Hush

I was going to do a well-informed post about two releases from one of my favorite record labels, Hush Records, but Dodge beat me to one of them. So, if you want to know more about Hush's owner/Blanket Music's lead singer-songwriter Chad Crouch's new solo project Toothfairy, go see My Old Kentucky Blog.

Now, another Hush band that has been around for awhile is Kind of Like Spitting. They released a couple albums on Barsuk Records too, I think, and have come out of obscurity to release an EP and a new album this year, an re-release an old favorite.

The EP, Learn: The Songs of Phil Ochs is an EP of cover songs by overlooked 60's songwriter Phil Ochs. The EP is a very lo-fi tribute . Here's what they had to say about why they needed to make this EP:

Together David J and Ben Barnett have felt the catharsis of bearing the torch of a musical ancestor. They have, by internalizing the art of Phil Ochs, learned the value of songs that didn’t top the charts, and accepted for themselves a responsibility to persevere in music, as in life, despite the psychic tolls exacted by pop culture gatekeepers, despite the meaningless of artificial rivalry, despite the sacrifice of safety and commerce.

When I'm Gone

Also, a new album, In the Red, was released on Tuesday. Recorded over a mere five days at Death Cab For Cutie's Chris Walla's Hall of Justice recording studio, the album is a return to form for the band, a raw and real performance to tape.
Aubergine

The band's seminal record $100 Room has been re-released by Hush also.

Like Weezer’s Blue Album, One Hundred Dollar Room became the underground touchstone for a generation of young musicians who gravitated toward the dynamic mish-mash of punk rock, scorched pop and balladry. Suddenly everywhere “Kind of Like Spitting” was listed in band descriptions, classifieds, and reviews as an influence to younger bands, not unlike the Pixies whose legacy was the scattering of seeds and musical ideas to garage bands the world over.

One Bird One Stone

Buy all three CDs, each on sale for under $9.

Also, this song is my favorite Kind of Like Spitting song of all time. I feel bad for saying it, but when I first downloaded it from Hush's site, I thought it was Blanket Music's song "Hips." It's deceiving because the song actually has the word "hips" in it. Then I got Blanket Music's Move and realized their "Hips" was no the "Hips" I loved. Oh well.
March 25th, 1998