ambient remix of Higher Than The Stars. It takes up the whole first side of the record. The next track is a remix of Falling Over, The other track that I really liked from the EP. It is really jittery. It is a good song but it doesn’t seem to flow as well as the first remix. The third remix is another remix of Higher Than The Stars. It is not as good as the first track but it doesn’t make me disappointed that I got the remix LP. It is also a 45, so, the sound is super clear and detailed. Yet another reason to like this LP.

Then is the first full length album from the group. I bought 2 copies of this LP accidentally. The first copy that I purchased was from Amazon. It came with no shrink wrap on it. I was surprised by this at first but just chalked it up to an independent record company flaw. The second one that I ordered came shrink wrapped with a download card. It made me wonder if I shouldn’t just keep the both of them since they may be 2 different versions of the same album. I still need to take a closer look. I talked about this album a while back as well. I still love this album as much as I did back when I talked about it before. But let’s move on.

The next single that I got is called Say No To Love, put out in 2010. The cover on this one is very colorful. This led me to believe that it is the first single from the second upcoming LP. I was wrong though. The single is not on the track list for the next album. But the cover artwork does flow the pretty pastels that that are being used on the new album. I actually got this single as a CD single because there is a bonus demo track on the CD that is not on the 7”. The demo is from the upcoming LP. As much as I would rather have the 7” I am more after the music than the collectability of the different formats. This is a more mellow set of songs than I like to hear from the group but I still enjoy the music either way. The demo track, I Wanna Go All The Way (Demo), is very simple. It does have the fast pop sound but it seems a bit stripped down for the group.

The Next one is Heart In Your Heart Break 7”, released in 2010. The vinyl is a pretty clear plumb color. This one has the nice finished sound but is also a bit striped down that what I am use to from the group. This is actually very enjoyable compared to the demo track on the previous single. There is also a nice little guitar solo on this track that is unexpected. This single is from the follow up to the self titled album. I think that you could tell listening to the song. It seems different, not so much echo in the music, not so much noise in the noise pop. It seems cleaner to me. I like the slightly different/cleaner sound that they have put out with this single. I think that I will like the new album based on this new single.

I did order the next single and the next album but they have not been released yet. The next single is called Belong and will be released on March 15th and the LP of the same name will be released on March 29th. I will talk about them probably near those dates. I am very excited about getting the both of them.

You can get all of this product from SlumberlandRecords.com except for the few that I mentioned were out of print at the beginning of this post. You can also Pre-order the new single from your favorite online record store. I ordered mine from Insound.com.

That is all for now.

Sorry about the table at the top, I am working on it.